Who's Afraid of Kitsch? The Impact of Taste Reforms in the Netherlands

This article evaluates the judgments of taste of a group of twenty-four interviewees in the light of past taste reforms, which battled the general public's taste for kitsch. It shows that males with less education have been most receptive to teachings on taste, resulting in their dislike of exuberant objects. Compared with the outcome of a research project fifty years ago, which registered a taste for the austere with young intellectuals only, there is a complete change of preferences; today's higher educated interviewees show a liking for some of the more peculiar specimens. In explaining these obvious changes in the judgments of taste, Bourdieu's theory of distinction is compared with Peterson and Kern's concept of omnivorousness in highbrow taste.