The book by Pierre Bourdieu under the title of Distinction has a detailed explanation of the distinction as a social critique of the judgement of taste. The use of the term taste in the book is the ability to differentiate and appreciate or a way of developing differences by a process of distinction. Taste gives the mastery of distributions that enable people to sense the likelihood of things happening to an individual occupying a certain position in social space. Taste is a social orientation that guides the occupants of a given region towards the social positions in line with their properties and towards the practices that benefit from the position.
Chapter eight of the textbook deals with culture and politics and has various themes discussed under it. In the current society, there are no politicians, but there are those who engage in politics among other activities. It is important to consider whether political sense can have an expression of truth in a way that corresponds to it as well as having it in practice. In that case, politics will become the central part of conscious and mobilizing power of explicit statement and collective action. The views about politics vary significantly by age, sex, level of education, occupation, region of residence, and the political tendency. The major themes identified in the chapter are; selective democracy, status and competence, class consciousness, the right to express oneself, morality and politics. Others include; disposition and misappropriation, moral order and political order, and political space.
Selective democracy dwells on the idea that that the people’s opinions do not necessarily matter, and the information provided depend on certain preferences. Certain opinion polls may give conditional outcomes that occur on condition that another eventuality occurs. Thus, there may be no response from the concerned groups, but still particular outcomes prevail. It is common in the current trend in the society where opinions from certain people are more important than others.
In politics, the social status is a significant aspect of the opinions given. The likelihood of a participant replying depends on the relationship between the situation and the agent in the poll scenarios. The issue of status and competence are evident in politics. The interest in politics also varies across gender and men have the greatest interest. Other factors are age, social hierarchy, educational level, and the size of the region represented. The differences that exist in the non-responses by gender, education level, and the social class show that people with a social recognition capacity demonstrate political competence.
In politics, the right to speak is essential even in the simple way of giving a yes or no response or by use of structured answers. The right to speak in the political matters depends on the level of education of the people represented. Education ensures that citizens can take part in elections as a way of airing their voices politically. Voting ensures equal participation in electoral democracy. Another theme generated is the ability to make personal opinions. Education and the media reinforce the ability to make the personal opinions. In addition, some social conditions produce the ability to give personal opinions. The common methods of producing opinions are through the class ethos, system of political principles, and the identification of the answers that are consistent with the political party. The relationship between the social class and political opinions varies by the social class.
Another theme identified is moral and political order. In the opinions that regard political issues the moral attributes of an individual plays a role in the responses given. Some may end up only providing responses on the basis of political stands and not through moral principles. The last aspect is a political space that shows the various class segments distributed in relation to one another.
‘Agency and Experience: Gender as a Lived Relation: Lois McNay.’
The book focuses on Feminism after Bourdieu, but the specific section under study is on agency and experience. McNay discusses gender as a lived relation to a number of themes. Gender is a structural location that prevails both in materialist and cultural thoughts. The author argues that the issue of experience is important for an agency and requires an understanding in relational terms. The chapter has diverse views about the experience that treats gender identity as a lived social relation.
The issues identified in the text are determinism and agency, the problem of experience, Butler and Bourdieu on performance, phenomenology of social space, and gender as a lived relation. One of the main themes identified in the text is cultural models. The feminist political theory lies between materialist and cultural analysis. Cultural models try to evaluate the interconnections between the material and power relations. The major setback with the cultural models is that they are not historical by disconnecting the issues of identity recognition to the economic resources. However, the model provides an understanding to racism and sexism. In capitalism, markets have a unique way of operation and not controlled by culture. As such, they result in economic inequalities.
Another major theme identified is oppression whose analysis is through exploitation, marginalisation, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence. Both material and symbolic power relations are linked, but none can operate in dominance. The main argument is that individuals act differently in certain situations. No one can get agency from the basic social structures. It depends on the ability of an individual to reflect upon and evaluate themselves and their capacity for action.
Experience is an issue that reinforces the interplay between objectivity and subjectivity. Experience has a close relation to emotion, and each feminist specifies experience in own way. Thus, it is more of feelings, emotions, the person, and personality. The idea of experience tends to develop an arguably tendentious unity among women. Experience is a subject of history. In the process of making experience visible, it reveals the effect of silence and repression in the marginalized groups.
In the understanding of the changes in sexual practices and gender norms, the idea of agency requires a second thought around some non-reductive idea of experience. The theory of agency is helpful in developing the understanding of gender as a lived social relation. The understanding of the idea of urgency can be thought of in regard to Butler and Bourdieu, who focus on the efficacy of a performative speech act. Butler disagrees with Bourdieu in the concepts of habitus. Butler assesses the problem of determinism that is inherent in Bourdieu’s understanding of symbolic violence of performative speech acts. The two differ in the methods of developing the concept of urgency to apply in the connections between discursive and material power relations.
Questions posed from the themes identified
- After reading the book by Pierre Bourdieu (1984) Distinction, what is your understanding concerning the themes identified? (Selective democracy, status and competence, freedom of expression, ability to make personal opinions, and moral and political order.)
- The section by McNavy, “urgency experience,” in the book by Adkins, Lisa, and Beverley Skeggs discusses various ideas about the issues of feminism, gender, determinism and agency, and cultural models. Give a detailed account of the issues identified in the text laying an emphasis on the main themes.
References
Adkins, Lisa & Beverley Skeggs, Feminism after Bourdieu. Boston: Blackwell Pub., 2005.
Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction (1984), Ch. 8, 398-467
If you need a similar paper you can place your order from research paper services.
