Ideology in Social Space: Characteristics of the Structure of the Ideological Field Based on the Social Theory of Pierre Bourdieu

Poluboyarinov Andrei Romanovich Postgraduate Student, Department of Social Philosophy, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia 117198, Russia, Moscow, Moscow, miklukho-Maklaya str., 10k2, office 606 poluboyarinovandrey@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction. A characteristic feature of Pierre Bourdieu's social theory is the description of social space, which consists of many social fields functioning according to their inherent patterns. In this article, the author proposes to consider how the laws of social space defined by Pierre Bourdieu manifest themselves in a special place, namely, in the field of ideological production. The main thesis is that the essence of ideology is expressed in the production of a special kind of social conditions, that is, in a certain state of the structure and functioning of the ideological field.

The novelty of the research lies in the interpretation of ideology as a form of capital in a social space that has its own structure of the ideological field and is organized on the basis of its own laws, as well as carrying out the production and reproduction of its own structure.

The ideological field is the same field as any other, with its characteristic correlation of forces and monopolies, struggle and strategies, interests and profits, but in this field all these unchanging components are clothed in a specific form.

Social fields and practices in Pierre Bourdieu's theory, like the rings of Saturn, revolve around agents in social space, simultaneously being external objective and internal internalized structures of the agent. Ravyn Connell notes that for Pierre Bourdieu, "a society or a social formation interpreted at the same level is a self-restoring network of structures where actors with a truly immense number of strategies operate. Through the implementation of these strategies, the structures of society reproduce themselves" ^{[1, p. 21]}.

Ideology in the works of Pierre Bourdieu. In his works, Pierre Bourdieu does not give an idea of the functioning of the ideological field. Moreover, he did not introduce and did not consider the ideological field as an independent social field. The most important contribution to his understanding of ideology is made by the works "Social Space and symbolic Power" and "On Symbolic Power". Pierre Bourdieu deduces the concept of ideology from the concept of a symbolic social field and symbolic capital.

Symbolic capital is a special form of capital that is secondary to other forms. "Symbolic capital is nothing but economic or cultural capital when it becomes known and recognized, when it is recognized by the appropriate categories of perception, since the relations of symbolic power tend to reproduce and strengthen the relations of forces forming the structure of social space ... objective power relations tend to reproduce in the relations of symbolic power" ^{[2, p. 80]}. So, symbolic capital is a symbolic expression of other forms of capital, at the same time it represents the highest form of power. "Symbolic power is the power to create things with the help of words" ^{[2, p. 84]}.

A symbol that becomes not only a reflection of other forms of capital, but also claims to replace these forms (philosophical, religious, legal, and others), transforming all other relations in an unrecognizable form, becomes an ideology. In other words, ideology arises when, under a legitimate guise, symbolic capital transforms and replaces other forms of capital. A symbolic system elevated to the rank of monopoly and granted autonomy becomes an ideological system. "Due to the correspondence between the structures, the ideological function of the dominant discourse itself is fulfilled – a structured and structuring medium that seeks to impose the perception of the established order as natural (orthodoxy) through disguised suggestion... classification systems and mental structures objectively adapted to social structures" ^{[2, p. 94]}.

For each type of capital in Pierre Bourdieu's theory, there is its own representation in symbolic capital, that is, for example, economic capital has its own symbolic representation. At the moment when symbolic capital not only falsely points to the capital that generates it, but also seeks to impose a false and alien symbolic system of one social field on another, then such symbolic capital, driven by imperialist ambitions, becomes ideological. For example, this happens when the symbolic system of the scientific field is displaced and replaced by the symbolic system of the political field, through the symbols of which it becomes impossible to know the real relations in the scientific social field.

Criticism of Pierre Bourdieu's social theory. However, the "extended model" of capital, which extends to cultural, symbolic and other spheres, is often criticized. Ravyn Connell, analyzing Pierre Bourdieu's social theory, emphasizes that "the French researcher significantly expands the concept of the "market", transferring his theoretical argumentation to seemingly "non-market" spheres... Bourdieu's argument "from the market" works even where there is no market in sight" ^{[1, p. 21]}. For Pierre Bourdieu, as for Karl Marx, capital is an established system of social relations, but the "new capitals", despite the practical orientation of the French sociologist's social theory, remain not fully clarified. "Capital is the basic principle of explanation in the works of Pierre Bourdieu, but capital itself is not adequately explained" ^{[3, p. 327]}. Unlike Karl Marx, Pierre Bourdieu does not have a clear concept of capital and its material laws, and "capital", "production", "reproduction" and similar borrowings from economics are used, rather, in metaphorical and metaphysical senses, which gives his research a pseudo-economic character, as Mathieu Desan writes. Although Frederic LeBaron emphasizes that the reference to economic models is only a means for the formation of social theory and analysis of more complex cultural and symbolic systems ^{[4, p. 551]}. Craig Calhoun argues that Pierre Bourdieu's social theory is completely devoid of the idea of capitalism, it has no idea about the process of economic production and labor, and "new capitals" arise through abstraction ^{[5, p. 69]}. In response, Pierre Bourdieu, speaking about the absence of a direct economic justification for "new capital", refers to the fact that the economy is not his sphere ^{[6, p. 139]}. Capital serves as a universal response and a universal cause of social phenomena in the theory of Pierre Bourdieu, but its nature remains beyond analysis, which is one of the differences between the approaches of Karl Marx and Pierre Bourdieu to the consideration of social phenomena.

Characteristics of the ideological field. Developing the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu's general theory of practice, it can be argued that ideology has a social dimension. The system of objective social relations generated by ideology forms the ideological field. The main producing force of any social field is capital, in this case ideological capital.

Reasoning about ideological capital and the interests generated by it allows us to dissociate ourselves from the distinctions that persistently accompany all discussions about ideologies in a hidden form. When considering ideology as a system of social relations, it becomes possible to focus the analysis on specific practices and social relations that develop between agents in society, rather than delve into individual ideological disputes and fundamental insurmountable contradictions that exist between the theoretical premises of different ideologies.

From the strict definition of the ideological field as an objective space of the game, where specific stakes are involved, it follows that it would be in vain to distinguish between the purely theoretical action of ideology and purely social ideological practices, which are usually in dialectical interrelation.

The ideological field is a place of competition, the specific stake in which is the monopoly on the dominance of one or another ideology in society. The struggle for ideological capital, which provides power over the constructing mechanisms of the field and which can be converted into other types of capital, is characterized by a specific nature of competition in which producers can achieve recognition of the value of their products in the form of ideology through either subordination or the elimination of other producers. "Ideological goods" often do not tolerate the presence of competitors within the same ideological field. Competitors in the struggle for ideological capital cannot limit themselves to distancing themselves from each other and from already formed ideological trends, but are forced to constantly self-actualize their ideas in order to establish their dominance in society.

The struggle in which each of the agents must be involved is always aimed at achieving such power that allows imposing a specific ideology that its manufacturer offers. Thus, those who have managed to achieve the widest dissemination of ideology in society, which prescribes to have, be and do what the producer has, who he is and what he does, become dominant.

As Pierre Bourdieu notes that "the definition of the goals of the struggle is the goal of the struggle" ^{[2, p. 481]}, so ideologies endlessly have contradictions and conflicts, the purpose of which is to proclaim the legitimacy of one ideology and challenge the legitimacy of the rest. Turning to the theory of Pierre Bourdieu, it can be noted that in social fields "there is no instance legitimizing the instance of legitimation; the legitimacy of the claims of legitimacy depends on the relative strength of the groups whose interests these claims express" ^{[2, p. 482]}. The same is true for the ideological field, in which the legitimacy of ideology depends on the size of ideological capital and the ratio of social forces, since the very definition of the criteria of judgment and the principles of hierarchization is the goal of the struggle.

Ideological capital is a special type of capital that can be accumulated, transferred and converted into other types of capital. In the work "Forms of Capital" Pierre Bourdieu says that different forms of capital can be converted and transferred from one form to another. "The possibility of conversion of various types of capital serves as the basis of strategies aimed at ensuring the reproduction of capital (and the position occupied by its owner in the social space) through transformations that minimize the costs and losses associated with the transformation itself" ^{[7, p. 72]}. Similarly, economic, social, cultural, symbolic and other forms of capital can be transformed into ideological capital and vice versa. However, the isolation of ideological capital does not mean that it is cut off from other forms of capital or from some economic basis. The conversion of various forms of capital, proposed by Pierre Bourdieu, provides an opportunity to transfer funds that were previously directed to economic needs into an ideological channel, transforming and transforming economic relations into ideological ones accordingly.

The structure of the ideological field is determined at any given moment by the state of the balance of forces between the participants of the struggle, agents or institutions, that is, the structure of the distribution of specific capital as a result of the previous struggle, which is objectified in institutions and dispositions and which regulates the strategies and objective chances of various agents or institutions in the current struggle. The strategies of social agents will depend each time on the structure of the ideological field and the configuration of the power relations characteristic of it. In this connection, the dominant ideologies tend to strengthen their dominance, since the forces of the field are coordinated in a certain way.

The form that the ideological and at the same time political struggle for legitimacy takes depends on the structure of the field, that is, on the structure of the distribution of capital between the participants in the struggle. The ideological field, unlike other social fields, is not always a place of equal struggle between agents who are endowed with comparable capital and social power. Ideology seeks to establish a monopoly in society on certain ideas and beliefs, which makes it ruthless towards its competitors in its most fundamental premises. If the producer of ideology seeks to establish a state monopoly on ideology, then he takes the other ideologies out of the game, obviously violating all the rules of equal competition. In this case, the stakes are raised both for ideologies temporarily withdrawn from the game, and for the dominant ideology itself, since the victory of the repressed ideologies will cast doubt on the fundamental and absolute principles of the monopolist ideology.

Ideology has no other foundation than a system of competing collective agents that produce and assume the very functioning of the ideological field. The objective orchestration of practical schemes inspired by the entire social environment, which is the basis of a practical consensus on the goals proposed by the field, that is, in relation to problems, methods and solutions immediately recognized as ideological, finds its own justification in the totality of institutional mechanisms that ensure the social selection of ideologies and the training of selected agents. Thus, the question arises about the degree of penetration of ideology produced by the functioning of the field and is a condition for its functioning.

The ideological field ensures the production and reproduction of ideological structures. At the same time, each structure strives to preserve its homogeneity. The center of the ideological structure is the nodal point or core of ideology, that is, a number of meanings, meanings and means that are the structuring structures of ideology. It is to these nodal points that the rest of the signifiers of the ideological field are "fastened". From the center comes the dispersion of ideology both as a discourse and in "floating signifiers". The further away from the core, the meaning of ideological concepts becomes more vague and less unambiguous.

The ideological space contains non–conjugated, unrelated elements - "floating signifiers". They are fastened to the "nodal points" depending on the "surplus value" allocated by them. For example, "class struggle" or "democracy" is attached to the ideological field of "communism", which becomes different in relation to "democracy" attached to the "liberal" field. "The totalization of this free flow of ideological elements is carried out by "buckling" – stopping, fixing this flow, that is, turning it into part of an ordered system of meanings" ^{[8, p. 93]}.

Pierre Bourdieu was familiar with the works of Louis Althusser, in which the social universe is treated as an apparatus, and continues to analyze the apparatus and the place of the apparatchik in it. "An apparatchik who owes everything to the apparatus is an apparatus that has become a man, and the highest responsibility can be assigned to him, because he, seeking to realize his interests, can do nothing without contributing eo ipso to the protection of the interests of the apparatus" ^{[9, p. 138]}. In the process of historical development, an ideological apparatus is allocated in society, which ensures the construction of an ideological space. Pierre Bourdieu notes that in the course of deepening the division of labor, the emergence of large political bureaucracies, as well as institutions that train professionals in the field of ideology ^{[9, p. 186]}, ideological production becomes more autonomous. The size and quality of the ideological field and its ideological structures determine its profitability and surplus value, which is also expressed in "surplus value".

The increase and increment of profitability, influence and power, as well as "surplus value" become the main goals of ideological production. The "surplus value" consists of how much additional meaning and information ideology brings to the already existing basis. For example, the concept of "freedom" assigned to liberal ideology will have a certain outgrowth of liberal theories and meanings; the same concept of "freedom" in communist ideology will acquire a content that is quite likely to overlap in some provisions with the liberal interpretation, but it is precisely the additional meaning that the concept is endowed with when reproduced within the framework of this or that ideology determines the "surplus value" of ideological capital. It is worth noting that, just as in Claude Levi-Strauss, "mythological thought recognizes nature only when it is able to reproduce it" ^{[10, p. 324]}, ideology absorbs and produces only those meanings and concepts of social reality that can be reproduced to it and embedded in its structure.

As with other forms of capital, in particular economic capital, it is possible to identify the most general patterns and properties of ideological capital, which consist in the desire for self-reproduction, self-growth and accumulation, as well as the absorption of small ideologies by larger ones. Ideological capital has a complex impact both at the level of individuals (micro level) and at the level of social groups (macro level). The laws and principles inherent in capital as such will also be inherent in its various forms.

Ideological capital manifests itself not only in the availability of various material means and infrastructure for the formation and dissemination of ideology. Although it should be noted that the greater the material resources of ideological capital, which is expressed in the presence of control over the media, the press and information and telecommunication channels, the greater the place in the social space it is able to occupy.

Ideological capital is a set of self-reproducing and self-growing ideas and beliefs that claim to dominate society. According to Pierre Bourdieu, the difference in social space both between social fields and within them is predetermined by the difference in the ratio of capital. It is the distribution of capital that forms the ideological field within the social space.

Conclusion. Pierre Bourdieu considered the ideological system as a component of symbolic capital, the essence of which is the substitution and displacement in an unrecognizable form of other forms of capital that acquire a symbolic system alien to them. Despite the fact that Pierre Bourdieu in his works touched upon a wide range of issues of social space, exploring such social fields as economic, political, religious, the field of science, literature and others, the ideological social field itself was terra incognito for him. The introduction of the concepts of ideological social field and ideological capital made it possible to build and explain the system of objective social relations that they form, as well as to establish certain patterns of their functioning. The study of ideology as a social field in a social space with its inherent structures and systems makes it possible to approach real social practices that social agents use in their daily activities.

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