Reactionary alert. Bourdieu's argument means that the bureaucratic and practical marginalization of the humanities, along with the articulation of ever finer social gradations among them _increases_ their cultural capital--especially the "successful" ones. "Freddy J" of the phat trax is elite precisely because he presides over a field that is a. fiercely competitive (because oversupplied and managed according to admin dictates of "cost effectiveness"), and b. positioned as useless to techno-scientific purposes.
The world-system is
> *complicated*: 6 billion people, hundreds of countries, thousands of
> languages, a vast and complex tapestry of class struggle, etc. One needs
> concepts capable of taking on the complexity of the total system, is all,
> and Jameson is delivering them. If you have questions about concepts, then
> ask them, but blanket condemnations of intellectuals for being
> intellectuals won't wash.
"I write badly because the world is complicated." As if tortured syntax were some sign of your elective affinity with the complexity of the world. Taking on the total system? Right. As if the kidz at Seattle and Prague were walking around with copies of _The Geopolitical Aesthetic_ in their backpacks. "Intellectuals being intellectuals?" Yeah, but only if theory jargon is the new jargon of authenticity: but Mom, I _have_ to sound urbane and tortured, else I won't get tenure!
Christian