Since, as Angel points out far too much of life is comprised of conflict,
dominations, gaining place for oneself against the perceived interests or
at best the unhelpful inattention of others, or suffering the place
others have put us into conflict theories diagnose much of what goes on
and give us some tools for fighting back. However they have dangers
not onlyu in not making visible the non-conflict aspects of life, but in
making conflict seem the inevitable order of things (insofar as we
recognize the clarifying power of conflict theories). Untempered conflict
theories have even further an effect of reproducing conflict-driven
interactions insofar as they become a primary tool for thinking about
situations (I have seen this in the practical consequences of those who
are deeply engaged with either interest driven versions of science
studies (Strong programmers and Latourians, for example) or classical
rhetorical theories of communication). Both feel licensed and empowered
to behave as though their account of interactions were the legitimate
totality of possible actions. They have strong tools to carry out their
agonistic struggles and they have no other view of their interactions to
foster other responsibilities, accountabilities, ethics, or motives in
their interactions. What may be even more unfortunate is that given
their agonistic stance and their agonistic view of the universe they are
not predisposed to appreciate the motives, thoughts, developments,
sensibilities, life-sense of those who are not directly aligned with them in
their struggles. Their views of others are cast in the hue of their own
struggles.
Bakhtin is best on his heroes--Doestoevsky, Rabelais,
Cervantes--in the particular ideological form that he casts them.
Bourdieu is most detailed and enlightening on the North-African community
he studied, the fields of education, culture, intellectuals, politcal
leadership, etc--all of which refer to what as the dominated segment of
the dominant classes. He has very little specific to say about the more
general field of power (though I do agree with Jay's characterization of
B's rather conventional characterization of a power elite).
But this is not just a matter of who they can comment on with
insight. This is a matter of how individuals carry on work with and
relate to their colleagues and immediate contemporaries. Conflict
theories do not provide you the tools to do better than to either
disengage from the fray at an ironic distance (a stance that both Bakhtin
and Bourdieu (see his extremely sympathetic appreciation of Flaubert as
well as his interview statements saying that the only freedom is in
seeing your way out of social constraint) at times seem to espouse) or to
re-engage in the fray
with sharpened tools (what I have noticed among certain rhetoricians and
science studies types).
While agon may be the only plausible stance on the political
field (our new crew of congressional representatives seem to be of that
belief), in the classroom we would like to think that we are in the
process of appreciating and developing the abilities, motives, life
trajectories of many people who are not just our allies. Certainly I
think we have all gained from being sensitized to hidden dominations and
suppressions in the classroom, but then we are still in the poosition of
then having to do something positive in the time we are together in the
classroom--so we need something more than conflict theories.
When I taught business students at Baruch College at City
University, I could take a stance of helping students develop some of the
tools they would need in their own agon in their class mobility struggle
to be fought out mainly in commerce. A Vygotskian relationship based on
a my role as a more skilled writer and students' clearly perceived need
for more extensive literacy skills provided a position for an educationally
justifiable task. At Georgia Tech I could use the students highly
motivated and confident sense of personal agon in order to help them
perceive the social activity nature of the projects their ambitions would
lead them to, and thus the necessity of having a more reflective
awareness of the socially coordinating nature of their communications, as
well of the distinction bnetween those situations in which they need to
actively enlist others (a form of rhetorical agonism) from thoise in
which they could rely on existing bonds to carry out specific work (even
though their may be substantial differences in interests and perceptions
among interlocuters).
Now I find myself in a different educational role with students
with different sorts of habitus,skills, motives, and life trajectories.
The teaching involves an even higher degree of articulation and
explicitness of the communicative/discourse theories I work with--where
the theories and research themselves become the vehicle of teaching
rather than a more direct intervention in skill and understanding of
immediately practiced literacy competences. Who these students are and
what this means for explicit theories and what theoretical reflections
inform my teaching I am still working out. But I do not think it is a
conflict theory that will guide me.
Chuck