We will discuss how we can think of Bourdieusian taste in our contemporary society.
This was the Bourdieusian framework.
You might have sensed some anachronistic elements of this framework.
He suggested that cultural elites, namely people described as bourgeois,
enjoy classical music, opera and other fine arts.
But this may sound like an old stereotype.
We may need to update Bourdieu's somewhat rigid framework.
By trying to replicate Bourdieu's research in the U.S., Professor Richard Peterson and his colleague found out that
the cultural elites valued not only works of high culture like classical music
but also works of popular taste like rock 'n' roll.
That is to say, cultural elites tend to appreciate a broad range of things, hence omnivores.
On the other hand, those with low cultural capital tend to favor a narrow range of items, namely univores.
This was different from what Bourdieu found out in France in the 60s.
Does this mean that cultural elites do not seek to distinguish themselves?
Many scholars conclude that cultural elites do exist and try to distinguish themselves.
But their practices are more nuanced.
Now elites keep distance from extravagant luxury because it is now commonplace.
Many people who do not necessarily have the high level of cultural capital
now talk about going to luxurious restaurants and hotels.
Such luxurious services are on magazines and TV programs all the time.
Cultural elites instead value something authentic and rare rather than brands they can simply buy.
For instance, they may well prefer cooking esoteric meals themselves as opposed to going to upscale restaurants.
They also prefer hand-made and artisanal goods that are difficult to obtain.
They are typically cosmopolitan and value something exotic.
It is therefore paradoxical that many cultural elites now favor material frugality such as smaller houses and cooking at home.
But why?
While the society that Bourdieu studied in the 60s was still characterized largely as modern,
now our society is beyond modern, sometimes called high modernity or post modernity.
In this high modernity, social structures are no longer rigid.
We have quite fluid social structure.
While we used to have aristocracy and bourgeois that controlled wealth,
we now have Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg who did not even graduate from college.
Certainly there is much more diversity.
We observe more diverse tastes and values.
But the differences are rather uniform.
We have one style juxtaposed with another just like TV commercials running one after another.
Everything seems like images on TV.
Now we have lost the firm grasp of the larger social differences, highbrow and lowbrow,
and instead we have uniform series of differences.
The difference between luxury and popularity is not so clear although quality may certainly be different.
Luxury is no longer rare.
In that situation, cultural elites can no longer be satisfied with simply luxurious goods and services.
They seek something different.
In this sense, we see double negation.
Frugality and labor of making things on one's own are now valued as culturally sophisticated.
In summary, distinction is always in relation to changing aesthetic practices.
What used to be luxury is now negated as cheap.
Contemporary taste is quite fluid and subtle.
This is related to the fluid social structures.
In conclusion, Bourdieu's ideas are still relevant and useful.
We just need to be careful in discerning nuanced aesthetic practices.