PREMATURE SOCIETY

Oleh: Haris El Mahdi

“By dint of meaning, information, and transparence our societies have passed beyond the limit point, that of permanent ecstasy: the ecstasy of the social (masses), the body (obesity), sex (obscenity), violence (terror), and information (simulation).”
(Jean Baudrillard, The Ecstasy of Communication, 1987)

Pra-Wacana
Ilmu-Pengetahuan, moralitas, etika, sopan-santun, dimanakah saat ini ? di balik gegap-gempita infotainment-kah, yang setiap hari mondar-mandir di TV? Ataukah di antara acara-acara reality-show yang menyentuh perasaan dan menguras air-mata penonton? Atau malah berada di sudut dunia maya, hadir berdampingan bersama obrolan-obrolan ringan para pengguna Facebook, Friendster, Twitter dan yang sejenisnya.

Kita telah terjebak dalam “proyek lupa” menurut pengertian Milan Kundera, atau setidak-tidaknya “lupa-lupa ingat”, dalam bahasa syair yang didendangkan oleh grup band Kuburan. Dunia benar-benar bertransformasi dalam memaknai nilai dan norma. Standarisasi nilai (baik atau buruk) tidak lagi ditentukan oleh lembaga-lembaga yang berkompeten, tetapi ditentukan oleh pasar (market). Sesuatu yang tak rasional dan tak bermutu bisa sangat membumi dan digandrungi masyarakat, politisi-politisi yang tak bermoral bisa melenggang mudah menjadi wakil rakyat selama dia bisa menguasai dan diterima pasar dan kebudayaan-pun bertransformasi pada hal-hal yang bersifat artificial dan pseudo.

Coba ditengok betapa dahsyatnya penerimaan masyarakat atas lagu Tak Gendong karya mbah Surip. Lagu – yang dalam prespektif penulis – sangat sederhana dan minim makna. RBT lagu ini bisa mencapai miliaran rupiah. Artinya, masyarakat merasa happy dengan lagu itu, lagu yang enak di dengar telinga (easy listening) dan sekedar sebagai lucu-lucuan (just for joke), tidak lebih dari itu. Masyarakat kita telah kehilangan sense of personality, kehilangan kesadaran akan jati diri.

Anda simak pula acara-acara yang disajikan televisi setiap hari, yang didominasi oleh sinetron-sinetron yang miskin ide, infotainment dan acara reality-show. Media massa telah menjadi raksasa super-body yang menghipnotis masyarakat. Simak pula acara-acara musik di TV dan Radio yang tidak pernah berhenti bereproduksi setiap hari. Mengajak masyarakat untuk terus berdendang dan bergoyang, melupakan carut-marut masalah kebangsaan. Bahkan, acara-acara resmi kenegaraan terasa hambar jika tidak diselipi dengan musik atau hiburan. Seorang pejabat pemerintah akan merasa malu jika tidak turut menyanyi dan bergoyang dalam acara-acara resmi itu.

Sementara itu, anak-anak dan kaum muda sibuk mengisi waktu luang dengan game online; ber-Facebook-ria; menonton konser musik; main Futsal; kongkouw-kongkouw di Mall, cafe, pub atau diskotik berdiskusi tentang produk tekhnologi komunikasi terbaru dan yang sangat parah, tidak sedikit dari kaum muda kita mengisi waktu luang dengan mengakses situs-situs porno. Indonesia pun mendapat predikat sebagai salah-satu negara dengan pengakses situs-situs porno terbanyak di dunia. Sangat ironis........

Forum-forum diskusi, kajian dan seminar sepi peminat, kecuali disisipi dengan mengundang artis Ibu-kota atau seminar yang membahas Cara Mudah Mandapat Uang, Kiat-Kiat Menjadi Pengusaha Sukses, Cara Sehat Membahagiakan Pasangan dan tema-tema sejenis yang berorientasi untuk meraih kesenangan duniawi.
Singkatnya, secara tidak-sadar, kita digiring untuk mengisi hidup dengan ”happy-happy,” tertawa, bersenda-gurau, asal-asalan dan permisif

The Third Wave Epidemic

Alvin Toffler (1981) dalam buku “The Third Wave”, membagi peradaban manusia dalam tiga fase episode sejarah, yaitu :

Gelombang peradaban pertama (The First Wave)
Pada fase ini, masyarakat berada pada ruang lingkup kebudayaan agraris atau agrikultural. Ritme perubahan sosial masih berjalan sangat lambat. Mobilitas sosial, ekonomi, dan budaya relatif rendah dan bahkan cenderung stagnan. Nilai-nilai lokal (lokal genius) masih menjadi panutan utama dalam melanggengkan hubungan atau interaksi antara manusia dengan Tuhan, manusia dengan manusia dan manusia dengan alam. Dalam prespektif sosiologi, masyarakat agrikultural ini merupakan masyarakat teologis dan/atau masyarakat metafisik (menurut Auguste Comte). Dalam fase ini, tekhnologi yang dikembangkan oleh masyarakat adalah tekhnologi yang bersifat “alamiah”, yakni tekhnologi dengan bahan baku utama bahan-bahan yang ada di alam. Dengan bahasa lain, ketergantungan manusia atau masyarakat pada sumber daya alam sangat tinggi, hal ini mendorong manusia untuk berinteraksi secara intim (bersahabat) dengan alam. Meskipun demikian, bukan berarti pada fase ini masyarakat tidak mengalami perubahan sama sekali, tetapi perubahan terjadi dengan sangat lambat. Secara historis, fase gelombang pertama ini dapat kita lihat pada bangsa Sumeria dan juga bangsa-bangsa lain di Mesopotamia, sebagai tonggak sejarah awal munculnya peradaban agraris yang membedakan dengan periodesasi peradaban sebelumnya, yakni periode peradaban pra-sejarah.

Gelombang peradaban kedua (The Second Wave)
Pada gelombang peradaban kedua ini, ditandai dengan ditemukannya tekhnologi elektronik dan mekanik yang pada gilirannya mendorong berkembangnya industrialisasi, sehingga kebudayaan yang berkembang pun adalah kebudaayan industri (industri-kultural). Pada fase industri ini, tekhnologi mesin mempunyai peranan yang cukup dominan dalam proses-proses industri. Oleh karena itu, beberapa ahli justru memilih istilah “tekhnikalisasi” daripada “industrialisasi” dalam mengenali sifat pokok dari peradaban gelombang kedua ini. Indutrialisasi adalah merupakan proses yang menjadi kelanjutan atau bisa dianggap sebagai dampak langsung dari tekhnikalisasi, yaitu ketika spesialisasi tekhnikalistis itu diterapkan dalam usaha peningkatan produksi ekonomi. Oleh sebab itu, Marshall Hodgson mendefinisikan “tekhnikalisasi” sebagai :

“a condition of calculative (and hence innovative) technical specialization, in which several specialities become interdependent on a large enough scale to determine patterns of expectation in the key sectors of a society, especially oversas commerce.” (Hodgson : 1974)

Dengan demikian, maka “industrialisasi” dapat kita maknai sebagai : “prevelence of such power mechanized industry in a country’s economy” (Hodgson : 1974). Revolusi industri di Inggris merupakan tonggak sejarah munculnya gelombang kedua ini. Secara sosiologis, fase peradaban gelombang kedua ini dapat dikategorikan pada fase masyarakat positivisme (menurut istilah Comte). Hal ini lebih disebabkan proses pemgambilan keputusan diteakankan pada kalkulasi-kalkulasi rasionalitas bukan pada hal-hal yang bersifat metafisik. Perubahan sosial pada fase ini sudah lebih dahsyat dan cepat jika dibandingkan dengan peradaban gelombang kedua.

Gelombang peradaban ketiga (The Third Wave)
Menurut Toffler, arus gelombang ketiga merupakan proses lanjutan dari arus gelombang pertama dan arus gelombang kedua. Jika pada gelombang pertama perubahan sosial berjalan mengikuti deret hitung dan pada gelombang kedua perubahan sosial mengikuti deret ukur, maka pada arus gelombang ketiga ini perubahan sosial bersifat “exponential”. Artinya, proses perubahan sosial yang terjadi berjalan dengan sangat cepat melebihi perubahan sosial yang terjadi pada fase industrial. Kekuatan utama dari fase ini terletak pada perkembangan tekhnologi informasi dan komunikasi. Televisi, radio, telephone, komputer, internet, dan handphone adalah produk-produk dari tekhnologi informasi dan komunikasi yang menjadi agen-agen pembaharuan.

Periodesasi peradaban di atas – untuk sementara ini – berjalan secara linier, dan sekarang dunia sedang terserang epidemi badai gelombang ketiga. Namun sayangnya, di negara-negara berkembang badai gelombang ketiga ini terjadi terlalu cepat, sehingga struktur lama yang belum mapan harus melakukan kompromi dengan struktur baru. Jalaludin Rahmat (1997) mengungkapkan :

“Dengan skala sejarah umat manusia seperti itu tampak bahwa kita sekarang berada
di tengah-tengah ledakan tekhnologi informasi, dengan akselerasi yang semakin tinggi. Ledakan informasi ini telah mengguncang dunia Barat, karena kedatangannya yang beruntun. Toffler menyebut Barat sedang menyaksikan sekaratnya gelombang peradaban kedua. Ledakan ini mengguncang negara-negara ketiga secara lebih dahsyat lagi. Bagi mereka, tekhnologi informasi datang pada saat gelombang peradaban pertama (peradaban agrikultural) masih bercokol dan gelombang peradaban kedua (peradaban industri) masih menyerap.”

Epidemi gelombang ketiga ini bergerak sangat cepat dan merata diseluruh pojok dunia dan di semua sendi kehidupan. Semua individu di planet ini mabuk-kepayang terkena cyber-space virus, telecomunication addict dan information syndrome. Tak terkecuali negara-negara dunia ketiga seperti Indonesia. Sayangnya – seperti dijelaskan Jalaludin Rahmat di atas – untuk konteks dunia ketiga, kehadiran gelombang ketiga ini terlalu cepat, sehingga terjadi shock culture di mana-mana.

Kecepatan dan keterbukaan informasi dimaknai sebagai serba-boleh (permisif), serba cepat, serba aktual, serba instan dan serba mudah. Tembok-tembok primordialisme-pun terbongkar dengan sendirinya. Hal-hal yang dianggap tabu menjadi sesuatu yang lumrah. Hubungan-hubungan sosial antar individu terjalin sangat mudah dengan nyaris tanpa kontrol. Siapa yang bisa mengontrol Anda saat berchatting-ria dengan orang-orang ”asing” yang berada nun jauh di sana melalui media-media jejaring sosial? Tidak ada, kecuali diri Anda sendiri

Lebih dari itu – ibarat sebuah kotak Pandora – the third wave epidemic ini berpotensi membuka segala bentuk kemudharatan dan kita tak kuasa membendungnya. Dan – seperti telah diilustrasikan oleh Baudrillard – masyarakat akan bergerak menuju hyper-modernitas, euforia, banalitas dan akhirnya catastrope.

Post-Wacana
Tulisan ini adalah sebuah usaha untuk membuka kesadaran pembaca bahwa sekarang ini kita berada dalam dunia yang menggiring manusia pada ketidak-sadaran, menuju permanent ecstasy. Selanjutnya terserah Anda dalam membaca dan menghayati kondisi ini. Apakah Anda tetap menjadi individu yang tak-sadar? Ataukah menjadi individu yang sadar di tengah ketak-sadaran massal? Inilah yang saya sebut masyarakat prematur.

Pustaka
Baudrillard, Jean, The Ecstasy of Communication, New York, 1987.

Rahmat, Jalaludim, , Generasi Muda di Tangah Arus Perkembangan Informasi, dalam Idy Subandi Ibrahim, Ecstacy Gaya Hidup, Kebudayaan Pop dalam Masyarakat Komoditas Indonesia, Penerbit MIZAN, Bandung, 1997

Hodgson, Marshall G. S, The Venture of Islam, Conscience and History in a World Civilization, University of Chicago Press, Chicago – Illinois, 1974

Toffler, Alvin, The Third Wave, Bantam Books, New York, 1981.

AGAMA DAN MASYARAKAT

Haris El Mahdi

WACANA AGAMA DALAM SOSIOLOGI
Emile Durkheim, sosiolog asal Perancis, mendefinisikan agama sebagai (Turner, 1984 : 18) :

“Suatu sistem terpadu tentang kepercayaan-kepercayaan dan praktek-praktek khusus terhadap benda-benda suci, atau dengan kata lain, hal-hal yang tersendiri dan terlarang. Kepercayaan-kepercayaan dan praktek-praktek tersebut menyatu ke dalam suatu komunitas moral yang dinamakan Gereja, yang mana semua orang tunduk kepadanya.”

Dari pandangan Durkheim di atas, terdapat dua hal yang menjadi watak khas dari agama, yaitu : (1) adanya kepercayaan yang kuat terhadap benda-benda suci, atau sesuatu yang disucikan, dan (2) adanya parktek-praktek khusus (baca : ritual keagamaan) terhadap benda-benda suci atau sesuatu yang disucikan tersebut. Dua hal ini, menyatu terpadu dalam sebuah tatanan komunitas moral (Gereja).

Sementara itu, dengan tetap berpijak pada pola berfikir Durkheim, Koentjaraningrat (1994 : 144 – 145) mengemukakan bahwa tiap religi merupakan suatu sistem yang terdiri dari empat komponen, yaitu :

1. Emosi keagamaan yang menyebabkan manusia bersikap religius;
2. Sitem keyakinan yang mengandung segala keyakinan serta bayangan manusia tentang sifat-sifat Tuhan, tentang wujud dari aam ghaib (Super-natural), serta segaa nilai, norma dan ajaran religi yang bersangkutan;
3. Sistem ritus dan upacara yang merupakan suatu usaha manusia untuk mencari hubungan dengan Tuhan, dewa-dewa, atau makhluk-makhluk yang mendiami alam ghaib;
4. Umat atau kesatuan sosial yang menganut sistem keyakinan tersebut daam poin 2, danyang meaksanakan sistem ritus dan upacara, sebagaimana tersebut dalam poin .

Keempat komponen tersebut terjalin erat satu dengan yang lain menjadi suatu sistem yang terintegrasi secara bulat-terpadu.

Pemaknaan tentang agama serta komponen-komponen yang melingkupinya, seperti tertuang dalam penjelasan di atas, memberi kita pemahaman bahwa agama (atau religi) merupakan sebuah fenomena religius atau bahkan fakta sosial di masyarakat. Masyarakat apapun dan dimanapun, dalam sejarah kehidupannya pasti mengenal ajaran-ajaran agama.

Hal ini ditegaskan oleh Talcott Parsons yang menjelaskan bahwa signifikansi utama karya Durkheim tentang agama primitif adalah pengakuannya bukan bahwa “agama merupakan fenomena sosial” tetapi bahwa “masyarakat adalah fenomena religius” (Hammond, 2003 : 209). Namun demikian, fungsi dan peranan agama di masyarakat tidak selalu bermakna positif. Kutipan berikut dapat memberi penjelasan mengenai tidak positifnya peran dan fungsi agama di masyarakat (Lauer,1989: 254) :

“…..Selama abad pertengahan, kalangan pendeta menggunakan ideologi keagamaan sebagai alat untuk mendapatkan kekuasaan lebih besar dan karena itu menghalangi terjadinya perubahan. Kemajuan ekonomi diperlambat dengan menyatakan membungakan uang sebagai perbuatan riba yang penuh dengan dosa. Surplus kekayaan cenderung disalurkan untuk membeli barang-barang perhiasan, aktivitas sopan santun, membangun bangunan keagamaan dan istana. Dengan kata lain, surplus kekayaan tidak ditanamkan dalam usahan perdagangan dan industri melainkan tersedot ke dalam aktivitas keagamaan yang tidak produktif yang diyakini akan menimbulkan kasih sayang Tuhan. Akibatnya, sekitar penghujung abad pertengahan, tekhnik penyediaan air minum dan sanitasi (yang telah dibangun orang Romawi jauh sebelumnya) masih belum digunakan. Kota-kota dipadati oleh bangunan keagamaan yang sering boros, kotor, jalan raya tanpa perencanaan dan struktur bangunan yang sembrono….."

Masalah ini pula yang disinggung oleh Veblen (1953 :201) dalam kritiknya tentang agama dengan menyatakan bahwa seluruh perangkat dan aktivitas yang berkaitan dengan agama pada dasarnya adalah pemborosan yang sangat mencolok. Lebih lanjut Veblen menegaskan, “konsumsi barang dan upaya untuk melayani kepentingan yang bersifat Ketuhanan berarti mengurangi vitalitas komunitas.” Hal inilah yang menyebabkan agama menjadi sesuatu yang dianggap tak dapat menuntaskan permasalahan-permasalahan kemanusiaan/masalah duniawi. Situai agama yang terlampau “mengawang” inilah yang dilukiskan oleh Karl Marx dan Engels (1977 : 42) dalam artikelnya, sebagai berikut : "

"Religion is the sign of oppressed creature, the heart of heartless world, just as it is spirit of spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people.”

Pandangan Marx dan Engels di atas, dipertegas oleh A.N. Wilson dalam sebuah buku tukisannya berjudul : Against Religion : Why We Should Try to Live Without It ? sebagai berikut (Rahman, 1995 : XXV) sebagai berikut :

“Marx menggambarkan agama sebagai candu rakyat; tetapi agama,” kata Wilson, jauh berbahaya daripada candu. Agama tidak membuat orang tertidur. Agama mendorong orang untuk menganiaya sesamanya, untuk mengungkapkan perasaan dan pendapat mereka sendiri atas pendapat dan perasaan orang lain, untuk mengklaim bagi diri mereka sendiri sebagai pemilik kebenaran.”

Namun demikian, adanya beberapa kritikan yang tajam terhadap eksistensi agama sebagaimana dikutip dalam tulisan di atas, bukan berarti bahwa agama tidak mempunyai peran positif sama sekali dalam kehidupan bermasyarakat. Analisis Webber dalam buku The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, agaknya merupakan suatu usaha ilmiah untuk menjelaskan pengaruh positif agama (Protestant Calvinis) terhadap tumbuh dan berkembangnya nilai-nilai positif dari kapitalisme.

Fakta lain yang menunjukkan bahwa agama mempunyai peran dan fungsi yang positif dalam tata kehidupan msyarakat adalah pengaruh agama Islam terhadap perubahan sosial yang terjadi pada masyarakat Eropa Barat di abad Pertengahan. Masyarakat Eropa Barat yang masih barbarian saat itu, banyak belajar kepada orang Islam yang dianggap sebagai golongan yang mempunyai tingkat peradaban tinggi. Secara jelas, hal ini disimpulkan oleh Montgomery Watt (1972 : 84) sebagai berikut :

“When one keeps hold of all the facets of the medieval confrontation of Christianity and Islam, it is clear that the influence of Islam on western Christendom is greater than is usually realized. Not merely did Islam share with western Europe many material product and technological discoveries; not merely did it stimulate Europe intellectually in the fields of science and philoshopy; but it provoken Europe into forming a new image of itself. Because Europe was reacting against Islam it belittled the influence of Saracens and exaggerated its dependence on its Greek and Roman heritage. So today an important task for us Western Europeans, as we move into the era of the one world is the correct this false emphasis and to acknowledge fully our debt to the Arab and Islamic world.”

Singkatnya, setiap agama mempunyai kesempatan untuk menampilkan citra yang positif atau negatif dalam realitas kehidupan bermasyarakat. Hal ini sangat dipengaruhi oleh kualitas pemahaman masing-masing pemeluk agama dalam menyerap pesan-pesan spiritual dari ajaran agama yang dia anut. Pernyataan ini perlu digaris-bawahi karena setiap agama pasti menghendaki sebuah tata sosial kemasyarakatan yang teratur, baik dan beradab.

Lebih lanjut – seperti yang telah disinggung di atas – eksistensi agama merupakan sebuah fakta sosial yang keberadaannya tak bisa dipisahkan dari masyarakat dengan cara apapun. Setiap usaha untuk menjauhkan masyarakat dari diskursus tentang agama pasti akan menimbulkan pertentangan atau konflik sosial. Langkah bijak secara ilmiah adalah dengan menganalisis agama dalam kaitannya dengan kehidupan bermasyarakat; baik pola hubungan antar intern pemeluk agama yang bersangkutan maupun hubungan antar pemeluk agama dan agama dalam kaitannya dengan konsep-konsep ketuhanan. Bertitik-tolak dari pemahaman tentang doktrin keagamaan secara obyektif, kita dapat menganalisis secara lebih utuh tentang berbagai bentuk prilaku-prilaku sosial para penganut sebuah ajaran keagamaan.

AGAMA SEBAGAI PRODUK KEBUDAYAAN TIMUR
Adalah sebuah fakta historis bahwa seluruh agama-agama besar dunia; lahir, tumbuh dan berkembang dari rahim peradaban Timur (atau lebih tepatnya Asia). Terdapat dua titik sentral peradaban timur yang banyak melahirkan agama (besar) tersebut, yaitu : 1) Timur-Tengah (dan Asia Selatan) yang melahirkan agama : Yahudi, Nasrani, Islam, Hindu dan Budha, dan 2) Timur-Jauh yang melahirkan agama : Tao(isme), Kong Hu Cu (Konfusianism), dan Shinto. Dari titik-titik sentral inilah agama lahir dan tumbuh menjadi bagian dari sejarah umat manusia.

Kenyataan historis tersebut menandaskan bahwa agama dan kebudayaan Timur adalah dua hal yang tak dapat dipisahkan satu sama lainnya, ibarat dua sisi koin mata uang. Kebudayaan Timur telah sedemikian rupa menghasilkan agama dan sebaliknya agama telah menjadi urat-nadi kehidupan kebudayaan Timur. Dalam bahasa lain, eksistensi kebudayaan Timur (baca : Asia) tak bisa dilepaskan dari kehidupan religius. Hal inilah yang sekaligus menjadi argumentasi bahwa pertentangan terhadap agama tidak lahir dari Asia melainkan dari Eropa – melalui jargon renaissance dan humanismenya.

Fakta historis lain menunjukkan bahwa wilayah Timur-Tengah dan Timur-Jauh merupakan titik-titik sentral lahirnya peradaban-peradaban agung dan tertua dunia. Di Timur-Tengah lahir peradaban : Mesir, Babylonia, Sumeria, Mohenjao Daro dan Harrapa, sedangkan dari wilayah Timur-Jauh lahir sebuah peradaban yang menembus berbagai rentang abad, yaitu peradaban Cina. Peradaban-peradaban tersebut di masanya telah menghasilkan kebudayaan yang agung dengan bertumpu pada agama, ilmu pengetahuan dan tekhnologi. Fakta historis ini sekaligus menunjukkan bahwa Timur (Asia) mempunyai usia kesejarahan yang lebih panjang dibanding Barat (Eropa). Oleh karena itu wajar bahwa nation-state yang terbentuk di wilayah Asia mempunyai akar-akar historis yang sangat kuat dibanding nation-state yang terbentuk di wilayah Barat.

Fakta-fakta di atas menunjukkan bahwa Timur (Asia) merupakan wilayah geografis yang sangat eksotis, mistik, spiritualism, dan natural. Pondasi utama setiap kebudayaan yang lahir dari Timur pasti bernuansakan eksotisme, mistis, dan spiritualism. Dalam bahasa lain, agama mempunyai pengaruh yang luar biasa menumbuh-kembangkan kebudayaan di wilayah Timur.

BACK TO EAST, BACK TO SPIRITUALITY
Eksistensi agama – setelah melewati rentang sejarah – ternyata tidak pernah pudar. Di era post-industrial saat ini, kerinduan manusia untuk kembali menengok ajaran-ajaran keagamaan sangat tampak terasa. Jargon yang berbunyi : BACK TO EAST atau BACK TO NATURE sebenarnya membawa pesan eksplisit bahwa manusia rindu untuk kembali kepada agama atau spritualitas. Menurut Sorokin, kerinduan ini merupakan fase alamiah dalam perjalanan kesejarahan manusia. Ungkapan paling terasa mengenai hal ini dapat disimak dalam pernyataan E.F. Schumacher dalam buku A Guide For Thr Perplexed, sebagai berikut (Hidayat & Nafis: 1995, xvii) :

“Mungkin saja dapat dibayangkan hidup tanpa gereja; tapi mustahil hidup tanpa agama, yaitu tanpa kerja sistematis, memelihara hubungan dengan dan berkembang ke arah Tingkat-Tingkat yang Lebih Tinggi ketimbang tingkat “kehidupan sehari-hari”, dengan segala kesenangan dan kepahitannya, sensasi dan kepuasannya, kehalusan dan kekasarannya – apapun jua adanya. Percobaan modern untuk hidup tanpa agama telah gagal, dan sekali lagi kita memahami hal ini, kita pun lalu tahu apa sesungguhnya tugas “pasca-modern” kita.”

Schumacher benar bahwa eksperimen modern (baca : Barat) untuk menata kehidupan dengan meninggalkan agama telah mengalami kegagagalan. Kegagalan Barat ini direkam secara provokatif oleh Fritjof Capra (2000 : 3) sebagai berikut :

“Pada awal dua dasawarsa terakhir abad kedua puluh, kita menemukan diri kita berada dalam suatu krisis global yang serius, yaitu suatu krisis kompleks dan multidimensional yang segi-seginya menyntuh setiap aspek kehidupan kesehatan dan mata pencaharian, kualitas lingkungan dan hubungan sosial, ekonomi, tekhnologi, dan politik. Krisis ini merupakan krisis dalam dimensi-dimensi intelektual, moral dan spiritual; suatu krisis yang belum pernah terjadi sebelumnya dalam catatan sejarah umat manusia. Untuk pertamakalinya kita dihadapkan pada ancaman kepunahan ras manusia yang nyata dan semua bentuk kehidupan di planet ini.”

Krisis global, kompleks dan multidimensional inilah yang makin menyadarkan manusia modern adanya sebab-sebab yang bersifat transedental, sebab-sebab cara pandang manusia terhadap alam ini. Dunia dan kehidupan modern ternyata telah kehilangan horizon spiritual.

Modernisme telah membawa manusia untuk menuhankan ilmu-pengetahuan dan tekhnologi, melupakan agama dan the real I-nya. Akibatnya, manusia modern menjadi sibuk memuja materi (materialism) dan melupakan esensi sangkan-paran kehidupannya. Secara spesifik, manusia modern tak bisa secara tepat mendefinisikan tentang Who Am I ?, siapa saya ? siapa manusia ? apa tujuan manusia hidup ? dan sederet pertanyaan-pertanyaan filosofis lainnya, yang meskipun sederhana ternyata tidak ditemukan jawaban yang memuaskan. Max Scheeler, filsuf Jerman abad 20 menguraikannya sebagai berikut (Rahman, 1995 : xviii) :

“Tak ada periode lain dalam pengetahuan manusiawi, di mana manusia semakin problematis bagi dirinya sendiri, seperti pada peride kita ini. Kita punya antropologi ilmiah, antropologi filosofis, antropologi teologis yang tak saling mengenal satu sama lain. Tapi kita tak mempunyai gambaran yang jelas dan konsisten tentang manusia. Semakin bertumbuh dan banyaknya ilmu-ilmu khusus yang terjun mempelajari manusia, tidak menjernihkan konsepsi kita tentang manusia malah sebaliknya semakin membingungkan dan mengaburkannya.”

Manusia modern – selama berabad-abad – berada di pinggiran eksistensi dirinya. Filsafat Cartesian yang menjadi “inspirasi” peradaban Barat telah membawa manusia menjauh dari kefithrahan dan ketentraman hidup.

Tingginya tingkat kriminalitas, perceraian, polusi; bahaya perang nuklir dan biokimia, pencemaran limbah industri, rusaknya lingkungan alam, epidemi penyakit, hancurnya moralitas, korupsi, pengangguran, kemiskinan dan hilangnya nilai-nilai luhur kemanusiaan merupakan fakta-fakta konkret menjauhnya manusia dari kehidupan yang tentram-damai. Sederet permasalahan modernitas inilah yang menjadikan hati manusia modern gersang, kering, dan gelisah. Hal inilah yang mendorong semakin banyaknya manusia modern lari kepelukan aktivitas spiritualitas. Yoga, studi-studi tasawuf, olah pernafasan, kelompok-kelompok pengajian keagamaan, dan bahkan sekte-sekte spiritualitas (seperti : Sekte Rumah David dan Sekte Lia Eden) menjadi pilihan alternatif untuk menemukan kembali ketentraman hati dan kedamaian hidup.

MASYARAKAT SEBAGAI FENOMENA RELIGIUS
Di atas, penulis telah mendiskusikan bahwa betapapun modernitas – selama berabad-abad – telah berusaha membawa manusia meninggalkan agama, namun di penghujung akhir abad 20 terdapat sebuah kesadaran kolektif umat manusia bahwa tak mungkin hidup tanpa agama. Tak mungkin hidup tanpa sosok individu yang harus disembah dan dijadikan sumber pengharapan (sekaligus inspirasi). Konsepsi tentang Tuhan (God, Ilah) muncul dan berkembang dalam konteks kebutuhan naluriah manusia untuk menggantungkan hidup pada Individu “supra-inderawi” – meminjam istilah Arnold Toynbee – Individu yang berada di luar jangkuan manusia, absolut, dan mempunyai segala ke-Maha-annya.

Tuhan hadir dan dibutuhkan manusia untuk menentramkan hatinya (soul-nya). Modernisme mengklaim bahwa selama manusia bisa mencukupi dan menyelesaikan masalah hidupnya ia tak butuh lagi Tuhan. Tekhnologi diciptakan untuk menggantikan peran Tuhan dalam menentramkan hati manusia. Tetapi, ternyata klaim modernisme tersebut tidak terbukti benar. Fakta kekinian menunjukkan bahwa betatapapun ilmu-pengetahuan dan tekhnologi telah mengalami kemajuan yang luar-biasa dahsyatnya, namun permasalahan manusia juga mengalami kemajuan yang luar-biasa kompleksnya. Para ilmuwan – seberapapun pandainya – tak sanggup lagi menuntaskan permasalahan kompleks ini, meskipun mereka saling bekerja-sama. Capra (2000 : 9), secara cerdas mengungkapkannya sebagai berikut :

“Adalah suatu tanda zaman yang mengejutkan bahwa orang-orang yang seharusnya ahli dalam berbagai bidang tidak lagi mampu menyelesaikan masalah-masalah mendesak yang telah muncul di dalam bidang keahlian mereka. Ekonom tidak mampu memahami inflasi, onkolog sama sekali bingung tentang penyebab kanker, psikiater dikacaukan oleh schizofrenia, polisi tak berdaya menghadapi kejahatan yang meningkat, dan lain sebagainya.”

Akhirnya, seperti telah diungkap oleh Talcott Parsons bahwa masyarakat sejatinya adalah sebuah fenomena religius. Kereligiusitasan ini terungkap dari fakta bahwa masyarakat selalu berusaha untuk memuja hal-hal yang luar-biasa, seperti : alam (matahari, laut, api, gunung, dst), tokoh-tokoh spiritual kharismatik, tekhnologi atau Individu “Supra-Inderawi” yang diidentikkan dengan nama Tuhan. Dan, kekacauan besar – atau The Great Disruption menurut istilah Francis Fukuyama – modernisme mendorong manusia untuk mencari The Real God. Tuhan Sejati yang layak untuk disembah dan sekaligus merindukan The Real Religion, agama sejati yang menjadi aturan hidup.

DAFTAR PUSTAKA

Capra, Fritjof, Titik Balik Peradaban ( Sains, Masyarakat dan Kebangkitan Kebudayaan), edisi terjemahan, Bentang Budaya, Jogjakarta, 2000

Hammond, Phillip E, Pluralisme dan Hukum dalam Pembentukan Agama Sipil Amerika, dalam Robert N Bellah, et. al, Varieties of Civil Religion, Beragam Bentuk Agama Sipil dalam Beragam Bentuk Kekuasaan Politik, Kultural, Ekonomi, dan Sosial, Ircisod, Jogjakarta, 2003

Koentjaraningrat, Kebudayaan Mentalitas dan Pembangunan (Bunga Rampai), PT. Gramedia, Jakarta, 1994

Lauer, Robert. H, Prespektif Tentang Perubahan Sosial, Bina Aksara, Jakarta, 1989

Marx, Karl, dan F. Engels, On Religion, Schocken Books, New York, 1977

Rahman, Budhy Munawar, Kata Pengantar dalam Komaruddin Hidayat dan Muhammad Wahyuni Nafis, Agama Masa Depan Prespektif Filsafat Perennial, PARAMADINA, Jakarta, 1995

Smith, Donald Eugene, Agama dan Modernisasi Politik (Suatu Kajian Analitis), CV. Rajawali Press, Jakarta, 1985

Turner, Bryant, Sosiologi Islam, Suatu Telaah Analitis atas Thesa Sosiologi Webber, CV. Rajawali, Jakarta, 1984

Veblen, Thorstein, The Theory of the Leisure Class, Mentor Books, New York, 1953

Veeger, K.J, Realitas Sosial: Refleksi Filsafat Sosial atas Hubungan Individu-Masyarakat dalam Cakrawala Sejarah Sosiologi, PT. Gramedia Pustaka Utama, Jakarta, 1985

Watt, Montgomery, The Influence of Islam on Mediaveal Europe, Edinburg University Press, Edinburg, 1972

MAWAR (BUKAN NAMA SEBENARNYA)

Pena : Haris El Mahdi

"………..
Wong wadon ilang kawirangane
Wong lanang ilang kaprawirane
Akeh wong lanang ora duwe bojo
Akeh wong wadon ora setyo marang bojone
Akeh ibu padha ngedol anake
Akeh wong ijol bebojo
Akeh randha nglairake anak
Akeh jabang bayi lahir nggoleki bapakne
Wong wadon lacur ing ngendi-endi
……………”
(Serat Jayabaya)

Sekedar Ilustrasi
Stasiun televisi swasta ibukota, dalam sebuah acara kriminal memberitakan bahwa telah terjadi tindakan asusila yang dilakukan oleh seorang Bapak berusia 40 tahun terhadap anak gadisnya sendiri yang berusia 16 tahun. Si anak yang bernama Mawar (bukan nama sebenarnya) mengaku telah dicabuli bapaknya selama 2 tahun. Selama itu, Mawar tidak mau lapor karena takut.

Sejenak kita terkejut menyaksikan berita tersebut. Tetapi, keterkejutan kita hanya bersifat sementara. Hal ini disebabkan berita-berita kriminal asusila yang sejenis dengan ilustrasi di atas tidak hanya terjadi sekali dua kali tetapi berulang-ulang, bahkan hampir setiap hari. Kitapun menjadi permisif, acuh tak acuh, menganggap kejadian tersebut adalah hal yang wajar dan normal-normal saja.

Dalam hidup bermasyarakat, suatu tindakan dapat dianggap wajar jika dilakukan secara berulang-ulang dan terus-menerus. Dus, dewasa ini tindakan-tindakan asusila seperti pencabulan, pemerkosaan, dan pelecehan seksual adalah hal yang telah terjadi secara berulang-ulang dalam masyarakat kita.

Suatu saat kita mendengar seorang kakek mencabuli cucunya, seorang kakak memperkosa adik kandungnya, seorang anak memperkosa ibu kandungya, dan seterusnya. Dunia jurnalistikpun memunculkan istilah baru untuk para korban perkosaan – yang umumnya adalah perempuan – dengan sebutan Mawar (bukan nama sebenarnya). Pertanyaannya: apakah kita akan membiarkan tindakan-tindakan seperti itu menjadi sebuah kewajaran?

Gonjang-Ganjinge Donya
Ilustrasi di atas merupakan gambaran dari dunia yang sedang berlipat, atau orang Jawa menyebutnya dengan istilah gonjang-ganjinge donya. Istilah ini merujuk pada situasi masyarakat yang mengalami huru-hara sosial-budaya. Kebaikan dan kebathilan menjadi kabur, halal dan haram tak ada bedanya.

Bagaimana tak disebut gonjang-ganjing? Jika ada seorang Bapak yang tega mencabuli anaknya sendiri, seorang Kakek berbuat tak senonoh terhadap cucunya sendiri, dan yang sungguh mengherankan, seorang anak tega memperkosa ibunya sendiri.

Inti permasalahan penyebab terjadinya huru-hara sosial-budaya ini adalah hancurnya pilar-pilar moral di masyarakat. Ukum agama dilanggar, Prikamanusiaan diiles-iles, kasusilaan ditinggal (Hukum agama dilanggar, prikemanusiaan ditindas, kesusilaan diacuhkan), demikian ungkap Jayabaya yang menggambarkan kondisi masyarakat pada fase Kaliyuga. Fase dimana sebagian besar masyarakat tidak lagi berpijak pada hukum agama dan norma kesusilaan.

Masyarakatpun kacau-balau, hubungan-hubungan sosial antar individu menjadi semakin renggang. Keharmonisan hidup berumah-tangga sulit terwujud. Orang miskin semakin miskin, orang kaya semakin kaya. Pengangguran dimana-mana, kriminalitas menjadi-jadi. Banyak ulama/kyai dan pejabat hanya mahir berpidato, tak bisa menjadi panutan.

Inilah realitas jaman Kaliyuga yang saat ini sedang kita alami. Saat ini – diakui atau tidak – hati kita sedang gelisah sebagaimana gelisahnya jaman dan alam. Hati manusia gelisah, masyarakat bergejolak dan alampun penuh dengan bencana. Dunia dipenuhi dengan “orang edan”, sing ora edan ora keduman. Namun, orang yang selamat adalah individu yang selalu eling lan waspada.

Merenungi Sangkan-Paran Diri.
Keadaan diri yang selalu eling lan waspada adalah senjata utama yang harus dipergunakan agar kita tidak tergerus oleh arus jaman Kaliyuga. Tanpa kedua senjata itu, mustahil kita berhasil tidak menjadi orang edan. Karena sejatinya orang edan adalah orang yang telah lupa (wong sing wis lali). Dalam hal ini lupa dengan kesejatian diri. Ibarat kacang lupa dengan kulitnya.

Nah, agar kita tidak lupa dengan kesejatian diri, kita harus senantiasa mengingat-ingatnya, senantiasa eling tentang siapa diri kita dan hendak kemana kita. Orang yang eling adalah orang yang paham-mengerti mengapa dia hidup dan untuk apa dia hidup. Jika kita tak tahu pasti siapa diri kita dan untuk tujuan apa kita hidup, maka itulah sejatinya yang disebut “wong edan,” orang gila.

Asal-muasal dan tujuan hidup manusia dalam khazanah Budaya Jawa dikenal dengan istilah “sangkan-paran”. Asal-muasal manusia hidup karena dihidupkan oleh Gusti Kang Murbeng Dumadi, Tuhan yang menggenggam kehidupan. Kita sadar bahwa tanpa kehendak Tuhan, tak mungkin kita bisa hidup. Sampai saat ini dan kapanpun, kita tak kuasa untuk mencipta diri kita sendiri. “Tangan-tangan” Tuhan-lah yang membuat hidung, telinga, mata, gigi, dan seluruh anggota badan kita. Tuhan bekerja sendiri dalam mendesain dan mencipta tubuh manusia, tak ada satupun bagian dari tubuh manusia yang merupakan hasil karya kita.

Kita hanya menerima-jadi tubuh dan memakainya sebentar untuk beraktivitas dalam kehidupan. Saat tubuh rusak dimakan usia, kita pun tak kuasa untuk memperbaikinya. Dan, kita pun harus meninggalkan tubuh yang telah rusak itu. Kita kembali menghadap Tuhan. Bahkan, tak jarang sebelum tubuh rusak pun, sebagian dari kita telah menghadap Tuhan.

Hakekatnya, manusia dihidupkan adalah untuk menjadi titik-pusat kesetimbangan alam semesta. Untuk alasan itulah Tuhan mencipta manusia. Tuhan mencipta manusia dengan “kedua tangan”-Nya, sementara malaikat hanya dengan “tangan-kanan”-Nya dan Iblis hanya dengan “tangan-kiri”-Nya. Secara “penuh dan utuh”, Tuhan mencitrakan diri-Nya dalam diri manusia. Kesempurnaan Tuhan, Ia manifestasikan dalam wujud manusia. Manusialah makhluk sempurna yang menjadi penentu hancur-tidaknya kehidupan semesta.

Dari Tuhan kembali ke Tuhan, itulah sangkan-paran manusia, asal-usul dan tujuan manusia hidup. Kita harus senantiasa ingat dan terus merenunginya. Karena hanya orang yang mengenal dirinya secara utuh, yang dapat senantiasa waspada, tak mudah dipengaruhi carut-marutnya kehidupan masyarakat.

Penutup
Mawar (bukan nama sebenarnya) adalah lakon dari cerita kehidupan manusia yang menandakan bahwa jaman sedang mengalami kemerosotan moral. Agama hanya ada di masjid, tidak dapat menyentuh kehidupan riil masyarakat. Jadinya, manusia ibarat kuda liar yang tak terkendali. Banyak orang edan berkeliaran.

Namun demikian, betapapun dunia mengalami gonjang-ganjing, hal itu tidak harus membuat kita terbawa arus. Lebih baik kita tidak menjadi wong edan dan ora keduman daripada harus menanggalkan harkat-martabat kemanusiaan kita. Dan, eling lan waspada harus senantiasa melekat dalam benak dan pikiran kita, sepanjang hidup. Hanya dengan eling lan waspada kita bisa terselamatkan dari jaman Kaliyuga.

IDENTITAS BANGSA

Pena: Haris El Mahdi

Kami Bangsa Indonesia dengan ini menyatakan kemerdekaan Indonesia.

Hal-hal yang mengenai pemindahan kekuasaan d.l.l., diselenggarakan

dengan cara seksama dan dalam tempo yang sesingkat-singkatnya.

(Teks Proklamasi)

Indonesia, memasuki abad 21 adalah profil sebuah bangsa yang sedang mengalami krisis identitas (identity crisis). Hal ini tidak hanya tercermin dari lemahnya kharisma bangsa di pentas hubungan internasional tetapi juga menjalar terasa di hampir seluruh sendi kehidupan bermasyarakat di tingkat lokal. Ibarat harimau yang tak bertaring, demikian tamsil yang tepat untuk menggambarkan keadaan negeri yang kita cintai ini.

Secara historis, krisis identitas ini merupakan dampak psikologis sebuah bangsa yang pernah dijajah oleh kekuatan asing selama berabad-abad dan diperparah oleh “penjajahan” yang dilakukan oleh bangsa sendiri selama beberapa dasawarsa terakhir ini. Memang benar, pada tanggal 17 bulan 8 tahun 1945 kita berhasil memproklamirkan diri sebagai bangsa yang merdeka dan berdaulat penuh, tetapi pada kenyataannya sampai detik ini kita belum benar-benar merdeka dan berdaulat penuh atas negeri ini (baca: Indonesia). Kemerdekaan yang kita raih dari penjajah asing tersebut hanyalah sekedar kemerdekaan fisik/pelimpahan wewenang kekuasaan semata, tetapi belum mendarah-daging menjadi watak kejiwaan (mind set) setiap warga negara.
Oleh karena itu adalah wajar jika saat ini hanya sedikit – bahkan hampir tidak ada – warga negara Bangsa Indonesia yang di dalam hatinya terpatri rasa bangga sebagai bangsa yang merdeka dan berdaulat penuh. Dengan kata lain, masih sangat sedikit individu warga negara Bangsa Indonesia yang “benar-benar” merasa sebagai individu yang merdeka dari sebuah bangsa yang merdeka.

Bukti-bukti mengenai hal ini sangat mudah kita temui dalam berbagai fenomena kehidupan berbangsa. Anak-anak muda kita yang bermental rapuh terkontaminasi hasil limbah kebudayaan Barat, seperti minuman keras, narkotika, pornografi dan hedonisme merupakan wajah buram dari generasi penerus bangsa. Runtuhnya mental anak-anak muda tersebut merupakan cermin paling nyata tentang krisis identitas yang melanda Indonesia.

Lebih dari itu, Indonesia dewasa ini juga dikenal sebagai negara terkorup di dunia. Dalam tataran riil, korupsi telah menjadi watak kejiwaan bangsa yang sulit dihilangkan atau dengan kata lain – meminjam istilah Bung Hatta – korupsi telah menjadi budaya bangsa. Kondisi ini sungguh memprihatinkan, tidak saja disebabkan korupsi merupakan tindak kejahatan yang merugikan bangsa secara materiil, tetapi lebih dari itu, budaya kotupsi merupakan refleksi dari tingginya tingkat ketidak-jujuran. Dan, mana mungkin kita bisa membangun bangsa dengan bermodalkan ketidak-jujuran?

Kondisi di atas masih diperparah dengan rendahnya etos/semangat kerja dan daya kreativitas sumber daya manusia yang dimiliki negeri ini. Sampai saat ini, kebanyakan dari kita masih menggunakan rumus :

Bekerja = Mendapat Uang
ATAU
Bekerja = Mendapat Imbal Balas

Hal inilah yang menjadi faktor pemicu tingginya tingkat pengangguran dan rendahnya daya saing sumber daya manusia yang kita miliki. Sebagian besar dari kita tidak mau bekerja berpeluh keringat jika dalam prespektif sudut pandang kita pekerjaan tersebut tidak menguntungkan secara materiil. Konskuensi logis dari cara pandang seperti ini adalah mendorong menjamurnya aktivitas pembajakan dan penyelundupan yang beraneka-ragam. Jika sudut pandang ini tidak diubah, maka meskipun hukum dan perundang-undangan dirancang sebaik mungkin tidak akan membawa dampak yang signifikan. Seharusnya, rumus yang relevan untuk Bangsa Indonesia adalah :

Bekerja = Untuk Menumbuh-kembangkan Bakat & Potensi diri/individu.

Dengan menggunakan rumus di atas, secara otomatis menumbuhkan jiwa wira-usaha dan meningkatkan daya kreativitas. Dan, tidak ada lagi istilah pengangguran, karena setiap warga negara giat bekerja menyumabangkan karya dan karsanya untuk bangsa sesuai bakat dan kemampuan yang dia miliki.

Paparan di atas adalah sedikit dari begitu kompleksnya permasalahan yang ada di negeri Indonesia. Namun, terdapat satu kalimat yang menjadi “keyword” dari seluruh permasalahan tersebut, yaitu “MANUSIA INDONESIA BELUM MERDEKA LAHIR-BATHIN”. Ciri atau identitas orang yang merdeka adalah berwatak bebas – aktif. Bebas dalam arti tidak ada apapun dan siapapun yang yang bisa menghegemoni keberadaan dirinya, kecuali kebenaran. Sedangkan Aktif bermakna, ia senantiasa bergerak-beraktivitas untuk berkarya sekaligus menuntas-selesaikan beragam permasalahan yang menghadang satu per satu. Indonesia abad 21 sangat miskin dengan orang-orang berjiwa merdeka seperti ini.

Agaknya, visi Indonesia ke depan adalah menggali kembali identitas bangsa yang selama ini telah kita tinggalkan, yaitu – dari mulai sekarang – mencetak sumber daya manusia yang mempunyai jiwa merdeka lahir-bathin. Sumber daya manusia yang siap berjuang, berpelu-keringat tanpa memperdulikan imbalan/balas jasa yang akan ia dapatkan. Ia sungguh-sungguh berjuang dan terus berjuang untuk kemuliaan Indonesia. Dan, “tak ada pemberhentian akhir bagi sebuah bangsa yang sedang berjuang” kata Soekarno.

THE INDONESIAN DREAM

Pena : Haris El Mahdi

Di wilayah yang sekarang berdiri negara Indonesia – ribuan tahun yang lalu – pernah hadir dua peradaban agung dengan sejarah dan filosofi peradabannya yang mengagumkan. Kerajaan Sriwijaya di Pulau Sumatera dan Kerajaan Majapahit di Pulau Jawa – hadir dalam kurun waktu yang berbeda – menyumbangkan kemilau peradabannya pada dunia. Secara historis, Kerajaan Sriwijaya hadir lebih dahulu dari Kerajaan Majapahit. Tetapi, jika ditilik dari capaian peradabannya, Kerajaan Majapahit lebih menonjol dibanding Kerajaan Sriwijaya. Hal ini diindikasikan dari cakupan wilayah yang dikuasainya (Majapahit lebih luas), ketahanan peradabannya (Majapahit lebih lama menjaga kesinambungan generasi) dan capaian kemakmurannya (Majapahit lebih makmur).

Terdapat tiga visi yang membuat Kerajaan Majapahit mampu melebihi keagungan Kerajaan Sriwijaya. Ketiga visi tersebut terangkum dalam sebuah sesanti populer: “Panjang Punjung Pasir Wukir, Gemah Ripah Loh Jinawi, Tata Tentrem Karta Raharja”. Sesanti ini populer karena selalu dikomunikasikan pada masyarakat umum melalui media kesenian Wayang. Secara detail makna dari sesanti ini terjabar dalam penjelasan sebagai berikut (Purwadi, 2005) :

1. Panjang Punjung Pasir Wukir, terdiri dari empat kata yang terurai sebagai berikut : 1) Panjang, dalam suluk pedalangan dijelaskan panjang dawa pocapane berarti mempunyai sejarah yang lama. Suatu bangsa yang akar historisnya jika ditelusuri dan dihayati akan menambah kepercayaan diri yang kuat. Dengan membandingkan peristiwa masa lalu dan peristiwa yang sedang berlangsung akan mudah mencari jalan keluar dari setiap persoalan memiliki nilai kesamaan. Kegagalan dan keberhasilan masa lalu akan memberikan pelajaran yang sangat berharga. Demikianlah Majapahit, kerajaan agung yang tumbuh membangun peradaban dengan tanpa melupakan sejarah masa lalu yang mengikutinya. Kemuliaan masa lalu merupakan spirit yang kuat untuk mencipta kemuliaan-kemuliaan yang baru. Tokoh pergerakan Indonesia Modern, Soekarno pernah berujar : “Jangan Sekali-kali Melupakan Sejarah (JAS MERAH). 2) Punjung, merujuk pada keluhuran wibawa yang dimiliki Majapahit. Kewibawaan negara Majapahit diperoleh dari pengakuan rakyat dalam negeri dan pengakuan kedaulatan dari negara-negara lain. Rakyat yang sejahtera lahir-bathin dan negara tetangga yang mendapatkan hutang budi merupakan modal pokok negara Majapahit untuk tampil terkemuka mendapat pengakuan dan kewibawaan. 3) Pasir – dalam dunia pewayangan – dimaknai sebagai samudera. Pemaknaan kata pasir ini tentu berdasarkan realita bahwa Majapahit memiliki wilayah yang sebagian besar adalah samudera raya. Harus diakui, samudera atau lautan merupakan sumber kekayaan alam yang melimpah ruah. Di sana terdapat sumber daya laut yang sangat besar dan merupakan jalur perdagangan, pelayaran dan pelabuhan Majapahit. Bahan tambang juga banyak tersimpan dalam laut. Produksi garam besar-besaran bisa dilakukan di sekitar laut. Demikian pula keanekaragaman hayati, tumbuh-tumbuhan laut, terumbu karang, dan ikan-ikan tentu bisa mendatangkan kemakmuran. Oleh karena itu, penting bagi masyarakat dan negara Majapahit menguasai tekhnologi dan ilmu kelautan. Dalam sejarah keemasannya, Majapahit pernah mempunyai armada laut yang tangguh dan penuh wibawa. 4) Wukir berarti gunung, Kraton Majapahit – di samping berada di hamparan samudera yang luas – dikelilingi panorama gunung yang indah permai. Adanya pegunungan menambah kesuburan tanah. Hutam Majapahit memuat kekayaan hewani dan nabati. Kayu-kayuan yang sangat mahal bermutu tinggi melimpah-ruah di hutan-hutan Majapahit. Sebagai contoh, kayu jati di hutan Pulau Jawa dan kayu rotan di hutan belantara Kalimantan. Pengelolaan hutan yang terbuka, adil dan teratur membuka lebar-lebar kesempatan pemakmuran rakyat. Wukir juga dapat dimaknai pegunungan yang indah. Majapahit kaya akan deretan pegunungan yang menawan hati, menyajikan panorama indah dan udara sejuk yang membuat betah dan nyaman bagi orang yang tinggal. Keindahan panorama Majapahit banyak memikat orang asing datang melancong. Hal ini tentu menambah kemakmuran rakyat.
2. Gemah Ripah Loh Jinawi, Negara Majapahit berhasil mewujudkan masyarakat yang gemah ripah loh jinawi, yang bermakna : 1) Gemah dalam dunia pewayangan berkaitan dengan kesibukan orang berdagang. Perdagangan merupakan kegiatan perekonomian yang sangat penting. Suatu negara yang lancar dan aman proses perdagangannya, pertanda bahwa ekonomi berjalan dengan baik dan dinamis. Pertukaran barang membuat kehidupan menjadi bergairah dan hal ini berkaitan dengan semangat kerja. Etos kerja dapat dirangsang dengan imbalan yang memadai. Dunia perdagangan yang gemah menjanjikan hal itu. Siang malam orang berjualan di pasar tidak lelah dan tidak mengantuk. Hujan dan panas tidak merongrong usahanya untuk maju berkembang. Untuk itu, negara harus menjamin keamanan perdagangan. 2) Ripah mengacu pada keramaian Negara Majapahit. Daya pikat Majapahit dalam banyak hal (alam, manusia, ilmu-pengetahuan (khusunya agama), sosial dan budaya) membuat banyak orang berkunjung dan berbondong-bondong untuk mencari penghidupan, belajar atau sekedar berdarma wisata. Di mana saja yang banyak dituju orang pasti di situ banyak manfaat yang didapatkan. Ibarat pepatah : ada gula ada semut. 3) Loh berarti kesuburan. Tanah yang subur dan dapat menumbuhkan segala tanaman dengan baik disebut tanah yang loh. Di wilayah Majapahit tanahnya sangat subur. Palawija, palagandul dan palakependem di mana-mana subur menghijau dan menentramkan mata memandang. Ketentraman ini berbuah pada kenyamanan semua orang untuk tidak saling bersaing. Kekerasan dan kecemburuan dapat dihindari. Tanah tumpah darah yang sudah loh ini perlu dikelola dengan baik. 4) Jinawi dalam dunia pewayangan berarti apa yang dibeli serba murah. Kebutuhan hidup sehari-hari dapat dijangkau oleh masyarakat Majapahit secara mudah. Kesenjangan daya beli antara si punya dan si tidak punya tidak terlampau lebar. Kecemburuan sosial yang berkaitan dengan kesenjangan daya beli membuat orang yang merasa tidak mampu akan berbuat nekad agar dirinya dapat mengejar ketertinggalan. Orang mau menjambret, mencopet, merampok, merompak, korupsi dan menjadi pelacur karena dengan jalan wajar dia tidak bisa (sulit) memperoleh rejeki. Negara yang memperoleh predikat Jinawi, rakyatnya akan ramah dan murah senyum. Tegur sapa sesama bukan barang mahal dan lebih penting lagi masyarakat akan mulai memikirkan cara memaknai hidup, entah dengan berkesenian atau mengembangkan pemikiran ilmiah-religius. Kesenian, religiusitas dan ilmu-pengetahuan pun berkembang pesat.
3. Tata-Tentrem Kerta Raharja, Negara Majapahit juga berhasil mewujudkan masyarakat yang tata-tentrem kerta raharja. 1) Tata-tentrem berarti tentram, tenang, aman, damai dan dapat membahagiakan lahir maupun bathin. Tata-tentrem merujuk pada aspek kejiwaan. Untuk mencapai suasana tata-tentrem ini, antar unsur masyarakat harus saling menghormati hak dan kewajiban, terbuka, toleran, tenggang rasa, tepa selira, tahu diri, mawas diri, introspeksi, kompromis dan humanis. Di sini pengendalian diri terhadap pergaulan sangat diperlukan. Masyarakat yang tata-tentrem akan membuat hidup menjadi kerasan atau betah. Dalam suasana tata-tentrem tidak akan ada orang yang merasa dihina dan diremehkan, apalagi merasa terancam jiwa dan hartanya. 2) Karta berkaitan dengan kemakmuran dan aktivitas kerja rakyat Majapahit. Kesuburan tanah dan kekayaan laut berpadu dengan etos kerja yang tinggi akan menghasilkan kemakmuran. Hal ini mengindikasikan suasana masyarakat yang gemar berkarya, produktif dan sibuk sesuai bakat-potensi yang dimilikinya. Pedagang rajin berdagang, petani sibuk bercocok-tanam, peternak rajin menggembala, aparat negara sibuk mengelola hajat hidup orang banyak. Kesibukan kerja yang produktif akan mencegah terjadinya penyimpangan sosial yang menjurus pada kriminalitas. Masing-masing individu mempunyai kesempatan untuk menyumbangkan kemampuannya bagi kejayaan negara. 3) Raharja berarti jauh dari kejahatan. Koruptor, pencuri, perampok, dan penyakit masyarakat lainnya tidak akan mendapat tempat. Harta dan kekayaan, ternak dan hasil pertanian aman ditaruh dimana saja, tidak ada kejahilan dan kejahatan yang mengganggu. Mereka yang kecukupan membantu yang tidak berkecukupan. Hal ini menjadikan yang kekurangan kerjanya menjadi giat untuk mengejar ketertinggalan dan bisa membagi hartanya kepada orang lain. Kejujuran dan kesaling-pengertian menjadi denyut nadi kehidupan.

Ketiga hal di atas itulah yang mampu menghantarkan Majapahit sebagai kerajaan yang makmur-bersahaja. Makmur karena kekayaan alamnya mampu dikelola dengan baik dan menghasilkan devisa negara melimpah. Bersahaja karena kemakmuran yang dihasilkannya ditopang atas dasar untuk kepentingan bersama. Gotong-royong dan gugur-gunung menjadi bagian hidup sehari-hari. Kapital sosial Majapahit sangat kuat menopang dan menggerakkan kemakmuran yang dimilikinya. Dan, keragaman agama, ras dan suku bangsa tidak menimbulkan gejolak. Kita masih ingat dengan konsepsi agung pondasi kapital sosial Majapahit : “bhineka tunggal ika tan hana dharma mangrwa”. Konsepsi inilah yang sekarang hendak kita wujud-terapkan dalam Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia.

Apa yang telah menjadi visi dan berhasil wujud-nyatakan oleh Kerajaan Majapahit itulah yang seharusnya menjadi mimpi saya, mimpi anda, mimpi kita semua, mimpi Indonesia. The Indonesian Dream……………

THE FORMS OF CAPITAL

BY : PIERRE BOURDIEU


The social world is accumulated history , and if it is not to be reduced to a discontinuous series of instantaneous mechanical equilibria between agents who are treated as interchangeable particles, one must reintroduce into it the notion of capital and with it, accumulation and all its effects. Capital is accumulated labor (in its materialized form or its "incorporated," embodied form) which, when appropriated on a private, i.e. , exclusive, basis by agents or groups of agents, enables them to appropriate social energy in the form of reified or living labor. It is a vis insita, a force inscribed in objective or subjective structures, but it is also a lex insita, the principle underlying the immanent regularities of the social world. It is what makes the games of society-not least, the economic game-something other than simple games of chance offering at every moment the possibility of a miracle. Roulette, which holds out the opportunity of winning a lot of money in a short space of time, and therefore of changing one's social status quasi-instantaneously, and in which the winning of the previous spin of the wheel can be staked and lost at every new spin, gives a fairly accurate image of this imaginary universe of perfect competition or perfect equality of opportunity , a world without inertia, without accumulation, without heredity or acquired properties, in which every moment is perfectly independent of the previous one, every soldier has a marshal's baton in his knapsack, and every prize can be attained, instantaneously, by everyone, so that at each moment anyone can become anything. Capital, which, in its objectified or embodied forms, takes time to accumulate and which, as a potential capacity to produce profits and to reproduce itself in identical or expanded form, contains a tendency to persist in its being, is a force inscribed in the objectivity of things so that everything is not equally possible or impossible.1 And the structure of the distribution of the different types and subtypes of capital at a given moment in time represents the immanent structure of the social world, i.e. , the set of constraints, inscribed in the very reality of that world, which govern its functioning in a durable way, determining the chances of success for practices.

It is in fact impossible to account for the structure and functioning of the social world unless one reintroduces capital in all its forms and not solely in the one form recognized by economic theory .Economic theory has allowed to be foisted upon it a definition of the economy of practices which is the historical invention of capitalism; and by reducing the universe of exchanges to mercantile exchange, which is objectively and subjectively oriented toward the maximization of profit, i.e. , (economically) self-interested, it has implicitly defined the other forms of exchange as noneconomic, and therefore disinterested. In particular, it defines as disinterested those forms of exchange which ensure the transubstantiation whereby the most material types of capital-those which are economic in the restricted sense-can present themselves in the immaterial form of cultural capital or social capital and vice versa. Interest, in the restricted sense it is given in economic theory , cannot be produced without producing its negative counterpart, disinterestedness. The class of practices whose explicit purpose is to maximize monetary profit cannot be defined as such without producing the purposeless finality of cultural or artistic practices and their products; the world of bourgeois man, with his double-entry accounting, cannot be invented without producing the pure, perfect universe of the artist and the intellectual and the gratuitous activities of art-for-art's sake and pure theory .In other words, the constitution of a science of mercantile relationships which, inasmuch as it takes for granted the very foundations of the order it claims to analyze-private property, profit, wage labor, etc.-is not even a science of the field of economic production, has prevented the constitution of a general science of the economy of practices, which would treat mercantile exchange as a particular case of exchange in all its forms.

It is remarkable that the practices and assets thus salvaged from the "icy water of egotistical calculation" (and from science) are the virtual monopoly of the dominant class-as if economism had been able to reduce everything to eco- nomics only because the reduction on which that discipline is based protects from sacrilegious reduction everything which needs to be protected. If economics deals only with practices that have narrowly economic interest as their principle and only with goods that are directly and immediately convertible into money (which makes them quantifiable), then the universe of bourgeois production and exchange becomes an exception and can see itself and present itself as a realm of disinterestedness. As everyone knows, priceless things have their price, and the extreme difficulty of converting certain practices and certain objects into money is only due to the fact that this conversion is refused in the very intention that produces them, which is nothing other than the denial (Verneinung) of the economy. A general science of the economy of practices, capable of reappropriating the totality of the practices which, although objectively economic, are not and cannot be socially recognized as economic, and which can be performed only at the cost of a whole labor of dissimulation or, more precisely, euphemization, must endeavor to grasp capital and profit in all their forms and to establish the laws whereby the different types of capital (or power, which amounts to the same thing) change into one another.2

Depending on the field in which it functions, and at the cost of the more or less expensive transformations which are the precondition for its efficacy in the field in question, capital can present itself in three fundamental guises: as economic capital, which is immediately and directly convertible into money and may be institutionalized in the forms of property rights; as cultural capital, which is convertible, on certain conditions, into economic capital and may be institutionalized in the forms of educational qualifications; and as social capital, made up of social obligations ("connections"), which is convertible, in certain conditions, into economic capital and may be institutionalized in the forms of a title of nobility.3

CULTURAL CAPITAL

Cultural capital can exist in three forms: in the embodied state, i.e. , in the form of long-lasting dispositions of the mind and body; in the objectified state, in the form of cultural goods (pictures, books, dictionaries, instruments, ma- chines, etc.), which are the trace or realization of theories or critiques of these theories, problematics, etc.; and in the institutionalized state, a form of objectification which must be set apart because, as will be seen in the case of educational qualifications, it confers entirely original properties on the cultural capital which it is presumed to guarantee.

The reader should not be misled by the somewhat peremptory air which the effort at axiomization may give to my argument.4 The notion of cultural capital initially presented itself to me, in the course of research, as a theoretical hypothesis which made it possible to explain the unequal scholastic achievement of children originating from the different social classes by relating academic success, i.e. , the specific profits which children from the different classes and class fractions can obtain in the academic market, to the distribution of cultural capital between the classes and class fractions. This starting point implies a break with the presuppositions inherent both in the commonsense view, which sees academic success or failure as an effect of natural aptitudes, and in human capital theories. Economists might seem to deserve credit for explicitly raising the question of the relationship between the rates of profit on educational investment and on economic investment (and its evolution). But their measurement of the yield from scholastic investment takes account only of monetary investments and profits, or those directly convertible into money, such as the costs of schooling and the cash equivalent of time devoted to study; they are unable to explain the different proportions of their resources which different agents or different social classes allocate to economic investment and cultural investment because they fail to take systematic account of the structure of the differential chances of profit which the various markets offer these agents or classes as a function of the volume and the composition of their assets (see esp. Becker 1964b). Furthermore, because they neglect to relate scholastic investment strategies to the whole set of educational strategies and to the system of reproduction strategies, they inevitably, by a necessary paradox, let slip the best hidden and socially most determinant educational investment, namely, the domestic transmission of cultural capital. Their studies of the relationship between academic ability and academic investment show that they are unaware that ability or talent is itself the product of an investment of time and cultural capital (Becker 1964a, p. 63- 66). Not surprisingly, when endeavoring to evaluate the profits of scholastic investment, they can only consider the profitability of educational expenditure for society as a whole, the "social rate of retum," or the "social gain of education as measured by its effects on national productivity" (Becker 1964b, pp. 121, 155). This typically functionalist definition of the functions of education ignores the contribution which the educational system makes to the reproduction of the social structure by sanctioning the hereditary transmission of cultural capital. From the very beginning, a definition of human capital, despite its humanistic connotations, does not move beyond economism and ignores, inter alia, the fact that the scholastic yield from educational action depends on the cultural capital previously invested by the family. Moreover, the economic and social yield of the educational qualification depends on the social capital, again inherited, which can be used to back it up.

The Embodied State. Most of the properties of cultural capital can be deduced from the fact that, in its fundamental state, it is linked to the body and presupposes embodiment. The accumulation of cultural capital in the embodied state, i.e. , in the form of what is called culture, cultivation, Bildung, presupposes a process of embodiment, incorporation, which, insofar as it implies a labor of inculcation and assimilation, costs time, time which must be invested personally by the investor. Like the acquisition of a muscular physique or a suntan, it cannot be done at second hand (so that all effects of delegation are ruled out).

The work of acquisition is work on oneself (self-improvement), an effort that presupposes a personal cost (on paie de sa personne, as we say in French), an investment, above all of time, but also of that socially constituted form of libido, libido sciendi, with all the privation, renunciation, and sacrifice that it may entail. It follows that the least inexact of all the measurements of cultural capital are those which take as their standard the length of acquisition -- so long, of course, as this is not reduced to length of schooling and allowance is made for early domestic education by giving it a positive value (a gain in time, a head start) or a negative value (wasted time, and doubly so because more time must be spent correcting its effects), according to its distance from the demands of the scholastic market.5

This embodied capital, external wealth converted into an integral part of the person, into a habitus, cannot be transmitted instantaneously (unlike money, property rights, or even titles of nobility) by gift or bequest, purchase or exchange. It follows that the use or exploitation of cultural capital presents particular problems for the holders of economic or political capital, whether they be private patrons or, at the other extreme, entrepreneurs employing executives endowed with a specific cultural competence (not to mention the new state patrons). How can this capital, so closely linked to the person, be bought without buying the person and so losing the very effect of legitimation which presupposes the dissimulation of dependence? How can this capital be concentrated-as some undertakings demand-without concentrating the possessors of the capital, which can have all sorts of unwanted consequences?

Cultural capital can be acquired, to a varying extent, depending on the period, the society, and the social class, in the absence of any deliberate inculcation, and therefore quite unconsciously. It always remains marked by its earliest conditions of acquisition which, through the more or less visible marks they leave (such as the pronunciations characteristic of a class or region), help to determine its distinctive value. It cannot be accumulated beyond the appropriating capacities of an individual agent; it declines and dies with its bearer (with his biological capacity, his memory, etc.). Because it is thus linked in numerous ways to the person in his biological singularity and is subject to a hereditary transmission which is always heavily disguised, or even invisible, it defies the old, deep-rooted distinction the Greek jurists made between inherited properties (ta patroa) and acquired properties (epikteta), i.e., those which an individual adds to his heritage. It thus manages to combine the prestige of innate property with the merits of acquisition. Because the social conditions of its transmission and acquisition are more disguised than those of economic capital, it is predisposed to function as symbolic capital, i.e., to be unrecognized as capital and recognized as legitimate competence, as authority exerting an effect of (mis)recognition, e.g., in the matrimonial market and in all the markets in which economic capital is not fully recognized, whether in matters of culture, with the great art collections or great cultural foundations, or in social welfare, with the economy of generosity and the gift. Furthermore, the specifically symbolic logic of distinction additionally secures material and symbolic profits for the possessors of a large cultural capital: any given cultural competence (e.g., being able to read in a world of illiterates) derives a scarcity value from its position in the distribution of cultural capital and yields profits of distinction for its owner. In other words, the share in profits which scarce cultural capital secures in class-divided societies is based, in the last analysis, on the fact that all agents do not have the economic and cultural means for prolonging their children's education beyond the minimum necessary for the reproduction of the labor-power least valorized at a given moment.6

Thus the capital, in the sense of the means of appropriating the product of accumulated labor in the objectified state which is held by a given agent, depends for its real efficacy on the form of the distribution of the means of appropriating the accumulated and objectively available resources; and the relationship of appropriation between an agent and the resources objectively available, and hence the profits they produce, is mediated by the relationship of (objective and/or subjective) competition between himself and the other possessors of capital competing for the same goods, in which scarcity-and through it social value- is generated. The structure of the field, i.e. , the unequal distribution of capital, is the source of the specific effects of capital, i.e., the appropriation of profits and the power to impose the laws of functioning of the field most favorable to capital and its reproduction.

But the most powerful principle of the symbolic efficacy of cultural capital no doubt lies in the logic of its transmission. On the one hand, the process of appropriating objectified cultural capital and the time necessary for it to take place mainly depend on the cultural capital embodied in the whole farnily- through (among other things) the generalized Arrow effect and all forms of implicit transmission.7 On the other hand, the initial accumulation of cultural capital, the precondition for the fast, easy accumulation of every kind of useful cultural capital, starts at the outset, without delay, without wasted time, only for the offspring of families endowed with strong cultural capital; in this case, the accumulation period covers the whole period of socialization. It follows that the transmission of cultural capital is no doubt the best hidden form of hereditary transmission of capital, and it therefore receives proportionately greater weight in the system of reproduction strategies, as the direct, visible forms of trans- mission tend to be more strongly censored and controlled.

It can immediately be seen that the link between economic and cultural capital is established through the mediation of the time needed for acquisition. Differ- ences in the cultural capital possessed by the family imply differences first in the age at which the work of transmission and accumulation begins-the limiting case being full use of the time biologically available, with the maximum free time being harnessed t.o maximum cultural capital-and then in the capacity, thus defined, to satisfy the specifically cultural demands of a prolonged process of acquisition. Furthermore, and in correlation with this, the length of time for which a given individual can prolong his acquisition process depends on the length of time for which his family can provide him with the free time, i.e. , time free from economic necessity, which is the precondition for the initial accumulation (time which can be evaluated as a handicap to be made up).

The Objectified State. Cultural capital, in the objectified state, has a number of properties which are defined only in the relationship with cultural capital in its embodied form. The cultural capital objectified in material objects and media, such as writings, paintings, monuments, instruments, etc., is transmissible in its materiality. A collection of paintings, for example, can be transmitted as well as economic capital (if not better, because the capital transfer is more disguised). But what is transmissible is legal ownership and not (or not necessarily) what constitutes the precondition for specific appropriation, namely, the possession of the means of "consuming" a painting or using a machine, which, being nothing other than embodied capital, are subject to the same laws of transmission.8

Thus cultural goods can be appropriated both materially-which presupposes economic capital-and symbolically-which presupposes cultural capital. It follows that the owner of the means of production must find a way of appropriating either the embodied capital which is the precondition of specific appropriation or the services of the holders of this capital. To possess the machines, he only needs economic capital; to appropriate them and use them in accordance with their specific purpose (defined by the cultural capital, of scientific or technical type, incorporated in them), he must have access to embodied cultural capital, either in person or by proxy. This is no doubt the basis of the ambiguous status of cadres (executives and engineers). If it is emphasized that they are not the possessors (in the strictly economic sense) of the means of production which they use, and that they derive profit from their own cultural capital only by selling the services and products which it makes possible, then they will be classified among the dominated groups; if it is emphasized that they draw their profits from the use of a particular form of capital, then they will be classified among the dominant groups. Everything suggests that as the cultural capital incorporated in the means of production increases (and with it the period of embodiment needed to acquire the means of appropriating it), so the collective strength of the holders of cultural capital would tend to increase--if the holders of the dominant type of capital (economic capital) were not able to set the holders of cultural capital in competition with one another. (They are, moreover, inclined to competition by the very conditions in which they are selected and trained, in particular by the logic of scholastic and recruitment competitions.)

Cultural capital in its objectified state presents itself with all the appearances of an autonomous, coherent universe which, although the product of historical action, has its own laws, transcending individual wills, and which, as the example of language well illustrates, therefore remains irreducible to that which each agent, or even the aggregate of the agents, can appropriate (i.e., to the cultural capital embodied in each agent or even in the aggregate of the agents). However , it should not be forgotten that it exists as symbolically and materially active, effective capital only insofar as it is appropriated by agents and implemented and invested as a weapon and a stake in the struggles which go on in the fields of cultural production (the artistic field, the scientific field, etc.) and, beyond them, in the field of the social classes-struggles in which the agents wield strengths and obtain profits proportionate to their mastery of this objectified capital, and therefore to the extent of their embodied capital.9

The Institutionalized State. The objectification of cultural capital in the form of academic qualifications is one way of neutralizing some of the properties it derives from the fact that, being embodied, it has the same biological limits as its bearer. This objectification is what makes the difference between the capital of the autodidact, which may be called into question at any time, or even the cultural capital of the courtier, which can yield only ill-defined profits, of fluctuating value, in the market of high-society exchanges, and the cultural capital academically sanctioned by legally guaranteed qualifications, formally independent of the person of their bearer. With the academic qualification, a certificate of cultural competence which confers on its holder a conventional, constant, legally guaranteed value with respect to culture, social alchemy produces a form of cultural capital which has a relative autonomy vis-à-vis its bearer and even vis-à-vis the cultural capital he effectively possesses at a given moment in time. It institutes cultural capital by collective magic, just as, according to Merleau-Ponty, the living institute their dead through the ritual of mourning. One has only to think of the concours (competitive recruitment examination) which, out of the continuum of infinitesimal differences between performances, produces sharp, absolute, lasting differences, such as that which separates the last successful candidate from the first unsuccessful one, and institutes an essential difference between the officially recognized, guaranteed competence and simple cultural capital, which is constantly required to prove itself. In this case, one sees clearly the performative magic of the power of instituting, the power to show forth and secure belief or, in a word, to impose recognition.

By conferring institutional recognition on the cultural capital possessed by any given agent, the academic qualification also makes it possible to compare qualification holders and even to exchange them (by substituting one for another in succession). Furthermore, it makes it possible to establish conversion rates between cultural capital and economic capital by guaranteeing the monetary value of a given academic capital.10 This product of the conversion of economic capital into cultural capital establishes the value, in terms of cultural capital, of the holder of a given qualification relative to other qualification holders and, by the same token, the monetary value for which it can be exchanged on the labor market (academic investment has no meaning unless a minimum degree of re- versibility of the conversion it implies is objectively guaranteed). Because the material and symbolic profits which the academic qualification guarantees also depend on its scarcity, the investments made (in time and effort) may turn out to be less profitable than was anticipated when they were made (there having been a de facto change in the conversion rate between academic capital and economic capital). The strategies for converting economic capital into cultural capital, which are among the short-term factors of the schooling explosion and the inflation of qualifications, are governed by changes in the structure of the chances of profit offered by the different types of capital.

SOCIAL CAPITAL

Social capital is the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition -- or in other words, to membership in a group11--which provides each of its members with the backing of the collectivity-owned capital, a "credential" which entitles them to credit, in the various senses of the word. These relationships may exist only in the practical state, in material and/or symbolic exchanges which help to maintain them. They may also be socially instituted and guaranteed by the application of a common name (the name of a family, a class, or a tribe or of a school, a party, etc.) and by a whole set of instituting acts designed simultaneously to form and inform those who undergo them; in this case, they are more or less really enacted and so maintained and reinforced, in exchanges. Being based on indissolubly material and symbolic exchanges, the establishment and maintenance of which presuppose reacknowledgment of proximity, they are also partially irreducible to objective relations of proximity in physical (geographical) space or even in economic and social space.12

The volume of the social capital possessed by a given agent thus depends on the size of the network of connections he can effectively mobilize and on the volume of the capital (economic, cultural or symbolic) possessed in his own right by each of those to whom he is connected.13 This means that, although it is relatively irreducible to the economic and cultural capital possessed by a given agent, or even by the whole set of agents to whom he is connected, social capital is never completely independent of it because the exchanges instituting mutual acknowledgment presuppose the reacknowledgment of a minimum of objective homogeneity, and because it exerts a multiplier effect on the capital he possesses in his own right.

The profits which accrue from membership in a group are the basis of the solidarity which makes them possible.14 This does not mean that they are consciously pursued as such, even in the case of groups like select clubs, which are deliberately organized in order to concentrate social capital and so to derive full benefit from the multiplier effect implied in concentration and to secure the profits of membership -- material profits, such as all the types of services accruing from useful relationships, and symbolic profits, such as those derived from association with a rare, prestigious group.

The existence of a network of connections is not a natural given, or even a social given, constituted once and for all by an initial act of institution, represented, in the case of the family group, by the genealogical definition of kinship relations, which is the characteristic of a social formation. It is the product of an endless effort at institution, of which institution rites-often wrongly described as rites of passage -- mark the essential moments and which is necessary in order to produce and reproduce lasting, useful relationships that can secure material or symbolic profits (see Bourdieu 1982). In other words, the network of relationships is the product of investment strategies, individual or collective, consciously or unconsciously aimed at establishing or reproducing social relationships that are directly usable in the short or long term, i.e., at transforming contingent relations, such as those of neighborhood, the workplace, or even kinship, into relationships that are at once necessary and elective, implying durable obligations subjectively felt (feelings of gratitude, respect, friendship, etc.) or institutionally guaranteed (rights). This is done through the alchemy of consecration, the symbolic constitution produced by social institution (institution as a relative -- rother, sister, cousin, etc.-- or as a knight, an heir, an elder, etc.) and endlessly reproduced in and through the exchange (of gifts, words, women, etc.) which it encourages and which presupposes and produces mutual knowledge and recognition. Exchange transforms the things exchanged into signs of recognition and, through the mutual recognition and the recognition of group membership which it implies, reproduces the group. By the same token, it reaffirms the limits of the group, i.e., the limits beyond which the constitutive exchange -- trade, commensality, or marriage -- cannot take place. Each member of the group is thus instituted as a custodian of the limits of the group: because the definition of the criteria of entry is at stake in each new entry, he can modify the group by modifying the limits of legitimate exchange through some form of misalliance. It is quite logical that, in most societies, the preparation and conclusion of marriages should be the business of the whole group, and not of the agents directly concerned. Through the introduction of new members into a family, a clan, or a club, the whole definition of the group, i.e., its fines, its boundaries, and its identity, is put at stake, exposed to redefinition, alteration, adulteration. When, as in modern societies, families lose the monopoly of the establishment of exchanges which can lead to lasting relationships, whether socially sanctioned (like marriage) or not, they may continue to control these exchanges, while remaining within the logic of laissez-faire, through all the institutions which are designed to favor legitimate exchanges and exclude illegitimate ones by producing occasions (rallies, cruises, hunts, parties, receptions, etc.), places (smart neighborhoods, select schools, clubs, etc.), or practices (smart sports, parlor games, cultural ceremonies, etc.) which bring together, in a seemingly fortuitous way, individuals as homogeneous as possible in all the pertinent respects in terms of the existence and persistence of the group. The reproduction of social capital presupposes an unceasing effort of socia- bility, a continuous series of exchanges in which recognition is endlessly affirmed and reaffirmed. This work, which implies expenditure of time and energy and so, directly or indirectly, of economic capital, is not profitable or even conceivable unless one invests in it a specific competence (knowledge of genealogical relationships and of real connections and skill at using them, etc.) and an acquired disposition to acquire and maintain this competence, which are themselves integral parts of this capital.15 This is one of the factors which explain why the profitability of this labor of accumulating and maintaining social capital rises in proportion to the size of the capital. Because the social capital accruing from a relationship is that much greater to the extent that the person who is the object of it is richly endowed with capital (mainly social, but also cultural and even economic capital), the possessors of an inherited social capital, symbolized by a great name, are able to transform all circumstantial relationships into lasting connections. They are sought after for their social capital and, because they are well known, are worthy of being known ("I know him well"); they do not need to "make the acquaintance" of all their "acquaintances"; they are known to more people than they know, and their work of sociability, when it is exerted, is highly productive.

Every group has its more or less institutionalized forms of delegation which enable it to concentrate the totality of the social capital, which is the basis of the existence of the group (a family or a nation, of course, but also an association or a party), in the hands of a single agent or a small group of agents and to mandate this plenipotentiary, charged with plena potestas agendi et loquendi,16 to represent the group, to speak and act in its name and so, with the aid of this collectively owned capital, to exercise a power incommensurate with the agent's personal contribution. Thus, at the most elementary degree of institutionalization, the head of the family, the pater familias, the eldest, most senior member, is tacitly recognized as the only person entitled to speak on behalf of the family group in all official circumstances. But whereas in this case, diffuse delegation requires the great to step forward and defend the collective honor when the honor of the weakest members is threatened. The institutionalized delegation, which ensures the concentration of social capital, also has the effect of limiting the consequences of individual lapses by explicitly delimiting responsibilities and authorizing the recognized spokesmen to shield the group as a whole from discredit by expelling or excommunicating the embarrassing individuals.

If the intemal competition for the monopoly of legitimate representation of the group is not to threaten the conservation and accumulation of the capital which is the basis of the group, the members of the group must regulate the conditions of access to the right to declare oneself a member of the group and, above all, to set oneself up as a representative (delegate, plenipotentiary, spokesman, etc.) of the whole group, thereby committing the social capital of the whole group. The title of nobility is the form par excellence of the institutionalized social capital which guarantees a particular form of social relationship in a lasting way. One of the paradoxes of delegation is that the mandated agent can exert on (and, up to a point, against) the group of the power which the group enables him to concentrate. (This is perhaps especially true in the limiting cases in which the mandated agent creates the group which creates him but which only exists through him.) The mechanisms of delegation and representation (in both the theatrical and the legal senses) which fall into place -- that much more strongly, no doubt, when the group is large and its members weak -- as one of the conditions for the concentration of social capital (among other reasons, because it enables numerous, varied, scattered agents to act as one man and to overcome the limitations of space and time) also contain the seeds of an embezzlement or misappropriation of the capital which they assemble.

This embezzlement is latent in the fact that a group as a whole can be represented, in the various meanings of the word, by a subgroup, clearly delimited and perfectly visible to all, known to all, and recognized by all, that of the nobiles, the "people who are known," the paradigm of whom is the nobility, and who may speak on behalf of the whole group, represent the whole group, and exercise authority in the name of the whole group. The noble is the group personified. He bears the name of the group to which he gives his name (the metonymy which links the noble to his group is clearly seen when Shakespeare calls Cleopatra "Egypt" or the King of France "France," just as Racine calls pyrrhus "Epirus"). It is by him, his name, the difference it proclaims, that the members of his group, the liegemen, and also the land and castles, are known and recognized. Similarly, phenomena such as the "personality cult" or the identification of parties, trade unions, or movements with their leader are latent in the very logic of representation. Everything combines to cause the signifier to take the place of the signified, the spokesmen that of the group he is supposed to express, not least because his distinction, his "outstandingness," his visibility constitute the essential part, if not the essence, of this power, which, being entirely set within the logic of knowledge and acknowledgment, is fundamentally a symbolic power; but also because the representative, the sign, the emblem, may be, and create, the whole reality of groups which receive effective social existence only in and through representation.17

CONVERSIONS

The different types of capital can be derived from economic capital, but only at the cost of a more or less great effort of transformation, which is needed to produce the type of power effective in the field in question. For example, there are some goods and services to which economic capital gives immediate access, without secondary costs; others can be obtained only by virtue of a social capital of relationships (or social obligations) which cannot act instantaneously, at the appropriate moment, unless they have been established and maintained for a long time, as if for their own sake, and therefore outside their period of use, i.e., at the cost of an investment in sociability which is necessarily long-term because the time lag is one of the factors of the transmutation of a pure and simple debt into that recognition of nonspecific indebtedness which is called gratitude.18 In contrast to the cynical but also economical transparency of economic exchange, in which equivalents change hands in the same instant, the essential ambiguity of social exchange, which presupposes misrecognition, in other words, a form of faith and of bad faith (in the sense of self-deception), presupposes a much more subtle economy of time.

So it has to be posited simultaneously that economic capital is at the root of all the other types of capital and that these transformed, disguised forms of economic capital, never entirely reducible to that definition, produce their most specific effects only to the extent that they conceal (not least from their possessors) the fact that economic capital is at their root, in other words -- but only in the last analysis -- at the root of their effects. The real logic of the functioning of capital, the conversions from one type to another, and the law of conservation which governs them cannot be understood unless two opposing but equally partial views are superseded: on the one hand, economism, which, on the grounds that every type of capital is reducible in the last analysis to economic capital, ignores what makes the specific efficacy of the other types of capital, and on the other hand, semiologism (nowadays represented by structuralism, symbolic interactionism, or ethnomethodology), which reduces social exchanges to phenomena of communication and ignores the brutal fact of universal reducibility to economics.19

In accordance with a principle which is the equivalent of the principle of the conservation of energy, profits in one area are necessarily paid for by costs in another (so that a concept like wastage has no meaning in a general science of the economy of practices). The universal equivalent, the measure of all equivalences, is nothing other than labor-time (in the widest sense); and the conservation of social energy through all its conversions is verified if, in each case, one takes into account both the labor-time accumulated in the form of capital and the labor-time needed to transform it from one type into another.

It has been seen, for example, that the transformation of economic capital into social capital presupposes a specific labor, i.e., an apparently gratuitous expenditure of time, attention, care, concern, which, as is seen in the endeavor to personalize a gift, has the effect of transfiguring the purely monetary import of the exchange and, by the same token, the very meaning of the exchange. From a narrowly economic standpoint, this effort is bound to be seen as pure wastage, but in the terms of the logic of social exchanges, it is a solid investment, the profits of which will appear, in the long run, in monetary or other form. Similarly, if the best measure of cultural capital is undoubtedly the amount of time devoted to acquiring it, this is because the transformation of economic capital into cultural capital presupposes an expenditure of time that is made possible by possession of economic capital. More precisely, it is because the cultural capital that is effectively transmitted within the family itself depends not only on the quantity of cultural capital, itself accumulated by spending time, that the domestic group possess, but also on the usable time (particularly in the form of the mother's free time) available to it (by virtue of its economic capital, which enables it to purchase the time of others) to ensure the transmission of this capital and to delay entry into the labor market through prolonged schooling, a credit which pays off, if at all, only in the very long term.20

The convertibility of the different types of capital is the basis of the strategies aimed at ensuring the reproduction of capital (and the position occupied in social space) by means of the conversions least costly in terms of conversion work and of the losses inherent in the conversion itself (in a given state of the social power relations). The different types of capital can be distinguished according to their reproducibility or, more precisely, according to how easily they are transmitted, i.e., with more or less loss and with more or less concealment; the rate of loss and the degree of concealment tend to vary in inverse ratio. Everything which helps to disguise the economic aspect also tends to increase the risk of loss (particularly the intergenerational transfers). Thus the (apparent) incommensurability of the different types of capital introduces a high degree of uncertainty into all transactions between holders of different types. Similarly, the declared refusal of calculation and of guarantees which characterizes exchanges tending to produce a social capital in the form of a capital of obligations that are usable in the more or less long term (exchanges of gifts, services, visits, etc.) necessarily entails the risk of ingratitude, the refusal of that recognition of nonguaranteed debts which such exchanges aim to produce. Similarly, too, the high degree of concealment of the transmission of cultural capital has the disadvantage (in addition to its inherent risks of loss) that the academic qualification which is its institutionalized form is neither transmissible (like a title of nobility) nor negotiable (like stocks and shares). More precisely, cultural capital, whose diffuse, continuous transmission within the family escapes observation and control (so that the educational system seems to award its honors solely to natural qualities) and which is increasingly tending to attain full efficacy, at least on the labor market, only when validated by the educational system, i.e., converted into a capital of qualifications, is subject to a more disguised but more risky transmission than economic capital. As the educational qualification, invested with the specific force of the official, becomes the condition for legitimate access to a growing number of positions, particularly the dominant ones, the educational system tends increasingly to dispossess the domestic group of the monopoly of the transmission of power and privileges-and, among other things, of the choice of its legitimate heirs from among children of different sex and birth rank.21 And economic capital itself poses quite different problems of transmission, depending on the particular fonn it takes. Thus, according to Grassby (1970), the liquidity of commercial capital, which gives immediate economic power and favors trans- mission, also makes it more vulnerable than landed property (or even real estate) and does not favor the establishment of long-lasting dynasties.

Because the question of the arbitrariness of appropriation arises most sharply in the process of transmission-particularly at the time of succession, a critical moment for all power-every reproduction strategy is at the same time a legi- timation strategy aimed at consecrating both an exclusive appropriation and its reproduction. When the subversive critique which aims to weaken the dominant class through the principle of its perpetuation by bringing to light the arbitrariness of the entitlements transmitted and of their transmission (such as the critique which the Enlightenment philosophes directed, in the name of nature, against the arbitrariness of birth) is incorporated in institutionalized mechanisms (for example, laws of inheritance) aimed at controlling the official, direct transmission of power and privileges, the holders of capital have an ever greater interest in resorting to reproduction strategies capable of ensuring better-disguised trans- mission, but at the cost of greater loss of capital, by exploiting the convertibility of the types of capital. Thus the more the official transmission of capital is prevented or hindered, the more the effects of the clandestine circulation of capital in the fonn of cultural capital become detenninant in the reproduction of the social structure. As an instrument of reproduction capable of disguising its own function, the scope of the educational system tends to increase, and together with this increase is the unification of the market in social qualifications which gives rights to occupy rare positions.

REFERENCES

Becker, Gary S. A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1964a.

Becker, Gary S.,.Human Capital. New York: Columbia University Press, 1964b.
Bourdieu, Pierre. "Les rites d'institution." Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales (1982): 58-63.

Breton, A. "The Economics of Nationalism." Journal of Political Economy 72 (1962): 376-86.

Grassby, Richard. "English Merchant Capitalism in the Late Seventeenth Century: The Composition of Business Fortunes." Past and Present (1970): 87-107.

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1 This inertia, entailed by the tendency of the structures of capital to reproduce themselves in institutions or in dispositions adapted to the structures of which they are the product, is, of course, reinforced by a specifically political action of concerted conservation, i.e, of demobilization and depolicization. The latter tends to keep the dominated agents in the state of a practical group, united only by the orchestration of their dispositions and condemned to function is an aggregate repeatedly performing discrete, individual acts (such as consumer or electoral choices).
2 This is true of all exchanges between member of different fractions of the dominant class, possessing different types of capital. These range from sales of expertise, treatment, or other services which take the form of gift exchange and dignify themselves with the most decorous names that can be found (honoraria, emoluments, etc) to matrimonial exchanges, the prime example of a transaction that can only take place insofar as it is not percieved or defined as such by the contracting parties. It is remarkable that the apparent extensions of economis theory beyond the limits constituting the discipline have left intact the asylum of the sacred, apart form a few sacrilegious incursions. Garry S Bekker, for example, who was one of the first to take explicit account of the types of capital that usually ignored, never considers anything other than monetery costs and profits, forgetting the non-monetary invesments (interalia, the effective ones) and the material and symbolic profits that education provides in a deferred, indirect way, such as the added value which the dipositions produced or reinforced by schooling (bodily or verbal manner, tastes, etc) or the relationships estabilished with fellow students can yield in the matrimonial market (Decker, 1964a)
3 Symbolic capital, that is to say, capital – in whatever form – insofar as it is represented, i.e., apprehended symbolically, in a relationship of knowledge or, more precisely, of misrecognition and recognition, presupposes the intervention of the habitus, as a socially constituted cognitive capacity.
4 When talking about concepts for their own sake, as I do here, rather than using them in research, one always runs the risk of being both schematic and formal, i.e., theoritical in the most usual and most usually approved sense of the word.
5 This proposition implies no recognition of the values of scholatic verdicts, it merely registers the relationship which exists in reality between a certain cultural capital and the laws of the educational market. Dispositions that are given a negative value in the educational market may receive very high value in other market-not least, of course, in the relathionships internal to the class.
6 In a relatively undifferentiated society, in which acces of the means of appropiating the cultural heritage is very equally distributed, embodied culture does not function as cultural capital, i.e., as a means of acquiring exclusive advantages.
7 What I call the generalized arrow effect, i.e., the fact that all cultural good-paintings, monumens, machines, and any objects shaped by man particularly all those which belong to the childhood environment-exerts an educative effect by their mere existence, is no doubt by one of the structural factors behind the “schooling explosion” In the sense that a growht in the quantity of cultural capital accumulated in the objectified state increases the educative effect automatically exerted by the environment. If one adds to this the fact that embodied cultural capital is constantly ingreasing, it can be seen that, in each generation, the education system can take more for granted. The fact that the educational invesment is increasingly productive is one oof the structural factors of inflation of qualifications (together with cyclical factors linked to effects of capital conversion).
8 The cultural object, as a living social institution, is, simultaneously, a socially instituted material object and a particular class of habitus, to which it is addresed. The material object-for example, a work of art in its materiality-may be separated by space (e.g., Dogon Statue) or by time (e.g., a Simone Martini painting) from the habitus for which it was intended. This leads to one of the most fundamental biases of the art history. Understanding the effect ( not to be confused with the function) which the work tended – produce-for example, the form of belief it tended to induce – and which is the true basis of the conscious or unconcsious choice of the means used (technique, color, etc.) and therefore of the form itself, is possible only if one at least raises the question of the habitus on which it “operated”.
9 The dialectical relationship between objectified cultural capital – of which the form JKIT excellence is writing – and embodied cultural capital has generally been reduced to exalted description of the degradation of the spirit by the letter, the living by the inert, CJeation by routine, grace by heaviness.
10 This is particularly true in France, where in many occupations (particularly the civil service) there is a veri strict relationship between qualificatian , rank and renumerafion (translator’s note)
11 Here, too, the notion of cultural capital did not spring from pure theoritical work, much less from an analogical extension of economic concepts. It arose from the need to identify the principal of social effect which, although they can be seen clearly at the bel of singular agents – where statistical inquiry inevitably operates – cannot be reduced to the set of properties individually possessed by a given agent. These effects, in which spontaneous sociology readily percieves the work of “connections,” are particularly visible in all cases in which different individuals obtain very unequal profits from virtually equivalent ( economic or cultural) capital, depending on the extent to which they can mobilize by prozy the capital of a group (a family, the alumni of an elit school, a select club, the aristocracy, etc.) that is more or less constituted as such and more or less rich capital
12 Neighbohood relationships may, of course, receive an elementary from institutionalization – as in the Bearn – or the Basque region – where neighbors, louis besis ( a word which, in old text, is applied to the legitimate inhabitants of the village, the rightfull membesr of the assembly) are explicitly designated, in accordance with fairly codified rules, and are assigned functions which are differentiated according to their rank ( there is a “first neighbor”, a “second neighbor” and so on), particularly for the major social ceremonies (funerals, marriages, etc.). But even in this case, the relationships actually used by no means always coincide with the relationships social instituted.
13 Manners (bearing, pronouncition, etc.) may be included in social capital insofar as, through the mode of acquisition they point to, they indicate initial membership of a more or less prestigious group.
14 National liberation movements or nationalist ideologies cannot be accounted for solely by reference to strictly economic profits, ie., anticipation of the profits may be derived from redistribution of a proportion of wealth to the advantage of nationals (nationalization) and the recovery of highly paid jobs (see Breton 1964). To these spesifically economic anticipated profits, which would only explain the nationalism of the previliged classes, must be added the very real and very immediete profits derived from membership (social capital) which are proportionately greater for those who are lower down the social hierarchy (“poor whites”) or, more precisely, more threatened by economic and social decline.
15 There is every reason to suppose that socializing, or, more generally, relational, dispositions are very unequal distributed among the social classes and, within a given class, among fractions of different origin.
16 A “full power to act and speak” (translator)
17 It goes without saying that social capital is so totally governed by the logic of knowledge and acknowledgement that it always functions as symbolic capital.
18 It should be made clear, to dispel a likely misunderstanding, that the invesment in question here is not necessarily concieved as a calculated pursuit of gain, but that it has every likelihood of being experienced of tenns of the logic of emotional invesment, i.e., as a involvement which is both necessary and disinterested. This has not always been apprecieted by historian, who (even when they are as alert to symbolic effect as E.P. Thompson) tend to concieve symbolic practices-powdered wigs and the whole paraphernalia of offict – as axplicit strategies of domination, intended to be seen (from below), and to interpret generous or charitable conduct as “calculated acts of class appeasement.” This naively Machiavellian view forgets that the most sincerely disinterested acts may be those best corresponding to objective interest. A number of fields, particularly those which most tend to deny interest and every sort of calculation, like the fields of cultural production, grant full recognition, and with it the consecration which guarantees success, only to those who distinguish themselves by the immediate conformity of their invesments, a token of sincerity and attachment to the essential principles of the field. It would be thoroughly erroneous to discribe the choices of the habitus which lead an artist, writer, or researcher toward his natural place (a subject, style, manner, etc.) in tenns of rational strategy and cynical calculation. This is depite the fact that, for example, shifts from one genre, shooll, or speciality to another, quasi-religious conversions that are perfonned “in all sincerity,” can be understood as capital conversions, the direction and moment of which (on which their success often depends) are detennined by a “sense a invesment” which is the less likely to be seen as such the more skillful it is. Innocence is the privilege of those who move in their field of activity like fish in water.
19 To understand the attractiveness of this pair of antagonistic positions which serve as each other’s alibi, one would need to analyze the unconscious profits and the profits of the unconsciousness which they procure for intellectuals. While some find in economism a means of exempting themselves by excluding the cultural capital and all the specific profits which place them on the side of the dominant, others can abandon the detestable terrain of the economic, where everything reminds them that they can be evaluated, in the last analysis, in economic tenns, for that of the symbolic (The latter merely reproduce, in the realm of the symbolic, the strategy where by intellectuals and artist endeavor to impose the recognition of their values, i.e., their value, by inverting the law of the market in which what one has or what one earns completely defines what one of worth and what one is – as – is shown by the practice of banks which, whit techniques such as the per-sonalization of credit, tend to subordinate the granting of loans and the fixing of interest rates to an exhaustive inquiry in to the borrower’s present and future resources).
20 Among the advantages procured by capital in all its types, the most precious is the incriesed volume of useful time that is made possible through the various methods of appropriating other people’s time (in the form of services). It may take the form either of increased spare time, secured by reducing the time consumed in activities directly channeled toward producing the means of reproducing the existence of the domestic group, or of more intense use of the time so consumed, by recourse to other people’s labor or to devices and methods which are available only to those who have spent time learning how to use them and which (like better transport or living close to the place of work) make it possible to save time. (This is in contrast to the cash savings of the poor, which are paid for in time – do – it – yourself, bargain hunting, etc.). None of this is true of mere economic capital, it is possession of cultural capital that makes it possible to derive greater profit not only from labor-time, by securing a higher yield from the same time, but also from spare time, and so to increase both economic and social capital.
21 It goes whithout saying that the dominant fractions, who tend to place ever greater emphasis on educational invesment, within an overall strategy of asset diversification and of investments aimed at combining security with high yield, have all sorts of ways of evading scholastic verdicts. The direct transmission of economic capital remains one of the principal mean of reproduction, and the effect of social capital (“a helping-hand,” “string-pulling,” the “old boy network”) tends to correct the effect of academic sanctions. Educational qualifications never function perfectly as currency. They never entirely separable from their holder : their value rises in proportion to the value of their bearer, especially in the least rigid areas of the social stucture.