T

TASTE Taste has been an important concept in esthetics since at least the eighteenth century, and it continues to play a vital role in debate over esthetic subject matter, among both specialists and nonspecialists. The very distinction between popular culture and intellectual culture is still often cast in terms of ‘‘lowbrow’’ versus ‘‘highbrow’’ tastes. On the traditional view, mass culture is characterized by the uninformed and lowest-common-denominator nature of the tastes associated with it. The tastes of the elites, on the other hand, are supposed to stand out due to the sophistication and discernment they reflect. Recent social and cultural trends have tended to somewhat confound the lowbrowhighbrow divide. The steady increase in the average level of educational attainment, for example, has meant that an ever-growing portion of the population has been exposed to high culture. In addition, many contemporary artists and authors borrow in a highly eclectic fashion from both canonical culture and popular forms of entertainment, creating works that defy easy classification. Nevertheless, the notion of taste continues to be introduced into debates about art and entertainment in order to legitimate judgments on the relative esthetic worth of artifacts and even entire genres. Is haute cuisine superior to fast food, and classical music to hard rock? To justify their responses to such questions interlocutors will often reference the idea of taste, albeit with strategies that may be radically opposed depending upon the answer given.