Taste of Bourdieu

I found that Bourdieu is very much like Ohmann in that they, of course, both represent Marxist views of class distinction and reflection of the dominant culture in society. They both believe this. According to Bourdieu's essay, tastes in food, culture and presentation, are indicators of class, because trends in their consumption seemingly correlate with an individual’s fit in society. He isnt suggesting so much that everyone tries to fit into the same dominant culture, but that each fraction of the dominant class develops its own aesthetic criteria. Truly, they all are linked to the dominant class, but they break off into tributaries. A multitude of consumer interests based on differing social positions necessitates that each fraction “has its own artists and philosophers, newspapers and critics, just as it has its hairdresser, interior decorator or tailor.” There is still some standard people must live up to.

I am very intrigued by Bourdieu's interaction with this idea of speaking in "codes." He says that a work of art will have meaning and interest to someone who has the knowledge and "cultural competence," that is, the code, to decipher the meaning in which it is encoded. I wonder to what extent he places meaning and importance in this code. If someone possesses the code in which to talk about art, does that make the art good? What if someone who is educated talks about something that is clearly not art, but he talks about it in this culturally competent code? Does that put value on the bad art? Let's say an intellectual sees a plain chair in an art museum displayed as part of a collection. That same chair, or one similarly like it, is placed right outside the bathroom, providing a place for wary patrons to rest. If the intellectual talks about the chair in a code, saying that the chair is part of the minimalistic art movement and that its form speaks to that movement blah blah blah, does that mean the chair is worth appreciating as art? If he doesnt speak in the same code about the chair by the bathroom, then isnt the code really just a product of discourse developed by the ruling class? He is only talking about the chair in elevated terms because he has been taught to appreciate things in a museum and he probably took an art class in college where they discussed minimalist art. He is simply taking what he learned in institutions that reflect the dominant class and then regurgitating it. Does his code have value then or is he just blowing hot air?

We talked in class about high modernism and how it creates this abstraction of art for the upper class that is completely distinct from the preception of the working class. The upperclass is educated and knows the "codes" of interpreting art and they have "pure vision" while the working class must not know the "codes" and therefore see art as only practical and continuous. I want to know how the upperclass knows they have this pure vision. It sounds a bit Romantic to me and completely unproveable. After all, it is an abstraction. I tend to think that you cannot place a value on being able to speak the "code." What does it matter? One can say a painting is great, another can say the same painting is typical of the Renaissance period in its glorification of man through use of light and positive space in the painting. Who cares? How can you say the one person enjoys the painting more than the other. Maybe one is more informed, but Im sure the one who said it was great has his reasons to. If they both appreciate the painting, why not leave it at that. The work has done something for both of them. To say that the informed one is better, is to say the dominant, upperclass is better. Maybe it isnt.