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Dlstlnctl0n A Social Critique of t&e Ju agement of Taste Pierre Bouraieu
Translated by Richard Nice
Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts
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Contents
XI
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Preface to the English-Language Edition Introduction
Copyright @ 1984 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. All rights reserved Primed in the United Stato of America
Originally published in 1979 by Les Editions de Minuit, Paris, as La Distinction: C,ili'lue Jociaie du jugtmml by Pierre Bourdieu.
Par! I
I
A Social Critique of the judgement of Taste
1
The Aristocracy of Culture
11
The Titles of Cultural Nobility Cultural Pedigree 63 Part II
The Economy of Pradices
2
The preparation of this volume was assisted by grams from the Translations Program of the National Endowment for the Humanities. an indcpC'ndcm (rocral agency, and from the Cultural Exchange Service of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The assistancc of the Maison de Sciences de I'Homme is also appreciated.
18
97
The Social Space and Its Transformations
Class Condition and Social Conditioning A Three-Dimensional Space 114 Reconversion S tr ategies 125 3
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99
101
The Habitus and the Space of Life-Styles
169
The Homology between the Spaces 175 The Universes of StyliStic Possibles 208 4 Library of Congress Cataloging in Puhlication Dat2 Bourdicu, Picrre. Distinction: a soci.al critique of the judgement of taste. Translation of: La distinction: critique sociaJc du jugement. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Fr2nce-CiviJization-19452. Aesthetics. French. 3. Social c1asse5---:-Francc. I. Tide. 84-491 306'.0944 DCH.7.B6\13 1984 .
ISBN 0-674-21277-0 (paper)
Part III
The Dynamics of the Fields
226 The Correspondence between Goods Produnion and Taste Production 230 Symbolic Struggles 244
Class Tas!es and Life-Styles
5
The Sense o f Distinction
257
260
The Modes of Appropriation of the Work of Art The Variants of the Dominant Taste 283 The Mark of Time 295 Temporal and Sp iri rual Powers 315
267
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Cultural Goodwill
Appen dices 503 1. Some Reflections on the Method 503 Complementary Sources 519 2. Srlrisrical Data 525 3. Associarions: A Parlour Game 546 4.
318
Knowledge and Recognition 319 Education and the AutOdidact 328 Slope and Thrust 331 The Variants of Petit-Bourgeois Taste 339 The Declining Petite Bourgeoisie 346 The Execucanr Petite Bourgeoisie 351 The New Petite Boutgeoisie 35 4 From Duty to the Fun Ethic 365 7
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561 Credits 605 Index 607
Notes
The Choice of the Necessary
372 The Taste for Necessity and the Ptinciple of Conformity 374 The Effects of Domination 386 Culture and Politics
397 Selective Democracy 399 Status and Competence 405 The Right to Speak 411 Personal Opinion 414 The Modes of Production of Opinion 417 Dispossession and Misappropriation 426 Moral Order and Political Otder 432 Class Habitus and Political Opinions 437 Supply and Demand 440 The Political Space 451 The Specific Effect of Trajectory 453 Political Language 459
Conclusion: Classes and Classifications 466 Embodied Social Structures 467 Knowledge without Concepts 470 Advantageous Attributions 475 The Classification Struggle 479 The Reality of Representation and the Representation of Reality 482
Tables
1 Class preferences for singers and music 15 2 Aesthetic disposition, by educational capital 36 3 Aesthetic disposition, by class and educarion 37 4
) 6
7
8
9
10 11 12 13
Postscript: Towards a 'Vulgar' Critique of 'Pure' Critiques 485 Disgust at the 'Facile' 486 The ITasre of Reflection' and the 'Taste of Sense' 488 A Denied Social Relationship 491 Paretga and Paralipomena 494 The Pleasute of the Text 498
14 15 16
17
Knowledge
of composers and musical works,
by
education and class of
origin 64 Furniture purchases in the dominant class, by education and social origin 78 Some indicators of economic capital in different [ranions of the dominant class, 1966 117 Some indicators of cultural practice in different franions of the domi nant class, 1966 118 Types of hooks preferred by different (ranions of the dominant class, 1966 119 origin of members of the dominant class, 1970 121
Social
by
class franion,
Rare of employment of women aged 25-34, by education, 1962 and 1968 134 Changes i n morphology and asset structure of the class fractions, 1954�1 975 136 Changes in morphology and asset structure of the class franions, 1954�196R 13B Morphological chaoges wirhin the dominant class, 1954�1975 140 Morphological changes within the middle class, 1954�1975 140 Changes in class morphology and use of educational system, 1954 �1968 158 A nnu al t:; household expenditures on food: skilled manual workers, aremen and clerical workers, 1972 181 Yearly spending hy teachers, professionals and industrial and commercial employers, 1972 184
18 19
20
21
22
23 24
25 26 27
28
29 30 31
Annual household expenditures on food: fractions of the dominant class, 1972 188 Variations in enterraining, by class fraction, 1978 198
Variations in value placed by Frenchwomen on body, beauty and beauty care, 1976 203 Class variations in sports acrivities and opinions on sporr, 1975
Class·fracrion variarions in moral attirudes 312
Opinions on literary prizes, by class fraction, 1969
3 4
5
389
404
The imposition effect: responses to question on the business world and, politics, by class fraction, 1971 429 The imposition effecc responses to question on the new socialism, by sex, class fraction and party, 1971 430
1959-1972
436
Newspaper reading by men, by age, 1975 445
445
Newspaper reading by men and women, by class fraction, 1975 Percentage of each class fcaccion reading each daily and weekly paper 448
Figures 2
15
'Don'r know' responses to questions on teaching, by educarional level.
1970
Distribution of preferences for three musical works
446
17
The aesthetic disposition in the petite bourgeoisie 59
The relationship between inherited cultural capital and educational capital 81 Specific competence and talk about art 90
The space of social positions 128 6 The space of life-styles 129 7 Displacemenr of schooling rates of 16- to 18-year-olds, 1954-1975
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14
'Don't know' responses to political guestions, by sex, 1971 403
Newspaper reading by men, by educational level, 1975
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216
Awareness of social factors in educational and social success, by class fraction, 1971 388
33 36
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Knowledge and preferences of established and new petite bourgeoisie, in Paris and in the provinces 364
Views on political order and moral order, by class fraction,
35
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Chances of entering the dominant class, and fertility rares, by class fraction, 1970-71 332
32 34
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320
Views on ways of reducing ineguality, by class fraction, 1970
. . existence, habitus and life-style 171 of ons co nditI space 186 od fo 8 The es 248 om h I ea d 9 l 1O taste: the space 0f properties 262 nant domi the f 0 IantS . . Var 1 1 iduals 262 mdiv of space the taSte: dominant 0f the . tS rian . . , !2 Va am of 1st and 3rd dIagr plane tfied Slmpl dominant taste: the f 0 tS an . 13 Van 266 Ia rt ine of axes
159
16
17
271 Films seen: 1 . ois taste: the space of propertIes 340 urge t-bo peti . of tS n Varia . . lduals 340 of mdlv the space : rgeois taste -bou petit of nrs ta Var rgeois taste: simplified plane diagram of 1st and 3rd -bou petit of nts Vana axes of inef(ia 343 .
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II 361 18 Films seen: and political preference 423 ss ne ive iss rm Pe 19 n policy and political preference eig for on ns inio Op 20 45 2 21 The political space
42 7
preface to t&e Eng[is& Language Eaition
I have every reason to fear that this book will strike tbe reader as 'very French'-which I know is not always a compliment.
French it is, of course, by virtue of its empirical object, and it can be read as a sort of ethnography of France, which, though I believe it shows no ethnocentric indulgence, should help to renew the rather stereotyped
image of French society that is presented by the American tradition. But I believe it is possible to enter into the singularity of an object without
renouncing the ambition of drawing out universal propositions. It is, no doubt, only by using the comparative method, which treats its object as a 'particular case of the possible', that one can hope to avoid unjustifiably universalizing the particular case. With the aid of Norbert Elias's analy ses, I do indeed emphasize the particularity of the French tradition,
namely, the persistence, through different epochs and political regimes, of the aristocratic model of 'court society', personified by a Parisian haute bourgeoisie which, combining all forms of prestige and all the titles of eco nomic and cultural nobility, has no counterpart elsewhere, at least for the arrogance of its cultural judgements.' It would, however, be a mistake to regard all that is said here about the social uses of art and culture as a col1�ction of Parisian curiosities and frivolities-and not only because, as Ervl,n?" Gottman once pointed out to me, the Parisian version of the art of hVlng has never ceased to exert a sort of fascination in the 'Anglo Saxon' world, even beyond the circle of snobs and socialites, thereby at talOlfig a kind of un iversality. �e model of the relationships between the universe of economic and SOCIal conditi ons and the universe of life�styles which is put forward here,
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based on an endeavour to rethink Max Weber's opposition between and Stand, seems to me to be valid beyond the particular French case antl, no doubt, for every stratified society, even if the system of distinctive tures which express or reveal economic and social differences variable in scale and structure) varies considerably ftom one period, one society, to another. 2 For example, the slightest familiarity with structural mode of thought tells one that the use of French words, pCClp!!r names, preferably noble, or common nouns---Institut de Beaute, Con: seur, Haute couture, etc-performs the same function for shops on Avenue or Madison Avenue as English words like hairdresser, s : , or interior designer on shop fronts in the rue du Faubourg S , ore.' But, more btoadly, the sense of distance, even strangeness, WrllC)1' scientific objectification itSelf produces and which is intensified differences in historical traditions, giving different contentS to realizations of the same structures, must not prevent the reader from fleeting ooto his own society, onto his own position within it, in 10rt.' onto himself, the analyses he is offered. That is why, though I am aware of the dangers of a facile search for . partial equivalences which cannot stand in for a methodical between systems, I shall take the risk of suggesting, within the my knowledge of American society and culture, some guidelines for reading that seeks to identify, behind the specific institution of a paJrti(:u,· lar society, the structural invariant and, by the same token, the equivalent, institution in another social universe. At the level of the 'international" pole of the dominant class the problem scarcely arises, since the cultural " ptoducts are ( relatively) international. One could replace Les Motkrnes by Partisan Review,' France-Musique by educational television' ( Channel 13, WQXR, WGBH etc) and perhaps ultra-leftism by sixties, 'camp',' while the New York Review of Books would ( alas) represent an: unlikely combination of the weekly Nouvel Observateur, the review Cri- ' tique and, especially in its successive enthusiasms. the journal Tel Que!. As: regards bourgeois taste, the American professionals, executives and man-: agers might ask of the film, book, art and music critics of the New York " Times or magazines like Time and Newsweek the same balanced, subtly di versified judgements which their French opposite numbers expect from Le Montie or Le Figaro or weeklies like L'Express or Le Point. The titles and authors favoured by the best-seller readership will vary from country to country, but in each case there will be a preponderance of the life stories and memoirs of exemplary heroes of bourgeois success or 'non-fic tion novels'. The undemanding entertainment which Parisians expect from boulevard theatre, New Yorkers will seek in Broadway musicals. But I believe I have said enough to encourage my readers to join in the game, at least so as to correct my mistakes and perhaps to pursue the search for equivalents, which would have ro be sought in song and cin ema (Is Brigitte Bardot like Marilyn Monroe' Is Jean Gabin the French
�:�:����
Tracy')-and also in Wayne, or Humphrey Bogart or Spencer ohn . . on J rl'or decoration ' sport and cooking. For It IS certam that Inte d ress" of the Channel or the Atlantic some things are compatl.'ble, e d Sl eaeh ' conSt ltut e ' r es 0f a c1 ass or c1 ass ffaction , and the prclerenc not" are . ers . o th ' wh'ICh a11 the empmca1 ystems. To supporr this hypotheSlS, s nt ere COh Allan Poe, wh0 spe11 s out the l'10k Edgar invoke can I m r fi n ' co analyses examp1 e, and lor c , decoratIOn, , In . . most everyday chOIces the en we . bet arts', seeing in the ordinary arrangement of the 'fine the s . chOlce iO and 0f a way 0f l'lIe r IOn the expresS his country of parrments h alt we "We speak of the keeping of a room as we would of the keeping thoug r . re for both the picture and the room are amenable to those i a f s of art; and very nearly tU cr o d eP pr incipl eS which regulate all varietie . . un Vla 1ng . ' 0f a paInting, laws by which we deCide on the hIgher ments the same . tment 0f a chamb er.,r, adJus the on ion decis r o f ce £Ii su be undersrood if Io ltS I'Co rm, toO, this book is 'very French'. This will . sSIOn character of the expre , mode I as try ro show the reader accepts that, . f a cultural production always depends on the laws of the market In
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d ahich it is offered. Although the book transgresses one af the fun ental taboos of the intellectual world, in relating intellectual products doubt, and producers to their social conditions of existence-and also, no because it does so-it cannot entirely Ignore or defy the laws of academIC or intellectual propriety which condemn as barbarous any attempt to treat culture, that present incarnation of the sacred, as an object of SCl '
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ence. That is one of the reasons---along with the costS of book produc tion�why I have only very partially reproduced the survey material and the statistical data used, and have not always glven the expOSItIOn of the method as much prominence as the rhetoric of scientificity would de mand. (As in the French edition, some passages of the text, contaInIng detailed statistical material, illustrative examples or discussion of ancillary
issues, are printed in small type so that the reader who seeks an o� ervi�w of the main argument may pass over them on a first reading.) LikeWISe, the style of the b ook , whose long, complex sentences may offend-wn struc rcd as they are with a view to reconstituting the complexity of the social world in a language capable of holding together the most diverse
things while setting them in rigorous perspective-stems partly from the endeavour to mobilize all the resources of t he traditional modes of ex pression, literary, philosophical or scientific, so as ro say things that were de facto or de jure excluded from them, and ro prevent the reading from shpping back into the simplicities of the smart essay or the political po
lemic .K
Finally, I realize how much the specificity of the French intellectual field may have contributed to the conception of this book, in particular to Us perhaps immoderate ambition of giving a scientific answer to the old questions of Kant's critique of judgement, by seeking in the struc ture of the social classes the basis of the systems of classification which
struCture perception of the social world and designate the objects of aes. thetic enjoyment. But in an age when the effects of a premature of labour separate anthropology from sociology, and, within the the sociology of knowledge from the sociology of culture, not ro mc," tion the sociology of food or sport, it is perhaps the advantage of a we,rle still haunted by the ultimate and total questionings of the prophetic tn.,.' tellectual that one is led to refuse the self-induced myopia which makes impossible to observe and understand everything that human pra.ctic:es reveal only when they are seen in their mutual relationships, that is, as totaliry'" At all events, there is nothing more universal than the project of objec:-; tifying the mental structures associated with the particularity of a social, strucrure. Because it presupposes an epistemological break which is also social break, a sort of estrangement from the familiar, domestic, native world, the critique (in the Kantian sense) of culture invites each reae through the 'making strange' beloved of the Russian formalists, to produce on his or her own behalf the critical break of which it is product. For this reason it is perhaps the only rational basis for a trullv universal culture.
Distinction
Introauction You said it, my good knight� There ought to be laws to protect the body of acquired knowledge. Take one of our good pupils, for example: modest and diligent, from his earliest grammar classes he's kept a lit rIe norebook full of phrases. After hanging on the lips of his teachers for twenty years, he's managed to build up an intellectual stock in trade; doesn't it belong to him as if it were a house, or money? Paul Claude!,
Le soulier de satin, Day
III,
Scene ii
There is an economy of cultural goods, but ir has a specific logic. Sociol ogy endeavours to establish rhe condirions in which the consumers of cultural goods, and their taste for them, arC produced, and at the same time to describe the differenr ways of appropriating such of these objects as are regarded ar a parricular moment as works of arr, and the social conditions of rhe constitution of the mode of appropriarion thar is con sidered legitimate. But one cannot fully understand cultural practices unless 'culture', in the restricted, normative sense of ordinary usage, is brought back into 'culture' in the anthropological sense, and the elabo fated taste for the most refined objects is reconnected with the elemen tary taste for the flavours of food. Whereas the ideology of charisma regards taste in legitimate culture as a gift of nature, scientific observation shows that cultural needs are the product of upbringing and education: surveys establish that all cultural practices (museum visits, concert-going, reading etc.), and preferences in literarure, painting or music, are closely linked to educational level (measured by qualifications or lengrh of schooling) and secondarily to social origin. ' The relative weight of home background and of formal education (rhe effectiveness and duration of which are closely dependent on social origin) varies according to the extent to which the differen t cultural praCtices are recognized and taught by the educational system, and the influence of social origin is strongest--{)ther things being c'jual-in 'extra-curricular' and avant-garde culture. To the socially recog nized hierarchy of the arts, and within each of them, of genres, schools or periods, corresponds a social hierarchy of the consumers. This predisposes
2
Introduction / 3
/ Introduction
has s' The m�nner i� which culture tastes to function as markers of 'clas . ched atta nce orta Imp ner of using It: the been acquired lives on in the man er� e it is seen that it IS these Impond onc ood erst to manners can be und of es mod edrank d the different-an abIes of practice which distinguish s s clas the nd tlc, olas � of domestic or sc � culture acquisition, early or late, ). datm mon and ants ped erize (such as individuals which they charact l ona cati edu the by d ility-awarde CuI"ture aIs0 has its titles of nob . ty 10 . admIS ·· t e th sIon sured by seniorI system-and its pedigrees, mea nobility. is the stake 10 a sttuggIe wh·ICh h as The definition of cultural nobility day, nteenth century to the present one on unceasingly, from the seve ate tIm legI rhe of and ideas of culture etween groups differing in their th 10 g enn dlff re refo th � of art, a�d � relation to culture and to works ions are the product. osit dIsp e thes ch whi of tion conditions of acquisi of t defimtlon of the legitImate way Even in the classroom, the dominan y earl had e hav who se tho of art favours a ro riating culture and works ic last scho of de utsl ld, seho ? cultured hou a es to legitimate culture, in a em I,t deval�e: scholarly syst 1 on catl edu the hin wit � disciplines, since even favour 'scholastic or even pedantic 10 knowledge and interpretation as dehght. , , of direct experience and simple .10 typI. Cally pedan�1C language, ed, call es etim som is r The logic of wha 1on. rs an objective basis for thIS op�oslt the 'reading' of a work of art, offe that , tIon mc mu com of cess � e in a pro Consumption is, in this case, a stag , Ch presupposes practICal or exding, whI is an act of deciphering, deco capacity e. In a sense, one can say that the cod or er ciph a of iicit mastery IS, s, wledge (savOIr), or concept that o see (voir) is a function of the kno It as e. a name VISible thmgs, and �hlCh � the words, that are available to rest Inte and g A work of art has meanm were programmes for perception. IS, the ' the cultural competence, that es onlY for someone who possess l Imp us sC1o :m�n conscious or u�con code, into which it is encoded. The ation reCI app and schemes of perception tation of explicit or implicit for on diti con den hid sical culture 15 the which constitutes pictorial or mu , or, auth an or ol scho tic of a perIod, a recognizing the styles characteris ks wor of C logI rnal iliarity with the mte and, more generally, for the fam 'fic spec the s lack oses. A beholder who . that aesthetic enjoyment presupp and hnes, WIth urs colo s, thm rhy and nds sou of . os code feels lost in a chaos learnt to adopt the adequate dlsp � out rh me or reason. Not having perties , in Panofsky calls the 'sensIble pro t"Ion h . stopS short at what Erw tional emo the at or , ' .vlng a skin as downy or lace-work as delicate percel or a urs colo ' tere 'aus to perties' referring . resonances ar0u sed by these pro the f tum stra ary nm ve from the ' � , 'joyful' melody. He cannot mO the to e lenc e exp y � basis of our ordmar meaning we can grasp on the t IS wha of 109 n mea the i.e., the 'level of 'stratum of secondary meanings', e SIbl sen the ond bey go . concepts which slgm·fied' , unless he possesses the the of I t·es per pto · IStlC I· specificaIIy sty ptoperties and which identify the
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work. 3 Thus the encounter with a work of art is not 'love at first sight' as is generally supposed, and the act of empathy, Ein/iih/ung, which is the art-lover's pleasure, presupposes an act of cognition, a decoding opera tion, which iTplies the implementation of a cognitive acquirement, a cultural code. This typically intellectualist theory of artistic perception directly con tradicts the experience of the art-lovers closest to the legitimate defini tion; acquisition of legitimate culture by insensible familiarization within the family circle tends to favour an enchanted experience of culture which implies forgetting the acquisition.' The 'eye' is a product of his tory reproduced by education. This is true of the mode of artistic percep tion now accepted as legitimate, that is, the aesthetic disposition, the capacity to consider in and for themselves, as form rather than fuoction, not only the works designated for such apprehension, i.e., legitimate works of art, but everything in the world, including cultural objects which ar� not yet consecrated---such as, at one time" primitive arts, or, nowadays, popular photography or kitsch-and natural objects. The 'pure' gaze is a historical invention linked to the emergence of an auton omous field of artistic production, that is, a field capable of imposing its own norms on both the production and the consumption of its prod ucts6 An art which, like all Post-Impressionist painting, is the product of an artistic intention which asserts the primacy of the mode of representa tion over the object of representation demands categorically an attention to form which previous art only demanded conditionally. The pure intention of the artist is that of a producer who aims to be autonomous, that is, entirely the master of his produn, who tends to re ject not only the 'programmes' imposed a priori by scholars and scribes, but also-following the old hierarchy of doing and saying-the interpre tations superimposed a posteriori on his work. The production of an 'open work', intrinsically and deliberately polysemic, can thus be under stood as the final stage in the conquest of artistic autonomy by poets and, following in their footsteps, by painters, who had long been reliant on writers and their work of 'showing' and 'illustrating'. To assert the au tonomy of production is to give primacy to that of which the artist is master, i.e., form, manner, style, rather than the 'subject', the external ref· erent, which involves suba,rdinatiofl to fUflctions-even if only the most elementary one, that of representing, signifying, saying something. It also means a refusal to recognize any necessity other than that inscribed in the specific tradition of rhe artistic discipline in question: the shift from an art which imitates nature to an art which imitates an, deriving from its own history the exclusive source of its experiments and even of its breaks with tradition. An art which ever increasingly contains refer ence to its own history demands to be perceived historically; it asks to be referred not t� an external referent, the represented or designated 'reality', but to the UnIVerse of past and present works of art. Like artistic produc-
4
/ Introduction
rion, in that it is generated in a field, aesthetic perception is necessarily historical inasmuch as it is differential, relational, attentive to the devia* tions (ec�rts) which make styles. Like the so-called naive painter who, operating outside the field and its specific traditions, remains external to the history of the art, the 'naive' spectator cannot atratn a speClfic grasp of works of art which only have meaning--or value-in relation to the specific history of an artistic tradition. The aesthetic disposition de manded by the ptoducts of a highly autonomous field of production IS inseparable from a specific cultural competence. This historical culture functions as a principle of pertinence which enables one to identify, among the elements offered to the gaze, all the distinctive features and only these, by referring them, consciously or unconsciously, to the uni verse of possible alternatives. This mastery is, for the most part, acquired simply by contact with works of art-that is, through an implicit learn ing analogous to that which makes it possible to recogntze famlltar faces without explicit rules or criteria�and it generally remams at a practtCal level; it is what makes it possible to identify styles, i.e., modes of expres sion characteristic of a period, a civilization or a school, without having to distinguish clearly, or state explicitly, the features which constitute their originality. Everything seems to suggest that even among profes sional valuers, the criteria which define the stylistic properties of the 'typ ical works' on which all their judgements are based usually remain implicit. The pure gaze implies a break with the ordinary attitude towards the world, which, given the conditions in which it is performed, is also a so cial separation. Ortega y Gasser can be believed when he attributes to modern art a systematic refusal of all that is 'human" i.e., generic, com mon�as opposed to distinctive, or distinguished-namely, the passions, emotions and feelings which 'ordinary' people invest in their 'ordinary' lives. It is as if the 'popular aesthetic' (the quotation marks are there to indicate that this is an aesthetic 'in itself' not 'for itself ') were based on the affirmation of the continuity between art and life, which implies the subordination of form to function . This is seen clearly in the case of the novel and especially the theatre, where the working-class audience refuses any sort of formal experimentation and all the effects which, by intro ducing a distance from the accepted conventions (as regards scenery, plot etc.), tend to distance the spectator, preventing hIm from getttog In volved and fully identifying with the characters (I am thinking of Brechtian 'alienation' or the disruption of plot in the nouveau roman). In contrast to the detachment and disinterestedness which aesthetic theory regards as the only way of recognizing the work of art for what it is, i.e., autonomous, JelbJicindigJ the 'popular aesthetic' ignores or refuses the re fusal of 'facile' involvement and 'vulgar' enjoyment, a refusal which is the basis of the taste for formal experiment. And popular judgements of paintings or photographs spring from an 'aesthetic' (in fact it is an
Introduction / 5 ethos) which is the exact opposite of the Kantian aesthetic. Wherea s in order to grasp the specificity of the aesthetic judgement, Kant strov � to dlsttogUlsh that whIch pleases from that which gratifies and, more gen erally, to dIStingUIsh disinterestedness, the sale guarantor of the specifi cally aesthetic qualtty of contemplation, from the interest of reason whIch defines the Good, working-class people expect every image to ex pltCltly perform a function If only that of a sign, and their judgem ents , make reference, often explICItly, to the norms of morality or agreeable ness. Whether reJecttog or praising, their appreciation always has an eth Ical baSIS. Popular taste applies the schemes of the ethos, which pertain in the or . dtoary CIrCumstances of life, to legitimate works of art, and so performs a systematic reductIon of the Ihtngs of art to the things of life. The very senousness (or naIvety) whICh thIS taste tnvests in fictions and represen tan.on; �emonstrates a c otrario tha pure taste performs a suspens ? . ion of � . , n lve mvolve ment whICh IS one dImenslOn of a 'quasi-ludic' relation � . shIp ';lth the necessities of the world. Intellectuals could be said to be lIeve I� the representation-literature, theatre, painting-mo re than in the thtngs represented, whereas the people chiefly expect represe ntations and :he conventions which govern them to allow them to believe 'na Ively to the thtngs represented. The pure aesthetic is rooted in an ethic or rather, an ethos of elective distance from the necessities of the naturai and social world, which may take the form of moral agnosticism (visible when ethICal transgressIOn becomes an artistic parti pris) or of an aesthet ICIsm whIch presents the aesthetic disposition as a universally valid prin CIple and takes the bourgeOIs dental of the social world to its limit. The detachment of the pure gaze cannot be dissociated from a general . dispo SitIOn towards the world whICh IS the paradoxical product of condition Ing by neg�tIve economic necessities-a life of ease-that tends to induce . an actIve dIstance from. necessity. . Although art obviously offers the gre test scope to the aesthet ic dispo � SItiOn, there IS no area of practice 10 whICh the aim of purifyi ng, refining �nd s�blImatIng pnmary needs and Impulses cannot assert itself, no area to whICh the stylization of life, that is, the primacy of forms over func tIon, . of �anner over matter, does not produce the same effects. And nothtog IS more distinctive, more distinguished, than the capacity to confer aesthetic status on objects that are banal or even 'comm on' (be , cause the 'common peopI e mak e them their own, especially for aesthetic . purposes), or the ablltty to apply the principles of a 'pure' aesthetic to the most everyday chOIces of everyday life, e.g. , in cooking, clothin g or deco ration, completely reversing the popular disposition which annexes aes thetics to ethICS. In fact, through the economic and social ndicions which they pre :� suppose, the dIfferent ways of relating to realttles and fiction s, of believ Ing to fictions and the realities they simulate, with more or less distance _
6 / Introduction and detachment, are very closely linked to the different possible positions in social space and, consequently, bound up with the systems of disposi tions (habitus) characteristic of the different classes and class fractions. Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier. Social subjects, classified by their classifications, distinguish themselves by the distinctions they make, between the beautiful and the ugly, the distinguished and the vulgar, in which their position in the objective classifications is expressed or be trayed. And statistical analysis does indeed show that oppositions similar in structure to those found in cultural practices also appear in eating habits. The antithesis between quantity and quality, substance and form, corresponds to the opposition-linked to different distances from neces sity-between the taste of necessity, which favours the most 'filling' and most economical foods, and the taste of liberty-{)r luxury-which shifts the emphasis to the manner (of presenting, serving, eating etc.) and tends to use stylized forms to deny function. The science of taste and of cultural consumption begins with a trans gression that is in no way aesthetic: it has to abolish the sacred frontier which makes legitimate culture a separate universe, in order to discover the intelligible relations which unite apparently incommensurable 'choices', such'as preferences in music and food, painting and sport, liter ature and hairstyle. This barbarous reintegration of aesthetic consump tion into the world of ordinary consumption abolishes the opposition, which has been the basis of high aesthetics since Kant, between the 'taste of sense' and the 'taste of reflection', arid between facile pleasure, pleasure reduced to a pleasure of the senses, and pure pleasure, pleasure purified of pleasure, which is predisposed ro become a symbol of moral excellence and a measure of the capacity for sublimation which defines the truly human man. The culture which results from this magical division is sa cred. Cultural consecration does indeed confer on the objects, persons and situations it touches, a sort of ontological promotion akin to a tran substantiation. Proof enough of this is found in the two following quo tations, which might almost have been written for the delight of the . sociologist: 'What struck me most is this: nothing could be obscene on the stage of our premier theatre, and the ballerinas of the Opera, even as naked dancers, sylphs, sprites or Bacchae, retain an inviolable purity." 'There are obscene postures: the stimulated intercourse which offends the eye. Clearly, it is impossible to approve, although the interpolation of such gestures in dance routines does give them a symbolic and aesthetic quality which is absent from the intimate scenes the cinema daily flaunts before its spectators' eyes . . . As for the nude scene, what can one say, except that it is brief and theatrically not very effective? I willllot say it is chaste or innocent, for nothing commercial can be so described. Let us say it is not shocking, and that the chief objection is that it serves as a box-office gimmick. . . . In Hair, the nakedness fails to be symbolic.'8
Introduction / 7 The �enial of lower, coarse, vulgar, venal, servile -in a word, natu ral---enjoyment, which constitutes the sacred sphere of culture implies an affirmation of the superiority of those who can be satisfied ;"'ith the subltmated, refined, disinterested, gratuitous, distin guished pleasures for ever closed to the profane. That is why art and cultur al consumption are predISP?sed, conSClously and deliberately or not, to fulfil a social function . of legitImating social differences.
I
Tbe Arjstocrac� of Cu[ture
Sociology is rarely more akin to social psychoanalysis than when it con fronts an object like taste, one of the most vital stakes in the struggles fought in the field of the dominant class and the field of cultural produc tion. This is not only because the judgement of taste is the supreme manifestation of the discernment which, by reconciling reason and sensi. bility, the pedant who understands without feeling and the mondain1 who enjoys without understanding, defines the accomplished individual. Nor is ir solely because every rule of propriery designates in advance the project of defining this indefinable essence as a clear manifestation of philistinism-whether it be the academic propriety which, from Alois Riegl and Heinrich WOltllin to Elie Faure and Henri Focillon, and from the most scholastic commentators on the classics to the avant-garde semiologist, insists on a formalist reading of the work of art; or the up perclass propriety which treats taste as one of the surest signs of true no bility and cannot conceive of referring taste to anything other than itself Here the sociologist finds himself in the area par excellence of the de nial of the social. It is not sufficient to overcome the initial self-evident appearances, in orher words, to relate raste, the uncreated source of all 'creation', to the social conditions of which it is the product, knowing full well that the very same people who strive to repress the clear relation between taste and education, between .culture as the state of that which is cultivated and culture as the process of cultivating, will be amazed that anyone should expend so much effort in scientifically proving that self evident fact. He must also question that relationship, which only appears to be self-explanatory, and unravel the paradox whereby the relationship
12
! A Social Critique oj the Judgement oj Taste
with educational capital is just as strong in areas which the educational system does not teach. And he must do. this without evet being able to appeal unconditionally to the POSItlVIStlC arbitration of what ate called facts. Hidden behind the statistical relationships between educational capital or social origin and this or that type of knowledge or way of ap plying it, there are relationships between groups maintaining different, and even antagonistic, relations to culture, dependtng on the C�ndlt1�nS in which they acquired their cultural capiral and rhe markets In which they can derive most profit from it. Bur we have nor yet fimshed with rhe self-evident. The question irself has to be questioned-In orher words, rhe relation to culture which it tacitly privileges-in order to esrabltsh whether a change in the content and form of rhe question would not be sufficient ro transform the relationships observed. There IS no way out of rhe game of culture; and one's only chance of objectifying the true na ture of the game is to objectify as fully as pOSSible the very operations which one is obliged to use in order to achieve that obJeCtIfication. De Ie jabula narratur. The reminder is meant for the reader as well.s the SOCI ologist. Paradoxically, the games of culture are protected against obJeCtI fication by all the partial objectifications whICh the actors Involved In the game perform on each other: scholarly critics can no'. grasp the objective reality of society aesthetes without abandomng their grasp of the true nature of their own activity; and the same IS true of their opponents. The same law of mutual lucidity and reflexive blindness governs the antago nism between 'intellectuals' and 'bourgeois' (or their spokesmen in the field of production ) . And even when bearing in mind the function which legitimate culture performs In class relations: ont IS stIll liable ro be led into accepting one or the other of the self-Interested representa tions of culture which 'intellectuals' and 'bourgeOIs' endlessly fling at each other. Up to now the sociology of the production and producers of culture has never escaped from the play of opposing Images , In which 'right-wing intellectuals' and 'left-wing intellectuals' (as the curren'. tax onomy puts it) subject their opponents and their strategies to an obJecti vist reduction which vested interests make that much eaSIer. The objectification is always bound to remain partial , and therefore false, so long as it fails to include the point of view from which It speaks and so fails to construct the game as a whole. Only at the level of the field of positions is it possible to grasp both the generic interests aSSOCIated with the fact of taking part in the game and the speCIfic Interests attached to the different positions, and, through this, the form and content of the self-positionings through which these interests are expressed. Despite the aura of objectivity they like to assume, neither the 'SOCIology of the in tellectuals', which is traditionally the business of 'right-wing intellec tuals', nor the critique of 'right-wing thought', the traditional speciality of 'left-wing intellectuals' , is anything more than a senes of symbolIC ag gressions which take on additional force when they dress themselves up in the impeccable neutrality of science. They taCItly agree In leaving hld-
The Aristocracy oj Culture !
13
den what is essential, namely the strucrure of objective positions which is the source, inter alia, of the view which the occupants of each position can have of the occupants of the other positions and which determines the specific form and force of each group's propensity to present and re ceive a group's partial truth as if it were a full account of the objective relations between the groups. The analyses presented in this book are based on a survey by question naire, carried out in 1963 and 1967-68, on a sample of 1,217 people. (Ap pendix 1 gives full information concerning the composition of the sample, the questionnaire, and the main procedures used to analyze it. Appendix 3 contains the statistical data drawn from the survey , as well as data from other sources.) The survey sought to determine how the culti vated disposition and cultural competence that are revealed in the nature of the cultural goods consumed, and in the way they are consumed, vary according to the category of agents and the area to which they applied, from· the most legitimate areas such as painting or music to the most 'personal' ones such as clothing, furniture or cookery, and, within the legitimate domains, according to the markets-'academic' and 'non academic'-in which they may be placed. Two basic facts were thus es tablished: on the one hand, the very close relationship linking cultural practices (or the corresponding opinions) to educational capital ( mea sured by qualifications) and, secondarily, to social origin ( measured by father's occupation ) ; and, on the other hand, the fact that, at equivalent levels of educational capital, the weight of social origin in the practice and preference-explaining system increases as one moves away from the most legitimate areas of culture. The more the competences measured are recognized by the school sys tem , and the more 'academic' the techniques used to measure them, the s�ronger is the relation between, performance and educational qualifica tion. The latter, as a more or less adequate indicator of the number of years of scholastic inculcation, guarantees cultural capital more or less completely, depending on whether it is inherited from the family or ac quired at school, and so i t is an unequally adequate indicator of this capi tal. The strongest correlation between performance and educational capital qua cultural capital recognized and guaranteed by the educational system ( which is very unequally responsible for its acquisition) is ob served when, with the question on the composers of a series of musical works, the survey takes the form of a very 'scholastic' exercise on knowl edge very close to that taught by the educational system and strongly rec ognized in the academic market.
The interviewer read out a list of sixteen musical works and asked the re sponden t to name the composer of each. Sixty-seven percent of those with only a CEP or a CAP could not identify more than two composers (out of
14 / A Social Critique ofthe Judgement of Taste sixteen works), compared to 45 percent of those with a BEPC, 19 percent of those with the baccalauriat, 17 percent of those who had gone to a tech� nical college (petite ieole) or started higher education and only 7 percent of those having a qualification equal or superior �o a licence.2 Whereas none of the manual or clerical workers questioned was capable of naming twelve or more of the composers of the sixteen works, 52 percent of the 'artistic pro ducers' and the teachers (and 78 percent of the teachers in higher educa tion) achieved this score. The rate of non-response to the question on favourite painters or pieces of music is also closely correlated with level of education, with a strong op position between the dominant class on the one hand and the working classes, craftsmen and small tradesmen on the other. (However, since in this case whether or not people answered the question doubtless depended as much on their dispositions as on their pure competence, the cultural pre tensions of the new petite bourgeoi si e---junior commercial executives, the medical and social services, secretaries, and the various culwral interme diaries (see Chapter 6)-found an outlet here.) Similarly, listening to the most 'highbrow' radio stations, France-Musique and France-Culture, and to musical or cultural broadcasts, owning a record-player, listening ro records (without specifying the type, which minimizes the differences), visiting art galleries, and knowledge of painting-features which are strongly correlated with one another--obey the same logic and, being strongly linked to educa tional capital, set the various classes and class fractions in a clear hierarchy (with a reverse distribution for listening to variety programmes). In the case of activities like the visual arts, or playing a musical instrument, which presupposes a cultural capital generally acquired outside the educational sys tem and (relativel y) independent of the level of academic certification, the correlation with social class, which is again strong, is established through social trajectory (which explains the special position of the new petite bour geoisie). The closer one moves rowards the most legitimate areas, such as music or painting, and, within these areas, which can be set in a hierarchy according to their modal degree of legitimacy, towards certain genres or certain works, the more the differences in educational capital are associated with major differences (produced in accordance with the same principles) be tween genres, such as opera and operetta, or quartets and symphonies, be tween periods, such as contemporary and classical, between composers and between works. Thus, among works of music, the Well-Tempered Clavier and the Concerto for the Left Hand (which, as will become apparent, are distin guished by the modes of acquisition and consumption which they presup pose), are opposed to the Strauss waltzes and the Sabre Dance, pieces which are devalued either by belonging to a lower genre ('light music') or by their popularization (since the dialectic of distinction and pretension desig nates as devalued 'middle-brow' art those legitimate works which become 'popularized'),3 just as, in the world of song, Georges Brassens and lio Ferre are opposed to Georges Guetary and Petula Clark, these differences corresponding in each case to differences in educational capital (see table 1). In fact, the weight of the secondary factors---composition of capital, vol-
The Aristocracy of Culture / 15 �
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16 / A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste ume of inherited cultural capital (or social trajectory ), age, place of resi· dence-varies with the works. Thus, as one moves towards the works that afe least legitimate (at the moment in question), factors such as age be come increasingly important; in the case of Rhapsody in Blue or the Hungar ian Rhapsody, there is a closer correlation with age than with education, father's occupational category, sex or place of residence. Thus, of all the objects offered for consumers' choice, there are none more classifying than legitimate works of art, which, while distinctive in general, enable the production of distinctions ad infinitum by playing on divisions and sub-divisions into genres, periods, styles, authors etc. Within the universe of particular tastes which can be recreated by suc cessive divisions; it is thus possible, still keeping to the major opposi tions, to distinguish three zones of taste which roughly correspond to educational levels and social classes: ( 1 ) Legitimate taste, i.e., the taste for legitimate works, here represented by the Well-Tempered Clavier (see fig ure 1, histogram 1 ) , the Art of Fugue or the Concerto for the Lift Hand, or, in painting, Breughel or Goya, which the most self-assured aesthetes can combine with the most legitimate of the arts that are still in the process of legitimation----<: inema, jazz or even song ( here, for example, Leo Ferre, Jacques Douai )-increases with educational level and is highest in those fractions of the dominant class that are richest in educational capital. ( 2 ) 'Middle-brow' taste, which brings together the minor works of the major arts, in this case Rhapsody in Blue (histogram 2 ) , the Hungarian Rhapsody, or in painting, Uttillo, Buffet or even Renoir, and the major works of the minor arts, such as Jacques Brel and Gilbert Becaud in the art of song, is more common in the middle classes (classes moyennes) than in the work ing classes (classes populaires ) or in the 'intellectual' fractions of the domi nant class. ( 3 ) Finally, 'popular' taste, represented here by the choice of works of so-called 'light' music or classical music devalued by populariza tion, such as the Blue Danube (hisrogram 3 ) , La Traviata or L'Arlhienne, and especially songs totally devoid of artistic ambition or pretension such as those of Luis Mariano, Guetary or Petula Clark, is most frequent among the working classes and varies in inverse ratio to educational capi tal ( which explains why it is slightly more common among industrial and commercial employers or even senior executives than among primary teachers and cultural intermediaries) . The three profiles presented in figure 1 are perfectly typical of those that are found when one draws a graph of the distribution of a whole set of chQices characteristic of different class fractions (arranged in a hierarchy, within each class, according ro educational capital ). The first one (the WeI/ Tempered Clavier) reappears in the case of all the authors or works named above, and also for such choices in the survey questionnaire (see appendix 1) as 'reading philosophical essays' and 'visiting museums' etc.; the second
The Aristocracy of Culture / 1 7 riJIure 1 Distribu tion of preferences for three musical works by class fraction. I Wdl-Tempered Clavier 1I11111(1al workers 11PI Il(·...tic servants H�II\lllCn, shopkeepers IIH II Oil and commercial employees
IUlIII'1 administrative executives lUl l I, II commercial executives, secretaries tf! hnirians "trill( aJ social services
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�IIIIIOIry teachers
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1Ii'III :,1 and commercial employees 1111111)1 administrative executives 11111101 wmmercial executives, secretaries It'l llll icians
1111'01'1 :d-social services 1111I1l,uy teachers
nil!lIlai intermediaries , art craftsmen
Il1d\I�! I ial and commercial employers Ill i lli l( -sector executives
IHlv,llr-sector executives , engineers IHllt('�sjons .l-I I)lhlary teachers hi�il('r-ducation teachers, art producers
20.5 3 20 22 27.5 26.5 42 20 20 22.5 22 5 15 29 19 12 5 12
A IUIlt, Danube In�rll l;!1" workers 111>1I11"�r j( servants I-I�tl\ll l('n, shopkeepers
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1
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18 / A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (RhapJody in Blue) characterizes, in addition to all the works and authors le, osy mentioned (plus the Twilight of the Gods), 'photogtaphy', 'c�mfortab � stones love for valId home' etc.; and the third (Blue Danube) IS equally and 'clean, tidy home' etc.
The Titles of Cultural Nobility ed by du A relationship as close as that between academic capital ( measur from remote as areas in es practic or dge ration of schooling) and knowle cin� the or jazz n mentio to not g, paintin or academ ic education as music educa of level and visits m museu n betwee ema-like the correlation of the tion-raises in the highest degree the question of the significance two the of y identit real the of n questio the relationship, in other words, ex has One nship. relatio very their in defined linked terms which are of ce existen the hing establis by g nothin ood underst plained nothing and varI ent' 'depend a and e variabl ndent' 'indepe an n a correlation betwee lar case, able. Until one has determined what is designated in the particu (for ship relation the in term each by ship, relation i.e., in each particular cal statISti , the ers) ompos of dge knowle and ion � example, level of educat . s remam cally, numen ined determ be can it ly precise er relationship, howev ding a pure datum, devoid of meaning. And the 'intuitive' half-understan they whIle cases, such m satisfied ly general are gists with which sociolo rela the of ity' 'intens the of ement l;11casur the g refinin concentrate on . fac or es vanabl the of cy constan the of illusion the with er tionship, togeth er they s whatev tors resulting from the nomina! identity of the indicator ' ( to �ule out tends them, ignat des which terms the of or � e) indicat may . g they meanin the to any questioning of the terms of the relationshIp as It. from receIve take on in that particular relationshIp and Indeed . Both terms of the relationship have to be quened m each case: the in places of dependent variable-occupation, sex, age, father's occupation, depen the and effectst differen residence etc., "which may express very ,con vary lves themse that tions dent variable, which may manifest disposi ndent indepe the by up divided siderably depending on the classes ces found variables. Thus, for an adequate interpretation of the differen to relation their regards as class between the classes or within the same one erc., tur lirer tre, e � t music, � �. � the various legitimate arts, painting, mate, to would have to analyse fully the social uses, legitimate or Illegiti lends it ered consid tions institu or which each of the arts, genres, works g more nothin 'class', one's affirms self. For example, nothing more clearly by VIr se, becau course of is This infallibly classifies, than tastes in music. . dISpo onding corresp the ng acquiri tue of the rarity of the conditions for t-gomg or sitions there is no more 'classifactory' practlce than concer equal, being things other which, ties playin a 'noble' instrumen t (activi to VISitS even or g m-gom museu , are less widespread than theatre-gomg culal 'music of ng flaunti the e becaus modern-art galleries) . But it is also '
�
The Aristocracy of Culture / 19 ture' i s not a cultural display like others: as regards its social definition, 'musical culture' is something other than a quantity of knowledge and experiences combined with the capacity to talk about them. Music is the most 'spiritual' of the arts of the spirit and a love of music is a guarantee of 'spirituality'. One only has to think of the extraordinary value nowa days conferred on the lex is of 'listening' by the secularized (e.g., psy choanalytical) versions of religious language. As the countless variations on the soul of music and the music of the soul bear witness, music is bound up with 'interiority' ( 'inner music') of the 'deepest' sort and all concerts are sacred. For a bourgeois world which conceives its relation to the populace in terms of the relationship of the soul to the body, 'insensi tivity to music' doubtless represents a particularly unavowable form of materia:list coarseness. But this is not all. Music is the 'pure' art par ex cellence. It says nothing and has nothing to say. Never really having an expressive function, it is opposed to drama, which even in its most re fined forms still bears a social message and can only be 'put over' on the basis of an immediate and profound affinity with the values and expecta tions of its audience. The theatre divides its public and divides itself. The Parisian opposition between right-bank and left-bank theatre, bourgeois theatre and avant-garde theatre, is inextricably aesthetic and political. Nothing comparable occurs in music (with some rare, recent excep tions ) . Music represents the most radical and most absolute form of the negation of the world, and especially the social world, which the bour geois ethos tends to demand of all forms of art. For an adequate interpretation of what would be implied in a table correlating occupation, age or sex with a preference for the Well-Tempered ClaVIer or the Concerto for the Left Hand, one has to break both with the blind use of indicators and with spurious, essentialist analyses which are merely the universalizing of a particular experience, in order to make completely explicit the multiple, contradictory meanings which these works take on at a given moment for the totality of social agents and in particular for the categories of individuals whom they distinguish or who differ with respect to them (in this particular case, the 'inheritors' and the 'newcomers') . One would have to take account, on the one hand, of the socially pertinent properties attached to each of them, that is, the so cial image of the works (,baroque'/,modern', harmony/dissonance, rigour/lyricism etc. ) , the composers and perhaps especially the corre sponding instruments ( the sharp, rough timbre of plucked strings/the warm, bourgeois timbre of hammered strings); and, on the other hand, the distributional properties acquired by these works in their relation ship (perceived with varying clarity depending on the case) with the dif ferent classes or class fractions ( ',a fait . . . ' ) and with the corresponding conditions of reception (belated knowledge through records/early knowledge through playing the piano, the bourgeois instrument par excellence) .
20 ! A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste The opposition found at the level of distributional properries is generally homologous co that found at the level of stylistic characteristics. This is be cause homology between the positions of the producers (or the works) in t�e fi �ld of production and the positions of the consumers in social space ( I . e., In the overall class structure or in the structure of the dominant class) seems to be the most freguent casco Roughly speaking, the amateur of Mal larrne is likely to be to the amateur of Zola as Mallarme was to Zola. Dif ferences between works are predisposed to express differences between authors, partly because, in both style and content, they bear the mark of their authors' socially constituted dispositions (that is, their social origins, retransl ated .a� a function of the positions in the field of production which . rhese dlsposItJons played a large part in determining) ; and partly because they remain marked by the social significance which they received from their opposition, and that of their authors, in the field of production (e.g., . left/nght, clear/obscure etc.) and which is perpetuated by the university tradmon.
I t is also clear what would be required for an adequate interpretation of the bourgeois predilection for the 'Impressionists', whose simulta neously lyrical and naturalistic adherence to natural or human nature contrasts both with realist or critical representation of the social world ( doubtless one dimension of the opposition between Renoir and Goya, not to mentIOn Courbet or Daumier) and with all forms of abstraction. Again, to understand the class distribution of the various sports, one would have to take account of the representation which, in terms of their specific schemes of perception and appreciation, the differen t classes have of the costs (economic, cultural and 'physica!') and benefits attached to the different sports---i-- mmediate or deferred 'physical' benefits ( health, beauty, strength, whether visible, through 'body-building' or invisible through 'keep-fit' exercises), economic and social benefits ( upward mo bility etc. ) , ImmedIate or deferred symbolic benefits linked to the distri butional or positional value of each of the sports considered (i.e., all that each of them receives from its greater or lesser rarity, and its more or less clear association with a class, with boxing, football, rugby or body building evoking the working classes, rennis and skiing the bourgeoisie and golf rhe upper bourgeoisie ), gains in disrinction accruing from rhe effects on the body itself (e.g., slimness, sun-tan, muscles obviously or dIscreetly VISIble etc.) or from the access to highly selective groups which some of these sports give (golf, polo etc ) . .
Thus the only way of completely escaping from the intuitionism which in evitably accompanies positivistic faith in the nominal identity of the indica tors would be to carry Out a-strictly interminable-analysis of the social value of each of the properties or practices considered-a Louis XV com mode or a Brahms symphony, reading Historia or Le Figaro, playing rugby
The Aristocracy of Culture ! 21 or the accordion and so on. The statistics of the class distribution of news paper reading would perhaps be interpreted less blindly if sociologiSts bore in mind Proust's analysis of 'that abominable, voluptuous act called "read ing rhe paper", whereby all rhe misfortunes and cataclysms suffered by rhe universe in the last twenty-four hours--battles which have cost the lives of fifty thousand men, murders, strikes, bankruptcies, fires, poisonings, sui cides, divorces, the cruel emotions of statesman and actor, transmuted into a morning feast for our personal entertainment, make an excellent and par ticularly bracing accompaniment to a few mouthfuls of cafi au lait. ,4 This description of the aesthete's variant invites an analysis of the class variations and the invariants of the mediated, relatively abstract experience of the so cial world supplied by newspaper reading, for example, as a function of variations in social and spatial distance (with, at one extreme, the local items in the regional..dailies-marriages, deaths, accidents-and, at the other (:xtreme, international news, or, on another scale, the royal engagements and weddings in the glossy magazines) or in political commitment (from the detachment depicted in Proust's text to the activist's outrage or enthusiasm ) . In fact, the absence of this kind of preliminary analysis of the social sig nificance of the indicators can make the most rigorous-seeming surveys quite unsuitable for a sociological reading. Because they forget that the ap parent constancy of the products conceals the diversity of the social uses . they are put to, many surveys on consumption impose on them taxonomies which have sprung straight from the statisticians' social unconscious, asso ciating things that ought to he separated (e.g., white heans and green beans) and separating things that could be associated (e.g., white beans and bananas-the latter are to fruit as the former are to vegetables). What is there to be said about the collection of products brought together by the apparently neuttal category 'cereals'--bread, rusks, rice, pasta, Aour-and especially the class variations in the consumption of these products, when one knows that 'rice' alone includes 'rice pudding' and riz au gras! or rice cooked in broth (which tend to be 'working-class' ) and 'curried rice' (more 'bourgeois' or, more precisely, 'intellectual' ), not to mention 'brown rice' ( which suggests a whole life-style) ? Though, of course, no 'natural' or man ufactured product is equally adaptable to all possible social uses, rhere are very few that are perfectly 'univocal' and it is rarely possible to deduce the social use from the thing itself. Except for products specially designed for a particular use (like 'slimming bread' ) or closely tied to a class, by tradition ( like tea-in France) or price ( like caviar ) , most products only derive their social value from the social use that is made of them. As a consequence, in these areas the only way to find the class variations is to introduce them from the start, by replacing words or things whose apparently univocal meaning creates no difficulty for the abstract classifications of the academic unconscious, with the social uses in which they become fully determined. Hence it is necessary to attend, for example, to ways of photographing and ways of c90king-in the casserole or the pressure-cooker, i.e., without counting time and money, or quickly and cheaply-or to rhe products of these operations-family snaps or phoros of folk dancing, boeu/ bourguignon or curried rice.
22 / A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste
The Aristocrary of Culture / 23
Appearances, need 1 repeat, al�ays support appearances; and sociological , science, which cannot find the dlfferences between the sO� lal . classes unless it introduces them from the start, is bound to appear preJudlCcd to those who dissolve the differences, in all good faith and with impeccable method, simply by su rrendering to positivistic laisser-faire.
But the substantialist mode of thinking is perhaps most unrestrained when it comes to the search for 'explanatory factors'. Slipping ftom the substanrive to the substance ( to paraphrase Wittgenstein), from the con stancy of the substantive to the constancy of the substance,. it treats the properties attached to agent�c�upa� io? , ag�, sex, q�ah cat1?ns-:--a.s forces independent of the relationshIp wlthm whIch they act . ThIS elimI nates the question of what IS determmant m the determmant vanable and what is determined in the determmed vanable, m other words, the question of what, among the properties chosen,. consciously or uncon sciously, through the indicators under conSIderation, constitutes the per tinent property that is really capable of determmmg the relationshIp wlthtn which it is determined. Purely statistical calculation of the vanatlons In the intensity of the relationship between a particular indicator and any given practice does not remove the need for the speCIfically SOCIologICal calculation of the effects whICh are expressed tn the statistical relationshIp and which statistical analysis, when oriented towards the search for Its own intelligibility, can help to discoveL One has to rak e .the relationship itself as the object of study and SCrutl �'ze ItS soclOlo?,cal slgntfic��ce (signification ) rather than ItS statIstICal slg n dicantness (srgnificattvtte ) , only in this way is it possible to replace the relationshIp between a sup posedly constant variable and different practICes by a senes of dIfferent effects-sociologically intelligible constant relationshIps whICh are SImul taneously revealed and concealed in the statiStical relationshIps between a given indicator and different practices. The truly sCIentific endeavour has to break with the spurious self-eVIdences of Immediate understandmg (to which the pseudo-refinements of statistical analysis-e.g., path analysls the phenomenal relatIOn bring unexpected reinforcement) . In place vanables such as level and vanable 'dependent that ship between this or common-sense n�tlons than more no are which of education or social origin, mental habits of the ftom stems power' 'explanatory and whose apparent 'an exact establish to aims it world, social the of knowledge common-sense effects the of principle rational the concepts',' relation of well-defined example, everything-for despite records relationship which the statistical the relationship between the titles of nobility (or marks of infamy) awarded by the educational system and the pracuces they Imply, or be tween the disposition required by works of legmmate art and the dISpo sition which, deliberately and consciously or not, IS taught m schools.
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Knowing the relationship which exists be tween cultural capital inherited from the family and academic capital, by
THE ENTITLEMENT EFFECT
virtue of the logic of the transmission of cultural capital and the func tioning of the educational system, one cannot impute the strong correla tion, observed between competence in music or painting (and the practice it presupposes and makes possible) and academic capital, solely to the operation of [he educational system (still less to the specifically artistic education it is supposed to give, which is clearly almost non-exis tent). Academic capital is in fact the guaranteed product of the com bined effects of cultural transmission by the family and cultural transmission by the school ( the efficiency of which depends on the amount of cultural capital directly inherited from the family). Through its value-inculcating and value-imposing operations, the school also helps ( to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the initial disposition, i.e., class of origin) to form a general, transposable disposition towards legiti mate culture, which is first acquired with respect to scholastically recog nized knowledge and practices but tends to be applied beyond the bounds of the curriculum, taking the form of a 'disinterested' propensity to accumulate experience and knowledge which may not be directly ptof itable in the academic market. The educational system defines non-curricular general culmce (ta culture 'fibre'), negatively at least, by delimiting, within the dominant culture, the area of what it puts into its syllabuses and controls by its examinations. It has been shown that (he most 'scholastic' cultural objects are those taught and requi red at the lowest levels of schooling (the extreme form of the 'scholastic' being the 'elementary'), and that the educational system sets an increasingly high value on 'general' culture and increasingly refuses 'scholas tic' measurements of culture (such as direct, closed guestions on authors, dates ana events) as one moves towards the highest levels of the system.
In fact, the generalizing tendency of the cultivated disposition is only a necessary, not a sufficient, condition for the enterprise of cultural appro priation, which is inscribed, as an objective demand, in membership of the bourgeoisie and in the qualifications giving access to its rights and duties. This is why we must first stop to consider what is perhaps the best-hidden effect of the educational system, [he one it produces by im posing 'titles',6 a particular case of the attribution by status, whether positive (ennobling) or negative (stigmatizing), which every group pro duces by assigning individuals to hierarchically ordered classes. Whereas the holders of educationally uncertified cultural capital can always be re quired to prove themselves, because they are only what they do, merely a by-product of their own cultural production, the holders of titles of cul tural nobility-like the titular members of an aristocracy, whose 'being', defined by their fidelity to a lineage, an estate, a race, a past, a fatherland or a tradition, is irreducible to any 'doing', to any know-how or func tion--{)nly have to be what they are, because all their practices derive their value from their authors, being the affirmation and perpetuation of
24 / A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste the essence by virtue of which they are performed. ' Defined by the titles which predispose and legitimate them in being what they are, which make what they do the manifestation of an essence earlier and greater than its manifestations, as in the Platonic dream of a division of func tions based on a hierarchy of beings, they are separated by a difference in kind from the commoners of culture, who are consigned to the doubly devalued status of autodidact and 'stand-in' .' Aristocracies are essentialist. Regarding existence as an emanation of essence, they set no intrinsic value on the deeds and misdeeds enrolled in the records and registries of bureaucratic memory. They prize them only insofar as they clearly manifest, in the nuances of their manner, that their one inspiration is the perpetuating and celebrating of the essence by vir tue of which they are accomplished. The same essentialism requires them to impose on themselves what their essence imposes on them-noblesse oblige-to ask of themselves what no one else could ask, to 'live up' to their own essence. This effect is one of the mechanisms which, in conditions of crisis, cause
the most privileged individuals, who remain most attached to the former state of affairs, to be the slowest to understand the need to change strategy and so to faU-victim to thei r own privilege (for example, ruined nobles who refuse to change their ways, or the heirs of great peasant families who remain celibate rather than marry benea�h them ). It could be shown, in the same way, that the ethic of noblesse oblige, still found in some fractions of the peasantry and traditional craftsmen, contributes significantly to the self exploitation characceristic of these classes.
This gives us an insight into the effect of academic markers and classi fications. However, for a full understanding we have to consider another property of all aristocracies. The essence in which they see themselves re fuses to be contained in any definition. Escaping petty rules and regula tions, it is, by nature, freedom. Thus, for the academic aristocracy it is one and the same thing to identify with an essence of the 'cultivated man' and to accept the demands implicitly inscribed in it, which increase with the prestige of the title. So there is nothing paradoxical in the fact that in its ends and means the educational system defines the enterprise of legitimate 'autodidacticism' which the acquisition of 'general culture' presupposes, an enterprise that is ever more strongly demanded as one rises in the educational hierarchy (between sections, disciplines, and specialities etc., or between levels). The essentially contradictory phrase 'legitimate autodidacticism' is in tended to indicate the difference in kind between the highly valued 'extra-curricular' culture of the holder of academic qualifications and the illegitimate extra-curricular culture of the autodidact. The reader of the popular-science monthly Science et Vie who talks about the genetic code
The Aristocracy of Culture / 25 or the incest taboo exposes himself to ridicule as soon as he ventures outside the circle of his peers, whereas Claude Levi-Strauss or Jacques Monod can only derive additional prestige from their excursions into the field of music or philosophy. Illegitimate extra-curricular culture, whether it be the knowledge accumulated by the self-taught or the 'expe rience' acquired in and through practice, outside the control of the insti· tution specifically mandated to inculcate it and officially sanction its acquisition, like the art of cooking or herbal medicine, craftsmen's skills or the stand-in's irreplaceable knowledge, is only valorized to the strict extent of its technical efficiency, without any social added-value, and is exposed to legal sanctions (like the illegal practice of medicine) when ever it emerges from the domestic universe to compete with authorized competences. Thus, it is written into the tacit definition of the academic qualifica tion formally guaranteeing a specific competence (like an engineering di ploma) that it really guarantees possession of a 'general culture' whose breadth is proportionate to the prestige of the qualification;" and, con versely, that no real guarantee may be sought of what i t guarantees for mally and really or, to put it another way, of the extent to which it guarantees what it guarantees. This effect of symbolic imposition is most intense in the case of the diplomas consecrating the cultural elite. The qualifications awarded by the French grandes ecoles guarantee, without any other guarantee, a competence extending far beyond what they are sup posed to guarantee. This is by virtue of a clause which, though tacit, is firstly binding on the qualification-holders themselves, who are called upon really to procure the attributes assigned to them by their status. \0 This process occurs at all stages of schooling, through the manipula tion of aspirations and demands-in other words, of self-image and self esteem-which the educational system carries out by channelling pupils towards prestigious or devalued positions implying or excluding legiti mate practice. The effect of 'allocation', i.e., assignment to a section, a discipline (philosophy or geography, mathematics or geology, to take the extremes) or an institution (a grande ecole that is more or less grande! or a faculty), mainly operates through the social image of the position in question and the prospects objectively inscribed in it, among the fore most of which are a certain type of cultural accumulation and a certain image of cultural accomplishment. " The official differences produced by academic classifications tend to produce (or reinforce) real differences by inducing in the classified individuals a collectively recognized and sup ported belief in the differences, thus producing behaviours that are in tended to bring real being into line with official being. Activities as alien to the explicit demands of the institution as keeping a diary, wearing heavy make-up, theatre-going or going dancing, wri ting poems or play ing rugby can thus find themselves inscribed in the position allotted within the institution as a tacit demand constantly underlined by various
26
/ A Social Critique of the judgement of Taste
mediations. Among the most important of these afe teachers' conscious or unconscious expectations and peer�group pressure, whose ethical ori entation is itself defined by the class values brought into and reinforced by the institution. This allocation effect and the status assignment it en· tails doubtless play a major role in the fact that the educational institu tion succeeds in imposing cultural practices that it does not teach and does not even explicitly demand, but which belong to the attributes at tached by status to the position it assigns, the gualifications it awards and the social positions to which the latter give access. This logic doubtless helps to explain how the legitimate disposition that is acguired by freguent contact with a particular class of works, namely, the literary and philosophical works recognized by the academic canon, comes to be extended to other, less legitimate works, such as avant-garde literature, or to areas enjoying less academic recognition, such as the cinema. The generalizing tendency is inscribed in the very principle o f the disposition to recognize legitimate works, a propensity and capacity to recognize their legitimacy and perceive them as worthy of admiration in themselves, which is inseparable from (he capacity to rec ognize in them something already known, i.e., the stylistic traits appro priate to characterize them in their singularity ( 'It's a Rembrandt', o r even 'It's the Helmeted Man') or a s members of a class of works ( ,It's Im pressionist' ) . This explains why the propensity and capacity to accumu late 'gratuitous' knowledge, such as the names of film directors, are more closely and exclusively linked to educational capital than is mere cinema going, which is more dependent on income, place of residence and age. Cinema-going, measured by rhe number of films seen among the twenty films mentioned in the survey, is lower among the less-educated than among the more highly educated, but also lower among provincials (in Lille) than among Parisians, among low-income than among high-income groups, and among old than among young people. And the same relation ships are found in rhe surveys by the Centre d'etudes des suppOrtS de publi cite (CESP): the proportion who say they have been to the cinema at least once in the previous week (a more reliable indicator of behaviour than a question on cinema-going in the course of the year, for which the tendency to oversrate is particularly strong) is rather greater among men than women (7.8 percent compared to ) . 3 percent), greater in the Paris area ( 10.9 percent) than in towns of over 100,000 people (7.7 percent) or in rural areas (3.6 percent), greater among senior executives and members of the professions ( 11.1 percent) than among junior executives (9.) percent) or clerical and commercial employees (9.7 percent), skilled manual workers and foremen (7.3 percent), semi-skilled workers (6.3 percent ) , small em ployers ( 5.2 percent) and farmers and farm workers (2.6 percent). But the greatest contrasts are between the ' youngest (22.4 percent of the 2 1-24 year olds had been to the cinema at least once in the previous week) and the oldest (only 3.2 percent of the 35-49 year olds, 1.7 percent of the 50-64
The Aristocracy of Culture / 27 year olds and 1.1 percent of the over-6)s ) , and between the most and least highly educated ( 18.2 percent of those who had been through higher edu catIOn, 9.) percent of those who had had secondary education, and 2.2 per cent of those who had had oply primary education or none at all had been to the cinema in the previous. week) (C.S. XIIIa). 12 Knowledge of directors is much more closely linked to cultural capital than is mere cinema-going. Only ) percent of the respondents who had an elementary school diploma could name at least four directors ( fcorp a list of twenty films) compared to 10 percent of holders of the BEPC or the baeea laurea! and 22 percent of those who had had higher education, whereas the proportion in each category who had seen at least four of the twenty films was 22 percent, 3 3 percent and 40 percent respectively. Thus, although film viewing also varies with educational capital ( less so, however, than visit.s to museums and concerts) , it seems that differences in consumption are not sufficient to explain the differences in knowledge of directors between holders of different gualifications. This conclusion would probably also hold good for jazz, strip cartoons, detective stories or science fiction, now that these genres have begun to achieve cultural consecration. 1 3 Further proof is that, while increasing slightly with level o f education ( from 13 percent for the least educated to 18 percent for those with second ary education and 23 percent for the most gualified ) , knowledge of actors varies mainly-and considerably-with the number of films seen. This awareness, like knowledge of the slightest events in the lives of TV person alities, presupposes a disposition closer to that required for the acquisition . of ordInary knowledge about everyday things and people than to the legiti mate diSPOSItIon. And IOdeed, these least-educated regular cinema�goers knew as many actors' names as the most highly educated. Among those who had seen at least four of the films mentioned, 45 percent of those who had had only a primary education were able to name four actors, as against 35 percent of those who had had a secondary education and 47 percent of those who had had some higher education. Interest in actors is greatest among office workers: on average they named 2.8 actors and one director, whereas the craftsmen and small shopkeepers, skilled workers and foremen named, on average, only 0.8 actors and 0.3 directors. (The secretaries and junior commercial executives, who also knew a large number of actors-av erage 2A-were more interested in directors-average l A-and those in the social and medical services even named more directors-1 .7-than actors1.4). The reading of sensational weeklies (e.g., lei Paris ) which give infor mation about the lives of stars is a product of a disposition similar to inter est in actors; it is more frequent among women than men ( 10.S perce'n t had read lei Paris in the last week, compared to 9.3 percent of the men ) , among skIlled workers and foremen ( 14.5 percent), semi-skilled workers ( 1 3.6 percent), or office workers ( 10.3 percent) than among junior execu tlves (S.6 percent) and especially among senior executives and members of the professions ( 3.8 percent) (C.S. XXVII I ) . . By contrast, although a t equivalent levels of education, knowledge of dIrectors IOcreases with the number of films seen, in this area assiduous cin ema-going does not compensate for absence of educational capital: 45.) per� cent of the CEP-holders who had seen at least four of the films mentioned
28 / A Social Critique of the judgement of Taste could not name a single director, compared to 27.5 percent of those with a BEPe or the baccalaureat and l 3 percent of those with a higher education diploma. Such competence is not necessarily acquired by means of the 'scholas tic' labours in which some 'cinephiles' or 'jazz-freaks' indulge (e.g., tran scribing film credits onto catalogue cards) . " Most often it results ftom the unintentional learning made possible by a disposition acquired through domestic or scholastic inculcation of legitimate culture. This transposable disposition, armed with a set of perceptual and evaluative schemes that are available for general application, inclines its owner to wards other cultural experiences and enables him to perceive, classify and memorize them differently. Where some only see 'a Western starring Burt Lancaster', others 'discover an early John Sturges' or 'the latest Sam Peckinpah'. In identifying what is worthy of being seen and the right way to see it, they are aided by their whole social group (which guides and reminds them with its 'Have you seen . . . ?' and 'You must see . . .') and by the whole corporation of critiCs mandated by the group to pro duce legitimate classifications and the discourse necessarily accompanying any artistic enjoyment worthy of the name. I t is possible to explain in such terms why cultural practices which schools do not teach and never explicitly demand vary in such close rela tion to educational qualifications (it being understood, of course, that we are provisionally suspending the distinction between the school's role in the correlation observed and that of the other socializing agencies, in particular the family ) . But the fact that educational qualifications func tion as a condition of entry to the universe of legitimate culture cannot be fully explained without taking into account another, still more hid den effect which the educational system, again reinforcing the work of the bourgeois family, exerts through the very conditions within which it inculcates. Thtough the educational qualification certain conditions of existence are designated-those which constitute the precondition for obtaining the qualification and also the aesthetic disposition, the most rigorously demanded of all the terms of entry which the world of legiti mate culture ( always tacitly) imposes. Anticipating what will be demon strated later, one can posit, in broad terms, that it is because they are linked either to a bourgeois origin or to the quasi-bourgeois mode of ex istence presupposed by prolonged schooling, or ( most often) to both of these combined, that educational qualifications come to be seen as a guar antee of the capacity to adopt the aesthetic disposition. Any legitimate work tends in fact to im THE AESTHETIC DISPOSITION pose the norms of its own perception and tacitly defines as the only legiti mate mode of perception the one which brings into play a certain disposition and a certain competence. Recognizing this fact does not mean constituting a particular mode of perception as an essence, thereby
The Aristocracy of Culture / 29 falling into the illusion which is the basis of recognition of artistic legiti macy. I t does mean taking note of the fact that all agents, whether they Itke It or not, whether or not they have the means of conforming to them, find themselves objectively measured by those norms. A t the same time it becomes possible to establish whether these dispositions and competences are gifts of nature, as the charismatic ideology of the rela tion to the work of art would have it, or products of learning, and to bring to light the hidden conditions of the miracle of the unequal class dIstrIbution of the capacity for inspired encounters with works of art and high culture in general. Every essentialist analysis of the aesthetic disposition, the only socially accepted 'right' way of approaching the objects socially designated as works of art, that is, as both demanding and deserving to be approached with a specifically aesthetic intention capable of recognizing and consti tuting them as works of art, is bound to fail. Refusing to take account of the collective and individual genesis of this product of history which must be endlessly 're-produced' by education, it is unable to reconstruct its sole raison d'etre, that is, the historical reason which underlies the ar bitrary necessity of the institution. If the work of art is indeed, as Pan ofsky says, that which 'demands to be experienced aesrhetically', and if any object, natural or artificial, can be perceived aesthetically, how can one escape the conclusion that it is the aesthetic intention which 'makes the work of art', or, to transpose a formula of Saussure's, that it is the aesthetic point of view that creates the aesthetic object' To get out of this vicious circle, Panofsky has to endow the work of art with an 'inten tion', in the Scholastic sense. A purely 'practical' perception contradicts this objective intention, just as an aesthetic perception would in a sense be a practical negation of the objective intention of a signal, a red light for example, which requires a 'practical' response: braking. Thus, within the class of worked-upon objects, themselves defined in opposition to natural objects, the class of art objects would be defined by the fact that it demands to be perceived aesthetically, i.e., in terms of form rather than function. But how can such a definition be made operational? Panofsky hImself observes that i t is virtually impossible to determine scientifically at what moment a worked-upon object becomes an art object, that is, at what moment form takes over from function: 'If I write to a friend to invite him to dinner, my letter is primarily a communication. But the more I shift the emphasis to the form of my script, the more nearly does it become a work of literature or poetry d5 Does this mean that the demarcation line between the world of tech nical objects and the world of aesthetic objects depends on the 'intention' of the producer of those objects? In fact, this 'intention' is itself the prod uct of the SOCIal norms and conventions which combine to define the always uncertain and historically changing frontier between simple tech nIcal obJects and objets d'art: 'Classical tastes', Panofsky observes, 'de manded that private letters, legal speeches and the shields of heroes
30
/ A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste
should be "artistic" . . . while modern taste demands that architecture , and ash trays should be "functional". ,6 But the apprehension and appreciation of the work also depend on the beholder's intention, which is itself a function of the conventional norms governing the relation to the work of art in a certain historical and social situation and also of the beholder's capacity to conform to those norms, i.e., his artistic training. To break out of this circle one only has to ob serve that the ideal of 'pure' perception of a work of art qua work of art is the product of the enunciation and systematization of the principles of specifically aesthetic legitimacy which accompany the constituting of a relatively autonomous artistic field. The aesthetic mode of perception in the 'pure' form which it has now assumed corresponds to a particular state of the mode of artistic production. An art which, like all Post Impressionist painting, for example, is the product of an artistic inten tion which asserts the absolute primacy ofform over function, of the mode of representation over the object represented, categorically demands a purely aesthetic disposition which earlier art demanded only conditionally. The demiurgic ambition of the artist, capable of applying to any object the pure intention of an artistic effort which is an end in itself, calls for un limited receptiveness on the part of an aesthete capable of applying the specifically aesthetic intention to any object, whether or not it has been produced with aesthetic intention. This demand is objectified in the art museum; there the aesthetic dis position becomes an institution. Nothing more totally manifests and achieves the auronorriizing of aesthetic activity vis-a.-vis extra-aesthetic interests or functions than the art museum's juxtaposition of works. Though originally subordinated to quite different or even incompatible functions ( crucifix and fetish, Pied and still life ) , these juxtaposed works tacitly demand attention to form rather than function, technique rather than theme, and, being constructed in styles that are mutually exclusive but all equally necessary, they are a practical challenge to the expectation of realistic representation as defined by the arbitrary canons of an every day aesthetic, and so lead naturally from stylistic relativism to the neu tralization of the very function of representation. Objects previously treated as collectors' curios or historical and ethnographic documents have achieved the status of works of art, thereby materializing the omnip otence of the aesthetic gaze and making it difficult to ignote the fact that-if it is not to be merely an arbitrary and therefore suspect affirma tion of this absolute powet-artistic contemplation now has to include a degree of erudition which is liable to damage the illusion of immediate illumination that is an essential element of pure pleasure. TASTE In short, never perhaps has more been asked of the spectator, who is now required to 're-produce' the pri mary operation whereby the artist (with the complicity of his whole inP U R E TASTE AND
' BARBAROUS '
The Aristocracy of Culture / 3 1 Icl lcctual field) produced this new fetish. 17 But never perhaps has he I wen given so much in return. The naive exhibitionism of 'conspicuous , onsumption', which seeks distinction in the crude display of ill-mastered luxury, is nothing compared to the unique capacity of the pure gaze, a quasi-creative power which sets the aesthete apart from the common herd hy a radical diffetence which seems to be inscribed in 'persons'. One only has to read Ortega y Gasset to see the reinforcement the charismatic ide ology derives from art, which is 'essentiaBy unpopular, indeed, anti popular' and from the 'curious sociological effect' it produces by dividing I he public into two 'antagonistic castes', those who understand-and those who do not'. 'This implies', Ortega goes on, 'that some possess an organ of understanding which others have been denied; that these are twO dis IinC( varieties of the human species. The new art is not for everyone, like Romantic art, but destined fat an especially gifted minority.' And he as nibes to the 'humiliation' and 'obscure sense of infetiority' inspired by 'fhis art of privilege, sensuous nobility, instinctive aristocracy', the irrita� lion it arouses in the mass, 'unworthy of artistic sacraments': 'For a cen� IUry and a half, the "people", the mass, have claimed to be the whole of ." Kiety. The music of Stravinsky or the plays of Pirandello have the socio logical power of obliging them to ·see themselves as they are, as the "common people", a mere ingredient among others in the social struc ture, the inert material of the historical process, a secondary factor in the spiritual cosmos. By contrast, the young art helps the "best" to know and recognize one another in the greyness of the multitude and to learn their mission, which is to be few in number and to have to fight against the , multitude. ls And to show that the self-legitimating imagination of the 'happy Ji:w' has no limits, one only has to quote a recent text by Suzanne I.anger, who is presented as 'one of the world's most influential philoso phers': 'In the past, the masses did not have access to art; music, painting, and even books, were pleasures reserved for the rich. It might have been supposed that the poor, the "common people", would have enjoyed them equally, if they had had the chance. But now that everyone can rcad, go to museums, listen to great music, at least on the radio, the judgement of the masses about these things has become a reality and through this it has become clear that great art is not a direct sensuous pleasute. Otherwise, like cookies or cocktails, it would flatter uneducated , l aste as much as cultured taste. 19 I t should not be thought that the relationship of distinction (which may or may not imply the conscious intention of distinguishing oneself ifom common people) is only an incidental component in the aesthetic disposition . The pure gaze implies a break with the ordinary attitude to wards the world which, as such, is a social break. One can agree with Or lega y Gasset when he attributes to modern art-which merely takes to its extreme conclusions an intention implicit in art since the Renais-
32
/ A Social Critique 0/ the Judgement 0/ Taste
sance-a systematic tefusal of all that is 'human', by which he means the passions, emotions and feelings which ordinary people put into their ordi nary existence, and consequently all the themes and objects capable of evoking them: 'People like a play when they are able to take an interest in the human destinies put before them', in which 'they participate as if 2 they were real-life events.' 0 Rejecting the 'human' clearly means reject iog what is generic, i.e., common, 'c3;sy' and immediately accessible, start� ing with everything that reduces the aesthetic animal to pure and simple animality, to palpable pleasure or sensual desire. The interest in the content of the representation which leads people to call 'beautiful' the representation of beautiful things, especially. those which speak most im mediately to the senses and the sensibility, is rejected in favour of the in of the difference and distance which refuse to subordinate j udgement " It can be seen representation to the nature of the object represented. that it is not so easy to describe the 'pure' gaze without also describing the naive gaze which it defines itself against, and vice versa; and that there is no neutral, impartial, 'pure' description of either of these oppos ing visions ( which does not mean that one has to subscribe to aesthetic relativism, when it is so obvious that the 'popular aesthetic' is defined in relation to 'high' aesthetics and that reference to legitimate art and its negative judgement on 'popular' taste never ceases to haunt the popular experience of beauty) . Refusal or privation' It is as dangerous to attrib ute the:: coherence of a systematic aesthetic to the objectively aesthetIC co mmitments of ordinary people as it is to adopt, albeit unconsciously, the strictly negative conception of ordinary vision which is the basis of every 'high' aesthetic. Everyihing takes place as if the 'popular aes thetic' were based on the affirmation of continuity between art and life, which implies the subordination of form to function, or, one might say. on a refusal of the refusal which is the starting point of the high aes thetic, i.e., the clear-cut separation of ordinary dispositions from the spe cifically aesthetic disposition. The hostility of the working class and of the middle-class fractions least rich in cultural capital towards every kind of formal experimentation asserts itself both in the theatre and in paint ing, or still more clearly, because they have less legitimacy, in photogra phy and the cinema. In the theatre as in the cinema, the popular audien.ce delights in plots that proceed logically and chronologically towards a happy end, and 'identifies' better with simply drawn situations and char acters than with ambiguous and symbolic figures and actions or the emg matic problems of the theatre of cruelty, not to mention the suspended animation of Beckettian heroes or the bland absurdities of Pinteresque di alogue. Their reluctance or refusal springs not just from lack of familiar ity but from a deep-rooted demand for participation, which formal experiment systematically disappoints, especially whefl, refusing to offer
THE POPULAR
'
AESTHETIC
'
The Aristocracy 0/ Culture / 33 the 'vulgar' arrracrions of an art of illusion, the theatrical fiction de nounces itself, as in all forms of 'play within a play'. Pirandello supplies the paradigm here, in plays in which the actors are actors unable to act Six Characters in Search 0/ an Author, Comme ci (ou comme (a ) or Ce soir on improvise-and Jean Genet supplies the formula in the Prologue to The Blacks: 'We shall have the politeness, which you have taught us, to make communication impossible. The distance initially between us we shall increase, by our splendid gestures, our manners and our insolence,' for we are also acrors:' The desire to enter into the game, identifying with the characters' joys and sufferings, worrying abou t their fate, espousing their hopes and ideals, living their life, is based on a form of investment, a sort of deliberate 'naivety', ingenuousness, good-natured credulity ( 'We're here to enjoy ourselves'), which tends to accept formal experiments and specifically artistic effects only to the extent that they can be forgotten and do not get in the way of the substance of the work. The cultural divide which associates each class of works with its public means that it is not easy to obtain working-class people's first-hand judge men ts on formalist innovations in modern art. However television which brings certain performances of 'high' art into the hom�, or certai � cultural institutions (such as the Beaubourg Centre or the Maisons de la culture ) , which briefly bring a working-class public into contact with high art and sometimes avant-garde works, create what are virtually ex perimental situations, neither more nor less artificial or unreal than those necessarily produced by any survey on legitimate culture in a working class milieu. One then observes the confusion, sometimes almost a sort of panic mingled with revolt, that is induced by some exhibits-I am thinking of Ben's heap of coal, on view at Beaubourg shortly after it opened-whose parodic intention, entirely defined in terms of an artistic fleld and �ts relatively autonomous history" is seen as a sort of aggression, an affront to common sense and sensible people. Likewise, when formal experimentation irisinuates itself into their familiar entertainments (e.g., TV variety shows with sophisticated technical effects, such as those by Jean-Christophe Averty) working-class viewers protest, not only because they do not feel the need for these fancy games, but because they some times understand that they derive their necessity from the logic of a field of production which excludes them precisely by these games: 'I don't like those cut-up things at all, where you see a head, then a nose, then a leg: . . . First you see a singer all drawn out, three metres tall, then the next minute he's got arms two metres long. Do you find that funny' Oh, I just don't like it, it's stupid, 1 don't see the point of distorting things' (a baker, Grenoble). Formal refinement-which, in literature or the theatre, leads to obscu rity-is, in the eyes of the working-class public, one sign of what is some times felt to be a desire ro keep the uninitiated at arm's length, or, as one respondent said about certain cultural programmes on TV, to speak to
34 /
A
The AriJtocrary of Culture / 35
Social Critique of the Judgement (1 FelSle
paraphe rnalia other initiates 'over the viewers' head<;'"u I r is pan of the separati ng, of which always announ ces the sacred character, separate and . grandIose the high culture-the icy solemn ity � f the great mus�ums, and decoru ffi of luxury of the opera-houses and major theatres, the dec� r . aU lence concert-halls.23 Everything takes place as if the workm$-c1ass both 10 art vaguely grasped what is. implied in conspicuous ormallty , . whICh ex and in life, i.t., a sOrt of censorship of the expressive content same token, plodes in the expressiveness of popular language, and by the ratl ?n , expio , a distanci ng, inheren t in the calculated coldness of al. 1 formal nlcatlOn commu the f a refusal t o commu nicate concealed a t the heart o to deliver itself both in an art which takes back and refuses what it seems ' ent perman a is m and j n bourgeois politeness, whose im pe,cc�ble �ormalis ent popular ely, � r warning against the temptation of fam ll!a �I{y . .Convers . e collectiv and show tainmen t secures the spectator's paniCip atiOn In the lodrama me and pa rti c ipation in the festivity which i.t occasions. If circus . m g and, (which are recreated by some sporting spectacles such as wrestl s ch as th�se to a lesser extent, boxing and all forms of team games, � nments like entertai which have been televised) are more 'popular' than forma ized less dancing or theatre, this is not merely beca � se, being lzed, euphem less ( compare, for example, acrobatics with danCIng ) and , because so l a IS It they offer more direct, more immedi ate sa(lsfact lons. spectacu o array th � through the collective festivity they give rise to and all, l i g h t opera lar delight s they offer ( I am thinkin g also of the mUSIC-h es, CX.CItIng costum ng or the big featur� film ) -fabul ous sets, , giItten_ comIC and the of forms all music lively action, enthusia stic actors-like ( mlmi(s; 'great' the of parody or satirc especi lIy those workin g through : revelry, of sense and or f taste the .the plain chansonniers etc . ) , they satisfy sooal world speakin g and hearty laughte r which liberate by setting the . tlcs propne and [1ons (onven ning head over heels, overtur
�
�
�
�
;
This popular reaction is the very opposite of , who, as is seen whenever he appropriates aesthete the the detachment of (e.g., \'Yesterns or srr ip . car �oons ) '. i� taste popular of one of the objects , of his distant dlstmct lon-vls-a measure he t gap-a troduces a d istance, vis 'first-degree' perception, by displaci ng the i�teresr f�o � th_c 'conte� t', c effects whICh characters, plot etc., to the form, to the specific ally: art!st � othcr wOrks With panso con a through ally, relation � : are only appreciated , work If'� the of Jty lar slng the in ion immers with atible � which is incomp . cnc�-aesth etlc medi atel y given, Detach ment, disinterestedness, Indlffer ze the work recogm to way only the as these ed present theory has so often forgetting up ends onc that lgl se/bs/iind mous, autono is, of art for what it in other erence, indif t, en detachm , stment disinve that they really mean . y Woridl y. senousl things take and oneself invest to words the refusal � j who have long been s, pectacle s /eJ sur Lettre au's wise r aders of Rousse than to invest too aware that there is nothing more naive and vulgar
AESTHE TIC DISTAN Cl Nl;
�
�
Itluch passion in the things of the mind or to expect too much serious
! wSS of them, tending to assume that intellectual creativity is 'opposed to
.noral integrity or political consistency, have no answer to Virginia she criticizes the novels of \Vells, Galsworthy and Bennett I wcause 'they leave one with a strange sense of incompleteness and dissat I.'.ftction' and the feeling that it is 'necessary to do something�to join a "(leiety, or, more desperately, to write a cheque', in contrast to works like his/ram Shandy or Pride and Prejudice, which, being perfectly 'self-con tained', 'leave one with no desire to do anything, except indeed to read , t he book again, and to understand it better. 2'i But the refusal of any sort of involvement, any 'vulgar' surrender to C:lSY seduction and collective enthusiasm, which is, indirectly at least, the origin of the taste for formal complexity and objectless representations, is pcrhaps mos t clearly seen in reactions to paintings. Thus one finds that '" t he higher the level of education, the greater is the proportion of re 'pondents who, when asked whether a series of objects would make kauriful photographs, refuse the ordinary >objects o f popular admira t IOn-a first communion, a sunset or a landscape-as 'vulgar' or 'ugly', or reject them as 'trivial', silly, a bit 'wet ', or, in Ortega y Gasset's terms, naively 'human'; and the greater is the proportion who assert the auton omy of the representation with respect to the thing represented by de , laring that a beautiful photograph, and a fortiori a beautiful painting, , :In be made from objects socially designated as meaningless-----a metal I ramc, the bark of a tree, and especially cabbages, a trivial object par ex I c llence--o r as ugly and repulsive-such as a car crash, a butcher's stall ( chosen for the Rembrandt allusion) or a snake ( for the Boileau refer mce )---or as misplaced--e.g., a pregnant woman (see tables 2 and 3 ) , Woolf when
Since it was not possible to set u p a genui ne experimental situation, we ( n ll t'c ced the interviewees ' statements about the things they consider 'pho
( ogenic' and which therefore see'm to them capable of being looked at aes I h eti cally (as opposed to things excluded on account of their triviality or ugliness or for ethical reasons), The capacity to adopt the aesthetic at titu de 1:-' thus measured by the gap (which, in a field of production that evolves ( b rough the dialec tic of distinction, is' also a time-lag, a backwardness) be J wcen what is constituted as an aesthe tic object by the individual or group ( Ilflcerned and what is constituted aesthetically in a given state of the field j ) f produc tion by the holders of aesthetic legitimacy. The foJ iow ing question was put to the in terviewees : 'Given the following ;.,ubjens, is a photographer more l i kely to produce a beau ti ful , i nteresti ng, Illc;m ingless or ugly photo: a landscape, a car crash etc.?' In the preliminary \IJ rvey, the in tervi ewees were shown actual photographs, mostly famous ones, of the ob jects which were merely named in the full-scale survey-peb hies, a pregnant woman etc. The reactions evoked by the mere idea of the Ullage were entirel y consistent with those produced by the image ' itself (evi dence that the value at tri bu ted to the image tends to correspond to the
Tabk 2
Aesthetic disposition. by educational capital ( % ) ,1 First communion
Educational capital
No reply or incoherent
N
No qualification, CEP CAP BEPC Baccalaurelt Staned higher education Licence Agregation, grande ecole
Ugly
Meaningless
w '"
Folk dance
Interesting
Beautiful
--.....
No reply or incoherent
Ugly
Meaningless
Interesting
Beautiful
'" �
314
2.0
5.0
19.0
23.0
51.0
1.0
0.5
3.0
4}.0
54. ')
97
4.0
1.0
26.0
31.0
4.0
0
3.0
33.0
197
2.5
7.0
27.0
38.0 31.0
32.5
3.5
7.0
33.5
217
2.0
12.0
43.0
24.0
19.0
2.0
0 0.5
60.0 56.0
13.0
47.5
37.0
118
4.0
]3.0
45.0
23.0
15.0
6.0
2.'
13.0
37.0
41.5
182
1.0
11.0
53.0 49.0
28.0
7.0
2.0
1.0
11.0
49.5
36:>
22.5
28.0
39.5
4.0
71
15.5
25.5
6.0
4.0
6.0
"
� Q
�.
�.
� Tabk 2
(continued). Bark of a tret'
Educational capital
N
No qualification, CEP CAP BEPC Baccaiaureat Started higher education Licence Agregation, grande ecole
Cabbages
Butcher's stall
No reply or Meaning· InterestMeaning· lnterestNo reply or Meaning- InterestNo reply or Beautiful ing I,,, Beautiful incoherent Ugly I", incoherent Ugly "" ing Beautiful incoherent Ugly '"g
314
2.0
14.5
46.5
21.5
15.5
l.5
31.0
46.0
16.5
'.0
2.0
28.0
5.0
1.0
20.0
37.0
37.0
60
15.5
24.0
6.0
5.0
16.5
7.0
8.'
197
2.5
8.'
31.5
30.0
27.5
3.0
28.0
48.5 47.0
56.0 63.0
10.0
97
17.0
'.0
2.0
17.0
55.0
1 3.0
13.0
217
2.0
3.0
21.0
32.0
42.0
3.0
295
32.0
25.0
10.5
2.0
17.5
48.5
ll8
6.0
1.0
23.0
2'5.0
45.0
4.0
30.5
29.0
18.5
18.0
6.0
9.0
475
19.5
18.0
182
0
3.0
18.0
23.0
4.'
29.5
22.5
24.0
16.0
51.5
8.0
3.0
8.'
24.0
4.0
295
23.0
18.0
19.5 25.5
2.0
4.0
56.0 60.5
3.0
11.0
38.0
21:0
22.5 27.0
71
Educational qualification
None, CEP, CAP BEPC and above BEPC bac higher education
Uppe'
,
� � ;;:
13.0
man, a snake, an "old master" ?' In each column, the italic figures indi cate the strongest tendencies.
Aesthetic disposition, by class and education ( % ) .
Working None, CEP, CAP BEPC and above� Middle
!
weaver at his loom, a folk dance, a rope, the bark of a tree, a butcher's stall, a famous monument, a scrap-yard, a first communion, a wounded
Pregnant woman Classes
4.0
19.0
a. The respondents had to answer this question: 'Given the following subjects, is a photographer more likely to make a beautiful, interesting, meaningless, or ugly photo: a landscape, a car crash, a little girl playing with a cat, a pregnant woman, a still life, a woman suckling a child, a metal frame, tramps quarrelling, cabbages, a sunset over the sea, a
Table 3
� '" 0%-
None, CEP, CAP " BEPC and above BEPC bac highe"r education technical college licence
agreg., grande ecole
N 143
Cabbages
No reply or No reply or incoherent Ugly Meaningless Interesting Beautiful incoherent Ugly Meaningless Interesting Beautiful 1.5
40.0
36.5
14.0
0
8.0
39.0
22.0
1 1 .0
28.0
0
1.0
46.0
27.5
15.0
335
10.5
3.5
34.0
2.0
30.0
13.5
149
3.5
19.0
39.0
35.0
140
9.0
1 3. 5
3.5
37.0
21.0
17.5
46
4.0
8.5
42.0
18 243
1.5
28.0
57.0
8.5
5.5
72.5
16.5
5.5
22.5
61.5
10.0
4.0
2.5
17.5
49.5
14.5
16.0
2.0
21.0
56.0
8.5
12.5
2 1 .0
3.0
15.5
45.0
13.0
19.5
17.0
32.5
4.0
13.0
41.0
20.0
22.0
20.0
36.0
28.0
12.0
4.0
5.0
25
20.0
36.0
24.0
12.0
432
3.0
8.0
36.0
22.0
19.0
31
6.5
20.0
48.5
38.5
0
3.0
14.5
48.0
15.5
6.5
19.0
6.5
6.5
38.5
32.5
16.0
76
� �
'"-
...
", .
�
0
60.5
16.0
5.0
325
18.5
3.0
30.0
0
22.5
21.0
55.5
2).0
17.0
6.5
21.5
3.0
14.0
47.5
�
13.5
22.0
52.0
20.0
15.0 23.0
� (;\
27.0
80
7.5
17.5
30.0
32.5
174
12.5
0.5
36.0
6.5
21.5
6.5
19.5
71
4.0
22.5
29.5
2.0
17.0
20.0
18. 5
49.0
7.5
29.5
3.0
11.0
38.0
21.0
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38
The Aristocracy of Culture / 39
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N
o
value attributed to the thing). Phowgraphs were used partly to avoid the legitimacy-imposing effects of paintings and partly because photography is perceived as a more accessible praccice, so that the judgemencs expressed were likely to be less unreal. Although the test employed was designed to collect statements of artistic intention rather than to measure the ability to put the intention into prac tice in doing painting or photography or even in the perception of works of an, it enables one to identify the factors which determine the capacity to adopt the posture socially designated as specifically aesthetic. Factorial analy sis of judgements on 'photogenic' objects reveals an opposition within each class between the fractions richest in cultural capital and poorest in eco nomic capital and the fractions richest in economic capital and poorest in cultural capital. In the case of the dominant class, higher-education teachers and artistic producers (and secondarily, teachers and the professions) are op posed to industrial and commercial employers; private-sector executives and engineers are in an intermediate position. In the petite bourgeoisie, the cul tural intermediaries ( distinctly separated from the closest fractions, the pri mary teachers, medical services and art craftsmen) are opposed to the small shopkeepers Or craftsmen and the office workers. In addition to the relationship between cultural capital and the negative and positive indices ( refusal of 'wetness'; the capacity to valorize the trivial) of rhe aesthetic disposition--or, at" least, rhe capacity to operare the arbi rrary classificarion which, within the universe of worked-upon objects, dis tinguishes the objects socially designated as deserving and demanding an aesthetic approach that can recognize and consrirure rhem as works of artrhe statistics establish that the preferred objects of would-be aesthetic pho tography, e.g., the folk dance, the weaver or the little girl wirh her cat, are in an intermediate position. The proportion of respondents who consider thar these things can make a beautiful photograph is highest at the levels of the CAP and BEPC, whereas at higher levels they tend to be judged either interesting or meaningless. The proportion of respondents who say a first communion can make a beautiful photo declines up ro the level of the licence and then rises again at the highest leveL This is because a relatively large proportion of the highest qualified subjects asser't their aesthetic disposition by declaring that any ob jeer can be perceived aesthetically. Thus, in the dominant class, the propor tion who declare that a sunset can make a beautiful photo is greatest at the lowest educational level, declines at intermediate levels (some higher educa tion, a minor engineering school ) , and grows strongly again among those who have completed several years of higher education and who tend to (on sider that anything is suitable for beautiful photography. The starisrics also show that women are much more likely than men to manifest their repugnance [Oward repugnant, horrible or distasteful objects: 44.5 percent of them, as against 35 percent of the men; consider that there can only be an ugly photograph of a wounded man, and there are similar differences for the butcher's stall ( 3 3 . 5 and 27 percent), the snake (30.5 and 2 1 . 5 percent) or the pregnant woman (45 and 33.5 percent ) , whereas the gap disappears with the still life ( 6 and 6.5 percent) and the cabbages (20.5 and 19 percent ) . The traditional division of labour between the sexes as-
40
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/ A Social Critique of the Judgement of TaJte
signs 'humane' or 'humanitarian' tasks and feelings to women and more readily allows them effusions and tears, in the name of the opposition be {ween reason and sensibility; men are, ex officio, on the side of culture whereas women (like the working class) are cast on the side of nature. Women are therefore less imperatively required to censor and repress 'natu ral' feelings as the aesthetic disposition demands (which indicates, inciden tally, that, as will be shown subsequently, the refusal of nature, or rather the refusal to surrender to nature, which is the mark of dominant groups who start with self-control-is the basis of the aesthetic disposition ) . Women's revulsion is expressed more overtly, at the expense of acsthetic neutralization, the more completely they arc subject to the traditional model of the sexual division of labour and (in other words ) the weaker their cultural capital and the lower their position in the social hierarchy. Women in the new petite bourgeoisie, who, in general, make much greater concessions to affective considerations than the men in the same category (although they are equally likely to say that there can be a beauriful photo gtaph of cabbages ), much more rarely accept that a photograph of a preg nant wom'an can only be, ugly than women in any other category ( 3 1.5 percent of them, as against 70 percent of the wives of industrial and com mercial employers, 69.5 percent of the wives of craftsmen and shopkeepers, 47.5 percent of the wives of manual workers, clerical workers or junior ex ecutives ) . In doing so they manifest simultaneously their aesthetic preten sions and their desire to be seen as 'liberated' from the ethical taboos imposed on their sex. Thus, nothing more rigorously distinguishes the different classes than the disposition objectively demanded by the legitimate consumption of legitimate works, the aptitude for taking a specifically aesthetic point of view on objects already constituted aesthetically�and therefore put forward for the admiration of those who hav,e learned to recognize the signs of the admirable�and the even rarer capacity to constitute aestheti cally objects that are ordinary or even 'common' (beGause they are appro priated, aesthetically or otherwise, by the 'common people' ) or to apply the principles -of a 'pure' aesthetic in the most everyday choices of every day life, in cooking, dress or decoration, for example. Statistical enquiry is indispensable in order to establish beyond dispute the social conditions of possibility (which will have to be made more ex plicit) of the 'pure' disposition. However, because it inevitably looks like a scholastic test intended to measure the respondents against a norm tac itly regarded as absolute, it may fail to capture the meanings which this disposition and the whole attitude to the wotld expressed in it have for the different social classes. What the logic of the test would lead one to describe as a deficiency (and that is what it is, from the standpoint of the norms defining legitimate perception of works of art) is also a refusal which stems from a denunCiation of the arbitrary or ostentatious gratui tousness of stylistic exercises or purely formalistic experiments. A certain 'aesthetic', which maintains that a photograph is justified by the object
photographed or by the possible use of the photographic image, is being brought into play when manual workers almost 10vanably reject photog raphy for photography'S sake (e.g., the photo of pebbles) as useless, per verse or bourgeois: 'A waste of film', 'They must have film to throw away', 'I tell you, there are some people who don't know what to do with their time', 'Haven:t they got anything better to do with their time than photograph things like that" 'That's bourgeois photography ' It must never be forgotten that the working-class 'aesthetic' is a dominated 'aesthetic' which is constantly obliged to define itself in terms of the domi nant aesthetics. The members of the working class, who can neither ignore the high-art aesthetic, which denounces their own 'aesthetic', nor abandon . their socially conditioned inclinations, but still less proclaim them and legit i mate them, often experience their relationship to the aesthetic norms in a twofold and contradictory way. This is seen when some manual workers grant 'pure' photographs a purely verbal recognitio� ( this is also the ca�e with many petit bourgeois and even some bourgeOIs who, as regards paInt ings, for example, differ from the working class mainly by what they know is the right thing to say or do or, still better, not to say ) : 'It's beautiful, but it would never occur to me to take a picture of a thing like that', 'Yes, it's beautiful, but you have to like it, it's not my cup of tea.' ' ' AN ANTJ-KANT IAN AESTHETIC
It is no accident that, when one sets about reconstrucring its logic, the popular 'aesthetic' appears as the nega tive opposite of the Kantian aesthetic, and that the popular ethos implic itly answers each ptoposition of the 'Analytic of the Beautiful' with a thesis contradicting it. In order to apprehend what makes the speClfiCIty of aesthetic judgement, Kant ingeniously distinguished 'that which pleases' from 'that which gratifies', and, more gen�rally, strove t� separ�te 'disinterestedness', the sole guarantee of the speClfically aesthetic qualIty of contemplation, from 'the interest of the senses', which defines' 'the agreeable', and ftom 'the interest of Reason', which defines 'the Good'. By contrast, working-dass people, who expect every image to fulfil a function, if only that of a sign, refer, often explicitly, to norms of moral ity or agreeableness in all their judgements. Thus the photograph of a dead soldier ptovokes judgements which, whether positive or negative, are always responses to the reality of the thing represented or .to the functions the representation could serve, the horror of war or the denun ciation of the hortors of war which the photographer is supposed to produce simply by showing that horror. 27 Similarly, popular naturalism recognizes beauty in the image of a beautiful thing or, more rarely, 10 a beautiful image of a beautiful thing: 'Now, that's good, it's almost sym metrical. And she's a beautiful woman. A beautiful woman always looks good in a photo.' The Parisian manual worker echoes 'the plain-speaking of Hippias the Sophist: 'I'll tell him what beauty is and I'm not likely to
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42
be refuted by him' The fact is, Socrates, to be frank, a beautiful woman, that's what beauty is" ( Plato, Greater Hippias, 287e). This 'aesthetic', which subordinates the form and the very existence of the image to its function, is necessarily pluralistic and conditionaL The insistence with which the respondents point out the limits and condi tions of validity of their judgements, distinguishing, for each photo graph, the possible uses or audiences, or, more precisely, the possible use for each audience ('As a news photo, it's not bad', 'All right, if it's for showing to kids' ) shows that they teject .the idea that a photograph can please 'universally'. 'A photo of a pregnant woman is all right for me, not for other people', said a white-collar worker, who has to use his concern for propriety as a way of expressing anxiety about what is 'presentable' and therefore entitled to demand admiration . Because the image is always Judged by reference to the function it fulfils for the person who looks at it or which he thinks it could fulfil for other classes of beholders aes thetic judgement naturally takes the form of a hypothetical judge :n ent implicitly based on recognition of 'genres', the perfection and scope of whICh are defined by a concept. Almost three-quarters of the judge ments expressed begin with an 'if', and the effort to recognize culminates in classification into a genre, or, which amounts to the same thing, in the attrib � tion of a social use, the different genres being defined in terms of th,ir use and their users ( ,It's a publicity photo', 'It's a pure document', 'It's a laboratory phoro', " It's a competition photo', 'It's an educational phoro' etc . ) . And photographs of nudes are almost always received with comments that reduce them to the stereotype of their social function: 'All right in Pigalle', 'It's the sort of photos they keep under the coun ter ' It is not surprising that this 'aesthetic', which bases apprecia tion on informative, tangible or moral interest, can only refuse images of the trivial, or, which amounts to the same thing in terms of this logic, the triviality of the image: judgement never gives the image of the object autonomy with respect to the object of the image. Of all the characteris-. tics proper to the image, only colour (which Kant regarded as less pure than form ) can prevent rejection of photographs of trivial things. Noth ' ing is more alien to popular consciousness than the idea of an aesthetic pleasure that, to put it in Kantian terms, is independent of the charming of the senses. Thus judgements on the photographs most strongly re jected on grounds of futility (pebbles, bark, wave) almost always end with the reservation that 'in colour, it might be ,pretty'; and some respondents even manage to formulate the maxim governing their atti tude, when they declare that 'if the colours are good, a colour photo graph is always beautiful.' In short, Kant is indeed referring ro popular taste when he writes: 'Taste that requires an added element of charm and emotion for its delight, not to speak of adopting this as the measure of , 'H its apptoval, has not yet emerged from barbarism Refusal of the meaningless (insignifiant ) image, which has neither .
sense nor interest, or of the ambiguous image means refusing to treat it as a finality without purpose, as an image signifying itself, and therefore having no other referent than itself. The value of a photograph is mea sU red by the interest of the information it conveys, and by the clarity , , with whIch it fulfils this informative function, in short, its legibility, whIch Itself varies with the legibility of its intention or function, the judgement it provokes being more or less favourable depending on the expresSIve adequacy of the signifier to the signified. It therefore contains the expectation of rhe title or caption which, by declaring the signifying IOtentlOn, makes It pOSSIble to Judge whether the realization signifies or illustrates it adequately. If formal explorations, in avant-garde theatre or non-figurative painting, 'or simply classical music, are disconcerting to working-class people, this is partly because they feel incapable of under standIng what these things must signify, insofar as they are signs. Hence the uninitiared may experience as inadequate and unworthy a satisfaction that cannot be grounded in a meaning transcendent to the object. Not knowing what the 'intention' is, rhey feel incapable of distinguishing a tour de force from clumsiness, telling a 'sincere' formal device from cyni cal imposture, The con fessions with which manual workers faced with modern pictures be , exclUSIOn , tray their ('I don't understand what it means' or 'I like it but I don't understand it') contrast with the knowing silence of the bourgeois, who, though equally disconcerted, at least know that they have to refuse or at least conceal the naive expectation of expressiveness that is betrayed by the concern to 'understand' ( ,programme music' and the titles foisted on so many sonatas, concertos and symphonies are sufficient indication that this expectation is not an exclusi,,:ely popul ar one), -
But formal refinement is also that which, by foregrounding form, i.e., the artist, his specific interests, his technical problems, his effects, his al lusions and echoes, throws the thing itself into the background and pre cludes dIrect commUnIon with the beauty of the world�a beautiful child, a beautiful girl, a beautiful animal or a beautiful landscape. The representatlOn IS expected to be a feast for the eyes and, like still life, to 'stir up memories and anticipations of feasts enjoyed and feasts to come .'29 Nothing is more opposed to the celebration of the beauty and JOY of the world that IS looked for in the work of arr, 'a choice which praises', than the devices of cubist or abstract painting, which are per ceIved and unanImously denounced as aggressions againsr the thing rep resented, against the natural order and especially the human form. In shorr, however perfectly it performs its representative function, the work is only seen as fully justified if the thing represented is worthy of being represented, if the representative function is subordinated to a higher function, such as that of capturing and exalting a reality that is worthy of
44
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'Ihe
AriJtocracy 0/ Culture /
45
being made eternal. Such is the basis of the 'barbarous taste' ro which the
most antithetical forms of the dominant aesthetic always refer negatively and which only recognizes realist representation, in other words, a re spectful, humble, submissive representation of objects designated by their
beauty or their social importance_
AESTHETICS, ETHICS AND AESTHETICISM When faced with legitimate works of art, people most lacking the specific competence apply to them
the perceptual schemes of their own ethos, the very ones which structure
their everyday perception of everyday existence. These schemes, giving rise to products of an unwilled, unselfconscious systematicity, are op posed to the more or less ful l y stated principles of an aesthetic.'o The re sult is a systematic 'reduction' of the things of art to the things of life, a bracketing of form in favour of 'human' content, which IS barbarism par
excellence from the standpoint of the pure aesthetic."
Everything takes
place as if the emphasis on form could only be achieved by means of a neutralization of any kind of affective or ethical interest in the object of representation which accompanies (without any necessary cause-effeq re
lation) mastery of the means of grasping the distinctive properties which this particular form takes on in its relations with other forms (i.e., through reference to the universe of works of art and its history ) .
Confronted with a photograph of an old woman's hands, the culturally most deprived express a more or less conventional emotion or an ethical complicity but never a specifically aesthetic judgement (other than a nega tive one ) : 'Oh, she's got terribly defotmed hands' . . . There's one thing I don 't get (the left hand)-it's as if her left thumb was about to come away from her hand. Funny way of taking a photo. The old girl must've worked hard. Looks like she's got arthritis. She's definitely crippled, unless she's holding her hands like that (imitates gesture) ' Yes, that's it, she's got her hand bent like thar. Nor like a duchess's hands or even a typist's! . . . I really feel sorry seeing that poor old woman's hands, they're all knotted, you might say' (manual worker, Paris) . With the lower middle classes, ex altation of ethical virtues comes to the forefront (,hands worn out by toil'), sometimes tinged with populist sentimentality (,Poor old thing' Her hands must really hurt her. It really gives a sense of pain' ); and sometimes even conc�rn for aesthetic properties and references to painting make their appearance: 'Ir's as if it was a painting that had been photographed . . . Must be really beautiful as a painting' (clerical worker, Paris) . 'That re minds me of a picture I saw in an exhibition of Spanish paintings, a monk with his hands clasped in front of him and deformed fingers' (tec�nician, Paris). 'The sort of hands you see in early Van Goghs, an old peasant woman or people eating potatoes' ( junior executive, Paris). At higher levels in the social hierarchy, the remarks become increi:lsingly abstract, with (other people's) hands, labour and old age functioning as allegories or sym bols which serve as pretexts for general reflections on general problems:
'Those are the hands of someone who has worked too much, doing very hard manual work . . . A.s a matter of fact it's very unusual to see hands like (har' (engineer, Paris). 'These twO hands unquestionably evoke a poor and unhappy old age' ( teacher, provinces ) . An aesth�ticizing reference to paint ing, sculpture or literature, more frequent, more varied and more subcJv handled, resorts to the neutralization and distancing which bourgeois d is course abom the social world refluires and performs. ' J find this a very beautiful photograph. It's the very symbol of toil . It puts me in mind of Fl auberr' s old servant-wOman . . . That woman's gesture, at once very humble . It's terrible that work and poverty are so deformif],g' (engineer, Paris ) . A portrait o f a heavily made-up woman, taken from an unusual angle with unusual lighting, provokes very similar reactions. Manual workers, and even more so craftsmen and small shopkeepers, react with horror and dis gust: 'I wouldn't like that photo in my house, in my room. It isn't very nice to look at. It's rather painful' (manual worker, provinces) . 'Is she dead? Ghastly, enough to keep you awake at night . . . ghastly, horrible, I don't want to look at it' (shopkeeper, provinces ) . While most of the office workers and junior executives rej eer a photo which they can only describe as 'frightful' or 'unpleasant (Q look at', some of them try to characterize the technique: 'The photo is very well taken, very beaut.iful, but horrible' ( cleri cal worker; Paris ) . 'What gives the impression of something monstrous is the expression on the face of the man or woman who is the su bj ect of the photo and the angle from which i t has been taken, that's to say looking up from below' ( junior executive, Paris). Others appeal to aesthetic references, mainly drawn from the cinema: 'A rather fantastic sort of character, Or at least rather bizarre . . . i t could be a Dreyer character, Bergman at a pinch,
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The Lacq gasworks by night or perhaps even Eisenstein, in Ivan the Terrible . . . I like it a lor' ( rech ? i cian, Paris) . Most of the senior executives and members of the professIOns find the photograph 'beautiful' and 'expressive' and make reference nor only to the films of Bergman, Orson Welles, Dreyer, and others, but also to the theatre, invoking Hamlet, Macbeth or Racine's Athalie. . . When confronted with a photograph of the Lacq gas refinery, whICh IS likely to disconcert realist expectations both by its subject, an industrial complex, normally excluded from thl:;" world of legitimate representation, and by the treatment it receives (night photography), manual workers per plexed, hesitate, and evencually, in most cases, admit defeat: 'At firs� sight . . it's a construction in metal but I can't make head or tat! of It. It might be something used in an electric power station . . . I can't make out what it is, it's a mystery to me' (manual worker, provinces) . 'Now, that one really bothers me, I haven't got anything to say about it . I can't see what it could be, apart from the lighting. It isn't car he�d.lights, it wouldn'.t be all straight lines like that. Down here I can see a railing and a goods lift, no, really, I can't say' ( manual worker, Paris ) . 'That's something ro do :-rith electronics, I don't know anything about that' ( manual worker, Pans). Among smaIl employers, who tend to be hostile to modern art experiments and, more generally, to all art in . which they cannot. see the· marks and . , traces of work, a sense of confUSIOn often leads to SImple refusal: That IS of no interest, it may be all very fine, but not for me. It's always the same thing. Personally that stuff leaves me cold' (craftsman, provinces ) . 'I've tried to work out if it really is a photo. Perhaps it's a reproduction of a drawing done with a few pencil lines . . . I wouldn't know what t? do with a photo like that. Perhaps it suits modern tastes. Up and down with the pencil and rhey like it. And as for the photo and the photographer, rhey don't deserve any credit, they've done nothing at all. The artist did It all, he's the one who ought ro take the credit, he's the one who drew it' (shop-
keeper, provinces) . Office workers and junior executives, who are just as disconcerted as the manual workers and small employers, but are less in clined to admit it than the former and less inclined than the latter to chal lenge the legitimacy of what challenges them, less often decline to give a 32 verdict: 'I like it as a photo . . . because it's all drawn out; they're just lines, it seems immense to me . . . A vast piece of scaffolding . . . It's just light, captured by the camera' (clerical worker, Paris) . 'Buffet likes doing things like that' ( technician, Paris) . But only among members of the domi nane class, who most often recognize the objeer represented, does judge ment of form take on full autonomy vis-a-vis judgement ofcontenr ('It's inhuman but aesthetically beautiful because of the contrasts') , and the rep resentation is apprehended as such, without reference ro anything other than itself or realities of the same class (,abstract painting', 'avant-garde plays' etc .). The variations in the attitude to a very comparable objeer, a metal frame, provide a numerical proof of this: the proportion of respondents who think it could make a beautiful pharo is 6 percent among manual workers and domestic servants, 9 percent among craftsmen and small shopkeepers, .9.5 percent among the clerical workers and junior adminisrrative executives, 24 percent among the primary teachers and technicians, 24.5 percent in the dominant class-and 50 percent among the secondary and higher-education teachers. (One may assume that the reactions aroused by the architecture of the Beaubourg Centre obey the same principles. )
The aestheticism which makes the artistic intention the basis of (he 'art of living' implies a sort of moral agnosticism, rhe perfect antithesis of rhe ethical disposition which subordinates art to the values of the art of l iv ing. The aesthetic intention can only contradict the dispositions of the ethos or the norms of the ethic which, at each moment, define the legiti mate oi;>jects and modes of representation for rhe different social classes, excluding fro m the u niverse of the 'representable' certain realities and certain ways of representing them. Thus the easiest, and so the most fre quent and most spectacular way to 'shock (epater ) the bourgeois' by proving the extent of one's power to confer aesthetic status is to tram· gress ever more radically the ethical censotships (e.g., in matters of sex) which the other classes accept even within the area which the dominant disposition defines as aesthetic. Or, more subtly, it is done by conferring aesthetit status on objects or ways of representing them that are excluded by the dominant aesthetic of the time, or on objects that are given aes thetic status by dominated 'aesthetics'. One only has to read the index of contents recently published by Art Vi ( 1974), a 'vaguely modern review run by a clique of academics who are vaguely art historians' (as an avant-garde painter nicely put it), which occupies a sort of neutral point in the field of avant-garde art criticism be tween Flashart or Art Press and Artitude or Opus. In the list of features and titles one finds: A/rica (one title: 'Art Must Be for All'), Architecture (two
vant
48 / A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste tities, including 'Architecture without an Architect'), Comic Strips ( five titles, nine pages out of the forty-six in the whole index ) , Kids' Art, Kitsch (thtee tides, five pages) , Photography ( two titles, thtee pages) , Street Art (fifteen titles, twenty-three pages, i ncluding 'Art in the Street?', 'Art in the Street, First Episode' . 'Beauty in the Back-Streets: You Just Have to Know How to Look', 'A Subutb Sets the Pace' ) , Science-Fiction-Utopia ( two titles, thtee pages), Underground (one title), Writing-Ideograms-Graffiti ( two titles, four pages) . The aim of inverting or tramgreJJtng, whICh 15 clearly mani fested by this list, is necessarily contained within the limits assigned to it a (cntrado by the aesthetic conventions it denounces and by the need to secure recognition of the aesthetic nature of the transgression of the limits (Le., recognition of its conformity to the norms of the transgressing group). Hence the almost Markovian logic of the choices, with, for the cin ema, Antonioni, Chaplin, cinematheque, Eisenstein, eroticism-pornography, Fellini, Godatd, Klein, Monroe, undetground, Wathol.
This commitment to symbolic ttansgtession, which is often combined with political neutrality Ot tevolutionary aestheticism, is the almost pet fect antithesis of petit-bourgeois moralism Ot of what Same used to call , the revolutionary's 'seriousness . ll The ethical indiffetence which the aes thetic disposition implies when it becomes the basis of the art of living is in fact the root of the ethical aversion to attists (Ot intellectuals) which manifests itself particularly vehemently among the declining and threat ened frac t ion s of the petite bourgeo isie (especially independent crafts men and shopkeepers), who tend to exptess theit tegtessive and repr:essive dispositions in all areas of practice (especially in educational . matters and vis-a.-vis students and student demonstrauons), but also among the rising fractions of that class whose striving for virtue and whose deep insecurity rendet them very teceptive to the phantasm of 'pornocracy' . The pute disposition is so universally recognized as legitimate that no voice is heatd pointing out that the definition of art, and through it the art of living, is an object of struggle among the classes. Dominated life styles (arts de vivre ) , which have practically nevet teceived systematic ex ptession, are almost always petceived, even by their defenders from the : destructive or reductive viewpoint of the dominant aesthetIC, so that theit only options ate degradation or self-desttuctive tehabilitation ( 'pop ular culture') . This is why it is necessary to look to Ptoudhon 34 for a naively systematic exptession of the petit-bourgeois aesthetic, which sub ordinates art to the cote values of the att of living and identifies the cyn ical perversion of the artist's life-style as the source of the absolute ptimacy given to fotm: 'Undet the influence of property, the artist, depraved in his teason, dis solute in his morals, venal and without dignity, is the impure image of ego ism. The idea of justice and honesty slides over his heart without taking root, and of all the classes of society, the artist class is the pootest in " strong souls and noble chatacters.' .
The Aristocracy of Culture / 49 'Art fot art's sake, as i t has been called, not having its legitimacy within itself, being based on nothing, is nothing. It is debauchery of the heart and dissolution of the mind. Separated from tight and duty, culti vated and pursued as the highest though't of the soul and the supreme manifestation of humanity, art or the ideal, strifwed of the greater part of itself, reduced to nothing more than an excitement offantasy and the senses, is the source of sin, the origin of all servitude, the poisoned spring from which, according to the Bible, flow all the fornications and abominations of the earth . . ' Art for art's sake, 1 say, verse for verse's sake, style for style's sake, fotm fot form's sake, fantasy fot fantasy's sake, all the diseases which like a plague of lice are gnawing away at our epoch, ate vice in all , its refinement, the quintessence of evil. 36
What is condemned is the autonomy of form and the artist's tight to the formal tefinements by which he claims mastery of what ought to be metely a mattet of 'execution': 'I have no quartel with nobility, or elegance, or pose, or style, or gesture, or any aspect of what constitutes the of a work of art and is the usual object of traditional . " execution , CritICIsm. 37 Dependent on demand in the choice of theit objects, artists take theit revenge in the execution: 'There are church painters, history painters, gente painters (in other wotds, painters of anecdotes or fatces) , portrait painters, landscape painters, animal painters, seascape painters, painters of Venus, painters of fantasy. One specializes in nudes, another in dtapety. Then each one endeavours to distinguish himself by one of the means which conttibute to the execution. One goes in for sketching, another for colour; this one attends to composition, that one to perspective, a third to costume or local colour; one shines through sentiment, another through his idealized or realistic figures; yet another redeems the futility of his subject by the fineness of his detail. Each strives to have his own trick, his own 'je oe sais quai", a personal manner, and so, with the hdp of fashion, repu tations are made and unmade.' 3H I n contrast to this decadent art cut 'Qff from social life, respecting nei ther God not man, an art worthy of the name must be subordinated to science, morality and justice. It must aim to arouse the moral sense, to inspire feelings of dignity and delicacy, to idealize reality, to substitute for the thing the ideal of the thing, by painting the true and not the teal. In a word, i t must educate, To do so, it must transmit not 'personal im pressions' (like David in The Tennis-Court Oath, Ot Del acroi x ) but, like Courbet in Les Paysans de Flagey, reconstitute the social and histotial truth which all may judge. ('Each of us only has to consult himself to be able, after btief consideration, to state a judgement on any work of att.') 19 And it would be a pity to conclude without quoting a eulogy of the small detached house which would SUtely be massively endorsed by the middle and working classes: ' I would give the Louvre, the Tuileries, Notte-Dame-and the Vend6me column into the batgain-to live in my own home, in a little house of my own design, whete 1 would live alone, in
50
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Piet
Mond ri an , Broadwa,.y Boogie-Woogie
the middle of a little plot of ground, a quarter of an acre or so, where I'd have water, shade, a lawn, and silence. And if [ thought of putting a statue in it, it wouldn't be a Jupiter or an Apollo-those gentlemen are nothing to me-nor views of London, Rome, Constantinople or Venice. God preserve me from such placesI I'd put there what [ lack-mountains, vineyards, meadows, goats, cows, sheep, reapers and shepherds.'40
Piet Mondrian, Painting I
Unlike non specific perception, the specifically aesthetic perception of a work of art (in which there are of course degrees of accomplishment) is armed with a pertinence principle which is socially constituted and acquired. This principle of selection enables it to pick Out and retain, from among the elements offered to the eye (e.g., leaves or clouds considered merely as indices or signals invested with a denotative function-'It's a poplar', 'There's going to be a storm' ) , all the stylistic traits-and only those which, when relocated in the universe of stylistic possibilities, distin guish a patticular manner of treating the elemen ts selected, whether clouds or leaves, that is, a style as a mode of representation expressing the mode of perception and though t that is proper to a period, a class or class fraction, a group of artists or a particular artist. No stylistic characteriza tion of a work of art is possible without presupposing at least implicit reference to the compossible alternatives, whether simultaneous�to dis tinguish it from its contemporaries--or successive-to contrast it with earlier or later works by the same or a different artist. Exhibitions devoted to an artist's whole oeuvre or to a genre (e.g., the still-life exhibition in Bordeaux in 1978) are the objective realization of the field of inter changeable stylistic possibilities which is brought into play when one 'recognizes' the singularities of the characteristic style of a work of art. As E. H. Gombrich demonstrates, Piet Mondrian's Broadway Boogze-Woogie only takes on its 'full meaning' in terms of a previous idea of Mondrian's work and of the expectations it favours. The 'impreSSion of gay abandon' given by the play of bright, strongly contrasting patches of colour can only arise in a mind familiar with 'an art of straight lines and a few pri mary colours in carefully balanced tectangles' and capable of perceiving the 'relaxed style of popular music' in the distance from the 'severity' which is expected. And as soon as one imagines this painting attributed to Gino Severini, who tries to express in some of his paintings 'the rhythm of dance music in works of brilliant chaos', it is clear that, mea sured by this stylistic yardstick, Mondrian's picture would rather suggest the first Brandenburg Concerto." The 'aesthetic disposition, understood as the aptitude for perceiving and deciphering specifically stylistic characteristics, is thus inseparable from specifically artistic competence. The latter may be acquired by ex plicit learning or simply by regular contact with works of art, -especially those assembled in museums and galleries, where the diversity of their N E U T R A LIZATION
AND
THE
UNIVERSE
OF
POSSIBLES
Gino Severini, Dynamzc Hieroglyphic of the Bal Tabarin
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original functions is neutralized by their being displayed in a place con secrated to art, so that they invite pure interest in form. This practical mastery enables its possessor to situate each element of a universe of ar� tistic representations in a class defined in relation to the class composed of all the artistic representations consciously or unconsciously excluded. Thus, an awareness of the stylistic features which make up the stylistic originality of all the works of a period relative to those of another period, or, within this class, of the works of one school relative to another, or of the works of one artist relative to the works of his school or period, or even of an artist's particular period or work relative to his whole oeu'vre, is inseparable from an awareness of the stylistic redundancies, i.e., the typ ical treatments of the pictorial matter which define a style. In short, a grasp of the resemblances presupposes implicit or explicit reference to the differences, and vice versa. Attribution is always implicitly based on refer ence to 'rypical works', consciously or unconsciously selected because they present to a particularly high degree the qualities more or less ex plicitly recognized as pertinent in a given system of classification. Every thing suggests that, even among specialists, the cri teria of pertinence which define the stylistic properties of 'typical works' generally remain implicit and that the aesthetic taxonomies implicitly mobilized to distin guish, classify and order works of art never have the rigour which aes thetic theories sometimes try to lend them. In fact, the simple placing which the amateur or specialist performs when he undertakes attribution has nothing in common with the genu inely scientific intention of grasping the work's immanent reason and raison d'etre by reconstructing the perceived situation, the subjectively experienced problematic, which is nothing other than the space of the positions and self-positionings constituting the field and within which the artistic intention of the artist in question has defined Itself, generally by opposition. The references which this reconstructing operation de ploys have nothing to do with the kinds of semantic echo or affective correspondence which adorn celebratory discourse-they are the IOdlS pensable means of consttucting the field of thematic or stylistic possibili, ties in relation to which, objectively and to some extent subJewvely, the possibility selected by the artist presented itself Thus, to understand why the early Romantic painters returned to primitive art, one would have to reconstitute the whole universe of reference of the pupils of David, with their long beards and Greek costumes, who, 'outdoing their master's cult of antiquity, wanted to go back to Homer, the Bible and Ossian, and condemned the style of classical antiquity itself as "rococo", "Van Loo" or "Pompadour".''' This would lead one back to the inextricably ethical and aesthetic alternatives-such as the identification of the naive with the pure and the natural-in terms of which their choices were made and which have nothing in common with the transhistorical oppositions be loved of formalist aesthetics. 43
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But the celebrant's or devotee's intention is not that of understanding, and, in the ordinary routine of the cult of the work of art, the play of academic or urbane references has no other function than to bring the work into an interminable circuit of inter-legitimation, so that a refer ence to Jan Breughel's Bouquet 0/ Flowers lends dignity to Jean-Michel Pi cart's Bouquet of Flowers with Parrot, just as, in another context, re(erence to the latter can, being less common, serve to enhance the former. This play of cultured allusions and analogies endlessly pointing to other anal ogies, which, like the cardinal oppositions in mythical or ritual systems, never have to justify themselves by stating the basis of the relating which they perform, weaves around the works a complex web of factirious expe riences, each answering and reinforcing all the others, which creates the enchantment of artistic contemplation. It is the source of the 'idolatry' to which Proust refers, which leads one to find 'an actress's robe or a society woman's dress beautiful . . . not because the cloth is beautiful but be cause it is the cloth painted by Moreau or described by Balzac.''' Analogy, functioning as a circular mode of thought, makes it possible to tour the whole area of art and luxury without ever leaving it. Thus Chateau Margaux wine can be described with the same words as are used to describe the chateau, just as others will evoke Proust apropos of Monet or Cesar Franck, which is a good way of talking about neither: 'The house is in the image of the vintage. Noble, austere, even a little solemn . . . . Chateau Margaux has the air of an ancient temple devoted to the cult of wine. . . . Vineyard or dwelling, Margaux disdains all embel lishments. But just as the wine has to be served before it unfolds all its charms, so the residence waits for the visitor to enter before it reveals its own. In each case the same words spring to one's lips: elegance, distinc tion, delicacy and that subtle satisfaction given by something which has received the most attentive and indeed loving care for generations. A wine long matured, a bouse long inhabited: Margaux the vintage and Margaux the chateau are the product of two equally rare things: rigour and time. ,4� DISTANCE FROM NECESSITY To explain the correlation between educa tional capital and the propensity or at least the aspiration to appreciate a work ' independently of its content', as the culturally most ambitious re spondents put it, and more generally the propensity to make the 'gratui touS' and 'disinterested' investments demanded by legitimate works, it is not sufficient to point to the fact that schooling provides tbe linguistic tools and the references which enable aesthetic experience to be expressed and to be constituted by being expressed. What is in fact affirmed in this relationship is the dependence of the aesthetic disposition on the past and present material conditions of existence which are the precondition of both its constitution and its application and also of the accumulation of a cultural capital ( whether or not educationally sanctioned) which can
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only be acquired by means of a sort of withdrawal from economic neces sity_ The aesthetic disposition which tends to bracket off the nature and function of the object represented and (0 exclude any 'naive' reaction horror at the horrible, desire for the desirable, pious reverence for the sa cred-along with all purely ethical responses, in order to concentrate solely upon the mode of representation, the style, perceived and appre ciated by comparison with other styles, is one dimension of a total rela tion to the world and ro others, a life-style, in which the effects of particular conditions of existence are expressed in a 'rnisrecognizable' form.'6 These conditions of existence, which are the precondition for all learning of legitimate culture, whether implicit and diffuse, as domestic cultural training generally is, or explicii and specific, as in scholastic training, are characterized by the suspension and removal of economic necessity and by objective and subjective distance from practical urgen cies, which is the basis of objective and subjective distance from groups subjected ro those determinisms. To be able to play the games of culture with the playful seriousness which Plato demanded, a seriousness without the 'spirit of seriousness', one has to belong to the ranks of those who have been 'able, not necessar ily to make their whole existence a sort of children's game, as artists do, but at least to maintain for a long time, sometimes a whole lifetime, a child's relation to the world. (All children start life as baby bourgeois, in a relation of magical power over others and, through them, over the I world, but they grow out of it sooner or later.) This is clearly seen when, by an accident of social genetics, into the well-policed world of intellec tual games there comes one of those people (one thinks of Rousseau or Chernyshevsky) who bring inappropriate stakes and interests into the games of culture; who get so involved in the game that they abandon the " margin of neutralizing distance that the il/usio (belief in the game) de mands; who treat intellectual struggles, the object of so many pathetic manifestos, as a simple question of right and wrong, life and death. This is why the logic of the game has already assigned them roles--eccentric or boor-which they will play despite themselves in the eyes of those who know how to stay within the bounds of the intellectual illusion and who cannot see them any other way. The aesthetic disposition, a generalized capacity to neutralize ordinary urgencies and to bracket off practical ends, a durable inclination and ap titude for practice without a practical function, can only be constituted within an experience of the world freed from urgency and through the practice of activities which are an end in themselves, such as scholastic exercises or the contemplation of works of art. In other words, it presup- ' poses the distance from the world (of which the 'role distance' brought to light by Erving Goffman is a particular case) which is the basis of the " bourgeois experience of the world, Contrary to what certain mechanistic theories would suggest, even in its most specifically artistic dimension
The Aristocracy of Culture / 55 [he pedagogic action of the family and the school operates at least as much through the economic and social conditions which are the pre condItIOn of Its operation as through the contents which it inculcates.47 The scholastic world of regulated games and exercise for exercise' sake is at least in this respect, less remote than it might appear from the 'bour: geOis' world and the countless 'disinterested' and 'gratuirous' acts which go to make up its distinctive rarity, such as home maintenance and deco. ration, occasioning a daily squandering of care, time and labour (often through [he intermediary of servants), walking and tourism, movements without any other aim than physkal exercise and the symbolic appro pnatlon of a world reduced to the status of a landscape, or ceremonies and receptlons, pretexts for a display of ritual luxuries, decors, conversa tions and finery, not to mention, of course, artistic practices and enjoy� ments. It is not surprising that bourgeois adolescents, who are both economically privileged and ( temporarily) excluded from the reality of economIC power, sometimes express their distance from the bourgeois . world whICh they cannot really appropriate by a refusal of complicity whose most refined expression is a propensity towards aesthetics and aes theticism. In this respect they share common ground with the women of the bourgeoisie, who, being partially excluded from economic activity, find fulfilment In stage-managing the decor of bourgeois existence, when they are not seeking refuge or revenge in aesthetics. Economic power is first and foremost a power to keep e<.:onomic neces . Sity at arm's length. This is why it universally asserts itself by the destruc tion �f nches, conspicuous consumption, squandering, and every form of gratuitous luxury. Thus, whereas the court aristocracy made the whole of hfe a contlnuous spectacle, the bourgeoisie has established the opposition between what IS paid for and what is free, the interested and the disin terested, in the form of the opposition, which Weber saw as characteriz� ing it, between place of work and place of residence, working days and hohdays, the outSIde (male) and the inside ( female) , business and senti ment: industry and art, the world of economic necessity and the world of artistic f:eedom that l� snatched, br economic power, from that necessity. Matenal or symboltc consumpuon of works of art constitutes One of the supreme manifestations of ease, in the sense both of objective leisure and subjective facility.'8 The detachment of the pure gaze cannot be sepa rated from a general dIsposition towards the 'gratuitous' and the 'disin terested', the paradoxical product of a negative economic conditioning WhICh, through faohty and freedom, engenders distance vis-it-vis neces sity. At the same rime, the aesthetic disposition is defined, objectively . and subleCtlvely, 10 relation to other dispositions. Objective distance from necessity and from those trapped within it combines with a con scious distance which doubles freedom by exhibiting it. As the objective dIstance from necessity grows, life-style increasingly becomes the product of what Weber calls a 'stylization of life', a systematic commitment
56 / A Social Critique 01 the Judgement 01 Taste which orients and organizes rhe mosr diverse pracrices-rhe choice of a vintage or a cheese or the decorarion of a holiday home in rhe country. This affirmation of power over a dominated necessiry always implies a claim to a legitimate superiority over those who, because they cannot as sert the same contempt for contingencies in gratuitous luxury and con spicuous consumption, remain dominated by ordinary interests and urgencies. The rastes of freedom can only assert themselves as stich in re lation to the tastes of necessity, which are rhereby brought to rhe level of the aesthetic and so defined as vulgar. This claim to aristocracy is less likely to be contested than any other, because the relation of the 'pure', 'disinterested' disposition to the conditions which make it possible, i.e., the material conditions of exisrence which are rarest because most freed from economic necessity, has every chance of passing unnoticed. The most 'classifying' privilege thus has the privilege of appearing to be the most natural one. Thus, the aes rhetic disposition is one dimension of a disrant, self-assured relation to the world and to others which presupposes objective assurance and dis tance. I t is one manifestation of the system of dispositions produced l;>y the social conditionings associated with a particular class of conditions of existence when they rake the paradoxical form of rhe greatesr freedom conceivable, at a given moment, with respect to the constraints of eco nomic necessity. But ir is also a distinctive expression of a privileged po sirion in social space whose distinctive value is objectively established in irs relarionship ro expressions generared from different conditions. Like every sort of raste, ir unires and separates. Being rhe product of the con ditionings associated with a particular class of conditions of existence, it unires all those who are the product of similar conditions while distin guishing them from all others. And it distinguishes in an essential way, since raste is rhe basis of all rhar one has-people and things-and all thar one is for others, whereby one classifies oneself and is classified by others. Tastes (i.e., manifested preferences) are the practical affirmation of an inevitable difference. It is no accident that, when they have to be justi fied, they are asserted purely negatively, by the refusal of other tastes.'· In matters of taste, more than anywhere else, all determinacion is negarion;')o and tastes are perhaps first and foremost disrastes, disgust provoked by horror or visceral intolerance ( 'sick-making') of the tastes of others. 'De gustibus non est dispurandum': not because 'tous les gouts sont dans la nature', but because each taste feels itself to be natural-and so it almost is, being a habitus-which amounts to rejecting others as unnatural and therefore vicious. Aestheric intolerance can be terribly violent. Aversion to different life-styles is perhaps one of the strongest barriers between the classes; class endogamy is evidence of this. The most intolerable rhing for those who regard themselves as the possessors of legitimate culture is rhe THE AESTHETIC SENSE AS THE SENSE OF DISTINCTION
The Aristocracy of Culture / 5 7 sacrilegious reuni ring of tastes which taste dictates shaH be separated. This means rhar rhe games of artisrs and aesrheres and rheir struggles for rhe monopoly of arrisric legirimacy are less innocent rhan rhey seem. Ar stake in every struggle over art there is also the imposition of an art of living, that is, the transmutation of an arbitrary way of living into the legitimate way of life which casts every other way of living into arbitrari ness.'1 The areisr's life-sryle is always a challenge rhrown ar rhe bourgeois life-sryle, which ir seeks ro condemn as unreal and even absurd, by a sore of practical demonstration of the emptiness of the values and powers it pursues. The neurralizing relarion co rhe world which defines rhe aes rheric disposirion porentially implies a subversion of rhe spirir of serious ness required by bourgeois invesrmencs. Like rhe visibly erhical judgemencs of rhose who lack rhe means co make are rhe basis of rheir are of living, CO see rhe world and orher people rhrough lirerary reminis cences and pictorial references, rhe 'pure' and purely aesrheric judgell1enrs of rhe areisr and rhe aesrhere spring from rhe disposirions of an erhos;" bur because of rhe legirimacy which rhey command so long as rheir rela rionship to rhe disposirions and inceresrs of a group defined by srrong cultural capiral and weak economic capiral remains unrecognized, rhey provide a sorr of absolure reference poinc in rhe necessarily endless play of murually self-relarivizing rasres. By a paradoxical reversal, rhey rhereby help co legirimare the bourgeois claim ro 'narural disrincrion' as differ ence made absolute. Objecrively and subjecrively aesrhetic srances adopred in marters like cosmetics, clothing or home decoration are opportunities to experience or assere one's posirion in social space, as a rank co be upheld or a dis rance co be kepr. Ir goes withour saying rhar rhe social classes are nor equally inclined and prepared co encer rhis game of refusal and councer refusal; and that the strategies aimed at transforming the basic disposi rions of a life-sryle into a sysrem of aesrheric principles, objecrive differences into elective distinctions, passive options (constituted exter nally by rhe logic of rhe disrinctive relarionships) inco conscious, elecrive choices are in fact reserved for members of the dominant class, indeed the very top bourgeoisie, and for artists, who as the inventors and profes sionals of rhe 'stylizarion of life' are alone able co make rheir art of living one of rhe fine ares. By concrasr, rhe enrry of rhe perire bourgeoisie inco rhe game of disrincrion is marked, inrer alia, by rhe anxiety of exposing oneself ro classification by offering co rhe rasre of orhers such infallible indices of personal rasre as clorhes or furnirure, even a simple pair of armchairs, as in one of Nathalie Sarraute's novels. As for the working classes, perhaps rheir sole funcrion in rhe sysrem of aesrheric posirions is CO serve as a foil, a negarive reference poinc, in relarion CO which all aes thetics define themselves, by successive negations.�3 Ignoring or ignorant of manner and sryle, rhe 'aesrheric' (in irself) of rhe working classes and culrurally mosr deprived fracrions of rhe middle classes defines as 'nice', 'prerey', 'lovely' (rarher rhan 'beauriful') rhings rhar are already defined as
58
/ A Social Critique 0/ the Judgement 0/ Taste
such in the 'aesthetic' of calendars and postcards: a sunset, a little girl playing with a cat, a folk dance, an old master, a first communion, a chil dren's procession. The striving towards distinction comes in with petit bourgeois aestheticism, which delights in all the cheap substitutes for chic objects and practices--
The Aristocracy 0/ Culture / 59
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! A Social Critique of the judgement of Taste
rion of those so constituted by the middle-brow art of the petite bour geoisie (such as the weaver and the folk dance, which are deemed merely " 'interesting' ) . These would-be aesthetes demonstrate by their distinc tive refusals that they possess the' practical mastery of the relationships between objects and groups which is the basis of all judgements of the type 'Ca fait' ('It looks . . . ' ) ( 'Ca fait petit-bourgeois', 'Ca fait nouveau riche' etc. ) , without being able to go so far �s to ascribe beauty to the most marked objects of the popular aesthetic (first communion ) or the petit-bourgeois aesthetic (mother and child, folk dance) which the rela tions of structural proximity spontaneously lead them to detest. Explicit aesthetic choices are in fact often constituted in opposition to the choices of the groups closest in social space, wi th whom the compe tition is most direct and most immediate, and more precisely, no doubt, in relation to those choices most clearly marked by the intention (per ceived as pretension) of marking distinction vis-a-vis lower groups, such as, for intellectuals, the primary teachers' Brassens, Jean Ferrat or Ferre. Thus the song, as a cultural property which (like photography ) is almost universally accessible and genuinely common (since hardly anyone is not exposed at one moment or another to the 'successes' of the day ) , calls for particular vigilance from those who intend to mark their difference. The intellectuals, artists and higher-education teachers seem to hesitate be tween systematic refusal of what can only be, at best, a middle-brow art, and a selective acceptance which manifests the universality of their cul ture and their aesthetic disposition.�� For their part, the employers and professionals, who have little interest in the 'intellectual' song, indicate their distance from ordinary songs by rejecting with disgust the most popular and most 'vulgar' singers, such as Les Compagnons de la Chan son, Mireille Mathieu, Adamo or Sheila, and making an exception for the oldest and most consecrated singers (like Edith Piaf or Charles Trenet) or those closest to operetta and bel canro. But it is the middle classes who find in song (as in photograph y) an opportunity to manifest their artistic pretension by refusing the favourite singers of the working classes, such as Mireille Mathieu, Adamo, Charles Aznavour or Tino Rossi, and de claring their preference for the singers who endeavour to dignify this 'minor' genre. That is why the primary teachers distinguish themselves most clearly from the other fractions of the petite bourgeoisie in this area, where, more easily than in the domain of legitimate art, they can invest their academic dispositions and assert their own taste in the choice of singers who offer populist poetry in the primary-school tradition, such as Jacques Douai or Brassens (who was on the syllabus of the Saint. . r years ago ) . '" C'l oud entrance exammatlOn a lew
In addition to the data provided by the survey question, use was also made of the findings of a survey by the opinion research department of the
The Aristocracy of Culture !
61
French broadcasting service (ORTF) (C.S. XIX) and of thirty in-depth in . terviews deSIgned to grasp the constellation of preferences and refusals in conditions as close as possible to ordinary conversation. These interviews confirmed that, as the ORTF survey also shows, the more strongly a singer is p�eferred by �he less cultivated, the more he or she is refused by the mOSf cultIvated-whose tastes in this area are almost exclusively expressed in re jections. These refusals, almost always expressed in the mode of distaste, art' ? ften acco�pani�d by pitying or indignant remarks about the correspond109 tastes ( I can t understand how anyone can like that!' ) . Si mi larl�, one finds that the declining petite--bourgeoisie systematically re . jects the virtues that the new petite bourgeoisie most readily claims for it �elf (witty.' refined, .stylish, artistic, imaginative) ; whereas the latter signals ItS a:sthetlC pretenSIOn by a refusal of the most typically 'bourgeois' con fig urat� ons and . by a concern to go against common judgements, in which aes thetic commitments figure prominently. Thus, when asked to state the ideal qualities of a friend or a domestic interior, they produce motley combina tions such as: 'artistic, sociable, amusing, comfortable, easy to maintain, imaginative' (sales representative, Paris), 'dynamic, pragmatic, stylish, stud ied, warm, i?1aginative' (ga�lery director, Lille), 'dynamic, refined, prag . , comfortable, harmonIOUS, cosy' (radio presenter, Lille) . It is again a n:at.lC SImIlar process that leads the members of the professions to distinguish themselves from newcomers to the bourgeoisie by rejecting the qualities of ambition and upward mobility, such as 'pragmatic', 'dynamic' (often chosen by managerial executives) , or the most 'pretentious' adjectives, such as 'styl ish' or 'refined', which are much favoured by the new petite bourgeoisie.
It may also be assumed that the affirmation of the omnipotence of the aesthetic gaze found among higher-education teachers, the group most inclined to say that all the objects mentioned could make a beautiful photograph and to profess their recognition of modern art or of the artis �ic sta � us of the photograph, stems much more from a self-distinguishing lfltentIOn than from a true aesthetic universalism. This has not escaped . the most knowmg avant-garde producers, who carry sufficient authority . to challenge, If need be, the very dogma of the omnipotence of art," anJ are m a pOSItIOn to recognize this faith as a defensive manoeuvre to avoid self-exposure by reckless refusals: 'Who would say this: "When I look at a picture, I'm not interested in what it represents"? Nowadays, the sort of people who don't know much about art. Saying that is typical of someone who hasn't any idea about art. Twenty years ago, I'm not even sure that twenty years ago the abstract painters would have said that; I don't think so. It's exactly what a guy says when he hasn't a clue: "I'm , not one of these old fogies, I know what COUnts is whether it's pretty" (avant-garde painter, age 3 5 ) . They alone, at all events, can afford the au dacious imposture of refusing all refusals by recuperating, in parody or sublImation, the very obJects refused by the lower-degree aestheticism. The 'rehabilitation' of 'vulgar' objects is more risky, but also more 'prof. Itable', the smaller the distance in social space or time, and the 'horrors'
62 / A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste of popular kitsch are easier to 'recuperate' than those of petit-bourgeois imitation, just as the 'abominations' of bourgeois taste can begin to be found 'amusing' when they are sufficiently dated to cease to be 'compto mising'. Suffice it to point out that, in addition to those subjects which had already been constituted as aesthetic at the time of the survey. either by a pictorial tradition (e.g., the metal frame of Uger or Gromaire, the tramps quarrel ling, a variant of an old theme of realist painting often taken up in photog taphy, or the butcher's stall), or by the photographic tradition (e.g., the weaver, the folk dance, the bark), most of the 'banal' subjects have subse quently been constituted aesthetically by one avant-garde painter or another (for example, the sunset over the sea, by Richer, who paints typically ro mantic landscapes from photographs, or Long and Fulton, English painters who make 'conceptual' landscape photographs, or even Land Art; or the car crash, by Andy Warhol; or the tramps' quarrel, with the 'tramps sleeping in the Bowery' of the American hyper-realists; or the first communion, by Bol tanski, who has even given artistic status to the family album etc.). The only 'unrecuperated' and, for the moment, 'irrecuperable' subjects are the fa vourite themes of first-deg ree aestheticism, the weaver at his loom, the folk dance, the tree-bark, and the woman suckling a child. They are too close to favour the flaunting of an absolute power of aesthetic constitution; and be cause they do not allow distance to be manifested, they are more liable to be mistaken for 'first-degree' intentions. Reappropriation is that much marc difficult when the aesthetic-in-itself which it works on clearly manifests rec ognition of the dominant aesthetic so that the distinctive deviation is liable to go unnoticed.
The artist agrees with the 'bourgeois' in one respect: he prefers naivety to 'pretentiousness'. The essential merit of the 'common people' is that they have none of the pretensions to art (or power) which inspire the ambitions of the 'petit bourgeois'. Their indifference tacitl y. acknowl edgeS the monopoly. That is why, in the mythology of artists and intel lectuals, whose outflanking and double-negating strategies sometimes lead them back to 'popular' tastes and opinions, the 'people' so often play a role not unlike that of the peasantry in the conservative ideologies of the declining aristocracy. In faer, their 'pretension' leaves the petit bourgeois particularly disarmed in the less legitimate or not-yet legitimate domains which the cultural 'elite' abandon to {hem, whether in photography or in cinema, in which their am bitions are often expressed (as is shown, for example, in the fact that the gap between the petite bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie is much less wide regarding knowledge of cinema directors than of composers). The new-style petit bourgeois, who, confron{ed with objectively -ranked judgements, are able to choose the 'right' answer, are almost as disarmed as the working
The Aristocracy of Culture / 63 classes when faced with an opportunity for aesthetic constitution of an ob ject (not a single small art-dealer says that a car accident can make a beauti ful photo, and (he scrap-yard arouses similar responses).
Cultural Pedigree While variations in educational capital are always very closely related to variations in competence, even in areas, like cinema or j azz , which are neither taught nor directly assessed by the educational system, the fact remains that, at equivalent levels of educational capital, .differences in so cial origin (whose 'effecrs' are already expressed in differences in educa tional' capital) are associated with important differences in competence. These differences become all the more striking (except at the highest educational levels, where over-selection tends to neutralize differences of trajectory) , firstly, when one appeals less to a strict, and strictly assessable, competence and more to a sort of familiarity with culture; and, secondly, as one moves from the most 'scholastic' and 'classical' areas of culture to less legitimate and more 'outlandish' areas of the 'extra-curricular' cul ture, which is not taught in schools but is valued in the academic market and can often yield high symbolic profit. The relative weight of educa tional capital in the system of explanatory factors can even be much weaker than that of social origin when the respondents are only required to express a status-induced familiarity with legitimate or soon-to-be le g i ti mated culture, a paradoxical relationship made up of that mixture of self-assurance and ( relative) ignorance, expressing true bourgeois rights, which are measured by seniority.
At equal educational levels, the proportion who say they know at least twelve of the musical works mentioned increases more 'sharply than the pro portion who can attribute at least twelve of them to {heir composers, as one moves from the working class co the upper class (and the gap is very narrow among graduates) ( see table 4 ) . The same logic governs the differ ences by sex, except that they are less marked. Whereas, as regards com posers, no differences are found between the sexes among individuals of {he same class, strong differences appear in favour of women as regards familiar· ity with works, especially in the middle and upper classes (in the working class, this knowledge is very limi{ed ·in both sexes); in the Cwo most femi nine occupational categories-the medical and social services and secre taries-all {he persons questioned claimed to know at lease three of the works. This difference in the experiential or stated relationship to music is no doubt partly explained by the fact that the traditional division of labour assigns to women familiarity with the things of art and literature. The differences linked to social origin are also very strong as regards knowledge of film directors, which, at equal educational levels, rises with social origin. So too does the proportion who assert {hat 'ugly' or trivial
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e ke a beautiful photograph. Needl ss to say, corresponding to m (!bjters can odes of acquisition, chere are differences in the naeure of the re [ ditf e be ed. The differences linked to social origin tend to increase as er prc � ay from the academic curriculum, from literature to painring v o a usic and a fortiori jazz or avant-garde art. oflt' J1l . tn showed that students of working-class or middle-class er survey .A� ea l had scores similar to those of students of bourgeois origin in ° ng'n VI lture fell back as the test moved wwards 'extra-curricular' cul clJSSl,Cal C oth avant-garde theatre and Paris 'boulevard' ( middle-brow) the ture:, I ,e., finds an entlfely analogous rclanon here between the artistIC One at,re:· the secondary reachers (or even the art reachers, whir-as is and oduce� pr ano ther survey now being analysed--especially when they are of n t cv,dke� t classor middle-class origin, mostly have very 'classical' tasres and . wat mgto ts) . than artis the hers teac the to closer h u art who have acquired the bulk of their cultural capital in and for safer cultural investments than those who have h have more 'classical', SC cultural inheritance. For example, whereas the members of e ed a large ominanr class wirh rhe highest qualifications ( the agregation or a die lema from a grande ecole ) never mention certain works or certain painters ical of middle·brow culture, such as Buffet or Utrillo, have considerable knowledge of composers, and prefer the Well-Tempered Clavier or the Fire bird SlIite, the highly educated members of the working and middle classes mort' often make choices which indicate their respect for a more 'scholastic' culture ( Goya, Leonardo, Breughel, Watteau, Raphael) , and a significant proportion of them concur with the opinion that 'paintings arc nice but difficult'. By contrast, those who originate from the dominant class know more works and more often choose works further from 'scholastic' culture (Braquc, Concerto for the Left Hand) . Similarly, those members of the estab lished petite bourgeoisie (craftsmen, shopkeepers, clerical and commercial employees, junior executives) who have relatively low educational capital (BEPC or below) make choices clearly marked by their trajectory. Thus, th� who are rising socially show their respect for legitimate culture in �nou s ways (e.g., they are more likely to agree that 'paintings are nice but d dlieul t ') and choose works typical of middle-brow ( Buffet, UtriIlo) or even popular taste (Bille Danub e ) . However, those whose fathers belonged to [he upper classes manifest, at equivalent levels of educational capital, 8 tet familiarity with musical works ( although they are no more familiar h� corn sers' names) just , as they more often say they like the Im l?� � �i n1sts, VISit museums mote often and more often choose academically conseerated works ( Raphael or Leonardo) .
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::I
AND MANNER OF ACQUISIT ION
Cultural (or linguistic ) t nce, which is acquired in relation to a particula r field function � as a source o f inculcation and as a market, remain defined by its s cOnd' o . . . . ''' ns of ac9U1Slf ' . lon, Thesc con d'HlOns, perpetuated 10 the mode o f til . U izat ' lik. a 'Ol1--l .e., in a given relationship to culture or language-function o of'tr ade-m ark', and, by linkin g that competence to a particu lar . 1Ilarke , e1p to define the value o f its products in the various m arkers, In
:�
,
other words, what art grasped through indicators such as educlti! level or social origin or, more precisely, in the structure of the rel'tt. ship between them, are abo diffetent modes of production of the vated habitus, which engender differences not only in the cornp'etel ac�uired but also in the manner of applying them. These manner constitute a set of secondary properties, revealing different,_
ditions of acquisition and predisposed to receive very different valu. the various markets.
Knowing that 'manner' is a symbolic manifestation whose mea�
and value depend as much on the perceivers as on the producer, one, see how it is that the manner of using symbolic goods, especially regarded as the attributes of excellence, constitutes one of the key ees of 'class' and also the ideal weapon in strategies of distinction,
as Proust put it, 'the infinitely vatied art of marking distances'. The ogy of natural taste contrasts two modalities of cultural co;mF,e"'nce' its use, and, behind them, two modes of aC9uisirion of (uiture,,)R early, imperceptible l ea rn i ng, pe rfo rmed within the family from Iiest days of life and extended by a scholastic learning which
and completes it, differs from belated, methodical learning not so in the depth and dutability of its effects-as the ideology of cultur
neer' would have it-as in the modality of [he relationship to and culture which it simultaneously tends to inculcate.')') It
self-certainty which accompanies the certainty of possessing gitimacy, and the ease which is the touchstone of excellence; it pre), the paradoxical relationship to culture made up of self-confidence ' ( relative) ignorance and of casualness amid familiarity, which bO'"1 families hand down to their offspring as if it were an heirloom.
The competence of the 'connoisseur', an unconscious mastery instruments of appropriation which derives from slow and is the basis of familiarity with works, is an 'a rt' , a practical which, like an art of thinking or an art of living, cannot be transln; solely by precept or prescription. Learning it presupposes the e'lIJi..: of the prolonged contact between disciple and master in a education, i.e., repeated contact with cultural works and cultured
And just as the apprentice or disciple can unconSCiously acquire the . of the art, including those that are not consciously known to the
himself, by means of a self-abandonment, excluding analysis and sele< of the elements of the exemplary conduct, so toO the art-lover, in a surrendering himself to the work, can internalize its principles struction, without these ever being brought to his consciousness
mulated or formulable as such; and rhis is what makes all the between the theory of an and the experience of the connoisseur, . By ts. udgemen j f o his principles the of incapable stating generally trast, all institution alized learning presupposes a degree of ra
���:::
tion, which leaves its mark on the relationship to the goods c The sovereign pleasure of the aesthete dispenses with concepts. I t
uch to the thoughtless pleasure of the 'naive' (glorified in ide m as rOsed the myth of childhood and the innocent eye) as to the t ro ugh o ol g l y pleasureless thought of the petit bourgeois and the 'parvenu', s ed supp always exposed to those forms of aesthetic perversion which put arc ",ho ledge above experience and sacrifice contemplation of the work to kno"'ssion of the work, aisthesis to ask"is, like film-buffs who know . 60 dlSc u k have films about now to IS they seen. not Not that there th ing e e d ucat iO n al system ever entirely fulfils irs rational function: the es e t rial part of what schools communicate is again acquired incidentally, as the system of classification which the school system inculcates order in which i t inculcates knowledge or through the prerough Ihe sitio ns of ItS own organtzatton (the hterarchy of dlsClplmes, sec�ppo etc. ) or irS operatIon (rnode 0f assessment, rewards and dons, exerci ses ut, in order to trans� it at all, i t has to perform a pun ish men ts etc). , what of transmItS, Thus, for example, in place 1l rationaltzanon of ee degr of practical schemes of classification, which are always partial and linked
�
h
�� se�h :�
�
"
to practical contexts, it puts explicit, standardized taxonomies, fixed once
and for all in the form of synoptic schemas or dualistic typologies (e.g., 'c1assical'j'romantic' ) , which are expressly inculcated and therefore con served in the memory as knowledge that can be reproduced in virtually identical form by all the agents subjected to its action.
To avoid any absolutization of the culture in relation to which the autodi dact's middle-brow culture is objec tively defined, it has to be remembered that the higher one rises in the social hierarchy, the more one's tastes are �haped by. the organization and operation of the educational sysrcm, which IS responSible for inculcating the 'programme' (syllabus and intellectual schemes) which governs 'cultivated minds' even in their pursuit of the 'per so�al touch' and rheir aspiration to 'originality'. Discrepancies between edu cational qualifications and cultur al competence ( linked to social trajeerory and largely attributable to the domestic transmission of non-scholastic cul �ural capital) are, however, sufficiently frequent to safeguard the irreducibilr e k UYt cogn ized even by academics of 'aurhentic' cultu re co 'scholastic' nowledge, W . ' , as such 15 devalue h'ICn d. _
�: to en
prOV idi ng the means of expression which enable practical prefer S be brought to the level of quasi-syste matic disco urse and to be ConSCIO . . usly organ"lzed . aroun I" d Kit exp I pnnClp t h e es, e ucauon d al system make o . ca s"b le a (more or less adequate) symbol ic mastery of the practi l pr (Iples of taste. As grammar does for lingu istic competence' it ratiOnal·Izes the .sense 0f beauty , . , m those who already have it, giving them the III s o referring to principles (of harmony or rhetoric, for exam Pie), ep s tUtes th . , f� rmul ae, Instead of relym g on ImproVIsatIOn; it substi e Inten tIonal quasi systemaricity of a formal aesthetic for the objectiv s sremati city of the 'aesthetic-in-itself' produced by the pract iCal p i r n ip es of taste. Thus academICIsm 15 potentIal ly presen t in every
�:
;:�
r ;
;
�"�;����
other words. Whl! arc gn.�ptd rhrough mdicators such as k,·cI or §OCia1 origin or, morc precisely, In rho: StruCTure of I�e ship !lelw«n them. arc anI) different modes of produnion of the valed habi!l.'S, whkh engender differences not only in fhe 'O;"I�''"''; . rtnces I aC(luired but also in rhe manner of applying them. These dif(t' manner (ons(iwtc 1 5([ of s«ondary proptrti�. �caJin8 different dilions of aC<juisilion and predisposed [0 rt(eh� vcry difl'erent values I Ihe various markets. Knowing thaI 'manner' is a symbolic manifcstation wh� and value depend as much on Ihc perceivers as on Ihe pro
II sdf-cenainty which accompanies Ihe certainty of possessing cul!llr:al gilimacy, and rhe ease which is rhe touchstone of excellence; it p"xl",. (he paradoxical relalionship to culture made up of self·confidence (relative) ignor:ance and of casualness amid familiarilY, which 00","" families hand down ro their offspring as if ir ....ere an heirloom. The compelence of the 'connoi55<:ur', an unconscious instruments of appropriation which dertves from slow and is Ihe basis of familiarity wilh works, is an 'an', a pr:aclical which, like an an of thinking or an lrt of living, onnot be solely by precept 01' prescription. Learning it presupposn the of the prolon� contact bclween disciple and master in a I education, i,e., repealed contact with cuilur:al works And jusr as the appremice or disciple can unconsciously aCtluire of the lrt, including those that are not consciously known 10 himself. by means of a self·abandonmem, excluding analysis and of Ihe elements of lhe exempbr}' conduct, SO {oo the art·lover, in a les . surrendering himself 10 Ihe work, on internalize irs princip : ;�. struction, without these ever bcing brought to his '��:; �; ," :;: ,, i the all mulaled or formulabk as such; and this is whal makes bc:tween the theory of art and Ihe experience of the connoi55<:ur, gener:ally inopabk of suting the principles of his jUdgemen ". .BY I Ir:lSI, al! inSlitutionalizccl learning presupposes a ckgree of �:: � : � tion, which blVes its mark on the relationship 10 the goods , . The sovereign picasure of Ihe aesthete di$penses wllh concepts. It
::;:o;�
frou�m:::;�:i
'h:,:;;�; �:;
�
_ "d :15 ough the myth of childhood and Ihe innocent e�'e) as to the P"'"'1o - _ fhr pleasureless Ihought of rhe petit bourgeoiS and rhe 'pan·cnu',
much to (he thoughtless pleasure of the 'naive' (glorified in ide·
(l
�IY .ays e�poscd to Ihose forms of 1C$thetic perversion which P"
al... . . ",·ho j � p are " comempbnon of the work to �nd sacrl!1ce expenence ve ho 1 kdge i like film·buffs who know k�(I": 'ion of the work, disthtsis to ajl!tjs, . .:I,SCU'" � I)'thing there IS to know a001,11 films they have not seen. Nor rhat et:c cclucational system ever entirely fulfils its r:ational function: rhe es parr of whlt schools communicate is again acquired incidentally, h as Ihe system of cl�ssification which the school syStem inculcates .l"nrial :��ugh Ihe or.:l�r in which il !nc�lc1tes kno�ledge or through the pre. ....i..--.s tions of lIS own . orgalllDuon (Ihe hler:archy of disciplines, sec. _L 0f assesm . '"w (muuc s enl, fCWards and nons, �exercises ere. ) or Irs oper:auon punishmenrs ete). But, in order. 10 Ir:lns?,it at all, il has to perform a de&rtC or rattOnairzauon of what II tr:lnsmlfS. Thus, for example, in place ofpr.lctical schemes of classificalion, which arc always partial and linked 10 prartiol conlextS, il pUIS explicit, standardi� taxonomies, fixeII I) � are, however, sufficiently frequent 10 safesuard the irreducibil. II� n 8 h';'�ge,l>:ed �ven by academics, of 'authenlic' cultule 10 'scholastic' whICh :u such ;s devalued.
_
By I'rO 'd"'"8 the means of expression which enable pr:lc{ical prefer. Ok COllse/OUSJy brought to Ihe level of quasi'syslematic discourse �nd to bc .:rganl'O:cl 1round explicil principles, rhe e�CJ>ts, f�rmulae, instc:ld of relying on Improvisation; it substi. Ihe ll l ent'o.n�1 quasi syslemaricilY of a formal 1CSthellc for the Ob� tIY� s l (�! Pfillci jSlernaltwy of Ihe '1C$thel1c·in·itself' prooucc
�-
I
• • • •••..
,
,
"\lional pnbgogy which lends 10 convey piecemnl, in :a docuinal stl explicit norms and formube. explicidy laughf, gener-lIly negalive
";:��: �t;�:�: :� ;�
rasped In praclice. BUf above all-and rhis is why
Ihan posilive, whal lradirional lnrning transmils in Ihe form of a
sryle direcdy g
so abhor pedagogues and pedagogy-the ralional leaching of art p substifutes fOf direcl experience, it offers shon cutS on the long familiuiulion. it makcs po:miblc practiccs W hiCh ' '� ' ccpts and rules inSlnd of springing from the s; ; � lUte, fhereby offenng a solution ro diOse who hope to lime.
.
"
,
The ideology of natural taSle owes ilS plausibiliry :and its efiiocy I faCt Ihat, like aU Ihe ideological Sfraregics generaled in the everyday
� :.��::'�
Struggle, it nalufa/ius real differences. converting differences in :" : : � of acquisition of culture imo differences of nalure; it only n ; g . i as legltimale Ihe relation to cuiture (or language) which least bears visible marks of its gencsis, which has nothing 'academic', 'bookish', 'aff«tni' or 'slUdied' about ii, but m:anifesrs b)' irs ease uralness rhal true culrure is nuure-a new mystery of immaculate (cption. This is ckarly setn in Ihe remuks of an aesthete of the
,"I,"�
an, who wrilcs no differemly from Pierre FranoSlel when the lafter.
devastating confession for an :art histOrian. rejects 'imcllcctualizcd
edge', which can only 'recogniu·. in favour of 'visual cxpc:tience', l sole mnns of access 10 '/rue vision·:o
'Tast( mUSI not be confused with gaslrrmtmty. Whereas tasle is " , .. UTa/ gift of recogni�ing and loving perfection, IS the SCI which govern the cultivuion and NiU(4Iion of taste. to taste u g'4mm4' and literature are to Ihe liu,a" JmJl. And fhis us 10 the hean of the problem; if the gourmet is a delicate (omloiMtllr, the gUtrOnome :a JNdtJI/l? . . The gourmel i I
,liltS
_
Ihe m:an of tasle is his own grammarian . . . NOl e..-eryone is a that is why we need gastronomes We must look. upon
ams, but Ihey have Iheir uses. They belong 10 the lowtf, �t or-dtr,
we look upon ped�gogucs in general: they are sometimes 10
improve this '41htr min()r gmrt by me�ns of t�CI, stf�int and eleganl lightncss . . . There is such a Ihing as bd taSle .
ir is up to lhem
persons of rtfinnnml know this imlinrlivtf,. For Ihose who do nOI. are needed.'61 Knowlnige by cxpc:rien ce. which, like 14liJ, feels �nd lkplores {he essemial inadequacy of word s express the reality 'lasted' in myslical union, rejecls as unworthy tcllcctual love of an. Ihe knowledge which idenlifies expc:rience
�:��;;;�i:��;:�"�:;�: !�;:� :
work wilh �n imcll«rual operation of d«iphering.61 SCHOlARS AND GENTlEMEN
d Thc differenccs in manner that ;" ; , ;'". diffi:rcnces in mode of acquisilion-i.e., in scniority of access to domina", cJass-whkh are generally associatni wilh differences in
• • ' , . ,, . s s . , . , . . , .ss' • • , . s . "
Wit and , oS' ct Cou mng Lear fusty
I . ,alSSOT N riK"d to hear thiS , . '''.... '''' 'r nv< J krnall say gc:nt things hc's said in this I,Inplas.
The
1111
f/"2.y.
al (ourt, and 15 one He's much ",ight C�JX"I, , . Ihe court s mlsrrust of
d He shar lIe t, InlC
<
a (ol,lfficr, ddends with �esr AIltl, The igno/"2.nCe thlt', in his interest. as
,-u-rA1'-ORfi
You'..: '..:ry hud
poor COUf!,
indeed on lhe
Which hl"llf$ l"lIch day of your
how people
SOrt, Who deal in intc!le'::ll,Ial wues,
Ihat Iheir l"lIrcef$ arc bllghled by it, Ikplo..: il$ wrelChed lasle. lnd
Complain
blame Iheir own
.I�
Unhappy failures on
rhat cal,lSC
i'(,rmil me, Mislet Trissolin. wilh d� u
Respect for your grear name, to say thai you And aU yOUt kind ...ould do weU 10
diS(l,I�
The COl,lrl in IOnes less harsh and querulol,ls; That Ihe coun is nOf 50 shorr of wit and brain As you and all your scribbling friends maintain; That all Ihings Ihete arc viewed wilh common sensc, That good ta.sre, tOO, is ml,l(h in
evidence,
And that ils knOWledge of the world sl,Irpasses The fuSlY Ic:aming of pedantic asses. TkISSOTIN
[r
h15 good
it had!
taste, you say) [f only
CUTANDRE
What makes you say, Sir, Ihat ils IUle is bad?
J 8. P. dec Molte..:, LnJ- ......,. ..
(1672) In T"" Lu.'WII in", En8h$h �"" by (N�... yo,• •J>
L.Jm, Irl",blN R,ch.rd Wilbur
'i, ,' S , ' S S . , • • • • ' " , • • • , . ' ' S " .S,,'S' joY'hOY"''', 1978), 1'1'. 1 1'-118.
. PQ5iuon of Op-I taI, are P" � __ . .J 10 mark d·. O ' "Spo,.;u I erenccs WIthin Ihe cIomi. ' . . ' I"" �s d·, I erences In · cultural capllal muk rhe differences be. t..._n . " Ihe cI 64 Thai lS why manners, cspcc:iaJly Ihe manne r of n:11(Ionship 10 uses .. . ate Icglum cultur e, are the stake in � .....rmanrnl stru, ,, .1c ln� - � �o neulral SUtemeOl m . Ihese mailers: .thc ' (erms Ing.. designat. . . the 0:tsmg dlspo sl�lons c n be t ken as compitmentary or pcjora II�t � � . � ...� on Ihe po m l of vIew. It IS no aCCident {har Ihe opposition t n Ihe scholastIC' (or 'pedamic' ) and Ihe monda II'$Slo � in' (he efforr. I ,eganl, IS ' �t the hearr of debat es over tUfe and cullu re in eve'" " �8t, �h'md rwo B -, , . _ � ucmS r _ -. ys _ P'U
"', " t cIass
depc
�
70 I A S«iaJ Crili'luf oj INJudgnnml oj T�If
In France, literary debate in {hI' firs( h�lf of the severm:tnth was dominated by (he antagonism betw�n the dO(ft1--Ch�pdain � U Mesnardi��, Fartl, Colk(el, d'Aubignac elc" who looked t throrists, and ulrimarely to Aristotle, for the rults thl')' sought to on Ihe construction of l iterary works,61 �nd at the »me time ground these rules in rtason-and the mondains, who �fuscd bound by precq>t, madt their pltasurt their guide and pursued finittsimal nuancts which make up the 'je ne sais <juoi' and the perfeoion of savoir vivrt, l'h( g!'C:a1 debates over t:lSte which I works arouse or drllmatize (such as the question of tht precieux ' by codifying and raILonalizin8 salon dtlicacy, an m of Iivin8 as indefinable, changed its whole nalU�) involvt not only Ihe with which Inc diffefC1lt fractions of (nc dominant class idtntify the Chevalier de Mere so well putS it, 'the marmers of ' them, which art {htmsclvts kinds of virtues', and throu8h t ity in their class, and their way of 8e((;n8 then:, an: expl'C'SSCd or
{rayed,
Innumerllble illustrations could be cited from the vast liter:l.lun: wd;fy, inKplrably, ordinary behaviour and the cmltion lnd works of art, in short everything which falls under the I of lasle, one of lhe key words of lhe age;"" but one exampk caU$C il explicilly links manner, mode of acquisilion and rhe , nllts: '1bc: author [Fureri�re, lhe bourgeois author of U Ro""." who had c�;tic;:ted La fontline and Bcnsende] sho,""" clnrly that he i lhel of soc,ety nor of lhe court and that his tasle is of a pedantry one not even hope to reClify. Ccmin things are never undcmood if they arc not unde,.,tood at oncto some hard and rough minds will never be led the charm and grace of Bcnserade's balku and La Fonnine's fables. Th1l door ;s dosed to Ihem, and so ;s mine . . , One can only pny to foe' slOCh a man and hope: never to have dealings wirh him' (Mme, de letter to Bussy·Rabutin. 14 May 1686).
Paradoxicall y, precocity is an efftct of seniority: aristocracy is ,he par cxcellence of precocity since it is nothin8 other than tht K"'ori which is the b irthright of the offspring of ancien( families (at leasr . cietLes in which a8e and aristocracy-virtually «Iuivllent recognized as values) _ And this initial stalus..:lerived capital is by tht adVllntages which precocious acquisi tion of Itg itimart 8ivts in Itaming cultural skills, whClher table manners or the art vc:rsation, musical culture or Ihe $Cnse of proprielY, playing tennis nUncialion. Tht embodied cul tural capi tal of the pn:vious funClions as I son of advance (both a head·stut and I providing from Iht OUtsel Ihe example of cultu n:: in modds, enablts the newcomer to Sian aC<juiring Ihe basic dementS
s'sss,s'" " " s," ,'" ,ss,','
tivated � £ se or Cul
�:lfllt'21nes.s
know every' d ha"': 1 man manner of 'I .... yet' by his an "0' nS cu:-d of hal'· Oll vi th, " " bc (
spC"
ouj
�t
U {IJII,>tf1A
I/(Jtl.
correction in mosr 'What nceds tOO composed, ;s �mething hers "" all and. study. The ..hteh " ks of ' ,e " setm nltu· I,m IOUSt be to ma,
"I: Mbi. Dts "gr.rwrnu
tters, 'Sut kind words on all ma ry agrtt'/.bly uuercd, will gralify eve . IS her, \I cannot go furt I ene t r Wit . t m15tC'P'e(c of intelligence, urs savo h Soy to them nothing whic ofstudy or setms F.ar-fctchcd. Above all. since (hey are: ....ell pleased with thrir O""n worth. refrain from in· structing them on any matter, or rorrcu c: ng th{:m, whatever mistakes you observe them to make.' Me":.
�
_
.
Dr '" _I,Irf'UJ w...
'11111 civility is perceived in the brulCS, rhe manner, in the sligh(est
anions of the body lnd mind: and the more one considers it, the more: one is charmed by it, without realiz· ing where it comes from. . . . For everything that is done OUt of con· stnint or se....itude, or has any tnee of coarsc:ncss, destroys it. And to lender a person amiable in his ways, you should please him as much as you can and lake care: nOI to burden him with tedious instructions.' 'PclSOns of refinement an:: some
Mere, CNs "grimm!,
times obliged 10 rurn a hand to man)' things. even the things of which they know Ins,- In such a case, they should not behave like professional cnftsmcn, whose sole (oncern is to finish their lask. A gt'ntleman should setk. flOt so much to be expert in what he undertakes, as to under"ke it like a gentle man , . This air of case which comes from 1 fortunate bit!h and In excellent habit is one of the ameni· ties of a gentltman; he should set about even the mOSt difficult tuk with such detachment that it setms to COSt him no drot!.' Me.�. CNs _
i S' " ", s s , "" , s s " '" ' " , s s s •" " " ,
en
"grim.m!
tk lcgitimue
cuhure, from the beginning, that is, in the most u ncon· sc'ous and impalpable way-and to dispense wilh the labour of dccul· . turatlon, cor1'C(:tion and n::tnining that is nttded 10 undo the eiftc{S of t lppropriar c iClmin8' legitimarc mann�rs owe their value to (he fact at they
��
t tht rarest condirions of �c<juisition, Ihat is, a social �ove.rmanifts time which is taeitly cogn i ed as tht suprtme ex(dlence: 10
Ih to( t lOgs from tht past, i.e., aecumulatt-d, crystallized hislOry, anI' c n es and �r �rn {illes, chiteaux or 'Stately homts', paimings and col· 0 tlS, VI t3ge wints and antique furniture, is 1 masttr time. Ihrough � all h T(
:
z
.
t Osc itl1hc thtngs whose common ftaturt is that they can only be anluiTed cOurse of {Lme, by means of rime, against time, that is, by inhen· t �ncc
Ot
Ihrough dispoSItions which. like the taSle for old things. are:
72 / A S()(i,,1 Criliqut (If 1mJudgnnml (If TaJlt
likewise only Olcquiml with time and applied by those who on
om c,
1.
"., ,�
Every gro tends to set up tile mC'Olns of pcrpetu�ting nitc indivi uals in whom it is incarnat(d. (This was one fundlment.1 insights.) In Or
i
��.rJ
Ii
�:�'�th'
,
mor;IIiIT.
If this is accepted (and it would n('Cd to !xc esrablish(d more systemOlli_ oily), then capital makes it possible to appropriOlte the colleaivdy prO' duc(d Olnd accumulate
\('�;',�'\:
If the foregoing argumcnt suggestS an 'analysis of cw::";"� ,": ' removed, it would �m, from Heidegger and his ·01.1 C nuse mOSt 8rouPS hl'·e sought to lay down absolule, means of the irI'Cversibilily of time, which gives i n fbible form of social order based on the order of succes:\ions. cJaimanlS to sueces:\ion-father and son, owner and heir, master ciple, plC'decasor and successor�re sepalated by nothing. bUI there is every SOrt of social mechanism to make this gllp able. Thus. in fhe scruggle belween the diffe�nt 'manners', i e (he em manners of acquiring the dominant groups arc always on the i
.
,"
T� ArlJ/t)CI'ary ofCullurt / 73
,
most I
that is. the oldest ac 'nsensible and invisible mode of qui sition ' us one. This is whal provides thc invariOlnt elements of t� t recio and moS , n( discourse and gives an air of eternal youth to cerrain doml they Olre in realily strictly situated Olnd dOlled, like all the I�e O al h ugh es m , the bces of elegant disquisition on innate taste or Ihe blundering (Ommonp . . anIS. of ped
� �
-
!
�
.
gnificance b:tSed on funcrional and stfUClural ' I mastcry of social si )'day reading of the '�I�ics'" and, underlies and f.!ci itues ev r . , a qUite spec,al use (c it is a pracncal use. hterary qUOlallon sin O ".,mom which is l son of summons 10 appear as a,h'oote and wilflCSS, of b:asis of a soci:!1 wlid:!rilY disguised as in· 10 a pasl author on lhe �Iidlrlly , Th' ,rKliol sense of mC'Olning, which SlOPS Sholl of ,luaI . >V td.. thIt wouId ' u <"-Since 'es -II f'OSS'LI affinily wh'ICh mal< ' ob u£ylng the social hc tCXI-pro. the
" r�:tC'I. � �� � ""!_ � "des
.
Identifyin8 Ihe invariants must not, howcvcr, lead us to tre:at a panicu tive study would jar scace of the struggle as eternal, and Ol true compar:a havc ro take account of the specific forms that the struggle and the themes in which it is expressed take on when the obiective relations be· rween the d� fr.l({ions change, I t seems, forenmple, that in the second half of the seventeenth (entul')' Ihe growing authority of the mondains and of the COUll, combined with Ihc tendency of high society to become mo� cuhivlled, reduced che diStOlnCe between dones and mondains; this Ie.:! to the risc of a new species of mOln of leners. typified by the Jesuits Rapin and Bouhours,69 masters of rhetoric who were themselves both doctes and mondains. who frequemed artists and aristocrats and helped 10 produce � synthesis of the demand� of Ihe coun Olnd the academy (and dld so by Shifting the cemre of the debale from the question of wonhy . ls co ch:!1 subf('( of the slyle i n which (hey might be tte:lted),
�m llarlr , IIOw:>dlyS, the f." th�r .n Increasingly luge proportion of the
SlflCu bou'grolsie 's making ;nlen$ivtc use of the (duca,ionl1 system (and ::!:1.lJy, In Fnncr, the gra"dtJ kokJ) is tending to modify Ihe form of lhe h l n betWeen the mandOlin and ,he scholast1c--
b:
case of Ihe �b tions between Ihe nineteemh-cenmry German u ni �e and the 'prin
� �
?
·
14
/
1'1
J()IIIJ'
......."1".
(I} "... J"Ut;
conventions of style and forms of civililY which domin3tc the tion31 �ystem �nd �Il its pwducu, in panicu !u the arrention given language and to intellectual propriety, derived, in the case of from coun 5OCiety, whereu in Germ:lfly the intdligenuia, especi;rJly the universities, set itself up in opposition w the court and the modds it was importing, summing up its vision of 'high 5OCieey' in anlirhesis between 'Civilization', char:l.cteriled by friVOlitY '" d aliey, and 'Culture', defined by seriousness, profundi,y and , : ; , i In other words. there is the SlIme basic opposition between doctes mondains. with identicli coment, but with the values reversed: h", . doctes could not assert their �utonomy except by asserting (heir own tu� and Iheir own 'manner of pr:l.<Tising them', thereby dev1l.luing . SOCiety VirtUes, The fact remains tha! the 'ped�nt's' situ�tion is never entirely abk. A�inst the 'populace' 1nd with the mond�in h3ve every rc:a50n �Iso to :Kcept it, since they h2ve an inteI'CSt ' I riglus-ht is inc!intd to acctp t (ht ideology of inn�(t tastes. since it [he only absolute guar:l.ntee of his ekction; but ag.tinst the mondain forced w assert the value of his aC<juirements, and, indeed, the the work of :K<juisition. the 'slow effort {O improve the mind'. as put it, which i$ a blemish in the eyes of the mondain, but in his own his supreme merit.
�; :�f.��
The embarrassment of audemic minds, indebw:l and commi{[ed
lion, surfaces whe�ver i[ is a <jueslion of Ihe adcqua�e approach to a of art :lnd lite riShl way to u<juire it; and rhe cOnlr:l.diCfion is at �he of all {h<:ir �t'l�hcdc Iheories. no� 10 mendon �heir �I!emp�s !O esl�blish a pcda,gogy of an, The ideology of na�ur:l.l gif�s i$ 100 potent, even wi�hin �he roundonal SYSTem, for a n expression of flith in �hc powel"$ of a nal pcdagogy :limed at reducing Ihe pr:l.Cfinl Kltemes of f:lmiliarilY !O fied rulcs, dcspit( the fac� that (his pranical affirma(ion of �h( 'na(Ur:l1 riSlu' !O an is �h( naTural weapon of those who appeal �o knowledge and ideas and aim �o discredit �he divine right of rh� advocl�es of immedi�rc e>p<'ricrn:e and pleasure. For eumple, rh�re are all rhe �rcs over the tellching of an (more specifically, �he �aching of drawing)----'OI (omradic· !ion in ttrms (or lOme. who hold �hlt beauty i$ neith�r �Iughl " ' bur is I grace rr:l.n$mirrc-d from inves{ed miSters to predestined sci, ,I o�he", a field of pcd:lgogy like :lny mher. (On<: (hinks, '';: . 11;·,."__ po!emio berween the advOC1tcs of ruion:ll pcdagogy, such Ind lhe chlmpions of the charismltic view. such as RlvaiS$On. over [he I trodunion of dr:l.wing les$Ons ;mo gener:l.l eduntion in rhe ClIrly years the Third Rq>I.Iblic.)
"":'�
;: ;;:;
:::::: :.
Ideology is an illusion consisttnt . int(I'CSt. but I wdl.grounde.::l illusion. Those who invoke ag3insl knowledge h3ve 3 basis for their pre;udi� in the rc:al between {he domesti( learning and the Kholastic laming EXPH, IENCE AND KNOWLEDGE
:f��:E
.S cuilure and th� bourpis relation 10 culture owe their inimi· BOUrgc<'I ocr to the bct thu, like popular religion as secn b y Groc· table Chl ey are aC<juired, pre-verb�lIy, by arly imme�ion in a worl? of (hU�� ople, pr:l.ctic� a�d objects. "':'hen the child gr<.>ws up m a � pe . cu]U� not only 115tene.::l to (on hi-fi or r:l.dto Id in which musIC 15 ho S' hou performc-d (the 'musical mother' of bourgeois 3Uto 'l/lada s) but "o when the child is introduced at an euly ag� to foniori Y) and a bi g nt---a�iall! the pia�Q-(�e df�t is at least to pro ? e' i �slrume I nob ore &miliu relationShip to mUStC, which differs from the alWo1)'S du(C t distant, contemplative �nd often v�rbosc: relation of those who �rn me: to music through concerts or even only through records, in hav CO Wo1y as the relation to painting of those who h�vc discov. h he same in the <juasi-schol:uti( atmosphere of the museu�, dif· h uedly, i el from the rdatio� developed by those born mto � world fil1e.d wllh a�1 objeCtS, familiar family propertY, amassed by succ�lve gener:l.flOn� {�tJ taste, and sometimes ,home·m1de (like {ylng to their wealth and jam or embroidered linen).
�
� i ;�
:Uso
e
m; / krs
good
Diffcrern:es linked to $OCi31 origin Itt' no doubt most marked in penonal prod�ction of visu:ll art or th� playing of a musical in$uument, apdfUdes ..hich, both in lheir acquisition and in their p<'rformance, presuppose not only disp05i{ioru :1S$OCiued with long cstablishmcm in the world of UI lnd c�I(�rc but al$O economic mans (especially in the cue of piano-playins) and spare time. At C<:Jual educ.uional levels, they vary s�rongly by social ori IJ/, II" p<'rcent of gin. Thus, among holde" of rhe b;at(tWuri ..ho originate from the dominanr.dw uy [hey of�m play 3 musiol inmumtn(, compared with ' p<'rcen( of those of middle:y C$pondmtS wle (0 give 1fI :lnswer when asked the lowesl price al which 'Ooc flOw buy an original lithogr:l.ph or 5erigr:l.ph by a contempor:!.ry nal arliu' varies conSider;tbly by social class, !";Inging from 10.2 p<'r· (�Ot ag "
rhe rcspon·
dm�s
;os' � Pfo�;a k :; � 17.6
lb cho·ce 0f f��Cf) I "'orla such as the CtmarltJ[fW IIx uft HIJ"d (much more e
til,.,.
t
�/J\ong those who play an insuument-espedally the piano J(WlilJ� is much more slrongly
amo ng Others) or L'E"[IJ,,I II Its
76 / Ii Sod'" Critiqu, oj ,btJudgnnml oJ
I am
linked 10 soci�l origin than to educational capital. By conUUt, works like the Wt(f.Ttmptrtd Gavin- or the lir' of Pugu" thelt stronger corrdation with educational capiul than with $OCial on"; Through thot indicators, despite' their imp(rfections. one can guish different relations 10 the hierarchical, hier:lfchizing world 1Ur:l1 works. which arc closely linked to a set of interrelated d;,r, and which stem from different modes of acquisition-domestic scholastic, or exclusively scholutic-of cullural capital. Thus, when bnd Barthes makes an aesthetic out of a puticulu relation (0 produced by �rly, domestic, 'practical' acquaintance, and describes thelic enjoyment as a sort of immediate communication between tener's body and the p(rformer's 'inner body', present in 'the grain singer's voice' or 'the pad of the pianisl's fingen', he IS in fan "f'.;" the opposition between twO modes of acquisition. On the one h�nd, there is music fot rccord colle
.";
f'�
"',';:�,�
I",";'''�
OIlJECT LESSONS
Every material inhetitance is, suiclly cultural inherilance, Family heirlooms not only bear muerial I the age and continuity of the lineage and so consecrate its social which is inseparable from permanence over time; they also a pr:lctical way to irs spiritual reproduction. thaI is, to
es �nd wmp(tences which arc the basis of legitim�te memo ''1.IU�' ,.irlu In bourgeois dynasties. What is u<Juircd in daily COntact with bC� I� objcctS, by regular visits to antique·(!calers and galleries, or, more a�c!C; by moving in a universe of familiar. intimate obiccls 'which ltt "P S" .Y"as Rilke .uys. 'guileless, good, simple. (emin', is of (ourse: a cer. is nothing other than � telation of immediate familiar. which lhe�;aste·. lrl
3 ( with the things of taste, SUI it is also the sense of belonging to a mo� polire. ?tiler policed world, a world which is justi· orC pOlished, lIS p(rfccllon. Its harmony and beauty, a world which fied In exisling by uced ,Beethoven and, M,ozart and continues to rr�uce p(ople (a. hlS prod , ble of pJaymg and �pprcctatlng them, And finally It IS an Immediate hercnCC. at lhe deepest level of the habitus. to the lastes and distastes, )'mpathies and aversions. fanlasies 2nd phobias which, more than de· opInions. forge the unconscious unify of a class. If a group's whole life.style can be read off from the style it adopts in furnishing or clothing, [his is not only bcouse these properties are the ob)«tilication of ,he economic and cuitur:ll necessity which determined their selection, but also because the social relations objectified in familiar ob)«l5, in thdr !UKUry or poverty, their 'distinction' or 'vulgarity', thdr 'bc:luty' or 'ugliness', imprtSl rhemselves through bodily exp(riences whICh may br: as profoundly unwnscious as [he quiet caress of beige car. ptlS or the thin clamminess of tattered, garish linoleum. lhe harsh smell of bleach or perfumes 2S imperceptible as a negative scent." Every inte rior exp�, in its own language, the present and even tm: PlSt state of liS occupants, bespeaking the elegant self'assur:lnce of inherited wealth, the flashy arrogance of the nouv�ux riches, the discI'CCt shabbiness of the poor and the gilded shabbiness of 'poor relations' miving to live beyond thw means; one thinks of the child in O H, Lawrence's story 'The . O(klng.Horsc: Winner' who hears throughout Ihe house and even in s kdroom. full of expensive toys, an incessanl whispeling: 'There mUSt � notc money.' Experiences of this son would be the material of a so ' ''' , t psychoanalysis which set OUt 10 grasp the logic wheteby the social rc anons oo' . ,, _� . , 10 11 ,,,,-, f' 1« , '"' rhmgs and also, of COUr1C, in people arc insensibly . ern11zcd" tak'109 . ( · P,ace 10 a lasllng h Cit . relauon to the world and.(o alh<: whICh manifests itself, for example, in thresholds of lolerance of the nalu . . ral and SOCI'" '.' worfd. 0f nOIse. overcrowdIn g, physical or verbal Ylolen (t--a�d of which the mode of apptOpriarion of cuhur:ll goods is 0", d·'ITlenw '� _. >. " e . ef fect of mvue -� 0r acquISItion ' " L.01C( f IS most marked in the ordinary 1 {' S � eve�day existence, such as furnjtute, clothing or cooking "'hlch a $111Ons e p�rllcularJy revealing of deep-roote.:! and long.standing dis L ,� . ur:cau �' Iy·109 OUtS'·de thc scope 0f the e.:!ucallo ha nal system, they Ve to be . were, confron' , � II by naked taste. without any explicit t
�
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�
rs,
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78 j A Soda' Crlllqllt oJ fht)lIdgtmtnl oj
This means
I am
Ihe
I
by every i I I 'sense', funCt o ing in i I �ra (e.g.. lilerary history. at Iwt among the most has the eif«t o I the weight of what is abandoned to o economic and cultul"lLl inhetilance. that these diff"et('nces (Ontinue to function in Olher cover .heir full force as soon as the logic moves real mkes into these areas-which it of course a to do.
in f reducing. the diff"et('nces linked t
tJLI�d mOld t
inheriled 'senses' and.
of.he Struggle f":.�:;,';,,���f
iu
The 1djectives the tapondenls ha� chosen 10 describe an ;","'0" . the source of their furnirure. are more closely linked 10 their social than to their educational qualifications ( un l ke their judgement on togl"lLphs or their knowleJge of composers), more directly depends on etfly letm in , especi11ly Ihe letming takes place without any e�prns imention to tC2Ch, than the and knowledge that are investeJ in clothi , furnishing and more precisely. n the way clothes, furniture and food the mode of acquisition of furniture (department store, shop Ot Flet Mukel) depends at leul 15 much on social sc ooling. A. equal eJucarional levels, .hose members of the class who were also born nto that class-who. more often than Olhers, in heri ted so e o .heir umi tut('"--1c<jui red their furniture cially those living in Pari ) from an anti<jue..detlcr more oftcn than artment born into other classes. who tcnded to buy from a dep spec alized shop or the Flea Market. (T e I:IS{ i
i
g
h
m f s
i
f
i
h
r./Jk ,
rc
Oq>anmc·ru Specialized
Social origin
Lowc. th.n b1{ Working .nd middle d.""
,.kg<
licence
•. Some
s especially f;�;;;· ;;;d�
in ,he dominan, d.... by �\>C1I.ion .nd soci.l origin .heir furnitut<: from nch sou e) .'
Educatiorul
T«hnioJ
bec1Use nothing.
ng
i
Upper cluses
Working and duses
middle dmcs
Upper Working and middle cluses Upper cluses
and middle dmcs
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lU "
1l.0 "
2U
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responden.. indicuro mo� ,h.n One )Oun:e.
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41.) n�
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of rhe dom inant class who have � ri ng h,nd by I capital. and on .he orher hand by mc�bcrs of rhe dom· rllt" cd ,nosr born into .hat class. w o have 1e5ii educanonal capi al than r 'lus. years 0fl'11.';her Ina" prom sed. i.e.. those who have h.d O e or tWO ir OTiSIn II>( iOn� table �.) ''t IS probably in lasles in f(lf)l/ Ihat onc ""ould find thc strongest m learning. the Icssons which longest t Indelible mark of nfa ...." .nd most rlUT' and Ihe dis a c ing or colbp c of t e native world ,,'Irhs an native world is. above all. thc maternal " in .for il..Thc , naln hll' I oous f -� . 0 'he � . '....orld of primordial lastes and basic a. i . . r d the e.gIVLng t an . to the aIChe.ypal cul mral good. in w ICh ple1Sur ,d.lIon "lon towards p easure ' d'Isposu pleasure and 0f the seieC([Ve art of . In!CS!1II P pIeuure. "'hich is
ofIcuC1rional
Ihe p�1
It m1y
.
.,
11.0
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11.0
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i
si mcmbers h i
tn nOSlalgia
t
n
h
s
f a chc�ypa S I
h
1C<ju,rcd through
;'h l
ce in food. h search for the O l the 11m ,,'as to id l'lify prefercn queslio s led me to quesl o indICator of the nteres! they served on special ,,·hich fur. ' . � of elf.procm.llon ,"iopled in 'showi ng off" 'ho,�� III Ih,s o . r F o a . pm). plays 11$0 n"UfC rhc Style faClnrs has '0 •. ' p1tliCU\1r!y complex se' of I t<: thc of mel1 th.. peopk like 10 offet 15 no doubl • v ry good .h at r of sys· 1m��(h. . d an as ....ish 10 #vc or avo.d glvmg to OIhers of faClon nc udm . m adduLOI\ 10 .he md ,· .eml!I( expression of 1 . CI'O'S of Ihe position oo:cupicd in the economic and cultural hlc1':lrch'�.
mS te s i n the �sponden!s on n ' Cmlol lnd 'synrhelic" oo:casio ns, an i ing «:�IS a lifc-style �in s completc undem.nding fm be horne. mm.!: mco c " IS ,ml,1;<" lher i 1 g SYSlcm c
cconomic rr.jectory. social Ifaj«tory and ,uhura! tl"lLleClory. thar the eff"eC ..e. mos! " I ib�e in the w. " is nO! ('ClUe bourSCO'sie. Thc mcmbers of the csubloshe
s g sc l s mnls ·origm.1' !iCrVC t Or o STrOng one � pe." bourSCO's of m,ddle or working·dass origin mOre often off"cr plentiful and good' mnls. ".hich ., '""" thc case ·jth rhose of upper-class o"l\ln. who by conffOSI. very mdl ned to Ihe 'ot;gin�1 and no",' In ,he e;-l1bl,sh�d pe,ite hourgeoisie. 'hc propensuy to off"er 'plentiful and good meals .s as StrOng among those in dedine .mon,!: 'hose who uc ardly mobile and onginaiC from the orking classes. The former nc,'C! "Y 'hey <.>Ifer -PO' luck' or 'origonal .nd exotic' meals. whern$ the- blfcr �m("mC1 do (.hough nOt. of ourse as ofren as Ihc ncw peru bourg<:Qls). l! 'S IlO accident thn even Ihe p f St pleasures hose mOSt puritieJ of .n�;;�a�e Th,s bcmg ...
.
ls m
surprising
...
�t<:
Up...
c
....
.
"'
0$
. •
U C
of corpofCllllY (such as thc ·unlque. pure nOtc' of the PhtltbllJ. , lrndy reserve<.! thcm for {hc ·few· ) . con.1In on element wh,ch. as 10 th food, !hc archetype of all 'aslC, of the refers�d "�c ly b a k c 10 the oldest and deepest CKpenen(es. Ihose which de· t�tml d <:," cr-
crudest" ple�surcs t n �""'fr:7 : c
!astes of
t
,
,
,
essemial [0 gastronomic commc:muy as 10 the: refined �pprecia{i(ln$ aC'Sch(u:s. To different degrees. depending on the an, the genre Style, u[ is n(yer cmirdy the (11M mm/l1ft, the diS(:oul"S( intcnded 0"",' be read, de<:odw. interpreted, which the intdle<:lualist view makC$ This product of an 'arl' in Durkheim's �n�, I.e., 'a p �� :�; rheory', and sometimes of a simple mimesis, a son ,of symbolic , . Iks, always contains also something ineffable, not through excess. celebrants would ha,·c it, but by default. something which ,om'n (2ICS,2S it wen::, from body to body, like the rhythm of music or t your of colours, [hat is, falling shorr of words and concqm. An is 'bodily thing', and musIC, the most 'pure:' and 'spiritual' of (he arts, perhaps simply the mOSI corporeal. linktd 10 ttlllJ d'8nu which ,� '" statts of the body or. �s they ....ere once c�l1ro. humours. it nvishn, riC'S Jway, movC'S. II is pitchro not so much beyond words a:s below in gntufC1 Jnd movements of the body, rhythms-which where s:ays char.lCterile the funClions located. like everything ems t�ste, u the articulation of the organic and the and slowing. CfC1Cendo and d«rC1Cendo. tension and relaX1tion.n 1111s no doubt why, once it leaves the realm of pure t�hnique. musical eism scarcely speaks other than in adjenivC'S and exclamations. As tics speak of divine love in the language of human love, so inadequate evocations of musical pleasure are thosc ....hich can �pli,,* the peculiar forms of an experience a:s deeply rootro in the hody primitive bodily experiences as the tastes of
�
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lod
;;�'� �.
at the same moment, jl.{ dIfferent levels and in different nls and• c " ' I to what the "!flhemors ,'I demands is more or less ldennca 1 ....orfl Wlar . p' . seCrorS and becausc it acknowledges more or less val�e In orher ,orms .o, It, J pital and mher dispositions (such as dOCI!try towards the !fl. bOdle<J . itsclf) , I n srlt"I O
,
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nOOIIIlY. the fl>C" I and $0 cnjoy a dual title ro eullUral (a. . I(Ural cap' ' (pamr y 'amI'I'I:lmy b (\I , f I gitimarc membership and rhe cue g,ven 1SIuran( upital :ltional educ boIh lack firs!. to . , ar
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Thus. rhe which the relationship ro educarional capilal leavC$ ""hieh m1in!y appear in Ihe relarionship with social origin. may be differences rhe mode o( acquisition of Ihe culluraJ capillil no"" scsscd. Bur rhey may al$O be due to diffcrencC'S in rhe degree to whi'" rhis capital is recognized and gUlf"ante<:d by acad.:mic <jualifications: cerrain proportion of (he capin! a((ua!Jy o""ned may nor have ac�demic sanction. when il ha:s bttn directly inheriled and even ....h�n ha:s bttn acquired in school. Because of rhe long hysteresis of th� of ac<juisition. 'he s:ame educalioMI qualifications may gU2rant(C differ
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The rci.""nshlp bc''''ttn inh"i,w culrunl copiul and WU<:2"on.1 (lp".1
INflP.IlITf-D CAPITAL AND ACQUIRt;[. CAPITAL
in
dOC'S nor have a monopoly on rhe production of cultural capital. I t irs sanction 10 in herired capinl 10 a greater or Ies;s eXlelll (i,c_. {h � 'iiI<"<" Une
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O"e could con$fru(t a simillr diagram fo( e�ch 'ype of npit.l nomic, culfu..! .nd social) po=SS
The discrepancy between educa(ional capt!�1 and Ihe cuirural actually possessed, which is thc source of dtfferences belween idenrinl educational npirat can also result from rhe faci Ihat (he educational qualification may correspond to SChooling of very duralion (i_c., Ihcre is unC<jual conversion of scholastinlly acquired (ural opital). The dircct or indirect effects of one or several yc�rs sludy m�y in fact nOt be sanctioned -by the award of a diploma-as I case with all those who dtop OUt in (he IWO )'ears le:iding to the b"'" lauriat or, at a higher level, those who have spent Ont or univcrsity withoul obtaining a <jualification. But til addition, frequency of this discrepancy has risen with [he chances of different elasSl's to Sl'condary and higher education, agcnts different generations (as identified by age-groups) are likely to voted a vcry diffcrenr number of years of study (wilh all lhe f(:Cls, including greater non·certified competence, of course, but also
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of a different rdarion 10 culture-'Studenrifinrion' eff«l�,qu'SIU�u(alional institulions differing greatly in thtir le:ichers, their (rc. l ,0 erhods, their social r«ruitment etc in order 10 obrain an r,,(I1�n g rn'lification. II follows from this that the differences conneCted al capinl arc i
of cuiru..1 ,,, ".. e of mOl( precise indicarors of Ihc overall In t"•e a,,.--"I . . style . sa"flol weeklles Lt Cana�d ,he between n cOnlumplion (c.g., the oppositio . Enchainl ind Char/if Htbik, or, in Ihe area of �pular �lCnce, be,ween Sa Study 'he ",forma(lon the survey pro m« fI Vi, ,nd PJyrMogif), one can .ioo on favou,;,e singers. lr might be thought ,hat ,he fact th.t, �t .11 Ie,'els of eduution.l caplla!. the younges, respondents choose ,he slllgers of Ihe )'oun�r generation (Fr-an�oise Hardy or johnny Hallyday) more oftcn than fhe older respondentS, who more often choose older slIIgers (Gui'tary 0' Moriano), IS .dequ.tely explained by thc dates of ,he singers' firsr app:ar. .n(( 111 the field of cultural producrion. In facr, among b.cC:llauri'ar·holders, tk young7), Luis Mariano (born 1<)20, fitst success at �'OO Montparnasse, 194�), Gdberr B&aud (born 1927, f"Sf bec1me nOwn III righ,.bank c.barets and then at Olympia: consecrated ,n 1954, the '1�(1ud year') Or even Petula Clark (born 1933, tOP of Ihe bill .t Olympia 1%0, 'oltd 'moSf likeable and popular sm' in 1%3).'" It can be le
ves'm�nfS. J..jk� ,h�ir dd�rs 'hey read scientific �nd ,echninl works, but ,hey He slighdy mO!le Imeresu:d In philosophic.1 ess.ys Or poetry, no more fre<Juendy to museums, but when th�y do, 'hey go mOre the Modern At! Museum. These ,endencies .re pmicularly
Sf rstic form, as others 'populanze (I.e., Itansmn beyond the r jn jOu !�glrimale receivers) the products of the academic re.r.guard for example) or the consecrated �vatll.garde (Lt Noul'el Obm',
•.""n,
t older .mongst thost of them (rel.tively more numerous th.n ones) who origin.,e from [he middle or upper
ire n
The old·sryle autodidact was fundamemally defined by � reverence cultut"(C which was induced by abrupt and early exclusion, and which to an exalted, misplaced piety, inevitably perceived by the possessors legitimate (uhure as a SOrt of groteS<jue homage. The reCO,llnition of in(Qmpetcnc( and eultur:al unwoflhiness which char;ac. ,(rizes old.sryle aurodidacticism is especially seen among of the t.blished petite bourgeoisie originating from the working or I who say very fre9uently (70 percent of Ihem, compared wilh 3 1 percem the new petite bourgeoisie originaring from the s.me cla�) Ihar 'paim· ings are nice bu, diffic lt·. The cle.resl manifesmion of the cultural .Iien· .tion of old-style .utodid.cts is their readiness '0 offer proof of rheir "',,. even when il is nOt asked for, �,r:ay ing ,heir exclusion by their eagerness to prove Iheir mem�rship {in comrast to the weU-born, who mask their ignor:ance by ignoring <Juestions or situations which might expose it).
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In Ih� outsiders, who seek 10 use a dceply orlhodox way of continuing. brutally foreshortened Itajtcrory by thtir own i tive, tht whole rdation ro culture and cultural authoritits beus Stamp of exclusion by a system that can get the txcluded to �og'' their exclusion. By conltast, new.stylt autodidacts have often kept a � in the educational system up to a relarively high level and in Ihe of this long, ill·rcwarded associadon have aC9uired a relation to I mate culture that is at once 'liberated' and disabused, familiar and chanted. It has nOlhing in common with the distant reverence old.style autodidacr, although ir le.ds ro �ually intense and investments, but in 'luitt di/fet"(CtII areas, disclaimed or abandoned educational system--strip cartOOnS or jall rarher than history or omy. psychology (even par:apsychology) or ecology r;lther Ihan ogy or geology n These are Ihe caregories which provide the all the productions of the 'counter·cuiturc' (Charlie HtIxio,
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of the monopoly of manipulation of the sacred, the literati "[he holders who 'claim to discover hurch, never have much time for those (very C of �<"lves the sources of tl"3ditional authority' and 10 have direct ,,Ihln the,,,""" . treasure of which they .t"(C the guardians As Gershom S<:hoW the lO 5 3 Cc 5 C s 'They usually do their besr 10 place obstacles in the path of lem sh0,":,, ' him no encou r, � w t"metll, and if in the end the ob· ,,I Th �J give ,he myS I accustomed f ghttn the mystic and bnn,ll him back 10 the old 511CI6 ' much the bener from Ihe standpoint of authoriry.'18 But pre· , W2 ) p by Ihe institution can take place wi thout anyone hav. :nf e censorshi apply controls?r consmints. .Whereas mditional autodid�cts srill g IIIS!l!UnOn to indicate �nd o�n the short CUIS of expect Ihe academic , ' d'I!leCfIy, ularization and the vulgate, whlCh are aiways, d'IfeCfIy or III inaled by the institution,'9 the. most liber:i!Cd of the new autodidacrs s«k Iheir ,Ilurus among Ihe hereSl 1rchs who sllil perform the func!1on traditionally fulfilled by the aurhontics, namely. as Scholem also says, that of 'showing exactly what the nOV1{e has to expect at every step' and 'pro\'idi ng the symbols wah which this experience can be described or
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MARKETS The family and the school funCtion as sitcs in which the competences deemed nece55ary at a given time are constituted by usage itself, and, Simultaneously, as sues in which the trice of those compelenees is determltled, i.e., as markCls which, by their positive or negative sanctions, evalu.1e performance, reinforcing what is accep,able, d,scour:aging whal is not, condemning valueless dispositions to extinc· . lion (Iokes which 'fall Aat' or, though acceptable in anolhn context, in another m�rket. here seem 'OUI of place' and only provoke embarrass· -- hich sound menl Or disapproval, 9uOtatlons-in L:lIin, for example---w ,po:danlic' Or 'laboured') In Olher words, the aC<Juisition of culrural compelcnce is Insepar�ble from insensibic acquisirion of � 'sense' for SOund cuhur:al inveslment. . This investment sense, being the produ" of adjustment to {he objec. ch.nces of turning competence to good account, facilitates forward uslment e 10 chese chances, and is irself a dimension of a rdalion to '�re--
THE TWO
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way SUggeiled thaI th� cormponding behaviour is guided by nlculation of maximum profil, as th� ordinary usage of IIu:5c: no doubl miStak�nly, implk$. Culture is th� site.. par misrecognition, because, in generating str:l.legies objectively the objective chances of profit of which it is the product, the sense vestment secures profits which do not nted to be pursued as profits; so it brings to those who have legitimate cul{U� as a second natur� supplementary profit of being Sttn (and 5tC'ing themselves) disinterested. unblemished by any cyninl or mercenary use This means that the term ·investment'. for e�ample, must be in the dual sense of economic investmenr-which it objectively al ways though misrecogni=l�nd the sense of affecliv� inves.tme�t w�ich . has in psychoanalysis. or, more exactly, 10 the sense of ,/lIISM, belief, ,�,:;�;''"::'�;: involvement in the game which produces the game. no other guide than his love of UI, and when he moves. as i: lowards what is. at each moment, rhe thing 10 be loved. like some nC$Smen who make money e\/tn when they art nOt trying 10, he is . pursuing a cynical calculation, but his own pleasure, the sincere um which, in such mailers, is one of rhe precondillons of successful ' vestment. So, for example. it is lrue thu the effect of t'�; �'� ' :;;:�i�� : ; '��� :��:'.: � (rhe hiera�hy of the ans, of genm ete.) nn be des<:ribed is a ; case of the 'Iabelling' effect well known 10 social psychologisls. people set' a face differenrly depending on the ethnic label it is the value of the am. genres, works and authors depends on the marks attached 10 them at any given moment (e.g., pia" of I rion). BUI the fiet remains rhu the an..lover's sense of men! which leads him always to love what is lovable, and only ",.", '" always sincerely, can be supported by unconscious deciphering countless signs which at every moment say what is !O be loved and is not, what is or i.s nO! to be 5tC'n, without ever being explicitly "i'",� by pursuit of Ihe associate
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tu�' which Sttm to owe nothing 10 the constraints or incentives of instilution. The mo� legitimate a given area, the more necosary and · is 10 � competent in iI, and the more dam3ging and I compctent.�· [lUI this does not suffice 10 explain why it is t
towards the m05t legitimate arns. rhe slatistical differences related J1'lO �ucatio nal npital become incrnsingly important, whereas lhe mo� 10 ",0'1($ towards the lem legirimate areas, which might seem to be the on�m inexplic and able choice, such as cooking or interior decora.. of choice of friends or fUlllilu�. the mo� importanl a� the statistical linkens, scienc e fiction or defective SlOries are p�dispose
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possessed consists solely of (he capilli acquired in and recognized educational system. (Thus. membc:rs of the new recite bourgeoisie generally inherited more cuhur;lJ capital than the primary lcachers possess much the same educational capital: they know many mort ' tors but fewer composers.) [n fact. one can never entirely escape from the hierarchy CiC5_ ikcausc the very meaning and value of a cul{l,Hal object t cording to the system of objects in which it is placed. sdcncc ficcion or strip cartoons mly be entirely prtStigious cultural or bc: reduced to their ordinary value. depending on whether they art socialcd with avant-garde literature or music-in which case they : as manifestations of daring and freedom---<Jf combine to form a ,,; blian typical of middle·brow taste-when they appear as what they simpk substitutes for legitimate assets O ' . 'o , ' ' � Given that each social space-family or SChOO is e F � competenc o ; �, , ; tions both as one of the sItes where each field 10 expen might one price, its given the sit� where it is high�t prke on the products created within it. Thus one migh ' i the scholastic field to give the highest value 10 scholastically . � i I tural capital and the scholastic modality, wherea.s the markets or {he dinners, all and by exna·scholastic valu�-'society' salons sions of profcssional life (appointment intervIews, board meetings, ferenc� etc. ) or even academic life (oral examinations at ENA Sclenc� Po, for example), in which the whole person is wotlld SCt the high�t value on the familiar relation 10 t all the dispositions and competences which bear the mark acqtlisirion. But this would be to ignore the dfe<:ts of whereby the products of the scholastic: mode of produnion may be valued as 'scholastic' in the scholastic: market itself.sl Indeed, ' : � sign of the hetcronomy of the scholastic marker is secn in its a b I. ncatment of the products of thc 'scholastic' habittl s, which vanes verscly with thc ltllOnomy of the educational system as a wh�le , I conSlltuent its of and at different urnes and in different countri�) IUtions, wah respect 10 thc demands of the dominant franion of dommant dass,�) What is certam is that thcrc exists an immediate affinity betWeen disposItions that are acquIred by farTllliarization with legitimate and the 'high·society' market (or the most 'high·society' senors of educational market), The ordinary occasions of social lifc exclude i bllltal as a dosed qucstionnairc, the hmiting ose of thc nation which thc scholastic institution itself refuses whencver, an a«epting the high·society depreciation of the 'scholastic.', i t turnS, nl amination intended 10 vcrify and measurc competcnce mt� : varta l high.socielY conversation. n contrast 10 the most 'scholastic, ric situations whic:h aIm 10 d,sarm and d.scourage strateglcs of high.society :Xcasions give unlimited scope to an art of playing
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which is to competcncc what 'play' is
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��c: �ccomplished socialite chooses his terrain. sidcstcps difficul
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c g�ro SUrns questi ons of knowledge into qucstions of prcference, igno ticS. t ful refusal-a whole set of str.llcgics whic:h may IntO disd�in " .rtnc( .assurance or tnsecunty, ease or embarrassm�nt, and whic:h self t roanl� ro on mode of acqUISition and the corresponding familiar· " uch re as on educational capital. In other words, th� lack of deep, . .ItY or IS,an ' know,� � =ge ma!lc H1 a parttcular area of iegaimate cui· , sySt� 11 _ " . r . ethoul � ro nO way prevcnts hIm rom Satlsfylng [he cultur:.d demands en· tU.� mOSt social SItuations. cvcn in (hc quasi·scholastic siruation of a ullcu g:.
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questions about painters in such 2 wa� tha[ the knowled£<, 'fi�� m L I 'meci (ould not XL: ,'en <:<J any way. the aIm was not so much to mea· the specific competence (whic:h, one may assume, depend, on the same JC!Ors 11 knowledge of composers) as to grasp indir«t1y the relationship to kgitimate culture and the differenllal c:ff«ls of thc: survey situmon, Thus, roponcieMs whose knowledge was not �ual to t�eir familiarity may have f,1I enritled to uSC str.Heg'c> of bluff whIch are hIghly suw:ssful In the or dinary uses of culture (this is pmicularly the case with the new petite by the vague bourgeoisie), But bluff itsclf is only profitable If II is knowledge given by familiarity, Thus,-whiie the room for manoeuvre in rhis <jucstion allowed the least competent to fastc:n on proper names which correspond neirher [0 knowledge nor preference. such as Picasso (men· tioned by 21 percent of the unskilled and semi·skilled 'Workers) or Braque (10 per«nt), who was being celebrated in various ways at the !lme of the surver it also functioned as a trap with Rousseau (10 percent), who was P',1C!1call� never mentioned by the other dasses and was probably wnfused wl.'h 'he writer, (Breughel, by contras" was never mentioned by ,he un· s.,lIed and semi·skilled, no doubt beuuse rhey would nOt risk pronoun cing • n.me 'hey were nOt likely to have heard.) he�o bring to light rhis 'SQ(iety sense', generally aSSQ(;ated with Strong in_ d cultural capital bu, irreducible to a sum of strictly verifIable knowl· .,/ue c.g·, one only has to comp.re the variations in ,wo dimensions of culrural ' PI --PO»cssion of specific knowledge of composers and the 'fhir' which $ d to moke it profitable. measure d by the capacity '0 rccognitc what would have ulled thc: ·sma!! opinions' among rhe stateme f..� nts of· gure 4 wrrelates the proportio ' n of individua each l> in category who kno"'' the composers 0 r at least twelve of the musical works with the proportIo who cl"m that ·abstract painting Interests them as much n a.l the dUsir , s '. chool$'. 0n the one hand there are the ft:ilctions whose strict com· !>ete c ' g�.ter (han their sense of the 'right' .nswer highn uca (secondary and �on .r chers), and g.'ti",. on the other, tho whose se sense of the � f'Os re IS '"commensurate , wllh their specific comper encc (new pe. u . .", 'g"o'SIt ' , armur . , pruuu _ � eers). The g�p is smalbt ' ne '"-, Ong th I'Illni!''''tIvee"sIng peUt bourgeo i, or bourgeois (primary teac:hers, junior ad. . I1 "' e�ecu, . ' IVes, eng ne ers, senIor pubhe·sector ' � "Ot f>Ossible [0 use ,he opinions on music because-unlike ,n askin,
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. distaste which bourgeo!s,a�nts (especially those in d�line) man· " ,e ything 'scholasuc IS no doubt pardy c::tplalOed by the f r ever o s ' if( on which the scholastic muket inflicts, nonetheless, on the 1p dev..IU:I' knowledge and confused intuitions of familiarity. For exam· e rejection of academic routine which underlies most of the ( e ie p , .ons of rhe new culrural intermediaries (youth organizc!S, pby is more easily unde!S:ood if on� knows t.hal rhe establi�hed . le:l rgeoisie �as relatively high educatlonal capital and a rclatlv�ly bou dtt . inhefltance, whereas the new pellte bourgcolslC (of which pC k cultural ..� the limiting ca.sc:) has a StrOng cullul":ll inheritance and rebartistS are ' ] cap,ta " ], The r�nSlan no " or even pr ' ] pnmary . , ovlOCIa . Iy low cducallOna u� er who can beat rhe small employer, rhe provincial doctor or rhe h antique-d�1er in the t�ts of pure �no,,:le
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Educationally c:qui�alent indi�idua ls (c,g., the students of rhe grllnmJ irrHn) a d,f er ?l y f radically as regards bodily he�is, pronunCiation, dress or familiar· ,y With l�gitimi lC cultun:, not ro mention the whole set of specific compe· c and capacities which function as admission tickets to the bourgeois rl , s Ch as dancing, the rare sportS, or parlour games (especially bridge) . � n, sk,lls, through the enrounters they provide and the social capital th9 hel '0 lCcumul _ llc, no doubt explain subsequent differences ,n ca�r_
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,be sel of Sta" mcms on paiming. which offered an imerm.,]i>le opinion lov, the ImpressionistS')-.he ..n� of possible jud�men!S prescnt.,] gfeit a discominuity between .he t)'pinlly middle·brow opinion ('I iLkc Smuss walt=') :lnd the chic opinion ('AI! muSIC of quality imerl'sts , so .ha. the choice of .he mosr legi.imilC judgement became . for all those who refused .0 make do wi.h a ,00 visibly 'naive'
is so
e manncr which designares the infallible taste of the 'taste-maker' ,xposes the uncertain lastes of the possessors of an 'ill'gOlten' culture
the v'7pottan." in all markets and especially in the markCl which decides u htcl":lry and arristic wotks, only because choices always owe
:'r :�e�rl f value to the value of rhe chooser, and because, to a large ex· h cf Ch�� �alue makes itself known and recognized through the manncr git fl'l lng What is learnt through immersion �rt ten,
in a world in which Ie· i at . e cultu re is as nall,lI"�1 as the air one brl':lthes is a sense of the legit.
.-
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sheer im�{c choice so $U� of Itself {har it convinces by {he of the performance. like a successful bluff. II is no! only a sense 10 in,'cst in, dir«lors r:l.lhn than anol'S. thc avam.gardc mor<: I of rhe right ci2SSial or, which amounts to fhe same thing. a sensewhen men! [0 invest or disinvest, to move into olhn IKlds, the I distincrion become tOO unccmin. It is. ultimately. confidence, arrogance, which, normally being the viduah mOSt assured of profit from their Investments, hood-in a world in which cverything is a mattcr of �I: ;'::��: �: h, ,, [he absolute kgidmKy, and therefore Ihe maximum rheir investments. The pa�dox of fhe imposition of legitimacy is Ihar ;1 makes it : ,; � sibk ever to determine whcther rhe dominant fe:,p,ture appe:.a ,," � I hu , it guishd or noble because it is dominant-i,e., because ished I ,, discingu or as noble is of defining, by its very existence, what exactly what itself is, a privilege which is expressed preciselyit in ' assunnCe--Qr whether it is only because il is dommant lhat endowe
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what is 2t stake in the late·nineleenth-century creation of xample,eJrion gi�ing great imporunce to iporl-with, among edu �re � fO' pro Edouard Dc:moltns, the founder of the Ecole des Roches and dis. ollllCl"S' c Lc Play, like Baron de Coubertin, another advoulC of a FridCri f e clp s�ylc of ed�cation-i5 th� i��iti�m o.f an aristocratic definition of n(Vo' d wirhm the audeml( mstltutlon Ilsclf. Knowledge, erudition, on ed���holasric' docility symbolize001 affirms liSe',.'will', ,he virtues of the !C,he 2dcr (of the army or busi. 18Y" 'cou�g � m m� th�r tI �t . . II was �I �t Ihe sa�e (�mg) a�d"perhaps especially, (personal) InlUl(lVe, bapme
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the frivolous, the responsible ,nd Ihe irresponsible. the useful and die, [he realistic and the unrealistic. The principles of logical division which s[atistics uses to
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classes md the dau il records lbou[ them a� there£o� also
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'socia-Iogial' division. The StltiSlical vuiations associated ivdy defined) tWO main varilbl�ducadonal level ,nd SOCial
;:;
can only be correctly imerpreted so long as il is remembered 'h,,, , bo��d up wilh. am'g(lOisti( definitions of legitimare cull u re and leg[umate relauon 10 culture. or. more precisely, with different " , in which the char:lcteristics associated with one or Ihe " " ferenl prices. It would be wholly misr,ken 10 locate in any . faclors an 'effic:lcy' which only appars in a cemin Iherefore be cancelled out or inverred in anorher field or rhe same field. The dispositions constiruting Ihe cultivated only formed, only funerion and are only valid in , field, in Ihe ship wi�h a field which. as GaslOn Bachelard nys of Ihe physical [tself a field of possLble forces', a 'dynamLc situation','7 in which are only manifesled in Iheir relationShip wilh cerrain dispositions. why [he same pracrico may receive opposile meanings and values ferent fields, in differem configurations or in opposing SCClOrs same field.
" '''' ,;;;;�
So reflective analysis of Ihe [ools of analysis is not an sc�ple but. an indisJ:>Cnnble ptNondilion of scicntific knowledge . . I de£errSive, effoT! oble([. PoS!ILVLS[ lnmess It:lds the whole, I fication to be focus�d on the Imensity of I of bringing queslioning to be:ar on lhe very of lhe relationships, which may even explain the relarive i dIfferent relationShips. In order to believe in rhe independence dependem variables' of positivist me[hodology. one has 10 be rhal 'expbnatory faCtors' are also 'powers' which are onlt Ii tiv� in a certain field, and thai Ihey rhe[e£ore depend on Ihe wh"h are foughl, within each fIeld, transform {he . mechanisms which define il. [f it is easy to imagine fields i
'1" ;"."�' ""'!
ro
P:"�::'�
�;
���:: i :���;
""eight of Ihe twO dominam 'faCiOrs' would be inverted (and tCSIS
would be the experimenlal expression of this. giVing � !. I for example, [0 less 'scholastic' objects and forms of t:>tnuse wh�t is ultimalely a[ stake in everyday snuggles over rhe [ransformalion of the price-forming mechanisms d.:fining the values of the cultural productions associ�ted with educatioml and social trajeclory (and [he primary variables Ihrough which Ihey
grasped) .
� ��
If it is [fue that [he s[alislical relationships between rhe p" p,, , tached 10 agents and Iheir pr.lc[ices arr only fully defined in ship between the dispositions of a habitus and a particular limirs wilhin which (he n:lations observed rel�in their """d,,y�"
. ion which is the pre-condition for full �nen.lization-
rent ,d�:d �b[jOMhl�S S ic ,�lf!'lln.sca[lo� oar � in its subject mattCf h to [ � !O fhe market of economic Iheory. Bo[h ch,ngCS:form ofexchange il imposes (a C[uesrioning, which, as Charles e:and In cd always implies a form of intrusion, violence. challeng 6ally nt ;tcnuations which normally accompany it), a survey by <Jues· l, asymme.trical hCn� :�� �ially when il takes Ihe .form ofr:"ethodica a [iOJIrr galion.- is the compkle opposne of ordmary convef'$1110n; 11 has 1!I{C o lhe cafe or campus discussions in which the in common wilh l f which shuns no[h n�
wilhin [his quasi·scholaslic situalion, from whal is tal as one moves, what is less academic either in academic in form and contenl 10 rily withoul lesting knowled�) or in fosm (queslions measuring familia . prefertnces III cook· (questions on knowledge of rhe cmema or be{�een 'factors' and markets. Ing) give somc idea. of rhis relalionship , ) of the manner of AU t e indices (dIfficult to obtam by qucs[IOnnaLrr ce. 2pplying, showing or exploiling competence (self·assu n.nce, arrogan off·handedness, modesty, t:lrnesrness, emba r:lssment eIC,) srrictly de· �nd, for their meaning and value, on [he market in which they are
I
��� (ontcnt h
r
pl�ed, becau!iC they are the visible [races of a mode of acquisition (da mesue or scholutic), i.e., a marker; and also because all .he markels ... able 10 assert Iheir autonomy of scholastic con trol give Ihem pflority. The emphasis on manne�, and hrough Ihem on mode of ac· I enables seniorit y wilhin a clm 10 be made rhe basis of lhe hier· an:hy w,thin the da ss:89 il also gives lhe recognizc.:l possessors of the
hich afC qU'mlon, kglllmatc manner an bsolute, arbirrary power {O recognile or exclude. "�anner, by definilion, only e�isrs for others, and the recognized holders t� legitimale manner and of [he power ro define the value of man· ress, be:lring, pronuncial1on-have [he privile� of indifference to "'thell'S--d l wn manner (so Ihey never have to pili manner). By contrast, tth� .palVenu�' who presume toin Ihe group ofa legi[imate, i,e., hef(di· °
�
0
10
/)1/
rs without being ,he prodUCl of the 's J>O$sesso of Ihe legilimale manner, c m �ial conditions, are !rapped, whatever Ihey do. in a choice be· I",,(,(:
a an�lous hyper.identification and the n galivi[y which admits its
ause Ihey are acqui"'" in $OCial fields whICh art al50 markets in
which rhey re<:eive rheir price, cultural eomperences �re
rhese markers, �nd �II struggles over cuhure �re �imed ar
market most favourable to rhe ptoducrs which are marked,
in
ners, by a parricubr class of conditions of lC<juisition, i.e., a market. Thus, what is nowadays called the 'eoumer·culrure'
the product of the endeavour of new.style aUlodidaclS 10 free
so
market, wilh its own consecr�ring agencies, rhat is. I
or imdlectual markelS, capable of challenging the pretension
carional sysrem 10 impose the principles of evaluation of "ml�'';; and manners which reign in the schobstic m�rker, or ar least
'scholastic' sectOI'5, on a perfecrly unified market in cultural goods_
11
T&e Econom;!7 of Practices
But on things whose rules and principles had been In· stilled into her by her mother, on the way to make cer tam dishes, to play Bttthoven's sonatas, to 'm;eive' with cordiality, she was qutte SUr( that she had a right idea of perf«tiOn and of discerning how far others approximated to it_ For rhese three things, moreover, perf«rion was almost the same, kind of simpliciry in the means, a sobriety and a charm. She repudiated with horror the in troduction of spices in dishes that did not absolutely r«juire them, affectation and abuse of the pedals in piano playing, departure from perf«t naturalness, and exag �rated ralking of oneself in 'm;eiving.' From the first mouthful, from the first notes, from a simple lctter she preened herself on knowing if she had ro deal with a good cook, a real musician, a woman properly brought up. 'She may have many mOf( fingers than I, but she lacks tntc, pb.ying that very simple IIndantt with so much emphasis.' 'No doubt a most brilliant woman full of parts, but it is a wam of tact to speak of oneself in such a case.' 'Possibly a very knowing cook, but she does nOt know how to do steak and fried potatoes.' Steak and fried pot2IOCS, an ideal competition-piecc, a kind of culi nary Palhttir Sonata, a g-amonomic equivalent 10 what is in social life the visit of a lady who comes for a servant'$ 'characrer' and who, in an acr n simple as thaf, can suffi ciently display the presence or absen(e of tact and education.
i
Marcel PrOUSt, O..ys
uf Rt..mng
Tbe Sociaf Space and Its Transformations
If rhe �r,h had Slopped al {his poiol if would probably nOf n.iSl: great obfCCllonS. so �lkvidem is ,hc ida of {he irrWucibiliry of artistic 1;lSle. Ho",.c�er. as has already been shown by Ihe analysis of {he $(Kial condi· tions of the a('Slhcric disposition. Ihe dispositions which govern choices bclwC(On Ihe goods of legitimate culture cannot be fully understood un'
'n Ihc rcsfri,u�d, normative sensc of ordinary usage. is reinserted infO 'cuhure' in Ihe br<):ld, anthropological sensc and thc elaborated astc for t� most rdined objtt"IS IS broughl back infO relation with fhc clemen ,;II)' taste for the Aavours of food,' The dUlll meaning of the word 'tastC', "'h'eh usually serves [0 justify Ihc illusion of spontUICOUS �ner:.l(ion kss they a� rtintcgn.ted infO the system of dispositions, unless 'culture',
"'hleh thIS (uhiVlte
:S
:� (
lh1n/
tirion between the producers, Ih�n to the logic of demmd and
:i:�
i",;',<�,,,
conomie
conditions of produCtion. and the produCls on
c O al a. .... eonfer their differem social identities. One only has to ask the i ".. .. ,... . . II "",
d
· el1 · cood·LIIons ignore, 0f the economIc ... . h economists stran"..ly ,i ..""' 0....,,'e . . ,,011, [.e., . In ecooomy, the by demanded . disntKitions .. thc " of � q...... adUCII� " -. . . r P ... ue5tion of the economIc and soc[al detetmlnams of tastts, o(11lC. <1' \ t"e . q . . . . � _. nnmon e . pr.... _,..0f t"e of melud[ng m the complete .... ,l1is ,..... · C � th C ..... riences ....hieh the consumers have of il as a func· ,0 so:c: � nrial ex". �e d,ne« ' , . ' II ' [ ' UC they derive from theIr posmon m cb IOS fO sympathy. abies �n intelligible lnd necessaty relation 10 be established [ tc' I�" Iiees and a silunion, the meaning of ....hich s produced by bc[",ee P n and appfCClallon that are through cnegories of perceptio . , [he habitUS · . L, _ produced by 1n obscrvau e SOCIa condItlon. , ,hemS!: v� .
:
essiTY
�
� :;
and Social Conditioning ely Bec:lUS!: it un only KCOUn[ for pl1lClices by bring�n� [? _light successiv
Class Condition
underlie them, analYSIS [nmally conceals the S[ru(tu«of the life-style characteristic of an agent or class of agents, that . , is. the unity hidden under the diversity and mu,lip '[C�" ty 0f the SCI 0f different logl�s and thercfo« prlc[icCS performed in fields gover�ed : . Inducing different forms of realoulloo. In accordance ....[th the formula. [(hlbi,us) (capital)1 + field " practice. It also (onceals the structure of the: symbolic space marked out by the whole SCI of thcst structured pl1lc, lices. all the distinct and distinCtive life.styles ....hich arc al....ays defined oot«tivcly and sometimes subjectively in and through theit mutual «la· lIonshlPS. So it is occessaty to reconstruCl what has been taken apart, Iirst by way of veriOC2lion but also in order to rediscO"er the kernel of lruth 'n the approach chal1lcteris!ic of common-scnse kno....ledge, namely, �hc 'ntui[ion of the systematic na[l.lre of life-styles and of the ....hole SCI h ch � � [hey constitute. To do this, one must return to the pl1le\lcc·untfymg and Pt:lc[ice'gcneratlng principle, i,e., class habitus. the internalized form of class condilion and of Ihe conditionings it entails. One must therefore cOnslluC! the 06j«liw ellUl, the set of agents ....ho uc placed in homogene. °US COnditions of existence imposing homogeneous conditionings �nd Produc, ng homogeneous syStemS of dispositions capable of genel1lung mllar pllCtices; and who possess a sc, of common properties, objectified I"Op(rllcs, SOmetimes legally guaramced (as possession of goods and po....cr) Or properties embodied as class habitus (and, in panicular, sys[ s • em uf c,aSSI· ficat ory schemes),
the series of elketS ....hich
�Y
�
��RI
... au.s
AND SYSTEMS O� V"R[AIILES In desig?ati�g these elasses of agents (I asses or, which amounts 10 Ihe same thmg In thIS conteX[, asses of condi tions of e)!:is[enee) by the name of an occuJ'I'tion. one is
merely indicating rhat rhe position in the rtiltions of productio ems pr.lClices, in particu lu through the mechanisms which contro [0 posirions and produce or sden a pankula! elm of habitus. B
t "
.
to 1 prc:-
defined not only by ils position in the rc:bt;ons lied through indices such as occupation, income or even �eI, but also by a cenain 5e>;·r;u;o, a enta;n dislribulion i space (which is never socially neutral) and by a whole set char.lCferisrics which may funcrion, in (he form of tKit
onglO
.
� ,�
�
1,.d'c:I' ·I ",hm one is TryinS 10 assess the .....olu!ion of a social cuegory Som!�Yb if, by considering . y oo:euparion), crude crrOI$ are in....ilabJc � of Ihe pertincn.1 prope'li(:l, one ignores all �he sU?slilution effccs of ory rr:l a 've l {ollC'C . �. � lhe evolulion '� also exprcsscd . , or 'mas (11\ hiCh ,femlllized IS bC'ComlllS that fael II lhe III manifnted ay be growing older or youn�, sc[�inf f>O?re. �f r cher. (Tho: ck.n�n -:-w�l(h .m�y po$Ulon of' III 'dcmOCr:ltlZ>.lIon or m agemg .) com�n.cd by a risc ,n SOCial ollgm--or TllI' �mc woold be lrue of lny group defined by referencc !O a posilion in in ,he hier:lrchy of di$Ciplines,. a title of , licld-e.g., a univel$i[y. di�ipline . In the lIiS\ocr:lllC hierarchy, an cducallonal qualdicallon III lhe aca
('tn� ! '� � � �"
'
ral principles of selt(:tion or e�clusion without e"er Slaled (this is the 05C with ethnic origin and $(�). A number �riteria in �acr ser:e as a mask for hidden crileria; for e�amplc, Ihe
Ill? ?f a
bsen l from [he offICial job descriprion. function 15 [aci( re· s!> a ...hlch. thOU such as age, sex. social or c,hnic origin. ovcrtly or implicitly en choices, from enlry in,o the profession and right through qVII'Cm C�ption I!>ese tr:lil$ 1fe cxcluded O! &u,dln& that membel$ of ,he corps who lack r , ro be ro:sniClcd to a fc· ,ending lawyers and (",omen doc,ol$ , ," � ' l n m,rSl " cle and black doctols and lawyers fO black c1ienrs or research). en n'I,k ch I c property emphasized by the name used 10 clcsign1<e a (alt· orl II h I s U «upation, is li�ble 10 m..sk lhe effC'Ct of all the secondary gory. usua Y o ",hlCh although cons[itulive of lhe calCSOry, :lrC nOf exprnsly r0"'wcs '
gIven dIploma can be a way of demanding a particular
�
:
soc,al
� ao;'
nobiliTY
One needs to examine what Ihe list of Ihe crileria u� by Ihe analrs! de rives from the state of Ihe struggle betWtcn ,'� (rileria, or more precisely from the capacity �: leria, to gel Ihemselves recognized as such. There would be of forg �tling thaI unskilled workers are '0 a brge extent women grants ,f groups bued on scx or nationali!y of origin had cons!iTutcd sclves as such within The working class. Furthermore, the fallacy of the apparent facror would nor be so frequem if il were nOI the simpk '"'''''' , non onto Ihc lerrain of seience of Ihe kgilimaling stratcgio:s whereby groups len� [0 pUt. fo,:",ard [his Of lhat legidma!e prOp<'rly. ,he overl . "pk of {he'r eonsmunOll, 10 nmoulbge the rc-al basis of their i Thus {he mOSt selective groups (a conccrr audience or rhe of a gran.� Ceok) may doubly conceal [he real rincipk of their selection: by r dcclrn,ng to annOOIl(( Ihe rc-al principles 0 their nislmce and [heir � ducri�, �hey 1f� obliged to rely on mC'Chanisms which lack ,hc sp«ific, lemmc ngoul of an nplicn condition of mtry and rherefore allow exceptions (unlike clubs and all 'ditcs' � on co-oplion, tilq canno lhe whole SCt of propcnics of rhe 'Clecl', i.c., rhe rotal . The membel$ of g.oups � on (O'Of>lion, as are lceled by an oven or coven ""mHlIJ dallJltJ (docrol$. architC'C(S, en�in.«n elc) always have somelhins else in common beyond t <', [enSIICS cxpl'(lIly demanded. Tho: common image of rhe professions, is no doubl one of [he real determinants of 'vocations', is less absrraCI and unre:al Ihan Ihu prncmed by sla!isticians; it [ako:s imo Iccoonl nOI only lhe nature of the job and rhe income, bur lhosc secondary char:lcteristiCS . which arc oflen Ihe basis of .heir social value (prO:Slige or diseredil) and
'�'��:�;:;:,�,�:�';�
kSS;'Ii'"�':;;;
'
:;::�
demIC hierarchy.
The particular relations be(w�n � depen dcnt variable (such as poliricll opinion) lnd $(rcalled indep<'ndent vatiabl" such as sex, age lnd reli·
gion. or even educadonal level, income lnd occupation lend to mask the
complete system of relationships which constirules Ihe (ruc principle of ,he specific strength �nd form of the effccts registered in any particulaf
corrclllion. The m�t independent of 'indcp<'ndent' vari�bl" conce:als a whole nelwork of statistic�1 relations which Ire present, implicitly, in ils relllionship wilh any given opinion or practice. Here tOO, instead of ask· IIlg smistical lcchnology to solve a problem which il can only d isplace, il 'S ne<:nury
to analyse rhe divisions lnd variations which lhe differenl sec
ondary varilbl" (scx, 1ge elc.) bring into the class defined by Ihe main "anable, and consider cvcrylhing which, Ihough prescnt in the real defi,
:k on.of ,he class, is not con$Ciously liken into account in lhe nominal "
nl(lOn, the onc summed up in the name used !O designale ii, or t';refore in interpreting Ihc relationship in which il is placed.
���I � I�. falsc independence between so-called independent v1!iablcs is �r,onShlp belWttn educational qualification and occupation. This is nol '1Ort� Y bC'(au�, It leas, in somt areas of social space (ro which edun· qUal,r:!u�hficanons give some deSr« of access), occupalion depends on rc-
111�1Ofl. but also bC'Cause the cullunl npiul which the qualincuion is
to. suar:lnltt depends on lhe holder's occupalion, which may p� sU P!>osc (It �I sc�'ntenance o. increase of (he capital acquire
Or 'de-qual ification' ). To ,his effect of occup3tional in which one has 10 di inguish the spe( ,tree! of occupational milieu, i.e., i �ions (especially �uh ural, rdiSious or poli(ical dispositions) by IS homogeneous In most of the [('SpeCIS which define it. Thus one hl"C to ex.amine i.n cach �asc to what. txtent occupational conditions Istenet aSSIst or hmder thiS effec'. which would mean taking in o K""� the. ch�r:I�(crisfi{s of tile ...·ork (unpkUlnmcss etc.), the condirions In whICh II IS pc'rformro-noisc, or silence permitflng COIl'"CfSllion remponl rhythms i( Impo:>KS, (he s�re lime II ,lIows, and ; II (or� of Ihe hor;�onral or venical rdilions II encour:lgcs al dUring work Of .In fCSl penoos---or oUlside. This effeCi no doubl explains numlxr of dlffel'(nccs Ixtween office wOlkers (leds<"r derks, bank derks, agency clerks, typistS ) " "OI: "::d :�:::� ,. fu:' employees (mainly sh.op assisnnu), which are nOI entirely 1 : I ellher by dlfferenccs hnkro to class (raCl;on of origin (offICe workers 1 IlIlher more o(len Ihe children o( (armers: commerCIal emplo}'ccs Ihe 1'( dren of small emplo�rs) or by dlfferenccs in rouu[ional upiral ([he more o(len have lhe BEPC. Ihe le(:ond a C.... P). Tht commercial employccs and the office workers, woo arc d;smbulro much lhe s:&me wly I'(gards 5CX, age and income, arc stpalllled by I lin.[ differenccs in disposi tions and prac[iccs. Office workers arc more (ellc-they more oflCn expecl (heir friends to Ix conscienlious or well bto�ghl up, more oflen prefer a neal, clean and lidy inicrim and like Gueury. Manano. Ille Htmgariall RhapJody, l.'//d/jin71l/, Raphad � '' "";;.� a�d leonardo. By C?nlf1lSI. commercial emplo)'ccs more often I�k fr nds wh.o a� sociable. bons vivants, amusing and Slylish. fOf a '�:::I;. able. cosy mtcllOf. and ptcfer Brassen!, ft.orrt. Ft:l.n(oi5C Hardy, III� 'JIM GodJ, lhe FOil. �J, � i" BI"', Urrillo 01 Van Gogh cff"eclS ...1I"h lhe rdallOlulllp Ixlween class fra{fion and . ....m5�1m)Ilgul11K IICCS n la cously reveals and conceals. there is also Ihe effC<1 of ,h, i"" tion in Ihc dimibution of Ihe sc
H
1
(
"01
U
as
...
5C
10
relegation or elimin2lion. More d losl years are a slep towards an I al l c>I" IJ .l he educalional capin IKld a given moment expresses. among �r:lJ Y, � lhe economic and social level of rhe family of origin. (This a mechanical relalionship, since IJ>tfSIhln a long I"occss hich is no ....llaycon�en o,-tSuiI ro info c-duclIional upi f�:r11 rna)' be only partia y capinl I of roucarionil qUilifKarion, In,lllorl 'uar produce eKeclS irrroucibk [0 ,hose individuals whose qUllifiuishes 01 ".:c ds whenever social o,igin diSling n ' n n lIS 0 IMndca,.) call"'onsCWIare in every relalionship Ixlween roucalional capilal and a given � �e sees the elfC<1 of rhe disposilions associ2lro wilh gender ....hich llc l into aC t'; rr ermlllf! Ihe logic of Ihe reconversion of inheriled capi[i [ capilal ional help {�OfIll capllal. thaI is. the ·choice· o� �he type of rouC2l . . bc oblained from the same Imual cap'lal. mOle oflen Illenry for cd� III pnc ..h" ;, ofren scienlific for boys ....gain. Ihe relarionship of. a given g"ls. hip 10 rou(2lional capillI .. hen age is in conceal a rela[ions · · ·on--....y qua, II· L...auon _, - may ,,key 1", 10 a� or 10 differenl moocs 0f access 10 Ihe POS'll he bet � ., ornotion---:md different school generati ns and different chanccs . syslem (the 01dCSt agents have lower eduea' ,nter.. pr Ihe educational 10 aCCCSS f l Ihan Ihe youn�I). or 10 social cb�, by v.iflue of !�e differ, �,onal caplla Ihe vanous areas, backwlldness enl ial definitions of prC
�
.
,,
__
�
'
O
III
':'�:��;:: �
a cbss) [he (free! of the stt ofvariabJes (an uror which is the conscious or unconscious tendency to substitute gener�c e.g., those: linked to sex or age, for sptcific alienations, linked Economic and social condition,
j
SocLal class is not defined by a property (nO! " rhe most determinant one, such as the volume and composition "',, tal) nor by a c�llcction of properties (of sex, age, sodal origin, " " ongm-proporuon of blacks and whites, for example, or natives and migrants-income, educational level etc.), nor even by a chain, ties Strung out from a fundamental property (position in [he rtI production) in a relation of cause: and clf,,[, conditioner and tioned; but by the srruCture of relations between all the pertinent ties which gives its specific value to each of them and to exert on pl':ICtices.8 Constructing, as we have here, classes as geneous as possible wirh respect to the fundamental L material condirions of exisrence and the conditionings [hey therefore means [hal even in constructing the classes and in the variarions of the distribution of properties and pl':lctices in these: classe:s, one consciously lakes into account the network of L ary characteristics which are more or Jess unconsciously in defined are classes the even criterion, single a of terms whenever perrinent as occupacion. It also means grasping the prinople of the 0b jective divisions, i.e., divisions internalized or obieetified in distinctj..e properties, on the basis of which the agents are mosr likely to divide and come togecher in realiry in their ordinary practices, and also to mobiJilt themselves or be mobilized (in accordance with the specific logic, linked co a specific history, of the mobilizing organizations) by and for Lndivid
,.
�;�;��
ual or collective political action,
�;
�
"
"
:�
--, �
CONSTI\UCTED CLASS
the name of 1 trade ne extreme, there is Ihe simple exisrence of al a8<"ncy. governmem a by n s classificatio of O product 'le80ry', the "on , I Of 'SO' 'I�SEJ: (Insritut nalional de 11 staristique et des etudes «onomi, industrial '(QlIoxtive agrtt· s�,h as f the social bargaining which leads to "< ) 0 s t h d at the other extreme. ere are groups posse�1fl8 i r�a1 SOCIa1
� � � � � � � � � re ,classes� The princip of logi the to produce used� are which les o l division of coutS<' very unequally constituted socially in pre�xisting social classin'"
"
�
To account for the infinite diversity of practices in a way thaI is both unitary and specific, one has to break with fintar thinking, which only rec· ognizes the simple ordinal structures of direct determination. and endea, "our 10 1«0nS(fuct the networks of mterrelated relationships which are prrsenr in each of the facrors.9 The srru(tut:.ll causality of a network of
facfOrs is quite irreducible [0 Ihe cumulated effects of the se:t of linear re lations, of different explanatory force, which {he necessities of analysis oblige one 10 isolate, those: which are established belwttn the different faClOrs, taken one by one, and the practice in question; through each of [he faCtors is exerted the efficacy of all the others, and the multiplicity of determinatiOns leads not to indeterminacy but 10 over·determlnation, Thus the superimposition of biological, psychological and social determi, nanons In the formation of socially denned sexual identity (a basic di· mension of SOCial personality) is only a particular. bur very important, caS( of a logic that is also at work in other biological determinations,
SUch as ageing d It
goes
without saying [hat the factors consl11uting the constructed not all depend on one another to the $.;Ime extent, and that the rUqUre of [he system they constitute is determined by thoS( which � - 'h. greatest .l " " nal Weight. Thus, the volume and composLllon unCllo of (a .tal p give specific form and value 10 the determinations which the olher � a qors (age, se:x, place of residence etc.) impoS( on practices, Sex· ual pr0 rnes are as inseparable from class properties as the )'ellowness of a Ie on 1$ from its acidity: a class is defined in an essential respect by the PI.cm value n it twO se:xes and to their socially constituted the to gives dis�a .d 1hOns, This is why there are as many ways of realizing femininity liS ass do
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there �rc clUSC'S and class fractions. and the division of labour {he sexes nkcs quite different forms, both in practices and In , lions, in the dilk�1 social lasses. So the true nature of fr.llcrion is expressed in irs diStribution by sex or age. and more, since its (ulure is then at stake. by lhe trend of (his over time. The lowest positions are designated by lhe bel that elude a Jarge----\ilnd growing-proportion of immigrams or women skilled and scmi·skilkd workers) or immigrant women ( h � : �� ,: : Similuly, it is no accident Ihal I� (Kcupalions in perso�al,
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mtdiol and social services. {he personal-orc trades. old ones hkc dressing, new ones like beaUty care, and cspcdal!y domestic which combine lhe IWO aspeclS of (he mditional definition -,;--. 11Sks, scrvicc and the horne-ar( practically reserved for women. Nor is it accidental that the oldcst cbsses or class fflctions are also classes in decline, such as fumen and indusuial and commercial IOn; moS! of the young people originaling from these clasSC'S CSClpe collective decline by reconvening into the eKpanding ""',"''''� Similarly, an incfC:lSC in Ihe proponion of women indintes !fend of an occupation, in particular the absolute 0' �""i" d,,,,,',,,," organization of which may result from changes in the nature work itsclf (this is Ihe case with office Jobs, for eKample, with Ihe plintion of repelitlve, mechanical tuks thu are commonly left women) or from changes in relative posilion in social space (n In ing, whose position has been affected by Ihe overall displacement profession resulting from the oveflll increase in Ihe "", ;'b,,- of prui"" ' offered). One would have to analyse in the same way [he reladonship mari131 sta[us and clm or class fracrion. It has been clearly shown, eumple, Iha[ male celibacy is not a of Ihe small i anu), bUI an essenlial clemenl of the crisis class, The breakdown of the mechanisms �::,i�:��' ;�:;��,�:: peasant i reproduclion brought about by Ihe spc.:ific logic 0 i: is onc of the mediations of the process of concentration which leads
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deep lransformation of Ihe class. But here too. one would have 10 the commonsense nmion to close analysis, as has been done for tional level. Being married is nm opposed to being unmarried the fact of having a legitimale spouse to the fact of nOI only has to think of a few limiting cases (some much more others), the 'housewife'. (he artist supponed by his wife, eKccutive who owes his position to his father·in,bw. 10 sec Ihat i ficult to Chnlcteri:ec an indIVidual wilhoul including all Ihe p" no[ (and propeny) which are broughl 10 each of the spouSC'S, the wife. through the olher-a namc (sometimes a distinguished ' well ). goods, an income, 'connections'. a social StatuS (each Ihe couple being charaCterized by the spouse's social pOsition, to
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ordtng 10 sex, position and the gap belween the IWO posi. through mmiagc will be e properties uquired or ) S SYSlem of properties which may determine praCtiCes III IIQI'I Ihe df ll offI fc �ies if. as usually happens. one forgets to uk oneself who is the the practices or. more simply, if the 'subject' qucstioned is of Ihe pr.l(liccs on which he or she is queSlioned. e subject re,lIy I qucslion is raised, it can be secn that a number of suale· SOO as (he ,,� �ncretcly defined only in Ihe relationship belween [he members SIC:S tiC group (J household or, sometimes. an eXlended family), of' self depends on the rel�tionship between the tWO sYSlems of whIch aswcialed with Ihe tl\'O spouSC$, The common goods. cspc l r P Orfwlhen they are of some economic and social imporr�nce, such as the al y " a!l�Cn! or furnilUre, or even pelsonal goods, such as clorhing, arc a� choice of a spouse for son or daughter in other societics--the II ( -e these (denied) power relalions which define the domcstic outeo",e of . . . there IS every reason 10 suppose Ihat, g[ven the logl( example For ynll ' . . { lhe dIvision of labour between Ihe sexes, whICh gIVes precedence to omcn in mailers of lute (and 10 men in politics), the weight of the man's own tUle in choosing his clothcs (and lheldore the degree 10 "'h,ch his clothcs express his IUle) depends nOI only on his own in· heme
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By! this is nOI all On Ihe one hand, agents arc not completdy defined by (he properlics they pos scs! 11 1 gIven lime, whose condilions of acquisition persist in the hab (Ihe hysteresis effcel); and on the Olher hand, the relationShip r"'etn Initial capinl and present capilal, or, 10 put il anOlher way. be I"'etn Ihe inilial and present positions in social space, is a Slalistinl rela· :,onShl� of very variable imensilY. Although they are always perpetualed � r �e dIspositions consliluling the habitus, the conditions of acquisition o I <1 propellics synchronically observed only make themselvcs visible in of dl5Cotd� nce between the condilions of acquisition and the con· dl I nS . . O of usc," I.e., when Ihe pracllccs generated by Ihe hab·nus appear as I)] d aplcd becausc they are anuned 10 an earliel slate of the objective (on I $tlIIS' .'OflS (this is whal mighl be called the Don QuixolC effect). 1bc hell analY !.arne r crl Sis which compares the pl':I.cticcs of agents poSSC$sing the b� l $ P O)"> leS and occupying the same social position at a given time Cparatcd by rheir origin performs an operation analogous 10 oroi· so... Zo\l Clo\SS O\NO C�o\SS OF TRo\JECTQRtES
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nary perception which, wirhin a gr?up, idenrjfi� rhe parven�s an d or bnnng d&lasses by picking up rhe subtle IndiCes of betr::ly rhe efl"«! of condirions of existence diffe�nt or, which amounlS 10 rhe same rhing, a social {r;ljecrory the modal trajectory for {he group in Cjuesrion. Individuals do no! move about in social space in a nndoID I' bco.use rhey an: subject to {he fOfCes which strunure this . through rhe objcnivt mechanisms of diminalion and '� l' pudy because they resisl rhe forces of the field with th�ir : {hal is. Iheir properties, which may exist in embodied form, as lions, or in objectified form, in goods, qualifications tIC- To a i umc of inhcrirtd capital chen: corresponds a band of mon: probabk trajcctories leading to more or � cquivall"nt po$itions (he fltld fll 'lNjIOSJibin objecrively offered 10 a given agent), and from one rfllj«lory 10 another often depends on coJlecri\'e aClors crises etc.--
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their seemingly miraculous adjustment to the
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slow renunciation or disinvestment (socially assisted and ' � �o which l(';Ids agents to adjUSt their aspirations to their objecti; ve . to espouse their condition, become what they are and make do wllh
even if this entails deceiving themselves as to what they are ave l�ey � t' they have. ....ith collective complicity, and accepting bereave ...� aJ the 'Iateral possibles' they have abandoned along the ....ay. l l,t 0 C charaCler of the relanonship betwecn initial elpital and (I1 s atistical e"plains why pr.llctices cannot be completely accounted apital t SC ptt of the properties defining the position occupied in so I in terms for� at a given moment. To 52y that Ihe members of a cla.u initially sp economic a nd cultural c�pital �re destined with a {.,J ing a certain : . prob ability, to an educallonal and soc,al IrajCClOry l(';IdlOg to a n g,. e position m(';lns in fact that a fraction of the class (which cannot be e g,,' ine
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In the ne.... fr:.acI;ons of these classes, which a� grey areas, located in the social stru((ure, inhabited by individuals who� are e�rremeJy 5C;lncred. This dispersion of {r:lljecrori� is even at the level of Ihc: domestic unii, which is more likely [han III classes to bring IO�fher spousa (rei)r;vely) ill mal(hed not only : S�; � :;:� gards social origin and trajectories bUI al$O � ' ' carional levcl. (This has the effect, among � ; : what (he new vulgare calls 'the problems couple', i.e. , thc problems of the sexual division of bOOu! and the division bbour.) In com�{ 10 the effect of individual tr:.ljcclOry, which, being a !Ion from {he (Qilea;vl' rrajcoory (that may have a zero slope), is diardy visibk, the effect of collective lr:.ljCCIOry may not be such. When {he U':ljeclOry effect concerns a whole elm or class thaI is, a set of individuals who occupy an identiol position gaged in the ume collective tntjectory, the one which defines :II or declining elus, there is :II dan�r of attributing to the properties religious chronictily a!!:l(hed to the elus, effects (e.g., politiol ions) which are in mllity the prodUCl of collective i an:alysis is complicated by the faCl thu some memben of a
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may have embarked on individual tr:ajectories running in 'h', 0ppM;., rection to that of the fr:action as a whole. This does not me:.ln practices :are not marked by the collective destiny. ( I t is example, whether cn.ftsmen or farmers whose individul s run counter !O (he collenive decline cease to be affecTed cline.)') But here tOO one must avoid substami:alism. Thus, ';m, o,'d properties associated with social elus which may remain Without or value in a given field, such as ease and familiarity with culture in uea striClly controlled by the eduotional system, can take on their force in :another field, such as high society, or in ';":O'h<' " ':''' � field, like the aptitudn which, after the French : � � �:�� : French aristocracy to become, in Mux's phr:ase, 'the Europe'.
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CAPITAL AND THE MARJ{ET
But everything would still be . it were sufficient to Teplace a I a part J as socio-occupational category, which from the secondary variables it governs, a system of factors tally defined by its srrunure.'6 In fact, what is dercrminant in a is a particular configuration of the system of properties COnStruCted elus, defined in an entirely th�retical way by the of factors oper:ating in all areas of practice-volume and struClure tal, defined synchronictily and diachronically (tn.jectory), tal sratu5, pl:l(e of residence elC. It is the specific logic ,I or it, what is " stake and of the type of opital needed to play f
t' through which the relationship between elus hoS properties cros \ .o� c is established. p"-'u
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�uOt)' fK�or is not perf ormed, every bk correbtion of each expla . S If th o rTOf is likdy, all of them rtSlilung from Ignonng the fact that whu ,ott 0f e .'/C. in tnt faClor in quation depends on the system it i$ pl:&(ed in ' ndirions il 'opcn.tes' in; or, more simply, from fiiling 10 n.ise the il: opCl1-�o t t t rc:II principle of.he effiocy of lhe 'independent Vlriable', � � qo( uon of t l S �ing :IS if the relationShip found between the ia Clor-designated by pr;;ct is usually no more than an indicalor of it (e.g., eduearional lcvel) � lhi5 or that pr.lctice (e.g., th� ra�e of.'�!ponse 10 political. questions, pacilY to adopt Ihe acsthcuc dlSPOSrll0n, or museum·somg elC.) or thr c� have to be explarned. did not itself
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To Ill1delStal1d why the ume system of properties (which determines 2Ild is Octermined by the position occupied in the field of class struggles) test expl1nat�ry po�r, what�vef th� �rea in ��es a1W1.YS has the g� . tiofl---"Oting habits, use of cred!!, ferullty, pollllcal opmron, rellgLon Cfc.-and why, simultan�usly, Ihe rdative weight of the facton which cOl1Stitute i. varies from one fidd to anolher-ducational capitti being mos! imporrant in one area, economic capin.1 in :lnmhc:r, and so on-one only has 10 see that, because capital is a social relation, i.e., an energy ",hkh only exists and only produces its effcclS in the field in which it is produced and reproduced, each of the properties attached to class is given its value and dlic:l(y by the specific laws of each field. In pntcrice, that is, in 1 pmicular field, the properties, internalized in dispositions Ot objecti. lied in economic or cu]tuntl goods, which are attached to agentS are not all simultanrously oper:ative; the specific logic of the field determines rhose which are valid in .his marker, which are peninent and active in g a . me in question, and which, in the relationship with this field, nCt,on as specific opitaJ...-and, conseqllently, as a factor explaining . �Il(es. This mons, concretely, thn the social r:ank and specific power '" �h a��rs are usigned in a patlicular field depend fintly on the �L�C "'p"al they on mobilize, whatever their additional wealth in • 01 r . types of capital (though this may also exert an cffC(t of contami. ItLon) . iS �xplains why the relationship which analysis uncovers between CI n rnclLces appears to be established in each C:lSI': through the me· diati n 0 a factor or particular combination of factolS which varies ac, COrdin to the field. This appean.nce itself leads to the mistake of in"Cn � L ga ing �� s many explanatory syStems as Ihere are fields, instead of scc+ of them as a tr:ansformed form of all the Others; or worse, the . trror o� stltlng up a particular combination of factors letive in a panicu· Jar �Id o practi ces as a univerul explanatory principle. The singular {Orr6gu � !"alLon of the system of explanatory (letors which has to be con.
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struclCil in order (0 a(CQUnl for a StHC of [he distribution of a elm of goods or practices. i.e, :I. balanc�·shtt[, drawn up :1.1 a moment, of [he class slruggk over that particular class of dces (oviar or aV:l.m.gardc paiming. Nobd prizes or Slale enlightened opinion or a chic sport), is the form laken, in [hal {he objectified and internalilC'd capital (proper!ies and habitus) defines social class and consli!Ulcs [he principle of the proou(!ion classified and classifying practices. It reprcsc:nu a Slate of the properties which make class a universal principle of explanation sifiC:l.tion, dtofining the rank occupied in all possibk fields.
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Three-Dimensional Space
Endovouring (0 f«onsrillHc the units mOSI homogeneous from point of vicw of the conditions of production of habItus, i.e.. with specr to the c1emcnluy conditions of existence and the resul ''" " ; Ii donings, one can conSHUCt a space whose three fundamental d : , 1fe defined by volume of capital, composition of capinl. and : t� twO propertics over time (manifcsted by past and potential tory in social space)." The primary differences. those which distinguish the major cJnsa conditions of existence. derive from the over.r.ll volume of capital, stood as [he set of actually usable n:wurces and capitl1. cuhural capital and alw social capital. The distribution ferenl classes (and class fractions) thus runs from those who an: provided with both economic and cultural capilal to those who 1fe deprived in both �pects (sec figure ), la[er in this secrion). r bers of the professions, who have high incomes and high who very often (�2.9 percenr) originate from the dominant class sions or senior execurives), who receive and consume a large both material and cultur.r.1 goods, an: opposed in almosr all the office workers, who have low <jualifications, often originate working or middle classes, who receive little and consume little, and home a high proporrion of their time !O car maintenance ' menl; and [hey are even mon: opposed to the have ers, and still more 10 unskilled workers or farm bboun:rs, who ively 10""est incomes, no qualifications. and originare almost exclus from percent of farm laboun:rs, 84.' percent of unskilled workers) working classes. '¥ almOS! The differences stemming from {he total volume of capital ' ways conceal. both from common awan:ness and alw from the I knowledge. the secondary dIfferences which, within each of defined by over.r.ll volume of capilli, sepulHe class fr.r.ctions.I Otal diffen:nt a5S(r struClU�, i.e., diffen:nt distribulions of their among the different kinds of capiral.
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,l.JIIOf rr,,'ic ""'Y, the most visible is the �fV:lItion. which Others have e "'" s made (e.g., CS. VII), Ihat the hier.r.rchies. borh in the dominanl ofrd' ,ween the executivcs and the employers, and in the mlddk dass. be . !It . cI).IS. rl>( junIOr execul!ves and the cr.r.flsmen or shopkeepers. vary accord �«'n Ihe :activity or asset in qucstion. This dfect secms 10 support the InS it is seen thaI rhele is , !CIa. critique of the social classes unril . . . ,e 1 2!1�1 tic h f h ese t 0 nature e t actlvlUCS n or assetS, ,or example. betwee .onship :�,rc.goin.g or pos.sess,on of a colour TV, and Ihe strucrun: of each
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the structure of total a$Se(5-1nd nOt only, Once OtIC takes account o( :always b«n done implicitly, of the dominanl kind in a given :IS has 'birth', 'forrune' or ·/alents·. as the nineteenth century PUt it J{tuctun:, one has the means of making more precise divisions and alw o( observing tMe specific cifeCts of the StruCfttn: of distribution bcrwccn Ihe differenr kinds of capital. This may, for example, be symmetrical (as in the case o( the professions. which combine very high income with very high cultur.r.1 capital) or asymmetrical (in the cue of higher
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The indusiliarI$IS. ':"h0 an: grouped with the commercial employers in survtys by ��nrulve sample because of [heir small number, declale consid. a (' bl h �het Incomes than [he laller (H.6 percenr say they earn more than
100 � French � ncs. as against 14.' percent of the commercial employ. Ill). 10� classIfied as indu5lrialiS ls in [he INSEE survey (C.S. I) an: mUch ra
c r ro the I1CW boutgeoisie than are ,he commercia! employer s: llUny n de:salaries fewer many income, invcstmenr and cbrc, iIn Ol"C ?f them declan: . . (� duSlnai ho • c� vm rnt r(l
a I or noo-(omrntrc,al profits. For the ..-orking te � ; � $!tongly ",nked by over.r.1I capital volume. Ihe dua avaIlable ;:'ab OI'te .o grasp the differenccs in [he second dimenSion ( com"'" "tio" of . , ..... Capllal ) H �wever, d·. ' e,:nccs such :IS 1hase berween semi.skilled. '�lICa"onalJY nqualtfied. . prov,"c!al factory workers of rur.r.l origin, livinS inhe . : n in h" le (a.tmhouse. and skilled workers in [he Paris ....gion who have t '!Ualifir :�otklng dass for genemions. who posscs.s a 'mde' or t«hnical ario ' �U�t be the source of differences in lik-style and ....Iigious �d PoliticaJ -.....:...::::. opinIon. do
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Givtn rh:l.I, liS ont movC'S from lht uriSIS to (ht industrill mtrc:ill tmplo�rs, volumt of «onomic upiul riSC'S lind volumt tUDI upiul flills, il un be �n lh�1 1m: dominant class is chiaslic structure. To C'S,abl ish rhis, i, is ne(C'SSary (0 use tors borrowed from a SUl"\'ey which has the advamage of be'...·een publiNcClor and privue-sector cx«urivcs (CS. successively , Ihe: distribution of «onomic capital lind tht i (uhunl capiul among the: fractions; (hc Structures of (hese
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i\hhough it is self-evident when one (Onsidcrs indiotors of ...·nhh (1$ be done lafcr), the hicnrchy of the class fnctions as rcguds �SIOl"l economic capilli, running from induwial and commercial cmployen to teachers, is alread)' less visible: when, as here, one IS onl y dc.hng with dices of (OmMmpI/M (cars. boars, hOlels) which arc nei ther enrirely nor cntlrely unambiguous (see rable 6). The first (ors) also thc type of professional aCfivity, and rhe other tWO depend on spare which, as one Inrl'ls in Olher ways, varies II'Ivemlr ....ith c(onomic Homc o""nership also «pends on stability in the same placc I (Io""er among e�eculI''CS, CI'Igineers and lochcrs). Incomes arc very un· C"cnly un«rc:stimate-d «(he rale of non-
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(he profesis ons (especially doclol'$ and lawyel'$), rdativdy well with bolh forms of l, bUI tOO liuk i into econol'l . li(I us(lheireapital in ileapila activel y , invest in ii ' and espt'ciaJJy in culuml pr.lelices which terial and cuhur.ll means of maintaining a provide a social capila l, al of social respectabilily Ihat is oftencapil essc:ntial in winning cknce of high sociely, and wilh il a clientele, olmple, in making political earec:r. Given Ihat scholastic SllCCns mainly dept'nds on inheriled I and on lhe.propensity 10 invest in the eduulional syslem (and IeI' Y1Ilics .ilh Ihe degm: to which maintained or improved social •• dept'nds on such succCS$), it is ckat why the proportion il i given schoo l 01 collegl: who come from Ihe cuitur.llly rich.cst wilh the positi l in the sp«ificatly aeademic hier.lf(hy su�, f?r e�amonple"of thatprevischoo ous academic succns), rnching iu pak In mSIJ(Ullon responsIble for reproducin the professorial corps (the E.;o� Normale Supbieure). In faCl. like thegdomi class which they I reproduce, higher-education inllitutions are nant organi� in accordance (wo opposing principlcs of hief1lrchy. The hierar educational syslem. i.e.. Ihe one which ranks i chy dominant within . demk (filelia, and. cOlrelatively. by the proportion ' sludents II {10m Ihe cultur.llly richCSt fr.lctions. is diametrically opposed to rhe chy domin e the educalional sysrcm. i.e., the one which �. stitutions byanttheoUlsid rlion of their sludents dr.lwn from the f.actions richcst in economipropo c capita and by the position in rhe . chy lofor,hein power nomtc or power hIerar occup ations I"d 10. If the off'p"� f t�e �ominated fractions arc less leprcsenrcdthey ?mSlllu in the economically uons (such as ENA 0' HEC) than might be CXp«led from vious i c succes s and the position of these schools in scholaacadem STic hi e r"1 r chy, this . because these schools . purely scholastic criteria. is.bUIofII(outse is also becaus e Ihe schola hicr stic i rchy mOST faithfully resp«ted (so that the science section of the ENS is {erred 10 Polyu'"chniquc, or the Arts (acuity 10 Sciences Po), by those: are mmt depend educational system. (Blindness to alrernall>'C' r:Inking principlesentisonm05t,hen".ly lCie in the c� of tC'lChel'$' il whose: whole upbringing inclines comp them 10 ,denlify all success w;th Slt(cns.) 1
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rtlOnSlrlt(t the SOCII] conditions of production of Ihe habilus fully also has '0 consider the social Ir:Ijcclory of the class �1C'1OIl t� a�nt of the col· probable slope to. which. th.ough ,hedisposi future , tOw:l. rds Ihe t i o ns cngct\dcrs regressi v e progressi v e or Utur c; and the lSS(t slruCture of �h 1II"IC:lgl:. C'\'OIUIiOn. ovet $('"Cr:l1 gcner:ltions, of the which IS �rpetuated in the habitus and inlloduces divisions :;;: "'"hln group$ To give In as IheJrxtions. ,hat are as homogeneous t � n g il need only be pomtedof:Outthethlllifelanong tIfIr:!"l\>oa;Vi
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To I«OUn{ mOr( fully for the differences in life-style Ixrwec:n fncm fflclions---<specially as regards cuhure--one would have account of (htir distribution in a J()(iallJ ranktti gMgraphkal '", ..' group's chances of appropriuing any given class of nrc assets sured by rhe rn;lIhcmaliOiI probability of access) depend Plrfly On pKily (or the specific approprinion, ddincd by the economic, and social capilal it can deploy in order !O appropriate materially or bohuJly the asselS in question. Ihal is, irs posi!ion in 5()Cial sPl�. pardy on Ihe reladonship bet,,:ttn its distribution in �graphiC11 and th� distribution of th� SC1r(� asselS in thai SJY.IC�.lO (This can be measured in average dist�nc� from goods or f1Cilities, or in ling time-which involvcs access to privale or public transport,) words, a group's real social distance from cerrain assets mUSI �graphiC11 dimnce, which itself depends on the group's sl budon and, more precisely, its distribution with respecl (0 the ' point' of economic and cultural valucs, i.e.. Paris rhe major centres {in some ca�n--c.g., in the postal ment or promotion entails a period of exile)." Thus, i workers from legilimale cuilure would not be so vast if the cultural distance implied by their low cullural C1pinl were
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poundrd by their spatial dispersion. Similarly. many of Ihe obscr.'ed in rhe (cultuul and other) punlccs of Ihc differtnt f Ihe dominant class are no doubt amibutable 10 Ihe size of Ihe t live in. ConSC<Juendy. the opposition betwttn engineers and scctor executivcs on the one hand, and industrial and plo)'ers on the Olher, JY.Irtiy stems from the f1Ct thaI Ihe former percenr I"'e in Paris and work for relatively luge firms (only vate·scCtor execulives work in firms employing from 1 ro , ,..op" : against 34 percent in medium·si=! firms and 40 percent in, ploying more than '0 people), wherc:l$ the latter mainly run S l (in the 1966 survey by SOFRES {Sodetl� fun<;aisc d'enquetcs par dagcs]-C.S. V� percent of the industrialists had from 1 (0 , ttS; 70 percent, 6 to 49; 24 percent, mort than '0; in commerce, corresponding figures are 30 percent, 42 percent and 12 percenl)
"�""",,;;,, 7
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mostly li"e in the provmccs and even in the country (according 1968 census. 22.3 percent of the industrialists and I '.� percent commercial employers lived in a rural commune, 14.1 percent and percent in communcs of less than 10,000 inhabitants). Thee mockl which nnergcs ....ould not be so difficult to arri"e a r '
� pldUmmed
a brc:lk with the common·scnse picturc of the social up in thl': metaphor of IhI': 'social ladder' and suggested (101 orld, su , �d,y " "gua.... of'mobility', with itS 'rises' and 'falls'; and a . . •' wh 'ICh , when 'II 0- whole soclologl(a, trad 1{10n " the with y' bleak d',caI . " 1< � :as (t"I� c e1ahoration, sei
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Rtconversion Strategies Rtproduction strategics, IhI': SCI of out....ardly very differenl pucticcs whcrtby mdividuals or familics lend, unconsciously and consciously, to incrca.sc mainlain or their assets and consequently 10 maintain or im· pro�e their position in Ihe class structure, constitute a system which, bring lilt prodUCf of a single: unifying, generative principle, lends (0 �nc"on and change in a systematic way. Through the mediation of Ihe ition towards the future, which is itself determined by Ihe group's POS tlve chances of reprodunion. these slutegies depend, first, on the � t( umc and composllion of the C1pilal to be reproduced; and, secondly. \'u lhe Slate of the instruments of rcproduction (inheritance law and � rn, lhe labour markel, the educational system ere.), which itself dc . s On the State of the pollo'er relations bctwttn the classes. Any change in c het Ihe inslruments of rcprotiuClion or the Slate of the capital 10 be rtpr uc� theref ore leads to a fCSllucturing of rhe system of rcproduc-
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Onc.o of lhe difIKuhies of sociologi. nJ discouQ( lies in fM fa({ rllll,
like all languase. if unfolds in ${ticdy linear whion, whereas, (0 escape oversimplification and one sidednns, one ought (0 be able 10 =all 1r every paim Ihe whole n(t work of rdatiQnships found cilCCl'l:. Thar is why il hu sccrrn:d us({ul to present 1 diagram which has rhe property. as Sa...ssure says, of being able to 'preKnt simultaneous com pticuions in severa! dimensions', as a means of grasping ,he cor
sheers). 1lle fil1l (he�, figu�
presencs the JPlce of SOCial
rions, :I.! or8l'nized by the synchronic and diachronic ., , 0( the volume and lion of the various kinds of po$ition of each (ion) in space the SCt the respects :1.$ nent. The sccond (figure rhe space of lUe·styles, i.e., bution of the practices and ties which constitute which etCh of these ,�;di if('Sts itselL Finally. �twetn lbe p�v;ous diagr�rm one ought to set! a third, presenting the cal Space of habitus, that is generative formulae (e.g., for ers, aristocratic asceticism) underlie each of the I rkes and properties, thar is, the tr:lnsformarion into a distinct dis!incrive life-style of the �nd facilities char�ctcri$ !ic ... dition and a po$ition. The presented here Ire nOt grams of corresponden . :] :]r.:: I though various such � " eonsrruCl drawn on in ordet ro of them, and although lh� are organized in ....ilh a similar srruetu[( data rhe analyses of which are Among construCt, the most i due to the laeun;l( in which are much bener at ,
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vcsred in due to the lytical ealegorics.
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... e<)US even IS �. . . �� . (llTl°b--n " h , '" �JlIY ninenl cmena an" r/IC / industrial an� com. . , o IC make 11 lmpou" '" Lo)'(;rs. rllt cVC ((111 e P 10 identify the .... "". , e�ample' or can exerl bit.'. s o( a "pual Ihn ' ess. ' b' r busm ] capilal, l,e., 19 110 '" o, r ,e ' 'I ' d rors 0( f rigorouS In >ca " llck °iofl 1"" of lhe diffe[(nt CIte· (For lilt d,!ope"; ecooomic and cuhur:ll t"'id. ne of lhe mosl helelOge , indu$1riaJ oori(S-""farmcl$ us C3IC... ] cra,ts· ",erci,l emp oyers, o d com ecpcrs-has been I" and shopk (he correspond. ,td by writinS n the ex· ,(1o,rtlCS vertiully betwee , defining the IIroup.) It red ,hat ,he po$i. (0 be remembe ,he nam� a!WOIYs (Ion ",3rked by po,",. '" a reprCS(ntS Ihe ccntral wh'ch may ent spue of variable ex, � field ,n some = be organized as ofcompcrllion. In lhe absencc of a survey (per' hlj'S 'mposis ble 10 Clrry OU, in pr1C' IOce) ,h,l would provide. with rt$p«1 to ,he same [(presentative S1mple. 111 Ihe indicators of (Co nomic, cultural and social wealth us evolution ....hich II( needed In ordor ro COflSI1U(1 an adc<juate rtprt:so:mallon of social space, a sim· model of th�1 space has been cons'rUcred. based on information "�u"e . d rhrou,h arlie r�ar ch' r .nd On 1 lie! of d.la take from v:ar. n all done by INSEE and Ie homo�u, a, Icas , :1.$ "'8ards r� constructio of ,he U!e n 1 (sec append ix 3), From Ihe E survey of 1967 on leisu ae· � !lvl( '0:$ (lables rda!ing to men) I have . ' d''CI,ors of spare lime liken 'n 'u<:h (C.S i englh of the workins week ), frorn r� 1970 survey on "o.:al'Onal . . I1:1,n,ng 't} file {tables [(bting I have taken da,a on the fllher,n) (" I : :cupar;onal category (so"I tory), Ihe fa,her'$ eduea.
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lional level (inherited cuhu11l1 capi. ,all and the subject's edUClliOnl1 level (schollStic capilal) (C.S. II); ftom the 1970 survey on incomes, [ h�ve taken informalion on 101.1 in· comes. rural and urban properly, shares, indumial and commelci.l profiu, wases and salaries (eco nomic upinl) (C.S. I); from the 1972 survey on houschold consump I;on, dan on the loral amount spent, p<mC$sion of a w:l.$hing. machine and telephone, forms of lenancy of main and second resi· denee (C.S. Ill); and from Ihe 1<)68 census, dat� on rhe sitt of the lown of residence. For och of the groups repre sented, I have also indiClled, firstly, Ihe dimibution of the occupants of ach group according 10 ,he social mieclory which has brough, ,hem the�, wilh hisrogr.lmJ mowing the proporlion of each group havinS (ome from each of 'he differenl cI:wcs. For the sake of legibility, ,hese hislograms are reproduced only for a fe"" illuSlr:llive catesor;es. They suffice 10 sho"" ,hit the pro ponion of individual! from the dominant cla.ss (black) rises llrongly, while ,he proportion from ,he workins cl:wcs (while) de· clines. as one moves up the social hierarchy. (The hislosram for Ihe 'scmi-skilled' workers, nOI repro duced here, is imermedia,e between IhO$C' of the unskilled �nd skilled workers.) For the upper and middle classes II lC:l.$t, one really needs 10 be able 10 sive the disrribUlion by {raCiion of origin. 5c
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remained Slable. Thcy thus make visible the opposition IxtwCI!n the new. mongly growing franions .nd t'J<: established. sl.ble or declining (1'2(:1;on5. I have thus endeavoured to show both the SI.le of the po�r rdation bcfw«n IIxe dassn which conU;tU1C'S the structure of the so c;,1 sp.ce 1t • given moment and .lso something which is simultane_ ously an cfi"ePnr un· ,hin\c)bk or scand.lous-,md so making manifest the rdarionships among ,II the pro�rriC'S and pna(· ricC'S (h.raC!< risti( of. group, which are perceivtd� imuicivcly �nd which guide (he cla5$ifi(ations of everyday life, (orces one (0 look (or the basis of each of thCK syStems of 'choi(�', on the one hand in the social condi, tioM and conditionings chu�ctcris, tic of a givcn posilion in objenivc social SPKC, which are cxprc55ed in those choic" but in a mistccogniz, ablc form: and on thc Other hand, in Iheir relationship to the olher syStems of 'choic"', by Icfcrcnce to which their specifically symbolic meaning and value arc defined. Sc UU$C [if,.sty[" arc essentially dis· tinctiv" a number of fcalur" do not takc on Iheir full sisnificance unlit they are brought imo rclation nOI only with the social positions ,hey express bUI also with fell,um appearing at an opposite pole of this space. This is the case. for eumple, with the oppositions which an: es tablished primordially betw«n the
positions mOSt remote frOm other in one or bo,h of Ihe mental dimensions of social (i.c., with mpcct [ i of Goya theatrr Brei Tino ROS$i, Fnnce-inter or cinema clubs and so forth. In addition to the ,nformario gathered directly by the survey, have used a number of indices cuitUr;I[ consumption, such as session of a piano or rt.:ords. vicwing, visils to mU$Curns, tions, variety sho� and membership in a Ii claSS($, coJl«tions, sports" aJl (rom lhe 1967 INSEE survey sun: activities (CS. IV): informa tion on the consumption and li�tylcs of e O rn �;"' � nant dau (hi·fi �"� � � '; � cruises, bridge, pictun: II � el<-) Champagne. whisky, sports
� or
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from surveys by the SOFRES and CESP (CS. V and VI); i, i " "m". on theatre·going from a survey SEMA (Socien: d'economie CI de matllematiqu� app[iqu«:s) (CS XIV): on (avourite actors, from survcys by lFOP (irutitul de ["opinion pub[ique) (CS. on the reading of daily and nc�papcrs and magazines, from surveys by Ihe CSE (Centre de $OCio[ogie europeenne) and CESP (CS. XXVI!l); and on various cultur;l[ activities (cel":l.mics. ponery. funfairs cte.) from the suI'" vey by the Ministry of Culture (CS. VII). In the multing fisure. each ncnt item �ppcars only oncc then:forc v�lid for a whole zone varying extent dcpcndinS on the cas-e) of __ial space. a[lhough it
rizes the Catc· I� chaN.cte .-nit !trOo� it is dosesl. (Thus . . ... '"h,eh � ' -n to ,� Ct1 Isa Jancs, mark" r fig. of side 'j;c 'ite fl 'hand kf l 10 'tnduslrial and �f..n1 ;S valid (or Ihe �rt' IO al ",' . kfl,hand side of the ""m " <0 .. stly •_ i.e., for the unt\-cr ex«u, s-enior "",,! sP ' r)' to:;lchers, d . ',inters �nd also .the pri 10, CIl ¥d... . V� ult ex« rs, junior " I ro:;l'hc and workers ry . n, clerical m ho" . ' " . · m e !te h ," I t orkers. Stmllar y, ' louaI '" m k nd sharcs'-tOP ngh1-11" I ', OC I 1,_plo ,'crs, the professions, . , . Id tO '" r ex«uuve.s an enSt· •"vale.5O:(tor . teIy en Immn - �lll ) It an be se the �ion of � pi:mo and � t JJft fM " i ..:.cc of the UPM6f(l rs an: mo5t Iypical of me.mbe 8 and [ktn t W1 tha f the professions: .o.. l1,n«rinS an: particularly :.n
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chll":l.ctcristic of secondary leachers and pub[ic.sector ex«utivcs; or that swimming, placed half·way betw«n the new pctite bourgeoisie and lhe priVJte-$C(tOf ex«utivcs Of the engi. Attn. belongs to the lif"c.styJc of both these $CIS of occupations. Thus. grouped around lhe name of each class {raction are those featum of its life-style which ue the mOil pertinent bn:au$C Ihey are the most distinctive-though il may in fael shan: them wirh other groups. This is the case, for example, with the usc of a [ibmy, which appea's in the area of rhe juniOt ex«utivcs, prim:lry Iellchers and tcchnicians. a[· though it is at lellst as frl'
i S S ' S S S s •• s s s s s · S • S • • • " S · s ' , S , s s ' , S , ' S
tion wlttegies. The reconversion of capit�[ held in onc form to anolher.
mOil: accessible, more profitable or more legitimate form tends to induce
I tr:lnsfonnlllon of asse:t structure. These: rt.:onversions correspond to movements in
�
social space which has nOlhinS in common with the unreal and yet naively rcalisric space of JO.c'Illcd '5OCial mobility' studies. The ume positivistic naiv"y which
� 'upward mobility' in the
morphological Il":I.nsformations of different
cl1S:ic:s or fractions is also unaware that the reproduction of the social cture may, in cenain conditions" demand very littlc 'occupational he· :'ty'· This is tRlC whenever agents can only maintain their poSitiOn in he a � '7' J StRIcture by means of a shift into a new condition (e.g., the ft m ' rom small landowner to junior civil se:rvant. 0' from small CI":I.(tS ofl!.ce worker or commercial employee). SOctal sfY,lcc, being structured in tWO dimensions (overall capital vol and ���\ dominant/dominated capital), allows ("'0 types of movc· w 'ch tl":l.ditio nal mobility studies confuse:, al(hough they are in no . d�UIValcn( and are unequally probable: vcrtical movements, upwards Or flOrn :�wards, in the same verrica[ sector, that is, in (he same field (e.g., �lflil1 �lteacher to professor. or from small businessman to big busi· ...., ..... ) . :lnd tl":l.nsversc movemcnts, from one field to another, which "'- C Ur . L _ horizontally ( a schoolteacher, or his son, becomes a "nil[ shopt"oo::, ceper ) or betw«n different levels (a shopkeeper, or his son.
�o
"3 y
i"dusuialis.), Vertical movemems, the most only requIre an increase i n t� volume of the type of capi'lIl nlln. in the IsseI srructure, and Iherefore a moYemem in the Ihe distribution of total capital ....hich rak($; .he form of a llIithin a fidd (business field, a�mic field, admi n srntiye ' ;;.'� bo:comes lin
i
:
fidd ere_)_ TflInsyersc movements enrail a shift into another �onvefSion of one type of capit l into another or Of:"; " :":, ; anolhe. sub-type (e,g" from landowning to industrial ;i:,;; , )
a
economics) and therefore a IflInsformation asset which pro.«[s overa l capi[al volume and mainrains posI.ion in tical dimension.
er:l.tu.e to
l
The of enrering a gi"en fn([ion of [he dominanr dass other dm is, :IS ....e have $ttn, in inyerse fll.io '0 [hc position of [hal tion in the hienrch� of ccollOmic capital. (The onl� exccp.ion is 'libeflll professions', ....hich tend to transmit bolh economic an: capiul and have the higheu fllte of endogenous rccrulfment.) major side....a� movcmems within the eli" (indumialists' sons secondary or higher«iucation tnchcf'S" or vice versa) arc eK.rcmdy Thus, n 1970, the probability of i>«oming an industrial or plo�cr W:lS 1.9 percelll for a profcssor'11Of1, lind Ihe probabi lit� ' I U ing a tcacher W:lS 0.8 percenr for an commercial enrrcpreneur's son. The 't shopke<:per WliS 1.2 percent for a pri ary of i>«oming 1 pri a ry teacher ....as 2.4 percen t ' for 1 �mlll son (C.S, II,
probabili.y
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The tC'(cm chan� in 1I)e tionsh ip Ixtwe<:n Ihe different d:.lSSCS and the educational 'y,,,,m-" the 'schooli ng boom' and Ihe a«ompanying changes in self---1lfld also the changes in the social struClure resulting from the re ationship Ixtwe<:n qualifications and jobs, are the consequences tensified competition for academic qualifications. One importan t in imensifYlflg this competition has doubtless been the faCt thaI fractions of the domin an t class and middle class who arc richest ill om mercial e plo ers. no ic cap i tal i .e., mdesmen) have had to make greatly incrc-ascd u� of the
CLASS MOBtLlTY ANI) MOBILE CLASSES
l
m
( industrial and c
m y ';'�':;;�,
system in order to ensure their social reproduction.
y ffllction (measured
Ihe scholastic capital of Ihe adul.s of a cl:lS� by !he proportion who have a qUllificarion perior TO the BEPC) and rhe schooling fllre of the corrcsponding ,,'01.' cen.s is much more ptonounced among (f.fumen, shopkeepers,;;:: indumialim rhan among office workers and junior CKCCUrivCS. , ," in the usual corrcspondo::ncc between the children's educarioml fll!1"I and !he parents' cul!uflll capital indicates a profound
The di�parit
belwe<:n
rds scholasric invcslmenr, Many fewer small cnfrsmen and I .gt
the
a
i have
rhe
a
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IlIho previously made little use of the school s� a ificnions, the eifC'(t is 10 force the ler the race for academic qu l fC1T' C11 whose reproduction was mainly or exclus vely achieved through �:ion !O step up Iheir investmentS so as 10 maintain the relative scar· qualifications and, consequentl , rheir position in the class � of (heir (;�crure. Academic qualifications and the school system which awards :t.rm thuS becomc one of the key stakes in an interclass competition "'hich gc-netales a general and continuous growth in the demand for e
y
i
the elfccls of the comp:'tition betwe<:n groups struggling for 'upclming' Ind Igl'nst 'downdassing' (dida»mmrt ), a competition that is organized academic qualification (liITt) and more geneflllly around all the around 'rn!itkmcnts' by which groups assert and constitute their own scarcity the effcct of what migh. be ,'.Iul .is-i-vis other groups. must be '.rmro a )/'II(/lIr,,1 faCtor. Geneflllly incrc-ased schooling has the effect of in :faS,ng rhe mm of cultural apilal which, al eyery moment, e�ists in an school's educarive action and Ihe rmbodir-d' slllte_ Since the success of �UrabiliCy o( liS cifC'(ts depend on how much cullur:l.l capi'al has been ';:Iy tr:msm,uro by the efficiency of Cln be prC$umed l-b eduCitiye action tends 10 risc con�tandy, Olher Ihings being I< �•.l �n� shorr, ,he same scholastic invC$tment b«omes more profitable, a �h'" ICh no doubt conrributes to inAation by bringing diplomas within ' of. grealer number of people. To
the
the family, it
added the
thu
_
b
�t�ring in mind that the volume of corresponding jo s may also have over Ihe -hme period, one may a"ume Iha. a qualification is likely to h a ve under gro"'n gone dev2luation if the numlxr of diploma-holders has mOre fllpidly Ihan Ihe numlxr of suitable positions. Everyfhing �s to su t Ihar the baaalaurial and 10lller qualifications are the � rn sses olrviou;��:ffcc[e,d such devalua!ion. To this must Ix added the less I o aluatlon resulting from the fact {hal if [he num er of corre. P �din . sarn� tt:'s does keep pace, the positions themselves are likely '0 lose lObs ",oll' �lf scarC t value. This is ",hat has happened, for cKample, to a l evels of the teaching profession. . lhc v � ry rapId growth i n girls' and women's education has been sig-
by iy
b
a
nificam factor in the devaluing of academic qualifications. image of the division of labour between the sexes has women now bring academic qualifications OntO the I previously were partly held in reserve (and were 'invested' marriage market); and the higher the diploma, the more m,,,k," growth has been (sec table 10). JUSt as all segregation (by se� other criterion) tends to slow down devaluation by its effect, all desegregation lends to restore full strength to mechanisms; and, as an American study of the e!tects of racial tion has shown, the least qualified are the ones .,,·ho fed the dir«tly. Indeed, it presentS no paradox to suggest that the chief " " '""" devaluing of aodemic qualifications are those who emer the . market without such qualifications. The devaluuion of I companied by the gradual extension of the monopoly qualification.holders over positions previously open to the unqualified, which has the effect of limiting the devaluation tions by limiting the competition, but only the COSt of "'"'<""1 career openings available to the unqualified and of rc:inforci ng , , demic predetermination of occupational opportunity. In cercain particularly the civil service, this leads to a decline borh in the d". � the holders of the same qualifications among di!terem jobs >;, , dispersal of the qualifications of holders of equivalent jobs, or, . words, a reinforced correlation between academic qualification and occupied. The market in jobs open to formally qualified candidates has constantly, inevitably at lhe expense of the formaHy unqualified. sal recognition of academic qualifications no doubt has unifying the official set of qualifications for social positions ,,,' " nating local anomalies due to the existence of social spaces with own rank-ordering principles. However, academic qualifications achieve: tOtal, elCclusive acccptancr. Ourside the specifically market. a diploma is worrh what irs holder is worth, socially; the rate of return on educational capital is a function nomic and social capital that can be devoted to I i it. The chang.: in the disuibution of postS among 1/lIf114rllS
so
31
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t5168 «IISus. o. It .... no' f'O"ibk '0 ilOlo,� W1)m�n wi,hou' quolific:uions.
Sour«:
auromatically from the increased number of formally quah. Its rCS�
� �,�i( e t Illeans thaI at every moment a propot!ion of rhe qualifica. fitd ag J rS-'S,arting, no doubt, with rhose who ue least well endowed ti,,�·�o �Inherired means of explOiting Ih�ir qualific21ions-ar� victims ..·i,h Ih The srrategies by which those who arc: most subject to of ,jI:V2:ua [Ion. l ar on endeavour to fight against iI, in Ihe short term (in the
:;
,jeo'll u r their own careers) or in the long lerm (through th� srrategi� cOurse 0 loy for rheir children's schooling), constitute one of (he deci t�(rtnP the growth in the volume of qualifications awarded. which c; rcs devaluation. The dialcctic of devaluation and com· tribu usel/ ....n thuS tends to fcc-d on ilsel£. pt��(1'n rs
�,·c
m
10
which }ndiYid�als an.d. fam!lies ��ploy with a view SJ�e ��;rateglnimpro�mg the r posltlon In SOCial space arc: reRened
svEliSION STII ATEl.> IES AND �IOIlPHOlOGtcAL TIIANSFORMATrONS 10
In � . uardlng or whICh modIfy both Ihe volume of rhe tions dl!terent cla$S g sforma the structure 0( thelr. assets. frawons and ,�
has been construCted $0 as 10 give al leasl an approximate idea of transform:uions. Srnce il was nor po;$sible (though it would have bttn dn,rable) to eslablish in Mrrowly defined Cllegories the changes in lOul ,nCOme and income SlrUClure for th� period 19�4-197� (ins,ead. table mdic::n� 'hese changes, in broad categories, for the period 19H-I96B), I n"c indiol<:
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h3V� SlOpped, since (he rue of increase is lower (�( P nges' gener ion than for lhe group as a whole. Another remark. u . fi>I (� (( ,s Ih( n'I:I{i�( sf�bilily of fh( 'Iiber:ll profasions', ... hose deliber·
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of _/l","/IS da/lJIIJ has pn'�enrl"d numC1'ic�1 8ro...,h and l l,t pO ICYiotL �nd hdped '0 m�inrlin scarcity v�lu(. ... rq>roduCiion !trllt(giL"$ which underlie the'$( morphological '(he impornnce of $aluies in fhe income pardy ,w,gdr3di tionally 'sclf.employl"d' categorics and pudy in rhe diversified ' of senior execu,i�es, who tend to hold ,heir upi. investments of s d a%' :;,h (Conomic and (ultunl form, employers, who mainly " I;rconomic capitaL Salaries and pensions, as a proportion of employers' hO()ll>tS. rise from 12.9 percent in 19)6 ,0 16.4 percent in 196): in 197), )'"
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dassific.l.lions. they make up 19.2 percent of the income of cnfls pen:enl of the incom( of industrialists and small shopkIXpers and 31.8 enlf�pn'neurs. (By conlraSt, among farmers, Ihe proportion �(ommef('Lal much the »m(: 23.8 percent in 19)6, B,' percent in 196) and , percenl In 197). ) In 197\ the proportion of income deri�ed from in· slOcb a d sham is much higher among pri. � Imtnr p lic.sect r SCIlLO' cxcculiv('J (�.9 p ccn! and 2.7 p<:',cent !<Spl'Clively) . II new
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n
e,
capi,al is on<: of
,he S(f1lt(gles which enable lhe business bourgroisie to maintain he p0The I«onv(rsion of economic capilal imo educational
sition of some or all of ils heirs. by enabling them to
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exn1(t some of the
of industrial and commercial firms in the form of salaries, which
In' a more discrcel�nd no doubt more reliable-mod!'of appropriation profits
Ihan 'unearned' inveslment income. Thus. between 19�4 and 1915 the proporrion of induslrial and commercial entrepreneurs fell sharply, chere was sllong rise in Ihe proportion of saJary.arners,
"'hcfC:!s
a very
...ho owed their posilion ro cheir academic qua1ificat;on�xccut;ves. en· gUlttl'$. lCachers lnd intellectuals (ahhough, 11 1('151 in Ihe case of Vlt�·�tor execulives. a significant proporlion of total income may be dc"ved from shaICS, as table 13 indicales). Similarly of . 1111ny small commercial or craft firms COnceals Ihe reconversion work
pri. Ihe disappearance
... perform. wilh varying degrees of success, in a(· (0d 1ncc with th� demands of their particular Situalion, and which reo ;t s in 1 Innsform1lion of the relalive weight of the different franions o t middle elasses (SC'C table 14). Here. roo, the decrease in Ihe lOn of small shopkeepen, craftsmen, and farmers has bttn accompa· ::U:: ' b an increase in Iht proportion of primary,school rnchcrs, h . r ttcI' nlClans. and th� personnel of the medical and social services. ullhermore. the relative morphological stabiliry of an occupuional �ay .conceal a transformation of ils Sllucture resulting from the . r p<: '� s'on of agelllS presclll in the group at the beginning of th( r or their children) or their rcplaccm(llI by agents from Olhcr gr�u ( ps. For relalively small decline in Ihe overall volume of
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rr 'shopk�rs', consisting vcry largdy (93 percem) of the , indiVidual firms whrch hlve been able to wuhsland thc rt>t () of incrc:lSCd housc:hold consumption, conceals a uf>'oersp rlIy wailS(' S of this occupation. The SI:l.gnadon or decline of (151 � ht struCTure c r 'hJ/1gc stOres, fX1llkululy hud hil by supermarket competition, and ¢',JI clothing stores has al�osl �n b70lan� by � growt� in r� re'�iI. dornesflc �UlpmCn! (mcludmg fumlnnc, mlcnor ( ulomobil� ,�g 0 � :lJld SO on) and especially SpoHS, lrisun: and cuhur:al goods f'1.fln8 . deCO etc.) and pharmaccuuols. it may be assumed thaI, even ds recor � . S,food retailing, thc figures lend to conceal changes that have led (0 (�.,! . h,n e reddinition of ,he occupation: the dosing-down of small pr08ressiv J stofCS and rural bakeries may coexist with the oJXning of shops die! foods 'natural' regional produClS and health foods, or ofbaksd'"8 . . '. spec,ahzll"lg I n 0Id-styIe bmid. cn changes in the nature of retail firms-which are rebtw to same JXriod, in the structure of household consump(h1ngts. ovcr the n rhc sdves relarw to the growth in incomes and above all (0 the in cultural capilal fCSulting from the upward shift of the Strucof niucltional opportunit�re dialectically linked (0 a rise in the
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cultural capital of their owners or managers. Everything suggestS that the 'craftsman' category hu undergone chanS" very similar to the 'shopkeeper' cuegory, with the decline of the mosl exposed str:m of traditional craftsmanShip bring offset by the boom In luxury and 'aesrhetic' crafts, which require economic assets but also cultural Glpital. This would explain why the fall in the volume of these middle-cbss caregories is accompanied by a rise in cultural capital as measured by educarional leveL Craftsmen and tradesmen specializing in lu�ury, cultural or artisric lIems, man gers of fashion 'bouriqucs', rerailcrs of 'famous maker' a tr:a�rs in exotic garmelllS and jewels or rustic obicc,$, f«ord Ius, antique dalers, illlerior decorators, dc:signcrs, photographers, resurs, managers of trendy 'bistros', Proven",l 'potters'. aVant-gaMe lIers, all ,hose vendors of cuhural goods and services seeking to ptoIong ,h e fusion of leisure �nd work, militancy and dilettantism, that cha r (ell zes ,he s,udent life-style, use ,heir ambiguous occupations, in "h l succ rhe Cl IC$ ess depends a, least as much on the subtly casual distinction of rllni man as on the nature and quality of his waTCS, as a way of obhe r(nee f ; bcs, return on a culcural capital in whkh ,echnical comJXess lmporran, than familiarity wirh ,he culture of rhe dominant 112$$ lall5!: .2 mastery of the signs and emblems of distinction and taste. Beth tyJX of culture.intensive craftsmanship and commerce trl'lblts IS , ,o .bc drawn from ,he cultural heritage transmiltw dift!:lly e f am,]y, i, is pm:lisposcd ro serve as a rdugc for those sons lnd o:4ug� h()I'I�J SYS t rs of ,he dominant class who arc eliminued by the wucale
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Among the (!Teets of the infbrion of dons and their associatr:ci devaluation, undoubtedly the most uc: (he: 5(t of sll1Itcgia whereby the holden of devalued have sought to maintain thdr inherited positions or to qualifications the Inl equivakm of ....hat they gUlnmeed Slatt of the rtbtionship between diplomas and jobs. It is clear that what an :aodc:mic qualification guarantees is than, and different from, the right to occupy a position lmd 11 to perform the corresponding job. In this respect the diploma is more like a palcnt of nobility (/;1" tit nlJblmt) than the properly (Ii'" 'qroprilli) which strictly technical definitions m,,,, So one nn well understand that the victims of devaluation dined perceive and acknowledge the devaluing of quali' ,',' ,', "' ;' ;,; ; which they are closely identified, both objectively (Ihey �, impomnt pm o( these people's sodal identity) and subjectively. concern 10 presc:rve sel(-estttm, which encoul1lges allachment nominal value of '1ualifications and jobs, would nOI be ,"f" '� maintain a mispcrccption of this devaluation, if there were not complidty from objective mechanisms. The mOSI importanl of first, thc hysteresis of habitus, which causes previously 'P1P" �,;", ; gories o( perception and appreciation to be applied to a qualification market; and, second, the exislence of relali"ely markets in which the value of '1ualifications declines at a � The hystercsis effect is proporlionatcly greater for agents who remOte from the educational system and who are poody or oof, ". informed aboul Ihe muket in educational qualifiGlions. One mOSI valuable sons of information constiluting inherited is practiGl or theoretical knowledge of Ihe Auctualions of Ihe academic qualifications, the sense of invCSlment the best «tum on inheriled cultul1l1 capital in the schola�lIic on scholaslie Gpital in the labour muket, (or example, by righl moment 10 pull OUt of devalued disciplines and cafCCrs switch into those: with a futurc, I1Ilher than clinging to Ihe values which secured the highest profits in an earlier Slale of the By contrast, the hysteresis effecl mC"lns Ihat Ihe hOld' '" 'f . I in their own n � , I plomas become, in a sense, ' , rhey bestOW by a typical effect of alloMxia ' i is nOI j on their devalued i explains how those I informed about the diploma market, long been able to recognile a decline in real wages behind Ihe nance of nominal wages, can nonetheless continue to acCepl paper certificates which Ihey receive in payment for . ing (despite the fact Ihal Ihey are the firsl victims tion, because of lheir lack of social capilal). " � ,,f q"';.� This allachmcnt to an anachroniSlic idea of the " TIME TO UNDERSTAND
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in Ihe uistence of markels in which diplomas can bI plays a pan pe.:lOU d , al leasl) escape devaluation. The value objectively and sub. y ('f'I'a � laced on an academic qualificalion is in fact defined only by Ihe ) Ihe social uses thai Gn be made of it. Thus Ihe evaluation of lY ooh l by lhe clOSCSI peer groups, such :as relativcs. neighbours, fellow .:Ilplortl (one·s ·d:ass' or 'y(;lr') and coll(;lgucs, Gn play an importanl n' u sl Jc l$king Ihe effe<:ts of devaluation. These phenomena of individ. n 1 colle<:tive misre<:ognition are in no way illusory, since Ihey Cln .:l uJl an �I pracriccs. cspecially Ihe individual lnd collecrive slralegies or «-establishing Ihe objective realiry of rhe value al csl,blishing l ifle'lion or position; and these stralegies C3n make � real con· o ,.l,e ,oua " IOward acluaI I(vaIuall.on. b don Ihe Il1Insaclions in which the market value of academic (lualifica. defined, Ihe slrenglh of Ihe vendors of labour power depends I !IS is !lng aside Iheir social capil1l-on Ihe value of thdr diplomas, cspe. �iJ.llv when Ihe rclationship betwccn qualificalions and jobs is strictly ,odlficd (1$ is the case wilh cstablished posilions, as opposed 10 new QIlC$) So it is cl(;lr Ihal Ihe devalul1ion o( lCadcmic diplomas is of .:Iirect :ad�n11gr to Ihe suppliers of jobs, and Ihat, while lhe inlefCSts of'lualifi. nllon·holdcrs are bound up wilh Ihe nominal value o( qualifiGtions, i.e., "'1Ih ""hal Ihey guanmlccd by right in Ihe C"lrlier silualion, Ihe intete$ts of rob suppliers are bound up wilh Ihe real v�lue of qualifiC3tions, in Olher words. Ihe value Ihal is determined al the moment in qucstion in the compelition among Ihe candidatcs. (This is a SIrucrul1l1 de·skilling [dlqJJalifiralion] which aggraval�S Ihe effects of the de·skilllng slralegics Ihal firms have been using for a long lime.) The grealeSI losers in Ihis lIruggle a� Ihose whose diplomas have leasl rebllve value in rhe hierar. Ihy of diplomas and arc mOSI devalued. In some C1SCS the qualification. holik, finds he has no other way defend the value of his qualtficallon Ihan 10 refuse 10 sell his labour pawel al Ihe price offered; Ihe decision 10 i"tmaln unemployed is Ihen C<juivalelll 10 a one.man sltike.16
7 ;� �
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10
:�[d(.ftE...TlNG ... GENUATION In a period of 'diploma inRation' 'Sf'arlly be'","ccn the aspil1ltlons Ihal Ihe educational syslem pro du( �I���d the opponunirics il '(;Illy offers is a structural r(;llicy which af.
�n:'
Of
Ihe members of a school genel1ltion, bUI 10 a varying eXlent mg on rhe I1Irtly of Ihdr '1ualificalions and on rhdt social origins. Newc l(<:o:sso"'�rs 10 secondary educalion are led, by Ihe mere fa" of having h_. . . . ' IO eXpecl 11 10 give h h I em w al It · gave 01hers at a time when I.... , th olhe, "'selve$ were still exdu.:led (rom it. In an (;;Idier period and for �
10 11
r
:
concurred in [he Third Repl.lblic ideology of 'schooling as a ]' force' (I'kq/t libiralria), actually entered secondary CdUC1lion,
discover
rckgalcd
tlrolt (()1ISn'IJalrirr, 10
schooling as a consccrvar;v(
s«ond·class courses or eliminated.
11
men{ which results from {he SlruClural mismatch between and rt:ll probabilities, between the social idcnliry {he school system 10 promise:. or the: one if offers on a Icmpor.try buis, and the lily thar Ihe labour markef in fa" offers is the: source of Ihe {Owards work, thaI
r'tjllJai ofsDda!fi"ituat,
which
als and neguions of Ihe adolescem cOuntCHu]lure. This discordance-and ,he discnchammenr it cngcn
Thus. for working
: � :;;:
lenic of aspir:uions and probabilities ....hich led their predecessors cept their social destiny, almost al....ays unquestioningly" ," Od ....ith positive e:.\gerness (like the miners' sons ....ho use
as
holders obliged to take iobs 15 bnory workers or postmen, is, in common to a ....hole generation. It finds expression in unusual
I
struggle, protest and escapism {hat the organizations oo,di" oo,',',
YO,;',o,: I
volved in induSlfial or political struggle find hard to understand, something mon: [han ....orking conditions is at stake. These
pie, whose social identity and self.image have been undermined cial system and an educational syStem that have fobbed them ....orthless paper, can find no other ....ay of restoring their personal (ial integrity than by a lo[al refusal. It is as if they felt that ....hal stake is no longer jusl penonal failure, 15 the educational system
ages them to believe, but rather the ....hole logic of the academic i lion. The structuul de.skilling of a ....hole generation, ....ho are
____
gc-t less out of [heir qualifications than [he previous gc-neu!ion have obtained, engc-nders a $Or( of collec[ive disillusionment: a gc-ner:r.tion, finding il hu been taken for a ride. is inclined to all inslitutions the mixture of revoh and resentment it feels
educational system. This anti·institutional CUt of mind strength from ideological and scientific critiques) poims rowards nunciation of the tuit assumptions of the social order. a pUClical
; ;.i,::"
sion of doxic adherence to the prittS it offers and the values " ', and a ....ithholding of the investmems ....hich an: a necessary c< its funClioning. So it is understandable that, not only ....ithin families but
-;-
cltional institutions and political or union organizarions and .
"_
Disenchanted 'Finl I did markel I'CSC)rdl s...rveys. had a friend in L ",ho "':IS i Ihal. I BOI a lisl of all Inc I'CSC)rch Paris. Mler t"'O months phoning and finally I gol something. se�enl lJler. they hadn't gol lo...ch ",ilh me. They OIICrcn', doing any m � ...rvcys. I "':as e l lk.! 10 un· employment benefit, a lho...�nd fnncs a month. We lived on Ihal fol 5CVCfl monlhs, lhen "'e did gnpc-picking. Then [ went back to for seven monlhs, I q...it; t e working fftt-lance. lesbians and place ....:as f... gave 0...1 Ihe ....olk 10 fa· so [ gol 01,11. Any....ay, ....e och ....olk a turns. In sort sociely, ....ork isn't Ihe life. ..... if Ihings ....ere 1 ... Ihe ....ay Ihey are r mighl ....ant 10 ....olk ho...rs a baeca1a...,,:al and a day' (F., fe.... an Am fac...1ry; fa· Iher: pri�Jle
nlO
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firms in
",riting, Then. still
months in
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months'
s...rvcys
Then
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bit in No
ag<: 24, months in mons).
their
h lhey
this main
in China. ICfl
finc'lOoth comb. ! did a power I the papc:l. [ co...ldn'l be fight. After Slopped $0 1 taken in by Ihe ., mYlh and I signc<:l on II Office. I ....:as on sorting for ...ccks. I co...ldn·t take �y � W:lS a work Cflvi.onment I'd known befole. It ....:asn't so th people up flOSI: Inc relations bet....ccn the w:as solidarity. wccks [ ch...ckcd ;1 Aflel Thc� we� five of us li . or, , � ...a� fired the SPOI f
pho
But Ihe� w:as
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e
six giving me
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no
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in
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b time my ent But seem to Everything ey went thro ith
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:; : on tccn minutes' extra break,
:
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i exams, yo... ,- -'; school. and you up being intellce""a!' 'Nexi gOI a employmenl
imagining they're
co...ldn'r rake any more. � month§ on Ihe .. 'Afler " got a lemporary job, just . holiday peliod, on rh� was on elcelronic called it. or like •• and I 51ayed for
eraTOI" lhey Iha
<"Jed al ",01
,
farher: polic�man: "'; �� "'man). �
'
tu" toel' Ch.,�V
hID<" f..,.., Co M"ney. L'",,.;. ""�, I" ,." "''''"'. uhl
pmim (in'."' ..... "','h Xl unemplOj"...t .
young pt<>pk)
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they
'Once you've A...nked yo...r bac, yo...'re allody in Ihe shit. There are �n no possible calccn and the jobs yo... In ,.." find a� completely ...seless. 'All tnc jobs I did OIIC.e boring, so SCOOter for six m n h . I saved ...p some money so I could Ihing SlOp ....olking for . fe.... months. It·s I ghurly job, yo... SCI com' Anyway, I prefel 10 Slop once in a
...hile so [ don't g<:1 into 1 lUI. 'Mlel [ failed Inc bac, I $p(n, the a summer "'orking :as a monitor V)(:;Ilion camp. Then I gOt a job ....i,h a in Dre"'K. I ....:IS a s tnincc ...�itor ...t aflcl I'NO 10 take 0...1 months it "':as union card SO I .... frtt·bncc. I didn'I fit in. 1 wIOle. lh ...gh .... a
I lefl bc
$llullion, whenever old·style autodidans. who SialiC
;; JdSk : n
,n
sil
who bring Iheir ami·institutional s.ance ...ilh ,hem a...todidaclS. the 11I$IIIUlion, Ihe duh of .g<:nerations often tako the form of a
v�ry foundnions of rhe social order. MOle radical. ....do... over lhe: Ic5s �lf
nlS(cnt of the mood of the first Romamic genera.ion. this disenchanled r(m�ramenl utKks Iht fundamental dogmas of lhe �til·bourgeois
Ordcf-'oreer·. 'SI21uS', 'promOlion' and 'gelling on.'
rltr �TR(I(;(;I.E TO KI!I!P UP The specific comradiccion of the scholastic mOlk of reproduction lies in {he opposilion betwctn the inter�1S of Ihe
cllss wlllch Ihe ed...calional syslem scrvo JiafJlirally i and the inlC�ls of
tho§!: class members whom it sacrifices, Ihat is. the 'failures' who are Ihrealened wilh didaJJtmmi for lack of rhe qualilic21ions formally rt. 'I",red of "gll(ful members. Nor should one forgel those holders of 9ual. ,(,(jflons which ·normally'-i.e.. in an earlier Siale of Ihe relationship
hcl"'ccn diplomas and jobs-gave access 10 a bourgeois occupation, who. b.:-cau);( Ihey do nOI oliginale (rom Ihat clau. lack Ihe social capital 10 extract Ihe (u ll y,eld from their academic <jualili(ation�. The ov�rplod...c. lion of <j...alolic3Iions and {he consc9...ent dev�l... ation, {end to b«ome a IlfU""'f".l1 (Onstanl .
Iheoretically e9...al ch�nces of obuining (lualifi. �lt1�ns are offered 10when all .he offspring o( Ihe bourgeoisie (regardless of rank or sex) while (he access of Olhn classes to these 9ualilications , 'nc....... ( In , ' __Iule lerms). The s.ra.eglcs ' ,,., a," whICh one group may I or: oya�d10 (ry 10 escapc downclassing and to relurn to theil clau lraj«. I (hOSe which another group employs 10 rebuild the interrupled ' �Ih '"
' 10 Cln
.. ..... .
'n
0 � hope l < .for 1r:lj«lOry, a� now one of the mosl important fanon t sf o flllll rmalion of social Slrun...res. The individual s...bstiwtion whICh enable Ihe holden; of a social capital inheriled 'con�II � s 10 make 1It��lm up for Iheir Jack of formal <jualifiotions or 10 p,el the tel...ln flom thos.:: rhey have, by moving into rdnivdy un. f areas lito", h llaJ of social space (where social dispositions coum for l n academ,cally guuanlctd ·compclenco·) «)lk.: 'v . are combined with IIId <>b e S f".lle8'c .1 asserting rhe value of (ormal 9ualificl1iolls la Ihe rewanls Ihey in ur of {he fOuke!.
it,II ,, ;
!: bu�u:m � t
four
t 'n,ng
of
s aimed
secured
an earlier s e
,
Whereas in 1962 only I., pcrcem of scmi-skilkd ....orkers aged 1)-24 had Ihe BEPC. and 0.2 pcrcCnI til<: hac· "[lureu Of 1. hig},(,r diploma, in 197) ,At corresponding pcrccnr1gc1 ",.,re 8.2 and 1.0. Amt)ng ...hite collar workers, who:n: by 1962 even in ,he oldest ago:-group ,her( was a r.:luive1y high percentage of di· ploma.holden, the proponion of ,he very highly <Jualific;en stuff)' rigour of the older staR' and the casual style of the younger workers, whkh is doubtlcss per· ceived as sloppincss, especially when it indudes long hair and a beard (the traditional emblems of Ihe b0hemian utist or intellcctual), cx· pr� ?,lhcr more than a simple gencn!1on gap.
to c:ncour.agc the: emdon of a brge "'0;, J positions, produced by redefining old positions or _;'&!II�gtoi ing new ones, and designed to save un<;jualificd 'inheritors' from classing and to provio:k parvenus with an approximate pay-off devalued <.juaJifications. The: strategies agents uS/: to avoid the devaluation . grounded in the: discrepancy bctwt(" opportunities al any given moment 2nd aspir.l(ions based on an earlier tective opportunitics. This discrepancy, which is particularly lain moments and in ccnain social positions. generally reflcCls a achieve the individual or colk<:rivc occupational Ir:aiecrory which scribed :.IS an obicctivc potentiality in the former position and in j j«tory lClIding to iI, When this 'broken • effect example, in the (� of a man whose: father nkif1lJ and who becomes a sales engineer or a psychologist, or in of � I�w gr.ldu�tc who, for I�ck of soci�1 capi[al, becomes a "'nm� culwr.l1 workcr-the agent's aspirations, flying on above his real [01)' like a pro;ectile carried on by its own iner!i�, describe an I«tOI)' that is no less raJ, or is at any r.lte in no way ordinary sense of [he word, ThLS impossible objective scribe.:! at the deepest level o( their dispositions as or frustr.lted promise, is the common (Klor, behind �11 i belween Ihose sons and daughters of Ihe bourgeoisie 10 whom calional syslem has nOI given the means of pursuing (he InIjCl:tory likdy for their class and rhose sons and daughters of the middle working elasses who have not oblained the rewards whkh 'h :' ;;�" ... '1ualifintions would have gU2r.1ntec:d in an earlier state of the -11'1'0 categories who arc puticularly likely to II)' to rno"e inro positions. Agents who seek to avoid downdassing can either pations more closely malChing their pretensions justified in an earlkt state of relations between can Il:furbish the occupations to whkh redefining and upgr.lding them in with their When �genrs sur! to arrive in a job who � qualifications from those of the usual occupantS, they bring hilherro tudes, dispositions and demands with them into [heir Il:lation with
The combined effect is
p;,,,��
'�,:;��
job, in terms of both ilS technical and social definition; and this ily caU5CS changes in [he job itsdf. Among rhe mOSI visible served when the newcomers have high qualifications are �n i division of labour, with autonomous status being given ro some tasks previously performed, in principle or in practice, by less jacks-of-all-rr:ades (e.g., the diversification of rhe education wdfarc fields); and, oflen, a redefinition of careers, relared ro [he genee o( expc'CIuions �nd demands rhat are new in both form contcm.
,lQr the break ...ilh ,he mlist, sratic model implied in certain o( the sociology of work, it h:l$ 10 be: cmph:l$ized [hal the pas' 1"0 [f.ld,r ;oo �uccd eirher 10 rhe theorerical POSt, i.e., as de$Cribcd in Il:gula· "nnor 'f(uJar5 or organization charts, or to the real posr, j,e., 1S de$Cribed n r;o 5, (�is of observation o( the occupant'S real function. or even to rhe {WOo In fact, po5tS, as Il:gards borh their thcoKri � ip betWCC1l [he �l[rioOSh o � re! their pr.lclieal mlily, 1K Ihe sire of pcrm11lCnt srruggles, iti n nd "I posi[ion.holders may cl:l$h with their supctiors or their subordi. h ,n ,,' 'C with the occupanrs of neighbouring and rival poSitions, or themselves (old.eimers and newcomers, gr:adu1tcs and non.gr.ldu aspiring ro or �lding 1 position �'y have an inler so on). [ . 1 way that II cannOt be occup,ed by anyone such In It g . .:s redefinin cS;;" [han the possesrso s of propcrtics identical ro their own. (Consider rhe 01 bc:1'Nttn ,Ilr:aduatcs of ENA and Polytcchnique or, in the middle . S[rueo I ell:nt gener CC1I d·' : lILons 0f nUI'SC$. ) [W be cll¢.
��
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�nh
,..,fd. 0;
,�� :.Jes
!h.G$('
There is every reason [0 suppose that the job redefinition f"CSulting (rom 1 change in Ihe scholastic properties of the occupants-and all their :WQ(i.led propenin-is likely to be more or less extensive depending on lhe tliJJlidfJ of the technical and social definition of the position (which is probably greater at highet levels in the hierarchy of positions) and on rhe J()(itJi origin o( the new occupant5, since the higher their origin, the kss inclined they will be [0 accept the limited ambitions of pelit. bour8CQis agentS looking for modest, predictable progms over a lifetime. Thest faclGrs ue probably not independent, Whether led by their 5ClIS( of 1 good investment and Iheir awareness of the opportunities .waiting ,heir eapil.l, or by the refusal to demean themselves by entering oroe o( the cslwlished occupations whose dementaty definition makes them invidious, those sons and daughters of the bourgeoiSie who arc thratencd with downclassing tend to move, if they possibly can, inlG the mas[ Lndererminue of the older professions and into the sectors where new professions are undc;r constructi n. This 'crealive redefinition' is ,;, .
:�
'
� done'� n,�s, � : bultau�.
u� I
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'-W"''''') �) , " ...
"
degree) uc a ,genuine ticket ofentry only for those who are able
fi
mem the official quali cations with the
i
i
to
,lIalf"1'1.
and ,hal r.:auly (hus l(quire::s a ,·alue on !he labour mukcl. I '·"r f changn III tIt !o plodu�e:: not on Iy a n u " ,1 ,tI Joub'kSS I<Jl ( c1olhing and cosmeuc" but also a ,.,hole SCt of chan8es III elhlCS maga· r" "o "'! linilion of Ihe:: legitimale:: image of the acknowl go:d aUlhoritin on the body an and by ,hose: proIf nansmil lhe ima of womanhood inarnued 10 lly sckcu:d ona ri ra arc who •.,.i rnanlpulators ofbureaucralic charm. car«r·mu({ure J ce ....irh a Slric::lly pro ra ,n accordan 1r.l1 m ful l lhe fO on), 50 nd a i�hzc::d schools, �Uty COntcsts ( •.,Ih funCtions in conformity ....ith bureau ric norms.
� II ,1.,6 � lu
The rdative .. .. e::ight of rhe differenr (uegorin invoh·ed in duction system has radially changed in the last t.. · o dc::adcs. TlKc gori� of """sc-nrning producers (r("atcd by the ,x...eloprJl(nt of , . IC!C::Vlslon and rhe �ublk and privatc rnnrch bod,n (npecially �Ienc�). have consIderably expanded. as has The re hing profess ion, ·cr strara whe::re;lS the anisric and legal professions, �Ially In 115 lo.. rhat : IIlrellec( al craftsmanship, have:: declined These changn, IOge::ther w ith . ways of organizing ImeJkcrual hfe (research commillec::s, brain t ranks erc.) and Institu tio a ized modes of communication . encn. ddmn. eIC ) te::nd II
J� J
bri nging new �odn of rhought and expression, new themn and new . of conce::lvlllg IIlldl«rual work and rhe role:: of thc intdk<"rual. The df«r of rhoc �'·doprJl(nt:rogerh r wirh The considcnbk growth In � . Slu
�r.c
ndi,.
ac
U
new
nl 10 encourage the ducef$ more dir«r!y subordlnared 10
Ii
I
is
and
Bu( (hc si(e par e::xce::lle::ncc of this rype of tnnsformation is "" "' fu in l e:: group of occuparions whose common faClor is rhal they mU:lmum re::lurn on rhe cultural lapilal mosr rransmi!lcd fiamily: good manners, good taste or physical charm. the :.\eSrhetlc and semi ·:.\eSlhe!ic intdltttual and .J I lions. rhe vanous nsultancy services {psychology, voellional spe«h rhenpy. baUty advice:,: marriage (ounselhng diel on), the educarional and par:t-eduCllional occuplli�ns (youth I runners of d y< re:: CCntres, cultur:tl programme organiz rs) and v?lving. prcsc.malion and re::prc::sc:mllion (rour organizers, h,,',. CICe::rOnl, COUrlCr.)', radio and TV announcers, ne::ws ancho me::n show hosts, pinS atuch6. public relations people and so on ) .
�
a a
co
,
e
r
Public and, npecially, private bUf(aucracics are:: no.... obliged !O perform . rescmallonal and 'hosllng' funcrions ",hic::h are:: very diffcre::nt in both and stylc:: from tl>o5e traditionally e::ntrusr 10 mcn (diploma!$, i amch6 an 50 (0) ofren drawn from rhose: fractions of lhe:: i (the:: arislocracy and rn.: old bourgeoisie) who "<ere:: richcst in social and in ,he socializing t«hniqucs nsc:nl al 10 ,he malnte::nance:: of d ,' " '" . lal llIc new mJuire::menrs have led rO lhe:: �r�nce:: of a ....hole �ma "'("panons and '0 rhc cstabllshmcnt of a icsiTimate marke::r Ical propcmn. llIc fact thu (e::rta;n worJl(n derive ",cupationa "',',
ed
d
k
i
c
l
� J�
ed
ge
g mmed
n
((;minine
d,{lOf1' -
�
fi
cra
most
·
: offer lhe most OSI inde::rcrminate scctOr.)' of ,he social SflUctUrc: groun for (he operations which, by mnsforming old posi. .crc::lling' new oncs ex nih ilo, aim 10 produce areas of specialis!
fIOOUf"1.r�lc:: The
lions
. m 0 (emllllll!!)·. Women·, d rhe legillmate
helped
d
articularly in rhe field of 'consultancy', the performan(e:: of r sr. p : ce in a class rationalizc::d form of compete:n h �uiKS no more:: .lhan a experts constilUlion of .' sOCl�lIy· recogmzc::d corps culMc. The . . h abour comln,,? � rough iahzlIlg in advice on sexuahty, whICh IS no� . essionaizario.n of volunral)·, philanthropIC or pollllcal as· gr.1dual prof
of
�
:\:
whereby agents lend. wclallons. is 1M: paradIgmatic form of the process which is the:: basis of .al1 ....uh that deep (Qnvicrion of d isinteln.ledn . mlsMnary zeal, 10 satiSfy their group Imctcsrs by dc::ploYlIlg ,be legl".
c::ss
marc culture:: wirh which they have:: been e::ndowro by the education sys· win Ihe aC<ju ieS(ence:: of the classes e clu ed from lc::gitima!e ,em rhclr class cultu re::. in pro ucing the ncc:d for and rhe rarity From marri:lge counsellors to rhe vendors of slimming aIds, all those
x d of
10
d
cultufC.
\IIho now make:: a profc::ssion of supplying the means of bridging the gap b(t"·cen 'is' and 'ought' in !he:: re::a lm of the:: body and its uses would be:: IlOThlllg ",·ilhour the unconscious collusion of all thos who comribme 10 pro Cing an inexhauSlihk market for !he:: pro uCls they offe:r: , who by
dU
d
e
Imposing ne::w uses o f the body an a ne::w bodily iNxis-the:: iNxlS which the nc::w u r isie o f the:: sauna bath. the:: gymnasium and th ski slope � diSCovered for ilsclf-proclucr Ihe cor rc::spon ing needs. expc::cmions :and d'S5:u isfaCtions. Doclors and diel c::xpertS armed wilh the:: authority of
bo
geo
d
e
d
SCience::, who impose: the::i r definirion of ntmnality ,,·ith hc::ighl.we::ighr l�. balanced diets or modc::ls of s xual ad«!uacy; cou ruricrs ....ho con· I the sancti on of good rasre on the unallainable:: me::asuremenn of {ash· I On modc::ls: new obligatory uses of the body whom rhe . P !OvlljC ' "opc lror .counde::ss w�rnl gs and re::mm � · delS (.· arch your � . \IIei htl' : . and . Someone Isn·, o.wn life::·st yle in women's wcc:klics and magnin s for well·heeled v�lI combine::, in the compelition be::twc::c:n them, 10 advance:: a r:l 1-lIch !he::y on serve so ",e::11 on ly b«ause the::y are:: nO �lways :aware:: of krv I lflg it or evcn of scrving themselvn in Ihe:: process. .\nd IlIt:!.n I emergence:: of this ne::w petite bourgcOIsie::, which e::mploys ne::w 0 tho: f11anipulaTion ro perform il$ role as an illle::rmediary beTwcc:n � and which by its very exisren(e:: brings abom a Transformarion
t
c
IlleS ex:; u::
"--
ct
-
adve::nisc::rs for W . using . . .'); lourn:lhsts who e::xlllbu glorify
c
�
of [he posinon and disposi[ions of [he old 1>1:[I[e bourgeoisie, tan I underslood only in terms of changes in the mO
bolie imeg�tion of the domina[ed cl:usc:s by imposing nttds """ " incukating norms. LIIAN(.. f.s t N THE EUIlt:ATIONAl �"�TH[ Clearly i t would be ' see a merel)' mKhanica/ process of inl1a.ion and devaluation a. _.•., mmive increase in the school populatton has caused a w'",,,,, ", formalions, both inside and outside the educational 5)'S[em, i.s organizattons and opcmion pmly through morphological
ma[ions at all its levels bUI also through defensive manoeuvres by ;" , ditiona] users. such as Ihe mu]tlplieauon of sublly ranked pths it and skilfully disguised 'dumping grounds' which help [0 blur lion of ils hierarchi". For [he sake of clarity. one may contras[ .. '.- of [he second1fY school system. In the older statl:. lhe organiz:ttton
tnsli[ution. the pa[hways i t offere
�:,;�
C1uons it u:arded were all based on sharp dIvisions. cleaHul b the primary/secondary division pr()(]uced s)'s[ematic differences In I mensions of [he culture taught. [he teaching melhods used and om:rs promised (It is signiflCan[ [hat thc division has been m";,,,.. or even slrtngthened a[ [he points where access (0 Ihe dominant now decidl-d-thu is. al Ihe point of slleaming for [ I in hi):;her eduulion. with thc division I>l:tween Ihe grandes ecolcs the rest.) In the prescnt stale of the system. [he excillStOn of the mass of working-elm and middle·class chtldren 'akes place nor a[
of primary schooling bUl sleadtly and Impalpably, all Ihrough ,b, '"
years of secondary' schooling, Ihrough h,dden forms of eliminalion as repe:ue
(0
induce
ogntlton of scholasuc 3nd soci31 dcsllny; and finally. the lwardin�
i
value
eduC2tion and the whole sel o( internal [raining courses and
i tions offered by all the major government depanmentS--W2s Ihuddot disapl>l:u and !<) be recons[itUled at anolher level. Christiln
Ro�cr Es[ahlct discoven.-d dlls dichotomy. which no one would [houghl of denying since i[ was the clI:arc�[ marllfts[�tlon of ,,,, ,.,"0. [ie mtthanisms of rtproduClion.)I"
Whereas the old system wllh i!s sllong]y marked ooundarics led mternahzing o( scholastIC divISIOns dcarly corresponding !<) social sions. ,he ntW system with " S fuzzy cbssifiC2tion$ and blurred edges couragcs and emefla;ns (a[ lea$t amonA tht ne... · 'Imermt:(liarics' in space) np,rallons thai are [hcmse"'" blurred and fuzz}. Aspiration are now adjusled 10 seholasnc hurdles and $Iandard$ m a less SIn"
than under Ihe old system, which was ch.ara�[erharsh manner 1& orseless rigour of the natIonal compelltlve exammatton. 1;£1 J Ih rem e new system fobs off a good number of tiS users with Ihat [he perce�tions lhat are en ualiflCa[ions, playing on [he faulty �y [he anarchic profuston of courses and diplomas whICh are J<',.,I -I . cout1�'compare and )'el sublly ranked in prestige. However. it docs ificulr [O f1l into such abrupl disinvestment as the old system: the Jl e ,hc r o f c ( hierarch,es and boundan" between Ihe el«teiurl n wttn true and false 'jualifiC2uons, plays a pall in 'cooling 01,1[' 1 � ("d. 1 m acquiescence in being coole
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;1 IS ::;;
fx,� [hc.k�c�
c
�� �
:«p
•
fan
al" tn [he pas[) often offering (!Ike Ihe occupallons of 'anis!" or -inlell«lU no� of Ihe malerial or symbolIC cfl[cria--promo[ion, benefi,s, inCle· !Mills-whereby social nme, and also social hierarchi", arc eKpcrienccd and musurcd. ,hey leave aspira�ions considerable room for manoeuvre.
They �hus make i[ possible to avoid the sudden. final disinves�mem
Imposed by
occupations thaI arc clearly ddimi[ed and defmed from rc
pr1Vlle� hilherto reservtd (or artisrs and imdlcctuals. makcs i, possible
(r,,"ment [0 r(lircment. "!lIe indelerminate fUlure which [hey offer, a
10 ttnt Ihe presem as a SOrt of emllcssly renewed provisional S[)[U$ and to n:gard one's 's[alion' as an accidental detour, like Ihe paimer who
.·orks In ad"erusing but conltnucs to cons"kr himself a 'nut' aliisl and ;: 'SIS tha[ Ihis mercenary Ir;I,Je IS only a [empo�ry expedient Ih)t WIll de: :lb!lldoned as 500n as he has PU[ hy enough money [0 be ,"depcn. ; r. orkThese ambiguous OC(up:oltons exemp[ rheir praCtilioners from t.
.... of disinvcs[menl and 'einv"lmenl thaI is implie
�/
� b.r��I;:; t[ IS undersrandabk ,hal, like artlSIS. Ihey should 50 readily em
:tes1h.cItC �"" ng 10
and educal modes and models of youlh: II 15 a way of oneself and olhers [hal one 15 nOl fini[e. finishe
pIKe of abrupt, all�r-nOlhing breaks, bel,,'eeo slUdy and work, work and retirement, !hcre is an i mpalpable infinllC'SimaJ Ii sider all the Icmponry or semi permanent occupations. students approaching rhe cnd of theiT course. which cluster '",.j, ('Stablished posi rions in scienti fic research or higher eduntion anmher level. consider !he phaSl':d retirement now offered by the 'advanced' firms) . Evcryrhing take'S place as if the new logic of the carional system and tconomic SySltm cncour:aged pwple to dder long as possible the momcm of ultimate crySTallization 1O"'.: �'; ': d :� [he infinilC'Simal changes poii'll. in other words, the final t I , : which sometimes uke'S the form of a 'pc'rsonal crisis', I! goes withou l saying (har the adjustment between objective and subJcctive aspil':ltions [hat is rhereby C'STablished is bO!h and more subtly I'xtoTll'd. but also more risky and unSlabk. vagul'ncss in thl' images of Ihl' prcsenr and futurl' of onl"s way of acctpling limits. but it is also a way to avoid them. or 10 pUI it anO!hn way. a way of refusing them But it is a in bad faith. the produ
-
:
_
�
I.:OMPETITtVE STRUGGLES IINI) I}tSPLAI.:EMENT OF THE STRUI.:TUR�
n be :secn how nai� it is 10 claim 10 se:ult the qucstion of ' change' by locating 'newness' or 'innovation' in a particular JIlt space. For some. this site is at the tOp; for others. at the bottom. always eise:where, in all the 'new'. mar;l:tnal . 'excluded' or groups. for all Ihose: sociologists whose chid concern is to ness' into the discussion at all cosu. But 10 charactl'riZl' a class as v:ilive or 'mnov)ting' (without eVl'n spedfying in what respect It , by laci! rt"Course: to an ethical standard which is nl'cessarily cially, produces a discourse which states little more than the site ,·'r ". from hccause it sweeps aside what is essential. namely. the field gles. thl' systl'm of objl'crive relations within which positions and lUres are definl'd relationlilly and which governs I"'en those t aimed at transforming it. Only by rderence to the space 1II the ... ·hich defines Ihl'm and which they seek to mallltain or redefine. or undemand the stutegies. ind ividual or col1c<:tive. ca
'
'
'
,
nized. which arc aimed at conse:rvint:_ transform in,!: or t to conserve.
"ersion strategies arc nothing other than an aspect of the perma·
n p.(,(o , n s and I'ClIctions whereby tach group suives 10 mai n tai n or (!I'llt ae: o s l osition in the soc:�al sl�((ure, or. more prc<:isely_t a stage p . tn wht.ch one can conserve only by {!" ngcel'olution of class SOCIeties e 11\ Ih . IO chanse SO 15 10 conserve. Frequen tly the actions whereby ehlns:;�gs (or elas:>; fraction ) works to win new adv2n t�ges i,e., to gain er classes and so, objC<:lively, fO reshape Ihl' ",11 d n l�ge over. the ot� . obieClt� reJauons belween fhe classes (fhe reJauons revtaled ,� , ure of Sin.t l Slalislical distributions of propcnies), are compenUted (or (and so t !ro' OUt ordinally) by the reactions of thl' O!hl'r classes. dirc<:led to n (1. rhe same objeclive. In this panicuJar ( thouSh very common) case. Come of these opposing aCtions. which cancel each Olher OUt by .. t -:1e u! countermovements which they generale. is an ove rall displace. � t e ery nt of thl' structure of the distribution. hctween the classes or class �nons. of Ihe aMelS at Slake in the competition (as has happened in _
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.
� �Ied �
tilt (iISC
of Ihe chances of univl'rsity I'ntrancl'-SCe tabll' I ' and figure 7).
nbk I) sho""s the relalionship hctween morphological changc in the dif·
krtnt cI:lSSCS and class (Uctions and Ihe exrent to which the members of ,lin( cla5SCS and class fractions make use: of lhe educalional sySfem. The as based. :I( Ihe beSin .'(I/umc of the groups whose soci:ll reproduction .... the period. on «onomie in he r i t a n ce tcnds to decline or remain sta· nln8 of lIonlry, ...·hile. over the same period. theil children-who -...ill. to a rllent. loin the wagcaming catcgorio:s at the same level of the social hier· ItChy-mike ,ncrcasins use: of Ihe educational system, Those cbss fractions "hieh arc expanding, which are mainly rich in cultural upiul and which �� the I'duc:ltional syslem as theil mam means of rcproduwon ( junior and 5t:nlor execulives. ckriul workers) tend 10 increase theil children'S !Choohng 11\ much Ihe same proportion as the se:lf�mpIO)'cd caregorin oc Cupymg an C<:juivaknt posilion in the class Slructure. The reversal of ,he rd· .�v. posillons of the commercial employe,! and derical workers. and also °h the f.r� workers and indus"ial manual workers. is I'Xplaincd bo,h by � r IntenSIfied schooling that is forel'd on the numerically
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Jpdft IIlId IIJ I rllllSjtJr'rIlIlIlOIlS /
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pi�pb«mcnt of KhQOling rates of !6- 10 !g.yelf.()l
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lxtwrtn 1968 >n
191'
160 / Fht iiClJTIomy oJ Pra(/utj
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snu:: K'(" , mated by the middle dassesd' One only has 10 look at Ihe i faculrie�spo=ciaHy those of :inS and scien(e�in the i I cducuion insfllutions by social origin of 'he" s,udcn,s fO kno.... ...haf Alain rhink of such .. $latisnul .nalySlS (highly pt:lliso:! t regn:ts thl1 " has no, hd Ih� SU((C'SS II dncrvcs. proof of his greit knowledge of uni�ersity I t ....hich are situated at the 10....C'S, point of a fteld gr.tndcs e.:olcs--'Olnd no.... even lo...·el. 10 ludge from (Ill value of .he" dIplomas. 'han ,he- leas! presligious and mas. .he business sehools .h... h..ve prolifelated in .ecent O " h'' ' ' " ch..r:Ktcrisriu of dumping grounds. nOl leas. theil I : (and feminiul1on). It is as if Ihe "dcmoc{UiUlion' i I ... ·ele 10 be measured in .e.::hnial hIgh school in ,n Nor could anyone spok of a 'middk-class.oominlted· uni"erslly had. consciously or unconsdously, confused Ihe level of rep!C'SC " ,, ,,," .he middle daS51:5 in the fiCuhy·sludenl popul..don ...i,h the ;� : �< ulty COlnncc for tIM> middle classes-in other ,,·olds. confused the soci)1 composition of the fKulties wuh chlnge in lhe srrucrure ablliTlC'S of schooling, ) SlfUCIUn: ....hich has been shifled .eal ,nosfolmal1on.
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A similar process of homotbetic de�elopment seems 10 take
....hene�er the srreng.hs and etrorn of Ihe groups compo=.ing for a lyPC of isset or entitlement tend to ballncc one anolhe( oul. as in in which. ..fter � SC'ries of bursIS in whiCh various runners forge 'h''''
'he inuial gaps :.tre mlinl3in«i: in other words. ....hellC'ver Ihe p u c ", h · f the inirill1y mosr disad�lnta� groups 10 come into po$"
�t 0'� �cSS
pt asset� pre�iously. poSSCSSC
\
� i � b:ro;:: depcmkd o� maintaini�g a ceruin dislan�e:}< Thus Ihe :h� �alueconspire , rum the eXlstmg holders by aC<jumng Ihe mb n "'corners :hiCh mide: them rare; the suresl w:.ty de�llu e :l tilk nobility is 10 holders, for their pan. objt<· rchue tt as a commoner. The existing Il>C"m in newcomers eilher by abandoning Iheir litlcs f'�'dy dc"alue Iher:.rrer ones, or by intrOOudng differenccs among Ihe litle· 10
..
10
of
to
order 10 pursue holders linked to seniority in acceSSIOn to the tide (such as the manner ofpo:ssesls Og il). It follows thn all the groups il'l\'ol"ed in rhe race, ....har· . ·e rheir position, their r:.rriry, 'heir C\'er rank Ihe}' occupy. cannOI consc. .. rank �xcep' by running 10 kt"C:p Iheit distance from th� immedialely
behind them. thus jeopardizing the difference which dislinguishes Ihe group immediately in front: or, to PUI il anOlher way, by aspiring to po$"
50.! thaI "'hieh the group jusl ahead allady have, sd,'C'S will have, but laler.
and ....hich they them·
The holders of Ihe r:.rreSI tirles can �Iso prol�CI themselves from com· ptUlton by scning u p a numerus clausus. Such measures generally
br.;omc necessary whenever rhe statistical mt
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the 'hybrid' zone of which Plato speaks apropos of the boundary and non.being, and which chalkngt'! the discriminat"ory ;:, ? Rich OT I : �;�:I I rUI';I or Urban old? or uxonomies (Young or 'Iower.middle,?), thc numerus clausus, in Ihc extreme form it . limits l In uirhmcrica pbcc from discriminatory Jaw, SCtS sharp, Ofl based a "'"�;,:; exclusion, and inclusion of ciplo$ of selection, fairly closely interrelated and normally implicit eritcria, it sets up an sdtutionalittd and therefore consdou$ and organize
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Smut dubs preserve their homogeneity by subjecting upinnt� to �ry striCt procc.:lu�n ao of candidatull:, a recom�od" ;OO' � sentuion (in the litenl sense) by sponsors who have bers for a cerrain number of years. dection by The �� � special committee, payment of sometimes very high inidal (�,OOO francs per person li the Cerclc du Bois de Boulogne in fnncs al the Saint·Cloud Golf Club in 19n), plus The annual ,;;b;;�,';;; (2,O�O fnncs at Saim Cloud) lind 50 on. In facl, il would be pointless seck to discover whether the formal rules, which aim IOO"e all ,he group against oUlSiders (not so much other classes. which afe from the start, as other fractions of the same class, or even prove bers of the same fnoion) and on i tended to disguise the arbitrariness the conspicuous arbitminess which makes election a maner of i Aair is intended to disguise the official rules. 'We rake you if we Ii '0." took of you (C'tSl .. 14 lit, a" rli",, ),' uid one dub chairman; and 'Theil: arc clubs whet(' you need tWO sponsors and they accept almOSt Oil(: 'here are others with twO sponsors where: they're very chOOSY." :: ;: , you t 'Normally sponsors: of the everything depends on the quality 'WIit tWO or thrtC �rs; with good sponsors, you don't 'WIil a< all' ber of the management committee, Cercle du Bois de Boulogne). although membership is not officially he�itary, a ,,,,", plies to join the Cef(le du Bois de Boulogne will elder brother is a member. All the evidence suggeSIS that ber of them are: officially orvnired around some which is often a �fC prete�t (golf, polo, hunting, riding, sailing etc.), smm dubs (ItS d,,1n 'hia) are: 0f>P0$N " '1'";' '• • ....ho5c members are: defined by po5SC$$ion of I common property ( fo�'� That in flaris), de pk:, a yacht in the cue of the Ccrde de la Voile ' account of ,he ....hole social person; and the more: pratigious they """,''' the mOil: concerned they at(' to achieve a total harmony of interats
'
du Bois de Boulogne or Irnple, the Jockey Club. the Cercle (fo"-r '�Ccrcle), . ,he morc this is tile case u rality social .of �he c�iTeria of sekcrion (an only come from ]..t f'I��:c. lhe is, from an obI'Xuficarlon of what IS Il:fuscd in advance as � ,hit vulgar, the group is able to persuade itself thaI ;t$ own o
The dialec,ic
of downdassing and updassing which underlies a whole set of social proceues presupposes and entails thlll all Ihe grou� con· �rned run in the same direction, toWard the �me objectives, the same propt'tlies, those which af( designated by the leading group and which, by defini,ion, are unavailable to the groups following, since, whatever th� �ropert.ies may be intrinsically, Ihey arc modified and qualified by thell dl�lInCtlVe nrity and will no longer be what they arc once they are: multlplrcd and made available to groups lower down. Thus, by an ap plrt:nt p�ndox, the mainlCnllncc of order, (hat IS, of the whole SCt or di ffell:nces, 'differentials' . ranks, pre<:edcncc:s, prio
�fr;:
'
164 / 'fht /:.co'lomy oj l'racllus
,,-. �•.,�.
mem of the promis«l goods but implies l((tpl�nce of a future merdy the (Ominultion of the past, or the 'imiluion'-m<.k cars, mock lu�ury holidays md so on,
:;.��
Bu[ (he dialectic of downclassing and upclassing is p
�
discourse strives to imensify, E1;pec;�lty when rhey compare funClion also as an ideological mech�ni5m, whose dfec s
[
are exposed [0 [ conditions wilh rheir past, {he dominated sion that [hey have only to wail in order (0 realilY, they wilJ oblain only by struggle, By situating the labJishes a diff'erence which, like that which separ.lles
twecn the classes in the order of succ�ions,
successor in a social order governed by w(,lJ·ddined ruks
not only [h(' most absolute and unbridgClbk (since Ihere is t do bUI wait. sometimes a whole lif('time, lik(' [he pelit bourgeois quire {heir own houses a[ [he momem of retiremem, somecim('S
generations, lik(' [he petit bourgeois who extend [heir own f; , ,: ;: �: tr:.ljcctories th rough their children) but also [he mOSt unreal cent (since a person knows that if he can W1l;t, he will in
whu he is promised by the ineluctable laws of evolution), In [he competitive struggle makes ev('rlasting is not diff'er('m but the diff'erence betwttn conditions.
::�;;<:
Collective and indIvidual delay has social consequences which furlhcr plicate this process, Relatively la[e arrival nor only reduces rhe d." i enloymeO!; il abo impliC$ a less bmilia!, less ·easy' relallonshlp ro ily or 15SCr in q estion which may have [cchnical rhe use of a car--or symbolic ones-in and al50 represeO! (he disguised e(juivaJcnt , rhe value of the aSSl:r or aCtivity lies in fhan i rhe deady linked fO exclusive or priority acccu) ""ho have an isfacllOfls i[ gives, The vcndall of goods and in [hese effcc[s of allodoxia, exploi[ these lags, offering, o;��'.�:�:: In the caSl: of holidays), or when they are our of fashion ties), ar the ' which have their ful! value
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II Once [hi$ mechani$rn i$ umkrstood, one perccivC$ the abur1c[ debates which arise fwm the opposilion of permanence Change, structure and history, reproduction and rh� 'production
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soci�1 contradictions and strugslC$ arc nOt all, or always, in
dety", The real basis of such deba[es is the refusal w
with the perperua[ion of the C$tablished order; rha[, beyond C$CS of 'thinkin$ in pairs', permanence can be ensured by �h structure perpetuated by mo"�ment; that the 'frustrated which a� (rea[ed by the [ime-lag between the imposition accC$s to needs (,mus[s·, as [he marketing men PUt it)
and
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do nOI nco:ssarily threaten the survival of the §yslem; ,lng ,hem, S{y gap and the corresponding fruSlrations arc the very s;I!i [ruclu ral r e !��r � ,he reproduCtion through displacement which perpetuatC$ the sD�rcc 0 of posi rion$ while transforming the 'nature' of conditions, r strU' �� bcCOmC$ clClT that those who point to what might be called I[ l properties and speak of the 'embourgcoiscment' of the working , ,,, ,lIna : .. e who try to refute them by pointing to ordinal properties, and Ihos l are that the conuadictory aspectS of reality which they c aSS, aJ 1y unaw ,rr � in faCt indissoluble dimensions of a single process, The repro nalaf( a tltt' social structure can take place in and through a compeli. llon of d C ,.ggle leading [0 a simple displacemcnt of [he structure of
/
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,. ' . ns, so long and only SO long as the members 0f [he domlll1[cd d,SIfl'butio . ' -d order, �hat IS, · through actIOns · suugs,e III eXlen"", and dJSS(S enter the , only compounded lly, sl1usuca thc by e�ternal art eff'eclS tiOM which
('xert on th(' actions of others, in [he abscnc(' ch rhe aCtions of som(' � :f any in[craction or rransa lio , a d consequently in conditions of ob (
, � � �["'ifY, withou � colle(llve or mdlvldual control and generally agamst . . , . and collective mteres[s. rilt l�ntS' IOdlVldual The limiting usc of these procesSC$ of su[;stical action is panic or tOUl, in
,,'hich each a�n[ hclp$ to produce what he fears by performing actions in· Ij>lrtd by the fcared efl'cc[ (as in financial panics), In all [hese cases, rhe col· Itcr;"t action, the mere sta[istiul sum of uncoordinued individual lCiions. b
e
��
diseourages young
. Compcullve struggle is [he form of class Struggle which the dom· In ed claS$cS allow fO be imposed on them when they accept the s[ak('S , by I�e domInant classes, It is an inregrnh<e siruggle and, by vir· rllO: f the Inilial handicaps. a rcproduCfive s[ruggle, since those who �tt� h sr�f)(/ '; chase, in which they are belten btfore they start. as the con, the gaps tcstific:s, implicitly recognize the legitimacy of the Boals pO �'t Yrsucd by lOose whom Ihey pUlSue, by the mere fact of raking
��
J.t�vln8 CSt2b ' hshed the logic of the proc('Sscs of competit on (or roul) de C%f) �� �n each agtnt [0 react in isolation to rhe effect of the tl C1C tlo I ns of olher agenu, or, more predsdy, 10 the result of [he tahsllclJ re (I� 10 r gg gation of their isolated actions, and which reduce the state of a mass dominated by its own number, one can po:se
i
"'hich
�
166 / TIN I!.()nomy oJ JJra(/I(tJ
rhe question, much debated at present ", :: ,; ,!;; hi5!Olians,}' of th e lions (economic crisis, economic crisis a period of and so on) in which the dIalectic of mutually chances and subjective aspirations may bre2k down. that an abrupt slump in objcctive chances relat;ve [0 {Ions is likely 10 produce a break in (he tacit ac(tpUnc( I irmcd elmes-now abrupdy excluded from Ihe race, objectivcj subjcCf;vdy-prcviously granted to the dominant goals, and so toY possible a genuine Invtrsion of the table of values.
3
Tbe Habitus and tbe Space of Life-st�[es
The mere (act Ihal rhe social space described here 0,11 be prcS(nted as a diagram indkau�s that it is an abstract rcprcS(ntllion, dclibc:rately con· )t!ucre
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pr:anices �nd their own. The h�bitus is both the gener:ltiv� obj�crively dassifiabl� judgem�ms and th� system of ripium dillisirmis ) of these pr:actices. It is in the rebtionship tWO capacities which define the habitus, the cap:idty 10 able practices and works, and the capacity 10 dilfcremiale �nd these practices and products (tute), that the represented i.e.. the space of life.styles, is constituted. 1be relationship that is actually established between the char::llCleristio of economic and social condition (capital composition, in both synchronic and diachronic aspects) and the tive faturtS auociued with the cormponding position in the of life-styles only b«omes intelligible wh<-n th<- habitus is """ ; th<- gener::lltive formula which makes it possible to accoum both classifiable pr:aClices and pro
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of cWsirKd and dossify,.., p'KtIC", i. • . , distinct;" lie'" f' ... ..·)
172 / Tht Elonomy 0/ Pr411iltJ
differences. differcmial positions, i.e.• by everything which it from what It is not and especially from everything i t I'" �i�1 demit! is efinw an.d assc:rt�d th:�ugh diffcrence. I ffiClII$ . . InevItably JIlswbed wlfhlll the dlsposmons of thc habitus is the structure of the system of conditions. as it pres<:nu itself in "�'Co, ence of a life-condition occupying a particular position within ture. The most fundamemal oppositions in the snucture rich/poor ere.) rend to establish themselves as the fundamemal . ing principles of practices and rhe perception of . As a practice·gcneraring sehemes which e�presses the and freedom inherem in its class condirion the i ing that position. thc habitus apprehends differences between which it grasps in the form of differences between classified. pracdces (products of other habitus). in accordance with differemiuion which, being themselves the product of Ihese are ob�ctivcly aHuned to them and therefore tcnd to perceive natural.
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observer who divide!! a population imo elana performs an which has ils equivaknl in social practice. If he is nor aware likely 10 prescnt a more or los modifiro form of a i scienlinc classincalion (a number of 'typologies' are precisely this). tion, he has no chance of bringing 0 the level of conS(iousnas the 1 status of his clmifying operadons which, like native knowledge, ,;, conncctions and comparisons and which. even ....hen they seem to the realm of social ph)1ics. in faC! produce and interpret SignifYing tiOlls. in shorr, to lhe order of the
;;;;'
While it mUSt be rC1SSCffed. againsr all forms of , nary e�perience of rhe social world is a cognition. ir is e<:Jually i to realize-
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tively harmonized among themselves, wirh?ul any deliber· ..riIt Ire objec y orcheslt:lte
f prt'Isc:I� �
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man by his walk.
True pastiche. as Prous! docs it, for e�ample, reproduces not !.he mOSt, Strik· ,ng fe:aturcs a style-like p;arody or nr;cuur�ut the habllu$, ....hICh of
JxquC$ Riviere calls ·the hnrth of mental activity', in ...hich the original .
,.."h hiS whole personality and, faced ....ith an eV(flt he hu n("Ver upen· . . The he nh of ....<:d. ruct jus. as he did '0 those which Irk brought him. hit mental aCl\vity is rc:kindled, the limp relil in his br.lin:'
ducoulSC is generated: 'We are amused to $a: each writer ··n:sU!recled"
a
SYSlematicity is found in the opus operatUm because it is in the modus Opel1l.ndi.' [I is found in all the properti�nd property-with which viduals and groups surround themsdves, hou!;CS. f milUre, paintin , � � ks. can, spirits, cigarettes, perfume. clothes, and III the practices III "'hLch they manifest their distinClion. sports, games, entertainments. only beca use it is in the synthetic unily of the habitus, the unifying, gen· ' el�tl�e . . . propenSLty and capaCIty 10 rrnCJpIe of all practices. Taslc. InC � rDJ>l1a te (materially or symbolically) a given elm o.f classified. dmi. $I: g ob� . IS or practices is lhe generative formula of !rCe·styk, a umrary . t In t diStinctive p�ferences ....hich e�prcss the same e�plC$sivc intention specific logic of each of the symbolic sub-spaces, furniture. clolh· Inll I anguage Ot body he�is, Each dimension of life.style 'symbolizes "It . n lll'1 1he others, in L.cibniz·s pht:lse. and sym lilcs them. An old cabi. e akef's . ....orld vicw. the way he maMges hIS budget, hts lime or hIS
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body, his use of lang�age and choio: of clolhing a("(" fully p� nt ethIC of scrupulous, Impeccable cr:Jftsmanship and in the work for work's sake which leads him fO measu("(" the beaU ty UCfS by Ihe cue and patience thu have gone into them. The system of matChing properties, which includes p: :", ,:: : � -:� of a 'w�lI.matc�ed couple', and friends like fO say have tUtes-IS organtzed by tlSte, a system o( da.ssificafOry sche may only very partially become conscious although, as o� fists social hicr:Jrchy, life·sryk is incrtasingly a mmer of what 'slylizalion o� life', T:lS!e is the basis of Ihe mutual adjuslment , .;.; ",m features associated WIth a person , which the old aesthetic '�"' for the sake of Ihe mutual reinforcement they give one anOI tr: • .on ' c a person consciously or coum"css plCCes 0f Imorman imparts endlessly underline and confirm one anOlher, offering observer the same pleasure an an·lover derives ffOm Ihe correspondences produced by a harmonious diStribution 0 The over·determination tha,t results from the rWundancil"S is � more str?ngly because the different features which have fO be ;",11• �servauo� or m�ureme� ! st.rongly In terpene!l'2te in ordinary . . lion ea.'h ue.m of mfo?,"allon Imparted In pr:JCfice (e.g., a ' : a p;:nnung) IS conlam.nucd---and, if it deviates from the ture, corl"C([eO-by the efl"C(:t o( [he whole set of fealu,.. ', " Simu taneously perceived. That is why a survey which tends 10 i fC;ltu�for example, by disSOCiating the things said from the way are sad-and detach them (rom the system of correlative fC;lWrtS 10 minimize the deviation, on each point, between the th.u between [he J:"tit bour�is and [he bourgeois. In II . allons of bourgeoiS hfe, b:a nalltics aboul an, liter:J[ure or cinema scpar:Jble ftom [he steady tone, the slow, casual diction the d;,,,. , � self.assurW smile, the mC;lSurcd gesture, the wdl. tailo r d suit and bourgeois salon of the person who pronounces them,
:.�
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h
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;:��:�; ..d
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disdainful
Thus, lacunae can {urn into n:fusals and confusion mi�dc.:l�?S. BourgNis rrspondcms puticubrly distinguish [hm ab.lity [0 conuol the JUr'lll1' sinmiOrl (and should take this into 1(coun[). Comtol over the i i i cultun: opelatcs i� given to [hem by [he very un<:
language.
u
Taste is the practical operator of the tr:Jnsmutation of ;:�"�:,;:::� . tinct and discinctive signs, of continuous distributions IIItO
. ions; il r:Jiscs [he diffen:nces insctibed in [he physical order of I[ t',lns.form� ob symbolic order of sign.ificam distinctio�s: � llself t tices, in whICh a class COndillOn slgmflCS 'l:iSSificd pnc bodid sym�hc eKp� [.¥eiY t:lSle), into claSSifying, pr:Jctices,. that i.s. imo a j(' h rela(lons and IrI (!�rOug,bss position. by percelvlllg them IrI lhelr mutual S?urce of thc sys· o classifica[ory sc.hemes. Tasre, is thus [he s IrOn f ocial as a system· fel[ures whICh canno[ fall to be perceived , ive 'nct ' ·SI/ o( <",', d . I,C., lS a encc ' eXISt f 0 s 1I10n d" f con 0 class r ((f"I on of a particula e rcssi lical knowledge of [he fc-style, by anyone who posses pr:Jc JIll x� li d!S[I"'{I s belween distinctive signs and positions in !he diSlribu· p [ ctive propenics. --:hich i� brought. to fdl twecn the universe of obje obJcctlVe universe of hfe· [Ion tific (OnsuuClion, and the no less n scie y b ordinary experience, light exiStS as such for and through hich w �1cS: rnalization ry syStem. which is the product of the inte nlls classificato ' wh'I(h �'t "Impm.ges tht�ugh .�rm In in the ' ClUn: ofsocial space. Sl/U the of I .Ihat space..15, wlthm !he l,mits nce of a particular positio.n , � lic c�pe lilt It lends to reptoduce �ibilides and impoSSIbilities (whICh """ ic nom r-«,0 0f "antICS ' s ad'IUSICd to [11C regu , 0f practice the "" , �-ner:Jtor in ItS own logic), " es intO SIl1ItC· continuously Hansforms necesslt. hcn:n ' in a condition, II without any. mcc�anical dCler:ni. cons[r:Jints into prefcrences, and, . st!tulln� hfe:styles. whICh con ' ices 'cho of sel thc es cr-ll gen . nation, i[ .e., thcir valuc, from their poslllon m I system of i . ning mea r [hei e denv . made of necessity which con· oppositions and correlatiOns " It is a virtue virtuc by inducing ·choices' whICh Itn o sly tr:Jnsforms neceSSIty into product. As on be secn correspond [0 [he condition of which i! is the condi· ...hcnever a change in social position puts thc habitus into new taste of tlons, so thai i[s specific efficacy can be isolated, it is tlSl(-{he c which l\t(eSlS ly or the laste of luxury-and not high or low incom . [t.(: pr:Jclices ob;cctivdy adjus[cd to these: tesources Through taste, an agenl has what hc likes because: he likes what he has, thai is. the P[opctliC$ actually given to him in the distributions and IcgilimalCly as· SlgJlCd to him in the classifications.!
orr:;�
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uu
commands
Tht Homology between the Spam
lkanng in mind [he faCt that Ihe gener:J· all thai pn:cedes' in palliculal . . tWe 1(11 emes of [he habilus are applred. by Simple tr:Jnsfer. to the mGS[ . dl� p 1tllIlar a("("as of pr:JClice, one can immediately undcrstand thaI [he lces or g.oods 3ssocia[(d with [hc different classes in Ihe differen.t a: . of practice are organize.:! in accordance WIth StruCtures of oppos · O [� I n "'h lcn are homologous (O one anOlher because they are all homolc)· s to I� Structure of objc
e
1 76
/ The Economy of Practices
The Habitus and the Space of Life-Styles /
cate , very sche mat icall y, how the two maj or orga nizi ng prin cipl es o f the sOCI al space gov ern the stru cture and mod ifica tion of the space of . Cult ural con sum ptio n, and , more gen eral ly, the who le universe of l i fe-st yles . . In cult ural con sum ptlo n, rhe mam opposi tion , by ove rall capi tal val . betw ue, IS een the prac tice s deSI gna ted by thei r rarit y as dis ting uish ed, thos e of th� fraC tion s nch est In both econ omi c and cult ural capi tal, and the prac tice s SOCi ally iden ti �ed as vulg ar beca use they are both easy and com mon , thos e ? f the fraC tion s poo rest in both thes e respects . In the in ter med iate pos itIOn are the ract ices whi ch are perceived as preten tiou p s, because of the man Ifest dIsc repa ncy between amb ition and pos sibil ities . In opp oSIt IOn to the dom mated con ditio n, char acte rize d, from the poin t of Vlew of the dom man t, by the com bina tion o f forced pov erty . and un J usti fied laxi ty, the dom man t aest heti c-o f whi ch the wor k of an and the aes thet ic dIsp OSI tIOn are the n ost com plet e emb odim ents-p ropo : ses the com bma tlO� of ease and aSCe tiCis m, I.e., self- imposed aust erity , rest rain t, reserve whI Ch are affirmed In that abso l ute man ifest atio n of exce : llen ce rela xatI On In tens ion . ' Thi s fund ame ntal opposit ion is spec ified acco rdin g to capi tal com pos i . . Thr tIOn oug h the med iatio n of the mea ns of appropr iatio n avai labl e to them , excl USIv ely or pnn Clpa lly . . cult ural on the one han d , mai. n I y econom Ic on the othe r, and the diffe rent form s of rela tion to works of an whI ch resu lt from them , the diffe rent frac tion s of the dom inan t clas s are one nted towards cul tura l ract ices so diffe rent in thei r styl e p and object and som eti mes so an tagol11st lc ( thos e of 'arti sts' and 'bou rgeo is' ) 6 that it IS easy to forget that they are vari ants o f the sam e fun dam enta l rela tion shIp to necessity and to tho se who rem ain sub ject to i t, and that each pursues the excl USIve app ropr iatio n of legi tima te cult ural goo ds and the aSSO Ciate d sym bol IC profi ts. Wh ereas the dom inan t frac tion s of the dom · nan t class ( the 'bou rgeo isie' ) dem and of art a hig h degree of . den ial f the SOCI al world and mcl me tow ards a hed oni stic aest heti c of ease and fa Clht�, symbolI zed by bou levard thea tre or I mpr essi onis t pain ting ' the dommated frac tion s ( the 'i ntel lect uals ' and 'art ists' ) hav e affin . ities Wit h the ascetIc aspect o f aest hetlss and are incl ined to sup por t all arti stic revo lutI ons con duc ted m the nam e of purity and purifica tion , refu sal of os tent atIo n and the bou rgeois taste for orn ame n t; and the disp osit ions owards the SOCI al wor ld whI Ch th�y owe to thei r stat us as poo r rela tion s . . nclm e then to wel com e a peSS ImI stIC represen tatio n of the soci : al wor ld Wl l1le It IS clea r that art offers it the greatest scop e, ther e is no . area o f practIce In whI Ch the m tent lOn of pur ifyin g, refin ing and sub lim atin facI !e Impulses and prim ary nee ds can not assert itse lf, o r in . whi ch th styh zatl on of hfe, I.e. , the prim acy of form ove r fun ctio n, whi ch lead s to the denIal of fun ctio n, does not pro duc e the same effects. I n lang uage, it gIves the opp oSIt IOn between pop ular ou tspo ken ness and the hig hly cen sored language of the bou rgeo is, between the exp ress ion ist pur suit of the plctureSljUe or the rhetoncal _ effect and the cho ice of res trai nt and false
�
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1 77
simplicity ( l itotes ) . The same economy of means is found in body lan guage: here too, agitation and haste, grimaces and gesticulation are op posed to slowness-'t �e slow gestur�s, the s low gla � ce' o � nobili :y, . according to Nietzsche -to the restrall1t and ImpassIvIty whIch slgl11fy elevation. Even the field of primary tastes is organized according to the fundamental opposition, with the antithesis between quantity and qual ity, belly and palate, matter and manners, substance and form. FORM A N D SUBSTANCE The fact that in the realm of food the main op position broadly corresponds to differences in income has masked the sec ondary opposition which exists, both within the middle classes and within the dominant class, between the fractions richer in cultural capital and less rich in economic capital and those whose assets are structured in the opposite way. Observers tend to see a simple effect of incom� in the fact that, as one rises in the social hierarchy, the proportion of Income spent on food diminishes, or that, within the food budget, the propor tion spent on heavy, fatty, fattening foods, which are also cheap--pasta, potatoes, beans, bacon, pork-declines (C.S. XXXI I I ) , as does that spent on wine, whereas an increasing proportion is spent on leaner, ligh ter ( more digestible ) , non-fattening foods ( beef, veal, mutton, lamb, and espec ially fresh fruit and vegetables ) . 8 Because the real principle of prefer ences is taste, a virtue made of necessity, the theory which makes con sumption a simple function of income has all the appearances to support it, since income plays an important part in determining distance from ne cessity. However, it cannot account for cases in which the same income is associated with totally different consumption patterns. Thus, foremen re main attached to 'popular' taste although they earn more than clerical and commercial employees, whose taste differs radically from that of manual workers and is closer to that of teachers. For a real explanation of the variations which J. F. Engel's law merely records one has to take account of all the characteristics of social condi tion wh ich are ( statistically ) associated from earliest childhood with pos session of high or low income and which tend to shape tastes adjusted to these conditions.9 The true basis of the differences found in the area of consumption, and far beyond it, is the opposition between the tastes of luxury (or freedom ) and the tastes of necessity. The fo rmer are the tastes of individuals who are the product of material conditions of existence defined by distance from necessity, by the freedoms or fac ilities stemming from possession of capital; the latter express, precisely i n their �djust . . men t, the necessi ties of which they are the product. Thus It IS pOSSIble to deduce popular tastes for the foods that are simultaneously most ' fill ing' and most economical1o from the necessity of reproducing labour power at the lowest cost which is forced on the proletariat as its very defin ition. The idea of taste, typically bourgeois, since it presupposes absolute free dom of choice, is so closely associated with the idea of freedom that
1 78 / The Economy of Practices many people find it hard to grasp the paradoxes of the taste of necessity. Some simply sweep it aside, making practice a direct product of eco nomic necessity ( workers eat beans because they cannot afford anything else ) , failing to real ize that necessity can only be fulfilled, most of the time, because the agents are inclined to fulfil it, because they have a taste for what they are anyway condemned to. Others turn it into a taste of freedom, forgetting the conditionings of which it is the product, and so reduce it to pathological or morbid preference for ( basic) essentials, a sort of congenital coarseness, the pretext for a class racism which associ II ates the populace with everything heavy, thick and fat. Taste is amor lati, the choice of destiny, but a forced choice, produced by conditions of existence which rule out all alternatives as mere daydreams and leave no choice but the taste for the necessary.
One only has to describe the tastes of necessity as if they were tastes of lux ury ( which inevitably happens whenever one ignores the modality of prac tices) 12 to produce false coincidences between the two extreme positions in social space: fertility or celibacy (or which amounts to the same thing, late marriage) is an elective l uxury i n one case, an effect of privation i n the other. In this respect, Nicole Tabard's analysis of women's attitudes to 'working wives' is exemplary: for working-class women, 'employment is a constrain t which weakens as the husband's income rises'; for the women of the privileged classes, work is a choice, as is shown by the fact that 'the rate , of female employmen t does not decline as status rises. 1 3 This example should be borne i n mind when reading statistics in which the nominal iden tity imposed by uniform questioning conceals totally different reali ties, as o ften happens when one moves from one extreme of social space to the other. If in one case women who work say they are in favour of women working, whereas in the other they may work while saying they are against It, thIS IS because the work to which working-class women are tacitly refer nng IS the only sort they can expect, i .e., unpleasant, poorly paid work, which has nothing i n common with what 'work' implies for bourgeois women . To give an idea of the ideological effects which the essentialist and anti-genetic dominan t vision produces when, consciously o r unconsciously, It naturalIzes the taste of necessity ( Kan t's 'barbarous taste' ) , converting it lOto a natural inclination simply by dissociating it from its economic and social raisons d'etre, one only has to recall a social psychology experiment whICh showed that the same act, that of giving blood, is seen as volun tary or forced depending on whether it is performed by members of the privi leged classes or the working classes . 14
The taste of necessity can only be the basis of a life-style 'in-itsel f', which is defined as such oDly negatively, by an absence, by the relation ship of privation between itself and the other life-styles. For some, there are elective emblems, for others stigmata which they bear in their very bodies. 'As the chosen people bore in their features the sign that they we re the p roperty of Jehovah, so the di vision of labour brands the mal111-
The Habitus and the Space of Life-StyLes /
1 79
, facruring worker as the property of cap i ta l . ! ) The brand which Marx speaks of is nothing other than l i fe-style, through which the most de prived i mmediately betray themselves, even in their use of spare time; in so doing they inevitably serve as a foil to every distinction and contrib ute, purely negatively, to the dialectic of pretension and distinction which fuels the incessant changing of taste. Not content with lacking virtually all the knowledge or manners which are valued in the markets of academic examination or pol ite conversation nor with only possessing skills which have no value there, they are the people 'who don't know how to live' , who sacrifice most to material foods, and to the heaviest, grossest and most fattening of them, bread, potatoes, fats, and the most vulgar, such as wine; who spend least on clothing and cosmetics, appear ance and beauty; those who 'don't know how to relax', 'who always have to be doing something', who set off in their Renault 5 or Simca 1000 to join the great traffic jams of the holiday exodus, who picnic beside major roads, cram their tents into overcrowded campsites, fling themsel ves into the prefabricated leisure activi ties designed for them by the engineers of cultural mass production; those who by all these uninspired 'choices' confirm class racism, if it needed to be confirmed, in its conviction that they only get what they deserve. The art of eating and drinking remains one of the few areas in which the working classes expl icitly challenge the legitimate art of living. In the face of the new ethic of sobriety for the sake of slimness, which is most recognized at the highest levels of the social hierarchy, peasants and especially industrial workers maintain an ethic of convivial indulgence. A bon vivant is not j ust someone who enjoys eating and drinking; he is someone capable of entering into the generous and familiar-that is, both simple and free-relationship that is encouraged and symbolized by eating and drinking together, in a conviviality which sweeps away re straints and reticence.
Sixty-four percent of sen ior executives, professionals and industrialists and 60 percent of junior executives, clerical and commercial employees consider that 'the French eat too much'. Farm workers ( who are by far the most in cl ined to think the quan tity 'about right'-54 percent as against 32 percent in the upper classes ) and industrial workers are the categories who least often accept the new cultural norm ( 40 percent and 46 percent ) , which is recognized more by women than men and more by young people than old. As regards drink, only farm workers stand out clearly against the dominant view ( 3 2 percent of them consider that 'French people drink about the right amount' ) , though i ndustrial workers also accept it less frecl uently than the other categories. Sixty-three percen t of the industrial workers ( and 50 percen t of the farm workers, as against 48 percent of the executives, pro fessionals and industrialists ) say they have a favourable opinion of someone who en joys eating and drinking. Another index of their willingness to stand up in this area for heterodox practices which in cul( Ural matters they
The HabituJ and the Space 01 Lile-StyleJ / 181
1 80 / The Economy 01 Practices would try to disguise is that they say that, i n a restaurant, they would choose a substantial dish rather than a light grill ( favoured by the senior executives ) or that they would have both cheese and a dessert. This is un derstandable when i t is remembered that, by its very rarity, a visit to a restaurant is, for most of them-5 1 percent of the farm workers and 44 per cen t of the industrial workers hardly ever eat in a restaurant, as against only 6 percent of the upper classes-somethi ng extraordinary, associated with the idea of abundance and the suspension of ordinary restrictions. Even as re gards alcohol consumption, where the weight of legitimacy is no doubt greater, the working classes are the least inclined ( 3 5 percent of farm work ers, 46 percent of industrial workers, 5 5 percent of the upper classes ) to set the minimum age for drinking alcohol above fifteen ( C S. XXXIV ) . The boun dary marking the break w i t h the popular relation to food runs, w i t h o u t any doubt, between the man ual workers and the clerical and commercial employees ( see table
16).
Clerical workers spend less on
food than skilled manual workers, both in abso l u te terms against
10,347
francs ) and i n relative terms
( 34.2
( 9,376
francs as
38.3 ( charmterie ) ,
percent as against
percent ) ; they consume less b read, pork, pork products
m i l k , cheese, rabbit, poul try, d ried vegetables and fats, and, w i t h i n a smaller food b u dget, spend as much on meat-beef, veal, m utton and lamb-and s l ig h t l y more on fish, fresh fru i t and aper i t i fs. These changes in the Structure of spend i n g on food are accompanied by increased spending on heal th and bea u ty care and clothi ng, and a s ligh t increase i n spending on c u l tural a n d leisure activi ties. When i t is noted that t h e re duced spending on food, especially on the most earth l y , earthy, down to-earth foods, is accompan ied b y a l o wer b i rth-rate, i t is reasonable to suppose that it constitu tes one aspect of an overalI transformation of the relationship to the worl d . The 'modest' taste which can defer i ts gratifica tions is opposed to the spon taneous materialism of the working classes, who refuse to participate in the Ben thami te calculation of pleas u res and pains, benefits and costs ( e. g . , for heal th and bea u ty ) . I n o ther words, these two relations to the ' frui ts of the earth' are grounded in two dispo s i tions towards the fu t u re which are themselves related in c i rc ular cau sality to two objective fu tures. Against the i magi nary anthropology of economics, which has never shrunk from formulating u n i versal laws of ' temporal preference', i t h as to be poin ted out that the propensity to sub ordi nate presen t desi res to fu t u re desi res depends on the e x tent to wh ich this sacrifice is 'reasonable', that is, o n the l i kelihood, i n any case, of ob tain i ng fu ture satisfactions superior to those sacrificed. \ (, A mong the economic condi tions of the p ropensity to sacrifice i mme diate satisfactions to expected satisfactions one must i nclude the proba b i l i ty of these fu ture satisfactions which is inscribed in the p resent con d i t i o n . There is still a SOrt of economic calculation in the u n w i l I i ngness to subjec t existence to economic cal cu lation. The hedon ism which seizes
day bv day the rare satisfactions ( 'good times ' ) of the i m mediate p rese nt
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The Habitus and the Space oj Life-Styles /
1 82 / The Economy oj Practices
no future' and, in is the only philos ophy concei vable to those who 'have clearer why the es becom t I 7 1 any case, l ittle to expect fro m the future the relatio n to in sted manife larly practic al materi alism which is particu popula r ethos the of nents compo ental food is one of the most fundam is affirme d in which t presen in-thebeingThe and even the popula r ethic time as it take and times good the of tage advan the readiness to take others ( who are often comes is, in i tself, an affirma tion of solidar ity with future ) , inasmu ch as the only presen t guaran tee agains t the threats of the limits which define the this tempo ral imman entism is a recogn ition of ois is fel t as a bourge petit the of the condit ion. This is why the sobriet y it with having from and time good a break: in abstain ing from having ng escapi of ion ambit his s betray eois bourg o thers, the would-be petit whole his uct constr not does he is, that when, t, from the comm on presen i s h o me and the cafe, absti self-image aroun d the oppo sition betwe en h s, betw een indiv id u al salva tion nence and intemperance, in other word and collective solidarities .
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for a drink but a place he goes to in . The cafe is not a place a man goes to iar he can estab lish relati onsh ips of famil o rder to drink in comp any, wher e rieprop and ns entio conv s, rship ity based on the suspension of the censo contrast to the bourgeois or petit ties that prevail among stran gers. In table is a separate, appropriated ter bourgeois cafe or resta uran t, wher e each or the salt) , the working-class chair a w _xitory ( one asks perm ission to borro new arriv al gives a colle ctive greet ing, cafe is a site of comp anion ship ( each the coun ter, to be leaned on after 'Salu t la compagnie!' etc ) . I ts focus is is thus defined as the host (he often who shaki ng hand s with the landl ordshak ing hands with the whol e leads the conversation)-and some times are left to 'stran gers' , or wom en who comp any; the table s, if there are any, child or make a phon e calL In the their have come in to get a drink for popu lar art of the joke-the art of cafe free rein is given to t�e typic ally reiterated 'Joki ng apart' or 'No joke' , seeing every thing as a j oke ( hence the or prelu de a second-degree joke ) , ers matt us whic h mark a retur n to serio j okes, often a t the expense o f the 'fat b u t also the art o f maki ng or playi ng se, in the popu lar code, his fat becau man' . He is always good for a laugh , a defec t, and because the good than iarity pecul e ness is more a pictu resqu s him to take it in good heart and natur e he is presumed to have predispose s, is the art of maki ng fun with word other see the funn y side. The j oke, in mockery or insul ts whic h are neutra out raisin g anger, b y mean s of ritua l ppos ing a great famil iarity , both presu lized by their very excess and whic h, with whic h they use it, are in om freed the and in the know ledge they use of build ing up while seem ing to fac t tokens of atten tion or affec tion, ways emn-although the � may cond to ing run down , of accep ting while seem of stand-offishness. I signs show who those out also be used to test
THREE STYLES OF D ISTINCTIO N The basic opposition between the tastes of luxury and the tastes of necessity is specified in as many opposi-
The Habitus and the Space of Life-Styles / 1 85
184 / The Economy of Practices tions as there are different ways of asserting one's distinction vis-a.-vis the working class and its primary needs, or-which amounts to the same thing--different powers whereby necessity can be kept at a distance. �hus,. within the dominant class, one can, for the sake of simplicity, dis tingUIsh three structures of the consumption distributed under three items: food, culture and presen tation ( cloth ing, beauty care, toiletries, domestic servan ts ) . These structures take strictly opposite forms-like the structures of their capital-among the teachers as against the indus trial and commercial employers ( see table 1 7 ) . Whereas the latter have exceptionally high expenditure on food ( 37 percent of the budget ) , low cultural costs and medium spending on presen tation and representation, the former, whose total spending is lower on average, have low expendi ture on food ( relatively less than manual workers ) , limited expenditure on presentatl � n ( though their expenditure on health is one of the high est) and relatively high expenditure on culture ( books, papers, entertain ments, sport, toys, music, radio and record-player) . Opposed to both these groups are the members of the professions, who devote the same proportion of their budget to food as the teachers ( 24 .4 percent ) , but out of much greater total expenditure ( 57,122 francs as against 40,884 francs) , and who spend m uch more on presentation and represen tation than all other fractions, especially if the costs of domestic service are in cluded, whereas their cultural expenditure is lower than that of the teach ers ( or even the engineers and sen ior executives, who are situated between the teachers and the professionals, though nearer the latter, for almost all items ) . The system of differences becomes clearer when one looks more closely at the patterns of spending on food. In this respect the industrial and commercial employers differ markedly from the professionals, and a for tlon from the teachers, by virtue of the importance they give to cereal based products ( especially cakes and pastries) , wine, meat preserves ( foie Table 1 7
Yearly spending by teachers, professionals and industrial and commercial em ployers,
1972. Teachers
( h igher and secondary )
Type of spending Food' Presen tat ion Culture'
Francs b
9,969 4,9 1 2 1,753
Source: C.S. I I I
%
I n d ustrial and Professionals
of total
Francs
24.4 1 2 .0 4.3
1 3,956 1 2 ,680 1 ,298
%
of total
24.4 22.2 2.3
commercial employers Francs
1 6,578 5,616 574
%
of total
37.4 1 2.7 1 .3
( 1972 ) .
a. Includes restaurant o r cameen meals. b. Clothes, shoes, repairs and cleaning, toiletries, hairdressing, domestic servants. c. Books, newspapers and magazines, stationery, records, sport, toys, music, enter tainments.
meat, �resh gras, etc. ) and game, and their relative ly low spendin g on Iden almost are es fruit and vegetab les. The teachers, whose food purchas other all than more tically structu red to those of office worker s, spend non-alc o fraction s on bread, milk produc ts, sugar, fruit preserves and profes the than less tly distinc and holic drinks, less on wine and spirits ve expensi most the y speciall meat--e as such ts sions on expensi ve produc The les. vegetab and fruit fresh and lamband tton u meats, such as m high propor members of the professions are mainly disting uished by the particu larly ts, tion of their spending which goes on expensive produc expen most the lly meat ( 1 8.3 percent of their food b udget) , and especia shell and fish les, vegetab sive meat ( veal, lamb, mutto n ) , fresh fru i t and fish, cheese and aperi tifs.19 ial and Thus when one moves from the manual workers to the industr ep shopke small and en craftsm n, foreme h throug comme �cial employ ers, change ental fundam any t withou relax to tend ints ers, econom ic constra between the in the pattern of spending ( see figure 9 ) . The opposi tion . ( nouveau nch tWO extremes is here establis hed between the poor and the ed is in consum riche ) , between la bouffe and la grande bouffe;2° the food heavy ingly increas and ) creasin gly rich ( both in cost and in calories . ex semor or IOnals profeSS the ( game, foie gras ) . By con trast, the taste of heavy, the for taste the as n, negatio ecutives defines the popular taste, by and the the fat and the coarse, by tending towards the light, the refined is ac ints constra ic econom of arancedisappe delicate ( see table 1 8 ) . The forbid which hips censors social the of hening compan ied by a strengt taste for coarseness and fatness, in favour of slimness and distinct ion. The ve or expensi in rare, aristocr atic foods points to a tradi tional cuisine , rich cul in richer , her teac rare produc ts ( fresh vegetab les, meat ) . Finally , the . � scetlc to mclmed re � tural capital than in econom ic capital, and therefo ic cost consum ption in all areas, pursue origina lity at the lowest econom culinary and 21 ) . etc cooking Chinese and go in for exoticis m ( I talian, to populis m ( peasant dishes ) . They are thus almost conSCIo usly opposed bouffe, grosse of sellers and buyers the food, rich the ( new ) rich with their to the 'fat cats',22 gross in body and mind, who have the econom ic means remains which ife-style l a ', 'vulgar as d perceive ce arrogan an flaunt, with cuI tural very close to that of the working classes as regards econom ic and consumption. conEating habits, especial ly when represen ted solely by the produce Itfe whole the of dently indepen sumed, cannot of course be considered ar particul for taste the that is this style. The most obvious reason for vaguest the only gives t g-baske shoppin al dishes ( of which the statistic con idea) is associated, through preparation and cooking, with a whole between labour of division the of and y econom c domesti ception of the bianquette, the sexes. : A taste for elabora te casserole dishes (pot-au-feu, is daube ) , which demand a big investm ent of time and interest, li nked to arly a traditio nal concept ion of woman 's role. Thus there is a particul
1 86 / The Economy of PracticeJ Figure 9
The HabituJ and the Space of Life-StyleJ / 187
The food space.
delicate lean
raw grilled
I
beef ftsh fruit
healthy recherche exotic
n
strong-fatty-salty
natural-sweet
spices wine-spirits
fruit juice
aperitifs patisserie
yogurt
CULT. CAP. + ECON. CAP. SPARE TIME � STATUS \;? +
and of t h e sexual division of labour ( a woman entirely devoted t o house work is called 'pot-au-feu' ) , j ust as the slippers put on before dinner sym bolize the complementary male role.
reftned light
jam
frozen
food cons. cult. cons . +
CULT. CAP. ECON. CAP. + SPARE TIME � ± STATUS \;? + food cons. + cult. cons . -
charcutene pork pot-au-feu bread salty-fatty-heavy-strong-simmered cheap-nourishing
I
CULT. CAP. ECON. CAP. SPARE TIME � ± STATUS 9 -
-
�
strong opposi tion in this respect between the working classes and the dominated fractions of the dominant class, in which the women, whose labour has a high market value ( and who, perhaps as a result, have a higher sense of their o wn v al ue ) tend to devote their spare time rather to child care and the transmission of cultural capital, and to contest the tra ditional division of domestic labou9 The aim of saving t i m e and labour . In preparatIon combInes with the search for l Ight, low-calorie products, and points towards grilled meat and fish, raw vegetables ( 'Jalades com pOJees' ) , frozen foods, yogurt and other milk products, all of which are diametrically opposed to popular dishes, the most typical of which is po t-au-feu made with cheap meat that is boiled ( as opposed to grilled or roasted ) , a method of cooking that chiefly demands time. It is no acci dent that this form of cooking symbol izes one state of female ex istence ,
Small industrial and commercial employers, the incarnation of the 'grocer' traditionally execrated by artists, are the category who most often ( 60 per cent ) say they change into their carpet slippers every day before dinner, whereas the professions and the senior executives are most inclined to reject this petit-bourgeois symbol ( 3 5 percent say they never do i t ) . The particu larly high consumption of carpet slippers by working-class women ( both urban and rural ) no doubt reflects the relation to the body and to self presentation entailed by confinement to the home and to domestic life. ( The wives of craftsmen, shopkeepers and manual workers are those who most often say that their choice of clothes is mainly guided by a concern to please their husbands. ) It is among manual workers that most time and interest is devoted to cooking: 69 percent of those questioned say they like doing elaborate cook ing (fa grande cuisine ) , as against 59 percent of the junior executives, 5 2 percent o f the small shopkeepers and 5 1 percent o f the senior executives, professionals and industrialists ( C S. XXXIVa ) . ( Another indirect index of these differences as regards the sexual division of labour is that whereas the teachers and senior executives seem to give priority to a washing machine and a dishwasher, for the professionals and industrial or commercial em ployers priority seems to go rather to a TV set and a car-CS. I I I . ) Finally, when invited to choose their two favourite dishes from a list of seven, the farm workers and manual workers, who, like all other ca tegories, give the highest rank to roast leg of lamb, are the most incl ined (45 percent and 34 percent, as against 28 percent of the clerical workers, 20 percent of the se nior executives and 19 percent of the small employers ) to choose pot-au-feu ( the farm workers are almost the only ones who choose andouillette pork tripe sausage-14 percent of them, as against 4 percent of the man ual work ers, clerical workers and junior executives, 3 percent of the senior executives and 0 percent of the small employers ) . Manual workers and small employ ers also favour coq au vin ( 5 0 percent and 48 percen t ) , a dish typical of small restaurants aiming to be 'posh' , and perhaps for this reason associated with the idea of 'eating out' ( compared with 42 percent of the clerical workers, 39 percent of the senior executives and 37 percent of the farm workers ) . The executives, professionals and big employers clearly distin guish themselves solely by choosing-from a l ist which for them is particu larly narrow-the dish which is both relatively 'light' and symbolically marked ( i n contrast to the ordinary routine of petit-bourgeois cooking ) , bouillabaisse ( 3 1 percen t , as against 2 2 percent o f the clerical workers, 1 7 percent o f the small employers, 1 0 percent o f the manual workers, 7 per cent of the farm workers ) , in which the opposi tion between fish and meat ( especially the pork in sauerkraut or cassoufet ) is clearly strengthened by regionalist and touristic connotations ( C S. XXX I V ) . It is obvious that the i mprecise classifications used in this survey prevent one from seeing the ef fects of the secondary opposi tion between the fractions, and that the ten-
Table 1 8
A n n ual ho usehold txptc n di t u res o n food: fractions o f the do m i n a n t class, 1 9 7 2 . ------- ---- ._----
_._-------_._ .
Ind ustrial
Teachers Sen i o r
( h igher and
executives
secondary ) Average n u mber persons per household Average total household expend i t u re ( francs )
cial employers
-------
3. 1 1
3.6
3 5
3.6
3 6
5 2 , 1 56
57,122
4 9, 8 2 2
44,339
9,969
1 3, 1 58
1 3 ,956
1 2 ,666
1 6 , '5 7 8
244
25.2
24.4
2 5.4
374
Expend i t u re on food as % of total expen d i t u re
A v erage exp
Average expo
Francs
Cereals
Engineers
Professions
40,844
Average total household expendi t u re on food ( francs )
Type of Food
and commer
As % o f
As % of
As % of
all food
a l l food
a l l food
all food
Francs
expo
Francs
Francs
expo
� '"
------
A s % of
expo
'-.....
Average expo
Average expo
Average expo
As % of all food
expo
Francs
expo
865
8. 7
993
7.5
1 ,0 1 1
7.2
95 1
7 . '5
1,535
9.2
bread
322
3 2
347
2.6
326
2 3
312
2.5
4 ')4
2.5
cakeS, pastries
452
4.5
552
4.1
518
4.0
539
4.2
989
5.6
16
0.2
27
0.2
33
0.2
28
0.2
29
0. 1
flce
3 ')
0.3
32
0.2
62
04
41
0.3
33
0. 1
flour
40
0.4
35
0.2
41
0.3
31
0.2
28
0. 1
rusks
Vegetables
766
7.7
1 , 01 ')
7.7
1 , 1 00
7.9
899
7. 1
1 ,2 2 2
7.4
potatoes
81
0.8
94
0.7
95
0.7
98
0.7
1 52
0.8
fresh vegetables
5 ') 5
5.6
729
5.5
811
5.8
647
5.1
91 5
5.1
dried or can ned
131
13
191
1 .4
216
1.5
1 54
1 .2
153
0.8
632
6 3
871
6.6
990
7.2
864
6.B
877
5.2
fresh fru i t
295
2.9
405
3 1
586
4.2
424
3.3
547
3.1
ci trus fru i t, bananas
236
2.4
313
2.6
303
2.2
324
2.5
2 56
1.4
d ried
102
1 .0
122
0.9
98
0.7
116
0.9
72
0.4
Fru i t
B u tcher's meat
1,556
1 5. 6
2,358
1 8.0
2,552
18.3
2,07 3
1 6. 4
2,323
14.0
beef
814
8. 1
1 ,291
98
1,212
8.7
1 , 1 44
9 0
1,273
7.2
veal
3 3 ')
3.4
452
3.4
630
4.5
402
3.1
377
2.3
m u rton, lamb
1 56
1 .6
315
2.3
438
3.2
242
1 .9
390
2.2
31
0.3
49
0.3
31
0 2
37
0.3
94
0 5
221
2.2
251
1 .7
239
1.7
247
1 .9
187
1.3
horse pork ( fresh )
'ork products
.feat preserves
741
5.6
774
5.5
705
5.6
812
350
2.6
233
1.7
310
2.4
1 , 362
8.0
336
3.4 3.4
503
3.8
719
5.1
396
3.1
588
3.5
2.8
310
2.4
333
2.0
336
'ish, shell fish
235
Joultry
36
{abbit, game eggs vf ilk :':heese, yogurt Oats butter oil marganne lard ugar, confectionery, cocoa Icohol wine beer cider aperit i fs, liqueurs etc. Non-alcoholic drinks Coffee, tea Restaurant meals Canteen meals
( 1 97 2 ) .
2.3
31 1
2.4
399
0.3
97
0.7
148
1.1
89
0.7
289
1.7
1.3
1 90
1.4
178
1 .4
185
1.1
287
2.3
309
1 .9
1 , 090
6.5
149
1.4
172
299
3.0
271
2.0
2 49
1 .8
692
6.9
776
5 .9
843
6.0
785
6. 1
4.0
5 64
4.3
525
3.8
504
4.0
551
3.3
399
3.2
3.1
379
2.7
371
2.9
405
2.4
320
408
0.6
136
1 .0
132
1 .0
103
0.8
112
0.6
66
0. 1
17
12
29
0.2
19
0. 1
12
0. 1
1 304
o
2
3 .0
395
0. 1
o 3.0
1 265
o
13
0.1
1 .9
327
2.6
407
2.4
7.4
2,2 1 8
1 3. 4
o
1
711
7.1
1 ,365
1 0. 3
1,329
9.5
937
4.6
869
6.6
899
6.4
392
3.1
1 , 881
1 1 .8
457
0.8
91
0.7
0.3
1 84
1 .4
93
0.5
82
40
13
0. 1
12
o
0 389
o
8
o
5
o
2.8
352
2.8
237
1 .4
157
1 .6
391
3.0
3.4
3 42
2.6
267
1 .9
295
2.3
327
2.0
3 44
1.5
291
2.1
1 78
1 .4
298
1 .8
1.5
215
1 , 562
1 1.2
1,372
10.8
1 , 1 79
7.1
152 82 9
8.3
1 ,863
1 3. 0
7.5
562
4.0
22 1
1 .6
773
6.1
299
1 .8
745
379
2.7
258
1 .8
432
3.4
324
1 .9
2 64
M iscellaneous Source: C.S. I I I
6.3
4.9
634
2.6
"OJ OJ
i "
�
�
i ;::;,
� .
3
� '"
� go
<::!-
:;:, ;:! �
:s:. '"
� :;:,
�
� r
S-; '" t--, � -10:
'-..... "OJ 'D
The Habitus and the Space of Life-Styles / 1 9 1
1 90 / The Economy of Practices dencies observed would have been more marked if, for example, i t had been possible to isolate the teachers or if the list of dishes had been more diversi fied i n the sociologically pertinent respects.
Tastes in food also depend on the idea each class has of the body and of the effects of food on the body, that is, on its strength, health and beauty; and on the categories it uses to evaluate these effects, some of which may be important for one class and ignored by another, and which the differ ent classes may rank in very different ways. Thus, whereas the working classes are more attentive to the strength of the ( male) body than its shape, and tend to go for products that are both cheap and nutritious, the professions prefer products that are tasty, health-giving, light and not fattening. Taste, a class cul ture turned into nature, that is, embodied, helps to shape the class body. It is an incorporated principle of classification which governs all forms of incorporation, choosing and modifying everything that the body ingests and digests and assimilates, physiologi cally and psychologically. It follows that the body is the most indisput able materialization of class taste, which it manifests in several ways. It does this first in the seemingly most natural features of the body, the di mensions ( volume, height, weight) and shapes ( round or square, stiff or supple, straight or curved) of its visible forms, which express in coun tless ways a whole relation to the body, i . e., a way of treating i t, caring for it, feeding it, maintaining i t, which reveals the deepest dispositions of the habitus. It is in fact through preferences with regard to food which may be perpetuated beyond their social conditions of production ( as, in other areas, an accent, a walk etc. ) , 23 and also, of course, through the uses of the body in work and leisure which are bound up with them, that the class distribution of bodily properties is determined. The quasi-conscious representation of the approved form of the per ceived body, and in particular its thinness or fatness, is not the only me diation through which the social definition of appropriate foods is established. At a deeper level, the whole body schema, in particular the physical approach to the act of eating, governs the selection of certain foods. For example, in the working classes, fish tends to be regarded as an unsuitable food for men, not only because it is a light food, insufficiently 'filling', which would only be cooked for health reasons, i.e., for invalids and children, but also because, like frui t ( except bananas) it is one of the 'fiddly' things which a man's hands cannot cope with and which make him childlike ( the woman, adopting a maternal role, as in all similar cases, will prepare the fish on the plate or peel the pear) ; but above all, it is because fish has to be eaten in a way which totally contradicts the mas culine way of eating, that is, with restraint, in small mouthfuls, chewed gently, with the front of the mouth, on the tips of the teeth ( because of the bones) . The whole masculine identity-what is called virility-is in volved in these two ways of eating, nibbling and picking, as befits a
The
body for the job woman, or with whole-hearted male gulps and mouthfuls , j ust as it is in volved in the two ( perfectly homologo us) ways of talking, with the front of the mouth or the whole mouth, especially the back of the mouth , the throat ( in accordance with the opposition , noted in an earlier 24 study, between the manners symbolized by la bouche and La gueuLe) . . This opposition can be found in each of .the uses of the body, espectally in the most insignifican t-looking ones, whICh, as such, are predIsposed to serve as 'memory joggers' charged with the group's deepest values, its most fundament al 'beliefs' . It would be easy to show, for example, that Kleenex tissues, which have to be used delicately, with a little sniff from the tip of the nose, are to the big cotton handkerch ief, which is blown into sharply and loudly, with the eyes close.d and � he nose held t1�h t l y as repressed laughter is to a belly laugh , WIth wnnkled nose, WIde-open ,
1 92 / The Economy of Practices mouth and deep breathing ( 'doubled up with laugh ter' ) , as if to amplify to the utmost an experience which will not suffer containment, not least because it has to be shared, and therefore clearly manifested for the bene fit of others. And the practical philosophy of the male body as a sort of power, big and strong, with enormous, imperative, b rutal needs, which is asserted in every male posture, especially when eating, is also the principle of the di vision of foods between the sexes, a division which both sexes recognize in their practices and their language. It behooves a man to drink and eat more, and to eat and drink stronger things. Thus, men will have two rounds of aperitifs ( more on special occasions ) , big ones in big glasses ( the success of Ricard or Pernod is no doubt partly due to i ts being a drink both strong and copious-not a dainty ' thimbleful' ) , and they leave the tit-bits ( savoury biscuits, peanuts) to the children and the women, who have a small measure ( not enough to 'get tipsy') of home made aperitif ( for which they swap recipes ) . Similarly, among the hors d'oeuvres, the charcuterie is more for the men, and later the cheese, espe cially if it is strong, whereas the crudites ( raw vegetables) are more for the women, l ike the salad; and these affinities are marked by taking a second helping or sharing what is left over. Meat, the nourishing food par excel lence, strong and strong-making, giving vigour, blood, and health, is the dish for the men, who take a second helping, whereas the women are sat isfied with a small portion . It is not that they are stinting themselves; they really don't want what others might need, especially the men, the natural meat-eaters, and they derive a sort of authority from what they do not see as a privation. Besides, they don't have a taste fo r men's food, which is reputed to be harmful when eaten to excess ( for example, a sur fei t of meat can ' turn the blood', over-excite, bring you out in spots etc. ) and may even arouse a sort of disgust. Strictly biological differences are underlined and symbolically accen tuated by differences in bearing, differences in gesture, posture and beha viour which express a whole relationship to the social world. To these are added all the deliberate modifications of appearance, especially by use of the set of marks--<:osmetic ( hairstyle, make-up, beard, moustache, whisk ers etc. ) or vestimentary-which, because they depend on the economic and cultural means that can be invested in them, function as social mark ers deriving their meaning and value from their position in the system of distinctive signs which they constitute and which is itself homologous with the system of social positions; The sign-bearing, sign-wearing body is also a producer of signs which are physically marked by the relation ship to the body: thus the valorization of virility, expressed in a use of the mouth or a pitch of the voice, can determine the whole of working class pronunciation. The body, a social product which is the only tangi ble manifestation of the 'person', is commonly perceived as the most nat ural expression of innermost nature. There are no merely 'phys ical' facial
The Habitus and the Space of Life-StyLes / 1 93 signs; the colour and thickness of lipstick, or expressions, as well as the shape of the face or the mouth, are immediately read as indices of a 'moral' physiognomy, socially characterized, i.e., of a 'vulgar' or 'distin guished' mind, naturally 'natural' or naturally 'cultivated'. The signs constituting the perceived body, cultural products which differentiate groups by their degree of culture, that is, their distance from nature, seem grounded in nature. The legitimate use of the body is spon tane ously perceived as an index of moral uprightness, so that its opposite, a 'natural' body, is seen as an index of Laisser-aller ( ,letting oneself go' ) , a culpable surrender to facility. Thus one can begin to map out a universe of class bodies, which ( bio logical accidents apart) tends to reproduce in its specific logic the uni verse of the social structure. It is no accident that bodily properties are perceived through social systems of classification which are not indepen dent of the distribution of these properties among the social classes. The prevailing taxonomies tend to rank and contrast the properties most fre quen t among the dominant ( i.e., the rarest ones ) and those most fre quen t among the dominated.25 The social representation of his own body which each agent has to reckon with,26 fro m the very beginning, in order to build up his subjective image of his body and his bodily hex is, is thus obtained by applying a social system of classification based on the same principle as the social products to which i t is applied. Thus, bodies would have every likelihood of receiving a value sfrictly corresponding to the positions of their owners in the distribution of the other fundamental properties-but for the fact that the logic of social heredity sometimes endows those least endowed in all other respects with the rarest bodily properties, such as beauty ( sometimes 'fatally' attract ive, bec�use it . threatens the o ther hierarchies ) , and, conversely, sometimes denies the 'high and mighty' the bodily attributes of their position, such as height or beauty. U N P R ETENTIOUS OR UNCOUTH ? It is clear that tastes in food cannot be considered in complete independence of the other dimensions of the rela tionship to the world, to others and to one's own body, through which the practical philosophy of each class is enacted. To demonstrate this, one would have to make a systematic comparison of the working-class and bourgeois ways of treating food, of serving, presenting and offering it, which are infinitely more revelatory than even the nature of the products involved ( especially since most surveys of consumption ignore differ ences in quality ) . The analysis is a difficult one, because each life-style can only really be constructed in relation to the other, which is its objective and subjective negation, so that the meaning of behaviour is totally re versed depending on which point of view is adopted and on whether the common words which have to be used to name the conduct ( e.g., 'man ners' ) are invested with popular or bourgeois connotations.
1 94 / The Economy of Practices Considerable misunderstanding can resul t from ignorance o f this mecha nism in all surveys by questionnaire, which are always an exchange of words. The confusions are made even worse when the in terviewer tries to collect opinions about words or reactions to words ( as in the 'ethical test' in which the respondents were presented with the same lists of adjectives to describe an ideal friend, garment o r interior ) . The responses he records in this case have in fac t been defined in relation to stimuli which, beyond their nominal identi ty ( that of the words offered ) , vary in their perceived reali ty, and therefore their practical efficacy, in accordance with the very principles of variation ( and firstly, social class ) whose effects one is seeking to measure ( which can lead ro literally meaningless encounters between op posing classes ) . Groups invest themselves totally, with everything that op poses them to other groups, in the common words which express their social identity, i.e., their difference. Behind their apparent neutrality, words as ordinary as 'practical', 'sober', 'clean', 'functional', 'amusing', 'delicate', 'cosy', 'distinguished' are thus divided against themselves, because the differ ent classes either give them different meanings, o r give them the same meaning but attribute opposite values to the things named. Some examples: soigne ( neat, trim, careful, well-groomed, well-kep t ) , so strongly appro priated by those who use it to express their taste for a job well done, prop erly finished, or for the meticulous attention they devote to their personal appearance, that it no doubt evokes for those who reject it the narrow or 'up-tight' rigour they dislike in the petit-bourgeois style; or drofe ( amusing, funny, droll ) , whose social connotations, associated with a socially marked 7 pronunciation, bourgeois or snobbish, 2 clash with the values expressed, putting off those who would certainly respond to a popular equivalent of drofe, such as bidonnant, man'ant or rigofo; or, again, sobre, which, applied to a garment or an interior, can mean radically different things when express ing the prudent, defensive strategies of a small craftsman, the aesthetic as ceticism of a teacher or the austerity-in-luxury of the old-world grand bourgeois. I t can be seen that every attempt to produce an ethical organon common to all classes is condemned from the start, unless, like every 'uni versal' morality or religion, i t plays systematically on the fact thac language is both common to the different classes and capable of receiving different, even opposi te, meanings in the particular, and sometimes antagonistic, uses that are made of it.
Plain speaking, plain eating: the working-class meal is characterized by plenty ( which does not excl ude restrictions and limi ts ) and above all by freedom. 'Elastic' and 'abundant' dishes are brought to the table-soups or sauces, pasta or potatoes ( almost always included among the vegeta bles )-and served with a ladle or spoon, to avoid too much measuring and counting, in contrast to everything that has to be cut and divided, such as roasts 2R This impression of abundance, which is the norm on special occasions, and always applies, so far as is possible, for the men, whose plates are filled twice (a privilege which marks a boy's accession to man hood ) , is often balanced, on ordinary occasions, by restrictions
The Habitus and the Space of Life-Styles / 1 95 which generally apply to the women, wh � will share o �e portion be tween two, or eat the left-overs of the preVIOUS day; a gIrl s acceSSIOn to womanhood is marked by doing without. It is part of men's status to eat and to eat well ( and also to drink well ) ; it is particularly insisted that they should eat, on the grounds that 'it won' t keep', and there is som� thing suspect abou t a refusal . On Sundays, wh ile the women are on th �Ir feet, busily serving, clearing the table, washing up, the men remam seated, still eating and drinking. These strongly marked differences of so cial status ( associated with sex and age ) are accompanied by no practIcal differentiatio n ( such as the bourgeois division between the dining room and the kitchen, where the servants eat and sometimes the children ) , and strict sequencing of the meal tends to be ignored. Everything may be put on the table at m uch the same time ( which also saves walkmg ) , so that the women may have reached the dessert, and also the child �en, who will take their plates and watch television, while the . men are s � IiI ea � mg the main dish and the 'lad', who has arrived late, IS swallowmg hIS soup. This freedom , which may be perceived as disorder or slovenliness, is adapted to i ts function. Firstly, it is labour-saving, which is seen as an ad van tage. Because men take no part in housework, not least because the women would not allow it-it would be a dishonour to see men step outside their role--every economy of effort is welcome. Thus, when the coffee is served, a single spoon may be passed around to stir it. But these short cuts are only permissible because one is and feels at home, among the family, where ceremony would be an affectation. For example, to save washing up, the dessert may be handed out on improvised plates torn from the cake-bo x ( with a joke about 'taking the liberty', to mark the transgression ) , and the neighbour invited in for a meal will also r�ceive his piece of cardboard ( offering a plate would exclude hIm ) a� a sign of familiarity? Similarly, the plates are not changed between dIshes. The soup plat� , wiped with bread, can be used right through the meal. The hostess will certainly offer to 'change the plates', pushmg back her chaIr with one hand and reaching with the other for the plate next to her, but everyone will protest (,It all gets mixed up inside you' ) and if she were to insist it would look as if she wanted to show off her crockery ( which she is allowed to if it is a new presen t ) or to treat her guests as strangers, as is sometimes deliberately done to intruders or 'scroungers' who never return the invi tation. These unwanted guests may be frozen out by changing their plates despite their protests, not laughing at their jokes, or scolding the children for their behaviour ( ,No, no, we don't mmd', say the guests; 'They ought to know better by now', the parents respond ) . The common root of all these 'liberties' is no doubt the sense that at least there will not be self-imposed controls, constraints and restrictions especially not in eating, a primary need and a compensation-and espe cially not in the heart of domestic life, the one realm of freedom, when everywhere else, and at all other times, necessity prevails.
1 96
/ The Economy of Practices
I n opposi tion to the free-and-easy working-class meal, the bourgeoisie is concerned to eat with all due form. form is first of all a matter of rhythm, which i mplies expectations, pauses, restraints; waiting until the last person served has started to eat, taking modest helpings, not appear ing over-eager. A strict sequence is observed and all coexistence of dishes which the sequence separates, fish and meat, cheese and dessert, is ex cluded: for example, before the dessert is served, everything left on the table, even the sal t-cellar, is removed, and the c ru mbs are swept up. This extension of rigorous rules into everyday life ( the bourgeois male shaves and dresses first thing every morning, and not j ust to 'go out' ) , refusing the division between home and the exterior, the quotidian and the extra quotidian, is not explained solely by the presence of strangers-servants and guests-in the familiar fam ily world. It is the expression o(a habitus of order, restraint and propriety which may not be abdicated. The rela tion to food-the primary need and pleasure-is only one dimension of the bourgeois relation to the social world. The opposition between the im mediate and the deferred, the easy and the difficult, substance ( o r function ) and form, which is exposed i n a particularly striking fashion in bourgeois ways of eating, is the basis of all aestheticization of practice and every aesthetic. Through all the forms and formalisms imposed on the immediate appetite, what is demanded-an d inculcated-is not only a disposition to discipline food consumption by a conventional structur ing which is also a gentle, indirect, invisible censorship ( quite different from enforced privations ) and which is an element in an art of l iving ( correct eating, for example, is a way of paying homage to one's hosts and to the mistress of the house, a tribu te to her care and effort ) . It is also a whole relationship to animal nature, to p ri mary needs and the pop ulace who mdulge them without restraint; i t is a way of denying the meanmg and 'pn mary function of consumption , which are essen tially common, by making the meal a social ceremony, an affirmation of ethical tone and aesthetic refinement. The manner of presenting and consuming the food the organization of the meal and setting of the places, strictly : dlfferen tlated accordmg to the sequence of dishes and arranged to please the eye, the presentation of the dishes, considered as much in terms of shape and colour ( like works of art) as of their consumable substance, the etiquette governing pos tu re and gesture, ways of serving oneself and others, of using the different utensils, the seating p lan, strictly but dis c reetly hierarchical, the censorship of all bodily manifestatio ns of the act or pleasure of eating ( such as noise or haste ) , the very refinement of the th ings consumed, with quality more important than quantity-th is whole commitme nt to stylization tends to shift the emphasis from sub s tance and fu nction to form and manner, and so to deny the crudely ma tenal real tty of .the act of eating and of the things consu med, or, which amounts to the same thing, the basely material vulgarity of those who i n d u lg e in the i m mediate satisfac tions of food and drink 29
The Habitus and the Space of Life-Styles /
1 97
The main findings of an extremely detailed survey of the art of entertaining ( C.S. XLI I I ) are brought together in a synoptic table ( see table 1 9 ) which confirms and extends these arguments. It can be seen first that, in the working class, the world of reciprocal invitations, spontaneous or organized, is restricted to the family and the world of familiars who can be treated as 'one of the fam ily', peo le 'you feel at home with', whereas 'acquaintances', 'connections', in the sense of professional or business connections who are useful in one's work, appear in the middle classes but are essentially a fea ture of the dominant class. One sign of this informality is that working class invitations tend to be for coffee, dessert or an aperitif ( whereas, at the other end of the social space, invitations are more often fo r tea, lunch or dinner, or to go out to a restaurant ) . If working-class people prefer to limit their spontaneous invitations to the offer of a drink or coffee, this is be cause there can be no 'half-measures' in giving a meal, no 'quick and easy solutions' ( as recommended by the women's weeklies ) to save time and ef fort, such as a buffet or a single course. 30 This refusal to skimp ( the main thing is to make sure that the guests have enough to eat and that the food 'goes down well', secondarily that they are not bored) is even more clearly seen when the composition of the meals is analysed. For manual workers, a real meal is a meal with nothing left out, from the aperitif through to the dessert ( whereas the other classes are often willing to 'simplify' by omitting the hors d'oeuvre, the salad or the dessert. 3 1 Because substance takes priority over form, i f anything has to be 'simplified' i t can only be in the order of form, etiquette, which is seen as inessential, purely symbolic. No matter that the tableware is ordinary, so long as the food is 'extra-ordinary': this is a commonplace underlined by many ritual remarks. No matter that the guests are not seated as etiquette dictates, nor dressed for the occasion. No matter that the children are pre sent at a meal which is in no way a ritual-so long as they do not chip into the conversation, which is adults' business. Since informality is the order of the day, there is no reason not to keep an eye on the television, to break into song at the end of the meal or even organize games; here too, since the function is clearly recogn i zed We re here to have fun'-fun will be had, using every available means ( drinks, games, funny st ories etc. ) . And the primacy of substance over form, the refusal of the denial implied in for mality, is again expressed in the content of the goods exchanged on arrival: flowers, which are seen as gratuitous, as art, art for art's sake ( there are jokes to the effect that 'you can' t eat them' ) are discarded in favour of earthly foods, wines or desserts, presents that 'always go down well' and which can be unpretentiously offered and accepted in the name of a realistic view of the costs of the meal and a willingness to share in them.
p
-'
'
Given the basic opposition between form and substance, one could re-generate each of the oppositions between the two antagonistic ap p roaches to the treatment of food and the ac t of eating. In one case, food is claimed as a material reali ty, a nourish ing substance which sustains the body and gives strength ( hence the emphasis on heavy, fatty, strong foods, of which the paradigm is pork-fatty and salty-the an ti thesis of
1 98
The Habitus and the Space of Life-Styles /
/ The Economy of Practices
Table 1 9
Variations i n entertaining, by class fraction
Table 1 9
( % ) , 1 978.' Clerical,
( continued )
junior
Executives, industrialists,
Manual workers
execs.
professions
close family
51.7
34.7
background music
close friends
20.9 2.8 1 .9
35.9
32.5 33.2
3.4 3.1
8.3 4.2
singing after meal
41.2
33.1 8.4
30.2
2.6
coffee
49.2
48.4
dessert
23.7 5 1 .3
24. 7
38.2 15.1
67.8
70.2
aperi tif
52.8
a meal
23.9
46.3 3 1 .9
40.0
Variations in ways of entertaining Spontaneous i n v i tations reserved for:
children's friends colleagues/associates close famil y colleagues/associates
1 8. 9
I n v i te fai rly or very often for:
d i n ner Make spontaneous invitations for:
enough to eat
1 0. 1 33.6
guests not bored
33.4
5.9 28.4 46.6
9.4 26.0
25.3 7 1 .6
26. 1
40.7 49.7 46.3 56.5 5 5.9
61.5 5 7. 3 60. 0
1 5.9 70.9
30. 6
31.3 63 . 1 35.0
46.0
38. 4
26.0
Prefer to offer guests: buffet or single dish
1 9. 4
a ful l meal
7 7. 2
When
entertai n i ng,
use
( reg
4 7. 9
70.9
and
often ) : silverware crystal glasses china crockery ordinary glasses earthenware crockery
27.8 29.3 39.6 84.8 60. 6
5 5.4 54.8
Like their guests to dress: elegantly
1 0.8
casually
79. 7
58.5
Seating-prefer: to i n d icate guest's place
29.7
guests to choose places
65. 7
to separate couples
22.8 26.0
not to separate couples Children welcome ( avg. m i n . age i n
46.8 50.6
years) : at meal
6.5 1 0.9 1 2 .0
7.5 1 1 .9 1 2.2
8.8 1 2. 9 12.1
flowers
4 1 .8
dessert
24. 6 1 8. 6
56.3 1 6.6 1 6.9
68.3
at end of evening i n conversation Guests bring:
WIl1C
industrial ists,
Manual workers
execs.
professions
48. 1
56.6 4.7 55.3 59.7
5 7. 7
14.4 64.9 66.4
t o keep an eye o n TV organizing games
Executives,
4.2 45.3 50.9
Source: C.S. XLI I I ( 1978 ) . a. This table i s read as follows:
5 1 .7 % o f man ual workers restrict their spontane 20.9% to close friends etc . ; 34.7 % of clerical restrict such i n v i tations to their close family, 35.9%
ous invitations to their close family, workers and junior executives
t o close friends etc. For each question t h e total of t h e percentages may b e greater or less than
1 00,
since for each question the respondents could choose several answers
or none. Iralic figures i n dicate the strongest tendency in each row.
39.2
Most important thing in spontaneous Il1 VI tatIOns: successful cooking
Variations i n ways of entertaining
Clerical, junior
When entertain i ng, like:
I n v i te in advance:
1 99
9.8 14.0
fish-light, lean and bland ) ; in the other, the priority given to form ( the shape of the body, for example) and social form, formality, puts the pur suit of strength and substance in the background and identifies true free dom with the elective asceticism of a self-imposed rule; And it could be shown that two antagonistic world views, two worlds, two representa tions of h uman excellence are contained in this matrix . Substance--Dr matter-is what is substantial, not only 'filling' but also real, as opposed to all appearances, all the fine words and empty gestures that 'butter no parsnips' and are, as the phrase goes, purely symbolic; reality, as against sham, imitation, window-dressing; the l ittle eating-house with its mar ble-topped tables and paper napkins where you get an honest square meal and aren' t 'paying for the wallpaper' as in fancy restaurants; being, as against seeming, nature and the natural, simplicity (pot-luck, ' take it as it comes', 'no standing on ceremony' ) , as against embarrassment, mincing and posturing, airs and graces, which are always suspected of being a substitute for substance, i.e., for sincerity, for feel ing, for what is felt and proved in actions; it is the free-speech and l anguage of the heart which make the true 'nice guy', blunt, straightforward, unbending, honest, genuine, 'straight down the l ine' and 'straight as a die', as opposed to everything that is pure form, done only for form's sake; it is freedom and the refusal of complications, as opposed to respect for all the forms and formalities spontaneously perceived as instruments of distinction and power. On these moralities, these world views, there is no neutral view point; what for some is shameless and slovenly, for others is straightfor ward, unpreten tious; familiarity is for some the most absolute form of recognition, the abdication of all distance, a trusting openness, a relation of equal to equal; for others, who shun familiarity, it is an unseemly liberty.
200
/ The Economy of Practices
The popular realism which inclines working people to reduce practices to the reality of their function, to do what they do, and be what they are ( ,That's the way I am' ) , without 'kidding themselves' ( 'That's the v.:� it is' ) , and the practical materialism which inclines them to censor the expression of feel ings or to divert emotion i nto violence or oaths, are the near-perfect anti thesis of the aesthetic disavowal which, by a sort of essen tial hypocrisy ( seen, for example, in the opposition between por nography and eroticism ) masks the in terest in function by the primacy given to form, so that what people do, they do as if they were not do1l1g it. T H E V l S l BLE A N D TH E l N V l S l B L E But food-which the working classes place on the side of being and substance, whereas the bourgeoisie, refus. ing the distinction between inside and outside or 'at home' and 'for others', the quotidian and the extra-quo tidian, in troduces into it the cate gories of form and appearance-is i tself related to clothing as inside to outside, the domestic to the public, being to seeming. And the inversion of the places of food and clothing in the contrast between the spending patterns of the working classes, who give priority to being, and the mid dle classes, where the concern for 'seeming' arises, is the sign of a reversal of the whole world \'iew. The working classes make a realistic or, one might say, functionalist use of clothing. Looking fo r substance and fu nc tion rather than forn1, they seek 'value for money' and choose what will
The Habitus and the Space of Life-Styles /
201
'last'. Ignoring the bourgeois concern to introduce formality and formal dress into the domestic world, the place for freedom-an apron and slip pers ( for women ) , bare chest or a vest ( for men )-they scarcely mark the distinction between top clothes, visible, intended to be seen, and under clothes, invisible or hidden-unlike the middle classes, who have a de gree of anxiety about external appearances, both sartorial and cosmetic, at least outside and at work ( to which middle-class women more often have access ) . Thus, despite the limits of the data available, one finds in men's cloth ing ( which is much more socially marked, at the level of what can be grasped by statistics on purchases, than women's clothing) the equiva lent of the major oppositions found in food consumption. In the first di mension of the space, the division again runs between the office workers and the manual workers and is marked particularly by the opposition be tween grey or white overalls and blue dungarees or boiler-suits, between town shoes and the more relaxed moccasins, kickers or sneakers ( not to mention dressing-gowns, which clerical workers buy 3 . 5 times more often than manual workers ) . The increased quantity and quality of all purchases of men's clothing is summed up in the opposition between the suit, the prerogative of the senior executive, and the blue overall, the dis tinctive mark of the farmer and industrial worker ( i t is virtually un known in other groups, excep t craftsmen ) ; or between the overcoat, always much rarer among men than women, but much more frequent among senior executives than the other classes, and the fur-lined jacket or lumber jacket, mainly worn by agricultural and industrial workers. In between are the j unior executives, who now scarcely ever wear working clothes but fairly often buy suits. Among women, who, in all categories ( except farmers and farm la bourers ) , spend more than men ( especially in the j unior and senior exec utive, professional and other high-income categories ), the number of purchases increases as one moves up the social hierarchy; the difference is greatest for suits and costumes--expensive garments-and smaller for dresses and especially skirts and jackets. The top-coat, which is increas ingly frequent among women at h igher social levels, is opposed to the 'all-purpose' raincoat, in the same way as overcoat and lumber jacket are opposed for men. The use of the smock and the apron, which in the working classes is virtually the housewife's uniform, increases as one moves down the hierarchy ( i n contrast to the dressing-gown, which is virtually unknown among peasants and industrial workers ) . Every year, on average, manual workers buy more handkerchiefs, vests and underpants, and about as many socks, sweat shirts, sweaters etc. as the other classes, but fewer pyjamas ( like dressing-gowns, a typically bourgeois gar ment) and shirts. Among women, the class differences in underwear pur chases, which are clearly marked as regards price, are less strong as regards number ( and are even inverted for slips, nightdresses, stockings, tights and
202
The Habitus and the Space of Life-Styles /
/ The Economy of Practices
handkerchiefs) . By contrast, among both men and women, purchases of top clothes increase in number and value as one moves up the social hierarchy. The transverse oppositions are harder to determine because the survey on household living conditions, which would show variations by five catego ries, makes only very rough divisions by item. However, expenditure on clothing ( almost entirely devoted to top clothes) varies strongly between the fractions of the dominant class, rising steadily from teachers, who de vote least to this item in both absolute and relative terms ( 1 , 5 2 3 francs per annum, or 3 . 7 percent ) , through the industrial and commercial employers (4.5 percent ) , senior executives ( 5 . 7 percent ) and engineers ( 6 . 1 percent ) t o the members o f the professions (4,361 francs o r 7 .6 percent ) . These dif ferc;nces in the value placed on these means of self-presentation ( shoe con sumption varies like that of clothes) can be traced back to the generative formulae which retranslate the necessities and facilities characteristic of a position and a condition into a particular life-style, determining the value and importance accorded to social 'connections'-smallest, it seems, among teachers, who are close in this respect to the petite bourgeoisie, and greatest in the ptofessions or the bourgeoisie of big business, which is not isolated in the statistics-as an opportunity to accumulate social capital. But in order to characterize completely the specific form which the basic principles of each life-style take in this particular area, one would need to have close descriptions of the quality of the objects in question, cloth ( e.g., the English associate tweeds with the 'country gentleman') , colour, cut, en abling one to grasp the taxonomies used and the conscious or unconscious expressive intentions ( ,young' or 'classical', 'Sporty' or 'smart' etc. ) . There is, however, every reason to think that clothing and hairstyles become 'younger' as one moves away from the dominant pole, more and more 'seri ous' ( i.e., dark, severe, classical ) as one moves towards it.3 2 The younger one is socially, that is, younger in biological age, and the closer, within the space of the fractions, to the dominated pole or to the new sectors of occu pational space, the greater the affinities with all the new forms of dress ( unisex garments of 'junior fashion', jeans, sweat shirts and so forth) which are defined by a refusal of the constraints and conventions o f 'dressing up'.
The interest the different classes have in self-presentation, the attention they devote to it, their awareness of the profits it gives and the invest ment of time, effort, sacrifice and care which they actually put into it are proportionate to the chances of material or symbolic profit they can rea sonably expect from it ( see table 20) . More precisely, they depend on the existence of a labour market in which physical appearance may be val orized in the performance of the j ob i tself or in professional relations; and on the differential chances of access to this market and the sectors of this market in which beauty and deportment most strongly contribute to occupational value. A first indication of this correspondence between the propensity to cosmetic investments and the chances of profit may be seen in the gap, for all forms of beauty care, between those who work and those who do not ( which must also vary according to the nature of the job and the work environmen t ) . It can be understood in terms of this
203
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o - o '<::t' o V\ \,Q 0 '<:j"' V\ (",(,) \.O '<::t' 1"'-- "' _
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.g '"
P-. ::l u u o > ..0
I"- rtl '7' rtl IF\ OO OO C\ '<::t' V""\ '<:j"' \.O '<::t' I'--- '<::t' O\
v-\ v-\ 0 v-\ v-\ v-\ v-\ v-\
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v-\ v-\ 0 tr\ v-\ v-\ or\ v-\
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K. � < 15
-5
O N
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rable 20
( co n t i n ued ) Posi tive responses Positive responses
\spect of body,
(%)
by occupation of head of respondent's household Clerical,
Farm
·eauty or beauty care
worker
Manual
j u n ior exec.
Executive,
(%)
by aeti vi ty of
�
respondent
� '"
Does
industrialist,
not
p rofessions
work
Works
69. 6
raffinee
1 2.0
69.8 1 5 .6
62.8 22.9
"hinks husband prefers
57.6 25.0
68.8
1 6.8
6 1 .6 22.3
6.5
65.0 8.1
5 1 .4 15.1
58.5 35.4
5 9. 2 33.5
"hinks it is better to be: beautiful
52.2
rich
39. 1
'hinks i t is better to be: beau t i ful
50.8 1 6. 1 61.9
27.5
60. 6
1 0.6
54.1 1 2 .3
5 9. 5 32.7
58.7 33.9
9.8
14.0
83. 7
83.3
1 7. 5
1 7.4
76.8
75.8
1 5.7 80.2
1 4.4 80.3
53.3
5 1 .9
62.3
67.8
52.1
63.6
1 9.8 8.3
28.8
23.3
drugs
2 3.9 4.3 2.2
1 6. 9
nothing
69. 6
14.0 3.6 60.6
23.9 1 0.6 3.8 68.3
23.1 1 l .8 3.6 66.4
l ucky 'hinks i t is normal to
� "\:I
�
;::>..
65.2
raffinee
;:, "
.... .
loman ro be: natural
m 8
�
Xi auld rather look: natural
N a -k
3
se make-up to look Junger a lose weight, uses: diet sporr, exercise
4.6 71 . 7
Approves of plastic sur-
3.0 66. 1
5 0.0
5 0.0
56.4
52.0
5 1 .3
53.4
9.8
1 6. 9
36.6
43.2
23.2
32.0
1 2.0
29.6
45.0
54. 7
30. 1
44.8
or rarely ' Spends more than half
48.9
35.6
2 1 .2
1 7. 3
35.1
22.9
an hour on grooming
12.3
45.6
48.9
45.3
42. 1
48.2
4.3
1 5.9
25.9
27.8
2 1 .0
22. 1
6.5
8. 1
1 6.9
20.8
9.8
1 3.5
1 5.7
28. 1
gery to look younger Bath or shower at least once a day Puts on make-up every day Puts on make-up never
Uses make-up to feel good Hairdresser at least once a forrnight
34.8
with soap
35.4
2 0. 1
25.7
with make-up remover ete. Source: C.S. XLIV
47.8
59.4
( 1976 ) .
a. I talic figu res indicate the strongest tendency or tendencies in each row.
86.0
91.4
�
"" .... . ....
1:::
Cleanses face every ight:
� '"
67.5
78.8
.. ;:,
�
S'" � ..
�
� r--
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206
/ The Economy 0/ Practices
logic why working-class women, who are less likely to have a job and m uch less likely to enter one of the occupations which most strictly de mand conformity to the dominant norms of beauty, are less aware than all others of the 'market' value of beauty and much less inclined to invest time and effort, sacrifices and money in cultivating their bodies. It is quite different with the women of the petite bourgeoisie, espe . Cially the new petit� bourgeoisie, in the occupations involving presenta tion and representatIOn, which o ften impose a uniform ( tenue) intended, among other things, to abolish all traces of heterodox taste, and which always demand what is called tenue, in the sense of 'dignity of conduct and correctness of manners', implying, according to the dictionary, 'a re fusal to give way to vulgarity or facility'. ( In the specialized 'charm schools' which train hostesses, the working-class girls who select them selves on the basis of 'natural' beauty undergo a radical transformation in their way of walking, sitting, laughing, smiling, talking, dressing, mak109-Up etc. ) Women of the petite bourgeoisie who have sufficient in ter ests in the market ! n wh !ch physical properties can function as capital to recognIze the do � 1Oan � Image of the body unconditionally without pos sessmg, at least 10 t�elr own eyes ( and no doubt objectively ) enough . body capital to obtam the h ighest profits, are, here too, at the site of greatest tension. Th � self-assurance given by the certain knowledge of one's own value, espeCially that of one's body or speech, is in fact very closely linked to the position occupied in social space ( and also, of course, to trajectory ) . . Th us, the proportlO � o f women who consider themselves below average 10 beauty, or who thm� they look older than they are, falls very rapidly as one moves up the �oClal hierarchy. Similarly, the ratings . women give themselves for the different parts of their bodies tend to rise with social position, and this despite the fact that the implicit demands rise too. It is not surprising that peti t-bourgeois women-who are almost as dissatis fied with their bodies as working-class women ( they are the ones who most often wish they looked different and who are most discontented with various parts of their bodies ) , while being more aware of the use fulness of beauty and more often recognizing the dominant ideal of physical excellence--devote such great investments, of self-denial and especially of time, to improving their appearance and are such uncon ditional believers in all forms of cosmetic voluntarism ( e.g. , plastic surgery ) . As for the women of the dominant class, they derive a double assur ance from their bodies. Believing, like petit-bourgeois women, in the value of beauty and the value of the effort to be beautiful, and so associat ing aesthetic value and moral value, they feel superior both in the intrin SIC, natural beauty of their bodies and in the art of self-embellishment and everything they call tenue, a moral and aesthetic virtue which defines 'nature' negatively as sloppiness. Beauty can thus be simultaneously a gift \
The Habitus and the Space 0/ Life-Styles /
207
of nature and a conquest of merit, as much opposed to the abdications of . vulgarity as to ugliness. Thus, the experience par excellence of the 'alienated body', embarrass meneE, and the opposite experience, ease, are clearly unequally probable for members of the petite bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie, who grant the same recognition to the same representation of the legitimate body and legitimate deportment, but are unequally able to achieve it. The chances of experiencing one's own body as a vessel of grace, a continuous miracle, are that much greater when bodily capacity is commensurate with recog nition; and, conversely, the probability of experiencing the body with unease, embarrassment, timidity grows with the disparity between the ideal body and the real body, the dream body and the 'looking-glass self' reflected in the reactions of others ( the same laws are also true of speech ) . The mere fact that the most sought-after bodily properties ( slimness, beauty ( etc . ) a.re not randomly distributed among the classes ( or example, the pro than the modal greater is ent measurem waist whose portion of women waist rises sharply as one moves down the social hierarchy ) is sufficient to exclude the possibility of treating the relationshi p which agents have with the social representa tion of their own body as a generic alienation , constitu tive of the 'body for others'. The 'alienated body' described by Same is a generic body, as is the 'alienation ' which befalls each body when it is per ceived and named, and therefore objectified by the gaze and the discourse of others.33 The phenomen ologists' 'body-for-o thers' is doubly a social product: it derives its distinctive properties from its social conditions of production ; and the social gaze is not a universal, abstract, objectifyin g power, like the Sartrian gaze, but a social power, whose efficacy is always pardy due to the fact that the receiver recognizes the categories of perception and apprecia tion it applies to him or her.
Although it is not a petit-bourgeois monopoly, the petit-bourgeois ex perience of the world starts out fro m timidity, the embarrassment of someone who is uneasy in his body and his language and who, instead of being 'as one body with them', observes them from outside, through other people's eyes, watching, checking, correcting himself, and who, by his desperate attempts to reappropriate an alienated being-for-others, ex poses himself to appropriation, giving himself away as much by hyper correction as by clumsiness. The timidity which, despite itself, realizes the objectified body, which lets itself be trapped in the destiny proposed by collective perception and statement ( n icknames etc. ) , is betrayed by a body that is subject to the representation of others even in its passive, unconscious reactions ( one feels oneself bl ushing ) . By contrast, ease, a sort of indifference to the objectifying gaze of others which neu tralizes its powers, presupposes the self-assurance which comes from the certainty of
208
/ The Economy of Practices
The Habitus and the Space of Life-Styles /
being able to objectify that objectification, appropriate that appropria tion, of being capable of imposing the norms of apperception of one's own body, in short, of commanding all the powers which, even when they reside in the body and apparently borrow its most specific weapons, such as 'presence' or charm, are essentially irreducible to it. This is the real meaning of the findings of the experiment by W. D. Dannenmaier and F. J. Thumin, in which the subjects, when asked to assess the height of familiar persons from memory, tended to overestimate most the height of those who had most authority or prestige in their eyes.3 \. t would seem that the logic whereby the 'great' are perceived as physically greater than they are applies very generally, and that authority of what ever sort contains a power of seduction which it would be naive to re duce to the effect of self-in terested servility. That is why political con testation has always made use of caricature, a distortion of the bodily image intended to break the charm and hold ,:!p to ridicule one of the _ principles of the effect of authority i mposition. '\ Charm and charisma in fact designate the power, which certain people have, to impose their own self-image as the objective and collective image of their body and being; to persuade others, as in love or faith, to abdicate their generic power of objectification and delegate it to the per son who should be its object, who thereby becomes an absolute subject, without an exterior ( being his own Other), fully j ustified in existing, le gitimated. The charismatic leader manages to be for the group what he is for himself, instead of being for himself, like those dominated in the sym bolic struggle, what he is for others. He 'makes' the opinion which makes him; he constitutes himself as an absolute by a manipulation of symbolic power which is constitutive of h is power since it enables him to produce and i mpose h is own objectification.
t
The Universes of Stylistic Possibles
Th us, the spaces defined by preferences in food, clothing or cosmetics are organized according to the same fundamental structure, that of the social space determined by volume and composition of capital. Fully to con struct the space of life-styles within which cultural practices are defined, one would first have to establish, for each class and class fraction, that is, for each of the configurations of capital, the generative formula of the habitus which retranslates the necessities and facilities characteristic of that class of ( relatively) homogeneous conditions of existence into a par ticular life-style. One would then have to determine how the dispositions of the habitus are specified, for each of the major areas of practice, by im plementing one of the stylistic possibles offered by each field ( the field of sport, or music, or food, decoration, politics, language etc. ) . By superim posing these homologous spaces one would obtain a rigorous representa tion of the space of life-styles, making it possible to characterize each of
209
the distinctive features ( e.g., wearing a cap or playing the piano) in the two respects in which it is objectively defined, that is, on the one hand by reference to the set of features constituting the area in question ( e.g., the system of hairstyles ) , and on the other hand by reference to the set of features constituting a particular life-style ( e.g., the working-class life style ) , within which its social significance is determined. For example, the universe of sporting activities and entertainments presents itself to each new entrant as a set of ready-made choices, objec tively instituted possibles, traditions, rules, values, equipment, symbols, which receive their social significance fro m the system they constitute and which derive a proportion of their properties, at each moment, from history. A sport such as rugby presents an initial ambiguity. In England, at least, it is still played in the elite 'public schools', whereas in France it has become the characteristic sport of the working and middle classes of the regions south of the Loire ( while preserving some 'academic' bastions such as the Racing Club or the Paris Universite Club ) This ambiguity can only be un derstood if one bears in mind the history of the process which, as in the 'elite schools' of nineteenth-century England, leads to the transmutation of popular games into elite sports, associated with an aristocratic ethic and world view ( ,fair play', 'will to win' etc . ) , entailing a radical change in meaning and function entirely analogous to what happens to popular dances when they enter the complex forms of 'serious' music; and the less well-known history of the p rocess of popularization, akin to the diffusion of classical or 'folk' music on LPs, which, in a second phase, transforms elite sport into mass sport, a spectacle as much as a practice. .
The distributional properties which are conferred on the different practices when they are evaluated by agents possessing a practical knowl edge of their distribu tion among agents who are themselves distributed into ranked classes, or, in other words, of the probability, for the different classes, of practising them, do indeed owe much to past patterns of dis tribution, because of the effects of hysteresis. The 'aristocratic' image of sportS like tennis, riding or golf can persist beyond a-relative-transfor mation of the material conditions of access, whereas pitanque (a form of bowls ) , doubly stigmatized by its popular and southern origins and con nections, has a distributional significance very similar to that of Ricard or other strong drinks and all the cheap, strong foods which are supposed to give strength. But distributional properties are not the only ones conferred on goods by the agents' perception of them . Because agents apprehend objects through the schemes of perception and appreciation of their habitus, it would be naive to suppose that all practitioners of the same sport ( or any other practice) confer the same meaning on thei r practice or even,
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I Started, but all the same ]"'e put � inches on my shoulders, } inches on my chesr and I VI inches on my ums, and all th)t in juSt three months. It's kyond my ....ildest hopes. My muscles ;Ire several inches biMer and my strength has doubled, ] feel like a new man. My parents and friends used to make fun of me, but no"" my father getS me ro take off my shin and sho.... visitors ....hu I've achieved. thanks ro you.' Prospectus xlliptllrr HII",,,illt
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sporting praClicc is linked to $0 many variables-how long 'go, and ho...., the sport was learnt, how orten it is pl.yed, the socially q"�lifd. conditions (place, time, (acilities, «[uipment), ho.... it is played {]>OIition in • tnm, Style el(,)-that most of the .vailable sntisric.1 dan "'" �ry difficult ro interpret. Thi, is especially (rue of highly dispersed pn<. '1Ift, luch as phlfl<jUC, ....hich may k played every w"",knd, on a prepa=l . ....tlh regular parmers, Of improvised on holiday to amust: rhe chil· "C\'kly kttp-fil nerci$('$, gymn:lStia, ....hich may � 'impk ( SOc� ski at Other limes and off the beaten track? [n (aCl, il is rare for 'ion, l homogeneilY of rhe practitioncrs to k $0 great th.! the popub. � deti. � by the samc activity do not function :IS fields in which the I"'ar, .. n"lon of the IcgirimliC pnctice is at s,ake. ConAiCls o\"er the Iegir. .� a.y of do.ng it, or over the resources for doing it (budget .Jloca. . p "'lit , "I �nt, grounds etC.) almost alW1ltys retranslate soci.1 differences "Ioclltiu�'� logic of the field. Thus sportS which .re undergoing 'demay (aU$( 10 coexiSt (generally in sqnnre spaces or times) t 'Port III r � 'ui>.popului0f)5 ....hkh correspond to differen, ages of the C2$C of tennis, til< memkrs of privaoe dubs. lons.sunding Tht moning o( a
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. eaking, Chat rhq> art pl1lc!ising rhe same practice. II can easily I sp t "flc f...n thaC the different cJ� do not agree on rhe profits eXp«ted bC ft, be thq> sp«ific physical profits, such as effects on the cxlernal elegance or visible muscl�, and on the internal body, (roI'i e slimness, th or �laxation; or elltrinsic profits, such as the social �lation· like spOrt may facilicale, or possible economic and social advantagc1. a j/I!pS hOugh there are CUC$ in which the dominant function of the prac· t i pfllctically never emitled to �nably clearly design ated, onc s t"e ISc that rhe different d� Cllpect che same rhing from Ihc same For examp e, gymnastics may k asked-this is the popular de· c isfied by body·building-to produce a strong body, �fing the l11an sa h 1l signs of its strengt , or a healthy body-this is the bourgeois de elf(d satisfied by 'keep-fit' ellercises Of 'slimnastics'--or. with (he 'new I11lfl tics', a 'likmed' body-this is the demand chll1lCleristic of Jf:fI mcn in the new ffllctions of the bourgeoisie and petite boufgcoisie," merhodical analysis of the variations in the function and meaning confrrred on the different sporting activities will enable one to escape from absrnct, (ormal 'typologies' based
Strength and Silhouette
'The President's rennis lesson, Puis. July 1978. Like a gro....ing number of prople in France, President V:lltry Giscatd d'Estaing is in· terested in tennis, To improve his style. he now takes regular nrly· morning lessons in a club on the otJt$kirrs of Paris, ....here OIlr ph0tographer surprised him.'
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. ""n 2C$thete o( to k sensitive to the his body:' Karl The Paris fuhion Insr thiny minutes " : trim. HIS bedroom, ;h"h rumed into a home gymnuium. contains all sorts o( .ppaNtU!; exercise bicycle. wall bars. ;I etc machine. a massage machine . Back from his holidays in �onl' Tropez (where he did ' " ming), he u� ,his C<juipment to keep t ; the wa)' he ....a" ' '. . . , ..' " ' free to ,hooK � i : : Ltt ,\1,,'-- : ,: . ber 1971),
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pn(lilionel'$ who are more Ihan ever a!llched to s!riC! $undards or ,'_ Lacostc shirl. whilc shons or skin. Sp«ill shoes) Ind all thlt this Irc oppo$C'd in evcry �p«t to the new pr1C1ilioners in municipal holidly dubs who
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In appeal 10 the 'Icchninl' definition. This. f1l from e$Caping Ihe /icld and its struggles. is most ofren the work of those ....ho. eal·educllion feachers, Ire re uired to ensure the imposition and inculcation of the schemes 0 perccption and action which, in ganize Ihe pnClices, Ind who arc inclined to present the produce IS grounded in rCl$(ln or nlture.
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to variations in the COSts. both C(:onomic and cuhural
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which is one asp«t of this.
The tel2(ionship between lile diffen:nt Spot'fS and Ige is mon: II is only defincd-l"hrough the IOrenSifY of the physical effort fhe disposition tOW1llds (his dem:and. which is a dimension of dass in (he relationShip bet....een a sport and a clus. The most importint erly of the 'popular' sportS is thlt [hey afe tacitly associated ....ith . ... hich is spontaneously and impliCily credited ....ith a sort or cencc. upresscd. inter alia, in the expending of excess phySical energy-:tnd Ire abandoned very early (generally on enrry infO adult Ii symbolized by marriase). By contnst. the common fcature 0( the ' grois' sport�. mainly pursued for their he:alth.ml;ntainlng funcrions their social profits. is thaI their 'retirement age' is much later, more so the more prestigiolls rhey :Ire (e.g., golf).
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.oz"'� ",. Cll violence and 11'1 immediate usc of 'nllunl' physinl (jualities etc.), hu affinities with [he most typicaJly popular disposi. (S!rcn ' cult of manliness and the taste for a fiSht, toughness In 'con(act' e tlO S' 'sranee to tilCdness .nd pain. and sense 0( solidarity ('the mates') ('the third half) and so forth. This docs nO! prevent members nt fractions of the dominant class (or some intellectuals, who t domina "wllsly or uncon$Ci�usly e�ptCU (heir values) f,?m making �n acsthe· . investment '" [he gJOlC and even someltmes playing II. The thical t u of lOughnC"SS and the cult of male values, rometimcs mingled with P" il tl�ticism of violence and man·[o-man combll, bring the deep disposi. of fit3[-«grcc priClilioncrs to {he level of discou["$C. 1be larrer. being 1I1t inclined to verbalize and rheotize, find themselves relegated by the mlnl�rill discourse: (thll of fniners. [cam managers and some journalisu) of docile. submissive. brute force ('gende giam', elC.). 'OiOrking. !O tilt dU$ STrength in its approved form (sclf·ucrificc. 'team spirit' Ind SO forth). But the ariSllxraric reinrcrpretation which tradilionalJy hingcJ on the ·he· roic' vinues associated with Ihe three'luuter game encounters its limits in In.: l�llity of modern rugby. which. undef the combined effeCis of modern· >ltd Ilctics and enining. a change in (he social fC(ruitment of the players idet audience, gives priolifY to the 'forwlfd game'. ....hich is incteas· '"81y discuiiSCd in mcrlphors of the meanest industrial labour ('lIlIcking In.:,oal·face·) or tn:nch ....arfare (the infantrym�n ....ho 'du[ifully' runs �Iong in.o e!>emy fire).)(;
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of their public, which redoubln their commonness. but also the and virrun demanded, strength, endurance, violence, 'sacrifice' . and submission to collective d i!.Cipline-so conmry to bourgeoiS diStance'---and the exaltation of com peti tion. Regular sporting aCtivity varics sttongly by social dan. ranging from percenl for farm workers, 10.1 peKei'll for manual wOtkcrs and 10.6 (or clcrical workcrs to 24 perccnt (or junior cx«utivcs and
members of 'he professions. Similu vuillions are found in I cational kvd. whereas the difference bc.w«n .he )eXCS incrcasn. ;is where. as one movcs down the social hierarchy.j, The varia.ions arc
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0 belote (and, tvtn morc so, manilk), bridgt is a game pla)'cd [ higher levels of the $OCial hierarchy, mOSl frequently lImong memo ben of Ihe p,ofmions (IFOP. 1948). Similarly, among srudenlS of the " a ndes &oln, bridge, and esp«ialJy inrerlSive playing, wilh lournamems. . Y'lnn ,'ery strongly by social origin Chm (or rhe claim [0 pIa)' it) Soe(ms bt hnktd ,han bridgo: to social tradirions and 10 ,he pursuit of ,he :Kcu· mullllOn of social C1Ipilll. This would nplain why il increuc1 is one up ,he social hierJrchy, but Chiefly IO'wards the area or social space �ncd by mong cultural capinl (C.S. VII), more 1!
:;O'n
The simple
fact thlt, al differem times. allxir wirh a change in mean· :8 and function, the same practices have h«n able 10 allr:Kt ariSlocl"nic
ulu dcvottt$, or, at the same lime. 10 )SSume different meanings a n,f1r °r tns, for the different groups. should warn us against the rempta· lIOn o ry g r ll'1 to e�plain the class distribution of SpoTlS purely in terms of Ihe' a[u e' of the various activities. Even if the logic of distinction is suf licle r to aC [ Count fOf the basic opposition Ixtw�n popullf and bour· tA>IS p orts, the fact remains thai the relationships bclw�n Ihe different &rou I� a and lhe different praclices cannor Ix fully undersrood unless one c a]!� COU ?t of Ihe obi«tive potenri�lities of the different institurion· dl!<:O p ac ! ICC'S, fhar is, the social uses whICh [hese pncrices encounge. UI 0 '. exclude bolh by Iheir intrinsic logic and hy heir positional di$f ullonal value. We can hypothesize is a gcneral law thai a SPOH
Ind
� �
: ��
t
118
I "J'hI Ii(onomy oJ i'Famm
��� : �:������
i$ more likely to be adopted by a social class if it does "o, class's rebtion to the body at its d«peSt and most :::� th� body 5Ch�ma, which is the depository of a whol�: world Yih, whok philosophy of the pet10n and the body. Thus a sport is in a sense predisposed for bourgeois use when of the body it �uires in no way offends the sense of the high the person, which rules out, for example, flinging the rough and tumbl� of 'fo"md-�me' rugby or the petitions of athktics. Ever concerned to impose the of his own authority, his dignity or his distinCtion, �reats his body as an end, makes his body a sign of its own C:lSt. IS thus foregtounded, and the most typically bourgeois can be reisie whiCh �: �� �' from ilS dccision·making, organizational (in a word. , , ,I; ties. is contained in the opposition between the horse-riding, boxing or flying aristocrats and bourpis of the Belle Epoque mockm skiing, sailing or gliding executive. And JUSt as a history of the sporring praCtices of the dominant . would no doubt shed light on the evolution of its ethical d;'pO';� the bourgeois conception of the human ideal and in panicuJar of re
��;,��
�t:'.:;.��
:
;
';;;;,::��:..!
(iJ.... ,Ilat th�
1 M navJ/uJ """ UK
Jj1'''' ")
""j'-"'J'''' I � , �
g�ntl�, invisible Nucation by e�ercise and diC! which is ap n�w moralil)' of health is tending 10 take the place of lhe , e to the proPn t �Ihiol pedagogy of the past in shaping bodies and minds. Be (.(phCl re different principles of division which struClur� rh� dominant (h ,",us( entirely indo/ndenr-such as {he oppositions betwccn arc n�ver clJ� omically richest and the culrufllily rich�5t. between inheritors O (lit (( n '(nus, old and young (or seniors and juniors)-Ihe pr:lctices J'1dffcrc:nt fractions !Cnd to be: dimibured.. from the dominant the i dominated fractions, in accordance: with a series of oppo {r)CIlOtU to th� hich arc themselves partially reducibk to each other: the opposi l n ween the most e�pcnsive and smanest sportS (golf, sailing, S'1 0 lion or the mOSt expensive and smanest ways of doing them ridIng tcnnis) ; (r.ambJing, hiking. jogging, cy· (pnVl , clubs) and the Cheapest spons or th� Cheapest ways of doing the smarr spons ccring) ', dIng. mount1lin . . . tennis on munICIpal courts or In h0"1day amps ) ; thC opposmon I�.�n the 'manly' sports. which rna)' dem�nd a high , energy input (hunnng. fishing. the 'contact' sportS, cJay.p(g�n shooting), and �he 'mtlO,-erted' sports. emphasizmg self-explorauon an? self.expresslon (yoga. dancing, 'physical expression'! Ot the 'cybernc:t�c' sportS (flymg, uiling). mJuiring a high cultural Input and a relall"ely low �n�rgy
�
JI1fd o
:';
�
Inpul
.
Thus. the differences which separate the teachers, the profcsslonals and t� employers are, as it were, summed up in the three activities which, though relatively r.ltC-Ilbout 10 perccnt--tven in the fractions they dis unguish. appear as the diStinctiv� feature of ellCh of them. because they I� much more f�uent there. at C<:Juivale:nt a�, than in the others (C.S V and VII. secondary anal)'sis). The aristocratic asceticism of the t�htrs finds an exemplary expression in mountaineering, which. even IIIOfc th�n rambling. with its reserved paths (on� thinks of Heidegger) Of cycle·touring, with its Romanes'lue churches. offers for minimum eco. IIOmlC COSU the maximum distinction. distance. height, spirilUal eI�Vl' hon. through the sense of Simultaneously mastering on�'s own body and :';�ture inaccessible: to the many.... The heahh-ori�ntc:d hedonism of 0( tOil and modern executives who have the mat�rial and cultural means �c� to Ihe most prestigious Ktivities. far from vulgar crowds, is �x In yaChting. open-sea swimming, cross.(oumry skiing or under· fr�ter (,shing: wher�as the employers expect the S
�
,
,
TIN Habi/1I1 and lIN Spaa of Lift-StyilS / 221
traditional sportS and :.til Ihe neew forms of (he ci:wi( sportS king, (rOSHountry skiinl!. and so on), or all [he new SporlS, ported from America by mcmbc:rs of Ihe new bour�i$ie
bourgeoisie. in particular by :.tll the prople working in f" hio
;:::': ,oKh,,",';
crs, photographers, modds. advenising agents. journalistS-who and market a new form of poor-man's elitism, close to thc: sion bur morc oSlcfll:.triously unconventional.
The true nature of this (ountcr.culture, which in fan rcacri vat� aU lrolditions of thc typically cultivated cults of thC' n3(ur:l.l' -' � >:: � authcmic. is more dearly revealed in Ihc equipment ." , one 0f new properly-rooms of thc advanced lifc-styk-thc FNAC Il'uil' shops), Boubourg, u NOIiIltI ObJtrvaItJl�, holiday
�:
I i
:
offers Ihc serious trekker: parbs, plus-fours, alllhmlir Jacquard in r,al She!land wool, gmllillt pullovers in pllrt nalliral wool,
' (rlippers jackets, English fishermen's pullovers,
U.s,
Army
Swedish lumberjack shins, farigue pants, U,S, work shoes, rangers , dian moccasins in supple leather, Irish work caps, caps, bush hus-not forgcuing rhe whistln, altimeters, guides, Nikons and orhel essential gadgetS w,thour I rhere can no narural return to nature, And how could one fail to recognize
namics of the dream of social wdght1cssnes:5 as the basis of all sporting anivities-fooHrekking, pony.rrekking, cycle·trekking,
bike trekking,
boat.trekking, canoeing,
archery, windsurfing,
'"_�
try skiing, sailing, hang.gliding, microlights etc.-whose common
ture is that rhey all demand a high investment of cuiturlll anivity itsclf. in preparing, maimaining and using Ihe espc<:ially, perhaps, in verbalizing the experiences, and
rhing of the same relation to Ihe luxury spons of the
execurives as symbolic possesis on 10 malerial possession art�
In Ihe opposilion between the classical sports and th
spons. twO contrllsting relarions
10
rhe social world are
;:����
clearly as they arc in literll!,), or Ihearrical taStes. On the one respc<:t for forms and for forms of respect, manifesre
I
priety and ritual and in unashame
I
and ,.,.>" order
I muke
or (osmelics since casual clothes and long hair-like the
camping·car. or folk and rock, in other ficlds-are challenges to
dard al rributes of bourgeois riruals, classically sryle
Ihe social 'world is perfecrly rdlccle
organized, signposu:d, cuhivate
' $ . ' $ I • I • I I I ' $ . I I I I I . $ I I I ' ,, S I I % ' %
�
New of ogue (2t2l -;rCiOg Resources phySI'til
�;tIlt
�.pccssion
tkq>ly ,mbued wilh lhe StJC ng of I:Mehe, where she liv�d ", hlS " (of!cn ,car1' l.anza del Vaslo art IS not IUSI 'He, ft of her' �" ut" h ,,'s u has malured ,or a I� e" In her head an.d hcart .., "me r our ,�m "�e 10 if I bt!�g he prcclOus arl, (1m,, u's 50 Ihar lh,s dan(� 25 much as Insplml by Hmdu bJ' mcd'KYlI Chnsmn ,magery,
��
Ix losl.' should �Ol The apploxhes 10 Ihe inner life
J�
m:tdc through Xllvilies Ihrough our ,ho: day's session, and are subS( qutnrl)' pursued in life; indeed, Ihe leireh for Inner unuy ;s lhe cenrrll lheme. Dance has Ihe placc of hon· OUI, ir folk, religious o. creallve
be
r'-., dllll1l," I�/T /lDditf
IJ,,-q�gh da�(t
� Or�omcn, dance is above all a way 'R(ncncc tl.�. fOlr around half of It..: 'flICtv> ",-ecs. e Ihis aCIlYuy " It» 10 .waken :I prim ary crOI;' r e,� ve . � n a primary aUI
� �.
y
MOfCQycr,
�rnl �i�n� e
_':' '" .pc"eflr....1
•• ,
nt�..,,_
'TIm', whe:n 1 fed 1 have a body. . . , I Ihink thaI dancing can give mc harmony with myself. . . .' 'A sC1lrh for my:w:Jf, discovering myself physie:llly, . . .' 'Scnutions running Ihrough my body . . . a way of lalking, you un 52y a 101:' 'It's a self·affirmalion. . . -' 'I fccl good when dancing. I become aWlre of myself. Once, 1 stopped for IWO yClr1; lhere ""lS somelhing mi$$· ing, . , . It's a need.'
Wheels
FDur girh, /wi) g"ll, a bird horJ(, a M«(J1Id·hanJ farl ami .. hi!t
We Slarre
c
free flight
A hang.glider ;s 1 uil $IIClche
,..�
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. ..
�
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444/
I tK
1:..01111"') '" /'rar/lm
from the slag.helps and cliffs of the Nord to the Jura and the Alp', nOt forgwing thc Puy.
To think there art peopk who don't know that you only have to leave lhe clauSlrophobic world of Ihe Mitro 2t Potte de S3int·Ooud to find yourseJf 00 the rOUle of Na· tional Trail No. I!!! Y� indeed!!! Sounds like the blurred breakf:Ul. lime lCcoum of 1 dram! And yel it's true: al the end of the Avenue de Veruill�, Ihert's the start of)6� kiJomel�, no less. of footpaths,
WITHOUT ENTUING A SINGLE TOWN!
Groovy fOO(ball
Airernative soccer is on Ihe up-and. up. Spontaneity is the word: no clubs, no championships, often no grounds. The traditional team coJ. ours give way 10 mulTi-(oloured Itt shirts, even Indian shirtS. Not many shom '0 Ix �n, bUI lOIS of jea!l$, Heavy boors with studs and [acC$ all over them art rare in the C�lrtme, and when they do app"-r 1 cro...·d gathers 10 gawk al them befort the match. Sneakers and dcsc.-rl boolS art more like iI, The number of players is "ery variable and rartly reacho:1 ,he sym· bolic ekven, The playel1 artn'l even aJway5 men and I can rtmember some marches in the winter mud of lhe Pltn:: de Scelulr in which each learn included Ihree or four girls whO$C high heels made their mark on a few ankles and $hins, and nOI juS! rheir opponents'! Tl>ey were epic muggll."$, with IWO or Ihrec intervab, during which rhe le:ul OUI of brealh would have a quick joint or r'NO. A lypi('1[ Kore would be �2-29,
' fH ,'"","UJ
Age is prelly "uiabk, tOo cllcgoriC$ like kiddi.-s, junio' minors. IO:niors, velerans, "'n ' of eleven or twelve are mosquitOl."$ you ,,,"',
�
�'d;.::.:
,.
Nuurally, the ruks art Ii inlerprtled. Besides, time thert'S no refertt. rule only applies in <'1SCS violation (for example, when a player hangs uound the �l IhroughmJl the pm com.-s his way). Thert touch·lines, so the "'ider than lhey'rt I taken. benulO: thcy'rt a The te:l.ms expand during as more pla)'ell arti.-e. Competili"encss isn't enlirely ruled OUI. bur we're a long from ,he fanaticism of 'pro' [n fa" the people who come to kick the ball aren't OUt ,h," . win It all COStS, given thaI thert no pri�C$. it's rarely the same the length of the match is tic, .nd th� s<:oring is very mate (1'0 within" And when one t I , STronger. you balance it out by 'transferring' pJayel1 between lhe tv-'o teams. . , It's a far cry from the glm.-smanship they 'co.ch you most of the time 11 s<:hool Whar's ,he ans"-,,? Perhaps 'f comes from g)mes m:lSrel1 like one who gave each [ there would be no competitive (a !tue SlOty-the te:l.cher in t;on even got into trouble r"",, observing the usua.! rule). Ne�1 ""cekend, if )'o , of gangs of h,iry loutsu ( a bill. don't he:iituc, iust can join in. They won'l co.! you-
'PlPro. :'�':; :;':�"
_
E"nc" from c..1'*t., tin '. .nd
lib,."...
AIt.,nllO
.:�;���
.. "" Jj"". VJ �.,. �'.I'" I --.
""
ing Ktivirics �nd entertainments rh�t of the s""n , rthc SYslem consumers 10 , .... 21 a ,iven mom�nt for the potenti-a" , - a" y �cn'lSC ,�. - oglC , eren ccs SOCIO oRcr t" fram is predisposed to exprtSs all Ihe d-' the ppositions berwttn the sexcs, bc:tween C��ent 1l thu moment'' o . - to f0" ow IhC ' y ha\e ,'o L . ween class (nChOnS. The agents on- " nrrt f aod "'" r, unwllllllg �. the ,.nte?"on ove tlk� to rder o io ilus hab . Sd of.their eorm""ndlll, "JSogs k'ln' p ncllccs, to find an .aCllvlly. which IS en· r(11t 10 the , jIljllan . ls. The same 's Irue III a ' artu 0f and. wilh it, kindred
lI'u5,
'
.
'
_
Thul. a study of the toy mukCl undertaken along th.-se !in.-s would first h�vt 10 cSllblish the sp«ific struCturing principl.-s of .' field of �rod�c"on ,n "'hlch n in other such fields, there coexist firms d,ffermg m age (from 1tn.1I ..'o�kshop' producing wooden 10YS to [,rg<: modern co,:"poni.es), in "<:Ilume (tumo"er, number of employees) and, perhaps .-speCIally, ,n Ihe �x· Itnt to which production is guided by psychologin[ as ",·dl ,.s .tcchnologl: flo[ 'C$(trch, Secondly. on ,he basis of an analysis of ,he condmons m :",hlCh toy purchl$C'i are made, Ind in pmicu[ar of the degrtt (prob,?[y vuymg '''th eliS$) to whieh they IIC linked 10 traditional. seasonal. glf, e�changn (Otl1stma� Ne... Ye:l.r), one could Iry {Q determine the meaning and func· tlOti " hich ,he different classes consciously or unconsciously confer on IOYS ' >tcording to their own schemes of perception and apprccinion and, more . �'SO:ly, accorcimg to cheir educational Slracegics. (� laller m �urn h1\'e be $«n In terms of their whole sysrem of reprodumOll StralCl?IC$: ,�e �nslty 10 confer an edu<1l1i1 onal function on tOr� no doubt nses w'�h dcgt� to which the reproduction of social pos,uon depends e�duSl\'dy tflonsrn'S$ion of cultural npinl, i.e.. with the ...·eighl o� cultura[ capital , ,he arosel IIrU(cure.) [t would also be nccesnry {Q eumlne he... the 10g1( of the compoelilion bet....ttn �rms of different ryf'C$. having different acg � lhs and 'herefort inclined ro
:
Sl �dcd
U4
I
/.:.(O/wny OJ
//)(
I'rae/lm
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and sImple �hapes among the i'l!elIeClual fncrions, w::h�O " ' ; r hy all forms of 10glc,1 games which arc suppostd 10 �:i ,i>c' In,elilgence; and Ihe cuhunl
�"·ho��I�"'«I- .:i:',
from fhe in!enslfJCc' smisflCS on consumption [hey produce rw ,h.c pUfposcs of markellng �"c::Jls, for exampk. fhat IlKcy classify "0111 "I h"Olblls In ,erms of 'heir d,Slance from the Ameriun ideal of :lnd _ . mineral water, JU5t as for breakfast or a light lunch washed do.. n o'hers adjudicate Wfm is 'in' in or 'he latest 'must' in phil
(.om
In
� �
and
psychNnalys,s. in wilh and SCrvices art'".ls. c�
almC(!
politi(s
in
eggs
wilh
e
number ofempiriol an� I t fo!!ows !lla{ il is only by increasing of the relations re!"OIti\"ely �utonomous fields productiOll a particular class of products ana Ihe m"Ollkel of consumers WhiC
the
betwccn
of
u�mbJc. �nd sometimn function �s fields (without d to be del("rminro by thdr posilioo i n Ihe field the I «onomie Ihat one (:In m.!!y ("$Cape from the absrnCiion of wluch on!)' recognize a consumer reduced ro purchasing po"'"Cf
which
of
soci"Oll
�
his �!(�uccd to his income) ana a product chanctcrized, cqually 1bSt
by a t«hnica! function presumed to be C<Jua! (or a!!; only in thts"" it possible !O �tablish a genuine scientific theory of the economy
of�
Itees.
l11e abstracl notion of the 'Iabour market" rC<juircs a I would dcsctibc bo,h the invarian.s and the \"'c' ma,,"a] and symbolic advantages " g'ves and on ,he taruy · labour IlO... er supph.-d or of the 9uallfi.callons wfllch guanotCC it. ,n
owner
In
among
tnc
" " "
y�••_'
HUH
.... "r.••. •J
,
..
ividual or job supplier can wilh�tand !nd r '0 ...hich the t�e de cc of ,hc job, "OI srnke elC. ) �nd �. on hd ;...al of labour po...er (refusal po...cr is able I� refu$( t� i?b
'1 ...hich 'he possessor of labour
col ,�lt�1 10for cnmplc. on
•
li )tl '"(
....
ly rcsponslb,l. his 9ualificarions, age and famI . ),_ _ : � � . : ,' : ","b: ::: _ _ _
� 'C� '= � ' ." ,C� "' ;' � kd =,� '� o� ,,! '� 'm '�.�� � � �d� I "� {
"'
tll the
�
_
4
of the social rcbtionship in which Ihey are produced lnd d it is futile to �k, in the intrinsic nalure of the tropes cat· 'ArtS of RhNoric', properur.; which, like all propertir.; of ed. alogu exisl only in and through the relationship. in and Ihrough istl I is aI wa)'s on1 y an a1terallon ' 0f usage, d A figurc of words or stye in distinctive mark which may conSist the absence of 'a n uentl) ,�d (O the intention of distinguishing oneself from a would·be n ' he a is held to be 'excessi\'e' (the vulgarity of 'pretension') or anI' !1l � , nCtlon Ihat p(511 "or" 0" .. ( or 'outmoded' leads 10 Ihe double neglllons wh'ICh pmpi,J . ·.. many .putious encounters bet.....«n (he 0PPOSlle exrremr.; of dcrl.e SO Il lS well known thaI all dominant ar.;1heli' S set a h' h vaue JOClal sp)Cc h V rlUr.; of sobriety, simplicity «onomy of mClns, which arc.as Of' t e ---.....l to first-degree poverty and simplicity as to the pomposity muCh OPI"'� ". . , """ucat'"_ affectanon of the 'haIf-" . . . necessary to r.;tablLsh that the 9o'ork of art IS the objtCufi. arcdy h iS S<: . . . -" exp1"((II1y pre· of dlSllnclion and thaI "It IS I hercuy -Iationship f, (1IlIon 0 ,� . . . _.J comcxts. As soon � 10 bear such a relationship In [h� most vaflcu d "-- om� 1rl � � . self·conscious. in the work of Alberti, for example, as . Gombrich demonStrales, it is defined by a negation, 2 fe�us21, a renunCl�' 1I0n. whICh is the "eN ·/ buis of th� rcfinem�m in which a dlst2nce IS ' I sedue· 'Cil marked from Ihe simple pleasur� of the senses and the supern lions of gold 1nd ornamentS lhu ensnlrc the vulgu taste of the Philis1I1lCS: 'In Ihe suiCl hierlrchic sociely of the sixtccmh 2nd seventccnth renrulies the conlr.lSt betwccn the "vulg2r"' and the "noble" becomes one of Ihe princip21 preoccupations of the critics. . , . Their belief was Ihif (cmin forms or mod�s �rc "really" vulgar. benuse the)' please Ihe low, while Others are inherently noble. be<:ause only a d�veloped taste on 1ppl1xiate them.'l The aim of distinction. expr�ssing the specific interest of 'he artis,s, who are incfClSingly inclined to daim excJusiv� control O\�r form it the risk of dis2ppoinling their diems' 'bad laslc·. is far from Incompallble with thc funClions rtlIlI)' conf�r�d on works of art by th ose "ho commiuion Ihem or conse,,'e Ih�m in (h�if coll«tionJ: thesc 'cui· IUtal C!"e1lllo ns which ....e usually rcgard pu�ly aeslh�ric:lllly, as variants of 1 pall icular slyl�, werc perceived by (h�ir contemporarir.;·, as Norberl II:I$ reminds us. referrlllg {o th� sociely of rhe Grand Sit"d�, as 'the '&hly dlfferen tialed exp�ion of certain social qualities:) means {hal. like art as defined by Yeats ('An is a social act o f a lIary man'), every appropriation of a wOlk of art which is (he embedi· t of a relation of diSlinction is itself a social �Iation and, comr.lry 10 ,, lIu s on of cultunl communism. it is a relation of distinction. Those lIIore �he of symbolicall)' appropriating cullurll good.s a� "It . han ....d],ng (0 belicve Ihal ir is only Ihrough thelf economIC dl' . Ion Ihal works of art, and culrurll goods in gen�ral, acquire nrily. !�,t li ke to see symbolic approprialion-the onl)' legilimate SOrt. in VI�"'_ a kind of mystical participalion in a common good of
jC'llfi�lo'tl.Ons (uncl ni:�he 'n((lon. dl«�rence.
Tbe D;I)namics of tbe FiefJs
r!.
un
.
l
Of
"pO
ue
thus as many fields of p�fercncc�
, possIbles. E.3ch of these: worlds-dnnks (mlneraJ warers, Wines �nd apat The�e
:IS
,here m: fields of s,ylilllf
�
dfs) or 11,lIomobiies, newspapers or holiday resorts, design or furn of hOllS( or garden, not to mention political progl':lmmes--providcs _ small number of dis!inn;v( features which. funnioning as a system III differenccs, dil1crerHiaJ deviations, allow ,he most funda mental social ell (renets to bc expressed almost as completely as thro ugh the most COlt\! plex and refined c�prcS5ive systems available In [he legitimate arts; andit" on be s«n ,hat the {oral field of {h� fields offers well.n igh in(xh.... ible pOssibilities for the pursuit of dislinnion. If, among all these fi.c:Jds of ponibb, none is more obviously posed to express social differenccs than ,he world of luxury g �ore. pl�ticul arly: euhur.ll .goods.. this is beca se the rclationship / . . � . . . nnenon IS objtCuvcly w lhm II, and IS rtlIClivated. mrent� ' or not, in each Jet of consumption, through the instruments f _ nomic lnd cullUr.l1 appropriation which il l1':<juires. It is ; ter of Ihe affirmuions of difference which writers and anisls 2 morc insistently as the autonomy of the fidd of cultur a:l � comr.; more pronounced.' bUI llso of the intemion immanent in objects. One could point 10 Ihe socially ehugtd � ; i:�f:.: guage and. (or example, the syslems o( ethical and ar.;lhetie ited, rCldy for quasi·automatic reactivation, in pairs of adjectivr.;; or the very logic of liter.lry language, whose whole in an karl, i.e., 1 distlnce from simple, common WlYS i lorical figures. as modificalions of ordinary usagt, are in a
Inscrlbcci l
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228 / Tht /:'ranamy at Praclim
which each pel'$()n has � shue and which everyone h:u entirely, :as a doxinl appropri1don, excluding privilege 1nd monopoly, unlike rial lIppropriarion, which asserts rea.1 exclusivity and therefore ", . ,� 'Jr I contemplate a painting by Poussin or mid a Platonic dialog ue doesn'r imply rhat I am depriving anyone and that we ntt"d 10 pro d� many POUlSins and Platos :u there are possible beholders or readers' losophy teacher, age W), 1ltc love of an is conceived as 1 secularized form of the 'intd l love of God', a love, according ro Spinou, that is 'the greater as men enjoy it: There is no doubt that the works of an inherited from dae past and deposited in museums and private collections ind, �hem, all objcclifi(d cuhur:al npitlll, the prcx!uct of history accumul� In the form �f �ks, allicles" docum��ls, Instruments, which are dae lrace or muefrahuflon of thrones or critiques of these theories probJca. , . uics Of conceptu�l �ystems, p�nt themselves as �n autonomous wodd . , , whICh, although It IS the product of hIStorical actIOn, h:u its own I.", transcending individual wills, and remains irreducible to what each as or even the whole population of agents Cln appropriate (i.e., [0 inrern., Jized cuhural capilal), JUSt as the languast objectified in dictionaries ... grllmmars remains irreducible to the languast really appropriated, that it; to what is internalized by each speaker or even the whole popular_ However, COntrary to theories of Ihe autonomy of rhe world of ideas . of'objcctive knowledge without a knowing subject' and 'subjectless pnh eesses' (in which Louis i\hhusser and Kir! Popper concur), it has to be pointed OUt {hat objectified cuhur.il npital only exists and subsists . and through the strugglC$ of which the fields of cultural production (the artistic field, the scientific field etc.) and, beyond them, the ficld of tile social classes, are the site, Struggles in which the agents wield streng*t and obtain profils proportionate ro their mastery of this objectified apt' ral, in other words, their internalized npitaJ.' Bec1use the appropriation of cultur;al products presupposes dispGlio tions and compcteQces which are nor distributed uni"ersally (alt� they have the lppear;ance of innateness), these products are subject to � elusive appropriation, material or symbolic, and, funCtioning as culf capital (obj«fified or internllized), they yield a profit in disuncnO" proportionate ro the rarifY of the means to appropriate fhello and a profit in legitimacy, the profit which consistS in fact of feeling justified in being whar i t is one is), be.' This is the dil'ference between the legitimate r a product of dominition predisposed ro express or legitimate rion, and the cultute of lirrlc-dil'ferenriated or undifferentiated . in which access to {he means of appropriation of the cullut1l fairly equally distributed, so thar culture is fairly equally masterc
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Dynamics IJj /1N Fit/ds I 229
appropriation of . c sy bolic profit arising from material or symbolic . ..I .. "' " . (aft is measured by the distinctive value whIch the work denves r and �eman�s he disposi{i�n and c�mpcrence w�ich i t I, ",o h� rariry of � . sub· rmines ItS class d,slflbullon. Cultural oblCCtS, w>!h rhelr .. eI, ,.. . . . dele ,,I L "", 0f t he mUla· '" predisposed to mark the Stages and ucgrees . Cfllrchy. 1)( hl · · ro VaIery culture, accord 109 gress which defines the enlerpnse of tOr)' Pd Ltkc 'auistian's progress towards the heavenly Jerusalem', it l'tba�� '��i. m the 'illitel1le' to the 'litet1te', via the 'n.on.lit�rale' and , or the 'common relder' (ltrUII�)-leavlng astde the 'b,bll� Jr1.ds blet1le , , 0 the truly cultivated reader (/iJtll�). The mysteries of cuhure h,)c p -;:Ir catechumens, their initiates, theit hoi)' men, that 'discrete ha,'(' t from ordinary monaIs by I·�·lm·ltable nuanc� 0f man�er . . lie' set apart . 10 the man himself, whIch d d unIt'" by ''' Iuality, somethIng whICh lies . . an use u, to h·1m bUt f hIS happiness, which may be IndI/('(r"y very . .�. him a sou, any more rhan hIS courtesy, h·IS courage ...hICh will never" win . ' - -, nC$$. or hIS gouu . Hence the incessant revisions, reinterpretal10ns and rcdlscove:les rform on rhelr cano�IC�1 ...h,eh the learned of all religions of the book � IS leXlS: SInce the levels of 'reading' designate hlet:lrchles .of r�aders, U necessary and sufficient to change the hiet:lrchy of readmgs In order to
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o,'wurn the hierllrchy of readers. It follows from what has been Sllid thar a sImple upward displacement of the srructure of rhe clalS distribution of lin asset or practice (i.e., a vir· tually identical increase in the proportion of possessors in each class) �lIS the e!feCl of diminishing its raflty and distinCtive value and . threarenrng the dIStinction of the older possessors. Intellectuals and arllSlS are rhus dIvided between their interesr in cultural proselytism, that IS, winning a market by widening their audience, which inclines them t� fa�our �pu· b"l1tion, and con(Crn for cultural distinction, the only obJCCl!ve bam of tiltrr ramy; and their relarionship to everything concerned with Ihe 'de· mOCram.)tlon of culture' is marked by a deep ambivalence which may be manifcsto:rl in a dual discOUBe on rhe relations bet""een the institutions of cultur al dIffusion and the public.
�htll ked a survcy how thq thought ""orks of lift in musc:umS might pr�llttd, and wherher tltt 'supply levd' ought 10 be m�de marc ��belt�r r!S'bk by prOViding t«hninl, historinl or a(Sthcdc expllnation� �m. as
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of (he tncb domonant cl2S$-2nd esp«ially {he reachers and lift sp«lairSt5fat. "ou. to nope from the contlldi(tion by dissociating ",ha( is dairablc th � osO trs from ",hat is I.: I IS (hll " IS their uclusive privilege; so;r is as it should be for pea. them, I.C., people made for II. But thcy cannot fail to be 5 llsltive ta t he fact (� be that thcy, Iht habitues, ar being consulted first aboul what t.hoUld done, becau$(' this recognizes (heir privdege of granting part of {O othcrs. In ",cepting educational improvements, i. ;s Ihti� Un", th e onc (hat they alone can cnjoy, lIUSfcre, ascetic lind noble,
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TIN D)·'IIJmio 0/ tIN Fitlth / 231
....hid, they gr:llciously �n to Olho:rs. (An analysis of the dc/mC'$ w hiCl! eurred when cheap paperbacks came onto the market-:l i of I1rity for the author, a threar of vulgarization (or the I tho: SC' ambivalence). IkC1UK the distinerive power of cuhur11 posKssions or c.ni" .... p artifaCT, a qualificuion, a film cuhur�lends 10 dI"Cline in the absolute number of people able 10 appropriate diSlincrion would wither away if the ficid of produerion goods, itself governed by the dialI"Ctic of pretension and i nm endlessly supply new goods or new ways of using the
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The Correspondence between Goods Production stt Prodllction and Ta
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In Ihe cuhural market---llnd no doubt elsewhefC'-the �; f ' ply and demand is ndther the simple eKeer of production : " i on consumption nor the eKccl of a conscious endl'1vour to scrve � lumers' needs, but the resuh of the objective oreheslr:lltion of ,.., . tively independent logics. that of (he fields of produerion and that field of consumption. There is a fairly close homology betwcc:n '''''' cializcd kids of production in which products are developed and fields (the field of Ihe social dasscs or the fidd of the dominant I whiCh tastcs are determined. This means that the produers d'''lopoi the competitive struggles of which (:Ich of the ficlds of produCfion sile, and which are the §Duree of tnc inccs»nt changing of thCS( UCIS, meet, withoul having expressly to seck it, the demand shaped in the ob)t'Cfively or subjI"Clively antagonistic relations the different classes or class fr1ctions over malerial or goods or, more e�actly. in the compelitive struggles between ,heK goods, which are the §Duree of Ihe changing of tasteS, This rive orchcstr1tion of supply and demand is ihe reason why the �O$I" icd l15tes find the condilions for their rl'1lizuion in the Unl''(11C possibles which each of rhe fields of production offers them, whik lalter find the conditions for their conStitution and functioning In different tastes which provide a (short- or long-term) market for different products.' . . . The field of produerion, which clearly could not funerton If I� I not count on already e�isting tastes, more or less sltong consume more or less clearly defined goods, enables tute 10 be offering iI, at each moment, rhe universe: of cuhunl goods . . stylistic possibles from which it can select the system of SlyhSIlC constiruling a life-slyle. I I is always forgollCn that the um,'erst u"s offered by each field of produCiion tends in fKI 10 limit the of the forms of experience (acslhetic, Clhical, political Cle. ) Ihal
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ssible at any given moment,? It follows from this, among , ""11 ,d) . pO Ihal the distinction recognized in all dominant classcs and s . " ;'( r thm, , " StalC 0, tile t" " . , erem 'orms dcpcnd·109 on tile properttes takes d·. ., ,lI lhelr I� s of 'class" thaI are effectively available. In (he caK of the n(Il,·e Sl"n ,... cultunl goods at least. the relaTIon JIll! . n of L_ . ""Iween suppIy and u lo r r ad c � kes a particular form: the supply always eKens an effect of sym l avanl-garde picture, a polirical s,(lon. A cuitur11 product---ln boitC m a newspaper-is l constituted laSIC, a taSte which has been rOa (he vague scmi-cxistence of half- ormula(ed or unfo.'mulated I _ � n{C_ ImpliCIt or even unconscious deSlfe, to the full realllY of Ihe product, by a process of objecliflcalion which. in present cir MIS ccs is almost always the work of profession'.!ls, It is con�luently ( u mst� �,,'i h the legitimizing, reinforcing capacity which objectificallon { ha'gcu . · o, Struccspcc,allr when, as IS the case no"', the ioglc posses , ses I)1 . al•• . . homologies assigns It to a pres�lglOUS g�up §D. that It f�n.cl1ons as ural l dIsposITIOns by glVtng them 1n authority which �uthOflZes and reinforces . . . 1 ' � 0 T � e�presslon. cu asIC, ,or liS pnt, a cIass,,IC1l1on (olicnl,'ely recogniz j1lCm conSUlUled by the conditionings associated wi�h a condilio� situ . Itt
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purehuer. [his is not [he raul[ of intentional d�ign but of 'h" ..... between IWO systems of di!Terenc�_ The func(ional and slruelU!'a1 homology which gUl!'anltts oreheslr.l(ion be(wttn (he logic of (he field of production and of the field of consumption lrises from the fan [hal all [he ''''.''' fields (haute coulure or painting. (hellle or lite!'a(ure) lend 10 erne
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histories. The endlCSii changes in fashion result from . UIOflOmOUS n bel"'een, on Ihe one han It'0'" ;..." u,·e nv'-h-[ratio � .. . . d . the ,OglC. 0f Ih_ e , ob ", . · Icrnal to the fidd of produnion. whIch are organIzed. III I� ld ln . . · k ed, through the oppoSlflons ;lrVg!; ( Ihe opposilion old/new. u.scl f 110 (or rear·guard/avant. [t!1"� j(rda(i\"dy) chelp and classical/praclical . , SI'" - d, as .III he opposilion old/young (very Importam 'In th·IS '"0:
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md newcomers, distinction and pretension, rear·guard and order and movement etc.-are mutually homologous (which [here are numerous invariants) and also homologous to the which structure Ihe licld of (he social classes (be(wttn dominated) lind (he ficld of [he dominant class (betwctn [he fr.Ktion and [he dominate
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Ihe supply side. [he field of production need only follow its own [hat of distincrion, which always leads it 10 be org�nized in ",,",... . with a s(ruClure analogous to Ihlt of Ihe symbolic systems wh'lCh I,I I duces by its funclioning and in ....hich t:Ich clement performs live funnion.
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THE LO(;IC OP HOMOlOGIF.5 Thus. the ca.sc of fashion, which Sttffi to justify a model which loolcs Inc: mOlor of changing styles in Ih� imenlional pursuil of distinction (the ·trickle.down is an almo�1 perfen example of Ihe meeting of tWO spaces and (WO
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10d', on Iho: Olher hand, the logic of [he struggles internal to. [he dominam class which, as we have seen, oppose the dommant ld I\o: � O:minated (!'anions. or, more pr«isel�, rhe establishe
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'ges social age is a function of proximiry (0 the pole of ' . - , lwttn Ihose who have (he SOCIa N"Kltlon--bc �erand dU!'alion m .Ihat r -. n/) . - (lICS associaled ....,[h accomplIshed aduhhood and those ....h0 ha�e r ptopC . I pronl'"rlics associated with the incompleteness of youlh. The rlhe SOCIa . ' . sh·Ion on,y .III the 'e'd 0f 'a poSitIon , .. who occupy l domlllam (Ou t u ne. . . ,. f d·ISCI'CIlon and unuo:r· ha,_e tO follow (hrough rhe negative strategIes 0 . . . 5Ialffl)CIlI (ha( are forced on them by Inc: aggressIve eompcnnon 0f Ihe !O find (hemselves direcdy alluned to Ihe demands of (.he old a bo�ISCOisie who are oriented towards the same refusal of �r:nphasls . homologous relation to (he audacities of rhe nc� bourgeo�sle; and. SImI' larly. (he nC"'comers to (he field. roung co� tuners or dcslgner.s e�d�v. ,
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o�nng to win accep[anee of (hel! subversIve Id�. art Ihe ob�lIve allies' of (he new fracrions and Ihe younger �ne!'allon of the domInant fra(lions of rhe bourgcoisie. for whom (he symbolic Kvolutions of which >'(Stnnemary and (QsrnClic outragn are (he par.tdigm, are the perfcc( vc- hick (or expressing the ambiguity of theil si(ualion as (he 'poor rela· tions' of the temporal powers, tilt rndY'lo-wear 're"olulion' ara$( when the dispositions of a
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In Ihe »me way, il would � e1$y to show how even ;n an age: of mnkel fdc:uch, to the risers and for ml
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t Boulevard theatre, which offers tried and rested shows foreign plays, revivals of boulevard 'classic$' etc.), wrinen to Ii mulae: and performed by con5C<:rated KtOrs, and which c,l.Iers to dle.aged, 'bourgeois' audience that is disposed to pay high po,,,,, opposed in every respen to experimental thc,l.Ire, w.hich anracn a 'intellectual' audience to rclati,'c:ly inexpensi"e shows that Rour and 1C1thelic conventions. This suucture of the &Id of producllon ates borh in reality, through the mechanisms which produce tions �tween the playwrightS or actors and their thearre, the their newspapers, and in people's minds, in the form of 1 gories shaping perception and appreciation which enable and evalualC playwrights. works. slyles and subjects. ThUs, pying opposed positions in the field of cultural produnion the plays in terms of the very ume opposilions which differences between them, but they will SCI the in opposite hierarchies. .0 Thus in 1973 Fran�oisc Dorin's play u Tourndnl (TIN ,., new which dramatizes a boulevard playwright's anempl 10 sun a. as an avant.garde p laywright, arouscd reaC!ions which vaned rn content according to the posilion of the publication in whICh peami. that is, according 10 how dislant the nille and his
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{he 'bourgeois' pole and consequently from Dorin's play. They from m unconditional approval to disdainful silence, via a neutral f fro .-c� l "n (oCcupie
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Moving from righl 10 lefl or from righr b�nk !O left b�nk, we snrl wid, L'A,mm: 'Cheeky Fr:In.;oise Dorin is goi ng 10 be In h(){ W�lel wllh our IDjJN-nlJJlti. ,\Ia,xifl inldli· 8en!5i� (the IWO {hings go to gether) 111e �ll!hor of Un ial, igoiilt sho,,", no rnpttt for the sol·
emn �, profound emprincss �nd vertiginous nullity whieh ch�r· �CfCfize so many SO<:Illed ·:lvanr· garde' thalria! productions, She ducs ro prof�ne wilh ucrikgious I�ugh rer Ihe nO!orious "incommuni· cability" which is Ihe �Iph:l �nd omeg� of the contemron,), Sl�g<'. And Ihis perve� rtll(litmary. who fI�tte!5 (he lowcst �ppc:tiles of (on· sumer socie!y. foIr from �cknowkdg. 109 lhe error of her w:ays �nd
....e;.ring her boulevard playwright's rcpulllion wi rh humiliry, has the impudence (0 prefer rhe jolliry of �cha Guul)', or li:ydau's bedroom farccs, ro the darkness visible of Margueri!e Duras or Arrabal. This is a crime for ....hich sh(' ....iIl nOI easily be forgiven, Esp«i�lIy since she commilS il wirh (I\«rfulness �nd g�iery. using all Ihe dreadful deviccs which make lasring succcsscs' (Gil.
Ixll Guilkminaud. L'Alirurt, 12 )�nu�I)' 19H). Silulltd �! the fringe of rhe inld· lenu�l fJ('ld, ar 3 point ....here he �I· rt2dy h:os '0 spnk of" as 3n ou rsider ('our inreillgentsia·). the L'Allrot't critic does nor mince his ...·ords (he (ails a ractio011)' a reac· ,ioo�ry) and doo:s nor hide his sml· tSics_ The rherorial effect of pUlling words into rhe opponenr's mouth, in conditions in which his diseou�. funCtioning irooic�lJy, (lob. jec.ivdy signilln the opposire of wh�t he means, prcsupposes and
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bri ngs into pl�y the of rhe field of criticism 'ionship of immcdiale '�",,, ....trh his radel'$hip based on ogy of posirion. From L'Allrot'� we mOve to � FIg."", In pl'rfe.::r humollY ....i!t. rhe aUlhor of Lt TDII"'a/ll_rhe... ., mony of orcheS!n!ro habl!us""h e Figl1T11 {ririe cannOI bUI e'periC'llct absolute delighl 2r a play ...·hiet. .. perfectly corresponds 10 hts c3r. flCS �f percepllon and appre(,atioll. hiS V1C... of !he Ihalre �nd his \'leW . of the ..·orld Ho..·.e '·er. lxing fOIIIII inro a high('r degftt of euphernia rion. he e�dudC! overdy poliri'll judgemenrs and limits h'msdf 10 .hI: langu3gc of aesr hetlcs and nbo tcs: 'How gntcful ...·e should Mme. Dorin for ·
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mnic. �o,' ent withour comniy inlo in rhe Jllhd41 Wlly aurhor who ....ields sallre ganu, who :I! all ' ' ; ;' d' asrounding vi rluosilY_ . Dorin kno,,", ••"h �m II! �boUI r arl. Ihe Jpringl lil1l �/a JilliallOll. rhe ing (orc(' of rhe mOl juS!C whal skill in raking things apJ S' whal irony in her dcliber�rt . rh' ,n I 5lcpping. what the she letS you s« hcr srrinss! Lt of cnjoymenr means
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diculous imposture. Mme. Fnn(O '�
il back inro � ....i,h n K bl'n ' au!!hlcr. _ _ . Hurry along j!t1lrhY for you�lvcs �nd I'm sure
� htl1rlily thar �o� � �II /.IlIghIhink how anguts hmg I '0 � !for ..,n for a ....riler ro ....onder if .,
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qUCS\v humour and inf'llrtI/JU opli.
sod on .
10·d him of i." Uao. Figa,.". 12 Jan. !ItS Gautier, U J'f'I L9m. '' one moves natu. lilt)' From Lt FigII''' s
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". . h b31ances "". I I0 L'Exprm, wh,c c-nJorsemcnr and distance, � 1U1,ning a di.Slincdy higher euphemlzmon: .Ir ollg�1
dt,4!tc of way succcss. . . . A w,uy to be a runa ,M 1/Ilusing play. A chanlCter. An Xlor made: for lhe parr: )e;.n Pi.!r . . With an ""faitinl virlliOlil} with t" IINu � ()Illy «(l1Ji()llally tJIItdon"
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remaric use of formuluiOlls Ihal are 3mbiguous even as regards rh(' op posirions involvcd: "Ir ought to be 3 run�W:ly succcss', '�sly cunning, � perfec. milSlery of the lric\es of the mdt·, 'Philippe h:os the ium rOle', all formul�e ....hich coul C<:jually Ix
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I2kcn pejontivc1y. And we even find, surf.acing Ihrough il$ deni�!, 1 hint of the orher tfUth ('Only mo rose pedants will probe too fIr . . .') or even of the plain lrulh. bur dou. bly neulralizro by ambiguiey and de. nial ('�nd not JUSt because i l is a class Iruth')_ U MOIIIit oIfers a perfecl example of ostentatiOUsly ncutnl discourse. evcn.h�ndcdly dismissing both sides. both Ihe overtly politic:ll discou� of L'Allrot't and the disei3infuJ si.
knee of Lt NDIIM O61tnt.ttllr: 'The simple, or simplistic. llgument is complic�rcd by 1 very subde "r....o. liet" srnKlun:, as i( then: ....en: twO • tlJ {,,"ni�g, a ",.ftrl ml1Jltry 4tIN plays overlapping. One by Fnn.;oise mrts 1/{IN {,,,J,, Fran�oise Dorin h., "'Iinen a pl3y on Ihe 'turning Dorin. a convenrional author, th(' points' in the Boulevard ....hich is. other invented by Philippe Roussel, ironICally, !he mos, rradirional of woo tries !O take "Ihe turning" to Boulevard plays. OnI, __ftdan" ....ards modem theatre. This concdl !milpro6t 1Mfar i"IO {IN ((JIII,asl !Jt. performs a circular movement. like 3 1_ I"", boomerang. Fl2n
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demonsmtion is emirel� disfOrtN In ambiguity by many by .he modd avant.garde author nuances lind academic chosen by Fr:an�oisc Dorin. Vanko (,insofar is " .', 'on be viet is an epigone of Marguerite . '), the assertion thai DUr;ls. a vaguely miliranl, belated is 'an important work', ' 0·... existentialis!. He is parodic in ,he nO[eouncls ontO an odious vinim and calions, underslalements finish� him off. To the extent double negation, nuances, that It rdlcclS the state of bourgeois lions and self.(orrections thar theatre and «veals its systems of de final Clmriliatio Oppo!ilorum, so fence, Lt T�"rnllnl can be regarded Jesuitical 'in fo.m and ,"�" . :IS an imporl"nl IWrk. Few plays let he would say, almost SC(ms to slip so much anxiety about an "ex without saying: 'Lt Icrnal" threat and fflU/'""1t it Wilh have said, SC(ms to me an work, in both form and so much UR((mJciclii fury' (!.ouis Dandrel, Lt M�, n J�nuary This is nO! 10 SlIy it nO( many people's tccth on ed�. I 1973), The ambiguilY which Robert 'pened to be silling next to an Kanter<; was already beginning 10 condilional supporter of the cultivale here reaches its peak. The avant.garde and th'OUghO"' argument is 'simple ()I' simplislic', ning I was aware of his : : take your pick; the phiy is splil in anger. However, ! by no : tWO, offering tWO works fOt Ihe elude Ihat Fran�oise Dorin i readet's choice, II 'violent' bUI 'lUu >0 pc�(Ory' crilique of Ihe bourgwisie often and a defence of non.political ,m contempoN.ry For anyone naive enough 10 lISk concludes-her whether the crilic is 'for Ot against', whelher he finds the play 'good or ,h, t bad', there are IWO answers: first, the thai is ; precisdy because ob$crvation by an 'objective infor master like mam' with II duty lowards Irulh i self u a guide at the that the avam.g:ardc author po. these tWO p"ths' (Jean t�yed is 'parodic in the extreme' Croix, 21 January 1973). and ,hal 'the audience sniggers' (but withoul our knowing where Although Ihe silence of U Obltr'l'attu, no doubt signifi(S the critic stands in relation to Ihis Ihing in itself, we can for� an audience, and Iherefore what the sniggering signifies), and then, afler approximate idea of what ·'" lion might have been by rc,;di" , a series of judgemems th.1 are held
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Marceau's pl:iy La f Felicien . , · 0f rC""" '11J/Jtre, or (he rev"w Philippe T..-sso n, hich w r or 0(_ C1mbtJ" wrolC for U V
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""'e . '1" �(le .... t pl� to these JOatry gal,,", (trot' ,0 /Jnd bUlinfflWfmlm in l [IIj 9{ of which a famous and o,-cd Kwr recites the la· ,10<' ",uc I "'illY I��I of an equally fa· horLOU' ' )thor in the mIddle of an, '"QUS au st�g<: ser, even a revolvmg It ,1.>1>0111 ('(ouled wtlh F0lon's mea· d ,. ,00 . , N0 ceremony ' our hum rtd SU nO "catharsis"' or " rC\'elation"' ovisation JUSI a ,LI C . srill kss impr . .. btcful of bour�ols CU1SIfle for Ptornachs Ihat ha"e SC(n II all be· re . . . The audience, like all bou· kVlld audiences in Paris, bursls out bughing, on cue. in the most ,'On· formi>! plac(S, as and when Ihls spirit of easy·going N.lionalism in· SP'fC$ Ihem, The connivance is per· ftcl lnd the acrors are all in on it. Thi, pia), could ha,'c been wri!!en !(n, I"emy, or thirty years �go' (M Pierrer, Lt NOlJnf Ob!ffl'aUU', Februlry 1%4. reviewing
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Felicicn Muceau's u. P'flJW par
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'FN.n,oise Dorin really knbWl /J Ihing Or IW(), She's a first·me ,ero i'"a{()I' and terribly wtll·brtti. Her To"",a'" is an excellent BQulev,,,d comedy, which runs mainly on bad faith and demagogy, The lady Wants 10 prove lhat avant.garde thealre is a dog's dinner. To do >0, she lakes a big btJg of Irick! and, needless to say. as soon as she pulls one out the au· dima rolls in the aisles and (1lis for more. Our author, u',,", W/JJ jUif wail' illg for thai, does it again, She gives us a )'oung trendy leftist playwright called Vankowin-get it?--ind putS him ,n various ridiculous, uncom fortable and lath" shady Sirullions, to show thaI this young gemieman is no more disinterested, no less bourgeois, than you lind I What ((}mmrm WIif, Mme. Dorin, what lu· ridi{), what holWI}.' You at leasl have ,he courage to stand by your opinions, and "ery healrhy, red· white·and·blue ones they are tOO' (Philippe Tesson, Lt Can/Jrd En rh/Jini, 17 March 1973 [italics in all foregoing <juolations �re mine) .
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11ughabie because they are nO! ullered in the appropriate place and before th( light audience, Instead, !hey become a 'mockery', a parody, es(ablish· g "'"!lh their audience Ihe immediale complicily of laughter, because have pel1uaded Iheir audience to reject (if 11 had ever accepted) the uPPOSllJOns of the parodied discourse. th s exemplary case deady shows, i( is the logic of !he homologies, ! YOIC�1 calculation, whtch causes works (0 be adjuSled to Ihe (xJXc tit'ons of their audience, The p2rtial objectifications in which imelle, tU:ls and anists indulge in the course of tbeir b3llies omit what is �ntl.1 . . by d . an aud·I' ·b· escn <0<, Ing as the conSCIOus pUrsUIi 0 f success Wllh . . h at '" ,. IS tn faC! Ihe result of rhe pre-eslablished humony be!Ween t",o s te tn s of &toi 3 tn(erests (which may coincide in Ihe JXrson of (he 'bour· ""liter) , or, more precisely, of rhe sllu([ural and functional ho IllOlog dU((iOY between a given writer's or artist's position in (he field of pron and the position of his audience 'n (he field of the classes and
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diSS fraClions. By refusing to rt':cognize any other ,he producer and his public (han cynical nlculation r pu r e i ness, writers and If!islS give themselves a convtnicm dniec Ihcmsclves as disintc�(ed. while c�posing Ihdr ad�rsaries
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more strongly required when fundamental values are involvcd,
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vE AffiNITIES This limiting C2SC forccs one 10 <;jucslion Ihe 2p £�lcTtccs of the dim:t eKecl of demlnd on supply or of supply or de· and ro consider in ;l new light all [he encounters belween the IfIJ�( ' goods produClion �n d the togic ?f taste. produCl on through of . klS, of approprralC, appropnated rh'"gs-ob)ecn, people, h the universe "h,e
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The m�, indisputable evidence of this immediaIC sense of social compati bllllles and incomp:llibilities is provided by das.5 and even class-fraction en, dogamy, which ;1 ensurc
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Tlsr� is rhe form par excellence of am'"jali. resentuions and pr:aCfices which are always mo adjusted e the produ(f to Ix [0 [he objective conditions of which they ar with �brx Ihu '[he petit bourgeois cannOI tr:anscend rhe limi mind' (others would have Slid �h� limi[s o( his �nd<"rslanding) . . thu hIs thought has the Slme IIm [ts as h,s condItion, [hat his in a sense doubly limits him, by [nc material limits whreh i[ set S pr:anice and the limits it sees [0 his (houghr and therefore his and which make him accept, and even love. Ihese limilsH We bener placed [0 under:mnd [he specific effen of [he 'raising ncss': making expJicil whal is given presupposcs and produces a sion of immediate aHachment [0 (he given so [hat the I probable rda[ionships may become dissociated from and amqr jali can thus collapse into tJdi"m jali, hatred
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Symbolic Struggles To �ape from the su�;enivist illusion, �hich reduces social space to . conJunnural space o( mter.lC!ions, that 1$, 1 ,;;"'"';""'" 1b�lra�t situltions/s it has been neccssary to cons[ruct social space obJecuve space, a strunure of objenive reluions which determines possible form of interactions and of thc representations rhe i
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can ha,·c of them. However, one must move Ixyond [his jcnivism, which, in 'trearing social facts as things', I
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scribes. Thc social positions which present places Juxtaposed in a static order of discre[c compartments. r aisins purely theorelical question of the Jimits betwCt':n Ihe , [hem. are also s[ralcgic emplacemenu, forrrcs.ses to � tured in a field of slruggles.
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eire mUJl be taken to avoid ,he obiec[ivis[ ill(]mallon (whkh is exp_ and remforced in a sparial diaSram ) [0 muk QU[ rcgions of rhis space lhal
aft defined once and for all in a single respect and delimited by dtllly drawn frol\li�rs. For cxample, as has bttn shown in [he case of induwial employers �nd a5 will subsequently be shown in thc exemplaly case of rllt aI n�w mIddle-class fraoions, a particularly indetermina[c zone in tha! 5H' ,ela[ive indererminancy represented by thc pcri[e bourgeoisie, each of tllt . classes of positions which the ordinary classifications of statis[ics Ie<jUIIT '" ro (Onstruo can itself fun{fion 15 a ICla[ively autonomous field. One onlJ' has [0 substitute morc Strictly defined occupational positions for the rclJ. rively al)$!r1C1 categories imposed by rhe nCCffiHICS of statis[ical ;; : : rion 11\ order ro Set': rhc emerg.:ncc of tM nClwork of compcriti"e I rr
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social space thaI h.s Ixen pUI forward here is not only "fh model of by lhe n"Olture of Ihe dan used (and usable) , particularly by the hll1l. analysis structu ral features such ical impossibili ty of including in the ' . f1 p power which certain individuals or groups have over fhe econ· as tht mOSt o( those innumerable associated hidden profits. If . omy. or even the ' 'y or ex· ,-' h are 0ften C"U to accept, Imp''ICII "'110 Cltrl)' our empirical researc whi�h reduces Ihe classes [0 simple �nked b�t non· phody, a rheol)' . 10�lc of tnc�t p.rK' lntagon�tic Sirala, thIS IS above. all �ause I�e v�1)' . [ice Itlds them 10 ignoft what IS obJectlvcly IIIscnlxd III every dlstrlbu· rlOn. /I distribution, in the sratisrical but aho thc political.economy has been won in sense. is Ihe balance·sheet, al a given moment, of whal pftvious battles alld can be invested in subsequent banles; it exprcs.ses a stare of the power rel"Oltion between the classes or. more precisely, of [he lUuggle for possession of rare goods and for Ihe specifically political power over the distribution or redistribution of profi[. Thus, [he opposition belwCt':n theories \\Ihich describe [he social world 11\ t� languase of s\r.Itification and those which speak Ihe language of the class struggle co�ponds to IWO ways of Stting the social world WhICh, Ihough difficult to reconcile in practice, arc i n no way mutually e�clU$ive as regards lheir principk. 'Empiricists' Sttm locked into [he for rnc,r. ltlving the laffer (or 'lheoriSIS', because descriptive or explanatory SUrveys, which can only manifest cbr.ses or class fractions in [he form of a PUnctual SCI of distributions of properties among individuals, always ar· nve after (OT before) the baltic and n«essanly pUI into parenlhacs thc
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of which Ihis distribution is (he proclUCl. When [he stati$lici�n l>rgers rhat atf the properties he handles, not only those he classifies and rn�Sures but also rhose he uses to classify and mcasure. arc weapons and
�r'��froinmrh.e struggle belwCt':n the classes, he is inclined �bstrac.t .each Its relations with !he others, not only from the opposItional . n s :t�l> whsch give properties their distillClive value, but also (rom Ihe to
t� ![?ns. of power and of Struggle for power which arc the very basis of
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d st ' nbulions. Like a photograph of a gamc of marbles or poker which the babncc sheet of assetS (marbles or chips) ar a given sra�, the TVey f�lCS a moment in a siruggle in which Ihe a�nu PUI back inlo
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play, ar every momenr, rhe capiral rhey have aC<Juimi in rhe srruggle, which may imply a power over rhe struggle I;·;;;;; . fore over the capital hdd by olhers The Strucrure of elm relations is what one obuins synchronic cross·section to fiK a (more or less steady ) "''' of" , Slruggles amons: the elmes. The relative wength which the ;0<1;;,;,; � can pUI 1010 lhls siruggle, or. in olher words. Ihe disuibuli n at moment of the differen l types of capi lal. defines Ihe Struclure of bUI, e<Jually, lhe Strength which the individuals command the slue of the slruggle over the definition of Ihe srake of Ihe The definition of the legi timue means and sukes of struggle IS In one of the Slakes of Ihe slru le, and Ihe relative efficacy of rhe me � conIrolling I�e ga.me (the different som of capital) is itsel f al st:ikUlsfJI therefore subj«t ro variations in .the COUI"$C of the game. Thus, . con�lantly been emphamed hete (If only by usc of quotalion marks) the notion of 'overall volume of capinl', which has to be conslructed ortk.r to account for cerl�in UptCIS of practice, nonetheless rema ins a orencal.artifact; as such, It could produce thoroughly dangerous effeclSther everythmg Ihat has 10 be sel ide order to construct il were forgottal, nOI leasl .Ihe fact Ihal the conve�ion rate �rween one sort of capital" , another. IS fough t over al aJ! limes and IS therefore sub�ct to endlal fluctuallons. �
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Dispositions are a�j�sled n�t only .1O a.class condition. presenting inel . as a set �f.poss,bdlTles and ImposSlblliud, bUI also co a rciationaJ!y " fined posl.UO�, a rank in the elm structure. They are therefore alwayt .. Jated: oh)ew.vdy at least, to Ihe disposilions associated with olhcr r:oslflons. ThiS means thaI. being 'adapted' 10 a particular class of condi Ilons of exIStence characlerized by a particular degrtt of distance from Cessi. ty, class 'm orali ties' and 'aestherics' are also necessarily situated WI. one anorher by the criterion of degree of banality or dlSl;ftOo r�spect non, and thar aJ! the 'choices' Ihey produce are aUlomalicaJ!y associaUIII wilh a distiner posilion and therefore endowed wilh a d ist ncti ,'e val_ This occurs even without any conscious intention of distinction or pli�it pursuit of difference. The genuindy inten tional s tegies IhrOur whICh mem�rs of a group seek 10 distinguish rhemseh'es from � . group Immedmciy below (or believed 10 be so), which they use as a JOl and to identify themselves with the group immedialely �bove (or bt Ikved to be so), which they Ihus recognize U Ihe possesrso of the kr" mate life-style, only ensure full efficacy, by imentional reduplioflon, ' the aUlom2tic, unconscious effects of Ihe dialecric of the rarr �nd common, the new and the daled, which is inscribed in the �:';:y ferentiation of conditions and dispositions. Even when it is i-n nO spi red by the conscious concern 10 stan d aloof from work ing.class every petil bou rgrois profession of rigour. every eulogy of Ihe ne
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neat, (onlains a taeil reference uncleanness, words or den and ,he bourgeois elaim to t inlemperance or i nt di i re t n , need r n i ti n in order to comain an p i i hr (: saKhensiond always nr marked by excess or insufficiency, ep o d ti or ne' . . . bourgeoiSie. IIIe lfic values I!� mze t recog tends 8":,uP each th 1 nt accide SJJ:« ? � It is nO ich makes IlS value, lO � ussu e r s sense, that IS, lO Ihc lalesl . hat wh is.also, v�ry ofte�, the lalesr con.quest, in the muetural . X�tcf1ce which n whICh speeJ!1caJly defines 11. Whereas Ihe worklOg d geocdc deVIatio reduced to. 'essential' goods. and virtues, demand .cleanness and ��asscs. for a licaliry, Ihe middle elmes, n:lat vely {rttr from necesSIty , look ptaC ' comfortable Ot neal interior, Ot a fashionable and original ...arm, cosy', which Ihe privileged classes relegate 10 sec' g rment.'l These an: values they have long been Iheirs and seem to go withou t say· �d I1lnk because intentions $OCi�J�y recognized �Ihetic, su.ch �ng, having amined their diS· Ihe pursuit of harmo�y and c�mposI,tI�I"\, t�ey �nnnoot Identify tinction with properties, pracllces or vmues which longer haw to be their cblmed or which, because they have become comm onplace and lost dl$tin,uve value, no lon�r rlln be claimed.
in 10 r Jnr! ease ce; m provi � o nOI obey an i tn, I � lnr 're i o . detachment or s nre 5 cd e� im l c l denuncialion of for ist n c o n of Ihe ' a · s', (Io rer 0(1 ' 'servile', 'ignorant' r 'pe an c' pc'Hashy'. 'artogam' . ' d d . or rO.••ml . u,
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ndi ting the dass· the series o n n fig re 10 As m"lie inlerior s the adjectives ppl ed fl"3Clion var al which proved sober, he , (rxcept for '0 be am ig ou ), the proponion of choie" emphasizing overtly 1"lhet;c the e harmonious) gro""s as �rdes (cle1n, is choices ' l n unc io \O(;al hiemchy, whereas Ihe p oporti pncllcal, inl in ) d«lines. The neady diStortion of the is tog on f�1 poi lS 10WJrds commcns l1l lc um:mes: I e small mopkt:epen le1d to rhe e mm r( employers, Ihe primary lachlrs fO the secondary te.chers and rhe 'c lt r l ar· 1'111( producers. The pme log c i$ found The refupi of a j c i v klng d� never r j c1 'de1n maimain' or 'pr�CIlClI'. n I�C mi d le clas�, lhe esublished flaclions (office o k rs. junior Id, "llnISlrnive sho keepers) reject ·imaginativc· ulh more: ofl n to e new petite bourgeoisie 'classical', �lepl (rafumen'). f l1lC l o Ihe dominam class who tf>c<:lal ly Ihe Ihe professions). rejecl ·d21siul' ':'c _ often Ihln 'im gin l v '
of histograms i ca is sh w i u by a i 10 the ideal do i ion of thrtt of t m classical, ne1I-JDignt:-and b u s on moves up (studied, imaginative. t a on of 'f t r h ram easy to ma a h b u n i n Ihrtt relatively indulHi.1 and o e ial u u a intermediaries' to. the d e t es 1he n i i � and lidy', 'easy to ee w rc d e�e.::utives, cnfrsmen and p � in contrast Ih thIn tlt.e 'If!e!Cachers , like most i ns of and members of a a i e. .lhU S obey a son of generalized Engel's law. At each level of the ;� dSI.ti � . lfnUtlOn, what is rare and constitures an inaccessible lu�ury or an al>. It\o a luy (or those at earlier or lo�r level becomes b:inal and (om, n ap;'araa d is relegated to the order of thc t�ken·(or.granlcd by Ihe nce of new, rarer and more di Slincrive goods; and, oncc again, this es
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nS wilhout any intentional pursuit of distinctive, distinguished rar· '[he sense of good investment which dinates a withdrawal from or simply devalued, ohje<:ls. places or pranices and a move
trwt ilf- oded, o�!I!1 ,' c r newer obje<:ts in an endless drive for novelty, and which oper· ,nlO � evcry area, spon and
Buffet de la gare de LyOfl, or anywhere 'has become impossible') to the bardy conscious imuilions, which, awareflts.S of populanzation or overcrowding, insidiously arouse
gut rSaiflt-Tropez'----r-<> S (ng
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Of or disgUSt for objects or pranices ,hal have become common. horr"
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accidefll Ihal laSles in painling or music so oflen follow S ' . (h. revivals and rehabilitations apart. reploduce history in biogra. ) So The search for distincl;on has no nad to Sa': itself for what it is,
;; \ noise, crowds etc.-in(ulcat� by a bouigeois p��lall lhe ifltolerances--of a inging are generally sufficienl 10 provoke the chang<:s of terrain or �je 1 which. in work as in leisure, lead towards the objens. places or lC· ,
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!(Vilies r.uesl a( a given momenl_ Those who are held 10 be distinguished ha"C the privilege of nOl wOlry;ng about their distinction; lhey can leave it to Ihe obiective mechanisms which provide lheil distincdve properties and to Ihe 'sense of diSlinCiion' which SI�IS them away from evcryThing 'wmmon', Where
the petil bourgeois or nouveau riche 'overdoes iI', be·
traying his own msecurilY, bourgeoIS diSClclion signals its presence by a
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When asked how lhey would dress if 'inviled (0 dinner by their husb.nd's boss', >3 percent of (he wives of Junior executives or office worken (32 per· (em of m.nual workers' wives, 29 per(Cnt of form workers' wives) say they "'ould 'we" lheir beSt clothes', as against only 19 percent of (he w,ves of '"dum!>1 and commercial employen. senior executives and professionils, of "'hom 81 per(em say they would change their clolh'S 'but withoU( pU(1ing On Sunday beSI', compared with 67 percent of the middle-class wives .nd (is p ercenl of ,he working.class wives (C.S. XLII),
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es over the appropliation of e<:onomic or cultu ral goods are, si· �u itaneously, symbolic struggles to apptopriate dis1!nctive signs in the (�rmp�f c!a.ssif�d, classifying goods or practices, conserve or subvert <Jut n nClples of classification of these disnnctive ptoperties_ As i conse· ;nce, lhe space of life,slyles. i.e., the universe of Ihe properties whereby th Sltuggi
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of different �itions differentiate themselves, wilh or he ( inte�lion of dislinguishing Them�lves, is itself only the bal· 1n(e . ttl. al a gIven moment. of lhe symbolic sITuggles ovel lhe tmpo li(;o f the legilimate life.style. which are most fully devdoped in the Ilru oe t'S for the monopoly of lhe emblems of 'class·-luxury goods. le-
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gidm�te cultural goods.--<>r the legitim�te in�nner of �ppropriati l them, The dynamic of the field in which these goods are produced a lg reproduced �nd circul�te while yielding profits of distinction lies in t strategies which give rise to their rarity and to belief in their value, a d �hich combine-:-in ,the,ir very op�sitio,n-to bring aboul these ob , n five effects_ 'O'StIl'lCflOn , or bettet, cllSS , the transfigured, mlsrecog able, legitimate form of social class, only exists through the struggles the exclusive appropriation of the distinctive signs which make ' natu distinction'. Culture is a Slake which, like all social srakes, simultaneously presup' poses and demands that one take p�rt LI'I the game and be taken in by it, , and LI'Iterest LI'I culture, wuhout which thete IS no race, no competition I produced by rhe very race and competition which iT produccs. The va of culture, Ihe supreme fetish, is generated in the iniflal investment im plied by the mer<: fact of entering the game, )oinll'lg in the collective be lief in the Hlue of thc game wh1(h makes Ihe game and endlt'S$ly n:makes the competirion for the stakes. The opposition bet""een the 'au thentic' and Ihc 'imitation', 'true' culture and 'popularization', which maintains the game by maintaining bellef in the absolule value of lilt stake, conceals a wllusion rhat is no less indispensable to the production and reproduction of the illuJio, the fundamental fC
�
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t�
i�
of rhe effects of the game is to induce bellef lI'I the innaleness of Ihe de sire to play and the pleasure of playing. It is barbarism to ask what cui· lUre is for; 10 allow the hypothesis that culture might be devoid of intrinsic interest, and that interest in culture is not a nalural properry unequally distributed, as if 10 sepaf2te rhe barbarians from Ihe elecr--bul a simple social artifaCt, a particular form of fetishism; (0 f2ise the ques tion of Ihe interest of activities which are called disll'lterested becauSC
they offer no intrinsic interest (no palpable pleasure, for example), a(}(l so to introduce the '1uestion of the interest of diSinterestedness. The slruggle itself thus produces effects which tend (0 disguise the: very eXistence of the struggle_ If the n:hlionship of the different cla with culture can be described indifferenrly eirher in the language ( r.al voured by 1>'hurice Halbwachs) of distance from the centres of cultu u values or in the language of conAict, this is because Ihe symboliC s gles between the classes have no chance of beIng seen and otgan'z
SS:
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and an: bound to take the form of competiTive struggles helping ro uch, , raduce rhe gaps which �n: the essence of the race. It is no accident t-apart {(Om P(Oudhon, who is inspired by his pellt-bourgeois horror t f the dissolute, slovenly life·style of artiSIS, and by what Marx calls his hominis probi', to dan: (0 expose the hidden, repressed face of the I tite bourgeoisie's ambivalent idea of art�then: is praclically no gues· ning of art and cuhun: which leads to a genuine objectificadon of the l game, so Strongly an: the dominated classes and rheir spokesmen ( ultUr:l rnbued wirh a scnse of theit cultural unworthiness.
��
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� � Norhing is further from such objectifiC:l1ion than Ihc aniSlic denunciarion
of lhe an which some aniS!S go in for,n or the �(tivities groupe
�
� �gers :
threa!(:n�d wirh popuJariurion ro �ngag� in an �ndless purs uit propt'rtio through which ro a5M:rt rheir rarily. Th� deman d ."... �n�rated by Ihis dialeclic is by definilion ine�hauSfibk sinc� r� inated n� �hlch cons�ilut� il mus, �n�lessJy redc�n� . I t�rms of a d,snncuon whICh always defines llsel( n�gauv�ly in th�m. Ni�tZ$che·s '�nJisht�n�d elitism· comes dO$<: to the S(:i�rlI;fic truth of the mechanisms of Ihe produnion of belief In the value of culture; .You WOn{ to say that no one would srrive for culture if he kn�w how un ably small the number of truly cultured men is and indeed can only be:-. )'Ct that even this small number of truly cultured men W:l$ nOt pouib� .... less a great mus.
�
and �
a�..,
•
The symbolic snuggles over being and seeming, over the syrnbai: manifestations which the sense of appropriateness, as su;n :1$ lhe ... sumptuary laws. assigns to the diff"erent social conditions ('Who does ., think h� isn, separating, for eumpk, natural 'gnce' from usurped '" and gnces', are both based and f()(:ussed on the degret of fretdom flOll one's 'starion' that is allowed by the specific logic of symbolic manl_ rions. Countless social arran�menrs arc dcsign�d 10 regulat� thoe ,. rions between being and seeming, from the law5 on the illegal won.,, " uniforms and decorations and all forms of usurpltion of titles, to lilt g�ntlesr forms of rcpn:ssion aimed at recalling to reality, to the 'seme" reality'. of limits, those who, by eKhibiring the e�ternal signs of a � associated with a condition high�r rhan their own. show that they 'd� themselves' somethin8 beller Ihan th�y are. the pret�nrious pretendclf. who belny by their poses, their postures, their 'presentation' thaI rhet' hav� a self·image tOO (ar out of lin� with the ima8e Olhers ha,·e orr to which (hey ought to CUt down theif self·ima8e ('climb down') . -
The relation to oroe·s o�n body which is exprtSSC'd in a c�rrain manntf .,110 bearing-tilt ·natural' scJ« onfidcnce. ease and f<"els authorizccl. the awkwatdness or arrogance of someone who picion upon his legitimacy by his too patent need to asscrt ·t i most visibk mces of early and recurrent exposure {O archetypal i . which arc very unequally probable for the different social ciasS(s. It 15 of the mOSt powerful $O(ill and for this reason the forced or £ceted e15( of the bluffer is I exposed to the
mon that the str.l!egies of pretension are 105t in. a�. .s dod nOt 1"' Since th� surest sign of le8itimacy i� self·assurance, bluff"-lf II ,-J!Ice· ways of (first by impfe55ing the blufl"er)-ls. one of the allve auron rel he limits of social condition .by pbymg on ,he . n t oeaI', the symbolic (i.e., of the capaCIty to. make and pt'rcelW: rcp�n. . ott').os) ,n ord�r to impose a self·representation notm:.tIly USOC1Ued wlrh il the acceptance and recogniflon �dition and to win " doO . for · ) er co.. , . , 11,18) 1 ' . · . .WI·�hou� subSC�·b it a legitlm�(�, oble<:t.lve repr�ntatlon 1 make ldeallsm whICh .,hl(10 the l·nreracrionist-and typICally pt'w·bourg<:ols. . InS . tion, Lt wouId nonerhe(CIVCS the social world :1$ will and representa . (OIl bsurd to exclud� from social reality the represt:ntauon �h·teh o( that reality. The reality of Ihe social world is in bet .partly lesS ...., t S .,orm cd by the slfuggles betw<"en a�nts over the rcpresentauon 0r 'bdtt m" \tiOn in the social world and, con�u��rly. of that worl�. te As shown by the inversion of the rdauonshlp between spt'ndmg on on substa�ce and on 1ppcar. food and on clothing, and more g<:nerally, . to the petlfe bour�olsle, the ance. as one moves (rom the working class · .concern ,,or appt'ar10 the symbol·te. Thelf . ml.ddle ,l:wes are as unhappy conSCtousness, som�lImes ced experien be may which wee, . t., . . e J is also a source of Ihelr pretenSIon, a permanenl arroganc �. � . I dIS! . . . . . U KU .., . d�illon towards th� bluff" or USurpanon of socl.>1 .ldcnlllY whteh con· mtS in anticipating 'being' by 's«ming" appropriating the �ppca�nces W :IS to have {he realiry, the nominal so as to have the real, 10 trying to modify the positions in the objective classifications by m�i.fying the rc� =nt1l;on of the ranks in the classdicl!lon or of the prinCIples of classl· fio.tion, Torn by all the contradictiOns between an objectively dominated condition and would.be participation in the dominant values, Ih� pt'llt bourgeois is haunted by the appeafllnce he offers to othc:rs and the ludge ment they mak� of it. He constantly ov.:rshool5 the mark for f�r o.f Ing shorr. betnying his um:crtainly and an�iely about belonglng In hIS anxiety to show or give the impn:ssion that he belongs. e .IS bound 1O � . be s:ccn-both by the working c1:1$SCS, who do not have thiS concero wnh . lhCl! being.fo -others, and by the privileged classes. who, being sure of t ""ha( they are, do not care what they seem---:as the man of appearances. haunted by the look of others and endlessly ()(:cupied wilh being seen in I good light. Being 50 linked to appearance-the one he has to give. not only to do 'hat is. play his role, 10 'make beli�vc', to inspire confidence or Itspcct and prestnr his social character. his 'presentation', as a guarantee \}f the products or services he offers (:1$ is the case with salespeople, busi· epre t sentatives, hostesses �rc.), bUI also to assert �is pretensions all? ll1ands bo , to advanc� his interests and upward asp,rations-the pellt Urgeois is inclined to a Berkeleian vision of Ih� social world. reducing � t\} a the atre in which being is never more than perceiv� bei }, a men �r � . p escnla tion of a rhotrical pt'rformance (rtpdSmlalllm). HIS I) t r am· 'gIIOU$ posirion in the social snucture, sometimes compounded by the
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h(5 job.
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ambiguity inherem in all (he roles of intermed iary bttwten the manipulared manipulators, d«eived dcceivers. f.-.--o ren his very [ which leads him to the positions of �ond·incommand, second lead, second fiddle, eminence: grise agtm , , depUty or Stand. ( prived of the symbolic profits associated with rhe recognittd stat ' offidal dckgarion which allow legitimate impo sture (and W ' " SUSp«1 in true foundalion ): everything pm:l isposes him 1 ; L 0 social world in terms of appearance and reali ty. and the more . h� .sonally had to 'climb down', the more incli ned he is to observe man .... tions and impostures with the suspicious eyes '.. of resemmem.H BUI the site par excellence of symbolic strug gles is the domina n, dill; iuclf. The con/liers Ixlween mim and irlfc JlCCtuals over the dcfinit ion culture ue only one aspect of the interminable: stntggles among the: af ... {(rerlf fl1llCiions of the dominant class to impose: the definition of the: It. gitimue stakes lnd ....capons of SlXial strug gles; in orher ....ords, to dc:6at the lc:B.itimat princip!e of oomina!ion, � be:1 ....ec:n c:("onomic, educati onll or SlXlal capllal, SlXlal powers ....hose: spt<: ific effio.cy mly be: c-. pounded by spedfically symbolic efficacy, that is, Ihe authorilY conftnei by be:ing rc:cogniw:l, mandatc:d by coliC:("live be:lief. The struggle be:thet& the dominant fr:lClions and the dominatc:d fraClions (themse:lves COIllQo luting flc:lds organi�c:d in a struClure hom ologous to (hat of the domi nam class as a whole) tends, in its ideologio .l relr:lnslation-and heft: tilt dominated fr:lcrions have the initiative and the upper hand-(O be: or.. nized by Opposilions thu arc almost superimp osable on those: whICh the dominant vision SCts up be:tween the dom inam class and Ihe domina. classes: on the one hand, freedom, disinterc:s tc:dncss, the 'punty' of" limated tastes, salvation in the hereafter ; on rhe Olher, necessiry, ICIf, interc:sr, base marerial suisfaClions, salvuion in rhis world. It follows rhIr all the SIr:llegies which intellectuals and anists produce againsl rhr 'bourgeois' inevitably tend, quite apart from any explicit intention, .ad: by virtue of 1m:: StruClure of rhe space in ....hich rhey are gener-ltc:d, to be dual-aclion devices, dirc:clc:d indifferently again sl all forms of subjc:c� to malerial interesls, popular a!S much as bourgeois: 'I 0.11 bourgeoiS c:vc:r thinks b:asely', as F1aube:rr put il. This c:sscntial over-dererminapOll explains how Ihe 'bourpis' c:an 50 easily usc the an produced a� them as a means of demonstr:lting their diSlin Clion, whenever they to show thar, compam:l to the dominuc:d, Ihey are on the side of 'disiIt' teresrc:dness" 'frttdom', 'purity' and the 'soul', Ihus ruming againSl die olher classes weapons designed for use agaim them t selves. J h is clearly no accidc:nr thai the dominant art and the dominant UI_ living agree on the ume fundamental distinctions. which are all . b:aseddIr the opipos tion be:,....een the bruti$h n("(c:siry s which forces Irself on vulgar, and luxury, as the manifestation of dislance from or celicism, as self.imposed constr:linr, tWO comrasling ways ture, nc:<:d, appetite, desire; between the unbr idlc:d only highlights the privations of ordinary exisle nce,
;� ;� r,�:� �
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r1.tuitous e�pense or the austerity of elc:("rive restriction; be l f (�O[1s.u rc der to immc:diare, easy satisfactions and �onomy of means, " r..� klng � possasion of means commenSUr:lle wllh the means pos. .� universally 'pprovc:d only because !t represents Ihe most ' "" • .:...1 E15C IS � . . . · or.d"Iassertion of freedom from the const.r:lmts whKh domlnate ,1Slbk I the most indisputable affirmauon of capital as the capaclly 0'1')' demands of biological nature or of the authority which ens I rO sau ne to ignore them, . . IIdes 0 '"Ingul",,;, = m'y be: manifcslc:d ellhet m rhe tours de force of us .... " ' ".. ood what is �uiml by suiclly gr1.mmatlcal or pragmauc ru,
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stV'" ;""' � fy �
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g bey tional liaisons, for example, o r using r:ln:: words and tropes m SOl" klng
{lu rOP mmOn words and phrases, or in the frc:c:dom from lhe de· C plJ C 0 " liberties taken by ( ,angu'Be o r silUation that is asserrc:d in the . rnands o ' wh'Kh are known 10 kno.... be:ner. These opposmg su:alegles, tIleS( who above the ruks and proprieties imposed on ordmary speakers, place ooc: 'y mutually exclusive. The twO forms of conspicuous free. ,� In no "" ' tr:losgrc:sslon, can COCXlst dc:Hbe:r:.lte lnd constr:lint onvenlional unc dom " , "reo ar IITeft:n, momenn or different levels of {he same d"ISCOUrse-, ,eXI(3 •.� .•..1 renston III _..I by m([C" ' " " m,y, for example be: counteroa!anc"" la�alloo ' " " condescenSlon syntU Or d"" ,,"on, or the reverse (this is clear'y se<:n m , . " " . 's o( 'an· 'h' B'P thus mamtamc:d betwc:<:o (he ,eve I III Wh",h SIr:llegles, ua cis rhe symbolic equivalenr of the double glme of asscrtmg d'IStance ppcaring 10 negate it), Such strategies-which may .be pc:rf�rly un· conSCI" 0'.."' , ,nd thereby even more effc:("rive--are the ultimate nposre to Ihe hyper.corr«tion strategies of pretentious OlltSI'ders, Wh0 are thrown , imo self-doubt about the rule and the right way 10 conform (0 II, jYoIta· Iyzc:d by a reflexiveness which is {he 0pposlle of ease, and left 'without 1 leg to mnd on'. . nle: speaker who can 'take the liberty' of standlllg outSide ' ��Ies til only . for pedants or gr1.mmarians-who, nor surpri ingl ' are dlslllclm� tO � r . , "'rite these games with the rules inlO rheir odlficluons of the Imgu!sflc � &1me-pUtS himself forw1ld as a maker orhlgher rules, !.e., a tute-maker, . 2n a.bil" titganlill", whose: tr1.nsgressions are nOI n:-ISlakes b�t the �n. nUf"lCialion of a new fashion a ne.... mode of expressIon or lCllon which "'ill �ome a model, and th�n modal, normal, the norm, :and will call (or new Ir:l.nsg rc:ssions by those: who refuse 10 be tankc:d in Ihe mode:, to be: lIIc1uded, -ilisorbc:d, in the elass defined by the Insl classifying, least III.1.rkcd, most common, leasr dislinClive, Inst distinguishing property. l'hus we: see that conlr:lry to all naively Darwinian conviClions, ,he (so ClOlogicrlly well.'foundc:d) illusion of 'natura! diSlinc�ion' is u!timatdy �n the pow(:r of the dominant to impose, by their very �IStenCe, a � nlll n of own .way � e�cellcnce {h.an I. h elr which, be:ing nothing other . . e�l$tlll g, is bound to appear simultaneously as d!SIlnCl!ve and differ· l, and therefore bo,h arbitr1.ry (since it is one among others) and per· Ily n (c:ss ary, absolute and natur1.1. � . Ease In the sense of ·nalur1.1 facility' is no more than ease III Ihe sense
do ,
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of � 'comfortable Sltu�1ion ensuring an easy life': the p' "i'io. i" destructive, sinC(C (here would be no need to point � II what it is, if it were really nOl something else, which is also ttuth. This is the error of objc:nivism, which forgets to J complete definition of the obje<:\ {hI' representation of has had 10 destroy in order 10 arrive 2t the 'objective' I forgets to perform [he final reduction of it! reduction thar is able In order to grnp the objective {ruth of social bcts,
aho
being consists in their being perccived.H One has to PUt complete definition of ease what is destroyed by 1«21hng thai IHIStOrlC's virtue, �uires a (errain ease (or, conversely, rhat .'m meM ari� from embarrassment), that is, the effect of impo$ition those who only have to be in order to be cl(ceUem achieve by ., . "'� existence. This perfect coincidence s i the very definition of� IVhich. . recurn, bears witness to this coincidence of 'is' 2nd 'ought' 2nd 10 fit self.affitming power it contains. The value placed on casualness 2nd on aJi forms of diStance from .. stems from the fact thar, in opposition to the anxious tension 01 .. challengers, they manifest both the possession of a large capical (1in&4 ric or orher capiral) and a freedom with respect to that capital which .. .sc
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will;
Crass Tastes ana Ljfe-St�les Our pride is more oAtndcd by altacks on our tasces than on our opinions La RochefoucauJd, M"rims
In order rhat the dcKripcion oflifc.styles may consticute a valid wrifuatWn, we must go back to the survey and compare the brought to light by the method whkh 5«ms best suited whole set of OOscrvations in simultaneity and to d!'llW OUT the i StruCtures without imposing any presupposi!ions-namely, the corrcspondenco-with the unities that be: «nlJtrllutti on of the principles of division which objectively define the I homogeneous conditions and conditionings, and therefore practices_ Such an ope!'lliion reproduces. in reverse, the transform . which ordinary perception performs when it applies SO(ially coru/l hOI s ent to the p!'llctices and pro� lI" schemes of perception and assesm ef agcots, COllSliluling them distinctive lifNlyles through which its If .. luits SO(iaJ conditions. ,
are
C1.Il
as
In tCStricting ourselves to the- survey data (as a linguist may limit himld'. to the finite corpus of sentences produced in response to a finite set of t gers), we deny ourselves the possibility of evoking the infinite tichness � each life-style. This possibility is in fact purdy thcorcliol since. 10 avoid the positivist templ1tion, which Jorge luis Borges describes, of mak map as big as the coumry. one would havc to find the Style mO$t ca� �" evoking ,he fClttuf($ which (as a differcmial equation condenses a cu�) condense a whole universe of practices. To avoid the monotony of refer. limited to the indicators used in the survey, il would h"Olve b«n � ble to substitute numetous C<juivalems for the works and compose" actually offered (for example, the GoIdbtrg V",i",irmJ or the Lilt/( NOllW jlJr A",,,,a M"giU/ma Barh (or ,he Wt/f.Tmrpwd Cia,-;,,-, or. among dIe $i..,. e", Reggiani, hrr,lt. Barba,." or Juliette Grcco for Brel and Douai. or MIl' <el Amont, Adamo or Mircille Mathieu for Alnavout). This procedurc. though �rfectly consistent with the logic of taste. which constantly mabI such substitutions within cI:wes of C<juiulents vlguely.�rccived on the baJis of �ill cues, was rcittted on the 8rounds thlt the very nlturc of cI:wes of equivalents depends on the system of classifi(1tion put mto op:ta' tion: wherc one �rson will only see interchangeable ekments of the cat< gory 'classical music'. lno,her will rcfuse the seemin81y mOSt justifie
as.
Of
"OIlthou8h it is nowhere possible 10 we dn sJlC'oIk of a class fraction �(!I:. fO cmarc"Olcion line such thaI we can find no one on either side who ,J all tnc properties most frequent on one side and none o( the (1"" ,, frequent on the ot.her'. ln this universe of co.ntinuity, the �iCSconsmOSttruction and OOscrvallon tS able to ,sobte (rclattvcly) homo #f p..1lrk O setS of individuals characterized by sen of properties that arc uC�IIY and 'SO(io-logic"Ollly' interrdatcd, in other words, groups sepa� St! U I erences. �lt.:d by systems 0f d·.
5
&
IfIC1!Ure IhI- 1CStheti( dispos"ion. all the 'luC'S"on� on the preferred �.�,,� I1Id,o progr:lmmes and books. on knowledg<= of film >ClOrs and and on personal photography, wh,ch all measure middle·brow cui· J'reo:1011 lhe chOKes a� regards domestic imerior, furnHure. cooking, clothes. tuf(· of friends. through which elhieal d,sposillons arc more directly ,h'�. and $0 on. In all these analyses. ,he first faCior opposes Ihe fl':llc (�p che5 t ,n economic capital to the fracllons richest in culTural (ipital: l;co mercial cmployers and the higher-edue2lion tC1chel$ Or cultul1l1 pro th' (see figulC$ II, sHuated at Ihe IwO 0pposl!e e�tremcs of the le memhel$ of [he profC'S5ions, the n«ullves and the engineers the dl < hile tl). y intermediate positions. In the analysis based nn the indicators of In middle·brow cullure, Ihe commercial cmployel$ are opposed re t strongly '0 IhI- SC'(ondary lochers (I':IIther than the highe[-eduC1tion the mistic p,oducel$), in accordance ,,·i[h a logic alrc:ady ob mO$hers IClCcd or In the primary lC1chers' preferences fo' �.nge[s. In Ihe anal�sis based :mistic producel$. ... ·ho thereby 'the indoOtors of ethical disposilion. n5CIl [ilo:"or casualness ,nd indifference [0 convention. are opposed 10 the and occupy posi !(a(hers. thl:: cngin«1$ and ,hi:: pubhc-!;C'(IOr ex«uti,·es, the commercial employers (to whom they are " ons ,'cry dose to [hose: of identified in this case: by Ihe sc:cond respects. other in opposed ''CrY 5trongl)·
j,�r-li�
T e Sense of •
•
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�ahtoes
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DlstmctlOn •
:;' arc : oC'k�ce
UIS
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:
If it is {fUe, 15 I have c:ndeavoured fO establish. (hal, first, (he domillll'll
class constitutCS a rcilr;vdy 11,1I0nOmOU$ spael: whose srru(rure is ddineI by {he distribution of «onomie and (uhu!';I[ Gpilal among irs members, each class fraction being char:l.C!eriz(d by a certain configuration of this distribution 10 which there co[mponds a cerlain life-style. rhrOU8h rile mediuion of the habitus; {hat, second , [he diwibution of thot nI8
ty� of npiral among the fl1lClions is symmcuically and invcrsoely SIn» lured; and [hal, third. the di fferent inherited assel struCtures, rogcdlCf ....ith sodal 1r:l.j«!Ory. command [he habitus ,md the systematic choim_ produces m all arns of pr::l(ticc. of which [h( choices commonly as acsthetic lrc one dimension-then these sr[uClures should be foul'ld . the space of tife·slyles, in Ihc differcnl systcms of propcniC'S in which Ihc diffcrent sysrems of dispositions cxpress Ihcmsd\"�. ' To en�vour 10
C'Srabl ish
I.C.,
rcgardlll
this, rhe whole SCt of survey dlla was subjected to cor
dence analysis.I
As 2 first stas<'. afler a methodical re:lding of rhe tables expressing t� IC'"01 suhs of the: survey (see appendix 3), rhe ans,,'ers given by the memberS the dominant <1m (n ... 467) to various selS of questions (sec . lIonnaire, appendix \ ) were analyttd in order to determine srrUClurC'S 2nd explanatory facrors varied according to thc Th� included: all the questions on knowledge or preferences in and music and On museum-going. which all mea�ure kgiuma[c all the questions on ,hi- likdihood of producing > Mutiful. me:mingleu or ugly phocograph from �h of Ihe ,_nty-one sublCCrs.
f)Ctar)H"inS thus identified the mOSl pe[linenl ,ndi(ilol$ 10 C1eh case, il WlI5 r.C'(csmy. in order to avoid the over.loading resulting from the abundance olonformallon gathered (see questionnaire, appendix I ) . to eliminate from the final analysir--only the results of which Ire presented hefC'-lhe ques· flons ...·hoch proved 10 he badly phrased (such a� ,he questions on do[hing O[ on types of books) or leu classifying, in favour of 'lu(stions (such as ,hal on rook,ng) measuring much the »fT>I: d,�positions (the 'lu�tions on p/looographoc $ub;«l$ Were also excluded. and analysed $Cpar:lldy). lfle d"l [elained (fo[ disjunclive codong) werc ,hus those wh,ch conccrned Ihe of on intnio[ (twdve adjeClives). the 'lualiries of a friend (twdve �1'X[".('5). [he stylc of mC1ls SC"l>'e
qual",cs
k
� ��sed
-.., 7 J � ----------
operations
I$ of the correspondences makes it possible to isolate, Ih tough 1,,'""�n.1YS CSl!vc d I·Vls.o of preferen s stemming from ns, diffcrelll coherent d,,,,n q
and distinctive systems of dispositions. defined as much by their Intc ('.1 11'l:1",�o.nShip as by the relations hip between each of them and ils so d ("'h on ll'ons of produnion_ The indicators measuring eultUI':ll! capiral h ( Vary. of course. in approximately inverx I':IIlio to Ihe indic2l0rs of l
�
SCts
cc
•
,
•
,
,
10 rhe: consli\ulion of l) make rhe s{(ongt'Sf connibulion ita cap i( � against esentS �.8 percrnl of the 10111 inertia (lefor <which repr (he second and third be· and },2 percent rcspC:Cli�'dy for r and 1 2 �rc those who, willl ,he: j.6 � ll)\JS on ,he: 1.::(, side of figures 1 1 nce. who know the: brgcsI [OfS1· Incomtl, have: the: gf(':l,[CSt compete ), (6 percent) lnJ compo5C.rs (7:7. pcrccm who lo.. of musical work� , aesthetic dIsposItiOn, such 15 [he \I ks demanding the 'pUfCSt ( e wor ent) , Clat·;tr (1.8 perccnt) or dlt lirl oj l'ugut (1.7 perccom ptc e:, tid rc most (apablc of applying this aesthctic dIsposition to less rior de<:ora or cinema or even cooking or intc 1� such :.IS :;ong painting, visil thc Modern lin ",'ho art intc:n�!ilW in abslr.lCt ,110' anis!ic (2A percent). On the: [11)11. uJll 11\d expect their friends 10 be th� lo .....est ho r�ctivt tht highest incomes �nd h�vt side are [hose:: ..... works or com�rs. like their og OCt, .... ho kno.... f�.... musiul e l pC rastes run to 5C('ond· sci�mious (I. � perc�nt ) and whose: tls to be con L';trlhmlllt iul works of bour�ois culturek (\&Iasse or class (2.9 percem), La Traviata (2.1 pcrctnf), !Ccnt), Ihe l3iut DanJlbt per· l Bufftt, Vlaminck, Ulriilo, Raphae (2.} , pJOdy Rha /an gar /I,lIl ,lit (0 lighl opera-Guclary (1.8 perctnl) , ----a nd mu). w,ua.u, lronlrdotn( ).' ul�r' singers-�tul� Clark (2.2 perc .\!ln3no---<)r (ht most 'pop styles Ihat Ihese mdi(3lOrs of the different life· It (3n be sc<;n intuilively s 10 (he Slfu(ture of the space of life [all mto 3 pattern ....hich cOllespond e (0 the $lfucture of posi, )/fks as it has been estlhlishcd, and therefor als, Ihe most dtar-cul opposition 110m. And indeed. in (tlms of individu 1 and. to a lesser t�tent, (he induslTi� 'I St:t up bet....een the commercial tic producers. who ttnployers, and Iht higher
�".,
(t"o'6rs�tn [
-d� �u� rrtrNptrtd ",.1\0� MU:
�
�; �
�
� �
thq.
;�t t
as 'easy to maintain', ·pr.tClical', and 'conscientious', 111�" ""' hO''' d'l. this respect tht'y are oppo�d 10 the industrial employers, who '" ," . over.tll to bourgeois taste ary w"h rhe: worklns cI:w.r:s IS much IC$$ mukoed. and situtn! hisher, in the: self-employed S«fOr (e$pC
if appears c their spc«h, Iheir USfes closer in polPo:: i( comf'(rcncc ;:'
The higher�uC:l(ion re:lchers, who have very high in less cons:«ral«i. 21OS. such as cinema. occupy the Other e�trerni rhe first UIS. Th"r preferences are balanced bet....ccn a «:Hain audacilr . . and a �rudl':m dasslc,sm;. they refuse Ihe facile pleasures of righ r-" . , tasiC ....lIhOul \'enturmg mto the Ullstic avam.gude. e�plorins '. coveries' rather rhan 'discoverics', the raresl worh of the past r:lthcr dIM rhe contemporary a�nr-glrde (warm, studied. imaginarive inrtnof, . Bra<jue, PICasso. Breughel and sometimes Kandmsky, Firthird SlIilr, ....
01 FligUI, WIll· Tnnptrld Clavi" ).
. The members of the prof�s;ons occupy an intermed,ale position ... diVIde IntO twO sub.groups dlKering mainly in fC
TIle
occupied
rhe
wistic ,..
lor
torical spccmulars (Tht l..FftIgtst Day), ,aI Thus, given thaI the diKerences (0 rhe overall volume of ctpI 10 !III are panially neutralized (by the fact Ihal Ihe analysis is t members of same dass, who are roughly equal in Ihls individual"s position in Ihe space defined by the first tWO faclors i essentially on rhe sIruClure ofhis assets, ,hat is, on Ihe relative the economic opirat and cultural capital he possesses (axis 1 social tra;ccrory (axis 2), ....hich. Ihrough Ihe corresponding <juisition. governs his �blionship 10 those: asseu.6 The gmllesl contriburions to Ihe s«ond faC lor are madl': by the
the
linked
indicators
:lSSfXiltW with mo� or less �niority in rhe bourgeoisie; mlinly
� the �Iation (0 1o:gilim1le culture and in the nuances of the lhe same volume ,rr ' opposes {h Wlrhm each fracllon. Ihe se<:ond t:l.Clor raI capital. u ul f c .� ls whose families have long been members of lhe bourgeoisie 10 dl�1 have the su.
i n rrsit. O
who have much �1 . g, Ihey <M>ar:lte i#'1(hv," --r� . individuals . 0
o
In rlt<JSC
11'1
:� tivilcgc,
osc:
ha'IC m:ently emered it, the parvenus.: those :who
..
. senioritr in privi�g�, who ac�uI� Ihell ultural caplral . and daily comaC! wllh rare, 'd,sI1l'lgulshed th.II'I�, people. �laccs Y cl s !O ,hose who owe their capila ro an aC<juIsltlve eKol{ d,recled by by ."".. · '., "1dact, ·d"IpLty 0( Ih aut..,. ati onal sysle� or �ui� by the .SC:Ien c d u e . , relationshLp to II IS more senous, more severe, often more ,� 91hose jnd
P�I � �
(secon
c
l
e
d
) faClor naturally distrib� t�s {he franions aceordi.n� 10 portion of their members who ongmlte from the bourgeoISie or l ucuion . . ions and Ihe hiShcr� he: pro �ther class'' on one side the profess �manu Ihe prtVlle-se<:t�r e�ecuflves), and on .achcrs (lnd. to a lesser eXlent. lhe: sec�ndary ers, the public·senol e �ecuuves the: orher the engine categories which represent the maIO roures .( �Ia ac�dcmlC sue, ers dlvlck fallly equally ) inlo {he dominanr class, while the: employ the tWO poles. The formel, gfOUped on the posilive side of the ly) acquired s«ond factor, ha'IC in common rhe fan that they (initial they p r�nt signs their opita by familiarization wirhin the fa�ily. .. of long.standing membership of the bourgeoISie such. as lI'Ihemw furn� (2 4,Percem), a prcd" lure (3.1 percent) , purchases from I«lion for a comfortable interior and lradmonal cookmg (I.� percent) , visits 10 Louvre and {he Modern Atl Museum (1.8 percent ) , and 2 taslC for the Ctm�/O lor- Iht uft Hand, which provcs to be: alm�t always l.S5OCiated ....ith piano-playing. The others, who owe Ihe essenual pm of cultun:: to the o:ducarion�1 system and Ihe n::lativcly late learning enc:OUt:l.gcd and entailed by a high scholastic culture, are opposed 10 Il1o:rn by the:ir p�ference (or friends who an:: 'derermined' (2.6 percc::n l) cult;· and 'pt:l.gm�tic' (l6 percenl), nuher than. as at lhe: opposite Oated 01 uristic. their taslC for clC2n and tidy (l2 percent), sober and dlSCtttt (1.6 percenl) interiors. �nd works of mainstrC2m bourgeois cui, lure. as the S411fl Dana ( U pel(enr), UtrmO and Van Gogh Of, in aoo.ther order, Jac<jut'S Brei or A�navour, BuKer and Rhapsody in Blut, all "dI(O!$ of upward mobility. They are char.tcrerized by pru ent and rhere· () r( rcla �ivcly homogeneous choices. Nev�r stooping to works suspected � banality or vulgarity, such as L'ArliJ/t1l1lt or the BlMt Da7lllht, they v�nturc into the slightly less 'canonical' work.s. such a � 'E7Ifa7l1 tI I'�gts. which are o(len chosen by the culrural lntermedlancs and hit"
W 'iS
an�
f(aChcrs, :""«1'1
l
the
ami<jue:d.e:llcrs
and
1110:"
pole,
�
5uch
�I�
pI�(
Producers.
d
�
at'
O knion of the father'S occupation, the: responckOl's age, qualifica· t ;n(o l"l'le etc. as illusl.nrrive variables sh0:w� th�1 the pr�tl(iplc of divi· lion' $ Indcro soci,l Inr,ccrory. Tho: opposillon IS cslabhshed be:lwccn
Fiprt JJ V,ri.n'$of,hedomin.nt ''-5't. An:aJ)1ilof(orrcspon
di:agnm of I" and }rd no of inert;:a.
.,3(J.2'l Io) lmpre»ionisu pragm:a,;' ].II COJnI><">KIl 7·11 musitt.l WQlks "'-'00. d;,,;rttt
Van Gogh
lictoo:
baccalaurh,
P. a:uk Blue Da"ube lis Tr"oWlll Q.2coml><">KlI L.iW;
paiminp nict b..n diffICult Guh::;-BEPC
compose" .
CEP. u.p no q. '. . ... .
depanme", $,or.
W,II·T,mperd Citni".
,...... .h.tn 1."
+'1(1.8%)
onseicntiow
lt�l.h(ldro
Thl' �mplir,O
�
l·6compo$
mUJical 'a'Olks
11 ..
ruhural copilal
..ell·bred
RI hacl
"m only ifl(ludeo ...iabl•• .,h",h
make on .boolu.. .«'fluiJ,.u.ion .quol to 01
. The only illll.....i... .. i.bl. rop....n«d " .d""ottOflol quoJir.coti"" .
,hose members of the dominant dm who 3re bo,h older and drawn !foil the oldest or economiolly rkht:Sc f tions (professionals, induscriJl .... eommen::ial em ploye ), and those whose father deriol worlLa jun i�r ex",:utive or manual worker, who are relath-ely less rich in ec0figure 13). The complex rel2tiomhip nomIC opllil and younger ( which emerges betwecn the positions of the fractions in social sr-ace, " niorilY in the bourgeoisil' and age (also linkc-d to che firsl tWO factOfS . and .whi.ch is very impomnt in understanding a number of elhiol or'" . thettc differences between members of the dominlnt class-for eXimpir t differenc in sports or doching-becomes dellr when one knowS thl ,he proportion of parvenus rises as one moves from the dominant (0 thC do�inated fractions (and, a fortiori, the proportion of those wh? n� thelt entry to the accumula,ion of schol:lStic capital-the dispe or '" the executives is no doubt partly due (he fUI ,hat ,he lower thei cial origin, ,he more likely (hey are to achieve these posicions al a lively advanced age).1 . The third faccor which, al Ihe level of individual�, setS the majOn lJ" rs
rac
see
was I
t:S
(0
v
to
i
A." ofFugu, agreg. g. ecol.
11.
"e
Reno l
cultural copi" l .. Fou,. Sel1101tl economic copilal -
("1Chers and espe(ially ,he artists-who are I'ven more inclined (han (tIC \ ( hers to mark ,heir refusal of bourgeois tasc�nd also the com· � ,, employers, in opposition to (he most Iypically bourgeois (by ori· (I!( \1 l of residence and c-ducation) of the professionals, industrialists ...,e rt l Sid CPxecuti es cends chiefly to characterize: the 'bourgeois tas,e' of 'hese dttegoria by opposing it to the tastes of III the other fractions. JI' t , b rdipally 'he bettl'r equipped and more daring 'intellectual taste', PfltlC'lso. secondarily, 10 a taste definc-d neguively lnd combining features b� middle.brow taste and popular ,aste (that of the commercial employ· o 'Bourgeois' t te, a modal taste or taste 11. la modc--as is shown by e�'Slfength of ,he preferencl' for the Impressionis, painters (4.2 per· I of Van Gogh (2.l percent) or Renoir I) confirmc-d by the choice 's based on an averagl' competence (knowlc-dge of 7 to I I 1 rercenr)f!'�rks. 3.3 percent, and 7 to 1 1 composers. 3.2 percent). It is fundamen a prc:ference for traditional French ml'als, idly a t:lStC for tradition (wi'h from anli'lul' shops, 1.0 percen foc 'well·bred' :J percent, for furniture (e.g., in favouritc fnends. 1.5 percent) and a sorl of temperate hedonism IMenoC is comfortable but also sober and discfCCl, 1.8 percent, and cosy. in ilS audacitit:S (with Ihe choice of the Firt 12 perant), maderace neven btrri Suitt or Rhapsody i B/ut, 1 . 3 percent, or Ihe preference for 'prag. matic' friends, L7 percent-lS opposed to ',rtiscic'). It is chieAy definc-d by opposition 10 a set of indicators which characterize: a culture that is bo,h more 'schol:lS(1" (knowledge of 12 01 more composers, 3 percent. knowledge of 12 or more works, 1.9 percenc, preference for leonardo, 1.6 percent etc.) and-relatively-more daring (with Kandinsky, 1.4 per and Picasso, 1.3 percent), but also more ascetic (Goya or ,he If/tll TrnI� aalJitr, furniture from the Fl Market etc.).
rsi
:lS
..
"
ccnr,
ea
Tht Modes of Appropriation ofthe Work of Art
But �hls statistical analysis would not rtally fulfil its purpose of verifica· . did '� If II nOl help one '0 undersland the underlying logic of ,he dis IlIbu,ions i t t:Stablishes; if. having provc-d that volume and structure of ( I)Ual, synchronically and diachronically defined. consti tu te the princi c Of divisio n of practices and preferences, it were not possible to bring o lIghl lhe intelligihle. -socio.logical' relationship between, for eumple, asYlllmelri( :lSseC slrucmre bi3S(d towuds culcure 3nd a parlicul�r re . that IS. . undetSland completeIy, �hOll l0 ,hI' work 0f U', and to explalll, y Ihe mOSt 1scetic form of thl' xsthetic disposicion and the cultu rall�I '... ''�I k . . glllmace and economically Cheapest pra.ccice5, e.g., museum 80; J>;l,:g, Ot, '.n sport, mount1in
� ; � ...�
�
�ing planlS, books lnd an orchid only flower Ihl. lasts'), tWO (.,he I� lamps boughl for a $OtIg at wi,h modern shades, ,"10 jcr«! bedside tables recen"y ordered
�rOlIO'. fr".n a cabine.·maker.
By mi ngli.ng col�rs and fabri« y ",ith a '�!!11� aud",u . . . .
the t1IJtmblt,
no, By sprtnklmg knick·knacks ("rhey're point· ...i.h �') bur wi.h dozens of photos . \'(Iith ....icker ba5kets full of bric-i· Wilh children·s mugs briltling ..."h pccncii.s. Wi,h novels. exhibi· lion C11110gues, magnines on inte· rior decorarion (she (u!s au' .he
br2C. Ii
.
. .. . .....
,
useful addresses and sricks .hem in
5(np-boob), 5('311erW all o�r rhe
place. lind other �ry personal de· .ails, such as rhe paintC"d !aimu tiles surrounding .he chimney.piece . . . [n short, by .dopting an original,
personal styk of decoration. So much SO .ha. designer Henri Sam· uel, who actC"d as rechnical :adviser,
repliC"d, when ! askC"d him fO define rhis bedroom: 'I,', pure d'Orn1no,
and ,hal's a complimenr!'
o de So.n,·Sa.,."r, Lt Fit....M.t.",..
(M""'-' Fig."'). 7 Oclober. 1978.
,SS'S" S,S" " " S" " " " " " " SS" " S,'
One's immediate inwirion should be followed-for fhe purpose of
,esting it-w hen 1t sees in
A Cosy Samovar-Style Bedroom
IJt>btllt d'Oma1f(), 1m AI",i!ln'J
JiJln-",·/aw, "'" matk "" fKdowm 1m
mll"·P",t tlj htr aparllllml. .-1
barOifut ""JJlnpitu.
., know
how i Wln•
•
0 li'·e.
D«ora·
rion is 1 "oay of e�prnsing ir:
&orning fashion and irs conven· rions. she has applied r his principle
Ihroughour her aparrment-:a rhap sody of colours. i mi r1fion green mamk and Vene.ian blind�nd espe<:ially in her bedroom lin al· mos. !imd�s and yet very up-ro da.e room. which also sef\'� as [sa· belle's s,udy when she is working (markedng ,he 'Sisky" r:mgt of cos·
me.ics her husband IauochC"d 'hr.:.: y(":lrs ago ) . as a TV room for her
five childfC'n and some.;m�. since i. comm unicales wilh rhe recep.ion rooms, as I second salon for big din.
the ,eachers' t1.Ste for the �usterilY of pure ..orks, Bach or B�ue, Brecht or Mondrian, the same ascetic disposition that is expfCSSC"d in all ,hdr praniccs, and when il senscs in these: �m ingly innocem choices Ihe symptom of a sim ilar, hUI merely bener hidden, re13tionship 10 sexuality or money: or when it divines the whole view of fhe world and of e�isrence !hu is expressed in !he tlSte for Ihe delights of boulevard !he.a!re or ,he I mp�ionisl$, for Renoir's rosy women, Boudin's sunli. be:.achcs or Dufy's sta� SCts.
nn p1rri�. Originally ir was a big dull libnry. sumpruous and boring; she has .urnC"d i. inro sometlilng warm and 'cO$y', as me pUIS Ir. First. by having a circular balcon, builT around ,he walls almos! half· way up. . . . By org.ni�ing move' ment in .he room around 1 cen'fe" p,ece: ,he bed. lind qui.e 1 bed it
lis is de.arly SlXn in Ihe.ane or painling (hUf rhe s.ame is lrue of !he orher arts). what emerge ,hrough the discontinuous or dispanu: indices
which have to be used !o lake measurements are ,wo antagonistic rela tions to the work of arl or, more precisely, two modes of ae5!helic appro priauon exprosing tWO opposife assel suucruTCS. Thus., how is one ro
. . . 1l1belk d'Ornano likes 'mus cuhr' furniture and wanrC"d 'a bed is!
explain why !he median price paid for a tht:l!re ricket riscs from 4.17 fr:l.ncs among te.achers (less than is paid by junior execufives in Ihe pri.
which suggestS i gondoli: Her up holsrerer had his work cu, OUI (or ' ynr and a half! By f1ou.ing all the d:ossical rul� and combining diff"m:nt 5!yl� of furnirure-in (",r. every $lyle II Louis XVI inbid roll·.op desk,
v�,e sec!Or,
upholsrered 'rub' asy-chairs and Se<"' ond EmpifC' fireside chairs. an enor·
mous eighr«n.h-cenrury (rysnl chandelier from .he La GnnJi works, bough. from a Madrid in' riquc-dealer. one or 1"10 linle la.e· nine.ttnth-cen.ury English s.ands
-
-
4.61. and ,he publiC sector, 4.77) 10 6.09 for puhlk'scc!or se· nlor execu!ives., 7.00 for the professions, 7.'8 for private-senor eX�u'ives., 7.80 for commerdal employers and 9.19 for ind usuialist$ whIch gives one !he ordinary hicnrchy of the fl'2<Tions dislfihuled by �o!ume of economic capilal)flind how does one explain why rhe hienr· (�y of Ihe fractions is inverted if their ta.e of reprcsc:n!arion in fhe � capes, Ihatrcs is considered? If the declive affinily berween fC'luivdy ' xPCnsive avant·garde: !harf( and .he intdknual fncrions, or betw«n , much more expensive boulevard ,hatre and lhe: dom inan t dUSts is fldcrstood superficiallr-i.e., as simply a difC("f effect of Ihe relalionship tween economic COSl �nd econom ic me�n!r--One is li�ble to for�t that IhrO ugh ,he price .hey all: willing to pay for access 10 a work of art. or.
;: �
more predsely, through the relationship ixlwecn {he na{erial CO the expected 'cultural' benefit, each fr.ln;on ';���� �i� ::;�� : S d f what spo:dfically makes the value ofrhe work 0 way of approprialing I!.
� � : I
,...:n ( In order of p",fcrcn«):
F,I""
I..cs
Roc,,,,,"' H' BrOllKts I
Y 1
0
10
;IS
Indulltial and commerdal cmplo)'erl
Divorce Julian Styk The Trial. dim de V, d'Avroy
same logi( explains why ,he ck:sin:d priCe makes ,he SfrOtlge$( cOnlriburi<)n 1 the fil'$l faeror brought to ligh! by lnal S; of!he spondcnces of a $(1 of ,haraClO:r;S!;C! of a s.ample of �risian theanC$ rheir audiences (C.S. XIV). Or aga,n, why the p�nsity to iudgtc ,",�" minion chug<' of I museum Ix;ng cllnp or �ery chap ri� very in relation the ordinary hieraKhy. as moves from the Ifao, i , rich in cuhunl capital to those rich in economic capital, being distinguish«! only by a bi-modal disuibuuon
The
I
0fI(C
For certified or apprentice intclknuals. anivides such as visi IS to e:�hibitlons or 'art' cine:mas, performed wllh a fft<;juency ularity ....hich lake: a....ay any 'exrrao()rdinary' <juaIiIY. are: in a �nst e:roed by Ihe: pursuit of muimum 'culrur.lll profit' for minimum nomic COSt. which implies renunciation of all oste:ntatious expense: .' '', all gr.lllificltions other (han Iho� give:n by symbolic appropriadon of the work ('You go (0 rhe theatre: to sec rhe: play, not to show off your ....atd. robe,' as one of them said). 1bey exp«1 rhe symbolic profit of their pranice: from the ....ork. ilstlf. from its r.IIriry and from {heir discount about it (afler Ihe: sho.. . over a drink. or in lheir lectures. their anides or their books), through ... hich they ....iII endeavour to appropriate parI of ils distinnive value. By eOfllr.llSt, for the dominant funions a 'nighr our' al Ihe theatf( is an occasion for conspicuous spending_ They 'dress up to go out' (which COSIS both lime and money), rhey buy the most e�pcn sive satS in the most e�pensive theatres jusl as in other areas they bur 'the best the:re is'; Ihey go to a rc:$laurafll afte:r Ihe show,9 Choosing a lhe ure: is like choosing rhe right Shop,'O malked with all rhe signs of'quai iry' and guarant�ing no 'unpltas3fl1 surprises' or 'Iapses of IIste': playwright ....ho knows his job, who commands 'the springs of comcd)l the pote:mial of a situation, lhe comic or biting force of rhe mot juste:, � shorr. a goldsmith Of jeweller, a past masler in the 'an of conslfucnoft who has 'the tricks of the: dr.llmadsr's It!' al his fingertips;" actors known carat" role he: offe:rs them �n� � . for their ability to e:nlef tbe 't....emy.four place the eager docility of a perfc:ct thespiln Ic:chnidan al Ihe 'servICe: the: po[ytc:chnidan play.....right;'1 and a play which 'givt'S every sorr of joyme:nl. wilhout a hinl of self.indulgence or vulguity'. which tS de signed to 'relieve a wcll·balancc:d audience by bringing it ba�k t�{O balance: with healthy laughrer', heause it only asks <juC'Stions whIch cur eryone asks himself'. (rom which 'rhe only escape si 'humour and In able optimism'. •
eft'
('I"
""""
and ,ava�I�. on belween bourgeois4).rhea10�rercma The Implications of rhe opposirinpl ored (sa chapter we may glanlflC\awlll the ga'dc Ihealre have already been lhe hm,u o( Ihe dala prOVIded dlfccriy by ,hc survcy. e 14), w�cre t e '�Ste Of'pOS ([ons found in ,he field of Ihe cinema (5((; fIgur for '�mbil;ous' works Ihal dem�nd a large cultural ,nvt'Slment IS opposed �o lhe 11�'C for Ihe mOSt sp«ncular feature films. o errl �Ign� I? enlcrt.,n (dIfferences hieh arc ofren �ccomranied by differences In �dm'SSlOn p'Kes �r� some .nd the grognphical loc1lion lhe cinemas). No doub,het there u� f�· ·.n'f>\I'J'O'C· films ....h,ch the un:lnimous .pprnoval o1 1.f1 offevu,o 1'1" red. lIOns of lhe domln,nt class (1nd theit critics)-o be. mtucd. (Lt T"",. '1 SlfOflg. solemn work of ;ntell«lual oungc nOi. MOIIdt. 21 Dc.:embe, 19(2). RDfflI ",M His B'!Ilhm, by. V'SCOntl. ",uh �lam eret.1 �Lon. ,nd D,...-u /t","",,, SlJu, with Masnol:lnfl1. •n ,bonest ,comm film' for �l ( 2 June \9(2) . • comedy 'of uoonishmg cynICIsm. cruehy and .ud1Cuy' for Lt M(mM (22 May 19(2)- HO,,""('o·et. �h.ere are very muked d'vergences of (",emallC t1Ste between lilt I....o_e�'rem"� wllh ,Ilt profes. lOons. :IS usu.l. on the middle Thus ,he industrl.1 .nd commerCl.1 em�kl�. ers boos.: h,storic.1 films, like TIN UmgtJl 0<1}. a 'colossal rc
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'u�1 comenr, ....hich show '0 p"ked �udjencc:$ because- they know h0 appal (0 the publoc's c'paClty for won
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[n (ontraSI 10 'bourgrois' thnlre, Iht. opera or exh ibi tions (nOI 10 . . mtnnon premltfCS and gab nIghts), whICh arc the ocnsion or pretut f?r sO(�al ctremonit� tnabl!ng � sekct .2udien�t to dtmonsrr�te and txl» fI�n�e 't� membc:rshlp ofh'gh soc,ety In obc:dlencc 10 the integrating .nd . rhythms of Iht 'sociely' nJendar, ,he art museum admill dIstinguishing anyone (who has ,he ntcessary cultural capital), al any moment, wi thout an� cOnStr;un ls as regards dress, Ihus providing nont of the social grat 6. nnons as$OC"mcd ""lfh grC":lt 'sociCly" occasions. Morrovcr, unlike rtM: thc:trc and, �pc-cially. musk·hall and varitty shows. il always oll'"el"$ !l1t �uflflcd �ubllnaltd .p!c-asurcs dtmanded by the purt 1CSlhelic and, rather � h�e the .[,brary .In IhlS resPC-Cl, it often
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musem obligalory exaltation of tht auSlCre stverilY of the hlnd the of the true ses glimp seI"' 'mcdiuI;on' iT encounges. there are sometimes J rC of Ihe visit_n always sorncwhlt laborious task which lhe dcVOI<:t;S Jr.Jlll odical dcterminltion. rewltded , :s and duly perform with mClh mst1w I �I '" h by plnsurc of con· lhe sense of I duty done :1$ by lhe immedialC In imprcssiOll or silence. Empliness. 15 rn I;on. 'The museum left me wilh l[rnPb I pclhlPS because of .he silence. That hdps you concenlnlC on .he ,,?w�c� over by iI, ii"s �cry tc· . 'oO;kS helPS Ihem sink into you. .....sn'. . a self'lmposC
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ont moves from avanl·gardt concerts or It is undtlStandabk (hal as smission �e�d and lo� tourist apptal or pla)'S. muStums with a high ,ran txh,bmons. major concerts or lhe av:anl.garde txhibitions 10 spectacular tvard thealre and v2fitlY shows, 'classical' lhe:!rres, and finally (0 tht boul fractions d istributed in order of the I'll( of rcpresemation of Ihe difftrem omic capilal-i.e., IC":Ichers, decr("2Sing culeural capi,al and increuing econ als. industrial and com· ldministr.ltivc txeculivts, engineers, profession continuously, so mercial employtrs-ttnds 10 change systematically and wtigh! in (ht pub. Iha! Ihe hitl'lrchy of the fractions distributed by Iheir commtrcial lic lends to be: invtrted." The fCachtrs and tht industrial or tht diagrams of employtrs occupy symmttrically opposilt posi tions in . onts of shows COrn:lation bclwetn the ralt;S of altendance al t... o caltg tr" and art exhibi· p
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A Grand Bourgeois 'Unique among His Kind'·
5., � I....yer aged 4', ;5 the son of 1 lawyer aod his family belongs 10 the Parisiao 8ramu bourgtflilit. His ...ife, The daughter of ao engiottr, sludied al the Pans Polnical Sdeoce 10sli rUlc and d�s nO! work. Their four childreo are al the 'bot' priVltC Calholic sc.:oodary schools io P�ris, lh.,oy I,,'c io a very big aparuncOi (more Ihao �OO S(luare mcO'es) io Ihe 161h arrondiw:mcnl: a vcry large enlraoce,hall, a sp;!cious living room, a dining.room, a sludy, aod thc bedrooms (his office is nOt in Ihc ap;!rlmcOl). In lhe liying·room, modern furni. ture (big cushioos, a large (ouch, armehairs), aOliquilies, 'a G=k hcad io slooe. aUlhcnlic and ralher beautiful' (a ...cddiog pICSCO!}, ao objecl which Ihc head of Ihe house hold calls his 'persooal allll' ('a ralher 1I11'1C1ive relig'ous !hiog [ m:loagcd to grl off my p;!rems'-his F,uher (OlIec!S :1[[ SOrlS of ob�!S d'm, and h2li bough!, .mong Other .hings. 'all SOrlS of Sluff. cn:lmel work. chalices. crosses . . . from :I SOrl of Ruuiao, a dc::akr'), '1 1(11'1coua thiog from the Taog dyo.51y·, boughl from 10 anlique shop ;n Formosa where he weol �((ompa· nled by teO sp«ialisls, scyeral paiot iogs, a Pau[ xrusicr ('II is "Iher charming bUI, Ih,u said, I'd JUST 2S SOOO pUI a modern pi(lurc in ils piKe'), io lhe dioing-room a Durch slill life.
'Uoique among irs kind'
Wheo he buys oDiclS d'au, 'ii'S 00 way an ioves.mem.' Wh.1
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(Oums for him is beauly of the Ihiog, II sc.:ondly. nol whether IS bUI whelher iI's made in a manlike way': 'you cao � -,'" agam, bUI )'OU can a[$O make of il. So II becomes uniqu e iTS kiod, bcc:au§( you can'l same obj
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He doc$ nor O(ICO i gil[kriC'S and docs 001 . cally' inspecT aOlique sOOps
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s (In (100 rooms. He buy
of furniture . . .) or"l1"'. ,ue1 picce For his counrry hou� in Burgundy, ff �,c< J I : � him al Ihal mo a very big one ('a Ihousand square P somewhal condescend· rflCtfCS 10 furnish, a(ler all!'), almosr ,I IS 1" '- t-Ie .....,,1 ----.nIe who 'waol 10 a 'miwess'. he boughl furniture · ': . " """ " 1" " ' !!me I e got � en'l I o hav from '1 ,a,lt-aod.booc mao': '1 came ,61 a d ' ""I the "me 10 be I _��, en across a chap, a junk dc::akr, who ha� "'CSIW. What (S§(n'nle{ had solid wood furnilure. r(ll[ coun ,'[lltY I what nOl is thern IS Iry,slyk, and I bollgh.1 od�r. bits l !lIlly ,o COl bUI whal has Yi[ue.' So aod pieces. Sluffed an�mals , onclud � Ih 'pay III ao d " lher rr' club logt: ing Sluffed boars '....h,ch OU!r.I� Olher te IheY ega del ey Th ar ev(r)·onc. except me . . . because ((tiles a c :lSC for them. On rch l lhey arc funny, Plnsure is ""hal is on and nr, lme inYl:$ ,"d fun. n" h r I[ICO 0(\lCf. lOcal illComr:clcnce, [ 'I'm irriuted by people ....ho buy ,� k , piece of sh" 00 lhe Things just 10 show Ihem off, I? say u SlUe ,...same fO Ihe all be: would Ihcy'� gOl lhem or pul I�m, on 1 II. t e rells them 'u 100' as someon -, .. p1flicu[ar place. The value Isn ' lhem '[1,al's . mooey. worth what CQUOIS, it's ,he plcasulC II bo: shu is \ . _""tau_fiche 'pproKh. I� n_ 'vc got gives you. , . ' I, boughl the boars for you Ihat • 0 show 10 ,,", .nn my personal enJOymenl, Of Simply ' ble IOfIK'lhing . ' . or ,hat you � bee!U§( [ found il W2li funny, a of haviog $Omethins [I'S Io�e hOllog jokc, or bee.U§( ;1 anooyed other gaung 1Il ,mellOr designer, dck prople: 1bc hou§( is " 00 damp 10 somrone, PUI a decem piano io il.' bUI he is 'going to gel 1 graod p,a"?' . . . A, 'You've looked for i l for a long the casino, rhcy arc Ihrowmg out iI' d foun you've limo: and 11 lUI old graod pianos . . . �rha� Ihq have 1 note or IWO mlsJlflg. "'fh< objc<:1 h:lS an ioward value. an emouonal Yalue. when you've ",.n.ro il. looked for iI, for a long 'Heirlooms? Doo't make me rimo: ThaI wu wh�1 you wan,ed bugh' .1Id l! 1m, by a moke of luck )' p ". doosn't COIm into il. it's like hr orgto (. gadg miods him .h�1 Ihere arc some. he el, iI's declronic ), "'ant 01 10d I h,Ye ;1 . ' . Ooce replies: 'Heir[ooms? Don'I make me 'ga'n, you normally k«p within laugh. Ihere h�"e btto Ihree bilS of meoos; I wou[dn'I buy (urnilur" She enumcrales lhem: I "W�n ""e "''<:'" gerring ma"'ro. U � ulhcdr,al ' (He would h'� 'Iov"" , 10 own . church and Aunl x. popped off. I inheri.ed , . '·!\(Warc I.I ' . Whal [ no £ d " �UItuo: (cmin ,mOUOI of silver: fim leg"y· f I l lloo . e, Ihe shape of Ihe s'ones, Then Ihere was r.bdame c.: secood St� is beauliful.' He kgKy. Then Mademoiselle I..: ,hird , from � Catholic f.mily bu. legacy.' 'So we have a cerlaln 110 I oger fa.CliCCS; he makes fre· amount of chioa. old bits and pi«es 'i "'I<: I. h,l -. 'ron,c rc:lig;ou� refer. aod furniture. Furoirul'<: has never "") bttn much of a problem for uS �
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causo: we inheriled a certain ,moum, Fourlh le8acy, my in·laws gO! rid or some of their properly. We got some UmChlil'$. . . .' If he does not like this furniturt, he 'chucks il our': 'nOI tOO much duner". 'You n('(d :I big enough apmmenl, rooms which allow you :I cemin inner silence, ul'Khmered, and then on til<: o(lI<:r h:lnd, you n('(d rooms comaming all III<: per. son:ll obj«IS which art never sou� nirs-tMy can go into (he: duslbin-but obiecrs you like (0 h:lve around yOll.' He 'de(OIS It1vd souvenil'$' 2nd never brin&, Iny bICk ('e�cepl the Ihmg I juSt �nllO�, lhe: Chinese ler!'Kon:l. . . . I've bough! li!tie knlck·knlCks and trin· ke!s rhlt wc've disuibufCd to all :lnd sundry, but we've never dUI' tertd ourselve'S up, . . . Looking around, you wouldn't know we'd tr:lvelled. The IOCII souvenir. bough, on 'he spor. has no inrero! wh:ltSO(CYcr'). /k$ido, when you're r!1vdlrn8, it's bener 10 keep:ln open mind. 'wllk around ....j'h your hands in your po<:kets 2nd look around you, bUI without hiving one eye glued to a view·finder' (in ,he Fu �$I, his ....ire r«alls. 'we look photos'. but. she :ldds, 'we lookro :If them, showro them round once Or IWlce', Ind now they :lrt 'al Ihe bollom of the cupboard').
;n mU$<:uml.
foe the ple:uurc of iI,
'Many hours
in Holllnd and hlly"
He hIS 1 paInting studIO m whIch he spends a 10< o( time ('He liko t....irling :l brush', hIS wife emphl' sizes), bUI he considers his e«ollS 'of no Inrerest' and prt(el'$ nOl to 1:llk aboUI IlI<:m On'lhe Other band, he =tIily eonfa$C'S 10 baving spenl 'many hours In mU$Cums. (or rhe pka$Uf(: o( II. in Holllnd 2nd
Ilaly.' He was 'very StrUck catro. by halian painting .' . n1fdo, Venettan and Sien�' paintings. a1l the piClures in Villa Borghest, Botncelh.' � also 'very 10 DutCh
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Hals, Rembrandt. It's I (erent SOrl of painring, I Or:! mlKh thicker. . . . Thef(: are � some Mati$$( and Coclcau dl1.... Ings.' P;r.in!ing 'doesn't have, 10 figu!111ve fo r m 'o l, '�� ; BUI II<: i$ 'lef i.:; pr1(lical·joke � . a ....hite (anvas that.' His wife �ys doesn'l call Ihat sorl of r mg'. ....herns he is kss 'Well, no. it isn'l painling, a SOrt of 111. of e�pression.'
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For him. 'a pliming ;;,; �:m'''h'.. ....hieh can be df(:lml of for . I lime and which is I ....ith the Slme ple.sure. pleasure vu;es depending on you are or wh3t your mood is' cmerion is whether I'd wanr 10 have it in my home. . . . !.ovin' something means having ;t WId! you.' And he adds; ·PI('15.lnt are non·necessary (hings, I " . � for , to hoard things . . I li"e sake o( living. And, so ble:. [ try 10 I"'e for the pn:scflt ment, i, ,sn', al....ays easy.'
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He could IIOt I"'e without system. bough! mort Ihan I 19o for about eight ('No one brand. it's a of $Cvel":ll. I was ,hu, 5
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po<:kct handkerchief or the flower in my buttonhole, or my tie, If peo�le . Wln{ 10 Stt me or invite me to d,n. ner, ,hey invite me 1$ I 1m. l� . Olher ....ords, I have a high opln.on of mY:lelf: he explain!>. uking Ihe opponunl1y 10 indicate once 19�1n his distance bolh from bourgeoIS t:lSle and from the qucstions p�t 10 him by the socioiogisl ( ....ho be· longs 10 his ....ife·s hmily). He 'I Ihink that five hundred fnncs IS qUlle enough (or 1 suit, then:'S no point in spending a IhoU$lnd fnncs on 1 suil ....hen personll1y I don', give a damn:
l�ds:
'Cooking is 1 $l1le of mind'
He is a busy man and does nOI have much time in the middle of the fl'()rk, yoo ll"" y, know day; he 'almost ....ishes they'd in�'ent is all( s ert 1 pill so you didn'l have t? ear In He I1Irely goes to conc � . go o wh ple peo se the daYlime. . . . Cooking IS a stare tho of nor one tnd � ,hin&, b«au$C Ihey have 10 of mind.' To appreciate ii, you have to be 'rtlued': 'Sturgeons' eggs, k seen" he docs not ftlId the re . ), paper daily (his MlJlldt Lt some Russiln cooking, is quire de!r· '� i� bu, would mhe! trust rhe J udge ,ious. Cooking isn't juSt a mailer of mtnl and f«ommendation of a food, there's also ,he :letting. If , . ff>C:nd 'When Ihtre's something on you'rc going to eat smokro ed, II S (hl!'s In Imporrant work, you 11· more agreeable to eat II i� the Am· ....)1 how. You know bc-c:luse Slerdam fish mlrkel thIn ,n $Ome you'f(: In Ilcky resl:lur1nt . . . Real cooking, rk: 'hat's ....hy [ don'l bother 10 the SOrt ....here il ukes t ....o days to rt>cI ,he ((ilies. If you read one. mIke a maOcira sauce, whe:rt you have, 10 mad all of them.' He k«p thin&, simmering a....ay for . �"'tly ..-,nt 10 SCI! 0", At..,. Show, I�, Ihat's what I oil woklng, and ".liln Maoist alone on stig.:. II'S In 111. BUI wll<:n people lalk - left 11 .he inrC'fV:II beeau51: it tbout cooking nowadays. they ,USt lousy ' When he does go to lhe mnn Ihro...ing a fe.... thin&, 10:, 're. he, does nO{ n«C'SUrily go pulling lhem 0111 o( lhe gether, ' for dmncr 15 "'ell: 'You nn't � freezer. Slicking lhem unOcr the �I'IIPI� things :II lhe same ,ilm grill-thtl'S fIOt cooking. Thert's no hIve 10 enjOy thin8$ to the pn:p2Ir:llion, il isn', an art lny !4Il!O'-'
impo�nt 'When lhere's an
'Loving something mnns having il with you'
'As n«euaey IS 3 ClXlking
hich is as necessary l' s ..... " I� oOking srove. . , , Every· ,' o '1'.S sO (,1 " o nms noth. .:one wh •m . , . _' ("c �s muSIC. t s a noxu, 'v 'l re<:ords: ·Vi· nAmong his �J of B,(h cantll:15, 'kc It d ,. �h. 101 " ·,ms Monleverdi.', Mod. ,)to ...... " sn't mean much 10 \o( "\ � crt' �us
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IttbJ.vc � high opinion of myself' "
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'If 2ny sartorial 'Il:�nemenl': fo,' t;" e Wan, 10 Stt me, it's nOI t $ ock$ l'm we:lfing, my
more.' 'A
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n lituegy'
He like'S 'hunung Out resuunntf wilh Ihe aid of Ih� Gui'" Muhtlj"
or GallI! tl Millall and remembers ·..incs drunk thrcc years ago, a bou· 'l....r, a Pori, a ra{her sp«ial Sainr· Esrqme from 1 panicular year': 'I haw: v�ry clear m<'mories of bonlc:s from t923 to 1929 , " Bordeaux I still hav� I�n boltlcs of wine from 1923 he�. And four boltlcs of Ii· 'lueur dated 1870: A good bonle 'isn't to be drunk with juS! anyone . . , II fr<Jui� a certain lilurgy: a Ii,. urgy 10 get the lemperaru� righI, and a lilurgy 10 drink il. II's 1 com munion', 10 be celebraled 'only wilh «ruin people, who a� «pabk of enjoying it in lhe sam� way , . , I'd ralher drink il on my own than with people who don't app=iare il.' 'A dinner with champagne is rather 'luaint . . . II wine is varied, diffe�nl; comparing champ:lgne wilh will<' ;, ralher like comparing a SOrt of lin le flute wilh an orchestra.' 'I
prd'a pleuure'
Among the books in his libm)" 'left by a grandmother' or 'bought in a sorr of shop in the rue de Pro vence', dlen: an: lealher·boune ·l7lh<enlury·ish· books, 'mon: for
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the: beauty of Ihe cditi, mteTesf 0f the IC�I '. R
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IUry book considcn:d" in ils day, 'luilc i books he no.. keeps in 'SOrt of philosophical and a bit of poelry'; his ' so on' (about two are in his country house. has books on German IIlgerian war, . . Sc::l(ing leuher·bound stuff, lhe: shelvcs', 'for me books an: I ""ork with, nOf books for of it.' He docs nOf b..-long cluhs. ('Some people lov t uniforms, belonging to thl! tum or club: I'm my own individualisl al all com.') longer hunlS 'becau§( YOU" go a lon8 ....ay, it's rather iI's also ralher eKpcnsive ' lenn;s occasionally, on Ii goes skiing 'for pbsun:' going to Struggle with skis over my {here's a ski.tow beside me. coming down more h" 8"i" I pn:fcr pleasure.'
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p�iming, th� statu�, th� OJinesc v� or th� piece o( �ntiqu� belongs (0 the world o( objects availabl� (or appropriation, thus its plac� in th� serics of the luxury goods which on� possesses W;thOlH ncedi ng to prove the ddighr they g ive and rhe rast�
rr:ll�, and which, even when nor personally possessed, belong ro {US anributcs of one's group, decorating the officcs on� works In at
salons on� f!l:O:ju�ntS,
In {he pagn of a journal like Cmma»anrt i tks
Arll, w� diseo,'er roc -
into which the dominant flUtions in$l:f! tht work of art: tht luxury objtCts, diStinguished and distinctive, selected and glc: issue (November L9B) we find adv�rtised: j , furs, pelS, tapestrics, antique furniture, clocks, f1i
cigarellcs (Craven, IJ<nson and Hedges, Kenl, ROlh· lu�ury . England) , chaleaux, ) ' coulU� (Diol Boull<Jue ane Old II rI'h,ure 'f(Sideoccs of {harane ", 'puks wilh lake', Champ:lgn�, Bor· IS , �cS ' C jy brandy, cruixs, movi� camens. II lavishly ,lIuSlralro an, '"':" gU ( a�Cllons al lhe H(>ld DrouOl or th� hllis Galliera, beside 1Ul j f �nlS for anll<Juc-dcakrs on lhe <Juai Volt:li� and in .he MU' II m faIence '''' H OnOri, offering 'furnilure and OOfClS e'an', 'anli<Jue :0 "", ,. < 'Inl d-art. -" - ."n advertl§(, u,rS '" a" , 'paintings,. stltu�, furnllure and UUl'!tS . • . ...... rcci '" - • - h a, 1m, next 10 o e ,nd �for rhe Galerie Ardllll, featunng "m�r�on ypcr·re , ture�: furn i English and French t lury mh-cen 'ninelcc � is', offering � o(unoS\b Mu IIgos· rfln.Cailie (Faubourg Saint,Honori) , presenting ' Gl!enc L ' I 914 ) , opposite Dupom Cl8l'�IIC"" .lmprtSSlOf\l$1 <>urn m .. (. "'" " from Cognac 10 watches.. of adV(:rrisemen,s r:anging 1.11 lhe wly. pos. Oll of material and symbolic appropmllon confen on the In mb natl make y whICh iegitim:ac a IIIe «1 luxUry goods a s«ond-order ramy and Cognac 'Princcs de Cognac: 10 n:me symbol of excellence, First, � It ,he 0. , c. you n� 10 u§( the ancienl words .of the language of Cogna ,Ik '�u i ' c, Prmccs d� Cognac has The quality of the body of a Cogna , 1 svelte (harnll whIch IS aI, muS(le. What
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Otatd, Cognac. Plinccs de CognK was brought up in Ihe paradis of Maison " 'he Chileau de Cognac. Princes de Cognac is produced in limitro 'luanti. tlCS-
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his home . , . He also found, rhe vaults of the .h: L lte... � . ." 'C •I (0 muure , c. - '-'-'8"1 ,,15 (. And you raJi�c Ihe importance of rh11 know rhlt ".grrar Cognac hu '0 "St (or many long yC'a� ef rr . ) V.S,O.P. S'nce 1795, nO!hm g 111$ chlnged 11 the Chiteau de "me VlIult$, the saint ageing. rhe nme un: drvol<�d to rhi$ grat (ibld , p. m). TIle osu:nratiou5, gr:ilfuirous npense impliw in the purch
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One might be ll:�ding Marx, who writes: 'Man is . 1niti�lly posited pr�V1te propeny owner, i.e,. an exclusive owner whos e exclusive permits him both to prC$Crve his personality an 10 d ' h msclf from other men, as well as relate to them . . . man's, �rsonal, disringuishing and hence �nrial i , propnatlOn of symbolic obtectS with a material existe nce such as ings, raises the distinClive force of to the ��nd I
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redllces purely symbolic approp.iuion to the suhslitute. To appropriate a work of an is to assert onese a lf s " '" sive possemr of the object and of the authentic taste for (hat
,;
which is thereby converted into the reified negation of all Ih� un,worthy of posisess ng il. for lack of the material or symbolic m'" d,omg so, or s mpl y for lack of a desire to posse!$ il strong enough nfice everything for ir', 'nle consumption of works of art, an almOSI tOO obvious i ' Ihis a.'gument, is only one, among others, of these:: Consrder the new CII1I of n ature which the fashion for �ond rhe ll:flls.al of pt:lil·boll,gt'Ois rourism have broughl into . �hl( has � deep affiniry wilh the '�irillt Fr..net' life style of � CIC�nt fractton among tOe dominant fractions, Animals, flowers, ga.srron-omy. environment, riding, gardening, fiShing. 'OtllOlogy', bhng, the ll:gllrar topics of lhe Parisian journal CQnnaiJs#
I
back
·
(which is to the. dist�nguished. tasting of nalure as Om· ), prescnt �n Am is 10 the dlSt'"gUlshed tast'"g of CUltllll: /J mme of the legitimate objects and modes of appropna· o r gra tl (.!I�,u s ,-e: riating 'namre'-birds, flowers. lan�scapes-prcsup� a Own'"g a (jOII "rP1he privilege of those who ha>'e anOall tOOts. ",llurt'· manor house or gran� is not only a ,!uestion of money; one ,!1-itelU' 1 ppropriate iI, appropriate the cdlar and learn the an of bol· Ihe wine' which toU!t also as 'an a(l of deep communion with oncc', ac,!ui ll: trophies. tllMg· , .er' should have performed :at least . competenccs whICh arc both ,,-et'i of fishing, the skills of garden'"g, (hC5C
()I """� � r
\,ed
:;
:t'�g
l
Campag�, � �
_
" htly . . , etc: to grandma s reclpe' and brought .t� �he ' rne-made gherkins', 'made . when exhrbltmg ""ith the apptopriate verbal accompanrmenl-2S
�
twle y French mastn' spotted 2t the tilt 'Iitde piClull: by an eighteenth-cenrur or the 'ex'l"isitc little pie<e of fumitull:' unearthed in a Inlr(lue-deaicr's, lunk !hop--symbolizes 2 S<Juandering of lime and a competence which ran only be 1C
lin(live value because they can only be accumulaled over timt'. What is at srake is indcc<;l 'personality', i.e., the '! ality of Ihe person, whICh is affirmed in the capacilY to lpptopriue an object of quality.17 The objens endowed with the gl'ClltCSt distinctive powcr are thoSt' which fI\ost clnrly atttsl the quali ty of the appropriation, and tht'ft'fore the 'lu,hty of their owner, hecause their possesion recruim time and apaci. s tm whkh. ft'<:Juiring a long investment of time. like pictorial or mllsical C\lhurc. cannot be acquired in haste or by proxy. and which tht'rt'fore ap ' as the surest indications of the quality of the person, This t'KpJains . � I , rmpo rtance which dIe pursuit of distinction 11laches 10 all Ihose tlv�lies which, like atlistic consumption, demand pure, pointless ex' especially of the rarest and most precious thing of ill-particu· I :ry for those whose market vallie gives them least of it {O le n -- lmely, rime, rime devoted to consumption or lime devoted {O t cultUral ac,!uisition which �dequate consumplion presupposes.
u
c
;
�dlturc,
':
--�------�--�----�� � 'o � Prllh� be:.r in mind, firstly, thaI time, despi.e ..... possibility of appron8 thc. people's time o. of savin8 .ime: by llIlionalizuion and by ex' 0
ploi!ing rh( fr«d�m 10 ivoid the eff fs of overcro""d ing by US;n � , nmes �nd pl�cC$. IS one of the most rigorous an!luopological lim� If!, SttondJ.r. thaI ,he market VlIlue of ,imt-mO� or 1m dircnly dq:>cndm8 on the mode of �munc:r: l!ion {consuhari on {to or profiu)-incl'OSCS as one rises in rhe $()(ial hierarchy, ' in sund [II¢' "Iue of Ill<: potlatch of rime. This tClm (In be pnnkes i.wolvins (he 'Sr;tnring' Of 'giving' of lime I 11n{ dimension of whar is Ol'fem:l ll ecrnriOllr-and. cou�. 10 . -,. . . . II sure �IIYII�CS '"h0$( symhoi·Ie vaIue 1IWlIys lies p:irdy in the Clp:1cjty . , dominate nrnc and money thaI affirmed In 'laking one's time' . IQ ' I,e, q. pending such valuabk lime [0 no purpose.
IS
Of all the conversion r«hniqucs designed to create and ac ymbolic (api al. the purcha � � �f works of an, objectified cv � p:�nal tUte . IS the one ""hl h IS cJOse 1 (0 [h� most irrepr � � . oachable 1�lmrtable form of a<eumula{lon, thar IS, the Inrer naliz ation of . live signs and symbols of power in rhe form of natural 'distinct" • sonal 'authority' or 'culrure', The exclusive appropriation of wor�s is not without a a gy to Ihe ostl:OUlious d("Srrunion Of � l. � the Irreproachable: exhlbmon of ""'C"alth whic h it permilS is, si oc:ously, a challe:ngc: thrown down to all those: who cannot d· rhdr 'being' from their 'having' and urain disin rettStedness t he: ,u_ r� ' aiiirmau'o� 0f pe oal excdlenu nd as is shown, for example, bJ . � . :� primacy gtven to luerary and amSIlC culture over sdentific or ted.... culrure, the �xclusive pos�sors of a 'V St cultu re' behave no dilfc:� � . when they flmg mto the potlatch of SOCial enco unrers the lime they .... spenr without thought for immediate profit in exerdses as pr("Sugiolll . they are useless. The dominant fractions do 1'101 have: a mono poly of the usa of. work of 3fr that are ob�crivdy-"lOd sometimes wbjectivdy-oDclll towards the exclusive approprialion which alto, s ,he owner's 'personaliry', But in Ihe absence of ,he conditions of material Ihe pursuit of exclusiveness has 10 be Conren{ with i . mode of appropriacion. Liking the ume Ihing differ i s ently, ent things, less obviously marked OUt for admi ration-{h " = ' K< Ihe strategi("S for outflanking, ovemking and displa � cing � �,i� taining a pcrmanent revolution in laSlO. enable the ominated. d wealthy fractions. whose appropriations must, in the main � : , symbolic, to secure exclusive possessions at every moment. Ir and artists have a special predileCtion for the most risky bur profitable strategies of distinCtion, those which consist In power, which is pcculiarly theirs. '0 constitute insigniliont works of art or, more sub!!)" to give aesthetic rc:delinition !O ready defined as all. bUI in another mode, by other cbsses or rions (e.g., kilseh). In this case, il is the manne of consuming r Crel'es the object of consumption, and a sr:<:ond-degree delighr
�'"
� � �
�;:;�
: �;�
:�:;
the 'yulgar' arrifaclS abandoned to common consumption. o s f r1n� frn strip cartoons, family snapshots, graffiri. into distinguished works of culture, drS!l> ""
� tslcrn:"li,.e
' �
fbe
Variants Of the Dominant Taste
. the tC":lchers· and intdln:luals· cultural practices f1'It :l5'etl< colouring of karl, when they are replaced in (m: sYSlem to which they be. . ds out C �JM and ....hen it becomes necessary to �I� th 'luesuo.n 0f the ,·e� \oIlS' ing of culture and sym�lic appropmllon-t.he sublimated sub�u . " material apphrket, campmg,
e
IS
I�,:,.
nlirtWr,
Tllflll!ft
moumamt:Cring or walking: on the Olher, busmess lrips and c�pr:nse K{Oum lunches boulevard thellle (Robert Lamoureu�, Marcel "chard, Fl1In(oi� Dorin) and music-hall. vlriely shows on TV. commercil1 e�hi blllOnS. the aunion room and \Xt 10 cultural capllal as the mem�rs of the professions In,j the
��ns, �I
t° (CS
Luxury ANIMALS
RfII,,1
O"dkn< du Poo,·Nn.f o..dknt Y,lmonn T�"""1iI Nbtt. Boub«
".,. POIel e, Choblor "..
CHAT!;AUX (HIRE)
l'fefff,u", d'lnd�, (,0,,,,
CHILDREN
TRAVEL c", H",
Lamben .\I<><nox
V<
,,>' Lo,rond Lo"", ...Ih<
Enr.n"I!>gt'
Rfv,l1""
""m< G.m'"..,.", M,n,m6mn
Ak••nd",
""
J.,'ybu, �bllit de I'onb" M.n«1
Pt."n
T.illtm..
ARTISTS (lIIRE) M."",.n, « T.vel
ASTROLOGERS I'I
C""
IXly.
M"""". S>bato BATHROOM
Au D.o," do 0""" )u,(·IX1ep,....
BEAun' PARLOURS Bozobt'h Ardon
Cam. G""rt,," IbnO(t Hublnrd Ayot
u""�
Germ".... Mon,..1 Helen. Rub,,,,,.."
1'"..",,,, IIonnO(l\on Th,......
T",
1..0: N"n Sk..
CLINICS 0,,,"1"" du B
VII",��F] Ih", CI;ni'lu. d.. D•. N...n" Clin u• •ir."n."� d<
�
M."on,-AI(olt Fondmon Windsor
H6p".1 Prig"
DOCTORS 1Io" ,n
Ch.."., 00"
D,,,,"
HeM "".
Lalloch<
1.<,00'0(,
Nxll' Velby
DOMESTIC STAFF
",m,
lion. s..,......
Rogt'. V.....
DRY CLEANING
CARPEn Ben"!•••
Ca..n
CATERERS D.o.,
�11"1"'''' de P""ln
IIolbrd "'". ""'"'pn.... s..n!ky
EMSAI.MING .:" Ma",u. ,,",,,,
19m
Boullct UcNU"",
a...
""," f.......
s. S<�...,.,.,., 'MJ M";,,,,,", u ,.-' Jtt I.", ("''''. IblJand.
e.."... I",«""ion.1 s.. S
fLORI5n
...., "'" Dom,n"!",,
p'=
Murdoch
fiREWORKS R ugg.."
,,� 8o:n"""", H.,n."",
ANTIQUES
"" SNCF-DCP
FURS HAIRDRESSERS
''''. Ca.... pn-I.ou.. 0..><1
HAUTE COIffURE D.oI"".,"
C.N," COU,rt,.. 0'0'
01>"""" �",n, ,.,
Coo>
C,rdrno, >(ro.d· '"g '0 ,"s,on
lopidu. R,b,nne
S>im·lourcn' Ung"o
INTERIOR DECORATORS
Cadhi,n
IXm.chy
J,nlt"
JEWELLERY ao",hcro" Ln.um<, V.n o.d & M,uOOu..,n
.,," ,.,.....
a..mbcnn..d
H"mrs
e",,,,,
lJto
�
A'pel.
LEATHER COODS
fler"'" Morobno
1.�F p<" "!,,,'h , ..
..
..
.. ..
1.)OOF 1.)OOF
1.2()OF
I.IOOF l.000F I.OOOf .,,,
He bribed a suile overlooking I� prdcn 11 [he Belve
M"" "pen,ive:
He I'<:g,cw:d (hat there we,e
tl(l bo�es (or life u the Cornedie Fr'n�aiiIC and disdained, 'lfh,evousJy no daubl, {he price . ItUOn u(\eCI$ for cvcning-d,cs� P
:
,..,
."
IkI.eJc", oi"i.
Con�""mcn'
including: m...mjly .....d. '....""ent. mc>lI.nd u.u.1 ..di.i......
Sm,1l room o""t\ooking .""ny.rd Sm.n room overlooking p"'" M.d,um room (Wertooki", p"" Lo.gt' room overlooking p"'" s."". ov
.,,, �, "'"
L.1Wf
l.000f
No. ,neluded: s.,.-... .nd .. ".... 'fC'Ci.1 mr;din...... d""ks, I.und,),. 'eIcphonc etc
PROVISIONS
C<'>te de Fronc< [)om!n"l.... F,....hon
God,y, HCd,.rd
Pt,.".."n M.."", de b T"'tI'<
Lt,.., "" In ••
.'se
1'1'.
187-199
5S'SSSiCS
j 5 5 i '
t(1ch(tS. '9 l.IasW On rh( opposition b<:tw�n ethical ! I sponding to diff(r(nr tr";lj<:ctories, ir is ("(inforc�d and brough r . by V(ry diff«"(n{ (conomic condirions
in
composition,
On« on( consid(rs, in addition ro rh� diff�l"(nces f($P«t rhose d<:riving from rr";lienory, and in paHic ular that the proportion of individuals who owe th(ir place in the class to rhe accumulnion of <:duotional capilal riS(S lS On( m"''''' the dominant fr";lClions to ers and, s«ondarily, (nginttrs and (xecurives al"( th� dil"l:Cr th( :lS("(tic disposilions by and
."'
the. d m �.� � ;:" ' '"' '" ' ' ;.",' ;'�;" most '� I b :'�[� �� i�fS� th:i;( { cumulation towards furthc:r such � � mOl"( : doc$�nOI���;:j since rheir low «onomic opital lhem ro (Xpttl temativ( pklSures and profits. By COntl"2St, Ih<: members of the sions hav( th( mans to rc:aJizc rh( dispositions towards luxury whkh are associared with a bourgeois origin and cour";lg<:d by the requirem(nts of occupations presupposing a
�
·;::i�'��
mubtion of symbolic opital. The a$« tic arisrOCr";ltism of th( (and public.s«tor (x«utives), who are syst(matically orkntOO th( least (Xp<:nsiv( and m05t aust(r( icisure aClivities and ••." w, .. and (v(n som(what scvere cultural pr";lclic(S-visiting mUSCum s, ampk, especially in th( provinces (r:.uh(r Ihan major i ' leries and foreign muscums, like th( m(mbers of rh( I opposed to the luxury tastes of rhe m(mbers of th( professions.
amass th( (cultur";llly or «onomically) mosr expensiv( and gious activities, ("(ading (xpcnsive glossy magazines, visiting
(biers, galkries and concert·halls, holidaying in spa. towns, pianos. illustr";lrOO art books, an rique fumiruf(, works of art. m,.." a
(r:I.S, lape l"l:Cord(rs. foreign cars, skiing. playing lennis and golf. hunting and wat(r.skiing.
I\s in OUr survey. !ht rhird faCIO' brought 01,11 by 1nalys;� of I� co.. :;• <' of lhe prof(Uions. The bllt 1� particularly inclined ro luxury and Kriviries. as ;$ soo....n by simply listing (in order of imporTance) !III ....hich make the highnr ,bsoluI( (oO!r;bulion� 10 ,his � $u�riplion$ 10 glossy monthly magazines, possosion of a movie eamtllo wlu:r.skiing. possesis On of a I'pt" r«or(nies of these journals, such U po$$($.$ on of antique furni",..., and v;s;,s 10 aUClion rooms 2nd g1!1�ri". On� also knows from the $Ull:' , that the m.;mbc" of the prof�ions give 1
bl:n es
chlr:lncristics high
';':17
l
po.nicubrly
��!::'; I
n neither the compct�nce Jllbc:fS of the professions, posscssi � � rtldCiS ..n
"hC"
[1I<S.' ,n �(\SI
t,J o( hon
(the
.
up
I .
'
one � t.bnr obsc�, 'a business nCC($.$ity' and '("n\(rs into ,sonlr ,,Jlt)" , beC° n� of representation' as 'an (xhibition of waith and con· _",Ill s c�pc , as
� . t." ul _ c_ " source 0( Cr If'IuCrllI, as a -
diff("rem
. b·
forms depending on tlK profession, '( tendencies take ' , who h�v� a savings , , ,nd "Jbt5' ho: tfOC " rhc plac( of l'($i«i1 i l l$. ' One m:ly aS5ume Ihat surgeons and othet JflfCi:lIiSl�p «i1I1y in P1fi�CVOlC a parricularly hIgh proporrion of ,lor .. to luxury e�pcnditurc, pmicularly Ih( purchasc of works of
'
= �,.�ry
d..11
'"
propcrty.
w
I<'(ome
I
'
choices
8y Contrast, C"2ch of Ih( l(1(h(rs' (thor prcf(f(nc(" for a har· monlOus. sob<:r, diKl"l:Ct int(rior, for exampk, 01 for simple but ",dl· Plnrnl<:d m(1lls) nn be und(rslood as :l way of making a virtu( of n«es· .ltl)" by Ihe profit thO!)' atn draw from thdr cultural capital
ma�imizin8 time (whil(" minimizing Iheir tinaneial ouday) . If rh( pro�lOnais do not always hav( th( tastes malCh their mans, th( tr:Ichtrs hardly eV(1 hav(" th( me:Jns to malch (hdr and this dispar. II)" � . ��"� Cuhut"1.l lnd economic opilal cond(mn! th(m to an a.sce.nc . lCIsm (a more aus\(re variant of th( 'anisr' lif(-5IY1c) whICh � � Ihe mOSI' of what it has, $ubslilUting 'ruslic' for anlKJue, Roma· �(a'lltl :Ind t�'r .spare
to
tastes,
s for Pcrsian carpc:ts, 3 conv(IIOO barn for an anc(5tr";ll manor· l hog raphs (or reproducrions) for paintings--unavow<:d substi· to!f:$ Ic, u. hlC "'1Ir " . like rc:ally poor people's lath(refle or 'splrkling whit(' . ..1 _ ""tt, a'e the tnbutes uo:;priv3tion c� pays 10 p05SCSS,on.IlTh� Ispanty VC' � ono. ��ior, mic capitll and cultur l capilal. or, more precisely, !he edu· a 3�capI tal which is its certified fo m. undoubtw.!y on� of th(
h
'
r is
•
d·
A 'Truly Classiol' University Teacher
The
L, aged :lAS, an alumnus of tilt Eeolc Normale Suptricure. has thc agrigalion in physio. He is now a mailrfollUillanl (scnior Iccturer or 1S' sistan! profe-ssor) in one of The �ris uni"ersi,ies and lives in 'hc nonh ....cstern suburbs. His (atlltT (an I1grigi in gnmmar) a Iyctt tnclltr and his gnndfarher a pri, mary '(':Ic�r. HIs ....ifc. a pharma cist's daughter. is a ckntist. She tcaches at the �ris Dental &hool and also runs hel own pnClice.
Jnn
WllS
'A louis XIII convent lablc from Ihe Fie;!. Market'
-
Prderring 'sobricty' :lnd 'discretion"
Jean dislikcs 'fat cushions and hc:I.vy curtains', and 'apartments donc up is 'quite by intellor dcsigners: scnsifive 10 the overall harmony of an in !erior : 'If you' re lucky cnough to come across :I really finc piece of furnilure, you put that one piecc in :I corner. That's :III you need for a whok room.' 'At homc. until rt' ccnlly. ....c had cheap furni.ure th1t 'Nf! bough. whcn we marti"'!. A <juicily modern s.ylc thaI wasn'I un· attnctive. Venec."'! leak, quite ch(':lp. but now the chai rs arc giving up thc ghost . . . Now wc have one or tWO old bits of furniture that 'Nf!'ve picked up, '01 antiques . " :I Louis Xlll conVC'lll lable Ihat s0me sporr...! for us in lilt Flea Mar kel, a Louis XIII chest that isn't bad'. found in an antique shop in 'Of course, we won't be gerring any Louis XIll chairs-for on thing they're terribly e�pensive. and anyway, if ,hcy're genuinc. solid. So we'lI ge' they're nO{ some made fur us in ,hc pmc style
Hc
'
one
Amien!. e
even
but wilhout pretcnding to li<jue' ooon,ing and ing of 'he hou!;C :IrC mainl y his wifc who of imporlance 10 them. . expel! at that. I'm 00,,, ,", , regards prices . . . I enjoy when all's pid and dOI\t on my own I don't think" "� much fime to [ haven'T Bot much of a 11Sle for it, bUI In certainly has and in the end preclate II, all the s.ame.' vcry fond of old fai"l(t: • willing to accompany her i Pys, "Come along, let's go at some porcelain. [ know cnjoy it, I know she's much sensitive to it �han 1 1m . . . one thing I'd really like to haven't done so yel, bu� I limn look: ifs old $(icnlific
.
.
if.
,
l '" ..;.�
"
�� ���
menfS �:;:� � ;: ; :, : ; ;
some i cenfUry and thec or r
back.'
more roncemnlcd'
'I'd ralher read somethinJ
At home, he does a bi, o(,m. carpentry. 'ou, of dUly'. ' ,he one who uys Ihis or dOing. and I do iI, laking ' necessary uouble over it. 1
'7.:,;�
it (luicker if [ did it less but [ enjoy designing ing them out and then them.' He don nOl have a TV c home bur manages ,o . , fime 10 rime. 'The i I, Ihings �hcy're d(':lling sels diluted. On any given mo� · I'd nther read something
::�� ;!
: :;;:" ":"�
cen,ra,ed. Slill, thcre I things for which ifs i haY<: 10 admil, 1 wenl 10 my mother's to $ce ,he firs� m.,oll
ber Irkc that. . . . 1 remem l llich for five minute$; "'�. l",n gcc Jbk 1'm gl.� -.u 1 s.a.... �I l onslnd of jun ,.""s
n gs t , h �nf nl�kSfhk . � c
�:ng hIm'
used rC'llding .,.II !flY I. /lfoHd�' sor
t.l
to
'alWllYs
be
10 Tribunr Srxiafim t-1: sub>C�tbcs d'-and ()(cas�ona�ly reads
',1 I �
HIS
J (>>In"I·l1llllr. ial view /.J ;0."" . 'lr glvd :I supelfic
t.'�
w,fe takes
Ihough some of the i nrcl' � All my read'109 u'"'" d to 1 ased on Lt MOIl"'. use ."" .... . nut now I don't r«CI"C il regularly , ""d " ,..cry day. Hls read"109 IS e ...hat auSlere, no de,ectlv or novelS: 'Solzhcnitsyn's e. because my FtrII Cirt/(. all the pm .,k �Id I ough� to read it.' Hc has
ofI'-(1\IS. re
:�
good
:'rcs
abo m:ently read
Dntl-'ing 'kxitry
br Illich ('It made a great imprcs· Il0
(Monoo ). :lnd Konnd lorenz s 011 AUft.lSl<)II. He owns a UNESCO
'
history of world cuitures in sevcn or <1gh' volume$: 'It·s marvellous, i�
M·t. nam"ive. certainly nO! a nar'
..... rh1l docsn', In,cleS' me, Af(h.."
1t"'1'; if lhere are ch:llKfen and so
oIosY, no
." �hat inrcrcsrs me a . Somelhrng I bro� in a good deal the O/(fHn/ary of Ar'
lot.
�g,. '
IS
'Truly ciaSJ;(':I1 �tain.,.j Ihings' . .... Vet1l><>:r IS somethmg 1 un gaze 1t for I.I'IS�"O hours and I feci lly ' """fC':I! that {a book of. dr:. I>ot "'''t,s by rea
'a guy called Esche. ) :1'.11 ' , ' appreC1:ucs a h'lI of t an In the series edited by as'el. 'The � �ext is oumand ing � Ir<J "the,Iten' ' t many reproductions. tL . Y Ie no� brilliant though . 'e ttla m'ely origin�I, bu, ftc " < 80Qd becausc t""y analyse
F'I;:( ti:'
much
.
thc painters' ideas, nm jusl :lnecdoti, cally but tilt way They connect with lhe economic and social Stru(lurcs of lhe period: He 'docsn'l "do" mu, !;Cums exhauslivdy.' bu. i, WIlling 10 go': 'I'm quitc prepared 10 go along if a fr end say, "Look, there'$ $ mcthing [ want to go and .sec". or if I've secn or rcad some' thing. . . l"m always will ng TO go, and I spend a (crtain amount of time lhere.' He has to Tuscany !;Cvenl times: 'I love e�rylhing $cen tlltre . . I cnioy there is to situating the painters of the period in relalion to one anmhel: I say to myself. AnSc1ico was still painting like this while w cone else was doing that.' He particululy likes
,
O
i
i
been
be
m
.( prefer TN Arl of FlIglI�
on Ihe organ'
He has no hi·fi ('I'd <[uiTe like to have one, but for me it's not e$scn, tial"). but he does hl" 'a record· player that isn', bad' ("mono. I bough' il for 600 francs four or fi�e
)'Ors ago'), 'In my view, music is something you ought '0 go and sec done by the people who make it. Thu's the best way. Otherwise, al home, you jusl ntto:! soffitlhing In. $Onabk 10 play the m:ords on Ind some good performances. . . . I'm not enormously sensilive 10 the per· formance:, bUI sliIl, I do appreciate it.' His '.sense of the eronQmy of m�ns', his t:l$te of 'sobriefY' and 'abo his s<:ientinc Hain;ng' incline him 10 appm:iue 'pure music', 'Tk 11., "I FMC/it, for eumple, I prefer (hal on the organ ruher than an or.
UK of limircd
means'
i '!lOt rnlly 1 connoisseur of He s films'; he often 'just gOC'S ro the local cinema in D. to sec dIe Cur· trnt releuc$ if they're !lOt foo bad.'
Z' :�.
He likes Trufl"au. but '"�', to ttJ,c, Ameri�n ans' ( of Ametic.n films a c<:pt Woody Allen'). watch mlny histotical I 'Obviously Abel Gance's that was missed, or 7"ht or IIkxaNIH Ntl'd).' ' gic to anyfhing that i overdone. I like someone to me something he (""Is Veho .. " ' euseO(Jimltc ' e.C;tlv makIn d � He tS neIther a 'gastrono � ' '�o�nolsseur', but he is 'faitly live to rhe food he is olfefl:d ' '....n frirnds invite me fo, a ," [{ $ a pl�s rt r t2ke noti
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:
11
'I rush OUt walking'
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He 'would like 10 be able (0 chess' and $Omclimes play. 5C He docs 1 bit of photogf1ph)" " end up using two rolls of Ihl pictures a year, mainly on hoi""" One thing I typically do when ,.. on holiday in �he mouRliln, is. toke picfl1rn of lahdscapcs . I spend hours poring over a � working OUt what can be SC'tR ' holid.y ., rush Oul "'alk'"g and then, like an idiot, [ do fony metres a. !Op sped on the firsc '.. ind then my (""t arc s...ollen for I . (ortnight. W....n I go walkIng tY" it Iioirly inrcns;,'ely, bu� unfor nafely ,herc arc long periods don'l do any. For the l25t I'� had a dog. and she has Ihlt •• �aken for 'OIf:Ilks. I ous pace. . . . I I1ke urd.ys and We cover ren i _
propensity to contest a social order ...hich docs nOt '()Ils of thcir 1"ndatl ples of (las e thdr mcr;1S beouse if «(:ogniles other princi i\ reeogntl ti e educational sysrcm which has classified Ihem. (�Jlr dIan those of l l ratic) revoir is inrens; Jlli't lOflitocralic (and thercfore, in a sense, aristoc . ies, rcfusats ind impossibilities, ",tS it .s combined .. ith the loyalt j\«l f saIs of Ihe impossible, which are linked to a pelit·bourgeois or mic con· ".. Itug.class origin and which. togcrhcr with purely ewno n r .'O kl prt�nt full membership in the bourgeoisie. •. Slft tn t
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o, :: = ':;o = = '' = '''::: = o d = = ,= ,o = 'h = m� ::-: roo g= :-; = ,= p;o �= r :::: = � o ,y .C = w = = ' 'C b= � � " = ,p = = ,,, C IyC ,C � C C ,;. ,� C � .r"b � ,", of ple princi 0 t.... bel that cuhuf11 capllal is a dominated ()!IC �pltln from in participation as a udrc in the organiulions claiming 10 � don',na ion lies of the dominated classes. Thus the disrribu· .nd Mfend the iRlerem aspire ns "rrr (he mem�rs of the differcRl dominaRl-claSIS (f1C1io who ItOIl s ntative represe success) 10 posilions as political u�ual chanccs of d by analysing I.... social char1Crcris.ics of parliamcn. (· '�lCh ClIn � gauge corresponds fairly SIIiClly 10 the dimibution of their rc (. candIdates) the fIeld of Ihe dominant class. II follows from Ihis fr.actions of ,.... lren:l$ of I.... Struggle to impose the .lul poitllnl struggks arc one iple of domtnation. kgt"ml(e (I.e_,
:
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B)' CORlt1st, for those ...ho, like Ihe professionals, live on the sale o f
rulcur.al services to a clientele, the accumul�tion of economic capilil merges ...ith the accumulation of symbolic ,apit�l, Ihat is, with the �c· qUlsition of a repumion for competence and in imige of fCSp«tability and honou...bililY (hat are easily converted into political posirions as a Ioc:al or national notabl,. It is Iherefore understandabk {hat they should Identify ...ith Ihe cstablished (mor-d) order 10 which they make daily (ontributions, of which their political positions and anions, o r the decla· tal101lS of the national mC
10 SOFRES survey of a nasional sample o( (WO hundred doc· � /:: made kf� the first round of lhe 1974 plcsidential el«tion. )9 perro. �'d they would VOtc for Giseard, 16 percent for Miner...nd, 9 percent a .n �
b; ·Dclmas (the GaulhSI candidare) and I I percenl for anmhcr nn· dtdat , and ) pe rcent were undecided. Asked who they thought "':1$ mOOt hkd c to WIn, 1i petcent said Giscard. 16 percent Miller...nd, 9 percent �,�";ptlmas and I percent anOlher nndidate, and I } percent would nOf One c.an get an i(/(,� of what the doctors were voting for in b "" "'idtrY .o:-adtng the interview with him in the same issue of u Qllolidim '" thO! rq>OrtS the survey. in which he declarn himself in (avour of hlghl . �It(,,�� re(rui'mcnt, the main.en.nce of the 'li�...1 profession', ( � fl
o.l G�,�
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So the COntrllSI Ihllt is usulilly dl'::lwn betw�n ' I tllste and 'bourgeois' or right.bank lasre is nor only an
tween the prefer'(:nce for contempol'::lry works (her'(:, within Ihe lim offered. Picasso, Kandinsky, Boulez) lind the taStc more COn5e(l':r :l ed works (the Impressionists and especially Ic:lU, the Hungdri"" Rhapsody, the Nllr �4S(jm, Ein' Kkinf ' between the taSfe (or solid values, in paiming lind music, as in and rhc:l[re, ,nd the commitment 10 novelty. I I is also an
tween twO world yieW$, two philosophies o( life, pic, by Rcnoir lind Coya (or (l.hurois and
:�:�;;�:
I
� r the cen:;: :;-.
conslelluions of choices, /d "it m fint lind '" �i t m film, lOSr:< "" """ U,� ..d d"k 'ho'8h", bo,'""d ,h�," ,.d '"'." 8"'Sj the social oplimism o( people wilhou[ problems lnd [he lI nti_ pessimism of people "'ilh problems-the opposilion be t",·ctn In and menIal comfot{, wilh imimate, discreel imeriors and nadi ' French cooking. lind 1CSlhcric and imeileelulil invention, with thef1IIIt1A (or exotic dishes or (by inversion) pot.luck. 'studied' interior s, or ( version ) those Ihlt are c:lSy to mllintain, furniture from the Flt"lI MIIIIt , and avant·glrdc ShowS l'
..,":
The oppositions I>o:tween systems of purdy aCSthelic prderenccs [hal Ire symbo!i�ed by I�e antit�C'Sis Kand!nsky/ enoir can 1>0: replaced R Ln Ihnn.. , of chOICes conswullng hfe.styles Simply by conSidering Ihe chal'::lcfenstJCI an audience such U Ihal of (AmMi!Jan" titJ ;i'll, Th;s reia,ively npensi.., luxu,y cultural jou,nal, which is al Ihe ume time .n advertising rm
I�
rig�t,bank!, aU,mon rooms: an"<jue shops and luxury bouti<ju('$_ 'The gems taSle ""hoch (harxtefllCS (hem .s opposed nOI onl)' 10 'H1,dlenJ taste but also (cucnlllily by possession of ""orks of I goinS) 10 the 'mlddlmg' laSlc of the great majority I especially Ihe commercial cmployen. sreat r�ders of Ib /(1-jmml.J, proprl" e only II\osc rare goods 10 which money gi"cs direcl ,cc�, luxury cars (CS, VI) To measure Ihe d'slance 1>0:(1"«1'1 Ihe 'bourscois' public and Ihc I lua]' public, one only has to oI»crve ,hat the proportion crs and art;s" is H percenl al Ihe �intcs anClenl music I' al Ihe La Rochelle cGnlempo.-a,y "" fcs"val, 66 perccn' at ,hc
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s the 'inteJlcclUlIl' fl'::lctions expect I'::lther from the artist a sym· of socill realily and of the orthodox rcprescntltion o( it C , a'·" .8;.8 ,.t cCh" , \X'!> ' a�I1StS, t,he'T ' wnl' art, .he 'bourgeois' fracdons expect .herr t�is' 11<'" , I 'bOIl allies, like their couturiers, jc'll.'eJk� or Interior dcslgf'ICrs, to � ir emblems of distinction which are at the SlIme time mc:lns of�.
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art are only Inc mOSI VISI' SOCIII realily, Luxury goods and works of I of this decoT enveloping bourgeois e)(isrence, or al Ic:lSt, [he �" �g pari of a fundamentally dUlil life, spuriously unified in tole � t domC'StiC a spurious division ��lIinst il�lf. disinterestedness lIglinsl �"l�'rou8h , It,I� flO' agllinsl money, the S�t�!�ulli agamsl the �emporal. In((rtSI, art . , ,w'P'p'rs discreetly pollllClttd or ostental1ously depolmclttd, '" 1110(1 . lift books, BIue GUI-des �nd tr.t.veI det'on[ive Journals lind coff�-!abk , lind blogr.t.phlC$ of grc:lt men are so mllny screens �.. "8ionlll novels sro,_ , " �' , represen· u� hide 5(x'IlIl ! lIlity 'Bourgeois' the�trc, a scarce, y uo:: - rc:I C :�tton of one of the forms of bourgeois existence, with its bellutiful stllse
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!CIS, prelty women, facile lIdvenrures, ,frivolous convel'Sltcion lIn,d �lIssu�· , .ng philosophy (�ny other combm�lIon of the nouns �nd adJCCI'ves IS , �ualJy v�1id), is no doubt the form par excellence o( the art the ?our. . grois' re<:osnizC'S because: he recognizes h imself in II, The bour�eolsle ex· pe
a reinforcement of its self-assutan ce, and, as much OUI of sufficicncy 1.1 In�uffi(iency, il can never really recognize the audacities of [he
Ivanl'gardc, cven in the most hiShly neutl'::llized arts, such as music. o\nd for every enlightened amateur who has undeTSlOod rhlll it costs IIOIhinS to 1>0:, like Proust's Mme, de Camb,cmer, 'in lIrt, 1I1ways on the
kft', there arc many prescnt.day lIdmirers of Fbubert or Mahler who haV1: tnc same impatience with disorder, even symbolic, and the same horror of 'moveme nt', even lIrtislically sublimllted, as their counterparTS In the PU I
� �I, 1 � � -----�---� cb ss o. class frxlion is defined nol so much � its over.t.ll jud� -------
. of Intellectual s Of artists in general (althoush antHnte�leeluahs� IS a oltttt ln , bou fIl lnt chal'::l(telislic of some fr.t.(lions of lhe bourgeolSlc and pcme :IS by the artiSls and intcllecluals it chooses {rom Ill( nnge of· lhe field o( p,oduction, Thus Ihe anli-intcllee,tualism of,Ihe domi_ �ant r "'tt1�ac"on of til( dominant class may be expressed II'! tnc chOice o( In tlw: luals ..ho are inclined to anti_intellectualism by their 0"'1'1 posilion ' t , In:;tllcelual field, The (Ultnct one mov('$ f,om thc 'purest' pres, PoI'tl ( mOSt completely purified of all refercnce to the social world and (\ first musk, then poelry, philosophy and painting), ,he wider ,nc
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sal? be!w�n 1m, prod�c"r$ recognized by rhe domtnarl! {ncrion, -!>Jay.. ""flghlS and rhe:t!re critiCS or phil_her5 and political y-J$ I5--.f.:I t-.� = - -, br IhC Prod\Ice" rhe selv". Furrherm�r, rerog"'z� " . ., one -,S . . I e �f1on If arouses amon, tho: declinin, r- bour,-- h : PlrIICU,2f ..verylhing in it which Chl!i(ngts tho: ordina Sl�,(" $/aI\ls) and symboli, 2(uibu(�: sue :Is '... shIps b(,IWttn a� (or behaviour, such as S(CxuaJ or poJiriol conduCi. '" ing. or .. '1m! a v" . ,_ _ - n of roo<;: pr:ICllCIJ f>O$lub'e$ crlno which are the UOlun Ins" s 0r bour-., '-lik-slrk. Like III¢' old 'I'Omrn in AU$Ir.llian myths• ...ho �vcr, '0.... �_ _ . " '" L. . I>I:lw«n the gcncr:lfions by SlructUIl: 0, re,anons Sa,, } a youlhful. skin. and inodJ«ruals (l ke smOOl:h, � ", eu5mg a N"" . age when o�hel'$ r equenung young revolutionaries al pn� pUl'$yt somelimes rail in .<jueshon 0IIe honours and cuhiva�e �he powerful) [he social of -[he most dttply buried . pmOla·s ....·.. - 0, those who have ·self·respect· and kel en[uitd /flill"", [he d-15po:$mon 10 command rcspet"�.
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One �ll to [ ke inro aC(ount [he whole logic of thl" field of a . . producuon and 11$ rdaflonshi [ the fidd of the dominanc class � � .. cpectaUoflS--unl"qually, and always in thl" shorr term�No bour�ls I no acct
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funClions as ar type of 2SSO:t structure in which time . §CS 1 particul wilh economic capital But ablc ngc [cha ime y pard r. fac[o pO p,oop dent by renouncing what it could ;lI' ill� and �he disposi�ion to defend ii, ) c"Olpi�al n� to mak.e �rn, presup� tJ:oth the (inherit� . the-hlghly ansIOCtaUc-dISPOSI' and lc ss�b po lly eria ma[ \lC 'on UnC1JII rcn renoun«.
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__ I� W __ : re world view . f sl compkle inversion of the ordina.ry __ an alma helr __b t� � earned through awvlllcs �nsider c life s SI 'artl [he Y k and [0 lead means of buying lime [0 wor l· specific 2Clivity.lS Thus 2rtis�s (and inte in egnl pm of Ihe .'hlc \ they could otherwi� exchange money, which ch itCI02 counling 10 produce ob)ec[s whi hilS 10 hi" spent no markelS, "OInd to 'discover' objects and thl" 5horl [erm) res oflCfl � Ihey help to produce, anti<jucs, back·s�ree� rari�y and hosc pI,ccs appropria�e coll«ti"c shows eIC.; and lhey <juui-cxclusively tI utal broa�ls). Vanllions in . strViccs (mu$Cu�s. galle�ies. cult unequal propcnsny �o mne arc. logc�her lirr>e and in [he relulon urc very factors which make pallems pf expendil :-:Sume, among lhe 10 �he resouKCS of �h class.
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money (oflc.n their ,(,1ft)h�Ii :n r � Wilhoul hich havc ,,"" ('n "211,11" r>O:W
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chal· opposition between the young and old. the In no othc[ class is senior -ll d also Ihe opposition kngt'1"S and the possses ol"S-n G! always be suo members of Ihe class and the newcomers. which cann mOSt senior are perimposed upon it (sinCI". in some sectors at leas[, the dominant ilIO IJH, mOSI pr«ocious)-more delerminam [han in Ihe class. which can ensure ilS own perpetuation only if il U capable of over· . coming [he crises Iha[ are liable to arise from the competitioo bet... cen the: fl"2{lions 10 impose the dominam principle of dominalion and from lhe: SUCCession suugglts within �h ftaCiion. The differences belween the: gcne tSe wilh ta[ions (and the potencial for geneta[ion conAiCls) inclt the: magni s of tude of Ihe changes �hat have occurred in Ihe definition of acccss to positions or in the institutionalized mcans I. . ion of Ihe in�lvid�als 2ppoint�d to modes :f..t.�·I9 e . �netar sIty of [OUles !fItO a ' . ConSl"quently, the differences due ro the diver lations which � Job at. given moment (particularly vi�ible in popu 2�� l the I"xecurives and engineers) lre [Ou ;gh Y ?ISpersed in (his [cspec[, like in the differences resulting from [he variations over time tbr descn lion and in the conditions of access to the job, in pmicu' Itt the Va .il�lons s in [he rel"Ollive importance of [he different route � I" educational sySlem and its relation IQ ill a� ., ked �o changes in (he dUSlry
the
%CUp:uion21 the giv 2 � Wlt� "l-ti(h
between the
of
The opposition bctw�n the oldest, who valorile the most ascetic disposidons, and the youngC'St, who identify with the valuC'S most the modern e�ecutive. is pmicularly marked among the executives gin�n ( �nd s«ondarily among the t�chet'$ and professionals) , For pie, in the dominant ciw a whole, �U percent of the 'conKic:ntious' friend, 1$ against 24.} percent of the under-
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of (rain.mg�u[odidacts, es typ nt ere diff the of ts duc pro the to n mrcnng school opelcS ineers from the minor engni<j eng n o[io rom c.h ue, r.�ole des �d,daCrs :r:! Ihe SoCien�ific grandes ecol� (Polytcscie �ues or tllu[s dcs nces poh!ldif lIc 11idnc: etC. ) , graoduatcs of the various Ins ed that the ferentber em rem be ays alw . . ,... I" 0f cou�" st, . mu . (1t . ","'C etc from «0 arlsmg . no; '0 the new situations r_ ou gr US . TlO Ya [he f 0 d educa' a� Ial SOC m s nce ere diff the k bac ed ctSpOn� me be ca ngcs ;, ant dlffere�ces ort imp d ine erm det ays alw nOmiC ch� e hav h or�g:, ;u�� occupying formally identical positions at a. glv; 1,,,,,11ccn In vi e and marke' ung ...�t« t. ) For exampi', thc strengthening of finuluanc . , ents, res ng f�m �heauo.mcnreased tm par de l ica hn tcc to ive lal (1lCfI !fIO [S 10' of �r'r'mdl(banks over . dUS[ry the growing internal1ona'hzpatents., h I"' manaDt"''ment. and. theI rrd"mg to th'" ir the a1 " p" " . " h elr t s. group I ns ca dustnaJ a revaIual10n ><; ,"alinea[ions and in�lIlUlio 0f 1 " " ue It" hand, Polytechm<j . (1U ' . A or HEC on the one EN . Po ccs SClen ns. �I(lo ther engmccnng "'"'�hool, on the other han.d, and. s;multa· -'. the �J 1' 0f the bour' ons ,od fncll rhe to ' ble but.... availa es , ,hanc . tn S . tll. un'ons. Th",, :as a resuI t 0f hangcs " th, otOUSIy, rcul ms se the u 0 gtais,e wh fI:lCturcs" and :Jh'IeIt through its uSC of the Paris InsmutS QC> ic hi· «onomie St, ues SIlU�t'"" ar ,Yh, bonom of the specifically aca.dem ' ct pol((ttl d! bourgtl:JtJlt h of power', Ihe Parisihan gran erarchy :l [he hoaols mo mandmg com the r, eve I y [el ple com re �h pe pi vice (provoking collecoftivewhand �pp.�l n� atl.ed, no and the civil ser drr;ofC om �n re mo ' S atC d gra e iqu hn tCC �y ; y � I: � �i :�l � i :: : �u b a � l T r� c �a n � �� u:�� n l ��ti���:����:�g���.e��� �: £ : : � �7t��� e a. promise profits at least e'!ulValeogel[ s.10buI tose hout off n :�I�:���:� and Slrictly predictable carccr rarsubvCf( thewitsY� n 0��Ilc: : inrttS of SlXurity, is tending rowhen both .t�e'rler:ns� fi I t a�d s �: �:�1 �:r��� of profll, /+.[ leut in the phase: r In ?tS �1 eal enn at d ate s . "·I:d [hem situ ion i" t gft'.lf�t' thc:sc new "" -. , VIO pro hiS gm oll I ia ' SOC se o fun: arc: mos[ a!trlctive to those wh. . neclions I h e s. ent stm I con mvc y With an indination towards nsk . ormalion n�d In order 10 ttctdcd m order to make them and the inf SUcceed in them. ,ib.. lc to di� t ' .il is � - eng''ntrs ;; 'nUl. Within 1 utegory $u(h u that 0r 1,,<; r-. .. cd' tlngu!lh families of tute corresponding fO sub-sctS of Ind,vidual.s �n� w1l ,oruy htn bofh wuh rcsptlt ro cultunl and educational capital andrgcotoisS(n [Ule of the the boUrgco.Sle. At e�lf(:me is found ,he pttir.bo,u older cnglnters. originating from the middle or work"'� c1:wes and � er ex "'otl:
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A Young Executive Who 'Knows How to Lve' Michel R., an advertising exe<:utive ...orking in a Paris agency. the son of the managing dire<:tor of the Ftench �ubsidiary of I leading mul· tinational corpor.uion. studkd in a private Catholic secondary school in the 17th arrondiucment and then at the l';lris Political &�nce Institute; his ...ife, 1S2b(lIe. the daughter of a provincial indumialist, abo went to Sciences Po and ...orks for a ... etkly ne...s·magnine. He is }O. she is 28; thcy have t...o children. They live in Paris, in a modern IivNoomed apartmcnr in the I )th arrondisse ment. They like things to b( 'snug and cosy', 1bcy have no interest in 'home.impro�men!' and haV(C kq>l: their apartment as they (ound it. '1bc: dc.::or:ltion is all 'he ...ork of our predecessor. I didn't much like the green in the dining.room, If ...as r:lther gloomy. hut ...e gOI used to If, and I get bored ...orking on the place I live in: 'I hale thu beading on the doors, /'d like to get rid of it. 1lM: pKudo l6rh· or 181h<enlury ven�ring or ...h3ft'VCr it is all over this modem apartment is ghaslly; I put up ...ith it bUI it getS on my nerves,' says Michel. ...ho has re moved some of it but 'couldn't face the rest.'
'The wodd of my gnndparcnu'
1lM:ir flu 'is parlly lhe ...orld of my gr:lndparcnrs. my great.gr.mdparcnts, ...ho were g�,,1IIh IK;II�gtI';J'; picrute$ by Michd\ gr:lnd(ather. 'who spent h�s ...hole life paiming and never d,d a day's ....ork·; othe. pictute$ ....hich lhey have be.:n given_ Boudin, a BiS$�II!". and I Folon. But
Michel. who the tSIS In nard, and Monet or lhoc: ...ho does a lot of l andsca� � Pim.ro', docs nor like dto:m UIIf Nor docs he like still lifes r 'problem pictures', 'Fernand 'U and Sluff like Ih>!, is hO!ribl, , III th·!C' and havy, " 1"'0 or thrtt ' Br:lques can b( InteltSting to 100Ir It, hut ....hen you S« ''''0 hu� of rhem. all done dto: S2me ..... . It getS I bit rq>Ctiti,� a hir nigh;: . marish. . . . I tcod 10 go for land. scapes . . . My grandmother's gor Bonn"d in her apanmenl, the really valuable piclUfe she O"'ns .. won't inheril it because there a� , lotS of relatives. But ;1 would be "'onderful to o....n it. I go (Of th-. that IK outside fashion, SOt! of timeless: 1S2b(11e docsn't enlirely agrtt ...ith her husband: 'There att some rhinss I like a lot in modern an, bu, 'hat's bc<;ause like ,h� ,olOlllt . . For eumpJe, Vieira cia Silva (she hc$ilatcs over the name), B0. din, who i$ b(hind you, I like I Iot.' They bolh oc(asionally vis" gtl· lcrics, and exhibrrions ....0 or ,hlft times a year. They ..�nt '0 thot Br:lque exhibition Ind expeel ,0_ rhe ImprWionists It DUr:lnd·Rud
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1
'Wc'd sccn a loc of mediocre stuff'
The dining·room tables 2nd cha'''' mahogan y. 18th<enrury Enghsh style. ...ere bought in london 1$ t soon as 'her wcre mmied. '1 don" kno... if ....e'd do the same ,hln,l ,000ay . . . [ can't rememlxr why � bought ,hem. but from a bo"r� point of vic... Ihey muSI Ix a g ... . Invcstment.' Afrer vlsiling many 'ique shops, ,hey 'nnaUy ,h05(
expensive: It would thinS very �...,.:(OSt ,...icc as much on Pans. toJ�d ,:en I lot of medioc� stuff dtCiJed ,,",e didn', like II. 1m· "" n" he furniture ·...as no pf"Clh. " ! ...,.t It's c.empc from C\,lSIom � T VA Jrf": You jusl have fO pay ' lax].' In the living· '"'"ts u added -� I•a ," have some mouern and ,hey m ,-o<) old furnirure, a bookcase from .IJoboi s, • sofa from a shop in . .... � .,1I2� su,sse !>(;chers or is 'only In old PeUgeot 404'. ...hereas his bosses '1\1"' goc Jaguars. the dif((lor of IK' a�ncy has an Alfa·RomC(l, a �ncia'. 'From lime 10 �ime: t�cy, y "So you aren'l tr:ldong " on?' �y'd Ix relieved if I got a ne... car. They're afraid I'll visit diems ,n my or.'
"J,1 r
:�
sure of himsdf, he ...antS to make In impression.' For :I ....hile, ,he agency had 'a nnlnee manlger from I very modes, background; ....hen he arrived he was so badly drnscd thll il ...as bad for busincs:l . . . he was drnscd like a junior clerk.' 'War· ing a 5uit ...ilh narro.... lapclJ. nar· ro'" bonoms, a bit short. in "01 loud colour wilh a shirt that docsn', milCh and I narro... tic. for example, by our Sfamlards. that's grony:
'Noc the w"Oly
some $CCTCIlties do it'
'On the other hand. b(ing 100 fash· ionable is not much b(ucr.' adds Isabelle, who dresses their children 'in (airly da�ic sryle·. paying panic ullf attenlion to the colours. '1 like a preny smocked dress from time fO "The right 50ft of cloche! for time, and English o�ercoa,s. Of coutS( it's dono: ...ith an eye 10 fash people in advenising' ion, but not in the silly way some Though at ...etkends, It home, he secretaries �t L'Exprns do iI, dress· '0'(11/1 ':I filthy pair of trousers', for ing their children in the new kiddy. II'Ork he dte$scs with g!CI' clre and bouliques, Mini.this and Mini·lh"Ol!. drgance. He buys his suits al with things that (OSt a fortune and Barnes, the advertising man's nilor, arc a minia,ure copy of the parents' ,n lilt rue ViClor Hugo in Paris. 'nIq're the flgh. sort of clothes for clothes: These ser:retuies 'IK all ptQpk ...1\0 make il in advcrrisins well drnscd, by my Slandards. they ha« perfecl colour 5cn", TheK Engl'sh cloth, p.ince of Wales ... eK some girls ... ho arrived, ... ho (�ks ...ith a touch of luxury. Not drnscd ...ith terrible tasre, il ...as the SOf( of thing civil servall!s could vulgar, che"Olp, tacky. juS! awful . , . "'C'O" Ind bank managers couldn', and ,h�n, afler (our yutS. 'hey Ii· �t aW2y ...ilh it either. In banking you nml a plain shirl; banking isn'l nally gol il right: lsab(lle has a (riend who is 'always e�quisitcly y, �.., ...hereas in advertising, pco drnscd . . . ,he effe<:1 is II...ays stun· pUI every pcnny Ihey ea.n infO (" t • ning, I mean. it's chic. it's gol !CII ' ilts " . ,n my busoncss "'e K · cOt!slIntly d:ns
PI.
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A Young Executive Who 'Knows How to Live'
Mi<"hel, who 'adOI(5 rhe im in gener:ll and ai��;:i nard, and MOr>e1 or w.ho � a 101 of landse1. Pissaro r , does nOl lik � Nor does he like slilltk f. 'problem �iClul(5': 'Femalin':fTt and Sluff I,k� Ihat, is horrible� thick and heavy . . two Or Ih 11\ Bra'lues can � interesting to � at, bUI when you sec 1"'0 hu IoaIr of them, all done the same � gets. a bit repetitive, a bit n,&".�Y", " maflsh. . . . I lend to go fOI 111\4. sopes . . . My grandmothe"' SOI l Bonnard · her apartment tho: .. mally valuable piClure sllc- ,0", inherit it b.xau5C '� ,",- ., loIS of relatives. But it wOllld i: wondctful 10 own iI, I go (Of t� I�at are outside �hion, son 0( IImeleu.' ba�lIe doesn't endrcly agTtt wilh her husband: 'There arc Ihing$ r lik� a 101 in modern bur that's because r like !h� colounl . . . For example, Vieir:l da Silva (she hesirares over Ihe n.me). It» din, who i$ �hind you, I likr. 1e&: They borh occ::asionally vi,;, gal. leries, and exhibirions IWO r. rimes a year. They weill 10 lhe Br:I'lue �xh;bition 2nd CXf>C'I to _ rhe Impressionists 2' Durand.RIICl
Michd R" an adv
_
won',
III
SOIIIf Uf.
'
01
on
re
Ken
ill
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expensive. h would Sure of himself, he wanls 10 make an impression.' For a while, the in Paris. ",fII",�,n8 r...ice .sofmuch 5! mediocre Sluff agency h:ad 'a finance manager from 101 , ",'" «) very modest background: when he � we didn't like iI, 1m· aarrived �,'d sc: he was SO badly dressed that re 'wilS no prob ilu m fu c Ih ,rod"'docn" il b:ad for business . . . he was from (USloms pO [I�s e#mpt like 2 junior clerk: 'Wear· dressed V"T pay 10 just have You k'" with narrow lapels, nar· suil a ing [1'1 Ih� living. dUI� !ax].' row bolloms, a bil mon, in a loud [.-11 heY have som<: modern and Ihat doan't joo'" lid furniture, a bookcase flom colour with a shirt march and a narrow lie, for ",,n( °sobois a sof:a from a shop in . ' example, by our standards, RoCtie- SUIsse. , . . IIJ� or is 'only an old thtt's grOlly.' Lc �� hcrs �,' T 4()of, whereas his bosses 'Not: the way ars. Ihe dir«Ior of "" ,, l ),gu I"C�' 'h;i't'Ugco some secretaries do iI' , • mro ·Ro "lfa )n Y has · · . ", . e 10 lime, Ih�y 11>1" um 'On Ihe other hand, �ing 100 fJsh. " , u""'.'. 'From '·So yOU aren'I tr:ldtng " ionabk is nO! much �ner.' adds a new I if" if ved lsa�llc, who dresses lheir children �'d � relie They're afraid I'll visit clients 'in fairly classic slyk', paying panic. ubr attention 10 rhe colours, 'I like on my car. a pretty smocked drt'$$ from lime to 1"hc .ighl son of ci()(hc$ for lime, and Engli5h overCNIS, Of ' sing eni adv in t propI COUI'S( ii's done wilh an eye 10 fash· but nor in the Silly way some Though .1 w«kends, 11 hom<:, he ion, do iI, dress· . fihhy p"ir of {fousers', for sccrcrarics It L'Exprm the new kiddy. in children their wolk he dresses with grcal care and ing bouli'lucs, Mini·,his and Mini'lhar, deg.n,c. He buy, his JuilS ar with Things th1l COlt a fortune ,nd 6Im0:5, the advertising man's tailor, arc a miniature copy of the parents' tn the rue ViCtor Hugo in Paris. 'Tloo:y"re lhe righl son of dOIOO for clolhes.' lbcsc: secretaries 'are all poopIc who mak" it in advenising ,,"'.:II dreuocd, by my Jranduds, lhey have ptrf«1 colour xnx. , " There Enghsh cloth, Prine" of Wales ,,-ere some girls wno arrived. who eJo..cks ..-ith a louch of luxury. No! lho: SOfI of Ihing civil xrvantS cOIIId dressed wilh le!riblr: taste, il was �r,.nd Nnk (ouldn't vulgar, cheap, lacky, iusl �wful . . . &tl ......y wilh ilmanagers eilher, In banking and then, ,fter fOllr yean, lhey fi· . plain banking isn'I n211y gOt it right: [sa�lIe has a :"n«d y, whercu inshirr: friend who is 'always eKquisilcly pro :advertiSing, It pUt every penny they earn infO dl(5$cd . . . Ihe eff«1 is .Iways Slun· �Io ning, I mC1n, it's (hie, iI's 801 mal ( I� . In my business we're n "'�lly da�ifying prople, Ihere dass . She p.ys m�ntion every .� SOX .I claS5C'S lillie del.il ' Michel's farher is also , and it's . . ' acaSles fIIalle• of fi!ling 'very wdl-ew to up the agency. we size them perfect. Refinemenl Wilhoul the a t gla nce. . . . " guy with a v<1· slightCSI OSlcnralion. He has , l1ilor 'tr � 'II� �" and big lapels is (ompensal' in London.' Michel's mmher is Or SOmelhing, 'C<ju.lIy teSrr:lincd. AIw:lYs a beauli· he's nor ""ry very
.
was
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(:II
«t.rs
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fully (UI fur (O�!.· She, 100, often buys her clolho in London. ,
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'Provinci�l ekrlts who fill their gardens with gnOnle$'
:nx ptfill boJlrgtoi J 1>3'-C no IISIC, u"s 3 plinK we of e l n usc, ,hough wc're well aw:are i(s neis!.' (Michel and lnbdlc (OnSllnriy indica!c in this way ,heir 'disunce' from the ways of the older gencnuion of the grallM &1l1rg«>iJit-pefhl� especially when speaking 10 1 sociologiSf, al· beit 1 friend's siSler.) [ubdle's par enlS, provincial indumiaiisis. arc more scvell: or less tolerant: 'Aboul phcnomcnon-pr() vlnCl11 ckrlu who fill the;, pldenl wilh gnome!. windmills and similar rubbish, Mummy u5e
I� p!'il."""�ij
'A vcry light meal. 1 vcg�nbl� dish and some chtesc'
I� c?OklOg, 15 in clorhlng and fur, nlshlOg, rhcy manifesr rile nm� r�, (usal o( prerensioo, of 'cxcns', rile nme sense of 'diSlinCiion', W;lhoul being ':a wir>e-buff ....ho an Iell ooe year from anOlher', Michel is 'somc, thIng of an expcn'. His (alher·in. la..... ....ho has a huge (ellar, has 510:",ly initiated Ihem. When they . . YISII hIm, Ihey drink 'Margaux 1926, amazing Ihings Ihal Ihey don'l siock in r�raurantS any more . : . Wilh (Olleagu�, for example, [ m Ihe one ....ho chooses ,he ....ine. They an sec [ kno.... ....hal I'm doing. [ don'! go for some miser· able Cahon,·fol example. I know i, �'I 115le Ihe ume as a Sain,. EsfCphe Of a Saint,Emilion. Hardly anyone kno,"", how '0
choose wine, so as SOOn as kno.... a lillie bi, aboul 11 like someone who ,� [iYe.' AI home, Ihey have fc., a magnums of Veuve Oicquo . ... . which Ihey boughl: 'good air" fhings; we drink some I 1I1T1CS a mooth and Ihen 'he°' httt file ChriSfm1l5 presents . . . I II� . Whisky, we drink Chivas, "'e'ft J "!.Iher demanding ' They buy 1"--' · clarer direct from the p""uccr. ( ' 'l n fleen or etghlttn fr:ancs a be. Ide, < forry francs in Ihe sho.... ,-, a vcry good w'me.. In Ihe evening, "'hen Illey arc alone. rhey O! 'a very I. . meal, a vegerable dish and SIJ� " chcc$c.' Thq like ro tn"ilc f�
knows' i:� IQ
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,
for 'tJla/tI/Xl Ii '" (rtwu, Willi 4t ""
curry, ulmon [hal we: buy occuao. :ally. Michel is pa.niculady parrg[ •
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1011 Ik {
cooked in the cmls, and "_ He has earen in W of the 100 bat resraur:anl$ in Paris lis'ed in rhe
{rmfil
G,,"II tI Mill,," guide, o(len blJ$i. nen lunches ('I only paid for len III them'). He also lik� mdi,ional rench food ('pllin home cooki"" ,n oThel words') bUT is nOr k�n • link local IC$nur:anlS or 'fore'p
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d,shes, h:alian Of Olinesc cooking'.
'HClIlhy �xctcise'
Miehd and [sahelle are members cI a golf club: 'it's man'cllous, bUI die: people a�n'l. They're mosrly gap. [n France ii's always a cerlaln ,ypt' of people. ....hereas in Japan 30 pt'" 10 J cent of Ihe populadon belong liOll golf club: Their initial subscrlp no COS! them 10,000 francs: rhey lCfto longer 80, benuse of the (hild bUT Ihq have kcpl up ,h(crr "..tIP" pla)'S bc,ship, Michel no longer hi you nlS: 'l i's very stressful . . . to keep movlllg all t� .ime, ",,,, ning up '0 Ihe nel. I. gi>'C5 "'"
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Golf is less hud on che . ' . fashion, ev, . ,.Ics.' 'Viclims of . �J " ralking '01 UI 's ,II' . going 10 go cross coumry I"" 1heY have :also boughl sec' racing bicycles and .Iasl wen. for long "des: . , Of'" ___r Ihey � llhy exerclSC. " ,"''' ..... ,.., . a s,,,<.><: '[IS ,�� •• Lnt, M1(, ,,,, ·as When he .. il.e (The jt
t1l�re
sk.'���nd
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have a hi·fi syslem and a lape' .eco.der; Ihey IiSlen fO Ihe cI:wiul record ftviews on Francc-Musique. Midlcl pmicularly lik� Mauri (Tht Mlmi
I
psychology, ec
c' • • • • • " • • • • , c . , c · , c . , • • · c . > c • • • • •
on where one encounters ("J,rj (exeo::uliv�), a sort of juncti :!Cicnlilic), who -ed w'lh a Imlilional cultural upiral (usually nctfS, endo... former engi. ....
aUlhorily; administr:llive cxeculiv.;s ho exercise a (delega.ed) managerial (in Ihe public se(lor. by intefllal euminalion) by
ha"" achieved promolion l1y (evening c\lISSC:S eIC.) Ihat is din' of a grc;\1 effort 10 cuch up scholaslica al' titln); young gndu' mely sanctioned by diplomas (execpl purely 'inlern for Ihe publiC in IICS of the granclcs ecoln (Polytcchnique and ENA), In ed ns in Ihe private If(lor but d�lined, in many cases, 10 movc 10 high posilio or man' If(lor: and, ftnally, exCCutiv� of a new Iypc, genenlly in markedng from Ihe .gement. derivmg Iheir educuionai upiul (when ,hey have any) lif e'slyle a bU511\ru schools or polilical :!Cienee inSlilul�, and inclined to whICh differs (rom Ihal o( Ihe 'old bourBWisie' from ....hich m:any of lhem
OIlg'OI"
E"Crylhlog secms 10 indicale Ihu lhe diff�r(nr modes of :acCC$S «(rom lhe .."ks o. by 'lualifulioo) kad 10 very differenl arttrs. The possessors of hfica,lon$ movc much furrher and fl$le., espcci�lly in lhe SC(Qlld half of t Carttrs (all observers .grte Ihu aulodidaCls have lhei. best chance in (rom elllry 10 mld.cIm:I. i.e.. 10 about age n-40). BUI occupa.' af!; .t.\lfe'Cyd� also depend on firms: Ihe posrsesso s of qualifications have with tile larSCSI firms, Ihe only on� which on provide earttr, (�U(!urcs f Ihe bureaucr:uic type. And il is among Ihe execulivn of large � ":s In ,he priv1!e seCtor Ihal all Ihe fcatures of rhe new bourgeoiS I;f n _yk arc mOSt strongly developed.
'he" nod :1Oo� ,,'OIIICS
:�
A . ' es hhQUgh eX(i;Ullv and engineers have !he monopoly o( (hc me:I!lS of ' $YrnboIte appropri ario n o( the culiura\ capital objeclified in Ihe fOlm of 'OSIIIJ rnents, machines and so fonh ....hich arc csscnlial lO lhe e�erci.sc of et ofeconomic eapilal over Ihis equipmenl, and derive from ,heir 'fIo - yv l y a real manageri.1 powel and rclarive privileges ....ilhin lhe
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,
Model Executives rapid analysis of ,he 'ex\"Culiw: opponuniries' 2dveni� in u MUtUk in [he course of a single ...o:ck ( in July 197» is $uffil;i(m 10 i
II
[ion;
�helhc:r 'produCl manager', 'pin cngmttt' [these fW() terms arc in English in [he original f(xI], 'ckp. uly utes director', 'usislan! financial manager' or 'genenl ules manager', he mus! above all be a 'ncgoliuor' and a 'communicator', and be
sJ:illtd in '11JjJ-Jtwt (�"I,,(/J'; able fO
ael ....i,h 'diplomacy': adaprablc (0 'contaCI1 al all levcls': 'accustomed (0 conllelS ....i[h $enial civil sel vants. excellent negotiator': 'upacity for high-level contac[s'; 'Iop-lcvel contans and negotiation'; 'negoti.< .ion ....id, banks'; 'ukc charge of�· 111ions with Governmem tkpartmenrs, represem the firm on n�rional negoti�ring bodies'; 't:l5re (or contacts and moriv�tion'; 'r:l5re for problem,solving and human rela,
personnd, pies service and
,
gT.dUtlit hfO1Ir hf lIN ntw h." ,- KhoDJ" HEC, INSEIID Ec � Supericure: tk Commer�e (� tI
InSlilut Supericur des Affa i� ) \If (ISA), generally lislro rOgt"r btt ptrhaps roun
"''Y'. � u.�lh lIN aplillltkJ tnrJ ':"
l�rkJ Implird m working for -v" _ In:'!tU 0: J/Tfnlgl} U P OTI-OTin/l�
;:'
( English absolutely indisl'Ols.ablr': Engl'sh voubulary; 'mark eting' 'merehandising' [last r....o_ English ] (1(., and gl op. porluni(c' etc.):
An icrsms, • •
""�ing tt '11lJ1r fvr Itttm-wo.k' .. (ttpttnlJ IIW 'ttnimttling' blM, (tire· subsrirure (or authorilJ): 'dynamic
and adap�a�le . he must Ix ptt pared (0 tom a tt:l.m'; 'to dirccl'" mIIlivalt a staff of t....enty·: _
mali", and dynttmir (like the tin'll If,.
self. ....hich is 'rapidly expandinJ ,ntO the export field'): 'lead. an� mate, form a team'; 'dynamism, dri�e. opacity for symhesis and tam·work· ; ('young nccudve' );
mobi«: he musr npect ro trawl •
tions, highly arriculne';
JOung
....hich mans, (or a had of pies mana� ment: 'an on'going co-or
qurntiy, parrleularly 10
tiM m mltnltU "WJlitllitmJ,
11K USA.
A similar profik emerges f..- · typical report in L'ExpttfJj� 64 (June 1973), p. 139)--tnll1kd 'The New Rare Birds', on «utive positions' that ·�re ..,eli ..I • for IKk of applle�ntS':
'ne"" ;:'
'A JjrtntI f-"
frmw,Jplml1li"g will �IMYS S
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70,000-80,000 {rancs � year: a ttgmtml {01IIF1Ji'" �t bc!wttn 60, and 90,000. The�'s � sHong
An.krsen or Price Waler· �rr��1" ")unior" will pick up or" 110.000 to 80.000, a "seni f 11. 0. The finanda antU}JI s!ill 20 00 !O I ,, ]e7.S t 60,000. The di.trlIW of (J-s tI<>pm ",1 h:15 come up . �" OOO to 70,000 1:151 year, glY sr� to 80,000 this ye:ll. In tho: are even some " )0,. �nb there: ,r<J�_1}0.000. flJ/Nmwk,1 [shop110. center) _nagm have been · _0' .,n r g up tn tho: pme ""ay. ThIS !flO five ch�Jlengt/$ have broken
]IfJ"� :u,
jIJ!
'/fI"'l."","ttgtr, lho: hold "':r'. rlKthefIN,/IU'f{ "d·fJlnt {.'"
jirr(1#r. _anag" (wilhin tho: mar· English] plan. ho: enoov wing [Enghsh} e h,s product's Olln ro improv po:sition 10 the ne"" disl/ibulion eir cuirs, the b�sic merchandiser [Enghsh] goes round the hypermar· kl't shelvcs trying to gel tho: maxi· mum display "footage" for his ..
company's produCts), the bllJjnw 1M/hods ""tU)l1 (he �nalySl:S rhe com· pany's sysrtm lind standuds: like au dLlOlS. his starting salary depends to a IarSC eXtent on rhe praCtices he has been trainro in), and lhe planl _�gt" (lilt Anglo-American O{i· g'" of this position mc:ans thar the ICinI c�nd,dlle is one who has expe' r!tnCt In a chan(r ·accounring [lir] firm)_ An<.l what of the future? Two - rare b"ds are on lho: horiwn:
a n-.,-." fi
;or pl12{ed (� �
,,.,,,,,
Ihe ma.k.tling audilIW and the pllbiic. rt'ttli01lJ ttlldil(ff. '
The polllair of the modern man· ager. as dr:awn in 1973, seems to havc changro recently, no doubl be· (luse the r«ession is c�ting condi, ,ions more favourable ro rhe old sryle of mllnagemcnr (there is again a demand for Ihe 'lca.der of men' someone who, as an informant 1"" it, 'can �y no wirilOUl explaining'2nd an increased demand for pro duCtion specialists and �Ics manag· e/$ tr:ainro 'on Ihe ground' ) and al$O h«ause Ihe engineering schools h��e reaClro to rhe riS!! of the man· agement schools (for example, the crealian of tho: inslitute for ,he Sci· ences of A(lion al Polyrcchnique in 1977). According to a survey pub lishro in u Nbuvtl E,01IiN1Iim (No yemb.:r 8. 1976), which 'Iueslionro the personnel dirccto/$ of 5,000 companies, firms sdil iook for 'open, mmdedncss" 'dynamism', 'capaciry !O adapt and relate".
" ,." ,,.!!,,.!,.,-!!!,.,..
profits :Kcruing from {ncir cultunl capilal are al leasl partially by those: who have pow<:r o�er ,his capital, i.e_, rhoS!! who the «onomic capital ncroed ro ensure the conccnrntion and util· on of cuhura l capilal. II follows from rhis thaI (heir posirion in ,he � class is an ambiguous onc which leads lhem to a highly ambiv· 1lcn heren�� both ,0 {he firm and 10 the 'social orocr'. When making dcrn:nds r I sm to rn . � I g in prolC$!, rhey are actuated :.IS much by lheir concero a ta t�� '!l m the legilimarc distance, C$tablished by academic verdiers, be themselvC$ and ordinary workers, or by meritocr:aric indignation at �In; !reu ed like them, as by rhe S!!n!i(: of a real solidarity of condition; '
'%ru
and, conversely. their anxious $eifeh for intc:gndon inlo the ,,,'' class. either for rhemso:lve$ or for [heir chiJd�n, always includes greater or lesser exttnt, depending on rhe (urrent Slart of their ;,• an elemen( of ambivalent resentment towards prizes rhey can completely possess nor completely ignore and n:fus<:_ All these dispositions char:l.(!cristic of the 'cadre' category as a are perhaps most intensely developed among those. who, for J cational capital, or of rhe «Iucational capital most valuable at moment or of [� social npir�l. n� 10 io,-esr it profitably, . galtd to rhe position of IKbnma/IJ, I.e., excc" hO � ' '� ':" ;,;w:;�': ' poliTical Of culfUnl power. Bringing illlO the !( �: : � � �:" ': lmn! dus Ihe perir·bour�i5 dispositions which brought lila. rh� positions. they arc op� in almost all �rs to the YOung .. Uf!VCS from the gr:andes k"ob and often from bourgeois families, CIID. ... in crnted positions new the of proportion large a the privHe ..,. occupy lor.31 . The dispersion of Ihis fracdon. a simple category of bute:l.ucratk .... IICS, bUI al� a.movemem .of co�rale defence whkh is affirmed in die repmcma�H:,n It has and glv� of ItSeir. expfC$SCS the objective ambi.., of the posmon of the 'cadres , who are condemned to oscillate be"... ; collaboration and distance and therefore to be the objcct of annex,: strategies which enable them to use their solidarity as a balgai", . counter; It also stems from the fan that the term cadre is one of rile '*' which, as rewards attached to the occupation of a position, are importllli weapons and prizes in the games which arc played in and on the gap . tWeen the nominal and the real.
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�
,;::::: :�
Although the opposition between the new positiOns, with the correspond ing life,�tyle, and the C!t:lblished positions does nOt e�actly coincide with the opposition between the private sectot and rhe public sector, it is mJinIJ among Ihe private-s«!Or exC(utivcs Ihat one finds the life-sryle charactenl' lic of lhe 'new bourgroisie,.ll And, ahhough Our survey only im�rfecrIp C:lplures the distinctive fCltures of the new bourgroisie.H it does regisfCf' 5(t of slight but systematic oppositions belween the public.sector execu tives-more often originating from the working and lo...�r classes. and clOi\er 10 the enginee�nd tnc- privaIC·5C(tor executives-younger, P. erally of higher social origin, often graduatcs of HEC Ot Scicn,,"' Po and closer 10 the profmions. Private-sec:tor executi,'es buy slightly mon:: ofteII from antique dealeiS; ehoose Dali and Kandinsky Tluher Ihan Vlamlflck. Renoir and Van Gogh, who are preferred by the privale-seclor cxCC\.Lu.cs; choose the A�I �j FliIglilt and the Ummltlj lll' ,''' Ltjl Hand ralher 111 L'Armimllt, La T�av;arll, lhe Tuilighl tl jl'" GII
:'
short. differing liule wilh rcspe<:1 10 SIIict cultural competence d>jl�:�ge of composers), private· and public.sector exC(utive$ ate clearly in all tile areas which depend on elhos. difl"erenccs would be evcn more marked did nOI nch of Ilie IWO a proportion of individuals ....hose cl\araClerislics are d (onuin � o (1[tg �O'I in :lnl in the opposing (;Itegory: gr:td�a,cs �J The grandes ecoles. � geois origm, puslng through hIgh posmons m lhe pubhc sector and to f#,ltlh"irim engineers and the prof6sions; private'5C(tor exC(· he wOlking or middle classes, ....i,h low qualificuions, who are ,-cr'( ' from , '0 (he public·sector executives and ordinary engineers. . u, the" ne... bourgcoi�i� is mai.nly cha.racteriw:i. �Y its opposition 10 ; Id business bourgeoISIe. HaVing achlcved posmons of power al an (lit! as<, more often being graduates. more oflen belonging ro bigger, (11 rc modern firms. tnc private-sector executives are distinguished from Industrial an� (omme�ial empl��tS, a .tr:a�itio�al bourgeoisie with and It� 'SOCiety obll�allons, by a .more lt iD � holidays, Its ter"OnS .modernist', 'younger' hfe-style, certainly one thaI IS more conSiStent (ahhough ...ilh the new dominant definition of rhe dynamic manager . IhI: same opposition is found among the owner�mployers) Thus, they much more oflen rnd the finanCIal daily Us Eti]Cs (pcne (ration index 126. industrial employers 91) and economic weeklies (224, Indusllial employers 190); they seem kss Inclined to invest their capital In property; they much more oflen indulge in the sports lhat are al once smm. active and oftcn 'cybernetic', such as sailing, skiing, walCr·skiing and lennis, followed by riding and golf; they moce often play parlour games Ihal are both 'intellectual' and smart, such as bridge and especially (hess. Above all, Ihey identify more fully wah Ihe role of Ihe modern rxC(utive who is oriented lowards Ihe oUlside world (along with the public,sector exc.:utives and the engineers, they have the highcsl rate of foreign lravel) and is open to modern ideas (as shown by Iheir very f�uent allendance al professional conferences or seminars) . 1\ final, app3o:ntly minor but very significant index of Ihis opposilion may be � In lhe {acl Ihal private-sector execulives far more often keep "hl�y In the house ....hems the induslrial �nd commercial employers most allached to Champagne, Ihe drink of tradilion par excel· ,. combinalion of 'luxurious" and 'intellec!Ual' properties, which I (lit ncompatible because they a� ordinarily associated with diamelri· o� posilions in Ihe dominant class. opposes the ne.... business Isle both 10 the teachers and to rhe traditional industrialists, ,,� . comfo )los, llab]e catS, hotel holidays, pchrs and golf evoke (thical dis· ons now i also op regarded as ralher ,·;tllX �I/ ('old hat'). BUI il s � 10 the professions. and Iheir somewhat diffe«:nt combination of lu_u a nd culture, by a Strong integration into economic life, seen in the � . I"", dIng of economic and financial publications (Us EtiNJJ, L'Expall, E"lrtpriSt) and by an occupational activity which implies a modern·
(� � ':'" of'!:'
In
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::
b;aL1�.
�'S
boJ
rors' to orsallItt
Business Tourism 'Reward so:minal'$' and 'prestige so:m, inan', 15 thc:y :Ire c:llkd in Ihe na· tive l:angua�, uc pan of lhe range of hid
vide busillC$S for Or\( of lhe mosl Rourishi s indumies. (It esli· mated Ihat n,ooo such 'km inars' WCtc organized in 1973.) lbq i
n
is
n·
voi-'c Ihe hOld chains ...hich special, ize in 'busincss lourism' (such 15 NovOld, Frallld, Sofitd, P. L-M., Meridicn, M(Kur<: and MOldleri();
lhe agencies (such is &minotd) which promOI( a xt of hotds 5p(:' cillizing in xminal'$ and con(er<:ncd in exchange fOf 4 percelll of turn· ovcr, consulflnc), �rms (such ;is CEGOS 01 SEMA) and Ihcir social psychologiStS, who offer ii b nrte ($CC In.: CEGOS 'catalogue' with its 294 'formatS' If ralCS ranging from 200 to 600 francs p<'r day) 'crcativ. ity seminan' logether
with 'fuilin·
A SeminariSf Confesses TIIC angelic smiles of ,he dub host,
CS$CS,
a smOOlh check·in, punctual
lake-off (did I lell you we werc goinS to Tunisia?)-1t h15 10 Ix said, thc journey W15 m�, asrce· able, and so was our wdcomc at the village. 'Djc-rba ]a Doucc' is a rnl lillk paradik. TIIC groups from lyons and Bru�ls arrivtd soon afrer, on special chartcr flghts, likc us. There was jusl lim( to sli p into something morc suited 10 the j
wcuher, and then W( wcre intro duced 10 the programme 1I\d ,he Club. After which. off 'N" .....nr ....
:S!���
rhe invcntion of 11\ tur ed the IIC of Lcs rcs into a 54::tni flar «(ntrc 50 15 to keep running ..., ing Ihe six months of sp j r
who h15 n A resort
II 'dad' :and aUlumn. Th( economic "'� ......, in which this informalion � . fourK.I exp lains thaI 'spllng and lID 11'( Idcal limes for executiv e rt\edica. tion' (L'Expa"Jilm, IXcemkr 1973),11>( Willl(r 10... 5e2Son IS � ,
served (or 'updaling·reward
S('minaa
for succcssful sales teams', wh;� drr
high K'15On rtteivcs Ihe prtsll� seminal'$ of 'lop mana�m(IlI' and big cli(nts. Gillxn Trigano [ptai. denl of Oub Medilemn�}, ..ho nn Ix r<:garded 15 in authorily an
th($(" m1flel'$, uys thit 'in tWCftIJ yem' time, rhe Oub will be prori&.
and )0 perUnl rnl holidays.' Thoe who inquir<: into rhe nu� of i.... lion would do well to uh ,((OUIII ing
)0 percelll pscudo-conferencell
(.mong Olher hid
Ihe f:acl Ihar businessmen, w;lh Ih(ir 'business rourism', rheir 'C_
pany gi fts' .nd their company (I",
are good busillC$S for businessrMa
works IxIU:r ,n congen ,al surround· ings, ....h(rc they can �1Hy rd1�. forgi�c mc for pr(1ch lng but IS dICK :lnylhing btll" than the Club? ,
L '�_, ..... 63.
Seminars· fbree.snr ote!$: f''.c h OQ _ Trois Arcs d,
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H6!
obi<)
197}
Twdvc I'($Uuranls at Ale Pi(rr<: Blanche and on the peak. Two 1'($. taurants It Arc Chanld,
ere.
(luxury)
I de 11 Cascade I Pierr<: Blanche
�:
(very com,Ort·
M.y
( very comforr·
eachc(le ( Op elm) H6td e II elm) Golf Hotd du
t (top Jlli/t barhroo.m All roomJ hav( tit and W.e.. Iclcphon( (aulom:lt�c dulling withi n rn.: !'(SOrt) , ndlo d
Seminars Where You Can Breathe
Nlture has laid on e�ry lhing 11 Lcs Am 11.( !'(5OI"1 overlooks th( V"lIlky of the [ser<:, which is hcre JUSt a
hins mou ntain 10rKnl. 11>( val· ys IonS hours o� �unhghl Our bedrooms and semlnaf rooms alike offcr a magnificent vic.... of rus
Icy enjo
Mont Blanc.
,
Prices, 1975-1976
( 1 O«ember 197)--30 November 1976) 600
Pr,ces po:r day, pcr p,Jrficipam (fl1lncs).
(OSlT'opolillm IifNlyk, with its frc:
C C � C ," ,C rC lllr ;' d C o " kd m «O oC ;" r'gC ," C �C dfI,C o ro C ;c c "" :.;� r__ __ '"' C o In �o -:n tkfining the new bourgeoisie, it is imporranl to re
c:
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] H2ve Mer H2PPY Semio2risrs
year, you can ski in ,he heart of die fan(aSllc Mon( Blanc Massif or enjoy o�e of the most beautiful ,.. COUI"$C$ In Fl1IllCC. Olher f2cilitics dude tennis (OUrlS. an Indoor 511'1. ming pool wi,h a sauna and a gym. For the kss c�rgclic_ ,here m: delightful WlIlb in oUlSlanding coun[ Sidc and (he chuming vi� bgc 07Megc-ve with i,s many � ilics. In lhe hotel ;'sclf, gab evenings ue org.ni�ed on rC<Juesr, with dcco,,"'ions. • band and C\lCft visi.ing s,us. At meal umcs, cnjoJ ,he imp«cable cuisine and .rrenri!C service offercd by this tOfKl15S hOlel, And how much docs i( COSII The prices arc a(lually very com 'in � � ... _ (Specially in Scp(embcr and ber. Mr. Thommen or Mr. Zicgkt
If you're looking for rhe po:rfccr venue (or a succ(Ss(ul conference or semi•."r, rhe place you wuu is Monr d'Arbois ne:lf Mcgtve (Hau[e $.i. voie), 'n [he hearr of [he Mom Blanc M.ni£' There I me[ seminanstS and con. fcrencc·,I!:OC"rs who were ran ned, re laxed and happy [0 be [here. They were lhere 10 work, of COUf5C, bur in a selling Ihu helped rhem un. wind and relax al Ihe same lime. On Ihe work side. Ihe Monr d'Arbois Horel ITlttrs [he parricubr �uircmenlS of each firm. Il"s fully C<:)uippcd wilh conference and com· miffCC' rooms for roups from 2Q 10 f, 200, audio-visual 1ciliri(S, simulra ar Ihe Mom d'lIrbois Ho[el (,eI neous mnslalion boolhs. . , . The ar. )0/ 21 25 03) will k glad to su,.., I1Ingemenl is alway1 'made 10 derails 10 help you eompare mC'2Sure.' : ,I hu b\"c"n One final There is easy accCM by ail (Mom lbe proved thaI , d'lIrbois is 90 minu((S (rom Paris memal faculti(S. Mom by Air Alpes), by l1IiJ (nighl mins c 1,300 melfCS . . so everyone ,II from FlIris) and by rwd ( . choke in lop form. of rou ICS). On the enlenainment side. il"s Paradise. Dependin!! on Ihe time o( F..,..,.,,,, }I M'f 1974
J)CCCIP"'P"
,rutuullon (the '(":Iching is largcly given in English by an inlernat,onal trnhing staff often Hained in rhe USA) the capaciti(S nceded (0 achieve 1 lUI:casful re
::
p.:r�\I1�)
l1�CI
dassifica(ion slTuggle which is waged ini(ially within firms, a e fl!:e!f8 for SUpremacy bclwCC'n production and publicity, be(wttn eng; n� and ' nmkering, in which each OlCgory of managers s«ks (0 ad. l.tJ� lis Occupa (ional ;nlCresls by imposing a scale of values which se[S 1t th C 'OJ:> of (he hiel1lrchy [he funClions for which i( feels itsclf best
��:;:�
t<Juippcd, and all {he similar slruggles which all: mugh! OUt dominant fraerion of rhe dominant class, ue insepu�ble from values which involve ,he participants' whole world views __ Jl L • mg. " c nuS/: {hey oppose nOf only differenr SlXtional in(crtsls enl scholu�ic and occupational careers and, through them, . SOCIal recrullmem areas and therefore ultimate differences In Thus, for uamplc, [he financial managers of the largcsr firms. � almost all Sciences Po or HEC gradu2lcs. who possess a large ral (family (onncnioos, their respective 'old.boy networks') of"", long I? dubs, m: almost all in WiwI's Wi» and vel)' offcn in' r� f1W1Ida�n ((he Who's w� of the French 1riSfocracy), are no doubr pose
I
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ascetic ethic of produclion and accumulation, based on abstinence, JtIIi' O""' ety, saving and calculation. in fayour of a he
d;"«"". �
, geoisie of the vendors of symbolic goods and services, ;h; uccu.ives of firms in lOurism and journalism, publishing and tht
and ad.vertisin�, deco.ration and propeny devclo�mclll. fashion (lila. h their slyly Imperat,,'e adVICe and [he example of t helr c�n. , ,-lI,-ollg 'model' life.style, [he new t:aste-makers propose � mot1lIIlY whICh . ji'iOll:Wn to an an of consu�ing, spendi.ng and enioyi.ng .nHoug� io, . s bOils masquerading as adVICe or warntngs, they mamtam. cspeCially on and objects, the fear of IU�cu omen. the privileged consum�r subjects �g.Wg up [0 Inc ionumeabl� dUlics entailed"" of members of [he dominant franions who have recon· riation, the new bout· 0 adapt [0 Ihe new mode of profit approp .trr. . \ ation of clhiol dispositions s in the vanguard of the tt1lnsform views occurring wi{hin the bourgeoisie :as a whole, which (as gco : l :rld en�ral transformation of gua�d of a � 22 shows) is itself in .nc ya� . manifest 10 the diVISion of labour betwttn larly pardcu is which 'rle " IItS ' · on. Th"IS IS Ihe fraCllon ' _ � 0f imposl' llg domtnau the methuu hf se�es and I hk impollS (from the USA) the new mode of domination, based on h , in chu�� or in industry: and ?n Ihe -elvet glove' methods, at school : srarts by euphemlztng all the manlfestallOns of '[tluc:d' life,slYIc which s[Udiously rejecting the SOCial distancc (especially sartorial oncs) and by al aostOCta[i, s[iffn(SS that tends 10 create distance. After so much historic ..-ork on the symbolism of power, il would be naive not 10 see that fash· ions III dOlhing and cosmetics are a basic clemen! in the mode of domi· nmon. And the whole opposition betwccn Ihe �'itu)(jtu and [he lI()lIlJtaU }til, between the old'style authoritarian industrialisr and the modern manage-r, tuned in to Ihe lalCSI [«:hni9ucs of business administration, publi< relations and group dynamics, can be read in the opposilion be [Wttn the pot-bellied, pompous palr(J1l and the slim, sun·tanned cadre, ...ho IS:as 'casual' in his dress as in his maoner, as 'reb�ed' at cocktail par· [Iei:as in his reluions with .hose he calls his 'social parmers'. Bourgcois dis[inClion is still defined, borh in speech and bearing, by �b�nion in tension. case within res{t1lin[, a rare and highly improbable tOnlbina[ion of alllagonistic propertics. Everything rakcs place as if what al stake in the struggle between the old bourgeoisie and the new was . Prtmacy given 10 one or the other of the contraries which disdnction to '«oncile. Whereas the juniors of Ihe dominant class and the new .rga:.isie denounce the 'up-right', 'SlUffed-shin' rigour of [he old bour � �s�e and preach 'relaxation' and a 'laid·back' lifc-styl�, the old bour· cond emns .he 'sloppy' life·s[yle of the new bourgeoisie and calls for I'I'IOte i'tStain t in language and morals.
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horn-rimmed specncJes, Jaw degree, a graduate of rhe Puis &:01<: de Commerce, son of an inclumialisr, rells uS he loves his work but play golf and .ennis ':lnd read (he occasional m()(krn novel ' time slim, =e
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life-style of the new ethinl avant-garde very directly expresses asset strunure which is rhe basis of its power and its (Ondirions of tence, Executives in major narional firms, public or privare (a somewNl arrifici�1 distinnion, at this kVel), or heads of large, modern, oft(1\ """ tinalional companies, they are not a ached ro a place like the propricCal' of sm111 lo
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as
rn
III
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world, which went with ir) for the whisky of American f(.ln« the cult of 'literature' (delegated 10 their wives) and eco whIch they read in Enghsh. Being both the negalion and the nfeWs the old-style palrom, of whom they are often the hei , and from f�lurc�l!ey are only $CpUllled, in the end, by time, and therefore often by ". h oif"l ,hich can make it seem like a quesllon of gener:.mon in Ihe oldi· gense-they are the ones who transcend, the Ixller to con$Crve_ a na� � only the internal StrUClure of the dominant fr:l.ctions, but also the o rc of Ihe relations hetwetn the dominant and the dominated frllc �lruCI� end to be profou ndly changed when a glowing proportion of the 11��<; fl'llcrion derives, if nOI its powel, at least the legi timacy of its l g � from educational opital acquired in formally pure and pelfecl an er etilion, rather than directly from economic capital. The new �";( compthe new masters of the economy, a r:l.llon1lization of their ':�ure of which tends to Ix ever more widely accepled as 'management orld view i n'"theis developed within Ihe discipline of economics, provides them sense. of �ssessing an aut�ority of imellenua� .right over the :,th of conduct socrety_ Thus the opposltlon between the -d,Sinterested' cui lure of the intellectual and lhe 'philisrinism' of the bourgeois, preo<cu pred with the mundane imerests of his pranice, gives way, and nO! only among the new bourgeoisie, to the opposition between the gr:l.luitous, unreal. unrealistic culture of the intellectual and the economic or poly it$Clf a(l1on technical culture of 'modern managers', which ortCnred but irreducible 10 the ((Ivtality of mere 'praCtice', If old-style inlellectuals continue to preserve an apparent monopoly over legl timare cuhur:l.l pranices, or at least over the definition of these p,;rnices, this is perhaps due to the i nert ia of Ihe institutions of cuhur:l.l producllon and diffusion (in particular, Ihe educalional system) and rhe hY\leresis o( habitus, which are contimlously reinforced by the (an that IlItr:.rry and artistic culture remains the form par excellence of disin terested culture, and conSC<Juently the most legitimate of the marks of d slin ion from other clas�s; and also, no doubt, to the division of la bour between t he sexes, which confines women to the privilege o( iudg �n8 tasle and the tasks of maintaining cullur.ll capital In its tradilional Ot"", serv Ing the new culture, turned towards aCllon, business and POwer, for men, This only confirms the tendency of rhe ruling fr:l.ctlons t onceiv oC e the opPOS'tion belwe<:n the 'man of anion' and Ihe 'intelleclual' as a · valiant of the opposill on between male and female. 'rr
,he 'nagers, a �1)'1(1" pOifll(
rs
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sees
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_
Ttmporal and Spiritual Powers
�hdiIpffetent
C1pirll, Ihe possession of which defines class mem "'I� ' and the dis([ibulion of which determines position in the power 81f;st1ons constituting the fIeld of power and also derermines the srrareavall�blc for u� in these slruggle b h , 'fortune' lnd 'ulent' in a forms of
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past asc now e<:onomic c�pital and educational capital_Ie : nrously IfIsmlmems of pow�r and slakes in the struggle for are unCClually powerful in real terms and une-qually I mne principles of aUlhorlly or signs of distinction. and. of course:, by Ihe different fractions. 1be ddinition of betw�n Ihe fractions. or, which amounts to lhe $;lme flon of the legitimate hierarchi�jng principles, i.e., the menlS and srak('S of Struggle. is itself a slake in II fractions. !kcausc those who take part in a game agree on Ihe srak('S. al fiCiendy to fighr for them, one may chooS(: to emphasize eilhe t plicilies which unite them in hostility or the hostiJifies Whic them in complicity. One only needs to consider, for exampk: .,_ '" ambivalent relalions bctw�n artists and Ihe patrons of art, "':h in the nin�t�nth cemury. are often also palron; of business. r('Spond with a SOtt of paternalislic patronage to the symbolic . flons of the arnsts. in Ihe name of a not'50-UnrealiSti( � : . producers of cullural goods really lte, thaI is, dc:viant bourgeoIsie or 'poor reluions' force
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"cry lerms used against them by Ihe inteliCCluals and artistS. cannot be entirely satisfied wilh the solution offered by 'thcir' i tuals and 'Iheir' anist$ (i e , Ihe intellectuals and artistS who wIt/un the field of cuhu",,1 producrion a temporallY-
·er and to the clus); the very relationship 10 lemporal po... liS whICh defincs the 'bourgeoiS' intellecw)1 or artisl 'dl$lnletcSlroncss' which. e,'en in Ihc eyes of the dominant Clficall,' dcfinc:s ,"leliCCluals and arllSIS.
in social space that they have a {Ulls and arti.st.s arc so situated . . )lcC te Ihal are Un!' !� lar inletcSt in dlsmle�tedncss. and In all the values tfllCI,! d universally recogn!ZC
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Intett$t springs from the immanencc of Struggles of intcrest.
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( kgiurnllcy in Ihe course of Ihe survey is such thaI. if one is not ma"y cuhural surveys have done, product dechrarions of Il C may. 15 ,cfU correspond to no 1'l:11 praCtice. Thus. !II one survey on the· " ...hich n(IP e 74 ptrcent of Ihe respondents with only pnmuy schooling en· Illf"golna y. (1'Ilde judgements such IS 'Theatre elevates the mind', lnd sp"k [<: � ticl!1y of thl: ·positive·. 'cdueational' and 'intellectual' vinues of ",llIuS"!0=. :IS op�l to IhI: cinema. I men: paslimc. flcile. faclitious ana h ,lit I �\ ar Ho....ever utificlal. these dc<:brations hl,'e a kernel t>O :i\Ccldcnt thlt it is thl: culturally mOSt deprived, thl: oldest. and It � lIheSt (tOm Paris. in short those least likely really 10 go to the the I�"'1\0 mOSt often "knowledge that ',hi: theatn: tlnlaftJ Ihe mind', It ,tI�'\J be e<jullly mlstlken either 10 tlke lhes<' �,,'ortcd credos II face, value �1I.meaning cullural evangelists hive done) or 10 ignore ,..oUso mlny las 11'q gwe In idc;a of lhe po_r 10 Impose whkh cultural capital 1M I ural ,nsl1tu{lOf\S ean nef!. hr bo:yond Ihe specifically cultural sphere. e�ample, thar lilerary inslituuons In: most r«ognitt
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of reality,
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The mem�rs of {he diffcreot social cI:tS5C'S diffcr not so mu eh in dl( ct en{ 10 whIch {he acknowkdgc cultun: as in the e X ltm [0 whi r ch , now 11 . Declu:anons of indifference arc exceptional, and hostile , non even nre -Iu !eas( In (he legitimacy·imposing situation set � u bra �ul �ul1l! qucs(lonrUlrc re�i ni5Ccm of an examination. One of (he , ndl�mons of [he rccognlllon of !egitim:tcy is the tendency of t� lid . cpnvcd respondents (0 d,sg w,s<: their ignOl':lncc or indifference and .. y homa8C' to the cu]wul legitima cy which the imervicwcr poSSCSSCS . . , CIt eyes, by selccun g from their (uliur;l1 baggage the items which _ 10 thc� closest to the kgitimate ddin idon for example works of.,. oiled IIghl m sj , Viennac wall lO, Ravel's '&1«0, or � � greal n-. more or IC'SS nm,dly pronounce d.'
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'�ogni(Ion 0r .8·(lmn · e w�rk$ or pranices al....ays assem ifSdf in ./Ie ... � . 11 lC1\Sf In I� relationshI. ...,,1> dle imcO/it""., who, benusc of ,he d". p symmclry of ,!he SUf'/(Cy 511...,1100 and his social position is invoted .." h II , . . auroomy whICh (0<0"'•.,_ _ w IhC ,mpos · mon 0f lcgm · .macy'. II may " kt u-_ f,Ol� of a slm k profcuion of failh-'J � lih il'-o dttlaralion of good ,It' fcn uons-:-'[ ""sh [ knew If'-()( a w feu n ion of indifference-'I'rn nOI .... {tn'Slcd In Il>al'-9o'hi(h in fXI mribule5 ,he I�k of i nlcrot 10 (he spetl1ll �1{hcr Ihan The object, Picasso, or even 'lhI: Picasso', a �ncr;c ferm (O� Ing ',11 forms of mO
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Knowledge and Recognition
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hole rdationship of the pclite bourgeoisie to cuhun: can in a sccnsc: uccd (tom the considerable gap bo:rwttn knowledge and rerogn;. 110 the SOIHCe of the cuhur.al goodwill which takes different forms de· ng on the degrtt of familiarity ....ith legitimlte culture, rhat is, on !()ci ; O t'C ' ngln lnd the associated mode of cultural acquisition. The rising l1 e bourgeoisie invests its good intentions in the minor forms o( lhe legt te cultural goods Ina practices-monuments and ChitC1UX (as II, hI to musccums and art collcctions). journals of popularitt
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rsY and ingenuity in 'living beyond itS means'. In {he home: this ( S ( y c:r.oising 'nooks' and 'corru:rs' (the 'ki{(hc:n�omc:tS', 'dining is dO b(droom
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For Tocby's Career· Woman, Entertaining Means Planning
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Bmtu\C, for her. enterraining mCllns gt1ung horM just in lime to u· I1mgt" Ihc Aow<;rs, check ,he table �{{ing or sltp inlO somc lIew (IoI� before: the fim ring of Ihe doo.bc,U. Selling :aside alL thoughts of hc:, working life, the busy (llttr' "I)m�n lurns back into , smiling' �!!cntive h�l=. I) bnng 01 off-a ..-.:koming lplnmaH full of Ao,.,cers scrvicce 'p" . "ale 10 Ihe slyle of the 0((1. cheer with nothing lefl q, m the first (iga""lte 10 ,he J glasts- he ....om.n who her lik .w" _ ""US I m. ake up for from home � her ,blCncce by l'ng Ihe nlcenl$ of a domcs tic· leotn
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.U, her home muSI nol
Sive the impression of being a piKe shce JUSt passo through, but look Like a comfo,nbk, ...,nne.:! fCUCllr, as l ively :as her own personality. She considers herxlf rhe flm SUCSI in her home. And as she h:lSn't much lime to giY<: 10 iI, she ....ntS . il al· ways 10 be rndy 10 m::dY<: peoplce, even when she'$ OUI all d,y Ion m goes off on long journeys. Rcsu t: a wsy. ....'m. . congenial .partmcnl which Icstifies 10 ha prcsrocce and her preferenccs. If she h:lS a favourile colour, ,he decor makcs il no secrel. If she trav· els a 101. every home.:oming brings some improvement. If she loves painting or «" ding. Ihe walls and shelvcs proclaim her 1:lSles. Thlough 11<:. home, a ""omin whose job ofren rcquirc:s he. 10 adapl 10 othe• people's opinions. rediscovers the very feminine ple�sure of saying, Wh�1 I like is . . . How docs she en'enain� That. of courx, depends on lhe laYOUI of her
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home, whclher she has a dining room or a fixtd o. /old'dway dining. TI:'a" plus her domes,ic polen. . "al, wIll da:ldc Whelher she'!J gi"e . d lnnel pmies in !he ltadi!ional s[yk or offer an deganl, humorous 're:adY'Io-serve' or 'sel(.service' buf· fer. As (0. Ihe cooking, ,Ile work is oflen remOlCo("onlrolkd, nOlebook in hand, wllh e"(''r,hmg planned in advancc. She knows all the II.",. Jat''''g advanlagcs of modem I('(h, ni<jues; she has a well.rehearsed n:P' enolre of dlsnes .hal Cln be prepared Ille nl8h[ befon:; she's e�· pen at uSing rhe services of a Cl' rerer wirhou! depersonalIZing her menus. 11m's how raday"s carr:(r.woman , a s,r::..egis! o( hospifali[y. combines charm wi[h effICIency !O givc fhe il. lusion of being 100 percenf devOled fa her home!
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An Up·to-the.Minute Welcome Here, Ihe working woman has worked (or herself. . . . The crearor of Ihe decor is none olher fhan Fran<;oise 5«, designer and imerior
pcl IS . Ihe natural silk '" of. bcquer suppa!!. and " chaill by N{J, !he [able per�1 dinins·rom o piC(e while jiit-tlutill. In Ihe m "" room lhe comfo!! is dominaled b)" IhC' big (Orner VcI"('I C":IllSkin. In fronl of, . a �lmple green lacquer '0"".' Wllh sI<"<'1 rrimmings.
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Hostess in Paris
Susan Tnin, a foumaiisl ....jlh � and a grc:1f mvdlel, has made home on Ihe Lefl Bank. in a quiet Ihrcc·room aparrmenl in a rnodaw block. Her experience of bc3uty gIves her da:orallon a virtuosity .. 'he play of colours and materiab, " succcssful con!nSIS of slyle. II's" done wilh subtlety and . ci2SSian, eleganl laste. . . Allhough Susan enrcrrains in a relaxed way, shC"'" SCI aside a linle dining.room, to avoid the discomfon of bufl'ns Of' coffee·table picnics. So, even ....,Ib no onc to help wilh the SC"" "Io " can shut lhe door on il af{C"r the meat and forgel Ihe mess. Duri... Ihe mC":lI. she U$CS a ....icker Mskef 10 stack the diffY pla,es and CUIIcq 1bc firs! COUfS(" is sen.'ed in � and Ihe fCSl of the mNI is �, 011 li a trollry wilh dish·warmers. Simp fied bUI relined menus. for, bet'" IImerican and . globe·noflel. � C eloCJ coll('(l$ «IICious lC'Cipcs and
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ded. dou· and pcli, OOurgwis, and thercfore doubly C'xclu in case, 10 everylhing which ,I;C:� ' ious to be included, he oo....s. jusl n :lIes the ariSlocnlic 1M J ls if i[ might be cuhure and uncrilically "C'ner This pure bUI empty goodwill which. for lack of nS of [he paSI. docs nOl know ....hkh way rrldll'°dclines or principles needed 10 apply il. I II!C !!U e�p05CS Ihe peli[ bourgeois 10 culwnl allodoxi., Ihal is, all Ihe r nilions which belray Ihe gap r
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ugh they an: silUated al very differenr points in rhe space of ,Il( � ; idd classes. of middle·bro.... cuhure
the prodUCCIl and consumers !har t_de �he same fundamental relalionship [0 legilima'e culture and !O ils .US!"e �rs, so Ihal Iheir inleltSlS are afluned 10 ClIch other as if pr -c rhe c mbhShed harmony. Faced wilh the double competition of !'tOo ducers, 4M{/QrtJ, and rhe Iegilimate reproduccrs. /tclffftS, against whom I� ""ould have no chance if Ihey did not have !he specilic power given
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A 'Very Modest' Nurse
M�. B., ....hose p,Jm\tS had � small (um in ,he depmmerl! of lhe lot, is 48. She has ....orked at the Saint· Louis H pital for aimOSI t....enty yea�. She 'uS(d to love school' and ....ould have liked 10 be· come 1 leacher. but had 10 leave 1 year a(ter her beeauK her p,Jr. enlS 'couldn't lfford 10 kttp her'. Divorced at 28, wnh IWO children, she had to uke a iob in I ho5pinl. While ....orking, she studied to be· come a nurse. Her son, aged 26, is married; her daughter, aged 20, a bi· ology Student, lives ....ith her. Mme.
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in Paris
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B., ....hQ 'Ioves children', is 'horri/i(d by luge families' ('a 101 of ....orry·). ....hen I sec 1 mi sclke' I'm always shocked
She very much regrelS 'not hIving 2 higher level' (of educadon) : 'I make do ....ith ....hat I've g
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'1 hue pretentious people'
She l ikes 'simple, unpreten tious pe0ple': '1 hll( prel(ntious people, [
can't stand people who
say "Good ' , and $IIi« in ...ithout so mUch 1$ 1 your.lelve. And ....hy' haps you'l( not to thei, I don't like being riors.' (She 'ICSp«tS belo.... hcr·.) She also ...ho are dirty': 'I think you"e not rich. It least YOu C1ll
how to behave . . . ;,:� ;�::;
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po�o Ind del? ] SIX �tienl5 ,_ III
wllh dllty fcct. II'S d,s8UJt. ing. Why don't Ihey go to t� public blths?' mg
'h's very modest'
Her flat is 'very modest'. two � plus kitchen. she li ,'O III Olle roGIIIo her daughter in the other. 'Illne . nO dinmg room. 'h's very modest There's no wuhing machine. b: cauS( [ don't like ....:lShing mach,... I do my washing by hand. I ha_'c gOI many clothes to wash anY"'I,. and then [ w:lSh d'ings in the boiler. I find lhar gen ,hem very clean . . . Anyway. you can't � die sa� temperature in a "':lShIllS l1li chine . . I'''e gOI my fridge, my cooklllg stove wilh o"en. I p�ocI cuh for them. I'm not kccn on hiIC purehase (installment buying). biS thing1i, yes, a dining.room SUlIC or a bedroom, then I might get Ihem on credi,. but (o r " [illle , stove. or " W1lShing machine or I , (ridge, [ don', thtnk it's nec(SSl.r)"
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cp.anm nt I (ro�
[n her room. 'a ....ardrobe bought e from the �mari l1ine d store for 700 fl1lnc�, " table small local shop. a small b<:�C uilS '['m very com(ortable here, ,t
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he me finc, it's very modes,.' On 'tor w�lIs al( a fe.... family phofOS. t
she h:lS been souvenirs . ',IS 'nd bo ' , � x. I n"Y . a....ay III a u' n �' � '. a � r h I I ulle . ( room of ,-(11up , 101 ,." f . ' I like thing1i 10 be tidy u . urse. if you've SO! I gl� of (In rur knick knacks tn· ' of the ....ay and ,.I; ,t. ' hey rc out etS" . � , t dus'y, do" ' "
shows and especially singers. [n faC! she 'hun't really gOt time': '['d ral her have hours of sleep. for exam· pie, than eat a 101' (m�tIY she eats grilled meal. salads. frull). , fi�d thll it's bener for my COn$II(UIIon. [ need my eighl hours' sleep.' She has no' been 10 the cinema for IWO or three years: 'The last time [ SI.... a film' [ don'l remember the names, II 'c c1oCh�, little suiu, 'ClasS' " SIOry about doctors.' WIS ' dresses litde cottOll She 'liSlen! to the ndio. mainly chotce of clothes, the same Fran,,·]nlC!. for lhe mlllic'. she In totr . • the same concern fu, pro likes FrtdCric Fnn<;ois: .[ find thlt osob';'!n.c rc isn', 1 vur amount of ' his sonss . . . ,he ....ords are very pntt . 10 throw around . . . You meaningful, some of them . . . p' get pro e bud to abl be to e � Enrico Macias 's 'luite good, he's st lv '" a, counts ' She cannot wh hat's modern, ! find his songs 1fe very er, y ' , " [",ns erself ',flolling "tound III nOSlalgic. I like Hugues Aufray. his . J-rin, thll more suitable for (cons'oo:: � are terrific. he's gOt an amn· $Ongs . . . S K ars 'CbS ,,:,e �UI . er) ght dau lKr ing philosophy . . . Whal I ltke III clodv:s. little SUIIS. little conon song1i is ....ords thu mean $Ome. dKUC$.' 'RiSht now, 1 have a navy. IhinS, mainly 1 Josten 10 ,he ....ords. hi...: skllt from Gt:rard Paso:juier, a Fo' her summer hol iday she rents Inlle shop in the subulbs which a small Aat or villa II ,he $C1Side doo:s SO� flmou� names, Cacharcl (Hendaye. Arcachon, Lcs Sables .nd so on. I really fed comfornble d'Olonne-on Ihe Atlantic coast). in i,. morc than with ,hose flared She tests. gocs to the beach 'a little skins ,hey make.' She goes to !he bil', plays 'a bi1 of mi� ia lurc golf'. . . hairdraKr's every .....:eke 'It's 1 relu· don '2 li ttle bu of knutlng hut not "100. cenainly. I love havins my a VUI amount ....hen iI's hot', hair dork. A S(t takes no lime It 'doc$n't do much: aU. Thc:rc's a nice calm atmosphere, [ rnd a '!uie. mlga�inc, IhinSS on fashion: (An ,n'.fV;o.. ..."h ."",he. nu.... you"S'" S� docs not buy masazincs, be. .nd be"�r qu.lifocd. i. �n'«I I"
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menls. they'l( expensive and there's fIOl much in Ihem.' The .eI.....ision IS 'n he, daugh'er's room; she doc$ !lOt often "'1ItI eh, uC CP' " 0 pass the Illne' or ' to rdax'. wilh variety
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COnlrol over the mass media, (he new cultural intermediaries ({he 0$( typical of whom arc the producers of cultural programmes on TV anJ Il.dio or the nilia of ''lualilf' newspapers and magazines and all the "hl�"i ournaJi$'S and journalis•.w ri(ers) have invented a whole $Cries o(
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genres h�lf.w�y betwe<;n legitimate culture and mm proouction ters', 'essays', 'eye·witness accounrs') . Assigning Themselves rhe ble, and therefore unmailable, role of divulging legitima ' l which they resemble the legitimate popularizers-without specific comp:tence of rhe legitimate simplifiers, they to themselves. as Kam pUIS it, 'the afX$ of genius" and seek a SUbstit the cha�ismar!c allaO/'il,? of the all(/O/' and the lofty f�m in . " asserrs ItSelr. m an 'arly off·handWness (seen for example in the facility of theiT Style) and in a conspicuous refusal of the havy d l. cism and grey, impersonal. tedious pedantry which are the cOunterpa j external sign of institutional competence-and all this must be while living in the unease of the inherently contr:ldicrory role of l' r senter" devoid of intrinsic value. The pardaJ revolutions in the hier:lre t ",:,hich rhe in.term�laries' low r>sition in .the field of intelleCTual �1?n and rhelr ambivalent rela(lon ro rhe intellecTual or scientific autho.. ltIes encou.r:lge them to c�rry out. . such as canonil:ltion of . 1I00.yel.legltlmate arts or of mmor, marginal forms of legitimate art, combine wirh Ihe effCCIS of Inc allodoxia resulting from their diitanct from Inc centre of cultural values to produce, through rhe mixrure Gf 'genres'. 'stylcs' and 'levels'. those obi«tified images of petit·bourgt'Oll culture, juxtaposing 'easy' or 'old·fashionW' (i.e., de"alued) legitim_ produCTs with the most ambitious produCTS of the fll':ld of maSii produc tioll-llnthologies of 'poetic' songs, wide-circularion 'intelleCTual' week lies bringing Together would·be authorirarive popularizers anti self.popularizing authorities, television programmes uniTing jazz and symphonic exrraCTS, music·hall and chamber music, STring ,!uarrers anti gypsy orchestr:ls, violinisrs and fiddlers, bel nnw and camara. pnml donnas and songsrers. rhe 'P:is de deux' from Su'"" {oAkt and Rossini's 'eat Duer". Nothing could be leu subversive than these controlled Iraiii' gressions which are inspired by a concern 10 rehabilitare and ennoble when file)' are nOI simply the expression of a misplacw te
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. . . or rhe SIIbrf Danet . lr is not difficult to lind III Ihese works lhe properties whICh. at a given tnOmenl, predispose them to Ihe Treatment they receive from the new (uJrural intermediaries and rheir petil.bourgrois audience, when lhey are ("lOt specially produced for this usc:. But il would be a mistake to locare in (he: worb which enter into middle·brow culrure at a given moment the properries conferred on them by a parTicubr form of consumption. As is shown by the fan rhaT rhe same object which is today typically middle· brow-'average' (mqym)-may yesteTday have figured in the most 'reo fined' constellations of tastes and m�y be pur back there at any moment by one of those taste·maker'S coups which are capable of rehabilitating (he most discreditw objc.:t, the norion of an 'average' culture ((III/11ft OWJf'Inf) is as fictitious as that obn 'aver:lge', universally acceptable Ian· gU1ge. What makes middle·brow culture is ,he middJc.·class rebrion to culture-miSTaken identity, misplaced belief, allodoxia. Equally, one mUSt avoid treating this objectively and $ubjccti,'cly 'unhappy' relation subsunlialist fashion. although il always belrays itsclf, in Tnc eyes of the dominallI. by rhc mOSI inconrcsrable and objective indices of a man· �r and mode of acquisition (such as. nowadays. thc typically 'record· r.hop' air of certain syStemS of musical preferences) . What makes the �tl{·bourgeois rdation ro culture and ils capacity [0 make 'middle·brow' "'ha!�er I[ u�ll, is touches. JUSt as rhe legitimale gnc 'saves' wharever it lights nor its 'nature' but the very position of the petit bourgeois in 'al Space, The socia! nature of the petit bourgeois, which is conSlantly mrr� on the petit bourgeois himself. determining his relation TO Ie· g cuirure and his avid but anxious, naive but serious way of U hing at iT. It is, quite simply, rhe faC! Ihar legitimate culture is not rr, fOr him (and is often made againsl him), so that he is not made for �and rhaT it ccues 10 be whal it s i as soon as he appropriate! it-as uld h3pPen tomorrow TO the melodies of Faure or Duparc if the &evel·
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op�m of suburban and provincial Conservuoircs caused th sung, wdl or badly, in pelil-bourgeois Jiving rooms.
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implied in certain trao:k·marks or shops, the petil bour "gu,rantecs' s liable 10 know tOO much or 100 link, like the heroes ofTY ,�s 1Jt . p. ,1W'lY mes whOS( misplaced erudition makes them ridiculous in 'cultl' '1mass dispar:lte, oflen devalued in· ' ' eyes, is condemned endlessly q" � which is 10 legitimate knowledge as his stamp collection is to itionlltction , a miniature culture. (011"'1'1 co all, the aUlodidaCl, a viClim by dc:fauh of the effectS ofe
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between �II rising cI:.ISses, the bourgeoisie in an earlier po:riod pefi f� bourg«lisie, and Ihe cs ablish l as ses , the arisloc rac � �, . geolsle. On the one hand. thnft, �cquISluon. accumulatio n, an (�r possession inSCJ>l.rotbk ( om permanen an ielY about � � propert � ml,ly abo�1 women, the ob,ect of a (yr:anOlcal peal usy wh ich is f ' � of msecunly; on the: OIher. not only (he (I$(emanon, big pt - � s nd ng generosity which are some of (he: conditions for fhe rc:prodUCliol ... �ial c�pital, ut also the sd(·mur:ance whic� is mani csted, in p . l m anstOCl1ltlc gallanuy and dcgant lIbera lIsm, forbIddi ng the which treats the loved object as a possession"-as If " the essen (i I-" '" lege conferred on the possessors of inherited wealth were freedom the insecurity which haunts self-made men, Harpagon as much as II . � noIphc. who are perhaps 100 aware that 'property IS theft' not t0 L. __ [he Iheft of their property. The stockpiling avidilY which is the root of every great accumula tioa of cultu� is too visible in I e perversion of the ia�z-freak or cinenu-b.( . . who carncs 10 [he: exucme, I.e., to absurdity, whn IS Implied in the. mate definitio� of cultival comempl�tion. ami repaccs consu mptioa . ?f the work WIth �onsumptlon of the clrcumStanllal mformation (ClDI. . . liS, nan composll1o n of Ihe band, recordIng duo eIC): or in the aclJllll' iti ve all colle�tors of i�ellhaustibk knowledge on socllllp . seuk mlllu subjCcts. In hIS symbohc clm struggle with the c(Tfi6eil holders of {ultur:.ll comperence, rhe 'pretentious' challenger-nune against doctor, [edlllidan against engineer, promoted executive againa business-school gr:.ld uate-is likely to set his knowledge and techniques devalued :.IS too narrowly subOldinated to pr:.lc tical goalS_ tOO 'seH intercs[ed'_ [00 marked, in their Style, by the haste of their acquis on. ill iti favour of more 'fundamen tal' and also more 'gr:.ltuitous' knowledge In I whole hO$t of mar ers, from [he major state examinations to ediwtill bolrds, from job interviews [0 garden puties. the cultur:.ll produCllonul the petit,bourg«lis habitus are subtly discredited because rhey rc:caJ1 11d acquisillon in matters in which, more [han anywhere dsc:, the impomM thing is to know without ever having learnt, and benusc: the seriouSId with which they are offered reveals rhe e{hical dispoSitions from whd they How, which are Ihe antithcsis of the legitima[e relation 10 cultulCTIle petit bourgeois do not know how to play the game of (ulture:!IS ' game. They take culture tOO seriously to go in for bluff or impostUre: 01 even for [he distance and casualness which show IrUe familiartty; ' sc:riously fO escape permanent fear of ignor:.lnce or blunders, or (0 $I stc:p to[S by responding with the indifference of those who are not cotrt' peting or fhe serene detachment of [hose who fed entitled 10 confesS
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Slope and Thrust
to culture, such u the con, " [ions manifcsled in the relation ft>e d'ISpo,1 . . and · ,or authOrlflCS � r nformity which induccs an anxIOus quO[ � : conduct and leads to a choi�e of sure and certified produ�ls winners). 01 III the relatlon to language, wllh (sUCh as classics and prize: overshoots the mark nt" · which . . . . M -dency " hy · ·r-corr« tion, I viligan{e , mess III onemcorr« IIlguISllC I 0" pounc($ and ShOff f2l1ing foI fear of . . mOr:.ll IIlcorr«tness). arc tho: wllh dsewhere dOd it (:as " ' 0 " , d ItIf an I most · · h an a 10 e{h 1($, 90'11 ". . w hi,h are manifested in reIallon «(1)' same 0,,� . 0f It,e to insa[iable thitsl for rulcs of conduct w�ich su jecrs rhe whole . rigorous dsicipline, or in relation to pohllCS, WIth the respeo::tful conform, . ism or pruden! reformism which ale {he dcspa'r of ac5lh.ete revolutlon uies The llue nature of the cui [ur:.Il accumulation str:.ltegles of upwardly m ile po:11t bourgeoiS, or thcir educational slr:.lt�gies, i� mOSt clearly seen in rho: context of their whole set of str:.lteglCS, whteh dearly ex plCSS<:S rhe necessity underlying the characteris[ic dispositions �f the . pnll-boulgeois habilus-asceticism, rig?ur, I� ahsm, th� propenSlly to y sll1ueglts are Ih()SC of accumulation in all its forms. Thus [hell ferllill pr:ople who can only achieve their initial a<xumulation of economic and I"Ilhural capiul by restricting their consumpllon, so as 10 conc ntrate all � thea resources on a small number of descendams, wh()SC role IS fO (on,
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Cloue che: group's upward tr:.ljCCtory. h IS wdl known {h11
lIS ioW"51 point
fercility is high among low-income glOUps, falls 10 in the middle-income groups, ami rl$C5 191tn a�ong h,lgh (Ome groups. If [his is so, it is becausc the ,:dative C051 of ( lld-rear1l'lg. 1'11(1'1 IS small for bo.h low_income and hlgh-1I'I{ome groups, stnce the for m.r cannOt sec a future for [heir children [hat is different from their pres tnt, and therefore resuict the:,r inVe5[menU, while rhe: lauer have incomes to lTla ',h llleir commitments-is highest for Ihose with middle incomes, I,c,., rhe middle cla $SCS whose social ambitions lead ,hem to make high <:du· lOr1al inve slmenls r b [i ve to [heir resources_ This rela[ive COS! is dtfined 'ho: ra.io be,ween [he family's resources and the mone.ary or. non-mono:' laI» 'flv"!unenrs il has co make in o.-.ie. ro n:-produce, 'hrough "5 off-
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culture with k��;�';��d '� :, ,,,. �
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evcn Haunt [he:ir lacunae. Identifying �r that the cultivated man is one who possesses an immense edge and refuse to believe him when he professes_ in one of IhO$ jestS allowed to a Cardinal, who can fake libertics with [he
ous
that, brought �own to irs si�plot and 'odell 10 Ihe parish pridt, " expression' i[ amounts to a rdalun/ to culrure ( Culture IS I . ( SUbl'me , , ). 16 Mak·IIlg cuIture a (IIoS remacns when you've forgotten everylhlllg . f;!lat and dealh, truth and falsehood, rhey cannot suspeo::t the .11r of life .• , rhe hId· off_handedness and even )(10: 'ble self-assur:ance, fhe insolent (11 . � nOns' . by the meresl page 0f an IIlSptref"oishootSry !< nnot have th� amtl. men, [h y ca Jd'�y, art or liter:.llurc. So:lf-ma . s thc hberllCS and audaclfld of " re:lallon to culture which authOrize iar ho ale linked to il by bmh, rhat IS, by nature and essence, thoS' W
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T..blt
24 Chan«s o( cntc.ing the domin.n, do", and rc"ili,y ,ion, 1970-7l.
am (nc.ion
flfm workers
Urukillnl Fllmers Smu.pilkd Skilled Foremen C"'('5mcn
Office wo,kcrs Commcn::i.1 employ= Sm.ll shopk�rs J�nior u«�tivts
T«hnietans Pt,mory 'ochers IMulI",J employers Big commercial =p� F.IIgiMm Scn'OI C�u"vn S«on
Ch,nco of seem 10 dom,n,n. elU$' "
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f manual workcrs. is 2.0<1 as .gainst only 1,83 for privlte-5CClor r on o � :'O.kers·. who 3fe ,lmO$I .1I non·m.nual). In ,he middle (,nd much more hances of mobility Ire incomparably g�tcr l i,y rat($ rem,in at • �i�imum (oscillating �han theil irn::omcs), feni . . in the dom.tn.n! class, t� fcrftl"y rate nsc:s 1.67 :and . l reprodUCIIO� docs not fulfil .he. b,oIoS,o 1 again. shOWing .hlt ott .he system of rcproducuon stra,egleS of ,hese Uteg
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a. f'{)ffl C.S. I I (1970) Pt::rcen..� probability, for men, ofenming domin�l_
by (..he.', occupltion. b, �ve",g� �u.mbc� of chi�dt,n per c��pletC �'mily: from G, Calm and J c. � . ,lIe, Nup"'lnc C' i«ondtt, scIon Ie m,lteu $O('<xu!twd" Er_" tI 511111<1.,.,. fI (Octobe. 1971), 28. c, Calm .nd o.,vil1e give . (,rtili.y rote of 1 .92 rOf c",('smen ,nd shopkeepel'l .... !O�'het 8u' i, CUI be sho...n 'hit ,he {cftilily of c"'("men i. con,idc,.bly hip ,hon ,h., of ,hopk�rs. An.lysis of the 1968 <enlul (which confifms ,II< di...... .ion (ound here) shows thot the ,,,,{umen are m uch cloK. to m.nu.1 wo.kers .... .rc the IDopkeepe� ,II< a""",8" numoo 0( ehildrm under 16 per housch.old il l " (01 m.n..,1 "'OI1<e... 1.01 (0' c"'('5mm, 0.88 rOf office and shop wo.kers �d o,n for shopk«pers. v
spring, its--t rea.. tionship obsc:rvro �'w«n ,he fC({ility of ,he different cI.sses or fr:tc!.'on' .nd ,he ch.nccs of upward mobili.y objectively .vailable to ,heir mem (S« uble 24). The working classes. whO$(" ch.nccs of entering the d()/ll" n.n t d.S$ wilhin tWO genef1l,ions are virtu.lIy nil, h.ve very h igh /C�'hq.. ratCS. which sligh tly �line as .he chanccs of in ter.gtneradonal mob,h crase, As soon as ,he ch.n(cs of accns to the domin.nt class . ...h� ' amount' 10 the same thing, 10 ,he in"rumen" which can as .he higher
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p:ir:odoxic�1 charac.erislic of the pellt bourgeois th�t .heir prac· . ted 10 objeclivc chanccs which Ihey would not have if they IS adjUS on of having them and if they did nOI Ihereby I have Ihe pretensi .
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o : 'pSychological' boost 10 Ih� force of their econ�mic a�d cultural . . I Having succttdcd In esc.pt ng from the prolcta!tat, thetf past. •nd "'P;;;n� 10 en ter the bourgeo�sie,. thei. futurc. in order to ach ieve the ncccsury for IhlS fiSC they muSt wmewhere find thc n:. up KC mulation , 10 makc up for the abscnce of capital. This addition.1 force inscribed in Ihe slope of Inc past ltaje(lory which is the pre·
':ccs
so;hruSt of the futun: implied in that lr2jcctOry, can • ndition for achievement . ro tha LtS ng t i i � power, t d r l . ( rcs an g limitin a ely, as neg.tiv , only � e�erted as can only be mC2SurW in thc form of neg:mvc magntludes . Kant would have put ii, whether 'savings'-refuscd e�penditure-Qr birth COntrol. If rising petit bourgeoiS can an as if Ihey had better chanccs Ihan they have (or,.t least, beller than they would be if .hey did
dfcclS
not believe them 10 be better)
so
ac!llally improve them, Ihis is be· Cl�sc th�ir dispositions lend 10 reproduce not the position of which (hey .rr; (lie product. but the slope of their individual or collective soci)1 Ira· jlt'Cto!),. tr2nsformed into In inclin)tion wh�rtby this upward lr2jcctOry and
.ends to be continued 3nd com ple ted. A sort o f "hlll ptrst'!'t'TaMI, as Leib ntl pu. i" in which past tf1ljcctory is conserved in the form of 3 striving tOWltrds the {utun: which prolongs it, it delimits 'reasonable' ambitions
and Ihctdore ,he price 10 be poid '0 ralizc this ralislic .mbition. 1bc tts",s peti,e bourgeoisie endlessly remakes ,he hiStOry of the origins of c'l'u.lism; and to do so, like the Purit.ns, il can only count on itS :LS((ti· (1$111. In soci.1 exch.nges. where o(her people can give r()1 guarantees, Illoncy, cultun: or connections, il can only offer moral guaranlCCS; (rela. It��ly) poor in cconomic, cultunll .nd social capital, il can only 'justify pretensions', and get the chance 10 rl!:llize them, by p.ying in sacri· pnvuions, renunciations, goodw il l. recognition. in shorl. vinue, si� the f!':letions richesl in economic capital, i.e., sm.lI· and medium· fa t shopkttpcB, craflsmen or sm.lI landowners, concemratc their cf· t S (�r at least, did so until f.irly recently) o n saving, wherC2S lhe: frac· flChcs, in eu l tural capita] (junior cxecutives .nd clerical worke,,) lrl.ns nl m t Y .ke usc of .he educ"ional system. in both cases they invest in t C(on omic .nd educational s,ratcgics the ascctic dispositions which
� � � �
A Technici:m Who 'Tries to Get on'
)acques C, aged 29, is a draughls, . man In an cnginttring eonsulranc1. AI Sttoodary school he slUdied in rhe r«hnica! $!ream and lerr school al 17 afler obuining Ihe equivalenr of lhe probuionary industrial rfllin. ing diploma ('II isn'l an e�amina. lion'). He slmed as a junior dfllughrsman, ar -4)Q francs a monrh, in Ih
'An<xher five year, (0 go at Ihl'" CNAM'
He has changed firms several limes: '/ would spc-nd rwo ynrs in a firm 10 Inm all rh
His wife (whose falhcr is 1 man and her moth
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'Comfortable, COSy, homey'
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They live in an apartment In tht wcslCrn suburbs of Paris; they do rIOt ofren enremin ('apart from .. . fam,ly . . . ...e haven't gO! many friendi'). He likt"$ his home ro br 'comforrable, Ihafs the maIO tmar: 'cosy', 'homey' ('I like a nice __ (osy atmosphere'). He would like . have 'I bit more room all rhoe same'. but 'Ih
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As t!Cg,mh painting, he 'h:lS_ .. prcconccplions . . . it just has � somerhing rhar pleases me' 'very fond or Mooigliani. his vd'f
," ., h:aven', seen III his � rtll . da bur Ihose , h:ave. I like �rt: .0
�Intlngshty were reptodu(!ion� rn be l'�e seen some :.c,,� orp:!rmly jo)f is . . . I"ve bern to �pJ' lttm ;bil;on� at the of I n mber of. .e�h I remembet, one �d �laIS. , paint ing, I didn't :I
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modem ....nolher painter 1 really \r�€ ' \i�n Gogh. his pictures are can feci somerhrng Ing you (His ...ife :also rcffI u in them.' h ioni�rs. She went to bo' nt e lmplCSs ' - hkes ' PiC:a5S0 e�hlb11100 and -,ovro ole of the Blue 1i�1 pari. lhoe wh
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10 The courses he is liking, 10 'rry ab , ing' get 011. ro achie-vl'" somerh sorb much of the litde spIte lime he has He lCllvt"$ for work ar eight
In 1M morning and gt"tS back at It"I'1l rn the evening. T....o or three ncnings :I ....eek, Ind Saturday momings. h
�c ::"I1c'), � r::!o �
who likes books Ihat 'have $OffiC"o Ihing to do with medicine' or 'raise morll <juc-srions', has recently bttn rI'"lIding Boris Viano Sh
Perhaps it's a psychological im1gt", but il only means sometlling 10 a (ert:lin typc- of penon.' Besides, 'Ihe economics STudentS and math" mlricians, Ind propk like rha!' wilh whom he saw Ihe film 'didn't un· dersnnd any mot!C Ihan I did . . . I don'l really s« whq c:ln undef$tand lilms like thaI.' They hive seen TIN 51;"'t: 'Whal we liked lbout ir w:I.S the :Kling, lhe characters," his wi(c explains; she 11so enjoyed Tht GM' falhto-, 'especially Mulon Brando's pc-rformancc.' In some ways he is 'conservative', ....ilh a !aSIC for 'classicil things': yer h
a.d Enchainl becausc he 'likes rhe revclarions abour people in govern_ men!, ,he scandals and so on, in polirics and Ihe properry marker and high nnance·. u NOII"'/ ObltrTlaltll' 'parriwluly for foreign neW$', bUI he docs nOr regularly read , daily paper. They'd cenainly pur some work in' Un!il this year. rhey had season rickers a! lhe Thiirt( de la Ville: 'lr's nor e�pensive. Ihar's impolfanr; Ihe Open, all rhe rhcatrc:s in flCt, are OUI of our prke·nngt: ('I ....an!ed to go and sec Nurcycv and I found il ''''is more rhan 90 fnnes for !....o. We had second IhoughlS and didn't go', his ....ife adds. Befort she rook Ihe bac she u ed to go to the ThCilre Narional Populaire, lind sa.... HamIll, TiN MadWO/llAn of ChaillOl, 1M £xt(II{iOllW'S Song. . . . ) They enjoy ballel (c:spccially 'cia$S;' cal dance'): 'The Moisscyev Baliel, no...., we really liked Ihar. They'd cerninly PUt some ....ork in: They have also been to bailers at the ThCitre de la Musique (ncar Ihe CNAM: 'It ....I$n·t classical dan", bUI it was very good: 'It ....as Tht Firtbird,' his ....i� e�plains, adding 'You fel! rhey'd ....orked al it, Ihe work lly uood out' (she also likc:s 'Frrnch provincial folklore , " in fan. folk dances from every coun· rry'). AI lhe llicalt(, he likes plays rO be ·well·:Io(led', He ....ould like 10 go and sec the Gnnd Magic CiUIIS; he hl$ secn extnCls on TV. Almosr ",cry year lhey rake rheir holidays in �in ('It's cheap'; his falhcr is Spanish and hl$ a seaside
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ap�lfment ( On holiday qUlle II lor and, his wife I him, 'goes 10 nighldubs " � n ight: He has tried war cr s (his wife docs it a 101)·- '8 "'I Ul III good ar it, I haven t gOI en my legs_ You n "" wenglh keep nt aU ycar to do it. [ do.J. 1. 1 arrive on holiday compleld ....hacked. If I had a shone ....eek I'd have more leisure I and then I uSC rhe time ['� � get beller at my job . . . YouSOt .. 10 be cnly ro ca.ry on 'he � do:. 'Ril?ht nov.: I lly feel I to Itve hke a mIllionaire I'm . the dally rou"ne. even sick of hal. days of the sorr ".-c have. [ wan . I _ - . wirh .. a ml.,'10na1(e "" a vasr or-. fornI, a s.v.:ir:nming pool, a big sporrs faClhILes, lennis: His ..iii: 'would like !O go on a cruiS(": 'We'd ?O som� fishing, have I ..... ....,th frrends. he around in rhe .... dance, read.' She particularly en.... their Club M&lirerran� holiday ill Rum ni . They chose Ihe 'motd format': 'It's comfortable bUI II " same time you (ecl pan o( Ihi. you make friends easily, i.'s or ... a hOlcl ....here you can'l g�r to propJc . . . Everything is ....ithin ., reach: While they we� thCfC. rbef did I bit of tourism, becausc 'wid you're in a forrign (oun'ry. you have ro look around'. he adds. He didn'r II all like 'Ihe organilCfS· ... rude': 'Mosr ",enings, there _ . show pUI on by rhe "Friendly Organizers", who arc gtnerallY sru
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the idelll clientele of the bank o. the school: cultural good· them fI" �' d fin�ncial prudence, seriousness and hard work. These are guann· to these inslitutions while pUlling t·ill h Ihc petit bourgeois offers J hic re6 entirely jlr their mercy (as opposed to the owner of �taJ e<:onomic of deriving �!(IISCltural capilal) since !hey represent his only hope fundamenrally negative 1SSCtS. Prerension could be wrincn IS from to continue along thc upwud inclinalion has nsion': the thrust Jit� and in all the '�mall.minded. side in t� economi�ing menfa the pem.oourge01s V"tues. If pre-tensIon forces the rt' , �iated wllh 10 enler !he competition of amagonistic prrlensions and � boUrgeois his means, at the (�t �f � permanenl him 10 live alw.ays beyond . mto agg!"CSIS Vtty, It tS also ....hat de explo to hable: s alway is that gh every !he necessary $Irtngth 10 extract from himself, throu -cs him ular. asceticism and t.hlthusianism), of sclf�xploi!ation (in »>rtic and cuhunl means he nC'C'ds in order to rise. he economic of sociability and thc cor�ponding satisfactions that It LS in !he arca ces. bourgtois makes thc grcatcsr, if nor the most obvious. sacrifi rhe pc!it that he owc:s his position soldy 10 his own merit, and He is convinced has himself to rely on: 'Every man for him· thaI for his salvation he only concenrr:l.lc his effortS and reduce !tlf, 'A man's homc is his castle.' To which hinder his in· hIS COSIS, he will break the tics. even the family lies, help 10 chain the (rrla. dlvidual ascension. The bonds of solidarity which (Y an erernal nvely) lel$t deprived 10 the mosl deprived can make povef VICious circle. 'Taking off' always presupposes a break, and the disowning offormcr comp�nions in misfortune is only one aspect of this. Thc soli· 111)' renegade has to reverse his whole lable of values, convert his whole mirude. Thus, $ubs(iruring a small bmily or a single child for the large ftmily (which the negative c�uSC$, such �s inadequate masrery of the lechmques of birth control do not entirely cxplain) means renouncing rlJr populu conception of family relations and thc functions of the do mesric unit. abandoning not only the s�(isberions of the eXlended family 1IId a ....hole tnditional mode or sociability, with its e�(hangcs, ilS res- rIVI"�, its ,conAiers, but also the guarantccs ....hich it offers, rhe one ai t Infalhble prorcclion, especially for mothers, against !he uncertain· �of o!d age, in a world haunted by domcstic instability and soci)1 and . � ml 1I C lSCCUriIY. For !hc pctit bourgeois, kinship and friendship can 110 ger be an insur:lncc against misfortunc and diSl$ter, a net....ork of � and protection ....hich will al....ays provide a helping hand. a l03n Or bUI !hey are not yet 'conncctions', i.c.• the social capital that is make the mosr of econom ic and cultural capital. They are IIItrtIy Indnnc es. ....hich ha"e to be removed ....halever rhe COS!, because (lie � ra .tudc, the murual aid, !he solidarity and the marerial and sym· h bot Iilrbl .hsfactions they give, in rhe short or long lerm, arr among the , d....n luxuri � �. � r llLtt. rr ng his family, often to an only son, on ....hom all hopes and
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drons arc concentr:lted, the pt'tit bourgeois is simply obe ying the of on !r:lin s impl ied in hi ambiti on. If he cannot incrca � his he must lim i t his eXpt'nditure, the number of mo ths he has to in so doing, he additionally confor ms to [he dommant legitimate fertiliry, thar is, prO Crt'2.tion subordinated [0 [ social rcproducrion, Binh cOntro l is one fo m (no doub [he menury form) of n me r s cla usus. The pt'lit bo rgeo s i i 2 who makes himself small [0 bcc omt' bourgeois.
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� lilt [i[ �urgrois i$ � small bourps in rnli[y and not juS! In lhe , ioJogl.JX; Sl s mmd, IlItn I[ IS clnr hal would be lost by aba ndoning lhe cqll 'pt'lit bourgeoIS' in [he nam ... e of an objt'clivisl definition of '"!ere � clsewhe�, naTive eo CJl.ls conce H:I.[ obi«I' � e [he maximum number � . Clologl(ally pt'rll nr prop:tllcs In a p l(ubrly evocative for , m Further, .. ,"?rc, an objt'c[ifying re:�uct!Of1, howe�c r brutal, has nothing in cOmlllOn """h dIU contempt, ....hl(h IS lIagranr so much writing on [he pcli� bourgeoisie, the dillO al ....hlpping boys of acs[he[icizing prophe cy ancI [I!(- favourite tuget for pol i tical anathemas (one onl y has [0 h t i n k of Marx s at[a I c
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m 111
n
cks on Proudhon ) : II relalCS rhe pro pcnics of the habllus, _ most oflen picked on by dau rac I ism, such ::IS 'pretension' Or 'narr O"'ncss' 10 [he objective conditions of ....hic h [hey ue [he produ , Those ....ho c.:. afford less surly virtues and prese nt a more prepos5Cssing face forg er rhal Ihe ltails Ihey condemn ue the inev itable counterparl of [he me chanisms ploviding for individual mob ili[y, i.e" [he seleclive nmcrio n of app[opriur individuals, and they speak as if the 'vice$' and 'virtues' of [he rem bour grois ( ....hich-need one repeu?-
ct
Renouncing the
p roli fici[y of [he proleta ia [he pelit bour� , 'chooses' I"C$tric[ed, lective reproduCtion, of(Cn limiled a �ingk U t, conceived and shaped for the rigo rou�ly selective expectallOns of:: importing class. He encloses him self in a lightly knit b I narroW U . somewhat oppressive nudar family. It is no accident [hat [he ad,ecuc ",tit (small) or one of ils synonyms can bo: applied [0 e"eryth in bourgeois sa s, thin ks, docs, has or is, even [0 his moral;[)', ahho gh is his Slrong poinf: tric t and rigorou s, its formalism and scruples makt' i t some....hat (Cnse, scepfib e and rigid. With his "y O�E' � peny ntt-Os, rhe petit bourgeois is in� a bourgeois ·""fIt small . "" his bodily hexis, which cxpresses his ....hole objeCtive re:la[ion to [hef"'I cial world, is th.a[ a man who has 10 make himself mall l0 � . th ro h [ht' S[r:ll! ga(C ....hl(h � lads (Q Ihe and sobC't discrttf and seve , in W his specch, his gCS[urt'S and bo:aring, he always lacks somethi ng in Stalure:, bread[h
c
y
ug
largcsse.
rt
se
s
g Ihe '= u
su
of
re
Pta'
to
his dress,
al*':;
l
bourgt'Olsle: stnCt ,
fbt
Vtlritmts of Petit-Bourgeois Taste
"' " y hI·,h level of snlistical ggregation , one can g'YOn .. SUlllCICnt . . s 'fl1� [ a bourg«lls C[hos 0'oase' a confiden relallon 10 Ihe wor'd ,od , ,.,.s ' rIZCd which, a,r:, hU �:�'��ced as necessary Ihat is as a malem h i c h [he 11� 1. ncc 0 1$ and v�"h , w " ,,, . r_ eO'rtC, ot malll'fest forms of ""Iillldo $Ill' casualness, grace, ;rIel'"tty,
, '-:::: �I(,
a
t t S sup""r:s and ;u[horizcs all cle, . . ['Itt d , natu raln ' with a pem·""urgwtS eIhos of ,r«dom, In a WO l . . _ "', lied bUI h nslon, [he vol un taristic ngour 0, the g u prcle o hr I on r ICtI «s[t � emuuuy onc day what ' wno base [hcir prctCnSlon ,.of )'C[ 'ch � : Imanenl invocation of ough['. HO��I, soon as . , �n rha[ this sys[t'm of d[5pOSlIIons takes oo 'I)1Ighl lO �. ,� Iy51S IS rc 111 =, I[ IS n . . . ?I pa [ l ss an: ways of a aini ng SI::Iylng , y modali ties as. [hen: i'IC'",an , �ng . . ,�, Structure, and Ihal [hiS poslIIon u e position In. [he social h 1 mlu . . Ihroug
,0
css
. .c
.
"
L_
'
n
JS
or dechnlng. 115t1( mlY be sicady, rising
•
(Q
111
,
'
•(a
L_
as
data coIIec[ffl for heImiddle classes (n .. '83 individuals) ....ere ing rhe same se<juence of op:r ions and Inll)1C
-
n
'
Of
"l
I nIC m �, lat1C$, � ""
....
:l
0r
'
lhe
.
"
....11
space
)
6--111
or"�", '-_ " " ","d$ 10 lhe second d·InlCnSIOll bu' aIso" to some exrenl, [0 [,," -.. ,I'll dll'''' .... . .. _ h· d d· ndmg 10 ,I!([ " lmen· .. corrcs nslon, wi[h [he second Ktor f .....
., . ons very SimI ar [0 t fKlor brings 10 r g ht out by 'hc first f:l([or in [he .nalys.s of Ihe dommam 'ha, b cI; �o ' � one liide _ fi . nd the abililY [0 identify .1 le-asl [wdve composers nt \'tfCt ), hO....ledge of al Insl dvc of the ....01k5 of mu!ic (2/ pe (cn ) ' . 0 0.� 0f 10 .he Louvre :lnd [he Modern A rt Museum, lhe choice ll:us.ul mus.c [ypICal of fhe 'diKophile d sposition u�h a �t;r '::/tr� ""'I (24 percenl) rhc Arl �f Fllg"t (1.6 pcrcenl) anJ ' c :,. . ({.,,' (1.6 pelce �l) 'imeileClu.I' sing like Jacqucs Dou�� ( :d� perc:[) :lfId I� �rri, IY:I I i n[� who are Ihe C<jU;Vl!enr of Bach . . f I C d (1.8 percenl), :lmb.110U$ J u m , c�1I \]>:I(c o P fo[ifJ lasl like 6reu.ghel « . . ... "In''ng, rhC C :USICI1 such as Ab$l raCl p.m.Ill! In.erC$'. mo as much . nnnMi , i hghr l SlluClure 0f �n
lion.) . ..' nl$ . firs ou
.... r
''''es
....
rs
cs, '
'
m
i
....
,
0'
:as
, • 111
S
•.
j
r(cm), '�r1lStic' fri'md� (2.0 percenr) and � 'sludiro', 'imag" Is' (Z,4 pc jChOO . inu:rior. On 1m, Ofher side, low (0 10 6) knowleOM:r$
, �t·
.
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,' c,
+
(C(nI)
'e2$y
<�;J:
,�
:.::II I\1e
•
,
and works (2.7 per<:tm), (he choice of ""orks c1p:;1bk of C p ( 1 9 Cr(ei�eC"M8bt (2.8 pcrttnr) or L'/Jrlisltf"'r (I., percenlj, singtr$ 2wxiared wilk IJ.'n�ope"" �uch itS GU"!3!Y (1.6 percent). and Ihe most 'common' prefer. bg/l' (SUCh itS for :I 'ck:m and lidy', to m�irlla'n' inlenor). (A� re· CQnlribu!iom, we find ,hac fhe adje
,. � z2
,
.
!
•
,! 1 " ,' -�} '1 , .- _ ' , r •
•1
,
_
•
,
-
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quahllcallons
I
s
f�an by � .
In
plSillonS "The s«ond fl"or systematically chll":1.cterizo the mOSt tl":l.dirional or (on· Sf",ative ethical or latheti' disposiliol'ls: 1111(hmem to Ihe old. consecl":l.led " Iucs;n fninting. with Raphael (2.6 percenl). Leonardo (2.� peteem), or Wattnu (1.6 percent), lS in classical music, ",itll LA Tr(l�-;(lI(I (2,4 percent)• Of song, w"h Mlriano. and also in life--sryle. with the t1Ste for tl":l.ditional french cooking (2.� peKei'll ) . a 'neat' (2,} percen!) and 'harmonious' (1.6 petcrnt) does so by opposing thcm to disposiTions which =m 10 have nothing in common exccpt ignol":l.nce or refusal of Ihe cslablished percent-Alnlvour-3.� per· values (wirh preferences for percent-for a 'warm' inrerior-l,6 percent_nd 'lmUS' Ing' fnends-2.9 percent). (Amol'lg the indicators more Sirongly explained by 1110: s«ond (lctor. one finds the: opposition: on Ol'le the 'COI'I' Kl(rlliou,' or ·pl":l.gmltic' friend. on ,he o,lI(r Iht 'determined' friend, de· :11�,".s,ore fumiture, fl":l.ncolsc Hardy. or the: judge-mel'll. 'Pail'ltil'lgs n 1 Interest me.") WIleI'l the 'objeclive' ehlllClCrisdcs lre proi«u:d as iJiusll":I.live yariables, Illey show IlIal, as in the case of the dominanl tlSIC, the second facror ex· � an OPPOS;I;On by ageol
interior. It
Ctnl-Bufb-2.3
Hll1yday-".4 5anl<
;1'1
silk
{the
:1:�lls
•
Inf
culrul":I.l
Ihe positive side, lind the commercial employees or the �ret3ries' "h, '. dille lO....aros the negitiV( sid.:. Finally, :u in !I>e case of the dominlnt cI:w ....tu:n: it oppost'd the . sionals, in whom 'bourgeois IUIC' is fully dcveloptd, to the IW() fla "fOr.:. ....hich �nt d'J(C cxtrrmes of the dominant cultunl space (t�c� OII;s 'li inldkCluab on ont hand, industrial and commc:rcial employers on th iIIId ocher), the third (<>etor opposn th
fit
/
tR
c...� �
��
B�r
�
Th( whole set of futS which correspondence analysis brings to hghl .
sySlematie form ClnnOI be adequardy Cltplained simply by obscrvdlf that, although ph(nomcnally V(ry dilf'ereOl (since they are Ipplied 10
g(ner:ally las legitimate objectS), the choices of the member.; of lhe pe lile bour�isie arc organi�d in a SIIUC!UI'( similar 10 the one which ol' gani:tCs the tastes of the member.; of the dominanr class, with the cr:af!smen and small shopkeepers, whose posilion is based on poSSC$$iOI' of a eerlain economic opilal, being opposed 10 Ihe primary leaehers '"
I to those which distinguish [h( indumi�1 and commercial (rom Ihe IOChers and arlistic producer.;. The problem brought [0 by Ihe second faClor, thu of the link belwttn the 5(IS of acslhel1C
cultur:l.l intermediarks in accordance with principles en!irely analOJO'"
crhical dispositions roughly definable as 'consetv:at;v(' or and social origin and age, which are themselves rclared in a
I
'' den{c'l[; .impl;· ''; n 'Utc. Analysi. of co'''l' •. ,i .. .nd ,«I axes of in
Vartan" of p",it.J:>ou'grois II,
Buffct
£i", Kk,;', NiMhr"",/;;.
,.11 mwicaJ ..orb
'·6 rornpol""
,.11 compol"n
ba«al�urht
;{.o
BEPC
L'A.rlIMlllIe
Blel
Van Gogh
cultu",l "'pital + nomi< ",pilal -
Modern A'I Museum
[)ouai
started higher ed.
A.,/ of F"g'" ,p J o,..,i" F,p_T,,,,,.
0-2
12. compose!!
Gutlary
mwinl ..orles
.�u,_e contribulion ofU� ct "onal quaJlfnuon.
�ake an Thu �mplifoed di.,.. m only ;Mioc",,? . ,jabl";, which MUU _ Tho on.,. iU""mi.. _i.!>Ie Indo>ded "
�
ed by pc:nirion in ,he horizontal dim(nsion of space, can only be tickl t""een syslcmatiolly examining Ihe rei2!ionship which is CSlablishcd positions (or jobs) situated in social spacNune and agents also SltUaied In Ihis sp2.ce. . If what goes on in Ihis cenrral area of social space is gcner:ally 50 Illdc undelltood. th is is because, al best, in order 10 undellland and mcasuT( thy USing, (01 example, codes which are, by definition. d(finile), one has . . to frttl( the mov(menlS in the same direction or m oppoSite d,rt(ltons "'hi(h Il1Inspon bolh the positions and the agents. turning Ihe middle 'eglon of social space, a site o( relative uncertainty and indelermina.ncr b C�"'�n the two poles of !he social classes, into a sct of mob,le crossmg· pa'nIS, or r:l.ther, I 5(1 of shifling crossing'pointS where 1gents meet for a e{taln t ime as lhey are carried along by sim ilal or opposite, rising or . a ltn l g 'r.ljcclories. We are still closer 10 rnliry if we chU'2
�
•
no qualif".tion. CEP. CAP 0.2 compooe's
Halliday
.
+'L(7,O%)
cronOmM: npital
BI,,' v.""bt
Brcughtl
lmp,essionim
ptactinl
Ii
cultural capital -
imkl<:rmin1[(: region of a social spacNime which 1$ [he !rrUClun: of {h� ordc:rro bur puriaUy disor
ott. 'Iij ..;
� "PAl.
4,311,?O?
�
",IybI:
Among ,he p',orerries common .0 all the occupan" o( Ihese ' I neu'ral posu,ons, ,he mos, charaClerislic are no doubl Ihose
Of
poles Equidis(anr ftom lhe ,wo extreme . slnlcloral indelerminacy. al' of es fo rc I po1Ol ....·hele lhe . � ld of lhe social dl$SO. 11 a neulral rem . bourgco s are con nced: .Ihe /. 1J>t n art
';:;
r;:;d �
--;' �
�
v��
middle clas� offer a p:anicuJarly favo urable opportunity fa sho rhc same is HUC of diachronic propertie s.
We thus �!urn fO t ," ing poinl o f the analysis, namely. Ihc n:larionship esublished
�':i�
' tion berwttn thc broad clasSI'$ of pos itions ddi� in ter m s diachronic proptrties and individu al proper/ies which arc lin ked 10 ti me:, like age, which cxprcs scs 'hc n:larionship to t hc p pUt of the economic system, at the eco nomic pole, the p:ut of hc:3lit 1 system , 21 the cultural pole) and to Ihc fUlun:, or l ike sex ;2 an (imperfect) indicator of Ihc evolution of npi!)l volume and rion and also of a whole relationship (0 past and to !he classc:s.
;
""I"'�
donal
1 fUfUre 2S well 2S
other 50(;21
�iS lin� bt,lw«n thc fUlure and S?Cial ascent ,or Ixlweo:n Ihc pas! and e.:h n c � mongly cmphaSlwl m Inc domman t world vicw (an ual or a pasnian is s.aid 10 'h�ve a fUIUIl:', vid meanins tl\(, promise of so(i UCCn510n, i_c.. cmbourgroisemcnl). It is bU« ! on �nd conSlantly ranf� by all Ihc social m«hanisms of compet i tion (Ihc mOSl c�empl 1 ry of "'hida is, of course:, fashion), in which II\(, d,ffcll:nct$ belWttn Ihc das sa atl! � tr:Insblw inlo lime.lags in a nce a;m;ns 11 lhe s1mc objttlivc_ It f uncI_ in Ihc polilical or c"cn xicnril\c unconxious Ihroush ,hc normaflyt uses or lhe nol ulionary xhcmc whi ch Ihc 'people' ...ilh Ihe SII' persedw past or which, morc subtly, revCr5al of Ihe dominallf view which Sivcs Ihc f lure to Ihe 'peo k', lO p Ihe form par e�cellcncl! o( archais m. (This xheme of Ihought IS pmiculadJ polent in universes which, like Ihe inlellecwal fK:ld. are b sed on !he oppo lilion betwcen ,he new and ,he old.)
cI21 d
IS
�
lOci
111
Irknflfies turnS Ihc rCVOllllionllY world VICW, ' U In
a
The Declining Petite BourgeoiJie
The posilions whose numerical dcc:l il\C expresses rhcir economic d«bnr 1re occupied by individuals whose objecr,,'c properties. pncticn and opin ion be seen 15 linked 1 a pasl 19C, S,tU1ted al Ihc exlrI!m e pc:xaI or Ihc fir5t axis. rl!lalively elderly on rhe wholc and undcr�ndowed Wid! educational capilal (at mOSI Ihey have the CEP or CAP), Ihe (fa(lsl'fICII and small shopkeeper5 manifest in all Iheir prl!ferl!nces rl!gressive d,spOSl" lions which are no doubt Ihe source of Iheir repressive inclinations, P' dcularly visible in their rcanions to ev ery si!Gn of dep,lf(ure from the 0 order, nOI leaSI, o( course, ,he beha viour o( young people. Thus, rea" againsl all indinations [0....1Ids mod ernism or comfort, which they c . only see 1S moral decadence, on every <jues lion concerned with I e e. tr day art of living Ihey make chokn which can be call ed regressive tilt' much as Ihey are vcry dose ro Ihose of Ihc manual workers, ,..,1 fot havins ba:n forced on Ihem 10 Ihe sam � elfle-nt by n({C"SSily. { �hey that thc-y prefer a 'ckan and fldy', 'easy 10 m am m la . 01 P
s can
0
�
example,
� :
�( ��
'ker'S � v
. . . . . . . . ' . . ' . ' • e ' • • • • • •e • e . Z Z ?Z
Wife Who It 'JUSt About
,., ve(S flight
,
O. and her husband run a . b sinC"SS In Grcnoblc. She �JCIJ kC she � I parents by Ihe lime '" and was sem 10 an or· _, ,Ole)�e, . ...... .g . She ,..enl 10 xhoo) unn) �,",ouc!l��" _ � but did not lake Ihe husband firSI worked 11 It' (EP. Her . , ai '" . Then he was em· d ., . 'hI In • baker for e ghl year5. r ) ,-0 ,,0 he sel up his own r..·( VI! •• bakery businC"SS. lbey hlve one mar· ,;cd dlughltr, aged 22, who works III ' ph.,m:KY_ They own a small blkc')' (employing one orher pel' I0Il), ..hieh (hey will soon be sell· '"' so as to aci1uire anolhel small · Ih mop, bu. this 'lime a buSllless . \a$ ck manding, 'less of, bllld . They h.ve recently bought a house: subums of Grenoble; \I has a In living.room, dining'Ioom, sever:ll bedrooms. kilchen .nd bathroom Ind 1\ surrounded by a large, wcll· kept garo:kn. "...c
:!. �
n� ,5
II
l
the
�t
'1 do like Ihings 10 be clean'
[1IMdc. (v"')'lhinS is brigh!ly pol. ..t.ed. 'l oon', w,n. '0 boas" but do hke 'hings 10 be clclln, so [ like � my hou$C nice and lidy,
Ing
P.'h�ps '00 much, because if [ was hen: �II 'he time, Ihal'$ all I'd be
'\o,ng: The concern to be 'Ie.son· >hie" to be 'jUSt abou, .ight", never
�
(�nspIC UOU5, is lIpparcnr in evel)'
lhe says. She nys o( thcir Iha, 'in a wly it's ....ha' wc've � . . . a son 0f reward ' . 'It,• . nl(e but of course: ,hcll: are n ecel house s. L.ct'$ uy ii's nor an ordinny linle
"
. - . JUSI
hou se:. Nor Iha< I'm bo:l.5linS· If il had been a litll e bil smaller, [ ...ould still h.ve raken il. Thc fac( is, if's JUSI aboul righ l. NOI supe'· lu u';o� no, but 001 juSI run-o( 'hc--mill cither: 'We werc brouSht up 10 be very «onominl. , , . W?'k. . I ing the way we worked, we dldn h.ve time 10 spend money. " , We don'l have "me to go so we'll: almost forced 10 save money. Oflen I say "There are folks Ihal have mon�y and the lime to spend il; I've SOt ,he money bUI I haven'l SOl Ihe time." h's a ud facl but ii's trut. '
x
OUI,
'Something inttrmedillc between old and very modcrn'
Choosi ng lheir furniture---e -cv n· IUllly bouShl from lhe chlin·store liv;lan-....as 'a real hodache'. 'I w(m round no end of shops . . . so as not [Q make a mislake. . . , [ wamro somelhing that was right for my age benuse I can'l really s« a �o-year-old wilh ultra·modern (ur· nilull:_ . . . [ was looking for some· thins inte-Imcdiatc belween old lnd ""ry modern ' When buyinS ,he house, she: prcferrro 10 'Ilke her time' f:uhcr Ihln 'rush imo i(. 'Some folks ger a house s'("3.ight u,ay, bu. wc wouldn'l have brtn able 10 enjoy if, il woul
Ihe mOil beautiful
tilhcr'
In the liv,ng room-'il's nOt Ihe
mosl ordinary (urnilull: in the ...orld but i, isn'l lhe most beau,i· ful ci,'her-I went fof somelhing classic.' As for the big SIl:Y selltt ·...,th ,h.1 sh.rk, you on sit on ii',
,
'you'n: no! a sl�ve fO i,' (for fear of marking if) 'and at t� same lime ;t'5 quite comforuble.' She had to choose all these filings on her own; her husband had no time and no in clination 10 accomp3-ny her. 'He couldn't have cam:! kM. he jusl said "Get ....hatcvcr you like:" She, looked for $OmcrhinS '!lUI would go with the sryk of the rooms. I don't claim 10 be very com�tcnt bur you do "ave 10 �P«I 2 (em;n style in [he rooms.'
'Those thing$ arc wonh now they're cleaned up'
a bir
On tho: wall there is a �infing given 10 her by her brother.in.la.... and one she bought from a 'piOUfC lrtisr'. 'I would like 10 have more paintings bUI I can', afford it' She thinks she might also like to listen 10 roxords but has never bougl\! any and cannot imagine herself doing $0. Her scn� of oxonomr. the 1'1: (u$2.1 10 ""ute anything, has led her 10 'I'CS(UC' knick·knacks for her house. "I've gor 101$ o( !rinkers �nd odds and ends rhu I (ound in aunrs' and uncla' �rric$. They _re rerribly tarnished and ruSIY bur r polished rhem up. .... rhose rhings are wOrlh a bit now rh�y're cleant
11
'I don't like showing off'
Het hOfll( ITIC"lIns a lor 10 her. When she has money to spare. she would rather 'spend ir on furniture or somerhing (or rhe house', buy (urrains or a carpet thar she can 'keep for a long tim�', rather than a dras rhar will � OUt of (ashion next year or jewellery !har she will hardly ever wear. 'Some people are (OnSlanrly buying new clotha. r don't fed rhe ned. Sometima )'Ou end up buying rhingli you never
even wear. You likt
).
��"
r� k:" :
"JUst a Ilim to tidy mylelf lip' She 'never splurges' on clothes: '1'111 nor one 10 spend a lot on my ...aN robe.' Anyway, 'fashion is consrandJ changing . . . whatC'o'u )'Ou do, JOII can never keep up with it.' Insrad, she goes more for 'dassic' clorhe$. She is not sure wherher to acccpl I wedding inviration: 'I'm nor kcm bc<:ause it means buying I lor of ex pensive new things and then you only wcar thcm on(C' She OCIUJOft' Illy goes to rhe hairdresser's Ind It prds it as a 'chore': 'just a !tim 10 tidy myself up.' In the coumry, where she spem her childhood, 'yoIl didn'r sit (or hours in front o( a mirror pUlling make-up on.' Not mally, Madame D. docs not do much ml cooking 'jUSt for rhe � of us'; bur when they have guests. she 'en�ys cooking traditional things'--<Juiche 10mline. r41rll i , �Il sons of roms, srutkd ph1Wis maroes.
�
'People who Ihrow ey away'
mon
their
�
She B"'IS on >,ery well wjl� who have 'the same rastes as
s/>C likes
'dealing wilh d�en! , Bting 'quite «onom'ClI seI(· ...,." �. t being, shalI we: say, mean' r "" thO : don't like to waslC ! . e really rbu Y ) she thinks she could nor ",O)IIC ...:irh 'people who throw �t onrnonq aWly.' She ca.nnOI un' rllt'r d people ...ho 'haven'l t...o ! "'!$ � ro rub together and yet :IS �n'" " IS they get any money they I IOO"'J ir. . . . [t's not alwaY$ the holspC'1 Ie who srint rhemsdves il's middlc-cla:lS people Of Ir-as tcn deny themselva �ny· n't ,,'ho'wo-n... .., ,hong. • '�1 go and buy (aney ca.ka . �. ever w,,
�
�
� :'
way " used 10 be.' Shc refuses all formal experimentation and special di'"ect$, and has oot liked Averty's re(Crit ex�rimen!al productions: 'I don't hke those CUt·up thing1i ar all, where you Stt a hod, Ihen a nose, 'hen 2 kg. 11 jusr seems plain silly to me: I must � old·fashioned Firsl you Stt 1 singer all drawn out, rhlee merres tilil. Ihen he's gor arms IWO melres long. Do you find thai funny� Oh. I just don', like iI, 'r's st",pid; r don't see the poinr of dis rorring !hings.' Bur she docs hke !O ""arch a 'tradirional' singr:r, 'a singer ...ho JUSt sing1i, who sing1i I'IOrmally. ...-ho's normal size and nor all dis rorted.' 'My husband doesn't
like hotels'
Every year, lhey go on holiday in their caravan (or tWO or three weeks. Two or three times rhey have been to � caravao camp sire on people. '''g1100 a liule Apart (rom the summer .holidays, , but 'not 100 m",ch'. rn..nly on Sundays, bUI never after lheir ...ork is so demand,ng ,hat r�. ar nighr. She is not 'a1V fa, they have no lime to go OUI. Her nalle' b",! likes 'cheerful pro husband, who srarts work al nine gr:ornmes' rhar 'you don't have to every Sunday evening, carcha up on think aboul', apo:ciaJ1y ligh enrer. his sleep Sunday afrcmoon. Ar t 'a'nment so long mOSt. they go OUf 'once a year, on as the producer n't '"y 10 � dever': 'Nowadays Easter Monday or Whir Monday. nd the 're always uying to � Because ir wu a public holiday, we Y II cv.:, ...."h thei, variery proused to shur up shop for tWO days, 8rlmlTle$; it was much �uer the Sunday lnd Monday '
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01' interior)_ Simil�rly, in music �nd song, they systematiully Op t the declasse' works of bourgeois cul{Ure (such as L'Ar/iJitmu Or th Damlbot ) and particularly for the mOSI old-fashioned and !faditio na I. ers (Gucmy, Mariano), By a logic which is also valid for the other positions, it is in the utegory whose dIachronic properties of age and trajectory are rn harmony with the diachronic properties of the position, that is, wh�� � mOSt directly in line with Ihe collective history, and therefore m le/, os posed to express its objective truth and announce its future, that e' ISo th erences characteristic of the fractIon as a whole are expressed Wilh� highest degree of density and intensity_ Thus the group (situate da Ihe second axis) of small cr.lftsmen and small shopkeepers , rnou 0( whose fathers were also small cr.lftsmen or smaU shopkeepers , and ....ho, for lack of the economic and especially the cuitur.ll capital they would need in order to attempt a reconversion, ue condemned to carry On af all costS at the head of p..rticularly threatened small businesses (food shops. small tr.ldirional crafts erc.) which will nOt outlive them (rhey are t'Itn older than the others), is dIstinguished by systematically retrogtarlr: choices from the rest of the fraenon, which contains a fair proportiO n 0( modern craftsmen (elecrricians, mechanics etc.), posscssing rhe BEPC Of even the baccalaurbt, who, especially when young and Parisian, a� YUJ dose to Ihe technicians in their ethical and acsthetic. and no doubt alto their political, ehoices,1' Convinced that they owe their position, albeit dimimshed, to a 'sim ple', 'scnous', 'honest' life, the declining petit bourgeois express in III areas dIe most austere and lraditional values (a 'neat' [sqignt], 'classical' Interior, a 'conscienlious', 'Ievel·headed' friend, !fadirional French cool· mg, lhe most unoniul painters, Raphael, Leonardo, Walleau, and Ihc longest.consecrated singers, Piaf, Mariano, Guetary), Their refusals. CJ' pressing resentment against the new morality, its showy pretension, lIS
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bxity in maners of money (use of credit), child-rearing or sex, are no ksI signtficant, Rejecting the most ch2fllCleristie elements of the life-style fa. voured by manual workers (e,g., the quality 'bon VIvant'), they syslemal ically exclude all lh� virtues cultivated by rhe members of the profcssiollS
� �
(,artistic', 'amusing" 'stylish', 'refined') and all the <modernist' t�sttS larrer so readily exhibit (they 'IItvtr choose either Picasso, w,ho ,s one � the whipping.boys of petit-bourgeois resentment ag�onst artistS; 01 . exemplary representativC'S of the new young life.style, Fnn�OISC, .. and Johnny Hallyday) Their aesthetic of lhe 'well·finlshed' (JoigJ) 10 one dimension of an ethos of'conscientiousness' which leads (hem tilt
preciate (he values of work, order, rigoul, cate, It is disliner frorP( dIt taste for the 'sober', frequent among manual workers or merPbers 0 promoted petite bourgeoisie who are guided by lhe concern to noticed ,(�nd also" but ",:,th a quite different meanin�, among e bourgeo,s,e): bUl ({ IS chlefiy opposed to Ihe 'hbernted taSle of t
r: �
, bourgeoisie and lhe eye-otehing 'fantasiC'S' it procures for itself ,, t,te ' ( . haor · d ressers, ' I �vant.garde bounques and untSCx ,--
rhe Executant Petite Bourgeoisie
!
J.lly situated in tW� S of capit� compoSition, the members of �he (!fltr present on theIr h,gh�st degree all the tralrs, �eCutant nt' '- tite bour<><"ols,e 1 0 ( make rhem the most compIetc relI·,za· . ned at the outset -which nl(flUO " rt and ·' danic e"o f rhe petite bourgeOIsIe, sucb as the cult 0f aut",,1 I,on for all the activities whose common feature is thaI (hey chiefll the t�te and cultural goodwill (makong colleCtions, for example)_ 1 dtmlfld rime . , ' , d GIven an intermediate populatton such, as thls, ({ IS one an the same . and how lIS · fracttons · · '0 show how it differs from the neIghbounng th,ng · propemes, from the bers an:: distributed, in respect 0r d·lachron,c and especially those of bourgeois or petit.bourgeois ort�in, who the most regressiv� fnet,ion of the dedmmg pellte bour· Jrt ,'cry close to geoisie in their ethical and aesthettc chOIces, to th� y�ungest, who, espe' ciall)' when posscssong high <jualifi.c�tions, are , Slm,lar to the m,oblle kments of the new petite bourgeo,sle. Every thong takes place as If the �si' disposilion which characterizes the fraction .as a whole were syste�· lliolly transformed as a function of age and SOCIal Ofl�on: f:om an opo, misti( progressivism among the rising young to a pessImIStIC, regresSIve conservatism among the oldcst,
'
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it is among the youngest members of the oc(up�tions offenng the mOSt secu� future, such as the junior executives and office workers, and morc especially among those who origin�te from the working class and have only moderat� <jualifications (BEPC or baccalautiat) that one finds the most develolXd form of the asceric disposirions and devonon to cui· tUre aSSOCiated wilh the ambition to pursue by further �ccumulation of {ultunl np'tal a rise made possible by an initial small accumulation, Set On a progressive trajectory by their schooling, they are n�turaJly inclined to a progressivist world view based on faith in enlightenment and a tem· !'trale reformism lIiming 10 give to e;lch according to his scholastic Illerits, As well as owing all they have to education and expecting from it all �hey aspire to have, they often Sland in a rdation of (X«Ullqn 10 (qn. (tpIIO'l vis.�-vis the senior executives, whose instructions they follow, "'hosc plans (hey implement and whose manu�ls they use, so th�t lhey tcnd to identify hierarchies wilh differences in competence Of, more sim· , 'n form�1 qualifiotions_ 111is is all rhe mo so sin e, very flen, � � � � who h�ve risen by promotton come up agamst ItmllS (e.g., Ign<.>!)n(t of algebf1l) which the scholastic hurdles they have not crossed arbi a"lo tl · I neceswy . reaIIy t ,' PIace before them, reg1td1css 0f �ny techmca 3'led by the job. So it is underst�ndab,le ,thaI they distinguish the�· �� s rOm the f e ft;jt declining petite bourgeo,sle In that they eombone certam Ures of the popular ethos-such as the tasre for 'pol.luck' entertain·
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ment and 'bon vivant' or 'lmusing' friends-wilh fnlures which cally ch�r:lcter � �he�. These include marks of amchmcnt ro � VlIluC$-- conSClCnnous or 'well·bred' friends, 'sober and clothes-n --a d numerous indices of a cultu!'al goodwill as intensec°llt t c Innocenr. Assigned to t;lSh ....... uiring precision. rigour, seriousnl"s!; " 1.\ II is . ' , . " , shorr, goodwill and devotion, and richer m cuhural goodwill tha . ' III fural c iral, they direct their 'pre(erenc ' towards typically mid ':� c \II. � �f worh, such as the S4Mt DRnet or Ulnllo, buy their furniture � ro., putmenr stores, prefer 'clnn and tidy', 't�;lSy to maintain' in e de. Of$, choose AlIllvour. Pelura Clark or Johnny Hallyday and are Very 1ft. te�led in photogr:lphy and 1M- cinema.1.1 This pure a� cmpry culru,:,l goodwill, entirely defined by the . ui.. ments of mobility, has ItS equiv alent in mOr:lJ The ity_ ""'rrs sive . . ,,"'l 'OF . 19our af the dec'"Imng ,ractlons, which 15 based on resentment at social regression • seems to have no other purpose than to provide those who onl h past with the Sltisfaction of condemning th� who have a futu e rhe young. y contrast the ascetic rig�ur of the rising fraCli on�, o . . �Iared With a pru en.t �forml. m m politi cs.. gives rise to � a . sdf:. . dlsclplme and famJly d sclpllne whICh 1$ entirely subordinat ed � to social . . mobility. Proof of thIS IS seen In the fact that the rising petit bourgeois" who a� usually much siricter than the other cl1$ses (parri cular] ev�rythlng concerned with their children's upbringing_ their o . s,omg our alone, rndmg-matter, se:tuality etc.) can, witho ut (onrradic lion, show th�mselves much less strict than the dominant mOr1.!t ty and the clm framons most attached to it (who make it a 'mauer of prifld.. , . pl� �, whenever Ihe practices In question, 1$ abortion or the avaiJ. ablh�y of conlr:lceptives 10 young people, ean be applied in the interesl of , m lhty. An 1 1 can he nderslood in the Slme terms why rhe risinJ � f'(m bourgeoIS tend ro slIp from optiminic austerity to reprasive pdIIi . mlsm as they grow older and as the future which made sense of their sac. rifices lurns sour.
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Thus, amollg junior exe.::utives and clerical workers, lhell: all: greater d,1kt e�ces between rhe �ge grouf'$ Ihan in olher f 'llctions whenever the quesl 1I0llS asked offe, an ourlel for rhe repressive dispositions. For example, rhe . . cuegoty who refe<:r the idc::r thu te;lchers are nor � proportion o( thiS enough declines from }6.2 f'(r enl among the under-3�s. to 29 rcent pe among the 3�· to W-year-oJds, and 26 f'(rcent among the ovet-Ws: the po polliGn who think thll teachers are 'too poli tical" rises from 44.6 percenl to 41.6 percem and 60.4 f'(reenr for Ihe same age groups (lfOP lurvey. Marcil 1 970, $C(ond a n> analy sis).
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The whole exiStence of rhe rising pelit bourgeois is the anticipatio a �uture which he will, in most ca.ses, only know by proxy, throug children, on whom he projects his ambitions. The future he 'drCllm'
h�
son' ntt up his proem. Because he i$ committed ro stDtegies ex r his fo ding over seve!'al genemions, he is the man of the deferred plnsure, n « deferred presen( Iha( will be taken larer, 'when Ihere is lime', 'when t ., paid off the morlgage', 'when the children are older' or 'when ,,' e ' ',"( retired', in OIher words, very 0,(en when "II IS too ,are, when, havo has no time to collen his 'due' and must "t: given eredit on his life, he coat according to his clOIh.' There is no comf'(nsalion for a lost cur his cation with the nt, especially when (with the bfCllk-up of identifi for e:tlmple) the disproportion between rhe Slcriliecs and (he , , " y rnak"rng nonsense 0 a pasr cl1ve 'sfactiOns becomes appuent, retrospe ,he fulure. In the end these altruistic irely defined by lension have squandered everything on the aller ego they had hoped fill'sers who in person, by rising in the social hiemchy, or through a to bt:, eitM-r whom 'they have dotw: bs!itute shaped in rheir own image, the son for g but re erythrng" who 'owes them everything', are left with nOlhin in ,he form of ntment-{he resentment thai has always haun(ed rhem which asks so much of e fear of being !lken for a ride by a social world
ttt:
:ns
� h'ldren, �;
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them. moment of self As they Struggle 10 the peak of lheir career and (he of their tOb assessmenr, feeling their values and even their conception hear throtcned by Ihe arrival of new. more highly qualified gcner:ltions s are worker and office ing a new ethos, the oldest of rhe junior execu{lves ioclined to conservative dispositions in aesthetics, ethics and polirics, as is shown by the analysis of the cor�pondenecs, which situates them close ro the small Shopkeepers and tr1.ditional Cr:lfrsmen. To have Iheir re ytnSC'. they only have to place themselves on tM-ir favourite ter!'ain, lhar of mOTOllity, 10 make a viflue of IlNi, neeasily, elevate their into a universal morality. Thes( RlOuPS not only have the mOr1.I ity o( their interests, as everyone docs; rhey have an inte
parricular
mOl'lllity
�mb'guous
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n,'s �nption of one possible form of the e�olution of political disposi wh�rcby clerical workers and junior e�eclJriv� move, ;l<; they g.ow alld t. closet to Ihe atlitude$ of the declining fl'llctions (sm�1l shopkeepers () �pe.::ilily small cra(rsmen) than to those of younser members of thr:it dlll, is intended to counter the typically con:scrvotiv� I�ndcncy 10 es· ci 'v. a,fI·loshislork.1 rclalion belwttn biolosical aseing (implici.ly :wo lted ...."h I in ....isdom and reuen) and increased consefV>lism. In
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{�ct, ch�nges in political po$irion and dispositions a« �pparenrly relat agc only rhrough the mediation of changl:$ in socia l position whkh e(d to ovcr time; and rhere arc as many forms of cvolurion of political apini0 (�I o there a« forms of social age;ng, i.c.. social traj«totiC'$ . The conse"".u,, �_" ology which «gards rhe «Iatlonship berween a move towards conse,," e � a and gtowing old as an anlhropological law, a d ll which uses this 'lIIfI relar io ro juStify ItS pes!imi!tic, disabused counr of �volu ri o ll ary � idcologlC$ . i
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Si,uated on the opposite silk from the previ ous group as reguds . and traje'nory, rhe mOSI educated mcmbers of the youn�( generarron 0( junior executives, tech nicians and especiall y primary (':I.chcrs are d� fO (he new pefirc bourgeoisie/' espe cially to rheir competcnce and prclft.. cnces in legitimate culrure (they C<Jually offen choose the A�I of FliP'> the Fou� Slalom, Eint Kltint Na(hlmUsik and the Wtll·Ttmptrn/ Cia';", bu t more offen the Sabrt Da,u" rhe HungariaT l Rhapsody and Rhapwdy " Blut, �nd less o fen L'Enfanl tl ItJ JorrigtJ) N . They remain �part from them, however, and all the more so, the less they have been exposed fO the new mode of scholasfic generation. in every thing more directly con- cerned wirh the daily art of living. Thus, rheir ideal friend, who for rhc , new perite bourgeoisic is 'dynamic', 'refine d', 'sfylish' and 'al1i�nc, IS more ofren 'bon vivant', 'consciemious" and 'sociable', and if rhey rndude 'lrfistic' this is no doubf bec,USC it is the one dimension of bour . values which rhe asceric petif bourgeois can find acceptable by Vl ff,ut the value he places on legilimate (ulture. The occupa!lon of pn""" teacher to some cxtent shares the characte risrics of rhe new occup2liOf1So owing fO Ihe changes in aatdemi( and social m:rui nd in r tmenl a Th� changes, lhe most visible of which is femifllU . IIOn: no � linked to a risc i n social origin, have led 10 the c<x �isten(e rn fhe rtC" posifion of agents who ditrer in social IrajC(;I Ory and in all the o sponding propenies (for example, upwudly mobil men. and 91 e . who belong 10 the upper dasses by rheir origin or by marnage-).
f
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The New Petite Bourgeoisie
. As rhis CISC clearly shows, age d·• I ercnccs--tncrcast.ngIy so as one towards the culwral pole-mark differences in rhe scholasti.C
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Nurse Who . , �. '(,Iv.....," with Passion
�Ih F. is n. She obtained the Ell ...,th philO$Ophy) Ind then to nUl$ing college. For four .'C1I she has 910tked as a nurse at Universillire ( International ,e'r5Cri the dt:�t Roidcnce) in Paris. Her fa.. u 5t: r ...u a civil scrvanr and her the is a Post Offio;:e clerk. She ..her a OIlC-room ap211ment It,d 1lone rn ce·hall. I t (on· ..h • small entran . f u rc-n o fabl<, no urnl no ( s no shelves. Everylhin8-mal' . � rccord.playcr, bookS--l $ on the On the walls she has a Dario Fo poster about Chile, which she bought ar a recilal of poems .and . . lOngs about Chile af the CIIC Unl' .mifarre, a poster (or a Yeats play ('vc.y bcauti(ul'), a still from the lilm IIphrodill Child ('vcry mov· iog'), 1 photo of her young nephew, an o....ngc .. m irror ('very functional') and a big crimson board with a whole SCt of nC(k1acC$, made: of shellJ, pearls, enamelware, !.nns elC., some of which she made I.c-rsclf Shc docs nOl e�f>CCt to buy fUfnnure: ·It's nOl that I don't likc II, I lUSt don't happen 10 have '"Y-II docs.n't seem to be vcry o· iCTtual I admll ii's nOI very conY(' OlCftt fot people whe I invi n te them . . dInner, but I roily don'r rhrnk II s 'mpo ,unt ' She bought her G. Irotn 2eV seeond.haoo, from her �1l>O,h(,r ('$he lei me hHe il (�P '); she bought hel phonog....ph .. I " h., n��f.{a-la:1I yeal at the Iycec, "'tlh ·tlt.: firsl money I eatned work. 1"& I n tl " sanatorium in my spare tnc Ir '5n' t roily 'suitable' for Il n �r r«ords are , ( r u . "
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'I love being creativc'
She ;5 eager '0 e�prcss her pcrson.l. ily and scizes every opportUn.ity to 'create' somerhing person.l: '1 love
.. . . everyone in the f.mily d....wing
does drawing: my sister d....ws. .. my f.ther used to draw.' Mainly. though only episodica�ly, she docs blxk·and·whitc portratfS of people she li ko' '1 enjoy colour bUI for me it's not !he imporlanl rhing in a d....wing·; .. rhe most important fh;n&,
are 'the CUtvCS and then, well. the e�prcs.sion, atplurin8 someone's ex· prcs.sion , , . the pleasure comes . ""hen I'm doing the drawltlg, later it's of no significance.' She leafOt how to make enamelw.re: first from books, which her aunt gave her fa gerher with . kiln when she w.s I); later she made enamelware wifh her sisrer and friends .t fhe municipal youth club, 'People who never look oulside themselves' Het only make·up is an i�visible
foundation cream; her h.1I IS
The firsr quali ty she looks for in hel friends 'is joy. I like healthy le, � e who are glad to be alive.' '1 hk people who are 11 ease wirh them· selves, pcrh.p5 because I'm not II· ways or ease wth myself. I thrnk .h" what mako people carry on liv. ing ;s always being .ble 10 h� for . son>Cth ing, nevcr :Kccpnng thln� as lhey are. . . . n.c people I don I like, I un't :Kcept becausc they seem to mC . . . empty. 1 mean
thinned and cu. mtdium·len8.h.
they're dull, they have no ra��e ' no . . pa»ion. Perhap5 "no pa»lOn IS tOO strong; I mnn rhey don't UIaJII any' thin8, .hey don't seem to �l any. .hing rhey never look ou,sldc .hem;"lv�. They don't =lIy lilll.
.
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1lt(y'n: imprisoned by 1 whole en· vironment. They 'In', get our of if and don'. even rulizo: they «Jll/d our of it. There arc '1uirc a lor of them among my p1ritnl$ and rile people I work wilh. �Ie ....ho are perhaps 100 dependcnl on material satisfactions, on the material things society can offer them . . , J can't say I do 't like them, but I'm not in Icresu:d in them. Thccy don't inler
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'Doing �hing ""ilb my bod)"
She ""o�hips 'nature', 'everything that is n1lur:1I in people, in the 51rttl', and loves 'nature in woods and Aowers.' For a whole Ye:I. she prac ised 'physical np� sion' wirh group: 'Doing somet ing wilh my body . . . pe forming movements, gotu=. rhll an:n', n«asarily rhe auical, that np'css my body-r u's something r cn;or.' On oliday, she shuns campsites ( 'they're 100 orga· niw:l nowadays, almost hocels'): she unnol sp
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th((lry' ('il helps ro have $Om rions of hislory and archaCOlo
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: Fo. Ihree years she al$O belon a� amateur drama group WhhStd end
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ffl s al Bo'S d'Mcy, neaf 11"5 They PUt on quite a few eaba . she...., based on potfry. 'We d I on Boris Vian's wo.k so 1$ ro OIl!: " ir Ixuet known.' The, h.� a, so ' "'.lUen [ncl! L _ own sho�· -.. 'We used choo 10 se a theme, lalk about it a n fhen creale . . . bUI rhe people rhc-rtd were 100 young and ir broke do Everyone Went off I eir own waa-n. aflel the btU �nd we neve! SOl �the� agaIn. OccaSI,onally with I gIrl.frIend she still does a bit of an ing, 'jUst linlc skelChes ,hat ""C work on tO� her' ('I wouldn'l ...� W3n td ro mak a livi g our of it ' it's just a hobby' j.
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'I don't go just bcause
it's cheaper'
There arc periods when she goes regularly 10 the I ealre. III Iii( lilt alre in lhe- Citt Uni versitam: � " recently $ttn Ali Bah'J c..... 'by I from the Theatre Obliq«. 1 thin ; it w1$n'r bad'. Dario Fa " the Salk �mier, 'ir was vel)" r1d� cal, but t was i the form of stariat IOld 10 people and it was excelletlt.' She goes 10 sec s ows tIm arc nor e�pensive: 'I don't go just bealillt ii's cheaper, bu t Ihe fa(l iI, at tM t"" Gtt Ihere are very good shoWS II aren'l expensive. . . . Of course, � isn't very comfortable, bUl you t � good evening 01,11 and ir dOCSJ1 COSt 100 much aboul rcn flan' IIfrerwards, � normally come we and er 01 visi ano,hcr friend ", ke el i l fe we if uu pl.y rhe disc _ She went 10 t e Comidit-Fr•
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him. 'perhaps bt<:ause of my up bringing' (he-r family haled him), she think$ Iha' Johnny Hal1yday 'does havc somer ing' She lik..-s Pink floyd_nd has one of their rccords-bu t 'only superficially'. She reads u Momk w e she has time (bul Ihat is nOI often), Ihe 1<:. views in U Noul�l ObI",-'tJuur, and fairly .-.:-gulady u c..ntJrJ E",h/Jini. She used to read more when she wn at schooL She .eads novels (re· ccn ly, ') book on Nepal by H.n Suyin'), all Ff:ln�olse Sag,an's novcls, 'Boris Vian and Ims of Ihings about him.' She Jik..-s to 'discover an au· thor', 'immerse hersel in • book .nd tell herself she's reiding some· thing fneinaling.' She lik..-s Van gs of Ihin lou and n 'Soris Vi� Gogh (she wenl 10 ,he exhibi tion lboul him' aI lhe- Petil �bis), Goy•. uffet, 'everylhing that's all done in lines' She 1o¥C5 classical music, csp«iaJly and Impressionism: 'Jr's a vision Ibch .nd Beerhoven; she o(ICn lis Ihat's much
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Rodin jusl
o Ind visited the
"ss'ssssss" " sss',sssss,ss'sss,s" sss" ,'
grncration and therefore differencC$ betw((Cn g ncradons defined in and by their relationship to thc educ�tional syslem. The best 'Iualified of the younger generauon of junior or clerical worken (mainly ongi. of nl ing from Ihc working and middle cla$5eS) share wilh Ihe members the Bew occ upations-lln d especially with Ihrn;e of Ihem who do nOI Onglnale from Inc bou rgeoisit-\\ reillion ro ,ulturc and, partially al .nd :1, 10 Ihe socia! world which StemS from an intcrrupted rlI"Ort ro extend or tr-C$tlblish ir. Thus. Ihe ncw occup:irions arc tnc tul"al refuge: of all rhose who have nOI obrained from Ihc educ.donal m rhe qualifications rhat would have enabled rhem !O clai m Ihe ts- tah � hed l social position promised them; and also of O$ posilions thcir origini t w o have nor obrained from Ihe!r qu.lific.tions all they fell en· I" q� ]" to e� thc relationship berw((Cn 10 2n earlier re a lficu pcct by ference ions and jobs.
e
executivC$
l
:
;� �
lrajectory
h
Sll" of
Hcrc tOO, thc complctc dcscript ion of the positions contains a pliddy normativc) dcscriplion of th05C who ate and slKceed in them, Ihu is, more reci5Cly, 1 descripti o n of tions through which dispositions linkM to trajectories 1I'e Ihesc positions-in short, everything Ihal is normally " hiddcn wo�d 'vocuion', II can, im,mwiuelr be seen t�al, precisely by Vtn tJie , t thet r aCtual and potentIal Indelcrmlnacy, positi ons which offer n u !lf 0 su ant� ,but, in return, ask, for no guarantees, which impose no condlflon of entry, especially » regards certificales, bUI hold � promise of the highest profits for nonflS '" Whcr�s, th� personal risk en lailed by the riskiest post . lions dech�ncs, both sub eCtively and obJectively l . as Inherited upial Increases. the chances of profil grow as opital in crease s in all its forms, nOI only the economic capital which gives the mean s of waiting for the fUlure of 'coming' occupations. or the cultural capita l which hdp$ 10 make that futurc by Ihe symbolic violence ncedM to creale and sell new products, bUI perhaps cspecially the social npita l which, in these inf'or. mally organittd sectors in which recruitment is effectM by CO-Oplioll. enables one to enter the race and Stay in ir, Furthermore. these: posilions. which are ultimalely less risky and, II Ic;aSl in the long run, more profitable, the more capilal onc bnnE;$ InlO them, present a further advantage for people seeking an honounbk,& uge 10 avoid social declinc, perhaps Ihe most important advantage In die short term and in Ihe pncliol shaping of a 'vocation'. One only has 10 consider the opposition between the youlh lcackr or cultural or� and the primary tc;ac�r, between the joutnaJiSI 01 TV producer and die secondary tc;ac�r. between t� technician in a public opinion or rescarch institute and Ihe bank clerk or posl office clerk. to sec that. like rhe esublished positions which are situated in a hierarchy and "tA
p
predisposed to 11
matIt:CJ
::
pose Ihe unC<juivooJ image of an occupation definM in its prt¢1: � future, rhe new or renovated occupations allow or encourage: symbo It' til
mQIC
habilitafion stralegies, illustrated by thc use of noble 'doublcts', less overtly euphemistic, such as 'personal assistant' ,for secretary of
, for psychiatric nurse But this cffecl is most visible nurse: ric' "'u era h -! I ,�"]I t,b0sc cases in which the agents endeavour to produce ')obs ad'lusted b ' ' " a rcady C�IStIP a r amhitions r:llher than adjust their am mons to III Ie, , l w I,C " prod�ct by aCl,lVltlCS • 10 produce thc need for their own, I�g �inltiallY voluntary. like a number of SOCial ,occupations, bUI aim fl'I,r pOsed as 'public serviccs' officially recognized and morc or less I" be ce wilh a classic process of profes ,ct Iy Slate.financM. in accordan ' ed lraining sanCtioned by diplomas, a a s,.,. --- ...i aliz (OIl"P ailzacn0 ". (creation of r , , sIf1Il of cthics and an occupational ld.eolol?Y Ctc,)_ . . ns occupallo thc all lfl own ItS lfllO comes sie ite oour
(0 I
b' b
to
jobS
_
,
� opposItions which this dualiTy of origins gi�es tise 10 within 1he f\(W ;It� bourgeoisie are expressed very clc;arly �n lhe �I�tionship t..;t:"'CCIl �th' -
!;I ptcfc�nces and rdusals. Unlike the decllmng pelltC bourgtolsle. whICh II:lttu the whok SCI of values di1«lly opposed to its own. i,e, the very �ursued by the ne'" pedte bourgroisie (amus,ing, refi�M, stylisll, tl(, Imaginal e) II\(: .H I n e ( hul servICes make con· iv , members of tl\(: socl( I t r y :1�'C o cholc� whkh Sttms 10 exp� the antagonisms betw�n thc II: \lots of lheir original milieu and Ihc values of .helr present mlheu: some �i(:(, the qualities which mOSt of thc others put in rop place (�fintd, Sty).l musing) while Others re;ee' the <jua)i tics moSt prilnl by the es111>-
::;:uts
lished perire bourgeoisie (level-headed, dassical) . These uncenaintie1; Or eve� incoherences no doubt exist in 2ch of the ,:,embers. of the new pr o. fesslons, who have to Invent .. new 10k-style, pa cul ly In dome1;tic lif� and to rede ne their social c�rdinares. If the in�eterminacy of a POSit i . rhere tS a pnce to be paid in favours blu ng or euphem ng str:ategles, terms of the occupant'S uncertainty as to his social identity, 1S we � fro the testimony of an industrialist's daughter, aged 35, p p etor of 1 'bou� dque' in P:lfis selling 'design cenrre' products, 'COnlempor:lry goods' and gifts; she mended a decorative arts school but has no diploma, and con. duCts her al1 busin as if il were an art: 'When people ask me what r do and I say "I'm a shopk r", r always feel it's som one else answering ' for me because really r don't sec myself as a shopkeeper. But I suppose In t� end, when it comes down to it, r must be, r don't know . . , All the \.arne I feel very remote from the preoccupations of my butcher and [ fed much doser to som ne who works in an advertising agency or to an interior dec orator, It's all very complicated, Personal ly I sec myself as rath r Out on a limb, between twO stools, J don't know. Fm me shopkeeping is li ke a game; it's always a bit of a gamble, buying and selling.'
�
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ru u
m
films �n (in order of prefercnee): I I
commemaJ i Junor exc<:s.
Style
ro n
ess
eepe
Th. Longest Day
Divol(e Italian Style
l.es dim. de
rs
Rocco and Hi! BrorhClS 01 la balance [
r
I
e
i et Voyage i Bia"it. I.e boucanier des l[e! The Leopard Exterminadng Angel 2t Peking ri I Venus
Thosc members of rhe new petite bourgeoisie who originate from lhe upper classes and who, for lack (most often) of educational capital, have
to reconvert into the new occupations such as cultural intermediary o r art craftsman have had fewer years of schooling rhan the average for their class of origm b u t more than rhe average for rhe middle classes; {hey had
rherefore pDSSC5s a very great cultural capital of famiJiariry and a socw
the m iddle classes and indine towards a system of choices very simiJa to
capital of 'connections'. They manifest rhe highest competence
within t
that of the bou geoisie: the Art 0/ Fugut, the Concerto lor {he LIft Hand, rh e Firtbird Suitt, rhe Four SeaJom, Goy�, Braque, Breughel, Jacques Oouai, the Modern Art Museum, antique shops and the Flea Marker, a
r
'
Saf�all)rt Ciuliano, Ex{erminaling Angtl, TIN T�ial, or, among the comedies, Tht SuillW (see figure 18), Their ambiva
'harmonious', 'discreet', 'stu ied
d
interior, 'refined',' 'artistic',
'styli
sh'
lent relationship wirh the educarional system, inducing a sensc of com plici y wtth every form of symbolic defiance, inclines them to welcome
t
all the forms of culture which arc, p rov isionally at least, on the (lo. r) boundaries of legiltmate culture-J�zz, cinema, strip cartoons, soen«
�
JUz, jeans, rock or rhe avant.g�rde underground, which is their monop olY-lls a challenge to legitimate (ulture; but they ofren bring intO thest gions disdained by the educational establishment all erudite, even 'a(2' demic' dispos ition which is inspired by a clear intention of rehabilira On:
finion-llnd to Haunt (for example) American fashions and models
re
u
the cul tu l equi valent of the rcstor:ition strate ies which defille thetr oc (upationa! project.
r:i
Rocco and His BrothClS
V d'Avray His Broth.
ro
friends, 'intellectual' films.
Small shopkecpen and craftsmen
Office "",rken
and s«re,�i••
g
� � -� the members Thus. more film d,re
���
��
l.es dim. de
balance un "Q)'ou
V.
The Leopard tetminating
rn.
Seven
Angel
fillll$ ,hosfId.n". Thord.n« .."h .n .nalogous """,tu'e
rg n
secretaries, who are mall1ly interes,ed in actors. " Their preference for Tht Trial, a 'prodigious , harrowing' film, or or Us dimal1chtJ V"�f d'Auray by Serge Bourguignon (who uses 'sometlmes quesllonable but never vul· g.,' means to renaCe wi,h 'unfai[ing ddiocy' the 'very pure an� roc"c ItOry of a mttl1ng and a friendShip bcrween a twdve·year.o[d girl and .. thlfly·year.old man'-LI Mondt, 24 November 19(2) no d br re�e�ls ,heir �� �u:lSi'professiona! inte st in all psychologica[ eXpIO .llons; bU! II IS also a s'gn, among many othen, of the higb cultural amblllons (al reRected ,n t�e f uency with which they. �y. ,hey' read. w?rks phIlosophy) of these I!an i(ional, mediating categol'les, Idenllfied In Inre�([on and aspl at on � � 'he dominant classes whom rhey serve, often In spallai proxImIty (ser· retary and dir tor, nurse and doctor), yet separated from them by an il1\;lsl' ble barrier.
�
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re
tc s <J wuh
":
0:
so
ec
Tbe fact thar a large proportion of rhest ne� positions are occu�ied by . . wOmen no doubt contributes 10 rhe rcahunon of lhetr porennallttes, whICh express themselves precisely in this recruitment. It would clearly � naiv to look t o the x-rat io ofrhe category, which is one of the prop trties of the category, for the explanation of (his or thar other property of h at egor y. The socially inculcated disposirions (in a i u[ar, rhe inch· . allon towards the things of ta le) which lead espeCIally the omen of � ,,:, � . fractions towards the ad)Cctlves they see as most dlsllngmshed
e
r ec
hCSo:
se
p nc
. Cstylish>. "yard, a butcher'll . stall or a nr crash, they are more skilful at I de ntlfYln�the 'soppy' oblC'Ctl of popular taste or peti,.bourgcois aesth . . I e n t �:: �� � t�:.girl playing wilh a cn, th;t;�;��an�e (:�I ; ���h : tl.�UI Pholograph). In St"all. , "� say wou'd make 2 bea . � the cultural ·bluff' which relies on Ih IS al�-measured by the g2p bo tween the tendene, �I«t Ih, raresl palmers composers or Worb ( CE.I :(/i!��lj, the Firrhird SUi/f. Kandin;ky. Oali. Bra0 fracuOll go .IS �duced to a,., cmp'Y �ntCnflon · . 0f dlsnnCflo . 'hc. new occupa{lons (,Iruatcd on the negallve·value sick of the �-, a",s) . . bourgcolSIe . . who originale from the Of thc members of tl e new pellte u r (I�' 39.� percem !.2r the� know at least 12 of the works of ITIU� �creas rk H percent of (Ilem un name �t least 12 of the com"""": " go ,:, ''''_ sameonwOr "' ,rJt_ - nol occur wlfh members of thIS . 11", d·Ispanr� ...uuo Cfle
an
>?
III
.
.
2
.
.
10
atl» ._
,
I
S
.
-.
them dle cl2.S$CS: I ' pc r( nt ofpos mid or g rkin wo (he m fro ate gin ori ...hOknoW a( least 12 works and I) p'occm name at least 12 com ers. �nt) than ,;or'tI>'� c re much more oflen (8� per dcb er for m the iC, log c .' ----- ts= me'res= e= ?l' t SJm of quality int sic mu AII · t): cen per �8 ( ' = 111 "'l C '' :: '' er ':' : ' ' '= : =='::':: := ;:::C: to' l't'� � silions of which the new petite bou��isie is ,he bearer find "(he dispo ns for thetr full developmenl only Pans ( table 2').'" ilio of which it reinforces Ihe ttIC 'uond n-together with education,ive sio ten pre nl l iS ,.,0 doubl one of {he factors conduc to appropriation of the �t_tages associated with pro�imilY 10 the cenl� of culturbelal onvalginuesg, ,.I,.art mo� intense supply of cultural goods, the sense of h u a entives given by conl:Kt wirh groups who a� also culturally !em the inc � orher olcgory in which lhe sysdif no is n: the y nll que nse Co I d.J c b,"{)ur more marked: fer· a� ls (ia vin pro and s ian ris Pa een tw be es tic differencintensity of the legilimue practices (museum visils etc.) and :nccs in the competence (in music, for e�ampk); differences in !he rela· of lhe range sen� of being an outsider to Ihe the th wi �, ltu cu ale ilim Icg 10 ip tionsh o"'g poinl', 'I don'! know muchs Str my ot (,n sic mu or ing im pa of d ..-o d provinciaJs, other thing ng mo� marked among ilit :&bout it') always beices ab y !O !ecogni�f,cn lhe in all, ve abo , �n f e dif al; equ bcing Parisiafl$ always being the s. on ini op rr ma m� Ihc ing ow kn t ou 9<'1h1 I legitimate pelence, to opt for Ihe mOSthe more mdined. 21 all ieveb ofqucom as y a� for of ality interestS me') soohn the ludgcmems (,All music judgemenrs mo� oflen concur wit mulated, whe�as the provincialsitim h confession of ig· wit ed bin com acy kg of ion nit og rec a ing ress e�p it') or incompetenCe ('It's compli. norance ('J don·1 know much abouts of tural pretcnsion. wilh. for wed'); diffe�n(es in the indice ' orcul'sru died' interior, clolhes Ihat ive example, the choke of an 'imaginatexp ions typical. of {he new art of 'chic' llnd 'stylish' (fad), tWO rns me, ,'s magazines, and liVing promulgated by the mass
III
u
11
ire
III
C
III
tly ddiow positions � way of als who �k io margiM.[, less stric .,tOl,l d the promises impli� in Ihcir scho lng destinies incompllibk w;ln lilt elhical r ,lur.ll (O �pclcnccs, t , wilhoul possesis ng Ihe cul «,rtrs { , se from �i SOCIal capilli ana ,"vestment so:n d"spOSil10flS and. above all, Ihc nt cla$S CXp«1 a r«ovcry ividuals originadng from Ihc domina 'hleh ind ry likelihood of being c�pc:l\t
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Duty 10 the Fun Ethic
individuals 10 occupy inhcr;u:d dispositions predispose how stt can one With Ihes( 'need mer· lowards which they orienl {hem. ns itio pOS ,he O �lways sell themselves symbolic goods �nd services wh (h11'11$', sellers of their produ(1$, lnd whO sell as guarantors of the value of :IS modds and ic authority of eve in whlt they sell, the symbol bc:li t)' th lUse bc:C l wd SO an imposition thai is rthy v(ndor taka tht form of twO trus est, hon rht deceives the cus. mor( gtntk, since the vendor both more violent and y 'sold' on the deceives himself and is sincerd tomtl only insofar as he ustry, which e the new 'substitution' ind �alue of wh�t he sells. &caus �s to those who cannot afford rhe thin 5(IIs fine words instt:ld of things new pt. rds, finds its idt:ll c1iemck in the but l� willing to setde for wo l con· dispostd to collaborate with tora tite bour�isie, this group is prt t handtcl down by the new bourgeoisie, �icrion in imposing the lift-s yle and the leal goal of its aspir;)' hablt destinarion of irs mjcctory the pro ll e of consumers. which mt:lns to lIons. In shorl, this po::tite bourgeoisi rhe �11Tibutes of the legitimue Kquirt on crtdit. i.e .. bc:foTt' its due time, es and holiday flals at Mer· hfc:'slyle-'f(Si
I";'host
�
cmehy. of the ;ns.fif�(jons of cul.fural produnion and circuladon and e�. pc,u:nc,"! a '1U:!5J .hcnaflon ",hl(h SQmetimes provides rhe bcasis � Or an .1\. ,dkcllul solid..;!y with the dominated claues, the ne.... cul'un] imcrmed,arie$ an: indir>e'd 10 sympa(hl� with discoul'SO aimed 1( h ing til<: (ullu",! or r and rhe hierarchies ....hlCh tho( {u][un] 'h�n aJ�.. � h alms 10 maintain. and 10 I"Cturn to the the"," of all ho:resics-.:kll Y of rhe (I�hnocnl!ic) pretension 10 the monopoly of competence �nclallGrl 10 hicnr(hics and "rhc' hic.ar<:hy. Ihe ideology of univcrul cr�li�' O$ul"1 I �n facI {hex occup.rions condemn their occupants (0 the essCfl!ial' m \ ' !If resul!!ng f,om the discrepancy between III< (symboliully) sub . !\to dispositions linked to thei. posilion in rhe diVIsion of labour and r e mao nipulativ, Of conservative (un(lions atlached ro lhe ""sirion ber W�n rhl: - -Image 0( the occupational projO:<:t and rhe�sub-)e(!lve ob,'e(!ive f""' ••_ � c t' 'e . occupation. The very f><'rf�rmanc� of the fUnction may presupp ose rh1$ , d!scl"(pancy. a pnnClpk of dliStmulanon and mlsrecognition, as in rh of some Vetetan revo)utionuies of. May 1968 who have Ixcome ind c ease UStrtal c.,oglsrs: ps�c"v to accept t"elf c ambIguous position and to accept them I dOIng so. they 11"( forero to invent t� ski.lfully Imbiguous discou� practices Ihat "'·erc. so 10 spt:lk. .Inscnbed 10 advance in 1M verw ., nltlOr! . • • n. " Ob'-� L_ ,Ive o.( I' '" It '5� u to out the comrad iClion � � bclw<'( n their "'"" . stame :lSp tatlons and the realily of their pr::t(ticc. to cultivate unccrtItnt,. ' - , ·L - SOfn · 10 to hc. ",lr · or""r �� to ox I""nnty L abk to accept it, and thcl"(fol"( con. <'riencc with parneu!ar tntenSlty Ihe n,slcnn l mood of a w�olc inldk.:tual genCratiOfl, � �h�ch, weary of �csf><'r::ttcly hopIng for a collc.:flve hof><', sccks in a narci$> Slstle self.absorptlon rhe substitule for the hof><' of changing the social ....orld or even of undcrstanding iI,
�
>
?� V�I'$WC
dcfi �:
Thus, in the slfuggJe it wages, within the dominant ftactions of IIw dominant clm, to I"(placc old·style cOl1scrvuism based on an overtly I\t" thorilarian image of Ihe hier.lrchical relations betwttl1 the: cl=. P er::t�iol1s or scxcs. wilh a reconverted cOl1scrvatism correspondil1g 10 die el1hghlened scJf.lnterest of rhose: for ....hom a nlional usc: of the cduta' tiol1al system has provided the mellns of reconverting themselves m It> cordance wilh the new logic of Ihe C(:onomy, the new or n:110vlred bourgeoisie finds a natur::tl ally, bolh eeonomically and politically, in IIw l1ew f><'tite bourgeoisie, The Jatler recognizes in Ihe new bourgeoisie ,lit embodiment of ils human idelll (the 'dyn�mic' e�ecu1ive) and, havln� abandoned the somewhat morose ascedcism of the rising f><'tite boll!' geoisie, collabor.Hes enthusiastically in imposil1g the new ethical nornt' (cspcci.ally � regards consumption) and the corresponding I1ccd.s.. of Seeking ItS occupational and personal salvation in the impOSlflOn . new doctrincs o( ethical salvadon, Ihe new petite bourgeoisie is 10 play a vaoguard role in the struggles over everything c�n(e .dt' ":" th the UI of living, in particubr, domestic life and consump"oo. faIft" (10ns bctwecl1 the sexcs and the generations. rhe ttcproducrion of the
�
�
s. It is opposed on aimosi. every poinr. I? the rep�ive nd its valuc a iIY ,lhty of the dedining pctite bourgeoISIe whose rehglous or political r _. .r; , and at mon' d-lsoruo; lon o(tel1 centfCS on mora, -IndIgna{ "" scl""a,-,m I . ,Oil . of se�ual morcs-as witness ,he theme 0( por· IaIIY ,he disorder anti.feminism which run through a whole current of � rac ' al1d ,he: ht, from Pro�dhon .10 ,..oe t Ilandy petit-bourgeois right-wing t�ug . pretenSIon of liS by the ariStocratIC .. ..A. ly op.... . -, lo. BII( il is Nlual r' '''� C re,allOn _ S re ""' r# . ( Irre . and by its subvenive rcpresentattol1 0 es chok tal cn dam ,Un . . _ L_ � urgeolSle uv petIte otcu prom Ihe of scxcs ro Ihe ascelicism the n bCt,..� is .ut a sort of heroism. us but nOI witho . . ",hoSt" a llstef(' op;imism. tigoro . ' L_ vvur�,?lsle.,. thc dedllHng f><'lIte sed 10 the repressive pessimism of of duty, .based on t,he oppomlon be· or us. whereas Ihe old morality , good, il1fluces a generalized .SuspKlon of the chumand re leasu p I...ern .•-" up _.' rna" Le L D\)Uy ure and a re,afton ro trr .ng and allr:C:t tive', a fear of pleas. ( and assooa.tcs every sam aCllon 0( . 'modesly' and . 'restn.lnt', of'�....e'. gUilt. the new ethical avanr.gudc urges a TOrbidden impulses wllh I� { c - a ,al-,ure. a (rrmat - e rnakCSIf OClrln mora,-lly o( plenure U a duty." This d c a , III - rr - ,e 1 e 10 sar Wlt . 'lans '-k fun',!>Ii or, as .Pllns 10 scl(.estttm, 1101 10 'have l1or only �rmllled bUI de�udder of audaciry, ]Ou;,;)' plcasu� IS. grounds. The fellr of 1'101 J.� KU. on ethical a.s much :IS on sctCnlllic man< a l to o ercome enOI � �wn� enough plellsurc, the, logica! outcome of the . (xpt CSSlo self for � a�d the f�r of pleasure. is combined with .thc. search, , others ( relatlng 'bodily expression' and for Commur"lcl a"?n with a group but �s irhangt), even immersion in ?t�ers (.consldered nO! as . l ethIC IS !ub)et:livities in search of Ihelr Identity); and the old �rsona py. AI thus rejcned for l cult of personal hcallh and psychologICal. then Ihe opposite pole from the 'politicilltion' which depersona.h�cs f><'�nal cxpcnenccs by presen ting them as particular cases.of $enenc e�pe�lenecs common to l clm, 'mor::tliution' and 'psychologlzallon' perwnahzc ex· petiences. and are Ihus perfcctly cOl1sistem with the mon:: or less sc:culu· Iltd forms of rhe: search for religious salvalion w As is shOwn by Ihe usc 11 make'< of psychoanaly�ic jargon, Ihe m�rnist moral.ity is a ps�chologi. vul�ltc which monlizes ul1der ,he gUlsc of analySIS; and lS IS shown by Ihe emphasis it placcs On Erikson's 'utopia of full otgumic reciproc. . 11(, 11 lr:lnSmUtCS a spuriously positive definition of Ihe 'normal' Into an imperalive of normality lnd bases the org�sm.duIY of its theorerical moralily on the findings of a bogus science of mores i 1a Kinsey. Ihus , IOlloducing (he deadly, rational accountancy of eflulva1c nces !nto the area of sexual exchanges. which for most societies is o�e of the lUI re�. Ug� of collective misreeognition."" Invoking the presttge of a false SCI' �n(C of scxual behaviour to naturalize a conception and an eXf><'rience of .Io:�uallly·-a very re<em hiSlorical invCfllion which depends on social (OndlllOns of possibtllfY Ihat an: �ry unequally diSlributed"-ir con· $t.gns to the: palhology of 'scxual poverty', i.e.. 10 Ihe allemions of lhe J>sYchoanllys! or the: sc�ologisl. sole lrbilers of iegirim){e sc�u11 compe· ,
P"""
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rencr. all those wnom the old mo....tlity would h3Ye eons;81l� to ", ve not {erno of 'nalUral' sexuality. These 'barbarians' who " , ':lIh the 'sexual revolution' are once again the victims of a flon of the de/inifion of compcu:nee not accompanitti by a lion of the conditions of l(qu;sition. . Closer In this respect fO religious prophecy than to SCience . . . ". �__ Iways pamlI and provIsional this wouJd.L !rUInS ne a ' tlfic; , M...· ... ...... IJC SClt'n . . ... --, provl
� Srnnastiq,
o
,
,
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,
tively ag�able and objec· re 2 necessary pleasure, subjec cfo her ldren and parenrs nd rhus making pleasure a dUly for chi bk . nsa .... ' . ' nS, ' .,ly iOdL r" . is mYSli<Jue of Ihe age of scienct ysis. the rlIlionalizing nal . L . pikt ' ' L . . ' a ", L "CII gIVes tile ap" tC ho r<:led 10 supply Ihe kgmmallng d LSCOUrx W,, l nte the arbitrlrl y (bul socially neces· f� y ' f a rlIlional founduion {O rlIpy !1n' . And r hc �Ii�e from elhLCS to th� . upposilions of an elh� l"' ptodUCl; there IS no ) for the thcrlIp,st of whtch LI LS lhe \J!}''uP ees lhe need " recourse 10 spc· loglCal heaI Ih rhrougll cho p,y for rch sea Ihe , "a p� L apl'StS. L ller JA bl l" . of souls (psychoanalysts. psyCnm ""U �S In lhe rlIlional cure "Jh� in a dialeclical relalion counsellors and so on ) STands ncc ida . ing Inc r age fosionals capable of produc opment of a body of pro n f('I3 e d " 0) ,he _A� vus and SCrvlCes tney ,or the gv a markel ( , i.e. l, dUC pro n ow ir for the . ' lIprcd 10 supply. . rq<' gk factor all the sm S Ihl Ut' to ute llb be a miSTake to atl bt dou no Id u !l wo II from the comb·med ·ImpaCi °f a dom('Stic ethics which resu in " e appear· ,h,n� · ,ud·Ing (" cpendem causa, sen·es, tIlC ber of (relarively) ind . y . cholog . psy Ihcorics (psychoanalysis. generic lnce of new p,ychologital · ,S fr�m I"e. 00urgeotSle emcnng bet 0f glt num sed rea inc tly vas (te): Ihe le; Ihc transfo�. pling 10 Ihc assoCIated Itfc.Sty ada and ion Clll edu h her , schol:iSTIC reproduction, which means .rha tion of the mode of social tety. pre· n mOrlll errors, wilh aeadem" anx rrotS tend 10 counl more Iha anxielY, which used 10 af· 'iously more a male concern, replacing ethical and the access 10 .the labo�r market; fen mainly girb; women's increased . r Itself. whIch, havm.g �o plac� eve changes in economic producllon of of needs and The amf"lal (lClllon. gJ"Uier emphasis on Ihe produCiion 10 encourllge a cons�mer mOrll�lry. K1IIrcilles, helps in many indirecT ways r::lPCUIIC moraltty tS unquesl1on· The fa" remains fhal Ihe tise of Thc Iht professionals (psychoana. :ably hnked to Ihe conslilution of a corps of ro 101,1rnalim.a�d so Iysts, scxologisu, counsellors. psychologi�I�. spc-ciaJiz �" �n of leg'llmlle fOllh) claiming a monopoly of the leglllmale defi ' conSillUlion of a field of ptdagogic or scxual compc((�nce; and thai Ihe by rhe dispuily belwccn Ihe produClion of goods and services called for ' ncc cannOT compt Tence now demande
:�
�
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,
of
(he �mbiguou$ nafure all [hose professions which are (orms of '(xtmpluy prophecy' and which involve offering (or IIi onc's own 1rt of Jiving as 111 example [0 others. Ihcc ([hie:!.l prostlYlism of Ih� (thical prnnhers of bu reaucl';) -" . . [II; '" . CI(:U� sys�cmul( IIy revCfSC'S Ihe ascetic mOrllity of the establi � Sh . , . "'" bourplslC", rhlS'S because, like Ihe choice. by which Ihey,re cfin...... r ' h ' �".O( proresslon ralher Ihln (mering ready.made pro� rna In� [ , hfe sryk lnd ([hi(21 and political are their b" -� O :I. re..... On.o . ... "->C\l li. · [hernstIves thaI is finite" definite final 'n a w " � OII of evcry!h·Ing In . ' ard . !'nit ' Ihat IS. a refusal" [0 be pinned down in a panicuIa " bourgeoIS. r sHCl1l . .. CiaI space. a pncunI UIOpmllSm whIch was until then 'hc pnvl lc:" J . .JnIC"(([uaIs and wh'leh P' ... � _ f_ OUlspo5CS them fO welcome �ery � ' orm of q_ . .,use. �" _� U« -.::"",. - . 10 a higher class. Ihey see themse1 pIa. aspmng . CIassll ves II unciaSSIfiable, 'excluded' . ·drnn ... u -l our" • 'mar,inal', any,h'lng I":3Ither ......... - -,.r. d, assIgned ' to a class. determinate place in social space categorize lind . yet �II rh · (1,1 I I spo rin . s k .... ciaSSlfical1on-but In the mode of denial, as one sees from a fe from the Index ofa 'resource',uide toadolescent(Oun,er-<:uIIU�: • . 'Id0, aglt-prop. " alternallve press. anrhroposophy. anti'8Ym,lSI1CS. ann. . d luion · alllHa anri'scienri,m, '" 1-Va(Clna,ica, nucIear. allll'I"Ych In"'. ' '. ' . . ' . lSlrology, b �kef.maklng. blodynam,,:s. bloxnergy. biological f.mni... . body. Charlie Hebdo. childhood. (Ommunes. creativity. dance. din d �ugs. e.:ology. encounrers, extra.terrestrial. f�om. fnIt Il�g� t. gays. GeSla! t therap�, gli ing. go, green. hallucinogma. . h k n$' grass. h meopathy, Imagination, ImmigF.lll ts. in ependent cin � . ema. In�en{)on. Ju o life. madnest, n:agnellsm. nomads. non·verbal communication. non-yiolencc. ont nigh! stan�s. o�golng edu�ation. orienral medICine. par:alld. parapsvcl\ol ogt· panlClen"fic �uJ�lIntlon. p�ysiorher:apy. plants, pomry. pri$OllS. psl.phenomena. reglonallsm. repressIon, scIence snuggles, telcpt . �hy. Iher:apy, II-ailers. tr:nscendenral medilation, tr:aYd. trekking. YegcrJl' . lanlsm. ",eaYIll8, yoga. an . ....n Inyentory of thinly disguised expreulOllt graYifY 01 of dream of social flying, a desperate e/forr to de y soc al field concern to (to Guided by anri,insfiturional temperament and cape e"erything �dolelll competitions, hierarchies and dassifican and. abo\"e all, of scholasric cfassificarions. hierarchies of kno....lc<:Igc. rile" uals JJC' ?rerical absrr:anions or I«"hnical compelences, th� new intellect . fi.c.rioflS lII ellllll 8; an art of living which proyiclcs them with the grati of the .Intdl«"tual u Icast COSI: in Ihe name of the�,tht
If
d
ell
positions
'" "
n
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.
taken
ll
_elf pr-:l(I1�es.
futurlStlCs,
tur:a,
a
r � educational, �xu2L : of h �:'P
esorerica,
d d , kendo, kyudo. Lanac,
folk. d macrobiotics,
finion.
a sorr of the i
their
of
f the the
y and pres"� the against 'taboos' and rhe li'luidarion of 'complexes' they adopt the e.xternal and. most easily borrowed aspects of the inteJle.:rual Ji(e.� hber.lted manners. cosmetic or sartorial oUlrage-s. emancipted p05d cr post�res. and systemarically apply the cultiyated disposition 10 nor', .
{IIOfI
Jcgmmate culture (cinema. suip C':I.rtoons. thc underground),
10
�
uality. cosmetics, child·re'lr· 1 art). the person"Oll sphere (sex life (str« h). The JaY sure) and the existential (the relation t? nature. I?ve,.deat Ici f'OP" ,n$' audience (or a new inrell«"lU"OI1 populannuon whICh IS also a f ntancously 'relate' to the On of the inrellC
�
ttC"'�h.
t
it
(U
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of
.t
.
n.ature,
of
reserved for mlellccruals. the philosophical a
e
optS
supplying
the
latest
(or
of
and
scyer.ll
col·
7
The Choice of the Necessar�
The fund�m(nraJ propa.Iil;on {hat I� habitus is a virrue: ma
:
....
lion wi thou! having the habilUS thaI is Ihe produC! of the 'normally' imposed on those: who are condemne d to Ihis ! ulism is never anything other rhan an inverted ethnocentrism scripfions of the indUStrial working class and the �asarlUy al�o . . S ViC!." atl' e.twttn mIser:!bI·,·Ism and ml." en2nan (nlnlion, this Ial.... - ... .-,. IS h... they leave OUI the relarion to class (ondition which is parr of a iIIIIIt ddinirion of thaI condition, and because it is Jess easy [0 Stale rdalion !O the condition one is describing (without nccessa riJ able [0 fttl if) Ihan [0 PUI one's own n:b tion 10 i{ into Ihe lion-if only bcouse this spurious idc:mificu ion and Ihe indignlI ... inspires have all Ihe appearances of It'gitim2cy 10 support them /- On• It
.....
.....
1�1!Ieat ��
b ......
The Taste for Necessity and the Principle of C01lformily
� specific effcct of thc: tasle (or nec:� ity, which n�v�r c�:ISeS to [hough unse-c:n-b�nusc: its aClion com bines wilh thl! of nec:(SS, . . mOSI cI�rly se-c:n when II IS, In a sense, oper:l.ling OUI of ph�, ha surviv�d I�e diS ppc1�nc� of Ih� condilio ns which produc�d i[. On� �xamples m Ih� behaVIour of som� sma ll Cl1lflsm�n or businCS.'Sm�n _bo , as [h�y [hemselv�s say. 'don'[ know how [0 spend Ihe mon�y [hey'we �arnc?', or of junior clerical work�rs . slill allached [0 their rasant or workmg·cbss rOOtS, who get as much satis faClion from calculating how much [hey have 'saved' by doing with out a commodity or servi� (or 'doing i t themselves') as th�y would have gOt from the [hing itself, bul who, �qually, canno[ ever pu�hasc it widl OUI a painful scnse of wasli... mon�y. Having a million does nor in itsclf mak� on� able [0 liv� h�. millionain:; and pal"'l�nus genel1llly lake a long [im� to learn Ihal what they se-c: as culpable prodigality is, In Iheir new condilion. expendi(U� oC basic nec:�ity.) h [cnds [0 be forgo en that [0 appr«ia[� the 'tru� value' of the pum, symbolic services which in many aTC25 (ho[d s, hairdressing etc.) Ih� essential ditTerenc� between luxury estab lishm�nts and ordinary blIP" nes$CS, on� has to feel onesd f Ih� legitiml!� r«ipi�nl of (his bureauaac ically personalizc,:l care and anention and 10 display vis·i·vis rh� whO are i»id 10 otTer Ih� mi�(ure of disrance (including 'gen�rous" grllnP' lies) and freedom which (he bourgeois have IOwards fheir servanTS. AD� one who doubu fhal 'knowing how 10 be serve d' is on� componenl Ih� bourgeois art of living. n.eed only think of [h� "'orke olsmall c TS who. entering a smaTl restaurant for 5Om� grand occasion. Immcdl' slTik� u p a conversation wi(h [he waiters-w ho realize al once ...hoI" [hey arc d�ling with'-as if (0 deslroy symbolically the servant·muleT luionship and [he unease i, crealC$ for [h�m. Th� worker who sel'S walCh on sale for rwo million (old) f"mcs. or who heiTS rhat a sur has spenr rhn:<: million fl1lncs on his son's engag�men party. d()Clo t
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n
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.
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,
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,he W,{ch o r the p'''y bu[ (he tWO million, being . unable 10 con· ... _ to d0 (f'V)' f th system of needs in which he would have nOlhmg ""lIer (ti'� ° . .. t""O �illion fl1lncs than spend il on a warch. When th�re are 'so ,,'1(1' e. " crazy• to 1h·Ink things that come first', as rhey say, ,you'd h ave m " . [Il,of . a (wo.million.fl1lnc watch. BUI no one ever really pUIS himself n l fb ,CC ' of those on the OIher side of [he social world. One man's I '10 P ga cc is another man's prime nec�ily-and not only because the ttt..,.�J , ". , ''' of e of those twO million francs varics wilh the number . ((laf,In' ' .. es rhal arc caII.� .. .... .1 Many of the eXnl'ndilur cu conspICUOUS Uions .... t"'.... _. I . . ' �nd. as"""ell a.s bemg obi.Igamry �Iements 10 � w'y
o
.
��
...... a
-
lla
-
..... -
[he physical and soci,l Sl1lat:llion of (he ""{ricubr '''''5-in . 0f ,�� , .e. : cngasemenr K u I 0f rft--Ihcsc " rienccs (of [he "",uch and I' �ol_e"," _� I h '�� ' In '"[, as y al'i""" anual both very tM,..6Iblc although piny)_arc L •• _ dc· J with some brutalilY: 'Wha[ .and how much he can �bf� UlI> . f •'ITS . a 0 Id sutt " a , l the lTS aff In 'or of nds no[ 0"1, ... .. on the existin, statt . . . , . "'
c
sec
i
to
What s[a[istics fl:(ords in Ihe form of systems of needs is nothing arlltr than the e:oherence of the choices of a habilus, And the ina�iIiIY to
. 'spend more', or differenlly, thai is, to rise to the system of needs I�ph� . . I 1 higher n level of resoure:es, is the best illustration of the Impossl?llilY of �ucing (lhrorctic:aJly) the pro�nsity 10 consume �o Ihe C?pacilY ro or of reducing the habitus 10 rhe «onomle: nd l�l on pre .aliing al a given moment (as n:pteSCmcd, fo exampl . by � grv�n � � of InCOm e). If everything encoul1lges a belief tn t�e �xls[enct of a d� , [tbllon ship bc,wttTl income and consump[ion, {h,S IS �use IlISle IS �1. 1l'I0$[ 1lways Ihe produe:1 of economic conditions 'dcm �1 to rhQ5C: In . "hlch fune:tions, 50 Ih�t income {ends 10 be CredIted Wllh 1 causal effi Cilcy whk h il in fact only exertS in associ,tion with [he habilus il hllS PrOr\ ( , d The specific efficacy of the habitus is clelrly se-c:n when [he . tall'le inco me: is as.socialed wilh very different patterns of COnSUmp{lOn,
app�riale
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Ut
co
l
s �d n:cl
)/U
I "'..... ' .'1I "
,m"
""}" ,,,)',,,
which can only be: undeJSlOod by assuming that other selection " PI1I\t i. pies have intervened., ,
Thus foremen, whose: average house-hold income is much greater rhan r -- of skilled workef5 ()4,�81 francs as against 2',716 francs) devote a v � similar proportion of their income to food O�.4 percent, as against percent for skilled workers and 30 percent (or junior ex('(udves) , $0 Ih' their actual spending on food is equal to rh1! of senior exOXUI;VI'S ( I 2 ' francs as apinst 12,91)4 francs), Everylhing indica!1'S thl! they remain ' lt. l1C\lrd to Ihe popular values of 'cating well' and espc:<:ially to the I'OPUI interprc:nrion of these values, Fif${, spending on the products mOSt t of popular fOO1l starchy foods, pork, potaton, poultry-incrcases: 5ecOIIdI, spending on the expensivc prod.lKIS, which ! "a ual workers lIa�e to testlll � :' ahhougll for tllem fhey symbohn: 'good catmg ---(MWlitrlt, wme, coi'feE and esp«ially sugar (wllicll d('(lines sharply in tile upper d=C:S)-incftllel considerolbly, togetllcr with butler (444 frolncs as against 36� francs, whaa. leu oil is bought). Thirdly. spendmg on products which are expc-nsivt but chara(feristic of the: bourgeois life.style increases much less or not at all This is true of vcal, lamb, murron, fish, shellfish, cirrus fruit etc.: fresll llCJ' etabks incrc:a5C much more than fresh fruit. and both incrc:a5C less thin
�, �
�
Another eumple: as one moves from the 30,OOI)-W.OOO frolncs incOlTlf bracket into the higher br:ackcI, the food purc:hascs of senior ex('(ulives do nOt change in al all Ihe same way as Ihose: of manual workers, Thougll ez. penditure on food increases in borh cases (relatively more so among 1M 0.' ('(utivcs), the ilems which expand arc:, by order of imporunce, (or senIor ex«urivC'S (illeluding rcachers .Ild engineers): aptritifs. rC'Stlurant meal., non·alcoholic drinks, lamb, cakes and p;:I$trie5, beef, fresh fruil, fish and shellfish, chctsc:; ami for manual workers: pork, aperirifs, rabbil, fresh f,,"" dried vegetables, bread, fre5h vegetable5,6
{MTfllltr;" '
The principle of the most impom.n( differcncn in the ord r of lire. � , style �nd, even more, of the 'styliu(ion of life' lies in the vamnons In objective and subjecdve distance from the world, with irs m�tenal , strlincs and tempoflll urgenein. Lke the �n!hetic disposi i?n wh � one dimension of it, the dist�nt, detached or casual dispos'tion to
�
�
called the world or other people. a disposition which can scarcely nlleel in subjective since it is objeclively internali!Cd, can only be: consn .... conditions of exiSlence Ihat are relatively (reed from urgency, The pc.
�
pfll�
IICf" mission to n('(cssity which inclinn working-class people to a functionalist 'anchetic', refusing the gflltuity �nd fu!ilit� o form the e f a1 c;ses and of every form of art for an's sake, is also the pnnclpl 0 'fie"" SpeCl choicn of d�;ly existence and of an �rt ofHving which rejects
�
�
�nlhctic intentions as aberrations,' sses dill la f r _ olh C the all than often workers more say manual Thus � , "" malnta Ihey like interiors thar are cln.n and tidy and t'aSy 10
o'
-" V I
'-',..."
' ''''''' '''- -'' �'P''
'valut (or monq' doth" which «onomic n«essiry a.ssigns ro tnr: my case. The doubly prudtnt choice of 3 garmtnt thu is both 'si 'III ( 'vtrsatik" 'all'purpose'j, i.e., as link marked and as u nrisky as POS$Pblt' ('no-nonsense', 'p�tinl'j, and 'good value for monq'. i.e., chccap long.lasring, no doubt presents irsel( as the mOSt ro:-asorubk SUa lid givtn, on tht ont hand, rht «onomic and cuirUr:l1 capinl (nor ro te3J. tion time) thaI can be inV"led in buying clothes and, on the othtr tht symbolic profits Ihat can bc tJtptcled from such an investmen, ( It least at work-unlike cltrical worktrs, (or example).
: � It
h,"::
'tend nOt to take acCOUnt of fuh. ion'--1llways higher among women who do nOt work ou�idt: rhe home (19 percent as againSt 47 percent) and rhose who never read women's maga. lines-is distinctly greater in the catesories of the craftsmen or small shop. keepers. farm workers and manual workers (62 pef(ent. 61 percent and �� pef(ent ) ,han among the tunior and senior executives, the profC$SIollals and Ihe employers (4} percent ) . Similuly, rhe (Oll(ern to 'keep up with fash. iOIl' is markwly SlIonger among the wives of tunior ex«utives or clerical worken. whemu Ihe choice of 'whalever is most p�,inl Or economical' 11><: proporrion of WOnl(n who uy rhey
(risins stronSly wilh a�. and much more fre<juent among housewivcs) " mosl pronouncw among the wives of farm workers. craflsmen or shopkeep. ers. and mallull workers (Ihe last twO C1tegOnes arc (hose who most oftm uy rhey are chiefly concerned 10 'pkasc ,heir husbands'). The choice of I 'cl2ssic' gument (nther thn 'rcfinw'. 'unconventional' or 'sporty'), which, like 'dIe mosl pracrical and economical', rises strongly wilh age and varies in inverse nllio 10 the rc:lding of Ell_II index of invcstment in the acs- ,helies of dress-is mongest among tM ....ives of farm ....orkers (67 pw:ml) and manual workers (�9 percent ), whereu tke womell of rhe bourgeolSJI:. who least ofren express Ihis choice (39 percent), arc the ones who most ofren choose 'sporry' or 'rcfinw' clothes (CS. XLII). Funh�r evidence: oil
low illvestm�nt in clothing and � low propensilY �o Invest in =,....t;( re finement in such muters is sec:n in rke bcr Ihn a relulvely high propor. tion of working-class women buy Iheir clolhes in the m..ket, by pas' or 11\ 'popular" departmenl SlOres, whereas bourgeoiS women tend 10 l imit {....,t purcha� to boutiques �nd 'up'markel' dcp2llment Stores (CS. XLV). TlIt logic is tke same in Ihe arca of cosmetics; Ihe numerous marker surveys (III the subject ill show that working-class women reduce their e�pend"ure (III ..... make.up and bcauty care 10 the minimum (this item rises strongly as onE mo� from ,he ....,Ves of farm workers ro malluaI workers. to craftsmen shopkeepers, 10 t unlor executives and to senior executives). 11Iq resenl Ihe lero degrtt of make'up, of ....hich the complexi.y {!opsllck dac lipstick plus foundation. plus eyeshadow, plus eyebrow penCIl elc.) an sal cost in money, and especially in time. increase as one moves up I.... soc:cleft' t.... hierarchy (in r.... sarno: order :IS before), 11 least up to the level of
, hUS':' d
cal workers and junior execurives.
Thus, although working.class pr:lctices may SC("m ro be '111 1 directly (rom thtir economic (onditions, since they ensure a saV
ortC")', timt and effort Ihat would in any case: bc of low profitabil ity, stem fro� a choi�t o( the nec<:ssary ('That's not for us'). Ixnh in tht "Sf: of wh at IS teChnICally necessary, 'p!"acllol' (or,:.lS others would say, in order to 'get by', 10 do 'the proptr thing and , .. IICtiona1) i.t., neo:ded fllO((', and of what is impostlme�t to tht ob!ecri�t chances which is inscribc� in the dispositi?ns ons,irullng tht habllus .s the sourct of all the reahslIc chOlccs whICh. � on Ihe renunciarion of symbolic profirs Ihu arc in any case: inac, cessible, reduce practices or obje<:ts ro their technical funCtion, a 'short !xIck.and.sidcs' or 'quick trim.up' at the barber's, 'a simple linle dress', '�Id' furnilUre tIC. Thus nothing is more alien 10 working-class women than rhe typically bourgeois idel of making tach obj«l in the home rht occasion for an aesthetic choice, of extending tht i nten tion of harmony or beauty even infO rhe balhroom or kitchen, places slficrly defined by theIr fUll(tion, or of involving sptcifinlty aesthetic crileria in tho: choict of a saucepan or cupbo1fd. Festive meals and 'Sunday besl' clothes arc opposed 10 everyday meals and clorhes by lht arbit!"ariness of a cOllven rional dlvision-'doing things propo:rly'-just :IS rht rooms socially des Ignated (or 'dcco!"arion', rhe: siltins room. the d ining room or living room, are opposed ro tveryday places, thai is, by an alldthesis which is morc or less that of the 'do:co!"ative' and the 'practical'. and thty arc do:co mw in accordance wirh established conventions. with knick·knacks on the mantclpi«e, a foresr scene OVcf the sideboard, How(1"$ on the twit, wirhout any o( Ihese obltga!Ory choices implytng decisiom or � search for
�O. �
·
dfccr.
nils conventionalism, which is �Iso thaI of popul�r photogl1l.phy. con cerned 10 fix conventional poses in the conventional compositions,9 is the opposite of bourgrois formalism and of all the forms of art (or art's sake r«ommtnded by rnanuals of g�cful living and women's m�ga W"lCS. the art of entertaining, lhe art of Ihe table, the art o( mothtrhood. [n addition to providing a form of basic security in a world in which tho:� can be hardly any assu!"ance, the choice of 'doing the proper thing' Ihe dor'le thing' (the vtndol"$ of domeslic goods undt:rstand the po...." of 'II'S tht done rhing' OVcf working-cla.ss insecurily j has � natu 1111 place I. n an economy of practices based on the search for the 'pracrical' a�d Ihe refusal of '(rills' and '(ancy nonsense'.'Q en the choices which. from rhe standpoint of the dominant norms. pi ar as the most 'irl":lIiollal" ate groundtd in lhe !:.lSrt of ne<essity s o( course, the entirely negarive dro:ct of rhe absence of information an , lfic fot Sf>« competence which results (rom rhe lack of cuiru!"al capital. nample, the laSte for the rrinkers and knick-knacks which adorn lTta l lTti� Clpit:(e and hallways is inspirtd by an intention unknown to e
Or
� �
k
suwsr with the {ewesr '(KeCiS' possible: (he gl'C:ilres pendirure of lime, money and ingenuity). What is Iht 'gaudy' an � ;.h 'tawdry', if nor rhar which (relltes 2 big (freer for a small prke, rhe , t lies' that 2rc only permissible so long as you can say 10 yourself, � were almost given away'� Stlttt hawkers and saJes-promolion SPtti� ' know that Ihey must reinse rhe: brak(S and censonhips which fOmid ,I$Q. rl'2vagances' by prtseming the forbidden goods u 'bugainf_the u�. fashionable sett� which. if you em forgel the colour and juSt rhink ,," the price, is exactly rhe one you had always wantcd 'ro go in front r TV', or rhe unwt:u:abk nylon dress you cnded up buying bc-cause { i re
(;00 being
[0
; 'l'I.��
of � :
And if il still ntt
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:�
labour
a certain indulgence and to devOlc to Iheir bodie$ the incessant OIre, COlt' cern and attention that al'(: nccded to aehicve and maintain health, shm lI ness and beauty,
1\ whok $('t of convergent indices tends 10 show Ihat workins
r
��
\,
, , . for dle' The OI11s to order ('Who does she Ihlnk she Isr 'Thai s not likcs of us') which reaffirm Ihe principle of conformity-Ihe onl� e" . norm of popular l15tc--and aim to encour:lge the 'reasonable
�
�JI at"( in any case imposed by Ihe obje
�e
�
� �
The ritualization of practiccs and urrerances, which can go as far as Slereo tYp'ng, is to some e�tent an eKeel of the very risorous application of the pIIl'IClple of conformity. A fuJl·srown man who visils anOther household is txptrrrd to havc a d rink; a middle·ased woman who d,esscs 'tOO young for
�,ag... is severely, even cruelly, sanctioned (jibes, remarks behind her back tIc.). Whe'eas s,eat class differences may pass unnoticed and are in any ClI� very well toleraled {'He's I real (hanCter' 'He's nOt like us·) beO :iC U r� Ire Sttn as based on differencC'S of nnure (the doctor's wife wtll be de5I.i!:>ed as 'made for fine clothes' ), 1'101 Ihe slightcst deviadon is permirred r .those who belong to the same class (or originate from i!j, benu$(' In CiSoe difference could only ari$(' from Ihe desire 10 disdnsuish oneself, , at IS, fr.., m refusal or repudiatiOn of tile sroup (rhus the son of a wl>o b ak$ with his family is favourably resar t DIfference is pe ceived and denounced as such only by people whosc l"a ..�()n:11ess has been sharpened by political or trad(>union 2ctivity. those of o.'hers say, 'Ifjait 1M 1a ptJIiti'lut', i mplying 'a IfoubJe·m,ker·, 'a '% 1.\1 ?, r d,amon '. It is delr what advlntlg.-5 the condescensi..,n slratesies of t:!l o ms of paternalism can der;....: from Ihese dcfC-rent;al dispo:sillons ('2 '-... n....!.tleman· et,.)
� 'h'l � :
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oo...r·
r
d
r
diKer·
J82
I Uan "
('$po!'
t>J1tS
and LJjt':)�yltJ
s,SS'" S'SSSSSSS,'," SSSS'," ,,"
cial ly �re forbidden every SOrt of 'pretension' in rnatt__ , , • �• cu I rure, Ianguage or CIorh 109, ' ThIs IS nor only because ao:sthe Men
� ,
le mem, particularly as regards clothing or cosmeTics, is reserved fr by a representation, more srrict th�n in any oTher class, of rhe "" vision of labour and sexual morality; 1 1 or because iT more or I sr:� IU.I .. associated wiTh dispositions and manners seen as char:;,cteris � tIe of ... ( 'aIrs bourgeolsle " ' and gr:;,ces', 'Ia... "l·da' eTc.) or 0f those who a . rt "dl_ _ to submIT ' to bourgO!'OIS ' demands SO as to acceptance, of "'h h th-, 'toadi('$', 'Iick·spiub' and 'pansies' of everyday invecrive rep e c n limit. It is also because a surrender to demands po!'rceived as . ! tilt SI",.. I" . !emmme and bourgeols neousIy ' � appo!'ars as ,he index of a dual - ... rtpud tion of virility, a twofold submission which ordinary Iangua.". " ",-, natll.... . . concelvmg aII domlOllion ' m the logic and texicon of sexual dom Inar-.. --' . � ' P" :U ISPOsed to express. IS
is
win
�
e�
lr is nor onl� in thoughts that the OpPOsit on betw«n rhe working d and til( dommant c1iW (especially irs domi nared f�tion�) is organizal analogy with the opposition betw«n the mate and the female, that I$. throu�h the categories of the StrOng and the we
i
as:;
w
,
dnnk (ext(unv('$ 27 pc:rcent. mlnual workers } pc:rcent, farm ....orkers 0 percent). But the ....orking diW is chiefly distinguiShed by the inclusion ol salty subslantial. dearly masculine foods such as soup (ealen 21mosl udlt' lively by form workers), meat (46 perce�t of the filrm workers, 17 fCr«n1 of Ihe manual workers, 6 percenl of the senior e x\"(utives say they al � occas,onally car meal for breakfast) and chce$t whereas Ihe senior ex«1t' tives 2nd professionals take first place for sw«; foods such as jam or honCJ (40 percent say Ihey ear them every day, 15 a9,mt 29 percent of the fann workers and II fCrcent of the manual ....orkers), which are also darly muked IS femini ne (only }8 pc:rcent of men eaf them occasionally, 6} pa cenl of .....omen; C.S. XLVIII).The same opJ>O$irion emerges from an older fur survey, 'n whICh the proportion ....ho eal something savoury for break (ew, ham. sauuges, pile 0. che se) dcclin('$ as one moves from the {arIII e ....orkers to Ihe manual workers to the clerical workers and senior e.x«:ariC' .ives, whi le the proponion who ell s....«t foods (jam, honey or fru.l) ,
,
in the OpPOSite w.y." bJ" eS.,.d It is also known that the whole set of socially cORSliluled di fferenC tw«n .he .sexes lends to weaken as one movt'! up the social hierarchy especially to....ards Ihe do minued f..crions of rhe dominant cI:w. ....hefC h women lend to shore Ihe most Iypically male prerogati ves such IS t enoc do ing of 'serious' newspapers and inleres' in poli.i cs, ...hile the men
Chomper
pion c�alf1 .1s b n< . . Y 5 I)ruar, a ""neJ " q u0 01 I'K his defended 'Ft_lra . ouId challen r Henrr" uv W . h,y litle rom h1' m. ..·ttSl
rro
,
referee I>a....ls their names lll(y y're en tll(lf napkins and . . . the ' "' I g '" am le o s off' They gCl Sluek int on. pblcfuls of k,d....y beans and bac on' A spo n. .... JUSt .mch 'em go do fot ful for mummy, a spoonful Mly
StcOflds OUI 1lte
,
Hiccup'
'This is no vicarage tea pnty. They're puffing and blowing all the ..-ay 1$ lhey plough Ihrough Ihe
!:>nos. Btlo}!; on more plales! The SptCtalors yell for anolher helping, mcoulllging lheir favourile, III( ""gnlng Freneh champion."
Jaws
'The champ goes imo the lead. A
Poulidor of III( spoon and fork. unbeatable against Ihe dock, lurning to glance at his rivals every �oo ,l:rams. a real glullon for punishmenL Two jaws and a Hercu· lean belly. Limbering up Irke a ....res Iler bC".....«n tWO platefuls, (0 int;midale the opposilion. And a Ihird helping! The champ chomp' 00, R2ymond
,
j " " S S S S S S S S S " " , S S S a i " " , '" ' S S " " S S
htsllal� to npress Inlerests �nd dispositions, in mailers of USIC, for exam· pit, ",tllch dsewhere would be regarded 2S 'efftmlnllC·. The gfC2ltr lolcr· allc� of
'i�8 ;::�
,
,
BefOK speaking of cultural inertia or 'cultural lag', with an irn I' evolurionism which enables the dominant to perceive rhelr Way of !Cit lit or of doing things as rhe Kalittd ideal, one nwls to ask onc:stlf if popular valorization of physiC1lI stKngth as a fundamellfal aspeCt O � f VIrjJ. ity and of everything Ihat produces and supportS ir ('mong' fOO d drink, hC'ltvy work and exercise) " is nOt illfdligibly relared to Ih rhal both the peasant class and the industrial wOlking class dt�ndt I labour power which the laws of cultural reproduction and of rhe la market reduce, mott rhan for any orher class, to sheer muscle: PO""ct:I� and it should nOt � forgonen rhat a class which, like rhe working d ' is only rich in Its labour power can only oppose to rhe: Other da apart from rhe withdrawal of its labour-in fighting strength, which de pends on the physical strength and courage: of irs members, and also thtj r number, i.e., their consciousness and solid1riry or, to PUt it another WI " their consciousness of their solidarity. Thus it would be a misrake to ignore the specifically political elfeCl of mOr:Jliution (or 'de.mor:Jliution') which is exerted through Ihe vehic:1es of the: new ther:Jpeuric morality (women's magazines, the glossy wed. lits, r:Jdio progr:Jmmts elC. ). As is shown hy the limiting case of tilt pea. anrry-who, through the imposirion of the dominallf life-style and lhr legitimatc image: of the body, have suffered a blow to their spc:eific con ditions of reproduction (with the celibacy of peasant farmers) and to rheir very existence as a class capablc: of de:fining the principles of Irs own identity-it is perhaps one of rhe laSt rduges of the auronomy of the dominared classes. of their capacity to produce their own representalion of rhe accomplished man and the Woeial world, thar is being threatened by all the chaJlengc-s 10 working-class idenrific2tion with rhe values of virility, which are one of rhe mOSI autonomous forms of their self· affirmation as a class. The mOSI fundamental principles of class IdelllilJ and uniry, those: which lie in the unconscious. would be alftCted If. on the decisive poillf of relation ro the body, the dominated class (':1m( to sec itself only through the e)'C-S of the dominant class. that is, in rerms of the dominam definition of the body and irs uses. This having bcc:n !.Jill in this area as in so many other and equl11y important areas which :aft not politically constituteG, there is no realistic chancc of any coliectlYC
�
::: ::::"
�
rc-sistan(e ro rhe effcct of imposidon th�t would kad either 10 the vllo"" II zarion of properties stigmarized by the dominant raxonomy (the 'blick be�utiful' str:Jtegy) or to the creation of new, positively evaluated prope ties. Thus the dominareG have only twO oprions: lo}'alty ro self and t group (always liable: to relapse into shame), or the II'1dividual etfo�t assimilate the dominant ideal which is the antithesiS of {he very arnbll of colltCtively regaining control over Woeial identity (of the typc: tit I arrs advoc by the colleeli� revoIr of the American feminists when it
� ; �
purS
'nuur:J1 look').
o;�,�
The Effocts of Domina/ion
Adapting (0 a dominated position im Ii f, f i narion. The �ff('CfS of polirkaJ mobili balance the effects of the inevitabk de n
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tion line or office but rhe social relation whieh umkrlies worktng<" hiS .. IS labour expenence 0, the world whereby h· the product . " I>r Nwllim ur. OPIlJ r , present rhemse' ves ro Ihe worker as Mil r ¥r S "I",,""" ,00 ,. , a lenaled' aoo , never more totally misrccognizro, and therefore t�citlY � Ion IS _ __ Dispossess' d·· v omlC v , ec�n recognl;tC'(l,. than when, WI',h Ihe progress 0' �utom�ti�n ....... , vi.... ion which pro J WI! possessIon IS eomb'flCd ' h the cullur-al di
and
ur,
of
..
spossoess
king the nomic disposses�ion, l.3c cco for ion cat tifi jus t Jl(St apparen n fot correct appropita! whieh is the pre-conditio o r-al hu eu opital � r l ,htcd finition) of lhe (uhur-al de ate itim leg the 10 1�I{ f On (according are dominued by the I,n ficd In lechnical objects. ordinary pC ti use, and by Ihose IOcy $trve r-atOcr than ich wh ms me (fu ins Ob IOes and dominating Ihem. i.e" theoretiol, meanS , ate ium leg the s sses rfI:tC pO pect for useless, disin oal, which teaches res seh !he as ry O ( l f1 'nalu"'�Ohe onships invested v.:ilh rhe at� rd es lish ab est d an . koowledge g Simultaneously \� ted pedagogIC reason amon d an lfie em sel 1 , of uthority counler legitimate cui· d activities, .....orkets en an als du ivi ind ltcd monstr-ate its pr-ac. r,I)tf'Irch ich dOC$ 1'101 need to de wh t de or of e ipl inc ly h !C 's ' pr riences which the cuhural be justiflCd, The .e�� to r de or In ny uuhty en of ma legmmate culture (or ev may have of works of d ve pli de ess') is only most offered by 'show busin ts en inm tem en e
worker.;
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sa
Ir-ansformed f
wr
dassifrca·
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basic compo·
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of t one the
of tht
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educa· of
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obio:cr;v( interC'St and of producing and imposing lhe pfoble at1( consistent ....ith their interests. Awareness of the econo mi, an terminams of cultural dispossession in (aC! varies in al SO(iill mn• _t ln� . " to culluraJ d lspo�s on (as tables 26 and 27 cbrly show). The ,rs.:, � . of charisma, whICh ImpulC'S 10 the person. 10 his natur:l l If S I or " ITl(rirs, emin: responsibility for his social destiny, (XCTlS its C e elS far be. yond lhe: cc:iucational system; every hitrarchical relatio nship d raw s the kgirimKY Ihn Ihe dominued rhcmS(lvC'S p;&rt Of gnm it from . . . a CO n.f.· __• .. -� on the opposilion perception IhU II IS b-..:.cu .... ktwttn 'cd 1,1(1(10 0' . Ignorance. _.... ....
;
ratio
� �1osJ
Awu(ncss of the effecls of $O(ial background is pmic ularly weak amI) cn.ftsmen and small sllopkeq>er5, farm workers and manu al workers "II ..1 _ _ Among the S(nior (xe<:luivC'S. recogni ion of .hO(C effecrs . """" not ncJ··..t... , · r In "�IIe . ' ....., · t, = ,"� ,, Ylnue s °r IntdJr gence (5« tables 26 and 27). Every 'h '0 indicate that In order for the working classes to rccogniz, 'helr � $etftII . u� ,onaI ' at leut have to be involved In the educ ational sYSt . t$CoYerlng $C...... Ing as a conservarl\'e ,olce' pr esu"" --"""'" 50� expo:rlt:'IICf FF . · �","n " · g "orce ' 1.l us " IS or ·Kh00IIng as a I '= students from the mIddle . ' and working cluses who af( tnOsi sensltl Ye to the problematic of '�""m",nitta . ,, �I hough tlrq °r,e� accept the charismatic yalue s which domlnue dll: educational syStem, But It IS above all the expo:ricnce of relegation to lhe mOSl devalu� courses and 5«tions. as well as the di$(ov ery of ,he deval"t lion o� qualifications already held, that is likely 10 induc e the beginnIngs of
�
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tme�\.1��,
Iton t
coUecttve awarenes,s,
The mOSt visible principles of the official difl"ef(nccs (i.e" those oil cial y �orded in statuses and wa ) f ound within worki the ng dw 1ft' � senlOrrty and e
!
�ence or as cer,ificates of 'morality', that is, of conformi,)' and even dOClI The proportion of individuals who have no e
tty.
unskille
.
;
monuments, thcanes and conccns. or possession of records or uSC' 0r • public library. This docs not mean, howcver, that the 'aristocracy of / bour' merges with the lower sITa,a of lhc �tite bourgeoisie, They dl J h I from the �ti, bourgeois i n � number of w�ys, not least in the faC! t of rhey behavc as manual workers cven in their spire time (�3.9 'r foremen and XI.S �rcent of skille
yoursc:lr
pe�'
jobs at kISt once a w�k). Their solidarity with the
�
·onu ..
�
sss'SS" " " ,-s" ,,'S ss s's'sssss'
foreman Who ,tI:lS Always Wo � f Other People or �tr
L.
�ked
aged 61. started work as an
on the French Railw:ays reo'"ce ar p II<: age of fourteen :lnd a half. I! a skilled ...orker and is He beCame :I foreman. He 'deals wi,h piS' 00' , · WI,e, alS� � � roliins-stOC , HIS jCngrr · com She ked cr wor . h 2 iS n�v a<)' school and would SC'(ond t had , to find a ;00. Th�y hav� ,P" . L. foul children; the eIue>t IS a com· D0putC1 programmer, the s«ond a mInIOn monk, the third used to be :I pmonal assistant but StQPPCd work ...hen she married, :rrid the youngtsl is sludyi�g for his. �1Cca. I>uri:tt lltcy hve tn a mUniCIpal. style Hat in Grenoble.
I
)k ed
.
.
'You hlve 10 know whal you're doing' Mt, L has done , lot of work on rhe 'panmen" 'You C1n 5« if you look; 'here used to be a room ,here .nd :I room here. Ik<:IUse there ....ere � many of us it ....as really cramped. � I took the w:all do....n, which ' IIl they're all Iwistus, 01,11 to chc:tt . lltcy can sell us faka and
� kll
�
tell us tl\(:y're f(al, and is (or ,he prica . ' ' I knew how use of ii'
{O
make good
Their home is 'no museum'; the or· naments and V1$CS are 'not iu" dust rraps ' The various objo:cts adorning the apartment are mos,ly pre.senrs from thc childf(n or friends. or have betn 'rcscu�d', and they all have their 'uSC". Madame L. will no, buy anything until she 'has alt-.:ady found :I place for it.' 'That va$( now. I nttded a vase, I wamed :I v;lS( becau$( [ wanled Rowers, :rnd when I was asked what I wanted, I said "a V;lS(" and they bought it for me because [ kn("1V how to make good USC' of it.' His childlen 'know perfectly _II thcre's no point in buying things {hat I won't use or rhat I'll put away in a sideboard. Everything hu 10 have a place for it . otherwi$(, [ don't like to have things JUSt '0 put lhem away.' They make most of thei, purchases in suo permarkcrs (urrcfour, Record) or dcp.arrment Stores (NouYella Ga· kries): 'I don't like window·shop ping, I go straighl to a big supermlrkcr ,nd )'Ou rind every· thing Ihef(; you c:ln choose without g
10
work'
Recently they became ,he owners of a little house in the mountains out· side Grenobk. 'Some friend-ne ....as an engincer'-invired them rake ;t over sever11 ynrs ag
10
IUt three ynrs. ,hey have done a lot of work on i,: 'herything was 'Of, ten. I wn walking around upstairs and I fell through the floor Then: "'�rr no tiles left on the roof, the r,IIn nme m on all sidr$.· Mr. L has done all the rtpai, work himself: 'You know. I naned U an appten· nee on the 1'1llways, and an apprrn· tice had !O Inrn everything. You SO' a th ree·mon th course on sani ta· tion. three months on elenro-weld· ing and so on. And you always rrmember your tnlde, (0 some ex· tem.' They intend to make this house their mam home. ·No...., I'll be glad to ....ork. no.... that it's my house: I'm nOI working fo, other people I'm fed up with ... ·orkmg and bemg uplolted.'
'Learning to ski u 42' He is 'very fond of cold ,,·eather. sno..... but not skiing' : 'I'm af..id of hurting myself I go tobogganing wllh my grandchildren. You see, I
had .'1 accidem in my brother·in· Iaw's car in Tun;s;a . . . and I in· jured my ....rist, You only h.,·e to
look at i, to sec the state it's in. That's why I prder tobogganmg. I un Stt up and there's no danger of falltng.' (His .....fe 'staned Inrntng '0 ski .t 42, beauS<' of the chil, drrn, . , We used to go OUt ....tlh them. ....e didn't wam to spend the whole d.y sitting in 1 caf': or (reel mg In tile car.") Wilen he ....u young, he 'did a lot of sporr, espe· d.lly football.'
'
'You just have to like them'
He sometlmcs docs the cooking: 'Whcn my wifc's .way or w"h hcr SlStcrs and I'm here (H1 my 0...·'1. I'd 1'1the. do my own cooking than Ff> and eat at my mother's Or one of my s,sters" n·law's." When slle
·....ants to give someon ea
,.tat' ....ife 'looks up a menu in he, ' r I)" 'Pt books ' '1 don't altogether .g ...."h my children when they » ; "You should cook SOmethlll g hke I say. "You often do thin
"
,
: !
In Itfe thu you don't hke to stat;f. rt wllh. but you JUSt have ro like them,'" '1 buy rable ....in-c, at G� four: iI's cheaper rhere, It's eleven proof and il COSts one franc fo rty by the botde, it's lWO francs th ir;Y, five, I think '
.
'Alw.ys something to keep me busy'
1ncy go campmg for their holiO »ys. 'At Ille seas.de. we go sWIm. mmg . , I hke looking for shell. fish . . , In tile mounr�ins, I go looking for mushrooms. or snlils, lbcre's al'lr.lys something to k«p me busy.' And h,s wife �das that I.st summer 'he was a bit dIsap pointed bcuuS<' th�re w�s nothing to go looking for " He doesn't lih being idle, he always h� 00 find something to do. In fact rf",', why we go camping He couldn', mlly !ott himself sluing around tn hotels and rest�ur:lnts. whereas when ...·e go ampmg, he can keep hlmsclf busy with the shopping. and a 1>11 of swimming. of course. ana all tilt thtn� th.t ha"e to be done And then we generally have a look round When we: rhe surroundIng arCli. dId Italy, we "'ent �II 0"(1 rhe pl�r lookmg 2t all th� old sitcs. all rhe ologieal things. M)' hUlbl"d
..
arch.e
�
doesn't enjoy that as much as I Personally. I lleiong to an adult u' calion group and so th.t sort of thmg '"t(rtStS me."
'Circusn, games. qui zzcs'
L _ 'football On ecicvls'(H1, he ... ·atCn'" rI malCho, ey
t n � x
:
'
� ";' � thl� e,,;oys warching plaY' (H1 ' who th.t slle also likes 'cir' ;�adds gam(S-(he Guy Lux pro-
m�e-<juiues , . : He doesn't go ma{chcs, b«ause he is g f.football " . 'MfVOUS ,n crowdS . bUI he 'readI in the papers.' He .he sports results docS not buy a newspaper bUI some, $( lefl by the pas' md pide.! up rhO . " s. n.c prev.ous day, he senger 'brought home u Fig""'. L'AunJf't, Lt (6,,41' &rrbttini ami u Nouwl QMtn-alfJIr,' 'The Of\( he mOSt reads, . es L'Auron',' sayl his ... ife. ·(O.d a((1'
cu
'
of classical composefl'
'Don't ask m e for the Mme$
When he was young. he 'played the ciarine• • bit. rhen I took up foot· ball and there wasn't time for both , , . I\'e always encouraged my chlldren's intertSt in mullC bee.usc I nJlOy i !. ' 'Vivaldi is nice, Lovely " "" "s s s s c s , s • •
music. rnlly catchy, Beethoven is good b«au� i{'s soothing. , . , Don't uk mc for the names of das $ic�1 composers. apan from Beetho '�n. Chop;n, Ibch. prople like fh�t I can't remember the others.' lnty have a fe.... tC'Cords. maI nly datl(e music, His f.t,vourite singer is Sheila. 'There are I.. .., I can't snnd, Sylvie Varian and thar Guy lXa".' (His wife's f.t,vourites arc Marie !.a, fortI, Lcs Compasnons de ]a Chan· son and MouStaki, )
'You ClIn sec what they "'present'
They rarely go to the cinema: 'Why bothel. wilen you've gOt TV!' When flley visited Paris. Illey n.... Tix Whiu Htmt and Tilt GDMm FINa 1{ lhe Thotre du (hitelel and Vito!"" WdilZl'J at Ihe Thotre du
Mogador. Since {hey were married they ha\'e not b«n 10 the Of'Cn: when he was young. he s.w .nd en· joyed T01((< and La Tra"lala, On thei r first trip to Paris, they 'did all the muS(ums': 'even the Mils&: Greyin. lhe Louvre, Veruillcs. the Pantheon; we've been to them all once. 'I l ike art bue I don't know artists' namCS, , . , I've hnrd of Gop, and Pi1'1ndello, a"d Michelan· gelo. people like {hal: H.s wtfe is somewhu embarrassed by hIS admis Ston of lack of Ime!'CS' and remends him: ·Ah. but MlChel.ngelo no,..', you liked him. You d,d hkc t� Sis, tine Chapel.' Then he �dds: '1 hked IhO$( pictures b«.use you C�n sec what they represent, But when you sec half a dOlen squiggles and pe0ple spending a fortune on It. well. pef$Onally, I'd throw that sort of thing in lhe dustbin if I found il. " , Anyway, I'd be af1'1id of being s....indled.'
'
ss.ccs,sscc " " " cc·
dllss. lifc.s!yl.� is m�nif�sle
•
��
'!lle former uc much less conccrned Ilran the lauer m mark th(i. dIstancf. r.om rhe most tj'pICally popular amuscmenls and pasrimes such . r r or spoiling evcn.ls: 60.4 percent of them (and �8.2 percent of the SCm,. skilled and unskilled) say lhey have been 10 a funfair at I�I onc( 'n Ihf prevIOus l·cal. compared 10 49.� percenl of lhe ekroeal work(rs and 49.6 pcr. cenr of the Junior e�tcut;'·n. Manual workers I n �nenl l1l1hcr more o� "'al(h span and circu on 1\1. whems Junior e�«ulives and ekneal ",'OrkclS much more ofren ""arch sclcnulic, h,slorlca[ or literary program lIIeS (CS. VII). Our of very similar Incorms, rhe manual ....orkers spend mon: on food and less on (veryrhin!! concerned wllh personal apporance and care ( clothing, hygien(. hairdressing. pharma<:eulleal producrs ) (CS, III) rhf men's spending on clothing is 8�,6 pe'Cfnt. and the omen·s 83.7 pt";. cenl. of lhe corresponding amountS among clerical workers, They buy lhe: ume clod es more cheaply (for c�ampk, they spend only 83 J>erc(nt of rhe: amounl spent by cleronl workers on overCOaTS. 68. 7 percen. on jackers. 8}.1 pe.cent on shoa--a difference whkh 15 much more marked among women) and. abo"e all. dlfferen. clothes; on rhe one hand. learhe. or Imlli' IIon·ieuher laekcr and lumber ilckets (for cold, early-morning m,·d by scooler). boikr·suit�. dungalttS and overalls. on lhe Olbel hand. OVCfCo;IlS ('j'mbols of petil-bou 8C'OIS ICSf><"Cubiliry). blouses. ap'on�. �rtS JlCkers and bla«rs. The skilled workers. In.: only CltCgory lared on Ihc a,r,ulabk $lall5I1CS. differ from rhe ckrieal workers. although rhey ha"c sIm,lu In· comes. almOSI much manual workers on �ncnl (cxccpr on one f'O'nl. e�pcndllu,e on �Ims and ords) , •
•
••••
1m
$(S
....
l
�
lIS
'
.w
lIS
!'C'(
lIr(;ll
I! is nOf, however. in the of cuiru� dlat one should look fOI ' dislance, or a sdf.dislandng. from Ihe dominant cI�ss and liS vall,let. other than a purely ncgative one, by ddaull. There is, of course. ever,/J·" fhing which b<:longs to Ihe of living. a wisdom t�ught by ncctsSll t suffering and humilia!ion and deposit(d in an inh(rllcd language. denl (;Vcn in ils Sf(teOtypcs. 2 sense of revelry and festivity. of self-e�prcss� and pt;l(!inl solidarily with othcrs « voked by Ihe adicct"'e 'bon VI"";' ....ilh wh.ch Ihc ""orking classes idenufy). in shorr. e\"crythrng t�at ISbU' gendered by 111<: r(';lJisric (bul nOI I'ClIlgncd) hedonism and sccpllo.lon( 10 nOi cyn;cal) materialism which conST;rUI( both a form of adaprau lIf
nd;tions of existence � .(O
and a defencc against them;'O {here: is Ihe cffr· le vivacilY of spn:ch ... hich. freed from Ihe censorship and con· (.I(I.tY nd of quasi.wrillen and therefore de-contextualizC"d spn:ch. bases iTS � st�:s. shon CUIS and me.l�phon on common {<:fen:�ce 10 sham:! sit�a. ""�Ih e!"r;.-( pCriences and t.ndmons. The� IS also everythl�g con.cerne
�
�
....
a
""
co
rc
:.IS
«nC(.
class, rhere is no popular arl in The sense of an art of The orban orking purely Ihe IS prn.aps bror�se this class knows � other h�rarchics Ihan I'ICgali"e ones ....h,eh are rnnsum! by diSlance .from Ihe absolute povefly rily of the sub-proletanal. and remamS fundamcnl�lly defined by IIld in bourgeoisie. the relarion of dispo$scsscd 10 possessor ....hieh links il 10 rhe art. i.t., by popular in (ullure as in other arcas." Whal is generally m(';lnt lhe of Ihe peasanl cla� of capinlisl and prePOSC$. It IS no a iden that rhe only uea of ....orking-elass pr:acric( in ....hich STyle in iTsclf achiC\'es styli rion ;s that of langu3ge, ...ilh 'Igot. lhe langua� of leaders. ·godfathers'. ....hieh implicitly affirms a OOunter·legiTimacy with, for eumplc, !he intenrion of deriding and dcsacn· IUIng .he 'values' of the dominanl mor:aliry and �Ihelic. ...
If "
�u
an
i
((
.
100.
u
It tends {O be forgollen Ihal Ihe specific logic of cuhur:ill domination ll1C1nS Ihal ehe fullesl recognilion of eultunl legilimacy can and often � coexist ""ilh the mOSI radical ch�lIenging of political legitimacy. P"rrhWnore, Ih( awakening of political consciousness is often bound up ""th a whole process of rehabilitating and rebuilding self-CSln:m, which, �ausr: it involves a reaffirmirion of cullur:ill dignity Ihat is e�p<:rience
,�.
:.IS
1\ ,5p«!OC survey wou,ld be- nffi:ltd fO eSfab!i�h �yond dispute the Il:J� , . !t0f\. 5111p wnl'lm Ihe working da$$ �rWl!Cn posmon In rhe �lation5 of pr lO( .ion, political ConSCiOU5rleSS and rd31ion to {uhull:. Bu! ;1 is know I . 11 Ill<: nle of unioniudon rises {rom 13 ptr<:en among unskilled wor 29 IX'rccnl among rhe semi-skilled and }O po:r<enl (of which 24 �r<;CIS 10 CGT) among skilltd wo�kers, f:alling back (0 18 percent among fore ' lft en . and rechnlClans, the {dauonshlp Ixtween (dilution,] level and nrc f 0 unioniution Ixing weakened by the fao Ihal dIe foremen, while m edu. c1rro, arc also Icss unionized.l1 h is also clear th11, like educational e knowkd� 0( Iegitima!c {uiture rises Wilh position in the occupauon : !Ct. a.chy. The skI.lled workers and foremen, olck. and having had 1 sligh I Ion�r schooling dIan the semi skilkd and ullSkilkd workcrs,
l
� k ':,
Culture and Porities
� el t�
manifcs: �
slighdy gmncr culuH'II1 competcncc: only 17.' perccn! know (by nam ) fc"''Cr than twO of thc work:!! of music, as against 48,� perUnt of the e m� skilkd and unskilled, of whom a very high proponion d«linc to an� !hc quc:srions on pai,nting �nd music. Skilled workcrs and fotcmen mo often CHe !he nnon!cal artistS, leonardo (}8 percent as against 20 per<: I) , Wa�!�u, Raphael, ....hereas thc semi,ski lled and unskilled pick our vag Y famlhar names morc or less at random, Pica$$O, Bra�ue, Rousseau (no ' doubt confusing !he 'douanicr' with jeanjac'lues). And, above all. �hereas the semi,skilled a�d unski�l� rcadily .admit that paimings do nm '"leftS! thcm Ot thai dassJ(al muSIC '5 'compho!ed', the skilled workers, more under the sway of cultural legitimacy, mor<: often identify wuh a token of rttOgnition combined with a confession of ignorance ('I love cI.. sical musIC bUI [ don' , koow much about it' or 'PJimings arc nicc but d.f. ·
8
:: � ��
ficult'}. "
Thus, cvcrything leads one to believe that thc most politically C()l\o scious fracrion of the working class remains profoundly subject, in eul ture and langua�, to the dominant norms and values, and thcrel'o« deeply scmitive to thc cfl'CCtS of authority imposition which cvery holder of cultural authority can exert, even in politics, on those in whom tM cduotional systcm-this is onc of the social cfl'ects of primary cduc.. tion--has inculcated a recogn ition withour knowledgc.
Perhaps the mosl radical approach to thc problem of politics is to ask of it the '1uC$tion that Marx and En�b raise in relation to art. Having ana lysed the concentration of the capacity for artistiC production in the hands of a few individuals and the correlative (or evcn consequent) dis po$session of the masses, thcy imagine a (communist) socicty in which 'there are no p:iinters but 1t mOSt people who engage in painting among ' other things', and in which, thanks 10 thc development of the pro du"i", forces, the gencral �u"ion of working time (through an over· all da:reuc and an equal distribution) allows 'cvcryone sufficicnr frtt lime 10 take pm in the general affairs of socicry-lbtrmtkal lll writ III �lUtiraJ,' 'There arc no politicians but at mOSI people who cngage in pol. ' lies among OIhct activities': here as elsewhere, a utopia is scicmifically (ind. no doubt. politically ) iustific:d by the way il demolishes self�idem apptarances and forces one to bring to light the presuppositions of thc u�ual ordcr. Indeed, although irs apparent gencrosity makes it thc d,ametric opposite of thc tlitist denunciations of univcrsal suffrage which tilt intellectuals and artists of anorhcr age went in for, thc indulgrnt �u.lism which credits the common people with innate knowledge equally helps to disguise and so consecrate (hc 'concemration in a .... Individuals' of rhc capacity to produce discourse about the social ....orld, and, through rhis, the capacity for consciously changing that ....orld. The utopian paradox breaks the doxa: by im agining a social world 'n :,,�ic h 'anyonc in whom thcn: is a potential Raphael' of p:iinling or POI"'es could develop without hindrance, it forces one to sec that the concen tration of thc cmbodied or objectified insrrum cnts of production
�Il[�(s
of
is snrcdy I� in polidcs than in art, �nd prevents. one forgening all t tat potenual Raphacb whom the mech�nlsms responsible for this ITlOn o keep excluded much more effectively than any 'idrologinl St�te a flol, !'Pall. !Uses'. Even if one only credits the idealized 'people' with a wholly ta(: . P ttqJ knowled� of the social world as such, or at lcut of its position and I r . estS in that world, one sliU has to enmine whether, and how, this ili' cal sensc nn be expressed in a discourse corresponding to the tru h tt contains in pr.lctical form, and thus become the motor of a con ' S and, through the mobilizing power of explicit statement. truly colJ e 1I :lction.1 Staying closer to reality, i t has to be asked whether this politic scnsc is really the infaJlible Aair it is somelimes claimed 10 be, 'Nh ch could at least identify the mosl appropriate products on t� f1UIr u of discourses produced and supplied by the ow�rs of the means of l lJ prod (. tion of legitimate problems and opinions.j Political science long ago beg.lI'1 10 register the fact that a Jarg e pro porlion of the persons surveyed 'abStained' from answering questions . on politics and that these 'n)I'1-responses' va ied significantly by sex, � aAt, � cduca(lonal level, occupauon, place of resld.:nce and politinl tendt:ncy BUI no conclusions have � drawn, and the p$Cphologim mertly cit plore this culpable 'absrention'. As soon as one sees that t� inert 'don't know' ntegory IS lugdy m:ruitcd from whu others call 't� m:assc:s' or 'the people', one begins to suspect the function it performs in the ope... tion of 'liberal clcmocr.lcy' and the contribution it makes to maintainin3 the established order. IIbstentionism is perhaps 1'10{ so much a hiccup in the system as one of the conditions of its functioning as a misrccog nized-and therefore recognized-restriction on political participalion. What neab to be questioned is the very nOlion of 'personal opinion', 1be opinion poll, by urging all its respondc:nrs, without distinction, 10 produce: a 'personal opinion'-an intention underlined by all the 'accord ing-Io-yous', 'in-your-views' and 'what-do-you.personally-thinks' in IIv: questionnaircs--or to choose, by their own means, unaided, betWeen SC'I" er.lJ pre-formulated opinions, implicitly accepts a poUtinl philosophy which makes political choice a specific�lIy polidcal judgement, �pplyin3 politinl principles to lInswer a problem that is presented as political• •nd
r:;�
;:� �
/
which credits everyone with not only the right but also the power to pt& ducc such � judgemem. II social history of the notion of 'personal opIn ion' would no doubt show that this eightttmh<enlury invention IS
TOOled in the rationlilist belief that t� hcully of 'judging ....ell'. :IS � eaT!es called it, that is, of discerning good from bad, truth from. fa hood, by a spontaneous and immediate inner feeling, is a unlve aptitude of universal application (like the faculty of aesthetic judgemenl t according to K2nt)�ven if it had to be conceded, espcci�lIy from til nincteenth century on, that univerul cducation is indispensable in o to give this j1pdlude ils full dc:velopment and to secure a mil basis for r
�
�
. ',.e,-sal judgement expressed in universal suffrage The idea of 'personal \lO� ,on' perhaps owes part of its sclf-
� m:; :�
�
�
�ta{lve bodies). . . . like aIre polLucs, on questionn to a a response: producing of lei The ,'ollng or, at another level of participation. reading a party newspaper (pllrnal d'opinion) or joining a party. is a particular case of a s.upply meeting a demand, On one side is the field of ideological production. II rdallvely autonomous universe in ....hich amidst competition lind con aiel. the instruments for thinking ,he social wodd are created and whe�, through this process, the field of the �Ii�inlly thi�kable, or, 10 pUt It . another w:ay, rhe legitim�te problemallc, IS defined. On the other Side are $OCial ag�llIs, occupying different positions in the field of class rela tions and defined by a greater or Icssct specific political compctencC'-l g«:ater or lesser capacity to re.cognize a �Utical <Juesdon as poli:ical and to treat it as such by respondmg to II poll!!nlly, I.e., on the baSIS of spe cifically political principles ( t1Ither than ethical ones. for example) . This capacity is inseplr:ible from jI more or less strong feeling of being (om/", Iml, in the full sense of the word. thai is, socially recognized :IS entitled to deal with political .!fain, to express an opinion lIbout trn:m or even modify thelf course. In faCl. there is reason to suppose that competence In the sen5C of t�hnical capacilY (political cuhure) is correlated with Wmpetence in thc scnsc of jI socially recognized caplCity, ascribed by and ascribing stalus---t--- he opposite of which is both impotence and objective and subjectiv� exclusion ('Th3t is none of my business': 'Th�t dQe5n't in· terCSt me'),'
SelUliw Democracy
_
I\s $OQn as one lakes scrlously the 'don't knows' and their variations, �hich arc the most import�nt information supplied by opinion polls, it II cl(1r that the probability of having a particular opinion thar is asso Claled with , given otegory (which is indicated by the frequency with �hkh members of that otegory choose one or another of the alterna tl�es offered) is only a ((mdili{lllal proln.bility-the probabililY that an t�erltualilY will occur on condition that anoth�r evenlualily occurs. in
this OS/: rhe producdon of an opinion rather than rhe sheer absc:n� of rcspon$!:, The opinions recorded, that is, expliddy stared, cannot be ' • lerpreled ad�ualcl y unless it is borne in mind that they depend fOr t t existence and their significance on the (absolute) probability of prO d ing an opinion. which varies (at leut as signifiantly as the COndili probability of producing a panicular opini�n) according t? the p l"Optr. lies of the respondents and also the propertles of the queslLon, or, rn precisely. according to the relnionships bclwttn these two selS of p ties, This prol»bility is greater for men than for women, greater for rhc y�ung [han. the 01d: greater in luge lowns (esp«ially P:lfis): and risu . . . wllh educallonal apm1 (meuured by quallficallons) and economic capi. la1 (measured by income) and wilh social posilion. The variations linktd 10 these �riables are thai much mOil: marked when the questions art more remolC from experience. mOil: abstract and detached from ordinary realities in their content and phrasing (and also, bUI 5CCondarily. when they ha� only recently appeared in [he field of ideological production) and when they !'«Juire more insistently a response produced on the buis of sp«ifically political principles (a demand that LS perceived in the very syntax and vocabulary of the question). Everything lakes place as if the most 'legitimate' agents, {hat is" Ihose most competent in both se:nscs, well: and felt that much mort legili. mated-i.e" inclined and called upon [0 expll:ss an opinion-the mort 'legitimate' the problem pose:d, Thus, one finds that those who canllOf reply to the question of their political allegiance or pll:ference (indin!. ing Ihe party to which they feel dosest) are those who are also most in· clined 10 leave the other questions unanswered�spccially when dlC 9uestion posed is dearly localed in the register of professioMI politiCS. The intetvtewec5 who fall into the non.aligned 'grey area' in the SOfRES survey do nOt Il:ply mueh less oftcn (81 percent) than those who i
�
� ro;::.
percent), the right (93 percent) or Ihe extreme right (92 percent), when asked whether Fr.lnce should help ·poor countries'. But when asked whether France shou ld favour countries with a 'democratic Il:gime', they reply Significantly less often (n percent) than those idenrifying with dlC extreme left (76 percent), the Jeft (61 percent), the centre (n pereerll), the right (70 percent), or the e�tfCme right (74 percenl) (SOFRES.
1911 ).
For a mmpklc ""Ii
l
.":.t
y problems. calling for the cthiul responses of ordinary existence, or r·e. ryda he" problems mosl directly rooted in politiul or union expetience, like I� �thing concerned with wages. labour I<:lations, or the unions; and from (.�c roostare:lbStr1Ct fo.mulations of 'political sciencc' to conCI<:[e 'luestions t som elim es the pra({inl C"juivaknt of these. In practice, the bat ich done to rcpliute this ideal 'luestiOnnlil<: was to JUXtlpose: t could � [ ..:stionS borrowed from diffi;rent organi11l1ons. Howevn, .he rue of from one institute to another (other things �ing �'I knows' varies al. SOFRES llways Sttms to find (,;wer than ll'OP) and, inckpc:nd.:ntly he 'l\tCStion, from one survey to another i_c. according to [he inter· j� .�rs' inSHuCtions and rheir inclination follow Ihem. For a given sub�
.
�
.
'
.
.
10
" aJso vanes o�r lime. �1 F tlhermore, the absence of a reply is OOt alW:lYs the product of a nega· cklermination and, alongsick the non'=ponses for lack of competence •>If; ·� e Iectlve K: . non·responses, a which lrt" analysed here, onc also has 10 count tl genuine abstention expressing the effect of a discordance with the kgiti. mate reply, which is censored because: it dare nOt � expressed_n ethiul pollli<::l1 conflict wirh no outcome bul silence. In :l particularly clnr case 01 censorship, a consider.lbk proportion of the farmers and small employel$ (17_1 percent and l �.8 per(lt answer, 19 percent said they w.:rc satisfaclOry and 44 percent said they OOt. Tt,o,e who would vote for the orher !ef,· or righ,.wing pmies 'nS"'ercd mort" often: only 18 perccot of the PSU voters were ·don't·knows', 22 ptl(C1\t of the Cent.im. 26 pel(ent of the Soci.l im and Radicals, 27 per· (tnt of the Gaullisrs (UDR), }2 percent of [he Giscardians {RI), .nd they much mOK often said the agrttmcnts _re unsatisfactory (80 percent of 'he: V(){ers, 73 percent of thl': Centrists. 10 percent of the Socialisrs .nd 'dl(als, 69 percent of the GaulliSlS, 64 percent of the Giscordians). SimI' 1,ly, asked whether they ·.pproved or disapproved of the introduction of W:� education inlO the school curriculum' (IFOP, 19(6), 19 percenl of thl': agricultural wo.kers gave nO .nSwer (as ag.inst I I percent of rhe employ·
Of
"ell:
�
�U
crs. 9 percen! of the m.nu.] workers. ckric.] workers .nd lunior CXe( . tt� .nd 7 percen! of the senior executivc:s .nd profc:ssionals) , 33 percent � o ,hem diupproved ."d 48 p<:rcen ' approYed (whl:rns 7. p<:rttn, of lhe nior exC(u,ives .nd profi:sslon.ls, 72 p<:rccnt of Ihe m.nu .1 workers cI tsr. 'NOrkers .nd junior executiYc:s and 60 fX'rcetl' of Ihe employers wc"; f "(aI avou•. abk).
,o o: ,;: ;': ;" k: ' ' ': 'C C ' "C 'C ' 'C 'C c " "C l ,-, ": "o : : "c: , : 'C : c: "= �: -c "": : · 'C � =.·: 8� "0 c ": C f.. b/ "' '� ':..· DoC polC ::
-;;:'",n
-
It is non�[hd� possible to get a fairly pr«ist idea of Ih<-: spttific d'ftt of the rdallonshrp between the rtspondcnt's compelence and tbe sub' I1 �nd form of the (jucsrion by .:xamining how the gaps between the JC( raI of non·response-.-c g., for men and women-vary in a single surv Q SOFRES survey of February 1971 on Fr.lnce, Algeria and [he ;:;i . . World). that IS, In a cast where .U other things may be considerc l C<jual (5« "ble 28). One first finds Ihat though women reply almost :as of as men when asked if 'France is or is nOI doing enough to help im
�
:
grant workers find accommodation' (8� pero��n l in each cast), 'to g_ rhem training' (70 percent as against 7� percent). 'to make them .;; come' (80 percent 2S against 83 percent). 'ro give them decent woa a' (77 percent as agaiosl 83 percent). all of which 'R: problems that can be considered ethiCilly and ,h2l. � ceording to the traditional moralu1. women iR: competent ro deal wllh . rhey 'R: much less inelined to reply than men when confronted with a specifiCilly political problem. Only n
percent of them, compared with 92 percerll of the men. answer a <[un don on 'continuing the pdiry of co-oper.lfion with Algeria', a problem, as
•
the heart and feelings ('Among the different groups of under.dcveJoped counnies. in your vicw should France take a particular interest in 1M
/'«1'''' counnies}'). women reply as often as men (88 percent each). Bur when Ihe survey returns 10 specifically politic.l or political.scienlllic qucstinning"'""""'"llnd an abstnct vocabubry which mc:ans diffen::nt Ihings to . different groups--by asking if France should be interested in 'countnCS which have a dtmOC'fali( �tgimt', the proportion of women who reply again falls sharply, 10 �9 percent compared wilh 74 percent of Ihe men ul We see hl:re • paradigmatic exampk of IhI: effecl$ of Ihe di"i�ion of I.bo au' bo:lwn,'n lhe :;exc:s. Men feel .11 IhI: more slrongly required-nOI simply thorized-to formulale an opinion. 10 tht eXlem Ihal ....omen fed d,spo:nst
as is
�
otabh
htlp ,htm fin.d xcom·
M�
[)o.,',
kno9<
M� Women c. m.kc ,hem ..ekome? M," Women M," Women
" "
d. giye them decen' w.g..?
Quc$"on
So<
" " " '" " "
mod.,ion? b. 1f1.;n ,hem!
w_
Noc rnoogh �
'" "
"
..
,.
" " "
" " "
..
" "
"
....g.rds
As
u
So<
wi,h
Don', kno.. ,
"
Question 3. Among ,he di�",nl groups of u"""r-deyeloped
mould Ff1.nce I1ke 3 I"'"i(ul.. inlCteS' in,
•. 'he p0Ol", (oun·
So<
M," W_" M,"
Oon', know
(oun'.... w....... f",,·
Men W_
" " " " " "
dernocf1.'ic ft'girroe'
Men W_"
" "
"...1
b. us fOffner ,
","""
Fr'i'''o'\( -M�r;.n rtl..ion., do you think " dQ;t.lbk AI&"ri,? ft.ll\Ce contin e • policy of cOOf""t.I,ion
1.
M� W_"
the question itself indicates, of pure politics. foreign policy being mol'!!' remote from concrel( experience than internal polilks. cspecially whCl'l approached. as here. wilhout any elhkal reference ('As regards Fr.lnc()o
Algeri.n relations, do you think il desirable thaI France should continlK a pdiry of c(KIper-lIion wilh Algerian. As soon as the abstract (jucslion of co-operatiQn is pUI back into rhe realm of ethics, or even the chanty which the lradition.l division of labour assigns 10 ...·omen. specialists of
_ .. in::.. The", ..... .. p�nr , 1..,11<' number of ;mm'/(f1.nr ....rke Frm ce ll>q often do unplnsanr 9
colon...?
'hI! of France' d. ""'n[fie! ,h.. ha..., I
eign '0
policy i, d�
w_
Yo
No
" "
" "
counwe., in your Y.
"OC'"
No
"
" " " " " '"
H
'" ..
"
..
" "
I'A/fir" " k TUn i\I-,", Ft:bru.'J 1971 • n... d,,,,;bu,,ons by e
Sou"e: SOFf�ES. U "".."',.
,h.,
�
"
�itw of the st�ual division of labour. which is incre�singly recognized and . Ont moyes down fhe hicr:archics of economic and pecially cui· ,nd,ns
fur:al npiul
..
Th( effc
lhu othet ,irie of polifinl competence. roucational 'lualiflC'illlion (ICC I>bIe 29). Thu s. when asked ho..... Iht}' ....ould "Ole In the: evtnt of parli•. IrIenlary eleclions, ....omen oyerall reply Jess of"n Ih.n men, but the gap be
of
""�n ,he sues len
�IIIOII
Tabu 29
'Oon', kno... (%). 1970.'
·
r...ponses to qu... tion. on t�uhing, by roucarion 1
.
::'-
� 1-;;:;
' "CC '< 'C bc "C O-,:: �'C 'C C " : "" ': '<: 'o� ", : CDoC Soconda,),
P ,ima,),
Tcuhing i. a good iob
Teuhers !hould be admired for doing thei, job in pr=n.-day condi.ions Many teuhers don', do ei. job con"ien' tiously Tt:lchers aren·. firm enough ...i.h young
n�
p"p" ,eochers' olidays are '00 long T",chcrs aren't paid enough Tt:lchers a ,00 in.olved in poIi,ics Tt:lchers aren', mined properly to do their ""
re
11.4
.,
26.7
21.6 12,0 464
h
�
0'
11.2
.h
French
"
10.�
17,7
16.9
0,
17.6
" 19.2
24.'
12 �
"
2'_9
323
47_9
lH
SoUf(e: IFOP, March 1970. realm of ordon.!),.,.. 1. The �,es of non response are generally highe' 'han in perience, '0 whkh .he first 'lues.ion still belong" Thi. i. understand.ble since tbe .u"""y de.l, with 'he education.1 sy••em. an institution which .ppe:m less con,rol. lable the Jess qualified i,. In ,hi, intermed;." lone bct"'een .he domes.ic and the political, the 'don't knows' in"",se ., the ques ions mOve from mo,.,.lity (em. ph.,i,ro by .uch ethically loaded ...ords as: 'should be admired', firm enough') w....f(h pol;.;es_ Comparison of the distributions fo. the 1m ,wo questions (<"Specially in view of the f"• •ha, 'he 'don't know' ...es for men �d women are further apa... for the penultimate question-I8.�% .s .g.inl! H%_.h.n fot the I." one-32_)% as agai st 42%) .how. that .he p,opensi.y to reply Or '0 abs()in-social competenc..-ca be based on twO principles, which moy or m.y nOt ombine 'hei' drC'CfI: ,he "" us.assig ro compe.ence '0 judge the tdu' "'tional system conferred by qualification, and 'he ,tatus....igntd competen e '0
(he
·
one
,
'.ren'.
c
n n
'cons
n
c
judge poli.;'!. ...hich """ depends on se.,
24 perce t among craftsmen and shopkeepers, 28 percent and 18 percent
n
among manual workers and 38 percent m,
<
and 26 percent among f3rm work·
In faCt, analysis by f!1lC(ions would probably show thal, in politics as in aesthetics, differences between the sex� tend to diminish both when one mov� from the dominated classes to the dominmt classes and when, within the dominant class and no doubt also ,he peti,e bourgeoisie, on� mov� from the economiC'ltlly dominant fraction to the dominated f(:lctt()1t$. tha t the refusal of sexual StatuS, in political or other matters, tends to inCte1se with educational level. Thus when the sex� hl� i similar secondary or higher education, more women than men consider tha membeISh p in a family planning movement is a poli,ical act or that se� he educatio 's a political problem (the reIalionship be,ween the se�� on t m,� d .< o: o l<� o: lo w: f� q <;: : " : c : " : : "� ,� ,,� : ; ": ,' : : <: <'� � : : '� < l"': ": '. : : <,: "� ) __ , __ __ __ __ __ _ ___ :: " :: "�: : ,,
,he
Everything SU88�ts n
i
et(· da''] , More gc.nerally: the more th� qucsti o.ns deal w th inSo IStence, pnvate hfe or domcstlC morahty--houStng, food, ch!ld-ro
i problems ?f
:
ality (lc.-the s alkr becomes the gap between men and women or %u jl .een the least educated and the most educated, and sometimes it dis completely_ For example, to a qUCSlion on irls' upbringing,� tP rt1en reply scarcely less often than men (Xrcent and 96 (Xrcent) slightly more often than the more educated (94,� educated the less (XICent of those with of those with only primlry r(ent r' her education). Questioned on cooking, women reply m"�t "ftm than htll pe cent, for example, as against 94 percent, to a qu stion on fa· me dishes)�xcept for <jueslions on wines, knowledge of which is 1 vOurite a (tr bute, or a <jucstion in which culinary problems are uni rsal Ie C\'(Iould you say that, gmffal, th French cat tOO much, about the (Xrcent, women 96 percent; right amount, or nOt enough?'--men IV), SOFRES, December 197\: C.S, XXX logic explains why manual workers, who normally have a The s;lme Jrdcularly h i h rate of non·response, ar the mOSl eager to answer ques· on the rok in industrial disputes (the level of non· .nponse runs from 13 (Xrcent among manual workers to 18 percent among the e xecuti es and professions, 19 percent amon clerical workers and junior executivcs, 25 (Xrcent among cra tsmen and shopkeepers and 31 percent among farmers and farm workers)9 or on the parties and unions which best defend the interests of wage�arners (manual wo ke s 36..4 percent, �mploy rs 37,6 (Xrcent, clerical workers and junior execu· percent, senior ex�cuti s and the prof�ssions 40_1 (Xrcent, (Xrcent)_ ,0 By contrast, the more spec fically political or poli t farmers Kal·scienrific the question, i.e" the more it is constituted as such in both subject and langua8<' without direct reference to (he ex(Xrienc� or inter· estS of the group concerned, lhe greater the gap between men �nd women or between the least· and mOSt�ucated, Thus, in an extreme case, in an IFQP qucstion on the connection between the 1%7 Middle ElSt 'confl ct and the Vietnam 'war'," the level of 'don't knows' rose to 40 percent for women, 21_8 (Xrcent for men, 40,6 (Xrcent for thOse with primary educarion, 8.� percent for those with higher education, In an ot er question, previously referred to, on Czecho-Soviet relations the corresponding (Xrcent and I I are 44,6 (Xrcent, 21,1 percent, percent " In a sort of e x(Xrim ntal reproduction of electoral democracy, the survey Shows that the antinomy between democratic , grants everyone the right and duty to have an opinion, regardless sex and class, and technocratic uistocracy, which rcsuicts opinion to C f'(:ns' elected for their 'tntelligence' and 'com(Xtence', finds a practical litton in the mechanisms which induce the 'free' self�xclusion of os.: whom technocr:ltic selection would exclude in any case.
m
j!e�IS
g
(93.9
"In' J
schoohng, 92,8
n (9$ r i
e
::d
in
e 98
g government's
�ions
e
v
g
f
r r
e
tiv� 38.9 49
ve
ve
i
i '
h
figlltes
e
"'fh(Ch ?
39,4
spontaneism,
� �
Stqtkj
�IIS
and Competence
the probab lity of reply ng de(Xnds In each case on the relationShip t "'e.:n a <juestion (or, more generally, a si tllation) and an 1gent (or
i
i
elm o( ag�n!S) defined by a giv�n comrxf�nc�, � c�pacily who Ich depends on Ill.: probabilifY o( �x�rcising Ih�f opacify, 'lnf�rt'Sf' or (�rcnc� lowards polirics would Ix Ixl!�t und�fSlood if il w�re '�l� prorensilY to use, a polili(�1 f:'Ow�r (Ih� pow�r 10 VOle, or ' . . ' II(S or ge[ Involved In polItics ) IS comm�nSUl1ll� wilh [h� real'Ify pow�r. or. in Of�r words, Ihat indilf�rcnc� is only a i 1J por�nc�.
'
�
This hyporho:$is is fhe only Oil(: which e.plains Ihe (acl. commonl :" Kclf-cvidenl. [hal. like lhe propensilY fO rq>1.Y. [he rl«larro inre . IIlC! �s g,:-,rer amo,ng ".'en rhan women and IISCS wllh educalional b' d . pol. p
� �� dt:�
• " " " " " " " " · ' S S S " " " " · ""' S · •
If I Was Betcer Informed
·Whu 1 mean 10 uy is. I'd ceminly undcrsrand some [hings more if I was bcolfer informed 1111('S all. If I was beller informed. [hings would be very differen[. Because I don'[ go 10 enough mttllngs . _ . There are m1Kr ways of findins our. newspa pers. TV. d�b�Ics like ...... urnes cg�Io". you know. Bur you have to kr-ep following il. it's �Iways [h<; ume. you have '0 havc [h� lime. ' That's Ihe main problem. I haven l Am [h� lime, Now. if I had lime. I'd rcally like 10 find OUf aboUI all [haf. know whu's going on and so
on. Bu< I r�ally hav�n>1 SOl much rime, Now, if ! had mOle lime. ..-dl. I"d do som�Ihing abou[ II, I'd fry and inform myself. kcq> moK If! louch Whal I mean is. jf you're more in(o<m«l, you on discuSS
,
fhings wirh people_ When you don'l kno..- much. you'r� a bir left ou [." Chanwman
d e olv inv gt'l 'Of course, anyone can lll .,0In poIllics. ihat's frut BUl sl ,n need a cenain cducalion 10 p,o " egt for polilks, Need fO go rO coH, Ihlngs. don'l you. and Inrn lOIS of
.
Aillftirpal i dn!
'" .,'." " ,." '." " ." " .,.,, S
,.
(Cenl; M nd over, 19 pereenl). senior ex«ulivcs 2nd professionals 132 pC"enl ) more Ihan junior ex«ulivcs and clerical workers (28 peKem). f,smen and shopkttpcrs (27 percenl). manual workers (23 percem) or farm worker.; ( 1 7 percem) (SOFRES. November 1 9n J_ The rmelS and and professional calegori�. :Kcording to a SOI'RI'.5 survey exa:ulive �,or confain lhe high�I p.oporrion of indIVIduals who Soar [hey are ( L976. �Iso 10 discu" a parly's programme among [ho:mselyes, [0 fake pari in join 1 parry or donale money 10 2 party '10 ho:lp I�ir idc-:os sTr1lions. ,kmOO · "iumph . 11>cSC regularilies hav� 10 be comparro wilh lhose found in Ih� reerui, fTICI" and promolion of polilical personll(:i. Every indio[ion SUggeslS Ihal one has incompar.tbly grealer chances of faking an a(livc pan in poIifics pa"y if one is a man and highly edu· and having an imporlam role in a (11ed, Women mak� up only 1.8 perccnl of Ihe Chamber of Depulies and 2 ' percenl of,� Senarc. In all pa"i� [here are relafivdy f�wer women in rhe CCf1lnl decision-making bodies Ihan among Ihe local delegales " In 1917. wlten )0 perc�m ofr:;remial SociaiiSI vorers were women. only 30 pcrcenT of rhe members 0 Ihe local seclions in f'1.ris were wom�n, and only I.' percenl of th� ddegales :II Ihe pmy'S congress in Nantcs. In Ihe f'1.ris Federalion of lhe CommuniSI f'1.rty. women consli(Ulcd 31 perc�n[ of [he "'f;yiSIS prcscn[ a[ local conferences, 29 percem of I� delegates wilh p:!rty rnponsibililics and 26 percenl of 11K ·cdl· secr�laries. SImilarly. manual workers. who reprcscnted 3 1 percenl of Ihe UDR dec· fOrate and 1 6 percenl oflho: UDR members ( 1 7_6 percen[ in [he Gi londc:)
� f ::,�
·
.
.
provided only 2 percent of the officials and only 1 percffil of the Dq>u[ies dt.::red in 1968. A!though. :lccording [0 VOIing in[tnlions, lhey rq>rcscmed )6 percent of Ihe Sociaiisl el«torarc for Ihe whole of fiance (40 percen[ of Ihe whole working populalion) and 21.9 percen[ of [h� members in [ho: GIIO<1dc: (a dcp:!rrmen[ wirh 34.2 percem manual workers), lho:y were ai mos[ _nl from lite Paris branches (1.7 percent) and provided only ' f'C'r. cen[ of [h� dclega[� at ,he Nanl� congress and 0 pc"cm of [he Sociaiisl Dcruri� d«led in 1968. Manual workers were more represen[cd in Ihe membership of lite Communisl Pmy Ihan in Ih� working population (in ,he, Girondc. 13.8 percent as ag>inSI 34.2 rxrcenl). bUI slighdy less rcp<e' 5Cnlro among [he offic�.holding dckg:'lfes or cdl secrelaries (17 per<m. in f'lIlIS, who:rc lho:y consliluled 26 ptrc�nl of Ihc working popub[,on) or Communisr Depu[ics (37 percent of Ihose cleered in 19(8) as 1sainSI 40 por<:enl In [he nuion-wide working populalion. finds :l s.rong OY"-rq>.esmmion of gradual� among poIi[icians (al· I gh xfivism oIf�rs :lnorho:r w:ly in for lhose wi.h link educuion)_ In 1?68, 67.' percent o( Ihe Depu[i� had higher educuion, 14 per<enl second. "ry educa[ion. ....1 [he Socialis[ Parry Congress in Grenobk in 197�, ,4,6 rcenl of Ihe delcg:l[cs h:ld som� higher education, 23.3 pcrce", secondary 1ICI�lon; a�d everylhins sus.scs's ,h:ll possesis on of high educuiO<1al capi I 1 1.1 InCfCaSlngly Ix<:omin� a n«css:ory conJilion for sd«.ion as a Socialis. l;"Y ddeguc, TWD-Ih"ds of rhe Depuri� who joined Ih� pa"y Ixtwttn 71 and 1973 had hIgher eduellion. bUI only 34.6 percent of rhose who � lied before 1968. For SocialiSI Drpurics. access [0 official posilions in lho: N'''Clrtal AS$Cmbly grOtlp (commitlcc membership c.(,) dcpc:nds e',her 0<1
�
!'d p"
!SSSssS" sse',s'sse" " " " " ,'e,ss s,
Class Consciousness
'To Slaft ..ilh, when [ gol married, I had no ddiniu: opinions, I was
from Brimny, Stt, I cerninly fell Ihere were problems and, well, I fel! iI, bUI I couldn'l deflnc Ihem. I married a CommuniSl, wilhoul real· ixing it. AI 6rsl, you know, whcn I had jusl arrived i n Ihe hoo�, when I pw L'Hu1IUJllili Dnullrht, I 90':15 (urious. You Itt, I didn't know Ihc p'f'C'r, for months and years I didn't kno.. aboul il. And Ihen, link by liltie. you 5«, I was led to I'«og· niu, you Stt, that maybe ils aui· tudes were a liHIe bit hard. but the f:act was, Ihey were righl. My hus· band 90':15 a traQc.union man, so 1 W2S dealing wilh a lrade unionist, and Ihen J had OBC, twO, Ihrtt chil· dren, Ihen, you $«, I went through Ihc difficulties of life like everyone,
'"
linle by linle. 1ncr( were SOITlc �e ba� paKhcs, b«:au� [ had 10 look,.,. afler my rnQIher :15 well 1.$ eVery. Ihing else. And my husband's a wo rker, righI, so I knew about th.c workers' problems. And then I really made up my mind at the ti me of the Algerian Wif, you sec, I leal. ized that monstrous things were being done Ihal we bd always been 'vinS!. We'd always thoughl that Ihal "'2( 90'1.$ wrong md Ihal W1.$ rcally when I understood whit lhe: Party slood for. Especially when ther( wu the m;1SS;lCfe al Charonll( remember? Well, thai completely � vol!ed me, bc<::ausc you sec, I' d made my husband sl2y 1t home that evening, otherwise he mighl have b«n thcre.'
SI"mJ/rtjJ, I,,","'J wilt, 4gt 42,
C-IIIllllisl
!" " ,s" seeeeee" ,s" " s" s" s" sss,s
thc volume o( educational C:lpm,1 (64 f'C'rcem of such 'office holders' have highcr education. }\ f'C'r<ent of the rest), or, in pmiC$ in which t�e great majority of Depulies have higher educalion, on Ihc lyf'C' of eduC':ll1on1.1 c:lf>' ilal (bw and the humanitIes are o,·er.rcprcsemed).
ea So il v_ould be naive to sec the very dost relationship betwct:n ed�
l lional npilal and the propensily w answer Ihe mOSt s�ificaUy poltna pe" <juestions as a simple and direct effect of the une<:Jual dtsmbunon of s. ton cific polaical comp
Ih :I degrct: above Ihe lirmft di�tinguishtxlat leaSI nine groups (1 r(Ofm,nce rarely :achie�ed by Ihose wilh the CEP or CAP and never by pee unqualified). 1nc abiliTY 10 make refined cJ:assifiCllions. the readiness TO th men! on (hem and, especially, 10 give names or <juallficrs to Thc C':ITCSO' cOf1I�an(S eyen more srrongly by social posiTion, wunrional capital and "a ' . I� II!
os( ""
oc I: C , C .,,, �:: ,� ,,,::.: · ..
',g, "
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Such a reading-overemphasizing the une'lual distribution of politi. I capinl-which would be supported by all the appearances, would no more Ihan record tWO contr.tSting and complementary rep=nta· tOnS of the division of political labour: Ihe lechnocraTic rep=ntalion, hkh makes tcchniol competenCe (� definw by !echnocrats) Ihe pr(o condition for acCO!> to 'polilical rcsponsibilitiC$' or 'responsible' polilical choices, and Ihe complemenury rep=ntation, based on the sense of in· compelence and impotence, which condemns Ihe economically and cui· rurally deprived 10 re:liance on 'eKf'C'rts' or a belief in 'cryptocracy', another way of overestimating (he Olher classcs. Like e�ery recording of 'dall' al face value, this endorsement of appearances would have the ef· fcct of preventing in<juiry inlO the objective bases of Ihese represent2' lions. and, more precisely. would prevent one from looking into Ihe reality of the division of political labour for the trulh comaintd in lhese representalions of Ihe division of labour. In faCl, here as cJscwhere, Ihe relationship belwC(n rcality and represen· mions is eslablished through thc dispositions which are the intemalized form of rhe plObabilities associated with a given position in Ihe division of labour. 'Techninl' competence depends fundamentally on oc>ciai com· f'C'lencc and on the corresponding scnsc of being entitled and rcquirc
� �
�t
both on 1m: marked individual, who is oiled upon to 'Jive up' 10 h is r her social definition, and on othel'$, who expect him or her to :u:tuarO t his or her csscnce, (The psychological translation or Ihis relationShip � IS pardcubrly visible in the rebtions within couples. ) TIm is why corn tence in the sense of specific culture is to competence in the sense or tuS property as existence is to csscn(C: only those who ought to have on rally acquire it and only Ihose who are authorim::l 10 have if called upon to acquire it.
�� �
�c begi�nin8$ of a proof ?f this argum.em art �n in the faet that, mhc:t
so
-
things being e<:Jual (to parucular, educational upttal), women differ from much in sniet technical competence as in their manner of af. men not firming it. Thus, at e<:Jual edunrional levels. women define almost the saJnc: number o( categories within the universe of political movements and �r. ties, and almost as often give them names. It is true that, partly becau$C and they invest mort in it, the men know more politics is their polilician$' names, more often know which pany they belong to, (tn � often give rhe name and pany of their local Deputy. BUI lhe di/fcrt'nCl: is grrares1 when it is a matter of socially :lMI:rring Ihis competen
business
the
eciucarioall
Thus. vui�lions in the rate of non-responses by sex, � or social cI�ss, th�t is, roughly according to the rob�bility of «: l111 scssing power in any field whatsoever, show that political competen son the sense of a socially recognim::l capacity is one of the aptitude's a per iOfll has insoru as he has a right or duty to have Ihem. And Ihe vanlf � sa which also found, other things being ((j sl, �ccording 10 Ihe lion of Ihe question with indices of conformity 10 the norms of shof die' cized political dis:cou= s�y isti� ne�t�!ity, euphemisms elc): . o . lion conmbullon whtch 'polmoJ SCIentISts make 10 Ihe Impost .,. e; ill limits of competence when. by bestowing the appearances of $Cl o th' Iheir inquiry and its analysis, they reinforce the sense of unwor
c�pit�l
are
the 'incompelent'.
p
�
l
u
depOIi;
fbi
Right to SJNak
'flit' propensi ty to speak polirically, even in thoc mOSt rudimentary way, producing a 'yes' or a 'no'. or pUlling a beside prefabri. that is. by Ihe righl to having of $Cnse the to proportionate strictly is cared answer, �k. Nothing shows this more clearly Ihan the composition of the so lied spontaneous sample of people who responded 10 a 'national con. " eduOlional system, organim::l, with the aid of the press, sliltuion' on '9 the events of 1968. In so doing they 2SSerted Ihemsdves as parties afler to the debate, entitled 10 express an authorized, authoritative opinion, to voice the performative utterance of a legitimate pressure group.XI The opinion mobilim::l-u if by a petition-about eduorion closely coin. cides with the popubdon of usen of higher eduotion. The probabilily thaI an isolated a�nt. in the absence of any delegalion, will form an ex. plicit. whelCnt opinion on the educational syStem depends on the extent production and is objectively and 10 which he depends on it for his subjectively inlmsrM in its funCfion ing.
cross
a
thoc
re
OM'S i,:"porlancc within iI, the !"I..te of respons.:; .rises with
As if lhe propensity 10 inAuence Ihe destiny of the inSlitulion rose wilh
the sense of legit. Im:o<:y In speaking aboul " and wIth the ,mmc:dlacy o( self-interest in ils functioning." Thus the probabilily of responding, which is much grrater for men Ihan fot women (Ihe latter tending to wrile in as 'pu�nts' ralher Ihan as :luthQrizcd spokesper.;ons of group or the �ncral in((resl) and for Parisians Ihan for provincials, is, for a given socia! class. very close to ils ob. �Ijve chances of gelling lIS children into one of the grandes ecoles (i.e., "
a
�I:us
s
t�� ::r s.:::1
u
I�J,
'SSSSSS'S
Quantity and Quality
'II would k dan�rous, in Ihls area, to allow thl: notion of f{"anlJll to pre�all ovecr that of quality. A ccr· T,a(hn, ma'ginal lllJlt
lain ((JIIIptlnla ,5 rfijuirc-d, II � 10 me, to maict an ob�ti�ee JUdflls �. fIlcnt of thc
10 IfEERS '"",_,,/ (OIIJIJI/''''io,,' 'flJltS11o.nr.", 4
','S'SS" " " ,SSSS'S" ,'S.SSSSS.S"
[[FOP, s.:pteemkr 1%8). 26 percent of each sex); thetl; aree moree 'don't knows' among the less educated than among (he more highly cdUC1,cd 02 percent, 19 pcrcent and ,� percent in f($ponsc to ,hesc Ihr� qucstions In the case of those wi,h only primuy education, I) percen" 6 percent and LO perceent f($pecli�ely in the C1S<: of gl1llduatcs). thl:rr nee morr 'don't kno...,. among pro�HlCla1s than PariSians, and st<:cadlly more as one mo\'es down the social hiel1llrchy_ Thus the sel f.sek
tion is from tM- educational SYSlCm. the more lhose who rcspond belong 10 thlt pa.rt of (he fl1llCtion most intef($,ed m the educational system. •e . those who are of an ag<: '0 have children m secondary o. higher edu{1lion Thus 49.7 pelCeent of ,he ,nchus in thee spon,anrous sampk �rc aged }).� (}8.9 percen, rn 'he workIng popul �tlon ) , 697 percen, of the professIon' als (H.) percent in the working population). 77.1 per(Cni of Ihe emplo� (XU po:rccn, in ,he working popula,ion). l r follows from ,his over·selection that the differences ktwecn ,he d� and the fl1llctions (who, wilhin the middle and dominanl claS$CS. arc rtptt' m. scnled in accordance with theeir cultural capital) arc reduced 10 a m,",m , $0 that the degree of agre<:menl ovcr Ihe r.roblems menlioned is no do" grealer than in Ihe popularion as a whok.1l If teachers are so strongly °l\f(f'
�
represcnted, this is becausc ,hey ire in,eeres,ed and leeguimalcd on �"(f1. rf. COUniS. In fact, thl: hiel1llrchy of chanccs of parriciparion shows 'h�t the e (eel of legitimacy predominates over ,hee effee, of intetCSI duee 10 s,mpl . n membership l1tc rcprc$Cnt1flOO of ,he diffeerenr "'tegorics of tcache , c reases IS one moves up lhe hieel1llrchy of ,nstltutlons (L9 pe! 10,000 0: � mary Inchers. }4 for CET ,cachers, 60 for CEG tcachers." 199 for I�h IOChers, 224 for higher.nluca.ion tnchers) and also by I1IInk wilh,n (1<
�
lion ( rising from )8 for 'supply' or $ubstilu,ee ,nchers
10
17) for (Cr·
�'tUteachers and }82 for Ag.igls, and from 164 for AlJiJ/al1IJ (junior leetur·
I�
rl
ns"ucrors) to 2()4 for ",,,il.tI·"lJi,l,,nIJ {senior k
erS. 'rs
� I
�
J no' '�,ncs. �
mdu;onal diKi·
BUI the =ntial lcsson of this analysis is that in forcing on everyone. unIformly, problems which only arise for a fcw, by a p rocedu re as ifre· proachablc as ,he administration of a qucstionnai re wirh pre,formed an· swers to a representadve sample, there is every likel ihood of neadng a pure artifact Out of thin air. Opinions are made (0 eexist wbich did nOf
pre�xist ,he questions, and which otherwise would nOt have been ex pressed; or which, if rhey had Ix1:n otherwise expressed, i.ee., through au· lhotized spok�men, would have Ix1:n quitee different; opinions which. in any ClSC. had Hrrlee chancc of being formulucd spomancousl y, of being
rlefllonstr:l.tcd� demonS'I1II'ion being one way of giving streng,h to opinions by
eer words. because il necessarily contains a power 10 mobilile �nd a prIn orh fension '0 exist. political opinion is defined, not onl y by its in· OttOative COnteen! but also by the social force whcreby it exists as a pol iti. �21 fotce, although i, is political opinion which helps to make that social fIlent.
C
Otce eexist
by mobilizing the group which contains il in poten tial (orm. The authorize-d spe«h of sl1tus-gc:nera,ro compe,eencee, a po9.'erful �h which hdps to crnte what il says, is answered by the silence of an t't!ually slatus-linked incompetence, which is eexpo:rieenced a$ ,e.:;hniol in· qpa i,y c and leavcs no choice but ddeegation� misr<:Cogni2cd dispoSo
session of the less compell�nl by the more compcll�nt. of wOmell bY of ,he less NUClIIt
,
$f>C"Ik' by those who 'spnk wdr. Thee propensity 10 ddc8�le r 110" to onSlb;J. ;; ily for political maner.; to others recognized as [e<:hnic�!ly
m(l<:ren,
vuies in inverse ratio {O [hI' educational capilal possessed, � uso: th e Nu(uional qualifKltion (and 'he c ulture it is presumed to gua l radrly rt"811rded-by ;IS holckrs bUI also by othcrs--as a ic:girirn,ucfi et) i$ 1 1 the c:o;crcise of authority. On !he one side, there arc those who ad [' 1(0 0 h r polit;cs is nOI for [hem and abdicate their formal rights for lac " / a ° m�ans of cx(r�is.ing them; on 'he odu:r" those wh? ,(eel entided lO c ht . l i a personal opmlon , or even the authontatlv( op'nIon which 1$ the rno. 11'1 nopoJy of the compelenr. These twO oppo5N bUI complcrncnrary scmalions of [he: division of poli[kal labour reproduce: [he: ob'�
�
k
of history (Gmhi(hlShiid), in the elitist philosophy of history . at? I�ich pcrml'2tcs the lcachi ng of tha[ discipline, are prolnbly milSing lhe: �ndal �i�I." n fact, I�e �ucational institution as a �h�lt, fro� irs . ictly indlVlduahst orgamuuon of work 10 the taxonoml("s II appllcs In
�
sIr
i yi ng optrations, which always favour Ihe original over the com· lS cbss f t on. not co mention the contenlS il te:aches and [he way they are l2ught, [0 rcinforcl' rhl' propensity to ind ividualism or egoism which thl' JIlllds t ildren of ft!( pclile bourgeoisie and gran
� �
:
al)' flCld and in thl' wucational system. are cbrly central to [his cull of [Ilt self. in which philosophy, oftl'n rNuccd 10 a lofly assenion of the
�
nisms, encourages immersion in the uniqueness of formalive: l'xpcrienccs (unlike .sociology, which would not bt so resisted if il did not rNuce the
lCu� division of poli[ical 'pow�rs' belwt<:n (he: classtS and lhe: .sc:x� in lions. pracliccs and discou�s, and .so hdp 10 reproduce: [ht divis ivn II·' . . stIf" . And so .11 1$ Ihal, by one: 0f th� paradoxical rev�lSals thaI Itl' . . . which thl' n ine:tt<:n th-cen _ � common In such mane:lS. cuucanon [u
ry
�
thinkcr"s distinction, also has a pall to pl�y. And Ihl're is every reason to predict thai psychoanalysis, which, although il describes grnetic m�ha·
'jlCrsonal' 10 the grlll'ric, the common), will have a plaCl' in the mod
forml'f1 expcxlc:d abovl' all 10 l'nsure Ihe: proper functioning of unlvtru!
emist variant of this c ult.
ft<:[ive: for not being officially or ev�n lacilly imposed. which supportS and lcgitimalcs unc-qual participation in electoral democracy and. len.
the media bUI also the sptcific social conditions which produce: Ihe
suffrage by producing citizl'ns capable of voting ('W� must c:duca[e 0• • mas[ers ) now lends to fun([ion as a pnnciplc of .sc:lection, the: more
n.
Personal Opinion Nicl:tSChe somewhl're derides the an
[he: fu ndamemal oppositions (Ihl' othe-r bc:ing organi =! around Ih� 0p position betwern e:ast and [X>verI ) in th� language- of bourgeoiS erhlCS Y and ae-sthelics. Th05l: who aim 10 identify the comribution the c-duca· lional sysle:m may make 10 Ihe- inculcation of a vie:w of Ihl' social world .; and who, as in so many studies of the content of hislOry manuals. too r for i { in the- most dim:1 and most visible idrological im�rvenfions. o even, like [he work of the- Frankfurt School on [he- basic elemenfS of (lit
To explain the: petit·bourgeois prl'tension to 'pr:nonal opinion', one has to considc-r nOl only the reinforee:me:nt by Ihe educalional syStem and
'opiniOnated: habilus. It (2n be Setn tha[ [he: daim 10 Ihe righl to ·per.
sonal opinion' and distrust of all forms of
whost whole past and whole plOitcred futurc arc Oril'Oled towards indio vidual salvalion. baSl'd on personal 'gifts' and 'merits', on thl' break.up of
oppfClSive solidarities and e,'l'n the: rc:fusa.l of onl'rous obligations. on the .i,SSSSSSS-SSS·SS!SSS"
A Very
Personal Opinion
I don't Want to VOle for I pany. I VOle for :l candidate. A candid:ue wilhout :I party label would be txt·
'PoIllinl partin don't intercs[ me.
'"
haven'l gOI In exacl tkfinilion of SO(talism. It·, .n overuse
.]
construct
nOt
SSS'
'Personally I don'[ think I ould enrol i n a p2fly. I"d be inopabk of hIving [he same [25ln sllaight:lway. Bo:ause of my Jansenis[ origins and my bookseller grandfather. I'm open to everything and ! can't get excited What I mean aboul a gcnetlll [ good poinls of is. appr«i2le II>( several partin. Given Ihat it's one's very personal opinion [hal counts, I don'[ think it's possible 10 And a party that can combine cerlain cle ments of stvl'ral doctrinn thn pet· SOfl:llly I don't find incompa[ible."
c
idea.
ArrOli1l1all1
�" " " 'SSSSS'SSSSS" " " " " " S" " Si
' • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • w . w s . ' •, • • • • • • • • • • •
An Unc12ssi6able Professor
'Could you situ�te yourso:l{ on the political spewum?'
'Look, thaf's ano,her question I'm incapable of ans...ering. I eould tell you I VOlt
'Could you define )'Ourso:lf in some
O!ht-r w,y?'
'In terms of rhose mo"('ments? Look, where do you pur GaulJism? Jr's , question I have to a$k you There are G'ullim who 5;ly they ire left.wing, and oth,,, who 5;11 they are right.wing. One of Ihem 5;lld it once (laughs). ThaI was brave of him, If I look at the way I've VOtro since I firsl smtro, I've VOtt
.. lh� principk of polilical parties Un. 5a1l5fa(lory. If you like, I thInk iI'S 1 mxesury evil like a 101 of other things. But I don't fed f'C'l'$()nalJ Y conceme
�,
�
Ulli�trJity pro!mor, PariJ
·s.s·" ,'s,··,'s." ,·SS" ,.SS·.ssss.s.s
'
choice of systematically privileging the private and intimal(, both at work and 'at home'. in leisure and in thought. as againsr [he public. rhe , collective, Ihe common. Ih(' indi/ferem, the borrowr-d,16 But the nljvdy
'('goisric' d ispositions of the [>(Iit bourpis hav� nothing in COmmOIl wi th the subtle egorism of thosc who ha"e the mnn! ro affirm the uniquenns of their [>(fSOn in all th('ir pr:l.Cliccs, starling with their p� (ession. a 'ibtr�' lcriviry. frttly choscn and freely (OnduClC(rson· ality', irreducible 10 the anonymous, im[>(rson�l. interchangnblc roles ) III with Which the [>(Iit bourpis must srill identify ("rules are rules' order ro (Kist or. at Inst. in order to ha'� their soci�1 existence recog' luSt· nized. es[>(ciaJly in their conAiCls with the bourpis! ' And rhe diSt 111
(ul prudence which shuns delegation and enlistm('n t has nothing l1· common with the conviClion of being the best spokesman for dis"
guishcd thoughts 2nd opinions,
"
' . C C • • s • • s c s s •• • ' " . • • ". • • • C • • C• • • • s
is a fight, And in a 'J think politics
to be a lot of you. 6 ht there h;u . �� a mass, Y,ou n=> (h4f'W()"UI", (Ammu"iJl "
'When they really go on Jtrik�. it's broiust: ,hey really need to, People don't go on mike JUSt for the fun of il.'
a.�.
" i • • S . C C • S • • • , C S S , . S S S S S S • • • , . C . S . , C .
that for politinl in, executives are ,he category ....ho mOSI often Sly 5:,1I10rlion. 24 f'C'"em of they rely on daily f"'f'C'rs (27 percent of them. and .
ckrinl workers, as agai nst 14 f'C'"ent of the brm· percent of craftsmen and shopk�!,) efS, II peKent of manull ....orke". 8 r (19 f'C'tcem of th(m. as against 7 percell! of IUIliO or on �«kly ml�ines of t n f'C' rce pc-rcent of manual ....otke". � (JC(uuva and ckflul workers, 6 seen lIS a be may This ers), nt of farm c",ftsmen and shopkccpcrs and 4 f'C'"e 'form to ) (which rises with rouutionll lcvcl manitdl1tion of the concern instr�. resorting t� t�( m�1 sp«ifK: and m�t kgiti,mare an opinion' by , Ion . whICh can be chQS(Cn III rebnon to one s , men'. the 'journal of op,n 'mass mroia' o/ferlllg ho- . radio r � ?�? i v i �(le to posed op i n ;u on. -:-: own opi I'I'It, May 1976), And one IS mo�nized produClS (SOFRES, T iliJ,l1Ilm tl ptUtI ed opspo i tion in the fact tha�, to pursue lemptro to see a similarly WuClur , s beheve !II f'C'rsonal represtntauons ro a their dtmands, senior necu(lve rely on mikes more often public service, where;u manual and office workers c" and junior cxcc�tives pre· than Olher utegories, while aflis;rns., shopkccp , whKh does not prco('XtSI or OUI' fer a demonwation, 1 sudden mobLhza\lon live the event. fOlln1
the' junior eKecutiv('$ and
But even a rapid reAcction on the social conditiOns of the creation of demand for a '[>(rson11 opinion' and of the achievement of this ambiti? n is suffic ient 10 show thu. contrllfY to the naive belief in formal C<Jualtty before politics. the working-class vicw is relIlistic in seeing no choice. for the mos! deprived. other than simple abdication, a resigned recognition
of status-linked incompetence. or lOul delegation, an unte$erv('d remis !.ion o( self. � tacit confidence which chooses its speech in choosing ilS spokamen.
The
Modes of Production of Opinion
In he! nOI all answers are opinion�. ana rhe probabili ty !hat a given group's roponses arc only disgui� non·responses, pol i lC concessions {O
the imposed problematic or elhiul d iscourses naively received as ·per· sonal opinions'. no doubt vari<'S in the same way as the probahili!y o( non.r('$ponse which chan.crcrizcs thaI group The propensity and abili ty , to raisc interots and experiences ro rhe order of political discourse, to s«k coherence i n opinions and to inregrarc one's whole set of anitudcs arOund e�p licit poli tical principl<'S, in faC! dc:p<:nds very closely on educ"-
. lional capital and. se.:ondanly, on ovcr:.Il1 capital comhOsiri on , Incr�' F, ' h ! h<: re"anv, weigh! 0 , cul(ur:I.] capital as against ('(onomie Cap. '.,. WI! Ital II is nor sufficient [0 r«ognitt the in�uali[ies in 5[1[U5 co p ;n t�cnct :which forcC' mention (0 the 50CiaJ condilion5 of possibility o ca1 Judgement. 1k �OSI fundamental political r�lcm. t� questior: ';' he modes of produclton of {h(> answer 10 a polmnl qu<:sl1on, is co pI ' rn tlely muked when Ont: accepts the inldll."(ruaJisl premise: thaI eve'" ., answer , " ' ' <jutSllon IS (he' produn of an a(1 of ""jilin] ,' ud.,.. a po'mea ".m Cn! >0) I0 ' ,.. . n fact, m ans"'cr [0 a question whICh, by {he dominant ddinirio 0r poll. ries, would bc:: classified as political (e.g.• a <1uesrion on abortio" Or ' Stu. . _ produced by thrl."( very different n LC denl dCmonSlr:lIlOns) can } L od of prootlC"I,ion. The principle of production may be, first. � claSS�th�, . generative formula not consfI!Uled as such which enables obi',Cllve ,y C()o " . ' e With the prawnl premises of he�nt responses, compallbl a praClical reIUlon to the world, !O be generated for all the problems of everyday ' � a systemuic political 'slanr' (parti) a __ond"y. II may "0 uc """ nlStence. ,em of explicit specifi�lly political principles. amenable to 10gi�l c: : trol and rdicxl"e scnmny, In shorl, a SOrl of political 'axiom�t' c�' rIn which enables the in�nttyo, ordinary bnguage. a 'line' or 'programme') . . " ' po"IlIea acrs and JU O dgemenrs Implted 10 the algorilhm, and no olhers, to c _ generalc _" uc u or [orescen. Th' dIy, II ' may be a Iwo-srage choice i e the identificalion, in the mode of knowledge, of the answers consis;e�t '�'Ih
!
If
Ihe ' Ii�e' of a po!itjc�l, JYoIrry, this lime in the sense of an orpnimi�n . , pro v�dmg a polillcal hne on a set of problems which it constitutes u . po1iucal. The adhertnce implied in this tacit or explicit dde�tion may . , Itself be based on pucueal rtcognlllon by the erhos or on an explicit choice enrailed by a 'siant', J<> There is every differtnce betw�n the intentional cohcrencc of the practices a�d ?iscourses generated from an explicit 'political' principle . an? t� ob,cc{!ve systematlCity of ,he pracricl'$ produced from an implicit prinCIple below the level of 'political' discoulX, that is. from objeClivdy : srstemauc schemes of thought and aClion, acquim::l by simple familiarila· . . . "o�. wllho� t explICII I�cutcauon, and applied in the pre-reflexh'e modr Without being mcxhanlCally arrached to class condition, thcsc tWO forms of politica� dispositi�n are closely linked to il. chiefly through rhe mate· . nal eond[{!ons of eXIStence, whose vital dcmands are of unC<Jual urgency and therefore unequally euy fO 'neutralizc' symbolically, and Ihroagh Ihe
e<]uC1tional training which can give the instruments of symbolic masrcry of pranicc, i.c., of vcrbaliation and conceptualization of poli tical .,-per!· ence. The populist inclination to cm::lit the working d�sscs with a 'pOli· . li�s' (u. c1.'lCwhefC, an 'aesthetic'), sponlancously and nalUrally endo.·.ed wuh the propenies included in the dominant definition of politics, [g'
no� the F,r" that rhe puctical mutery exprcsscd in evcryd�y choi� (which may or may not be C1plbk of being conSfiluted u political 11' terms of the dominafll definilion) is bUC
" " ,s,s,ss,'
from the way I �) politiCS 'I JIP;;'when I wu a kid-know .
meon?' ",ifc .'hat I tko-i, (l),wmllllisl
;npJ
.::,�"�.;;"'........ ... .
, '" . . .. . . . ... , .. , , .
competent consciousness, but on the im· (Vcr vigilant, universally of 1� of a class habitus, in other words schemes of thoughr and �ction l ulae: of political discussion-on a class must uSC the simplistic form r [f ciousness, scious ulher than 1 class cons
��
un(On
such u scx confronted with 1 (Iucstion of domesTic morality - �hen gh throu io ,scholastic made a political qucst � :�tiOO. �hich tends to .be . uI1Ycs. and on, all socnl "tegoncs except {he semor e�« ,nstituliooaliuti ly tndcpcn. large .nd s rned by d:l.S$ etho (asionals produce responscs gove Farmers, for eumple, are the group of declared politic.1 opinions. one s�u1d nOI ulk about sex to children, or ..h..:h mos' ofTCfI say ,hat ld be glvCfI before the age of firt�n: whcreas th1t I>O .'iCX education shou ulivcs are once again led by their cultuul cleriol �orkers and junior ex« 11ed ;n the good inlentions to fC(ognize the dom!nant no�m (which is � l10n should be gIven before quation itso:lf) and most oftcn say thiS educa cal tendency are liule 19<: ric:vo:o: for each "tegory, the varllrions by politi responscs of the so:nior m"ked. By COntrast. (vcrything suggestS that the a da� ethos (which r,«utiv(S and profcssionals express a combination of it political princi. ioclines them to a (ertain pe(bgogic laxity) with cxplic think so:x eduo· left pies. Eighty percCnt of those who say rhey al'( on the who say they [ion should be given before age eleven, )0 percent of thoso: right. If (;In lhe on 1n: (�nllist, .nd H percent of those ...ho so.y they arc disposilion, which b.: !ttn Ih.t. u has been shown for the 'pure' acsfrn,lic m.� �'1' acstheflc choice the manifcst1lion of an ao:5trn,IK ·sbnt'. the ples. i.e.• propmsity 10 make cv.:ryday choices on the basis of political princi ..uhin the logic of the political 'slant' rather Ihan ethical intUition. is itsclf language, J dIJncnsion of an ethos which i, also exprcs.'lC
�
�1
In f�C!. the second and third modes of opinion production differ (rom the first mode in that. in them. the expliCitly polidcal principles of Ihe P'?duC!ion of political judgement lre made explicit and (ormul�Ied as P�neIPIes. This may be done either by the institution that is enrrUSted I!h the produClion and management of fhcsc principles or by the iso � aled politi cal agenr, who posses his own means of production of polit· l aJ scs ( <]uestions and answers and can provide systematic political !CSpOn educa· .'lCX :0 Problems 1$ different in appearance u a faefory occupation, IOn or pollution. In eilhcr case, the relationship belwttn social class and
o
is no lo ger embli�hed directly, solely u h ass unconscious. To understand politicrhro al 0 � the and [0 explain them fully, one h as [0 bring in tllIO'll
political opinion i ci of the cl
d a on
a poli [ical 'line· Or 'programme' of parr� invested w.ith the n:onopoly of p�uctio� o( the prinei I . ons, . eal opinI duellon o( pollu or the political axlomati qualdy
politic l (actor, either [he
political opinion to be
produced on every problem,
cs
� es
o whIC
o
re
re
:::: COft.
sc
can sec
"
memben of lhe imell«tual occul»-dons (tocher$. rescarcher$. ar[isa) d«lall: rhemsel�n, � of[en [han aU orn.:r ClItegori n. 'suppotters of fC'IO" IUlionary aclion', 0f'P0$Cd to ·authorinrianism' and in Dvour Of'lllIcrIU" [ional class soli<:lari[y'. Tho:y more often think that ·the crisis of I\by 1968 was beneficial to the scneral i n[e nt of the population·, and say ofl manual 'Io'()fkcr$ thu 'strike pickers an: ju�tilic
r
l
s
as
r o
y
y
r
politically or no(.)1 The farr remains that, for problems that have not brou h personal or parry 'line·, agents are thrown back on thbern eir Cthos.g. t Into , �he social c nditions o� production of that ethos upress themsd'��ich IS [rue nOt only o( ordinary agenu but also of professional 'Ibis t�lkcl\lals, �io�ogiSl$, journ�lists or politicians. In The prod: en. dISCOUrse (sCienufic or otherwIse) on the social world, :.IndProdu�IOrI .. of Tion of a line of political action on the world, iT is class in [� erhos �alled upon to make up for the lacunae in a�iomati� or method . In�U�Clen { m:lS(�ry of th� means of Thought and ac{ion) The (or I� 'wott. enso: of volu uon�ry parfles no doubt anscs .f�m :.In. intUition into rht . dUlhTY of the pnnClples of production of pollucal opmions and ac!"' and from a justiflCd scepticism as to the possibilit y of answering all : practical questions and Challenges of ordinary existence solely on tilt basis of {he principles of a political a�iomatics. At all events, there is every diffe nce in [he world between The �i�us,
. hi� personality (manual ....orkers mo e ften ci[e dass ) 0' Iha[ . (lIlllC I� rogress has bencfited the maiori[y' (worhrs mOre oflen dllnk II �cfOno""'�efiled a minorit ) . 11 It may be th.t the tendenc 10 poli tical nlY h� o,.{O,erence w hich leads intellectuals . to Ileal every problem . politiCllI _ � . , as . , , � 1$ e Iml 0 I l t .re:lS all In des u l a f all in coherence t hl1" seek perfec -:-' ,:" ,nd 10 by [he fundamental discn:p.ncy belween Ih�ir clhos . d [he,r dIS· � [i>(".. cs...... ially when they o iginate from the domInated f�(IIon$ of Ihe (Ill (O"NC. 1 ' -. . . rod ,. , ,n1nl (ius. _ dO"· y re· which underlic the p ucnon 0, �1Il1�ns are c Spositio '['he di . t thc all In �l preclscly IS, that them. g in ress ex g l h<: m.nner vi [ b lost in the ordinary recolding ,o(.I)cCes which nlfic:l n5C$ ( which is gene�Jly simplified lo [he UI�?St for [he sake of . of . . . lnd.rdizcd sutveying). ll\(, fCSult I� thu opllllO � hlCh. ' , " 'I fxe val...:' ut which express very d,fferen[ caI , llke . . . 11 K --l ..: y. 10ge[ ,er III .. " .... """ "" -lIlg acllonS, all: lum .... tv d,i'krc [ IX even .,r ve., .. � b'- , I , Iml"'""__ ra 00 0 pos[urc 1m Ordlllary imuilio , i icn of the di er� t a ncr [he ,conscrvll1ve , · lllg w ft e ' i or ... ·right beIng 01 g . , polilical ambiguity. reminds us .-3)1 . d , e pnnd,1e of evetv ·J double entendre nd ·'" . apparem, d Inerent Op,n,onS, w ems . �. same habitus can csnnusc ·1 Ihlt t".. . . , . . . " L . " , ) . I ( C supemu. . . g.. lnettn, " hilUS Cln be expressed .In op'nionS which nonetheless iffer III Ihelr modll1ty . n,us, when !ipsel concludes rhat. III � student popu �non: [he� .IS . '· correlatiOn ixtween [he ale [ ' occupanon lnd Ihe chlldrcn s pohUCll lion, and mri u[es all [he differences he finds 10 fac rs SUCh "� type o . . univ rsit lnd isc ipli e he not only forget: that ddfcr:nccs III u lverslty . posilion a[ a given moment arc [he �hoias[lc retransianon of dl.ffcr� ces 1Il �ial origin. cven al [he levcl a5P.'r:lIIOnS, Wlce the chOIce of a Isclphne expresses the lvailable to IIldlVlduals of a gIven oc,,1 ongln WIth Also, and espec.'ally, he fo gcrs that, h�v. I gf'en !ev l of lcad mic ing failed to use ad quate questioning 10 obtllll indICatOrs of [he modahty ofpoli[ical practice and judgements he �as been fo�c� to lump logether poiitical slancn which even if idennc l III thell po"tlcal comcnI may . eX]>I"CS$ opposi dispositions, and which as [he subscqu m.poht.,cal rc g ahgnmcnts show, arc Ins usc:ful redictors of practice. especIall . III the .Iong lun, than the appl e rl insigni.ficanl �Ilils of bearing lnd dICnon wh'.'h � . Ind'Clte the of 'commllments, OOt 10 menn n [he eloquent Sl. . knees ....hich m uprns approval. Kep[icism. hos[ili[y, cOnlemp[, fCS'gna·
(1"l "
� '
rcsr:
'''.
�
ns
n
of p are almosl ine a ly
� n
·
n v: �re lden,,· d,sposlllons and
b
. U'SoCS Ihe n whICh � n :.:� n . nuanccs of argume�1 �n? hexis.. as n� or . revolullonary n· l a y . e ectora y Slmllr y d . no ! . r p ns to b n n. e y d n. . . of � . s ambitions r e success. e e . . a , e . n y p n y o modlh[y ly ·
tlOfl e[c.I<
The
and production by h by the advocates of the es[ablished order '"IItn, in the: CIlS( of a strike, for example, they contr.lSl thl: 'democratic' glC of a �Ole or an opinion poll wi lh the 'cenrrali.st" logi' o( �xpression Y a trade union. in order 10 try to bre:lk [he org:1Il1C relati.onshIp of dele8
betwcc:n
firsl.person production
proxy is w al is alwl)'1 invoked
�
Sets up a mode of opinion produCtion which forces [he least compelel\1
�,
(C'Spondel lf$ (0 produce opinions opposed (0 (hose proffered ooo h ,, ,,, half by their accredited spokC'Smen. thus casting doubt on the " , the
political dicntdes compbdy ckvorw (0 one or the other, thO$( of mm panies dunion is invoked when. by reference
hand. and, on the Olh,r, those of small panies or 'vanguard'
011
malty all of whose anivists arc able to approlCh polirics in cllplicil 'linc', tWO conct"prions of {he reluionship betwttn the
�::::��
the m� are confl1ll$red. One of [�demands a high dcgrtt � tion ro (he ccnlr.r.1 leadership, �ncrally in the name of 'rt:l.lism'. ' olher otis for the 'sclf.managcmcn,· of poliriol opinion. i univuu]izing Ih(' relation 10 politics char:llCfcrisric of small owl'lC'r1 their own m"ns of opinion production who have no relSOll 10 Ikle:
� lhe relationship belwccn the pUlr appu;uuS(S and their diente':" [0 olllen [he power [0 produce opinions for Ihem. The usual ima
p3f�i�ular, Ihe ideology of imperfccl rcprC5Cnt3lion, to Ihe effCCI that 'the . . pohtlnl dne docs not respond to the demands of ttS social base' or 'c� . 3!eS the polilinl dcma�d whi�h keeps it in po... er'-ignorcs Ihe quite dir. . ferent forms whtch thiS relal10nshtp may rake. depending on the party and on the ntegorics of clientele within a single party.
These variations in the relationship betwccn delegalcs and Iheir man. dators depend. inter alia, on the modes o( r«ruitmenl. training and pr0motion of pUty officers (with, on one side, (or nample, the Communist
Party, which has in a scnsc to ({eate its politicians from scratch, by a fOnl training almOSt entirely provided by Ihe pmy,j<, and, on the other. rhe
conscf\lat;ye parties which nn simply incorporate no/ableJ almldy fu...
nishe
which amounu ro (he same thing, rhe modes of organiurion of the groups in which Ihis discourse is construcred and cirrulatC$.17
'CCSSSSCCCCSCC',SS'
Morality and Politics
'I've always Y()Iecre've bttn some ",ho didn't "'ant to 80 110n8 ","h it after a fe'" yo" .nd slid over 10
7
left 01 lhe O'Iher side J bil, and lhey their own Kcord or thq """ere ItJI kicked out. but I reckon it's lhe I one dOllcst party .nd lhe only defends the working d�.'
Carpmlu
" " " " " C'C,'CC" $" " " " " S' S
�
of opinion �lJs providC$ some indications on I e �cond na1ysis . ial characu::nsl1cs of Ihe b:.lS(:). FO.r (Xl.mple, Ihe. prlnclple by (soc "I . Party votel"$ produce their opinions VUles lccordlng h Communis! .... practically or ... ((frain. i.e., according t.o whether t.hey .kno . . 10 by e:tperiencc or pohtLc�1 apprentlcC$h,p (as IS the case wnh riCllly, tteD(C of economie rcblions of I hing Ihat concerns slruggle in the field .helh�r Ihey ha no hing 10 go on but Ihe di�positions ( "ion), or ... � � as lhe gua«hans of an tl ir "hos, in ....hich C:.lS(: thq mCVllably appell! C SlalC ofbourgcois moraliry. So il is child's play 10 demonSlrat� cUI dictions or diS5f)nancC$ belween the answers produced by a(liv. tltt contra on s (Ven leaders, in accordance with the 1'10'0 principle (firsl'pen l nd ! 1 and especially bclwcen lhe revolu· uCliOfl alld production by pro:
pO'�
�I�h�
::r�
Po f'
rnodcd
:;
p
you think
allowt:d to sec the films Ihey wanl 10/ (IFOP, March 1971)
Do
,i.b of 18 should be
�11Ipo,
tion�ry dispumions they mani/6t in politics and the conset\<�ti . sidons they betray in the order of 'ethio'-which may le:td, in c;� !"tal u�tions. to rruly conS(rv�dve poJilical pr:lctices. By Contlb n -. t, voters,'s dr:lwn ro a large extent from the 'intellectual' occu f'at .1OtIt. manifest by the high degree of coherence in their responS(s their lttll4t and to provide a syst�� .of explicitly �o see everything politically. ' lble answers, more dearly Iflregr:lted 1tound �xplJCII political Pti � th�n those of Communist ele<:tors (see figure 19). All polirical judgements, including the would·be most enligh ones, inevitably contaLn an element of implicit fairh, due to theTthtd logic of political choice, which is a choice of spokesmen and tqlltstn va, a choice ofi eas, proje�ts, pr�grammes, �Ians, embodied and ives � � personahues and dependlflg for thelf reahty and credibility on the !ty and .credibility of rhese 'personalities.'. Unc.er�ainty even as to the 0b Ject of Judgement, a person or � S(t of ld as, IS Ifl�nbed in the lOgic 0( . . pohucs, whICh, �hatever the feglme, en alls entruSllng to individuals the . . � t:.lSk of formularlflg and Imposll'lg poh!lc�1 problems or SOlutions. 1lJQt individuals may always be chosen either for their (obje.:;tified) pr0. gramme, 11'1 the S(nse of a c1talogue of already formulated judgemenlS and predetermined, publicly announced measures (a manifesto), or for their 'personality', I.e., their habitus, an internalized 'program' (in rhc computing sense) or algorithm, the generative principle of a set of jud8C'" ments and actions (,political me:.lSures') which are not explicitly fonng.. lalCd at [he moment of 'choice' by either [he candidate or the elector and which have to be intuited through the subtle indices of dispositions It vealed only in bodily hexis, diction, bearing, manners. Every political 'chotee' takes into account, simulraneously, the guarantor's personaliry and wh�t he guarantees. The delegate is both � representative who e.· presses the already expressed opinions of his mandarors (he is 'bound' by
.PSt.J
� �
.al� .
�
�
�
a programme, a sort of explicit contraCt of delegation) and an agent who, following his internal programme-or the specific imereSlS ass0ciated with his position in the field of idwlogical production-:-mott than his declared programme, expresses as yet unformulated, imphc't or potential opinions which he thereby brings into exisrence. He may � . usc the monopoly of speech implied in his spokesman StUUS to credt� hIS mandators, by an unvefifi�ble usurpation, with expectations, intenu and dem�nds which they do not acknowledge (and which, dependtng c l) the case, are those of a v�nguard or a rear.guard of the group as a who In shot!, rhe fact tht the delegate is the guarantor of the programtne expia'!IS t only as an opus operatum but also as a mtxlus operand;, no doubt ael of why, to adapt a phrase of Durkheim's, nor everything in the cantt
: �
political delegallon is contraCtuaL . '<)115 The advocates of ch�nge are forced to spell out their heretical opln dlt nce 0 in broad daylight, in defiance of the doxa, the ordinary accepta n usual order which goes wirhout saying and therefore usually g(l6 u
;
said
� i(l .E r'
D
, .",ha
J
SSSSSSSS' say, he doesn', beat about the bush. Nor does Marchais. but he's i bit less direct, tends to pussy·foor a bit.' t do you consider in choosing
ye for Character
, , of all' the party. Then, nor his 'F'rs .:sty, but the way he fightS Per· �on 1l1Y [ prefer a guy who's a bit ::gh. even if maybe [he results ire one bit less good than with some 't doesn guy who j a like 1 tler. nce his wotds. Like. right now. s thin es I'd rather have Jacqu Dudo (.corgcs Marchais. Because I reckon rhat ",hen Duclos has something to
f;
'j
have confidence in them, I've al· .....ys had confidence. they've always done what they said, that's why !'ve al...ays VOte
'On the whole. [ alwiyS do every· thing ...i!lingly, especiall)' for the Po.rry. So there you arc. I've always done Whit I"m told. There arc some things [ didn't like, and I've s.id: I don't like it. But in the end. on rhe "'hole. there's no problem. 1 always 'gf« with whit they do." "
Ch..rwoman, CommuniJl
t I follow the id· "� ofandmyforemos party. I rake nOte and I 'lSt
� up voting according to their di· . ",Cttves."
c.'pm'tr, CommuniJt '"
'The Radicals are. well they used
to
be. I don't know what they're like
now. but Servan·Schreiber is trying to modernize them, anyway they al· ....ys used to be a party of old fogies, with a lot of Fre<:masons I think, and nOt re.lly any cle.r ideas. It·s nOt a "ery fnnk party, I find." Stffttary
'/I. lor of people go and VOte be· cause you ha"e to. But not me. Per· son.lly l"m not like that at all I go .nd vote because I know what I'm voting for. I belong to a party and I vote for my own ideas.'
Typist, (Ammuni!1 'I'd say that personally I have confi· dence in the Central Committe<:, and when they diKuss whether so and·so should be i nndidate, they know things I don't. It may be that so-and·so seems very good to me. perhaps even berrer to my mtnd than the official cindidare. but maybe there's some detail I don't know but they know at the top. So if they've chosen this one rather than that. there must be a good rca· son.'
SiSCSSSSSSI
They �re dillS more �Cutely eXposN ro the contr�di(lion �11Y � 1tIt progr1mmc S131«1 by the spokesman 20d lhe implicit prograrn lT\t mycd by his habitus, especially since, by virtue of rhe hidden CO nq " . � of access {O political competence (in paniculu, eusly fhe bodily htlli�. dinion and pronu lion to suit lheir words; th�re is a n immediale. perfCCI, mlural h al'lTlony between th� spc«h and th� spokesman.
Opinions on fOr<:ign policy .nd poli'ie>l prc:fer<:n<e. Are you salisfied or diw.uisfied ....ilh Ihe Go�rnmen" s performan<e in f(Keign policy' (lFQP. 1?(6)
��
�
" *
�
.. 5C'n.
:::
'::
Dispossmion and MiJllppropriafion This csstmial ambiguit� of political c��ice is only one of the rc:.!sons why no agent, nOI even a VII!UO$O of po],ocal consc1Ousness, can in pra(!ja avoid having recourse 10 differem modes of produCtion_nd the moa: so, th� less rhe Silllliion to which he has to respond is polirically conSli !Uted. Other things being equal, the more clearly the problem post:d II recognized as polilical, the mor� frequent is the use of rhe tWO sp«ili cally polidcal modes of produCtion. proxy and autonomous production. They ar� also mor� frequem. in respect of explicitly political problems, when polilical consciousness is higher. In oth�r words, ,hey depend Oft (he set of factors (sex, education, social clas.s etc::. ) which gov�rn the pro peosity to answer Ih� most specifically political questions (as opposed 10 the propensity to abstain). Our survey shows that the propo"ion ....ho m:ognize all Of virtually aU the problems mentionc.:l l$ political is very low among the educalional�y un qualified, gro....s steadily with level of education and rises to ,....(Hh,rds . among It.ose with the haccalaurC-a1 or a /ictNu. (No doubllxcausc " "Iucslion of 'problems". lhe variations by education are grealer here ,han (he aptilude 10 sec various «1_ 1$ polilical.) As mighl be upo!C,.,.d, ,lit, varialions by educuional capilal are greal�r in relalion 10 Ih«< 'probkrPS ....hich hl� aPflC2-rc:d relatively m:ently in political ddmes, such as . . 01 women's liber-uion. lhe ptO"IeClion o( lhe environment or $l:X .,.duca�,on It.ose ....hich are r:lrely posed OUlside lhe fi.-ld of ideological production. . such as ,he dc.:line of Lalin in secondary educalion. BUI rhere arc: also SIll nificam variarions in ,he eapacily 10 sec polilical p roblems in unemploy' ment, workers' p,"i(ipallon. .....ge niscs or rhe prite of meal. _
;
This means thaI lhe relationship �tween social dass and political opinions vuies by social clas.s, i.�., according to the mode of opinion pro d Clion mOSI frequent in thaI dass. The probability of producing a polil' U 'nl response 10 a politically consotuled question riSC$ as one moves up rhe: social hier:lrchy (and 1m: hierarchy of incomCli and qualifications). ")bus, apropos of a Iypically political problem, such as foreign policy, on "'hich there can only Ix: polilical opinions, Ih�re is a very strong correll· I,on ....ith social elm (and also. of course, with sex and educalion) in dl( capacilY to have an opinion, indicated by the rales of non·respon51: (namely. (aflTlCrs 37.7 perC�IlI. manual work�rs }8.6 perc�llI, small �m· ployers 30.9 pcrc�nl, office workers and junior �xcculiycs 15.0 perCCIll,
Sm'or executives and professions 16.\ percent). There is a very dose cor �lallon with declared polilical alkgianu in the specifically political con· Itnt of the opinions �xprcsscd (proponion of opinions approving the go�rnrn�nr"s foreign policy: CommuniSI Pany {PCF) 48.7 percelll, So ,.al'sIS 47.7 pcrc�nt. Radicals 4\.2 percent. Centrists H.3 perc�llI, Gisc21' [Rq �.8 percem. Gaullisls {UDRl 76.3 perccnt-I P 1966).'" . II ap(lelIrs vt:ry ek:lrly in figure 20, in ....hich. :U happens ....uh most for �18n POlicy <jucslions, th� differem classes and class fraCtions are disllib-
�
��s
I?
u[(:d along rhe axis of non·response, whereas pany preferences are d;"
ekctions, and o( caleui3 ting frequencies
solely
in rc]ation to the
tion of respondenls, in accordance with eleetor.al logic. has the uncelling OUt, or at least wakening, the relationship wilh social dasa.
The greater the proportion of ach category ....hich eliminatcs itSClf, lbe less typical the 'survivors' are of Ihe Otegory, precisely in respect of their
degree of politici zation.
Furthermore, the gap between the capacity (0 produce a minimal It
sponse, a 'ycs' or 'no', and the capaci lY to produce the corrcspond in, qucstion or, al leasr, to grasp the specificalJy politiul significance lhe
<jucstion has (or Ihose who produce it and ask it (i.e., in the field of pr0duction of specifically polidcal probkmatics) leads 10 the imposition or.
problematic, as a result of which Ihe me:ming of the answer given is mif. appropriated. The respondems are dispossessed of the mCllning of lheir
f.-bll 30 The imposirion e!fccl: JCSP(>Il5CS 10 qU<Stion on 'he bUline» world .lId politics, by ,1111 frac.ion ( "' ), !9n � QllC'tion: In cvcry country, the bu.it>(lS world exm• • rcruin influence on poliric.1 bou, righ•. 01 100 Im.lI? bl< In your view. In Fn.rw:c I, rhl" nAuC1Ke '00 gmt • o.ss ff2Clion -
\ hnu.1 "'-ok.cpcB, c..f,,f,.",c1S
m�
J"nlOr e'CCUIl�es, cleri,,1 .nd (am-
merelll employ,," So
"i.1 Ind commet· ci.1 cmploycn
SouKC'
which is totally alien 10 them (evcn if il happens to 'express' Ihem) {o be
tion uked, but to the On<: they themselycs haye had 10 produce 10 fry to appropriate Ihe initial question. (This work of re-appropriation, which is
U fheir own opinion; or whenever lhey respond, not to the: qUCl'
that 'rationalization of budgetary options' becomcs 'not wasting moocy', for example, is almost lnvariably ignored by political scientists, either 11 the level of observation or at the time of coding. ) almost always manifCSlCd by a rc:tr.anslation imo anOlher langulgt:,
10
One example (set (able �O) will suffice 10 show the imposition efl"«t-and the allodoxia which mullS. This is a queslion on tAt political inAucnce 01
'Ihe business wotld' (In aff"irn), in which we incidentally see the use of twO >'(Cry common rhetorical deviccs: (he imposition of pn::supposit;on� here:, 'in ev'(Cr$C nl;O to the proportion who fail to reply. And � we see only }4 pd" cenl of manu.1 workers 'judging' the inAuence of big business excessIve
part of
llboo . "lIht
Too ,m.1I
Don'I know
,.
"
..
II
"
"
,
19
"
..
"
..
II
"
,
"
,
,.
professions, indu,-
response whenever they choose one of Ihe answers ofl"ered to a question which Ihey do not have the mans of asking, and so allow an opinion treated
Too 11m.
.
SOFRES, t. I"tI'flil II r.,,,..1, November
"
!971
while 52 percent retreat inlO abslention O( neumlity. with .
�
�crted into political snncct (prim r:k/'OJifi()fl) definc:<:l in thcir COnICnt by e site from which they emanalC, among Ihe positions held and de
�
nded in this field by the agentS and institutions competing for ,he mOo Iy of produClion and imposition of the legitimate rc:pn:xnlation of
� SO al wodd and of legilimlilC anion upon this world The only way �; Ily (0c appropriate this problematic is to participate in ils produnion, to t
.
(
cUPf a position which counts, Ihat is, ....hich olhers have 10 take ae0Uni of. 1 position ....hose mere existence modifies all lhe olher posi. 1IOns, forcing their occupan(s to rc:lhink Ihei t own 'posilions' (Onc only _
7"bI� J I
Tt.. iml>Olillon elf�" I't$pon� .o G uc:s.ion on ( dOls f�. i <>n .n.J party ( � ) . 1 97 1 .
Mr, Miuer",nd advonrc:s a new form of _i.lism, rh. '!<)c' J ' i possible'_in orher wo.ds, �ro'ms which ..kc Kcounr of in,.rnor;on., 'lfl .nd ,he mu."on of Fnnce ,n ,he Common M arket. Do you ,h'nk thIS ..... _,,/rsm can � pu t ,ntO p"""'. (WI
: af .... o.., � ron.;
Quotion'
"PfiIir4bJ.)1
Sex, ellIS fr1(tlO
Yo
Mffl Wo....:n
" "
" ,.
for....:n;
" " "
" '" "
Profc:ss,ons. KnlOr u�u"....
" "
" "
Commun,s, I':o"y Non,Commun'st lefr
., .. " " " ,. "
"
M.nu.1 ....,.k.n; . Cnfu....:n. lhopkr:tpcn;
C1mcal
.n
,unlOr u�u".c:s
G.ullom
C.n'�
Lt #.111'1"" all /JOJJihit,
N.
n
n
" " ., "
111
�
� " "
•
..
"
•
"
'"
..
•
..
•
..
June 1971.
h1S to consider [hc slluClural dfcCls rcsulting from thc cmcr�n« oJ ultr.l·lcffism as an iditJorft in thc fidd.) Political 'problcms' (like aD those in philosophy, religion Ctc.) always CKist in and through rhe " tionship betwr:en tWO or more antagonistic groups. This mcans tha� siders, being uMblc [0 takc an activc pall in ,he political game .hid! de faero reserved (or full·time professionals (politicians, perma� C . cials of che party �ra'lIm--(he right word, for oncc--poh."c:al n.liSIS, professional ideologucs), would only havc so�e challCe ol . . ing out thc opinions which 'suiI' them, from wlIhm [he un'venc � rc:ady-made opinions, if the prodUClS on offer always bore a ,Ddt:.. . [he label which is both a mukcr and a guar.tIllt:'C. By cl�rly . the posirion in lhe field of ideological production whICh '5 In It ..... pressed in every aUlhorizcd S[alement of posirion. the label whtC tee " an opinion to an authorily (a pap31 encyclical, a Cent,?1 Co� . cision, a canonical author ctc.) cnables Ihe layman (0 gel hts 'of! dill ega" Oi' ill 10 find ,he 'righ(' seance: (0 lake, eilher on rhe basis of Ihe dd iri he e�plicitly or tacitly grants ro rhc occupams of a pafllcubr po! 01 " (he ti.cld of ideological producrion, or through his pr.tcllcal gNSP � cI:us sr homologies berwt:'Cn rhe poli[ical fic:ld (i.e.. [he /icld of
� ; � �
an� �
�ng the Labels �c:ldj
, . ' . , • • , • • • g ". , . s • • s " • • , · " , S s " s
,\\!Ic:Il
,here's an clection and they r on TV docn you un find �lIy kn�.... ,he party and ou' l _. Cwttn L, ,, .... liuc 0[",,""11( t. th l n g. r-"C" j Well. ,here are some of ./
,II '� ,..
•
,hem s�lk rc:ally wdl and you can work it out, But s[ill, when he sr1flS ....i[h ....hat party he is and ill (ha!, you pay more a([emion. a.�.
'
" Si" " ,SSSSiS" " SSSSSSS" " S
or collee· Of eKlr.t-Qrdinary, sub(crranean or ovc:rt, individual , .N oru,n ., .
st d ' [,,"(C, spOnl1ncous or org.iIlizcd) i� whic� he can �uate a� Onc:nl cal producuon ,,:,hlC� repro h'mself prKtically and [he field of .drologl. duCtS [he s(rucrure of lhe polirical field '" accordance with liS own lugiC
•
M'Slppropriation almost inevit1bly occu.rs whencver thc ques�,on ,". . . cannot answcr II w1{h· vilcs ,wo different readings. when Ihe umnlIIared ou, bringing jc down from thc specifically political plan�, whcre ic is . SitUl1ed by thc professionals who produce II and who WIll analyse or (ommelll on the results, to (he pbne of ordinary experience, 10 which the unconscious schcmcs of thc c(hos can be directly applied. Thus thc politically 'incompe,clll' Il2ve evcry likdihood of placing thcmselves in ,nc camp of the champions of the: moral order and the: soci11 order, and even of appearing more conserv1tive in this 1rc:a Ihan the conscious �e. fenders of chc social order, whenevcr thcy are led 10 1pply ,he C"OIICgOlles of ,heir class ethos to problems a!rc:ady consti[u[cd politically a! rhe level of thc field of ideologic11 producrion, 11 is known [hat. so long as onc rtcmains III (he order o( domescic mora1ilY, ,he propensily [0 libcr.tlism or ,oicrancc 'ends to incll:ase as one moves up the social hier.trchy (which 5Cl:ms co jusrify thc well·known [heses 1bout working
L.pse, � hiS eprimis,;c account
.
.
(,sociodicy') of merican dcm()(�y on ' "m,lar obscrv:l(ion. 'ubenl l0d leftist' in economic mailers, Ihe work,ng (,Us lrtc mo.c 'lu,hori,arian' 'when 'ibenlism is dcfir>c:
�f kg.,
�
�
A
'SSS-S '
'S'"
S" S,,'SSSSSIS','S,
'So if you w�n1 to develop commu·
nism and achieve socialism, �ou've got to $tize power, Right now, we're too democntic, giving way on tOO many things, There isn't the violence there W:lS a few y�� ago Violence, I don't mean sm:lShing
everyrhing, but they're too SOft when they go on strike the� do ' t ta�e a decision. And I tell , thmk [( s b«ause the working (I � isn't miserable enough:
,
you, �
Capen/"', "g( 67, Comm"lIiu
" ,SSSSSS'" " S'" " " " "
:
..
they ex�cr ,an imptovemen in the,ir condi�ions to c?m� only through sud. den, dnmallC changes. The evoluflonrst mllknananlsm which is the nat . U ral c lmination of this political theology makes the raising of living standards and the education of the working CbSse5 the motor of a universal movement towards American democncy, Ihat is, the aool ition of authori.
u
tarianism and of the d:lSse5 which are its beare�. It should scarcely be necessary 10 point OUt that if Ihe membe� of Ihe dominant c1aS$ are more 'innovallng' in domestic monlity bUI more 'con. servacive' in rhe ar� more �idcly regarded as 'pol itical', i,e., in everything . concerned with rhe economIC and polmcal order and with class relations (:IS shown by their answers on strikes, unions etc.), this is b«ause their pto�nsily to adopt 'innovadng' or 'revolutionary' positions varIes in in. verse ratio with the degree 10 which the changes in question affect the hu;, of their ptivilege. Thus, to take just one exampk, senior ex«udves may ap pear more 'liberal' in their view of immigrant workers than manual work· ers, who are more directly concerned by their eom�tition: these executives much more often say that 'Fnnce is not doing enough to help foreign workers find accommodation' (67 �rcent comp.red with 48 �rccnt), '10 give them training' (�2 �rcent and }6 �rcent) or 'make them wclcome' (4� �rcent and H �rcent) . But their liberalism is less marked when mea· sures whieh might have consequences for themselves,are mentioned: 4] per' cent of the $tnior executives and professionals consider that 'Fnnce is not
doing enough to give decent wages' to immigrant worke�, as agains( 43 �rcent of the manual workers and 'I �rcent of the ollice workers and . junior executives; 48 �rcent consider that 'France should reduce or stop .IS aid to under-develo�d countries' as against 31 �rcenl of manual worke� and 3� �rcenl of ollice workers and j unior executivcs (SOFRES, La Fr.tJl(l, I'i'llg&it tI It Tim·Mon.k, February 197 I ) .
Moral Order and Political Order
:r;
The duality of the principles of discourse production is constanr veakd, in the very discourse of activists or the most politicized wo ven e Ihrough the changes of lOne and styk from one aTe:.! to �nother, and be t il' through the permanent tension, ....ithin the same discourse, bt:rween fortTI t ....o modes of expTeS$ion. On one side, Ihere are the ready·made
, , . . . .. . , , . . . .. . . .. . , . .. . , . • . ., . .... ..,,,., , . . . .. . , . " ., . , . .. . , . , . . . .. . . . .. . . . . .. . , . . . .. . . . . .. .
�Il .Assumed Style en' ccntlem
']"he prt"Sen( form of contaCt is an . novHion whkh IS ad�antageous all, every etTon should be made
�rdc,'dop the Imer, and tcam
ly pursued. irit should be "igorous to give way eory h t for sp It is time ·visual methods to technology, audio , induStrial ex· e i m d z opti hould be desil
�
training is no longer adequate at this poin( in time; continuous as· sessment and know·how should maximize social advanccmenl. Setting aside all sectarian inter· eSlS, the goal is progress, a major reo tooling of vocational guidance is called for, education is not synony' mous with intdh�nce, a worthy captain of industry may be found very young, leadership potential is eaSily spotted . .
T)ptJm"., eXlraN from " Imt!' 10 lIN tlEERS in rt!pmJt /0 lIN '1UtJIi01l'
n"i" pub/hINd in Iht prtJJ
", " , i " i C S S S C S S C C ,j , I i " " '" S S S j i S S S S S I
lae, indivisible lInits of prefabricated thought �nd speech, whICh gi,'e a
discourse its colour of conceptu�1 universal!ty but also its air of having bttn learnt by heart, and the unreality so characteristic of dissertations (a
railwayman talks about the 'underprivileged strata' as a schoolboy might
write an essay on 'Contemporary youth'), the most academic terms of po. litical vocabulary ( ,ma ndators', 'revaluation of wages') . which serve 10 show, at the risk of malapropisms ('c'est contraire ;. I'interet de la masse
salariale') ," (hat the speaker is able 10 stand u p to a "luasi·scholastic tcst and defend both the status aTtribute of a man and the honour of a class, in shorr, that he is not to be 'soft·soaped', that he has 'got what it takes' to 'deal wllh those smart·talking pol iticians.' On the other side, sepal"'3ted
by abrupt breaks in tone, are the most concrete references to immediate experience, uni<Jue and s�(ific, which give a d iscourse ItS reality, its pkni lude, its authentictty, whik at the same time tending to prevent universalization, the prc.condition of mobilization.')
J1'� effects, evident in spoken language �re even more marked in written n .
,
guage, TI,uS, among the manual workers who responded 10 the AEERS �U�t'onnaire and who arc strongl y over·selected (the), ditTer from their (lass in ... whole series of ways: they are better educated, their children are �()r� Often in Iy(<<s, Church schools Or higher education, they more often IVt In P'ns Or rcod Puis newspa�rs), one fInds a m«hanic who expatiates 'n tht first· person plural on 'the mission of Fl"1\nce in Ihe world', a miner ..h 0 exdaims, 'Poor France' No one gIves a damn for her', a typesetter who
expounds hiJ vision of an educational system capable of 'enhancing til eral ....dl·being' in a Style- ....hieh is a modd of the effort to reproduce &ra�dil?CIucnce of po!irical diKO�rse. B�� apart �rom rhos.e aucmpt sa , ct:lilullon whIch Ind1(UC a cenam famlharlty wlfh u':l.oX·union and discu$$ion of 'he educational system, most 0(1<:11 reduced 10 kcy.wOt 'tICal slog1ns (·�udo.rcform·. '(nlld' 'reabsorplion of urn::mploymcnt'� ; worker; 'inu:gr:uing 1m, dynamic clements of the nation', 'o,Hldc"'riv " T I C� SlI1IIt:l.--m w:lyman). the rnponsc:s arc c.t�mdy panicularized. It is . Inc, respondents seized this opportunity to formulatc a pe�nal grit: U If va �Of immo:diatd� rclCv::I.nt to the <jucsrions "ked Often, tOO, the subm lOll IS :I. way of 'k1!ln �pk 11 Ihc, lOp know what is going on', p:lt i( t ulari� � , about !he l�hcr5 lack of conSClcnnousnns. A farmer writ� exaCily tt. e same sentence in reply to each question, 'The teachel'$ don't do their '-oil properly, all they think about is their holidays': another res""ndent r,, , �urn, In eaeh 0f h IS ' COmmenlS, (0 the Waste 0f working rime: and another (' , shorrhand-typlst. married to a c(Uch·builderj leav� half the -, "U�tion, .. unan· s�en:d and repl r� to each of the Others: 'They've gOt no sense of profes $lonll duty, all they talk about is kisuf\': •
"
�� : �:IItrI. ��
No doubt p�rdy because it is constantly confronted with th� inlerftr, ence effoxrs ..md with the tendency to self-c:xc1usion which flows from dis possesis on and the sense of impotence, the educational effon of the political or trade-union organizations to inculcate the will {o have an opinion �nd ro provide rhe means of producing ir musr itself conmndy oscillate between the formalism of genenl principles on the economic and social world and direct refcf\'ncc 10 immedi�te experience. For all t�is. it cannm ever perform rhe analysis which would truly f\'laIC the par uc�lar �ase to its ultimate fo�ndarions in polirical economy, an o frauon f whICh (s no doubr � (mpoSJtble for the teacher as for the pupil. WhIle attention ro the concrete siruuion is indispensable in order 10 win cre dence, it is no less ($Knlial ro go beyond i$Oluing {he panicubr case In order to achieve collective mobilization around common problems. nils dialenie of the genenl and (he particular is at the heart of all politiCs. but (Specially of the process of poliricization, with rhe need, for some, whose inter(Sts are bound up with {he (Snblished order, to universalize thell parrkular interests, and, for others, to gr.lsp the universality of the.. pU tkular condItions. In political practice, of which opinion surveys indicate the diversiry by the variety of areas of existence they deal with. there is an imperceptible gradation from particular, privlre questions, Including those which con cern domC$tic mOr.l1ity (Child-rearing, sexuality, parental authoriry, rhe r sexual division of labour etc.), which may already be political stakes (o $Orne vanguard groups, to questions which, though they still conCclJ'I upbringing or sexuality, are siruared at a more general and abstract l('""d· sincc they invO)"e educational instilurions, but al$O a level more remo{(' from pr.l(fical experience, such as tcaching methods, (he recrultmcnl.
ng or saluies of tcachers, sex education .1I1d politi�s in schools,. �tu tr1ioi monst rations etc., and finally 10 quesuons conSllluled as polrrrcal ,jcI1 de e tradition of tndc-union or political Struggle, on industrial rela· br t, thc role of unions md $0 fonh. The miS
\
S.rea� � :
��. �
"� �;
Questions on 5Chool d isorders and student dcmonsmtions or on politics in educarion are predisposed to function as traps. �usc they only .'a�e on i tOOl foil mco.ning in their real context, t >c domInant problema"c, I:C_, the fundamctml qoesllon of the mam,, SCI of questions �er;lIed from the tun« of the cstablished order. As is shown by the ,"ventory of the qua uons posed by opinion research inslitu{<:s (sec tablc H), .his pr�lem1lic marshals (he questions which present themselves 10 .hose, excluslvcly, who have to uke acCOUnt of Ihe distribution of opinions about their policy in *ttrmining their policy. h only re.:osni�cs {he qu<:Stions whkh the domi· n.nt class ask themselv� abou! (he sroups which arc problems for them, md ignores (he qUCSIions tht;S( sroups :lsk ( and the problems .hcy have). The most depriycd do not, strictly sf>C:I.king, know whu qU(Stion {hey arc :lnswering, and do nor posSCS$ the intercsn and dispositions {hat would enable them to reactivate the qucstion by s«ing ir as a particular form of the 'lucstion of the conSCf\luion or subversion of the cstablished order. They therefore respond nor to the question thar is actually asked, bUt to a qUC$fion rhcy produce from their own resources, i.c., from the practical principles of their cl:w ethos. When the qoestions posed are in the intermediate area betwccn monlity and politiCS, the contamination of politics by morality and thc slippage from mOr.ll indignation to politi cal rcacrion is most clclr1y s«n--especially in those whose position in �ial space predisposes .hem 10 a mOr.ll perception of the social world, SUch as the petite I>ourgeoisic and especially its declining fractions or in d.'v'duals. Resentmcnt is dearly the basis of rhc relctionary or con:SCf\la t(�e·re�olution�ry st�nccs of the declining petit bourgeois who are a?�loos {o maint)in order on all fronts. in domcstic morality and in so Cl(ty, )n d who invcst their revolt against tnc worsening of their soci)1 I'Osllion in moral indign)tion ag)inst the worsening of monls. But it of(en )Iso pef\l3dc:s the Jacobin rigour and mcritocr;ltic revolt of rnc u-
Tsblt J] Views on po!i.i,,! order .nd
S..,..,..en.s on po!i.i,,! o,der .nd mo..l orde'
Polili,," ",tkr
Fumers, fum workers
elm ("" ion
) 19�9-1972'
(con.inued)
Posi tive rcspons.es, by d • .,. f""ion"
C..frsmen. sm.ll shopl<eepers'
Mmua! workers
tS on poli.i,"1 J tt""' ",0",1 (>Ider ....
IUIllor
:,Jtr ,flU
�uld tell chil· � poor; h... to do .nd
S"ikC'S do workers more h.rm ,h.n good (SOFRES, 1970) When .he", is • Strike in • lirm, .hose who Wlnt '0 amy on working ought ,0 be oble '0 do SO
"
�1�;'�I
..
(SOFRES, 1970)
"
" ,.
(SOFRES, 1970)
Labour unions .re too powerful 1! present (lFOP, 1971) Dinppro"e of P'''' pl.yed by labou! unionl (IFOP, 1%9)
19'9)
'�
Girls of IS should not b(, allo,,'ed '0 Itt .ny films .hey w.m '0 (IFOP, 1971) M,�ed s.:hool, a",
•
b.d .hing for girls' up bringing (IFOP,
'"
38,'
�RES
" JJ
...
8U
"
1971 )
Would b(, .g.ins. s.e_ edueo.ion in s.:hools (IFOP, 19(6) The pill should only be sold !O unm.rried minors with p.",n,,1 cons.ent (lFOP, 1967 )
JJ
"
_ ,__ .- _ _--,,� _ '_ -: ':. ' _ - 3: ' -::--::-:� ;::--, l6 -::-_ � :- -::---, -� ;::-: 9 _ _:
with politics. IFOP gfOUPS ,he indu!!!;.1 .nd commerci.1 employen wi,h tho c!1frsmen .nd shopkeepers; groups ,hem wi.h .he s.enio. c_c.:uftvC'S )nd members of the pfOfcs.sions.
"
"
88.>
Senior executives, professions'
�
"
" ,
"
Clericol, Juntor exc.:utivt'S
--:fc ligule' indinte the Strongcst tendency in e1(h row. .. ... genc"lIy kwer 'don', knows' in .ll dasses on .11 the quC'Stions concerned with m.,. brep' ,hose on the sole of ,hc pIli '0 minon .nd sex educ1!ion in s<;hools--th)n fOI thos.e
M",,,I ""'"
Girls unde, 18 should no< be .llowed ,0 go Out .Ione (lfOP,
M.nu.1 workers
fr'Clion"
_ _ _
"
F.vour SOme rcs"inion of .he right ,0 mike in .he public s.enOr
.
C"ftsmen, smoll shopkeepers'
dm
"""" wcok. ""' Zl'(lFOP,
(SOFRES, 1970)
Employers and workers h..e .he same inte'· csrs; they should wo,k ,0gNh., in .he in.ercst of.ll
"
Formers, form workers
Po,i.ive responses, by
"
"
"
(cndan' pe{i{ bourgeois, who arc convinced of their righr (0 sctde scorcs with a SOCiC1Y which has no{ suffiClcndy rewarded their mcrits. This sim· ple
Class Habitu$ and Political Opinions
Here as el$/:where, it would be a mistake (0 seck lhe explanatory princi· pl� of the responses in one faclor or in a $/:t of factors combined by ad d,tion, The habitus Integra.es inlO the biogr:aphically synthesizing unity of a gener:ative prinCiple the ser of effects of the determinations imposed by the material conditions of existence (whose efficacy is mon: or less SUbordinated to {he effectS of {hc (r:aintng previously undergone as one advanccs in time). It is embodied class (including biological properties �hat are SOCially Shaped, such as se:x or age) and, in all = of inler· or In'fa-gener:ational mobil!ty, il is distinguished (in as effeCts) from class 1.$ Objectified ac a given moment (in rhe form of property, titles elC.), in. asmuch as it perperuates a differem state of the materia] conditions of ex· tStence-those: which produc.:d it and which in Ihis case diffel to some eXtent from the condilions of its operation. The determinations which
agents un.d�rgo rh,roughou[ their exiStence constitute � system in a predominant wClgh! belongs factors such the capilal ovcr:a1J volume and also lIS composition) and rhe corrtbliV(': I the rdations of produnion through occupation, i · · · sueh(identilit
as
as
-
$J�
u
So
it is underslandable tha'. through the me
10
10
-;;,.lhe basi$ of ,he dislfibution$ ofvOling int�ntions by $O(io-occupa,ional cstablished by G. �iichcl.:II .and M. Simon," each clm fraclion is �'"gory ized ncter by rhe algebraIC de",.llon belween the percenl.gc5 of left· ", .' ing vOtCS and the perecnrages of righi-wing vOtCS (leaving uide the 'don't ;/IO...s'. which vary rda,ively lillie), it be Iha, �.rything ,akes plaCe if ,he effecrs of volume and ,he effectS of wmpos"1Oll compounded �h oli>cr. The political SJnce ,hus appears a sys,emaric skt...ing of lhe (-....). ""i,1 space, ...ith primary leacbers (--43) found nexl to lhe miners ... skilled to orkers ne�t ,he (-21) rcuhers ,ertiary ,nd �ondary lhe (-19), (he artists (-I) dose [0 the unskilled workers (-I ' ) , and lhe (-9) alongside the .semi-skilled workers (-10); the other clerical workers milY of the politic.l space. i$ occupied by the indus,rial employers (Ktre (+61), followed by ,he professIons (+47), ,he senior adminisrnlive execu· tives (+34) and, vcry dose '0 them, thc commercial employers (+32); the on the frontier be Icchnidans (+2) and lhe foremen (+1) are s;tUlled opposition is secondary a I�ecn righ' and left. Everything $uggestS thu IIblished betwccn franions of ...hich a larg<: proponion of the members towards ,he mos, clmifying choices of their n':$p«tivc regions of lhe poIi,ical spa<�: lhe indus,rialists ��d pro�essi�nals, on one: si�, who �ive a 10 the liberal nght . and the unskIlled, .semI' high propomon of skilled and skilled worktrs, on the oti>cr side. ...1>0 give a high proporlion of vores to the Communist Party, thus seem to be opposed to lhe (rKdons "'hich combine a high proportion of abstentions and rebtivcly lessc upir:alions to autonomy and pcrsonal sovereignty of peli, bourgwis ...ilh intelleclu,,1 pre'ensions. HowC"'Ver. il may be no,ed Ihar among all rhe utegoties $itu:lled in the Cl:n'� o( ,he political space, the medical and $O(ial servicl'S (+28) are silu aled. to"'21ds the pole marked by the indusrrialists, ,.,hems Ihe rechnid.ns In�hne more towuds the miners' pole (+2); Ihe junior adminisll':llive exec· U.I�VI'S (+14) Jnd commercial employCC$ (+16) occupy an inrermediale pa IlIlon, with ,he cn(,smen (+13). Ihe enginecrs (+19) and th� farmers can
:IS
u
so:cn
cs
move
V()(I'S
10
10
new
(+20).
k fully
Political practices or opinions, like other pr;lClicc:s, eannOl, of course. accounted for if ooe leaves our cverylhing that is apprehenrlcd Ihrough the ordinary indinton of social ongin. Here il 1$ n«a.sary to
di!!i�guish, ;'II last, Ihc: dfecr of {he fr:tjC({Ory leading from thc orj . . smon to {he: n( position p , the dfecl of [he (ondi[ionin� i � �11tliI po . In ;'l particular $O(J�onomic condition and---es....ciaJJ' ,mpo rtant .... ... .. ,.. . - trylllg . . one IS [0 undcrstand polJ(l.cal 'positions' as explicit ' pos {IO."'"' l f taken on the SOCial world-the effect of incukadon, si�" ,, pol,Iflea) ..... l& " 1[- ' _� cauon, e reI[810\1S cuucll(ion (which is a disguised for - ) ISalw m o, It ' ., . , 1)'1 " paftIy r e O ," J-Vcu rom the family, (rom thc t:lrlint days of tife.
""'boI
B:efore c)(p�ing surprise II thc intensity of tho: corrduion be .810US pncr,(C and poliriuf opinion, one hu to consider "'hc:lh;�:: "" largdy due [0 tho: fact thar th= are simpl, two different m'" .,,[ (Stanons . r [he s�m� d-,spo sl- u-? n. Th-'� I'S not only because, borh in ilS
'
�
_
�[,.
,�= ''::
�
Supply and Dmumd
�
To en �our to spccify ,he relationShip belwttn the $OCial classes and . , the political opln�on $OClally conSlituted 2r a given momem, one may be u::mpred to examme, on ,he buis of Ihe stalistics availabk ho.... the dif· krent �I� and class fr:aClIOnS distributc their choiees am ng the differ ent p?"ucally mukccl ne....spapers and magazines. Ho....e�n, the inhe!'Cfl1 �lb�lC5 of suc a f:ro<::cclure cannOI be avoided unless one slarrs by con sidcrtng :--hat readlllg a ne....spaper' means fOI the differem calcgories of . raders, sIllce I I may have nothing III common ....irh .he funClions com' monly allribured to II or ....i,h th� mlgnccl to il by the producer.; or
s
�
�
an ethnOCenlric f�ilh in the mYlh of 'personal opin toelr backers. Only to keep informed, can an opinion 'formed' by a permanent effort
�n" the fan tha, a ne spaper (for rhose ....ho anually re:ad onc) is a ask . �iewspaper' (journal d'opinion) for only a minority ....
al newspapers such as FraflU-Soir and Lt Paril;'" :O;us. ,he readers of nadon uions �10,000 and 360,000 respecli�ely in 1977) are disrribL,Hrt (Clrcul ly belwttn flgh, and left: 4 1 to 36 percem for Ihe ted fairly e"lual c 11IIn (and, even more surprisingly, ��r, 33 perce�' 10 H �rccnt. for ,h . Ily flght·wtnS (OnlCnt, 27 percent of lhe reader.; of tVCf' ils more d,sltrK and 64 per· Ol' lhell SUIKCS in the ekClion camp nt for 1..t Par;!;m LJbbi and 29 pc-r<ent for non of ,heir readers (24 perce nt for L'i'lurort) I'ran«-Soir-as against n percenl for Lt Figaro and 42 perce opinions expressed by IhCS<' say they are in complete agrttmenl with the t respeclively) �pc:n, wherc:u � large prDpOrrion (40 percent and ).O percCn
f'A/lnm
percem
[I un be secn thai lhe spc
selves con!ider Ih(,m more right·wtng ,han them mc:uuml by rhe poli,ical ori· cif>cally politi"l effccl of a newspaper is nOI ated in Ihe field of (malion of ils specifically polilical d;scou� as evalu of {olumn·inches dirccdy Idrological production, slill less by lhe number s have 10 Ihc paper, dcvOled 10 politics, bUI by rh(, relationship Ihe reader e mosl imporrant poli,;. ...hose poli,;cal messa� ,hey may ignOlc and whos (5. cal acrion may he 10 give no imporrance 10 poli,i l ed in ,fie 5O(:ial hierar, i s t Ii would seem that ,he lower the readers arc u l is of ,he opinion explic. chy, the more in
;eel of an inl(�{ relatively independent of specifically politic I CStS.41 Furthermore:, con.sdously en:llly) and some major publica,ions, a rational man agement of competition within rhe production unil, which Ihen fuoC' lions as a field, nn be Ihe mnns of supplying the differem fractions of rnders or dn:lors (for example. in Ihe C:tSI: of u Mantk. lhe dilfc-�( fractions of the dominant class) with diversified products adjustc-d 10 Iheir differem or even opposing .:-xpectarions, wilhoul any consciouS III" . . tention of doing so. "" BUI in addition, manual and clerical workerS-CXCePI Ihe mOSI poll Ciled o( them. who rnd L 'H"ma,,;ri or mOl her fn.ldt p�per-prac{l(aI'"
/ ,;:,;
�
�
)"
�
��
bringing in e:
�
8onbtl,
: !:
as Ihat son of political guide or r reg�rd the daily newspaper either
� of � n<:� I �nd (ultural mentor which il perhaps rnlly is only for section
�rea
ders of u Figaro, or as Ihe inst.rument of in(orm�.tion, d�umenta. of Scocn," Po �nd analysis which il no doubt IS only for the pupIls I � N"'" for senior civil servants and some tc;lchers, in other words, lhe Mcmdt. !"s welt as the wccken spo,"� results and ,rgcf ,udience of u . . enlaties, the newspaper IS expec:ted to provIde new s , I.e., InfOfma· fl"l cOfl"l . the whot.:- range of eventS wLth which one fccls concerned be{Ion on ' = .ths, marriages, lCCL'dents or they concern aC<Juainrances ( the '-a se . whose olastiC successes rq:>Oned in local papers) or people like oneself S . popular in a ( sforrunes are e�perienced vioriously (e.g., Ihe Otastfophe which the :;0psile in Spain in 1978). The inrerest in such ·news', 'serious' papers disdain uJly rdegat: 10 the back page, is perhaps � h Ch those members of Ihe doml· different in nature from fhe Imerest w I of potitiol dn:ision.making have in :;0n l class dosest to Ihe (emres Ihe appointment of civil servants to ministeri�1 :lIcd '�neral news'. ns 10 the ....cadl'mle cabinetS or of technocrats to 'think·tanks', electio struggles within fran�aisc or receptions at the Elysee Palace, the powcr a news�per lhe poliliol parties or the wars of Su(c.cssion within �ajor of admiSSIons or firm. nOl to mention the diuy of SOCIal events or the ILsl o elLiSlCnce, around 10 the grandes «oles. Only in bourgtois conditions .f bourgeois dinner lables, do proper names o( general Iflterest-Ihe name of fhe Minisler of Finance or his chief adviser, the director of Schlum· berger or the chairman of a prize jury and so orlh-:refer to familiar indio . viduals, known and frc<Jucnted, belongmg, lIke neIghbours and cousms in 'he space of a village, to the world of mutual an]uainrance (which goes a long way to explain why reading u Alantk is a sine qua non for ("try 10 the beau mondc:). One forgels thaI lhe dominanl class is defined pr«lscly by Ih( faCt Ihal il has a particular imeresl in affairs 'of general Inlerest' buause Ihe parri(ular interesls of its members arc particularly I
�
�
� m� �k
�
�
;
�
bound up wilh Ihose affairs. . . . But Ihis is only one of the many rca50ns for quesnonmg the semI· scienlific opposition belwccn ·news' and 'views", or belwccn the so-called sensltional newspaper and the 'journal of reAeerion' . Behind Ihe rnding of these IWO calegories of papers lie in fact twO quite differem relations to politics. Rnding a national newspaper, and espec:ially one of the mator, legilimate papers, such as u Figaro or l.t Mcmdt, is one way among olhers (like writing the papers, or It) the pipers, signing peri. liOns or answering qucslionnaires published by rhem) of showing one's 5o:nse of belonging to Ih.:- 'legal nation'. of being 1 full dtizen. entitled and duty.bound to participate in potiti(S and eKercise a cirizen's rights.
in
It is nOI surprising to find ,hal Ille rnding of national n(wspapc:rs, espe. 100$1 legilimate of Ihem, is (Iosely l inked 10 cdUUlional levt'l. by
clally tht;
virtue of an effect of assignment by U US. Educarional qu.lifi<:arion.! S I slronSly conrribuu" 10 rhe sen� of full membership m tho: univcl'$C of I(' im.lc pol;rics and cuhu"", which indu.xs ,he s.:ns.: of the right fa read 1 iegirimlU: ncwsf>"per (5« (abln 33. 34. and 3'). While rhe probability of �l(ling a nl(ional ne....spaper ri= Strongly "' Nun/ional capitll (with rhe probability of reading 1 re8,onal n(....'!'aPt.irh varying in rhe opposite .....y). rhe v1tial n io s uc pUlicularly markCOrIS p3pers and omnibus papers (Fra i I uMi), and incr� su:adify :IS one mo,'CS JKt.Soir and Lt ParJItI up (h.c- 5O(ial hienrehy. . Theft III every reason to Ihink thaI, olher things being equal, women are 5O(ia more inclined than men to he ime rested in rhe 'non.poli!ical' conrenrlly newspapers (local 'news'. anoxdo!al items, the diary of 5O(ial eVents of ete. ). In polilics. unlike cultunl pnctices, rhe df«r of assignln("nt by SlalUS exerred by so;holl$ti( apital cannot make iudf fdt in fuJI umil rhe df«ts of rOc tnditional division of bbour herween lIKe sexes are wnk� or nulli fied is tile case in rile dominated fnClions of Ihe dominant elm: thus we find, as rhat, except in rhe dominant class, rhe nle of readership of a narional news. paper is higher among men than w omen ( the tdarionship is reversed for readership of local !lO:Wspapers). Wh.c-K'1$ .1Ke probabiliry of reading at leut one daily papcr rises s ndily wirh age , the prohabiliry of reading a n I ational paper is virruaJiy independent of asc-Irhough slighrly higher for the n-49 age group than for older groups , as if ageing were accompanied hy a w"kcning of the sense of ntt
and du,r
.)
But Ihe difference between rhe 'scn sational press and rhe 'informative' press uJfimately reproduces Ihc opposit ion betWeen {hose who make poli' tics and policy, in des, ed in words or in thoughl, and lhost- who unckrgo it, between aC live opinion and opinion Chat is aCled upon. And il is nO acciden t rhat fhe an ti thesis hctween und erstanding and scnsibi lity, re�' ti on and sensation, which is at Ihe hean of the dominant reprcscmluOn of Ihe rdationsh ip befween thc dominan r and the domin2!ed, evokes t� opposi tion hctw«n fWO relations to the 5O(ial world, bctw«n the so,-cr· cign viewpoint of those who dom inate Ihe social world in pncrice or t� though! ('Genen! ideas', �id Vi rginia Woolf, 'are always geneN: 1s ideas') and rhe blind, narrow, parrial visi on (lhat of the ordinuy soI � lost In the bude) of those who are dom . inated by this world. Pol'" analySis presupposes dislance, heig hl, 'he overview of the OOsc:r:er ",ho places h i mself above the hurl y-burly, or the 'objectivity' of Ihe hl$fon�, who lakes and gives rhe lime for reflection by performing a son of pO],tI·
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Sou1Ct' C.S. XXXIX (CESP. (976).
92}
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,,. 914
9}.4 8lj 10.8 61.1
nl 'alienadon', like acs(he(ic 'alienation', nn neulralizc lhe mediate presence, !he urgency and functions of (he object substilule I� euphemislic he indiT«! slyle fo Ihe i 1 uneran(C of ,:� ds subsume under lhe unifying <:ancepcs o po lmnl a�alysls �he ImmedIacy, faCIUali!y of ephemeral even IS, of very(hl flg satisfics the ur o ity of (he or inary � lfl evenlS and ShOrt·lerm, 'facile' sensations. Like 'difficulr' arc as
whkh, im. !ranslalions of t r d� r or ra.ll.ying.e.rics,XI �nd f actuality, whICh c is d reader, immel"$td opposed �o 'facile' art, or eroticism opposed 10 pornography, !he so.caJl«i qual· "f �ewspapers nll for a relarion to the object implying !he affirmacion of a �Islance from the object which is the affirmation of a power over lilt' obJtXt and also of the dignity of (he subject. They give the reader much more Iha� the '�rsonaJ' opinions he needs; (hey acknowledge his digniry . a polmn l.sub]tXc npable of being, if not a subject of hislory, then II l("Ut the sub,ect of a d,scourse on history. Having (hus s�ified lhe meaning of the relacionship of (he differcl'lt SOCIal dasses {Q lhe r newspapers, [hrough whkh we no doubc can grUP one .di�ension of �hcir ob;a:tive and subjeclive relation !O 'poJiliO' ( �hl(h 15 al� .sten 1O [he r:I[es of pmieipation in the leadcrships of Ihe . d,ff�ren[ parues, and in elcc(or:ll tu u c r:I[cs), we can Iry [0 dcnYC: some indicadons to polidcal positions from [he variations in reader' ship of Ihe polilically most clearly marked nadonal ncwsJYolpcrs � �� ( IioU' 36). Firs(, il is poS$iblc (0 dr:lw fairly pr«isely !he simultaneously po as
as
,
a.s
rn-o
dividing.line Ix:[ween the working classes-who, apart ��m local papers, rClid almost exclusively omnibus papers-and the mid· die classes. Tc
�:( also more right·wing papers (i.e., m
ore ofren LA
Croix, Lt FigIJro and
L1 M...u, less oflen L'Hum,,,,ili or L'Et;uipd. One no doubl sed here
he combined effc
:
schooling �in e pre encourages which practices and in[(tesls close 10 [hose of other manual workers, and secondary so::hool· ing, which, by � I l("Ut slightly initiat.ing its pupils into lcgiti�me culture and its values. lOuoduces a break wI(h I� popu lar work! V!CW. (ltisling dilferellCes-tC(hnical Ir:lining,
chey ,ve To verify [his. one only has to �rvc ch c foremen, d,sunctly higllt'r inCOrTM:$ and a geographical disnibu[ion �ry similar l nk more concentrated in ,he clerkal workers ( r:lCCS for rhe n 1 onal dailies and [he Pu,s), ave much lo..er 28.4 p<'TCent rcsp«civc y, as ga nsc (he cleri l IIo'(c:klies (18.' p<'rcc:n ...orkers· 41A p<'rcent n 43.2 p<'TCen ) ; foremen more or[en read he am' nibus pap<'rs and, among the weeklies. L'Humaniti-Di"...NM, whereas lhe derical workers slightly more often rcad Lt Figaro, U MOIUk and La C�;JC, and, among che weeklies, La Vit and cspecially u Nouwl ObstTVat,Jlr. There is every reason [0 think chat !hose whom chis dividing.lim: sepames are or to re ion, the pw:d in OIher resp<'<[S, articularly as regards heir Hade unions and the political anics, with, on [he cler cal workers' side, a
Ihac of
h
alchough a ..ho are only a i li readership a i J t and t ad
h
[
[0
ca
aliitudes lig i p unionists and So Ouvricre Forcc C:uholics, higher proportiOn of pracdsing cialiscs (or I'SU, or eX feme·lefl ) vocers, but also Gaullim, and on the m.nual workers' side, a higher propoflion of agnoslics or non·pr.lCtising " ucholics, CGT unionists and Communist vorers These opposi[ions are hemselves .n integral part o( life-scyles linktd different social ;.:.clories and diffe n[ workin,ll condi[ions (for e..mplt: diffc nces ccording co how long [he lin(:�8'" has been urb�nized and prolecarianized, �ccording co [I\(: size of cht firm ccc.). and [he pc:asanlry is n..: bound�ry bt[wec:n [he indusnial working cl .1$0 marked by che probabil;�y-much hightr among indl.ls�ri.l orke1S-()f reading � nllian,l !lCW$f>'p<'r, espe(i�Jly L'HlI..."" Ii, and by �Ix flCt chat �g"{uhural ..orkers almos[ always read only Catholic 9,'ccklies (u pntrn., . t.... VH) whereas indusnial workers read a g t f varic:IY of papers J\s one moves up lilt' occupauonal hierarchy (which ;s to SOIT\(" exccn[ linktd ..i[h M:n ori y in chi: working doss) [Ix Ca�holk prrn is inc ingly SUpplallled by [hi: Communis[ press. whkh is nO[ suo/ising when O!lc knows th" clx [endcncy [0 VOle on [I\(: left varia in IIx same way. Exctp[ for L'HJlmanifi, [he newspapers and weekly magazines only !'("ally fulfil lhcir role polilical markers starling al [he level of the mid· dlt classes. The space mapped OUI by the quantity and quality of reading rtproducC$ fairly exactly the ordinary oppositiOns by volume and compop
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Sourc", C.S XXXIX (secondo')' 1O.lyslI) I. uch numbn �'"'""tJ tho: p<'r(cn,"sc of ind,.,du.!. In t2/;h cI:lSI r..w(>t\ 9.'ho hod
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skim� .ho: correspond,ng do'ly p'f""r eorho:. ,ho: day bcfo<e o. ''''' dayS bcfor<: .he su...-q 1101 . m.de. For .11( wtckly pubhc.nons, rhe read,ng f"""od � 'he wc-ck prcct
sition of e�pit�J, both at Ihe level of the middle classes and a. the level of {he dominanc class. On one side. we find the economically (rebti"ely) rich �l1Ietions. cl1lfrsmen and small shopkcq>Cl"$, or industrial and com merCial employers. who read lirrle, and mainly omnibus p�pr:rs; on lhe other, rhe euhur�lJy (rebtivc1y) rich fractions. clerical workers, jun iot ex' ccutivcs and primary te�(hers al Ihe first lc\'c1 and. at the second level, �fO" fcssionals, enginttl"$, senior CXecUfl"CS, secondary and higher.cducutofl ro:aehel"$. who rclId a 101 of narional dailies, cspedally the mOSr 'legit<I mate' ones, and wttkly magazines. In the middle classes as in the dO� nan{ class, rhe proportion of readen of narional papers and lefr-" ,ng
papers declincs. and the proportion of readers of regional papers and nghf.wmg papers incro:a5CS. as one movcs from Ihe primary or secondary to:aehcl"$ to the small or big commercial employers OOly for the dominant class d� the newspaper fully play irs role as an at1';Ur\c-8<'ncnlling princ'ple defined b)' a cer.ain disflnctive posidon in a field : iU'� msruullonali,ed p"ne'plcs. and .h-e ad�u:Ky wlfh which If 'ex � IfJ ro:allon in Ihe {w:ld of Ihe pfC$.S .nd liS fC.ders' po5uion ,n .he- {w:ld of t da� ( or dass fracoons), the bu.s of the" opm,on'genef1111ng pnn(,'
'1 9" 2
1l.6
n. 8 284
194
346 l8}
H.9 43.2 �8.9 WI
19) 46,0
8U 8),) 162
97)
du ,;.l and co m rcial mploy rs we pic. nlllS IndioS liule, mai ly omnibus papers and u Figl1ro; at t' crs (and, still funller away, ,h iRltilc(!ual$). rcadi ng 1 101. m inly 1.4 cach. L'I/Jlmanili or U NOli"" (JI,$tn1altur. The space of Montk w ly magazines-no doub. because: they have (0 maintain 1 great dis,'nce ,he daily cou� of polilinl li(c, bo:-cause ,hey deVOl<: mon: paC(; 10 cui, mane and also box,uK', in oRkr (0 ac ievtc r/l(, high (; n;ului n n advertisers. they muSt avoid all principles of division and CKduliQ
II one pok n
or
rs ann"::! and seek
find the in s. e
h
m e e e the o.her, 'he a Ihe ttk er f s ';::a o � n'Q
,he mos. ncu,�l areas, objec,s and stylcs-.-.is less ckarly marke d out, although u N�,,<'lI OIJ1tn.uIlr is niH fairly clearly opp<:Md '0 L'Exprns and Lt Poi",. We should perhaps nm rnd tOO much ;nlQ Ik dl fcrrnces �I...ttn II\( fra(,ions defining inrcrmcdiue positions (�Ialty f. ,he mosl hc,crogenrous of them, such IS the executives Or engineers), sine surveys in sI.lCcessive years produce divergences anributabLc to the small ness e of the corresponding populal1ons in the reproentative umple. However, � know from the survey on press re;odc:rship in the dominantel:lSS alone (C.S. V), ....hich sepll1Ues them out, that priyate-5ectO< executivcs much more often r<:1Id L'/hmwt and u Figll,1t (and the economic and financial press: Lt! E(hos, EIII'prill ), much less often Lt MtnIik and u NOIII!d Ohm. �lIltll', Ihan publi<:'S('(lor execulivcs. 2nd also Ihl! the members of Ihe IIrer. al"}' and scienlific occup;lIions read Lt NOlii'll Oh_ltll' more often Figllro less oflen than the teIChers. So it would iKCm Ihal the mode of lilt: dimibu lions of Ihe daily and weekly papers ranked by political conrenr_ omnibus papers (wi th L'lIurort), l.t Figllro, l.t MtnIik, U NOllwl 06itn'Il' Itll', L'Hllm..nitl-lends 10 shifl "eadily 15 one movcs through the (ractions in the (01l0win8 order: commerdal lnd indusrrial emplo)·ers. priV2tNec!Or execurives, professions, public.seclor neculivcs, IC7,chers, inrd1cCluals (rhe cenlnl categories. cspecially the professions and engineers. heing chanCier· i�cd by a p;irdcularly Strong dispersion o( their choice of read,ng.matler).
and u
The opposition betwccn the fnctions in terms of rhe composilion of their capilal is blurred by the effects of thc opposition, within C7,ch (rac· lion. between 'old' 2nd 'young' or, more preci§cly, predecessors and sue· cessors. Ihe 'old g�ng' and the 'new wave'. The dominaled (ranions, who. bccau§c of their position in the space of the dominant cl2SS, inchne towards pmial, symbolic subversion, contain their own (ICmponlly) dominam groups who may be pushed lowards con§crvalion (pard� response to rhe subYersivc dispositions of rheir own challengers). s,m' larly. wilhin lhe dominanl franions. who have an imeresr in all fo rms 0 conservation, the successors (and, to a lesser extent, women), who arc temponrily kept lway from power, may, up to 2 point and for a cerr�ln time, share lhe world view put forward by the dominated fnClions. Thus
,n
i
the opposition belwCCn L.t Figaro or L'Exprm lnd U NOliI'd expresses nor only rhe opposition betwa:n the dominam and Ihc inlted fl1lctions. between rhe private and rhc public. and. mote preclst berween, on the one hand, Ihe employers closnt to Ihe private pale 0 Ihe economic field. 1(;I$t rich in educational capital and no doubt mo:!1
0hJml� ��
Yf
ll1ened with declin�, the oldcst privare.sector executivcs, those mOSt thrC . ked to the employers, and, on the other hand, the public.senor execu· I� and the t(;lchers; bUI also the opposition between the predecessors " d the successors, the old and the young.lI unwittingly on the confusion between class slruaglcs and ,1'1PI�yin8 . . stru88lcs, or, more SImply, between fight and flght.bank or :aSS" f rJction l so on the left·bank, and al ual fuzzin concep classificatol"}' and I and � .es:' . . overlaps between from the partial dlvL' the dLfferent LIltemal ng J(Sulti . 'onS of the dominant class, the NOllwl ObJn-t.altllr enables all domLllant members who an: dominat� in one or anot�er of the poosible �. spectJ-""inrellecfUab, the young, women--t� expeflence the sum of.thelr necessarily partial challenges 15 the mOSI ndlcal assault on the cstablished order. Consigning the cl2SS struggle 10 history, it offers ils readers as 2 bonuS the means and the gntifications of a simultaneously ethical, )eSthetic and political snobbery which can combine, in 2 SOtt of anti· bourgeois pessimism, the appearanccs of intell�crual vanguardisr"?' which . leads to elitism, and political vanguardism, whICh l(;Ids to populism. If It 'ppcars that mOSt of the judgements it delivers on the social world have no othet b15is than the quarrel between the 'old gang' and the 'new wavc', and if its contcslation of the CSlablished order boils down to 2 contcsting of forms-those of cstablished Cliquelle, politics or all-this is because the strategics of symbolic subversion which offer themselycs in the competitive stru88lcs for succession reach their limits in recognition of Ihe game and of the slakcs which they presuppose and produce. More precisely. il is because the imernal order of the dominant class depends vel"}' directly on evel"}'thing which regulatcs the stru({ure of social lime, i.e., the order of succcssions, whethet It be the representations which as· lign 10 each age its passions and powers, its libertics and dutics, or the respect for forms and forms of respect which, beller Ihan any rules, guar· ame.: social distanccs by maintaining temponl distanccs, the gaps, P2Usn, delays and expectations which propriety imposes on the impa. tknee of the inheritors.
�
�
�ass
The Political Space
III this poinr, it is poosible to represent and systematize: the set of rela· lIons cmblished, in a proyisional diagnm of rhe political spICe (see �8ure 2\). This seeks to show how Ihe different class fractions an: distrib Uted in relation to one anOlher (reluive posilions dearly being easier 10 verify than distances) 2nd also in relation 10 the �t of polilical 'products' or 'marqucs' which funClion as landmarks or insignia. This space can im· mediately be seen to be a systematic diSIOllion of the spICe of the classes 2nd class fnctions di!tributed by the volume and composilion of their �pital. The �I of fl1l(lions siluated on the kfr in the political space (and In the figure) are pulled downwards and those on the right are pulled
IS. ,hroK'K,J Khm,. COfl'(fue.td on .he bu.. of. I ,h� .�il>bl. ".,i,,;,s (.nd v:anouI .n.ly:scs of j . corrcspondenc.,j . Th ' o:.e · """
'.
rn"que,,::-
-
,.,
capilli voIumo: • ,ight·...;n'. domini"!
left·",;n, (Ief,·bank)
domin'I.d
L'E:qx."
domin.nt
!
II
<"g,nten
U Poi",
li�,.1 right
-
craf.Stl'I
JunIor ••«urives
«On. c'pi,,)
U iI4Q"J.
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I
ldon',
..... pe,j ,. I>o'''geoi.i(
I
IltItll,
I
I
I
fatme"
1bc '$(Kial
....hich
the group or readership in qucslion is mort' or less widely dimi!). surface' corresponding to c-aeh of these poims in fa"
� consider1bly with the volume of the population, which is generally 1Irid linked fO itS $(Kial scalier (although the incrt'ascd volume of 1 f(":I;dership rIlay result as much from mort' intense penetr1tion in a restricted sPlee as front extension of the space covered).
The Specific Effect of Trajectory
Political choiccs art' much less independem of social elm than is gen· tf1!ly supposed, even when the laner is synchronically defined by p0s session of a capital of a given volume and composition. To demonstrate this, one only has to conStruct the categories ad«luately�nd one could SO much furlhel in Ihe diltttion opened up by Michelat and Simon by
perhaps above all, by securing the means of describing and undersnnding what the differem political 'Iradc:-marks' and the corresponding products mean
o:
•
rul, C2piW -
for each class or elass fraction II is regrettable th21 the surveys
available (in France) do not make it possible to identify and isolate the dl"CCIS of trajectory and inculcation (Ihrough the parents' occupalion
and political opinions); even more so, perhaps, that they are equipped with no mc-ans of grasping diltttly-in lhe �y in which they are ultem:!
or
justified-the differences which make nominally identinl opinions really incommensurable. The fact that elcctoral logic ignores the differ enccs betwc:cn Ihe Communist VOte of an artiSt Of 2 univcnilY lC2(her
for,,,,,,,,
and thaI of a primary leacher, or a foniori a clerk, a flelOry worker or a miner is not an excuse for sociology 10 do the ume thing. If il is 10 have any chance of producing 2 sciemific e�pI2nation, il must uncover the really different ways ofbeing or declaring oneself CommuniSI and the dif· krent mc-anings of 2 VOl( for lhe CommuniSI P:any that art' hidden under the nomlllli identity of yotes, while at the same time allowing for the
I
Sori.lo" POlly
uh..·lcf,
domlf1lfu d�_
L 'All,..,..
offl.e worhll
in.dl«.u.],
(",111,-',
GluUist .jgh.
know
ff1.ctions or 'mu(lucs' only indicate, of cou�, the cenlr11 poim around
taking accoum of the diachronic propertics of c-ach social position and,
'
"gh'.�
lITl,lJ shopkccpen
publiNtttor $tnior ••""".;va hi,lI,r·.d. '
Fig.,.,
prof�ioru
0t>t' assoio:; atcd Ifajectorics) art' combined. The positions given 10 the elm ted.
big
p<1YlO1.·..'.., or nttu"vu
wards, ""hieh is und'fS!�nd3bk since the dfccls of the opposilion by
�r1Il1 elpinl volume and the opposition by elpical composition (and
u
politically important flet Ihal ele<:toral logic trellIS opinions which differ In bolh their intentions and their reasons as identical.
,killed
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un,k,lled
The bet remains Ihat one ClnnOI !luly understand the somelimes im mense differences betwc:cn Cltegories which art' nonClheless close in (�ans,
�ill space, such
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craftsmen and small farmers. or foremen and Icchni·
unless one takcs into aCCOUnt n01 only capital volume and compo SIII.On but also the hisloriClI evolution of these propcrtiC$, i.e., the . t'l)C(: tory of the group as a whole and of Ihe individual in question and . lineage, whieh is the b;l.Sis of the 5ubjcclive image of the position ob IC(:livcly occupied. One of the most determining chaf2cterislia of politi.
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ducing Ihe properties of their ucendalllS and arc (or feel ) wle 10 rq>ro Juce Iheir properties in their descendanlS. /I. d:lSS or d:lSS f!";lClion is in decline, and Iherdon': turned IOwards the when i! is no longer able 10 reproduce itself wilh all its properties of past, (Ondilion and position and whm 1 large proportion of its youngest [11crnbcrs. in order 10 reproduce their ove!"all capinl and maimain their pOSition in. soc�al space, mU� 1 ar Ihe le:l.S! perf?rm a n::c?nversion of their 01 by 1 �hlnge 10 condmon, marked by a C1pital whICh IS accomp1 In l space; III other words, when Ihe rcproduc. horizontal movemenl SOCia impossible (didtlJJtmtnl) or mJuires a becomes posilion d:lSS of don . chang<' of clm f!llccion (r«onvcrsion) In Ihis case, thc ch:lfl� in the mode of social gener-llion of rhe agellls It:;lds 10 the appca!";lncc of differ· C"!ll gcne!lliions whose confliclS cannOi be reduced 10 wh�t is usually PUI under Ihe hcading of gene!"ation confliCts since Ihey arise from Ihe oppo silion between values and life·styles associaled with Ihe predominance of eirtter economic or cultural capital in the :USC1 !lrU([Un':. The libc!"al con· scrvarism of those f!"actions of Ihe dominan! el:l.SS whose reproducdon un be taken for granled thus conlrasts wilh the reactionary dispositions of the flllCtion! whose collective future is Ihreatened and who can only mainlain rheir value by binding themselves to the past, referring ro sy� tems of values, i.e., a logic of thc determinalion of value, corresponding 10 I superseded Slale of the structure of the lield of clm relations.
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ClII choices lies in Ihe (�(I {h�1 more Ihan all olher ,ho'·,0. much mo � ' {han (h
c obscure, decp-roored choices of {he hab i(Us.�' {hey involve lhe . a mo or less expl .clf sysr emu ic � rep resentation an agent has of Int � � � sO CIa l "'orl�, of hiS pos,uon within if and of the position he 'ou hi' to . OCcupy_ POIUlC.t1 dISCOUDC when if exists u such , is ofren no rno ,han : Ih� mOl"( or less euphemlzed and univtrsaJiled expression (never , CC'lved U such by [nOS(' :",ho lifter if) of Ihar repr esenl2lion. In O tt ord$, be,wttn Ihe posHlan f(';IlIy oc(upied and Ihe polilinl 'positions' . Opte
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The repressive dispositions of ,he smlll independenl cnfrsmen and shop kttpef$ and, moll: esp«ially, of Inc, oldesl flllClions of these n':lativcly old groups, appear in a whole set of convergent indices. Thus they manitn[ a suspicion verging on hoslililY towards modern an and antsls ...1>0, in aU lheir praClices. and especially in .he liberties rhey rake with ,he linguistic, »lIori)l, cosmetic or ([hical norms, no doubl symboli2e aU Ihal these groups deplore 01 detesl in 'young people: T...enty pcrcent of them declan': Ihal '(he modern artist lakes his audience for a ride', as agai nsr 13 r(enl o� bolh Ihe senior execulivcs and lhe manual workers, 9 pe,,;ml 0 Ihe ju· nlOI exC(ul;vcs and 6 percent of Ihe farm ...orkers; 28 percent of lhem con· Cur ....ith the view ,hal 'an is just a mailer of business', compared 10 20 per Cent of rhe junior execulivcs, manual and farm workef$ and l) percent of
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lhe senior ex«utives (CS. ll). l'ht;- are Ihe calegory mOSI inclined to say 'ha� I�hef$ do not know how 10 win rcsp«t (62 percent of them, a.s aga.nst 1) percenl of ,he junior CKecuriycs and clerical ...orlcers, �4 percent 0( the manual ...orkers, 48 percent of the farm workers, 4� percent of Ihe $enior ex«ulivcs), to attribute children's failure at school 10 their 'not �rkin8 hard enough' (H percenl, as agains! 47 perccnl of junior execu ilv,", and clerical workef$, 46 percclll of manual and farm workers, 40 per· cent of senior executivcs) or 10 consider Ihal school discipline is 100 lax (4) pcrcent, as ag:ainSi }8 pcrcmt of manual workers, 36 petcenl of junior Cx«utiv,", and derical workcf$, }\ percent of fum workers and 30 percent . of SCnlor exC(ulivcs) (SOFRES. 1973). Thq arc more oftm in favour of
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ou�; n (ootm! !O the manui 5HiC!�r film censorship Ih�n �11 DIller gr . l ;$ - no! sU'Prising rhal lik th · · tx!XuflVe$ (eS. L ). It r WOrkers and [unlO! e big commercial employers and ,he foremen, they devote a 5ign;li(an ponion of their (generally limited) rcading 10 Mil/lilt, a maga�inc , 5 �iatizes in .all ,he rhcmcs and social fanusies (such as �cnophobja) pem.bourgcols �nlment. Ther( IS every rasan to suppose thaI the _ e� . uegories. :crulf$ moogly ,n these co [r(mc Tlgh! ro
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Although it is cemi n Iha! individuals occupying similar r """ �i{ioliS lTla, . . . have d·I•erent opinions aceord"Ing !O their social origins :and their lories, evcrylhing $«rns fO i ndicate Ihal {he effectS of individual !Ory, which arc: panicularly visible i n the C25e of groups � dclcrminal( posirions in social sPa(c and rhetdore more di$""rsc:d 1 _I � 1'1 ... 1 ... . . � Wi th·11'1 Ihe: ,.Imlt$ 0r rhe inherenl . respects" �re e:xe:rlcu e:treels of d . Ih�1 the: e:lhico-poli liol dispositions of the: me:mbers of the: same: ,,:'aSO � pear U ttal'lSformed forms of the: dispo$idon which fUl'ld�memally 'hal"al;, ,. tem� the: whole dass. Thus 06Jhfuium, the: deep-rooted respect for the: . est�blrshed orde:� wh.ich setS lim it$ to petit·bourgeois revoir, is also rhe
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bUls of rhe: s:x'�1 VirtUes of rhe ne:w pedte bourgeoisie. When it is a m�{(er of sellmg goods and services which. like {ulrural goods or mlfe- rial 'comfort' goodS-household equipme:n t, buildings or furniture
clothing or leisure goods-are more or les:;; succc:s.lful malerializlfions of the domin2nt Hfe' ryle, the Kquisition of wh ich implies a recognit ion of � . . rhe domm�n r ethICal or aesthetic values, norhing succeeds berrer than
the disposirion to sell one's own virrues, one's own certaintics, one's own values, in a word, the certainry of one·s own value, in a SOrt of ethic,.} J�obMry, �n assertion of exemplary singularity which implies condemna, non of all other ways of being and doing. This disposirion is particubrly oiled for when endeavouring to convert the working classes, to bring them IntO the race by fOisring on them the latcst bourgeois 'must', rhe btest. m>
by rhose who ity of the 'person' are fell more aculely «ronrs ro Ihe dign and exploilalion. but from the most brutal forms of oppression freed J inclines Ihem 10 demands because rheir very concern for dignity . ' ander Thus rhe fear of losing all ch leslify ro rhe dignily of rhe dem isc-d (parricubrly , by trying to gel �I Ihey ha,·e been prom �hC� hHe won ain the form and quahfic�flons), does nOI fully. expl ("rough educarion . ary means of the rgeois bargammg strategies. The ordm ken by petit,bou rltions are for t e.m a lUI �rI, rkel1' Struggle, strikcs or demonst . extremllLCS by excessl�e Ihey will consid.cr only ....hen driven 10 ....hieh bolic l rake fO the weers') . They prefer sym cc ( If � be, we'l i t s u · I J sers up a reb, wirh campaigns for ·Nuorion·, which po ns starring Ihey have inordi· domination. or 'informalion', in ....hich (lO of �orll of collenive anion which is achi�ed re faith, and rhat particular form serial gr?uping o.f individuals aw:m. rough rhe 'asisoc ation'. a strictly et lCal se'. the same desIre 10 dcl,,·er a son of bkd solely by Ihe same 'cau conspicuous expenditure of goodWill, a summons. Volunl�ry aClion, the rvenrion which recognizes no end ouuide re disin rerested elhical inte �tion. in r privileges, thaI of nghtcous ind.ign , t l , confers, among orhe one y of Ihose who have 'done Ihell bit, d (he name of the impeccabilit all, Cleared a fait �ccompli which calls their whole dutl and. above · red', 'dt:ln· �(\ivity, frcc of all ·com for recognition.' Stricrly 'd.isinrercs the pre.wndltlon for the ��ccess of promises' with politics, is \n fact form of SOCial reeogllll1on, rhat (he institutionalization. the most perfect associations, pelit.bourgeois ,:,o�e· is more or less secrerly pursued by all parries, secure Ihe, protirs of dlg�IIY menrs par e�cellence. which, unlike gencral mtcrest ....hlle promlsmg and respectability for underrakmgs 'of
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pelil bourgeois lire pmicularly l1>erc is every rason to suppose Ihal the isl Parry_n unseemly 1�lh 10 compromiso: themso:lves �ilh. the Commun 1S, ind above al�. unKCepl,,·e 10 pmy, un:oppKCiarive of Iheir speon.: Im�"7 loSY wllh whIch Ihey lhe mora],zing, edifying. vaguely humanosllc phraso:o , ·personal development·, rea,.I.Iy ido:nlify ('values'. 't:oking responsibility' . . sense o(personal worrh 'growlh', 'p:mnL:l1hip·, 'cOfIcern' erc )-..·hen rheir by more com· and (heir IIldividu:olislic rcso:rvalions have been encourased egnated WLlh forl1bk condilions of uistence and an early upbrinsing impr soci,,1 Ollgll'l, Id'g'ous values condUCIve to personalism. n.c higher their "on so Ihal lhe more probable are these c/fCCIS of (QfLdiliOflins or incu c� tory they are very likely 10 be reinforced by lhe dfccis of 1 dcchnlllg lra[cc lhe rds lowa � may also suppose Ihat the pelil bourgeois ",·ould mo'·e . ly JC'o.' PSu and il$ combin:otion of prott::r and propriety, If it ... ere less o,·trr oIullonary or if;1 'grew up· 10 be � ·responsible· parry of so'·ernmt?l, as has now happened with Ihe Icchnocralic·modern�sr wi.ng o� t he SocIalISt , ·lIllelhgcnt �on· �"y. But thl'y respond C<"jually well to l rdormlllg. SCrvat;sm. [n shorr, they "',,·cr, �nd a< limes of crisis Ihey (an s"" ng
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' H�wever, if rhe position occupied in social space at a �Lven m ,O�ent is not hoke.:! to polirinl positions by such simple: and ,Ilt'Cr re aIr ,", • . . . '-� rhose obse_.. III · ,. c .• __ • _ V I "" In orhCt areas, rhlS IS no! on/, LOUa .... [VI"'u11 an, Col. " ' I« world, abo�e all 0( . nvc u':I.Jccrory oncrus 1M: perception of Ihe social :iSCcm �ts future, rhrough rhe experiences linked to social ,or �clUlc.lii h 1$ also, and espedaJJy, bttause the chances rhal poIi"'cal chOlct' w il t be . no mort than a politically blind rtspo"� ,f ,I1I$S (lhOS mcrea.o;e as � m,yes IOwa! ' 's { hc hI8�es{ age groups, tOwards rhe smaller IO�ns and . v,dbga, or down Ihe hlcr:archy of levels of education or of ThSOCIal posj.
UO�S. and arc dislincdy gre:ltcr among women th n n. cOn lam,_ s IUllon of politics by etho , although i, is less mark f2 lImong manu al workers. who are more 'pol idcized', (han amon small nner! and smal l employers, dOC$ nor splre rhe members of the !o k' g cI:mes. For [h� of them who, bc:cau.sc: of their.sex (women) th ir': (the .old), thclr ' . d 8C· place of rc:sidence (coun try dwdlers) and fi , a SOClate with thiS, their 01::. ; � cupational milieu (workers in smal'l a� mo � r exposed to the threat of social decline, of falling or re p � ' g IntO ( e sub-pr?lelariat, [he and at the same time are political! Ieast uca[cd and organized, and (herefore less inclined and c ui lo grasp problems and situatioN . . '" polilinl cate.... Ihrough �q'fPpc:rccpllon an, apprec" lalIon, h "",re ' - IS 0-ri. nothll'1g 10 counlerbalance the tendenc, to pessImism an, even · ...1'11· " . . . . . " /11'1" " h II'1C ment whI( ' _� reJCCllon 0f 'pol IIleu _",_ them to a 0,...,' t / .po. , I," an � I . , . . . . , r and ' so to ab5[enllon lIIc[ans of every sort or conse vallsm.
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I "Ink-J 10 Ille sphere of [he 'poI mca " " /. m the ordm2N cu " sense of Ihe ....ord. It -� lJO: al leasl as absurd 10 r=uC( WOuId L Ihe COnd1l10ns " " " ' of production of Ihe "_ /" .... ,,",_ r __luonS ' dgemcnn and pr.>Clices to spe' I )U " h"/ICh are " ' Ihe, basis of porlI1(a . . . . . ahzed ei lically r- 1I1ca socIaI Iza110n--<>r." w,_· aspecl. . ...... to US mSlltul10n 'civic inSlrucrion' in sch00I$-IS 11 would be [0 reduce [he social COndl[10nS
. li· of the prodUCIIon 0f laste-...hich ;5 al$O 1 political disposilioo-tO $pcci
uni analyse more pr("(isely Ihe [r.>ining.) One would have to stiC arti 10 an ordered l1y ugh which [he allachmen[ o( pn<:rical medialions thro to �rld. i.e., one subordinlled an ordered domestic h wit g nin sn tQfld, on industrial se of labour. impresses itsdf �er uni [he by im� -he order <�Icnds emporal. moral and socialhow ,he order of [he factory-t schemes of lhoughl called 'priva[e' lik. into the soo( ere sph [he inlo C"C" which are be thought and eKpressed and ....hieh enable il [0 n sio res eKp the nd d have 10 consiokr whether side (ha[ sphere. One ....oul out lied apr resentS is 1'101 �f[en Jt�bili[y which Ihe family rep 0 security, autonomy and and isl memory of p:tS[ struggles and iion, wilh. for instance, [he bas lasl the bOth of honour (including, fot ex (Onsritu[es the cl"'\sJ sense ion of ('Icry[hing which is of a whok -conservat;�e' vis rain cuJr of �irilily. the bas c(r a le, amp nt of ka.sl resis the sues), 2nd also the poi n wec: bet r l:lbou of n by [he di�i5io n, ...ho ale '
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Political Language
long as ich remains unexpbined $0 Thus. the ekmellt of disctCJY.Incy wh posi· determinants of e{hical dis lhe question is lookd al in terms of the l t is set up, in each opinion pol tions is e�pbind b y the relationship Iha te e opinions ana a determina or election, betWeen 1 supply of ready-mad r nions may make mistakes ove capacity to choose. TIlt consumers of opi they rely on the politically the object (allodo�ia) and. ind�, the more of of their class ethOS, for lack uncertain, or e�en indetenninate, schemes and appreciation. (he more spec,fically political principles of percep.ion not their own. But [hey may "kely they are 10 endolX opinions ,hal arc
also choose one constituted opinion when, whether rhey know ir Of n Ot, they would choose another, more or less differem one jf ir were cOn Stl luted ;15 such and, above all, if, being professed by a determinate group . of professionals, il had soml' claim to respectability, The political field purs forward a universe of political possibles whi( h ;15 such, thus I'xertS a twofold effccl. First, it favours the effCCt of spurio ' us identification resulting from the £let that the same implicit senS(' ma recogniu: its political I'xpres5ion in different forms of the 'alrcady.rnad I'xplicit', Secondly. il tends to produ(e an effect of closure by tadtly p�. . � of realized possibles ;15 the .u�iverse of possible p0s �ming Ihe unive , thus dehmlllng the universe of rhe politically thinkable. Th� Sibles, tWO effectS an:: exerted here ....ith parlicular force because 'demand' hardl ever (at least in the dominated classes) pre<xim a supply of poHllc discourse: unformulated or partially formulated, it only 'knows what II mc:a�s' when it 'sees what it recognizes'. rightly or \"rongly, in an offered opinion. That is why it is necessary ro return to the analysis of the logocemrism of the ·politicQ.sciemific' survey which, in its methodological innocence, performs a SOf[ of in vitro replicadon of the mOSt fundamental effect of the di\'ision of political labour. By offl'ring a choice among several uncr. lnccs and ;l5king for a position to be taken on the already.unered. tM survey-like political consulrarions---proceed.s ;15 if ir had alrl':.ldy resolved the csscmial problem of politics, namely, the qucslion of the transmura· tion of experience into discourse, of the unformulated ethos into a con· SI;IUted, constituting logos, of a class sense, which may imply a form of adaplation and resignation to Ihe self-evidences of the social order, into a conscious, i.e., explicitly formulaled. apprehension of that ordn. Elimi· nating the labour of formulation, Ihe survey tacitly presupposes thar the person qucsrioned would have been capable of producing or even repro ducing Ihe proposition which constilutcs the statement of the qucstion, or even of spontaneously adopting the relation to language and to polio tics which underlics the production of such an inquiry (although the 'ycs' or 'no' it can always produce cannot be regarded as an inde� of Ihat . aptitude) At the same time, by unconsciously begging the qucstion. ir denics itsdf the po�ibility of gathering the information which governs the ml':.lntng ,hat can be given 10 all rhe information directly gathem!. Recognizing only the ele<:toral imperative of formal equality before ,he ql.lcsrionnain::, whkh combines with the technical imperative of staod· ardized informuion.gathl'ring, Ihe pn::-condition for the formal
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comparability of the dan and the material and mental aUlomation of rhe analysis, the survey allributcs the operation of (f)mlilurion to the respO°f dem, even when it is in faet a product of the qucstioning. The effect 0 qucstioning is a1l the Sfronger, rhe more complefdy the 'rcspondent�' .are deprived of rhe ml':.lO$ of �iog rhe 9ucstioos as 'political' and of giVing ,hem an answer_nd a 'polirical' answer_nd rhe furrher they are (,om
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. did the bossc5 cal, I!-yI':.Ir Worker? .'IiI of the Age of tilt . y",'ay, we e C!'1p like that An a fC'a1 supposed 10 be having . {{me. . . 8/1i/Jing wrn'ktr ha{
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t .homog<:. n of a (OIpU$ �f cohere� . Clio dl.l pro of s ion dit con fulfiIhng .the nClple. . . an explicitly consl1tuted pn m fro d !'lIe ,, "" s, opInion eocous IS e her I II . , rn;l5tery, ..L u ctical mastery an.d ven , twetO ethOS and logos, pra hn� betW�n the. practical ary css n no is ere Th � y.» tinuit a !'1 iol discon (ob)ecllvely � ay praClice. IOd.udmg alt. ItS ma�t r which (an guide everyd s, syStem)II' �y ng made expliCit or, slilt les l cal aspeetS wi!hOUI ever bei of eKpcrienc� whICh IS and fhe symbolic mastery d lizc tua c ca cal and whICh presu]> socially recognized as politi u� co dis expr 10 th� concn::te p2r· alt dirccl, exclusive refetence of g lin L cke bra e til . n::poses L"15 IS so, and b«ause the . . f a situation. Because t,, I ' o S��' IS ression, that is, to cond � � o � p f experience to exp Images I erienccs may rccogm« I Clf exp e am the d, ioe erm dcl :, tively un . . s. rse cou dis m fere very dif ' porI�. to credII ited, and It .woul? be w�ng This flexibility is 110t unlim IOtO being what It . itranly. bnngmg " the power of arb . ' . 1(a, 'anguag, w;,,'<' l beL certain ]'Im'tS comalOed wlt.,m be to ds ten n tio ula nip
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nan{ discoul'SC. AI best, . rhcy ue at rhe m r i ! ow" spoke; wh� tole i� {O provide e:��� Int them with Ihc m 111 . e,"f'Cncnce. l1J.e essen rhe;r tial indetcrminacy of f� 'IS '� . { r�('n(t and ('''p�ion "'�n ('� is Compounded bY Ihe dI"\x1 of Icgltlmacy [Ion and ccnsorship (;I( irn..!:cr(('d by rhe: dOmm . C �_ an! uS( of lan,1.12 m:ognlzcd, ('ven by rh . 8e, racilly e spokesmen of Ih d�mmatcd. as the �ock ofupres:sion of politica iegifll1l . l opinion. 21t o nt bn8ua I[S and cicstroys Iht, diS(ted. sponuneous poli/ical dis ; ; u � co of Inc- domin leaves dH�m only silen ated. It ce or a borrowed bn whOS{' J08ic from thaI of popular uSJgc but without be eo�'n8 11m of a der:anged language. erudite u� in which the 'fin � rd onJ di�nilY of the expl'CS5 � rhere 10 mark t� ivc: inrc-nrion, a�;: h� una JI" to expres rhmg rrue. re;l1 or 'feh', s any, dispo.uesses ,he .of the very experi IS supposed !O express ence it , It forces r("<eurse sr;0 spokesmen, sc:lves condemned !O whe ue thel , usc: the demmant l'\' 0 ' (whI' d ' angul"" lO - troduce � distance fro IS S UulC '" ient to I m the ma�d " aten and, werse, f em IIlelr and then - problems ' e:tperience .of their proble s) , .or at least a reutine language whkh, in ad , roUtinllin, ditien te its f� "nnlenS as a mnemen'IC net, Consllt ' utes the on and . a safety ly system of defence (. �: IhoSt' whe can nellher play the game nor 'spoil' it, a langua I" which n , er engages wllh churns ou t its canonic reality but al fermur and sI° g�ns, and which dispoS$(Ssc:S the mandaters of their exr "," il(a sc<en dnme. 'rien,I" Threugh Ihe langu age and rdatien te Ianguage, bound up whole life-style, which with a foist the m�Ives on anyone whe seeks te pate in 'political life', "" ' wl,ole re,anon toth r�rtki. I IS " Imposed ' e w�rI ( of «nral . a �htion which (like art) distances and neul�"�es, en ablin speak WilhoUf thinkin g speakers to . . g what the ,y s k . !h rs IOl nnSluUy euphemistic language, which prese nts itsc:lf, in t � g� l� of un ivelS
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litenCSs. In short, a 'politicO"sciemific' question oils for the expafiuing dispOSitien which enables ooe Ie manipulate language witheut n:ference fO any practiol situation, I1ther:lS one might with an essay {epic or eJ(. JIIlinarien queslien. to gl1nt it Ihe conventional serieusness that is ap plied ro schelastic exercises .or p:lrlour SlImes.
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er«' of the: television Ooe ooly need look at the de/ioition which Ihe 'ref me 'Face lr face' gives ofpoliliol debate :lS he uoderslands ic 'It is program perhaps not superfluous 10 remiod you that th,s is a polilical debale. I thiok that, if you will agree. I will SI1It hy uking (4th 'f"II, starting with Mr Habib Odoocle, since we have agtttd Ihn he is tG speak firsl, Ie defioe your gtrrn'aI/JOJilUm, your ".."...}/ ill1trJl"l4li(m ,[ Ibt prolJlrm, and tG give ';c. 'tIJII/Iks from IWO alCas, firsl roucalion, in IN bro4d Im!r, and then informa· tion, again ill IN broad JmSt, aod theR, of course:, you may sum up.' Like the Idevised debale, Ihe survey is very dose to the sehol1Stk silllalioo in lhe questions it 1Sks, which are oflen, 10 within a word or twO, those "'hich furnish ENIr. dissertation topics, political science lectun: themes or lhe titles of articles in LI MOII,u. Above all, il is very dose to lhe dassroom by virtue of the fotm of lhe soc:ial �Iarion in which the questioning nkes piKe. Only schol1St;c neutralization and distancing can enable olle 10 re spond adequately ro a situation in which 2 perfect stranget comes up and asks political questions (normally excluded from such encounlers) wilhoul even Ihinking of invoking lhe authoriry of 2 third I»"Y. It h;tS betn estab / i�hed empiriuHy Ihal polilical discussions mosl oflen occur belween people of idenlical opiniGn�_ If this is SO, it is because I whole spontaneous semiol, ogy is implemented SO :lll to avGid 'burning issues', ,he foremost of which a� politic:al issun, and to establish Ihe provisional consensus which, in the :occidental encounters of everyday life, can only be crealed by m:-ourse: Ie commonplaces and by CGnSlanl vigilance, One is reminded of a �mark by Piern: Greco, who pointed OUI {hat lhe question, 'Are your friends' friends yeur friends?' invites answers which, even if identical, may differ radically as regards {heir principle, being produced either by a simple logical calculation base
obj�tively implied in the mOSI summary �pon5e ( 'yes' or 'no' in a reft endum) 10 a question such as, 'Arc you in favour of or opposed to a ,. gional reform designed to create regions endowed with eKtenSi �' powers?.60 onc would havc �� be: able to mobili�c ,hc ernirely Spe(i� competcnce pos.scsscd by polmcal commCrnltors and analysts, which ClI. abIes them to construn the system of possibles. itcmizc thc se:t of �Ic. vant,positions on thc queslion. definc the meaning each of thCS( has III Ihe internal and cxtcrnal slr:l!cgies of thc political groups concerned and uncover what each group has at stake. In short. the mOSt genuinely polil. ical questions, those:: which most imperatively demand specific politic� competence, are those:: which arise:: for the professionals who argue about Ihem (such as problems of consdtudonal law or, in other circles, lbe: question of the dictato�hip of the proletarlal) or those: which. though vcry dirc
produCtion.
Nothing more dearly reveals the truth of this self·intetested questioning than the ruling fraclion's obsession with the 'economic information of thc citittn$', inspired by their dream of 1 dominated class possrning IUSI enough economic competence 10 recognllC the economic competence of ,he dominant class. The infOlm1tion which governmen,s so readil y and abun· dandy supply is of the SOrt which lends to disqual i fy (as a doctor does his patient'S knowledge) the information the dominated derive in pnCliul form from tncir ordinny experience (for example, their knowledge: of the risc in tnc C05t of living or of inequality in taxatio ) This 10<15 to 1 politi. . cal discourse:: which, nther than giving understanding, dictates a sundpolnl, and, far from providing the means of rel1ting parllculu, pr:l.ctical Informa· tion to general information. is content to shun t individual experiences onto the appropriate genetal fr:l.meworks. Opinion surveys often reproduce thc logic of those:: surveys on the 'economi( information'of the population' which Sttk 10 mosure ,he rnpontkn!s" knowledge and acknowledgement of official economics and economic 'nfOrmItion, the simple validating SUtC ment of 1 poli 'inl economy, and which, with a sov�reign ethnocentrism, reduce the pnctical economics and politics of the agents to a clumsy stat�· men! of officiI1 economics and political Kience (in particular through a pliori and a posteriori coding orentions nkulated to obllter::lle what IS (5scnt;al, namely, the mode of explmlon).
n
_
10 reinforce the decp distrust-nor inco mpatible with an equally deep form of recognition-which the dominated fed 10' , c, Ev�ry,hing combines
wards political lan8ua�, broadly identified, like everything symboh l with the dominant, Ihe masters of the art of packagmg and of robbJl' g off with words_ This suspICion of the political 'sta�', a 'theatre wh� rules ue nOt understood and which Icaves ordinary taste with a sense 0
• distrust d f a �nel"lllizcd \ Cl CSSness, is often the source of 'apath� a : f t : l pl n the only escape from d esmen. ok sp d an h « spc of s . f all form is to fall back on wtlal an8 a : ivaknCC: or indetcrmmacy IOwardSh\/I. U � than mb s, substance r:l.thel 1.1hcr t an wo r:: dy bo the , predate c (
'ofI of whal
r� social meaning and value of the chosen pl'llctice or {hing probably be, given their distribution in social space and rhe practical .iH kJ10wledg
�
Condusion: classes and classifications
�
If ( Ilave [0 choose the b5et of 1""0 evils ' 1 choose ntidler
Kul K",,,s
Taste is an acquired disposicion !O 'di/f crenl;Ue' and 'appreciac , I . Kan ! �Ys-:-'n o[�er ords, 10 �[ablish and mule diffc:n:nces by a � . I . I(h ofdls Crlo n ... IS nor (or not n«�rily) a dislinct knowJ �� � , in t.c:�bmt $ sense, �lnce �.I ens"res rc
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groupS. ,Ild rhus, Ihe social agents whom the sociologist classifies are producers ot only of classifiable acts but also of acts of cI:wification which are llCmselv� d:wified. Knowledge of the social world has (0 take inlO ac· (Ounr a pl'llctical knowledge of this world which p�xists il and which ir mUS[ nOt fail (0 include in irs obtcCt. although, as a firs[ snge, this knowledge has 10 be constituted (lg(linsl the panial and interested repre >CIltarions provided by practical knowledge. To speak of habitus is ro in· clude in the object rhe knowledge which the agentS, ...ho are pan of the object, have of the object. and the contribution [his knowledge mak� 10 . the f(2lily of [he obje<1 But it is nOt only a mailer of putting back into the real world that one is endeavouring (0 know, a knowledge of the real ·orld [hat contributes to its reality (and also [0 Ihe force it exerts). Ii ... me:ln5 conferring on this knowledge a genuinely constitutive power, the very power it is denied when, in t� name of an objectivis[ conceplion of objectivity. one makes common knowledge or Iheorerical knowledge a mere refle
�
Embodied Social Structurn llJis means, in rhe first place, thai social science, in constructing the 50Clal world, rak� note of the facr rhar agenrs are. in Iheir ordinary pm:· �tCe. t� subj«15 of aCl$ of construction of the social world; bUI also rhat I[ ainu, among orher things, ro describe the social genesis of rhe princi· pies of cOnstruction and seeks Ihe basis of rhese principles in the social Vooor]d.) Breaking wirh the anri'generic prejudice which ofren accom·
pan!es �o�nidon of the Kliv( as�t of knowledge. it �ks i 1�lIve dlSlnbutlons of properties, especially material ones lIght . by CenSIl50:S and surveys which all p="P"" .... selec,·,on rand ' of the SYSI(ms of classification which cauon), the baslS a gents ilrlo.I-. every sor1 0f {h·mg, not I�t (0 the
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. The: cognitive: SUUCIUI'(S which social agems imple:me:m in rhe:ir ptae. ucal knowlc:dge of the: social world arc: ime:rnalizc:d, 'e:mboditd' muClUrc:s. The: pr:aClical knowkdge: of the: social world thaI is SOciII posc:d by 'rc:uonable:' be:haviour ....ithin it impl e:me:ms classi � sche:�ts (or 'forms o� clllS5ificati n', 'me:ntal StruC turc:s' or 'sym .o forms -apart fro� th lr connotations, these: e:xprc:s is ons are: virtuall, in. � . te:rchangeable:), hts(OrI(:al sche:mts of ptrccpuon and appre:ciation ....hich are: the: product of the: objc:ctive: division into dassc:s (age glQUps. gende:fS, social classes) and which function be:low the level of
t ::
to generale:, at will, one or anothe:r of .the tird�sly re in order S Cla!lonS (Our C es of Ihe ettrnal sociodicy, such as apocalypuc dtnun t r:'1 ::s of 'kvdli�g'� 'lIi�i3Ii:mion' or 'mmifi.-ation.', which (If ,I. Ihe: decline: of SOCle:!lts wllh the: decadence: of bourgeoIS houses. #nl l Ihe: homogeneous, the: undiffe:re:nmtc.d. �nd be:tr:ay �n ' 'll inlo I.C , .'C felr of number, of undiffcn:ntiated horOO IOdlffe:n:nt to dlf· ntly threatening to subme:rgc: tht privale: spaces of �" fttt"flCt alld (onsta . .• ....ois uduslV(ness ur bO t>-�mingly most formal oppositions within this social mytholoBY rder back, 'fhCS de: 'V( lhe-ir idcoloBical stn:ngth from !he: fut Ihat they discreetly, to (he mosl fundame:n�al oppositions wil�in the: ,1w1Y or l the domInant and �h.e: domlO:U�, ordc:r: lhe oppo$ilio.n. �Iween '" l rOOled 10 d 10 the diVISion ofbbouT, and the: OP. POSlllOn, . ..hIeh I• inscrilx pnnclpIts 0fdom· ion of the labour of domination, beeWttTl twO · · ' thc d,VIS ' ' . d sp'll(Ua, ant and dommat"', te:mpora, an domin S POWe:1 .-0 IMllon" follows that the map 0f SOCllI space. premalerlaI and inttll«tual e:1C. It y a SlliCl table: 0f the h·ISIOnnII . I Put forward can also be: read as �IOusy . · ". hich organtIt Iht idel 0f Ir te SOCIaI . constiluted and acquired cate:Borits ... . . and subjtcls be:longmg {O Ihat world . ." ld in lhe minds of all the . sche:m� (and �h0: 0pPOslilons 10 shaped by il nle: $;Ime: c1assificato� speCIfied, 10 .fidds orga· which they arc e:�prcsstd ) can funCtIon: by kmB of Ihe: do��nant c1�, niwl around polar positions, whe:ther 10 the fidd Ition cO�SIl' organized around an 0pp?sition homologous !O the oppos al product10n, luting the fteld of Ihe: SOCIal elasses, or m .lhe: fiel� of cultur which is ilself organi zc:d around 0pposlllons whlC.h reproduce the: s�ruc. turc of Thc dominant class and 310: homologous to II (e:·B· , tht oppoSlllon . the: fundam.tntal opposi. betwoxn bourgeois and avanl.garde Ihc::me) lion consuntly supportS SlXond. third or n . �nk opposmons (Ih� ...hich underlie the 'purc:sr' e:lhical or a�the!l(: lud.&ements, wllh the�r high or low scntime:nts, thcir facik or difficult nOl1ons of kaUIY, the:1I light or heavy slyles O:IC.), whik e:uphtmizing itsclf to the point of
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':ss
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. misn:cogniubility. . . 10 a lCh. ht Wh Thus, the opposition be:tween the heavy and the h8; : . numhcr of ils uses. especially schobstic onts, SCfVes 10 dlsltngulsh popu lar or petit.bourgeois lastts from bourgeois tastts, can be: used by Thelin: Ctiticism aind at lhe dominanl fraclion of the: dominant class 10 cxpras t� rcbtionship between 'intellectual' lheam:, which is condemn.c:d for ils 'laborious' pretensions and -opprasive:' didaCli�ism,. and 'bourgeois' e�tn:, which is praise
designate (he rc:Jarions between dominated fractions and doltI)'llall{ lions within thc dominant dm; the words right and left then meaning d� 10 IhI: meaning they have in expressions like , , takt 0IiI . theu� or 'Idr·bank' theatre. With a funher degree of 'de.rt �gh,� a IUlton', . can even serve 10 distinguish two rival tcndcnciC'S wilhin an aV3flt. artistic or litcl'llry group. and $0 on. � II follows thaI, whcn considered in each of Ihdr uses, the pa"rs of 1 ifitrs, the sysu:m of which constitutes Ihc (onccplull ..... m 'lUll. uip -, m, . � - dgemcm 0f lUte, a� extremely poor, almOSI indefinite, JU but p . "": for this reason, npable of ciiciting or expressing thc sense of th . l bk" Each 1 ulicub r u� of one of these pairs only takes on in � � f I f mean. 109 IJ'I rdatlon to a urllVCr5e of discourse that is different O!1Ich rne usually implicit---5ince it is a question of Ihe system of Stlf"f:vi
;
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Knowledge without Concepl$
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Thus, through the differemialed and differentiuing condilionings onS cialed wilh Ihe differenl condilions of existence, through Ihe excl�s� a�d inclus�o��, unions (,"?arriaga, affain, alliances elc.) and diVISIO . O (meompal1b,itucs, 5Cpanuons, suugglcs etc.) which go,·ern the SO slructure and the structuring force il exer!s. through all Ihe hienrchld
�
·!ications inscribe{] in objects (especially cultunl producls) , in ' d claSS - ,anguage, ,y m _� . a, system ) or simp . (for example, the ""ucatlon ./"1 . ns u1lO Ill 1m· gr.td-lOgs and warmngs dICIS, i(lS gh all Ihe judgements vcr th .ne! he institutions speciall designed for thi.! purpose, such as.lhe )· armng from the meetings or constand the eduOlional system, . . ,... Illy or -" - progressi- ve,y IflSCtlucu , "".. . nClions of everyday hfe, Ihe SOCial order IS IntC le,s minds. Social divisions become principles of division, orga· JIle! In he image of Ihe social world. Objective limils become a $Cnse of filling I practical anticipation of objeclive limils Klluited by experience It", ' " dve limits. a ·sc:nsc: of one's place· which leads one to exclude , plKCS and so forth from which onc is esc from the goods, pef$()nS ,�cluded. . . . . . , 0 r e 0 Ihe mOSI �m· . tng Ihe Im"s The j(nJt' of hmns Imphes j(Jrgtll .� . S of Ihe correspondence belween teal diVISions and practICal � ",,((ani ,d �t n� . r-. . les of division, belwttn social Slructures and menIal StruCIUres, IS bledly Ihc f;lCI Ihat primary experience �f Ihe social world is Ihat order WhiCh, bealuse Ihey Structure: of don, an adhetence to relalions of w rld and the I.hought world, ate "�Cq>led. as insq»nbly bolh the real � n8 a �lT�' sdf
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"«CS5ity.l The system of cbssificatory schemes is 10 I taxonomy based o� explicit and cxplicidy eoncened principlcs in Ihe. same way that Ihe dISPOSitions constituting lute or ethos (which ate dlmensl. ons of .II arc . . . Opposc:d. 10 aeslhelics or elhics. The scnse: of SOCIal realities thai 1$ ae 'luiled in the confromation with a p"rlicular form of social necessity is
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what makes it possible to aCI 41 if one knew the SUuCture of th world, one's place within it and the diSlances Ihat need 10 be k
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� i�ogy of tilt utopian thinktr, �Icss and un1H1
''I wltho.JI IRteresrs or � fit$, toget":er with the c�rrelltive: n:fusaJ of Ihal' , � . pn:me fo'm of ma.tena hsuc vulgaOly, the redUCl on of the unique to t�� . ' class, the explananon of the h'gher by Ihc lower, the application to � W()uld� unclassiliable o� c�planatory models fil only �or the 'bout is' . rhe pem.b ( mrsw,$, the limited and common, $Carcdy "'dines inlcllt ' clI'al, to conceplUali« Ihc sense of social position. stiU less thcir own posit" 0 and the perverse n:lation to the social world it forces on them. (The 'pe" eumple is Samc, whose whole work and wholc existence re"ol�e Iro n this affirmation of the inteJJ«tua['s subyef$ive point of honour. This particularly clearly in the p=ge in Bti"l lind Nothi "l"t1.J on the psy( ogy of Rauber!, which can be n:-ad as a desperate effort to sayc the in the person of the intdlectual, an unneated crotor, begotten by hil works, haunted by 'thc project of being God', from every sort of redUctio,. to the �r:aJ, the type, the class., and to affirm the lrans
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�� �� pt� 0..;.
Thc praclical mastery of dassifiotion h1$ Mthing in common wilh Ihe reflexive mastery thaI is required in order 10 COnStrUct a taxonomy thu is simuhaneously coherent and adequate to social mtlity. The practi
cal 'science' of posiTions in social space is the competence presupposed by the arl of behaving mnmt if 1,,111 with persons and things that have: and givc 'class' ('smaf\' or 'un5mar!'), finding the right distance, by a 5Or! of practical calculation, neither 100 dose ('gelling famLliar') nor 100 &r ('being distant'), playing with objective distancc by emphasiting il
'
(being 'aloor, 'staou-offish') or symbolically denying il (being ap proachable; 'hobnobbing'). It in no ....ay implies the capacily to situ.1e
oncsc:lf explicitly in the dassilintion (1$ so many surveys on social d_ ask prople to do), Slil! less to describe Ihis classification in any systemaric
way and Slale: its principles.
There is no betler oppo,tunity to observe: the functioning o( this sense of the placc one occupies Ihan in condescension slnltegies. which prcsup� both in the author of the 5I<1Iegy and in the viCtims a practical knowl.ed� of the gap betwccn the placc really occupied and the place fictitiously ,nd,· cated by the behaviour adopted (e.g., in French, uSC of Ihe familiar IU). f When the person 'naturally" identified with a Rolls Royce, a top hat or got ($CC appcndi� 4) takes Ihe metro, sports a flat cap (Ot a polo neck) orp[.f!I football, his practices take on their meaning in tdation ro ,his amibuIIOl"l by 5tatU5, which continues to colour the real practKes, :os if by sUp.'rimP"": tioro. But one could also point to the yari1lion$ thlt o.arles Bally obSCi-vcd in the Style of speech 1
_ .... . ...
",ay�) .- . -------."" .� " .-------------(pre as apptopriate, mo"e dosc:r to the ·a((ent' of an addressa: of his ordinary higher lUtuS Of move away from it by ·acccntuating·
"The practical 'attributive judgement"' whereby one puts 5Omc:one in a 1a5S by speaking to him in a cenain way (thetWy pUlling oneself in a al the Sltme time) has nothing to do with an intcll«tual operation � plying conscious rere"nce to e�plicil indices and lhe implementation
\SS �
u"( �
(com
ro romeonc, more right.wing �r Iefl.wing Ihan some' superior or inferior . . relallvlsm). onc--but Ihis does not enlatl an elementary
-
}O) on the social classes. based on a tdt In 1 scrid of interviews (n occupadons (wrillen on cards), ,he reo thirty ...hich invotvtd classifying spondentS often first asked how many classes the set should be divided into, and then several rimes modified the number of classes and ,he criteria of (Iuslfication, 50 :os to nkt xcount of the different dimensions of each occu· �'ion and theKfore the di!kKnt respects in which i, could be evaluated; 0' they spontaneously suggested that they could carry on sub-diyiding indefi· nilely. (nlC")' thereby exposed Ihc artificiality of the situnion Created by a theoretical in
Pf:l.ctices. This explains, for example, Ihe: divergences belwCl':n surveys of thc reprcsc:nlalion or thc classes in a small (Own ('communily studies')
and surveys of class on a nalion·wide scale." BUI if, as has oflcn bttn ob $Crvcd, respondents do not agree either on Ihe number of divisions they make within the gtoup in question, or on the limilS of the 'Strata' and �he criteria used 10 define lhem, this is not simply due to Ihe fuzziness 'nhen:nt in all practical logics. It is also because prop!e's image of Ihe
c!assificarion is a funerion of lheir posiTion within it.
So nO:fhing is (u �(her re�ove; . . . . mOre preclstIy,.1n the space one claims wifh one's body in physic�1 s pace, through � beating and gatutC$ that �re stlf·:l$Surcd or reserved, expans ive , . . " or con,mn= �' ('presence. or mSlgm ,cance') and with one's speech ' . lime, through {he inler2Clion time one appropriates and the stlf'aMu;: . or aggrcs.slVe, careles.s. or unconscious way one appropriates if. U There IS no bener Ima� of the logic of socialization, whi,." tre2tS h ", .� . body as a 'm�mory:,08S.er',. th�n those complexes o( gestures, poSturtS and words-s,mple mteqecllons or favourite dich(s-which only have 10 . , \. I"Ik.e a �fleatnca ' .-.vI be sl'IPr costume, to awaken, by the evocative u mro, power o( bodily mimeSIS,. a universe of ready.made feelings and expcri. . ences. The ele:nen{�ry aCllons of bodtl y gymnastics, especially the specifi. cally sexual, ,ologlCa))y pre·conmucted aspect of it, ch1r�d with social � mea�mgs an values. (unnion as the most basic of metaphors capable e�o mg, a whol relationship to the world, 'lofty' or 'submissi�e'. 'expan. slve or narrow , and through it a whole world. The practical 'choices' of the sense of �i.a! <.>rienurion no more p!CSuppose a the ran� o� pos5lbillUcs than docs the choice of phonemes; these enacted cho.lCes Imply no actS of chOOSing. The logocentrism and imellectualism of �ntdlttluals, combined with the prejudice inherent in the science which lakes 1$ ilS object the psyche. the soul. the mind, consciousness. rep ntatio s. not 10 mention the pclit·bourgcois pretension 10 the S11' tUS of person , h.ave prevented us (rom seeing that, 1$ Lcibniz PUt II, 'we are automatons In thrcc--quarters of what we do'. and that the uJrimare
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represemation of
va!uc.s,. as t.hey �� called, are never anything other than the prim:uy, pnmilive d'sposHlons o( the body, 'visceral' tastCS and distasles, in which the group's mOSI vital ime!CSts are embc.:lded. the things on which one is �rep�rcd to Slake one's own and Ofher people's bodies. The sen5C of diS' gs IIncnon, the diurtlw (discrimination) which demands th21 certain thin � brought together and others kept apart, which excludes all misI'!' . ltances and all unnatur:ll unions--i e., all unions comr:lry to the common . dasslficallon. ro the aiarriJiJ (.separation ) which is the b�sis of coJlc<:d�
identity-responds with visceral, murderous horror, abso- d individual hysical fury, to everything which lies in Plato's 'hy· Inte disguSt, metap that is, the embodied �one', everything which passes understanding, r ate social �onomy, which, by challenging the principles o( the rncarn ta on ially the socially constituted principles of the .sexual divisi rder, cspec of sexual labour, violatcs the mental OJder, labour and the division . sense ;'ndalOusly Routing common
�id Of
n that socialization tench to onstit t� Ih� body as :an :ana· -;(1In be show tor esubliShing aU KIrtS of pr2(lical equivalences bet""ttn the (
logical opera
u
• • cen thl: social world--divisions betwe(:n the sexes, ben dlifen:nt divisions or n s bet,",e(: dy, i rcc p bet""ttn tnc- social das.ses-o,r more riot age groups and pr2(ti· $ associated with thl: individuals occupying . riot meanings and valuC it io s lind i s v i d th(se n equlv;llent positions in the spaces d�fined by integrating tbe symbolism of social dom;. be sho....n ,hat it does KI seual domination and sub symbolism nlllOn and submission and the ette, which uses into th� "me body langua� is secn in �tiqu which amounts to or, curved and the 1he opposition betwe(:n rhe straight ·e(:n raising (oneself) and lowering (oneself), as one the "me thing, be'... (of tCSp«l, conTempt elc, ) used to of the generative principles of the marks hieralchica! relations.
(linlly (li mission
by
of
lymbolilC
Advdtllageous Allyibulions
d in perceiving The basis of the pertinence principle whkh is Implemente persons or the social world and which defines all the characteristics of or negatively things which can be perceived, and perceived as poSitively tion of inte!CSting, by all those who apply these schemes (2'nothet defini individu· (ommon sense) , is based on nothing other than the inletCSt the lIs or groups in question have in recognizrng a feature and in identifying the individual in question as a member of the SCI defined by that feature; intete$1 in rhe aspect observed is never completely independent of the ad· Vantage o( observing it. This can be clearly S<X1l in aU {he classifications buill around a stigmati� (eature which, like the "'eryday opposition bctWC(cn homosexuals and heterose�uals, isolate the inteTCSting trail (rom al! the !CSt (i.e., all other (orms o( sexu�lity), which remain ind iA"erem and undiA"eremiated. It is even clearer i n all 'labelling iudgemems'. ....hlCh are in faCI :Kcu$;ltions. CaltgllftmtJ in the original Arislotdian Sense, and whkh, like insults. only wish to know one of the properties constituting the social identity o( an individual or group ('You're juS! a :), regarding, (or eumplc. fhe married homosexual or convened Jew as a 'closet queen' or coven Jew, and thereby in a sense doubly Jewish or Ilomosexual. The logic of the stigma reminds us that social identity is rhe Stake in a struggle in which the stigmatized individual or group, and, mOre gcnera!Jy, any individual or group insof.u as he or it i s a potential
obj�t o.f c.at�$oriZ2lion, can only retal�at� against th� pa�tial �rcept whKh l mns It to on� of ItS chara({� 1st] S by hlghllghnng, in its 'OIal d�fini tion, rh� best of irs chal"3cttristic5, and, mor� gtn�raHy, by St� r.. its characttrislics' °rtuBa gling to impose th� taxonomy most favou l"3ble least to giv� to tht dominant taxonomy tht (Ont�nt most fhncting 10t what it has and what it is. Those who ar� surprised by th� parlldoxe; that ordinary logk and I guag� engend�r wh�n th�y apply their diVisions to continuous rna tudes forget th� paradoxes inh�rent in trtating language as a t loginl inSlTum�nt and also forget the social situation in which suchPI.I� a � lationship to language is possible. Th� contr:ldictions or pal"3doxes 7' whic� ?rdinary Janguag� classifications I�ad do not derive, as all forms � o . poSlllV1Sm suppose, from some �nllal madC<Juacy of ordinary J�ngua� but from the fact that these socio-logkal acts are not direct�d towards t� pursuit of logical coh�r�nc� and that, unlik� philological, logical or lin guistic uses of language-which ought really to be called SCholastic, sillct they all presuppose schoit, i.e., leisur�, distanc� from urgency and n«ts sity, th� absenc� of vital stakes, and th� schobstk institution which ill mOSt social universes is the only inslitution capable of providing all these-they obey the logk of the parei pris, which, as m a COurt·room, juxtaposes nOi logkal judgem�ms, subject 10 th� sole cnterion of cober. ence, but charges and def�n«"S. Quit� apart from all that is implied. in tbe oppositions, which logicians and �ven hnguists manlge to fOiget, be tween the art of convincing and the art of persuading, it is clear rhat scholastic usage of language is 10 the orator's, advocat�'s or politician's usage what the classificatory syst�ms devised by the logician or statini cian (Oncerned. with coh�renc� and �mpirical ad�'lu acy are to the gorizations and categoremes of daily lik. As th� �tymology suggestS, the latter belong to the logic of the trial.1) Ev�ry r�al in'luiry into th� divi· sions of the social world has to analyse th� int�restS associated. with mcm· bership or non.membero;hip. As is shown by the anention devoted. to stl"3tegic, 'frontier' groups such as th� 'labour aristOCl"3cy', which hesitates between class struggle and class collabol"3lion, or the 'cadres', a c�t�gory of bureaucratic statistics, whose nominal, doubly negativ� unity concc-als its real dispersion both from the 'imereste
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. ular state of social struggles, i.e., a given stale of the distribution of 1��antlges and obligations, such the right to pensions or cheap fares, a pUlsory schooling or military service. And If we are amused by AI· ( m story of the father who pulls the communication cord to �onse Allais's P tl"3in at the very moment h is chi ld becomes three years old ( and the Slop needs a ticket to tl"3vd), it is because we immedi21dy sec the socio fgical absurdity of an imagi:l1ry vlriation which is as impeccably logic11 e on which logicians base thdr belove
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e c l aesthetic, psyc iatri r for ns c classifications thaI arc A number produced by the 'insmutional sciences" not (0 mention those produced. a e educational syslem. are similarly subordmated to soc a incukated (unctions, although they der e their specific efficacy t e apparent They arc produced. in accordance with the specific logic. and In neutrality the s�ific language, of relatively autOnOmous fields, and they combine a real dqx:ndcnce the classificatory o( t e dominant habitus (and ultimately on the these arc the product) with an apparent independence. The laner enahles them o he 10 e iti ate a par· the classification Struggle and the class struggle. Perhaps the ticular state most typical cnmple of Ihese semi-2UlOnOmOUS systems of classification is Ih� system "
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of of adjectives which undc'Pins seholaslic 'apprcciations'.
Commonplaces and classificatory systems are thus the stake of strug· gles between th� groups they cha cterize and count�rpose, who fight Over them while striving turn them to their own advantlge. Georges Duby shows how the model of the three orders, which fixed a Stl!e of the social Structure and ajmed to make i t permanent by codifying it, was able to bc used simultln�ously lnd successively by antagonistic groups: first by th� bishops. who had devised it. againsr the her�tics, the monks and the knigh ts then by the aristocracy, against the bishops and the king; and finally by the king, who. by setting himself up as the absolute subject of the classifying opel"3tion. as a principle external and supenor to the classes II gcnel"3led (unlike the three orders, who were subjects but also objects, judges but also parties), assigned each group its place in th� s0Cial order. and eslablished himself as an unassailable vantage-point.l� In lhe same way it can be shown thlt the schemes and commonplaces which ptovide images of the different forms of domi nation, the oppositi on be· tW�n the sexes and age·groups. as well as the opposition between tht �nel"3tions, arc similarly manipulat�d. The 'young' can accept the defini, tlon that their elders offer them, take advantage of the lemporary lic�nee they are allowed. in m�ny societics (,Youth must have its Ai ng') , do whar 10
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is wigned (0 [hem, rtvd in the 'spedtic Yinu(1' of youlh, virlil, viriJi , . enthUSIasm, and get on ",,"h (helf own busin�knighf�rr:ln!r v fo tli . ' ( ty,t I - , lCVl 2r1Stocr:lCY, ' " Jove and violence for the ")"Ourh scions 0f (he m..." RenaIssance Flortnce, and (very form of regulaled, ludic wildness (SfXJ rock erc.) for cOntcmpor.uy adolcsccnrs--in shorl. allow themselves • be k�1 in the SI�IC of'YOUlh', I.hal is. irrelponsibiliry. enjoying Ih(' , do� of IrresponsIble beh2v lour In return for renouncing T<'$ponsibiliry, 1I . , I n Sllllmons of specific enSIS, whcn the order of succ("$l;ions is [hreate td, 'young people', refusing [0 remain consigned 10 'youlh', tend to (on gn the 'old' to 'old a�'. \'o:/aoling 10 take th<: rcsponsibiliti(1 which ddi adults (in the senSC' so:cially compkte persons), rhl'y must push r , holders of rnponslbil1flC1lnto th�1 form of IrresponSibility which ddi old age, or r.lther f({.iremen!. Tk ;"isdom a�d prudence claimed by �Ickrs th�n. �ollapS( Into conS(rvallsm, archaism or, quire simply, senile IrresponslblllfY· The n�wco�rs, who are likely to be also the biologicaU youngest, bUI who bnng wllh them many ?�her diSlinnive propeni stemming rom cha�gC1 In Ihe �Ial condilions of produnion o( rllt .. pnnClpall)' the family and the e
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Social psychologists have observed Ihal any division of a popularion infO [Wo groups, howevn arbi trary, i ndurC1 discrimina[ory behaviour favourable [0 members of the agenlS' o"'n group and hostile to members of [he other 81'O!JP, even if it h:l..l ldvc:rx dl"o:.::tS for [he former group. 19 MOK gcner:ally, tlley bribe under the term 'u[egory differentialion' Ihe operations
..t>creby agen(s conWU(l their percep(;on of realily, in p.>rticular the pro cess of accentuating diffe�ncC1 yis-i·vis 'oulsiders' (dissimilalion) and rein· fOrcing similari[ies wi[h insiders (:wimilalion).'" Similarly, s[udies of [1cism have shown [hat whenever different groups are jux[aposed, a defini, tion of the approved, valorized behavio...r tends [0 be conmSled with the dcspisro, rejec[ed behaviour of Ihe o(her group." Social identity lies in dif· {creme, and dilferen(e is :wc:reed against whar is closcst, which tq)rnents [he gmtlC11 thmtt. Analf$is of stereotyping, [he propensiry 10 assume a cor, tespondence between membership of a ca[egory (e.g., Nordic or Medirerra· ne:an, WC1lern or Oriental) and possession of 1 p.>rlicular property, so Iha[ knowledge of a person's otegory srron81y influences judgements of him, is In line "'"h analysis of [har sore of social stereolyping in which all lhe members of a social forma[ion tend to concur in amibuting cerrain proper' ties 10 members of [he diffe�nI social dasses (= appendix 4). The {Ut that, in their relationship to the dominanl classes, the dom, inale
The Clam'jica!io'J. Struggle PrinciplC1 of division, inextricably logical and SOCiological, function wilhin and for the purposes of the snuggle betwC(:n social groups: in producing conCeptS, they produce groups, Ihe �ery groups "'hich pro duce rhe principks and Ihe groups agains[ which they are produce
Only in �nd through rhe srrug&le do rhe internalized limIts beeo boll�daries, barriers [h�1 have .10 be moved. And ind�, the systemIl'It clWlficawry so:hem.es 1$ (onsmutc:f . . ( · ,Jm!!s so Ihat thc guardlans 0 the established order must enuocialc , sy� . . . ,eli 0( pIodunion of lhat order, both IeaJ Icmatlz( and Cod·fy I thC pnnCLp and ':Pl'C$enlcd, so as to dtfcnd them a�ains{ heresy; in shon, thry mUSl: . consutute rhe doxa as orthodoxy OffiCIal systems of classification' S b as the theory of the {h� or�rs, do (Xplicj�ly and systematically wha! . cl2SSIfic2rory schemes did racllty and practically. Amiburcs, in the sen of pmli:arcs, th�rcby become allriPllli()ItJ, powers, c:l.p3ciries, Privilc prerogatives, 2unbutcd to the holder or a POSt, so that war is no Ion what the warrior docs, but the ojJinllm, the specific funclion, Ihe rai d'eu"C:, of the btllaltJr. ClassificatOI)' dismlio, like law, freezes a cerr.tj Slale of .[h� po�r [dadon� which il aims to fix f�n::�er by enuncillin . and. �o ( hfy., �g II The cI�,ficatol}' syslem as a pnnople of 10gicrJ and . politica l dIVISIon only eXIsts and funClions becausc it reproduces, in a Innsfig�n::d form, in the symbolic logic of diffen::ndal gaps, i.e., of dis . conllnUlty, the genel"lllJy gr.Jdual and continuous differelKes which Slruc. run:: the established order, but it makes its own, thai is, specifically symbolic, contribution to Ihe maimenance of that order only because il �as .The specifi(1�ly sy�bolic power to make people sec and believe which IS gIven by the Impomion of mental Strucrures. . Sysle�s of cJassific.ation would nOI be such a decisive ObjecT of struggle If {hey d,d nOI (�m�lbu{e 10 th� exiSlence of classes by enhancing the cf. ficacy of I�e objectIve m�hamsms wilh the reinforcemem supplied by reprcsc:mauons StruClun::d 10 accordancc with the classification. The im. posirion of a recogni�ed name is an aCI of rccognition of full social exis tencc which tl"llnsmutes the Ihing named. It no longer cxists merely de �IO, as a. tolerated, illegal or illegitimate pl"llctice, but becomes a s(Killi . . funCllon, I C., a mandau:, I mission (lNru/), a task, a role--all wor
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groups (such as the trade union of lilt 'cadres'), which progressively i�' pose the representation of [heir existence and their unity, both on theil own members and on other groups. A group's presence or ai>scnce in thc official classification depends on iu capacity to get itself rccognized, 10 get itsclf nmiced and admilled,
s (rom the shad· nd so to win a place in the social order. It Ihus escape
crafts' of whic� �i�e Bcnve�is.,e speaks: �Wy existence of the 'namelessMidd le Ages, or \llegltlm��e. �CI\V'l!es, such
, business in lnti<:]uity and the ). bone·seller nc 'empl an called erly (form healer rn mode :as thoS(: of the . bou�� up WIth the words (hat ?esig. or proslilUre Thc fate of groups is nmon depends on ,he capacity to narc them: thc power to impose rccog . s' etc , to ap mobilize around a name, 'prolelaria!', 'working class', 'cadre r na�e,. and 50 to proprhte a common name and to commune in � prope lhe umfylng power mobilize the union {hat makes them strong, around , n
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uces lhe: order of In fact, {he: order of words nevcr exactly reprod f rhe st��IUI"C: of rhe system of things. It is the n::lative in�n�nce � par· d,sunct valu� o� classifying, c1assiflcd words (within whICh the tUn:: of the d,smbuuon of IKular label is defined) in I"C:larion to the SllUc nly rc.sult.ing.from the (p� capital, and mol"C: prcci5Cly, il is rhe limc.lag institutIons sanc· inertia inherent in classification systems as <:]uasl·legal changes. in ;OOs,.linked to (ioning a mte of a power relation) between es .L� mles, w�ICh crea�es changes in the produCtive aPflllr:ltus, and chang explolllng Ihe dLscrepanCles lhe space for symbolic str:ltegies aimed at words so as 10 get the betw«n the nominal and the real, appropliating le ailing to �t the things they designate, or appropriating thin� .��i � wLthout haYing en· words thai sanction them; exercismg responsLbllllles [he legitimate titlement 10 do 50, in order 10 ac<:]uire the right to claim associaled with titles, or, conversely, declining the matnial advantages tages bestowed by devalued tides so as 10 avoid losing (he symbolic advan ulabl� ones; mol"C: prestigious labels or, al least, vaguer a�d .mol"C: man.ip g a, vergm on Impos donning (hc mos( flallcring of the available IOSlgm 'an Cr:lflSmen'. or lure if need bc-like the POlICrs who call themselves new labo::l5, like tcchnicians who claim 10 bo:: engineers--o r inventing title to sepa. physiotherapisu (l!.inirifhkaptllltJ) who count on {his new lhese rate them from mere masseurs and bring lhem closer 10 doctors. All al ensur. stralegies, like all processes of competition, a papcr-chase aim�d . of ing constant diSlinctive gaps, tend [0 producc a sleady Inflallon (col· omies rirles-restrained by the inertia of lhe institutionalized taxon IcctiYe agreements, salary scales elc. )-to w�ich �egal guaranto:a all: .al' . tached The negotiarions between amagom!IIC Interesl groups, whICh allsc from lhe establishmenl of collcclive agreemenrs and which concern, insepar.Jbly, {he {asks entailed by a given job, the propenies rc<Juin::d of . . irs occupanrs (c g , diplomas) and the correspo�di�g ad�antages, �th material and symbolic (Ihe namc), an: an InSlllullonal,ttd. thearn(11
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Yersion of the incessant struggles over the classiflcalions which help to produce lhe classes, although thne classifications are Ihc product of the Struggles between ,he classes and depend on the power relations bo::{ween ''''m
The Reality of Representation and the Representation of Reality The classifying subjeclS who classify the propelfies and praCliees of others, or their own, are also elassifiable objecu which elass fy i themsdv tS (in the t)'e$ of others) by appropriating practices and properries that a alreadr elassified (as vUlgar or disringuished, high or low, heavy , or lig etc.-In other words, In the lasr analysIs, as populu or bourgCOis) ac. cording ro their probable distribution between groups that are them. $elves classified. The mosl classifying and besr classified of thCSl:' properties are, of course, those which are overtly desig nated to function as signs of diSlintrion or marks of infamy, stigmara, especially the names and titles expressing class membership whose intersecli on defines socill identity al any given time-the name of a nation, a regio n. an erhnic group, a family name. the name of an occupllion, an educ arional '1ualifi. otion, honorific tides and so on, Those who classify themselves or orhers, by appropriating or classifying prutices or prop erries Ihat are classified and classifying, nnnot be unaware that, throu gh distim:tive ob jecls or practices in which rheir 'powers' are exprt"Sd Se and which. being appropriared by and appropriate to classes, classify rhose who appropriate them, they classify themselves in the eyes of Olher clmifyin g (but also classifiable) subjects, endowed with elassifiutoty schem es analogous 10 those which enable Ihem more or less ade<Jualcly 10 antic ipate their own classification, Social subjects comprehend the social world which compre nds Ihem. This means that r�ey nnnOt be characterized simp ly in {errps of , , prop marerral eflles, stUtlng with the body, which can be counted and measured like any olher object in the physical world. In faCt, c:J :-h of rhese properdes, be it the height or volume of the body or the eKrem of landed properry, when perceived and appretiated in relati on co other properties of rhe same class by agents e<Juipped with SOCia const ituted lly schemes of perception and appretialion, funnions as a symbolic property. II is therefore nC'C�ry to move beyond the opposirion betwe en a 'social physits'-which uses stalistics in objcctivist fUhion to estab lish distribu· tions (in both the sUlistinl and C'Conomic senses ), '1uantified eKpres sions of rhe differential appropriation of a finite '1uamily social energy of by a brge number of tompeting individuals, idenrified Ihrough ·objec· tive indiotors'---IInd a ·social semiology" which seeks ro decipher mean· ings and bring co light the cognitive opel1l1ions whereby agenrs produce and d«ipher them. We have to refuse the dithoromy between, on the one hand, Ihe aim of arriving at an obj«tive 'mlity', 'independent of in· dividual consciousnesses and wilts', by breaking with common represen· tations of the social world (Durkhdm's 'pre·notions'), and of uncovering 'Iaws'-that is, significant (in the sense of non·random) reb·
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, {lOnshiM r" between distriburions-and, on the olher hand, (he aim of . rasping. nOt 'reality', \)u r ay:nts' representanons 0f 'II, 90'h'ICh are 1h� . . hole 'reality· of a social world conceived 'as Will and reprcsemauon . In shon, social science does not have 10 choose �rween that. form 0.( ",,,'" physics, represenrw by Durkheim-who agrees with SOCIal semi· " .og. ology in acknowledging rhat one �:n only k no,:,," "re:' "lIy by app'ylng . ISt ;cal inSllumems of classification ---lInd the Idea semIology WhICh, undcrraking to construct 'an account of accounrs , as Harold Garlinkel pUIS I',, can do no mo� than retord the rNordings of a social world , " �J u uuci 0f meOla", I.e., 'IIIgUISIlC, wh'lCh is ultimately no mo� than the pr . L� ' ' scIence In" 0f sarClly, (lures. What we have to do is 10 bring tmO of competilion (or scarce goods, the pD(tical kno,,:"ledy: v.:hich th� agtlUS obtain fo� th�msel�es by producing--on t.he b�l� of ,helr exper�. . . ""' of the dlstrtbul1ons, Itself ..l_lIdem on theIr posmon III the dlSIllbUlion�jvi$ions and classifications Ihan -r which are no ,ess vu/C'Cl1ve _.' ' those of the balanu·sheets of social phys�cs. .In Olher ,,:"ords. we �ave to . , belween obJ«Uv!Sl thcortes whICh tdennfy -" "'yond the op"""illon .' h d' the social classes (but also rhe sex or age c,asses ) ':"'11 "sc-:le groups, simple coumable populations separ:ared. by boundanes obttcttvely dra;"'n . tn. reality, and subjectivist (or marglllaitst) thcortes which reduce �he so I order' 10 a sort of collcctive clmificadon obtained by aggregallng the � ivid ual classifications or, more precisely, rhe individual s{t:alegics, cl� � sifled and c!mifying, through which agents class rhemselv� and orhe�. , . One only has to bear in mind thaI goods are convened I�IO dlstlllcllve signs, which may be signs of disrinction but also of vulganty, as �n a.s . IIIdl· they are perceived relationally, 10 see thar the represcnral�on whteh . viduals and groups inevitably projccl through t�elr practICes and pro�r· ries is an integral parr of social realiry . A c1�ss IS de�ned as much by lIS king.pmfimi as by its king, by its consumpnon-,:",hlch �� ?Ot be con· spic\loUS in order to be symbolte� much as by liS poslIlon III the rela· tions of producrion (even if il is true th�l.rhe late � r governs the .form�r). . . lbe Bcrkcldan-i e . petil.bourgeOis-vlslon which .reduces SOCial �lIIg to perceived being, ro seeming. and whic�, for�etfln!ll thar there IS no need 10 give rheatncal performances (rtpYtJfnlall/lnJ) III order to � rhe . objecl of mental representations, reduces rhe SOCial world 10 the sum of the (mental) representations which the various groups �ave of t� �h�t. rical performances put on by the other groups, h� the vlllue o� mStsll�g on the relative autonomy of the logic of symbohc �rnc�t�tIOns wlth . respect to rhe marerial determinants of socio-cc�nomte conditIon. !he III· dlvidual or collective classification slruggles aImed at transformlllg the caregories of perceplion and appreciation of the social world and, . . of through this, rhe social world itself, are Indeed a forgotten dimenSion the class snuggle. BUI one only has ro ml.izc r�ar the �lassific�l?ry schemes which underlie agents' praclic�l relallonshtp to thClr condllton and the representation they have of;t ar� themselves the product of that
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coo�jl;on' in order [0 s« {he: limits of thi ,I ••• s :l.u[ono my· ?osiflon . n slruUI( dep ' I.II rh c!mdiouo end t s on irio . Iud1n8 ' tlectuar- n in lhe ...... StruCture'" and so. " Inte c1:1.J sub"fCC's-:nc ls, who :tre not those bc-s, ]a grasp thu which defines the limits of the .PI c� to ir thought of Ihe SOCIa that is, the illusion of rhe absence: of limir5W?r]d, a -re rh:t p5 never I� Illeel,. to Il'2t1sct:nd 'rhe limits of their minds' tha n in :� � mallon rhey have and give of their posicion, which defi nes rhose:c
Postscript: Towards a 'vulgar'Critique of Pure CYltlques (.
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The reader may have wondered why. in :l. h�K{ devoted {O laste and an, no appe1! is made 10 Ihe tradition of philosophical or literary �{he,ics; and i a deliberate refupj. he: or she will no daub! have re:alizcd {hal Ihis s II is (crellin th:l.! 'he 'high' aesthetic, borh Ihal which s i cng:tgcd in a practical (orm in legitimate works and 11m which is expressed in wri, ings intended 10 m�ke il e�plici, and presenl il formally, is fundamen tally constiruted, whatever the variants, ag�inst aJl that this research may have cstablished-namdy, the indivisibility of t25te, {he unity of the mOSI 'pu�' and most purified, the most sublime and most sublimated t25tcs, and the most 'impure' and 'coarse', ordinary and primirive t25tCS. This m(2.ns, conversely, that this project hiS �uiml, above all, a SOrt of deliberate amnesia, a readiness to renounce the whole corpus of culti vated discourse on culture, which implies renouncing not only the prof its secured by exhibiting signs of recognition but also the more inlimate profits of erudile gratification, rhO$<: ProUSt refers 10 when he indi(2.tcs how much his lucid vision of the pleasures of reading h25 COSt him: 'I have had to Slruggle here with my dearesl aesthetic impressions, endeav ouring to push intellcctual hOllCSlY to il$ ultimate, cruelJest limits' withoul being able 10 ignore thaI the pleasures of 'lucid vision' may rc� TC$Cm Ihe 'purest' and mOst refined, albeit often somewhat morose, form of enjoymenl,' A.nd if we must now allow Ihe 'relUm of rhe rep�', having pro duced the truth of the tiSte against which, by an immense repression, the whole of legitimate a<:Slhelics has been construc[(�d, rhis is not only in order to subject the IfUlhs won 10 a final test ({hough it is not a question
. of 'compuing and cOnlr.lslin,· rival [hcori�s) , b..� , ,,'," � >v m ord(r [o p". v(n( {h( absenee 0' d"Ilcn confrontation from ""� 0wmg · 1hC two d', cou l"SeS ° C�XIS' [ pe2CefuJly as par:dld alternativo, in (Wo carefU ','y 1 . par:u<;u univers es 0 though t and diKourse _ , S(:
Disgust at the 'Facile '
' �re' (ast and the ,"thelics which provides its theory ue founded � re a Of ,���hniJ ( �nsa[ion), [h� simple, prim�:: : a pIC4l>Urt; 0f [hC senses as In whu Ka�1 calls :� � !�:I:�� �� r �., hc tUle of I� longue, [he paluc and the throl( ' a surrendcr [0 Iffime laiC senSltion which in another order looks 11 ' denc:, �[ the ,nsk of seeming [0 indulge in the 'facile (/fens' w�jc�'�E:: [U [ w:.:� J:�8�:g��( �1�C[icS is �o�:����{\�� :�:���(r �� ; a. 'lie momngs ,whICh boutgco[S �' : ��! ��� . e!h 10 and aeslh.:rics give to the word ' thaI ' !:��$ es.senC\i,s based on the disgus; Ihal i�:71::�:il�r. ::rSC��1�7IIe " one SIC or 'mak" one vomit') for everythin.8 th�I IS 'f,10Ie-fa ' c· ile music, or 1 ("ile slylislic effen bUI al'� virtu e or� n 'C:lsy l ' ' Th ( I °f i f �;��i �n� th�refore Shal!��, an: �:h��'. be;��� �t�?��it;��:; a t l ng naturall leads t? the �fusal of whal is facile in th� e{hi:a� d:�a� e{lc" sense, 0reverything which offers pleasur'es Iha. tU� too Immcdla. tely ;�lcces sible and so discredited as 'childi'h' 0r pn. m1flve (as opposed tor.the.d �erred pleasures of legitimale 1It). TIlliS people speak of 'facile 10 . �tSWfl{· �haraclenze the obtrusive elegance of a certain Style of ,"0urna,dIStlC rng or rhe tOO insisrem. tOO PredICta.ble ' charm of whal is called 'light' music (a word wh co�n� lallon s vlflua lly correspond 10 those of'flC ile'-("O l'd r os:e l s nl g ). or cerrain per(or�anc" of classical music; thus a �:iti; d���u�. :� t�e �ulgu sensualtty or 'Casbah oricma!ism' whO h d one , rn erpreta((�n o( the 'Dance of the $even Veils' in St��SS'� ;:,�" l � �U,SIC', :�ul�ar' works, as the words used to describe Ihemm�n;ic�:��; Ie, r I?h t , of �o,ursc:.: b�l also 'frivolous', '(utile', 'shallow', 'su rficta�� : � , as : �tn{l. �s':) °r. in th� O sch ma tzy register of oral satisJ;tion5' " syr�p:', ':ug�� -waler , 'cloying';are,notyn Iy a son of insult to refinemem. a slap in 'he face ,; a_ 'de a� rng ( d�ilt) audience which will not stand for 'fadle' offer ngs (I .IS a �mph,mem to an artist. especially a condunor, to say he : tS �IS au� lence ); they arouse distaste and disgusl b)· the methods of !:' . wh·ICh uetlon, usually. denoun ced as 'low'. 'de,rading·' ·d,m�A",ng, · . they try . t use, gIVIng lhe sj>«t1lor the sense of being unted like any Tom, DICK� or Harry who can be seduced by tawdry charms which invile h' � Ss o he mo,st primitive and elementary forms of pleasure. �: ,. .I��r �:Y � t�e pHSlve utisfaClions of the infantile laSI' '0' ,.-, I<:jUI . dS ('syrupy') 0r tne. quasl'anlmal gr:ltilicarions of sc::xual desire ' One might evoke Ihe Phtonlc prejudice, endlessly reaffirmed, in favour"of the -
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or the primacy Kant gives to form, 'noble senses', vision and hearing, i.ntnal seduction. which is more 'pure', over colour andexem<:juas le�t in which Schopen' [lUt it will suffice to <:juote a <:juite theplary 'sublime' and the 'charming' hauer "ublishes an opposition betwina:nthe Criliq ofJudgtmml between identical to the one Kant mak" tiful' and theut'agre ', 'thar which 'plC1Sure' and 'enjoyment', Ihe 'beau penhauer delin"eable 'eharming or pleuc:':s and 'that which gr:ltific::s'. Schowill by presentingthe it directly its aUDctive' as that which 'cxcites theh 'draws the beholdertoaway from the fulfilment, its satisfaction', thaI whic by all apprehension of the pure contemplation which is demandedwill, by objectS which diltttlybeau ap liful, because it n«essarily excites Ihisemns simultaneously the tWO form peal 10 it'; and, significantly, he condsl which the satisfaclion recognizeds of satisfaction, oDI and sexual, again ed: 'The one speci" {of the specifically a"lhellc is 10 be constitut h paintings of still lifc::, when charming}, a very low one, is found in Dutc which by their deceptive likeness Ihey err by representing articl" of food,thing represent, and this is n«essarily excite the appetite for the putS santhey end to all a"thetic con· ;USI an cxcitement of Ihe will, which is yet admissible, because we may tempbtion of the object. Painted fluit of Aower, and as a beautiful regard it as the further development the being obliged ro think of product of nature in fOlm and (olour, withoutrepre d with d«c:t:p ive it as eatable; but unfortunately we often lind,rs, herrisente ngs, cr:lbs, bread and nawralness, prepared and served dishes, oyste altogether to be condemned. In burrer, bcc:r, wine, and so forth, which is char ming consists in naked fig. historical painting and in sculpture ther:ll treat t are calculated to ex, ures, whose position, dr:lpery, and gene pure mcn etical contemplation cite Ihe passions of the beholder, and thus is defeaesth ated." is at once annihilated, and the aim of art ,6 and all a"rhetiQ in Schopenhauer is here very close to Kant the dominaled fDction of the which, in a r:ltionalized form, Ihe ethos ofpUIS the 'charming', which dominant class is expressed; as he so well ed. fromit,subje y and its im· reduC" the 'pure knowing subjed. 'fre every desire,clivit servilude', pure desires' 10 a 'willing subject, subject to and exhibevery ist, it cap e�ertS real violence on the beholder. Indec:ented to bodilyition ms, and lUres the body by its rhythm, which is attun , suspense rhyth and surprises, captivat" the mind by the deceptions of its<:juplotS sed to the 'distanee' forcing on it a real participation which lted oppo at as out of pbce and 'disinterestedness' of pure taste, and boun r appcas Don Quixote when, cartied aWlf by rea.! ange at a fictitious scandal, he HSaults Master �ro's puppetS. ents-from Punch Th( most radiol dilfc::�nce between popular entertainm or even lhe old neighbouthood cin·ce and Judy shows, wrestling or cifCu� audien entertainments is found in some ema, 10 5()(cer matches---1lnd bourgeois "), whisd 0$ , (1)0 anl, manifest participation, In one it is (OnSl. invasio ns): in the Olher it is intermitg.ticld playin or times dire
:IS
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tent, di$t2n!, highly .ituali�ed, wilh obligalory applauS/:, 2nd evcn 5houis of cnthusi:l$m, al I� end, o. cven pcrfoxlly silcn! (wnc ert$ in chu.chc$) , )a�l , a bourSCOis c1l!ertlinmenl which mimics popular enler lainme1l!, is only an appan:nt exctplion: t� 5igns of participalion (hand
tapping) an: limited 10 a silenf skerch of rhe gcslU n:
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The 'Tmte of Rejfertion' and the 'Taste ofSeme' Whaf pun: 1a:5le refuses is indeed Ihe violence 10 which rhe popular spec_ t1l0r consents (one Ihinks of Adorno's descripti on of popular music and ils eifoxls); it demands n:spclc , Ihe distance whic h allows ;1 10 keep ils dislance. II expecls {he work of art, a finalilY with no olher end rhan il' self, {O 1tc11 Ihe spectaror in accordance with the Kant;an impcr:llive, {hat is, a:5 an end, not a means. Thus, Kan t's principle of pure laste is nothing olher Ihan a refunl,' a disgusl-I disgust for objC<:ls which im. pose (njoym(n{ and a disgust for the crude, vulgar las{e which revels in {his imposed enjoyment: 'One kind of uglin ess alone is incapable of being rqJresenled conformably 10 nature with out dnuoying all acsthelic delighl, and conSC<juendy artinic beaUlY, namely, Ih1l which excilCS d is glm_ For, as in Ihis slrange sensafion, whi ch depcnds purely on the imagi nation, Ihe objecl is represen{ed as insisting , as it were, on our enjoying it, while we slill sel our face against it, Ihe artificial representation of {he objc<:t is no longer distinguishable from {he nature of Ihe objc<:t ilself in our senmion, and 50 it cannot possibly be regarded as beautiful' (pp.
174_ ln) .9
Disgust is Ihe puadoxical experience of enjoymenl extorted by vio lence, an entoymenl which uouses horr o•. This horror, unknown to Ihose who surrender to sensalion, results fundamenlally from removal of {he di5lance, in which fttm tdo is :asserted, befween- rhe rqJtesenlarion and the thing represented, in short, from aiit'lal li()1/, {he loss of Ihe sulr jc<:r in Ihe objecl, immediale submission to the immediate prescnt under the enslaving violence of {he 'agn:t':able'. Thu s, in conlr:lSt 10 {he inclina tion aroused by the 'agreeable', which, unlike beaulY. is common to humans and animals (p. 49). is capable of seducing 'those who are alw�ys imenl only on enjoyment' (p. 4); also 47. 1 7 1 and 'immediately S
)
C.ilif{lIt remains in the r¢gisle. of Sdlm, 'ought'. l11C stat�menrs on taste
Simple gl1lmmalicaJ analy5i5 bears OUI H��I's complaint th ai Kant's Ihird
ar¢ wrillen in the impc"tivo:, or r:lthcr in that SOli of �urious constuive
",hich allows Ihe aUlhor 10 .cmain silent as 10 the condition5 of rcaliulion of what i$ in faC! a p<:.formativc utterance, Some typical cumpl�: 'We say . of a man who r�mains unalfoxled in the presence o f whll we (�n$lder sublime. Ihal � has no foxling. We dtmand bolh IU�C and f�llng of e�ery man. and, gr:lnred some degrec of culture, we givo: hIm cred" fo•. h , . (po 1 16); 'Every jud�ment whICh is 10 show 1m: (�t� of th� indIVIdual IS 'If{lIiffli 10 be an independent judgement of the indIVIdual .hlmsetr (p. 137): 'I take my siand on the ground thaI my judgcmenl II 10 H one of {:lSI�. and nOI one of understanding o. reason' (p. t40); 'fine m mllil be (.OX art in a double sense: (p. 18)).
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1lIc:: obiccr which 'insists on being entoyed'. as an image and in �eali{y,
n-h and blood, neutr:llilCS bolh elhical resistance and ac5theu( neu' tn llQ . tf:llization' il annihilatcs the dislanciuing po"""r 0f representation, I"" ' essenfially human power of suspcnding immedille, animal auachme�1 10 the sensible and refusing submiSSion to Ihe pure affect, 10 sImple )Isth esis. In the face of this Iwofold challenge to human freedom and to cuI· ture (Ihe ann-nature). disgust is rhe amb!valcnt expc�lence of {he horrible seducrion of the disgusting and of enjoyment. WhKh pcrforms a , 50ft of reduClion to animali{y. corpon::llllY, the belly and sex. Ihat IS, 10 whar is common and rherefore vulgar. removing any difference belween those who resisl with all their might and those who wallow in pleasure, who entoy enjoyment: 'Common human undersnnding . . . has rhe doubrful honOuf of having Ihe name of common sense , . bcslOwed upon il; and bcslOwed. 100. in an acceplltion of the word �(JI1Imon (nol merely in Ouf language, whcre it actually has a doubl� meanmg, but also in many olhers) which makcs il amount 10 wh� t IS v�/gar {daJ VIII gart)-what is everywhere 10 be mel with_ quahty whKh by no means confers credil or dislinction upon its possessor' (p. 1 )1). Nal�re under siood as sense C<1ualittS. bUI at the lo",,"csi level (an c:'rly �rstOn of the 'lcvelling..!own· abhorred by Ihc Heideggcrians). Aristotle I�ught I�at differem things differentiale themselvcs by what makcs Ihem Similar. I.e., . , a common char:lcter; in Kant's teXI, disgust d,S(:overs .Wl.lh �or,?r {he common animalilY on which and against which mOr:l1 dlStlOWOn IS con strUCted: 'We regard as coarse and low Ihe habits of thought of those who have no foxling for beauriful natu� . . . �nd who d�vo.te �hemselvC$ {O the mere enjoyments of sense found In eatt�g and drmkmg (p. . Elsewhere Kant quilC diT«dy stalCS Ihe socill basts of the opfl?Smon bclWOXn the 'Iasle of reAcclion' and rhe 'Iasle of sense': 'In Ihe be�lnnln�. the novice musl have been guided by inslinCi alone. Ihat voice of God which is obeyed by all animals. This permiued some Ihings 10 be used. for nourishment, while forbidding olhers. Here it is nOI noxcssary m assume a special inSllOet which is now losl. It could simply have been {he sense of smell. plus ils �fIini{y with the o.gan �f tas�e and the welJ_�nown lion of the liner 10 the organs of d'8""on: 10 short �n �blilly. pcrcel able even now. 10 sense, prior 10 the consumption of a certain foodstuff.
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whctho or nOt it is fit for consumption. It is not cven ncccssary to as. sume that this sensitivity was kttner in the first pair than it is now. Fot tt is a familiar enough fact that mcn wholly absorbc-d by their senSC$ h1� e much grc;ltCr perceptive po ...·ers than those "'ho. O(cupied with thought as well as with the senses, arc 10 a degree turned away from the scn suous.''' We rccogniv: here the ideological mechanism which works b describing the terms of the opposition one establishes betwee n the SOCi cluscs as stages in an evolution (here, the progress from nature to cui. rure). Thus, although it consistently rduses anything resembling an empi". cal psyChological or sociological �nesis of tute (e.g., pp. 89, 1(6). each time invoking the magical division between Inc Il'lnscenden tal and the empirical," tnc theory of pure tute is grounded in an empir ical social re lation, as is shown by the opposition it makes between the agreeable (which 'docs not cultivate' and is only an enjoyment--.....p and cui. fure,OJ or its allusions to the teaching and edunbility of taste. ' The an. tithesis between culture and bodily pleasure (or nalure) is rooted in the ?ppo�ition between th cultivated bourgeoisie and the � people," the . m2gm ary slle of uncul tl�atC d natur e, barba � rously wallowing in pure en. Joyment: 'Tute that requires an added clement of chum and emotion fOt ils ddight, nor to sJ>Cllk of adopting this as the mC2Sure of its appro�al, has nOt yet emerged from barbarism' (p. 6�).
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If one follows through all the implications of an aesthetic which cord. ance wirh the logic of Kant's 'Essay On Neguive Magnitudes', h�sin'0acmea. �ure "�r!Ue by ,�e magnnude of ,he vices overcome and pure taste by ,he 'ntenmy of the ,mpulse denied and the vulgamy refused, then the most :Kcomplis�� ?" has to be" recognized in those works which carry the anu. tllc$.$ of (lv.hzcd bamartsm. contained impuJse, $ubltm..ed CCHrxness. ' to the highest
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pure pleasure-ascclic, empty pleasure wh�ch im�lies the renunciation
ure, plC2Sure purified of plC25U�'S pred.sposed to become a of plc» 5·robol of mOl'll excdlencc, and the work f art a tCSt ?f "hical sU.l>crior. ? . . ) an indisputable mC2Sure of the capacity £ot subhmal10n whICh de· the truly human man.'6 What is a.t �take in acsthcti� discourse, an� . of a delinlIIon of the genumdy human, IS imn<"Kition r-,n the aHempted . . · 11 ' upon to mark '"" Art IS ca11_ nhIlfy noth;08 Icss than the 71/()1I r- of huma7llIJ . . . and non·humans; artiStic experience, a ,h< difference betWeen humans , _cy the artist ' = Creations, natura naturanJ, whe, free imitation of natural . of natura na· (and through him, the beholder) a�rms hiS tnnso::endence of second nature (po 176) subJcct only to the laws ' '"ala by ptoducing 'a e crcttive genius (p. 171), is the �Ioscst app�oach t? the d"tVllle expenen� n whICh f�ly engenders �IS of j"ruituJ odgi"ariuJ, the CfC2,tlve percepl10 wn objccl without recognizing any rules or conStnmtS other than liS wn (p. 168). The world produced by artistic 'creation' is nOt only 'an· in the manner of "her nature' but a 'countcr·natUte', a world produced ' dance, ' III nature but against the ordinary laws 0f oarurc-tho5C 0f gravity of th05C of desire and plC2Sure in painting and sculpture etc:-by an �ct artistic sublimation which is predisposed to fullil a funetlon of SOCial Ie gitimation. The negation of enjoymcnt-inf�riot: coarse, vu�gar, merce nuy, venal, servile, in a word, natunl--tmpl,es affirmation of I�e sublimity of Ih05C who can be satisfied with sublimilcd, �ncd, dlstln· w�n guished. disintetCSted, gntuitous, free pleasures. The opposlt!on bct the lUtes of nature and the tUtes of freedom introduces a relationship which is that of the body to the soul, between thOSC who arc 'only natu' ral' and those whose capacity 10 dominate their own biologic�1 nalute �f· firms their legitimate claim to dominate social nature. No w.onder, then, fhu u Mikhail Bakhtin has pointed Out apropos of Rabelals, the popu· lar l:naginuion can only invert the rduionship which is the basis of �he aathetic sociodicy: responding to sublimarion by a Sll1l.tcgy of reduCl!on Ot degl'ldarion, as in slang, parody, burlesque or caricuure, using �e? ity or scatology to turn af"Sy,versr' head over h�ls, all . the 'v�lu.es I.n which the dommant STOupS proJcct and rccogmze thClr subhmlty: It tides roughshod over diffcrence, flouts distinction, and, hke the Carmv.al g1mes. reduces the distinctive pleasutCS of the soul 10 the common sattS· faclions of food and 5CX.'1
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A Denied Social Relationship
The theory of beauty as the absolute Crc;ltion or artiftx rHUJ, cn�b1ing every man (worthy of the name) to mimic the divine act of creallon, IS no dOubt the 'nltural' e�prC$Sion of the occupational ideology of tho5C who like to call them5CJves '"carors'. which explaios why, even wahout any direCt inAuenct, it has coostantly becn reinvented by anists, ftom leonardo da Vinci, who made tnc artist 'thc mas,er of all ihings', 10 Paul
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Klec:, who �imtd (0 Cte:lfC lIS n�turc docs. I? An�ui(c �parr from ' deaf rdationship ""ilh the antithesis between (he twO forms of 1eSlh � p,J��re, and through rhis, with the oPJ>Osi i n between the culn �� ll due and the barbarous muses-the opposmon Kant establishes lit.. Iwec:n 'frt(; arc', ' hich is agreeable on its own account' and whose Pro --: . . d . uct IS frttdom---$lnC( I( IS agreeable on lIS ol/:n account and in no WI (onslnins the: bcholdcrlO-and 'mercenary an', a servile 2cdviry mractive by means of whil it rtsuhs in (e'8 , the pay), which : , consequently capablc of bemg a compulsory Imposition' (p. 1(4) wh� p�UCI forces itself o the: beholder with the enslaving viol� � of Its 5('nSlbJc charms, very directly exp� Kant'$·conception of the position of 'pure' Of 'autonomous' inrdkctuals in the division of lWour, and more pr«iscly in the division of intdkclUal labour. Thc,e 'pure' intellect�als are, according t Tht Conflicf of fIN FiMlilritJ, nont :> other than philosophy prof("$SOrs,I but attislS and writer.; would no doubt be [he purest of all. The Criliqllt ()/illdgmunf s i less remote than If seems from the 'Idea for a Univenal History'. which has rightly bern �n as. the �x�rcssion of the subli,:med interests of the bour�is intel l[gen[sla; thIS [ntellectual bourgeoIsie, 'whose legitimation', as Norbert Elias PUtS it, 'consists primarily in its intellectual, S(ientific or artistic acc?mpJishments', occupies an uncomfortable position in social space, enllrdy homologous to that of the modern intelligtntsia: 'an dite in lhe eyes of tht people, il has a lowtr rank in the eyes of the courtl, aristoc. ." racy. A number of the oddities of Kant's text are explained once it is seen thaI r�e second term of Ihe fundamenlal opposition betwcen plC)5ure . . . and enloyment IS twofold; the tthLcal punty of the plC)5ure of culture is cldined not only against the bamuism of enjoyment but also against the heteronomous enjoymtm of Civilization: 'To a high degree we are, through art and science, (111111nd. WI' are civilized-pcthaps tOO much for our own goiod-- n all sorts of social grace and decorum. But to con· �ider ourselves. as having reached morality-for that, much is lacking. The Ideal of moralLlY belongs to cuhure; ilS use for some simulacrum of mo rality in the love of honour and outward decorum constitutes mere civili· ulion.'l) Kant castS into the darkness of the 'tmpirical' 'the interest indirectly aflachtd to ItIt ba.uliful by the incJinuion towards society' that is pro duced by ttlt process of Civiliution, although this 'refined indination' giving no ptisfaction of enjoyment is as close as possible 10 pure plea· sure. 1bc: negation of nature leads as much to the perversion of 'unnteCS" sary inclinations' as to the pure morality of aesthetic plC)5ure: 'Re-aso" has this peculiuity that, aided by the imagination. it can create artificial desires which are not only unsuppontd by natural instinct bUI actually contrary to it. These desires, in the beginning called concupiscenct, g?d ually generate a whole host of unnecesury and indeed unnatural incllna· tions caHed luxuriousness.'''
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1be 'counter·nature' proves ambiguous: civilization IS bad, culture good. The difftn::nce bctwcen hereronomous, txltmaJ, dviliud pltasure and culrivattd plC)5ure, which presupposes 'slow effortS to improve the mind' (langsa8U Btmiihllng dtT inntrm Bikiltng dtr Dm1l1ngJ05ilions
between bealj{y �nd chum, ple:asure and enJoyment or culture and ci . . . �il' uoon, euphemisms WhiCh, wllhour my COnSCIOUS lmentiOn of dissi l .. laling, enable social opposirions to be expressed md experienced ill� form conforming to the norms of expression of a specific field. Whan ,l t hidden, Ihar is. (he double SOCial relarionship-t- o the coun (the Sit lS t civilization as opposed to culture) and to the people (tht sire of nat Of and sense)-Is bolh present and absent; It presentS itself in the tex,U,1t such � guise Ihat one nn in all good faith not se<e it rhere and rha( naively re?uctive re:a?lng, whICh would reduce Kant's text to the SO(ia/ rehllonshlp rhat IS disgUised and rnnsfigured Within il. wOllld be no I� false (han tht ordinH), reading which would reduce it ro the phenomt lla/ truth in which it appears only in disguise.
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Parerga and Paralipomena There is perhaps no more decisivt way of maniftsting the social mecha . nisms which bd ro the denial of Ihe !(':al principles of the judgemenl of taste (and their re·denial in all faithful readings) thm 10 se<e them at work in a (ommemary intended (apparerHly, at leaSI) ro maniftsr them i.t., In the re:ading of the Crill'{ue (1/Judgtmml offered by Jacques Der: rida � Although thlS reading brings to lighl some f the hidden presup. ? : , poSl(!ons of Kam s approach to laste by tnnsgreSSlng the most bindin8 rules of orthodox commentary, ir remains sub)C<:t ro tht censorships of the pure reading. Dcrrida does inde<ed se<e that what is involved is (he opposilion be. twc<:n icgitimale 'ple:asure' and 'enjoyment' or, in .erms of objc<:ts, be. tween the agreeable af!S which seduce by Ihe 'charm' of Iheir sensuous content and the Fine Arts which offer pleasure withour enjoyment. He also sees, without txplicitly connecting il with the previous opposition, the antithesis between Ihe gross tastes of those who 'are coment to enjoy the simple sensations of the senses, at table or over a bol1le'-'consump rive orality' se<en as 'interested taste'--Ilnd pure taSle. He indicates Ihat disgust is perhaps Ihe true origin of pure taste, inasmuch as it 'abolishes representative distance' and. driVing one irresistibly towards consump tion, annihilates the freedom that is asselled in suspending immediate attachment ro thc sensuous and In neurralizing the affect, thaI is, 'disin' tereSledness', a lack of imerest as to .he existence or non·existence of Ihe thing represented, And one can. no doub., rhough Dcrrida avoids doing so explicitly, relate all the foregoing oppositions. which concern the con· sumer's relation 10 Ihe work of art, ro rhe last of the oppositions picked up, Ihe one which K�nr establishes, at rhe level of production, betWeen 'free art', involVing free will, and 'mercenary art' , which exchanges the value of its labour for a wage. It goes wilhout $;lying .hal such a transcription of Dcrrida's lot, which condenses and tight�ns, thus making connections excluded from .he original. whkh, by insfltuting an 'order of reasons', produces links
Ihat
are only suggested and which, above all, gives 10 the whole enter rise Ihe air of a demonstration directed IOwards establiShing a lIurh, Ponstilutes a transformation or dislOnion. To summanzc: a discourse: hich, as is shown by the atlention Dcrtida devo{(�s to the writing and typOgraphy, is. the �roduct of (he intention of ru �ring content inlO form, o d which rejectS In advance any summary aIming 10 separale content form, ro reduce the text 10 ils simplest expression. is in fact to deny the most fundamental intention of the work and. by a SOrt of transcen· den tal reduction which no cridque has any thought of carrying out, to of everything by w�ich th philosophical text affirms p<"rform the epochi . , : , . ils existence as a phIlosophICal text, I.e" lIS dISInterestedness , liS fr= dom, and hence its elevadon, its distinction, ils distance ftom all 'vulgar'
�
;rOm
disNUTSCS. But Derrida's supremely intellectual game presupposes lucidity in commitment to the game; 'It is a question of pleasure. Of thinking pure pleasure, �he being.pleasure of pleasure. Starting out from pleasure, t�e . . third Critique was Wflnen for It, and mUSI be read fot lf. A somewhal and pleasure-Without concepts and without enjoyment--ll somewhal srrict pleasure, bUI we learn here, once again, (hat there is �o pleasure without srri(lure, Lc:ning myself be led by pleasure. I recogmzc: and. at the same
lime,
I pervert an injunClion. [ j(J!I(>W it: the emgma of pleasure sets the
whole book in motion, J ledUc( if: In treating rhe third Criuqut as a work of m or a beautiful object, which il was not meant simply to be, I aCl as if the existence of rhe book were indifferent to me (which, Kant explains, is rC<Juire
The r.tdica! qucsrionings �nnounced by philosophy He in f�cr CirCII scribed by Ihe ime�ls linked ro membership in the philosophical that is, to the very �J(islence of this fl(ld and the co�ponding censo,. ships. The /icld is the historical prodUCI of the labour of rhe suc cess
fic�
fOtc t't �
philosophers who have defined ceruin lopics as philosophical by {hem on c,:,mmentary, discussi
obj«lifitd philDwphy
(P:'
qu�um,
...
r�pect (or convenli.on even in their oUIr.tges-in - shorr, every. . thmg whICh secures rccognmon of membcrship."
Failing to be, at rhe same time, social breaks which truly renounce the g r:uificalions associared wirh membership, rhe mosr audKious intellec· tual breaks of pure reading srill help to p�rve rhe stock of consecrated texts from becoming dead lem:rs, mere archive marerial, fit at besl for rhe: history of ideas or rhe sociology of knowledge, and 10 pe�rual(: irs txi$" rence and its specifically philosophical powers by using it as an emblem or as a marrix for discourses which, whatever their Slared inlenlion, an: always, also, symbolic srraregies deriving their power r:sscmially from the: consecl1ued rexts. Like rhe religious nihilism of some mystic heresics,!
philosophical nihilism 100 can find an ultimare parh of SlIlvation in the: riruals o( liber:Jtory rr:Jnsgn:ssion. Just as, by � mir:JcuJous dialeclical re new�l, the coundess acts of derision and dcsacr:Jlization which modern an has pe�rrared against an have always rurned, insofar as these 2re still allistic 2(1S, to Ihe glory o( art and rhe anist. so Ihe philosophical '
constrUClion' of philosophy is indeed, when the very hope of radical re cOnstruction has evapor:Jled, Ihe only philosophical answer 10 the destruction of philosophy.
"The Slralcgy of r:rrkillg as one's objeCl lhe: very tradilion 0111' belongs 10 alld one's Own activi.y in order (0 makc lhem undergo a quasi objc:cli!iolion-
:118 commcmary, 1 typi�ally �holastic .s<=nre, both in iu condilio!""
common practice: among arlim, 5inc� Ouchamp-has the effecl of lurn·
of pro y (lectures, e$ p« l a l l '" 19rigallon classes) and rn Ih c dOCIle y�1 duction rigorO\lS disposilions it demands, inlo a personal �ork suilabl� �or publica. . ,iOfl in a�m.prde I"CYlews. by a furlhe:r lransgresiilon, scandahzrng lhe: or tJodox, of lhe: ucred frontier bcr"'«fl the academic field and the lilerary i.e., belw('(:n lhe: 'IICrious' :lfId lhe: 'frivolous'. This cntails a dramatiza· tion (.orist m 1(;"'), pankularly visible: in 'parallc:l-(olumn' produClion, ",hich aims 10 draw arrenrion to lhe: philosophical 'geslure', making Ihc ..cry unerance of discouf$C an 'act' ill the: senllC which avant.prde painters gi�C 10 Ihc word and placing the person of Ihc philosophcr al Ihe cenlre of . lhe philosophical stage
�d,
Philosophical obj�lificuion of the lrulh of philosophical discourse en·
wunrers irs limiU in Ihe objective conditions of ils own existence as an activity aspiring to philosophinl legirimacy, that is, in the e�istence of a philosophical fic:ld demanding recognition of the principlcs which are the
very basis of irs exislence. By mcans of this semi.ootectifieation one can situare oneself simultaneously inside �nd oUlsi,*, in the game and on the (Ouchline, i.e., on Ihe malgin, at the (ronrier, in regions which, like rhe SO
the: beginning, points from which one can be as dinant as possible from the interior without blling into Ihe eXlerior, OUler darkness, that is.
'fl1l.me',partrg()1l, are:
m�ny limilS. the beginning of rhe end, Ihe end of
inlO
into the vulg.l.Tily of the non.philosophinl, the coarseness of 'empiricaI', 'onric', 'positivist' discourse, and where one can combine the profits of
lransgn:ssion with Ihe profits of membership by producing the discourse that is simult�neously cloStst 10 an exemplary performance of philosophi. cal discourse and to an exposure of the objective truth of this discourse.)l
Whereas the: orthodox reading takes lilenl1y Ihc oven logic of lhe s.ac1C"d tcu_he 'order of rn.sons' il pUIS (orward, lhe plan whkh il announces and rhrough which il continues 10 impose ils order on its own dcroding lho: heretical 'C":Iding I1kes libenics wilh lhe: norms and fo.ms imposed by tho: guardians of Ihe {CXI. On Ont side, lhe«: is .he 'right' 'C":Iding, Ihc onc ....hich Kanl hilS designalN in advance, by manifesting the apparenl archi· t((lonics and logic of his discourse, with a whole apparalus of skilfully articulated litles and sub-titles and a permanenl display of the eXlcrnal signs of dcductivc rigour, by basing on his p.evious writings (with a nC":lI di"«t of circub.r self.legitimalion) a problematic which is, to a I�rgc e�tcnt, thc artificial p.oduct of Ihe divisions and oppositions (betw('(:n undcrstand· ing and reason, theory and pnnict etC.) produced preciscly by his own Wrilings, and which. h,vc 10 be known and recognized by ,nyone (aftt. Hcs<=1 �nd so m,ny Oti>crs) who sccks 10 be known and recognized u , phiIO$Ophe:r. On li>c Oli>cr side, rhell: is a deliberately skcwed appro,ch, de (mIred. Jibcnlcd and cvcn subvcrsiv<:. whkh ignores lhe: signposrs and re· fuses {he: imposed order. fastcns on lhe details III'gknN by ordinary cOmmcnruors, notes. cxamples, pa«:n,hncs, and Ihus finds i.lIC]( obliged-
�
if only to jU$tify flu' libeny i! takes-!o denounce the arb;tnrin�s of!ilt onhodo rC':Iding and even of the oven logic of !he discourse analysed Q raise: difficulti� alld C�n to bring !o light some of the social slips "'hi� despite all the dron at ntionaliu!ion and euphemintion, belflY the ckn� ' intentions which ordinary commcntary, by definition, ovcrlooks.Jot>
�
The Pleasure ofthe Text Although it marks a sharp ?reak with . . .
the ordinary rirual of idol�trou s readmg, thts pure readmg stili concedes the �ntial point fO the phil
.
o.
sophical work.ll Asking to be treated as it treats its objecf, i e., as a "'ork of art, making Kam's object its own objenive, i.e., cultivated pleasu re cultivating cultivated pleasure, mificially e�ahing thIs artificial pleasu • by a rout's u ltimate refinl':ment which implies a lucid view on this pi sure. it Offl':fS above all an l':Xempluy speciml':n of the pleasure of art, the pll':uure of the love of Ut, of which , like all pleasure, it is nO! easy to spc-ak. It is a pure pf.casure, in thl': sense that it is irrl':ducible to the pur. suit of.the profits of distinction and is felt as the simple pleasurc of play, of p aYI�g the cullural ga�e well, f pla ing on one's skill at playing, of ? e�ltlvallng a pleasur� whICh 'cultivates and of thus producing, like a kmd of endless fire, Its ever renewed Sustenance of subtle allusions, def. erent or irreverent refl':rences, expected or unusual associalions ProUSt, who never ceased to cultivatl': and also analyse cultivated pica. su re, is u l ucid as ever in describing this. Endeavouring to understand and com mullinte the idolatrous p leuure he takes in reading a famous page (a passage from Ruskin's S/(Pln 01 Vmiu), he has to evoke not only the properties of the work itself, but the whole network of criss-crossing references woven around it-reference of the work to the personal experl' ences it has accompanied, fileilil1ted or producl':d in the reader, refefCnC( of personal experience to the worlQ it h as insidiously coloured wilh lIS connotluions, and references of e�perience of the work 10 a previous e�' pericnce of the same work or experience of other works, each of them enriched with all the associations and �n�ncC$ it carries wirh it: ·It is itself mysterious. full of images both of beauty and religion like thaI same church of St. Mark whl':fC all ,he figures of the Old and New Tem· men ts appear ag�inst thl': background of a sort of splendid ObscurilY and
:
!
changing brilliance. [ remember
y
.
ha�ing rtad i/ I�' IN first timt in 51.
Mark's itself. during an hour of storm and darkness when the mosaiC1
shone only with their own matenal ligh t and with an inner gold, earthy and ancien t, to which the Venetian sun, which $CtS ablazc even thc angels on the campaniles, added nothing of itsclf; Ihe emotion [ fc:l! in reading that page ,here, among all the angels which drew their light from the surrounding shadows. W1lS very greal and perhaps flOt "ery pure
ft5 the joy of seeing those beautiful, mysterious figures increased. but was l"red by 1MpltasllTt, so /O l/Wa!, 01 "lit/ilion which [ felt in understand· : i in 08 the texts inscr bed in Byzant e characters bc:side their haloed forc j)C1ds. so the beaUty of Ruskin's images was intensilicd and corrupted by the pride of referring 10 the sacred text. A SO rt of egoistic self.regard is in which aesthetic pica. il inc it,ble in t� mingitdjoyJ 01aTI and ",,,iion •• c� � more acute bUt 1'101 rema", so pure. sure may lX"OCome Cultivated plC"llsurl': feeds on these intertwined refl':renccs, which rein·
v
.
forC( and legitimate each other, producing, inseparably, bt:lief in the vallie of works of art, the 'idolatry' which is the vl':ry basis of cultivated
plc:l5UfC, and fhe inimitable charm they objectively exert on all who arc qu�lified to Cn ter Ihe game, possessed by their possession. Even in its pUICSt form, whl':n it seems most free of 'worldly' inlcrcst, this game is �Iways a 'society' game, based as Proust again says. on a 'freemason ry of cuSlOms and a heritage of tradilions': 'True d Istinction bc:sides, always a(· ken to address only distinguished persons who know rhe same customs. and il tiM 7/{It "txplam". A book of Anatole France implies a host of learned knowledge, ineludes IInmdmg aI/lisions that the vulgar do nOt perceive lhere, and thoe, its other beauties aput, make up its incompara. ble nobilily.')9 Those whom Proust calls 'thl': aristocracy of intellect' know how to mark thdr distinction in the mOSI peremptory fash ion by addressing 10 the 'tlite', made up of those who can decipher them, the disClC(1 but irrefutable signs of their membership of the 'elitl':' (like the
,
,
loftiness of emblematic references, which designate nOI so m uch sources or au thorities as the very exclusive, very select circle of recognized intel' [ocutors) and of the diSCfCtion with which they arc able to affirm their mcmbt:rship. 'Empirical' inreICSI enters into the composition of the most disin· telCSted pleasures of pu re laslC, becausc Ihe principle of the pleasur<: derived from these refined galTlCS for refined players lies. in the Jast analy. SIS. in the denied experience of a social r<:luionship of membt:rship and c�elusion. The sense of distinClion. an acqu ired disposition which func· tions with the obscure necessity of inSlinct, is affirmed nOt $0 much in the manifestos and positive manifestations of self-
-
....hich defines pun: tute u an internalized social rrlationship, a social lationship made: fksh; and a philosophically distinguished mlding of C,irif{It' �I)Mdgrmmr (annot Ix eltf'«ted to uncover the social rebtiOft. ship of distinction at the heart of a ....ork that is rightly rrgardo:<.l as tbt very symbol of philosophical disdnction.
Appendices Notes Index
Appendix 1
•
Some Reflections on the Method
For an earlier version of this text, it was decided to adopt, for once, an order of presentation as close as possible [0 the actual process of research,
and [0 present progressively, in the order in which they were performed, the operations which led to a systematic explanation of the data colleered in various statistical and ethnographic surveys. It was hoped that in this
way there might be more ready acceptance of a body of theoretical hy potheses which, i f presented at the ourset, might have appeared arbitrary or forced; but which could never have been extracted from the material analysed if they had not been present, in the form of heuristic schemes, from the very beginning of the research. Although the present order of exposition, which stans Out from the point of arrival of the research, is less favourable [0 the smug display of data and procedures which is usually regarded as the best guarantee of scientificity, and although the additional rigour it implies is offset by a whole series o f ellipses and shortcuts tending to reinforce the suspicions of those who remain at tached [0 a naively empiriCist conception of scientific work, it eventually presented irself as the only sequence which allows each fact to be replaced in the system of relations from which it derives irs truth-value. For this reason, it is necessary to outline the main operations of the research, without seeking to disguise the artificiality of this retrospective recon srructloo. The survey on which the work was based was carried out in 1963, after a preliminary survey by extended interview and ethnographic observa tion, on a sample of 692 subjects (both sexes) in Paris, Lille and a small provincial town. To obtain a sample large enough [0 make it possible [0 analyse variations in practices and opinions in relation to sufficiently ho mogeneous social units, a complementary survey was carried out in 1967-68, bringing the total number of subjects [0 1,217 (see table A. l ) .
Because the survey measured relatively stable dispositions, this time-lag does not seem to have affected the responses (except perhaps for the question on singers, an area of culture where fashions change more rapidly) 1 A n initial analysis showed that certain categories were extremely
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senior executives (cadres supirieurs ) and the teachers (profemurs ) . It was decided to isolate, despite their small number, the artistic ptoducers
C() "" oo
(classed among 'intellectual occupations' by INSEE and grouped with the professeurs ), the cultural intermediaries (grouped with primary teach
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tween junior administrative executives, junior commercial executives and
secretaries; among the
cadres supirieurs,
between private-sector and public
few o f the latter) .
o OdX) 00 ..,.. \Q ci oo " ""'; "'; o oO
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o 0 0 00 '" o ci ci "",: ..n ....... V"\ ...,. "II" N
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ori exi o o ""': ""; "'; .....
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The sam!,le contained approximately the same number of Parisians and ' provincials, and was devised so as to allow analysis of practices and
choices by class fraction. The upper and middle classes were therefote
over-represented so as to give an adequate sample of each of their frac tions without distorting the composition of the class. In particular, this
made it possible to study the taste of socio-occupational groups which were very small in number at the time of the survey, but which, like the
O ...... O CO O, OO "tt
r-: -.i ci ,...; "':
ers by INSEE) and the art craftsmen and small art-dealers (arlisam el petits commer(ants d'art ) ; and to distinguish, among the cadres moyens, be
sector senior executives; and, among the projeJJeuTJ, between secondary school teachers and higher-education teachers (although there were very
0 \0 \0 \0 1:.0
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heterogeneous, as regards both their objective charanerisrics and their p references, in particular the independent craftsmen and shopkeepers (arlisam el pelils commer(ants ) , the junior executives ( cadres moyens ) , the
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new petite bourgeoisie, were found to occupy strategic positions and which have in fact grown steadily in number and importance. In the case of the
there was undet-tepresentation of ' the most disadvantaged category, that of the semi-skilled workers and unskilled labourers, who are very uniform with regard to the object of
classes popu/aires,
the survey, i.e., very uniformly excluded from legitimate culture. And the working class as a whole does not have the weight it would have in a representative sample. This of (ourse implied that not all (he data con cerning the whole sample would be published ( such information is, strictly speaking, always meaningless) . Furthermore, the farmers and farm workers were excluded from the analysis, after a preliminary survey which showed that the questionnaire was completely inapproptiate and that quite other methods were required [0 identify the dispositions of a population totally excluded from legitimate culture and even, to a large
extent, from 'middle-brow' culture
(la cU/lure moyenne ) 4
This experi
ment did, however, bring to light the only and most fundamental piece of information which can be derived from purring questions on legiti
mate culture to a category that is excluded from it, namely, the almost universal recognition of the dominant culture. It also made it possible to observe, at maximum intensity. the effect of imposition of a problematic
.-
�
::!:
which any questioning of this sort produces when it forgets to question itself and forces itself authoritatively on agents for whom it would not exist outside of that situation (an effeCt which, as was subsequently shown by secondary analysis of numerouS 'opinion polls', leads to the production of pure artifacts ) .
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heterogeneous, as �gards both their objc<:live chu:tclerislies and their preferences, in particul�r Ihe indepenOcn, enftsmen and shopk�n (artisans tl pitils (omm"(dnts), the junior eKccutivcs «(tuirtJ moytnJ ), the �nd the te:l.cners (pro/tWU,s ). It was $Cnior exccutives «(tuirtS decided to isolate, despite their sm�1I number, ,ne artislic producers (cbsse
supkiturs)
:! o -::!
'"! � � "! ...
.
f!'IJ/tJJtuTS,
piJ/,ulairtJ,
• •
For each socio-occupational category, the disrribution by sex, age qualifications was checked against the results of rhe 1968 census for whole of France. This verification was nor possible in the case of rhe cat� gories consri£ucing the new petite bour�eoisie) which the censuses nor break down by age and qualification. The quesrionnaire was based on the hyporhesis of rhe uniry of raslte . and mcluded, m addition to a ser of quesrions on personal phorc)gr: and attitudes to phorography which have been in loth srucly,6 twenty-five questions on tastes in interior decoration singers, cooking, reading, cinema, painting, music, phorogra hY, radii, pastimes etc. (see the questionnaire, reproduced at the end of this apl>e� dix) . Whe� endeavouring ro grasp systems of tastes, a survey by Clo:se . questionnaire IS never more than a second best, imposed by the need obtain a large amount of comparable data on a sample large enough to . treated statistically. It leaves out almost everything ro do wirh the m()da�� Ity of practICes; but in an area which is that of art, in the sense of a per' sonal way of being and doing, as in 'art of living', the way things done and the way they are talked about, blase or off.hand, serious or vent, often makes all the difference (at least when dealing with em""'01 practices, such as viewing TV or cinema). That is the first reason everything that is said here about differences between the classes or fractions in fact applies a fortiori. Furthermore, in order to give the systems of dispositions : taste as much scope as possible within the limits of a questionnaire, a se- , f1es of gambles was made, in which the exploration of a whole area (c.g : musIC, CInema, cooking, clothing) was enrrusred to two or three q ues- ' tlons (sometimes only one) whICh often had ro stand in for a whole bat- . tery of tests and observarions. For example, the subjects were asked to . choose, from � list of adjectives established a posteriori on the basis of ' non-directive InrervIews and tests (showing photographs of socially . marked faces, bUildIng a compoSite ['identikir'} picture of the 'ideal' male or female face by adding socially marked features, hairstyle, mous tache, whISkers, beard etc. ) , those which seemed to them best suited to . their friends. This could not be expected ro yield more than an atten uated, blurred image of the deep dispositions which guide the choice of spouses, fflends or colleagues (partly because the list of adjectives, how ever carefully prepared, was imperfect and forced a number of respon dents Into the negative choice of the least unacceptable option ) -' However, the loss of precision and detail in the analysis of particular . a whole set of surveys, observations areas, each of whICh would require . and tests, IS offset by a gain in systemaricity. Jusr as in a single field, paInting for example, the particular configurarion of preferences ( Renoir does not mean rhe same thing when combined wirh Leonardo and Pi casso as when linked with Utrillo and Buffe t) is a substiture for rhe indi cations of manner which would be yielded by direct observarion and
p
.•
----�-�
-�-
--�
----
--
- - -
-
------
----
'"---
-
--
-
-
_.
-
-
questioning; so roo, rhe meaning of each particular application of rhe single system of dispositions emerges in its relationship with all the orhers. Norhing more clearly manifests the systemariciry of the habitus than the systematic redundancy within unlimited invention which de fines all its products, judgements or pracrices. Ir is, however, by mobilizing around a systematic survey all the statis tical data available on each of rhe areas directly explored, and also on areas excluded from the initial definition of the object of inquiry, such as knowledge of economics, theatre-going, attitudes ro child-rearing or sex uality etc., that one is best able ro check and fill out the dara provided by the main survey. This makes it possible ro compensate for any patchiness or superficiality (depending on the strength of the indicators used) of informarion gathered directly from such a wide range of fields; and ro do so without falling inro the abstract unreality of 'secondary analysis' of the disparate data mechanically accumulated by 'data banks' devoid of theoretic capital, positivistic institutions which are the pride and joy of research bureaucracies.8 The fact remains rhat some of the inherent limitations of secondary analysis cannot be overcome. Thus, like the various surveys by INSEE ( I nstirut national de la statistique et des etudes economi9ues) the survey conducted by SOFRES (Societe franc;aise d'en9uetes par sondages ) in 1966 at the re9uest of a number of firms, for the strictly limited purpose of discovering consumer intentions (C.S. V), gives little information as to the fre9uency and occasion of consumption or on the 9uality of rhe goods consumed, which often make all the difference (e.g., theatre-going covers both avant-garde and boulevard theatre); it does not distinguish between museum visits and visits to exhibi tions, which (as we know from the INSEE survey on leisure, C.S. IV), do not always vary in the same way-museum-going, a more ascetic aCtivity, being more common among teachers, whereas exhibitions attract more members of the profes sions and a fraction of the old business bourgeoisie-and it gives no in dication of how often they are visired. It lumps concerts, opera and ballet together in one 9uesrion, although one would probably find an opposi tion between concerts and opera analogous to that between museums and exhibitions. Similarly, the reading of works of philosophy does not mean much until one knows which 'philosophy'. There is reason ro think, for exam ple, that each fraction of the dominant class has 'its' philosophers or even irs idea of the philosopher and philosophy, and that one group will think of Teilhard de Chardin, or even Sainr.Exupery or Louis Leprince-Rin guet, whereas another will think of Same or Michel Foucault. Thus, in 1967 when the arts students of rhe Ecole Normale Superieure ( ENS), ro a large extent drawn from the dominated fractions of the dominant class, were asked whom they would like to see invited ro speak in their college, they thought first of Same, Claude Levi-Strauss, Paul Ricoeur and Fou-
- � �- - '
' � � --�---.--'-
• •
For each socio·occupational category, the distribution by sex, age qualifications was checked against the results o f the 1%8 census for whole of France. This verification was not possible in the case of the gories constituting the new petite bour eoisie, which the censuses � not break down by age and qualification.
q\J.estioning� so roo, the meaning of each particular application of the single system of dispositions emerges in its relationship with all the others. Nothing more dearly manifests the systematicity of the habitus than the systematic redundancy within unlimited invention which de
fines all its products, judgements or practices. It is, however, by mobilizing around a systematic survey all the sratis rical data available on each of the areas directly explored, and also on
The questionnaire was based on the hypothesis of the unit y of tast( and tnduded, 10 addition to a set of questions on personal photc and attitudes to photography which have been in
areas exduded from the initial definirion of the objecr of inquiry, such as knowledge of economics, theatre·going, attitudes to child-rearing or sex uality etc., rhat one is best able to check and fill out the data provided by
S(Udy,6 twenty-five questions on tastes in interior deco ration singers, cooking, reading, cinema, painting, music, photogra hy, pastimes etc. (see the questionnaire, reproduced at the end of this
p
dix) . Whe� e deavouring to grasp systems of tastes, a survey � by do,1C . questionnaire IS never more than a second best, imposed by the need obtain a large amo unt of comparable data on a sample large enou gh to . treated statistically. It leaves out almost everything to do with the mod:./.': Ity of practICes; but in an area which is that of art, in the sense of a pe� sonal way of being and doing, as in 'art of living', the way things a",' done and the way they are talked about, blase or off-hand, serio us or ",,.. vent, often makes all the difference (at least when dealing with COli'". practices, such as viewing TV or cinema) . That is the first reason why ' everythtng that IS said here about differences between the dass . es or fractions in fact applies a fortiori. " Furthermore, in order to give the systems of dispositions constitu ting ' : taste as muc h scope as possible wIth tn the limI tS of a questionnaire , a 50. " nes of gambles was made, in which the exploration of a whole area (e.g., . musIC, Cinema, cooking, dot hing ) was entrusted to two or three ques- " tlOns (sometimes only one) whICh often had to stand in for a whole bat. ' tery of tests and observations. For example, the subjects were asked to choose, from � list of adjectives established a posteriori on the basis of . non·dIrective IntervIews and tests (showing photographs of socially marked faces, buildIng a composite ['ide ntik it'} picture of the 'ideal' male Or female face by adding socially marked features, hair style, mou.. tache, Whiskers, beard etc. ) , those which seemed to them best suited to their frien ds. This could not be expected to yield more than an atten. uated, blurred image of the deep dispositions which guide the choi ce of spouses, fnends or colleagues ( partly because the list of adjectives, how ever carefully prepared, was imperfect and forced a num ber of respon dents Into the negative chOICe of the least unacceptable option ) .' '
:'
rhe main survey. This makes it possible to compensate for any patchiness or superficiality (depending on the strength of the indicators used) of informarion gathered directly from such a wide range of fields; and to do so wirhout falling into the abstract unrealiry of 'secondary analysis' of the
disparate data mechanically accumulated by 'data banks' devoid of theoretic capital, positivistic institutions which are the pride and joy of research bureaucracies.8
The fact remains that some of the inherent limirations of secondary analysis can nor be overcome. Thus, like the various surveys by INSEE
( I nsti(Ur national de la staristique et des erudes economiques) the survey conducred by SOFRES ( Societe fran,aise d'enqueres par sondages) in 1966 at rhe request of a number of firms, for rhe strictly limited purpose of discovering consumer intentions (C.S. V ) , gives linle informarion as ro the frequency and occasion of consumprion or on rhe qualiry of the
goods consumed, which often make all rhe difference (e.g., theatre-going covers both avam-garde and boulevard thearte) ; it does not disringuish
hcrween museum visits and visits to exhibitions, which (as we know from rhe INSEE survey on leisure, C.S. IV), do nOt always vary in the same way-museum-going, a more ascetic activity, being more common among teachers, whereas exhibitions attract more members of the profes sions and a fraction of rhe old business bourgeOisie-and it gives no in
dication of how often they are visired. It lumps concens, opera and ballet togerher in one quesrion, air hough one would probably find an opposi
tion between concerts and opera analogous to that between museums and exhibitions. Similarly, rhe reading of works of philosophy does nor mean much
uncil one knows which 'philosophy'. There is reason to think, for exam ple, rhat each fracrion of rhe dominanr class has 'irs' philosophers or even irs idea of rhe philosopher and philosophy, and that one group will think
However, the loss of preCision and detail in the analysis of particular . areas, each of which would reqUire a whole set of surveys, observations and tests, is offset by a gain in systematicity. Just as in a single field, patn tlng for example, the particular configuration of preferences ( Renoi r does not mean the same thing when combined with Leonardo and Pi_
of Teilhard de Chardin, or even Saint-Exupery or Louis Leprince-Rin guet, whereas anorher will think of Same or Michel Foucault. Thus, in
1967 when rhe arts srudencs of the Ecole Normale Superieure ( ENS), ro a large extent drawn from the dominated fractions o f the dominant class, were asked whom they would like to see invired ro speak in rheir college, rhey rhoughr first of Same, Claude Levi-Strauss, Paul Ricoeur and Fou·
casso as when linked with Utrillo and Buffet) is a substitute for the indi cations of manner which would be yielded by direct observation and
.
"
-
-.-��-
-�--
�--
---
-
_ _"
----·-".0
-
cault; whereas the students of the Ecole Nationale d'Adlmi'ni's 'ratic ( EN A ) , mainly the sons of senior civil servants or members of the fessions, named Raymond Aron, Fran.;ois Bloch-Laine, Pierre Ma,ssC Paul Delouvrier. Sartee, top of the Jist at ENS, was only fifth at which put three politicians at the top of its list, Mendes France (seC'OI
.1
- --
'• • "
-'.-
• . •
. . . .
-
-• •
-
- -
.
I
, -"
rained in such an artificial situation as interrogation by questionnaire, re course was had throughout the analysis-whenever a difficulty arose or a new hypothesis required it-to observations and questionings in real sit uations (see, for example, the interviews interpolated in part II). But
at ENS), Giscard d'Estaing and de Gaulle.
Another limitation of the SOFRES survey (CS. V ) is that it does provide all the information needed ro construct the system of tory principles-volume and structure of assets, and social
There is virtually no information on the respondents' economic
"
( land and property, industrial and commercial profits etc.) or their cui" tural capital, whether objectified (works of art, antique furniture, pianl;) . etc. ) or embodied (educational level) or on their social origins and previ; : ' ous careers. ,
The CESP (Centre d'etudes des supportS de publicite) survey of
- . . • •
197()
(CS. V I ) fills in some of these gaps, but very imperfectly, since only the " distribution by newspaper read is available (and not by class or class frae- ' tion ) . The survey carried out for the Ministry of Culture (CS. VII) con, ; :
tains some very useful information (e.g., on ownership of works of art), ' , but does not allow analysis by fractions (precise information on occupa, tions was not collected) .
Finally, the INSEE survey on leisute activities (CS. IV), although providing the most remarkable set of data ever collected on cultural con sumption, is limited by the nature of its classification ( the industrialists" ' for example, end up in a curious position because the category used in.. cludes all those employing more than five people); by the fact that it deals with declared practices, which are not related to real practices in the same way in all classes; and by the lack of information on the quality of , the activity, which means that the scatter of practices is underestimated. By reducing the different classes of practices and goods to their fre quency, i.e., quantity, in areas where almost everything depends on qual ity, one systematically reduces the difference between the classes ( though without affecting the ordinal relations ) . Thus, differences in the quantiry
of museum visits are compounded by differences in their quality. The privileged classes, being less subject to collective rhythms, distribute their
visits more uniformly through the year and the week and so escape the disenchanting experience of crowds in peak periods. These differences in rhythm are themselves associated with marked differences in the quality of the exhibition areas-different 'levels' of museums, more and less 'dis tinguished' exhibitions-and in the quality of the genres, styles and au
thors. But it is, above all, the manner of conducting the visit-in particular, the time devoted to it-and the manner of conducting one�lf while visiting which provide inexhaustible material fot the games of dIS. . [inC non. In view of [he limits of [he data collened and of any information ob-
above all there was a rule that had to be unlearnt, the unwritten rule that only data collected in socially defined scientific conditions, i.e., by pre . pared questioning and observation, may ent�r Into the sClentlfic c�n . sttuction. This rule, which would not be so Impressed on the SCIentific unconscious if i t did not have the advantage of putting the sociologist out of the game, and therefore out of reach of the socio-analysis which every analysis properly implies, had to be transgressed in order to bring up all the information which the sociologist, as a social subject, inevita bly possesses, and which, when verified by comparIng It WIth the measur
able data of observation, has a place In SCIentific dISCOUrse. Only a research diary could give an adequate idea of the countless choices, all equally humble and derisory, all equally difficult and decisive,
and therefore the countless theoretical reflections, often minute and un
worthy of the name of theory i n the ordinary sense of the word, which had to be made, over several years, when I was faced with a questionnaire
difficult to classify, an unexpected curve, a badly phrased question, a dis tribution that was incomprehensible a[ first sight, in order to produce a text whose success must be measured by the extent to which it allows the
reader to forget the thousands of revisions, alterations, checks and COt rections which made it possible, while manifesting at every point the high 'reality content' which distinguishes it from the 'not even wrong'
sociological essay. And so I have simply presented, as the argument called for them, the items of information that are needed to undetstand or check the stages of the statistical analysis, endeavouring to avoid both the methodological flourishes which often mask [he absence of any real reflection on the operations and also the theoretical elevation which de prives the reader of every means of verification. ( For example, although I have refrained from giving it the air of a formal protocol, I have endeav oured to provide the informed reader-without disconcerting readers less familiar with the technique-with all the information required to check the results of those analyses of correspondences which are presented in detail: the dimensions of the table, the number of questions and total
number of corresponding modalities, the numbet of individuals, the na ture and coding of the table, the list of variables, a description of the hy potheses underlying the distinction between active and illustrative variables, a list of the specific values and the rates of inertia, the main ab solute contributions and relative contributions. )9
There remains one final problem, which would no doubt merit a long discussion: that of writing. The main difficulty, especially on such a sub ject, is that the language used must signal a break with ordinary experi ence, which is no less necessary in order to appropriate adequately the
knowledge produced than to produce it; and at the same time bring ho,..,; the corresponding social experience to those who do not, or do not M,m ro know about it. The 'concrete' analyses ( although there is concrete about them in the ordinary sense of the word, since they JI) suppose constructio n ) are there to assist the return in to experience
course on art and on the social uses of arr is bound to appear both vulgar and terroristic. Vulgar, because it transgresses the sacred boundary which
distinguishes the pure reign of art and culture from the lower region of the social and of politics, a distinction which is the very source of the effects of symbolic domination exerted by or in the name of culture. Ter
product of scientific description, and to make more difficult the distanc. i " ing and neutralization which the semi-theoretical language of fake sci. ence generally encourages. The same is true of all the document s, . ( f acsImiles of books or articles, photographs, extracts from " et� . ) which ave bee inserted in the text, in order to discourage absent_ 'i. � mInded readings whIch are abstract in the sense that they have no ent in reality.
roristic, because it presumes to reduce to 'uniform' classes everything that is 'liberated' and 'alternative', 'multiple' and 'different', and to confine the supreme experience of 'play' and jouissance within the grey propositions
of a 'knowledge' which if it aims to be 'positive' must be 'positivist', 'to talizing' and therefore 'totalitarian'. If there is any terrorism, it is in the peremptory verdicts which, in the name of taste, condemn to ridicule,
�
indignity, shame, silence (here one could give examples, taken from ev eryone's familiar universe), men and women who simply fall short, in the eyes of their judges, of the right way of being and doing; it is in the sym
Art is one of the major sites of denial of the social world. But the same '.. unconscious intention of disavowal lies behind a number of ': which overtly set out to speak of the social world, and which as a resul t · may be written, and read, schizophtenically. ( How many p ilosophers socIologIsts Or phIlologIsts came to philosophy, sociology or ' , ' because It was one .of those obscurely situated areas of the social space , whICh make I[ pOSSIble to aVOId defin itIOn ' All these de facto utop ians. " who do not wan t to know where they are, are not in the best position to,I" understand the social space in which they are positioned. Would we " erwise have so many readings and lectom or 'reproducers', . " " without material, thoughts without instruments of thought and there :" fore without an obJect--
h
bolic violence through which the dominant groups endeavour co impose their own life-style, and which abounds in the glossy weekly magazines:
>
.
'Conforama is the Guy Lux of furniture', 1 0 says
Le Nouvel ObJervateur,
which will never tell you that the Nouvel ObJ is the Club Mediterranee of culture. There is terrorism in all such remarks, flashes of self-interested lu
cidity sparked offby class harred or contempt. Only the effort required to construct the field of struggles within which the partial viewpoints and antagonistic strategies are defined can give access to a knowledge which
differs from the blind insights of the participants without becoming the sovereign gaze of the impartial observer. Objectification is only complete
when it objectifies the site of objectification, the unseen standpoint, the blind spot of all theories-the intellectual field and its conflicts of inter esc, in which somecimes, by a necessary accident, an interest in truth is generated-and also the subtle contributions it makes to the mainte nance of the symbolic order, even through the purely symbolic intention of subversion which is usually assigned to i t in the division of the labour
.
of domination. When dealing with such an object, scientific work on the object is in separable from work on the working subject. It depends above all on the capacity he has to dominate practically, in his practice, the mechanisms he is endeavouring to objectify, which may continue to govern his rela tion co the objecr. One might offer for meditation, like 'Parallel Lives' in the past, the history of the Princeton Project, a vast empirical study of the consumption of music, whicb brought rogether Adorno and Lazars
reid, an epistemological couple made flesh. An arrogant theotetician who refuses to sully his hands with empirical trivia and who remains coo vis
cerally attached to the values and profits of Culture co be able to make it an object of science; and a submissive empiricist, ready for every abdica
deny or negate. It is not easy to find the right tone, co avoid both celebra tion and provocation (whic h is merely its inversion), when the very questions that have to be asked in order to construct the object are re' jeered in advance, within the object itself, as barbarisms. Scientific dis-
tion demanded by a scientific order stricrly subordinated to the social order. An arrogant positivist who attempts to set up as the norm of all scientific practice a methodology of resentment based on a sort of venge-
_
_ _ _ _c_�� _ _ _ _ � _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
ful fury against any global inquiry; and a subm issive Marxist who goes in , for vulgar Marxism when refinement is need ed and elegant Marxism ; when vulgarity is called for. Each sees the sh ortcomings of the other. ' The epistemological obstacles which social sci ence has to overcome are ' ini tially social obstacles, One of these is the common conception of the ' hierarchy of the tasks which make up the socio logist's job, which leads so <, many researchers to disdain humble, easy yet fertile activities in favour of ' exercises that are both difficult and sterile. An other is an anomie reward ' system which forces a choice between a safe thesis and a flash in the pan, ' pedantry and prophecy, discouraging the co mbination of broad ambi tion '' and long patience that is needed to produce a work of science. Unlike the ) sometimes illum inating intuitions of the ess ay form, the sometimes coher- .' ent them of theoreticism and the sometim es valid observations of empir icism, provisional systems of scientific pr opositions wh ich strive (0 ' combine internal coherence and adeq uacy to the facts can only be pro- : duced by a slow, difficult labour which rema ins unremarked by all hasty readings, These will only see repetitive rea ffirmations of theses, int ui tions , or already known facts in the provisional conc l usion of a long series of ,. totalizations, because they ignore what is essential, namely, the structure of the relations between the propositions. ,
The Questionnaire
Se x:
Year of birth: Marital status: single widowed
married divorced
Number and age of children: Place of residence: How long have you lived there' less than 5 years 5 to 10 years more than 10 years Previous place of residence: Highest educational qualification: Occupation (be as precise as possible) :
Highest educational qualification and occu pation of your father and paternal grandfather (o r last occupation ) : father qualification occupation paternal grandfather
Approximate annual income of your family: less than 10,000 F 20-25,000 F 40-50,000 F 10-15,000 F 25-30,000 F 50-60,000 F 1 5-20,000 F 30-40,000 F more than 60,000 F Do you own: a record-player a tape recorder a camera
an auromobile (indicate make) a TV a movie camera
Do you have a telephone? L
, Where did you get your furmture. ' department srore flea market (give name) auction inherited antique dealer rented specialized shop other ( specify) (give name) craftsman
2. Is your furniture: modern . anuque country-style 3. If you had the choice, which style of furniture would you rather buy: modern anuque country-style Which three adjectives best describe the type of interior you would like to live in: neat (soigne) warm clean and tidy . . imaginative (famai easy to matntam comfortable si, ) practical and func classical studied (compose) tional cosy (intime ) harmonious sober and discreet . . 5. Of the qualities listed above, whICh three are least Important ro you.,
4.
6. Of the activities listed below, which do you do often, which do you
do tarely, and which do you never do' often do-it·yourself sport ( specify) campmg walking painting or sculpture
rarely
never
,
often
7.
rarely
never
travel, exploration historical novels scientific
playing a musical instrument ( speci fy ) parlour games (specify) watching TV
14. Which are your three favourite types of films? adventure spectaculars war musicals comedies Westerns films with a message thrillers dramas historical
Which are your three favourites among the following singers? Edith Piaf Charles Aznavour Luis Mariano lio Ferre Jacques Brel Petula Clark Georges Guetary Johnny Hallyday Jacques Douai Franc;oise Hardy Gilbert Becaud Georges Brassens
nouvelle vague
8. Do you prefer clothes that are:
1 5. Which films in this list have you seen' For each film, give the names of the director and leading acrors, if known. [This list was used in Paris. In the Lille area, another list was used that reflected the films available in local cinemas. ] seen director actors Divorce Italian Style Rocco and His Brothers Singing in the Rain The Leopard The Suitor L'abominable homme des douanes Exterminating Angel Ballade pour un voyou 55 Days at Peking Les dimanches de Ville d'Avray Le glaive et la balance The Trial The Magnificent Seven Le voyage a Biarritz Le boucan ier des lies Salvarore Giuliano The Longest Day Vice and Virtue Imperial Venus
classically cut and good value for money that reflect fashion and suit your personality sober and correct daring and out of the ordinary (recherche) comfortable chic and stylish other ( specify)
9. Are your clothes: everyday
best
home·made, by yourself or one of the family made up by a small tailor or dressmaker made to measure by a large fashion·house or tailor from a chain·store (confection ) from a boutique (prh a porter)
10. When you have guests for a meal, to serve: simple but well·presented delicate and exquisite plentiful and good pot·luck II.
what kind of meals do you prefer
appetizing and economical original and exotic traditional French cuisine other ( specify)
In the following list of adjectives, underline the ones indicating the personal qualities you most appreciate: conscientious refined bon vivant level·headed sociable amusing (drole ) pragmatIC determined artistic well·bred dynamic stylish
16. What interests you most in a film?
17.
12. Of the qualities listed above, which three are least important to you? 13. Which are your three favourites among the following types of books? thrillers love stories
philosophical classical authors modern authors
poetry political
the actors the director the plot
If you listen to the radio, which programmes do you mainly listen ro? cultural programmes light music news classical music current affairs other (specify)
18. If you watch TV, which programmes do you mainly watch'
...
..
-... �.. .� -� -
•.•..•.. .
- - -- - - -
19. Which of the opinions below is closes< to your own view?
Classical music is complicated. Classical music isn't for people like us. I love classical music but I don't know much about it. I like classical music, Strauss waltzes for example. All music of quality interests me.
25.
_
.
about it.
26. Wirh rhe following subjecrs, is a photographer more likely to pro· duce a beautiful, interesting, meaningless or ugly photo?!! beautiful inreresring meaningless
name the composer, if you can. known Rhapsody in BIue
ugly
a landscape
composer
a car crash
La Traviata Concerto for rhe Lefr Hand Eine Kleine Nachtmusik L'Arl6ienne Sabre Dance Firebird Suite Scheherazade An of Fugue Hungarian Rhapsody L'Enfanr er les sonileges Blue Danube Twilighr of the Gods Four Seasons Well·Tempered Clavier I.e Marleau sans maitre
a little girl playing with a car a pregnant woman a still life a woman breasrfeeding a metal structure tramps quarrelling cabbages a sunset over the sea a weaver at his loom a folk dance a rope a burcher's stall rhe bark of a tree a famous monument a scrapyard a first communion
2 1 . Which are your rhree favourires among rhe above works?
a wounded man a snake an 'old master'
Which of rhe opinions below is c10sesr ro your own view? Paintings don't interest me. Galleries aren'r my strong poinr;
I can'r appreciare rhem.
Paintings are nice bur difficulr; I don'r know enough to ralk about them. I love the Impressionists. Abstract painting interests me as much as the classical schools. 23. Which are your three favourites among the paintets Iisred below?
Leonardo
Dali
Kandinsky
Vlaminck
Renoir Buffet Utrillo
Goya Van Gogh
Raphael
Watreau
Braque Rousseau
Picasso
Breughel
-
Whar do you think of rhe following opinions: Modern painting is jusr slapped on anyhow; a child could do it. I don't need to know who painted it or how. I can't appreciate pain ring because I don'r know enough
20. Which of the musical works in this list do you know? In each case,
22.
,
24. Have you visired rhe following museums or galleries (if possible, say in which year and with whom--school, relarives, friends, alone) ? Louvre Jacqueman-Andre Jeu de Paume museum of your city (or region) Modern Art Museum
Observation
Schedule
(to be completed by interviewer)
Home apartment house suburban derached (single-family) house
!.pavilion )
age: quality:
municipal (council flar) bourgeois
old poor
fairly prestigious . . very presng!ous
number of rooms: decoration:
-
-
-
--
�-
518 /
AppendIX
1
furniture: predominant style:
Appendix 2
/loor:
Complementary Sources '
other observations:
Dress men:
blue overalls
casual (sweat-shirt, jeans . . . )
SUl(
smart 'town' clothes
pullover
shape and colour of shirt: cuffs buttoned
rolled-up sleeves
tie
double cuffs
women:
housework clothes ( housedresses)
costume (suit)
footwear: high heds
skirt and blouse slacks
slippers
make-up and perfume:
/lat heds etc.
dress
very smart
dispersion within each category--see G. Banderier and P. Ghigliazza, 'Les
Hair
very short sideburns brilliantine
women:
short
very short bun
visible perm Speech
refined slang
revenus des menages en 1970',
medium long
moustache ( specify type)
medium long
bleached dyed
frizzy
bouffant straight
crew cut parting ( side/middle) beard
Collections de I'INSEE, ser. M, no. 40 (De
cember 1974 ) . The data presented in my study (which concern house holds, not individuals-except for property income) 2 come from tables not published by INSEE (except for the indication of average total tax able income......". Banderier and Ghigliazza, p. 29), but supplied to me
by P. Ghigliazza. II. The J 970 INSEE survey on vocational training and skill was based on a sample of 38,000 individuals. I t gives a precise description of the re lationship between general and vocational training and occupational situ ation (occupation, skill, wage level, mobility etc.) and provides data on the subjects' occupational and geographical mobility ( changes between 1%5 and 1970) and on inter-generational mobility (occuparion and qual
ification of father and subject). The initial findings have been published: R. Pohl, C. Thelot and M . F. Jousset, 'I.'enquete formation-qualification
standard
mistakes in grammar ( specify)
accent:
professionnelle en 1970',
Collections de I'INSEE, ser. D, no. 32 ( May
1974). The data presented here relate to economically active men born in and after 1918. They result from secondary analysis of tables supplied at
my reCfues,L III. INSEE's regular survey on household living conditions and ex penditure was based in 1972 on a representative sample of 13,000 house holds.' It consists of a survey by questionnaire dealing with the characteristics of the household (composition, ages, occupation of the
strong slight none
- - ------------ ---- -
fers ( social security allowances etc.) and also certain types of income from property. Some forms of income, in particular those derived from family-owned businesses, are represented by tax estimates which fall far
short of reality. Despite these limitations, the survey provides original data on the structure of the income received by each socio-occupational category, the disparities in average incomes between categories and the
well-groomed or not:
men: short
I . The survey on incomes, carried out in 1970 by INSEE ( I nstitut na tional de la statistique et des etudes economiques) on a sample of about 45,000 households, was based on the records kept by the tax authorities. It therefore only deals with taxable income, excluding numerous trans
-
. . .-.
.-.----
,
.
520
/ Appendix 2
head) , accommodatio� and facilities, major expenditure (clothing, fUe, etc . ) , penodlc expenditure ( rent, servICe charges etc. ) , combined wilth analysis of account books for current expenditure, left with each house,: hold for a week, collected and checked by the interviewer. This ,u,v,
makes it possible to assess the whole range of expenditure (except certain' major and infrequent ite�s such as air travel, removal expenses etc. ) , well as Items of consumption not preceded by purchase ( food in the of farmers, items drawn from their stocks by craftsmen and which are evaluated at their retail price to allow comparison
other categories of households. This explains why consumption is con.
siderably higher than income in the case of farmers and small busi· nessmen ( categories which are always particularly prone to under-decla.e ,' ", thelf 1Ocome) . For the overall findings, see G. Bigata and B. Bouvier
conditions de vie des menages en 1972',
Collections de l'INSEE, ser. M, no: ,
32 ( February 1972 ) . The data presented here come from secondary analy. '"
" SIS of tables by nartow categories produced at my request. IV. The 1967 INSEE survey on 'leisure activities', based on a random '
sample of 6,637 individuals representing the whole adult French popula. ', tlon, used a questlonnalfe conta101Og questions on living conditiOIl$ ', ( household help, child· minding, distance from certain facilities--theatre ' swimming pool etc.-possession of a second residence etc. ), on
t�
structure of the working week and year, and in particular on the various cultural practices, visits to museums, exhibitions and monuments read ..
ing, attendance at various types of entertainments, use of cafes and
�tau�
ran �s, outings, parties, radi�, televisio�, the various pastimes-gardening, . ' . do.It yourself, hunt1Og, fish 109, gambhng on horses, literary or artistic ac· . .tlVltles, collecting etc. For the findings, see especially P. Debreu, 'I.c:s comportements de loisir des Fran,ais', Collections de I'lNSEE, ser. M, no. 2 5 (August 1979 ) . The data presented here (which concern only the male population) are denved from secondary analysis of tables produced at my request.
V. The 1966 survey on 'businessmen and senior executives' was carried ou � by SOFRES on behalf of the Centre d'etudes des supportS de publi·
CIte (CESP). The sample consisted of 2,257 persons aged 1 5 and over, each hv10g 10 a household the head of which was a large industrial or
commerCIal employer, a member of the professions, a senior executive, an engineer or a secondary or higher-education teacher. The questionnaire mcl �ded a set of questions on reading habits and the previous few days'
read 109 of dally, weekly and monthly newspapers and magazines, use of radIO and TV, standard of living, household equipment, life-style (holi· days, SpOrt, consumption), professional life (conferences, travel, business meals) , cultural practices and the principal basic data (educQtional level, income, population of place of residence etc. ) . I had access to the whole set of distributions by the socio-occupational category of the head of household or individual.
VI. The survey on readership of the press, conducted by SOFRES in 1970 on behalf of the CESP, used a sample of 2,682 persons, economically active or not, each living in a household the head of which was a large Industrial or commercial employer, a member of the professions, an engi·
neer, a senior executive or a secondary or higher-education teacher. At the end of the interview, the respondent was handed a questionnaire to be returned by post. The rate of response was 66 percent. The question· . nOIre dealt matnly with centres of Interest ( 'subjects you enjoy talking abou!'), household and leisure equipment, main and second residences, holidays, business trips, cultural practices, reading, records, museums, cinema etc., art collections, sport, cars, economic behaviour etc. I had ac cess to the distributions by daily or weekly paper (but not by socio·occu·
pational category) . VII. The survey on cultural practices was carried out in 1973 on behalf of the Ministry of Culture, on a sample of 1,987 persons aged 1 5 and over. The questionnaire included a set of questions previously asked in
1967 by the INSEE survey on leisure and some more detailed questions
on certain cultural activities (particularly on their content--e.g., the type
of TV programmes watched, the eype of records owned and listened to, the works of art owned etc. ) . The way in which the information was gathered (pre-coding of the socio·occupational categories into ten categories) did not permit a more precise analysis by class fraction. The
main findings are published in: Secretariat d'etat a la culture Service des
etudes et de la recherche,
1974 ) .
Pratiques culturelles des Frant;ais, 2 �ols.
( Paris,
The other surveys consulted are simply listed below ' These studies, al· most always devoted to � particular area of cultural activity, are generally , based on relanvdy hmlted samples. They mostly use a classification which groups the occupations into five categories: ( 1 ) agriculteurs (farm·
ers and farm labourers) ; ( 2 ) ouvriers (industrial manual workers) ; (3) in· dustrlal and commercial employers; ( 4 ) clerical workers and junior executives; ( 5 ) senior executives and the 'liberal professions'.
On the cinema
VIII. 'Cinema fran,ais: Perspectives 1970', Bulletin d'information du Centre national de la cinematographie, special issue 91 ( February 196 5 ) . IX. IFOP, Les acteurs et actrices pri/iris des Fran,ais, October 1968. X. IFOP, Les acteurs et actrices pri/iris des Fran,ais, September 1970.
XI. IFOP, 'La frequentation et I'image du cinema en 1970',
Bulletin d'in·
formation du Centre national de la cinematographie, 126 ( 1970). Xl': 'Le public cinematographique', Bulletin d'information du Centre na· tlonal de la cinematographie, 1 53-154 (June-August 197 5 ) . XIII. SOFRES, Les Fran,ais et Ie cinema en 1 975, March 1975. XlIIa. CESP, Etude sur "audience du cinema, XVI ( Paris 197 5 ) .
,
"
On lhe lheatre XIV. SEMA (Societe d'economie et de mathematiques appliquees) , Lf. ' lhelitre et son public, 2 vols. ( Paris, 1966 ) . ( A majot survey of Paris the- .
atre audiences in 1964.) XV. IFOP, Elude aupres des speClateurs des 'parathelitrales' au Theatre de la :': ' Ville ( Paris, IFOP, 1969 ) .
On radio and TV XVI. 'Une enquete par sondage sur l'ecoute radiophonique en France', . Eludes el conjoncture, 10 ( Ocrober 1963), 923-1002. ( A major study in I . 1 96 1 of a sample of 1 2,000 people. ) Of the numerous studies by the opinion research department of the ORTF between 1966 and 1974, the following were particularly used:
XVII. Us IClespeClaleurs el I" ""iniom musicales. ( A survey carried out in , 1969 and 1970.)
XVIII. Us d()Jsiers de I'teran. (A survey carried out in 1 97 1 . ) XIX. Une roquele sur I" variites: Irailemenl des dunne" par I'analyse fac. , ' lorielle des correspondanc", July 1972. " XX. Us audileurs de France-musique: attiludes, opinions, habitudes d'ieoute
:;
des ""iniom, July 1972. XXI. L" festivals el fa radio: phase exploratoire, July 1974.
On reading habils XXII. IFOP, L" lecteurs et acheteurs de /ivr" ( Paris, IFOP, 1967 ) . XXlII. IFOP, La clienlCie du livre ( Paris, Syndicat national des editeurs,
1969). XXIV. IFOP, L" achals de livr" pour la jeunesse ( Paris, IFOP, 1970). XXV. SOFRES, us Fran,ais el la leclure ( Paris, SOFRES, 1972 ) .
XXVI. SERVO, Analyse seelorielle de Ndition, vol. 1 , Elude des marches: resullats qualilatifi, vol. 2, Elude des marches: synlhese des resultats du son dage ( Paris, Cercle de la librairie, 197 5 ) . XXVII. SOFRES, L'image des ecrivaim dans I'opinion publique, April 1976. XXVIII. CESP, L" leeteurs de la presse. ( Annual surveys on the reading of daily, weekly and monthly newspapers and magazines.)
, On drama or music feslivals . XXIX.]. Henrard, C. Martin,]. Mathelin, Elude de Irois feslivals de must que: La Rochelle 1974, Saintes 1974, Royan 1975 ( Paris, Centre d'etudes des techniques economiques modernes, 1975 ) . XXX. F.-X. Roussel, u public du festival mondial de theatre de Nancy ( Nancy, Centre d'informations et d'etudes d'economie, 1 97 5 ) . XXXI. SEMA, Donne" slatisliques sur Ie systeme musical fran,ais ( Paris, SEMA, 1967 ) .
On decoration andfurnishing XXXII . ETMAR, u marche de i'ameublement dam I" foyers domestiques: im porlance des "'pens" et caraclirisJiques de la clientCie ( Paris, ETMAR, 1967) . On food and clothing XXXllI. INSEE, 'La consommation alimentaire des Fran,ais', Collections de I'INSEE. ( The regular INSEE surveys on eating habits.) In addition ro this source, and secondary analysis of the INSEE survey on household living conditions (1II above), the following were also con
sulted: XXXIV. SOFRES, L" habiludes de lable des Fran,ais ( Paris, 1972). XXXIVa. SOFRES, us Fran,ais et la gastronomie, July 1977. ( Sample of 1 ,000 , ) XXXV. Thi Nguyen Hun, 'leg depenses d'habillement des Fran,ais en 1971-1972', Colleclions de l'INSEE, ser. M, no. 38 (November 1974).
On sport
In addition ro data from secondary analysis of the INSEE survey on lei sure ( IV) and from the survey on cultural practices (VII), the follow ing were consulted:
XXXVI. SOFRES, L" Fran,ais et Ie sporl, February 1 968. XXXVII. IFOP, us attitudes des Fran,ais Ii Ngard du sporl, December 1972.
XXXVIII. SOFRES, Les Fran,ais el Ie sport, June 1975. (Sample of 2,000 people aged 1 5 and over. )
On the press
In addition to the CESP survey already mentioned (VI):
XXXIX. CESP, Douzieme hude sur I" leeteurs de la presse, 1976. ( Sample of 5,562. The data presented in chapter 8 are derived from secondary anal ysis of tables by narrowly defined categories produced at my request.) XL. IFOP, Les lee/eurs de quolidiem dans la campagne iteetorale, February 1978.
On spending on self-presenlalion XLI. SOFRES, Pourquoi I" Fran,aises veulenl-elles maigrir? March 1974. ( Sample of 450 women aged 18-65. )
XLII. SOFRES, us femmes et la mode, October 1974. (Sample of 1 ,100 women aged 18-50.)
XLIII. IFOP and Groupe d'Ctudes de Marie-Claire, L'arJ de recevoir, De cember 1977-January 1978. XLIV. IFOP and Groupe d'etudes de Marie·C1aire, L" Fran,ai"s et la beaute, December 1976. ( Sample of 1,016 women aged 18-45.)
,, - ,
I
� -rr - · ------ -
XLV. ETMAR, Achals de vetemenls, 1971. (Sample of 552 women in region.)
On morality XLVI. IFOP, Les Fran,ais el l'amour, November 1975. XLVII . SOFRES, Attiludes envers I'homosexualile (L'Express, 7-1 1 , 1973).
XLVIII. IFOP-France-Soir, Les Fran,ais sonl comme ,a, Allgu.st-�OePt'efl ber 1974. ( Sample of 1,217.)
XLIX. SOFRES, L'image de la juslice
dans I'opinion publique,
1977.
L. SOFRES, Les Fran,ais el la censure au cinema, September 1974. LI. SOFRES, Les Fran,ais el I'arl moderne, April 1972. ( Sample of
Appendix 3
Statistical Data
�-- .
The Survey
Table A.2 Tasces and cultural practices of classes and class fractions ( % ) : Aesth�ti( disposition :
I. a
tht following subjects would m:l.kt a belIutiful photo: linle girl CI"",
Work;"g ddsJesb Cn«smen, small shopkecp=rs derical, junior CXC(utl,/(S Techni
New ptcitc bour-
Middk c/4mi geoisie'
Industrial and (omm. employell Executives, engineers Prokssions Secondary and higher�. t�chers, artistic producc:rs
UP/'" d.:J.s.sdd
N 166 100
SunSitt 90
Folk First communion dance
91
287 78 119 ')84
t02 232
�2
81 467
88 72 "
80
'9
13
"
64
The percentages exclude 'don't knows'. b. Excluding (urncrs lnd t2rm b.bourm. :I..
'0 4l "
19 20 11
63
'"
,6
'9
" "
l6 "
27
18
12
41
17
with
l6
74 ,.
60
" 61
'0
22
2l
48
\8
31
"
Bark Woman brtlSl fttding
"
46
of ,
""
frame
woman
2l
9
"
61
"
"
12
"
Pregnant
6
49
"
MeuJ
17
"
" "
Preferred p:ilintcrs
30
"
,.
" 48
6
1\
14
9
7
2
8
"
30
13
22
24
2'
12
16
11
\0
l'
4
20
II
19
2l
49 2l
\0
41
19
17
V" Raphad
Buffet
12
8
2l 19
"
22
"
27
1\
20
V\aminck Waneau 6
16
26
6
24
\8
14
2l
\8
12
12
Renoir Gogh D.a.1i 49
"
56
1
8
14
8
3
,
12
6
7
I
'0
8
12
47
47
o
42
"
28
"
4
7
29 19
12
11
3
12
\8
,
6
19
" 22
" 9
17
18
\0 12
Il
19
14
21
17
2l
2l 12
10
16
8
6
24
22
14
47
'6
"
6
8
I
\0
,
30
18
9
20
1\
\0
47
9 ,
-
-
--�--.----
19
16
\6
H
'9
61
48
Brcughel
\6
3
49 42
Bnr.quc Goya ,
48
16
31 18
. . . <0""" unior J and sc:cretanes
Uuillo
49
8
" 1I
Kandinslcy o
o o 3
6 2
6 2
10
27 1I
27
}6
"
6 4
.
• •
Table .-1.3
Tastes and cultural Pl'2crices of classes and class fractions ( % ) : lI.a Opinions on arrb
Doesn't Nice Love the Lke Modern art's Do like in[cre5t b" Impres. abstract not jWt to know who L'Arle- 8'"" '" m, difficult sionists sl:&pped on painted it sieRne Danubt
a"",
FurhMg (Uwts
Cl1lftsmen, -'maU shop-
k<ep
Ottic:a.l. junior cx«utlves Technicians, prinu.ry (eachc� New �(iu bourgeoisie
2.
.2
7
4
l2
7
42
I.
"
,
,
44
2
4t
17
6l
12
7
8
3.
3
MiJJk d.msd
4
14
employers
Indusuw and (omm.
Executives, cngineell Prokssions Secondary and hi8hcr�. tochtts, artistic producers
2.
,.
I'
14
27
17
J4
•
8
"
0
II
•
40
26
14
3.
4J
31
27
27
"
" " "
29
3.
II
" 64
22
l2
30
,
UI/'" d4mI'
'"
"
" "
14 Il
•
"
•
.
.
.
..
.. .
.
.
-.
�-
.
-
-
' ' --
-
.._._.
-
--
..
.
-. -.- - . - . - .
-.�
-.
.
.
_ _
.
_
_. .
_ .
-
. -
_
-
14
30
2l
13
•
2t
1
12
a. TIlt perccntllgCS exclude 'don't knows'. b. Each respondent was invited to say which of SC"Yeral opinions wu closest to his own.
.
18
20
"
66
60
"
22
18
4J
24
20 17
3 17
Prclcrmi musical work{
-
-
EiRe L'Enfant An Well- Concerto Twilight Kkine of TempcKd for Left u Sob", Rhapsody Hun82tian N:Kht- Four Firebird C'( 10 of Hmd Tra...iata Dance in Blue Rhapsody God. musik Seuons Suite Sortile� Fugue Clavier "
28
24
30
27
24
2l
22
2t
2t
II
to
18
12
2t
20
28 "
6 ,
13
6
4
•
14
•
" " "
28 21
Il 2l
II
J4
40
"
38
3'
"
'0 ,
l2 2t
19
4
" "
19 17 13
•
"
18
22
I.
"
7
,
0
"
"
to
1
27
22
7
0
46
12
27
2.
10
2t
30
30
3.
J4 II
" "
J4
'7
" " 4t
I.
"
10 •
2l
"
1
10 3 1
3 2
4 2
2
1
0
1
2
0
3
2
0
10
7
12
,
8
12
13
17
2l
II
l2
13
17
14
12
14
10
•
" 13 Il
4
3
,
(. Each respondent was invited ro choose thret' worb from a lin of 16. d. Total for four groups preceding.
_
' -
------�--.--
Ttthk A.4
Tasres and cultural practices of classes and class franions ( % ) : lILa Film
Dil'«tors'
WflrkiNg {Unts Craftsmen, small shop k«p<� Clerical, junior executlves Tcchnician5, primary reache.,. New petite bourgeoisie
MJdk cim,W/
Industrial and
comm.
employers Exccutives, enginc:c:rs Professions Secondary and higher-ed. teachers, artistic
J Uppw cillJti
produce.,.
0-2
3-6
7-11
77
19
"
4
27
7
o
1-3
4+
89
10
2
I
SO
18
2
,
17
,
'9
4
"
20
J9
19 18
17
9 \0
l8 "
41
28
22
8
39
}2 44
11
28
28 22
'56
l7
"
"
7
23
"
jQ 16
28 22
1'5 21
61 '52
29
10
10
Il
35
42
19
, 8
4
38
9
41
II
26 41 40
II
3l
�2
22
}2
7
22
37
26
47
1 '5
6
49 17
I'
11
12+ o
'9
46
38
of 16 mUSICal works. ( , Number of dimtot5 identified in list of 19 films. a. The percentago exclude 'don't knows'. b. Number of composct5 identified in list
STones
Love
Historical Travel
Thrillers
19
61 60
,
'1
"
22
47
40
l8 " 43
43
l8 "
l8 44
I'
29
II
Classics
novels
l8
49 34 " 68
,. '6
40
48
41
24
"
40
41
l6
'6
42
Poetry
Philosophical
essays
\0
8
2
II
10
8
28
21
32 41
17
,
28
21
'0
6
29
l6 21 47 "
"
14 '0 12
Slang 8 4
4 o ,
Mistakes
in
grammar Standard "
28 .,
68 77
o
o
accent
14
12
12
37
'0
16
'6
28
21
o
"
"
10
Rdlnro o
o 4
6
14
7.
,
SO
"
l8
o
o
20
27
o
6
"
l4
10
"
"
,
o o o o
'" 81
"
84
d. Each respondent was Invired to choose th ree ry� of books e. Interviewer's observations. f. Total for four groups pmed-ing.
No
Slight acccnt
,
8
Strong accent
6
12
, II
"
26
68
II
67 87
,
o o
o o o
ftOm a list of 10 ry�_
44
Il 12
87
7
9l
16
84
_._
Table A.' T2St� and cultural prac[ic� of classes and class fractions ( % ) :
•
Photography or home movIeS
often
(I"",
Worlei"K d.wn
Cl'2fumen. small shopk«p<.
Technicians, primary teachers New petite bourgeoisie:
6
6
7.
59
3.
6
,
13
4'
47
7
I
21
'0
,.
69
60
,. ,.
47
66
,.
"
44
"
38
UJIPn' {/&utI'
"
4
"
employt'n Executives, engineers Professions Secondary and highercd. tachers, artistic producers
musIC
46
"
Industrial and comm.
Light
'0
61
MitlJit d.rmf
often
An Gallery
Records,
Modem
"
40
68 "
10 24
"
II
"
3
"
•
"
6 ,
•
"
40
13 14
2.
31
44
17
•
46
•
61
14
12
61
14
"
16
•
16
64
"
•
71
10
II
N""
Classical musIC
2'
10
"
"
" 21
I.
29 I.
" 2.
a. The percentages exclude 'don't knows'. h. Each respondent was asked to say whether he never, occasionally or ohen practised various activities. ( Muscum-going was measured by at [ellS[ one visit 10 the Louvre and Modern Art Gallery.)
..-
----
..
- -
...
-
---- - ----- -
-
-
.
-
-
- - -
,
-
- -
Light
63
"
Clerical, junior exccufiVes
ohen
Mus. insu.,
-
Preferred sin�nd
R20dio<
Louvre 'nd
P2inting, sculptun:, often
_----
IV:'
Auiviriesb
Do-ityourself,
....
. - --- -
'
musIc ,nd
cultul'2l or classical
Hallyd2y
Brei
Brasscns
Fe:rri
Douai
17
24
41
20
7
36
2
31
32
20
4
47
II
4.
40
30
6
I.
,
72
Jj
14
13
I.
,
Aznavour
Guerary
Mariano
P. Clark
31
18
30
"
20
30
21
II
,6
II
4
•
,
II
31
13
17
12
21
,.
7
7
13
10
26
3l
•
3
7
21
•
4
7
I
I 6
17 18
"
,.
" "
68
"
II
" "
•
"
,
9
"
" "
I.
,
t
'0
41
"
"
31
6
21
61
10
42
70
31
36
,
2
12
4
I.
27
,
2.
2•
"
0
c. Type of radio programme: most often listened to. list of 12. d_ Each respondent was asked to choose: thrtt singers from a e. Total for four groups preceding.
*ti
"
•
"
"
41
71 .,
71
•
•
,.
21
3l
12
48
"
n4 / "'ppenalx J
Table A.6 Tastes and cultural practices of classes and class fractions ( % ) ; h FURNITURE
DepT. srort
W",kitrg cidJ5ts
Craftlim�n, small shopkeepers Clerical, junior executives Tcchnicians, pri.
M/ddI� (Lw,i
iw:l shop
29
27
"
"
m''Y {ClIchers New pemc
bourgeoisie
Special-
42
I'
riaJJei
8
10
4
4
"
30
"
,
4
10
22
I3
41
II
14
II
12
39
6
9
\0
26
10
39
30
18
jQ
II
17
6 8
28 31
17
42 61
I'
II
16 19
10
17 16
30
27
10
21
J2
7
Secondary and higher-
Uppn-
4
9
Executives,
tiStic producers
41
22
"
comm. employ·
ed. reachers, ar
'1
19
Industrial and
engmeers Profn'iion�
3
II
31
I,
18
a. The pcrccnTlges exclude 'don't knows'. b. Place (or places) whcu= furniture was purchased.
Simple Original, Con Suit Value Chic Potwellexotic Bon sClen Well Pragfor person- ,nd money ality stylish vLVant uous b,,
fur to Clean, m:untidy ram Cosy Warm Studied
I
II
16
47 "
"
4
3
8
26
4
,
I'
2
6
24 32
27
24 48
3
6
10
19
I'
7
7
�
10 19
12
12 )6 10
43
19
"
10 17
II
36
28
I'
12
II
I3
16
44 29
22
28
24 48
31 17
II
,
Each rcspon cnt W:lS uked co S('lecr the three adjectives, from a list of twelve, best describing the interior he or she would like to lIve m; ro seleCT the three statemcms about clothes (OUt of six) whICh best expressed his or c.
COOKING'
FRIEND'
CLOTHES'
iNTERIOR'
Au(· FIca non market 4
V.�
39
39
" I'
13
17
)4 33
" )6
3
40
12
22
6,
68
6
I
10
,
o
8
"
,
6
,
9
"
17
,
7
,
31 I'
• II
"
6
14
19
"
32
18
10
6
27
16
26
9
29
30
18
21
26
I'
12
16
46
16
8
18
29
44
20
9
I3
17
"
8
23
23
jJ
9
18
17
16
17
22
14
"
I'
21
12
31 "
38
18 I3
16 6
9 17
27 28
16 17
26 27
9 8
14
19
I'
I2
20
29
12
I'
31
16
9
17
26
11
17
I'
16
)9
27
36
38
12
meal (out of her tastes; the rhr(e qualities (OUt of twelve) most appreciated in frit':nds; and the type of seven) he or she' liked to servt': to friends. d. Toral for four groups preceding.
- _.
Tllbk A.7
Aesthedc disposidon by roucadonal capital.a "'P' Su_
EduOl(ional capiral
Und-
No qual., CEP CAP BEPC 8accalaureat Started higher ed.
82.0
Li«n<,
Agrigation, grande &ole
Famous manu· Old ment mUler
First
,=-
mUnion
88.0
88.'
72.,
8'.'
68.'
76.,
30.0
23.5
72.0
n.'
'7.0
19.0
31.'
n.o
69.0
6'5.0
39.'
41.0
2'5.5
74.'
".'
}�.,
92.-'
'M
32.'
Little Folk girl dance and cat
Woman breast· feeding Woo...-
�
� � �
�
!
'""
"'bin""
c"
yard
moo
,,,,h
'-'
'.0
0.'
6.0
l_O
,.,
,. ,
0
17.'
1.'
S.O
S,
'0
13.0
'.0
6.0
42.0
22.0
16.0
21.0
23.'
18.0
13.0
10.'
13.0
12.'
41.5
4'.0
31.0
14.'
19.'
32.0
29.0
18.0
18.0
22.'
9.'
44.0
44.0
\6.0
16.'
22.'5
28.'5
24.'
22.'5
19.'
16.0
17.'5
'2.0
4'.0
60)
32.'
'.0 ,. ,
31.0
22.'
29.)
38.0
36.)
27.0
2-'.'
31.0
22.'
1'.)
36_0
2M
31.0
60.0
n.o
4}.0
}7.'
}7.'
32.' 19.0
\6.0
n.o
55.'
2'.'
37.0
'6.'
'8.0
44.0
4U
46.0
'6.0
39.'
n.o
'9.0
34.0
49.'
36.'
s.,
Snake
""r- Wounded
46_0
1_0
n.'
Rep<
Buto;:her's suI!
27.'
61.)
39.'
'4.'
36.'
, ,=
P�gnant woman
'1.0
4n
Bad< of
Meul uruc·
..,
)0.)
3'.'
a. e peKCfUJBCS ex elude'don't knows'. Since it was not po55ible to reproduce the compkte table of dis . . �nb.utlOns among t� different responses (ugly, meaningless, imCfCSting. beautiful) for (2(h object, the fable Ind�ates the PCK�tage of rcspondcnt� who consider that a beautiful photo could be made of dlCSC obj«rs, which have ran , from left ro fight, from the mOlt 'f2cik' (i.e., ahndy strongly defined as llCS(�tic) to the most difficult (I.e., those not ddi� or scarcely ddincd as aesthetic objects in terms of the common acst�tic at the time of the survey). ing the t le, it shoul be borne n mind that the distribution bctwttn the diff"ettm raponscs itsc:lf In . 'lanes With the obJ«fS and With eduatlonal level, 50 thar [he structure which I have endeavoured [0
�
Still life
Tramps quar�l· ling
}7.0
6.0
4.0
6.'
s.' 4.'
13.0
12.0
18.'
13.�
6.'
oc�
4.0
10
I.'
highlight by emphasizing the strongest tendency in column would h�ve bcc:n much more visible if the . respondents had bcc:n oittred a simple dichotomous chOicc (between beautiful an ugly). FOr exam�le, In �he case of the famous monument, if the pctcentage who think it would make a beautiful photo .15 combu\ed wlfh the pcrcenta� who think it would make 1(1 intefC5ting photo, one fi?ds that, as for the sunset, �he Jl.C"ent ages decline steadily as cduational level rises (87.' percent of thene With only the CEP or no qualification, 90 pctc�t for the CAP, 78 percent for the BEpc, 74 pcKent for the bac�a1aurfat, '9 percent or incomplete , higher education, '57 pcn:cnt for the licence, H percent for the agrc,gatlon and the grandcs ccolcs).
�
f
Other Sources
•
Table A.8 Some indicacors of economic capital by socio-occupational cate ory ( % ). g
Average
Sodo-
[mal Income
10 to
Income sources
Nature of
(CS. I. 1970)
(CS. I. 1970)
(CS. III. 1972 )
20 ro
30
to
Farm workers
12,706
43.5
41.3
10·9
4.2
Farmeo
1 1 ,339
63.2
22.6
7.1
5.6
Unskilled
14,903
34,7
Semi-skilled
18,49�
13.7
Skilled Foremen
}
Craftsmen Small shopkeqx'1'S Commercial emPlOYees Office workers
21,289
}
Technicians
60 to
32 .7
'3
0. '
91.9
6.4
16.5
57.3
18.1
17.8
6.8
II
o
W3 93.4
1.3
0.1
2.3
3.3
17.7
10.2
63.2
8.9
0.1
97.7
2.2
03
l.l
42.0
1.6
2.4
3.6
15.0
24.6
55.2
98.2
2.2
0.7
0.'
2.7
3.6
11.4
23 .3
57.7
0.7
99.5
1.4
0.8
0.4
4.1
6.7
15.0
3'5.'5
42.2
7.'
o
o
3.4
26,864
1 S.3
27,2
23.2
28.8
39
1l.S
33.8
27.6
22.2
4.0
34.1
96. 9
l.l
3.'
12.9
14.2
32.7
30.9
33.2
3.2
'.9
0.8
41.7
29.4
21.6
l. l
0.2
24.3
93.2
4.8
3.8
20.2
19.2
32.2
1 '5.9
46.8
'.1
2.1
12,2
26.4
47.9
8.9
2.'
97.S
3. 4
2.6
0.7
8.9
9.'
9.9
13.4
63.2
13.'
15.1
30.1
48.1
4.8
0.'
98.8
2.1
1.9
8.6
14.0
24.1
".3
6.7
99.3
4.0
'.7
I Ll
17.5
12.8
36.9
43.4
6.9
98.S
2.4
3.9
O. ,
'. 1
O. I
'.8
8. 7
9.7
35.5
50.1
4.7
84.2
o
24.9
10.0
12.4
18.1
20.8
56.9
0.9
6.0
o
0.1
7.6
lOA
10.0
26.0
36.1
4.1
27.9
9.4
4.9
29.7
30.2
49.8
23.2
27.0
99.6
47. 'j
26.0
4.4
3.7
34.7
40.0
32.8
JJ.6
1 1.6
o
3.6
' 3
0.9
lU
27.7
20.'5
33.8
39.1
6.6
98.7
31
4.3
0.8
15.5
30A
12.6
42.6
37.3
7.'
97.6
2.1
14.1
1.8
10.4
21.0
12.2
28.S
49.2
10. 1
41.0
17.5
87.2
3.4
30.3
40,6
3'5.6
22.6
40.0
1.8
22,546
32,770
U
17
3.0
II
32.6
29.6
27.8
3.7
0.6
19.1
2'5.4
46.4
,.,
0.1
61.616
2.2
12.1
11.1
36.9
23,1
102,222
14.6
1.3
2.6
4.1
26.4
31.9
33.6
0.'
2.9
11.5
7.6
64.0
0.4
0.8
44
51.R
24.2 32.8
9.7
83.0
Se
83,309
ed. teachcn
)3.3
1.4
86
18.S
43.5
22.3
'6
3.1
48
6.'
27.6
33.0
24.9
Farm workers 2 Farmers 3 Unskilled 4 Seml·skitlro � Skilled 6 Forcm�n 7 Cnftsmcn 8 Small shopk� , !':f'S 9 C-Omm�rclaJ employttS 10 Office workers I I JUn ior admlnlS(fnivc executives 12 Technicians n S0Cial and mcdlCaJ Sf:rvlCes 14
'.3
25,8
57,229
I
86.0
25.3
Sf. admin. executives Engin�rs
37.6
0"
32.)
Primary teachers
Industrialists
12.8
0.3
38,0
profits propeny Sh2re5 Owner Mortg2.ge Tenant accommodation tied
16.9
0.2
17.�
profits
,nd
Utban
6.3
lOA
09
salaries profits
Agric.
0.8
23.8
16.7
comm.
Free or
5. '
0·3
30. 4
comm.
Stocks
0.4
7.9
44. 3
o
Non
II
1.0
14.7
8.2
md
lOO,OOOF+
12.3
servICes
Commercial employers
o
IndusL
home tenure
2";,729
Jr. aclmin executives
Social & medical
51.8 42.4
;,
Range of income
(francs) < 1O,OOOF 20,OOOF 30,OOOF 6O,OOOF lOO,OOOF
occupation.al category
,'
96.7
1.0
Primary I�a(n�rs 15 Commercial employers 16 Industrialists 17 Senior administrativ� ex«utives neers 19 Secondary and nigner education teacners 20 Prof�ions
. . . . ��
-.
7.3
o
18 Engi.
_ . _ - � � --------
- - .--
-
--
- -
Table A.9 Some indicators of social trajectory and inherited cultural capital, by socio-occupacional category ( % ) . pation (C.S. II, 1970 ) Father's
occu
Unskilled, Farm
Soci()occupational category Farm workers
labourers Farmers 29. 7
Farmers
3.B
Unskilled
46.9 88.6
.
,
Skilled,
mmers
foremen
B.O
l.1
O.B
1.9
1.2
0.2
23.9
25.8
1 �.O
25.3
17.7
17
Domestic �rvams
Junior
shopkeep:'rs
Industrial
No
and
qualifica.tion,
comm.
executives employers
&nior
Pro-
execUtives fessions o
no
81.4
17.2
0.6
0.6
0.2
27.9
1.1
0.7
O.l
15.1
0.6 1.3
0.3
o
O.l
2.3
O.B
0.2
0.2
0.6
0.2
69.B
l.9
7.6
0.4
O.l
1.9
9.0
7.2
LI
2.1
1.2
0.9
o
84.0
7'5.4
22.�
25.8
I..
10.9
10.0
2.9
1.4
0.1
67.3
29.8
23.6
25.6
2.2
10.1
11.3
3.7
7.0
13.6
1.9
34.3
8.1
10.7
OB
39.4
B.B
25.3
Skdled
6.1
14.0
Fo�men
l.l
12.6
Craftsmen
63
16.7
Small shopkeepers
4.9
lB. 1
Commercial employees
4B
10,3
16.8
18.0
09
Jr.
I I
16.8
20.4
17 .3
2B
10.3
9.9
2.0
7.2
3.4
2.1
17
0.1
3.2
0.1
6l.3
30.7
2.4
2.9
1.6
0.4
64.l
8.1
2.1
6.0
2.3
0.6
18.3
1 �.4
3.7
7.7
3.4
27
10.1
1�.7
6.4
I..
15.6
3.3
13.7
I�.O
11.9
l.2
1 �.6
20.5
2.1
11.4
16.4
11.5
22.2
14.8
16.B
4.'
6.4
13.0
I.l
12.7
9.l
12.4
1.3
12.4
12.9
•••
4.1
0.6
6.9
14.8
19.8
I.l
13.1
16.1
Industrialists
3.4
13.5
l.2
27.4
9.1
2.6
0.6
19.2
77
14.7
0.•
1.0
29.2
3.8
I.l
Sf. admin. executives
1.3
7.7
7.4
10.3
1.1
14.3
1 '5.2
11.2
Engineers
0.6
l.2
6.6
11.7
1.0
1l.4
12.6
2.1
7.1
4.6
8.7
0.9
11.7
1.6
4.l
2.9
5.2
12.0
15.2
20.3
l.9
26.2
0.4
l 5
2.B
17
o
15.4
1).7
6.7
O.l
14.7
9.4
12.1
1 1 .4
20.7
Office workers admin. executives
Social & medic21 Technicians servICes
Prim2ry {ochers
{
M p
Commerci21 employers
Secondary & higher-ed. teachers Professions
{�
11.8
l4
a. For the father', occup�(ion, (he calculation excludes non-responKS and 'miscelb.neous' occupations.
.
"
1 5. 3
12.3
14.B
2.0
2.0
0.9
1.1
32.0
1.9
1.1
0.6
61.2
31.9
2.2
0.7
�4.6
37.1
2.1
2.9
3.4
9.•
0.3
'57.8
34.'5
3.3
3.4
4.1
2.1
1.4
•.2
2.4
40.6
41.6
6.7
l.1
6.0
1.0
l.6
5.0
3.6
6.1
l.1
46.•
42.9 40.'5
'5.9
3.1
43.2
6.1
•.6
3.7
3.2
6.9
9.7
3 .•
0.3 0. 4
10.8
18.0
1.'5
O.l
1.0
9.1
23. 7
Higher
CEP
0.3
Semi-skilled
-
response
0.4
30 3
,
BEPC calaureu education Bac-
3.3
13.6
-
b qualification
small
l.O
,
Father's
Craftsmen,
semi-skilled,
-
l.4
19. 1
2.4
25.5 23,2
!.7
42.9
37.2
1..
36.1
3A
48.1
1.9
36.9
1.2
5.4
9.4 3.•
11.3 l.9
>2.9
3•.6 38.1
2.6
2.7
3'5.1
36.'5
7.2
10.0
�8
32.0
29.4
8.7
11.4
31.6
33.6
7.9
11.6
15.4
23.3
27.1
12.3
14.'
22.8
30.4
23.4
7.4
12.5
26.2
3.9
6.2
20.8
l.3
2.2
4.3
4.2
11.3
18.�
b. Exduding t«hnim diplomas. c. Indudes Army and Police,
.
,
Table A.IO Educational capiral, spare time, fertility and place of residence, by socio-occuparional category ( % ). (C.S.
II,
Place of residence
( 1 %8 census, economically
Educational capital'
Socio-
occupational caregory
No
active men and women, aged 16+)
Started BS,
CAP, BEC,
qu�. CEP
BP
BEH
BEPC Baccalauttat education Licence + (C.S. IV, o
67.4
19.6
10.3
1.8
0.6
0.7
farmers
4 ').1
37.3
13.7
1.0
1.8
0.8
0.2
o
0.3
o
0.1
1.7
0.4
2.7
1.0
70.0
22.0
7.0
0.1
Semi-skilled
51.3
2804
18.2
004
Sk;II..
29.2
25.1
41.2
1.9
fo�en
19.0
31.9
38.8
5.7
43.1
pn wtdc,
higher
farm workers
Unskilled
II
0.8
Pop. 50 Pop. 100 Pop. 200,000
<10,000
Pop. to
pop.
SO,OOO
100,000
1970)
o
68.0
o 1
62.9
Average no. of
Rural
children communes
w
l.l
to
to
Paris
200,000
2,000,000
conurbation
1.9
3.00
77.8
9.3
4.9
2.83
87.5
6.2
30
0.8
0.8
2.77
28.3
11.6
13.0
6.0
77
30 Ll
18 .l
1.7 03 1 '5.3
o
2.42
27.0
12.3
14.3
6.7
8.'
IS.7
1 5.5
23.2
2.10
18.2
10.0
13.")
7.4
9.2
19.3
22.3
03
o
21.9
0.1
22.4
1.94
12.8
10.1
14.3
7.7
97
21.7
23.6
0.7
0.2
26.4 1.92
37.0
12.8
ll.8
'.2
,.,
13.9
13.9
28.1
13.2
13.3
6.1
7.0
17.1
15.l
36.1
2.4
2.1
1.1
0.1
0.2
47.6
23.9
1.4
6.0
3.8
1.7
0.'
1.68
13.6
8.1
14.0
8.'
1 1 .1
21.2
23. 4
39.0
25.6
3.8
,.4
6.'
0.6
49.7
1.97
1 1 .7
7.2
12.3
7.4
9.3
20.'5
3D
1 '5.9
40.1
19.9
1.8
17.4
3.8
0.8
o
81.1
03
10.9
1.71
10.6
6.6
11.7
7. 1
9.'
20.9
33.7
Jr. admin. executives
8.9
26.0
1804
9.0
16.0
11.9
,.4
4.4
16.7
1.67
8.6
7 1
12.0
7.4
9.6
20.1
35.2
Technicians
6.0
21.3
2804
19.6
11.4
'.8
'.6
1.9 10.3
7.8
14.3
8.1
22.0
26.5
22.4
11.1
14.4
7.8
II.I
9.3
17.0
18.0
15.S
1 1 .8
16.4
7.7
8.6
18.2
21.8
22.3
14.1
16.0
6.8
7.2
16.5
17.2
63
'9
1l.4
7.0
9. '
20.5
39.3
'.7
'.7
93
6.3
7.9
19.7
45.3
'.8
,.8
1 1.6
7.7
1l.2
32.5
14.4
11.3
13.4
7.3
8.9
25.4
Craftsmen
23.5
Small shopk�rs
19.6
Commercial employ�
19.1
Office workers Social & medical
34.S
14.4 l.'5
10.0
604
0.7
0.6
32
73.9
3.0
'5.7
5.1
'.9
6.0
39.3
27.7
8.7
Commercial employers
In
39.2
15.')
,.4
9.7
7.6
Sr. admin. executives
1).7
36.9
24.1
9.9
4.'
4.0
6.2
16.7
10.9
11.8
3.1
4.7
').S
8.3 6.6
'.0
servICes
Primary teachers
Industrialists Engin�rs
2.2
3. 3
1.8
1.69
}
10.3 2.09
13.7
U
8.2
24.0
31.5
9.2
10.6
55.3
26.8
3.4
45.1
Secondary & higher
0.7
2.8
2.6
0.7
0.7
4.6
13.7
74.2
8.3
Professions
2.6
4.2
1.8
1.2
1.7
2.8
11.5
74.2
67.1
ed. teachers
The perC(:nt.ages exclude other diplomas. b. &onontU ,t SJaJiSllqllt, 27 Ouobt::r 1971, 28.
2.
2.00
2.06
20.0
24.8
Tabk A.ll Consumption and cultural practices, by socio-occupacionai category ( % ). Total consumpdon «(.S, III, 1972)
Socio-
occupational
p" household category
(fCllncs)
""
""
unit of
Spc:ctator Car sports maintenance"' at kast at least
consumption Second Tde· Washing. '5 times (francs) home phone: machine ( francs) a yor capita
Farm workers Farmers
22771 26667
16lO
7928
636'
8824
Unskilled
21840 26471 2_
6170 6'�2 7476
8578 9}lO 10192
2.2 l.4 3.3
lH20
9174
l2n!
10,9
28HO _I
8444 10118
11489
14.1 14,5
"'''' 27774 }6272
1O124 9227 11478 10979
Semi·skilled Skilled Foremen CClI ftsmc:n Small shopkeepers Comme:rcial e:mployttS Office workc:rs Jr. admin. eXc:
H438 Hln
Primary teache:rs
l2787
Commercial e:mploye:rs Industrialists
'1886 47680
Sr. admin. execu·
tIVes Engineers Secondary & higher· ed. teachers Professions
408l3 '57133
Cultural practica (C.S.
Ownm of
1lJ60 13818 12192 15461 I lIl90
1.0 2.2
,.•
1 5,8 0.3
b
2.3
12.8
1.3
41.9
9.'
o
0,6 2.4
29.0
48.0
5.8 7.1 5.2
37.3
12.6
28.'5
4.8
1.0
32.7 2}.7 29.9
7.2 9.6 11.9
13.2 29.4
6.l
2H
'5.4
3.6
7.'
41.7
",..
18.6
29.9
"480
14463
1469' 13920
198;'5 19308
13136 16370
17708 22467
39.9
42.2
H
'5,�
72.3 7).1
22.3
2 3.9
67.7
24.'5
22 .3
77.6
27,9
14.2
39.7
15.4
2'5.0
84.'
31,)
21.7
}
b
10.6
8.0 17.8
6.6
13.1
b
29.3
2.'
64,8
o
31.4 29.8
3.2 3.'
9.8 20.0
o o
a. Pcrce:ruagc:s calculated for 100 owners of cars or two-wheeled vehicles. b. The: (non-significant) figurc:s for the farm worken and social and medical services (men) are duced.
I�O 12.6
35J
H.2 28.6
29. 7 2J.2
b
0.7
1'5277
19TH
1.7
)0 '.6 24.2
11316 11627 1()419
1 14 hf$. a week
not
iq>CO
Do-it-yourself at least once: a week
b 36.'
34.8 44.4 '50.8 -'3.9
36.'
1967)
Enter· Variety Theatre Concert Chhcau, monume:nt, Stamp on Library Evening collection mc:mbenhip classc:s the: yor
b
rain at show at least lc:ut once once:
,..,
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
1.3
27
1.3
,.•
2.7 4.7 '.1 13.3
0.2 0.4 3.'
0.9
23.7
31.6
63
16.'5
6.1 •.6 9.3
1.7 '.3 '.7 13.6
10 9.3 6.0 1.9
12.� 21.6 29.2 40.3
2U 26.0 38.2 43.9
13.8 6.,
15.4 22.5 29.0 26.4
2.0
30.9 2'5.�
38.8
6.l 10.6 12.4
29.2 37.7
o
3.7 12.9
4.' 3.7 20.3
'.6 10.3
29.4
9.8 1'5,8
1�.3 16.5
b
b
b
14.4
1.9
once: a year
a year
0.2
'.3
ar leut
a week
0.'
I.'
at least once a yor
b
I.'
43.6
•••
'.2
20.5 38.8 '58.4
37.9 43,0 52.9
12,7 14.7
52.2
�8.4
'4.3
6.9
'59.'5
19.Q
14.1
2.'
o
o
28.9
13.3
'.8
34.4
1 1 .6 '.l
20.9
17,9
68.'
26.4
2.8
27,8
14.1
9.4
4.7
27,8 2'.8
38.8 57.6
b
T�de fair in the
b
43.7
39.l 38.7
IV,
b 67.2 38.1
77.6
52.1
16.3 16.'5 18.0 28,2
I.l
0.3 '.7
6.6 '.9 1.2 7.3
Piano
o
" 9.0
2.'
9.3
o
III
3.' 12.8
20.2 10,8
'.7
18.3
12.9
38.7 38.7
b
b
b
b
b
10.3
19.8
21.6
21.6
20.7
4 7. 9
43.7
lU
18.3
7.0 27.8 23.9
62. 1 70. 1
26.9
20.9
30.6
33.0
38.9
12.1
6.'
24 . 3 50.8
21.7
25.9
28.3
49.3
13.9 42.4
26.4 25.9
'2.8 34.1
6.'
'0.0
)7.6
1975) then only has ro observe, with strict neutrality, that a 'majority'
Appendix 4
Associations: A Parlour Game
asSOCIates the left-wing politicians, and especially Marchais, with the most pejorative attributes, and the trick has been pulled off. Guided by the hierarchies they impose, because they take them for granted, the au·
thors of the questionnaire produce a 'datum' which only has to be seen, as given, in order to produce a political effect. This game, in which politicians are at stake, is a political game; but it is so in a much deeper sense than that given ro the word i n political sci ence institutes and opinion research organizations. The politicians here are only the pretext for a game of attribution, categorization, and the ob.
jects offered are attributes, predicates, categoremes ( as Arisrotle put it, obscuring the original meaning, which is relevant here, of accusation ) . In 1975 a survey was carried out, inviting a sample of the population to associate various objects with various politicians. The originarots of the idea, as the comments whic h accompany the publication of the findings suggest, no doubt saw it simply as an 'entertaining' variant of the peri odic surveys on the 'popularity' of public figures. However, the real point of the test they unconsciously produced (and this unconsciousness is part
of its value) is not that it shows whether this or that politician is a fox or a crOW, an oak Of a fir tree, white or black, nor even whether the 'reds' more often assilt black to the spokesman of the 'whites' (conservatives) than vice versa. The interviewer presented lists of six objects or characters (colours, trees, classical heroes, carroon characters etc.) and asked the subjects to attribute one and only one of these objecrs ro each of the following six politicians: Jac<jues Chirac, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, Georges Marchais, Pran�ois Mitterrand , Michel Poniarowski, Jean-Jac<jues Servan-Schreiber.2 The findings of the survey, commissioned in June 1975 by the weekly magazine Le Point, were published in Sondages, 3-4 ( 1975 ), 3 1 -47, with the following as sole commentary: 'The findings of this survey are enter taining to read, but they have a deeper interest as well. The set of attri e. butions made for each politician reveals many facers of his public imag rea Sometimes it is diffic ult to distinguish with certainty the multiple rather sons which have led the subjects ro see a politician as one colour a than another, as an ant rather than a fox, or as a hairdresser rather than more lawyer. However, when a politician is identified with one object by and than a third of the sample, the explanation is generally self-evident, of light is cast on the motivations of the choices by the differen t resulrs generally the other politicians vis-a·vis the same objecr. Connections are ·known made either in terms of the man's physical appearance, or the best We shall fearures of his personality, or his position and political career. exetCIse not comment further on the findings, but will leave the reader ro
his imagination.' . c ob,e of air an Wit h this apparent abdication the analyst gives himself t, 14 July tivity as he steps aside for the journalist. The latter (in Le Poin
The question of the rules ( is that the right word ? ) , principles or schemes
which govern these attributions is objectively raised by the fact that where one might have only expected the random associations of the
imagination, one finds statistical regularities which cannot be explained
unless onc assumes that, far from making random individual associations,
the people questioned are guided in the connections they make by com· mon principles of vision and division. Because these principles function implicitly and are not consciously scrutinized as regards either their internal form or their application, agents do not all apply the same scheme to the same object. However, as is shown by the fact that the meanings brought to light for each object are both finite i n number (and not as numerous as the respondents, as
they would be if the principle of attribution had to be sought in the reo spondents' individual history) and immediately intelligible (even in the absence of any explicit codification ) , one is entitled ro assume that the
schemes which the respondents may apply in each case, thereby selecting different aspects of the same object or person, are both finite in number and common ro all the respondents, so that different readings of the same object are intelligible to all of them. If the meaning that is 'chosen' presents irself unequivocally in each case, despite the polysemy of the objecrs considered in isolation, that is
because the particular scheme of perception (among those objectively ap plIcable) that IS actually applied is clearly designated, insofar as it is the only one which enables an intelligible and constant relationship of equiv.
alence or exclusion to be established between the objects, and therefore an intelligible relationship between the aspecrs ( thus consti tuted) through which the objects, things or persons can enter into the relation
ship. Thus, the scheme strong/weak or rigid/supple (which is no doubt virtually co-extensive with the deeply internalized opposition male/fe· male) is clearly the basis of the opposition between the oak-majestic, powerful and rigid-and the reed-weak, supple, fragile, fickle--and also of the opposition between Giscard (or Poniatowski) and Servan-
r Tabk A.12
Overall survey results. Colours
Politicians Giscard d'Eswng POnilUQwski Chil'2C Servan-Schreibcr Mitternnd Marchais
T=s
White
Black
Blue
Orang<
Yellow
Grecn
Oak
Plane
Palm-uee
Reed
Poplar
Fir
3) %-
10% 22 9 9 10
29%
6% 16 12
9%
12% 13 18 19
31%
8%
14% 18 18
18% 7 12
19% 12
21
26
10% 18 17 14 17
16 16 14 13 6
14 25 12 13 7
40
18 18 23
23 23
18 14
20
24
14
21 11 6 16 15
22
20 6 16 18
17 12
Flowers
Politicians Giscard d'Estaing Poniatowski Chine Servan-Schrcibcr Mittarand Marchais
Chrysan- Lily of the valley the-mum
14 24 10 9 16 27
16 21 14 16 10
Ant
18
12
25
20 20
29
38
21 13 7
17 16 9
11 22 12 14 12
Carnation
18 16
27
17 11
37
Ox
Lilac
14 16 15
12 8 9 13 21
23
16 6 9 19
Grasshopper
18 8 15
Giscard d'Estaing Poniatowski Chirac Scrvan-Schreibcr
Mincmnd
Bridge
39
16 15
9
14
Monopoly Dominoes
14 17
14
7
13 15 11 22 15
28
21 \0
o)(�SS
Poker
Roulcm:
6 17 13
23
12 16 18
14 12 13
18
20
18
Beret
Cap
11 9 12 13
\0 5 \0 12
40
26
18
StntW boater
,
Poliricians Giscard d'Estaing Poniatowski Chirae Servan-Schreiber Mitterrand Marchais
Citroen 2ev
10% \0
8
10
12 50
Renaulr
5
9%
12 14 15
30
20
Peugeot
504 19 % 28
Politicians Giscard d'Estaing Poniatowski Chicae Servan-Schreiber Mitterrand Marchais
14 12 21 24
16 13
Mireille Mathieu
7 15 14 \0 18 36
Giscard d' Esraing Poniatowski Chicae Servan-Schreiber Mirterrand Marchais 2.
Lawyer
28 11 12 12
32 :')
Concierge
Rolls Royce
Porsche
18% 10
20
16 7
27 \0 7
9
Simca
1100
Louis XVI Wardrohe chair
6% 20 17 21
28
9
Jane Birkin
Michele Morgan
10 11 15 19 21
26
15 15 8 25 11
24
7
19
11 13 14 36
Overseer
20 14
31
13 \0 12
26
22 16
U
16
25
7%
36%
32
9 12 15 33
18 13
Helmet Top har
8 41
17 11 7
46
18 13 13 6
11
Four-poster
bed
Knoll sofa
Farmhouse tahle
12% 17 18
6%
6%
33 %
15 19 11 12 7
13 12 24 19
25
Empire desk
20 19 10 11 7
28
10 22 32
11 14
17 13
12 9 7 24 42
Family Jackie Queen of Kennedy England
15 14 21 29
13 8
27 32
15 11
7
8
Son
Father in-law
25 6
26
19 15 7
11 13 18 20
28
12
Jobs
Politicians
\0 14
30
Famous women Brigitte Bardor
9 17 16 \0 16
Tortoise
furniture
39 %
23 12 15 3
Felt hat
14 14 21
Cars
,
Crow
24
Hats
6 21 18 17 15
24
Fox
24
Games
Politicians
21 16
18 15 14
Animals
Narcissus
Poppy
22
Brother
15 12 25
19 17 12
Son in-law
12 12 .19
24
20 13
Father
24 27
11 \0 20 8
Cousin
11 16 8 15 40
10
Cartoon characters
Hairdresser Doctor Chauffeur
9
15 17
29
16 14
The it�liciud numbers indicue the highat pen:cntagc in each column.
24
22 17 14 15 8
13 19 \0
20 14
24
Asrerix
26
19 15 9
17 14
Mickey Mouse
14 14 19
IS
18
17
Donald Duck
10 14 19
22
15 20
Popeye
7 22 14 14 20
23
Lucky Luke
22
13 20 16 14' 15
TintiD
20 18 13 22
16 I1
ilblt A.13
' Variations in survey responses on the part of Mitterrand and Giscard voters.
Whirr
'tieians
�ittl""lIId WlII'.1
Giso.rd d'Esaing 36.4%' ' PonialOwski l'i,O J 12. Chirae Scrvan·Schrei�r 15.9 11.2 MiHerrand MaKhais 8.4 ·Jwtm
: Giscard d'Escaing Poniatowski Chine Servan-Schreibcr Mirrerrand , Marchais
Yellow
Blue 20,6%
9.�%
Blaek
Orllnge
l'i.O%
S.4%
Gr�n
0.
to.�%
8.4%
Grass hopper
Crow
An,
Fo.
Tortoise
19.6%
1O.�%
16.8%
29.9%
14.0%
;,lnTm IJOtm
Gisc.lrd d'Emlng Poniatowski OIif2( Scrvan-SchreiooMittemnd , Marchais .J Wltrs
Gis.card d'Estaing , : Poniatowski : Otif2c ' Scrvan-Schreibe:r
' Minemnd Marchais
.liricians lillm'ltIIIi Wllri Giscard d'Esaing Poniatowski Cline Servan..5chreiber Miuerrand
MaKhais
F::::7
Estaing Ponia[Qwski
0>""
Servan-Schrei�r Mitrerrand Mud..,
1;11Ir'f4lld wtll'I
Gisa.rd d'Esraing Poniatowski Chiru Serv2l\-Schreibc:r Minerf2nd Marchais
t;i-J
Gisc:ard d'Esaing Poniarowski Clil'2( Servan-Sch�iber Mirtttrand Marchais
a.
'The italicized
R�d
19.6%
18.7%
20_6%
IL2%
19.6%
28.0
8.4
17.8
18.7
15.0
17.8
Fil
9.3'
15.0
20.6
14.0
12.1
16.8
3.6
IS.7
7.3
D.O
14.0
31,8
3.6
23.4
23.4
19.6
7 '
3'. .'1
7.'
21.5
93
24,3
22.4
12.1
32.7
11.2
12,1
93
14,0
19.6
2U
1O.�
18.7
20.6
14.0
14.0
20.6
6.'
14.0
24..�
6.'
27.1
12.9
12.9
14.4
6.3
18.7
9'
43.2
108
15.1
'.0
IS.O
8.6
18.0
14.4
42,4
94
9.4
12.2
15.8
to.8
2S.1
18.7
1 'i.S
18.7
'.3
14.4
29
8.6
23.7
20.1
15.S
79
26.6
18.0
I t . 'i
15.8
15.8
20.1
23.0
7.2
17.3
22.�
10.8
31.7
20.1
4.3
10.8
7.9
lU
H.5
2.9
17.3
216
20.1
21.6
17.3
79
22,�
13.7
27.�
IS.0
72
30.2
38.8
22.�
20.1
94
18.0
23.0
4.3
21.6
14.4
19.4
23.7
16.5
14
12.9
60.4
to.1
10.8
12.9
79
4.'1.3
3.0
18.0
10.8
3.8
D.S
12.9
13.7
2.'1.2
2.'1.9
12.1
7.3
42.0
6.3
22.4
18,7
12, I
11.2
16.8
17 .S
73
24.3
to.�
11.2
2 l , 'i
26.2
33.6
n.o
19
17.8
28,0
13.1
"
16.8
2U
30.8
14.0
16.8
33.3
36.7
7.2
3.6
43
IS.0
18.0
23.0
86
20
28.1
12.2
7.2
7.9
10,8 4, �
10.�
17.8
25.2
Jackie Mireille Kennedy Mathieu
9.3
Games
Family MiehHe Morgan
Queen of Enlj:land
Son
14.0%
27.1%
17.8%
Brigitte Bardot
Jane Birkin
12.1%
15.0%
18.7%
12.1 %
11.2
13.1
1').0
11.2
6'
42. 1
4.7
5.6
l'i.O
11.2
19.6
16.8
16.8
D.O
17.8
20.6
22.4
28.0
6'
8.'
'.6
24.3
D.O
16,S
10.3
13.1
40.2
3.7
13.1
20.6
7'
39.3
13.1
5.6
14.4
5.8
10.8
'.3
37.4
26.6
13.7
7.9
1�,8
15.1
18.7
21.6
19.4
18.0
10.8
15.1
28. 1
2j.Q
16.5
33.8
79
1�.8
22.3
14.4
20.9
11.5
28.J
7.2
""
Son-in low
Cousin
Bridge
18,7%
16.8%
32.7%
Dominoes Chess Monopoly
Poker
Roul
8.4
16.8
25.2
I 'i_9
17.8
1�.1
17.8
18.7
1 'i.5
9.�
30.8 13.1
26.2
1 1 .2
9.3
15.0
13.1
19.6
24.3
2.'1.2
6.5
8.4
15.9
16.8
93
15.9
16.8
14.0
I 'i.O
24.3
20.6
29.0
12.1
12.1
1.9
25.2
17.8
15.9
16.8
12.1
28.C
93
16.8
18.7
19.6
93
26.2
7.5
26.2
22. 4
15.0
12.1
16.e
33.8
18.0
29.5
7 9
6.'
4.3
41 .7
5.8
28. 1
15.8
'.0
2.'
6.'
16.5
37.4
2.'1. 9
8.6
'.0
17 .�
26.6
15.1
16.5
11.5
13.7
15.1
��.I
30.2
10.8
6.'
20.1
17.3
9.4
26.6
16.5
10.1
'.3
14.4
17.�
!'i.S
12.9
8.6
17.�
12.2
13 .7
23-7
18.0
7.9
29. .'1
'.3 15.1
7.2
12.9
15.8
12.9
'M
10.3%
14.0 %
20.6%
I �. 1
16.�
11.9 .
'.8
13.7
,..
H...r5
Father-in low
Brother Father
27.3
Cars
up
"I< lu,
Top h"
Citroen 2"
'04
7.5 %
9.�%
.'12.3 %
7.5%
11.2%
6.5%
IS.7%
1�,9%
16.8%
17.S
12.1
24.'
24.'
Furniture
Louis XVI chair
Hmpirc:
do'
Four-postcr "'"
37.4%
30. 8 %
13""
""'�,
8.4%
13.1 %
'.7
1U
442
'6
12.1
l3.1
9.3
23.4
6.5
18.7
17.8
22.4
24.3
17.S
18.7
!'i.O
8.4
1'.0
14.0
15.0
12.1
7 '
33.6
15.0
11.2
24.3
18.7
14.0
12.1
IS.7
12.1
2U
18.1
20.6
19.6
6.'
12.1
37.4
6'
93
2'i.2
8'
6.'
1'i.9
34.6
11.2
13.1
17.8
8.4
8.'
11.2
29.0
'"
7.'
41.1
19.6
'.7
16.8
10.3
7.3
10.3
22.4
6.5
26.2
7.'
27.1
2.'1.2
9.3
15.0
'.7
16.S
28.0
lS.7
3.7
13.1
.'13.3
8.4
2.8
.'14.2
�2.S
7.5
22.4
'.7
8.4
20.8
'.7
'.7
11.2
l'i.9
3 6.4
11.5
16.5
7.2
12.9
79
43.9
12.2
23.7
1 'i.8
9.4
'.8
7.2
37.4
37.4
79
4.3
'8
12.2
15.8
31.7
'.0
lU
20.1
8.6
32.4
12.8
8.6
22.3
15.S
27.3
1'.8
19.4
15.S
13.7
7.9
10.1
23.7
23.0
86
20.1
14.4
4.3
25.9
30.2
33.8
15.1
6.'
18.0
21.6
18.7
18.7
7.9
12.2
20
12.9
11.5
23.7
15.1
9'
6.'
23.7
1'-1
20.1
12.9
12.9
6.'
27.3
33.8
6.'
41.0
44.4
6'
1'.8
18.0
'.3
12.2
10.1
12.2
" 5
6.'
24..'1
1 5.1
24.'
14.5
11.5
8.6
13.7
19.4
2n
12.9
'.0
18.7
46.0
15.1
2.2
.'13.2
1.4
3.0
17.�
IO.S
11.5
12.9
'.3
6.3
16. 'i
10.1
49.ti
StflilW
Helmet S.4%
Peugeot
Rolls Roycc
Simca
Porsche
Renault ,
2'.2%
7.5%
43.9%
4.7%
Job. 'ticians
Plane
lL2
39.3
28.0
Poplar
7.3
1 'i.9
19.6
0"
Palm ,,�
84
9.3
Famous women irkians
T=
Animals
Colours
Wardrobe:
llOO
1.9%
18.0
Overseer
Donor
Concierge
Hairdrnser
Chauffeur
Chrysanthemum
Poppy
Lilac
IS.7%
11..'1 %
1'.9%
9.3%
13,1%
20.6%
2U%
10.3%
B.t %
Fwnh
18.1%
3.7%
,6
"b
Cartoon charKters
Flowers
Lawyer
Knoll �&
Mow<
Lucky Luke
Mickqo
AsttErix
Donald Duck
20.6%
14.0%
12.1 %
23.4%
23.4%
Lily of the nlley
Narcissus
Carnation
13.1 %
20.6%
Popeye T 6.5%
L
09
11.2
9.3
31.8
16.8
26.2
38.3
7.>
6.'
!'i.0
14.0
18.7
15.9
18.7
10.3
10.3
24.3
93
20.6
12.1
19.6
2U
1 'i.0
15.9
10-3
18.7
21.5
19.6
12.1
12.1
22.4
15.0
19.6
15.0
14.0
12.1
19.6
11.2
29.9
13.1
2.8
93
30.8
12.1
27.1
16.S
11.2
17.8
1'.0
21.5
12.1
4.'1.8
B.I
26.2
3.7
9.3
0.9
3.7
23.4
19.6
2.'1.2
8.4
13.7
26.2
14.0
18.7
12.1
15.9
10.3
19.6
1'i.0
22.4
8'
22.4
16_8
38.3
to.3
12.1
9.3
12.1
18.7
13.1
l'i.9
12.1
24.3
l'
,.,
20.1
�V,
L'
6.>
29
'.8
14.4
21.6
33.1
7.2
8.6
23.7
79
6.'
"
19.4
17.�
3.'1.3
7.9
12.2
79
13.7
8.6
19.4
19.4
17.3
25.9
9'
13.7
13-7
209
1<
14.4
43.2
19.4
5.8
8.6
79
72
7.2
28. 1
23 .7
12.2
20.9
17 .�
12.9
20,9
2�.O
11.5
8.6
9'
'.0
16.5
33.1
28.1
12.9
1'-1
17.3
12.2
22.3
34.)
26.6
16.5
5.8
25.2
15.S
12,9
13.7
20.1
6.5
6.3
20.9
25.2
21.6
24.5
IS.O
8.6
38
27.3
15.1
7.2
17.3
12.9
23.7
2.'1.9
0.7
36
l'
47,.'1
14.4
31.7
36.0
36.7
'.0
'.8
9'
7.2
9.4
26.6
12.9
18.7
21.6
num�rs indicate the highest percentage in each column.
18.0
11
2;
l'
1;
"
1·
"
H
Table A..13
' Variations in survey responses on the part of Mitterrand and Giscard voters. Colours
Anim.1ls
Whit�
Blu�
Yellow
Black
Orange
Gm:n
Giscard d'Estaing 36, 4 %. 1� 0 Poniatowski
20.6%
9.3%
15.0%
8.4%
10.3%
Politicians
Mittwrand wttrJ
93
15.9
39.3
12.1
Grasshop�r
Crow
Am
Fo,
Tortoise
19.6%
10,3%
16.8%
29.9%
14.0%
19.6%
18.7%
1 1.2
15.0
20.6
9.3
28.0
84
17.8
16.8
'.6
18.7
23.4
18.7
7,
15.0
17.8
35.5
7.'
14.0
19.6
6,
27.1
7.'
42.0
6.5
2'.2
8.4
84%
Poplar
Plane
20.6%
11,2%
Fi r
19.6%
9.3%
Chirac
12.1
22,4
18 7
14.0
16.8
12.1
I L2
16.8
28.()
14.0
7, 12.1
Servan-Schr�i�r
15.9
10.3
30.8
17.8
17.8
7'
24.3
7,5
IH
14.0
31.8
'.6
23.4
19.6
Miuerrand Marchais
1I,2
21.5
I L2
7'
13.1
1.9
17,8
33.6
10,3
21.5
9.3
24.3
22.4
12.1
32.7
11.2
12.1
11.5
26.2
16,8
21.5
10,3
IS.7
20.6
14.0
14.0
20.6
6.,
14.0
93 24.3
3.6
43
12.9
12.9
14.4
6,5
38.8
18.7
9.4
43.2
10.8
15.1
'0
18.0
86
8.6
18.0
14.4
41.4
9,4
9.4
12.2
15.8
10.8
28.1
18.7
15.8
18.7
43
14.4
20 I
15g
7.9
26,6
18.0
IU
15.8
15.8
20, I
23.0
72
17.3
8,4
15,0
Giscard d'Esraing 3�.3
36.7
7.2
Poniarowski
18.0
23.0
GiJutrd lIOurJ
Chim ,x.rvan-SchR'i�r Mirr�rrand Marchais
18.0 24.�
28.1
12.2
2.9
8.6
23.7
72
79
22.3
1O.S
31.7
20.1
43
30.2
10.8
7.9
34.5
29
17.3
21.6
20.1
21.6
17.3
10,8 4,3
79
21.3
13.7
27.3
IU
18.0
72
22.3
20.1
9.4
18,0
23.0
4.3
21.6
14.4
19.4
23.7
\6.5
1.4
12.9
60.4
10.1
10.8
12.9
7.9
45.3
'.0
18,0
10.S
'8
15,8
12.9
13.7
2'.2
25.9
Famous women
Politicians M;llwrami 1!Oln'J Giscard d'Esuing Poniatowski
Family
Games
Brigitte Hardor
Jan� Birkin
Jackie Kmnedy
Mireilk Mathieu
Michtk Morgan
Qutcn of England
Son
Brother
Farher
Fa(h�r-in l,w
12.1 %
".0%
18.7%
12.1 %
14,0%
27.1 %
17.S%
10.3%
20.6%
14,0%
1',0
47
�.6
Cousin
Bridge
18.7 %
16.S%
32.7%
30,8
16,S
25.2
1'.\.9
17.8
13.1
9,3 6,5
13.1
2.,
11.2
9.3
15.0
13.1
8.4
1 '.9
16.8
9.3
Domin� Chess
6.5%
Monopoly
Poker
Roulette
15.9% 17.S
16.8% IS,7
8.4 \ti 15 .9
24.3
17.8
16.8
19.6 14.0
t :1.0
28.0
15.9
16.8
12.1
12.1
18.7%
11.2
13.1
15.0
11.2
6,
42. 1
Chirac
19.6
t 1.2
16.8
15.0
17.S
28.0
11.4
6.,
25.2
15.0
16.8
'6 37
24.3
Mittcrrand
12.1
12.1
1.9
25.2
GiJuwd voltrJ
20.6 16.8
29.0
20.6
24.3 93
15.9 17.8
13.1
4<J.l 13.1
20.6
Servan-Schreiber
18.0
16.S
18.7
19,6
9.3
26.1
7.'
26.1
21.4
15.0
12.1
16.8
Giscard d'Estaing 14A Poniatowski 13.7
',8 7.9 19.4 16.� 22 .3
37.4 lS.7 I ,. I ..,
26.6 28.1 1 �.1 14.4 79 7.2
IS.O 16.' 30.2 1'.8 n.7
37.4 IO.S
7.9 2'.9 6' 16.' :U.7 19.4
6.' 8.6 1 '.1 29.' 21.3 1:1.9
4.3 '.0 •.,
41.7 17 .3 20.' 8.6 7.2 ,..
26.6 17.3
28. 1 15.1
I:I.S 165
'.0 11.5
2.9 13.7 10.1 24.'
Marchais
Chine
5.:rv:an-Schreiber Mitterrand Marchais
21.6
23.0 U.8
... "
19.6 10.3 7.5
10.8 1 '.8 IS.0 33.8 14.4
28. I
7.2
13.1 39.3
43 t5.1 10�
>09 40.,
7.9
8.4
.8D ,..
,.6
33.8 6.'
17.3 ,� '.6
33.1
'.8
19.'
n.7
7.9 0.7
12.9 n.1
,...,
'.8
1 3.7 12.9
26.6
9.4 12.2 U.8 19.4
17.3 12.9 20.1
14.1
16.'
23.7 24.J 18_7
266 22.}
furniture
Pol iticians
AfiJlnrMtJ IIOIm
Giscard d'Estaing Poniatowski Chim Scrvan-Schrei�( Mittttrand Marchais
GiKud HIm
Giscard d'F.sraing Poniatowski Chirac Servan-Schreibcr Miucrrand Marchais
Top ""
Helmet
SAIli
7.5%
9.3%
Citroen
52.3 %
7.5%
13.1
9.3
8.4 Ili
13.1 %
4.7
11.2
44.2
'.6
14.0
15.0
12,1
75
33.6
11.1
37.4
6'
9.3
15.2
8.4
6.'
41.1
19.6
16.8
10.3
7.'
18.7
3.7
4.7 13. I
53.3
8.4
7.9
12.1
lU 11.2
16.5
7.2
12.9
15.8
'.0
1'-\
10. t
23.7 20
31.7 23.0
8.6 IU 1'.8 46.0
20.1
12.1 41.0 1 2.9
44.4
'0
12,9 6.' IS.7
lobo ••
23.7 18,0 15.1
Porsche
20
11.2%
15.2%
Renault ,
7.5%
BOO
Rolls Royce
Sima
43.9%
4.7 %
Wardrotx
1.9%
Louis XVI chair
37.4%
6.)
1S.7
17.8
22.4
24.3
17.S
18.7
14.0
12.1
18.7
12.1
21,5
1'.9
34.6
11.2
13.1
17,8
8.4
8.4
10.3
22.4
6.'
26.2
7.'
27.1
25.2
93
2.8
'4.2
32,S
7.'
22.4
4.7
8.4
20.8
4.7
43.9 10.1
12.2
23.7
1'.\.8
33.8
37.4
32.4
27.3
1'.S
2'.\.9
12.8 30.2
'.8 15.S
7.2
8.6 4.3
9.4 8.6
18.0
9.4 12.2
6.' 10. 1 ..4
23.7 12.1 '0
1�.1 12.9 24.' 12.9
1t.5 4.3
15,0
l 'U 43 22 14.4
11.2
53.1
23.4 24.3
IH 1 '.1 34.; 17.3
22.3 6.'
18.0 24.' 24.5 I L'
20.1 6.' 10,8
Flower.;
. a.ado (
OUY$aJ)theroum
lilac
Liiy of the valley
12.9
b
.,c,
Knoll
FOUf-post�f
30.8%
IS.7%
3.7%
lS.7
20.6 29.0
8.4
15.0
19.6
6.'
34.6
7'
4.7
16.8
28.0
11.2
15.9
36.4
7.9
4.3
'8
1'.\.8 IS.7
U-7 IS.7
7.9
27.3 13,7 16.5
33.8 19.4 10.1
6.' 22.3 49.6
15.0
IS.7 1I.2 15.0 4.7
37,4 19A 21.6 6.) '.6 6,
Carnation
(able
,.6%
7.9
-- -------
Cartoon character.;
Na1"ci!OSU5
Farmhouse
Empire
Asterill
Ilonatd Lt,o:l-. Mickey "''''' .l.... .;... ' .... . ......-.Jl!oI...'--..1]ilio.. ll;j c..._ ..••
I
_.= .
MinclTlInd Marchais
..1O.t!'
43
.... 70 1.4
.
""'''
--...
H.7 60 4
22.3 12.9
.-.�:t'T'''-----. --"""'.... .�
27.3
18.0
10.1
10.8
_._.-
---r;,... -.- ---- ..� .
· IV · .....
7.2 12.9
22.3
7.9
Famous women
Politicians
Brigir[(' Bardor
Jan(' Blrkin
Milurrand WltrJ
Brother
Farhc:r
I7.B%
10.3%
20.6%
Mirc:illc: Mathieu
Morgan
18.7 %
12.\%
14.0%
15.0
11.2
6. '
42. 1
'.7
5.6
Michck
Quttn of England
19.6
24.3
29.0
12.1
15.9
16.8
14.0
IB.7
19.6
17.8
15.0
16.B
1.9
17.8 28.0
15.9
93
26.2
12.1
12.1
7.'
26.2
22.4
16.8 15.0
12.1
16.S
29.5
79
6.'
6.'
165
'.3
41.7
37.4
2J.9
5.8
28, 1
H.l
8.6
17.3
26.6
l'U
20.1
9.4
13.7
8.6
23.7
3.6
5.B
15.1
1 3.7
7.2
27.3
12.2
,�
23.7
17·3
40.3
13.7
12.9
16.'
'.8
29. J
26.6
7.9
7.9
17.3
18.0
15.8
4.3
20.9
17.3
15.1
11.5
14.4
0.7
I.'
'.0
to.8
2.9 1}. 7
'.3
30.2
15.8 16.5
'5.0
15.1
IB.O
7.2
19.4
12·9
12.9
1).8
58.3
'.0
20.1
19A
12.9 14.4
24.5 18.7
Mi([('rrand
15.0 13.1
16.8 20.6
7,
8.
'6
10 3
24.3
13.1
2J.2
40.2
24.3
39.3
13. 1
20.6
'.6
93
10.8
"
37.4
26.6
1�.B
33.8
D.l
18.7
28.1
18.0
10.8
15.1
33.8
79
14.4
7.2
Hm
27.1 %
37
Con
37.4%
30.8%
24.3
17.8
1 8.7
15.0
8.4
15.0
18.7
12.1
2 1 .5
18.7
20.6
19.6
6'
13.1
17.8
8.4
11.2
29.0
34.6
7.'
26.2
7.'
27. 1
9.3
15.0
4.7
16.8
28.0
7. ,
22.4
4.7
..
25.2
•.4
IS.7'1>
20.8
4.7
4.7
1l.2
15.9
36.4
23.7
15.B
9.4
33.8
'.8
7.2
37.4
37.4
79
4.J
'.8
8.6
32.4
12.8
8.6
22.3
15.B
27.3
,,�
19.4
1�.S
13.7
7.9
14.4
43
2'.9
302
1'-1
.,
18.0
15.1
18.0
21.6
IS.7
18.7
7.9
23.7
lU
9A
6.'
23.7
1'5.1
20.1
12.9
12.9
6.'
27.3
lS.0
4.J
12.2
10.1
12.2
34.J
6.'
24.5
11.5
8.6
46.0
15.1
2.2
JJ.2
IA
'.0
17.3
to.8
11.5
12.9
4.3
6.'
n.7
33.8 19.4
6.'
1'.S
2'5 24.J
B.l%
B.4%
7. 5%
9.3%
Ponia.towSki
'.7
11.2
44.2
'.6
12.1
130.1
93
23.4
Chine
14.0
15.0
12.1
7.'
33.6
15.0
11.2
Scrvan-Schreibcr
12.1
6.'
9.3
25.2
8A
6.-
MinelTllfld
41.1
37.4 19.6
24.3 15.9
41
16.8
10.3
7.'
Marchajs
IS.7
3.7
13.1
.S3.3
8.4
2.8
Giscard d'Esraing
11.5
16.5
7.2
12.9
Poniatowski
1 2.2
15.8
31.7
'0
79 1 '.1
10. I
23.7
13.0
8.6
Servan-Schreiber
12.2
24.5
12.9
Mifn:rrand
41.0
44.4
MaKhais
12.9
'.0
Top h"
Otroen 2"
'04
Porsc:he
n.3$
7.5 %
1l.2%
2'.2%
F('lr
Peugeot
Renault
Rolls Royc('
Simn 1100
22.4
14.0
12.1
3<6
ll.2
5"
IS.7
4.7%
18.7
43.9% 17.8
22.4
6.'
32.S
43.9
12.2
20.1
20. 1
11.5
6.' 18.7
GiK",d flDlnl
10.3
6.'
,
7.5'li
Jo'" Lawyer
Overseer
Doctor
Concier�
HairdfeSS('f
Chauifwr
Chrysanthemum
Poppy
18.7'li
2U%
15.9%
9.3 '.tti
13.1%
20.6%
2l.5%
10.3%
lilac
>of>
Knoll
FannhouS(' table
H%
16.'
5.6%
22.3 49.6
to.l
Cartoon charact('rs
F1ow('n; Lily of the
Donald
Lucky
Mickey
v2l1q
NarciiSuS
Carnation
Asterix.
Duck
Luke
MouS('
Popcye
Timin
13.1%
20.6%
20.6%
14.0%
12.1 %
23.4%
23.4%
6.5%
17.S%
6.,
15.0
14.0
IB.7
1�.9
18.7
10.3
10.3
24.3
18.7
15.9
10.3
lS.7
2U
19.6
12.1
12.1
22.4
15.0
19.6
15.0
1·4.0
9.3
30.8
12.1
27.1
16.8
1 1 .2
17.B
15.0
21.5
12.1
2U
23.4
19.6
2J.2
8.4
13.7
26.2
18.7
12.1
15.9
12. 1
16.8
38.3
to.3
12.1
9.3
12.1
IB.7
14.0
22.4
'7
7.'
13.1
15.9
24.3
15.0
6.'
2.9
'.8
14.4
21.6
33.1
7.2
18.0
34.J
8.6
23.7
7.9
6.-
19.4
79
12.2
7.9
13.7
8.6
19.4
17.3
22.3
25.9
9.4
13.7
13.7
20.9
16.5
19.4
'.8
7.9
72
7.2
20.9
23.0
11.5
n.7
28.1
12.9
1'.1
17 .3 '.8
12.9
16.5
23.7 12.2
20.9
'.0
28. 1 17.3
12.2
9A
25.2
15.8
12.9
13.7
27.3
20.1
6.'
6.'
20.9
21.6
24.5
18.0
8.6
7.2
17.3
12.9
2J7
25.9
12.9
0.7
3.6
IA
47.5
HI 25.2
19.4
31.7
36.0
36.7
'.0
••
26.6
12.9
lS.7
21.6
10.1
Poniawwski
0.9
11.2
9.'
31.8
16.8
26.2
38.3
Oliru
9.3
20.6
12.1
19.6
215
15.0
&rvan-Schrc:ibcr
14.0
12.1
19.6
1l.2
29.9
13. I
2.8
Miuerrand
45.8
13.1
26.2
3.7
9.3
0.9
Marchajs
10.3
19.6
15.0
22.4
8A
Gi5C2rd d'E.$raing
36.7
20. I
32.4
IA
Poniatowski
19.4
17.3
35.3
ChinK
14.4
43.2
8.6
Marchais
FurnituR:
1.9%
8.4%
Mirt('lTlInd
12.3
chair
Giscard d'Esraing
Scrvan-Schf"('ibc:r
14., 26.6 10.1
Wardrobe
C'P
h"
GiK4rd IIOInl
15.9
Four-poster "'"
Helmet
Giscard d'Estaing
6.'
IB.7
8.4%
Empin: ""k
boater
Mill,""" " fIOIm
14.0%
Louis XVI
"'no.
Politicians
16.8%
13.1
6.'
OiiCK
15.9% 17.B
Roulette
9.3 2'U
28.0
MilJWrIlllli fl()JwJ
18.7%
Poker
16.B
22.4
Politicians
6.5%
Monopoly
15. 9
28.0
Smw
(.b('SS
... 12.1
Servan-Schreiber
28.1
Dominoc:s
17.8 15.0
9.3 6.5
IU
Bridge:
93
20.6
15.8
Cousin
11.2
17.B
Miu('rrand MaKhais
Son-in· low
26.2
15.0
16.5 2B
Games
13.1
16.8
23.0
2J.2
13.1
16.8
Servan-Schreibcr
13.7
T7.3 16." 2J.<)
15.9
19.6
2 1.6
23.7
25.2
11.2
Chiru
19.4
12.9
U.8
-"ZT:ti -
16.8
19.6
7.9 19.4
14.4
2tI T
32. 7%
Chine
13.7
,.
10.8
. -Zl.1'i
21.6
16.8%
13.1
5.8
"
23.0
·lT3
18.7%
11.2
Poniatowski
18.0 18.0
.�."�
30.8
POniatowski
14.4
"7 -:1•.
Tr.7·
Father-in· l,w
1 5.0
15.0%
Gisc:ard d'Esraing
,. '.0
Soo
Jacki(' Kennedy
12. 1 %
GiJuud VOltrJ
.
Family
Giscard. d'Estaing
Marchais
. '-":I'
20.1 4J.3
.
8.6
14.4
:l. � iralicized numbt'n indicate the highest percenrag<' in och column.
13.1 %
,.• '.8
27.3
26.6 9A
IH
16.' 7.2
1 2.1
,
"
Schreiber. These two relationships, even if produced successively, deter._ ' mine each other and can be expressed in the form of an analogy: the is to the reed as Giscard (or Poniatowski) is to Servan-Schreiber; even in the Giscard/Servan-Schreiber opposition, the scheme applies more " political strength, power, designating the oak as king of the forest and " ' Giscard as Head of State, whereas in the Poniatowski/Servan-Schreiber opposition it applies more to physical appearance and the associated 'vir- . tues', designating the oak as big and sttong, and Poniatowski, ftom the point of view of bodily hexis, as powerful and massive. In another case, is the scheme noble/base, applied to the wood rather than the symbol ic ' , ' value or shape of the tree, which motivates the opposition between oak, a , noble material used in fine furniture and ancient bouses, and deal (sapin" fir), a poor-quahty wood, used for coffins, which is strongly linked Marchais, as are the colour black and the crow, a bird of ill omen.
if : t�
,
': it ':,
,
to
The most fundamental symbols, such as colours, are of course very strongly . over-
The application of secondary schemes, which bring it into other oppo . sitions , wlll thus cause the oak (like the other objects) to be endowed with a series of properties more or less present in the fundamental proper ties: the Gaulish roots of druidical oaks (suggesting the Cartoon charac ter, Asterix, who is also associated with Giscard ) as compared with the exotic palm-tree; noble solidity, as compared with the poplar; and sheer precedence, as compared with the plane, a tall and impressive tree but more vulgar, being associated with public places such as streets and squares.
Because the logic of the game itself and of the objects that were proposed channelled the search for associations in the direction of politics, the re· spondenrs invoked analogies in physical appearance (e.g., identifying ChinK with the poplar, a tall, slender tree) only when there was no other way of avoiding a random choice. The same is true of purely verbal associations, 2S when rouicHe suggeStS Marchais, no doubt through Russian roulette. It is also tru� �f the search for coherence, to which social psychologists are so at tached: It IS only when no other direct relationship springs [0 mind that there is reference back to choices already made in a different series (e.g., white Giscard, so Giscard = lily of the valley) or within the same series, =
so that some 'choices' are defined purely negatively, by elimination. In each series, the first choices, the only oncs that are really determined (among the colours, the opposition whitejblack) limit all the others; for example, if Giscard is associated with the Rolls Royce or the oak, this determines the second choice, which is often a choice of the second, the 'lieutenant' (i.e., Poniacowski or Chirac, who are positionally assigned to the Peugeor 504 or the plane-tree). Everything suggests that the capacity to use all the possibil ities offered, in other words, the ability to produce differences, is linked to status-assigned competence, that is, educational level and gender. For exam ple, Giscard is associated with the ant by more men than women, because the idea of hoarding and saving suggested by the ant-through La Fon raine's fable contrasting the ant and the grasshopper-is only connccrcd with Giscard (like Moliere's Miser, which varies in the same way) by those who remember him as Minister of Finance. Similarly, more men than women associate chess with Marchais, perhaps because of the popularity of chess in the USSR, whereas women, perhaps seeing chess only as 'an intel leCtual game', associatc it more strongly with Giscard. And again, perhaps because men are morc familiar with Minerrand's background, they more often associate him with the job of lawyer. (These differences are, of course, partly clue to (he related fact that men tend to be morc politicized and more leftish.) Women are more inclined to be guided by analogies with non-political characrcrisrics, such as bodily hexis, especially those indul gently related in women's magazines (e.g., Poniatowski will be seen as a Polish prince rather than as Minister of the Interior).
The source of the coherence of the choices lies not in the intention of coherence but in the self-consistency of a system of classificatory schemes which, though functioning discontinuously, grasps its objects in an ob jectively consistent way. And so, little by little, through the series of met aphors, there emerges a sociologically coherent social portrait of each 'personality'. All the images associated with Servan-Schreiber are linked by something like the idea of ostentatiousness and flashiness, suggested by the narcissus, a yellow flower, close to the daffodil or cuckoo, and the
straw boater (again yellow) of the old music-hall beau, the colours or ange and yellow-particularly emphasized by left-wi ng voters, who, espe cially in 1975, were probably more sensitive to the connotations;' by the
grasshopper, spendthrift and strident; by poker and roulette, games of bluff and arriviste impatience (also associated with Chirac) ; by Don Juan and Jackie Kennedy, the American challenge,' or Brigitte Bardot; by the Porsche, the four-poster bed and the Knoll sofa, all essential accoutre ments of moderni5m � I t would be wrong to suppose that such systematic choices could be inspired solely by an intuition into the unique 'personal i ty of ].-].S.-S.; what they in fact designate, in a very methodical way, is the life-style of the 'new bo urgeoisie', which is seized upon both by the dominated _
'
classes and by the well-established fractions of the dominant class, with a hint of racism in the choice of the Middle Eastern palm-tree and the col-
TtIbk A.14
Variations in survey according to incom� (monthly) group. Trtcs
Games
PalmPoliticians
Oak
Ire<
Poplar
Plane
Reed
Fir
Bridge
Dominoes
10.696 10.6 21.2 21.2
9.1 96 19.7 18.2
22.796 7.6 15.2
33.3 %
7.696
22. 7
27.3
13.6 16.7
10.6 16.7
6.796 18.2 13.6 1l.2 22.7
6.7
18.1 B.3 12.4
a.ess
,
Monopoly
Poker
Roulette
21.296 7.6
13.6% 16.7 10.6 19.7
4.5% 19.7 15.2
>2,499P
Giscard d'Estaing 33.3 %' 1B.2% Poniatowski 21.2 22. 7 21.2 10.6 Olin<: 9.1 Servan.&htciber 4.5 Mittemnd 18.2 9.1 Muchais
2).8
1 2. 1
19.7
10.6
30.6
12.4 16.6 18.7
20.2 13.5
24.9
18.7 11.4 1 '.0
24.2
21.2 10.6 9.1
19.796 10.6 13.6 19.7 13.6
2).8
22. 7
38.3
6.7
14.5 14.5 11.4 14.5 6.7
22.3
20.7 13.5 1 1 .9 1 3.0 19.7
44.4
1.9 18.5 7.4
19.7 12.1 9. 1 13.6 12.1
2).8
27.3
9.1 24.2 10.6
24.2
13.0 18.7
13.0 14.0
20.2
22.3
15.5 16.6 15.5
20.7 16.1 13.'
23.3
14.B 1B.5
3.7 14.B 16.7 14.8 20.4
0 16.7 20.4
15.2
31.8
15.2 1 3.6
2,)00 '" 6,499P
Giscard d'Estaing Poniatowski Olirac Servan.&httiher Mittel'l'2Jld Marchais
19.2 10.9 5.7 17.6 1'.'
6,)ooPor -. Giscard d'Estaing 27.8 Poniatowski 3).2 9. 3 Olirac 3.7 Setvan-Sehttiber Mittcrrand 9.3 14.B Muchais
18.7 B.3 14.B 1B.5 13.0 24. 1
14.B 14.B
20. 7
27.8
11.1 22.2 13.0 11.1 14.B
23.8
20.7 13.0 16.1 1 9.2 13.0 lB.' 24. 1
13.0 16.7 14.B
23.8
20.2 16.6 11.1 1.9 9.3 33.3
3D 13.0
11.9 18.1 U.5 14.0 U.5 24.4
5.6 14.B 22.2 13.0 16.7 27.8
19.7 15.5 14.' 20.7
13.0 18.' '.6 16.7 1. 9
2).9
22.2 24.1
21.2
3).2
lB.' 7.4 9.3 11.1 2B.'
Hats
Politicians
Beret
Straw boater
Helmer
9.1 % 13.6
12.1 %
29. 6
lB.' 11.1 7.4
29.6
7.3 17.1 10.4 19.2 22.3
2).9
1B.5 1B.5
Furniture
Cap
Felt hat
Top hat
Wardrobe
15.2% 7.6 12.4 15.2 15.2
15.2% 13.6 16.7 1 6. 7
3 7. 9 %
10.6% 16.7 15.2 15.2
Empire desk
Sofa
Louis XVI chair
Four-poster bed
Farmhouse table
33.3 %
6.1 %
13.6% 16.7 12.1 7.6 18.2
>2,499F
Giscard d'Estaing Poniatowski
Chicae Servan-Schreiber Minerrand Marchais
2,500 /0 6,499F
Giscard d'Estaing Poniatowski
Chime Servan-Schreiber Micterrand Marchais
6,500F Of' more
Giscard d'Es{aing Poniawwski Chirae Servan-Schreiber Mitterrand Marchais
2.
10.6% 6.1 15.2 13.6 34.8
19.7
27 .3
22.7 19. 7 7.6
33.3
15.2 16.7 4.5 18.2
10.4 8.8 12.4 1 1 .9
D.5 16.1 18.7
42.)
29.0
39.9
1 6. 1
lOA
1 6. 1
11.1
14.5
4.7
7.8 16.6
16.7
3. 7
1l.1 24. 1
9.3 13.0 1 3.0
38.9
7.4
5.6 3.7
46.3
7.8
42.6
27.8 5.6 7. 4 13.0
22. 7
34.8
15.2
10.9 4.7 8.8 1 1 .4 17.1
7.8 13.5
47.2
3.7 3.7
9. 3
5.6 13.0 64.8
The itlllCizM num�r.; indicate the highcst perccntage in each wlumn.
30.1
22.3 13.5 12.4 1 3 .0 14.8 14.8 31.)
1 8. 5 7.4
25.8 13.6 15.2 3.0 4.5 47 .2
31.8%
13.6
16.7 15.2 9.1 16.7 10.6
5.7
32.6
28.8
15.0 14.0 14.5 5.7 3.1
27.5
12.4 1 1 .4 22.3 20.7
19.7 17.6 1 1 .4 1 1 .9 6.2
51.9
9.3
38.9
18.5 1 1 .1 5 .6 9.3 37
29.6
13.0 7.4 22.2 18.5
2 1 .2 24.1 9.3 3.7 1.9
4.5% 10.6 21.2 33.3
19 7 10.6 6.7 1 1 .9 21.8 30.6
D.5 1 3 .0 3.7 3.7 24 . 1 37.0
16.7 14.8
15.2 21.2 10.6 10.6 91
24.2
24.2
31.8
34 .7
D.O
4.7 10.9 8. 3 6.2 24.4
17.1 16. 1 1 1 .9 13.0 6. 7 35 .2
14.8 22.2 9.3 14.8 3.7
15.2 24.2
6. 1
12.4 22.8
28.0
12.4 8.8 13.0 22 2 9.3 29.6
14.8 11.1
45.1
0 7.4 7.4 7.4 27.8 50.0
,
,
our yellow, which is also linked to the racist stigma of the yellow star. ( Servan-Schreiber is often identified as son-in-law by those with the highest income: perhaps by applying the traditional scheme one thinks of Le gendre de Monsieur Poirier--of the ambitious bourgeois and the
ruined aristocrat. ) ' The 'associations' game gives a fairly accurate idea of the everyday class struggle which deploys the quasi concepts of spontane ous sociology ('he's pretentious', 'a show-off' etc.), often closer to insults than judgements, in order to 'catalogue' or 'pin down' adversaries, in short, to imprison them in an essence. This probably explains why, as the interviewers note, the survey was so well received and so well understood ( witness the exceptionally low rate of 'don't knows' ) and why the vision of the social world and politics which it brings to light is ultimately much more real than those constructed from the would-be scientific in quiries of 'political science'. Because the practical logic governing acts of attribution proceeds piecemeal, successively, and so is not confronted with its own incoher ences, and also because, without moving outside a determinate system of classificatory schemes, one Can see the same object through different schemes, and therefore relate it to different objects or to the same object seen in other ways, all the meanings which the individual acts of attribu tion attach to the same object or person are far from being always per. fectly coherent. Thus it is not easy to reconcile the properties of the powerful, massive and devoted Poniatowski which evoke the ox or the rugby player Spanghero ( known to commentatOrs as a 'dutiful forward' ) , and the docile strength each symbolizes, or those of the Minister of the Interior, suggesting the helmet, a symbol of repressive violence, with the properties that suggest the Rolls Royce or the Queen of England. The specificity of practical logic, which I have analysed elsewhere in the case of ritual,7 perhaps becomes clearer when dealing with a system of schemes of which one is a native user. The native is inclined to accept the immediate, lazy understanding provided by his prac tical mastery of the schemes of p roduc tion and interpretation of the symbolism in question, so that an analysis which spells out everything implied in practical, tacit attri butions is likely to be seen as fanciful over-interpretation.
Given that the relations observed are ptOduced by the application of schemes which function implicitly and leave undetermined the distinc· tive features they pick up and the mediating terms on which the analo gies are based, each person or thing involved is endowed with a restricted set of more or less coherent, unequally probable meanings. Setting aside the few codified or quasi-codified relationships, such as that between the poppy and Marchais, through the colour red, the recognized symbol of revolutionary parties, which even here is only conditional (since some respondents, no doubt the most anti·Communist, choose the chrysanthe· mum, the flower of death). a concentration around one dominant mean·
ing reflects the extent to which the different agents agree on the scheme they mobilize to construct the objects and the relationships berween them. Thus, the survey which records the meaning-giving acts produced by the operation of more or less superimposable schemes, and the statistical analysis which aggregates them, reproduce, through a sort of experimen tal simulation, the process of production of collective representations such as the reputation of a person or the social image of a thing. These representations may be the product of the application of a single scheme of perception or a common system of classification, without ceasing to be subject to antagonistic social uses. While all apperception implies appre· ciation, the coincidence of schemes of apperception does not imply coin cidence of schemes of appreciation; when agents occupying different, and even opposing, positions in social space (or political space) apply the same classificatOry schemes, they almost always disagree over the value they give to the signs thereby produced. For example, right and left, rich and poor, make equal use of the opposition between white (or blue blue blood?) and black (in the absence of red) to express the opposition between Giscard or Poniatowski and Marchais; but this opposition is given diametrically opposed values, depending on whether it is used by Mitterrand supporters or Giscard supporters: the former associate black with Poniatowski (and his helmet) and secondarily with Marchais; the latter associate it with Marchais. The same logic leads the left to associate the crow or chrysanthemum with Poniatowski (and secondarily Chirac and Giscard) , while the right associates them with Marchais and second· arily Mitterrand. Giscard's supporters connect him with the oak, 'the king of the forest', Asterix, 'the all·French hero', Ie Cid, a symbol of cour· age and honour, or Michele Morgan, a 'feminine ideal', while left·wing voters associate Mitterrand with the same objects. The right associates the fox, a symbol of perfidious cunning, with Marchais and Mitterrand (also identified with Tartuffe), whereas the left associates it with Giscard. Both sides agree in using the opposition between lineage and marriage as a way of expressing social or political proximity and distance, but Gis card supporters classify Giscard or Chirac as son, brother or father, rele· gating Marchais or Mitterrand to cousin, son·in·law or father-in-law, whereas Mitterrand supporters keep Poniatowski, Chirac (and secondar· ily Marchais) at arm's length and make Mitterrand one of the family. Thus one only has to study common symbols or words in their practi. cal uses, to discover the need to write into their full definition the essen· tial polysemy they derive from these antagonistic uses. Situations of political struggle, of which this 'party game' gives an approximate image, demonstrate contrary to those who believe in class languages that words or signs can be common, without ever---despite the illusion of consensus--being perfectly neutral, because they bear within them the potentiality of the antagonistic uses to which they lend themselves. When i t is a matter of classifying objects that are socially classified and
,
..
classifying, i.e., une9ually distributed between the social classes and thete. fore attributed to the social classes in the implicit or explicit associations, one finds the same agreement over meaning combined with the same dis. agreement over the value of the things classified. Thus, whatever their
class position ( identified hy income)' and their relation to that position
( Identified by theIC preference for Giscard or Mitterrand ) , the respon. . dents concur In seeing bndge as a bourgeOIs game (associating it with Giscard and secondarily Poniatowski and Chirac), leaving dominoes (in
the absence of belote) to Marchais, that is, to the working class he repre. sents. And they mamfest the same practical knowledge of the relation. shi� betwet;n objects or practices and the social classes when they
attnbute skung ( through the skIer Kdly) to Giscard and boxing or rugby to Marchais; the top hat to Giscard (and then Poniatowski ) , the
cap, emblem of the rowdy urban populace, to Marchais, and the beret,
symbol of the placid, provincial working man, to Mitterrand; the Rolls Royce to Giscard (and then Poniatowski) , the Peugeot 504 to his 'lieu.
tenants' Poniarowski and Chirac, the Simca 1000 or Renault 5 to Mitter.
rand, the Citroi'n lCV to Marchais, and the Porsche to Servan.Schreiber, who is always credited with the symbols of conspicuous modernism;9 the Louis XVI chair and Empire desk to Giscard and Poniatowski, the farm.
house table to Marchais and Mitterrand and the wardrobe to Mitterrand and Marchais (and also Poniatowski, with his aristocratic background), and to Servan·Schreiber the attributes of the new bourgeoisie, the Knoll
sofa and four·poster; the Queen of England, Rolls Royce of womanhood, to Poniatowski and Giscard (here the Prince comes into his own); Mireille Mathieu, 'popular' in both hexis and repertoire, to Marchais and
then Mitterrand; Jackie Kennedy, and then Brigitte Bardot, to Servan. Schreiber. Guided by the sense of social realities which enables them to assess the proprieties and imptoprieties of social logic, the tespondents
creases considerably as one moves down the real hierarchies. Such is the dilemma facing the dominated, which would also arise, perhaps more in· tensely, when faced with pairs of adjectives such as low and high, clumsy and skilful, laborious and g taceful, heavy and light, coarse and fine, rude
and polite, common and distinguished-the ordinary instruments of class judgement. Either they betray their recognition of the established
ordet by granting the attributes of the dominant gtoups, in particular the dominant positions, to the spokesmen of the dominant groups (and they do so much more often, even when they declare themselves supporters of change, than the declared supporters of the established order grant them to the spokesmen of change), in which case they manifest how difficult it
is to dissociate recognition of the established order from recognition of the hierarchies it implies (by placing Giscard among the 'good' relatives, father, brother or son, or identifying him with the oak-an increasingly fre9uent association as one moves down the social hierarchy); or they be·
tray their recognition of the prevailing principles of hierarchy by simply inverting the distribution of the spokesmen of conservation and the
spokesmen of change in terms of these principles. The devalued image of the dominated occupations (such as hairdresser or concierge) still has to he recognized in order to seek to bring down the dominant by giving
them these jobs in symbolic revenge.'O There is, in any case, only an ap· parent symmetry between the wish to make a chauffeur or concierge of Poniatowski, Chirae, or, with some hesitacion, Giscard, and the restora tion of the established order that is performed by the conservatives when
they give to Mitterrand or Marchais-especially the latter, with his 'pre· tentious' airs as the immodest spokesman of 'modest folk'-the places that 'naturally' suit them.
match people with objects, or people with each other, according to their rank in the distributions, making marriages which are immediately per. celved as well·matched by all those who possess the same practical knowl.
edge of the distributions.
In fact, political divergences concern not the (practical) cognition of . the obJective structures, but their recognition. Those best placed in the
dIstributions (I.e., those with the highest incomes) are also those most inclined to recognize them as right and proper by granting the dominant classes, as personified by Giscard, the attributes they are most likely to
possess, that is, the rarest and most valued-bridge, the top hat, the Rolls, skiing (Killy), the Louis XVI chair-and attributing the must common attributes such as the cap, the 2CV, the farm table or MireilJc Mathieu-to the dominated classes, represented by Marchais. By contrast,
the propottion who invert the hierarchy, giving Giscard, Chirac or Poni· atowski the typically popular, and therefore desacralizing, cap, 2CV or dominoes, or giving Marchais the typically bourgeOis bridge or Rolls, in·
........ . . .... . � . . .. .. . . . ... . .. .
� -----
.. _ .-. . -.. . .. ..-.
Notes
Preface 1. For an analysis of the values of the 'old bourgeoisie', see P. Bourdieu and M. de Saint Martin, 'Le patronac', AcleJ de Ja Recherche en Sciences SociakJ (subsetJuently abbreviated to Attei ). 20-21 ( 1 978). 3-82, and for the basis of a comparison be tween Germany, England and France, F. K. Rin�r, Education and Stxiety in Mod· ern Europt ( Bloomington and London, Indiana University Press, 1979). 2. This contradiCts the belief, held by many intellectuals in every country. that cul
3.
4.
5. 6.
tural differences arc withering away into a common culture. For example: 'Art has become increasingly autonomous, making (he artist a powerful taste-maker in his own right: the "social location" of the individual (his social class or other posi cion) no longer determines his life-style and his values. . . . For the majority of {he society . . . this general proposition may srill hold true. But it is increasingly evi dent thar for [he significant propordon of the population, the relation of social position to cultural style--particularly if one rhinks in gross dimensions such as working class, middle class and upper class-no longer holds'; D. Bell, 'The Cui· tural Contradictions of Capitalism', The Public IntereJ/, 2 1 ( Fall 1970), 16-43, esp. 19-20. A glance at an evening's TV programmes or the magazine ncks of a Bos {On or Philadelphia newsagent is enough to convince one of the contney; but one could also poinr to the work of the pioneers of the sociology of culture (see W. Lloyd Warner and Paul S. Lunr, The s..ial Lift of a MIXkrn Community [New Haven, Yale University Press, 1941], esp. ch. 19; and Russell Lynes, The Taslt makerJ [New York, Harper. 1954]. esp. ch. 1 3 ) ; not to mention market research. which, being exposed {O the sanctions of the market, is infinitely more 'realistic' than most academic studies (see, for example, P. Martineau, 'Social Classes and Spending Behavior', Journai of Marketing, 23 [October 1958), 1 2 1 - 1 30). A. Minron, 'A Form of Class Epigraphy', s..ial ForceJ, 28 (March 1950), 250-262. Such homologies no doubt underlie international rapprochements and even alli ances. For example, William Barrett's penetrating description of the mccting be twccn the envoys of UJ TtmpJ ModemtJ and rhe ParliJan Review group (see W. Barrett, The TruantJ: AdvenlurtJ amlmg InltllectuaiJ [New York, Doubleday An chor Books, 1982], pp. 1 1 3-123) gives a fairly accuntte picture of the affinities associated with homologous positions in the intellectual and political fields and also the differences due to [he specificity of national traditions. See S. Sontag, 'Notes on "ump" ', Parli,an Review, 31 (Fall 1%4), 515-531. E. A. Poe, 'Philosophy of Furniture', Selected ProJt and Poetry ( New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 19�O), p. 386.
U
7. P. Bourdieu, 'The Economics of Linguisric Exchanges', Social Science In/ormalion, 16 (December 1977), 645-668, and Ce que parler veul dire ( Paris, Fayard, 1982 ) . 8. I am grareful to my rransiaror for having been as faithful ro rhe inrenrion of my Style as rhe demands and traditions of English will allow. 9. Readers who may suspect me of a secret indulgence rowards the model of the total intelleccual are referred to my analyses of the hisrorical conditions of the creation and functioning of this model; P. Bourdieu, 'Sanre', Lontkm Review of Books, 2 (20 November-3 December 1980 ) , 1 1-12, and 'The Philosophical Establishment' in A. Monrefiore, ed., Philosophy in France Today (Cambridge, Cambridge Univetsity Press, 1982 ) .
Introduction
7. O. Merlin, 'Mlle. Thibon dans la vision de Marguerite', Le Monde, 9 December 1%5. 8. F. Cheni'lue, 'Hair esr-it immoral?' Le Monde, 28 January 1970.
1, The Aristocracy of Culture
1 . The mundain, the 'man of the world', is discussed later in this chapter in the sec· tion 'Scholars and Gentlemen' ( rranslator). 2. Scholastic rerms and abbreviarions: CEP: Certificar d'etudes primaires, formerly marking complerion of primacy schooling. CAP: Certificat d'aptitude professionnelle, the lowest trade certificate. BEPC; Brevet d'e-tudes du premier degre, marking completion of the firsr part
1 . Bourdieu et al., Un art moyen: essai sur les usages sociaux de la pholographie (Paris, Ed. de Minuic, 1965); P. Bourdieu and A. Darbel, L!A11lfJur de I'art: musks e/ leur public (Paris, Ed. de Minuir, 1966). 2. The word disposition seems particularly suited to express whac is covered by the concept of habims (defined as a system of disposicions )-used later in this chap
of secondary schooling. ba(calau,.eal (bac) , examination at end of secondary schooling. petite ecok: minor tertiary technical college. licence: university degree ( three-year course in a faculte ) . agrlga/ion: competitive examination to recruir top category of secondary teach·
les
ter. h expresses first the result ofan organizing action, with a meaning close to that of words such as structure; it also designates a way of being, a habitual state (especially of rhe body) and, in particular, a predirpOJilion, lendency, propemity or in clination. [The semantic cluster of 'disposition' is rather wider in French than in English, but as this note-translated literally-shows, the equivalence is adequate. Translator.) P. Bourdieu, OUlline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 214, n. l . 3. E. Panofsky, 'Iconography and Iconology: An Inrroduction to the Study of Re· naissance Art', Meaning in the ViJual Am ( New York, Doubleday, 19'5'5), p. 28. 4 . It will be- seen that this internalized code called culture functions as cultural capi cal owing to the fan that, being un<XJually distributed, it secures profits of dis. . unCClon. 5. The sense of familiarity in no way excludes the ethnocentric misunderstanding which results from applying the wrong code. Thus, Michael Baxandall's work in historical ethnology enables us to measure all thar separates the perceptual schemes that now rend (0 be applied to Quattrocenro paintings and those which their immediate addressees applied. The 'moral and spiritual eye' of Quattrocento man, that is, the set of cognitive and evaluative dispositions which were the basis of his perception of the world and his perception of pictorial representation of rhe world, differs radically from the 'pure' gaze (purified, first of all, of reference to economic value) with which rhe modern cultivated spectator looks at works of art. As the contracts show, the clients of Filippo Lippi, Domenico Ghirlandaio or Piero della Francesca were concerned to get 'value for money'. They approached works of art with the mercantile dispositions of a businessman who can calculate '1uantiries and prices ar a glance, and they applied some surprising criteria of ap preciation, such as rhe expense of rhe colours, which sets gold and ultramarine at . the {OP of the hierarchy. The artisrs, who shared this world view, were led to In clude arithmetical and geometrical devices in their compositions so as to 8a((�r
this taste for measuremenr and calcularion; and they tended to exhibit the techm· cal virtuosity which, in this context, is rhe most visible evidence of the 9uanti�y and 9uality of the labour provided; M. Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fif leenth-Cmlury Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style (Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 1972 ) . 6 . See P. Bourdieu, ' Le marche des biens symboli9ues', L'Annie Socioiogique, 2 2 ( 1 973), 49-126; and 'Outline of a Sociological Theory of Art Perception', Inter national Social ScienceJournal, 20 (Winter 1%8), :'>89-612.
,
cr>
(agriger ). grandeJ koles: set of selective higher..cducation colleges (parallel, but generally superior, to the facltltll ), awarding their own diplomas or training candidates for the agregation. The academically most prestigious are the Ecole Normale
3.
4.
S.
6. 7.
8.
9.
Supi:rieure ( ENS) (in the rue d'Ulm, Paris) and the Ecole Polytechni9ue ( Poly· techni9ue). The former trains Iycee and university teachers; the latter trains 'engi neers' who in fact subsequendy work as top technical civil servants or ( after fulfilling their obligation to the State, or 'buying themselves out') as top manag· ers in private industry. The 'business schools' form a sub·set of grandes ecoks; the hest known of these is the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC). The following are also often classified with the grandes ecoles: the Institut des Sciences Politi'lues (Sciences Po), an elite college teaching mainly political science, l�w etc.; and the Ecole Nationale d' Administration (ENA), which specifically trams its graduates (marques ) for the civil service ( translator). The clearest manifestation of this effect in the world of legitimate music is the fate of Albinoni's 'famous Adagio' (as the record·jackets call it), or of so many works of Vivaldi which in less than twenty years have fallen from the prestigious srarus of musicologists' discoveries to the status of jingles on popular radio stations and petit bourgeois record-players. . M. Proust, 'Sentiments filiaux d'un parricide' in PasticbeJ et melanges (Paris, Galli' mard, 1970), p. 200. G. Bachelard, Le rationnalisme applique ( Paris, PUF, 1949), p. 106. The word titre can mean educational qualification, ride, tide-deed ( translator). The strongest resistance to the survey came from the most highly qualified sub jects, who thereby indicate that, being cultured by definition, they ate not to be questioned as to theit knowledge, but only as to their preferences. (It is well known that writers and artists tend to respond eagerly to 'literary surveys', which they see as acts of homage to the universality of their talent-spotting genius.) This essentialism, which can remain tacit so long as che belief supponing the so· cial value of titles remains intact, necessarily achieves expression, at least in the inverted form of racism, when the capital is threatened (e.g., in declining aristoc· racies ) . This legitimate or soon-to-be legitimate culture, in rhe form of practical and con· scious mastery of the means of symbolic appropriation of legitimate or soon·to-be legitimate works, which characterizes the 'culrivated man' ( according to the dom inanr definicion at a given moment), is what the '1uestionnaire sought to measure.
10. This effect of assignment by status is also largely responsible for the differences
observed between the sexes (especially in the working and middle classes) in all the areas which are assigned to men, such as legitimate culture (especially the most typically masculine regions of that culture, such as history or science) and, above all, politics. . . . . . 1 1 . One of the most obvious 'advantages' bestowed by hIgh educational capaai In in tellectual or scientific competition is high self-esteem and high ambition, which may equally
be- manifested in the brodth of the problems tackled ( more 'theo�eti
cal' ones, for example), the loftiness of the style adopted etc.; see P. BourdlCU, 'The Specificity of the Scientific Field', Sociai Science Information, 14 (December
12. The initials C.S. followed by a roman numeral refer w an entry In the 1m of sta· tistical sources given in appendix 2, 'Complementary Sources'. 1 3 . .At equal levels, knowledge of film directors is considerably stronger in Paris than 1975), 19-47.
.
.
in Lille, and the further one moves from the most scholastic and most legitimate areas, the greater the gap between the arisians and the pro�incials. In order to. . explain this, it is no doubt necessary to Invoke the constant reinforcements which the cultivated disposition derives from all that is called the 'cultural atmosphere', chat is, all the incitements provided by a peer group whose social composition and cultural level, and therefore its cultural dispositions, are defined by its place of resi dence; and also, inextricably associated with this, from the range of cultural goods
�
14.
15. 16. 17.
on offer. It is among the petite bourgeoisie endowed with culcural capital that one finds most of the devoted 'film-buffs' whose knowledge of directors and actors extends beyond rheir direct experience of the corresponding films. Some 31 percent of the office workers name acmrs in films they have not seen and 32 percent of those working in the medical and social services name the directors of films they have not seen. (No craftsman or small shopkeeper is able to do this, and only 7 percent of the skilled workers and foremen name acwrs in films they have not seen.) E. Panofsky, Meaning in the ViJua/ ArtJ ( New York, Doubleday Anchor Books, 1955), p. 12. Ibid., p. 13. . . . . For a more extensive analysis of the opposltlon between the specifically aesthetic disposition and the 'practical' disposition, and the collective and individual gen esis of the 'pure' disposition which genesis-amnesia tends to constitute as 'nacural', see P. Bourdieu, 'Disposition esthctique et comperence artistique', Us Temps Mo dernes, 295 ( 1971), 1345-1378, and 'L'invention de la vie d'artiste', Actes, 2 (1975), 67-93. For an analysis of the aesthetic itlusio and o the col/usio whic pro duces it, see P. Bourdieu, 'The Production of Belief', Media) Culture and Soltely, 2
!
18. 19.
20. 21.
�
.
(July 1980), 261-293. . ., , J. Ortega y Gasset, 'La deshumaOlzaClon del arte ( 1925) 10 ObraJ Cumpletas ( Ma drid Rtvista de Occidtnte 1966), III, 355-356. S. Langer, 'On Significance in Music' in 1. A. Jacobus, cd., Aesthetics and the Ar" (New York, McGraw·HiII, 1968), pp. 182-212; quotation on p. 183. (Ooe recognizes the Kantian theme--<:ndlessly reinvented even without any conscIOUS reference to Kant--
22. A number of surveys confirm {his hostility rowards any kind of formal experi
ment. One study found a large number of viewers disconcened by 'ies Perses', a stylized production which was difficulr to follow because of the absence of dia logue and of a visible plot-Les TiliJpectateurJ en 1 967, Rapport des etudes de marche de I'ORTF, I, 69fT. Another, which compares reactions to the 'UNICEF gala', classical in style, and the Jess traditional 'Allegro', establishes that working class audiences regard unusual camera angles and stylized decor as an impoverish ment of reality and often perceive over-exposed shots as technical failures; they applaud what they call 'atmosphere', i.e., a ce[(ain quality of the relationship be tween rhe audience and the performers, and deplore rhe absence of a compere (master of ceremonies) as a lack of 'warmth' (ibid., p. 78). 23. The department store is, in a sense, the poor-man's gallery: not only because i t presents objects which belong ro the familiar world, whose use is known, which could be insened into the everyday decor, which can be named and judged with everyday words ( warm/cold; plain/fancy; gaudy/dul!; comfortable/austere etc ); but more especially because, there, people do nor feel themselves measured against transcendent norms, that is, the principles of the life-style of a supposedly higher
class, but feel free to judge freely, in the name of the legitimate arbitrariness of tastes and colours. 24. Joseph Garat, in his Mimoires sur la vie de M. Suard, tells us that Rousseau's Dls (ours sur Ie rhablissement des lettres et des ar/J provoked 'a sort of tertor' in a reader ship accustomed to take nothing seriously. 25. Virginia Woolf, 'Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown', Collected EISays ( London, Hogarth Press. 1966), I, 326-327 26. The capacity to designate unremarkable objects as suitable for being transfigured by the act of artistic promotion performed by photography, the most accessible of the means of artistic production, varies in exactly the same way as knowledge of directors. This is understandable since in both cases a rel atively scholastic mea surement is applied to a competence more remote ftom formal education than the competence implied in the expression of preference in music or painting. 27. The documents on which these analyses are based will be found in P. Bourdieu et aI., Un art moyen: mai sur les usages sociaux de la photographie (Paris, Ed. de Minuit, 1965) , pp. 1 1 3-134. 28. Immanuel Kant, Critique ofJudgement, trans. J. C. Meredith ( London, Oxford University Press, 1952), p. 65. 29. E. H. Gombrich, Meditations on a Hobby Hone ( London, Phaidon Press, 1963), p.
104.
30. The populist image of the prolerarian as an opaque, dense, hard 'in-itself', {he 31.
K.
form) and to give priority to form, over which he has full control, rather than function, which leads him, through an for art's sake, i.e., an for artists, to an art of pure form.
32.
33. 34.
perfect antithesis of the intellectual or aesthete, a self-transparent, insubstantial 'for-itself', has a certain basis here. Interest in form, when it is expressed, is still rooted in the schemes of the ethos. I t only takes on its true meaning when related to its real principle; the taste for neat, careful work which inspires it stems from the same dispositions as hyper-correc tion in language, strict correctness of dress and sobriety in interior decoration. The posture of good intentions combined wirh insecurity which characterizes the rising pecite bourgeoisie is expressed in the 'refuge' choice of saying that the ob jects could make an 'interesting'-as opposed to beautiful, ugly or meaningless photograph. Thus, 40 percent of the junior executives and clerical workers con sider that a snake would make an interesting photo ( as against 22.5 percent of the new petite bourgeoisie, who are more inclined to say it could make a beautiful photo) . This is seen clearly in literature and in the theatre (e.g., the American 'new wave' of the 1960s). Dickens could also have been cited.
1
35. P. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.
J
Proudhon, Contradktiom iconomiqueJ ( Paris, Riviere, 1939), p. 226; italics
mme. Ibid., p. 71; italics mine. Ibid., p. 166. Ibid., p. 271. Proudhon, Duprincipe de I'art tt de sa tiestination so(iaie ( Paris, Riviere, 1939), P. p. 49. Proudhon, Contradictions iconomiqueJ, p. 256. It is impossible completely to under stand the acceptance of the theses of Zdanov, who is very close [0 Proudhon in several respects, without taking into accoum the correspondences between his 'aesthetic' and the working-class or petit-bourgeois ethos of a number of the lead
J
ers of the French Communist Party. 4 1 . E. H. Gombrich, Art and /IIuJi.. ( London, Phaidon Press, 1%0), p. 313. 42. P. BCnichou, Le Jacre rU Ncrivain, 1 750-1830 ( Paris, Jose Corti, 1973), p. 212.
43. For a similar critique of the application of an empty opposition (between 'soft focus' and 'hard focus') to the German Romantic paimers, see E. H. Gombrich, In Search o[ Culturai HiJtory ( Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1%9), p. 33. 44. Proust, Pasti(hes et me/anges, p. 173. 45. Eveline Schlumberger, 'Le charme enivrant de Chateau-Margaux', ConnaiJJanct tkJ ArtJ, November 1973, pp. 101-10). 46. 'Misrecognition' (mAonnamanu) combines subjective non-recognition (blind
ness) with objective recognition (legitimation); for example, a teacher who ob serves his pupils' 'gifts', or lack of them, and who imagines he is indifferent to social class, objectively helps [0 legitimate the causes and effects of cultural in
equality (translator). 47. For an analysis of the relationship between the scholastic environment (a world apart, exercises which are an end in themselves) and the relation to langua� which is required in all 'official' situarions, see P. Bourdieu, 'ies doxosophes', Minuit, 1 ( 1973), 26-45, and P. Bourdicu and L. Boltanski, ' Le fetichisme de la
langue', ActeJ, 4 (July 197)), 2-32. 48. Virtually every treatise written in the classical period explicitly makes the link be-. tween ease and elegance of style and elegance of life-style. Consider, for example, {he doctrine of sprezzatura, the nonchalance which, according to Castiglione, dis-. tinguishes the perfect courtier and the perfect artist. 49. Two examples, chosen from among hundreds, but paradigmaric, of explicit use of the scheme 'something other than'; 'La Fian(ee du pirate is one of those very rare French films that are rtaily satirical, really funny, because it does not resort to the carefully defused, prudently inoffensive comedy one finds in ia Grande Vadroui/U and Ie Petit Baigneur. . . . In short, it is fomething otlJet' than the dreary hackwork of
boulevard farce' (J. 1. Bory, Lt Nouvel ObJertiattur, 8 December 1%9; italics mine). 'Through distance, or at least, through difference, to endeavour to present a text on pictorial modernity other than the hackneyed banalities of a certain styit of art rriticiJm. Between verbose aphasia, the textual (ranscription of pictures, excla mations of recognition, and the works of specialized aestherics, perhaps marking some of the ways in which conceptual, theoretical work gets to grips with con· temporary plastic production' (G. Gassiot-Talahot et aI., Figurations 1960-197 3 [Paris, Union generale des editions, 1973). p. 7; italics mine). 50. This essential negativity, which is part of the very logic of the conscitution of ras(e and its change, explains why, as Gombrich points out, 'the terminologr of art history was so largely built on words denoting some principle of exclUSion. Most movements in art erect some new taboo, some new negative principle. such as the banishing from painting by the impressionists of all "anecdotal" element� The positive slogans and shibboleths which we read in artists' or critics' man! fcsros pasr or presem are usually much less well defined' (E. H. Gombrich, NOf11I
'1Ult:J lU r "�t:J
� I-UU
/
�u 1
and Form: Studies in the Art oj the Renaissance [London, New York, Phaidon Press,
1%6), p. 89).
51. This is seen clearly in the case of the theatre, which touches more directly and
�
more overtly on the implicit or explicit principles of the art of living. Especia ly in . the case of comedy, it presupposes common values or mterests or, more preCIsely, a complicity and connivance based on immediate assent to the same self-evident propositions, those of the doxa, {he totality of opinions accepted at the level of pre-reflexive belief. (This explains why the institutions supplying the products, and the products themselves, are more sharply differentiated in the theaue (han in any other art.) 52. For an analysis of'art for art's sake' as the expression of the anisrjc life-style, see P. Bourdieu, 'L'invention de la vie d'artiste,' A(/eJ, 2 ( 1975), 67-93. H. This is true despite the apparent exception in which some artists return (Q certain popular preferences, which had a totally different meaning in a cultural configura tion dominated by choices which for them would he quite improbable or even impossible. These returns to the 'popular' style, which oEren pass for a return to the 'people', are determined not by any genuine relationship to the working classes, who are geneCiilly spurnecl--even in idealization, which is a form of re fusal-bur by rhe internal relations of the field of artistic production or the field of the dominant class. (This poinr has a general validity, and one would need to ex amine what the writings of intellectuals on the working classes owe to the specific interests of intellectuals in struggles in which what is at stake, if not the people, is the legitimacy conferred, in cerrain conditions, by appearing as the spokesman for popular imerests.) 54. It is in these two categories that we encounter the most marked refusal of souve nir photos (,Souvenir photos are s{upid and banal'; 'The main point of a photo is to preserve the images of those one loves'), of realism in painting ('A beautiful picture should reproduce what is beautiful in nature') or in photography (,For a photograph to be good, you JUSt have to be able co recognize what it shows' ) , and the most resolute assertion of faith in modern painting (in refusal of the opinion: 'Modern painting is just slapped on anyhow . . ' ) 55. One o f the major limitations imposed by the list of pre-formed choices is that it does not bring out these 'conflicts' and the strategies aimed at getting around rhem. A respondent who has, 'against the grain', chosen Georges Brassens or Jacques Douai might have been able co indicate his refusa1 of song, while showing his 'open-mindedness', by citing ( with an implicit redefinition) something by Kurt Weill or an old Neapolitan song. (The France-Musique radio programme of 'personal selections', 'Le concert egoisre', is very revealing in this respect . ) 56. Saint-Cloud: second to ENS rue d'Ulm i n the hierarchy of the Ecoles normales superieures ( translator). 57. This dogma is still recognized and professed in It:ss advanced sectors of rhe field of artistic production, as this typical declaration shows: 'However, I will say that these paintings by Gaston Planet are totally incomprehensible. I will say that 1 like them co be so. Nor enigmatic. But enrirely mute. Without poims of refer ence. Wirhout discractions' ( Paul Rossi, Gaston Planet caralogue) . 58. So it is always what is essential that gets left out when, as almost always happens, the survey itself, or the analysis, ignores the modality of practices, tastes or opin ions. This modality, which is one of the best indicators of deep-rooted disposi tions, is the object of very close attention in all societies. One could enumerate coundess cases in which manner, and manner alone, reveals {he social truth of dispositions, i.e., the true principle for understanding and predicting practices. 59. That is why the legitimate modality, especially in relation to works of art, which is one of the best practical indices of seniority within the bourgeoisie, remains in comparably more profitable, in rhe 'high-society' market at least, than {he scholas.
.
568 60.
61 .
62.
63.
64.
66.
65.
67. 68.
/ Noles 10 Pages 67-77
tic modality (and the knowlrogc that is only learnt in school-spelling, grammar or mathematics) . It would have seemed somewhat cruel to quote one DC another of the texts in which the 'cultivated' express their image of the 'petit-bourgeois' relation to cul ture and the 'perversions' of the aurodidact. The reader's own references (or expe rience) can no doubt fill the gap. • A picture is not seen at a glance. This illusion belongs only to those who are inca pable of "seeing" and are content to "recognize" an image by connecting it, not with a visual experience, but with intellectualized knowledge'; P. Francastel, 'Pro blemes de 1a sociologic de }'art' in G. Gurvitch, Traiti de JocioJogie ( Paris, PUF, 19(3), II, 278-279. P. de Press"" Considerations sur fa CUt,i", ( Paris, NRF, 1931), pp. 23-24. (The ital· ics, which are mine, are intended to bring out more clearly the series of opposi tions which are all taken from the tradition of cultural consumption: natul'2l gift and instinct/rules and education; connoisseur/pedam; literary sense/grammar.) One could equally well have qUOted Proust (who never fails to relate manners to the manner of acquisicion) : 'She annoyed me, which was all the more unfair, in asmuch as she did not speak like this to make me think she was an imimate friend of "Meme" , but owing to a too rapid education which made her name these noble lords according to what she believed to be the custom of the counuy. She had crowded her course into a few months, and had not picked up the rules'; M. ProUSt, The Cities of the Plain, pt. I, trans. C. K. Scott Monctidf ( London, Chatto and Windus, 194 1 ) , p. 84. Mystical discourse on the work of art is strictly inexhaustible and there is inevita bly a sense of arbitrariness when, to give a concrete illustration of the analysis, one cites a specimen such as the following, which, though it says scarcely less than the profound meditations of Gilson or Heideggcr, perhaps owes its exemplary charac ter to its very banality, as is attested by its place of publication: 'Ignorant or ini tiated, we are each of us disarmed before that mystery, the masterpiece. Uncertainly searching the canvas, we await the momem of grace when the artist's message will come to us. The silent clamour of Rembrandt, the infinite gentleness of Vermeer, no culture will make rhcse things comprehensible to us if we have not restored the calm, cteated the expectation, prepared within ourselves the void that is propitious to emorion' (Ria/itiJ, March 1960). Within the dominam class, differences by social trajectory are very closely linked to differences in capital composition; the proportion of newcomers increases 115 one moves rawards the dominated fractions (except for writers and anists). Th� fan remains that wirhin each fraction (especially the dominant fl'2ction) differ ences in trajecrary arc very strongly felt. See R. Bray, La formation de la dtxtrine cJaJJique en France ( Paris, Nizet, 1951). See M. Magendie, La politme moruiaine et leI thkJriei de l'honnetete en France, au XVII"iic", de 1600 a 1660 ( Paris, PUF, 192�). See H. Kanrarovitch, The King'I TUJ(} BodieI: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology ( Princeron, Princeran Universiry Press, 19'57). . PubliC G. Post, 'Plena Potestas and Consent' in Sludiel in Medieval Legal Thought, Law and the State, 1 100- 1322 ( Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1964), pp.
93-162.
69. G. Doncieux. Un jiluite homme de kttreJ au XVlIe IiicJe: Ie Pere BouhouTJ ( Paris, Hachette, 1886). 70. See P. Bourdieu and M. de Saint Martin, 'Le Patronar', ActeJ, 20-21 ( 1978), 3-82 . 7 1 . N. Elias, The Civilizing Proem (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1978). 72. R. Banhcs, 'The Grain of the Voice', in Image. Music, Text, trans. S. Heath (london, Fontana, 1977) , pp. 179-189; quotation from p. 18'5. . wnh e 73. There is a protocol of objects which brings the hierarchy of things into li � •
the hierarchy of persons. Thus we learn from an article on the Marigny reSidence,
...- _
..-
_..__ .
-
. . .
.._
.
---
_. . .
c�_ .
.
� _ � _
�
fumi �hed to �ccommodare rhe President's foreign guests: 'The protocol is strict: the hierarchy IS measured in space, in rhe style of furniture and the qualiry of the drapery. R:are furniture and Lyons silks for the suitcs reserved for Heads of State; Napolcofilc mahogany and velvet for the Prime Minister's first-floor suite; satin and flowered CO((on on the second floor for the technical advisers' rooms.' J. Mi chel, Le Monti<, 27 January 197�. 74. One only has to recall that appropriated objects, of all SOrtS, are objectified social (class) rclarions in order to see how one might be able to develop a sociology of the world of objects that would be something other than the record of a proje�tive test maSCjuerading as a phenomenologico-semiological analysis ( I am thinkIng of J Baudrillard, Le sySlime de, objets [Paris, Gallimard, 1968}). 75. Here one might invoke, not so much the erotic theory of rhythm ( used, for ex ample, to explain accelerations in rhythm leading to a peak followed by a rest), as the theory which points to a broader concordance or correspondence between musical tempo an inner rh ythms, �arked for example by the tendency to pro . . duce �ovements 10 time With musIC. See, for example, P. Fraisse, LeI Jt,.ucturel rhythml'lues ( Paris, Erasme, 1956), and Psychologie du temps, 2nd ed. ( Paris, PUF,
?
19(7).
76. For the biographical info�matio� , sec C. Brunschwig, L. J. Cal vet, and J. C. Klein, 100 am de chamon jran{alJt ( Pans, Ed. du Scuil, 1972); and Who'l Who in F,.ance. 77. The fact that mathematics and physics have now become the main criteria for ex
clusion or relegation no doubt hclps to reinforce the irrationalism and anti-intel lectualism that are encouraged by an ambivalent relationship to the educational �yst�m and a declining or sp.uriously rising trajectory. (This false-trajectory effect Impmges on all those who aim for the future which, in an earlier state of the sys tem, was implied in their educational qualification or position.) 78. G. G. Scholem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 196�), p. 25. 79. As i � sh�wn, for example by the v�ue which rhe editors and readers of popu : . lanzmg Journals set on highly qualified or high-ranking academic contributors whose role is that of institutional guarantors. BO. See G. Razzan, 'Ethnic Dislikes and Stereotypes', Journal of Abnormal Social PIY chology, 4� ( 1950), 7�27. 81. Although the legitimate definition of culture, or of the relation to culture or (he hierarchy of the different arts, genrc , works or authors is the stake in a per�anent s: . . naive to struggle, If would be use thiS as an argument for denying the existence, at every moment, of a legitimat� �jerarchr The struggles which aim, for example, to tran�f?rm or overturn the legitimate hierarchies through the legitimating of a still Illegmmate art or genre, such as photography or the strip cartoon, or rhrough the rehabili �at�on o� 'minor' or 'neglected' authors etc., or to impose a new mode of a�propnatlon, hnked (0 another mode of acquisition, are precisely what creates le gitimacy, by creating belief not in the value of this or that stake but in the value of the game in which the value of all the srakes is produced and reproduced. It would be no less naive to rrear these hierarchies, which reproduce in their own logic, i.e., in a transfigure form, the power rclations between the groups, as an absolute order, grounded 10 nature, although they derive most of their symbolic efficacy, that is, their legirimacy, from the fact that they are seen in this way. 82. The dominant rnanners, pronunciation, 'ease', 'distinction' tend to impose them . selves on the dommated classes themselves, and can only be devalued in the name of entirely 'extra-cultural' principles, such as the values of virility, which consti tute the dominant modality as an index of effeminacy. 83. �n all these points, and especially on the opposition between ENA and Poly tech m� ue, see Bourdieu and Saint Martin, 'Le patronat', ACleI, 20-21 ( 1978) , 3-82. 84. It IS :well k.nown what contempt the members of the dominant class, especially the . fracnons nchest 10 culwral capital, have for TV or radio <..juiz shows, which, like
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sociological questionnaires, appear ro {hem as parodic negations of the legitimate rdation to legitimate culrure. See in panicular E. IXmolins. A quoi tienl La Juperioriti deJ anK.W-J4Xom.? ( �aris, , . Firmin-Didot, 1897); L'education nOTlvelle, ' Ecole deJ Roche! ( Pans. Flrmtn-Dldo r, 1898); L'awnir de NdJlcati0Tl 1louvelle ( Paris, Firmin-Didor, 1899); P. de Couber_ tin, L'idNcation en Angle/ern ( Paris, Hacheetc, 1888); L'Mucalion angiaise en France ( Paris, Hachette, 1889). See Bourdieu and Saint Marrin, ' Lc patron at' . G. Bachelard, L'lUtilliti ra/iona/jIle de la phYJiqui contnnporaine, 2nd cd. ( Paris, PUF, 1%)), p. 60. Everything suggests that this violence increases in proportion (0 {he distance be tween the persons questioned and icgicimarc culture-symbolized, righdy Or wrongly, by the inrerviewer and his '1uestionnaire. We know that the division within the business bourgeoisie according to the dom. inam type of capital (economic or educational) corresponds to the division by �_ nlomy. Hoffmann evokes in his KrerJierbllch one of the most typical fantasies of all racism in his parable of the 'cultivated young man', an ape who had been taught to speak, read, write and play music, but who could not help betraying his 'exotic origin' in 'a few little details', such as the 'inner movements' which agitated him when he heard nuts being cracked. 2.
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?, systemauc account was taken nor only of occupation and educational level
( whICh ar� the basis of INSEE's socio-occupational groups) but also, in each case, . of the avaIlable mdI.Ces of the volume of the differem sorts of capital as well as age, sex and place of residence. ' 9. There are �any ?bstacles to making such a mode of thought accessible and ac cepcablC:-1Ocl -- ud� ng .th� practical logic of data collection and analysis, and the �once�tJon of sClent,fiClty whICh is current in the social sciences. There is every IOcentlve ro ask technology to resol e a problem which it merely displaces. This . an artI�cle of happens, for example, when 10 unusual rigour for this sort of exercise Goldberg �esorts t� rhe [ech i'lue of 'c usal inference' to test different explanato ? � , the models, wah the aId of partIal correlauons expressmg most determinant 'cau . al rela n ��)fls' for a particular area such as voting behaviour: (see A. S. Goldberg, � . . �Iscernm� Causal Pattern among Data on Voting BehaVIor', American Political Sa"'.ce RevIew 60 ( 1 966) ? 1 3-922. And yer perhaps is it not just metaphysical nos talgia to refuse to be satisfied with the countless partial models rhat have been pro uced ad hoc to account for religious behaviour, political choices or eating ha lts. and to wonder whether the fragmentation of the explanatory theories . derives �rom the logIC of what is to be explained or the logic of the mode of explanation. 10. Between 1968 �nd 197 5, the proportion of women in the most skilled categories of workers declmed even faster (han before. In the semi-skilled and unskilled care gories, after declining between 1962 and 1 %8 the proportion of women rose from 24 percent in 1%8 ro 28 percent in 1975; see L. Theven or, 'us categories sociales en 1975: l'extension du salariat', Economie et StatiJtique, 91 (july-August 197 7), 3-3 1 , esp. 6. 1 1. The fact {hac the mode of aC'Iuisition is especially visible in cerrain comexts is a . partICular manifestation of this effect (e.g., mismatch berween the scholastic mode of acquisition and 'high society' situations) . 12. The directions taken by these 'deviant' trajector ies are noc entirely random: it . see�s, for example, that 10 cases of �ecline, individuals originat ing from the pro . fessiOns tend to fall lOW the new ffilddle-c1asss fractions whereas the children of tea�hers tend �o decline inco the established petite bourgeo isie. . 13. ThiS effect IS Itself an essential dimension of the effect of inculcation since che slope of the father's trajecrory helps to shape the initial exp erience of d namic in sertion in the social universe. 14. It is .a mistake to conceive ri ing groups in ter s of . simple symmetry. Although � for . flsl.ng groups the educational quah �catl.on�IS a means of defense against ex IOit atlo n(he mor e so the mo re p dommated they are-it always tends W func . thiS . tion, even 10 case, as a means of distinction and legitimarion.
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1 . The extension of the survey to the whole range of material or cultural practices,
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str�ggle to preserve or modify rhe Structure of the distribu tion of objectified prop erties. 7. Jean Benzecri pu{s [his well : 'Let us assume individuals afJ'Y > a/32 )'2 . . . , aP . l n , three features. Lea ' each desc�,b�d as possessmg n' ving asid e the last two dements I10 each descnpoon, we can say that all the individuals belong to a single species defined by feature a, which we can call species a. Bur alrh ough feacure a enables . . us to define t? IS �peC!es and recognize its individuals, we cannot study the former . without consldenng features /3, y of the latter. From this standpoint, if we call B the sum of f3 modalities which the second feature can aSSu me and C the sum of ' rhe )' . m alit i� ? f the third feature, then studying species a means studying aBC, I.e., In addition to the first, stable feature, every form which the first ( B) or the second (C) may take; and also the possible association s between the latter . ( :.g.,. wah Y rather chan with y l or y2) ., J. Benzecri, 'De finition logi'lue et . . deflnmon statlstl'l ue: notes de lecture sur un chapirre de Ernst Cassirer' ' Cahrers de
The Social Space and Its Tramformatiom
legitimate or not, which can give rise ro judgemenrs of taste--cooking and an, clothing and music, cinema and decoration-was intended to provide the means of examining the relationship between the dispositions generally regarded as aes thetic and the system of dispositions which consricure the habitus. Need it be said that the sociologists who are aware of this pre-condition are nor legion, especially among rhose who profess a concern for methodology? Ir could no doubt be shown in connection with a number of technical objects, as I have done for phorography-P. Bourdieu e{ al., Un art moyen: mai Jllr ieJ IIJa� Jociaux tk ia photographie ( Paris, Ed . de Minuit, 196� )-that apart from what 15 implied in the negative determinisms, the limits, scarcely anything to do with the social uses of objecrs can be derived from their technical properties. Economists--and a number of sociologists least burdened by a sense of theoretical in'luiry and attention co the complexity of reality-are past masrers in the art of formalizing the 'lived experience' or the unconscious of a class. It is difficult [0 resis[ the perverse pleasure of evoking a recent study in which Gary S. ckerwho has PUt his model-making imagination to better use at other tJm�[· tempts to account for the paradox whereby the demand for ccrrain goods steadily . increases with experience; G. J Stigler and G. S. Becker, 'De gustibus non est diS purandum', American Economic Review, 67 (March 1977), 76-90. To account r dispositions such as 'melomania', typical of 'benign manias', Becker invokes 10 one case the dedine in the cost of production of 'musical pleasure' which resu� ts from the accumulation of the specific human capital, and in the othe� �he 10creased COSt of production of the 'cuphoria' which results from the declintng capacity for euphoria. QED. . . For another example of this paradoxical neglect, see P. Bourdleu, Travarl et tra tJailkuf"J en Algerie ( Paris, Mouton, 19(3 ) , and Algeria 1960 (Cambridge, Cam bridge University Press, 1979). . . The objective class must not be confused with the mobilized class, the �et ?f lOdl viduals brought together, on the basis of the homogeneity of the obJecofied or embodied properties which define the objective class, for the purpose of the
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15. It may be wondered whether individual decline has the same social effects as col lective dedine. The latter is no doubt more conducive ro collective reactions (such as the Poujadiste movement) than the former. . . use of does not rule out the indicarors which combine the essential 16 Of course, one content of the information comained in a set of factors, such as the indicator of socio-cultural status constructed by Ludovic Lebart and Nicole Tabard to 'sum- . marize' the information supplied on each family by its occupation, the occupation of the parernal and maternal ascendants and the educational level of the two spouses . However, as rhe authors rightly point Out, this synthetic variable cannot be credited with an 'explanatory power' unless the word 'explanatory' is under stood in a purely statistical sense; see 1. Leban, A. Morineau and N. Tabard, Tech_
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2 Y A . Villeneuve, 'Les revenus primaires des menages en 1975', Economie et StatiJtiqlle, t03 ( September 1978), 6 1 . 26. Set: M . !'4�ngenot, N . Alise and F . Remoussin, LeJ jeuneJ face a I'emploi ( Paris, Ed. ufllverslta1re5, 1972), p. 230. 27. Thes.e new strategies combine with or replace tried and tested strategies, such as . of financial aid ( a sort of advance inheritance) , reconversion of the fam provIsion ily's soci �l capi.taJ through a pro? [able marriage, or a move ioro less competitive . . markets m which �conomlc, so�lal or cultural capital is better rewarded (e.g., in . the past, the colonies; Or presnglOus----or at least honourable-institutions such as the Army or the Church, which could be entered without economic or even cul tural capital ) . 28. On the evolution of the different socio-occupational categories, see Thevenor, 'Les categories sociales en 197", and on the steady developmenr, between 1%2 and 1975, of the 'business consultancy' senor-legal, accountancy and financial con sultants, advertising agents. architectural advisors etc.-see P. Trogan, 'Croissance r�guliCre de l'emploi dans les anivites d'erudes et de conseils', Economie et Statis t/que, 93 (October 1977), 73-80. 29. See C. Baudelot and R. Establet, L 'Ecole capitaliJte en France (Paris, Maspero, 1971 ) . (Translator's note.) 30. M. Griff, 'Les conflits interieucs de l'aniste dans une societe de masse', Diogme, 46 ( 1%4 � , 61-94. This article gives a very precise description of the devices which advertisers, 'commercial artists', use on their apprentices, who are often would-be artists, so as to induce disinvestment ('running errands' etc . ) and reinvestment in a 'lower' field. 3 1 . � proportion of the s.urplus produt'ts of the educational system find employment . In man �glng the SOCial problems and conflicts created by educational 'overpra . ducoon and by the new 'demands' it has created (e.g., the 'need' for continuing education) . 32. R . Boudon, 'La crise universitaire fran\aise: essai de diagnostic sociologique', An nal", 3 ( May-June 1%9), 747-748. 33. A. Peyrefitte, u mal /ran(aiJ (Paris, Pion, 1978), esp. pp. 408-409 and 509-)11. 34. See 1 . Stone, 'The Inflation of Honours, 1 5 58-1641', Past and PreJent, 14 ( 1958), 4 5- 70. 35. See L. Stone, 'Theories of Revolution', World PolitiCJ, 18 (January 1%6), 1)9-176.
niques de la description statistique: mhhoties et logiciels pour "analyse des grandJ tableaux
( Paris, Dunod, 1977), p. 2 2 1 . Far from assisting research, naive use of such indices would have the effect of excluding the question of the partu:ular configuration of the variables which is operative in each case. A fuller presentation of the fundamenral principles of this construction, i.e., the theory of the different soers of capital, their specific properties and the laws of conversion between these different forms of social energy, which is simultaneously a theory of the classes and class fractions defined by possession of a given volume and strucrure of capital, is reserved for another book, so as not to overcomplicate the present analysis of the judgement of taste. The gaps are more clear·cut and certainly mort' visible as regards education than income, because information on incomes ( based on tax declarations) is much less reliable than information on qualifications. This is especially true of indusrrial and commercial employers ( who, in the CESP survey-C.S. V-provided, along with doctors, the highest rate of non-response to the questions about income), crafts men, shopkeepers and farmers. The category 'medical and social services' is characterized by the fact that it con tains men mainly drawn from the working classes and women of whom a con siderable proportion come from the upper classes (see the twO histograms in figuce 5 ) . A number of cultural propenies are acquired by virtue of position in geographical space, pardy through the quality of the social contacts favoured by spatial proxim ity. One of the most crucial is pronunciation, which unmistakably designates a stigmatized or prestigious origin. The distriburion of a class or class fraccion in socially ranked geographical space--in particular its distance from the economic and cultural 'centres'-almost always manifests also its internal hierarchies. For example. secondary analysis of (he 1%7 INSEE survey on leisure activities shows that, in all socio-occupational categories, cultural activity increases with rhe size of the town ( a good indicaroc of cultural supply): this is no doubt pardy because the apparent homogeneity of the categories conceals differences, within the categories themselves, by size of rown, especially with respect to cultural capital. In English in the original text ( translator). Gerhard ienski, who, to his credit, sees the problem of discrepancies between the · different SOrtS of capital and points to some of the hidden effects they can prod�ce (in paericular, the tendency to 'liberalism' associated wirh strong 'decrysta1hz� tion' of status) , is no doubt prevented from developing all the consequences of hiS intuition by the positivist ritual of constructing an index. See G. Lenski, 'Sta�US . Crystallization: A Non-Veerical Dimension of Social Status', American �O(JOIOglCai Review, 19 ( 1954), 405-413. Sources: M. Praderie, 'Heritage social et chances d'ascension' in Darras, Le partage de.r beneficeJ ( Paris, Ed. de Minuit, 1966), p. 348; IN SEE, Recensement general de la population de 1968 ( Paris, Imprimerie nationale, 197 1 ) .
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The Habitus and the Space of Life-Styles
It follows from this that the relationship between conditions of existence and pracrices or rhe meaning of practices is not to be understood in terms either of the logic of mechanism or of the logic of consciousness. ). Riviere in M. Proust and J. Riviere, Cormpondance, 1914-1922 ( Paris, Galli mard, 1976), p. 326. In contrast to the atomistic approach of social psychology, which breaks the unity o.f practice to establish parrial .'la �s' claiming to accouor for the products of prac tin:, the opus operatum, the aim IS to establish general laws reproducing the laws of production, the modus operandi. Eco�omic t �eory, which treats economic agents as interchangeable actors, para dOXICally falls to take accou nt of the economic dispositions, and is thereby pre . . ented from really explaining the systems of preferences which define � Incommensurable and independent subjective use-values. An ethic, which seeks to impose the principles of an ethos ( i.e., the forced choices of a social condition) as a universal norm, is another, more subtle way of suc-
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cumbing to amnr jati, of being content with what one is and has. Such is the basis of the felt conrradiction between ethics and revolutionary intent. 6. 'Bourgeois' is used here as shonhand for 'dominant fractions of the dominant class', and 'intellectual' or 'artist' functions in the same way for 'dominated frac tions of the dominant class'. 7. F. Nietzsche, Der WiJie 2ur Macht (Stuugarr, Alfred Kroner, 1964 ) , no. 943, p. 8. Bananas are the only fruit for which manual workers and farm workers have higher annual per capita spending (FF 23.26 and FF 25.20 ) than all other classes, especially the senior executives, who spend most on apples (FF 3 1 .60 as against FF 2 1 .00 for manual workers) , whereas the rich, expensive fruits-grapes, peaches
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20. La boujfe: 'grub', 'nosh'; grande boujfe: 'blow-out' ( translator). 2 1 . The preference for foreign restaurants-Italian , Chinese, Japanese and, to a lesser
630.
and nuts-are mainly eaten by professionals and industrial and commercial em ployers (FF 29.04 for grapes, 19.09 for peaches and 17.33 for nuts, as against FF 6.74, 1 1 .78 and 4.90 respectively, for manual workers). This whole paragraph is based on secondary analysis of the tables from the 1972 INSEE survey on household expenditure on 39 items by socia-occupational cate gory. A fuller translation of the original text would include: ' "Ies nourrituTeJ a la fois les plus nolt"iJJanteJ et les plus iconomiqueJ" (the double tautology showing the re duction to pure economic function).' (Translacor's note.) In the French: 'Ie gros et Ie gras, gros rouge, gros sabots, gros travaux, gros rire, grosses blagues, gros bon sens, plaisameries grasses'---cheap red wine, clogs ( i.e., obviousness) , heavy work, belly laughs, crude common sense, crude jokes ( rrans lator) . The expression 'tastes of luxury' will be used rather than 'tastes of freedom' so that it is nor forgotten that the tastes of freedom are also the product of a social necessiry defined by the 'facilities', i.e., the distance from necessity, which it offers. N. Tabard, BeJoim et aspiratiom deJ jamiJieJ it des jeuneJ ( Paris, CREDOC and CNAF, n.d.), p. 1)3. J. W. Thibaur and A. W. Riecken, 'Some Determinants and Consequences of che Perceprion of Social Psychology',journal o[ PerJonality, 24 ( 1956 ) , 1 1 3-133. K. Marx, Capital, I (Harmondsworrh, Penguin, 1976 ) , 482 ( translator). One fine example, taken from Bohm-Bawerk, will demonstrate this essentialism: 'We muse now consider a second phenomenon of human experience----one that is heavily fraught with consequence. That is the fact that we feel less concerned about fucure sensations of joy and sortOw simply because they do lie in the future, and the lessening of our concern is in proponion to the remoteness of that furure. Consequently we accord to goods which are intended to serve future ends a value which falls shon of the true intensity of rheir future marginal utility. We JYJtemati cally untkrvalue our future wantJ and alJo the mean! which JeTVf to JatiJjy them.' E. Bohm-Bawerk, Capilal and Inleml, II (South Holland, Ill., 19)9 ) , 268, 9uoted by G. 1. Stigler and G. S. Becker, 'De gustibus non est disputandum', American Eco nomic Review, 67 ( March 1977 ) , 76-90. We may assume that the deep-seated relation to the future (and also to one's own person-which is valued more at higher levels of the social hierarchy) is reRected in the small proportion of manual workers who say that 'there is a new life after death' ( 1 5 percent, compared with 18 percent of craftsmen and shopkeepers, office workers and middle managers, and 32 percent of senior executives). It is not superfluous to point out that this art, which has its recognized virtuoSO. the 'life and soul of the party', can sink into the caricature of jokes or remarks that arc defined as srereotyped, stupid or coarse in terms of the aireria of popular taste. The oppositions are much less clear-cut in the middle classes, alrhough homolo gous differences arc found between primary teachers and office workers on the one hand and shopkeepers on the other.
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' "
extent, Russian-rises with level in the social hierarchy. The only exceptions are Spanish restaurants, which are associated with a more popular form of tourism, and North African restaurants, which are mosr favoured by junior executives (C.S. XXXIV). 22. Les groJ: the rich; grosse bouffi: bulk food (cf. grossiste: wholesaler; and English 'gro cer'). See also note 20 above (translator) . 23. That is why the body designates not only present posicion but also trajectory. 24. In 'The Economics of Linguistic Exchanges', Social Science In/ormation, 26 (Decem ber 1977 ) , 645-668, Bourdieu develops the opposition between cwo ways of speaking, rooted in cwo relations to the body and the world, which have a lexical reflection in the many idioms based on two words for 'mouth': fa bouche and fa gueule. La hauche is the 'standard' word for the mouth; but in opposition ro fa gueule--a slang or 'vulgar' word except when applied to animals-it tends to be ccsuicted to the lips, whereas la gueule can include the whole face or the throat. Most of the idioms using la hauche imply fastidiousness, effeminacy or disdain; those with fa gueule connote vigour, strength or violence (translator's note). 25. This means that the taxonomies applied co the perceived body ( fat/chin, strong/weak, big/small etc.) are, as always, at once arbitrary (e.g., ehe ideal female body· may be fat or thin, in different economic and social contexts) and necessary, i.e., grounded in the specific reason of a given social order. 26. More than ever, the French possessive pronouns-which do not mark the owner's gender--ought to he translated 'his or her'. The 'sexism' of the eext results from the male translator's reluctance to defy the dominant use of a sexist symbolic sys tem ( translator). 27. Oddly hut accurately over-determined in English by droll/drawl ( translator). 28. One could similarly contrasr the bowl, which is generously filled and held (wo handed for unprerenrious drinking, and the cup, into which a linle is poured, and more later ( 'Would you care for a little more coffee?'), and which is held between twO fingers and sipped from. 29. Formality is a way of denying the truth of the social world and of social relations. Just as popular 'functionalism' is refused as regards food, so too there is a refusal of the realistic vision which leads rhe working classes to accept social exchanges for what (hey are ( and, for example, to say, without cynicism, of someone who has done a favour or rendered a service, 'She knows I'll pay her back') . Sup pressing avowal of the calculation which pervades social relations, there is a striv ing to see presents, received or given, as 'pure' testimonies of friendship, respect, affection, and equally 'pure' manifestations of generosity and moral worth. 30. Throughout this analysis, it is the whole set of convergent tendencies that should be considered, rather rhan the scale of the differences, which are in any case mini mized by the fact that the dominant class is divided inco fractions whose fasres, especially in food, vary in opposite directions. 3 1 . Fish is an exception: it is eaten more at higher social levels, the difference between the classes being particularly marked in {he case of sole and salmon, which are as sociated with luxury, and relatively small in the case of hake and fresh-wa[er fish. 32. This is true for men, bur for women the opposition takes a 'luite different form, because the division of labour berween rhe sexes takes very different forms in the dominated fractions (where it is minimized) and in the dominant fractions (where women's exclusion from economic responsibilities tends to align them with 'young' and 'artistic' roles: bourgeois or artistOcraric women-and their salons---h-- ave traditionally been mediators between the world of art and the world of business) . 33. Cf. J-P. Sartre, Being and NothingneJJ (London, Methuen, 1969 ) , pp. 339-3')1.
1'1(JU:J U) ragt:J 34. W. D. Dannenmaier and F.). Thurnin, 'Authority Status as a Factor in Perceptual Disrorrion of Size', joumal of Social Psychology, 63 ( 1%4 ), 361 � 365. 3'. See J. Defrance, 'Esquis� d'une hisroire sociale de la gymnascique ( 1760-1870)', Actes, 6 (December 1976), 22�47. 36. The dispositions which practitioners drawn from the working clas�s or the lower strata of the middle classes bring into these collective sports-in particular, the hope of a miraculous escape from cheir class-correspond to the demands of racio nalized training and playing. 37. See Colltctions d. I'INSEE, ser. M, no. 2 (July 1970). 38. Here roo there is a hierarchy of legitimacies which defines the value assigned to the differenc sports in bourgeois conversation. Lt Mondt illustrates this fairly clearly by devoting 5(:rious 'crirical' articles, ofren by well-known writers, to tennis and rugby ( and secondarily athletics), whereas football and cycling get much more distant and impersonal treatment. 39. M. ProUSt, The Captiflt, pt. II, trans. C. K. Scott Moncrieff (London, Chatto and Windus, 194 1 ) , p. 236. Jean Renoir's film La Grand. Illusion ( 1937) depicts rhe chivalrous code of French and German pilots in the First World War. British readers will remember the motto of the R.A.F., per ardua ad aJtra, 'rhrough diffi culties--and the heights--to the stars', which similarly links heroic distinction with height ( translaror). 40. Another distinctive feature, which sums up the opposition betwccn tWO relations to the body and ro social interactions: two-thirds 09.8 percent) of the t�chers say they never dance, whereas dancing is very common in the professions (only 18 percent, the lowest proportion in the whole population, say they never dance) (C.S. IV). 4 1 . More rhan half the members of the Saint-Nom-la-Breteche golf club are bankers. industrialists, commercial entrepreneurs or company directors, 26 percent are managing directors, executives or engineers and 16 percent are members of the professions. 42. Equally relevant would be the analysis of the rdations betwccn the literary fidd, as the field of production of a universe of linguisric possibilities, and class habitus sec P. Bourdieu and L. Boltanski, 'Le fetichisme de la langue', ActeJ, 4 (July 1975), 2-32, and Bourdieu, 'Economics of Linguistic Exchanges'-or the rela· tions, examined in chapter 8, between the space of rhe newspapers or the space of the political parties and the expectations of the different social classes.
1.
4.
The Dynamics of the Fields
A few examples all the same: 'What is Equality if not the negation of all liberty, all superiority, and nature itself? Equality is slavery. That is why I love art' ( Flau bert ro Louise Coler, 15�16 May 1852, Corresponciance ( Paris, Conard, 1926�1933). 'In the reign of equality, and it is almost upon us, everything that is not covered with wartS will be flayed alive. The masses couldn't give a damn for Art, poetry, style. Give them vaudeville, treatises on prison labour, on housing estates and the material interests of the moment. There is a permanent conspiracy against origi nality' (20 June 1853, ibid. ). 'But it seems to me that one truth has emerged: that we have no need of the vulgar, of the numerous element of majorities, of �p . proval, of consecration; '89 destroyed royalty and the nobility, '48 the bourgeOISIe, and " 1 the people. There's nothing left, except a loutish, imbecile mob. We art all wading in universal mediocrity. Social equality rules the roost. Books for every one, Art for everyone, science for everyone, just like railways and warming-roo�S; Humanity is furiously intent on moral abasement and I resent being part of 1[, ( 28-29 September 18H, ibid.). One could also cite Mallarme's 'L' Art pour toUS
LLI-Ljl
/ J//
or 'Le mystere dans lcs Iettres', Oeuvre; complete; ( Paris, Gallimard, 194 5 ) , pp. 2j7�260, 382�387. 2. E. H. Gomhrich, Meditatiom on a Hobby HorJe (London, Phaidon Press, 1963), pp. 17�18. 3. N. Elias, Die hfifuche GmiiJchajt ( Darmstadt, Luchterhand, 197'), p. 92. 4. Durkheim, unlike Popper, for example, whose theses he anticipates----cf K. Pop per, Objective Knowledge An Evolutionary Approach (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1972), esp. ch. 3-poses the problem of the relationship berween the world of science, 'the result of concentrated, accumulated human existence', and individ ual reason; but immediately obscures it by answering it in the language of partici pation, the basis of the illusion of culrural communism: 'Philosophers have often speculated that, beyond rhe bounds of human understanding, there is a kind of universal and impersonal undersranding in which individual minds seek to partici pate by mystical means; well, this kind of understanding exists, and it exists not in any transcendent world but in this world iesel£. It exists in the world of science; or at leasr that is where it progressively realises itself; and it constitutes the ultimate source of logical vitality to which individual human rationality can attain.' E. Durkheim, The Evolution o[ Educational Thought (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977), pp. 341�342 5. Because the possession of works of art is supposed to attest not only the owner's wealth but also his good taste, it tends to be perceived as merited and to consti tute a guarantee of legitimacy in irs own right. 6. The more 'modern' a work of 'high' an is, the rarer is the comperence it demands. 'Modernity' is defined in terms of rhe stages of the relatively autonomous history of the fields of production. This history is quasi-cumulative because belonging in the field and the hisrory of the field ( 'epoch-making') implies a self-definition by reference to, and generally in opposition to, the immediately previous art. (In the field of music, for example, this leads in certain periods to a constant extension of the field of accepted harmonies or rhe range of acceptable modulations.) This ex plains why the history of individual tastes tends to reproduce, wieh a few devia tions, rhe history of the corresponding art. 7. I am grateful to Jean-Daniel Reynaud for this reference. 8. Thus E. B. Henning has been able to show that the constitution of a relarively autonomous field of artistic production offering stylistically diversified producrs depends on the existence of two or more pat tons with different artistic needs and an equal power to choose works corresponding to their needs. E. B. Henning, 'Patronage and Sryle in rhe Ans: A suggestion concerning their Relations', The Journal 0/ EJihetics and Art CriticiJm, 18 (June 1%0), 464-471. 9. This sysrem of the ethical, aesthetic or political 'possibles' which arc effectively available at a given moment is no douht an essential dimension of what makes up the hisroricity of ways of thinking and world views, and the contemporaneity of individuals and groups linked to the same period and place. to. Advenising for luxury goods systematically exploits the association of a product with a group. In no other field are institutions more overtly defined by their clien tele than in the luxury trades. no doubt because here the virrually exclusive func tion of the products is to classify their owners. The link between the value of emblems and the value of the group which owns them is vt"ry clear in the anriques market, in which the value of an objeer may derive from the social standing of irs prevIous owners. 1 1 . The internalized classifications of taste have to reckon, at every moment, with the classifications objectified in institutions, such as the agencies of cultural consecra tion and conservation, and with all the objectified hierarchies of which they are always partly the product. But in rerurn, the dominant taxonomies are constantly challenged and revised in rhe classification struggles through which the different
I
classes or class fractions endeavour to impose their own taxonomy as legitimate, either directly or through the professionals who compete in the specialized fields of production. 12. Rather than elaborate here all the presuppositions of analysis in terms of field (in panicuiar, the inrerdependence between specific capital and the field in which it is valid and produced its effccrs, I shall merely refer the reader to earlier texts in which these ideas arc developed. See, in particular: P. Bourdieu, 'Le marche des biens symboliques', VAnnie Soci% giqlle, 22 ( 197 1 ) , 49-126; 'Genese et structure du champ religieux', Revile Fram;,aiJt de Sociowgie, 12 ( 1971 ) , 295-334; 'Champ du pouvoir, champ inrellccrue1 et habitus de dasse', Seo/ieJ, 1 ( 197 1 ) , 7-26; 'Le COu turier et sa griffe', AC/eJ, 1 ( 1975), 7-36; 'L'invention de la vie d'artiste', Actes, 2 ( 197) , 67-93; 'i'ontologie politique de Marrin Heidegger', AlleJ, 5-6 ( 1975), 109-156; 'The Specificity of the Scientific Field', Social Science Information, 14 (De cember 1975), 19-47; and especially 'The Production of Belief', Media, Culture
�
ket, see P. Bourdieu, 'The Economics of Linguistic Exchanges', 5,ocial Science Information, 16 (December 1977), 64)-668. 26. See F. de Saussure, Coune in General Linguistics ( London, Peter Owen, 1960), p. 121; Saussure's example is a nice one: the distinction between. chaise, an ordinary chair, and chaire, a professorial chair ( translaror's note ) . 27. Here too rhe new petite bourgeoisie distinguishes itselfby a particularly frequem choice of the adjectives which most clearly declare the intention of distinction, such as 'studied' for interior decoration or 'chic and stylish' for dress. Similarly, advertisements for the would-be luxury shops of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine de clare overtly the 'values' which the luxury shops ( Faubourg Saint-Honore) merely hint at (by references to art, for example ) , thereby exposing them to the charge of 'vulgarity' in striving for 'effect': 'The furniture of Claude Deco [a shop i n the Faubourg Saint-Antoine] has that "je ne sais Cluoi" which is the soul of elegance
13. See Bourdieu, 'Le couturier et sa griffe.' 14. See Bourdieu, 'The Production of Belief.' 1 5 . J-J. Gautier, Theatre d'aujou,d'hui ( Paris, Julliard, 1972), pp. 25-26. We may take
Gautier at his word when he declares that the efficacy of his reviews stems nm from a calculated adjustment to the expectations of his readership but from an objective harmony of view, allowing a perfect sincerity which is essemial in order ro be believed and rherefore effective. 16. Sec A. Desrosieres, 'Marchc matrimonial et structure des classes sociales', Actes,
and distinction.' 28. The fallacy in the 'trickle-down' model is that i t reduces co an intentional pursuit of difference what is in fact an objective, automatic effect of the differentiation of the consumers' conditions and dispositions and the differentiation of the field of production, which may or may not be intentionally reinforced. See B. Barber and L. S. Lobel, 'Fashion in Women's Clothes and the American Social System', Social ForceJ, 31 ( 1952), 124-31; L. A. Fallers, ' A Note on the "Trickle Effect" ', Public
20-21 ( 1978), 97-107. 17. See P. Bourdieu and M. de Saim Martin, 'Les categories de I'enrendemem profes ,oral', AlteJ, 3 ( 1975), 87, 90. 18. See Ezra N. Suleiman, PoliticJ, PQU.Je1"" and Bureaucracy in France: The Administratiw Elite ( Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1974), p. 69. 19. See J. Marceau, 'The Social Origins, Educational Experience and Career Paths of a Young Business Elite', Final report for SSRC grant of 1973-1975, Paris, 1975. 20. Sc-c P. Bourdieu and M. de Saint-Martin, 'Le patronat', Actes, 20-21 ( 1978), 3-82. 2 1 . Before pointing to all the counter-cases of discord and divorce, one needs to con
tor) . 24. An inexhaustible discourse of resentment reinforces contentment with what one has; e.g., 'Just think what it must have COSt them (Q rent a villa right by the sea!' 25. The notion of situation, which is central to the interactionist fallacy, enables the objective, durable strucrure of relationship berwccn officially c003tituted and
.
guaranteed positions which organizes every real interaction to be reduced to a momentary, local, fluid order (as in accidental encounters between strangers ) , and often an arrjficial one (as in socio-psychological experiments). Interacting individ uals bring all their properties into the most circumstantial interactions, and their relative positions in the social strucmre (or in a specialized field) govern their po sitions in the interaction. On the opposition between 'situation' and field or mar·
and Society, 2 (July 1980), 261-293.
sider how strong the cohesive forces constituted by the harmony of habitus have to be in order to counterbalance the conrr2dictions inherent in the matcimonil1 enterprise as defined by cusrom and social law. 22. The intuition of the habitus provides an immediate understanding ( which would take some time ro justify explicitly) of rhe fact that, when invited ro choose from a list of personalities those whom they would like to invite to dinner, the senior executives and professionals choose moce often chan all other classes Simone Veil, Giscard, Batre, Fran,oise Giroud and Chirac, bur also Gicqucl and Mouronsi, whereas the working classes most often choose Colnche, Poulidor, Thcvenet and Marchais, while rhe middle classes most often choose Le Luron, Mitterrand, Prin cess Caroline of Monaco, Platini and Jauffrer (C.S. XLI I I ) . (Veil, Barre, Giroud: minisrers in the Giscard presidency. For Giscard, Marchais, Mitterrand, see appen dix 4. Roger Gic9uei and Yves Mourousi: TV and radio personalities; Coluche, Thierry Le Luron: enrerrainers; Poulidor, Thevenet: cyclists; Platini: footballer; Jauffrer: tennis player-translator.) 23. 'The Master's deep gaze has, as he passed, / Calmed the un9uiet wonder of Eden, / Whose final shudder, in his voice alone, awakens / For the Rose and the Lily the mystery of a name' (Mallarme, 'Toast Funebre', OeuvreJ completes, p. 55 [transla
_
Opinion Quarterly, 18 ( 1954), 314-321. 29. See Bourdieu, 'The Production of Belief.' 30. F. Nietzsche, (jber die ZukunJt unserer Bildungsantalten in Werke, I I I (Munich, Carl Hanser, 1%6), 189. 3 1 . Seen in the smug, joking names given to suburban houses: \a m'suffit', ',a
32.
33.
·
·,
34.
35. ." .
m'plah' ( 'good enough for me', 'suits me'). In the Conclusion I try to show that such a postulate underlies Erving Goffman's vision of the social world, a sort of social marginalism which reduces the reality of the social order to the sum of the (subjective) representations which agents have of the ( theatrical) presentations given to them by other agents. Precisely because of its essential ambivalence, which induces alternating submis siveness and aggression, and also because of the constant risks of humiliation which it entails, the relationship between the pretentious 'pretender' and the self assured possessor is emotionally charged and generates resentment. Durkheim's celebrated precept that 'social facts should be treated as things' con tains irs own negation: there would be no need to state this methodological prin ciple with such emphasis if ordinary perception, which is a social fact and which also plays a part in making social fact, treated social facts as science requires them to be tre3ted. The aristocratic ideology of disinreresredness is no doubt the basis of a number of condemnations of 'consumer society' which forget rhat the condemnation of con· sumption is itself a consumer's idea.
•
5, The Sense of Distinction l . From a whole set of research projects on the different fractions of the dominant
class (the findings of some of which have already been published separately), only what is indispensable in order to account for the basic differences in life-styles is included here.
2. On the method of analysis, see L. Lebart, A. Marineau and N. Tabard, Techniques
de la description Jlatistique: mithodes et logideb pour I'analyse des grands tableaux (Paris, Dunod, 1977 ) ; and for {he theoretical foundations and logical conditions of use, J. Benzeni, L'ana/yu des donnies: le(om sur l'analYJe lactorielle et la reconnais_
sance des formes et travaux du Laboratoire de statistiques de I'Univtrsite de Paris VI,
3.
4.
y
6. 7.
8.
9.
lO.
11.
12. 13. 14.
2
vols. ( Paris, Dunod, 1973). Throughout this paragraph, and in the rest of (his book, the figures in parentheses represent the absolute inputs of the variables in question to the corresponding factor. Also in terms of this logic, opinions expressed vis-a.-vis pre-formed judgements, such as 'Absrran painting interests me as much as the classical schools', or 'Paint ings are nice but difficult', or [he choice of singers such as Uo Fern\ Georges Brassens or Jacques Douai, are strongly explained by the first factor. The private-senor and public-sector executives, who are widely dispersed in the plane diagram (figures 1 1 , 12 ) , are not represented by a box. This means that the fim facror in the facrorial analysis corresponds ro the second dimension of the social space and the second facror to the third dimension. In the analyses which were performed successively, either for the same set of indi cators (especially the one chosen for the final synthesis) or for the different sets, the first fanor proved (0 be more stable (its significance was not altered by any permutation in the relative position of the factors) than the second; in some areas, seniority in the bourgeoisie was relegated to third rank. In general, it is found that cultural praccices vary more strongly as a function of income, within the limits of cultural capital of course, when they have a higher diren cost (e.g., theacre or exhibitions) or when they imply possession of expen sive CCJuipment (e.g., listening (Q records, playing an instrument such as the piano, or amateur filmmaking). Visiting art museums (which are-relatively more equally distributed geographically than theatres or concert-halls) would de pend exclusively on cultural capital (to the extent, of course, that prices are kept low) if tourism, which is closely linked {Q economic capital, did not intensify this pranice (which explains why the representation of the economically richest frac tions of the dominant class is higher in museums with high tourist attraction than in 'ordinary' museums). It has been shown that the price of the seats represents only a proportion of the cost of theatre-going ( which includes transport COStS, the cost in time, the price of dinner and baby-sitting expenses) , and that all these expenditures rise with in come; see T. Moore, 'The Demand for Broadway Theater Tickets', The Review oj Economics and Statistics, 48 (February 1 %6), 79-87. This means that the overall cost of a visit to the theatre must rise very rapidly as one moves from the intellec tuals (Q the professions and the industrial and commercial employers. See P. Martineau, 'Social Classes and Spending Behavior ,jollrnal of Marketing, 23 (October 1958 ) , 121-130. The phrases in quotation marks are taken from Jean-Jacques Gautier's ideal-typical review of Franc;oise Dorin's no less ideal-typical play Le Toumant (Le Figaro, 1 2 Janua,), 1973 ) . A playwright or his play is said (Q be 'well served' by the actors. R. Lynes, The Tastemaktrs (New York, Grosset and Dunlap Universal Library, 19)4 ) , p. 62. Secondary and higher-education teachers (who represented 16.3 percent of the dominant class in 1%8 ) constitute, respectively, 54.4 percent, 39.5 percent, 34.1 percent, 27.7 percent and 13.5 percent of the dominant-class users of libraries--see 'La lenure publique en France', Notes et Etudes Documentaires, no. 3948, 15 Decem ber 1972-of theatres of the consecrated avant-garde, the Odeon, TEP, TNP, Monrparnasse (C.S. XIV), of museums (d. our complementary survey, 196') , of '
the 'classic' theatres, Atelier, Comedie Franc;aise, and of boulevard theatres (C.S. XIV). Secondary analysis of the INSEE 'leisure' survey (C.S. IV) shows that teachers ( 17.3 percent of the dominant class in the sample) represent, respectively, (a) 40.9 percent, (b) 38 percent, (c) 27.1 percent, (d) 19.4 percent, (e) 16,1 per cent and (f) 6 percent of the dominanc-c1ass members who say (a) they go to a library at least once a month, (b) go to a concert at least five or six times a year, (c) have been to an art exhibition in the last six months, (d) regularly visit a mu seum, (e) go to the theatre at least five or six times a year, ( f) have been to a variety show at least once in the year. The proportion of industrial and commer cial employers varies in a systematically opposite way, and they represent, for ex ample, 18.6 percent of the dominant-class members who have been to a variety show. l'). Since the density of [he pertinent information seemed no less important than its quality, all the quotations used here are taken from a single issue of Connaissance des Arts-November 1971. A close study of two years' issues ( 1972-73 ) confirms , ItS representativeness. 16. K. Marx, 'Excerpts from James Mill's Elements of Political Economy' in Early Writings (Harmondsworrh, Penguin, 1974 ) , p. 266 ( translation slightly modified) . 17. It can be seen that the inclination to personalism and to all forms of glorification of the uniqueness of the person is deeply rooted in the habitus. What vary be tween the fractions, i.e., according to the types of capital which are the main de terminant of class membership, are the properties constitutive of the person (de facro and de jure)-intellectual value, moral and spirirual value e{(.-which are especially exalted. 18. A French ttJuivalent of Reader's Digest ( translator). 19. The administrative executives (in the very broad INSEE definition), a fairly large proportion of whom arc of working-class or middle-class origin, are very close, in the asceticism of their tastes, to the secondary teachers, although, educationally less qualified, they are more inclined to less prestigious cultural praCtices, such as visiting monuments and chareaux. 20. Some 14.5 percent of (he judges and 13.') percent of the doctors appearing in Who's Who in France (as against 9.7 percent of the senior civil servants, 4.2 percent of the employers and company directors) have published at least one non-special ized (political or literary) work. 2 1 . K. Marx, Capital, I (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1976 ) , 74 1 . 22. Centre de recherche economi<]ue sur l'epargne, Enquete sur Itl comportemmts patri moniaux des midecim exer(ant une activite liberate (Paris, CREP, 1971 ) . 23. The same form of disposition, the product of an analagous discrepancy between cultural and economic capital, is found in members of the new-middle-class frac tions (see, in chapter 6, (he interview with a nurse who 'lives passionately') . 24. Le Quotidien du Medecin, no. 7 10, 3-4 May 1974. 2'). More strongly than all other fractions, the employers and professionals reject as ugly the photograph of a wounded man. 26. On the essential time-lag between production and consumption which assigns the most advanced producers to posthumous markets and profits, see P. Bourdieu, ' I.e marche des biens symboliques', L'Annie Sociologique, 22 ( 1973 ) , 49-126, and 'The Production of Belief', Media, Culture and Society, 2 Ouly 1980 ) , 261-293. 27. To designate life-styles, one always has the choice between a neutral, but colour less, terminology (ascetic taste) , and the 'native' labels (pedantic taste, bourgeois taste) which are liable to pull one back to the symbolic battlefield on which they were forged. 28. Some interesting indicacions of the ways in which artists use time are {Q be found in B. Rosenberg and N. Fliegel, The Vanguard Artist (Chicago, Quadrangle Books, 1%5 ) , esp. p. 312, ,
.
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29. The classificatory systems used in the official statistics, which necessarily corre spond (Q an outdated state of the classification struggle, inevitably fail (Q record the differences resulting from the emergence of new occupations and the decline or redefinition of old ones. 30. In (his respect, the teachers occupy an intermediate position between the profes sions and the engineers or executives. Unable [0 control the conditions of entry, . . they have endeavoured, at least m higher educauon, [0 control the conditions of promotion. See P. Bourdieu, L. Bolranski and P. Maldidier, 'La defense du corps' ' Social Science Inlonnation, \0 ( 197 1 ) , 4 \-86. 3 1 . The same is true, in {he other sector of {he field, of a number of big and medium entr�preneurs, �ho have 'foug� t their way up' and whose habitus, like a ship . cont1nu �n� on as cou � under ItS own momentum, tends to prolong {he virtues of ascetiCism and savmg, the tastes and interests of their early days. In other words, the employers are distinguished not only according [0 the size and status of their firms and th�ir pr�pef{y tides or qualifications, but also, although to a lesser extent, by the traJectOnes t?at have led t�em [0 their positions. (These analyses . have been venfied and specified by analYSIS of the characteiistics of the heads of the two hundred largest French firms: see P. Bourdieu and M. de Saint Martin, 'Le patronar', ActeJ, 20- 2 1 [ 1978), 3-82.) 32. The SOFRES survey shows that 22 percent of the private-sec [Or executives are unde� 35 and 49 perce�t are under 49, compared to 14 percent and 40 percent re speC{1veiy of the public-sector administrative executives (C.S. V ) . Senior execu tives in the civil service had, in 1970, an average taxable household income of 47,323 F as against 62,803 F for other senior executives (C.S. I ) . 33. �artly because it was designed to bring our deep dispositions which are relatively . '�de�ndent ?f time, the 1%3 survey was not the best tool for grasping the varia nons 10 practices and systems of preferences linked to historical conditions. This is why recourse was had to secondary analysis of a market survey on 'executives' consumption' ( C.S. V), which, aiming to predict the demand for luxury goods, was well adapted to the most distinctive elements of the new life-style. 34. Some 8 1 percent of the private-sector executives, 80 percent of the engineers, 74 percenr of the members of the professions, 69 percenr of (he public"sector execu eives, 62 percenr of the industrial employers, 60 percent of the commercial em ployers and 58 percent of the teachers say they always keep a botde of whisky at home; 80 percent of the industrial employers, 7 ') percent of the commercial em r.loyers and members of (he professions, 73 percenc of (he private-sector execu . tives, 72 percent of the public-sector executives and engineers and 49 percent of the teachers say they keep champagne at home. 3 ') . Entreprise, earactiristiques pojessionnelles des leeteurs: resu/tats de I'enquete [FOP ( Paris, Regie Press<, 1973). 36. J Marceau, 'The Social Origins, Educational Experience and Career Paths of a Young Business Elite', Final report for SSRC grant of 1973-75, Paris, 1975. 37. In �hese struggles, in which accounrs of the social world-including allegedly sci entific oner-are almost always (unconscious) strategies for symbolic imposition, recourse to 'authorities' plays a very imporranr role. Hence the high symbolic yield of 'American research', which is spontaneously credited with the objectivity of a 'science' that is in a sense doubly neutral because foreign. Consider the use made of the studies by John MacArthur and Bruce Scott, who argue rhat the French firm gives priority to technical problems rather than financial management . and markeung, to che future of the firm conceived in {errns of technological progress and the search for new processes rather than in terms of really profitable mass production. 38. See L'Expamion, April and July-August 1975. 39. See P. Bourdieu, 'Le couturier et sa griffe', Acles, 1 (January 197'»), 7-36.
40. On (his world view, set" P. Bourdieu and L. Boltanski, 'La production de l'ideolo gie dominante', Aetes, 2 Oune 1976), 3-8. 4 1 . The dominant fractions are what they are if and only if the economic principle of scratificarion asserts its real dominance, which it does, in the long run, even in che relatively autonomous field of cultural production, where the divergence between specific value and market value tends to disappear in the course of time. 42. See A. Boime, 'Entrepreneurial Patronage in Nineteenth Century France', in E. Carter II, R. Forster and J Moody, cds., Enterprim and EntrepreneurJ ( Baltimore and London, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), pp. 1 37-208.
6, Culturai Goodwill
1. The opinions expressed on music only have to be compared with rhe knowledge
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of works for it to be seen thar a high proportion ( rwo-thirds) of those who choose the most 'distinguished' answer ('All music of quality interesrs me') have little knowledge of classical music. D. Barnes, Nightwood, 2nd ed. (London, Faber, 19\0), pp. 2 1 -24. J Frank, The Widening Gyre ( Bloomington and London, Indiana University Press, 1963), p. 6. Like the very content of these products (with, for example, their conspicuous ref erences to legitimate works) , the advertising for middle-brow cultural goods is a permanent encouragement to cultural allodoxia. It emphasizes both the economic and cultural accessibility of the products offered and also their high legitimacy, by invoking cultural authorities (e.g., Academicians or prize juries) whose authority is itself an allodoxia effect, since the recognition it is given tends to vary in inverse ratio to competence. Similar detence mechanisms in which the consumers make themselves the accom plices of [he vendors are also found in other areas. Thus a markec research special ist suggests that one of (he most important functions of adverrising may be to provide purchasers with arguments to reassure themselves after the purchase; J. F. Engel, 'The Influence of Needs and Attitudes on the Perception of Persuasion' in S. A. Greyser, ed., Toward Scientific Marketing ( Chicago, American Markecing As sociation, 1964), pp. 18-29. These ideological mechanisms of reassurance explain the disparity berween the agents' own evaluation of their cultural practices and the objective truth of these practices. Everything takes place as if, at all levels of the hierarchy of degrees of consecration, agents were always inclined to attribute more value to their practices than {he structure of the field objectively confers on them. Thus there is no need to invoke censorship or 'political complicity' (although this is not unknown) co explain why the most typically academic products, and also the mOSt rypically middle-brow products, have derived considerable reinforcemem from television. Partly through the economic effect of the publicity supplied by (e1evision and the corresponding changes in publishing and marketing strategies, this tends ro modify the relations between the field of restricted production and the field of large-scale producrion. Felix in Barnes's Nightwood (p. 24) shares this taste for oddities: 'Conversam with edic(s and laws, folk srory and heresy, taster of rare wines, thumber of rarer books and old wives' tales--tales of men who became holy and of beasts that became damned---read in all plans for forrificacions and bridges, given pause: by all grave yards on all roads, a pedant of many churches and castles, his mind dimly and rev erently reverberated to Madame de S(vigne, Goethe, Loyola and Brantome.' It is no accidenr that surveys on cultural practices and opinions tend co take the form of an examination in which the respondents, who are and always feel mea sured against a norm, obtain results thar are ranked in accordance with their de-
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,
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gre<: of scholastic consecration and express preferences which always correspond fairly closely ro their educational qualifications, both in their content and in their modality. 9. The image which the formally educated have of the self-educated is a fine example of the partial, self-interested truths produced by the partial lucidity of ordinary perception and of the ( unconscious) strategies through which each an of living is reinforced in its conviction of its own excellence by comparing itself flatteringly with other arts of living. 10. Need It be said that these two celebrated examples are chosen so as to invite the reader to reason a fortiori? 1 1 . Ferdinand Cheval ( 1836-1924 ) , a rural postman, built his 'Ideal Palace' single handed, from 1879 (Q 1912, with stones which he collected on his round and car ried back to his home at Hauterives ( Drome) . This extraordinary 'monument' (classified as such by Malraux when Minister of Culture) includes all rhe features mentioned in rhe rexr, and more. La Veillie deJ ChaumiereJ was a magazine which brought serialized historical romances (accompanied by engravings) to a mainly peasant readership. (Translator's note.) 1 2 . 'Though th� �ei Boclhisattvas and those of Nara, Khmer and Javanese sculpture and Sung paInCIng do nor express the same communion with the cosmos as does a Romancsque tympanum, a Dance of Siva or the horsemen of the Parthenon, all alike express a communion of one kind or another, as does even Rubens in The Kermme. We need but glance at any Greek masterpiece to sec at once that its tri umph over rhe mystery-laden East does nor stem from any process of the reason ing mind, but from "the innumerable laughter of the waves". Like a muted orc�estra {he surge and thunder, already so remote, of ancient tragedy accom pames btl[ does not drown Antigone's immortal cry.' A. Malraux, The VoiceJ 0/ Silmce, crans. S. Gilbert (London, Seeker and Warburg, 1954), pp. 635-636. 1 3 . They arc by Ferdinand Cheval, among the inscriptions on his Ideal Palace (trans lator). 14. See P. Benichou, Le Jacre de /'icrivain ( Paris, Jose Corti, 1973), pp. 177-178. 1 5 . Harpagon: Moliere's MiJer; Arnolphe: the protagonist of his Ecole deJ jemm£J, ob sessed by marital infidelity ( t ranslator). 16. Attributed to the polirician Edouard Herriot ( rranslaror). 17. What is said here about the middlc positions (because it is most obvious in this case) is, of course, equally true of all positions in social space-time. 18. C. Baudelm, R. Establet and J. Malemort, La petite bourgeoiJie en France ( Paris, Maspero, 1974) , p. 153. 19. Among the properties of the strongly predetermined positions in the civil service (such as chose of the junior administrative executives) rhc most significant from the point of view considered here is undoubtedly the fan rhar they offer, through cheir guaranteed career-structures, rhe assurance of a relatively predictable individ ual trajectory. 20. The placement of these positions is understandable since their emergence is to a large extent due to changes in the educational system. 2 1 . The ex �mple of t�e crafts�e� provides a good opportunity to re-emphasize that, 10 tfCltlng as a POInt what IS In fact a space (and sometimes a genuine field), one inevitably simplifies. This simplification is entailed by rhe endeavour to grasp the social space as a whole (and so to avoid the errors almost inevirably incurred, as a direct consequence of autonomization, by monographs devoted co a particular 'occupation' ) . 22. Some 19.5 percent of all the 'junior executives' (administrative executives, tech nicians, primary teachers) and 20.3 perceor of the office workers are enrolled in a library (as against 3.7 perceor of the commercial employees and 2.2 percent of rhe small employers); 18.'5 percent and l2.9 percent respectively collect stamps
23.
24.
2'5.
26.
27.
28.
(as against 3.7 percent and 2.8 perceor); 14.2 percent and 10.3 percent follow correspondence courses or evening classes (as against 0 percent and 2 percent) (CS. IV). The notion of 'preference' in legitimate culture is only appropriate at and above a cenaln level of competence (corresponding approximately to a cenificate of sec ondary education). This is seen clearly in the fact that, below this level, the re spondents treat questions of preference as questions of knowledge, saying they prefer the painters they know, and rhat the proportion of respondents who know more or as many composers as the number of works they say they know rises wirh level of education, while the most cultivated respondents refuse to acknowledge value in some of the works they know. The office workers, especially the younges( ones, who have seen a high proportion of the films mentioned (3.'5 on average, compared with 2.4 for (he skilled manual workers and foremen, 2.3 for rhe craftsmen and small shopkeepers), are more in terested in actors than directors (on average they name 2.8 acrors and only 1 director, and often name the actors in films they have not seen). So if they had seen Visconti's Rocco and HiJ BrotherJ more than any other category, it was proba bly because of the stars, Annie Girardot and Alain Delon. The distinctive feature of the constellation of choices of the technicians ( who, as a whole, occupy the positions closest to the centre of gravity) lies in the fact that they read many more scientific or technical books and more often go in for pho tography and home movies. This law plays an important role in determining the choice of an artistic career rarher than a less risky career (or vice versa) and, among the artistic careers, the choice of those which, at (he moment in question, are the most risky (genre, manner etc ). Another indication of the ambiguous position of the socio-medical services may be seen in the fact they are much more familiar with the smarr SPOrtS rhan the other members of the middle classes ( for example, only 41.6 percent of them say they have never played tcnnis, as against 70.4 percent of the primary teachers; for skiing, the corresponding figures are 4 1 .6 percent and 78. '5 percent ) . The commercial junior executives and the secretaries, who have slightly less cui· tural capital than the members of rhe socio-medical services, make more disparate choices. They arc interested in the films favoured by the working classes or the small employers ( The LongeJt Day, The Magnificent Seven, Vice and Virtue ) , more than the teachers and the socio-medical services, while also being interested in the favourite films of the latter (Salvatore Giuliano, The Trial, Lej dimanchej de Ville d'Avray ) .
29. This pursuit of conformity to the ideal of distinction is revealed in the combined choice of 'pot-luck' meals and 'original and exotic' meals----'Iitrle Chinese resrau· rants'-or in series such as Fran,oise Hardy, Buffet, Van Gogh, which may be combined with the teachers' Kandinsky or the professionals' Concerto for the Left - ,\ �
Hand.
30. This is true despite the fact that provincials may rely on magazines for a substitute for what they would derive from residence in Paris, i.e., that sense of being 'where the action is' which is the real basis of cultural flair or churzpah (rhis is perhaps the chief function of La Nouvel ObJervaleur ). 31. Because the opportunities offered by the cultural environment are most profitably exploited by those with the highest cultural capital, and because the conformity inducing pressures of the group on its members also rise with cultural capital, the gaps between the Parisians and the provincials become more pronounced at higher levels of education. 32. Georges Perec's novel Lej choJei ( Paris, Julliard. 1%5) captures in its own way (he relationship which a couple of these mystified mysrifiers ( social psychologists
working in a market research agency) entertain with things whose whole va1ue lies in the words used about (hem, 33. See M. Villeae, 'La carriere d'un "cad� de gauche" apres 1%8', Actes, 29 ( 1 979), 64-74. 34. ralities can, of course, function as insults for champions . . of the oppome morality; It IS therefore futile {Q hope to find a perfectly 'neutral' [One ( the psychoanalytic vulgate, for example, will jdentify 'ascetic' with 'maso chistic') . In each case, one would need to restore the experiential wntent of what is sociologically objectified (e.g., the heroic dimension of the ascetic striving for virrue, which takes its pleasure in effort and in the exaltation of self-transcen dence, or the generous innocence of the Iiberarionisr cuh, which is based on an acute sense of the absurdity of social constraints and stakes); and, as has constantly been done here, the dispositions described have to be referred to their conditions of production: repressive dispositions, for example, have ro be seen as the product of repression (or social regression). 39. If the opposition between politicization and psychologization is carried too far, it may be forgotten that parricipation in a community of activists can also offer a solution to existential difhculties---even when these are nor the exclusive reason for joining--hy ptoviding all the assurances and reassurances of immersion in an integrated, separate, self-contained group, with its own laws, language and ritual, demanding and recognizing devotion and sacrifice; see D. Mothe, Le mili" de mili lant ( Paris, Seuil, 1973). But reducing the logic of activism to that of group ther apy may �ually obscure the fact that psychological transactions, in particular (he exchange of devotion and recognition ('the comrades' confidence'), are only the experiential (bur not on that account negligible) form of much deeper transac tions between the 'total institution'�which, demanding rotal dependence, gives most to rhose who give it most of what they are and have outside of it�and its members, who give it most (and receive most) when they expect most from it and have or are least outside of it. 40. Sec P. Bourdieu, Outline ofa Theory of Practice (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 92-93. 4 1 . See N. Elias, The History 0/ Manners (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1978), and State Formation and Civilization ( Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1982), vols. I and I I of The Civilizing Process.
42. Though with no more evidence than the observacions of ordinary existence and the indirect indica{ions provided by our survey, I am inclined to think that the devotees of the sects organized around the new forms of bodily exercise are mainly recruited among the women of the new pecite bourgeoisie, and that the theme of (he liberated body takes its place in a problematic with a strong religious col ouring (at least in its vocabulary) which also includes the 'problems of the cou ple', 'women's liberation' etc 43. It is no surprise that these people should be so horrified by every form of sociolog ical objectification and so fascinated by psychological or psychoanalytical en chantment. Nor that {hey should be ready to applaud all the fashionable variants of the old personalist denunciation of scientific 'reductionism', the elementary form of intellectual aristocratism, which has received unexpected reinforcement from the identification of every attempt at scientific objectification of practices with an ethical, even political condemnation (with the theme 'science Gulag', which has enabled some well-worn posr-Heideggerian fossils co make an un looked-for come-back in the intellecrual weeklies) . Nor that the existence of a sci entific sociology is as improbable as ever in times when the position of sociologist is one of (he refuges for those intent on escaping classification. 44. Celestin Freinet, educationalist ('active method'); Carl Rogers, inventor of 'group dynamics'; Wilhelm Reich, psychoanalyst (translator'S note). "'C, . for example, E. Dichter, La Jtrategie du diJir: une phi/osophie de la vente ( Paris, 45. s... Fayard, 1 % 1 ) . =
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The Choice of the Nee.nary
I t is no accident that disregard of the habitus and its effects is common to all bourgeois visions of the people, from the conservative pessimism which natural izes the properties produced by social conditions to the optimism of the idealist revolutionism which forgets that the working class is shaped by necessity, even in the form of its revolt against necessity. Need it be said {hat it is not sufficient to originate from these classes in order to produce a true representation of their view of their social world-if only because self-distancing can presuppose or induce relationships towards these classes (such as populist evangelizing) as radically closed as the simple distance of lifelong out siders? Norbert Elias relates (citing Taine) a gesture by the Duc de Richelieu which shows (hat the art of spending without counting, which in the seventeenth cen mry marked the distance between the aristocrat and the saving, profit-making bourgeois, JUSt as it now marks the distance between the bourgeois and the petit bourgeois, may, in ehe limiting case of a class whose very existence depends on the reproduction of its social capital, be the object of an explicit lesson: 'The Duke gave his son a purse full of gold so that the young man would learn to spend it like a grand seigneur. When the young man brought the gold back un spent, his father seized the purse and, in front of his son, threw it out of the window.' N. Elias, Die hOfische Gesellschaft (Darmstadt, Luchterhand, 1975), pp. 103-104. K. Marx and F. Engels, The Genna. Ideology in Collected Work.!, V (London, Lawrence and Wishart, 1976), 295. Given that the amount of income devoted to food rises s{rongiy in real terms, the proportions spent on other items decline relarively less, and the structure of ex penditure remains much the same as that of skilled workers. Certain items none theless rise significantly: small household electrical equipment, maintenance and repairs, hairdressing and beauty care, telephone, books, newspapers and entertain menrs, school expenses, holidays (CS. III).
_ _ 5 5 _.
6. C Roy, 'us condirions de vie des menages, exploitation triennale, 1965�66�67', Collection; de I'INSEE, ser. M, no. 30 (December 1973) . 7. It is no doubt the same 'realism' which excludes from political or union action
everything which might give it a purely symbolic air as regards the means used (in contrast to the exhibitionism of student demonstrations) and especially rhe goals pursued. 8. The members of the working classes, like the members of dominated ethnic groups, may make it a point of honour to belie the image that the dominant have of their class. Thus the working-class cult of cleanness or honesty ('poor bur hon_ est'), like some forms of conspicuous sobriety, no doubt owes something [0 the concern to belie bourgeois prejudice. The same intention of rehabilitation under lies rhe discourse designed to persuade oneself that 'all we lack is money' ( and nOt raste) and that 'if we had the wherewirhal, we'd know what to buy' (or 'how to dress properly'). 9. Sec P. Bourdieu et aI., Un art moyen: mai sur les wages sodaux de la photographie (Paris, Ed. de Minuir, 1%5 ) , pp 54-64. to. See Y . Delsaut, 'L'economie du langage populaire', ActeJ, 4 ( 1975), 33�40. 1 1 . This would explain the image that working-class women have of feminist de mands. 12. A whole set of indices rends to show that the working classes remain arrached to a more Strict morality in everything concerned with sexuality and the sexual divi sion of labour. Thus, as regards clothing, while�no doubt for functional rea sons--they readily accept that women should wear trousers for work, they reject them much more often chan the orher classes at home and outside; similarly, they always strongly disapprove of miniskirtS, especially at work and outdoors (San. dage!, 1 ( 1968], 79). Manual workers and especially farm workers are less inclined (34 percent and 53.5 percem) than junior executives (57 percent) and senior ex ecutives ( 59 percent) to say they attach no importance ro virginity; the propor tion who consider that physical love has a fairly or very important place in life increases slightly as one moves up the social hierarchy; conversely, the proportion who say they have only loved one person in their lives declines as one moves up the hierarchy, as does the proportion who say one cannot love twO people at the same time, or that love chiefly brings tenderness ( rather rhan, say, physical plea sure), or that eroticism and infideli{y destroy love (C.5. XLVI). 13. See H. Gournelle and A. Svakvary, 'Enquete sur Ie petit dejeuner en France', An nale, d'Hygiene de Lang.e Fran,aiie, 3 ( May-June 1967) , 28. 14. The reference to {he division of labour between the sexes which connotes the rep resentation of personal or collective identity ( for example, a manual worker, in vited to classify a set of occupations, pur all the non-manual jobs in a single class, saying, 'All pansies [touS des pedes]!') evokes not so much the specifically sexual dimension of practice as the virtues and capacities associated by status with the two sexes, i.e., s{rength or weakness, courage or cowardice, rather than potency or impotence, activity or passivity. D. This fact is underlined by the rapid devaluation of labour power which accom. . pames agetng. 16. See T. W. Adorno, 'On Popular Music', SludieJ in PhiloJophy and Social Science, 9 ( 1941 ) . It would be easy to show, for example, rhat the most legitimate music is used, through records and radio, no less passively and intermittently than 'popu lar' music, without thereby being discredited, and without being accused of the alienating effects that are attributed to popular music. As for repetitiveness of form, it is greatest in Gregorian chant (which nonetheless has a high distinctive value), in much mediaeval music now in favour, and in much seventeenth- and eighteenth-century 'divertimento' music originally composed to serve as 'back ground music'.
17. 'In Sud-OueJt Dimanche of 8 August, you publish a photograph of a Renault 5
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19.
. ,'-, , "
20.
21.
22.
transformed into a four-seater convertible. An arcicle subtitled "When a coach builder and a coururier get together to dress a car" presents the coach-builder Lohr as the author of the car. This is quite untrue. I am the one who had the idea of this version of the vehicle, I designed it for Cachard, and I hold the anisric copy right. I personally supervised its creation in the coach-builder's workshop; his role was purely {echnical. So a more accurate subtitle would have been: "When an art ist and a couturier get cogether to dress a car'" ( Reader's letter, Sud-OueJt Di manche, 22 August 1976). A peasant in the Bearn explained why he had not thought of becoming mayor, although he had won the most votes in the local elections, by saying: 'But I don't know how to ralk!' It would be interesting to determine, by a specifically linguistic analysis, precisely how this frontier is defined in the area of language. If one accepts the verdict of the interviewers' 'social sense', a good measure not of the linguistic sratus of the language used by the respondents but of the social image which educated interloc urors may have of it ( the taxonomies used to classify speech and pronunciation are those of scholastic usage), it appears that this difference is in fact very marked between the manual workers ( and also the crafrsmen and small shopkeepers) and the clerical workers. Of the former, only 42 percent speak a French regarded as 'standard' (cor,-ect ) , as against 77 percent of the office workers (to which must be added 4 percent of 'refined' [Chalii] speech, torally absent among the manual workers); similarly, the proponion judged to have 'no accent' rises from 12.5 per cent to 28 percent. Manual workers, the category who most ofcen describe the ideal friend as 'bon vi vant', are also those who mosr often�by far-say they are well-disposed towards someone who eats and drinks well (63 percent of them, as against 56 percent of the farmers and farm workers, 54 percent of the junior executives and clerical workers, 50 percent of the shopkeepers and crafrsmen, 48 percent of the employ· ers, senior executives and professionals--CS. XXXIV). In a similar vein, I have already noted the taSte for everything which makes rhe 'atmosphere' of a show, and also a celebration, a meal, and for those who contribute to it; and also the strongly marked propensity to expecr images ro immortalize the 'good times' of life and the symbols of festivity. The 'career' available to manual workers is, no doubt. initially experienced as (he opposite of the negative career which leads down into the sub-proletariat. What countS in 'promotion' is, rogerher with financial advanrages, the additional guar antees it gives against the ever present threat of falling back into insecurity and poverty. The potentiality of a negative career is as important in understanding the dispositions of skilled workers as is the potentiality of promotion for clerical workers and junior executives. See G. Adam, F. Bon,). Capdevidle and R. Mouriaux, L'ouvrier jran(aiJ en 1970 ( Paris, Armand Colin, 197 1 ) . (The CGT is, ofrhe three main labour union orga nizations, rhe one most closely linked to a political party, the Communisr Party, and strongest in the traditional industries--translator.) Some 10.5 percent of the semi-skilled and unskilled workers and 17 percent of the shopkeepers cite Rousseau among the paimers, as against 6 percent of the skilled workers, 3 percent of the primary teachers and technicians and 0 percent of the junior administrative executives. The name BraGue, which is cited by 10.5 percent of the semi·skilled and unskilled workers and 4 percent of the skilled workers, had become unusually prominent on radio and TV at the time of the survey, because the artisr's death coincided with the survey period. The effecrs of differences in age and differences in education combine to produce fairly marked differences in tastes in singers. The foremen and skilled workers tend -
23.
24.
On
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to prefer che older, more escablished singers, but also those besc placed in the hier. archy of culrurai values--Piaf, Becaud, Brei, Brassens--whereas the semi-skilled and unskilled tend to prefer Johnny Hallyday and Fran�oise Hardy.
2. 3.
4.
,.
6.
7.
K. Marx and F. Engels. The German Ideology, 2 nd ed. ( London, Lawrence and Wishart, 1974), p. 109. I t is the motor of conscious action if one accepts [he equation posircd by Marx in The German Idto/ogy (ibid., p. '0) that 'language is real, practical consciousness'. On the historical genesis of the philosophy of the 'invisible hand' and its function in economic and political thought, see A. Hirschman, The Pa.JJiom and the InttTIJu: Political Arguments for Capitalism be/ore Its Triumph ( Princeton, Princeton Univer sity Press, 1977). Similarly, the field of artistic production delimits at every moment die field of possible artistic positions. This very general relationship is also found in the area of artistic competence, where subjective exclusion (,Thar doesn't inreresr me' or 'Thar's not for rhe likes of us') is only rhe effect of an objective exclusion. It is not possible, in the present srare of research, to grasp rhe logic of the varia tions in the rates of non-response to identical questions asked by the same organi zation at different times (a serics of IFOP surveys on nuclear energy, undertakm in 1974, 19n, 1976 and 1977). Everyrhing suggests, in any case, that these varia tions remain smaller than the variations in the differem expressed opinions. G. Michelat and M. Simon, 'Categories SO(io-professionnelles en milieu ouvrier et comportemem politique', Revue Frant;.aise de Scien(e PoJitique! n ( April 197�). 291-316.
to
the fact that the question explicidy calls for the appreciation of a principle: 'Do you think that girls of 18 should (il/aul) be allowed to see the films they want to" ([FOP, March 1971). 9. 'Do you think chat in industrial disputes the Government supports the workers' demands, supports the employers' inreresrs, or is neutral?' (SOFRES, October
8. The slightly higher figure for men may well be due
best defends employees' intercsts at the presenr time-UDR, Centrists, PCF, CFDT. CGT, PS, CGT·FO" ( [FOP, 2 February 1980.) 1 1 . 'In your view, is there or is there not a link between the Middle East conflict and the Vietnam War?' ( IFOP, 9 October 1%7). ( Presidenr de Gaulle had just as- serted chat there was--translator.) 12. Similar distriburions (43.4 percent of 'don't knows' among women, 19.6 percent among men, 38.9 percent among the least educated. 9.4 percent among the best educated) are observed on a question on foreign policy: 'Are you satisfied or dis satisfied with the Government's performan(e in the following areas: . . . foreign policy" ( l FOP 1966). 1 3 . The link between indifference and imporence has been noted by vatious observers. for example: D. Riesman and N. Glazer, 'Criteria for Political Apathy', in A. ,W. Gouldner, ed., Sludi" in Leadership (New York, Russell and Russell, 196) , pp. '0'-"9; E. Kris and N. Leites, 'Trends in Twemieth-Century Propaganda" in G. Roheim, ed., Psychoanalysis and I'" Social Sciences ( New York, [UP, 1947) , esp. p. 400. 14. E. Deutsch, D. Lindon and P. Weill, LeJ /amilks politiqUfS aujourd'hui en Frdlltt ( Paris, Ed. de Minuit, 1966), pp. 104-10). I'. On political activisrs in general, the main sources consulred were as follows: J Lagroye, G. Lord, L. Monnier-Chazd and J. Palard, Les militants politiques trots partis jra1ll;.ais: pe, - ps, UDR (Paris Pedone, 1976); M. Kesselman, 'Sysreme de 1970).
10. 'Among the following crade unions and politi(al parties, who, in your view,
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pouvoir et cultures politiques au scin des partis politiques fran�ais', Revue Franf,aise de SocioJogie, 1 3 (October·December 1972). On Socialist activists: R. Cayrol, 'Les militants du Parti socialiste, contribution a une sociologie', Projet, 88 (Septem ber-October 1974); H . Ponelie and T. Dumias, 'Militants socialistes a Paris', Pro jet, 101 Oanuary 1976); L'Uniti, no. 2'7, 1-6 July 1977; 'Qui sont les cadres du PS?', u Point, no. 249, 27 June 1977. O n Communist activists: F. Pl atone and F. Subileau, UJ militants communiJ/eJ de la Fidiration de Paris ( Paris, Fondation Na tionale des Sciences Poli tiques, 1975). And on the Deputies: R. Cayrol, J.-c. Parodi and C. Ysmai, I.e dipute jram;.aiJ ( Paris, Armand Colin, 1973); and M. Dogan, 'Les filieres de la carriere pol i tique', Revue Fran(aise de S(){iologie, 8 ( 1967 ),
8. Culture and Politics l.
·
468-492.
16. These conclusions are based on a summary statistical analysis of the findings of a preliminary survey by exrended interview ( n 130), carried out in the Paris re gion in 1970. (The small sample obviously makes it impossible to see the regular ities which emerge as anything more than indications of tendencies, which will be used here as illustrations racher than demonstrations.) In the first stage, the re =
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spondents were given a set of D cards, each bearing the name of a movement, grouping or party, and were asked to group the cards as they wished ( they were not explicitly asked to comment on the categories they applied or to arrach names or descriptions to the groups they established) . In the second stage, they were given a set of 24 cards, each bearing the name of a politi
changes in curriculum, teaching methods and university organization, the train· ing, seleCtion and salaries of teachers, the relations bt'fween teachers, parenrs and pupils or students, the powers of the different categories of staff, the functions of edu(ation ( vocational t rain ing, 'cbatacter·bu ildi ng' erc.), politics in ed ucat ional establishments, the raising of the school-leaving age, subsidies for Church schools etc. Ir was preceded by a text of varying length depending on the newspaper, pre·
senting the survey as a 'full·scale national consul tation' on a 'subject of capi tal im portance' organized 'with the kind ass istance of the press' by the AEERS, 'an independent, non-profit ·maki ng movement'. The 'events' of May 1968 starred with a student uprising in Paris, turned into a general strike and seemed to threaten the whole Gaullist regime. When order was rescored, the new Minister of Education initiated reforms of the educational sys tem. (Translator'S note. ) 20. Tbis popul ation, in which the different groups are represen ted in proportion to their prerension to influence the educational system, is perfec tly representative of the self-legitimated pressure group which has always managed to exert its influ· ,
ence, at every level of the system. The idicJ-jorm it expressed thus foretold "What indeed subsequently came to pass: for example, the 'great majority'-for once (he term is appropriate----of the respondents desired the continuation of the recruit_ ment competitions ( agregation etc. ) , the introduction of selection, the mainte_ nance of the grandes ecoles, more emphasis on both general culture (for themselves) and vocational training ( for ocher people) etc. On all the points on which comparison was possible (i.e., all the questions except those on the grandes ecoles and the agregation, which no survey institute has ever asked) , the ten
dencies are stronger in the spontaneous sample than in the representative . sample. 2 1 . It goes without saying that these capacities and dispositions are linked to those which are needed in order (0 set pen to paper ro answer a questionnaire, which are in turn linked to educational capital. Ethical dispositions exert a specific effeCt here, which is clearly secn when the respondent is invited .ro put in regular, pro longed work, as in panel surveys. (Thus the rate of response to the CESP surveys. in which the respondent has ro note every quarter of an hour, for a month, the radio stations he has been listening to, varies to some extent with the cultural goodwill that is manifested in scholasric zeal. It is highest among junior execu tives and foremen, who are characterized by relatively high rates of library use, collecting etc.) One ought also ro consider the specific effens of selection by newspaper, and endeavour to determine how far {he fact that the enquiry was transmitted through {he reader's usual newspaper rather than, for example. through the schools, an associacion, a union or a parry may have affected {he make-up of rhe population of respondenrs ( for example, newspaper subscribers responded more often rhan occasional readers ) . 22. The parents who rerurned rheir questionnaires (Q the Cornec Federation of par ents' associations ( rarher than directly ro the AEERS) differ overall from the other parents by a lower social and educational level and by the higher proportion of female respondents. This suggesrs that previous mobilization within an organi zation and the additional 'authority' conferred by this membership tend , to in crease the propensity to intervene politically, other things being equal. (This would perhaps explain why, among the teachers, the spontaneous, non-affiliated respondents have very different characteristics from the 'pedagogic' activists, mainly recruited among women agregees and certified ( non-agrege) men; see J.
M. Chapoulie and D. Merllie, UJ diterminant] Jociallx et Jcolaim tUJ pratiqueJ pro. /mionnelleJ tUJ enJeignantJ dll Jecond dtgre et leurJ tram/ormationJ [Paris, CSE, 1974], esp. pp. 120-124.) It is remarkable rhat the Cornec Federation parents, under-se lected in respect of social and cultural capital, are, alrhough more mobilized, gen erally slightly less inclined to answer the various questions, except ( i n particular) {he one on subsidies for Church education, for which they have a higher rate of response. 23. CET: College d'enseignemenr rechnique (secondary rechnical school); CEG: College d'enseignemenr generale ( 'general secondary school'). (Translator's note.) . . 24. Every attempt [Q persuade the members of the working classes ro express thel � VI sion of the social world ( e.g., (heir image of the class s{rucrure) comes up againSt the difficuiry created by this sense of impotence and unworthiness ('I don't see why people like you come and ask blokes like me-you know all thar better rhan I do' ) . On the other hand, part of the horror aroused by sociology stems from the fact that it Cjuestions any Tom, Dick or Harry instead of consulting only the aU· thorized spokesmen. 2'. This analysis has the virtue of showing that, by emphasizing the dominant agen ts . ('great men') or personified collective enriries, school history conveys a chansmatic philosophy of hiswry which leaves no room for social interests or the con-
flicts between antagonistic groups and which calls for moral judgements rather than critical refiecrion on historical processes and their social condirions. 26. It is not uncommon for the demands of personal salvation ( evening classes or do cility towards superiors) to come into conflier with rhe demands of collective sal vation ( union activities etc. ) , for practical reasons and also because they spring from rwo totally opposed visions of the social world. Efforts at retraining or in ternal promorion ( competirions etc.) would not be so positively sanctioned were it not that, i n addition to technical improvement, they also guarantee adherence to the institution and to the social order. 27. One could poim to a vast literature produced by the champions of the 'medical order' to defend the uniqueness of the medical art, freely performed by a free (and solitary) individual, or the indignant protestations of the university establishment at the call for the recognition of collective student projeers. 28. This proposition, which has its equivalenr in aesthetics, is a particular case of the more general proposition that the propensity and capacity ro subordinate verbal or practical position-takings to explicit principles, which, as such, are subject to an intentional systemarization ( rhose of an ethic or aesthetic or a political theory, rather than those of an ethos) rise with cultural capital-this relationship being
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established as much through the conditions of existence necessary for rhe acquisi tion of such capital as through the effect of the specific abilities it gives. 29. To demonstrate the analogy between surveys and voting, one would have to ana lyse both the political philosophy implied in the quesrioning itself and that which is implied in the methods of analysis ( i n particular, the purely aggregative logic of sratistics) . I t would be seen that the survey most overtly reveals its true nature when, aiming to predict the result of an election or referendum, it invites the reo spondents ro give the et:Juivalent of a vote. 30. Suffice it to point out that two-stage choice is very common in the area of taste, where, as has often been shown, consumers choose a producer or distributor ( a shop, a theatre, a radio station etc.) and, through this choice, the pre-seiec{ed products they offer-when they do not simply delegate this choice to mandated experts, such as decorators, architects, and other vendors of aesthetic services. who play a role somewhat similar in such matters to that of the parry. 3 1 . Thus parry membership or allegiance is only one factor among others, whose ef fecrs could be studied in the same way as the effects of sex, age or occupation . Specifically political principles function as factors, relatively autonomous of eco nomic and social determinants, which ( although adherence to these principles is not independent of these determinants) make it possible to produce opinions or praerices contrary to immediate personal interest. 32. Of all intellectuals, Sartre is no doubt the one who felt most 'aurhenrically' the opposirion between the abstract reality of 'commirmenr', which is always experi enced as arbitrary inasmuch as it is the product of a deliberare choice, and the opacity of a choice imposed by the conditions of existence. 33. This analysis is based on the findings of a post-l%8 survey of a sample of 3,288 men, including 176 members of the intellectual occupations, presented by Mattei Dogan to a French Political Science Associarion colloquium on workers and poli tics in western Europe. 34. See S. M. Lipsct, 'Students and Politics in Comparative Perspective', DaedaiuJ, Wimer 1%8, pp. 1-20. For a critique based on analysis of a survey of French stu dems, see also Y. Delsaut, 'Les opinions politiques dans Ie sys{eme des attitudes: les erudiams en lenres er la politique', Revue Pran{aise de Sociologie, II (jan uary-March 1970) , 3-33. 3 5 . I t is no accidenr rhat the procuration (or assistance) which is the pre-condition of access to political opinion for those who are deprived of the means of production of ' personal opinion' is one of the more or less skilfully masked targets of conser-
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38. 39. 40.
41. 42. 43.
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46. 47.
48.
vative or 'revolutionary conservarive' thought; sec P. Bourdieu, 'L'ontologie poli. rique de Marrin Heidegger', ActeJ, 5-6 ( N?vember 1 ?75), l ?9-1 56. . , , Set G. Ansarr, De i'uJine a /'AJsembiee natlonale ( Pans, EdlUons SoCiales. 1977), As independent producers of their own discourse, intellectuals always tend to de· mand thar the institutions claiming a monopoly of the legitimate production of symbolic goods, such as churches or parties, allow them the right to self-manage. mem of opinion. In this rcspcn, the ecological movement, which refuses to be. have as the 'owner' of irs decr�es' votes, declining onc of the privileges of party apparatuses, represents the materialized ideal of the intellectual pany. ( I n tht present French denoral system, parties �ess well placed in [�e first �ound Custom· arHy urge their voters to transfer their voces to another party In the second round-translator. ) PSU; Parti socialiste unille, a small left-wing party founded in 1960, characterized ' by anti-statism and ideas of autogestion ( translator). In 1966 de Gaulle withdrew French forces from NATO command (translatOr). Here, too, there is a clear analogy with the cultural market. Could 'taste' function as an internalized system of classification if it were suddenly deprived of all the markers, all the objectified classifications and, in particular, all the indices of posi� tion in the field of production provided by places of publication and exhibidon ' etc. which point the way to what Flaubert called 'the smart opinion'? For a classic statement of these theses, see S. M. Lipset, 'Democracy and Working Class Authoritarianism', American Sociological Review, 24 ( August 1959), 482-501. He meant, 'It's against the interests of wage-earners (la masse salarile)'; maIse Ja lariale means the total wage bill ( translator). This discourse, totally opposed to the homogeneity of the 'pure' products of an ethos or a political axiomatics, takes particular forms which could only be com pletely accounted for by describing (just as Bachelard describes 'epistemologi� profiles') the 'political profiles' drawn by practices or discourses generated accord� ing to different principles, in different situations, i.e., in contexts in which the ef fects of political inculcation or specifically political control are very unequally exened. What distinguishes these organizarions in rhe universe of educational institutions is no doubt the fact that they perform their educative action within the primary groups, through agent5--rhe activists-bc:l�nging t? the group it�if. . This ethicai liberaiism can be rraced back to ItS basiS lfl the changes 10 the mooe of reproduction of the dominant class, which are recorded in recent changes in fam ily law. They have the effect of rendering the 'virtues' of �he old bour��isie un. necessary or even dysfunctional (the very virtues which the tradltJonaitsts, condemned to social decline by their inability to reconvert, strive (0 perpetuate, as if they regarded the reversal of bourgeois values as the cause of the de�line of which they are victims and pinned their hopes of social salvation on ethICal res toration) . Michelat and Simon, 'Categories socio-professionnelles en milieu ouvrier', esp. pp. 2%-297. The Paris newspapers devote to international affairs, anecdotal news (jaits di,,"� ) and sport, respectivc:ly, 14.8 percent, 8.8 percent and 8.9 percent of their space; In the provincial press these proportions are reversed: 7.9 percent, 8.4 percent and 16.5 percent; J. Kayser, Lei quotidiem jran{ais ( Paris, Arm� nd Colin� 1963) , pp. 125-127. These differences would be even more marked If the national pape� whose readership is mainly drawn from the dominant class (like Le Monde, I.e. �t garo ) were separated from the orher� , which (at least in the �ase. of Le ParISIen Libert) give as much space to jaw dIvers and spon as the prOVinCial press. , In this struggle market research is a wea� n-in that it enabl� the newsrapc: , 'penetration' to be demonstrated to advertisers, who prOVide a hIgh proportiOn
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a newspaper's income-much more rhan a means of knowledge assisting a better response to the expectations of the readership. 49. As opposed to rhose publications which are excluded as too 'marked' from places where reading-matter is traditionally supplied-waiting rooms, cafes, hairdressing salons etc.-the 'omnibus' weeklies which are specially designed to offend no sec tion of the potential clientele (ParlJ-Match, Jours de France, L 'Express ) are per fectly adapted to the situations in which they are asked (Q perform this very function (Le Parisien Libirt and France-Soir often fulfil this role in barber shops) . SO. One of the senior editors of a major 'quality' newspaper, asked if he would have published an interview with a notorious criminal, like the editors of a weekly magazine which had just been prosecuted for doing so, replied, 'Of course, but in indirect speech.' 5 1 , Dogan, 'Lcs filieres de la carriere politique.' (Force Ouvriere is the union organiza tion created in 1947-48 by anti-Communists who split away from the CGT translaror) . 52. The proportion of under-25s in the readership, insignificant for Le Figaro, is 25 percent in the case of Le Nouvel Observateur; and it is remarkable that the papers which have declined most severely in the last ten years are, along with the om nibus papers (Le PariJien Libbi and France-Soir) , L'Aurore and Le Pigaro, with their small proportion of young readers. Their decline and the rise of Le Monck and Le Nouvel Observateuf' very directly reflect the morphological changes in the dominant class in favour of the fractions richest in educational capital. �3. Just as what is transmitted through biological heredity is no doubt more stable than what is transmitted through cultural heredity, so the class unconscious in· culcared by the conditions of existence is a more stable generative principle of judgements and opinions than explicitly constituted political principles, precisely because it is relatively independent of consciousness. 54. This does not exclude all the essentially ambiguous political positions (the para· digm of which is the 'conservative revolutionary' movement of pre-Nazi Ger many), which no doubt reproduce, in their indeterminacy, the contradicrions inherent in the revolt against social decline (a sort of contradiction in terms) or in the mismarch between individual trajectory and collective trajectory. 55. This srrategy is very common in interpersonal relations, and especially in the economy of domestic exchanges, in which the impeccability acquired by services rendered allows the benefaCtor the role of a living reproach. �6. To understand the political practices and opinions of old people, one has to con sider not only the withdrawal effect which, with retirement from the work milieu and the weakening of social relations, tends to reduce collective pressure and sup port, but also, and especially, the effect of social decline, which is stronger and more rapid in less privileged classes and can no doubt be understood by analogy with the effect of declining social trajectories on individuals or groups. n. The unification of the economic and symbolic market and the corresponding weakening of locally based social spaces tends to favour the 'politicization' of peas ant farmers, who, increasingly affected by the mechanisms of the economy and po litical decisions, have an increasing interest in being interested in politics. Although 'politicization' is not, as it is for industrial workers, necessarily �uiva lent to a move to the left, nonetheless the real possibility of this choice appears, and conservatism itself takes on a quite different meaning. 58. On this point, see p, Bourdieu, Le sens pratique ( Paris, Ed. de Minuit, 1979). 59. This relative indeterminacy of the erhos with respect to the positions expressed no doubt explains the oscillations (e.g., between Gaullism and the Communist Party) of the most deprived fracrion of the working class. 60. This is the <.Juestion de Gaulle put to the nation in a referendum in 1969 ( transla tor) .
Conclusion
1 . L Kant,
1 5 . See P. Bourdieu and M. de Saint Martin, 'Les categories de I'entendement profes soral', Actes, 3 ( 1 97 5 ) , 68-93. 16. See Duby, Les trois ordm, esp. pr. 422-423. 17. Ibid., pp. 63-64, and 'Lcs "jeunes" dans la societe arisrocrarique dans la France du Nord-Ouest au XIIeme siede', Annales, 19 ( September-October 1964 ), 83;846. 18. Much the same could be said of women, were they not denied most of rhe advan
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (Carbondale and Edwards_
ville, Southern Illinois University Press, 1978). p. 141. 2. G. W. Leibniz, 'Medirationes de cognitione, veritate et ideis' in Opuscula Philosoph. ical Sekcta ( Paris, Boivin, 1939), pp. 1-2 ( see also DiJcours de Mhaphysique, par. 24). I t is remarkable that to illusrrare the idea of 'clear but confused' knowledge, Lcibniz evokes, in addition to the example of colours, tastes and smells which \Ve can distinguish 'by the simple evidence of the senses and not by statable marks" the example of paimers and artists who (an recognize a good or bad work but cannot justify their judgement except by invoking the presence or absence of a 'ie . ., . ne sa15 quol. 3 . It would be the task of a genetic sociology to establish how this sense of possibili ties and impossibilities, proximities and distances is constituted. 4. Just as the opposition between the unique and the multiple lies at the heart of the dominant philosophy of hiscory, so the opposition, which is a transfigured form of it, between the brilliant, the visible, the distinct, the distinguished, the 'outstand ing', and the obscure, the dull, the greyness of the undifferentiared, indisdnct, in glorious mass is one of the fundamental categories of the dominant perception of the social world. 5. See G. Duby, Les trois ordm ou I'imaginaire du jiodalismf ( Paris, Gallimard, 1978). 6. E. Durkheim, Elementary FONl/5 of the ReligioUJ Life ( London, Allen and Unwin, 1915), p. 17. 7. A more detailed accouor of the theorerical context of these analyses will be found in P. Bourdieu, "Symbolic Power" in Identity and Structure, ed. D. Gleeson ( DriE field, Naffcrron Books, 1977), pp. 1 1 2-1 19; also in Critique of Anthropology, 4 ( Summer 1979), 77-85. 8. Cf. J·P. Same, Being and Nothingnm ( London, Methuen, 1969), pp. 557-5M, <sp. 562. 9. See H. Giles, 'Accent Mobility: A Model and Some Data', Anthropological Lin guistics, I ; ( 1973), 87-10510. See G. Lenski, 'American Social Classes: Statistical Strata or Social Groups?', American journal of Sociology, 58 ( September 1952), 139-144. 1 1 . These divergences also emerge, in the same survey, when the respondents are first
asked co define social classes ar the level of cheir town and rhen at che level of the whole COUntry; the rate of non-response rises strongly in the laner case, as docs the number of classes perceived. 12. Ordinary perception, which applies to practices the scheme of the broad and the narrow, or the expansive and the constrained, anticipares the discoveries of the most refined social psychology, which esrablishes the existence of a correlation between the room one gives oneself in physical space and the place one occupies in social space. On this point, see S. Fisher and C E. Cleveland, Body Image and PerJonaiity ( New York, Van Nostrand, 1958). 13. This is true in the ordinary sense but also in {he sense of Kafka (proces 'process' but also 'trial'--d. Kafka's Die ProzeJJ, The Trial, Le Proces in French-translator], who offers an exemplary image of this desperace striving to regain a social identity thar is by definition ungraspable, being rhe infinice Iimir of all caregoremes, all . . Imputauons. 14. The sophism of the heap of wheat and all the paradoxes of physical continua mean, as Poincare observed, that one has simultaneously A B, B C and A < C, or again, Al A2, A2 A3, . . . A<)<) AlOo and A I < A lOo' In other words, though it is clear that one grain docs not make a heap, nor do twO grains, or three, it is not easy ro say whether the heap begins at 264 grains or 26;; in other words, whether 265 grains make a heap, but not 264. =
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tages of renouncing responsibility, at least outside the bourgeoisie. 19. M. Billing and H . Tajfd, 'Social Categorization and Similaricy in Inter-group Be haviour', European Journal oj S()cial Psychology, 3 ( 1973 ) , 27-;2. 20. See, for example, H. Tajfel, 'Quantitative Judgement in Social Perception', British journal of Piychology, ,0 ( 1959), 16-21, and H. Tajfel and A. L Wilkes, 'Classifi· cation and Quancirative Judgemem', ibid., 54 ( 1963), 101-104: and for an over view of research in this area, W. Doise, L'articulation ps}ch()sociologique et les relations mIre groupes ( Brussels, A. de Boeck, 1976), pp. 178-200. 2 1 . 'Wherever the groups and classes are set in sharp juxtaposition, the values and mores of each are juxtaposed. Our of group opposition there arises an incense op position of values. which comes [0 be projected through the social order and serves to solidify social stratification'. L Copeland, 'The Negro as a Contrast Con ception' in E. Thompson, ed., Race Relatiom and the Race Problem (Durham, Duke University Press, 1959). pp. 15 2 - l79. 22. ' . . . Ie pouvoir unificateur du nom, du mot d'ordre'-the unifying power of the name/noun, the rallying cry ( 'order word' ) . (Translator'S note.) 23. One scarcely needs to point out the affinity between social physics and the positivist inclination to see classifications either as arbitrary, 'operational' divisions ( such as age groups or income brackets) or as 'objective' cleavages ( discontinui ties in distributions or bends in curves) which only need to be recorded. 24. Here is a particularly revealing expression (even in its metaphor) of this social marginalism: 'Each individual is responsible for the demeanour image of himself and the deference image of others, so thar for a complete man to be expressed, individuals musr hold hands in a chain of ceremony, each giving deferentially wirh proper demeanour to the one on the righr what will be received deferentially from the one on the left.' E. Goffmann, 'The Nature of Deference and Demean our', American AnthropologiJt, 58 (june 19')6), 473-502. ' . . . routinely the 9ues cion is rhar of whose opinion is voiced most frequently and most forcibly, who makes the minor ongoing decisions apparently required for the coordination of any joint acrivity, and whose passing concerns have been given che most weight. And however trivial some of these little gaim and I()sJeJ may appear to be, by sum ming them all up across all the social situations in which they occur, we can see that rhei[ total effect is enormous. The expression of subordinacion and domination through this swarm of situational means is more than a mere tracing or symbol or ritualistic affirmation of the social hierarchy. These expressions considerably consti tute the hierarchy.' E. Goffmann, 'Gender Display'. ( Paper presented at the Third lorernarional Symposium, 'Female Hierarchies', Harry Frank Guggenheim Foun dation, April 3-'), 1974) ; italics mine.
Postscript 1 . M. Proust, 'En memoire des eglises assassinees' in PaJtrches et melanges ( Paris, Gal iimard, 1970), p. 1 7 1 . 2. For an aesthetic explicitly based on the antithesis of the beautiful and the facile, see S. Alexander, Beauty and Other Forms ()f Value ( London, Macmillan, 1933), esp. pp. 40, 164. ( In French, facile corresponds to both 'facile' and 'easy'-transla
ror.)
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3. Given in English in {he text, and described as more distinguished than its French equivalent, racoleur (translator). 4. On several occasions, and in particular in an article on the relationship between psychoanalysis and art hisrory-Meditatiom 01'J a Hobby HorJe ( London, Phaidon Press, 1%3 � , es�. pp. 37�4�E. H. G�mbrich r:e�ers to the refusal of elementary, vulgar gnltlficatlons whICh IS the baSIS of legitimate taste, or the 'fashionable don'tJ', as he calls them, ' so easily picked up', which define legitimate taste (ibid., p. 1�). . ,. A. Schopenhauer, The World aJ Will and ldia (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1883), vol. I, bk. I, pp. 268-269. 6. On the essential points, Schopenhauer's aesthetic can be regarded as a somewhat heavy commentary on Kant's aesthetic, and Fauconnet is quite justified in observ_ ing: 'Aesthetic judgement, which is essentially disinterested, is opposed in Kant's work to other, self-interested judgements, exactly as, in Schopenhauer, the volun_ tary action of the subject who knows only with a view to action is opposed to the comempiarion of the pure subject.' A. fauconnet, L'esthitique ck Schopenhauer ( Paris, Alean, 1913), p. 108. 7. By the same coken, Brecht's 'alienation effect' might be the gap whereby, within popular art itself, the intellectual asserts his distance from popular art, which makes popular art acceptable, i.e., acceptable to intellectuals, and, at a deeper level, his distance from the people, the distance presupposed by the intellectuals' leader ship of the people. 8. I t was 'refusal', says Kant, which 'brought about the passage from merely sensual to spiritual attractions.' I. Kant, 'Conjectural Beginnings of Human History' in On HiJlory, ed. L W. Beck ( Indianapolis and New York, Bobbs-Merrill, 1963) , p. 57. HaVing mdlC
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the mind with the 'expansion of the faculties" they call for: 'If, on the other hand, we estimate the worth of the fine arts by the culture they supply to the mind, and adopt for our standard the expansion of the faculties whose confluence in judge ment is necessary for cognition, music . . . has the lowest place' ( ibid., p. 195). 14. 'But as for the beauty ascribed to the object on account of its form, and the sup position that it is capable of being enhanced by charm, this is a common error and one very prejudicial to genuine, uncorrupted, sincere taste. Nevertheless, charms may be added to beauty to lend to the mind, beyond a bare delight, an adventitious delight in the representation of the object, and thus to advocate taste and its cul tivation. This applies eJpeciaily where taste iJ aJ yet {ruck and untrained' (ibid., p. 67; italics mine); 'he may even begin to harbour doubts as to whether he has formed his raste upon an acquaintance with a sufficient number of objects of a particular kind . . .' ( ibid., p. 139); 'the rectification and extension of our judgements of taste' ( ibid., p. 1 4 1 ) . 1 5 . Some indices of Kant's inclination to identify the universal with the universe of cultivated people: 'One would scarce think it necessary for a man to have taste to take more delight in a circle than in a scrawled outline, in an C<:1uilateral than in one that is all iobsided [Jlc ], and, as it were, deform.ed. The requiremmtJ of com1lU!n undtrJtanding ensure Juch a preference without the least demand upon taste' ( ibid., p. 87; italics mine); 'We demand both taste and feeling of every man, and, granted Jome degree 0/ {ulture, we give him credit lor both' ( ibid., p. 1 16; italics mine). See also ibid., p. 147n. l6. Pointing out the very early link between still life and the vanltaJ motif---e.g., the timepiece symbolizing temperance-Gombrich acknowledges that the 'Puritan spirit' may find in this reminder an alibi for or antidote to the 'simple pleasures of the senses' offered by 'gorgeous flowers and appealing dishes', an immortalization of sensual enjoyment that 'feasts the eye and stirs up memories and anticipations of feasts enjoyed and feasts to come'; but he observes that 'a painted still life is ipJO facto also a vanitas', because 'the pleasures it stimulates are nor real, they are mere illusions' (Meditatiom on a Hobby Horst, p. 104). 17. It is clear what is hidden in the Sollm contained in the apparently constative utter ances in which Kant presents [he definition of pure taste. 18. Ie follows that the mere intention of speaking scientifically about works of art or aesthetic experience or, more simply, of abandoning the style of the smarr essay, which is less concerned with truth than originality, is bound to be seen as one of the sacrilegious degradations which reductive materialism indulges in, and there fore as the expression of a philistinism which denounces what it is incapable of understanding or, worse, of feeling. (On (he significance of the Carnival, see ap pendix 4, note 100translator.) 19. The most systematic attempt in recent times to formulate this ideology is no doubt that by Malraux. Art, for Malraux, is the realm of freedom, and, as such, it is rhe symbol of man's power co create a significant, fully human world or, at the very least, of man's eternal srruggle to transcend servitude and 'humanize the world.' 20. By treating the work in accordance with its intention, i.e., as a finality withour an end, the beholder re-produces the act of creation, in a mimesis of the mimesis of Genesis. ( The theory of 'creative reading' is also one of the ideological themes which, because they are indispensable to the reaffirmation of rhe 'spiritual poim of honour' of the literate bourgeoisie, are endlessly reinvented.) 2 1 . In that text, disdained by the commentators (who, because of its apparent reivi· ality, have even wondered if it was not a product of senility), Kant first distin· guishes between 'scholars', whether 'incorporated' (in the Universiry guild) or 'independem', and mere 'men of Ieners' ('businessmen and technicians of scholar ship'), 'priests, judges and doctors', who purvey knowledge acquirt:d at the Uni·
versiry, and finally the clientele of the latter, 'the people, which is composed of ignoramuses'. He then contrasts rhe temporally dominant 'higher' faculties, law, medicine and theology, with the temporally dominated bur spiritually dominant 'lower' faculty, rhat of philosophy, which has no temporal power but is 'indepen. dent of the orders of government'; perfectly autonomous, knowing only its own laws, those of reason, i t is rhereby entitled to exercise its critical power in tOtal freedom . I . Kant, The Conflict of the Pac"lti" ( New York, Abaris Books, 1979). 22. N. Elias, The Civilizing Procm, vol. I, The History of Manners (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1978), p. 9. 23. L Kane, 'Idea for a Universal History' in On History, p. 2 1 .
the political and social: 'If Faust represents the German soul,' writes Thomas Mann, 'then he must be a musician; for rhe German's relationship ro the world is abstract and mystical, in other words, musicaL' T. Mann, 'Deutschland und die Deutschen', Essays, I I (Frankfurt, Fischer Taschenbuch, 1977), 285. 33. Every field of scholarly production has its own 'rules' of propriety, which may re main implicit and only be known to iniriates; sometimes, however, scholars en deavour to codify them ( for example, Boileau, Rapin, d'Aubignac or Subligny, who exhorted the authors of tragedies to eschew subjects likely to offend the po litical or moral ideas of the audience, to exclude scenes of bloodshed which might shock, to adapt their characters to the rules of aristocratic etiquette and to avoid
24. Kane, 'Conjectural Beginnings', pp. 55-56. 25. Kant, 'Idea for a Universal H istory', p. 2 1 . Elias shows how the opposition be· tween the court arisrocracy and the cultured bourgeoisie was built up around the comrasr between, 'on the one hand, superficiality, ceremony, formal conversation, [and] on the orher, inwardness, depth of feeling, immersion in books, develop mem of the individual personali ty'-in short, between rhe superficial and the deep ( The Civilizing Proem, I, 1 9 ) . The whole of the second term of the opposition is contained in rhe 'slow efforts to improve the mind' ro which Kam refers.
26. 'But thar there is any intrinsic worth in rhe real existence of a man who merely lives for enjoymem, however busy he may be in this respen, even when in so doing he serves mhers--all equally with himself intent only on enjoyment-as an excellent means ro that end, and does so, moreover, because through sympathy he shares all their grarifications,�rhis is a view to which reason will never let itselfbc: brought round' (Critique ofJudgement, p. 4 7 ) . And in a footnote Kant denounces the 'supposed obligarion ro actions that have merely enjoyment for their aim, no matter how spiritually this enjoyment be refined in thought (or embellished) , and even if it be a mysrical, so-called heavenly, enjoyment' ( ibid., p. 48n). 27. Another indication of this can be seen in rhe fact that Kam argues in favour of the scholastic reaching of art and the need to submit to rules. This is perfectly in accord wirh the logic of his subterranean discourse in defense of the academic values of Kultur, but i n contradiction to his refusal of any empirical genesis of taste, which ought ro make him subscribe to the theory of un trammelled genius --C tique ofJudgrment, p. 1 8 3 ) . ( which he precisely combats---ri 28. The invariants of the professorial condition, and more especially of the posirion of the teaching profession within the dominant class ( a dominated fraction ) and within the class field as a whole, are sufficiently great, despite differences of epoch and society, to establish affinities of ethos which are the basis of the illusion of universality. 29. Would-be systematic thinking applies its universally applicahle schemes to every object. This can lead to some amusing effects, typical of what Schopenhauer calls 'comic pedantry', when {hese schemes ( the same ones that are at work in the Cri tique o/Judgement, but there with every appearance of necessity) are too obviously running in neutral: 'I have outlived a good many of my friends or acquaintances who boasted of perfecr health and lived by an orderly regimen adopted once and for all, while the seed of death ( illness) lay in them unnoticed, ready to develop. They felt healthy and did not know they were ill; for while [he cause of natural dearh is always illness. causality cannot be felt. It rC<1uires understanding, whose
judgment can err. Feeling, on the other hand, is infallible; but we do not call a man ill unless he feels ill, although a disease which he does not feel . . .' etc. Kant, Conflict of the FafullieJ, p. 1 8 1 . 30. J. Derrida, La virite en peinture ( Paris, Flammarion, 1978). 3 1 . Ibid., p. 5 1 . . 32. Philosophical denial is here merely a particular form of artisti<. denial which, as IS clearly seen in the case of music, is inseparable from a neutraiizarion or denial of
crude or vulgar terms). 34. See G. Scholem, 'Der Nihilismus als religioses Phanomen', Eranos, 1974; and J. Habermas, 'Die verkleidete Thora' i n PhiloJophiJ{h-politische Profile, 2nd ed. ( FrankfuCl, Suhrkamp, 198 1 ) . 35. One would need to make explicit not only the general properties of these border· line positions, such as the double games they allow and the double profits they secure, but also the double vulnerability, the doubling or objective and subje(tive uncertainty as to personal identity which they impose on their occupants. 36. Thus, Derrida denounces {he artificiality and strain of applying the table of cate gories, established with respect to judgements of knowledge, to aesthet\c judge· ment, which, as Kant constantly points out, is not a judgement of knowledge.
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Derrida, La virite en peinture, pp. 79-83. By contrast, Louis Guillermit endeavours co show, through a comparison of rhe three CritiqueJ, that Kant rethought his whole theory of sensibility-putting forward a new transcendental definition of feeling which breaks the link between feeling and the faculty of desiring-to make room for a new, disinterested type of pleasure, which he discovers in aes thetic judgement, contemplative pleasure; this pleasure is not linked to desire for the object and, indifferent as to its existence, is solely concerned with its represen· tation. L. Guillermit, 'Esrhetique et Critique' in H. Wagner, ed., Sinnlichkeit und Verstand in der deUlJchen undjranzosischen Philosophie von Descartes his Hegel (Bonn, Bouvier Verlag Herbert Grundmann, 1976 ) , pp. 122-150. 37. By treating the Critique as a beau,tiful object, Derrida no doubt contradicts the deepest intention of Kant, who plays on the opposition hetween the frivolous and the serious-as is evidenced by the deliberately inaesthetic style-and seeks to place philosophy and the philosopher above art and the artist. But in doing so, Derrida grants the Critique the starus of an unconditioned ohject, freed from social determinants, which every pure, purely internal reading grants to the work; and which, by the same token, it grants to itself. 38. Proust, 'En memoite des eglises assassinees', p. 170; italics mine. In 'Journees de lecture', Proust further analyses the differen t perversions of reading-the scholarly perversion, which identifies the search for truth with the discovery of a secret doc ument, demanding 'material trouble', and the perversion of 'the lettered man', who 'reads for the sake of reading and of retaining what he has read'. Pastiches et milanges, pp. 234�240; 'Days of Reading', in J. L. Hevesi, ed., EJJdYJ on Language and Literature ( London, Allan Wingate, 194 7 ) , pr. 52-55. 39. Pastiches el miJangeJ, p. 244n; 'Days of Reading', p. 6 1 n .
Appendix
1.
Some Reflections on the Method
1 . Such effects of fashion are also found in legitimate culture. Thus the social value of some of the works offered may have changed between 1963 and 1967, with the Four Seasons and Eine Kleine NachtmuJik being pulled towards 'middle-brow' cul ture by popularization.
.
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Appendix 2. Complementary Sources
�ithin �ch c! ass and class fraction, a very similar number of interviews was car C1e� OUt Ifl Pans a�d rhe Paris region and in the Nord region. The Nord is charac_ terIzed by a very different occupational structure from that of the Paris region and by a much lower average level of educational qualificarion. The 1968 census found commercial entrepreneurs (large and small) and fewer and more industrial many . . . engmeers, senior executives, technicians, junior executives and office workers in the Nord �han in the Paris region. Except for primary teachers ( relatively mort numer�us In the �ord), the fractions richest in cultural capital seem under-repre_ . sented In thiS region. 3. ?u1IrierJ JpecialiJiJ: 'a �isleading term, since such workers are specialized in noth l?g except �he execUtion of one narrow, repetitive task, usually on the assembl _ hne. For rhls th9' require little rraining; rhe English term "semi-skilled" would , a very loos� � UJvalent. ; D .. L. Hanley, A. P. Kerr and N. H. Waites, Contemporary France: PolltlCJ a�d Socuty Jtnce 1945 ( London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), p. n (translator s note). 4. See P. Bourdieu et �l., Un art moyen ( Paris, Ed. de Minuit, 1%5), pp. 73-84, and P. an M. C. Bourdleu, 'Le paysan et la p horogr�phie', Revue Fran{aiJe de Sociologie, � A�nl-June 1 ?6�).' 164-174. In fact, thiS exclUSion would no doubt be much less 1 uSflfied no.w, m . vlew of the far-reaching changes which have occurred, inter alia, 10 rhe relationship betwef:n the peasantry and rhe educational system, all of them . tendmg to unify the symbolic goods market. �. I t s�ould also e noted that in the sample almost all the socio-occupational cate gones have a hlghe� average e�ucational level and higher social origin than in the INSEE surveys. I t IS not poSSible to establish exactly how far this is due to rhe high proporrion of Parisians (sec note 2, above) and how far (0 the more precise . dcfifll tlon of the categories. 6. See Bourdieu, Un art moyen. 7. The same would of course apply to the judgements in the areas of interior decora tion, clothing or cooking. It is true that the analysis (which was in fact carried our) of some particularly representative interiors might have brought out more clearly the con�r�te systemariciry <:>f th.ese �ts o� objects and of the relationships ( very clearly VISible In the non-directive interviews) which link them to other sets, such as clothing or tasres in music. But establishing the statistical regularities . presupposed develo�lng the means of systematically grasping the most significant features of each universe, and also entailed sacrificing the power to evoke the . realization of the srructure. whole wealth of each pamcular 8. To avoid treating th� effecr of variations in the measuring conditions as objective . dlffer:-nces, all rhe dlfferences in the nature of the indicators, the phrasing of the . questions, the codmg of the responses, the conditions of the survey and the struc ture of the �ample, wer: systematically taken into account. For example, in one �urvey, hunt1n� and fishmg are grouped in a single question, in another separarro mto two que�f1o.ns; educational level is coded in five clregories in one case, in seven caregoncs m another. 9. The economics of publishing made ir necessary to exclude many statistical tables (or, at least, . to re� uce rhem to synoptic presentation) and many diagrams and documents (mtervlews, photographs etc. ) which made a real contribution to the analyses. For the same reason a bibliography which, even when reduced (0 the useful and used rexts, would have been immense, is not printed here. The list of complemen �ary sources of statistical information (appendix 2 ) did, however, seem �ssentl.al, to provide the indispensable means of verification in all the many cases In whICh th� data used in the analysis could be only partially reproduced. 10. Conforama: a cham of cheap furniture stores; Guy Lux: a popular entertainer ( translator) . 1 1. Twenty-four furrher questions on photography are nor reproduced here ( see Bourdieu, Un art moyen ) . 2.
1 . I am particularly grateful to Mme. M. C. de la Godc:linais and Mr. C. Thclot for
having supplied the ( mostly unpublished) tables which were needed for second ary analysis of the INSEE surveys whose findings are used here. My thanks also go (0 Mr. P. Debreu, Mr. P. Leroux and Mr. P. Ghigliazza for generously supplying data. Use was, of course, also made of earlier surveys by the Centre de sociologie europeenne (sometimes wirh secondary analysis), such as (he survey of museum going (see P. Bourdieu and A. Darbel, L 'amour de tart [Paris, Ed. de Minuit, 1966] , the survey on students and culture (see P. Bourdieu and J. c. Passeron, The Inheritors [Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1979}) or (he survey of rhe students of the grandes ecoles. 2. These are given for each 'tax' household (foyer ) . According to the INSEE defini tion, a household (menage ) consists of all the persons living in the same dwelling occupied as main residence ('usual address' ), whatever the number of persons or their relationship to the holder of the tenure. For (ax purposes, the foyer focal is defined more narrowly: it includes the head of the household, his spouse, if any, and the persons recognized as his dependants for tax purposes, i.e., all the persons taxed together. 3. The data given here are for households (minages ). For each socio-occupational car egory, consumprion is also indicated per capita and pe r 'consumption unit'. Ac cording to the INSEE definition, (he number of consumption units in a household is found by weighting as follows: first adult 1 unit; each other adult 0.5 unit. 0.7 uni(; each child (under 1 4 ) 4 . In reviewing rhe statistical sources, rhree bibliographical tools proved particularly useful: C. Guinchat, Bibliographie analytique du loisir: Prance, 1966-1973 ( Prague, Centre europten pour les loisirs er l'education, 197�); A. Willener and P. Beaud, NoufJeJleJ tendanm de la comommation culture/Ie: verJ une troiJibnt culture (Paris and Cordes, CECMAS, 1972), which brings together quantitative data and survey findings on museums, photography, cinema, TV, music etc.; and the bibliogra phies of books and articles published each year from 1%9 ro 1973 on 'cultural de velopment and action', compiled by the research department of the Ministry of Cuhure.
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Appendix 4. Associations: A Parlour Game 1 . This sociological rest reveals a logic at work in the area of politics and images of
the social world that is entirely similar to the logic found operating in the myth ico-ritual practices of pre-capitalisr societies. It thereby demonstrates that the dear-cut distinction social science makes between 'primitive' or 'savage' rhought and 'civilized' thoughr can only be due to ignorance. 2. In 1975 these politicians occupied the following posirions: Giscard d'Esraing, President; Chirac, Prime Minister, Gaullist leader; Marchais, leader of Communist Party; Mitterrand, leader of Socialist Parry; Poniatowski, Minister of the Interior; Servan-Schreiber, leader of the Radicals (briefly a minister in 1974; author of Le deft amiricain, published in 1967 ). ( Translator'S note.) 3. In France, yellow is the colour of the strike-breaker, the 'scab'; in the 1974 presi dential campaign, Servan-Schreiber sided wirh Giscard against Mitterrand, and was rewarded wirh a ministry ( translator). 4. Servan-Schreiber's Le difi amb-icain (translator). 5. To measure the realism of this 'collective representation' one only has (Q look back at the phorograph of the Servan-Schreiber interior, near the end of chapter 5. 6. Le gendre de Momieut' Poirier is a play on rhis rheme by Emile Augier and Jules Sandeau, published in 1854 (translator) .
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7. See P. Bourdieu, Outline 0/ a Theory 0/ Practice (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1977). 8. In addition to the rabies published in Sondages, i r was possible to analyse the dis rriburions by sex, age-group and income group, but the distributions by socio-oc cupational category were not available. 9. It can be seen thar the respondents, when the series that is proposed allows them to (as it does here by offering a graduated series of pertinent symbols) , make sig. nificant connections between all the elements in the two series, instead of consid· ering only (wO or three of them-as they do in most of the other series, i n which some of the elements are only defined negatively, by elimination (e.g., lilac and carnation i n the flower series, and Chirac, or co a lesser extent Poniatowski, i n most of rhe series). This is an example of the effect inevitably produced by offer ing a finite series 0/ product! which excludes possibilities consciously or uncon sciously expected (e.g., belore in the game series or red in the colour series) and offers abstract or unreal possibilities which may attract some choices. Another ex· ample of the same effect is the acrribution of the ant to Giscard, faute de mieux; in a differem context of possibiliries, the ant-hardworking, modesr, thrifty, obsti nate and, above all, small and numerous-would rather suggest the ascetic viffues of the petite bourgeoisie as opposed to the conspicuous improvidence of the aris· tocracy and bourgeoisie. (The finite-offer effect also explains why, of the two liter· ary oppositions-the ant and the grasshopper, the fox and the crow--only the first is used with the same logic as i n the La Fontaine fable, while in the second, also because of the symbolic charge of the crow, the two elements function sepa rately. ) 10. A whole aspen of popular revolt, seen in insults, oaths and especially in truly pop ular festiviry, which has now been ousted by home enrercainments ( I am thinking of the analyses by Mikhail Bakhtin in his Rahefais and His World [Cambridge, Mass., M.I.T. Press, 19M}), works in this way, through [he logic of the Saturna lia, in which rhe usual order is turned upside down symbolically and temporarily ( 'Non semper Saturnalia erunr', said Seneca) .
Illustration Credits
Russell Lee, Farm Securiry Administration,
45; ELF-AQUITAINE, 46; Piet Mondrian,
Broadway Boogie Woogie, 1942-43. Collection, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Given anonymously, 5 1 ; Pier Mondrian, Painting I, 1926. Collection, The Mu seum of Modern Art, New York. Katherine S. Dreier Bequest, 5 1 ; Gino Severini, Dy namic Hieroglyphic o/ Ihe Bal Taharin, 1912. Collection, The Museum of Modern Art,
5 1 ; X. Lambours, Viva, 145; H. Gloaguen, Viva, 145; X. Lambours, Viva, 148; F. Hers, Viva, 148; C. Rai mond-Dityvon , Viva, 148; C. Raimond-Dityvon, Viva, 149; H. Gloaguen, Viva. 149; P. Guis, Rapho, 166; R. Doisneau, Rapho. 166; Arnaud Legrain. Viva, 166; M. Del luc. Viva, 167; C. Raimond-Dityvon, Viva. 167; P. Michaud , Rapho. 167; Air France, 19 1; ]. P. Verney. Ministere de I'Agriculture, 191; P. Bringe, Ministere de l'Agriculture, 19 1; C. Raimond-Dityvon, Viva, 1 9 1 ; Chambre de Metiers de la Meuse. 191; R. Doisneau, Rapho, 191; C. Raimond-Diryvon, Viva, 200; Prospectus de Sculp lure humaine, 2 10; Tennis-magazinelSygma, 2 10; M. Delluc, Viva, 242; Esalas Bairel. Viva, 242; A. Dagherr, Viva. 242; D. de Saim-Sauveut. Lt Figaro-Magazine, 268; Documenrarion seminate, 307; R. Doisneau, Rapho, 313; Maison el Jardin, 3 13; C. Raimond-Dityvon, Viva, 373; C. Raimond-Diryvon, Viva, 377; Y. Jeanmougin, Viva, 377; La Repllbliqlle des Pyrenm, 383; Y. ]eanmougin, Viva, 385; C. Raimond Dityvon, Viva, 385; C. Raimond-Dityvon, Viva, 455. New
York.
Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequesr,
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Index
Academic marker, 1 3 , 23, 88, 9 1 , 93, 96 Acquisition of cultural competence, 2�3, 65�66, 68, 71�72, 80, 85, 95
Adorno,
T. W.,
386
Aesthetic, 44-50, 485-488; popular aes thetic, 4-5, 32-34, 4 1 ; pure aesthetic, S; dominated aesthetic, 4 1 ; anti Kantian, 4 1 4 2 Aesthetic choices, and ethics, 283; -
286�287
Aesthetic disposition, 28-30, 50, 53-%, 263; and photography, 35, 39�40, 42; and cultural capital, 39 Aesthetic distancing, 34-35, 39-40 Ae5(hetic-in-itself, 4, 67 Aestheticism, 5 , 44, 47, 58; revolutionary, 48 Age, 16,- 106; generational conflicts, I, 296; and cinema-going, 26; bourgeois adolescents, 55; and income, 104; and educational capital, 104-105; social ageing, 1 10- 1 1 1 ; and sPOrtS, 2 1 2 , 219; and political ideology, 353-354 Alienation, 446; and being-for-others, 207; and body image, 207 Allodoxia, 142, 1 5 5 , 164, 323, 326, 327, 428, 459
Althusser, Louis, 228 Analogy, 53; to male/female differences, l82� 383
Analysis of essence, 72 Ami-intellectualism, 93, 293 Appearances, 253-2';4 Appropriation of cultural products, 23, 227�228, 230, 267, 269�270, 280�281;
material or symbolic, 228, 282-283; struggles over, 249-2';0; quality of goods, 281-282 Appropriation of economic goods, 249�250
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Aristocracy, 24, 70, 281 Aristode, 258, 489 Art, 7 , 80, 176, 254 Art dealers, 1 2 2 Art galleries, 273 Art museum, 30, 272-273 Art of living, 47�48, 57, 254, 310, 370-371
Artifice, 491 Artisrs, 3, 62, 176, 228, 239, 267, 295; appropriation of cultural goods, 282; and patrons of art, 316-317 Ascericism, 214, 219, 256, 269, 287, 3 1 7 Associations, 546-547, 552-553, 556�5W
Anributive judgemenr, 52, 473, 475-476, 479, ))6, 5 5 8
Authenticity, 74 Autodidacticism, 24, 67, 84-85, 147. 328�329
Autonomy: of production, 3, 226; of form, 30, 49; of arc works, 228 Avant-garde culture, 1 , 239, 294 Avant-garde theatre, 19, 234-235, 239 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 491 Bally, Charles, 95, 472 Barbarous taste, and pure taste, 30-32, 43�44, 178
Barches, Roland, 76 Beamy care. See Health and beauty care Being and seeming, 2 5 2 Body image, 191� 193, 380; and foods, 190; and social space, 206-208; alien ated body, 207; body-for-others, 207 Body language, 1 7 7 Borges, Jorge Luis, 258 Bourgeois, 1 2 , 19, 28, 62, 75, 9 1 , 176, 265; and dominated aesthetic, 4 1 ; shocking the bourgeois, 47-48; semi·
,
Bourgeois (Cont. ) bourgeois, 150; and survey data, 174; meals, 1%, 199; entertaining, 197; clothing, 201-202; taste, 292-294; fer tility strategies, 333. See aiJo Petite bourgeoisie Bridge game, 2 1 7 Bureaucracies, 370 Cafes, 183 Casualness, 256 Charisma, 31, 208, 390 Charm, 208 Chess game, 2 1 7 Child-rearing, 368-369 Cinema, 26-28, 32, 63, 271-272; ethics and aesthetics, 45-46 Circus, 34 Civilization, 74 Class habitus. See Habitus Class solidariry, 381, 384, 390, 394 Class struggle, 48, 1 1 3, 165, 245-246, 249-251, 254, 315-317, 4 5 1 Classical taste, 65 Classification, 466-467, 471-473, 477-478; and struggles, 479-481 Clerical workers, 122; ethics and aesthet ics, 46; and food, 180 Clothing, 187; working class use of, 200-201; bourgeois use of, 201-202;
and gender, 201-202; and counter culture, 233 Clubs, 162-163 Commercial employers, 1 1 5-1 16, 1 20, 122, 124, 263, 266-267; spending by, 184; c10rhing of, 202; and spons, 2 1 9; life-style, 30:1; newspaper reading by, 450 Commercial entrepreneurs, 123, 137 Common-sense knowledge, 22, 33, 101 Comperence, 2, 13, 23, 50, 52, 63,
65-66, 86, %, 263, 281 Comperirion: in sports, 214; over cul rural goods, 230�231 Condescension straregies, 472�473 Conditions of existence, :13�:14, 56; classes of, 101, 1 14; and habitus, 170, 172; and taste, 178; adaptation to, 246 Conformity, 331, 381�382 Connoisseurs, 66, 279�280 Conspicuous consumption, 3 1 , )) Consultancy ," I52� 15 3 Consumption of cultural goods, 1�2,
6�7, 13, 100, 280; and social spaces, 176; and production, 230, 232; man ner of, 282 Correspondence analysis, 260-261, 342 Cosmetics. !:iee Health and beauty care Counter-culture, 144, 251; and SpOTtS, 220; and clothing, 233 Craftsmen, 122, 135, 137, 141, 345-346; ethics and aesthetics, 46; newspaper reading by, 118 Credir, 163-161 Critics, 234-235, 239-240 Cultivated disposition, 13, 24 Culmral capical, 12, ')3-'54, 70, 1 14 - 1 1 5 , 261, 264; and cinema-going, 27; and aesthetic disposition, 39; and educa tional capital, 13-14, 18, 80-83, 133; and hierarchy of classes, 1 16, 120; and spores, 220; and economic capital, 303 Cultural competence. See Competence Cultural goodwill, 321, 323; of petite bourgeoisie, 352 Cultural nobility, 2 Culture, 1, 74, 99, 250; extra-curricular, 1 , 24-25, 63, 65; general, 23-25; de mocratization of, 228. See aiJO legiti
mate culture
Dannenmaier, W. D., 208 Delegation, 72 Democratization: of schooling, 143-144; of culture, 228 Derrida, Jacgues, 494-495 Detachment, 4, 6 Diachronic propenies of positions, 34:1, 346, 350, 453, 454 Diplomas, 25
Discriminatory selection, 162 Disenchantment, 144, 146 Disinterestedness, 4, 4 1 , 55-56, 254, 282; in production of culural prod uctS, 240 Dispossession, 386-387, 390; and politi cal opinion, 428 Distancing, 34-35, 39-40, 54-55, 256,
394 Doc/eJ, 69, 73-74
Domestic servams, 46, 184 Dominant class, 23-24, 57, 68-69, 114, 123, 258, 266; generational conflicts in, 1 ; taste in, 16; ethics and aesthet ics, 46; interior decoration, 78- 79; or ganisation of, 1 16; degree of closure,
. . . . . .,
120, 132; supply and demand in, 232; and symbolic struggles, 254; class fraction, 260; appropriation of cul tural products, 270, 282; and pro ducers of cultural goods, 316-317; fertility strategies, 333; and working classes, 382-383; newspaper reading by, 449-450 Dominated aesthetics, 4 1 Domination, 386, 387, 395, 396 Doxa, 471 Drama. See Theatre Duby, Georges, 470, 477 Dumezil, Georges, 470 Durkheim, Emile, 72, 80, 471
Ease, 5)' 71, 176, 255-256, ,39 Economic capital, 1 14 - 1 1 5, 263-264; and hierarchy of classes, 1 16, 120; and taste, 177-178; and educational capi tal, 287, 291; and cultural capital, 303 Economic necessity, 54-56, 177; taste for, 374-376, 378-380 Economic power, 55, 56 Economy of practices, 224 Educational capital, 12, 53, 63, 92; and cultural capital, 13-14, 18, 80-83; and competence, 23; and gratuirous knowledge, 26; and cinema-going, 26-28; and occupation, 103-104, 296-297, 301, ,03-304, 310, 315, 390; and age, 104-105; and gender, 10;; and social origin, 10\ and reproduc tion strategies, 137, 147, 1 '50; and economic capital, 287, 291; and poli cies, 407-410 Educational function of art, 49-50, 74 Educational system, 13, 23-26, 67; in vestmenr in, 120, 122; hierarchy within, 122; and mobile classes, 132-133; and cultural capital, 133; de
valuing of academic <:jualifications, 133-13), 142-143, 147, 150; democra tization of schooling, 143-144; changes in, 154-1 56; uses of, 157, 160; and auwdidacts, 328-329; and dispossession, 387, 390; opinions con cerning, 4 1 1 Elective affinities, 241 Elias, Norbert, 73, 227 Empiricism, 24 '5 Engels, J F" 177, 397 Engineers, 1 16, 124, 13\ 265; clothing of, 202; ascetic disposition of, 287;
generational conflicts, 296; newspaper reading by, 448 Enjoymem, 490-495 'Enlightened elitism,' 252 Entertaining, 197 Eternity, 72 Ethics, and aesthetics, 44-50, 283, 286-287, 370-371 Executives, 1 16, 120, 122, 124, 137, 265, 267, 351; ethics and aesthetics, 46; food purchases by, 185; clothing of, 202; and SpOTtS, 219; ascetic disposi tion of, 287; generational conflicts, 296; life-style of, 305; newspaper read ing by, 448, 450 Expectations of audiences, 2 39-240 Experience, 68, 74-76; l ived experience, 100 Extra-curricular cuirure, 1, 24-25, 63; and social origin, 65
Fair play, 2 1 5 Family heirlooms. See Inheritance Farm laborers and farmers, 1 14, 124, 1)5, 137 Fashion, 378 Females. See Gender Femininity, 191-192 Fertility strategies, 331-332, 337-338 Fetishism, 250 Flauberr, Gustave, 254 Flying, 2 1 8 Folk dancing, 58 Foods, 79, 177; arritudes towards eating and drinking, 179�180, 183; expendi tures on, 184-185, 187, 190, 199-200;
gender and eating habits, 18:5-187, 190-192, 195; and body image, 190; working-class meals, 194-195, 197; bourgeois meals, 196, 199 Form and substance, 253 Formalism, 33-34; bourgeois, 196-197, 199, 201; in sPOrtS, 220 Francastcl, Pierre, 68 Freedom, 24, 254-2:15; working-class, 194-195, 197, 201; in sports, 220 Frivolity, 74 Furnishings, 77-79 Future social ascension, 346 Future, planning for, 180, 183 Games of culture, 12, 54, 250-2:51, 330 Gastronomy, 68 Gautier, Jean-Jacgues, 240
O I U I maex Gender, 107- 108; and photogenic object judgements, 39-40; and music recog nition, 63; and educational capital, 105; and occupation, 108; and devalu ing of academic qualifications, 133-134; and earing habits, 185-187, 190-192, 195; and clothing, 201-202; analogy to male/female differences, 382-383; and personal opinion, 402-405; and politics, 406-407, 410 General culture, 23-25 Genet, Jean, 33 Geographical space, and social distance, 124 Gide, Andre, 4 1 5 Gombrich, E. H., 50, 227 Goodwill, cultural, 321, 323; of petite bourgeoisie, 352 Gramsci, Antonio, 386 Gratuirous knowledge, and educational capital, 26 Greco, Pierre, 463
Intellectual taste, 292-294 lmellectuals, 12, 62, 176, 228, 239; right-wing and Jeft-wing, 12, 292-293; appropriation of cultural products, 270, 282; and patrons of art, 316-317; art of living, 370-371; and working-class condition, 372-374 Imenrion, 3; of observer, 30; aesthetic, 47; artistic, 52 Interior decoration, 77-79 Imolerance, 56-57 Imuitionism, 20 lnvesrmem sense, 85-88, 142, 249
Habitus, 101-102, 109, 114, 142, 170, 260, 372-374, 466-467; production of, 123; and conditions of existence, 170, 172; and life-styles, 172-173; and political opinions, 437-440 Halbwachs, Maurice, 250 Health and beauty care, 179-HW, 184, 202, 378; and foods, 190; of petite bourgeoisie, 206; of working classes, 206 Hedonism, 180, 183, 394; and sports, 219 Hegel, G. W. F , 488 Hierarchies of legitimacy, 86-88, 93 High-society market, 88-89 Hisrory of an, 4 Homology: between social spaces, 175, 208; in production/consumption, 232-233, 241 Hosting occupations, 1 52 Humane and humanitarian tasks and feelings,' 40
Labour market, 224-225. See a/Jo Occu pations Langer, Suzanne, 3 1 Language, 176-177, 194, 226-227, 3 3 1 , 476; linguistic ease, 255; political, 459-465 Larbaud, Valery, 228 Legitimate culture, 26, 28 Leibniz, G. W. von, 466 Leisure activities, 179-180 Libraries, 273 Life-style, 101, 124, 170, 193, 208, 258, 283; and habitus, 172-173; and taste, 173-175; indicators of, 263; of new bourgeoisie, 304-305, 309-3 1 1 , 314-315 Linear thinking, 107, 126 Literary Cjuotation, 73 Lived experience, 100 Love, 243-244 Lower middle class, 44-47 Luxury goods and activities, 55, 278-282, 287
Idealization, 58 Income. See Economic capital Industrialists, 1 1 5-1 16, 120, 122, 124, 135, 137, 263, 266-267; spending by, 184; clothing of, 202; life-style of, 30'); newspaper reading by, 448, 450 Inheritance, 19, 76-78, 80-83, 26'); and social class trajectories, 1 1 0
Kant, Immanuel, 5, 42, 74, 466, 486-490, 492-494, 498; Kantian and ami-Kanrian aesthetic, 5, 41-42 Kantarovitch, H., 72 Kitsch, 62, 282 Knowledge, 68, 74-76, 470; gratuitous, 26; of culture, 318-319, 330; and au rodidacts, 329
Males. See Gender Manners, 66, 68-72, 91, 9') Manual workers: ethics and aesthetics, 46; and food, 180; clothing of, 201; fertility strategies of, 333 Marital status, and social class, 108-109 Markets, 65, 85-86, 9')-%, 1 1 3; aca-
demic and non-academic, 13, 23, 88, 91, 93, %; high-society, 88-89; toy market, 223-224; labour market, 224-225 Married couples, homogeneiry of, 241, 24 3 Marx, Karl, 178-179, 2 5 1 , 280, 397, 467 Mass production, 386 Materialism, 394 Medical and social services, 123 Melodrama, 34 Mere, Chevalier de, 70 Meritocracy, 291, 303 Michelat, G., 439 Middle class, 1 1 1- 1 1 2, 122-123; (asre of, 16; and popular aesrheric, 32; and sig nificance of objects, 43; ethics and aesthetics, 44-47 Middle-brow culture, 323, 325, 327 Middle-brow raste, 16, 58, 60, 267 Misappropriarion, 431 MondamJ, 69-70, 73-74 Morality: of pefite bourgeoisie, 352-353, 367-369; and demoralization, 384; and politics, 432-437 Museums, 30, 272-273 Music, 16, 18-19; knowledge of com posers, 13-14, 63, 89; inner music, 19; songs and singers, 60-61, 83; playing of musical instrument, 75-76; concert-going, 272-273 Naivety, ,), 62 Natural feelings, 40 Natural taste, 67, 68, 74 Newcomers, 19 Newspaper reading, 2 1 , 234, 417; and political opinions, 440-444, 446-451 Nietzsche, F. W., 177, 2">2, 4 1 4 Noblesse oblige, 24 Nostalgia, 58 Objectification, 12, 85, 100, 208, 227, 239 Objectified philosophy, 496-497 Objective class, 101 Objectivism, 244 Occupations, 106; and educational capi tal, 103-104, 296-297, 301, 303-304, 310, 315, 390; and gender, 108; stabil ity of groups, 137, 141; changing na ture of, 1')0-1 '52; representational, 152 Office workers, 104, 1 14, 13'), 34�, 351;
f
..
.
food purchases by, 180, 185; clothing of, 201; fenility strategies of, 332-333; newspaper reading by, 447-448 Opera, 272 Opinion. See Personal opinion; Ques tionnaIres Ortega y Gasset, Jose, 4, 31-32 Painting, 14, 16, 20, 75, 269 Panofsky, Erwin, 2, 29-30 Patrons of an, 316-317 Peer-group pressure, 26 Personal opinion, 398-402, 405, 4 1 1 , 414-417; and gender, 402-405; pro duction of, 417-426 Personality, 281 Petite bourgeoisie, 14, 40, 48, 57-58, 79, 91, 123, 365; declining, 61, 265-266, 346, 350-351; new, 61, 265-266, 354, 357-363, 365-369, 553; pretensions of, 62, 294, 362; health and beauty care, 206; life-style of new bourgeoi sie, 304-305, 309-31 1 , 314-315; rev erence for culture, 321, 323; and middle-brow culture, 326-327; seri ousness of, 330-3 31; fertility strate gies of, 331, 337-338; upward mobility of, 333, 337-338; taste of, 339, 341-343; executam, 35 1-354; and personal opinion, 415-416 Philosophy, 496-497 Photography, 32, 58; and aesthetic dis position, 35, 39-40, 42; ethics and aesthetics, 44-47 Physical properties, 384; occupational profit from, 1 ')2-153 Piaget, Jean, 80 Pirandello, Luigi, 33 Place of residence, 10'), 1 16 Pleasure, 367-368, 490-49\ 498-499 Political space, 4')1, 453 Politics, 48, 109, 291, 397-398, 4 1 1 , 414; and social class, 1 1 1 , 427-428, 440; and age, 353-354; interest or in difference towards, 405-407; and gender, 406-407, 410; and educa tional capital, 407�410; and dispos session, 428; and morality, 432-437; and habitus, 437-440; and newspa pers, 440-444, 446-4') 1 ; trajectory ef fect, 453-459; and language, 459-46� Poppet, Karl, 228 Popular aestheric, 32
Popular taste, 16 Popularization, 323, 326 Populism, 374 Pornocracy, 48 Positivism, 20, 94 Practical perceptions, 29 Precocity, 70 Preferences, 13, 19, 261 Presentation, 184, 202, 206; and sports, 214
Pretension, 14, }O, 62, 251-253, 294, 381-382; of petite bourgeoisie, 62, 294, 362
Production of cultural goods, 1 2 , 20, 2 3 1 ; and consumption, 230, 232; and taste, 2 3 1 , 241; and social class, 233-234; and audience expectations, 239-240; servility in, 240; sincerity in, 240; and dominant class, 316317
Profane and sacred, 6-7, 19 Professionals, 102-103, 1 14, 122, 264, 266-267; spending by, 184; food pur chases by, 18), 190; and spons, 219; generational conAic(s, 296; newspaper reading by, 448 Profundity, 74 Programme of cultivation, 67 Proselytism, 228, 370 Proudhon, P_ J, 48-49, 2 5 1 Proust, Marcel, 2 1 , 53, 97, 173, 485, 498-499
Psychoanalysis, 367, 369 Pure gaze, 3-4 Pure taste, 486-488; and barbarous taste, 30-32, 43-44, 178
Purity, 176, 254 Questionnaires, 95, 194; and personal opinions, 399-402, 405; methodology of, 503-518 Rapaport, Anwl, 259 Reading matter, 1 16. 5ee a/Jo Newspaper reading Reality of representation, 482-484 Recognition, 3 1 9 Reconversion strategies, 1 2 5 , 1 3 1 , 133, 135, 137, 147, 150, 157
References, 52-53 Religious opinions, and social class, I I I Representation, 43-44, 72, 184, 253; of realiry, 482-484 Representational occupations, 1 5 2 Revolutionary aestheticism, 48
Righr to speak, 4 1 1-414 Riviere, Jacques, 173 Sacred and profane, 6, 7, 19 Sanre, Jean-Paul, 207, 243 Saussure, F. de, 247 Scholastic culture, 23, 65, 68-70, 73 Scholem, Gershom, 85 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 487 Sculpture, 7 5 Selection, 162 Self-control, 40 Self-employed sector, 264 Self-esteem, 25, 142 Self-image, 25 Seniority, 70 Seriousness, 5, 54, 57, 74, 330-331 Servants, domestic, 46, 184 Servility, in production of cultural prodUCtS, 240 Sex. 5ee Gender Sexuality, 367-368 Shopkeepers, 123, 135, 137, 1 4 1 , 345-346; ethics and aesthetics, 46; newspaper reading by, 448 Significance, 2 2 'Significanrness,' 22 Simon, M., 439 Sincerity, 43; in production of cultural products, 240 Skilled and semi-skilled workers, 1 1 4- 1 1 5
Social age, 233 Social capital, 1 1 4 Social change, 1 5 6 Social class, 103-104, 106-108; and taste, 2, 6; legitimating social differ ences, 7; and marital status, 108-109; trajectory effect, 109- 1 1 2, 1 2 3 - 1 24, 147, 264-26�; and religious opinions, 1 1 1 ; and political opinions, 1 1 1 , 427-428, 440; and geographical dis· tance, 124; downclassing, 147, 1 5 0- 1 5 1 , 163-164; upclassing, 163-164; and sports, 2 1 4 - 2 1 5 , 2 1 7 -220; and production of cultural goods, 233-234. See alJo Habitus Social compatibilities and incompatibilities, 241, 243 Social conditioning, 1 0 1 Social mobility, 1 3 1 - 1 3 3 Social origin, 1 , 12-13, 63, 75, 77-78, 92, 265-266; and extra-curricular cul ture, 65; and educational capital, 105 Social science, 467-468
,
Social space, 169, 266, 343-345, 473; i n ternalization of, 175; homology be· rween spaces, 175, 208; and culrural consumption, 176; and body image, 206-208; and theatre, 234; as objec tive space, 244-245 Social structures, 467-471 Social uses, 18, 20-21, 49; and aesthetic judgements, 42-43 Social value, 21 Socialization, 474-475 Soul, 254 Spectacles, 34, 58 Spinoza, Baruch, 228 Spirituality, 19, 3 1 7 SpOrts, 20, 93, 209; functions of, 2 1 1 - 2 1 2 ; and competition, 214; team and individual, 2 1 4 - 2 1 5 , 2 1 7 ; and fair play, 2 1 5 ; and social class, 2 1 ) , 2 1 7 -220; and cultural capical, 220; freedom and formalism, 220 'Stand-in,' 24 Statistical analysis, 22, 40, 94, 103, 557; statistical data, 525-545 Stratification, 245 Stylistic characterizations, 50, 52 Srylization of life, 5), 57, 174, 1 76, 376 Subjectivism, 244 Subsrantialism, 22 Substitution industry, 365 Superficiality, 74 Supply and demand, 230-232, 2 4 1 Supply side, 223 Survey data, 174, 245-246, 258; method ology, 503-'H8; complementary sources, 519-524 Symbolic capital, 291 Symbolization, 72 Synchronic propenies of positions, 34�, 453
Tabard, Nicole, 178 Taste, 1 , 7, 99, 174-175, 247, 466, 474; and social class, 2, 6; popular taste, 16; legitimate, 16, 56-57, 7 1 ; middle brow, 16, 58, 60, 267; barbarous and pure tastes, 30-32, 43-44, 178; and distaste, 56-57; classical, 65; and life· styles, 173-175; and economic capial, 177-1 78; and conditions of existence, 178; and production of cultural goods, 2 3 1 , 241; bourgeois taste, 292-294; inrellectual taste, 292-294; petit-bourgeOis taste, 339, 341-343; for necessity, 374-376, 378-380; pure
taste, 486-488; of reflection, 489-491 ; of sense, 489-491 Taste-maker, 91, 2 5 � Teachers, 1 1 5 � 1 l6, 120, 1 2 2 - 1 2 3 , 1 3 5 , 264-265, 267; ethics and aesthetics, 46; spending by, 184; food purchases by, 185; clothing of, 202; and spons, 219; appropriation of cultural prod. ucts, 272-273; ascetic disposition of, 287; newspaper reading by, 448 Technical objects, 29 Technicians, 83-84, 122, 304; ethics and aesthetics, 46; middle-brow taste of, 58; newspaper reading by, 447 Television, 33 Theatre, 19, 32, 1 16, 120, 269; and so· cial space, 234; boulevard and experi· mental, 19, 234-235, 239 Theorists, 245 Thumin, F. J, 208 Time, 7 1 -72, 281-282 Tides, 22-26, 1 6 1 Toy market, 223, 224 Travelling space, 169 Trickle·down effect, 232 Ubiquity, 72 Unskilled workers, 1 1 4 Utopia, 397 Value of culture, 250 Values, 247 Virility, 192, 384; and foods, 190-192 Visible and invisible, in clorhing expen· ditures, 201 Wealth, indicators of, 116, 1 2 7 . 5ee a/50 Economic capital Weber, Max, <)5, 174 Woolf, Virginia, 3)' 444 Working classes, 57, 1 1 4; taste in, 16; and popular aesthetic, 32-33; and dominated aesthetic, 4 1 ; and signifi cance of objects, 43; ethics and aes· thetics, 44-47; and educational system, 143-144; meals, 190, 194-195, 197; entertaining by, 197; clothing of, 200-201; health and beauty care, 206; fertility strategies of, 332; and intellectuals, 372-374; and dominant class, 382-383; newspaper reading by, 447 'Working wives,' 178 Yeats, William Butler, 227
Distinction is at once a vast ethnography of contemporary France
and a dissection of the bourgeois mind. Bourdieu's subject is the study of culture, and his objective is most ambitious: to provide an answer to the problems raised by Kant's Critique ofJudgment by showing why no judgment of taste is innocent. "A
complex, rich, intelligent book. It will provide the historian of the future with priceless materials and it will bring an essential con tribution to sociological theory." - Fernand Braudel "One of the more distinguished contributions to social theory and research in recent years . . . There is in this book an account of culture, and a methodology of its study, rich in implication for a diversiry offields ofsocial research. The work in some ways redefines the whole scope of cultural studies." - Anthony Giddens, Partisan Review "A book of extraordinary intelligence."
- Irving Louis Horowitz, Commonweal
"Bourdieu's analysis transcends the usual analysis of conspicuous consumption in two ways: by showing that specific judgments and choices matter less than an esthetic outlook in general and by show ing, moreover, that the acquisition of an esthetic outlook not only advertises upper-class prestige but helps to keep the lower orders in line. In other words, the esthetic world view serves as an instrument of domination. It serves the interests not merely of staniS but of power. It does this, according to Bourdieu, by emphasizing individ uality, rivalry, and 'distinction' and by devaluing the weU-being of - Christopher Lasch, I0gue society as a whole." Pierre Bourdieu was Professor of Sociology at the College de France. Paris.
ISBN
0-674-21277-0
