Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 11:55:52 +0100
Subject: from theoutside 


At 11:41 21.01.97 -0500, you wrote:

Problem:
>Gabriel Ash
>I would like to know whether B. anywhere dealt with the case of players
whose >only investment in the game is their wish to be out of it, and the
implication >of such cases.

Answers:

>Paul Bayer wrote:
>Staying in a field, people cannot escape games, they may only change
>them. If someone tries to escape from a _field_ like your criminal or
>patient, he must play the game "escape from juridic/medical field"
>against the policemen/physicians who will use all their power to hinder
>him. (Seems quite like Dr. Kimble).

>Yves Gingras wrote
>Concerning the question of leaving a field Bourdieu wrote in 1981 ("Men and
>Machines" in  K. Knorr-Cetina and A. Cicourel, _Advances in Social Theory
>and Methodology: Toward an Integration of Micro- and Macro-Sociologies_, p.
>316):
"The only absolute freedom  to withdraw from the game, by a heroic
>renunciation which -- unless one manages to set up another game -- secures
>tranquility only at the cost of social death, from the point of view of the
>game and the _illusio_".
>So people can leave a field and a game, but there is a price to pay. What
>about Suicide as a way to quit a field ?

>Boehm wrote
>Wouldn't literal suicide make one a permanent part of a field?  When
>one dies, the remembrances are of who they were, not where they have
>gone.  However, if someone were to commit political suicide within a
>field, in order to change to another, then that person would be
>remembered in the original field as someone who "got out".  ex. 
>School Band director's often leave that field to go into the field of
>sales, presumably to accumulate more fincancial capital, and to spend
>less time doing it.  So when someone in our field asks, "What ever
>happend to so&so?", we say, "Oh, he is now selling band candy."  If,
>however, a colleague committed suicide, then we would say, "The kids
>got to him and he committed suicide, maybe we should commission a
>piece in his memory."  So, the latter  is then a permanent member of
>the field of school band educators. What do you think?

>Paul
>with my understanding/use of "field" and "game", people can escape
>*single* fields or games, but only by changing them. In fact they cannot
>escape from social space or social games in general because this would
>be social suicide.


Dear friends

as I can see most of you agree that there is no chance to escape from a
field, but only to change from one game to another, or to commit social
suicide. I don=92t agree with this, because there surely are people who tried
to escape not only from one but from all fields and in my opinion have
really succeeded. I think of some exponents of European mysticism (e.g.
Meister Eckhart, Angelius Silesius) or of zen buddhism (e.g. Lin-chi,
Hakuin, Dogen etc. etc.). Surely from the standpoint of society they
remained and will remain forever in some kind of social game, but from
within these people are totally free, whatever this may mean. Unfortunately
in order to defend this view I only can advise to read some of the original
literature, since the power of my explanations would soon be exhausted.

Sincerely your

G=FCnter

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