Vaughan, Clapton, & Bourdieu

In Language & Symbolic Power, Pierre Bourdieu asks:

"When the dominated pursuit of distinction leads dominated speakers to assert what distinguishes them - that is, the very thing in the name of which they are dominated and constituted as vulgar - according to logic analogous to the kind which leads stigmatized groups to claim the stigma as the basis for identity, should one talk of resistance? And when, conversely, they strive to shed that which marks them as vulgar, and to appropriate what would allow them to become assimilated, should one talk of submission?" (95).

I'm pretty new to the theory game, but is this the flip-side of a question asking whether or not Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric Clapton appropriated Blues music as a dominant gesture? To be fair, both are probably more likely classified as Blues-Rock, but Bourdieu, at any rate, speaks of the generation of "popular speech" which may otherwise be considered vulgar except for "The vague feeling [among dominant subjects] that linguistic conformity implies a form of recognition and submission which raises doubts about he virility of men who abide by it" (94) - the chafing of the very kind of submission they impose on marginalized groups - so maybe the appropriation of artifacts of dominant culture, not just speech, but other cultural artifacts such as music, are a way for dominant subjects to assert difference, hence, virility?

But, what if it's not about virility at all, but about a lack of self-definition: what if part of the apparently bottomless need to appropriate ethnic culture by the white race is a sad attempt to make up for a lack of our own culture?

Let's face it, white people, especially white Americans, have more in the way of "tradition" than culture. We have Christmas - founded, historically, in pagan religions and carried on the backs of malls around the country; we have Thanksgiving - a tradition built on a mythological "friendship" between the pilgrims and the indigenous people whose knowledge and stores of food they pillaged, and which gives us an excuse to gorge ourselves indecently one day a year (longer if leftovers are involved);  the only holiday we might truly call our own is the Fourth of July - another holiday founded on a mythology of "founding fathers" who knew what was best for us all - and now an excuse to drink heavily, this time cleverly couched as a patriotic meeting of American minds. Of course, there's Halloween - possibly the most honest holiday as it purports to be about nothing other than having fun by hiding behind outrageous costumes in order to pretend in the morning to not be the person who got sloshed the night before and had sex in a car with someone wearing a Bill Clinton mask.

We appear, at first glance anyway, to have little in the way of unifying culture - maybe football (which can actually be equated with alcohol and violence); possibly heavy metal music - but even our rock and roll is linked inextricably with violence, drugs, and a childish relationship with sexuality. So, our white "culture" consists of: mood-altering chemicals and violent displays all played out through the shadowy lens of half-hidden, half-denied sexuality and backed by the only thing we all really have in common - an addiction to consumerism.

For better or worse, though, none of this changes the fact of my particular habitus, which has encompassed a love of rock and roll since I was old enough to hear - and way long before I was old enough to understand words like assimilation and appropriation - and has always included the music of Chuck Berry and Fats Domino, as well as Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley.

My habitus, which Bourdieu assures me is "the product of the whole history of its relations with markets...is, indeed, linked to the market no less through its conditions of acquisition than through its conditions of use" (81) - ultimately, the rock and roll I have always associated myself with was informed and infused with the Blues, imprinted on me - admittedly from a "white" perspective which, by its nature, must alter the original meaning; still, I cannot deny it now as a part of my life and identity, nor do I want to - it may be the only link I have to a true culture.