From: BoPaulle-AT-aol.com
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 20:12:50 EST
Subject: Re: hysteresis


Karl wrote:

>Apart from definitions, does anyone have any opinions about its
>usefulness?  I'd be interested to hear whether others find it useful.  I
>think it obviouly indicates something which intuitively makes a lot of
>sense, but I am a little wary of its ad hoc nature, the way it saves
>habitus and cannot really be described separately from the very practices
>it is meant to be defining.  This isn't to deny it's usefulness, but to
>draw attention to caution I feel is needed when jumping on the idea as a
>means of 'explaining' otherwise difficult or anomalous issues.  

Karl is asking the more interesting question, i think.  Is "hysteresis" PB's
way of  "saving" habitus from critique or is this PB running into the fact
that the world in always much more complex, dynamic, and perhaps even "multi-
dimensional" than any theory.  Perhaps a bit of both.  But can't we agree that
he generally has it right with concept?  Don't we all know of numerous
examples that more or less fit this model?  Political-economic structures
(among others) change rapidly and often the sets of dispositions of agents
immersed in social whirlwinds are indeed very out of sync with the changes.
This comes to life in, for example, In Search of Respect (P. Bourgeoise), one
of the best books I've ever read.   
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