I’m sharing this because I want to ensure that this magazine continues to adorn our newsstands.  Not that it is in any danger but, like climate change ( we’ve got to be vigilant) to ensure it does not disappear completely into cyber space.   So, I’m aiming at starting a small groundswell of followers who will adore and cherish this print publication.

And it is… Habitus – living in design

Firstly thing you will notice is the  physicality of Habitus  which hints at the experience awaiting you on the pages.  The cover is just so tactile – I find it most soothing just to sit and stroke it a few times before I slip into another article! The mix of paper stock takes your fingers though a journey from the raw and earthy to the luxurious. 

The articles span art, architecture, furntiture design and interiors, dipping in and out of the lives of Australian and international artists and designers.  You feel like your peering behind the scenes, uncovering secrets,  sharing an intimate view of their lives and inspirations. 

The writers and photographers who contribute to Habitat are well chosen, the words are insightful the images are beautiful.

Cruising through the ‘news’  section I can quickly see the ‘must haves’ for my little nest, the SUSHI Collection by Moroso for starters (issue 05) or the Lamp No. 1 by Nicolo Taliani. ( Issue 05). 

Okay so I’m gushing, but you know there is so much terrible media out there today, no depth, no respect for you the reader, the viewer, the customer.  It is just wondrous to find a magazine like Habitat that converses with its readers.

I won’t take you through my favourite articles because you need to buy it and read it yourself.   I’m treating myself to a subscription for Christmas!   I’m thinking you should too! 

Visit Habitus to subscribe

I’m sharing this because I want to ensure that this magazine continues to adorn our newsstands.  Not that it is in any danger but, like climate change ( we’ve got to be vigilant) to ensure it does not disappear completely into cyber space.   So, I’m aiming at starting a small groundswell of followers who will adore and cherish this print publication.

And it is… Habitus – living in design

Firstly thing you will notice is the  physicality of Habitus  which hints at the experience awaiting you on the pages.  The cover is just so tactile – I find it most soothing just to sit and stroke it a few times before I slip into another article! The mix of paper stock takes your fingers though a journey from the raw and earthy to the luxurious. 

The articles span art, architecture, furntiture design and interiors, dipping in and out of the lives of Australian and international artists and designers.  You feel like your peering behind the scenes, uncovering secrets,  sharing an intimate view of their lives and inspirations. 

The writers and photographers who contribute to Habitat are well chosen, the words are insightful the images are beautiful.

Cruising through the ‘news’  section I can quickly see the ‘must haves’ for my little nest, the AT-AT laptop desk from Roethlisberger Kollektion for starters (issue 04) or the Lamp No. 1 by Nicolo Taliani. ( Issue 05). 

Okay so I’m gushing, but you know there is so much terrible media out there today, no depth, no respect for you the reader, the viewer, the customer.  It is just wondrous to find a magazine like Habitat that converses with its readers.

I won’t take you through my favourite articles because you need to buy it and read it yourself.   I’m treating myself to a subscription for Christmas!   I’m thinking you should too! 

Visit Habitus to subscribe

habitus, living in design

Resumo capítulo 07 – Sociologia Contemporânea

Pierre Bourdieu

- Formação diversificada: sociologia, filosofia, antropologia, estatística;

- Contribuição para a noção da interdependência entre educação e cultura pela abordagem da questão de distribuição do capital cultural e a manutenção da ordem;

- Aspecto fundamental: relação entre propagação do capital cultural e a permanência da ordem social e sua estrutura;

- “(…) Será que somos criadores da sociedade, ou será que somos criados por ela? A escolha entre essas duas alternativas não é tão evidente quanto pode parecer em um primeiro momento, e o verdadeiro problema está na maneira como esses dois aspectos da vida social devem ser relacionados entre si” (p. 96);

- Retomada de elementos encontrados na sociologia de Elias: a “interiorização da exterioridade”;

- Bourdieu investiga dialeticamente os elementos exterioridade e interiorização, esta última também nomeada internalização;

- A lógica da prática: busca, assim como Weber, a compreensão de nexos causais constantes nas ações individuais e grupais e a ação estabelecida pelo agente ou ator social, que possui uma lógica intrínseca;

- Inovação na abordagem da relação entre indivíduo e sociedade, na qual considera elementos como o sistema de ensino, os processos de reprodução social, a distinção, as determinações que se fazem presentes a partir do poder simbólico, o conceito de campo e de habitus;

- Afirma que as estruturas sociais são incorporadas pelos indivíduos e grupos e que as Ciências Sociais devem contemplar tais fenômenos em seus trabalhos;

- Preocupa-se em investigar, interpretar e analisar aspectos das mediações sociais presentes entre ator social e estrutura social, já que elas esclarecem aspectos que auxiliam na compreensão das estruturas incorporadas enquanto forças motrizes do agir individual em sociedade, na medida em que existe uma lógica de classificação das práticas sociais; Pensar o contexto da estruturas sociais incorporadas envolve a compreensão das classificações do agir individual na sociedade;

- A classificação dos indivíduos e feitas por eles no contexto social, que estabelecem distinções sociais, envolve a representação da realidade e a realidade da representação, já que classificações sociais são sempre permeadas por elementos constantes da estrutura social. A classificação de outros indivíduos e a autoclassificação individual no contexto social, surge o que Bourdieu chama de sinais de distinção ou, ainda, sinais de infâmia, no caso de pouca significação social. As referidas classificações pressupõem relações de poder presentes na estrutura social, o que possibilita notar a interiorização da exteriorização citada por Bourdieu;

- Habitus: funciona como uma “segunda natureza”, por tratar-se de uma incorporação de elementos presentes no universo social. É uma forma específica com que os indivíduos e grupos orientam suas ações. Sendo assim, é um produto direto das relações sociais, embora considere que também que tenda a reproduzir a própria reprodução das relações sociais e da estrutura social que o causaram;

- O habitus é estruturante e funciona como princípio que impulsiona as práticas e representações de indivíduos e grupos, com a possibilidade de serem regulamentadas e reguladas sem, entretanto, obedecer diretamente ao conjunto de regras e normas presentes no contexto das sociedades;

- O habitus pressupõe uma relação de reciprocidade, troca e interdependência entre a realidade objetiva (social) e subjetiva (individual), em um sistema denominado por ele de esquemas individuais. Possui duas dimensões, uma social e uma individual, interdependentes uma em relação à outra, sendo que a dimensão individual extrapola à individualidade, já que o indivíduo não é em si mesmo, não está dissociado da sociedade;

- Campo: seu conceito pressupõe a superação da noção de mercado no contexto da sociedade de consumo. Consiste no lugar onde se travam as disputas e distinções sociais e que tem seu entendimento adequado condicionado pelo habitus e as predisposições determinadas por ele;

- Indagações sobre a função do indivíduo na campo social [ “(...) o que estou fazendo aqui e porque estou aqui (...)” ]permitem a compreensão do campo enquanto espaço de poder e de disputa entre poderes estabelecidos no contexto das sociedades;

Referência:
Sociologia Contemporânea / [Obra]
organizada pela Universidade
Luterana do Brasil (Ulbra). -
Curitiba: Ibpex, 2008.

Resumo capítulo 07 – Sociologia Contemporânea

Pierre Bourdieu

- Formação diversificada: sociologia, filosofia, antropologia, estatística;

- Contribuição para a noção da interdependência entre educação e cultura pela abordagem da questão de distribuição do capital cultural e a manutenção da ordem;

- Aspecto fundamental: relação entre propagação do capital cultural e a permanência da ordem social e sua estrutura;

- “(…) Será que somos criadores da sociedade, ou será que somos criados por ela? A escolha entre essas duas alternativas não é tão evidente quanto pode parecer em um primeiro momento, e o verdadeiro problema está na maneira como esses dois aspectos da vida social devem ser relacionados entre si” (p. 96);

- Retomada de elementos encontrados na sociologia de Elias: a “interiorização da exterioridade”;

- Bourdieu investiga dialeticamente os elementos exterioridade e interiorização, esta última também nomeada internalização;

- A lógica da prática: busca, assim como Weber, a compreensão de nexos causais constantes nas ações individuais e grupais e a ação estabelecida pelo agente ou ator social, que possui uma lógica intrínseca;

- Inovação na abordagem da relação entre indivíduo e sociedade, na qual considera elementos como o sistema de ensino, os processos de reprodução social, a distinção, as determinações que se fazem presentes a partir do poder simbólico, o conceito de campo e de habitus;

- Afirma que as estruturas sociais são incorporadas pelos indivíduos e grupos e que as Ciências Sociais devem contemplar tais fenômenos em seus trabalhos;

- Preocupa-se em investigar, interpretar e analisar aspectos das mediações sociais presentes entre ator social e estrutura social, já que elas esclarecem aspectos que auxiliam na compreensão das estruturas incorporadas enquanto forças motrizes do agir individual em sociedade, na medida em que existe uma lógica de classificação das práticas sociais; Pensar o contexto da estruturas sociais incorporadas envolve a compreensão das classificações do agir individual na sociedade;

- A classificação dos indivíduos e feitas por eles no contexto social, que estabelecem distinções sociais, envolve a representação da realidade e a realidade da representação, já que classificações sociais são sempre permeadas por elementos constantes da estrutura social. A classificação de outros indivíduos e a autoclassificação individual no contexto social, surge o que Bourdieu chama de sinais de distinção ou, ainda, sinais de infâmia, no caso de pouca significação social. As referidas classificações pressupõem relações de poder presentes na estrutura social, o que possibilita notar a interiorização da exteriorização citada por Bourdieu;

- Habitus: funciona como uma “segunda natureza”, por tratar-se de uma incorporação de elementos presentes no universo social. É uma forma específica com que os indivíduos e grupos orientam suas ações. Sendo assim, é um produto direto das relações sociais, embora considere que também que tenda a reproduzir a própria reprodução das relações sociais e da estrutura social que o causaram;

- O habitus é estruturante e funciona como princípio que impulsiona as práticas e representações de indivíduos e grupos, com a possibilidade de serem regulamentadas e reguladas sem, entretanto, obedecer diretamente ao conjunto de regras e normas presentes no contexto das sociedades;

- O habitus pressupõe uma relação de reciprocidade, troca e interdependência entre a realidade objetiva (social) e subjetiva (individual), em um sistema denominado por ele de esquemas individuais. Possui duas dimensões, uma social e uma individual, interdependentes uma em relação à outra, sendo que a dimensão individual extrapola à individualidade, já que o indivíduo não é em si mesmo, não está dissociado da sociedade;

- Campo: seu conceito pressupõe a superação da noção de mercado no contexto da sociedade de consumo. Consiste no lugar onde se travam as disputas e distinções sociais e que tem seu entendimento adequado condicionado pelo habitus e as predisposições determinadas por ele;

- Indagações sobre a função do indivíduo na campo social [ “(...) o que estou fazendo aqui e porque estou aqui (...)” ]permitem a compreensão do campo enquanto espaço de poder e de disputa entre poderes estabelecidos no contexto das sociedades;

Referência:
Sociologia Contemporânea / [Obra]
organizada pela Universidade
Luterana do Brasil (Ulbra). -
Curitiba: Ibpex, 2008.

I enjoyed reading everyone’s reactions to Bourdieu’s conception of gender and gender roles. I agree with Priya and Basia’s assertion that Bourdieu is describing the sociological incident of the frequently-observable dichotomy society seems to draw between men and women. Rather than asserting that this is how one should act, Bourdieu asserts “that repeated practice trains an individual to assume certain roles” (Borodziewicz). Furthermore, “humans have assigned opposite terms to man and woman, because that is the original dichotomy they perceive” (Kumar).

These assertions remind me of the old children’s nursery rhyme:

What are little boys made of? What are little boys made of? / Frogs and snails and puppy dog tails, that’s what boys are made of. / What are little girls made of? What are little girls made of? / Sugar and spice and everything nice, that’s what girls are made of.

The differences society ascribes to males and females are evident in the nursery rhyme and throughout media today. Cartoons and movies are heavily imbued with the dichotomy. For example, let’s look at this throwback-to-2000 cartoon The Powerpuff Girls:

The Powerpuff Girls are genetically mutated superheroes made from sugar, spice, and everything nice. The Rowdyruff Boys are villains made from frogs, snails, and puppy dog tails. On the left is a picture of the Rowdyruff Boys. Due to their brutish nature and bad-boy attitudes, they are the antithetical foils to the Powerpuff Girls pictured on the right on the right. Our culture is heavily imbued with messages of how females should act and protocol that males should follow.

Throughout the ages, “woman” has been defined by different definitions, yet the image of woman that still survives today can best be epitomized by the song I Enjoy Being a Girl:

“I Enjoy Being a Girl” from Roger and Hammerstein’s Flower Drum Song

Even though this is one image of “woman” I think Bourdieu would argue that we are not strictly constrained in a rigid structure that forces us to act a certain way. Instead, I think Bourdieu’s conception of habitus and field yield a dynamic theory of embodiment of gender roles. He writes: “in the social fields, which are the products of a long, slow process of autonomization…one does not embark on the game by a conscious act, one is born into the game, with the game” (67). Bourdieu describes the sociological field game as an “arbitrary social construct” (67); we unconsciously take part in the game and act in accordance to what we are “expressly taught by institutions” (67).

Bourdiue sees this phenomenon in society and writes about it in the primary chapter of today’s reading, “Belief and the Body.” Bourdieu conceives the body as a dynamic, mutable frontier placed in a larger sociological field. In terms of the body and gender, I think Bourdieu is trying to say that humans have a fluid relation to gender identity, which implies that gender is understood as an ingrained but not unsurpassable boundary. Bourdieu claims that we are not wholly stuck in rigid social castes. The trend is for humans to formulate or develop themselves based on dominant social norms, but they are not reducible to the dominant social norms because of the dynamic nature of habitus and field. This phenomenon can be seen in Mulan when Shang tries to turn Mulan into a male warrior. Mulan is a female posing as a male the Chinese army. However, she is able to transcend the characteristics normally attributed to females. I know this is another model and that I’m applying sociological theories to movies, but I couldn’t resist!

“I’ll Make a Man Out of You” from Mulan

Bourdieu’s influence encompasses several existing paradigms of sociology, and his theories cover significant issues such social change, stratification, culture, agency, and structure. The phenomenon that interested me the most in The Logic of Practice, however, was Bourdieu’s conception of habitus and field. I liked Bourdieu’s sociological theories and will attempt to assert the validity and truth of his claims by applying his sociological ideas to two instances in cinema.

Before trying to find the truth in Bourdieu’s claims, perhaps I should begin by explaining and defining his ideas. He describes habitus as:

…systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures, that is, as principles which generate and organize practices and representations that can be objectively adapted to their outcomes without presupposing a conscious aiming at ends or an express mastery of the operations necessary in order to obtain them. (53)

In other words, habitus is a set of acquired dispositions or patterns of thought, behavior, and taste that generate practices or perceptions. Habitus is, in a sense, a “habitual” or typical state of mind.

Much of Bourdieu’s work seems to attempt to bridge the traditional sociological dichotomy between objectivism and subjectivism: “Objectivism universalizes the theorist’s relation to the object of science, so subjectivism universalizes the experience that the subject of theoretical discourse has of himself as a subject” (45-46). Bourdieu believed that habitus resolved the paradox of the human sciences: objectifying the subjective.

The patterns and dispositions of habitus are the result of the internalization of objective social structures or culture by means of an individual’s or group’s experiences. While humans exist in these structured patterns, they are not constrained to a predetermined set of actions. Habitus organizes the way individuals see the world and act. Individuals are subjects in and of themselves with a certain sense of agency.  

The clip above is from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and the scene I want to discuss begins six minutes into the clip (5:59-8:32). For those who are not familiar with the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a romantic comedy about how Toula Portokalos (a Greek-American woman) falls in love with Ian Miller (a non-Greek man). The movie has overtones of the cultural clash between Toula’s large Greek family and Ian’s haughty, aristocratic parents. In the scene above, there is an obvious dichotomy between Toula’s disposition and her in-laws’ tastes. These differences in habitus help explain the differences between the subjects’ dispositions.

Remember what I said about habitus? To refresh your memory: “These patterns and dispositions are the result of the internalization of objective social structures or culture by means of an individual’s or group’s experiences.” Toula has internalized her Greek heritage, which explains why she wants her wedding to be held in a church (because her familial upbringing has helped foster a sense of religiousness in her life) and why she wants to hold the reception at Aphrodite’s Palace, complete with a Parthenon backdrop (because the Parthenon is a symbol and extension of her Greek roots). Ian’s aristocratic family has internalized tastes that generate their desire for the wedding to be held at a ritzy country club. The dichotomy between the two internalized forms of habitus between Toula and her in-laws is an application of Bourdieu’s sociological theories.

In Logic and Practice Bourdieu also describes social fields. A social field is “an arbitrary social construct, an artifact whose arbitrariness and artificiality are underlined by everything that defines its autonomy – explicit and specific rules” (67). In a sense, a social field is a distribution of resources where struggle takes place.

Bourdieu seems to conceptualize habitus and field as being interlinked. Habitus and field are defined relationally: habitus is a set of dispositions that an individual acquires from being in a particular position in one or more social fields. From what I gathered, Bourdieu was trying to say that as individuals, we are defined by the position we occupy in the space (field) which our dispositions have helped to construct (habitus). In a sociological critique of Bourdieu, author Hans Durrer writes:

While these dispositions [of habitus] are acquired gradually, early childhood experiences are of particular importance….We human beings are therefore, and quite substantially, determined by our social environment — our dispositions, and thus our choices, are not limitless. This is however not to say that we are simply “victims” of our social surroundings, this is only to say that our chances to re-invent ourselves are not without limits. (http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/VOLUME09/On_basic_human_conditions.shtml)

Durrer seems to agree with Bourdieu’s assertion that our social environments, or “fields,” help shape our habitus. Furthermore, I think that differences in habitus and field serve as class markers, which I think is demonstrated in the clips from Trading Places. Trading Places is a comedy about Louis Winthorpe III, a heartless, successful investor, and Billy Ray Valentine, a street-smart con artist. Louis and Billy switch life situations due to a bet made by two pitiless millionaires.

(0:40-2:50)

In the beginning of the clip, the two millionaires discuss Louis. Randolph, the millionaire with the bowtie, has a sociological outlook very similar to Bourdieu when he states that, “Louis is a product of good environment.” Elements of habitus and field are at play in Trading Places, which fuel the great debate between the two millionaires: Are a product of environment (perhaps what Bourdieu calls a “field”) or biological genes? Is the homeless Billy Rae Valentine (played by Eddie Murphy) a product of poor genetics? Or, if he had the same advantages as Louis, would he be as successful as the young investor? The movie prompts questions about how the fields we inhabit shape our habitus.

Conclusively, I liked Bourdieu’s theories, and I think that they play a very relevant role in current sociological phenomenon. By using the movie clips, I hoped to demonstrate some of the practical applicability of Bourdieu’s theories.

On a final note, I’d also like to say that although Bourdieu’s theories are ingenious and thoroughly enlightening to the study of sociology, his hyper-elevated prose was so hard for me to comprehend. I found myself having to read the same sentence multiple times to understand what Bourdieu was trying to say. Although Bourdieu’s genius shines through in The Logic of Practice, I felt that the extensive syntactical structure of his argument coupled with his hyper-elevated polysyllabic diction mucked up the clarity of his ideas. I comprehended Bourdieu’s prose as easily as the Prince followed Pinocchio’s train of thought in Shrek 3:

Sometimes I felt as confused as the Prince when I read Bourdieu’s Pinocchio-like prose. ^_^

An article in yesterday’s Guardian newspaper by journalist Gary Younge considered president Obama’s leadership and discussed what he thinks it is and is not possible for him to achieve in his current circumstances. In doing so Younge demonstrates very similar ideas about leadership  to the ones we have been developing on this blog.

Firstly he notices the tendency for people to idealize or, conversely to demonize Obama, and to attribute his success entirely to his individual capabilities. Saviour or devil, many of Younge’s interlocutors seem to think it is just down to Barack Obama, an essence which is intrinsic to him. Younge criticises the ‘great man’ theory of leadership with its obsession with the individual psychological habits of a particular person, rather than understanding them as being the product of their context, history and society, which have both potential and limits. Similarly, in previous posts we have noted the ways in which leaders become the repositories of people’s worst and best hopes and fears. this is partly due to the dominance of a particular theory of leadership which attributed extraordinarily visionary and motivational powers to leaders, who were thought to be distinct from ‘mere’  managers.

Secondly he notes that Obama is a very progressive president, but only in American terms which is a relative statement. He may be committed to reforming the political process but there is a limit to what he can do. What looks progressive in America does not necessarily look so from a European or particularly a developing world perspective.

Younge warns that where there are great hopes of leadership, so there is the potential for great disappointment and cynicism if this hope is ungrounded in the realities of getting things done in Washington. He notes that Obama has a particular set of political views arising out of the context in which he grew up, was educated and socialised. Obama now finds himself embedded in a web of institutions which constrain what it is and is not possible to do, and how fast change can come. It is one thing to promise to reform Washington politics, it is another, even with majorities in both houses, to bring this about. We have sometimes have an idealized understanding of transformative change: that it can be total and immediate.

Younge does not want to absolve Obama of his responsibilities, but nor does he want to criticise him for not achieving the impossible. he wants him to be assessed for what he has done on earth, not what he might do in utopia.

Perhaps the only slight disagreement I would have with Younge is that he does underestimate the symbolic importance of leaders. The letters and comments that have appeared following Obama’s award of the Nobel peace prize are divided as to whether correspondents think he has yet done enough to deserve it: however, there is wide agreement that he has brought hope. There have been a number of occasions where Obama has gone out of his way to puncture  his over-idealisation when he has admitted that he has ’screwed up’ over mistakes. In this sense he is a very different leader from those who preceded him being aware both of the importance of hope to human aspiration as well as seeming to be aware of its dangers. Still in realising the leadership is a radically social phenomenon, that Obama will be severely constrained by his own practice and by the practice of  people who are members of institutions which have developed over a long period of time, Younge is being very dispassionate about Obama as president. The president is clearly a uniquely talented individual, but at the same time his particular talents are a product of and will be shaped by the habitus in which he finds himself acting. Both will be forming and being formed by each other at the same time and it is unpredictable what will be possible.

Retomamos las resonancias que se generaron despues de ver el video. Deciamos que las cuestines que mas nos llegaron fueron:

• La búsqueda de “sistemas explicativos”. De explicar los porqués. De no quedarnos con una realidad y describirla, sino de preguntarnos: “bueno, sabemos que es así, pero ¿porque?” y tratar de analizarla y explicarla

Decíamos que esto nos evita los analisis lineales, y por ende las estrategias de intervención lineales y únicas. Nos permite ver la complejidad de la situación y por ende la necesaria complejidad de nuestra intervención.

• La “escuela como fabrica de personas” (textual de Bourdieu, a lo que agregábamos “la familia tambien”.

Pensábamos y analizábamos como en ambas se va construyendo y constituyendo el capital social y cultural de los sujetos

• El concepto de “dominación simbólica”, o de la no conciencia de una situación por la no percepción de que las categorías de pensamiento no son naturales (agregábamos, tampoco irreversibles).

Esta mirada nos permitía, en las situaciones concretas, ver, buscar y generar mecanismos para la toma de conciencia, delinear estrategias para  “quebrar el sentido común”.

• La reflexión sobre la naturalización de la dominación masculina.

Retomábamos luego una reflexión sobre el mundo de lo privado y el de lo público, y como existe una división de genero al respecto (el hombre para el afuera, la mujer para el adentro) y como eso incidía en que la mayoría de los que estudian TS son mujeres, y que encima lo justifican como una cuestión de “sensibilidad”.

Dejamos para el sábado el trabajo sobre el concepto de Habitus. Recuperando a Néstor García Canclini, planteamos tres apectos de dicho concepto:

a) Un sistema de disposiciones duraderas, eficaces en cuanto esquemas de clasificación que orientan la percepción y las prácticas más allá de la conciencia y el discurso y funcionan por transferencia en los diferentes campos de la práctica.

b) Estructuras estructuradas en cuanto proceso mediante el cual lo social se interioriza en los individuos y logra que las estructuras objetivas concuerden con las subjetivas.

c) Estructuras predispuestas a funcionar como estructurantes, es decir, como principio de generación y de estructuración de prácticas y representaciones.

Para ver com se pone en juego en lo práctico, realizamos una dramatización sobre una madre que no envia a su hija mayor a la escuela “porque tiene que cuidar a sus hermanos mas chicos”, y la cita la trabajadora social.

Surgió que este tipo de situaciones son vistas como “comunes”. Para la madre es “normal”, ella lo hizo y solo repite la historia, su historia, y a la vez hay un miedo a lo nuevo, a un posible cambio en la situación.

Analizábamos como el manejar el concepto de habitus nos permite salir de un diagnóstico lineal y de una sola linea de acción. E ir viendo de que manera hacer hincapié en la posibilidad de generar y/o fortalecer  nuevas “estructuras estructurantes”.

Texto a leer, la primera parte de El concepto de habitus de Pierre Bourdieu y el estudio de las culturas populares en México.

Veníamos viendo algunos conceptos, como los de Vida Cotidiana y Control Social. Queríamos agregar  algunos otros mas, que nos den mayores herrramientas conceptuales para analizar las diferentes situaciones que se nos presenten, y no quedarnos solo en un nivel descriptivo.

Retomando algunas palabras del encuentro anterior, nos proponíamos un:

análisis crítico y mas complejo de la situación y de nuestro rol, y de las diferentes posibilidades (de intervención)

Bueno, en concreto, el video que vimos fue uno de Bourdieu que pasaron en el canal Encuentro, de la serie Grandes Pensadores (MUUUUY recomendable), en donde el mismo Bourdieu explica algunos de sus conceptos. Lo saque de aca, pero si quieren ver otros videos, además recomiendo este sitio.

Les dejo el video online, para los que no lo vieron, o lo quieren ver de nuevo. Hagan click acá

Para el próximo encuentro, el texto es el mismo que para esta: Pierre BOURDIEU ,  El espíritu de familia.

I left Miami last week after enjoying the university’s cheering contest, briefly passing by the town fiesta in Guam for dinner before flying over to Cebu early the next morning. It was a brief three-day stay with the family. I met some people and also visited the malls for, yes, window shopping.

There were yellow taxis (which are supposed to be less abusive than the ordinary white ones) in the airport already. My little sister has grown from a baby into a little girl who recited to me the poems she learned in preschool. I finally met my high school sister’s suitor, the same guy who ran away from the gate last Valentines’ Day when I went out to see who sent my sister a pink teddy bear.

And after more than half a decade of renting the house, the street that leads to our home was finally asphalted by the local government. The next local and national elections are just around the corner. An asphalt road’s supposed to be six inches thick but the one there was only two inches thin. Well, not much has changed. I’m expecting potholes and cracks the next time I visit home.

I also donated some books to Their Books, an event wherein the organizers collect books from writers, poets, editors and media practitioners, musicians, artists, book lovers, art lovers, and other prominent personalities in Cebu and put them on sale with the proceeds going to school children. There’s a list of the books they’re putting on sale at facebook. I’d like to get The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein and By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño for myself. Unfortunately, I’m not in Cebu for the event. So I guess I’d have to ask somebody to buy them for me.

Anyhow, I got myself a copy of Resil Mojares’s Origins and Rise of the Novel: A Generic Study of the Filipino Novel until 1940, a synchronic and diachronic investigation that seeks to chart the contours of the structures that underlie the Filipino novel while at the same time tracing the development of its various elements through history.

I have never been that much of an admirer of local literature, in part because my petty bourgeois habitus (the set of tastes characteristic of my class) is more inclined to consuming cultural artifacts coming from the west. Last year, this middle class colonial mentality was epitomized in a society columnist’s complaint over her daughter’s required high school class reading of Amado Hernandez’s Mga Ibong Mandaragit. Why not just let them read Hemingway, she asked?

But along with Soledad Reyes’s essays on the fictions of Filipino women writers, female characters in Filipino literary texts, and popular culture in Tellers of Tales, Singers of Songs: Selected Critical Essays, Mojares’s study has instilled in me a greater appreciation of the Philippine literary heritage. I’ve begun to see them in a new light.

I’m halfway through Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, a thick tome inhabited by a hilariously unreliable narrator. It is written in a most garish style, perhaps much too colorful for my taste but still very much worth the effort to read.

After discontinuing my previous attempt at Žižek’s The Ticklish Subject (which I was gravely unprepared for when I began reading it last December), I decided to start over and began reading the Slovenian cultural theorist’s The Sublime Object of Ideology (his first book in English) to gain an understanding his Lacanian-informed critique of ideology.

There are too many texts to read and too little time, especially when one has other things to do too – like attending classes, talking with and organizing people, daydreaming about running after a girl, losing sleep, and writing all sorts of silly stuff like this. ■

F.R.I.E.N.D.S. es una serie de televisión estadounidense, creada y producida por Marta Kauffman y David Crane. Fue emitida por primera vez el 22 de septiembre de 1994 en la cadena NBC y terminó el 6 de mayo de 2004. Trata sobre la vida de un grupo de amigos: Rachel, Ross, Chandler, Phoebe, Joey y Monica que viven en Nueva York y buscan disfrutar cada ocasión lo más posible. Juntos, viven buenos y malos momentos y con humor afrontan los temas más trascendentales de la actualidad. Después del éxito en su país, la serie comenzó a ser difundida por todo el mundo con similares resultados. A continuación realizaremos un análisis sobre el poder cultural de esta serie debemos aclarar que los conceptos y definiciones descritas a continuación provienen del artículo “Poder Cultural” del autor Raymond Williams.

Antes de comenzar a desarrollar nuestro análisis, es necesario saber lo que es cultura. Según Raymond Williams, cultura es “un particular modo de vida” que está moldeado por valores, tradiciones, creencias, objetos materiales y por un territorio y cambia en virtud de la comunicación de rutina y la interacción social. Es un contexto, es la forma que tenemos de hablar y vestirnos, es lo que comemos y la forma que lo preparamos, la forma en que bailamos, los valores que practicamos y los que le inculcamos a nuestros hijos y todos los demás detalles que conforman nuestra vida cotidiana.  Aplicando este concepto de cultura a la serie F.R.I.E.N.D.S., podemos ver que está cargado de cultura americana, ya que utilizan mucho lenguaje coloquial americano, palabras que únicamente las personas que han tenido contacto con esta cultura las conocen. Por ejemplo en el vídeo a continuación podemos observar como los protagonistas juegan “fútbol americano” en el parque, cuentan “1 missisippi, 2 missisippi” y además se proyecta el espíritu competitivo tan característico de los estadounidense. En otros episodios, podemos mencionar como ejemplos el uso  de la palabra “dude”, la famosa frase para elogiar de Joey “How ya doin’?” y la frase “Oh My God” de una de las novias de Chandler. Igualmente, vemos que a pesar que son jóvenes, mantienen vivas muchas tradiciones americanas, tal como es la celebración del Día de Acción de Gracias, adonde preparan el tradicional pavo, las patatas dulces, puré de papás, entre otros platillos. Esto ilustra que “los modos característicos de vivir en general son reflejos de territorios geográficos compartidos (…) correspondientes a determinados orígenes raciales”. Una tradición que en nuestro país no es comúnmente celebrada.

De igual manera, vemos como las modas que imponen estos personajes muchas veces se adoptan por sus teleseguidores. El caso más evidente es el famoso corte de pelo que se le hizo a Jennifer Aniston como un cambio de imagen dentro del programa, y que causó gran furor en las seguidoras femeninas, que lo solicitaban en los salones de belleza, llamándolo “El corte Rachel”. Adoptar estas modas lo vemos más que nada en los estratos más altos de una clase, por ejemplo, en El Salvador, las personas que querían adoptar estas modas eran aquellas que tenían televisión con cable en sus casas, y esto ejemplifica la cultura del gusto, ya que “designa los estratos culturales que existen en una sociedad, asimilables a los estratos de clase de esa misma sociedad”. Igualmente, la cultura popular se refiere a “la cultura del pueblo, de la gente” y es exactamente lo que vemos reflejada en la serie, pues vemos las diferentes vestimentas que utilizan en distintas ocasiones, por ejemplo, van a trabajar en pantalones o faldas más formales y los fines de semana visten blue jeans. Otra manifestación de cultura popular americana es la música que aparece en la serie, el más vivo ejemplo es la sintonía de cabecera: “I’ll be there for you” del grupo americano “The Rembrandts”.

El concepto de habitus se refiere a “un sistema de predisposiciones y actividades culturales aprendidas socialmente que diferencian a las personas por sus estilos de vida”, ejemplificando que esta serie puede tener más sentido para una persona que tiene mayor contacto con la cultura estadounidense, ya sea porque se entera de ésta por la televisión, el Internet, por un familiar o por sus visitas. Mientras que si una persona de un estilo de vida diferente ve la serie, puede que no se sienta identificada y que no entienda la mayoría de las bromas, debido a que no ha tenido mayor contacto con las bases de la cultura norteamericana.

Finalmente podemos afirmar que el poder cultural es “la capacidad de definir una situación desde el punto de vista cultural”, por lo que dentro de esta serie, podemos ver como los seis amigos construyen una forma de vida basándose en situaciones cargadas de emociones que apelan a los sentidos de su audiencia. Vemos como para los buenos y malos momentos los amigos están presente, apoyándose y aportando ideologías y soluciones distintas de acuerdo a sus personalidades, y como seguidor(a) de la serie, se desea tener este mismo tipo de amistad en su grupo de amigos, donde cada quien por medio de distintos valores logra complementar y crear un equilibrio sano e ideal.

All my hopes vanish, when I come to explain the principles, that unite our successive perceptions in our thought or consciousness. I cannot discover any theory, which gives me satisfaction on this head. —David Who-me, A Treatise on Who-man Nature

Allan Ramsay, “the Younger.” Detail. [David Hume.] 1754. [Herr Hume has something less than satisfying on his head: "a scholar's cap of rich but well-worn crimson velvet," according to Mossner's Life of David Hume (1954; OUP, 2001) 280.]

According to David Hume, we tend to think that we are the selfsame person we were five years ago, however our features might have changed. But he denies that there is a distinction between our features and the mysterious self that supposedly bears them: when we—aside from the metaphysicians among us—introspect, we must conclude that we are bundles of perceptions: “a bundle or collection of different perceptions which succeed one another with an inconceivable rapidity and are in perpetual flux and movement” (“Of Personal Identity,” A Treatise of Human Nature [1739-40; Courier Dover, 2003] 180 [1.4.6]).

If each if us is a bundle of perceptions that do not belong to anything—a commonwealth, or a cosmos, no less—then the question of personal identity becomes a matter of characterizing the loose cohesion of our personal experience in terms of the relations of causation, contiguity, and resemblances, i.e. the connexions of various ilks, that hold among the perceptions.

Most often we assume that experience tells us something about the world and is organized in orderly ways because we tend to generalize on the basis of past experience (“habit”) or tradition (“custom”). (Most famous is Hume’s critique of our traditional understanding of causality in his Enquiry ["Of the Idea of Necessary Connexion," An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Stephen Buckle (1748; Cambridge UP, 2007) 69 (orig. 75-76)]). We are creatures of habit.

Francis Bacon. Self-Portrait (1973).

“For me, realism is an attempt to capture the appearance with the cluster of sensations that the appearance [here his self] arouses in me” (letter to Michel Leiris, 20 Nov. 1981).

For more on Bacon, see “Bacon’s Skin.”

For the good Bishop Paley, even moral action is interpretable likewise: it is merely habitual, making us bundles of habits:

There are habits, not only of drinking, swearing, and lying, . . . but of every modification of action, speech, and thought: Man is a bundle of habits. . . . [I]n a word, there is not a quality or function either of body or mind, which does not feel the influence of this great law of animated nature. (William Paley, “Virtue,” The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, ed. John Frost [1785; B. B. Mussey, 1852] 47-48 [1.7])

We are creatures of habitus.

For (the better) Emerson—reading nature in a seemingly less anthropomorphic way—our selves are “intertwined with the whole chain of organic and inorganic being,” making us bundles of relations of a different ilk than those that Hume suggests might hold “us” together:

[O]ut of the human heart go, as it were, highways to the heart of every object in nature, to reduce it under the dominion of Man. Man is a bundle of relations, a knot of roots, whose flower and fruitage is the world [and] he cannot live without a world. (Ralph Waldo Emerson, “History,” Essays & Lectures, ed. Joel Porte [1836; Library of America, 1983] 254)

We inhabit creation.

Or, conversely, I might say, it inhabits us, for better or for worse (pace Novalis):

“Whose heart does not leap with joy,” cried the youth with glittering eye, “when the innermost life of nature invades him in all its fullness! When the overpowering emotion for which language has no other name than love expands within him like an ever-dissolving vapour and, trembling with sweet fear, he sinks into the dar alluring heart of nature, consumes his poor personality in the crashing waves of lust, and nothing remains but a focus of infinite procreative force, a yawning vortex in an immense ocean?” (Novalis, The Novices of Sais, trans. Ralph Manheim, illus. Paul Klee [Archipelago Books, 2005] 103)

Whose doesn’t? The heart of those for whom nature is an invader that nests tombs in their breast and dusts their pillow with ash. It leaps—with sorrow—as if into an abyss.

Mitte der 90er Jahre verfasste ich eine Magisterarbeit zum Autorenverständnis innerhalb einer bestimmten Literaturepoche, die von den Gutachtern äußerst wohlwollend aufgenommen wurde. Die Einschränkung, dass mit der wissenschaftlichen Methodik angemessener umgegangen werden sollte, ist mir beim heutigen Durchblättern der Seiten nur zu verständlich. Ein Begründungsansatz der positiven Aufnahme lag darin, dass die Gutachter verstanden, wie existentiell die gewählte Thematik für meine Selbstkonstruktion war. Sie achteten die wissenschaftliche Untersuchung als Entwicklungsschritt im biografischen Selbstwerdungsprozess, was sowohl für ihre menschliche Größe als auch für ihre feinfühlige Humanität bürgt. Als ich jetzt, in einer völlig anders gearteten Lebenssituation, nach einem Werk über Stefan George griff, war es, zu meinem eigenen Erstaunen, noch immer dieselbe Grundfrage, die mich bewegte, wie damals, wenn auch mit leichten Verschiebungen im Betrachtungsfokus: “Was macht einen Schriftsteller?”

Waren es damals Fragen nach dem Einkommen und Auskommen gewesen, nach dem Markt, dem Außenverständnis und nach Klassifizierungen, die meine Überlegungen leiteten, so richtete sich diesmal die Aufmerksamkeit auf das “Charisma”, die Wirkkraft des nach außen Schreibenden und Veröffentlichenden. So war es wohl der Untertitel, der mich zu Thomas Karlaufs Werk greifen ließ:

Karlauf, Thomas: Stefan George. Die Entdeckung des Charisma. München, 2007. Nachdruck bei Pantheon, November 2008.

Um es vorweg zu sagen: Die Detailfülle dieses Werkes macht es für einen nur halbherzig darin Schmökernden unlesbar. Nicht nur bleiben Thematiken wie diejenigen, die mich in der Magisterarbeit interessierten, völlig außen vor, es wird auch mit einer Chronologie gearbeitet, die sich Kapitel für Kapitel thematisch neu entwickelt. Nun, genau das kam mir zupass – und so ließ ich mich nicht nur auf den von mir wenig bewunderten Stefan George ein, sondern auch auf eine Lesereise von ungewöhnlicher Dauer. 637 Seiten gestehe ich nur in Ausnahmefällen mehrere Wochen zu (so ich nicht beruflich extrem stark eingebunden bin), wobei hier allerdings ein hervorragender Anmerkungsapparat immer wieder zum Vertiefen der gegenwärtigen Information einlud. Schmerzhaft – im Fingerkuppen-Sinn des Wortes – vermisse ich allerdings ein Sachregister. Thomas Karlauf ist ein ausgewieser George-Experte und es ist eine Freude, seine Sachkenntnis stets neue Glanzlichter setzen zu sehen.

Große Teile des Werkes handeln vor dem Hintergrund des Übergangs von adoleszenter, narzisstisch besetzter Grandiosität in die Machtstrukturen des “Staates” des George-Kreises. Den Ausgangspunkt kennen wohl viele angehende Schriftsteller, die in Konflikt mit externen und internalisierten Vorstellungen einer geordneten Lebensbahn geraten. Da sich ihre Vorstellungen von denen ihres sozialen Umfeldes sondern, glauben sie etwas Besonderes zu sein, qua Talent Ausgestossene, die ihre eigenen Regeln zu fertigen haben, wollen sie sich nicht dem wahrgenommenen Karriere-Mittelmaß unterordnen. Sie ragen – vorerst nur im gefühlten Anspruch – heraus, wie auch der junge Stefan George, und müssen sich ihre eigenen Kompensationsmechanismen schaffen.

Tritt eine weitere Herausforderung hinzu – wie Georges, wenn man Thomas Karlauf glauben darf, zunächst nur latente, pädophil ausgerichtete Homosexualität – oder, bei Emily Dickinson und anderen, ein sozial inadäquates Erscheinungsbild – oder bei den Bronte-Schwestern die geografische Isolation – bei welchem unter unseren Großen ist das eigentlich nicht der Fall? – dann erreicht der innerpsychische Druck bedrohliche Intensitäten, vor allem in den Jahren der adoleszenten Persönlichkeitsbildung. Alle von Anna Freud beschriebenen Abwehrmechanismen mögen hier wirken, auf unterschiedliche Weise. George schuf sich früh einen Schutzhabitus, der im weiteren Dasein immer größere Schatten um sich werfen sollte, bis er schließlich zu einem “Staat” aus “Jüngern” kristallisierte. Karlauf allerdings verwendet diese psychologisch generalisierenden Beschreibungsmodi nicht – sie mögen hier als Kurzschrift für komplexe Vorgänge dienen – sondern beschreibt so schlicht wie akribisch die Geschehnisse, die George und sein Umfeld formten.

Innerhalb dieses biografischen Gefüges entwickelte sich nun etwas, das Karlauf an Webers “Charisma”-Begriff erläutert und in Bezug zur politischen und sozialen Entwicklung in Deutschland setzt, wobei er offensichtlich-vorschnelle Urteile zu vermeiden sucht. So fragt er nach Georges Verhältnis zu den Leerstellen in den jugendreformistischen Bewegungen des ersten Viertels des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts und stellt eine Diskrepanz zwischen Georges Anspruch und Angebot an die Gesellschaft fest, die sich, im Hinblick auf die faschistischen Tendenzen, bis zum völligen Rückzug Georges gegenüber Eingliederungsversuchen in die sozialen Ausgrenzungsapparate verfestigt. Karlaufs George findet sich in der Schwebe wieder, immer wieder: zwischen Sendungsbewusstsein und Wirkungslosigkeit, zwischen Zuneigung zu Objekten des Begehrens und sozialem Verbot, zwischen Anbetungserwartung und empfundenen Ungenügen, zwischen Antisemitismus und intensiv gelebten Freundschaften zu Juden, zwischen Zwangshandlungen und kreativer Lebensgestaltung. Seine Brücke über diesen Spalt beschreibt Karlauf als eine doppelte: literarische Aktivität und soziale Erstarrung bei gleichzeitiger topografischer Mobiltät. So wird der Antisemit George in Karlaufs Darstellung selbst zu einem ewig Unbehausten, der ein Hochamt zelebriert, das nur den Auserwählten verständlich ist.

Die Sublimationsfunktion literarischer Aktivität und die Reaktionsbildung in der Entstehung von Sekten scheinen mir derart gut untersucht zu sein, sodass ich hier weiter keine Worte darüber verlieren mag – auch aus Abwehr gegen die Allgegenwart dieser oft zu banalen und einsträngigen Erklärungsmuster. Interessanter scheint mir ein Blick auf Georges “Charisma” zu sein. Wenn ich Karlauf richtig verstanden habe, dann waren es mindestens fünf Verhaltensweisen, die dieses hervorzauberten: durchinszenierte gesellschaftliche Auftritte (bei Lesungen, aber auch im inneren Kreis und durch Accessoires wie die Kamelhaarjacke und die Baskenmütze) bei konstantem Habitus (dessen isolierende Funktion Karlauf gelungen beschreibt), durch die Förderung von hierarchischen Strukturen (ohne “Jünger” kein “Meister”, der aber zugleich einem “höheren” Prinzip dient) und durch das Setzen apodiktischer, oft erratisch-anmutender Sentenzen. Für alle diese Vorgehensweisen gibt es jeweils auch andere Beispiele aus derselben Epoche (Hauptmann, Mann, Wagner, Nietzsche), aber George scheint eine durchformte Struktur der Perfektion dieses “Charisma” um sich geschaffen zu haben, die wirklich einzigartig ist. Das eben, wovon jeder grandios-megaloman veranlagte Jungschreiberling träumt: Ein Halbgott seiner Welt, zu Tragik berufen, zur Erlösung bereit.

Zufällig sind dies aber auch, traditionellem Verständnis zufolge, die Qualitäten, die ein Schriftsteller im Verfassen eines Werkes zu beachten hat: Er schafft die Szenerie und die Figuren oder formt sie nach, er liefert eine Arbeit (bis zum Durchbruch der romantischen Moderne zumindest) in einem Guß gleicher Schaffenshöhe, er leistet diese Arbeit (zumindest in der Regel) allein, er strukturiert sein literarisches Schaffen intern (im Werk) und extern (im Schaffensprozess) und er bildet die Stimmen und Klänge, die Rhythmen und Worte des Werkes aus eigener Kraft. Insofern, auf Werk und Schaffensprozess bezogen, arbeitet jede Schriftstellerin und jeder Schriftsteller “charismatisch”. Was bei George aber noch hinzu tritt, ist ein zwanghaftes Element, dass diese Arbeitsweise nicht nur im (extrem durchformten) Werk präsent macht, sondern auch in das soziale Geschehen um ihn herum verschiebt. Karlauf beschreibt dies nicht explizit – ich verweise, auch für das Folgende, auf die spezifischen Beeinträchtigungen meiner Lesart. Der Schwebezustand zwischen der poietischen (schaffensbezogenen) Allmacht (ich bin mir der oft parodierten Idealisierung hier durchaus bewusst: Kehlmanns Ruhm ist bei allen offensichtlichen Schwächen – vor allem den unsäglichen Klischees – ein aktuelles Beispiel aus den Bestsellerlisten) und der sozialen Hilflosigkeit, wie er sich bei George manifestiert, kann dennoch als exemplarisch gelesen werden. Sprechen wir also – etwas hochgestochen – vom Dilemma des Literaten.

Wenn sich der Literat zur Gänze seiner literarischen Welt bequemt, dann geht er seiner materiellen Grundierung verlustig, öffnet er sich aber vollständig der gesellschaftlichen Erwartung, kann er sich nicht mehr als Literat begreifen. Ein derartig polarisierendes Denken ruft Stereotypen hervor, die wenig mit der Wirklichkeit gemein haben, aber von angehenden Schriftstellern als reale Bedrohungen begriffen werden, so sie nicht ungewöhnlich frühen und anhaltenden Erfolg erfahren, was wohl auf die wenigsten zutreffen mag. Stefan George bietet hier eine Relativierung an, die auch andere Größen wie Arno Schmidt gewählt haben. Die nicht sichtbare innere Weite des Handlungsraumes wird nach außen mittels der beschriebenen, mehr oder minder bewusst ausgebildeten Verhaltensweisen sichtbar gemacht. Das Schriftsteller-Sein wird durch ein soziales Auf-Schriftsteller-Machen ergänzt. Tatsächlich ergehen sich ja viele aufstrebende Autoren eher im Versprechen der Pose als in der Erfüllung der Ästhetik – was dann eher Angelegenheit der Arrivierten ist, so es ihnen zu ihrer Zeit gelungen ist, das allgemeine Versprechen in ein spezifisch-persönliches Handwerk umzugelten.

Der junge George aber war jemand, der eher schüchtern schien, dessen Pose früh Verweigerungsform annahm, seine “Bestrafung” zu erwidern. So mag sich erklären, warum er nicht fähig war, die Pose in ein Spiel mit der Pose zu verwandeln, wie es ja auch Schmidt nicht gelang. Zugleich war die Inszenierung bei beiden Autoren an eine eher zwanghafte, not-wendende Persönlichkeitsstruktur gekoppelt, die eine Loslösung erschwerte. Es ist wohl diese Unfreiheit, die demokratische Tendenzen verunmöglichte, denn es ist durchaus möglich, die Prozesse, die Autorschaft bedingen, in nicht-hierarchischem Rahmen zu beschreiben und zu leben. Gerade in der nachwachsenden, flüchtigen Moderne wurde eher kollektiv und interaktiv gearbeitet, wobei dieser Trend allerdings seit einiger Zeit abgeebbt zu sein scheint. Doch in einer Zeit, in der die Schöpfungsleistung des Rezepienten gleichrangig zu der des Autors gesehen wird, wirkt Georges “Charisma” wie ein letztes Aufbäumen eines sterbenden Rennpferds. Zwar sind noch immer dieselben psychischen Mechanismen am Werke, doch begegnen sie an der Oberfläche stark veränderten sozialen Mechanismen. Ich spreche von der “Oberfläche”, denn sogar in Zeiten wie diesen sind die Tiefen beständig und die Archetypen wirksam.

Und wenn ich diese Besprechung und diese Überlegungen hier in einem Blog notiere, das für jeden – wirklich jede und jeden! – der Zugang zu den technischen Hilfsmitten hat, einsichtig ist, dann heißt das noch nicht, dass sie mehr Rezepienten finden, als wenn sie vor fünfzig Jahren in einer randständigen Zeitschrift erschienen wären, vermutlich sogar weniger. Zygmunt Baumann und andere haben die Mechanismen der Beliebigkeit, der veränderten Rezeptions- und Wahrnehmungsmuster sowie der Schwarmflüchtigkeit ausreichend beschrieben. Reiz-Reaktions-Junkies verirren sich selten dorthin, wo kein Red Bull angeboten wird. Sprechen wir also über den letzten Aspekt charismatischer Verzauberung: Das Wunder! Stefan Georges Maximin-Wunderkind-Erlebnis war außerhalb pädophiler Kreise nie wirklich überzeugend und würde auch heute wohl eher an strafrechtliche Folgen denken lassen. Es ist ein “schwaches Wunder”, das wohl eher nach innen, ins Gefüge des “Staates” hinein, wirkte, als in die Welt: Es war kein “Weltwunder”, so wenig wie Rainald Goetz’ Stirnschlitz-Attraktion, die eher Jahrmarktscharakter hatte.

Tatsächlich aber ist jedes Werk, jedes Seiende ein Wunder, sobald es als solches erkannt wird. Der Akt, der ein Wunder erschafft, ist ja nicht das Bewunderte selbst, sondern die Wahrnehmung als Wunder. Und so ist es nicht erstaunlich, dass Menschen heute in “Maximin” ein Handelsprinzip sehen, keinen Erlöserknaben griechenbegeisterter Subkulturen. Während aber Schriftsteller arbeitsbedingt in dem Wunder-Erlebnis der Wort- und Sinnfügung beheimatet sind (ja, auch das ist eine pauschalisierende Idealisierung – aber Praktiker wissen vermutlich, wovon ich rede), ist auf Rezepienten-Seite die Profanisierung des Wunderbaren die Regel, sei es in der Marketingpraxis oder in der Verwandlung der Wunder in “Attraktionen”, die wenig mehr als interesseleitende Funktion haben. Gerade die Verbannung des Wunders in die Imagination ist ja die gewaltige Leistung unserer postmodernen, risikominimierenden Gesellschaftsordnung. Denn wo das Wunder ist, ist auch Gefahr. Gefahr, sich als jemand zu begreifen, der nicht mit den herrschenden Strukturen identisch ist. Wunder kann man nicht konsumieren – man wird von ihnen konsumiert, zumindest das bestehende Selbstbild. Wunder-Deuter sind aber nur diejenigen, die auf ein Wunder deuten, denn Wunder sind per definitionem jenseits der Bedeutung.

Nun gibt es Schriftsteller, die Attraktionen schaffen. So einer wollte oder konnte Stefan George nicht sein. Wie später auch Arno Schmidt glaubte er an die Einzigartigkeit von Jahrhundertgenies. Dass er in der öffentlichen Wahrnehmung und in der Wirkkraft seines “Wunders” so weit hinter die selbst geweckten Erwartungen zurückfiel, macht einen Aspekt seiner Tragik aus. Wie anders Rainer Maria Rilke! Rilke gelang es zuweilen – unter härtester lyrischer Fronarbeit – echte Wunder erkennbar werden zu lassen, ohne sie machen zu müssen. Unter anderem deshalb werden seine Werke von aufmerksamen Menschen so geachtet, weil sie diesen Aspekt viel zu selten gelebter Demokratie – besonders mit Besonderem, gemeinsam mit Gemeinsamem, wunderbar mit Wunderbarem – nicht: gleichgemacht unter Gleichgemachtem – spürbar werden lassen. Es ist die Bereitschaft, zuzuhören. Wenn ich also etwas von Stefan George, so wie ihn Thomas Karlauf präsentiert, lernen kann, dann ist es ein Lernen aus der Negation: Nicht charismatisch, sondern authentisch im Leben wirken. Nicht hierarchisch, sondern demokratisch mit Menschen schaffen. Nicht bewundernd, sondernd sinnlich konkret die Wahrnehmung verfeinern. Nicht zwanghaft posieren, sondern lebendig kommunizieren.

Eines aber kann ich kraftvoll von ihm aufnehmen: Sollten sich die Geister, die ich rufe, als Mörder und Brandschatzer, als Barbaren im übelsten Sinne des Wortes erweisen: dann zeige ich ihnen die kalte Schulter, verweise sie meines Einflussbereichs und ziehe aus ihrer Mitte einen Stauffenberg heran! Aber wie wünschenswert könnte es sein, dass mein Geschreibsel mal mehr erreicht, als das zu sein, was es ist? Ich bin, schließlich, der adoleszenten Phase entwachsen, hoffe ich.

I’m planning on having some work done to my house, and I had three companies come out and give estimates. I liked the representative from one of the companies much more than the other two. And by “like” I mean found him to be competent and trust him to do a good job.

All three companies sent a white male; their ages ranged from mid-thirties to late-fifties or early-sixties. Perhaps they were all male and white because this industry in my area is predominately male and white? Maybe there are women or African-Americans who work for these companies but who are not trusted to represent the company for the purpose of giving estimates? (Try doing a Google image search for “repairman” and see if you can find any black repairmen. Or Google “repair woman” and see what you get.)

I don’t think I would have distrusted a black male in the slightest—my conservative upbringing didn’t breed much racial bias into me and what little that was there has been largely overcome. But would I have fully trusted a woman, or would my conservative upbringing have rendered me (unconsciously) biased against her? Would I have been able to see her as “competent” as the men in a male dominated industry? I hope so.

But about the three who did come: why did I trust one of the white males over the other two?

One wore a uniform polo and work pants, one wore dress pants and a dressy polo, and one wore khakis and a polo. The first struck me as “blue collar.” The second struck me as pretentious (in part because he was young and his habitus didn’t match his clothes). The third struck me as “normal”: white, middle class, and white collar—i.e., just like my father dresses.

The first individual had a habitus that matched his clothes: he dressed “blue collar” and spoke and carried his body like a “blue collar” person. The second individual behaved like a nuevo riche who was trying to dress “above” the level of his habitus: he sounded “rough around the edges” but was dressed in nicer clothes. He reminded me of the teenager kid whose parents make him dress up in his best clothes for a wedding or a funeral, but the kid still stands out because they are wrinkled. The last person seemed “normal”: he both dressed like and sounded like my white, middle class, white collar father.

This is how habitus works to reproduce class divisions over time. People are raised with a particular habitus, and see other people with the same habitus as “normal.” In addition, we also see them as more competent and trustworthy. I’m more likely to go with the one most like me for the job. “Birds of a feather flock together,” as they say. The wealth of one group is not largely passed to other groups but passed along inside the same group. This is obviously not always the case, but the effect is not negligible.

I try to tell myself that I like the guy who most reminds me of my dad not for that reason, but because he spent the most time looking at the work that needed to be done, explaining to me the reasons why it needed to be done one way and not the other, and so on. I took these to be signs of competence. But is that right? I’m not in that industry; what grounds do I have for judging competence in an alien field? Maybe he took the longest looking over the details because he has the least experience and is therefore slow figuring stuff out.

Can we ever overcome our habitus? Or is it the best we can do to keep an eye on it, so to speak, in order to attenuate its power?

I bet if I asked I would find out that the guy is a Protestant too.

Binarismo

Los binarios, son pares de contrarios, donde uno generalmente es negativo y el otro es positivo, el ejemplo base, es el Ying y el Yang, aunque en la cultura oriental, a diferencia de la occidental, esto se plantea como un equilibrio, en occidente, generalmente es un contrario positivo y que posee un poder linguistico y vivencial potente.

el clasico es el del Bien y el Mal, donde el par de genero, el Bien es lo Masculino y el Mal lo femenino. Aunque esto es una simplificación de lo que se puede extraer de esta comparación (por ejemplo, el que lo femenino es malo, pero inconciente  y animalesco, o sea, por instinto), se entendera entonces a todos los binarios (según, el analisis del taller, frente a lo socialmente establecido y construido, no el pensamiento del taller, obviamente) se les “da un peso” simbolico entre lo bueno y lo malo, lo positivo y lo negativo, lo correcto y lo erroneo, lo femenino y lo masculino.

Ahora, describiremos, el uso que le daremos a los terminos que Bourdeiu nos presenta en su texto “La dominación Masculina”:

1. Nomos: La norma. Es el deber ser, pero no simple, sino con una frase que lo refuerza, es el deber ser, porque sí.
2. Hexis corporal: El dispositvo/soporte. Es el cuerpo del individuo, que es el soporte o dispositivo que lleva la carga linguistica y vivencial del deber ser, porque sí.
3. Pense-bete: La visión/el pensamiento. Es la forma correcta de pensar, es el razocinio correcto del deber ser. Esto da soporte y continuidad al hexis corporal, que sin esta visión de lo que es deber ser, seria imposible que el sistema hegemonico-masculino-blanco-heterosexual se mantuviera.
4. habitus: Practicas/ Performance/Habitos. Son las practicas concretas que se llevan en la performance del hexis corporal, que validan el sistema.

cabe destacar que: el Individuo deambula por el Nomos usando su Hexis Corporal y su Pense-bete, el cual realiza Acciones de Habitus en el sistema que integra.

Tenemos entonces un sistema firme y completo (del cual nos falta llenar muchas aristas), donde existe una Norma, Una naturaleza, Una cultura y unas Practicas: Una sociedad dominada.

Lo binario nace del genero: el espesor semantico, de todos los binarismos o sistemas de contrarios

con la dinamica que realizamos en el taller (juego de rol con binarios sociales: edad, orientación sexual, calse, raza, etc.) pudimos ver, claramente, el espesor semantico de los contrarios.

y asi, vemos como el Binario femenino-masculino, marca a los demas, desde el Rosado-Azul, Heterosexual-homosexual, hasta Humedo-seco, etc.

donde el Negativo es siempre femenino. El espesor semantico siempre esta en cambio, en el caso por ejemplo del: el metrosexual, rompio en un momento el canon masculino hegemonico, donde el sistema absorvio este tipo de masculinidad, y lo volvio positivo, la practica de higiene corporal ya no paso a ser femenino (veleidoso, absurdo, etc.) sino, masculino, un hombre que cuida su piel, es un hombre exitoso. Entonces, la cosmetica, pasa a ser una practica necesaria, del habitus y el sistema lo adhiere a la masculinidad hegemonica, de esta manera nunca se rompe el enclave de lo masculino: es un normar y luego practicar. Aunque en teoria es inverso, se practica, se masculiniza y luego se norma. Esto es lo que nos hace pensar, que la practica de ser hombre es “natural”. Un hombre debe actuar como un hombre.

—

1. ¿Cual es la relación de lo femenino con lo masculino en cuanto a la sociedad, practicas (habitus), el hexis corporal y el nomos, y el poder como se entiende?

2. ¿La importancia de los binarismos, es la calidad de sustentar el sistema de relaciones de genero?

3. ¿Que tan reales son estos binarismos?

4. ¿Cual es nuestro uso del lenguaje en cuanto a los binarismos relativos al genero (casi todos)?

5. ¿Cual es la relación con poder de estos binarismos, en que se sustenta, como se visualiza en las relaciones de genero?

A common accusation against using narrative as a research tool, or against drawing on personal experience, or of highlighting micro-interactions in organisations is that this is ‘merely’ subjective. What I think is meant by this is that the narrative, or the highlighted experience can be dismissed because it tells us nothing about what is ‘really’ going on. It is only one view.

How subjective is subjective, and can subjective observation tell us nothing about the world which we experience?

Pierre Bourdieu, the French sociologist, thought that there is always something generalisable about the way we respond to the world because our very subjectivities are objectively formed. ‘…the social agent is a collective individual or a collective individuated by the fact of objective underlying structures.’ In other words, our predisposition to act in certain ways, what Bourdieu calls the habitus is formed historically by our interactions with others and with the objective world. Our opportunities for perceiving the potentiality for action are bounded by our collective social history, and is as a consequence, limited. We see the world because we are a product of that history, and that history defines how we see the world.

For Bourdieu this does not mean that our responses to the objective world are automatic or pre-determined in any way. He regarded our responses as ‘reasonable’ rather than rational, as a kind of conditioned and limited spontaneity, a practical common sense. We are fully immersed in what we are doing, mostly without the luxury of being able to make any instrumentally rational calculation at all about the choices we make. We respond to what we encounter informed by our collective and individual history and by our own particular relationship to what we encounter. It is a paradoxical response: ‘…being both determined and spontaneous, since it is determined by conventional, conditional stimuli that exist as such not only for an agent disposed to perceive them and capable of perceiving them.’ (Italics in the original).

The concept of habitus allowed Bourdieu to escape from what he regarded as a false dualism. This dualism arises from thinking that on the one hand that all action arises as a result of conscious intention, where the agent is fully aware of all the consequences of that action, or being deterministic where the agent is just a particle blown about by whichever wind is blowing at the time. In the social games in which we are obliged to participate there are a number of regularities which pattern the game and our response our responses to them. At the same time the game adapts to accommodate our responses in new, but often not radically unprecedented ways. It is not possible for just anything to happen. As we recognise these social patterns we are able to enact a practical mastery of the situations in which we find ourselves and respond to them in a conditioned way.

Without there being some kind of regularity to subjective experience it would be impossible for us to recognise and act in the objective world. Nor would there be any point to carrying out social research based on surveys of attitudes, where one can draw broad conclusions about the tendency of groups of people to act in particular ways. The subjective and the objective worlds interpenetrate, and this is why it makes sense to try and find the universal in the particular, to take the subjective and micro-interactions seriously.

Die digitale Linke ist nicht weiter fraglos in ein (politisches) Milieu hineingewachsen. Ihren Zusammenhalt und ihre Organisationsfähigkeit bezieht sie nicht (länger) aus der Kuh- und Brutwärme lebensweltlicher Verstrickungen sondern aus den Stärken schwacher Bindungen. Die digitale Linke ist vom Stamme der Digital Natives. Ihr Ortsverein ist das globale Dorf. Ihr Parteibuch ist ein Weblog.

Ihr Selbstverständnis bildet sich in den flüchtigen Medien eines globalen Kommunikationszusammenhanges nicht in den Initiationsriten des eigenen Stammes. Ihre eigene, postkonventionelle Identität als digitale Linke setzt dabei das „linke“ Maß für die Integrierbarkeit sozialer Verbände. Dazu braucht es eine funktionierende Öffentlichkeit und ein deliberatives Rechtssystem. Keine krampfhaft unverkrampften, alkoholschwangeren Fanmeilen.

Die digitale Linke eint sich punktuell um Themen und Werte. Ein vereintes Wesen ist sie nicht. Die Pluralität der Lebenstile in ihren Reihen ist ihr eine Selbstverständlichkeit. Sie hat es nicht nötig, wie die widerwärtigen Vertreter der Enkelgeneration im Maßanzug proletarisches Sprechen als Clownsnummer zu inszenieren, nur um Kontinuitäten zu beschwören, die längst unterbrochen sind.

Die ihnen vertrauten familiären Beziehungen folgen dem Strickmuster des Patchworks. Lebensplanung verläuft zufällig. Ihre Lebensläufe streben nach Vollendung im Hier-und-Jetzt, nicht auf alle Ewigkeit. Das macht sie unberechenbar und unempfänglich für die Boni karrieristischen Kalküls. Einem Leben ohne Sorgen ziehen sie die permanente Sorge um sich vor. Die Textur ihres Daseins gestalten sie unter ästhetischen Gesichtspunkten, nicht nach ökonomischen Dikat. Täglich aufs Neue beten sie zur Madonna des geheiligten Stilwandels und schlagen drei Kreuze vor dem Gesetz des Vaters. Denn eine runde Persönlichkeit, das weiss jedes Kind, lässt sich nur von ihrem Ende her denken. Lebende Tote aber wollen sie nicht sein.

Kontingenz bestimmt ihr Leben. Flexibilität macht sie lebendig. Ihr Reichtum liegt in den Optionen. Ihr Bewusstsein lässt sie sich nicht von einem Sein bestimmen. Da könnte ja jeder kommen.

Orchard Road is known for being one of the world’s finest shopping destinations.  But, deep in the urban jungle of Singapore, it is also the site of a remarkable new piece of residential architecture.

The owners of the small site gave Chang Architects one brief: to incorporate as much natural life as possible.  They wanted  home that was light, breezy and sustainable, with at least 40% landscaping.  The architect came up with clever ways to incorporate living plants and other natural elements such as waterfalls and pebbles into the home’s fabric, including a central atrium to feed light to the plants on the ground floor; a retractable roof to protect the house during Singapore’s legendary storms; and plants literally growing through the kitchen roof, reaching up to the sky above.

The house is featured in this month’s Habitus and won several gongs such as the Singapore Institute of Architects’ 2008 Design Awards (for its low cost – under $1m – construction) and the President’s Award for Design of the Year 2008 (Singapore’s highest design award).

This jungle home is a unique, site-specific and incredibly fun response to its urban setting.

Pics via World Architecture News.

‘To be of noble birth is a great advantage,’ as Pascal said long ago. ‘At the age of 16 it places a man within the select circle, known and respected, as another would have merited it at 50. 

It is a gain of 30 years without trouble.’   (Pensees, 322)

Grenfell, M. (2006, p.70). 

How right Blaise Pascal is.   And how cruel it is when you face the reality of educational rackets that appear respectable, but which - on the main – reinforces the status quo.   Performing modern-day magic moves to prevent the working classes from airing any discontent.  

It’s the same in every country: those who do not display correct cultural accouterments will face marginalisation and barriers blocking advancement.  The cumulative effect of being prevented entry will wear most down,　until they accept their place.     

Unless they see through the injustice.  If so other paths emerge. 

Resoluteness can take hold.

My background, which I have consciously and unconsciously tried to shield, is vastly different from where I am not.  I have moved out from my original habitus.  Yet even here – in Japan – in the expatriate circles that I enter, I feel the habitus of others.  I wonder if I still show traces of my own.   Talk about football (not cricket), family life (not presentations),  and philosophy might give a dim trace – or perhaps make it crystal clear.  I’m unsure.  

Who cares?  I’ve travelled further than most.  Educationally, geographically and socially.  

And there are times when I sense others who have a similar story – who rejected cultural traces of an original ‘habitus’, and today I met an old friend who I thought had long since returned back to Nepal – his birth place and the land where his young children live.  He, Krishna, came to Japan to work in an ‘Indian’ curry shop, where I am my wife got to know him.  A man who my son loved. and who – we thought – had gone back to Nepal for good.

We were wrong.  After alighting the bus, and deciding to have a curry, there he was – extending his hand and showing the sort of glee you feel when you meet someone who you have not seen for an age.   We used to laugh and joke and enjoy the sort of informal conversation one had back in England.

Funny that – I am reminded of home by a Nepalese curry shop worker!  Someone who would voluntarily teach me Nepalese – phrases which I have long forgotten.

But what does this have to do with ‘habitus’, Pierre Bourdieu’s term.

Well, I had an epiphany of sorts.  I realised that we both shared a social habitus once upon a time.  Perhaps we both understand the plight of the ‘working class’habitus; the evidence was in his mannerisms and sincerity which one  associates with a certain branch of working classness.  It might not be so surprising.  Until last year Nepal, like the United Kingdom, had a monarchy, and I’ve gleaned from my conversations in the past that, although Nepal has a lower literacy rate, there is an elite class which glides in and out of the top positions.   

I think we once shared a rung on our respective nations ’social ladder’.

Time is against me again.  I think this dialogue is one that might continue.   But how mightily fine it was to see my Nepalese friend, who is looking to bring his children over the following year. 

Bibliography:

Grenfell, M. (2006).   “Pierre Bourdieu – Agent Provocateur.”  London / New York: Continuum Books.   

I cannot let this particular day fade out without articulating my profound joy and happiness over the performance of my son on the football pitch.  Since he was born, not a day has gone by when I haven’t felt an impulse to protect and nurture his development in this world.   But today, on his debut in competiive football, he showed foresight and vision that belied his age.  He represented his team and his family well.   His mature play, thoughtful and purposeful, deserved far more recognition than he was given. 

I would like to think that in the future he will read these words and understand the joy his performance created.

My wife and I took the taxi home from the elementary school near Itabashi after the game, in the company of  Yasutaka (who deserves equal amounts of praise for his goalkeeping) and his mother.  During the journey, I turned my thoughts towards a document downloaded from scribd.com, by P. Madhu, on the topic of ‘Towards Authentic Education‘.   My interest in this document relates to a piece on ‘authentic materials for Japanese writing students’ which I am presently writing, but which I cannot ‘put to bed’.  The end point is closer now though, and Madhu’s document clarified a few philosophical concepts.   I believe that my difficulty in finishing this piece as much to do with my re-awakening of  philosophical concepts, as my poorly defined focus. 

Professor Madhu’s lecture notes, on a presentation given at the Mahatma Gandhi University last week, have contributed to my ongoing understanding of Heidegger’s ‘dasein’ , ‘das man’ and the ‘call of conscience’ that can result in the decision to ‘quash habitus..(and) redefine personal and social history’.

Back to my son – well, as a person who has already, to use Madhu’s expression, ‘torpedo(ed) and reconstitute(d) … social constellations’ – I now see that I am playing the role of a Disturbing Element – one that acts to ensure that his initial geographical and educational habitus does not place walls around his thoughts.   Indeed, I think his success on the football field today has its roots in the activity of parents who will not expect mediocrity – whether on a sports pitch, or in a state ran classroom.  

I do hope that I am pushing forth the ‘authentic education’ which Madras talked about. 

Madras stated that an ‘authentic education’ is ” that which nurtures evental transfigurations.  It should be the system that suppied ‘oxygen’ that transfigures bursts of authentic sparks into flame and wild fire.” 

Reference: 

Madhu, P. (2009).  “Towards Authentic Education: lecture notes.”  Accessed on July 13, 2009, from:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/17254319/Authentic-Education

The major obstacle in using ethnicity as an operational concept in archaeology is that “the study of ethnicity and ethnic groups needs to take self-identifications as its point of departure rather than turning to comparisons with neighbouring groups, abstract theories of ethnic identity, and political ideologies in search of analytical terms” (Hervik 2003: 53). Thus, we should go from internal differences in kind rather than external differences of degree. However, there are no ways in which we can reach self-identifications in the archaeological record. Epigraphy cannot help us here since what may have been “true” for some ancient high ranking kings may not have been the same among other high ranking people at a neighbouring site, for their descendents a century later, or among other social groups from which we have no written sources. The common approach to study the “Maya culture” – to take a little here and then, add something from there and now, and voilá, we have a “Maya culture,” – cannot be used if we are to understand differentiations.

If we turn to the micro-level instead, will we find ethnicity there? Do all ethnicity and culture come down to the individual human agent? Bourdieu’s (1977) concept of habitus has been used to explain how ethnicity is formed from both conscious and unconscious interactions. However, ethnicity is a conscious difference that relates to others. It is not constituted by subliminal consciousness of shared similarities (Johannesen 2004). Ethnicity is all about externalised differences. That is; differences between groups that share something.

Should we in any particular analysis consider or rather speculate around the intersection of different kinds of identity, such as; ethnicity, class, gender, lineage, “house,” or even individual habits? Should we study the way these identities become institutionalized, internalized, or socialized in different social settings and how they interact with each others to get a more complete view?

No. Such approaches will create a mess of assumed ontologically secure categories (see Smith 2005). These secure categories reflect a metaphysics of presence in Derrida’s sense (Hägglund 2002). That is, the need of a static presence of a timeless entity (“being”) that we depend upon in our analysis. This entity is believed to remain stable even though its content has a tendency of becoming something else. The belief is that the contents of culture and ethnicity change but that culture and ethnicity in themselves as concepts remain the same. We thus freeze a changing world to static frames, to beings such as ethnicity, and generate a deceptive stability that reduces differences in kind to differences of degree. Ethnicity as a concept becomes eternal and external.

Can we use other tools that reduce the stability and dissolve the sharing of external structures, tools that help us to see the world in all its becomings of differentiation?

Yes. However, these are not to be found in Mayanist Culture-history. Alternatives are to be found among those French philosophers that Rice and others (2004: 7) have dismissed by claiming to cling to what they appear to see as “true” archaeology. However, we do not need to use the French philosophers through their “British archaeological ‘translators,’” (ibid), since Hodder, Shanks, and Tilley are too caught up in the culture concept and social constructionism. The alternative I propose is the one sketched out in an earlier blogpost series: the one on posthumanocentric archaeology (PA).

25/07/08.