I always prided myself with great taste (in my defense, it runs in the family). This essay made me realize the folly. I had to rethink and readjust what I called taste. The text changed my opinion, it provided a different perspective and I had to concede that Will’s take was closer to the truth.
I love when this happens and I am so starved (maybe we are collectively) for such writing.
This made me think of Bourdieu's "Distinction" (1979), which adds a layer worth considering. For Bourdieu, taste was never a neutral faculty of selection, not even in the patronage era you valorize. Taste is a disposition, a set of acquired preferences produced by class trajectory and education, which classifies those who classify. What feels like personal sensibility, aesthetic intuition, or orientation toward the transcendent is the internalized mark of a social position, made invisible precisely by the intimacy of its acquisition. The patron's "higher purpose" was also a form of symbolic domination over artistic labor, legitimated, then as now, by the rhetoric of something beyond mere consumption.
This matters for your GAN argument in particular. You warn that the discriminator trains the generator and then becomes redundant. But Bourdieu would note that the discriminator was never sovereign to begin with, always already trained by family, by school, by the social field it moved through. What AI accelerates is not the demotion of a formerly autonomous human capacity; it accelerates the exposure of a capacity that was always, in part, a social mechanism for reproducing distinction. The taste thesis doesn't propose something new. It proposes to make the old function visible, and charge for it.
Very happy I stumbled on this piece, which I find provocative and in places rings of the stuff of truth—I think in terms of reclaiming creativity as a relationship with the transcendent especially so.
But I also wonder if we’re not giving the “taste thesis” as advanced in Silicon Valley VC groups a little too much weight. To me, taste always meant the result of education, in the broadest terms, not just strictly schooling (although that helps, obv). The point of taste, especially for a creator, is to be able to discriminate on the field of their medium—what’s truly new, what echoes the past, what’s a remix, what is just theory talking. I think somewhere you point out that the accusation that modern art is “literary” rattled the socialite/ collector circles, but, I don’t think it had much impact on the artist circles. Because artists, when they’re honest with themselves, always already know what space they’re working in—in part because they’ve a professional, craft-acquired ear for that sort of thing (in case “taste” is a tainted sense now).
Which is all to say, I think this piece sometimes overstates taste as the marker of a very specific tribe, and their very specific status games. Moreover, AI is not (yet?) capable of any creativity, no matter how much the tech influencers will it. Even its remixing needs to be handheld to be any good… so, I also think the “taste thesis” is also a thesis for a kind of fantasy, at this point. Though, never too early to engage with it.
But isn’t the question whether the discriminator can become generative? Might they also create the conditions for the thing that ought to exist, but doesn’t yet?
This was infuriating, and then refreshing and then enjoyable. Some long held ideas have been disassembled but at least you did us the courtesy of reassembling them.
There’s a writer in Brazil who recently published his thesis studying luxury and what he calls “the rich stuff”, stuff rich people have to signal they’re rich - not only possessions (although mostly), but also attitude and social knowledge. One of the anecdotes he shares is this: he was at the house of someone from the finance world and that person had a Pollock in their house. When the author talked about the painting, the person said something along the lines of: “I don’t really like art, but having this painting shows everyone my business is successful, so they are more likely to invest in it.” I think this is the extreme version of everything you pointed out.
That being said, I would love to read you expanding on two specific things: how the divine can be brought into the contemporary world without God, how can we talk and write and think about transcendent without religion or spirituality; and how the discourse about art seems to have been always going towards financial freedom of expression, as if the “capital” (or the patron) tainted the truly artistic vision. I’m not saying I agree with these things either - because I don’t - but I would love read your take on these ideas.
This is how comments (critic) on social (painting) work for the user (collector) too.
“The collector reads the critic, then looks at the painting through the critic’s eyes. The painting is not an object in its own right but a theory to be validated. The taste is not in the looking. The taste is in knowing which theory is fashionable to subscribe to.”
Love this long post. My favorite quote is: "The collector replaced the patron. The critic replaced the guildmaster. The gallery replaced the bottega. Taste replaced patronage. What was lost was friction. The argument. The being in the room."
Thanks for writing about art history. I took it in college and always wanted to learn more about how patrons shaped artistic output.
They continually do so today, eg. through product placements in movies/TV shows/music videos.
Also agree with "taste can't evaluate something new": new breakthroughs don't fit in existing paradigms, because they break through them.
What a perfect essay, spot on on all counts, and beautifully drifting into Sermon at the end. Rite of Spring playing on full volume in the studio right now, thank you!
Will, thank you for this. The concept of man as creator vs man as consumer is quite profound and important. What an incredible purpose for mankind if accepted
I read this on X, then I read it here again.
I always prided myself with great taste (in my defense, it runs in the family). This essay made me realize the folly. I had to rethink and readjust what I called taste. The text changed my opinion, it provided a different perspective and I had to concede that Will’s take was closer to the truth.
I love when this happens and I am so starved (maybe we are collectively) for such writing.
Immediate ‘recommend’.
A lot of very big ideas contained in something really digestible and a joy to consume - bravo
This made me think of Bourdieu's "Distinction" (1979), which adds a layer worth considering. For Bourdieu, taste was never a neutral faculty of selection, not even in the patronage era you valorize. Taste is a disposition, a set of acquired preferences produced by class trajectory and education, which classifies those who classify. What feels like personal sensibility, aesthetic intuition, or orientation toward the transcendent is the internalized mark of a social position, made invisible precisely by the intimacy of its acquisition. The patron's "higher purpose" was also a form of symbolic domination over artistic labor, legitimated, then as now, by the rhetoric of something beyond mere consumption.
This matters for your GAN argument in particular. You warn that the discriminator trains the generator and then becomes redundant. But Bourdieu would note that the discriminator was never sovereign to begin with, always already trained by family, by school, by the social field it moved through. What AI accelerates is not the demotion of a formerly autonomous human capacity; it accelerates the exposure of a capacity that was always, in part, a social mechanism for reproducing distinction. The taste thesis doesn't propose something new. It proposes to make the old function visible, and charge for it.
Very happy I stumbled on this piece, which I find provocative and in places rings of the stuff of truth—I think in terms of reclaiming creativity as a relationship with the transcendent especially so.
But I also wonder if we’re not giving the “taste thesis” as advanced in Silicon Valley VC groups a little too much weight. To me, taste always meant the result of education, in the broadest terms, not just strictly schooling (although that helps, obv). The point of taste, especially for a creator, is to be able to discriminate on the field of their medium—what’s truly new, what echoes the past, what’s a remix, what is just theory talking. I think somewhere you point out that the accusation that modern art is “literary” rattled the socialite/ collector circles, but, I don’t think it had much impact on the artist circles. Because artists, when they’re honest with themselves, always already know what space they’re working in—in part because they’ve a professional, craft-acquired ear for that sort of thing (in case “taste” is a tainted sense now).
Which is all to say, I think this piece sometimes overstates taste as the marker of a very specific tribe, and their very specific status games. Moreover, AI is not (yet?) capable of any creativity, no matter how much the tech influencers will it. Even its remixing needs to be handheld to be any good… so, I also think the “taste thesis” is also a thesis for a kind of fantasy, at this point. Though, never too early to engage with it.
But isn’t the question whether the discriminator can become generative? Might they also create the conditions for the thing that ought to exist, but doesn’t yet?
This was infuriating, and then refreshing and then enjoyable. Some long held ideas have been disassembled but at least you did us the courtesy of reassembling them.
Genuinely appreciate your take here and love the variety in your posts - subscribed and looking forward to continued discourse.
Will, what the hell; this was an excellent read.
There’s a writer in Brazil who recently published his thesis studying luxury and what he calls “the rich stuff”, stuff rich people have to signal they’re rich - not only possessions (although mostly), but also attitude and social knowledge. One of the anecdotes he shares is this: he was at the house of someone from the finance world and that person had a Pollock in their house. When the author talked about the painting, the person said something along the lines of: “I don’t really like art, but having this painting shows everyone my business is successful, so they are more likely to invest in it.” I think this is the extreme version of everything you pointed out.
That being said, I would love to read you expanding on two specific things: how the divine can be brought into the contemporary world without God, how can we talk and write and think about transcendent without religion or spirituality; and how the discourse about art seems to have been always going towards financial freedom of expression, as if the “capital” (or the patron) tainted the truly artistic vision. I’m not saying I agree with these things either - because I don’t - but I would love read your take on these ideas.
This is how comments (critic) on social (painting) work for the user (collector) too.
“The collector reads the critic, then looks at the painting through the critic’s eyes. The painting is not an object in its own right but a theory to be validated. The taste is not in the looking. The taste is in knowing which theory is fashionable to subscribe to.”
My first exposure... I like this guy.
Great piece! Superb aftertaste! Now I'm thinking about broken mechanics of social gradient...
Love this long post. My favorite quote is: "The collector replaced the patron. The critic replaced the guildmaster. The gallery replaced the bottega. Taste replaced patronage. What was lost was friction. The argument. The being in the room."
Thanks for writing about art history. I took it in college and always wanted to learn more about how patrons shaped artistic output.
They continually do so today, eg. through product placements in movies/TV shows/music videos.
Also agree with "taste can't evaluate something new": new breakthroughs don't fit in existing paradigms, because they break through them.
What a perfect essay, spot on on all counts, and beautifully drifting into Sermon at the end. Rite of Spring playing on full volume in the studio right now, thank you!
A delight to read, sparking the right kind of challenge to one’s thoughts
Will, thank you for this. The concept of man as creator vs man as consumer is quite profound and important. What an incredible purpose for mankind if accepted