This particular essay on art is not looking at an artwork. Rather, it problematizes the way we think of art as an element of culture. The epigraphs by Octavio Paz and Robert Barry challenge the way we commonsensically think of art. And this is what the whole essay allows us to (re)think: Our ways of seeing art and the conditions of possibility of our gaze.

Octavio Paz’s statement on the iconic status of art objects that “command our adoration” is precisely what the essay explains as symbolic violence. Symbolic violence as the essay suggests, stems from the condition that art is produced in a society where there is hierarchy. However, it wasn’t quite clear how hierarchy is produced and reproduced in society. While the essay points to a privileging of high art by virtue of the exclusivity of this field and the dispositions of its practitioners and patrons, it does not touch the origins of the binarism between high and low art. Thus, I argue that the hierarchy in art is a consequence of the predominant property relations in society. Those who are dispossessed of property cannot quite dictate or define ‘culture’ or ‘the good life.’ This means that the ruling class does not maintain its hegemony only through economic exploitation. It wins the consent of the masses through cultural hegemony that it enacts on a daily basis through symbolic violence.

Art, according to this essay is a vehicle for symbolic violence. I fully agree with this assertion since not once have I been a victim of such mechanism. Majoring in creative writing, I have always been puzzled by how the gurus of literature can tell good writing from bad. For some time now, I would always feel oedipal (or the desire to be led as defined by Deleuze and Guattari in their book Anti-Oedipus) whenever I endeavor to complete certain requirements. In particular, I have been always nervous in writing poetry since I often hear certified poets saying ‘hindi naman ito tula’ or something to that effect. While these writers are not, strictly speaking, part of the ruling class (perhaps some do fantasize that they are, while others do all they can to expand their connections), their acts of consecration stems from the logic of the institution. The institution of education which includes salons, workshops, conferences, examinations, exhibitions, etc. is an apparatus for the perpetuation of the dominant order. That is why it can only reproduce the hierarchy that exist in the realm of production by perpetuating a culture that would legitimize the dominant mode of production. However, these institutions appear to be autonomous by virtue of their claims to disinterestedness. The ruling class in society do not directly dictate its taste and may not even be interested to do so. Instead, as the reading argues, it is the state cultural bureaucracies that define legitimate culture.