Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 23:57:44 +1100
From: Cameron Mann <csmann-AT-bigpond.com>
Subject: RE: [BOU:] Fields can't be erased, only deserted



Chris wrote:

 > That is to say, the stakes, the illusio, the rules, the boundaries, 
etc.; all of
 > these differed radically and were perceived as such by their actors.  As
 > researchers we might see analogous similarities in suggesting that they
 > all appealed to rules, authority, etc., but surely those operating
 > within them would not confuse one for the other.  And if the stakes, the
 > illusio of the participants, what counts as playing the game, etc. are
 > so radically different, if the history accumulated in them so different,
 > why link them together under the same field?

I think the reason to link them together under the same field, "the 
juridical field (Bourdieu's words)," is because no matter how differently 
as it can be played, at the autonomous pole of this field is

Justice for its own sake.

I'm not sure how far this line of my thinking deviates from Bourdieu's, but 
I reiterate that:

"since each agent needs to answer 'What should I do now?', ethics goes 
wherever people go" and some subjective notion of  "right" exists wherever 
a person is. More than one person leads to more than one notion of "right" 
and the inevitable attempt to "solve" these differences deserves to be 
described as Justice - whether based  on violence, the loudest voice, gods, 
chance, codified laws, tears, arm-wrestling or story-telling.

Certainly I can understand not having a '"universalizing attitude'." But I 
cannot understand a community  (ie more than one person) without "a belief 
in truth and justice," even "in an indigenous context."

Are there really no fields that exist as a direct consequence of all human 
beings? To being with, those concerned with truth, justice, material 
economy and power seem kind of inevitable to me, and that one concerned 
with beauty is trying really hard to get on that list. (Admittedly, I can 
hear myself disagreeing with such a statement enough times in the last 10 
years!)

List, please help me get this right.



_________________
Cameron Mann
csmann-AT-bigpond.com

'And the world outside this room has also assumed a familiar shape, the 
same events shuffled in a slightly different order each day. Just like a 
modern shopping centre.'
F.E.E.L.I.N.G. C.A.L.L.E.D. L.O.V.E - Pulp

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