8/2/2019 Anthro 48

1/9

4/4/2012 7:03:00 AM

Tambiah touches upon the question of mystical thinking vs. scientific

thinking.

We have our own notions about magic. Associated with something

supernatural. At least looks like it.

Zande magic is very much focused on medicine. The essence of Zande magicis a combination of physical objects and incantations/spells.

Magic is often practiced in private. E.P. Plants are cook and eaten to counter

magic and witchcraft. You concoct the medicine to kill the witch in private with your

kinsmen.

It is important to talk to them. In Azande, they are commands/imperative.

The idea here is not that they are helpless beings but instead the Azande

think of them are things that do the stuffif directed.

vengeance medicine is good. It only kills somebody if the person is a witch.

If you send it to an innocent person, it comes back.

Sorcerers stone are stupid.They cant judge whether the person they are doing

magic is innocent.

Medicine and magic have a very strong moral element to it.

You just try medicine first and if you dont get better, then its witchcraft.

So, magic is not clearly as we think of the term. Tambiah is picking up on the

question how do we understand the attachment to an object which is kinda logical but not

really. He begins with challenging Azande mystical thinking and scientific

thinking. Because it presumes that it serves the same purpose.Tambiahs main point is that if Zande has the same interest in causality. Then, we fall

into the same pit that Frazer did that there is causality therethey see

connections between stuff.

Tambiah argues that magic and religion use different kinds of analogical thought but

science uses different type of analogical thought. In science, if A and B are related in

a certain manner and we wanna find out the relation between C and D. We

use known relationship to find out new relaionshipHypothesizing and then

experimenting!

Tambiah says that this is analogical thinking.

Tambiah says that there is another way to use analogical relationship. compression shorts

in LightroomWe can use analogy in a persuasive manner e.g. Dartmouth family is a

metaphor its not an actual family but rather, it tells you to think of it as a

family. This is different than saying that A and B are related in causal/mechanical way.

8/2/2019 Anthro 48

2/9

There are other ways to make analogies for a certain purpose. Transfer of

feelings and emotions from the known.

They are not imputing that the medicine will solve the problem. But they are

transporting the wishes and desires of the people in the certain object e.g.

Azande uses creeper to teach lepers skin..creeper sheds its skin when itgrows. You administer it to the person so, it can emulate the creeper who is growing

instead of the leper who is degenerating. Tambiah argues that we desire to transfer

the qualities of the creeper into the leper. We want the person to heal and

grow!

You express the desire with the help of concrete objects. You are symbologically

expressing their desire.

We dont think of commands as true or false. Rather than subjecting imperatives to

their truth values. We evaluate them according to their appropriateness.

If magic is being used appropriately, if not it wont work. We see that Azande

dont ask inapprop things from magic. You cant ask magic to build the house.

Magic comes into play in places of uncertainty. Often comes in as

supplemental to the proper knowledge. You dont ask magic to build a

house/canoe. Put bricks/know what is the best wood. But you may use it to help

the house to prosper.

So, Tambiah says that we should not view the magic as locutianary acts but rather

illocutionary/performative act (where saying something is more important than

doing something) We dont just use words to describe stuff. You can changestuff in the world..making promises, taking oath, give a command. Magic,

then, is much more heightened use of changing the world. Is magic one of those three

categories?

Still doesnt answer the question about why Azande talk to things as if they were people?

If Tambiah is right, we have an even more interesting analogy in the way

people work. Advertising. Think of different commercials that you see. We

dont pay attention to them but those images keep coming back to us.

What does sex have to do with toothpaste, deodorant etc. Having this thing

maeks you more attractive. We know this does not happen in real life!

what would a Martian anthropologist say? These people believe in magic. They

think foolishly that they can become the person in ad if they buy the product. Now, we

know that we dont believe but we still buy the product!

This helps us understand magic. While it doesnot consrain our view, it still

changes it.

8/2/2019 Anthro 48

3/9

Magic becomes a real

Two lessons to draw from our encounter with Azamde.

We might be talking about a metaphor about social our job as anthropologists is not to judge whether its true or not. but what are the people doing when they do it. and try not to make presumptions about what is going on. And always what is going on is not what we think is going on.

8/2/2019 Anthro 48

4/9

The point of all that is to understand the world maintaining religion.

Fundamental transformation in Europe from agrarian to industrial.Political changes are happening as well.

It is from that change that modern sociology emerge. What is happening?Why are we changing?

Modern thinking such as postivism by Auguste Comte that is realknowledge is things that you can feel, touch etc. Durkheim makes the

famous assertion that society is made of social facts and social facts are

tangible things.

The society is a thing in its own rite. society makes social contract.Society emerges out of individual positions. Society is much larger and

transcends individual interests. It is before and after the time of

individual. Society is not simply reducible to individual interest/

psychology/ emotion/ desires. Society is more than the sum of its individual

members.

Society is external to me. Durkheim is not arguing that society existsindependent of all individual. Society exists independent of any particular

individual.

Society is a set of interacting individuals. Society is a force because it exerts anexternal force on an individual. Society can be experienced by the

coercive force it exerts on individual.

We are constantly being reminded like a tantrum child that we can notchange social rules and norms. Social rules come from interaction

between individual. Nobody can change the rules of society just by

themselves and have to persuade other people about the new way of

thinking.

These are the two evidence that Durkheim uses to prove that social factsare actual things.

Societal forces are always act as a constraint but as positive attachments.As, children we get rewarded for conformation.

This process of learning to conform to expectations Conscience collective is what Durkheim uses. Conscience collective is the

shared moral standards. Conscience also refers to consciousness

awareness of being a social being.

Conscience collective results in collective representation. They are waysof expressing conscience collective. Mangu is a collective representation. It is

8/2/2019 Anthro 48

5/9

a word/image that expresses the share perspective of how the world

works.

What happens to the society when it moves from agrarian to industrialized nation? Forour purposes, Durkheim thinks that religious idea are central to the idea

of conscious collective. Durkheims interest in religion was because hethought that it was a way of representing of the conscience collective.

Elementary Forms

First published in 1915. What makes religious collective representation differentthan other forms of collective representation.

He wants to understand the given conditions of human that religion isbuilt upon.

Religion exists everywhere. So, it has to have a solid basis. He rejectsTylors idea of dreams and misguided attempts at explaining stuff. His

strategy is to what religions mean to the society.

He goes for the simplest religion he can find and that is Australian totemism.What is disticitve about the idea of totemism is that it posits a

relationships between a plant or an animal between a social group of

people e.g. kinship. Religious stuff is based on this relationship.

When he says simple, he is not assuming that it is simplistic or outlandishor primitive/crude. He is also not saying that it is the form of which all theother religions emerge.

He is not making evolutionary assertions or making value judgement. Durkheim gotmislead by the Australian aboriginals. They have a simple living and yet,

as ethnogrpaher, they had an extremely complex kinship system e.g.

marriage rules. Also, extremely complex religious ideas and mythology.

Given this, what are the elementary forms that are expressed in Australian totemism?Religion exists of social interactions and rituals.

He draws distinction between sacred and profane. Religion works withonly the sacred. Everything else is profane.

Sacredness is not within objects. Some clans hold a particular kangaroo,even a snake or insignificant. Durkheim argues that sacredness is never the

intrinsic qualities as objects but in the rules that come to be associated with them.

Profane things are every

8/2/2019 Anthro 48

6/9

Things that do not fit are very dangerous to the culture that we are trying to

establish.

One way in which cultures handle them is to make them taboo. The big question is how do we account for these differences between the

differences in the idea of pollution? Why do we have different ways of classifying

and associating stuff? Pritchard says that Azande witches can never exist.

Magic and miracleo the main point in the chapter is that she is arguing that

magical thought in primitive societies is not that different

from our societies.

o Why si it that we overdraw the distinction between our cultureand magical thought?

Some of it is because the religious history of Europe.Emergence of Protestantism. One of the critique of

Protestantism was the critique of rituals and emphasis

of interior belief/faith.

Douglas is right in saying that European societiesinfluenced by Protestantism leads us to be suspicious

about them.

Frazer/Tylor tend to take that anti-religious bias andproject them in different ways. We see primitives doingstuff and are wary of the about the ritual. But at he

same time, if we assume that is a religion, it should

have an inner genuine sentiment. This raises the issue

that if they are doing the ritual, they must believe the

stuff. Doing the rain dance must bring rain!

Douglas thinks that we are therefore the source of the problem. Someitmes, unconscious bias that we have sometimes

affects our way we perceive other cultures.

Pritchard never says that but it is always there in his mind. One way to overcome that is to think what ritual

actually is!

Ritual in our lives infuse our lives as it does in somemore primitive religions.

8/2/2019 Anthro 48

7/9

She argues that ritual pervades our social life. More oftent hatnot, these rituals are secular but they are rituals

nonetheless. They actually do things. They make

changes in the world. They help us control and define

lives as Durkheim . Rituals are routines. Brushing teeth in the morning. Douglas argue that we should see these as what they

are.

Rituals are creative acts they frame experience anddraw boundaries around things e.g. I wear coat and

pants on days I am teaching. Spring cleaning .Writing a

paper you get a coffee etc..have a defined ritual. They

shape our life and give meaning to it.

It focuses our attention brings us to get our stuffdone. What does a batsmen and a bowler do before

batting a bowling. Running or tapping bat gets you in

the habit of doing the act that we are supposed to do.

She is trying to shift our attention from not just . . Rituals are The dinka do the rain dance. If we walk in, we presume

that they do it for the rain to come. But they do the rain

dance during the rain season.They are not dumb! Its a re-

enactment of what effect it has supposed to have.

Through imitative magic, as Frazer would say, we arereminding ourselves that this is when and how the rain

would come.

These acts, therefore, are not supernatural because weare imitating what would naturally happen.

They are saying that let the rain season happen as it issupposed to happen.

Hence, it is invoking natural forces! She uses the example money as a ritual example.

Money used to be worth it was made. Now, we are on a

fiat-based money. We use the money without even

thinking. Currencies are only valued in relation to other

8/2/2019 Anthro 48

8/9

currencies. There is a huge sense of symbolic reality of

society; it has Durkheimian..

Douglas suggests that having that money only workswhen you have faith in money. We want it to work. It

changes the world, It makes the world work! Rituals are ways that express assumptions and Rituals can serve as a comparative ground about

how.

They have a creative power to them. It presents anoverlap between out societies and theirs.

But there is still difference between our rituals and theirs

o Chapter 5o Comes with a Durkheimian perspectiveo She goes back to another difference primitive societies are

pollution prone societies. We are less concerned with taboos

and stuff.

o So, she is making the point that these differences are notrepresentative of

o it is pernicious because it implies that primitive systems aretrivial.

o bELLAH ARGUES THAT WHAT DIFFERENTIATES THEPRIMITIVE SOCIETIES AND MODERN SOCIETIES ARE DEGREES

OF DIFFERENTIATION. Our large societies means that we have to have

division of labor.

o This complex social difference is also reflected in their world-view. In more differentiated societies, we are constantly

having to meet people with differences and situate ourselves

within them. With this comes a greater self-consious of

similarities and differences. We are not the center of the

world. Douglas argues that we are so aware and exposed to

different cultures, we can a more generalized language and

conception to accommodate all and become more objective.

o The thinking, she argues, that everything become smoreobjective and abstract to accommodate everything. In societies

8/2/2019 Anthro 48

9/9

that are less diverse, it is easy to presume a more subjective, ego-centered

world view.

o She refers to the undifferentiated societies as pre-Copernicus.We do have pre-Copernican remnants

o It is difficult to see outside from their provincial point of view.They are always interpreted in peoples good or bad luck.

They are much more ego-centric. When things happen for a

reason, homogeneous views can build up relationship

between the person and things. Possessions are things that

have a connection to possessor. You are giving a part of

yourself when you give a gift. She says on pg 109, Persons are not

completely

intervenes to .

o These ways of thinking emerge not because somebody thinksxthem all up. Far from being irrational, these emerge when

people try to explain things around us and provides

mechanisms for controlling things around us. These are not

proof of illogical thought but a product of continuous process

of symbolic menas to the end of coping with everyday life.

o They arent systematically thought out processes but emergepiecemeal as explanations of resolving social, moral and

scientific life.o For bellah, religious evolution is not progress to

betternement. Religious systems have a tendency to becomes

more complex. Also, look at the distinctions he draws

between primitive and archaic

religions

..

o Archaic religions dreamtime thoughts and ideasdifferentiated into more anthropomorphic figures. But same

as primitive, the cosmos and mythological world is the same.