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  • Essay / Analysis of Pierre Bourdieu's article Distinction: a social critique of the judgment of taste

    The most innocent way of being is to no longer have a judgment of taste. To put it simply, in reality we are all snobs in a sense. Bourdieu explains it well, focusing on this scenario of intermediate classification living in a modern world. Pierre focuses on the French bourgeoisie, their preferences and tastes. In the course of our daily existence, humans constantly choose between what pleases them taste-wise and what they think is cheap, arguably tacky, or monstrous. Bourdieu constructs his study on the basis of surveys which take into account the large number of social elements which have had an influence on the choice of the French individual in terms of entertainment, dress, menus for guests, furniture and many elements of exceptional taste. What essentially emerges from his study is that social snobbery is observed almost everywhere in the bourgeois and bourgeois world. The many tasteful selections that people make are mostly refinements, that is, selections made in contrast to those made by distinct classes. The taste is not pure. Bourdieu finds a universe of social greatness in the preference to prepare bouillabaisse, in our current faction of thinness, in Californian sports, for example cross-country skiing and running. The social world, Bourdieu argues, functions both as an association of deep relationships and as an emblematic framework in which tiny stylistic skills become the cause of social judgment. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay The difficulty of Bourdieu's book is fascinating: the techniques of social demand are always captivating and curious. The conclusion clarifies why a book on art and taste was not of interest to the vocabulary group related to philosophical and artistic style. Bourdieu maintains that if we were now to consider the "return of the repressed, having produced the truth of taste against which, through an immense repression, all legitimate aesthetics was constructed", it would then be necessary to a change in vocabulary with the end goal that these two discussions cannot exist as alternative or parallel discourses, but rather as a solidarity of discussion on taste. Bourdieu reminds us that pure taste depends on the refusal of everything impure. In this way, the normal movement of eliminating pure taste is a burst of repugnance that cannot be considered a pure effect. This repugnance is coordinated with the simple associated with the enchanting and the pleasant, with what is promptly satisfying. Bourdieu quotes Schopenhauer extensively to show refinement: thus, art which stimulates desires rids art of interest. Bourdieu believes that the Kantian norm of pure taste is nothing other than a refusal of that which compels pleasure. The repugnance is alarming because it occurs because of the expulsion of the separation, in which the freedom between the portrait and the represented is affirmed, to put it clearly, the hostility, the loss of subject in the question. Consequently, protest which requires rejoicing cannot be art. This is the reason why Kant cannot account for the way in which the visual interests the subject..