Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 00:33:53 -0600 (CST)
From: KERRY <MACDONAK-AT-Meena.CC.URegina.CA>
Subject: Re: cultural capital and surplus


harrawoo-AT-violet.berkeley.edu

I would like to return the compliment, I found your post entirely enjoyable
with only a quibble here or there :).  Though I do confess that I think
Habermas's approach would serve as better theoritical basis in which to
critique my post; or maybe we have a point of convergence?

I would like to offer an apology to the tone as well as to the way that I
phrased some of my responses.  They were, IMO, a bit harsh, pompous as well as
a touch condescending.  The only defence that I would offer is that I'm once
again attempting to quit smoking and it is making a a tab bit snappish and
irritable.  You have caught me "red-handed".  

Again accept my apology for the tone and language usage that the post
contained.

However, as to your points ....

::KERRY wrote:
::
::> Given that this particular list is dedicaated to the meaningful exploration
::> of Bourdieu's concepts, there is the presumption that those who are 
::> engaging in the debate have a relatively working knowledge of the concepts
::> (otherwise the purpose of the list becomes somewhat moot).  
::> I presume that was not your intent but it could very easily be interpreted 
::> that way.  

::Here's my question: Wouldn't this paragraph be an excellent example of 
::what Bourdieu calls cultural capital?  Kerry's double use of the word 
::"presume" seems to me to universalize a position that is in fact 
::just his own.  Isn't this the way Bourdieu would say cultural capital is 
::able to circulate?  (i.e., I like Shakespeare; Shakespeare is great.)   

Not to quibble, however, I reviewed the information provided about the list I
would submit that my initial "presumption" is a valid one.  I fail to see how
such a conclusion could simply be my own, given that outline to this list
specifically states that the focus of this list is for the "discussion and
debate inspired by the philosophical and sociological thought of Pierre
Bourdieu", the presumption is quite logical.  I don't see how one can discuss
someone's work if they don't have a working knowledge of said work.  Your
Shakespeare example is inappropriate as it implies that my opinion wasn't
contextualized, however, as I refer to the purpose of the list which every
subscriber recieved the veracity of my observation is open to all members. 
Whereas your example implies a conclusion which is not independently verifiable
to the members.

As to whether or not it is an example of the "circulation of cultural capital",
the answer is no.  Before we can have capital, a field needs to exist.  IMo,
a mailing list does not constitute a field.  Granted, these lists are areas of
struggle, however, it is not a "field of force", nor is there "a system of
objective relations of power between social positions which correspond to a
system of objective relations between symbolic points".  Elements exist, but
there is no power, there is nothing at stake.  Whether I am able to convince
anyone or not does not advantage me in a political sense.  There is no power
relations.  I enjoy the debate, however, there is no consequence when one makes
a faut pas.  Thus one can  intentionally or unintentionally insult someone and
no appreciable outcome arises.  Without risk, or something to win or lose (ie.
capital) a field or vice versa.  Which is why I offered Habermas as a more
appropriate theoritician, as he is concerned with "speech acts".

::Kerry's point that cultural capital is both metaphoric and not so seems 
::to be demonstrated above.  On one level the paragraph makes claims about 
::the presumed purpose of the list (what moots it, what constitutes a 
::legitimate post, and so on); at another it states with absolute clarity 
::the terms of surplus and production ("wanting to do the work," "lazy," 
::etc.), upon which the metaphor of capital is constructed.

I was attempting to illustrate the dialectic that works in Bourdieu's work,
however, I fail to appreciate the later half of your argument.  My comments
about "laziness" had more to do with what I believe to constitute appropriate
behaviour, which is only coincidental that the terms are also terms which can
be applied in a capitalist system.  I believe that you are confusing the values
of capitalism with the term capital.  Capitalism has a number of ethics and
values in regards to its views on work, however, capital has nothing
implicitly anything to do with work (except in the sense that capital is
created and durable).   

I would also argue that aesthetic comments about work may have something to do
about production, i.e. the labour process, however, they have nothing to do
with the concept of surplus (as this concept refers to the excess of a good).

::The metaphor seems to me to work like this: by doing the work one 
::acquires the basic capital ("enlightenment") that would legitimate 
::participation in the discussions on the list.  _This_, in turn, gets 
::transferred (metaphorien) into a "presumed" universal that everybody else 
::on the list had to share before the list itself could be.  The metaphor 
::is what distances Kerry from his own perspective and argument. 


As I intially said, I did enjoy your reply, it is amusing in the way it doesn't
actually get at the argument, yet it does construct a quirky analysis.

You really seemed to be hung up on this idea of a "universal", as if the list
could exist without any subject matter.  The Bourdieu list  exists because
people who are interested in Bourdieu want to discuss his ideas.  It has a
title, the purpose isn't my invention it is the logical extention that this
list actually exists.  Otherwise the list could be simply called the A;FDLKJ
list.  

You seem to take affront to the idea that there should be no proviso that
before one can discuss something that person should have some knowledge about
the subject matter.  Given that any named list has an inherent raison d'etre
your attack on the "presumed universal" is baseless.

As to what your last sentence  is actually attempting to infer, I must confess
I don't have a clue.

:::Again, my question:  Isn't the distancing power of the metaphor what lies 
::at the heart of cultural capital for Bourdieu?  The point of, say, his 
::term "resignation" in describing the French lower classes in 
::_Distinction_ is to elucidate the claim on the part of the guy who eats 
::all the beans that "beans are good,"  which seems to be a way of "doing 
::the work" -- of sliding from one sensibility (I must eat beans) to another 
::(everybody ought to eat beans).  Right?  If so, then Bourdieu is 
::attacking Kant's aesthetic (which is the principle target of 
::_Distinction_), and in particular the "disinterest" that operates within 
::the Kantian paradigm of judgment.

No the choice of term was descriptive.  Your bean analogy is completely off
base (I'm not even sure which base you are trying to touch?)

In many ways today's theorists are in dialogue with Kant.  For Kant
"understanding without the guideance of another person is understanding guided
by reason".  Kant believed that enlightenment, the ability to be
self-directing, could only come about by the use of reason.  Yet we know that
reason by itself has had limited success.  Bourdieu discussion about
"resignation" was discriptive, not purjorative.  He simply outlined that the
lower one is on the socio-economic ladder the less you believe you have choice
and the more likely you are resigned to your station.  Bourdieu doesn't argue t
hat the "lower classes" are devoid of the ability to judge, but rather what is
the context (their habitus if you will) that produces the judgements it does. 
They may know perfectly well that the system isn't working for them, however,
they do feel powerless in believeing that they can affect the system in any
way.

::Please let me know if you think I've got this right.  I'm interested in 
::this because I work, as I say, in an English department, where we are 
::deeply "invested" in the acquisition of a certain kind of cultural 
::capital (the legitimacy of which has of late come quite rightly into 
::dispute).  I've been having a private correspondence with somebody who 
::asks me why I do what I do, and what it is I think I'm doing.  Maybe the 
::list members can help me figure out an answer.


You could always respond with "it pays the rent".  As Bourdieu would argue one
needs to step back and ask what are the implicit values/attitudes that must
exist for such a question to exist.  I would argue that the whole of the
lifeworld is being colonized by the economic field; all other values are being
subsumed to the exclusion of any except those of the economic field.  Or from a
more Bourdieuian perspecitive all fields are losing what autonomy they had to
the economic field.