Some muddles in the models
2011; HAU-N.E.T; Volume: 1; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.14318/hau1.1.018
ISSN2575-1433
Autores ResumoPrevious article FreeSome muddles in the models or, how the system really works1David M. SCHNEIDERDavid M. SCHNEIDERUniversity of ChicagoUniversity of ChicagoPDFPDF PLUSFull TextEPUBMOBI Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMorePart one. AllianceI. The phrase 'alliance theory' and its opposition to what has been called 'descent theory' was first suggested by Dumont (1961a).Alliance theory, with roots clearly in Durkheim and Mauss, has specifically arisen out of Lévi-Strauss's Structures élémentaires … (1949) and has been developed by Lévi-Strauss, Dumont, Leach, and Needham. Descent theory also has its roots in Durkheim and Mauss, but its development has been through Radcliffe-Brown to Fortes, Goody, Gough, Gluckman, and, in certain respects, Firth.This is an oversimplified picture, of course, but one which provides a reasonable beginning. It would oversimplify matters, too, but also be useful to point out, that where Durkheim tried to bridge the gap between positivism and idealism and ended up as an idealist in the remnants of some positivist clothing, Needham's version of alliance theory is, if anything, squarely on the side of the idealists. Lévi-Strauss and Dumont, on the other hand, go with Hegel (Murphy 1963). Descent theory has moved in the direction of positivism; some of its misunderstandings stem from its positivist premises; and the direction which the younger descent theory people (Goody, Gough) have taken seems to me to be consistent with this view.The dilemma of positivism is exemplified by a statement of Lévi-Strauss. Replying to Maybury-Lewis's criticisms, Lévi-Strauss says:'… Mr. M. L. remains, to some extent, the prisoner of the naturalistic misconceptions which have so long pervaded the British school … he is still a structuralist in Radcliffe-Brown's terms, namely, he believes the structure to lie at the level of empirical reality, and to be a part of it. Therefore, when he is presented a structural model which departs from empirical reality, he feels cheated in some devious way. To him, social [25] jstructure is like a kind ofjigsaw puzzle, and everything is achieved when one has discovered how the pieces fit together. But, if the pieces have been arbitrarily cut, there is no structure at all. On the other hand, if, as is sometimes done, the pieces were automatically cut in different shapes by a mechanical saw, the movements of which are regularly modified by a cam- shaft, the structure of the puzzle exists, not at the empirical level (since there are many ways of recognizing the pieces which fit together); its key lies in the mathematical formula expressing the shape of the cams and their speed of rotation; something very remote from the puzzle as it appears to the player, although it "explains" the puzzle in the one and only intelligible way' (Lévi-Strauss, 1960, p. 52).The contrast may be put more specifically. To a degree, both alliance and descent theory are concerned with social structure. But, for descent theory, social structure is considered one or another variant of the concept of (a) concrete relations or groupings, socially defined, which (b) endure over time. To Radcliffe-Brown, social structure is the network of 'actual social relations'; for Evans-Pritchard in discussing the Nuer (Evans-Pritchard 1940) it is the enduring social groups, the concrete lineages.3For alliance theory, the problem is not what the concrete patterns of social relations actually are, although these are not neglected; it is not the actual organization of any specific group like a lineage. It is, instead, that construct or model which is fabricated by the anthropologist and which is presumed to have, as its concrete expression, the norms for social relations and the rules governing the constitution of social groups and their inter-relations (Lévi-Strauss, 1953).Alliance theory grows out of (1) Durkheim's distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity; (2) his notion of collective representations and specifically his and Mauss's insistence that the fundamental socio-cultural categories of the culture itself must be understood in its own terms; and (3) out of Mauss's ideas that are expressed in his essay, The Gift. This is perhaps the minimal and most immediately relevant set of ideas. others more derivative or tangential are involved, but need not detain us at this point. [26]First, organic solidarity is essentially a state of affairs in which functionally differentiated parts are each non-viable parts but, when joined together, become a single, coherent, and viable 'organism'. Functional differentiation is in turn based on two kinds of condition. One is that the parts have different roles which get those things done which need to be done if the whole is to survive. The other is that for the parts to work properly they must be oriented toward common goals. if the goals of one part are disparate from the goals of the other, then the parts will not make up a single, coherent, viable whole. This second feature may be considered to be most intimately related to 'coherence'. Each part by itself means nothing; the parts together make an integrated and viable unit. The simplest example is of two unilineal lineages, each being able to provide for its essential needs in all ways except one: the rule of exogamy requires that marriage partners come from outside the group. These two lineages, both having a common aim — to provide for wives — exchange wives. The two lineages together, then, make up one viable and coherent society. That they may also exchange differentiated economic products only elaborates and reinforces their differentiation and interdependence.The simplest form of differentiation centers on the definition of opposed but interrelated parts. Again, exogamy is the pertinent example. From the point of view of either of the two lineages, one 'needs' wives, the other 'has wives to give'. The definitions are plus and minus, have and have not, and so on. These are essentially opposed elements, defined in terms of their polar qualities. Just what particular form this differentiation will take in any society is an empirical question. Yet it is implied, i think, that all societies operate in fundamentally this way: at every point of differentiation, there is at rock-bottom a polar, opposite kind of differentiating definition which in any particular case may be elaborated into gradients, subdivided into qualities, but basically, and in some sense 'originally', the elements are oppositional, unitary, and polar. (Lévi-Strauss, 1945, 1949, 1955, 1962, 1963; Needham 1958a, 1960d.)There remains always the substantive problem: how is this particular social structure differentiated? What are its constituent parts? How are they interrelated? Here the idealistic [27] foundation of the theory becomes apparent. On the one hand, as a fundamental category of human mentality, dualism is expressed in a wide variety of particular social forms; on the other hand, it is the particular ideational categories, as these are consciously or unconsciously conceived by the members of the society itself, which play a role in regulating their action.For example, in a matrilateral cross-cousin marriage system, where a 'positive marriage rule' (Dumont's phrase (Dumont, 1961); a prescriptive system in Needham's terms) obtains, the system is conceived of, from the point of view of any given lineage in that system, as one which is made up of dual relations — 'we' versus 'they' as wife-givers to wife-takers; 'they' versus 'we' as wife-takers to wife-givers. The system as a system is triadic; yet the conceptualization of the system from the point of view of the given lineage is dyadic (Lévi-Strauss, 1949, 1956; Needham, 1958a, 1960d, 1962a.)But one must go further; in any society having a positive marriage rule, that class of persons who are potential wives is categorized in some particular way. To call this, for instance, MoBrDa is to commit the error of imposing our way of thinking on their system when these may (though they may not) be radically different. It is thus necessary to find out how theyconceptualize their system, what their categories of social objects and actors are, how they are constituted and how they are conceived to behave.This raises a core problem: symbolism. In alliance theory, it is held that a given structural relationship in a very important sense cannot be seen or observed as such. It is, instead, 'expressed' in a wide variety of different ways, and the 'expressions' of the relationship tend to be reiterative, though seldom identical from one form of expression to another. The problem in analyzing social structure is thus to search out the various forms of expression in order to comprehend the basic relationship which is structurally operative, but no particular form of it, no particular expression of it, can be taken as 'it' (Lévi-Strauss, 1960).The contrast here with Radcliffe-Brown's, Murdock's, and similar conceptions is very clear. For Murdock, it is the concrete fact of where specific people actually reside which, bringing them [28] in proximity with one another, creates unilineal descent groups (Murdock, 1949). For the intellectualist, where they live, how they are brought into proximity with one another, and how the unilineal descent group is organized are all equally symbols of, or expressions of, the same inherent structural principle. Where residence rules cause or determine descent groups for Murdock, it is structural principles which account for both residence rules and descent groups for alliance theorists (Lévi-Strauss, 1960, p. 54; see Murphy, 1963, in this connection).II. Lévi-Strauss, Needham, and George Homans are all psychological reductionists - each in his own way, of course.Lévi-Strauss is quite emphatic that 'sentiments' and 'emotion' explain very little, if anything. His discussion of 'anxiety' as an explanation (either in Malinowski's or Freud's terms) is, however, the only discussion provided in any detail in his book Totemism. Here he rests his case on Radcliffe-Brown's 'turn about' argument, namely, that it is not because people feel anxiety that they make magic, but that they feel anxiety because they make magic. Further, he adds an apparent empirical exception to Malinowski's supposed 'rule', saying, 'The empirical relationship postulated by Malinowski is thus not verified' (Lévi-Strauss, 1963, p. 67). He bases this on the case of the Ngindo beekeepers, but he does not cite Kroeber's earlier example of the Eskimo (Kroeber, 1948, pp. 603-604).But for the rest, his position against sentiment, emotion, or anxiety remains an assertion. 'Contrary to what Freud maintained, social constraints, whether positive or negative, cannot be explained, either in their origin or in their persistence, as the effects of impulses or emotions which appear again and again, with the same characteristics and during the course of centuries and millennia, in different individuals. For if the recurrence of the sentiments explained the persistence of customs, the origin of the customs ought to coincide with the origin of the appearance of the sentiments, and Freud's thesis would be unchanged even if the parricidal impulse corresponded to a typical situation instead of to a historical event. [29]We do not know, and never shall know, anything about the first origin of beliefs and customs the roots of which plunge into a distant past but, as far as the present is concerned, it is certain that social behavior is not produced spontaneously by each individual, under the influence of emotions of the moment. Men do not act, as members of a group, in accordance with what each feels as an individual; each man feels as a function of the way in which he is permitted or obliged to act' (Lévi-Strauss, 1963, pp. 69-70).Lévi-Strauss sharply dissociates himself from Durkheim's position. '… in the last analysis Durkheim derives social phenomena as well from affectivity. His theory of totemism starts with an urge, and ends with a recourse to sentiment' (ibid., pp. 70-71). 'Actually, impulses and emotions explain nothing: they are always results, either of the power of the body or of the impotence of the mind. In both cases they are consequences, never causes. The latter can be sought only in the organism, which is the exclusive concern of biology, or in the intellect, which is the sole way offered to psychology, and to anthropology as well' (Lévi-Strauss, 1963. pp. 70-71).And so the intellect, cognition, how people think and not their emotions are the explanatory conditions for social phenomena. But notice how close is the pattern to that which is explicitly repudiated when phrased in terms of sentiment. 'The advent of culture thus coincides with the birth of the intellect. Furthermore, the opposition between the continuous and the discontinuous, which seems irreducible on the biological plane because it is expressed by the seriality of individuals within the species, and in the heterogeniety of the species among each other, is surmounted in culture, which is based on the aptitude of man to perfect himself …' (ibid., p. 100).Origins, in other words, are not recoverable if we try to locate their emotional beginnings, but they are recoverable if we consider them to be in the intellect. This, it would seem, is because [30] the intellect is the source, the beginning and the continuing source. '… Bergson and Rousseau … have succeeded in getting right to the psychological foundations of exotic institutions … by a process of internalization, i.e., by trying on themselves modes of thought taken from elsewhere or simply imagined. They thus demonstrate that every human mind is a locus of virtual experience where what goes on in the minds of men, however remote they may be, can be investigated' (ibid., p. 103).The mathematical formula expressing the shape of the cams and their speed of rotation now assumes the form of the human intellect. It is the inventiveness of the human intellect, the rules of operation of the human mind, the fundamental qualities of mind which are the explanations. 'It is certainly the case that one consequence of modern structuralism (not, however, clearly enunciated) ought to be to rescue associational psychology from the discredit into which it has fallen. Associationism had the great merit of sketching the contours of this elementary logic, which is like the least common denominator of all thought, and its only failure was not to recognize that it was an original logic, a direct expression of the structure of the mind (and behind the mind, probably, of the brain), and not an inert product of the action of the environment on an amorphous consciousness.' (ibid., p. 90).Except for minor embellishments, Lévi-Strauss has returned to the position at the turn of this century which Durkheim, Lévy-Bruhl, Boas, and Kroeber held. This is simply the position that culture, custom, belief, or social constraints are products of the human mind, understandable only when the laws of the human mind are known.It is disconcerting, therefore, to follow the discussion of Totemism (Lévi-Strauss, 1963), which seems to review the history of our understanding of that phenomenon. It moves with care from the illusion of an entity shattered by Boas and Goldenweiser's cold analysis, on to Elkin's fumbling with too many broken pieces, and then on through to functionalism's confusions until it reaches the climax in Chapter 4, 'Toward the Intellect'. [31]Toward the intellect, away from emotion and sentiment, using structural linguistics as the vehicle to ride to the rescue of associational psychology! But one suddenly notices that the intellect toward which one is headed is in one case fresh from the eighteenth century, and in the other from the earliest past of the twentieth; that the confusions of functionalism are all historically later developments; that the devastation of the entity called totemism by Goldenweiser, following directions clearly stated by Boas, comes after the very time and the very position to which Lévi-Strauss has returned by such a circuitous route. It was Boas, of course, who first wrote The mind of primitive man, in 1911, and Kroeber who insisted that kinship terms could be understood only as linguistic and psychological phenomena in 1917, just as it is Lévi-Strauss in 1962 who says that totemism is understandable as a product of the human mind.One can only suppose that the separation of mind into 'intellect' and 'emotion' is the end-product of the same series of events which have led Homans up the Skinnerian path. Skinnerian psychology is not really too far from structural linguistics and Lévi-Strauss's 'intellect' (Homans, 1962).Homans and Lévi-Strauss have converged on the same intellectual position, each from his own very different starting-point, each backing away from the other with more than passing vigor, each denying any validity to the other's position. Homans along a path of positivism, Lévi-Strauss following the course of intellectualism, both as psychological reductionists.III. In certain respects three very old ideas form the core of all cross-cousin marriage theories: the first is the idea that cross-cousin marriage is somehow an integrative device. The second, that different cross-cousin marriage rules with different rules of descent form different kinds of units, so that, for instance, bilateral cross-cousin marriage yields a very different kind of arrangement from unilateral forms. The implications of the different forms of unilateral rule for the kind of integration which ensues is the third old idea, and this one dates at least back to Fortune (1933).Cross-cousin marriage theories differ in significant details, on the 'meaning' of these details, and on 'how the system really [32] works' (Needham, 1957, p. 168). The derivation of much of the analysis from Rivers (Rivers, 1914a and b), and particularly the terminological correlates of the different forms of cross-cousin marriage, should be noted.What Lévi-Strauss, Dumont, Leach, and Needham have done is to set these fairly well-established points in the context of a general theory of society, and to develop from that combination certain specific and specifically useful (as well as debatable) ideas which were not generally available before.The first such specific outcome to be taken up here is that the relationship between intermarrying units in a society practicing cross-cousin marriage is one of 'alliance'. And the problematic aspect of this is the question of just what is meant by 'alliance'.There is a series of closely interrelated ideas at work here. First, of course, there is the notion of organic solidarity, that is, the interrelation of differentiated parts no one of which can by itself be autonomous. Second, there is the notion that every social definition must in the nature of human mentality and in the nature of society be stipulated in terms of opposition, complementary dualism, and so forth. Third, there is the notion that structure inheres not in the concrete constitution of any particular society, but rather in the 'model' or the construct which must be developed by the anthropologist in order to understand that society; yet the structural principles which are 'at work', so to speak (my phrase, my phrasing), are somehow 'real', 'existent', 'substantive' and are expressed in the social definitions, the social conventions, the social rules of a particular society (Lévi-Strauss, 1953, 1960).Briefly, there are two enduring structural features of any society practicing cross-cousin marriage, or having any 'positive marriage rule' (sister exchange, asymmetrical marriage rules, etc.). First, the rule of descent which aligns (not allies) a group into one unit; second, that of 'alliance', the relationship between two or more such units of which marriage is an expression.Alliance theory insists that in the nature of social definitions, arising as they do from the inherent features of human mentality, 'consanguinity' can be defined only in opposition to 'affinity', and 'affinity' in opposition to 'consanguinity'. Hence it is incon- [33] ceivable that a society with a positive marriage rule could consist in one consanguineally related group of social persons. Radcliffe-Brown (1953, p. 169), in criticizing Dumont's treatment of Dravidian kinship terms, brings this issue out clearly. Radcliffe-Brown asserts that for the Kariera, 'the terms "nuba", "kaga" and "toa", which are applied to large numbers of persons, are not terms for relatives by marriage'. In short, he denies that affinity, as a principle, is applicable to this society, and by implication that a society can consist only in statuses socially defined by consanguinitySo far as cross-cousin marriage systems are concerned, this problem of the necessary existence of a principle of alliance opposed to one of descent brings into question both the interpretation of the terminological system and the nature of the integration of such systems.The problem of integration focuses on the implications of the idea of general exchange as proposed by Mauss (1954). Specifically, Lévi-Strauss follows Mauss in suggesting that if marriage is one mode of exchange, and if exchange between differentiated parts is seen as the basic mode of integration, not one exchange, nor one kind of exchange, but rather a series of exchanges of various kinds will all occur, and will all reinforce and reiterate the integration between exchanging groups. Hence the exchange of bridewealth, of goods and services, and so on are all understandable as part of the total exchange system and are all equally fundamental expressions of the structural principle of alliance. All expressions of alliance, be they pigs, gongs, food and services, or women, are equally expressions of this structural principle. In this sense, each expresses the principle.Yet it is difficult to distinguish in the writings of alliance theorists between marriage as an expression of alliance, and marriage as creating alliance. It is one thing to say that marriage is one among many expressions of the structural principle of alliance; it is quite another to say that marriage creates alliance. To go a step further and say that both statements are true is to move into yet a third and not at all compatible position.IV. In an asymmetrical marriage system, a prescriptive system with a positive marriage rule, the system is essentially triadic. [34] Nevertheless, the symbolic system is dyadic. This is shown by both Lévi-Strauss and Needham, and Leach seems to concur (Leach, 1961). The reason for this is that from the point of view of any given lineage or ego there are only two relations: wife-giver or wife-taker.Needham may help to explicate matters. Near the conclusion of his reiterated exposition of Purum he says: 'We see here, as elsewhere with prescriptive alliance, a mode of classification by which things, individuals, groups, qualities, values, spatial notions, and other ideas of the most disparate kinds are identically ordered within one system of relations. In particular, I would draw attention to the remarkable concordance and interconnection of social and symbolic structure [emphasis supplied]. In spite of the fact that structurally there must be three cyclically-related lines in the alliance system, the basic scheme of Purum society is not triadic but dyadic. Any given alliance group is wife-taker and therefore inferior to another, but it is also wife-giver and therefore superior to another group in a different context. That is, alliance status is not absolute but relative. The distinction to be appreciated is that between the triadic system and its component dyadic relation. It is through this mode of relation that the social order concords with the symbolic order' (Needham, 1962a, pp. 95-96).But a closer inspection reveals that both triadic systems and dyadic systems concord with dyadic symbolic systems. Needham says, '… the Aimol scheme of symbolic classification, which accompanies a two-section (symmetric) system, exhibits the same principles and even embodies some of the same pairs of terms as the Purum scheme, which accompanies an asymmetric system … our task is to see how a common mode of symbolic classification can cohere with these different social forms.'The key to this question is that in spite of the necessarily triadic structure of an asymmetric system its fundamental relation is dyadic…, and that the fundamental relation of Aimol society, though differently defined, is also dyadic. Here lies the basic similarity between the two social systems, and the structural feature with which the dualistic symbolic [35] classification is in both cases concordant. We may now regard these two systems as different but related means of ordering social relations as well as other phenomena by the same (dualistic) mode of thought. if this is the ease, it is this mode of thought itself which demands our attention if we are to understand them in any radical fashion' (Needham, 1960d, pp. 100-101).One must distinguish, then, between dyadic and triadic systems the first a two-section system, and one of symmetrical cross-cousin marriage, and the other an asymmetric, perhaps matrilateral, cross-cousin marriage system. These, in turn, are distinct from the symbolic system, that is, '…a mode of classification by which things, individuals, groups, qualities, values, spatial notions, and other ideas of the most disperate kinds are identically ordered within one system of relations' (Needham, 1962, p. 95). The symbolic system '…concords with…' the social system.But just what does this concordance mean? Needham explains it in this way: '…what one is really dealing with in such a society as this is a classification, a system of categories, which orders both social life and the cosmos. That is, Purum social organization is ideologically a part of a cosmological conceptual order and is governed identically by its ruling ideas' (Needham, 1962, p. 96).In other words, 'the social order' is itself a symbolic order and is on no account to be confused with actual living persons, concrete groups, actual numbers, or actual relations between actual persons or groups.V. The descent theory which follows from Radcliffe-Brown deals with actual living persons, concrete groups, actual relations between actual persons or groups. Consistent with such a view, Livingstone (1959) attacked Needham's Purum analysis precisely on the ground that the system, if it worked at all, could not work very well, since some of the units in the exchange system have too many women to dispose of, and some not enough. Livingstone's point is that, at best, the rules are difficult for people to follow; at worst, the rules are unworkable in real life.Needham's reply stresses, as one might well expect, that the structure of the system does not lie in the concrete constitution [36] of any particular exchanging group, nor in any particular cycle of exchanges. 'Particular alliances and alliance groups may be expected to change, but the essential point is that the rules (matrilateral prescription, patrilateral prohibition) have not changed' (Needham, 1960h, p. 499). Needham continues: 'A social system is an abstraction relating (in this context) to lineal descent groups which are also abstractions. There is no place in an abstraction for substantive "specific groups". It would be an odd and profitless use of the notion of social system to so identify it with substantive reality that every change … would be said to constitute a "breakdown"' (p. 499). 'I do not claim, though, that it is utterly unknown for a marriage to take place within the clan in an asymmetric system …' (p. 499-500). 'That the definition of alliance groups can be changed, and that alliances can be reversed, are well known facts in the literature on such systems as the Purum' (p. 501). 'When I used the word "stable", on the other hand, I meant precisely (as I wrote) that in spite of demographic changes and fission of segments the rules of the alliance system continue to maintain the same type of social order between whatever groups are pragmatically distinguished' (p. 502).Needham's reply to Livingstone clarifies this matter. But to my knowledge, no one has published a reply to Leach's paper, 'Structural Implications …' (Leach, 1962). One of the points which Leach makes in this paper is that it is not 'social segments' conceived of as diagram lines which actually undertake marriage-in-a-circle; it is the social segment which Leach calls 'local descent lines', concrete units 'on the ground', which undertakes such marriages. For Needham's version of alliance theory, Leach's distinction, however true, is quite irrelevant. It is the social order as a conceptual order, the social system as a system of relational rules, which is the concern of alliance theory. Alliance theory is precisely and explicitly diagram lines as models of a social orderfor Needham.Not so for Lévi-Strauss (or Dumont), however. Maybury-Lewis (1960) takes Lévi-Strauss sternly to task for this same error. Indeed, one may say that the criticism is the Leach Criticism, and consists in accusing Lévi-Strauss of confusing models with [37] reality, of mixing phenomena from disparate levels of abstraction in the same analytic image. And Lévi-Strauss's reply to Maybury-Lewis (1960) should apply to Leach's paper as well: '…I cannot be reproached for confusing dual organization, dualist system and dualism. As a matter of fact, I was avowedly trying to override these classical distinctions, with the aim of finding out if they could be dealt with as open — and to some extent conflicting — expressions of a reality, to be looked for at a deeper level ' (Lévi-Strauss, 1960, p. 46. Emphasis supplied). Or again, in the same vein, later i
Referência(s)