joeri's review against another edition
4.0
In this collection of lectures Boltanski argues that in order to make a critical theory inclusive and emancipatory, it has to be given sociological content. According to Boltanski, there is always a relationship between the dominated and dominant within a society, where the latter often exclude the former from social orders. The basis for critique, is then to identify contradictions within these social orders, of which the next step will be to change relations of domination in such a way that previously excluded parties are included in the social order in a socially justifiable way.
What Boltanski also argues, is that we must view excluded parties as capable of reflexivity and moral judgements themselves and see them in some instances as form of critique. Only when excluded parties are taken seriously in such a way, can we begin to include them by taking action upon their critiques. Sociology then comes in when it offers a critical theory of domination in borrowing on the critiques mentioned throughout the thesis. The reality that is called into question from marginalized, dominated parties can then be given social scientific robustness and representation, which can then serve to provide a theoretical framework, as well as normative grounds which can help in arguing why indeed reality is rendered unacceptable by some, which can ultimately be used for the purpose of emancipation.
One instance where this could be applied is exploitation. Often this refers “to the way a small number of people make use of differentials in order to extract profit at the expense of the great majority.” The purpose of domination, argues Boltanski, is often precisely this. Critical philosophy and sociology can then help to expose the social conditions that make this possible, thereby at the same time discovering means by which these conditions can be stopped or changed. More generally, the role of critique, says Boltanski, consists “in showing how the existing social order does not allow members, or some of them, fully to realize the potentialities constitutive of their humanity.” This way of thinking can contribute to an inclusive form of critique. An inclusive, just society, Boltanski writes “is one without leftovers and the existing social order can be criticized in as much as it excludes, oppresses, scorns and so on, a greater or lesser number of its members, or simply prevents them from realizing what they are capable of as human beings.”
Boltanski in these lectures mainly focuses on the role institutions play in terms of their effects on social life and to the extent that they either attempt to silence critique, incorporate it, or co-opt it. With the sole focus on institutions, I believe Boltanski sometimes misses critique's other potential targets, and also glosses over forms of exploitation and domination that do not only stem from institutions.
Apart from this critique (pun intended) this book offers, in my view, an important contribution to the role of critique in not only sociology, but political philosophy as well.
What Boltanski also argues, is that we must view excluded parties as capable of reflexivity and moral judgements themselves and see them in some instances as form of critique. Only when excluded parties are taken seriously in such a way, can we begin to include them by taking action upon their critiques. Sociology then comes in when it offers a critical theory of domination in borrowing on the critiques mentioned throughout the thesis. The reality that is called into question from marginalized, dominated parties can then be given social scientific robustness and representation, which can then serve to provide a theoretical framework, as well as normative grounds which can help in arguing why indeed reality is rendered unacceptable by some, which can ultimately be used for the purpose of emancipation.
One instance where this could be applied is exploitation. Often this refers “to the way a small number of people make use of differentials in order to extract profit at the expense of the great majority.” The purpose of domination, argues Boltanski, is often precisely this. Critical philosophy and sociology can then help to expose the social conditions that make this possible, thereby at the same time discovering means by which these conditions can be stopped or changed. More generally, the role of critique, says Boltanski, consists “in showing how the existing social order does not allow members, or some of them, fully to realize the potentialities constitutive of their humanity.” This way of thinking can contribute to an inclusive form of critique. An inclusive, just society, Boltanski writes “is one without leftovers and the existing social order can be criticized in as much as it excludes, oppresses, scorns and so on, a greater or lesser number of its members, or simply prevents them from realizing what they are capable of as human beings.”
Boltanski in these lectures mainly focuses on the role institutions play in terms of their effects on social life and to the extent that they either attempt to silence critique, incorporate it, or co-opt it. With the sole focus on institutions, I believe Boltanski sometimes misses critique's other potential targets, and also glosses over forms of exploitation and domination that do not only stem from institutions.
Apart from this critique (pun intended) this book offers, in my view, an important contribution to the role of critique in not only sociology, but political philosophy as well.
jacob_wren's review against another edition
5.0
Luc Boltanski writes:
"The problems posed by the way in which the notion of domination was employed in critical sociology derive from the fact that it is at once too powerful and too vague in character. Extensive use of the notion of domination leads to conceiving virtually all relations between actions in their vertical dimension, from explicit hierarchical relations to the most personal of links. By the same token, what the sociologist will establish, in critical fashion, as a relationship of domination is not necessarily presented or even lived by actors in this register; and the later might even turn out to be offended by such a description. (If, for example, as a sociologist you explain to a man engrossed in the enchantment of love that the passion he experiences for his companion is in fact merely the result of the effect of social domination that she exercises over him, because she comes from a higher class than his, you risk meeting with some problems in getting your viewpoint accepted.) This extension of the notion of domination leads to extending the notion of violence in such a way as to stretch physical violence, which is experienced and described, at least in a number of cases, precisely as violence by the actors themselves, in the direction of symbolic violence (a key notion in Bourdieu’s sociology), which invariably is not experienced as such.
To explain how and why actors are dominated without knowing it, the theory must accord great importance to the illusions that blind them and appeal to the notion of the unconscious. An initial consequence is that actors are often treated as deceived beings or as if they were ‘cultural dopes’, to use Harold Garfinkel’s phrase. Their critical capacities in particular are underestimated or ignored. Another consequence is that preponderant weight is given to the dispositional properties of actors, at the expense of the properties inscribed in the situations into which they are plunged, and an attempt is made to explain virtually all of their behaviour by the internalization of dominant norms, above all in the course of the education process. It takes the form of an incorporation, which inscribes these norms in the body, like habits – a process that accounts for the reproduction of structures. However, by the same token, situations are neglected, sometimes in favour of dispositions and sometimes of structures. While situations can be observed and described as clearly by the actors who are continually immersed in them in the course of their everyday life as by sociologists, knowledge of structures is accessible exclusively to that latter. Their unmasking in fact requires the use of instruments of a macro-social character and, in particular, statistical instruments, based on the construction of categories, nomenclatures, and a metrology. But this is also to say that the instruments of which the exposure of structures is going to be based are largely dependent on the existence of powerful centres of calculation invariably places under the supervision of state or inter-state organizations. It follows, as numerous works over the last thirty years have shown, that these macro-social instruments, as well as the categories and metrologies on which they are based, must themselves be regarded as products of social activity and, in particular, the activity of states, so that they occupy the dual position, embarrassing to say the least, of instruments of social knowledge and objects of that knowledge.
Finally, a third consequence is to increase the asymmetry between deceived actors and a sociologist capable – and, it would appear from some formulations, the only one capable – of revealing the truth of their social condition to them. This leads to overestimating the power of sociology as science, the sole foundation on which the sociologist could base his claim to know much more about people than they themselves know. Sociology then tends to be invested with the overweening power of being the main discourse of truth on the social world, which leads it to enter into competition with other disciplines laying claim to the same imperialism. Above all, however, the critical enterprise finds itself torn between, on the one hand, the temptation of extending to all forms of knowledge the unmasking of the ‘ideologies’ on which they are based and, on the other, the need to maintain a reserved domain – that of Science – capable of providing a fulcrum for this operation. Finally, let us add that the intensification of the difference between sociological science and ordinary knowledge leads to an under-estimation of the effects of the circulation of sociological discourses in society and their re-appropriation/re-interpretation by actors – which is rather problematic in the case of a sociology that claims reflexivity. These repercussive effects of sociology in the social world are especially important in contemporary societies on account of the fact, in particular, of the enhanced role of secondary and university education (not to mention the role of the media), which leads actors to seize on explanatory schemas and languages derived from social science and to enlist them in their daily interactions (particularly in the course of their disputes.)"
"The problems posed by the way in which the notion of domination was employed in critical sociology derive from the fact that it is at once too powerful and too vague in character. Extensive use of the notion of domination leads to conceiving virtually all relations between actions in their vertical dimension, from explicit hierarchical relations to the most personal of links. By the same token, what the sociologist will establish, in critical fashion, as a relationship of domination is not necessarily presented or even lived by actors in this register; and the later might even turn out to be offended by such a description. (If, for example, as a sociologist you explain to a man engrossed in the enchantment of love that the passion he experiences for his companion is in fact merely the result of the effect of social domination that she exercises over him, because she comes from a higher class than his, you risk meeting with some problems in getting your viewpoint accepted.) This extension of the notion of domination leads to extending the notion of violence in such a way as to stretch physical violence, which is experienced and described, at least in a number of cases, precisely as violence by the actors themselves, in the direction of symbolic violence (a key notion in Bourdieu’s sociology), which invariably is not experienced as such.
To explain how and why actors are dominated without knowing it, the theory must accord great importance to the illusions that blind them and appeal to the notion of the unconscious. An initial consequence is that actors are often treated as deceived beings or as if they were ‘cultural dopes’, to use Harold Garfinkel’s phrase. Their critical capacities in particular are underestimated or ignored. Another consequence is that preponderant weight is given to the dispositional properties of actors, at the expense of the properties inscribed in the situations into which they are plunged, and an attempt is made to explain virtually all of their behaviour by the internalization of dominant norms, above all in the course of the education process. It takes the form of an incorporation, which inscribes these norms in the body, like habits – a process that accounts for the reproduction of structures. However, by the same token, situations are neglected, sometimes in favour of dispositions and sometimes of structures. While situations can be observed and described as clearly by the actors who are continually immersed in them in the course of their everyday life as by sociologists, knowledge of structures is accessible exclusively to that latter. Their unmasking in fact requires the use of instruments of a macro-social character and, in particular, statistical instruments, based on the construction of categories, nomenclatures, and a metrology. But this is also to say that the instruments of which the exposure of structures is going to be based are largely dependent on the existence of powerful centres of calculation invariably places under the supervision of state or inter-state organizations. It follows, as numerous works over the last thirty years have shown, that these macro-social instruments, as well as the categories and metrologies on which they are based, must themselves be regarded as products of social activity and, in particular, the activity of states, so that they occupy the dual position, embarrassing to say the least, of instruments of social knowledge and objects of that knowledge.
Finally, a third consequence is to increase the asymmetry between deceived actors and a sociologist capable – and, it would appear from some formulations, the only one capable – of revealing the truth of their social condition to them. This leads to overestimating the power of sociology as science, the sole foundation on which the sociologist could base his claim to know much more about people than they themselves know. Sociology then tends to be invested with the overweening power of being the main discourse of truth on the social world, which leads it to enter into competition with other disciplines laying claim to the same imperialism. Above all, however, the critical enterprise finds itself torn between, on the one hand, the temptation of extending to all forms of knowledge the unmasking of the ‘ideologies’ on which they are based and, on the other, the need to maintain a reserved domain – that of Science – capable of providing a fulcrum for this operation. Finally, let us add that the intensification of the difference between sociological science and ordinary knowledge leads to an under-estimation of the effects of the circulation of sociological discourses in society and their re-appropriation/re-interpretation by actors – which is rather problematic in the case of a sociology that claims reflexivity. These repercussive effects of sociology in the social world are especially important in contemporary societies on account of the fact, in particular, of the enhanced role of secondary and university education (not to mention the role of the media), which leads actors to seize on explanatory schemas and languages derived from social science and to enlist them in their daily interactions (particularly in the course of their disputes.)"
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