Distinction put to the test by memory: Origins and limits of an analytical perspective
Cuartas, Pablo
Distinction put to the test by memory: Origins and limits of an analytical perspective - 2017.
51
Considered through the prism of memory, some perspectives of analysis prove to be less relevant than they are in the understanding of other social phenomena. This is the case, for example, for the notion of “social distinction,” which was added to the field of French sociology in 1925 by Edmond Goblot, and was rehabilitated in the 1980s by Pierre Bourdieu. For both of them, a more or less explicit intention to distinguish themselves would explain many choices and individual and collective behaviors, with a tendency to assert an identity on a moral and aesthetic level. This effort to distinguish oneself from others could be the basis of a totally invisible coherence between apparently disconnected elections, ranging from education to clothing, from tastes in culture to preferences on decoration (coherence that only the “wise” sociologist could bring to light). However, when assessing attachment to objects of memory, the hypothesis of social distinction is insufficient. This article seeks to recall, in broad outlines, the origins of “social distinction” as an interpretive lever in French sociology, its limits regarding phenomena involving memory rooted in the object, and the foundations of a “methodological fetishism,” which in this case is much more appropriate to the understanding of our relationships to the “object of memory.”
Distinction put to the test by memory: Origins and limits of an analytical perspective - 2017.
51
Considered through the prism of memory, some perspectives of analysis prove to be less relevant than they are in the understanding of other social phenomena. This is the case, for example, for the notion of “social distinction,” which was added to the field of French sociology in 1925 by Edmond Goblot, and was rehabilitated in the 1980s by Pierre Bourdieu. For both of them, a more or less explicit intention to distinguish themselves would explain many choices and individual and collective behaviors, with a tendency to assert an identity on a moral and aesthetic level. This effort to distinguish oneself from others could be the basis of a totally invisible coherence between apparently disconnected elections, ranging from education to clothing, from tastes in culture to preferences on decoration (coherence that only the “wise” sociologist could bring to light). However, when assessing attachment to objects of memory, the hypothesis of social distinction is insufficient. This article seeks to recall, in broad outlines, the origins of “social distinction” as an interpretive lever in French sociology, its limits regarding phenomena involving memory rooted in the object, and the foundations of a “methodological fetishism,” which in this case is much more appropriate to the understanding of our relationships to the “object of memory.”
Réseaux sociaux