Cultural Capital

nate (schmolze who-is-at students.wisc.edu)
Sat, 11 Sep 1999 10:02:33 -0500

"What did you say about cultural capital,
Nate? I'm beginning to sound as if one needs to have considerable assets in
order to get an enterprise started: lots of time and self-assurance...)."

I was thinking about cultural capital in a collective way as in XCMA as a
unit allows me to have a level of cultural capital that I could never
achieve by myself. Because of time, resources, interests etc. I may not
have time to read various members books, (Jay for example), yet I am able
to get glimpses through the various postings. Or the awe of the questions
of who said this and you really get answers.

So, for me it is a cultural capital in which I don't as an "individual"
need to have considerable assets as in time, resources, or self assurance.
Maybe wrongly, but an assumption I made with Mary's recent request was one
of lack of rather than a surplus of time. To quote Mary,

"Now I know someone has probably already written this paper, and one of you
folks might know who, or even have been the author of this paper."

What I have taken from many of the responses on "silence" is the diverse
ways XCMA as a community serves as a form of cultural capital. Although, my
initial post suspected that participation was more than just "partcipation
in a particular multilougue" I found the diverse forms of participation
shared truely interesting. For me, it begs the question where is, and is
there a boundry to this thing called XCMA?

Nate

Nate Schmolze
http://www.geocities.com/~nschmolze/
schmolze who-is-at students.wisc.edu

People with great passions, people who accomplish great deeds,
People who possess strong feelings even people with great minds
and a strong personality, rarely come out of good little boys and girls
L.S. Vygotsky