Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste

Paperback
from $0.00

Author: Pierre Bourdieu

ISBN-10: 0674212770

ISBN-13: 9780674212770

Category: French History

No judgement of taste is innocent. In a word, we are all snobs. Pierre Bourdieu brilliantly illuminates this situation of the middle class in the modern world. France's leading sociologist focusses here on the French bourgeoisie, its tastes and preferences. Distinction is at once a vast ethnography of contemporary France and a dissection of the bourgeois mind.\ In the course of everyday life people constantly choose between what they find aesthetically pleasing and what they consider tacky,...

Search in google:

No judgement of taste is innocent. In a word, we are all snobs. Pierre Bourdieu brilliantly illuminates this situation of the middle class in the modern world. France's leading sociologist focusses here on the French bourgeoisie, its tastes and preferences. Distinction is at once a vast ethnography of contemporary France and a dissection of the bourgeois mind.In the course of everyday life people constantly choose between what they find aesthetically pleasing and what they consider tacky, merely trendy, or ugly. Bourdieu bases his study on surveys that took into account the multitude of social factors that play a part in a Frenchperson's choice of clothing, furniture, leisure activities, dinner menus for guests, and many other matters of taste. What emerges from his analysis is that social snobbery is everywhere in the bourgeois world. The different aesthetic choices people make are all distinctions-that is, choices made in opposition to those made by other classes. Taste is not pure. Bourdieu finds a world of social meaning in the decision to order bouillabaisse, in our contemporary cult of thinness, in the "California sports" such as jogging and cross-country skiing. The social world, he argues, functions simultaneously as a system of power relations and as a symbolic system in which minute distinctions of taste become the basis for social judgement.The topic of Bourdieu's book is a fascinating one: the strategies of social pretension are always curiously engaging. But the book is more than fascinating. It is a major contribution to current debates on the theory of culture and a challenge to the major theoretical schools in contemporary sociology. Anthony Giddens - Partisan Review One of the more distinguished contributions to social theory and research in recent years...There is in this book an account of culture, and a methodology of its study, rich in implication for a diversity of fields of social research. The work in some ways redefines the whole scope of cultural studies.

Preface to the English-Language EditionxiIntroduction1Part IA Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste91The Aristocracy of Culture11The Titles of Cultural Nobility18Cultural Pedigree63Part IIThe Economy of Practices972The Social Space and Its Transformations99Class Condition and Social Conditioning101A Three-Dimensional Space114Reconversion Strategies1253The Habitus and the Space of Life-Styles169The Homology between the Spaces175The Universes of Stylistic Possibles2084The Dynamics of the Fields226The Correspondence between Goods Production and Taste Production230Symbolic Struggles244Part IIIClass Tastes and Life-Styles2575The Sense of Distinction260The Modes of Appropriation of the Work of Art267The Variants of the Dominant Taste283The Mark of Time295Temporal and Spiritual Powers3156Cultural Goodwill318Knowledge and Recognition319Education and the Autodidact328Slope and Thrust331The Variants of Petit-Bourgeois Taste339The Declining Petite Bourgeoisie346The Executant Petite Bourgeoisie351The New Petite Bourgeoisie354From Duty to the Fun Ethic3657The Choice of the Necessary372The Taste for Necessity and the Principle of Conformity374The Effects of Domination3868Culture and Politics397Selective Democracy399Status and Competence405The Right to Speak411Personal Opinion414The Modes of Production of Opinion417Dispossession and Misappropriation426Moral Order and Political Order432Class Habitus and Political Opinions437Supply and Demand440The Political Space451The Specific Effect of Trajectory453Political Language459Conclusion: Classes and Classifications466Embodied Social Structures467Knowledge without Concepts470Advantageous Attributions475The Classification Struggle479The Reality of Representation and the Representation of Reality482Postscript: Towards a 'Vulgar' Critique of 'Pure' Critiques485Disgust at the 'Facile'486The 'Taste of Reflection' and the 'Taste of Sense'488A Denied Social Relationship491Parerga and Paralipomena494The Pleasure of the Text498Appendices5031Some Reflections on the Method5032Complementary Sources5193Statistical Data5254Associations: A Parlour Game546Notes561Credits605Index607Tables1Class preferences for singers and music152Aesthetic disposition, by education capital363Aesthetic disposition, by class and education374Knowledge of composers and musical works, by education and class of origin645Furniture purchases in the dominant class, by education and social origin786Some indicators of economic capital in different fractions of the dominant class, 19661177Some indicators of cultural practice in different fractions of the dominant class, 19661188Types of books preferred by different fractions of the dominant class, 19661199Social origin of members of the dominant class, by class fraction, 197012110Rate of employment of women aged 25-34, by education, 1962 and 196813411Changes in morphology and asset structure of the class fractions, 1954-197513612Changes in morphology and asset structure of the class fractions, 1954-196813813Morphological changes within the dominant class, 1954-197514014Morphological changes within the middle class, 1954-197514015Changes in class morphology and use of educational system, 1954-196815816Annual household expenditures on food: skilled manual workers, foremen and clerical workers, 197218117Yearly spending by teachers, professionals and industrial and commercial employers, 1972184

\ CommonwealA book of extraordinary intelligence.\ — Irving Louis Horowitz\ \ \ \ \ \ Partisan ReviewOne of the more distinguished contributions to social theory and research in recent years...There is in this book an account of culture, and a methodology of its study, rich in implication for a diversity of fields of social research. The work in some ways redefines the whole scope of cultural studies.\ — Anthony Giddens\ \ \ \ VogueBourdieu's analysis transcends the usual analysis of conspicuous consumption in two ways: by showing that specific judgments and chokes matter less than an esthetic outlook in general and by showing, moreover, that the acquisition of an esthetic outlook not only advertises upper-class prestige but helps to keep the lower orders in line. In other words, the esthetic world view serves as an instrument of domination. It serves the interests not merely of status but of power. It does this, according to Bourdieu, by emphasizing individuality, rivalry, and 'distinction' and by devaluing the well-being of society as a whole.\ — Christopher Lasch\ \ \