Taste is usually treated as harmless: a matter of preference, personality, or lifestyle. We say things like “It’s just not my thing” as though nothing of consequence were being expressed.
Relationally, this is a misrecognition.
Taste is not merely personal. It is a coordination mechanism — one of the most efficient and least visible forms of normativity in cultural life.
Taste as Silent Normativity
Unlike explicit rules, taste does not instruct or prohibit. It signals. Through shared aesthetic preferences, participants learn:
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what belongs
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what is excessive
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what feels awkward or out of place
No one needs to explain these distinctions. They are enacted through recognition and discomfort.
This is why taste feels apolitical. It does not argue; it filters.
Belonging Without Admission
Taste governs belonging without ever naming criteria. One does not apply or qualify; one either “gets it” or does not.
This produces a powerful effect:
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inclusion appears natural
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exclusion appears accidental
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boundaries feel unchosen and therefore unchallengeable
Because no rule is stated, no rule can be contested.
The Power of “Just Not My Thing”
The phrase “It’s just not my thing” is doing far more work than it seems. It simultaneously:
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denies judgement
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withdraws engagement
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stabilises distinction
It presents exclusion as personal preference while performing structural sorting.
No justification is required. No responsibility is acknowledged.
Taste and Cultural Reproduction
Taste is one of the primary mechanisms through which culture reproduces itself:
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styles circulate among those already aligned
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unfamiliar forms are dismissed as awkward or embarrassing
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innovation is tolerated only when it can be absorbed without disrupting coordination
This is why many cultural fields appear open while remaining structurally closed.
Why Taste Is So Resistant to Critique
Critiquing taste feels impolite, intrusive, or authoritarian because taste is framed as private. But this framing protects its power.
Unlike ideology:
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taste does not claim truth
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it does not demand agreement
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it does not present itself as universal
And yet it governs who is heard, who is taken seriously, and who must adapt.
Reopening the Field
Subverting taste-based exclusion does not mean demanding different preferences. It means making the mechanism visible.
This can involve:
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slowing down dismissal
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staying with discomfort
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noticing which forms are consistently filtered out
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experimenting with adjacency rather than confrontation
These are small moves, but they widen the field of intelligibility.
Closing
Taste feels innocent because it hides its normativity behind preference. But culturally, taste is one of the most powerful ways coordination is stabilised without coercion.
Belonging is rarely enforced by rules. It is more often felt into existence — and felt out of reach.
In the next post, we turn to how cultural change actually occurs when it does occur — not through better messages, but through style.
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