On 5/12/2002 4:07 AM, "lbo-talk-digest" <owner-lbo-talk-digest at lists.panix.com> wrote:
> No! Your objection is the same as if someone shouold object that quantum
> mechanics do not teach us how to plub in a lamp or that geology does not
> show us the route to Grandma's house. Social analysis can no more give
> us any direct informatin about personal relations than chemistry can
> give us direct information about the amount of sugar to add to a
> cornbread batter. Do you want one theory to explain everything?
>
> Carrol
This is a horribly strained set of analogies (why should something work the same way in geology and sociology?), and a unwarranted and agressive rhetorical question. At any rate, this kind of argumentation is an amusing sport and can be played either way: Attempting to understand social forces without understanding the specificity of that upon which such forces act is like trying to understand geology without bothering to look at the rocks.
I was just rather shocked that you should react to the idea that love involves social relations of power by quipping that social relations are impersonal. In my view, it takes a concerted effort to render relations impersonal and such an effort only really changes what it is to be a person in such circumstances. (In my mind right now is the Stanford Prison Experiment.)
Thiago Oppermann
------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through IMP: www-mail.usyd.edu.au