The Conspiracy of Good Taste

This is a redrafted edition of my tirade against classism. The life and activity of three leading mediators of working class culture are considered in separate chapters. These are William Morris, Cecil Sharp and Clough Williams-Ellis. A theory of oppression that may be new to some readers is given before tracing the philosophical justifications of good taste as a signifier of social class in Britain and Germany. This is brought into the C20th with a review of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological critique of good taste: ‘Distinction’.