#176: Accounting for taste

There’s a modern phenomenon whereby personal style—on the body, in the home—is understood as a separate track of identity. It’s a mode of expression we’re meant to perfect through mimetic desire and buying the right stuff. I’m thinking, for instance, of dressing like a “coastal grandma,” without otherwise inhabiting the relevant lifestyle choices. ... See more

taste can be a practice—a result, even, of living authentically.

I think of her often. She happens to hit on a particular fixation of mine, which is the problem of “taste” as an ever-present commodity, rather than something idiosyncratic, personal, and most importantly, connected to other aspects of your day-to-day life, like how you move around the world and what you do to pass the time. I think of people whose... See more