Date: Thu, 01 Oct 1998 10:54:20 +0900
From: "Allan Sutherland" <allan-AT-kyushu-ns.ac.jp>
Subject: Re: Revenge of Jeffrey Alexander? But revenge from what?




Emrah Goker wrote:

>
>    These days I am trying to throw a net over every bit of printed
> material discussing Bourdieu. I do not know if this article is discussed
> here before, but I was surprised with the harshness of the blows Jeffrey
> C. Alexander, the famous proponent of the neo-functionalist school, tries
> to strike in his book. [Fin de Siecle Social Theory: Relativism,
> Reduction, and the Problem of Reason; 1995; Verso; chapter 4 is dedicated
> to the crushing down of Bourdieu's theory]
>    Alexander is very angry with literally *all* the books and articles
> written by Bourdieu and mainly accuses him with misrepresenting the theory
> and practice of the structuralist school. Bourdieu, in all his works, is
> accused to be extremely reductionist, blamed by Alexander to dictate that
> thought (and thus dispositions, strategies, ideologies, "campus
> radicalism", professorial ideology, etc.) is determined by the strictly
> constraining social structures.
>    I will not go into detailed exposition of Alexander's criticisms, but
> quote a few paragraphs:
>
>         With this theoretical indifference [he means Bourdieu's concept of
>         symbolic violence] to the ethical possibilities of a historical
>         movement away from physical domination, Bourdieu denies the
>         implications of the civilizing process that thinkers like Freud
>         and Elias so well understood: it is precisely the _failure_ to
>         sublimate violence into more symbolic kinds of aggression that
>         creates the psychological conditions for the most drastic
>         upheavals in contemporary life. [152]
>
>         Sympathetic interpreters of Bourdieu's field theory have failed to
>         appreciate the importance of the difference between an analytical
>         construction that involves real, if relative, autonomy for
>         elements in various institutional fields and one that rests upon
>         the notion of homology, which denies it. [163]
>
>         Bourdieu, who has never written a word about factories or the
>         production of material goods, has spent  more time on the
>         educational system than any other institutional domain. [167]
>
>         Because culture has been so crudely reduced too material
>         circumstance, Bourdieu cannot recognize countercultures or popular
>         culture. Such phenomena are independent or antagonistic to the
>         centers of social power. They suggest that `cultural tradition'
>         can organize itself independently of power, a possibility that
>         allows subordinated groups to maintain relatively independent, and
>         often resistant, standards of judgment and taste. [178]
>
> Finally, a quotation he makes from Jenkins ["Review of Pierre Bourdieu,
> _Distinction_", in _Sociology_ 20(1), p. 104]:
>
>         The superficiality of Bourdieu's discussion of the working class
>         is matched only by its arrogance and condescension. ...Perhaps it
>         is time Bourdieu took up the anthropologist's pith helmet and
>         actually went out and spent some time among the women and men
>         about whom he writes. [178]
>
> It goes on like this. Alexander is very enraged (I recalled, last
> night, while reading him, E. P. Thompson's thunderbolts sent against
> Althusser -yet Thompson was, on the whole, right) especialy in the
> reductionist Marxisant posture of Bourdieu. Alexander himself is on the
> side of the forces of civil society.
>    So, let's discuss: What does Alexander avenge? What are the stakes in
> his criticisms? And, morre importantly, is he justified?
>
> Best Wishes,
> Emrah Goker
>
>

In respect of Alexander's criticisms of Bourdieu, and the general tenor of their criticism I
urge you  to read the followng text:

Holmwood, John., & Stewart, Alexander.  1991 Explanation and Social Theory. McMillan, London.

Alexander's criticisms return to haunt him.


All the best,

Allan.



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