[reply to Kelley follows in this post]
> > perhaps we've reached an analytical brick
> > wall, if you are saying there is no difference between
events-in-themselves
> > and their representation.
>
> well "no difference" is not the claim i would make
> they can be different in their perception
I'm not sure what you mean by this. That there is only a perceptual difference between events-in-themselves and their representation?
> i can resent something and still think it important and worthy of study.
> good god, where would politics depts be if that was not the case?
What I mean is, for example, that if I were going to study jazz, Adorno would not be my first port of call.
> owing to many centuries of influence i do not believe you or anyone in
your
> place could not devise 'penance'.
I'm sticking to my story ;-)
> you have to give me an opportunity to obtain the
> erasure of my transgression.
I think I've got it now ... a hard ask, since it would have to involve something as traumatic as going to every Rabbitohs game this year *lol*. The Sydney Swans might be easier, although they are obviously not as "popular" in Sydney as RL.
> you've already told me RL is a working-class game and i won't pretend to
> disagree -- but in what sense then is it simply a result of production
rather
> than itself a relation of production (not the same kind as a sawmill or a
> fashion runway, no... but those are also results of production)
OK, here goes: as that great journalist Chris Masters showed in a classic documentary for _Four Corners_, rugby league, like all professional sports is a business with a role in capitalist accumulation (primarily as an advertising vehicle) and its own internal relations of productions. In that sense I would agree with you. However: RL (or even more so, AFL) clubs are not, in the strictest sense, "capitalist" profit-making enterprise like say Manchester United or the NY Yankees. And so neither are their internal relations of production typical: it would be like studying (say) a stamp collecting club as an example of capitalist enterprise. I mean stamp collecting _is_ a significant site of investment, but the club is not a site of accumulation in itself and is, in itself, hardly typical of capitalist business activity.
There is also the argument that sport serves as a means of teaching discipline to a workforce (and by extension an army), which is fair enough, although I would have to say I think that what happens on the factory floor or behind the counter at Macdonalds is more relevant, simply because it is more typical of capitalist relations of production in general. And while the consumption of products of that factory or Macdonalds may well be "cultural" and while the way in which work is organised may reflect, in part, the broader culture, the overwhelming impetus for that work is not "culture".
In terms of popular culture I would have to say the main significance of RL is in its consumption (and consumption of related merchandise) by large numbers of people in north east Australia. (Once again, the logistics of that consumption being far more typical of capitalist relations of production than RL itself.)
Good luck with the home hunting.
* * * * * * * *
Kelley:
> >At the moment I can't explain it better than this:
>
> well, I've got all day, next week, and next year, at least. I'm pretty
> patient.
Figure of speech -- I don't think I can explain it better than that.
> >"Relations of Production: The objective material relations that exist in
any
> >society independently of human consciousness, formed between all people
in
> >the process of social production, exchange, and distribution of material
> >wealth." http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/r/e.htm
> >
> >Note that "independently of human consciousness"
>
> ok, so here, i'll wager we have a difference as to what "independently"
> means--ontologically speaking.
What I was pointing at had more to do with "consciousness", something which would have to have a close relationship to "culture" I think.
> I was thinking that perhaps we
> could look at an example or examples of how one would go about studying a
> relation or relations of production.
...what I said to Catherine.
Happy Sunday (almost 24 hours until I have to face typical relations of production once more)
regards,
Grant.