(Made by a friend who was
reading the same book at the same time)
A book I read without much knowledge of the deeper context from which it sprang, and which I did not enjoy at all. It may have been worthwhile, but I did not enjoy it.
I got though this book partly on resentment, partly due to interest in the subject and partly on inertia. By the end I was reasonably sure that that Geertz was awful, that Bali was wonderful, that Geertzs' argument was correct and that he had totally failed to prove that. I will never read anything by Clifford Geertz again.
In 'the Theatre State' Geertz argues that in Bali ritual itself was the primary point, purpose and axis of the culture, that power, economic and spiritual, largely served ritual and not the other way aroud. In a sense its something of an anti-materialistic argument. While other writers peel back the skin of culture to show the 'real' power dynamics that drive it, Geertz tries to pull back the skin of power to show it driven itself by ritual.
He is probably right but he doesn't prove it here. Perhaps no-one could have but he definitely doesn't.
MY HATRED OF CLIFFORD GEERTZ
It’s rare that I have hated a writer so much based merely on the *tenor of their thought*. I agree with the general drift of Geertzs' argument, I find Bali itself fascinating and am genuinely thankful for this introduction to an incredible subject, I just *really hate this fucking guy*.
He is a pompous sneak.
Reading Geertz gives one the impression of encountering a confidence trickster who tries to overwhelm you with volume of obscure detail, tendentious shifts in abstract analysis, vaguely made points in overcomplex form, regular dispellment of poor and shifting failings, before engaging in exactly those failings, (Geertz would lecture you intensely on the non-existence of feet before gaily dancing away), the avoidance and happenstance mention of actually-massively-important points, airy arguments from authority, (check the notes), and carefully not mentioning that his wife did a lot of the work.
My seething rage and frustration at this behaviour is not helped when, on assuming I am being Barnumed, I carefully read and re-read Geertzs' goat-footed prose and find, most times, that I cannot actually prove him wrong. Or at least I cannot prove him inconsistent.
Feeling like you are being scammed, not being able to find the scam, then having to reluctantly spit out that actually you agree, is a mentally distressing process.
A few things Geertz does, to give you a flavour;
- Goes on a long blather in the intro about this not being a book about kings and drama, then opens the actual book with a direct quote description of the extremely dramatic ritual suicide of the last Balinese king.
- Gets most of the way through the book before offhandedly mentioning that the chief Balinese import was opium. In the *notes* he confirms that most of Balis' economic surplus went on getting everyone high as shit, that everyone was baked throughout much of the book, that in the Royal palace the Opium smoke was so thick that the lizards were falling off the walls.
- "This too is probably the appropriate place to acknowledge that a good deal of the material upon which this study is based was gathered by my wife and coworker, Hildred Geertz, and some by an Indonesian assistant, E. Rukasah." (this hidden in the notes at the back of the book, though he does thank his wife in the intro.
- Doesn't really mention war or violence much as an axis of power in this book about power and ritual, until the notes where he allows that there was quite a lot of irregular violence and large ritualistic battles.
- Oh yeah there was slavery at some point, quite a lot of it. Oh and there were illegal wife burnings up to the 1920s. (again, hidden in the notes).
- "By means of a series of inferences, assumptions and outright guesses, which I will not relate for the simple reason that they cannot bear too much inspection, my own estimate of...." So basically "I made it up"
- "The second approach, however, presents historical change as a relatively continuous social and cultural process, a process which shows few if any sharp breaks, but rather displays a slow but patterned alteration in which, though developmental phases may be discerned when the entire course of the process is viewed as a whole, it is nearly always very difficult, if not impossible, to put ones finger exactly on the point at which things stopped being what they were and became instead something else. This view of change or process, stresses not so much the annalistic chronicle of what people did, but rather the formal, or structural, patterns of cumulative activity. The period approach distributes clusters of concrete events along a time continuum in which the major distinction is earlier or later; the developmental approach distributes forms of organisation and patterns of culture along a time continuum in which the major distinction is perquisite and outcome. Time is a crucial element in both. In the first it is the thread along which specific happenings are strung; in the second it is a medium through which certain abstract processes move."
Now, once decoded, I don't necessarily disagree with this, but I'm not sure how useful it is and I find the manner in which it is said mindbreakingly discursive and suspicious.
This is a Geertzian argument. If you think you can handle it or, god fucking help you, that you might actually enjoy it, then dive in bro.
BALI
GEERTZS ARGUMENT - WHAT WOULD IT TAKE TO PROVE IT?
Ritual and power interweave at every juncture, so like any complex argument from the human lifeworld where behaviours interweave and support each other and where each is to some extent an expression of the other, the question is less 'which of these things is this behaviour *really* about? But more; in this web of feedback, which of these elements is *more* dominant, and *which* times and under what conditions?
Can we find times in Bali where power and ritual were in conflict and Ritual clearly won? (this would be hard because by definition, whichever aspect of society was behind the Ritual answer, turned out to be more "powerful" because they "won". You can’t disprove the rule of power since whatever does rule, is power.
THE DANCE METAPHOR
Something familiar to most of us from Television; experienced Judges witnessing a dance and offering opinions on which of the dancers is really leading at which times.
The dancers in this case are Power and Ritual in Bali.
How useful is this metaphor? The more into the weeds of actual dancing the less useful
but some concepts to consider might be;
- The *complexity* of the *whole* situation with the judges watching the dance and the dancers responding to each other. Multiple observers observing elements that are mutually-observing.
- How genuinely hard it is to judge matters of dominance in complex feedback behaviours. The dynamics existed in-the-moment, between two maximally-engaged and highly responsive sophonts in a flow state. What happened between them might not be 'knowable' by an observer.
- the complexity of the judges *response* to the dance and how they might argue with each other afterwards, each basing their points on what they saw (all slightly different), what they themselves know of dancing (all slightly different) and any contextual knowledge they might have of these dancers in particular.
If you imagine the depth of this imagined situation, the differences of opinion, limits of evidence and some things that maybe even maximal evidence and knowledge can't reveal, then that is perhaps a rough guide to the level of difficulty, complexity of witnessing, evidence and judgement we engage in when we try to untangle these relationships like for instance Geertz's argument that in Bali Ritual was (more) dominant over Power (most of the time).
In Geertzs' defence the thing he is trying to prove is immeasurably complex ad subtle and about an immeasurably complex society, so proving, or even arguing it properly would be a staggering synthesis of rigour, subtlety and vast arcologies of detail. It would be an absolutely peak academic argument, if it could be done.
Few could do it and Geertz is not among them. He writes the wrap-up synthesis at the end but that belongs at the end of a much longer, much better, and paradoxically, much easier to read book.
Geertz is probably right in that in Bali, ritual was a power of its own, its own centre of 'not-power' to which what we commonly think of as 'real power'; guns, money, sex and taxes, was subservient.
But he doesn't prove it. He puts a lot of arguments in the air, considers a lot of things, gestures towards his final summation and then runs for it, like a magician fleeing the stage while the plates are spinning.
Think I'll give Geertz a miss, then.
ReplyDeleteArtaud had a much better take on Bali in his Théâtre et son double. When I read it back in my uni days, I proclaimed it the only book of DMing advice I'd ever need (though that was more for the theatre of cruelty bits).
Okay but what are the other "plateau" cultures that you can imagine people moving through. Something like a post scarcity future with self contained bubble societies in the asteroid belt designed by the benevolent AIs as places of rest. Do we have to imagine completely eradicating modernity in order to provide a human optimal state of affairs? Wait is this what the Avatar movies were about?
ReplyDeleteI was thinking relatively nice arcologies, boutique Eloi-style anarcho-syndicalist communities powered by hidden technology, interstellar century ships, the asteroid bubbles sounds nice too
DeleteDon't know if I'm late to the party, but two great books on a particular aspect of Balinese culture are Rangda: The Legendary Goddess of Bali by Brandon Spars and Journey of the Goddess: Durga by Ni Wayan Pasek Ariati. They are books delving into beliefs about religion, black magic, and patriarchy, focusing on the figure of Rangda. A Goddess that is a demonic form of the Goddess Durga. Rangda is essentially if you crossed Kali and Baba Yaga together and gave that Goddess amalgamation a whole load of acid and steroids. Journey of the Goddess Durga is available for free at Charles Darwin University https://researchers.cdu.edu.au/en/studentTheses/the-journey-of-a-goddess
ReplyDeleteSorry for the long post, I'm a anthropologist and I am in love with Bali.
Thanks for the reccomendations!
Delete