Perhaps my point is better illustrated by this series: http://www.mcmansionhell.com/post/150926055196/mcmansion-hell-from-a-to-z-part-one-a-h http://www.mcmans

Perhaps my point is better illustrated by this series: http://www.mcmansionhell.com/post/150926055196/mcmansion-hell-from-a-to-z-part-one-a-h http://www.mcmansionhell.com/post/150926055196/mcmansion-hel... http://www.mcmansionhell.com/post/151254239061/mcmansion-hell-from-a-to-z-part-two-i-p http://www.mcmansionhell.com/post/151254239061/mcmansion-hel... http://www.mcmansionhell.com/post/151565621727/mcmansionhell-from-a-to-z-part-three-q-z http://www.mcmansionhell.com/post/151565621727/mcmansionhell... There is some clear sense to these criticisms. Some of the issues raised constitute hard-to-deny aesthetic flaws: they simply look bad. But many more seem to be less about hard aesthetic truths and more about "taste" -- a significantly less defensible concept. It's not that these architectural elements look bad, it's that they don't look the way they're "supposed" to look, where the way that they're "supposed" to look is determined by the way that they've historically looked (and, critically, nothing more). The author is clearly confused about their own motivations, too: he or she slides regularly into moralizing about the social evil of McMansions and the McMansion lifestyle, while being seemingly entirely unaware that the "good" mansions that these homes so negatively contrast with are symbols of excess and luxury that are just as morally indefensible. The rich have always secluded themselves, they've always wasted their resources in spectacular fashion, they've always wanted to demonstrate their success -- these aren't new phenomena. But the author seems irked simultaneously by conspicuous consumption, classism, and so forth and the same time that he or she rakes McMansion owners over the coals for daring to aspire to the true upper class. It's bizarre -- but that's taste for you.