Is there such a thing as good taste?

Who are these two people? Art historians or layman? Are they looking at the work of established artists or newcomers? Are they given context for the work that's displayed, or not? Who's deciding which of the 'art' is better?

I think all we're saying here is that good taste is a consensus preference.

It does seem to me that by his reasoning good taste exists since good art exists, problem being that what is considered good art and what people like change with time, present a piece of modern art to Michelangelo and chances are he would consider it some sort of insulting joke.

Good taste then is not something objective, but depends on context and the importance of being able to tell what is good now often pales to the importance of being able to tell what is good for oneself, moreover, the good taste becomes dependent on those "average" tastes.

No one prefers a random dot on a random piece of canvas. They prefer a very particular dot on a very particular canvas made by a very particular person at a very particular point in history. Remove any one one those and it loses all meaning and value. And even the most ardent fan of that work would never argue that that artist was a greater painter or even artist than Michaelangelo.

At the end of the day the "Art" is not in the craft and as such art cannot be reproduced. The world is full of Sistine Chapel pastiches on rich peoples ceilings, painted by great craftsmen, many whom might be talented artists in their own rights, and no one is in awe by them.

He said that there isn't any higher truth that can "prove" that a recording of off-tempo typewriter clacking is 'worse' than the Beatles, and that technically both are equally valid as an artistic statement, but that since taste is based on the subject, we can use someone's stated preference for typewriter clacking over the Beatles as revealing of their personality and belief set, and then we can decide whether or not we want to be in society with them.

This put this debate entirely to rest in my mind. I no longer worry about whether or not my tastes are "inferior" or "superior" to someone else's tastes, only whether or not they are compatible. Some people want to rid the world of traditional architecture, classical music, and any other old-fashioned hierarchical art form; their taste for the contemporary isn't inferior to my taste for the traditional, it is merely incompatible, and will inevitably lead to a different society than the one in which I would like to reside.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Bourdieu#Theory_of_capi...

PG may say that his father pushed him in a different direction. But I suspect - like me - PG grew up with the cultural direction of the BBC and its mission to "inform, educate, and entertain."

So if you were a bright curious kid your parents wouldn't necessarily be the ultimate authorities on culture and taste. There were other authorities. If you were interested.

I was genuinely shocked a few years ago when I realised how much my cultural interests had been shaped by that kind of social programming. I still enjoy art and music, but I'm little more circumspect about them now.

The point: cultural taste is an aspirational social marker. It correlates loosely with some observable features in various kinds of art. But the real goal of "having taste" is to convince yourself and others you're a certain class of person, and also to reassure yourself and others you're not a certain other class of person.