The kind of power traditionally enjoyed only by media executives or emperors, of raising or lowering the stature of some private person by placing them before the eyes of the public, now belongs to us all. Or suppose you decide to leave the flatlands of the Logic of the Like and seek out the depths of experience in great literary works. I grew up along the Northern California coast and went to college there. The escape from the infinite loop of the Logic of the Like, then, must begin with an appreciation for the richness of human experience. I had long hair and a goatee, and no matter the weather wore a flannel shirt and long shorts. This means there is necessarily something held back that emerges in the process of engagement as it builds towards its own internal climax—a world with an inner and an outer, a surface and a depth, a front and a back, a manifest and a latent, a seen and an unseen. Online tumult would be more than a sign of the devolving or improving state of society, or a means to some further result desired above or beyond it. These changes included, among others, the rise of national media, credit cards and cars, which fused with cultural changes—most notably the expansion of bohemian and New Age philosophies—to support a broader ethos of personal self-expression and authenticity. Homogeneous, because of the tendency to steer ourselves toward others who already view the world as we do. They are necessarily bound up with the exercise of control. Because he saw individuals’ fulfillment as being intimately tied to their social environment, Dewey’s pragmatism was geared toward creating practical conditions for realizing the proposition that “the powers of a man are not fixed, but capable of modification and redirection.” Accordingly, he was a deep critic of any structure of thought or interaction that pushed us in the opposite direction—toward ways of interacting that make it more difficult to undergo “the growth of character and conduct” that comes from opening oneself up to new possibilities that arise in the course of one’s activities. His humble origins as an outsider who scaled the heights of the social and career ladder provided the background, in his own telling, for his ruthless depiction of Parisian high society as illusory refinement masking systems of domination and control. It…. Lazarsfeld and Merton showed videos to regular people (such as housewives being encouraged to cook with less meat) and gave them buttons to record their emotional responses. We reach for terms like “homogeneous,” “simple” or “flat” in order to express some truth about life in a world reduced to vectors of attraction and revulsion. It is only in the pressure of constantly new difficulties and evils that moral character adds new fiber, and moral progress emerges.”. Rather than being the most fundamental dimension of human relation, judgments (likings and not-likings) for Dewey are just one part—albeit an important one—of his broader theory of experience and practice. While this schema may mark a real scientific advance, Bourdieu did not aspire merely to academic understanding. Some regard the ferry as a “trip to get them where they want to be.” Others let their “thoughts roam to the congestion of a great industrial and commercial center” and draw conclusions about “the chaos of a society organized on the basis of conflict rather than cooperation.” Still others approach the city “esthetically, as a painter might”: “The scene formed by the buildings may be looked at as colored and lighted volumes in relation to one another, to the sky and the river.” Encountered in this. From a few sparse paragraphs of flat prose, you now have an image of me. For social researchers, the creation of technologies of communication and interaction governed by this logic presents an irresistible opportunity. Like so many iron filings falling into place around an electromagnet, we align ourselves with those who like what and who we like and distance ourselves from those who do not. In Dewey’s terms, this is the movement from “experience” to “an experience.”. Or it could be as straightforward as taking Kanye West’s advice and removing like buttons and follower counts. View all Feuerbach did this for religion, which he said was nothing but the projection of human needs. Of course this implies too that Bourdieu’s books are themselves a part of that game, only played, as he put it, in a more “self-reflexive” way. Without facing the discomfort of encountering others who do not see what I see as beautiful, true or good, there can be nothing meriting the term democracy. All images courtesy of the artist. Today, though, no theory is necessary to understand social life in this way: in the age of social media, it comes naturally to us. @johnwaynewelsh. To do that, you need a book you can’t judge by its cover. If there is one theorist who, as much as any other, articulated the Logic of the Like, it is the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Voltaire did this for politics: behind the purple robes are mere mortals asserting their power. But these terms fail to capture what is perhaps the most potent feature of the Logic of the Like, which is its seeming inescapability. When Bourdieu proposed his own version of democratizing culture, he meant making the cultural styles of elites available to the masses through reforming their habits and, for example, providing more interpretative support for their encounters with high culture (placards in art museums and the like). This will only happen if he is evaluated by the squadron's flight surgeon and found "unfit to fly". It is a problem of collective learning and action, of democratic control over the means of communication. And indeed, to all of us, the Logic of the Like offers a seductively thrilling form of democratic world-building. In this 3rd installment of Duck Life, you must use your super seeds wisely. For Dewey, if interaction is to grow into participation, it only grows when there is a problem. On “1-800-273-8255,” Logic shows that suicide is never the answer to anyone’s problems. There are the rules, and then there are the rules. And just as surely will you tend to find yourself drawn to people who share that interest, and repulsed by those who do not. Either way, your perception of me is far from neutral: it expresses your tastes. Bourdieu argued that such accounts yield little insight into how people act. Though he was trained in philosophy, Bourdieu’s interests turned toward anthropology and sociology early in his career. In either case, Dewey’s focus is not about how the judgment reflects back on the class position of the judger, but rather about the role of making or reserving judgments in serving or stymieing the buildup of an experience. Instead of placing all occupations on a single scale from poor to rich, Bourdieu could distinguish between professors and plumbers. This is why articulating the divergent visions of social life in Bourdieu and Dewey is more than an academic compare-and-contrast exercise. Terms & Conditions. To understand it is to go through it. The attraction of the Bourdieusian style of analysis comes in large part from bringing the angels down to earth: armed with empirical data and analysis, it appears to be insulated against idealistic delusions about human behavior. Bourdieu often described himself as a theorist of practice, a sort of pragmatist who believed that practical exigencies trump high-minded ideals. As with Weber’s clash of the gods, “it is necessary to make a decisive choice.”. For instance, instead of, say, spending an afternoon thumbs-upping TikTok videos, you sit down to read Flaubert’s Sentimental Education and find yourself carried away. Our opinions about what food tastes good or bad, what music to play at a social gathering, what pictures to hang on our walls—those judgments position us vis-à-vis one another, and those who accumulate more “cultural capital” not only tend to dominate the game, they define what it means to play it well. Published in 1979 and based largely on a national survey of cultural tastes, as well as snippets from newspapers and personal observations of fashionable society, Distinction argued that what seem like our most personal and private sensibilities are produced by and in turn reproduce our class position. The ministers literally did not know what they were trying to accomplish. Logic. Marx did this for the economy: the mystique of free markets and private property is a mask by which some dominate others. This is because people routinely play seemingly established conventions off of one another, or adhere to such rules for the purpose of hiding their own concrete interests. In the Logic of the Like, clicking the like button amounts to what Dewey referred to as juridical “verdicts.” A verdict seeks to lay down the final word about what the meaning of an event consists in, on the basis of an authoritative touchstone. The partnership, however, was highly unlikely given the history of deep tensions between police and local Black communities in Boston. Metadata is like the cover of a book. Various scandals, often around hyper-aggressive tactics, undermined the public legitimacy of the police and their generally reactive approach to violence. Flat, because it seems to reduce the depth and texture of life. Collect coins and use your math skills to make the best purchases. There are many useful applications of this ability to make predictions based on metadata. Some regard the ferry as a “trip to get them where they want to be.” Others let their “thoughts roam to the congestion of a great industrial and commercial center” and draw conclusions about “the chaos of a society organized on the basis of conflict rather than cooperation.” Still others approach the city “esthetically, as a painter might”: “The scene formed by the buildings may be looked at as colored and lighted volumes in relation to one another, to the sky and the river.” Encountered in this manner, the scene presents itself as a “perceptual whole, constituted by related parts. As we rate and approve, upvote and downvote, we sort ourselves into clusters. Yet their pragmatisms could not be more different, most obviously in their intellectual style and affect but also in their substance. Indeed, prior to its inception, through a series of interlocking and escalating events, relations between community members and police had hardened to the point that communication had stalled, mistrust was rampant and they were figuratively “at each other’s throats.”. They followed these with focused interviews to register what was driving their choices, in their own terms. A person of remarkable talent, creativity and drive, he rose through the pyramid of French academia, culminating with his election to the Collège de France in the 1980s. Every like is itself and more: the beans and the social meaning of the beans are contained in the same act. What is striking, however, is that, whatever its weaknesses, Bourdieu’s highly contestable and partial theory has over time come to describe aspects of our social life with frightening accuracy. It does if it means that the meaning of a cover is exhausted by its function as a signpost or indicator of what you will find inside the book. There might be pages, but every page is just another cover. Still, insofar as it seems to imply one, it is that if we are to face up to social reality and be honest with ourselves about its real stakes, we may as well learn to play “the real cultural game” well—that is, ruthlessly. Play Duck Life 2: World Champion at Math Playground! “The message was clear—if the church was not going to deal with the problems of the streets, those problems would enter the church.” The authority of both police and ministers was in doubt, but neither had a clear sense of what to do. Dewey’s philosophy, despite its undercurrents of melioristic idealism, is a hard teaching. Call it the “Logic of the Like.”. But social media and online rating and streaming-recommendation systems have hypercharged these desires and removed obstacles to giving them free rein. A more complex picture, to be sure, but not a problem for the Logic of the Like. 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