The Bad Politics of Good Taste. The Nation magazine’s perfect summation of Nathalie Olah’s Bad Taste. How does ‘good taste’ in the world of fashion or leisure or art, for instance, support the world of big business and capitalist fundamentalism? How has life been commodified? How does ‘bad’ good taste affect us all? Nathalie Olah answers these questions with entertaining personal vignettes and whip smart research, “Through reading Ruskin and others, I came to understand how ideas of taste might be connected to wealth and power, forming one of the more emotional, and socially ostracising, dimensions of the class system in which we live.” She realises, however, that matters of taste shaped her early memories and that occasionally being on the other side of the argument is just part of life, “I am guilty as anyone of soothing myself with assurances about my own superior aesthetic judgement, but have also felt victimised by that same tendency”. Where you live, how you dress, what you eat, leaves you open to the judgement of those who think they know best and, more insidiously, to the forces of capital nipping away at your self-esteem with that age old snarl: you are what you buy. Bad Taste argues you are not what you buy. ‘Life’ and good taste are not bought curated experiences, no matter what companies or the rich elite would have you believe. Why live a life that reduces “a world of infinite possibility to something called a ‘bucket list’ and being beholden to it at the expense of just doing whatever you feel like doing from one moment to the next”.  Why indeed. Brilliantly entertaining and beautifully written Bad Taste is great and, of course, totally recommended.

Bad Taste – Nathalie Olah – publ. Dialogue Books - £10.99

Steven Long