Critique Of Cultural Capital On The Grounds Of Information Society

Critique of Cultural Capital on the Grounds of Information SocietyCultural capital, which was first proposed by Pierre Bourdieu and followed suit in numerous fields of modern arts and humanities, has not only been a fundamental concept in the theoretical system of sociology, but also an analytic one which gives rise to much controversy. It is the accumulation of cultural values embodied in the form of wealth. The accumulation may cause the continuous flow of articles and services during which form commodities with the cultural and economic values. The emersion of cultural capital is the inevitable result of the operation of society and economy reflecting the deep expansion of capital logic.How people understand the domain of cultural capital theory directly influences their attitudes towards cultural capital. Therefore, when people study cultural capital theory and further make use of it, their footing should be the basic ideas of Marxist philosophy in order to form the theoretical awareness of researches on cultural capital. To be more specific, firstly, the initial theoretical form of cultural capital should be clarified through systematic and in-depth study of"culture"and"capital"and their intrinsic relations as well as an analysis of the theoretical elaboration of cultural capital advanced by Pierre Bourdieu; Secondly, early western Marxist theory, esp. the expansion of cultural capital theory conducted by Ceorg Lukacs, Gramsci Antonio and other Western scholars of Marxism should be elaborately excavated; Thirdly, the society alienation theory of Frankfurt School in western Marxism including Horkheimer and Erich Fromm's contribution on cultural capital theory should be investigated and emphasized; Fourthly, an intensive discussion on Marx` theory of human development and his theoretical references to contemporary critique of cultural capital should be given.From the point of social and historical genetics, cultural capital is closely related to the basic features of contemporary society which is generally identified as"information society"with its trait as"information era"by the cultural circle. Owing to the support of information and technology in information society, cultural capital is extensively and abstractly generalized and symbolized. During the previous days, more attention was paid to the intrinsic relations between cultural capital and capitalistic commodity economy in the academic circle and cause of the generation of cultural capital in the capital operation law of commodity economy was found . While nowadays the cultural significance of internet and the basic feature of information era play a profound role in the social interaction, social stratification, economic activities and cultural options which brings modern meaning to the nature, feature, generation and operation mode of cultural capital.For historical materialism advanced by Marx, it is internal contradictions of the society that promote the movement and development of human society. According to this principle, it is also possible to analyze the multiple contradictions caused by cultural capital in information society. And it is these contradictions that urge the continuous development and self-improvement of modern information society. These contradictions mainly include : a) the contradiction between cultural capital and economic capital; b) the contradiction between cultural capital and social capita; c) the contradiction between cultural capital and cultural value and d) the contradiction between cultural capital and globalization.In information society, cultural capital reaches its capital effectiveness by means of information symbols. The control and transmission of information means one operation mode of capital. Information is a symbol of cultural capital instead of a single cultural symbol. The one that has larger amount of information and has the capability to transform the information into the inner elements in the operation of capital owns cultural capital of the society. Cultural capital is the essential provision of information society, thus it has great influence on information society. The reason why cultural capital can be the essential provision is the development of human society, to be more accurate, is the development of productivity. And only in information society is cultural capital a decisive form of productivity.Information society defines cultural capital as the leading form of capital which is of great social value to the increase of economic capital and the operation of social capital. However, the capitalization of culture and the leading status of cultural capital in information society can also brings negative effects. Among the post-modern concepts of cultural capital, post-modern values meet the challenge of traditional core value which leads to the inner contradiction of cultural capital society and brings about a series of problems concerning social development. Thus, guided by Marxist dialectical materialism, we must conduct cultural critique to cultural capital in theory and furthermore construct a form of cultural capital and its operation mode which could conform to our nation.