In other words, institutions in economic & legal sense have agency, in sociological sense - do not.
Wojtek
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 11:30 PM, shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:
>
> <> On Wed, 7 Dec 2011 21:36:06 -0500yahwrote:
> <>
> <>> ALL institutions in capitalist society must misrepresent themselves.
> <>> Businesses always do. They talk about how they are job creators,
> <>> pillars of the community, donors, places where people find family
> <>> and
> <>> can be a part of a team.
> <>
> <> Mmm. Well, yeah, but I'm not quite sure it's the same thing.
> <> Business certainly tries to paint itself in rosier colors
> <> than it deserves, but if you ask a businessman why he's
> <> in business, he'll usually tell you it's to make
> <> money. Very few businessmen will tell you they're in
> <> business because they want to create jobs; *that* would
> <> be a lie on the same order as the Unis' lie about
> <> Excelsior and Videbimus Lumen and so on.
> <>
> <>> The family represents itself as this wonderful refuge from the harsh
> <>> world of capitalist rationality and state discipline.
> <>
> <> Does the family represent itself at all? It it not rather the
> <> object of (mis)representation by the ideological apparatus? I
> <> hope this doesn't sound like a mere verbal cavil; 'the family'
> <> is certainly an institution, but it's not an institution in
> <> the sense that Columbia University -- to take a nearby and
> <> thoroughly loathesome example -- is an institution.
>
> yeah. i took you to be using the word institution in a technical way,
> not in describing and individual organization.
>
> institutions are ways of organizing social life to meet human needs:
> the economy, the state, health, work, family, religion, schooling,
> justice, etc. you can't see, fuck, taste, grope, or smell
> institutions. about the only way you can figure 'em out is to get
> their effects to show up. usually, you do that by violating some tacit
> social norm.
>
> shag
>
>
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