Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia - Jurusan Antropologi ...

CULTURAL RELATIONS AND THE NEW RICH 37
questions are a good deal more complex and variable than seems to be the case in
Bourdieu’s France, and in the absence of detailed studies of such matters in the
region, it is impossible here to do any more than make some preliminary points. If
the high-status authority of the established elites is compromised by their
association with past economic backwardness, the bourgeoisies of the West are
similarly compromised by the very fact that they are Western. Nevertheless, it
would appear that the principal arbiters of aesthetic prowess come from the artistic
and intellectual communities found within and between these local and foreign
classes. However, these communities are clearly changing, and vary in inclination
and influence across the region. And because of their compromised authority and
the growing social power of the new rich, they are also subject to influences from
without. Indeed, following Bourdieu, the constitution of high taste represents an
important area of symbolic struggle between these various social forces.
Clearly there are important differences here which reflect the varied breaks and
continuities in the political and social structures of particular nations, as well as the
differential engagement of particular societies and classes with the world beyond.
In some settings, old elites and intelligentsias retain significant influence, while in
others their influence has been eliminated or marginalised. For example, while
members of the contemporary Indonesian elite normally preside over national
ceremonial events wearing batik tulis (written batik cloth), in deference to the attire
of the former priyayi nobility, on similar occasions ruling officials in China either
wear what are variously known as Sun Yat-Sen or Mao suits, or else ‘Western’
business suits, as deliberate alternatives to the scholarly robes associated with the
Confucian tradition. 45 In Chapter 5, Chua and Tan suggest that there are
significant cultural differences between the national elites of Singapore, Hong Kong
and the Philippines, in the extent to which they see it as becoming to display
private wealth publicly. Within particular countries, there may also be rival high-taste
regimes defined in terms of different ethnic traditions. It is highly doubtful that
these sorts of variations can be accommodated in reference to the Kantian
aesthetics identified by Bourdieu as the hallmark of legitimate taste in France.
These variations and complexities are compounded by the fact that contentions
over taste evaluation between the new rich and the old rich may be played out in
reference to national identity constructions and the symbolic contentions between
East and West. In some countries, the traditions of local landed or bureaucratic
elites have been selectively recast or renewed by nationalist intellectuals, and
professionals or business people from old elite families. This is evident, for
example, in the widespread renovation and renewed display of historic public
buildings and old stately homes, and in the production of scholarly literature on
these architectural forms. Though such activities often serve commercial ends,
they are also inscribed with ideas of national identity, which not only address
foreign audiences, but also the local population, most notably the upwardly mobile
who are seeking out both old and new forms of respectability. Yet there are also
cases, often in the same societies, where other nationalist taste arbiters, and
sections of the new rich, have distanced themselves from the highculture practices