If your taste is so good, why aren't you deploying it anywhere? We don't need more cultural critics. We need people who can deploy their taste and shape the world around them.
Podcast: Tamara Winter on tacit knowledge, taste, charisma, agency, social trust
Tamara Winter is the Commissioning Editor of Stripe Press, which published many of the books on my bookshelf, including The Art of Doing Science and Engineering, Pieces of the Action, Poor Charlie's Almanack, Scaling People, and The Dream Machine. Their books largely shape my taste.
In the podcast, Tamara talked about deploying taste. In her words:
"I don't think we need another cultural critic. I think we have enough. I am increasingly uninterested in cultural analysis and way more interested in whether you can deploy it.
It's like the joke, "If you're so smart, why aren't you happy?" If your taste is so good, why aren't you deploying it anywhere?"
This makes me think about "How to know if we have good taste" if nobody can examine our judgment beyond the yapping we have?
Taste should go beyond just knowing what you like. We should actively use our taste to create meaningful things so that we can get feedback to hone our taste and craft. And more importantly, as a wonderful side product of deploying our taste, we shape the world around us to be closer to what we enjoy.