File spoon-archives/bourdieu.archive/bourdieu_1999/bourdieu.9907, message 24


Date: Thu, 08 Jul 1999 08:07:27 -0400
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Mich=E8le?= Ollivier <ollivier-AT-uottawa.ca>
Subject: Re: Bourdieu the "Top Guy"


>
>To reverse the argument: it could be said that those who refuse to
>consider the social and historical conditions that (nonconsciously)
>determine their thought are the mystifiers, the enemies of reason and
>of democracy. ...this is the basic claim of all "materialist" tendencies
>from Marx, to Freud and beyond, as I see it.

The analysis of social and historical conditions might provide an
explanation of *why* we're holding some thoughts, but it does not
address the question of whether these thoughts are right or wrong.
When I was a graduate student, I had a teacher who was strongly
against Marxist theory. Her family had emigrated from the Soviet
Union after years of persecution. Having studied sociology in Québec
and in France in the late 1970s and 1980s, I had been totally
immersed in Marxist thought. She often used this sociological
explanation to dismiss my arguments whenever I challenged her
in class. She refused to apply the same explanation to her own
arguments, and she always used this tactic to put an end to our
discussions. It was the opposite of reason and democracy.

In a recent paper, Christine Delphy cirticizes Bourdieu's
epistemology. She calls his position the "Munchhausen" :
"en effet, il réussit =E0 fixer l'attention de l'audience sur
le remarquable travail de cape historiciste qu'il réalise de la main
gauche, de sorte que personne ne voit le petit geste de la main
droite (l'auto-socio-analyse) par lequel il s'auto-tire par les
cheveux et s'auto-dépose en s=FBreté sur la berge tandis que le
fleuve de l'histoire nous emporte."

In short, he dismisses his critics by showing the sociological
underpinnings of their arguments while refusing to apply the same
procedure to his own nalyses.

Mich=E8le Ollivier




>George Free
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