sociolog yis a martial art [edward said in chicago] pierre... good evening.or, rather, good morning. i'll introduce you and then i'll put you on. okay, pierre.you can begin now. it's terrifying,to have such stage fright. my mouth is all dry. luckily, i had a glass of water.
it's incredible. - the worst is over.- but it's hard. it's really terribleto be so nervous. that's linguistic insecurityfor you. it would have been differentin french. but that's life. [josã© bovã©]we refuse this intolerable logic, the logic of money,which is crushing everything, making every citizena potential outcast. we are here today to say noto the tyranny of money,
to say that citizensmust reclaim power. before going into court,[for dismantling a mcdonald's] we, the accused,make this oath that if french justice does not allow the debateto take place, if the witnesses are not allowedto speak out, if the peasants of south america, africa, asia or the united statescan't express themselves, we shall leave the court.
we want nothing to dowith that kind of justice! all together! all together! that raises so many questions... i studied sociology. it's always fascinated me.i'm 32 now and... the question is, how should one live?it's fascinating but... in fact,i owe this situation to you. i often tell myselfthat you triggered it all off. what impressed me most about you,
the reason why i loved your writingsso much at the beginning... i believed i was freebut i wasn't free at all. symbolic violence and all that... me, i've been livingexactly what you write about for the last fifteen years. at times, i love your stuff,i want to thank you at other times,i get really mad at you. - pb: you have reason to be...- and the media are all over you now, that really annoys me.- the media insult me!
fifteen years ago, i rememberno one knew who you were mention bourdieu now,and you sound ridiculous. but it must be interesting for youto analyse that. but your work is subversivebecause you make people... things are going to start happening. i've listened to what you sayabout culture. i'll let you go, sorry... three years ago, at those meetings, in grenoble
you were there yes, we were just talking about them. that was a great moment. to me, you represent...there are two or three people... i have two living legends,cavanna [french writer] and bourdieu thank you. a kiss!on camera, too! hello, how are you? working hard? - okay?- yes, thanks.
shall i do a sound check? it's the jingle. so-so-socio-iogy: the scientific study ofsocial phenomena among human beings. ready. wednesday december 1 st. from six to seven pmon rdc 95.5 fm: with our special guest, pierre bourdieu. pierre bourdieu,i feel that there is an imperative
not to be intimidated by words. so tell me what a sociologist does.what do you do? and, if i dare ask,what purpose do you serve? right. i heard the definition which was given, a bit ironically.i made a note of it... "sociology, the scientific study ofsocial phenomena among human beings." i doubt if anyone understood that.i certainly didn't! like so many dictionary definitions,it's a complete tautology, it says the same thing twice.
i'll try to explain ita bit better. like all scientists, the sociologist tries to establish laws, to grasp regularities, recurrent ways of being and to define their principle. why do people dothe things they do? why, for example, do teachers' children do better atschool than working-class children?
by "why," i mean"how is it that?" how is itthat things happen that way? that it happens like that in society,and not otherwise? welcome to all of youwho have just joined us for this special program onpierre bourdieu who is with us today. the central theme of your workis "social reproduction". you've developed some very effectivetools for interpretation. could you explain to all of us who might not be familiarwith your work,
what social inequality is,why it exists, what purpose it serves, and how it ends upbecoming legitimised. that's a very big question,but a valid one. does inequality serve a purpose? it's a very controversial issue,one that is much discussed. i'll start with social reproduction,since you mentioned it. i think one important thingthat i have attempted to show, is that the social world is notin a state of perpetual change.
when i began to work in sociology, one of the favourite words of some"sociologists" was "mutation". "everything is undergoing mutation..."even today, they say that men are changingbecause women are changing, etc. everything changes constantly...it seemed to me, quite early on, that there's stability,there's inertia. so i tried,using statistical techniques, to document this inertia,to uncover the constants that make science possible.
it is because there are constantsthat we can understand things. but i've also tried to explainwhy things are the way they are. now, we come to inequality. among the factors that explainthe permanence of inequality, you have first the transmissionof capital. a rich father can leave his son money to launch a business,for example, if he doesn't do very well in school,if he fails at everything
even his studies at oneof those business schools where daddy's boys go nowadays. the father can set him up,give him a start, and by this tokenhe will "reproduce" himself. he won't falldown the social ladder, he won't become a worker. but today there's another kind of capital, which i call "cultural capital". this is more difficult to define.it's language, first of all,
a certain mastery of language, like speaking "proper" french. of course,everyone in france speaks french. even immigrants who just arrivedspeak french too. but they speak a frenchthat is worthless on the "school market". if you speak that kind of language,you will earn a straight f. so it's languageand everything that comes with it. it's what you acquirein a "cultured" family, from daddy telling you stories,
from reading books,even children's books. all of this is a capital:these are scarce resources, unequally distributed. and those who have more of it,because of this unequal distribution reap the profitsattached to scarcity. if everyone had the same amount, if everyone spoke perfect frenchwith no accent, there'd be no advantage to it. it's because there are differencesthat it pays to speak "good" french.
there is a beautiful studydone by an american sociologist which showedthat middle-class children, children from the bourgeoisie know how to give the schoolteacherjust what she wants because they come fromthe same background. the teacher's just like mummy. the teacher calls them"my darling" or "honey" and they're happy,they know how to react, so they are well perceived,
they get good marksand they're happy. so you have certain factorsthat depend on prior knowledge, not school knowledge,but just as important. how to behave, not to throwyour schoolbag on the floor, how to keep your notebooks tidy, etc. there's another related factor, observed among individualswith the same cultural capital, another factor of inequality isgoodwill toward the school system, what is called "docility",from the latin word
docilis: "disposed to be instructed". for example, the difference inachievement between boys and girls at the primary school level,seems to me... - girls do better than boys.- yes, they do, at least up to quite a high levelof secondary schooling. and this is becausethey are more "docile". that doesn't meanit's in a girl's nature. it's because they're brought upto be docile, they're better prepared to givethe school system what it requires,
which is cultural goodwill, looking at the teacherin the right way... and it pays, it is rewarded. and of course,rewards provide added incentives. these are just a few factorsbut it's a lot more complicated... what about men? they're more reticent.they have their sense of honour. in a way, school is harder for them.you know, this could take hours... i don't want to oversimplify,
but cultural capitalis a very important element. and today, increasingly, in contemporary society, in developed countriesbut also in other societies, the reproduction of inequalitiesis achieved more and more through the transmissionof cultural capital. another example.when i began my work there was a lot of talk about socialmobility, in the united states "in one generation,you have self-made men", and so on.
well, that's baloney. there are now studies, partly inspiredby the work i did in france, which have shown that in the states inequalities due to cultural capitalare even greater than in france, because entry to the top universitiesis doubly controlled by capital: first by economic capital,because it's very expensive, and second by cultural capital,which, like here, is inherited. and in japan, where a student of minedid some research at todai university,
you will findthe sons of the samurai... to get back to your question,there are inequalities, and these inequalitiestend to perpetuate themselves, but i don't say that they areperpetuated automatically... but you didn't answer my question:do they serve a purpose? well, that's a question that belongs to metaphysics. the sociologistdoesn't have to take a stand. we know that there are societies...
there is at least one,studied by a friend of mine, the anthropologist mary douglas, it's a small-scale society wheredifferences hardly exist at all. it's an archaic society. and it works very well. this is a response based on fact, but i'd rather put the question aside.it's a topic of discussion but i don't think we can answer it...- because it's too complicated? because it's complicatedand because i can't answer it.
why is it so complicated?can you explain that, simply? because there are importantpolitical issues at stake here, it's a political question,not necessarily a scientific one. to ask the right scientific questions,you must often set politics aside. we're dealing herewith political issues and especially issues relatedto "legitimacy", the word you used. there are peoplewho would like to legitimise... how do things end up legitimised? - sorry?- the question i asked earlier...
yes, well.there are those who say... roughly put, it's the dominant whosay that inequalities are justified. it's in their interest to saythat inequality is a good thing. it's a general principlevalidated by research: people tend to say thatthings are right when they are right for them. it's a social law that'ssimple but true. it's important to knowfor purposes of self-defense. when someone says somethingin a debate,
just ask yourself, "what are his social reasonsfor saying that?" if a priest tells you that there isno salvation outside of religion. well, yes, his job depends on it! i'm oversimplifying a bit but it's often the case. it's a simple law but it's usefulfor self-defense. and i often say that sociology is a martial art.it can come in handy.
- sociology is a martial art?- yes, a martial art. like all the martial arts,you use it in self-defense... and using it for foul playis strictly forbidden. thank you, pierre bourdieu. it's done,i made a photocopy. you'll let me knowfor leroux and rouanet. marie-christine said you're freeevery day but monday... monday morningyou have your workshop. early afternoon is fine with me.
- any day, early afternoon?- yes. okay. shall i shut the door? no, leave it open, so i can keepan eye on you! we'll just do the beginningto see if it's worth it. shall i sit next to you? is that for the sayad? - it'll take a while, then.- no, i just want a look. - it's not great but...- what time is it?
five o'clock. you know that martine's here alsoto work on the archives? - you approve of the railway strike?- yes. i curse you these days! well, i feel sorry for you but... i was a victim, too. i was in versailles,and they announced "no more trains"! but i took it very well.they're in the right to strike. that was at the very start.
but if it happened every morning... it gets tiresome. - it would bother me maybe.- it depends where you're going. if it's to visit the king's castlein versailles or to travel to work... - i don't mean to nag...- go on, take a walk! - your workday is over, mrs. christin.- thanks. - you can go home now.- goodbye. start on chapter one? oh, she's always after me!
don't you think she's awful? what do i have to look at? she is a devil, though! she was only pulling my leg.that's our relationship. we're always throwing insultsat each other. how can i explain?we argue about everything... nothing serious, mind you,but we're always at it... but it's a good relationship,because that way... it never gets really aggressivebut there's none of that
kind of fake politeness.we both pitch in. i enjoy it. and i don't thinkshe does so badly on it either. there! - is your surname french?- yes, my family name. on my great-grandfather's side. - my assistant's name is riviã©re.- oh? "with great affectionfor a great master" that's too kind!
not at all. one of the reasonsi started writing was to encourage people. why do they say you comefrom the french basque country? no, i'm from bã©arn. b, e, a, r, n. it's a small provincevery close to the pyrã©nees. it's very close to the basque countrybut it's quite different. the dialect there is gascon,which is very similar to catalan.
so what sort of familywere you born into? my father was first a small farmer and then a postman,a low-ranking public employee. why did you startstudying sociology? oh i don't know,it just happened, little by little. so, reading 'masculine domination' one could think that men, too, are victims of this domination.- yes... so how do you explainwhy they don't change?
- is it that they can't...- let's not overstate this. they're victims onlyin a relative way. there's a phrase written byvirginia woolf, i think, which saysthat they play the best role. in french we say:they have the good part, they always come off best. which means that they're visible, that, like in a theatre play, men have the leading roles.this has many advantages.
they are visible,whereas women are invisible. they speak,whereas women keep quiet... but there's a price to pay forplaying the lead role. now, why don't things change?of course things are changing but a lot less than one might think. the reason is that it all happensat a deeply unconscious level. in french we're always saying,"it's stronger than i am." - well, that's it.- it's fate. not quite, it means,"i can't help myself."
it's stronger than i am... i remember when my mother got old,if i told her off, she'd say to me,"i'm too old for you to change me." it's stronger than i am. - how do you experience all that?- me? - do you think that you are macho?- no. well to some extent, inevitably. - in your structures?- there's always a trace.
if not, then what i saywould be untrue. here's a suggestion to save time. i'll ask my questions in spanish and you reply in french, okay? is it true that you said that you can't expect normalbehaviour from a woman in a skirt? i'm not the one who said this.it was a fine study done by an american woman who analysed...she said, "imagine all the gestures you..."
she was talking to a man,she said, "imagine that you're wearinga rather short skirt and you have to pick something upoff the floor." she devised this gymnasticsexercise for men. it's a superb piece of work,it makes you aware of things that even women are unaware ofdoing or not doing. you mean women aren't fully awareof the fact that they're dominated? yes. and that's what symbolicdomination is about. it's a form of domination that works
insofar as the person dominatedisn't fully aware of it. and so she is, to some extent,an accomplice to that domination. senor bourdieu, do you think that menshould change their behaviour? yes, but i don't speak in terms of...that's the trouble with sociologists, this is why i always seem to be sad,pessimistic and deterministic. i never say, "he should." i say, "you have to find a wayto compell him to..." that's all.
there are men of goodwill,who are willing to change. my book has been read by many menwho told me "it's tough reading!" but they too are not awareof it either. there's that whole chapteron virginia woolf. i wrote that because she wasa great theorist of feminism, i think she wrote some great things, on the suffering of the dominant. since a great feminist had said it,so could i.
there is a sentence by marx whichapplies very well to men. marx said, "the dominantis dominated by his domination." it's a beautiful sentence.i think that the masculine dominant in a country like this wherethings are a question of honour, i think that men sufferfrom this male chauvinism, from this duty to be virile,which is a terrible burden. - you think so?are you a male chauvinist yourself? i don't think so. but it is a heavy burden.
if you made a listof all the things men have to do for themselves, and so on, which bother them,it would be a very long list. war, for example. in traditional societies,war is a man's job. one criticism laid at your door is that you comment moreon masculine values than on feminine values. can you sum up the values ofthe "eternal feminine" for me?
what are women's values? here again, that's something thati don't want to do because... i never say "masculine values". - not as a sociologist, as a man.- as a man? that's a very difficult problem. i'm very fond of what are knownas "feminine values". but we must not forget that they're largelythe product of masculine domination. - they're not women's own values?- yes... no... they're not part of women's nature.
in the current state of affairs,women have properties that i find far more attractivethan men's. as a matter of personal preference. - properties?- characteristics. they're more modest, more discreet, more intuitive, more caring... they take more interestin others, they... what i should say is, "they'remore likely to be such." one should always thinkstatistically, it's more precise.
they are more likely to possessthose qualities than a man is, everything else being equal.and that's fine. also, they're more likelyto be docile at school. docile, from the latin docilis,for "willing to learn". in french, docile also means"subjugated", "gentle",one who does not rebel. a question on happiness.you've discussed it several times. what should one do to be... happy? happy? that, i don't know.
- in truth, i have no answer to that.- no? so a sociologist can't answer that, can give no hope,can only point out the laws? he can give some answers,but as a matter of personal opinion not as a sociologist. your personal opinion, then? we could talk for hours... well, as a personal opinion. one must do
what little one canto change things. yes, i think that's it. we all have a small margin offreedom, so each of us must dowhat little he or she can do to escape the laws,the necessities, the determinisms. i could go on for some time. thank you very much. here we go, so 'the balcony'... 1868,
just for the record, this isthe first painting i ever saw. i was a little boy, in an issueof the magazine l'iilustration, there was a reproductionof 'the balcony', which has remained dear to meever since. it surprised me greatly thento see the world portrayed this way. i'll have to be quick.we don't have much time left. i won't talk about the thingi could have gone on about for hours, which is 'a bar atthe folies-bergã©res'. i'm going to rush through thisa bit, too bad...
'le chemin de fer'[the railroad], there. this demands a formalist reading. at first glance, the railings which materialize the composition. but what i also find interesting is that the railingsdivide social space. here, we are on the side ofthe bourgeois flaneurs, the woman is reading a booksitting down, with a little girl... is she a governess?
in any case, we're inthe world of the bourgeoisie. the railings separate us from theworld of work, on the other side. it's not just a figure of speech,it's for real. and we have the destructionof the maternal figure in this depiction of a mother- if that's what she is - who is distracted,looking elsewhere, maybe watching a passer-by. but she's not engrossed inher role as a mother. that's a feminist reading,
i didn't find this on my own, but i think it'sa very accurate reading. so you can see howmy theoretical model works here... that you should alwaysthink of a painting in relation to the space ofpaintings that were painted then. doing something one way is alwaysnot doing it the way others would, but without necessarily trying to stand out.to understand what someone does you have to understand whatthat person is not doing, too. it's that simple.this is a teaching of structuralism.
to understand a phoneme, you mustplace it in a system of phonemes. having said that,i come to the painting by manet. very quickly, in substance, he is responding to a seriesof challenges. he constructs himself in oppositionto the academies, to romanticism, against delacroix who copied him,against tradition, and in the endeven in opposition to impressionism. he spends his time "getting free"as we say in football, but not with the purposeof distinguishing himself.
he distinguishes himselfas a bonus. yes, that gives the publication dateof the work. or of the review. no, it's the date of the review. martin du gard, that's earlier,maulnier, earlier... mauriac claude, no,pagnol, earlier, suarã©s, earlier,yourcenar, later... faye, later, guillou,i'm not quite sure about that one. mauriac, grasset,
fayard... what the hell is this? there's no mention of beckettor simon. there's no beckett or simonand we... - aie-aie-aie...- wait, maybe we lost... do i have to doeverything myself? no, and don't pretend you do! oh, she's horrible!you see how she uses... she's horrible!
i'm going to work with someone who's less crafty, less twisted,to give a better image. you don't mindthat it's the 1984 edition? no, damn it!it's the only one we've got. - there must be more recent ones.- well, we don't have them. my hypothesis is that those peoplewho are here, with high jurt values... a letter from godard. ah? many thanks.do you need a reply? - no, i don't think so.- thanks.
who from? jean-luc godard? pulling out all the stops, hum? very mysterious, like all his work. these are excerpts from his film. - you know...- 'histoire(s) du cinã©ma' histoire(s) with an "s". he does have talent, you have to say. i don't understand a thing. it's annoying. it's rather beautifulbut i don't understand a thing.
i'm no poet! it's true that poetry is another wayof perceiving things, intuitively. i think that he means something,i don't suspect... he definitely means something. there's a buswith a poster "my girl". and he says, "i wondered, looking at this documentshowing people in public transport, "if we are indeed both seeingthe same thing and if, consequently, "we could later claim to try to tellthe same story, the true story.
"it seems - alas for us andtoo many kosovars - that we can't. "my girl" will tell you:the romantic rendez-vous with truth "was ill-prepared. "gone with the wind,as gossips say. "goodnight, you sleepers.this high-minded film "in which most of us didn't hearwhat you describe "as - undo the name -political discourse..." "...as - undo the name -political discourse..." what do you make of that?
not much really... but i haven't read the whole letter. but that's all there is.there's nothing more, i read it all. he's testing you. if you don't understand the samething he does, you won't be able... no, i understood that bit. but afterwards, when he says...well, whatever! you'll be talking past each otherat this lunch meeting... from the word go.
it's tough... poor old bourdieu! no, if you do thati'll be intimidated. it will be awful...no, you have to be careful. shy people are intimidating. when you're shy,you make others shy. - shall we do it?- very well. could we see that again? that's when i was teaching,in 1954.
i was teaching philosophy. at the ecole normale? no, it was my first yearas a teacher in high school. the pupilswere almost the same age as me. that's in 1968 buti don't remember exactly... next there's a public statement on the right to civil disobedience. yes, regarding the algerian war. had you already been drafted?
yes i was already in algeria,i had already been drafted. - must have been in the 1960s.- did you do any research? that's right. i was in algeriafrom about 1955 to 1962. - and this one, a long time ago...- yes i'm a lot younger there. i was cuter, too. see why i don't liketo be photographed now? and this is you withthe unemployed there. that's right. why did you do that?
- as encouragement?- yes, as encouragement. it was an interesting movement.i wanted to be there. look at that! that's the rugby team. it's in paris. - that's me.- right. what position did you play? stand-off. shall i write it down?
shall we stop now? thanks. 1942, there, i'd been granteda state scholarship. - this was to go to paris already?- no. it was for the high school in pau. - in pau.- yes. and then i got a scholarshipall through university. in the 19th century there wasthis rivalry between the inheritors and the scholarship boys.in the struggles among writers, to infer that someone was dim-witted,you said he was a scholarship boy.
i was in the camp ofthe scholarship boys. on a scholarship. sociologists arealways on the wrong track! i suffer a lotfrom the isolation. you're lucky in france,there's so much going on. belgium is a small country,which is completely dependent because of its finance structure. so, in 1981,owing to the thatcher effect, the right-wing governmentdismantled all the structures
for funding research. we depend almost entirely on moneyfrom the commission, from europe. as for the national budget...well, i'm a political scientist, i earn a monthly wage,and i'm lucky to have that. but i have absolutely no meansfor research. i pay for my phone calls.you can call me but if i call you,i have to pay for it myself. my pens, my paper... so it's back to the waythings used to be in belgium.
to be an intellectual, to be an autonomous thinker,you have to be well-to-do, someone with means,and you have to fund yourself. independently wealthy. i've been saying to my studentsfor over ten years now, "you are like artists weretwenty years ago." you needed daddy's money, or a wife who's workingto support you. that's what being a sociologistmeans today.
unless you produce sociologyfor the powers that be. if you do sociology which answers thedominant social demands, you can make a living. there are positions with the nationalcentre for scientific research etc... and there is research funding. but if you want to do sociology, not critical sociology,just plain rigorous sociology, well, you have to knowthat you're like an artist.
you have to buy your own pencils,pens, erasers, your personal computer and so on. i have to go now. let's do it this way:if you have stuff, send it to me. on my side, if there are meetings,i'll let you know. when your work has advanced,let me know and i'll quickly tryto organise something with people workingalong the same lines. fine.
i'm glad we've finally met because you're the one who gave methe research bug 15 years ago. it's a famous paternity. it's nice of you to say that. see you soon. goodbye, and see you soon. after 2 years of left-winggovernment, the rich are richer and the poor are more numerous. okay, one more question?
do you use... do you base your workmainly on your personal experience? not mainly,but it does play a role. but it's notraw personal experience. i know what i thought 30 years agoand i know what i think now. my personal experience sensitizes meto things that others wouldn't notice, makes me nervous or irate at thingsthat others would find normal. so it plays a role... but let me not answer about me,let's take the example of foucault.
foucault is one of the greatestcontemporary philosophers, who did a lot of very importantworks in several domains. in the united statessome people got annoyed by foucault's subversive actions. foucault became an idolon american campuses, and that annoyed conservativesof all sorts, academic conservatives, but also political conservatives... cultural conservatives as well aspolitical conservatives.
so these people wantedto demolish foucault, there is a bookentitled 'saint foucault'. so some people idolised himand others wanted to demolish him. they called him a sado-masochistpervert, a homosexual, and so on... in short, they tried to deducethe whole of foucault's thinking from his sexual orientation,from his particular sexual tastes. now, it's true thatto understand what foucault did, you have to understandthat he was homosexual. he wouldn't have done what he didif he hadn't been homosexual.
many of the problems he had... if you're interested,read didier eribon's biography, which was publishedby fayard a few years ago. when he was a student,he once tried to commit suicide. he had major problemsrelated to his homosexuality, something which at the timewas highly stigmatised, even among intellectuals. i think that manyof the questions that he posed about normality, medicineand so on,
are related to problems he hadencountered as a homosexual. but there are many homosexualsand there is only one foucault. what he did was to transformhis existential problems, his suffering and his questions,as a homosexual, he transformed theminto scientific problems. he fought all his life to elaborate, to... in other words, it's not raw homosexualitythat produces good philosophy. in the same way, it's not raw experience,whatever it may be,
that yields good sociology. the problem is how to work onone's own experience to make something of it. i think i'll stop there. as i always say, you have tocarry out a reflexive analysis. sociologists have to doa sociology of themselves, carry out a socioanalysis of themselves. that's very important.it's only by socio-analysing one's own experience,
that one may use itsociologically. the very work of researchis a socio-analysis. things come back to you, butthey are transformed in the process. you learn a lot about yourself by studying the educational system. by studying that, a teacher learnsmore about his unconscious, than by studying the works of freud. right, we'll end it there,for good now. you've been very kind.
you could do one thing for me. you'd be very kindif you would write and tell me, individually or collectively, what you didn't dare tell mehere today. yes? i'm busy now.i'll call you back. - ready?- yes. so there is a capital of knowledgeabout the social world that you inherit from your milieu,from your social background. it's like i said earlier,
it's not sufficientto practise sociology but it's a start if you know how toturn it into scientific problematics, into caveats, etc. my own social experience,which was a bit of this kind, the world i knew, was notthe parisian intellectual world. and this was reinforcedby my experiences in algeria, where i carried out researchin dangerous situations. it happened two or three times,the answer i gave determined whether
i would come out dead or alive, also how i asked the question. i had no other protectionin a civil war, a war of liberation, i had no protectionother than my demeanour and my wits, my way of doing thingsand being careful. and this i believetaught me a lot. you can read methodology books there are lots of essentialthings they don't mention. that's how i learnt,
because you hadto watch out for everything. we had almost metaphysicaldiscussions about what it means to produce science in this context. every day we'd be confrontedwith problems. well, that will help youget a good head on your shoulders, it makes you think an awful lot. i think i've lived off thehuge capital of knowledge... i aged very quickly, compared to a young sociologistdoing his quiet bit of research
on, say, teachers in a high school. i aged a lot. and so a lot of questionscame out of that, a lot. so i've lived on the capital, not of ideas but of questions,that i collected at that time. i think that it was important. now, obviously, the other thing,i add this,
it think it will fityour purpose very well... i had the idea, because i was studyingthe region of kabylia and i saw many analogieswith the bã©arn in terms of family structures,relationships between the sexes... and i thought, "in ordernot to use my experience "in an uncontrolled manner, "i must go and study my own villagein the same way i studied kabylia." i had two objectives:first to control this experience,
but also, to study what it means to go from folk experience to scholarly experience. it was around the time lã©vi-strausshad done 'tristes tropiques'. everyone was reading it. i said, "i'll do an inverted'tristes tropiques'. "i'm going to return home, "instead of going far away, "i'm going to do researchin my home village,
"in the least exotic place.i will make the banal exotic." so i interviewed old buddies of mine, and very often i knew the answers,i knew the answers. so what is going on here?what does it mean to ask a question when you know the answer? it means that in other casesyou ask without knowing the answer. so that got me thinking a lot. i realised quickly that these guys knew the essential,they knew how to explain it.
but they didn't know it like i did.it's not the same to know abstractly that, okay, girls no longer wantto stay in the countryside, etc. anyway, it got me thinking a lot about the two things,about being an anthropologist and... another thing,although i could go on here, is that when you comefrom a lower-class background, from a culturally dominated regionyou necessarily feel cultural shame. i was ashamed of my accent,which i had corrected when i went to the ecole normale...
when i went back south to my home- pierre carles will understand - when i got to dax and i heardthe accent, i was horrified! even today, certain accentsmake me physically ill. and yet it is the accentthat i had. recently on the radio i heardtillinac, a pro-chirac writer who has an accent from brive.i felt like killing him! i was sickened,and not just by what he was saying. here's a true form ofsymbolic violence. i remember another time,it was in toulouse,
i heard this fellow,who sang avant-garde poetry with a toulouse accent.it was horrible, horrible. he was going, "oh toulooooose!" it was downright horrible. i shouldn't react this way,it's my job to understand this, it's my own accent, and yeti experience this as atrocious. but you just can't singavant-garde poetry with that accent! the occitan activistsare going to kill me. oh, well! can i cut in a bit
to make it easier for you? it depends.if i'm following a line of thought i'll be worried you'll cut in when i'm onto something. but at other times, yes. because you've just answeredseveral questions, including somei haven't even asked. i know, i know. that way i can ask them later.
i know. but what's happening is, i'll start on something, then i have to go all the wayto get back to the starting point. so it's not easy to... i've got some... it's the same. - you can have mine, there.- thank you. - let's change the subject.- yes, let's move on. we'll talk about women. the concept of symbolic violence
is one that you use. could you talk a bit about that? yes, well... yes, masculine domination. in fact, there's the problemof sexuality and that of domination. for example, there's a fine pieceof research that i cited, by an american sociologist, who studied the differential useof telephone among men and women.
she shows that it is women who use the phone a lot more,a lot more than men. people say women are tattle-tale,they are always on the phone, always prattling, etc. in fact, she measuredthis statistically. and showed it's only normal because,in the division of domestic labour, in the family,women have a function, tacitly acknowledged,which is to maintain relations - what i call the social capital -with the rest of the family.
they do this with their own familybut also with their husband's family. they make phone calls,buy presents, organise birthday parties,call people back... that's an example,just a very small one. the problem is to gatherall these observations, like that of the behaviour betweena woman and her gynecologist... some fine work has been done,as often by men as by women, some very fine work. i wanted to try and show
that there's a coherence here. the coherence is that it isa domination of a very special type, which is not based, whatever maybe said, on physical violence. of course there are battered women,i know the statistics about it. it's not based oneconomic violence only, on the fact that, because womenwork less often, they are less freeto leave the home. it's based on what i callsymbolic violence, this violence which resultsfrom the fact
that people have in their mindscertain principles of perception, ways of looking at things,which are the product of the relationship to domination. in other words, womenparticipate, as it were, in their own domination. this doesn't meanthat they're stupid or that it suffices to... it means that a gamut ofsocial structures from childhood, in the family,at school, etc.,
lead them to incorporate,to internalise, the masculine/feminine relationship. in order to fight this,to subvert it, you must firsttake this into account. now, this will sound conservative.it's the same as with education, people will say"bourdieu is conservative". "he says that women are dominated,that they contribute to their... "he's a male chauvinist..." no. you have to recountthat this is the way things are
in order to find ways to... where is this domination reproduced?it gets reproduced in the church, in the state, in the school... so there are battlefields and you can set out objectives. whereas feminism saysthe battlefield is in the home: so you will struggle with your husband,"you wash the dishes!" well, okay, that's not bad, but it's not the only battlefield,
there are other sites for strugglesthat are much more important. for example, there arepolitical struggles for health care, social benefits, etc. an example i discoveredafter writing my book... i always say the statehas a right hand and a left hand. the right hand is finance,the budget... in short, everything kingly,everything masculine. and then there is the feminine side. it's hospitals, nurseries,schools,
social welfare. obviously, in the hierarchyof the ministries, the masculine dominatesthe feminine, as everywhere. the finance ministry dominatesthe ministry of social affairs, the minister for the budgetdominates everyone. having said that - and i was very pleasedwhen i found this - when people say that we're destroyingthe public sector, it means the domains where womenare employed, like hospitals,
and the domainswomen benefit the most from, like social services, welfare,nurseries, etc. so this gives you a political line. and i guarantee you thata feminist movement, if they followed this political lineinstead of engaging in endless talk "our interest as women is bound upwith the state, "that is, with the social state,and doubly so, "insofar as we partake of it, "we're more likely to be nursesthan men
"more likely to be teachersthan men..." besides today teachers arenearly all women. "so we must defend the state. "we're more likely to work for itand to benefit from it, "because we're the oneswho need it..." that's an example. but this doesn't fit in at allwith commonly accepted ideas, the usual vision...well, i'll stop there. loic wacquantis a professor of sociology
at the university of californiain berkeley he's also a researcherat the center for european sociology of the collã©ge de france. his book 'les prisons de la misã©re'['prisons of poverty'] is just out. you advocate extending the guaranteedminimum income to prisoners? yes, i make a case for extendingthat program to inmates in france. they have been systematically excludedfrom this social program, when granting them this allowancewould reduce the racketeering in prison.
we know that a large portion ofthe prison population in france suffers from such destitution thatthey have to engage in prostitution to get enough money to buy soapto wash themselves, to wash their clothesand their dishes. the other reason is that incarceration is very oftena heavy financial burden on the families of inmates, who generally comefrom the most deprived strata. so it would help lifta heavy economic burden
on families which are,as it were, being penalised, althoughthey have committed no crime. and the last reason, a symbolic one, seems to meto suffice in itself. to grant this benefit to an inmate,who is entitled to it on the outside, is to express that he continuesto be part of the civic community, that he hasn't been excludedfrom society. he had a right to it outside,so why not inside? it's a way of minimisingthe separation,
the symbolic branding,the stigma that all prisoners bear,thus it helps, or at least it avoids hinderingtheir reintegration. no one cares about the reintegrationof anyone in prison. - there are small organisations...- it was terrific to end on that. - on the guaranteed minimum income?- yes. it was the normative momentin the book. i had to battle bourdieuto put it back in. because the book was too long.but he agreed.
he'll cut it out at editing. no, don't do that... we agreed that if there's only one good thingto come out of this book, if it can help to pushin that direction, then it will have been worth it. you've cost me 5,000 francs! as soon as i arriveyou're getting at me. well, i have to.
it's true. mrs christin,so now you're keeping mum? you get here after the battle,that's all. you've cut just one sentence,is that all? couldn't you make two paragraphs? no, it's not possible. it won't fit. look, there's just one centimetre. we've been at it all morning.
the layout editor said, "let's hopethey don't all start doing this." you're setting a bad example. everything you do is a catastrophe. she won't tell you, but the layout editor, a nice fellow,who doesn't know you said, "that's as far as we can go,otherwise we'll run into problems." no more requests?you let us get on with it now? alright, but i'd like to reread it. no, you've handed your manuscript in,
and bourdieu is the boss... i know.but i'll keep bugging him until... it would be sillyto leave misspelled names in it. we'll do everything we can but, really, this is crazy. i realize that very well. but you're the one who setthe deadline last january. "by the end of the month!" it never looked like i'd befinished by the end of january.
no, but i was being realistic. you made a presentation in my seminar which could have been publishedas is. i gave you carte blanche,so i'm not going back on that. i think that it's in your interest. for a frenchy, what does it matteronce you've understood murray? it's overkill... i think that accumulatingfigures is all very well, when you're on something thatseems improbable,
you can be accused of exaggerating,of being anti-american... but when it's to demonstratethat this murray guy is a fascist who crossed the atlantic to...okay, we get it! so adding one more quote... i see what you mean, the inserton murray going to england, where they welcome him like royalty. at the same time it's good,it's revealing and... really, trust me. i didn't do the edits casually,i did them seriously.
- i wouldn't trust anyone else.- i did them seriously. i think that this effect of... it's flabbergasting and you think,"it's not possible!" or, "reality overtakes fiction." so if you're piling it on, from the reader's standpointyou reach the saturation point. you think "but we get it, "these people are monsters.they'll say anything". "why does he keep harping on it?
"okay, we're convinced." some say thatan engaged intellectual is an intellectual involvedin politics. that's not true. an engaged intellectual is an intellectual whointervenes in the public sphere, which may be the political sphere,but without abandoning - otherwise he's a clown - the ordinary demands of his ordinary activityas a researcher.
if getting involved in politicsmeans you start spouting nonsense, then you stop being an intellectual.i'll stop here. who wants to speak? this needs rethinking.because last century, capitalism was a matter of people who owned companiesand were active within them. today it's a matter of managerstrained in universities, who are responsible for nothingbecause they have short-term goals, and then someone else takes over.
we need to know thatthe shit we find ourselves in was thought out, conceivedin the universities. it is the same professors,or the same professorial body, who participate in creatingboth sides. thank you. that kind of generalisationis intolerable to a sociologist. you can't say"universities", as a whole. it's like a 68-meter tortoise,it doesn't exist. which universities do you mean?is it business schools, american business schools?is it the mit?
you have to enterinto the detail of things. frã©dã©ric lebaron, with us here,has done work on this. you can read it soon. he's just analysed the winnersof the nobel prize for economics. that's the new kind ofpolitical struggle. he uses very sophisticatedstatistical techniques to analyse in detail the space ofproducers of this economic discourse in the name of which we are told thatwe need labour flexibility, etc. by means of a refined analysis,
he shows the structureof this space. old-style political critique, despite some useful stufffrom marx, misses its target entirely. what we need to fight thisis micro-surgery. which forbids saying thingssuch as you've just said. it's not universities in general,professors in general. you have right-wing and left-wingprofessors, different disciplines... and it shouldn't be possible anymore- and this isn't censorship -
to talk like that, orsomeone should answer, "sir, i agree to some extent, just a bit,but... not entirely." yes, that's right. but perhaps if we both go over itwe'll get it done. you don't have a copywith you at home? take a look. yes, i'm off now. what did i want to say? oh, yes, the other thing is,since i have you on the line,
the interview you did withthe headhunter from the seuil publishing house...you've lost it, have you? it would be usefulfor the book, wouldn't it? okay, okay.and... when you rummage through your papers,if you come across the interviews with the womenfrom the women's magazines... we could use them one day.that's all. i'm almost done. you're calling for an economy...
- of 'gluck'.- of happiness. yes, of happiness. a new economy of happiness. it's an idea that is both... today it might seema bit original and even utopian, whereas it's really quite banal.all it means is that the economyas it now is, according to the dominantdefinition, takes into account costsand profits, etc.
but it erases social costsand social profits, everything that's not quantifiable,everything that's not calculable, everything that can't beanticipated by computation, etc. as a result,we severely underestimate costs and we overestimatethe cost-profit ratio. for example, if we really tookinto account - this is just an example - the cost of urban violence...
when european governmentsor other governments ask sociologiststo study violence in schools, in the banlieues,there's always money for this. what do they want?recipes to make violence go away. do we need more policemen,more social workers, more teachers? does schoolplay a role in the violence? but beware,how do we protect the schools? those are the questionsthat are raised. in fact, they systematicallyexclude the question
of whether the causes of violencedo not reside outside that universe, in things that are totally obvious,such as the unemployment rate, job insecurity,temporal insecurity, the fact that the futureis uncertain, elimination from school, the fact that some children,because of their background, both social and ethnic,the two being often linked, are fated to be eliminatedby the school system. the causes of violencereside in the whole structure.
what is not perceivedis that savings made on one side... as when they say,"let's cut costs, "let's downsize, "let's layoff 2,000 peopleto cut production costs "and be competitiveon the world market..." the savings made on one endare paid for at the other end. the 2,000 people who are dismissed,especially if they're young, will take tranquillisers,become alcoholics, take drugs, become dealersand then killers,
and keep the policehard at work. if we balance the social costsinduced by a purely economic approachto cost-saving, it's easy to seewhat bad economics this is. that's all. what we haveis very bad economics, based on the dissociationof the economic and the social. but what's social is economic. there's nothing which lies outside ofthis enlarged economy: sadness,
joy, happiness, taking pleasure in life, the pleasure of walking the streetswithout being attacked, the quality of the airwe breathe... all of thatpertains to economics. now with ecology,they're starting to say... but with what difficulties!it's a law, another social law: there are social costswhich affect everyone. this is based on research doneby a dutch sociologist.
he showed that in the 18thand 19th centuries, advances in the standards of hygienewere fostered by the factthat the great epidemics such as the plague,crossed class barriers. an epidemic of the plague didn'tstay in the lower-class districts. it killed everyone,including the bourgeois. so they built sewers, they implemented all kinds ofmeasures of hygiene in the public interest,
but only because these were alsoin the interest of the dominant. today, for example, with chernobyl, the radioactive cloud isn't goingto stop at the oder-neisse border, nor at the rhine, nor at the border of theupper-class districts of paris. that's when we practise ecology"in the public interest". medical doctors, who are not aprogressive element in any country, are beginning to say,"oh, pollution levels are very bad "for people witha heart condition.
"who suffer from asthma, too." but nobody knows what the consequenceswill be in 20 years. in 20 years, we'll be saying,"there's a correlation between cancer rates and urban life."but it will be too late. what i say all the time is that social scienceis telling us now that measures which seem veryrational "economically" today... "we're going to produce more toyotaswith less steel!" as leibniz used to say, "we'll tie upmore dogs with fewer sausages".
this way of running the economyhas terrible effects which are said to be "secondary",but in fact are primary when they concern public health,physical and mental health... personal sanity,for example alcoholism, which is a social phenomenon. i think that all these measureswhich make the stock market soar - it zooms up each time a measurelike that is taken - will be paid for by certain people and eventually by the collectivity.
it's a bit like the sewersin the 18th century, paid for by the collectivity. what i'm preaching is enlightenedinterest. i say to the dominant, "you can be cynical, "you may not carewhat happens to the people, "but it's stupid,not just mean." after all, i'm no moralist. "if it pleases you to be like that...but it's stupid!
"because you'll end up,like in california, "in your gilded ghettoswith armed guards. "you won't be able to go outwithout watchdogs, "you'll need security systemseverywhere, "you'll be as if besiegedin your fortress, "surrounded by a violenceyou will have created yourself." of course,the system is very powerful and so far it's "under control"... i don't know how many millionsof blacks they have in prison...
there you go! this is the report. there are lots of photocopies. she normally sends itby e-mail to everyone. anyway, here is a copy. - is this everything?- yes it's all there. this is what the newspapers calla penetration indicator. it would be a sort of indicator ofthe penetration of neo-liberalism. okay so we have "suicide", all right.then we have "drugs",
"death caused by drugs", then we have "antidepressants"... what else do we have? the number of murders, but? here too it's very multi-causal, though.for instance, in ireland or in spain, there are more murdersthan in other countries because of thepolitical circumstances. yes but we can correct that,
we can see that on the table,spain and ireland are higher... in my view, delinquencylinked to neo-liberalism isn't primarily murders.- agreed, agreed. on the other hand, the evolution ofincarceration by sex and age, if there is a table for that,here we have a question mark, if the data exist,that would be much more relevant. i agree. couldn't we use "unemployment", "part-time work",something like that?
indicators of casualization. we should have one. we had "imposed part-time work". that's under labour market: share of imposed part-time work...same, we have the figures for 1996. isn't it true that if we don't disaggregate indicatorsby occupational category, we are erasing one of the mainproperties of neo-liberal policies: that they are class policies?
take, for example, what duisenberg said recently, "if wages were raised,interest rates would rise immediately." do we have statistics on that? we can produce them.for life expectancy at birth, the evolution of the difference in lifeexpectancy by occupational category, between workersand the professions, that's an indicatorwhich is pertinent in the long-term. that's a problem,i know a bit about this.
the problem is that the differencetends to decrease. i don't want to always say that the indicators we use go against our thesis,but it's well-established that the health systemis more efficient nowadays than it used to be. over the long run. so we risk attributingto the effects of neo-liberalism what are simply the consequencesof a health policy which...
in education, the effectsare visible 20 years later. the effects are delayed.i'm always saying this. one strength of neo-liberal policyis, first, its secrecy and its effects become apparentonly over the very long term. by the time people have discoveredwhat the policy is, people are way behind,with regards to the wto, etc. and to discover the effectsof this policy, it's even later. it's true that perhapsour approach here is naive. we can get round that by saying
that there aredifferent temporalities, and elaborate the explanationyou just gave. it'd be silly to say... - we surrender?- yes. the long term/short term thingmakes your head spin. it seems to mewe could almost find a parallel with what keynes saidabout the economy. he said,"of course the cycles balance out." and, "in the long termwe'll all be dead."
but we still have to managethe period when we're alive. we could always say,in a sociological approach, "in the long termwe'll all have adapted." but there's still the short term,and that's the crux of the matter: the degree to whichthere's a mismatch because of the disparitybetween economic structures - with their own logic - and social logics, which don'thave the same temporality. that's what is at issue here.
now in 100 years everyone will beneo-liberal or whatever. but, for now, not everyone is, and that creates extremelyviolent situations. i missed the beginning, i'm afraid. but, regarding short term/iong term, wouldn't the last ten yearsbe the right time span for us? implicitly, the problemwe are raising - the relationship betweenneo-liberalism and anomie - is this: since the 1980sa new policy has emerged.
are we able to see its effectsin the indicators? that's basically what we were doing,but not explicitly. rã©mi, in fact, was the onewho kept bringing up the long term, and made us aware of that. so, having said that,what do we do now? maybe it'll work out well after all, but my spiritshave just taken an uppercut. mine, too. but anyway... but at the same time, it makesthings even more interesting,
on an intellectual level. yes, because we've eliminatedall the objections. champagne said, we can say thatof all the indicators. if everyone of us puts hiscritical machine to work based on his competencies,on each of the indicators, we'll grind out the whole bitto a pulp. you attack demography... no, i mean it! as for me, i'll tackle education.
champagne will tackle alcoholism. true, he's messed up alcoholism. i'll have to tell franz,that's a good one. he said that alcoholism is a factorfavourable to neo-liberalism because it's diminishing. it's also a good indicatorfor work integration. in any case,it's not a very clear indicator. no, but the increased consumptionof coca-cola is a good indicator of the advance of neo-liberalism.
or the increase in the numberof obese children. or mcdonald's outlets, for example. we take the mickey mouse indexand the mcdonald's index... we could do a cartoon with them! we'd call it the mickey index,rather than the nikkei index... what time is it?what time is our appointment? at the restaurant? at the collã©ge? well, we'd better be going, then.
i'll try to give you a snapshot of the analysispresented in detail in this book. i'll avoid giving youtoo much statistical data because i think serge has used upour entire quota for this evening. for this i'll startfrom an article entitled "insecurity: the lessonsof the new york model" written by the great criminologist,philippe douste-blazy, house representativeand mayor of lourdes, president of the udf caucusin parliament,
who tells us... with the help ofvery nice photos. we have a photo of mr. douste-blazylooking very earnest as he talks with a new york policeman. then we see him in the street - i wish i could show you this -we see him in the street with some kids playing balland laughing. he's in the background, with police officersand a social worker in a track-suit.
he is wearing a lovely tie,looking at the kids. and then he tells us: "the safety of persons and propertyis a topic that politicians often hesitate to tackle." that's rather flabbergasting since the newspapers and tvare full of it, but we'll let that pass. "it's not surprising, then "that insecurity is continuallyincreasing in france.
"recent figures are an indictmentof the present government..." now pay close attention to thestructure of the sentence: "since politicsis the opposite of resignation, "i decided to go to new yorkthis summer..." that's wonderful! "i decided to go to new yorkthis summer "in order to study the methodsof what is recognised worldwide "as an exemplary successin crime fighting." here we have a perfect exampleof the new law-and-order ideology,
this new neo-liberal "common sense"about punishment that comes to usfrom the united states, which was elaboratedby a group of think tanks based on the east coastof the united states as part of their war againstthe welfare state. first, at the end of the 1970sand beginning of the 1980s, they advocated the dismantlingof welfare policy. they were successful sincein 1996 a democratic president abolished the right towelfare support in the united states
and replaced it with a programme ofenforced wage work for recipients. this is the transitionfrom "welfare" to "workfare": compulsory work under conditionsthat are exempted from labour laws and escapethe usual wage standards. and then, after having arguedfor "small government" in social and economic matters, these same policy institutesand the same parties who back them, the same countriesand the same professors who broadcast this ideology,
will argue, with a lagof about ten years, for "big government",for more state intervention in policing and penal matters. what i'm going to try to show you is that there is no contradiction in asking for less state hereand more state there. there is a coherence.this is a shift from the social welfare treatmentof inequalities and the insecurity thatinequalities generate,
toward a policeand penal treatment. roughly put, the regulationof the casualized fractions of the working classpasses from the left hand of the state- to borrow pierre bourdieu's terminology in 'la misã©re du monde' -['the weight of the world'] from the left hand of the state,which assists and educates, the hand that provides housing,education and medical care, to the right hand of the state,the hand that punishes, the policeman, the judge,the prison guard...
the actualization ofthe neo-liberal utopia does not mean "small government",the withering away of the state. it means less stateon the social and economic front, it is a "laissez-faire" policyin matters of work, in the regulationof the labour market, when it comes tothe mobility of capital. but, at the same time,it means "big government" an intrusiveand paternalist state, which results in the reductionor even the destruction of liberties
especially for those condemnedto precarious wage work. the real stake of the load of baloneythat we hear about violence today, is not crime and delinquency. the real stake of this new discourseabout crime and insecurity is to legitimize the shiftfrom the social welfare management to the penal management of poverty. the purpose of this penalmanagement of poverty is to normalize and imposecasualized wage labour. just like in the 19th century,
it took a culturaland institutional revolution - social work, for example - to impose wage work, today it takes a mental, culturaland institutional reform to impose precarious wage workas the normal horizon of labour for the working class. the rise of thisliberal-paternalist state, liberal for the upper classes,for the employers, paternalist for the working classes,
especially the casualized fractionsof the new service proletariat: such is the face ofthe new state that we have today, which brings about the advent ofthe "new economy" when you hear "new economy", ask the person who'stalking about it which "new economy" he means. the "new economy" of microsoft,computers and the internet, or the "new economy" of the prisons,corrections corporation of america? you're on the road too much.
it's true,it's not good. it can be finepsychologically and so on, but... - it's also a way of avoiding...- yes, you said it ...chaining yourself to the workyou have to do. it's a procrastination technique. okay, but it's not good.now it's an absolute priority: in the next three yearsyou have to put out three books, no bullshitting around.- i know. i've begun: one down. okay, but it could have beena lot better.
you could have done ita lot faster, based on the talkyou gave in my seminar. a book like i did on television,very short and light. and then a second book,that would have taken more time than you took on this one. this one is neither one thingnor the other. it's a book for going to battle but it's top heavywith scientific material. it might have been betterto do a bit more...
a bit more or a bit less. that's it, it's too late now,that's the way it is. this is why, this time,the deadlines... one way of holding you back isto set deadlines. with 'la zone', for example, if you have no deadlines the introduction is goingto grow to 150 pages and you'll be done for. i do realise that myself.
i set myselfthese outlandish standards. i should have wrapped up 'la zone'in 1994. but you live and learn.that's the craft sinking in. yes, but time is flying by. it's true, time is flying by,you must not... i don't want to be a pain, but you'll end up panicking,you'll say... no. i realise now that i haveonly one thing left to do: i have to sit down and write books.
not another one hundred articles. there's no point. you must do nothing but thatfor a year. it's a pain to haveto say it but... at least for the seriouswriting phase, that takes three monthswhen you're doing nothing else. because it's thousandsof small decisions to make. "do i put this here or there?" and for that, you must havenothing else to think about.
i know that, for my major books, well, quite often,all the empirical work was done. it was usually during the summer,which i stretched out, when i'd go awayfrom june to the end of september... i didn't do only that,i'd play tennis and go to the pool, but at bottom,i was thinking only about my book. often, very minor details, to change a subtitle for example, sometimes you're stuck,
you thought that this was a section,when it should be its own chapter... - it changes the book.- completely. you think about it all the time,it becomes an obsession. and so, if you interrupt thatwith a trip or something, you lose the thread. when you take a clean break,for three-four days, i go back to the text,i've forgotten everything. then you have to reread everything. now when i break off,even if it's only overnight,
i write a few linesto carry me through the transition, because so many timesi found myself unable to finish a sentence that i started after an interval of... even more so for a week.that's, say, three conferences on different topics,with fifteen different people and three languages. it has a terrible effect on you. that's why i sayyou must have two years...
next year, when i go backfrom new york to berkeley, i think i'll spend the whole yearin berkeley, including the summer. because i wantto finish everything, including the boxing studythat year. and move on to something else. i'm not going drag it alongwith me forever. i think it's crucial thatyou get a book out by february, an important book.
you should do the boxing book for 2001 and the ghetto book for 2002 the stock-taking of... all your stuff on america. - i'll finish it before then.- you'd better! mr bourdieu, can you hear me? do you hear me? my colleague told meto speak softly so i'm not too loudin gunter grass's ear,
via his mike. i get the feeling that we're about to start... there's a question i'd like to ask.i've noticed, but it's probably partof the discipline sociology demands, that there's no humourin these books. the comedy of failure, for example, which plays an important partin my books, the absurdity which arisesfrom certain confrontations...
there's none of that in this book. don't misunderstand me. i don't mean that the comic and the tragicare mutually exclusive. the boundaries between the twoare always blurred. but today we don't analyze itwith the values of the enlightenment. yes but... my feeling is that this sense we have
of having lost the traditionof the enlightenment is linked to the overthrowof our whole vision of the world, that was imposedby the neo-liberal vision which is the dominant vision today. i think... and here in germanyi can use this comparison, i think thatthe neo-liberal revolution is a conservative revolution in the sense that people talked ofa "conservative revolution" in germany in the 1930s.
a conservative revolution is a very strange thing.it's a revolution which seems to... which reinstates the past,returns to the past, and yet it dresses itselfup as progressive. regression is turned into progress. so that those whofight this regression seem to be regressive themselves, those who fight terrorlook themselves like terrorists. this is one thingwe've suffered in common,
we're frequently called archaic. in french we say 'ringard',old-fashioned, backward... - dinosaurian!- exactly, dinosaurian. that's their great strength. even what you just said,i believe, if i may say so,partakes of this idea: we're told: "you're not funny!" but these are not funny times. there's nothing to laugh about.
i didn't say that. i didn't say these were funny times. all i said was that the sarcastic, sardonic,diabolical laughter, which literature can liberate, is also a way of protesting. but this conservative revolution they're selling us today as "neo-liberalism"
is just a return to the methods used in manchesterin the 19th century. they think they can turn backhistory, and they're right. yes... but the strength of neo-liberalismis that it's applied in europe by people who callthemselves socialists. whether it is schrã¶der, or blair, or jospin, they invoke socialismin order to practise neo-liberalism.
and this makes analysisand critique extremely difficultbecause, once again, everything's back-to-front. and critique is... in fact we have surrenderedto the economy. today the state is stripped ofits power to a degree the anarchistswould never have dreamt of. i never believedthat i would see the day where i would argue in favourof more state intervention.
but that's where i stand now.i'm in a very strange situation because i find myselfcompelled to ask that the state be givenmore responsibility so that it can play its partas a regulator. this is just the kindof reversal i meant. paradoxically, we're forced to defend thingswhich aren't completely defensible. can we limit ourselvesto saying that we need to return tomore state intervention?
it seems to methat if we don't want to be trapped in the game of theconservative revolution, we need to say thatwe must invent a new state. otherwise they'll tell us, "you're regressing". there, we've finished. like in a charter planejust after landing. right, that's it. "they say we're not funny.
"but these are not funny times.there's nothing to laugh about." but you have to describe... can i do it? can i do it?i don't think so. i've been talking for an hour. almost another ten minutes. well, we have to go back. i said something there,that we should think seriously about what we mean by "local","location", "relocation"...
but i can't do it. it would take too longto go into detail... it's not easy to getto the crux of the matter. no, i can't. there. please excuse me. there... i should have taken half an hourto reread my notes first. we had plannedto go to the hotel first... i was busyright up to the last minute
and when you have old noteslike this... but, for all that,you managed very well. and the discussion partwent very well. on the whole it was a success. the audience was very kind. yes. they were looking forwardto seeing you. we're looking for a title,for our film on pierre bourdieu. a film title. off the top of my head?
i don't know, maybe somethingabout the way he looks at you. something about his gaze. he has a very sly gaze,very sharp. i remember, at school, i was always being punished for being insolent. in fact, it was because of my eyes,always... with a sociologist,it's all in the gaze. something about the eyes.
"the sideway gaze"? - the what?- "the sideway gaze". no, that's for sartre. "none the wiser." no, "i pull one over you",that doesn't sound very good. like tonight... i don't feel very wise tonight. [josã© bovã© on radio] well, in ourdiscussions with the farmers here, especially with the indian farmers,
who are here with us... they've done a lot of damageto agro-chemical multinationals. the indian farmers were the oneswho went after cargill, after monsanto, and food multinationals like... kentucky fried chicken. they have a very radical critiqueof intensive production, so their vision is veryecological in the sense that ecology is politicaland linked to production.
[radio journalist daniel mermet]as concerns junk food, you've managed to demonstratethe link between a finance-oriented economyand what we eat. but, in other domains,josã© bovã©, in health, for example, did you find other movementsin seattle, that managed to establish this link? josã©... excuse me. bourdieu.
so, for people of my generation, we were encouragedsince the 1970s to train for jobs which school counsellorsand some teachers knew were bound to disappear. that's why, today, there are 35 year-oldskilled machine-operators, who are on the scrap heap. it's the samewith the younger generation.
there's talk about the year 2000,about the y2k bug, about unemployment going down, about "incivility"... all these words, for us, are... we feel like we'reliving on another planet, 20,000 leagues under the ground,not under the sea! i don't really know how to answer. i'll ask you not to clap. because truth isn't measuredby clap-o-meters, okay?
leave that to television. - not answering me?- i didn't mean you. what does "media-friendly" mean? you know very well.look at the crowd here tonight. come on, but let's be serious. since i'm the subject and objectof what you're saying, it's hard for me to answer. but if being media-friendly means attracting lots of peopleto an discussion in val fourrã©...
that's not what it is. it meansbeing in the media every day... thank you, sir: it means beingthe instrument of the media, the diligent servant of the media. it's someone who says in the media what the media ask theirmedia-friendly intellectuals to say, which, all too often,means saying nothing. to talk without saying anything, to give false explanations, to say,"oh, another riot in val fourrã©."
it's... i don't know what. it's spouting bullshitwith authority and confidence, and being paid for that,getting invited for that. that's what media-friendly is. that's an intellectual argument. all right, all right. no, wait,i'd like to say... i'd like to say a few words.wait! we have a problem here.
i'm sorry but tonight we're havingan intellectual debate, mounir, which means we'rethinking this out together. for me, "intellectual"isn't a term of abuse. first thing.so i'd like us to try to have... mounir, it's easy to stand thereand have a go at bourdieu, and then feel smart about it. i know you can do it.you've already started. go on, then! i'd just like to say something.
no, don't raise your hand yet.i want to say a few words. i'd just like to saya few words. i'm a bit disappointedby one thing. this debate is called"a reflection with bourdieu "on inequalities in educationand culture". we started offby talking about education. there's lots to say about that. what i would like... i had hoped that mounir and others,would say certain things about that,
rather than have a go at bourdieu, would talk about their own experienceof inequality. no, wait,can you just listen for a minute? i'd hoped you'd tell us things,interesting things, that you'd give us the benefitof your reflection, which is genuine,which you've carried on for years. i came heretonight to listen to a sociologist. i think there are other peoplehere tonight with things to say about inequalityin culture and education,
and who'd like to discuss themwith someone like pierre bourdieu, but without having a go at him.that gets us nowhere. so who would like to speak? it's hard growing upin the context we grew up in. the inequalities started comingwhen our environment started changing. our generation - i was born in 1967 - has very clear memoriesof our childhood which today's youngsters don't have,because they no longer have
the open spaces, the greenery,the vacant lots... then people came alongand started building without botheringthat all our childhood was there. they put up buildings where now you stand in lineto draw 100 francs or your food coupons. i think that everydayyou're insulted. lots of people who know thisbut they keep quiet. they're aware of itbut their silence condones it.
it's easier to say, "yes, "i work in the free zone.it's really tough." but in the end,they're not up to it. proof is, we get teachers they're 20-22 years old, they've already had their headscrammed with, "if you want a transfer, you haveto do your time in the zoo. "then you can go back hometo your toulouse..." or your cantal or wherever.
they're stressed outwhen they land here. and the kids, they're not fooled,they can sense all that. we ask for cultural centres,they give us a big police station with these statues out in front, to claim that they too know culture. but if you take away the statues you know what you'll see? nothing but the police stationand the brutality it represents. there are peoplewho want to keep us down.
what's the use?bourdieu's here, he can talk about seattle,then bang, he's gone! what do we know about seattle? people have trouble understandingthe euro. now it's the year 2000. what's the year 2000going to do for us? really, what's in it for us? we get these storeswhere everything costs ten francs. we get sandwiches for ten francs. we're worth ten francs,we get cut-price food,
everything's cut-price,we're cut-price. they sell us eggs... where do you see this:60 eggs for 20 francs! then they talk about salmonella... but people here they don't catch on, and they know we don't catch on! i'm talking about inequalitiesi've experienced here, working as a social worker. i've done my part,right here where you're sitting.
we built this place, but it was always empty becausepeople were scared of val fourrã©. tonight bourdieu is hereso everyone is here. so i say that inequalities... it's no coincidence. we here in the housing estates,we're a source of wealth, well, you tricked our parentsand our grandparents. and with us it's time it stopped,for real. we've had it all,
police brutality,public defenders... we always get the public defenders.you get one and you're screwed! straight up! papon [senior police officer ofthe vichy government], he fucked some people up- excuse my language - and we're supposed to let him off? how do you expect usto believe in anything? we say the justice system only keepsthe peace for the keepers. it's true. how many police murders?just a coincidence?
in mantes,a bullet in the back of the neck. in st-denis, back of the neck,in trappes, back of the neck. but wait, who stands up for us?no one! there were movements,but they got bought off. to answer your question:because they got bought off. on the estate, there is a specialbranch cop every square metre. we can't do anything. the cops,they even know our nicknames. they know everything about us.
so here we are, enslaved,imprisoned by our own selves. if we want to make a filmor use a camera, to do something,to show the truth, our own people are the ones who ask,"why are you doing that?" whereas on the other sidethey can do whatever they want. everything's been in reversefor a long time now. i think it's timeeverybody woke up. give us a real education,give us people with skills who aren't just hereto boast about it
and take from us what they can. and once they're out ofmantes-la-jolie or st-denis, it's, "yeah, i worked in the banlieue,it's rough!" i've worked with lots like that. i've been an educator for ten yearsand i've left it sick of it. there, i'm finished now. now if you want to talk to bourdieu,it's bourdieu, not dieu [god]! don't be mistaken! a lot of what he said is true,
but there's one thingthat's false said, this cultural centre...when you say, "nice of you to comewhen bourdieu is here, "but it's empty otherwise." i can tell youthat's true. when you come to see a movieand there's two or three of you, the room is really big. but it's not up to them to come, it's up to us, the locals, to come.
mounir called bourdieu "josã©" that's because he doesn't know him. that's okay.but, mounir, i can tell you... i'm answering your question, said,about people coming here. it's not up to them to come,it's up to us to come, to take action, to do things. we can't waitfor others to do them for us. we're always the ones to makeall the efforts and the concessions. when you've got no choice,you have to make them.
when we go into paris, if we weren't artistswe'd never get into some places. but when they come herethey do as they like. i'm sick of going to parisand to be turned away, and to see the opposite here. we're askedto make too many concessions, all the time, all the time. our schools are in zeps.[special education zone] why should i go to a zep?
"zones of educational priority,"that's bullshit! educational poverty, more like! we expect too much of others.we have to take responsibility. i'd just like to say to mounir... not between yourselves! this isn't just conflicting ideas. i'll have a question at the end. this is a good imageto give to bourdieu. mounir is one of the most activefigures in the neighbourhood,
and yet he doesn't know you... can i tell you why i don't? but you could learn a lotfrom him, mounir. i've seen sociologists coming herefor thirty years. i've seen sociologistsby the hundreds. but read some of his books. i guarantee you,he can help your thinking. my reflection comes from god! okay, to get on,can i ask my question?
go ahead,otherwise we'll never get on. he said there are bad sociologists and good sociologists,and so he's one of the good ones. everything depends on money:to some people we're scapegoats, to others we're just an excuse. we've got fifteen minutes leftfor the debate at the very most. just a second, i'll let you speak. but for five minutes you've beentalking amongst yourselves and nobody gets it.carry on your discussion later.
we've got fifteen minutes left,so ask your question, and pierre bourdieu will reply, and maybe we'll have timefor another. we have to stop. it's a debate with bourdieubut it's a debate between us, too. i understand. we've been rolling outthe same old prejudices that we learntfrom the education system we suffered from.
that what's createsthe inequalities. we're here to demystify all that. noone here has all the solutions, noone can say,"we have to do this and that." it's all right to say,"we've experienced this and that," but not to lay blame.because it's not his fault if... - are you talking to me?- no, i speak in general. all that's been said tonight...- should i say this? - has been very interesting to me.
i think that...- maybe i'm wrong - but at least if my presencehas helped bring these things out, then that's something. i don't know if i furnishedthe occasion, the trigger... at any rate, i'm very pleasedto have heard a number of things, some of whichare very contradictory, conflicting with one another... and yet interesting and important. that's how i heard it, anyway,
especially what said said.there was a lot of truth in that, as someone else over therealready said, there's a lot of truthin what he said. when he said that... how should i put it? "it's always one-sided, always uswho have to make the concessions." he said somethingvery important there. the problem, though, isthe pessimistic conclusion. so now i say to him: why concludeso pessimistically?
why not listento what was said here on my left? "it's up to us to take action, "to get things moving - i would add -collectively, "it's up to usto get mobilised. "and maybe we should makesome concessions between ourselves "so that we have fewer concessionsto make to those we must fight." i'm not preaching fraternityat any price. there are conflicts everywhere.here too! i think conflicts are, in part,
the expression or the consequence of the oppression sufferedby the people who've spoken here. the paradox is- and it's as old as the hills - that the dominant dividethe dominated. and they don't even have to tryto do so. they say "divide and rule",but they don't even have to. conflicting interests,antagonisms, prejudice... someone mentioned prejudice. i'm sorry but i thinkthat he was completely right.
we're all full of prejudice. one of the reasons why the workof the sociologist is so difficult is because he too carries prejudice, and he has as much of a struggleagainst his own as against others'. i found this debate very moving and, deep down, i'm gladthat it took place. and maybe...- but this is being optimistic - maybe it could bethe beginning of... someone made a mean allusion to
my role in a recent conflictat the radio france culture - they didn't mention my name butthey obviously meant me - that i had dispatched some agitpropexperts at france culture. for the youngsters who don't knowwhat "agitprop" is, that means professional agitators, they were individuals whose mission was to go among the peopleand preach revolution. so, if i've done just a little bitof agitprop myself here, which, in all modesty,was in part my intention,
and if it's worked a bit,then i'm very happy. one problem ishow to continue this agitprop? by creating an association,a discussion group? how to continue this discussion? in some respects, it's too easy.bourdieu serves as your scapegoat. it's a classic strategy:kill the analyst. it's easy: you make fun of himand get yourself noticed. but when bourdieu's gone, if the effect produced this eveningcould go on
and the agitprop becameself-managed, and the agitated became agitators - agitating themselvesfirst of all - then i'd be really happy. i won't have been totally useless. people bad-mouth sociologists,and often with good reason. there are some...i don't recall who said, "the social workersare part of the problem." but in the work that we do...
well, i won't say it here because a social worker's workisn't fun every day, but their relationship with the people they work withis very complicated. they're in a relationshipof bad faith if you read 'la misã©re du monde',there are some pathetic accounts by social workers who knowvery well that they're helpless and who spend half their timeconvincing themselves that they serve a purpose
as well as making the people they'reworking with believe that they serve a purpose. lots of teachers knowthat they are helpless, and so on. these are some naive reactions. but i was very moved and maybe this won't just bea flash in the pan. maybe this room, or another, could become the site
where people startto take matters into their hand. that all sounds a bitlike i'm moralizing. but we have to take mattersinto our own hands. we have to get mobilised. i remember, not long ago, at the end of a debatesimilar to this one, in strasbourg,with german trade unions, the sort of thing i explained... four young menof arab descent addressed me:
"what's the use? my father,grandfather... exploitation...", etc. and i said to them, "why not start a movement mobilizingimmigrants of all origins?" well, that's not the sort of thingyou say in a university hall. i said, "why not? why not?" that's why the only thingi can't agree with in what said saidis the pessimistic conclusion. i don't thinkthere's any reason why... your conclusion was a bit pessimistic,you must admit that.
yes, okay, the observation, but... the situation we're in is a pessimistic one. when you leave, the problem remains. i agree,i'm not denying that. i'm saying the observation ispessimistic and rightfully so. but the conclusion was a bit...- at least that's what i heard - "there's nothing we can do."i think that's not true. it's not true and, what's more...- this is a classic -
the most bogus structures, structures of manipulation,structures of management, structures of supervision, can be diverted, turned around. anyway... i'm not here to preach revolution. two more questions... and then a conclusionfrom pierre bourdieu. the politicians are keepinga low profile tonight.
all commissions, in general, when they're set up by politicians, always include a sociologist. then the politicians take the essenceof what you write in your reports. that's the first thingi wish to say. as resident of this area,i think that the sociologist is more likea housing estate psychiatrist. whenever there's a problem...
i'm sorry,but that's what we call them. "housing estate psychiatrist"?that's just insulting. and it's not true.there may be some who... let's avoid internal discussions,not amongst yourselves! that's how we see you.face the truth! it's true that sociologists are... the category of "sociologist"covers different types of people. maybe sociologists contribute
to inspiring politicians...no, if only that were true! it's worse than that:they provide warrants to politicians which is a lot worse. some sociologists,i'm sorry to say... i don't consider themas colleagues, they're scabs,they disgrace the profession... i'm sorry but i'm compelledto say this. i can't express solidaritywith these guys. i couldn't care less about them.
they don't bother me at all, except insofar as they legitimisea certain generic revolt against the discourseof sociologists, and justifya definite anti-intellectualism. it pains me to hearall this anti-intellectualism. the french workers' movementdied of anti-intellectualism. it was foundedon a sort of workerism. which allowed its leaders to be stupid and to demand stupidityof people
in the name of party discipline. that's why i must mark my distancefrom those people. because it's too easyto denounce these people who are... yes, scabs. they're scabs.these are people who pretend to practice a professionbut are practicing another. they're a sort of symbolicpolice force, to put it frankly. one factor which explains why the social movementcannot get organised is this anti-intellectualism.
someone said- just let me finish - that you might learn from my books... well, you'd understandprecisely this, you'd get toolsfor understanding this. that's not a plug.i don't give a damn. be careful not to letyour righteous indignation, which is totally justified, blind you and make you deprive yourself
of tools for understanding. someone said, "bourdieu couldteach you something." it's true,i know lots and lots of things. i've been studying north africafor many, many years - most of you weren't even born. so i can tell you thatthe book by abdelmalek sayad, with whom i worked in the 1960s,and who died last year, who was one of the greatest sociologistof emigration-immigration, and who wasn't a scab,
and who worked in the fieldright to the end of his life, who did fabulous interviews, who knew how to listen to people... well, we published a book by him, called 'la double absence'[the suffering of the immigrant], in which he analyses the condition of immigrants,in which he tried... before he died,he asked me to finish the book: he wrote this bookfor people like you.
if you refuse that because he'san intellectual, he uses big words like assimilation and integration,then you're just bloody stupid! really, that's out of order!you can't do that. i'm sorry but i had to say that. no applause. no, no applause. so that's abdelmalek sayad,'la double absence'. it costs 140 francs. a bit priceybut i couldn't get it lower. he was a man witha sensitive understanding and
an analytic understanding of things. and his workcan maybe help people to regain possessionof their own historical identities, of the suffering of their parents,of their grand-parents, the suffering of language,of naturalisation, of the naturalised citizenwho can't escape his origins, and who always carries a stigma.you have taught me nothing, i'm sorry to say,i have read sayad! i could teach you a few thingsabout yourselves.
even if it sounds arrogant,i don't give a damn! - because, because...- "because i believe it." because i believe it,because it's the truth. i'm not preaching for your good,i don't give a damn. but don't deprive yourselvesof these intellectual resources being an intellectual isn't a disease. i think we'll have to end there. we'll end there. this discussion
could go onuntil two in the morning. but we can't go on that long. so i thank you all. we'll keepthe discussion going between us. we'll see you again. what? yes, but... thanks again. thanks to everyone. sorry about the last two questions but it's nearly eleven.
thanks to everyone for coming,thanks to the organisers. thanks to pierre bourdieufor coming here. it hasn't been an easy evening, but it hasn't beena wasted evening either. mr bourdieu, i'm sorry,but i couldn't say it all. i wanted to make people understandcertain facts. that's why i made that quipabout "bourdieu is not dieu!" oh, but i'm with it, frankly. i bet it's been said before.
you did well to say that. but there comes a point when we have to make peoplelike you listen to us, so you can pass it on. or try, at least. to enrich you,to keep you in touch. all that we said will beuseful to you. everything that was saidwas very good. i'd have liked it to go on longer.
where can we get in touchwith you, or write to you? 52 rue du cardinal lemoine... we have to go nowbecause they're closing. well, look,we'll contact you somehow. i'll give you the addressat the collã©ge de france. we're trying to be sociologists,but gutter sociologists! remember that,gutter sociologists! i'll use that one. "as my friend said,a gutter sociologist, said..."
if it comes up again one day... ...from a rastaman. said was spot-on. that's the realityof everyday life. yes, it was perfect. very good. perfect, all of them. and the other lad who spoke,i've forgotten his name... - and there was...- aimã©. - and the one who told said...- abdallah.
all of them,they were great. i think that the ideaof a social movement, that's the only way... as long as they keep burning cars,they'll send the cops. we need a social movementto burn cars, but with a purpose... subtitles by howard bonsorand loic wacquant thanks to pamela denton,keith dixon and sophie noã«i
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