File spoon-archives/bourdieu.archive/bourdieu_1999/bourdieu.9907, message 39


Date: Thu, 08 Jul 1999 19:11:22 +0200
From: Guenter Trendler <trendler-AT-rumms.uni-mannheim.de>
Subject: Re: Bourdieu the "Top Guy"




George Free wrote:

> On Thu, 8 Jul 1999, Guenter Trendler wrote:
>
> > > Well, the question is: is he right or wrong in this assessment?
> > >
> > > George Free
> >
> > how to decide this question? there are as many truths as standpoints.
> > though I think the question is very interesting, I don't believe that it
> > can be decided properly. bourdieu seems to be like freud and marx, to
> > mention only two of the more extreme cases, on a one man totalitarian
> > trip and that indeed should be worrying.
> >
>
> This line of thinking really concerns me, Guenter. Don't we have to try
> and arrive at a decision about whether something is true or false, even
> if we admit that our conclusions may only be provisional, and part of a
> longer dialogue? Otherwise we might throw up our hands and say everything
> is relative. ....a position that results in nihilism, and leaves the
> field open for the real totalitarians.
>
> I do not agree that Freud and Marx are totalitarian. In fact they were
> the great progressive and liberalizing intellectual forces of their day.
> The same is true today of Bourdieu.
>
> George Free
> *******

Dear George, if I only knew. My references to Freud and Marx were inspired by
Poppers "The open society and its enemies", a critic which I much agree with.
In the meantime his critical rationalism itself has become very dogmatic and
an enemy of the open society. Isn't this paradox quite disturbing? I think,
Bourdieu is on the best way to join this club. As Victor Braitberg nicely
pointed out Bourdieu is sometimes inclined to believe, that the arguments of
his critics stem from a basic misunderstanding which arise from their social
situation, so that their objections are not worth discussing. Obviously
Bourdieu is convinced that his arguments do not suffer of the same distortion.
But I don't know how much he really is caught in his own system of thinking.

The problem with "truth" is I think that  for instance there could be two
systems of thought, which both pretend to be true resp. to have sound
arguments for their position and consider the other side to suffer from some
form of delusion. How to decide between them without joining one of them or
taking a third standpoint (as Bourdieu did between Sartre and Levi-Strauss)?
Still I don't think we have to fear nihilism. Maybe we only should except
there to be different position possible, without the possibility to decide
between them on the criteria of truth and in the meantime be distrustful with
positions which try to distinguish themselves as the only true ones.

Sincerely,
Guenter Trendler


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

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005