From: "kent strock" <sigmund5-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: basis of critique
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 10:10:31 PST


>
> > Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 07:21:13 PST
> > From: "kent strock" <sigmund5-AT-hotmail.com>
> > Subject: Re: request
> >
> >     At the risk of sounding exclusionary, but this is a Bourdieu 
>newsgroup
> > and to attack Jon without having read any or little Bourdieu is
> > irresponsible and should be ignored.
>
>Very quickly... but I'd beg to differ from Kent's view here.
>
>More anon, no doubt.
>
>Take care
>
>Jon
>

I think that perhaps the snippet chosen to represent my position was a bit 
selective and doesn't reflect later refinements i made later in my argument. 
I didn't ignore her and I did offer what I thought would be useful in 
understanding some of the basics of B. project. Again I am trying to avoid 
an either/or distinction here, but ania's response was such a misreading of 
jon's response and betrayed a lack of good faith, that my initial first act 
was just that and perhaps taken too seriously, even by myself. But it does 
again raise the question of what is the purpose of this group and 
particularly how often do some of the basics have to be recapitulated in 
uninformed responses at the expense of furthering more generative discussion 
here?  I think ania's reactive response to it was productive in a negative 
sense, in showing what a generative type of response is not.  And it did 
clarify a few things, but not in its intended content...it didn't offer the 
possibility for generating much new thought or questions to be discussed.  
What did come out of it was your typology of the political trajectories of 
Bourdieu, which is a question I have been raising however elliptically it 
may seem to some.  What was not productive was this continued labeling of 
others as elitist or not politically concerned as others because of 
ignorance of the various political dimensions of B. thought.  This continued 
mis-communication, to use a nice word, gets old. I read nothing in ania's 
response that had a spirit of engagement. Not that emotion or conflict 
should be exorcised, hell I would be the last who would say that given some 
of my posts, but as Derrida, I think pointed out and which runs counter to 
the Utopian readings of Bourdieu, has pointed out ALL writing is violent.  
Perhaps some of my comments have been intemperate, some I apologize for, but 
I think they have engaged an issue or raised issues from a bourdieu 
perspective, which of course this is.
    My use of the word "ignore" could be refined by acknowledging that the 
fact is that there are people of various levels of reading and competance of 
B. discourse and people come here with various desires.  Those less familiar 
with Bourdieu may come here looking for help in understanding the B. while 
others would like to see a broader and more indepth discussion that is 
generative of more questions.  How do the two coincide within the list?  In 
the interest of time, emotion and the neophyte I will choose to ignore 
simplistic pleas for answers.  However, I would ask that those who have not 
read at least portions of the thread and have not read much B. refrain from 
attacks of exclusion, elitism, difficult language etc., claiming some moral 
high ground,in the name of Bourdieu when the "problem" is much more 
complicated.  So maybe more lurking is necessary.
kentorhea

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