Better-ness IMHO is a function of expectations. Playing Dream Theater as ambient music in your restaurant is arguably in "bad taste", despite the art itself being technically on virtuoso level, and often being considered "good art" outside of that context.
Liking pop music is often snobbishly seen as having "bad taste" in music, even in the face of it being wildly popular, and sometimes even actually interesting from a technical analysis perspective.
Acquired tastes are another example that goes against the idea of better-ness as an universal quality: Natto[0] mixed w/ a raw egg on rice is either a repulsive slimy mess or a delicious delicacy depending on who you ask.
IMHO, the argument that there is no "good taste" merely observes that "good" is not an absolute metric, or even on a linear scale. Yes, things can be objectively "better" than others (e.g. I'm sure Michelangelo is far more skilled at painting than PG), but it's a bit of leap to conflate that specific line of comparison with the fuzzy idea of "better-ness".
Things are only better or worse than other things when comparing specific attributes. Something can be better looking, better functioning in some specific way, and so forth.
"Better" and "worse" overall are necessarily subjective assessments. Is that piece of garbage car worse than a high-end one? By some measures, yes. But if your criteria include "being the least expensive", then no, it's not.
Exactly. I find that using art of all things to make an argument about good taste is particularly ironic, given that historically, art has always been a vehicle for shaking the status quo.
I mean, look at Andy Warhol or Banksy or Robert Rauschenberg or Bill Watterson or any of hundreds of examples that clearly fall way outside the "Renaissance = good" bubble.
My immediate thought when I read the essay was about Dream Theater and I almost jumped when I saw the reference from you. Dream Theater is my absolute favorite band for 25 years and counting, but I know people that think that they are poseurs. To me, liking Dream Theater is a good taste because it is a good signal of people and their qualities that I like. Pop music is neither good nor bad taste as this taste does not really signal anything useful to me. Driving a loud car with semi-disabled muffler on city streets is a bad taste because not only it is annoying, it perfectly signals qualities that I dislike in people.
Liking pop music is often snobbishly seen as having "bad taste" in music, even in the face of it being wildly popular, and sometimes even actually interesting from a technical analysis perspective.
Acquired tastes are another example that goes against the idea of better-ness as an universal quality: Natto[0] mixed w/ a raw egg on rice is either a repulsive slimy mess or a delicious delicacy depending on who you ask.
IMHO, the argument that there is no "good taste" merely observes that "good" is not an absolute metric, or even on a linear scale. Yes, things can be objectively "better" than others (e.g. I'm sure Michelangelo is far more skilled at painting than PG), but it's a bit of leap to conflate that specific line of comparison with the fuzzy idea of "better-ness".
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natt%C5%8D