The Interest In Disinterestedness
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The Interest in Disinterestedness
A key feature of those who work for the state, in the legal system and in public services is that they claim to be putting their own personal interests aside and working in a disinterested fashion, for the public good. But is disinterested behaviour possible? Can law be treated as a set of universal rules that are independent of particular interests, or is this mere ideology? Is the state bureaucracy a universal class, as Hegel thought, or a structure that serves the interests of the dominant class, as Marx claimed? In his lecture courses at the Collège de France in 1987–88 and 1988–89, Pierre Bourdieu addressed these questions by examining the formation of the legal and bureaucratic fields characteristic of the modern state, uncovering the historical and social conditions that enable a social group to form and find its own interests in the very fact of serving interests that go beyond it. For a disinterested universe to emerge, it needs both the invention of a public service, or a spirit of service to the public cause, and the creation of a social universe in which individuals can pursue a career devoted to public service and be rewarded for it. In other words, it requires a process of specialization whereby autonomous, specific fields become established in the social cosmos within which a special kind of game that follows the rules of disinterest can be played out. By reconstructing the conditions under which an interest in disinterestedness emerged, Bourdieu sheds new light on the formation of the modern state and legal system and provides a fresh perspective on the many professions in modern societies that are oriented towards the service of the common good.
The Politics of Disinterestedness in Nineteenth-Century Literature
Author: Natalie Roxburgh
language: en
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Release Date: 2025-05-01
The Politics of Disinterestedness in Nineteenth-Century Literature historicizes the concept of disinterestedness by examining discourses on political economy during and before the 19th century. It argues that certain literary texts respond to the way all interests are transformed into economic interests during this period. It also shows that this has implications for aesthetics and questions of aesthetic autonomy, in which discourses on disinterestedness are tied up. Through a New Formalist approach, Natalie Roxburgh provides fresh readings of texts by Robert Browning, George Eliot, and Oscar Wilde, whose respective oeuvres demonstrate an attention to the formal affordances of literary disinterestedness that compete with-and critically assess-other versions. Browning develops a dramatic monologue so that the reader is enticed to re-read his poems; Eliot cultivates the problematic character who must struggle with her desire within a larger play of interests in a way that evolves the realist Condition of England novel; and Wilde experiments with the blending of genres in his critical essays by rendering them as dramatic dialogues that serve as contemplative mechanisms for playing with a multiplicity of interests, which he explores in terms of influence. Reading these canonical authors through the politics of disinterestedness sheds new light on literary value and, in particular, the formal techniques seen as important by the end of the 19th century, just as liberal democracy emerged in Britain.
Disinterested Pleasure and Beauty
Author: Larissa Berger
language: en
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Release Date: 2023-07-24
The conception of disinterested pleasure is not only central to Kant’s theory of beauty but also highly influential in contemporary philosophical discourse about beauty. However, it remains unclear, what exactly disinterested pleasure is and what role it plays in experiences of beauty. This volume sheds new light on the conception of disinterested pleasure from the perspectives of both Kant scholarship and contemporary aesthetics. In the first part, the focus is on Kant’s theory of beauty as grounded on the conception of disinterested pleasure. In the second part, disinterested pleasure is investigated in the light of contemporary debates on beauty. The volume clarifies the meaning, role, and implications of one of the most influential conceptions in traditional as well as contemporary approaches to beauty.