Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 19:41:55 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ralph Dumain <rdumain-AT-igc.apc.org>
Subject: Re: The Dialectics of Resentment


"To live outside the law you must be honest."  
    -- Bob Dylan

Roger Cook illustrates two points I was hoping to elicit from my attempts to
engage Sergio Pines-Martin.  

(1) As the methodology of Bourdieu begins with social form over content, the
method can be indifferently applied to any situation and therefore be
applied to any agenda.  I've just returned home from reading some more of
Bourdieu for a couple of hours and I've come to admire him more and more.  I
like the applications of his ideas which I find directed at elitist humbug
and in defense of the subordinate classes.  And these methods work so well
when the object of study is cause for cynicism, though it need not be.  It
could also easily be subjected to abuse, e.g. if one were to construe Cook's
clever riposte as a scurrilous attempt to protect academic privilege.  Then
again, he could be right about me.  As a matter of pure form, anything is
possible, which is why none of these questions can be decided as a matter of
pure form but on a case by case basis, considering the content that is being
disputed as well as the social form of the dispute.  I was hoping that
somebody would respond to me precisely in the manner that Roger did, but the
fact that he, who is already a dubious character in my book, was the one to
do so, only makes this situation more delicious for me.

(2) I couldn't get Sergio to continue along the lines that I proposed, but I
did ask the question about the habitus of the amateur and the autodidact as
well as the professional, leaving open the possibility that the position of
the outsider is as much open to critical interrogation as the insider.
Nobody took me up on the proposal to investigate this, but Roger Cook has
taken the bait and opened up this area thinking that he has found his
defense and his means to discredit me.  This is most amusing, but it is also
fortuitous.  For in the abstract, anything is possible.  Coming from a
provincial background and knowing completely what provinciality is all
about, I've spent a lifetime observing outsiders and well as insiders, and
there's no automatic virtue to being an outsider.  I've seen what happens
when rigid, bitter people trapped in a limited situation cannot adapt to a
changing world and develop a self-righteous, paranoic hatred of anything
they did not learn in their formative years, which, if it goes on long
enough, evolves to a full-fledged crackpot mentality.  I've seen it happen
and can only say "there but for the grace ....."  In the abstract, I could
as easily be one of those crackpots, as Cook could be an example of the
insider academic policing his turf and protecting his corrupt intellectual
gamesmanship.  In the abstract, anything is possible: one possibility, the
other, or even both.  And this is the potential danger that lurks in the
application of Bourdieu's methods.  I have no reason to believe that
Bourdieu has used them irresponsibly, and of course I don't know enough
about Roger Cook to know for sure that he is guilty of anything more serious
than a childish taste for bullshit art and the usual PC modus operandi of
character assassination.

As it happens, I consulted three books by Bourdieu within the past few
hours: DISTINCTION, LANGUAGE AND SYMBOLIC POWER, and THE FIELD OF CULTURAL
PRODUCTION. DISTINCTION has a short section on education and the autodidact
and some stray passages on the same theme elsewhere in the book.  His take
on the autodidact here is not own resentment, but on the insecurity of the
petit bourgeois autodidact who takes culture as something as serious as life
and death, and does not have the institutional status and security to
practice it as a games to be enjoyed because there's no doubt about his
right to play it.  He's not far wrong.  On the balance, Bourdieu shows far
more sympathy to the autodidact than he does to the professional.  Well,
he's French, and he states in his preface to the English-language edition
that he is aware of all that this implies.  Of course, French bourgeois
culture, being the epitome of bourgeois culture, is the enemy, and it takes
one to really know how to attack one.  In the USA, there are other issues.
Here the cult of know-nothingism is also a menace, esp. when practiced by
angry men in outlying areas with guns.  Now I'm serious about the
relationship between amateur and professional knowledges.  I not only have a
lifetime of personal experiences to back me up, but plenty of historical
examples, which I've not yet been asked to elucidate.
 
At 09:13 PM 9/14/98 +0000, Roger Cook wrote:
>Is there not the possibility of this being a case of what Bourdieu calls
>'the dialectic of resentment' in *The Rules of Art*
 

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