Om interesser og den symbolske magts relative autonomi

Resumé

On Interests and the Relative Autonomy of Symbolic Power: A Rejoinder to Some Objections This article is a rejoinder to different attempts to apply the framework of Bourdieu’s theory. In order to clarify the many misconceptions of his work, he spells out once again his notions of “interest“ and “strategy“ as being an integral part of his theory of habitus. The relation between habitus and the field(s) and social po¬sitions that produced it is explained as a sort of ontological complicity, a complicity that manifests itself in what is called the sense of the game, an in¬tentionality without intention, which functions as the principle of strategies devoid of strategic design. A major question of this article is various mis¬un¬derstandings concerning Bourdieu’s theory on the relative autonomy of symbolic power. To condense his argument: when he writes “knowledge“, his critics read connaissance connaissante, scholarly knowledge, conscious knowledge; the specific mode of thought of the scientist, is projected into the mind of the observed agents. This is what Bourdieu calls the scholastic fallacy: encouraged by the situation of scholé, the practical bracketing of the necessities of practice. Another reason for his critics misunderstanding Distinction is that they read the empirical analyses in a realist and substantialist way and thereby reduces, what Bourdieu un¬derstands as “the specific logic and autonomy of the symbolic order“, to a mere reflection of the social order. In the final section of the article he comments on the problem of social classes and a number of other specific question.