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Over the years, I've had many opportunities to interact with "Bourgeois" people, and for many years I puzzled over their actions and worldview. During the past few years, I finally came to an understanding of the basic foundation of the bourgeois worldview. I should say before starting that I am in no way a "Marxist", and don't even find "Marxism" worthy of critique. "Marxism" is a psuedoscience where European thinkers almost 200 years ago tried to somehow derive universal, scientific principles from the idiosyncracies of their culture at the time. To debate "Marxism" is like trying to debate phlogiston theory. The main way that I define the bourgeois is that the bourgeois are people who are capable of dealing with the institutions of their culture. They not only know how to deal with them, they have an implicit faith in these institutions. In fact, for the bourgeois, it goes beyond having faith in these institutions, because that would suggest being able to separate these institutions out from the world. Operating within an institutional context is built into the bourgeois' understanding of the world. Right now, in the United States, the institutions that define the bourgeois worldview are (in rough order of importance): the health care system, the media, corporations, academia, and the government. There have been other institutions that were part of this framework, including religion, fraternal groups, unions, law enforcement and the military, but those institutions are now outside of the main bourgeois worldview. For the bourgeois, interacting with these institutions is not just a matter of economic power or practical benefit (although it can be that, as well), it is a process of personal definition. The bourgeois get an education not just because of the economic benefits, but because they find their identity defined by interacting with academic institutions. The bourgeois don't go to the doctor because they are sick, they go because having their body (and mind) examined and judged by a professional in an institutional setting lets them know, frankly, that they exist. Of course, they never think about any of this, and if it is brought up, they will dismiss it as nonsense. But when talking to a bourgeois, all the experiences they have will be filtered through these institutions, and their aspirations are a desire to grow to greater conformity with these institutions. A note should be made about the institutions that are no longer part of bourgeois society. Religion, military and law enforcement are now the institutions that a group of people that I call the "sub-bourgeois" follow. The right wing politicians who want to have religion part of government are still bourgeois in the same way, because they still have that need for institutional definition. It is just that the institutions that they cling to are now not in power. That might be a lot of words, and I am not saying that this theory explains everything. I am just saying that, in my experience, the hallmark of the bourgeois is the comfort with which they interact with the ruling institutions of their society.
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Jul 11, 2015 18:38
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Your definition is so over-reaching as to make it functionally useless. Maybe if you made a catchy tune out of it you might be able to profit from this theory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qYQXRk5glA
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Jul 11, 2015 18:51
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I'm sure I've seen this thread before. I wouldn't actually be surprised if it was a copypasta.
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Jul 11, 2015 18:54
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Ddraig posted:Your definition is so over-reaching as to make it functionally useless. Well, that is why I put it here, to help me develop it more! In what ways does it over-reach?
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Jul 11, 2015 18:54
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People in the non-bourgeois can also interact with the institutions of their culture. People in the bourgeoisie often have a lack of faith in those institutions. So, no.
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Jul 11, 2015 18:59
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I see a lot of (vague) description but I don't see any explanation. In what way does this theory actually advance our understanding of society? How does it compare and contrast to other theories? How can we evaluate this theory compared to competing theories? What predictions does it make?
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Jul 11, 2015 19:01
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Obdicut posted:People in the non-bourgeois can also interact with the institutions of their culture. People in the bourgeoisie often have a lack of faith in those institutions. People in the non-bourgeois often have to walk very carefully when dealing with the institutions of their culture, while the bourgeois take interacting with those institutions for granted! Voting and registering to vote are great examples. A bourgeois person can walk into a voting place, and expect to be treated with respect and professionalism. Even if they have to show ID to vote, it will probably be a courteous request. A non-bourgeois person trying to vote might have to walk on eggshells, and have subtle, and not-so-subtle hints that they are disturbing the people there. To the bourgeois, the institution of voting is transparent, it is there to serve them. To the non-bourgeois, the same process is a challenge. But it is hard for the bourgeois to understand that! To address the second point, when the bourgeois have doubts about an institution, it is usually about a specific example of that institution not living up to its mandate. They can reform, but they believe that the institution still has the possibility of living up to its purpose. The bourgeois might think a particular hospital is bad, but they believe in the idea of "health care" as an institution. They might denounce a particular judge for being corrupt or biased, but they believe that "The rule of law", as a concept, can apply to everyone. They can reform institutions to live up to their standards, but they can't question the overall fact that these institutions are an objective, universal part of reality that could "in theory" help everyone.
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Jul 11, 2015 19:11
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glowing-fish posted:People in the non-bourgeois often have to walk very carefully when dealing with the institutions of their culture, while the bourgeois take interacting with those institutions for granted! Yeah, this isn't right. Go to a 'voting place' in harlem, and you'll see the local residents being treated with respect. How much actual, y'know, research have you done by going into non-bourgeois communities and actually looking at this stuff?
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Jul 11, 2015 19:13
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glowing-fish posted:Well, that is why I put it here, to help me develop it more! Well for one thing, you seem to have classed the the major institutions that are required for a modern society to function in a healthy way as bourgeois. Your idea that those who feel comfortable interacting with them or have implicit faith in them are bourgeois is also flawed. I'd argue most people are capable of interacting with them, to various degrees of comfort (I for one have no problem going to see my doctor about an embarrassing rectal problem, possibly because of the second point) and most sensible people do have an inherent level of faith in these institutions, hence they are institutions. I'd say most people have quite a lot of faith in both the medical care system and academia, since it's thanks to medical care that we do not die of easily preventable illnesses anymore and with academia most people who enter tend to leave at least slightly smarter than when they entered. The two contentious ones you've listed are media and government, for various reasons.
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Jul 11, 2015 19:15
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There is no such thing as bourgeouise, OP. There are Americans, American interests, and unamerican activities; participation in institutional structures is a fundamental American institution. What is the highest level of education you've completed, OP?
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Jul 11, 2015 19:16
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You also have skipped a fundamental flaw in your argument in that those who are in the 'bourgeois' often do not have to have any faith in these institutions, at least the institutions that most people have to deal with, since often times there are alternative ones that you can buy into. For these reasons, those who lack faith in such institutions would also be uncomfortable with frequenting those institutions, because they're full of people who do not have the ability to choose any differently (i.e. the poors)
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Jul 11, 2015 19:21
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Obdicut posted:Yeah, this isn't right. Go to a 'voting place' in harlem, and you'll see the local residents being treated with respect. Well, I can't claim to have visited every single area of the United States. I am fairly well-travelled within the United States, but if you want to bring up examples from places I haven't been, or situations I haven't been in, I am sure you can find some. I can talk about some things with some authority, especially with education. For middle-class (a term that people prefer to "bourgeois" for some reason) students, like those I grew up with, the idea of filling out FAFSAs, doing college applications, and going through the entire college admission process was transparent: they took it for granted that these institutions would deal with them in a "natural" manner. I've also worked with first-generation college students who needed to have "obvious" things explained to them. They were often quite afraid of anything to do with college or higher education, because they didn't have the background knowledge to navigate through these institutions, and they didn't feel that what they were doing was "natural" or "obvious", the way students from bourgeois backgrounds did.
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Jul 11, 2015 19:42
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glowing-fish posted:Well, I can't claim to have visited every single area of the United States. I am fairly well-travelled within the United States, but if you want to bring up examples from places I haven't been, or situations I haven't been in, I am sure you can find some. Yeah, like I said, go to any polling place in Harlem, and you'll find the people there being treated well, which makes sense, since they're run by people in the community. Why would you think otherwise? Obdicut fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Jul 11, 2015 |
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Jul 11, 2015 19:46
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glowing-fish posted:Well, I can't claim to have visited every single area of the United States. I am fairly well-travelled within the United States, but if you want to bring up examples from places I haven't been, or situations I haven't been in, I am sure you can find some. *slams stamp marked "Middle-Class white boy who read his first Zizek book"* Next!
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Jul 11, 2015 20:00
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Obdicut posted:Yeah, like I said, go to any polling place in Harlem, and you'll find the people there being treated well, which makes sense, since they're run by people in the community. Well, I can't confirm or deny that since I haven't been there. If you have any information about voting equity in New York State (or anywhere else), I would be interested in reading it. I will say that if not just in the institution of voting, but in access to health care, in treatment in the criminal justice system, and in experience with the educational system, the residents of Harlem are able to deal with those institutions without having to worry...well, then the residents of Harlem are bourgeois!
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Jul 11, 2015 20:10
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TheLovablePlutonis posted:*slams stamp marked "Middle-Class white boy who read his first Zizek book"* Next! Yeah, dude needs to experience some institutional logic first-hand before he continues to make grand pronouncements. Institutions are what seperates civilization from anarchy: they are the method through which one obtains plausible deniability when seeking to gently caress someone else over, and for that, they're really quite great. OP needs to read some texts from Fukuyama and Dr. Kissinger so that OP can have a well-rounded perspective on institutional logic. ps zizek is poo poo
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Jul 11, 2015 20:15
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You still haven't explained why your theory should be adopted or how it actually tells us anything useful. The fact you've concluded that poor people in Harlem are bourgeois kind of makes you sound like a doofus as well. By the way, what you're describing is a theory of elites. The bourgeois are defined by their relationship to the means of production not how comfortable they are wi institutions.
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Jul 11, 2015 20:15
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Helsing posted:You still haven't explained why your theory should be adopted or how it actually tells us anything useful. The fact you've concluded that poor people in Harlem are bourgeois kind of makes you sound like a doofus as well. I don't think poor people in Harlem are bourgeois. Someone questioned my theory by putting forward the rather dubious example of how comfortable voters in Harlem (who are presumably poor and minority) feel when voting. Since I've never voted in Harlem, I don't know if this is true, but this http://www.healthofstatedemocracies.org/states/newyork.html makes it look like New York is not systematically an easy place to vote. I said that IF the poor people of Harlem can go and get a passport, fill out a FAFSA, and get stopped for speeding without getting hassled, then they are bourgeois. I don't believe that is the case. I do believe, perhaps with some controversy, that the ease of these social interactions means more than income does. But that isn't that controversial, that is why it is "Socioeconomic Status", and not just "Economic Status" Helsing posted:By the way, what you're describing is a theory of elites. The bourgeois are defined by their relationship to the means of production not how comfortable they are wi institutions. The Bourgeois are anti-elite. The Marxist view on "Means of Production" ignores what is being produced. The Marxists were naive enough, in an almost charming 19th century way, to believe that what was produced by society came from some sort of absolute, scientific process. It is bourgeois customs and norms that decide what gets produced. The great middle, with their comfort with institutions and processes, is what determines what gets produced, while the "Captains of Industry" just follow along.
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Jul 11, 2015 21:22
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glowing-fish posted:The Bourgeois are anti-elite. The Marxist view on "Means of Production" ignores what is being produced. The Marxists were naive enough, in an almost charming 19th century way, to believe that what was produced by society came from some sort of absolute, scientific process. It is bourgeois customs and norms that decide what gets produced. Have you read Capital?
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Jul 11, 2015 21:30
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Vermain posted:Have you read Capital? I've read The Communist Manifesto. I liked it because it was short.  This is a 19th Century reconstruction of what an Iguanodon looked like, based on the initial finds and the scientific knowledge they had at the time. I mean, its nice that they went to all that trouble, but it doesn't mean I have to believe that is what an Iguanodon looked like!
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Jul 11, 2015 21:36
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glowing-fish posted:This is a 19th Century reconstruction of what an Iguanodon looked like, based on the initial finds and the scientific knowledge they had at the time. I mean, its nice that they went to all that trouble, but it doesn't mean I have to believe that is what an Iguanodon looked like! It is a fallacy to believe that the age of a theory determines it's truth/falsehood. More recent =/= more correct
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Jul 11, 2015 21:43
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glowing-fish posted:Over the years, I've had many opportunities to interact with "Bourgeois" people, and for many years I puzzled over their actions and worldview. During the past few years, I finally came to an understanding of the basic foundation of the bourgeois worldview. You have never read Marx. I'm glad you don't want to debate marxism; I severely doubt you could even show a working understanding of any of his ideas.
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Jul 11, 2015 21:44
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glowing-fish posted:I've read The Communist Manifesto. I liked it because it was short. Okay, so you haven't read Capital. What sources have you read that equips you to make the proclamation that you "don't even find "Marxism" worthy of critique"?
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Jul 11, 2015 21:46
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glowing-fish posted:I don't think poor people in Harlem are bourgeois. Someone questioned my theory by putting forward the rather dubious example of how comfortable voters in Harlem (who are presumably poor and minority) feel when voting. Since I've never voted in Harlem, I don't know if this is true, but this http://www.healthofstatedemocracies.org/states/newyork.html makes it look like New York is not systematically an easy place to vote. I will ask again: how does this theory actually enhance our understanding of reality? What predictions does it make? How can it be tested? What processes does it illuminate? In short: how is this theory actually useful? The idea that income doesn't correlate directly with class is not particularly controversial since most scholars will agree that class has other facets such as culture or, as I said before, one's relationship to the means of production within society (i.e. a small business owner and a cop might both earn 100,000 in a given year without being considered members of the same class under many scholarly accounts). quote:The Bourgeois are anti-elite. The Marxist view on "Means of Production" ignores what is being produced. The Marxists were naive enough, in an almost charming 19th century way, to believe that what was produced by society came from some sort of absolute, scientific process. It is bourgeois customs and norms that decide what gets produced. The great middle, with their comfort with institutions and processes, is what determines what gets produced, while the "Captains of Industry" just follow along. Can you quote the Marxist scholars you're thinking of here because this doesn't really sound like any description of Marxism I've heard of. I'm also not sure how your claims would square with the invention of entirely new products since obviously there was no demand for iPads prior to Steve Jobs and Apple inventing and marketing them. In fact, let's just be blunt here: you haven't read any Marxism beyond, maybe, the Communist Manifesto or some short excerpts from other works, and frankly I don't think you've read many alternative social science theories of class and production either. Your theory isn't really engaging with any existing body of literature. It's like you just sat down one day, pondered over your personal experiences, and wrote down the first thoughts that drifted into your head. If you actually want to be taken seriously you need to put some time in understanding what previous theorists and scholars believed and then decide how your theory either contradicts or compliments those ideas. EDIT - Ok, I missed the last couple posts in this thread. If you're going to dismiss one of the most influential and wide reaching theories of the last 150 years without actually reading any of its theoretical texts then trying to formulate a new theory of society might be a bit above your paygrade. Also here's a protip: if you're going to try and tear apart Marxism then take the conventional route and critique the Labour Theory of Value. Helsing fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Jul 11, 2015 |
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Jul 11, 2015 21:48
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Helsing posted:
I actually had more theoretical things I wanted to say in my original post, but I didn't want to make it too long. This is actually, in my mind, primarily a Heideggerian theory. It taps into the Heideggerian idea of "technology" as being a way to frame "Being". Heidegger believed that Western society was based on a "forgetting" of Being, behind a series of metaphysical constructs that ended in "modern technology". I believe that is true, but I believe that "technology" can include social technologies, as well as physical technologies. Institutions are a form of social technology, and allow the framing/comprehension of Being. But it also allows the forgetting of Being (Seinsvergessenheit).
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Jul 11, 2015 21:58
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Helsing posted:I will ask again: how does this theory actually enhance our understanding of reality? What predictions does it make? How can it be tested? What processes does it illuminate? In short: how is this theory actually useful? Here is a concrete example of bourgeois attitudes towards institutions in action: In the early 2000s, Merck Pharmaceuticals marketed a drug called "Vioxx", an NSAID that was about as effective as other NSAIDs, but also caused a great risk of heart attack. Merck had intentionally distorted the drug's risk of cardiovascular problems. Wikipedia posted:FDA analysts estimated that Vioxx caused between 88,000 and 139,000 heart attacks, 30 to 40 percent of which were probably fatal, in the five years the drug was on the market. This is not a conspiracy theory, this is the FDA's finding, that a pharmaceutical company lied about a drug that went on to kill somewhere between 25,000 and 60,000 people. Although Merck did suffer civil penalties, there was never (AFAIK) any criminal punishments involved. The American Medical Association suggested that maybe new drugs shouldn't be advertised so aggressively on television, but I don't think anything came of it. Compare the relatively resigned reaction to the deaths of around 50,000 people through intentional fraud to the usual reactions when someone who is not supported by the mainstream medical community harms people with medical treatments. The bourgeois gave the benefit of the doubt in the case of Vioxx, because they believe that the institutions involved, corporations, the medical establishment, academic researchers and the like, are basically sound and trustworthy, because institutional reality is valid reality. Compare this to how the bourgeois would react to someone whose advocacy of say, colloidal silver, led to even one or two deaths.
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Jul 11, 2015 22:12
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I, for one, find the OP's theory quite cromulent! *Blows bubbles out of pipe.*
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Jul 11, 2015 22:32
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glowing-fish posted:Here is a concrete example of bourgeois attitudes towards institutions in action: Yeah, lapses in regulatory oversight occur. You ever work in the public sector before? You haven't answered one question of mine, which leads me to believe that you're a college freshman out to strike it in the world for the first time.
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Jul 11, 2015 22:37
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My Imaginary GF posted:Yeah, lapses in regulatory oversight occur. I actually have. As for me being a college freshman, that happened during Clinton's first term in office. Let me find your questions and answer them! I have completed my M. Ed. I have mixed feelings about that: at the time, I was thinking that if I paid my dues, went to the trouble and expense of getting a straight professional degree, I could have some type of productive career. Its been harder than I thought, mostly because I just don't feel at ease in those type of institutional settings. My own background is coming out of being raised by a single parent on different forms of government assistance, and getting to be more middle class throughout life. A lot of people I know who were raised middle class just take things like getting education, finding jobs in different states and overseas, and having health insurance for granted. To me, even though I've learned to do those things, it doesn't come to me naturally. glowing-fish fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Jul 11, 2015 |
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Jul 11, 2015 22:58
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glowing-fish posted:I've read The Communist Manifesto. I liked it because it was short. This does explain a lot. Let me tell you something, buddy, if your pet idea had any weight to it you wouldn't be able to describe it in one medium-length forums post. You would need this thing called "research" which is usually quite a few long reads, but also keeps your pet theory from being what we call pseudoscience. Or hell, it's not even that at this point, it's you claiming stuff to be true without anything to back it up besides your say-so.
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Jul 11, 2015 23:02
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Cerebral Bore posted:This does explain a lot. Let me tell you something, buddy, if your pet idea had any weight to it you wouldn't be able to describe it in one medium-length forums post. You would need this thing called "research" which is usually quite a few long reads, but also keeps your pet theory from being what we call pseudoscience. Or hell, it's not even that at this point, it's you claiming stuff to be true without anything to back it up besides your say-so. This. You are kind the equivalent of a guy on Freep right now.
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Jul 11, 2015 23:08
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OP go back and read Capital or at least some Harvey or some poo poo, idk.
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Jul 12, 2015 00:42
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glowing-fish posted:I actually had more theoretical things I wanted to say in my original post, but I didn't want to make it too long. The problem is that if you want people to take you seriously you need to show that you've done your homework so I'm not sure that grand social theorizing and brevity are going to be compatible in this case. quote:This is actually, in my mind, primarily a Heideggerian theory. It taps into the Heideggerian idea of "technology" as being a way to frame "Being". Heidegger believed that Western society was based on a "forgetting" of Being, behind a series of metaphysical constructs that ended in "modern technology". I believe that is true, but I believe that "technology" can include social technologies, as well as physical technologies. Institutions are a form of social technology, and allow the framing/comprehension of Being. But it also allows the forgetting of Being (Seinsvergessenheit). This is too vague to be helpful. For instance, if your theory is basically Heideggerian in nature then why are you presenting it as "your" theory? In what ways are you improving on or deviating from what Hedigger and his followers believed? glowing-fish posted:Here is a concrete example of bourgeois attitudes towards institutions in action: I don't really see how your theory illuminates these events in a way that other theories don't. The fact that people's opinions are molded by the media and by social institutions is a fairly trivial and widespread observation. It's compatible with most mainstream social theories. Since you're trying to convince us to adopt a new theory you need to demonstrate how you're improving or surpassing the explanations provided by other theories.
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Jul 12, 2015 01:23
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glowing-fish posted:The main way that I define the bourgeois is that the bourgeois are people who are capable of dealing with the institutions of their culture. This only makes any sense if you think all people in e.g. the USA share a single culture.
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Jul 12, 2015 01:35
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Exclamation Marx posted:This only makes any sense if you think all people in e.g. the USA share a single culture. American culture is just some that is bought and sold, not something that's difficult to obtain or control. I mean sure you can go to New York City to see the vestiges of an older immigrant culture, but that was before Manhattan became Rich People Island.
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Jul 12, 2015 01:56
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Exclamation Marx posted:This only makes any sense if you think all people in e.g. the USA share a single culture. Good point! I should have perhaps used a more technical term than "culture". "Society", perhaps. In the United States, even though there are different cultures, there is still some general consensus at the institutional level about social norms. A doctor in the San Francisco Bay area might be an atheist, a doctor in Mobile, Alabama might be a fundamentalist Christian, but in both cases, the way they deal with their patients is going to be shaped by the standards of health care as an institution rather than their personal "culture". I also don't think these institutions are moving in lockstep or are controlled by a single group of people or idea. I think they are a loose alliance of legal obligations and cultural familiarity. And even within that, the institutions that run one part of the country (the south, rural Midwest, etc.) are different than the institutions that run the mainstream of the country.
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Jul 12, 2015 02:09
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Well, yes, a doctor is probably going to treat a patient the same regardless of where they are because there's a very strict code of medical ethics. This isn't really an example of 'Society' in action as it is medical standards.
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Jul 12, 2015 02:14
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Seriously read some Marxist texts about political economy and ideology, you and your ideas will benefit greatly from it. Also read some Foucault maybe if you are interested in the role of institutions in bourgeois society. Like, what's your point in using a word like "bourgeois", which has a clearly understood definition already as the class which owns the means of production under capitalism (and maybe a different definition for medieval historians), to mean a completely different thing that you just made up? Are you trying to confuse everybody or something? If you think it's useful to talk about this new category of people you decided was important at least come up with an original name for it
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Jul 12, 2015 03:49
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Bob le Moche posted:
So say I meet...a 45 year old lawyer, pretty liberal, works for a timber company, came from a middle-class family, went to a mid-tier private university...and who, while being pretty liberal, kind of uses that background as a metric of what he expects other people's experiences to be? What is the word to describe the expectations and background someone like that would have? (Hint: it starts with a "B")
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Jul 12, 2015 04:15
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I love internet crackpots, but are people seriously still pretending to pay attention to a failed adjunct professor of education who wants to teach at the college level but doesn't have a Ph.D.? I'm fine having fun with a mentally crazy person but since he is actually crazy and doesn't have anything to contribute maybe we should just let him be?
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Jul 12, 2015 04:48
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