Forms of Capital: Bourdieu and 11 Ways to Be Rich

When we think of the term “wealth” we are usually used to associating it with terms of money or property. Sometimes we will also talk about a person who is "rich in knowledge" or even "rich in friends". But sociology offers us a variety of ways to look at what makes us rich.

In his book "Forms of Capital", the renowned sociologist Pierre Bourdieu proposes to introduce, in addition to the discussion of economic capital, the concepts of social capital, cultural capital and symbolic capital. According to Bourdieu, social capital describes the human connection resources of human beings, their friends, the community and the dating and collaboration systems. The people we know, our connections and our frameworks of belonging can according to Bourdieu promote us in life and contribute to the level of wealth no less than the amount of money we have in the bank.

Cultural capital, according to Bourdieu, is the amount of knowledge a person has. Knowledge is capital no less than money because it can also be used by us to improve our situation in the world and live a better and more comfortable life.

Symbolic capital is expressed in the prestige and appreciation that a person receives. Even if I am a person who is not particularly rich in economic terms or even not particularly smart (cultural capital), I can still be rich in a sense if I gain privileged status within a particular community and people’s appreciation.

According to Bourdieu's theory, the different types of capital can be converted between them. For example, I can use my economic capital to acquire education (cultural capital) and use my education to acquire prestige and appreciation (symbolic capital) and through them also a system of connections (social capital). If I am rich in social capital then I can use it to improve my economic options and so on and so forth. According to Bourdieu, the different types of capital play an important role in social stratification and the replication of social status, since the upper classes in society tend to hold high levels of all types of capital.

 

Other forms of capital

Bourdieu's theory was developed to account for several other forms of capital:

Economic capital can be divided into several different types of capital, including financial capital, which is expressed in terms of money in the bank, and material capital, which is expressed in physical assets and assets. Similarly, cultural capital can be divided into academic capital that expresses a person's secondary education and the ability to translate it into success and professional capital that expresses a person's skills, training and certification system.

Another type of capital is individual capital which is defined as a talent or special qualities that a person has. Individual capital includes various skills (painting talent, music, etc.) but also personal skills such as creativity, initiative, daring, charisma and more.

Another type of capital is experiential capital that expresses a person's experiences in his life that he can translate into various benefits (almost every workplace today would prefer actual experience over theoretical training). Finally, another type of capital is spiritual capital which expresses a special accumulation of a combination of cultural, experiential and sometimes also social and even symbolic capital that brings the person to a better quality of life through a spiritual way.

See also: Bourdieu's Field Theory Explained

Suggested reading on Bourdiue:

  

Sartre and the Conflict Between Love and Freedom

For the existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre there is nothing more important than freedom. Love, for him, must be free love in the sense of free choice, both of the lover and of the lover. According to him, the relationship we have with the person we love and who loves us back cannot be a relationship of belonging in the sense that a certain object belongs to us, partly because we do not belong to the object in the same way that it belongs to us.

However, Sartre's approach to love places him in a certain problem since real, practical love is a relationship that can greatly limit our freedom and present demands to us. Thus when Sartre refers to love he does not compare before his eyes some ideal harmony of mutual complementarily but a difficult and challenging realm of contrasts and conflicts. According to Sartre, the beloved person needs the love of the spouse as well as the approval and recognition of the lover of his choices to be who he is.

However, when we accept the love of another person we risk becoming an object, a particular object articulated in terms of belonging since we adapt ourselves to the desires and expectations of the lover, which hurts our choices. Not only that, the beloved person becomes dependent on love for him and does not want it to end and for the loving person to leave him, not exactly a situation that can be called "freedom". True freedom according to Sartre is also the freedom to change, including the freedom to stop loving. That is why Sartre sees love as an unstable and dangerous realm, a kind of "gamble" on who we are. Sartre maps the dangers inherent in submissive love between sadism and the seduced. Masochism according to Sartre is a submissive submission to the expectations and desires of the lover and adapting himself to who he wants us to be, while self-cancellation. Sadism is the treatment of the beloved as an object that needs to be adapted to our needs.

Either way, when we love we are required to compromise, compromise is one of the greatest dangers to our freedom that is in constant tension with love. Sartre himself tried to apply this concept in his personal life which included the non-binding existence of several relationships in parallel, including with the important thinker Simone de Beauvoir. A person who sanctifies freedom or another case of fear of commitment? You decide.

See also: Sartre on Love and Freedom

Forgive the Unforgivable: Derrida and the Paradox of Forgiveness

When we ask forgiveness from someone, what do we want from him? When someone forgives, what happens? To whom can the power be forgiven and what happens if he refuses to use it?

 

The subject of forgiveness raises many questions, one of which is the so-called "paradox of forgiveness" which can be described as follows: forgiveness is possible only where there is injustice. The more there is to forgive, the less justification there is for forgiveness, because the greater the injustice, the more the offender harms, and the more the victim is harmed.

The French-Jewish philosopher Jacques Derride, one of the proponents of the paradox of forgiveness, argued that "only the unforgivable can be forgiven" (in an article entitled "Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness") He is one who does not justify forgiveness, and therefore cannot be forgiven. There is in forgiveness then something that goes beyond the ordinary, the logical, the required, something that should not happen, forgiveness that should not be accepted, but in some miraculous way does.

Another problem that Derrida points to in the context of forgiveness is that the statement "I forgive you" can actually be a forceful expression of superiority. In forgiveness the forgiver takes upon himself the power of forgiveness and uses his generosity in order to leave himself in a position of power and the forgiven in a position of submission. For Derrida "pure forgiveness" is "forgiveness without power", it is an unconditional forgiveness given without a claim to hierarchy and without placing anyone above the other. It is a forgiveness given to a person unconditionally, without demanding anything from him in return or leaving him committed to that forgiveness. This is the impossible forgiveness, and for Derrida, this is the only forgiveness there is.

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