The Passion of Luc Boltanski: The Destiny of Love, Violence and Institution

Roger Friedland, Diane-Laure Arjaliès, (2017), The Passion of Luc Boltanski: The Destiny of Love, Violence, and Institution, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 52, p.301 - 347

76 Pages Posted: 28 Jun 2017

See all articles by Roger Friedland

Roger Friedland

University of California, Santa Barbara

Diane-Laure Arjaliès

Ivey Business School at Western University

Date Written: June 14, 2017

Abstract

On Justification: Economies of Worth (Boltanski and Thévenot, 1991/2006) was a synthetic and comprehensive parsing of common goods, goods that could and had to be justified in public. In response to Bourdieu’s critical sociology, they rather provided a robust and disciplined sociology of critique, the situated requirements of justification. They refused power and violence as integral to the operability of justification. They emphasized the ways in which conventions of worth afforded coordination, not their constitution of or by domination. They refused to make either capitalism, or the state, into primary motors of social order. Indeed, they refused social sphere, structure or group as the ground of the good. They emphasized the cognitive capacities of agents. There was no passion, no desire, no bodily affect in these justified worlds. There wasn’t even any account of production of value, of children or money. And while they recognized the metaphysical aspect of the good and even used Christianity as a template for one of their cités, they rigorously excluded religion. The theory was designed to analyze moments of controversy, not quiescence or quietude. In his subsequent work, Boltanksi aimed to address these absences. In this essay, we examine how Boltanksi sought to restore love, violence, religion, production and institution across five texts: Love and Justice as Competences (1990/2012), The New Spirit of Capitalism, co-authored with Eve Chiapello (1999/2007), The Foetal Condition: A Sociology of Engendering and Abortion (2004/2013), On Critique: A Sociology of Emancipation (2009/2011) and La «Collection», Une Forme Neuve du Capitalisme - La Mise en Valeur Economique du Passé et ses Effets (2014) co-authored with Arnaud Esquerre.

Keywords: Boltanski, Institution, Love, Orders of Worth, Power, Violence

JEL Classification: Z13

Suggested Citation

Friedland, Roger and Arjaliès, Diane-Laure, The Passion of Luc Boltanski: The Destiny of Love, Violence and Institution (June 14, 2017). Roger Friedland, Diane-Laure Arjaliès, (2017), The Passion of Luc Boltanski: The Destiny of Love, Violence, and Institution, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 52, p.301 - 347, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2993403

Roger Friedland

University of California, Santa Barbara ( email )

South Hall 5504
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
United States

Diane-Laure Arjaliès (Contact Author)

Ivey Business School at Western University ( email )

London, Ontario
Canada

HOME PAGE: http://www.ivey.uwo.ca/faculty/directory/diane-laure-arjalies/

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
61
Abstract Views
426
Rank
637,858
PlumX Metrics