MARITIMEPOSTS.COM – This morning, I received some information about Pierre Bourdieu’s book La Distinction, or simply Distinction. My friend Judy Raharjo gave me an example of the differences in people’s tastes—whether in music, fashion, or other aspects of everyday life.
I then read several additional sources and began to gain a clearer understanding of what the book is really about.
Why does someone choose a Rp50,000 coffee in a carefully designed when a cup of coffee at a local warkop may cost Rp10,000?
Why does one person spend an evening listening to jazz while another prefers dangdut, rock, or metal?
Why do some people enjoy sitting in a crowded mall, surrounded by lights, conversations and commercial noise, while others deliberately search for a quiet riverbank where they can sit alone and think?
At first glance, these are simply matters of taste. We often say, “It depends on what you like.” Pierre Bourdieu, however, invites us to look deeper.
In his influential book Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Bourdieu argues that taste is not merely a personal preference. What we eat, drink, listen to, wear, read and where we spend our leisure time can reflect our social position, education, upbringing and accumulated cultural experience.
Taste, therefore, can become a form of social distinction.
Consider coffee. A local warkop may offer strong coffee, fried bananas, cigarettes and long conversations for a modest price. An expensive coffee shop offers something more: interior design, atmosphere, Wi-Fi, carefully presented drinks, particular music, branded cups and, sometimes, a sense of belonging to a particular social world.
The difference is not necessarily in the coffee itself.
Someone may choose the expensive café because it provides a space where they feel comfortable working, meeting clients, taking photographs or simply being associated with a certain lifestyle. The price becomes part of the experience. The café communicates something about the person sitting inside it.
This does not mean that everyone who drinks expensive coffee is trying to show off. Bourdieu’s argument is subtler. People develop their preferences through their social experiences. What feels “natural,” “comfortable,” “beautiful” or “sophisticated” to us is partly shaped by the environments in which we grow and move.
The same principle can be applied to music.
Why does one person enjoy dangdut while another prefers jazz? Why can someone spend hours listening to progressive rock or heavy metal while another finds it unpleasant? Music is more than sound. It can carry memories, identities, friendships and social meanings.
A person raised in a community where dangdut is frequently played at weddings and neighborhood celebrations may develop an intimate relationship with it. Another person who encounters jazz through university, cultural communities, concerts or particular social circles may gradually acquire the vocabulary to appreciate its rhythms, improvisation and history.
Neither taste is inherently superior.
Yet society often creates hierarchies around taste. Jazz may be described as sophisticated, classical music as intellectual, rock as rebellious, dangdut as popular, while certain forms of commercial music are dismissed as “ordinary.” These judgments are precisely where Bourdieu becomes interesting. Taste can become a way of classifying not only objects but also people.
We say, sometimes unconsciously, “People like us listen to this.”
The same phenomenon appears in the places where we spend our free time.
Imagine two people on a Sunday afternoon. One goes to a shopping mall, enjoys restaurants, crowds, air-conditioning and the latest products. Another rides a motorcycle outside the city, finds a quiet river, sits beneath a tree and watches the water flow.
The second person might say, “I just need peace.”
That choice, too, can carry social meaning.
Perhaps the person has developed a preference for solitude through education, work experience, reading, travel or an increasingly conscious relationship with nature. The quiet river becomes more than a physical location. It becomes a space for reflection and perhaps a statement about what the person considers valuable.
Interestingly, distinction does not always mean choosing something expensive.
Someone can reject the fashionable café precisely because they dislike its atmosphere. They may prefer traditional coffee, a plastic chair and a conversation with friends at a neighborhood warkop. That preference can also become an identity: “I don’t need expensive places to enjoy myself.”
In this sense, distinction works in many directions.
Bourdieu’s important insight is that our choices are connected to what he calls habitus—the deeply learned dispositions that shape how we perceive the world and what feels appropriate to us. Alongside habitus, people possess different forms of capital, including economic capital and cultural capital. These influence the spaces they enter and the tastes they acquire.
Our daily choices are therefore rarely as innocent as they appear.
The coffee we order, the music we play, the clothes we wear, the books we read and the places where we relax may all tell small stories about where we come from, whom we associate with and the kind of world in which we feel at home.
Yet Distinction should not lead us to judge people according to their tastes. Rather, it encourages us to become more curious about them.
When someone chooses a luxury café, perhaps they are buying atmosphere rather than coffee. When someone chooses dangdut, perhaps they are returning to memories. When someone listens to metal, perhaps they are finding an emotional language that speaks to them. When someone sits beside a silent river, perhaps they are searching for something that a crowded mall cannot provide.
Taste is personal, but it is never entirely private.
Behind every preference is a social journey. And sometimes, by understanding why we choose the coffee, music and places we love, we begin to understand not only society—but ourselves.
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Tamarunang, 6 August 2026
