Re: culture and coercion... and the distribution (or occupation)

Jay Lemke (JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU)
Fri, 10 May 96 23:04:07 EDT

Angel,

I completely agree that being critical of our culture must be
integrated with critical reflexivity about our own thinking,
motives, and so with our social positioning, interests, etc.
The first chapter of _Textual Politics_ in fact includes a
somewhat rash experiment in self-disclosure, "Ideology and Me"
to give readers' some way of reading my critiques in relation
to my own complex social positioning. Given the norms of such
things academic writing, it was a little hard to know just how
specific to be; balancing disclosure and privacy, specific enough
to be useful, but not so specific as to seem ego-preoccupied.

I think we have raised before in this group the difficult question
of how public to be with our critiques of our own social positions
and their possible influence on our theoretical views and
interpretations, agendas, etc. I certainly applaud people who
do this more publicly than I have so far, and I will look for
appropriate opportunities to go further than I have. Obviously
one must also consider the extent to which norms about _not_
publicly disclosing and critique-ing one's positionality, and
even the more deeply felt _habitus_ or dispositions (temperament,
personal inclination to privacy, etc.) may function socially
to protect our privileges from scrutiny and criticism by
others as well as by ourselves. I struggle with this.

Even my most rudimentary sense of 'fair play' or 'standing to
criticize' calls for social and cultural critique to begin
'at home'. Bourdieu has developed these themes in considerable
detail (e.g. Invitation to Reflexive Sociology), and tells us
that his early versions of _Homo Academicus_ and his work on
the elite higher education institutions of his own upbringing
and academic life produced such a hue-and-cry from friends
colleagues, editors, advisers, etc. that he felt he had to
retreat a bit in the direction of safer scholarly and theoretical
abstractions. I hope I outlive him, if only to read the work
I suspect he will arrange to have appear after he escapes
the field of domination. I regret I don't yet have anything
that upsetting to offer! JAY.

JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
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