Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 17:19:13 -0800 (PST)
From: Patrick Scott <scott931-AT-uidaho.edu>
Subject: Re: Habitus and culture change




On Tue, 19 Nov 1996, Shawn Lindsay wrote:

> Bourdieu does specifically deal with "crisis" as a necessary (but not 
> sufficient) condition for the critique of doxa (Outline 168ff.).  A 
> fuller version of this argument appears in Language and Symbolic Power 
> (Description and Prescription," chapt. 5).  The "conjunture of critical 
> discourse and an objective crisis," Bourdieu argues, enables not merely a 
> break from the grip of orthodoxy, but a discourse of heretical subversion 
> with practical effects (see esp. "Description" p.128).
> 
This is also echoed in his speech to the railway workers at Gare de Lyon,
Paris on December 12, 1995:

"In the work of reinventing the public services, the intellectuals,
writers, artists, scientists, etc. have a determining role to play. First
of all, they can contribute to breaking up the monopoly that the
technocratic orthodoxy has over the means of distribution.  But they can
also commit themselves, in an organized and permanent manner (and not only
in the occasional event of a crisis situation) to stand by those who are
in a position to effectively guide the future of society, notably
associations and syndicates, and work to develop rigorous analyses and
inventive suggestions concerning the big questions that the
media-political orthodoxy forbids us to ask..."  

(My crude translation; original copy might still be at:
http://www.lglobal.com/TAO/A-Infos95-2/0175.html)

What makes Bourdieu so exciting is that you'll be reading stuff in one of
his books and nod your head with approval but some reservation (that
"yeah, right" impulse that's been monkey-trained into our skulls). Next
thing you know, you run across a speech or article where he's actively
involved in the process, "as advertised." :)  

Does anyone know of other small speeches by Bourdieu which are available
on the internet?  I've got a few articles which I'm in the process of
translating and putting on a web page of mine: Gare de Lyon speech, the
recent anti-Tietmeyer article in La Liberation, and two others which are
buried too far in my pile of papers to obtain at this moment. :)

-Pat
scott931-AT-uidaho.edu
 

**********************************************************************
Contributions: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Commands: majordomo-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Requests: bourdieu-approval-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu