When you were a kid, do you remember picking out an outfit and being so proud of it, only to have your mother or older sibling tell you it does not look good? As you got older, you were educated to understand that certain things went well together and others, not so much. This understanding has now become known as taste. In other words, if you had good taste, you understood which items paired well together. If you have bad taste, you do not understand what works well together.
At first glance, the idea of “taste” seems subjective in that the idea of “good taste” is different for every person. Some people view wearing bright neon green pants and a mustard yellow top as bad taste, while others would applaud the bold color scheme. Certain aspects of taste seem universal initially, but most differ depending on the culture. For instance, we may think we know what foods pair well with one another, yet those rules may vary by culture and personal preference. Also, most understand what colors enhance each other to create a beautiful and appealing image. We have these intuitive cues, which were shaped by culture, upbringing, experience, education, nature, and personal preferences, that work together to create a mosaic of our own unique understanding of what is appealing, beautiful, and aesthetically pleasing. As we acquire a sense of what items are considered a good pair and what combinations need to be discarded in favor of other things, that taste becomes suited to our societal model. There begin to be items, ideas, and pairings that appeal to us that might be a bit difficult to comprehend for other people. Yet when we see ramen paired with, say, bananas, we can obviously (at least I hope) agree that the banana and ramen just do not go together.
Certain things may be learned and acquired by education in good taste, but there will always be a bit of ambiguity concerning good taste in all spheres of life. The understanding of good taste differs depending on your culture, and most in the same culture can agree on what bad taste is. So when it comes to good taste in music, movies, art, fashion, food, etc., most of it will be influenced by your unique experiences and education. And since that experience and education are often very similar for other people in your area, most have a similar understanding of good taste. Thus, many of us living in the same area and having experienced similar environments have a shared sense of good taste, which we then pass on to others.
So, are polka-dots and stripes a no-go? Does burgundy and cool gray interior pair well? Should you listen to Beethoven's 5th Symphony or Mozart’s Symphony No. 40? The answers to those questions will partly depend on whether or not you have good taste, as it seems that taste is a socially constructed idea in which your environment helps shape you. But if you do not have good taste, fear not! This can be remedied by reading, learning, and exposing yourself to what your culture believes to be good taste, and soon, you, too, will begin to have a sense of what good taste is. Why? Because taste, while it can be subjective, is, in the end, a social construction. We acquire it by learning the norms and ideas upheld by our culture and society. Many can agree on what good taste is not, so from there, we can begin to learn what good taste is. It will be a process, but then again, most things are.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.