Sociology of taste

Physiologist Dr. Doping tells about theory of class taste, the process of civilization and education of children’s taste.

Biology claim that disgust or aversion arises in the course of evolution, in order to avert the body from eating something inedible. This is our instinctive reaction to the appearance of the object in front of our nose, which is absolutely not to be. But, as in many cases, in a society defined biologically predisposition are put at the service of a completely new targets. One of the main provisions of the theory of stratification is that the task of any elite, any higher layer is in the education of their children in almost instinctive aversion to everything that is associated with the lower layers. Young children are taught to feel the same disgust towards everything that is associated with people standing on the social ladder below them, which they bring to the inedible things, which can be found at his feet. Once they instill more sophisticated feel, mixing envy and disapproval towards those who are above.

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How does this happen? When we compare how these feelings are described in different languages, we look we find that they are very often described in terms of category, taken from somewhere in the field of gastronomy or culinary tastes. There tasteless, fresh literature, there is a sugary, there sugary literature. In many languages - European and, interestingly, the non-European (Orientalists claim that quite apart something similar occurs in the Far East) - the concept, culled from a physiological or gastronomic edibility or inedibility transferred as a metaphor to describe the broad relationship of the individual with the social environment or the culture.

It is possible on this basis to bring more general theory of the class of taste? It seems that some things are fairly obvious and occur universally. For example, good taste - one that various elites are trying to instill in their children - is a far cry from what we may call the natural taste. Try to convince the five children that green tea - it tastes good. Try to convince the five children that Non-figurative painting - it's interesting. Our good taste, for example, in alcohol - a taste that is the exact opposite of the normal children's taste: no sweets, no bubbles, other things being equal the best white red, because red taste more pronounced. You can drink whiskey, it is desirable to some island, tastefully swamps and peat flavor. It is clear that this taste unnatural - to develop it, it takes a lot of work. In contrast to the bad taste of this work requires. Bad music - is the one under which you can ride a goat to give a simple muscular joy. A bad book - a book in which a prince on a white horse came for gray mouse (female version) or in which the protagonist - the Prince (men's version), and if not a prince, then someone who everyone wants to present itself. This book is a simple form of social self-satisfaction - this is just a bad taste in literature. Good ends, perhaps, the most obvious marker of bad taste in literature or movies - just because we would like them to themselves.

In very many ways, good taste is associated with the unnatural, overcoming some spontaneous reactions, which are able to please the majority of people with schooling needed to plant it in spite of themselves natural human impulses. In any large museum you can watch a scene like this: a little boy somewhere pulls mom, and my mom says: "Another 15 minutes looking at a Rembrandt, and then I'll take you in the Knights' Hall." Of course, the Knights' Hall in the Hermitage much more interesting than a normal child (there stuffed horses, there are weapons) than some dark paintings with a sad old man, but my mother knows best. So education is arranged.

Elias calls this process of suppressing the natural reactions of the process of civilization. At Elias in his book, which is called - "The Civilizing Process" describes how these natural spontaneous affects gradually suppressed, are simulated and their ability to suppress transformed into a symbol of social status. And those who are well socialized so that all manifestations of alternative flavors cause the very natural repugnance as eating from a common bowl unwashed after visiting a public toilet hand that spontaneously seems alarming and repulsive. Elias has a book on the theory of art, such as the biography of Mozart, where he says, in particular, that, in essence, the achievements of Mozart and any kind of genius is not to make any new spiritual content of the music, and to allow people to experience the same feelings that people experience a simpler, just jump goat for a simple melody, but at the level of sublimation, in what is considered acceptable for a good taste of the society.

It seems that this is a good explanation, but it clearly does not explain everything. For example, all our clothes are more or less unnatural. How does taste in clothes? How do we know that some combinations of colors tasteless? We can say that children love bright colors, so the clothes they become adults "shouting", but this is clearly not enough. All of our architecture - it is quite an unnatural thing, it is very far removed from the caves or huts. How do we distinguish a bad taste in architecture from the good?

Generalizuya little, we can say that a broader category than natural, but including it is expected. When something is expected, it is transformed into tasteless. Very much influenced the sociology of literature and drama theorist Kenneth Burke, for example, argued that there is a kind of vulgar piety, keeping in mind that vulgarity - is to follow the convention, it is respect for the present Convention. This, for example, the use of the most obvious and most common metaphor, to convey some sense, but that is synonymous for us with a bad taste in the arts. Another book about the language of postmodern architecture, Jenks contains a wonderful maxim that use the metaphor of architecture in the forehead - then kill her. The example that I steal from his colleagues at the European University Vadim Bass: the worst thing that can make the gas company as a design choice for its headquarters - is to beat the spark lighters, because it is the first association, which is able to arise in connection with gas giant. And in this sense it is irreparably bad taste. Than expected, than logical, conventional, the overall worse. A more unusual, eccentric, extravagant, the better.

There are several ways in which these ideas are developed. Simple cross-cultural universals: the elite (and in particular the specific cultural elite) commonly experience extraordinary cravings for everything exotic and cosmopolitan, things that cross cultural boundaries. Things that cross cultural borders, non-expected, because they do not exist in our normal cultural environment, so they are attractive. Some cosmopolitanism is a particular feature of the elites almost everywhere; Think about Frenchified aristocratic culture in Russia or Sinification waves, and then the Westernization in Japanese history.

As we move deeper into their society, there appears a very interesting argument, Mary Douglas, who claimed that culture as a whole, and the subcultures within a society divided on the basis of which is called a lattice. There vysokoreshetochnye, and there nizkoreshetochnye culture. Vysokoreshetochnaya culture divides individuals, groups, any kind of objects into categories and these categories results in line with each other. Nizkoreshetochnaya culture somehow blurs the boundaries between these categories. The best definition of culture given nizkoreshetochnoy unidentified US general, who said that his contemporary campuses (the action takes place during the student revolution of 1960) are full of young men with long hair and girls with short. This is a major nightmare in terms vysokoreshetochnoy culture: everyone knows that people are divided into men and women, girls wear long hair and braid them into braids, and the boys - a short. When everything is on the contrary, it is a perversion of some sort. There always appears the theme of sexual perversion that accompanies supposedly taste and moral corruption. Elite morally decomposed, neglect of normal spontaneous accuracy of the little man. Populists of the world say this to my electorate. Usually high-developed culture perpetuates the social order at some of the natural order of the theory, although it could accept the fact that some forms of correctness are no biological reasons and not based on anything other than the convention. High-developed culture can imagine a world in which the trousers are the usual women's clothes and skirts - totally unacceptable for women, and for men and acceptable both. What is a biological basis for one of the preferences - our or such - no, but if historically we have so, it means that we will have a way to be in order.

Low-lattice culture somehow dissolves or erodes the boundaries of such conventions. She mixes the categories she mixes things that previously carried out some clear social border, let it be men, women or different social groups. It is spontaneous and often very moralistic rejection by high-developed culture. In this sense, we have a very symmetric relation: on the one hand there are groups usually occupy a more favorable position to find everyone who plays by the rules and adhere to the conventions, boring, tedious, banal, and on the other hand, those who adhere to the Convention, He looks at the potential of these perverts who like some unnatural art and music, abnormal wear clothes and you never know it yet. It's a universal polarization that arises spontaneously in almost all societies, but it is perfect in today rests on the base class.

You can go one step further in this generalization of ideas about the basics of taste and say that the most important expectations of form, that exists in a society is the expectation with respect to expectations. If we take the bad books (the one where the prince on a white horse), the foreseeability occurs because the author of the book about knows which buttons to press to trigger an emotional response in the audience, and the audience around knows that the author of the book in the corresponding cover will click on these buttons. Each of them refers to the other as the more or less mechanical, programmed, predictable machine. But what if the machine decides to add a joke or some meta-tricks allusion to the fact that "I know that you know?" Meta-tricks - is a very ancient thing, they are almost in the paintings of Egyptian tombs, and they just were common in the Gothic painting in Europe (for example, the hand of the character, which lays down the frame, painted the outside of the frame).

We can say that one of the main directions in the high development of culture was the development of these winks, addressed to the reader, viewer or listener, direct communication, when it is assumed that the story is perceived not only as a story, with characters which themselves can be identified, as well as a variety of messages in which the author suddenly appears and alludes to something the audience in which he may insinuate the viewer to viewer expectations with respect to the author, and so on. Ultimately, the main theme of the interaction become the creator and the audience, and the story, if at all, is a material for such a communication. This Degree largely distinguishes good art from bad, has parallels in various fields. When we take the symbols of class status, the place of simple, clear, readable, conventional characters come hints. The worst taste in the demonstration class position - a taste, comprising unequivocal demonstration of its economic prosperity. Gold chain - this is the most tasteless form of class signal, which is possible. It categorizes its owner as a parvenu the lowest degree. The less expressed the desire to demonstrate that you are a rich man, the more it is sublimated hint, the better. New furniture in this sense is much worse than the old. Old things in general is much better than new, because that thing really was old and worn, it must be very high quality, a bad thing just falling apart, so the best choice of furniture - a two century oak furniture, where even great-grandfather penknife carved inscription with yatyami. We can be sure that she could stay only in the home of a hereditary aristocracy - a family that occupies the position in society that for many generations is not worried about the maintenance of impressions.

Eventually, the logic of this evolution refers to itself, because it continues on, too good taste - it is also tasteless thing. If we show too restrained taste in all respects, the taste becomes boring, pedantic, frivolous, and feigned mechanical. And what if we add to it some elements out there who no one expects to meet? The cultural consumption of Western societies recent decades recorded trend toward what is called omnivorous. If in the XIX and early XX century elite differed from the masses that consume good art elite, and the masses - something low-browed, unassumingly, but now the main difference is between those who consume a specific genre products and those who consume a lot and very different. At the same time a pure snobbery, which is manifested in the rejection of consumption, for example, any literature, about which there is at least some suspicion that there will be a mouse, a prince, a white horse ( "No, I refuse, no George Martin can not to be in my life ") - this position, which is not associated with longer really elite groups. Elite group will be let and princes and white horses with a number of winks and reading in the style of "so bad it's good."

With the advent of interactive games omnivorous taste, we play with each other, have not stopped. But if earlier they were more like a naval battle with a limited number of moves that can be done, and relatively simple strategies, but today they have become a game of chess, and already chess grandmaster from which you want to know dozens of openings in the depth of dozens of moves.