Taste is formed by class and history (Bourdieu). But in Japan, manga worked as a democratization device for cultural capital. How aesthetics rises from a place with no inherited capital — and why this series reads manga and thought books as structure, not as a fan.
From a place with no inherited capital, how does an aesthetic sense rise?
1. The illusion of "a taste I chose"
A thought I keep returning to.
The things I like now — did I really choose them?
Leather goods, perfume, a certain kind of audio gear, the texture of wood grain, the thing people call functional beauty. They all have a definite feel inside me. If you asked me why I like them, I could put words to it. But could I say, flatly, that I chose them by my own will? Probably not.
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