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Is there such a thing as good taste?

paulgraham.com

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Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#291

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

guerrilla wrote: post #139

> If there's no such thing as good taste, then there's no such thing as good art. No problem. > So if you want to discard the concept of good taste, you also have to discard the concept of good art. And that means you have to discard the possibility of people being good at making it. This skips a step. It assumes without argument that production skill corresponds to subjective preferences. There are many people who a…

> and there are many productions which take virtually no effort which people love

It only takes a quick trip to reddit to see this in action.

In a thread where people were talking about the jails and the overall penal system, someone said "heh...penal" and it had several Golds and thousands of points.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#292

Post by spike021 »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #226
jacobolus wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> friend remarked that he didn't think there was any difference, that indeed all scallion pancakes were exactly alike to him. This is entirely plausible. If you are used to eating some food regularly over the course of decades, you will be able to discriminate between good vs. mediocre versions. If you have only eaten a food a few times, the most relevant comparisons will be with other types of food, and you won’t ne…

True, although this friend is asian american and likely grew up eating scallion pancakes on at least a few occasions. He seemed almost proud of his lack of taste which really surprised me.

I'd imagine there are still different situations at play here.

For instance, I'm Jewish and my mother made potato latkes one way throughout my childhood. I loved those and various details about them (texture, flavor profile, doneness, etc.) but would go to other friends' house for a meal or whatever and they'd have their own latkes that just didn't taste as good, were much simpler flavor-wise, texture was more homogeneous, etc.

And then of course I've bought frozen pre-made latkes from places like Trader Joe's.

I'd imagine it's like buying frozen gyoza at H-mart vs making your own from scratch with either pre-made wrappers or even homemade ones, plus the filling.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#293

Post by hardwaregeek »

lexapro wrote: post #287
jacobolus wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> friend remarked that he didn't think there was any difference, that indeed all scallion pancakes were exactly alike to him. This is entirely plausible. If you are used to eating some food regularly over the course of decades, you will be able to discriminate between good vs. mediocre versions. If you have only eaten a food a few times, the most relevant comparisons will be with other types of food, and you won’t ne…

>When compared to pizza, tacos, or bagels, all scallion pancakes are pretty similar. Bad example, as most pizzas _are_ pretty similar. And in my opinion the best pizzas are not too different from average pizzas. And yes, I had a lot of pizzas in my life, in Naples and elsewhere.

And again I ask, really? Because there's a massive difference between a soft, light Naples pizza that's eaten with a fork and a doughy, thick Dominoes pizza and a crispy, salty New York slice and a chewy, deeply roasted Sicilian pizza. Even in New York which I'd hazard is in the top 5 pizza cities in the world, there's a massive difference between Joes Pizza and Lucali.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#294

Post by raz32dust »

Taste, by definition, is subjective. Good taste is a matter of knowing your audience and knowing your inventory. If you can use your inventory to create something that your target audience loves, you have good taste. It requires having a great inventory (knowing the taste of a lot of things), and having good emotional intelligence, and hence it takes time to develop good taste and maintain it.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#295

Post by hardwaregeek »

zzbzq wrote: post #271
hardwaregeek wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, although this friend is asian american and likely grew up eating scallion pancakes on at least a few occasions. He seemed almost proud of his lack of taste which really surprised me.

Perhaps your friend was signaling a taste you couldn't perceive. For example, I generally look down upon scallion pancakes as a category. Consider an American food analogue. Do I distinguish good and bad grilled cheese? How can I when its identity is that of a basic, unhealthy, cheap, low-class food? If you add more exotic ingredients, it becomes distant from its quintessential identity, so it becomes "good" grilled…

Uhh I can't really understand this argument frankly. You're making a value judgement of grilled cheese as a commodity food but still, if someone put a grilled cheese in front of you that used plain white bread and one that used sourdough, you'd notice the difference, right? Sure you could argue that the sourdough grilled cheese is not a real grilled cheese but in doing so, you are inherently distinguishing the two items, therefore demonstrating taste to a degree.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#296

Post by mojuba »

ff317 wrote: post #98
mojuba wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but your momentary reaction to what you see, how much of it is "social"?

It could be the case that a lot of the momentary, solo reaction is driven by your brain's anticipation of those future social situations.

I'm sure it's partly that. But then how do things become fashionable? Who defines the common taste for the rest of the society? Now we are back to the basics and I'll stick to my hypothesis (I explained elsewhere in the thread) that it's about appreciating novelty.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#297

Post by hardwaregeek »

asiachick wrote: post #268
jacobolus wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> friend remarked that he didn't think there was any difference, that indeed all scallion pancakes were exactly alike to him. This is entirely plausible. If you are used to eating some food regularly over the course of decades, you will be able to discriminate between good vs. mediocre versions. If you have only eaten a food a few times, the most relevant comparisons will be with other types of food, and you won’t ne…

Lots of TV shows showing "experts" where they blind taste test them between expensive and cheap wine or expensive vs cheap chocolate and blind folded they can not tell the difference. That is not to say there is no good vs bad wine/chocolate/name your food. But it has nothing to do with price.

Do they? Can you give an example? Because there's a recurring Epicurious series where an expert tries to determine of two samples which one is cheap and which is expensive. They're not always right but they're right quite often.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#298

Post by huge87 »

jl6 wrote: post #236
anm89 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This always bothers me specifically about music. I don't claim to have some universal say on what is good and bad music, there is tons of music out there which I think is tasteful but I simply don't like. But like 10% of music let's say is absolute garbage, mostly top 40 stuff made from cosntructed bands with some models as front men, written by a team constructed by a label to create the most generically likeable mu…

Part of the answer is that such people aren’t actually listening to the music. They are getting something else out of it, like using it as background noise, or just as a beat to dance to, or as in-group signaling, or maybe access to the culture associated with the music, or perhaps they are self-medicating with it, or maybe they are ogling the performer, or perhaps it reminds them of something positive that happened…

I can readily attest to having no taste in music. So much so that criticism of music (in reviews of albums, etc.) is incomprehensible to me; I tried using good reviews as a way to find music I'd want to listen to but discovered that music only serves one of the above functions (looking for a good beat, or whatever).

I can't tell good music from bad; either I like the way it sounds or I don't.

I suspect a fair number of other people are like this. And more power to people who have good taste in music.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#299

Post by simiones »

tartoran wrote: post #182
i_love_limes wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think by your definition, the best wine is grape juice, which is never vinegary and never gives you a headache.

We were talking about wines, weren’t we? I don’t have a definition pinned down but do drink wine from time to time and I subjectively prefer some to others. What Im quite sure of is that nobody regards wines as high quality if they’re headache inducing or taste like vinnegar.

There are many people for whom the most important characteristics of wine (and other alcoholic beverages) is "how cheap is it and how likely am I to get drunk from it before I get sick?"

Also, some of the most appreciated wines by wine connoisseurs are nigh-undrinkable to the uninitiated, and this tends to happen with most foods. Just sticking with wines, some greatly appreciate wines high in tannin, while I personally feel like I'm chewing cotton when drinking one of those wines: give me a decent vinnegar over those any day of the week.

You'll find similar acquired tastes in every food culture (stinky cheeses, fermented teas, ultra-hot peppers, acidic coffees, etc.).

The same actually happens with most art: most abstract art is completely meaningless to the vast majority of people - whether they're looking at a Pollock or generic art at Ikea, they wouldn't prefer either. Minimal music, such as Steve Reich's Four Organs, are profoundly distasteful to much of the population, while being adored by some in the music scene. Art films are routinely incomprehensible to general audiences, while winning critical acclaim.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#300

Post by simiones »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #295
zzbzq wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps your friend was signaling a taste you couldn't perceive. For example, I generally look down upon scallion pancakes as a category. Consider an American food analogue. Do I distinguish good and bad grilled cheese? How can I when its identity is that of a basic, unhealthy, cheap, low-class food? If you add more exotic ingredients, it becomes distant from its quintessential identity, so it becomes "good" grilled…

Uhh I can't really understand this argument frankly. You're making a value judgement of grilled cheese as a commodity food but still, if someone put a grilled cheese in front of you that used plain white bread and one that used sourdough, you'd notice the difference, right? Sure you could argue that the sourdough grilled cheese is not a real grilled cheese but in doing so, you are inherently distinguishing the two it…

They would see a difference, but wouldn't find one better than other: they're still grilled cheese, and thus worthless in their value system.
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