La distinction: Critique sociale du jugement

by Pierre Bourdieu

“ Pour distinguer si une chose est belle ou ne l’est pas, nous n’en rapportons pas la représentation à son objet au moyen de l’entendement et en vue d’une connaissance, mais au sujet et au sentiment de plaisir ou de déplaisir. (…) Le jugement de goût (…) est donc esthétique. ”
Ainsi commence la Critique du jugement dans laquelle Kant se livre à une “ critique du goût ” pour arriver à une définition du beau comme une “ finalité sans fin ”.
D’après lui, quand nous disons c’est beau, nous ne voulons pas dire simplement c’est agréable, nous prétendons à une certaine objectivité, à une certaine nécessité, à une universalité.
En faisant de La Distinction une critique sociale du jugement, Pierre Bourdieu bouleverse d’emblée des catégories sur le Beau, l’art et la culture, qui n’avaient jamais été remises en question. Non seulement le beau n’est pas un concept a priori, mais, au contraire, “ les gens ont le goût de leur diplôme ” et, les catégories de la distinction dépendent de la position que l’on a dans le tableau des classes sociales. Ainsi, selon que l’on a fait des études supérieures ou que l’on a passé le B.E.P.C., que l’on est issu de la bourgeoisie ou d’une classe populaire on aime le Clavecin bien tempéré, la Rhapsodie in blue ou le Beau Danube bleu.
Mais, dit Bourdieu, à l’intérieur de la classe dominante, le capital économique ne correspond pas toujours au capital culturel et un tableau montre comment, dans la classe dominante, selon que l’on a un niveau inférieur au baccalauréat ou que l’on a passé une agrégation, on achète plus facilement ses meubles chez un antiquaire qu’aux Puces ou dans un magasin spécialisé.
En s’interrogeant donc sur les causes des préférences esthétiques, Pierre Bourdieu étudie ce qui les détermine, c’est-à-dire d’une part “ le capital culturel ” autrement dit le niveau d’instruction, et, d’autre part, “ le capital économique ”, soit la situation sociale. Et, en analysant ensuite les transformations du rapport entre les différentes classes sociales et le système d’enseignement, il distingue, à l’intérieur de chaque classe, des principes généraux de conduite que l’on retrouve dans chaque domaine et qui permettent d’établir un “ système ” des styles de vie.
Ainsi, de la même façon que l’on aime tel peintre, on a telle attitude politique et, selon que l’on a fait telles études, on pratique tel sport, on consomme tels aliments et l’on s’habille de telle façon.
En fait, quand on parle de culture, on parle, sans le savoir, de classe sociale, et la politique ne fait pas exception aux lois de la culture et du goût.
Au terme de cet ouvrage, on constate que la critique de la culture, et les usages que l’on en fait comme moyen de domination, font de La Distinction un document d’un intérêt tout à fait nouveau : non seulement pour la sociologie – au niveau de la précision de l’enquête (chaque questionnaire comporte une question par domaine : musique, peinture, vêtements, etc.), mais, également, au niveau politique, où l’on s’aperçoit, au travers des schémas et de l’unification toutes les questions, qu’il s’agit, pour la première fois, de donner plusieurs chances de comprendre la même chose : la cohérence de la conduite de chaque classe et l’usage qu’en font, consciemment ou pas, les partis politiques.

Genres: Sociology, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, Anthropology, Art, France

680 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Bourdieu pioneered investigative frameworks and terminologies such as cultural, social, and symbolic capital, and the concepts of habitus, field or location, and symbolic violence to reveal the dynamics of power relations in social life. His work emphasized the role of practice and embodiment or forms in social dynamics and worldview construction, often in opposition to universalized Western philosophical traditions. He built upon the theories of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Edmund Husserl, Georges Canguilhem, Karl Marx, Gaston Bachelard, Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, Erwin Panofsky, and Marcel Mauss. A notable influence on Bourdieu was Blaise Pascal, after whom Bourdieu titled his Pascalian Meditations.

Bourdieu rejected the idea of the intellectual "prophet", or the "total intellectual", as embodied by Sartre. His best known book is Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, in which he argues that judgments of taste are related to social position. His argument is put forward by an original combination of social theory and data from surveys, photographs and interviews, in an attempt to reconcile difficulties such as how to understand the subject within objective structures. In the process, he tried to reconcile the influences of both external social structures and subjective experience on the individual (see structure and agency).

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bourdieu is getting high praise here on Goodreads and, no offense, but did you read the whole thing?

Now, don't get me wrong, if I were to teach a class on aesthetics, the first chapter, an absolute masterpiece, would be required reading. But for crying out loud, read the whole thing and read it critically. There's no point in reading philosophy or sociology if you don't read it critically.

Part I, "The Aristocracy of Culture" is a masterpiece, if you ignore Bourdieu's crappy methodology. Or near-masterpiece as he doesn't quite follow his own argument to its logical conclusion: that there is no art as such, only class distinctions in aesthetic interpretation. As even Bourdieu points out (pg 99), you don't need his dubious data to reach this conclusion, it merely follows from the premise of his argument which you can accept or reject.

Beyond that: Have you ever gotten into a barroom conversation in which someone has said something like "Statistics just tells you whatever you think you already know."? They're full of shit (ask this person to explain degrees of freedom in a chi-squared distribution and watch them stutter like Rick Perry trying to recall how them gays are evil), but there's always Bourdieu to prove that someone can design a bad survey that serves their point.

Did Pierre understand statistics? No, but the man could divide by 100 and so this book is full of percentages. No estimates of error, no standard deviations, but, hey, who needs hard information when you can make broad declarations based on badly gathered data (a point he concedes in the epilogue)? Bourdieu can make pretty diagrams but there's no discussion of how visual distance illustrates the data. Just trust him, right, I mean, you already agree with him, no?

And the thing is, some of his conclusions are likely solid, but who can tell? His tables are so poorly documented that you can't really tell which conclusions are dodgy and which aren't.

If you ignore his brilliant thoughts on aesthetics, this book is just a restatement of Historical Materialism as laid out perfectly clearly by Marx. Look, Pierre, it's fine to believe in the idea and believe in it wholeheartedly, but to try and support it with half-assed data analysis is a disservice to the most influential philosopher of the last two centuries.

To make matters worse, Bourdieu treats the well-capitalized classes (in their infinite subdivisions of social and economic capital) with the finest granularity, but the lower classes as one undifferentiable mass who can't eat fish because that shit ain't manly and distinctions between immigrants and natives aren't worth four words in the whole book.

Brilliant in conception and shite in execution. Want Marx? Read Marx. Want serious approaches to Marxism? Read Friere. This is ivory tower dialectical Marxian thought: an attempt to sympathize with the dispossessed wihtout any real attempt to understand them. Just to lump them together as stupid, rude, and unrefined. Unlike those well-educated elites... be more like them poor people, we'll get you there eventually, we swear! Just as soon as we finish discussing that Mike Leigh movie about you....

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Bourdieu’s most famous book. And it is long, with much of part 3 probably of only passing interest even to people a bit obsessed with Bourdieu. The problem is that the data is all quite old now and so unless you are particularly interested in how various social fractions of the French class structure reacted to life in the 1960-70s … you get my point.

I’ve been trying to work out how to write this review – you see, the problem is that there’s a bit of a back story to this book and I don’t want to just assume you understand Kantian aesthetics before I start. So, I’m going to start with the bits of Kant that are important to understand so that this book might make a bit more sense.

What is the beautiful? For Kant, the beautiful is essentially subjective. But he means this in a way that might be a bit strange to our ears. He means that beauty is something that happens in our heads, rather than necessarily being something that exists in the object we find beautiful. All the same, because we humans essentially all have the same faculties – pretty much, ways of seeing and understanding the world (god, I’m really simplifying this, so be kind with me if you are a Kantian scholar) then we all should (more or less) agree on what is beautiful. That means that beauty is both subjective (happens inside our heads) and is universal (all of us ought to think the same things are beautiful merely by the fact we are humans).

For Kant the beautiful doesn’t have a purpose – and so you can’t say, ‘this is beautiful because it is really useful’. It is not a thing’s purpose that makes it beautiful, but rather what Kant called its purposiveness – what you could call its ‘disinterested purpose’.

Okay, all that is a bit hard, but it has a point. Kant was trying to come up with a basis upon which to build an entire aesthetic theory – a theory of taste. And to do that he effectively said, all humans ought to think the same things are beautiful and that the beautiful is an object of disinterested interest to humans – it doesn’t have a purpose, it is just beautiful.

Bourdieu disagrees and wants to show that taste is anything but disinterested – rather it a stake in the game of life, it is used by the different social classes as a way for them to assert their own distinction. Taste separates the classes and is used by them to keep out the riff-raff and to decide what is and is not ‘for the likes of us’.

The point of this book isn’t just to disagree with Kant, of course, but rather to show how taste is both manifest in the various social classes of French society, and then to also seek to show that these tastes are not merely an ‘expression of free will’ – which is what we think our tastes are (I love Taylor Swift purely for her singing), but rather that our tastes are structured by our social location in society.

But it is also more than this too. We don’t just adopt our tastes as a kind of ‘stuff you’ to other social classes – but rather those tastes become literally embodied in us. It is not that they are an ‘added extra’, they are part of us in ways that make them seem utterly natural and even inevitable. In fact, our tastes are literally what distinguish us from ‘the other’, and especially from the ‘class other’. People from different social classes from us, particularly from ‘lower’ social classes, have tastes we can barely understand and that we literally find disgusting. And Bourdieu makes sure that the idea of ‘taste’ isn’t missed here. He literally means ‘taste’ – and how so often ‘refined tastes’ in food mean eating things that other people find disgusting. The word ‘companion’ is from Latin and it means ‘with bread’ – that is, someone you share food with – disgust in taste is the surest means of ensuring someone never becomes your ‘companion’. But this is also true in terms of all matters of taste, from home decorations to art to music to magazines and to political parties. Taste and disgust classify us and in turn we are classified by them.

This book was written on the basis of an analysis of a series of surveys regarding things as disparate as choice of magazines, likelihood of attending an art gallery, ability to name composers from their works, what you believe makes a good photograph, or what is your favourite meal. And then this data was analysed according to the social class of the people responding.

Certain tastes can only be acquired after considerable effort has been expended. To be able to appreciate much of modern painting, you need to have acquired that disposition by either learning a lot about the history of art, or you need to have spent a lifetime immersed in art. This forms one of Bourdieu’s main distinctions – between the scholar and the gentleman, as he refers to them. Because the gentleman has been immersed in art all of his life, he brings a naturalness to his appreciation of art that is almost impossible for others to impersonate or fake. The scholar, who has probably come to be associated with art later in life and via the education system, always has a kind of reverence for art that the gentleman doesn’t have, and ironically enough, this makes the scholar less authentic in his appreciation of art. This means the gentleman is more ‘natural’ around art and his taste appears less forced and more free. I’m using the male pronoun here for a reason – firstly, Bourdieu’s term is literally ‘gentleman’, but mostly because he was criticised for not stressing the role played by women in the construction and reproduction of taste.

The lower classes of society often reject upper class notions of taste as being more or less crazy. They often prefer their art to be realistic, consider modern art to be a complete joke, and they are the least likely to know any of the major works of the ‘canon’. That is, they are more likely to know a Strauss waltz than the Goldberg Variations. And while they might say that a play is better and more mind-expanding than a film, they are unlikely to choose to see a play over a film, not least due to the expense. Bourdieu says of the lower classes in society that they believe they are making choices, but really these are all forced choices that are made with the fewest options available. That is, in believing they are making a choice, they are really making a virtue of necessity, in choosing the only things left to them to choose.

But what is particularly interesting is that the middle classes, who desperately want two things: that is, to not be associated with the lower class, and to thus seem more like the upper class – do virtually everything opposite to what the lower class does. So, where the working class are more likely to prefer a simple and hearty meal, the middle classes prefer smaller and more elegant little portions. Here literal taste is defined in a way to separate and distinguish oneself from those beneath you. And this taste is embodied – with Bourdieu discussing how ‘urgent’ so many things related to food is for the working class – particularly men, in the speed of eating, in the noises made while eating, in the portion sizes.

It is hard to say just how influential this book has been. It is a stunning book of sociology and one of the key books on the subject from the 20th century.

p.s.

I meant to say last night, but forgot - the reason why it is important to begin with Kant is that this is a kind of refutation of his Critique of the Judgement. The point Bourdieu is making is that Kant sees as universal the very particular taste of the dominating class, that is, all other class tastes are ill-formed and a mistake of the ugly for the proper beautiful. That is, everyone ought to have access to this universal taste, but it isn't Kant's concern if certain people or groups of people do not. There is a nice bit in part 3 of this where Bourdieu says (and I don't remember the groups he mentions, but will just make them up) that the fact, say, a school teacher and someone from the elite go to the art gallery 3 times a years doesn't in the least mean they are doing 'the same thing'. The teacher is likely to have to go with the gallery is packed and will only have a very short time for their whole visit - the person from the elite can go when the gallery is empty and can stroll and contemplate and immerse themselves in the works. The attitude to time and the pace of living also being highly classed.

[louisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

God, how I hate this bastard. And, god, how smart he is. I have quibbles with his methodology and instrument and the wholesale applicability of his findings outside L'Hexagone, but fuck. I might prefer Thorsten's Midwestern flair and more straightforward style, but Bourdieu has a lot of potent things to say about the myth of the natural eye and the way taste encodes and propagates social, cultural, and educational capital. You will never look at your preferences, favorites, and consumption the same way again.

[Eli Za · Rating 5 out of 5]

بوردیو در این کتاب به ما نشان می‌دهد که طبع و قریحه افراد، به شدت تحت تأثیر موقعیت اجتماعی آن‌ها، جایگاه طبقاتی و خط سیر فردی و طبقاتی آن‌ها در سلسله مراتب اجتماعی قرار دارد. تعریف جامعه از هنر پست و هنر والا کاملا تحت تأثیر تضاد منافع گروه‌ها و طبقات مختلف اجتماعی قرار دارد و در نهایت گروهی که از بیشترین امکان برای گستردن سلطه خود بر سایر گروه‌ها برخوردار باشد، موفق خواهد شد که تعریف متناظر با جایگاه و موقعیت خود را به عنوان تعریف مشروع از هنر تثبیت نماید. از دید بوردیو، مسئله این نیست که گروه‌های دیگری بتوانند در میدان این رقابت، هنر متناظر با جایگاه خود را به عنوان هنر مشروع عرضه کنند، بلکه نفس این تضاد، رقابت و طبقه‌بندی عاملی است که فارغ از برنده آن، به توسعه سلطه‌گری تحت عنوان فرهنگ یا هنر مشروع و سرکوب سایر طبایع و قرایح می‌انجامد.

برداشت غالب فعلی از هنر والا، فرهیخته و مشروع، هنری است که صورت بر محتوای آن دارای ارجحیت است. هنری که نه برای کارکردهایش بلکه صرفا بخاطر ارزش ذاتی خودش ارزشمند به حساب می‌آید. تحقق چنین هنری، مستلزم فاصله گرفتن از جهان محسوسات، جهان ضرورت‌ها و بصورت کلی نفی و فاصله گیری از جهان اجتماعی است. امری که برای طبقات فرودست و گرفتار در چنگال ضرورت، عملا امکان‌پذیر نیست. چنین برداشتی از هنر والا و متعالی و طرد و نفی سایر هنرها تحت عنوان عوامانه، محصول رقابت‌ها و تضاد منافع، میان افراد با جایگاه های اجتماعی متفاوت در میدان هنر است که به تبع آن، گروه‌های قدرتمندتر به اشکال مختلف آگاهانه یا ناآگاهانه دست به طبقه‌بندی انواع هنرها می‌زنند و هنر متناظر با موقعیت خود در میدان اجتماعی را به عنوان هنر مشروع عرضه می‌کنند. در نهایت خود نیز از این طبقه‌بندی متأثر می‌شوند.

اما به زعم بوردیو، هنر متعالی، هنری جدا افتاده از جهان اجتماعی نیست، هنری که زندگی اجتماعی را طرد و نفی می‌کند، بلکه هنر متعالی «باید در پی بیدار کردن وجدان و حس اخلاقی، و تلقین احساس کرامت و عطوفت، آرمانی کردن واقعیت، و نشاندن آرمان هرچیز به جای آن چیز و تصویر کردن حقیقت به جای واقعیت باشد.»

از نظر ترجمه، برخی از جملات طولانی و تو در توی کتاب، می‌توانست به شکل بهتری ترجمه شود. هرچند بوردیو خود در مقدمه کتاب می‌نویسد که جمله‌های طولانی و تو در تو را جهت اجتناب از خوانش سطحی کتاب و تعمق و تأمل بیشتر مخاطب بر محتوا، به کار برده است. طبیعتا از آن کتاب‌هایی است که باید چندین بار خوانده شود.

[Uroš Đurković · Rating 3 out of 5]

Najpre, ovo je izuzetno važna knjiga u kojoj se može naći univerzum savremenih socioloških i estetičkih perspektiva. Takođe, ovo je i jedan teorijski tornado, armiran svim mogućim intelektualnim aparatima: ujedno i enciklopedija disanja društva i džinovski elaborat o njegovim uslovljenostima. Svašta su „Distinkcije”, to nije sporno, međutim, upravo to što nije sporno, može predstavljati problem.

Da pojasnim.

Nisam protiv galopirajuće akademštine, niti protiv misaonih skalamerija, ali jesam kada je autorova namera suprotstavljena realizaciji. Želeći da dâ konačni udarac ukusu kao represivnoj i isključujućoj instituciji, Burdije ulazi u začarani krug, budući da su dometi njegovih razmazranja ograničeni samo na one koji poseduju odgovarajući kulturni kapital. Odnosno, rasprava o distinkcijama, prateći Burdijeovu logiku, dostupna je samo višim društvenim slojevima. Salonsko levičarstvo me sve više nervira i pre ću poštovati različite mutivode – eklektičare, ekscentike i neurastenike – od onih koji bi trebalo tobože da vode računa o radničkoj klasi, a sve rade da se od nje odaljuju. Jer sama priča o klasnoj borbi i (ne)jednakosti, udomila se ne u svestima obespravljenih, već kod onih privilegovanih. I to je tužna ironija. A sva Burdijeova frtutma sa habitusom, školskim/kulturnim/ekonomskim/simboličkim kapitalom, doksom, dominacijom, dinamikom polja, distinkcijama, borbama moći, uništenjem estetike (kao da nije bilo takvih pokušaja ihahaj), predstavlja mašinu za veš intelektualne post-buržoazije, koja će, čupkajući mrvice, postajati tobože svesna kako je ukus klasno ustrojena kategorija, a da nas škola sprečava u tome da vidimo da je lepo ono što je lepo.

A nije li ta ideja banalna? I nije potrebno teorijski i emirijski je dokazivati na više od petsto stranica kroz sve moguće statistike – od toga ko voli kakav enterijer, da li mu se sviđa „Na lepom plavom Dunavu”, sve do toga koji automobili se slažu uz koje francuske političare (556).

Naravno da je ukus povezan sa klasom. (Ukus je tako „praktični vršilac transmutacije stvari u distinktivne znakove koji vrše distinkciju” (184)) I ne samo ukus za umetnička dela – već i doslovni ukus – ukus za hranu, o čemu Burdije posvećuje dosta pažnje, pišući, između ostalog, kako su banane jedino voće koje preovlađuje među radnicima, dok breskve i narandže privlače srednju i višu klasu, a da kuvana hrana ukazuje na tradicionalnu ulogu žene u društvu (195). Takođe, zanimljivo je da, kada nas neko obori neukusom (a „Netolerancija u estetici”, kako Burdije tvrdi, „vrši strahovita nasilja” (61)) mi reagujemo stomačnom metaoforom: toliko je grozno da mi se povraća. Tako ukus u okviru ishrane zavisi od načina na koji svaka klasa doživljava svoje mesto i efekat tela u njoj. (197)

Međutim, za Burdijea skok iz prirode u kulturu takođe je borba klasa! (259) A ljubav je način da se u drugome vidi vlastita sudbina i da se oseča voljenim u njoj (251) – a spomenuta sudbina nije ništa drugo do klasna trajektorija, odnosno, ono što društveno determiniše jedinku...

Ipak, ono što sam osetio kao proplamsaj pogođenog, jesu Burdijeova razmatranja o sitnoj buržoaziji. Analizirajući kult malih životnih zadovoljstava kod sitne buržoazije, Burdije konstatuje kako: „Čitava egzistencija sitnog buržuja u usponu je anticipiranje budućnosti koju će najčešće moći da živi preko svoje dece” (364). Život sitnog buržuja je život na odloženo plaćanje i otuda su sitna zadovoljstva žetoni koji to plaćanje stabilno odlažu, dajući iluziju da su pomogli.

I bolje da se sa ovom akumulacijom ovde završim, a ko hoće može dodati šta treba.
A ima šta da se doda.

Da se doda kako je srećna okolnost što nisam upisao sociologiju jer bih, pre ili kasnije, propištao.

[Michael Sutherland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bourdieu’s distinction offers a lot. By a lot, I mean 600 pages of analyses, graphs, and studies, in some of the densest prose imaginable. Bourdieu seems to be able to expand a simple sentence’s worth of information into entire paragraphs that flow like dense molasses. Distinction does have a lot to offer, though. I am reading it as a part of a look into hipster subcultures in the United States—obviously far removed from the 1980s French society that Bourdieu analyzed; most of the figures, tables, and statistical data are irrelevant to me. The analyses, however, are as sharp as a whip and provide insight into any modern Western society.
Bourdieu delves deeply into the relationship between money and culture; why the upper class is more cultured, why certain demographics have different attitudes about culture—through art, music, fashion, literature, and everything else. Bouridieu essentially states that culture is foremost influenced by social class upbringing; a person’s attitude, consumption of, and production of culture is entirely dependent on their class upbringing. Bourdieu calls this relationship of class and taste “habitas” and describes it in detail through the lenses of different subcultures.
Taste is essentially a device by which classes can be stratified; attitudes about taste (like the “snob” attitude of the rich and “smug” attitude of hipsters) are used to declare class and reinforce a social hierarchy. Essentially, rather than the coat-of-arms, the upper class now has taste to distinguish them from everyone else.
Bourdieu also describes a two-tone system by which to classify people in society; he argues that a person’s worth in society is determined by their cultural capital (how cultured they are) and their economic capital (how rich they are).
Distinction is the type of book that must be read slowly, carefully, and with frequent breaks in between. Its ideas are relevant and insightful, but wrapped in a dense academic casing that can seem daunting to break. I was able to get a lot out of reading only parts, and while I hated Bourdieu for his style, I greatly enjoyed seeing the relevance of his analyses.

[Andrew]

Damn, it's better than you'd think to have someone tell you how bullshit the way you and everyone you know does life and how you need to watch out for internal fascism!

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Tastes (i.e., manifested preferences) are the practical affirmation of an inevitable difference. It is no accident that, when they have to be justified, they are asserted purely negatively, by the refusal of other tastes."

This book had a sickening impact upon me, an insidious trembling, and it really shouldn't have.

It's dense and technical, and as much as one is tempted to reflect upon Bourdieu's ideas and wonder how they manifest in one's immediate society, Distinction is not the most effective tool to go about doing so. France in the late 70's doesn't seem much like Ireland in 2019, or even Ireland in the late 70's. The layman will likely find many of Bourdieu's graphs as mystifying as I did, their sociological rigour a leap of secular faith. And the writing style leaves something to be desired, though I, distantly admiring French intellectuals of all stripes, find the density to be something of an initiation ritual.

Still, it's likely to keep me up at night. Bourdieu did not introduce me to a method of perceiving the world as never before, but forcefully adjusted the lens, to make what was indistinct painfully there.

The indictment of pretentiousness was like a vulture circling above my adolescent self. I thought I was smart, but I knew I couldn't say so. That was a fact about myself entirely dependent on my relationships with others, and through lots of clumsy conversation with friends, I tried to reify my intelligence by getting them to complement me. Maybe oscillating wildly between arrogance and severely low self-esteem is broadly general to the teenage experience, but I still confuse myself thinking about the significant effort I put towards finding convoluted methods to solve simple problems.

Know thyself is easy advice to give, Socrates, but once one asks 'what does it mean to know?' and 'what does it mean to have a self?' philosophy takes 2000 years to come to mixed conclusions.

I think I can say confidently, thanks to Bourdieu, that the fear of being called pretentious I had / have (for these things rarely completely disappear) is tied into my background and social circumstances. One can use the term 'iconoclast' or 'black sheep' to describe the same sort of person, but the former is a person doing, the latter being. I shared little interests with my family or most people around me since I was very young, and was an awkward child as a result.

Eventually one must conform or lean further into their distinctions. Everyone does a little of both - I got into anime and manga as a thirteen-year old mostly because I wanted friends, and nerds can't be choosy with those. At fifteen I began reading more, and slowly, over the course of a few years, what I was interested in and what I could talk with others about diverged. Various things I liked before repulsed me now, inspired a unique kind of rejection. I almost completely stopped watching television or films, and rarely read comics anymore.

Am I a snob? Yes and no. Am I pretentious? Probably yes and no as well. Let me share another anecdote.

I went to Dublin last week to visit a friend for a few days. He was working, so I wandered around the city centre from 9 to 6, into art galleries and museums. In many ways I have more of a theoretical appreciation for art than a manifestly aesthetic one, because I have scant education on such things. The average person looks at a piece of abstract art and thinks it is ugly and that there is no difference between the particular painting and any random splashing of a canvas a child might do. I looked at some abstract art and...mostly found it unremarkable and ugly too, though I wanted to like it. I wanted to see more than I could see, because I believe there is more to schools of abstract painting than a rebellious act of making anything 'art'. The most significant difference between me and the layman is that I'll want to see the painting again, regardless of whether or not I'll find anything to appreciate.

To be honest, I forget what my overall point is in sharing these anecdotes, assuming I had one.

My wandering around Dublin was in the shadow of Bourdieu. Everywhere I went, one could buy a copy of Ulysses or even Finnegans Wake, a crueler tourist trap I can't imagine. I love Ulysses, but it's a strange commodity. What book could give someone more cultural capital today than that? And yet it was so ever-present in Dublin it seemed like a capitalist's practical joke. The city itself latches onto Joyce to distinguish itself amongst other European cultural havens.

If I didn't think the book was incredible, I'd hate its symbolic pretension. I'd like more people to read it, but only if you're used to stream-of-consciousness, and if you've read Portrait, and if you don't take it too seriously and recognise its humour, and...then I see all the copies of the book on sale in Dublin, think 'there's no way people are actually reading it as much as availability of the book suggests' and become something of a snob again.

I can't look at Bourdieu's surveys and see how Life Is Now. Even presuming he encapsulates his society perfectly, the internet has thoroughly changed how tastes are shaped and cultural distinctions are made between classes. I've seen homeless people with smartphones. Still, there is too much that is interesting here that I can't help but ponder, as I have self-indulgently done so here. Is my love of Ulysses shaped in part from my desire to use the book as an intellectual cudgel against the people around me? That would make me awfully pretentious. But it's probably a little more true than I'd like to admit. Distinction might force you to examine yourself more honestly too.

[Frank · Rating 5 out of 5]

Freilich sind die vielen soziologischen Befunde "veraltet" in dem Sinne, als man heute statt von Magazinen und Regionalzeitungen als Organen der Meinungsbildung verschiedener gesellschaftlicher Gruppen über Instagram oder TikTok- Influencer reden müsste. Nichtsdestotrotz sind die Schlussfolgerungen von geradezu beängstigender Aktualität: Der "Geschmack" bestimmt, wie wir uns Verhalten ("Habitus"), was wiederum davon bestimmt ist, was wir uns leisten können. Das Spektrum reicht dabei vom Kunstgeschmack als einem Zeichen für die soziale Stellung bis hin zum politischen Interesse oder dem an Sport oder Essen.
Die grundlegenden Thesen waren mir natürlich bekannt. Die sogenannten "feinen Unterschiede", hervorgerufen durch das, was wir heute "Sozialisation" nennen (und damit oft um die materiellen Existenzbedingungen kürzen) bestimmen nicht nur unsere Stellung, sondern eben auch unsere Perspektiven in der Gesellschaft. So ist es nur konsequent, dass Bourdieu das Kleinbürgertum ins Zentrum seiner Betrachtungen stellt. Im Gegensatz zum Proletariat, das ohne Aufstiegschancen ist und mithin einer autonomen (Anti-) Kultur verhaftet bleibt, ist der Habitus des Kleinbürgers durch den Aufstiegsehrgeiz oder die Abstiegsfurcht (Konservatismus) geprägt. Wie in der Natur jeder Fötus die Phylogenese, durchläuft in der Gesellschaft jede Kleinbürgerfamilie die Geschichte der "ursprünglichen Akkumulation" als Geschichte des Kapitalismus aufs Neue. Irre Analogie! Allerdings so überzeugend vorgetragen, dass ich sowohl eigene Verhaltensweisen als auch die meiner Familie bis in kleine Details wiedererkannte. Da ist der elterlich Geiz der Askese, der allein Sparen auf Statussymbole wie Haus oder Auto ermöglicht, da ist auch die förmliche Distanz zu (wenigen) Freunden und guten Bekannten, die man so wenig dicht an sich heranlässt wie die weitere Verwandtschaft (die vom etwas Wohlhabenderen womöglich Unterstützung und damit Teilen verlangen könnte); da sind auch die Angst vor Ausgelassenheit und diese piefige Sexualmoral, die notwendig ist, um das Erworbene "in der Familie" zu erhalten und nicht zerstreuen zu müssen. Die Ein- Kind- Familie natürlich und das Bildungsversprechen als Aufstiegsversprechen inklusive des Stolzes auf die Bildungstitel der Enkel, in dem sich zeigt, wie sehr das eigene Leben zugunsten der Nachkommen zurückgesetzt wurde. Man erschrickt beim Lesen. Nicht das Schlechteste, was man über ein Buch sagen kann.
Kritik? Eigentlich keine. Allenfalls bleibt ein Bedauern darüber zurück, dass Bourdieus äußerst interessante Überlegungen zur Philosophie und zur Ästhetik Kants sowie der Postmodernen (Derrida) am Schluss etwas kurz kommt. Da ist ein eigenständiges Thema für ein Buch angeschnitten, das der Autor - soweit ich weiß - nicht geschrieben hat. Anregungen, die man selbst weiterdenken kann, sind jedoch genug vorhanden. Noch etwas, das für dieses Buch spricht. Geschrieben 1979 ist es aktuell wie je. Ohne Bourdieu wäre unser Nachdenken über die Gesellschaft ärmer, viel ärmer. Wer etwas über uns erfahren und "den Menschen" in seiner Klassen- und Schichtenexistenz verstehen will, dem sei das Buch unbedingt zum Studium (!) empfohlen. Wer keine Zeit dafür mitbringt, immerhin sind es fast 1000 Seiten, kann es freilich lassen. Es ist überaus anspruchsvoll formuliert.

[Esme · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book...is not easy in the slightest. As one reader previously wrote: "sometimes I wish Bourdieu knew what a simple sentence was." Or something like that. The point is, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste is ridiculously dense and stuffed the very brim with analyzation and graphs and information, and reading it can be hell, but also really interesting. Just a few pages is enough to give the reader perspective and allow them to think a little differently about things. There isn't much I feel I can say about Bourdieu, other than he is obviously very, very smart.

Distinction explores the word of taste within individuals and what social class they come from. He looks into art, literature, sports, music, education, everyday living, fashion, etc. It is mostly inferred that the upper classes have more respectable taste in such things, and it seems that they believe they "deserve" it more than the bourgeoisie or the working class. This kind of prestige has been developed and thriving throughout the ages, and now, it seems the modern hipster carries the same attitude. There is a certain snottiness that comes with having 'good taste' in most cases, and as I have now learned from reading bits and pieces of Distinction, this stems from the fact that no one other than the high classes could afford good taste.

I sort of enjoyed this book. I liked the graphs, I liked that it wasn't totally impossible to get through, I like that it had a lot to say no matter what page the reader opened up. I didn't like that Bourdieu never took a break. He kept going and going and going, without many commas throughout. Perhaps someday I'll finish Distinction, but until then, it has definitely got me thinking about what separates us human beings in terms of taste and preference.

[Erwann Seroux · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alors, la distinction, c'est quoi ? C'est ce qui nous distingue (de rien) entre classes sociales, et ce qui distingue ceux qui ont la classe - ceux qui ont le goût légitime, càd le goût des œuvres légitimes - de ceux qui ne l'ont pas. Car le goût est "rapport de familiarité immédiate avec les choses du goût". C’est aussi "une adhésion immédiate, inscrite au plus profond des habitus, des sympathies et aversions qui, plus que les opinions déclarées, fondent, dans l’inconscient, l’unité de classe" - tiens tiens, la conscience de classe est donc bien inconsciente, salut Karl.

L'un des points principaux du livre est la séparation du capital en trois concepts distincts: le capital économique (la moula pour s'acheter un Rembrandt), le capital culturel (connaître et surtout reconnaître un Rembrandt), et le capital social (connaître le directeur de la galerie qui a justement un Rembrandt). Cela permet d'affiner l'analyse que l'on se fait du "mérite" et des efforts requis pour "aller loin dans la vie".

Un exemple parmi tant d'autres: les études supérieures en Belgique. Quelle que soit l'institution, quelle que soit la faculté, quelle que soit la ville où l'on étudie, on paiera le même prix (835€ si mes souvenirs sont bons). On pourrait se dire que la Belgique est une terre d'égalité des chances où l'on retrouve le plus grand nombre d'enfants de caristes finissant diplômés universitaires. La réalité du terrain est toute autre: ceux des bruxellois effectuant leurs études dans les plus prestigieuses des facultés bruxelloises sont, pour la majorité, issus soit d’écoles privées, soit des écoles publiques disposant de la plus haute reconnaissance - pour grossir le trait très fortement, on retrouve dans ces facultés les enfants de bourgeois, ainsi que quelques enfants de petits bourgeois nouveaux (qui ont plus de capital économique que culturel ou social), et l’un ou l’autre transfuge de classe - ceux-ci demeurant marginaux.

Le fait est que l'école est historiquement bourgeoise. Quand ceux-ci ont vu débarquer des hordes de pauvres dans les établissements de leurs enfants, ils ont développé différentes techniques pour continuer de s'y distinguer. Ils ont dû intensifier leur utilisation de l’école (et donc du nombre de diplôme) pour conserver la distinction que l’école leur confère, le tout en dévaluant les diplômes plus inférieurs aux leurs - un bachelier est moins utile maintenant que lors de la génération précédente. Ce que cela engendre, entre autres choses, c'est que les détenteurs de titres plus rares se mettent hors course en instaurant des numerus clausus: ils doivent donc défendre une définition de poste qui n’est autre que la définition qu’eux décident. Étant donné qu’ils veulent garder leur distinction, il y a un paradoxe: le maintien de l’ordre est assuré par un changement incessant des propriétés de la distinction. L'effet pervers de tout ça, c'est que ce que la lutte de concurrence éternise, ce ne sont pas des conditions différentes, mais la différence des conditions. Putain, balèze le Pierrot.

La distinction distingue, l'identité sociale se définissant et se traduisant dans la différence. Par exemple dans la nourriture, la façon de manger, de parler, de boire - je vous laisse imaginer que le Picon bière n’est pas l’apanage des grands héritiers. On retrouve ce genre d'analyse à l'échelle du sport. Par exemple, le sport de bourgeois "se fait seul ou avec des partenaires choisis, aux moments de son choix, avec un dépense énergétique relativement faible, et plutôt onéreuse et plus rentable au plus tôt elle est commencée" => l'échange sportif est plutôt un échange social courtois où injures et violences n’ont pas leur place. C'est vrai que le rugby avec ses bourre-pifs et ses troisièmes mi-temps peu distinguées sont en opposition totale avec le golf et les M&A qui y ont lieu.

S'ensuivent plusieurs chapitres détaillant les différents sens de la distinction, en particulier la bonne volonté culturelle propre aux petits bourgeois, et le choix du nécessaire pour les plus pauvres - les petits bourgeois se distinguent en montrant patte blanche face aux pratiques des bourgeois, tandis que les prolos font avec ce qu'ils ont. Pas révolutionnaire en soi mais fallait quand même le sortir.
De même, certains sont naturels dans leur environnement grâce justement à leur disposition: être ce qu’il faut être, c'est le profit de distinction. Il s'agit d'avoir acquis sans avoir jamais acquis => par cette formule, Pierrot montre qu'on peut opposer l'ethos bourgeois de l’aisance (coïncidence réalisée de l’être et du devoir-être) à un ethos petit bourgeois de la restriction par prétention (volontarisme rigoriste d’appelés non encore élus).

Le passage final sur la politique explique toujours aussi bien les dynamiques de votes: surprise, on vote plus à droite (la perpétuation de l'ordre) qu’à mesure que croît le volume global du capital ainsi que le poids relatif du capital économique. Surprise également, le désintéressement des plus pauvres de la politique tient de leur sentiment d’impuissance.

Bien sûr, c'est extrêmement massif - quasiment 700 pages de phrases qui sont en fait des paragraphes, de tableaux, de graphes multi-dimensionnels, et d'articles d'époque explicitant le propos. Le style ampoulé est difficile à apprivoiser, mais y'a néanmoins de belles phrases:

[Les petits bourgeois sont] coincés par l'illusion qu'il suffit d’attendre pour obtenir ce qu’ils ne pourront acquérir que par leurs luttes - l'analyse marxiste a clairement matrixé les penseurs français d'après-guerre
La sincérité est le privilège de ceux qui ont trouvé leur lieu naturel dans le champ de production 
Le petit bourgeois est un prolétaire qui se fait petit pour devenir bourgeois

Et autres joyeusetés du genre.

Parfois ça fait mal de se retrouver décortiqué dans le livre, mais c'est là tout le but de ce livre: il est impossible de le lire sans se sentir par instants observés dans ses habitudes et habitus les plus profonds.

Bon le livre a un peu vieilli vu qu'il se base sur des enquêtes (fort précises néanmoins) des 60s, et que certaines références peuvent sonner au mieux datées, au pire complètement inconnues. Mais au moins la PCA fût popularisée en France grâce à Bourdieu, et juste c'est poce bleu.

Cette analyse bancale et trop résumée ne rend pas justice à la force du livre mais j'y ai quand même consacré trop de temps. Askip faudrait aussi lire Kant mais j’ai un peu la flemme là - j'ai mis 4 ans à lire ce livre, je vais pas sauter sur les philosophes allemands. Là j'vais lire Astérix, tchao.

[Buveur d'encre · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Must-read» ανάγνωσμα στην κατηγορία του είδους του.
Ενώ μπορεί να κουράσει κάποιον λόγω της διεξοδικής ανάλυσής του, δεν πρέπει να το αφήσει γιατί όσο προχωράει γίνεται διαυγές, ξεκάθαρο, αποκαλυπτικό και τελικά καθηλωτικό.

[Jan D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Das war etwas anstrenged, aber interessant. Es geht zwar darum, wie Geschmack zum Ausdruck gebracht wird, aber trotzdem ist das Beschriebene sehr statisch, abgesehen von den kurzen Abschnitten, in denen Menschen ihren Geschmack beschreiben. Überhaupt, Abschnitte! Es gibt den Haupttext in Normalgröße und die Vignetten mit Selbstbeschreibungen (auch normale Textgröße, aber hellgrauer Hintergrund), es gibt soetwas wie einen detailierten Nebentext (in sehr kleiner Schrift) und die Fußnoten, die auch sehr lang sein können (auch sehr kleine Schrift). Ich habe mich immer wieder darin verlaufen. Verlaufen habe ich mit auch in den Sätzen. Die sind sehr lang und geschachtelt, das Verb weit hinten hängend. Normalerweise denke ich mir dann „Naja, aber Vorgetragen klingt es vielleicht gut”, aber ich glaube nicht das jemand einen so langen Atem hat oder genug Stimmlagen um die mehrfachen Schachtelungen zu versprachlichen.
Inhaltlich, wie gesagt, trotzdem interessant: Geschmack ist nicht objektiv bewertbar; Personen und auch gesellschaftliche Schichten sammeln „kulturelles Kapital” und konvertieren es auch in Geld und Macht; Menschen und Gruppen wollen aufsteigen, aber das ist sehr schwierig, weil es von den Menschen mit kulturellem Kapital oft erkennbar ist, dass andere sich „nicht richtig“ Verhalten: Overflächlich, möchtegern, neurreich, kitschig, simulierend. Was also so höchst losgelöst, künstlerisch und rein erscheint, ist auch ein Mechanismus zur Exklusion, so wie vermutlich auch die langen Sätze in dem Buch; man darf es natürlich trotzdem mögen (‚man‘ schreiben statt ‚ich‘ ist natürlich auch so ein Ding, genauso der Hinweis darauf, etc.)

[Ocean · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although fascinating, I really had to slog through that one. For a sociologist in favour of the poor, he sure as hell didn't make his writing very accessible.
I also kept going "So ?" while reading. The exemples kept on piling on for pretty self evident conclusions. This is also a slightly dated book.
Not my favourite.

[ch · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is rather shoddy in many respects. The sociological methodology is poor in several aspects and presented even more poorly - unintelligibly, at times. In general it seems that Bourdieu actually doesn't know what he's talking about. He doesn't seem to be able to pin down any classifications and when he elaborates he relies on his own shifting impressions rather than the (paucity of) data that he presents. He starts by identifying the aristocratic social order as aesthetes but seems to drift away from that after the first chapter and by the middle of the book he has continually referred to the "dominant class" (which he never defines but which seems to be the "upper" class of his charts) who are not necessarily aesthetes but the modern "nobility:" the French haute bourgeoisie (an assignment which is historically suspect). He also seems to be lumping academics in that category at times as well, in that they create and reproduce cultural capital (although in the first chapter he calls them - with some accuracy - "pedants.")

For anyone who really wants to understand distinction (discrimination) and taste - how sensibilities are naturally identified, communicated, cultivated, presented, and pursued in the formation of culture - this book will not yield much. In fact, it is misleading, in that the true practice of distinction and taste is presented as grossly oversimplified and even contradictory to the data he uses, since dichotomies such as coarse:fine, heavy:light, clumsy:adroit are repeatedly presented. (Patina, creme fraiche, and brutalist art are thereby - incorrectly - relegated to the lower classes.)

One contribution of the book is the matrix approach to class based on economic and cultural capital.

The treatment of the lower classes flirts with social darwinism.

I couldn't figure out what Bourdieu was hoping to achieve here and was increasingly disgusted by the sloppiness and inaccuracy of the work.

[Judith Rodriguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

écoute, j’ai pas compris la moitié du livre, mais au moins j’ai essayé 🫠🫠

[Moh. Nasiri · Rating 4 out of 5]

A theory of relationship between taste and social class.
Why do we like the things we like?

We associate different tastes with different social classes.

[Carlos Campos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fundamental para mi investigación.

[Loubna Mckouar]

When I first read this it gave me a trauma from how smart a man can be and how stupid I could get struggling with every sentence, graph, example trying to understand it within an everyday context. But hey, it's not any "everyday life" it's a Middle Eastern one. I used this guy to theorise the power of a Saudi media Mogul, his empire, his prince field, and the "others" around the same empire. Distinction is about the individual and his strategies in every single field of life. In defining the term Habitus and developing his field theory Bourdieu focuses a lot on class but I find the power of his anthropological and sociological terms beyond a class classification. Class definitely impacts the illusio, the Habitus, the capital but the fact that all individuals are cable of 'being' in their own predictable and unpredictable ways makes class a structuring power not a defining one. In fact, not even class can predict the way an individual makes use of his own field in the positive and negative sense alike. It's helpful to read Bourdieu along Hegel, Lacan (the other confusing genius) and while keeping in mind Decerteau's "tactics" and "making do". Not an easy read but one that gives a strategic way of thinking about being within the structured society of different fields and powers. It's insane how this man developed these over the 600 sthg pages of this masterpiece I keep thinking that this is a group work. If a book gives you headache (an enjoyable one of course!!!) it's worth reading. I recommend even to non academics :)

[Feliks · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm casting this one away into my 'abandoned' shelf. I admire Bourdieu, and would like to know more of his career and his theories, but this specific title is not for me. It's just about as dense a work as I've ever encountered; unrelieved density without any reward for persevering along with it. Even Hans-Georg Gadamer is more pleasant reading. From what I can make out, Bourdieu surveyed a large cross-section of French citizens about their 'tastes in the arts'. Individuals from all every class and all walks-of-life were polled. He then uses the results to concoct a swirling nebula of conclusions about people's taste and the-judgments-we-make-based-on-our-tastes. I wasn't aware this is front-page news. Yes, we all make judgments. But Bourdieu would have it that, 'we are all snobs'. Still, I ask: what of it? 'Educated citizens have more discrimination and discernment towards culture, than the uneducated'. Well? So? And your point is...? Is there some urgent social problem here? Some crisis? Is there anything we ought to do differently? Maybe someone can explain to me, why this fantastic amount of verbiage for something that is (1) self-evident and (2) not causing any problem. For now, I've had enough ...I'll return to Bordieu some later time and hopefully with some better strategy for absorbing what he has to say. He has a fine reputation.

[DoctorM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bourdieu looks at cultural productions--- art, music, books ---and asks which social groups regard particular authors or painters or composers as "theirs": in other words, defining points for membership in a certain class. Aesthetic sensibility, he argues, is the means by which educational and cultural capital are converted into class markers. An aristocratic bloodline has been replaced by the 'aesthetic sensibility' as a way to define entitlement to deference in society. "Distinction" thus has an edge to it that lighter and comic treatments like Fussell's "Class" lack. Taste, Bourdieu argues, is a social weapon. The ability to 'know' what is aesthetically, culturally defined as 'superior' is a way of excluding outsiders, of reminding those without access to cultural and educational capital that they are outsiders.

[Tony Gualtieri · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's dated, overlong, and the prose is convoluted; however, the insights into the social construction of taste are thought provoking. Why do we like what we like? How much of our preferences are due to class envy, education, or economic circumstances?

The final chapter, on Kant's Critique of Judgment, shows how even so-called pure aesthetics is "grounded in an empirical social relation," how pleasure itself becomes part of the way "dominant groups...ride roughshod over difference, flouts distinction, [and] reduces the distinctive pleasures of the soul to the common satisfactions of food and sex."

Bourdieu also makes prescient comments on the tendencies of statisticians and sociologists to create artificial dichotomies and ends up suggesting that intellectuals may not be best placed to comment on bourgeois and working class taste.

[Caiza Lind · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love the theories, hate the rambling

[kamil_shadow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tezy Bourdieu wciąż mocne, choć lepiej się je referuje z jakimś wyraźnym punchline'em, niż czyta i przedziera przez grafy, wykresy, ankiety, wycinki, KOLEJNE WYKRESY. To praca o tyle ciekawa, że choć badano grupę z bardzo konkretnych czasów (Francja, lata 60.), to duch tych diagnoz jest cholernie trafny, a ustalenia o habitusie, KAPITALE KULTUROWYM i dystynkcji są bezcenne i nie tylko aplikowalne, ale wręcz konieczne do wzięcia pod uwagę, kiedy bada się cokolwiek związanego z ludźmi. Pochodzenie społeczne, wykształcenie, kapitał ekonomiczny, milleu – te kategorie dziś wracają ze zdwojoną siłą (albo to wishful thinking).

[nasti · Rating 4 out of 5]

fascinating but also gave me about ten headaches. the way it critiques language and education as tools to keep power in the hands of the elite is sharp and necessary—but then bourdieu turns around and writes in a way that’s inaccessible in itself. the irony? still, it’s packed with food for thought and a brutal reminder of how class shapes everything—our habits, our tastes, even the way we think. tough read, but worth it.

[Moonbeam · Rating 1 out of 5]

Il peggior libro mai letto per un corso universitario.
Noioso e frasi lunghe un'intera pagina, insomma: la sagra delle subordinate

[clara ʕ⁠´⁠•⁠ᴥ⁠•⁠`⁠ʔ · Rating 5 out of 5]

te amo bourdieu

[Corey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pierre Bourdieu in Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste offers an ethnography of 1960s French taste. Largely, based on interviews, the research illustrates how taste is inherently judgemental and a product of, to use, Bourdieuan terms, the habitus and individual agency acting within the ‘cultural’ field. Intervieews answered questions based on preferences in taste, opinions, and something close to Bourdieu’s heart- institutional pedadgogies and knowledge, regarding movies, art, fiction, music, theatre and film. However, the book offers more than a placid positivistic survey analysis. Bourdieu uses empirical quanitative data to think epistemologically about how particular (French) classes discern and distinguish themselves between others.
The overarching argument asserts the bourgeois- or dominant class- is able to maintain economic and social hegemony by way of a deeply-rooted class inheritence. To Bourdieu, capital is accumulated within and outside of the economy. He conceptualizes the notion of cultural capital, which values non-economic and immaterial accumulation: education, language, judgement, and values. The acquisition of cultural capital occurs within the family and social insitititutios. Inequity and the continuation of, is recreated in the reception of cultural capital, where the dominant class through ‘aptitude’ appropriates a ‘high culture’ as hegemonic. Notions of ‘gifted’ and ‘inborn’ brilliance are assumed to be embodied within the individual; Bourdieu argues these ‘gifts’ are pre-determined and dictacted on evaulation criterias that favour the bourgeois. Ultimately, particular ‘high-brow’ cultural practices are codified in activities like going to museums, reading traditional literature and engagement with the arts.
I think that Bourdieu’s intentions were the best when writing this book. However, in the theorization of everyday life, taste and how the bourgeois maintains dominance, he (almost) re-creates a T.S. Eliot version of culture perfected and marked by religion, formal education, and tradition. Where is Raymond Williams when you need him?

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a classic for sociologists, but not many have been able to read the entirety of it.

Bourdieu's ideas on the concept of 'taste', and the driving force behind it (spoiler: the economic field and the struggle of the classes within), were (and still are) quite revolutionary, despite the clear influences he refers to (Marxism, Robert Merton, etc). Bourdieu sprinkles many examples throughout the book to help you grasp his deeply theoretical book.

Despite these many examples, you might have trouble getting through the book. This is because the book is written in typical Academic French, and thus only helps to obfuscate rather than elucidate his ideas. The translation from French to English does help a tad if you're not a native French speaker, but a good translator can only go so far in his translation.

The way Bourdieu introduces foreign concepts (habitus, doxa, logic of practice) is through jumping straight and enthusiastically into his deep thoughts, instead of clearly and logically defining them first. What helps in this regard is to read a clear synopsis written by someone else (I wish I were kidding!) to grasp the main ideas behind his theory and its concepts. Once you reach an understanding of his simple and elegant theory, you go back to this book and wrestle through the book, and submerge yourself into its details; you will encounter many 'aha'-moments about the relationships you have or have seen, as Bourdieu's theory of distinction has a vast explanatory power.

A final remark: Do not let his stale titles keep you from actually reading the chapters in detail; for example, chapter 4 entitled "The dynamics of the field", is one of the most important chapters in the book which you would never guess while yawning over its title and glancing over it while debating with yourself whether to read it or not.

Conclusion: The book presents terrific ideas and many examples about a detailed theory, but the writing is an outstanding illustration of the modern need of a good editor.

[Thai Divone · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is the reason that I started learning sociology. I read a small part of it, in a class during a school visit to the university, and I fell in love. Five years later and I'm in my last year of my bachelorate studies in sociology, hoping to get into a position in the sociology department of some university. In other words, this book is my childhood, I grew up on it and with it. Although, for this reading, it was rather long, it did live up to the expectations. I can't recommend this book enough.