you do have taste
and it is yours. that's the point, isn't it?
i’ll tell you who made me an arbiter of taste: the simon & schuster hr department and the svp of the simon & schuster children’s trade division. they made me an arbiter of taste when they hired me to be a tastemaker, in such capacity that a thing exists now that the monocultural collapse is upon us. but surely, before july 2017, i had to have had taste. they gave me a job for it, didn’t they?
here’s a thing i have heard all my life: you have great taste. i love your taste. i like being told this, i am immensely flattered by it, but i’m not particularly compelled by it because, well. doesn’t everyone? it just looks better on others than on oneself, and so we are moved by it in others and not in the self.
so like, really: who made me the arbiter of taste? beyond a constructed need to monetise the things some people like in order to sell to others, or to use the things some people like as a yardstick for what else to sell them, what is the purpose of Taste Cultivation?
i’ve been reading a lot of thinkpieces about how to develop your taste lately.
here’s what i think about taste: it’s just what you like and dislike. it is self-knowledge. your existing loves, hatreds, whatevers—they’re fine. there’s no “room for improvement” there, it just is. it isn’t a value judgement.
to the extent that other people’s taste can or should affect you, it should only be the figure out what they like and whether that aligns with what you like so that you have a yardstick by which to measure how much you are actually liable to enjoy a certain book, or movie, or article of clothing.
to the extent that you, individually, should agitate over your own taste, it is only this: taste is a sensory experience. it’s consumptive way of relating to the world; the language we use to describe it implies this. it’s linked to a voracious appetite, and it means you have sampled many things, that you know what you enjoy. you wouldn’t tell someone who liked affogato and hated tiramisu that they’re wrong for it, would you? but if you’ve only ever eaten affogato and you wrote off tiramisu because it isn’t affogato, that would be silly.
the same thing applies to the arts, something else we take into ourselves, digest, and which comes back out of us transformed—and transforming—in some way. we must sample broadly and shallowly to delve into the things we adore deeply and with specificity.
is this esoteric? i wouldn’t know. i love jupiter ascending with such little irony that it shocks and astounds.
listen, we all want to grow. it’s one of the great marvels of humanity, this desire to be better than we are and the ability to move towards our own ideals. but i really, really do not believe in this optimisation bullshit. i do also think there are times when we have to accept that we are fine as we are, and there is no amount of effort or grind or whatever that can “upgrade” you into loving yourself if you don’t already. we can only meet ourselves where we are, love ourselves as we are, and be satisfied with our own personhood. it’s okay. who gives a shit what other people think about the things you like and don’t like?
i think that might be the actual secret to quote-unquote having taste. it isn’t about the quality of the palate, it’s about being in possession of a point of view that is wholly your own. i love it when people can point to something and go oh that’s such an alyza book because it’s a recognition of who i am and what people know of me. what do i know about good movies, good books, good music, beyond the fact that there is art out there that screams my name in a highly identifiable way?