I am a Grenade

1.  "Roulette, which holds out the opportunity of winning a lot of money in a short space of time, and therefore of changing one's social status quasi-instantaneously, and in which the winning of the previous spin of the wheel can be staked and lost at every new spin, gives a fairly accurate image of this imaginary universe of perfect competition or perfect equality of opportunity, a world without inertia, without accumulation, without heredity or acquired properties, in which every moment is perfectly independent of the previous one, every soldier has a marshal's baton in his knapsack and every prize can be attained, instantaneously, by everyone, so that at each moment anyone can become anything" (first page of "excerpted from Pierre Bourdieu The Forms of Capital, 1983)

This rather lengthy sentence is simply pointing out the great myth of class mobility.  We like to think that today in America everyone is given an equal opportunity to succeed.  All we need is luck and elbow grease.  The great myth is that at any given moment, everyone has equal capacity to become anything they wanted to be in an instant.  In regards to Bourdieu's theory, this is his "anti-thesis," the thing that he sets out to dismantle while explaining why this "imaginary universe" does not exist.  It is important to understand that this idea of equal opportunity is a myth if we are to proceed to asking what gives structure to the actual social world--Capital.



2. "The notion of cultural capital initially presented itself to me, in the course of research, as a theoretical hypothesis which made it possible to explain the unequal scholastic achievement of children originating from the different social classes by relating academic success (i.e. the specific profits which children from the different classes and class fractions can obtain in the academic market) to the distribution of cultural capital between the classes and class fractions"  (how do I cite this anyway?)

Bourdieu is basically explaining how he came to this idea of "capital" or more specifically "cultural capital."  He explains that children who are a part of different social classes will have differing amounts of cultural capital.  This causes unequal scholastic achievement.  Essentially, children who are a part of a higher social class typically are brought up in a family that has more cultural capital than a lower class family would.  Part of this cultural capital is the knowledge that education is important.  Children are more likely to have been read to when they are younger and generally instilled with the idea that one day they will attend college.  Whereas a lower class family likely has no time to read to their children and the very thought about college (the cost of) brings about massive anxiety.  This is not an atmosphere that breeds scholastic achievement--a child is more likely to grow up understanding that they will have to work very hard if they even want to imagine affording college--and is that really worth it if you are struggling to put food on the table?

3. "Social capital is the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more of less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition--or in other words, to membership in a group--which provides each of its members with backing."

Social capital, as Bourdieu describes it, is just like a network.  It's who you know--which largely has to do with luck (if you were not already in the "club") or hereditary inheritance.  For example, a CEO of a company has a son who will be graduating from college soon.  This upper class family has quite a deal of social capital.  This CEO knows many other CEOs who consider one another "friends."  These "friends" assure this CEO's son that he will have a job in the future, very little work required.  For a lower class individual with no social capital to achieve a high-paying job would take a tremendous amount of effort and a combination of other forms of capital.

In other words, this world isn't about working hard and eventually you'll succeed.  Chances of that are extremely slim.  The system is rigged.  It's about who you know, being in the right place at the right time, being able to afford higher education at a prestigious school, having enough wealth to signify that you are a person worth anyone else's time.  You could be a grade A jerk (*cough*BushJr.*cough*) and still soar to the top because of who you (or even your parents) know.