Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste [Paperback]

Pierre Bourdieu (Author), Richard Nice (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1984 | ISBN-10: 0674212770 | ISBN-13: 978-0674212770

No judgement of taste is innocent. In a word, we are all snobs. Pierre Bourdieu brilliantly illuminates this situation of the middle class in the modern world. France's leading sociologist focusses here on the French bourgeoisie, its tastes and preferences. Distinction is at once a vast ethnography of contemporary France and a dissection of the bourgeois mind.

In the course of everyday life people constantly choose between what they find aesthetically pleasing and what they consider tacky, merely trendy, or ugly. Bourdieu bases his study on surveys that took into account the multitude of social factors that play a part in a Frenchperson's choice of clothing, furniture, leisure activities, dinner menus for guests, and many other matters of taste. What emerges from his analysis is that social snobbery is everywhere in the bourgeois world. The different aesthetic choices people make are all distinctions-that is, choices made in opposition to those made by other classes. Taste is not pure. Bourdieu finds a world of social meaning in the decision to order bouillabaisse, in our contemporary cult of thinness, in the "California sports" such as jogging and cross-country skiing. The social world, he argues, functions simultaneously as a system of power relations and as a symbolic system in which minute distinctions of taste become the basis for social judgement.

The topic of Bourdieu's book is a fascinating one: the strategies of social pretension are always curiously engaging. But the book is more than fascinating. It is a major contribution to current debates on the theory of culture and a challenge to the major theoretical schools in contemporary sociology.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A book of extraordinary intelligence.
--Irving Louis Horowitz (Commonweal )

One of the more distinguished contributions to social theory and research in recent years...There is in this book an account of culture, and a methodology of its study, rich in implication for a diversity of fields of social research. The work in some ways redefines the whole scope of cultural studies.
--Anthony Giddens (Partisan Review )

Bourdieu's analysis transcends the usual analysis of conspicuous consumption in two ways: by showing that specific judgments and chokes matter less than an esthetic outlook in general and by showing, moreover, that the acquisition of an esthetic outlook not only advertises upper-class prestige but helps to keep the lower orders in line. In other words, the esthetic world view serves as an instrument of domination. It serves the interests not merely of status but of power. It does this, according to Bourdieu, by emphasizing individuality, rivalry, and 'distinction' and by devaluing the well-being of society as a whole.
--Christopher Lasch (Vogue )

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 640 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (January 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674212770
• ISBN-13: 978-0674212770
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #53,822 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) was one of the most influential social scientists of the twentieth century. A professor of sociology at the Collège de France, he is the author of thirty-six books, including Distinction, named one of the twentieth century's ten most important works of sociology.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

134 of 135 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read! April 3, 2004

By malvais

Format:Paperback

This is a fantastic explication of how social class prearranges our tastes and interests. I disagree with the reader who thinks that it is not applicable to American society--to the contrary. It is true that American culture is not so obviously stratified in the exact same ways as French culture (of the 1960s, I would add, when Bourdieu collected his data). Also, in American culture there is less of a tendency to exploit the social markers (dress, etc.) that one might find in Europe, and it's hip nowadays for the middle-class to adopt the style and dress of the street (e.g., hip-hop); nevertheless, I'd say that this is a veneer of street-cred, and that if you were to look at how the middle-class actually lives compares to those where hip-hop originated, you'd find some pretty significant differences.

However, his basic differentiation between working class/petit bourgeois (small business owners, clerical workers and the like)/grand bourgeois (professionals, executives, and large industrialists) certainly carries over into American society. And most interesting is his claim that the higher up in the food chain one goes, the more one's taste in the "aesthetic" inclines towards Kant's idea of disinterested formalism, while the lower classes tend to want their art to be informed by ethics and morality.

Bourdieu sees these tendencies as "embodied" and largely unconsciously adopted through our upbringing. One only has to watch a television show like "The O.C." and how they cast Ryan's mother in comparison to the trophy wives of Orange County to see that even in America class and taste and body language are still encoded in our body language, choice of dress, manners, and conversational style. The economic reality of America is that a Wal-Mart worker or transcontinental trucker is NOT middle-class in the same way as a doctor, whether in terms of taste or salary. Anyone who thinks so is either deluding themselves or doesn't want to see the truth.

Bourdieu does not neglect to mention sex (although he doesn't have as much to say about race), and has sections on women's body image (the richer, the thinner) and how the different classes deal with food (high-fat, high-carb for lower classes, fresh veggies and lean meats for higher classes). In America, our current epidemic of obesity is not only the result of marketing campaigns, but also (perhaps largely) the result of poor quality food (e.g. fast food, prepared food) being made much more affordable than high quality food (fresh produce, fish, organic). If you can't afford to eat well in America, you probably won't.

Moreover, Bourdieu makes the observation, which holds true in America as much as anywhere else, that formal education (which reinforces "legitimate" taste) can change one's tastes and values, but that one's early social upbringing will lead to a quicker assimilation of "legitimate" culture. As someone who went to bourgeois schools without a bourgeois background, and who has subsequently taught at state universities in poor areas, this truism is so obvious as to hardly need explication. Much of the poor performance of underclass or non-bourgeois students is as much due to lack of early acculturation (by this I mean exposure to "culture" like non-Hollywood films, art museums, etc., but also the habits and customs associated with school learning and higher education) as it is to any basic intelligence.

Finally, it's true that Bourdieu's style is rather ponderous, repetitive, and academic, and the book is very long indeed. Nevertheless, I can't agree that it compares with the difficulty of Derrida, Jameson, Bhabha, or other high theorists. Bourdieu's sentences are sometimes long and have many subordinate clauses, but their basic subjects and verbs are easily identifiable! The Conclusion and Postscript do raise the level of difficulty, but the Introduction and body of the main text are accessible and basically say everything he has to say (many times). Anyone with a basic undergraduate education (one that has done its job properly) should be able to handle Bourdieu's style in this particular book.

36 of 39 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant look at the social implications of taste September 11, 2000

By "jbenhill"

Format:Paperback

I come back to this book time and again in my own work and see it as one of the most indispensible books today on issues of aesthetics, class distinctions, group identity, and covert social inequality. Bourdieu takes on the Kantian aesthetics of the "subjective universal," showing that the value judgments about things reflect material and social conditions and in fact index social and class differences. The way we classify things (operas, desserts, leisure activities) is inextricably tied up with the way we classify ourselves as social beings and others as members of other social groups.

Distinction is a long and difficult book, but from start to finish it is full of fascinating and original insights. Bourdieu's language is loaded with big words and long sentences, but I find that after I get used to the kinds of words and structures he uses, his language actually becomes pretty clear and straight-forward. It's definitely worth the time and brain-power needed to read it.

85 of 100 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars read it for the diagrams October 28, 2000

By Benjamin R. Bates

Format:Paperback

Distinction is the most cited book from Bourdieu, one of France's most prolific scholars. The book tends to assume that its readers are familiar with his key terms, developed mostly in _Outline of a Theory of Practice_ and _Logic of Practice_. Although it is the most cited, beginning readers of Bourdieu should probably start with _Partical Reason_ to get a handle on these concepts before getting involved in this larger tome.

Word for word, Bourdieu's writing style is not economical, and he is almost as cumbersome as Derrida. He does not approach the overly-complex mode of Deleuze and Guattari. His concepts bear the most resemblance to those of an early Baudrillard or a late Gramsci in terms of their interpretation of the social world, although he will depart into some more Marxist modes of interpretation.

Bourdieu's _Distinction_ is most valuable for his diagrams, as they provide a clear graphic representation of what he is trying to say. If one wants the read Bourdieu for content and/or argument, she would be better directed to one of his other books named above, as his arguments are more on-point and rpecide.

In addition, _Distinction_ is careful to limit itself to a data set collected in the late 60s and early 70s. Although the theory seems to be a sound one, Bourdieu makes claims of greater applicability in his books about the Bayle: _Outline_ and _Logic_. For discussions of modern Europe, his newer _Weight of the World_ provides a better, and more recent, analysis of the same social trends as in _Distinction_.