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Delve into the complex layers of culture, from anthropological roots to contemporary interpretations. Explore binary oppositions, value-laden terms, and anthropological perspectives on the nature of culture. Unravel the nuances of meaning, taboo, and symbolism within different societies.
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Hans Johst (often attributed to Hermann Göring): “When I hear the word ‘culture’ I reach for my gun” (“I release the safety catch of my Browning”)
Cyril Connolly (English writer): “When I hear the word ‘gun’ I reach for my culture.”
„I don’t know how many times I’ve wished that I’d never heard the damned word.” • (Raymond Williams, British cultural theorist)
Binary oppositions (binarities, dichotomies) (kétosztatúságok) • subject – object (self – world) • soul (spirit) - body • essence – appearance (depth – surface, truth – lie) • male- female, sun – moon, day – night • good – evil, right – wrong • ecclesiastical – secular • democracy – totalitarianism • individual – community, public – private • Culture - ???
Culture: its etymology colere to inhabit– colony cultivate – coulter, agriculture protect, worship – cult
I. Culture as cultivation • cultura animi - cultivation of the soul • F. Bacon: „culture and manurement of minds” • (agriculture, body culture , cell culture) • Nature+culture = fully human • nature is unfinished; culture: perfection of nature and not its opposite („cultural instructions”) )
II. Culture as a value-laden term 1. Culture ~ civilisation vs. barbarity, savagery, primitiveness (European idea, colonisation) 2. Culture = expression of (national) spirit (Völkergeist, J. G. Herder) vs. „others”, aliens
World War One poster (UK, then US, 1917) On club: „Kultur” On helmet: „Militarism”
Matthew Arnold: culture is “a study of perfection, … perfection which consists in becoming something rather than in having something, in an inward condition of the mind and spirit.” (Culture and Anarchy, 1869)
III. Anthropological meaning of „culture” • Rise of ETHNOGRAPHY and ANTHROPOLOGY as a discipline • E. B. Tylor, James G. Fraser, Arnold Gehlen, Norbert Elias, Bronislaw Malinowski, Émile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Clifford Geertz
Human being unable to survive in nature → puts culture between himself and nature culture = second nature (Arnold Gehlen, Norbert Elias - German anthropologists)
Anthropology and ethnography (from mid- C19) Small communities ~ laboratories • “primitive culture” is not really “primitive” E. B. Tylor (Vict. anthropologist): we should appreciate “the real culture which better acquaintance always shows among the rudest tribes of man” (e.g. Aborigines)
Anthropology and ethnography 2. Cultures are all different but the fact of having a culture is a universal human feature comparative anthropology Fraser: The Golden Bough (Az aranyág)
Anthropological meaning of „culture” • broad meaning: a distinct way of life (Tylor: culture is “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (1871) • neutral • plural: „cultures” rather than „culture” • culture: a human universal • Nature vs. culture again - Cultural anthropology vs biological anthropology
Raymond Williams (English critic): “Culture is ordinary. …Every human society has its own shape, its own purposes, its own meanings. Every human society expresses these, in institutions, and in arts and learning. The making of society is the finding of common meanings and directions.” (1958)
T.S. Eliot: culture in the widest sense “includes all the characteristic activities and interests of a people: Derby Day, Henley Regatta, Cowes, the twelfth of August, a cup final, the dog races, the pin table, the dart board, Wensleydale cheese, boiled cabbage, beetroot in vinegar, nineteenth-century Gothic churches and the music of Elgar” (1944)
Ethnocentrism Eskimo – „eaters of raw meat” Pygmy – „size of a fist” Hungarian – „alliance of tribes” Apache – „enemies” Tsigan – „outcasts” (magyar, roma, dine, inuit, baka)
Meaning and taboo: threshold • CANNIBALISM • Hunger cannibalism • Cannibalism as cultural • (mortuary cann., sacrificial etc) • INCEST • (Greek) gods
Francisco Goya: • Saturn Devouring His Children • (1819-23)
Meaning as the thresholod of culture • Clifford Geertz (US anthropologist) about the ‘winking boy’ • ‘THICK DESCRIPTION’ • Cultural practices as texts (a Balinese cockfight) • (professional wrestling, a duel)
Culture and meaning • Culture is „webs of meaning... woven by us” (Geertz) • Objects, texts and practices • use + (symbolic) meanings • CULTURALISM: coherence of a culture • (Slavoj Zizek on lavatories)
Culture and meaning ‘Which is Adam and which is Eve?’ ‘I do not know, but I could tell if they had their clothes on.’ (Samuel Butler)
Saudi athlete wearing hijab in London 2012 • Nothing is exhausted by its use value • Clothes: ‘culturalising’ the body
„the great renunciation” Man: serious labour, sober clothes Woman: frivolous decoration, flamboyance Rigaud: Louis XIV
