A Recent Musing Involving Kittens and Slayer

A piece of an essay i recently did. It was meant to be more on Pierre Bourdieu's theories but it sort of turned more into my own philosophising:


3. What is Pierre Bourdieu's interpretation of aesthetic dispositions?

From what I’ve read, Bourdieu’s interpretation of aesthetic dispositions is one that is born of class distinction rather than continued experience or tutoring. In short, the different social classes have their own idea of what is aesthetic, and so what we personally choose to consider aesthetically beautiful defines our social class in the eyes of others. So rather than education and tutoring advancing our tastes, it is our social desires that determine what our aesthetic disposition is.

If I am part of ‘group B’ which defines itself by a love for kittens and classical music but want to be part of ‘group A’ which finds puppies and heavy metal music aesthetically superior, I am more likely to change my aesthetic tastes to find puppies and heavy metal music more pleasing because it projects the social image I desire. I haven’t changed my tastes through education or intellectual advancement (as is the current thinking), but social motivation.
To carry on the analogy, I imagine I will not be able to completely erase my old love of small dogs and Slayer and some of it will embed itself within my new ‘group B’ tastes. (Perhaps I’ll like puppies AND kittens?) Thus the societal aesthetic is changed minutely, and over time, with other people, perhaps change the ‘group B’ aesthetic into something completely different. If our social aesthetic tastes never did change or evolve over time, we'd still think cave painting is the aesthetic zenith.