In many ways omnivorism is the only possible taste left. A singular notion of good taste is unjustifiable in a cosmopolitan world. The scholar Kwame Anthony Appiah defines “cosmopolitanism” as “a recognition and celebration of the fact that our fellow world citizens, in their different places, with their different languages, cultures, and traditions, merit not just our moral concern but also our interest and curiosity.” Cosmopolitanism is not just a superficial embrace of cultural diversity but a conscious rejection of the is-ought fallacy. Our enthusiasm for other communities’ conventions supports our effort to overcome conventionality itself. For the early-twentieth-century philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, “Other nations of different habits are not enemies: they are godsends.”

By collectively reaching this stage of meta-knowledge, we come to understand the arbitrariness of our own preferences, tastes, and culture. To proclaim superiority of preferred styles over others is accordingly an arrogant and bigoted act. A harpsichord concerto can’t be judged to be “better” than an Indian rāga. The cultural studies scholar Fred Inglis explains, “To declare difference as a value is to refuse, according to liberalism’s first protocol, to tell others how to live.” Omnivore taste is also a precursor to ultraindividualism: for everyone to follow their hearts, all idiosyncratic choices must be tolerated.