It serves the interests not merely of status but of power. In other words, the esthetic world view serves as an instrument of domination. “Bourdieu’s analysis transcends the usual analysis of conspicuous consumption in two ways: by showing that specific judgments and choices 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. The work in some ways redefines the whole scope of cultural studies." 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. "One of the more distinguished contributions to social theory and research in recent years. It will provide the historian of the future with priceless materials and it will bring an essential contribution to sociological theory." Bourdieu's subject is the study of culture, and his objective is most ambitious: to provide an answer to the problems raised by Kant's Critique of Judgment by showing why no judgment of taste is innocent. Distinction is at once a vast ethnography of contemporary France and a dissection of the bourgeois mind.
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