ABSTRACT
To the uninitiated reader, the language of contemporary social theory may often appear impenetrable, even Gordian in its construction, as though it were written to resist reading. In a legend of Ancient Greece, a knot was so elaborately and intricately tied that at first even Alexander the Great was unable to find its ends, and so a way into unraveling its complexities. But Alexander was not to be denied; he alternately raised his sword and sliced it in half, as in one account, or pulled the post out of the knot’s center, causing it to fall into a loose pile of cords, as in another. Either way, destiny and Alexander’s ambition became as one.
