Bourdieu & U.S. Society
The United States society at large has been a constant battle of control over resources. Those who are in power change the rules to work in their favor; to ensure they keep control over resources. When analyzing the overall features of contemporary U.S. society at large, I agree with Pierre Bourdieu in the fact that we live in a society of different spheres of competition and conflict. The United States is under a capitalistic reign, which causes both competition and conflict. Bourdieu uses the concepts of capital, field, and habitus to explain how society works. Each of these aspects play a different yet important role in understanding contemporary society.
Living in a capitalistic society means everything pretty much revolves around the accumulation of resources. This mirrors the definition that Bourdieu provides when describing capital, which generally refers to the accumulation of resources that confer power. There are three types of capital: economic, social, and cultural. Economic capital entails the accumulation of money and property. This is the main idea of capitalism, and can be the source of competition and conflict. However, Bourdieu does not place the blame on economic capital, but instead places more focus on social and cultural capital, “Bourdieu attempts to break from the common-sense experience of capital as “economic” and demonstrate instead how the power dynamics designated by the term capital are also operative in noneconomic spheres of social life, albeit in misrecognized forms” (Desan, 2013: 322). These misrecognized forms are the accumulation of a network of personal connections (social capital) and the accumulation of highly-valued cultural resources (cultural capital). These two capitals are incredibly crucial to the acquisition of power. When it comes to personal connections, Bourdieu emphasizes that it is more important the type of people you know rather than the amount of people you know. If you know more people in positions of power, then you have more power yourself. Your position in society can easily be defined by the people in your social network. This is how one gains social capital. The concept of cultural capital, in turn, can also amount to one’s position of power in society. Cultural capital is the knowledge you gain from the class that you are in. Those in the working class gain cultural capital in the form of work ethic and making ends meet. Those in the middle class gain cultural capital that allows them to do more than make ends meet, such as knowing where good schools are and knowing where good neighborhoods are. The upper class has cultural capital such as wine or art knowledge. The elite class has more cultural knowledge that our society has determined is necessary in order to maintain their power. Gaining knowledge of art or wine is held to a higher standard in our capitalistic society, and having this knowledge can ensure a higher position in society. Cultural capital can also entail control of economic capital as well as the acquisition of educational capital, which helps this elite class maintain their position of power and keep out the competition.
The next concept is Bourdieu’s concept of field in society. A field is an arena of society that is made up of positions held by actors in a specific area, such as religion or education. There are several fields in society, and each of these fields hold a fight over resources. Fields have actors. Actors are people who have been in these fields for a long time, which then allows them to hold positions of power over the newer members of these fields. An example of a field would be a school. The school as a whole can act as a field, or there might be smaller fields inside of it such as the teacher’s lounge, educational departments, or even the playground. Let’s take the playground, for example. The older kids in the school who have been there for a long time might have rules for the playground, such as who gets to use the swing sets first or who can go down the slide first. The younger (or newer) kids must learn these rules in order to be able to play on the playground. The older kids put these rules into place to benefit themselves; to ensure that they are always the first ones to use the swing sets or the slides. The younger kids have no say in this because they have not been in the field for as long as the older kids, and the older kids will continue to change the rules to ensure that they benefit the most. Those in positions of power in these fields tend to have more control over the resources of that specific field, and like to keep out any conflict or competition brought on by new members of the field. Fields can be as diverse as the society that they are placed in. For example, fields in our United States capitalistic society would be far more complicated than those in a developing country. Fields can be semi-autonomous, and can emerge or end at any time. Actors in the field will either compete against each other or work together. There are rules in each field, either written or unspoken. These rules are called doxa, and are controlled by those who have more power (or capital) in the field. When a new member enters the field, they must learn the doxa in order to have a chance at being successful in the field. The doxa can change at any time if those who hold more capital decide that the doxa should be changed (often times in order to favor those who hold more capital and to keep out competition).
The final component of Bourdieu’s theory that I would like to touch on is the concept of habitus. Habitus, put simply, is the set of beliefs that we have that are influenced by our upbringing and control our social actions in daily life. Our habitus is carried with us from context to context, and is usually not brought on by conscious thought. Rather, our habitus presents itself in social situations and guides our actions in these situations. Your habitus has immense control on your future lifestyle habits, as an individual cannot choose a lifestyle that conforms to a higher status position. For example, if your mother was of working class and did not enjoy school when she was growing up, it is very likely that you will be a part of the working class and also not enjoy school when you are growing up. This is also true of our capitalistic society; meaning that it is incredibly hard to move about from class to class, specifically to move up. Bourdieu tells us in his essay Structures and the habitus, “the objective homogenizing of group or class habitus which results from the homogeneity of the conditions of existence is what enables practices to be objectively harmonized without any intentional calculation or conscious reference to a norm and mutually adjusted in the absence of any direct interaction or, a fortiori, explicit co-ordination” (Bourdieu, 1999: 80). What Bourdieu means here is that each class’ habitus is the same within that class, and once it is learned, it is nearly impossible to forget. Once it is learned, it will be forever enacted upon in situations that the individual faces, and they will react within their class’ standards.
The concepts of capital, field, and habitus are completely ingrained in the U.S. society at large. Capital is what makes up our system of classes, and it what we base power on. If someone has a large accumulation of any sort of capital, they then have an accumulation of power. In our capitalistic society, power is necessary in order to control your own respective field. Once in you are respective field and have power, you can then control the doxa (rules) of that field in order to work in your favor. Having this power in the field is the form of domination that lets you keep out competition and conflict from entering and threatening your power. This is what leads to social domination, and what keeps the elite running our society. This keeps the habitus of your class and your children in check to make sure that they follow in your footsteps. However, this lead to conflict for lower classes since it is nearly impossible for them to gain the habitus of a higher social class. This leads to endless conflict and competition.
While fields and habitus and capital remain, there is no way to escape the conflict and competition that ensues. Our society thrives on competition and conflict. We are constantly fighting over resources, and those who dominate their fields have the most control over those resources. They build their networks in order to maintain their control over these resources to ensure that anyone they feel shouldn’t have access to these resources won’t. This only leads to more competition and conflict, because the people who have the most capital rig the doxa to ensure that they continue to gain more and more capital. This then ensures that those in the lower classes with less capital will have a much harder time gaining more capital, if they even can at all.
In conclusion, I agree with Bourdieu that power is culturally and symbolically created, and constantly reinforced through both agency and structure. The main way this is done is through habitus, but habitus shows itself in our fields, and our positions in our fields reflect the amount of capital that one can gain. This is a constant cycle that repeats itself through generation after generation, and our habitus is ingrained in us right from the beginning. Power has the most control over capital gain, and vice versa. Once someone has gained enough capital to exert power over anyone they see as competition, they will remain in this position of power, since they have the authority to change the rules of the field in order to ensure that they keep their capital.
References
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1999. "Structures and the Habitus." Pp. 72-95 in Outline of a Theory of Practice"Structures and the Habitus."Cambridge University Press.
Desan, Mathieu H. 2013. "Bourdieu, Marx, and Capital: A Critique of the Extension Model." Sociological Theory 31(4):318-342.
