An Enlightened Romanticism

Lazzarotti Marco I During my fieldwork in Lunbei township , I was use to introduce myself as a h! D! student who was doing fieldwork there! "he great concentration in one little township of many different situations, makes Lunbei a #ery interesting and particular place! Different religions $"aiwanese folk religion, %hristian resbyterian, %atholic, &uddhist, 'iguandao(, different ethnic groups $Minnan, )akka, Mainland %hinese, *outheast Asia people( and different political orientations inhabit the same place! +n the other hand, it is interesting to see how these religious and ethnic differences disappear if we look at this situation from an economic point of #iew! Intensi#e agriculture is the more important economic way of subsistence! *haring agricultural machineries products or physical labor is a common practice among farmers in Lunbei $as in other "aiwanese countryside(! "his ,mutual help- promotes contact between persons and families, helping in this way mutual knowledge and respect! .hat I mean is that the relationships between people are not based on religious or ethnic membership, but they are an interwea#e of many factors! I know you, I know who you are, if you are a friend of mine, also your religion is well accepted! /or this reason people in#ites us to any kind of festi#als although they known #ery well that we $I and my wife( are %atholics! As soon as people known that I was doing my research in the religion0s field, they in#ited my and my wife to attempt to any kind of religious festi#als! +f course as %atholic churchgoers I regularly attempt the weekly celebration at the church, but many friends 1 of course not %atholics 2 in#ited me to take part to their temple festi#als or other acti#ities! It was 3uite common to see this foreigner guy looks around for interesting pictures during the temple festi#als! &ecause 1 I think 1 the size of my camera, I was in#ited many times to temple festi#als or funerals in order to take pictures of the performers! +n one occasion a friend of us in#ited us to attempt a 'iguandao meeting! 'iguandao is a kind of religion which practically embodied almost all the deities know in +rient4 &uddha, Laotze, 5esus %hrist, Mohamed, and so on! &ecause of this 'iguandao is one of the bigger ,institutionalizedreligions of "aiwan! +ur friend in#ited us hoping that knowing her religion could be helpful for my research! .e arri#ed at the 'iguandao temple in the morning! Although their meeting was already started,

many people and especially the leader of the local community $a kind of master( were waiting for us! After the first presentations we ha#e been in#ited to take part to the lesson performing in the main room! "herefore we came in a big room where a si6ty years old woman was deli#ering a speech about filial piety, the pain of our the mother during our birthday and so on! "he audiences were paying highly attention to the words of the woman, constantly answering to her fre3uent 3uestions and crying with her cause touching stories about filial lo#e or cause the disrespectful conduct of the modern youth generations! "he only particular out of tone was the presence, in the row of chairs before mine, of two fourteen year old guys, who played and laugh with great disappointment of the master, who was sitting at my side! &riefly specking, the meeting was a re2presentation 1 and in a not so new style 1 of the traditional #alues of %onfucianism about filial piety, respect for the elder and so on! A performance principally based on the capacity of the speaker in arouses deep emotion and on the constant repetition of teaching based on the abo#ementioned #alues! &ut the more interesting part of that day was not already come out! After this kind of lesson we ha#e been in#ited for lunch, and after lunch they in#ited us to drink a cup of tea in the master office! At this point one man, introducing himself, started in a #ery insistent way to in#ite us to pray the Dao $ qiudao ( in order to be sa#ed! "he incredible thing $at least for me( was that he used a lot of stories and anecdotes in order to support his re3uest! articularly he pointed out the importance of the reincarnation cycle and his stories were a combination of traditional "aiwanese folk religion beliefs, material e#idences, such as pictures and personal e6periences, and personal witness statements! In order to let you more understand his kind of approach, I am going to write one of the stories that this man told me!
A friend of mine was a lunch bo6 seller7 his specialty was chickens0 leg with rice! +ne day I told him that in this way he was killing li#ing beans, but he told me that his business was good and he cannot do other kind of 8ob, because his age and the low le#el of education! "hings continued go head until my friend decided to take a rest and get a trip in another country! "here was a plane crash, and when I went to see the body of my friend and the one of his wife, I was shocked! "he body was intact but without legs! /or sure this happened because he was selling chicken0s legs!

In front at this kind of stories 1 on that day I listened at least more than thirty 1 my reaction was of complete and clear refuse! I started to think by me ,how these persons can hope to con#ince me with this kind of stories9- &ecause my resistance and my hilarity, the man finally 1 they ha#e been the three

hours longer of my life 2 desisted from the pro8ect of our con#ersion! .hat I want to stress out from this e6perience, it is that the dialogue between I 1 western people, training anthropologist, %atholic faithful 1 and the other 1 a fifty years old "aiwanese man born and grow up in a "aiwanese folk religion en#ironment 1 was a dialogue between deaf! "here were an e#ident lack of communication between the two parts, and as I belie#e, between the two cultural system! .e can speak about system because the two religious doctrines $%atholic and 'iguandao( offer a clear and well defined #ision of this and the other world, and conse3uentially a concrete understanding of life and relationships between persons! "he result it was that I complained his way of thinking and I thought that he was telling nothing other than stories full of superstitions! +n the other hand he was trying to persuade me with his more sacred repertory, without any effects! .hat I considered as superstition, it was nothing else than his own cultural system! .hat he considered as stupid obstinacy in front of so many e#idences, it was nothing else than my cultural system! :round on these thoughts I will try in the ne6t pages to analyze the way of analysis of the ,nati#e anthropology- and in a successi#e step, I will use these obser#ations in order to e6press my opinion about how both Romanticism and Enlightenment influenced anthropology, and in particular the anthropologist! II "he nati#e anthropology of .estern cosmology was already discussed 1in a masterly fashion 2 by Marshall *ahlins, who with his paper 2 wrote for the *idney .! Mintz lecture for ;<<= ; 2 wants tell us how the .estern way of think is deeply influenced by 5udeo2%hristian basilar concepts about man and %osmo! articularly he stressed the importance that 5udeo2%hristian dogma of human imperfection must be considerate as the main and basic element on the social science ,discourse->! Looking in aul Ricoer writings, *ahlins was able to affirm that the Adam0s sin opened the doleful abyss between ,the absolute perfection of :od and the radical wickedness of man-, wickedness that characterize not only the human nature in itself, but also permeate human relationships as well?! "he +riginal sin 2 which according to the %hristian tradition is the humanity0s state of sin resulting from the /all of the Man from the garden of Eden 1 embedded, in a #ery deeply way, all the .estern way of thought, and conse3uently all the disciplines which ha#e born under the influence of the .estern sphere of thought! It is clear that the discipline of *ocial science, with comprehend
; "he *adness of *weetness4 "he @ati#e Anthropology of .estern %osmology Aand %omments and ReplyB! Marshall *ahlins! Current Anthropology, Col!?D, @o! ?$5un!,;<<E(,pp!?<F2=>G! I will use the abbre#iation *adness, anytime I will refer myself to this paper! > *adness, ?<F ? *adness, ?<E

Anthropology is not immune from this ,illness-! "herefore, from this perspecti#e, *ahlins goes to analyze some of the more important and basic anthropological topic! And not only! Arguing that the abo#ementioned +riginal sin let man lo#e himself before lo#e :od, man became sla#e of his needs=! /ollowing this interpretation, the original e#il and source of #ast sadness in Augustine, the needs of the body became simply ,natural- in )obbes or at least a ,necessary e#il- in &aron d0)olbach, to end in Adam *mith or Milton /riedman as the supreme source of social #irtue F! In other words the faculty of men to congregate together is 8ust one of the conse3uences of Adam0s sin4 in order to satisfy the needs that the chase away from the Eden raised up, men started to stay together! *ociety become at this point a super organic entity $in Durkheim words(, and it is clear how this concept deeply influenced anthropological theories as certain functionalism, that, as *ahlins argues, was another legacy of the enlightened Adamic theory, especially as ,function- was collapsed into ,purpose- was the satisfaction of needE! *tarting from the duality between body and soul 1 one of the conse3uences of the +riginal sin 1 stressed by *aint aul and *aint Agustin, *ahlins found this dichotomy inside the work of Durkheim where the human being is, on the one hand, a presocial and sensuous animal, egocentrically gi#en to his own welfare, and, on the other hand, a social creature, able to submit his self interest to the morality of the societyD! .ith respect to this topic, I think that a big part of anthropological thought, from Morgan, /razer 2 with their e#olutionary concept of culture 2 , through Malinowski 1 with his obsessi#e use of the term ,sa#age-2 and Mead 2 at least the Mead of *e6 and "emperament in "hree rimiti#e *ocieties 2 was built on this basic idea! At the #ery first there was a body 1 as the biblical story of Adam 1 and them culture was ,blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a li#ing being$:en!>,D(! "he only anthropologist who looked from another perspecti#e was :eertz who affirmed that human nature as we know it has been determined by culture7 therefore the supposed temporal precedence of human biology relati#e to culture is incorrectG! Also concepts as ower or ro#idence $of course on their relationships with anthropology( are sifted by the author!
= F E D G <

articularly power is analyzed starting from the obser#ations of Augustine < , who

*adness, ?<D *adness, ?<G *adness, ?<< *adness, =H> *adness, =H? :eertz $;<D?4chaps!> and ?( "he %ity of :od

affirmed that ,Earthly rule has been appointed by :od for the benefit of nations, so that, under the fear of human rule, man may not de#our one another fishes ! ! ! ,! .hether it came about through :od0s pro#idence $Augustine( or human reason $)obbes(, men were thus able to suppress their enmity creating the institution of state;H! "he unity of natural lows and Di#ine pro#idence 1 :od could not ha#e made the uni#erse as disorderly as it might seem in e#eryday e6perience 1 shows the structure of go#ernance $in other words the hierarchy( as natural and as a direct effect of the ro#idence! "herefore these ,structures- was thought by .estern philosophers in confuse way especially regards its origins, too often conflated with the origin of society! "he easy supposition after this construction, it is that a society without hierarchical structures are not considerate as society, or at least as a not e#olutes society! &ut, what is more in#ol#ed with the topic that I would like analyze, it is which *ahlins calls ,Anthropology of Reality-;;, or in other words the in#ention of a pure ob8ect world! According to *ahlins it was %hristianity and before 5udaism that first disenchanted nature, rendering it merely an ob8ect for humankind! "he ancient bond between man and nature was destroyed, and in this way the 5udeo2%hristian tradition distinguished itself from,paganism- it understood precisely as nature idolatry! As *ahlins remembers to us, ,the deification of nature was seen as the real essence of paganism by both %hristians and 5ews-;>! "his is in my #iew a basic concept4 ,natural- and ,supernatural- are in this way irremediably separated, nature is only res extensa made of nothing, lacking sub8ecti#ity! .ithout sub8ecti#ity nature must be controlled and dominated by the only presence which can play the role of sub8ect4 the men! +ther scholars support the thesis that a big and clear fracture was happened between men and nature inside .estern cosmology! +ne of them is "odoro#, who argued that in the fact the con3uest of America heralded and established the present identity of Europeans;?! "odoro# referring to the different conte6t of the con3uest of America wrote what follows4
In reporting and analyzing the history of the con3uest of America, I ha#e been led to two apparently contradictory conclusions! In order to speak of forms and kinds of communication, I ha#e, first of all, adopted a typological perspecti#e4 the Indians fa#or e6changes with the world, the Europeans e6changes between men! @either is intrinsically superior to the other, and we always need

;H ;; ;> ;?

*adness, =HF *adness, =;; *adness, =;; "z#etan "odoro#! "he %on3uest of America4 "he Iuestion of the +ther4 ;<G=! age F

both at once7 if we win on only one le#el, we necessarily lose the other ;=!

'et "odoro# adds4

In European ci#ilization, logos ha#e con3uered the mythos7 or rather, instead of poly morphous discourse, two homogeneous genres ha#e pre#ailed4 science and e#erything related to it deri#e from systematic discourse, while literature and its a#atars practice narrati#e discourse ;F!

In other words, in the European ci#ilization debate $here we can consider European as synonymous of .estern(7 the communication among men was too much emphasized! As a result, Europeans ha#e lost the relationship with the world and the supernatural world, not knowing anymore how to dialogue with him! "his is the central point of "odoro# thought4 the Logos won Mitos, in the western tradition there has been a destruction of the Mitos! I think that "odoro# is right in his thought, and I belie#e that this destruction has been progressi#e and ine#itable! .e can find out the steps of this destruction in the western history! /irst of all I think that basic importance must be assign to the Lutherans Reform! It is from this time that it was possible to study, interpret, made an e6egesis of the )oly *criptures, which it means study and $re( interpret all the knowledge until that moment! .e should remember that thank to the large work Summa Teologica of "homas A3uinas, the %atholic tradition was built, weigh and put in communion with the %lassic tradition, particularly with the work of Aristotle! "his created the basis for a complete and well defined #ision of the men, world, and uni#erse! All the medie#al sum of human knowledge was then based on the )oly &ooks! *eparating himself from the interpretation of the %hurch, and translating the &ible in a language understandable by common people, Lutheran reform posed the basis for a radical and unstoppable change of all human knowledge! Another step toward this direction was for sure the in#ention of mo#able type printing in around ;=?<, and the global in#entor of the mechanical printing press by :utenberg! *ince this moment all the books were wrote by hand by amanuensis, religious people who li#ed inside con#ent2libraries $we ha#e a masterly description of one of them made by Jmberto Eco on his The Name of the Rose(! .ith the in#ention of the printing press, knowledge left con#ents and became public $at least for some social class( increasing and the de#elopment of the European cultural and accelerating social changes!
;= "z#etan "odoro#! Ibid! age >F>! ;F "z#etan "odoro#! Ibid! age >F?!

+n the other hand the %opernican re#olution and the disco#eries of :alileo 2 with their heliocentric system 2 irremediably destroyed the medie#al concept of uni#erse, where the earth was at the centre of uni#erse, put there by Di#ine will! "his was the accuse of the %hurch against :alileo, re8ecting the Aristotelian and tolemaic theories, the modern science put itself in open and e#ident contrast not only with the )oly scriptures, but also with the entire conception of world and human life, a conception based on )oly scriptures and on the interpretation that the %hurch made of them! As the philosopher aul /eyerabend wrote
"he %hurch at the time of :alileo kept much more closely to reason than did :alileo himself, and she took into consideration the ethical and social conse3uences of :alileo0s teaching too! )er #erdict against :alileo was rational and 8ust and the re#ision of this #erdict can be 8ustified only on the grounds of what is politically opportune;E!

At this point the philosophical thought was ready to understand how Descartes has to said about nature4 that it is only a mechanism! .hile defines nature as deaf and #oiceless! "herefore, in substance, :od was e6pelled from his %reate and this e6pulsion opened the doors, with the help of Darwin, to the complete o#erthrow of the western cultural system! "he world created by :od, and more important, the creation of man was not working of :od, but instead a casual factor of natural selection! .hit his theory of e#olution, Darwin pro#ides a logical and rational e6planation for the di#ersity of life, e6cluding in this way all no2rational, including it inside a ,casual factor-! In sum, the western way of think or, using an anthropological term, cosmology has been completely changed during the period of time comprise between end of medie#al age and modern era! "hroughout these series of progressi#e changes 1 this abo#e described changing process 2 there has been a progressi#e e6pulsion of the idea of supernatural, magic, religious, irrational and so on from western cosmology! All these factors ha#e become elements which can be scientifically confuted and e6plained! In other terms, what happens between the end of Medie#al age and the begin of the so called Modern age9 It happened what :iacomo Leopardi;D has identified as the ,incendiary, destructi#e and auto2 destructi#e use of scientific reason-! .hich today seems for most part of people normal and natural is only the result of scientific thought! According to it, for e6ample, water is only )>+ and not also humble, precious and chaste
;E ! /eyerabend, ider den Methoden!"ang, /rankfurtMKMain ;<DE, p! >HE! ;D ;D<G2;G?D, Italian philosopher, philologist and poet!

ascal, the deeply %hristian and anti %artesian

ascal,

$*aint /rancis of Assisi(;G! It is undeniable that this is the main way of think in Anthropology, from its beginning until today, this is, in my #iew, the real, deep, intrinsic presence of western thought in anthropology, and according to the abo#ementioned process we must consider anthropology as a western science!

III &ut what happens when western people and 2 as I will try to e6plain 1 anthropologists meet people belonging to different cosmologies9 In my #iew the e6ample with which I began this piece could be a good starting point in order to understand in another way this ,encounter-! "herefore I will try to describe, in a #ery short way, some basilar point of %hinese cosmology, the ,other- 1 of course from my point of #iew 1 cosmology! /irst of all, we must to say that in the )an world there are some concepts e6tremely old, like the concept of #un and $o! "his is not an easy concept, as 'u 'ing2shih $ (;< tries to e6plain7 concepts of hun and po are #ery old, probably before than &uddhism arri#ed in %hina! E#ery man posses three hun or souls, when a man dies his three hun mo#e in three different directions4 one will end in the tomb whit the body, one in the ancestorsL tablet, and the last one goes to a king of purgatory! E6cept these hun, a man posses also se#en po or spirits! "hese po especially those of children, are #ery sensible, so that they can get scared or e#en taken away by ghost $ gui (! /or instance, when a baby urinates during the night, the mother cannot change his dress, because at the night the po mo#es around from the body of the baby, and if it comes back and does not recognize his dress, it may keep going around and, thus, get lost from the baby fore#er! In the same way, people belie#e that they ha#e to clean the face of the child before he sleeps, or that the child cannot stay outside after sunshine, because that is the moment in which ghosts begin to go out! In addition, inside the comple6 and totally different concept of the world $at least for us western people( man and spirits $ancestors, ghost or deities( physically share the same li#ing space, the same li#ing time, and they also bodily share the same preoccupations or needs! As /rancis )su $;<ED4>=F( noted in his %nder the Ancestors& Shado", ,"he attitude of the li#ing toward the dead and that of the li#ing are functionally one! "he relation of the li#ing with the dead is
;G ;;G;K;;G>2;>>E, Italian friar, patron *aint and poet! *ee 4 http4KKwww!webster!eduKMbarrettbKcanticle!htm ;< Nhongguo :udai *ihou *hi8ieguan De 5iangbian! $( $De#elop of Ancient %hina After Death .orld Ciew(! In Nhongguo *i6iang %huangtong De Oiandai %huanshi $( $Modern Interpretation of the "raditional %hinese "hought(! "aipei4Lian 5ing!

essentially modeled upon that of the li#ing with the li#ing! In glorifying the dead, it is both idealized and it sets the standard and pattern for kinship relationship!"here is a %hinese pro#erb which says, ,"he same ser#ice to the dead as to the li#ing7 to the absent as to the present- $shi si ru shi sheng ! "# $!%(! In some ways, the presence of ancestor worship ga#e parents an additional incenti#e to ha#e sons to perform the rites and thus secure for their parents and grandparents eternal life! ,"here are three things which are unfilial,- says Mencius, ,and to ha#e no posterity is the greatest of them!- $ bu xiao you san' "u hou "ei da &'()#*+, (! In this way, we can say that who already left, who li#es in, and who will li#es in this world, share the same life time and the same e6istential world! In other words, we can say that these categories li#e in one eternal present or, in a changing perspecti#e, one eternal past! &ecause of the comple6ity of relationships between these categories, the interaction between who li#es and who is already dead $whate#er being he has become 1 an ancestor, ghost or one di#inity(, is #ery strong and real for "aiwanese people! *o in my point of #iew, here in the "aiwanese world, e6clusi#ely talking about the @atural and the *upernatural, as we are used to in western terms, is at least, reducti#e! In other words relationships between supernatural beings and who are still li#ing are for "aiwanese people physical and direct! "he dead and the li#ing people share the same time and the same li#ing space and, maybe most important, the same needs! "here are a lot of supernatural beings who can control man or at least make he feel their presence! "hese supernatural beings are not only ancestors, deities, spirits, ghosts but also what the person was in his pre#ious life! It is important to notice that these concepts are felt real and acti#e for the most part of "aiwanese people, and it is indisputable that people continue to refer to them as people of two or three thousand years ago! .hat I mean is that the )an people cosmology $at least here in "aiwan( has been no changed, or maybe would more correct affirm that, the changes that of course occurred in this so long period 1 and that created a syncretism of &uddhism, "aoism and %onfucianism 2 did not changed the main and basic conceptions about world and otherworld! +therwise after so long time, and after that "aiwanese educational system has been opened to western sciences, no people should continue to burn paper money for hungry ghosts at least two times in a month! @ow, how the western $but not only( anthropologist put himself in front of this world9 I think that a good situation was described by Melford *piro who, talking about &uddhism in &urma describes how4
&uddhism after all is not the creation of contemporary &uddhist, but a religion with deep historical roots! Although anthropological studies of nonliterate societies ha#e con#erted a

methodological necessity $the ignoring of history( into a theoretical #irtue $the theory of functionalism(>H!

I am arguing that the born of a ,theoretical #irtue- is not only raised by the lack of historical roots, but also 1 and principally 1 because the lack of metaphysical thought in anthropology! And as we already showed abo#e, this lack about supernatural is the result of an historical and philosophical process which happened in the western thought! "he result is that it is clear for the ,nati#e anthropologist- that the nati#e people religion is ontologically false 1 because all the supernatural entities are ine6istent 2 therefore anthropologist should look for a logical and rational e6planation in others and more rational fields $society, politic, economy, e#en culture(! .hat I am trying to e6plain is that it is the Enlighten concept of the world that forces and molded the method of the discipline! araphrasing @ietzsche words4 :od is dead! :od remains dead! And we ha#e killed him>;! IC Let us to discuss the last point of this paper4 how Romanticism and Enlightenment influenced anthropology, and in particular the anthropologist! It is certainly true and undoubted the great influence that Romanticism played on Anthropology, and especially American Anthropology, particularly after that &oas became the central scholar of the discipline! As we know, &oas was a :erman scholar, and it is reasonable that some concepts as @ation, %ulture, and @ationality with all heir declinations ha#e a common root which can be find inside the :erman Romanticism0s tradition>>! I am going to pick up some of these basilar concepts hoping that would be useful for a deeper and complete understanding4
*ub8ecti#ism>? and indi#idualism4 %ause the lack of Enlighten reason, all the things surrounding man 2 the nature 1 has not more one and unambiguous approach! In this way e#ery man should think about his own problems, or about his own ego inside nature! "herefore nature becomes a sub8ecti#e product of personal thought! eople and @ation4 +ne of the source of inspiration of Romantic poets, were the works of )omer, which were a result of oral tradition and folklore of a whole people! In this period indi#idualism become, in a big dimension $we are talking about a state le#el( a kind of nationalism which bring at
>H ;<G>, &uddhism and *ociety! In particular see %hapter ;4 "hera#ada &uddhism4 An Anthropological roblem! age = >; "he :ay *cience $;GG>(, section ;>E >> May is useful to specify that the term Romanticism embodied in itself different meanings! .hile the :erman Romantisch e#okes literary images of medie#al landscapes and memories, the English Romantic is linked whit feeling and lo#e! >? http4KKwww!merriam2webster!comKdictionaryKsub8ecti#ism

the research of anti3ues origins of modern nation! >=

.e cannot deny that we can find in these abo#ementioned points most of the basic point of &oas0 cultural anthropology! &oas argued that in order to understand in cultural anthropology, the specific cultural traits $beha#iors, beliefs, and symbols(7 we must e6amine them in their local conte6t! )e also belie#ed that as people migrate from one place to another and as the cultural conte6t changes o#er time, the elements of a culture, and their meanings, will change, which led him to emphasize the importance of local histories for an analysis of cultures! It follows that each people must ha#e his own culture $Ruth &enedict will be o#er this point, standing that each people ha#e his own personality( and that a specific people culture is uni3ue and unrepeatable, because different history, conte6t and so on! Jntil here, I think that not e#en one could put in discussion that American anthropology has suffered a deep influence of Romantic mo#ement! &ut what I want try to argue is that a so Manichean di#isions and differentiations between Romanticism and Enlightenment and in particular their influence on anthropological world, are dangerous and misleading! As I tried to demonstrate on the pre#ious paragraphs, I am deeply persuaded that the method >F of Anthropology is anyway an enlightened method, apart from which ,school- it belongs! Anthropology, as a science, eliminated all supernatural beings that ha#e been the basic part of Romantic mo#ement! "his fact, in my #iew, influenced so much 1 and so intrinsically 2 the anthropological method that it is impossible for anthropologists to discuss about religious e6periences with nati#es without disbelie#e them, or using a more polite e6pression, without put these religious e6periences inside a social, psychological, political conte6t or so on! As a science anthropology must ha#e a reference with the discipline $literature re#iew(, a strong theory $otherwise your piece will be only a folkloric essay( empirical research $fieldwork(, a thesis $or may would be more logic call it antithesis( and a reasonable contribute to the discipline $scientific discussion(! "he unity of human gender is guaranteed, assured and ratified by this method of research which, as a scientific method, considers his entire sub8ect of research as e3ual, as the same thing7 and in this way submitted to the same method of research! If we could use a metaphor taking as e6ample the work of one of the father of :erman Romanticism, 5ohann .olfgang Con :oethe, and its more famous masterpiece (aust, we can say that
>= Europa Romantica! /ondamenti e paradigmi della sensibilitP moderna 2 De az, A!, @apoli, Liguori, ;<<=! >F .ith the term method I want to describe a systematic procedure, techni3ue, or mode of in3uiry employed by or proper to a particular discipline or art!

inside the anthropological method it disappear the bet between :od and De#il, played to the detriment of Doctor /aust! "he anthropologists0 /aust would be a #ictim of comple6 social or economical changes, of his intrinsic ,germanicity- $culture and personality( or maybe he would be #ictim of a cultural structure or of a comple6 symbolic system which would lead his actions! "his lack of supernatural inside anthropology is the link which connect together Romanticism and Enlightenment and that, as I showed abo#e, mold the method, the scope and the nature itself of anthropology!