A Distinct Pleasure (Not)

“In the era of customized consumer capitalism, distinction is mass-produced, and connoisseurship has been democratized. The wide availability of a variety of beautiful, unusual things – at Pottery Barn, on eBay, at stores that turn the junk of earlier eras into today’s collectibles – increases the pressure, the sense of responsibility, that attends every purchase. Like the food revolution, the design revolution is built on the lovely paradox that what is special should be available for everyone’s enjoyment and that good taste can at last shed its residue of invidious social differences. Which means that indifference is unacceptable.”