Feeling the Weight of Cultural Capital’s Water

No laughing matter

How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb? Fish.

Whether you find the lightbulb joke funny, or not, may reveal the composition of your cultural capital. When I first heard the surrealist lightbulb joke during secondary school, I was not amused. Others seemed to find it swimmingly hilarious. I did not. My piscine perplexity, and fished-mouthed silence, relayed to others an absence of cultural capital relating to surrealist art.

Surrealism had never been mentioned in any authorised capacity at school. Nor had surrealism ever been discussed, at length, or any length, at the dinner table at home. In fact, none of the arts were. How then, was I to know that to get the punchline, I had to be aware that surrealism was “a twentieth-century literary, philosophical and artistic movement that explored the workings of the mind, championing the irrational, the poetic and the revolutionary” (Tate, n.d.) and, in a seashell, the joke’s “fish” answer demonstrated surrealism’s illogical juxtaposition of imagery? The embarrassment of not getting the joke produced, what Threadgold (2020) terms, an “affective moment.”

Threadgold (2020) postulates that as we progress through our day-to-day activities, we experience a myriad of brief, affective moments, which come to inform and shape our social practice. Furthermore, interpretation of our emotional responses produced during affective moments (joy, embarrassment, fear, etc.), is connected to the different forms of cultural capital we have accumulated, thus far.

Defining cultural capital

While Ofsted define cultural capital as “the essential knowledge that pupils need to be educated citizens” (Ofsted, 2022, para. 226) and scholars Webb et al. (2006) offer the view that it is “a form of value associated with culturally authorised tastes, consumption patterns, attributes, skills and awards” it is best to turn first to the thoughts initially proposed by French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002), in order to better understand how cultural capital operates affectively as we engage in social practices.

Bourdieu (2004, author’s emphasis) argued that cultural capital is triumvirate in nature. First, cultural capital exists “in the embodied state, in the form of long-lasting dispositions of the mind and body” (thinking and actions); second, “in the objectified state, in the form of cultural goods” (books, art, film, music, household goods, clothing, etc.); third, “in the institutionalized state”, such as educational qualifications. Missing, at this point, however, is an example which demonstrates how the affective workings of cultural capital shapes social practice.

Once again, humour can help illuminate this. The example I wish to use is an onstage monologue delivered by Scottish comedian, Kevin Bridges (Universal Comedy, 2022), in which he shares his experience of leaving his childhood home, a Clydebank council house (affectionately termed “ma bit”), to the more desirable part of town: Glasgow’s West End.

When cultural capitals collide

Bridges begins his house moving story by revealing to the audience that, thanks to their attendance at his live shows, he has now “made a bit of dosh” (an increase in economic capital). As such, he has been able to leave behind the social ills of “ma bit” and join the “great and the good” in the “nice bit of the city”. However, while Bridges’ current economic capital may be equal to that of his new neighbours, his cultural capital assets are very much at-odds and out-of-sync with those operating in the “nice bit of the city”. Through Bridges’ humorous portrayal of colliding cultural capitals (read as class struggle), we are able to discern how they operate affectively.

As we engage with Bridges’ monologue, we can identify how Bourdieu’s three states of cultural capital coalesce to produce a series of affective moments, resulting in feelings of inferiority. First, Bridges notices embodied differences in relation to the residents of the West End: accent, vocabulary and mannerism.

Second, Bridges picks-up on objectified differences connected with taste: musical instruments, food, cutlery, clothing, hairstyles and art. Third, Bridges observes institutionalised differences: education and employment. However, it is the difference between the intersection of classed and gendered cultural capitals which seem to produce the most intense affective moments for Bridges (bafflement and contempt).

This is relayed to the audience during his description of encounters with West End boys. It is during this part of his storytelling that we gain a sense of how our accumulated cultural capitals are influenced and shaped by our childhood geographies. Bridges portrays the sense that for boys growing up in Clydebank, their cultural capital investments are directed toward physical prowess, self-protection and street know-how in order to achieve status. This contrasts with West End boys’ cultural capital investments, which are directed toward intellectual status. Cultural capital combat for Clydebank boys is knowing how to fight, whereas for West End boys - it’s knowing how to debate.

Feeling the affective weight of cultural capital’s water

In effect, Bridges’ storytelling exposes how our accumulated cultural capital influences whether we feel at home in different social spaces. Bourdieu explains that when we encounter the social world of which we are the product we are very much like a “fish in water” and, therefore, do “not feel the weight of the water” (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992).

As such, we take the world for granted and do not feel its affects. However, when we encounter the social world in which we are not its product, we feel the affective weight of the water by becoming aware of “undesirable emotions and feelings” (Threadgold, 2020). This may help to explain why children may have differing “affective affinities” (ibid.) with school spaces.

As Threadgold (2020) reminds us: “Possessing cultural capital lubricates one’s trajectory in specific social spaces.” Alternatively, certain forms of cultural capital investments may lead to career cul-de-sacs, as evidenced by Friedman and Laurison (2020) in their superb book, The Class Ceiling. Funnily enough, Freidman’s (2022) more recent work on career progression within the civil service reveals the importance of shared humour.  Perhaps then, there is a place for humour in the classroom?

Finally, I hope I have illuminated, albeit briefly, how our accumulated cultural capitals operate affectively through the course of social interaction. In turn, this may help to explain   the origins of different emotional states and feelings, especially when connected to learning ecosystems. Therefore, education’s cultural capital task extends beyond introducing children to essential knowledge, it’s also about addressing the affective inequalities associated with cultural capital too. This is where the challenge lies.

As I ponder on this, I am drawn to the words of Douglas Adams, “So long, and thanks for all the fish.”