Subject: Re: Quest.
Date: Tue, 1 May 2001 14:28:40 -0500



I was hardly claiming that one point of view is as good as another.  I was
simply resisting the notion that one has to read such and such in order to
understand such and such--which can of course stretch endlessly back to
Eve.  To push the question a bit further--the notion of understanding
Bourdieu correctly is a bit funny to me.  Actually, that notion occurs in a
rhetorically flat space & that is likely what leads to misinterpretation.
I am a writing teacher interested in social class issues.  I go to Bourdieu
for purposes that have to do with getting interesting ideas or ways of
seeing issues in my research.  I see myself as a scavenger of ideas.  Of
course if one is studying bourdieu in order to study bourdieu, well, that's
a different case (and kind of a funny thing to do--at least as I understand
Bourdieu) :).
irvin peckham





Simon Beesley <simonb-AT-beesleys.freeserve.co.uk>-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
on 04/30/2001 02:05:58 PM

Please respond to bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu

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cc:    (bcc: Irvin Peckham/ipeckh1/LSU)

Subject:  Re: Quest.


Irvin,

You wrote:

> Simon's comment leads me to comment on my perception of a
territorializing
> instinct in some posts.  It's sort of like--I and my group of
like-thinkers
> have the "right" picture of bourdieu.

This would be a point worth making only if there were any other way of
discussing ideas --
arguing for and against positions, finding grounds for them, putting
forward reasons for
believing this or that, or disbelieving it, etc. You seem to be gesturing
to a chimerical
notion of intellectual correctness where no-one claims to believe strongly
in any position
whatsoever lest they be charged with a territorial instinct. It doesn't
matter one jot
whether the tone of one's contribution suggests the belief that one is
right or has the
right picture. I certainly believe that my picture of Bourdieu -- as far as
it goes -- is
"right" but my belief is only as good as the considerations and arguments I
put forward
for it. There is no other way to proceed -- unless, that is, you endorse
some sort of
free-floating, free-wheeling, formless relativism. As Hillary Putnam puts
it "If any
point of view is as good as any other, then why isn't the point of view
that relativism is
false as good as any other?" To insist that there is a right picture of
Bourdieu -- or,
simply, that some interpretations and understandings of Bourdieu are more
correct than
others -- is not necessarily to be dogmatic, territorialistic,
totalitarian, totalizing or
what-have-you. It is instead the most fundamental prerequisite for
discourse about ideas.

> I say
> all this in challenge to the notion that we need to understand such and
> such and such and such in order to read someone like bourdieu.  Against
> this territorializing notion, I would ask--how would b. interpret that
> move?

The question of what concepts, theories, and bodies of knowledge will
facilitate
understanding of Bourdieu's (not notably accessible) ideas is quite a
different matter.
And I can't see that it is at all territorializing. For example, I have
seen posts on this
list which suggest a knowledge of Raymond Boudon's sociology (and his
critique of
Bourdieu) would be useful. As it happens I haven't read Boudon (and until I
joined the
list hadn't heard of him). But I don't think the recommendation to read him
is
territorializing or, on the other hand, that my ignorance of Boudon is a
great handicap.
It's not an all or nothing thing. Very likely reading Boudon would be most
illuminating.
But if I can't be bothered or haven't got the time to read him, maybe
somebody who has can
tell me something about his sociology and do so on this list. Where's the
intellectually
incorrect territorial notion here?

Regards
Simon
















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