Re: [xmca] Nobel prize talks stupid things about human intelligence

 
   
  Eirik,
   
  Your first citation of Bourdieu:
   
"the universe of prejudice,repression, and omission that everyday successful education makes you accept, and makes you remain unaware of, tracing out that magic circle of powerless complacency in which the elite schools imprison their elect"
   
  points precisely to the absence of the open, free discourse in institutionalized education, the presence of which I thought you had earlier used to defend Watson's statements. And. where is the "universe of prejudice, repression, and omission" more apparent than in the elevation of genetics to level Watson CLEARLY claims for it?
   
  Later you seem to equate Durkheim's "mechanical solidarity" with the transmission of a body of knowledge which in itself is a form of "secondary habitus". I'm unclear as to what you mean by "body of knowledge" in this context. Neither mechanical solidarity nor habitus can be considered bodies of knowledge without extending the meaning of "knowledge" to such generality as to beg the question. Bourdieu talks about dispositions, those horizons of of discourse that function as structuring structures and for that very reason can never be made a direct subject of that discourse.
   
  Your final Bourdieu citation:
   
  "it is not, as is usually thought, political
stances that separate people's stances on things academic, but their positions
in the academic field which inform the stances that they adopt on political
issues in general as well as on academic problems."
   
  perfectly fits Watson's behavior.
   
  So am I to take it that you are saying that since Watson's politics reflect his academic position, that I should simply accept this academic deformation as a basis for pronouncements whose potential political consequences are all too well known, without challenging that genetic determinism with arguments, such as those already presented in this thread, arguments that only find support in Bourdieu's theoretical frameworks even when his texts are decontextualized.
   
  Paul
   

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Received on Mon Oct 22 22:23 PDT 2007