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Sounds interesting. I feel like I (and most techies as well) am prone to commit the sin of trying to derive all human behavior from economics/psychology, since

Sounds interesting. I feel like I (and most techies as well) am prone to commit the sin of trying to derive all human behavior from economics/psychology, since we like deriving concepts from first principles. What simple introductionary readings/videos on Goffman and Bourdieu would you recommend?

culebron21 3y ago
Definitely Goffman. Bourdieu wrote way too hard, except for some separate articles.
orwin 3y ago
Bourdieu is easy to read, or at least understand. 'La distinction' is the book I would start with. Its a great book to read if you have small family issues, even if you despise us post-Marxists, if you have troubles with a son/brother/sister/daughter, it might give you keys to build a more resilient family. The first 3 chapters are essential imho, and there is a lot of value reading further (and other books) with the caveat that it's a foundational author, and like most foundational authors, he have blind spot (he did not had real contradictors with good arguments until the last years of his career (and BTW, handled it way better than Chomsky did) (free shot, sorry).
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  I don't think the statement "Bourdieu is easy to read" has ever been uttered before. The normal advice is to go read one of Wacquant's works (e.g. "An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology") before you start with stuff like "Distinction" because Bourdieu's academic prose is famously terrible. His verbal prose and the works intended for laypeople are much less obscurantist.
Matumio 3y ago
> sin of trying to derive all human behavior from economics/psychology To remedy to that, I highly recommend Joseph Henrich's "The Secret of Our Success". What we call "human behaviour" in such discussions is often culturally learned (or at least shaped). His point: our psychology is "programmable", and prestige plays a key role in that programming. Western culture (market norms, trust towards strangers, monogamy as the norm, etc.) is forming our psychology in a way that is very far from (historically) typical humans. (That said, I'm no expert in this area and cannot put Henrich's work into context.)
- revolvingocelot 3y ago
  Western culture, as putative shaper of behaviour as expressed in the parent comment, even makes it into economics/psychology itself! Most psychology studies are done on WEIRD [0] people: Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic psychology undergrads. It was suggested, in 2010 anyway, that "96% of psychological samples come from countries with only 12% of the world's population". [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology#WEIRD_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology#WEIRD_bias [1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain-sciences/article/abs/weirdest-people-in-the-world/BF84F7517D56AFF7B7EB58411A554C17 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain...

culebron21 3y ago

Definitely Goffman. Bourdieu wrote way too hard, except for some separate articles.

orwin 3y ago

Bourdieu is easy to read, or at least understand. 'La distinction' is the book I would start with. Its a great book to read if you have small family issues, even if you despise us post-Marxists, if you have troubles with a son/brother/sister/daughter, it might give you keys to build a more resilient family. The first 3 chapters are essential imho, and there is a lot of value reading further (and other books) with the caveat that it's a foundational author, and like most foundational authors, he have blind spot (he did not had real contradictors with good arguments until the last years of his career (and BTW, handled it way better than Chomsky did) (free shot, sorry).

AlotOfReading 3y ago
I don't think the statement "Bourdieu is easy to read" has ever been uttered before. The normal advice is to go read one of Wacquant's works (e.g. "An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology") before you start with stuff like "Distinction" because Bourdieu's academic prose is famously terrible. His verbal prose and the works intended for laypeople are much less obscurantist.

Matumio 3y ago

> sin of trying to derive all human behavior from economics/psychology To remedy to that, I highly recommend Joseph Henrich's "The Secret of Our Success". What we call "human behaviour" in such discussions is often culturally learned (or at least shaped). His point: our psychology is "programmable", and prestige plays a key role in that programming. Western culture (market norms, trust towards strangers, monogamy as the norm, etc.) is forming our psychology in a way that is very far from (historically) typical humans. (That said, I'm no expert in this area and cannot put Henrich's work into context.)

revolvingocelot 3y ago
Western culture, as putative shaper of behaviour as expressed in the parent comment, even makes it into economics/psychology itself! Most psychology studies are done on WEIRD [0] people: Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic psychology undergrads. It was suggested, in 2010 anyway, that "96% of psychological samples come from countries with only 12% of the world's population". [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology#WEIRD_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology#WEIRD_bias [1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain-sciences/article/abs/weirdest-people-in-the-world/BF84F7517D56AFF7B7EB58411A554C17 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain...