Jazz, Hip Hop Etc.

[MSalter1@aol.com]

In a message dated 07/08/97 06:55:20 GMT, Scott wrote:

<< 
 Kevin D. Haggerty wrote:
 > 
 > First time post here.
 > 
 > I have been following this discussion about Hip Hop for a while now and
 > have been intrigued with attempts to dismiss it for being unrefined, etc.,
 > or being inherently (naturally?) inferior to jazz and other forms of
music.
 > 
 > This has lead me to wonder how relevant it might be to introduce some
 > Bourdieu at this point? While not a clear inheritor of the FS mantle, his
 > work seems to bear some relevance to the squabbles that have been taking
 > place on the list. Perhaps we should be talking about a "musical field" in
 > the way that Bourdieu talks about "artistic" and other fields. Then all of
 > these  fine-grained attempts to delimit what we should accept as "good"
and
 > "bad" music can be seen as power struggles across class lines to define
 > what is to count as naturally "good" and "bad" music. I believe others may
 > have said similar things, but I was wondering what (if anything) might be
 > gained by introducing Bourdieu's work?
 > 
 > Any thoughts?
 > 
 > Kevin D. Haggerty
 > University of British Columbia
 
Scott
 
 Well, that WOULD be a good idea, but for one problem. If we talk about a
 "criticism field" we can easily see that Bourdieu is implicated in a
 struggle along class lines to define what good theory is, which leaves
 us powerless, since we are also implicated, to know whether he's full of
 shit or not.

Michael;

This seems a good point to reflect upon Scott's strategy, here and on (some)
other postings that have made the reflexive argument about theorists and
their readership being situated by, implicated in,  and conditioned by the
very object of their own theorising. Without irony "for himself" although of
course ironically "in itself", Scott uses this as a universal strategy to
insist upon non-particular particularism. The alternative implication - and
way forward out of this reflexive contradiction affecting his own
reductionism - is to intepret reflexivity is an ascending pathway to
experiencing the mutual interdependence of both (mediated) particularism and
(mediated) universalism. This, I think would represent an immanent criticism
of a kind, (concerning the unmediated character of his latent universalism
and patent particularism) although perhaps accepted as such by Scott if he
still holds by his own conception of IC?.

Michael, whose trying to stick to some issues