Final Week

I don't know if we are supposed to post this week? I was only able to skim over various aspects of The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Societies by Pierre Bourdieu and it definitely looks like a book that I will go back to and read for myself. AllI can give is a brief synonpsis of the book. It is a series of interviews from people in various life situations and different backgrounds to see what there life is like in the midst of intercultural diffusion

To understand what happens in places like "projects" or "housing developments" as well as in certain kinds of schools, places which bring together people who have nothing in common and force them to live together, either in mutual ignorance and incomprehension or else in latent or open conflict - with all the suffering this entails - it is not enough to explain each point of view separately. (3)

What we, who are privelaged, are given to think about these projects is extrememly one-sided. We must begin to look at these places as complex and intricate, whose problems are unique to there environment. The same problems cannot be plastered on to all low-income housing projects.

But using material proverty as the sole measure of all suffering keeps us from seeing and understanding a whole side of the suffering characteristic of a social order which, although it has undoubtedly reduced poverty overall (thoug less than oftern claimed) has also multiplied the social spaces (specialized fields and subfields) and set up the conditions for an unprecedented development of all kinds of ordinary suffering. (4)

I think this is the goal of this book. Again I was only able to glance it over, but it seemed like the interviews were amongst a relatively wide spectrum of French people. The stories seemed really good and range from informative, to funny, to sad. Hope all is well in the last week of the quarter. Blessings