Culture
Yara Amin
What it means to have taste and whether it matters.
Taste is not what you like. It is what you are willing to defend when nobody is watching.
The word nobody agrees on
Taste is one of those words that everyone uses and nobody means exactly the same thing by. It can mean refinement or preference or discernment or simply a strong opinion held with confidence. It can be applied to objects or spaces or food or music or people. It is used as a compliment and as a way of closing a conversation. It is one of the most loaded words in any discussion of culture and also one of the least examined.
What taste is not
Taste is not wealth, though wealth can purchase things that look like it. It is not education, though education can develop it. It is not age or experience, though both can deepen it. It is not the ability to name things correctly or to display the right references in the right company. These things can coexist with taste but they are not the same as it. The clearest evidence of this is that you have met people with all of these things who have none of it.
Where it comes from
Taste develops through exposure and attention and the willingness to have your mind changed. It requires spending time with things you are not sure about rather than retreating to what you already know you like. It requires being wrong and admitting it. It requires caring about things without needing other people to care about them too. It is slow to develop and difficult to fake, which is why the people who have it tend to be identifiable even when they are not trying to be.
The confidence it requires
One of the underrated aspects of taste is the confidence it requires. Not the confidence to declare your preferences loudly but the confidence to hold them quietly when they are unpopular. Taste means liking things that are not yet approved of. It means not liking things that are very much approved of. It means being comfortable with the discomfort of not being validated by the consensus. This is harder than it sounds in a culture that has made validation extremely easy to seek.
Whether it matters
Whether taste matters depends on what you think it is for. If it is for impressing people, it matters quite a lot in certain rooms and not at all in others. If it is for living well, it matters consistently and quietly and in ways that are hard to measure. The person with taste moves through the world differently. They notice more. They make better decisions about what to spend their time on. They are harder to manipulate by fashion or marketing or the consensus of the moment. These seem like good things to be.
Taste is not what you like. It is what you are willing to defend when nobody is watching.
The limits of it
Taste has limits worth acknowledging. It can become a form of snobbery. It can close you off to things outside your established preferences. It can become more about maintaining a position than about genuine engagement with what is in front of you. The best version of taste is open and curious and willing to be surprised. The worst version is defensive and self-congratulatory and more interested in what it rejects than what it embraces.
What to do with yours
Use it. Develop it. Be honest about where it comes from and what it reflects about you. Be willing to have it challenged and to change it when the challenge is good enough. Do not use it as a weapon or a wall. The point of taste is not to separate yourself from people who have different preferences. The point is to have a genuine relationship with the things you spend your life around. That relationship is worth tending. It makes the life considerably better.
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About the author
Yara Amin
Writes about culture, ideas, and the questions that take years to properly answer. Started the publication because she could not find a single place that wanted to publish everything she was interested in. Based in Athens, which she chose partly for the light and partly for the coffee.
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