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Name and Address Readers must sign their name are asked to add their Date ............................... ., ., ........ ,. " .... ". "' ........ .., ....... " .... " .. ., ". ~ .................... ., .... "" .. . .. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .. .. .. . .. . .. ., .. .. " . . .. .. . "' .. .. . " .. . . . " .. . ~ .. .. . . .. . " .. . .. .. . . .. . .. . . . .. . .. .. . .. . . . . . .. ,. . .. . • .. • • .. • • .. • • • • • • • • • • .. • • .. • • • • • • • • • .. • • • • • ♦ • • • " • • " • .. • ~ • • .. • .. ,,, • • .. • • • " • • • • • • • • • • • • .. • .. 1 • • .. . . . .. . . . " . . .. .. .. . . .. . .. . ... . " . .. " . ,. .. .. .. . . ., . . .. . . . . .. . ~ . " ~ . .. ~ .. . . . . .. . . .. . .. " .. .. . .. . .. .. . . .. "' . . . . . . " MODES OF 'IHOUGHT A.ND SOCIAL CONTROL Theories of Knowledge in the Context of Social Action Gill A. McDowell A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Degree of Master of Arts in Social Anthropology at M.assey University Palmerston North University of Manawatu 1979 To my nut her m1d father - l - ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to acknowledge the assistance of several people who helped at various stages in this study. Dr. I. Duncan patiently guided me along the right path and made numerous helpful suggestions and comments. To Professor Kawharu, M.ary Thompson (Victoria, Department of Philosophy) and Paul Green (Massey, Department of Sociology) I am grateful for their general co-operation, and I thank them for the ideas they contributed in the course of my studies. To Dr. M. Jackson and Christopher Alex McDowell, R.I.P,, I am indebted for arousing my interest in the study of man. I am grateful to Dr. Duncan and Professor Kawharu who helped me revise and consolidate my effort, and my special thanks go to Dr. I. Duncan for spending many hours meticulously reading the text. To Jill Cheer and Jane Dudley who spent considerable time in perusing through the detail, and who undertook the mamnoth task of skilfully typing the various drafts of the text; for this I owe a special debt. LIST OF CONrENTS INIRODUCTION: 'COMMON POSITION' INFLUENCES CONSCIOUSNESS Abstract 1 C,,o.01itive configurations ' M.1ka.nda" : rite cin:;umcision ,:CoIT11nonsense 11 , a composite of elements CHAPrER 1: rmOUGHT IS A MULTIVARIATE PHENOMENON Abstract Language and symbolic play The political system La..11guage and cognition Frnctionalist theories on hurrBD cognition A fieldi.-;orker 1 s dilemma A structural tn1derstanding The bridge to a structural insight Functional critique 8 16 20 24 25 40 45 48 52 61 66 70 CHAPrER 2: DJ LOGIC:l\L MODELS EMBODY VARIOUS POLITICAL SITUATIONS? Abstract 80 Cognition: an intersubjectivity The role of ideology in belief Is caste ideology a universal phenomenon? Similarities Berreman sees Inequality, class and exploitation Caste and racial definitions Micro systems link with society Micro and rracro systems 81 87 97 101 106 109 117 120 H~ererchy and class , what conception? vJhose view? 12 3 Theoretical hegerrony 125 Symtolism and ideas Page 128 CB.APTER 3: BY WHOM ARE: RA.TIONP.L /-'1'-JD \✓EAI;TI-l-hAKING CHOICES DETEF1'1INED? Abstract Hiera1-.chy, a theor'E:tical problem Se.rna.ntics and componential analysis Orde1-.s of mear1ing Teleology and explanation Metaphor and controJ The hurran mind and cognition Differentiation in the grounds of thought I.ar,guage and ideology LTuridicial norm and pcllicy formulation Class consciousness in New ZPaland A racist heritage Poverty as a legal instrument Fonralism reveals historicism CHA..PfER 4 : CONTHI'JITY AND DISCONTINUITY Abstract Alliance and J)Oli tical theory Symbolism as pov1er differentiation Syml::olic meaning and personal n=:dunci-=incy Developing underdevelopment Encoding di.fferes1 tidtion A traditional view of change Power bases emerge Cr:IAFTER 5 : COERCION, BY WHOM? Abftract 138 139 llt3 149 155 163 170 18lt 188 192 1% 199 201 212 221 223 232 234 237 2Lf3 251 254 261 Macro-system and the State Peasant cogniti.on What image of the 1irni ted good? Peasant self-r-elia11ce, a motivation Peasant mobility Peasai,t discontent The essential r-elationship is 'dependence' Peasant r-ebellion Organising and 1::argaining The emergent "middle" peasantry A Marxian c-f'itique Page 262 263 267 269 271 272 27Lf 275 276 277 279 Spatial organization 284 CHAPTER 6: MULTIVARIOUS MOVEMENTS CONSOLIDA.TE UNDER CULTURES OF REPRESSION! A.bstract 289 Synchronous idealism 291 Power and sanctity conflict 292 Which is subordinate in pr-inciple? 298 Hindu Weltanschauung and the? Hindu social system 302 A system in process 305 Factionalism: divergence as power Dual polities Social pressure on the internaJ system G:::lvernrrent in Sirkanda G:overnment controls on land ref orrn lgents of authority V:odernization via !X)litical intrigue Anti-domination aJ liances 306 313 318 320 321 323 325 331 339 The peasant dilemrra Under-employment and peasant resentment Colonial a.rid neo-colonial interpenetration A structural definition for peasantries Capital introduces discontinuity Page 346 348 354 365 374 The sociology of knowledge and theories on development 386 Movemeni, power and control Positional red:ress Social distance , comTs.nd and control 389 390 400 - 1 - INTRODUCTION 'COMMON POSITION' INFLUENCES CONSCIOUSNESS In studying IIBn Rousseau was concerned with two complementary tasks. 1 On the one hand, he was engaged in a journey to the cent.ce of the species in order to understand the "natural" pre- civilized IIBn as a hUIIBn possibility. He situated that possibility in pre-history and viewed certain realities in modern civilization as a threat to its own perpetuation. On the other hand, he was engaged in a journey to the centre of his own civilized being. The first task was historical, the second personal. In The Corning Crisis of Western Sociology Gouldner argues that future sociological studies should in part focus on field­ v;orkers-curn-theorists, in order to be more aware of themselves as a part of society instead of pretending to objectivity. The social world is to be known not only by looking outward, but also by opening oneself inwardly. 2 Anthropological activity is not just scientific: it is also expressive or symptomatic of a pre­ supposed world view of which it is itself an integral part. The anthropologist in field work is involved in "double translation". 3 While his impulse to understand the largely unexperienced, but imagined, possibilities of himself as a civilized person proceeds, he is caught, so to speak, in the web of an alien understanding; 11.evi-Strauss, Claude (1963) 'Rousseau, Father of .Anthropology 1 • A major contributor to the discipline. UNESCO Courier 16, No.3: 10-14. 2Gouldner, Alvin Ward (1970) The Corning Crisis of Western Sociology. Criticism of obj ecti vism in social science. N. Y. : Basic Books. 3Kaplan, Abraham (1963) 'The Conduct of Inquiry'. Recommended methodologies for field work. Methodology for Behavioural Science, Chandler: California, p.386. - 2 - and their resulting attitude towards him shapes the object of his experience. In short, the anthropologist embodies an attitude that changes and conditions human beings, and this in turn generates a response modifying his own behaviour. Not only are they objects who become subjects to the field-worker's view but these subjects view him as an object, to which they either give positive assent, or avoid supporting his endeavour. Responses are recorded according to personal circumstances and are incorporated in the construction of models. 4 He can assume a logical and historical complementarity between himself, as a prototypical modern man, and the subjects with whom he is concerned. We have all become engineers with concepts, working from plans and anxious to get the structure right. The primitive is not an engineer but a bricoleur. He puts together his structures from whatever comes in handy, without special concern for the congruity of their elements. Bricolage is the sort of thing made out of oddments. The bricoleur is the handyman, the tinkerer, who gets surprisingly practical and often aesthetic results from the most unlikely material. One of the funda- mental theses of The Savage Mind 5 is that the structure is all-important rather than m.aterial content. According to struc- turalist theory, the same structure may recur in different manifestations, the contents being subsumed under a formalized design. 6 Structuralism is an attempt to avoid enclosing the 4 Cicourel, Aaron Victor (1964) Problems in research method. Method of Measurement in Sociology. N.Y.: Free Press. 5Levi-Strauss, Claude (1966) The Savage Mind. The structure of human thought. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, pp.352-363. 6 Caws, Peter Cl 97 0) '1iJ.hat is Structuralism? r Readings on structuralist orientation, Ch.15, cited in The Anthropologist As Bero, Hayes & Hayes (ed.). MIT Press, pp.213-214. - 3 - human rrrind in any particular reality Cloe.cit.). This attempted synthesis, which embraces data, the construction of a model, introspection in the service of self-knowledge, which in turn clarifies further what one is observing, is the first lucid expres­ sion, and among the last, of what anthropologists do or should do. 7 Edmund Leach described Levi-Strauss's Structures Elementaires de la Parente (1949) as a splendid failure. 8 But as he himself (Leach) admitted, the corrmon principle Levi-Strauss distilled from M..auss, Freud and Jakobson is important to our understanding of the mental categories Levi-Strauss believed as generic to the human rrrind (ibid.). He states that social behaviour is always conducted with reference to a conceptual scheme, a model in the actor's mind of how things are or how they ought to be. The essential characteristic of this model is that it is logically ordered. Levi-Strauss has been less concerned with the empirical and substantive materials concocted by the brain and rather more concerned with what lies behind the empirical facts. Importantly, principles regulate the legitimate limits to which materials con­ forming to rules,rray be combined and transformed from one level to another. Levi-Strauss believes in an underlying logic producing a specifiable and limited number of rules linking customs in marriage with kinship systems, totemism, puberty rites, the relation between 7Diamond, Stanley (1969) 'Anthropology in Question' in Hymes Dell (ed.) Reinventing Anthropology. Argument for a new critical Anthropology. N.Y.: Pantheon, p.412. 8 Leach, Edmund (1965) 'Claude Levi-Strauss - .Anthropologist and Philosopher' in M..anners & Kaplan (eds.) (1968) Theory in .Anthropology. An examination of major theoretical issues in Anthropology. Routledge & Kegan Paul: lDndon, pp.545-546. - 4 - myth and ritual exchange and so forth. 9 By conscious and reflective practice on his world, man can know himself only by way of history. 1 0 MBD's conception of himself is relative, and subject to change. 11 We can articulate the rational attributes only by addressing w.an's situation as an historical problematic. Through "being", being constituted and reconstituted in continual process it is accordingly meaning­ less to set limits to what man is capable of achieving. To man there exists at least in an imaginable sense infinite possibilities when referring to alternative styles of thought and action. The main constrai.ning force shaping man's response to life itself is the past. Man becomes what he is by what has controlled and shaped that destiny, namely his own particular history. Nature is to things, as history is tow.an. We even find in the wisdom of St. Augustine, "l"f.an, likewise, finds that he has no nature other than what he has himself done. 11 1 2 The notion that the intellectual fulfils a very specific and distinctive function has been important to those particularly concerned with the history of ideas and the philosophy of science. It is emphasized in many studies dealing with the sociology of knowledge, notably in Karl M.annheim' s Ideology and Utopia. 1 3 9 Sontag, Susan (1970) 'The Anthropologist as Hero'. structuralist orientation, in Hayes & Hayes (eds.) The Anthropologist as Hero. MIT Press, p .193 . Readings in Claude Levi-Strauss: Readings in the 10 Lewis, I. M. (1968) History of Social Anthropology. Relationship between history and anthropology (ed,). Introduction xxii. N. Y. : Tavistock. 11 Tennekes, J. (1971) Anthropology Relativism. An inquiry into the methodological principles of a science of culture. The Netherlands: ABsen Van Gorcum, pp.36-39. 12Ibid. 13Mannheirn, Karl (1936) Ideology and Utopia. An introduction to the Q,-,,-,inlnm1 n-F KnnwlPrlo-P.. Routled2:e & Ke2:an Paul: London. DD.61-103. 132. - 5 - One of the main concerns of :t-1.annheim I s book is to find the answer to the disturbing problem arising from inquiries into the relation- ship between mind and society. If our thoughts and even our modes of thinking are shaped by our specific social position, if each one of the segments of society - workers, industrialists, financiers, farmers, rural aristocracy and tenant farmers - looks at the same reality in different and often conflicting ways, how then can we still believe in a universal truth binding for all the strata of society? M.annheim sought to unify the partial and limited views held by the various classes. He believed such a synthesis could be achieved by persons who were not linked to particular groups and not drawn into their struggles (ibid. : 16 7) . He had in mind the intelligentsia, the socially unattached intellectuals whose aloofness would enable them to meet the challenge of inte­ grating the one-sided and often conflicting insights of the different components of society (ibid.: 135). He hoped that through the contribution of the intellectual, society would attain a more comprehensive grasp of reality, a more objective understanding of the truth. We are well aware of the contribution which :t-1.annheim has made to the work of sociology. However, we cannot overlook the illusion which his optimistic faith in the role of the intellectual reflects and which the events of the quarter century following the publica­ tion of Ideology and Utopia have so relentlessly destroyed. We have only to remember the role of scientists and research- workers in schemes ranging from Nazi concentration camps, the status quo orientation of theorists capitulating before the· dictates of commercialism, militarism, communism and fascism. - 6 - The same kinds of works engaged in by anthropologists were designed to assist the Americans in Thailand, Vietnam and Chile, and it was doubtless unethical. Therefore we realize the fanciful- ness of Pannheim1 s thesis that it is the intelligentsia as a class to whom our age owes its understanding of objective truth. How can we explain that a scholar of Mannheim I s stature, who has done so much to dispel the illusions dominating the thinking of individuals and social groups, could maintain such an unrealistic view of the role of intellectuals? The answer in part lies in M.arx' s pronouncement that intellectualism, like most things in society, had become a commodity fetish. One way to circum- vent this debasement is to accept a relativistic social science and thus avoid the generalized mediocrity we are perforced to fashion in all research wherever this uncritical dimension is applied. Anthropology needs emancipation from the absolute acceptance of a methodology. 14 Implicit in this performance is the unreflexive subscription to categories employed by the anthropologist's own culture. The value attached to such categories is a commit- ment and an interest and therefore signifies a value to both the cultural interests of the theorist and as such the perpetuation of dominant existing conceptions Cop.cit.: 297). critiques this approach thus: Jvf.annheim It is only by means of this liberating - if at times painful and as yet uncritical - perspectivism that we can hope to come to the point where the false ideal of a detached, impersonal point of view [ca.n] be replaced by the ideal of an essentially human point of view which is within the limits of human perspective, constantly striving to enlarge itself. (Mannheim, 1936, p.297) 14Wolf, E. R. (1964) Anthropology. Prentice Hal]. A discussion about issues in post-war anthropology in U.S.A., pp.20-25. - 7 - Wittgenstein views such perspectivism in tenns of activities with their appropriate languages, 15 and a modified verification principle is now used to ask what sort of things w::::mld count against it. If we know that we can say in which "language game" a concept belongs the assertion is "at home". It is now recognized that different kinds of language are appropriate in different situations. The language of love is not that of biology, nor is the language of politics that of physics. The IDrd "cause", for example, has different functions in the disciplines of physics, economics and history. of love with other language games. We should not try to mix the language Radcliffe-Brown first elaborated the notion of structure in social anthropology, 16 defining it as the complex network of actually existing social relations in any society. Other anthropologists, while accepting the concept of structure, have found this formulation too wide. Thus Evans-Pritchard1 7 has preferred to restrict the term to those relatively enduring relationships which unite persisting social groups into a total social system. These definitions have sometimes tended to suggest that there is m every society something which nay be called "the structure", and thus rather obscure the fact that a society may reveal many 15Wittgenstein, Ludwig Cl945, 1949) Philosophical Investigations. An inquiry into the nature of understanding. G. E. M. Anscornbe & R. Rhees (eds.). Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp.23, 7. On the variety of language games, cf. p.65 ff. 16Radcliffe-Brown (1952) Structu_rie and Function in Primitive Society .. A positivist thesis on social structure. London: Cohen & West. Also Radcliffe-Brown (1953) 'Letter to Levi-Strauss 1 in Tax Sol (ed.) An Appraisal of Anthropology Today, p.109. 17Evans-Pritchard, E. (l962) 'Social anthropology: Past and present' in Manners & Kaplan (eds. ) A Reader in Theory and Method. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp.46-57. - 8 - different social structures, depending on the interest of the obser-ver. The view that structure is something th.at is fltherefl in the society, something that the social anthropologist may, if he uses the right techniques, hope to discover and put on record, has been criticized by Claude Levi-Strauss. 18 He emphasizes that any kind of structure, in the sense in which anthropologists use the term, is a construct or model, based on but not composed of the empirical data, The validity of a scientific model, unlike that of an empirical fact, is to be judged not by its truth but by its usefulness or flstrategic valuefl in facilitating comparison and leading to new knowledge. 19 Cognitive configurations There are, this writer points out, two distinct models. 20 These are what I would term relative constructs. A model by which members of a society represent to themselves their concept of their own society. This is an exigetical description. The anthropologist abstracts from the observational and empirical level the contents in order to order them logically in a formalized fashion to produce an arbitrary interpretation. The operational model, then, represents to the theorist an explanatory device whereby each level is explained by the level that :immediately 18 Levi-Strauss, Claude (1967) The Scope of Anthropology. A summary of the discipline. Cape Editions. 191..eeden, A. C. van der (1971) 'Empiricism and Logical Order in Anthropological Structuralism',Journal of Royal Netherlands Anthropological Society. Bijdragen 127 (1): 15-38. 20Rossi, I. (1974) 'Structuralism as Scientific Method'. on structuralism, in I. Rossi (ed.) The Unconscious in Dutton paperback, pp.60-107. Discussions Culture. - 9 - precedes it. In this way, believes Levi-Strauss, what lies hidden below the level of consciousness is revealed to us through the various determinations articulated between the various levels. One famous example Levi-Strauss used was in reference to the Bororo. 21 Here, the classic Bororo system of exogamous moeties divided into clans,lost its functional importance as a result of being under- lain by a more fundamental tripartite endogamous structure. A screen type model presents a barrier to understanding. Wi tgenstein poses a difficult problem when he asks, How can one claim one understands when understanding is itself the problem? Can something that is hidden to our understanding be understood when ncomprehensionn poses a problem in inferring the meaning behind social events? We rationalize others' cognition in constructing an overarching conceptual scheme, embodied in an operational model. The structure, for instance, of a system of kinship relationships as it is expounded by an anthropologist in a journal is very different from the nsamen structure as it is understood by a participant m the system. Furthermore, understanding functions in relation to the specific contextual controls operating through rules expressed in an ideology, which expresses, describes OP commends a particular way of seeing the world, other men, and oneself, and the way of life appropriate to such a perspective. 22 The logical structure ordering such a grammar is typified according to what characterizes 21 Levi-Strauss, Claude (1969) The Elementary Structures of Kinship. A formal analysis of kinship organizations, Ch.I, III, IV, XXIX. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode. 22Helmer & Hirschberg (1958) Rand Corporation Reprint. of qualitation. 'On the Epistemology of the Inexact Sciences', Science and non-science contain elements - 10 - a way of life. 23 The question of 11hermeneutics 11 refers to the various stylizations of meaning. Linguistic analysts have also considered this question. In fact, it has been central to their method, for an answer to the question of meaning is implied in a modified form of the verification principle. According to linguistic analysts, if we wish to know the meaning of a word or statement , we must look at the way it functions in actual use. 24 Statements of sense-content cannot be verified by commonsense or empirical means. That is to say, they cannot be verified by a shared sense experience, since they do not say what "all of us" can see but only what "I saw". Nor can they be checked against empirical data open to any competent investigator who cares to examine them, for again, a sense content statement is about what "I saw", not about what is "there for everyone to see11 • Only "I 11 can record what was "on the mirror of my mind". But this is only to say that sense content statements are not canmonsense or empirical assertions and more cannot be said against them. 25 The way to verify a statement of sense content is to see if the words and actions of the person who makes the statement conform to it. The test is one of consistency. If Hamlet claims to have seen his father 1 s ghost 11 and11 to have learned from the ghost that his father was murdered, his claim is verified by his setting out to avenge his father 1 s death. 23P.n issue appreciated by John E. Smith commenting on Wittgenstein in I The Impact of Wittgenstein 1 , An Analysis of language. Penguin Books, 1960, p.239 ff. 241 The meaning of a word is its use in the language' (1967) op.cit., p.43. Wittgenstein 25 For the logic of the following analysis of "sense content" statements, cf. Wisdom, John (1957) Philosophy and Psychoanalysis. Oxford: Blackwell, p.240 ff. - 11 - His actions tend to support his claim of what he had seen and heard. In like manner, a person 1 s statement of sense content, which identified the one he saw with a man who had lived a certain kind of life, is verified by the events of that person 1 s subsequent life. The context of situation To Wittgenstein each context signals its own way through which to communicate and initiate action. Each context must therefore be necessarily bounded and contain its own intrinsic usages. Cultural filters shape communication processes. Different contexts generate their om raison d 1etre emphases for action. Each context limits the nature of discourse in relation to specifically contextually inter-relatable concerns. Wittgenstein 1 s thesis that ideas are social productions fabricated relative to context is analogous to M.annheim's conjecture on the importance of how position26 within a structure circumscribes a domain of experience. Therefore the situational placement an actor takes must strategically shape and colour perception and so on. What is perceived in these different situations is always different. This applies to all people. 27 My point here is, that the nature of association and class neces­ sarily promulgates a closure on the contents of consciousness, particularly 26Ma.nnheim acknowledges his indebtedness to Husserl's hypothesis that spatial objects can only be viewed from definite local positions from where their properties present themselves to the observer only in one-sided "profiles", in partial perspective. By analogy with Husserl 1 s approach to everyday physical nature Mannheim argues that historical, cultural and psychic objects present partial mental­ psychic profiles to the observer who is himself inevitably rooted to a limiting mental-psychic perspective. 27 See Merleau Ponty (1963) The Structure of Behaviour • Boston: Beacon Press, p.118 ff. A phenomenological understanding explaining situational constraints on behaviour. - 12 - in the earlier infantile critical periods. In taking this approach it is inadmissible to assert that the way past this problem is to move through space and time, and socially across boundaries in order to divest oneself of the specifically domestic and indigenous concepts which clothe a person's outlook. In their studies on colour perception Berlin and Kay28 are really pointing to the fact that overall there are different colour aggregates between bounded contexts. The fact that these theorists arrived at "the term 'focal colours' seemed to indicate a corrnnon appreciation involving eleven colours being offset by an array of colours all named for their distinctive referents". In short, a theorist, be he an analyst or experimentalist, cannot slough off the cultural edifice which selectively sifts expressive possibilities open to such an actor. Further, Piaget saw the crucial operations of "conservation", "constancy" and "reversal" as occurring throughout early childhood before closure sets in. This treatment derives from Piaget's theoretical framework, in which he views cognitive development as the construction of successively more complex systems of different types. 29 The skeletal structure provides the basis for "pulling together" certain specified ideas resulting ID int.l'."'insic complexes of relations with their own internal rules for consistency. Core values arise by the canalization of messages into a coherent whole where each element represented in a series contributes to the whole and defines its placement by its essential relationship to that whole. The tendency to stabilize and conserve intact the essential 28Berlin, B. S Kay, P. (1969) Basic Colour Terms. Research on Cross Cultural Perception. Berkeley: University of California Press. 29 Piaget, Jean (1970) J. Piaget's theor-y in P.H. Mussen (ed.) Carmichael's M.anual of Child Psychology, Vol. 2. N. Y.: Wiley, pp.703-732. - 13 - closure results in a degree of continuity through time and space. On the other hand, closure can become an inordinate hindrance to selecting innovative ideas and solutions. To be too fixed means that the unadaptive feature becomes uppermost. A small measure of flexibility in any carapace lets a little "air" in to replenish, and refurbish and, if necessary, change the existing formal arrange­ ment, so that the acquisition of favourable characteristics and the ability to reproduce renewable materials abundantly ensures an adaptive advantage to the most successful (Lorenz, 1972, p.65). The human brain operates on the principles of openness and closure: 0 What is accessible to the brain at any time becomes effectively translated into psychic material, but the definitive closures localized in the solidification of brain mechanisms occur early in the life cycle. 31 The logical conclusion then,is that mobility does not preclude fixity in belief and attitude. In fact, mobility may do just the opposite in reassuring the intending aspirant that his prejudices, latently suffused into his way of life, are basically insuperable. All adaptive modification is essentially identical with induction. That is, certain sensitive periods facilitate imprintation through selective mechanisms establishing group identification. 32 My intention is not so much to ask where cultural idioms develop m the individual or in society, but more - how do ideas come to be 30 1.orenz, Konrad (1972) ethological causes'. Play and Development, 'The Enmity Between Generations and its probable A study in intergenerational conflict, m W. M. Piers (ed.). N, Y.: Norton. 31 Piaget, Jean (1972) 'Intellectual evolution from adolescence to adulthood', Human Development, 15: 1-12. 321.orenz, Konrad (1969) 'Innate Bases of Learning'. Im ethological inquir"y setting out stages of growth and development, m On the Biology of Learning, K. Pribram (ed. ) . N, Y, : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, p.35. - 14 - used as if to circumscribe the possible limits to consciousness? language structure exists and operates generally below the awareness of the speaker-hearer. The strong constraints operating in the choice of words regulate word usage. The appearance of Noam Chomsky's syn- tactic structures marked the beginning of a new trend in linguistics that has come to be called 11transformational generative grammarn. 33 The contribution linguistics made to anthropology here was to emphasize the need for the theorist to go beyond the "factsn of the given to search for an underlying highly organized and very restrictive schema that permitted the child to make a leap frcm scattered and disparate data to highly organized knowledge. Chomsky calls this an innate language that the child brings to language learning. 34 Chomsky began by defining a language as a set of sentences and a grammar as a device capable of generating and specifying the only acceptable sentences of a language. The set of sentences that con- stituted a language was examined, and various possible mathematical models for explicitly defining such a total set were explored. Transformational generative grammarians seek true universals of language, both formal and substantive. Instead of proceeding from sounds through syntax to meaning with the unnecessary constraints adhered to by structuralists, Chomsky began his approach to language from a point between sound and meaning, namely the structure of sentences. 35 The philosophy m1derlying this approach to linguistics thus accepts 3 3 Chomsky, Noam ( 1964) Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. An outline of current linguistic theories. The Hague: Mouton, p.18. 3 4 Cited in Elders , F. ( 19 7 4) Reflexive Water (ed. ) • A recorded discussion between Chomsky and Foucault, p.137. Subtitle - The basic concerns of mankind, Condor. 3 5 Chomsky, N. (1965) Aspects of a Theory of Syntax. Examines sounds and meanings and their repetitive patterns. Cambridge, 1015 pp. - 15 - the need to postulate abstract constructs when attempting to describe natural language. The idea of performance relates to nuances of meani.ng shaped by reference to a particular style of cognition. Performance contains errors, false starts, pauses, memory limitations, non sequiturs, 36 etc. Chomsky has therefore distinguished sharply between performance and what he calls competence, that is, the speaker-hearer's knowledge of his own language and an ability to articulate and reconstruct infonnation in line with an available framework. Toe locus of the creation of meaning is taken to be those standards that socially reproduce the collectivity. Combinations of ideas embody a social construct , and the means cons"'ci tu ting those ideas are given social recognition. Competence therefore refers to the level of acceptance of a framework. The field-worker is not a free floating agent existing in vacuo, detached absolutely from a particular framework. rules which he takes with himself to the field. He learns This means that everything is canprehended from the self referent vantage point; the world exists for someone only as he is conscious of it. Rollo May expressed it this way: We cannot ... stand outside our own skin and perch on some Archimedes point, and have a way of surveying experience that does not itself depend upon the assumptions that one makes about the nature of man or the nature of whatever one is studying. (1961, p.290) Things are significant or insignificant, important or unimportant, attractive or unattractive, valuable or worthless in terms of their relationship to oneself. We evaluate the world and its meanings 36 Chomsk:y, N. & Halle, M. 'The Sound Pattern of English', in Chomsky, N. (ed.) (1968) language of Mind. Observation into differential language styles. N.Y.: Harcourt, pp.4-5. - 16 - (including other people 1 s v,;orld for them) according to how we see ourselves. 37 Translations between distinct and bounded contexts indicate meaning to be newly formulated, rather than accurately retained. The Italian words 'Traditto Traditare 1 mean that the translator betrays the original intended meanings. The observer is bound by predominant commitments that signify a point of view. A.s Rieff put it: "Character is the restrictive shaping of possibility. 113 r 39 Let us now reformulate the problem we have set ourselves by recasting it in the context of an African ethnographic example. "Mukanda": rite of circumcision In Ndembu social structure 40 cleavages occur between fissive segments so that the competition for the highest ritual role brings together the widest possible number of localities at the highest, general and most inclusive level. Similarly at each corresponding level in des- cending order of abstraction role positions are taken up by ritualists with correspondingly less range of responsibility and obligation tied to role perforrri.ance. Therefore at the highest and most inclusive level of influence the ritualist enjoins the greatest power, taking in and cross-cutting many localized lineage segments. The lowest ritual positions cover a relatively narrow context - probably an exclusive context to which a lineage segment is located. Higher ritual positions 37M..ay, Rollo (196l)'The context of psychotherapy' in Contemporary Psychotherapie: M. I. Stein (ed.). N.Y.: The Free Press. See also May, R. (1953) M..an' s Search for Himself. :tvfm1 1 s existential dilemma. N. Y. : Norton. 3 ~Rieff, cited in Becker, Ernest (1974) The Denial of Death. of death. N.Y.: The Free Press, p.266. The fear 3 ~Ibid. In addition, Becker writes "Abstractions will never do. God terms have to be exemplified, .. Men crave their principles incarnate in enactable characters, actual selective mediators between themselves and the polytheism of experience." p.266. 4 OTur • ner, Victor (1967) The Forest of Symbols. Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. London: Cornell, p.155. - 17 - are competitively sought after - Nyaluhana is a case in point Cloe.cit.). There are two major contenders for the right to sponsor Mukanda and to perform its leading roles. One is Headman Machamra, the other, Headman Nyaluhana. Each had his factional following in the vicinage during the Mukanda situation (ibid.: 159). Generally speaking, factions are multiples of village memberships, where internal quarrels in villages sometimes result in dissident groups and individuals supporting, sometimes openly but more often clandestinely, the faction opposing the headman's. On the face of it, Nyaluhana is supported by Wukengi, whose head is Nyaluhana's classificatory sister's son, by Wadyang'amafu, by Kafumbu, by Nyampasa, and by Mukoma. M.achamba, on the other hand, is supported by Sampasa, and by Sawiyembi. Turner thought that Nyaluhana's claim was the more strongly backed up, but it must be mentioned that much of Nyaluhana's following had closer links with Wukengi than with himself, and that Nyaluhana and Wukengi were by no means on the best of terms. The outcome of their rivalry was by no means a foregone conclusion when it was first suggested that Mukanda should be performed. Nevertheless, Nyaluhana's claims to sponsor Mukanda and allocate its key roles were formidable. ffis village was "a village of the chieftainship (mukala wawanta), and men belonging to its matrilineal nucleus may become candidates for the Kanongesha senior chieftainship, or rather for the Chibwika chieftainship, whose incumbent was Konongesha's heir apparent. Indeed, the current Kanongesha, Ndembi, belonged to the Nyaluhana matrilineage; but for this very reason, it was unlikely that the next Chibwika would be nominated from Nyaluhana Village, for it is the Ndembu convention for each new Chibwika to be appointed from a different village belonging to the chiefly maternal descent group. Nyaluhana claimed that his lineage was descended from Nkeng'i, the uterine sister of the founder of the Kanongesha chieftain­ ship. Turner's genealogies of Ndembu villages recorded several female - 18 - village heads in the nineteenth century, and indeed there was a woman village head, Nyampasa, in the vicinage when Turner made his study of Mukanda. The present Kanongesha's mother's mother was an older sister of the first Nyaluhana. Kanongesha Ndembi had married Wukengi's sister's daughter when this woman, Mulosu, had been a member of Nyaluhana' s village, that is, before Wukengi had split from Nyaluhana Village. Kanongesha had a son by her, whom he had sent to be circumcized at this Mukanda. Nyaluhana Village, like the other villages in the vicinage, lay within Kanongesha's own area. Kanongesha thus held a two-fold authority over the vicinage. He was Senior Chief and Native Authority of all Nderr~u and was also the local territorial chief. Since he was a matrilineal kinsman of Nyaluhana, and had clearly indicated that he favoured Nyaluhana's claims by sending his son to the latter's village, it seemed long odds at the time that Mukanda would be performed in the vicinage, that Nyaluhana would control the most important ritual roles. Nyaluhana himself had been Senior Circumciser (Mbimbi wamukulumpi or Mbimbi weneni) at no less than three previous performances of Mukanda. The first occasion had been in 1928, shortly after Nyaluhana had succeeded to the headmanship of his village. The novices' seclusion lodge had been erected near his village (which was then situated beside the Kanjimu River, a mile or two from its location in 1953). Nyaluhana had again been Senior Circumciser in 1941, when a Mukanda v.as held at Katong'i Farm, an offshoot of Nyaluhana Village. The third time was J.n 1943, at Nyaluhana Village itself, when the village was not far from its present site, near the Kachibamba River. Thus, there were abundant precedents for Nyaluhana' s continuing to fill the senior role (ibid.: 160). In conclusion then, each faction or fission in Ndembu social structure constitutes a perspective and position within which and from which to view a social structure. - 19 - Historical and cultural relativism maintains that whatever is "truth" in history is relative to the process under which it arose and without reference to which it cannot be understood. 41 Central to this position is the notion that the student of human affairs constructs his account under the dominance of his particular values (op.cit.: 31). Moreover, these evaluations are not simply personal, but reflect societal conditions and hence change from age to age (op.cit. : 3 4) . A presuppositionless nirvana is unattainable because as both Marx and Mannheim asserted, class interests form the basic substructure of knowledge systems. It is unnecessary to assume any specific vJOrld view is false. Each has access to a part of the truth though "the truth in its entirety escapes all theorists because each limits itself to a specific line of vision". At whatever developmental stage a culture finds itself, preconditions valued for their adaptive and aesthetic power pull people together into a similar belief system. Without this conserving force serving to yield a common heritage, the problems of order, survival and unity would not begin to be solved. Human psychic stability is balanced in a precarious fashion. There is always the danger of slipping into biological centred.ness - a neurosis, or slipping outside the limits to experience flights of ideas - a psychosis. Culture, as E. Becker (1973, p.45) so rightly assumed, is the life and death struggle to impose boundaries, and limits, categories and classifications, whose erasement at any step means death. Culture is simply the struggle of life over death and 41 M.andelbaum, Maurice H. (1967) The Problem of Historical Knowledge. An answer to relativism~ N. Y. : Harper & Row, p .19. - 20 - good over evil. Social relations rna.y be metaphors for exchange but when the "relation" evaporates men die with it. For, as de Saussure wrote, the viewpoint creates the object, the object does not create the viewpoint. 42 It is necessary for rna.n to divide his universe into specifiable relevancies so as to erase any fiction. Man continually reconstructs categories m perspective form by definitions, insulating him from rna.dness and death. ''Comrronsense", a composite of elements Robin Horton holds that there are striking similarities between primitive and scientific forms of think:ing. 43 He believes that in the case of traditional African cultures one should distinguish between common­ sense and theoretical thinking, and this distinction is essentially of the same kind as that between comrronsense and science in western culture. He says: Comrronsense is the handier and more economical tool for copmg with a wide range of circumstances in everyday life. Nevertheless, there are certain circumstances that can only be coped with in terms of a wider causal vision than corrnnonsense provides. And in these circumstances there is a jump to theoretical thinking. Cloe.cit.) According to Horton, the search for theoretical explanation is the search for unity behind apparent diversity, simplicity behind seeming complexity, order behind chaos, regularity behind arbitrariness. follows: He explains as Indeed, some JTDdem writers deny that traditional religious thinking is in any serious sense theoretical thinking. 42Rossi, I. (ed.) (1974) The Unconscious and Culture. Paris: Mouton. 43Horton, Robin (1967) 'African traditional thought and Western science'. Comparison of different JTDdes of thought. Africa, 3 7 : 6 0-61. - 21 - In support of their denial they contrast the simplicity, regularity and elegance of the theoretical schemas of the sciences with the unruly complexity and caprice of the world of gods and spirits ... From the point of view of sheer number, the spirits of some cosmologies are virtually countless. But in the superficial sense we can point to the same tendency in Western cosmology, which for every commonsense unitary object gives us a myriad of :rrolecules. If, however, we recognize that the aim of theory is the demonstration of a limited number of kinds of entities or processes underlying the diversity of experience, then the picture Horton believes becomes very different. Indeed, one of the lessons ... is precisely that the gods of a given culture do form a scheme which presents the vast diversity of everyday experience in terms of the action of a relatively few kinds of forces ... Like atoms, molecules, and waves, then, the gods serve to introduce unity into diversity, simplicity into complexity, order into disorder, regularity into anomaly. (Ibid.: 51-52) A second characteristic of theoretical thinking, both in science and African religious thought, is that the theory places things in a wider causal context than that used by corrnnonsense: Through the length and breadth of the African continent, sick or afflicted people go to consult diviners as to the causes of their troubles. Usually, the answer they receive involves a god or other spiritual agency, and the remedy prescribed involves the propitiation or calling off of this being. But this is very seldom the whole story. For the diviner who diagnoses the intervention of a spiritual agency is also expected to give some acceptable account of WD.at moved the agency in question to intervene. And this account very commonly involves reference to some event in the world of visible tangible happenings. Thus, if a diviner diagnoses the action of witchcraft influence or lethal medicine spirits, it is usual for him to add something about the human D.atreds, jealousies, and misdeeds that have brought such agencies into play. Or, if he diagnoses the wrath of an ancestor, it is usual for him to point to the human breach of kinship morality which has called down his wrath. (Ibid.: 53) - 22 - Thus, the rrdiviner 11 as Horton would have us believe, does what the scientist does also: Reference to theoretical entities is used to link events in the visible, tangible world (natural effects) to their ancestors in the same world (natural causes). Horton believes that both the diviner and the scientist make the same use of theory and transcend the limited vision of natural causes provided by commonsense. (ibid.: 54). I believe Horton's thesis is indefensible. An example demonstrating the fictive nature of our perceptions, and how they vary according to context, is given by Trobriand ethnography. Malinowski was interested in the perceptual resemblances between parents and child. He found a complicated but culturally uniform pattern of such perceptions. Among the Trobriand Islanders, children were perceived to look like their father but not like their mother. Furthermore, siblings, children of the same father, did not look like each other. 44 This posed a perceptual paradox to Malinowski because he saw the Trobriand society as a matrilineal society that regarded the mother and child as "blood" relatives, but not the father and the child. To Malinowski the similarity between father, and son and sister seemed obvious. By breaking the rule Malinowski discovered it was very bad manners, ernbarrrassing to the brothers in particular, to mention that two brothers looked alike. A still worse offence was to say a brother looked like his sister. A normal observer imagines the world exactly as he sees it. He accepts the evidence of perception uncritically. He does not realize that his visual perception is mediated by indirect reference 44Segall, M. H., Campbell, D. T. g Herskovitz, M. The Influence of Culture on Visual Perception. studies in cross-cultural thinking. Chicago: pp.25-26. J. (1966) Case Bobbs-Merill, - 23 - systems. Implicitly, he assumes that the evidence of vision is directly and imnediately u.nmediately given. This attitude is phenomenal absolutism. Learned organizations are phenomenally absolute operating mostly below consciousness. Common principles that possibly could serve to unite the underlying events, however, cannot be applied when these events are significantly grounded in a unique context. The Trobrianders saw no causal link between the father 1 s image being impressed on the foetus and the assertion of similarities that they did not see. Malinowski (op.cit.: 3 ar1d 6) believed that over and above these restraints on verbal expression, the actual perceptions followed the cultural pattern. Malinowski makes a plausible case for perceptual differences (op.cit.: 28). The ideas of Hallowell and Wittgenstein converge, that is the world looks the way a people have learned to talk about it. 4 b Where an individual is a member of a cohesive work group he 11 speaks the language of his group; he thinks in the manner in which his group thinks. He finds at his disposal only certain words and their meanings. These ... determine to a large extent the avenues of approach to the surrounding world . . . Thus it is not men in general who think, or even isolated individuals . . . but men m certain groups who have developed a particular style of thought in an endless series of responses to certain typical situations characterizing their common position." (Mannheim, 1960, pp.2, 3) 45 I refer to the early Wittgenstein who emphasized logical positivism (Vienna school) that saw language as the main tool shaping reality. This position differs from the later Wittgenstein, who saw language as masking the intricacies through which meanings were conveyed. The form of the logic coloured discourse itself. It is this later position that I shall emphasize. Above, I refer to the "picture theory" but as I go on, I show that this 11picture theory" is akin to "commonsense" and therefore positivist, in treating observable events as "real". - 24 - CHAPTER 1 THOUGHT IS A MULTIVARIATE PHEN01-1ENON Abstract Wittgenstein in his 'Notebooks ' (op.cit. : 7 9) : "the subject is not a part of the world but a presupposition of its existencen and furthermore, nThe I is not an objectrr. Speech shows its difference from that which provides for its intelligibility, its way of being in language. This difference provides for the difference between positivist theorizing, which conventional versions of sociology display, and which in seeking to speak of some object, called class or society, covers over the possibility of seeking for the social in speech 1 s ways of being in language. Reflexive and dialectical theorizing, on the other hand, lives precisely as this seeking. Positivist sociology is not ground in its explicit notion of the social, for that is something which it seeks to stand apart from and not together with, in order to describe it accurately and explain it. Therefore we m.ay hazard that we find its grounds, its implicit notion of 'logos'. Political rule vacillates between two contradictory modes of unintelligibility. That is, it formulates its grou.ndless, unquestionable character in terms of what we may call, borrowing from Weber, 1either traditional or charismatic authority, respectively, the authority of nit is written ... therefore ... ", or nit is written ... but I say unto you" (Weber, M., 1964: 361). Extra- ordinary speech attempts to differentiate itself or to sound (neutral) in the space of its evident difference from ordinary speech. The moral call for superiority as excellence is too easily translatable into the political call for superiority as a rule. 1Weber, M. The Theory of Social and Economic Organisation(l964). N. Y. : Free Press. - 25 - Reflexive and dialectical analysis seeks for its difference from conventional sociology, and its versions of the social embedded in its versions of the 'logos 1 , by affirming at least the presence of these versions as suppressed within sociological discourse, and by reaffirming them as ways of being in language which are neither new, nor adequately understood, nor the only possible ways of being in language. The depths of meaning constituted in language open up the possibility for an interpretive hearing of movement and possibilities and provides for and indeed requires that the extraordinary be heard in the reformulation of what is ordinary speech. Reflexive theorizing enables us to recover the performative character of apparently descriptive speech and to make visible what lies at the heart of class. Language and symbolic play When a child early in life is undergoing rapid growth in which the development of mental and sensori-motor characteristics occur, he manipulates objects and assimilates environmental input into his cognitive structure. If the input is new and adds a new dimension to his thinking, the child 1 s thinking patterns are modified or changed by accommodation. Assimilation and accommodation are, according to Piaget, the basic processes by which individuals learn. Piaget's work suggests that language in its functional use appears to be limited to a level of sophistica­ tion which has already been achieved in cognitive development. For example, language enables children to detach thought from action at the start of the pre-operational stage. Thus, thought becomes symbolic and, because language too is inherently symbolic, - 26 - it becomes the natural medium for representing absent objects and past events. This ability to represent is a hallmark of the beginning of the pre-operational stage, and language acquisi­ tion sets the pattern for subsequent acquisitions of social materials. Piaget believes "language does not constitute the source of logic, but is on the contrary, structured by it". 2 Those interested in child language and cognition frequently point out that children use -words without mature meanings or with missing attributes. When a youngster uses "because" and "although" without full conceptual understanding, Piaget would say they are largely meaningless terms. In addition, he would contend that until the child acquires the complex significance of these terms, no amount of use in speech will help him to learn their meanings. Contrast this point with Vygotsky who -would contend that the individual child's understanding increases gradually as he uses 3 the terms in his everyday speech. In Vygotsky's theory, the role of adult language is critical for all language and thought development. This position is Marxian in orientation. To Vygotsky, adult dialogue and monologue provide external speech forms consistent with the predominant contextual meanings codifying the requisite functions inner speech and real thinking may logically assume for membership - in a school, paradigm, instruction or society. 2Piaget, J. (1955)'Studies in Child language Acquisition'. The language and Thought of the Child. N. Y. : Meridian Books, p. 9 0. See also Piaget, J. (1952) 1:Assimilation and Accommodation 1 • The Origins of Intelligence in Children. London: Routledge&: Kegan Paul, p. 7. 0 Tous, sensori motor intelligence gives rise to operations of assimilation and construction, in which it is not hard to see the functional equivalent of the logic of classes and of relations. 11 3Vygotsky, L. S. (1962) Thought and Language. A :tvf,.arxian interpretation of learning, edited and translated by E. Haufrrian and G. Vakar. Cambridge: MIT Press, p.225 ff. - 27 - At an early stage communication between a child and his comnunity is partial. The child expresses his own idiosyncratic formulations rather than subscribing to conventionalized articulation,incorporated and framed by the dominant ideology. For this reason individualized verbal forms of representation begin with the words to designate nglobal rather than undifferentiated" referents. 4 Linguistic genesis is dependent upon the development of mental operations that permit the child to "differentiate among, and to specify events in his environment, so the referents of his vocalisations progressively approximate the referents of adult names 11 • Consequently, he begins to use different words for different referents. A_s an example, Werner and Kaplan cite the development of the use of the word 11manrrnam11 by a little girl. At twelve months of age, the child used 11mammarn11 as a name for her sister, for bread, and for cooked dishes. At seventeen months she began to use it also to designate milk. Only between nineteen and twenty-one months did she stop using 11rnammam11 for all these things and begin to use separate names for each. At the same time she began to use the word 11mamafl as a specific form of reference to her mother. Even when the child begins to use specific words to represent discrete things, actions and properties, the symbols still refer to ideas that stand midway between the particularity of referents con­ structed by sensori-motor activity and the generality of referents constructed by later mental operations. Piaget (1952) hypothesizes that these symbols are 11fluctuating incessantly bei:TtJeen the two extremes 115 4Werner and Kaplan (1956) 'The Developmental Approach to Cognition: its relevance to the psychological interpretation of anthropological and ethndlinguistic data', American Anthropologist, 58: 866-880. 5Piaget, J. (1952) The Child's Conception of Number. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp.90-124. - 28 - and that they thereby exhibit a lack of understanding and confounding 11of individual identity and ... general class". This conceptual fluctuation is indicative of the child's attempt to classify and thereby comprehend his world. Early on, the struggle for the child is presented by a cognitive problematic, wherein he intentionally seeks to interpret particular events, fitting these into general classes. Prior to acquiring classificatory skills the child uses words inter- changeably. This is because he does not clearly select appropriate elements from a continuum whose discrete units are socially and cul­ turally pre-determined for the child. Eiy theoretical position comes close to Piaget's, and indeed, further extends his notion relating to perceptual egocentricity. Developing from the material basis distinguished by s-m manipulation and cue selection, is the trend toward reflective symbolic activity, located m cultural meanings through which symbolic complexes mediate experience and regulate the mBterials in consciousness. 6 This ego- centricity results in mediated symbolic meanings that oosit a short psychological distance between subject and the object of his experience, something indelibly fixed and frarr2d for life. On the other hand, even if the child extended the scope of his mental operations, including the construction of conceptual knowledge, this would not be sufficient to overcome the contextual basis on which the child, and later the adult, predicates his conceptual categories. Then, theoretical possibilities 6Piaget, J. (1950) The Origin of Intelligence in the Child. Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp.380-425. Norms impress a given structure and rules of equilibrium upon the material. logic is not co-extensive with intelligence, but consists in the sum total of rules of control which intelligence makes use of for its own direction. What directs behaviour is the sum total of functional relations, implying the distinction between the existing states of dis- equilibrium and an ideal equilibrium yet to be realized. See The Moral Judgement of the Child by Jean Piaget, pp.401-411: Glencoe Free Press (1951). - 29 - become an imaginative extension of the person before entry into research tasks. The amount of intelligence required in cognitive flexibility between multiple perspectives is relative and certainly not absolute. And it depends upon the energies in the child and the tasks society sets within a context, and whether outcomes are suitable to the child's desire and will to be motivated and succeed. Subject-to-subject orthogenesis I (j