This is a very detailed and
dense piece of work containing
some theoretical generalisations
and some detailed ethnographic
data arising from the study of
Kabylia (Algeria). As usual, I
have tried to extract some of
the basic points from some of
the arguments, and I can only
recommend that you try and read
the entire book.
Chapter 1
[Bourdieu is arguing against
the notion that social life can
be understood as applying a set
of rules. An early example
describes the rules of honour
among Kabylian males, and how
these rules are really tightly
bound to a whole practice --
'playing the game of honour'.
Thus 'What is called the sense
of honour is nothing other
than the cultivated disposition,
inscribed in the body schema and
in the schemes of thought, which
enables each agent to engender
all the practices consistent
with the logic of challenge and
riposte... [such practices
produce]... countless
inventions, which the
stereotyped unfolding of a
ritual would in no way demand...
even the most strictly
ritualised exchanges... have
room for strategies... [such as
managing] the interval between
the obligatory moments... we
know that returning a gift at
once, i e doing away with the
interval, amounts to breaking
off the exchange' (15)].
We can now move on to the point
where rules are seen as
'themselves the product of a
small batch of schemes enabling
agents to generate an infinity
of practices adapted to
endlessly changing situations,
without those schemes ever
having been considered as
explicit principles' (16). The
same 'schemes' produce customary
law and its application to
diverse cases. Explicit rules
emerge only in rare
circumstances, such as where
extenuating circumstances are
dismissed in very serious crimes
[still in Kabylia]. It is
possible, however, for theorists
to work on the structure of
schemes of practice 'to produce
the complete universe of all the
acts of jurisprudence conforming
to the "sense of justice" in its
Kabyle form' (17) [much as a
structuralist might].
But these would not be
transcendent rules as in our
notion of a legal code. People
could not cite them from memory,
although they can reproduce them
in practice. What happens is
that 'holders of authority...
"awaken"... the schemes of
perception and appreciation
deposited, in their incorporated
state, in every member of the
group, ie the dispositions of
the habitus' (17). Rules are
unnecessary in homogeneous
societies, and are replaced by
the 'orchestrated improvisation
of common dispositions' (17).
There are implications for
anthropology. In answer to
questions about practice [ by
researchers], informants are
being invited to offer a
codified account of practice.
What actually is produced is a
peculiar discourse. It is a
'discourse of familiarity',
which includes all those
'presuppositions taken for
granted by the historical
agent', which are themselves
provided by the habitus and are
therefore not capable of being
rationalised. At the same time,
informants can produce an
'outsider-oriented discourse',
which generalises and excludes
all particular cases which would
make no sense to observers.
Anthropologists sometimes
confuse this discourse with
actual native experience.
Finally, informants learn from
questions and from contact with
anthropologists, and developed a
'semi-theoretical disposition'
for themselves. Informants are
groomed to provide suitable
answers, such as mentioning the
most remarkable practices, or
learning to describe actions in
terms of rules. The explanations
they give can therefore appear
as 'learned ignorance... a mode
of practical knowledge not
comprising knowledge of its own
principles' (19).
Such 'native theories' can only
reinforce the 'intellectualist
tendency', or 'academicism' of
objectivist anthropology.
Examples here are 'the
impositions and inculcation
of... structures', or other
objectifications (19). An
habitus really appears only in
'the whole art of performance'
(20). Of course, an habitus can
be operationalised as
'semi-learned grammars of
practice -- sayings, proverbs,
gnomic poems, spontaneous
"theories"' (20). These can be
used to overcome any
'misfirings' of practice, and
supply any necessary reflection
on practice. Thus the habitus is
not 'the exclusive principle of
all practice' since various
codifications exist as well.
Implications arise here for
Schutz's view of the constructs
of social sciences as
'constructs of the second
degree', or for Garfinkel's
similar notion that social
science provides accounts of
accounts which agents produce.
Such second-order accounts are
perfectly acceptable, as long as
we realise that they do not
offer an immediate science of
the social world. Ideally,
social science should describe
'the structures which govern
both practices and the
concomitant representations'--
that is it needs to construct
objective structures and
establish the relation with
actual practices, rather than
impose some relationship in
terms of rules or causes. It
also should take into account
the way in which a particular
group intervenes in ordinary
language, for example to develop
official language in order to
maintain 'the symbolic order
from which it draws its
authority' (21). There are
several other objectifying
processes (which include
formulating rules ) which do the
same things. For example, it is
common to attempt to claim
authority while 'ostentatiously
honouring the values the group
honours' (22). Thus a knowledge
of the rules alone needs to be
accompanied by a study in how
they are used to advantage, to
put oneself in the right, to
appear to be 'motivated by
nothing other than pure,
disinterested respect for the
rule' (22). This covers the
pursuit of self-interest with a
cloak of 'ethical implacability'
(22).
[There are implications for
structural linguistics as well,
developed best in the next
subsection. Briefly, Saussure
assumes that because speech can
be understood as the logical
operation of a language
structure, the latter really
does determine the former. This
is an objectivist error, though,
which 'privileges the structure
of signs... at the expense of
their practical functions' (24).
Functionalist constructions of
culture make a similar mistake,
and are forced to defend their
view of apparently determinant
links between cultures and
practices by referring to
unconscious determinants, or
even 'the all too famous
"collective consciousness"'
(25). In fact, practical meaning
of linguistic interactions
involve extra-linguistic factors
as well, such as context and
situations, and 'objective
positions in the social
structure' (25). Practice
depends on 'a practical spotting
of cues which... [enables]...
speakers to situate others in
the hierarchies of age, wealth,
power, or culture' (26).
Attempts to investigate the
situation objectively still
follows the flawed logic of rule
and exception.
Chapter 2
We need to break the hold of
structural analysis and study
instead 'the principle of the
production of... observed
order... to construct... the
theory of the mode of generation
of practices' (72). Structures
such as the 'material conditions
of existence characteristic of a
class condition' produce an
habitus --'systems and durable,
transposable dispositions,...
principles of the generation and
structuring of practices and
representations which can be
objectively "regulated"...
collectively orchestrated
without being the product of the
orchestrating action of a
conductor' (72). Individual
agents may plan actions
specifically, but the habitus
still reproduces the conditions
of planning, such as past
practices. The habitus is the
source of strategies. Practice
is never merely a mechanical
reaction to roles or other
mechanisms. Nor should we insist
on the other extreme, that
individuals are fully creative
and act with full free will --
dispositions affect action, and
they are durable. Sartre gets
this wrong [see pages 74 - 75].
It is possible for elements of
the habitus to come to
consciousness, as when one
estimates the chances of success
of the action, but even here, we
make these estimates against a
background of 'objective
potentialities... things to do
or not to do', and recognise the
effects of social structures in
defining our interests (76).
The habitus is 'the durably
installed generative principle
of regulated improvisations'
(78). It is made up of
'cognitive and motivating
structures' which enable people
to generate suitable practices
in response to demands placed on
them by the 'objective
potentialities in the
situation'. The specific states
of the habitus can be described
in terms of the social
conditions of its production,
and how this is affected by the
conditions in which it operates.
It appears as second nature,
however, to participants and
practitioners. They act
'unconsciously, since the
history of the habitus is
concealed under its subjective
nature'. This 'genesis amnesia'
(79) is also encouraged by the
objectifying trends we have
described above. Action and work
appear as objective to actors,
because no single actor can
grasp the effects of the habitus
in consciousness. Instead,
'schemes of thought and
expression he has acquired'
produce improvisations which are
consistent and which thus appear
sensible and valid: 'It is
because subjects do not,
strictly speaking, know what
they are doing that what they do
has more meaning than they know'
(79).
The orchestration of the
habitus produces an
objective-looking commonsense
world and taken for granted
practices. Among other
implications, it becomes
'automatic and impersonal' to be
able to understand the actions
of others enough to co-ordinate
personal actions with them.
There is no need to puzzle hard
about the intentions of the
other, since the 'objective
homogenising of group or class
habitus which results from the
homogeneity of the conditions of
existence is what enables
practices to be objectively
harmonised without any
intentional calculation or
conscious reference to a norm'
(80). This homogenising is
produced by collective
dispositions, which are
themselves 'internalisations of
the same objective structures'
(81), and it lends an appearance
of objectification and
orchestration. Interaction
always takes place within such
an objective structure, which is
embodied in the competence of
actors. Thus '"interpersonal"
relations are never, except in
appearance, limited to
individual relationships, and '
... the truth of the interaction
is never entirely contained in
the interaction [alone]. This is
what social psychology and
interactionism or
ethnomethodology forget' (81).
We carry with us dispositions,
which commonly reflect our
social positions and which guide
our interactions with others --
for example, we 'know our place'
socially. These dispositions
affect even the most personal
relationships, such as sympathy
or love. We harmonise our
expectations and our habitus,
sometimes even relying on 'the
imperceptible cues of bodily
hexis' (82), but we
misunderstand this as some
natural affinity. That we
achieve harmony only helps to
reproduce these dispositions
into the future.
An habitus 'functions at every
moment as a matrix of
perceptions, appreciations,
and actions' (83). These
enable practices to run
smoothly, and events to appear
as objective. Objective events
confirm their force in a
dialectic relationship, as do
discourses that partially
symbolise them. However, 'they
are engendered by the objective
structures that is, in the last
analysis, by the economic bases
of the social formation in
question' (83). Objectivist
analysis can sometimes see how
different sub-systems might be
integrated, but fails to see
that this arises from the
habitus and instead invokes
'structural homologies' or
'relations of transformation'
(83). Objectivism seems to have
developed in a dialectical
opposition to subjectivism, as
in the splits between humanist
and structuralist readings of
Marx -- but both traditions
remain united in the error of
not seeing the 'dialectical
relationship between the
structure and the dispositions
making up the habitus' (83).
As an example, it is a mistake
to understand social class as a
matter of a population of
individuals, structured by
statistical regularities: the
key issue is a relation to the
class habitus, the common system
of dispositions that provides
frequent and common experience.
A class habitus is 'a subjective
but not individual system of
internalised structures, schemes
of perception, conception and
action common to all members of
the same group or class and
constituting the precondition
for all objectification and
apperception' (86). Individuals
may not have identical
experiences, but they do share
homologous ones, and 'each
individual system of
dispositions may be seen
as a structural variant of
all the other group or class
habitus[es], expressing the
difference between trajectories
and positions inside or outside
the class' (86). Personal and
individual differences arise
simply because the habitus can
bring about a unique integration
of common experiences, as
individuals pass through
families, and then diversified
schooling, the Culture Industry,
work and so on. The habitus is
essential to unite these
individual experiences into some
coherent position -- and in
class societies, class
overdetermines the others.
A great deal of informal
education goes on, in a
practical form, 'without
attaining the level of
discourse' (87). Children
imitate actions and learn via
bodily hexis, 'a pattern of
postures that is both individual
and systematic... and charged
with a host of social meanings
and values' (87). Children learn
gestures and postures that they
will need when they become
adults, but this is no mere
mechanical learning --
principles have to be grasped.
[Here, some learning theory is
cited to show how people can
'achieve a practical mastery of
classificatory schemes which in
no way implies symbolic
mastery... of the processes
practically applied' (88).]
There may be explicit teaching
too, but much is done through
games and rituals, and play [and
a series of examples based on
Algerian field work follow].
The 'dialectical relationship
between the body and a [socially
structured] space' is important
in the 'embodying of the
structures of the world' (89).
The Kabylian house is arranged
symbolically, as a 'tangible
classifying system' separating
right and left, man and woman,
religion and magic, male space
and female space. The
organisation of internal space
is understood as one of these
objectifications of
dispositions, and thus can be
deciphered. [A detailed example
of Kabylian interiors follows,
page 90. Thus houses are divided
into upper and lower parts, and
some parts are high,
light-filled, and noble, while
others are darker and the place
of 'natural beings [animals] ...
and.... natural activities
[sex]'. The placing of the fire
and of gendered objects offer
another classification. The
system is reproduced in terms of
relations between houses and
external public spaces -- thus
'whereas for the man, the house
is not so much a place he enters
as a place he comes out of,
movement inwards properly befits
the woman' (91)].
Thus practices take on
objective meanings, and
classification schemes are
embodied in the world of objects
-- it is not that one causes the
other, but that both are
structured by dispositions.
Movements integrate 'body space
with cosmic space' (91),
grasping both in terms of the
same concepts. There is a
symbolic correspondence between
male bodies, outward movements,
the production and circulation
of goods, and female bodies'
self-enclosed and inward
movements. This metaphor is
carried on to explain
differences in sexuality, so
that men sublimate their sexual
feelings in favour of manly
honour, and see themselves as
potent through repetition, while
women get their own back through
intimate inward gossip. We
should avoid psychoanalytic
reduction of practice to
sexuality, though, since the
relationships between the body
and the world express far more.
As usual, we find links between
social definitions of maleness
and a broader political ideology
-- thus 'Bodily hexis is
political mythology realised, em-bodied,
turned into a permanent
disposition, a durable manner of
standing, speaking, and thereby
of feeling and thinking'
(94). This close bodily
attention is reproduced in our
own totalitarian institutions,
as Goffman shows us -- here too
the body is treated 'as a
memory... [taking as its]...
form the fundamental principles
of the arbitrary content of
culture' (94). In this way,
everything is made natural and
unconscious, whole principles
are recalled by instruction such
as 'stand up straight'. Respect
for form and detail involve
submission to the established
order -- 'The concessions of politeness
always contain political concessions'
(95). Requirements involved are
always trivial, but refusal to
conform is seen as a serious
matter.
We have to abandon notions of
simple freedom or determinism.
The habitus is a system of
generative schemes which permits
a great deal of individual
innovation. It sets the limits
for particular practical
expressions, but it is far from
being simply a 'mechanical
reproduction of the initial
conditions' (95).
Chapter 3
Objectivism requires a detached
observer: this in turn assumes a
high position in the social
structure. Emphasising practice
as a process that constructs
objects of knowledge breaks with
this 'sovereign point of view'
(96). Observers need to situate
themselves within real activity,
taking on a practical relation
to the world themselves, rather
than try to represent practice.
It is a mistake to see
classificatory systems as just
having cognitive functions. They
have practical functions as
well, serving to reproduce in
practice 'the objective
structures of which they are the
product' (97). No abstracted
analysis can understand this
social function, nor can an
analysis which just analyses
symbolic relations alone.
[An extended analysis of the
Kabylian calendar ensues.
Briefly, the calendar plays an
important role in Kabylian
society, and it is heavily
codified and made explicit as a
system of rules to govern social
life -- when to plant, when to
hold religious festivities and
so on. There are some variants
among the members of society
over matters such as when the
year starts, and when exactly
different periods start and
finish, and this has puzzled
anthropologists interested in
getting the 'true' picture. But
attention to the practical
functions of the calendar should
serve to wean us away from tasks
like trying to construct its
logic alone. Calendars construct
'practical time' which organises
work and various social
functions (105). The variations
in opinion shown by different
informants about the details are
not simple logical mistakes, but
reflect different in statuses,
and anthropologists ignore
practical implications in the
interests of some theoretical
totalisation. The ways in which
specific practices lead to other
practices is missed -- the
strictly logical and theoretical
relations between the periods in
question are irrelevant for
practice. The principles which
the calendar embodies also have
to have practical value, at the
expense, if necessary of logical
rigour. A kind of polythetic
understanding is on offer rather
than one which separates off
different logical categories.
The lack of rigorous logic means
that the principles can remain
implicit and a kind of fuzzy
logic deployed instead.
Incoherence is managed by
practical forms of co-ordination
rather than logical ones.
These practical co-ordinations
also involve political
structures. Bans on certain
activities at some times are
enforced by fines for
disobedience, for example. It is
open to the more powerful groups
to impose their interpretations
to suit their own interests. Men
are able to manage the
regulation of women and girls by
co-ordinating their actions
through the calendar. It is
impossible to summarise the
immense detail of Bourdieu's
description here, but it is
clear that such regulation is
deeply interwoven with the
regulation of agricultural
products or domestic labour,
since we have seen that sexual
divisions are the basis of much
broader forms of classification.
Status differences among men are
involved in matters such as
making decisions at different
times of day or at different
times of year, or claiming
particular times of the day,
such as noon. Generational
differences are mapped on to the
cycle of the seasons. The signs
provided by the natural
environment do not lead to
passivity, since 'a man will try
to remake the future announced
in the present by making a new
present' (152) ]
Neither external observation,
nor an uncritical 'participant'
nor humanist anthropology can
disentangle the connections
lying behind practical activity,
such as arranging a marriage
ceremony: there may be universal
functions such as social
reproduction, and common
'eternal questions' of this
significance of marriage, but
there are also important
specifics embodied in practice.
Such practices involve 'a logic
made to dispense with concepts'
(116). An attempt to express
practice as a logical process
must distort it [and colonial
notions of 'primitive' mentality
are not far beneath the
surface]. We should examine not
abstract logic but body
movements, actual performance,
investigate the way which nearly
all important categories, such
as ritual, are 'based on
movements or postures of the
human body, such as going up and
coming down... going to the left
then going to the right, going
in, coming out... sitting and
standing...' inversions,
reversions and so on (119). The
'language of the body' is always
'more ambiguous and more
overdetermined' than ordinary
language (120), and thus rituals
are always more complex and more
creatively vague (polysemic)
than descriptions of them [and
many detailed examples ensue,
page 121]. People use this fuzzy
logic only by actually operating
in practice. Actual linguistic
schemes are only one aspect of
such practice. 'Logical
criticism inevitably misses its
target: because it can only
challenge the relationships that
are consciously established
between words, it cannot bring
out the incoherent coherence of
a discourse which, springing
from underlying mythic or
ideological schemes, has the
capacity to survive every reductio
ad absurdum' (158).
Chapter 4
The change of the seasons mark
important social changes in
Kabyle life. [A great deal of
detail ensues on the mechanisms
of practice that enforce
conformity in matters such as
the proper way that a man should
behave. Much has to do with
apparent submission to the
proper rhythms of social and
natural life, which gives an
important synchronising role to
the Kabylian calendar again.]
Social order depends on being
able to naturalise 'its own
arbitrariness' (164) Systems of
classification do this important
work, but they may not always
correspond fully to 'the
objective order'. If they do, we
have a state called doxa,
where the world of tradition
maps directly onto the natural
world, so that it can be taken
for granted. This enables
reproduction of that social
world, without disputes. Even
those who are disadvantaged
'such as women and the young'
(164) recognise the legitimacy
of the classification system.
Classification of rights
according to age is just as
widespread as that of gender.
This political basis is as
essential as the purely
cognitive one identified by
people like Durkheim --'The
theory of knowledge is a
dimension of political theory
because... symbolic power... is
a major dimension of political
power' (165). In particular,
subjective experiences are fully
integrated into socially
approved categorisation, and
'What is essential goes
without saying because it
comes without saying: the
tradition is silent, not least
about itself as a tradition'
(167). There is no place for
opinion, the doxa is
unanimous.
The doxa can weaken
and undergo practical
questioning as a result of
contact with other cultures or
via various political and
economic crises 'correlative
with class division' (168). Self
evidence is destroyed, and the
social world ceases to be a
natural phenomenon. However, the
crisis may not lead to schism.
In particular, dominant groups
may impose orthodoxy, a
weaker version of doxa,
because it has to be consciously
managed, and it implies
alternatives, heterodoxy.
An important activity here is to
try and preserve a 'universe of
that which is taken for granted'
(170), but again this can be
maintained only by censorship
and exclusion. It is always open
to excluded groups to develop
heretical discourses in turn.
[An analysis of the importance
of gift-giving ensues, pages
171f. Much of this involves the
needs to conceal acts of
exchange as disinterested gifts,
which leads Bourdieu to make an
interesting point about marxist
analysis of agricultural labour
-- briefly, the long production
period appears to involve little
productive work, which helps
blur the distinction between
work and its product. Bourdieu
argues that this is commonly
socially repressed, and it would
be considered vulgar to reassert
it. I was reminded myself of the
mythologies surrounding the
designation of academic work as
'professional', and how
disappointed our employers are
if we insist on calculating our
actual work and relating it to
our wages. The point of this is
to demonstrate the relationships
between economic capital and
symbolic capital, the way which
economic activities have to be
grasped as symbolic ones as
well. However, even in
non-industrial societies,
'practice never ceases to
conform to economic calculation
even when it gives every
appearance of disinterestedness
by departing from the logic of
interested calculation (in the
narrow sense) and playing for
stakes that are non-material and
not easily quantified' (177).
Thus economic analysis should be
extended to discuss practices
involving any kind of goods,
including 'smiles, handshakes or
shrugs, compliments or
attention, challenges or
insults, honour or honours,
powers or pleasures, gossip or
scientific information,
distinction or distinctions,
etc' (178). Economic and
symbolic capital are
interconnected, even though they
cannot be precisely related in
quantitative terms.]
However, symbolic capital --
prestige and renown -- is
ultimately convertible back to
economic capital. In some
societies, like Kabylia, it is
the most valuable form of
capital to accumulate, because
it enables the 'great families'
to call upon additional labour
at busy times a year, in
exchange for certain services
'such as protection, the loan of
animals, etc' (179). Such
conduct is 'intrinsically
equivocal, ambiguous', and not
straightforward and contractual.
It must take place in disguise,
posing as voluntary assistance.
Symbolic capital is acquired
only as a result of considerable
symbolic labour, making
investments, especially of time.
But it conveys political power
as well as economic potential,
and the great families spend
much time in conspicuous
displays, including giving
gifts. Symbolic capital is a
form of credit.
We have to take symbolic
capital into account in order to
grasp the whole picture of
economic activity which can
appear to be irrational
otherwise. Thus additional oxen
may be acquired to increase
symbolic capital, even if they
have to be rapidly sold off as
too costly to maintain.
Acquiring symbolic capital
permits valuable marriages, and
guarantees the honour of
families -- hence the need to
guard it against the slightest
challenge. Land can be acquired
for its symbolic value. Blood
vengeance and marriage become
perfectly understandable
economic activities.
Pre-industrial societies do not
have permanent institutions to
enforce a form of domination.
Social capital and personal
relations are used instead,
again in the form of objectified
systems such as titles of
nobility. Objectification means
that people can dispense with
explicit strategies to dominate
others. Strictly personal
qualities provide a way of
overcoming economic logic --
thus personal symbolic capital
serves as another kind of
objectification.
In industrial societies,
academic qualifications express
objectified versions of cultural
capital, free from personal
qualities. They establish a
'single market for all cultural
capacities... guaranteeing the
convertibility of cultural
capital into money' (188). Such
objectification parallels the
objectification of positions
which are distinct from
individuals. An objective system
can then be established between
'socially guaranteed
qualifications and socially
defined positions' (188), a form
of harmonisation between the
mechanisms [of class domination,
ultimately] that reproduce both.
The law is also a form of
symbolic force, but not the only
one. Thus 'The educational
system helps to provide the
dominant class with what Max
Weber terms "a theodicy of its
own privilege"' (188). It is not
so much the ideologies actually
produced, but the connections
achieved between qualifications
and jobs, which appears so
neutral, even equal. Any
ideologies ought to be analysed
in conjunction with their
institutional mechanisms: the
latter are important for the
reproductions of class
relations, and the former can
serve merely as camouflage. In
this way, social relations are
embedded in a social world that
seems to require no work on the
part of agents. The ways in
which institutions reproduce the
power of particular groups needs
to be hidden in order to avoid
contestation -- and objectivist
social sciences assists by
studying 'the pre-constructed
object which reality foisted
upon it' (189).
Objectivist mechanisms now
perform the task of reproducing
domination. Elite individuals
can even afford to be nice to
their subordinates, while
leaving the mechanisms to do
their work. '... elementary
forms of domination' still exist
between persons, but this
requires considerable work,
involving, in Kabylia, either
physical or economic violence,
or symbolic violence, the former
explicit, the latter disguised.
Such disguise conceals the
personal element, which explains
its widespread occurrence in
pre-capitalist societies.
Capitalist societies depend on
the 'implacable, hidden violence
of objective mechanisms' (191).
However, the two forms of
violence are interchangeable,
and often co-exist, although it
would be wrong to reduce one to
the other. Elaborate gift-giving
is a common form of 'gentle
violence' and is common wherever
overt violence is socially
forbidden. But it is not
entirely cynical or one-sided,
since there are obligations as
well, in particular in that the
values of the group have to be
adhered to, as the 'source of
all symbolic value' (194).
[An interesting insight is
provided by this analysis of
gift-giving in pre-capitalist
societies. Since the giver must
be seen to invest a great deal
of time, the gift itself is
often imbued with unusual
artistic value -- hence the
appeal of pre-industrial art.]
Of course, gift-giving binds the
receiver to indebtedness, and it
demands repayment, such as
honour, respect or free labour.
This is the rational basis for
what can seem to be so
irrational: what is involved is
the 'social alchemy, the
transformation of arbitrary
relations into legitimate
relations, de facto
differences into officially
recognised distinctions' (195).
The whole social group takes
part in this alchemy, as a form
of self deception, a 'collective
work of euphemization' (196).
Yet this is still a true
description of behaviour, and a
necessary one.
It has been replaced by
objective mechanisms of
domination, which require no
euphemization (producing a
process of 'disenchantment'). As
these mechanisms have become
subject to critique, so forms of
symbolic violence have returned,
sometimes in the form of
gift-giving again --
'legitimacy-giving
redistribution' by both state
and private bodies. There is
also the accumulation of luxury
goods to demonstrate good taste
and distinction, and the whole
growth of the 'world of art'.
Art appears so separate to the
profane world of production, so
disinterested, but it 'offers,
like theology in a past epoch,
an imaginary anthropology
obtained by denial of all the
negations really brought about
by the economy' (197).
more guides
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