From: "Simon Beesley" <simonb-AT-beesleys.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Robbins book--review
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 11:58:49 +0100


Yves,

> I never suggested you were not "thoroughly familiar with Pascalian
> Meditations" neiher was I talking about anybody being "insincere", for this
> language is besides the point and I was simply suggesting to APPLY the
> theory of habitus to Bourdieu instead of theorizing in the abstract about
> "gamesmanship" or worst moralizing about  what is "absurd" or "histrionic".


With all due respect, you have missed the point badly. How does talk of a theory
of gamesmanship and strategy come to be translated into "theorizing in the
abstract about gamesmanship"? My starting point was the following passage in Jon
Beasley-Murray's review:

"But he has most to say about the difficulties of reading Bourdieu.  Or rather,
it is not so much that reading Bourdieu is difficult, but that his conception of
(particularly) academic culture is also a theory of gamesmanship and strategy
that seems to condemn in advance any strategic use of that theory.  If, in
Bourdieu's words quoted here at the outset, "there is no way out of the game
of culture," Bourdieu would have us believe that any attempt to criticise his
argument about the rules of that game is simply an illegitimate attempt to deny
our own participation."


The "his" in the second sentence refer's to Bourdieu, so in talking about a
theory of gamesmanship we are describing an aspect of Bourdieu's analysis of
academic culture in a particular way -- and, quite likely, one that he would not
be adverse to. This is not at all the same as theorizing about gamesmanship.
Likewise, where did you find the idea that I was moralizing about what is
"absurd" or "histrionic"? Your implication seems to be that merely to use the
words "absurd" and "histrionic" is to moralize.

> What I suggested implicitly with the comparison with Bouveresse was simply
> to do a sociological analysis (no moral indignation or judgement) of
> Bourdieu and his habitus: for example, taking into account the structure of
> the French field in which he is part. Thus, Bourdieu is part of the French
> field and acts accordingly.His trajectotry is psecific and his "ennemies"
> are arounf him and he answers them in "the French way". One could analyse
> along these lines the discussion about the absence of explicit citations to
> "colleagues" in works like Foucault, Boudon, Derrida etc all "top" French
> thinkers who are trained to think for themselves and who, from their
> 'chair', are above the others and not with them as we tend to do in North
> American departments or our annual congresses where we can discuss with our
> "top" colleagues from across the country or even from many countries. Can
> you imagine a French congress of sociology in Paris where Bourdieu would be
> on a panel with Boudon and Touraine?


I have had this kind of discussion before on this list and, as before, I can
only think we are talking at cross purposes. I can assure you that my intention
is not to criticize Bourdieu's concepts and theory (or at least not crudely or
as if the theory were monolithic). Instead, I am simply trying to follow up
Jon's (and Robbins's and Malgazorta Jacyno's) ideas about applying
some of Bourdieu's conceptions to his own trajectory and theoretical practice.
Obviously, this would be a pointless task if one thought these same conceptions
were flawed or empty or invalid. I know next to nothing about Boudon and
Touraine and very little in general about "the French field" and, truth to tell,
I am not terribly interested in it. (I am interested in Bourdieu's ideas, but do
not see why one should approach them in a wholly uncritical fashion.) Not many
anglophone Bourdieusians, I imagine, are familiar with the embattled Bourdieu
you depict above. Are you suggesting that an understanding of Bourdieu's thought
requires us to align ourselves with this rather parochial intellectual
factionalism, as if intellectual football fans or hooligans?

Regards
Simon








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