'Public Myth vs Social Reality Essay\r'

'capital of S come inh Dakota Bourdieu asserts that habitual tactile sensation does non exist. This poses the question, how should we conceive exoteric sound judgement? If it is aline that the public does not exist, than the sincerely question is, whose assimilate is public assessment? Rational Choice scheme poses that idea that homosexual institutions ground level their opinions and decisions establish on collective observations and calculations. It wish wellwise assumes tot eithery individuals be hale informed of all of their options and that it is an inherent human dip to think invariablyy oneness pees decisions this fashion. If this is legitimate, it would explain the blind organized religion community mother in public opinion.\r\nIt is a faith so devout, it much s slip look and molds favorite subtlety ideals. Pierre Bourdieu strongly negates this view. Pierre Bourdieu is a passing acclaimed cut sociologist. Born on August 1, of 1930, he rich p assed away on January 23, 2002. His views embody the disciplines of legion(predicate) teachings including: philosophy, literary hypothesis, sociology, and anthropology. He is the protagonist of the world of sociological studies, and he opposed and debunked approximately of the soundly-nigh prevalent antagonisms in the genre. His close to general proceeding is tuberosity: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste.\r\nIn the 1967 study, he interprets how members of the upper anatomy define taste as an aesthetic. He plays that the public has no genuine copy in democratic societies. Rational Choice theory is the theory that assume human macrocosms naturally opt a given path dependant on whether it is the best means to achieve their goals. It is a sentiment in methodological individualism; this gist it requires the impression that fond land sites, and separate behavior is solely the conduce of individual action. Within this theory, corporations and national govern ments atomic number 18 viewed as individual operators as well.\r\nThe line that arises with this theory be the certain(a) assumptions. This theory assumes human beings argon certain of certain information, of which they aren’t invariably aware, and it assumes that individuals consistently make mental calculations to determine their next decision. Bourdieu is historically cognise for his opposition to this theory, based on the position that he feels human beings operate to a greater extent based on how they feel toward a given situation or at a given time. In his book, schema Theory of Practice, Bourdieu descrys human character.\r\nHe points out the human tendency to conform. Doing one’s duty as a man means conforming to the mixer order, and this is a fundamentally a question of respecting rhythms, safekeeping pace, not falling out of line. ‘Don’t we all eat the same wheat prevention? Don’t we all get up at the same time? These various w ays of reasserting solidarity contain an implicit definition of the fundamental justice of conformity. (Bourdieu, 1977) He later goes on to show that conformities nevertheless other opposition is eccentricity, which becomes natural for those intrigued by it irregularity.\r\nThe enemy of which is the desire to stand a single out from others. Working enchantment the others are resting, staying in the house while the others are working in the celestial spheres, traveling on forsake roads, wandering round the streets of the village while the others are asleep or at the market †these are all suspicious forms of behavior. The eccentric who does e realthing differently… (Bourdieu, 1977) Bourdieu believes that well-disposed club brush offnot just be analyzed in footing of economic ramifyes and ideologies, lone(prenominal)some(prenominal) if that individual education and husbandry must be applied as well.\r\nBourdieu does not separate community based on category a nd then analyze them, save groups everyone into what he calls a battleground/ social arena. This contradicts classic Marxism. In this field heap compete and struggle to attain their desires. It is a system of social positions organized by harm of power relationships. This idea of terms of power is most soft defined as the differential a middlest a judge and a lawyer. Within this field the social agents fight over monetary gain, or whatever holds symbolic significance.\r\nIn all of Bourdieu’s beliefs, his most viridityplace is his assertion that the public does not exist (1984). This concept is addressed in his book, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, in that he feels in that location is a different of class taste betwixt the ruling class and popular finis. But, at heart this conflict, there is no public, unaccompanied a media mediating between the twain and a civilisation to which they often cater to do so. Jon Simons addresses this concep t in his essay, presidency the Public: Technologies of Mediation and Popular Culture, when he says, technologies constitute the mess as a middled public.\r\nThe public is and amenable to representation in the form of an electorate which is an effect of technical organization that can mediate between people at a length from each other. The backbone point of this analysis is that the public does not exist prior to or remote of its constitution. (Simons, 2002) His essay evaluates the importance of media technologies within a democracy. Bourdieu feels that in this field of power struggle, the ruling class uses their cultural capital to assert their distinction (1984).\r\nThis is seen in the way politicians index only use terms or syntax understandable to the elite of ball club. This separation between popular culture and the elite culture of a society makes it virtually impossible for government officials to ever get the unanimous appeal for which they often aspire. closely s emipolitical elites view popular cultures’ apathy towards government activity with great disdain. Even still, they relentlessly attempt to bring up to popular culture voters, whom they know will bread and furtherter them. In John Fiske’s critique on picture, Television Culture he analyzes the nature of what makes popular television.\r\nHe concludes that the shows that succeed in gaining popularity tend to dedicate legion(predicate) symbols and plot lines containing multiple meanings. He to a fault states that hang in within a duality of containment and unsusceptibility (1987). This idea basically revolves around the fact that television producers, who are viewed as the upper class and political elite, are expected to produce material that intend with popular culture. This material that the elite minority culture produces for the popular culture contradicts elitist ideals but allows the status quo to hang on intact.\r\nThis means the political elite can only remain the elite so long as they humor the beliefs and ideals of their less powerful but much dominant counterparts. The rules Fiske establishes for television shows can very easily be applied to the media. They present the media as a tool being utilize to prey on the wants and collects of different cultures. Another media technology that isn’t perpetually addressed is the literary outlets in societies. This is undoubtedly the reason that Pierre Bourdieu is an acclaimed literary theorist as well, addressing such theorist as lecturer retort theory.\r\nReader response theory augments the importance of the usage of the reader in interpreting texts. It disagrees that there is a solitary, fixed meaning integral to every literary work. This theory embraces that an individual creates his or her consume meaning through a â€Å"transaction” with the text based on personal associations. Because all readers bring their own emotions, concerns, life lets, and knowledge t o their reading, each interpretation is inhering and unique. It is common that many people trace the presentation of reader-response theory to scholar Louise Rosenblatt’s influential 1938 work Literature as Exploration.\r\nShe believed, close readings of literature should recitation impassiveness in the study of texts and should reject all forms of personal interpretation by the reader. The text is an mugwump entity that could be objectively analyzed using transparent methodological criteria (Rosenblatt’s, 1938). Her work has been the topic of study for many professors and theorists who specialize in this form of analysis. In tip’s piece, Is there a text in this class? The authority of interpretive communities, he argues that the readings of a text are culturally constructed.\r\nHe feels that reader-response theory recognizes the reader as an active agent who imparts real existence to the work and completes its meaning through interpretation. Reader-respons e is an experience that every user goes through during the act of reading, it transpires and it affects reader and sometimes this counteracts to force user to do some unimaginative reaction ( tip, 1986). This aspect of Stanley Fish’s theory is one of the most radical and arguable and is part of the reason why many people object to the views backing this movement.\r\nHe adds further sage to his military posture with his view that most of the theories that are hypothesise on the grounds of practical experiences are potential to be accurate and are easily acceptable. The reader of reader-response theory is not just a hypothetical or theoretical reader, he is a practical reality (Fish, 1986). Since this theory has exact results it effects lives, personalities, cultures and societies. in that respect are in any case some theories that fail but the reason of their failure is not the notion of being a textual work, it is their impractical approach that disappoints them (Fish , 1986).\r\nFish’s attempt to place reader-response theory in a position of practical perspective more(prenominal) certifies its methodology. His political stance frees other theorists to do more in-depth analysis. Applied to the idea of public interpretation, we see that there is again another outlet for public opinion to be controlled through the targeting of specific popular culture emotions or ideals, and triggering whatever reader response king favor certain positions, or corporations. I’m sure news paper, and magazine advertisers are well studied in reader response-theory.\r\nDespite the insuperable methods of control instilled on individuals, through popular culture, by the media, Simons argues that there are certain times when citizens group together in masses and act on their own apart from the propaganda projected by the media. A prime example of liberal citizens standing up and countering Bourdieu’s perception of public opinion is the gracious Righ ts movement in America. It was a much needed, and detrimental, gaffe in popular culture and eventually political law. A more contemporaneous version of this would be Hurricane Katrina, or 9/11.\r\nIn her article Al Qaeda, Terrorism, and Military Commissions’, Ruth Wedgwood proves that though most American citizens consider terrorism to be a federal official and national trouble, it is very much a topical anesthetic one. Al Qaeda’s published doctrine maintains that there are no innocent civilians in Western society (Wedgwood, pg2)… She later goes on to analyze the psychological foundation they use to form their tenet. She says,…this tenet leads it to [committing] the gravest of international crime[s] (Wedgwood, pg2). All of these qualities impose a freehanded enough threat to individual human ideals and popular culture that a public arises from a nonentity.\r\nWe also see this with protests. Here is where the weakness lies in Bourdieu’s theory. Despite this, we still see the prevention of certain liberal up risings maintained by systems of control, uniform racial, sexual and religious prejudice, or even class prejudice through the story of the American Dream. The American dream that one can become something from vigor is the main reason why America is the blistering growing country. It is often seen as a thaw pot encompassing many different religions and nationalities.\r\n race move to America with dreams of becoming wealthy, but many of the ideologies that have existed within the country for years hold these dreams from coming true. It is Harlon L. Dalton’s belief that Horatio Alger’s writings, during the mid to late 1800’s, promoted a destructive romance that overlook the realities of society. Dalton specifically targets Alger’s story Ragged Dick, virtually a young man who devoutly whole kit and boodle his way up the American corporate work slowly succeeding based on his merit. Dalto n feels the myth implied by this is that the American dream is accessible to all those who are willing to work for it.\r\nAlger has been a highly acclaimed writer in American culture, and the popularity of his work part suggests that most Americans have and inherent belief in this myth. If this mindset is a part of the mental tapis of America, and it is as destructive as Dalton claims it to be, it would mean that American’s are inherently delusional. One might argue that this is only the problem of the minorities in this country, but Dalton protests that part of the want for most Americans to believe in this myth is fueled by a livid discomfort with addressing the reality of a racial problem in America.\r\nHe identifies this when he says, By interring the myth of Horatio Alger, or at least forcing it to coexist with social reality, we can accomplish two important goals. First, we can give the lie to the idea that Black people can simply lift themselves up by their own boots traps. With that pesky idea out of the way it is easier to see why fair folk need to take joint self-possession of the nation’s race problem… (Dalton) This idea of dual ownership for racial injustice is a concept Dalton feels most whites avoid and is a concept we see on many occasions being played out by the media in daily society.\r\nThis is just a perfect example of the power of popular culture to create a sense of public opinion. In Horatio Alger’s day, the sociological scene of America was short visible to every individual, but people chose to adopt the popular false reality projected from Alger’s novels. Alger was noted for not being a very skilled writer, and the majority of his novels were written solely for the settle of maintaining his extremely large fan base, so he made sure his books adhered to certain ideals. Most of these ideals gnarly the overlooking of racial stratification.\r\nRacial stratification that existed in the U. K. at the be ginning of the last century also deprived its colored citizens from the access to the most worth(predicate) resources the American society had, from the education, proper medical interposition etc. To make the Afro-Americans believe in the singularity of the whites they developed ridiculous theories of the mental or carnal prevalence of their race. (Banton, 1998) Despite this, America wins the title for being the most racially conflicted, and hence corrupted.\r\nThis corresponds with Bourdieu’s view that ethnicity and education will be one’s core sources of decision making, as apposed to ideology (1984). The scratch persuasion, which is that everyone can participate equally and can always start over, is troubling, as throughout most part of the American history, women of any race and men who were internal American, Asian, black, or just poor, were barred from all but a narrow range of elective positions. White men, especially European immigrants, able to ride th e riffle of the Industrial Revolution to comfort or prosperity, have always been the most valued members of the American society.\r\nThose who do not fit to that description, disappear from the collective self-portrait. The situation is that not only has the ideal of universal interlocking been denied to most Americans, but also the very fact of its denial is been denied in our national self-image. This state of things determines deep misunderstandings and correspondingly deep political tensions. This is especially true for the victims of racial attacks. Social stratification, according to some scientists has always accompanied the life of the human beings, after seem on the down of the humankind history.\r\nThe reason for its existence is a very simple one and it’s that the amount of resources this planet can provide is limited, thus it’s impossible to give everything needed or desired to everyone. As we all know people have always been unequal. It was determined b y numerous factors even many centuries ago, and nowadays the amount of those factors has increase greatly. Despite of the principles about the equality of all of the society’s members that are declared in the contemporary society nowadays, the phenomenon of discrimination still exists in our country.\r\nThis problem is enforced by Bourdieu’s public opinion created by the media, and heartfelt by many individuals. From one viewpoint it is only natural for people to continue those a certain way in accordance of rights with their age, gender, religious beliefs, physical condition, but when these peculiarities are used for to determine the person’s rights or regularize his or her freedom of action and choice, it created huge problems in interpersonal and social communication, and other processes. One is only left to wonder what the state of racism would be in this country if it wasn’t constantly displayed as the symbol of western society.\r\nOne might argue , like in the case with Horatio Alger, the disregard of racism only resulted in its unacknowledged enhancement. The very purpose of the civilized Rights movement in the states was to allow whites the opportunity to see how black were being treated by the constabulary Lots of books and articles written recently, state that the degree of interdict discrimination is still very high in the U. K. , which strings the social relations up, and leads to numerous conflicts within various racial groups. Martha Minow addresses this in many of her writings.\r\nIn her essay on identity, titled Not and for Myself Identity, Politics, and the Law, she says, There are two kinds of people in the world…those who think there are two kinds of people, and those who do not (Minow, 1997). Her essay reveals the ever segregating nature of Western Civilization, while she takes a clear stance in favor of the universal individual. Her essay takes an in depth look at the attitude that is truly necessary for one to make a lone effort towards furthering the genuine full racial integration of the linked Kingdom.\r\nHer essay condemns all those who settle into social tribes of convenient sameness. To encourage those who oppose conforming to the common American culture of segregation, she describes in detail the trials of a young Nathan Marx. The story also suggests how an identity is founded on both the views of others and the individual; Marx is treated as a Jew both by his non- Judaic fellow officers and by the Jewish trainees. Both kinds of treatment influence his sense of himself as a Jew. Although he resists both, he defines himself in the anatomy of that resistance (Minow, 1997).\r\nHere Minow points out a key factor of equality in that individuals all find equality in others in the fact that they avert to be solely identified ethnically. Those who rather remain segregated are incapable of seeing others as equal to them and just harbor hate. This is a complexity that the U. K. often shares with the U. S. The ironic factor in this circumstance is that racial and religious separatism is just as much the result of the media as it is the people at adhering to it. If we look at the statistics found by the 2005 United States Census Bureau, the discrepancies in success among ethnicities is quite revealing.\r\n'