On Moral Capital, Heroism, and Victimization: 133 Theses

Abstract In this essay, written on the occasion of his retirement from full-time teaching, Jean Michel Chaumont succinctly summarizes his decades-long research and key findings on what he terms the production and reproduction of “moral capital.” Chaumont examines the specificities of moral capital as a distinct and significant form of of what Bourdieu used to call “symbolic capital”. By analyzing discourses on communist resistance to fascism and the Holocaust – by various societal actors, including witness accounts – Chaumont traces a broader shift in Western discourse from hero worship to the valorization of victimhood. In a series of provocative “theses,” Chaumont explores the mechanisms through which moral capital is produced and circulates, across borders and generations, as a source of privilege and as a reinforcement of communitarian identity.’