Thus, it is the structure of the political field which, being subjectively inseparable from the direct - and always declared - relation to those who are represented, determines the stances taken, through the intermediary of the constraints and interests associated with a given position in this field. In concrete terms, the production of stances adopted depends on the system of stances that are conjointly proposed by the set of antagonistic political parties, in other words on the political problematic as a field of strategic possibilities objectively offered to the choice of agents in the form of positions that are actually occupied and stances that are actually proposed in the field. Political parties, like tendencies within these parties, have only a relational existence and it would be futile to try to define what they are and what they profess independently of what their competitors in the same field are and profess.19
There is no clearer demonstration of this effect of the field than that sort of esoteric culture, comprised of problems that are completely alien or inaccessible to ordinary people, of concepts and discourses that are without referents in the experience of ordinary citizens and. especially, of distinctions, nuances, subtleties and niceties that pass unnoticed by the uninitiated and which have no raison d'etre other than the relations of conflict or competition between the different organizations or between the ‘tendencies’ and ‘trends’ of one and the same organization. We can here cite, once again, the testimony of Gramsci: 'We are becoming separated from the masses. Between us and these masses a cloud of ambiguity, misunderstanding and obscure squabbles is being formed. At a certain point, we will appear like men who want to hold their positions at any price.’20 In reality, the fact that this properly political culture remains inaccessible to the majority of people is no doubt due less to the complexity of the language in which it is expressed than to the complexity of the social relations that are constitutive of the political field and expressed within it. Titis artificial creation of Byzantine power struggles appears less as something unintelligible than as something which appears pointless in the eyes of those who. not being players in the game, ‘can’t see the interest in it’ and who cannot understand how this or that distinction between two words or two turns of phrase in a crucial debate, programme, platform, motion or resolution can have given rise to such arguments, because they do not adhere to the principle of the
oppositions which produced the arguments that generated these distinctions.21
