From Le savant et le politique (Weber, int. Aron, 1959) to Le savant et le populaire (Grignon & Passeron, 1989) from an English perspective

Aron published as Le savant et le politique
(1959) [the scientist and the politician] a long introduction
to the first French translations of Weber’s two lectures of 1918
–
Wissenschaft als Beruf [Science as
vocation] and Politik als Beruf [Politics as vocation]. This article comments on Aron’s int
roduction. It
then looks at the divergent responses to Aron’s work of Jean
-
Claude Passeron and Pierre Bourdieu, both
of whom were ‘mentored’ by Aron. Bourdieu and Passeron developed a sociology of education and culture
in the 1960s. Passeron retained the W
eberian distinction whereas Bourdieu saw social research as an
instrument for political action. I comment on the political implications of the comparable development of
Cultural Studies in England in the 1960s and 70s, and I come back to France to consider
Passeron’s
introduction to the translation of Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy (1959) as La culture du pauvre
(1970). I focus next on the situation in 1979 at the year of the publication of Bourdieu’s La distinction
and Lyotard’s La condition postmoderne, b
efore discussing Le savant et le populaire [the scientist and the
ordinary person] (Grignon & Passeron, 1989) and trying to draw out some conclusions which relate
sociology to popular culture and populist politics.