ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

This essay attempts to develop a sociological theory of disgust that connects class discrimination and disgust, leaning on Pierre Bourdieu’s discussion on taste and distinction. To this end, special attention is given to the point that cultural boundaries can be formed not only through preferences but also through the patterns of disgust. Boundaries between hostile social groups might well be defined by emotions shared by people within the same group, but the aversive and disgusting emotions toward other groups are operating more importantly and more strongly in the ‘boundary work’. Disgust is imposed to beings outside the boundaries that exist between us and them and thus acts a major mechanism to strengthen the boundaries. In particular, Bourdieu’s reading of Kant and ideological criticism of his aesthetic judgment contribute to uncovering the taste and disgust’s ability to differentiate as acquired dispositions do. According to Bourdieu, tastes are, above all, distastes or disgusts provoked by horror or ‘visceral’ intolerance of the tastes of others. In addition, disgust is the enjoyment extorted by symbolic power removing the distance between the representation and the thing represented, envisaging the situation of alienation, “the loss of the subject in the object”. The roles of cultural tastes and their relative ‘disgust’ as powerful differentiating and discriminating forces attract the much interests, which lead to the conclusion that class identity and subjectivity are constituted by disgust toward other classes.

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