From: "Hugo Mendes" <agon-AT-mail.telepac.pt>
Subject: Re: Bourdieu the "Top Guy"
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1999 12:58:13 +0100


I think Victor Braitberg, George Free and Guenter Trendler are engaging in
a most important point in Bourdieu's work - it's capacity to accept (and
incorporate) criticism. 
Victor choses a very good example to illustrate the "authoritarian
tendencies" of Bourdieu, his "Concluding Remarks: For a Sociogenetic
Understanding of Intellectual Works" (In: Craig Calhoun, Ed.
Bourdieu:Critical Perspectives (Chicago:1993)). George asks: where are the
"authoritarian tendencies"? Well, I think their are very deeply inscribed
in Bourdieu's sociology of sociology. 
George says:

>If I remember correctly,
>in this response, he says its not worthwhile to address each of the
>individual criticisms levelled against him, because they all stem from
>basic misunderstandings which arise from the social situation of the
>critics. By pointing out these social conditions, and how they give rise
>to these misunderstandings, Bourdieu is doing the service of clarifying
>the situation and preparing the ground for real dialogue. Far from being
>authoritarian, it is "liberalizing" one might say, in the sense that it
>helps establish the conditions of free discourse, and genuine exchange. 

We might say that is very convenient, in an exchange with some high-level
critics, to say what Bourdieu really says: "you've all misunderstood me".
It's very convenient not to address the individual criticisms, saying to
everybody - "you missed the context of its production". I think that this
is the first principle to eliminate all the possibilities of dialogue,
becuase this can be Bourdieu's answer to virtually all critics. In the
limit, Bourdieu doesn't ever, following this rationale, really needs to
read and answer its critics.

I think here we can find the major perversion in Bourdieu's sociology of
sociology - giving so major importance to the social and historical context
of production (and I believe he's quite right in this point), Bourdieu
never reach to discuss the criticisms (if you want, its 'content') made to
his work. 
But this is not a necessary perversion; Bourdieu could make the comment he
made - "you've all misunderstood me" - , AND STILL discuss the interesting
criticisms made by Lash, Garnham, Lipuma or Dreyfus and Rabinow. Not doing
this, Bourdieu is avoiding critical exchange, not preparing the "ground for
real dialogue", as George says. 
Where could be the "ground for real dialogue?", someone asks. Well, for
Bourdieu the only guys who can really discuss with him, the ones that are
not to miss the social and historical context, are the guys trained be him
- the guys trained to acquire and follow his scientific habitus. But then I
ask: how much discussion will you have in that situation? I think very
little. The doxa will be hegemonic - and that will prevent you to put some
important questions that the doxa always makes unquestionable.
For example, in his essay in that book, Brubaker says that «effective
criticism depends, I think, on a certain heterogeneity of habitus» (p.224).
I would like to know what Bourdieu has to say about this point. But he
prefers to avoid "individual criticisms".

So, to prepare the "ground for real dialogue" in the international field of
sociology, where everyone could discuss with Bourdieu, using the same
categories and necessarily giving the same meaning to them, we just had to
make one thing: to arrange a trip to all sociology students in the world
and giving them a place in the College the France to assist Bourdieu's
lectures, and a place in his Centre of European Sociology, to acquire his
sociological habitus. 

But what would we get from this: a "ground for real dialogue", or just
intellectual standardization? 

Yous,

Hugo Mendes
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