Bourdieu and the Bloggernacle: Distinction from ‘Vulgar’ Mormonism
And the people began to be distinguished by ranks, according to their riches and their chances for learning; yea, some were ignorant because of their poverty, and others did receive great learning because of their riches… And thus there became a great inequality in all the land, insomuch that the church began to be broken up. – 3 Ne. 6:12, 14
Distinction is based upon a massive survey which Bourdieu and his assistants administered in Paris during the 1960’s regarding the impact of people’s economic and educational backgrounds upon their tastes in kinds of food, quantity of food, table manners, dress, posture, vocabulary, accents, stores, furniture, wall décor, entertainment, singers, instruments, reading material, politics, etc. This amount of empirical research sets him apart from most other critical theorists with which he tends to be associated. That said, the specific context in which this data was gathered does place certain limitations upon the extent to which his results can be generalized to today’s American culture in which I currently find myself. Indeed, Bourdieu fully acknowledges that aesthetic tastes evolve across time and place in never-ending quest for distinction.
The figures (below, treat the two images as if they were connected) present a large portion of the (again, massive) information gleaned from his survey. The chart is organized along two dimensions. Horizontal positions range from those on the left, whose cultural-to-economic capital ratio is very high, to those on the right, whose cultural-to-economic capital ratio is very low. Vertical positions indicate the amount of combined capital associated with the people and lifestyles found there. Thus, at the very bottom, we find (in black writing) unskilled workers and individual farmers. Moving upward to the right, we find farm laborers, shopkeepers on up to commercial/industrial employers (capitalists). Starting again at the bottom and moving upward toward the left, we basically rise through the hierarchy of cultural guardians – primary, secondary and higher-education teachers. Upward through the middle of the diagram, we find foremen, office workers, technicians on up to executives and professionals (lawyers, doctors, etc.). The chart also includes several arrows that depict the historical trajectory of various professions through this social space.
Within this same taxonometric map, we also find (in grey writing) various lifestyles associated with these locations in social space. At the bottom, we find a preference for public dances, football, potatoes, bread, bacon and the highest birthrates (sounds pretty Mormon to me). To the left, we find yoga, libraries, ceramics, trekking and jazz music. On the right, is car magazines, love stories, hunting, sparkling wines and popular music (the Beatles). Finally, at the top-center, is opera, piano, golf, tennis and antique shops. Attached below is a slightly simplified map which includes the political leaning associated with various positions in high chart.
Finally, one can also find histograms that indicate the vertical position of the respondents’ parents (the dark bar=high capital, grey=medium and white=low). These graphics demonstrate the strong correlation (aka lack of inter-generational mobility) between our parents’ social class, the tastes and lifestyles that they teach us, and the options that these tastes and lifestyles open and close for us. Put bluntly, hierarchies in taste are the means by which we self-stratify ourselves and each other into “higher” and “lower” classes, both culturally and economically speaking.
By placing some lifestyles and tastes above others, we openly acknowledge that such people ought to have a disproportionate share of social influence and/or economic goods and services. (‘Sociodicy’ – a play on ‘theodicy’ – is Bourdieu’s rather catchy word for this process.) All such strivings for “distinction”, then, are strategies by which we attempt to marshal and legitimize the largest share possible of social/economic resources for ourselves to the exclusion and marginalization of our competitors:
The most intolerable thing for those who regard themselves as the possessors of legitimate culture is the sacrilegious reuniting of tastes which taste dictates shall be separated. This means that the games of artists and aesthetes and their struggles for the monopoly of artistic legitimacy are less innocent than they seem. At 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 arts every other way of living into arbitrariness. (Pg. 57)
From this perspective, the Bloggernacle is a cultural field in which bloggers and readers alike seek to stratify themselves within the larger LDS community – church authorities included. As such, it is a means whereby they seek to transform their own, chosen interests and preferences in intellectual/cultural consumption into the (one and only) legitimate way of being Mormon. (High Nibley’s rants in Approaching Zion would be a smoking gun, had it been published within the Bloggernacle.) We thus seek distinction from the “‘popular’, ‘low’, ‘vulgar’, ‘common’” members that populate the traditional LDS ward. (pg. 251)
The flipside of this is that we also seek moral validation from those who share our contempt for this “vulgar” Mormonism. There is, then, a strong parallel between those who seek solidarity in their shared distaste for (aka boredom/frustration with) what they find in church meetings: conservative politics, a lack of “depth” or “rigor” in class discussions, or any other lack of “higher” or “deeper” cultural refinement. Quoting Proust, Bourdieu claims that:
‘A sort of egoistic self-regard is inevitable in these mingled joys of art and erudition…’ Cultivated pleasure feeds on these intertwined references, which reinforce and legitimate each other, producing … the ‘idolatry’ which is the very basis of cultivated pleasure… Those whom Proust calls ‘the aristocracy of intellect’ know how to mark their distinction in the most peremptory fashion by addressing to the ‘elite’, made up of those who can decipher them, the discreet but irrefutable signs of their membership of the ‘elite’ (like the loftiness of emblematic references, which designate not so much sources or authorities as the very exclusive, very select circle of recognized interlocutors… (pg. 499)
By lacking the proper vocabulary, accents and idioms, an “outsider” marks their own judgement as one not worth struggling and striving for. Consequently, by wielding a coded language, us Mormon bloggers pre-select our audiences, thereby isolating ourselves from the potential criticism that we might otherwise receive from 1) non-Mormons, 2) “vulgar” Mormons and, 3) most importantly, Mormon authorities whose credentials count for little within the cultural field. (Indeed, membership within the cultural elite is seen as a sign of “proper” church authority.)
This tendency for cultural elites to pre-select their own critics through a coded language (Gouldner discusses this code at length in his Dialectic of Ideology and Technology) applies equally to painters, poets, scientists, philosophers – indeed, any member of a community which is dedicated to art, science, writing, etc. “for it’s own sake”. The following passage describes with remarkable accuracy the disdain with which academics within the ‘nacle dismiss the criticisms of apologists, or evolutionary biologists dismiss creationists, or Biblical scholars resent their not being consulted for the BYU religion curriculum, etc.:
The sense of distinction … is affirmed not so much in the manifestos and positive manifestations of self-confidence as in the innumerable stylistic or thematic choices which … exclude all the forms of intellectual (or artistic) activity regarded at a given moment as inferior – vulgar objects, unworthy references, simple didactic exposition, ‘naive’ problems (naïve essentially because they lack philosophical pedigree), ‘trivial’ questions… and so on. In short, the philosophical sense of distinction is another form of the visceral disgust at vulgarity which defines pure taste as an internalized social relationship… (Pg. 499)
He makes the application to philosophers even more explicit with language that is reminiscent of Kuhn:
The radical questionings announced by philosophy are in fact circumscribed by the interests linked to membership in the philosophical field, that is, to the very existence of this field and the corresponding censorships. The field is the historical product of the labour of the successive philosophers who have defined certain topics as philosophical by forcing them on commentary, discussion, critique and polemic; but the problems, theories, themes or concepts which are deposited in writings considered at a given moment as philosophical (books, articles, essay topics, etc.) and which constitute objectified philosophy impose themselves as a sort of autonomous world on would-be philosophers, who must not only know them, as items of culture, but recognize them, as objects of (pre-reflexive) belief, failing which they disqualify themselves as philosophers. All those who profess to be philosophers have a life-or-death interest, qua philosophers, in the existence of this repository of consecrated texts, a mastery of which constitutes the core of their specific capital. (Pg. 496)
In summary, the following claim that Bourdieu makes regarding aesthetic discourse generalizes to any field of cultural production/consumption, including, but not limited to theology, science, philosophy, apologetics, poetry, etc.:
What is at stake in aesthetic discourse, and in the attempted imposition of a definition of the genuinely human, is nothing less than the monopoly of humanity. Art is called upon to mark the difference between humans and non-humans… (Pg. 491)
In summary, there is a strong tendency for people within the dominating and dominated classes to equate “high” culture with “true” culture. Things are no different within the Mormon community. The question, then, is where can one find “high” Mormon culture: at General Conference or Sunstone Symposia; Sunday school or Times and Seasons? Is going outside the “cookie-cutter” lesson manuals an integral part of “true” Mormonism? What influence do we hope/demand our western cultural hierarchy to have over the hierarchy of priesthood authority?
In the end, I can’t help but suspect that our attempt at seeking cultural distinction from mainstream members is exactly what 3 Nephi was warning us about. I noted above the significant overlap between the lowest class and some aspects of Mormon culture. The stronger this overlap, the stronger the temptation will be for us to distance ourselves from that culture. It is when the judgments of that culture – both those of its leaders and of its followers – no longer seem worth striving for that we are in danger of breaking off from the church.
Edit – Here are a few points that might help pull the post together a little better:
1) This post is about cultural consumption, not cultural production. It thus serves as of an indictment of readers and commenters within the Bloggernacle more than the authors of posts. Here, I’m pitting Bourdieu against our “preferences” and “tastes” in gospel discussion styles and topics, these being far less innocent that we often believe or claim them to be.
2) The original disciples were mocked not only, or even primarily, for their poverty, but for their unrefined accents, illiteracy and general lack of enculturation. So often, especially within intellectual circles, we are so focused on those who would place themselves above us economically or within the church hierarchy, that we are completely blind to the ways in which we ourselves position ourselves above others, culturally speaking. When we dismiss, roll our eyes at or actively avoid the “boring, cookie cutter” SS lessons or when we get upset that church leaders who have no biological training or credentials speak out on evolution, we become no different that those who mocked and rejected the 12 disciples. Cultural stratifications are just as corrosive to gospel unity as economic inequality.
3) It should come as no surprise that those who are high in cultural capital complain about cultural inequality about as much as those with high economic capital complain about economic inequality. Both groups tend to see their own disproportionate stock of capital as innocent, deserved or otherwise “legit”. If anything, the former group within the church is much more likely to complain that their own, cultural capital is not given its proper recognition and respect within the church and its leadership.
4) Next post, I should make the difference between cultural capital and symbolic capital a bit clearer. While Jesus and his 12 disciples had no economic or cultural capital, they still claimed and wielded an immense amount of symbolic capital, this being the ability to decide for or otherwise persuade others which kinds of capital are more “legitimate” than others. Basically, the symbolic capital which Jesus wielded allowed him to say that economic and cultural capital counted for nothing in the kingdom of God. Knowing more languages, painters, composers or philosophers than the next person does not make you more “human” than they are.
I’m glad you are bringing in the economics. I think you are minimizing the difference between where the leadership is on this and where the people are. What has been happening is the traditional LDS leaders (business people, educators, lawyers and doctors) have been moving towards cultural capital and away from economic capital. The big changes are between the leaders (collectively) and the non-leaders more than between leaders with different types of capital.
The church leaders do not want to renounce cultural capital because they wan the power that comes with the educated positions. I have seen no movement away from violin and piano playing for mormon kids for the leadership. Suits and ties for church are still the cultural dress standard.
The big issue is not which standard will be dominate as much as globalization and technology have made maintaining a uniform culture more and more difficult.
Take the women’s conference issue of helping refugees. Isn’t this a clear move towards the morality of higher cultural capital and away from the concerns of lower economic capital? It is hard for me to imagine a more direct play for the cultural capital high ground.
Comment by Martin James — April 1, 2016 @ 12:43 pm
I kind of wish that I had sat on this post for a day or two, but there I still have one more Bourdieu post before I move on to Nietzsche. Here are a couple points that I should have highlighted or made clearer:
1) This post is about cultural consumption, not cultural production. Thus, this is meant of an indictment of readers and comments more than the authors of posts (they’re next post). Here, I’m pitting Bourdieu against our “preferences” and “tastes” in gospel discussion styles and topics, these being far less innocent that we often belief or claim.
2) The original disciples were mocked not only, or even primarily for their poverty, but for their unrefined accents, illiteracy and general lack of enculturation. So often, especially in intellectual circles, we are so focused those who would place themselves above us economically or within the church hierarchy, that we are completely blind to the ways in which we try to place ourselves above others, culturally speaking. When we dismiss, roll our eyes at or actively avoid the “boring, cookie cutter” SS lesson or when we get upset that those who have no biological training or credentials speak on evolution, we are no different that those who mocked and rejected the 12 disciples. Cultural stratifications are just as corrosive to gospel unity as economic inequality.
3) It should come as no surprise that those who are high in cultural capital complain about cultural inequality about as much as those with high economic capital complain about economic inequality. If anything, the former are much more likely to complain that their own capital is no given its proper due within the church and its leadership.
4) Next post, I should make the difference between cultural capital and symbolic capital a bit clearer. While Jesus and his 12 disciples had no economic or cultural capital, they still claimed and wielded an immense amount of symbolic capital, which is the ability to decide for or otherwise persuade others which kinds of capital are more “legitimate” than others. Basically the symbolic capital which Jesus wielded allowed him to say that economic and cultural capital counted for nothing in the kingdom of God.
Now that that’s out of the way (I’m going to add the above as a post script to the post), let me address your comment:
“business people, educators, lawyers and doctors) have been moving towards cultural capital and away from economic capital”
Look again on the chart. While business men, lawyers and doctors clearly have “high” capital, their is no disproportionately cultural in nature. Indeed, the frequent complaint is that what education the leadership has, is overwhelmingly professional or business training rather than academic in nature.
Your pointing to the piano, suits and ties is a very useful correction (suits and ties belong more to the economic than the cultural side), although I’m not sure that the piano lessons that we give/get are what Bourdieu’s French audience had in mind. This would probably be a difference between his audience and us. Another difference would be the political orientations in that “left” and “right” have somewhat different meanings in France (especially in the 60’s) than they do in the U.S. Finally, I think “hunting” falls far lower on the U.S. cultural field than it does in continental Europe with its privatized hunting grounds.
“Isn’t this a clear move towards the morality of higher cultural capital and away from the concerns of lower economic capital?”
I’m not sure what you’re saying here.
Comment by Jeff G — April 1, 2016 @ 4:17 pm
What I am pointing out is that commerce has been becoming more and more about cultural capital and that fewer people have purely economic capital. Examples would be Nike or Apple. The economic capital is all in the brand which is cultural capital.
This is where the political correctness complaints come it. One can’t be a fortune 500 manager and oppose LBGT lifestyles because of the negative cultural effects.
It is just 50 years out of date.
Another way of saying this is that mormonism has a high capital leadership and so there is a tension between high and low capital independent of the split between cultural and economic capital. Furthermore, what has changed is that academic capital is becoming valueless except where it relates to market capital either through the professions or consumer media. Poets, historians, an and philosophers have lost cultural capital to pop musicians and doctors.
Nobody but old people care about opera and jazz. Pop art has enormous value and it isn’t driven by academic status. These theories were right but the nature of cultural capital has radically changed. Consumer tech, pop art and science funding have destroyed academic cultural capital. Why do people want to go to Ivy league schools? Politics, Wall Street and venture capital, not a Ph.D. in the humanities. That is why there are no more public intellectuals of note that. There are just some intellectuals who are media pundits.
The church is fighting the last war. Academia is dying faster than religion other than where it has economic capital. Look at the ages of democratic congresspeople. They are ancient. There is no more cultural capital just culturally related economic capital.
Comment by Martin James — April 1, 2016 @ 5:15 pm
If I weren’t taking aim at the bloggernacle, a Bourdieuian analysis of the distaste that Mormons are taught to have for “worldly” things would have been pretty interesting too.
Comment by Jeff G — April 1, 2016 @ 5:16 pm
Mormons ought to have a distaste for “worldly” things but in practice we still have strong desire for middlebrow WASP tastes at the leadership level and I think opposition for the move away from WASPy tastes gets confused with an opposition to high capital which doesn’t exist. Mormons love the right wing rich.
Comment by Martin James — April 1, 2016 @ 5:27 pm
“The economic capital is all in the brand which is cultural capital.”
I’m not sure that you understand the difference between the two. A brand name is the epitome of distinction along economic capital side of the chart. Remember, we are discussing how the different tastes of wealthy and poor people (to stick with the right hand side) serve to track and reproduce distinctions is either kind of capital. Thus, wearing Prada, Nike, etc. are utterly different from distinctions in what kind of degrees I have, how many languages do I speak, how many publications do I have among other things which I might put on a resume or cv.
“One can’t be a fortune 500 manager and oppose LBGT lifestyles because of the negative cultural effects.”
Again, it’s about your own “personal” tastes and preferences. A fortune 500 person can definitely have a distaste for such things, they just keep it “within the circle” of their peers.
“Furthermore, what has changed is that academic capital is becoming valueless except where it relates to market capital either through the professions or consumer media.”
There is most definitely inflation when it comes to education (Bourdieu really goes after this point), but this doesn’t mean it’s becoming worthless. It just means that we have to run faster in order to keep pace. (The 60’s experienced a massive inflation in the value of higher education.) Because the “lower” strata always seek to emulate the “higher” strata, the latter find themselves forced to constantly renovate and innovate what it means for their culture to be “high” for the sake of distinguishing themselves from the “popular” “masses”. Cultural elite do this just as much as rich people only in different ways.
“Poets, historians, an and philosophers have lost cultural capital to pop musicians and doctors.”
Again, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of cultural capital and the ways in which its possessors seek to distinguish themselves. The very fact that music is popular is exactly why they DON’T have a “taste” for it.
“Nobody but old people care about opera and jazz.”
There is probably some truth to what you say…. then again, nobody but old people have accumulated that much cultural and economic capital in their lifetime. Think Manhattan social-ites and the people who get invited to black-tie events. Yes, they are old, but they are the elites.
“Pop art has enormous value and it isn’t driven by academic status.”
Nor is it consumed by them. Hopefully the next post on cultural production will clear up some of this confusion (it will bring economic factors in much more than this post did).
“Why do people want to go to Ivy league schools? Politics, Wall Street and venture capital, not a Ph.D. in the humanities.”
Close, but not quite! Bourdieu actually goes much further into this topic. (This post goes into a bit more detail on the social origins and variation in different tastes.) One of his main points is that the ruling elite (in the top-right corner) focus far less on a person’s ability to articulate the rules of art criticism, etc., and much more about the refined manner, tone, demeanor and posture with which you can say even the most meaningless things. These are things that cannot be taught in school curriculum. They are, however, very much taught by the socialization with higher culture within which a person is immersed when they attend an Ivy League school.
Here is a quick video which gives a taste of the difference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkzvjEWjKR0. Attending an expensive, Ivy League school will in all likelihood not teach you Newton’s laws of motion any better than a California public school, but it *will* teach you to explain such things in a much more “refined” manner. It is exactly this “taste” that opens doors within the higher elites to some while our crass lack of such a demeanor closes them to us.
Comment by Jeff G — April 1, 2016 @ 5:47 pm
I’m tempted to add yet another post to this series by discussing the different ways in which our parents and our educators influence our sense of taste and the differences that this makes to our gospel-related discourse. I think if you just read that post that I linked to in #6, you’ll basically get the jist, though.
Comment by Jeff G — April 1, 2016 @ 5:55 pm
Jeff,
My point is that the political and the cultural are not coextensive. If you take Michael Mann’s distinction of ideological, political, economic and military as the primary sources of power, my point is that there aren’t really ideological elites anymore. In the video you showed the differences are about politics. Even within politics the ruling class is at war. The elites are freaking out about Trump and Sanders who are messing with the ranking system and they have no way to put the genie back in the bottle. The appreciation of art and culture just isn’t part of the education any more which is just as technocratic at elite schools as at other schools. There is political indoctrination but not much cultural indoctrination. Obama can like the NBA not crew or lacrosse.
I have friends and family that teach at Ivy League schools, are billionaires and department secretaries and all agree that the system is broken and no one can understand each other. There is power but it is all free agent power with little coherence. Technology has changed everything.
Comment by Martin James — April 1, 2016 @ 9:23 pm
Jeff –
What do you think of high ranking LDS authorities getting the “second anointing” and assurance of eternal life, when such ordinances are unavailable to the rest of the church?
What do you think of the adulation we bestow on our LDS leaders? Our practice of addressing everyone by their title? The practice of standing when an apostle enters the room?
It seems that the “distinctions” created by the bloggernacle (which is open to anyone with an internet connection) are tame in comparison.
Comment by FGH — April 2, 2016 @ 5:20 am
The bloggernacle is a ghetto.
Comment by Martin James — April 2, 2016 @ 6:43 am
Very thought provoking Jeff. I think how the bloggernacle (which for me is more or less the MA) changed and became mostly one dimensional is a result of what you are talking about. Most of the common/’vulgar’ mainstream members get dismissed and move on to other things. I remember fmhLisa saying in some round table years ago that those more mainstream Mormons would be nudged out of the bloggernacle. If I am understanding right, this would be the result of such distinction efforts.
Comment by Eric Nielson — April 2, 2016 @ 7:09 am
Eric,
That sounds about right to me.
FGH,
While Bourdieu would probably agree with you, I don’t think the gospel does. The difference is that distinction according to economic and cultural capital is condemned within the scriptures, while even Jesus himself allowed his disciples to place him on a pedestal of sorts. The scriptures are not against distinction as such, just certain worldly kinds.
Martin,
“there aren’t really ideological elites anymore”
Unless you’re suggesting that we all have basically equal access to economic, cultural and social capital, then you’re fundamentally mistaken. It’s worth noting that Bourdieu agrees with Marx in seeing economics as the most fundamental and non-negotiable kind of capital. I think Marx pretty much got that part right.
Comment by Jeff G — April 2, 2016 @ 8:37 am
I didn’t say that there were no elites. What I’m saying is that technogical changes have changed capital in a way that has destroyed the cultural capital of ideologues. In particular it has destroyed academic capital of those that aren’t technocratic in the ways of the new economy.
The cultural capital with the highest demand right now is the cultural capital that can influence the masses. The elite schools have no particular advantage at demogougery and so their cultural capital is eroding.
The elite schools seek money wherever it is found and that globalization of capital seeking to Russia, China and the oil states has meant a shift away from the old kind of cultural capital. Again, I’m not saying there are not elites and there is not cultural capital. I’m saying that celebrity has been an increasing form of cultural power and that power belongs to those that can appeal to the vulgar the most successfully.
This leaves the bloggernacle in a bad position. They don’t have cultural capital because they are counter cultural to the church’s appeal to vulgar who want rules and authority and those who don’t want those things have no interest in religion at all and undermine the appeal of the bloggernacle.
Another way of saying it is that the political, military and economic elites don’t have enough in common to sustain a market for elite cultural capital and the old bastions of the cultural elites academia and religion are decaying internally to the professions and externally to pop culture. The economic elites watch football, listen to pop music and watch movies just like everybody else. Poetry, philosophy and literature are no longer interests of the elite. Food, exercise, luxury and travel have taken their place. Cultural capital is mainly hedonic right now. The decline in the number of children of the elites correlates to this. The elites are not interested in dynasties and the long run. It is the me generation from top to bottom of the social scale.
Comment by Martin James — April 2, 2016 @ 9:28 am
“What I’m saying is that technogical changes have changed capital in a way that has destroyed the cultural capital of ideologues. In particular it has destroyed academic capital of those that aren’t technocratic in the ways of the new economy.”
I’m not at all convinced that the internet and diploma mills have destroyed it, but it has definitely transformed it. Bourdieu’s model suggests that this is actually the motivation for further distinction, not the end of it. The phenomena is so recent, however, that it’s difficult for me to say whether or how this is playing out.
“The elite schools have no particular advantage at demogougery and so their cultural capital is eroding.”
Again, you’re confusing cultural consumption with cultural production. Distinction of taste is not about demagoguery, it is about separating oneself from the popular masses. Elite school still do this just fine.
Comment by Jeff G — April 2, 2016 @ 10:46 am
I’m arguing that elites don’t have different tastes culturally from a constion point of view.
Comment by Martin James — April 2, 2016 @ 11:01 am
Do you have any empirical evidence to refute Bourdieu’s 1000+ survey? It seems perfectly clear to me that something like Bourdieu’s findings still hold for today society.
Rich people purchase and have much more indepth conversations about foreign sports cars and european cities, they care far more, relatively speaking, about polo than they do about basketball, they shop at different places (never the mall and never amazon!), they decorate their homes differently (warm and cozy is not their taste), their table manners are very different (mouth closed chewing, proper cutlery use, etc.), they cook different kinds of food for their house guests (not mashed potatoes for them!), they have memberships at golf clubs and they get VERY upset when people are not dressed according to the code or when “their” club gets overrun by vulgar commoners, and on and on. (Think of Lucile Bluth from Arrested Development).
I challenge you to scroll through the PDF that I linked at the beginning of the OP to look through his dozens upon dozens of charts and survey questions and see if they don’t ring a bell.
You might think that this is all true, but it has no relation to actual power. Wrong. Celebrities are not those with power, although they do seem to be on the ascendance. During the mid 20th century, black people were allowed access to two and only two higher professions: professional athletes and performers (these are really the same thing). This did not change the fact that they were totally bereft of power.
Bourdieu’s point is that to get power, you must associate with those who already have power, and we are only allowed to associate with such people to the extent that we have the same manners and interests as they do. We are not invited to the smokey, backrooms where the most important decisions are made. We do not get invited to the black tie events and dinner parties where the social connections that are the bread and butter of big business are established. People who went to Yale are far more likely to hire somebody who also went to Yale than another, better qualified competitor. The Bush family is a clear example of how social connection within the upper elite can make you president, even if you screw around at (your Ivy League) school.
There are small points and assumptions where I think we can push back against Bourdieu, the strong correlation (lack of mobility) between one’s parentage, one’s tastes, and one’s position within society seems irrefutable.
Comment by Jeff G — April 2, 2016 @ 11:22 am
I think that you’re ranking the petite bourgeoisie much higher than they actually deserve. Those are all the celebrities, etc. that you seem to be focused on. This, however, is not the ruling class, but merely a pretenders to it. The haute bourgeoisie has nothing but contempt for such “climbers”. Indeed, it is preciesly to distinguish themselves from such petite bourgeoisie that the ruling class cultivates and refines their tastes and manners in this way.
Your description of the petite bourgeoisie seems pretty on point… it just seems like you’re conflating them with the haute bourgeoisie. Granted, the US does not really tend to carry with it the remnants of Aristocracy like Europeans do (the Royal family, THAT is a ruling class). This probably changes the culture of the ruling bourgeoisie in the US, since they are not as concerned with integrating themselves within the circles of the traditional ruling elite. These differences aside, however, there is still a difference in the US between the petite and high bourgeoisie and distinction has an awful lot to do with this difference.
Comment by Jeff G — April 2, 2016 @ 11:40 am
But I’m going further and saying the super rich ruling class has also separated from those below them. Buffet lives in Omaha and eats burgers and his tastes will die with him. Most of the Ivy kids aren’t part of that ruling class and that ruling class doesn’t propagate culturally. That is why the WASP ruling class died off. The Jews that were once excluded now run the Ivies and the Chinese and Indians will take their place before long.
Comment by Martin James — April 2, 2016 @ 11:46 am
My big concern is that the Mormon bloggernacle young adults identify with the Catholics and Jewish intellectuals and not the Anglophile tradition.
Comment by Martin James — April 2, 2016 @ 11:57 am
I’m still not sure what you’re claiming, and that with I think I do understand seems patently false. Referring to the “WASP ruling class” in the past tense is obviously wrong. Private and Ivy League schools pride themselves on the culture they instill in their students – this being their main selling point.
If you think Obama having a beer in a pub during election time makes him “down to earth” or if you believe anything else that the owner of a network or his close friend allow to be broadcast about them on tv, then I don’t know what to say. (Buffett disowned his daughter for broadcasting their personal lives on “The One Percent”.) Southern plantation owners also came from a folksy, country background. Indeed, it was exactly this that enabled their quasi-aristocratic lifestyles in stark distinction from those beneath them.
Comment by Jeff G — April 2, 2016 @ 12:00 pm
Why is the Anglophile tradition any less apostate than they are? At least the Catholics and Jews used to carry the true torch! That would suggest that they have more truth to them than most anybody else.
edit: Indeed, your “taste” for the Anglophile tradition – which you project as “true” tradition – seems to be a strong confirmation of Bourdieu’s thesis.
Comment by Jeff G — April 2, 2016 @ 12:03 pm
It is worth pointing out the relevance of this article to bridge being at the very top of Bourdieu’s chart. I don’t think things have changes near as much as you think.
Comment by Jeff G — April 2, 2016 @ 12:07 pm
And the people like me losing power in the church also fits my thesis. If it were the lost 10 tribes that they identified with I’d be fine. Plus do you know how hard it is to find a good tennis partner these days. :)
Comment by Martin James — April 2, 2016 @ 12:57 pm
It is an interesting point about Gates and Buffet. They have been trying to organize the top back into a ruling class that does philanthropy and civic work. But for Gates, the behavior has clearing come from trying to fit the old mold by learning golf to get into August. He didn’t get his spot in the ruling class because he knew bridge. But Ballmer his billionaire partner bought the clippers. Buffet also meets with Jay Z and Lebron James trying to cultivate them into the ruling class rather than exclude them.
Comment by Martin James — April 2, 2016 @ 1:38 pm
You are right that much hasn’t changed and that people that want the church to have the church’s status match a secular standard of equality don’t get it.
Comment by Martin James — April 2, 2016 @ 1:54 pm
That’s interesting, but exactly none of it contradicts Bourdieu’s thesis. The very fact that they get to pick and choose who they groom for the elite is quite telling. I sure don’t get to make decisions like that.
Comment by Jeff G — April 2, 2016 @ 1:55 pm
As for the empirics on WASPs, do you know the percentage of Harvard students that are Jewish now compared to 1950? Get real.
Comment by Martin James — April 2, 2016 @ 5:01 pm
You’re definitely right that Judaism has lost a lot of its cultural stigma. Its not entirely true that the same holds for other religious and ethnic groups.
Comment by Jeff G — April 2, 2016 @ 6:43 pm
The U.S. was never quite as anti-Semitic as Europe either. Our racial issues had more to do with slavery.
Comment by Jeff G — April 2, 2016 @ 7:15 pm
As for the bloggernacle, a few questions. It is harder for me to understand the consumption of bloggernacle posts as engaged in a process of social distinction when it is a pretty solitary behavior. It is like porn, a typically solitary behavior often not discussed in public. Unlike the producers who have more of a social and often professional connection, the consumers are often self described as trying to maintain an attachment to the social capital of Mormonism more than they are trying to devalue vulgar Mormonism. Often they leave the church and that social capital effectively goes to zero. It seems a singularly poor way to distinguish oneself.
There is another aspect of this also. Unlike social status, information is non-rivalrous. The bloggernacle extends the size of the Mormon network and the information passed incteases the ability of the body of Christ to protect itself in a larger world trying to minimize the distinction of Mormonism. The consumers if the bloggernacle are the vanguard both by expanding the range for the sheep to roam and finding new sheep. I experience it much more as intercultural with the secular than as in a status competition within Mormonism. I mean to people wear their bloggernacle consumption on their sleeve for others to notice. Do they use bloggernacle coded language at church to Self identify and seek social rank? I don’t hear it or see it.
Comment by Martin James — April 3, 2016 @ 1:33 pm
Wow 30 comments before I even get a chance to chime in! Just commenting here on the OP. I’ve not read the comments yet.
“All those who profess to be philosophers have a life-or-death interest, qua philosophers, in the existence of this repository of consecrated texts, a mastery of which constitutes the core of their specific capital.”
There’s a sense in which this is true but a pretty significant sense in which, due to the nature of college hiring and classes where it is false. There’s such a wide range of philosophical texts, the vast majority of which are unread by philosophers. Especially in analytic philosophy engagement with classic texts is pretty muted. The diversity in philosophy (not just in philosophy departments but also people doing types of philosophy in other departments) tends to mean this is pretty diverse. Further the pressures of “publish or perish” requiring novelty means that more and more is added to broad tapestry of important texts.
All of this adds up I think to a system in which philosophy by way of “consecrated texts” has much less power than thought. This is somewhat less so in the “continental tradition” where engagement with classic philosophers is more emphasized. The problem is that both fields require one engage with peers (either historical or contemporary) yet also differentiate from them.
This isn’t to deny that politics plays a big role in philosophy. (The unfortunate place of Leiter Reports in US philosophy departments being the classic example) Just that I think the way philosophy politics plays out is somewhat different than this quote suggests. The earlier quote about “select circle of recognized interlocutors” is more apt. However this circle is first those who hire in departments doing an initial selection and second by the demands of ones field in the publish or perish quest.
As to how this relates to Mormonism it seems yet a bit more complex. Clearly there are different loose groups within the Mormon publishing world (whether academic, loose academic conferences, or as you focus upon blogs). The central “blogs” are BCC and T&S but those frankly have lose a lot of relevance both due to people losing interest in posting, most things being said, as well as blogs simply not being where people tend to focus their interest.
That said clearly there is a strong politics to the various blogs. BCC gets the most attention but what’s so interesting to me is how there have become so many separate blogging communities – largely not interacting with one an other anymore.
Comment by Clark — April 4, 2016 @ 10:10 am
1) The Bloggernacle is a community, not at all solitary.
2) The contains lots of things, but neutral “information” is not one of them. Either way, you can’t just assert that information is non-rivalrous without any support and expect people to take it seriously.
3) Your account (or lack thereof) of the cultural consumption that defines the bloggernacle makes the non-random, and relatively predictable distribution of incomes, education levels, activity within the church, etc. a total mystery. Why are there no farmers or other people who work in agriculture in the Bloggernacle? Why to professional academics systematically ignore some blogs while frequenting others? Why do 95% of the profiles on Ordain Women mention that they really like reading/literature? And so on.
If you look at Bourdieu’s 50+ charts and tables, you will see that nearly all the tastes that he catalogs seem at least as “neutral” or “private” as the Bloggernacle does. His data clearly shows that such distinctions in taste are reproduced through and systematically vary according to the stratified nature of parenting and schooling even though such people experience such tastes as “personal choice” or “timeless standards”. What is it about the Bloggernacle that makes you think it’s different from magazine and newspaper subscriptions that a family has?
“Do they use bloggernacle coded language at church to Self identify and seek social rank? I don’t hear it or see it.”
Remember, this consumption is more about standing out to those who’s opinion we value from those who’s opinion we do not. Thus, actively standing out TO the people as church is not the same as standing out FROM them. Us bloggers seek vindication for the ways in which they actively refuse (even if they do not perceive their standing out in “active” terms) to be like the stereotypical, “bland” Mormon. That said, it is quite clearly the case that SS lessons/comments and SM talks from those who frequent the Bloggernacle do stand out from the rest. We almost always believe that we have a “unique” (aka distinct) perspective to contribute to the issue at hand and get quite frustrated when this uniqueness is not valued as much as we think it should be or (more importantly) as it actually is valued within other communities.
Comment by Jeff G — April 4, 2016 @ 10:13 am
Martin (1) what do you here mean by cultural capital? And in what way do people you see as leaders have it? I must be missing something. Hopefully Jeff chimes in here too, as he notes in (2) as I think this needs unpacked more.
Jeff (2) I think distinguishing between consumption and production is important. Also a big distinction between small groups and larger groups. So, for instance, what’s consumed in academia affects a great deal what’s produced. But it doesn’t line up well at all with what’s consumed outside of the more “reified” academic environment.
Martin (3) it seems there’s an area where things blur, such as in brands. I’m not sure this is new. After all Coke, Pepsi, IBM, GM, Ford, etc. were doing all this in the 50’s and 60’s pretty well. Brand is a place where one uses cultural capital in economic ways. The very notion of brand is the recognition that the cultural is economic capital.
Martin (5) I think people tend to focus on what their broader social preferences are. Thus the reformulating of the old New Era mormonad into a pinterest friendly picture + quote signifying some simplified identity idea. Why? Because everyone from atheists to trolls do that there. Likewise the goofy art that’s popular tends to be a style popular among suburbanites – especially those without a lot of exposure to “fine art.” Yet those with that exposure tend to pick different art.
More later.
Comment by Clark — April 4, 2016 @ 10:28 am
Clark (31),
“Especially in analytic philosophy engagement with classic texts is pretty muted.”
I definitely agree, but doesn’t this just mean that different philosophical traditions define themselves and those they exclude in terms of different texts? I don’t see how this pushes back against Bourdieu’s claim.
“philosophy by way of “consecrated texts” has much less power than thought.”
But isn’t the difference between consecrated and vulgar thought merely that of consistency with, if not reference to the texts in question? If all you’re saying is that communities are defined more in terms of their relationship to living peers than to texts as such, I would certainly grant that… but I strongly suspect that Bourdieu would as well.
“what’s so interesting to me is how there have become so many separate blogging communities – largely not interacting with one an other anymore.”
I agree. I’ve just stuck with MA since it’s very beginning and every time I branch out I find that my tastes (quite predictably, by Bourdieu’s lights) aren’t very well adapted to those other groups. Then again, there was never much hope of finding 1) Mormons who were 2) interested in social theory at the non-academic level while 3) still remaining deeply suspicious of enlightenment and progressive thought in general. I was pretty much doomed to solitude from the very beginning! :)
Comment by Jeff G — April 4, 2016 @ 10:35 am
Martin (30) I think to the degree blogs are focused on comments (as I think BCC is to a degree as to a lesser extent T&S is) that they are intrinsically social. To what degree people visit these sites for the comments and to what degree they just read the posts I can’t say. Further of course people are selective about what posts get read. I only read about half of them based upon my interests.
That all said though even acknowledging it is social the numbers are tiny relative to the population of the Church. It’s far, far less of a social effect than Facebook is or likely even quasi-social things like pinterest or instagram.
Comment by Clark — April 4, 2016 @ 10:47 am
Jeff (34) yes, they privilege different texts. My point is more that there’s more diversity than this suggests and that further they tend to shift quite a bit.
Regarding “consecrated and vulgar.” I’m not quite sure what you mean here. (Probably due to not being familiar with Bordieu’s overall text) But to the degree it’s a complex connection to privileged texts and then peers it sounds like we’re saying the same thing.
Jeff (32) I think the question of “standing out” really is wrapped up with “standing out to whom?” For instance I suspect most people are like me and there’s little connection between what we say/do at Church versus what we say on various blogs. (Beyond finding out my Bishop reads BCC regularly) I think few people in my ward even know I have a philosophical background or know a lot of the issues relative to scriptural exegesis. A few do, again because one of the heads in the Maxwell Institute is in my ward (former 1st counselor in Bishopric) and has read a few of the blogs and is on LDS-Herm.
Comment by Clark — April 4, 2016 @ 10:53 am
More questions. How do we test the ranking of cultural capital? With economic capital quantity is pretty easy to measure but we don’t have a clear measure of status for cultural capital. You mention that for pure Marxists, there is no separate measure of cultural capital but that it is subordinate to economic capital in such a way that there can’t really be the two axes that are postulated.
His proxy seems to be education, but what ranks between different disciplines. How do we measure what is higher between, say the social sciences and the humanities?
From an evolutionary point of view, high cultural status appears to be a low fertility trap. The higher birth rates at the bottom in our current environment suggest that the bottom has tricked the cultural top into low fertility pursuits and thus dominated them. Evolutionary power is the arbiter of what distinction matters in the long run.
Comment by Martin James — April 4, 2016 @ 11:04 am
Clark,
It sounds like we’re pretty close to each other here. Of course, I have kept things at a pretty general level whereas I’m quite sure that we differ on particulars.
The thing which I think might be most relevant to our differences is that Bourdieu’s account (especially that of “habitus”) comes really close to my understanding of truth. Thus, when he complains that people construe “high” culture and “true” culture against which others are to be judged, that is getting really close to what I think truth is in general. Of course, I would offer a much more functionalist reading, as opposed to Bourdieu’s conflict theory.
My next post (I should publish it today or tomorrow) will be about the difference in cultural production and should help frame what I mean by this. I think “truth” originally had much more to to with negotiating social space. It was with the rise of the materialistic bourgeoisie, in which political authority became more connected with the means of production than with a distinguished lineage, that truth became much more associated with our interactions with the material world. The old Aristocracy would see the positivist conception of truth, broadly construed, as very low and crass indeed. I think religious truth is much closer to that of the old Aristocracy than it is to that of the “Bourgeois coalition”, as I’ve called it elsewhere.
Comment by Jeff G — April 4, 2016 @ 11:11 am
Martin,
“we don’t have a clear measure of status for cultural capital.”
Of course there is. (Indeed, Bourdieu thinks that such questions are fully objective, while I think that he’s just trying to position critical sociologists like himself above the rest of us.) Central to Bourdieu’s account is that there are flexible rates of exchange between different types of capital. For example, what things can we put on a resume that will get us more money? This just is a valuation of cultural capital.
Among the possessors of different kinds of capital, there is also the struggle for “symbolic capital” which is measured in terms of how many people you can get to accept your relative valuation of the other kinds of capital. For example, the economic pursuit of survival or profit used to be strongly devalued by the landed Aristocracy – until quite recently actually. Such condemnations are to be found quite readily within the scriptures. Since the overthrow of the landed Aristocracy, the pursuit of profit (the defining feature of capitalism) have greatly increased in comparison to that of blood lineage, for example. This is not mere speculation, but a well-grounded interpretation which we ignore at our own risk.
With regards to different disciplines, the ranking is easy: what is the average pay for different degrees? Which degrees build the most valuable social capital (social connections)? Which disciplines do we grant more authority to define reality for us? The questions are by no means purely subjective in nature.
“Evolutionary power is the arbiter of what distinction matters in the long run.”
But evolution isn’t just about biological birth rates; It’s about reproduction in general, which is exactly the question that Bourdieu is aimed at: How do social stratifications reproduce themselves and how are the “lower” classes complicit in this process? His answer is that parents reproduce within their children tastes which 1) formal education is only able to refine to a very limited extent and 2) are well-adapted primarily, perhaps only to lower lifestyles. Thus, it is not just “kids” being reproduced, but a very specific and somewhat arbitrary social stratification that is reproduced (seemingly miraculously) across dozens of generations.
Comment by Jeff G — April 4, 2016 @ 11:37 am
Martin,
It seems like your questions are getting to the point where you’re asking me to explain the entire book rather than just reading it for yourself. Yes, the book in over 600 pages, but it’s not as bad as you think. 1) There are lots of diagrams and long side notes (marked with a different font) that can be skipped. 2) You only have to read Parts I and II, the Conclusion and the Post-script to get the main points. With how much we’ve discussed, you should be able to get through it pretty quick.
Comment by Jeff G — April 4, 2016 @ 11:43 am
“I think religious truth is much closer to that of the old Aristocracy than it is to that of the “Bourgeois coalition”, as I’ve called it elsewhere.”
The irony of all this is that you describe academia as opposed to the Bourgeois but then see then as the destroyers of religion. You seem blind to the thoroughly Bourgeois ways of the mormon folkways and leadership yet support it. Are you marxist or are you not marxist in your analytics?
Academia has been thoroughly routed by the materialistic bourgeoisie. Democracy has destroyed. What is the nature of the American ruling class? Without a doubt it is industry and the business interests.
Yes academia is social and yes it is based on status distinctions but there isn’t a uniform measure of where things rank. The example I would use is where do we pu the catholic church on the cultural capital scale?
Unlike France, the United States with its culture of religious, geographic and social diversity is multi-polar and post-modern in a way that makes a simple ranking impossible.
I’m not saying that there aren’t class distinctions in taste and I’m not saying there isn’t status competition in taste. What I am saying is that ranking in the arts and humanities has been hopelessly jumbled up. Whether it is dead white males or the classical languages or conceptual art, there is no longer an agreed ranking.
At Harvard, the professional schools Law, Business and Medicine have tremendous status and power. Ranking in those circles depends less and less on one’s taste in literature and art.
Where does Japanese art rank relative to Egyptian? Afghani war rugs relative to Persian? Short fiction relative to essays? Nobody knows. Where does Zizek rank? Ascending or sign of destruction?
The result has been for status to be much more purely political rather than cultural.
This is why I think it makes the bloggernacle makes much more sense just as the ramification of the consumer market in non rivalrous ways than some kind of incipient battle for status within the church. If anything, I think bloggernacle consumers are just people that failed in the general culture and have a hard time finding solace in the mormon culture and the bloggernacle is a fun distraction.
Of course, I’m projecting and parodying myself but anyone that can’t see it is completely absurd to think you can build a status community around an academic or high culture treatment of mormonism has a screw loose. Like other fantasy games, the bloggernacle is just comicon for mormon nerds.
Comment by Martin James — April 4, 2016 @ 11:52 am
Where do we put the Iphone?
Comment by Martin James — April 4, 2016 @ 11:59 am
“With regards to different disciplines, the ranking is easy: what is the average pay for different degrees?”
There is very little evidence of added economic value of an Ivy league education outside of politics.
Comment by Martin James — April 4, 2016 @ 12:06 pm
I never said I was Marxist. Indeed, I’ve always been sure to place at least some distance between he and I.
“Unlike France, the United States with its culture of religious, geographic and social diversity is multi-polar and post-modern in a way that makes a simple ranking impossible.”
What in the world makes you think that France isn’t that way also?
“What I am saying is that ranking in the arts and humanities has been hopelessly jumbled up.”
Says who? The Closing of the American Mind is as good an example as any of cultural elites who strongly resist this claim. You make it sound like literature curricula are totally random in nature – when such is clearly not the case. Certain cultural works quite obviously fall within the Western Canon more than others.
“At Harvard, the professional schools Law, Business and Medicine have tremendous status and power. Ranking in those circles depends less and less on one’s taste in literature and art.
Where does Japanese art rank relative to Egyptian? Afghani war rugs relative to Persian? Short fiction relative to essays? Nobody knows. Where does Zizek rank? Ascending or sign of destruction?”
You’re kidding, right? Is your objection that since we can’t get everybody to agree on every question you can come up with, then the whole analytic must be trash?
“it makes the bloggernacle makes much more sense just as the ramification of the consumer market in non rivalrous ways than some kind of incipient battle for status within the church.”
I’m not even sure what this is supposed to mean. You’re saying that the Bloggernacle is seeking the economic profits within the cultural market? 1) I see little evidence. 2) How is that better?
“If anything, I think bloggernacle consumers are just people that failed in the general culture and have a hard time finding solace in the mormon culture and the bloggernacle is a fun distraction.”
The first part is itself telling and I agree with it as a start. The second part is a total wash. It gives no answer whatsoever to why some people think the Bloggernacle is a “fun distraction” while others do not. It’s right up there with why do some people find bridge to be fun while others prefer fishing? Why do some ski and look down their noses at snowboarders? Again, you seem utterly blind or willfully indifferent to the systematic correlations between what is “a fun distraction” and one’s education levels and the social status of their parents. You act like it’s either just totally random or that there is some invisible standard which isolated individuals have better access to than others. Neither of these hypotheses fit the data.
Comment by Jeff G — April 4, 2016 @ 12:18 pm
As for your own status. You are the most interesting person on the Bloggernacle because your partisan ship in the cultural issues don’t fit the stereotypical “leaders are out of touch” or “leaders are awesome” mold.
I engage with your posts because I’d like to see what you come up with once you realize that what you are opposing on the bloggernacle is unworthy or your time and attention. Furthermore, I’d like to convince you that it doesn’t help the leadership to throw away their capital formation strategies by a retrograde fascination with Aristocracy and the ancient. The business of mormonism is business and you are in the R&D department. Ignore the competition and develop some capital forming products!
Comment by Martin James — April 4, 2016 @ 12:19 pm
““With regards to different disciplines, the ranking is easy: what is the average pay for different degrees?”
There is very little evidence of added economic value of an Ivy league education outside of politics.”
I’m starting to get frustrated. I clearly gave examples of other measures beyond mere monetary pay. The fact that you might value these things differently than others do is itself a product of the social positions which shaped your own tastes.
If you would actually read the book instead of trying to play “gotcha” or 20 questions, I wouldn’t have to repeat myself like this.
Comment by Jeff G — April 4, 2016 @ 12:22 pm
Your 45 is much more worthy of a response.
“once you realize that what you are opposing on the bloggernacle is unworthy or your time and attention”
I guess I’m not sure what you think it is that I’m opposing. Honest question.
I myself fall prey to the criticism of this post as much as any other. Of course, my discourse is specifically aimed at not being accessible or interesting to the average members since, as you’ve noted, my ideas are probably more harm than help to them. Instead, I’m specifically aimed at those who distinguish themselves from the average member. Indeed, I guess my own efforts are a self-righteous attempt at distinguishing myself from the group of those who distinguish themselves from vulgar Mormonism in a way that I consider vulgar.
“a retrograde fascination with Aristocracy and the ancient”
I think we’re really getting at a crucial difference here. After all, what is the difference between “regression” and “restoration”? It is not a coincidence, I suggest, that the restoration is supposed to be a return to a pre-modern time whereas you seem to think the relationship between religion and society is largely irrelevant.
This reminds me of Weber’s distinction between the cyclical time of pre-moderns vs the linear time of moderns. He claimed that Abraham could die completely satisfied since he had completed his cycle here on earth, he having fulfilled his mission. Modernity, however, introduced the idea of linear progress across generations such that each and every person “dies too early” since their mission lies, by very definition, is the unrealized future. It is within this idea of linear time that a fascination can be disparaged as “retrograde”.
Comment by Jeff G — April 4, 2016 @ 12:35 pm
“What in the world makes you think that France isn’t that way also?”
Ask anyone in France if there is status outside of Paris?
In America, we have New York, Boston, Washington, Hollywood, Seattle, and San Francisco that are all respectable places for the elite to live. It is completely different.
There is nothing like our system of universities that operate on a decentralized basis with private and public universities.
Comment by Martin James — April 4, 2016 @ 12:35 pm
Okay, but you’re trying to say that there is no difference in status between living in the Hamptons vs living in Harlem (or, to take MC Hammer as an example, building an expensive mansion in the East Bay ghetto). So long as there is a difference in status, the point stands.
Comment by Jeff G — April 4, 2016 @ 12:38 pm
“I guess I’m not sure what you think it is that I’m opposing. Honest question.”
Basically those that see themselves as deserving of being recognized as worthy of steering the direction of the church.
“I myself fall prey to the criticism of this post as much as any other. Of course, my discourse is specifically aimed to not being accessible or interesting to the average members since, as you’ve noted, my ideas are probably more harm than help to the average member.”
This is exactly how I think you shouldn’t see yourself. the average member doesn’t care and you don’t care. But the average member may have a relative that cares and that you have plowed some ground may keep him or her interested in the church relationship.
Comment by Martin James — April 4, 2016 @ 12:41 pm
The magic of the mormon corridor is that they don’t care about the Hamptons or Harlem and when people move out here who do, it freaks them out. Every mormon worth being mormon wouldn’t live in the Hamptons under any circumstance.
Comment by Martin James — April 4, 2016 @ 12:44 pm
“Basically those that see themselves as deserving of being recognized as worthy of steering the direction of the church.
That sounds about right. Why should this be unworthy of my time though?
“But the average member may have a relative that cares and that you have plowed some ground may keep him or her interested in the church relationship.”
It’s a possibility, but I think it’s a dangerous one that I find unlikely. I think your old criticisms that my ideas damage the average members testimony aren’t totally wrong. Basically, I see three levels of relationship to the church: 1) the average members’ unreflective acceptance, 2) one of critical distance to discipleship that we are mostly taught in school and almost defines the Bloggernacle, and 3) one of critical distance to what we are taught in school. In terms of faithfulness, I think 3 is preferable to 2, but 1 is preferable to 3 since the latter still has a critical distance to discipleship built into it. Put differently, I’m trying to turn 2 into an unstable equilibrium such that the transition from 1 to 2 is more difficult and from 2 to 3 is less difficult.
“Every mormon worth being mormon wouldn’t live in the Hamptons under any circumstance.”
You might(!) be right, but this doesn’t mean that there isn’t a different stratification at play. The whole point of Bourdieu analysis is that different forms of stratification are always trying to undermine the “other guy’s” stratifications. Mormonism totally dismisses distinction according to money and learning, but actively promotes its own forms of “higher” living at the expense of those “worldly” lifestyles. Some ways are most definitely higher than others within Mormonism, exactly as Bourdieu suggests.
Comment by Jeff G — April 4, 2016 @ 1:02 pm
Another way of looking at it would be that most within the church would be VERY uncomfortable with a person saying “I pay far more than others in tithing and offerings, therefore the church should listen more to what I say.” Members on the disaffected left and the fundamentalist right sometimes do try to bring this criticism against the church.
What my post is meant to say is that we should be just as uncomfortable with a person saying “I have studied Biblical criticism or theology far more than the average member, therefore the church should listen to my input regarding SS and religious studies curriculum.” I mean, isn’t an awful lot of the Bloggernacle made up of people doing exactly this?
Comment by Jeff G — April 4, 2016 @ 1:06 pm
Jeff (38) I’m curious as to your take on Nietzsche who wrote explicitly about these things in his early popular writings. I think there’s something to the Nietzschean critique of truth, which proved very influential in the 20th century. I do think it can be pushed too far though.
Jeff (39) We should note that “evolutionary power” is of course very much tied to the particular environment. It’s not like it’s something in abstract.
Martin (41) I guess I’m pretty skeptical of Marxism in general. (Hegel too for that matter) I’m not sure I buy any of your answers here. Too much of Marxist or quasi-marxist analysis always seemed to me like the old adage of when your a hammer everything looks like a nail.
Comment by Clark — April 4, 2016 @ 1:32 pm
“We should note that “evolutionary power” is of course very much tied to the particular environment. It’s not like it’s something in abstract.”
I completely agree. This environment, however, does not define itself but is instead the symbolic power over which different fields of cultural production continually compete.
“I guess I’m pretty skeptical of Marxism in general.”
You’ll be happy to know that Bourdieu specifically sets his account of cultural production is opposition to Marxists’ purely externalist readings where all culture is merely an expression of economic relations. Of course, Marx is himself, not entirely clear that this is what he had in mind. In some places he claims that the economy is simply the material base upon which all sorts of different superstructures could potentially be built rather than the overly deterministic reading which we advocates in other places in which the economic base fully determines the superstructure.
Bourdieu rejects all deterministic accounts where any religion, art or science is a straightforward product of the environment. Indeed, it is the internal quest for distinction within a field that he thinks gives it the largely (but never fully) autonomous history and logic that defines it in opposition to others.
Comment by Jeff G — April 4, 2016 @ 1:42 pm
“Too much of Marxist or quasi-marxist analysis always seemed to me like the old adage of when your a hammer everything looks like a nail.”
I’m not really sure what to make of Martin’s appeal to Marx (it caught me by surprise as well). It seems to me that he rejects social explanations for the the correlations within Bourdieu’s data thus leaving them utterly miraculous from his perspective. The thing is that Bourdieu is trying to give an alternative to Marx’s very social explanation of such phenomena. For this reason I can’t figure out what function Marx could possibly serve within his worldview. It’s almost as if he wants to say that Marx and/or Bourdieu are right, but only in France. I have, however, never seen anybody defend a position like that.
Comment by Jeff G — April 4, 2016 @ 2:20 pm
Jeff and Clark,
The question for me is no Marxism or not, but how we determine “distinction” in areas that don’t have an economic measure.
One measure might be exclusivity but something can be exclusive but not in demand in a way that shows any kind of relative ranking. There seems to me to be a conflict between being esoteric and exclusive and also dominating and of higher status.
One can establish a correlation of power in other areas like economics and politics with cultural production but that is not the same as cultural production having its own measure of higher and lower.
My read of Bourdieu is that all of the processes are going on the way he says except that they are not really competing as to higher and lower.
The math is that the size of the network has a lot of value and so if one is too exclusive then one has no status because the network is too small and if one is not exclusive enough then the value of the network doesn’t accrue to oneself.
This is somewhat similar to the evolutionary theory that selfishness wins within groups but cooperation wins against other groups.
My other point is that consumption has to be conspicuous to drive status and I have a hard time seeing blog reading as being conspicuous enough to have a status component.
Comment by Martin James — April 4, 2016 @ 2:33 pm
Jeff (55) yes in a certain sense the received Marx vs Marx is a less interesting question. Even though I’m at pains to distinguish philosophers from how their works are often misused (say Derrida from the type of postmodernism in Theory in the 90’s) there’s an other sense where it doesn’t matter as much. What matters in the 90’s is the nonsense abuse of pomo theory did and arguably what matters in the 20th century up through today is how proponents of Marxism make marxist critiques. I usually find them as vapid as the pomo critiques one often encounters.
Martin (57) of course there’s lots of things not caught by economic measures. Economists above all worry about this often listing the things not captured by GPD or worse that decrease GDP while being of great value. Certainly “social capital” (whatever that means — and I think the ambiguity is problematic) isn’t always captured by economic measures. Although surprisingly it is caught well by economic measures (such as various strategies calculating brand worth). One could argue that in some ways the stock market as a way of measuring future profits captures parts of this when social capital is lost. (Say with VW and it’s diesel scandal)
I kind of see what you’re saying about tiers, but I just don’t know Bourdieu enough to say much there.
Comment by Clark — April 4, 2016 @ 2:50 pm
How do we know which way the causality runs. Do those with good taste get power or does power provide the standard of taste?
What determines the changing measures of taste? Why is religion changing as a measure of power in the USA? If things are so stable then why is religion changing so much as a status marker?
Comment by Martin James — April 4, 2016 @ 2:54 pm
I find Ortega y Gassett more convincing.
Comment by Martin James — April 4, 2016 @ 2:56 pm
Martin, if there’s a feedback then the causality doesn’t run in only one direction.
Comment by Clark — April 4, 2016 @ 3:31 pm
Seems like Martin is holding out for a one, true standard against which to hold and measure all others, when all social theorists ever have to offer is exchange rates between differing currencies. It’s like asking how much a dollar is worth in “real” value.
Comment by Jeff G — April 4, 2016 @ 4:15 pm
“Seems like Martin is holding out for …”
Actually what I am holding out for is the simultaneous evaluation of every possible organization of every possible existence in every possible universe but that doesn’t mean I won’t take a flier on what’s available.
“It’s like asking how much a dollar is worth in “real” value.”
Um, that is what the BLS does every month when it measures inflation.
Hurry up with that next post on cultural production. Should be good!
Comment by Martin James — April 4, 2016 @ 7:00 pm
No, it doesn’t do that.
The closest we’ve ever been to believing in the real value of the dollar was the gold standard and even that’s a stretch.
Comment by Jeff G — April 4, 2016 @ 8:27 pm
All they do is calculate the exchange rate of 2014 dollars for 2016 dollars.
Comment by Jeff G — April 4, 2016 @ 8:31 pm
Ok, now that you mentioned the gold standard you are going to have to put John Birch society on the Bourdieu grid for me!
Comment by Martin James — April 4, 2016 @ 9:43 pm
BTW are you going to chime in on the discussion on truth and modernism at BCC?
https://bycommonconsent.com/2016/04/04/the-struggle-for-goodness-truth-and-belonging-in-a-haunted-age
Comment by Clark — April 5, 2016 @ 8:38 am
Probably. Just haven’t had the time to read it all yet. Plus, I just can’t believe that anybody is still discussing Harris anymore.
Comment by Jeff G — April 5, 2016 @ 9:01 am
LOL. Yeah, the best solution to New Atheists is to just note they’re the atheist version of Evangelicals and then ignore them for the most part.
Comment by Clark — April 5, 2016 @ 2:29 pm
Martin,
For Bourdieu, social, cultural and economic capital must be exchangeable in order to prevent the former from being capital in a merely metaphorical sense. Capital is essentially defined as that which is competed for within some field and the reason why we compete for it is because it gives us power over others. Capital, in other words, is a social relation among people according to which those who have some kind of capital are allowed access to some resources that those who lack such capital are denied access.
Comment by Jeff G — April 5, 2016 @ 2:59 pm
The reason he (and they) are not ignored is that they provide convenient straw men proxies for people that really do want to just ignore religion rather than fight it.
Comment by Martin James — April 5, 2016 @ 3:00 pm
The violin and piano–especially authorized instrumentation in church music performance–would best be compared to the guitars and drums and other instrumentation in various evangelical groups that come out of the 1960-70s counter-cultural musical milieu. I think you see grasping for cultural capital there, or at least distancing between the older lds group and the new evangelical groups.
Has anyone looked at architectural and interior decor features in lds buildings, esp temple interiors with their dated styles, appropriation of whatever is considered “classic”?
Comment by comet — April 7, 2016 @ 7:05 am
Great comment, Comet! I think you’re spot on with our distaste for drums and guitars. I also think the general lack of violin playing – at least in my experience – is indicative of slightly lower capital.
I would be very interested in our style of interior decorating – living rooms, foyers and temples. Bourdieu has quite a few tables and figures having to do with that exact question, but I think it’s mostly limit to house decor:
Table 5 – furniture purchases
and especially
Figure 10 – Ideal homes
I’m guessing that since the origins of Mormonism is so strongly based in the existence of craftsmen and small shop keepers, I would expect the Mormon aesthetic to largely track such tastes. Figure 10 (pg. 248) definitely seems to confirm this in my mind by suggesting a strong preference for clean/tidy, easy to maintain, cosy and comfortable. This class has a significant indifference to studied or imaginative decor. They have a slight preference for practicality, warmth and harmony. This all sounds a lot like an LDS church building to me.
Comment by Jeff G — April 7, 2016 @ 11:21 am
Music seems like an area ripe for Bourdieu’s kind of analysis. (The evangelical contrast would be a particularly rich vein.) Nearly all church sponsored music take consecrated hymns at the core with select conservative samplings of the classical tradition (Bach to Beethoven). There might be some outliers, esp BYU sponsored music. Rejection of popular music and instrumentation, consecration of classical music and classical instrumentation seems to point to an aspirational (perhaps petite bourgeois) trajectory. Also, it’s traditional instrumentation of a particular kind since traditional instruments of diverse cultures are rarely consecrated (e.g. allowed in sacrament)–for example, the koto in Japan (I wonder about drums in African cultures).
If Armand Mauss’s theory of optimal tension with surrounding culture holds, then one might expect to see distancing with contemporary styles (too fleeting, not eternal) and perhaps distaste/disgust with avant-garde styles. I’m thinking about temple architecture/interior (ward buildings tend to be utilitarian since mid-20th, perhaps craftsmen from 19th c.). Temple interior decor appropriates from the past–whatever is assumed to be classic at the time of construction–but how far back in general? One generation, multiple generations? Is there a classic or traditional style that seems frozen in time that evokes stability, eternity? In the Tokyo Temple, the paintings that greet one in the inner foyer area are clearly knock offs of painting styles from the Edo period, displaying traditional Japanese motifs like cranes, pines, etc., though there is no Japanese furniture, such as tatami mats.I agree that church buildings, even in the temple, interior space and furnishings evince “a strong preference for clean/tidy, easy to maintain.”
I think Bourdieu would categorize LDS culture as petite b.–lots of cultural goodwill–with aspirations for true distinction.
Comment by comet — April 8, 2016 @ 3:04 am
I think you’re exactly right.
Comment by Jeff G — April 8, 2016 @ 8:04 am
” Nearly all church sponsored music take consecrated hymns at the core with select conservative samplings of the classical tradition (Bach to Beethoven).”
Not really when one includes primary music and adolescent music which are really the key to religious indoctrination. There seems to me a trend even in sacrament meeting musical numbers to what seem to be almost ‘adult contemporary” or “dramatic performance” influences.
“Is there a classic or traditional style that seems frozen in time that evokes stability, eternity?”
This is the big question. It seems that there is not. The mormon version of classic style is derived from an anglo-american interpretation of classic style. That is under attack from two different directions. Globalization has broadened the competition for the anglo-american power structure to other traditions externally and internally, power is running away from a classic style as fast as it can. Even banks don’t want to been seen as stolid and classic in taste.
Conservative suits and ties are now inadvertently exotic, counter-cultural in a mid-century revival way.
That is the interesting thing about post-modernism, there is no way to retreat to a classic style. I mean we don’t wear hats to church, right?
Comment by Martin James — April 8, 2016 @ 8:45 am
Martin: No doubt pop culture and postmodern trends are a force to be reckoned with, especially outside the church. I don’t see pop music infiltrating the sacrament meeting anytime soon nor other institutionally consecrated venues; the institution pushes back against such contemporary postmodern trends in its most consecrated spaces, though it does accommodate such trends in other informal venues such as talent night, YM/YW activities. That particular positioning within the field of religious groups (which actively incorporate pop culture into its program and liturgy) seems to be fully occupied by rival evangelical groups. Again, the kind of musical instrumentation authorized in sacraments are a good indication of this. Suits and ties, no matter the decade style, are still de rigueur and usually tend to the conservative end. Maybe pop values and postmodern values will make inroads later but not until they have been domesticated (in a peculiarly Mormon way, as you suggest) and will likely be incorporated, if at all, in a belated form. I doubt they will reach the consecrated spaces within the institution, which culminate in the temple and its mediations (qua furnishings) of eternity.
Comment by comet — April 9, 2016 @ 6:00 pm
Comet,
The point is not so much pop as that postmodernism reveals that Mormon tastes are derivative to and dependent on western civilization and American values. The institution can only maintain its tastes to the extent they are available in the marketplace. Western culture may remain dominant for a 1000 years or forever but can anyone doubt the culture is changing? There are Hispanic influences, Asian and south Asian influences and countless others.
Consecrated or not, the chances that anything in the eternities looks like anything we see today are slim and none. The same goes for music. Do you really think choruses of angels use the western musical scale? It’s preposterous.
Comment by Martin James — April 9, 2016 @ 9:10 pm
I took a look at the hymnal today to see the types of music for sacrament meeting. The category that most captures them seems to be Protestant tradition. There were some from the classical heavyweights but only a few outside of the Protestant countries of England, Sweden, and Germany.
One hymn we sang today number 114 seemed to be one that might be pretty hard to distinguish from a popular song of the early 20th century. I’m not enough of a musicologist to know the influences on people like Careless and Stephens and the others that wrote so many hymns.
My main point is that there is part of the Mormon tradition that is Abrahamic and part of the old world tradition rather than the Protestant one.
Comment by Martin James — April 10, 2016 @ 12:50 pm
Hey all, this week’s episode at the partially examined life deals with Bourdieu’s Distinction. It is definitely worth listening yo to get a better feel for the thrust of this post.
Comment by Jeff G — April 11, 2016 @ 8:28 am