>As a sociologist, i feel i must comment on the following, though:
OK, I feel compelled to point out that I no longer possess a copy of Stolen Lightning, and that I might be either be misrepresenting O'Keefe's views or distorting them through simplification. I am certainly _not_ a sociologist, and thus I would defer to your opinion, Michael.
>Ho hum. In sociology the terms 'witch' and 'sorceror' have no meaning at
>all, whatsoever. Whatever meanings O'Keefe gives the terms as conceptual
>tools in his own analysis are entirely his own, and have no relevance
>outside that analysis.
OK, cool. These are just the definitions that I remember O'Keefe giving. To generalize that these are sociological terms is a mistake, and I'll revise that element.
>First O'Keefe defines witch as something manifestly impossible to be. Then
>he argues that since it is impossible to be a witch, the only relevant
>phenomenon in the 'witch-complex' is the accusation. Interesting.
>
>This means that a person's alleged witchness is always epiphenomenal to the
>accusation of same. Why bother defining 'witch' and 'sorceror' since the
>powers and acts of those are completely irrelevant to the accusation? Why
>distinguish witches from sorcerors, when it isn't causal to the accusation?
>Why bother with sorcerors when they don't enter the analysis at all?
As I recall his book, O'Keefe talks about 'sorcerers' (his definition) quite a bit in other parts of the book. The purpose (of the book) was to provide a general sociological explanation of magic.
My reason for bringing this up the definitions was to emphasize the fact (as you correctly reason) that the subject of an accusation does not have to be, in fact, guilty of what she is accused of.
>So, if we strip the nonsense from O'Keefe's argument, we hear him say:
>
>"If you're accused of being a witch, you're toast."
I assume that there are many who are accused who would agree with your distillation.
>Thought-provoking, isn't it? *If* O'Keefe's analysis can be said to be
>sociological at all, it's *bad* sociology.
I am definitely not qualified to judge this, Michael. I just thought the theory was interesting.
I would love to hear what a trained sociologist thought of this book. According to Amazon.Com, the title and the author's name is: Stolen Lightning : The Social Theory of Magic by Daniel Lawrence O'Keefe. Every time I want to take a look at it, I have to go to a university library that has a copy that hasn't been stolen. If you decided to take a look through, I would like to hear what you thought.
>Also, the spell:
(snip)
>Do you really need a spell to accuse anyone for being a witch? Surely the
>accusation from a Khan (who is invested with the authority of Waha) will
>result in the person being shunned anyway. Social 'rituals' can have rather
>devastating result without being magical.
I do happen to believe that all social rituals, in Glorantha, are also magical. Or, at the very least, they all have the capacity to be adapted into formalized 'spells'.
Doyle>>this spell taints the target with Chaos.
Michael>Should this really be possible? Can someone non-chaotic make someone
>chaotic? It takes the 4-point Pocharngo spell of Corruption to make someone
>chaotic,
There is a two point Lunar spell which can give you the taint. This is a 'cast on self' spell, though. I thought three seemed like a good number, though I'd be willing to hear arguments for four (going once, going twice...)
>and i'd say only chaos can produce chaos.
Well, that is part of the point of the last piece. I believe that Praxian culture is so dependent on Chaos for its continued existence, that in the circumstance we are discussing, it is possible for a Khan to cause someone to become Chaotic (or at least acquire a chaotic taint).
This idea (that Praxian culture depends on Chaos in order to exist) is what Hermok is trying to communicate to the narrator of the last document. Hmmm. Maybe Hermok is Illuminated.
>Also, condemning an obviously non-chaotic person (the Khan's stormbullers
>should be able to establish that quite easily) to chaos isn't exactly nice,
>is it? Sort of chaotic itself, in fact. Wouldn't stormbullers be highly
>suspicious of a person who can bestow chaoticness?
I would assume that this is explained away by the rationale "That Garangi must have had evil magics sheilding him from the sight of the Bull!" or some such nonsense.
DWRT
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