British Sociology, the Bourgeois Media-Sociology Hybrid and the Problem of Social Class
Tony Blackshaw
Abstrakt
This article advances the scandalous argument that we live in a post-social class modernity, and that the perpetual reinvention of class as the key concept for understanding social inequality is untenable. Class is not only a zombie concept but also an ideology that reflects a set of normative attitudes, beliefs and values that pervade sociology. Its starting point is that, sociology, once adept at imagining new ways to interpret the world, has become a subject field that wants to claim a radical space for itself while simultaneously relying on outworn theoretical frameworks and denying the work radicals do. The article begins by suggesting that the problem of class has its roots in the deep structure of sociology. Taking its cue from Jacques Rancière’s classic study The Philosopher and His Poor it develops the argument that if class was once upon a time the fundamental issue in the study of social inequality, today sociology urgently needs an alternative cognitive framework for thinking outside this paradigm which it uses to open up a critical space for its own intellectual claims rather than reflecting society in the round. After arguing that we a living at the ‘end of Class’, the critique explores the limits of the work of Pierre Bourdieu, who has replaced Marx and Weber as sociology’s key theoretician of class. It is argued that in Bourdieu’s sociology, contentment is permanently closed to ‘the working class’ that thumps about like a dinosaur that survived extinction, anachronistic proof of the power and privilege of the theorist and his sociology rather than proof of the usefulness of his ideas. The key to understanding the limits of this interpretation, it is argued, is that it assumes a ‘working class’ that has little or no agency. It is subsequently argued that sociology and the bourgeois media are coextensive. The specific function of the bourgeois media-sociology hybrid is to provide ideological legitimation of class inequality and of integrating individuals into sociology’s interpretation of social and cultural life. Focusing on the work of two self-identified ‘working class’ journalists who have successfully made the transition into the bourgeoisie and who seek solid validation of their new found status in the bourgeois media it is demonstrated that social inequality is neither expressed nor examined in a convincing way. Framing ‘working class’ worlds even more ‘working class’ than ‘working class’, the bourgeois media, at best, lay them bare for clichéd interpretation. Here the article argues vis-à-vis Quentin Skinner that words are not so much mere ‘reflections’ of the world, but ‘engines’ which actively play a role in moulding the worlds to which they refer. Drawing on Rancière’s idea of the partage du sensible (distribution of the sensible) it is argued thereafter that here thinking ends up as the very thought of inequality because by posing social inequality as the primary fact that needs to be explained the bourgeois media-sociology hybrid ends up explaining its necessity. The final part of the article offers some suggestions about how to rethink social inequality after class, and it concludes with the observation that the predicament facing sociology derives not just from its theoretical limits but also from its failure to give social inequality human meaning and the people who suffer it the proper respect by acknowledging their own interpretations of their own lives.
Słowa kluczowe:
class, social inequality, sociology, bourgeois media, distribution of the sensible (partage du sensible), ideology, legislators, Bourdieu, RancièreBibliografia
Adorno T.W., Horkheimer M. (1944). The Culture Industry: the Enlightenment of MassDeception. [in:] Adorno T.W., Horkheimer M. (eds.) Dialectic of Enlightenment,http://ad3.wdfiles.com/local--files/start/Adorno.pdf [14.03.2016].
Google Scholar
Alexander J. C. (1995). Fin de Siècle Social Theory: Relativism, Reduction, and the Problemof Reason. London and New York: Verso.
Google Scholar
Ball S. J. (2003). It’s Not What You Know: Education and Social Capital. „Sociology Review”,November.
Google Scholar
Banville J. (2016). Philip Marlowe’s Revolution. Review of Fredric Jameson’s RaymondChandler: The Detections of Totality. „New York Review of Books”, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/10/27/raymond-chandler-philip-marlowes-revolution/[14.03.2017].
Google Scholar
Bauman Z. (1987). Legislators and Interpreters: On Modernity, Post-Modernity and Intellectuals.Cambridge: Polity Press.
Google Scholar
Bauman Z. (1988). Freedom. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Google Scholar
Bauman Z. (1992). Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar
Bauman Z. (1985). Social Class. [in:] Kuper A., Kuper J. (eds.) The Social Science Encyclopedia.Volume I: A-K, Third Edition. London: Routledge, 2004, 111–115.
Google Scholar
Beck U. (2002). Zombie Categories: Interview with Ulrich Beck. [in:] Beck U., Beck--Gernsheim E. Individualization: Institutionalized Individualism and its Social andPolitical Consequences. London: Sage.
Google Scholar
Blackshaw T. (2010). Leisure. London and New York: Routledge.
Google Scholar
Blackshaw,T. (2013). Working-class Life in Northern England, 1945–2010: The Pre-Historyand After-Life of the Inbetweener Generation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Google Scholar
Blackshaw T., Long J. (2005). What’s the Big Idea? A critical exploration of the conceptof social capital and its incorporation into leisure policy discourse. „Leisure Studies”,24 (3), 239–258.
Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.
Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. London:Routledge.
Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1989). Social Space and Symbolic Power. „Sociological Theory”, 7 (1),14–25.
Google Scholar
Bourdieu P. et al. (1999). The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in ContemporarySociety. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Google Scholar
Bourdieu P. (2000). Pascalian Meditations. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Google Scholar
Brooks D. (2003). The Triumph of Hope over Self-Interest. „New York Times”, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/12/opinion/the-triumph-of-hope-over-self-interest.html [20.03.2017].
Google Scholar
Devine F., Snee H. (2015). Doing the Great British Class Survey. „The Sociological Review”,63 (2), 240–258.
Google Scholar
Derrida J. (1990). Some Statements etc. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Google Scholar
Danto A.C. (1998). The End of Art: A Philosophical Defense. „History and Theory”, 37(4), 127–143.
Google Scholar
Foucault M. (1970). The Order of Things: The Archaeology of the Human Sciences. NewYork: Vintage.
Google Scholar
Foucault M. (1977). Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison. Harmondsworth:Penguin.
Google Scholar
Foucault M. (1986). The Care of the Self. Vol. 3 of The History of Sexuality. New York:Random House.
Google Scholar
Giddens A. (1984). The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration.Cambridge: Polity Press.
Google Scholar
Hanley L. (2007). Estates: An Intimate History. London: Granta Books.
Google Scholar
Hanley L. (2016). Respectable: The Experience of Class. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Google Scholar
Hanley L. (2017). Parallel Lives: How the Brexit vote revealed Britain’s divided culture.„Guardian Review”, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/18/lynsey--hanley-brexit-britain-divided-culture-uses-of-literacy [20.02.2017].
Google Scholar
Hoggart R. (1992 1957). The Uses of Literacy. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Google Scholar
James C. (2009). The Revolt of the Pendulum: Essays 2005–2008. London: Picador.
Google Scholar
Jenkins R. (1992). Pierre Bourdieu. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar
Lane J. F. (2000). Pierre Bourdieu: A Critical Introduction. London: Pluto Press.
Google Scholar
Louis, E. (2016). Pierre Bourdieu: L’insoumission en heritage. Paris: Presses Universitairesde France.
Google Scholar
Louis E. (2017a). The End of Eddy. London: Harvill Secker.
Google Scholar
Louis E. (2017b). Books: Point of View. „Guardian Review”, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/11/edouard-louis-books-assult-elite-working-classes-culture[12.02.2017].
Google Scholar
Macey D. (2004). Michel Foucault. London: Reaktion.
Google Scholar
Martin S. (2005). ‘Culs-de-sac’, review of The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distributionof the Sensible. „Radical Philosophy”, 131, 39–44.
Google Scholar
McKibbin R. (1998). Classes and Cultures 1918–1951. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.
Google Scholar
Noah C. (2015). The Myths of Cesar Chavez. „New York Review of Books”. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/10/08/myths-cesar-chavez/ [11.12.2016].
Google Scholar
Panagia D. (2010). Partage du sensible: the distribution of the sensible. [in:] DerantyJ.-P. (ed.). Jacques Rancière: Key Concepts. Durham: Acumen.
Google Scholar
Rancière J. (2004). The Philosopher and his Poor. Durham and London: Duke UniversityPress.
Google Scholar
Rancière J. (2005). The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. London:Continuum.
Google Scholar
Rancière J. (2009). Afterword / The Method of Equality: An Answer to Some Questions.[in:] Rockhill G.. Watts P. (eds.). Jacques Rancière: History, Politics, Aesthetics. Durhamand London: Duke University Press.
Google Scholar
Ricks C. (1980). Clichés. [in:] Michaels L., Ricks C. (eds.). The State of the Language.Berkeley: University of California Press, 54–63.
Google Scholar
Rojek C., Blackshaw T. (2013). The Labour of Leisure Reconsidered. [in:] T. Blackshaw(ed.). The Routledge International Handbook of Leisure Studies. London and NewYork: Routledge, 544–559.
Google Scholar
Rosanvallon P. (2013). The Society of Equals. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Google Scholar
Sartre J.-P. (1947). What is Literature? New York: Philosophical Library.
Google Scholar
Savage M. et al. (2015). Social Class in the 21st Century. Harmondsworth: Pelican.
Google Scholar
Skeggs B. (2009). Haunted by the Spectre of Judgement: Respectability, Value and Affect in Class Relations. [in:] Sveinsson K.P. (ed.). Who Cares about the White Working Class? Runnymede Trust, http://www.runnymedetrust.org/uploads/publications/pdfs/WhoCaresAboutTheWhiteWorkingClass-2009.pdf [20.03.2017].
Google Scholar
Skinner Q. (1980). Language and Social Change. [in:] Michaels L., Ricks C. (eds.). TheState of the Language. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp 562–78.
Google Scholar
Skinner Q. (2002). Visions of Politics. Volume 1. Regarding Method. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.
Google Scholar
Sloterdijk P. (2013). You Must Change Your Life. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Google Scholar
Steedman C. (2016). Wall in the Head. Review of Respectable: The Experience of Classby L. Hanley, „London Review of Books”, http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n15/carolyn--steedman/wall-in-the-head [20.09.2016].
Google Scholar
Swenson J. (2006). Jacques Rancière. [in:] Kritzman L.D. (ed.). The Columbia Historyof Twentieth-Century French Thought. New York: Columbia University Press,641–643.
Google Scholar
Taylor, P. (2009). A Very English Playwright: The return of Alan Bennett. „IndependentReview”, 6th November.
Google Scholar
Wacquant L. (1998). Pierre Bourdieu. [in:] Stones R. (ed.). Key Sociological Thinkers.Basingstoke: Macmillan, 215–229.
Google Scholar
Webb J., Schirato T., Danaher G. (2002). Understanding Bourdieu. London: Sage.
Google Scholar
Autorzy
Tony BlackshawStatystyki
Downloads
Inne teksty tego samego autora
- Tony Blackshaw, 90-letni Zygmunt Bauman: Schopferkraft i jego dwoistości , Studia Krytyczne/Critical Studies: Nr 2 (2016)
