The Extent of Cultural Capital in the Technological Age - Literature review Example

The Extent of Cultural Capital in the Technological Age Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, a book by Pierre Bourdieu,analyses surveys and empirical studies conducted on the middle class sector of France, the so-called bourgeois class. The study made a distinction of the different cultures and ways of life of the people in that era, and concluded that cultural capital begins at home, in childhood upbringing, the way children are brought up or dressed, taught and schooled. Cultural capital is the capital we invest at home. We treat our children to become good-mannered and well-poised, dress them formally, and send them to exclusive schools so that when they grow up, they get jobs that suit to their training. Employers hire persons with good upbringing or those who dress well and move and act formally. The term capital is used because we use it in the form of investment, as in we invest money and effort in rearing children and in return we take the gain when they grow up and have good and fulfilling jobs. In childhood, the status of life affects or “moulds” the kind of person that someone is brought up. The Theory “The concept of cultural capital originated in the work of Pierre Bourdieu (1979, pp. 10, 12), who defined it as high cultural knowledge that ultimately redounds to the owners financial and social advantage” (Science Encyclopedia in Answers.com). Cultural capital can produce positive attitude in work, successful employees who can be good assets to the company, the sort of employees who are able to make suggestions for the company’s improvement, and who strive hard for personal success and the organization’s success as well. They are said to be “products” of good cultural capital. My personal application of this theory is that we become the way our environment shapes us to be. From childhood to adulthood, our physical upbringing is influenced much by environmental factors and the ways and methods these factors are introduced to us. We are introduced into new and different worlds as we grow and develop, from art to fashion, to the different ways of living, we become what these factors want us to be. Underlying questions can be formed from this situation. What kind of class are we in? Are there still classes or factions in this new age of technology? Classes can only be generic, meaning for as long as we strive and work for our own successes, we go through different stages or classes, depending on the income and the way of life that we have achieved. Moreover, we are now living in a different world, different from what it used to be some years ago. The global village – it is a world of effective and fast communication, computers and the internet, means of transportation faster than the speed of sound; everything has changed dramatically from medical breakthroughs to art and entertainment. Likewise, students who are studying and working hard in their studies for future careers are preparing for a so-called “bigger and smaller” world. Their interactions with social media is a preparation for their later lives filled with excitement, or frustration, as they battle the competition and the “survival-of-the-fittest” strategies in the business world. I would like to relate a personal experience relative to this. Personally, I was brought up in a way that I am to strive for something that I would like to attain. This is something that involves my development as a child. As I grew up to adulthood, my environment and the genes that compose my physical being are slowly and carefully developed by the way this environment is applied in my daily living. Like for example, I love to study and put a lot of efforts into it. I also love to imagine that I’m working in a big multinational, doing the nine to five and, sad to say, the repetitious paperwork. As I reflect on my personal life, I try to see what lies ahead of my student life. I think we all do that – reflect on the future. What really lies ahead? As I have said, we students work hard for the future, an uncertain future but a world with a survival of the fittest environment. What we have forgotten is that the future is now. We are living (once again) in a bigger and smaller world. We have to do it now. I mean this is not a preparation but the real job that we should be doing, so that when time comes – that period when we truly encounter the survival-of-the-fittest strategies of the modern business world, we are prepared and all ready to fight. My point is we are not in the preparation stage but are now in the real world, a world full of ups and downs (sometimes almost all downs, no ups), that has been aggravated by the application of technology, computers, the internet, machines, robots, and so on and so forth. We strive to do things to make life easy. But has life become easy and simplified in the 21st century? With computers, the internet, cell phones, gadgets, in the outer space we have the satellites, and here the buttons we push that tend to make everything handy, life has been complicated for the modern person. A different world of work for us In a book about work, David Firth, “an international consultant, writer and conference speaker who works with individuals and companies intent on embracing the future”, says that for many “work has never shifted beyond the mundane and the repetitious” (Firth 46). While we tend to regard work sometimes as burden, we always have the negative feeling about it. What could be the reason for this kind of attitude on work? Is it in a person’s so-called cultural capital? Or the moment that person was brought up at home and in school, there always used to be the feeling that work was some kind of punishment or burden? You really don’t have time to appreciate work. You sweat and get tired of work. You dedicate all your time and efforts; you become or tend to become a workaholic. Is it because you wanted to, or it’s in your upbringing? In this book, Firth (2002) narrates the history of work, from the beginning work was used as punishment for a sin committed. In the Garden of Eden, the serpent tempts Eve, and Eve tempts Adam, and all hell breaks loose. Man was destined to work forever, till the land, and sweat for the food he eats. But now, since we are in the technological age, work has shifted from the very difficult to difficult, to not-so difficult. However, it’s the same “mundane and repetitious” work. My question here is with all the cultural capital that we have invested, and the new high-tech and modern machines, were all these made for man’s comfort, to make life easy for the “modern” man? The answer to this is not necessarily. Everything has been as complicated as ever. “We now stare at computer screens of mind-boggling complexity, as we juggle messages, text documents, Power Point presentations, spreadsheets and Web browsers” (Thompson 2006). There are always difficulties, complications, and problems that we have inflicted upon ourselves. This is the cultural capital now that have burdened us in our lives. What about the child who is not brought up with a cultural capital? This is the creature living in the other side of the cultural divide, people living with no internet connection, with not even a computer at home or in school, or those who are simply not “wired”. What will happen to them? Since they have no cultural capital, they will have no knowledge of the new technology, or even the basic of computer literacy and programming. Question of Upbringing I would like to relate a personal experience with reference to the cultural capital that I’ve had. I love what I find most fulfilling as a student and as the new “being” of this technological age. I love stories and literature about different genres, stories of people, and sometimes crime fiction in books and films. Yes, the kind of media that I really love is police and crime fiction in films. Sometimes I ask what triggers my inner self to love crime fiction in films. What triggers my subconscious for my love of crime fiction? The genre is my favorite as a dessert like cake or ice cream. This question has been intriguing me, and not only me but my classmates and close friends who abhor my taste for the kind of genre that I read in books and watch in films. Am I a violence-prone individual, who loves the gory scenes and people getting killed and dying in films? A crime scene investigation, a follow-up activity with adventures into the gangland, the rich and famous, drugs, money, alcohol, all these have been a part of a viewing experience that thrills me, even when I was growing up. It’s not the dead body, the violence, the physical abuse, and the blood, that thrill me; there’s more to what meets my eyes. I hate blood and killing; I’m not a sadist or a violence-prone individual, but just a growing-up student of films and suspense stories of people, their psyche, temperament, everything that revolves around the story that leads to an individual’s urge to commit crimes. It’s the entire concept of investigation that thrills me; it’s the whole police/crime story. When the main character is able to solve the crime after the complex process of investigation, the climax, the problems are solved, and all the other flaws are resolved, that’s when I’m able to relax and say, “It’s a great movie. It’s been a fine day.” What’s so striking about police and crime stories? They’re buried in my psyche, and this soon would mix with other genres, like love story, or a crime of passion, adventure, sometimes horror, and as the main protagonist goes on solving the crime, plots and sub-plots evolve. With crime as the main subject of the film, the story can revolve around the commission and the solution; you are assured of continuity. Crime plots in films are for me satisfying. It means what and why you are there inside the movie theater; it fulfills your movie experience. Inside the theater, you are concentrated, alone in your seat, with no one, nothing to distract you. When I see a film, I am there to be thrilled, to be frightened, but after this thrilling and frightening experience, my fears and worries are healed and gone when I see that my favorite actor, the lead character of the movie, is able to complete the story by capturing the antagonist (a serial killer perhaps, or somebody who turns out to be the wife or husband of the victim). When I feel this kind of movie experience, I would like to turn back to the time when I was a child. My “thrilling” experience was when I heard one of those true stories from an aunt as she was narrating a sort of “serial killing” at the time. I heard it clearly that one of our neighbors was then apprehended by the police. It was a year of follow-up investigation, and the subject was the talk of the town for many weeks and months. A serial killer in my neighborhood! I got sleepless nights. But I was thrilled, and sometimes I would really feel excitement inside the family blanket. My, oh my, my aunt’s face is forever here in my youthful memory, as she narrated her knowledge of what turned out later to be a gossip (this I learned just recently). Although the experience turned out to be a funny situation later on, it started my interest in “crimes” and police stories, stories that shook me to the bones. As I grew older, my inner longing for the sort of stories turned into films. It was also something like an awakening that I learned to love reading crime fiction stories. And with the surge of new technology and effects in filmmaking, good stories and plots of really the best writers and filmmakers in Hollywood, it has become not only my sort of leisure time, but to “clear” the day, after a hard day’s study, or weekend recreation. I would go to my favorite theater for a feel of the next “victim” and follow-up investigation / adventure of my favorite actor; but when there’s none, I really have to go to other places, and scout for new “crime” stories. Conclusion Cultural capital is important in our lives but we are living in a world where different cultures are exposed to everyone. We are living in a world where everyone likes to be independent, where families are broken, and properties seemed to be the ultimate goal for every person and every nation alive on the planet. Cultural capital just grows in us. It becomes generic; meaning in this world of technology and the internet, a “bigger and smaller” world, cultural capital just grows in every person. We live in a global village; at any moment we can go to the other side of the world, we can communicate with other people at the end of the globe, we are influenced by not only the environment around us but by the “bigger and smaller” world, of a wired and high-tech world. The internet is a big influence to all of us. This can be a cultural capital for many of the young generation. It’s there inside the comfort of our homes a culture distinct from our own environment, yet open and ready for us to know and maybe apply in our lives. Reference Firth, David, 2002. Life and Work Express. United Kingdom: Capstone Publishing. Thompson, Clive, 2006. Meet the life hackers. Reader’s Digest June, 2006 edition. Science Encyclopedia (n.d.). Cultural Capital – Examples of cultural capital, occupational culture and competence, immigrant, experience, bibliography. Available from: http://science.jrank.org/pages/7607/Cultural-Capital.html [cited 13 October 2008] Pierre Bourdieu, 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, translated by Richard Nice. London & New York: Outledge & Kegan Paul Read More