Pierre Bourdieu on Taste
Applying Pierre Bourdieu's thinking to the world of watch collecting
Have you ever considered the origins of your personal taste? What is it, exactly? How did you develop your tastes, and how do they evolve over time? Let’s discuss…
Personal taste refers to our preferences, inclinations, or judgments regarding all aspects of our lives, including watches, art, music, food, fashion, and more. It includes subjective opinions and choices that reflect our unique personalities, experiences, cultural background, and values. When you think someone has good taste, you’re essentially saying you approve of their choices, or see their choices in a positive light.
“De gustibus non est disputandum” is a Latin phrase, often translated as “In matters of taste, there can be no disputes,” - it hits home in that it emphasises how our personal preferences are entirely subjective, and can therefore not be argued against or disputed objectively.
Andy Warhol famously said, “Art is what you can get away with.” This speaks to just how subjective art and personal tastes are… people define art based on what they find acceptable or appealing - and who is anyone else to argue with them? As watch collectors, and even for watch makers, this resonates deeply.
In her essay “Modern Fiction,1” Virginia Woolf talks about the evolving nature of literature and personal taste, and emphasises the importance of individual perception and interpretation to go about defining what constitutes good fiction. Woolf argues that modern fiction should reflect ‘the complexities and nuances of human consciousness’, and advocates for ‘a more subjective and experimental approach to storytelling’ where writers do more to capture the inner thoughts and emotions of characters.
Long story short, she is arguing that our tastes change over time, and that they are influenced by our experiences and interactions with the world.
Given how complex and multifaceted taste formation seems to be, exploring how our tastes are formed, seems worth investigating. For this, let us first turn to “Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste” by Pierre Bourdieu2. This was published in 1979, and is considered a seminal work in sociology and cultural studies. In his book, Bourdieu examines the role of taste and cultural consumption in the reproduction of social inequality. By the way, I have referenced this book before, so some of you may already be familiar with it:
In 1979, French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu echoed these thoughts in his book Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Bourdieu proposed that people with “cultural capital” — education and intellect, style of speech and style of dress, etc. — participate in determining what distinct aesthetic values constitute good taste within their society. In fact, Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron coined and defined the term cultural capital in the essay “Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction” a few years before, in 1977.
Mini literature review
The book has had a profound impact on the field of sociology and cultural studies, and it is still widely cited and discussed by scholars around the world. Here are some examples; note the fields of study, and the application or outcomes of these examples - we will return to these topics later.
Note: I scanned this for AI multiple times and it kept flagging there was AI text - which I know there isn’t. Anyway, as a test, I removed this whole literature review section and then it scanned as 100% human. Something about this list flags as AI. 🤷♂️
Sarah Thornton’s “Seven Days in the Art World” uses cultural capital to analyse the workings of the contemporary art world - so how artists, collectors, dealers, and critics compete for ‘symbolic recognition’.
Michèle Lamont’s “The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration” applies habitus to look at the moral and cultural boundaries in working-class communities.
Annette Lareau’s “Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life” uses cultural capital to investigate how social class shapes childhood experiences and outcomes.
Paul DiMaggio's “Cultural Entrepreneurship in Nineteenth-Century Boston: The Creation of an Organizational Base for High Culture in America” looks at how cultural entrepreneurs like philanthropists, artists, and civic leaders, tried to legitimise and institutionalise ‘elite’ forms of cultural consumption.
Richard Peterson and Roger Kern’s “Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore” builds on Bourdieu’s concept of cultural omnivorousness.
Shamus Khan’s “Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School” uses Bourdieu’s ideas to study the reproduction of privilege and inequality within elite boarding schools - turns out, social distinction does impact your life trajectory and future opportunities.
Elizabeth McFall’s “Advertising: A Cultural Economy” looks at the role of advertising in shaping consumer preferences and identities; McFall goes into how consumers use these cultural resources to negotiate their social identities and aspirations.
David Swartz’s “Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu” offers a comprehensive overview and analysis of Bourdieu’s key concepts and theoretical contributions (social reproduction, symbolic power, and cultural distinction).
Tony Bennett’s “Culture: A Reformer's Science” is more of a critique than a study, where he argues for a more historically and contextually grounded understanding of cultural practices and meanings.
Loïc Wacquant’s “Pierre Bourdieu and Democratic Politics: The Mystery of Ministry” covers Bourdieu’s political sociology and his engagement with questions of democracy, citizenship, and social justice.
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Bourdieu’s ideas and frameworks actually still inform research across many disciplines today, despite the world being a vastly different place than it was when this was first published. That’s probably because the nature of power, inequality, and cultural production in contemporary societies hasn’t really changed that much - which perhaps won’t surprise you at all.
“Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste” by Pierre Bourdieu
So yeah… Many people have referenced the book; but what exactly are Bourdieu’s key themes?
In his preface to the English translation, Bourdieu tries to explain why this book is written in such a complicated and difficult-to-read manner:
Likewise, the style of the book, whose long, complex sentences may offend—constructed as they are with a view to reconstituting the complexity of the social world in a language capable of holding together the most diverse things while setting them in rigorous perspective—stems partly from the endeavour to mobilize all the resources of the traditional modes of expression, literary, philosophical or scientific, so as to say things that were de facto or de jure excluded from them, and to prevent the reading from slipping back into the simplicities of the smart essay or the political polemic.
WTF?! So, apparently the book is infamously ‘complicated’ and me trying to simplify it for this platform must be a fool’s errand… Thing is, I am a fool, so here’s my take on the crux of this beast:
Habitus and Cultural Capital
Bourdieu introduces the concept of “habitus,” which is about our ingrained habits, dispositions, and tastes which we acquire by socialising within our particular social class. He argues that individuals from different social classes have a distinct habitus, which is what shapes their perceptions, preferences, and practices.
This isn’t exactly a revelation to be honest. Wealthy and educated people like different things to poor uneducated people. That’s a function of many things, and includes what they eat, wear, watch on TV and what cars they drive… but also includes hobbies, interest in culture and arts, as well as music preferences. In other words, social class determines taste.
Take a break
Here’s a funny image of a granny flipping two birds… because this post might be going on too long, and also to remind you I am actually not a serious person 😂
Cultural Hierarchies and Taste
Bourdieu posits that our cultural preferences are not ONLY matters of individual choice, and that our preferences are influenced by social structures and class distinctions. He goes on to explore how certain forms of cultural consumption end up being celebrated and endowed with symbolic capital, while others get marginalised or are frowned upon.