While Im kicking sacred cows, Ill take a whack at a much more widely-practiced cultural one. Im sick of hearing the phrase, an acquired taste. Im really-truly-absolutely sick of the implied attitude that, because its acquired, its finer, more refined, more culturally-valid, more valuable and inherently superior to those mere plebeian pleasures that can be enjoyed from the very first experience. There are infinite examples I could use -- sure, at first, opera sounds like unhinged caterwauling, but, in time youll realize... -- but I think Ill stay down-market for this one, and make my example of why this concept is absolute rubbish one of the most popular ones: Beer. If you take any beer enthusiast, and hit him with a dose of truth serum, hell tell you something like this: The first time I drank beer, I thought I had a mouthful of piss! But I kept at it, and now I _love_ beer! Well, sure, thats true as far as it goes, but heres the problem: you could do the exact same thing with actual piss, and when you reached the point where you were deciding whether you wanted the really dark three days with minimal drinking water piss or the slightly greenish damn, I ate a lot of limes piss, nobody would applaud your determined stick-to-it-iveness in getting there, and no-one would praise your refined, acquired, taste as being nobler than that of the Hoi Polloi who prefer to drink chocolate milk.
Posted on: Fri, 06 Jun 2014 17:47:42 +0000
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