Sociology

Throughout the development of human society, the vision and the concept of social capital, from being merely a functional reflection of the major components of social performance, came to signify an effective symbolic tool of reconceptualizing the rules of social domination. Pierre Bourdieu, instead of showing social capital as a unifying element, emphasized the symbolic power of social difference and conflict based on the amount and the structure of social capital, society members could and had to yield different amounts of cultural profit. Such profit (e.g., fashion habits), on the one hand, followed from ones belonging to one particular social class and, on the other hand, had to establish the base for the development of social solidarity within the social stratum. This is what Cintra Wilson was trying to reflect in her paper, by showing JC Penny as the trademark with the potential to expand, narrow, and or change the distribution of cultural, social, economic, and symbolic resources, and as the element which reflects the postmodern flexibility and vagueness of the social class structures.

Bourdieus seminal work in social inequality is the complex reflection of antagonistic relationships between different class structures Bourdieu ties his vision of the social class to the phenomena of power and dominance and relies on the economic measure of resource distribution between different classes (Butler and Watt 2007 172). However, the multidimensionality of the class vision presented by Bourdieu is interesting in a sense that it positions social, symbolic, and cultural capital as the essential components of the modern and, particularly, postmodern class map. This symbolism and the cultural analysis create a mirror, in which Cintra Wilson can see her ideas about JC Penny. JC Penny for Wilson represents the symbolic and cultural dimension of the postmodern class division, and is the basic sign of the social and cultural mobility, which changes the distribution of class resources over time and provides social class representatives with an opportunity to develop effective reconversion strategies, necessary to balance their class obligations with available class resources.

Wilsons criticism of JC Penny is not a criticism in its pure form it is a serious attack on the role and place, which mainstream clothing stores should and can occupy among Manhattans Chanel and Prada stores. Why would this perennially square department store bother to reanimate itself in Manhattan  in the sleekest, scariest fashion city in America  during a hair-raising economic downturn, without taking the opportunity to vigorously rebrand itself Why would this dowdy Middle American entity waddle into Midtown in its big old shorts and flip-flops without even bothering to update its ancient Helvetica Light logo, which for anyone who grew up with the company is encrusted with decades off boring, even traumatically parental, associations  (Wilson 2009). This is how Wilson actually imagines and seeks to represent the symbolic cultural dimension of the materially advanced class in New York individuals, who do not use their material resources to purchase cheap things, who do not search for affordable luxury, who avoid everything that is associated with the mass part of the word masstige, and who also emphasize the relevance of small sizes as the distinctive element of the higher class appearance.

Obese mannequins, to which Wilson refers in her review, exemplify her view of the Manhattan purchasing audience as limited to urbanized small gay men and miniature women, with no more than size 2. For some reason, Wilson believes that JC Penny marks the cleavage between the sense of comfort so familiar to those, who consider themselves socially advanced, and the limitedness of resources imposed on them by the current economic downturn. Snobby, self-obsessed, stress-thin and morbidly workaholic are just some out of many epithets that Wilson uses to describe the postmodern Manhattan ectomorph (Wilson 2009). None of these, however, can reflect the potential, which JC Penny has for transforming the boundaries of the postmodern social class.

In reality, JC Penny can be fairly regarded as a symbol, with which certain social classes associate themselves in cultural terms. JC Penny is a complex idea of cultural tastes, which particular social layers exercise and use in their routine performance and as a matter of establishing their social position. Wilson is confident that only tourists on a budget can feel comfortable buying at Pennys (Wilson 2009), but in reality, JC Penny has a potential to become a successful element of reconversion class strategies during economic downturns. In this sense, and through the prism of Bourdieus writing, the impact of JC Pennys opening on the vision of social class is two-fold on the one hand, it provides the middle and higher classes with an opportunity to expand the boundaries of their choice-making. On the other hand, it moves lower classes, with their limited economic opportunities, closer to the benefits of symbolic class prestige (or masstige, as Wilson calls it).

In this way, Wilson seems to move the two different (lower and higher) social classes closer to each other by giving them an opportunity for an encounter at JC Penny. To some extent, JC Penny, in Wilsons review, represents an element that denies the relevance of clear lines between classes and emphasizes flexibility as the distinctive element of Bourdieus class writing. Whether such proximity of classes is likely to result in a conflict is not clear, but Wilson herself exemplifies the class hatred, about which Bourdieu writes in his paper her epithets and metaphors openly abuse those, who would like to choose JC Penny as a place for making purchases, although postmodern vision of fashion virtually eliminates the boundaries of self-expression and acceptability of various fashion forms. By judging and criticizing JC Penny for the size of its clothes and mannequins, Wilson simply does not want to accept the flexibility of social and cultural resources and reconversion resource strategies for granted. Nevertheless, she makes the readers look at JC Penny as an excellent opportunity to reshape the limits of the present day class division and to make fashion the determining symbolic feature of not only the higher, but also the lower tourist classes. That Wilsons article is to become an interesting object of social analysis is difficult to define, but it is unlikely that Manhattan fashion buyers will be interested in her newspaper opinions.

Conclusion
Throughout the development of social studies, the concept of social capital had undergone a profound theoretical shift. From being a merely functional element of social performance, social capital gradually came to represent a kind of symbolic power, which members of the different social strata possess and can utilize to yield the desired cultural profits. Wilsons review of JC Penny seeks to transform the boundaries of the current social division and implies that JC Penny can become a reliable instrument of social reconversion strategies for both higher and lower social classes. Although Wilson refuses to recognize the flexibility of social divisions as the distinctive feature of the postmodern reality, she unintentionally implies that reconversion through JC Penny may bring the existing social conflicts to the surface. Wilson will hardly make Manhattan buyers change their attitudes to fashion, but her analysis of fashion as a form of symbolic social capital is interesting and even useful to understand the ways, in which classes meet and reframe themselves under the influence of flexible and vague post-modernity.