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La interpretación de las culturas
A diferencia del enfoque tradicional de la antropología, que se regía por el estilo de trabajo de las ciencias naturales, Geertz propone una antropología más cercana a las ciencias humanas, cuya tarea principal no es medir y clasificar, sino interpretar.
Desde finales de la década de los sesenta, la disciplina que cultiva Clifford Geertz se ha calificado como «antropología simbólica». No se trata de una escuela, sino de un modo de concebir el trabajo antropológico. La concepción de lo simbólico de Geertz se opone a otras formas de entender el simbolismo, como la de Marshall Sahlins, Victor Turner o Mary Douglas. Su enfoque incluye diversas variantes, que requieren maneras de interpretar en varios niveles.
La antropología de Geertz contribuyó a un giro fundamental en esta disciplina, que consiste en relativizar el punto de mira del antropólogo mismo y que cuestiona sus condicionamientos y prejuicios como factores que influyen en su trabajo.
Al igual que Lévi-Strauss, Geertz es un creador único e irrepetible y La interpretación de las culturas es uno de los hitos principales de la antropología contemporánea.
387 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
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About the author
Clifford Geertz
87 books242 followersClifford James Geertz was an American anthropologist and served until his death as professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey.
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March 18, 2010
The Interpretation of Cultures is an academic classic. The late Clifford Geertz was lauded for his 1973 anthropological volume, and I do not find this to be hype. The book is structured around anthropological description, with Geertz relying on field data he gathered mostly in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Yet, it is certain that, if The Interpretation of Cultures were mere anthropological description, the book probably would not have survived. How many Westerners are truly fascinated enough by the details of Indonesian culture to read 400 plus pages on the topic (certainly not I).
The longevity of the book (excerpts are still read in social science classes) has multiple attributions. First, the book altered how anthropologists perceived their work – The Interpretation of Cultures is an epistemological work. The first chapter, Thick Description: Toward and Interpretive Theory of Culture, is frequently referenced by social scientists. Prior to the publication of Geertz’ work, field researchers often treated themselves as “human recorders”, travelling to unfamiliar locales, penetrating the local world, and recording local “reality.” Geertz, through philosophical argumentation, made a fairly basic point, albeit eloquently enough to garner attention from his peers: it is not possible for social scientists to record a tangible social reality. Really, anthropologists capture reality as it is understood by local actors, and then filter this understanding through their own lens. Anthropology is an interpretation of an interpretation of reality. Geertz makes this point through his oft-cited “winking” example. A wink can mean many things: a physiological tick, a flirtation, a sign of confidence, a caricature of someone else who just winked. The visual “reality”: someone moving their eye in a certain manner, can have numerous social meanings. It is the task of an anthropologist to unearth all these meanings, and their social contexts. Geertz labeled this scientific process “thick description.” To Geertz, the best social science captures complex patterns in detail. Symbols play an important role in this endeavor. If the goal is to understand local meaning, then social scientists should explore the symbolic significance of cultural artifacts (with the term “artifact” admittedly not the mot juste – I mean the term in a very broad sense).
The Interpretation of Cultures is structurally unique. The book includes fifteen chapters. Each chapter is a topical essay. In a preface, Geertz acknowledges that he wrote the essays at different times, not initially intending to combine them into a single book. In some respects, then, The Interpretation of Cultures serves as the collected works of Clifford Geertz. There is some unification to the book. Most obviously, the chapters draw upon the same datasets. Yet, the book is a potpourri of sorts. The essays include theoretical expositions (on religion, on culture, on the human mind), commentary on the social sciences, and presentation of anthropological results. A more careful reader than I could probably find the words to describe how this mélange comes together into a coherent whole that represents an “approach”, a way of understanding the craft underlying anthropological fieldwork. I think, at some level (and Geertz suggests as much in his preface), an effort to make sense of how the essays cohere is almost a metaphor for Geertz’ inductive approach to science – put it all together, back off, try to make sense of the whole, back off again, try to make sense again.
The longevity of the book (excerpts are still read in social science classes) has multiple attributions. First, the book altered how anthropologists perceived their work – The Interpretation of Cultures is an epistemological work. The first chapter, Thick Description: Toward and Interpretive Theory of Culture, is frequently referenced by social scientists. Prior to the publication of Geertz’ work, field researchers often treated themselves as “human recorders”, travelling to unfamiliar locales, penetrating the local world, and recording local “reality.” Geertz, through philosophical argumentation, made a fairly basic point, albeit eloquently enough to garner attention from his peers: it is not possible for social scientists to record a tangible social reality. Really, anthropologists capture reality as it is understood by local actors, and then filter this understanding through their own lens. Anthropology is an interpretation of an interpretation of reality. Geertz makes this point through his oft-cited “winking” example. A wink can mean many things: a physiological tick, a flirtation, a sign of confidence, a caricature of someone else who just winked. The visual “reality”: someone moving their eye in a certain manner, can have numerous social meanings. It is the task of an anthropologist to unearth all these meanings, and their social contexts. Geertz labeled this scientific process “thick description.” To Geertz, the best social science captures complex patterns in detail. Symbols play an important role in this endeavor. If the goal is to understand local meaning, then social scientists should explore the symbolic significance of cultural artifacts (with the term “artifact” admittedly not the mot juste – I mean the term in a very broad sense).
The Interpretation of Cultures is structurally unique. The book includes fifteen chapters. Each chapter is a topical essay. In a preface, Geertz acknowledges that he wrote the essays at different times, not initially intending to combine them into a single book. In some respects, then, The Interpretation of Cultures serves as the collected works of Clifford Geertz. There is some unification to the book. Most obviously, the chapters draw upon the same datasets. Yet, the book is a potpourri of sorts. The essays include theoretical expositions (on religion, on culture, on the human mind), commentary on the social sciences, and presentation of anthropological results. A more careful reader than I could probably find the words to describe how this mélange comes together into a coherent whole that represents an “approach”, a way of understanding the craft underlying anthropological fieldwork. I think, at some level (and Geertz suggests as much in his preface), an effort to make sense of how the essays cohere is almost a metaphor for Geertz’ inductive approach to science – put it all together, back off, try to make sense of the whole, back off again, try to make sense again.
December 17, 2007
"Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs..."
These cultural "webs of significance" Clifford Geertz speaks of are constructed of religious beliefs and practices, cultural customs, social interactions, attitudes and behavior -- everything around us that we have constructed as rational beings capable of thought and imagination. According to Geertz, the role of the anthropologist is, in a sense, to 'decode' the symbolic meanings of these certain events, practices, customs and interactions that take place within a specific culture, however insignificant they may seem to the observer. Detail is of utmost importance. An anthropologist must become part of the culture -- looking in from the outside he will understand nothing. Of course, in order to reduce the occurrence of the anthropologist's own cultural bias and to attempt to more accurately understand a culture, one could easily say that it is imperative that anthropologists emerge themselves in the customs and practices of that culture. But, even then, is it ever possible for one to grasp an understanding of a culture in which one was not born into? Are humans socialized from birth to perceive all cultural customs and practices through a shady lens, clouded by perceptions of the world they have acquired during childhood?
Geertz believes that, while to some extent it is possible to reach an understanding of a culture outside of our own, it is important to understand that anthropological writing is merely a "thick description," an interpretation of an interpretation. In other words, the anthropologist is interpreting the culture's interpretation of the event that is taking place. There is nothing precise, categorically logical or rational about anthropological writing: Cultural analysis is strictly the process of creating various hypotheses, examining those hypotheses, and then deriving explanations from the best hypotheses. As Geertz says, the analysis of it is not an "experimental science in search of law" but, rather, "an interpretive one in search of meaning." It is the job of an anthropologist to first attempt to understand how an event is interpreted by the culture in which it takes place, then to make an interpretation of that interpretation, and then it is left up to the reader of anthropological writing to interpret the final interpretations. It is difficult, if not impossible, to derive any absolute factual conclusion from data constructed of so many interpretive layers; thus, interpretation is not definitive.
The role of an anthropologist, according to Geertz, is to construct the finest interpretations possible, and most importantly, to be an active participant in the culture, rather than a passive observer.
This book is THE classical text for a modern cultural anthropologist. It's also an excellent book for anyone skeptical of social science in general, and serves as a great introduction for anyone just curious about anthropology.
These cultural "webs of significance" Clifford Geertz speaks of are constructed of religious beliefs and practices, cultural customs, social interactions, attitudes and behavior -- everything around us that we have constructed as rational beings capable of thought and imagination. According to Geertz, the role of the anthropologist is, in a sense, to 'decode' the symbolic meanings of these certain events, practices, customs and interactions that take place within a specific culture, however insignificant they may seem to the observer. Detail is of utmost importance. An anthropologist must become part of the culture -- looking in from the outside he will understand nothing. Of course, in order to reduce the occurrence of the anthropologist's own cultural bias and to attempt to more accurately understand a culture, one could easily say that it is imperative that anthropologists emerge themselves in the customs and practices of that culture. But, even then, is it ever possible for one to grasp an understanding of a culture in which one was not born into? Are humans socialized from birth to perceive all cultural customs and practices through a shady lens, clouded by perceptions of the world they have acquired during childhood?
Geertz believes that, while to some extent it is possible to reach an understanding of a culture outside of our own, it is important to understand that anthropological writing is merely a "thick description," an interpretation of an interpretation. In other words, the anthropologist is interpreting the culture's interpretation of the event that is taking place. There is nothing precise, categorically logical or rational about anthropological writing: Cultural analysis is strictly the process of creating various hypotheses, examining those hypotheses, and then deriving explanations from the best hypotheses. As Geertz says, the analysis of it is not an "experimental science in search of law" but, rather, "an interpretive one in search of meaning." It is the job of an anthropologist to first attempt to understand how an event is interpreted by the culture in which it takes place, then to make an interpretation of that interpretation, and then it is left up to the reader of anthropological writing to interpret the final interpretations. It is difficult, if not impossible, to derive any absolute factual conclusion from data constructed of so many interpretive layers; thus, interpretation is not definitive.
The role of an anthropologist, according to Geertz, is to construct the finest interpretations possible, and most importantly, to be an active participant in the culture, rather than a passive observer.
This book is THE classical text for a modern cultural anthropologist. It's also an excellent book for anyone skeptical of social science in general, and serves as a great introduction for anyone just curious about anthropology.
September 11, 2021
TL;DR: Nothing (worth talking about) is simple or straightforward.
***
This is probably the hardest book I've ever finished reading. And that after two false starts, when I realized I didn't understand enough of it, so I left it for "when I get smarter."
Does that mean I've gotten smarter?
Self-teasing aside, this is a book worth rereading. The first pass gave me an overview of Geertz's ideas. I still didn't understand many of them, or not as fully as I'd have liked to, but now at least I know where to go when I want to go deeper.
The following notes should hopefully steer me:
https://choveshkata.net/forum/viewtop...
***
This is probably the hardest book I've ever finished reading. And that after two false starts, when I realized I didn't understand enough of it, so I left it for "when I get smarter."
Does that mean I've gotten smarter?
Self-teasing aside, this is a book worth rereading. The first pass gave me an overview of Geertz's ideas. I still didn't understand many of them, or not as fully as I'd have liked to, but now at least I know where to go when I want to go deeper.
The following notes should hopefully steer me:
https://choveshkata.net/forum/viewtop...
July 20, 2008
I'm rereading this and am amazed at how much I missed the last time I picked it up. Rather than attempt to break down why Geertz is so great or what he covers in this book, I'm just gonna include a couple of my favorite quotations:
"Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of laws, but an interpretive one in search of meaning." (5)
"...where an interpretation comes from does not determine where it can be impelled to go." (23)
"it may be in the cultural particularities of people - in their oddities - that some of the most instructive revelations of what it is to be generically human are to be found." (43)
In particular his essay "The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man" gave me an entirely new perspective relative to the doctrine of the psychic unity of mankind.
There's no doubt this is academic reading, but if there were ever a book that deserved to be read by everyone interested in culture, this is it.
"Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of laws, but an interpretive one in search of meaning." (5)
"...where an interpretation comes from does not determine where it can be impelled to go." (23)
"it may be in the cultural particularities of people - in their oddities - that some of the most instructive revelations of what it is to be generically human are to be found." (43)
In particular his essay "The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man" gave me an entirely new perspective relative to the doctrine of the psychic unity of mankind.
There's no doubt this is academic reading, but if there were ever a book that deserved to be read by everyone interested in culture, this is it.
May 2, 2007
Everyone at the LSE may hate him but what do they know ;-) Geertz really introduced the culture as texts idea which has played a huge role in shaping modern anthropology. Even if you're not into anthro, he's just a wonderfully talented writer and fascinating thinker
August 11, 2014
Geertz said he grew up wanting to be a writer but failed. This is one result of that failure: a very good book of close observation & philosophy masquerading as social science.
May 12, 2012
Possibly the most influential book of my college years.
April 5, 2016
I read it. And re-read it. It's brilliant work. If you understand it.
Read
July 25, 2021The Interpretation of Cultures is a collection of Professor Geertz’s writing, something of an introduction to the field of anthropology. I was able to engage with the bulk of this work, which is always a positive for an academic product. He remarked that culture and human evolution are symbiotic, interrelated; take the culture away and we are . . . ?
Professor Geertz offers up a whole lot of reflection on Indonesian culture, especially religious practices. Put in association with Benedict R. O’G. Anderson’s work, Imagined Communities, previously reviewed elsewhere, I now wonder if that place is some kind of mother lode for social scientists. This work then delves further into Balinese society, ultimately to cockfighting, which is about as ground level as an observer can get. Do you think the best way to understand Americans today might be to research professional wrestling? If so, to researchers interested in investigating this corner of our culture, I might provide some insight into the careers of Dick The Bruiser or Pretty Boy Bobby Heenan, later known as Bobby The Brain Heenan.
I found the discussion of both ideology and nationalism particularly relevant to our recent political experience. I imagine that many social scientists through the years have presumed that the era of enlightenment would lessen the importance of parochial and ideological movements, that multiculturalism, free trade and globalism would rid us of the pernicious factions, observed historically across so many dimensions. Not so, it turns out. Rather, it seems those in control or seeking control have figured out that these powerful themes remain and have become ever more adept at the subtle practice of mass manipulation to satisfy their narrow agendas.
Somewhere in the middle of this book, I did come to question where the lines are drawn among the social sciences. Psychology, history, sociology, economics, political science, anthropology, and, as Professor Geertz remarked, even soothsaying, all seem to exist in ambiguous corridors of thought. Where does psychology end and economics begin, for example. Maybe there should just be one social science, the sub-disciplines being inventions of the career-minded? Does anyone know where I might obtain a degree in soothsaying? That seems the most practical of all.
Professor Geertz commented on the writing of Claude Lévi-Strauss, noting some of the same themes that crossed my mind when I read Tristes Tropiques, also reviewed elsewhere. Professor Geertz is a much better writer, or maybe his voice carries the weight of greater authority, or both.
A cultureless human being would probably turn out to be not an intrinsically talented though unfulfilled ape, but a wholly mindless and consequently unworkable monstrosity. Like the cabbage it so much resembles, the Homo sapiens brain, having arisen within the framework of human culture, would not be viable outside of it.Do we think this is really the case?
Professor Geertz offers up a whole lot of reflection on Indonesian culture, especially religious practices. Put in association with Benedict R. O’G. Anderson’s work, Imagined Communities, previously reviewed elsewhere, I now wonder if that place is some kind of mother lode for social scientists. This work then delves further into Balinese society, ultimately to cockfighting, which is about as ground level as an observer can get. Do you think the best way to understand Americans today might be to research professional wrestling? If so, to researchers interested in investigating this corner of our culture, I might provide some insight into the careers of Dick The Bruiser or Pretty Boy Bobby Heenan, later known as Bobby The Brain Heenan.
I found the discussion of both ideology and nationalism particularly relevant to our recent political experience. I imagine that many social scientists through the years have presumed that the era of enlightenment would lessen the importance of parochial and ideological movements, that multiculturalism, free trade and globalism would rid us of the pernicious factions, observed historically across so many dimensions. Not so, it turns out. Rather, it seems those in control or seeking control have figured out that these powerful themes remain and have become ever more adept at the subtle practice of mass manipulation to satisfy their narrow agendas.
Somewhere in the middle of this book, I did come to question where the lines are drawn among the social sciences. Psychology, history, sociology, economics, political science, anthropology, and, as Professor Geertz remarked, even soothsaying, all seem to exist in ambiguous corridors of thought. Where does psychology end and economics begin, for example. Maybe there should just be one social science, the sub-disciplines being inventions of the career-minded? Does anyone know where I might obtain a degree in soothsaying? That seems the most practical of all.
Professor Geertz commented on the writing of Claude Lévi-Strauss, noting some of the same themes that crossed my mind when I read Tristes Tropiques, also reviewed elsewhere. Professor Geertz is a much better writer, or maybe his voice carries the weight of greater authority, or both.
What, after all, is one to make of savages? Even now, after three centuries of debate on the matter—whether they are noble, bestial, or even as you and I; whether they reason as we do, are sunk in a demented mysticism, or are possessors of higher forms of truth we have in our avarice lost; whether their customs, from cannibalism to matriliny, are mere alternatives, no better and no worse, to our own, or crude precursors of our own now outmoded, or simply passing strange, impenetrable exotica amusing to collect; whether they are bound and we are free, or we are bound and they are free—after all this we still don’t know.It’s all part of trying to make sense of our existence, which is why I think I’ll continue to read more books in this discipline. It’s likely I’ll never reach a conclusion.
April 4, 2025
There's 5 parts and frankly, part 4 stinks. Part One is a great kick-off, with the wonderful story of the Jewish merchant, the French colonial army and the Berber sheep raids, quickly followed with the often cited explanation of "thick description." More theorizing about anthropology follows, and then some really interesting bits about religion in part 3. When people speculate on future politics in 'the global south' or 'the developing world' based on anthropology, or geography, or economics... I always hate that. It always has this colonial aftertaste. As if Europe and its former settler colonies like the USA are somehow above it all. It's even worse when it's 50, 60 years old, like the essays in part 4 about postcolonial south east Asia. Knowing that he wrote his follow-up notes to these essays only a few months before the genocides of East Timor and Cambodia only makes it worse. But the final chapter, about Balinese cockfighting and about 'reading' cultural events, is thrilling.
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March 14, 2025Gna fo.
Ci riproverò.
Ci riproverò.
April 4, 2022
Essential reading for those looking to expand their knowledge on the interplay between textual and cultural studies.
Read
December 10, 2022Skimmed through this for an essay for an introductory social anthropology module. As much as I dislike Geertz's approach to ethnography and his writing style (very typical of an older generation of literary humanists), his model of culture and interpretive approach brought about some important changes in the discipline, and provides a nice framework for understanding what culture is and how it works.
January 29, 2025
I remember reading this while working in Kenya and thinking “I don’t understand half the words/concepts he’s using.” 4 years later, I can confidently say I remain ignorant of only 25% of Geertz’s thoughts haha! This book is so dense and has many references that still fly over my head, but it was a text worth revisiting. Maybe on the next pass I will have read enough to understand Geertz in his full genius.
January 15, 2015
Antropologia...No livro "A Interpretação das Culturas", no artigo "Jogo Profundo: Notas sobre a Briga de Galo em Bali"...
"O que a briga de galos diz que diz, em um vocabulário de sentimentos - é a emoção do risco, o desespero da perda, o prazer do triunfo. Assim, o que diz não é apenas que o risco é excitante, a perda deprimente, ou o triunfo gratificantes, tautologias banais de afeto, mas que é destas emoções, assim exemplificadas, que a sociedade é construída e indivíduos são colocado juntos. Ir às brigas de galos e participar delas é, para o balinês, uma espécie de educação sentimental."
Clifford Geertz, diz que a Cultura é formada por teias de significados tecidas pelo homem. Significados atribuídos pelos homens às suas acções e a eles próprios...
...
Ainda sobre os galos,é um ritual,um passatempo e um fenómeno cognitivo e emocional!Tem vários significados já que existe uma tendência,quase por questões de sobrevivência,do homem atribuir significado a tudo o que faz!!!
Mas as dinâmicas sociais e seus significados não chegam por si só para compreender uma comunidade!Há significados imaginativos e simbólicos que ultrapassam o entendimento de um homem comum...( o homem comum é o que luta com galos).
"O que a briga de galos diz que diz, em um vocabulário de sentimentos - é a emoção do risco, o desespero da perda, o prazer do triunfo. Assim, o que diz não é apenas que o risco é excitante, a perda deprimente, ou o triunfo gratificantes, tautologias banais de afeto, mas que é destas emoções, assim exemplificadas, que a sociedade é construída e indivíduos são colocado juntos. Ir às brigas de galos e participar delas é, para o balinês, uma espécie de educação sentimental."
Clifford Geertz, diz que a Cultura é formada por teias de significados tecidas pelo homem. Significados atribuídos pelos homens às suas acções e a eles próprios...
...
Ainda sobre os galos,é um ritual,um passatempo e um fenómeno cognitivo e emocional!Tem vários significados já que existe uma tendência,quase por questões de sobrevivência,do homem atribuir significado a tudo o que faz!!!
Mas as dinâmicas sociais e seus significados não chegam por si só para compreender uma comunidade!Há significados imaginativos e simbólicos que ultrapassam o entendimento de um homem comum...( o homem comum é o que luta com galos).
October 21, 2012
It's a bit dense, but a must read.
August 11, 2013
- لا يمكن تفويت هذا الكتاب، من أهم الكتب الذي تناولت الثقافة
July 3, 2023
A classic of social anthropology, and also of religious studies, Clifford Geertz's "Interpretation of Cultures" argues that ethnographers' main task is "thick description" of social phenomena. "Thick description" allows the ethnographer to draw her conclusions from the data itself, and secondarily from works of theory. Theory is essential, of course, but it cannot take social anthropology into abstract ivory towers that became out of touch with reality. One of Geertz's main tools for remaining grounded in reality is symbols. Indeed, for him, culture is a context in which construable signs (symbols) can be interpreted (i.e., thickly described). This allows the ethnographer to focus on concrete actions rather than all-encompassing frameworks when studying cultures. Symbols also allow the anthropologist to study social change, something that a static Durkheimian model does not permit.
There is much to love about Geertz's "Interpretation of Cultures." He has a remarkable sensitivity to the cultures he studies, the limitations and potentialities of anthropological analysis, and a delightful, quiet humor running throughout the book. A thoroughly enjoyable read.
There is much to love about Geertz's "Interpretation of Cultures." He has a remarkable sensitivity to the cultures he studies, the limitations and potentialities of anthropological analysis, and a delightful, quiet humor running throughout the book. A thoroughly enjoyable read.
Want to read
June 21, 2022Here Clifford Geertz and his famous cockf i ght remain the model, because through his exemplary analysis we are brought to see something of the complexity of the grati-f i cations of ritualized performances, with the modelling of chronic rivalries, the purging of the bitter residue of 490 Notes to pages 338–40 daily politesse, the inversion of aesthetics, the avowal of the unavowable. Clifford Geertz, ‘Deep Play: Notes on the Bali-nese Cockf i ght’, in The Interpretation of Cultures pp. 412–53, esp. 449
From aztecs
From aztecs
September 24, 2018
Geertz threw down the gauntlet at social science, defining a generation of anthropologists in the process. When I first read this text back in college, I was enticed by the logic and liberation of his “thick description.”
Only later would I realize how big a threat Geertz posed to the inter generational project of legitimizing anthropology to the scientific community. Several of my mentors regarded him with at least a little scorn.
Like all the great ethnographers, he emerged from his fieldwork with not only insights of his host culture, but also with a key for understanding the human condition. Limitations and miscalculations aside, this text matters because, like Boas, Mead, Levi-Strauss, et al, it rebirthed the enterprise.
Only later would I realize how big a threat Geertz posed to the inter generational project of legitimizing anthropology to the scientific community. Several of my mentors regarded him with at least a little scorn.
Like all the great ethnographers, he emerged from his fieldwork with not only insights of his host culture, but also with a key for understanding the human condition. Limitations and miscalculations aside, this text matters because, like Boas, Mead, Levi-Strauss, et al, it rebirthed the enterprise.
October 16, 2017
Another classic of sociology. That doesn't mean that it's not really hard to get through, and you should definitely read Durkheim, and Weber, and Freud first, since he responds to them.
October 10, 2025
shutupshutupshutuppppp
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September 6, 2025Sadly, here we get introduced to the Geertz who is, as I said to a friend and was chided for it for being tendentious, "problematic." He is still a lovely thinker and a wonderful writer (god, why can't we have more wonderful writers?). He is still worth listening to and studying and is a tremendously well-read intellectual I will continue to learn from. But now we have a few buts.
And what I'm about to say isn't entirely fair, because there were long passages of this book I found extremely educational, but I'm going to focus on the things that I had a problem with, as critics are wont to do.
The first problem for me is that, the book, published in 1973, is through and through such a work of dyed in the wool liberal cold war theorizing that it literally smells of H Arendt and I Berlin. And, listen, I enjoy Arendt's cool intelligence and Greco-Latin musings (I've read most of her books for a reason) and I also get a kick out of Berlin's distanced and contemplative ideas about Romanticism, and I will continue to read and enjoy them for those things, but all three drip with casual distain for "communism" and "Marxism" in a way only a post-WW2 European intellectual whose reasoning gets muddled as soon as they touch anything slightly red they're so awash with their own middle class ideology can. It feels old and musty at this point and their pontificating just irritates me.
Sadly, again, that's not the only thing that rubbed me the wrong way amidst his elegance and smooth sailing writing (extremely pleasing aesthetically) and his easy-to-follow-yet-always-enticing weaving of fields and ideas (extremely pleasing intellectually) and the other thing is of course related to the first: he wants us to refocus on "culture" and move away from that pesky material (read: Marxist) analysis so many people were doing. "The culture of a people is an ensemble of texts" (pg 452, 1975 edition with Basic Books) is the kind of first stirrings of postmodernism sentence that makes me roll my eyes. The orientalism is just straining to get out and P Bourdieu is behind me saying, "lives are not stories, they're lives."
What kind of pitfalls do we encounter thinking people are books we can parse? And, no less urgently, what problems are involved in using the incredibly bourgeois and individualistic artform of "novels" as a stand-in for human existence tout court? I would argue they are many and quite deep in fact. The whole subjugation of regions has been midwifed by treating people like literary quandaries, a birth facilitated by Said's "textual attitude."
In other slightly unfair aspects that damned, for me, most (but not all by far) of the book, Geertz glosses over the Indonesian coup of 1965, a mere seven years prior to publication, and relegates the mass murders to a footnote in a long essay on the Balinese cockfight, which, he argues, can be made to stand in for Balinese struggles over status and masculinity. This incredible tragedy and upheaval (the coup and subsequent mass killings I mean) is absolutely screaming for comment and for a man who is so fixated on interpretation, Geertz's silence ends up conveying a lot.
To be fair, he makes very clear that cockfighting is just a part, one of many, of the Balinese construction of self (although even the idea that there is such a thing as a "national character" makes me wince), but he does connect their interest in cockfighting, and how violent the fights are, once again, in a long much couched footnote, to the terrible violence that wiped out the communist party on the islands. I know next to nothing about Indonesia (something I need to remedy), but I do know that that violence had everything to do with the cold war and the CIA and not very much at all to do with bloody cockfights.
And this, my friends, is the problem (or my problem) with a culture-focused (a culturist) analysis of life as a community: it erases political agency and action and distills it and makes it digestible and controllable and observable as "culture." It separates and defines a "people" and makes them an object, not subjects in their own history. A foreign culture can be strange or exotic perhaps, but not all that dangerous and definitely not like "us," and surely not something we also do, definitely not that.
And what I'm about to say isn't entirely fair, because there were long passages of this book I found extremely educational, but I'm going to focus on the things that I had a problem with, as critics are wont to do.
The first problem for me is that, the book, published in 1973, is through and through such a work of dyed in the wool liberal cold war theorizing that it literally smells of H Arendt and I Berlin. And, listen, I enjoy Arendt's cool intelligence and Greco-Latin musings (I've read most of her books for a reason) and I also get a kick out of Berlin's distanced and contemplative ideas about Romanticism, and I will continue to read and enjoy them for those things, but all three drip with casual distain for "communism" and "Marxism" in a way only a post-WW2 European intellectual whose reasoning gets muddled as soon as they touch anything slightly red they're so awash with their own middle class ideology can. It feels old and musty at this point and their pontificating just irritates me.
Sadly, again, that's not the only thing that rubbed me the wrong way amidst his elegance and smooth sailing writing (extremely pleasing aesthetically) and his easy-to-follow-yet-always-enticing weaving of fields and ideas (extremely pleasing intellectually) and the other thing is of course related to the first: he wants us to refocus on "culture" and move away from that pesky material (read: Marxist) analysis so many people were doing. "The culture of a people is an ensemble of texts" (pg 452, 1975 edition with Basic Books) is the kind of first stirrings of postmodernism sentence that makes me roll my eyes. The orientalism is just straining to get out and P Bourdieu is behind me saying, "lives are not stories, they're lives."
What kind of pitfalls do we encounter thinking people are books we can parse? And, no less urgently, what problems are involved in using the incredibly bourgeois and individualistic artform of "novels" as a stand-in for human existence tout court? I would argue they are many and quite deep in fact. The whole subjugation of regions has been midwifed by treating people like literary quandaries, a birth facilitated by Said's "textual attitude."
In other slightly unfair aspects that damned, for me, most (but not all by far) of the book, Geertz glosses over the Indonesian coup of 1965, a mere seven years prior to publication, and relegates the mass murders to a footnote in a long essay on the Balinese cockfight, which, he argues, can be made to stand in for Balinese struggles over status and masculinity. This incredible tragedy and upheaval (the coup and subsequent mass killings I mean) is absolutely screaming for comment and for a man who is so fixated on interpretation, Geertz's silence ends up conveying a lot.
To be fair, he makes very clear that cockfighting is just a part, one of many, of the Balinese construction of self (although even the idea that there is such a thing as a "national character" makes me wince), but he does connect their interest in cockfighting, and how violent the fights are, once again, in a long much couched footnote, to the terrible violence that wiped out the communist party on the islands. I know next to nothing about Indonesia (something I need to remedy), but I do know that that violence had everything to do with the cold war and the CIA and not very much at all to do with bloody cockfights.
And this, my friends, is the problem (or my problem) with a culture-focused (a culturist) analysis of life as a community: it erases political agency and action and distills it and makes it digestible and controllable and observable as "culture." It separates and defines a "people" and makes them an object, not subjects in their own history. A foreign culture can be strange or exotic perhaps, but not all that dangerous and definitely not like "us," and surely not something we also do, definitely not that.
Read
December 27, 2020An absolute powerhouse of a book. Some of the writing can be hard to take in (slog through) given Geertz' extended prose and scholarly prowess, but ultimately his ability to elucidate concrete events and circumstances grounds the book in powerful ethnography. The most captivating of the essays are those which focus on the ground truth of culture in Bali, where Geertz' ethnographies exemplify the notion of thick description. More than that, though, Geertz' clear genius is in proposing (and perhaps laying the groundwork for, though in a very disjointed manner) a rendering of cultural anthropology as a positive science by channeling it through the lens of
Several of the essays, such as "Thick Description," I assume must be somewhat standard reading material in anthropology, and for good reason.
"The Growth of Culture and the Evolution of Mind" is an intriguing essay, and as a synthesis of (at the time) cutting edge ideas, serves as a very representative sample of the trend toward dynamical : semblances of culture in other species (citing DeVore with respect to non-human primates, but see "The Biology of Traditions" by Fragaszy & Perry for a more recent foray); ideas of neural evolution strongly informed by Hebb and others which are still clearly dominant today, including what sounds like an early formulation of 'flow'; early hints of Sutton's "Bitter Truth"; the notion of thinking being a public act, with private thought a derivative (to my surprise I have not seen this idea directly taken up or challenged in the context of social cognition e.g. Michael Tomasello; nor in the contemplative and phenomenological sciences); imaginal thinking as an implement of what we now call 'predictive coding'; reflective thought and its connection to insight and aporia; and ultimately, the very Geertzian conclusion that human cognition relies on "the accessibility of public symbolic structures to build up its own autonomous, ongoing pattern of activity."
"Religion as a Cultural System" is, likewise, a tour de force and a must read for anyone interested in contemplative sciences or religious studies; and I should think very much aligned with what Vervaeke calls "religio" (a sort-of semiotic binding of oneself to the world which is taken to, a priori, orient our mode of perception and action).
"Ethos, World View, and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols" takes this semiotic binding into the concree, with Geertz dissecting many fascinating aspects of Javanese religion.
"Ideology as a Cultural System" is another delightful read, and very enlightening to read. Ideology is perennial. but reading this in 2020 does feel timely. The rest of Part IV is largely focused on the "new states" as of the time of writing (Indonesia, Malaya, Burma, India, Lebanon, Morocco, and Nigeria). This is a very piercing analysis, and a good primer for someone largely unfamiliar with the politics in these countries in the twentieth century.
Part V contains three miscellaneous essays, which are quite a bit lighter and more fun to read. "Person, Time, and Conduct in Bali" is a really compelling breakdown of how the Balinese perceive others; and "Deep Play" as others have remarked, can perhaps only be described as a romp.
"All ethnography is part philosophy, and a good deal of the rest is confession."
Several of the essays, such as "Thick Description," I assume must be somewhat standard reading material in anthropology, and for good reason.
"The Growth of Culture and the Evolution of Mind" is an intriguing essay, and as a synthesis of (at the time) cutting edge ideas, serves as a very representative sample of the trend toward dynamical : semblances of culture in other species (citing DeVore with respect to non-human primates, but see "The Biology of Traditions" by Fragaszy & Perry for a more recent foray); ideas of neural evolution strongly informed by Hebb and others which are still clearly dominant today, including what sounds like an early formulation of 'flow'; early hints of Sutton's "Bitter Truth"; the notion of thinking being a public act, with private thought a derivative (to my surprise I have not seen this idea directly taken up or challenged in the context of social cognition e.g. Michael Tomasello; nor in the contemplative and phenomenological sciences); imaginal thinking as an implement of what we now call 'predictive coding'; reflective thought and its connection to insight and aporia; and ultimately, the very Geertzian conclusion that human cognition relies on "the accessibility of public symbolic structures to build up its own autonomous, ongoing pattern of activity."
"Religion as a Cultural System" is, likewise, a tour de force and a must read for anyone interested in contemplative sciences or religious studies; and I should think very much aligned with what Vervaeke calls "religio" (a sort-of semiotic binding of oneself to the world which is taken to, a priori, orient our mode of perception and action).
"Ethos, World View, and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols" takes this semiotic binding into the concree, with Geertz dissecting many fascinating aspects of Javanese religion.
"Ideology as a Cultural System" is another delightful read, and very enlightening to read. Ideology is perennial. but reading this in 2020 does feel timely. The rest of Part IV is largely focused on the "new states" as of the time of writing (Indonesia, Malaya, Burma, India, Lebanon, Morocco, and Nigeria). This is a very piercing analysis, and a good primer for someone largely unfamiliar with the politics in these countries in the twentieth century.
Part V contains three miscellaneous essays, which are quite a bit lighter and more fun to read. "Person, Time, and Conduct in Bali" is a really compelling breakdown of how the Balinese perceive others; and "Deep Play" as others have remarked, can perhaps only be described as a romp.
"All ethnography is part philosophy, and a good deal of the rest is confession."
February 3, 2020
We read excerpts of this book for an online course I was taking in college; I enjoyed the excerpts enough that I decided to finish the book. It took me quite a bit longer to finish than I expected, but there is a lot to digest in this book. It is not a quick 'done and gone' book; it has a lot of depth and humor to it. I also thought it was interesting how he kept pointing out that people who study other cultures and then right about what they observe tend to be blinded by their own . . . "prejudices" or preconceived notions; he admitted he fell into this category as well. He does not hold back with his observations, either, when it comes to looking at other theories as to why people behave the way they do, believe what they do. I never fully realized the diversity of beliefs in the world until after reading this book; the world tends to be lumped into one of seven "major religions" with footnotes for "minor religions" that do not fit into the three major western religions or four major eastern religions, and it is easy to forget (or, not think about) the numbers of other people who have religious beliefs that do not fit into the big (primary) seven.
While he talks about different religious beliefs around the world, doing some unique (and "excellent") comparisons and contrasts, he focuses mostly on Bali, Indonesia, and Morocco, as those are the countries in which he spent most of his time abroad, studying other cultures. He has some interesting viewpoints, observations, and anecdotes throughout the entire book. Also, he came across as trying to be respectful of all religious beliefs, too, which was interesting to read.
One thing that stood out to me over the course of the entire book was when he said "early on" that "we don't know what we think until we see what we say." Probably one of the 'best quotes' in the book, in my opinion. In any case, the book was filled with excellent observations, quotable lines, and memorable observations.
This book was quite readable; that being the case, there was a lot that I am sure went over my head (even if only because I do not normally think in terms of the way the book was written). It gave me headaches more than once while reading, but I think the headaches were worth it (in the end, 'cause I assumed they meant my brain was working 'hard' to understand what was being said and/or presented in the book). Each chapter is broken up into five subsections, and each subsection builds upon the one prior. I would say there were more 'humorous moments' toward the end of the book, because he told more anecdotal stories about his experiences while living amidst the indigenous people he was studying. All in all, it was a fun, fascinating book to read, and I could easily see myself reading it again (partly because of how much I am sure I missed the first time around). I am glad I took the time to finish reading it.
While he talks about different religious beliefs around the world, doing some unique (and "excellent") comparisons and contrasts, he focuses mostly on Bali, Indonesia, and Morocco, as those are the countries in which he spent most of his time abroad, studying other cultures. He has some interesting viewpoints, observations, and anecdotes throughout the entire book. Also, he came across as trying to be respectful of all religious beliefs, too, which was interesting to read.
One thing that stood out to me over the course of the entire book was when he said "early on" that "we don't know what we think until we see what we say." Probably one of the 'best quotes' in the book, in my opinion. In any case, the book was filled with excellent observations, quotable lines, and memorable observations.
This book was quite readable; that being the case, there was a lot that I am sure went over my head (even if only because I do not normally think in terms of the way the book was written). It gave me headaches more than once while reading, but I think the headaches were worth it (in the end, 'cause I assumed they meant my brain was working 'hard' to understand what was being said and/or presented in the book). Each chapter is broken up into five subsections, and each subsection builds upon the one prior. I would say there were more 'humorous moments' toward the end of the book, because he told more anecdotal stories about his experiences while living amidst the indigenous people he was studying. All in all, it was a fun, fascinating book to read, and I could easily see myself reading it again (partly because of how much I am sure I missed the first time around). I am glad I took the time to finish reading it.
July 7, 2018
I came back from Indonesia in 2012 all ready to read Geertz, but I never got around to it until now. This collection of essays around the concept of culture — what is it, and how can/should we study it? — is a classic that holds up very well. (Caveat emptor: I'm not an anthropologist.)
I especially liked "Ritual and Social Change: A Javanese Example." It describes how a funeral in a village became an event of confusion and unhappiness because of changing times — not so much modernization per se as the development of politics. The people of the village always had Muslim funerals, presided over by a man qualified to do so. But as new political parties arose after independence, some parties are distinctly Muslim and some are not. As the family of the deceased belonged to a non-Muslim political faction, it became obvious that they were other than Muslim, and the presiding fellow declined to direct the rituals. But there was no other kind of funeral, and no one to run one, and the family really wanted the typical Muslim affair. It was a fascinating case, as are most of those in the book.
I was disappointed by "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight," which is deservedly famous, but not as interesting to me as many of the other essays here. Anything about ideology and its relationship to culture seemed particularly relevant in today's United States (2018) — sadly enough. Anything about religion was immensely interesting to me. I was also struck, repeatedly, by Geertz's references to other scholars, past and contemporary, and the apparent depth of his familiarity with their work.
I think the dullest essay was "The Integrative Revolution," about the evolution of several of what Geertz called "the new states" (Indonesia, Malaya, Burma, India, Lebanon, Morocco, Nigeria), mainly because it was much less about culture and more about how the states were shaping up as states, post-colonially. That reminds me, though, that I really enjoyed reading what Geertz had to say about Morocco. I might seek out more of what he wrote about that country, where he also did fieldwork.
Overall, I'm very glad to have read this. It's been especially interesting to be reading Benedict Anderson's A Life Beyond Boundaries for the last week as I finished the last few essays in this book.
I especially liked "Ritual and Social Change: A Javanese Example." It describes how a funeral in a village became an event of confusion and unhappiness because of changing times — not so much modernization per se as the development of politics. The people of the village always had Muslim funerals, presided over by a man qualified to do so. But as new political parties arose after independence, some parties are distinctly Muslim and some are not. As the family of the deceased belonged to a non-Muslim political faction, it became obvious that they were other than Muslim, and the presiding fellow declined to direct the rituals. But there was no other kind of funeral, and no one to run one, and the family really wanted the typical Muslim affair. It was a fascinating case, as are most of those in the book.
I was disappointed by "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight," which is deservedly famous, but not as interesting to me as many of the other essays here. Anything about ideology and its relationship to culture seemed particularly relevant in today's United States (2018) — sadly enough. Anything about religion was immensely interesting to me. I was also struck, repeatedly, by Geertz's references to other scholars, past and contemporary, and the apparent depth of his familiarity with their work.
I think the dullest essay was "The Integrative Revolution," about the evolution of several of what Geertz called "the new states" (Indonesia, Malaya, Burma, India, Lebanon, Morocco, Nigeria), mainly because it was much less about culture and more about how the states were shaping up as states, post-colonially. That reminds me, though, that I really enjoyed reading what Geertz had to say about Morocco. I might seek out more of what he wrote about that country, where he also did fieldwork.
Overall, I'm very glad to have read this. It's been especially interesting to be reading Benedict Anderson's A Life Beyond Boundaries for the last week as I finished the last few essays in this book.
December 8, 2023
Geertz used an ontological lens to comparatively study groups and their respective behaviors, actions, and organization. He approached this with a “thick description” lens, which was characterized by incorporating a group’s ethos into the interpretation of their worldview and its respective implications. By doing this, Geertz explained that the anthropologist would not just be describing the group through their own lens, but describing how the people who live within that respective group view their own life experience and orient it to their own ethos and worldview. By incorporating these paramount social contexts, anthropologists can actually involve the realities of the insider to the research and findings of the outsider. By understanding the meanings that symbols convey to those who see them in that manner, a less biased perception can be had and a truer understanding can be had. This “thick description” involves not just the researcher’s view of the life experience, but also the ones living the actual experience.
Ultimately, I think Geertz feels that myth is more important for the sudy of religious cultures because he focuses on the significance of symbols within a culture. In fact, I think Geertz would see the ritual as symbolic of the myth, which alludes to the idea of the former being more important to him regarding religions. He stated, “...that which is set apart as more than mundane is inevitably considered to have far-reaching implications for the direction of human conduct” (Geertz, 126). This statement highlights Geertz’s outlook on the importance of myth. A sacred myth dictates human conduct, of which rituals definitely are. If myths dictate human conduct, then Geertz would likely say that myth is more religiously important than the ritual. Although, the ritual and myth are reciprocal binders of a groups values, morals, and ideals to their perspective of the world and their role within it. In this manner, ritual binds the ethos and the worldview together through human interaction. Geertz explained this concept by presenting the Javanese example of tjotjog stating, “...two items tjotjog when their coincidence forms a coherent pattern which gives to each a significance and a value it does not in itself have” (Geertz, 129). However, Geertz claimed this concept was universal and found throughout all cultures, but varies wildly. This is why he called for the “thick description”, in the first place.
I feel like Geertz had many strengths in his approach. First and foremost, and quite possibly the most obvious– is that took an initiative to advocate for incorporating the actual ethos and worldview of the people living within these religious and social contexts into account. So many of our previous theorists this semester not only failed to do that, but outright refused to acknowledge their own lens was tainting their perception, and thereby their findings. This is progress for anthropology, if you ask me. This is the game-changer. You cannot observe another group of people precisely and report on them, without incorporating their beliefs in some fashion. Yes, many of the theorists we’ve read incorporated the beliefs of the people they studied, but in a condescending, patronizing, condemning way. I have always argued that symbols play such a huge role in religion and will continue to do so. Geertz knew that symbols wield most of the power in a religious concept. His theory that rituals held together ethos and worldview through use of symbolism is monumentally important when studying all religions. This is especially true when you’re studying one of which you’re not a part of. I feel like this was an effort to call for the discarding of your own personal bias, beliefs, and lenses when studying other religions and cultures. This is a step toward scientific study, in the sense of quality of research. However, I found several ideas scattered among the good ones that I did not care too much for. His appreciation of Paul Radin is cool, because I feel like Radin’s efforts were genuine, even though their were some Eurocentric concepts there, as well. Referring to Radin without mentioning that, is somewhat sketchy, in my book. You can appreciate Radin and his extensive efforts while also mentioning his lenses clouded his findings and the reporting thereof. The work he referenced was literally titled “Primitive Man as a Philosopher”. So, again- I find this contradictory for both Radin and now, Geertz. If you’re truly trying to incorporate the ethos and worldview of the culture you’re researching and reporting on, you must discard that literal and industrial lens. Judging and labeling a culture/religion based on their location on some literate/illiterate or industrial/preindustrial spectrum is taking the long route at disagreeing with yourself in the case of both Radin and Geertz. These people were literate in their own sense and ways of literacy. These people were industrial in their own sense of industry. While I confirm that Geertz was trying to head the right way in arguing the necessity of doing away with all of this, he wasn’t exactly taking his own advice. In addition, Geertz considered the Indigenous people in a way that most scholars we’ve read thus far significantly failed to. When he was discussing Radin’s findings of the symbolic relationship between the circle and their ethos and worldview, he missed something very important. He may have been taking the very long route at finding the point, but he failed to come to a grand conclusion, if you ask me. He stated, “Here is a subtle formulation of the relation between good and evil, and of their grounding in the very nature of reality” (Geertz, 128). He goes on and on about how important the circle is and why it’s found through nature, etc. Yet, he doesn’t acknowledge that these people think nature is sacred. Yes, he claimed the circular patterns in life dictate symbols that dictate ritual that dictate order and worldview that reinforce the symbol. Yet, he should’ve just came out with it; these people saw nature as the sacred. He was coming to the point, but never fully made it there. Instead, he concluded that these rituals were performed, “...to construe mythologically the peculiar paradoxes and anomalies of moral experience…” (Geertz, 128). I just think of the commercial with the old-timer fisherman hanging the dollar in front of the individual and they keep trying to grab it, but he yanks it away saying, “You almost had it”. Geertz almost had it. In fact, he went full circle around the notion, but never stopped to make his point. However, he had so many great points that it’s hard to be too critical of him. I feel like he hit the nail on the head when he explained that not incorporating these religious subjects’ ethos and worldview and their experience within them was akin to, “...not so much as as stupid, insensitive, unlearned…mad” (Geertz, 129). I like a scholar who has conviction. Yet, once again– I found him contradicting himself a couple pages later calling Navajo tradition obsessive and Aztec tradition cruel. These people who were/are within these traditions didn’t see those traditions as cruel. So, I feel like he was making a conscious effort to overcome the problems, but still had some unlearning to do.
Clifford Geertz, “Ethos, World View, and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols,” in Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (Basic Books, 1973), 126-141.
Ultimately, I think Geertz feels that myth is more important for the sudy of religious cultures because he focuses on the significance of symbols within a culture. In fact, I think Geertz would see the ritual as symbolic of the myth, which alludes to the idea of the former being more important to him regarding religions. He stated, “...that which is set apart as more than mundane is inevitably considered to have far-reaching implications for the direction of human conduct” (Geertz, 126). This statement highlights Geertz’s outlook on the importance of myth. A sacred myth dictates human conduct, of which rituals definitely are. If myths dictate human conduct, then Geertz would likely say that myth is more religiously important than the ritual. Although, the ritual and myth are reciprocal binders of a groups values, morals, and ideals to their perspective of the world and their role within it. In this manner, ritual binds the ethos and the worldview together through human interaction. Geertz explained this concept by presenting the Javanese example of tjotjog stating, “...two items tjotjog when their coincidence forms a coherent pattern which gives to each a significance and a value it does not in itself have” (Geertz, 129). However, Geertz claimed this concept was universal and found throughout all cultures, but varies wildly. This is why he called for the “thick description”, in the first place.
I feel like Geertz had many strengths in his approach. First and foremost, and quite possibly the most obvious– is that took an initiative to advocate for incorporating the actual ethos and worldview of the people living within these religious and social contexts into account. So many of our previous theorists this semester not only failed to do that, but outright refused to acknowledge their own lens was tainting their perception, and thereby their findings. This is progress for anthropology, if you ask me. This is the game-changer. You cannot observe another group of people precisely and report on them, without incorporating their beliefs in some fashion. Yes, many of the theorists we’ve read incorporated the beliefs of the people they studied, but in a condescending, patronizing, condemning way. I have always argued that symbols play such a huge role in religion and will continue to do so. Geertz knew that symbols wield most of the power in a religious concept. His theory that rituals held together ethos and worldview through use of symbolism is monumentally important when studying all religions. This is especially true when you’re studying one of which you’re not a part of. I feel like this was an effort to call for the discarding of your own personal bias, beliefs, and lenses when studying other religions and cultures. This is a step toward scientific study, in the sense of quality of research. However, I found several ideas scattered among the good ones that I did not care too much for. His appreciation of Paul Radin is cool, because I feel like Radin’s efforts were genuine, even though their were some Eurocentric concepts there, as well. Referring to Radin without mentioning that, is somewhat sketchy, in my book. You can appreciate Radin and his extensive efforts while also mentioning his lenses clouded his findings and the reporting thereof. The work he referenced was literally titled “Primitive Man as a Philosopher”. So, again- I find this contradictory for both Radin and now, Geertz. If you’re truly trying to incorporate the ethos and worldview of the culture you’re researching and reporting on, you must discard that literal and industrial lens. Judging and labeling a culture/religion based on their location on some literate/illiterate or industrial/preindustrial spectrum is taking the long route at disagreeing with yourself in the case of both Radin and Geertz. These people were literate in their own sense and ways of literacy. These people were industrial in their own sense of industry. While I confirm that Geertz was trying to head the right way in arguing the necessity of doing away with all of this, he wasn’t exactly taking his own advice. In addition, Geertz considered the Indigenous people in a way that most scholars we’ve read thus far significantly failed to. When he was discussing Radin’s findings of the symbolic relationship between the circle and their ethos and worldview, he missed something very important. He may have been taking the very long route at finding the point, but he failed to come to a grand conclusion, if you ask me. He stated, “Here is a subtle formulation of the relation between good and evil, and of their grounding in the very nature of reality” (Geertz, 128). He goes on and on about how important the circle is and why it’s found through nature, etc. Yet, he doesn’t acknowledge that these people think nature is sacred. Yes, he claimed the circular patterns in life dictate symbols that dictate ritual that dictate order and worldview that reinforce the symbol. Yet, he should’ve just came out with it; these people saw nature as the sacred. He was coming to the point, but never fully made it there. Instead, he concluded that these rituals were performed, “...to construe mythologically the peculiar paradoxes and anomalies of moral experience…” (Geertz, 128). I just think of the commercial with the old-timer fisherman hanging the dollar in front of the individual and they keep trying to grab it, but he yanks it away saying, “You almost had it”. Geertz almost had it. In fact, he went full circle around the notion, but never stopped to make his point. However, he had so many great points that it’s hard to be too critical of him. I feel like he hit the nail on the head when he explained that not incorporating these religious subjects’ ethos and worldview and their experience within them was akin to, “...not so much as as stupid, insensitive, unlearned…mad” (Geertz, 129). I like a scholar who has conviction. Yet, once again– I found him contradicting himself a couple pages later calling Navajo tradition obsessive and Aztec tradition cruel. These people who were/are within these traditions didn’t see those traditions as cruel. So, I feel like he was making a conscious effort to overcome the problems, but still had some unlearning to do.
Clifford Geertz, “Ethos, World View, and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols,” in Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (Basic Books, 1973), 126-141.
August 21, 2007
I've read a couple of essays in this book before, and figured that I should reread them, considering how seminal Geertz has been in my own field, and how influential at my university (for example, his influence on the early New Historicists). The most important sections would be (I believe) his introductory essay, "Thick Description: Toward and Interpretive Theory of Culture" and "Notes on a Balinese Cockfight". I believe the latter is one of his best known examples of his "Thick Description" in practice. My late professor Alan Dundes edited a casebook on the Balinese Cockfight which I hope to read (I've heard a presentation on it). Dundes, of course, takes a hard-line Freudian approach in contrast to Geertz' "symbolic analysis". While I admit that Dundes has a tendency to get a bit extreme in his analysis, I thought he made a very good case for his own reading. While Geertz seems to be more concerned with understanding culture according to native competence in the native semiotic milieu, I think there is certainly room for analysis of the unconscious side of culture-- though it is true that there is a lot of room for abuse in that area.
May 15, 2007
Okay, I acknowledge your reservations about Clifford Geertz. Lots of people have reservations about Clifford Geertz. Benedict Anderson, for example, has reservations about Clifford Geertz, as do I. I acknowledge your concern that Geertz's "semiotic approach to the study of culture" may be inherently--irredeemably--slippery, woolly-headed flimflam papered over with a raft of highbrow references and a better than average prose style
But whatever, I defy anyone to read "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight," the final essay in this collection, without laughing aloud. And isn't that why we read anthropology, for the yuks?
But whatever, I defy anyone to read "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight," the final essay in this collection, without laughing aloud. And isn't that why we read anthropology, for the yuks?
March 30, 2020
This book can be a bit dense.
However, if you re-read certain essays you can take away some very important messages from Geertz that have proven to be foundations social anthropology today. His analyses of religion, ideology and the politics of meaning break down the subjects into their respective elements, tracing each one to its sociopolitical roots as a construct of culture. He paints the caveats of biological development in conjunction with the development of culture excellently, presenting that the two are not mutually exclusive.
Would definitely recommend this book to someone who is willing to take their time.
However, if you re-read certain essays you can take away some very important messages from Geertz that have proven to be foundations social anthropology today. His analyses of religion, ideology and the politics of meaning break down the subjects into their respective elements, tracing each one to its sociopolitical roots as a construct of culture. He paints the caveats of biological development in conjunction with the development of culture excellently, presenting that the two are not mutually exclusive.
Would definitely recommend this book to someone who is willing to take their time.
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