Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 11:44:46 +0200 (EET)
From: Emrah Goker <egoker-AT-Bilkent.EDU.TR>
Subject: RE: Games, Wittgenstein and the Logic of the "Practical Logic"




Greetings Sergio!

Thank you for the "unbearable" (!) post, which has nailed me to my seat in
front of the terminal, drifting me away in thought. As I did to Andrew's
post, I will not try to refute or argue against you, only to attempt to
clarify my thoughts. Forgive me in dividing your post into 
pseudo-paragraphs... 

You begin with:
> First: I don't understand your problem with "resistance" being an
> epiphenomenon of field dynamics, nor your need that it be "radical,
> transformative, action". Doesn't Bourdieu's entire theoretical structure
> drive against the false opposition between spontaneous voluntarism and
> mechanical determinism, thereby allowing for a realistic form of
> transformative action, i.e., action which knows itself determined, and wich
> through an awareness of the determinations, however partial, can seek an
> optimal response to its realities and against the mystifications of an
> everything-or-nothing?

Raymond Williams (in I think Towards 2000) wrote that he was trying to
"make hope practical, rather than despair convincing". When I complain
about "resistance being an epiphenomenon of field dynamics" I had two
problems in mind: 

1) About Agency: PB's theory of agency successfully accounts for the
*iterational element* of agency, that is, what habitus inherits from the
past plus the conditionings of the field/structure. Next, talking about
how the field's "logic" is inscribed in our bodies --as you also restate
below--, thus governing (but not determining) our actual actions and
dispositions, PB also partially accounts for the *projective  element* of
agency. However, here he does not focus on some of the possible future
trajectories of action,"in which received structures of thought and action
may be creatively configured in relation to actors' hopes, fears, and
desires for the future" [1]. Thirdly, I find even less in PB concerning
the *practical-evaluative element* of agency, where I believe dispositions
which aim to shatter the doxa of a field can be produced. This third
element concerns present-oriented, creative action relatively-independent
of what is symbolically imposed on the agent.

2) This point is about PB's own intellectual standpoint, concerning also
his pessimism (though not intended on purpose). He seems not to believe
that the ordinary agent not illuminated by the theory of genetic
structuralism can be effectively self-reflexive. From time to time he
talks about the interviewing sociologist's "intervention" where s/he
forces the interviewee to reflect on things never thought of. Or PB also
talks about the role of the social scientist (which I really appreciate),
exposing what is going on in the fields, thus creating a counter-power
group over repressive measures of capital or of state. However, the
privileges of "enlightening" and "self-reflexivity" seems to belong to the
social scientist. The "layman/laywoman", although not an automaton (that
is very clear for me), is not recognized in Bourdieu as "resistant".     

You continue:
> ...doesn't the idea of a RADICAL break entail but a myth which carries
> within itself the seed of a misrecognised reproduction of what it
> offsets itself against, through symbolic inversions brought about
> against the concrete reality, the backdrop of ingrained dispositions
> against which mere discourse is impotent? (Hence Bourdieu's reiterated
> observations of our social gymnastics, the corporeal symbolism, so to
> say, which is not easily brought out into discursive expression, and
> which he then "phenomenologically" points out to us.)

Bourdieu, in criticizing Foucault, was saying that one cannot get rid of 
symbolic violence, which is not exerted _externally_ but is something like
the air we breathe, getting us unconsciously [2]. He also held that "If, 
to resist, I have no means other than to make mine and to claim aloud
the very properties that mark me as dominated... is that resistance? If, 
on the other hand, I work to efface everything that is likely to reveal
my origins, or to trap me in my social position... should we then speak  
of submission?" [3] And finally:

   It is nonsense to suggest that I do not recognize the resistance of the
   dominated. To put it briefly: if I stress the complicity of the
   dominated in their own domination, it is "to twist the stick in the
   other direction",  to break once and for all with this populist
   mythology in currency among intellectuals who feel a need to believe
   that the dominated are always on the alert, allways ready to mobilize,
   to rise up, to overturn the oppression they suffer. Projecting their
   intellectual vision, which is that of a spectator, an external 
   observer, they forget that the dominated are socialized by the very
   conditions in which they live and that they are therefore often
   determined --to varying degrees-- to accommodate to their situation,
   lest the world be totally unlivable for them. [4]  

Phew! Now, I am with Bourdieu in criticizing (and even demonizing) those
intellectual populists (e.g., John Fiske) who find resistance even in
zapping in front of TV. I am also with him when he complains about
intellectuals philosphizing from outside, as external observers (hence his
attempt to transcend objecivism-subjectivism dichotomy). When resisting, I
will of course use the properties that mark me as dominated, that is my
"identity"; but that is not all I have, I elaborate, I respond, I react, I
plan, and I can do these despite my habitus as it is inscribed inits form
that marks me as dominated. Moreover, I do not resist only to claim aloud
my properties, for example, I do no resist racism only to say "black is
beautiful", or I do not resist heterosexism only to comfortably continue
my life as a gay, and so on. I also resist to "change", to "transform", to
"revolutionize" what marks me dominated, so that no one will benefit of
suffer from what the field does anymore. PB very easily gets rid of the
Marxian formulization of resistance.   
  
You then give very valuable comments on Wittgenstein and games, and
they have been very helpful indeed. Your points are very well taken. And
even Schatzki acknowledges PB's references to Wittgenstein, in that
Bourdieu does not think that his theory _exhausts_ practice, but is
expressive, as you say, of "the generative principle of the practices".
You made me reconsider whether Bourdieu really undertheorizes practical
logic.

You finally write (leaving me out of breath, as I reach the end):
> Third: I don't know exactly what you mean by Bourdieu's practical logic
> having "poorly-defined mental/psychological bases," but - well, I am right
> now in the process of finishing my M.A. Thesis and I've come up against some
> literature pertaining to possible "cognitivist" bases for Bourdieu's theory
> in: M.Bloch's contribution to the volume "Conceptualizing Society" (A.Kuper,
> Ed.) and his contribution to the volume "Assessing Cultural Anthropology"
> (Borofsky, Ed.); also C.Strauss and N.Quinn's contribution to the latter
> volume; C.Strauss' and D'Andrade's contributions to "Human Motives and
> Cultural Models" (both of them Eds.); or chapter 7 of D'Andrade's "The
> Development of Cognitive Anthropology". All of them exploit a
> "connectionist" model of cognition, which makes sense of much of Bourdieu's
> theory (and I still believe Bourdieu's theory makes a lot more sense than
> their speculations on tentative cognitive models, at least in what concerns
> the social structure of behavior, representation, etc.)

I believe you correctly guessed what I tried to mean. I am in agreement
with your point that what PB offers is a lot more sophisticated and armed
with greater explanatory power than cognitive/social-psychological models
(of which I am largely ignorant). Nevertheless, I still think that
Bourdieusian agency needs elaboration.

GOSH! I am tired... 

                    References (what an academic post!)

[1] Emirbayer, M. and Mische, A. (1998) "What is Agency?", American
Journal of Sociology,  103 (4), pp. 962-1023.
[2] Bourdieu, P. and Eagleton, T. (1992) "Doxa and Common Life", NLR, 191,
pp. 111-121.
[3] Bourdieu, P. and Wacquant, L.J.D. (1992) An Invitation to Reflexive
Sociology, The Un. of Chicago Press, London and Chicago. (p. 23)
[4] Bourdieu, P. and Wacquant, L.J.D. (1993) "From Ruling Class to the
Field of Power: An Interview with Pierre Bourdieu on La noblesse d'Etat",
Theory, Culture and Society, 10 (3), pp.19-44. (p.35)


Best wishes,
Emrah GOKER
 

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