Dangerous Discourses: Methodological Conservatism and Governmental Regimes of Truth

Abstract

Years ago, while on a European trip, I met a former student of Pierre Bourdieu's-a bright, witty, and amusing fellow who'd studied in France with the great man. He recounted a story of how some of the most profound theoretical statements in postmodern times eventuated. He was sitting in on a conversation with Bourdieu and a half dozen of his colleagues and their own doctoral students while the senior professors were discussing the meaning of the rise of feminism, identity politics, postcolonial critiques (particularly from out of North Africa, where France had had a presence for many years in Algeria), poststructural critiques of literary theory, and the like. There was great consternation among the sociologists for what they believed to be displacement of their rightful ownership of the Great Ideas of Western history. After some serious and lengthy discussion of what to do about these women, colonial peoples, and other interlopers into the canon, Bourdieu is reported to have expostulated vehemently, All right [Eh, bien].... If we cannot be the center, there IS no center! [Si nous ne peut pas etre le centre, il n'y a pas le centre!]