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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Talibananas posted:You post a thread not because you have anything worth saying, but because the replies let you know you exist. I don't have the money to go to a doctor to be reminded I exist. I don't have the resources to have my emotions to be reified through institutional means, so I have to rely on text, the lowliest, most despised thing in the bourgeois world.
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Jul 12, 2015 19:27
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Helsing posted:What exactly is your objection to just calling this person "Middle class"? Would you be happier if I had called this thread "An Institutional theory of the Middle Class", because "Bourgeois" has already been used by some guy to describe the economic and social life of Germany in the 1840s?
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Jul 12, 2015 20:07
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Rodatose posted:marx didn't invent a bunch of words for Capital, it was based on existing terms and economic theories. also it looked mostly at england. I might read it then. There is a lot of reading for me to do! Rodatose posted:e: What economic school of thought is your theory grounded in, anyway? (in case it has the same usage of class terms.) Its more of a social theory than an economic theory. As a social/philosophical theory, Heidegger and Lyotard, I would say. One of the tenets of Marxism, as I understand it, is that economic production is the true structure of a society and ideologies come along to support that. The problem with that is it assumes that the things a society is producing are being produced "naturally". But the demand for them is created culturally and only makes sense in a certain cultural context, which is often obvious outside of that system but not inside that system. Marx, for example, didn't really know about Veblen goods. Although both the author and the book have problems, Jared Diamond's book "Collapse" is very interesting in analyzing why societies continue to produce things that seem to have no objective value. For example, he writes about how Norse settlers in Greenland spent resources keeping cattle rather than sheep, even though it was counterproductive (they took way more resources than they produced). Cattle represented a source of prestige and a tie to their way of life in Scandinavia, but they probably didn't think of it that way, they probably just assumed that cattle had an "objective" value. So I believe that many of the things that people think are goods with "objective" value only make sense in a context, and that context is often of how it allows that person to align themselves with the ruling institutions of their society. In other words, when someone goes to a doctor to get a prescription for naproxen for minor aches and pains, they are doing what those ranchers in Greenland were doing: getting the prestige of institutional power, in a way that objectively doesn't really make sense.
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Jul 12, 2015 20:37
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Jazerus posted:They're going because they wanted something stronger than OTC painkillers and they're happy with a naproxen prescription because they are not scientifically literate enough to know they were just prescribed Aleve, hth Pretty much, yes. But the point is, that the institutional power has made the underlying substance "Naproxen" into something else. Its like for a Catholic, the Priest saying the words does transform the wafer. For someone with a bourgeois background, its the social power that is important: someone with institutional power has looked at their problems and discerned them as "Real". That is entire basis of the bourgeois: social reality comes first.
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Jul 13, 2015 17:55
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reignofevil posted:I think that this is a silly thread that doesn't yet contain and probably will never have "an institutional theory of the bourgeois" but every additional person who looks around dissatisfied and tries starting to order their worldview into something a little closer to reality is a win in my book. Keep searching glowing-fish the people here just get mad because they're frustrated. I am a little surprised at how much rancor it seemed to have caused. I probably shouldn't have used the "B" word, which seems to be controversial in a way that saying "Middle Class" isn't. But all this really is, is an extension of the idea of cultural capital. I think the idea of cultural capital, that some people have cultural knowledge that they can use to accomplish things, is pretty non-controversial. My point is that this cultural capital isn't something that people use to obtain physical goods: its not like people master the complex systems of a culture so they can afford to buy nicer bathroom towels. Cultural capital is used to buy cultural goods. Sometimes physical goods are used as a marker for that, but its not the real point.
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Jul 13, 2015 18:25
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Tesseraction posted:
Churches and the military certainly have a lot of sway in society, although the military that currently has the most sway (defense contractors and the upper echelons of the Pentagon) certainly come from a different background than the folksy version of the military (Marine Todd and Sniper Kyle). These institutions especially have sway in certain areas (South and parts of the Mid-West), but its a pretty confrontational authority. The noise they make is of their power slipping away. There was a time when church membership and military service were part of Middle-Class integration. For example, Bob Jones, 1st. Lt. in the Air Force has just returned from duty doing radar work in Germany, and while hanging out at the local Elks club, he meets another Air Force man, who, get this--- also is a member of First Presbyterian! Drinking Scotch and smoking cigarettes, Bob Jones is offered a job as a sales manager at the local electronics store! And all of this would be happening in suburban Connecticut, not in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. That is the type of story that doesn't happen in Silicon Valley in 2015! glowing-fish fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Jul 13, 2015 |
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Jul 13, 2015 19:47
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Helsing posted:Honestly the more I look at this thread the more it reads like a cruder version of what I see a lot of people with a background in Foucault and Deridda doing. It's a mixture of dismissing theorists you haven't read out of hand and making very bad criticisms of them while making sweeping claims about the nature of everything, but claims that are basically impossible to test and which you don't bother supporting very much. Sure some of the observations are potentially interesting but they're pursued in such a superficial way that you have trouble taking them seriously. I don't think I was "Making sweeping claims about the nature of everything". Taking away the continental language, most of what I talked about is just based on my own experience of how people's backgrounds in early life affects how comfortable they are navigating through society. There are a number of number of concrete situations where this background is incredibly important. Say someone has a loud neighbor: do they know how to call the police and make a noise complaint? Or are they so afraid of involving the police that they will confront their neighbor directly? Say someone wants to go to Canada, do they feel confident going through that border crossing and answering the questions, even if they are temporarily unemployed? Someone is renting an apartment, and is unclear what type of responsibilities their landlord has for repairs. Would they feel comfortable going to a local library and asking the library staff for information on renter's rights? There is so many examples of all this little stuff, and the problem is, for those who know how to do it and are comfortable with it, its so "obvious" that it seems invisible. For those who don't have it as a background, its constant and bewildering. (If I want to put a philosophical name to this, this is Lyotard's concept of "The Differend", where the language of a group that has some type of hegemony is "the only" language, and other people have to deal with the hegemonic language on its own terms. Only here, it isn't just language, but habits and expectations).
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Jul 15, 2015 18:54
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