Lecture 7 (this is much more
detailed than the lecture as delivered)
Culture and the Individual
Your text discusses the importance
of self-awareness in the enculturation process. Human being have a
(biologically based ) capacity to be aware of themselves and form conceptions
of themselves. You text discusses this as fundamental to the enculturation process.
The biological foundation of this
in primates is seen in the capacity of at least the apes (Chimps, orangs,
gorillas and humans) to have self-awareness. There is no doubt that they do.
Koko the signing gorilla was often seen signing to herself (in front of a
mirror and otherwise) which we must assume means that she took her own self as
an object. Chimps have been observed doing the same. A chimp is clearly aware
that the animal they see in a mirror is themselves. (This has been shown by
experiments in which a chimp used to mirrors is anesthetized and a large red
mark is put on the forehead. When the chimp awakens and first encounters a
mirror, the animal will attempt immediately to rub off the red mark, apparently
knowing it is on its own body not some other chimp in the mirror). Dogs and
cats and other mammals apparently do not have this capacity for self awareness,
certainly not in the sense that apes do. Whether it is present in monkeys or
even lower primates is more problematic.
Your text also mentions how
different cultures have characteristically different and typical ways in which
the human self is thought to be constituted. One good example in your text
concerns the question of how many genders there are. In our culture there are
clearly a distinction between male gendered selves and female gendered selves.
Take even the idea of how many
sexes there are. We believe that there are two, and in fact this is a widely
shared belief. But what about
hermaphrodites?
Anatomically, of course, sex per
se, is not all that clear cut. The percentage of hermaphrodites in any normal human
population is about one half percent ,depending on the criteria you use –
actually medically true hermaphrodism is very rare – perhaps about 1 in 1000.
But in every human population, however small, some degree of anatomical sexual
anomalies are seen sufficiently often that the problem must be dealt with for
cultural purposes.
In our culture only two specific
gender roles are recognized and the appearance of an anatomically inter-sexed
individual cause a bit of distress and confusion. So we only have two specific
ways of dressing – male and females, and parents of such children are initially
faced with the problem of how to treat their newborn. We mostly raise them as
males.
In some cultures they are regarded
as an abomination and killed (this was traditionally true for the Tausug), in
others they are given some special role, usually of a religious sort ( the
Greek oracle at
Your text discusses this with a
couple of case studies. The roles of the berdache (males who in some respects
took on female roles) and among the Plains groups and some other American
Indian cultures, "manly hearted women" were filled both by
anatomically intersexed individuals, as well as others who for one reason or
another wished to take on the typical role of the other gender. It is often the
case in cultures that have very tightly and strictly defined opposite gender
roles (often perhaps because of practical necessity –such as a pronounced military
orientation) that some individuals, for reasons of individual temperament and
personality, may not feel comfortable with their assigned gender roles. The
culture may provide an alternative role for such individuals . Another example
is the Albanian Sworn Virgin -- women in
Although it is very easy for
Americans to interpret these role differences primarily in terms of sexual
behavior or orientation (since we think of gender primarily in such terms) in
fact in many cultures gender is not conceived primarily in terms of sexual
behavior, but in terms of a whole range of culturally prescribed role conduct.
Sexuality per se may or may not be involved -- to assume that homosexuality is
the main point here is perhaps to impose on own values on very differently
conceived gender roles.
The Concept of Self
One important point that your book
does make with any clarity is the distinction between the capacity for self
awareness as such, and the particularly typical self-concept which is
characteristic of the modal personality in any given culture.
To say that a human being has a self
is to say that every human can act toward his own self as if he were an object.
Human beings are part of their own social environment in the sense that
we can objectify ourselves, and look at ourselves from the perspective of
others. The human can be an acting self (an "I") as well as a
reflecting self ( a "me"). It is the "I" that acts and the
"Me" that judges the acting "I". The judging self (the "Me’) is largely
(though not entirely) a product of a process of looking at oneself from the
perspective of others -- what one famous social psychologist (George Mead)
called the process of ‘taking the role of the other", by which he meant
that we are able to act toward ourselves much as we were ourselves an
"other" in our own world. This process is absolutely universal in all
humans – indeed were it not for our capacity to judge ourselves from the
perspective of others, no morality in human society would be possible.
In any society, this ongoing
process of self-awareness and self-reflection and self-judging results in the
emergence of a self concept – a more or less stable orientation toward the
self, which is an important component of personality. Needless to say, in any
society different humans have different personalities ( or stable orientations
toward the self and the world of others), but anthropologists have noticed that
individuals in different cultures typically have characteristic personalities.
This is the concept of modal personality discussed in your book. Remember that
a modal personality is a range of typical personality types found in a given
society. – it does not means that everybody in any society has exactly the same
personality – which is nonsensical on its face. We are not insects, and human
(and primate) society depends on a diversity of individuals and individual
personalities.
National Character This is based on the notion that there are
broad personality orientations characteristic of large national groups.
National character studies at one time were rather popular in anthropology –
particularly during World War II when attempts were made to formulate some
generalizations about our enemies and allies which might be useful in
understanding and perhaps predicting their conduct, particularly in the context
of the war. Ruth Benedict wrote a widely read book (The Chrysanthemum and the
Sword) in which she tried to explain Japanese national character. Similar work
was done on the British, Germans, French, Russians. There was a heavy emphasis
on methods of child training which differed from society to society.
In retrospect many of the
generalizations about "national character" turn out to be little more
than national stereotypes, not completely incorrect, but certainly over
generalized and sometimes misleading.
One perhaps more useful way of
viewing national character (if one needs the concept at all) is to view it not
as a set thing but as a range of variability which exists around certain
characteristic themes.
So instead of saying the French
are rational (or passionate) we can say that French culture is sort of obsessed
with the dichotomy between reason and passion, and that this sometimes takes
one form and sometimes another.
Or instead of saying that Germans
are orderly, it is perhaps better to say that German culture( and personality)
is obsessed with the themes of Order and Chaos and that sometimes this takes
the form of an extreme orderliness ( deutsche ordnung) and other times
into fantasies of massive chaos on a Wagnerian scale. Germans sometime appear
to be massively orderly, at other times massively disorderly.
Americans are sometimes
stereotyped as being ‘Individualistic" (whatever that means) but as
Toqueville pointed out in the 1840’s sometimes Americans seem to have an
intense democratic conformism which refuses to tolerate any diversity. So
perhaps a closer generalization about American national character would be to
say that our culture, its values, and the typical personality of many Americans
shows a kind of alternation between an intense self centered individualism on
the one hand and a group conformity on the other. American culture is
preoccupied with the themes of the relationship of the individual to the group,
and sometimes this takes the form of a high degree of individualism and other times a great conformism. (one can
see this tension played out in our legal system in the never-ending arguments
about the nature and limits of individual rights).
The historian Arthur Schlesinger some years
ago wrote a book arguing that there were cycles in American history (of 20-30
years duration) which reflected these themes: an alternation of an emphasis on
group welfare ("Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can
do for your country’ – that sort of thing) and periods of unbridled self
aggrandizement and ambition . I do not entirely accept his conclusions about
the cycles, but his argument fits in to the notion of "national
character" as a range of variability.
Child rearing practices
There has been a lot of
anthropological research on the subject of child rearing techniques. There is
not doubt that there are great differences in culturally sanctioned methods of
child rearing. To what extent do techniques of child rearing affect adult modal
personality. Some examples:
To what extent is the presence or
absence of fathers in the lives of young children a factor in later
personality. Great variability here. Early 20th century German and
Austrian fathers were typically aloof from their young children, and their
relations were often authoritarian (many of Freud’s theories have to be at
least partially understood in this context). Malinowski, arguing against Freud
with respect to the Trobrianders, maintained that the so-called Oedipus complex
(in which the child sees the authoritarian father as a rival for the attention
of the mother) was not found in the matrilineal Trobriands. According to
Weiner, Malinowski may have overstated the case, but he pointed out that if the
authority figure is the Mothers brother (as it usually is in matrilineal
societies), the actual father is free to express great closeness and affection
to the child. Hence no Oedipus complex, at least not in the sense the Freud
claimed to see it in his Austrian patients.
To what extent are young children
indulged and what kinds of punishment are typically employed. Does the use of
corporal punishment affect typical adult personality?
How are kids toilet trained? Or
weaned? In some places this is very rigid and abrupt. In other places quite
casual. Are kids allowed to feed whenever they want, or are they put on rigid
schedules? Does this matter in terms of
the resulting adult personality?
What is the attitude toward
childhood sexuality and sexual play? Trobrianders are pretty casual about this.
Americans (middle class) are generally horrified by the whole notion of
childhood sexuality. Among the Tausug (and many other cultures as well)
fondling a child’s genitals is considered a good way to pacify an irritable
kid, while Americans are pretty horrified by this, and in some contexts regard
it as “child abuse". (But note: Tausug adults do this with not a hint of
their own personal pleasure – it is rather regarded somewhat as a joke. An
American adult who fondles a child is not joking, but I suspect that there is
great variability in this among immigrant non-middle class cultures here).
What kinds of appeals are made to
children to engage in moral behavior? Americans typically exhort a child who is
misbehaving with "Be good". French typically say "Sois sage (be
wise)’? Do these subtle differences reflect later adult personality in
typically American or typically French ways?
Mental Disorders and Culture
If "normal" (modal)
personality in any culture is so variable, then it is equally true that what is
regarded as abnormal personality is also going to be variable. Are there
culturally specific mental illnesses?
An underlying problem here is that
psychiatry in the Western biomedical tradition is still largely
phenomenological in method -- that is most diagnoses are made on the basis of symptoms,
not underlying causes (all biomedicine up to the middle of the 19th
century was largely the same way – syphilis, for example was traditionally
diagnosed on the basis of a highly complex and subtle set of symptoms – it was
only when the spirochete which caused the disease was discovered that final
diagnosis changed from symptom to underlying cause). In the last 30 years or so
, with advances in neurology and the physiology and pharmacology of neurotransmitters
(chemicals in the brain which mediate the transmission of nerve impulses)
psychiatry has been very slowly moving out of this symptomology tradition.
But for the most part, mental
illness (in our culture and everywhere else) is popularlydefined in terms of symptoms and
conduct. And that is the problem – the outward symptoms and signs of mental
abnormality are so variable by culture that it becomes very difficult to
compare mental abnormalities from one culture to another.
In one household in the community
in which I studied there was a middle aged man who sat on the porch more or
less staring into oblivion, occasionally eating and engaging in some simple
activities. Asking the Tausug what was "wrong" with him was not very
helpful in Western biomedical terms (he was usually classified as being
possessed, or as being a ‘barbalan" - a night flying creature that ate the
livers of corpses). To give an accurate psychiatric diagnosis one would have
had to be 1) a competent psychiatrist, and 2) sufficiently Tausug to appreciate
the subtle difference between normal and abnormal behavior in their culture. My
guess is that this man was either (in our biomedical science terms) severely
retarded, autistic, or schizophrenic. For all practical purposes (in terms of
everyday living), however, the Tausug explanation that he was possessed by
involuntary witchcraft, is probably a perfectly good explanation. He was not
mistreated, he was well cared for, and he had a social role which fitted his
culture.
There undoubtedly are some cross
cultural mental conditions : manic depression, schizophrenia, autism, obsessive
compulsive and other anxiety disorders, among others. There are probably
biological root causes (largely unknown) for these. But the expression of these
disorders is clearly different in different cultures.
One example: obsessive compulsive
disorder – characterized by obsessive thoughts usually followed by compulsive
rituals which alleviate the anxiety association with the obsession. Recent
studies in the US and Europe seem to indicate that about 3-4% of the population
at one time will suffer a debilitating bout of OCD (whether these statistics
hold true cross culturally is very difficult to determine – precisely because
the diagnosis is so difficult cross culturally).
OCD is sometimes called the
‘doubting disease’ –because the individual finds it difficult or impossible to
act on the common sense of certain of his own culture’s assumptions,
even though he knows those assumptions to be correct. One of Freud’s most famous cases was the case
of the "rat man" – a man who was obsessed with the idea that there
was a rat in his pants. He did not "believe" this , he was not
delusional, and was not insane – he clearly knew that his obsession with this
imagined rat was unreasonable, and was in fact tormented by his obsession. But,
logically one cannot prove a negative with complete certainty – there might
be a rat there, and one can never be completely sure.
There is increasing good evidence
that there is a biological basis for OCD, but the way in which this disorder is
expressed is wildly variable by culture. One of the most common OCDs in
Euro-American culture is an obsession with cleanliness and contamination which
is often expressed by ritual washing or constant bathing. But what about a
culture in which physical cleanliness is not of as much concern? Would there be
obsessive compulsive disorders as common as here, but not easily recognized
because they take different forms? This is the crux of the problem of the cross
cultural analysis of psychiatric disorders.
Enculturation and Socialization
Your text talks at length about
the concept of enculturation – the process of learning one’s culture, which is
of course very important in childhood, but actually goes on throughout life, as
individuals mature into different culturally approved roles and culturally
defined stages of life.
But there is an important
distinction to be made between enculuration and socialization.
First, some basic terms:
Emotion – some inner feeling state, usually
associated with some physiological changes. An emotion is simply a
feeling state (often associated with some physiological changes) directed at
some object (which does not have to be another person) in some
situation. Say, anger at being cut off by an obnoxious taxi driver, or merely
stubbing your toe.
Affect – the outward expression of an emotion as
recognized by others in a particular cultural context
Mood – a sustained affect
Sentiment – a sustained orientation toward another
person, identifiable in terms of a typical pattern of conduct toward the other
person or in situations in which the other person is involved. A sentiment can
be defined briefly as the meaning of another person as a
unique individual. (that is, not just as a conventionally defined bundle of
rights and duties) a sentiment is not necessarily specific to a single
situation, but is a sustained orientation or predisposition to act in a variety
of ways with respect to another person in a variety of very different
situations. A sentiment is directed at a social object - it is the meaning of
another unique person. A sentiment is defined as the meaning of another
person (as unique person, not as a role)
Take the old standby
"love". While we Americans popularly think of love as some sort of
uniform "feeling" inside one, it really is a complex set of feelings
and predisposition’s to act, which manifest itself in a whole variety of
different ways. To say that X loves Y is to say that X is prepared to:
Get angry if someone threatens Y
Defend Y against the aggressor
Feel jealous if a competitor
appears
Feel grief if love object dies
Feel longing if love object is
gone
Sympathize with love objects
problems
Feel "hurt" if neglected
by love object
Feel joy in presence of love
object
Feel sadness in absence of love
object
Protect the love object when
necessary
Feel concern for y’s well being
Agonize over love objects
suffering
Feel proud at love objects
accomplishments
(and many more situations you could
think of, almost ad infinitum)
Indeed, we would ascribe the
sentiment of love to a person even if the person verbally denies the sentiment
if we observe the characteristic pattern of conduct. A sentiment thus is not a
feeling per se but a structure of feelings directed at a particular
unique other human being in a variety of different situations in which the
object of the sentiment is encountered.
Note: there is great individual
variability in any society in the capacity of various individuals to form
particular sentiments with particular others, and indeed this is perhaps a main
component of what we call ‘personality’.
Enculturation: the process of
learning to play out conventions roles and acquire the conventional
understandings, meanings, values, orientations, symbolic associations, etc.
which pertain to any particular culture.
Enculturation goes on throughout the life cycle, not just in childhood.
Socialization: is the process
where one learns to form certain sentimental attachments to unique others. The primary
socialization which occurs in childhood is in certain key respects a universal
process whereby children in all societies acquire the capacity to form certain
minimal sentiments necessary for any organized group activity. The process of
socialization also goes on throughout
life, as one to form interpersonal relationships with a series of unique others
throughout ones life.
Both enculturation and
socialization occur through out life, although primary experiences tend on the
whole to be rather persistent.
An interesting, if somewhat
extreme, example of the difference between socialization and enculturation can
be seen in the learning to live in a prison. If you were sent to prison, you would have to
learn two interdependent, yet analytically very distinct kinds of things:
1. You would have to learn the
conventional rules and norms of ( both formal and informal) of the prison —its
culture--or as they say ‘the ropes’. And the "ropes" in an American
prison are very different from those in a Turkish prison, for example.
2. But you would also have to
learn to adjust to some rather peculiar interpersonal situations in prison life
and the sentiments which they engender. Prisons are places which have an
extraordinary amount of conflict present in interpersonal relations (mainly
because everything in a prison one desires —privacy, and all sorts of creature
comforts, sex, space, even food in some cases— is in short supply relative to
the outside world]. One would have to learn to deal with the large number of
disjunctive sentiments (sentiments which drive people apart such as hatred, jealousy,
envy, etc.) which this situation entails. If you were only in a short time,
this might only be a temporary adjustment. But persons who have spent a very
long time in prison invariably undergo major personality transformations, which
sometimes make adjustment to the outside world very difficult.
Now a sentiment is a kind of
meaning — the meaning of another unique human being. But sentiments differ very
significantly from other kinds of meaning in the fact that before any
sentimental relations can be established there must first be at least some
minimal kind of empathy with the other as a human being who is assumed to be
like oneself.
The capacity for empathy with the
other assumes the capacity to —— ‘take the role of the other’ —put oneself into
other persons shoes and look at the situation as one imagines that he does.
Now the capacity for empathic
understanding of others is probably established fairly early in life and there
is probably some biologically based disposition to learn it, although we
cannot specific exactly how this works. That it is a biologically programmed
capacity for learning is suggested by the fact that if you looks at people who
have been severely socially deprived in childhood — those kids chained to
bedposts in the attic until they are ten— one finds a severely diminished
capacity to form a full range of sentiments, although they can usually learn
enough to get by.
In those situations in which the
formation of interpersonal sentiments, or the establishment of empathic
understanding between the parties, would be dysfunctional for the society, it
is often the case that one finds cultural barriers set up to impede the formation
of sentiments.
The rules governing relationships
between doctor and patient, particularly where there is a male doctor—female
patient, minimize the possibility of sexuality.
the hangman and and his victim - every effort is made that the
executioner cannot and does not identify with his victim.
the catholic priest and penitent —
ideally any priest can hear confession of any believer, independent of any
sentiments between them as unique persons The personality of the priest is in
theory completely divorced from the office itself.
Some anthropologists have argued
that there are significant differences between cultures in terms of sentiments
and emotions. I disagree with this. In so far as we are talking about human
capacities and the ability to recognize sentiments and emotions in others I see
no cultural difference. Cultures do,
however, attach different importance to the meanings of sentiments, and
different rules about the appropriateness or inappropriateness of certain
sentiments or emotions in different situations, but I see no evidence that the
capacity is variable.
And of course, cultures have
different terminologies to talk about sentiments and emotions, but this does
not necessarily mean that the experience is necessarily different. Tausug has
two words for love: disinterested love (lasa) and possessive love (kasi)
whereas English has only one primary term. The ancient Greeks similarly
distinguished between eros and agape. English has one term for "shame"
whereas French distinguishes between pudeur (bodily shame) and honte (humiliation
at being caught doing something socially disapproved – with a sense of
"dishonor").
But do these differences in
terminology necessarily reflect differences in human experience? I do not think
we can necessarily presume they do. It may be a bit like color terminology: the
range of color terms is to some degree arbitrary from one culture (and
language) to another, but this does not mean that color itself is merely a
figment of culture.
Psychotropic Substances
I want to return to this seeming
banal observation: that human beings have selves, by virtue of which we are
able to act toward our selves and interpret our own actions – we can make
indications to ourselves of the objects in our environment. To indicate
something to oneself is first of all to extricate it from its setting, to hold
it apart, and to give it a meaning.
An object is anything that a
person can indicate to himself – a physical object, another person, a social
rule, or an abstract conception or culturally defined category, like justice or
benevolence or shame or honor.
An object in this sense is
different from a stimulus -- as in classic stimulus response psychology – in
that a stimulus is assumed to have an intrinsic character which acts in and
through the individual to produce behavior ( as in a simple knee jerk response
– to take a very simple example). An object on the other hand has its meaning
conferred on it by an acting human being who interprets in the light of the
situation in which it occurs. Thus instead of an individual being surrounded by
an environment of preexisting object which have some sort of intrinsic meaning
and which call forth his behavior, it is better to say that the individual
constructs his objects on the basis of his on-going activity in terms of the
situation he find himself, and that situation almost always—since man is a
social animal-- involves being aware of the activities, judgments,
interpretations etc. of other people who one chooses to pay attention to ( and
not just people who are physically present, but those or are imagined to be
present, or might be thought to be present) Thus, "If I do this , what
will I say, how will I justify it, what significance will it have for others
whose opinions I care about, what will they do, etc.?”). This is basically what
we mean when we say that society is a process of adjusting one’s conduct to the
conduct of others in terms of symbols, and that individuals construct their
conduct (conduct is the name we give to the result of this
process, and is much more than mere “behavior”) on an ongoing basis, and do not
merely "react" to things.
All this may sound a little
obvious or banal, but I would suggest that great deal of research in the social
science does not fully account for the fact that human beings have selves.
The more useful approach is to
regard these external forces, which do after all exist , as potential objects
in the individual’s situation, the
significance of which the person indicates to himself in the context of others
and constructs his conduct on the basis of the interpretations given to the
total situation (remembering that the individual himself is part of his own
situation). Human beings are part of their own environment, and culture is the accumulated
man-made part of the environment.
"What
then is freedom? To be born is both to be born of the world and to be born into
the world… We are involved in the world and with others in an inextricable
tangle, The idea of situation rules out absolute freedom as the source of our
commitments, and equally indeed at their terminus. No commitment…. can make me
leave behind all differences and free me for anything. . The choice which we
make of our life is always based on a certain givenness, "
"All
explanations of my conduct in terms of my past, my temperament and my
environment are therefore true, provided that they be regarded not as separable
contributions, but as moments of my total being, the significance of which I am
entitled to make explicit in various ways, without it ever being possible to
say whether I confer their meaning upon them or receive it from them. I am a
psychological and historical structure, and have received, with existence, a
manner of existing, a style. All my actions and thoughts stand in a
relationship to this structure… Nothing determines me from outside, not because
nothing acts upon me, but on the contrary, because from the start I am outside
myself and open to the world. "
Maurice
Merleau-Ponty: The Phenomenology of Perception (trans. Colin Smith).
Psychotropic drugs as an
example
All of this may appear a bit
abstract, so lets apply it to a situation that you are all more or less
familiar with in the context of contemporary American culture: the so-called
drug problem.
All cultures known to
anthropologists (with the singular exception of perhaps the Eskimo before
European influence) make some use of substances which when ingested have some
effect on psychological functions and alter consciousness. These are usually
derived from plants of various sorts and are quite numerous: alcohol, coca,
caffeine, nicotine, marijuana, ayuhuasa, ebene and other LSD like substances),
khat, hashish, opium (and various derivatives such as morphine or heroin),
kava, betel, and more recently artificial substances like Prozac, “ecstasy”
etc. The list goes on and on.
It is important to stress
initially that almost always these substances are used in groups and subject to
cultural interpretation and subject to a great deal of social control. The
solitary use of psychotropic substances is quite recent, and almost always in
the context of official legal prohibition -- secret use of marijuana and
cocaine in the
The prevailing view in the US, in
the DEA and the drug prohibition establishment (which has obviously powerful
vested interests in keeping their jobs alive), as well as most of the general
public and much of the academic and medical establishment is a model which more
or less corresponds to the mechanistic view of human behavior I first presented
and which I argued was wrong or at least wrongheaded.
Under this view, drugs are viewed
has having intrinsic properties which act in and through individuals who are
more neutral agents and result in behavior which is more or less determined by
the drug itself: drug + (acting upon) individual = behavior.
Note that I am not saying that
different drugs do not have different real physiological consequences, only
that the meaning of those consequences is not intrinsic in the substance
itself, but only emerges in a situation of symbolic interaction with others in
a particular cultural context.
Later we will see a film on
Yanomamo shamanism -- these are S American Indians who blow a highly
psychotropic substance up their nostrils and have religious visions.
The "pleasure" or
meaning of doing this is obviously specific to the situation in which certain
religious interpretations are given to the experience, and is not intrinsic to
the drug. Thus if you or I were to take the substance there is a very good
chance that initially we would be terrified out of our wits.
Marijuana (lots of
good social science on this, and lots of bad social science as well):
You have all read the assigned
reading done by the sociologist Howard S. Becker, who held interviews with numerous
marijuana smokers. (He was also a former professional musician and I assume had
a bit of personal experience) The study revealed that smoking marijuana was
quite insufficient to become "high". The desirable effects certainly
did not occur spontaneously. In starting their careers as marijuana smokers,
the users first had to learn the proper technique of marijuana smoking. As the
effects are rather mild, they also had to learn to interpret the internal cues
as effects of marijuana.
After a while, most users were
able to feel reactions which they attributed to marijuana. They largely felt
physical effects. But most beginners felt the effects were unpleasant. Many
thought the effects were frightening and became alarmed. Experienced users
calmed them down, telling them their reaction was normal. They taught the
novice to regard the ambiguous experiences, initially considered unpleasant ,as
enjoyable: "The same thing happened to me. You'll get to like that after
awhile."
At one time (perhaps still)
marijuana was widely used by professional jazz musicians who interpreted the
lengthening of the sensation of time as enabling them to better appreciate the
nuance of the music they were playing, and thus play better. Now
"objectively" this is probably not true (a neutral listener cannot
distinguish between hearing music played by a “stoned” musician as
distinguished from an unstoned musician) but that is really beside the point. A
cardinal principal in the social science is just this " If men define
situations as real they are real in their consequences." (William I
Thomas). Point here is that the interpretation and "pleasure" of
marijuana use among musicians is subtly different from that of non-musicians.
Anthropologists might put it that the culture of marijuana use differs between
musicians and non-musicians, but note that the word culture is an abstraction
which we use as a convenient way of describing conduct not necessarily a
"cause" of that conduct.
Opiate use The process of addition is not a mere
reaction of the individual to the intrinsic properties of the drug, but is
heavily related to the interpretations the individuals give to his experience,
and these interpretations usually occur within a group and cultural context.
Aside: leaving aside technical medical definitions, the term "addiction"
as a common sense everyday use by the public is " an addict is someone who
has an irresistible craving to ingest a substance that we disapprove of".
Thus, it is only recently that we casually talk about cigarettes as being
"addicting" as cigarette smoking has become more and more socially
unacceptable, even though the physiological effects of nicotine use have been
well known in the scientific literature for a very long time. Most studies of
opiate use are based on interviews conducted in a clinical or law enforcement
setting (in which the addict tells the interviewer what he thinks the
interviewer wants to know) rather than ethnographic studies of the actual
context of drug using conduct.
The problem is this: how do you
become a habitual opiate user? If you take a dose of an opiate (say heroin or
morphine,)the physiological symptoms of withdrawal do not appear for 24-48
hours after use. These symptoms are initially rather mild and vague: nausea,
muscle aches, cramps, runny nose, fatigue and restlessness. If you went to a
physician with these symptoms alone (and he did not know of the prior opiate
use), you would probably come out with a diagnosis of flu or a bad cold. One
has to learn to connect up these symptoms with the need for a further dose of a
substance which one ingested 36 hours earlier, and this is not self evident. It
is most likely to occur within the context of interacting with other drug users
who have gone through similar experiences and can help you interpret your own. We
know that many health care professionals are regular users of opiates: but they
do so in secret and have a somewhat different perspective on their bodies than
non-physicians, and it is arguable whether the term "addict" is
really applicable in this social setting. Another factor: The most common
theory of disease in our culture (and probably everywhere) is that it is the
result of something foreign getting into the body (whether this is a germ or
tumor, or poison, or ghost or spirit, or being bewitched, etc). But in order to
become a full fledged opiate addict who has become physiological tolerant to a
very high dose ( and remember that most users do not become addicts) one has to over the course of interacting
with others turn this theory of disease upside down. A full fledged opiate
addict has a tendency to interpret every physical ailment as due not to the
presence of something foreign in the body, but rather the absence of something
that is misusing, namely the drug. My point is that this rarely can occur
without learning it in the context of other drug users who tend to interact
with each other to the exclusion of non-drug users.
To attribute the conduct of drug
users to the effects of the substance acting through the neutral human agent is
just dead wrong.
Cocaine: here again there is no reason to assume
that the characteristics of the drug itself fully or even partially explains
the conduct and cultural meaning of the use. Cocaine and amphetamine are
extremely close chemically and in terms of physiological effects. Amphetamine
was first systemized in the early thirties. During WW II billions of pills were
distributed to soldiers and civilian workers (in the
Alcohol a widely used intoxicant, easily discovered
as an adulterant whenever a liquid carbohydrate is left to ferment.
A similar analysis could be made
of alcohol use. The experience of alcohol use depends on learning to perceive
the pleasurable effects of alcohol use, and learning the appropriate cultural
expected conduct while drunk. All cultures in which alcohol use is a social
ritual have definite standards of drunken comportment: typical patterns
of conduct of persons who are intoxicated. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist
to notice that northern Europeans can sit and drink a full bottle of wine and
be affected quite differently that a Greek or an Italian or even Frenchman
sitting right next to him. The stereotype that alcohol causes people to become
aggressive or belligerent is just plain wrong, if one is attributing to cause
of the behavior to the alcohol itself. Thus, some Irish do have a tendency to
become more bellicose, although Japanese tend to become less bellicose and a
bit on the gushy side. Some American Indians who did use alcohol traditionally
for certain religious purposes (not all did) did so under traditional
interpretations and modes of social control – and it was not a
"problem". These same groups when exposed to very hard "white
man’s" liquor drunk in a totally different social and cultural context
tended be interpret the drug in quite different ways. The only valid universal generalization about alcohol use is that it
does affect physical coordination and some cognitive skills in recognizable
ways.
In summary – "getting
high" is not a direct effect of anything, but rather a culturally based
interpretation of whatever very vague and subtle physiological process do
occur. And further, in numerous studies it has been shown that people will
report "getting high" even though they have not actually consumed
anything, so long as they think they have [heroin users can be pacified with an
injection of plain water, people may begin to act "drunk" even though
there is little or no alcohol in their cocktail, marijuana users can become
high in the company of other users even though they have ingested very little
or none at all, etc. ]
[ The class at this point saw a
film "magical death"]
The film was made in March 1971 in
a large village of about 250 people, located at the headwaters of the
Magical Death is a film about
Dedeheiwa, a great Yanamamo shaman and headman. The first part of the film
shows the uses of hallucinogenic drugs as Dedehewa calls the hekura spirits to
help him cure the sick.. In the second part of the film, former enemies arrive
in Dedeheiwa’s village to form an alliance; and the viewer sees how the
Yanamamo manipulate their spiritual world to political ends when Dedeheiwa
offers to magically attack a village of the visitor’s choosing in order to
demonstrate his village’s good intentions. For the next two days, Dedeheiwa and
the other shamans of his village mount the attack. The viewer sees how the
drugs are prepared, how the hekura are called, and how the attack is
dramatically carried out to a successful conclusion.