Distinction
Distinction
Pierre Bourdieu's 'monumental' work concerns the operation of taste
in French society. It is based on a large survey carried out in 1963 and
1967-8, with a total of 1217 subjects. In this survey, people were asked
to specify their preferences in a huge range of things. People specified
their personal tastes in music, art, theatre, home decor, social pastimes,
literature and so on. They also responded to questions regarding their
knowledge about these arts. So, what is distinctive
about Distinction? Why is this survey and Bourdieu's analysis
of it important? I discuss my appreciation of this work, along with bibliographic
details and links to other relevant sites.
What's distinctive
about Distinction?
Distinction is a work which addresses itself simultaneously to many
concerns, and is a stimulating contribution to any one of these academic
areas. It is a contribution to the study of taste
and aesthetics, repudiating the idea of a universal transcendent conception
of the aesthetic. It advances Marxist sociology. It is a reformulation
of the conception of capital, looking at economic,
cultural, educational and social capital within a unified framework.
Through this, a better understanding of class
and status group, the Marxist and Weberian categories of social analysis
is achieved. Furthermore, it also advances Bourdieu's general theory
of society and social agents, a theoretical project which is also undertaken
in Outline of a Theory of Practice and The Logic of Practice.
Taste and Aesthetics
Part of Bourdieu's aim is to undermine the aesthetic theory of Immanuel
Kant, which continues to dominate philosophical aesthetics (crudely, the
theory of what is beatiful). Bourdieu argues that Kant's criterion
of the distinterestedness of the aesthetic gaze is an essentially middle
class phenomenon. The 'pure' 'refined' aesthetic, which derives
pleasure from considered reflection on things, is only possible by a distance
from things. This good taste is dependent on a separation from the necessities
of daily labour. This distance is produced by the status of the bourgeois
classes as separate from manual productive labour.
I think that this is perhaps one of the weaker arguments within Distinction.
Capital
Marxist theory has often been criticised for failing to recognise the
importance of 'culture'. In attending to the economic, the mode of production
of a society, as the foundation of that society, it reduces culture to
an epiphenomenal status. 'Culture' is treated as a mere reflection
of the economic 'base' of society. I think that this critique of Marx's
work is in part a little unfair, and very many authors within the Marxist
tradition have been closely involved in the study of culture.
Class
and Status Group
Theory
of Society
Other sites about
Pierre Bourdieu
| http://www.utu.fi/erill/RUSE/blink.html |
A longish list of sites about Pierre Bourdieu, provided by some anonymous
university in Finland, I think. |
| http://www.georgetown.edu/grad/CCT/tbase/bourdieu.html |
A quotation from Distinction, followed by a list of on-line
articles relating to Bourdieu. Provided by the Communication, Culture
and Technology Faculty at Georgetown University. This site has a huge number
of links to various resources in contemporary theory. And it looks good
too. |
Bibliographic
details
Bourdieu, P (1984) [1979] Distinction: A Social Critique of the
Judgement of Taste. Trans. R Nice. London: Routledge.
First published 1979 in French as La Distinction, Critique
sociale du jugement by Les Editions de Minuit, Paris. English translation
1984 by Richard Nice, titled Distinction: A Social Critique of
the Judgement of Taste, published by Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.
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