(S1----------f2)

THE INSTITUTION OFCOMMUNITARIANISM ANDTHE COMMUNICOLOGY OF

PIERRE BOURDIEU

ISAAC E. CATT

Millersville University of Pennsylvania, USA

G1----------f2)

Many of the best, brightest, and most financially solvent of Califor-nia' s high school students seek admission to the University of Cali-fornia (UC), the most prestigious campus of which is, without adoubt, at Berkeley. Though nationally reputable within its class, theCalifornia State University (CSU) ranks second to the UC. Generaleducation transfer agreements between the two systems are intendedto facilitate the movement of qualified students between these institu-tions. This occurs, however, on the basis of nearly invisible, but nev-ertheless powerful, institutional constraints. T 0 the extent that stu-dents and faculty lack a critical consciousness of them, such con-straints may be considered semiotic conditions imposed on a practi-cal discourse, Le., what can be said within the curriculum. In the ev-eryday life of the academic institution, many ostensiblechoices arethe representational and reproductive values of a small, elite andpowerful, yet unseen, intellectual community. Another way of sayingthis is to suggest that the academic institution, in its most meaningfulsense (curriculum), i s constituted in the absence of those most af-fected by it, students and faculty.l

1. The Culture of Communication

I became acutely aware of this sign system (i.e., the contest of insti-tutions) in the mid-1980's. Atthat time,1 representedthe CSU in

© The American Journal 01SEMIOTICS, 15 and 16 (2000), 187-206.

188 ISAAC E. CATT

negotiations wi th the U C concerning the transfer curriculum. Asticking point atthe timewas that theCSU curriculumrequirementsincluded a fundamentals component i n speech communication, aconcept rejected as trivial and unworthy of the UC. The UC, not un-like many of ournation's premiereducational institutions, neitherre-quires nor recognizes the significance of rhetorical/communicationstudies in its core curriculum. Rhetoric is taught in the English De-partment, and argumentation (academic debate) is affiliated with theBusiness Department. Interpersonal, small group, organizational,and intercultural relations are no doubt taught, but they are notfo-cused within a recognized discipline inHuman Communicationstudies (or what some scholars prefer to call Communicology).

Like many of my colleagues in the speech communication disci-pline, I was somewhat gratified by the appearance of Habits oftheHeart (1985), a scholarly product of the UC. In this milestone work,RobertBellah and his colleagues at Berkeley made a contribution tothe sociologyof culture. In the year the workappeared, I used it as atext for a graduate seminar in interpersonal communication, and apanel of scholars was convened at the annual national meeting of thethen Speech Communication Association (now the National Com-munication Association) to assess its relevance and impact on thestudy of communication in the context of contemporary culture. Ashared assumptionwas that the implicit themeof the book was com-munication, or, rather, its absence, as a conventional more. In otherwords, we took it that communication was, in the best sense of themetaphor, a "habit of the heart". This, however, was not merely aninterested reading, but a parochial one as weIl. For, in the disciplineof American (USA) sociology, communication is a recurrent theme,but a repressed problematic.

In the spring of 1992, I witnessed a lecture delivered by RobertBellah at GustavusAdolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. Hewas promoting his latest book, The Good Society (1991). As the lec-ture commenced, I was thinking of the coincidence ofmy visit withfriends at Gustavus Adolphus and of Bellah' s presence. Here wewere, both professors in the California system of higher education,both motivated to study American (USA) society, both interested inthe issue of the decline of community in a cultural climate of individ-ualism. As an aside during his lecture,however, Bellah lanlented thefact that one of hi s better students had gone off to teach SpeechCommunication, "whateverthat is", in one of theCSU's. At thatpoint, I was reminded of the considerable symbolic gulf between theUC and the CSU, and of the distinction afforded a scholar of sociol-ogy, versus that of a professor of speech communication, i n theacademy generally.

COMMUNITARIANISM 189

Bellah's work i s central in what has come to be known as theCommunitarian Movement. Hence, my essay is an inquiry into theCommunitarian agenda regarding higher education. The Communi-tarian conceptionof the academy i s described and criticized. Thebasis for the critique i s philosophical and practical. First, the Com-munitarian idea of an educational institution i s regarded as an ill-fated attemptto grasp a center which will no longer hold. That is, thelast vestiges of Modernity are represented in nostalgia for the tradi-tions of community. Such a philosophy,loosely based in Germanhermeneutics and critical theory, presupposes and thematizes its goalas a culturally shared reality (the hermeneutic circle as a perniciousproblematic). Second, from a practical standpoint, Communitarian-ism values whatit does not adequately comprehend.Namely, institu-tions are objectifiedas thing-like, and are subsequently valued as"good" or "bad", a deductive logic ill-suited to a humane science.Little attention, on the other hand, is afforded the question of what aninstitution is- as apart of the actual or phenomenological experi-ence of a person in whose world it is constituted.This critique of the Communitarian conception of the academy

fully appreciates the core problem identified by the movement. Thefirst step of the project is to sketch the thematic of Communitarian-ism. Here, an attack on liberal individualism appears warranted by itscontrastwith the sign, "spirit of community" (Etzioni 1993). Thisposition is adumbrated, but also problematized. Specifically, the pre-supposed "spirit" is seen as an unacceptable gloss on the issue ofcommunication. Bellah and others premise their work on adefinitionof human beings as, first of all, social. Society, however, is a productof communication; the social i s not developed in a vacuum but,rather, through the dialogical encounters of real persons. Then, as asecond step in my analysis, communication istaken up, both as aproblematic of academic discourse and as a thematic of pedagogicalpurpose. For if the academy i s to be valued a s an institution, wemust understandhow it isactively, culturally constituted.Finally, asa third step, I posit the idea that a "good society" regards educationas a culture for communication, not merely information exchange.

The argument made here for a conception of the academic insti-tution (the university) as a culture for conlmunication may initiallyappear rather simple; even so, its importance makes it worth articu-lating. The renowned French thinker, Pierre Bourdieu, i s fond ofquoting Gaston Bachelard on the issue of the simple. The latter hadthis to say:"The simple is never anything more than the simplified".Furthermore, Bourdieu reminds u s that "science has never pro-gressedexcept by questioning simple ideas"(1987: 139). While itcannot be gainsaid that the academy is among the most important of

190 ISAAC E. CATT

our institutions, it is not without cause that the sociology of this in-stitution has played a central role in the work of some of the mostprominentof contemporary intellectuals,including Pierre Bourdieu(1972(1977]; 1970 [1977]; 1984 [1988]; 1979 [1984); Bourdieuand Wacquant 1993).

2. The Communitarian Institute

The common sense understandingof an institute is that it is an orga-nization, an association, an assemblage of ideas, and persons whoperpetrate and adhere to a lived set of values held roughly in com-,mon, that is, a society. A number of scholars may be said to repre-sent the society of Communitarianism; yet, not all of them wouldself-identify accordingly. No attempt is made here to index authorswho subscribe to an institute that they themselves label Communitar-ianism;nor is it thoroughly analyzed as a political theory or rhetori-cal movement. Rather, my focus i s limitedto the Communitarianconception of institutions and, in particular, of the academy.

The political platform of Communitarianism appeals to "spi rit",but how would that vague sign be applied in the context of universitylife? T 0 understand the Communitarian perspective 0 r spirit, i t isnecessary to appreciate the signifiers of the university, as expressedby faculty and students. Two empirical realities emerge. On one ac-count, faculty and students cohere in a reciprocity of intellectual pur-pose. The ivory tower isa secluded retreat, a place for meditation.The everyday language of students contrasts this world with the"real" world. The atmosphere is ostensibly rarefied, the institutioni s tacitly recognized as a uniqne phenomenon. It is conceived as aplace of change and as a passage of time toward accomplishment ofspecific objectives. Signified isthat students are supposed to "getsomething" and to "turn out right". They are supposed to be givenskills and, implicitly, to be made "usefnl".

Yet, on another account, students and faculty are perennially atodds. Or, perhaps, it is more accurate to say that they once were, andsometimes still are. Here, signifiers clash and resistance is signifiedin classrooms that count as sites of discourse. Faculty are interestedin critical inquiry. In the Communitarian narrative, the best of themhave not "sol d out" to the prurient-consumerist and careerist inter-ests of their students; they have not yet succumbed to calling them"clients" or "customers". They value education, per se, and knowl-edge "for i ts own sake". A s guardians at the gate, they oppose thebarbarians with whom they have established boundaries of certitudefor what constitutes knowledge. They are in a contest with their stu-

COMMUNITARIANISM 191

dents, a struggle which the Communitarians suggest faculty are aptto lose. Embeddedhere is the coded presupposition that students areapart of the "outside" world. They are visitors to the cathedral oflearning, and they respect it only to the degree that they take some-thing from it that is perceived exchangeable for goods and servicessufficientto last their lifetimes, or at least as far down the road astheir limited imaginations may permit. As visitors, they expect hospi-tality, and they translate that as getting what they came for, namely,certification for employment.

Whether wittingly or naively, some faculty buy directly into theconsumerist ethic and design their curriculum with employment inmind. Evidence of this is prevalent. It shows up in academic depart-ments that de-emphasize knowledge in favor of "practical" skills.1t i s al so apparent in the tendency offaculty to rationalize their ef-f011s as requirements of accrediting agencies that, in turn, define pro-fessional inlages. Often, faculty consciously decide to give both ad-ministrators and students precisely what they want. As a necessarytrade-offfor being left alone to do their research, faculty submit to adefinition of their disciplinary pedagogy as consisting in "s ki 11 s"that are delivered as a "service".

At bottom,a difference of opinion on the purpose of educationguides alternative pedagogical dispositions. Put in the frame of aneither/or logic, a professor decides that education is intended to servea social interest or the students' self-interests.Vocational aspirationsare opposed to the preservation of "cul ture". The process of cultur-al transmission, per se, i s not critically evaluated. Communitariansare caught within this either/or logic and oppose the vocational ap-proach. This is not surprising in as much as the movement arises inthe first place as a political voice in opposition to democratic liberal-ism. As they see it, Alexis de Tocqueville had it right from the begin-ning, projecting a decline in the American experiment resulting froma fragmented society (Bellah 1985: viii). Higher education signifiesthe larger problem of the decay of valuesand decline of institutions.Students and faculty interpret the nleaning of the acadenly, each toseparate and disparate ends.

1n the Communitarian narrative, education was once a bulwarkprotecting the values of society. To sustain itself,American societyneeded citizens who understood democracy and who valued it,through a willingness to participate in it. A central purpose of educa-tion was to teach transcendence of the personal and acceptance ofthe inscriptions of civilization upon the pages of the book of life.Today, education is not widely perceived as for the greater commu-nal good. Rather, it serves narrowoccupational interests. Communi-tarians would correct this by counter-balancing self-interest with ap-

192 ISAAC E. CATT

peals to the value of community. On this account, the personal will-to-power is in need of civilizing, the intemperate narci ssist i s to bemade temperate, and these changes are to take place in the context ofthe "good society" (Bellah 1991) or the "good audience" (Barrett1991). Individualism is described as the opposite of social commit-ment, the former remedied by a sufficient dose of the latter.

It is unclear whether the "spi ri t" of community at the center ofthe Communitarian enterprise is to be taken as a model psyche, a re-ligion, or illere liberal tolerance. However it might be defined, thisspirit is considered insufficient in quantity to sustain our democraticinstitutions. Implied isa sort of good guy liberal tolerance whereeach of us stands for the other. Our essential disposition should bea willingness t 0 argue constructively to mutually agreeable ends.The result is supposed to be a recovery of the "commons", thoseareas of concern that are larger than private interests and to which weare all committed (Bell 1993). Curiously, however, communicationis never addressed as a central and focused concern. It is presumedthat the ultimate result of an open exchange of points of viewwill bea discovery of the commons. Differences, between individuals orconstituencies, are perceived as something to be transcended. Thus,it is necessary to carefully examine communication as an issue.

3. The Communication Problematic

A perennialquestion facedby reflectiveacademics is:What isthepurpose of education? Specific corollary issues are: (1 ) Should itproduce good citizens who will, in turn, contribute to Bellah's goodsociety? (2) Must it serve the self-centeredinterests of students? (3)Which goal is it: the preservation, conservation, and transmission ofculture, or, the training of productive workers? To whose ends? (4)Whose interests are served by education?

Education is regarded as an institution in the Communitarianac-count, that is, the academy is primarily a social space. By the turn ofthe last century, adecision had been made in this country to modelits institutionsof higher education on the German model of this so-cial space. In its modernist version, this meant rejecting the culturaltransmission concept in favor of the research institution (see the dis-cussion of Dewey, Addams, and the Chicago School in Bellah1991:150-156). The romance of culture ended and the age of sci-ence began. It is most instructive to consider what this meantto theeducational process, because this history is an analogue for the his-tory of Communicology in this country.

Rhetoric figured prominently in university education until this

COMMUNITARIANISM 193

century when the word fell into disrepute. Until that point, rhetorichad been held in high esteem. The link between rhetoric and educa-tion was that the arts of disputation enabled persons to actively par-ticipate as citizens with an equal footing in the space of a commonpolitical arena. Academic debate competition between universities,for example, was not originally intendedas a mere educational game,which it unfortunately became in the latter part of the twentieth cen-tury. Instead, it was literally intended that such intellectual exerciseswould arouse public opinion and unitethe citizenry in just causes.Rhetoric was the essential means of public discussion and politicalinvolvement. In no sense is it an exaggeration to suggest that rhet-oric was once broadly conceived as the means for the production ofknowledge and the transmission of culture.

Eloquence was, then, closely allied with education itself. A defi-ciency in eloquence was contemptible, a sure sign of ill-breeding, alack of proper education; ineloquence was associated with being asocial misfit. In the present century, however, eloquence is no longera civic virtue. It is more likely dissociated with character, characterbeing a lost term in the contemporary vernacular, a concept oncenormatively considered and respected as the enduring substance of alife. Civil disengagement has accompanied the decline of eloquence.

Unfortunately, communication is no longer valued as the equiva-lent of civic eloquence but, rather, as a means for personal success asa mark of achievement in a competitive economic system. This isprecisely the way comnlunication is coded in the contemporary uni-versity. For the University ofCalifornia and numerous other of ourfinest institutions, communication is a presumed fundamental skill, aprerequisite taught at a lower level. For some, including numerousstate systems of education, communication i s required in the corecurriculum andjustified on the basis of being a fundamental skill ofexpression comparable to the ability to write and to calculate.

Bellah recognizes the traditional role of rhetoric in the academy(1991: 145-178). The decline of rhetoric is discussed in The GoodSociety as a movement from the moral to the technical conception ofthe university. Bellah (1991: 159) suggests that "the links betweenrhetoric, the public, and democracy began to come apart, the resultwas not merely the downgrading of the once respectable field ofrhetoric but a threat to democracy itself'.

However, despite the strong statement acknowledging the his-toric significance of rhetoric, the Communitarian response i s notgrounded in communication. From the Communitarian standpoint,humans are, first of all, social beings. Society and its institutions areto be valued. However, there i s no accounting for how society isachieved in the fi rst instance. Society i s di scussed in absence of a

194 ISAAC E. CATT

sufficientappreciation for its construction through human commu-nicative practices. Its processual aspect, the on-going life of commu-nity, its very constitution by communication, is a repressed idea.

The Communitarian argument is thata sense of community hasbeen lost in the overvaluation of individual choice. Choices are seenas properly embedded in communallife. Etzioni explicitly states that"Communitariansare concerned withmaintaining a supracommuni-ty,a communityof comnlunities-the American society" (1993: 1).A great deal of intellectual energy is spent, therefore, on specifying aclassification system for the varieties of communities that serve ascontexts for individual choice. These contexts are reifications ofCommunitarian sociology.

There are several types of communities discussed by Daniel Bell,a leadi ng proponentof Communitarianism (1993: 124-207). Theseinclude conlmunities of place, of memory, of language, and psycho-logical communities. Comnlunities of place are based on the extentto which self-identity is associated with a "h0 me". From that Ioca-tion, a stance istaken up toward life. Communitiesof memory arebased on having a sense of history and an orientation toward the fu-ture, 0 rhope. Linguistic communities are based 0 n a shared lan-guage. Psychological communities are created and sustained byface-to-face interaction.

On my reading, these typologies are all collapsible into the ideaof a linguistic community of memory that records human encounter,that is, culture. It should not be inferred from this synthesis, howev-er, that a linguistic community i s necessarilya communicativelybased one. Bell's discussion is restricted to the significance of thesemantic conventions of speech (langue), and certainly not existen-tial speaking (parole parltznte).To put it succinctly, Communitarian political theory is impres-

sively parsimonious. The communities discussed above must beseen as the basis for any conception of the self or of individual ac-tion. The emphasis is merely shifted from the individual to the com-munity. The person, now objectively situated in pre-formed commu-nal contexts, is no longer an agent of ordinary conscious experience.Subjectivity i s ostensi bly decentered, bu t this shift from individual-ism to community retains a modernist allegiance to the egocentriccontexts that precede choices.

Communitarian philosophy i s generally sympathetic with lin-guistic relativity theory. Central to this theory, of course, is the argu-ment that human perceptions arederivations of culture that are man-ifest in language differences. This is as close as Communitarians getto acknowledging the communicative ground of community. Bell,for example, discusses the debate between Chomsky's generative

COMMUNITARIANISM 195

theory and the Sapir-Whorfhypothesis and comes down on the sideof the latter (1993: 156-189). This orientation is used to support theidea of communities as cultures. Again, the social side is valued overthe individual, and the relationship between the twois invisible in theCommunitarian account. It is as though no livedinstances of cultureare necessary to demonstrate it; it is presupposed that the existenceof the social i sampie proof of culture, a reified concept of humancommunicative praxis.

In Bell' s idea of the psychological community there is a hint ofrecognition that communication might be the phenomenal ground ofcommunity. I n Bellah' s perspective, Habermas' conception of"communicative action" plays a role, though a scarcelyacknowl-edged one. Bell, and numerous other Communitarians, are intlu-enced by Gadamer. This influence is limited, though, to an appeal tothe significance of tradition as a communal heritage. No commu-nicative relationship between historicality (social norm) and historic-ity (personal expectation) i s ever taken up. It i s not recognized thathermeneutics a s language use i s always a phenomenology of theperson speaking, that is, communication. Traditions are simply ar-gued to be important as cultural mores. Ironically, the historic lin-eage of hermeneutics as a branch of phenomenology in the Conti-nental tradition of philosophy is not addressed. The social organiza-tionas action, per se, is also superficially glossed. This is especiallycurious since institutions are said to serve a "mediating" role in life.AsBellah aptly expresses it, "we livein and through them" (1991:287). Arguments are made on behalf of institutions, as cultural sig-nifiers, but institutions are conceived rather uncreatively as abstractideas, as things, and as objects of nostalgia, not as continuously re-produced lived relations among people (Umwelt). To the extent thatrhetoric is addressed or communication appreciated, it is in terms ofwhat the person ought to do with or about the social conditions, asthough their expression precedes the perception of them in the con-scious experience of speaking beings.Thus, Communitarianism i s indeed vague a s an answer to the

academic question concerning pedagogic purpose. Self-interestededucation is thought appalling, and the remedy for this condition isto discover ways to re-value community. In as close as he comes to aconcrete example, Bell suggests that the professorate should assigngrades to whole classes, ratherthan to individuals. It is supposedthat this would somehow mitigate competition and generate enthusi-astic cooperation. This is an exemplary Communitarian conceptionthat stands forthe relationship of students to professors in the aca-demic institution.

Communication is not perceived as a value but, rather, implicitly

196 ISAAC E. CATT

accepted as a fact in Communitarianism. The visible institution, con-sidered as an empirical fact, represses and renders all but invisiblethe eidetically"understood" institution of the academy. Here, it isnecessary to begin to thinkwith Bourdieu. In a moment of retlectionon the social spaces of symbolic power (and as evidenceof hisphilosophic indebtedness to Merleau-Ponty), Bourdieu reminds usthat "I t' sone of those cases in which the visible, that which is im-mediately given, conceals the invisible which determines i t" (1987(1990): 127). It is to Communicology, the "invisible industry" ofthe academy (Lanigan 1974), that 1 now turn my attention.

4. Pierre Bourdieu: The Value of Communication

The importance of education, and of the university in particular, can-not be overstated; that i s the simple idea with which this essaybegan. That concern accountsfor the fact that sociology has increas-ingly studied the academy, as a cultural symbol and as a social orga-nization. As Bellah puts it, there are two institutions thatfocus onmeaning in our lives, religion and education (1991: 144).1 n refer-ence to the state of education as an institution, Bellah (1991: 150)warns that "Education for life is, then, both the cause and effect ofneeded institutional changes in our society".The Communitarian accountprovides an either/orchoice be-

tween a lost rhetorical paradigm and the modern scientific paradigmfor higher education. Comn1unities are valued as sources of the self;yet, the sources of community are not explained. This is more than amere methodological problem. I t speaks to the issue of trying tovalue cOlnmunity as an entity, rather than as a constructed reality.Communitarianism discovers communities,as though they were al-ready there. Like Columbus' new world, a community's inhabitantsare ostensibly holding their breath in anticipation of being found.An alternativeway ofthinking is to conceiveofcommunities asproducts of the communication process.In the appendix to Habits ofthe Heart, the authors try to re-

make sociology into a public philosophy (297-307). The ground forsuch a philosophy would not be communication but, instead, a neo-positivistic "commitment to substantive traditions"(300). In theirmodernist version of sociology, the artificial boundary between thesocial sciences and the humanities would be transcended (301).That boundary,of course, separates sociology and its focus onhuman action from the humanities which are interested in the trans-mission and interpretation of cultural significations and their practiceas traditions. Coming down on the side ofa narrative paradigm, they

COMMUNITARIANISM 197

note that, "any living tradition is a conversation, an argument in thebest sense, about the meaning and value of our common life" (303).

William Barrett has noted the importance of paying attention tothe prepositions used in communication (1979: 184). Here is a casein point. Communitarian wisdom would provide something, that is,communities, to value. Yet,it is something ofvalue that is neglected.It is not the value of traditions, of communities, nor of institutionsthat is missing. All along, but only tacitly in their writings, Commu-nitarians have been nostalgic for communication. The criticism of in-dividualism implied a need for meaningful human dialogue. The talkabout institutions recognized their mediating role in our lives. Theclassification of communities emphasized the interrelationship of ex-pression and perception, and, theirproducts, language and culture.Invention of the so-called psychological communities focused atten-tion on face-to-face exchange. BelJah calls for a "conversation", an"argument", and a focus on common values. Presumably, institu-tions symbolize and n1ediate and, therefore, serve community inter-ests. Nevertheless, a clear definition of whatan institution i s not tobe found in Bellah, Etzioni, or Bell. Curiously, institutions are valuedas signifiers, but ambiguously signified.

It i s worth remembering that the root concept for community isCicero' s idea of communication, and to communicate literally means"to make common"(incommunis). It isnotnecessaryto "blurthedistinction" between the social sciences and the humanities, as Bel-lah suggests, i norder t 0 focus 0 n the communication process.Communitarians need only take notice of COll1municology, the dis-cipline that is alreadythe meeting groundof the sociaJ and humansciences. This discipline of inquiry and system of values exists inthe academy. Though as indicated in the beginning of this essay, it issometimes disciplined directly out of the academy, as at the Univer-sity of California.

Communicology, the study of communication,i s to be distin-guished from the usual understanding of communication. For, Com-municology does not define communication a s merely messagetransmission, nor as message exchange. These aspects ofthe com-munication process are, indeed, incorporated, but only as antecedentsand effects, as attributes or characteristics by which to evaluatetheexpressive side of the process (Gusdorf 1965: 69-76). The expres-sive side literally in-forms, the "visible" part ofthe communicationprocess that i s too often equated with the whole. The work of thecommunicologist proceeds outward from a philosophical and theo-retical understanding of thenature of communication. This nature isrooted in dialectical formations of expression and perception,ofspeaking and listening. The study ofthe nature of human communi-

198 ISAAC E. CATT

eation is not Iimited toassessing the immediately visible(expressionor signifiers); equal weight is given to the invisible ( pereeptions orsignifieds) whieh is coneealed by the visible, but which detennines it,to apply Bourdieu's reasoning. That is to say, the value of commu-nication takes precedence as a concern of life; i.e., Cicero's conceptof diseourse in proprium, as appropriate and appreeiated, over andabove the accidental, deliberate, and empirical data of communica-tion. Indeed, it is the overvaluation of these information theoretie as-pects of communication,its expressive instances, its production, itsmessages, that eauses us to ignore the communication theoretic na-ture of eommunication. Thus, the identification of communicationwith information (espeeially if weIl expressed!) oppresses and re-presses the possible consideration of communication as a value.

It is not surprising that Bellah and others have focused their at-tention on the empirically observable, while simultaneously hintingat something deeper, a lack whieh is vaguely recognized,as nostal-gia. Yet, as the saying goes, "nostalgia is not what it used to be". Inother words, a semiotic(postmodern) condition arises in recognitionof the signifier that is weighted to a singular signified by the capri-cious sentiments of transient cultural mores. What must be remem-bered is the perspective that only phenomenology can bring, eon-cerned as it is with the correlates of consciousness and the objects ofits phenomenal field. Gusdorf (1965: 56) tidily captures this idea ina relevantaphorism: "the denial of communieationas a faet impliesnostalgia for eommunieation as a val ue". Surely the inverse is trueas weIl.

From the philosophie advantageof Communicologyand, in par-ticular, the phenomenological semioticsof Pierre Bourdieu, whatin-sight i s gained into the question of the academy's purpose? Tobegin with, i t shoul d be recognized that the cultural transmissionmodel of the academy was, perhaps, too hastily discarded in theAmeriean (USA) experience. The model can be retrieved,however, ifre-defined. To the extent that aeademic purpose i s conceived as theproduction of "good" citizens, the image of the good is conjured onthe basis of the continuous reading of communal traditions. Like-wise, the consulnerist-careerist perspective is a legitimate reading ofsoeiety's present and futureexpectations. Heated disputations in theuniversity aside, there simply is no reason to dismiss either of theseviews, one being adjudged inferior to the other. 80th are in propri-um institutional productions, reproductions in communis of culture.This is notto say, however, that the faculty should individually equi-vocate on this issue. It is merelyto note that the either/or logic thatframes the debate need not suppress other alternatives. Or to utilizeCommunitarian logic, we might emphasize that both of the opposing

COMMUNITARIANISM 199

views share something in eommon. Namely, they eoneeive of eduea-tion as fundamentally information theoretie. That is to say, eaeh im-plieitly views edueation as a proeess of in-forming, of "subjeeting"students to a lesson. Getting the lesson righti s a rite of passage, apassing of the skeptron IGreek for scepter; employed by Bourdieuin diseussions of the authority to speak] whieh authorizes the stu-dents to speak in the manner that soeiety would have them speak, asliving paradigms of a speeeh eulture.

Consider Bourdieu, who studies the aeademy in the eontext ofeulture. He is, in his own words, both a strueturalist and a eonstrue-tivist(1984(1988): xiv; 1987(1990]: 123). His domain is the phe-nomenology of struetures, i.e., an explieation of the objeetively hid-den. He is not exelusively interested in the transnzission of eulture(eontexts that preordain ehoiee), and thi s i s the shift whieh I havebeen suggesting. He foeuses as weIl on the reproduction of eulture(ehoiees of eontext). The idea of reproduetion implies a eritieal phe-nomenology (if this redundaney be allowed) and attention to thevalue of eommunieation (Leeds-Hurwitz 1993: xx). Or, and this isBourdieu' s strong point, the oppression and repression of eommu-nieationare deseribedas the result of positions and dispositionstaken up within a field.

Looking at the aeademy as a field, for example, we may observeoppressive struetures "that define the external eonstraints bearingon interaetions and representations" (Bourdieu and Waequant1992: 11). Perhaps these nlundane, but powerful, "realities" promptfaeulty to side with the students who progressively seek lieenses,employment, and material aequisitions. Repression,o n the otherhand, i s marked by a eollusion with the dominating forees (hege-monie diseourse), and even elass (student) resistanee inadvertentlyexpresses the reproduetion of hierarchies of power (Bourdieu andWaequant 1992: 80).The "real ities" are positions eonstituting objeetive relations (a

lieense) in regard to potentially available eapital (employment) andthat, in turn, takes speeifie forms aeeording to the field of possibili-ties (material aequisition). Other pertinent examples inelude: sym-bolie eapital whieh may authorize one to speak (Thompson 1991[Bourdieu 1991): 7-10), aeademie eapital "linked to power overtheinstruments 0 f prod ueti on" i n edueation, and "i ntell eetual eapitallinked to seientifie renown"(Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992: 76).Bourdieu's eoneeption of the habitus (preeonseious praetiee as so-eial eonstraint]defines enduring dispositions, the taken-for-grantedor eommon sense world (Bourdieu 1972 [1977]: 18; 1980 [1990J:56-57;1986 [1993J: 161-175).Formanyfaeulty,itisa giventhatthey are offieersof the state who are eharged with eivilizing stu-

200 ISAAC E. CATT

dents. Their habitus conflicts with that of the students who, moreoften than we mightlike to admit, would take the sheepskin andleave on the first day of school, if they were allowed to do so.

Bourdieu has spoken to the issue of a lack of attention to the"truly reflexive and critical analysis of the academic institution" inAmerican (USA) sociology (1992: 72). It isclearthat he wouldop-pose thekind of sociology thatcharacterizes Communitarianism.Specifically, he remarks:

We touch here on one of the great difficulties of socio-logical discourse. Most discourses on the social world aimatsaying, not what the realities underconsideration (the state,religion, the school, etc) are but what they are worth, whetherthey are good or bad (1992: 84).

Clearly, a sociology that values traditions, community, and "thegood society" is one towhich Bourdieu's analysisapplies. Institu-tions are a case i n point. While Communitarians value them andwant greater allegiance to them, they simultaneously objectify them.A relevantexample of how this issueaffects the discourse on educa-tion is found in The American Scholar. Diane Ravitch (1987) de-scribes the contested ambiguity with which American (USA) educa-tion has approached the goal of free, public education.

Sellah and hi s colleagues are critical of empiricistic approachesto sociology, as discussed in their appendix to Habits 01 the Heart,alluded to previously. Bourdieu could agree, for he i s critical of"rigorwithout imagination". However, Bourdieuis also critical ofthe tendency in social philosophy toward "audacity without rigor"(1992: 32). Sociology, viewed as the study of action, interaction, oreven a "bI urri ng of the distinction between the social sciences andthe humanities", will have to be assessed against the logic of com-munication as human discourse, Le., COlnmunicology.

In what sense do I, somewhat audaciously, consider Bourdieu acommunicologist? This label i s derived from hi s statements abouthis work. Communicology is a term commonly used in French phi-losophy (colnmunicologie) and recently revived in this country byRichardL. Lanigan,in hismetatheoretical workin semioticphe-nomenology (1988; 1992). Bourdieu' s structural phenomenologyis in the same family of thought. In fact, Bourdieu defines sociologyas "the science of institutions"(1982a [1990): 177), and his practiceis, indeed, a science,a social praxeology (Bourdieu and Wacquant1992: 11). In other words, he does not ainl at saying what the insti-tutions are worth, he studies them; he does not advocate them, he isinterested in their nature, in what they are.

COMMUNITARIANISM 201

Now, in particular, what is an institution? Eidetically, an institu-tion is not a thing, but, rather, an act. And, "the act of institution is...an act of communication" (Bourdieu 1982b [1991): 121). Empiri-cally, the institution isa si te of struggle, a rhetorical struggle, onethat i s political and about the authority to speak, asBourdieu hastaken great pain s t 0 indicate (Bourdieu 1970 [1977]: 107-139;1982a [1990J: 177-198). Specifically, the struggle i s about dis-course. Bourdieu values communication, and he attempts to showhow institutions are, themselves, consecrations, boundaries that di-vide as weIl as unify. Thus, the academy's worth is not its value asan entity, as a monolithic social structure; to the contrary, the acade-my's worth is continually at risk, but that is as it should be. Institu-tions are always in process, always being constructed and decon-structed, always a locus of conflict among those who would imposeand monopolize their truths as the legitimate interpretations of thesocial world.The implicationsof this contestare far reaching. For example,

each academic definition 0 f competency, regardless 0 f i ts disci-plinary boundaries, i s the imposition of a name, a boundary, and avision that divides the world among those who have attained a socialessence in the form of a cultural, economic,or symbolic capital. Ingeneral, the academy works on the presupposition of a lack,often apresumed pathology (as in speech competency), which it intends tocure, through its various instruments of power. Yet, the rhetorical do-main of the classroom i s not as one-sidedas this analysis mightimply. There is a presumed "fit between sociaI structure and socialrepresentation" which is insufficiently present (Collins 1993: 124).Rhetoric, a s a communicative praxis, i s potentially enabling (seeLanigan's discussion of Ricoeur (1995: 311-329). Bellah is correctto emphasize "argument"; argument reveals the partiality of truthand exposes the tendencies of some who wantto impose their partialtruth as the wholetruth. To wit, Bourdieu's response is terse: "ifthere is a truth, it is that truth is something people struggle over"(1982 [1990]: 185).

5. The Institution of Institutions

In thisessay, I have sketched theCommunitarian perspective on thevalue of communities as a counterbalance to the prevailing climate ofindividualism. The academy provides an example of what this semi-otic system means. Implicit in the Communitarian agenda is an un-acceptable gloss on the issueof communication. This, I posedas anirony, because communication is at the root of an adequate concep-

202 ISAAC E. CATT

tion of community. I described communication as a problematic, as adiscourse formation. Finally, I introduced the idea of Communicolo-gy as a tacit desire in Comn1unitarianism.Understood phenomeno-logically, the proposed logic of communicationcommences with thenature of cOlnmunication and proceeds outwardly. Communicationis a value. Bourdieu's social phenomenology was posed as an alter-native way to think about communication and institutions. In the end,it becomes clear thatinstitutions are sites of struggleover commu-nicative ground. Semiotically re-visioned, institutional constraints arepositively regarded as potentially enabling. Classrooms, for example,become si tes for research 0 n the relation of culture and persons.However, the promise of that pedagogical result will have to await afuture essay.

For now, the idea that academic institutions are constructed oncommunicative grounds is not yet a prevalentvalue. Itis a simple,but radical notion. Its acceptance requires a critical (phenomenologi-cal) consc.iousness and transc.endenc.e of our tendency to treat insti-tutions as things, as places for the transmission of information. In-stitutions must be imagined as boundaries from which we move,notenclosures into whic.h we have moved. The academy, in particular,might seriously consider openingits elite gates; it might be useful tohear about the experiences of the barbarians.

All of modern history records our trenchanttheoretical and logi-cal error of equating information with communication, preemptivelydetermining the dominions of truth. This isa problem that the dis-course ofCommunitarianism, despite its worthy ambitions, perpetu-ates. On the basisof this critique, however,the communicologist'sc.onstruc.tive task is burdensome. It is no less a responsibilitythan tosubvert the so-c.alled "information age" with the substantially moreelusive "c.ommunicationage". Somesolace, ifnot outrightopti-mism, may be found in the recognition that wehave only rec.ently in-vented Communicology, a unique discipline in the human sc.ienc.es.As ahabit of the heart, italone fully appreciates the veritableinstitu-tion of institutions, Le., the semiosis of human discourse.

Note

1. I would like to express my apprec.iation to Professor Richard L.Lanigan for his helpful suggestions in the final preparation ofthis manusc.ript.

COMMUNITARIANISM 203

References

BARRETT, Harold.1991. Rhetoric and Civility (Albany: State University of New

York Press).

BARRETT, William.1979. The Illusion 01 Technique (Garden City, New York:

Anchor/Doubleday).

BELL, Daniel.1993. Comnlunitarianism and Its Critics (Oxford:

Clarendon Press).

BELLAH. Robert., et. al.1985. Habits olthe Heart (Berkeley and Los Angeles:

University of Califomia Press).

BELLAH, Robert, et. al.1991. The Good Society (New York: Alfred Knopf).

BOURDIEU, Pierre and PASSERON, Jean-Claude.1970. Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture .

English trans. by Richard Nice (2nd ed. London:Sage, 1977).

BOURDIEU, Pierre.1972. Outline 01 a Theory 01Practice. English trans. by

Richard Nice (Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 1977).

1979. Distinction: A Social Critique 01 the Judgment 01Taste. English trans. by Richard Nice (Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press, 1984).

1980. The Logic 01Practice. English trans. by Richard Nice(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990).

1982a. "A Lecture on the Lecture" (Inaugural Lecture deliveredat the College de France) in In Other Words. Englishtrans. by Matthew Adamson (Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press, 1990), 177-198.

1982b. "Rites of Institution" in Language and Symbolic

204 ISAAC E. CATT

Power. English trans. by Gino Raymond and MatthewAdamson, ed. by John B. Thompson (Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1991),117-126.

1984. Ho/no Academicus. English trans. by Peter Collier(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988).

1986. "Field of Power, Literary Field and Habitus", OriginalEnglish trans. by Claude DuVerlie in The Field 01

Cultural Production, ed. by Randal Johnson (NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1993),161-175.

1987. "Social Space and Symbolic Power"in In Other Words.English trans. by Matthew Adamson (Stanford:Stanford Uni versity Press, 1990a) 123-139.

BOURDIEU, Pierre. and Loic WACQUANT.1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Chicago:

University of Chicago Press).

COLLINS, Jalnes.1993. "Determination and Contradiction: An Appreciation

and Critique of the Work of Pierre Bourdieu onLanguage and Education" in Bourdieu: CriticalPer5pectives, ed. Craig Calhoun, Edward LiPuma, andMoishe Postone (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press).

GUSDORF, Georges.1965. Speaking [la Parole}. English trans. by Paul T.

Brockeiman (Evanston: Northwestern Univ. Press).

ETZIONI, Amatai.1993. The Spirit 01Community (New York: Crown).

LANIGAN, Richard L.1974. Speech: This Is An Invisible Industry. Lectllre given

to the Speech Department Colloquium of 15 Novemberat the Center for Advanced Communication Research,Southem Illinois University-Carbondale.

1988. Phenomenology 01Communication: Merleau-Ponty'sThenlatics in Communicology and Semiology(Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press).

COMMUNITARIANISM 205

1992. The Human Science o/Communicology: APhenolnenology 0/ Discourse in Foucault andMerleau-Ponty. (Pittsburgh: Duquesne Univ. Press).

1995. "A Good Rhetoric is Possible: Ricoeur's Philosophy.ofLanguage as A Phenomenology of Discourse in theHuman Sciences" in The Philosophy 0/Paul Ricoeur,ed. Lewis Edwin Hahn for The Library 0/LivingPhilosophers (Chicago and LaSalJe, IL: OpenCourt Publishing Co.), 311-329.

LEEDS-HURWITZ, Wendy.1993. Semiotics and Communication (Hillsdale, NJ:

Lawrence Erlbaum).

RAVITCH, Diane.1987. "Tot Sociology, or, What Happened to History in the

Grade Schools", The Afnerican Scholar 56.3, 343-354.

THOMPSON, John.1991. "Editor' s Introduction", Language and S.ymbolic

Power. English trans. by Gino Raymond and MatthewAdamson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press), 1-31.

Biography

ISAAC E. CATT (b. 16 November 1946). Academic Status:Professor of Speech Communication, Millersville University ofPennsylvania. Mail Address: Department ofCommunication andTheatre, Millersville University of Pennsylvania, Millersville, PA17551. E-mail: <Isaac.Catt@millersville.edu>Personal OfficeTel: (717)871-2001; Fax: (717) 871-2051. Educational Back-ground: Ph.D., Speech Communication, Southern Illinois Uni-versity, Carbondale, 1982. Research Interests: (1) Phenomenolo-gy; (2) Semiotics; (3 ) Communicology. Professional Back-ground: Member, Semiotic Society of America;Member, Inter-national Association for Semiotic Studies; Chair, Commissionon Semioticsand Communication,National CommunicationAs-sociation (1996-1997; 2000-2001); Fellow, International Com-municology Institute, 2000.

206 ISAAC E. CATT

BibliographyAuthor selection of items. Complete list available from the author.

ISAAC E. CATT2001. "Contests of Discourse in the Semiotic Age: 'Post-

Semiotic Philosophy' and Bordieu's Communicology"in Phenomenology and Communicative Praxis ed. LewisGordon and Jacqueline Martinez (New York: Rowanand Littlefield).

1995. "The 'Cash-Value' ofCommunication: AnInterpretation of William James", (Book Chapter, pp.97-114 in Recovering Pragmatism's Voice: TheClassical Tradition, Rorty, and the Philosophy 01Communication Andrew Smith and LenoreLangsdotf ed., SUNY Press).

1990. "Kommunikation als das Werk der Kunst: EineInterpretation zu Martin Heidegger" in Positionen undProzesse asthetischer Kommunikation, Sprache undSprechen (Frankfurt: Scriptor Press), 22, 37-53.

1988a. "Narcissism as Interpersonal Communication:Theoretical Implications", Journal olCommunicationTherapy 4.2, 151-168.

1988b. "Im Namen Des Pragmatismus oder PhilosophischeReflexion ist Keine Untugend" in Sprache undSprechen (Frankfurt: Scriptor Press), 19,53-61.

1986 "Rhetoric and Narcissism: A Critique of IdeologicalSelfism", Western Journal 01Speech Communication50. 3, 242-253.

___ and W. Marc PORTER.

1993. "The Narcissistic Reflection of Communicative Power:Delusions of Progress Against Organizational Diserimi-nation", (Co-authored with W. Mare Porter) in Narra-tive and Social Control: Critical Perspectives, ed. Den-nis Mumby (Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE Press), 164-185