Symbolic Anthropology Quotes

Sometimes a day is a symbolic day, and you behave symbolically. Sometimes you search inside for a feeling, and, finding none, you remember that no feeling is frequently the most possible feeling.

In the world “out there,” there are no verbs, no speech events, and no adjacency pairs. There are particles of matter moving around in certain recurrent and yet not fully predictable patterns. We interpret such experiences as and through symbolic means, including linguistic expressions. That’s what it means to be human.

The idealized market was supposed to deliver ‘friction free’ exchanges, in which the desires of consumers would be met directly, without the need for intervention or mediation by regulatory agencies. Yet the drive to assess the performance of workers and to measure forms of labor which, by their nature, are resistant to quantification, has inevitably required additional layers of management and bureaucracy. What we have is not a direct comparison of workers’ performance or output, but a comparison between the audited representation of that performance and output. Inevitably, a short-circuiting occurs, and work becomes geared towards the generation and massaging of representations rather than to the official goals of the work itself. Indeed, an anthropological study of local government in Britain argues that ‘More effort goes into ensuring that a local authority’s services are represented correctly than goes into actually improving those services’. This reversal of priorities is one of the hallmarks of a system which can be characterized without hyperbole as ‘market Stalinism’. What late capitalism repeats from Stalinism is just this valuing of symbols of achievement over actual achievement. […] It would be a mistake to regard this market Stalinism as some deviation from the ‘true spirit’ of capitalism. On the contrary, it would be better to say that an essential dimension of Stalinism was inhibited by its association with a social project like socialism and can only emerge in a late capitalist culture in which images acquire an autonomous force. The way value is generated on the stock exchange depends of course less on what a company ‘really does’, and more on perceptions of, and beliefs about, its (future) performance. In capitalism, that is to say, all that is solid melts into PR, and late capitalism is defined at least as much by this ubiquitous tendency towards PR-production as it is by the imposition of market mechanisms.

We can call the attempt to refute theism by displaying the continuity of belief in God with primitive delusions the method of Anthropological intimidation.

Studying anthropology tends t change the way you look at the world. It leaves a distinctive chip in your brain, or lens over your eye. Your mind-set becomes instinctive: wherever you go to work, you start asking questions about how different elements of society interact, looks at the gap between rhetoric and reality, noting the concealed functions of rituals and symbols, and hunting out social silences. Anyone who has been immersed in anthropology is doomed to be an insider-outside for the rest of their life; they can never take anything entirely at face value, but are compelled to constantly ask: why?

Does the evolutionary doctrine clash with religious faith? It does not. It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology. Only if symbols are construed to mean what they are not intended to mean can there arise imaginary, insoluble conflicts. As pointed out above, the blunder leads to blasphemy: the Creator is accused of systematic deceitfulness.

Practical, versatile, universally esteemed and provided with its own edible, easily decorated gift-box of pastry - small wonder that pie still plays a feature role at many of our favourite celebrations, so much so that it is often symbolic of the very event itself.

It is my conviction that, with the spread of true scientific culture, whatever may be the medium, historical, philological, philosophical, or physical, through which that culture is conveyed, and with its necessary concomitant, a constant elevation of the standard of veracity, the end of the evolution of theology will be like its beginning—it will cease to have any relation to ethics. I suppose that, so long as the human mind exists, it will not escape its deep-seated instinct to personify its intellectual conceptions. The science of the present day is as full of this particular form of intellectual shadow-worship as is the nescience of ignorant ages. The difference is that the philosopher who is worthy of the name knows that his personified hypotheses, such as law, and force, and ether, and the like, are merely useful symbols, while the ignorant and the careless take them for adequate expressions of reality. So, it may be, that the majority of mankind may find the practice of morality made easier by the use of theological symbols. And unless these are converted from symbols into idols, I do not see that science has anything to say to the practice, except to give an occasional warning of its dangers. But, when such symbols are dealt with as real existences, I think the highest duty which is laid upon men of science is to show that these dogmatic idols have no greater value than the fabrications of men's hands, the stocks and the stones, which they have replaced.

The entire destiny of modern linguistics is in fact determined by Saussure's inaugural act through which he separates the ‘external’ elements of linguistics from the ‘internal’ elements, and, by reserving the title of linguistics for the latter, excludes from it all the investigations which establish a relationship between language and anthropology, the political history of those who speak it, or even the geography of the domain where it is spoken, because all of these things add nothing to a knowledge of language taken in itself. Given that it sprang from the autonomy attributed to language in relation to its social conditions of production, reproduction and use, structural linguistics could not become the dominant social science without exercising an ideological effect, by bestowing the appearance of scientificity on the naturalization of the products of history, that is, on symbolic objects.

Yes, it is true that one generally needs to speak to the members of the key audience for a product or service. But as we are not trying to plumb an individual psyche for psychological motivation, but are rather trying to elucidate the relevant symbolic cultural meanings and practices, information garnered from those who do not like something is also relevant to understanding the cultural picture. In fact, contestation between points of view and meanings is a crucial aspect of the social dynamic. These nodal points of disagreement and different points of view can be precisely the most intriguing domains of cultural movement and thus new opportunities.

The hero of the following account, Homo immunologicus, who must give his life, with all its dangers and surfeits, a symbolic framework, is the human being that struggles with itself in concern for its form. We will characterize it more closely as the ethical human being, or rather Homo repetitious, Homo artista, the human in training. None of the circulating theories of behaviour or action is capable of grasping the practising human - on the contrary: we will understand why previous theories had to make it vanish systematically, regardless of whether they divided the field of observation into work and interaction, processes and communications, or active and contemplative life. With a concept of practice based on a broad anthropological foundation, we finally have the right instrument to overcome the gap, supposedly unbridgeable by methodological means, between biological and cultural phenomena of immunity - that is, between natural processes on the one hand and actions on the other.

The Golden Bough captured the imagination of many artists in the early twentieth century. Eliot, certainly, was immersed in it, discussing it familiarly in his graduate school papers and book reviews and constantly alluding to it in his art. The most straightforward advice he offers to readers of The Waste Land (given in the notes to the poem) is, in paraphrase, that any serious reader of the poem must take into consideration modern scholarship in myth and anthropology, especially Frazer Golden Bough and Jessie Weston From Ritual to Romance. The poet says that he is indebted to this scholarship for his title, his plan, his symbolism, and many of his references to ancient religion and society. His claim about the title, taken from the monomyth of Frazer and Weston, his claim about the symbolism, associated with the birth-death-rebirth cycles of the myths, and his claim about the miscellaneous undergirding references have been discussed by Grover Smith and other scholars. We wish to focus more on Eliot's claim about being indebted to Frazer for the plan of the poem. We believe it refers, at least in part, to Frazer's use of the comparative method and to his practice of assembling many perspectives and allowing these perspectives to make his point. It must be noted at once that Eliot was quite selective in his admiration of Frazer. For example, he did not admire Frazer's positivism. Frazer put his faith in science and celebrated what he called the evolution from magic to religion to science. Nor did Eliot share Frazer's conclusions. In his 1913 paper on the interpretation of primitive ritual, he says that Frazer's interpretations of specific myths (the myth of the dying god is his example) are almost certainly mistaken. But Eliot did admire Frazer's erudition and his increasingly nontheoretical presentation of many angles of vision which in themselves tend to generate an overarching abstract primitive vision. In 1924, on the occasion of the publication of a condensed edition of The Golden Bough, Eliot wrote a review in which he lauded Frazer for having "extended the consciousness of the human mind into as dark a backward and abysm of time as has yet been explored." Eliot argues that Frazer's importance for artists is in his exemplary withdrawal from speculation, his adoption of the absence of interpretation as a positive modus operandi.

The risibility of our altruistic 'understanding' is rivalled only by the profound contempt it is designed to conceal. For 'We respect the fact that you are different' read: 'You people who are underdeveloped would do well to hang on to this distinction because it is all you have left' . (The signs of folklore and poverty are excellent markers of difference.) Nothing could be more contemptuous - or more contemptible - than this attitude, which exemplifies the most radical form of incomprehension that exists. It has nothing to do, however, with what Segalen calls 'eternal incomprehensibility' . Rather, it is a product of eternal stupidity - of that stupidity which endures for ever in its essential arrogance, feeding on the differentness of other people. Other cultures, meanwhile, have never laid claim to universality. Nor did they ever claim to be different - until difference was forcibly injected into them as part of a sort of cultural opium war. They live on the basis of their own singularity, their own exceptionality, on the irreducibility of their own rites and values. They find no comfort in the lethal illusion that all differences can be reconciled - an illusion that for them spells only annihilation. To master the universal symbols of otherness and difference is to master the world. Those who conceptualize difference are anthropologically superior - naturally, because it is they who invented anthropology. And they have all the rights, because rights, too, are their invention. Those who do not conceptualize difference, who do not play the game of difference, must be exterminated. The Indians of America, when the Spanish landed, are a case in point. They understood nothing about difference; they inhabited radical otherness. (The Spaniards were not different in their eyes: they were simply gods, and that was that.) This is the reason for the fury with which the Spaniards set about destroying these peoples, a fury for which there was no religious justification, nor economic justification, nor any other kind of justification, except for the fact that the Indians were guilty of an absolute crime: their failure to understand difference. When they found themselves obliged to become part of an otherness no longer radical, but negotiable under the aegis of the universal concept, they preferred mass self-immolation - whence the fervour with which they, for their part, allowed themselves to die: a counterpart to the Spaniards' mad urge to kill. The Indians' strange collusion in their own extermination represented their only way of keeping the secret of otherness.

The distinctions mentioned above ("everyday" or "rational" versus "religious" or "symbolic") are usually expressed invery abstract terms in anthropological theories. They are construed as corresponding to "styles of reasoning," "modes ofthought," or "intellectual orientations.

chapter 3 I turn toward the task of congregational exegesis, outlining a very practical method for interpreting congregational subcultures that can be engaged by busy pastors while carrying on the ordinary tasks of ministry. Drawing on the expertise of authors in the fields of congregational studies and cultural anthropology, this chapter identifies seven symbols of congregational life that hold particular promise for revealing cultural and theological identity, and provides interpretive frameworks through which the local pastor can deepen his or her understanding of the congregation's own worldview, values, and ethos. At stake is not only enhanced cultural understanding, but also a deepening awareness of the local theologies that already exist within the life of a congregation (beliefs regarding God, humanity, nature, time, the church, and their interrelationships). Chapter 4 then turns to the question: "So, what difference does all this make for the theology of preaching?" Here we revisit the "text-to-sermon" process (revisioned as a "con/text-to-sermon" process), observing how greater attention to congregational context at each juncture-from the selection of biblical texts for proclamation, to the pastor's initial reading of them, to the methods used for biblical interpretation, to the discernment of fitting themes and strategies for proclamation-can positively contribute toward preaching as local theology. Sermons of local pastors, preached in their own unique congregational contexts, provide real-life examples of contextual theologizing in

However, in Jainism there is a system of extensive worshipping of all sorts of deities, which present residual sacrificial elements.23 In Christianity worshipping has been defined in terms of the imitation of Christ, with positive external mediation, which is fundamental to the idea of Christians’ involvement in worldly matters. As a matter of fact, there are historical sources that speak of connections between Jainism and Judaism, which remain underexplored and which are simply fascinating. The most striking evidence is given by Frazer, who reports the presence of versions of the judgement of Solomon, which is so central to Judaeo-Christian tradition, in Jainist texts.24 Although non-violent in nature, Jainism has eventually relapsed into a patriarchal caste system of Hindu Brahmanical heritage which is so widespread in India and which still represents a form of exclusion, of symbolic and actual outcasting.25 This is ‘structural violence’, i.e. radical injustice. Moreover, as was suggested at a recent COV&R meeting, the history of religions and societies in Asia testifies, from a descriptive standpoint, that Hindu and Buddhist cultures and states have not been without violence, as is commonly believed, pretty much in the same way as has happened with historical Christianity.26 What I gathered in that conference is that all these religions are fully aware, from a normative standpoint, of the injustice of violence and I fully acknowledge that the Easter traditions have contributed in making those societies less violent. They know that the human being should withdraw from anger, resentment, envy, violence, but they are not fully aware of the scapegoat mechanism. They know what sacrifice is, and they progressively tried to forbid it. The difference that I see between them and Christianity is that the latter was able to formulate in the Gospels and unmask in a full light the anthropological mechanism of mimetic scapegoating and sacrifice.

Within today's anthropology, therefore, there are attempts being made to find ways to discuss such experiences, dealing with concepts such as the reality of the experience to the participant, and within it (or its narration) the use of what is seen by outside observers as symbol and metaphor. Goulet and Young (1994) speak of such 'extraordinary experiences' in terms of multiple realities. Within one reality mode, so to speak, we construct experience and meaning by attending to sets of symbols and sensations that within another reality mode would go unchecked. As we shift mode, new possibilities become apparent, and old ones disappear. Ms Paxson's commentary on her experience illustrates this point. By her account, she had to work rather hard to prevent her rationalist preconceptions from disrupting her journey; and the subsequent events involving finding her teacher led her to consider that she was not simply inventing a scenario. I know that I can make up stories, Diana said. Was I inventing this one now?

Thirty thousand years ago there lived 'another human species' - the Neanderthals. Tremendous. If it is true, it is symbolically more important than the fact that man is descended from the apes. The shadow of this vanished human species weighs heavy on all our anthropology, since our entire concept of evolution privileges the exclusive universality of a single humanity, ours, the one that survived. And what if it were not the only one? Then that's the end of our privilege. If we had to eliminate this twin, this prehistoric double, to ensure our hegemony, if this other species had to disappear, then the rules of the game of being human are no longer the same. And where does this passion for universality come from, this lust to eliminate every other race? (It is a good bet that if any other race emerged from space, our first aim would be to subjugate or destroy it.) Why is it that in twin forms there always has to be one that dies? Why do we always have to wipe out duality everywhere to establish the monopoly of a species, a race, a subject? Having said this, it is not certain that we really did win out. What if we were carrying that double within us like a dead twin? And perhaps many others, in a kind of Unconscious, the stubborn heir to all the previous murders. Having achieved the unity of the species, for the greater glory of Homo sapiens, are we not now duplicating ourselves for the worse - in that artificial twinness of the clone, in which the species, denying its origins once and for all, prolongs itself as spectre in an infinite repetition? Over the screen of our consciousness and our Unconscious hovers the shadow of this original crime, the traces of which we shall doubtless never recover.

Over the last year I’ve noticed that a surprising amount of Americans hate one or the other. I have a theory: solar panels and natural gas are totems. In anthropology, a “totem” is a symbol that serves as an emblem for a group of people. In our country, affiliation to one technology or the other quickly signifies your political tribe. In short, Republicans like things which explode and make loud noises (gas, petroleum, bombs) and Democrats like things which are techy, eco-friendly and generally don’t work very well (solar panels, wind power, automobiles powered by “hope”).

Stanley Laurel throws a pie which hits Oliver Hardy in the face. In the physicist's model or reality-tunnel (the two overlap in this case) the best description of what has happened is Newton's F equals ma (Force equals mass times acceleration). In the anthropological reality-tunnel, what has happened is a continuation of the Feast of Fools or Saturnalia or the tradition of the royal fool who is immune from the tabu against rebellion in comic form. To some Freudians, the best reality-tunnel is that the Son's rage against the Father is being expressed symbolically. To some Marxists, it is the worker's rage against the boss. Etc.

Sacred…is itself a social construction. There is nothing inherently sacred or profane in the world. A place, a symbol, or a personality becomes sacred because it is socially classified as sacred.

After Quibell and Green, the following decades saw the wide adoption of those evolutionary principles of intellectual development so alluringly described by the likes of Freud and Frazer. These held that the ‘primitive’ – that is, the non-Western mind which, they imagined, was expressed in Narmer’s Palette – was the opposite of the scientific mind and close to the world of ‘feeling’ and to mystical and childish thoughts, where savage passions lurk just beneath the surface. Once again, this was based on the assumption that the behaviour of ancient peoples was similar to that of nineteenth-century tribal communities which had been studied and evaluated by the founding fathers of anthropology – people who often shared the same attitude to their subjects as their colonial administrators and whose view of their subjects has now become a part of intellectual history. And yet the vision still prevails. Kings like Narmer are portrayed as living in a time when humans were ‘closer to nature’ than we are today, and Narmer, the first pharaoh, is presented as a primal hero whose killing gesture symbolized the struggle of humanity emerging from the chaos of the primitive world. Thus everything is explained; ancient people were automatons with no facility for thoughtfulness, and all you have to do for their explanation is to find the key with which to wind up their imaginary clockwork. As for the early kings, caught in imaginary wars and forever planning for a mumbo-jumbo afterlife, Narmer’s gesture is explained as a method of filling his contemporaries with shock and awe.

I don’t accept the judgment that in using images and metaphors of other worlds, space travel, the future, imagined technologies, societies, or beings, science fiction escapes from having human relevance to our lives. Those images and metaphors used by a serious writer are images and metaphors of our lives, legitimately novelistic, symbolic ways of saying what cannot otherwise be said about us, our being and choices, here and now. What science fiction does is enlarge the here and now. What do you find interesting? To some people only other people are interesting. Some people really don’t care about trees or fish or stars or how engines work or why the sky is blue; they’re exclusively human-centered, often with the encouragement of their religion; and they aren’t going to like either science or science fiction. Like all the sciences except anthropology, psychology, and medicine, science fiction is not exclusively human-centered. It includes other beings, other aspects of being. It may be about relationships between people—the great subject of realist fiction—but it may be about the relationship between a person and something else, another kind of being, an idea, a machine, an experience, a society.

Indeed, there is a profound intellectual debt owed to societies in North Africa in the development of social theory... Pierre Bourdieu studied the Kabyle in Algeria to develop theories of capital, habitus, and symbolic violence, concepts that have transformed cultural anthropology and approaches to ethnography in sociology... Michel Foucault lived and worked in Tunisia shortly after its independence from French colonial rule and become politically active in contesting neocolonialism in the emerging state. It was partly from these observations that he developed his theories of disciplinary power, governmentality, and biopolitics.

Keith Hart, probably the best-known current anthropological authority on the subject, pointed this out many years ago. There are, he famously observed, two sides to any coin: Look at a coin from your pocket. On one side is “heads”—the symbol of the political authority which minted the coin; on the other side is “tails”—the precise specification of the amount the coin is worth as payment in exchange. One side reminds us that states underwrite currencies and the money is originally a relation between persons in society, a token perhaps. The other reveals the coin as a thing, capable of entering into definite relations with other things.