Balinese Cockfights and the Seduction of Anthropology

Author(s): WILLIAM ROSEBERRY

Source: Social Research, Vol. 49, No. 4 (WINTER 1982), pp. 1013-1028
Published by: The New School
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Balinese Cockfights /
and the /
Seduction of /
Anthropology^'BY WILLIAM ROSEBERRY

Jl EWanthropologists in recentyearshave enjoyedwiderin-

fluencein thesocialsciencesthanCliffordGeertz.Sociologists,
and social historiansinterestedin popular
politicalscientists,
culturehave turned increasinglyto anthropology,and the
anthropologist mostoftenembracedis ProfessorGeertz.
A numberof factorscan be adduced to account for this
trend.In the firstplace, Geertz'spositionat the Institutefor
AdvancedStudyhas allowedhimto transcendthedisciplinary
and subdisciplinary involutionthatcharacterizes anthropology
and othersocialsciences.At the Institute, he is able to attract
scholarsfroma varietyof disciplines, adoptingan antidiscipli-
nary mood and focus thatis rare in currentacademicpractice.
Second,Geertzis an excellentethnographer who writeswith
an eloquenceand sophistication uncommonforthe socialsci-
ences.His culturalessayscan be read withprofitbyintroduc-
torystudentsor graduatestudentsin advancedseminars.And
his descriptionsof lifein Bali or Javaor Moroccocall to mind
one of the aspectsof anthropology thathas alwaysbeen so
seductive:thelureof distantplacesand othermodesof being.
Thus, in part,thetitleof thisessay.But thetitleis intendedto
suggestanotheraspectof Geertz'sworkas well,forthereis a
sense in whichanthropologists - and othersocial scientists-
have been seduced by Geertz'sculturaltheory.

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1014 SOCIAL RESEARCH

Materialists
and Idealists

To explore this claim, we must firstexamine a thirdaspect

of Geertz's prominence: his participationin anthropological
debates between materialistsand idealists. Although the ap-
parent antinomies between explanation and interpretation,
science and history,and materialismand idealism have served
as constantthemes in anthropologicaldebates over the years,
the discourse has become increasinglyacrimonioussince 1968.
Over a period of approximatelytwentyyears afterWorld War
II, manyAmerican anthropologiststurned away fromBoasian
relativismand toward more scientific,explanatoryapproaches
to culture and society.With this trend, a type of materialism
dominated anthropologicaldiscussions,especially through the
cultural ecology of Julian Steward and the cultural
evolutionism of Leslie White. By the late 1960s, however,
increasing numbers of social scientistswere rejectingexplan-
atory accounts as positivistand were rediscovering German
historicismand the interpretivesociologies that had influ-
enced the early Boasians. Yet, at approximatelythe same time,
the position of public dominance in anthropological mate-
rialism passed to Marvin Harris upon the publication of his
l
Rise ofAnthropological Theory. With that book and subsequent
volumes, most notably his Cultural Materialism,2Harris has
mapped out a materialistterrain that is resolutelyscientific,
although it exhibitsmuch less caution regarding what we can
know about social and cultural processes than did the cultural
ecology of Julian Steward.
In such a context,Geertz's prominenceis hardlysurprising.
The 1973 publication of a collection of his essays, The In-
of Cultures,3and especially an essay entitled"Thick
terpretation

1 Marvin Harris, The Rise Theory(New York: Crowell, 1968).

of Anthropological
2 Marvin Harris,CulturalMaterialism:The for a ScienceofCulture(New York:
Struggle
Random House, 1979).
3 CliffordGeertz, The Interpretation
of Cultures(New York: Basic Books, 1973).

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 THE SEDUCTION OF ANTHROPOLOGY 1015

Description:Toward an InterpretiveTheory of Culture,"4

writtenespeciallyforthatvolume,provideda persuasivetext
forthoseanthropologists whoweredissatisfied withthevision
of a scienceof cultureofferedby Harris.GivenGeertz'sback-
groundin Weberianperspectives withthe
and his familiarity
phenomenologicaland hermeneuticliteraturethat Harris
dismissesas "obscurantist,"
Geertzcan, witha shortdiscussion
of winksand blinks,call into seriousquestion Harris's un-
mediatedunderstanding of socialand culturalfacts.And he is
able to makea persuasivecase foran anthropology thatis "not
an experimentalsciencein searchof law but an interpretive
one in searchof meaning."5
The difference betweenHarrisand Geertz,and theirpar-
ticularversionsof explanationand interpretation, can be
demonstrated witha discussionof theirapproachesto culture.
For Harris,
The startingpointofall sociocultural
analysisforcultural
mate-
rialismis simplythe existence of an etichumanpopulation
locatedin etictimeand space.A societyforus is a maximal
ofbothsexesandall agesandexhibiting
socialgroupconsisting
a wide rangeof interactive behavior.Culture,on the other
hand, refersto thelearned repertoryof thoughts and actions
exhibitedby the members of socialgroups.. . .6

among infrastruc-
Harris goes on to make rigiddistinctions
ture,structure,and superstructureand tellsus that
The eticbehavioralmodesof production and reproduction
determine
probabilistically the etic domesticand
behavioral
political
economy, whichin turnprobabilistically
determine
the
behavioraland mentalerniesuperstructures.7
Note thatcultureis reduced to a set of ideas, or a "learned
repertoryof thoughtsand actions."Cultureis a product;it is
4 Clifford Theoryof Culture,"
Towardan Interpretive
Geertz,"ThickDescription:
in Interpretationof Cultures,pp. 3-30.
''Ibid., p. 5.
6 Harris, CulturalMaterialism, 47.
p.
7Ibid.,pp. 55-56.

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1016 SOCIAL RESEARCH

not simultaneouslyproduction. There is, then, no concern in

Harris's work with meaning - the socially constructed under-
standingsof the world in terms of which people act. But as
long as we are workingwithsuch an ideational view of culture,
whetherfrom a materialistor idealist perspective,we remove
it from human action and praxis and thereforeexclude the
possibilityof bridging the anthropological antinomybetween
the material and ideal. We may explore this assertion by
turningto CliffordGeertz.
The promise of Geertz's project, especially as elaborated in
"Thick Description," is that he seems to be working with a
concept of culture as socially constituted and socially con-
stituting.He explicitlycriticizesideational definitionsof cul-
ture, concentratingon symbols that carry and communicate
meanings to the social actors who have created them. Unfor-
tunately,at no point does he say what he means as clearlyand
rigorouslyas does Harris. Instead, he places his definitionsin
a more elegant and elusive prose. For example:

Believing,withMax Weber,thatmanis an animalsuspendedin

he himselfhas spun, I take cultureto be
webs of significance
thosewebs.. . .8

Or:

. . . cultureconsistsof sociallyestablishedstructures
of meaning
in termsof whichpeople do such thingsas signalconspiracies
and join themor perceiveinsultsand answerthem.. . .9

Or:

The cultureof a people is an ensembleof texts,themselves

ensembles,whichthe anthropologiststrainsto read over the
shouldersof thoseto whomtheyproperlybelong.10

8 Geertz, "Thick
Description,"p. 5.
9Ibid.,
p. 13.
10CliffordGeertz,
"Deep Play: Notes on a Balinese Cockfight,"in Interpretation
of
Cultures,p. 452.

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 THE SEDUCTION OF ANTHROPOLOGY 1017

The lastquote comes fromthe well-known essay"Deep Play:

Notes on a BalineseCockfight,"11to whichmore attentionis
devotedin thisessay.It was notedabove thatGeertz"seems to
be workingwitha conceptof cultureas sociallyconstituted
We mustnow questionwhetherhe
and sociallyconstituting."
has realizedthispromise.This essaycomparesGeertz'sclaims
forhimselfin "ThickDescription"withone of his own pieces
of description.Because Geertz'sethnographicwork is volu-
minous, and the aims of this easy are modest, we shall
concentrateon the essay cited above, "Notes on a Balinese
Cockfight."

CulturalProductsas Texts

Geertz'sessay is at once an attemptto show thatcultural

productscan be treatedas textsand an attemptto interpret
one such text. The metaphorof the text is, of course, a
favoriteof the practitioners of both structuralism and her-
meneutics,though Geertz takes his lead from Ricoeur rather
than Lévi-Strauss.The referenceto cultureas a text,given
Geertz'sproject,callsforan exercisein interpretation. Geertz's
interpretation mustbe summarizedbeforewe can ask some
questionsof it."Noteson a BalineseCockfight" beginswithan
accountof the Geertzes'difficulties whenfirstarrivingin the
their
field, response to a police raid and their
on a cockfight,
finalacceptance,given that response,by the villagers.The
essay then moves into a descriptionof the cockfightitself,
includinga discussionof the psychologicalidentification of
men and cocks,the proceduresassociatedwithcockfights and
wagers,and so on. Preliminaries out of theway,Geertzmoves
towardan interpretation of the fightitself.He begins with
JeremyBentham'snotionof deep play,or gamesin whichthe
consequencesforlosersare so devastating in
thatparticipation

11Ibid.,pp. 412-453.

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1018 SOCIAL RESEARCH

the games is irrational for all concerned. Noting that the

central wagers in Balinese cockfightsseem to correspond to
such a high stakes game, he then counters:

It is in large part becausethe marginaldisutility of loss is so

great at the higherlevels of bettingthat to engage in such
bettingis to lay one's publicself,allusivelyand metaphorically,
throughthemediumofone's cock,on theline.And thoughto a
Benthamite thismightseem merelyto increasethe irrationality
of the enterprisethat much further,to the Balinese what it
mainlyincreasesis themeaningfulness ofitall. And as (to follow
WeberratherthanBentham)theimpositionof meaningon life
is the major and primaryconditionof human existence,that
accessof significance morethancompensatesforthe economic
costsinvolved.12

Geertz then looks to two aspects of significance in the

cockfight.Both are related to the hierarchicalorganization of
Balinese society. He first observes that the cockfight is a
"simulation of the social matrix," or, following Goffman, a
"status bloodbath."13 To explore this, Geertz mentions the
four descent groups that organize factionsin the village and
examines the rules involvedin bettingagainst the cocks owned
by membersof other descent groups, other villages,rivals,and
so on. As Geertz moves toward the second aspect of
significance,although he has not yet referredto the cockfight
as a text,he begins to referto it as "an art form."14As an art
form, it "displays" fundamental passions in Balinese society
thatare hidden fromview in ordinarydaily life and comport-
ment. As an atomisticinversionof the way Balinese normally
present themselvesto themselves,the cockfightrelates to the
statushierarchyin another sense- no longer as a status-based
organization of the cockfightbut as a commentary on the
existence of status differences in the first place.15 The
cockfightis "a Balinese reading of Balinese experience, a story
12Ibid.,
p. 434.
13Ibid.,
p. 436.
14Ibid.,
p. 443.
15Ibid.,
pp. 444-447.

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 THE SEDUCTION OF ANTHROPOLOGY 1019

theytellthemselves aboutthemselves."16 Whattheytellthem-

selvesis thatbeneaththe externalveneerof collectivecalm
and gracelies anothernature.At boththe socialand individ-
ual level,thereis anotherBali and anothersortof Balinese.
And whattheytellthemselves theytellin a textthat"consists
of a chickenhackinganothermindlessly to bits."17
Afterthisbasic interpretation of the Balinese cockfightin
termsof statusorganizationand commentary, Geertzcloses
witha discussionof cultureas an ensembleof texts.He notes
thattheirinterpretation and thatsuch an approach
is difficult
is not
theonlywaythatsymbolic forms handled.
canbe sociologically
Functionalism But to regard
lives,and so does psychologism.
suchformsas "saying somethingofsomething,"andsaying itto
somebody,is at leastto open up the of
possibility an analysis
whichattendsto theirsubstance ratherthanto reductivefor-
mulasprofessing to accountforthem.18

Accepting thiscriticismof reductiveformulas,we mustques-

tion whetherGeertz'sanalysishas sociologically handled the
Balinesecockfight or paid sufficient
attentionto itssubstance.
In what follows,no fundamentalreinterpretation of the
Balinesecockfight is attempted.Such a reinterpretationis the
taskof a writermorefamiliarwithBali and Indonesiathanis
the presentone. This essay simplypointsto a few elements
presentin Geertz'sessay but omittedfromthe interpretive
exercisethatshouldforma partof a culturaland sociological
interpretationof thecockfight. AlthoughGeertzmightregard
referenceto theseelementsas a formof functionalist reduc-
tionism,no attemptis made hereto accountforor explainthe
existenceof thecockfight. Rather,bypointingto otheraspects
of Balinesesocietyand historywithwhichthe cockfight may
be involved,this essay calls into question the metaphorof
cultureas text.
16Ibid., p. 448.
17Ibid.,
p. 449.
18Ibid.,
p. 453.

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1020 SOCIAL RESEARCH

Accepting for a moment that metaphor, we might briefly

turn to three aspects of Balinese society not included in the
interpretation.The firsthas to do withthe role of women. In
a footnoteearly in the article,Geertz notes that,while there is
little apparent public sexual differentiation in Bali, the
cockfightis one of the few activitiesfrom which women are
excluded.19This apparent anomaly may make sense in terms
of Geertz's interpretation.As with status differences,so with
sexual differences. The cockfight, and betting on the
cockfight,are the activitiesof men, serving as commentaries
on the public denial of difference.But sex cannot be simply
subsumed withinstatus. The sexual exclusion becomes more
interesting when we learn in another footnote that the
Balinese countrysidewas integrated by rotating market sys-
temsthatwould encompass several villages and thatcockfights
were held on market days near the marketsand were some-
times organized by pettymerchants."Trade has followed the
cock for centuriesin rural Bali, and the sport has been one of
the main agencies of the island's monetization."20Further-
more, in yetanother footnotein his recentNegara, Geertz tells
us thatthe traditionalmarketswere "staffedalmost entirelyby
women" and that they were held in the morning while
cockfightswere held on the same afternoon.21
Aside from sexual differentiationand the connection with
markets,Geertz also notes throughout the early part of the
essay22that the cockfightwas an importantactivityin precolo-
nial Balinese states(thatis, before the earlytwentiethcentury),
thatit was held in a ring in the centerof the village,thatit was
taxed and was a significant source of public revenue.23
19Ibid.,
pp. 417-418.
20Ibid.,
p. 432.
21Clifford Geertz, Bali (Princeton:
Negara: The TheatreState in Nineteenth-Century
PrincetonUniversityPress,1980),p. 199.
22Geertz,"Deep Play,"pp. 414, 418, 424, 425.
23In Negara,Geertzseemsto takea morecautiousstandon cockfights as a major
sourceof publicrevenue.The book is an analysisof fractionated "theatrestates"in
but
Bali,in whicha seriesof lordsand princesare able tobuildfollowings
precolonial
in whichthefollowingsthemselves are geographicallydispersed.Thoughhe analyzes

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 THE SEDUCTION OF ANTHROPOLOGY 1021

Further,we learn that the cockfightwas outlawed by the

Dutchand laterby Indonesia,thatit is nowheld in semisecret
in hiddencornersof the village,and thatthe Balineseregard
theislandas takingthe shape of "a small,proudcock,poised,
neck extended,back taut,tail raised,in eternalchallengeto
large,feckless,shapelessJava."24Surelythesemattersrequire
someinterpretive attention. At theveryleasttheysuggestthat
the cockfight is intimately related(thoughnot reducible)to
politicalprocesses of state formationand colonialism.They
also suggestthatthe cockfight has gone througha significant
change in the past eightyyears,thatif it is a textit is a text
that is being writtenas part of a profoundsocial, politi-
cal, and culturalprocess.
This, finally,bringsus to the thirdpoint,whichis less an
aspect omittedfromthe interpretation than one thatis not
sufficientlyexplicated.Geertz refersto the cockfightas a
statusbloodbathand tellsus thatas a commentary on status
the cockfighttellsthe Balinese thatsuch differences"are a
matterof life and death" and a "profoundlyserious busi-
ness."25Yet, in thisessay at least,we learn verylittleabout
casteand statusas materialsocial processand the connection
thatprocessdoes or does not have withcockfighting. In his
recentNegara,Geertzturnshis attentionto elaboratecrema-
tionceremoniesand sees themas an "aggressiveassertionof
status."Comparablein spiritto the potlatch,the cremationis
"conspicuousconsumption,Balinese style"26and is one of
variousritualsthatelaboratelytellthe Balinesethat"statusis

the dispersedtax areas of lordsand theactivities or

of the tax and rentcollectors,
sedahan, he refersto thecockfight
onlyin a footnoteto anothersectionon commerce.
Therehe notes:"The marketplaces werecommonly setup in thespacein frontofone
or anotherlord'shouse.. . . And,as witheverythingelse- land,water,people,and so
on- theidiomhad itthatthelord'owned'themarket.In anycase,he leviedtaxeson
it,as he did on thecockfights,which,in theafternoon of themarketday,wereoften
held in the cockringnear the marketplace" (Negara,p. 199).
24Geertz,"Deep Play,"p. 418.
25
Ibid., p. 447.
26Geertz,
Negara, p. 117.

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1022 SOCIAL RESEARCH

all."27In thiscase, we are dealing in part withpoliticalcompe-

titionamong high caste lords and princes. But lords are also
communicatingto their commoners that the hierarchyis di-
vinelyordained. Status in Bali has to do with inheritedcaste
but also withpositions achieved in life through various forms
of political maneuver- most clearly among lords but also
among low-casteSudras. Withso much maneuver,and withso
many cultural "texts"relatingto status,some attentionshould
be paid to the differentmessages of these texts and to their
constructionin the contextof status formationas an historical
process.
These three problems lead to a basic point. The cockfight
has gone through a process of creation that cannot be sepa-
rated from Balinese history.Here we confrontthe major in-
adequacy of the text as a metaphor for culture. A text is
written;it is not writing.28To see cultureas an ensembleof texts
or an art form is to remove culture from the process of its
creation.29If culture is a text, it is not everybody'stext. Be-
yond the obvious fact that it means differentthings to dif-
ferentpeople or differentsorts of people, we must ask who is
(or are) doing the writing.Or, to break with the metaphor,
who is doing the acting,the creatingof the cultural formswe
interpret. This is a key question, for example, in the
transformationof the cockfightafterthe arrivalof the Dutch.
In a recent essay, Geertz has pointed to the separation of the
textfromits creation as one of the strengthsof the metaphor.
Referringto Ricoeur's notion of "inscription,"or the separa-
tion in the text of the said fromthe saying,Geertz concludes:
The greatvirtueof the extensionof the notionof textbeyond
thingswrittenon paper or carvedinto stone is thatit trains
attention
on preciselythisphenomenon:on howthe inscription
27Ibid.. n. 102.
28I thankRichardBlot forthisooint.
29It shouldbe understoodthatthedifferenceis notthatbetweentextand perfor-
oppositionbetweenlan-
takesus backto the structuralist
mance.Such a distinction
guage and speech,to whichGeertzwouldhardlybe sympathetic. Rather,the very
notionof cultureas textmustbe radicallyquestioned.

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 THE SEDUCTION OF ANTHROPOLOGY 1023

about,whatitsvehiclesare and howthey

of actionis brought
work,and on whatthefixation of meaningfromtheflowof
events- historyfromwhathappened,thought fromthinking,
culture - implies
frombehavior forsociological
interpretation.30
The readershouldnotassumethatthisessayis callingforthe
reductionof culture to action. Geertz correctlypoints to
meaningsthatpersistbeyondevents,symbolsthatoutlastand
of theircreators.But neithershould
transcendthe intentions
culturebe separatedfromaction;otherwisewe are caughtin
yetanotherof anthropology'santinomies.Unfortunately, the
textas metaphoreffectspreciselythisseparation.

and Process
Differentiation

The emphasison culturalcreationbringsout twoaspectsof

culturethatare missingfromGeertz'swork.The firstis the
presenceof socialand culturaldifferentiation,even withinan
apparently uniform text. Referenceto is, in
differentiation
part,referenceto the connectionsbetweencultureand rela-
tionsof powerand domination, as impliedin thecommentson
state and status,above. Some mightthinkthat to referto
cultureand power is to reduce cultureto power, to treat
valuesas "glosseson propertyrelations"31or to "runon about
the exploitationof the masses."32But thereare reductions,
and then thereare reductions.And the denial of such con-
nectionsis but one of manyclassicalreductionsin American
anthropology. The secondaspectthatis missingis a conceptof
cultureas materialsocialprocess.Withouta senseof cultureas
materialprocess or creation - as writingas well as what is
written- we once again have a conceptionof cultureas prod-

30CliffordGeertz,"Blurred Genres: The

Refigurationof Social Thought," American
Scholar 49:2 (1980): 165-179.
31Geertz,
"Deep Play," p. 449.
VLGeertz, "Thick
Description," p. 22.

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1024 SOCIAL RESEARCH

uct but not as production.33The referenceto culture as mate-

rial social process is not intended to take us back to the an-
thropologicalmaterialismof Marvin Harris. Indeed, the crit-
icismthis essay has directedat CliffordGeertz is similarto the
criticismit directed at Marvin Harris: both treat culture as
product but not as production. There the similarityends, of
course. But both have removed culture from the process of
cultural creation and have thereforemade possible the con-
stant reproductionof an antinomybetween the material and
the ideal.
The resolutionof the antinomy,and the concept of culture
thatemerges fromthatresolution,mustbe materialist.But the
materialisminvoked in this essay is far removed from the
reductivescientismthat has come to dominate materialismin
American anthropology.Rather, what is needed is something
close to the "cultural materialism"of Raymond Williams,34
who notes thatthe problem withmechanical materialismis not
thatit is too materialistbut thatit is not materialistenough. It
treatsculture and other aspects of the "superstructure"simply
as ideas. It therefore makes room for, indeed requires,
idealist critiquesthat share the ideational definitionbut deny
the materialconnectionor, as in the case of Geertz,that reject
the ideational definitionin favor of one that sees a socially
constructedtext that is, nonetheless,removed from the social
process by which the text is created. In contrast, Williams
suggests that cultural creation is itself a form of material
production,that the abstractdistinctionbetween materialbase
and ideal superstructuredissolves in the face of a material

33MarshallSahlins,whoalso recognizestheantinomies of anthropological

thought
and has builthis careerat bothpolesof theone betweenmaterialism and idealism,
makestheoppositecriticism of Geertz,seeingGeertz'sculturaltheoryas too closely
tied to the social. But Sahlinsmakesthiscriticism as partof an argumentforthe
symbolic constitution of thesocial.See MarshallSahlins,CultureandPractical
Reason
(Chicago:University of ChicagoPress,1976),pp. 106-117.
14RaymondWilliams,Marxism and Literature
(Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1977).See as wellhisProblems in Materialism
and Culture(London: New LeftBooks,
1980) and TheSociology ofCulture(New York: SchockenBooks, 1982).

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 THE SEDUCTION OF ANTHROPOLOGY 1025

social processthroughwhichboth"material"and "ideal" are

constantly createdand recreated.
Yet Williamsdoes not leave his anlaysisat thiselementary
assertion.He also pays attentionto the sociallyconstructed
meaningsthatinformaction.He does thisin partbymeansof
a revaluationof theidea of tradition,definingitas a reflection
upon and selection from a people's history.The selection
processis tied to relationsof dominationand subordination,
so thatWilliamscan talkof a dominantculture,or hegemony,
as a selectivetradition.Althoughthis dominantculture is
relatedto and supportsan orderof inequality,Williamsdoes
notviewit simplyas a ruling-class ideologyimposedupon the
dominated.Rather,as a selectionfromand interpretation of a
people'shistory, it touchesaspectsof thelivedrealityor expe-
rienceof thedominantand dominatedalike.It is,in shortand
in part,"meaningful." But Williamsalso notesthatno orderof
domination is total. There are always relationshipsand
meaningsthatare excluded.Therefore,alternative meanings,
alternativevalues,alternative versionsof a people'shistoryare
availableas a potentialchallengeto the dominant.Whether
such alternativeversionsare constructeddepends upon the
nature of the culturaland historicalmaterialavailable,the
processof class formationand division,and the possibilities
and obstaclespresentedin the politicalprocess. Williams's
conceptof culture,then,is tiedto a processof class formation
but is not reduced to thatprocess.Dominantand emergent
culturesare formedin a class-basedsocialworld,but theyare
not necessarily congruentwithclass divisions.
The themesof cultureas materialsocial process and of
culturalcreationas (in part)politicalactionare furtherdevel-
oped in a recentarticlebyPeterTaylorand HermannRebel.35
In a masterful analysisof culturein history,the authorscon-
-
centrateon four"texts" four of the Grimms'folktalesthat
35Peter
Taylor and Hermann Rebel, "Hessian Peasant Women, Their Families,and
the Draft: A Socio-Historical Interpretationof Four Tales from the Grimm Collec-
tion,"Journalof FamüyHistory6 (1981): 347-378.

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1026 SOCIAL RESEARCH

deal withcommon themes of inheritance,disinheritance,fam-

ily dissolution,and migration.Afterbrieflycriticizingpsycho-
logical interpretations, they place the tales in the late-
eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century context in which
they were collected. They then take two innovative method-
ological steps that are of great importance for the concept of
culture. First, they ask who is telling the tales and in what
context. They also note that, while the tales are traditional,
theyare not timeless,that is, the formand contentof the tales
may change in theirtelling.The question of who is tellingthe
tales and in what context thereforebecomes important.Tak-
ing a form of culture as a text,it is the firststep toward an
analysis of text as writing,as material social process. Second,
theyassume that the peasant women who are tellingthe tales
forma "peasant intelligentsia"thatis tryingto intervenein the
social process. That is, the tales are commentarieson what is
happening to them and their families that call for particular
formsof action to alter the situation.This is a crucial method-
ological step in the constructionof a concept of culture not
simply as a product but also as production, not simply as
sociallyconstitutedbut also as sociallyconstituting.Given this
framework,the authors then embark on a detailed symbolic
analysis of the tales and, finally,suggest that the tales were
attemptsby peasant women to respond to the disruption of
families and the draftingof the disinheritedsons. The sug-
gested response: inheritinggirls should renounce theirinher-
itance, move from the region, marryelsewhere, and offer a
refuge for their fleeingbrothers.Taylor and Rebel show that
such a response is in accord withdemographic evidence from
late-eighteenth-century Hesse, although it cannot yet be dem-
onstratedwhetherthe process theysuggest actuallyoccurred.
Nonetheless, the authors have produced a cultural analysis
that goes significantlyfurtherthan does Geertz in his "Notes
on a Balinese Cockfight."To ask of any cultural text,be it a
cockfightor a folktale,who is talking,who is being talked to,
what is being talked about, and what form of action is being

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 THE SEDUCTION OF ANTHROPOLOGY 1027
called for, is to move culturalanalysisto a new level that
renderstheold antinomiesof materialism and idealismirrele-
vant.36
It mightbe argued thatthisis preciselywhatGeertzdoes.
As one of our mostable ethnographers, he is one of the few
anthropologists who can provide detailed ecological, eco-
nomic,and politicalinformationat the same time that he
engagesin sophisticated symbolicanalysis.His recentexami-
nationof the theaterstate in nineteenth-century Bali is an
example of this: we find treatments of politicaland social
structureat hamlet,irrigationsystem,and templelevels,of
castedivisions,of trade,and of theritualsof hierarchy.37
That
Geertzsees all of theseas necessaryfora culturalargument,
and thathe sees his inclusionof theseelementsas rendering
an "idealist"charge absurd,is clear fromhis conclusionto
Negara.But althoughall the elementsare presentedand con-
nectedin a fashion,theyare neverfully joined. Cultureas text
is removedfromthe materialprocess of its creation;it is
thereforeremovedfromthe historicalprocessthatshapes it
and thatit in turnshapes.Whenwe are toldthatin Bali ". . .
culturecame fromthe top down . . . whilepowerwelled up
fromthe bottom,"38 the image makesperfectsense giventhe
analysisof state structurethat precedes it. But the image
impliesseparation,a removalof culturefromthe wellings-up
of action,interaction,power,and praxis.

36In a reference to thepresent,Geertztellsus thatstatuscannotbe changedin the

cockfight and thatan individualcannotclimbthe caste ladder in any case ("Deep
Play,"p. 443). Geertz also relatesfolktalesfrom the classicalperiod in which
cockfighting serveseitheras a metaphorforpoliticalstruggle or as a meansbywhich
profoundpoliticaland socialchangesmightoccur(see, e.g., "Deep Play,"pp. 418,
441, 442). In one, a kingacceptsa cockfight witha commonerwho has no meansto
payshouldhe lose.The kinghopesto forcethecommoner tobecomehisslaveshould
he lose,butthecommoner's cockkillstheking,thecommonerbecomesking,and so
on ("Deep Play,"p. 442). Such talessupportGeertz'sassertionthatstatusdifferences
area "matter of lifeand death."Theymayalso providematerialfora textualanalysis
of the sortTaylorand Rebelundertake.
37Geertz,Negara.
38Ibid., 85.
p.

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1028 SOCIAL RESEARCH

We return,then,to the comparisonof Geertz's promise with

his practice.Although this essay already contains more quota-
tions than it can easily bear, it closes with yet another. The
quotation returns us to the promising approach to culture
expressed in "Thick Description," and it is a statement of
connection rather than separation. The passage establishes a
standard for cultural interpretationthat is in accord with the
premises of this essay. That it also serves as a standard in
terms of which Geertz's cultural analysis can be criticized
should be apparent.

If anthropological interpretation is constructing a readingof

what happens,then to divorceit fromwhat happens- from
what,in thistimeor thatplace, specificpeople say,whatthey
do, whatis done to them,fromthe wholevastbusinessof the
world- is to divorceitfromitsapplications and renderitvacant.
A good interpretation of anything- a poem,a person,a history,
- takesus intothe heartof that
a society
a ritual,an institution,
of whichit is an interpretation.Whenit does not do that,but
leads us insteadsomewhereelse- intoan admirationof itsown
elegance,of itsauthor'scleverness, or of the beautiesof Eucli-
dean order- it mayhaveitsintrinsic charms;butitis something
else than whatthe taskat hand . . . calls for.39

Interpretationcannot be separated fromwhat people say,

whattheydo, whatis done to them,becauseculturecannotbe
are seduced by the
so separated.As long as anthropologists
charmsofa textualanalysisthattakessuchseparation
intrinsic
as a pointof honor,theywillcontinueto do somethingother
thanwhatthe taskat hand calls for.

p. 18.
39Geertz,"ThickDescription,"

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