Bourdieu finds the question of the state a difficult subject to think about, so he warns against preconceived and spontaneous ideas, and calls for avoiding familiar inherited ideas. He says: "If I had to give a provisional definition of what is called the 'state', I would say that the sector of the field of power or authority that we can call the 'administrative field' or the 'field of public service', this field that comes to mind in particular when we speak of the state alone, and without further clarification or reduction, recognizes its possession of the legitimate/legitimate monopoly of material and symbolic violence
