nature or intuition as “habitus”. “Habitus designates the system of durable and
transposable dispositions through which we percieve, judge and act in the world”.
Outline the central thesis of Distinction.
Here Bordieu is offering a “social critique of the judgement of taste”. He explains how
asthetic judgement is a product of your class and upbringing and how you appreciate
something for example a work of art depends on your cultural education or capital.
People in different classes often use their asthetic difference to distance themselves from
other classes or to further their distinction. People in higher classes have a tendncy to
appreciate a certain type of art or music which you may need a significant amount of
money to enjoy. There can also be a distinction made between those who equally have
the same amount of economic capital in a class but one may be lacking in cultural capital
an example of this may be people who have acquired “new money”, they can afford to
enjoy fine art and the opera but perhaps lack the cultural capital to do so.
What does Bordieu mean by “reflexive sociology”?
For Bordieu, sociological facts are learned by people thus,they are not ready made by
society, they must be constructed. These almost social reflexes are acquired through
lasting exposure to specific social environments and conditions through the use of
constraints. Thus these unconscious schemata are shared by people subjected to similar
experiences, this can be used to explain why people may often feel more comfortable
with those who share the same colour, gender or age as themselves. Taste is an acquired
disposition to differentiate and appreciate. It marks differences by a process of distinction
which is not a distinct knowledge. It functions as a sort of social orientation, implying a
practical anticipation of what the social meaning or values of the chose practice or thing
will probably be.
Bordieu thinks society is stratified.There are fractions within each class which
correspond to different lifestyles through the habitus. The habitus is a system of choices
that are influenced by inherited asset structures. Furthermore, different sets of preferences
come from systems of dispositions and the social conditions of production which create
relationships between them (the systems of dispositions).
However, ones habitus is influenced by peoples endowment in capital, meaning, material,
cultural or social. Bordieu devotes much time and energy into the creation of institutions
of intellectual exchange and mobilization on a transnational scale. He sees contours in the
field of academics and in the areas such as medicine, law and business sees that power is
obtained academically, thus there is a control over positions and material resources.
Whereas, on the side of temporarily dominated discipline, power is intellectual, this is in
areas anchored by natural sciences.
Bordieu explains that cultural practices ''increase'' when economic capital decreases
because those with fewer economic means try to get the maximum culture for their
money. On the other hand, the rich must always have the best, the most classic, and the
most widely known.
