By considering cultural practices and preferences from the viewpoint of an intra-individual variation of behaviours, we obtain a picture of the social world free of the cultural caricature of social groups, in which individual singularities are present. Most importantly, what then appears is the fact that the boundary between 'cultural legitimacy'? and 'cultural illegitimacy'? separates not only the different social classes but also the different cultural practices and preferences of the same individuals in all classes. Without questioning the existence of social inequalities as regards the most legitimate cultural forms, this perspective on knowledge enables us to show the high statistical frequency of individual cultural profiles composed of heterogeneous or dissonant elements. After considering the socio-historical conditions of production of heterogeneous cultural profiles, we can see how these different cultural dissonances influence the interpretation of the social functions of culture, and highlight the interest of the hypothesis in terms of which each individual can be defined as a 'mix of genres'?.