Distinctions

Kelley kwalker2 at gte.net
Sun Jul 29 19:21:04 PDT 2001


At 04:07 PM 7/29/01 -0700, Dennis Robert Redmond wrote:
>On Sun, 29 Jul 2001, Kelley wrote:
>
> > aesthetic theory isn't what he is up to. he's interested in the
> foundations
> > of social theory, in reconstructing historical materialism, in social
> > science metatheoretics, in moral theory and in culture in terms of of
> > socialization.
>
>And how do you theorize this without a theory of aesthetics? Consumerism,
>in its broadest sense -- shopping, marketing, TV, sports, media,
>broadcasting, the logo on the coffee cup -- is the biggest, baddest,
>boldest industry of them all in late capitalism. This is like trying to
>explain the computer industry while leaving out the history of CPUs.

foundations of social theory, reconstructing historical materialism to account for human as communicators and not just laborers, and social science metatheoretics can all nicely be pursued without a theory of aesthetics. moral theory seems largely capable of carrying on without it too, since, well, unless you're a metaphysician, most philosophers generally stick with moral theory OR aesthetic theory. the last person i read who dealt with the good, the true and the beautiful was Justus Buchler, a little known american pragmatist. last i heard, metaphysics was dead!

as for culture, well, yep, he's interested in other aspects of culture that have to do with citizenship, social movements.


> > he's after the ways in which selves are related to others,
> > to institutions and practices and the social. bourdieu's theory does not
> > account for the latter as far as i know.
>
>Nonsense. Bourdieu is intensely concerned with institutions, institutional
>power and the violence done to subjects by those institutions;
>"Distinction" is a magisterial analysis of the 1970s French consumer
>culture, which shows how class identity is defined through this complex
>web of cultural readings, tastes, and distinctions; his later works
>broaden this out into a theory of art-production ("Rules of Art", and the
>notion of aesthetic and cultural capital) and state formation ("The
>Nobility of the State", and the notion of political and symbolic capital).

the part you snipped out was the "latter" where i mention "socialization". but, bad para construction on my part. apologies.

bourdieu has undertheorized the micro-politics of learning involved in the acquisition of a habitus. he needs a social-psychology, iow. bourdieu could certainly be supplemented by various social-pscyhologies. this failure on his part is somewhat devasting to his theory since he wants to avoid structuralism, but doesn't quite do so because there is a "black box" _still_ between the selves and habitus. in my own work, for ex, i have to draw on social psych and the Birmingham school to deal with what Bourdieu inadequately addresses, particularly since without reverting to other theories, i cannot explain the resistance or failure of those who reject the values of their habitus. (see e.g., Jay MacLeod in _Ain't No Makin It_)

a failure to study consumerism is hardly devastating or, at least, i think you would have to actually go further and demonstrate that it is, rather than assert this.

kelley



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