File spoon-archives/bourdieu.archive/bourdieu_1996/96-07-02.141, message 43


Date: Sat, 27 Jan 1996 13:11:48 -0800 (PST)
From: <harrawoo-AT-violet.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Power and agon: a query


This is a question I want to ask the list re an earlier discussion of B's 
account of power and of empowerment.  This a question from outside the 
field.  I'm interested in how certain literary critics use Bourdieu to 
make social claims about sixteenth century literature, Shakespeare in 
particular.

Is it the case that the Bourdieuvian account of power is always something 
that moves from the inside out?  In other words, to paraphrase an earlier 
post, is it always only a power that influences or dominates, but never 
one that empowers?  Is there an account given in Bourdieu's work, or in 
the studies it has generated, about what it _feels like_ to feel oneself 
to be empowered?

Two moments in _Distinction_ stick out in my mind.  First, there's the 
guy who eats all the beans in the section on tast in the lower classes, 
which he calls "The Choice of the Necessary."  While most of the chapter 
is concerned with the lines of social dominance that lead to the poor's 
choice of beans, is there any way to get a sense of how that choice -- 
deciding that you _really_ like beans -- somehow also empowers the 
dominated?  The other moment is the reflection on the Autodidact, who, 
Bourdieu says, can never accumulate enough learning to acquire the sense 
of validation that institutions of learning are in the buisness of 
confering.  It seems to me that there's a sudden shift here, where 
Bourdieu moves from his data and makes a reflection about what the 
Autodidact is feeling -- and that this move is really something of a jump 
for Bourdieu, since his data don't really give him any real basis for an 
alanysis of the internal thoughts of the person.

I'm interested in this because of the prominence Bourdieu and the social 
sciences have gained in literary scholarship over the last few years.  I 
hope somebody out there can help me with this.

Michael Harrawood
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