Theory In MacLeod

Feel free to call me a nerd and beat me up after class, but I really enjoyed the theory section of Ain’t No Making It. I think the dilemma between structure and agency is important, fascinating, and particularly pertinent to our topics of discussion. The reading discussed the Pierre Bourdieu’s work on Cultural Capital and Habitus, as one component in this ongoing sociological debate. I have never read any Bourdieu, but I have certainly heard of him and have previously been exposed to his theory of Cultural Capital in my intro sociology class freshman year, but as I was reading that section of Ain’t No Making It, I began to think of the connections between Bourdieu’s theory of Habitus, and 2 other theories/theorists I have read and discussed in other classes. According to Wikipedia (super credible right?): Habitus refers to lifestyle, the values, the dispositions and expectation of particular social groups that are acquired through the activities and experiences of everyday life, and in the book MacLeod quotes Bourdieu saying, “Objective structures tend to produce structured subjective dispositions that produce structured actions which, in turn, tend to reproduce objective structure.” This immediately made me think of two other theories: Marx’s ideas about “false consciousness” forming within/out of the super-structure created by capitalism, and Berger and Luckman’s Ideas about how “Reification” results from the complex interplay of “expression,” “Internalization/socialization,” and “institutionalization.” All three of these theories for the connection of structure and action posit various levels of determinism, and allow for various levels of agency, but I am not fully sure about their connections, similarities, and nuances. I think bridging this structure/agency gap is one of the most challenging and important tasks within sociology, and I am excited to see how MacLeod, and the Hallway Hangers/Brothers do so.