Abstract

The rebellious disposition, Barrington Moore has recently reminded us, is rooted in moral outrage. Rebellion and revolution presuppose moral categories and standards which give meaning and direction to outrage and enable people to discredit the legitimacy of the present order, legitimate opposition to this order, and anticipate future, alternative arrangements. Such categories and standards are not given by the present, nor are they offered by the future which, after all, has no content of its own. In Domination, Legitimation, and Resistance, I argue that these categories are created and sustained in the interaction of past and play, receiving content from the past and the context from play.