Sufferings, theodicies, disciplinary practices, appropriations

The locus classicus for explaining the problem of suffering may be located in theories of theodicy, a term which derives from a 1710 text of Leibniz. But whatever the name used, it could be said that all human societies have been concerned with explanations of suffering. While arguments for the `social uses' of suffering assume that it is necessary for the pedagogic function of power in education, society also experiences the arbitrary failure of justice in wars, crimes, and the rational administration of pain in humanly constituted courts of law. Recasting the necessity of pain in pedagogic terms makes it appear to cease being `useless suffering', but such formulations are repeatedly questioned by those who have to submit to the pain. The distinctive contribution of social anthropology to this problem ties in its insistence on everyday fife rather than on metaphysical questions, thus revealing how social institutions are deeply implicated in two opposite modes -- the production of suffering on the one hand, and creating moral communities that could address it. on the other.