Imperialist Reason: Bourdieu & Wacquant's Critique of Universalization

Imperialist Reason: Bourdieu & Wacquant's Critique

Note on notation: ≠ means 'is/are not'; = means 'is/are' or 'means'.

Understanding Cultural Imperialism

• Cultural imperialism rests on the power to universalize particularisms linked to a historical tradition. Indeed, nothing is more universal than the pretension to the universal, or more accurately, to the universalization of a particular vision of the world.
• The central focus of this text is **universalization** across philosophical, sociological, historical, and political dimensions.
• This universalization, reinforced by media repetition and broadcast, progressively transforms specific facts into universal common sense.
• Cultural imperialism, whether American or otherwise, imposes itself most effectively when served by *progressive intellectuals* (or by 'intellectuals of color' in cases of racial inequality). These individuals appear to be above suspicion, wielding the weapons of social criticism against the very country whose hegemonic interests they inadvertently promote.

Dynamics of Collective Recognition

• The forms through which individuals seek to have their collective existence and membership recognized by the state vary across times and places, functioning as historical traditions. These forms always constitute a stake of struggle throughout history.
• Consequently, a rigorous and generous comparative analysis can, even without its authors realizing it, contribute to *posing a problem* for individuals outside the U.S.

The American Exception & Dehistoricization

• If the U.S.A. is truly exceptional, it is due to its capacity to impose as universal that which is most particular to itself, while simultaneously presenting as exceptional that which makes it most common.
• **Dehistoricization** is a direct consequence of the migration of ideas across national boundaries.
• Dehistoricization is one of the key factors contributing to derealization and false universalization.

Towards a Deeper Understanding of Ideas

• For intellectuals to better master these instruments—the terms, notions, concepts, and themes discussed throughout this analysis—and not be obliged to argue about them beforehand, there is a critical need for a genuine history of the genesis of ideas about the social world. This must be combined with an analysis of the social mechanisms governing the international circulation of those ideas.