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Notes -
I'm going to return a theory of Fashion I've forwarded before, which I formed about clothing but is generally applicable to almost anything.
What we normally label as aesthetics is actually two entirely different things. One half is Appearances, the other half is Associations. Appearances are the actual physical appearance of the garments on your body. This is the realm of geometry, color theory, trump l'oeil. "Skinny jeans make your legs appear longer because they have a streamlined silhouette." Appearances are what you look like. Associations are the opposite, who you look like. Associations are about how a garment codes socially, who else is wearing it. Skinny jeans make you look like a fag, or an emo kid, or a trendy guy in the city, or a lame-o millenial dad, or nowadays in some quarters a conservative. Associations vary, depending on the viewer.
The trouble is that most people don't make those distinctions in fashion, they mix them together. Fashion writers put them all together at once. Generally where they talk about the associations, they treat them as universal results of the appearances. Skinny jeans will ALWAYS be classic and masculine, because of the way they drape on the body. Or vice versa, skinny jeans will ALWAYS be faggy and effeminate.
A lot of things make more sense when you frame them in this way. Taste for art is better when framed this way. Taste for architecture is better when framed this way. Taste for ideas is mostly better when framed this way.
Part of distaste for McMansions is about their architecture, but much of it is based in what kind of person lives there. Part of people liking art is about the actual art, and part of it is liking the kind of art that the person you want to be would like.
This extends into taste for ideas, taste for political positions. I saw so many Pro-Russian takes throughout the Ukrainian war in which it was clear that they started with an aesthetic of being a hard nosed realist, and tried to imagine what the hard nosed realist would say, and then reasoned from there. And the result often had little to do with reality.
Yes I agree with this, I normally think of it as authentic and cerebral preferences. For example, I like oatmeal, because it is simple, and I like the aesthetics of simple living and simple things. I also like steak, because when I bite into a good piece of steak the fatty juices that wash over my tongue make my brain explode.
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