Letter to Le Monde on Pierre Bourdieu, miracles, and rational actor models


Author: Doctor Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu depicts people as largely the outcome of social class background: their tastes, in food, in music, etc., reflect their class position and reinforce hierarchy. This paper presents my main concern about Bourdieu’s sociology: it does not take into account how an individual can and sometimes does significantly change dispositions because of a rational actor model that occurs to them. I present how I might change my fiction reading choice on the basis of a simplified model, according to which an author who does not wish to give up on various standard goods has these choices: write a novel within the long tradition of literary realism, but it does not say anything new (or the newness is very meagre); or write a novel which is uneven, a mess, vulgar in places (by my somewhat snobbish tastes), but has some new information within it. Note: the paper is not an actual letter sent to the famous French newspaper. It was titled in a slightly unusual frame of mind - I was taken into hospital 5 or 6 days later - but interestingly (for any psychiatrists) the argument still convinces me!
Draft version: Version 4 (13 September, abstract and further reading edited, "high school"; 12 September 2026, minor edits; v2 20th January 2024, slight neatening up; version 1 31st August 2023)
PDF at Researchgate at: PDF at Researchgate:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373545485_Letter_to_Le_Monde_on_Pierre_Bourdieu_miracles_and_rational_actor_models


        My main concern about the sociologist Bourdieu can be illustrated with reference to me (a somewhat fictionalized me). If I think about my fiction reading, I often read skilled literary craftspeople, postcolonial authors such as R.K. Narayan and Chinua Achebe and Flora Nwapa. And a sociologist might say, "That's exactly what we expect from you. You did well in high school, you studied literature in school till your final year, you work in analytic philosophy with its careful logical approach, and you are an ethnic minority." Then I pose this challenge: "I am going to go to the bookshop to buy a fiction book. Which one?" And the sociologist says, "We cannot predict that kind of thing exactly. A human being is not a robot. Your tastes fall within an expected range but we cannot codify your exact decisions, as if they were the outcome of applying rules."


        Okay, but now we are coming closer to the problem. One day I begin reflecting on what it is like to be a novelist. I think you have to be pretty clever to be a novelist. I am not sure I could write a novel. Then I notice all these less prestigious novels. What is going on there? Could I even produce one of them? Now what I like is realist literature, prestigious stuff (prestigious at the moment, in some circles anyway), and it tells me something new about people, or some people, new to me anyway. But to address my topic of what-it's-like to be a novelist I develop a simple model. You are an average writer in terms of talent. Here are two rational options, given your other aims: you can still have a spouse, a child, sleep at night, etc. (Let's assume you have these common desires.) EITHER:
(1) Quite stylish, not new. You can write a novel within the long tradition of literary realism, but it does not say anything new (or the newness is very meagre). You just present stuff we already know but with some literary polish and maybe a change of environment.
OR (exclusive or):
(2) Unstylish with new. You can write a novel which is uneven, a mess, vulgar in places (by my somewhat snobbish tastes), but has some new information within it.
Once I realize this model, my reading choices change - my dispositions, what Bourdieu calls my habitus. I occasionally read a novel from outside my previous taste range, or some of such a novel anyway. The choice may look inferior in taste, but there could be valuable information there, because of an author who takes option (2)! Maybe I feel uncomfortable about buying certain books from the bookshop, with their "garish" covers, but the application of my model leads me to override this emotional reaction. (In Bourdieu's portrait, tastes in home decoration, clothing, and more correlate with social class and reinforce social hierarchy. Elites don't prefer art which has the official aim of quick sensory gratification, instead preferring classical music, say. See Bourdieu 1984, also Calhoun 1999 and Dan Jurafsky and Yoshiko Matsumoto 2017. Given my model and my interests, I am prepared to sacrifice some signalling of myself as highly cultured, so that a peer might well ask, "What are you buying that for?" Novels about sport, about ballet, etc.)


        If I don't tell you all this, you might feel lost by some of my reading choices. And even if you don't feel lost, as a Bourdieusian sociologist you are left with puzzles. "Why this, given your background?” (And “Why the sudden change now?") It is no miracle to break with my background like this, unless you count realizing this model as itself a miracle! (It is a little piece of inspiration, but people have them.) A change in decisions by rational actor model sometimes happens to me. And I doubt I am the only one, as some of the further reading also suggests.


References
Bourdieu, Pierre (translated by Richard Nice). 1984 (French original 1979). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Available at:
https://archive.org/stream/PierreBourdieuDistinctionASocialCritiqueOfTheJudgementOfTaste1984/Pierre_Bourdieu_Distinction_A_Social_Critique_of_the_Judgement_of_Taste_1984_djvu.txt
Calhoun, Craig. 1999. Pierre Bourdieu. Chapter in George Ritzer, editor, The Blackwell Companion to the Major Social Theorists. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Available at:
https://calhoun.faculty.asu.edu/sites/g/files/litvpz3321/files/publications/articles/pierre_bourdieu.pdf
(Presents some summary of Bourdieu's on aesthetics.)
Jurafsky, Dan, and Matsumoto, Yoshiko. 2017. Bourdieu's Distinction. Available at:
https://web.stanford.edu/class/think53/bourdieu17.pdf


Further reading
Edward, Terence Rajivan. 2026. David Charles (1947-2026), Aristotle, and the master craftsmen. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/DcGLU_WBqi2/
(Here I present another rational actor model concerning video games, which one might act on, in a way that seems counterintuitive to observers unaware of the model.  People make technically advanced games early, even if the game concept is predictable, because then they can claim to be one of the first, e.g. to make a 3 dimensional game. Technically simpler games with unusual concepts are left till later, because there is less likelihood of the competition getting their first. "Why are you making such a primitive game now?")
Frazer, James G. 1890. The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion. Available at:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3623
(Tries to make sense of others as pursuing ends rationally, given their circumstances, despite how strange their practices seem. I am quite strongly influenced by this.)
Smith, Adam. 1776. The Wealth of Nations. Available at:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300/3300-h/3300-h.htm
(I wonder whether this book is disliked by various sociologists, with its speculative histories of people doing such and such because it is rational given their ends, but I am influenced by it to conceive rational actor models and act accordingly.)