For a Scholarship with Commitment

Author(s): Pierre Bourdieu

Source: Profession, (2000), pp. 40-45
Published by: Modern Language Association
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For a Scholarship
with Commitment
PIERRE BOURDIEU

The

that I would

like to raise is this: Can

intellectuals, and espe

cially scholars, intervene in the political sphere?Must intellectuals partake in
as such, and if so, under what conditions can
political debates
they interject
themselves efficiently?What
role can researchers play in the various social
question

movements, at the national level and especially at the international level?

that is, at the level where the fate of individuals and societies is increasingly

man
a
being decided today? Can intellectuals contribute to inventing new
ner of doing politics fitfor the novel dilemmas and threats of our age?
re
one must state
First of all, to avoid misunderstandings,
clearly that
searchers, artists, or writers who intervene in the political world do not
on
a
thereby become politicians; according to model created by Emile Zola
or
intellectuels
the occasion of the Dreyfus Affair, they become
"public in

tellectuals," that is, people who invest in a political struggle their specific
as
authority and the values associated with the exercise of their craft, such
and truth?in other words, people who
the values of disinterestedness
enter the terrain of politics but without forsaking their duties and compe
tencies as researchers. (This is to say, in passing, that the canonical opposi
tion that ismade, especially in the Anglo-American
tradition, between

scholarship and commitment could be devoid of foundation: the intrusions

of artists,writers, and scientists?Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, or Andrei
the public sphere find their basis and rationale in a scientific
Sakharov?in

The

author

is Professor

sentedat the1999MLA

Profession

2000

of Sociology

at the

College

conventioninChicago.

40

de France.

version

was pre
of this paper

PIERRE BOURDIEU III41

a
community defined by its commitment to objectivity, to probity, and by
as
presumed independence from worldly interests. It is much to this pre
sumed respect of the unwritten moral code of their trade as to their techni
cal competency that scholars owe their social authority.)
or scientific competency
in civic debates,
By investing their artistic
scholars incur the risk of disappointing or, better yet, of shocking others.

the one hand, they will shock those, in their own universe, the acad
emy, who choose the virtuous way out by remaining enclosed in the ivory
tower and who see in commitment a violation of the famous axiological

On

a
equated with scientific objectivity when it is in fact
on
form
of
the
other
hand,
escapism. And,
scientifically unimpeachable
theywill shock those, in the political and journalistic fields, who see schol
ars as a threat to their
over
public speech and, more generally,
monopoly

neutrality?wrongly

all those who are disturbed by the intervention of scholars in political life.
Scholars will risk, in a word, awakening all forms of anti-intellectualism
thatwere hitherto dormant among the powers that be, bankers, industrial
ists, and high civil servants; among journalists; among politicians (espe
are now holders of cultural
capital;
cially left-wing politicians), all of whom
intellectuals
themselves.
and, even, among
But to indict anti-intellectualism, which is almost always underpinned by

ressentiment,does not exempt intellectuals from the criticism of intellectual

ism: this critique towhich all intellectuals can and must submit themselves.

Critical reflexivity, in other words, is the absolute prerequisite of any politi

cal action by intellectuals. Intellectuals must engage in a permanent critique
of all the abuses of power or authority that are committed in the name of

intellectual authority; or, ifyou prefer, theymust submit themselves to the

relentless critique of the use of intellectual authority as a political weapon
within the intellectual field and elsewhere. All scholars must also submit
to the critique of the scholastic bias (as
analyzed inmy book
Pascalian Meditations), a bias whose most pervasive form,which concerns us
directly here, is the propensity to a kind of paper revolutionism devoid of
genuine target or effect. I believe that the generous but unrealistic impulse
that ledmany European
intellectuals ofmy generation to submit to the dic
tates of the Communist
Party still inspires too often nowadays what I call
this
radicalism,
campus
typically academic propensity to confuse the things
of logic for the logic of things, according to the pitiless formula ofMarx, or,
closer to our current predicament, tomistake revolutions in the order of
themselves

or texts, for revolutions in the order of

things, to mistake verbal
at
academic
conferences
for
in the affairs of the city.
interventions
sparring

words,

Having posed these preliminary, apparendy negative, reflections, I can

assert that intellectuals
(bywhich Imean those artists,writers, and scientists

42 II FORA SCHOLARSHIPWITH COMMITMENT

action on the strength of their artistic or scientific
are
to social
indispensable
competency)
struggles, especially nowadays
assumes. A number of recent
given the quite novel forms that domination

who

engage

in political

historical works have displayed the pivotal role played by think tanks in the
production and imposition of the neoliberal ideology that rules the world
today. To the productions of these reactionary think tanks, which support
and broadcast the views of experts appointed by the powerful, we must op

of critical networks that bring together "specific

pose the productions
intellectuals" (in Foucault's sense of the term) into a veritable collective intel
lectual capable of defining by itself the topics and ends of its reflection and
action?in
short, an autonomous collective intellectual.
This collective intellectual can and must, in the first place, fulfill neg

instruments of
ative functions: itmust work to produce and disseminate
defense against symbolic domination, which increasingly relies on the au
thority of science (real or imitated). Buttressed by the specific competency
and authority of the collective thus formed, the collective intellectual can
submit dominant discourse to amerciless logical critique aimed not only at
the lexicon of the discourse {globalization, flexibility, employability, etc.) but
of reasoning and in particular at its use of metaphors
(e.g.,
of themarket). The collective intellectual can
the anthropomorphization
in addition subject this discourse to a sociological critique, which extends
discursive critique, by uncovering the sociological determinants that bear
also at itsmode

on the producers of dominant discourse (starting with journalists, espe

on their products. Lastly, it can counter
journalists) and
cially economic
of
authorized experts (and chief among
the pseudoscientific
authority
them of economic experts and advisers) with a genuinely scientific critique
of the hidden assumptions and often faulty reasoning that underpin their
pronouncements.

But the collective intellectual can also fulfilla positive function by contri
of Soviet
buting to the collective work of political invention. The collapse
most
in
communist
of
European
parties
style regimes and the weakening

nations has liberated critical thought. But meanwhile

doxa has filled the vacuum, and social critique has withdrawn
into the "small world" of academe, where itmarvels at itself and engages
in internecine campus wars that threaten no one on any front. The whole
edifice of critical thought is thus in need of reconstruction. This work of
reconstruction cannot be done, as some have thought in the past, by a sin
a master thinker endowed only with the resources of
gle great intellectual,
or an
a
or
his singular thought,
by the authorized spokesperson for group
institution presumed to speak in the name of those without voice, union,
can play its irre
party, and so on. This iswhere the collective intellectual
and Latin American
the neoliberal

PIERREBOURDIEU |||43
role, by helping to create the social conditions for the collective
can organize or orchestrate joint research on
production of realist Utopias. It
new forms of political action, on new ways of
and making mo
mobilizing
on
new
bilized people work together,
ways of elaborating projects and
placeable

can
play the role of a midwife by assisting the
bringing them to fruition. It
in
their efforts to express, and thereby dis
of
working groups
dynamics
or should be, and
are
what
and
what
cover,
they
they could
by helping
to
realize
the
and
the
immense
accumulation
of
reappropriation
thereby

social stock of knowledge with which the social world is pregnant. It could
thus help the victims of neoliberal policies discover the differential effects
in apparently radically di
of one and the same cause (commodification)

verse events and

diverse for those who undergo
experiences?especially
them?associated
with the different social universes, in education, medi
cine, social welfare, criminal justice, and so on, within one nation or across
nations. (This iswhat we tried to do in the book The Weight of theWorld,
which brought to light new forms of social suffering caused by state re
trenchment, with the purpose of compelling politicians to address them.)
This task is at once extremely urgent and extremely difficult, because
the representations of the social world that we need to fight, thatmust be
resisted and countered, are issued out of a veritable conservative revolution?
as was said of the
inWeimar
In order to
pre-Nazi movement
Germany.
break with the tradition of the welfare state, the think tanks from which
have emerged the political programs of Ronald Reagan
and Margaret

Thatcher
or Lionel

and, after them, of Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Gerhard Schroder,

Jospin, had to effect a veritable symbolic counterrevolution and
to produce a paradoxical doxa. This doxa is conservative but presents itself as

progressive; it seeks the restoration of the past order in some of itsmost ar

chaic aspects (especially as regards economic relations), yet it passes off re
gressions, reversals, surrenders as forward-looking reforms or revolutions
a
leading to whole new age of abundance and liberty (as with the language
of the so-called new economy and the celebratory discourse around net
work firms and the Internet).

All this can be clearly seen in the efforts to dismantle the welfare state,
that is, to destroy the most precious democratic conquests in the areas of
labor legislation, health, social protection, and education. To
a
fight such
to
even
as
risk appearing conservative
progressive-retrogressive
policy is
one defends themost
achievements
of the past. This situation
progressive
is all themore paradoxical in that one is led to defend programs or institu
tions that one trulywishes to be changed, such as
public service and the
national state, which no one could rightlywant to preserve as is, or unions
or even public
schooling, which must be continually subjected to themost

44 II FORA SCHOLARSHIPWITH COMMITMENT

critique. (Thus it is that I am sometimes suspected today of being
a
a turncoat or accused of
contradicting myself when I defend
public edu
cation system that, as I have shown time and again, fulfills a function of
conservation and consecration of the social order.)

merciless

It seems tome

that scholars have a decisive role to play in the struggle

new neoliberal doxa and the formal (and false)
the
cosmopolitanism
against
or
of those obsessed with globalization
global competitiveness. This fake
universalism serves the interests of the dominant: in the absence of a world
state and a world bank financed by taxation over the international circula
tion of speculative capital, it serves to condemn as a politically incorrect re
the recourse to the only force, the national
gression toward nationalism
state, that is capable of protecting emergent countries such as South Korea
or
Malaysia from the stranglehold ofmultinational corporations. This fake
labels like Is
allows one to stigmatize, under demonizing
a
or
Third
efforts
of
such
and
such
World
the
lamism
fundamentalism,
country to assert or restore its political autonomy, based on state power. To
this verbal universalism, which also wreaks havoc on the relations between
the sexes and which leaves citizens isolated and disarmed in the face of the

universalism

overwhelming power of transnational corporations, committed scholars

can oppose a new internationalism, capable of tackling with truly interna
issues as air pollution, the ozone layer,
tional force such environmental
or
these problems know no
atomic
clouds?because
nonrenewable
fuels,
classes?or
such economic issues as
nations
social
between
and
boundaries
or
the question of the hegemony of
the foreign debt of emergent countries
capital in the field of cultural production and diffusion (as with
the growing concentration of publishing or movie production and distribu
tion). All these issues can unite intellectuals who are resolutely universal,
that is,who are intent on universalizing the conditions of access to the uni
financial

versal, beyond the boundaries

north and south.

that separate nations, especially

those of the

are
To do so, writers, artists, and especially researchers?who,
by trade,
more inclined and better prepared than those in any other occupa
already
transcend the sacred boundary in
tion to cross national borders?must
scribed in their mind, more or less deeply depending on their national

tradition, between scholarship and commitment, in order to break out of

to enter into sustained and vigorous exchange
the academic microcosm,
(especially with unions, grassroots organizations,
activist groups) instead of being content with waging
battles, at once intimate and ultimate, and always a bit un

with the outside world

and issue-oriented

the "political"
real, of the scholastic universe. Today's researchers must invent an improb
that is, a collective
able combination:
scholarship with commitment,

PIERREBOURDIEU |||45
as much as
possi
politics of intervention in the political field that follows,
ble, the rules that govern the scientific field (rules that those who were in
vited to speak at this session today have given admirable illustrations of, on

the foreign policy of theUnited States and on the Palestinian question).

Given the mix of urgency and confusion that usually characterizes the
world of political action, this innovation is truly and fully possible only by
and for an organization capable of coordinating the collective work of an
international network of researchers and artists. In this collective enter

prise, the scientists are no doubt the ones who have to shoulder the pri
invoke the
mary role at a time when the powers that be ceaselessly
in
science
economics
But
writers
of
science?the
of
particular.
authority
and especially artists also have their contribution tomake. "True ideas bear

no intrinsic force," said

Spinoza, and the sociologist is not one to dispute
him on this. But sociologists can suggest the unique and indispensable role
thatwriters and artists can play in the new division of political labor or, to
be more precise, in the new manner of doing politics that needs to be in
to give symbolicforce, by way of artistic form, to critical ideas and
analyses. They could, for instance, give a visible and sensible form to the
invisible but scientifically predictable consequences
of political measures

vented:

inspired by neoliberal philosophy.

I would like, in conclusion, to recall what happened inNovember
1999
in Seattle. I believe that, being careful not to overestimate that episode, we

can see in it a first and

can be taken as a
exemplary experiment that
point of
a new form of international
in
what
be
departure
might
devising
political
action able to transform the achievements of research into efficient symbolic
demonstrations?and
devising what might be, more generally, the strategies
of political struggle of a new nongovernmental organization defined by full
commitment to internationalism and full adherence to scholarship.

NOTE
This

=?
address was

translated

from

the French

by Loi'c Wacquant.

WORKS CITED
Bourdieu,

Pierre.

Pascalian

Meditations.

Cambridge:

Polity,

2000.

World: Social SufferinginContemporary

Bourdieu, Pierre, et al. TheWeight ofthe
Society.
Stanford:StanfordUP, 1999.