regimes of engagement with the world
TRANSCRIPT
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REGIMES OF ENGAGEMENT WITH THE WORLD
AND THE EXTENSION OF CRITIQUEin comparison with Dewey's pragmatism and Bourdieu's critical sociology
Laurent Thvenot
Professor, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales,
Groupe de Sociologie Politique et Morale (CNRS), Paris
Senior Researcher, Research Department,
Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques, Paris.
August 2008
Workshop "Pragmatism, Practice Theory and Social Change"
Institute for Public Knowledge, New York University, Sept. 13-14 2008
In spite of the name "sociologie pragmatique", the sociological framework which Luc
Boltanski and Laurent Thvenot have developed after creating the Groupe de Sociologie
Politique et Morale at theEcole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (1984) and writing
the first version ofLes conomies de la grandeur[Economies of worth] (1987) was not
directly influenced by Dewey.1
Moreover, it broke with Bourdieu's sociology. Thus this
sociology cannot be easily captured within the legacy of Dewey's American pragmatism (JD),
nor within the wake of Bourdieu's theory of practice (PB), although it benefited from these
two heritages among others. On Justification (Boltanski and Thvenot 2006 [1991])
concentrated on a kind of social action which is more "collective" than others in so far as it is
prepared for public critique and justification. It involves persons and things which are treated
and shaped to effectively qualify for legitimate evaluation of their worth ["grandeur"]. Thus it
tackles the kind of abusive power which Bourdieu's sociology kept on unveiling, and also the
"reality test" and method of evaluating the significance of public issues, a question whichDewey's philosophy was committed to. The next development of this sociology inserts the
public and collective modes of co-ordination governed by orders of worth in a larger
framework to cover also other "regimes of engagement" with the world which are approached
in one way or other by social scientists in terms of action, 'strategy', practice and
habit (Thvenot 2001, 2002, 2006). Turning to relations to the world which are below the
level of public evaluation, this sociology of engagements meets other aspects of Dewey and
Bourdieu's work, experience and adaptation on the one hand, habituation on the other.
However, the focus is not so much on the human motor for action, but rather on the dynamics
of disagreement and agreement with the environment. These dynamics rest on different modes
of realism and confidence, different regimes of convenience, from personal convenience to be
at ease in familiar surroundings, to individual achievement of an individual plan or project in
a functionally shaped environment, to collective conventions sustaining public qualifications.
The regime implies both a form of evaluation and a format within which the environment iscaptured in order to fit evaluation (Thvenot 2002, 2007).
It is my contention that this third theoretical and empirical approach to structured action might
contribute to our workshop in clarifying certain common features but also strong differences
1A wider "pragmatic turn" can be situated through the series "Raisons pratiques" published from 1990 by Ecole
des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales Press, which has exemplified the renewed dialogue between the social
sciences and philosophy around action and practice. Other sociologists added their force in the continuity of
interactionism, ethnomethodology, and they later referred to Dewey who was poorly known before among most
French sociologists.
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between JD and PB which do not appear as clearly in a direct confrontation between these
two main contributions to critique and acknowledgement of practical activity. Obviously a
thorough comparison between these three orientations would be two broad and complex a task
for my contribution to this workshop. Therefore I chose to focus on the different ways these
three orientations contribute to elucidating critique, its requirements and its limits, with aview encompassing non reflexive practical relations to the world. Although limited, this focus
might be reasonably considered as a key issue in our common concern with social change and
the constraints which hamper it.
1. THE FIRST PLURALISM OF JUSTIFIABLE ORDERS OF WORTH : POWERS
UNDER PUBLIC SCRUTINY
After recalling the main features of the first pluralism of orders of worth in Boltanski and
Thvenot's "sociology of critique and justification" (B&T), I will compare it to Dewey,
Bourdieu and also to the durkheimian legacy for its contribution on symbolic forms of
thought.
Structural tensions exposed by the sociology of critique and justification
(Boltanski and Thvenot)The sociology of critique and justification, which was presented in On Justification (Boltanski
and Thvenot 2006 [1991]) and put to the test in many empirical studies2, exposes the
common model of the plurality of orders of "worth" and of their relations which are involved
in everyday disputes when the level of the argument rises. I will introduce this pluralism with
the case of welfare policies which I will follow in this paper since their recent transformation
in Europe have raised the kind of conflicting interpretations of social change mentioned in the
workshop introduction.3
This transformation is actually either viewed as "highlighting the
optional character of action and giving people the opportunity to reclaim their dignity with
respect to the design of their own lives", or threatening "hard won gains in social institutions",
or dominated by "inequalities of power" which "foreclose creative opportunities in processes
of change".
In the after war France, a former transformation resulted in the Scurit sociale (public
Medicaid and Medicare). This welfare policy was based on criticism of previous organizationof providence accused to be paternalist. Such criticism can be clarified by the critical matrix
of crossed "denunciations" of one order of worth on the ground of another, which we
systematically examined (id., part IV, chap.8). In this occurrence, the Domestic order of worth
governing charitable organization is denounced, because of the kind of dependency which it
develops between the beneficiary and his benefactor, personal and privileged relations
supporting this beneficence. Such a critique also points to certain type of corporate power.
The normative basis of this denunciation is the Civic worth. It aims at collective and
anonymous solidarity for higher equality, thus strongly opposing Domestic personalized
protection. Such a solidarity is equipped by public policies and supported by a "social State"
("Etat social").4
Actually, it involves another order of worth, Industrial efficiency which
expand on serial and categorical treatment of beneficiaries. A "compromise" can be found
between the Civic and Industrial orders of worth because of this categorical, and thus
anonymous treatment. The new recent transformation introduces a completely different orderof worth, Market competition. It results from the denunciations of each of the Civic and
2 The first publication in French (Boltanski et Thvenot 1987) was rapidly followed by an edited volumes of
empirically grounded research on labor, organization, education (Boltanski et Thvenot 1989).3
I have launched a collective research program which documents this transformation in France within a broader
perspective on "Politiques du proche" which are policies and political actions getting closer to the person. A
book is on preparation, edited with Marc Breviglieri. See also: Breviglieri Stavo-Debauge et Pattaroni, 2003.4 "Etat social" is much more appropriate that "Etat providence" which reminds inopportunely of the Domestic
"providence".
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Industrial orders of worth, and also of the compromise between them which is criticized as
"bureaucratic". Market worth is praised for the individual choice it would allow in addition to
the benefits of competition on prices. Principles or values are not only at stake, but also the
material arrangements which sharply differ in order to qualify for one kind of worth or the
other. And social workers' task go through considerable transformation to qualify for marketservices.
To prepare the comparison with Dewey and Bourdieu, I will present the main features of
B&T theoretical framework in relation to structural tensions weighing on social life.
Critique vs. justification reveals a first structural tension between opening and closingone's eyes
- When the level of the argument rises, participants look for the most legitimate grounds for
critique and justification which would satisfy third party evaluation.
- Disputes are situated within a material environment (nature and artifacts) which is grasped
in the critical judgment as relevant evidence.
- Arguments are thus put to the "reality test".
- Analyzing the movement of critique and justification reveals a first structural tension
between opening and closing one's eyes. The moment of critical and inquisitive opening leadsto the dynamical revision of landmarks after the reality test. But the moment of affirmative
closure is also needed for things to go on "naturally" when people are "closing their eyes to
the insinuation of dubious beings" (Boltanski and Thvenot 2006), and secured with
ceremonies and institutions. Calming down this first tension requires the clear-cut separation
between the two moments.
The qualification for the common good reveals a second structural tension between
unequal appraisal and common humanity
- Critiques and justifications require an order of relevance to selectively take into account
entities in the judgment, and relevance implies both generalizing and placing value on the
generalization (within an order of "worth").
- During the critical test, persons and things jointly qualify for a certain state of worth.
- Analyzing the shared properties of the plurality of orders of worth reveals a secondstructural tension between inequality of acknowledged worth (and thus capacity and power)
and a sense of injustice and power abuse based on a notion of common humanity. Calming
down this second tension is twofold (and unfolded in the common model to all orders of
worth): 1) to single out from various evaluative orders the ones (orders of worth) which can
be shown to rely on a characterization of the common good and thus benefit all and not only
to most worthy persons; 2) to demonstrate that states of worth are not fixed properties of
persons but submitted to the qualifying test.
This last requirement of the sense of justice is the basis for first kind of critical operations
which are internal to one order of worth. Persons and things are criticized for not really
qualifying for theses alleged states of worth. Abusive power is the result.
The confrontation of a plurality of orders of worth generates critical denunciations
while their integration requires compromising for the common goodCritical operations of a second kind are partly external to the order of worth since they result
from the clash between different orders.
- Since the plurality of orders of worth are competing for the common good, they generate a
matrix of crossed "denunciations" which shape critical activities.
- Persons have to shift from one order of worth to another depending on the arrangement
["dispositif"] of the situation.
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- By contrast to the reduction to a single order of worth, the pluralism allows for multiple
possibilities of combination as long as critical tensions are bypassed. A variety of
organizational structures accommodate several orders of worth locally or temporally in
compromising for the common good. The task is made easier because of the shared properties
of orders of worth.Critical operations of a third kind result from the combination of the two previous ones.
Without explicit compromising for a locally acknowledge common good, an external order of
worth unduly influences the qualification for another worth, so that the qualification test is
corrupted.
An overall view over the dynamics of reality test and the grading of unequally profound
revisions
The analytical framework of the plural orders of worth allows the clarification of the notion of
critique, and the differentiation of unequally profound revisions ensuing the critical
confrontation with reality. These revisions are unequally profound and can be graded with
respect to this depth:
(i) Unexpectedness is considered as irrelevant, pure noise.
(ii) It is relevant within the order of worth. It leads to the revision of the state of worth ofsome beings involved or, otherwise, gives rise to a sentiment of injustice.
(iii) It is suspected to result from the encroachment of another order of worth. If it is picked
out, it leads to a denunciation of this intrusion, or to a dispute about the right worth to adopt
for the qualification test. Otherwise, it is another source of the sentiment of injustice. A main
source of intrusion and injustice stems from the fact that someone unduly transports a high
state of worth from one order to another (privilege) or a low one (social handicap).
(iv) The revision is even deeper when the creation of a new order of worth is on progress.
In comparison with Bourdieu's critical sociology
The comparison could be drawn between the previously outlined sociology of critique and
justification and Weber's orders of legitimate domination regarding political authority, or
Foucault's analyses of the relations between power and knowledge inLes mots et les choses,
but I shall concentrate here on differences with Bourdieu's critical sociology.
Critical sociology / sociology of critique
The first thing to say is that the two innovations in the French social sciences which followed
the Bourdieu and Foucault generation, the sociology of innovation created by Latour and the
sociology of critique and justification depart from the previous generation by the attention
they pay to everyday critical activities (or scientific controversies in the first case) which are
part of social life. In the critical sociology by contrast, the sociologist is the main character of
the critical play.
This makes a strong difference but does not imply that these two more recent sociologies
cannot bring original contributions to critique, as critical sociology obviously did. Although
they declare as a motto that the researcher should "follow the actors" in their critical activities,
these sociologies do not confine themselves to description, classification or typification of
their action. The theoretical modeling they propose (quite different in each of the twosociologies) reveals structural requirements or impediments to the critical activities involved
in controversies and disputes. Such a theoretical and analytical detour gives new insight into
the conditions of critical activities, which can be beneficial to them.
Although, in many places, Bourdieu insisted that sociology should be value free in order to be
scientific, he developed an overall critical theory. This might lead to contradictory statements,
regarding the status of sociology in particular. But such inconsistency can be disentangled if
we admit that sociologists approach critique in three different ways: #1 by analyzing
laypersons' critical activities; #2 by discovering structural constraints or mechanisms which
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which a person qualifies governs the arrangement of relevant entities (persons and objects)
when it is put to the test, and thus specifies a mode of coordination of action.
Both theories are deeply concerned by the transformation of a capacity of one kind into a
capacity of another. The concept of "conversion" or "reconversion" of one kind of capital into
another points to a hidden aspect of the reproduced domination which endures in spite ofapparent social changes. The concept of "transport of worth" designates a process which
raises a sentiment of injustice and may arouse accusation precisely because the evaluation
takes into account objects that are foreign to the world from which the test stems, and only
relevant for another worth. Conversely, criticism of injustice may demonstrate that the
deficiency of a person in a different qualification has followed her into the test in spite of
herself, so that she suffers from a handicap (accusation of a "transport of deficiency"). The
theoretical category of the critical sociology ("reconversion of capital") is thus part of the
systematical sources of injustice and motives for critique that the sociology of critique
reveals.
In comparison with Dewey's pragmatism
I shall now turn to aspects of critique and justification which relate to public problems and
which Bourdieu's critical sociology did not address. On these aspects, fruitful comparisonsshould be drawn between the model of the sense of justice that we found common to the
plurality of orders of worth and political or social philosophies which theorized
justice (Rawls, Walzer), or the pragmatic and normative requirements of the communicative
public space (Habermas).5
Within the context of this workshop, I shall limit myself to a
comparison with Dewey's pragmatist approach which fully dealt with public problems.
When Boltanski and Thvenot developed the key notion of "test" (preuve), they were not
influenced by Dewey but by Latour's "trial", although they twisted it in a completely different
notion, from Latour's "trial of force" (preuve de force) to a "reality test" (preuve de ralit)
involved in the qualification for worth. But one could find a former origin to both these
notions in Dewey's main concern for uncertainty and experience, for trials and tests, and his
insistence on the high dependency on the surroundings, a concern which is not so strong in
Bourdieu. The tests for profitable knowledge is "imposed by surroundings, which are only in
part compatible and reinforcing" and "these surroundings test its strength and measure itsendurance". In contrast to Latour's trials of force, Dewey praises "intelligently directed
experience" against "casual and uncritical experience" (Dewey 1929 [1925], chap.III). Here is
the basis for his notion of "critique", with a sense which is closer to scientific inquiry than the
exposition of unjust and abusive power or domination. This kind of test grounds Dewey's
critical stance and delineates his approach to public problems. Yet "to be intelligently
experimental is but to be conscious of this intersection of natural conditions so as to profit by
it instead of being at its mercy", so that "a fulfillment comes and is pronounced good, is
judgedgood". The additional notion of the good is explicitly there, in contrast to Latour.
Unlike Boltanski and Thvenot however, there is no consideration for the confrontation of a
plurality of most legitimate species of the common good.
Dewey's notion of "common interest" or "shared interest" is defined after a process of
communication, when "the consequences of conversation extend beyond the two directly
concerned, that they affect the welfare of many others, the act acquires a public
capacity" (Dewey 1946 [1927], chap. I). Actually the process relies of the default of some
good, and it is the recognition of "evil consequences" which forces to reflect upon
interconnected behavior. Consequently Dewey is hostile to the notion that aggregated
collective action constitutes a community. He insists on the "participation in activities and
sharing in results" which "demand communication as a prerequisite", and not only the "frozen
words of written speech" but "the winged [ails] words of conversation" and dialogue as
5 On the comparison with Rawls and Walzer, see: Thvenot 1995, Boltanski and Thvenot 2000.
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well (id., chap.V, VI). For this reason, he is constantly preoccupied by what is referred to as
participative democracy. He highlights appropriate methods of education and training which
are needed for such participation to prevail.
"Concerted action" accounts for the "becoming institutionalized" of natural events, the rule
being nothing but "standardized habit" (Dewey 1929 [1925], chap.III). In this perspective,institutions and rules are to be flexible and criticized, and we shall not find in Dewey an
account of their specific strength or power which actually make them distinct from habits. Yet
his observation about "symbolism" reminds us of Durkheim "effervescence collective" and
we should now turn to Durkheim's legacy to find another source of inspiration for a stronger
notion of institution: "[symbolism is] a product of reflection upon direct phenomena", not a
"cold, intellectual sign of a social organization", but the social organization "made present and
visible, a center of emotionally charged behavior" (Dewey 1929 [1925], chap.III)
In comparison with Durkheim's legacy
Durkheim was not officially invited to our confrontation. Nevertheless, I feel obliged to call
for him now. Considering his legacy, and the way his approach to institutions and forms of
thought (formes de connaissance) was elaborated in new directions by Bourdieu and
Boltanski-Thvenot, will clarify differences with Dewey's pragmatism and even sharperdivergences with Dewey's sociological interactionist legacy. Another reason for summoning
him now is that he has been abundantly used in the later movement of social constructivism,
although he preventively distanced himself from the risk of relativism. Social constructivism
is now strongly attacked for its relativism, by the tenants of the reactive wave of
"Standardized factuality", if I may put it this way, which is presently invading politics and
social affairs and, among other domains, the welfare policies which I chose here as an
illustrative case study. This reaction is also at the background of our workshop agenda.
Bourdieu and Boltanski on classifications
The way Durkheim and Mauss related classificatory schemes to social groups, and the way
the late Durkheim linked forms of thought to religion and social ties, were quite influential on
Bourdieu's sociology. But the agonistic transformation of social groups into conflicting social
classes gave a different thrust to Bourdieu's understanding of the "social usages ofcategorization". Even in his late proposal to go beyond both Cassirer's symbolic forms and
Durkheim's "form on thought", the variations in the cognitive disposition towards the world
remain related to social positions. By contrast, pragmatist's differentiation like James' "various
type of thinking" or Hacking's "styles of reasoning" are not related to social positions but to
different modes of accommodating reality depending on purposes. These two differentiations
are again "perpendicular", one linked to the disposition of the person and the other to the
disposition of the situation.
Boltanski collaborated at length with Bourdieu and was deeply involved in the creation of the
journalActes de la recherche en sciences sociales. In relation to the former topic, they wrote
together about "dominant ideology" and classification struggles as class struggles (Bourdieu
et Boltanski 1974). Later he developed a proper analysis of the representation of social
groups, using the case of professionals ("cadres") (1987 [1982]). It was a first contribution to
understanding the way persons get "bigger" through collective representation.
The paradox of coded forms
Being ten years younger than Boltanski, I joined later Bourdieu's research group, after an
initial training in mathematics and economics, and stayed for a much shorter time than he did
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leads to a considerable stretching of the notion of institution which comes to include any
"social practices", as most frequently termed today, or even "social rituals". When we get to
this point, the benefit of the strong first affirmative side of the institution is lost.
Boltanski and Thvenot on "monte en gnralit"
Both our parallel and collaborative work with Boltanski led to the understanding of
justification/critiqueand two-sided conventions or engagement in my own workwhich
captures both this moments. At the beginning of this collaboration, I was elaborating the
notion of "investment in form" for costly construction operations which spare actors the work
of forging resemblances and crafting equivalencies in each situation and, in return, yield
coordination output that varies by three characteristics: time span, spatial extension and the
solidity of the related material equipment (Thvenot 1984). From my experience of going to
and fro between sociological investigations based on interviews and observations and
statistical surveys, I realized that these two forms of knowledge were not in the relation of
particular monographs to general evidence, or qualitative to quantitative as currently stated,
but that they were linked to different ways of making people and things general, either by
comparing entities to a prototype or putting them in series according to criteria. I also noticed
these two modes of categorization in classifying activities. I also noticed that proximity to aprototype and statistical frequency both rest on differently shaped material evidence and
involvement of objects, while what counts as relevant evidence is quite different in the two
cases. In the link between cognition and coordination, objects offer strong mediations:
different investments of forms generate different forms of the probable, differentconstraints on what can be proved and offered as relevant evidence. From experiencing the
concrete support which techniques and methods bring in the way statistical codes coordinate
activities, I was attentive to the role of material arrangements in equivalency-making and
these orientations gave rise to a research program on the " economies of conventional forms"
in organization.
On his side, Boltanski was studying the process of detaching from singularity
("dsingulariser") which is required to support general causes and, when it fails, provokes the
"denunciative" judgment of abnormality that third parties produce (Boltanski, Darr et Schitz
1984).9
Together, we run a large experimental research program on "finding one's way insocial space" (Boltanski and Thvenot 1983). It documented laymen capacity of social
categorization. This boundary paper marks the turning point from Bourdieu's "sens social"
perspective to studying the relation between representation and evaluation which resulted in
the notion of order of worth. In our avenues of research, one can notice both Durkheim's
legacy used in a quite different way from Bourdieu, and a departure from Durkheim in the
analyses of the operations (and failures) of "monte en gnralit", as we coined them with a
phrase and notion that were largely taken up. The phrase, which is not easy to translate in
English, encapsulates the formatting that allows abstraction from situated things and people,
generalization and circulation. But what about characterizations which are not based on such
general forms of equivalence, that Dewey and Bourdieu seems to favor and which notions of
"social practice" or "practical knowledge", "tacit knowledge" are opposing to (Knorr-Cetina
Schatzki Savigny, 2001)? The answer to this question led to the next step of the analytical
framework which I will present now for the sake of discussing notions of practice.
2. THE SECOND PLURALISM OF REGIMES OF ENGAGEMENT: THE
EXTENSION OF CRITIQUE
On Justification was dedicated to studying actions that are submitted to public judgment. It
deliberately left aside other kind of actions and their appreciation. While we prepared the
9 In On Justification we adopted a different concept of "denunciation" that designates the critical reduction of
one order of worth on the ground of another.
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"bad faith" ("mauvaise foi") highlights processes involved in the substantialist reduction of the
engagement in plan which are different from the instrumental subjection of another human
being. He assumes as existential the "project" format i.e. a human being free to make the
choice of her goal. His analysis of the "facticity" of the "being-in-itself" displays the
alienation of the one who denies (bad fait) her freedom of choice and behaves as an objectamong constraining circumstances. Sartre does not take into account parallel reductions
related to other engagement, since he sticks to the project format, the explicit reason why
Bourdieu was so critical against him.
The asymmetrical exploitation of the reduction: extending the analysis of domination
When at least two persons are involved, A can asymmetrically exploit the substantialist
reduction, deliberately taking advantage of it at the expense of B. In order for the reduction to
be beneficial to him, A shows "bad faith" i.e. only faith in the guaranteed side, but bad faith
because of his intent to deceive. He manifests the one-sided confidence in order to induce B in
the same stance. In some more or less formal agreementdepending on the regime of
engagementA communicates B, possibly implicitly, that he counts on this guaranteed side:
worthy qualification, good will or little routine. In the second operation, A takes for granted
this one side as a fact, assuming that it is established without any questioning. In the thirdoperation, A makes out of it a property of B who is thus trapped in this facticity. B is assumed
a fixed conventional quality without concern for the dynamics of the situation, or a fixed
project without any demand for revision in its achievement, or a fixed routine ability without
the slightest accommodating to the surroundings. How does A "exploits" this substantialist
reduction? Quite simply, he plays on the two faces of the engagement. He remembers for his
own benefit all that was forgotten in the three reductive operations. For his own sake he takes
full advantage of the opening side of the engagement while relying on the entrapped other,
locked in theprima facie of the engagement as if there were no opening for inquietude and
dynamics of revision. A is an "exploiter", or more precisely exploiteurin a former meaning of
the French term pointing to the one who abuses, for his one profit, the trust of someone else.
But the notion of "trust" is considerably enriched by the approach of the dynamics of
engagement and their pluralism.
Exploitation can remain invisible if A, well aware of the limited landmarks of the confidenceengaged, uses profitably the room for maneuver that it leaves. Or bad faith can be cynically
expressed in case A reproaches B not to have properly behaved. The reproach means that B
did not open her conduct to convenient revisions as "it" was expected. In fact, "it" hides A's
own expectations for the benefit of his maneuver. But, because of the former reduction to the
face value of the engagement, there was no way to anticipate the need for revision. At the
level of mutual familiarity engagement, this bad faith reduction is a very common feature of
male domination when living with a partner although the reverse can happen in the alleged
feminine bad faith.
The maneuver can get more complex and involve several regimes of engagement. For
instance, current organizational work will imply a cascade of regimes most of them, if not all,
suffering from the substantialist reduction and being used for exploitation. A "agrees" with B
that, for a conventionally qualified duty (publicly justifiable engagement) to be properly done,
B will act normally, through normal actions (engaging in a plan), and even behave as she is inthe habit of doing it, as usual, with her own little routine (familiar engagement), and possibly
be watchful and vigilant to changes and new opportunities in an ever-changing
environment (exploration engagement). Exploitation comes from the limited number of
engagements among this cascade which are acknowledged with their two faces and opened to
dynamical evaluation and thus, to remuneration. The "culture of audit" or omnipresent
evaluation is actually hiding these limitations and ensuing exploitations. By analyzing the
exploitation of the substantialist reduction, we can offer an new extension of the analysis of
mechanisms of domination.
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The encounter of the plurality of engagements: extending to oppression thedomain of critique
Just as the first pluralism of orders of worth arouses critical tensions between them as well as
efforts for compromising, the second pluralism of engagements entails pressures from one
regime to another. I use the word pressure rather than the phrase critical tension which
suggests publicity. Troubling pressures can lead to the expression of inconvenience, but not
necessarily through criticizing and arguing since the use of language and argument is
unequally appropriate for the different regimes below the public engagements.
Structural tyranny from one regime upon another
The tyranny of one regime upon another implies that one kind of good is stifled by anoother.
The differentiation of regimes allows a systematic account of this source of pressure and of
the resulting oppressions. Such pressures are not adequately grasped by the
collective/individual or even public/private oppositions, since strain is neither a matter of
aggregation, nor of trespassing. The pressure which a regime puts on another discredits the
realistic confidence engaged, and prejudices the good pursued. Moreover the public/private
distinction is too dependent on the liberal architecture to capture the familiar engagement nor
the pressure on it from the engagement in an individual plan which occupies an intermediary
position with regard to the public. Benefiting the differentiation, we can analyze the
consequences of the contemporary insistence on individual will, choice, consent or autonomy.
It does not only eclipses the higher level of the common public, as Dewey rightfully noted.
The format of individual project achievement relying on a functionally seized world puts also
high pressure on the lower level of familiar accommodation. And since such attachments
support self-confidence and has a strong part in the consistency of the person, the damage to
this engagement causes more than discomfort or embarrassment, and results in humiliation.
Fieldwork research based on this approach documented these pressures in a variety of
domains of social change: welfare and health policies, workplace organization, life together in
communities. These studies also brought to light the tyranny of most public regimes which
discredit familiar attachments, as well as the reverse tyranny of close attachments which
threatens the good of public engagements.
The analytical framework of the second pluralism calls for an extension of current approachesto critique. Everyday critique which is explicitly oriented towards a public judgment relying
on a qualified reality test, or sociological critique which leaves more implicit its normative
basis, converge in assuming legitimate third party forms of evaluations of the good. By
contrast with tensions stemming from the first pluralism of the orders of worth, which
produce a main source of public criticism, the pressures resulting from the second pluralism
of regimes do not immediately or invariably lead to such criticism since they lack a shared
level of publicity. Revisions ensuing testing experience in non public regimes do not lead to a
critical and argued reaction based on conventional qualification. In the engagement in plan,
revision can be reported with oral, unqualified ordinary language which lacks the formal
conventional control but, thanks to its embedded grammar of action, usually fits the format of
planned action achieved with adjusted functionality. The material support for relevant
information should be a tool or environment offering functional grip or clutch. They can be
used by different actors to evaluate the achievement of the action in plan and the rightfunctioning, without further conventional qualification. Public critique consisting in
disqualification with respect to the common good is replaced by the critical assessment of
dysfunction. In the familiarity engagement, the testing experience is more personalized and
localized, depending on the path of familiarization. Disruption of confidence which lead to
uneasiness. Embarrassment is not expressed in articulate language at first. Bodily gestures are
appropriate ways of signaling the relevant information, initially for oneself, in the form of
clues or indices which are spotted in the surroundings.
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find their path to public criticism. It should also embrace mechanism which can be exploited
to maintain unquestioned asymmetries of power.
We can sketch out this comparison reefing to broad domains of social, political and economic
change on which the three considered social theories inspired a large amount of research, and
on which I also have run empirical collective research program. The first one deals withwelfare and education policies in action or practice, together with participative democracy
dynamics The second deals with the regulation of policies and politics including economical
ones, and the investments in standardization and evaluation tools which are implemented for
the coordination of action. We have studied both theses domain in France but also in a
comparative perspective with other European countries, and with the US in some cases,
aiming at a view on differences and global changes. Each domain undergoes massive changes
and questions social theories about their ability to deal with them.
Welfare and educational policies, participative democracy
A lot of research inspired by Bourdieu's theory has been devoted to educational and social
work. The reason is that professionals occupied in these domains have been particularly
targeted by the unveiling of the symbolic violence they exert. Inculcating the values of the
dominant class and bringing discredit on working-class culture, they are pointed out asunconscious agents of the reproduction of domination. As such, they are considered as
members of a specific socio-occupational category, "professions intermediaries". As a matter
of fact, Alain Desrosires and Laurent Thvenot created a new category with this design when
they were revising the French socio-occupational classification (Desrosires et Thvenot
1988).
This unveiling would certainly challenge Dewey's claim that professions of education and
social work actively contribute to educating for a more participative democracy. More
generally, Bourdieu's critical sociology is highly suspicious towards claims for democracy
and, as a result, discloses strong limitations on these pretensions. For example he stated that
the democratization of the French educational system did not change significantly the
reproduction of domination because of the devaluation of diplomas and reorientation on
selective curricula. With the analysis of the "noblesse d'Etat", he points to the reproduction of
an elite class through socialization from their milieu to personal bonds forged in grandescoles. Actually this unveiling converges with the actors' denunciation of the hidden
transportation of Domestic worth into the realm of Civic worth. More generally this critical
sociology points to the monopolizing of representative positions by the same persons which
consequently do not represent their constituency. In addition, intellectuals, political experts
and intermediaries involved in the promoters of participative democracy are frequently
members of the dominated fraction of the dominant class and their activity has few impact on
the "overall field of power", by contrast to those who have in their possession economic
capital. This critical sociology is mainly dedicated to debunking claims of democratization or
of social change which hides conversion of capital and perpetuation of domination. With this
specialization, it is highly valuable in pushing further the critical stance.
Dewey's contribution to this domain is completely different. It might even seem, at first sight,
opposed to the previous one and certainly is, in some aspects. Dewey's developments on non
authoritarian relationships and learning have had large influence on research, training courses
and practice in the domains of education, social work and participative democracy. These are
the key domains to which he expects his philosophy to contribute, in fostering the critical
construction of options and values within the process of inquiry and search. As mentioned
before, his notion of critique is mainly issued from the scientific and experimental method. As
such, it does not directly relate to critical tensions coming from the denunciation of abusive
powers, and the interplay between different orders in particular. In terms of orders of worth,
his contribution has a strong bias in favor of the Industrial worth because of the way he
conceives the reality test in the process of inquiry and investigation, and even the contribution
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(i) Although standard-setting procedures and committees offer the opportunity to contrast and
confront different specifications of the common good and orders of worth (Industrial, Market,
Civic, Renown and Inspiration), the outcome is a quality, qualification or certification.
This encapsulation of a plurality of engagements in the thing in itself is a requirement for the
extension of Market coordination which assumes that goods (merchandises) and their qualityare common knowledge. As a consequence the Market worth is placed in a superordinate
position with regards to other orders of worth which are reduced to qualities of the market
goods and not conflicting claims for the common good, on the same level as the Market worth
of competition. Thus market convention of coordination integrates a plurality of other
conventions at a lower level and in the reduced form of objective qualities.
This reduction of engagement into the measurable properties of separated entities is a clear
case of the "substantialist reduction" that I analyzed before, disclosing the exploitation
mechanism associated with it.
(ii) The "governing with standards" move is not only market-worthy and market-driven. It can
be positively evaluated with respect to the construction of the public (good) according to
political liberalism. Then the issue is not market competition which requires the common
knowledge identificationqualityof market goods, but freedom of individual choice. The
change in the domain of regulations marked by the expansion of standardization andcertification can thus be presented as some sort of individual "liberation", and be supported by
the critique against abusive power of centralized and hierarchical regulations. We reach here
the paradoxical aspect of the ongoing change : more standardization for more
individualization.13
In fact "choice" requires the preliminary consolidation of options, the
formatting of a range of plans in between which one is chosen: the prerequisite of individual
choice is engagement in a plan. This liberal political construction necessitates the
infrastructure of well formatted autonomous options. When applied to welfare, educational or
health policies, this formatted options are hard to obtain since professional services are to
include care for familiar attachments, as we have seen before. When studying safety
standards, I could already analyze the difficulty raised by familiar uses to the standardization
process which demands, at least, functional engagement in a plan, in order to devise the
testing procedures. Consequently, standardization dramatically downplays and oppresses the
familiarity engagement, or relies on routine (Breviglieri 2004), the result of substantialistreduction of this engagement.
(iii) Since it privileges the level of engaging in a plan, governing with standard reduces both
the appeal to, an debate on, the upper level of the plurality of orders of worth or specifications
of the common good, and the opening to the lower level of familiar engagement and
attachments. This limitation corresponds to a general move in the way policies are evaluated
nowadays by targeted "objectives" and functional factors. Public critique as a disqualification
with respect to the common good is replaced by critical assessment of dysfunction. Even
European law has undergone a similar transformation with the expansion of the notion of
"directive" which targets an objective.
This limitation fosters the confusion between a guaranteealways dependant to the
specification of some kind of good and open to inquietudeand a fact. Certification is
becoming pure measurement. The deep movement of "evidence-based policy" now reaching
Europe after the US is typical of this confusion. And the ensuing "hard facts" orientation is
striving to shroud all the benefits brought to the understanding of measurement, quantification
and qualification by the non relativist constructivist approaches here considered, and the
science studies.
13 In contradiction to Arendt's diagnoses of simple mass standardization. I ironically coined the
paradoxical conjunction of standardization and individualization, " les standards de la libert" playing with the
phrase "l'tendard de la libert" (standard of liberty) which reminds us that a standard is, originally, the flag
raised as a rallying point
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