Do you like your Beethoven, Schubert, Mahler and Ravel? Are your favorite movies by Bergman, Fellini, Wong Kar-Wai and Werner Herzog? Is your favorite computer game ever Sim City 4? Do you enjoy a good opera by Mozart or Rossini? Do your favorite authors number Haruki Murakami, Paul Auster and Robert Musil? Are your favorite foods pizza, pancakes and dark chocolate? Do you wear hoodies and skimpy underwear? Is Copenhagen your favorite city?
If the answer to any of these questions is “no”, then, sir, I will have to argue that your taste is rubbish.
(By the way, if there are any ladies out there who answered “yes” to all the above questions - PM me!)
I think good taste in pretty much anything cultural can be learned if one applies themself and gets educated. Barring some physical limitation - e.g., not having a sense of smell or taste yet trying to be a foodie - appreciation can be acquired.
I am comfortable in my tastes in some things, especially a few things I have invested a lot of time to learn about. I realize I have a long ways to go in some things that I haven’t spent as much on. I work to avoid stating anything that comes across as boastful about my taste, and when something does slip out, I beat myself up over it. **glee ** has it right, IMHO…
I don’t equate taste with common sense - taste, to me, is about artistic/creative/cultural things. Picking friends and lovers, or making moral and ethical decisions are completely different from having good taste.
As far as my taste in food goes and what I eat in restaurants, there are times I sometimes wonder if someone’s going to look at what I’m eating and then challenge me to a duel or something.
Last night at a buffet I had some fried fish topped by chopped onions, jo-jos, chicken gravy, and chili, and crowned with some generous squirts of ketchup and finally washed down with a couple glasses of chocolate milk!
As I thought better of licking the plate I had a couple of dinner rolls to finish off the remaining gravy.
That’s why I like buffets, because I can fix meals the way I want.
I also love putting ketchup on my eggs, but then everyone does that, don’t they???
I have the ability to have “good taste” but rarely choose to exercise it. I have some education in art, foods, music and related areas, but I like what I like. Sometimes it is sophisticated and esoteric, other times it is loud and flashy and common. I’m in it for the kicks, baby.
Edited to add; except pets. I have great taste in cats, and unspeakably depraved taste in birds.
It’s really not a money issue. If money bought taste Donald Trump wouldn’t live in a solid gold penthouse. It doesn’t cost anything to appreciate a symphony on the radio… or to recognize that American Idol is fun but not high art. I like them both, but I think the mark of good taste is the awareness of what they are. I can’t afford the highest fashion, but I know it when I see it (and when I see a fashion victim; Olsen Twins anyone?).
As for the “land mine” of good taste in friends, it’s not that controversial. Haven’t you ever said “so and so has terrible taste in men/women”? It’s not about shutting people out of your life because they aren’t sophisticated enough. It’s about surrounding yourself with people who you respect and who respect you back. That is what I mean by good taste in friends.
By the way, buttonjockey308, I wear a hand-me-down IWC to the Phils game where I drink PBR and eat hot dogs. So I think our definition of good taste is not too far apart.
Well, I think I have good taste, but then I would, wouldn’t I? I mean, it’s MY taste. Not that I think it’s in good taste to brag about my good taste…or something like that.
My tastes aren’t particularly high-brow (with a few exceptions), or low-brow, or even easily categorized. But they’re mine.
I guess, but that’s for others to day. I have had one coworker ask another if I were gay based on what he thought was overly fastidious grooming and metro-ish attire… to which coworker #2 replied, “he’d make a fine gay guy if it weren’t for all the womanizing.”
Not that I think it’s in good taste to brag about my good taste…or something like that.