The Interpretation of Cultures

An Outline of:
The Interpretation of Cultures

Aurora, Christine, Olivia, Emma, Marika
I. Introduction:
Clifford Geertz was a prominent American anthropologist in the 20th and 21st centuries.
He pioneered what is known as “interpretive social science,” a social science that aims to
understand what “institutions, actions, images, utterances, events, and customs” mean to the
people who create and use them1. Geertz combined social sciences and humanities to transform
the understanding of culture. He was a leader in his field, and his associations with Cold War
centers for multidisciplinary learning such as Princeton’s Institution for Advanced Study allowed
him to work closely with other scholars and to teach his anthropological theories. His main focus
was on the culture of Indonesian and Moroccan societies, and much of his work stems from
fieldwork observations there. The Interpretation of Cultures is what Geertz coined an
“anthropological argument”2 that encapsulates essays written in the 1960s about Indonesia, the
idea of culture, religion, politics, and many other themes. Together, these essays provide
evidence and insight into Geertz’s theories about culture.
II. Biography
A. Early Childhood
1. Clifford James Geertz Jr. was born in San Francisco in August of 1926, to
parents Lois and Clifford Geertz Sr.3
a) His parents divorced when he was aged 7 in early 1932
B. Education
1. Geertz Jr. attend Santa Rosa High School until June of 1943, in which he
graduated at 17 due to his early birth
a) He had earned the position of editor within his school’s newspaper
and dreamed of becoming a journalist after university
2. After his enlistment in the U.S. Navy towards the end of WWII, Geertz
enrolled at the Antioch College of Ohio, where he would earn his
Bachelors in philosophy
3. In 1956, Geertz completed his postgraduate degree at Harvard University4
4. Furthermore, he received honorary doctorate degrees from around 15
universities including Cambridge, Harvard, and the University of Chicago5
C. Career
1. In autumn of 1943, Clifford Geertz entered the U.S. Navy Corps
1
Clifford Geertz: Life. Institute for Advanced Study. (2020, October 13). Retrieved November 3, 2021, from
https://www.ias.edu/geertz-life.
2
Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, xii.
3
“Clifford Geertz,” Biography, accessed November 5, 2021, https://biography.yourdictionary.com/clifford-geertz.
4
“Clifford Geertz,” Encyclopædia Britannica (Encyclopædia Britannica, inc.), accessed November 5, 2021,
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Clifford-Geertz.
5
“Clifford Geertz,” Encyclopædia Britannica (Encyclopædia Britannica, inc.), accessed November 5, 2021,
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Clifford-Geertz.
a) He never once served on the frontlines, but rather acted as a
communications specialist in the background of many vital battles
b) He ended his voluntary service in July of 1945
2. 1952-1958: Geertz was employed at MIT where he worked in a research
position before later being promoted as a fieldwork associate
a) Through this, he was able to experience several fieldwork
assignments in Java and Bali
3. 1959-1960: He worked a year each at Stanford and then UC Berkeley,
where Geertz functioned as an assistant professor of anthropology
4. 1960-1970: Geertz stayed at the University of Chicago for a full decade6
a) At UChicago, he toiled away at an assistant position until he was
promoted to the position of a full professor of anthropology
b) Also during this period (1964-1970), Geertz work as a Senior
Research Fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health
5. 1971-2006: He settled and continued his employment as a professor of
social science at Princeton University until his death in October of 2006
D. Marriage
1. 1948: Geerts married Hildred Storey, who was a notable anthropology
professor at this time.
a) Together they had two children, Erika and Benjamin Geertz
b) Clifford and Hildred Geertz divorced in 1981 after 32 years of
marriage
2. 1987: Geertz married yet another yet another anthropologist, Karen Blu,
whom he remained with until his death
III. Historical Context:

1. Cold War
a. Social sciences in this time period were being driven by fears surrounding the
Cold War, and it played a major role in funding.7
2. The Interpretation of Cultures was published in 1973, but contained essays that had
mostly been written throughout the 60s
3. Academic and political setting of fieldwork
a. Geertz’s early fieldwork took place in Indonesia, specifically in Java and Bali,
during an optimistic era for the social sciences after the victory in WWII. Many
expected that American social science would bring about positive change.
i. Indonesia had only recently had its sovereignty recognized.
6
Guide to the clifford geertz papers 1930s-2007, accessed November 5, 2021,
https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.GEERTZC.
7
White, Ben. Clifford Geertz: Singular Genius of Interpretive Anthropology: Legacies: Clifford Geertz
Development and change, 2007-11, Vol.38 (6), p.1187-1208
ii. At the time, the U.S. had the goal of preventing communists from taking
control in poor countries.8
iii. They wanted to “assist” emerging countries with modernization and
decolonization.
b. Geertz placed his work in Indonesia in the context of the modernization theory,
which was procapitalist, anti-Communist, and focused on economic growth.9
Geertz would later distance himself from these ideas.
i. He eventually became disinterested in social engineering and even hostile
to positivist social science. His attention shifted toward developing the
theories on culture he would present in his essays.
c. Many other scholars also took “theoretical turns” around this time. The
anthropological shift in the 1960s came after the beginning of the Vietnam War.
i. Geertz himself refers to the antiwar sentiment, and the civil rights
movement to some degree, as contributing to this shift.10
d. Geertz used his later work in Negara, Bali to attempt to demonstrate the power of
ideas and symbols, and by extension that power of culture rather than economics
in shaping human life.
IV. Ideological Context:

1. Early in his career, Geertz critiqued scientific models that were used to describe social
sciences. In regards to studying culture, he argued that scientific experiments were not a
good way to understand culture; instead, we should use an interpretive approach and
isolate the elements of culture- this may look like understanding the culture’s symbols
and rituals, which he examines deeply in his novels.
2. Spending lots of time in Indonesia, he formulated many of his theories while doing
fieldwork there and used examples from the Javanese and Balinese cultures to support his
claims
a. He was a consultant for Ford Foundation on Social Sciences in Indonesia (1971)
where he was able to train social scientists to perform research differently with
interpretative intentions.
V. Cultural Surroundings:
1. Indonesian Killings of 1965-1966
a. Geertz’s essays, written in the 1960s, mainly focused on Indonesia and its culture.
Between 1956 and 1966, a period of genocide occurred throughout Indonesia
wherein the Indonesian government and other affiliated groups targeted and killed
8
Hauser-Schaublin, Brigitta. From homo politicus to immobilized icon: Clifford Geertz and shifts in anthropological
paradigms. Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia and Oceania 171, no. 2-3 (2015): 220+.
9
Hauser-Schaublin, Brigitta. From homo politicus to immobilized icon: Clifford Geertz and shifts in anthropological
paradigms. Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia and Oceania 171, no. 2-3 (2015): 220+.
10
Hauser-Schaublin, Brigitta. From homo politicus to immobilized icon: Clifford Geertz and shifts in
anthropological paradigms. Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia and Oceania 171, no.
2-3 (2015): 220+.
members of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI)11. An estimated 100,000 to 2
million Indonesians were killed and 600,000-750,000 people were imprisoned
during this time12. Surprising to many scholars, Geertz does not seriously discuss
the Indonesian Genocide in his work13. He has one footnote about it in The
Interpretation of Cultures:
i. “That what the cockfight has to say about Bali is not altogether without
perception and the disquiet it expresses about the general pattern of
Balinese life is not wholly without reason is attested by the fact that in two
weeks of December 1965, during the upheavals following the unsuccessful
coup n Djakarta, between forty and eighty thousand Balinese (in a
population of about two million) were killed, largely by one another--the
worst outburst in the country…”14
2. Cold War
a. Although Geertz does not directly analyze or write about the Cold War, much of
the institutionalization of his work took place in Cold War centers of
multidisciplinary learning. As we’ve discussed with other authors in this course,
many prominent social science academics were enlisted to work for the
government during World War Two and thus continued to associate with the
government during the Cold War15.
VI. Academic Community:

1. Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study
a. As mentioned above, social science research during the Cold War took place in
centers of multidisciplinary learning16. Geertz worked with Princeton’s Institute
for Advanced Study, one of these multidisciplinary centers 17. He not only
performed research at the IAS, but Geertz served on the faculty from 1970-2006
and was the first and founding professor of the School of Social Science18. At the
11
McGregor, Katharine E. The Indonesian Killings of 1965-1966. Portail Science Po. (2009, August 4). Retrieved
November 14, 2021, from
https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/indonesian-killings-1965-1966.html
#title1
12
McGregor, Katharine E. The Indonesian Killings of 1965-1966. Portail Science Po. (2009, August 4). Retrieved
November 14, 2021, from
https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/indonesian-killings-1965-1966.html
#title1
13
White, Ben. Professional Blindness and Missing The Mark ~ The Anthropologist’s Blind Spots: Clifford Geertz On
Class, Killings, and Communists in Indonesia. Rozenberg Quarterly. (2008, June 4). Retrieved November 14, 2021,
from
https://rozenbergquarterly.com/professional-blindness-and-missing-the-mark-the-anthropologists-blind-spots-cliffor
d-geertz-on-class-killings-and-communists-in-indonesia/
14
Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, 524-525.
15
Bessner, Daniel. “History Lecture”. HONORS 230D: History of the Social Sciences. (2021, October 18).
16
Bessner, Daniel. “History Lecture”. HONORS 230D: History of the Social Sciences. (2021, October 18).
17
18
IAS, Geertz developed what is known as “interpretive social science,”19 and
developed the School of Social Science as “a place where scholars could study
contentious social problems”20.
2. Ford Foundation
a. Geertz’s field work in Indonesia was funded by the Ford Foundation, an
organization that gives grants to advance “human welfare through reducing
poverty and promoting democratic values, peace, and educational opportunity”21.
He also was a consultant for the Ford Foundation on Social Sciences in Indonesia
in 1971 and “devised new ways to train social scientists in that country”22.
3. Center for International Studies at MIT
a. Similar to the IAS at Princeton, the Center for International Studies (CIS) at MIT
acted as a multidisciplinary academic center during the Cold War. Geertz was a
research assistant and research associate at the CIS, and they funded a lot of his
field work in Indonesia23.
VII. Influences:
1. Max Weber
a. A German sociologist, Weber is famous for his theoretical combinations of
economic sociology and the sociology of religion, with emphasis on cultural
influences within religion and their relation to the concept of capitalism24
b. Geertz heavily referenced Weber’s further semiotic interpretations of world
religion
i. Rationalized versus traditional religion
ii. “Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun,
I take culture to be those webs”25
2. Talcott Parsons
a. An American sociologist, Parsons developed the action theory, in which Parsons
believes that actions begin with motives alone, and that sociologists must consider
the ends, purposes, and ideals behind each action26
19
Clifford Geertz: Work and Legacy. Institute for Advanced Study. (2020, October 13). Retrieved November 14,
2021, from https://www.ias.edu/clifford-geertz-work-and-legacy.
20
Clifford Geertz: Work and Legacy. Institute for Advanced Study. (2020, October 13). Retrieved November 9,
2021, from https://www.ias.edu/clifford-geertz-work-and-legacy.
21
Our Origins. Ford Foundation. Retrieved November 14, 2021, from
https://www.fordfoundation.org/about/about-ford/our-origins/
22
23
24
Sung Ho Kim, “Max Weber,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Stanford University, November 27, 2017),
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/weber/.
25
Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, 47.
26
“Talcott Parsons,” American Sociological Association, November 2, 2020,
https://www.asanet.org/about/governance-and-leadership/council/presidents/talcott-parsons.
i. Geertz references Parsons in his ideological conceptualization where he
connects the symbolic motivation behind nationalism to the ideological
definition
b. Parsons also coined the theory of structural functionalism, in which he saw
society as a system of interconnected parts, as well as that any social system
required 4 basic prerequisites: adaptation, goal attainment, integration, and pattern
maintenance
i. This theory also influenced Geertz, in which we can see the steps he
remarked created a nationalist movement are similar to these 4 as stated by
Parsons
3. Alfred Schultz
a. Austrian-born philosopher and social phenomenologists, Schultz is most
well-known for his belief that humanity attempts to categorize people and things
to better understand them within the context of larger society27
i. Geertz uses this theory as a base for his expansion in ideological thought
and how it categorizes images in relation to concepts
VIII. Position in the History of the Social Sciences:

1. Geertz was a key cultural anthropology figure in the “Ethnographic School”28
a. Bronisław Malinowski’s Ethnography School:
i. Combined Western school’s study of other cultures with Eastern school’s
“participant observation”29
b. Geertz: Anthropologist must see things “from perspective of the native” 30
i. Challenged hierarchical power imbalance between the anthropologist and
their informants by privileging the latter’s point of view31
c. Both did not separate culture from biology32
i. Geert: main goal of anthropologist remained how to record and interpret
how “norms, values, symbols and processes of a society and, in particular,
their ‘meaning’ – how they fit together” 33, not comment or critique
27
Michael Barber, “Alfred Schutz,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Stanford University, February 27, 2018),
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schutz/.
28
“Anthropology, The Philosophy of | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.” Accessed November 9, 2021.
https://iep.utm.edu/anthropo/.
29
30
31
32
33
2. Geertzian anthropology (also covered in Ch. 1): The Interpretation of Cultures
demonstrated a paradigm shift to “interpretive anthropology” or a narrowly semiotic
(symbols-based) idea of culture34
a. Influenced by Max Weber and idea that humans have situated in “webs of
significance” that they themselves have spun35
i. Those webs of significance are culture → interpretative approach to
understand their meaning, not a scientific one looking for laws
b. Ethnographers produce “thick descriptions” - taking apart these webs to determine
how and why they are important36
i. Like a piece of text, cultures are “readable” and so ethnographers are
trying to analyze and construct a reading of it37
c. Geertz’s interpretive anthropology greatly influenced other social sciences with a
revival of “hermeneutic (meaning-centered) approaches”38
i. Anthropology’s “ambassador” to other disciplines39
3. Geertzian anthropology critiqued by post-modern and contemporary anthropologists,
leading to a shift away from it40
a. Too subjective → How do you verify which interpretations are the best?41
b. Not scientific enough → Lacking a set of analytical standards42
c. Too narrowly focused on interpretation → Did not consider causality43 or tying
“thick descriptions” into more general theory44
d. Imperial origins/ties
i. Revolved around the representation of a culture that would inherently lead
to the imposition of Western categories45
34
White, Ben. “Clifford Geertz: Singular Genius of Interpretive Anthropology.” Development and Change 38, no. 6
(2007): 1187–1208. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2007.00460.x.
35
(2007): 1187–1208. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2007.00460.x.
36
(2007): 1187–1208. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2007.00460.x.
37
Martin, Michael. “Geertz and the Interpretive Approach in Anthropology.” Synthese 97, no. 2 (1993): 269–86.
38
(2007): 1187–1208. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2007.00460.x.
39
Sewell, William H. “Geertz, Cultural Systems, and History: From Synchrony to Transformation.” Representations,
no. 59 (1997): 35–55. https://doi.org/10.2307/2928814.
40
41
42
43
Martin, Michael. “Geertz and the Interpretive Approach in Anthropology.” Synthese 97, no. 2 (1993): 269–86.
44
(2007): 1187–1208. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2007.00460.x.
45
ii. Reflected the power dynamics of “the dominant-culture anthropologist
making sense of the oppressed object of study” and subsequently
presenting their findings back to the dominant culture46
IX. Outline of the Work:

Chapter 1: Thick Description: Toward An Interpretive Theory of Culture
1. Introduces Geertz’s perception of what ethnography should be, and the concept of “thick
description,” adopted from British philosopher Gilbert Ryle
2. Goals
a. With his essays, Geertz aimed to clarify the definition of culture.
b. Felt a more narrow concept of culture was needed to counter E.B. Tylor’s “most
complex whole,” a well known concept at the time. Geertz felt that this idea,
while useful for a while, had reached a point where it “obscures more than it
reveals”47
c. Preferred a concept of culture focused on symbolism, and thought that
anthropologists should focus on interpreting symbols to find meaning.
3. Ethnography is thick description
a. Ethnography, focused on studying individual cultures, includes technical work
such as transcribing texts, taking genealogies, finding informants and making
maps.
b. But more than just methods and techniques, the intellectual effort behind it is
essential to defining it. Geertz borrows a term from Gilbert Ryle to describe
ethnography as “an elaborate venture in thick description.”
4. To explain thick description, Ryle compares it to thin description with an example of two
people who both rapidly contract the eyelids of their right eyes.
a. One is twitching, but the other is deliberately winking to convey a message to a
friend. From the outside, the actions appear the same, but have completely
different intent.
b. Thin description simply describes the action, “rapidly contracting his right
eyelids,” while the thick description would detail why the person is winking and
what message he is trying to convey.
5. Defining Culture
a. Geertz feels that the main source of confusion over defining culture was a widely
held view that is referred to as ethnoscience, componential analysis, or cognitive
anthropology.
i. One of its proponents, Ward Goodenough, stated that culture is located “in
the minds and hearts of men.”48 This school of thought suggests that
46
47
48
culture is made up of psychological structures that groups and individuals
use to guide their behavior.
ii. The interpretation leads to ideas about how culture should be described:
the writing of rules, and use of analyses such as taxonomies, tables, trees,
etc. Hence debate over whether these logical analyses are accurately
capturing how the people of a culture feel and think.
6. Ethnographic research and anthropology
a. From Geertz’s viewpoint, the primary aim of anthropology is “the enlargement of
human discourse.”
b. The point of an ethnographic account is not to collect facts about a location and
the people living there. Rather, the author’s job is to clarify what happens there
and build an understanding of the nature of the people.
i. Geertz argues that this raises issues with verification. Essentially, he
questions, “How do you tell a better account from a worse one?”
ii. If ethnography is thick description, then the strength of accounts can be
determined with the definition of thick description.
iii. To return to his previous example, does the account sort winks from
twitches and real winks from mimicked ones? How well does the account
clarify the intention behind the wink?
7. Three characteristics of ethnographic description
a. It is interpretive
b. Interprets the flow of social discourse
c. This interpreting tries to rescue the said of this discourse from its perishing
occasions and fix it in persuable terms.
d. Geertz argues for a fourth characteristic in how he practices it: it is microscopic.
i. While there are of course wide-scale anthropological interpretations of
societies and civilizations, world events, etc. Geertz is saying the
anthropologist approaches these broader interpretations from a point of
familiarity with smaller matters.
8. Anthropology as a science
a. Geertz asserts that anthropology is a science, and thus cultural interpretations
should be just as susceptible to assessment as physical experiments or biological
observations.
b. However, certain characteristics of cultural interpretation make the development
of theories more difficult.
c. Knowledge of cultures grows in spurts. In contrast to studies in “harder” sciences,
anthropological studies don’t build on previous studies in the sense that findings
accumulate, but rather that better informed studies dive more deeply into the same
topics. A study less so “stands on the shoulders” of those that preceded it, and
more runs by their side.
9. Cultural analysis is intrinsically incomplete.
a. “Cultural analysis is intrinsically incomplete. And, worse than that, the more
deeply it goes the less complete it is.”49
i. Anthropology’s progress is marked by a refinement of debate rather than a
perfection of a consensus. “There are no conclusions to be reported; there
is merely a discussion to be sustained.”50
b. While it is impossible to have complete objectivity, Geertz still believes that
anthropology can be used to address reality, and that examination of theory does
not mean turning away from it.
c. The purpose of interpretive anthropology is not to answer our deepest questions,
but to find answers that others have given and make a record of them.
Chapter 2: The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man
1. Geertz references a remark by French anthropologist Lévi-Strauss that scientific
explanation is not the reduction of the complex to the simple. Rather, it is the substitution
of a more intelligible complexity in place of one that is less.
a. Geertz would go even further and argue that scientific explanation often consists
of replacing simple pictures with complex ones while trying to retain the clarity of
the simple ones.
b. Based on a proposal by Whiteman that the natural sciences should “seek
simplicity and distrust it,” Geertz suggests that the social sciences should “seek
out complexity and order it.”
2. Overthrowing the Enlightenment view
a. A “scientific concept of culture” developed in opposition to the view of human
nature that dominated during the Enlightenment—a very simple and clear view
replaced by a much more complex one.
i. The Enlightenment view of man, in short, was that human nature is
organized, simple, follows laws, and is unchanging. Even as actions and
appearances change throughout history, it is all driven by the same inner
desires and passions.
b. Geertz disagrees with the Enlightenment view, believing that “Man may be so
entangled with where he is, who he is, and what he believes that he is inseparable
from them.”51
c. Modern anthropology does not believe that there has ever been man unmodified
by the customs of where he is, and that it would be impossible for such a man to
exist.
3. Man beyond culture
a. There have been many attempts to define man as he would exist outside of culture
and customs, including the Enlightenment’s concept of consensus gentium (a
49
50
51
consensus of all mankind). However, its development in modern anthropology
added something new.
i. Began in 1920’s with Clark Wissler’s elaboration of “the universal cultural
pattern,” and continued up to G.P. Murdock’s elaboration of a set of
“common-denominators of culture” during and since WWII.
ii. Added the notion that some aspects of culture are formed as a result of
historical accidents, while others come about as the result of universal
forces.
b. Geertz argues that for these ideas to work, three things are necessary.
i. The universals proposed must be substantial ones and not empty
categories.
ii. They need to be grounded in specific biological, psychological, or
sociological processes.
iii. They must be able to be convincingly defended as essential elements in a
definition of humanity, in comparison with other cultural particularities
that would be of secondary importance.
c. The consensus gentium approach fails on all three of these accounts, due to a
logical conflict in meeting the first requirement.
1. If religion is asserted as an empirical universal, it is being asserted
that religions have the same content across cultures. In order to
avoid this untrue assertion, you could be less abstract and assert,
for example, that the concept of the afterlife is universal. But if you
define afterlife vaguely enough to be able to apply it to all cultures,
it is too vague to be a useful assertion.
d. Even if he is wrong about whether consensus gentium can produce substantial
universals, there is still the question of whether these universals should be
considered central to the definition of man. That is, whether a “lowest-common
denominator” view of humanity is what we even want.
4. The “control mechanism” view of human nature
a. Behavior patterns of “lower animals” are more fixed, while humans have more
extreme general response capacities, allowing for greater plasticity and
complexity. However, this also means human behavior is less regulated.
b. “Undirected by culture patterns—organized systems of significant
symbols—man’s behavior would be virtually ungovernable, a mere chaos of
pointless acts and exploding emotions, his experience virtually shapeless.”52
i. Culture is not just a product of human existence, but essential for it.
c. Evidence for this position comes from recent advances in the understanding of
human evolution and the emergence of Homo sapiens. Geertz considers three of
these advances particularly important:
52
i. First, discarding the “sequential view” of the relationship between
physical evolution and cultural development.
1. Traditionally, it was thought that biological changes occurred and
were complete before cultural development began, meaning we
arrived at the physical structure we see today before culture began
to develop.
2. Based on scientific evidence, Geertz estimates that the
development of culture began roughly a million years before the
appearance of modern man.
3. He considers culture an ingredient in the production of man.
ii. Second, the discovery that most biological changes resulting in modern
man took place in the central nervous system, especially in the brain.
iii. Third, man is an animal, but what sets him apart from other animals is not
only his ability to learn—it is how much he must learn before he can
function at all.
1. We live in an “information gap”—we must fill the gap between
what our body tells us, and what we have to know in order to
function. We fill this with information (or misinformation)
provided by our culture.
5. The concept of culture’s impact on the concept of man
a. Man should not be defined only by his innate capacities (as the Enlightenment
sought to do) or only by his actual behavior (as Geertz felt much of contemporary
social science sought to do), but rather by the link between them, that is the way
in which the first is transformed into the second.
Chapter 3: The Growth of Culture and the Evolution of Mind
1. In recent years, there have been two prominent views of the evolution of the human
mind, both of which Geertz considers inadequate.
a. The first is that human thought processes which Freud called “primary” are
phylogenetically prior to those he called “secondary.”
b. The reaction to this thesis resulted in the second view of human mental evolution:
The existence of the human mind in its modern form is a prerequisite for the
acquisition of culture, and that the growth of culture itself is not significant to
mental evolution.
c. This in turn implies two things. One, “the doctrine of the psychic unity of
mankind,” has been substantiated by research. The other, the “critical point”
theory of the appearance of culture, has become increasingly tenuous.
i. The doctrine of the psychic unity of mankind is not seriously questioned
by reputable anthropologists. It directly contradicts the primitive mentality
argument, and it asserts that “there are no essential differences in the
fundamental nature of the thought process among the various living races
of man.”53
ii. The critical point theory of the appearance of culture proposes that the
capacity for acquiring culture developed suddenly in primate phylogeny. A
single organic alteration (presumably in cortical structure) occurred that
gave the ability to communicate, learn, teach. Fossil evidence has
increasingly cast doubt on this theory.
2. A way is needed to get rid of the critical point theory without undermining the doctrine of
psychic unity
a. Geertz’s primary solution is to simply change the time scale used to examine
evolutionary changes that led to Homo sapiens. A more finely graduated time
scale would better demonstrate the relationship between mental evolution and the
development of culture, rather than portraying the capacity for culture as a sudden
occurrence.
b. Additionally, denying independence between the development of sociocultural
and biological processes in pre-Homo sapiens man does not require the rejection
of the doctrine of psychic unity.
i. While minor evolutionary changes have undoubtedly occurred since the
rise of modern man, all living peoples are still part of a single polytypical
species, with very little anatomical and physiological variation.
3. The “mind”
a. Geertz refers to the term “mind” as “a certain set of dispositions of an
organism.”54
i. The problem of the evolution of the mind is then a matter of tracing the
development of various abilities, capacities, tendencies, and propensities
in organisms, and portraying the factors on which these characteristics
depend.
b. Recent anthropological research suggests that the prevailing view of man’s mental
dispositions appearing genetically prior to culture is incorrect. A revised view
would suggest that cultural resources are essential, not accessory, to human
thought.
Chapter 4: Religion as a Cultural System
1. Current Anthropological work: no theoretical advances of major importance
a. Living off conceptual capital of ancestors, adding little to the history
b. Draws from very narrowly defined intellectual tradition such as:
i. Durkheim, Weber, Freud, Malinowski views
1. Durkheim: nature of the sacred
2. Webers: Verstehenden methodology
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54
3. Freud: parallel between personal rituals and collective ones
4. Malinowski: exploration of the distinction between religion and
common sense
2. Goal in this century: match the great philosophers of our century but don’t match them,
widen them
a. To move beyond the intellectual traditional thoughts→ place in broader context of
contemporary thought
3. Religion: system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, long-lasting
moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence
4. Symbol: representation of something that cannot be explained or stated in a direct or
literal sense
a. Symbols are highly valued and are used for character identity→ thus, used to
define your character function in society
b. This is why we perform daily routines, this is ritual and actions that are symbols
of character identity, fitting in
c. As humans, we are on a quest for lucidity (clarity), rush of metaphysical anxiety
that occurs
i. If we cannot pursue clarity/lucidity, we may use our own beliefs to explain
phenomena or convince ourselves this is the case
5. Metaphysics: defining feature of religion
6. Religious symbols provide a cosmic guarantee for not only their ability to comprehend
the world but also give a precision to their feeling
7. Culture patterns shape public behavior and the institution of social and psychological
processes (culture pattern analogous to DNA in humans→ shape who we are)
a. Also extrinsic sources of information
i. Extrinsic- lie outside boundaries of organism’s common sense
ii. Sources of information: processes external to themselves can be given a
definite form (ex. Like DNA as a coded set of instructions)
8. Cultural patterns are models: set of symbols whose relations to one another model
relations
a. Model:
i. Of: manipulation of symbol structures to bring them more or less closely
into parallel with the pre-established non symbolic system (ex.
Constructing a flow chart to understand how something works)
1. rarer , confined to living animals
ii. For: manipulation of the nonsymbolic systems in terms of the relationships
expressed in the symbols
1. Communication of pattern, simple logic required
2. Imprint learning: automatic presentation of appropriate sequence
of behavior by a model organism in the presence of a learning
animal which serves to stabilize an certain set of responses that are
genetically built into learning animal
b. Disposition: describes a probability of an activity being performed or an
occurrence in certain circumstances
c. For religious activities: Two sorts of dispositions induced by:
i. Motivation: persisting tendency, chronic inclination to perform certain
sorts of acts and experience certain sorts of feeling in certain situations
ii. Motives: liabilities to perform particular classes of acts or have particular
classes of feeling
iii. Difference between moods and motivations
1. Motivations- vectoral qualities, directional, can gravitate towards
something specific
2. Moods- scalar, “Settle and lift”, vary in intensity but don’t go
anywhere, totalistic when present
9. “Suffering” in religion
a. Glorified life-struggles: commonly taught how to cope with struggles, not avoid
them
b. Suffering can turn into evil if severe enough
10. The Problem of Meaning by Weber
11. Anthropological study of religion occurs in two stages
a. Often neglected: analysis of the system of meanings embodied in the symbols
b. Relating these systems to social structural and psychological processes
c. We need to understand the purpose and meaning of symbols in terms of social and
psychological aspects (such as religion) before we begin to understand their roles
Chapter 5: World, View and the analysis of sacred symbols
1. Ethos- moral aspects of given culture
a. Tone, character, QOL, moral and aesthetic style and mood
b. Shown as a way of life implied by the actual state of affairs
2. World view: cognitive, existential aspects, picture of the way things are in sheer actuality
a. Concept of natural, self, society
3. Meanings can only be “stored” in symbols: ex. A cross, crescent, serpent
a. These symbols commonly dramaticized in rituals/myths
b. Symbols sum up what is known about the world, the quality of emotional life it
supports, the way one should behave in life
c. Sacred Symbols: relate ontology and cosmology to an aesthetic and morality
i. Power comes from presumed ability to identify fact with value at the most
fundamental level
d. The creation of symbols that have opposing forces (good and evil) show the
power of the human imagination to construct images of reality - ex. Infuse in
people’s minds that evil is unreal
4. In theory, we should be able to construct an autonomous value system, ethics without
ontology but we have not found such a system
a. Olgaga example
b. Fieldwork in Java, Indonesia- study of the Javanese Culture/religion
i. Wajang: a religious play that represents the metaphysical and
psychological struggles that one goes through in life
1. Prevention of psychological forces through meditation
2. Also emphasizes struggle within groups and hierarchies
ii. Wajang is just one of the many examples of adoption of many Indian
cultural phenomena
5. There is a universal desire for having a factual basis for commitments such as religion. If
we make something conventional, it won’t be able to satisfy the majority of people in
society, so we adopt an ethos and world view to give a set of values to society that are
able to be individualized.
6. Though studying cultures through observation is educational and beneficial to
understanding culture, it is important to consider the philosophical reasons as well.
a. Symbolism and meaning-seeking in humans has opened a new approach to
analysis of religion and understanding of relationship between religion and
values.
b. With all the talk about interpretation of symbolism as our disguised expressions
and live in a world we try to make sense of, then we need to understand how
people define situation and coming to terms with certain cases
c. Redefining the approach to understanding “value”- look towards behavior of
actual people in actual societies
d. Philosophical study should be relevant to clarify the processes involved in
regulation of behavior (why we deem things as more valuable or culturally related
than anything else)
Chapter 6: Ritual and social change: A Javanese Example
1. Functional approaches to religion
a. Sociological approach: the manner in which belief and particularly ritual reinforce
traditional social ties between individuals
i. Durkheim: Stresses social structure of a group is strengthened through
ritualistic or mythic symbolization of the underlying social values55.
b. Social-psychological approach (Frazer and Tylor): religion satisfies both cognitive
and affective demands for a stable, comprehensive, and coercible world, allowing
him to maintain inner security in the face of natural contingency56.
2. Functional Approaches are least impressive when dealing with social change
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56
a. Systems imbalance lead to a bias in favor of well-integrated societies, tends to
emphasize functional aspects of people’s social interaction customs rather than
dysfunctional implications (static way of thinking)
i. This is a conservative approach to the role of ritual and belief in social life
3. People have tended to stress the supportive aspects of religious patterns rather than the
disruptive, disintegrative, and psychologically disturbing aspects
4. “One of the major reasons for the inability of functional theory to cope with changes lies
in its failure to treat sociological and cultural processes on equal terms; almost inevitably
one of the two either is ignored or is sacrificed to become but a simple reflex, a "mirror
image," of the other. )”.57
a. Approach from british structuralists, american sociologists: Culture regarded as a
wholly derivative from forms of social organization
b. Approach from malinowski and many american anthropologists: forms of social
organization are regarded as behavioral embodiments of cultural patterns
c. We don’t know how to fit historical materials into our framework of concepts
5. Revision of functional theory: make them capable of dealing more effectively with
historical materials
6. In societies where change is a characteristic rather than an abnormal occurrence, we
should expect to find more or less radical discontinuities, find some primary driving
forces in change
7. Distinguishing between cultural and social aspects of human life while also including
philosophical aspects: treat them as independent variables but know that they can be
mutually inclusive
a. See culture as an ordered system of meaning and of symbols- social interaction
takes place
i. Culture: human being interpret their experience and guide their action
ii. Considers social action for those who carry out and self-express it, give it
their self-meaning
b. See social systems as pattern of social interaction itself
i. Social structure: ongoing process of interactive behavior58
c. Social structure: form that action takes, actually existing in the network of social
interactions
i. Contributions to keeping the social system running
57
58
d. Personality structure: pattern of motivation integration, understand the
philosophical side of culture
8. Culture, social systems, personality structure must be considered to understand how these
elements function in society
9. Case example: Javanese postmortem: young boy’s death
a. “Of all the sources of religion, the supreme and final crisis of life- death- is of the
greatest importance.”59
b. Death provokes a dual response of loving and loathing
i. Drawn to deceased by affection for him
ii. Repelled from him by the transformation into a corpse
c. Interference of politics and religion can be problematic because of similar
symbolism
Chapter 7: Internal Conversion in Contemporary BaliBali is an epicenter for Hindu culture,
global shifts threaten traditional life
1. Introduction to Max Weber’s theories concerning world religions
a. Modernly developed religion is either traditional or rationalized
i. Traditional: Every aspect of ordinary life is secular; all of life’s existence
flows in the outline created by divine creatures
ii. Rationalized: Religion and society coexist but are separated; the natural
world is not explained through religious concepts
b. The structure of both categories differ greatly
i. Traditional: Worship is given to concretely defined sacred entities, to
whom a collection of formal ritualistic acts invoke
ii. Rationalized: Spiritual entities are abstractly defined with more logical
coherence; broader questions considered instead of narrow-minded ones
1. “Not ‘Why has the granary fallen on my brother and not someone
else's brother?’ but rather, ‘Why do the good die young and the evil
flourish like the green bay tree?’”60
2. Inherent distance between “God” and man, whom live in different realms; Magic no
longer commonplace
a. Necessity to maintain ties with faith in the divine
3. Weber refers to two ways to maintain connection
a. Following written, codified commandments authored by prophets (Mid-Eastern)
b. Individualized connection with sacred entities through mysticism (Asian)
II Traditional Balinese Religion
1. Bali remains primarily traditional
a. The world is enchanted, fully outlined by Gods, minimal faith sophistication
2. System of belief is well-defined and somewhat illogically ordered
59
60
Allee, John Gage. Webster's Dictionary. Owings Mills, MD: Ottenheimer, 1969.
a. Three primary elements within the Balinese religious system
i. Temple System: Temples dedicated to differing divine principles (death,
fertility, etc.); each Balinese family belongs to 2-3 temples each
1. Families sharing a temple are bonded; face ostracization if not
completing rituals
ii. Sanctification of Social Inequality
1. Social stratification is not based on politics, but religious status
2. Upper castes of gentry are tied to lower caste peasants
a. Priests and nobility dependent on one another
b. Peasants assigned a certain priest to follow
iii. Cult of Death and Wishes
1. “Dark side” of Balinese culture that permeates every moment with
anxiety and fear
2. Two demons (Rangda and Barong) are said to be in conflict with
one another in such a violent way that their influence on humanity
is feared
III Rationalization of Balinese Religion
1. No new rationalized religions since Mohammed, conversion of primitive cultures begins
2. Bali rejects all attempts at conversion
a. Changing social order slowly influencing Balinese culture, old traditions become
more difficult to perform
3. Balinese seems likely to rationalize religion on their own internal terms
a. Youth beginning to question traditions and ceremonies
b. Religious literacy brings peasants the ability to fully understand the complexity of
their religion beyonding needing to perform ceremonies “just because”
4. Bali-ism requires a code of demands and a formally organized structure to be rationalized
a. Bali needs relations to a devoted national government
i. State government is currently controlled by Muslims
ii. Balinese leaders formed a Ministry of Religion
Chapter 8: “Ideology As A Culture System”
I
1. Ideology and its definition
a. “The integrated assertions, theories, and aims constituting a politico-social
program, often with an implication of factitious propagandizing; as, Fascism was
altered in Germany to fit with the Nazi ideology”61
2. Karl Mannheim conceptualized ideology from a sociological perspective
a. “The realization that socio political thought does not grow up out of disembodied
reflection but it ‘is always bound up with the existing life situation of the thinker’
61
Allee, John Gage. Webster's Dictionary. Owings Mills, MD: Ottenheimer, 1969.
seemed to taint such thought with the vulgar struggle for advantage it had
professed to rise above”62
b. Mannheim Paradox
i. Where does ideology truly separate from science?
1. Can one truly be impartial to bias and self-concerns when speaking
on ideological topics from a scientific perspective?
3. Sociological science faces criticism, cold perspective an affront to core beliefs
4. The social sciences have failed to define ideology from a truly non-evaluative viewpoint
II
1. Werner Stark believed that while thoughts may be socially conditioned, ideologies are
warped by darkly interpersonal emotions
a. “Ideological thought is something shady, something that ought to be overcome
and banished from the mind”63
2. Grim outlooks on ideological thought, a competitive perspective of “us” versus “them”
a. Talcott Parsons (1902-1979), “Deviations from social science objectivity emerged
as the essential criteria of an ideology”64
3. Parsons also theorized the two general types of deviations
a. Social Science: Contained within a single social society, selective in its
questioning, developed through current knowledge
b. Ideological Thought: emphasis on aspects of social reality at expense of others
III
1. Two primary approaches to studying the determinants of ideology
c. Interest Theory: ideological announcements seen against backdrop of struggle for
advantage; man seeking utmost power
i. Rooted in cultural idea systems, emphasis on motivations of the people
and its reflection of society; lacks complexity and is narrowly focused
ii. The intensity (men seeking power in a war of interests), is the reward of
its narrowmindedness65
d. Strain Theory: “Seen against a background of a chronic effort to correct
ciopsychological disequilibrium”66
i. A more complex theory in relation to the former
ii. Systematically constrained; defects where social friction is inevitable
4. Ideological thought is the reaction to the consistent pattern of strain on society
5. Defects emerge from patterned behavior shaped by societal forces and their outcomes
62
K. Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, Harvest ed. (New York, n.d.), pp. 59-83
63
W. Stark, The Sociology of Knowledge (London, 1958), p. 58
64
T. Parsons, “An Approach to the Sociology of Knowledge,” Transactions of the Fourth World Congress of
Sociology. (Milan and Stressa, 1959), pp. 25-49
65
66
a. A primitive clan sets out to call for rain but finds themselves bonded to one
another in their pursuit
6. Absence of symbolic formulation; no examination of ideology as a system of symbolic
meaning
IV
1. No existence today of an empirical science that studies symbolic behavior
2. Not truth that varies within social, psychological, and cultural context but the symbols
constructed in the attempts to grasp at the context itself
a. “Sociology of knowledge ought to be called the sociology of meaning, for what is
socially determined is not the nature of conception but the vehicles of
conception”67
V
1. The ideology of thought
a. “Thought consists of creation and manipulation of symbol systems, which are
used as models for further, larger systems (social, organic, etc.) in a way that the
base structure of the secondary systems are more clearly understood”68
b. Thinking is not random imagery of the mind, but a match of the preexisting world
2. Two aspects of symbolic thought
a. Cognitive Thought: Based on identification founded on imagery or experience
b. Expressive Thought: Based in popular culture rather than formal associations
3. Ideology continues to be regarded as a response to strain
a. Cultural, psychological, and social strain
b. Inability to comprehend context of one’s life; civic strain of reality
4. Ideologies construe reality so there is meaning, making life purposeful
VI
1. Liberated countries face uncertainty
a. Theory of Exemplary Center
i. The capital city (more likely, the king’s palace) acts as the very
embodiment of political order
2. Ideological phases drift with vision of the people
a. Theoretical framework of liberation dependent on psychology, sociology, culture
VII
1. Both science and ideology are critically imaginative systems of symbolic structures
a. Science intends to name structures of situations analytically
b. Ideology focuses on the attitude, the moral sentiment that invokes action
2. Clash of two disciplines comes to a standstill
a. They are related, employ similar processes but oppose one another still
Chapter 9: “After the Revolution/Fate of the New States”
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68
E. Galanter and M. Gerstenhaber, “On thought: The Extrinsic Theory,” Psychol. Rev. 63 (1956): 218-227
I
1. Sixty-six countries (1945-1968) attain political independence from colonial rule
a. The actuality of liberation is not that which has engendered the dreams of an era,
but rather begins a darkened mood
i. There is disenchantment with politics, parliamentarianism; an ideological
weariness to the people
2. Nationalism continues as a communal passion
a. The idea of a collective people, not simply a population, but a community, keeps
individuals striving forward even as faith stagnates
II
1. Four Phases of Nationalism
a. Nationalist Movements Form
i. Confrontation of melting pot of races, cultures, and religions with an
oversimplified view through the lens of political ethnicity
ii. Need to rouse masses with this identity hides away the glaring narrowness
of the identity itself
b. Triumph
i. The fight for liberation served only to create a further identity to rally
behind, forming a deep solidarity between the people
ii. “Nationalism came to mean, purely and simply, the desire-and the
demand-for freedom”69
c. Organization Into States
i. As order begins, a new issue arises: the making of a state does not mean
the making of a unified people
d. Stabilizing Relationships Nationally
i. Task begins in ideological defining the “we” of the nation
ii. Tenuous definitions for language, race, culture, national character
2. Essentialism and Epochalism
a. Essentialism
i. Refers to the local cultures, established institutions, specifics of race,
culture, and tradition
b. Epochalism
i. Refers to the general outline of history and what to steps one must take to
know the overall direction and significance of that history
III
1. “Concept of a culture as a basic system of symbols by which man confers significance
upon his own personal experience”70
69
70
a. How to conceptualize the line between patterns within symbolic meaning and the
reality of social life?
2. Idealogicalism in relation to nationalism
a. Nationalism is not simply formed from essentialism or epochalism, not a
by-product, a reflection, a cause, but the very notion at its core
b. Strain between essentialism and epochalism in new-state nationalism are not
between intellectual passions but discordant meanings within social institutions
c. In relation to ideologicalism, it brings the two, the essentialist pride and the
epochilalist hope, into a practical force that drives change
Chapter 10: The Integrative Revolution: Primordial Sentiments and Civil Politics in the
New States
1.) People of new states are torn between two desires:
a.) Public recognition of a group/communal identity with important goals
b.) Social order and progress through a national government in this new modern state
c.) Both are “thoroughly interdependent, yet distinct and often actually opposed”71
2.) Tension between these two forces is both an integral driving force behind evolution of
new states and an obstacle to their evolution
a.) Diversity is perceived as “natural”72 and an important marker of identity
b.) Yet, increasing need for the state as a tool to realize collective goals
3.) “[...] much of the political process in the new states pivots around an heroic effort to keep
them [these opposing aims] aligned”73
4.) This tension makes new states vulnerable to primordial attachments
a.) Primordial attachments: fundamental connections, relationships, and loyalties that
are perceived as “natural”74
b.) Threaten the state because can override loyalty demanded by the state
5.) Main examples
a.) Assumed blood ties or “quasi-kinship”75, race, language, region (particularly “in
geographically heterogeneous areas”76), religion, and custom
6.) Multiple primordial sentiments can threaten a state simultaneously; can also lay dormant
until favorable social conditions allow them to rise up
7.) Significance is mainly “domestic” even if there are broader “international implications”77
8.) Patterns of primordial sentiments
a.) One dominant and usually larger group over a strong minority group
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
b.) One central group (geographically and politically) and medium/large, somewhat
opposed, more peripheral groups
c.) Two, evenly balanced groups
d.) Gradation of groups in importance from largest to smallest, with none that are
clearly dominant
e.) “[...] simple ethnic fragmentation [...] with multiple small groups”78
9.) How incorporate these patterns into modern politics as a new government?
a.) Challenge of primordial sentiments made more difficult bc “[...] political
modernization tends initially not to quiet such sentiments but to quicken them”79
i.) Modern government is more involved in an individual’s life
ii.) More politically conscious people
10.) Fighting over control of state’s ability to mobilize resources
11.) Can never resolve this conflict, get rid of, or deny existence of primordial attachments
a.) Instead, must “reconcile them” by containing and ridding them of their
“legitimizing force” that so threatens “government authority”80
12.) Solution: the “integrative revolution [...] a desperate search for ways and means to
create a more perfect union [...]”81 between primordial sentiments and state
13.) Case studies of different attempts to integrate primordial sentiments into national
governments by new states
a.) Indonesia - region
b.) Malaya - race
c.) Burma - “aggressive assimilation wrapped in constitutional legalism”82
d.) India - language
e.) Lebanon - religion
f.) Morocco - custom
g.) Nigeria - quasi-kinship
14.) The integrative revolution allows for a demand for public and state acknowledgement
of a group’s identity/existence and a way to be drawn more into political society
a.) Risks simplifying and concentrating group antagonisms
15.) Integrative revolution does not mean replacing primordial sentiments and ways of
identification with civil or state ones
a.) Goal is to neutralize the mutual effects of each
16.) As both traditional political institutions and ways of self-perception transform into
more modern versions of themselves, the differences between them will continue to
create conflict between primordial sentiments and new state governments
Chapter 11: The Politics of Meaning
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79
80
81
82
1.) “[...] a country’s politics reflect the design of its culture”83
a.) Culture: “structures of meaning”84 that we use to shape our experiences
b.) Politics: a “public arena”85 where structures of meaning/culture occur
2.) How do we demonstrate the connection between politics and culture?
3.) Case study of Indonesia:
a.) So many cultures → difficult to determine politics of meaning
b.) Doesn’t want to jump to conclusions, but to instead make visible the sociological
connections between culture and politics
i.) Why? Max Weber and how ideas must “be carried by powerful social
groups to have powerful social effects [...] They have to be
institutionalized in order to find not just an intellectual existence in
society, but, so to speak, a material one as well”86
c.) To organize a diversity of cultures like that of Indonesia into a functioning
government, need to either:
i.) Establish political institutions which opposing groups can safely use to
interact with each other
ii.) OR eliminate political power of all groups except one
d.) Problem: Indonesia is filled with so many internal contradicting primordial
sentiments → How to establish an effective political structure?
i.) These internal tensions constitute a “struggle for the real”87 (power to
define reality) between groups
e.) In Indonesia, government actions are also so disconnected with public life and
sentiments, which is the opposite of the Indonesian Revolution’s intended goal
i.) The revolution is not yet over…
4.) Problem of legitimacy in this new state, especially due to colonial past
a.) Legitimacy is partly based on if government’s actions seem continuous with or
amplified versions of those of its citizens
i.) How immediate, familiar, and natural does the government seem?
5.) Problem of “conceptual dislocation”88
a.) Nature of government shifted towards upholding general public interest
b.) Citizens also need to undergo a “social changing of the mind”89 away from
familiar moral and intellectual worldviews
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
6.) “There is [...] no simple progression from ‘traditional’ to modern,’ but a twisting,
spasmodic, unmethodical movement which turns as often toward repossessing the
emotions of the past as disowning them”90
a.) Cannot analyze new, modernizing states like Indonesia with the starting
assumption that traditional ideas were replaced by modern ones
b.) New states like Indonesia are trying to retain familiar cultural values and practices
while keeping pace with 20th century modernity
i.) Constant redefining of who they are as flip between the past and the future
7.) Indonesia’s “ideological situation”91:
a.) Agree on the need for modernity while still holding onto cultural heritage
b.) Disagree on how to modernize and which essential aspects of culture need to be
retained
i.) Issue of defining this new state, not just governing it
8.) However, Geertz says there are limitations of the analysis that social scientists can do on
these new states
a.) Cannot effectively analyze social phenomena until after they have occurred
9.) Geertz does state that cultural interpretations of politics can intellectually survive
political events if they are sociologically grounded well enough
a.) Even after domestic upheavals, society and the culture informing that society
remain essentially the same
Chapter 12: Politics Past, Politics Present: Some Notes on the Uses of Anthropology in
Understanding the New States
1.) Increased studying of the Global South by social scientists
a.) Realization of an increasing need for and value of interdisciplinary analysis
b.) Revived interest in structure and function of “traditional states”92their
development into present-day forms
i.) “Peasant societies” → too similar to Western societies to be called
“primitive” but too dissimilar to be called “modern”93
c.) Four major approaches to the nature of government in these societies:
i.) One centralized power
ii.) Segmentary states based on kinship networks
iii.) Comparative feudalism
iv.) Reconsideration of “size and scope of ancient states”94 and their
developmental processes
d.) Anthropologists focus in particular on latter two
i.) Requires them to go beyond the confines of their discipline
90
91
92
93
94
ii.) Also prompts question of what anthropologists can offer to the study of
the Global South at this time
2.) Case study of Bali to “draw conclusions of fact and method”95 that apply more broadly
a.) Begins with a “separation between ideas and institutions”96 or separating culture
from social structures and political institutions
b.) Three Balinese ideas about supralocal politics:
i.) Doctrine of the exemplary center
(1) The Javanese court at Gelgel was more than a center of power, also
a divine standard of civilization that, in turn, created human order
ii.) Concept of sinking status
(1) As time passed, Gelgel was no longer the main center of power as
smaller, peripheral centers of power formed, leading to an overall
decline in “status and spiritual power”97
iii.) “Expressive conception of politics”98
(1) Each lord wanted to establish that his domain was the true center
of power
(2) Established power by using “spectacle, ceremony, public
dramatization of [...] social inequality and status pride” to create “a
theatre-state”99
c.) Conclusion: 19th century Balinese political structure was the struggle for political
power over people and prestige, not property or territory
i.) Rulers wanted political power to have more dramatic and unifying
ceremonies (thus gaining even more power), yet this required working
against a political organization that fractured when pressured to unify
3.) Anthropology’s contributions as a discipline include:
a.) Historically grounded capacity to distinguish between cultural ambitions of
traditional states from the social institutions it uses to realize those cultural
ambitions
b.) Can analyze relationship between traditional and new state polities without
misleading assumptions, like:
i.) Contemporary states can never escape the past or are merely modern
re-enactments of it
ii.) New states have completely escaped their pasts and are products of a
completely distinct, new age
c.) Using anthropology in this way allows for:
95
96
97
98
99
i.)
Realization that “the reach of a politician is not quite the same thing as his
grasp”100
(1) Transformed understanding of where power comes from, nature of
authority, various techniques of administration used in new states
ii.) Can analyze relationships between the past and present with more than
“reversible truisms”101 or absolutisms
d.) Relationships between traditional and transitional states is much less distant than
the language used to talk about either would lead us to believe
i.) These new states carry forth attitudes and values of the past, but make
them more self-conscious and explicit
ii.) However, not merely updates of past ideas and ideals because influenced
by non-traditional sources
e.) Confusing intermingling of influences from the past and present makes it difficult
to determine the intentions of those in Third World states
i.) Anthropology is thus ideally placed to distinguish between these mingled
past and present voices “so that we can hear what each of them is saying
and assess ideological climate”102
Chapter Thirteen: The Cerebral Savage: On the Work of Claude Lévi-Strauss
1. Claude Lévi-Strauss, at the time of Geertz’ writing, was a Professor of Social
Anthropology in the Collège de France
a. Geertz feels that Lévi-Strauss’ work differed from other ethnologists by nature of
how he treated “the two faces of anthropology.” One being anthropology as a way
of going at the world, and the other as a method for uncovering relations among
empirical facts.
i. Described Lévi-Strauss’ work as turning these faces in toward one
another, forcing a direct confrontation between them, rather than away
from each other.
ii. On the one hand, this brings power and appeal to his work, but it has also
led some to feel that what he presents as science may actually be his
defence of a more metaphysical position, or a way to advance an
ideological argument.
iii. There may be nothing wrong with this, but it should be kept in mind, “lest
an attitude toward life be taken for a simple description of it.”
2. Tristes Tropiques
a. Presents Lévi-Strauss’ idealized notion of Native civilizations vs. the reality that
exists in the present due to colonization
i. When he does get closer to the untouched “Primitive” he is looking for, he
cannot communicate with them
100
101
102
ii. “At the end of the Quest there waited thus not a revelation but a riddle.
The anthropologist seems condemned either to journey among men who
he can understand precisely because his own culture has already
contaminated them [...] or among those who, not so contaminated, are for
that reason largely unintelligible to him.”103
b. Geertz argues that another approach can be taken. Using all of the pieces one can
find, it is still possible to form a theoretical model of society which may not
correspond to societies that are observed in reality, but can still help us understand
the basic foundations of human existence.
c. “Out of the disappointed romanticism of Tristes Tropiques arose the exultant
sciencism of Levi-Strauss’ other major work, La Pensée Sauvage.”104
3. La Pensée Sauvage
a. This book departs from an idea presented in Tristes Tropiques that “the totality of
a people’s customs always forms an ordered whole, a system.” Human societies
do not create new ideas, but rather choose certain combinations from ideas
already available to them. Ethnologists then must analyze these surface patterns in
order to discover and classify the deeper structures from which they are built.
b. In La Pensée Sauvage this notion reappears under the guise of what Lévi-Strauss
calls “the science of the concrete,” which compares magical thinking to scientific
thinking.
i. The science of the concrete arranges directly sensed realities—things such
as season changes and moon phases—which become structural models
that represent the underlying order of reality.
ii. They do not build these models the way modern scientists do, with
abstract propositions integrated into framework of formal theory.
iii. “It builds coherent structures out of ‘the odds and ends left over from
psychological or historical process.” This structure is compared to a
kaleidoscope, where the “chips” are “images drawn from myth, ritual,
magic, and empirical lore.”105 Pieces can be taken from other cultures and
mythologies and built up into new ones.
c. If an eternal, universal model of society can be constructed from dead or dying
societies, this could be the way to build it.
d. Geertz considers the “High Science” of La Pensée Savage and the “Heroic Quest”
of Tristes Tropiques “very simple transformations” of one another.
4. The best time for man was the neolithic age (postagricultural, preurban)
103
104
105
a. Geertz feels this was when mentality flourished, using the “Science of the
concrete” to produce arts of civilization such as agriculture, animal husbandry,
pottery, weaving, and food preparation.
b. Man has left this time behind for what he refers to as “the restless ambitiousness,
the pride and egoism, of mechanical civilization.”106
c. Thus, he prevents an ideal for social reform: “Turning us again toward that middle
state, not by drawing us back into the neolithic but by presenting us with
compelling reminders of its human achievements, its sociological grace, so as to
draw us forward into a ration future where its ideals—the balancing of self-regard
with general sympathy—will be even more fully realized.”107
Chapter 14: Person, Time, and Conduct in Bali
1.) The Social Nature of Thought
a.) Humans are social beings
i.) “Human thought is consummately social: social in its origins, social in its
functions, social in its forms, social in its applications”108
ii.) “Thinking is a public activity”109
(1) Huge implications for the anthropological analysis of culture
(2) Geertz uses Bali’s perception of individuals as a case study
2.) The Study of Culture
a.) Modern social science theories: culture vs. social structure
i.) “Desire to take account of ideational factors in social processes without
succumbing to either the Hegelian or the Marxist forms of
reductionism”110
(1) Hegelian → ideas/concepts/values/forms as “shadows cast by the
organization of society upon the hard surfaces of history”111
(2) Marxist → ideas/concepts/values/forms as “soul of history whose
progress is but a working out of their internal dialectic”112
(3) Geertz → ideas/concepts/values/forms “independent but not
self-sufficient forces. . . acting and having their impact only within
specific social contexts to which they adapt, by which they are
stimulated, but upon which they have, to a greater or lesser degree,
a determining influence”113
b.) Science of culture → validated by the idea that conception of thinking is a social
act
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
i.) Thought is not mysterious, but it is a “traffic of significant symbols. . .
upon which men have impressed meaning”114
(1) **This is what makes anthropology a valid social science
(a) Meanings of symbols can be discovered through systematic
investigation (‘scientific method’)
3.) Predecessors, Contemporaries, Consociates, and Successors
a.) Geertz pulls from work of Alfred Schutz
i.) philosopher/sociologist
ii.) Fuses influence of Scheler/Weber/Husserl with James/Mead/Dewey
b.) Schutz’s disaggregation of ‘fellowmen’115
i.) Categories of classification of different people/relationships
(1) Relative, not clear-cut → differ within/among societies
ii.) ‘Consociates’ = people who meet in life
(1) Share time & space, have face-to-face relationship
(2) Examples: lovers, spouses, friends, members of a team, strangers
you talk to
iii.) ‘Contemporaries’ = people who share a community of time but not space
(1) Live at the same time in history, maybe their social relations
overlap, but they never meet in person
(2) Linked by cultural assumptions about each other’s behavior at that
point in history
iv.) ‘Predecessors’ & ‘Successors’ = people to don’t share a community of
time or space
(1) Cannot interact
(2) ‘Predecessor’ → person from the past, can be known about, their
acts influence successors
(3) ‘Successor’ → cannot be known or even known about, unborn
occupants of society
4.) Balinese Orders of Person-Definition
a.) Personal Names116
i.) Least complex, least important, rarely used, private matter
ii.) Usually used with children → bestowed 105 days after birth
iii.) Not pulled from community pool of names, no duplication within a
community
b.) Birth Order Names117
i.) Automatically bestowed at instant of birth
114
115
116
117
ii.)Wayan (first child), Njoman (second), Made (third), Ktut (fourth)
(1) Repeats for 5th, 6th, etc. (Wayan = 1st & 5th child)
iii.) Most commonly used for kids & people who haven’t had children
(1) People who grow up and never have kids culturally remain
children because they’re still referred to by their birth order name
118
c.) Kinship Terms
i.) Classification by generation someone was born in relative to one’s own
ii.) Used referentially → only in response to a question or describing an event
iii.) Term for ‘great-grandparent’ and ‘great-grandchild’ = kumpi
(1) Joining of lower and higher generations
d.) Teknonyms119
i.) Most common means of addressing someone
ii.) ‘Father of X’ or ‘Mother of X’
iii.) “Stages of human life are not conceived in terms of the process of
biological aging . . . but of those of social regenesis” (402)
e.) Status Titles120
i.) Where you stand in the social hierarchy
ii.) Centered on religion → reflects divine order, titles come from gods
f.) Public Titles121
i.) Occupational categories
ii.) People become absorbed in their roles
iii.) Reflects spiritual eligibility → prestige determines public role
(1) The gods’ only identities are their titles
5.) A Cultural Triangle of Forces
a.) Balinese personal identity is depersonalizing
i.) Each person-definition standardizes, generalizes, and idealizes people
(1) Names emphasize social placement, not individual characteristics
or actions
b.) Taxonomic Calendars and Punctual Time
i.) Permutational Calendar
(1) Most important
(2) 10 cycles of day-names, varying lengths, cycles can run
concurrently
(3) Tells you what kind of time it is
(4) Determine holidays/ceremonies
(a) Cycles with five, six, and seven day-names are significant
(5) Determine ‘good’ vs. ‘bad’ days to do different activities
118
119
120
121
ii.) Lunar-Solar Calendar
(1) Anchored, doesn’t drift with seasons → 12 months based on moon
phases
(2) Used in agricultural contexts, supplements permutational calendar
for holidays/ceremonies
iii.) **Cultural Triangle: held together by social logic
(1) Perception of fellowmen (anonymize people)
(2) Experience of history (immobilize time)
(3) Temper of collective life (ethos; ceremonialize social interactions)
c.) Ceremony, Stage Fright, and Absence of Climax
i.) Anonymizing person-definitions + immobilizing time = depersonalization
(1) Lump people together as ‘fellowmen’
ii.) Balinese sociality → “radical aestheticism”122
(1) “Social acts . . . designed to please--to please the gods, to please
the audience, to please the other, to please the self; but to please as
beauty pleases, not as virtue pleases.”123
(2) Sensibility > Rectitude
iii.) Balinese ‘shame’ (lek) → ‘stage fright’
(1) “Nervousness before the prospect of social interaction”124
(2) If etiquette collapses, then social distance collapses, and standard
public identity will dissolve → personality revealed
(a) Fear of personalization → removal of all the masks that
Balinese society uses to generalize people
(i) **Cultural Triangle falls apart
iv.) “Absence of climax” → social activities don’t build to definitive
consummations
(1) “Daily life consists of self-contained, monadic encounters in which
something either happens or does not”125
(2) Events appear, vanish, and reappear
6.) Cultural Integration, Cultural Conflict, Cultural Change
a.) Meaning is not intrinsic → imposed by men
i.) To understand meaning of objects/acts, need to look to people involved
who imposed that meaning
b.) Cultural integration
i.) Patterns are counteractive to primary ones → subdominant but important
in culture
122
123
124
125
(1) Un-Hegelian → elements of culture’s negation are included within
ii.) Cultural organization = octopus
(1) Tentacles separately integrated
(a) Cultural discontinuity → everything doesn’t have to be
closely tied to each other
(2) Should be tied in some way to larger community (body/brain
connects all tentacles of octopus)
(3) Culture moves like octopus → disjointed
(a) One part shifts then other parts follow
Chapter 15: Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight
1.) The Raid
a.) Notes and observations from Geertz’s 1958 trip to Bali
b.) Observe a cockfight being held to raise money for a new school
i.) Cockfights are illegal in Bali since 1908 Dutch invasion
ii.) Usually held in secluded areas, but this one was held in a central square
iii.) Police roll up and panic ensues, Geertz & his wife run and hide with local
man and his family → suddenly accepted/noticed by society because they
demonstrated solidarity
2.) Of Cocks and Men
a.) Geertz then transitions into research surrounding cockfighting in Bali
b.) Sabung = Balinese word for rooster
i.) Also means “hero,” “warrior,” “champion”126
ii.) Connotated with masculine symbols → male moralism rhetoric tied to
roosters
c.) Men in Balinese society spend a lot of time with their roosters → rooster
connected to & reflects owner
d.) Roosters are represent animality: “direct inversion, aesthetically, morally, and
metaphysically, of human status”127
e.) Tension between rooster symbolism: represents powerful/masculine/ideal man,
but also repulsive animalistic behaviors
i.) Cockfight = battle of rooster symbolism
ii.) “In the cockfight, man and beast, good and evil, ego and id, the creative
power of aroused masculinity and the destructive power of loosened
animality fuse in a bloody drama of hatred, cruelty, violence, and
death.”128
3.) The Fight
a.) Cockfight as a sociological entity
i.) Fact of nature = rage untamed
126
127
128
ii.) Fact of culture = form perfected
iii.) Erving Goffman: “focused gathering”129
(1) Has just enough structure to not be a crowd, but not enough
structure to be an organized group
(2) “A set of persons engrossed in a common flow of activity and
relating to one another in terms of that flow”130
(3) Not a continuous event → fluctuates
4.) Odds and Even Money
a.) Two types of bets (Toh) in cockfighting
i.) Toh ketengah131 = between the cock owners
(1) Centralized, large, collective
(2) Deliberate, quiet negotiation in center of the ring
(3) Always even money (fair coin)
ii.) Toh kesasi132 = between members of the audience
(1) Peripheral, individual, man-to-man
(2) Impulsive shouting on edges of ring
(3) Never even money (always biased)
b.) Cockfight wagering = key connection between cockfighting and Balinese culture
i.) Due to asymmetry between center & side bets
ii.) Higher center bet → more likely that the match will be even
(1) Geertz uses his own data from the 57 matches he observed to back
this up
(2) Center bet = ‘center of gravity’ (defines game)
iii.) Size of bet = degree to which cocks are evenly matched = power of center
bet to pull side bets towards ‘even-money’
(1) “Center bet is a means, a device, for creating ‘interesting,’ ‘deep’
matches, not the reason, or at the least the main reason, why they
are interesting”133
5.) Playing with Fire
a.) References Jeremy Bentham’s The Theory of Legislation
i.) Concept of “deep play” → “play in which the stakes are so high that it is...
irrational for men to engage in it at all.”134
(1) In over your head, might risk losing it all
ii.) Bentham believes people who engage in “deep play” are
irrational/foolish/addicts, but Geertz asserts that for Balinese people,
129
130
131
132
133
134
“money is less a measure of utility… then it is a symbol of moral import,
perceived or imposed.”135
(1) In ‘deep games’ (larger cockfights), more than just money is at
stake → also esteem, honor, dignity, respect
(a) Social implications carry more weight in Balinese society
(b) Money does matter, but the more money you bet the more
pride/respect you have to lose
iii.) **Bentham: higher bet, more irrational; Balinese: higher bet, more
meaningful
(1) Weber → “imposition of meaning on life is the major end and
primary condition of human existence”136
(2) Geertz argues that for Balinese people, access to
significance/meaning >> economic risk involved in cockfighting
(3) Even-money in larger matches → monetary losses/wins eventually
even out
b.) Sociomoral hierarchy of cockfighting
i.) Lowest: People who don’t fight cocks, just play gambling games
(1) Women/poor people/kids, “money gambling”137
ii.) People who don’t fight, but bet on small matches
(1) Still money oriented, higher risk
iii.) People who fight cocks in small/medium matches
(1) Shifting towards “status gambling,”138 but still focused on
monetary gain
iv.) Highest: People who fight cocks in large matches
(1) “Status gambling”139
c.) KEY POINTS: 140
i.) If a match is between near status equals (and/or personal enemies) or
between high status individuals → deeper match
ii.) The deeper the match:
(1) Closer identification of cock and man
(2) Finer cocks involved & more evenly matched
(3) Greater emotion involved
(4) Higher center & outside bets, more betting overall
(5) Less “economic” and more “status” view of gaming
6.) Feathers, Blood, Crowds, and Money
135
136
137
138
139
140
a.) Compares cockfighting to an art form
i.) “Renders ordinary, everyday experience comprehensible by presenting it
in terms of acts and objects which have had their practical consequences
removed and been reduced… to the level of sheer appearances”141
ii.) Cockfight = means of expression → displays social passions
b.) Cockfights are “disquiet”
i.) **Sheds light on part of Balinese society that is usually hidden
(1) Remember the Cultural Triangle that Balinese people have enacted
to make themselves ‘fellowmen’ (generalized, uniform people).
Cockfights thus provide an outlet for individualization, a means to
show hidden aggressions, passions, and status via animals.
(2) Balinese avoid conflict in social life → cockfight acts as antithesis
& a way to resolve underlying conflict
c.) Cockfights = “radically atomistical”142
i.) Each match is its own world
ii.) Once a match ends, move on to the next one
iii.) “An expressive form lives only in its own present--the one it itself
creates.”143
iv.) Balinese life comes in spurts (think back to the calendars & understanding
of time)
(1) Similar to the action of cockfights → cockfights as an example of
Balinese life
v.) Provides metasocial commentary on social hierarchy → “Balinese reading
of Balinese experience, a story they tell themselves about themselves”144
7.) Saying Something of Something
a.) Refers to Aristotle → “saying something of something” 145
b.) Anthropological perspective: what can be learned from these observations
i.) Cockfights allowed Geertz to witness something about Balinese society
that he wouldn’t necessarily have understood from literature
ii.) Treating cockfight as a text shows that it uses emotion for cognitive ends
(1) Attending cockfights for Balinese = sentimental education
(a) Learn about community’s ethos
c.) Cockfights = paradigmatic human events
i.) “Tells us less about what happens than the kind of thing that would
happen”146
141
142
143
144
145
146
ii.) “The culture of people is an ensemble of texts, themselves ensembles,
which the anthropologist strains to read over the shoulders of those to
whom they properly belong.”147
X. Book Summary:
With these essays, Clifford Geertz aims to analyze and present culture as a system of symbols
situated within a specific historical context. This system organizes human behavior and identity
by guiding and structuring peoples’ different ways of understanding of the world, examples of
which include religion, ideology, science, politics, traditions, and social structures. Applying his
own anthropological methodology and theory to analyze different symbolic systems of meaning,
Geertz uses case studies to piece together and interpret minute details from specific historical
contexts to reach broader conclusions about human nature and identity-making. By likening
culture to a piece of text, Geertz puts forth the idea that these different systems can be made
accessible if one only learns how to read and interpret them, as anthropologists do. However, this
work is also never complete, for anthropologists will always be able to continue extracting
deeper meanings and building more complex interpretations of culture.
XI. Reception of Book:

1. The Interpretation of Cultures saw a generally positive reception at the time of its release,
and even the criticisms Geertz received came from authors who offered praise for many
aspects of the book as well.
2. Ward H. Goodenough’s own ideas were mentioned—and criticized—by Geertz in his
first essay. Despite this, Goodenough is generally positive in his 1974 review of The
Interpretation of Cultures.148 However, he does have some criticisms as well:
a. He believes that Geertz’s view on culture contains a paradox. Geertz criticized
Goodenough for locating culture in people’s heads, “where significant symbols
would be private, presumably inaccessible to others, and hence nonsignificant.”149
i. However, these symbols and meanings comprising culture are “learned
through human cognitive processes,” bringing us to the aforementioned
paradox: Symbols and their meanings are both social and public, and at
the same time learned by processes that are incapable of being observed
directly.
ii. “In stressing social exchanges, Geertz rivets attention on one of the
relevant arenas—the one in which people manifest themselves to one
another through symbolically governed behavior and make it possible for
147
148
Goodenough, Ward H. Review of On Cultural Theory, by Clifford Geertz. Science 186, no. 4162 (1974): 435–36.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1739708.
149
each to go to work cognitively on what the others have thus manifested.
But that is where he leaves it. He seems not to see the paradox.”150
iii. Geertz is focusing on how people’s behavior with one another is governed
symbolically, but does not address the learning process that occurs in one’s
mind and thus cannot be observed.
b. While it may be okay for Geertz to leave culture where he does, a true theory of
culture would require addressing the other aspect of the paradox.
i. “Geertz's "thick description" provides an outstanding example of
insightful and rich handling of these consequences. His work contributes
greatly to our thinking about culture, but it falls short of providing a theory
of culture.”151
3. In 1975, Elizabeth Colson also gave a mostly positive review of the book.
a. Colson praises Geertz for being “one of the most original and stimulating
anthropologists of his generation.”152
b. Felt that the essays were indicative of Geertz developing more as a philosopher
than a methodologist.
i. Referred to his anthropology as “an art, not a science.”
ii. His work does not provide a good model for other anthropologists or
sociologists to follow, as “he proceeds from an intuitive grasp of what is
important and reaches his conclusion with a flourish that conceals the
tedium of the procedures.”153
iii. His essays reflect both the optimism of the 1950s and the disillusionment
of the 1960s. However, given that the essays are organized by topic and
not chronologically, the reflection is somewhat obscured.
4. Ann Swidler’s 1996 review was also generally positive while touching on some
criticisms from the field
a. Criticisms:
i. Some feel his work is lacking criteria needed for adequate interpretation
ii. He has been attacked for his presentation of the peoples he studied,
including making them appear more foreign and that their texts require
“elaborate interpretation”154
iii. Neglect or misrepresentation of the historical and colonial contexts of
societies he studied
150
151
152
Colson, Elizabeth. Contemporary Sociology 4, no. 6 (1975): 637–38. https://doi.org/10.2307/2064031.
153
Colson, Elizabeth. Contemporary Sociology 4, no. 6 (1975): 637–38. https://doi.org/10.2307/2064031.
154
Swidler, Ann. Review of Geertz’s Ambiguous Legacy, by Clifford Geertz. Contemporary Sociology 25, no. 3
(1996): 299–302. https://doi.org/10.2307/2077435.
b. While Swidler acknowledges these criticisms, she feels they are not the greatest
concern for sociologists.
i. Felt that a “critical assimilation of Geertz at his best” would be beneficial
for sociologists.155
XII. Conclusion:
In all, The Interpretation of Cultures is an attempt to define and understand culture using
interpretive anthropology (coined by Geertz). With concepts of thick description (ethnography),
cultural symbolism, religion, and political ties, Geertz encouraged anthropology studies through
cultural symbols, primary texts, and immersion in cultures. He supplemented his studies through
his observations of different cultures- primarily stemming from Indonesia, India, and Morocco.
In the world of social science, Geertz is an influential figure that has shaped the way social
science is studied today. He emphasized the importance and complexity of culture in his works
and influenced a different approach to studying anthropology. He strived for anthropology as a
discipline to interpret and search for meaning, leading to a more holistic and immersed way of
interpreting cultures. With the cultural movements in our society for social acceptance, it is
crucial that we continue the study of cultures not just to learn more about the culture itself but
also understand others and decrease misunderstandings.
As Geertz says in his novel: “Cultural analysis is intrinsically incomplete. And, worse
than that, the more deeply it goes the less complete it is.”
155
Swidler, Ann. Review of Geertz’s Ambiguous Legacy, by Clifford Geertz. Contemporary Sociology 25, no. 3
(1996): 299–302. https://doi.org/10.2307/2077435.

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III. Historical Context:

IV. Ideological Context:

VI. Academic Community:

VIII. Position in the History of the Social Sciences:

IX. Outline of the Work:

XI. Reception of Book:

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