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Home , Battle of Groningen, Frederic Wakeman, He Knows You Know, Ivor Richard, Lorraine Daston, Madhava (Vishnu)

coming up in Dædalus: Dædalus Dædalus on body in mind Antonio & Hanna Damasio, Jerry Fodor, Carol Gilligan, Gerald Edelman, Jorie Graham, Raymond Dolan, Arne Öhman, Mark Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Johnson, Jacques d’Amboise, and William E. Connolly Fall 2005 on the humanities Patricia Meyer Spacks, Steven Marcus, Andrew Delbanco, Pauline Yu, Gerald Early, Anthony Grafton, Thomas Crow, Jack Balkin & Sanford Levinson, and Dag½nn Follesdal & Michael L. Fall 2005: 50 years Friedman 50 years David Baltimore Limiting science: a biologist’s perspective (1978) 7 Lorraine Daston Fear & loathing of the imagination in science (1998) 16 on aging Henry J. Aaron, Paul Baltes, Linda Partridge, Dennis J. Selkoe, Caleb E. Finch, Sarah Harper, Chris Wilson, Jagadeesh Gokhale Steven Weinberg Physics & history (1998) 31 & Kent Smetters, Hillard Kaplan, and Lisa Berkman Robert N. Bellah Civil religion in America (1967) 40 Clifford Geertz Deep play: notes on the Balinese cock½ght (1972) 56 on identity Akeel Bilgrami, Wendy Doniger, Amartya Sen, Stephen Greenblatt, Robert M. Solow How did economics get that way Kwame Anthony Appiah, Sydney Shoemaker, Joseph Koerner, & what way did it get? (1997) 87 Susan Green½eld, David A. Hollinger, Claudio Lomnitz, Carol Rovane, Todd E. Feinberg, and Courtney Jung Thomas C. Schelling Reciprocal measures for arms stabilization (1960) 101 John Hope Franklin Two worlds of race (1965) 118 on nonviolence William H. McNeill, Adam Michnik, Jonathan Schell, James Carroll, Jill K. Conway Politics, pedagogy & gender (1987) 134 & violence Breyten Breytenbach, Mark Juergensmeyer, Steven LeBlanc, James Blight, Cindy Ness, Neil L. Whitehead, and Mia Bloom Tu Wei-ming Cultural China (1991) 145 Amartya Sen Indian traditions (1997) 168 on sex Joan Roughgarden, Terry Castle, Steven Marcus, Claudia Goldin, Brian Charlesworth, Elizabeth Benedict, Wendy Doniger, Lawrence Robert Frost On Emerson (1959) 186 Cohen, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Catharine MacKinnon, Tim Birkhead, Umberto Eco Modern & postmodern aesthetics (1985) 191 Margo Jefferson, and others Susan Sontag On beauty (2002) 208 on capitalism Joyce Appleby, John C. Bogle, Lucian Bebchuk, Robert W. Fogel, & democracy Jerry Z. Muller, Peter Bernstein, and others

plus poetry by Charles Wright, Peg Boyers, Kevin Carrizo di Camillo, John Kinsella, Charles Simic &c.; ½ction by Ree Davis, Adam Braver, Dorian Gossy &c.; and notes by Robert F. Nagel, Jeri Laber, Michael Cook, Norbert Schwarz, Joel F. Handler, William B. Quandt, William Galston, Richard Morris, Robert J. Sharer & c.

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Inside front cover: A late nineteenth-century postcard, showing a Fourth-of-July fête. See Robert N. Bellah on Civil religion in America, pages 40–55: “Holidays provide an annual ritual calendar for the civil religion.” Image © PoodlesRock/Corbis. James Miller, Editor of Dædalus

Phyllis S. Bendell, Managing Editor and Director of Publications

Esther Yoo, Assistant Editor

Contributing Editors: Robert S. Boynton, D. Graham Burnett, Peter Pesic, Danny Postel

Board of editors

Steven Marcus, Editor of the Academy

Russell Banks, Fiction Adviser

Rosanna Warren, Poetry Adviser

Joyce Appleby (u.s. history, ucla), Stanley Hoffmann (government, Harvard), Donald Kennedy (environmental science, Stanford), Martha C. Nussbaum (law and philosophy, Chicago), Neil J. Smelser (sociology, Berkeley), Steven Weinberg (physics, University of Texas at Austin); ex of½cio: Patricia Meyer Spacks (President of the Academy), Leslie Cohen Berlowitz (Executive Of½cer)

Editorial advisers

Daniel Bell (sociology, Harvard), Michael Boudin (law, u.s. Court of Appeals), Wendy Doniger (religion, Chicago), Howard Gardner (education, Harvard), Clifford Geertz (anthropology, Institute for Advanced Study), Carol Gluck (Asian history, Columbia), Stephen Greenblatt (English, Harvard), Thomas Laqueur (European history, Berkeley), Alan Lightman (English and physics, mit), Steven Pinker (psychology, Harvard), Diane Ravitch (education, nyu), Amartya Sen (economics, Harvard), Richard Shweder (human development, Chicago), Frank Wilczek (physics, mit)

Dædalus is designed by Alvin Eisenman Dædalus

Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

The pavement labyrinth once in the nave of Reims Cathedral (1240), in a drawing, with ½gures of the architects, by Jacques Cellier (c. 1550–1620).

Dædalus was founded in 1955 and established as a quarterly in 1958. The journal’s namesake was renowned in ancient Greece as an inventor, scientist, and unriddler of riddles. Its emblem, a maze seen from above, symbolizes the aspiration of its founders to “lift each of us above his cell in the labyrinth of learning in order that he may see the entire structure as if from above, where each separate part loses its comfortable separateness.” The American Academy of Arts & Sciences, like its journal, brings together distinguished individuals from every ½eld of human endeavor. It was chartered in 1780 as a forum “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honour, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.” Now in its third century, the Academy, with its more than four thousand elected members, continues to provide intellectual leadership to meet the critical challenges facing our world. Dædalus Fall 2005 Subscription rates: Electronic only for non- Issued as Volume 134, Number 4 member individuals–$38; institutions–$86. Canadians add 7% gst. Print and electronic © 2005 by the American Academy for nonmember individuals–$42; institu- of Arts & Sciences tions–$96. Canadians add 7% gst. Outside An argument about beauty the United States and Canada add $20 for © Susan Sontag postage and handling. Prices subject to change Editorial of½ces: Dædalus, Norton’s Woods, without notice. 136 Irving Street, Cambridge ma 02138. Institutional subscriptions are on a volume- Phone: 617 491 2600. Fax: 617 576 5088. year basis. All other subscriptions begin with Email: [email protected]. the next available issue. Library of Congress Catalog No. 12-30299 Single issues: current issues–$13; back issues isbn 0-87724-051-5 for individuals–$13; back issues for institutions–$26. Outside the United States and Dædalus publishes by invitation only and as- Canada add $5 per issue for postage and han- sumes no responsibility for unsolicited manu- dling. Prices subject to change without notice. scripts. The views expressed are those of the author of each article, and not necessarily of Claims for missing issues will be honored free the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. of charge if made within three months of the issn e-issn publication date of the issue. Claims may be Dædalus ( 0011-5266; 1548-6192) is submitted to [email protected]. Mem- published quarterly (winter, spring, summer, mit ma bers of the American Academy please direct all fall) by The Press, Cambridge 02142, questions and claims to [email protected]. for the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. An electronic full-text version of Dædalus is Advertising and mailing-list inquiries may be available from The mit Press. Subscription addressed to Marketing Department, mit and address changes should be addressed to Press Journals, 238 Main Street, Suite 500, mit Press Journals, 238 Main Street, Suite 500, Cambridge ma 02142. Phone: 617 253 2866. Cambridge ma 02142. Phone: 617 253 2889. Fax: 617 258 5028. Email: journals-info@ Fax: 617 577 1545. Email: journals-orders@ mit.edu. mit.edu. Permission to photocopy articles for internal Printed in the United States of America by or personal use is granted by the copyright Cadmus Professional Communications, owner for users registered with the Copyright Science Press Division, 300 West Chestnut Clearance Center (ccc) Transactional Report- Street, Ephrata pa 17522. ing Service, provided that the per copy fee of $10 per article is paid directly to the ccc, Newsstand distribution by Ingram Periodicals ma tn 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers 01923. The Inc., 18 Ingram Blvd., La Vergne 37086. fee code for users of the Transactional Report- Phone: 800 627 6247. ing Service is 0011-5266/05. Address all other inquiries to the Subsidiary Rights Manager, Postmaster: Send address changes to mit Press Journals, 238 Main Street, Suite 500, Dædalus, 238 Main Street, Suite 500, Cambridge Cambridge ma 02142. Phone: 617 253 2864. ma 02142. Periodicals postage paid at Boston ma Fax: 617 258 5028. Email: journals-rights@ and at additional mailing of½ces. mit.edu. The typeface is Cycles, designed by Sumner Stone at the Stone Type Foundry of Guinda ca. Each size of Cycles has been separately designed in the tradition of metal types. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Dædalus and the 225th anniversary of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Dædalus was founded as the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1955 and established as a quarterly in 1958.

Dædalus takes its place in a series of lic. This was no easy task. By 1955, after distinguished Academy journals and all, specialization had beset every ½eld of publications. The ½rst and longest-lived the arts and sciences. Dædalus was de- was the Memoirs of the American Academy signed, in part, to remedy this situation. of Arts & Sciences, which consisted largely Over the years, the journal has evolved of learned papers submitted to the Acad- into a preeminent forum for interdisci- emy for publication. Appearing ½rst in plinary work, complementing the Acad- 1785, the Memoirs were published, apart emy’s other activities by bringing a vari- from a few interruptions, until 1946, ety of specialists from every ½eld of en- when they were replaced by the Bulletin deavor into ongoing contact with edu- of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. cated readers from all walks of life. In the meantime, the Academy had be- To celebrate these two anniversaries– gun to distribute a second publication, the 225th of the Academy and the 50th the Proceedings of the American Academy of its journal–we have selected a few es- of Arts & Sciences, which reported on the says that reflect the quality and range of intellectual activities of the Academy. what Dædalus has published over the Eighty-½ve volumes of the Proceedings years. As a whole, these essays express appeared between 1846 and 1958, and the continuing aspiration of the Acad- like the Memoirs they were superseded by emy, in the words of its eighteenth-cen- the Bulletin. The Bulletin continues today tury founders, “to cultivate every art and to report on the meetings and activities science which may tend to advance the of the Academy. interest, honor, dignity, and happiness Dædalus from the start was meant to of a free, independent, and virtuous peo- reach the broadest possible reading pub- ple.”

James Miller, Editor of Dædalus Leslie Berlowitz, Executive Of½cer of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences September 2005

Dædalus Fall 2005 5

David Baltimore

Limiting science: a biologist’s perspective

Contemporary research in molecular backlash already seems to be developing biology has grown up in an era of almost in which various groups in our society complete permissiveness. Its practition- question whether the freedom that has ers have been allowed to decide their characteristically been granted to re- own priorities and have met with virtu- search biologists by a permissive public ally no restraints on the types of work requires modi½cation. Among the nu- they can do. Viewed as a whole, the ½eld merous elements prompting this ques- has not even met with ½scal restraints tioning are impatience with the lack of because, relative to “big science,” molec- practical results, and fears that direct ular biology has been a relatively cheap hazards might result from the experi- enterprise. mentation, that basic research may not Some of the funds that fueled the ini- be an appropriate investment of signif- tial, seminal investigations in molecu- icant funds, and that dangerous new lar biology were granted because of the technologies may flow from discoveries medical implications of work in basic in basic biology. Lay critics as well as a biology. Most continue to come from few members of the profession have ar- agencies concerned with health. Al- gued that molecular biologists should though basic research in biology has yet concentrate their efforts in certain ar- to have a major impact on the preven- eas of research, like fertility mecha- tion and treatment of human disease, a nisms, while other areas, like genetics or aging, are possibly dangerous and David Baltimore, president of the California In- certainly not worthy of ½nancial sup- stitute of Technology, has been a Fellow of the port from the public. These critics be- American Academy since 1974. This essay ap- lieve that they can channel contempo- peared in the Spring 1978 issue of “Dædalus.” At rary biology to ½t their own conception the time of its publication, Baltimore was Ameri- of appropriate research. can Cancer Society Professor of Microbiology at I wish to argue that the traditional pact the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1975 between society and its scientists, in he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medi- which the scientist is given the responsi- cine. bility for determining the direction of his work, is a necessary relationship if © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts basic science is to be an effective endeav- & Sciences or. This does not mean that society is at

Dædalus Fall 2005 7 David the mercy of science, but rather that so- perfect reliability from parent cells to Baltimore ciety, while it must determine the pace progeny cells. They showed that dna is of basic scienti½c innovation, should not made of two strands intertwined togeth- attempt to prescribe its directions. er into a helix and also that the four sub- What we call molecular biology today units in dna are physically related so had its origins in individual decisions of that only A and T form a speci½c pair a small number of scientists during the as do G and C. The two strands are held period from the late 1930s through the together by this speci½c pairing so that early 1950s. These people were trained the two strands carry redundant infor- in diverse ½elds, among them physics, mation. Each gene is thus really a gene medicine, microbiology, and crystallog- and a mirror-gene; this self-complemen- raphy. They created molecular biology tarity allows dna to repair itself–and out of the realization that the problems therefore maintain the ½delity of its in- posed by genetics were central to under- formation–and also to duplicate itself, standing the structures of living systems. sending identical copies into the two No one channeled them towards this daughter cells resulting from a round of line of thinking, no one cajoled them to cell division. tackle these problems; rather, their own Following the monumental discov- curiosity and sense of timing led them to ery of the structure of dna, many sci- try to elucidate these mysteries. This his- entists have contributed to learning how tory provides a model of how the most to make dna, how to read dna, how effective science is done. to cut dna, how to rejoin dna, and in It is partly the successes of molecular general, how to manipulate at will the biology that have brought on the ques- genes of very simple organisms. tioning of whether scientists should be What good has all of this new knowl- allowed their freedom of decision. It is edge brought to the average person? therefore worthwhile tracing the devel- First and of great importance is the con- opment of concerns about whether cer- tribution that scienti½c advances make tain areas of science should be closed to to human culture. The continued accu- investigation. Molecular biology is the mulation of knowledge about ourselves science that has revealed to us the na- and our environment is a crucial cultur- ture of one of the most fundamental of al aspect of contemporary life. Science all substances of life, the gene. There is as well as art illuminates man’s view of a very simple underlying reality to the himself and his relation to others. Our transmission of characteristics from par- knowledge of how we work, how one ents to children: a code based on four person differs from and is similar to an- different chemicals, denoted by the let- other, what is health and what disease, ters A, T, G, and C, is used to store the what we need to support health, and so information of heredity. The order in on, helps to set the ground rules for the which these four chemicals appear in a debates of politics and the productions virtually endless polymer, called dna, of art. is the language of life. The more practical bene½ts of biology Knowing that dna was the physical can be expected to come in the future storehouse of the genes, Watson and in the form of medical advances, or in- Crick in 1953 ½rst solved the problem of creases in food production, or in other how the dna is organized to assure that manipulations of life processes that will information is transferred with almost be able to provide positive contributions

8 Dædalus Fall 2005 to civilization. But molecular biology, of inadvertent development of a destruc- Limiting for all of its power as a basic science, has tive organism like the ½ctitious Androm- science: a biologist’s not been easily translated into tangible eda Strain have been much in the news. I perspective bene½ts. This is a situation that could am personally satis½ed that most of such change very soon. New discoveries are talk is simply science ½ction and that the rapidly bringing molecular biology clos- research can be made as safe as any other to an ability to affect the lives of the er research. The people who understand general public. infectious diseases best make the arguments most strongly that recombinant Of the advances that have occurred, dna research is not going to create a critical one has been the development monsters. But rather than defend my of a process called recombinant dna re- judgment that the safety issue has been search. This is a technique whereby dif- blown out of proportion, I want to con- ferent pieces of dna are sewn together sider some of the more general issues using enzymes; the chimeric dna is that have been raised by the controversy. then inserted into a bacterium where it can be multiplied inde½nitely. Because If safety were the most important con- the method allows genes from any spe- sideration behind the debate about re- cies in the world to be put into a com- combinant dna, then we might expect mon type of bacterium, there is a theo- the debate to focus on the hazards of retical possibility of hazard in this re- doing recombinant dna experiments. search. The potential for unforeseen Instead, many of the discussions that occurrences led a number of scientists, start considering such questions soon including me, to issue in 1974 a call for turn to a consideration of genetic engi- restraint in the application of these new neering. methods. We were addressing a limited Two techniques labeled genetic engi- problem, whether there could be a rec- neering exist. Both originated because ognizable hazard in the performance of not everybody’s genes are perfectly de- certain experiments. That limited ques- signed for the job of being a functioning tion opened a floodgate; other questions human being, so that many instances of came pouring out and are still coming. blood disorders, mental problems, and a They have led to front-cover stories in host of other disabilities are traceable to weekly magazines, to serious attempts a malfunctioning gene. It would be a tri- at federal legislation, to a demoraliza- umph of medicine if the effects of such tion of some of the community of bas- genes could be countered, and two ap- ic research biologists, and, most signif- proaches for countering them have been icantly, to a deep questioning of whether considered, both of which are called ge- further advances in biology are likely to netic engineering. One approach in- be bene½cial or harmful to our society. volves altering some cells of the body so Much of the discussion about recom- that they can carry out the needed func- binant dna research has centered on tion. A patient could, for instance, be whether the work is likely to create haz- treated in this way for a blood disease ardous organisms. The mayor of Cam- caused by an abnormal protein made by bridge, Massachusetts, raised the spec- a mutant gene. A normal gene would be ter of Frankenstein monsters emerging inserted into the precursor cells–imma- from mit and Harvard laboratories, ture bone marrow cells that ultimately and speculations about the possibility develop into functioning blood cells.

Dædalus Fall 2005 9 David In this way, a normal protein could be Genetic engineering of human beings Baltimore made in place of, or along with, the ab- is not the same as recombinant dna re- errant protein. The genetically altered search. Genetic engineering is a process blood cell precursor could then cure carried out on human beings; recombi- the patient’s disease. But the malfunc- nant dna methods are ways to purify tioning gene would still be transmitted genes. Such genes might be used in ge- to the patient’s offspring. Because this netic engineering procedures but are form of genetic engineering would not much more likely to be used as tools in change the gene pool of the species and studies of biological organization or as because it may prove an effective med- elements in a biological manufacturing ical treatment of disease, it does not process. Although genetic engineering present the same moral problem as the is not the same as recombinant dna other form. It is likely to be the ½rst type research, the two are rightly linked be- of genetic engineering tried on human cause recombinant dna work is hasten- beings, and might be tried within the ing the day when genetic engineering next ½ve years. will be a feasible process for use on cer- The second type of genetic engineer- tain human diseases. Since recombi- ing presents more of a dilemma because nant dna work is also bringing closer it could change the human gene pool. the discovery of many other possible This would involve replacement of genes new medical treatments, and is likely in the germ cells, cells that transmit their to bring other new capabilities, why is genes to our offspring. Such a change there so much focus on genetic engineer- would represent a permanent alteration ing? I believe that genetic engineering, of the types of the genetic information because of its tabloid appeal, has be- that constitutes our species. Replace- come a symbol to many people of the ment of germ cell genes would be very frightening potential of modern-day dif½cult and is, I suspect, at least twen- technology. Rather than seeing in mo- ty years away. It presents no theoretical lecular biology the same complex mix- problems, only formidable logistic prob- tures of appropriate and inappropriate lems. applications that characterize all power- Both forms of genetic engineering, but ful sciences, many people have allowed especially the engineering of germ cells, the single negative catch phrase “genet- present two very deep and perplexing ic engineering” to dominate discussions. problems: who is to decide, and how People worry that if the possibility of shall they decide what genes are mal- curing a genetic defect by gene therapy functional? Decisions about which should ever become a reality, the inevi- genes are good and which bad truly table result would be “people made to represent decisions of morality and order.” It is argued that unless we block are therefore highly subjective. Fear recombinant dna research now, we will that dictators will decide which genes never have another chance to control should be suppressed and which pro- our fate. moted, and that their criteria for decision will be how best to maintain their To see the form of the argument own power, has made the phrase “genet- against recombinant dna research ic engineering” symbolic of the moral most clearly and to highlight its danger problems that can be created by modern to intellectual freedom and creativity, biology. we should realize that similar arguments

10 Dædalus Fall 2005 have been put forward relative to other cent of those surrounding the eugenics Limiting science: areas of basic biology. One of the most movements that developed in Germany a biologist’s respected critics of recombinant dna and Russia in the 1920s. After a period perspective research, Robert Sinsheimer, has for of intense debate, these countries with instance, made comparable analyses opposing ideologies settled on oppos- of two other research topics, research ing analyses of the role of genetics in on aging and attempts to contact extra- determining human diversity.2 Ger- terrestrial beings.1 He argues that if re- man scientists and politicians espoused search on aging were to be successful, a theory of racial puri½cation by selec- people could live to much older ages and tive breeding, while Russia accepted the changed age structure of the popula- the Lamarckian principle of transmis- tion would bring serious stresses to soci- sion of acquired characteristics. In both ety. His fear about searching for extrater- cases, science was forced into a mold restrial beings is, again, that we could be created by political and social ideology, successful, and he considers that the dis- and in both cases the results were disas- covery of civilizations much more ad- trous. vanced than ours would have effects on us like those the Europeans had on na- As I see it, we are being faced today tive Americans after the discovery of the with the following question: should New World. In the case of recombinant limits be placed on biological research dna research as well as the other top- because of the danger that new knowl- ics, Dr. Sinsheimer says we should avoid edge can present to the established or studying these areas of science. Rather, desired order of our society? Having he believes, we should put our resources thus posed the question, I believe that into investigating areas of proven need, there are two simple, and almost uni- such as fertility control. versally applicable, answers. First, These examples–and I could choose the criteria determining what areas many others, especially outside of biol- to restrain inevitably express certain ogy–have the same general form: cer- sociopolitical attitudes that reflect a tain people believe that there are areas dominant ideology. Such criteria can- of research that should be taboo because not be allowed to guide scienti½c choic- their outcome might be, or in some sce- es. Second, attempts to restrain direc- narios will be, detrimental to the stable tions of scienti½c inquiry are more like- relationships that characterize contem- ly to be generally disruptive of science porary society. I have heard the argu- than to provide the desired speci½c re- ment in a different and more perni- straints. These answers to the question cious form from members of a Boston of whether limits should be imposed can area group called Science for the People. be stated in two arguments. One is that They argue that some research in genet- science should not be the servant of ide- ics should not go on because its ½ndings ology, because ideology assumes an- might be detrimental to the relation- swers, but science asks questions. The ships they believe should characterize a other is that attempts to make science just society. Such arguments are reminis- serve ideology will merely make science

1 R. L. Sinsheimer, “Inquiry into Inquiry: Two 2 L. R. Graham, “Political Ideology and Genet- Opposing Views,” The Hastings Center Report 6 ic Theory: Russia and Germany in the 1920’s,” (4) (1976): 18. The Hastings Center Report 7 (5) (1977): 30–39.

Dædalus Fall 2005 11 David impotent without assuring that only de- The second danger in restricting ar- Baltimore sired questions are investigated. I am eas of scienti½c investigation is more stating simply that we should not con- crucial: although we often worry most trol the direction of science and, more- about keeping society stable, in fact soci- over, that we cannot do so with any pre- eties need certain kinds of upheaval and cision. renewal to stay vital. The new ideas and Before trying to substantiate these ar- insights of science, much as we may guments I must make a crucial distinc- ½ght against them, provide an impor- tion. The arguments pertain to basic sci- tant part of the renewal process that enti½c research, not to the technological maintains the fascination of life. Free- applications of science. As we go from dom is the range of opportunities avail- the fundamental to the applied, my ar- able to an individual–the more he has guments fall away. There is every reason to choose from, the freer his choice. why technology should and must serve Science creates freedom by widening our speci½c needs. Conversely, there are range of understanding and therefore many technological possibilities that the possibilities from which we can ought to be restrained. choose. To return to basic research, let me ½rst Finally, attempts to dictate scienti½c consider the danger of restricting types limits on political or social considera- of investigation because their outcome tions have another disastrous implica- could be disruptive to society. There are tion. Scienti½c orthodoxy is usually dic- three aspects of danger. One is the falla- tated by the state when its leaders fear cy that you can predict what society will that truths could undermine their pow- be like even in the near future. To say, for er. Their repressive dicta are interpreted instance, that it would be bad for Ameri- by the citizens as an admission of the cans to live longer assumes that the birth leaders’ insecurity and may thus lead to rate will stay near where it is. But what unrest requiring further repression. A happens if the birth rate falls even lower social system that leaves science free to than it is now in the United States and explore, and encourages scienti½c dis- also stabilizes elsewhere in the world? coveries rather than trying to make sci- We might welcome a readjustment of ence serve it by producing the truths the life span. In any case, we have built necessary for its stability, transmits to a world around a given human life span; the members of that society strength, we could certainly adjust to a longer not fear, and can endure. span, and it would be hard to predict The other argument I mentioned in whether in the long run the results opposing imposition of orthodoxy on would be better or worse. science is the practical impossibility of In a general form, I would call this ar- stopping selected areas of research. Take gument for restricting research the Er- aging as a prime example. It is one of the ror of Futurism. The futurist believes mystery areas of modern biology. The that the present holds enough readable questions are clear. Why do we get old- clues about the future to provide a good er? Why do organ systems slowly fail? basis for prediction. I doubt this assump- Why does one species of animal live tion; to think that the data of today can three years and another live for one hun- be analyzed well enough to predict the dred? These seemingly straightforward future with any accuracy seems nonsen- questions are unapproachably dif½cult sical to me. for modern biology. Not only can we not

12 Dædalus Fall 2005 understand events that occur over years, Major breakthroughs cannot be pro- Limiting science: but we even have dif½culty understand- grammed. They come from people and a biologist’s ing questions about events that require areas of research that are not predict- perspective minutes to transpire. In fact, molecular able. So if you wanted to cut off an area biologists are really only experts in the of fundamental research, how would millisecond range of time. Such times you be able to devise the controls? I con- are those of chemical reactions; to un- tend that it would be impossible. You derstand events in longer time frames could close the National Institute of Ag- probably requires knowing how individ- ing Research, but I doubt that any major ual reactions are integrated to produce advance in that ½eld could be prevented. clocks that measure time in seconds to Only the shutdown of all scienti½c re- years. Clues to the great mysteries of bi- search can guarantee such an outcome. ology–memory, aging, and differentia- Although they would fail to produce tion–lie in understanding how biologi- their desired result, attempts explicit- cal systems tell time. ly to control the directions of basic re- There are a few hints about where search would hardly be benign. Instead, answers to the puzzle of aging might disruption and demoralization would be found, but they are only the vaguest follow from attempts to determine when suggestions. In such an area of science, a scientist was doing work in approved history tells us that successes are likely directions and when he was not. Crea- to come from unpredictable directions. tive people would shun whole areas of A scientist working on vitamins or vi- science if they knew that in those ar- ruses or even plants is just as likely to eas their creativity would be channeled, ½nd a clue to the problem of aging as judged, and limited. The net effect of is a scientist working on the problem constraining biologists to approved lines directly. In fact, someone outside the of investigation would be to degrade the ½eld is more likely to make a revolution- effectiveness of the whole science of bi- ary discovery than someone inside the ology. ½eld. Put this way, the penalty for trying to Another example will help to show control lines of investigation seems to the generality of this contention. Imag- me greater than any conceivable bene- ine that we were living at the turn of ½t. I conclude that society can choose to the last century and had wanted to help have either more science or less science, medical diagnosis by devising a method but choosing which science to have is not of seeing into the insides of people. We a feasible alternative. would probably have decided to fund I must repeat a quali½cation of this medical scientists to learn how to use broad generalization: the less basic the bright lights to see through patients’ research area in which controls are im- skin. Little would we have guessed that posed, the less general disruption will the solution would be revolutionary be caused by the controls. The develop- and would come, not from a medical ment of a speci½c sweetener, pesticide, research scientist, but from a physicist or weapon could be prevented with little who would discover a new form of ra- generalized effect. diation, X-rays.3 While it seems necessary that scienti½c research be free of overt restraints, 3 Dr. Mahlon Hoagland ½rst suggested to me it would be naive to think that science this example. is not directed at all. Many crucial deci-

Dædalus Fall 2005 13 David sions are made about general directions quires that we develop much more basic Baltimore of science, usually by the control of knowledge. available resources. Again, the formula I may seem to have strayed from my I used before is applicable: the less bas- topic of recombinant dna research, but ic the area of research, the easier it is to I think not. In 1977, there was a draft bill target the problems. A fallacy behind in the U.S. Senate to set up a National some of the hopes for the “War on Can- Commission on Recombinant dna Re- cer” was the assumption that the prob- search. The charge to this commission lems to be solved were suf½ciently well discussed mainly questions of safety, but de½ned to allow a targeted, applied ap- at the end of the bill questions of ethics proach to the disease. Some problems and morality entered. The bill was a could be de½ned and those were appro- clear invitation to begin the process of priate targets for a war on the disease, deciding what research shall be allowed but the deeper mysteries of cancer are and what research prevented. The bat- so close to the frontiers of biology that tle to stop the creation of this commis- targets are hard to discern. sion was waged by scientists, university presidents, and other concerned individ- I have painted a picture of inexorable, uals across the country. I believe that the uncontrollable development of basic long-term success or failure of these ef- scienti½c knowledge. The response of forts will determine whether America many people to such a vision might well continues to have a tradition of free in- be “If we can’t put any controls on re- quiry into matters of science or falls search, maybe we shouldn’t have any under the ½st of orthodoxy. research.” I see the rationale in this crit- To ½nish this discussion, let me quote icism because it is conceivable that the from the most eloquent analyst of con- rate of accretion of knowledge could temporary biology, Lewis Thomas, the become so high that a brake might be president of the Memorial Sloan-Ketter- needed. A way exists to produce a slow- ing Cancer Center in New York. Writing down, that is, by controlling the overall in the New England Journal of Medicine availability of resources. A nonselective about the recombinant dna issue, Dr. brake on fundamental biology would Thomas ended with this analysis of the decrease productivity without the dis- role of scienti½c research in the life of ruptive and dangerous effects of trying the mind: to halt one area and advance another. Is there something fundamentally unnatu- Because such a brake was applied in ral, or intrinsically wrong, or hazardous the late 1960s, today we have less basic for the species, in the ambition that drives research, measured in constant dollars us all to reach a comprehensive under- spent on it, than we had then. As a re- standing of nature, including ourselves? sult of the slowdown, the danger seen I cannot believe it. It would seem to me a by many is not that we have too much more unnatural thing, and more of an of- basic research, but rather that we are liv- fense against nature, for us to come on the ing on our intellectual capital and that same scene endowed as we are with curi- an infusion of funds into basic areas of osity, ½lled to overbrimming as we are research is needed before these scientif- with questions, and naturally talented as ic resources are exhausted. It must al- we are for the asking of clear questions, so be realized that our commitment to and then for us to do nothing about it, or the solution of problems like cancer re-

14 Dædalus Fall 2005 worse, to try to suppress the questions. Limiting This is the greater danger for our species, science: a biologist’s to try to pretend that we are another kind perspective of animal, that we do not need to satisfy our curiosity, exploration, and experimentation, and that the human mind can rise above its ignorance by simply asserting that there are things it has no need to know.4

4 Lewis Thomas in the New England Journal of Medicine 296 (1977): 328.

Dædalus Fall 2005 15 Lorraine Daston

Fear & loathing of the imagination in science

Recently a reader responded with of Science in 1870, he too drew shocked dismay to a New Yorker article by histo- reactions from the press. The London rian Daniel J. Kevles about the charge Times was severe: of scienti½c fraud brought by Margot The glory of a Natural Philosopher ap- O’Toole against Thereza Imanishi-Kari. pears to depend less on the power of his What distressed this reader was not so imagination to explore minute recesses or much the issue of fraud itself as Kevles’s immeasurable space than on the skill and argument that the exercise of judgment patience with which, by observation and and imagination in science was essential experiment, he assures us of the certainty and should not be conflated with fraud: of these invisible operations . . . . [Tyndall] . . . I am troubled by Kevles’s acceptance of confesses that Mr. Darwin “has drawn a need for scientists to be imaginative in heavily upon time and adventurously up- analyzing research results. What might on matter.” We ask ourselves whether we the public’s realization that this practice are listening to one experimental philoso- exists do to its con½dence in the hard sci- pher describing the achievement of anoth- ences? Will we next be expected to believe er experimental philosopher. We had been that accountants require imagination in under the impression that Natural Philos- their work?1 ophers drew no bills.2 Such expressions of uneasiness about The echo of ½scal analogies reverberates the role of the imagination in science are over the space of more than a century: not new. When the physicist John Tyn- scientists should be as methodical (and dall delivered a “Discourse on the Scien- as plodding) as accountants (“Natural ti½c Use of the Imagination” to the Brit- Philosophers draw no bills”). To permit ish Association for the Advancement the imagination to in½ltrate science is to tamper with the books, to betray a pub- Lorraine Daston, a Fellow of the American Acad- lic trust. emy since 1993, wrote this essay for the Winter 1 Aaron Fischbach, “In the Mail,” New Yorker, 1998 issue of “Dædalus.” Daston has served as July 22, 1996, 6. Kevles’s article appeared in the director of the Max Planck Institute for the His- May 27, 1996 issue of the New Yorker. tory of Science in Berlin, Germany, since 1995. 2 London Times, September 19, 1870; reprinted in John Tyndall, Essays on the Use and Limit of © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts the Imagination in Science (London: Longmans, & Sciences Green, & Co., 1870), 1–2.

16 Dædalus Fall 2005 My aim here is not to show that ½rst- ists working in a romanticist vein em- Fear & loathing of rate science requires imagination; others phasized creativity over mimesis, scien- the imag- have already pleaded this point with vig- tists troubled by the overthrow of one ination in or and eloquence.3 Rather, I would like time-honored theory after another in science to explore how and why large portions quick succession sought more durable of the educated public–and many work- achievements. This early nineteenth- ing scientists–came to think otherwise, century confrontation of individualis- systematically opposing imagination to tic, brashly subjective art with collec- science. I shall argue that the critical tive, staunchly objective science was period was the mid-nineteenth century, not simply the collision of some time- when new ideals and practices of scien- less faith in the imagination with an ti½c objectivity transformed the persona equally timeless faith in facts. Rather, of the scientist and the sources of scien- it signaled a mutation in the meanings ti½c authority. More speci½cally, I shall both of imagination and of facts that focus on the apparent paradox, also ½rst still shapes the moral economy of sci- framed in the early decades of the nine- ence. teenth century, that the more scientists insisted upon the obduracy and intransi- Experience we have always had with gence of facts, the more they feared the us, but facts as a way of parsing experi- power of their own imaginations to sub- ence in natural history and natural phi- vert those facts. Why would scientists losophy are of seventeenth-century convinced of the power of ugly facts to coinage. Aristotelian experience had murder beautiful theories, as Thomas been woven of smooth-textured uni- Henry Huxley famously put it, nonethe- versals about “what happens always or less take heroic precautions to protect most of the time”; early modern facts those burly facts from gossamer-spun were historical particulars about an ob- imagination? servation or an experiment performed The key to this paradox lies buried at a speci½c time and place by named within the histories of the scienti½c fact, persons.4 What made the new-style on the one hand, and of the faculty of facts granular was not only their spec- the imagination, on the other. In order i½city but also their alleged detachment to dramatize the novelty of the mid- from inference and conjecture. Ideally, nineteenth-century developments, I at least, “matters of fact” were nuggets shall begin with a brief account of how of pure experience, strictly segregated eighteenth-century natural philosoph- from any interpretation or hypothesis ers and natural historians understood that might enlist them as evidence. the relationship between scienti½c facts Some seventeenth-century philosophers and the scienti½c imagination. The piv- were as skeptical as their twentieth-cen- ot of my story is the polarization of the tury successors about the bare existence personae of artist and scientist, and the of what we now (redundantly) call theo- migration of imagination to the artistic ry-free facts. René Descartes, for exam- pole. At roughly the same time that art- ple, trusted only those experiments per- 3 Gerald Holton, “Imagination in Science,” 4 For an account of the transformation of sci- in his Einstein, History, and Other Passions: The enti½c experience in the early modern period, Rebellion against Science at the End of the Twenti- see Peter Dear, Discipline and Experience: The eth Century (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, Mathematical Way in the Scienti½c Revolution 1996), 78–102. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).

Dædalus Fall 2005 17 Lorraine formed under his own supervision, be- this earlier usage in words like “feat” Daston cause those reported by others distorted and, especially, in legal phrases like “af- the results to “conform to their princi- ter the fact.” When the word “fact” ac- ples.”5 Even the most vigorous promot- quired something like its familiar sense ers of “matters of fact” acknowledged in the early seventeenth century as “a that these nuggets of pure experience particular truth known by actual obser- were hard won: Francis Bacon thought vation or authentic testimony, as op- only the strict discipline of method posed to what is merely inferred, or to could counteract the inborn tendency a conjecture or ½ction,” to quote from of the human understanding to infuse its entry in the Oxford English Dictionary, observation with theory.6 The 1699 His- it snapped the philological bonds that toire of the Paris Académie Royale des had tied it to words like “factitious” and Sciences confessed that the “detached “manufacture.” Conversely, by the mid- pieces” of experience the academicians eighteenth century, once-neutral words offered in lieu of coherent theories or like “fabricate” (originally, to form or systems had been wrenched apart by a construct anything requiring skill) or “kind of violence.”7 Chiseling out “mat- “fabulist” (teller of legends or fables) ters of fact” from the matrix of interpre- had acquired an evil odor of forgery tation and conjecture was hard work. and deception in addition to their root But it was the hard work of smelting senses of construction. For most En- and purifying, not that of building and lightenment thinkers, facts par excellence constructing. One of the most striking were those given by nature, not made by features of the new-style scienti½c facts human art. “Facts” and “artifacts” had of the seventeenth century is how swift- become antonyms, in de½ance of their ly and radically they broke with the ety- common etymology. mology that connected them to words In keeping with the opposition of nat- like “factory” and other sites of making ural facts to human artifacts, the errors and doing. In Latin and the major Euro- that most terri½ed Enlightenment sa- pean vernaculars the word “fact” and its vants in theory and practice were the cognates derives from the verb “to do” errors of construction, of a world not or “to make,” and originally referred to reflected in sensation but made up by a deed or action, especially one remark- the imagination. Sensory in½rmities able for either valor or malevolence: worried Enlightenment epistemolo- facere/factum, faire/fait, fare/fatto, tun/ gists of science relatively little, preju- Tatsache.8 English still bears traces of dices and misconceptions instilled by bad education rather more so, the dis- 5 René Descartes, Discours de la méthode [1637], tortions wrought by strong passions pt. VI. Unless otherwise speci½ed, all transla- still more, and the unruly creations of tions are my own. the imagination most of all. These latter 6 Francis Bacon, Novum organum [1620], pt. seemed so pervasive as to make the sim- I.46. plest factual narrative a triumph of vigi- lance, discipline, and civilization in the 7 Histoire de l’Académie Royale des Sciences. Année minds of some Enlightenment writers. 1699, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1718), “Préface.” Bernard de Fontenelle, Perpetual Secre- 8 See relevant entries in the Oxford English Dic- tary of the Académie Royale des Sciences tionary, Grimms Wörterbuch, and the Dictionnaire in Paris, thought the inclination to em- historique de la langue française. bellish the facts of the matter in any re-

18 Dædalus Fall 2005 telling so irresistible that “one needs a grows ½rst imperious, and in time des- Fear & loathing of particular kind of effort and attention in potic. Then ½ctions begin to operate as the imag- order to say only the exact truth.” It took realities, false opinions fasten upon the ination in centuries before society advanced to the mind, and life passes in dreams of rap- science point of being able to “preserve in mem- ture or anguish.”10 ory the facts just as they happened,” be- It was not only novelists and philoso- fore which time “the facts kept in [col- phers who worried about “½ctions [that] lective] memory were no more than vi- begin to operate as realities,” about the sions and reveries.”9 fragility of facts in the face of overween- The chronic inability to hold fast to ing imagination. Practicing naturalists fact, to keep the inventive imagination also fretted openly. In his monumental in check, was a midpoint along a con- Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des insectes tinuum to madness. Scientists were as (1734–1742) the French naturalist and much at risk as poets from the diseases experimental physicist René Antoine Ré- of the imagination. In Samuel Johnson’s aumur warned that “although facts were allegorical novel The History of Rasselas, assuredly the solid and true foundations Prince of Abissinia, the philosopher Im- of all parts of physics,” including natu- lac meets a learned astronomer “who ral history, not all reported facts in sci- has spent forty years in unwearied at- ence could be trusted. It was not simply tention to the motions and appearances a matter of weeding out hearsay or dubi- of the celestial bodies, and has drawn ous sources; even sincere, well-trained out his soul in endless calculations.” naturalists could adulterate observations Upon further acquaintance the astron- with imaginings. Citing the example of omer proves as virtuous as he is learned, Godaert’s observation that some insects “sublime without haughtiness, courte- could spawn insects of a different spe- ous without formality, and communi- cies, Réaumur preached caution: “Too cative without ostentation.” Surely often the observer has the disposition the astronomer is the long-sought-after to see objects quite otherwise than they happy man, content in his science and [actually] are. The extravagant love of virtue? Alas, no; the astronomer is the marvelous, a too strong attachment stark raving mad. He discloses to Imlac to a system fascinates his eyes.”11 An er- his delusion that he alone can control rant imagination was also Georges Cuvi- the world’s weather and that he there- er’s diagnosis of how Jean-Baptiste La- fore bears the crushing responsibility marck had gone astray in natural histo- for the welfare of the world’s popula- ry: for all of his scienti½c gifts, Lamarck tion on his shoulders. Imlac reflects was one of those minds that “cannot that no one is immune from the depre- prevent themselves from mixing [true dations of the imagination: “There is discoveries, découverts véritables] with fan- no man whose imagination does not tastic conceptions . . . . [T]hey laboriously sometimes predominate over his reason, . . . All power of fancy over reason 10 Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas, is a degree of insanity; . . . By degrees Prince of Abissinia [1759], ed. J. P. Hardy (Ox- the reign of fancy is con½rmed; she ford: Oxford University Press, 1968), 98–99, 104–105.

9 Bernard de Fontenelle, De l’origine des fables 11 René François Ferchault de Réaumur, Mém- [1724], ed. J.-R. Carré (Paris: Librairie Félix oires pour servir à l’histoire des insectes, vol. 2 Alcan, 1932), 14, 33. (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1736), xxxiv–v.

Dædalus Fall 2005 19 Lorraine construct vast edi½ces on imaginary bas- of the arts and the source of their won- Daston es, similar to the enchanted palaces in ders.”13 our old romances which disappear when Images of the monstrous pervaded the talisman upon which their existence Enlightenment accounts of the diseased depends is broken.”12 imagination in the arts and sciences. Cuvier’s opposition of “true discov- Voltaire distinguished between the “ac- eries” to “romances,” of fact to ½ction, tive imagination,” which inspired the was at least as old as Bacon and was ech- ½nest works of mechanics, mathemat- oed countless times before, during, and ics, poetry, and the ½ne arts, and the after the Enlightenment. Equally banal “passive imagination,” which caused and enduring was the parallel opposi- violent passions, fanaticism, delusions, tion of the faculties of reason and imag- and monsters both ½gurative and literal. ination. What was striking about eigh- The passive imagination in the arts and teenth-century views of the imagina- sciences welded together “incompatible tion in light of later developments is objects” into chimeras; in the womb of their ½rm insistence that the imagina- a pregnant woman it could impress the tion, despite its perils, was as essential soft embryo with the form of some hid- to philosophy and science–the pursuits eous perception–for example, of a con- of reason–as to the arts. Moreover, both victed criminal broken on the wheel– art and science drew on the same kind received by the mother.14 The French of healthy imagination–and both were critic Jean-François Marmontel ac- at risk from the same pathologies of the knowledged that ½ction was no servile imagination. Both science and art were, imitation of nature, but even ½ction that in the view of most of their eighteenth- perfected nature still kept the imagina- century practitioners, dedicated to re- tion on a short leash. What was various- vealing the truths of nature; imagina- ly called the “marvelous,” “monstrous,” tion enlisted to this aim was a sound, or “fantastic” imagination in the arts led sane one, that is to say, an imagination to the “debauchery of genius.”15 Poets subject to rules. Even the most inven- and artists were instead directed to obey tive genius should, Enlightenment crit- the cardinal rule of verisimilitude: “A ics insisted, bow to the authority of na- verisimilar fact is a fact possible in the ture and its rules. John Dryden, for ex- circumstances where one lays the scene. ample, wondered whether Shakespeare might not have gone too far in creating 13 Quoted in Rudolf Wittkower, “Genius: Indi- vidualism in Art and Artists,” in Philip P. Wie- the monstrous character of Caliban in ner, ed., Dictionary of the History of Ideas, vol. 2 The Tempest, “a person which was not (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973), 307, in Nature,” and Goya explained the fa- 308. mous epigram of his Caprichos–“The sleep of reason produces monsters”–as 14 [Voltaire], “Imagination,” in Jean d’Alem- a call to the union of reason and imagi- bert and Denis Diderot, eds., Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des nation: “Imagination deserted by reason métiers, vol. 8 (Paris/Neuchâtel, 1751–1780), produces impossible monsters. United 560–563. See also Wendy Doniger and Gregory with reason, imagination is the mother Spinner, “Misconceptions: Female Imagina- tions and Male Fantasies in Parental Imprint- 12 Georges Cuvier, Recueil des éloges historiques ing,” in Daedalus 127 (1) (Winter 1998). lus dans les séances publiques de l’Institut de France [1819–1827], vol. 3 (Paris: Firmin Didot Frères 15 [Marmontel], “Fiction,” in Encyclopédie, vol. Fils, 1861), 180. 6, 679–683.

20 Dædalus Fall 2005 Fictions without verisimilitude, and The Commissioners could not help but Fear & be struck by the difference between the loathing of events prodigious to excess, disgust the imag- readers whose judgment is formed.”16 public treatment and their own particu- ination in Enlightenment good taste demanded lar treatment in the tubs. The calm and science that even ½ctions be decked out as pos- silence of the one, the motion and agi- sible facts and that art as well as sci- tation of the other; there, the multiple ence follow nature. Both art and sci- effects of violent crises, the habitual state ence required imagination, but in nei- of mind and body interrupted and trou- ther should the imagination be allowed bled, nature exalted; here, the body with- to invent at will. out pain, the mind untroubled, nature pre- Or rather, against will, for in the view serving both its equilibrium and its ordi- of Enlightenment writers like Voltaire nary course, in a word the absence of all and Marmontel the pathological imag- effects.18 ination overthrew the reasonable sover- Tranquil and self-controlled savants ver- eignty of the will. Whereas the healthy, sus shaking and shrieking patients: for active imagination always partakes of the commissioners there could be no judgment and “raises all of its edi½ces clearer contrast between the sound and with order,” the diseased, passive imag- the diseased imaginations. They con- ination acts imperiously, so that its vic- cluded that the cures wrought by ani- tims are no longer “master” of them- mal magnetism were often genuine, selves.17 Here the distinction between and the convulsions mostly sincere, the healthy and the diseased imagina- but that all were the work of the imagi- tion took on moral as well as episte- nation, “that active and terrible power mological (and aesthetic) undertones. that produces the great effects that one The consequences of submitting weakly observes with astonishment at the pub- to the domineering imagination could lic treatment.”19 Although gender and be dramatic, as the members of the class played some role in how the com- French scienti½c commission formed missioners gauged degrees of suscepti- in 1784 to investigate alleged phenom- bility to the imagination, the ultimate ena of animal magnetism emphasized. defense against “that active and terrible After observing the remarkable convul- power” was enlightenment (lumières), sions and cures displayed by mesmer- a combination of intelligence and self- ized patients, the commission–which mastery. Despite their palpable disap- included the astronomer Jean-Sylvain proval of such excesses of the imagina- Bailly, the chemist Antoine Lavoisier, tion, the savants of the Royal Commis- and the electrician Benjamin Franklin sion paid tribute to its extraordinary –decided to undergo animal magne- power over mind and body. No roman- tism themselves. Seated in the great mesmeric tubs, under the magnetizer’s wand, the commissioners contrasted 18 [J. S. Bailly], Rapport des commissaires chargés par le Roi, de l’examen du magnétisme animal (Par- their own calm impassivity with the is: Imprimerie Royale, 1784), 18–19. On animal spectacular crises of the convulsionnaires: magnetism in late eighteenth-century France and the background to the Royal Commission, see Robert Darnton, Mesmerism and the End of 16 [Chevalier de Jaucourt], “Vraisemblance,” the Enlightenment in France (Cambridge, Mass.: in ibid., vol. 17, 484. Harvard University Press, 1968).

17 Voltaire, “Imagination,” 561. 19 Bailly, Rapport, 59.

Dædalus Fall 2005 21 Lorraine tic poet was ever more ½rmly convinced Kant’s account of genius in his Kritik Daston of the force of the unfettered imagina- der Urteilskraft heralded things to come. tion than the Parisian savants. Kant took it for granted that originality was the sine qua non of genius and that In Enlightenment art and science, the “[e]veryone is agreed on the point of imagination was Janus-faced: on the one the complete opposition between ge- hand, it was essential to creative work in nius and the spirit of imitation.” But that both realms; but on the other, it could which can be learned, reasoned Kant, betray the natural and the verisimilar by can also be in a sense imitated. Hence breeding monsters. Its power verged on even the greatest triumphs of the natu- the supernatural. It could drive brilliant ral sciences could no longer count as artists and scientists mad, it could trig- true works of genius: ger violent seizures, it could cure the So all that Newton has set forth in his im- hopelessly ill, it could distort and oblit- mortal work on the Principles of Natural erate facts. So long as art and science Philosophy may well be learned, however shared a common goal of truth to na- great a mind it took to ½nd it all out, but ture, they also shared a code of aesthet- we cannot learn to write in a true poetic ic, epistemological, and moral values vein, no matter how complete all the pre- that praised one face of the imagination cepts of the poetic art may be, or howev- and deplored the other. Genius–be it er excellent its models. The reason is that in poetry, sculpture, or natural philoso- all the steps that Newton had to take from phy–was the expression of heightened the ½rst elements of geometry to his great- imagination. Whether the genius in est and most profound discoveries were question was Milton or Leibniz, Michel- such as he could make intuitively evident angelo or Descartes, the natural endow- and plain to follow, not only for himself ment that made their achievements pos- but for every one else.21 sible was in essence the same: a soaring imagination that “produces more than it Kant was second to none in his admira- discovers . . . [that] hatches brilliant sys- tion for Newton and the revelations tems or discovers great truths.”20 Imagi- of the natural sciences, but he nonethe- nation was not yet immiscible with sci- less denied even Newton the title of ge- ence, and it was arguably more robust nius. For Kant, the very transparency than facts. and communicability of mathematics Between about 1780 and 1820 this con- and the natural sciences removed them ½guration changed dramatically. Put in from the realm of profound, ineffable the briefest terms, facts hardened, the originality inhabited by Homer or even imagination ran riot, and art and sci- Christoph Wieland. Kant’s emphasis ence diverged in their aims and their on communicability linked the natural collective personae. Within the narrow sciences to an emergent opposition be- con½nes of this essay, it is only possible tween objectivity and subjectivity that to offer emblematic episodes to illus- Kant himself pioneered. Kant employed trate the nature and extent of these ma- these terms in several distinct senses in jor transformations in the self-images his critical philosophy; I wish to draw of artists and scientists. Immanuel attention here only to the sense that res- 21 Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgment 20 Denis Diderot, “Génie,” in Encyclopédie, vol. [1790], trans. James Creed Meredith (Oxford: 7, 583. Oxford University Press, 1952), 168–170.

22 Dædalus Fall 2005 onated most loudly for nineteenth-cen- bounds.”23 Or as the experimental phys- Fear & loathing of tury scientists and that meshed most iologist Claude Bernard put it with lap- the imag- tightly with Kant’s rejection of the bare idary concision: “L’art c’est moi, la sci- ination in possibility of scienti½c genius. In the ence c’est nous.”24 science closing pages of the Kritik der reinen Ver- But if science–and with it, objectiv- nunft, Kant offered a rough-and-ready ity–had come to be identi½ed with test for distinguishing objectively valid the communal and the communicable, convictions from merely subjectively how did art wander to the pole of soli- valid persuasions: tude and the individual? Within the En- lightenment framework, both savants If the judgment is valid for everyone, pro- and artists, especially those touched vided only he is in possession of reason, by genius, were often idealized as soli- its ground is objectively suf½cient [objektiv tary seekers of deep truths on the mod- gültig], and the holding of it to be true is el of hermetic saints, whatever the bio- entitled conviction. If it has its ground on- graphical realities might have been.25 ly in the special character of the subject, it One might therefore argue that there is is entitled persuasion . . . . The touchstone nothing to be explained on the side of whereby we decide whether our holding a art: artists, at least in their idealized per- thing to be true is conviction or mere personae, simply remained lonely geniuses suasion is therefore external, namely, the while their scienti½c brethren became possibility of communicating it and of clubby, and thereby ungenial. So simple ½nding it to be valid for all human rea- a conclusion would, however, overlook son.22 the impact of far-reaching changes in In the middle decades of the nine- aesthetics and in views of the artistic teenth century this ideal of objectivity imagination that occurred in the ear- as communicability, shorn of every idio- ly decades of the nineteenth century. syncrasy and particular perspective, was Again, I can offer only a small sampling realized in the emergence of internation- over the many possible examples to al, long-term scienti½c collaborations make my point vivid. like the Internationale Gradmessung or The rami½cations of post-Kantian the- the Carte du Ciel, which committed par- ories of the imagination fan out into a ticipants around the globe and across broad and branching tree, from Johann generations to instruments, procedures, Gottlieb Fichte to Friedrich Schelling to and research agendas standardized in Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Jules Miche- the name of commensurability and solidarity. Charles Sanders Peirce, who him- 23 Charles Sanders Pierce, “Three Logical self participated in some of these far- Sentiments,” in Charles Hartshorne and Paul flung collaborations as an experimental Weiss, eds., Collected Papers of Charles Sanders physicist, drew the philosophical moral Pierce, vol. 2 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni- versity Press, 1932), 398. that scienti½c objectivity depended on the existence of a vast scienti½c commu- 24 Claude Bernard, Introduction à l’étude de la nity, extended over time and space, “be- médecine expérimentale [1865], ed. François Da- yond this geological epoch, beyond all gognet (Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1966), 77.

22 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason 25 Dorinda Outram, “The Language of Natural [1781, 1787], trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New Power: The ‘Eloges’ of Georges Cuvier and the York: St. Martin’s Press, 1965), A820–821/ Public Language of Nineteenth-Century Sci- B848–849, 645. ence,” History of Science 16 (1978): 153–178.

Dædalus Fall 2005 23 Lorraine let and beyond.26 There is probably no psychological studies of genius–which Daston generalization that holds for all of these restricted their subjects almost exclu- developments, but tendencies can be sively to artists and poets–between ex- discerned. For my purposes, the most traordinary creativity and the uncon- signi½cant are, ½rst, the heavy empha- scious, or even insanity.28 sis upon the almost mystical originali- In conjunction with the elevation of ty of the imagination, independent or the passive imagination aesthetic norms even in de½ance of reason and will; and, shifted away from verisimilitude. A gen- second, the allied cult of individual sub- uinely productive, as opposed to repro- jectivity, what the art historian Rudolf ductive, imagination could be bound Wittkower once called the “egomania” neither by the rules of decorum nor of romanticism. Each element had dis- those of the natural order. Strict mime- tinguished antecedents–Plato’s poetic sis had never been the avowed ideal of furor or the Renaissance master as Deus Enlightenment critics, but they had sub- artifex–but the combination of the two scribed to a standard of truth to nature, was novel to the early nineteenth centu- if not truth to fact. Romantic poets and ry. Quasi-divine inspiration overwhelm- artists attacked this aesthetic openly, ing will and judgment had not been tra- under the twin banners of originality ditionally paired with towering individ- and individual subjectivity. Charles ualism: for example, the pythian priest- Baudelaire parodied what he called the esses through whom the godhead spoke credo of nature–“I believe in nature, at the oracle of Delphi were inspired and only in nature”–and called for art but interchangeable. The intertwining infused with imagination, for landscapes of these two elements–originality and in which “human egotism replaces na- subjectivity–effectively rehabilitated ture,” for works to which the artist or what Enlightenment theorists had re- poet “adds his soul.” It was idolatry for garded as the pathological imagination. art to prostrate itself before nature; any For the romantics, it was the unbidden, photograph could surpass the most darkling force of the so-called passive faithful artistic replica in “absolute ma- imagination that was the wellspring of terial exactitude.” Deploring the pub- genial creativity, not the well-regulated lic infatuation with photographic land- active imagination subservient to will scapes and portraits, Baudelaire insisted and reason. As William Blake retorted that ideals of truth and beauty not only to Sir Joshua Reynolds, “What has Rea- did not coincide, they were inalterably soning to do with the Art of Painting? opposed to one another: “With us the . . . One power alone makes a poet; Imag- natural painter, like the natural poet, is ination, the Divine Vision.”27 Hence the almost a monster. The exclusive taste strong association in nineteenth-century for the True (noble though it may be when limited to its true applications) 26 For general overviews of these developments, see Karl Homann, “Zum Begriff Ein- here oppresses and suffocates the taste bildungskraft nach Kant,” Archiv für Begriff- for the Beautiful.” For Baudelaire, imi- geschichte 14 (1970): 266–302; Mary Warnock, tation of nature shaded imperceptibly Imagination (London: Faber and Faber, 1976); into imitation of other artists: “The Eva T. H. Brann, The World of the Imagination: Sum and Substance (Savage, Md.: Rowman and Little½eld, 1991). 28 Most famously in Cesare Lombroso, Genio e follia. Prelezione ai corsi di antropologia e clinica 27 Quoted in Wittkower, “Genius,” 306. psichiatrica (Milan: G. Chiusi, 1864).

24 Dædalus Fall 2005 artist, the true artist, the true poet . . . tion [Einbildungskraft], which raises him Fear & loathing of must be really faithful to his own na- to heights on its wings while he still be- the imag- ture. He must avoid like death borrow- lieves his feet to be ½rmly planted on the ination in ing the eyes and the sentiments of an- ground”;31 Alexander von Humboldt science other man, however great,” just as he scrupulously divided his monumental must avoid depicting “the universe with- survey of nature into a ½rst part con- out man,” without the intervention of taining “the main results of observa- the imagination.29 tion, which, stripped of all the extrane- It is customary to classify such views ous charms of fancy, belong to the pure- as “romantic,” a term Baudelaire him- ly objective domain of a scienti½c delin- self occasionally used. However, this eation of nature,” and a second part on label covers over fault lines that opened “impressions reflected by the external up within romanticism between subjec- senses on the feelings, and on the poet- tive art and objective science, between ic imagination of mankind.”32 The wild the acolytes of beauty and those of truth. imagination and individualism now held Although early nineteenth-century sci- to be the birthright of true artists fright- ence had its own avowed romantics, ened even romantic scientists. such as Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Jo- The point is that the newly erected di- hann Ritter, Sir Humphrey Davy, or Al- vide between the objective and the sub- exander von Humboldt, they were no- jective–the very words ½rst enter dic- tably wary of the exalted imagination tionaries as a pair in German, French, and individualism of the new aesthetics. and English in the 1820s and 1830s33– The experimental physicist Ritter, who ran deeper than any opposition between discovered ultraviolet radiation in his neoclassicism and romanticism. My search for polarities in nature and who claim is not that there ceased to be fas- was given to utterances such as “Light is tidious realists among artists or daring the external intuition of gravity, love the speculators among scientists. Baudelaire internal,” nevertheless balked at allow- found plenty of nature-worshipers to ing the imagination free rein in science: criticize among the paintings on display “The most beautiful thoughts are often at the Paris Salon of 1859; Tyndall did no more than soap bubbles: ½lled with not want for examples of scientists guid- the hydrogen of our fantasy they rise ed by their sense of beauty. But the new quickly, and one does not realize that all polarity of the objective and subjective the delightful play of their colors is nothing more than the reflection of their de- 30 31 Johann Wolfgang Goethe, “Der Versuch als ceptive interiors.” Goethe warned the Vermittler von Objekt und Subjekt” [1792, experimentalist against “the imagina- publ. 1823], in Goethes Werke, vol. 13, Naturwis- senschaftliche Schriften I, ed. Dorothea Kuhn und Rike Wankmüller (München: C. H. Beck, 1994), 29 Charles Baudelaire, “Salon de 1846,” “Salon 14–15. de 1859,” in Curiosités esthétiques. L’art roman- tique et autres oeuvres critiques, ed. Henri Le- 32 Alexander von Humboldt, Cosmos [1844], maitre (Paris: Editions Garnier, 1962), 97–200, vol. 2, trans. E. C. Otté and W. S. Dallas (New 305–396. York: Harper and Brothers, 1850–1859), 19.

30 Johann Ritter, Fragmente aus dem Nachlasse 33 For a brief account of the history of the eines jungen Physikers, ed. Steffen and Brigit words, see Lorraine Daston, “How Probabilities Dietzsch (Leipzig/Weimar: Gustav Kiepen- Came to Be Objective and Subjective,” Historia hauer, 1984), 96, 260. Mathematica 21 (1994): 330–344.

Dædalus Fall 2005 25 Lorraine structured how such boundary-strad- man scientists on Goethe’s scienti½c Daston dling was perceived. When the novelist work provide a sensitive indicator of Gustav Flaubert attempted in Madame how entrenched the divide between Bovary (1856) to depict a provincial adul- objective and subjective had become. tery with clinical, impartial accuracy, The physicist Hermann von Helmholtz both he and his critics seized upon the gave two such addresses, in 1853 and word “objective” to describe a style in 1862, and both turned on what Helm- which “subjects are seen as God sees holtz took to be the opposition between them, in their true essence.”34 When scienti½c and artistic ways of thinking. embryologist Wilhelm His described Goethe’s regrettable (in Helmholtz’s the advantages of scienti½c drawings, view) attack on Newtonian optics could he called the result “subjective.”35 Suc- be explained, if not excused, by the im- cessful art could and did emulate scien- possibility of mingling the ineffable, al- ti½c standards of truth to nature, and most divinatory intuitions of the artist successful science could emulate artis- with the crystalline concepts of the sci- tic standards of imaginative beauty. But entist. As in Kant’s touchstone for dis- whereas in the eighteenth century both tinguishing the objective from the sub- artists and scientists had seen no conflict jective, communicability was central to in embracing both standards simultane- Helmholtz’s analysis of the distinction ously, the chasm that had opened up be- between artistic and scienti½c thinking: tween the categories of objectivity and “Since artistic intuitions are not found subjectivity in the middle decades of by way of conceptual thinking, they can- the nineteenth century–words that, as not be de½ned in words . . . . ”37 Thomas De Quincey wrote in 1856, had At the crossroads of the choice be- once sounded pedantic and yet had so tween objective and subjective modes quickly become “indispensable to accu- stood the imagination. Very few nine- rate thinking and to wide thinking”36– teenth-century writers went so far as to forced an either/or choice. deny scientists any imagination. Baude- Hence a ½gure like Goethe, who com- laire, for example, acknowledged that bined artistic and scienti½c interests, be- imagination was as essential to the great came an uncomfortable paradox, espe- scientist–or for that matter, the great cially for German scientists who could diplomat or soldier–as to the artist. But hardly escape the long shadow cast by in the next breath he relegated photogra- the of½cial national genius. The obliga- phy, whose exact rendering of what is tory addresses delivered by leading Ger- seen he took to be diametrically opposed to the artistic imagination, to the sphere 34 Quoted in Erich Auerbach, Mimesis. The of science, where it might serve without Representation of Reality in Western Literature corrupting.38 By the last quarter of the [1946], trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton, N.J.: nineteenth century, psychologists who Princeton University Press, 1953), 487. investigated creativity routinely distin- 35 Wilhelm His, Anatomie menschlicher Embry- 37 Hermann von Helmholtz, “Über Goethes onen (Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, 1880), 6. I am naturwissenschaftlichen Arbeiten” [1853], and grateful to Robert J. Richards for this reference. “Goethes Vorahnungen kommender naturwissenschaftlichen Ideen,” in Vorträge und Reden, 36 Thomas De Quincey, The Confessions of an 4th ed., vol. 2 (Braunschweig: Friederich English Opium Eater [1821], in The Works of Viewig und Sohn, 1896), 344. Thomas De Quincey, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1863), 265. 38 Baudelaire, “Salon de 1859,” 319–322.

26 Dædalus Fall 2005 guished between different species of the same category as “physical exercis- Fear & 40 loathing of imagination, including the artistic and es” and “vacations.” the imag- the scienti½c. In what was perhaps the ination in most exhaustive treatment of the sub- It is against this historical background science ject, the French psychologist Théodore that we must read distrust of the imag- Ribot defended science against the ination in science. The power of the charges that it “sometimes extinguished imagination had long awakened fear the imagination” but nonetheless insist- among scientists–and theologians, po- ed that the “plastic imagination” of art- ets, artists, and doctors, to boot–be- ists and poets and the “scienti½c” imagi- cause it could make up a world of its nation belonged to different species (and own that was livelier, lovelier, or more further distinguished varieties within logical than the real world. In extreme each species). Whereas the plastic imag- cases the imagination could conquer ination was free to invent and to grant the body as well as the mind, leading its inventions a degree of emotional re- not only to madness but also to violent ality, the scienti½c imagination was con- somatic crises. But Enlightenment theo- strained by “rational necessities that reg- rists of the imagination had been con- ulate the development of the creative ½dent in the right and competence of faculty; it cannot wander aimlessly; in reason to discipline the imagination. each case its end is determined, and, in Geniuses of art and science exercised order to exist, that is to say, in order to the same brand of controlled imagina- be accepted, the invention must be sub- tion, in contrast to the wild imagina- jected to predetermined conditions.”39 tions that tyrannized pregnant women, For all his insistence on the existence religious fanatics, or mesmerized convul- and fecundity of the scienti½c imagina- sionnaires. Only in the early nineteenth tion, Ribot could not free himself from century was fear of the imagination in a certain suspicion that imagination was science compounded with loathing. The linked to scienti½c error: the “false sci- causes lay in new views of the artistic ences” of astrology, alchemy, and magic imagination as freed from all constraints represented for Ribot “the golden age of of reason and nature, and in a new polar- the creative imagination” in the history ity between objectivity and subjectivity. of science. In its 1902 survey of the psy- Wild, ineffable imagination became the chology of creative mathematicians, the driving force of creativity in art–and the journal Enseignement Mathématique asked bogey of objectivity in science. In their respondents, inter alia, whether “artis- ideals, practices, and personae both art tic, literary, musical, or, in particular, po- and science had mutated, and drifted etic occupations or relaxations seem to apart. you of a nature to hinder mathematical What kind of objectivity bans the invention, or to favor it, by the momen- imagination from science? I have mentary rest they offer the mind?” It was tioned one moment of objectivity, the apparently inconceivable that the exer- communitarian impulse that urges sci- cise of the artistic imagination could promote the work of the mathematical 40 “Enquête sur la méthode de travail des imagination, except as a distraction in mathématiciens,” Enseignement Mathématique 4 (1902): 208–211, Questions 19, 26, 28. Jacques Hadamard, The Psychology of Invention in the 39 Théodore Ribot, Essai sur l’imagination créa- Mathematical Field [1945] (New York: Dover, trice (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1900), 198. 1949), reports on some results of the survey.

Dædalus Fall 2005 27 Lorraine entists to standardize their instruments, cessors from the distortions of system- Daston clarify their concepts, and depersonalize builders. It was a byword that facts were their writing styles to achieve communi- angular, even truculent entities, sturdily cability and commensurability across resisting all attempts to ignore them or continents and centuries, perhaps even bend them to ½t the Procrustean bed of across planets. Max Planck spoke in the theory. Huxley insisted that “a world of name of this form of communitarian facts lies outside and beyond the world objectivity when he yearned for a phys- of words.”43 In part, this change in sci- ics that would be accessible “to physi- enti½c perception corresponded to a cists in all places, all times, all peoples, very concrete change in scienti½c prac- all cultures. Yes, the system of theoreti- tice: in the last quarter of the eighteenth cal physics lays claim to validity not century a new generation of instruments merely for the inhabitants of this earth, and measuring techniques made it possi- but also for the inhabitants of other ble to stabilize and replicate results with heavenly bodies.”41 Communitarian a success undreamed of ½fty years earli- objectivity could not coexist with the er.44 In some real sense, scienti½c facts artistic cultivation of individualism, had become more robust. Why, then, which enshrined personal perspectives were the automated ideals and practices and identi½ed the ineffable with origi- of mechanical objectivity necessary at nality. all? Why couldn’t hard facts defend There was, however, a second moment themselves against wild imagination? of scienti½c objectivity that emerged The answer lies in a very different kind alongside communitarian objectivity in of fear that began to haunt scientists in the mid-nineteenth century. In an earli- the 1830s–the fear of vertiginous, open- er article, Peter Galison and I have called ended progress. When Kant denied sci- this second moment “mechanical objec- entists genius, he had consoled them tivity”; it replaces judgment with data- with progress: “The talent for science reduction techniques, observers with is formed for the continued advances of self-registering instruments, hand- greater perfection in knowledge, with drawn illustrations with photographs.42 all its dependent practical advantages, Mechanical objectivity strives to elimi- as also for imparting the same to others. nate human intervention in the phe- Hence scientists can boast a ground of nomena, to “let nature speak for itself.” considerable superiority over those who The free imagination celebrated by merit the honor of being called geniuses, Baudelaire and other romantics threat- since genius reaches a point at which art ened mechanical objectivity by project- makes a halt, as there is a limit imposed ing its own creations onto the facts of upon it which it cannot transcend.”45 In nature. Yet the facts envisioned by nineteenth-century scientists were not the 43 Thomas Henry Huxley, “Scienti½c Educa- fragile, pliable facts so carefully protect- tion: Notes of an After-Dinner Speech” [1869], Science and Education. Essays (New York: Apple- ed by their eighteenth-century prede- ton, 1894), 115.

41 Max Planck, Acht Vorlesungen über theoretis- 44 Christian Licoppe, La formation de la pratique che Physik (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1910), 6. scienti½que: Le discours de l’expérience en France et en Angleterre (1630–1820) (Paris: Editions de la 42 Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, “The Découverte, 1996), 243–317. Image of Objectivity,” Representations 40 (Fall 1992): 81–128. 45 Kant, Critique of Judgment, 170.

28 Dædalus Fall 2005 the late eighteenth century, the sciences complete, mutable.”48 Mach held up Fear & loathing of did indeed seem destined for smooth, Joseph Fourier’s heat theory as a “model the imag- steady, unlimited progress. Between 1750 theory” in science because it wasn’t real- ination in and 1840, a stream of histories of various ly a theory at all, being founded only on science sciences poured from the press, all pur- “observable fact.”49 The expectations porting to demonstrate the existence for scienti½c progress voiced by Kant and extent of progress in those disci- and others had not been disappointed; plines.46 But the progress envisioned in rather, they had been ful½lled with a these optimistic histories was of change vengeance. Never before had science without transformation. Once the foun- bustled and flourished as it did in the dations for the new science had been latter half of the nineteenth century. laid in the seventeenth century, as the Scientists multiplied in number, and standard story went, the edi½ce could with them, new theories, observations, be expanded but not remodeled. In the and experiments. With these efforts, 1830s this placid view of scienti½c prog- however, science not only grew; it al- ress received a rude shock when the so changed, and changed at a rate that wave theory unseated the Newtonian could be measured in months rather emission theory of light, most notab- than generations. No theory was safe ly as a result of the research of French from this breakneck progress, not even physicist Augustin Fresnel.47 How could Newtonian celestial mechanics. By the a tested theory of impeccable scienti½c 1890s Henri Poincaré was calling for ev- credentials, its luster burnished by the er more precise techniques of approxi- name of Newton, be so thoroughly rout- mation in order to test whether New- ed–not merely generalized or simpli- ton’s law alone could explain all ob- ½ed? Was scienti½c progress so inex- served astronomical phenomena.”50 orable, so durable after all? Within this maelstrom of change, on- The response of scientists was to rely facts seemed to hold out the hope of treat to the level of the description of de½nitive achievement in science. Like facts, in order to salvage a stable core of diamonds, scienti½c facts not only hard- knowledge from the ebb and flow of the- ened but grew more precious to scien- ories. As Ernst Mach put it in 1872, histo- tists in the nineteenth century–hence ry of science taught the Heraclitean les- the fervor of proponents of mechani- son of panta rhei, for revolutions in sci- cal objectivity in fending off all possi- ence had become perpetual: “The at- ble adulterations and distortions of facts tempts to hold fast to the beautiful mo- by judgment or, especially, imagination. ment through textbooks have always Eighteenth-century savants had revered been futile. One gradually accustoms facts but had believed them to be the al- oneself [to the fact] that science is in- pha, not the omega, of scienti½c achieve-

48 Ernst Mach, Die Geschichte und die Wurzel des 46 Rachel Laudan, “Histories of Sciences and Satzes von der Erhaltung der Arbeit [1872], 2nd ed. Their Uses: A Review to 1913,” History of Sci- (Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1879), 1. ence 31 (1993): 5–12. 49 Ernst Mach, Die Principien der Wärmelehre 47 For a detailed account of this episode, see (Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1896), 115. Jed Z. Buchwald, The Rise of the Wave Theory of Light. Optical Theory and Experiment in the Early 50 Henri Poincaré, Les Méthodes nouvelles de la Nineteenth Century (Chicago: University of mécanique céleste, vol. 1 (Paris: Gauthier-Villars, Chicago Press, 1989). 1892–1899), 3–4.

Dædalus Fall 2005 29 Lorraine ment. (It should be noted that in eigh- Munich students who desperately want- Daston teenth-century classi½cations of knowl- ed him to explain how science illuminat- edge the custodians of fact were not nat- ed the meaning of life, Weber flatly as- ural scientists, per se, but rather civil and serted that science provided no such an- natural historians.) Moreover, they were swers; science could hardly answer the con½dent that facts mangled by the es- question of what the meaning of a scien- prit de systême or an errant imagination ti½c career was. Why should one devote would ultimately be corrected by theory. a lifetime of labor to producing a result Their nineteenth-century successors, that “in 10, 20, 50 years is outdated”? caught up in the gallop of progress, had Subjective art endured, but objective sci- lost this innocent trust in the corrective ence evaporated. Weber’s own answer power of theories that came and went crowned this irony with yet one more. like mayflies. Pure facts, severed from The spiritual motivation and reward for theory and sheltered from the imagina- a lifetime devoted to science was exactly tion, were the last, best hope for perma- the same as for a lifetime devoted to art: nence in scienti½c achievement. As an- science for science’s sake, art for art’s thropologists teach us, loathing stems sake, the immolation of the personal- from some breach of purity, some sacred ity in the service of “the pure object boundary transgressed. The wild imagi- alone.”52 Having disavowed the artistic nation potentially contaminated the pu- imagination and having lost the perma- rity of facts, and this is why it came not nence of artistic achievement, science only to be feared but also loathed. nonetheless aspired to the ascetic single- There is a rusting irony in the reversed mindedness of art. fortunes of art and science, already visible in the mid-nineteenth-century writings of scientists. Alexander von Hum- boldt sadly reflected in 1844 on the contrast between ephemeral science and enduring literature, saying, “It has often been a discouraging consideration, that while purely literary products of the mind are rooted in the depth of feelings and creative imagination, all that is connected with empiricism and with fathoming of phenomena and physical law takes on a new aspect in a few decades, . . . so that, as one commonly says, outdated scienti½c writings fall into obliv- ion as [no longer] readable.”51 By 1917 Max Weber could regard the opposition of transitory science to stable art to be a platitude, one that made it dif½cult to understand what sense it made to pursue science as a career. Near the end of 52 Max Weber, “Wissenschaft als Beruf” [1917], in Max Weber Gesamtausgabe, vol. 17, World War I, addressing an audience of ed. Wolfgang J. Mommsen and Wolfgang Schluchter with Birgitt Morgenbrod (Tübin- 51 Humboldt, Cosmos, vol. 1, xxiv. gen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1992), 84–87.

30 Dædalus Fall 2005 Steven Weinberg

Physics & history

I am one of the few contributors to this son, do not appear to experience a com- issue of Dædalus who is not in any sense parable thrill in considering such mat- a historian. I work and live in the counters. This is sad but true. It poses a prob- try of physics, but history is the place lem, because if one intends to teach non- that I love to visit as a tourist. Here I physicists the machinery by which these wish to consider, from the perspective calculations are done, one is simply not of a physicist, the uses that history has going to get a very receptive class. Histo- for physics, and the dangers both pose ry offers a way around this pedagogical to each other. problem: everyone loves a story. For ex- I should begin by observing that one ample, a professor can tell the story (as I of the best uses of the history of physics did in a book and in courses at Harvard is to help us teach physics to nonphysi- and Texas) of the discovery of the sub- cists. Although many of them are very atomic particles–the electron, the pro- nice people, nonphysicists are rather ton, and all the others.1 In the course of odd. Physicists get tremendous pleasure learning this history, the student–in or- out of being able to calculate all sorts of der to understand what was going on in things, everything from the shape of a the laboratories of J. J. Thomson, Ernest cable in a suspension bridge to the flight Rutherford, and our other heroes–has of a projectile or the energy of the hydro- to learn something about how particles gen atom. Nonphysicists, for some rea- move under the influence of various forces, about energy and momentum, and about electric and magnetic ½elds. Steven Weinberg, a Fellow of the American Acad- Thus, in order to understand the stories, emy since 1968 and winner of the Nobel Prize in they need to learn some of the physics Physics in 1979, wrote this essay for the Winter we think they should know. It was Ger- 1998 issue of “Dædalus.” Since 1982, Weinberg ald Holton’s 1952 book Introduction to has been Josey Regental Professor of Science at Concepts and Theories of Physical Science the University of Texas at Austin. He currently that ½rst utilized precisely this method also holds the Jack S. Josey-Welch Foundation of teaching physics; Holton told the sto- Chair in Science and directs the Theory Research ry of the development of modern phys- Group at the University of Texas at Austin. 1 Steven Weinberg, The Discovery of Subatomic © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts Particles (San Francisco: Scienti½c American/ & Sciences Freeman, 1982).

Dædalus Fall 2005 31 Steven ics, all the while using it as a vehicle for to seek out problems that will further Weinberg teaching physics. Unfortunately, despite this historic goal–not just work that his efforts and those of many who came is interesting, useful, or that influences after him, the problem of teaching phys- other ½elds, but work that is historical- ics to nonphysicists remains unsolved. ly progressive, that moves us toward the It is still one of the great problems fac- goal of a ½nal theory. ing education–how to communicate In this quest for a ½nal theory, prob- “hard sciences” to an unwilling public. lems get bypassed. Things that once In many colleges throughout the country were at the frontier, as nuclear physics the effort has been given up completely. was in the 1930s, no longer are. This Visiting small liberal-arts colleges, one has happened recently to the theory of often ½nds that the only course offered strong interactions. We now understand in physics at all is the usual course for the strong forces that hold the quarks premedical students. Many undergradu- together inside the nuclear particles in ates will thus never get the chance to terms of a quantum ½eld theory called encounter a book like Holton’s. quantum chromodynamics. When I say History plays a special role for elemen- that we understand these forces, I do not tary particle physicists like myself. In a mean that we can do every calculation sense, our perception of history resem- we might wish to do; we are still unable bles that of Western religions, Christian- to solve some of the classic problems of ity and Judaism, as compared to the his- strong interaction physics, such as calcu- torical view of other branches of science, lating the mass of the proton (the nucle- which are more like that of Eastern reli- us of the hydrogen atom). A silly letter gious traditions. Christianity and Juda- in Physics Today recently asked why we ism teach that history is moving toward bother to talk about speculative funda- a climax–the day of judgment; similar- mental theories like string theory when ly, many elementary particle physicists the longstanding problem of calculat- think that our work in ½nding deeper ing the mass of the proton remains to be explanations of the nature of the uni- solved. Such criticism misses the point verse will come to an end in a ½nal theo- of research focused on a historical goal. ry toward which we are working. An op- We have solved enough problems using posing perception of history is held by quantum chromodynamics to know that those faiths that believe that history the theory is right; it is not necessary to will go on forever, that we are bound to mop up all the islands of unsolved prob- the wheel of endless reincarnation; like- lems in order to make progress toward a wise, particle physicists’ vision of histo- ½nal theory. Our situation is a little like ry is quite different from that of most that of the U.S. Navy in World War II: of the sciences. Other scientists look bypassing Japanese strong points like forward to an endless future of ½nding Truk or Rabaul, the Navy instead moved interesting problems–understanding on to take Saipan, which was closer to consciousness, or turbulence, or high its goal of the Japanese home islands. temperature superconductivity–that We too must learn that we can bypass will go on forever. In elementary parti- some problems. This is not to say that cle physics our aim is to put ourselves these problems are not worth working out of business. This gives a historical on; in fact, some of my own recent work dimension to our choice of the sort of has been in the application of quantum work on which to concentrate. We tend chromodynamics to nuclear physics.

32 Dædalus Fall 2005 Nuclear forces present a classic prob- rates at which the rates that are chang- Physics lem–one on which I was eager to work. ing are changing. This may seem like & history But I am not under the illusion that this a technicality, and it is certainly not a work is part of the historical progress grand principle like the principle of toward a ½nal theory. Nuclear forces equivalence. It is just a limit on the sorts present a problem that remains interest- of equations that will be allowed in the ing, but not as part of the historical mis- theory. So why did Einstein make this sion of fundamental physics. assumption–this very technical as- If history has its value, it has its dan- sumption, with no philosophical under- gers as well. The danger in history is that pinnings? For one thing, people were in contemplating the great work of the used to such equations at the time: the past, the great heroic ideas–relativity, equations of Maxwell that govern elec- quantum mechanics, and so on–we de- tromagnetic ½elds and the wave equa- velop such reverence for them that we tions that govern the propagation of become unable to reassess their place in sound are all second-order differential what we envision as a ½nal physical the- equations. For a physicist in 1915, there- ory. An example of this is general rela- fore, it was a natural assumption. If a tivity. As developed by Einstein in 1915, theorist does not know what else to do, general relativity appears almost logical- it is a good tactic to assume the simplest ly inevitable. There was a fundamental possibility; this is more likely to produce principle, Einstein’s principle of the a theory that one could actually solve, equivalence of gravitation and inertia, providing at least the chance to decide which says that there is no difference be- whether or not it agrees with experi- tween gravity and the effects of inertia ment. In Einstein’s case, the tactic (like centrifugal force). The principle of worked. equivalence can be reformulated as the But this kind of pragmatic success principle that gravity is just an effect does not in itself provide a rationale of the curvature of space and time– that would satisfy, of all people, Ein- a beautiful principle from which Ein- stein. Einstein’s goal was never simply stein’s theory of gravitation follows al- to ½nd theories that ½t the data. Remem- most uniquely. But there is an “almost” ber, it was Einstein who said that the here. To arrive at the equations of gener- purpose of the kind of physics he did al relativity, Einstein in 1915 had to make was “not only to know how nature is an additional assumption; he assumed and how her transactions are carried that the equations of general relativity through, but also to reach as far as possi- would be of a particular type, known as ble the utopian and seemingly arrogant second-order partial differential equa- aim of knowing why nature is thus and tions. This is not the place to explain not otherwise. . . . ” He certainly was not precisely what a second-order partial achieving that goal when he arbitrarily differential equation is–roughly speak- assumed that the equations for general ing, it is an equation in which appear not relativity were second-order differential only things like gravitational ½elds, and equations. He could have made them the rates at which these things change fourth-order differential equations, but with time and position, but also second- he did not. order rates, the rates at which the rates Our perspective on this today, which change. It does not include higher order has been developing gradually over the rates, for instance, third-order rates–the last ½fteen or twenty years, is different

Dædalus Fall 2005 33 Steven from that of Einstein. Many of us now much smaller than the size of an atomic Weinberg regard general relativity as nothing but nucleus. an effective ½eld theory–that is to say, From the point of view of modern ef- a ½eld theory that provides an approxi- fective ½eld theory, there are no in½n- mation to a more fundamental theory, ities in the quantum theory of gravity. an approximation valid in the limit of The in½nities are cancelled in exactly large distances, probably including any the same way that they are in all our distances that are larger than the scale other theories, by just being absorbed of an atomic nucleus. Indeed, if one sup- into a rede½nition of parameters in the poses that there really are terms in the ½eld equations; but this works only if Einstein equations that involve rates of we include terms involving rates of fourth or higher order, such terms would fourth order and all higher orders. (John still play no signi½cant role at suf½cient- Donaghue of the University of Massa- ly large distances. This is why Einstein’s chusetts at Amherst has done more than tactic worked. There is a rational reason anyone in showing how this works.) The for assuming the equations are second- old problems of in½nities and singulari- order differential equations, which is ties in the theory of gravitation cannot that any terms in the equations involv- be dealt with by taking Einstein’s theory ing higher order rates would not make seriously as a fundamental theory. From much of a difference in any astronomi- the modern point of view–if you like, cal observations. As far as I know, how- from my point of view–Einstein’s theo- ever, this was not Einstein’s rationale. ry is nothing but an approximation valid This may seem rather a minor point at long distances, which cannot be ex- to raise here, but in fact the most inter- pected to deal successfully with in½nities esting work today in the study of gravi- and singularities. Yet some professional tation is precisely in contexts in which quantum gravitationalists (if that is the the presence of higher-order rates in word) spend their whole careers study- the ½eld equations would make a big ing the applications of the original Ein- difference. The most important prob- stein theory, the one that only involves lem in the quantum theory of gravity second-order differential equations, to arises from the fact that when one does problems involving in½nities and singu- various calculations–as, for instance, larities. Elaborate formalisms have been in attempting to calculate the proba- developed that aim to look at Einstein’s bility that a gravitational wave will theory in a more sophisticated way, in be scattered by another gravitational the hope that doing so will somehow or wave–one gets answers that turn out other make the in½nities or singularities to be in½nite. Another problem in the go away. This ill-placed loyalty to general classical theory of gravitation arises relativity in its original form persists be- from the presence of singularities: mat- cause of the enormous prestige the theo- ter can apparently collapse to a point in ry earned from its historic successes. space with in½nite energy density and But it is precisely in this way that the in½nite space-time curvature. These ab- great heroic ideas of the past can weigh surdities, which have been exercising the upon us, preventing us from seeing attention of physicists for many decades, things in a fresh light. Said another way, are precisely problems that involve grav- it is those ideas that were most success- ity at very short distances–not the large ful of which we should be most wary. distances of astronomy, but distances Otherwise we become like the French

34 Dædalus Fall 2005 army, which in 1914 tried to imitate the monstrated that there is no motion Physics successes of Napoleon and almost lost through the ether, is not at all the way & history the war–and then in 1940 tried to imi- Einstein actually came to special relativ- tate the 1916 success of Marshall Petain ity. Holton has also written about Kep- in defending Verdun, only to suffer deci- ler. At one point in my life I was one of sive defeat. Such examples exist in the those people who thought that Kepler history of physics as well. For instance, deduced his famous three laws of plan- there is an approach to quantum ½eld etary motion by studying the data of theory called second quantization, Tycho Brahe. But Holton points out which fortunately no longer plays a sig- how much else besides data, how much ni½cant role in research but continues of the spirit of the Middle Ages and of to play a role in the way that textbooks the Greek world, went into Kepler’s are written. Second quantization goes thinking–how many things that we back to a paper written in 1927 by Jor- now no longer associate with plane- dan and Klein that put forth the idea that tary motion were on Kepler’s mind. after one has introduced a wave function By assuming that scientists of the past in quantizing a theory of particles, you thought about things the way we do, we should then quantize the wave function. make mistakes; what is worse, we lose Surprisingly, many people think that this appreciation for the dif½culties, for the is the way to look at quantum ½eld theo- intellectual challenges, that they faced. ry; it is not. Once, at the Tate Gallery in London, We have to expect the same fate for I heard a lecturer talking to a tour group our present theories. The standard mod- about the Turner paintings. Turner was el of weak, electromagnetic, and strong very important, said the guide, because forces, used to describe nature under he foreshadowed the Impressionists conditions that can be explored in to- of the later nineteenth century. I had day’s accelerators, may itself neither dis- thought Turner was an important paint- appear nor be proved wrong but instead er because he painted beautiful pictures; be looked at in quite a different way. Turner did not know that he was fore- Most particle physicists now think of shadowing anything. One has to look at the standard model as only an effective things as they really were in their own ½eld theory that provides a low-energy time. This also applies, of course, to po- approximation of a more fundamental litical history. Consider the term “Whig theory. interpretation of history,” which was Enough about the danger of history to invented by Herbert Butter½eld in a lec- science; let us now take up the danger ture in 1931. As Butter½eld explained it, of scienti½c knowledge to history. This “The Whig historian seems to believe arises from a tendency to imagine that that there is an unfolding logic in histo- discoveries are made according to our ry.” He went on to attack the person he present understandings. Gerald Holton regarded as the archetypal Whig histori- has done as much as anyone in trying to an, Lord Acton, who wished to use histo- point out these dangers and puncture ry as a way to pass moral judgments on these misapprehensions. In his papers the past. Acton wanted history to serve about Einstein he shows, for example, as the “arbiter of controversy, the up- that the natural deduction of the special holder of that moral standard which the theory of relativity from the experiment powers of earth and religion itself tend of Michelson and Morley, which de- constantly to depress . . . . It is the of½ce

Dædalus Fall 2005 35 Steven of historical science to maintain morali- “Much of the recent philosophical liter- Weinberg ty as the sole impartial criterion of men ature claims that science merely staggers and things.” Butter½eld went on to say: from one fashion, conversion, revolution, or incommensurable exemplar to If history can do anything it is to remind the next in a kind of perpetual, senseless of us of those complications that under- Brownian motion, without discernible mine our certainties, and to show us that direction or goal.”3 I made a similar ob- all our judgments are merely relative to servation in an address to the American time and circumstance . . . . We can never Academy of Arts and Sciences about a assert that history has proved any man year and a half ago, noting in passing right in the long run. We can never say that there are people who see scienti½c that the ultimate issue, the succeeding theories as nothing but social construc- course of events, or the lapse of time tions. The talk was circulated by the have proved that Luther was right against Academy, as is their practice, and a copy the pope or that Pitt was wrong against of it fell into the hands of someone who Charles James Fox.2 over twenty years ago had been closely This is the point at which the histori- associated with a development known an of science and the historian of poli- as the Sociology of Scienti½c Knowledge tics should part company. The passage (ssk). He wrote me a long and unhap- of time has shown that, for example, py letter; among other things, he com- Darwin was right against Lamarck, the plained about my remark that the Strong atomists were right against Ernst Mach, Program initiated at the University of and Einstein was right against the exper- Edinburgh embodied a radical social- imentalist Walter Kaufman, who pre- constructivist view, in which scienti½c sented data contradicting special rela- theories are nothing but social construc- tivity. To put it another way, Butter½eld tions. He sent me a weighty pile of es- was correct; there is no sense in which says, saying that they demonstrated that Whig morality (much less the Whig Par- he and his colleagues do recognize that ty) existed at the time of Luther. But reality plays a role in our world. I took nevertheless it is true that natural selec- this criticism to heart and decided that tion was working during the time of La- I would read the essays. I also looked marck, and the atom did exist in the days back over some old correspondence that of Mach, and fast electrons behaved ac- I had had with Harry Collins, who for cording to the laws of relativity even be- many years led the well-known Sociolo- fore Einstein. Present scienti½c knowl- gy of Scienti½c Knowledge group at the edge has the potentiality of being rele- University of Bath. My purpose in all of vant in the history of science in the way this was to look at these materials from that the present moral and political judg- as sympathetic a point of view as I could, ments may not be relevant in political or try to understand what they were saying, social history. and assume that they must be saying Many historians, sociologists, and something that is not absurd. philosophers of science have taken the I did ½nd described (though not es- desire for historicism, the worry about poused) in an article by David Bloor, falling into a Whig interpretation of who is one of the Edinburgh group, and history, to extremes. To quote Holton, 3 Gerald Holton, Einstein, History, and Other 2 Herbert Butter½eld, The Whig Interpretation of Passions (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, History (New York: Scribners, 1951), 75. 1996), 22.

36 Dædalus Fall 2005 also in my correspondence with Harry he found a range of values. Although he Physics Collins, a point of view that on the face quoted various values in his published & history of it is not absurd. As I understand it, work, the values he would always refer there is a position called “methodologi- to as his favorite results were those at cal idealism” or “methodological antire- the high end of the range. Why did alism,” which holds that historians or Thomson quote the high values as his sociologists should take no position on favorite values? It is possible that Thom- what is ultimately true or real. Instead son knew that on the days those results of using today’s scienti½c knowledge as had been obtained he had been more a guiding principle for their work, the careful; perhaps those were the days argument goes, they should try to look he had not bumped into the laboratory at nature as it must have been viewed table, or before which he’d had a good by the scientists under study at the time night’s sleep. But the possibility also ex- that those scientists were working. In ists that perhaps his ½rst values had been itself, this is not an absurd position. In at the high end of the range, and he was particular, it can help to guard us against determined to show that he had been the kind of silliness that (for instance) I right at the beginning. Which explana- was guilty of when I interpreted Kepler’s tion is correct? There is simply no way work in terms of what we now know of reconstructing the past. Not his note- about planetary motion. books, not his biography–nothing will Even so, the attitude of methodologi- allow us now to reconstitute those days cal antirealism bothered me, though for in the Cavendish Laboratory and ½nd a while I could not point to what I found out on which days Thomson was more wrong with it. In preparing this essay I clumsy or felt more sleepy than usual. have tried to think this through, and I There is one thing that we do know, have come to the conclusion that there however: the actual value of the ratio of are a number of minor things wrong the electron’s mass to its charge, which with methodological antirealism: it can was the same in Thomson’s time as in cripple historical research, it is often our own. We know, in fact, that the ac- boring, and it is basically impossible. tual value is not at the high end but, More signi½cantly, however, it has a rather, at the low end of the range of major drawback–in an almost literal Thomson’s experimental values, which sense, it misses the point of the history strongly suggests that when Thomson’s of science. measurements gave high values they Let us ½rst address the minor points. were not actually more careful–and that If it were really possible to reconstruct therefore it is more likely that Thomson everything that happened during some quoted these values because he was just past scienti½c discovery, then it might trying to justify his ½rst measurements. be helpful to forget everything that has This is a trivial example of the use of happened since; but in fact much of present scienti½c knowledge in the his- what occurred will always be unknown tory of science, because here we are just to us. Consider just one example. J. J. talking about a number, not a natural Thomson, in the experiments that made law or an ontological principle. I chose him known as the discoverer of the elec- this example simply because it shows so tron, was measuring a certain crucial clearly that to decide to ignore present quantity, the ratio of the electron’s scienti½c knowledge is often to throw mass to its charge. As always happens, away a valuable historical tool.

Dædalus Fall 2005 37 Steven A second minor drawback of method- This is just what many sociologists Weinberg ological antirealism is that a reader who of science deny. David Bloor stated in does not know anything about our pres- a talk at Berkeley a year ago that “the ent understanding of nature is likely to important thing is that reality underde- ½nd the history of science terribly bor- termines the scientists’ understanding.” ing. For instance, a historian might de- I gather he means that although he rec- scribe how in 1911 the Dutch physicist ognizes that reality has some effect on Kamerlingh Onnes was measuring the what scientists do–so that scienti½c the- electrical resistance of a sample of cold ories are not “nothing but” social con- mercury and thought that he had found structions–scienti½c theories are also a short circuit. The historian could go on not what they are simply because that for pages and pages describing how On- is the way nature is. In a similar spirit, nes searched for the short circuit, and Stanley Fish, in a recent article in the how he took apart the wiring and put it New York Times, argued that the laws back together again without any success of physics are like the rules of baseball. in ½nding the source of the short circuit. Both are certainly conditioned by exter- Could anything be more boring than to nal reality–after all, if baseballs moved read this description if one did not know differently under the influence of Earth’s in advance that there was no short cir- gravity, the rules would call for the bases cuit–that what Onnes was observing to be closer together or further apart– was in fact the vanishing of the resist- but the rules of baseball also reflect the ance of mercury when cooled to a cer- way that the game developed historically tain temperature, and that this was noth- and the preferences of players and fans.4 ing less than the discovery of supercon- Now, what Bloor and Fish say about ductivity? Of course, it is impossible to- the laws of nature does apply while these day for a physicist or a historian of phys- laws are being discovered. Holton’s ics not to know about superconductivi- work on Einstein, Kepler, and supercon- ty. Indeed, we are quite incapable while ductivity has shown that many cultural reading about the experiments of Ka- and psychological influences enter into merlingh Onnes of imagining that his scienti½c work. But the laws of nature problem was nothing but a short circuit. are not like the rules of baseball. They Even if one had never heard of supercon- are culture-free and they are perma- ductivity, the reader would know that nent–not as they are being developed, there was something going on besides a not as they were in the mind of the sci- short circuit; why else would the histori- entist who ½rst discovers them, not in an bother with these experiments? Plen- the course of what Latour and Woolgar ty of experimental physicists have found call “negotiations” over what theory is short circuits, and no one studies them. going to be accepted, but in their ½nal But these are minor issues. The main form, in which cultural influences are drawback of methodological antireal- re½ned away. I will even use the danger- ism is that it misses the point about the ous words “nothing but”: aside from in- history of science that makes it differ- essentials like the mathematical nota- ent from other kinds of history: Even tion we use, the laws of physics as we though a scienti½c theory is in a sense a understand them now are nothing but social consensus, it is unlike any other a description of reality. sort of consensus in that it is culture- 4 Stanley Fish, “Professor Sokal’s Bad Joke,” free and permanent. New York Times, May 21, 1996, op-ed section.

38 Dædalus Fall 2005 I cannot prove that the laws of phys- In holding that the social construc- Physics ics in their mature form are culture-free. tivists missed the point, I have in mind & history Physicists live embedded in the Western a phenomenon known in mathematical culture of the late twentieth century, and physics as the approach to a ½xed point. it is natural to be skeptical if we say that Various problems in physics deal with our understanding of Maxwell’s equa- motion in some sort of space. Such tions, quantum mechanics, relativity, or problems are governed by equations the standard model of elementary par- dictating that wherever one starts in the ticles is culture-free. I am convinced of space, one always winds up at the same this because the purely scienti½c argu- point, known as a ½xed point. Ancient ments for these theories seem to me geographers had something similar in overwhelmingly convincing. I can add mind when they said that all roads led that as the typical background of physi- to Rome. Physical theories are like ½xed cists has changed, in particular, as the points, toward which we are attracted. number of women and Asians in phys- Starting points may be culturally deter- ics has increased, the nature of our un- mined, paths may be affected by person- derstanding of physics has not changed. al philosophies, but the ½xed point is These laws in their mature form have a there nonetheless. It is something to- toughness that resists cultural influence. ward which any physical theory moves; The history of science is further distin- when we get there we know it, and then guished from political or artistic histo- we stop. ry (in such a way as to reinforce my re- The kind of physics I have done for marks about the influence of culture) in most of my life, working in the theory of that the achievements of science become ½elds and elementary particles, is mov- permanent. This assertion may seem to ing toward a ½xed point. But this ½xed contradict a statement at the beginning point is unlike any other in science. That of this essay–that we now look at gener- ½nal theory toward which we are mov- al relativity in a different way than Ein- ing will be a theory of unrestricted valid- stein did, and that even now we are be- ity, a theory applicable to all phenomena ginning to look at the standard model throughout the universe–a theory that, differently than we did when it was ½rst when ½nally reached, will be a perma- being developed. But what changes is nent part of our knowledge of the world. our understanding of both why the theo- Then our work as elementary particle ries are true and their scope of validity. physicists will be done, and will become For instance, at one time we thought nothing but history. there was an exact symmetry in nature between left and right, but then it was discovered that this is only true in certain contexts and to a certain degree of approximation. But the symmetry between right and left was not a simple mistake, nor has it been abandoned; we simply understand it better. Within its scope of validity, this symmetry has become a permanent part of science, and I cannot see that this will ever change.

Dædalus Fall 2005 39 Robert N. Bellah

Civil religion in America

While some have argued that Chris- ing an end as well as a beginning–signi- tianity is the national faith, and others fying renewal as well as change. For I that church and synagogue celebrate have sworn before you and Almighty God only the generalized religion of “the the same solemn oath our forebears pre- American Way of Life,” few have real- scribed nearly a century and three quar- ized that there actually exists alongside ters ago. of and rather clearly differentiated from the churches an elaborate and well-in- 1 Why something so obvious should have es- stitutionalized civil religion in America. caped serious analytical attention is in itself This article argues not only that there is an interesting problem. Part of the reason is such a thing, but also that this religion– probably the controversial nature of the sub- or perhaps better, this religious dimen- ject. From the earliest years of the nineteenth sion–has its own seriousness and in- century, conservative religious and political groups have argued that Christianity is, in fact, tegrity and requires the same care in the national religion. Some of them have from understanding that any other religion time to time and as recently as the 1950s pro- does.1 posed constitutional amendments that would explicitly recognize the sovereignty of Christ. ennedy’s inaugural address of Janu- In defending the doctrine of separation of K church and state, opponents of such groups ary 20, 1961 serves as an example and a have denied that the national polity has, in- clue with which to introduce this com- trinsically, anything to do with religion at all. plex subject. That address began: The moderates on this issue have insisted that the American state has taken a permissive and We observe today not a victory of party indeed supportive attitude toward religious but a celebration of freedom–symboliz- groups (tax exemption, etc.), thus favoring religion but still missing the positive institutional- ization with which I am concerned. But part of Robert N. Bellah, Elliott Professor of Sociology the reason this issue has been left in obscurity Emeritus at the University of California, Berke- is certainly due to the peculiarly Western con- ley, has been a Fellow of the American Acade- cept of religion as denoting a single type of col- my since 1967. This essay appeared in the Winter lectivity of which an individual can be a mem- 1967 issue of “Dædalus.” At the time of its publi- ber of one and only one at a time. The Durk- heimian notion that every group has a religious cation, Bellah was professor of sociology at Har- dimension, which would be seen as obvious in vard University. southern or eastern Asia, is foreign to us. This obscures the recognition of such dimensions in © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts our society. & Sciences 40 Dædalus Fall 2005 The world is very different now. For It might be argued that the passages Civil religion in man holds in his mortal hands the pow- quoted reveal the essentially irrelevant America er to abolish all forms of human poverty role of religion in the very secular soci- and to abolish all forms of human life. ety that is America. The placing of the And yet the same revolutionary beliefs references in this speech as well as in for which our forebears fought are still at public life generally indicates that re- issue around the globe–the belief that the ligion has “only a ceremonial signi½- rights of man come not from the generosi- cance”; it gets only a sentimental nod ty of the state but from the hand of God. which serves largely to placate the more And it concluded: unenlightened members of the community, before a discussion of the really Finally, whether you are citizens of Ameri- serious business with which religion ca or of the world, ask of us the same high has nothing whatever to do. A cynical standards of strength and sacri½ce that we observer might even say that an Ameri- shall ask of you. With a good conscience can president has to mention God or our only sure reward, with history the ½- risk losing votes. A semblance of piety nal judge of our deeds, let us go forth to is merely one of the unwritten quali½- lead the land we love, asking His blessing cations for the of½ce, a bit more tradi- and His help, but knowing that here on tional than but not essentially different earth God’s work must truly be our own. from the present-day requirement of a These are the three places in this brief pleasing television personality. address in which Kennedy mentioned But we know enough about the func- the name of God. If we could under- tion of ceremony and ritual in various stand why he mentioned God, the way societies to make us suspicious of dis- in which he did it, and what he meant to missing something as unimportant be- say in those three references, we would cause it is “only a ritual.” What people understand much about American civil say on solemn occasions need not be religion. But this is not a simple or obvi- taken at face value, but it is often indica- ous task, and American students of reli- tive of deep-seated values and commit- gion would probably differ widely in ments that are not made explicit in the their interpretation of these passages. course of everyday life. Following this Let us consider ½rst the placing of the line of argument, it is worth considering three references. They occur in the two whether the very special placing of the opening paragraphs and in the closing references to God in Kennedy’s address paragraph, thus providing a sort of may not reveal something rather impor- frame for the more concrete remarks tant and serious about religion in Ameri- that form the middle part of the speech. can life. Looking beyond this particular speech, It might be countered that the very we would ½nd that similar references to way in which Kennedy made his refer- God are almost invariably to be found in ences reveals the essentially vestigial the pronouncements of American presi- place of religion today. He did not refer dents on solemn occasions, though usu- to any religion in particular. He did not ally not in the working messages that the refer to Jesus Christ, or to Moses, or to president sends to Congress on various the Christian church; certainly he did concrete issues. How, then, are we to in- not refer to the Catholic church. In fact, terpret this placing of references to his only reference was to the concept of God? God, a word which almost all Americans

Dædalus Fall 2005 41 Robert N. can accept but which means so many using the word God at all? The answer Bellah different things to so many different is that the separation of church and people that it is almost an empty sign. state has not denied the political realm Is this not just another indication that in a religious dimension. Although mat- America religion is considered vaguely ters of personal religious belief, wor- to be a good thing, but that people care ship, and association are considered so little about it that it has lost any con- to be strictly private affairs, there are, tent whatever? Isn’t Eisenhower report- at the same time, certain common ele- ed to have said, “Our government makes ments of religious orientation that the no sense unless it is founded in a deeply great majority of Americans share. felt religious faith–and I don’t care what These have played a crucial role in the it is,”2 and isn’t that a complete negation development of American institutions of any real religion? and still provide a religious dimension These questions are worth pursuing for the whole fabric of American life, because they raise the issue of how civil including the political sphere. This pub- religion relates to the political society, lic religious dimension is expressed in on the one hand, and to private religious a set of beliefs, symbols, and rituals that organization, on the other. President I am calling the American civil religion. Kennedy was a Christian, more speci½- The inauguration of a president is an cally a Catholic Christian. Thus, his gen- important ceremonial event in this reli- eral references to God do not mean that gion. It reaf½rms, among other things, he lacked a speci½c religious commit- the religious legitimation of the lightest ment. But why, then, did he not include political authority. some remark to the effect that Christ is Let us look more closely at what Ken- the Lord of the world or some indication nedy actually said. First he said, “I have of respect for the Catholic church? He sworn before you and Almighty God did not because these are matters of his the same solemn oath our forebears pre- own private religious belief and of his scribed nearly a century and three quar- relation to his own particular church; ters ago.” The oath is the oath of of½ce, they are not matters relevant in any di- including the acceptance of the obliga- rect way to the conduct of his public tion to uphold the Constitution. He of½ce. Others with different religious swears it before the people (you) and views and commitments to different God. Beyond the Constitution, then, the churches or denominations are equally president’s obligation extends not only quali½ed participants in the political to the people but to God. In American process. The principle of separation of political theory, sovereignty rests, of church and state guarantees the freedom course, with the people, but implicitly, of religious belief and association but at and often explicitly, the ultimate sover- the same time clearly segregates the reli- eignty has been attributed to God. This gious sphere, which is considered to be is the meaning of the motto “In God we essentially private, from the political trust,” as well as the inclusion of the one. phrase “under God” in the pledge to the Considering the separation of church flag. What difference does it make that and state, how is a president justi½ed in sovereignty belongs to God? Though the will of the people as expressed in majori- 2 Quoted in Will Herberg, Protestant-Catholic- ty vote is carefully institutionalized as Jew (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955), 97. the operative source of political authori-

42 Dædalus Fall 2005 ty, it is deprived of an ultimate signi½- can tradition, namely the obligation, Civil religion in cance. The will of the people is not it- both collective and individual, to carry America self the criterion of right and wrong. out God’s will on earth. This was the There is a higher criterion in terms of motivating spirit of those who founded which this will can be judged; it is pos- America, and it has been present in sible that the people may be wrong. The every generation since. Just below the president’s obligation extends to the surface throughout Kennedy’s inaugural higher criterion. address, it becomes explicit in the clos- When Kennedy says that “the rights ing statement that God’s work must be of man come not from the generosity of our own. That this very activist and non- the state but from the hand of God,” he contemplative conception of the funda- is stressing this point again. It does not mental religious obligation, which has matter whether the state is the expres- been historically associated with the sion of the will of an autocratic monarch Protestant position, should be enunciat- or of the “people”; the rights of man are ed so clearly in the ½rst major statement more basic than any political structure of the ½rst Catholic president seems to and provide a point of revolutionary le- underline how deeply established it is in verage from which any state structure the American outlook. Let us now con- may be radically altered. That is the ba- sider the form and history of the civil re- sis for his reassertion of the revolution- ligious tradition in which Kennedy was ary signi½cance of America. speaking. But the religious dimension in political life as recognized by Kennedy not only The phrase civil religion is, of course, provides a grounding for the rights of Rousseau’s. In Chapter 8, Book 4, of The man which makes any form of political Social Contract, he outlines the simple absolutism illegitimate; it also provides dogmas of the civil religion: the exis- a transcendent goal for the political pro- tence of God, the life to come, the re- cess. This is implied in his ½nal words ward of virtue and the punishment of that “here on earth God’s work must vice, and the exclusion of religious intol- truly be our own.” What he means here erance. All other religious opinions are is, I think, more clearly spelled out in outside the cognizance of the state and a previous paragraph, the wording of may be freely held by citizens. While the which, incidentally, has a distinctly bib- phrase civil religion was not used, to the lical ring: best of my knowledge, by the founding fathers, and I am certainly not arguing Now the trumpet summons us again– for the particular influence of Rousseau, not as a call to bear arms, though arms it is clear that similar ideas, as part of the we need–not as a call to battle, though cultural climate of the late eighteenth embattled we are–but a call to bear the century, were to be found among the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in Americans. For example, Franklin writes and year out, “rejoicing in hope, patient in in his autobiography: tribulation”–a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, I never was without some religious prin- disease and war itself. ciples. I never doubted, for instance, the The whole address can be understood existence of the Deity; that he made the as only the most recent statement of a world and govern’d it by his Providence; theme that lies very deep in the Ameri- that the most acceptable service of God

Dædalus Fall 2005 43 Robert N. was the doing of good to men; that our played a constitutive role in the thought Bellah souls are immortal; and that all crime will of the early American statesmen. be punished, and virtue rewarded either Kennedy’s inaugural pointed to the here or hereafter. These I esteemed the religious aspect of the Declaration of essentials of every religion; and, being Independence, and it might be well to to be found in all the religions we had in look at that document a bit more close- our country, I respected them all, tho’ ly. There are four references to God. The with different degrees of respect, as I ½rst speaks of the “Laws of Nature and found them more or less mix’d with oth- of Nature’s God” which entitle any peo- er articles, which, without any tendency ple to be independent. The second is to inspire, promote or con½rm morality, the famous statement that all men “are serv’d principally to divide us, and make endowed by their Creator with certain us unfriendly to one another. inalienable Rights.” Here Jefferson is locating the fundamental legitimacy of It is easy to dispose of this sort of posi- the new nation in a conception of “high- tion as essentially utilitarian in relation er law” that is itself based on both clas- to religion. In Washington’s Farewell sical natural law and biblical religion. Address (though the words may be The third is an appeal to “the Supreme Hamilton’s) the utilitarian aspect is Judge of the world for the rectitude of quite explicit: our intentions,” and the last indicates Of all the dispositions and habits which “a ½rm reliance on the protection of lead to political prosperity, Religion and divine Providence.” In these last two Morality are indispensable supports. In references, a biblical God of history vain would that man claim the tribute of who stands in judgment over the world Patriotism, who should labour to subvert is indicated. these great Pillars of human happiness, The intimate relation of these reli- these ½rmest props of the duties of men gious notions with the self-conception and citizens. The mere politician, equally of the new republic is indicated by the with the pious man ought to respect and frequency of their appearance in early cherish them. A volume could not trace all of½cial documents. For example, we ½nd their connections with private and public in Washington’s ½rst inaugural address felicity. Let it simply be asked where is the of April 30, 1789: security for property, for reputation, for It would be peculiarly improper to omit life, if the sense of religious obligation des- in this ½rst of½cial act my fervent suppli- ert the oaths, which are the instruments cations to that Almighty Being who rules of investigation in the Courts of justice? over the universe, who presides in the And let us with caution indulge the sup- councils of nations, and whose providen- position, that morality can be maintained tial aids can supply every defect, that His without religion. Whatever may be con- benediction may consecrate to the liber- ceded to the influence of re½ned educa- ties and happiness of the people of the tion on minds of peculiar structure, rea- United States a Government instituted son and experience both forbid us to ex- by themselves for these essential purpos- pect that National morality can prevail in es, and may enable every instrument em- exclusion of religious principle. ployed in its administration to execute But there is every reason to believe that with success the functions allotted to his religion, particularly the idea of God, charge.

44 Dædalus Fall 2005 No people can be bound to acknowledge the civil religion is not only rather “uni- Civil religion in and adore the Invisible Hand which con- tarian”; he is also on the austere side, America ducts the affairs of man more than those much more related to order, law, and of the United States. Every step by which right than to salvation and love. Even we have advanced to the character of an though he is somewhat deist in cast, independent nation seems to have been he is by no means simply a watchmak- distinguished by some token of providen- er God. He is actively interested and in- tial agency . . . . volved in history, with a special concern The propitious smiles of Heaven can for America. Here the analogy has much never be expected on a nation that disre- less to do with natural law than with gards the eternal rules of order and right ancient Israel; the equation of America which Heaven itself has ordained . . . . The with Israel in the idea of the “American preservation of the sacred ½re of liberty Israel” is not infrequent.4 What was im- and the destiny of the republican model plicit in the words of Washington al- of government are justly considered, per- ready quoted becomes explicit in Jeffer- haps, as deeply, as ½nally, staked on the ex- son’s second inaugural when he said, “I periment entrusted to the hands of the shall need, too, the favor of that Being American people.

Nor did these religious sentiments re- “that Almighty Being who rules the universe,” main merely the personal expression “Great Author of every public and private of the president. At the request of both good,” “Invisible Hand,” and “benign Parent houses of Congress, Washington proof the Human Race.” John Adams refers to God as “Providence,” “Being who is supreme claimed on October 3 of that same ½rst over all,” “Patron of Order,” “Fountain of Jus- year as president that November 26 tice,” and “Protector in all ages of the world should be “a day of public thanksgiving of virtuous liberty.” Jefferson speaks of “that and prayer,” the ½rst Thanksgiving Day In½nite Power which rules the destinies of the under the Constitution. universe,” and “that Being in whose hands we are.” Madison speaks of “that Almighty Being The words and acts of the founding whose power regulates the destiny of nations,” fathers, especially the ½rst few presi- and “Heaven.” Monroe uses “Providence” and dents, shaped the form and tone of the “the Almighty” in his ½rst inaugural and ½nal- civil religion as it has been maintained ly “Almighty God” in his second. See Inaugu- ever since. Though much is selectively ral Addresses of the Presidents of the United States from George Washington 1789 to Harry S. Truman derived from Christianity, this religion 1949, 82d Congress, 2d Session, House Docu- is clearly not itself Christianity. For one ment No. 540, 1952. thing, neither Washington nor Adams nor Jefferson mentions Christ in his in- 4 For example, Abiel Abbot, pastor of the First augural address; nor do any of the sub- Church in Haverhill, Massachusetts, delivered sequent presidents, although not one of a Thanksgiving sermon in 1799, Traits of Resem- 3 blance in the People of the United States of America them fails to mention God. The God of to Ancient Israel, in which he said, “It has been often remarked that the people of the United 3 God is mentioned or referred to in all inaugu- States come nearer to a parallel with Ancient ral addresses but Washington’s second, which Israel, than any other nation upon the globe. is a very brief (two paragraphs) and perfuncto- Hence our american israel is a term fre- ry acknowledgment. It is not without interest quently used; and common consent allows it that the actual word God does not appear until apt and proper.” Cited in Hans Kohn, The Idea Monroe’s second inaugural, March 5, 1821. In of Nationalism (New York: Macmillian his ½rst inaugural, Washington refers to God as Publishing Co., 1961), 665.

Dædalus Fall 2005 45 Robert N. in whose hands we are, who led our fa- tarian nor in any speci½c sense Christ- Bellah thers, as Israel of old, from their native ian. At a time when the society was over- land and planted them in a country whelmingly Christian, it seems unlike- flowing with all the necessaries and ly that this lack of Christian reference comforts of life.” Europe is Egypt; was meant to spare the feelings of the America, the promised land. God has tiny non-Christian minority. Rather, led his people to establish a new sort of the civil religion expressed what those social order that shall be a light unto all who set the precedents felt was appro- the nations.5 priate under the circumstances. It re- This theme, too, has been a continu- flected their private as well as public ous one in the civil religion. We have al- views. Nor was the civil religion sim- ready alluded to it in the case of the Ken- ply “religion in general.” While gener- nedy inaugural. We ½nd it again in Presi- ality was undoubtedly seen as a virtue dent Johnson’s inaugural address: by some, as in the quotation from Frank- lin above, the civil religion was speci½c They came here–the exile and the strang- enough when it came to the topic of er, brave but frightened–to ½nd a place America. Precisely because of this spec- where a man could be his own man. They i½city, the civil religion was saved from made a covenant with this land. Con- empty formalism and served as a gen- ceived in justice, written in liberty, bound uine vehicle of national religious self- in union, it was meant one day to inspire understanding. the hopes of all mankind; and it binds us But the civil religion was not, in the still. If we keep its terms, we shall flourish. minds of Franklin, Washington, Jeffer- What we have, then, from the earliest son, or other leaders, with the exception years of the republic is a collection of be- of a few radicals like Tom Paine, ever felt liefs, symbols, and rituals with respect to to be a substitute for Christianity. There sacred things and institutionalized in a was an implicit but quite clear division collectivity. This religion–there seems of function between the civil religion no other word for it–while not antithet- and Christianity. Under the doctrine of ical to and indeed sharing much in com- religious liberty, an exceptionally wide mon with Christianity, was neither sec- sphere of personal piety and voluntary social action was left to the churches. But the churches were neither to control 5 That the Mosaic analogy was present in the the state nor to be controlled by it. The minds of leaders at the very moment of the birth of the republic is indicated in the designs national magistrate, whatever his private proposed by Franklin and Jefferson for a seal religious views, operates under the ru- of the United States of America. Together with brics of the civil religion as long as he Adams, they formed a committee of three dele- is in his of½cial capacity, as we have al- gated by the Continental Congress on July 4, ready seen in the case of Kennedy. This 1776, to draw up the new device. “Franklin proposed as the device Moses lifting up his wand accommodation was undoubtedly the and dividing the Red Sea while Pharaoh was product of a particular historical mo- overwhelmed by its waters, with the motto ‘Re- ment and of a cultural background dom- bellion to tyrants is obedience to God.’ Jeffer- inated by Protestantism of several vari- son proposed the children of Israel in the wil- eties and by the Enlightenment, but it derness ‘led by a cloud by day and a pillar of ½re at night.’” Anson Phelps Stokes, Church has survived despite subsequent changes and State in the United States, vol. 1 (New York: in the cultural and religious climate. Harper, 1950), 467–468.

46 Dædalus Fall 2005 ntil the Civil War, the American civil politically, that did not spring from the Civil U religion in religion focused above all on the event of sentiments embodied in the Declaration America the Revolution, which was seen as the ½- of Independence.7 nal act of the Exodus from the old lands The phrases of Jefferson constantly echo across the waters. The Declaration of in Lincoln’s speeches. His task was, ½rst Independence and the Constitution were of all, to save the Union–not for Amer- the sacred scriptures and Washington ica alone but for the meaning of Ameri- the divinely appointed Moses who led ca to the whole world so unforgettably his people out of the hands of tyranny. etched in the last phrase of the Gettys- The Civil War, which Sidney Mead calls burg Address. “the center of American history,”6 was But inevitably the issue of slavery as the second great event that involved the the deeper cause of the conflict had to be national self-understanding so deeply faced. In the second inaugural, Lincoln as to require expression in the civil reli- related slavery and the war in an ulti- gion. In 1835, Tocqueville wrote that the mate perspective: American republic had never really been tried, that victory in the Revolutionary If we shall suppose that American slav- War was more the result of British pre- ery is one of those offenses which, in the occupation elsewhere and the presence providence of God, must needs come, but of a powerful ally than of any great mil- which, having continued through His ap- itary success of the Americans. But in pointed time, He now wills to remove, and 1861 the time of testing had indeed that He gives both to the North and South come. Not only did the Civil War have this terrible war as the woe due to those by the tragic intensity of fratricidal strife, whom the offense came, shall we discern but it was one of the bloodiest wars of therein any departure from those divine the nineteenth century; the loss of life attributes which the believers in a living was far greater than any previously suf- God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do fered by Americans. we hope, fervently do we pray, that this The Civil War raised the deepest ques- mighty scourge of war may speedily pass tions of national meaning. The man who away. Yet, if God wills that it continue un- not only formulated but in his own per- til all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s son embodied its meaning for Ameri- two hundred and ½fty years of unrequited cans was Abraham Lincoln. For him the toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of issue was not in the ½rst instance slavery blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by but “whether that nation, or any nation another drawn with the sword, as was said so conceived, and so dedicated, can long three thousand years ago, so still it must endure.” He had said in Independence be said “the judgements of the Lord are Hall in Philadelphia on February 22, true and righteous altogether.” 1861: But he closes on a note if not of redemp- All the political sentiments I entertain tion then of reconciliation–“With mal- have been drawn, so far as I have been able ice toward none, with charity for all.” to draw them, from the sentiments which With the Civil War, a new theme of originated in and were given to the world death, sacri½ce, and rebirth enters the from this Hall. I have never had a feeling, 7 Quoted by Arthur Lehman Goodhart in Allan 6 Sidney Mead, The Lively Experiment (New Nevins, ed., Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address York: Harper & Row, 1963), 12. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1964), 39.

Dædalus Fall 2005 47 Robert N. civil religion. It is symbolized in the life to try Abraham and to purify him for his Bellah and death of Lincoln. Nowhere is it stat- purposes. This made Mr. Lincoln humble, ed more vividly than in the Gettysburg tender, forbearing, sympathetic to suffer- Address, itself part of the Lincolnian ing, kind, sensitive, tolerant; broadening, “New Testament” among the civil scrip- deepening and widening his whole na- tures. Robert Lowell has recently point- ture; making him the noblest and loveli- ed out the “insistent use of birth im- est character since Jesus Christ . . . . I be- ages” in this speech explicitly devoted to lieve that Lincoln was God’s chosen one.9 “these honored dead”: “brought forth,” With the Christian archetype in the “conceived,” “created,” “a new birth of background, Lincoln, “our martyred freedom.” He goes on to say: president,” was linked to the war dead, The Gettysburg Address is a symbolic and those who “gave the last full measure of sacramental act. Its verbal quality is reso- devotion.” The theme of sacri½ce was nance combined with a logical, matter of indelibly written into the civil religion. fact, prosaic brevity. . . . In his words, Lin- The new symbolism soon found both coln symbolically died, just as the Union physical and ritualistic expression. The soldiers really died–and as he himself was great number of the war dead required soon ready to die. By his words, he gave the establishment of a number of na- the ½eld of battle a symbolic signi½cance tional cemeteries. Of these, the Gettys- that it had lacked. For us and our country, burg National Cemetery, which Lin- he left Jefferson’s ideals of freedom and coln’s famous address served to dedi- equality joined to the Christian sacri½cial cate, has been overshadowed only by act of death and rebirth. I believe this is a the Arlington National Cemetery. Be- meaning that goes beyond sect or religion gun somewhat vindictively on the Lee and beyond peace and war, and is now estate across the river from Washing- part of our lives as a challenge, obstacle ton, partly with the end that the Lee and hope.8 family could never reclaim it,10 it has subsequently become the most hallowed Lowell is certainly right in pointing out monument of the civil religion. Not only the Christian quality of the symbolism was a section set aside for the Confeder- here, but he is also right in quickly dis- ate dead, but it has received the dead of avowing any sectarian implication. The each succeeding American war. It is the earlier symbolism of the civil religion site of the one important new symbol to had been Hebraic without being in any come out of World War I, the Tomb of speci½c sense Jewish. The Gettysburg the Unknown Soldier; more recently it symbolism (“ . . . those who here gave has become the site of the tomb of an- their lives, that that nation might live”) other martyred president and its sym- is Christian without having anything bolic eternal flame. to do with the Christian church. Memorial Day, which grew out of the The symbolic equation of Lincoln Civil War, gave ritual expression to the with Jesus was made relatively early. Herndon, who had been Lincoln’s law 9 Quoted in Sherwood Eddy, The Kingdom of partner, wrote: God and the American Dream (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1941), 162. For ½fty years God rolled Abraham Lin- coln through his ½ery furnace. He did it 10 Karl Decker and Angus McSween, Historic Arlington (Washington, D.C.: Decker and Mc- 8 Ibid., 88–89. Sween Publishing Co., 1892), 60–67.

48 Dædalus Fall 2005 themes we have been discussing. As calendar for the civil religion. The pub- Civil religion in Lloyd Warner has so brilliantly analyzed lic school system serves as a particularly America it, the Memorial Day observance, espe- important context for the cultic celebra- cially in the towns and smaller cities of tion of the civil rituals. America, is a major event for the whole community involving a rededication to In reifying and giving a name to some- the martyred dead, to the spirit of sacri- thing that, though pervasive enough ½ce, and to the American vision.11 Just when you look at it, has gone on only as Thanksgiving Day, which incidental- semiconsciously, there is risk of severely was securely institutionalized as an ly distorting the data. But the rei½cation annual national holiday only under the and the naming have already begun. The presidency of Lincoln, serves to inte- religious critics of “religion in general,” grate the family into the civil religion, so or of the “religion of the ‘American Way Memorial Day has acted to integrate the of Life,’” or of “American Shinto” have local community into the national cult. really been talking about the civil reli- Together with the less overtly religious gion. As usual in religious polemic, they Fourth of July and the more minor cele- take as criteria the best in their own re- brations of Veterans Day and the birth- ligious tradition and as typical the worst days of Washington and Lincoln, these in the tradition of the civil religion. two holidays provide an annual ritual Against these critics, I would argue that the civil religion at its best is a genuine 11 How extensive the activity associated with apprehension of universal and transcen- Memorial Day can be is indicated by Warner: dent religious reality as seen in or, one “The sacred symbolic behavior of Memorial Day, in which scores of the town’s organiza- could almost say, as revealed through tions are involved, is ordinarily divided into the experience of the American people. four periods. During the year separate rituals Like all religions, it has suffered various are held by many of the associations for their deformations and demonic distortions. dead, and many of these activities are connect- At its best, it has neither been so gener- ed with later Memorial Day events. In the second phase, preparations are made during the al that it has lacked incisive relevance last three or four weeks for the ceremony it- to the American scene nor so particu- self, and some of the associations perform pub- lar that it has placed American society lic rituals. The third phase consists of scores of above universal human values. I am not rituals held in all the cemeteries, churches, and at all convinced that the leaders of the halls of the associations. These rituals consist of speeches and highly ritualized behavior. churches have consistently represented a They last for two days and are climaxed by the higher level of religious insight than the fourth and last phase, in which all the separate spokesmen of the civil religion. Rein- celebrants gather in the center of the business hold Niebuhr has this to say of Lincoln, district on the afternoon of Memorial Day. The who never joined a church and who cer- separate organizations, with their members in tainly represents civil religion at its best: uniform or with ½tting insignia, march through the town, visit the shrines and monuments of An analysis of the religion of Abraham the hero dead, and, ½nally, enter the cemetery. Lincoln in the context of the traditional Here dozens of ceremonies are held, most of them highly symbolic and formalized.” During religion of his time and place and of its these various ceremonies Lincoln is continually polemical use on the slavery issue, which referred to and the Gettysburg Address recited corrupted religious life in the days before many times. W. Lloyd Warner, American Life and during the Civil War, must lead to the (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), conclusion that Lincoln’s religious convic- 8–9.

Dædalus Fall 2005 49 Robert N. tions were superior in depth and purity to It is certainly true that the relation be- Bellah those, not only of the political leaders of tween religion and politics in America his day, but of the religious leaders of the has been singularly smooth. This is in era.12 large part due to the dominant tradition. As Tocqueville wrote: Perhaps the real animus of the religious critics has been not so much The greatest part of British America was against the civil religion in itself but peopled by men who, after having shaken against its pervasive and dominating off the authority of the Pope, acknowl- influence within the sphere of church edged no other religious supremacy: they religion. As S. M. Lipset has recently brought with them into the New World a shown, American religion at least since form of Christianity which I cannot bet- the early nineteenth century has been ter describe than by styling it a democrat- predominantly activist, moralistic, and ic and republican religion.16 social rather than contemplative, theo- The churches opposed neither the Rev- logical, or innerly spiritual.13 Tocque- olution nor the establishment of demo- ville spoke of American church religion cratic institutions. Even when some of as “a political institution which power- them opposed the full institutionaliza- fully contributes to the maintenance of tion of religious liberty, they accepted a democratic republic among the Amer- the ½nal outcome with good grace and icans”14 by supplying a strong moral without nostalgia for an ancien régime. consensus amidst continuous political The American civil religion was never change. Henry Bargy in 1902 spoke of anticlerical or militantly secular. On American church religion as “la poésie the contrary, it borrowed selectively du civisme.”15 from the religious tradition in such a 12 Reinhold Niebuhr, “The Religion of Abra- way that the average American saw no ham Lincoln,” in Nevins, Lincoln and the Gettys- conflict between the two. In this way, burg Address, 72. William J. Wolfe of the Epis- the civil religion was able to build up copal Theological School in Cambridge, Mas- without any bitter struggle with the sachusetts, has written: “Lincoln is one of the greatest theologians of America–not in the church powerful symbols of national technical meaning of producing a system of solidarity and to mobilize deep levels of doctrine, certainly not as the defender of some personal motivation for the attainment one denomination, but in the sense of seeing of national goals. the hand of God intimately in the affairs of na- Such an achievement is by no means tions. Just so the prophets of Israel criticized the events of their day from the perspective of to be taken for granted. It would seem the God who is concerned for history and who that the problem of a civil religion is reveals His will within it. Lincoln now stands quite general in modern societies and among God’s latter-day prophets.” The Religion of Abraham Lincoln (New York: n.p., 1963), 24. 16 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 311. Later he says, “In the United States even the religion 13 Seymour Martin Lipset, “Religion and of most of the citizens is republican, since it American Values,” in The First New Nation submits the truths of the other world to private (New York: Basic Books, 1963). judgment, as in politics the care of their temporal interests is abandoned to the good sense of 14 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, the people. Thus every man is allowed freely to vol. I (New York: Vintage Books, 1954), 310. take that road which he thinks will lead him to heaven, just as the law permits every citizen to 15 Henry Bargy, La Religion dans la société aux have the right of choosing his own govern- Etats-Unis (Paris: A. Colin, 1902), 31. ment” (436).

50 Dædalus Fall 2005 that the way it is solved or not solved God will not favor everything that we Civil religion in will have repercussions in many spheres. do. It is rather our duty to divine his will. America One needs only to think of France to I cannot help but believe that He truly un- see how differently things can go. The derstands and that He really favors the French Revolution was anticlerical to undertaking that we begin here tonight.17 the core and attempted to set up an anti- The civil religion has not always been Christian civil religion. Throughout invoked in favor of worthy causes. On modern French history, the chasm be- the domestic scene, an American Legion tween traditional Catholic symbols type of ideology that fuses God, country, and the symbolism of 1789 has been and flag has been used to attack noncon- immense. formist and liberal ideas and groups of American civil religion is still very all kinds. Still, it has been dif½cult to use much alive. Just three years ago we par- the words of Jefferson and Lincoln to ticipated in a vivid reenactment of the support special interests and undermine sacri½ce theme in connection with the personal freedom. The defenders of slav- funeral of our assassinated president. ery before the Civil War came to reject The American Israel theme is clearly be- the thinking of the Declaration of Inde- hind both Kennedy’s New Frontier and pendence. Some of the most consistent Johnson’s Great Society. Let me give just of them turned against not only Jeffer- one recent illustration of how the civil sonian democracy but Reformation reli- religion serves to mobilize support for gion; they dreamed of a South dominat- the attainment of national goals. On ed by medieval chivalry and divine-right March 15, 1965 President Johnson went monarchy.18 For all the overt religiosity before Congress to ask for a strong vot- of the radical right today, their relation ing-rights bill. Early in the speech he to the civil religious consensus is tenu- said: ous, as when the John Birch Society at- Rarely are we met with the challenge, not tacks the central American symbol of to our growth or abundance, or our wel- democracy itself. fare or our security–but rather to the val- With respect to America’s role in ues and the purposes and the meaning of the world, the dangers of distortion are our beloved nation. greater and the built-in safeguards of The issue of equal rights for American the tradition weaker. The theme of the Negroes is such an issue. And should we American Israel was used, almost from defeat every enemy, and should we double the beginning, as a justi½cation for the our wealth and conquer the stars and still shameful treatment of the Indians so be unequal to this issue, then we will have characteristic of our history. It can be failed as a people and as a nation. overtly or implicitly linked to the idea of For with a country as with a person, manifest destiny which has been used to “What is a man pro½ted, if he shall legitimate several adventures in imperi- gain the whole world, and lose his own alism since the early nineteenth century. soul?” And in conclusion he said: 17 House, U.S. Congressional Record, March 15, 1965, 4924, 4926. Above the pyramid on the great seal of the United States it says in Latin, “God has 18 See Louis Hartz, “The Feudal Dream of the favored our undertaking.” South,” in The Liberal Tradition in America (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1955).

Dædalus Fall 2005 51 Robert N. Never has the danger been greater than a central symbol in the civil religion Bellah today. The issue is not so much one of from the beginning and remains so to- imperial expansion, of which we are day. This symbol is just as central to the accused, as of the tendency to assimilate civil religion as it is to Judaism or Chris- all governments or parties in the world tianity. In the late eighteenth century which support our immediate policies this posed no problem; even Tom Paine, or call upon our help by invoking the no- contrary to his detractors, was not an tion of free institutions and democratic atheist. From left to right and regardless values. Those nations that are for the of church or sect, all could accept the moment “on our side” become “the free idea of God. But today, as even Time has world.” A repressive and unstable mili- recognized, the meaning of the word tary dictatorship in South Vietnam be- God is by no means so clear or so obvi- comes “the free people of South Viet- ous. There is no formal creed in the civ- nam and their government.” It is then il religion. We have had a Catholic pres- part of the role of America as the New ident; it is conceivable that we could Jerusalem and “the last hope of earth” have a Jewish one. But could we have an to defend such governments with treas- agnostic president? Could a man with ure and eventually with blood. When conscientious scruples about using the our soldiers are actually dying, it be- word God the way Kennedy and Johnson comes possible to consecrate the strug- have used it be elected chief magistrate gle further by invoking the great theme of our country? If the whole God sym- of sacri½ce. For the majority of the bolism requires reformulation, there American people who are unable to will be obvious consequences for the judge whether the people in South Viet- civil religion, consequences perhaps of nam (or wherever) are “free like us,” liberal alienation and of fundamentalist such arguments are convincing. Fortu- ossi½cation that have not so far been nately, President Johnson has been less prominent in this realm. The civil reli- ready to assert that “God has favored gion has been a point of articulation be- our undertakings” in the case of Viet- tween the profoundest commitments of nam than with respect to civil rights. the Western religious and philosophical But others are not so hesitant. The civ- tradition and the common beliefs of or- il religion has exercised long-term pres- dinary Americans. It is not too soon to sure for the humane solution of our consider how the deepening theological greatest domestic problem, the treat- crisis may affect the future of this articu- ment of the Negro American. It remains lation. to be seen how relevant it can become for our role in the world at large, and In conclusion it may be worthwhile to whether we can effectually stand for relate the civil religion to the most seri- “the revolutionary beliefs for which our ous situation that we as Americans now forebears fought,” in John F. Kennedy’s face, what I call the third time of trial. words. The ½rst time of trial had to do with the The civil religion is obviously involved question of independence, whether we in the most pressing moral and political should or could run our own affairs in issues of the day. But it is also caught in our own way. The second time of trial another kind of crisis, theoretical and was over the issue of slavery, which in theological, of which it is at the moment turn was only the most salient aspect of largely unaware. “God” has clearly been the more general problem of the full in-

52 Dædalus Fall 2005 stitutionalization of democracy within complex and multiple sources. For Ken- Civil religion in our country. This second problem we nedy, it was not so much a struggle America are still far from solving though we have against particular men as against “the some notable successes to our credit. But common enemies of man: tyranny, pov- we have been overtaken by a third great erty, disease and war itself.” problem which has led to a third great But in the midst of this trend toward crisis, in the midst of which we stand. a less primitive conception of ourselves This is the problem of responsible action and our world, we have somehow, within a revolutionary world, a world seeking out anyone really intending it, stumbled to attain many of the things, material into a military confrontation where we and spiritual, that we have already at- have come to feel that our honor is at tained. Americans have, from the begin- stake. We have in a moment of uncer- ning, been aware of the responsibility tainty been tempted to rely on our over- and the signi½cance our republican ex- whelming physical power rather than periment has for the whole world. The on our intelligence, and we have, in part, ½rst internal political polarization in the succumbed to this temptation. Bewil- new nation had to do with our attitude dered and unnerved when our terrible toward the French Revolution. But we power fails to bring immediate success, were small and weak then, and “foreign we are at the edge of a chasm the depth entanglements” seemed to threaten our of which no man knows. very survival. During the last century, I cannot help but think of Robinson our relevance for the world was not for- Jeffers, whose poetry seems more apt gotten, but our role was seen as purely now than when it was written, when exemplary. Our democratic republic re- he said: buked tyranny by merely existing. Just Unhappy country, what wings you after World War I we were on the brink have! . . . of taking a different role in the world, Weep (it is frequent in human affairs), but once again we turned our back. weep for the terrible magni½cence of Since World War II the old pattern the means, has become impossible. Every president The ridiculous incompetence of the since Roosevelt has been groping toward reasons, the bloody and shabby a new pattern of action in the world, one Pathos of the result. that would be consonant with our power and our responsibilities. For Truman But as so often before in similar times, and for the period dominated by John we have a man of prophetic stature, Foster Dulles that pattern was seen to be without the bitterness or misanthropy the great Manichaean confrontation of of Jeffers, who, as Lincoln before him, East and West, the confrontation of de- calls this nation to its judgment: mocracy and “the false philosophy of When a nation is very powerful but lack- communism” that provided the struc- ing in self-con½dence, it is likely to behave ture of Truman’s inaugural address. But in a manner that is dangerous both to it- with the last years of Eisenhower and self and to others. with the successive two presidents, the Gradually but unmistakably, America pattern began to shift. The great prob- is succumbing to that arrogance of power lems came to be seen as caused not sole- which has afflicted weakened and in some ly by the evil intent of any one group of cases destroyed great nations in the past. men, but as stemming from much more

Dædalus Fall 2005 53 Robert N. If the war goes on and expands, if that jor symbols of the American civil reli- Bellah fatal process continues to accelerate until gion. There seems little doubt that a suc- America becomes what it is not now and cessful negotiation of this third time of never has been, a seeker after unlimited trial–the attainment of some kind of power and empire, then Vietnam will viable and coherent world order–would have had a mighty and tragic fallout precipitate a major new set of symbolic indeed. forms. So far the flickering flame of the I do not believe that will happen. I am United Nations burns too low to be the very apprehensive but I still remain hope- focus of a cult, but the emergence of a ful, and even con½dent, that America, genuine transnational sovereignty with its humane and democratic tradi- would certainly change this. It would tions, will ½nd the wisdom to match its necessitate the incorporation of vital power.19 international symbolism into our civil religion, or, perhaps a better way of put- Without an awareness that our nation ting it, it would result in American civil stands under higher judgment, the tradi- religion becoming simply one part of a tion of the civil religion would be dan- new civil religion of the world. It is use- gerous indeed. Fortunately, the prophet- less to speculate on the form such a civic voices have never been lacking. Our il religion might take, though it obvious- present situation brings to mind the ly would draw on religious traditions Mexican-American war that Lincoln, beyond the sphere of biblical religion among so many others, opposed. The alone. Fortunately, since the American spirit of civil disobedience that is alive civil religion is not the worship of the today in the civil rights movement and American nation but an understanding the opposition to the Vietnam war was of the American experience in the light already clearly outlined by Henry David of ultimate and universal reality, the re- Thoreau when he wrote, “If the law is organization entailed by such a new situ- of such a nature that it requires you to ation need not disrupt the American civ- be an agent of injustice to another, then il religion’s continuity. A world civil reli- I say, break the law.” Thoreau’s words gion could be accepted as a ful½llment “I would remind my countrymen that and not a denial of American civil reli- they are men ½rst, and Americans at a gion. Indeed, such an outcome has been late and convenient hour”20 provide the eschatological hope of American civ- an essential standard for any adequate il religion from the beginning. To deny thought and action in our third time of such an outcome would be to deny the trial. As Americans, we have been well meaning of America itself. favored in the world, but it is as men that we will be judged. Out of the ½rst and second times of Behind the civil religion at every point trial have come, as we have seen, the ma- lie biblical archetypes: Exodus, Chosen People, Promised Land, New Jerusalem, 19 Speech of Senator J. William Fulbright of Sacri½cial Death and Rebirth. But it is April 28, 1966, as reported in The New York also genuinely American and genuinely Times, April 29, 1966. new. It has its own prophets and its own martyrs, its own sacred events and sa- 20 Quoted in Yehoshua Arieli, Individualism and Nationalism in American Ideology (Cam- cred places, its own solemn rituals and bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, symbols. It is concerned that America 1964), 274. be a society as perfectly in accord with

54 Dædalus Fall 2005 the will of God as men can make it, and a Civil religion in light to all the nations. America It has often been used and is being used today as a cloak for petty interests and ugly passions. It is in need–as is any living faith–of continual reformation, of being measured by universal standards. But it is not evident that it is incapable of growth and new insight. It does not make any decision for us. It does not remove us from moral ambigui- ty, from being, in Lincoln’s ½ne phrase, an “almost chosen people.” But it is a heritage of moral and religious experience from which we still have much to learn as we formulate the decisions that lie ahead.

Dædalus Fall 2005 55 Clifford Geertz

Deep play: notes on the Balinese cock½ght

Early in April of 1958, my wife and I certain, wistful, eager to please, people arrived, malarial and dif½dent, in a Bali- seemed to look right through us with a nese village we intended, as anthropolo- gaze focused several yards behind us on gists, to study. A small place, about ½ve some more actual stone or tree. Almost hundred people, and relatively remote, nobody greeted us; but nobody scowled it was its own world. We were intruders, or said anything unpleasant to us either, professional ones, and the villagers dealt which would have been almost as satis- with us as Balinese seem always to deal factory. If we ventured to approach with people not part of their life who yet someone (something one is powerfully press themselves upon them: as though inhibited from doing in such an atmos- we were not there. For them, and to a phere), he moved, negligently but de½n- degree for ourselves, we were nonper- itively, away. If, seated or leaning against sons, specters, invisible men. a wall, we had him trapped, he said We moved into an extended family nothing at all, or mumbled what for compound (that had been arranged the Balinese is the ultimate nonword– before through the provincial govern- “yes.” The indifference, of course, was ment) belonging to one of the four ma- studied; the villagers were watching ev- jor factions in village life. But except for ery move we made and they had an enor- our landlord and the village chief, whose mous amount of quite accurate informa- cousin and brother-in-law he was, every- tion about who we were and what we one ignored us in a way only a Balinese were going to be doing. But they acted as can do. As we wandered around, un- if we simply did not exist, which, in fact, as this behavior was designed to inform Clifford Geertz, a Fellow of the American Acade- us, we did not, or anyway not yet. my since 1966, is professor emeritus at the Insti- This is, as I say, general in Bali. Every- tute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. where else I have been in Indonesia, and At the time of this essay’s publication in the Win- more latterly in Morocco, when I have ter 1972 issue of “Dædalus,” Geertz was professor gone into a new village people have of social sciences at the Institute for Advanced poured out from all sides to take a very Study. close look at me, and, often, an all-too- probing feel as well. In Balinese villages, © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts at least those away from the tourist cir- & Sciences cuit, nothing happens at all. People go

56 Dædalus Fall 2005 on pounding, chatting, making offer- itself so very puritan, worries about the Deep play: notes on ings, staring into space, carrying bas- poor, ignorant peasant gambling all his the Balinese kets about while one drifts around feel- money away, about what foreigners will cock½ght ing vaguely disembodied. And the same think, about the waste of time better thing is true on the individual level. devoted to building up the country. It When you ½rst meet a Balinese, he seems sees cock½ghting as “primitive,” “back- virtually not to relate to you at all: he is, ward,” “unprogressive,” and generally in the term Gregory Bateson and Mar- unbecoming an ambitious nation. And, garet Mead made famous, “away.”1 as with those other embarrassments– Then–in a day, a week, a month (with opium smoking, begging, or uncovered some people the magic moment never breasts–it seeks, rather unsystematical- comes)–he decides, for reasons I have ly, to put a stop to it. never been quite able to fathom, that Of course, like drinking during Pro- you are real, and then he becomes a hibition or, today, smoking marihuana, warm, gay, sensitive, sympathetic, cock½ghts, being a part of “The Balinese though, being Balinese, always precise- Way of Life,” nonetheless go on happen- ly controlled person. You have crossed, ing, and with extraordinary frequency. somehow, some moral or metaphysical And, like Prohibition or marihuana, shadow line. Though you are not exact- from time to time the police (who, in ly taken as a Balinese (one has to be born 1958 at least, were almost all not Bali- to that), you are at least regarded as a nese but Javanese) feel called upon to human being rather than a cloud or a make a raid, con½scate the cocks and gust of wind. The whole complexion of spurs, ½ne a few people, and even now your relationship dramatically changes and then expose some of them in the to, in the majority of cases, a gentle, al- tropical sun for a day as object lessons most affectionate one–a low-keyed, which never, somehow, get learned, rather playful, rather mannered, rather even though occasionally, quite occa- bemused geniality. sionally, the object dies. My wife and I were still very much As a result, the ½ghts are usually held in the gust of wind stage, a most frus- in a secluded corner of a village in semi- trating, and even, as you soon begin to secrecy, a fact which tends to slow the doubt whether you are really real after action a little–not very much, but the all, unnerving one, when, ten days or so Balinese do not care to have it slowed after our arrival, a large cock½ght was at all. In this case, however, perhaps be- held in the public square to raise money cause they were raising money for a for a new school. school that the government was unable Now, a few special occasions aside, to give them, perhaps because raids had cock½ghts are illegal in Bali under the been few recently, perhaps, as I gathered Republic (as, for not altogether unrelat- from subsequent discussion, there was ed reasons, they were under the Dutch), a notion that the necessary bribes had largely as a result of the pretensions to been paid, they thought they could take puritanism radical nationalism tends a chance on the central square and draw to bring with it. The elite, which is not a larger and more enthusiastic crowd without attracting the attention of the 1 Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, Balinese law. Character: A Photographic Analysis (New York: They were wrong. In the midst of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1942), 68. third match, with hundreds of people,

Dædalus Fall 2005 57 Clifford including, still transparent, myself and had arranged it. When the truck drove Geertz my wife, fused into a single body around up he ran to the river, stripped off his the ring, a superorganism in the literal sarong, and plunged in so he could say, sense, a truck full of policemen armed when at length they found him sitting with machine guns roared up. Amid there pouring water over his head, that great screeching cries of “pulisi! pulisi!” he had been away bathing when the from the crowd, the policemen jumped whole affair had occurred and was igno- out, and, springing into the center of rant of it. They did not believe him and the ring, began to swing their guns ½ned him three hundred rupiah, which around like gangsters in a motion pic- the village raised collectively.) Seeing ture, though not going so far as actual- my wife and I, “White Men,” there in ly to ½re them. The superorganism the yard, the policeman performed a came instantly apart as its compo- classic double take. When he found his nents scattered in all directions. People voice again he asked, approximately, raced down the road, disappeared head- what in the devil did we think we were ½rst over walls, scrambled under plat- doing there. Our host of ½ve minutes forms, folded themselves behind wicker leaped instantly to our defense, pro- screens, scuttled up coconut trees. Cocks ducing an impassioned description of armed with steel spurs sharp enough to who and what we were, so detailed and cut off a ½nger or run a hole through a so accurate that it was my turn, having foot were running wildly around. Every- barely communicated with a living hu- thing was dust and panic. man being save my landlord and the vil- On the established anthropological lage chief for more than a week, to be principle, When in Rome, my wife and I astonished. We had a perfect right to be decided, only slightly less instantaneous- there, he said, looking the Javanese up- ly than everyone else, that the thing to start in the eye. We were American pro- do was run too. We ran down the main fessors; the government had cleared us; village street, northward, away from we were there to study culture; we were where we were living, for we were on going to write a book to tell Americans that side of the ring. About halfway about Bali. And we had all been there down another fugitive ducked sudden- drinking tea and talking about cultural ly into a compound–his own, it turned matters all afternoon and did not know out–and we, seeing nothing ahead of anything about any cock½ght. Moreover, us but rice ½elds, open country, and a we had not seen the village chief all day, very high volcano, followed him. As he must have gone to town. The police- the three of us came tumbling into the man retreated in rather total disarray. courtyard, his wife, who had apparently And, after a decent interval, bewildered been through this sort of thing before, but relieved to have survived and stayed whipped out a table, a tablecloth, three out of jail, so did we. chairs, and three cups of tea, and we all, The next morning the village was a without any explicit communication completely different world for us. Not whatsoever, sat down, commenced to sip only were we no longer invisible, we tea, and sought to compose ourselves. were suddenly the center of all atten- A few moments later, one of the potion, the object of a great outpouring licemen marched importantly into the of warmth, interest, and, most especial- yard, looking for the village chief. (The ly, amusement. Everyone in the village chief had not only been at the ½ght, he knew we had fled like everyone else.

58 Dædalus Fall 2005 They asked us about it again and again is perhaps not a very generalizable reci- Deep play: notes on (I must have told the story, small detail pe for achieving that mysterious necessi- the Balinese by small detail, ½fty times by the end of ty of anthropological ½eld work, rapport, cock½ght the day), gently, affectionately, but quite but for me it worked very well. It led to insistently teasing us: “Why didn’t you a sudden and unusually complete accept- just stand there and tell the police who ance into a society extremely dif½cult you were?” “Why didn’t you just say for outsiders to penetrate. It gave me you were only watching and not bet- the kind of immediate, inside-view ting?” “Were you really afraid of those grasp of an aspect of “peasant mentali- little guns?” As always, kinesthetically ty” that anthropologists not fortunate minded and, even when fleeing for their enough to flee headlong with their sub- lives (or, as happened eight years later, jects from armed authorities normally surrendering them), the world’s most do not get. And, perhaps most impor- poised people, they gleefully mimicked, tant of all, for the other things might also over and over again, our graceless have come in other ways, it put me very style of running and what they claimed quickly onto a combination emotional were our panic-stricken facial expres- explosion, status war, and philosophical sions. But above all, everyone was ex- drama of central signi½cance to the soci- tremely pleased and even more sur- ety whose inner nature I desired to un- prised that we had not simply “pulled derstand. By the time I left I had spent out our papers” (they knew about those about as much time looking into cock- too) and asserted our Distinguished Vis- ½ghts as into witchcraft, irrigation, itor status, but had instead demonstrat- caste, or marriage. ed our solidarity with what were now our covillagers. (What we had actually Bali, mainly because it is Bali, is a demonstrated was our cowardice, but well-studied place. Its mythology, art, there is fellowship in that too.) Even the ritual, social organization, patterns of Brahmana priest, an old, grave, halfway- child rearing, forms of law, even styles to-Heaven type who because of its asso- of trance, have all been microscopical- ciations with the underworld would nev- ly examined for traces of that elusive er be involved, even distantly, in a cock- substance Jane Belo called “The Bali- ½ght, and was dif½cult to approach even nese Temper.”2 But, aside from a few to other Balinese, had us called into his passing remarks, the cock½ght has bare- courtyard to ask us about what had hap- ly been noticed, although as a popular pened, chuckling happily at the sheer obsession of consuming power it is at extraordinariness of it all. least as important a revelation of what In Bali, to be teased is to be accepted. being a Balinese “is really like” as these It was the turning point so far as our re- more celebrated phenomena.3 As much lationship to the community was con- of America surfaces in a ballpark, on a cerned, and we were quite literally “in.” The whole village opened up to us, prob- 2 Jane Belo, “The Balinese Temper,” in Jane ably more than it ever would have other- Belo, ed., Traditional Balinese Culture (New wise (I might actually never have gotten York: Columbia University Press, 1970; origi- to that priest, and our accidental host nally published in 1935), 85–110. became one of my best informants), 3 The best discussion of cock½ghting is again and certainly very much faster. Getting Bateson and Mead’s (Balinese Character, 24–25, caught, or almost caught, in a vice raid 140), but it, too, is general and abbreviated.

Dædalus Fall 2005 59 Clifford golf links, at a race track, or around a cock (and one which appears in inscrip- Geertz poker table, much of Bali surfaces in a tions as early as a.d. 922), is used meta- cock ring. For it is only apparently cocks phorically to mean “hero,” “warrior,” that are ½ghting there. Actually, it is “champion,” “man of parts,” “political men. candidate,” “bachelor,” “dandy,” “lady- To anyone who has been in Bali any killer,” or “tough guy.” A pompous man length of time, the deep psychological whose behavior presumes above his sta- identi½cation of Balinese men with their tion is compared to a tailless cock who cocks is unmistakable. The double en- struts about as though he had a large, tendre here is deliberate. It works in ex- spectacular one. A desperate man who actly the same way in Balinese as it does makes a last, irrational effort to extricate in English, even to producing the same himself from an impossible situation is tired jokes, strained puns, and uninven- likened to a dying cock who makes one tive obscenities. Bateson and Mead have ½nal lunge at his tormentor to drag him even suggested that, in line with the Ba- along to a common destruction. A stin- linese conception of the body as a set of gy man, who promises much, gives little, separately animated parts, cocks are and begrudges that is compared to a viewed as detachable, self-operating pe- cock which, held by the tail, leaps at an- nises, ambulant genitals with a life of other without in fact engaging him. A their own.4 And while I do not have the marriageable young man still shy with kind of unconscious material either to the opposite sex or someone in a new job con½rm or discon½rm this intriguing anxious to make a good impression is notion, the fact that they are masculine called “a ½ghting cock caged for the ½rst symbols par excellence is about as indubi- time.”5 Court trials, wars, political con- table, and to the Balinese about as evi- tests, inheritance disputes, and street dent, as the fact that water runs down- arguments are all compared to cock- hill. ½ghts.6 Even the very island itself is per- The language of everyday moralism is ceived from its shape as a small, proud shot through, on the male side of it, with cock, poised, neck extended, back taut, roosterish imagery. Sabung, the word for tail raised, in eternal challenge to large, feckless, shapeless Java.7 4 Ibid., 25–26. The cock½ght is unusual within Balinese culture in being a single sex public ac- 5 Christiaan Hooykaas, The Lay of the Jaya Prana tivity from which the other sex is totally and (London: Luzac, 1958), 39. The lay has a stanza expressly excluded. Sexual differentiation is cul- (no. 17) with the reluctant bridegroom use. Ja- turally extremely played down in Bali and most ya Prana, the subject of a Balinese Uriah myth, activities, formal and informal, involve the par- responds to the lord who has offered him the ticipation of men and women on equal ground, loveliest of six hundred servant girls: “Godly commonly as linked couples. From religion, to King, my Lord and Master / I beg you, give politics, to economics, to kinship, to dress, Bali me leave to go / such things are not yet in my is a rather “unisex” society, a fact both its cus- mind; / like a ½ghting cock encaged / indeed I toms and its symbolism clearly express. Even am on my mettle / I am alone / as yet the flame in contexts where women do not in fact play has not been fanned.” much of a role–music, painting, certain agri- cultural activities–their absence, which is only 6 For these, see V. E. Korn, Het Adatrecht van relative in any case, is more a mere matter of Bali, 2d ed. (s’Gravenhage: G. Naeff, 1932), in- fact than socially enforced. To this general pat- dex under toh. tern, the cock½ght, entirely of, by, and for men (women–at least Balinese women–do not even 7 There is indeed a legend to the effect that the watch), is the most striking exception. separation of Java and Bali is due to the action

60 Dædalus Fall 2005 But the intimacy of men with their spirit. They are bathed in the same cere- Deep play: notes on cocks is more than metaphorical. Bali- monial preparation of tepid water, me- the Balinese nese men, or anyway a large majority dicinal herbs, flowers, and onions in cock½ght of Balinese men, spend an enormous which infants are bathed, and for a prize amount of time with their favorites, cock just about as often. Their combs are grooming them, feeding them, discuss- cropped, their plumage dressed, their ing them, trying them out against one spurs trimmed, their legs massaged, another, or just gazing at them with a and they are inspected for flaws with mixture of rapt admiration and dreamy the squinted concentration of a dia- self-absorption. Whenever you see a mond merchant. A man who has a pas- group of Balinese men squatting idly in sion for cocks, an enthusiast in the liter- the council shed or along the road in al sense of the term, can spend most of their hips down, shoulders forward, his life with them, and even those, the knees up fashion, half or more of them overwhelming majority, whose passion will have a rooster in his hands, holding though intense has not entirely run away it between his thighs, bouncing it gently with them, can and do spend what seems up and down to strengthen its legs, ruf- not only to an outsider, but also to them- fling its feathers with abstract sensuality, selves, an inordinate amount of time pushing it out against a neighbor’s roost- with them. “I am cock crazy,” my land- er to rouse its spirit, withdrawing it to- lord, a quite ordinary af½cianado by Bali- ward his loins to calm it again. Now and nese standards, used to moan as he went then, to get a feel for another bird, a man to move another cage, give another bath, will ½ddle this way with someone else’s or conduct another feeding. “We’re all cock for a while, but usually by moving cock crazy.” around to squat in place behind it, rather The madness has some less visible di- than just having it passed across to him mensions, however, because although as though it were merely an animal. it is true that cocks are symbolic expres- In the houseyard, the high-walled en- sions or magni½cations of their owner’s closures where the people live, ½ghting self, the narcissistic male ego writ out cocks are kept in wicker cages, moved in Aesopian terms, they are also expres- frequently about so as to maintain the sions–and rather more immediate optimum balance of sun and shade. ones–of what the Balinese regard as They are fed a special diet, which varies the direct inversion, aesthetically, mor- somewhat according to individual theo- ally, and metaphysically, of human sta- ries but which is mostly maize, sifted for tus: animality. impurities with far more care than it is The Balinese revulsion against any when mere humans are going to eat it behavior regarded as animal-like can and offered to the animal kernel by ker- hardly be overstressed. Babies are not nel. Red pepper is stuffed down their allowed to crawl for that reason. Incest, beaks and up their anuses to give them though hardly approved, is a much less horrifying crime than bestiality. (The of a powerful Javanese religious ½gure who appropriate punishment for the second wished to protect himself against a Balinese is death by drowning, for the ½rst being culture hero (the ancestor of two Ksatria forced to live like an animal.8) Most de- castes) who was a passionate cock½ghting gambler. See Christiaan Hooykaas, Agama 8 An incestuous couple is forced to wear pig Tirtha (Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche, yokes over their necks and crawl to a pig trough 1964), 184. and eat with their mouths there. On this, see

Dædalus Fall 2005 61 Clifford mons are represented–in sculpture, failure, volcanic eruptions–almost al- Geertz dance, ritual, myth–in some real or fan- ways involve them. And that famous tastic animal form. The main puberty holiday in Bali, The Day of Silence rite consists in ½ling the child’s teeth so (Njepi), when everyone sits silent and they will not look like animal fangs. Not immobile all day long in order to avoid only defecation but eating is regarded as contact with a sudden influx of demons a disgusting, almost obscene activity, to chased momentarily out of hell, is pre- be conducted hurriedly and privately, ceded the previous day by large-scale because of its association with animali- cock½ghts (in this case legal) in almost ty. Even falling down or any form of every village on the island. clumsiness is considered to be bad for In the cock½ght, man and beast, good these reasons. Aside from cocks and a and evil, ego and id, the creative power few domestic animals–oxen, ducks– of aroused masculinity and the destruc- of no emotional signi½cance, the Bali- tive power of loosened animality fuse in nese are aversive to animals and treat a bloody drama of hatred, cruelty, vio- their large number of dogs not merely lence, and death. It is little wonder that callously but with a phobic cruelty. In when, as is the invariable rule, the own- identifying with his cock, the Balinese er of the winning cock takes the carcass man is identifying not just with his ideal of the loser–often torn limb from limb self, or even his penis, but also, and at by its enraged owner–home to eat, he the same time, with what he most fears, does so with a mixture of social embar- hates, and ambivalence being what it is, rassment, moral satisfaction, aesthetic is fascinated by–The Powers of Dark- disgust, and cannibal joy. Or that a man ness. who has lost an important ½ght is some- The connection of cocks and cock- times driven to wreck his family shrines ½ghting with such Powers, with the ani- and curse the gods, an act of metaphysi- malistic demons that threaten constant- cal (and social) suicide. Or that in seek- ly to invade the small, cleared-off space ing earthly analogues for heaven and hell in which the Balinese have so carefully the Balinese compare the former to the built their lives and devour its inhabi- mood of a man whose cock has just won, tants is quite explicit. A cock½ght, any the latter to that of a man whose cock cock½ght, is in the ½rst instance a blood has just lost. sacri½ce offered, with the appropriate chants and oblations, to the demons in Cock½ghts (tetadjen; sabungan) are held order to pacify their ravenous, cannibal in a ring about ½fty feet square. Usually hunger. No temple festival should be they begin toward late afternoon and conducted until one is made. (If it is run three or four hours until sunset. omitted someone will inevitably fall in- About nine or ten separate matches to a trance and command with the voice (sehet) comprise a program. Each match of an angered spirit that the oversight is precisely like the others in general pat- be immediately corrected.) Collective tern: there is no main match, no con- responses to natural evils–illness, crop nection between individual matches, no variation in their format, and each is arranged on a completely ad hoc basis. Af- Jane Belo, “Customs Pertaining to Twins in Bali,” in Belo, ed., Traditional Balinese Culture, ter a ½ght has ended and the emotional 49; on the abhorrence of animality generally, debris is cleaned away–the bets paid, Bateson and Mead, Balinese Character, 22. the curses cursed, the carcasses pos-

62 Dædalus Fall 2005 sessed–seven, eight, perhaps even a coconut pierced with a small hole is Deep play: notes on dozen men slip negligently into the ring placed in a pail of water, in which it the Balinese with a cock and seek to ½nd there a logi- takes about twenty-one seconds to sink, cock½ght cal opponent for it. This process, which a period known as a tjeng and marked at rarely takes less than ten minutes, and beginning and end by the beating of a often a good deal longer, is conducted slit gong. During these twenty-one sec- in a very subdued, oblique, even dissem- onds the handlers (pengangkeb) are not bling manner. Those not immediately permitted to touch their roosters. If, as involved give it at best but disguised, sometimes happens, the animals have sidelong attention; those who, embar- not fought during this time, they are rassedly, are, attempt to pretend some- picked up, fluffed, pulled, prodded, and how that the whole thing is not really otherwise insulted, and put back in the happening. center of the ring and the process begins A match made, the other hopefuls again. Sometimes they refuse to ½ght at retire with the same deliberate indiffer- all, or one keeps running away, in which ence, and the selected cocks have their case they are imprisoned together under spurs (tadji) af½xed–razor sharp, point- a wicker cage, which usually gets them ed steel swords, four or ½ve inches long. engaged. This is a delicate job which only a small Most of the time, in any case, the proportion of men, a half-dozen or so cocks fly almost immediately at one in most villages, know how to do prop- another in a wing-beating, head-thrust- erly. The man who attaches the spurs al- ing, leg-kicking explosion of animal fu- so provides them, and if the rooster he ry so pure, so absolute, and in its own assists wins its owner awards him the way so beautiful, as to be almost ab- spur-leg of the victim. The spurs are af- stract, a Platonic concept of hate. With- ½xed by winding a long length of string in moments one or the other drives around the foot of the spur and the leg home a solid blow with his spur. The of the cock. For reasons I shall come to handler whose cock has delivered the presently, it is done somewhat different- blow immediately picks it up so that it ly from case to case, and is an obsessive- will not get a return blow, for if he does ly deliberate affair. The lore about spurs not the match is likely to end in a mutu- is extensive–they are sharpened only ally mortal tie as the two birds wildly at eclipses and the dark of the moon, hack each other to pieces. This is partic- should be kept out of the sight of wom- ularly true if, as often happens, the spur en, and so forth. And they are handled, both in use and out, with the same curi- own cock or not more or less depends on how ous combination of fussiness and sensu- skilled he is at it, a consideration whose impor- ality the Balinese direct toward ritual ob- tance is again relative to the importance of the jects generally. ½ght. When spur af½xers and cock handlers are The spurs af½xed, the two cocks are someone other than the owner, they are almost always a quite close relative–a brother or cous- placed by their handlers (who may or in–or a very intimate friend of his. They are may not be their owners) facing one thus almost extensions of his personality, as another in the center of the ring.9 A the fact that all three will refer to the cock as “mine,” say “I” fought So-and-So, and so on, 9 Except for unimportant, small-bet ½ghts (on demonstrates. Also, owner-handler-af½xer tri- the question of ½ght “importance,” see below) ads tend to be fairly ½xed, though individuals spur af½xing is usually done by someone other may participate in several and often exchange than the owner. Whether the owner handles his roles within a given one.

Dædalus Fall 2005 63 Clifford sticks in its victim’s body, for then the Surrounding all this melodrama– Geertz aggressor is at the mercy of his wounded which the crowd packed tight around foe. the ring follows in near silence, mov- With the birds again in the hands of ing their bodies in kinesthetic sympa- their handlers, the coconut is now sunk thy with the movement of the animals, three times after which the cock which cheering their champions on with has landed the blow must be set down wordless hand motions, shiftings of to show that he is ½rm, a fact he demon- the shoulders, turnings of the head, strates by wandering idly around the falling back en masse as the cock with rink for a coconut sink. The coconut is the murderous spurs careens toward then sunk twice more and the ½ght must one side of the ring (it is said that spec- recommence. tators sometimes lose eyes and ½ngers During this interval, slightly over two from being too attentive), surging for- minutes, the handler of the wounded ward again as they glance off toward cock has been working frantically over another–is a vast body of extraordi- it, like a trainer patching a mauled box- narily elaborate and precisely detailed er between rounds, to get it in shape for rules. a last, desperate try for victory. He blows These rules, together with the devel- in its mouth, putting the whole chicken oped lore of cocks and cock½ghting head in his own mouth and sucking which accompanies them, are written and blowing, fluffs it, stuffs its wounds down in palm-leaf manuscripts (lontar; with various sorts of medicines, and rontal) passed on from generation to generally tries anything he can think of generation as part of the general legal to arouse the last ounce of spirit which and cultural tradition of the villages. may be hidden somewhere within it. By At a ½ght, the umpire (saja komong; djuru the time he is forced to put it back down kembar)–the man who manages the he is usually drenched in chicken blood, coconut–is in charge of their applica- but, as in prize½ghting, a good handler is tion and his authority is absolute. I have worth his weight in gold. Some of them never seen an umpire’s judgment ques- can virtually make the dead walk, at least tioned on any subject, even by the more long enough for the second and ½nal despondent losers, nor have I ever heard, round. even in private, a charge of unfairness In the climactic battle (if there is one; directed against one, or, for that matter, sometimes the wounded cock simply complaints about umpires in general. expires in the handler’s hands or imme- Only exceptionally well-trusted, solid, diately as it is placed down again), the and, given the complexity of the code, cock who landed the ½rst blow usual- knowledgeable citizens perform this job, ly proceeds to ½nish off his weakened and in fact men will bring their cocks opponent. But this is far from an inev- only to ½ghts presided over by such men. itable outcome, for if a cock can walk It is also the umpire to whom accusa- he can ½ght, and if he can ½ght, he can tions of cheating, which, though rare in kill, and what counts is which cock ex- the extreme, occasionally arise, are re- pires ½rst. If the wounded one can get ferred; and it is he who in the not infre- a stab in and stagger on until the other quent cases where the cocks expire vir- drops, he is the of½cial winner, even tually together decides which (if either, if he himself topples over an instant for, though the Balinese do not care for later. such an outcome, there can be ties) went

64 Dædalus Fall 2005 ½rst. Likened to a judge, a king, a priest, ter. Bringing a cock to an important ½ght Deep play: notes on and a policeman, he is all of these, and was, for an adult male, a compulsory the Balinese under his assured direction the animal duty of citizenship; taxation of ½ghts, cock½ght passion of the ½ght proceeds within the which were usually held on market day, civic certainty of the law. In the dozens was a major source of public revenue; of cock½ghts I saw in Bali, I never once patronage of the art was a stated respon- saw an altercation about rules. Indeed, sibility of princes; and the cock ring, or I never saw an open altercation, other wantilan, stood in the center of the vil- than those between cocks, at all. lage near those other monuments of Ba- This crosswise doubleness of an event linese civility–the council house, the which, taken as a fact of nature, is rage origin temple, the marketplace, the sig- untrammeled and, taken as a fact of cul- nal tower, and the banyan tree. Today, a ture, is form perfected, de½nes the cock- few special occasions aside, the newer ½ght as a sociological entity. A cock½ght rectitude makes so open a statement of is what, searching for a name for some- the connection between the excitements thing not vertebrate enough to be called of collective life and those of blood sport a group and not structureless enough to impossible, but, less directly expressed, be called a crowd, Erving Goffman has the connection itself remains intimate called a “focused gathering”–a set of and intact. To expose it, however, it is persons engrossed in a common flow necessary to turn to the aspect of cock- of activity and relating to one another ½ghting around which all the others in terms of that flow.10 Such gatherings pivot, and through which they exercise meet and disperse; the participants in their force, an aspect I have thus far stu- them fluctuate; the activity that focuses diously ignored. I mean, of course, the them is discreet–a particulate process gambling. that reoccurs rather than a continuous one that endures. They take their form The Balinese never do anything in a from the situation that evokes them, simple way that they can contrive to do the floor on which they are placed, as in a complicated one, and to this gener- Goffman puts it; but it is a form, and an alization cock½ght wagering is no excep- articulate one, nonetheless. For the situ- tion. ation, the floor is itself created, in jury In the ½rst place, there are two sorts of deliberations, surgical operations, block bets, or toh.11 There is the single axial bet meetings, sit-ins, cock½ghts, by the cultural preoccupations–here, as we shall 11 This word, which literally means an indeli- see, the celebration of status rivalry– ble stain or mark, as in a birthmark or a vein in which not only specify the focus but, a stone, is used as well for a deposit in a court assembling actors and arranging scen- case, for a pawn, for security offered in a loan, for a stand-in for someone else in a legal or cer- ery, bring it actually into being. emonial context, for an earnest advanced in a In classical times (that is to say, prior business deal, for a sign placed in a ½eld to in- to the Dutch invasion of 1908), when dicate its ownership is in dispute, and for the there were no bureaucrats around to im- status of an unfaithful wife from whose lover prove popular morality, the staging of a her husband must gain satisfaction or surren- cock½ght was an explicitly societal mat- der her to him. See Korn, Het Adatrecht van Bali; Theodoor Pigeaud, Javaans-Nederlands Handwo- 10 Erving Goffman, Encounters: Two Studies in ordenboek (Groningen: Wolters, 1938); H. H. the Sociology of Interaction (Indianapolis: Bobbs- Juynboll, Oudjavaansche-Nederlandsche Woorden- Merrill, 1961), 9–10. lijst (Leiden: Brill, 1923).

Dædalus Fall 2005 65 Clifford in the center between the principals (toh Of the 57 matches for which I have Geertz ketengah), and there is the cloud of pe- exact and reliable data on the center ripheral ones around the ring between bet, the range is from 15 ringgits to 500, members of the audience (toh kesasi). with a mean at 85 and with the distribu- The ½rst is typically large; the second tion being rather noticeably trimodal: typically small. The ½rst is collective, in- small ½ghts (15 ringgits either side of 35) volving coalitions of bettors clustering accounting for about 45 percent of the around the owner; the second is individ- total number; medium ones (20 ring- ual, man to man. The ½rst is a matter of gits either side of 70) for about 25 per- deliberate, very quiet, almost furtive ar- cent; and large (75 ringgits either side rangement by the coalition members of 175) for about 20 percent, with a few and the umpire huddled like conspira- very small and very large ones out at tors in the center of the ring; the second the extremes. In a society where the nor- is a matter of impulsive shouting, public mal daily wage of a manual laborer–a offers, and public acceptances by the ex- brickmaker, an ordinary farmworker, a cited throng around its edges. And most market porter–was about 3 ringgits a curiously, and as we shall see most re- day, and considering the fact that ½ghts vealingly, where the ½rst is always, without were held on the average about every 2.5 exception, even money, the second, equally days in the immediate area I studied, this without exception, is never such. What is a is clearly serious gambling, even if the fair coin in the center is a biased one on bets are pooled rather than individual the side. efforts. The center bet is the of½cial one, The side bets are, however, something hedged in again with a webwork of else altogether. Rather than the solemn, rules, and is made between the two cock legalistic pactmaking of the center, wa- owners, with the umpire as overseer and gering takes place rather in the fashion public witness.12 This bet, which, as I in which the stock exchange used to say, is always relatively and sometimes work when it was out on the curb. very large, is never raised simply by the There is a ½xed and known odds para- owner in whose name it is made, but digm which runs in a continuous series by him together with four or ½ve, some- from 10–9 at the short end to 2–1 at times seven or eight, allies–kin, village the long: 10–9, 9–8, 8–7, 7–6, 6–5, mates, neighbors, close friends. He may, 5–4, 4–3, 3–2, 2–1. The man who if he is not especially well-to-do, not wishes to back the underdog cock (leav- even be the major contributor, though, ing aside how favorites, kebut, and un- if only to show that he is not involved in derdogs, ngai, are established for the any chicanery, he must be a signi½cant moment) shouts the short-side num- one. ber indicating the odds he wants to be given. That is, if he shouts gasal, “½ve,” 12 The center bet must be advanced in cash by both parties prior to the actual ½ght. The um- he wants the underdog at 5–4 (or, pire holds the stakes until the decision is ren- for him, 4–5); if he shouts “four,” he dered and then awards them to the winner, wants it at 4–3 (again, he putting up avoiding, among other things, the intense em- the “three”), if “nine,” at 9–8, and so barrassment both winner and loser would feel on. A man backing the favorite, and if the latter had to pay off personally following his defeat. About 10 percent of the winner’s thus considering giving odds if he can receipts are subtracted for the umpire’s share get them short enough, indicates the and that of the ½ght sponsors. fact by crying out the color type of that

66 Dædalus Fall 2005 cock–“brown,” “speckled,” or what- shouts, they begin to focus in on one Deep play: 13 notes on ever. another as potential betting pairs, often the Balinese As odds-takers (backers of the under- from far across the ring. The taker tries cock½ght dog) and odds-givers (backers of the to shout the giver into longer odds, the favorite) sweep the crowd with their giver to shout the taker into shorter ones.14 The taker, who is the wooer in 13 Actually, the typing of cocks, which is ex- this situation, will signal how large a tremely elaborate (I have collected more than twenty classes, certainly not a complete list), is bet he wishes to make at the odds he is not based on color alone, but on a series of in- shouting by holding a number of ½n- dependent, interacting, dimensions, which in- gers up in front of his face and vigorous- clude, beside color, size, bone thickness, plum- ly waving them. If the giver, the wooed, age, and temperament. (But not pedigree. The replies in kind, the bet is made; if he Balinese do not breed cocks to any signi½cant extent, nor, so far as I have been able to discov- does not, they unlock gazes and the er, have they ever done so. The asil, or jungle search goes on. cock, which is the basic ½ghting strain every- The side betting, which takes place where the sport is found, is native to southern after the center bet has been made and Asia, and one can buy a good example in the its size announced, consists then in a ris- chicken section of almost any Balinese market for anywhere from 4 or 5 ringgits up to 50 or ing crescendo of shouts as backers of more.) The color element is merely the one the underdog offer their propositions normally used as the type name, except when to anyone who will accept them, while the two cocks of different types–as on princi- those who are backing the favorite but ple they must be–have the same color, in do not like the price being offered, shout which case a secondary indication from one equally frenetically the color of the cock of the other dimensions (“large speckled” v. “small speckled,” etc.) is added. The types are to show they too are desperate to bet but coordinated with various cosmological ideas want shorter odds. which help shape the making of matches, so Almost always odds-calling, which that, for example, you ½ght a small, headstrong, tends to be very consensual in that at speckled brown-on-white cock with flat-lying any one time almost all callers are call- feathers and thin legs from the east side of the ring on a certain day of the complex Balinese ing the same thing, starts off toward calendar, and a large, cautious, all-black cock the long end of the range (5–4 or 4–3) with tufted feathers and stubby legs from the and then moves, also consensually, to- north side on another day, and so on. All this ward the short end with greater or less- is again recorded in palm-leaf manuscripts and er speed and to a greater or lesser de- endlessly discussed by the Balinese (who do not all have identical systems), and full-scale com- gree. Men crying “½ve” and ½nding ponential-cum-symbolic analysis of cock clas- themselves answered only with cries of si½cations would be extremely valuable both “brown” start crying “six,” either draw- as an adjunct to the description of the cock½ght ing the other callers fairly quickly with and in itself. But my data on the subject, though them or retiring from the scene as their extensive and varied, do not seem to be complete and systematic enough to attempt such an 14 For purposes of ethnographic complete- analysis here. For Balinese cosmological ideas ness, it should be noted that it is possible for more generally see Belo, ed., Traditional Balinese the man backing the favorite–the odds-giver Culture, and J. L. Swellengrebel, ed., Bali: Stud- –to make a bet in which he wins if his cock ies in Life, Thought, and Ritual (The Hague: W. wins or there is a tie, a slight shortening of the van Hoeve, 1960); for calendrical ones, Clifford odds (I do not have enough cases to be exact, Geertz, Person, Time, and Conduct in Bali: An but ties seem to occur about once every ½fteen Essay in Cultural Analysis (New Haven, Conn.: or twenty matches). He indicates his wish to Southeast Asia Studies, Yale University, 1966), do this by shouting sapih (“tie”) rather than the 45–53. cock-type, but such bets are in fact infrequent.

Dædalus Fall 2005 67 Clifford too-generous offers are snapped up. If ful½lled bettors try desperately to ½nd Geertz the change is made and partners are still a last-minute partner at a price they can scarce, the procedure is repeated in a live with. (Where the center bet is small, move to “seven,” and so on, only rarely, the opposite tends to occur: betting dies and in the very largest ½ghts, reaching off, trailing into silence, as odds length- the ultimate “nine” or “ten” levels. Oc- en and people lose interest.) In a large- casionally, if the cocks are clearly mis- bet, well-made match–the kind of matched, there may be no upward move- match the Balinese regard as “real cock- ment at all, or even a movement down ½ghting”–the mob scene quality, the the scale to 4–3, 3–2, very, very rarely sense that sheer chaos is about to break 2–1, a shift which is accompanied by loose, with all those waving, shouting, a declining number of bets as a shift pushing, clambering men is quite strong, upward is accompanied by an increas- an effect which is only heightened by the ing number. But the general pattern is intense stillness that falls with instant for the betting to move a shorter or suddenness, rather as if someone had longer distance up the scale toward the, turned off the current, when the slit for side bets, nonexistent pole of even gong sounds, the cocks are put down, money, with the overwhelming majori- and the battle begins. ty of bets falling in the 4–3 to 8–7 When it ends, anywhere from ½fteen range.15 seconds to ½ve minutes later, all bets are As the moment for the release of the immediately paid. There are absolutely no cocks by the handlers approaches, the ious, at least to a betting opponent. One screaming, at least in a match where the may, of course, borrow from a friend be- center bet is large, reaches almost fren- fore offering or accepting a wager, but zied proportions as the remaining un- to offer or accept it you must have the money already in hand and, if you lose, 15 The precise dynamics of the movement of you must pay it on the spot, before the the betting is one of the most intriguing, most next match begins. This is an iron rule, complicated, and, given the hectic conditions under which it occurs, most dif½cult to study, and as I have never heard of a disputed aspects of the ½ght. Motion picture recording umpire’s decision (though doubtless plus multiple observers would probably be nec- there must sometimes be some), I have essary to deal with it effectively. Even impres- also never heard of a welshed bet, per- sionistically–the only approach open to a lone haps because in a worked-up cock½ght ethnographer caught in the middle of all this– crowd the consequences might be, as it is clear that certain men lead both in determining the favorite (that is, making the open- they are reported to be sometimes for ing cock-type calls which always initiate the cheaters, drastic and immediate. process) and in directing the movement of the It is, in any case, this formal asym- odds, these “opinion leaders” being the more metry between balanced center bets accomplished cock½ghters-cum-solid-citizens and unbalanced side ones that poses the to be discussed below. If these men begin to change their calls, others follow; if they begin critical analytical problem for a theory to make bets, so do others and–though there which sees cock½ght wagering as the is always a large number of frustrated bettors link connecting the ½ght to the wider crying for shorter or longer odds to the end– world of Balinese culture. It also sug- the movement more or less ceases. But a de- gests the way to go about solving it and tailed understanding of the whole process awaits what, alas, it is not very likely ever to demonstrating the link. get: a decision theorist armed with precise The ½rst point that needs to be made observations of individual behavior. in this connection is that the higher the

68 Dædalus Fall 2005 center bet, the more likely the match ½ghts, those under 40 ringgits, it is 1.9 to Deep play: 16 notes on will in actual fact be an even one. Sim- 1 (19 and 10). the Balinese ple considerations of rationality suggest Now, from this proposition–that the cock½ght that. If you are betting 15 ringgits on a higher the center bet the more exactly a cock, you might be willing to go along ½fty-½fty proposition the cock½ght is– with even money even if you feel your two things more or less immediately fol- animal somewhat the less promising. low: (1) the higher the center bet, the But if you are betting 500 you are very, greater is the pull on the side betting to- very likely to be loathe to do so. Thus, in ward the short-odds end of the wagering large-bet ½ghts, which of course involve spectrum and vice versa; (2) the higher the better animals, tremendous care is the center bet, the greater the volume of taken to see that the cocks are about as side betting and vice versa. evenly matched as to size, general condi- The logic is similar in both cases. tion, pugnacity, and so on as is humanly The closer the ½ght is in fact to even possible. The different ways of adjusting money, the less attractive the long end the spurs of the animals are often em- of the odds will appear and, therefore, ployed to secure this. If one cock seems the shorter it must be if there are to be stronger, an agreement will be made to takers. That this is the case is apparent position his spur at a slightly less advan- from mere inspection, from the Bali- tageous angle–a kind of handicapping, nese’s own analysis of the matter, and at which spur af½xers are, so it is said, from what more systematic observa- extremely skilled. More care will be tions I was able to collect. Given the taken, too, to employ skillful handlers dif½culty of making precise and com- and to match them exactly as to abili- plete recordings of side betting, this ties. argument is hard to cast in numerical In short, in a large-bet ½ght the pres- form, but in all my cases the odds-giver, sure to make the match a genuinely ½fty- odds-taker consensual point, a quite pro- ½fty proposition is enormous, and is nounced minimax saddle where the bulk consciously felt as such. For medium (at a guess, two-thirds to three-quarters ½ghts the pressure is somewhat less, and in most cases) of the bets are actually for small ones less yet, though there is al- made, was three or four points further ways an effort to make things at least along the scale toward the shorter end approximately equal, for even at 15 ringgits (5 days’ work) no one wants to make 16 Assuming only binomial variability, the an even-money bet in a clearly unfavor- departure from a ½fty-½fty expectation in the able situation. And, again, what statis- 60 ringgits and below case is 1.38 standard devi- tics I have tend to bear this out. In my 57 ations, or (in a one-direction test) an 8 in 100 matches, the favorite won 33 times over- possibility by chance alone; for the below 40 ringgits case it is 1.65 standard deviations, or all, the underdog 24, a 1.4 to 1 ratio. But if about 5 in 100. The fact that these departures one splits the ½gures at 60 ringgits cen- though real are not extreme merely indicates, ter bets, the ratios turn out to be 1.1 to 1 again, that even in the smaller ½ghts the ten- (12 favorites, 11 underdogs) for those dency to match cocks at least reasonably even- above this line, and 1.6 to 1 (21 and 13) ly persists. It is a matter of relative relaxation for those below it. Or, if you take the of the pressures toward equalization, not their elimination. The tendency for high-bet contests extremes, for very large ½ghts, those to be coin-flip propositions is, of course, even with center bets over 100 ringgits the more striking, and suggests the Balinese know ratio is 1 to 1 (7 and 7); for very small quite well what they are about.

Dædalus Fall 2005 69 Clifford for the large-center-bet ½ghts than for are not really contradictory to one an- Geertz the small ones, with medium ones gen- other, but part of a single larger system erally in between. In detail, the ½t is not, in which the center bet is, so to speak, of course, exact, but the general pattern the “center of gravity,” drawing, the is quite consistent: the power of the larger it is the more so, the outside bets center bet to pull the side bets toward toward the short-odds end of the scale. its own even-money pattern is directly The center bet thus “makes the game,” proportional to its size, because its size or perhaps better, de½nes it, signals is directly proportional to the degree what, following a notion of Jeremy Ben- to which the cocks are in fact evenly tham’s, I am going to call its “depth.” matched. As for the volume question, The Balinese attempt to create an total wagering is greater in large-center- interesting, if you will, “deep,” match bet ½ghts because such ½ghts are consid- by making the center bet as large as pos- ered more “interesting,” not only in the sible so that the cocks matched will be sense that they are less predictable, but, as equal and as ½ne as possible, and the more crucially, that more is at stake in outcome, thus, as unpredictable as pos- them–in terms of money, in terms of sible. They do not always succeed. Near- the quality of the cocks, and conse- ly half the matches are relatively trivi- quently, as we shall see, in terms of al, relatively uninteresting–in my bor- social prestige.17 rowed terminology, “shallow”–affairs. The paradox of fair coin in the mid- But that fact no more argues against dle, biased coin on the outside is thus my interpretation than the fact that a merely apparent one. The two betting most painters, poets, and playwrights systems, though formally incongruent, are mediocre argues against the view that artistic effort is directed toward 17 The reduction in wagering in smaller ½ghts profundity and, with a certain frequen- (which, of course, feeds on itself; one of the cy, approximates it. The image of artis- reasons people ½nd small ½ghts uninteresting tic technique is indeed exact: the cen- is that there is less wagering in them, and con- trariwise for large ones) takes place in three ter bet is a means, a device, for creating mutually reinforcing ways. First, there is a sim- “interesting,” “deep” matches, not the ple withdrawal of interest as people wander off reason, or at least not the main reason, to have a cup of coffee or chat with a friend. why they are interesting, the source of Second, the Balinese do not mathematically their fascination, the substance of their reduce odds, but bet directly in terms of stated depth. The question why such matches odds as such. Thus, for a 9–8 bet, one man wagers 9 ringgits, the other 8; for 5–4, one are interesting–indeed, for the Balinese, wagers 5, the other 4. For any given currency exquisitely absorbing–takes us out of unit, like the ringgit, therefore, 6.3 times as the realm of formal concerns into more much money is involved in a 10–9 bet as in a broadly sociological and social-psycho- 2–1 bet, for example, and, as noted, in small logical ones, and to a less purely eco- ½ghts betting settles toward the longer end. Finally, the bets which are made tend to be nomic idea of what “depth” in gaming 18 one- rather than two-, three-, or in some of the amounts to. very largest ½ghts, four- or ½ve-½nger ones. (The ½ngers indicate the multiples of the stated 18 Besides wagering there are other economic bet odds at issue, not absolute ½gures. Two aspects of the cock½ght, especially its very close ½ngers in a 6–5 situation means a man wants connection with the local market system which, to wager 10 ringgits on the underdog against 12, though secondary both to its motivation and to three in an 8–7 situation, 21 against 24, and so its function, are not without importance. Cock- on.) ½ghts are open events to which anyone who

70 Dædalus Fall 2005 Bentham’s concept of “deep play” is In genuine deep play, this is the case for Deep play: 19 notes on found in his The Theory of Legislation. both parties. They are both in over their the Balinese By it he means play in which the stakes heads. Having come together in search cock½ght are so high that it is, from his utilitarian of pleasure they have entered into a re- standpoint, irrational for men to engage lationship which will bring the partici- in it at all. If a man whose fortune is a pants, considered collectively, net pain thousand pounds (or ringgits) wages rather than net pleasure. Bentham’s con- ½ve hundred of it on an even bet, the clusion was, therefore, that deep play marginal utility of the pound he stands was immoral from ½rst principles and, a to win is clearly less than the marginal typical step for him, should be prevented disutility of the one he stands to lose. legally. But more interesting than the ethical wishes may come, sometimes from quite dis- problem, at least for our concerns here, tant areas, but well over 90 percent, probably is that despite the logical force of Ben- over 95, are very local affairs, and the locality tham’s analysis men do engage in such concerned is de½ned not by the village, nor play, both passionately and often, and even by the administrative district, but by the even in the face of law’s revenge. For rural market system. Bali has a three-day mar- Bentham and those who think as he does ket week with the familiar “solar-system” type rotation. Though the markets themselves have (nowadays mainly lawyers, economists, never been very highly developed, small morn- and a few psychiatrists), the explanation ing affairs in a village square, it is the microre- is, as I have said, that such men are ir- gion such rotation rather generally marks out rational–addicts, fetishists, children, –ten or twenty square miles, seven or eight fools, savages, who need only to be pro- neighboring villages (which in contemporary Bali is usually going to mean anywhere from tected against themselves. But for the ½ve to ten or eleven thousand people) from Balinese, though naturally they do not which the core of any cock½ght audience, in- formulate it in so many words, the ex- deed virtually all of it, will come. Most of the planation lies in the fact that in such play ½ghts are in fact organized and sponsored by money is less a measure of utility, had or small combines of petty rural merchants under the general premise, very strongly held by them expected, than it is a symbol of moral and indeed by all Balinese, that cock½ghts are import, perceived or imposed. good for trade because “they get money out of It is, in fact, in shallow games, ones the house, they make it circulate.” Stalls selling in which smaller amounts of money various sorts of things as well as assorted sheer- are involved, that increments and dec- chance gambling games (see below) are set up rements of cash are more nearly syn- around the edge of the area so that this even takes on the quality of a small fair. This con- onyms for utility and disutility, in the nection of cock½ghting with markets and mar- ordinary, unexpanded sense–for pleas- ket sellers is very old, as, among other things, ure and pain, happiness and unhappi- their conjunction in inscriptions (Roelof Goris, ness. In deep ones, where the amounts Prasasti Bali, 2 vols. [Bandung: N. V. Masa Baru, of money are great, much more is at 1954]) indicates. Trade has followed the cock for centuries in rural Bali and the sport has stake than material gain: namely, es- been one of the main agencies of the island’s teem, honor, dignity, respect–in a word, monetization. though in Bali a profoundly freighted word, status.20 It is at stake symbolical- 19 The phrase is found in the Hildreth translation, International Library of Psychology, 1931, note to 106; see L. L. Fuller, The Morality of Law 20 Of course, even in Bentham, utility is not (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, normally con½ned as a concept to monetary 1964), 6ff. losses and gains, and my argument here might

Dædalus Fall 2005 71 Clifford ly, for (a few cases of ruined addict gam- imposition of meaning on life is the ma- Geertz blers aside) no one’s status is actually jor end and primary condition of human altered by the outcome of a cock½ght; existence, that access of signi½cance it is only, and that momentarily, af- more than compensates for the econom- ½rmed or insulted. But for the Balinese, ic costs involved.21 Actually, given the for whom nothing is more pleasurable even-money quality of the larger match- than an affront obliquely delivered or es, important changes in material for- more painful than one obliquely re- tune among those who regularly partici- ceived–particularly when mutual ac- pate in them seem virtually nonexistent, quaintances, undeceived by surfaces, because matters more or less even out are watching–such appraisive drama over the long run. It is, actually, in the is deep indeed. smaller, shallow ½ghts, where one ½nds This, I must stress immediately, is not the handful of more pure, addict-type to say that the money does not matter, or gamblers involved–those who are in that the Balinese is no more concerned it mainly for the money–that “real” about losing 500 ringgits than 15. Such changes in social position, largely a conclusion would be absurd. It is be- downward, are affected. Men of this cause money does, in this hardly unmate- sort, plungers, are highly dispraised by rialistic society, matter and matter very “true cock½ghters” as fools who do not much that the more of it one risks the understand what the sport is all about, more of a lot of other things, such as vulgarians who simply miss the point one’s pride, one’s poise, one’s dispas- of it all. They are, these addicts, regard- sion, one’s masculinity, one also risks, ed as fair game for the genuine enthusi- again only momentarily but again very asts, those who do understand, to take publicly as well. In deep cock½ghts an a little money away from, something owner and his collaborators, and, as we that is easy enough to do by luring them, shall see, to a lesser but still quite real through the force of their greed, into extent also their backers on the outside, irrational bets on mismatched cocks. put their money where their status is. Most of them do indeed manage to ruin It is in large part because the marginal disutility of loss is so great at the higher 21 Max Weber, The Sociology of Religion (Bos- levels of betting that to engage in such ton: Beacon Press, 1963). There is nothing betting is to lay one’s public self, allu- speci½cally Balinese, of course, about deepen- sively and metaphorically, through the ing signi½cance with money, as Whyte’s description of corner boys in a working-class dis- medium of one’s cock, on the line. And trict of Boston demonstrates: “Gambling plays though to a Benthamite this might seem an important role in the lives of Cornerville merely to increase the irrationality of people. Whatever game the corner boys play, the enterprise that much further, to the they nearly always bet on the outcome. When Balinese what it mainly increases is the there is nothing at stake, the game is not considered a real contest. This does not mean that meaningfulness of it all. And as (to fol- the ½nancial element is all-important. I have low Weber rather than Bentham) the frequently heard men say that the honor of winning was much more important than the be more carefully put in terms of a denial that money at stake. The corner boys consider play- for the Balinese, as for any people, utility ing for money the real test of skill and, unless (pleasure, happiness . . . ) is merely identi½able a man performs well when money is at stake, with wealth. But such terminological problems he is not considered a good competitor.” W. F. are in any case secondary to the essential Whyte, Street Corner Society, 2d ed. (Chicago: point: the cock½ght is not roulette. University of Chicago Press, 1955), 140.

72 Dædalus Fall 2005 themselves in a remarkably short time, smaller matches around the edges. Next, Deep play: notes on but there always seems to be one or two there are those who ½ght cocks in small, the Balinese of them around, pawning their land and or occasionally medium matches, but cock½ght selling their clothes in order to bet, at have not the status to join in the large any particular time.22 ones, though they may bet from time This graduated correlation of “status to time on the side in those. And ½nally, gambling” with deeper ½ghts and, in- there are those, the really substantial versely, “money gambling” with shal- members of the community, the solid lower ones is in fact quite general. Bet- citizenry around whom local life re- tors themselves form a sociomoral hier- volves, who ½ght in the larger ½ghts and archy in these terms. As noted earlier, bet on them around the side. The focus- at most cock½ghts there are, around the ing element in these focused gatherings, very edges of the cock½ght area, a large these men generally dominate and de- number of mindless, sheer-chance type ½ne the sport as they dominate and de- gambling games (roulette, dice throw, ½ne the society. When a Balinese male coin-spin, pea-under-the-shell) operat- talks, in that almost venerative way, ed by concessionaires. Only women, about “the true cock½ghter,” the beba- children, adolescents, and various other toh (“bettor”) or djuru kurung (“cage sorts of people who do not (or not yet) keeper”), it is this sort of person, not ½ght cocks–the extremely poor, the those who bring the mentality of the socially despised, the personally idio- pea-and-shell game into the quite dif- syncratic–play at these games, at, of ferent, inappropriate context of the course, penny ante levels. Cock½ghting cock½ght, the driven gambler (potét, a men would be ashamed to go anywhere word which has the secondary meaning near them. Slightly above these people of thief or reprobate), and the wistful in standing are those who, though they hanger-on, that they mean. For such a do not themselves ½ght cocks, bet on the man, what is really going on in a match is something rather closer to an affaire 22 The extremes to which this madness is conceived on occasion to go–and the fact that it is d’honneur (though, with the Balinese tal- considered madness–is demonstrated by the ent for practical fantasy, the blood that is Balinese folktale I Tuhung Kuning. A gambler be- spilled is only ½guratively human) than comes so deranged by his passion that, leaving to the stupid, mechanical crank of a slot on a trip, he orders his pregnant wife to take machine. care of the prospective newborn if it is a boy What makes Balinese cock½ghting but to feed it as meat to his ½ghting cocks if it is a girl. The mother gives birth to a girl, but deep is thus not money in itself, but rather than giving the child to the cocks she what, the more of it that is involved the gives them a large rat and conceals the girl more so, money causes to happen: the with her own mother. When the husband remigration of the Balinese status hierar- turns the cocks, crowing a jingle, inform him chy into the body of the cock½ght. Psy- of the deception and, furious, he sets out to kill the child. A goddess descends from heaven and chologically an Aesopian representation takes the girl up to the skies with her. The of the ideal/demonic, rather narcissistic, cocks die from the food given them, the own- male self, sociologically it is an equally er’s sanity is restored, the goddess brings the Aesopian representation of the complex girl back to the father who reunites him with ½elds of tension set up by the controlled, his wife. The story is given as “Geel Komkom- mertje” in Jacoba Hooykaas-van Leeuwen muted, ceremonial, but for all that deep- Boomkamp, Sprookjes en Verhalen van Bali ly felt, interaction of those selves in the (s’Gravenhage: Van Hoeve, 1956), 19–25. context of everyday life. The cocks may

Dædalus Fall 2005 73 Clifford be surrogates for their owners’ person- centrate on them, in a part-for-whole Geertz alities, animal mirrors of psychic form, way, without undue distortion. but the cock½ght is–or more exactly, de- First, the village is dominated by four liberately is made to be–a simulation of large, patrilineal, partly endogamous the social matrix, the involved system of descent groups which are constantly crosscutting, overlapping, highly corpo- vying with one another and form the rate groups–villages, kingroups, irriga- major factions in the village. Sometimes tion societies, temple congregations, they group two and two, or rather the “castes”–in which its devotees live.23 two larger ones versus the two smaller And as prestige, the necessity to af½rm ones plus all the unaf½liated people; it, defend it, celebrate it, justify it, and sometimes they operate independently. just plain bask in it (but not, given the There are also subfactions within them, strongly ascriptive character of Balinese subfactions within the subfactions, and strati½cation, to seek it), is perhaps the so on to rather ½ne levels of distinction. central driving force in the society, so And second, there is the village itself, also–ambulant penises, blood sacri½ces, almost entirely endogamous, which is and monetary exchanges aside–is it of opposed to all the other villages round the cock½ght. This apparent amusement about in its cock½ght circuit (which, and seeming sport is, to take another as explained, is the market region), but phrase from Erving Goffman, “a status which also forms alliances with certain bloodbath.”24 of these neighbors against certain oth- The easiest way to make this clear, ers in various supravillage political and and at least to some degree to demon- social contexts. The exact situation is strate it, is to invoke the village whose thus, as everywhere in Bali, quite dis- cock½ghting activities I observed the tinctive; but the general pattern of a closest–the one in which the raid oc- tiered hierarchy of status rivalries be- curred and from which my statistical tween highly corporate but various data are taken. based groupings (and, thus, between As all Balinese villages, this one– the members of them) is entirely gen- Tihingan, in the Klungkung region of eral. southeast Bali–is intricately organized, Consider, then, as support of the gen- a labyrinth of alliances and oppositions. eral thesis that the cock½ght, and espe- But, unlike many, two sorts of corporate cially the deep cock½ght, is fundamen- groups, which are also status groups, tally a dramatization of status concerns, particularly stand out, and we may con- the following facts, which to avoid extended ethnographic description I will 23 For a fuller description of Balinese rural so- simply pronounce to be facts–though cial structure, see Clifford Geertz, “Form and the concrete evidence-examples, state- Variation in Balinese Village Structure,” Ameri- ments, and numbers that could be can Anthropologist 61 (1959): 94–108; “Tihin- gan, A Balinese Village,” in R. M. Koentjaran- brought to bear in support of them ingrat, Villages in Indonesia (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cor- is both extensive and unmistakable: nell University Press, 1967), 210–243; and, though it is a bit off the norm as Balinese vil- 1. A man virtually never bets against a lages go, V. E. Korn, De Dorpsrepubliek tnganan cock owned by a member of his own kin- Pagringsingan (Santpoort [Netherlands]: C. A. group. Usually he will feel obliged to bet Mees, 1933). for it, the more so the closer the kin tie and the deeper the ½ght. If he is certain 24 Goffman, Encounters, 78.

74 Dædalus Fall 2005 in his mind that it will not win, he may village factions are opposed rather than Deep play: notes on just not bet at all, particularly if it is only united, exacerbate. the Balinese a second cousin’s bird or if the ½ght is a cock½ght 5. Almost all matches are sociologically shallow one. But as a rule he will feel he relevant. You seldom get two outsider must support it and, in deep games, near- cocks ½ghting, or two cocks with no ly always does. Thus the great majority of particular group backing, or with group the people calling “½ve” or “speckled” so backing which is mutually unrelated in demonstratively are expressing their alle- any clear way. When you do get them, giance to their kinsman, not their evalua- the game is very shallow, betting very tion of his bird, their understanding of slow, and the whole thing very dull, with probability theory, or even their hopes of no one save the immediate principals and unearned income. an addict gambler or two at all interested. 2. This principle is extended logically. If 6. By the same token, you rarely get two your kingroup is not involved you will cocks from the same group, even more support an allied kingroup against an rarely from the same subfaction, and vir- unallied one in the same way, and so on tually never from the same sub-subfaction through the very involved networks of (which would be in most cases one ex- alliances which, as I say, make up this, as tended family) ½ghting. Similarly, in out- any other, Balinese village. side village ½ghts two members of the vil- 3. So, too, for the village as a whole. If an lage will rarely ½ght against one another, outsider cock is ½ghting any cock from even though, as bitter rivals, they would your village you will tend to support the do so with enthusiasm on their home local one. If, what is a rarer circumstance grounds. but occurs every now and then, a cock 7. On the individual level, people involved from outside your cock½ght circuit is in an institutionalized hostility relation- ½ghting one inside it you will also tend ship, called puik, in which they do not to support the “home bird.” speak or otherwise have anything to do 4. Cocks which come from any distance with each other (the causes of this formal are almost always favorites, for the theory breaking of relations are many: wife-cap- is the man would not have dared to bring ture, inheritance arguments, political dif- it if it was not a good cock, the more so the ferences) will bet very heavily, sometimes further he has come. His followers are, of almost maniacally, against one another in course, obliged to support him, and when what is a frank and direct attack on the the more grand-scale legal cock½ghts are very masculinity, the ultimate ground of held (on holidays, and so on) the people his status, of the opponent. of the village take what they regard to be 8. The center bet coalition is, in all but the best cocks in the village, regardless of the shallowest games, always made up by ownership, and go off to support them, al- structural allies–no “outside money” is though they will almost certainly have to involved. What is “outside” depends upon give odds on them and to make large bets the context, of course, but given it, no out- to show that they are not a cheapskate vil- side money is mixed in with the main bet; lage. Actually, such “away games,” though if the principals cannot raise it, it is not infrequent, tend to mend the ruptures made. The center bet, again especially between village members that the con- in deeper games, is thus the most direct stantly occurring “home games,” where and open expression of social opposition,

Dædalus Fall 2005 75 Clifford which is one of the reasons why both it 13. In sticky, cross-loyalty situations, of Geertz and match making are surrounded by such which in this extraordinarily complex an air of unease, furtiveness, embarrass- social system there are of course many, ment, and so on. where a man is caught between two more or less equally balanced loyalties, he tends 9. The rule about borrowing money– to wander off for a cup of coffee or some- that you may borrow for a bet but not in thing to avoid having to bet, a form of be- one–stems (and the Balinese are quite havior reminiscent of that of American conscious of this) from similar consid- voters in similar situations.25 erations: you are never at the economic mercy of your enemy that way. Gambling 14. The people involved in the center bet debts, which can get quite large on a rath- are, especially in deep ½ghts, virtually al- er short-term basis, are always to friends, ways leading members of their group– never to enemies, structurally speaking. kinship, village, or whatever. Further, those who bet on the side (including these 10. When two cocks are structurally irrele- people) are, as I have already remarked, vant or neutral so far as you are concerned the more established members of the vil- (though, as mentioned, they almost never lage–the solid citizens. Cock½ghting is are to each other) you do not even ask a for those who are involved in the everyday relative or a friend whom he is betting on, politics of prestige as well, not for youth, because if you know how he is betting and women, subordinates, and so forth. he knows you know, and you go the other way, it will lead to strain. This rule is ex- 15. So far as money is concerned, the explicit and rigid; fairly elaborate, even rath- plicitly expressed attitude toward it is er arti½cial precautions are taken to avoid that it is a secondary matter. It is not, as I breaking it. At the very least you must pre- have said, of no importance; Balinese are tend not to notice what he is doing, and he no happier to lose several weeks’ income what you are doing. than anyone else. But they mainly look on the monetary aspects of the cock½ght 11. There is a special word for betting as self-balancing, a matter of just moving against the grain, which is also the word money around, circulating it among a fair- for “pardon me” (mpura). It is considered ly well-de½ned group of serious cock- a bad thing to do, though if the center bet ½ghters. The really important wins and is small it is sometimes all right as long as losses are seen mostly in other terms, and you do not do it too often. But the larger the general attitude toward wagering is the bet and the more frequently you do it, not any hope of cleaning up, of making a the more the “pardon me” tack will lead killing (addict gamblers again excepted), to social disruption. but that of the horseplayer’s prayer: “Oh, 12. In fact, the institutionalized hostility God, please let me break even.” In prestige relation, puik, is often formally initiated terms, however, you do not want to break (though its causes always lie elsewhere) even, but, in a momentary, punctuate sort by such a “pardon me” bet in a deep ½ght, of way, win utterly. The talk (which goes putting the symbolic fat in the ½re. Simi- on all the time) is about ½ghts against larly, the end of such a relationship and such-and-such a cock of So-and-So which resumption of normal social intercourse 25 B. R. Berelson, P. F. Lazersfeld, and W. N. is often signalized (but, again, not actually McPhee, Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in brought about) by one or the other of the a Presidential Campaign (Chicago: University of enemies supporting the other’s bird. Chicago Press, 1954).

76 Dædalus Fall 2005 your cock demolished, not on how much the more a match is . . . Deep play: you won, a fact people, even for large bets, notes on 1. Between near status equals (and/or per- the Balinese rarely remember for any length of time, cock½ght sonal enemies) though they will remember the day they did in Pan Loh’s ½nest cock for years. 2. Between high status individuals 16. You must bet on cocks of your own the deeper the match. group aside from mere loyalty considerations, for if you do not people generally the deeper the match . . . will say, “What! Is he too proud for the 1. The closer the identi½cation of cock and likes of us? Does he have to go to Java or man (or: more properly, the deeper the Den Pasar [the capital town] to bet, he is match the more the man will advance his such an important man?” Thus there is a best, most closely-identi½ed-with cock). general pressure to bet not only to show that you are important locally, but that 2. The ½ner the cocks involved and the you are not so important that you look more exactly they will be matched. down on everyone else as un½t even to be 3. The greater the emotion that will be in- rivals. Similarly, home team people must volved and the more the general absorp- bet against outside cocks or the outsiders tion in the match. will accuse it–a serious charge–of just collecting entry fees and not really being 4. The higher the individual bets center interested in cock½ghting, as well as again and outside, the shorter the outside bet being arrogant and insulting. odds will tend to be, and the more betting there will be overall. 17. Finally, the Balinese peasants themselves are quite aware of all this and can 5. The less an “economic” and the more a and, at least to an ethnographer, do state “status” view of gaming will be involved, most of it in approximately the same and the “solider” the citizens who will be terms as I have. Fighting cocks, almost gaming.26 every Balinese I have ever discussed the Inverse arguments hold for the shal- subject with has said, is like playing with lower the ½ght, culminating, in a re- ½re only not getting burned. You activate versed-signs sense, in the coin-spinning village and kingroup rivalries and hostili- and dice-throwing amusements. For ties, but in “play” form, coming danger- deep ½ghts there are no absolute upper ously and entrancingly close to the expres- limits, though there are of course practi- sion of open and direct interpersonal and cal ones, and there are a great many leg- intergroup aggression (something which, end-like tales of great Duel-in-the-Sun again, almost never happens in the normal combats between lords and princes in course of ordinary life), but not quite, classical times (for cock½ghting has al- because, after all, it is “only a cock½ght.” ways been as much an elite concern as a More observations of this sort could popular one), far deeper than anything be advanced, but perhaps the general 26 As this is a formal paradigm, it is intended point is, if not made, at least well-delin- to display the logical, not the causal, structure eated, and the whole argument thus far of cock½ghting. Just which of these consider- can be usefully summarized in a formal ations leads to which, in what order, and by paradigm: what mechanisms, is another matter–one I have attempted to shed some light on in the general discussion.

Dædalus Fall 2005 77 Clifford anyone, even aristocrats, could produce “Poetry makes nothing happen,” Au- Geertz today anywhere in Bali. den says in his elegy of Yeats, “it sur- Indeed, one of the great culture heroes vives in the valley of its saying . . . a of Bali is a prince, called after his passion way of happening, a mouth.” The for the sport, “The Cock½ghter,” who cock½ght too, in this colloquial sense, happened to be away at a very deep cock- makes nothing happen. Men go on al- ½ght with a neighboring prince when legorically humiliating one another the whole of his family–father, broth- and being allegorically humiliated by ers, wives, sisters–were assassinated one another, day after day, glorying qui- by commoner usurpers. Thus spared, etly in the experience if they have tri- he returned to dispatch the upstarts, umphed, crushed only slightly more regain the throne, reconstitute the Bali- openly by it if they have not. But no one’s nese high tradition, and build its most status really changes. You cannot ascend powerful, glorious, and prosperous state. the status ladder by winning cock½ghts; Along with everything else that the Bali- you cannot, as an individual, really as- nese see in ½ghting cocks–themselves, cend it at all. Nor can you descend it their social order, abstract hatred, masculinity, demonic power–they also see The old man turns out to be Siva and, thus, the archetype of status virtue, the arro- to live in a great palace in the sky, though the gant, resolute, honor-mad player with hero does not know this. In time, the hero de- real ½re, the ksatria prince.27 cides to visit his son and collect the promised cock. Lifted up into Siva’s presence, he is given the choice of three cocks. The ½rst crows: 27 In another of Hooykaas-van Leeuwen “I have beaten ½fteen opponents.” The second Boomkamp’s folk tales (“De Gast,” Sprookjes crows, “I have beaten twenty-½ve opponents.” en Verhalen van Bali, 172–180), a low caste The third crows, “I have beaten the King.” Sudra, a generous, pious, and carefree man who “That one, the third, is my choice,” says the is also an accomplished cock½ghter, loses, de- hero, and returns with it to earth. spite his accomplishment, ½ght after ½ght un- When he arrives at the cock½ght, he is asked til he is not only out of money but down to his for an entry fee and replies, “I have no money; last cock. He does not despair, however–“I I will pay after my cock has won.” As he is bet,” he says, “upon the Unseen World.” known never to win, he is let in because the His wife, a good and hardworking woman, king, who is there ½ghting, dislikes him and knowing how much he enjoys cock½ghting, hopes to enslave him when he loses and can- gives him her last “rainy day” money to go and not pay off. In order to ensure that this hap- bet. But, ½lled with misgivings due to his run pens, the king matches his ½nest cock against of ill luck, he leaves his own cock at home and the hero’s. When the cocks are placed down, bets merely on the side. He soon loses all but the hero’s flees, and the crowd, led by the ar- a coin or two and repairs to a food stand for a rogant king, hoots in laughter. The hero’s cock snack, where he meets a decrepit, odorous, and then flies at the king himself, killing him with generally unappetizing old beggar leaning on a a spur stab in the throat. The hero flees. His staff. The old man asks for food, and the hero house is encircled by the king’s men. The cock spends his last coins to buy him some. The old changes into a Garuda, the great mythic bird of man then asks to pass the night with the he- Indic legend, and carries the hero and his wife ro, which the hero gladly invites him to do. As to safety in the heavens. there is no food in the house, however, the he- When the people see this, they make the hero tells his wife to kill the last cock for dinner. ro king and his wife queen and they return as When the old man discovers this fact, he tells such to earth. Later their son, released by Siva, the hero he has three cocks in his own moun- also returns and the hero-king announces his tain hut and says the hero may have one of intention to enter a hermitage. (“I will ½ght no them for ½ghting. He also asks for the hero’s more cock½ghts. I have bet on the Unseen and son to accompany him as a servant, and, after won.”) He enters the hermitage and his son the son agrees, this is done. becomes king.

78 Dædalus Fall 2005 that way.28 All you can do is enjoy and them, to those historically positioned to Deep play: notes on savor, or suffer and withstand, the con- appreciate the construction, meaning- the Balinese cocted sensation of drastic and momen- ful–visible, tangible, graspable–“real,” cock½ght tary movement along an aesthetic sem- in an ideational sense. An image, ½ction, blance of that ladder, a kind of behind- a model, a metaphor, the cock½ght is a the-mirror status jump which has the means of expression; its function is nei- look of mobility without its actuality. ther to assuage social passions nor to As any art form–for that, ½nally, heighten them (though, in its play-with- is what we are dealing with–the cock- ½re way, it does a bit of both), but, in a ½ght renders ordinary, everyday experi- medium of feathers, blood, crowds, and ence comprehensible by presenting it money, to display them. in terms of acts and objects which have The question of how it is that we per- had their practical consequences receive qualities in things–paintings, moved and been reduced (or, if you pre- books, melodies, plays–that we do not fer, raised) to the level of sheer appear- feel we can assert literally to be there has ances, where their meaning can be more come, in recent years, into the very cen- powerfully articulated and more exactly ter of aesthetic theory.29 Neither the perceived. The cock½ght is “really real” sentiments of the artist, which remain only to the cocks–it does not kill any- his, nor those of the audience, which re- one, castrate anyone, reduce anyone to main theirs, can account for the agita- animal status, alter the hierarchical rel- tion of one painting or the serenity of ations among people, nor refashion the another. We attribute grandeur, wit, de- hierarchy; it does not even redistribute spair, exuberance to strings of sounds; income in any signi½cant way. What it lightness, energy, violence, fluidity to does is what, for other peoples with oth- blocks of stone. Novels are said to have er temperaments and other conventions, strength, buildings eloquence, plays mo- Lear and Crime and Punishment do; it mentum, ballets repose. In this realm catches up these themes–death, mas- of eccentric predicates, to say that the culinity, rage, pride, loss, bene½cence, cock½ght, in its perfected cases at least, chance–and, ordering them into an is “disquietful” does not seem at all un- encompassing structure, presents them natural, merely, as I have just denied it in such a way as to throw into relief a practical consequence, somewhat puz- particular view of their essential nature. zling. It puts a construction on them, makes The disquietfulness arises, “somehow,” out of a conjunction of three 28 Addict gamblers are really less declassed attributes of the ½ght: its immediate (for their status is, as everyone else’s, inherited) dramatic shape; its metaphoric con- than merely impoverished and personally dis- tent; and its social context. A cultural graced. The most prominent addict gambler in my cock½ght circuit was actually a very high caste satria who sold off most of his consider- 29 For four, somewhat variant, treatments, see able lands to support his habit. Though every- Susanne Langer, Feeling and Form (New York: one privately regarded him as a fool and worse Scribners, 1953); Richard Wollheim, Art and Its (some, more charitable, regarded him as sick), Objects (New York: Harper and Row, 1968); he was publicly treated with the elaborate def- Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art (Indianapo- erence and politeness due his rank. On the lis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968); Maurice Merleau- independence of personal reputation and public Ponty, “The Eye and the Mind,” in his The Pri- status in Bali, see Geertz, Person, Time, and macy of Perception (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern Conduct, 28–35. University Press, 1964), 159–190.

Dædalus Fall 2005 79 Clifford ½gure against a social ground, the ½ght unto itself, a particulate burst of form. Geertz is at once a convulsive surge of animal There is the match making, there is the hatred, a mock war of symbolical selves, betting, there is the ½ght, there is the and a formal simulation of status ten- result–utter triumph and utter defeat– sions, and its aesthetic power derives and there is the hurried, embarrassed from its capacity to force together these passing of money. The loser is not con- diverse realities. The reason it is disqui- soled. People drift away from him, look etful is not that it has material effects (it through him, leave him to assimilate has some, but they are minor); the rea- his momentary descent into nonbeing, son that it is disquietful is that, joining reset his face, and return, scarless and pride to selfhood, selfhood to cocks, and intact, to the fray. Nor are winners con- cocks to destruction, it brings to imagi- gratulated, or events rehashed; once a native realization a dimension of Bali- match is ended the crowd’s attention nese experience normally well-obscured turns totally to the next, with no looking from view. The transfer of a sense of back. A shadow of the experience no gravity into what is in itself a rather doubt remains with the principals, per- blank and unvarious spectacle, a com- haps even with some of the witnesses, motion of beating wings and throbbing of a deep ½ght, as it remains with us legs, is effected by interpreting it as ex- when we leave the theater after seeing pressive of something unsettling in the a powerful play well-performed; but it way its authors and audience live, or, quite soon fades to become at most a even more ominously, what they are. schematic memory–a diffuse glow or As a dramatic shape, the ½ght displays an abstract shudder–and usually not a characteristic that does not seem so re- even that. Any expressive form lives markable until one realizes that it does only in its own present–the one it it- not have to be there: a radically atomis- self creates. But, here, that present is tical structure.30 Each match is a world severed into a string of flashes, some more bright than others, but all of 30 British cock½ghts (the sport was banned them disconnected, aesthetic quanta. there in 1840) indeed seem to have lacked it, Whatever the cock½ght says, it says in and to have generated, therefore, a quite differ- spurts. ent family of shapes. Most British ½ghts were But, as I have argued lengthily else- “mains,” in which a preagreed number of cocks where, the Balinese live in spurts.31 were aligned into two teams and fought serially. Their life, as they arrange it and per- Score was kept and wagering took place both on the individual matches and on the main as ceive it, is less a flow, a directional move- a whole. There were also “battle Royales,” both ment out of the past, through the pres- in England and on the Continent, in which a ent, toward the future than an on-off large number of cocks were let loose at once pulsation of meaning and vacuity, an ar- with the one left standing at the end the victor. And in Wales, the so-called “Welsh main” followed an elimination pattern, along the lines ton, 1957); and Lawrence Fitz-Barnard, Fighting of a present-day tennis tournament, winners Sports (London: Odhams Press, 1921). proceeding to the next round. As a genre, the cock½ght has perhaps less compositional flexi- 31 Person, Time, and Conduct, esp. 42ff. I am, bility than, say, Latin comedy, but it is not en- however, not the ½rst person to have argued tirely without any. On cock½ghting more gen- it: see G. Bateson, “Bali, the Value System of a erally, see Arch Ruport, The Art of Cock½ghting Steady State,” and “An Old Temple and a New (New York: Devin-Adair, 1949); G. R. Scott, Myth,” in Belo, ed., Traditional Balinese Culture, History of Cock½ghting (London: Charles Skil- 384–402, 111–136.

80 Dædalus Fall 2005 rhythmic alternation of short periods in fact have it.33 And, because the con- Deep play: notes on when “something” (that is, something text suggests that the rendering, if less the Balinese signi½cant) is happening and equally than a straightforward description is cock½ght short ones where “nothing” (that is, nonetheless more than an idle fancy, it nothing much) is–between what they is here that the disquietfulness–the dis- themselves call “full” and “empty” quietfulness of the ½ght, not (or, anyway, times, or, in another idiom, “junctures” not necessarily) its patrons, who seem and “holes.” In focusing activity down in fact rather thoroughly to enjoy it– to a burning-glass dot, the cock½ght is emerges. The slaughter in the cock ring merely being Balinese in the same way in is not a depiction of how things literal- which everything from the monadic en- ly are among men, but, what is almost counters of everyday life, through the worse, of how, from a particular angle, clanging pointillism of gamelan music, to they imaginatively are.34 the visiting-day-of-the-gods temple cele- The angle, of course, is strati½ca- brations are. It is not an imitation of the tory. What, as we have already seen, punctuateness of Balinese social life, nor the cock½ght talks most forcibly about a depiction of it, nor even an expression is status relationships, and what it says of it; it is an example of it, carefully pre- about them is that they are matters of pared.32 life and death. That prestige is a pro- If one dimension of the cock½ght’s structure, its lack of temporal direction- 33 Northrop Frye, The Educated Imagination ality, makes it seem a typical segment of (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, the general social life, however, the oth- 1964), 99. er, its flat-out, head-to-head (or spur-to- 34 There are two other Balinese values and dis- spur) aggressiveness, makes it seem a values which, connected with punctuate tem- contradiction, a reversal, even a subver- porality on the one hand and unbridled aggression of it. In the normal course of things, siveness on the other, reinforce the sense that the Balinese are shy to the point of ob- the cock½ght is at once continuous with ordi- sessiveness of open conflict. Oblique, nary social life and a direct negation of it: what cautious, subdued, controlled, masters the Balinese call ramé, and what they call paling. Ramé means crowded, noisy, and active, and is of indirection and dissimulation–what a highly sought-after social state: crowded mar- they call alus, “polished,” “smooth”– kets, mass festivals, busy streets are all ramé as, they rarely face what they can turn away of course, is, in the extreme, a cock½ght. Ramé from, rarely resist what they can evade. is what happens in the “full” times (its oppo- But here they portray themselves as wild site, sepi, “quiet,” is what happens in the “empty” ones). Paling is social vertigo, the dizzy, dis- and murderous, manic explosions of in- oriented, lost, turned-around feeling one gets stinctual cruelty. A powerful rendering when one’s place in the coordinates of social of life as the Balinese most deeply do space is not clear, and it is a tremendously dis- not want it (to adapt a phrase Frye has favored, immensely anxiety-producing state. used of Gloucester’s blinding) is set in Balinese regard the exact maintenance of spa- tial orientation (“not to know where north is” the context of a sample of it as they do is to be crazy), balance, decorum, status relationships, and so forth, as fundamental to or- 32 For the necessity of distinguishing among dered life (krama)and paling, the sort of whirl- “description,” “representation,” “exempli½ca- ing confusion of position the scrambling cocks tion,” and “expression” (and the irrelevance of exemplify as its profoundest enemy and contra- “imitation” to all of them) as modes of symbol- diction. On ramé see Bateson and Mead, Bali- ic reference, see Goodman, Languages of Art, nese Character, 3, 64; on paling, ibid., 11, and 6–10, 45–91, 225–241. Belo, ed., Traditional Balinese Culture, 90ff.

Dædalus Fall 2005 81 Clifford foundly serious business is apparent nect, and connect–the collision of Geertz everywhere one looks in Bali–in the roosters with the divisiveness of status village, the family, the economy, the is to invite a transfer of perceptions from state. A peculiar fusion of Polynesian the former to the latter, a transfer which title ranks and Hindu castes, the hierar- is at once a description and a judgment. chy of pride is the moral backbone of (Logically, the transfer could, of course, the society. But only in the cock½ght are as well go the other way; but, like most the sentiments upon which that hierar- of the rest of us, the Balinese are a great chy rests revealed in their natural colors. deal more interested in understanding Enveloped elsewhere in a haze of eti- men than they are in understanding quette, a thick cloud of euphemism and cocks.) ceremony, gesture and allusion, they are What sets the cock½ght apart from the here expressed in only the thinnest dis- ordinary course of life, lifts it from the guise of an animal mask, a mask which realm of everyday practical affairs, and in fact demonstrates them far more ef- surrounds it with an aura of enlarged fectively than it conceals them. Jealousy importance is not, as functionalist soci- is as much a part of Bali as poise, envy ology would have it, that it reinforces as grace, brutality as charm; but with- status discriminations (such reinforce- out the cock½ght the Balinese would ment is hardly necessary in a society have a much less certain understanding where every act proclaims them), but of them, which is, presumably, why they that it provides a metasocial commen- value it so highly. tary upon the whole matter of assorting Any expressive form works (when it human beings into ½xed hierarchical works) by disarranging semantic con- ranks and then organizing the major texts in such a way that properties con- part of collective existence around that ventionally ascribed to certain things assortment. Its function, if you want to are unconventionally ascribed to others, call it that, is interpretive: it is a Balinese which are then seen actually to possess reading of Balinese experience; a story them. To call the wind a cripple, as Ste- they tell themselves about themselves. vens does, to ½x tone and manipulate timbre, as Schoenberg does, or, closer To put the matter this way is to engage to our case, to picture an art critic as in a bit of metaphorical refocusing of a dissolute bear, as Hogarth does, is to cross conceptual wires; the established from H. H. Drager, “The Concept of ‘Tonal conjunctions between objects and their Body,’” in Susanne Langer, ed., Reflections on qualities are altered and phenomena– Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 1961), fall weather, melodic shape, or cultural 174. On Hogarth, and on this whole problem– journalism–are clothed in signi½ers there called “multiple matrix matching”–see which normally point to other refer- E. H. Gombrich, “The Use of Art for the Study 35 of Symbols,” in James Hogg, ed., Psychology ents. Similarly, to connect–and con- and the Visual Arts (Baltimore: Penguin Brooks, 1969), 149–170. The more usual term for this 35 The Stevens reference is to his “The Motive sort of semantic alchemy is “metaphorical for Metaphor,” (“You like it under the trees transfer,” and good technical discussions of it in autumn, / Because everything is half dead. / can be found in M. Black, Models and Metaphors The wind moves like a cripple among the leaves (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1962), / And repeats words without meaning”); the 25ff; Goodman, Language as Art, 44ff; and W. Schoenberg reference is to the third of his Five Percy, “Metaphor as Mistake,” Sewanee Review Orchestral Pieces (Opus 16), and is borrowed 66 (1958): 78–99.

82 Dædalus Fall 2005 one’s own, for it shifts the analysis of corollary, so far as anthropology is con- Deep play: notes on cultural forms from an endeavor in gen- cerned, that cultural forms can be treat- the Balinese eral parallel to dissecting an organism, ed as texts, as imaginative works built cock½ght diagnosing a symptom, deciphering a out of social materials, has yet to be sys- code, or ordering a system–the domi- tematically exploited.38 nant analogies in contemporary anthro- In the case at hand, to treat the cock- pology–to one in general parallel with ½ght as a text is to bring out a feature penetrating a literary text. If one takes of it (in my opinion, the central feature the cock½ght, or any other collectively of it) that treating it as a rite or a pas- sustained symbolic structure, as a means time, the two most obvious alternatives, of “saying something of something” (to would tend to obscure: its use of emo- invoke a famous Aristotelian tag), then tion for cognitive ends. What the cock- one is faced with a problem not in social ½ght says it says in a vocabulary of sen- mechanics but social semantics.36 For timent–the thrill of risk, the despair of the anthropologist, whose concern is loss, the pleasure of triumph. Yet what with formulating sociological princi- it says is not merely that risk is exciting, ples, not with promoting or appreciat- loss depressing, or triumph gratifying, ing cock½ghts, the question is, what banal tautologies of affect, but that it is does one learn about such principles of these emotions, thus exampled, that from examining culture as an assem- society is built and individuals put to- blage of texts? gether. Attending cock½ghts and par- Such an extension of the notion of a ticipating in them is, for the Balinese, text beyond written material, and even a kind of sentimental education. What beyond verbal, is, though metaphorical, he learns there is what his culture’s not, of course, all that novel. The inter- ethos and his private sensibility (or, any- pretatio naturae tradition of the Middle way, certain aspects of them) look like Ages, which, culminating in Spinoza, when spelled out externally in a collec- attempted to read nature as Scripture, tive text; that the two are near enough the Nietszchean effort to treat value alike to be articulated in the symbolics systems as glosses on the will to power of a single such text; and–the disquiet- (or the Marxian one to treat them as ing part–that the text in which this rev- glosses on property relations), and the elation is accomplished consists of a Freudian replacement of the enigmat- ic text of the manifest dream with the 38 Lévi-Strauss’s “structuralism” might seem an exception. But it is only an apparent one, plain one of the latent, all offer prece- for, rather than taking myths, totem rites, mar- dents, if not equally recommendable riage rules, or whatever as texts to interpret, ones.37 But the idea remains theoretical- Lévi-Strauss takes them as ciphers to solve, ly undeveloped; and the more profound which is very much not the same thing. He does not seek to understand symbolic forms 36 The tag is from the second book of the Or- in terms of how they function in concrete situ- ganon, On Interpretation. For a discussion of it, ations to organize perceptions (meanings, emo- and for the whole argument for freeing “the tions, concepts, attitudes); he seeks to under- notion of text . . . from the notion of scripture stand them entirely in terms of their internal or writing,” and constructing, thus, a general structure, indépendent de tout sujet, de tout objet, hermeneutics, see Paul Ricoeur, Freud and Phi- et de toute contexte. For my own view of this ap- losophy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University proach–that is suggestive and indefensible– Press, 1970), 20ff. see Clifford Geertz, “The Cerebral Savage: On the Work of Lévi-Strauss,” Encounter 48 (1967): 37 Ibid. 25–32.

Dædalus Fall 2005 83 Clifford chicken hacking another mindlessly to such a character as Micawber in Dickens, Geertz bits. you don’t feel that there must have been Every people, the proverb has it, loves a man Dickens knew who was exactly like its own form of violence. The cock½ght this: you feel that there’s a bit of Micaw- is the Balinese reflection on theirs: on ber in almost everybody you know, in- its look, its uses, its force, its fascination. cluding yourself. Our impressions of hu- Drawing on almost every level of Bali- man life are picked up one by one, and nese experience, it brings together remain for most of us loose and disorga- themes–animal savagery, male narcis- nized. But we constantly ½nd things in sism, opponent gambling, status rival- literature that suddenly co-ordinate and ry, mass excitement, blood sacri½ce– bring into focus a great many such im- whose main connection is their involve- pressions, and this is part of what Aris- ment with rage and the fear of rage, and, totle means by the typical or universal binding them into a set of rules which human event.39 at once contains them and allows them It is this kind of bringing of assorted play, builds a symbolic structure in experiences of everyday life to focus which, over and over again, the reality that the cock½ght, set aside from that of their inner af½liation can be intelligi- life as “only a game” and reconnected bly felt. If, to quote Northrop Frye again, to it as “more than a game,” accom- we go to see Macbeth to learn what a man plishes, and so creates what, better feels like after he has gained a kingdom than typical or universal, could be and lost his soul, Balinese go to cock- called a paradigmatic human event– ½ghts to ½nd out what a man, usually that is, one that tells us less what hap- composed, aloof, almost obsessively pens than the kind of thing that would self-absorbed, a kind of moral autocosm, happen if, as is not the case, life were art feels like when, attacked, tormented, and could be as freely shaped by styles of challenged, insulted, and driven in result feeling as Macbeth and David Copper½eld to the extremes of fury, he has totally are. triumphed or been brought totally low. Enacted and reenacted, so far without The whole passage, as it takes us back end, the cock½ght enables the Balinese, to Aristotle (though to the Poetics rather as, read and reread, Macbeth enables us, than the Hermeneutics), is worth quota- to see a dimension of his own subjectiv- tion: ity. As he watches ½ght after ½ght with But the poet [as opposed to the historian], the active watching of an owner and a Aristotle says, never makes any real state- bettor (for cock½ghting has no more ments at all, certainly no particular or spe- interest as a pure spectator sport than ci½c ones. The poet’s job is not to tell you croquet or dog racing do), he grows fa- what happened, but what happens: not miliar with it and what it has to say to what did take place, but the kind of thing him, much as the attentive listener to that always does take place. He gives you string quartets or the absorbed viewer the typical, recurring, or what Aristotle of still lifes grows slowly more familiar calls universal event. You wouldn’t go with them in a way which opens his sub- to Macbeth to learn about the history of jectivity to himself.40 Scotland–you go to it to learn what a 39 Frye, The Educated Imagination, 63–64. man feels like after he’s gained a kingdom and lost his soul. When you meet 40 The use of the, to Europeans, “natural” visual idiom for perception–“see,” “watches,”

84 Dædalus Fall 2005 Yet, because–in another of those par- In the cock½ght, then, the Balinese Deep play: notes on adoxes, along with painted feelings and forms and discovers his temperament the Balinese unconsequenced acts, which haunt aes- and his society’s temper at the same cock½ght thetics–that subjectivity does not prop- time. Or, more exactly, he forms and dis- erly exist until it is thus organized, art covers a particular face of them. Not on- forms generate and regenerate the very ly are there a great many other cultural subjectivity they pretend only to display. texts providing commentaries on status Quartets, still lifes, and cock½ghts are hierarchy and self-regard in Bali, but not merely reflections of a preexisting there are a great many other critical sec- sensibility analogically represented; they tors of Balinese life besides the strati½- are positive agents in the creation and catory and the agonistic that receive maintenance of such a sensibility. If we such commentary. The ceremony conse- see ourselves as a pack of Micawbers it crating a Brahmana priest, a matter of is from reading too much Dickens (if we breath control, postural immobility, and see ourselves as unillusioned realists, it vacant concentration upon the depths is from reading too little); and similar- of being, displays a radically different, ly for Balinese, cocks, and cock½ghts. but to the Balinese equally real, proper- It is in such a way, coloring experience ty of social hierarchy–its reach toward with the light they cast it in, rather than the numinous transcendent. Set not in through whatever material effects they the matrix of the kinetic emotionality of may have, that the arts play their role, as animals, but in that of the static passion- arts, in social life.41 lessness of divine mentality, it expresses tranquility not disquiet. The mass festivals at the village temples, which mobi- and so forth–is more than usually misleading lize the whole local population in elabo- here, for the fact that, as mentioned earlier, Balinese follow the progress of the ½ght as rate hostings of visiting gods–songs, much (perhaps, as ½ghting cocks are actually dances, compliments, gifts–assert the rather hard to see except as blurs of motion, spiritual unity of village mates against more) with their bodies as with their eyes, their status inequality and project a moving their limbs, heads, and trunks in ges- mood of amity and trust.42 The cock- tural mimicry of the cocks’ maneuvers, means that much of the individual’s experience of the ½ght is kinesthetic rather than visual. If be) bracketed in the sociology of art. In any ever there was an example of Kenneth Burke’s case, the attempt to deprovincialize the concept de½nition of a symbolic act as “the dancing of art is but part of the general anthropological of an attitude” (The Philosophy of Literary Form, conspiracy to deprovincialize all important so- rev. ed. [New York: Vintage Books, 1957], 9) cial concepts–marriage, religion, law, rationali- the cock½ght is it. On the enormous role of ty–and though this is a threat to aesthetic the- kinesthetic perception in Balinese life, Bateson ories which regard certain works of art as be- and Mead, Balinese Character, 84–88; on the yond the reach of sociological analysis, it is active nature of aesthetic perception in general, no threat to the conviction, for which Robert Goodman, Language of Art, 241–244. Graves claims to have been reprimanded at his Cambridge tripos, that some poems are better 41 All this coupling of the occidental great with than others. the oriental lowly will doubtless disturb certain sorts of aestheticians as the earlier efforts of 42 For the consecration ceremony, see V. E. anthropologists to speak of Christianity and Korn, “The Consecration of the Priest,” in totemism in the same breath disturbed certain Swellengrebel, ed., Bali, 131–154; for (some- sorts of theologians. But as ontological ques- what exaggerated) village communion, Roelof tions are (or should be) bracketed in the sociol- Goris, “The Religious Character of the Balinese ogy of religion, judgmental ones are (or should Village,” ibid., 79–100.

Dædalus Fall 2005 85 Clifford ½ght is not the master key to Balinese Functionalism lives, and so does psy- Geertz life, any more than bull½ghting is to chologism. But to regard such forms as Spanish. What it says about that life is “saying something of something,” and not unquali½ed nor even unchallenged saying it to somebody, is at least to open by what other equally eloquent cultur- up the possibility of an analysis which al statements say about it. But there is attends to their substance rather than to nothing more surprising in this than in reductive formulas professing to account the fact that Racine and Molière were for them. contemporaries, or that the same people As in more familiar exercises in close who arrange chrysanthemums cast reading, one can start anywhere in a swords.43 culture’s repertoire of forms and end The culture of a people is an ensemble up anywhere else. One can stay, as I of texts, themselves ensembles, which have here, within a single, more or less the anthropologist strains to read over bounded form and circle steadily with- the shoulders of those to whom they in it. One can move between forms in properly belong. There are enormous search of broader unities or informing dif½culties in such an enterprise, meth- contrasts. One can even compare forms odological pitfalls to make a Freudian from different cultures to de½ne their quake, and some moral perplexities as character in reciprocal relief. But what- well. Nor is it the only way that symbol- ever the level at which one operates, and ic forms can be sociologically handled. however intricately, the guiding principle is the same: societies, like lives, contain their own interpretations. One has 43 That what the cock½ght has to say about only to learn how to gain access to them. Bali is not altogether without perception and the disquiet it expresses about the general pattern of Balinese life is not wholly without reason is attested by the fact that in two weeks of December 1965, during the upheavals following the unsuccessful coup in Djakarta, between forty and eighty thousand Balinese (in a population of about two million) were killed, largely by one another–the worst outburst in the country. (John Hughes, Indonesian Upheaval [New York: McKay, 1967], 173–183. Hughes’s ½gures are, of course, rather casual estimates, but they are not the most extreme.) This is not to say, of course, that the killings were caused by the cock½ght, could have been predicted on the basis of it, or were some sort of enlarged version of it with real people in the place of the cocks–all of which is nonsense. It is merely to say that if one looks at Bali not just through the medium of its dances, its shadowplays, its sculpture, and its girls, but–as the Balinese themselves do–also through the medium of its cock½ght, the fact that the massacre occurred seems, if no less appalling, less like a contradiction to the laws of nature. As more than one real Gloucester has discovered, sometimes people actually get life precisely as they most deeply do not want it.

86 Dædalus Fall 2005 Robert M. Solow

How did economics get that way & what way did it get?

My exposure to economics as a disci- ics, and I would like to provide a few pline began in September 1940 when I then-and-now snapshots. The differ- enrolled as a freshman in the elementa- ence, however, is that with economics ry economics course at Harvard College. something more is called for; the pic- I will try in this essay to make sense of tures have to be connected. I would like the evolution of economics over a span to tell a story about how and why the ar- of more than ½fty years. chitecture of economics changed. It will An analogy that comes to mind is be a sort of Whig history but without the from The Boston Globe. The Sunday edi- smugness. tion occasionally publishes pairs of photographs of urban landscapes. They are There were three textbooks that were taken from the same spot, looking in used in the 1940 economics course at the same direction, but are at least thir- Harvard. One was a standard principles ty, forty, or ½fty years apart. One shows text by Frederic Garver and Alvin Han- a corner of the city as it looked then sen. Hansen had been at Minnesota with and the other as it looks now. Some Garver but by 1940 was a professor at buildings have disappeared, some new Harvard and–although we freshmen ones have been built, and some of the had no inkling–the leading ½gure in old ones are still there but with altered bringing the ideas of John Maynard facades. This description is also true of Keynes’s General Theory of Employment, the landscape and structure of econom- Interest and Money1 into American economics. The second text was a large in- Robert M. Solow, Institute Professor Emeritus troductory book called Modern Economic and Professor of Economics Emeritus at the Mas- Society by Sumner Slichter,2 also a mem- sachusetts Institute of Technology, has been a Fel- ber of the Harvard faculty and usually low of the American Academy since 1956. In 1987 referred to as the dean of American labor he received the Nobel Prize in Economics. At the economists. The book was more about time of this essay’s publication in the Winter 1997 issue of “Dædalus,” Solow was Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of 1 John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (London: Mac- Technology. millan, 1936).

Dædalus Fall 2005 87 Robert M. economic institutions and their func- older books mention one equation, the Solow tioning than about theory. The third text Quantity Equation.) The numerical ex- was a little green volume by Luthringer, ample, hallowed in economics since the Chandler, and Cline about money and days of David Ricardo, is still in use, but banking, one of a series of little green it is no longer the analytical workhorse. books. (Lester Chandler of Princeton The older books are long on classi½ca- was the only one of the authors whose tions–kinds of goods, kinds of indus- name we ever heard again.) It was a pret- tries, kinds of labor–and on descrip- ty boring text, as I remember, but fortu- tions of public and private institutions. nately we only had to read bits of it. This The ½rst 260 pages in Slichter’s text are is actually an important point, and I will exclusively descriptive of the U.S. econ- come back to it later. omy as it then was. I would guess that Even a quick physical comparison of fewer than one hundred of the next six a good contemporary elementary text hundred pages are devoted to the devel- with Garver and Hansen and Slichter opment of analysis or to the application tells us something. Leaving aside the of analysis. Most provide more institu- typographical changes–color, wider tional descriptions, very sensible discus- margins, larger type–the modern text sions of economic policy, and serious is sprinkled with diagrams, tables, even looks at recent history as it would be simple equations, whereas the older seen by an economist. No one should ones present page after page of unbro- underestimate the value of these histor- ken prose. In some seven hundred ical reflections. They are, in a way, the pages, Garver and Hansen have fewer application of analytical ideas. But there than forty tables or ½gures. Some of is a not-so-subtle difference. The mod- them represent the working-out of nu- ern textbook presents and uses econom- merical examples of simple proposi- ic analysis as a tool to be directly applied tions, and the rest, maybe half, contain to contemporary or historical situations. data about the U.S. economy. Similarly, The student is shown how to map real there are ½fty-½ve graphs, again divided events into the categories that appear on between a small number of analytical the axes of the diagrams or the terms in diagrams and a larger number of graphi- the equations. The older texts are simp- cal presentations of actual data. Slichter ly more discursive. The underlying ideas is not radically different in his nine hun- are treated more like categories that res- dred pages. onate to this or that bit of history or pol- The modern counterpart, while no icy; the authors ruminate more than more intellectually demanding for the they analyze. student (perhaps even less so), is full of One sees this clearly in the way these diagrams, tables, and equations. The use two books present the idea of supply and of analytical diagrams is probably ten demand. This is the one piece of analy- times as intense, and the volume of real- sis that gets careful treatment. Charac- world data presented is correspondingly teristically, however, Garver and Hansen greater. Propositions are often stated in are very good on how one should think the form of equations, but these are al- about different kinds of commodities– most always simple statements (i.e., perishable or not, bought frequently or two intuitively understandable quanti- seldom, standardized or not–but the ties must be equal); there is not a lot of student is not encouraged to make liter- heavy mathematics in these texts. (The al use of the apparatus of supply and de-

88 Dædalus Fall 2005 mand curves. Both books spend time some of them because new facts and How did discussing monopolistic elements in institutions emerged, some of them for economics get that way real-world markets, but most of the internal intellectual reasons. Not many & what way discussion is institutional. There is, of sub½elds seem to have disappeared, did it get? course, no serious treatment of monop- though there was some rearrangement oly price because there was very little as a more uni½ed macroeconomics ab- known at the time. sorbed segments like “business cycles.” I do not want to be misunderstood. At the most general level, however, the Garver and Hansen and Slichter were change in tone was as I have described it. serious people. Their reflections on the Many outside observers and some crit- workings of the economy are worth ics from within the profession have in- reading. They inspire bursts of nostal- terpreted this development as a sweep- gia; words like “civilized” came to mind. ing victory for “formalism” in econom- The point is that the modern text takes a ics. The intended implication is that eco- different approach. Of course it explains nomics has lost touch with everyday life, more; the intervening sixty years of eco- that it has become more self-involved nomic research have not been wasted. and less relevant to social concerns as it But it is the tone that I want to empha- became more formal (and more mathe- size. The modern text treats economics matical). I think that this view of the disas a collection of analytical tools to be cipline rests on a misconception about applied quite directly to observable sit- the change in the way mainstream econ- uations. omists go about their work. Barking may It is plain from this comparison that well be justi½ed, but not up the wrong there was a signi½cant change between tree. 1940 and 1990 in economics as a disci- If “formalist economics” means any- pline and also in the way it sees itself. thing, it must mean economic theory Perhaps this sea change deserves to be constructed more or less after the mo- called a transformation. One way to de- del of Euclid’s geometry. One starts with scribe it is to say that economics became a few axioms, as close to “self-evident” a self-consciously technical subject, no as they can be–although this is harder longer a ½t occupation for the gentle- to do when the subject matter is more man-scholar. And I mean that literally: complicated than points and lines in a nowadays economists arrive at their plane–and then tries to work out all conclusions by using an evolving collec- the logical implications of those axioms. tion of analytical techniques, most of Formalist economics starts with a small them nonintuitive, the sort that have number of assumptions about the be- to be learned laboriously. The shift of havior of individual economic agents, the center of gravity from Great Britain and a few more about their interactions to the United States (and to the G.I. Bill with each other, and goes on to study veterans at that) may have helped the what can then be said about the result- process along. Judicious discussion is ing economic system. no longer the way serious economics The past ½fty years have indeed seen is carried out. Of course, that is not all formalist economics grow and prosper. that happened in ½fty years. A lot of new But it has not grown very much. Only knowledge was acquired, most of it by a small minority within the profession virtue of those analytical techniques. practices economic theory in this style. New branches of economics appeared, To tell the truth, not many more pay any

Dædalus Fall 2005 89 Robert M. attention at all to formalist theory. Gen- tion on the willingness to work. (God Solow erally speaking, formalists write for one knows that is a reasonable thing to be another. The formalist school contains interested in.) The usual approach goes some extraordinarily able people, and something like this: Imagine a typical of course it attracts economists who person of working age who enjoys both not only are talented at mathematics of consumer goods and leisure, and whose a certain kind but enjoy it. It is not sur- tastes for them can be described in a prising, therefore, that outsiders think simple and well-behaved way. This per- that there is a lot of formalism in eco- son has a certain amount of nonwage nomics, just as half a cup of blood spread income, from property or from transfer around a bathroom can make it look like payments of various kinds. He has the a scene from Psycho. Nevertheless, it is option of working any number of hours an illusion. Modern mainstream eco- at a wage rate determined by the market. nomics is not all that formal. Part of his income is taxed away according to some known schedule. We have to What the outsider really sees is model- assume that this person does the best he building, which is an altogether different can to satisfy his tastes for leisure and sort of activity. In college classrooms in for the goods that his after-tax income the 1940s, whole semesters could go by can buy. without anyone talking about building We now ask the question that led to or testing a model. Today, if you ask a this model in the ½rst place. How will mainstream economist a question about he respond to higher tax rates–by work- almost any aspect of economic life, the ing more or fewer hours? If he makes response will be: suppose we model that no adjustment, he will have the same situation and see what happens. It is im- amount of leisure time but have fewer portant, then, to understand what a goods. That may suggest that he work model is and what it is not. longer hours, giving up some leisure A model is a deliberately simpli½ed time for more goods. With the higher representation of a much more compli- tax rates, however, each hour worked cated situation. (I have no reference for brings less in the way of goods, suggest- this, but I think I remember that the phi- ing that work has become less attractive. losopher J. L. Austin wrote somewhere He may choose, therefore, to work fewer that “one would be tempted to describe hours. It may make a difference wheth- oversimpli½cation as the occupational er the tax system imposes different rates disease of philosophers if it were not on wage and nonwage income. Perhaps their occupation.” Exactly.) it depends on the details of his prefer- The idea is to focus on one or two ences; not every person need react in causal or conditioning factors, exclude the same way. This model asks for some everything else, and hope to under- deeper analysis, which it gets. stand how just these aspects of reality Notice all the casual oversimpli½ca- work and interact. There are thousands tions. Not everyone can choose how of examples; the point is that modern many hours to work. People do not buy mainstream economics consists of lit- “consumer goods” in general; they buy tle else but examples of this process. hundreds of different things, some of What follows are three of them, de- which go particularly well with leisure. scribed in the sketchiest terms. Suppose Some people, but not others, have some we are interested in the effects of taxa- control over the intensity with which

90 Dædalus Fall 2005 they work. There are customs and norms reasons for holding and changing inven- How did economics that affect the behavior of different tories. And there are potentially impor- get that way groups. All of this sort of talk is cheap. tant conditioning factors that have been & what way The point of the exercise is to simplify completely left out: relations with sup- did it get? and see where it leads. Alternative sim- pliers and customers and ½nancial con- pli½cations are possible, and making straints, for instance. those choices is the art of the model- Modeling inventory fluctuations is builder. How do we judge success? It a matter of ½nding a way to represent is a good question, and I will return to some or all of these motives so that they it soon. can be weighed against one another in Here is a different type of example. much the same way that a pro½t-seek- Anyone who has looked at the history ing ½rm will have to weigh them as it of business cycles knows that net invest- decides what to do. Notice that last ment in inventories by businesses is month’s unintended inventory fluc- highly volatile and can easily account tuations will have an effect on this for most of the top-to-bottom change month’s plans, so that the behavior in production during a recession. It is to be described has a dynamics of its therefore a matter of some importance own. How do we judge success? Good that we understand the nature of inven- question, and I will come to it soon. tory fluctuations. There are plenty of Lastly, I give yet a third example reasons for ½rms to hold inventories because it illustrates a quite different and to change the amount of invento- point. Ten years ago, Elhanan Helpman ries they hold. Production schedules modeled a group of countries trading are ef½cient when they are smooth, but with one another under very special cir- sales can fluctuate unpredictably (or cumstances. Each country specialized predictably, as from season to season). completely in producing a single varie- Inventories of ½nished goods provide a ty of good. In the eyes of consumers, buffer, enabling ½rms to meet a fluctuat- each country’s “own” variety served ing demand with smooth production. as a symmetrically imperfect substitute Inventories of goods-in-process and, to for each other country’s variety. Con- a lesser extent, raw materials and com- sumers, however, all had the same set ponents may be tied fairly closely to cur- of tastes, no matter where they lived. rent production. Some ½rms build up in- Under these restrictive assumptions ventories in anticipation of future sales, and a few others, he showed that there or they may try to run their inventories would be a simple formula relating the down if they expect sales to be slack. In- volume of a country’s trade to its size. ventories of raw materials may provide In reality, countries do not specialize in a way to speculate on the prices of raw producing a single good, and consumers materials, buying more than needed do not have the same tastes wherever when the price is low and using up the they are. Nevertheless, Helpman’s for- surplus when the current price is high. mula seemed to work quite well for a Finally, ½rms may ½nd themselves with group of oecd (i.e., advanced) coun- inventories that are lower or higher than tries. The moral might be that, in reali- they actually want: higher because sales ty, production patterns are a lot more have been disappointing, lower if sales specialized than tastes. have been unexpectedly strong. Even Recently, however, other economists this list is not a complete inventory of tried out the Helpman formula on a

Dædalus Fall 2005 91 Robert M. group of non-oecd countries, includ- details. There is something to be said for Solow ing some in Latin America and Africa. both. It seemed to work pretty well for them The interesting question is why eco- too. Paradoxically, perhaps that success nomics stopped being clubbable and be- casts some doubt on the Helpman mod- came technical sometime in the 1940s el: one would not expect the less ad- and 1950s, and why model-building took vanced countries to exhibit the same over as the standard intellectual exercise. specialization in production and com- I think one has to allow for the possibili- monality of tastes that is plausible for ty that it is, after all, the best way to do oecd countries. After all, there may economics, and we are just seeing the be quite different models that imply a survival of the ½ttest in another context. similar relation between the size of a That would be Whig history with a ven- country and the volume of its trade. It geance. I confess to some sympathy with appears that measuring success may not that view, but only within limits. I would be a simple notion. add that the model-building approach is A good model makes the right strate- peculiarly vulnerable to unproductive gic simpli½cations. In fact, a really good controversy of a particular kind. I will model is one that generates a lot of un- discuss this later when I talk about meas- derstanding from focusing on a very uring success (one model at a time). small number of causal arrows. Model- I have a different hypothesis to sug- building is not a mechanical process. gest–that technique and model-build- Some people are better at this sort of ing came along with the expanding thing than others. Economic models availability of data, and each reinforces are usually stated mathematically, but the other. Each new piece of informa- they do not have to be. They can be de- tion about the economy, especially if scribed in words, as I have been doing, it is quantitative information, practi- or in diagrammatic form, or in comput- cally sits there and begs for explana- er flow charts for that matter. But math- tion. Someone will eventually be clever ematics turns out to be a very ef½cient enough to see that it is now feasible to way to express the structure of a sim- construct a model. Reciprocally, alterna- pli½ed model and it is, of course, a mar- tive models have to compete on some velous tool for discovering the implica- basis. They are not usually fancy enough tions of a particular model. That is prob- to compete on the basis of elegance or ably why outsiders tend to think of mod- depth or the intellectual equivalent of el-building as just more formalism. That pectoral development. They compete on is a mistake. The mere use of mathemat- the basis of their ability to give a satisfy- ics does not constitute formalism. May- ing account of some facts. Facts ask for be the sharpest way to make this point explanations, and explanations ask for is to say that the mathematics in these new facts. models is almost never deep. There are There is another partner in this evo- exceptions, of course. Nevertheless I lutionary spiral: the development of venture the estimate (safe because it is new methods of data analysis and statis- unveri½able) that there is little or no cor- tical inference. The other highly visible relation in fact between the dif½culty change in the style of academic econom- or mathematical depth of an economic ics since 1940 has been the explosion of model and its value as science. God is in econometrics from an esoteric minority the details, or perhaps in the absence of taste to an essential part of a Ph.D. edu-

92 Dædalus Fall 2005 cation–at least one chapter in most of el-builder himself, but he opened up a How did economics the dissertations produced in a major gold mine for those who came after. get that way department. I will say a little about this Suddenly there were models of aggre- & what way vertex of the triangle later. gate consumption and aggregate invest- did it get? The spread of model-building coin- ment, small but complete models of ag- cided in time with the development and gregate output and employment, and diffusion of Keynesian economics. This data against which they could be tested was an accident, but an accident with and perhaps improved. Econometricians consequences: the heyday of Keynesian had new problems of statistical infer- economics provides a wonderful exam- ence to solve. And it all seemed so impor- ple of the interplay among theory, the tant. availability of data, and the econometric The General Theory was and is a very method. The General Theory dates from dif½cult book to read. It contains sever- 1936; Simon Kuznets’s book on national al distinct lines of thought that are never income accounting appeared in 1938.3 quite made mutually consistent. It was Both were no doubt related to the dean extraordinarily influential book for pression of the 1930s, but that is just his- my generation of students (along with tory. The point is that Keynesian theory John Hicks’s Value and Capital4 and Paul needed the national income and product Samuelson’s Foundations of Economic accounts to make contact with reality, Analysis5), but we learned not as much and the availability of national income from it–it was, as I said, almost unread- and product accounts made Keynesian able–as from a number of explanatory macroeconomics fruitful (and helped to articles that appeared on all our gradu- shape it). ate-school reading lists. These articles When I mentioned at the very begin- reduced one or two of those trains of ning that my freshman textbook of thought to an intelligible model, which money and banking was a bore, this is for us became “Keynesian economics.” what I had in mind. It was the only ves- The most important of those articles tige of macroeconomics that we were were by John Hicks and Oskar Lange, taught–although the unemployment but there was a whole series of them, by rate in 1940 was still about 14 percent! Brian Reddaway, David Champernowne, –and it consisted of a few details about and others. This story provides a differ- the fractional-reserve banking system ent sort of illustration of the clarifying and the way it provides credit and gen- power of the model-building method. erates cash. There was such a thing as It is very likely that the war, as much business-cycle theory, but it was regard- as the depression, worked in the same ed as a sort of special topic. The text- direction. The panoply of wartime poli- book writers before 1940 had neither cy–Treasury ½nance, price and produc- the theory nor the data required to give tion controls, logistics of various kinds– a coherent account of macroeconomics involved economists in social engineer- as part of the core of the subject. Keynes more or less invented macro- 4 Sir John Richard Hicks, Value and Capital: An economics. He was not much of a mod- Inquiry into Some Fundamental Principles of Eco- nomic Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939).

3 Simon Smith Kuznets, National Income and 5 Paul Anthony Samuelson, Foundations of Capital Formation, 1919–1935 (New York: Na- Economic Analysis (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard tional Bureau of Economic Research, 1938). University Press, 1947).

Dædalus Fall 2005 93 Robert M. ing. Any routinization of policy, even ed in the original, narrowly focused Solow nonintrusive policy, leads inevitably to model. Trouble arises because data are technical questions. What will be the scarce in economics; more cannot be consequences if we do A? Vague gen- generated by experimentation. So there eralities will not do for an answer; de- is a danger of “over½tting”: adding vari- mands for quanti½cation are just around ables that work in the data at hand but the corner. Policy A can usually be un- will turn out to be irrelevant in the next dertaken with more or less intensity. batch, making them therefore deeply The powers that be will not only want irrelevant. to quantify the consequences but they This plays into the second and more will have the power to measure where fundamental problem. In the nature of no one had measured before. Models the case it will often happen that two happen. quite different models can ½t the facts If they happen in connection with the just about equally as well. No doubt the availability of data, as I have suggested, right way to proceed is to think of cir- then success will be measured by the cumstances in which the two models ability to “explain” the data. Fitness give widely different predictions and is goodness of ½t. (I put “explain” in to look around for real-life situations quotes to emphasize that there need be that offer the opportunity to discrimi- no claim to fundamental explanation. nate between them. But that may not A model of inventory accumulation be possible. (Chemists can do experi- will likely eventuate in an equation that ments. There is a movement that does relates inventory spending to a small experimental economics, but I cannot number of observable variables. If that guess how far it can go.) So naturally the equation actually holds to a fair degree temptation becomes irresistible to com- of approximation, the model explains pete by adding variables, making slight the data.) changes in formulation, looking around There is, however, a twist, and I think for especially favorable data, and other- it is important. If the logic of model- wise using the tricks of the trade. It can building, in economics anyway, is a become very dif½cult ever to displace drastic simpli½cation, then one cannot an entrenched model by a better one. expect any model to ½t the facts in every Clever and motivated–including ideo- detail. There are examples of models– logically motivated–people can ½ght and not only in economics–that have a rearguard battle that would make Rob- been judged to be very successful be- ert E. Lee look like an amateur. (And, of cause they manage to account for fair- course, they may turn out to be right.) ly gross, large-scale patterns that are ac- Old models never die; they just fade tually observed and measured. In prac- away. So the model-building approach tice, two consequences seem to follow. to economics has its problems. But it is The ½rst is a persistent temptation what we have: not formalism, and not to add explanatory variables in order to the more discursive approach that began improve the ½t. The variables do not fol- to break up in the 1940s and is now long low from the model, or else they would gone. already be there. But it is usually easy to As this description suggests, model- think of reasonable auxiliaries, things building economists tend to be natural- that “should” plausibly affect inventory born, loose-½tting positivists. Progress investment even if they were not includ- will come from weeding out empirically

94 Dædalus Fall 2005 unsuccessful models and improving and sion, and made the (somewhat) formal- How did economics extending those that survive empirical ist appeal that mainstream economists get that way tests. This is not to say that mainstream were in the position of teaching on Tues- & what way economists think explicitly about meth- day and Thursday a macroeconomics did it get? od. Philosophical tendencies may come that was fundamentally incompatible and go. They are attended to only by a with the microeconomics taught on tiny fringe of economists who care about Monday and Wednesday. I do not think formal methodology. Their arguments that the appeal to “microfoundations” make no dent in the mainstream, which amounted to much. Macroeconomic goes on making and testing models. hypotheses had always been justi½ed by It may be useful if I tuck in here a brief some sort of appeal to microeconomic commentary on recent and current con- reasoning. troversy within academic macroeco- Nevertheless it was in part an appeal nomics, as seen from the point of view to formal criteria, and there was consid- advanced in this essay. (David Kreps’s erable force to this logic. But the “New discussion is similar, but not identical.) Classical Macroeconomics” then faced This was not part of my original plan, the problem of explaining, or explain- but the controversy is highly visible. ing away, the fluctuations in aggregate The conference held at the Huntington income and employment that consti- Library in March of 1995 seemed to have tute the everyday history of prosperity a lively interest in the details. Most in- and recession. And this task had to be triguingly, however, the controversy is performed within the framework of a often presented as a dispute between formal theory that seemed to exclude formalists and informalists. It would not even the possibility of the events to be damage the argument I have been mak- explained. I will not recount the ingen- ing if there were an element of truth in ious proposals that were invented to that characterization. Maybe there is, a perform this feat because they were ul- little. But in fact I think the story is ulti- timately felt to be implausible. No em- mately a strong con½rmation of the the- pirical successes were forthcoming. sis of this essay. This approach languished. In the mid-1970s, the standard text- The original New Classical Macroeco- book treatment of macroeconomics was nomics evolved into, or was superseded recognizably “Keynesian” or “American by, a related style of modeling called Keynesian.” It aimed speci½cally to pro- “Real Business Cycle Theory” (“real” vide an aggregative model of the whole means “nonmonetary”). And now we economy that could give some sort of cut to what I take to be the chase in this analytical account of unemployment, narrative. The goal of Real Business Cy- excess capacity, and recession (and cle Theory was the same: to show that their opposites) as pathologies of the the everyday experience of economic market economy. Opposition comes fluctuations could indeed be accounted from a school of thought that did in fact for within the framework of formal gen- invoke the equally standard formal theo- eral equilibrium theory, without the ry of a capitalist economy (the theory of “impure,” “ad hoc,” “Keynesian” viola- general competitive equilibrium). This tions of standard principles. In doing so school pointed out that this (microeco- it proceeded to abandon formalism in all nomic) model had no room for unem- but name by canonizing one very sim- ployment, excess capacity, and reces- ple, very special, and very maneuverable

Dædalus Fall 2005 95 Robert M. version of competitive general equilibri- amount to a signi½cant move toward Solow um–in fact, by adopting a highly speci- formalism. The new doctrine does try to ½c model. It is a model of an economy appropriate an air of “rigor”–a standard populated by a single immortal family ploy–but this is mostly advertising. with perfect foresight. The industrial and market structure of the economy is My reading of the current state of af- such that it carries out, step by step, the fairs is much like Kreps’s. In the course in½nite-horizon optimal plan of the sin- of massaging the model to make it con- gle “representative consumer.” The gen- form to the facts, the more adventure- erality that is the hallmark of formalism some advocates of Real Business Cycle is gone. Theory have found it necessary to mod- The gimmick is that the economy is ify many of the clean but extreme as- disturbed by irregular, unforeseeable sumptions that give formal general equi- changes in the preferences of the repre- librium theory its arti½cial vanilla flavor. sentative consumer and/or in the tech- As the representative-consumer-with- nology available to the industrial sec- perfect-foresight model has been ex- tor. Economic fluctuations are thus not tended to allow for elements of imper- pathological at all; they are the best that fect information, imperfect competi- can be done by way of adapting to these tion, imperfect flexibility of prices, in- pleasant and unpleasant surprises. The complete markets, and a teeny bit of het- model itself was already there to be erogeneity among the inhabitants, it has used. The bulk of the intellectual effort come closer and closer to the more or goes into the ways of showing that the less “Keynesian” model it was supposed data of observed fluctuations are com- to discredit. It is possible–though sure- patible with the demands of the model. ly not inevitable–that in another decade This is not easy because the key driving all that will be left are some purely tech- forces–irregular changes in tastes and nical differences in modeling strategies technology–are not directly observable. plus an underlying difference in spirit, So this is formalism, in more or less a with one side regarding all those imper- window-dressing sense. In practice it is fections as (removable?) flaws in the a little bit of model-building and a lot system and the other side regarding of fairly sophisticated data analysis. It is them as the essence of the system itself. not a revolution or transformation in the Seen this way, the macroeconomic way macroeconomics is done. controversy (made more intense by ide- To be sure, there has been a dramatic ological freight) only makes the model- change in doctrine. One genealogy of building tradition seem pretty irrevoca- models has replaced another. One set of ble. But then what about a historical implications has replaced another. This approach to economics? Is such a thing was a genuine shift of ideas, perhaps re- viable? The issue is worth discussing, lated to events of the 1970s that were, at and it will shed some further light on the least temporarily, hard to explain with main argument. In one sense, economics older models, perhaps related to the gen- is history. I have been insisting that the eral mood of conservatism and suspi- modern approach to economics is most- cion of government action that affected ly about accounting for data. It is hard economists as well as others. Such shifts to imagine where else data can come occur from time to time, in macroeco- from but the past. So economics is about nomics and elsewhere. This one did not accounting for the past. Most of the time

96 Dædalus Fall 2005 it is the recent past, but there is no rea- economic historians are very likely to be How did economics son why the more distant past cannot be model-builders. I have the disappointing get that way treated in the same way, if only the rele- impression that they are far too will- & what way vant data are available or can be recon- ing to accept the models devised by late did it get? structed. twentieth-century economists and ap- When I studied economic history as a ply them uncritically to the data of oth- graduate student at the end of the 1940s, er times and places. There are certainly my teacher was A. P. Usher. I read his some sterling exceptions who do proper- History of Mechanical Inventions,6 Clap- ly exploit the advantages offered by ex- ham on British economic history, and otic data; my insider informant says sections of various works on monetary they are few and far between. There are history. They were long on narrative and a few who use the study of the evolution short on analysis, a lot like the elemen- of institutions as a laboratory for eco- tary textbooks of a decade earlier. It did nomic analysis under unconventional not occur to me then, as it has since, that assumptions. There are even some who the more distant past provides some- continue to do narrative economic histo- thing potentially valuable to the model- ry. On the whole one has to report that building economist. A good model em- the historical approach to economics has bodies accurately a representation of the lost most of its distinctiveness and is los- institutions, norms, and attitudes that ing the rest. This seems to be a case of govern economic behavior in a particu- not being able to lick ’em, or not want- lar time and place. There is no reason ing to. to presuppose that a successful model The case is much the same with re- of the supply of labor in the second half spect to the other social sciences. I am of the twentieth century will apply un- tempted to guess that economics has changed to the nineteenth century when drawn further away from the other so- institutions, norms, and attitudes were cial sciences in the past half-century. different. Long runs of history offer the But the truth is that there was little or economist or historian or economic his- no interchange even in 1940 or 1950. torian the chance to ½gure out how Despite the existence of the occasion- changes in the “noneconomic” back- al sport like Richard Thaler or George ground factors have an influence on Akerlof, who learned from the other behavior in the narrowly economic social sciences, most of the flow of ideas realm. It is a little like being able to exis in the other direction. There are sub- tend the range of temperatures or pres- cultures in political science and sociolo- sures available in a laboratory. gy that seem to want to adopt the meth- I am not sure that is how it has worked ods, the terminology, and sometimes in practice. One thing is certain: the the assumptions of economics. Those same progression from discursiveness Wahlverwandtschaften are best discussed to model-building has happened in eco- from within the other disciplines. Rich- nomic history as in economics. Econom- ard Swedberg’s Economics and Sociology is ic historians have become a lot more like full of interesting material,7 but I am less economists than economists have be- optimistic than he is about any system- come like economic historians. Today’s atic development. 7 Richard Swedberg, Economics and Sociology: 6 Abbott Payson Usher, A History of Mechanical Rede½ning Their Boundaries (Princeton, N.J.: Inventions (New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1929). Princeton University Press, 1990).

Dædalus Fall 2005 97 Robert M. Some sociologists and political scien- taught me that I should say explicitly Solow tists are drawn to the way economics that I have no neocolonialist designs: so- uses rationality–in effect, constrained ciology may be right to stay away from maximization–as an organizing princi- model-building as a mode of thought. ple and as a source of ideas for model- Adjacent territories may adopt different building. You could do a lot worse. But track gauges for good and suf½cient rea- there is an irony tucked away in that sons, but their railroads will have prob- remark. Some economists, though not lems at the border crossings. many, would like to look to sociology as It might be useful for me to say some a way of escaping from the narrow idea fairly informal things about the analo- of rationality. Actually, that way of put- gies between economics and the natu- ting it is not quite right, so I shall try ral sciences. It is an uncomfortable task. again. The program of constrained max- I have read the usual quota of layman imization has to rest on a careful state- books and, after forty-seven years on ment of what is being maximized and the faculty at mit, I have a lot of friends what the constraints are. Mainstream who are physicists, chemists, and biolo- economics takes a narrow view of both; gists, not to mention engineers. But it is some hardy souls would like to try out a perfectly clear to me that I have no real wider range of assumptions. They look sense of what goes on in a physicist’s or to sociology and social psychology as a biologist’s mind. Still, it is a topic that source of alternative ideas. On the whole often comes up in cross-disciplinary dis- they do not ½nd what they are looking cussion. for, though again there are notable ex- There is no doubt that economists are ceptions. attracted to the style of explanation they This is not anybody’s fault. The writ- see (or think they see) in physics. This ings of people like Jon Elster, Mark Gra- is at least clear in the externals. Econo- novetter, Arthur Stinchcombe, and Aage mists feel at home with equilibrium Sørensen–just to take those who are conditions deduced from ½rst principles closest to the economists’ wavelength– or from reliable empirical statements. are full of interest to those all too few Similarly, they are used to deducing economists who read them. But they dynamics from local assumptions or do not provide the usable raw material generalizations; economics is full of (or intermediate product) that is being differential or ½nite-difference equa- sought. Even a book like Elster’s The Ce- tions. All this seems fairly harmless, ment of Society,8 intelligent as it is and as long as it works. It will occasionally on exactly the right subject, does not turn out that some piece of economics send an economist racing to the draw- is mathematically identical to some ing board. I suppose, though without piece of utterly unrelated physics. (This much con½dence, that this failure to has actually happened to me, although connect may arise because the other so- I know absolutely nothing about phys- cial sciences have not adopted the mod- ics.) I think this has no methodological el-building philosophy that motivates signi½cance but arises merely because and guides economists. Experience has everyone playing this sort of game tends to follow the line of least mathematical 8 Jon Elster, The Cement of Society: A Study of resistance. I know that Philip Mirowski Social Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University believes that deeper aspects of main- Press, 1989). stream economic theory are the product

98 Dædalus Fall 2005 of a profound imitation of nineteenth- rapid development of evolutionary game How did economics century physical theory. That thesis theory, there may be an opening for real get that way strikes me as false, but I would not claim progress. The loop closes, because what & what way expert knowledge. is now needed is a body of data to be ex- did it get? To the extent that economists have the ploited by the evolutionary game-mod- ambition to behave like physicists, they eler. face two dangerous pitfalls. The ½rst is the temptation to believe that the laws Nothing that has been said in this es- of economics are like the laws of phys- say is complicated enough to require ics: exactly the same everywhere on summary. Since part of my aim has been earth and at every moment since Hector to dispel a misperception, I should con- was a pup. That is certainly true about clude by making another pass at explain- the behavior of heat and light. But the ing how the misperception has come to part of economics that is independent be so widely accepted. Many observers of history and social context is not only in the other social sciences and in the small but dull. wide, wide world perceive that econom- I want to suggest that a second pitfall ics has become formalistic, abstract, comes with the imitation of theoretical negligent of the real world. The truth physics: there is a tendency to underval- is, I think, that economics has become ue keen observation and shrewd gener- technical, which is quite different. (No- alization, virtues that I think are more body regards computer-aided tomogra- usually practiced by biologists. There phy as formalistic.) Far from being un- has long been a tendency in economics worldly, modern model-builders are to promote biology as an analogy. Even obsessed with data. a genuinely great man like Marshall took How could this confusion arise? I this line. Most of what is said on this have already suggested that it may be subject is a hopelessly vague use of unex- the trappings of mathematical model- amined analogy, uninformed by biologi- building that gives the wrong impres- cal theory. I am making a much weaker sion to outsiders. Now I will try out an- point, that there is a lot to be said in fa- other thought. There is a tendency for vor of staring at the piece of reality you theory to outrun data. (This includes are studying and asking, just what is go- statistical theory as well as economic ing on here? Economists who are enam- theory.) Theory is cheap, and data are ored of the physics style seem to bypass expensive. Much the same thing seems that stage, to their disadvantage. to happen in high-energy physics. I am There is another respect in which a told that the very latest ideas in particle broader biological analogy might be rel- theory could not come close to being evant. Many economists have noted that tested with any current accelerator or the evolutionary paradigm ought to be a even with the superconducting super- useful way of doing business. In isolated collider if it were to be built. No one instances it has already been valuable in even knows how enough energy could economics, but perhaps a little less so be mobilized to do the experiments that than might have been expected. I attrib- might con½rm today’s most advanced ute this to the absence of any close paral- speculations. lel to the quantitatively analyzable trans- In economics, model-builders’ busy- mission mechanism provided in biology work is to re½ne their ideas to ask ques- by population genetics. Now, with the tions to which the available data cannot

Dædalus Fall 2005 99 Robert M. give the answer. Econometric theorists Solow invent methods to estimate parameters about which the data have no information. And, of course, people are recruited whose talent is for just these activities, whose interest is more in method than in substance. As the models become more re½ned, the signal-to-noise ratio in the data becomes very attenuated. Since no empirical verdict is forthcoming, the student goes back to the drawing board–and re½nes the idea even more. Oscar Wilde described a fox hunt as the unspeakable in pursuit of the in- edible. Perhaps here we have the overed- ucated in pursuit of the unknowable. But it sure beats the alternatives.

100 Dædalus Fall 2005 Thomas C. Schelling

Reciprocal measures for arms stabilization

There has been a widespread change in Another anomaly, which rather shakes the thinking on arms control in the last the disarmament tradition, is that weap- year or so. Much of it is due to the focus ons may be more stabilizing and less ag- of attention on “measures to safeguard gressive if they are capable of civilian against surprise attack” (to use the of- reprisal rather than of military engage- ½cial terminology). Although this sub- ment. A standoff between two retalia- ject is still listed anachronistically un- tory forces is in some ways equivalent der “disarmament,” it is differently ori- to an exchange of hostages; and “inhu- ented. It assumes deterrence as the key- mane” weapons, capable of inflicting stone of our security policy, and tries to damage but not able to go after the ene- improve it. It accepts a retaliatory capa- my’s strategic forces, acquire virtue be- bility as something to be enhanced, not cause of their clearly deterrent function degraded–something to be made more and the lack of temptation they give ei- secure, less accident-prone, less in need ther side to strike ½rst. of striking quickly to avoid its own de- More important, though, is the fact struction, less capable of gaining advan- that schemes to avert surprise attack tage from a sudden attack of its own. are manifestly compatible with a nation- An anomaly of this approach to arms al military policy, not a renunciation of control is that it does not necessarily it. They emphasize the possibility that involve “disarmament” in the literal one can simultaneously think seriously sense. and sympathetically about our military posture and about collaborating with Thomas C. Schelling, a Fellow of the American our enemies to improve it. To propose, Academy since 1967, is Distinguished University as does the notion of “measures to safe- Professor at the School of Public Policy at the guard against surprise attack,” that mil- University of Maryland. At the time of this es- itary cooperation with potential ene- say’s publication in the Fall 1960 issue of “Dæ- mies may offer opportunities to improve dalus,” Schelling was professor of economics and our military posture, opens a new ½eld associate of the Center for International Affairs for imaginative scienti½c and military at Harvard University. thinking, and may eventually enlist the support of the military services them- © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts selves. & Sciences

Dædalus Fall 2005 101 Thomas C. Most of this progress is still ahead of nuclear striking power, and are not easily Schelling us; the revolution in thinking about construed as just another “step toward” arms control is barely started. Of½cial- ultimate disarmament.1 ly we have taken only the most hesitant We still talk about “levels” of arma- steps in de½ning arms control in a way ment or disarmament, as though there that does not contradict our national se- were only two directions in which to go, curity policies. We still talk of½cially as up and down, the arms race going in one though “disarmament” can only save direction and arms control in the other. money, without noticing that under the We have not yet admitted that, even in new philosophy it could cost more. We the framework of arms control, it could still work of½cially with an image of dis- be an open question whether we ought armament that makes it solely a peace- to be negotiating with our enemies for time (cold-wartime) process of negoti- more arms, less arms, different kinds of ating explicit detailed agreements in a arms, or arrangements superimposed on multinational context for the reduction existing armaments. We have given little or elimination of weapons, without ad- thought even to the weapon system that equately recognizing that, as in limit- would be required by that ultimate inter- ing war, limiting the arms race can be a national authority that might police the more tacit and less formal process than world against armed violence, and to the “treaty” idea implies. More impor- whether it, too, would be embarrassed tant, the prevalent image of disarma- by a “massive retaliation” doctrine that ment is still one that gives the process a would lack credibility; whether it, too, uniquely de½ned end point–the point of might be subject to surprise attack; no arms at all, or virtually none except in whether it, too, would lack resolution the hands of some international authori- (as some think nato might lack resolu- ty or synthetic state that would have the tion) to reach an awful collective deci- power to police the world against inter- sion in response to nibbling aggression national violence but against nothing or bland violation. else. The point of this paper is that there The cautious and the skeptical, the is a vast new area to be explored once pessimists and the realists, have doubts we break out of the traditional con½ne- about how rapidly that end point can ment of “disarmament”–the entire area be approached, whether it will be ap- of military collaboration with potential proached at all, and whether the pro- enemies to reduce the likelihood of war cess once started may not be reversed. or to reduce its scope and violence. It But the ultimate goal is rarely challenged is an area worth exploring because our except by those who have no interest in present military policies and prospects, arms control. And by far the most fre- however we feel about the adequacy quent argument raised in favor of par- of current programs, cannot promise ticular limited measures of arms con- security from a major thermonuclear trol, perhaps the most widely persuasive, is that these limited measures are 1 See T. C. Schelling, “Surprise Attack and Dis- nato at least “steps toward” the goal of ulti- armament,” in Klaus Knorr, ed., and mate disarmament. We have not faced American Security (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1959), or the shorter version up to the implications of the anomaly in T. C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cam- that “measures to safeguard against sur- bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960), prise attack” are designed to preserve a chap. 10.

102 Dædalus Fall 2005 war; and even modest improvements ize relations between them while hating Reciprocal achieved through cooperation with the and distrusting. They exchanged hos- measures for arms Soviets should be welcome. tages, drank wine from the same glass, stabilization It is not true that in the modern world met in public to inhibit the massacre of a gain for the Russians is necessarily a one by the other, and even deliberately loss for us, and vice versa. We can both exchanged spies to facilitate transmittal suffer losses, and this fact provides scope of authentic information. And perhaps, for cooperation. We both have–unless having exchanged a son for a daughter the Russians have already determined in the cold-blooded interest of contract to launch an attack and are preparing enforcement, they may have reduced for it–a common interest in reducing tension suf½ciently to permit a little af- the advantage of striking ½rst, simply be- fection to grow up in later generations. cause that very advantage, even if common to both sides, increases the likeli- The premise underlying my point of hood of war. If at the expense of some view is that a main determinant of the capability for launching surprise attack likelihood of war is the nature of pres- one can deny that capability to the other, ent military technology. We and the Rus- it may be a good bargain. We both have a sians are trapped by our military tech- common interest in avoiding the kind of nology. Weapon developments of the false alarm, panic, misunderstanding, or last ½fteen years, especially of the last loss of control, that may lead to an un- seven or eight, have themselves been re- premeditated war, in a situation aggra- sponsible for the most alarming aspects vated by the recognition on both sides of the present strategic situation. They that it is better to go ½rst than to go sec- have enhanced the advantage, in the ond. We have a common interest in not event war should come, of being the getting drawn or provoked or panicked one to start it. They have inhumanly into war by the actions of a third party compressed the time available to make (whether that party intends the result the most terrible decisions. They have or not). And we may have an interest almost eliminated any belief that a really in saving some money by not doing on big war either could be or should be lim- both sides the things that, if we both do ited in scope or brought to a close by any them, tend to cancel out. process other than the sheer exhaustion This common interest does not de- of weapons. They have greatly reduced pend on trust and good faith. In fact it the con½dence of either side that it can seems likely that unless thoroughgoing predict the weapons its enemy has or distrust can be acknowledged on both will have in the future. In these and oth- sides, it may be hard to reach any real er ways the evolution of military tech- understanding on the subject. The intel- nology has exacerbated whatever pro- lectual clarity required to recognize the pensities toward war are inherent in the nature of the common interest may be political conflict between us and our en- incompatible with the pretense that we emies. It might be naïve to say that this trust each other, or that there is any se- is an unmixed evil for both us and the quence of activities in the short run by Soviets, since it powerfully affects the which either side could demonstrate its bilateral contest between us; neverthe- good faith to the other. less, it is hard to escape the judgment Ancient despotisms may have under- that nature might have been kinder in stood better than we do how to tranquil- the way she let our military technology

Dædalus Fall 2005 103 Thomas C. unfold itself over the last decade and a our forces more secure against attack, Schelling half. to avoid the need for precipitate deci- It is interesting–more than that, it sions, and to avoid accidents or the mis- is useful–to ask what technological taken decisions that they might cause, achievements (available both to us and there may be opportunities to exchange to our enemies) we wish had never oc- facilities or understandings with our en- curred, and what technological failures emies, or to design and deploy our forces we wish had turned out otherwise. Do differently by agreement with our ene- we wish the hydrogen bomb had never mies who do likewise, in a way that en- come along to make intercontinental hances those aspects of technology we missiles economical? Do we wish that like and that helps to nullify those that nuclear-powered aircraft had made air- we do not. borne alert so cheap that retaliatory If we wish that radar were better and aircraft could stay aloft rather than be cheaper and less limited by the Earth’s vulnerable on the ground to a missile curvature, we might make it so by ex- attack? Do we hope that no one ever dis- changing real estate with the Russians covers an economical means of nullify- for the construction by each of us of ing ballistic-missile submarines, so that observation posts on each other’s soil. neither side can hope to preclude retalia- If we hope that no one can ever predict tion by sudden attack? Do we wish that with con½dence how his own missiles warning systems were so nearly perfect would do, in a surprise attack, against that “false alarm” were virtually impos- the hardened missile sites of his oppo- sible, or so poor that we could never be nent, we might deny each other the nec- tempted to rely on them? Do we wish essary knowledge by banning tests of that missiles had never become so accu- large weapons in the era in which any- rate that they could be used to destroy one actually has a missile in a hard un- an enemy’s missiles in an effort to ne- derground site that he could use in a gate an enemy’s retaliatory threat? Do weapon-effects test. If instead we wish we wish that radioactive fallout could that each side might preserve the priva- not occur, or do we welcome it as a pe- cy of its railroad lines for mobile mis- culiarly retaliatory (and hence deter- siles, we might jointly eschew certain rent) weapon effect that is of little use surveillance techniques; and if we in a preemptive attack? Do we wish that thought that antimissile defenses of secrecy about weapons and weapon pro- missile sites might be more feasible, duction were much more dif½cult to and retaliatory forces correspondingly maintain than it is, or welcome certain less vulnerable, with the further testing kinds of secrecy as a form of mutually of nuclear weapons and their effects, we appreciated security against surprise might look with more favor on contin- attack? ued weapon testing. These considera- The reason why it is productive to tions are by no means the whole story speculate on these questions, rather in arms control, but they do remind us than merely fanciful, is that arms con- that we and our enemies can both joint- trol can usefully be thought of as a way ly welcome, or jointly deplore, certain of changing some of the answers. In ad- technological developments (like the dition to what we can do unilaterally improved accuracy of long-range mis- to improve our warning, to maintain siles) and may possibly ½nd ways, joint- close control over our forces, to make ly, to enhance them or to offset them,

104 Dædalus Fall 2005 over and above the things that we can easier to hide, or easier to keep moving, Reciprocal measures do unilaterally. and therefore less insecure. Whether for arms one welcomes nuclear-powered ballistic- stabilization These examples suggest some of the missile submarines on both sides or de- criteria that can be applied to limited plores them depends on whether they arms-control schemes, and some of the seem to be peculiarly good at surviving dif½culties in implementing them. As and retaliating, and hence “deterrent,” to criteria, the ½rst thing to emphasize or peculiarly good at getting up close is that it takes a good deal of strategic for a no-warning strike on an enemy’s analysis to decide whether a particular retaliatory power. And if it were some- limitation or augmentation of weapons how possible to enforce a ban on “dir- or facilities is a good one or a bad one. ty” bombs, there would still be a gen- Viewing limited measures on their indi- uine strategic question of whether or vidual merits, and not as steps in a com- not we wish deterrent capabilities to be prehensive program that can be justi½ed enhanced by the greater punitive power only by a long sequence of steps to fol- of dirty bombs, recognizing that com- low, one has to ask whether the techno- paratively slow-acting fallout may be of logical and economic consequences of much less utility to a potential attacker, a particular scheme are or are not con- whose main interest is to minimize re- ducive to military stability; and the an- taliation on himself. swer is very unlikely to be closely cor- related with whether more weapons The fact that developments such as or fewer weapons are involved, bigger these require strategic analysis before weapons or smaller ones, or even wheth- it can be decided whether they are good er notions of “more” and “less,” “big- or bad is, aside from being true, discour- ger” and “smaller,” can be applied. aging. It means that even among the ex- Whether we would like to see reconnais- perts there will be disagreement about sance satellites banned or encouraged the consequences of any particular pro- may depend, for example, on whether hibition or exchange of military facili- we think they will mainly provide target- ties; it may be next to impossible to get ing information to the initiator of war widespread understanding of the rele- or mainly provide warning to a potential vant arguments, even within govern- defender so that a potential attacker is ments. And if fairly detailed analysis is the more deterred. Whether we like big required, and careful distinctions have missiles or not may depend on whether to be made, prohibitions might have we believe, as so many believed a few to be speci½ed in equally careful detail years ago, that missiles would be simple and with equally ½ne distinctions. This and sturdy and hard to destroy in their is certainly an obstacle to negotiation. underground sites or believe as so many Furthermore, any analysis–and any pro- fear now that increased accuracies and hibition or agreement or exchange of yields make the present generation of facilities that is justi½ed on the basis of missiles better for a ½rst strike than for such analysis–is subject to rapid obso- a second strike. Whether we wish mis- lescence. The friendly warning satellite sile technology to be advanced or retard- appears, a year later, as a vicious targeted may depend on whether or not we being aid to the surprise attacker; the net- lieve, as many do, that the next genera- work of warning systems originally de- tion of missiles will be easier to protect, signed for mutual reassurance proves in

Dædalus Fall 2005 105 Thomas C. operation to have too high a false-alarm lic could be got interested in this crucial Schelling rate; the missile-guidance systems that question, it would be unlikely to have we deplored because of their extreme the information it would need to judge accuracy and the advantage they would the answer. (There has been a good deal give the attacker may prove, after we of public discussion of the merits and outlaw them, to have been the main possible demerits of preventing the fur- hope for mobile missile systems desired ther spread of nuclear weapons to small for their invulnerability and hence for countries, but remarkably little discus- their stability. By the time we reach sion of just how a test ban would ob- agreement on precisely what to allow in struct the spread.) Second, while it may our satellites, where to place our radar, seem a mischievous stroke of fortune or what missiles to ban, new evidence or that somebody discovered, between new analysis comes along to suggest that the two conferences, facts or ideas that the justi½cation of the particular scheme made the policing of a test ban appear we are about to subscribe to is all wrong. more dif½cult than it had appeared the Finally, by the time we look at individ- year before, this may be exactly what we ual schemes in suf½cient detail to judge have to expect in every case. If today we whether their strategic implications are had “completely solved” the new techni- “good” for both us and our enemies, we cal problems introduced by the “decou- may have narrowed them down to the pling” technique, we should still have to point where they are intolerably biased. be prepared for somebody’s discovering It is probably a mathematically sound next year a new possibility that had been principle that the more measures we put overlooked, one that contemporary de- in a package, the more their bilateral bi- tection technology could not yet cope ases will cancel out, and hence the great- with. er will be the joint gain relative to the The test-ban discussions also illustrate competitive advantage. This may mean that, when an issue has been narrowed that once a potential arms-control sys- down, the bias in the advantages may tem is dissected into suf½ciently small seem to outweigh the joint advantages. pieces to apply the right kind of analy- There is more controversy, and under- sis, we shall have more individual bar- standably so, over whether a prohibition gaining counters too small and too bi- on small-weapon tests is in the Ameri- ased for the negotiating process. can interest, than on whether a prohibition covering the whole spectrum is. The recent negotiations on weapon But of all the characteristics of the tests may prove to be typical. First, there present test-ban negotiations, the most has been almost no public discussion of whether the further testing of weapons hance the potency of weapons for preemptive and weapon effects would really be con- attack and aggravate the urge, when in doubt, to strike quickly and without restraint. The an- ducive to the development of greater bi- swer is by no means obvious for the period im- lateral military stability or instability mediately ahead. It should be noted that tests over the coming years.2 Even if the pub- involve not only new-weapon performance but weapon effects on previously untested targets, 2 That is, whether further testing would main- and the latter may be especially relevant to ly facilitate the development of more secure re- such things as anti-icbm defense, civil defense, taliatory weapon systems with better commu- and the vulnerability of ½xed or mobile weap- nication and control, less subject to accident ons, warning systems, and communication and and false alarm, or instead would mainly en- control systems.

106 Dædalus Fall 2005 signi½cant may be that we have had a about what we should do, we will sim- Reciprocal measures moratorium for some time without a ply do it and dare the other side to do for arms formal agreement. (We do not, of likewise, or do it and quietly suggest that stabilization course, have rights of inspection; so we we would like to keep it up, but only if cannot be sure that the moratorium has they ½nd it in their interest to do some- been kept; but it likely has been, except thing comparable. possibly for the most easily disguised But if arms control is to be arrived at tests.) And this moratorium resulted by a more tacit and informal process, from no detailed negotiations, no care- and if we are going to call “arms con- ful speci½cations, and no written docu- trol” any of the military things that we ments to be initialed and rati½ed. I do and the Russians abstain from because not think this result can be wholly ex- of an awareness that as long as each ab- plained by the pressure of public opin- stains the other probably will too, we ion. Part of the motivation must be that, should look around and see whether we whatever one side is sacri½cing in im- do not already have a good deal of arms proved technology, the other side is also control. If we have, we should look at it foregoing tests, and each would proba- closely to see what lessons we can draw. bly resume them if the other did. Thus Offhand, it appears (but a more imagi- the main sanction of an arms-control native examination might prove other- agreement–the expectation that each wise) that the tacit understandings we will abstain only if the other does–is have with the Russians concern what we probably present in this case. It is there- do with our weapons more than what we fore a genuine instance of “arms con- possess.3 We seem to have some under- trol.” If it suffers from being tentative, standings about traf½c rules for patrol- temporary, quali½ed, and conditional, so ling bombers; there are apparently cer- might any arms-control agreement, even tain lines we stay on this side of, lines if duly negotiated and signed; further- the Russians presumably can recognize, more, who can say yet that the present the crossing of which they can probab- “agreement,” if such we may call it, will ly monitor to some extent. This is cer- not be of some duration? tainly a restraint that we unilaterally observe in the interest of reducing mis- Here, I think, we have an important understandings and alarms. As far as I clue to a process by which arms control know, the traf½c rules are communicat- may be reached, and the kinds of arms ed, not explicitly, but simply by behav- control that can be reached by that process. Maybe arms control is destined to 3 A possible exception is civil defense. The be something more informal than is sug- extraordinary aversion to civil defense in the gested by the great diplomatic deploy- U.S. government must be complex in its ex- ments in Geneva. Maybe limited meas- planation; but an element is very likely a belief that a genuine civil defense program might ures of arms control can be arrived at by open up a new dimension of the arms race, quite indirect and incomplete communi- leading either to a “civil-defense race” with cation; maybe they will take the form of the ussr or just to an aggravation of the arms competition. The same may be true in the a proposal embodied in unilateral action ussr (or abstention from action), which con- . An interesting question is how much “clandestine” civil defense the Russians are tinues if matched by corresponding ac- undertaking, and their reasons for keeping it tion on the other side and only for so private. (In pointing this out, the author is not long as it is. Maybe instead of arguing trying to justify the aversion to civil defense.)

Dædalus Fall 2005 107 Thomas C. ing in accordance with them (perhaps it too, yet one that is not only not for- Schelling conspicuously in accordance with them) mally agreed on but even denounced and and possibly by having chosen the divid- denied by both sides. It seems doubtful ing lines in such a way that their signi½- whether this tacit understanding could cance is recognizable. We both abstain be made much stronger by a written from harassing actions on each other’s document.6 A restraint on the use of strategic forces; we do not jam each nuclear weapons may be more persua- other’s military communications, scare sive if it seems to rest on the enemy’s each other with fallout from weapons own self-interest–on his understanding tests, or wage surreptitious peacetime that if he abstains we may too, but only undersea wars of attrition.4 We may if he does–than if it pretends to rest on yet develop tacit understandings about the power of a written agreement or on a zones and traf½c rules for submarines, ½ction of “good faith.” and may (or may not) develop a tradition for leaving each other’s reconnais- In fact, all of the tacitly agreed limits sance satellites alone. We both very ob- that do apply, or may apply, in limited viously abstain from assassination. The war can be construed as a kind of infor- Russians recently “negotiated” (by a mal arms control tacitly arrived at. My process of nudging) a sharper under- impression is that we and the Russians standing about sharing the Paci½c for will go to some length to avoid having target practice. It remains to be seen American and Russian troops directly whether the U-2 incident causes certain engage each other in a limited war, sim- tacit or latent understandings to come ply because such an engagement might unstuck.5 create extremely unstable expectations In all likelihood we may abstain from about whether the war could remain the use of nuclear weapons in some lim- limited. We and the Russians both recited war, though both sides often seem ognize many legalistic limitations in to denounce of½cially the notion that a war, such as the distinction between serious limited war should be, or could North Koreans and Chinese, between be, fought without nuclear weapons. volunteers and regulars, between the Here is an interesting case of an arms provision of materials to an ally and the limitation that may be tacitly recognized provision of manpower, between doing by both sides, and recognized only be- an ally’s reconnaissance for him and do- cause each thinks the other may observe ing his bombing, perhaps even the distinction between local air½elds that are 4 Not yet, that is, or not very much. Preserv- fair game because they are on the ground ing some of the mutual restraints we now en- within a disputed country and the decks joy may be as important an “arms-control” of carriers offshore that might for some objective as creating more. reason be construed as “sanctuary.” 5 It seems a correct interpretation that there is still some element of implicit understanding 6 It could be made much stronger by various about not transferring nuclear weapons to oth- unilateral actions. One would be to increase er countries. Its status is presently a great deal our capability to get along without nuclears in more ambiguous than the author expected a limited war. Another would be to add symbol- couple of years ago; nevertheless there must be ic support to the understanding; the test-ban a general awareness on both sides that the re- negotiations–especially if a formal agreement straint of either will be weakened or dissolved is reached–almost certainly do this, whether by promiscuousness on the other’s part. they are intended to or not.

108 Dædalus Fall 2005 Most of these limits are arbitrary, con- munication to the enemy. Each side Reciprocal measures ventional, and casuistic–purely matters tends to act in some kind of recogniz- for arms of tradition and precedent. For that rea- able pattern, so that any limits that it stabilization son they are uncertain and insecure; no- is actually observing can be appreciated body is even nominally committed to by the enemy; and each tries to perceive honor them. But they demonstrate that what restraints the other is observing. it is possible for potential enemies to ar- For that reason the limits themselves rive tacitly, or by indirect communica- must be clear-cut, must be of an “obvi- tion, at a meeting of minds about some ous” character, must be based on quali- rules, and about how to interpret inten- tative distinctions rather than matters tions through the way one operates and of degree. They must not be too selec- deploys his resources. Most important, tive, too gerrymandered in discriminat- the limits that can be observed in limiting between what is inside and what is ed war are a powerful demonstration outside the limit. They must attach that sheer self-interest–the recognition themselves to benchmarks, demarca- of a need to collaborate with an enemy tion lines, and distinctions that come in wartime, to reach understandings naturally. They must have simplicity. that transcend the formalities of explic- They must take advantage of conven- it communication; the recognition of a tions and traditions and precedents that mutual interest in avoiding accidents, exist, even if the precedents and tradi- incidents, misunderstandings and un- tions are biased between the two sides necessary alarms, and in holding to any or a nuisance to both sides. Often they constraints that can be found–can pro- must involve all-or-none distinctions, vide potent sanctions that need not rest or across-the-board distinctions like that on explicit negotiation and formal agree- between land and water, between mate- ments. rial and manpower, between two sides We may, then, increase our under- of a border, or even some arbitrary but standing of the nature of arms control, potent and highly suggestive feature like what it rests on and how it may come a parallel of latitude.7 about, by recognizing limited war as a This is certainly true in the case of kind of arms control in itself. And per- the use of nuclear weapons in limited haps it differs from peacetime (i.e., cold- war. It is enormously more likely that war) arms control less than we custom- a limit against any use of nuclear weap- arily think. Perhaps the psychology and ons could be recognized, sensed, and the sanctions and the mode of com- adhered to by both sides on condition munication, the kinds of reasoning in- that each other observe it, than that any volved, the lack of formal agreement or particular quantitative limitation, tar- even acknowledgment, that typify lim- get limitation, ½ssion vs. fusion limita- ited war, represent a more central and tion, or limitation based on who is the typical process of international negoti- “aggressor,” could be jointly and tacitly ation than we usually give it credit for. converged on by the participants. There is another aspect of limited war that deserves emphasis in this connection. The limits in limited war are ar- 7 For an extensive analysis of tacit bargaining, with special reference to limited war, see chap- rived at not by verbal bargaining, but by ters 3 and 4 and Appendix A of T. C. Schelling, maneuver, by actions, and by statements The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, Mass.: Har- and declarations that are not direct com- vard University Press, 1960).

Dædalus Fall 2005 109 Thomas C. But the same is certainly true of a test is easier, in some ways harder; the pro- Schelling suspension. A tacitly reached moratori- cess is different from that of formal, ex- um on testing nuclear weapons–mutual plicit, detailed negotiation, and imposes and reciprocal but essentially unilateral different requirements. Informal com- on both sides–is much more likely to be munication is usually ambiguous; a gov- stable and durable, much less likely to be ernment speaks by hint as well as by eroded by ambiguous behavior, than a overt statement and proposal, it speaks selective moratorium. If we and the Rus- indirectly through the medium of press sians are very selective in our unilateral conferences, leaks of information, and restraints, each choosing the particular remarks to third parties. It speaks with yields, altitudes, ½ssion-fusion combina- many voices, in the executive branch, tions, and localities for tests, it seems in the congress, and even in private arti- unlikely either that both sides will hit on cles and news stories that are “inspired” the same limitations and maintain them or are inferred to be so. And it speaks with con½dence, or that both will hit on through the actions it takes.8 “equivalent” though different restraints. The differences should not be exagger- To some extent, then, the gains and ated; even when large teams of profes- losses of a particular agreement, i.e., the sional diplomats and technical experts way any particular understanding that is are assembled in Geneva, much of the reached may discriminate between the communication takes these other forms. two parties (or among more than two Nevertheless, the strategy of communi- parties), are likely to be dictated some- cation is different, particularly because what by the elements of the problem, of the greater need in informal negoti- and not altogether by the detailed pref- ations to reach a real understanding. In erences of the parties to the understand- formal and explicit negotiation, what ing or their bargaining skill. An absolute eventually matters is to a large extent ban on weapon tests, for example, or any what gets written down and agreed to; other across-the-board prohibition, is even if there was not a meeting of somewhat arbitrary in the way it distrib- minds, there may have been a meeting utes the advantages; but perhaps some of words that provides a record of the of its appeal is precisely in the fact that expectations of both sides and the obli- it is somewhat arbitrary, somewhat de- gations perceived. In informal negotia- termined by chance or by the very struction the ultimate sanction depends less ture of the problem, dictated by circum- on a piece of paper than on the clarity stances rather than by either side to the of the understanding reached. If one be- other. haves in a particular way, in anticipation of the other’s reciprocation, there is a If an important part of our arms con- need to make clear precisely how one is trol–or let us call it “mutual arms ac- behaving, with what mutual purpose in commodation”–with our enemies is mind, so that the other can read the pro- going to be tacit and informal, a matter posal in it, infer what would constitute of reciprocated unilateral actions and reciprocation, and design its own behav- abstentions, we need to take seriously ior accordingly. the problem of communicating with our enemies about what we are doing, and of 8 In a sense, the abortive summit conference of reaching understandings with them. In May 1960 did not involve less “negotiation” just some respects informal communication because the meeting never took place.

110 Dædalus Fall 2005 There is furthermore a greater need to ons and their sensitivity to accident or Reciprocal measures be persuasive. In explicit negotiation, it false alarm. In particular, suppose that for arms may be possible to reach an agreement our budget rises because of increased stabilization whose terms are reasonably well under- outlays associated with our desire for stood without agreement on principles a slow reacting force, rather than one or any reciprocal understanding of each that must react rapidly. In such circum- other’s motives. If the letter of the agree- stances, our actions may be stabilizing ment is clear, the spirit can remain or destabilizing, depending on whether somewhat in doubt. In informal negotia- the enemy can perceive that we are mak- tion, the spirit bears most of the burden; ing the world safer for him rather than and if the idea behind what we think we increasing his need (and ours) to jump are doing is not perceived by our partner the gun in a crisis. If we institute an air- (enemy), what we expect of him–or borne alert, it may be important to do what we may reasonably be expected to so in a way that enhances the apparent expect of him–may be too dimly per- as well as the real security and stabili- ceived to be the basis for genuine recip- ty of our retaliatory weapon systems. rocation. This might mean that we would have to Suppose we decide to put more em- choose deliberately, say, flight patterns phasis on ballistic-missile submarines, that manifestly enhance the security of for example, in the belief that they are our forces rather than the speed with peculiarly “stable” weapons because of which they could initiate a surprise their lesser susceptibility to destruction attack of their own. in case of a surprise attack and because By far the most important prerequisite they are not so much under obligation is that we understand our own motives to strike quickly in the event of an am- well enough to take actions that are con- biguous warning (or war itself ), or else sistent with a deterrent philosophy, and because their smaller warheads, with well enough so that we can articulate it possibly a lesser degree of accuracy as to ourselves. If we have such a philoso- compared with ground-based missiles, phy, and if our actions are consistent makes them less of a threat to the ene- with it, and if for our own purposes we my’s retaliatory forces and more of a articulate that philosophy in explaining genuine deterrent. Suppose we decide our budget decisions here at home, we that we could afford to do this only if are probably well on the way to convey- the enemy himself oriented his own ing that philosophy persuasively to our strategic program toward similarly “sta- enemy, if he is at all receptive. A special ble” weapon systems. It might not be problem here is that our overt position at all clear to the Russians what our moon disarmament must not be too incon- tives are, or what the conditions were for sistent with the philosophy that we are our going through with the program. Or trying to display and get across to our suppose we have a crash program for the enemy. If, for example, we really be- development of a more secure ground- lieved in a policy of collaborating with based missile force, this program to be the Russians to develop a stable situa- ½nanced by a sharp increase in the de- tion of mutual deterrence, and if we defense budget, with a good deal of expen- termined to make important changes, diture on command, control, and com- to this end, in the con½guration of our munication arrangements so as to re- weapons but these changes were not in duce both the vulnerability of our weap- the direction of general disarmament,

Dædalus Fall 2005 111 Thomas C. we would put a double burden on our weapon system for which facts are really Schelling communication if the front we present- only forecasts, and what is known today ed on arms-control questions bore no may no longer be true tomorrow. It is, relation to that philosophy. This does furthermore, too much to expect the not necessarily mean that we have to massive bureaucracy of our defense es- speak in our formal disarmament di- tablishment and our foreign service, plomacy in a manner that is sincere and and the partisan conflicts in Congress, consistent with what we are fundamen- to produce and maintain a coherent phi- tally trying to get across to the Russians. losophy and transmit it with high ½deli- It may just mean that our insincerity ty to a suspicious enemy whose receptiv- should be as manifest as the inconsis- ity and reasoning processes we can only tency, so that when we do contradict poorly evaluate. But it is worth trying. ourselves the Russians know that this is for show and that they should look One possibility, already adverted to, for the real message elsewhere. Still, it is to design our military forces conspic- would help if we could ½nd the diplo- uously and deliberately in the direction matic courage to shift even the formal of deterrence, stability, and slow reac- discussions of arms control more into tion. That is, to articulate as a policy the accord with our basic military policy, design of a strategic force that is pecu- at the same time as we try to adapt that liarly good at waiting out crises, at sur- military policy in directions that the viving a surprise attack, and at punish- Russians can appreciate and reciprocate, ing an attacker ex post facto, and not par- so that disarmament negotiations can ticularly good at initiating a preventive help a little, or at least hinder as little as attack, not in need of responding rapidly possible, the development of a genuine to warning. understanding. This may not be a bad policy to follow Even so, it is still an unanswered ques- unilaterally; but the advantage of pursu- tion whether the Russians are at all dis- ing it is greater if the enemy pursues it posed to participate in any “mutual arms too. The more each side perceives the accommodation” with us, beyond what other as designing his force for a sudden we already do in a tacit way. And it is a preemptive attack in a crisis, or for a pre- dif½cult technical question whether, meditated surprise attack, the more one even if they are disposed to cooperate is tempted himself to develop a quick- with us and appreciate the principle of reacting system, one that is peculiarly stable retaliatory systems with mini- suited to catching the enemy’s military mum proclivity toward false alarm and forces before they have left the ground. minimum temptation toward surprise Thus to some extent such a policy is a attack, there are any promising actions conditional policy; the motive is great- to be undertaken. Weapon systems can er if the principle is reciprocated by the rarely be classi½ed indisputably as ½rst- enemy. strike or second-strike weapons, as “ac- It would be extraordinarily dif½cult, cident-prone” or “accident-proof”; a perhaps impossible, to negotiate a de- good deal of technical analysis has to lie tailed understanding of precisely what behind a judgment, many of the techni- kinds of weapons in what con½gura- cal judgments may not be made equally tions, and how deployed, would meet by us and our enemies, the judgment has the “stability” criterion. For that rea- to be made in the context of an evolving son the idea may not be one that lends

112 Dædalus Fall 2005 itself to explicit detailed negotiated petuity thereafter, perhaps they are ca- Reciprocal measures agreements. But that does not rule out pable of supporting a world with arms for arms the possibility that both sides may per- without war. Those who argue that stabilization ceive value in pursuing such policies in peace with arms is impossible but act a general way, and may recognize that as though peace and disarmament are their own behavior not only helps the not, may be using a double standard. other side pursue a similar policy but And it must be remembered that to- helps to induce it by the tacit promise tal disarmament, even if achieved, does of reciprocation. As mentioned above, not by itself preclude subsequent arms we already do this in such matters as races; nor does a good start toward total the traf½c rules we both unilaterally ob- disarmament preclude a violent reversal. serve and reciprocate; there may be a To the extent that an arms advantage is good deal of room for gradually extend- more easily obtained when the level of ing this kind of reciprocal unilateral ac- armaments on both sides is low–to the tion, even though the subject may never extent that the consequences of cheating appear on the agenda of a diplomatic ne- are greater in a world with few arms– gotiation. arms races might become more violent, Compared with a peaceful world dis- the lower the level of armament from armed, schemes to stabilize mutual de- which they start. Particularly in a world terrence are a poor second best; judged in which the pace of scienti½c progress against the prospect of war, measures to is rapid but jerky, uneven as between make it less likely may be attractive. This countries, and full of opportunities and point of view will not appeal to any who uncertainties for weapons development, believe that war results from the sheer it is not at all clear that the world would existence of arms and the temptation to be less uneasy about arms advantages if use them, or from the influence of mili- each side continually thought of itself tarists in modern society whose prestige as nearly naked. What can explain the increases in proportion to the arms bud- complacency of the American response get, and who believe that distrust is only to the ½rst Soviet sputnik except a feel- aggravated by people’s acting as though ing (superbly rationalized) that the ex- distrust exists. History shows, it is said, isting level of arms provided so much that man cannot live in a world with security that no single new achievement, arms without using them. History rare- or even a revision of the comparative ly shows anything quite that universal; time schedules by a year or two, could but even granting it, the question is not quite upset the balance. whether it is asking much of man to learn to live in a world with arms and Another area of possible cooperation not to use them excessively. The ques- is in damping the arms race through the tion is whether it takes more skill and exchange of information. I am not much wisdom for man to learn to live in a impressed with the budgetary fury of world with arms and not to use them our participation in the arms race, but than it does for man to disarm himself it is not hard to imagine that the budget- so totally that he can’t have war even if ary arms race might get into much high- he wants it (or can’t want it any longer). er gear. If it does, part of the motivation If modern social institutions are capa- (at least in this country) may be due to ble of achieving disarmament in the ½rst uncertainty about the level of armament place, and of avoiding arms races in per- on the other side. The “missile gap” that

Dædalus Fall 2005 113 Thomas C. one estimates, or feels obliged to assume up with us. It is also interesting that the Schelling to exist in the absence of information, truth is probably not something that may exceed the actual missile gap, caus- they could readily reveal on their own. ing a more frantic increase in armaments They have to ½nd some way of giving than would be undertaken with better us evidence for believing the truth (or a information. And it may induce recipro- less exaggerated estimate of the truth) cal action on the other side, which also and give it in a way that does not yield wishes to avoid an intolerably unfavor- targeting and other information that able imbalance. they would ½nd intolerable. The fact To illustrate: suppose that either side that this intelligence gap is mainly on felt reasonably secure against sudden our side does not preclude Soviet inter- attack as long as its enemy’s numerical est in some means of conveying the in- superiority in missiles never reached, formation to us, and it does not obviate say, 2 to 1. In this case, just knowing what the need for cooperative techniques for each other possesses and is producing receiving it. could make possible a stable equilibrium at a modest level of strategic armaments, Measures to prevent “accidental war,” while ignorance of the enemy’s strength war by misunderstanding, war by false might seem to require an unlimited ef- alarm, are another possibility. One as- fort to avoid falling too far behind. With pect of this has been mentioned: the actual weapons such simple calculations reciprocal development of the kinds of are of course impossible; but the princi- forces and modes of behavior that mini- ple is valid. mize accidents or their consequences, An important dif½culty of applying it, minimize alarms and misunderstand- though, is that the ways by which one ings, minimize the need to react quickly can get authentic information about the in the face of ambiguous evidence. But other’s present and projected strength there is another type of joint or recipro- may provide more strategic information cal activity that could help. It would be than the other side can tolerate.9 A spe- to arrange in advance, even if crudely cial dif½culty is that the Soviets may al- and informally, communication proce- ready know most of what they need to dures, exchange of information, and know for this purpose; it is mainly we inspection facilities, for use in the event who do not. of an accident, alarm, or misunderstand- But it is interesting that they might ing that created a crisis. Part of this is possibly prefer that we know the truth. just procedural–making sure that we If in fact we are on the verge of a crash and the Russians have the same idea program based on an exaggerated esti- about who gets in touch with whom mate of what they have already done, when communication or bargaining is it could cost them money (and perhaps suddenly required. Part of it is intellec- an increase in the risk of war) to keep tual–thinking ahead of time about how one would go about reassuring the Rus- 9 Also, one side yields a bluf½ng or bargain- sians in the event they had a false alarm, ing advantage if it reveals that its weaponry is and what we could demand of them for less impressive than may have been thought. our own reassurance if we ever got am- It loses, too, the possibility of surreptitiously achieving a dominant superiority. But losses biguous evidence. Part of it is physical– of this kind are the price of arms control in making sure that, if we should need in- the ½rst place. spectors on a particular scene within a

114 Dædalus Fall 2005 few hours to verify that something was inevitable preemptive war. Sudden and Reciprocal measures an accident, or to verify that the Rus- drastic “measures to safeguard against for arms sians were calm, or to verify that the surprise attack” might have to be nego- stabilization Russians were not taking actions we tiated on an acutely demanding time thought they were taking, the neces- schedule. sary inspectors and equipment would If so, success may depend on wheth- be available within a few hours’ travel er one or both sides is intellectually pre- time from where we would need them. pared for the contingency, whether some Just having some Russians available at understandings have been reached in strategic points around the United advance, and whether certain facilities States, able to see things with their own can be improvised to monitor whatever eyes if we suddenly wanted them to and arrangements might be forthcoming. able to report home instantly through One of the important “limited” arms- authentic channels, might be useful control measures that we might take in someday. And if we ever want them, we advance of such a crisis, either by our- may want them in a hurry; there may selves or with our enemies, either infor- not be time to identify them, brief them, mally or explicitly, is a development of ship them over here, and train them for understandings, procedures, personnel, their job, once the accident occurs or the and equipment, of an imaginative and crisis is on or the misinformation ½lters adaptable sort, capable of going into through the Russian warning system.10 action at such time as we and the Rus- sians both decide that now is the time There is a more ambitious possibility. for arms control and we can’t wait. Neither we nor the Russians at the present time take arms control terribly seri- A ½nal possibility, a pessimistic but ously; we do not view it as an alternative a serious one and one suggested by the to a war that is imminent. But it is not analogy between arms control and limit- impossible to imagine crises in which ed war, is the role of arms control in gen- the likelihood of immediate war would eral war if general war occurs. We usual- become a grave preoccupation. Once the ly think of arms control or deterrence threat of imminent war rises above some as having failed if war breaks out; and threshold, the mere consciousness that so it has, but it can fail worse if we give each side is preoccupied with it–and up at that point. It is not entirely clear with the importance of being the one that a general war–a war between the to start it, if it should come–will aggra- usa and the ussr, involving their stra- vate the propensities that already exist. tegic forces on a large scale–would nec- It is perfectly conceivable that in a real essarily be unlimited either in the way it crisis there would be a sudden and dras- would be fought or in the way it would tic change in the attitudes of both sides be concluded. Particularly as we come toward arms control. “Preventive arms to think about an inadvertent war–one control” might begin to look like a risky that results by some kind of accident or but attractive alternative to a possibly misunderstanding, or one that is reluc- tantly initiated by the Russians or by us in the belief that it is urgent to preempt 10 A more extensive discussion of this point will appear in T. C. Schelling, “Arms Control: at once–it is worthwhile to consider Proposal for a Special Surveillance Force,” whether fury is the only guide we need World Politics (October 1960). in conducting the war, and whether the

Dædalus Fall 2005 115 Thomas C. exhaustion of weapons on both sides is into the open for study. Its relation to Schelling the only condition for terminating it. arms control is that the mere possibili- It is commonly taken for granted that ty of limiting a general war between us if the Russians initiate a general war it and our principal enemy may depend on would be in a vicious effort to extermi- some understanding, tacit and informal nate us both as a nation and as a people, as it may be, that we share ahead of time. and that they would be so impatient to There may be little national advantage do this as to spend valuable weapons to in abstaining from certain targets in the create civil damage at the outset. But it event of war, or in attempting to com- is not obvious that a coldly calculating municate, unless the enemy can be alert enemy would afford himself the luxury to what is going on. of going after cities and people when there are more urgent targets that he Terminating a war through anything has to destroy in order to reduce the other than the sheer exhaustion of weap- scale of our retaliation. Nor is it obvi- ons on both sides would require some ous that an impetuous attacker, one form of arms control. It is a noteworthy whose motivation is partly the fear that characteristic of a possible World War if he does not strike ½rst he will be sec- III that even unconditional surrender ond, would be immune to the thought may be physically impossible. How do that he might want to surrender if the the Russians persuade us that they have thing went badly, to accept our surren- destroyed (or are prepared to destroy der if it went well, or to negotiate a truce or deliver us) some or all of their signi½- between those extremes. If there is no cant weapons and are prepared to sub- immediate strategic need to kill our peo- mit to our political demands? We can- ple, it may occur to him that they are not even trust them not to test weapons worth more alive than dead; the threat under a test-suspension agreement; in of killing them gives him something to circumstances in½nitely more desper- bargain with in the course of the war or ate, when a one-hour pause in the war at its termination. Similarly for us: if the may be of strategic bene½t to somebody, war was a mistake we might be more in- if they send us an urgent message ac- terested in minimizing the consequences knowledging their guilt in the war and of the error, whosever error it was, and proposing that we preserve our world in maintaining the possibility of a nego- by letting them surrender to us, are we tiated outcome that limited damage on likely to be able to do anything? If they both sides. For this bargaining purpose, are fooling, and if we are fooled, the cost live Russians and our unspent weapons will be tremendous; if they are not fool- are assets, and about the only ones we’d ing and we choose to ignore them, the have. cost will be tremendous. Can we think The subject is a complicated one and of what they might do to prove that they cannot be decided here. It has to be ac- mean it? Have we got the facilities to knowledged that there are dangers in monitor them and to police them? Have suggesting to the Russians that we are we incorporated in our strategic forces, even aware of the possibility that an and in the operating doctrine of those attack on us might not be cataclysmic forces, recognition of their potential for us both. But the possibility is so uni- role in policing the disarmament by versally unmentioned and so terribly which the war might be brought to a important that it deserves to be brought close?

116 Dædalus Fall 2005 Actually “surrender” is a poor word equipment to bring a war to a close, of Reciprocal measures here. Anywhere between the two a kind not necessarily provided for in a for arms extremes of unconditional surrender plan that considers only the contingency stabilization by one side or the other, the truce or of an all-out war to the ½nish. But it also understanding or scheme for bringing requires some mutual awareness ahead the war to a close might better be de- of time, on the part of both our enemy scribed as “disarmament” or “arms and ourselves, and perhaps some crude control.” Historically one might have and tacit, if not careful and explicit, un- allowed an enemy, when he “condition- derstanding about the modes and tech- ally” surrendered, to keep some purely niques of negotiation in the event of defensive weapons as a hedge against war. the victor’s violating his promise. This is a kind of asymmetrical disarmament scheme. In the future, at the close of a general war, one might have to allow the conditionally surrendering enemy to re- tain some retaliatory weapons, these being the only kind that two major powers can use to enforce promises from each other. In effect, “measures to safeguard against surprise attack,” possibly one- sided, possibly bilateral, and certainly more drastic than any that have yet been considered, might be the minimum requirement of a conditionally surrendering enemy. Thus anywhere between the two extremes of total surrender, the outcome should be viewed as a disarmament process, with the asymmetry presumably reflecting the degree of victory or defeat. But as remarked above, even the extremes of unconditional surrender require much the same kind of procedure for mutual relaxation, cessation of hostilities, inspection, enforcement, and so forth. Any general war that is terminated by a bilateral understanding, by anything other than the independent exhaustion of weapons on both sides, requires something in the nature of an enormous, complex and dynamic scheme for arms control. If this possibility is to be left open, we need to anticipate it in the design of our strategic forces and in our plans for their use. It may require special facilities and

Dædalus Fall 2005 117 John Hope Franklin

The two worlds of race: a historical view

Measured by universal standards the race, on the one hand, and the world history of the United States is indeed of equality and complete human fellow- brief. But during the brief span of three ship, on the other. and one-half centuries of colonial and For a century before the American national history Americans developed Revolution the status of Negroes in the traditions and prejudices which created English colonies had become ½xed at a the two worlds of race in modern Amer- low point that distinguished them from ica. From the time that Africans were all other persons who had been held in brought as indentured servants to the temporary bondage. By the middle of mainland of English America in 1619, the eighteenth century, laws governing the enormous task of rationalizing and Negroes denied to them certain basic justifying the forced labor of peoples on rights that were conceded to others. the basis of racial differences was begun; They were permitted no independence and even after legal slavery was ended, of thought, no opportunity to improve the notion of racial differences persisted their minds or their talents or to wor- as a basis for maintaining segregation ship freely, no right to marry and enjoy and discrimination. At the same time, the conventional family relationships, the effort to establish a more healthy no right to own or dispose of property, basis for the new world social order and no protection against miscarriages was begun, thus launching the continu- of justice or cruel and unreasonable pun- ing battle between the two worlds of ishments. They were outside the pale of the laws that protected ordinary humans. In most places they were to be John Hope Franklin, James B. Duke Professor governed, as the South Carolina code Emeritus of History at Duke University, has of 1712 expressed it, by special laws “as been a Fellow of the American Academy since may restrain the disorders, rapines, and 1964. This essay appeared in the Fall 1965 issue inhumanity to which they are natural- of “Dædalus.” At the time of its publication, ly prone and inclined . . . . ” A separate Franklin was professor of American history at world for them had been established by the University of Chicago. law and custom. Its dimensions and the conduct of its inhabitants were deter- © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts mined by those living in a quite differ- & Sciences ent world.

118 Dædalus Fall 2005 By the time that the colonists took up moves to emancipate the slaves. Quak- The two worlds of arms against their mother country in or- ers and other religious groups organized race: a der to secure their independence, the antislavery societies, while numerous historical world of Negro slavery had become individuals manumitted their slaves. In view deeply entrenched and the idea of Ne- the years following the close of the war gro inferiority well established. But the most of the states of the East made pro- dilemmas inherent in such a situation visions for the gradual emancipation were a source of constant embarrass- of slaves. In the South, meanwhile, the ment. “It always appeared a most iniqui- antislavery societies were unable to tous scheme to me,” Mrs. John Adams effect programs of statewide emanci- wrote her husband in 1774, “to ½ght our- pation. When the Southerners came to selves for what we are daily robbing and the Constitutional Convention in 1787 plundering from those who have as good they succeeded in winning some repre- a right to freedom as we have.” There sentation on the basis of slavery, in were others who shared her views, but securing federal support of the capture they were unable to wield much influ- and rendition of fugitive slaves, and in ence. When the ½ghting began General preventing the closing of the slave trade George Washington issued an order to before 1808. recruiting of½cers that they were not to Even where the sentiment favoring enlist “any deserter from the ministerial emancipation was pronounced, it was army, nor any stroller, negro, or vaga- seldom accompanied by a view that Ne- bond, or person suspected of being an groes were the equals of whites and enemy to the liberty of America nor any should become a part of one family of under eighteen years of age.” In classi- Americans. Jefferson, for example, was fying Negroes with the dregs of society, opposed to slavery; and if he could have traitors, and children, Washington made had his way, he would have condemned it clear that Negroes, slave or free, were it in the Declaration of Independence. It not to enjoy the high privilege of ½ght- did not follow, however, that he believed ing for political independence. He would Negroes to be the equals of whites. He change that order later, but only after did not want to “degrade a whole race it became clear that Negroes were en- of men from the work in the scale of listing with the “ministerial army” in beings which their Creator may perhaps droves in order to secure their own free- have given them . . . . I advance it there- dom. In changing his policy if not his fore, as a suspicion only, that the blacks, views, Washington availed himself of whether originally a distinct race, or the services of more than 5,000 Ne- made distinct by time and circumstance, groes who took up arms against Eng- are inferior to the whites in the endow- land.1 ment both of body and mind.” It is en- Many Americans besides Mrs. Adams tirely possible that Jefferson’s later as- were struck by the inconsistency of their sociation with the extraordinarily able stand during the War for Independence, Negro astronomer and mathematician, and they were not averse to making Benjamin Banneker, resulted in some modi½cation of his views. After read- 1 Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American ing a copy of Banneker’s almanac, Jef- Revolution (Chapel Hill: Published for the In- stitute of Early American History and Culture, ferson told him that it was “a docu- Williamsburg, Va., by University of North Car- ment to which your whole race had a olina Press, 1961), 15–18. right for its justi½cations against the

Dædalus Fall 2005 119 John Hope doubts which have been entertained of tended to favor some particular type Franklin them.”2 of education that would be in keeping In communities such as Philadelphia with their lowly station in life. In 1794, and New York, where the climate was for example, the American Convention more favorably disposed to the idea of of Abolition Societies recommended Negro equality than in Jefferson’s Vir- that Negroes be instructed in “those ginia, few concessions were made, ex- mechanic arts which will keep them cept by a limited number of Quakers most constantly employed and, of and their associates. Indeed, the white course, which will less subject them to citizens in the City of Brotherly Love idleness and debauchery, and thus pre- contributed substantially to the perpet- pare them for becoming good citizens uation of two distinct worlds of race. In of the United States.” When Anthony the 1780s, the white Methodists permit- Benezet, a dedicated Pennsylvania abo- ted Negroes to worship with them, pro- litionist, died in 1784 his will provided vided the Negroes sat in a designated that on the death of his wife the pro- place in the balcony. On one occasion, ceeds of his estate should be used to as- when the Negro worshippers occupied sist in the establishment of a school for the front rows of the balcony, from Negroes. In 1787 the school of which which they had been excluded, the of- Benezet had dreamed was opened in ½cials pulled them from their knees dur- Philadelphia, where the pupils studied ing prayer and evicted them from the reading, writing, arithmetic, plain ac- church. Thus, in the early days of the Re- counts, and sewing. public and in the place where the Repub- Americans who were at all interested lic was founded, Negroes had a de½nite in the education of Negroes regarded it “place” in which they were expected at as both natural and normal that Negroes all times to remain. The white Meth- should receive their training in separate odists of New York had much the same schools. As early as 1773 Newport, Rhode attitude toward their Negro fellows. Island, had a colored school, maintained Soon, there were separate Negro church- by a society of benevolent clergymen of es in these and other communities. Bap- the Anglican Church. In 1798 a separate tists were very much the same. In 1809 private school for Negro children was thirteen Negro members of a white established in Boston; and two decades Baptist church in Philadelphia were later the city opened its ½rst public pri- dismissed, and they formed a church mary school for the education of Negro of their own. Thus, the earliest Negro children. Meanwhile, New York had es- religious institutions emerged as the re- tablished separate schools, the ½rst one sult of the rejection by white communi- opening its doors in 1790. By 1814 there cants of their darker fellow worshippers. were several such institutions that were Soon there would be other institutions– generally designated as the New York schools, newspapers, benevolent soci- African Free Schools.3 eties–to serve those who lived in a Thus, in the most liberal section of world apart. the country, the general view was that Those Americans who conceded the Negroes should be kept out of the main- importance of education for Negroes stream of American life. They were

2 John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Free- 3 Carter G. Woodson, The Education of the Ne- dom: A History of American Negroes (New York: gro Prior to 1861 (Washington, D.C.: Associated Knopf, 1956), 156–157. Publishers, Inc., 1919), 93–97.

120 Dædalus Fall 2005 forced to establish and maintain their and President James Monroe thought The two worlds of own religious institutions, which were that separation–expatriation–was the race: a frequently followed by the establish- best thing for Negroes who were or who historical ment of separate benevolent societies. would become free.4 view Likewise, if Negroes were to receive While the colonization scheme was any education, it should be special edu- primarily for Negroes who were already cation provided in separate education- free, it won, for a time, a considerable al institutions. This principle prevailed number of sincere enemies of slavery. in most places in the North throughout From the beginning Negroes were bit- the period before the Civil War. In some terly opposed to it, and only infrequent- Massachusetts towns, however, Negroes ly did certain Negro leaders, such as gained admission to schools that had Dr. Martin Delany and the Reverend been maintained for whites. But the Henry M. Turner, support the idea. Col- School Committee of Boston refused onization, however, retained consider- to admit Negroes, arguing that the nat- able support in the most responsible ural distinction of the races, which “no quarters. As late as the Civil War, Presi- legislature, no social customs, can efface dent Lincoln urged Congress to adopt renders a promiscuous intermingling a plan to colonize Negroes, as the only in the public schools disadvantageous workable solution to the race problem both to them and to the whites.” Sepa- in the United States. Whether the advo- rate schools remained in Boston until cates of colonization wanted merely to the Massachusetts legislature in 1855 prevent the contamination of slavery enacted a law providing that in deter- by free Negroes or whether they actual- mining the quali½cations of students to ly regarded it as the just and honorable be admitted to any public school no dis- thing to do, they represented an impor- tinction should be made on account of tant element in the population that re- the race, color, or religious opinion of jected the idea of the Negro’s assimila- the applicant. tion into the mainstream of American Meanwhile, in the Southern states, life. where the vast majority of the Negroes Thus, within ½fty years after the Dec- lived, there were no concessions sug- laration of Independence was written, gesting equal treatment, even among the institution of slavery, which received the most liberal elements. One group only a temporary reversal during the that would doubtless have regarded it- Revolutionary era, contributed greatly self as liberal on the race question advo- to the emergence of the two worlds of cated the deportation of Negroes to Af- race in the United States. The natural rica, especially those who had become rights philosophy appeared to have lit- free. Since free Negroes “neither en- tle effect on those who became commit- joyed the immunities of freemen, nor ted, more and more, to seeking a ration- were they subject to the incapacities of alization for slavery. The search was ap- slaves,” their condition and “unconquer- parently so successful that even in areas able prejudices” prevented amalgama- where slavery was declining, the support tion with whites, one colonization lead- for maintaining two worlds of race was er argued. There was, therefore, a “pe- strong. Since the Negro church and culiar moral ½tness” in restoring them 4 P. J. Staudenraus, The African Colonization to “the land of their fathers.” Men like Movement, 1816–1865 (New York: Columbia Henry Clay, Judge Bushrod Washington, University Press, 1961), 22–32.

Dædalus Fall 2005 121 John Hope school emerged in Northern communi- the time that Europeans were reading Franklin ties where slavery was dying, it may be Gobineau’s Inequality of Races, Southern- said that the free society believed almost ers were reading Cartwright’s Slavery as strongly in racial separation as it did in the Light of Ethnology. In admitting all in racial freedom. whites into the pseudo-nobility of race, Cartwright won their enthusiastic sup- The generation preceding the outbreak port in the struggle to preserve the in- of the Civil War witnessed the develop- tegrity and honor of the race. Professor ment of a set of defenses of slavery that Thomas R. Dew of the College of Wil- became the basis for much of the racist liam and Mary comforted the lower- doctrine to which some Americans have class whites by indicating that they subscribed from then to the present could identify with the most privileged time. The idea of the inferiority of the and affluent of the community. In the Negro enjoyed wide acceptance among South, he said, “no white man feels such Southerners of all classes and among inferiority of rank as to be unworthy of many Northerners. It was an important association with those around him. Col- ingredient in the theory of society prom- or alone is here the badge of distinction, ulgated by Southern thinkers and lead- the true mark of aristocracy, and all who ers. It was organized into a body of sys- are white are equal in spite of the variety tematic thought by the scientists and of occupation.”5 social scientists of the South, out of Many Northerners were not without which emerged a doctrine of racial su- their own racist views and policies in periority that justi½ed any kind of con- the turbulent decades before the Civil trol over the slave. In 1826 Dr. Thomas War. Some, as Professor Louis Filler Cooper said that he had not the slightest has observed, displayed a hatred of doubt that Negroes were an “inferior va- Negroes that gave them a sense of su- riety of the human species; and not ca- periority and an outlet for their frus- pable of the same improvement as the trations. Others cared nothing one whites.” Dr. S. C. Cartwright of the Uni- way or the other about Negroes and versity of Louisiana insisted that the ca- demanded only that they be kept sep- pacities of the Negro adult for learning arate.6 Even some of the abolitionists were equal to those of a white infant; themselves were ambivalent on the and the Negro could properly perform question of Negro equality. More than certain physiological functions only one antislavery society was agitated when under the control of white men. by the suggestion that Negroes be in- Because of the Negro’s inferiority, liber- vited to join. Some members thought ty and republican institutions were not it reasonable for them to attend, but only unsuited to his temperament, but not to be put on an “equality with our- actually inimical to his well-being and selves.” The New York abolitionist, happiness. Lewis Tappan, admitted “that when the Like racists in other parts of the world, subject of acting out our profound prin- Southerners sought support for their ideology by developing a common bond 5 John Hope Franklin, The Militant South, with the less privileged. The obvious ba- 1800–1861 (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1956), 83–86. sis was race; and outside the white race there was to be found no favor from 6 Louis Filler, The Crusade Against Slavery, God, no honor or respect from man. By 1830–1860 (New York: Harper, 1960), 142–145.

122 Dædalus Fall 2005 ciples in treating men irrespective of for the enlistment of Negro troops, af- The two worlds of color is discussed heat is always pro- ter issuing the Emancipation Proclama- race: a duced.”7 tion, he was content not only to set Ne- historical In the ½nal years before the beginning groes apart in a unit called “U.S. Colored view of the Civil War, the view that the Negro Troops,” but also to have Negro privates was different, even inferior, was wide- receive $10 per month including cloth- ly held in the United States. Leaders in ing, while whites of the same rank re- both major parties subscribed to the ceived $13 per month plus clothing. On- view, while the more extreme racists ly the stubborn refusal of many Negro deplored any suggestion that the Ne- troops to accept discriminatory pay ½- gro could ever prosper as a free man. At nally forced Congress to equalize com- Peoria, Illinois, in October 1854, Abra- pensation for white and Negro soldiers.8 ham Lincoln asked what stand the oppo- The ½ght for union that became also a nents of slavery should take regarding ½ght for freedom never became a ½ght Negroes. “Free them, and make them for equality or for the creation of one ra- politically and socially, our equals? My cial world. own feelings not admit of this; and if The Lincoln and Johnson plans for set- mine would, we well know that those of tling the problems of peace and freedom the great mass of white people will not. never seriously touched on the concomi- Whether this feeling accords with jus- tant problem of equality. To be sure, in tice and sound judgment, is not the sole 1864 President Lincoln privately raised question, if indeed, it is any part of it. with the governor of Louisiana the ques- A universal feeling, whether well or ill tion of the franchise for a limited num- founded, cannot be safely disregarded. ber of Negroes, but when the governor We cannot, then, make them equals.” ignored the question the President let The Lincoln statement was forthright, the matter drop. Johnson raised a simi- and it doubtless represented the views lar question in 1866, but he admitted of most Americans in the 1850s. Most of that it was merely to frustrate the design those who heard him or read his speech of radical reformers who sought a wider were of the same opinion as he. In later franchise for Negroes. During the two years, the Peoria pronouncement would years following Appomattox Southern be used by those who sought to detract leaders gave not the slightest considera- from Lincoln’s reputation as a champion tion to permitting any Negroes, regard- of the rights of the Negro. In 1964, the less of their service to the Union or their White Citizens’ Councils reprinted por- education or their property, to share in tions of the speech in large advertise- the political life of their communities. ments in the daily press and insisted Not only did every Southern state refuse that Lincoln shared their views on the to permit Negroes to vote, but they also desirability of maintaining two distinct refused to provide Negroes with any of worlds of race. the educational opportunities that they Lincoln could not have overcome the were providing for the whites. nation’s strong predisposition toward The early practice of political disfran- racial separation if he had tried. And he chisement and of exclusion from public did not try very hard. When he called educational facilities helped to deter- 7 Leon F. Litwack, North of Slavery; The Negro in the Free States, 1790–1860 (Chicago: Universi- 8 Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the Civil War ty of Chicago Press, 1961), 216–217. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1953), 200.

Dædalus Fall 2005 123 John Hope mine subsequent policies that the South the old ruling class. Organizations such Franklin adopted regarding Negroes. While a few as the Ku Klux Klan were committed to leaders raised their voices against these violent action to keep Negroes “in their policies and practices, it was Negroes place” and, having gained respectabili- themselves who made the most eloquent ty through sponsorship by Confederate attacks on such discriminations. As ear- generals and the like, they proceeded to ly as May 1865, a group of North Caroli- wreak havoc in the name of white su- na Negroes told President Johnson that premacy and protection of white wom- some of them had been soldiers and anhood.9 were doing everything possible to learn Meanwhile, various forms of segrega- how to discharge the higher duties of tion and discrimination, developed in citizenship. “It seems to us that men the years before the Civil War in order who are willing on the ½eld of battle to to degrade the half million free Negroes carry the muskets of the Republic, in the in the United States, were now applied days of peace ought to be permitted to to the four million Negroes who had be- carry the ballots; and certainly we can- come free in 1865. Already the churches not understand the justice of denying and the military were completely segre- the elective franchise to men who have gated. For the most part the schools, been ½ghting for the country, while it is even in the North, were separate. In the freely given to men who have just re- South segregated schools persisted, even turned from four years ½ghting against in the places where the radicals made it.” Such pleas fell on deaf ears, howev- a halfhearted attempt to desegregate er; and it was not until 1867, when Con- them. In 1875 Congress enacted a Civil gress was suf½ciently outraged by the Rights Act to guarantee the enjoyment inhuman black codes, widespread dis- of equal rights in carriers and all places criminations in the South, and unspeak- of public accommodation and amuse- able forms of violence against Negroes, ment. Even before it became law North- that new federal legislation sought to ern philanthropists succeeded in forcing correct the evils of the ½rst period of the deletion of the provision calling for Reconstruction. desegregated schools. Soon, because of The period that we know as Radical the massive resistance in the North as Reconstruction had no signi½cant or well as in the South and the indifferent permanent effect on the status of the manner in which the federal govern- Negro in American life. For a period of ment enforced the law, it soon became time, varying from one year to ½fteen or a dead letter everywhere. When it was twenty years, some Negroes enjoyed the declared unconstitutional by the Su- privileges of voting. They gained politi- preme Court in 1883, there was univer- cal ascendancy in a very few communi- sal rejoicing, except among the Negroes, ties only temporarily, and they never one of whom declared that they had even began to achieve the status of a been “baptized in ice water.” ruling class. They made no meaningful Neither the Civil War nor the era of steps toward economic independence Reconstruction made any signi½cant or even stability; and in no time at all, step toward the permanent elimination because of the pressures of the local of racial barriers. The radicals of the community and the neglect of the feder- 9 John Hope Franklin, Reconstruction: After al government, they were brought under the Civil War (Chicago: University of Chicago the complete economic subservience of Press, 1961), 154–158.

124 Dædalus Fall 2005 post–Civil War years came no closer ing Negroes as lazy, idle, improvident, The two 10 worlds of to the creation of one racial world than immoral, and criminal. Thomas Dix- race: a the patriots of the Revolutionary years. on’s novels, The Klansman and The Leop- historical When Negroes were, for the ½rst time, ard’s Spots, and D. W. Grif½th’s motion view enrolled in the standing army of the picture, “The Birth of A Nation,” helped United States, they were placed in sep- to give Americans a view of the Negro’s arate Negro units. Most of the liberals role in American history that “proved” of the Reconstruction era called for and that he was un½t for citizenship, to say worked for separate schools for Negroes. nothing of equality. The dictum of Wil- Nowhere was there any extensive effort liam Graham Sumner and his followers to involve Negroes in the churches and that “stateways cannot change folk- other social institutions of the dominant ways” convinced many Americans that group. Whatever remained of the old ab- legislating equality and creating one olitionist fervor, which can hardly be de- great society where race was irrelevant scribed as unequivocal on the question was out of the question. of true racial equality, was rapidly disap- But many Americans believed that pearing. In its place were the sentiments they could legislate inequality; and of the businessmen who wanted peace they proceeded to do precisely that. at any price. Those having common rail- Beginning in 1890, one Southern state road interests or cropmarketing interests after another revised the suffrage provi- or investment interests could and did ex- sions of its constitution in a manner that tend their hands across sectional lines made it virtually impossible for Negroes and joined in the task of working togeth- to qualify to vote. The new literacy and er for the common good. In such an at- “understanding” provisions permitted mosphere the practice was to accept the local registrars to disqualify Negroes realities of two separate worlds of race. while permitting white citizens to qual- Some even subscribed to the view that ify. Several states, including Louisiana, there were signi½cant economic advan- North Carolina, and Oklahoma, insert- tages in maintaining the two worlds of ed “grandfather clauses” in their consti- race. tutions in order to permit persons, who could not otherwise qualify, to vote if The post-Reconstruction years wit- their fathers or grandfathers could vote nessed a steady deterioration in the stain 1866. (This was such a flagrant dis- tus of Negro Americans. These were crimination against Negroes, whose the years that Professor Rayford Logan ancestors could not vote in 1866, that has called the “nadir” of the Negro in the United States Supreme Court in American life and thought. They were 1915 declared the “grandfather clause” the years when Americans, weary of unconstitutional.) Then came the Dem- the crusade that had, for the most part, ocratic white primary in 1900 that made ended with the outbreak of the Civil it impossible for Negroes to participate War, displayed almost no interest in in local elections in the South, where, helping the Negro to achieve equality. by this time, only the Democratic par- The social Darwinists decried the very ty had any appreciable strength. (After notion of equality for Negroes, arguing more than a generation of assaults on it, that the lowly place they occupied was 10 Rayford W. Logan, The Negro in American natural and normal. The leading literary Life and Thought: The Nadir, 1877–1901 (New journals vied with each other in describ- York: Dial Press, 1954), 239–274.

Dædalus Fall 2005 125 John Hope the white primary was ½nally declared ened when, in 1913, the federal govern- Franklin unconstitutional in 1944.) ment adopted policies that segregated Inequality was legislated in still anoth- the races in its of½ces as well as in its er way. Beginning in the 1880s, many eating and restroom facilities. states, especially but not exclusively in By the time of World War I, Negroes the South, enacted statutes designed to and whites in the South and in parts of separate the races. After the Civil Rights the North lived in separate worlds, and Act was declared unconstitutional in the apparatus for keeping the worlds 1883 state legislatures were emboldened separate was elaborate and complex. to enact numerous segregation statutes. Negroes were segregated by law in the When the United States Supreme Court, public schools of the Southern states, in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, set forth while those in the Northern ghettos the “separate but equal” doctrine in were sent to predominantly Negro 1896, the decision provided a new stimu- schools, except where their numbers lus for laws to separate the races and, of were insuf½cient. Scores of Negro news- course, to discriminate against Negroes. papers sprang up to provide news of Ne- In time, Negroes and whites were sepa- groes that the white press consistently rated in the use of schools, churches, ignored. Negroes were as unwanted in cemeteries, drinking fountains, restau- the white churches as they had been in rants, and all places of public accommo- the late eighteenth century; and Negro dation and amusement. One state enact- churches of virtually every denomina- ed a law providing for the separate ware- tion were the answer for a people who housing of books used by white and had accepted the white man’s religion Negro children. Another required the even as the white man rejected his reli- telephone company to provide separate gious fellowship. telephone booths for white and Negro Taking note of the fact that they had customers. In most communities hous- been omitted from any serious consid- ing was racially separated by law or prac- eration by the white historians, Negroes tice.11 began in earnest to write the history of Where there was no legislation requir- their own experiences as Americans. ing segregation, local practices ½lled the There had been Negro historians before void. Contradictions and inconsistencies the Civil War, but none of them had seemed not to disturb those who sought challenged the white historians’ efforts to maintain racial distinctions at all to relegate Negroes to a separate, de- costs. It mattered not that one drive-in graded world. In 1882, however, George snack bar served Negroes only on the Washington Williams published his His- inside, while its competitor across the tory of the Negro Race in America in order street served Negroes only on the out- to “give the world more correct ideas side. Both were committed to making about the colored people.” He wrote, racial distinctions; and in communities he said, not “as a partisan apologist, but where practices and mores had the force from a love for the truth of hist0ry.”12 of law, the distinction was everything. Soon there were other historical works Such practices were greatly strength- by Negroes describing their progress and their contributions and arguing that 11 John Hope Franklin, “History of Racial Seg- regation in the United States,” Annals of the 12 George W. Williams, History of the Negro Academy of Political and Social Science 304 (March Race in America from 1619 to 1880 (New York: 1956): 1–9. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1882), x.

126 Dædalus Fall 2005 they deserved to be received into the full distinction was based solely on race was The two worlds of fellowship of American citizens. inimical to the best interests of the en- race: a It was in these post-Reconstruction tire nation. Soon, they were taking the historical years that some of the most vigorous initiative and in 1909 organized the Na- view efforts were made to destroy the two tional Association for the Advancement worlds of race. The desperate pleas of of Colored People. They assisted the fol- Negro historians were merely the more lowing year in establishing the National articulate attempts of Negroes to gain Urban League. White attorneys began complete acceptance in American life. to stand with Negroes before the United Scores of Negro organizations joined in States Supreme Court to challenge the the struggle to gain protection and rec- “grandfather clause,” local segregation ognition of their rights and to eliminate ordinances, and flagrant miscarriages of the more sordid practices that character- justice in which Negroes were the vic- ized the treatment of the Negro world tims. The patterns of attack developed by the white world. Unhappily, the small during these years were to become in- number of whites who were committed valuable later. Legal action was soon to racial equality dwindled in the post- supplemented by picketing, demonstrat- Reconstruction years, while government ing, and boycotting, with telling effect at every level showed no interest in elim- particularly in selected Northern com- inating racial separatism. It seemed that munities.13 Negro voices were indeed crying in the wilderness, but they carried on their The two world wars had a profound attempts to be heard. In 1890 Negroes effect on the status of Negroes in the from twenty-one states and the District United States and did much to mount of Columbia met in Chicago and organ- the attack on the two worlds of race. ized the Afro-American League of the The decade of World War I witnessed United States. They called for more equi- a very signi½cant migration of Negroes. table distribution of school funds, fair They went in large numbers–perhaps and impartial trial for accused Negroes, a half million–from the rural areas of resistance “by all legal and reasonable the South to the towns and cities of the means” to mob and lynch law, and en- South and North. They were especially joyment of the franchise by all quali½ed attracted to the industrial centers of the voters. When a group of young Negro North. By the thousands they poured in- intellectuals, led by W. E. B. Du Bois, to Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Chicago. met at Niagara Falls, Ontario, in 1905, Although many were unable to secure they made a similar call as they launched employment, others were successful and their Niagara Movement. achieved a standard of living they could However eloquent their pleas, Negroes not have imagined only a few years ear- alone could make no successful assault lier. Northern communities were not al- on the two worlds of race. They needed together friendly and hospitable to the help–a great deal of help. It was the newcomers, but the opportunities for bloody race riots in the early years of education and the enjoyment of politi- the twentieth century that shocked civ- cal self-respect were the greatest they ic-minded and socially conscious whites had ever seen. Many of them felt that into answering the Negro’s pleas for sup- they were entirely justi½ed in their report. Some whites began to take the view that the existence of two societies whose 13 Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom, 437–443.

Dædalus Fall 2005 127 John Hope newed hope that the war would bring The Klan warned Negroes that they Franklin about a complete merger of the two must respect the rights of the white race worlds of race. “in whose country they are permitted to Those who held such high hopes, how- reside.” Racial conflicts swept the coun- ever, were naive in the extreme. Already try, and neither federal nor state govern- the Ku Klux Klan was being revived– ments seemed interested in effective this time in the North as well as in the intervention. The worlds of race were South. Its leaders were determined to growing further apart in the postwar develop a broad program to unite “na- decade. Nothing indicated this more tive-born white Christians for concerted clearly than the growth of the Universal action in the preservation of American Negro Improvement Association, led by institutions and the supremacy of the Marcus Garvey. From a mere handful of white race.” By the time that the war members at the end of the war, the Gar- was over, the Klan was in a position to vey movement rapidly became the larg- make capital of the racial animosities est secular Negro group ever organized that had developed during the conflict in the United States. Although few Ne- itself. Racial conflicts had broken out groes were interested in settling in Afri- in many places during the war; and be- ca–the expressed aim of Garvey–they fore the conference at Versailles was joined the movement by the hundreds of over race riots in the United States had thousands to indicate their resentment brought about what can accurately be of the racial duality that seemed to them described as the “long, hot summer” of to be the central feature of the American 1919. social order.14 If anything, the military operations More realistic and hardheaded were which aimed to save the world for de- the Negroes who were more determined mocracy merely ½xed more permanent- than ever to engage in the most desper- ly the racial separation in the United ate ½ght of their lives to destroy racism States. Negro soldiers not only constitut- in the United States. As the editor of the ed entirely separate ½ghting units in the Crisis said in 1919, “We return from ½ght- United States Army, but, once overseas, ing. We return ½ghting. Make way for were assigned to ½ghting units with the Democracy! We saved it in France, and French Army. Negroes who sought serv- by the Great Jehovah, we will save it in ice with the United States Marines or the the U.S.A., or know the reason why.” Air Force were rejected, while the Navy This was the spirit of what Alain Locke relegated them to menial duties. The re- called “The New Negro.” He fought the action of many Negroes was bitter, but Democratic white primary, made war most of the leaders, including Du Bois, on the whites who consigned him to counseled patience and loyalty. They the ghetto, attacked racial discrimina- continued to hope that their show of tion in employment, and pressed for leg- patriotism would win for them a secure islation to protect his rights. If he was place of acceptance as Americans. seldom successful during the postwar Few Negro Americans could have an- decade and the depression, he made it ticipated the wholesale rejection they quite clear that he was unalterably op- experienced at the conclusion of World 14 Edmund David Cronon, Black Moses, The War I. Returning Negro soldiers were Story of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro lynched by hanging and burning, even Improvement Association (Madison: University while still in their military uniforms. of Wisconsin Press, 1955), 202–206.

128 Dædalus Fall 2005 posed to the un-American character of strong. Some state governors denounced The two worlds of the two worlds of race. the order, and some manufacturers skill- race: a Hope for a new assault on racism was fully evaded it. But it was a signi½cant historical kindled by some of the New Deal poli- step toward the elimination of the two view cies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. As mem- worlds. bers of the economically disadvantaged During World War II the assault on group, Negroes bene½ted from relief and racism continued. Negroes, more than recovery legislation. Most of it, however, a million of whom were enlisted in the recognized the existence of the two armed services, bitterly fought discrimi- worlds of race and accommodated itself nation and segregation. The armed serv- to it. Frequently bread lines and soup ices were, for the most part, two quite kitchens were separated on the basis of distinct racial worlds. Some Negro units race. There was segregation in the em- had white of½cers, and much of the of- ployment services, while many new ½cer training was desegregated. But it agencies recognized and bowed to Jim was not until the ½nal months of the Crow. Whenever agencies, such as the war that a deliberate experiment was Farm Security Administration, fought undertaken to involve Negro and white segregation and sought to deal with enlisted men in the same ½ghting unit. people on the basis of their needs rath- With the success of the experiment and er than race they came under the wither- with the warm glow of victory over Na- ing ½re of the racist critics and seldom zism as a backdrop, there was greater escaped alive. Winds of change, howev- inclination to recognize the absurdity er slight, were discernible, and nowhere of maintaining a racially separate mili- was this in greater evidence than in the tary force to protect the freedoms of the new labor unions. Groups like the Con- country.15 gress of Industrial Organizations, en- During the war there began the great- couraged by the support of the Wagner est migration in the history of Negro Labor Relations Act, began to look at Americans. Hundreds of thousands left manpower resources as a whole and to the South for the industrial centers of attack the old racial policies that viewed the North and West. In those places they labor in terms of race. met hostility, but they also secured em- As World War II approached, Negroes ployment in aviation plants, automobile schooled in the experiences of the 1920s factories, steel mills, and numerous oth- and 1930s were unwilling to see the ½ght er industries. Their dif½culties persisted against Nazism carried on in the context as they faced problems of housing and of an American racist ideology. Some adjustment. But they continued to move white Americans were likewise uncom- out of the South in such large numbers fortable in the role of freeing Europe of that by 1965 one-third of the twenty mil- a racism which still permeated the Unit- lion Negroes in the United States lived ed States; but it was the Negroes who in twelve metropolitan centers of the dramatized American inconsistency by North and West. The rami½cations of demanding an end to discrimination in such large-scale migration were numer- employment in defense industries. By ous. The concentration of Negroes in threatening to march on Washington communities where they suffered no in 1941 they forced the President to issue an order forbidding such discrim- 15 Lee Nichols, Breakthrough on the Color Front ination. The opposition was loud and (New York: Random House, 1954), 221–226.

Dædalus Fall 2005 129 John Hope political disabilities placed in their the lead of a country that adhered to its Franklin hands an enormous amount of politi- policy of maintaining two worlds of race cal power. Consequently, some of them –the one identi½ed with the old colo- went to the legislatures, to Congress, nial ruling powers and the other with and to positions on the judiciary. In turn, the colonies now emerging as indepen- this won for them political respect as dent nations. Responsible leaders in the well as legislation that greatly streng- United States saw the weakness of their thened their position as citizens. position, and some of them made new moves to repair it. Following World War II there was a Civic and religious groups, some la- marked acceleration in the war against bor organizations, and many individuals the two worlds of race in the United from the white community began to join States. In 1944 the Supreme Court ruled in the effort to destroy segregation and against segregation in interstate trans- discrimination in American life. There portation, and three years later it wrote was no danger, after World War II, that the ½nal chapter in the war against the Negroes would ever again stand alone Democratic white primary. In 1947 the in their ½ght. The older interracial or- President’s Committee on Civil Rights ganizations continued, but they were called for the “elimination of segrega- joined by new ones. In addition to the tion, based on race, color, creed, or na- numerous groups that included racial tional origin, from American life.”16 equality in their overall programs, there In the following year President Truman were others that made the creation of asked Congress to establish a perma- one racial world their principal objec- nent Fair Employment Practices Com- tive. Among them were the Congress of mission. At the same time he took steps Racial Equality, the Southern Christian to eliminate segregation in the armed Leadership Conference, and the Student services. These moves on the part of Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. the judicial and executive branches of Those in existence in the 1950s support- the federal government by no means ed the court action that brought about destroyed the two worlds of race, but the decision against segregated schools. they created a more healthy climate The more recent ones have taken the in which the government and others lead in pressing for new legislation and could launch an attack on racial sepa- in developing new techniques to be used ratism. in the war on segregation. The attack was greatly strengthened by the new position of world leadership The most powerful direct force in the that the United States assumed at the maintenance of the two worlds of race close of the war. Critics of the United has been the state and its political sub- States were quick to point to the incon- divisions. In states and communities sistencies of an American position that where racial separation and discrimina- spoke against racism abroad and counte- tion are basic to the way of life, the elect- nanced it at home. New nations, brown ed of½cials invariably pledge themselves and black, seemed reluctant to follow to the perpetuation of the duality. In- deed, candidates frequently vie with 16 To Secure These Rights, The Report of the Pres- one another in their effort to occupy ident’s Committee on Civil Rights (New York: Si- the most extreme segregationist posi- mon and Schuster, 1947), 166. tion possible on the race question. Ap-

130 Dædalus Fall 2005 pointed of½cials, including the constab- Violence, so much a part of American The two worlds of ulary and, not infrequently, the teachers history and particularly of Southern his- race: a and school administrators, become aux- tory, has been an important factor in historical iliary guardians of the system of racial maintaining the two worlds of race. In- view separation. In such communities Ne- timidation, terror, lynchings, and riots groes occupy no policy-making posi- have, in succession, been the handmaid- tions, exercise no influence over the de- en of political entities whose of½cials termination of policy, and are seldom have been unwilling or unable to put an even on the police force. State and local end to it. Violence drove Negroes from resources, including tax funds, are at the the polls in the 1870s and has kept them disposal of those who guard the system away in droves since that time. Lynch- of segregation and discrimination; and ings, the spectacular rope and faggot such funds are used to enforce customs kind or the quiet kind of merely “doing as well as laws and to disseminate infor- away” with some insubordinate Negro, mation in support of the system. have served their special purpose in ter- The white community itself acts as rorizing whole communities of Negroes. a guardian of the segregated system. Riots, con½ned to no section of the Schooled in the specious arguments country, have demonstrated how explo- that assert the supremacy of the white sive the racial situation can be in urban race and fearful that a destruction of communities burdened with the strain the system would be harmful to their of racial strife. own position, they not only “go along” The heavy hand of history has been a with it but, in many cases, enthusiasti- powerful force in the maintenance of a cally support it. Community sanctions segregated society and, conversely, in are so powerful, moreover, that the the resistance to change. Americans, independent citizen who would defy especially Southerners whose devotion the established order would ½nd him- to the past is unmatched by that of any self not only ostracized but, worse, the others, have summoned history to sup- target of economic and political report their arguments that age-old prac- prisals. tices and institutions cannot be changed Within the community many self-ap- overnight, that social practices cannot pointed guardians of white supremacy be changed by legislation. Southerners have emerged at various times. After the have argued that desegregation would Civil War and after World War I it was break down long-established customs the Ku Klux Klan, which has shown sur- and bring instability to a social order prising strength in recent years. After that, if left alone, would have no seri- the desegregation decision of the Su- ous racial or social disorders. After all, preme Court in 1954 it was the White Southern whites “know” Negroes; and Citizens’ Council, which one Southern their knowledge has come from many editor has called the “uptown Klu Klux generations of intimate association and Klan.” From time to time since 1865, it observation, they insist. has been the political demagogue, who White Southerners have also sum- has not only made capital by urging his moned history to support them in their election as a sure way to maintain the resistance to federal legislation designed system but has also encouraged the less to secure the civil rights of Negroes. responsible elements of the community At every level–in local groups, state to take the law into their own hands. governments, and in Congress–white

Dædalus Fall 2005 131 John Hope Southerners have asserted that federal selves bypassed by a prospective manu- Franklin civil rights legislation is an attempt to facturer because of their reputation in turn back the clock to the Reconstruc- the ½eld of race relations might have tion era, when federal intervention, some sober second thoughts about the they claim, imposed a harsh and unjust importance of maintaining their two peace.17 To make effective their argu- worlds. In a word, the economics of segment, they use such emotion-laden regation and discrimination is forcing, phrases as “military occupation,” “Ne- in some quarters, a reconsideration of gro rule,” and “blackout of honest gov- the problem. ernment.” Americans other than South- It must be added that the existence of erners have been frightened by the the two worlds of race has created forces Southerners’ claim that civil rights for that cause some Negroes to seek its per- Negroes would cause a return to the petuation. Some Negro institutions, the “evils” of Reconstruction. Insecure in product of a dual society, have vested in- their own knowledge of history, they terests in the perpetuation of that soci- have accepted the erroneous assertions ety. And Negroes who fear the destruc- about the “disaster” of radical rule af- tion of their own institutions by deseg- ter the Civil War and the vengeful pun- regation are encouraged by white rac- ishment meted out to the South by the ists to ½ght for their maintenance. Even Negro and his white allies. Regardless where Negroes have a desire to maintain of the merits of these arguments that their institutions because of their honest seem specious on the face of them–to commitment to the merits of cultural say nothing of their historical inaccura- pluralism, the desire becomes a strident cy–they have served as effective brakes struggle for survival in the context of on the drive to destroy the two worlds of racist forces that seek with a vengeance race. to destroy such institutions. The ½ring One suspects, however, that racial big- of a few hundred Negro schoolteachers otry has become more expensive in re- by a zealous, racially oriented school cent years. It is not so easy now as it board forces some second thoughts on once was to make political capital out the part of the Negroes regarding the of the race problem, even in the deep merits of desegregation. South. Local citizens–farmers, laborers, manufacturers–have become a The drive to destroy the two worlds bit weary of the promises of the dema- of race has reached a new, dramatic, gogue that he will preserve the integri- and somewhat explosive stage in re- ty of the races if he is, at the same time, cent years. The forces arrayed in behalf unable to persuade investors to build of maintaining these two worlds have factories and bring capital to their com- been subjected to ceaseless and power- munities. Some Southerners, dependent ful attacks by the increasing numbers on tourists, are not certain that their committed to the elimination of racism vaunted racial pride is so dear, if it keeps in American life. Through techniques visitors away and brings depression to of demonstrating, picketing, sitting-in, their economy. The cities that see them- and boycotting they have not only ha- rassed their foes but marshaled their 17 John Hope Franklin, “As For Our History,” in Charles G. Sellers, ed., The Southerner as forces. Realizing that another ingredi- American (Chapel Hill: University of North ent was needed, they have pressed for Carolina Press, 1960), 1–18. new and better laws and the active sup-

132 Dædalus Fall 2005 port of government. At the local and with the fact that ambivalence on the The two worlds of state levels they began to secure legisla- crucial question of equality has persisted race: a tion in the 1940s to guarantee the civil almost from the beginning. If the term historical rights of all, eliminate discrimination in “equal rights for all” has not always view employment, and achieve decent public meant what it appeared to mean, the and private housing for all. inconsistencies and the paradoxes have While it is not possible to measure the become increasingly apparent. This is influence of public opinion in the drive not to say that the view that “equal for equality, it can hardly be denied that rights for some” has disappeared or has over the past ½ve or six years public even ceased to be a threat to the concept opinion has shown a marked shift to- of real equality. It is to say, however, that ward vigorous support of the civil rights the voices supporting inequality, while movement. This can be seen in the man- no less strident, have been signi½cantly ner in which the mass-circulation maga- weakened by the very force of the num- zines as well as influential newspapers, bers and elements now seeking to elimi- even in the South, have stepped up their nate the two worlds of race. support of speci½c measures that have as their objective the elimination of at least the worst features of racism. The discussion of the problem of race over radio and television and the use of these media in reporting newsworthy and dramatic events in the world of race undoubtedly have had some impact. If such activities have not brought about the enactment of civil rights legislation, they have doubtless stimulated the public discussion that culminated in such legislation. The models of city ordinances and state laws and the increased political influence of civil rights advocates stimulated new action on the federal level. Civil rights acts were passed in 1957, 1960, and 1964–after almost complete federal inactivity in this sphere for more than three-quarters of a century. Strong leadership on the part of the executive and favorable judicial interpretations of old as well as new laws have made it clear that the war against the two worlds of race now enjoys the sanction of the law and its interpreters. In many respects this constitutes the most signi½- cant development in the struggle against racism in the present century. The reading of American history over the past two centuries impresses one

Dædalus Fall 2005 133 Jill K. Conway

Politics, pedagogy & gender

In the mid-nineteenth century the pub- the extension of that system through the lic education system of the United States establishment of secondary schools in drew its corps of teachers from the na- the last quarter of the nineteenth centu- tion’s population of young women. In ry provide a happy ending to the tradi- contrast, European public education tional story of the establishment of the remained a male-dominated enterprise ½rst “women’s” profession.1 until well into the twentieth century. Underlying this popular history of Traditionally, the United States’ early women in teaching is the assumption and extensive recruitment of female that access to new work opportunities teachers has been interpreted as a sign has the same meaning for everyone. If of enlightened attitudes about women we stop to ask what gender meant for and their place in society. Horace the nineteenth-century founders of Mann’s innovative Massachusetts nor- American public education, however, mal schools, which trained young wom- the story takes on new levels of mean- en to be teachers, are customarily cited ing. Some of its themes speak directly as examples of feminism in action. So, to our educational dilemmas today. Its until recently, was the career of Cather- interest lies not in the sex of the teach- ine Beecher, the archetypal proselytizer ers who staffed America’s one-room for the female teaching profession. The schools but in the political and psycho- development of a public elementary logical images that men and women held school system before the Civil War and regarding the gender of those teachers. The story of women’s opportunities to enter teaching as a respectable occupa- Jill K. Conway, chairperson of Lend Lease Corpo- tion for single women outside the home ration, has been a Fellow of the American Acad- is a case study in the meaning of access. emy since 1991. When this essay appeared in the Examination of the case of women Fall 1987 issue of “Dædalus,” she was a visiting teachers’ recruitment in the mid-nine- scholar in the Program in Science, Technology teenth century should make us rethink and Society at the Massachussetts Institute of the incremental model of change that Technology. Conway was president of Smith is presumed to characterize the liberal College from 1975 to 1985. state.

134 Dædalus Fall 2005 The number of women involved in ence of high culture was minimal. Sur- Politics, pedagogy this recruitment is certainly striking. By veys carried out at the turn of the centu- & gender 1848 women greatly outnumbered men ry recorded that most teachers had never as annual entrants to the teaching pro- seen reproductions of works of art dur- fession; in absolute numbers their pre- ing their own schooling. As adults their dominance was established. In that year only reading was an occasional novel 2,424 men taught in the public (or com- and the standard popular magazines of mon) schools of America beside 5,510 the day. To compensate for these de½- women.2 During the 1850s the same pat- ciencies, the normal schools offered tern was replicated in the Midwest. Af- teaching programs that were largely re- ter 1864 one of the impositions of the medial.4 victorious North on the southern states The woman teacher, whether rural or during Reconstruction was the establish- urban, earned about 60 percent of the ment of a predominantly female cadre of salary paid to men in the same school elementary school teachers. In the last system. Around 1900 the average wom- three decades of the nineteenth century an teacher’s salary was $350 per year. the same pattern emerged in the public Higher earnings were available to wom- high schools. By 1890, 65 percent of all en in the textile industry and in most teachers in the United States were wom- other industrial settings. In some states en. Members of the new female profes- mechanics and clerks earned twice the sion were remarkably youthful, averag- annual wages of male teachers, whose ing from twenty-one to twenty-½ve years earnings were more than a third higher of age in different regions of the country. than those of their female counterparts. Popular attitudes encouraged single The universal custom of “boarding out” women to become teachers but discour- was a major factor in depressing the lev- aged their presence in the schools once el of teachers’ earnings: nineteenth-cen- they married. The country’s teachers tury school districts held down the cost were predominantly daughters of the of elementary schools by housing teach- native-born, from rural families. In com- ers in rotation with families whose chil- parison with European teachers, Ameri- dren were currently school pupils. This can teachers were not well educated. As dubious hospitality was motivated partly late as the 1930s only 12 percent of ele- by economic considerations and partly mentary teachers in the United States by the prevailing sentiment that young had earned bachelor’s degrees.3 In the single women should not be allowed to nineteenth century many entrants to the live outside a family setting. The school profession had not even completed high district’s room and board carried with it school. Because so many teachers were a censorious social control that young drawn from rural farm families, most single women could resist only at their had not traveled more than 100 miles peril. In short, the young teacher’s social from their place of birth. Their experi- status was marginal.5

2 Redding R. Sugg, Jr., Motherteacher: The Femi- 4 Lotus D. Coffman, The Social Composition of nization of American Education (Charlottesville: the Teaching Population (New York: Bureau of University Press of Virginia, 1978), 37. Publications, Teacher’s College, Columbia Uni- versity, 1911), 550. 3 Lindley J. Stiles, ed., The Teacher’s Role in American Society (New York: Harper & Row, 5 Ibid., 550. See also Myra H. Strober and Audri 1957), 279. Gordon Lanford, “The Feminization of Public

Dædalus Fall 2005 135 Jill K. This marginality was not borne for education system in the 1830s and 1840s, Conway long; rates of turnover were very high. we see that political forces divided over Most women elementary teachers the level of intellectual aspiration de- taught for only three or four years. Al- sired as an outcome of state-supported though 90 percent of the elementary education and over the place of elites of instructors by the 1920s were women, education and talent within the young their rapid turnover meant that they did republic. One thing that united Jeffer- not develop as school leaders or as cur- son and his Federalist opponents was riculum planners.6 Men did not remain the value they saw in an educated elite teachers for long either; they did not drawn from the best talent of their new form strong bonds to the occupation society. Jefferson wanted his elite to be of teacher as they did to the professions democratically recruited, its education of medicine and engineering. Yet male publicly supported; he expected the teachers were seven times more likely result to be the highest intellectual to become school administrators than achievement. their female colleagues. Despite the so- One of the major shifts of value in the cial changes that have raised women’s Jacksonian era was the rejection of the work aspirations in recent decades, idea of a socially valuable elite formed these early trends have continued unal- by education and high culture. Instead, tered. Today men hold 99.4 percent of Americans of that era favored a popular all school superintendencies. The only education that was broadly accessible area of school administration in which and limited in its intellectual goals. As women predominate is librarianship. Michael Katz has shown in his study of Clearly gender shapes one’s status with- the development of public education in in the teaching profession, even though Massachusetts, some of the old Federal- teaching has traditionally been singled ist elites found popular education attrac- out for its supposed hospitality to wom- tive not so much as a means of training en. What, then, are we to make of wom- the mind but as a way of providing in- en’s early access to teaching in the Unit- struction in behavior.7 Many New Eng- ed States? What values shaped the es- land moralists who sought to control tablishment of the common schools in the excesses of frontier behavior thought America, and what was the operative that this goal might be achieved through signi½cance of ideas about gender in that the common schools. Their intellectual process? To paraphrase William James, aspirations for the students who were what was the meaning of the ideas being expected to attend these schools were translated into action when people like minimal. Horace Mann began to recruit women We know from recent studies of the for teacher training? legislative decisions approving the estab- If we look at the political debates that lishment of the common schools that preceded the establishment of the public Federalists and Jacksonians alike sought to develop public education as inexpen- School Teaching: A Cross-Sectional Analysis, sively as possible. The compromise that 1850–1880,” Signs 11 (2) (1986): 212–235, and led to agreement on tax-supported pub- Willard S. Ellsbree, The American Teacher: Evo- lic education combined the older Jeffer- lution of a Profession in a Democracy (New York: American Book Company, 1933), 281. 7 Michael Katz, The Irony of Early School Reform (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 6 Ellsbree, The American Teacher, 206. 1968).

136 Dædalus Fall 2005 sonian ideal of wide access to public ed- together superior success in managing Politics, pedagogy ucation with Federalist and Jacksonian and instructing young children, and I & gender concerns for limited education at mini- know of instances, where by the silken mal cost to the taxpayer. The goal of cost cord of affection, have led many a stub- containment made the recruitment of born will, and wild ungoverned impulse, women completely logical because all into habits of obedience and study even in parties to the educational debate agreed the large winter schools (Henry Barnard, that women lacked acquisitive drives Second Annual Report [Connecticut School, and would serve at subsistence salaries. 1840], 27–28). The potentially explosive conflict over the intellectual goals of public education [Women] are endowed by nature with could also be avoided by choosing wom- stronger parental impulses, and this en as teachers. Their access to education makes the society of children delight- was slight, so that male control over the ful, and turns duty into a pleasure. Their normal schools that trained teachers in- minds are less withdrawn from their em- sured control over the content of the ployment, by the active scenes of life; and curriculum. Furthermore, beliefs about they are less intent and scheming for fu- the female temperament promised that ture honors and emoluments. As a class, the pedagogical style of women teachers they never look forward, as young men would be emotional and value-oriented almost invariably do, to a period of legal rather than rational and critical. Thus emancipation from parental control . . . . neither Jacksonians nor Federalists They are also of purer morals (Fourth An- needed to make resolution of their con- nual Report [Boston Board of Education, flicts over the goals of education an ex- 1841], 45–46). plicit part of their political agenda.8 The resolution of fundamental contradic- In childhood the intellectual faculties are tions about a strategic institution for the but partially developed–the affections evolving society could safely be post- much more fully. At that early age the af- poned as long as women teachers pre- fections are the key of the whole being. sented no threat to the objectives of low The female teacher readily possesses her- cost and strictly utilitarian public educa- self of that key, and thus having access to tion. the heart, the mind is soon reached and The following three quotations dem- operated upon (Assemblyman Hurlburd, onstrate gender stereotyping at work New York State Education Exhibit [World’s in the public-education policy discus- Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893], sions of late nineteenth-century legis- 45–46). lators and public of½cials. Each of the At the center of the cluster of ideas speakers favored the recruitment of that made up each writer’s picture of women teachers. These passages illus- women we see a belief in women’s ca- trate the important components of the pacity to influence children’s behavior gender ideology accepted by all parties through the emotions. Barnard’s “sil- to the dispute over the goals of educa- ken cord of affection” and Hurlburd’s tion. “access to the heart” were characteris- [Women] manifest a livelier interest, tic themes in discourse about women as more contentment in the work, have al- teachers. The writer of the Boston Board of Education’s annual report associated 8 Sugg, Motherteacher, 4–25.

Dædalus Fall 2005 137 Jill K. women’s ability to establish emotional there were many such outstanding wom- Conway links with children with women’s lack en. What it did mean, however, was that of acquisitiveness and acceptance of de- maleness involved rebellion against the pendence. These presumed qualities values for which the schoolmarm stood. made women ideal candidates to teach Many celebrations of maleness in Amer- in elementary schools, the purpose of ican culture have retained overtones of which was to instill principles of behav- adolescent rebellion against a female ior and convey basic literacy at a mini- cultural presence that ostensibly cannot mum cost to the public purse. Women be easily incorporated into a strong adult were favored and actively recruited as male identity. elementary teachers because their pres- We may speculate about the conse- ence in the schools satis½ed a larger po- quences of subsuming school and home litical agenda. Their perceived gender within a maternal, domestic culture characteristics and their lack of academ- rather than having the school serve as ic preparation were positive advantages an impersonal agent of cultural author- in the eyes of early public education of- ity, much like the church or the army. ½cials; with a corps of women teachers How would Huckleberry Finn read if the there was no danger that investment in journey on the raft were an escape from public education might foster the cre- male institutions? Huckleberry Finn’s ation of new elites. journey raises many profound questions What, then, were the consequences about American culture. One critical of this congruence of ideology and eco- question is whether the overrepresenta- nomic concerns that served to give tion of one gender in the early stages of women preferred access to the teaching schooling permits either boys or girls to profession in the United States? The develop the balanced identities we asso- ½rst consequence, extensively comment- ciate with creativity. For the purpose of ed on by foreign visitors, was that disci- understanding American educational pline in American schools was very dif- institutions, another question that re- ferent from any known in European quires answering is this: If the school classrooms. As women were not thought exists in opposition to male values and suited to administering corporal punish- frontier life, how are we to understand ment, the rod was virtually absent from higher education? In what ways is there America’s schools. Maintaining disci- a cultural imperative to redress the bal- pline and conveying knowledge became ance between maternal and mascu- more a matter of persuasion than an ex- line values at different levels of the sys- ercise of power based on authority. One tem? What has that cultural require- learned because one liked the teacher, ment meant for American intellectual not out of respect for the learning that life? the teacher represented, as was the case Teaching through love made the in the French lycée or the German gym- school a setting in which many ideas nasium. The climate in the American about child development were played schoolroom was wholly different; the out; it was never an agency for strenu- classroom was considered an extension ous effort to discipline and develop of the home. young intellectual talents. Thus, the This should not be taken to mean that traditional twelve years of schooling the stereotype of the steely-eyed New did not bring the young American stu- England schoolmarm was incorrect; dent to the levels of learning aimed at

138 Dædalus Fall 2005 by the lycée or the gymnasium. Instead, tellectual skills to be acquired entirely in Politics, school. Progressive pedagogy asked that pedagogy and increasingly, American education & gender came to require a further four years of the teacher help the young to discover intellectual exploration at the college the world through their innate intelli- level before the young person was con- gence. It took individuals with an almost sidered to be in a position to make adult superhuman capacity for nurturing to career commitments. Moreover, be- manage this kind of schoolroom. Few cause of American public schools’ iden- teachers could completely repress the ti½cation with maternal functions, col- desire to instruct, as Dewey’s theories leges and universities have distanced required. Many rueful survivors of Pro- themselves from schools and stressed gressive schools testi½ed to the demoral- the “masculine” tough-mindedness of izing nature of such self-abnegation. It is American scholarship. This difference reasonable to ask whether educational remains an enduring puzzle to Euro- theorists would have designed teaching peans, who see both schools and uni- roles of such preternatural maternal pa- versities in a continuum of intellectual tience had they expected their male col- endeavor, and who value intellectual leagues to take principal responsibility playfulness. for such instruction. Had the standard We may interpret this impulse to dis- levels of education required for elemen- tance higher learning from schools as a tary school teachers been higher, educa- natural response to some of the major tional reformers of the Progressive vari- nineteenth-century curricular debates. ety might have found earlier curricular Because the schools operated as agents ideals less easy to disregard. It was be- of maternal values, school curricula were cause the minds of young teachers were organized along the lines of accepted seen as tabulae rasae that older notions models of child development. G. Stanley of learning could be easily ignored. Cer- Hall’s celebrated theories of child devel- tainly if one assesses Dewey’s pedagogy opment, which held that the child reca- from the standpoint of the gender ste- pitulated the various stages of human reotypes enshrined within it, its conser- evolutionary development, required that vatism is striking. Dewey advanced a the teacher act as a helpful director as new theory of learning and stated new the pupil traversed these stages. It is un- political goals for American schools, but likely that Hall would have designed so his assumptions about the temperamen- unintellectual a teaching role had he tal and intellectual characteristics of assumed that most elementary school teachers differed little from the assump- teachers would be men. His ideas about tions made by Henry Barnard and his child development were revolutionary colleagues in the 1840s.9 in their largely successful rede½nition of While many of the goals of Progressive childhood as a series of developmental education were admirable, the fact that stages rather than as a time when the the overwhelming majority of teachers “imp of Satan” had to be disciplined; in the American elementary school sys- however, his view of the teacher was based on earlier nineteenth-century as- 9 On G. Stanley Hall’s educational theories, see sumptions about the female tempera- Dorothy Ross, G. Stanley Hall, The Psychologist as Prophet (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ment. 1972). On Dewey and Progressive education, John Dewey’s Progressive schools dis- see John Dewey, On Education (New York: The carded the notion of a ½xed body of in- Modern Library, 1964).

Dædalus Fall 2005 139 Jill K. tem were young women was a substan- ers and indirectly affected the political Conway tial influence on the way reformers importance of schools: an important thought about the role of teacher. Be- component of professionalization in all cause of the persistence of the idea that modern societies is the degree to which women related to children primarily would-be professionals are able to per- through the emotions, reformers pre- suade economically or politically pow- scribed intellectually demeaning roles erful elites that their services are im- for teachers–roles that often ignored portant enough to command special re- the teacher’s intellectual capacity in wards. Women teachers, unable to un- relation to the child’s. dertake this effort effectively, found Similarly, the fact that most teachers their logical political allies in the ranks did not have the right to vote affected of organized labor. the dynamics of the political relation- The history that produced this logic is ship between the common schools and vividly illustrated in the disputes affect- the larger society. From its inception ing the Chicago school system in the the public education system operated at 1880s and 1890s. The city’s total popula- the center of a vortex of political forces, tion was 500,000 and there were 59,000 many of which were intrinsically unre- pupils in the public schools, which ex- lated to pedagogical issues. The schools pended a budget of over $1 million. The were affected by political battles over school system was the biggest employ- such issues as patronage rights, appoint- er in the city. The school board was ap- ments to teaching staffs and desirable pointed by the mayor, and it controlled jobs on maintenance staffs, which dis- or influenced three sets of resources tricts would be granted the economic critical to Chicago’s economic future: bene½ts of building contracts, and land voted to support the public schools, which merchants should bene½t from contracts for school buildings, and tax the purchasing power of students and abatements for corporations occupying their families. Moreover, it was taken land within the city. The major issues for granted that parents, who had an of concern to teachers were security of abiding interest in the curriculum and tenure, pension rights, and profession- its relationship to employment oppor- al evaluation for promotion.10 Women tunities, and whose taxes paid teachers’ teachers felt considerable social distance salaries, had a democratic right to influ- from the exclusively male school super- ence what was and was not taught to intendents in the city, who were them- their children. These interests found selves political appointees. In the cam- expression in city and state politics, but paign to secure teachers’ pension rights, women teachers were disfranchised un- the female-led Chicago Federation of til 1919 and consequently were unable to Teachers found that it carried no weight directly participate in the political pro- with the municipal government, so it cess that shaped and established priori- waged battle in the courts. In her autobi- ties for public education. Fathers and ography, Margaret A. Haley, the founder men teachers could mobilize voter support for school policies through their 10 Robert J. Braun, Teachers and Power: The Sto- lodges or friendly societies, or later ry of the American Federation of Teachers (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972), 21–27. See through Rotary, Kiwanis, or Lions also Robert I. Reid, ed., Battleground: The Auto- Clubs; women could not. This situa- biography of Margaret A. Haley (Urbana: Univer- tion affected women’s status as teach- sity of Illinois Press, 1982).

140 Dædalus Fall 2005 of the federation, records the process lege in Portland, Oregon, described her Politics, pedagogy by which she came to conclude that, be- experience in an Oregon high school in & gender cause of women’s limited voting rights, the 1920s. her union’s predominantly female mem- A personal experience will illustrate the bership would gain political leverage by discriminations that are considered nor- af½liating with a strong political organi- mal in the smaller schools . . . . For ½ve zation–the Chicago Federation of La- years I was principal of a high school in bor. She recognized that laws were only a delightful county-seat town. During the enacted in response to the political pres- ½ve years the high school enrollment dou- sure of voters. “Except in a few western bled, a new building was erected, I had states,” she wrote, “the women of the salary increases each year. I resigned for nation had practically no voting pow- graduate study although I was offered a er.”11 small salary increase if I would remain. The early choice of unionization was The man who took my place was freely a natural one for nonvoting workers; its given a salary ½fty percent higher than I consequences were profound. As early had received. Before his ½rst year had as the Chicago Federation of Teachers’ closed he was literally taken from the 1902 decision to af½liate with the Chica- school and thrown into a snow bank. The go Federation of Labor, the city’s ele- school board asked me to return and made mentary teachers were in a confronta- me what they considered a generous offer, tional relationship with political and a ten percent increase over my former sal- social elites. The male school principals ary. I suggested that I might consider the and superintendents, who identi½ed appointment at the ½fty percent increase with management in the labor-versus- the board had willingly given the man management model of the school and who could not handle the situation. The the teacher’s role within it, were even idea of compensating the service without more distanced from teachers. The regard to the sex of the one rendering the working peers of the school administra- service was, as I had anticipated, beyond tors were the political actors who had their comprehension.12 selected and appointed them. The place of the school in political priorities re- Short’s experience strikingly illus- flected the fact that most of its con- trates that the public’s view of the worth stituency could not vote and that its of the predominantly female teaching spokesmen were distant from the class- profession and of the predominantly room. Decisions about educational pol- male management of the public schools icy were usually based entirely on the was fundamentally shaped by the gen- budgetary priorities of individual dis- der of those who served in the system. tricts and regions. Economic considera- Because there was little popular respect tions favored the selection of women for the function of the teacher, most im- teachers and, by the late nineteenth cen- portant professional prerogatives were tury, women principals; women’s sala- gained only after protracted battle. The ries in such positions did not reflect high early decades of unionizing and strug- esteem for their professional achieve- gling against low social esteem focused ments. Jessie May Short, an assistant 12 Jessie May Short, Women in the Teaching Pro- professor of mathematics at Reed Col- fession: Or Running as Fast as You Can to Stay in the Same Place (Portland, Oreg.: Reed College, 11 Reid, Battleground, 90. June 1939), 10.

Dædalus Fall 2005 141 Jill K. teachers’ concerns on job security to the If we compare the public esteem ac- Conway neglect of curricular issues. The cher- corded to teaching in the late nineteenth ished right of tenure, sought since the century with that held for other emerg- 1880s, was not achieved until the 1950s, ing professions, we begin to see that the when the postwar baby boom and the difference lies in the fact that most of cold-war mentality of the Sputnik era the people recruited into public edu- gave schools and teachers national im- cation were women. Consider, for in- portance. stance, attitudes toward the engineer– The public’s low esteem of the profes- the male professional who emerged to sion was also related to the youthfulness meet national needs in transportation, of women teachers. As most of them re- communication, and industrial technol- mained teachers for no more than three ogy over the same one hundred years or four years, it was easy for local school that saw the establishment of public ed- boards to disregard their opinions. The ucation. In the United States the social assumption that young women need origins of engineers were almost identi- protection gave school boards and com- cal to those of teachers. Engineers too mittees ample justi½cation to scrutinize came from rural and blue-collar fami- teachers’ conduct and to represent such lies. Initially, their training was not high- activity to be in the teachers’ best inter- ly theoretical and their tasks were strict- est. The small minority of men teachers ly utilitarian. Yet engineers were held in acquired the status of their women col- high public esteem. leagues by association. Because society Clearly, gender categories and cultural accorded such scant respect to the role values had a tremendous influence on of teacher, it was considered perfectly the process of professionalization. We appropriate to pay teachers wages equiv- have only to read Henry Adams’s assess- alent to those of unskilled labor. By 1900 ment of the new technology in his com- teacher turnover was as high as 10 per- mentaries on The Virgin and the Dynamo, cent a year; every year 40,000 new re- or Thorstein Veblen’s description of the cruits had to be brought into the com- engineer in The Engineers and the Price Sys- mon school system.13 The high annual tem (1919), to see what a difference gen- rates of change in teaching personnel der made. “These technological special- throughout the ½rst century of the pro- ists,” Veblen wrote, “whose constant fession made teachers seem much more supervision is indispensable to the due like transient workers than career pro- working of the industrial system, consti- fessionals (teaching was not accepted tute the general staff of industry, whose as a lifetime career for women until the work is to control the strategy of pro- Second World War). School reformers duction at large and keep an oversight even today struggle with the conse- of the tactics of production in detail.”14 quences of Margaret Haley’s accurate During the Depression, when married perception that to bargain successfully, women teachers were dismissed by women teachers had to unionize like school systems to create openings for industrial laborers. unemployed men, Lewis Mumford wrote, “The establishment of the class 13 B. A. Hinsdale, “The Training of Teachers,” of engineers in its proper characteristics in Education in the United States: A Series of Mono- graphs Prepared for the United States Exhibit at the Paris Exposition, 1900, ed. Nicholas Murray But- 14 Thorstein Veblen, The Engineers and the Price ler (Albany, N.Y.: J. Lyon, 1900), 16. System (New York: Heubsch, 1921), 52–53.

142 Dædalus Fall 2005 is the more important because this class had had relatively stable populations Politics, pedagogy will, without doubt, constitute the direct when the public system of elementary & gender and necessary instrument of coalition and secondary education was being es- between men of science and industrial- tablished, and that made strongly cen- ists, by which alone the new social order tralized educational planning a high can commence.”15 No one thought to national priority. exclaim on how much the new social In these European countries, lifetime order might depend on the labors of careers of steady progression through “the class of teachers.” Engineers, of the different levels of the public school course, pursued their training at the col- system were established; entry-level lege level and developed a professional positions based on long and strict aca- culture of aggressive masculinity. Their demic preparation were accepted as the skills were of critical and immediate im- norm. In France, for instance, comple- portance to the business elites of Ameri- tion of the baccalaureate was required to can society–but then so were the skills become a lycée teacher; further progress of teachers, although no one recognized in the system required an advanced de- their value. gree. Besides contributing substantially Gender stereotypes helped to account to the intellectual level of the schools, for the differences in social mobility this pattern of recruitment de½ned the experienced by women and men drawn teacher as an agent of the nation’s cul- from the same social background. If we ture, not simply a representative of its look at the gender composition of the maternal values. teaching profession cross-culturally, When the possibility of recruiting we see that the American pattern estab- more men to the profession or requiring lished at the time of the creation of the teachers to undergo more rigorous aca- public school system was unique. In demic preparation was broached in the 1930–1931, a national survey of Ameri- United States, it was generally discarded can teachers showed that women out- as prohibitively costly. In 1906–1907, numbered men by 19 to 1 in elementary for instance, the New York City school education and by 3 to 1 in secondary edu- superintendent acknowledged the de- cation. In contrast, men held 65 percent sirability of having a cadre of teachers of the elementary teaching posts in Nor- more balanced in gender composition. way and 69 percent of the secondary In a report, he commented that the teaching positions there. In Germany 75 achievement of this goal would require percent of the primary school teachers equalizing the pay scales of the gender and 71 percent of the secondary school groups and raising all salary levels. This, teachers were men; the ratios for France he calculated, was politically impossible. were similar.16 These ½gures reflect the It would add between $8 million and $11 conditions that existed in societies that million to the annual school system budget. To propose such a budget increase in 15 Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization the absence of popular demand would (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1934), 219–220. be political suicide, and there was not the slightest popular sentiment for such 16 Edward S. Evenden, Guy C. Gamble, and action.17 Harold G. Blue, “Teacher Personnel in the Unit- ed States,” in National Survey of the Education of Teachers, vol ii (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Gov- ernment Printing Of½ce, 1933), 20. 17 Sugg, Motherteacher, 122.

Dædalus Fall 2005 143 Jill K. Gender was a highly signi½cant factor active careers. Both as individuals and Conway in the way American society mobilized as a group, women proved themselves its resources to develop its public educa- capable of creating and sustaining de- tion system. Assumptions about female manding intellectual tasks when they temperament and motivation dovetailed were given adequate preparation and with the often contradictory ideals and appropriate renumeration. It was not values of the public school system’s cre- the sex of women teachers that created ators. Stereotypes about women coin- problems in the school system and made cided neatly with the economic priori- the status of teachers so lowly; it was the ties that dictated how much money was gender identity that women carried into appropriated for public education, and the schools with them. It is the terms on reinforced popular preferences regard- which women enter occupations that ing the purpose of public schooling. As- govern their opportunities. The mere sumptions about the gender and intel- fact of entry does not create opportuni- lectual level of the typical teacher influ- ties. Horace Mann and Henry Barnard, enced successive waves of curricular re- two of America’s greatest educational form. Culturally, these gender stereo- reformers, actively admired women types had a tremendous impact on and thought that by employing them as everyone involved in the schools– teachers they could secure both a better teachers, pupils, principals, superinten- society and important advantages for dents, school board members. These as- women. They bore women no ill will sumptions played a part in what it meant whatsoever. Their assumptions about to grow up male or female in America. women, however, established the terms Their enduring power explains the con- on which women entered the teaching tinued inability of our affluent society to profession, and those terms were far muster either the will or the resources to more consequential than the great num- create and maintain schools that are in- bers of women who were invited to tellectually demanding and that accord teach in the public schools. Those terms the profession of teaching suf½cient dig- still matter today. So too does our am- nity to engender high teacher morale. bivalence about the goals of public edu- Much has been made of the degree to cation. This piece of un½nished business which teaching offered American wom- from the politics of the Jacksonian era en the opportunity to move out of fami- matters as much today as it did in the ly subordination and into an independ- 1840s. We cannot conclude it satisfacto- ent existence. The memoirs of some of rily without taking into account the un- America’s greatest women reformers tell intended consequences of our assump- us that this new life outside the family tions about the gender of teachers. They was a heady experience. Frances Wil- matter not only to women but to our lard, for example, wrote of learning to whole society. live without reliance on her parents as a very young teacher. Through her strug- gles with unruly children in rural one- room schools, she came to see herself as an agent for improving society. Dozens of other young women documented similar experiences. Service as teachers inspired many young women to seek other

144 Dædalus Fall 2005 Tu Wei-ming

Cultural China: the periphery as the center

The inscription of the Tang’s basin reads, of the material and spiritual accomplish- “If one day you truly renew yourself, day ments of the Chinese people, has under- after day you will renew yourself; indeed, gone major interpretive phases in recent renew yourself every day.” In the “An- decades and is now entering a new era nouncement to the Prince of Kang” it is of critical self-reflection. The meaning said, “You shall give rise to a renewed of being Chinese is intertwined with people.” In the Book of Poetry it is said, China as a geopolitical concept and Chi- “Though Zhou is an old state, the Man- nese culture as a living reality. date it holds is new.” For this purpose, For China, Chinese people, and Chi- the profound person exerts himself to nese culture, the image of the twentieth the utmost in everything. century as an atrocious collective experience of destructiveness and violence 1 –The Great Learning emerges with fulgent salience as we approach the ½n de siècle rumination. Sta- China, one of the longest continu- bility has often meant a delicate balance ous civilizations in human history, for a few years; even a decade of peace- “may be visualized as a majestic flow- ful coexistence evokes memories of per- ing stream.”2 Chinese culture, the ge- manence. The fluctuating Chinese polit- neric term symbolizing the vicissitudes ical landscape, precipitated by external events unprecedented in Chinese history since the mid-nineteenth century, has Tu Wei-ming, director of the Harvard-Yenching become so restless in the last decades Institute and Harvard-Yenching Professor of Chi- that not only the players but the rules of nese History and Philosophy and of Confucian the game have constantly changed. For Studies, wrote this essay for the Spring 1991 issue instance, in the eight decades since the of “Dædalus.” At the time of its publication, he end of the Qing dynasty in 1911, a suc- was director of the Institute of Culture and Com- munication at the East-West Center in Honolulu 1 Daniel K. Gardner, Chu Hsi and the Ta-hsueh: and professor of Chinese history and philosophy Neo-Confucian Reflection on the Confucian Canon at Harvard University. He has been a Fellow of (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, the American Academy since 1988. 1987), 96–97 with minor modi½cations. 2 Herbert Passin, “The Occupation–Some © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts Reflections,” Dædalus 119 (3) (Summer 1990): & Sciences 125.

Dædalus Fall 2005 145 Tu cession of different versions of the state world de½ned in terms of power with Wei-ming constitution were drafted and promul- or without wealth. Their sense of im- gated in both the Republic of China and potence, frustration, and humiliation, the People’s Republic of China. Not re- prompted by a curious mixture of politi- visions or amendments, each new ver- cal nationalism and cultural iconoclasm, sion superseded the previous one.3 In- framed the context for their quest for deed, virtually no institution of signi½- identity not only as Chinese but as think- cance (university, church, press, profes- ing and reflective Chinese in an increas- sional society, or civic organization) has ingly alienating and dehumanizing lasted for more than a generation. The world. two major parties (the Nationalist and the Communist) seem to have endured The question of Chineseness, as it ½rst in form, but they both have been so sub- emerged in the “axial age” half a millen- stantially and radically restructured that nium prior to the birth of Confucius in a sense of cynicism and uncertainty pre- 551 b.c., entails both geopolitical and vails among their members. The most cultural dimensions. While the place of devastating rupture, however, occurred China has substantially expanded over within the intellectual community. time, the idea of a cultural core area ½rst Although China has never been sub- located in the Wei River Valley, a tribu- jected to the kind of comprehensive co- tary of the Yellow River, and later en- lonial rule experienced by India, China’s compassing parts of the Yangtze River semicolonial status severely damaged has remained potent and continuous in her spiritual life and her ability to tap the Chinese consciousness. Educated indigenous symbolic resources. Chinese Chinese know reflexively what China intellectuals have been much more de- proper refers to; they may not be clear prived than their Indian counterparts about the periphery but they know for ever were. While Indian intellectuals sure that the center of China, whether have continued to draw from the well- Xi’an or Beijing, is in the north near the springs of their spiritual lives, despite Yellow River. The archaeological ½nds two centuries of British colonialism, in recent decades have signi½cantly chal- the Western impact fundamentally dis- lenged the thesis that China grew from lodged the Chinese intellectuals from the Wei Valley like a light source radi- their Confucian haven. Having loos- ating from the center. Even in neolith- ened their moorings in a society which ic periods, there were several centers had provided a secure and respected spreading across present-day China. anchorage for their predecessors for The Middle Kingdom came into being more than two millennia, they desper- as a confederation of several equally de- ately tried to ½nd a niche in a cruel new veloped cultural areas rather than grow- 4 3 In the history of the People’s Republic of ing out of an ever-expanding core. Yet, China, four radically different constitutions regardless of this scholarly persuasive were implemented between 1954 and 1982. For explanation of the origins of Chinese an indictment against the Chinese Communist civilization, the impression that geopo- Party’s abuse of constitutional authority, see litical China evolved through a long pro- Yan Jiaqi, “China Is Not Actually a Republic” and “May 17th Manifesto,” in Yan Jiaqi, To- ward a Democratic China: My Intellectual Autobi- 4 Kwang-chih Chang, The Archaeology of An- ography (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, cient China, 4th ed., rev. and enl. (New Haven, forthcoming). Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986).

146 Dædalus Fall 2005 cess centering around a de½nable core voluminous veritable documents in hu- Cultural China: remains deeply rooted. man history. Indeed, the chronological the periph- If the presumed core area was instru- annals have flowed uninterruptedly ery as the mental in forming a distinctive Chinese since 841 b.c. This cumulative tradition center identity, Chinese culture symbolizing is preserved in Chinese characters, a a living historical presence made the script separable from and thus unaffect- sense of being Chinese even more pro- ed by phonological transmutations. nounced; it signi½ed a unique form of Whether or not it is simply a false sense life profoundly different from other of continuity, the Chinese refer to the styles of living often condemned as bar- Han (206 b.c.–a.d. 220) and Tang barian. The expression hua or huaxia, (618–907) dynasties as if their great- meaning Chinese, connotes culture and ness still provides practicable standards civilization. Those who lived in China for contemporary Chinese culture and proper were, inter alia, cultured and civ- politics. ilized, clearly differentiable from those The Middle Kingdom syndrome, or barbarians in the periphery who had yet the Middle Kingdom complex,7 may to learn the proper ways of dressing, eat- have made it psychologically dif½cult ing, dwelling, and traveling. On the sur- for the Chinese leadership to abandon face, the classical distinction between its sense of superiority as the center, but Chinese and barbarians was predicated we must also remember that China had on the divergence of two drastically dif- never been thoroughly challenged by an ferent modes of life: the agrarian com- alien equal–if not superior–civilization munity of the central plain and the no- until the penetration of the West in the madic tribes of the steppes.5 But the rise mid-nineteenth century. The “Buddhist of Chinese cultural consciousness was Conquest of China”8 entailed the intro- occasioned by primordial ties de½ned duction, domestication, maturation, in ethnic, territorial, linguistic, and eth- and development of Indian spirituali- ical-religious terms. Although it is of- ty in China for more than six hundred ten noted that culture, rather than eth- years, culminating in the intense Sini- nicity, features prominently in de½n- cization of Buddhist teachings in dis- ing Chineseness, the cultured and civi- tinctively Chinese schools of Tiantai, lized Chinese, as the myth goes, claim Huayan, and Chan.9 The military and a common ancestry. Indeed, the sym- political domination of the Middle King- bol of the “children of the Yellow Em- dom by the Jurchens, the Khitans, the peror”6 is constantly reenacted in Chi- Mongols, and the Manchus in the last nese literature and evokes feelings of millennium was compensated, in cultur- ethnic pride. al terms, by the Sinicization of Jin, Liao, This idea of being Chinese, geopoliti- 7 For a recent reference to the “Middle King- cally and culturally de½ned, is further dom Complex,” see Lucian Pye, “China: Erratic reinforced by a powerful historical con- State, Frustrated Society,” Foreign Affairs 69 (4) sciousness informed by one of the most (Fall 1990): 62.

5 Owen Lattimore, Inner Asian Frontiers of Chi- 8 Erik Zürcher, The Buddhist Conquest of China na (London: Oxford University Press, 1940). (Leiden: Brill, 1959).

6 Lynn Pan, Sons of the Yellow Emperor: A His- 9 Arthur Wright, Buddhism in Chinese History tory of the Chinese Diaspora (Boston: Little, (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, Brown, 1990). 1953).

Dædalus Fall 2005 147 Tu Yuan, and Qing into legitimate Chinese A radical manifestation of this ambiv- Wei-ming dynasties. China survived these “con- alent May Fourth legacy is the recent ad- quests” as a geopolitical entity and Chi- vocacy of comprehensive modernization nese culture flourished. Nevertheless, if qua Westernization in the People’s Re- we take seriously the image of “a majes- public of China after the of½cial closure tic flowing stream,” we must acknowl- of the devastating Cultural Revolution edge that these great outside influences decade (1966–1976). This new rheto- altered this stream at various points. In ric is deceptively simple: since China’s accordance with this, China, or Chinese backwardness, fully acknowledged by culture, has never been a static structure the Chinese intelligentsia as occasioned but a dynamic, constantly changing by the open-door policy of the reform, landscape. had deep roots in the Chinese polity, so- In the Chinese historical imagination, ciety, and culture, a total transformation the coming of the West, however, could of Chineseness is a precondition for Chi- be seen as more “decentering”; it was as na’s modernization. Strategically, the if the Buddhist conquest and the Mon- most painful and yet effective method gol invasion had been combined and of this total transformation is to invite compressed into one generation. It is the modern West with all of its fruitful understandable, therefore, that it has ambiguities to “decenter” the Chinese thoroughly destroyed the “pattern of mentality. This wishful thinking–liber- the Chinese past”10 and fundamental- ation through a willing and willful con- ly rede½ned the Problematik for the Chi- frontation with radical otherness–has nese intellectual. The convulsive distur- become a powerful countercultural bances that geopolitical China has suf- thrust against both ossi½ed Marxism- fered since the Opium War (1839–1942) Leninism and the still vibrant “habits are well documented,11 but the efferves- of the heart”13 molded by the Confucian cences in Chinese culture which eventu- tradition. ally brought about the intriguing para- The “River Elegy,” a controversial, dox of iconoclasm and nationalism of interpretive, six-part television series the May Fourth (1919) generation (as on Chinese cultural roots and ethos, well as subsequent generations) are so straightforwardly advocated the neces- elusive that scholars of modern thought sity of embracing the blue ocean as the are still groping for a proper explanatory only way to save the “Yellow Earth.”14 model to probe them.12 10 Mark Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past Movement of 1919 (Berkeley: University of Cali- (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, fornia Press, 1986). 1973). 13 A seminal term in Alexis de Tocqueville’s 11 Peter Ward Fay, The Opium War, 1840–1842 Democracy in America is used by Robert Bellah (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina and his coauthors to characterize the individu- Press, 1975). al ethos of contemporary American culture. See Robert Bellah et al., The Habits of the Heart 12 Chow Tse-tsung, The May Fourth Movement: (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985). Intellectual Revolution in Modern China (Cam- bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960). 14 The contrast of the blue ocean and the “Yel- For a thought-provoking attempt to come to low Earth” is used in the “River Elegy” to show terms with the May Fourth intellectual ethos, the open, dynamic, and exploratory spirit of see Vera Schwarcz, The Chinese Enlightenment: the West and the closed, stagnant, and insular Intellectuals and the Legacy of the May Fourth mentality of China.

148 Dædalus Fall 2005 Aired twice in 1988, the “River Elegy” unstated message, obvious to most, Cultural China: provoked a heated nationwide debate gives a warning, and indeed an outright the periph- on tradition, modernity, change, China, challenge to the power holders of the ery as the and the West.15 From top Party leaders Party: speed up the reform or else! Chi- center and intellectuals to workers, soldiers, neseness, under scathing assault, is iron- and farmers, from the metropolitan ar- ically made to stand for the modus ope- eas of Beijing, Shanghai, and Wuhan to randi of an authoritarian, conservative, the sparsely populated Great Northwest, and brutal ruling minority. several hundred million citizens were The paradox embedded in the message affected by the central message: China, of the “River Elegy” evokes memories behind even western Africa in per capita of the May Fourth intellectual dilemma: income, would soon be disfranchised as the intertwining of nationalism (patriot- a player in the international game.16 The ism) and iconoclasm (antitraditional- intellectual community was stunned by ism).18 This leads inevitably to a whole the poignancy of the question, Whither set of thought-provoking questions. If China? Overwhelmingly siding with the Chinese intellectuals in China proper radical Westernizers, they have accepted are so thoroughly disgusted with Chi- that reform requires the courage to re- nese culture, can they de½ne their Chi- structure China fundamentally by im- neseness as an exclusive commitment porting proven models of success. The to wholesale Westernization? If their sacred symbols of the ancestral land condemnation of things Chinese is total, stand condemned. The dragon, the sym- does this mean that they have voluntari- bol of Chinese ancestry, is condemned ly forfeited their right to be included in a as outmoded imperial authoritarian- de½nition of Chineseness? For Chinese ism;17 the Great Wall, the symbol of intellectuals living in China proper, can historical continuity, is condemned as the meaning of being Chinese be sought a manifestation of closed-minded con- in the limbo between a past they have servatism; and the Yellow River, long either deliberately relegated to a fading regarded as the cradle of Chinese civi- memory or been coerced into rejecting lization, is condemned as unmitigated or forgetting, a present they have angri- violence against innocent people. The ly denounced, and an uncertain future, since they insist that the promise lies wholly in the alien unknown? The way 15 Frederic Wakeman, Jr., “All the Rage in these issues are formulated may appear China,” The New York Review of Books, March 2, 1989, 19–21. relevant only for a tiny minority–the articulate and self-reflective intelligent- 16 In 1988 mainland China’s per capita in- sia–but the emotional intensity pro- come was us$330, while the average for six- voked by the debate has affected the teen countries in western Africa was $340. Chinese populace in general. “1990 World Population Data Sheet,” Popula- tion Reference Bureau, Inc., Washington, D.C. The rise of Japan and the so-called Four 17 For example, Yan Jiaqi, a prominent leader Mini-Dragons (South Korea, Taiwan, of the Alliance for a Democratic China, is an articulate critic of the “dragon mentality.” In his World Economic Herald (Shijie jingji daobao, 18 Yu-sheng Lin, The Crisis of Chinese Conscious- Shanghai) interview with Dai Qing, “China Is ness: Radical Antitraditionalism in the May Fourth No Longer a Dragon” (March 21, 1988), he spe- Era (Madison: The University of Wisconsin ci½cally berates the symbolism of the dragon. Press, 1979).

Dædalus Fall 2005 149 Tu Hong Kong, and Singapore) as the most heart”?22 Or, do they simply reflect an Wei-ming dynamic region of sustained economic earlier stage of modern transformation, development since the Second World which will lead eventually to the anomie War raises challenging questions about and alienation experienced in the West? tradition in modernity, the modernizing Culturally, do these societies symbolize process in its different cultural forms. successful examples of advanced tech- Does it suggest the necessity, indeed, nology being combined with age-long the desirability of a total iconoclastic ritual practices, or are they simply the attack on traditional Chinese culture passing phases of traditional societies?23 and its attendant comprehensive West- In short, how does the rise of East Asia ernization as a precondition for China’s challenge our deep-rooted conceptions modernization?19 From the perspective of economic growth, political develop- of economic organization, does this new ment, social transformation, and cultur- capitalism, labeled as guanxi (network al change? and connections) capitalism, contrasted These questions are signi½cant for with the classical capitalism of Western interpreting the meaning of being Chi- Europe, signal a new age–the age of the nese; they are potentially provocative to Paci½c Rim?20 Or, is it merely an epi- the overwhelming majority of Chinese phenomenon that can be explained in intellectuals in mainland China who be- terms of existing European and Ameri- lieve that Chineseness is incongruous can development models? Politically with the modernizing process, de½ned speaking, are we witnessing a process purely in terms of science and democra- of democratization based more on con- cy. If, indeed, the “Sinic world”24 or the sensus formation than on adversarial “post-Confucian”25 region has succeed- relationships, giving a wholly new shade ed in assuming a form of life de½nitely of meaning to the concept of participa- modern, distinctively East Asian–by tory democracy? Or, are we observing implication Chinese as well–the sharp the continuous presence of the hierar- dichotomy between tradition and mo- chical authoritarian control of a politi- dernity must be rejected as untenable, cal elite operating under the guise of ma- as useless in analyzing developing coun- jority rule?21 Socially, do family cohe- tries as well as more highly industrial- siveness, low crime rates, respect for ized or postindustrial societies. Any education, and a high percentage of sav- ings relative to that of other industrial 22 Peter Berger and Hsin Huang Hsiao, eds., In societies indicate an ethos different from Search of an East Asian Development Model (New the individual-centered “habits of the Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1988).

19 Tu Wei-ming, “A Confucian Perspective on 23 Tu Wei-ming, “The Rise of Industrial East the Rise of Industrial East Asia,” 1687th Stated Asia: The Role of Confucian Values,” Copen- Meeting Report, Bulletin of the American Acade- hagen Papers in East and Southeast Asian Studies my of Arts and Sciences 42 (1) (October 1988): (April 1989): 81–97. 32–50. 24 Edwin O. Reischauer, “The Sinic World 20 S. Gordon Redding, The Spirit of Chinese in Perspective,” Foreign Affairs 52 (2) (January Capitalism (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990). 1974): 341–348.

21 Lucian Pye, Asian Power and Politics: The 25 Roderick MacFarquhar, “The Post-Confu- Cultural Dimensions of Authority (Cambridge, cian Challenge,” The Economist 9 (February Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985). 1980): 67–72.

150 Dædalus Fall 2005 attempt to measure the degree of mod- tion for China’s modernization, is now Cultural China: ernization with a linear developmental regarded as completely outdated. Even the periph- scale is thought to be simpleminded. the most ardent Westernizers in Beijing ery as the Although this point has been repeated- and Shanghai chose to see their ideas center ly argued by culturally sophisticated circulate in the Chinese print media. To modernization theorists since the early Chinese intellectuals in industrial East 1970s,26 the presence of an empirically Asia, the awareness that active partici- veri½able phenomenon makes the argu- pation in the economic, political, social, ment even more convincing.27 and cultural life of a thoroughly mod- Since traditional features of the ernized community is not necessarily human condition–ethnicity, mother in conflict with being authentically Chi- tongue, ancestral home, gender, class, nese implies the possibility that modern- and religious faith–all seem to be rele- ization may enhance rather than weak- vant in understanding the lifeworlds of en Chineseness. Still, the meaning of be- societies, both modern and developing, ing Chinese is itself undergoing a major the need to search for roots, despite the transformation. pervasiveness of global consciousness, A recent economic phenomenon with is a powerful impulse throughout the far-reaching political and cultural impli- world today.28 If there is an alternative cations is the great increase in intrare- path to capital formation, then democ- gional trade in the Asia-Paci½c region. racy, technology, and even moderniza- Since the Four Dragons are providing 31 tion may indeed assume different cultur- percent of all foreign investments in the al forms. The most radical iconoclastic countries of the Association of South- assertion, espoused by some of the artic- east Asian Nations (asean), the partici- ulate May Fourth intellectuals, that Chi- pation of “diaspora” Chinese becomes nese culture–and not just Confucianism vitally important; they are now respon- but the ideographic language as well– sible for the largest capital transfer in will have to be abolished as a precondi- the region, exceeding that of both Japan and the United States. Just as the public 26 S. N. Eisenstadt, “Varieties of Political De- perception of the Chinese in the United velopment: The Theoretical Challenge,” in States has changed from laundrymen to S. N. Eisenstadt and Stein Rokkan, eds., Build- engineers and professionals, the image ing States and Nations: Models and Data Resources, vol. I (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, of the Chinese as economic beings is 1973), 41–72; and S. N. Eisenstadt, “Post-Tradi- likely to be further magni½ed in South- tional Societies and the Continuity of Recon- east Asia, changing perhaps from that of struction of Tradition in Post-Traditional Soci- trader to that of ½nancier. The Chinese eties,” in S. N. Eisenstadt, ed., Post-Traditional constitute not only the largest peasantry Societies (New York: Norton, 1974), 1–27. in the world today but also the most mo- 29 27 Peter L. Berger, “An East Asian Develop- bile merchant class. ment Model?” in Peter Berger and Hsin Huang Despite all these remarkable econom- Hsiao, eds., In Search of an East Asian Develop- ic accomplishments in Asia and in the ment Model, 3–11. Paci½c, the future is ½lled with uncertainties. As the United States reduces its 28 Tu Wei-ming “The Search for Roots in East Asia: The Case of the Confucian Revival,” in Martin E. Marty, ed., Fundamentalisms Observed 29 See Wang Gungwu, “The Culture of Chi- (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, nese Merchants,” unpublished lecture given at forthcoming). the University of Toronto, October 20, 1989.

Dædalus Fall 2005 151 Tu budget de½cit, it may not be the same to chart a radically different course of Wei-ming catalyst for growth as it was in the 1980s development, deliberately to challenge when an American import spree fueled the socialist experiment on the main- much of the economic expansion of the land. As a result, the perceptual gap be- region. Also, with the advent of a uni½ed tween the two sides of the Taiwan Straits European Community in 1992 and its has been exceedingly wide; despite the growing preoccupation with Eastern rhetoric of uni½cation, the two “coun- Europe, not to mention the deterioration tries” have vastly different economic of the Soviet economy and the present structures, political systems, social con- Middle East crisis, the West may well ditions, and cultural orientations. The turn its attention away from Asia and Taiwan independence movement has the Paci½c. Although it is unlikely that created perhaps the most controversial a “fortress Europe” or a Western Hemi- and explosive political issue on the is- sphere economic zone will quickly push land, but the democratization process the Asia-Paci½c region toward a Japan- initiated by the top Nationalist leader- anchored trading bloc, the hazards of ship under pressure in 1987 has undoubt- protectionism in North America are cer- edly caught the spirit of the moment. tainly not negligible. If Taiwan (the Republic of China) be- Still, if the projection of a Paci½c cen- comes truly democratic, the question of tury is at all credible, the roles of Tai- Taiwan’s Chineseness will inevitably be- wan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the come a matter of public debate. Much Chinese communities in Southeast Asia attention has recently been focused on ought not to be underestimated. Taiwan, what may be called the sedimentations for example, has the distinction of hold- of Taiwanese history. For the intelli- ing the largest foreign reserve in the gentsia, especially those under forty who world (over 70 billion dollars in 1990), were born and raised in Taiwan, the rec- surpassing Japan, the United States, and ognition that there have been distinctive Germany. While this fact alone may not Dutch, Japanese, and American strata be particularly signi½cant, the combina- superimposed on the Chinese substra- tion of government leadership, entrepre- tum since the eighteenth century–not neurial ingenuity, and a strong work eth- to mention the upsurge of nativistic sen- ic has made Taiwan, despite its political timents of the Polynesian aborigines– isolation, an assiduous investor and an makes the claim of Taiwan’s Chinese- innovator in international trade. Tai- ness problematic. wanese merchants (predominantly in Still, the very fact that more than a small and medium industries) are no- million Taiwanese residents travel each ticeable worldwide; the Nationalist gov- year to the mainland to sightsee, do ernment has made a highly coordinated business, carry on scholarly communi- and strategically sophisticated effort to cation, and hold family reunions has make Taiwan a valued partner in many created a sort of “mainland mania” in joint ventures in a number of key states the island, compelling the Nationalist in North America. government to deal with the mainland If the Taiwan “economic miracle” has question in ways scarcely imagined even attracted the most attention with the a couple of years ago. In late December American public, the fascinating and 1990 the president of Taiwan announced enduring feature of the Taiwan experi- that its state-of-war “emergency” vis-à- ence has been its conscientious effort vis the mainland will be terminated by

152 Dædalus Fall 2005 May 1991. This will certainly lead to homeland cannot be overestimated. For Cultural China: other astounding activities. Taiwan’s the majority of Hong Kong residents, the periph- of½cial ideological claim to be the true being Chinese as British subjects is, in ery as the inheritor of Chinese culture has taken human terms, arguably superior to be- center a strange turn. In response to the threat ing Chinese as citizens of the People’s of the independence movement, the Republic of China. government deems it advantageous The story of Singapore–which in less to underscore Taiwan’s Chineseness, than two decades emerged from being but the challenge from the mainland an endangered entrepôt to become a prompts it to acknowledge how far major industrial center in the Asia-Pa- Taiwan has already departed from the ci½c region in trade, high technology, Sinic world. petroleum, tourism, medicine, and ½- The tale of the two cities (Hong Kong nance–is no less dramatic. The linguis- and Singapore) is equally fascinating. All tic situation alone offers a clue to the indications suggest that the average per complexity of the human condition. As capita income in Hong Kong in 1990 had Ezra Vogel observes, among the 75 per- already surpassed that of its colonial rul- cent of the population who are Chinese er, the United Kingdom. The latter, more (15 percent Malays and 7 percent Indi- than Hong Kong, seems to be the princi- ans), at least six major groups “who pal bene½ciary in this two-way invest- found each others’ dialects unintelligi- ment relationship. Hong Kong’s free- ble” can be identi½ed; the Chinese lin- market capitalism, ably guided by gov- gua franca is now Mandarin which is ernment-appointed local leaders, exem- for Singaporeans a dialect learned in pli½es the “loose-rein” political philoso- this generation and devoid of deep fam- phy characteristic of traditional China. ily-rooted ethnic signi½cance.”30 Yet, Even though its ruling style is noninter- Singapore as an independent state and ference, its approach to economic affairs a safe society with its own unique blend is a far cry from laissez-faire as it is trad- of cultural eclecticism has endured. itionally practiced. The role of Hong Whether or not Singapore is practicing Kong in international ½nance and in the “capitalism with socialist characteris- development of manufacturing and light tics,”31 her success in providing ade- industry appropriate to her speci½c geo- quate housing, transportation, educa- political and cultural conditions pro- tion, security, and welfare for her citi- vides an inspiring example for many zens clearly indicates that, at least in the other developing and developed soci- economic sphere, her leadership, both eties. Lurking behind the scenes, of governmental and business, has charted course, is the overwhelming presence a course of action congenial to the Sin- of mainland refugees and their experi- gapore situation. ences of persecution, loss, escape, re- Because the omnipresence of govern- newal, and uncertainty. An estimated mental intervention has transformed 1.5 million Hong Kong residents demon- Singapore into an administrative state, strated in support of the democracy movement in Beijing in May 1989; with 30 Ezra Vogel, The Spread of Industrialization in a total population of 5 million, virtually East Asia, unpublished manuscript of the 1990 Reischauer Lectures, Harvard University, 73. every family was represented in these demonstrations. Hong Kong’s concern 31 Statement by one Singapore leader as quoted for and involvement in the affairs of the in Vogel, ibid., 79.

Dædalus Fall 2005 153 Tu with a tight control of the press, mass The amazing aspect of all these scenar- Wei-ming media, and public discourse, a stigma ios is the glaring absence of mainland attaches to Singapore in the prominent China. For thirty years (1949–1979), English-speaking newspapers, notably hostile external conditions and self-im- the Far Eastern Economic Review and the posed isolation made the People’s Re- Asian Wall Street Journal. The fact that public of China largely irrelevant to the “the leading business entrepreneurs rise of industrial East Asia. In the last in Singapore are government bureau- decade, as the resumption of tourism, crats”32 and that there appears to be a trade, and scholarly exchange thrust new one-party political system, raises seri- responsibilities upon the Beijing regime, ous doubts about the state’s commit- the Chinese intellectual community as ment to democracy. Still, one has the im- well as the of½cial establishment were pression that Singapore’s government is appalled to discover that while the pe- ef½cient and uncorrupt; that the society riphery of the Sinic world was proudly is fresh and clean; and that the people marching toward an Asia-Paci½c centu- are healthy and hardworking. In contrast ry, the homeland remained mired in per- to Hong Kong, Singapore’s Chineseness petual underdevelopment. Despite the is not pronounced; indeed, in a certain insistence of the Beijing government to sense, it is arti½cially constructed. De- de½ne China’s coming of age strictly in spite the obvious fear that any emphasis terms of the Four Modernizations–ag- on Chinese cultural identity will lead to riculture, industry, national defense, and racial disharmony,33 Singapore is unmis- science and technology–issues of polit- takably a sanitized version of Chinese ical and social restructuring have been society. Vogel notes that “if Hong Kong raised and not only by dissidents, but entrepreneurs thought of Singapore as also by intellectuals in state organiza- a bit dull and rigid, Singapore leaders tions, research institutions, and univer- thought of Hong Kong as too specula- sities. The “barracks mentality” is no tive, decadent, and undisciplined.”34 longer tenable. In any case, both Hong Kong and Singa- Although the phenomenon of Chinese pore have been instrumental in helping culture disintegrating at the center and to spread the idea of a Paci½c century. later being revived from the periphery The Chinese communities in Malaysia, is a recurring theme in Chinese history, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines it is unprecedented for the geopolitical are similarly participating in transform- center to remain entrenched while the ing these societies into newly industrial periphery presents such powerful and countries. persistent economic and cultural challenges. Either the center will bifurcate 32 Ibid., 79. or, as is more likely, the periphery will come to set the economic and cultural 33 For example, the concern over the govern- agenda for the center, thereby under- ment’s efforts to boost Mandarin has prompted Singapore’s former foreign minister, S. Rajarat- mining its political effectiveness. nam, to raise the issue of possible racial disharmony as a result of emphasis on Chinese- Cultural China can be examined in ness. Far Eastern Economic Review, January 24, terms of a continuous interaction among 1991, 19. three symbolic universes.35 The ½rst 34 Vogel, The Spread of Industrialization in East 35 The term “cultural China” (wenhua zhong- Asia, 82. guo) is relatively new. A similar concept “over-

154 Dædalus Fall 2005 consists of mainland China, Taiwan, mentioned–rarely have a population Cultural China: Hong Kong, and Singapore–that is, exceeding 3 percent. the periph- the societies populated predominantly The third symbolic universe consists ery as the by cultural and ethnic Chinese. The sec- of individuals, such as scholars, teach- center ond consists of Chinese communities ers, journalists, industrialists, traders, throughout the world, including a polit- entrepreneurs, and writers, who try to ically signi½cant minority in Malaysia understand China intellectually and and a numerically negligible minority bring their conceptions of China to their in the United States. These Chinese, es- own linguistic communities. For the last timated to number from twenty to thir- four decades the international discourse ty million, are often referred to by the on cultural China has unquestionably political authorities in Beijing and Tai- been shaped by the third symbolic uni- pei as huaqiao (overseas Chinese).36 verse more than by the ½rst two com- More recently, however, they tend to bined. Speci½cally, writings in English de½ne themselves as members of the and in Japanese have had a greater im- Chinese “diaspora,” meaning those who pact on the intellectual discourse on cul- have settled in scattered communities of tural China than those written in Chi- Chinese far from their ancestral home- nese. For example, Chinese newspapers land. While the Han Chinese constitute abroad often quote sources from the an overwhelming majority in each of the New York Times and Japan’s Asahi Shinbun four areas in the ½rst symbolic universe, to enhance their credibility. The highly communities of the Chinese diaspora– politicized Chinese media on both sides with the exception of Malaysia already of the Taiwan Straits have yet to earn their reputation as reliable reporters and seas China” (haiwai zhonghua) was used to authoritative interpreters of events un- designate Chinese communities outside main- folding in their own domain. The situa- land China. Since this term carries the politi- tion, however, is rapidly changing. In cal connotation of a Chinese-style common- cultural matters, the New York Times wealth encompassing the mainland, Hong may be months out of date; the “River Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, it has generated Elegy,” not to mention the so-called cul- much controversy on both sides of the Taiwan 37 Straits. I propose adopting the term “cultural tural fever, did not catch the attention China,” applied loosely, and invite the partici- of Western journalists until months af- pation of all those trying to understand and ter it had engulfed the Chinese-speaking bring understanding to China and Chinese cul- world. Japanese reporting also suffers ture, thus the idea of an intellectual discourse. See Tu Wei-ming, “‘Wenhua zhongguo’ chu- from a lack of a systematic analysis of tan” (Probing “cultural China”), The Nineties the cultural landscape. Still, foreign jour- (Jiushi niandai) 245 (June 1990): 60–61. nalists continue to exert an unusually strong influence on the discourse of cul- 36 For scholarly treatment of the subject, see tural China. Sinologists in North Amer- Wang Gungwu, A Short History of the Nanyang Chinese (Singapore: Eastern University Press, 37 Although the “River Elegy” had become a 1959); Edgar Wickberg, The Chinese in Philippine major topic of discussion in the Chinese mass Life, 1850–1898 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Uni- media throughout the ½rst and the second sym- versity Press, 1965); G. William Skinner, Chi- bolic universes in the summer of 1988, with the nese Society in Thailand (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell exception of Fred Wakeman’s thoughtful piece University Press, 1957); and James L. Watson, in the New York Review of Books, references to Emigration and Chinese Lineage: The Mans in the cultural phenomenon in the English-lan- Hong Kong and London (Berkeley: University guage publications began to appear in the of California Press, 1975). spring of 1989.

Dædalus Fall 2005 155 Tu ica, Japan, Europe, and even Australia ism); historical consciousness has been Wei-ming have similarly exercised a great deal undermined by varying interpretations of power in determining the scholarly of “Confucian China and its modern agenda for cultural China as a whole. fate”38 and, with increasing rapidity, This tripartite division of cultural Chi- worldviews have been affected by the na is problematic. Hong Kong, Taiwan, importation of radically different belief and Singapore have much more in com- systems. Still, if we view cultural China mon with the Chinese diaspora than as being a psychological as well as an they do with mainland China. Despite economic and a political interchange, Hong Kong’s impending return to its then the nature of the interactions be- homeland in 1997, an overwhelming tween mainland China and Hong Kong, majority of the working class as well as Taiwan, and Singapore is suf½cient to the intellectuals, if offered the opportu- group these distinct nations together nity, would not choose to identify them- as integral parts of the ½rst symbolic selves as citizens of the People’s Repub- universe. For the last ten years, the cul- lic of China. Hong Kong is, at least in tural impact that Hong Kong has had spirit, part of the Chinese diaspora. Al- on mainland China as a whole–and though the Republic of Singapore is es- metropolitan Guangzhou (Canton) and tablishing full diplomatic ties with the the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone People’s Republic of China, Singapore’s in particular–has been profound; the leaders have had closer contact with the Hong Kong transformation of mainland Nationalist government in Taipei than China is likely to become even more pro- with the Communists in Beijing. Never- nounced in the 1990s. The effect on the theless, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singa- modernization of China due to the re- pore are grouped together with main- cent participation of Taiwanese and Sin- land China as the ½rst symbolic universe gaporeans–as scholars, teachers, advi- because the life orientation of each of sors, traders, journalists, and tourists– these societies is based in Chinese cul- indicates clearly that the potential for ture. If we de½ne being Chinese in terms Taiwanization and Singaporization of of full participation in the economic, po- selected geographic regions and social litical, and social life of a Chinese com- strata of the mainland may be realized munity or civilization, the ½rst symbolic in the coming decades. universe offers both the necessary and This does not necessarily mean that the suf½cient condition. this perceived convergence will eventu- Divergence in economic development, ally lead to a reintegrated China as a civ- political system, and social organization ilization-state. It is more likely that, as notwithstanding, the four members of the peripheral regions of mainland Chi- the ½rst symbolic universe share a com- na become “contaminated” or “pollut- mon ethnicity, language, history, and ed” by Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singa- worldview. To be sure, ethnic awareness pore, relative economic prosperity and has been diluted by the admixture of a cultural richness will bring about a variety of races that constitute the gener- measure of political independence. De- ic Han people; linguistic cohesiveness is spite post-Tiananmen speculation about threatened by the presence of numerous mutually incomprehensible “dialects” 38 Joseph R. Levenson, Confucian China and Its (in the case of Singapore, the situation Modern Fate: A Trilogy (Berkeley: University of is further confounded by multilingual- California Press, 1968).

156 Dædalus Fall 2005 military warlordism, the rise of econom- promise in Chinese cultural attitudes Cultural China: ic and cultural regionalism seems inev- about power and authority,” but his gen- the periph- itable. Whether by choice or by default, eral statement is well taken: “The fact ery as the a signi½cantly weakened center may that the Chinese state was founded on center turn out to be a blessing in disguise for one of the world’s great civilizations has the emergence of a truly functioning given inordinate strength and durability Chinese civilization-state. Of course, to its political culture.”42 The beguiling the destructive power of the center is phenomenon of China as a civilization- such that the transformative potential state requires further elucidation. of the periphery can be easily stifled. The idea of the modern state involving The unpredictability of the Beijing lead- power relationships based on competing ership and the vulnerability of the status economic and social interests is anathe- quo in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singa- ma to the Chinese cultural elite as well pore make the ½rst symbolic universe as the Chinese ruling minority. To them, fluid and a fruitful interaction among the state–intent on realizing the histor- its members dif½cult. In spite of the so- ical mission to liberate China from called Middle Kingdom syndrome, a threats of imperialist encroachment and Chinese civilization-state with a variety the lethargy and stagnation of the feudal of autonomous regions or even a loosely past–symbolizes the guardian of a mor- structured Chinese federation of differ- al order rather than the outcome of a po- ent political entities remains a distinct litical process. The state’s legitimacy is possibility.39 derived from a holistic orthodoxy in- Nevertheless, we are well advised to formed by Sinicized Marxism-Leninism, heed the observation of Lucian Pye who rather than from operating principles re- maintains that “China is not just anoth- ½ned by actual political praxis and cod- er nation-state in the family of nations,” i½ed in a legal system. The state’s claims rather “China is a civilization pretending on its people are comprehensive and the to be a state.”40 Actually, “the miracle people’s dependence on the state is to- of China has been its astonishing unity.” tal; the state exempli½es the civilization- In trying to ½nd an analogy in Western al norms for the general public and the terms, Pye characterizes China of today leadership assumes ideological and mor- “as if the Europe of the Roman Empire al authority. The civilization-state exer- and of Charlemagne had lasted until this cises both political power and moral in- day and were now trying to function as fluence. a single nation-state.”41 We may not ac- It should be acknowledged, however, cept Pye’s assertion that “the overpow- that for all her power and influence, Chi- ering obligation felt by Chinese rulers na as a civilization-state is often negligi- to preserve the unity of their civilization ble in the international discourse on has meant that there could be no com- global human concerns. The marginalization of the Middle Kingdom to the 39 Yan Jiaqi, as a political scientist, has been a consistent and articulate advocate of a feder- periphery is, by now, so much an accept- ated China. See notes 3 and 19. ed fact in the contemporary world that it is virtually taken for granted, even 40 Lucian Pye, “China: Erratic State, Frus- among those of us committed to Chi- trated Society,” Foreign Affairs 69 (4) (Fall 1990): 58. nese studies in the West. The asymme-

41 Ibid. 42 Ibid.

Dædalus Fall 2005 157 Tu try between the centrality of its magnet- the possibility of China disintegrating Wei-ming ic pull in cultural China and the margin- as a uni½ed civilization-state. The advan- ality of its signi½cance to the “global vil- tage of being liberated from an obsessive lage” as a whole makes the ½rst symbolic concern for China’s well-being at the ex- universe a challenging issue for analysis pense of their own livelihood is rarely and contemplation.43 entertained. The diaspora Chinese cherish the hope of returning to and being The second symbolic universe, the Chi- recognized by the homeland. While the nese diaspora, presents equally intrigu- original meaning of scattering seeds sug- ing conceptual dif½culties. Diaspora, gests taking root and perpetuating away which literally means the scattering of from the homeland, many diaspora Chi- seeds, has been used to refer to Jews out- nese possess a sojourner mentality and side Palestine after the Babylonian exile lack a sense of permanence in their or to Jews living in a Gentile world. Un- adopted country. Some return “home” til the establishment of the modern na- to get married or send their children tion-state of Israel, the saliency of faith back for a Chinese education; they rein God and its attendant observance main in touch with relatives and friends of law and ritual, rather than the state, who keep them informed of the eco- characterized the distinctive features nomic and political climate at home.45 of the Jewish religious community.44 In The Chinese settlers who are scattered contrast to this, the state, or more pre- around the world come, historically, cisely China as a civilization-state, fea- from a few well-de½ned areas along the tures prominently in the Chinese dias- southeast coast of mainland China–no- pora. Because the Chinese diaspora has tably Guangdong and Fujian. For a spe- never lost its homeland, there is no func- ci½c group of settlers, the province itself tional equivalent to the cathartic yearn- was too extensive and diffuse to accom- ing for Jerusalem. Actually the ubiqui- modate an emotional identi½cation with tous presence of the Chinese state–its their homeland. Until the recent waves awe-inspiring physical size, its long his- of immigration to North America which tory, and the numerical weight of its began after 1949, the overwhelming ma- population–continues to loom large in jority of Chinese Americans identi½ed the psychocultural constructs of diaspo- themselves not as Cantonese–which ra Chinese. For many, the state, either was too cosmopolitan a term to evoke Nationalist or Communist, controls the any real sense of rootedness–but as symbolic resources necessary for their natives of subprovincial districts, such cultural identity. Although dual citizen- as Taishan, Zhongshan, or Panyu. Simi- ship is no longer operative, both Beijing lar phenomena occurred in Europe and and Taipei expect the loyal support of Southeast Asia. As a rule, mutual aid as- their huaqiao (overseas Chinese). Few sociations in Malaysia, Thailand, and diaspora Chinese ever speculate about Indonesia were organized according to county or village, rather than provincial 43 I thank sociologist Ambrose King of the Chi- af½liations. Secret societies that crossed nese University of Hong Kong for illuminating local boundaries were either politically discussions on this issue. 45 For a typical example of these patterns, see 44 Ernest W. Nicholson, God and His People: Clarence E. Glick, Sojourners and Settlers: Chi- Covenant and Theology in the Old Testament nese Migrants in Hawaii (Honolulu: University (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986). of Hawaii Press, 1980), 172–181.

158 Dædalus Fall 2005 oriented or economically motivated. It flourished in business pursuits. And, as in Cultural Thailand, Chinese-Filipino intermarriage China: is understandable, then, that the Chi- the periph- nese diaspora was, for decades, so frag- has produced, over long periods of time, ery as the mented that there was little communica- much of the political, social and cultural center tion among groups within a host nation, leadership of the country.46 let alone any transnational cooperation. “In common with most of the rest of Nevertheless, despite apparent paro- Southeast Asia,” wrote Edgar Wickberg, chialism, the overseas Chinese have “the Philippines has had little replenish- managed to adapt themselves to virtual- ment of its Chinese population since ly all types of communities throughout 1949.” He further notes: “Other things the world. The impression that the over- being equal, then, we would expect such all cultural orientation of Chinese set- a population to be increasingly oriented tlers has been shaped predominantly by towards the Philippines and Philippine the magnetic power of the homeland is culture and decreasingly interested in simplistic. The reason that the overseas things Chinese.”47 This seems to be in- Chinese rarely consider themselves thor- congruent with the perceived phenome- oughly assimilated in their adopted non that the Chinese in the Philippines, countries is much more complex. In unlike those in Thailand, have not yet the United States, racial discrimination been fully assimilated into the main- against the Chinese was, until recently, stream of Filipino society. In fact, their blatant; the Chinatown mentality, as a distinct Chineseness makes them vul- response to the hostile environment, nerable to nativistic assaults. Wickberg may be seen as a psychosocial defense explains that, prior to 1975, “the Philip- and adaptation. The post-1949 immi- pine policy of restricting certain occu- grants from Taiwan and Hong Kong pations to citizens but making it dif½- have developed entirely different pat- cult for Chinese to become citizens put terns of assimilation. The arrival of the Chinese in an almost impossible sit- “boat people” and refugees from the uation.”48 It appears, therefore, that the mainland has initiated yet another push of local conditions as well as the process where new style Chinatowns pull of the homeland impels the Chinese emerge in such unlikely places as the to become unassimilable. deep South and the Midwest in the The story is complicated by the fact United States. that Chinese-Filipino relations also The situation in Southeast Asia is radi- ½gure prominently in determining the cally different. The case of the Philip- fate of the Chinese settlers in the Philip- pine Chinese, perhaps the smallest Chi- pines. For example, in the 1950s and nese population of any major Southeast 1960s when the Nationalist government Asian country, merits special attention: in Taiwan exerted profound influence in The history of the Chinese in the Philip- pine population is one of regular inter- 46 Edgar Wickberg, “Some Comparative Per- marriage with ethnic Filipinos and the spectives on Contemporary Chinese Ethnicity in the Philippines,” Yazhou wenhua (Asian Cul- generation, thereby, of a historically im- ture) (forthcoming), 5 (page numbers refer to portant body of Chinese mestizos. When his May 1989 manuscript). waves of Chinese immigration have reced- ed and the Chinese community was not 47 Ibid., 5–6. replenished for a time, these mestizos have 48 Ibid., 7.

Dædalus Fall 2005 159 Tu the Philippines, “the Philippine govern- against the peddlers and retailers in Chi- Wei-ming ment, on the whole, gave over to Taiwan natowns in the past, remains a haunting the responsibility for de½ning the nature memory. of the Chinese culture to be taught in the The precarious nature of being Chi- Philippine Chinese schools.”49 As part nese in Southeast Asia is amply demon- of the united front between the Nation- strated by the institutionalized mecha- alist government and the Marcos regime nism of desini½cation in Malaysia and to ½ght the spread of communism, Chi- Indonesia. For political reasons, the Ma- nese schools were allowed to fly the flag laysian and Indonesian governments of the Republic of China, to display pic- consider Chineseness a potential threat tures of Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai- to national security, not to mention na- shek, and to make use of textbooks from tional integration. Among the most trag- Taiwan. The recognition of Beijing in ic events in the second half of the twen- 1975 facilitated the Filipinization of the tieth century were the atrocities com- Chinese schools and prompted the Mar- mitted against the Chinese population in cos government to grant full citizenship Indonesia in 1965, which were brought to about one-sixth of the entire Chinese on by a perceived threat of Communist population in the Philippines. takeover. Between 250,000 and 750,000 Perhaps the most encouraging sign people died in a matter of months, due, was the approach of the newly estab- in part, to a coup d’état engineered by lished intellectual organization Kaisa President Suharto. This Indonesian Chi- Para Sa Kaunlaran, which advocated nese “holocaust” received little attention “the understanding and retention of in the ½rst symbolic universe of cultural one’s Chinese culture while fully iden- China. The mainland was embroiled in tifying oneself with the Philippines and its own holocaust, the Cultural Revolu- with Filipinos of non-Chinese back- tion; Taiwan condoned the heavy-hand- grounds.”50 Conceived in the 1970s by ed attack on Communism; Hong Kong young university graduates of Chinese was too remote to be affected; and Sin- ancestry, the Kaisa vision intends to gapore’s proximity to Indonesia–both create a narrow ridge between cultur- geographically and politically–made it al chauvinism and total assimilation. too vulnerable to offer a response. It was One of the most threatening issues con- actually in the same period that grow- fronting the Filipino-Chinese communi- ing anti-Chinese sentiment in Malaysia ty is its public perception; although the pushed Singapore to become an inde- Chinese are bene½ciaries of the political pendent state. and economic system, their contribution The second symbolic universe, the to social welfare is limited and their par- Chinese diaspora, was too fragmented ticipation in the cultural life of the land and isolated to even take notice of the is minimal. The resentment the local tragedy. Malaysian Chinese, Thai Chi- population feels toward the conspicu- nese, Philippine Chinese, and American ous consumption of the rich Chinese Chinese were aware of what happened, (for example, elaborate tombs in the but there was neither the infrastructure style of miniature world-class hotels), nor the resources to mount a transna- which has often led to anti-Chinese riots tional demonstration. In fact, the word 49 Ibid., 9. Chinese quali½ed by Malaysian, Thai, Philippine, and American did not signify 50 Ibid., 21. any underlying consciousness of ethnic

160 Dædalus Fall 2005 or cultural identity; these terms were nomic dynamism in Thailand. An obvi- Cultural China: used generically to designate commu- ous consequence for the second symbol- the periph- nities that were culturally and racially ic universe is the latent tension and visi- ery as the similar, but which were otherwise total- ble conflict between Taiwan’s economic center ly unrelated. It is ironic that it was the strength and the mainland’s political third symbolic universe–consisting pri- clout. The drama of the competition be- marily of non-Chinese but who were tween the mainland and Taiwan is not committed, informed, and often sympa- con½ned to the asean countries; the in- thetic observers of things Chinese–that tensity is felt by Chinese communities in reacted most strongly to the holocaust Tokyo, Paris, New York, San Francisco, and exposed it to the world at large. Toronto, and Sydney. Although it is too Recent events have greatly improved early to tell whether a depoliticized cul- the atmosphere for the Chinese in tural agenda will emerge as a result of Southeast Asia, although the “Chinese this confrontation, it seems that Singa- question” continues to be a sensitive pore may play a vital role in addressing subject. Still, in Malaysia and Indonesia, economic and cultural issues and tran- being Chinese remains a stigma; things scend the political animosity which Chinese–especially symbols of Chinese exists on both sides of the Taiwan high culture such as the written script– Straits. are viewed with suspicion. The econom- Another example of the impact of the ic success of the Chinese makes them ½rst symbolic universe on the second is hungry for cultural expression, and the the emigration of professionals from host countries, while tolerating their Hong Kong to North America and Aus- economic well-being, are adamant about tralia. As 1997 draws near, Hong Kong imposing cultural prohibitions. Signs of emigrants with substantial capital and a Kaisa-like solution to the conflict be- professional expertise are making their tween the political loyalty and the cul- presence known in Chinese communi- tural identity of Chinese in Malaysia and ties in Toronto, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Indonesia are yet to be found. San Francisco, New York, and Sydney. After having been ostracized from the This seems symptomatic of a broader diplomatic community of asean for pattern: Chinese immigrants in these more than a decade, Taiwan is now re- cities are also coming from mainland turning as an investment giant. Records China, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, In- show that Taiwanese investments in the donesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Philippines and Malaysia have taken the What we are witnessing, then, is a new lead and now surpass those of Japan by era of the Chinese diaspora. a respectable margin. Taiwan’s presence This phenomenon which historian in Indonesia is signi½cant enough to Wang Gungwu, vice-chancellor of Hong have persuaded the Suharto government Kong University, aptly depicts as a remi- to relax its prohibition against Chinese gration of Chinese to North America, schools, Chinese videocassettes, and Europe, and Australia, is unprecedent- publications in Chinese, which inspires ed and requires closer examination.51 a new vitality in Indonesian Chinese communities. Furthermore, operating 51 Remarks by Wang Gungwu at the conference on “The Meaning of Being Chinese,” East- with the full collaboration of merchants West Center, October 24–26, 1990. See confer- of Chinese origin in Bangkok, Taiwanese ence proceedings, Institute of Culture and capital has also contributed to the eco- Communication, East-West Center, Honolulu.

Dædalus Fall 2005 161 Tu These ½nancially secure Malaysian, In- among Chinese intellectuals through- Wei-ming donesian, Filipino, and Vietnamese Chi- out the world. The presence of such an nese have ostensibly emigrated from awareness prior to the opening up of their adopted homelands for several gen- mainland China in the late 1970s is made erations in order to escape from policies clear in the deliberate choice of huaren which discriminated against their Chi- (people of Chinese origin) rather than neseness. In order to combat the pres- zhongguoren (people of China, the state) sure to assimilate imposed by the new to designate people of a variety of na- nation-states in Southeast Asia and to tionalities who are ethnically and cultur- preserve a measure of Chineseness ally Chinese. Huaren is not geopolitical- for their descendants, they have opted ly centered, for it indicates a common to immigrate to modern Western-style ancestry and a shared cultural back- nations with strong democratic tradi- ground, while zhongguoren necessarily tions. The irony of not returning to their evokes obligations and loyalties of polit- ancestral homeland but going far away ical af½liation and the myth of the Mid- from China with the explicit intention of dle Kingdom. By emphasizing cultural preserving their cultural identity seems roots, Chinese intellectuals in Taiwan, perplexing, but as Wang Gungwu per- Hong Kong, and North America hoped ceptively remarks, the transformation to build a transnational network for un- from a sojourner mentality to deliberate derstanding the meaning of being Chi- emigration is a new phenomenon. nese within a global context. For these As recently as the 1960s, the decision intellectuals, the relevant political cen- to renounce Chinese nationality (wheth- ter that influenced their lives was the er Nationalist or Communist) and to Nationalist government in Taiwan. adopt local citizenship was, for many Their efforts to depoliticize the cultural Chinese in the diaspora, a matter of movement were an attempt to maintain great agony.52 The massive exodus of a critical distance from the of½cial anti- the most brilliant Chinese intellectuals Communist line of the Guomindang from the mainland during the last de- (the Nationalist Party). cade shows clearly that the civilization- In the 1980s, with the advent of main- state has lost much of its iron grip on the land China as an active participant in the Chinese intelligentsia, and the Tianan- discourse on cultural China, the symbol men brutality may have irreversibly sev- of huaren assumed a new signi½cance: ered the emotional attachment of the how could the overseas Chinese help the diaspora Chinese to the homeland. The homeland to modernize? On the intel- meaning of being Chinese, a question lectual side, an unintended consequence that has haunted Chinese intellectuals of Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms for at least three generations, has taken was “cultural fever,” brought on by a re- on entirely new dimensions. vival of communication in the social sciences and humanities between scholars The term cultural China, coined in the in mainland China and scholars abroad. last decade or so and often seen in intel- The Tiananmen tragedy on June 4, 1989, lectual journals outside mainland China, symbolizes the near-total alienation of is itself an indication of the emergence the Chinese intelligentsia from the rul- of a “common awareness” (gongshi) ing minority on the mainland. It is highly unlikely that the political regime that 52 Ibid. has brutally massacred peaceful demon-

162 Dædalus Fall 2005 strators and bystanders will ever be able tually all major Western philosophical Cultural China: to win back the hearts and minds of the currents of thought, including Dewey’s the periph- intellectuals and those citizens who are pragmatism, Bergson’s vitalism, Baku- ery as the committed to the dignity of China as a nin’s anarchism, and Russell’s empiri- center civilization. cism. What was conspicuously absent The fate of the Chinese intelligentsia was any persuasive form of fundamen- in the People’s Republic of China inev- talism or nativism that glori½ed Chinese itably elicits the horrifying question, culture for its own sake. However, be- How could the scholar, honored as a par- neath this intellectual commitment to adigm of the personality ideal in Chinese alien Western values was a powerful culture, have stooped so low for so long? surge of fundamentalistic and nativis- The answer lies, in part, in the coexis- tic sentiment which was dangerously tence of political nationalism and cultur- volatile among the Chinese populace al iconoclasm among the most articulate throughout the country. intellectual elite. The decline of China An unintentional and unfortunate from being the Middle Kingdom for cen- consequence of this period of wholesale turies to the “Sickman of East Asia” in Westernization and anti-Confucianism just two generations time (beginning was the marginalization of the intelli- with the Opium War of 1839 and culmi- gentsia from the center of the political nating in the collapse of the Hundred- arena. The thrust of their intellectual Day reform in 1898), in conjunction with quest was the establishment of a polit- the disintegration of the Chinese politi- ical center; yet such a focus relegated cal order, created such spiritual turmoil them to the background. Furthermore, among the Chinese intelligentsia that their demand for action was so over- the reconstruction of a political center whelming that the seeds of their own became an overriding concern. Intent decline were embedded in the logic of on creating the optimum conditions for the intellectual discourse. It is not sur- China to recapture its position of wealth prising that Marxism-Leninism tri- and power once again, the Westernized umphed in the marketplace of ideolo- intellectuals launched a frontal attack on gies; it met the requirements of both the Confucian tradition: Confucianism was cultural iconoclasts and political nation- perceived to have nurtured a “national alists: it was Western to the core as the character” (guominxing) detrimental cultural iconoclasts had strongly recom- to China’s modernization. The desire to mended and its anti-imperialist stance increase China’s chance of survival was was precisely what the political national- therefore linked to an all-out attack on ists had demanded. the very tradition which had shaped What the Chinese intelligentsia did Chineseness throughout history. not expect–and is still struggling to un- This assertion–that we must totally derstand–is that the Party is not only reject that which has made us what we the embodiment of socialist truth but are–enabled the most forward-looking also the bearer of the correct method Chinese intellectuals to be receptive to for its eventual realization. The actual foreign ideologies while still maintain- struggle undertaken by the masses (the ing their nationalistic objectives. The peasants, the workers, and the soldiers) May Fourth patriots experienced a keen was too rooted in Chinese soil to bene- sense of liberation when they confront- ½t from the sophisticated intellectual ed the national crisis by embracing vir- consciousness framed in Western liber-

Dædalus Fall 2005 163 Tu al democratic terms. The rise of Mao with natural disasters led to massive Wei-ming Zedong to the trinity of political leader, starvation, killing an estimated 40 mil- ideological teacher, and moral exemplar, lion people. Subsequently, neither the though unprecedented in Chinese histo- Party, nor the leadership, nor Mao was ry, can be explained in terms of a funda- held accountable. In fact, Mao, disgust- mentalistic-nativistic challenge to the ed with the inertia of the leadership and Westernization process as envisioned the bureaucratism of the Party, managed by the May Fourth intellectuals. In ex- to rouse the Chinese youth to a crescen- amining Mao Zedong’s ideology we ½nd, do of iconoclasm and nationalism by among other things, a combination of launching the Cultural Revolution in iconoclasm and nationalism; however, 1966. Yet, as some of the most percep- the iconoclasm is layered with numer- tive minds in China have confessed, ous sediments of nativistic pathos, and their faith in the truth of Marxism-Len- the nationalism is imbued with funda- inism, in the credibility of the Chinese mentalistic claims to China’s unique- Communist leadership, and in the legiti- ness. Since his death, Chinese intellec- macy of the Party was not shaken until tuals may have radically changed their the mid-1980s. minds about Mao as the savior of the In the spring of 1990, Chinese intellec- Chinese people, but for decades they tuals worldwide developed a truly new, were awed by his sagacity and, occa- communal, critical self-consciousness in sionally, charmed by his earthiness. The which the agenda of iconoclasm and na- demonic power of destruction, which tionalism was reversed; a search for cul- Mao unleashed repeatedly, stunned in- tural roots and a commitment to a form tellectuals to such a degree that they lost of depoliticized humanism became a their ability even to describe it. Indeed, strong voice in the discourse on cultural they have yet to develop adequate con- China. ceptual apparatuses to analyze that phenomenon, including their own roles as China has witnessed much destruc- participants (willing or otherwise) and tiveness and violence in her modern as victims. transformation. The agonizing question Collective amnesia is so pervasive in for us all in the three symbolic universes China that the national memory has dif- is raised with great poignancy by Stevan ½culty extending back even to the de- Harrell: “Why does a culture that con- cade of the Cultural Revolution (1966– demns violence, that plays down the 1976), let alone to the disaster of the glory of military exploits, awards its Great Leap Forward (1958–1960) or the highest prestige to literary, rather than brutality of the Anti-Rightist campaign martial ½gures, and seeks harmony over (1957–1958). Virtually all intellectuals all other values, in fact display such fre- of note were purged during the Anti- quency and variety of violent behav- Rightist campaign that followed the ior, that is of the use of physical force short-lived domestic liberalization in against persons?53 Echoing Harrell’s the wake of Khrushchev’s de-Staliniza- tion in the Soviet Union. The Great Leap 53 Stevan Harrell, “Introduction,” in Jonathan Forward–an ill-conceived utopian ex- N. Lipman and Stevan Harrell, eds., Violence in China: Essays in Culture and Counterculture (Al- periment intended to enable China to bany: State of New York University Press, surpass the West in industrial productiv- 1990), 1. Harrell adds, “Whether Chinese cul- ity within ½fteen years–in combination ture is more violent than other cultures is dif-

164 Dædalus Fall 2005 puzzlement and frustration, Andrew ism. Many intellectuals strongly believe Cultural China: Nathan, in a thought-provoking review that the collusion of the feudal past and the periph- essay, cites the condemnation of the the socialist present makes China a vic- ery as the authors of the aforementioned “River tim of a double betrayal. This, in a sub- center Elegy”: “What Confucian culture has stantial way, explains the vehemence given us over the past several thousand with which the authors of the “River years is not a national spirit of enter- Elegy” attacked the Confucian legacy prise, a system of laws, or a mechanism and the enthusiasm they had for em- of cultural renewal, but a fearsome self- bracing the modern West. The matter, killing machine that, as it degenerated, however, is complicated by the fact that constantly devoured its best and its the real challenge to the mainland Chi- brightest, its own vital elements.”54 This nese intellectuals is not the modern is reminiscent of Lu Xun’s bitter satire West per se but the modern West me- against the Confucian legacy, which he diated through industrial East Asia. mordantly denounced as cannibalistic While Lu Xun’s generation, despite ritualism.55 Spengler’s warning, never entertained In retrospect, what the Chinese intel- the possibility of a path to modernity ligentsia collectively experienced in the other than Westernization, the auth- twentieth century is what Mark Elvin ors and producers of the “River Elegy” pointedly characterizes as the “double could not help but explore the courses disavowal” of both Confucianism and of action most congenial to the Chinese Marxism.56 The same indignation that situation. If Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Lu Xun’s generation felt about Confu- Hong Kong, Singapore, and Chinese cian authoritarianism is now being communities throughout the world have expressed against Marxist totalitarian- shown not only the relevance of Confu- cian ethics to their modus operandi but ½cult to judge, but it is visibly not less violent also the dynamics of the Confucian tra- than many.” dition in shaping their forms of life, then 54 Quoted in Andrew J. Nathan, “A Culture the existential predicament of the main- of Cruelty,” The New Republic 203 (5) (July 30– land intellectual caught between a con- August 6, 1990): 32. temptible past and a brutal present is not indissoluble. Notwithstanding that 55 Lu Hsun, “Suigan lu sanshiba” (Random “the inner strength of the Chinese intel- thoughts, no. 38), Xin qingnian (The New Youth) 5 (5) (November 15, 1918): 515–518. For an ligentsia has been sapped by the collu- analysis of Lu Xun’s “complex consciousness,” sion of feudal Chinese traditionalism see Leo Ou-fan Lee, Voices from the Iron House: (the remnants of a politicized Confucian A Study of Lu Xun (Bloomington: Indiana Uni- moralism) and the modern Western col- versity Press, 1987). lectivism (the outmoded practice of Le- ninist dictatorship),”57 56 Mark Elvin, “The Double Disavowal: The the fruitful in- Attitudes of Radical Thinkers to the Chinese teraction between Confucian human- Tradition,” in Y. M. Shaw, ed., China and Eu- ism and democratic liberalism in cul- rope in the Twentieth Century (Taipei: Institute tural China has already occurred. The of International Relations, 1986), 112–137. For authors and producers of the “River his more recent view on the extinction of Con- fucianism, see Mark Elvin, “The Collapse of 57 Tu Wei-ming, “Iconoclasm, Holistic Vi- Scriptural Confucianism,” Papers on Far Eastern sion, and Patient Watchfulness: A Personal History, no. 41 (Canberra: The Australian Na- Reflection on the Modern Chinese Intellectu- tional University, March 1990). al Quest,” Dædalus 116 (2) (Spring 1987): 94.

Dædalus Fall 2005 165 Tu Elegy,” some now as scholars in exile, the very survival of the children of the Wei-ming have also begun to explore traditional Yellow Emperor. The fear, far from that symbolic resources (including those in of a population explosion, was actual- Confucian humanism) in order to refor- ly the depletion of the Chinese race mulate their strategy for China’s cultur- in the social Darwinian sense. With a al reconstruction.58 view toward the future we need to ask, The so-called Third Epoch of Confu- what form of life do the Chinese need cian Humanism59 may have been the to pursue that is not only commensu- wishful thinking of a small coterie of rate with human flourishing but also academicians, but the emergence of a sustainable in ecological and environ- new inclusive humanism with profound mental terms? ethical-religious implications for the What mainland China eventually will spiritual self-de½nition of humanity, the become remains an overriding concern sanctity of the earth, and a form of reli- for all intellectuals in cultural China. She giousness based on immanent transcen- may try to become a mercantilist state dence has already been placed on the with a vengeance; she may continue to agenda in cultural China. The real chal- be mired in her inertia and inef½ciency lenge to this new inclusive humanism for years to come; or she may modernize is the narrowly conceived anthropocen- according to a new holistic humanist vi- tricity informed by instrumental ration- sion. Saddled with a population burden ality and fueled by a Faustian drive to approaching 1.2 billion, can this state conquer and destroy. While the modern succeed at any of these ambitions with- West has created virtually all major out ½rst ½nding a viable way to liberate spheres of value for the twentieth centu- the energies of its people? Although re- ry (science, technology, the free market, alistically, those who are on the periph- democratic institutions, metropolises, ery (the second and third symbolic uni- and mass communication, for example), verses plus Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Sin- the painful realization that it has also gapore) are seemingly helpless in affect- pushed humanity to the brink of self- ing any fundamental transformation of destruction engenders much food for China proper, the center no longer has thought. The question of whether hu- the ability, insight, or legitimate authori- man beings are, in fact, a viable species ty to dictate the agenda for cultural Chi- is now being asked with a great sense of na. On the contrary, the transformative urgency. potential of the periphery is so great that It is ironic that, for the ½rst half of the it seems inevitable that it will signi½- century, a major concern for the Chinese cantly shape the intellectual discourse political leaders–notably Sun Yat-sen, on cultural China for years to come. It Chiang Kai-shek, and Mao Zedong–was is perhaps premature to announce that “the center is nothing, whereas the pe- 58 Su Xiaokang, “Traditional Resources and 60 Modernization: A Talk with Professor Tu Wei- riphery is everything,” but undeni- ming in Paris,” Minzhu Zhongguo (Democratic ably, the fruitful interaction among a va- China) 1 (2) (June 1990): 52–55. 60 Professor Yu Ying-shih of Princeton, per- 59 Tu Wei-ming, “Toward a Third Epoch of haps in jest, proposed this as the theme of his Confucian Humanism: A Background Under- essay. If his schedule had permitted him to standing,” in Irene Eber, ed., Confucianism: write a paper for the present volume, he would Dynamics of Tradition (New York: Macmillan, have underscored the intellectual and political 1986), 3–21. signi½cance of the periphery in cultural China.

166 Dædalus Fall 2005 riety of economic, political, social, and ture to the provocative inquiry into the Cultural China: cultural forces at work along the periph- meaning of being Chinese. the periphery will activate the dynamics of cultural ery as the China. acknowledgments center The exodus of many of the most bril- I am indebted to David Chu and Ros- liant minds from the mainland, the emi- anne Hall for searching criticisms of gration of Chinese professionals from early versions of this paper. Hong Kong, and the remigration of middle-class Chinese from Southeast Asia to North America and Australia suggest that it is neither shameful nor regrettable to voluntarily alienate oneself from a political regime that has become culturally insensitive, publicly unaccount- able, and oppressive to basic human rights. The meaning of being Chinese is basically not a political question; it is a human concern pregnant with ethical- religious implications. Is it possible to live a meaningful life as a Chinese individual if the dignity of one’s humanity is lost? Does citizenship of a Chinese national state guarantee one’s Chineseness? As a precondition for maintaining one’s Chineseness, is it necessary to become a full participating citizen of one’s adopted country? While the overseas Chinese (the second symbolic universe) may seem forever peripheral to the meaning of being Chi- nese, can they assume an effective role in creatively constructing a new vision of Chineseness that is more in tune with Chinese history and in sympathetic res- onance with Chinese culture? Is it possible and even desirable for someone in the third symbolic universe who is not pro½cient in the Chinese language and who has no Chinese family ties by birth or marriage to acquire an understanding of Chinese culture such that he or she can greatly shape the intellectual discourse on cultural China and signi½cantly contribute to the de½nition of being Chinese? An obvious no to the ½rst two and a resounding yes to each of the remaining questions will give rich tex-

Dædalus Fall 2005 167 Amartya Sen

Indian traditions & the Western imagination

This essay is concerned with Western ty has perhaps the largest atheistic and images of Indian intellectual traditions materialist literature of all the ancient and the interactions between those rep- civilizations. To be sure, this account- resentations and a contemporary “inter- ing of the amount of unorthodox writing nal” understanding of Indian culture.1 I may be a little misleading, since Indian focus particularly on the elementary di- traditions are characterized by some versities that characterize Indian society prolixity. For example, the Sanskrit epic and its intellectual traditions, as well as Mahabharata, which is often compared on the biases that result from paying in- with the Iliad and the Odyssey, is in fact adequate attention to them. In an obvi- seven times as long as the Iliad and the ous way, this applies to seeing India as Odyssey put together. One of the more a “mainly Hindu” country (as Western striking Bengali verses I remember from newspapers often describe India, as do my childhood is a lamentation about the the newly powerful Hindu political par- tragedy of death in a nineteenth-century ties within India); this “mainly Hindu” poem: “Just consider how terrible the country is also the third-largest Muslim day of your death will be. / Others will country in the world (with nearly 110 go on speaking, and you will not be able million Muslims). to respond.” But even this extreme fond- Less conspicuously, the contrast ap- ness for speech is associated with an plies also to Indian intellectual tradi- enormous heterogeneity of programs tions. This home of endless spirituali- and preoccupations. Irreducible diversity is perhaps the most important feature Amartya Sen, recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize of Indian intellectual traditions. in Economics, has been a Fellow of the American The self-images (or “internal identi- Academy since 1981. Sen is Lamont University ties”) of Indians have been extremely af- Professor and Professor of Economics and Philos- ophy at Harvard University, positions he held at 1 This essay draws on an earlier article entitled the time of this essay’s appearance in the Spring “India and the West,” The New Republic (June 7, 1997 issue of “Dædalus.” He also served as Mas- 1993). For helpful discussions, I am grateful to Akeel Bilgrami, Sugata Bose, Barun De, Jean ter of Trinity College in Cambridge, U.K., be- Drèze, Ayesha Jalal, Dharma Kumar, V. K. Ra- tween 1998 and 2004. machandran, Tapan Raychaudhuri, Emma Rothschild, Lloyd Rudolph, Suzanne Rudolph, © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts Ashutosh Varshney, Myron Weiner, and Nur & Sciences Yalman.

168 Dædalus Fall 2005 fected by colonialism over the past cen- rialist history of India and the Hindu na- Indian traditions turies and are much influenced–both tionalist picturing of India’s past, even & the collaterally and dialectically–by the im- though the former image is that of a gro- Western pact of outside imagery (what we may tesquely primitive culture whereas the imagination call “external identity”). However, the latter representation is dazzlingly glori- direction of the influence of Western ous. images on internal Indian identities is The special characteristics of the not altogether straightforward. In re- Western approaches to India have en- cent years, separatist resistance to West- couraged a disposition to focus partic- ern cultural hegemony has led to the cre- ularly on the religious and spiritual elation of signi½cant intellectual move- ements in Indian culture. There has al- ments in many postcolonial societies– so been a tendency to emphasize the not least in India. This has particularly contrast between what is taken to be drawn attention to the important fact “Western rationality” and the cultiva- that the self-identity of postcolonial so- tion of what “Westerners” would see cieties is deeply affected by the power as “irrational” in Indian intellectual tra- of the colonial cultures and their forms ditions. While Western critics may ½nd of thought and classi½cation. Those “antirationalism” to be defective and who prefer to pursue a more “indige- crude, and Indian cultural separatists nous” approach often opt for a charac- may ½nd it cogent and penetrating (and terization of Indian culture and society perhaps even “rational” in some deeper that is rather self-consciously “distant” sense), they nevertheless agree on the from Western traditions. There is much existence of a simple and sharp contrast interest in “recovering” a distinctly In- between the two heritages. The issue dian focus in Indian culture. that has to be scrutinized is whether I would argue that this stance does not such a bipolar contrast is at all present take adequate note of the dialectical as- in that form. pects of the relationship between India I will discuss these questions and ar- and the West and, in particular, tends gue that focusing on India’s “special- to disregard the fact that the external ness” misses, in important ways, crucial images of India in the West have often aspects of Indian culture and traditions. tended to emphasize (rather than down- The deep-seated heterogeneity of Indian play) the differences–real or imagined– traditions is neglected in these homoge- between India and the West. Indeed, I nized interpretations (even though the propose that there are reasons why there interpretations themselves are of differ- has been a considerable Western incli- ent kinds). My focus will be particular- nation in the direction of “distancing” ly on images of Indian intellectual tradi- Indian culture from the mainstream of tions, rather than on its creative arts and Western traditions. The contemporary other features of social life. After distin- reinterpretations of India (including the guishing between three of the dominant speci½cally “Hindu” renditions), which approaches in Western interpretations emphasize Indian particularism, join of Indian intellectual traditions, I will forces in this respect with the “external” consider what may appear to be the imaging of India (in accentuating the overall consequence of these approaches distinctiveness of Indian culture). In- in Western images of India and its im- deed, it can be argued that there is much pact on both external and internal iden- in common between James Mill’s impe- tities.

Dædalus Fall 2005 169 Amartya A dissimilarity of perceptions has been talism and its ideas about the Orient.”3 Sen an important characteristic of Western I would argue that unless one chooses interpretations of India, and several dif- to focus on the evolution of a speci½c ferent and competing conceptions of conceptual tradition (as Said, in effect, that large and complex culture have been does), “internal consistency” is precise- influential in the West. The diverse in- ly the thing that is terribly hard to ½nd terpretations of India in the West have in the variety of Western conceptions tended to work to a considerable extent of India. There are several fundamen- in the same direction (that of accentuat- tally contrary ideas and images of India, ing India’s spirituality) and have rein- and they have quite distinct roles in the forced each other in their effects on in- Western understanding of the country ternal identities of Indians. But this is and also in influencing self-perceptions not because the distinct approaches to of Indians. India are not fundamentally different; Attempts from outside India to under- they certainly are very disparate. The stand and interpret the country’s tradi- similarity lies more in their impact–giv- tions can be, I would argue, put into at en the special circumstances and the di- least three distinct categories, which I alectical processes–than in their con- shall call exoticist approaches, magisterial tent. approaches, and curatorial approaches.4 The analysis to be pursued here would The ½rst (exoticist) category concentrates undoubtedly invite comparison and con- on the wondrous aspects of India. The trast with Edward Said’s justly famous focus here is on what is different, what is analysis of “Orientalism.” Said analyzes strange in the country that, as Hegel put the construction of the “Orient” in it, “has existed for millennia in the imag- Western imagination. As he puts it, “The ination of the Europeans.” Orient is an idea that has a history and The second (magisterial) category a tradition of thought, imagery, and vo- strongly relates to the exercise of imperi- cabulary that have given it reality and al power and sees India as a subject terri- presence in and for the West.”2 This essay tory from the point of view of its British has a much narrower focus than Said’s, governors. This outlook assimilates a viz. India, but there is clearly an overlap sense of superiority and guardianhood of subject matter since India is a part of needed to deal with a country that James the “Orient.” The main difference is at Mill de½ned as “that great scene of Brit- the thematic level. Said focuses on uni- ish action.” While a great many British formity and consistency in a particular- observers did not fall into this category ly influential Western characterization (and some non-British ones did), it is of the Orient, whereas I shall be dealing hard to dissociate this category from the with several contrasting and conflicting task of governing the Raj. Western approaches to understanding The third (curatorial) category is the India. most catholic of the three and includes Said explains that his work “deals principally not with a correspondence 3 Ibid., 5. between Orientalism and Orient, but with the internal consistency of Orien- 4 In the earlier article “India and the West” on which this essay draws, the third category was 2 Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: called “investigative” rather than “curatorial”; Random House, 1978; Vintage Books, 1979), 5; the latter is more speci½c and I believe some- italics added. what more appropriate.

170 Dædalus Fall 2005 various attempts at noting, classifying, unfamiliar things is certainly among the Indian traditions and exhibiting diverse aspects of Indian possible reasons. It need not be seen as a & the culture. Unlike the exoticist approaches, ½gment of the deluded scientist’s imagi- Western a curatorial approach does not look only nation, nor as a tactical excuse for some imagination for the strange (even though the “differ- other, ulterior preoccupation. Nor does ent” must have more “exhibit value”), the pervasive relevance of different types and unlike the magisterial approaches, of motivation have the effect of making it is not weighed down by the impact of all the different observational ½ndings the ruler’s priorities (even though the equally arbitrary. There are real lines to magisterial connection would be hard be drawn between inferences dominated to avoid altogether when the author is al- by rigid preconceptions (for example, in so a member of the ruling imperial elite, the “magisterial” approaches, to be disas they sometimes were). For these rea- cussed presently) and those that are not sons, there is more freedom from pre- so dominated. conceptions in this third category. On There is an interesting methodological the other hand, the curatorial approach- history here. The fact that knowledge is es have perspectives of their own, with a often associated with power is a recogni- general interest in seeing the object–in tion that had often received far too little this case, India–as very special and ex- attention in traditional social theories traordinarily interesting. of knowledge. But in recent social stud- Other categories can be proposed that ies, the remedying of that methodologi- are not covered by any of the three. Also, cal neglect has been so comprehensive the established approaches can be reclas- that we are now in some danger of ig- si½ed according to some other organizing noring other motivations altogether that principle. I am not claiming any grand may not link directly with the seeking de½nitive status of this way of seeing the of power. While it is true that any use- more prominent Western approaches to ful knowledge gives its possessor some India. However, for the purpose of this power in one form or another, this may essay, I believe this threefold categoriza- not be the most remarkable aspect of tion is useful. that knowledge, nor the primary reason for which this knowledge is sought. In- I shall begin by considering the curator- deed, the process of learning can accom- ial approaches. But ½rst I must deal with modate considerable motivational varia- a methodological issue, in particular, the tions without becoming a functionalist prevalent doubts in contemporary social enterprise of some grosser kind. An epis- theory about the status of intellectual temic methodology that sees the pursuit curiosity as a motivation for knowledge. of knowledge as entirely congruent with In particular, there is much skepticism the search for power is a great deal more about the possibility of any approach cunning than wise. It can needlessly un- to learning that is innocent of power. dermine the value of knowledge in sat- That skepticism is justi½ed to some ex- isfying curiosity and interest; it signi½- tent since the motivational issues under- cantly weakens one of the profound lying any investigation may well relate to characteristics of human beings. power relations, even when that connec- The curatorial approach relates to sys- tion is not immediately visible. tematic curiosity. People are interested Yet people seek knowledge for many in other cultures and different lands, and different reasons, and curiosity about investigations of a country and its tradi-

Dædalus Fall 2005 171 Amartya tions have been vigorously pursued investigations, there are a great many Sen throughout human history. Indeed, the examples of serious Arabic studies of development of civilization would have Indian intellectual traditions around been very different had this not been the that time.6 Brahmagupta’s pioneering case. The exact motivation for these in- Sanskrit treatise on astronomy had ½rst vestigations can vary, but the inquiries been translated into Arabic in the eighth need not be hopelessly bound by some century (Alberuni retranslated it three overarching motivational constraint centuries later), and several works on (such as those associated with the exoti- medicine, science, and philosophy had cist or magisterial approaches). Rather, an Arabic rendering by the ninth cen- the pursuit may be driven primarily by tury. It was through the Arabs that the intellectual interests and concerns. This Indian decimal system and numerals is not to deny that the effects of these in- reached Europe, as did Indian writings vestigative pursuits may go well beyond in mathematics, science, and literature. the motivating interests and concerns, In the concluding chapter of his book nor that there could be mixed motivations on India, Alberuni describes the motiva- of various kinds, in which power relation behind his work thus: “We think tions play a collateral role. But to deny now that what we have related in this the role of curiosity and interest as pow- book will be suf½cient for any one who erful motivational features in their own wants to converse with [the Indians], right would be to miss something rather and to discuss with them questions of important. For the curatorial approach- religion, science, or literature, on the es, that connection is quite central. very basis of their own civilization.”7 He is particularly aware of the dif½culties of A ½ne example of a curatorial achieving an understanding of a foreign approach to understanding India can land and people, and speci½cally warns be found in Alberuni’s Ta’rikh al-hind the reader about it: (The History of India), written in Arabic . . . in all manners and usages, [the Indi- in the early eleventh century.5 Alberuni, ans] differ from us to such a degree as to who was born in Central Asia in a.d. frighten their children with us, with our 973, ½rst came to India accompanying dress, and our ways and customs, and as the marauding troops of Mahmud of to declare us to be devil’s breed, and our Ghazni. He became very involved with India and mastered Sanskrit; studied 6 See Wilhelm Halbfass, India and Europe: An Indian texts on mathematics, natural Essay in Understanding (New York: State Univ- sciences, literature, philosophy, and reli- ersity of New York Press, 1988), chap. 2. gion; conversed with as many experts as he could ½nd; and investigated social 7 Alberuni’s India, pt. ii, chap. lxxx, 246. The conventions and practices. His book on same Arabic word was commonly used for “Hindu” and “Indian” in Alberuni’s time. While India presents a remarkable account of the English translator had chosen to use “Hin- the intellectual traditions and social cus- dus” here, I have replaced it with “Indians” in toms of early eleventh-century India. view of the context (to wit, Alberuni’s observa- Even though Alberuni’s was almost tions on the inhabitants of India). This is an is- certainly the most impressive of these sue of some interest in the context of the main theme of this essay, since the language used here in the English translation to refer to the 5 See Alberuni’s India, trans. E. C. Sachau, inhabitants of India implicitly involves a cir- ed. A. T. Embree (New York: Norton, 1971). cumscribed ascription.

172 Dædalus Fall 2005 doings as the very opposite of all that is ing year had established the Asiatic Soci- Indian traditions good and proper. By the bye, we must con- ety of Bengal with the active patronage & the fess, in order to be just, that a similar de- of Warren Hastings. In collaboration Western preciation of foreigners not only prevails with scholars such as Charles Wilkins imagination among us and [the Indians], but is com- and Thomas Colebrooke, Jones and the mon to all nations towards each other.8 Asiatic Society did a remarkable job in translating a number of Indian classics While Arab scholarship on India pro- –religious documents (such as the Gita) vides plentiful examples of curatorial as well as legal treatises (particularly, approaches in the external depiction of Manusmriti) and literary works (such as India, they are not, of course, unique in Kalidasa’s Sakuntala´ ). this respect. Chinese travelers Fa Hsien Jones was quite obsessed with India and Hsuan Tsang, who spent many years and declared his ambition “to know In- in India in the ½fth and seventh centu- dia better than any other European ever ries a.d. respectively, provided extensive knew it.” His description of his selected accounts of what they saw. While they ½elds of study included the following had gone to India for Buddhist studies, modest list: their reports cover a variety of Indian subjects, described with much care and . . . the Laws of the Hindus and the Mo- interest. hamedans, Modern Politics and Geogra- Quite a few of the early European phy of Hindustan, Best Mode of Govern- studies of India must also be put in this ing Bengal, Arithmetic and Geometry, and general category. A good example is the Mixed Sciences of the Asiaticks, Medi- Italian Jesuit Roberto Nobili, who went cine, Chemistry, Surgery, and Anatomy to south India in the early seventeenth of the Indians, Natural Productions of century, and whose remarkable schol- India, Poetry, Rhetoric, and Morality of arship in Sanskrit and Tamil permitted Asia, Music of the Eastern Nations, Trade, him to produce quite authoritative Manufacture, Agriculture, and Commerce books on Indian intellectual discussions, of India.9 in Latin as well as in Tamil. Another Je- suit, Father Pons from France, produced One can ½nd many other examples of a grammar of Sanskrit in Latin in the dedicated scholarship among British of- early eighteenth century and also sent ½cers in the East India Company, and a collection of original manuscripts to there can be little doubt that the West- Europe (happily for him, the Bombay ern perceptions of India were profound- customs authorities were not yet in ex- ly influenced by these investigations. istence then). Not surprisingly, the focus here is quite However, the real eruption of Euro- often on those things that are distinctive pean interest in India took place a bit in India. The specialists on India pointed later, in direct response to British–rath- to the uncommon aspects of Indian cul- er than Italian or French–scholarship ture and its intellectual traditions, which on India. A towering ½gure in this intel- were obviously more interesting given lectual transmission is the redoubtable the perspective and motivation of the William Jones, the legal scholar and of- 9 William Jones, “Objects of Enquiry During ½cer of the East India Company, who My Residence in Asia,” included in The Collect- went to India in 1783 and by the followed Works of Sir William Jones, 13 vols. (London: J. Stockdale, 1807; republished, New York: 8 Alberuni’s India, pt. I, chap. I, 20. New York University Press, 1993).

Dædalus Fall 2005 173 Amartya observers.10 As a result, the curatorial was “to make war on those states and Sen approaches could not escape being subdue them.”11 somewhat slanted in their focus. I shall Mill chastised early British adminis- come back to this issue later. trators (like William Jones) for having taken “Hindus to be a people of high civ- I turn now to the second category, the ilization, while they have in reality made magisterial approaches. The task of rul- but a few of the earliest steps in the ing a foreign country is not an easy one progress to civilization.”12 At the end of when its subjects are seen as equals. In a comprehensive attack on all fronts, he this context, it is quite remarkable that came to the conclusion that the Indian the early British administrators in India, civilization was on a par with other infe- even the controversial Warren Hastings, rior ones known to Mill–“very nearly were as respectful of the Indian tradi- the same with that of the Chinese, the tions as they clearly were. The empire Persians, and the Arabians”; he also put was still in its infancy and was being in this category, for good measure, “sub- gradually acquired, rather tentatively ordinate nations, the Japanese, Cochin- (if not in a ½t of absentmindedness). chinese, Siamese, Burmans, and even A good example of a magisterial ap- Malays and Tibetans.”13 proach to India is the classic book on How well informed was Mill in deal- India written by James Mill, published ing with his subject matter? Mill wrote in 1817, on the strength of which he was his book without ever having visited appointed as an of½cial of the East India India. He knew no Sanskrit, nor any Per- Company. Mill’s History of British India sian or Arabic, had practically no knowl- played a major role in introducing the edge of any of the modern Indian lan- British governors of India to a particular guages, and thus his reading of Indian characterization of the country. Mill dis- material was of necessity most limited. puted and dismissed practically every There is another feature of Mill that claim ever made on behalf of Indian cul- clearly influenced his investigations, to ture and its intellectual traditions, con- wit, his inclination to distrust anything cluding that it was totally primitive and stated by native scholars, since they rude. This diagnosis ½t well with Mill’s appeared to him to be liars. “Our ances- general attitude, which supported the tors,” says Mill, “though tough, were idea of bringing a rather barbaric nation sincere; but under the glossing exterior under the benign and reformist adminis- of the Hindu, lies a general disposition tration of the British Empire. Consistent to deceit and per½dy.”14 with his beliefs, Mill was an expansion- Perhaps some examples of Mill’s ist in dealing with the remaining inde- treatment of particular claims of pendent states in the subcontinent. The obvious policy to pursue, he explained, 11 Quoted in Eric Stokes, The English Utilitari- ans and India (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959), 10 I have discussed the “positional” nature of 250. objectivity, depending on the placing of the observer and analyst vis-à-vis the objects being 12 James Mill, The History of British India (Lon- studied, in “Positional Objectivity,” Philosophy don, 1817; republished, Chicago: University of and Public Affairs (1993), and “On Interpreting Chicago Press, 1975), 225–226. India’s Past,” in Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, eds., Nationalism, Democracy and Development: 13 Ibid., 248. State and Politics in India (Delhi: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 1997). 14 Ibid., 247.

174 Dædalus Fall 2005 achievement may be useful to illustrate speci½cally the argument for a rotating Indian traditions the nature of his extremely influential earth and a model of gravitational attrac- & the approach. The invention of the decimal tion (proposed by Aryabhata, who was Western system with place values and the placed born in a.d. 476, and investigated by, imagination use of zero, now used everywhere, as among others, Varahamihira and Brah- well as the so-called Arabic numerals magupta in the sixth and seventh cen- are generally known to be Indian devel- turies). These works were well known in opments. In fact, Alberuni had already the Arab world; as was mentioned earli- mentioned this in his eleventh-century er, Brahmagupta’s book was translated book on India,15 and many European as into Arabic in the eighth century and well as Arab scholars had written on this retranslated by Alberuni in the eleventh. subject.16 Mill dismisses the claim alto- William Jones had been told about these gether on the grounds that “the inven- works in India, and he in turn reported tion of numerical characters must have that statement. Mill expresses total as- been very ancient” and “whether the tonishment at Jones’s gullibility.18 Af- signs used by the Hindus are so peculiar ter ridiculing the absurdity of this attri- as to render it probable that they invent- bution and commenting on the “preten- ed them, or whether it is still more prob- sions and interests” of Jones’s Indian in- able that they borrowed them, are ques- formants, Mill concludes that it was “ex- tions which, for the purpose of ascer- tremely natural that Sir William Jones, taining their progress in civilization, are whose pundits had become acquainted not worth resolving.” with the ideas of European philosophers Mill proceeds then to explain that the respecting the system of the universe, Arabic numerals “are really hieroglyph- should hear from them that those ideas ics” and that the claim on behalf of the were contained in their own books.”19 Indians and the Arabs reflects the con- For purposes of comparison it is useful founding of “the origin of cyphers or to examine Alberuni’s discussion of the numerical characters” with “that of hi- same issue nearly eight hundred years eroglyphic writing.”17 At one level Mill’s earlier, concerning the postulation of a rather elementary error lies in not know- rotating earth and gravitational attrac- ing what a decimal or a place-value sys- tion in the still-earlier writings of Aryab- tem is, but his ignorant smugness can- hata and Brahmagupta: not be understood except in terms of his implicit unwillingness to believe that 18 Mill found in Jones’s beliefs about early In- a very sophisticated invention could dian mathematics and astronomy “evidence of have been managed by such primitive the fond credulity with which the state of socie- people. ty among the Hindus was for a time regarded,” Another interesting example concerns and he was particularly amused that Jones had Mill’s reaction to Indian astronomy and made these attributions “with an air of belief.” Mill, The History of British India, 223–224. On the substantive side, Mill amalgamates the dis- 15 Alberuni’s India, pt. I, chap. xvi, 174–175. tinct claims regarding 1) the principle of attraction, 2) the daily rotation of the earth, and 3) 16 For a modern account of the complex his- the movement of the earth around the sun. tory of this mathematical development, see Aryabhata and Brahmagupta’s concern were George Ifrah, From One to Zero (New York: mainly with the ½rst two, on which speci½c Viking, 1985). assertions were made, unlike on the third.

17 Mill, The History of British India, 219–220. 19 Mill, The History of British India, 223–224.

Dædalus Fall 2005 175 Amartya Brahmagupta says in another place of the Macaulay’s own approach and inclina- Sen same book: “The followers of Aryabhata tions echoed James Mill’s: maintain that the earth is moving and I have no knowledge of either Sanskrit or heaven resting. People have tried to re- Arabic . . . . I am quite ready to take the Ori- fute them by saying that, if such were the ental learning at the valuation of the Ori- case, stones and trees would fall from the entalists themselves. I have never found earth.” But Brahmagupta does not agree one among them who could deny that a with them, and says that that would not single shelf of a good European library necessarily follow from their theory, ap- was worth the whole native literature of parently because he thought that all heavy India and Arabia.23 things are attracted towards the center of the earth.20 This view of the poverty of Indian intellectual traditions played a major part Alberuni himself proceeded to dispute in educational reform in British India, this model, raised a technical question as is readily seen from the 1835 “Minute about one of Brahmagupta’s mathemati- on Indian Education,” written by Ma- cal calculations, referred to a different caulay himself (the quoted remark is book of his own arguing against the pro- actually taken from that document). posed view, and pointed out that the rel- The priorities in Indian education were ative character of movements makes this determined, henceforth, by a different issue less central than one might ½rst emphasis–by the need, as Macaulay think: “The rotation of the earth does argued, for a class of English-educated in no way impair the value of astrono- Indians who could “be interpreters be- my, as all appearances of an astronomic tween us and the millions whom we gov- character can quite as well be explained ern.”24 according to this theory as to the oth- The impact of the magisterial views er.”21 Here, as elsewhere, while arguing of India was not con½ned only to Brit- against an opponent’s views, Alberuni ain and India. Modern documents in tries to present such views with great the same tradition have been influen- involvement and care. The contrast be- tial elsewhere, including in the United tween Alberuni’s curatorial approach States. In a series of long conversations and James Mill’s magisterial pronounce- on India and China conducted by Har- ments could not be sharper. old Isaacs in 1958 with 181 Americans– There are plenty of other examples of academics, professionals in mass media, “magisterial” readings of India in Mill’s government of½cials, missionaries and history. This is of some practical impor- church of½cials, and of½cials of founda- tance, since the book was extremely in- tions, voluntary social-service groups, fluential in the British administration and political organizations–Isaacs and widely praised. It was described by Macaulay as “on the whole the greatest lished, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, historical work which has appeared in 1975), viii. our language since that of Gibbon.”22 23 T. B. Macaulay, “Indian Education: Min- 20 Alberuni’s India, pt. I, chap. xxvi, 276–277. ute of the 2nd February, 1835”; reproduced in G. M. Young, ed., Macaulay: Prose and Poetry 21 Ibid., 277. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952), 722. 22 Quoted in John Clive’s introduction to James Mill, The History of British India (repub- 24 Ibid., 729.

176 Dædalus Fall 2005 found that the two most widely read self was severely attacked in the book, Indian traditions literary sources on India were Rudyard but given his campaign against caste and & the Kipling and Katherine Mayo, the au- untouchability, he might have actually Western thor of the extremely derogatory Moth- welcomed even her exaggerations be- imagination er India.25 Of these, Kipling’s writings cause of its usefully lurid portrayal of would be more readily recognized as caste inequities. But while Gandhi may having something of the “magisterial” have been right to value external criti- approach to them. Lloyd Rudolph de- cism as a way of inducing people to be scribes Mayo’s Mother India thus: self-critical, the impact of the “magisterial approach” certainly gives American First published in 1927, Mother India was perceptions of India a very clear slant.28 written in the context of of½cial and un- of½cial British efforts to generate support in America for British rule in India. I turn now to the “exoticist” approaches to India. Interest in India has often It added contemporary and lurid detail to been stimulated by the observation of the image of Hindu India as irredeemably exotic ideas and views there. Arrian’s and hopelessly impoverished, degraded, and Strabo’s accounts of Alexander the depraved, and corrupt. Mayo’s Mother Great’s spirited conversations with vari- India echoed not only the views of men ous sages of northwest India may or may like Alexander Duff, Charles Grant, not be authentic, but ancient Greek liter- and John Stuart Mill but also those of ature is full of uncommon happenings Theodore Roosevelt, who glori½ed in and thoughts attributed to India. bearing the white man’s burden in Asia Megasthenes’s Indika, describing In- and celebrated the accomplishments of dia in the early third century b.c. imperialism.26 , can claim to be the ½rst outsider’s book on Mahatma Gandhi, while describing India; it created much Greek interest, as Mayo’s book as “a drain inspector’s can be seen from the plentiful references report,” had added that every Indian to it, for example, in the writings of Dio- should read it and seemed to imply, as dorus, Strabo, and Arrian. Megasthenes Ashis Nandy notes, that it is possible had ample opportunity to observe India “to put her criticism to internal use” since, as the envoy of Seleucus Nicator (as an overstern drain inspector’s re- to the court of Chandragupta Maurya, port certainly can be).27 Gandhi him- he spent nearly a decade (between 302 and 291 b.c.) in Pataliputra (the site of 25 See Harold Isaacs, Scratches on Our Minds (Cambridge, Mass.: mit Press, 1958); repub- modern Patna), the capital city of the lished as Images of Asia: American Views of India Mauryan empire. But his superlatively and China (New York: Capricorn Books, 1958). admiring book is also so full of accounts See also the discussion of this issue in the “In- of fantastic objects and achievements troduction” in Sulochana Glazer and Nathan in India that it is hard to be sure what Glazer, eds., Conflicting Images: India and the United States (Glen Dale, Md.: Riverdale, 1990). 28 On this, see Glazer and Glazer, eds., Con- flicting Images. The influence of magisterial 26 Lloyd I. Rudolph, “Gandhi in the Mind of readings on American imaging of India has America,” in Glazer and Glazer, eds., Conflict- been somewhat countered in recent years by ing Images, 166. the political interest in Gandhi’s life and ideas, a variety of sensitive writings on India (from 27 Ashis Nandy, Traditions, Tyranny, and Uto- Erik Erikson to John Kenneth Galbraith), and pias: Essays in the Politics of Awareness (Delhi: the Western success of several Indian novelists Oxford University Press, 1987), 8. in English.

Dædalus Fall 2005 177 Amartya is imagined and what is really being ob- lent depth of the soul characterize their Sen served. work and their pleasure, their morals There are various other accounts of and mythology, their arts.”30 Frederich exotic Indian travels by ancient Greeks. Schlegel not only pioneered studies of The biography of Apollonius of Tiyana Indo-European linguistics (later pur- by Flavius Philostratus in the third cen- sued particularly by Max Muller) but tury a.d. is a good example. In his also brought India fully into his critique search for what was out of the ordinary, of the contemporary West. While in the Apollonius was, we are assured, richly West “man himself has almost become rewarded in India: “I have seen men liv- a machine” and “cannot sink any deep- ing upon the earth and not upon it; de- er,” Schlegel recommended learning fended without walls, having nothing, from the Orient, especially India. He and yet possessing all things.”29 How also guaranteed that “the Persian and such contradictory things can be seen German languages and cultures, as well by the same person from the same ob- as the Greek and the old Roman, may all servational position may not be obvious, be traced back to the Indian.”31 To this but the bewitching charm of all this for list, Schopenhauer added the New Tes- the seeker of the exotic can hardly be tament, informing us that, in contrast doubted. with the Old, the New Testament “must Exotic interests in India can be seen somehow be of Indian origin: this is at- again and again, from its early history tested by its completely Indian ethics, to the present day. From Alexander lis- which transforms morals into asceti- tening to the gymnosophists’ lectures cism, its pessimism, and its avatar (i.e., to contemporary devotees hearing the the person of Christ).”32 sermons of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Not surprisingly, many of the early Shri Rajneesh, there is a crowded line- enthusiasts were soon disappointed in age. Perhaps the most important exam- not ½nding in Indian thought what they ple of intellectual exoticism related to had themselves put there, and many India can be seen in the European philo- of them went into a phase of withdraw- sophical discussions in the eighteenth al and criticism. Some of the stalwarts, and early nineteenth century, among the Schlegel in particular, recanted vigor- Romantics in particular. ously. Others, including Hegel, outlined Important ½gures in the Romantic fairly negative views of Indian traditions movement, including the Schlegel and presented loud denials of the claim brothers, Schelling, and others, were of preeminence of Indian culture–a profoundly influenced by rather magni½ed readings of Indian culture. From 30 J. G. Herder, Auch eine Philosophie der Ge- Herder, the German philosopher and a schichte: Samtliche Werke, translated by Halb- critic of the rationalism of the European fass, India and Europe, 70. Enlightenment, we get the magni½cent news that “the Hindus are the gentlest 31 Translations by Halbfass, India and Europe, branch of humanity” and that “moder- 74–75. Halbfass provides an extensive study ation and calm, a soft feeling and a si- of these European interpretations of Indian thought and the reactions and counterreac- tions to them. 29 Quoted in John Drew, India and the Romantic Imagination (Delhi and New York: Oxford Uni- 32 A. Schopenhauer, Parerga und Paralipomena; versity Press, 1987), 95. translated by Halbfass, India and Europe, 112.

178 Dædalus Fall 2005 claim that was of distinctly European a chorus of adoration at the lyrical spiri- Indian traditions origin. When Samuel Coleridge asked: tuality of Rabindranath Tagore’s poetry & the “What are / These potentates of inmost but followed it soon afterwards with a Western Ind?”33 he was really asking a question thorough disregard and ½rm denuncia- imagination about Europe, rather than about India.34 tion. Tagore was a Bengali poet of tre- In addition to veridical weakness, the mendous creativity and range (even exoticist approach to India has an ines- though his poetry does not translate eas- capable fragility and transience that can ily–not even the spiritual ones that were be seen again and again. A wonderful so applauded) and also a great storytell- thing is imagined about India and sent er, novelist, and essayist; he remains a into a high orbit, and then it is brought dominant literary ½gure in Bangladesh crashing down. All this need not be such and India. The versatile and innovative a tragedy when the act of launching is writer that the Bengalis know well is not done by (or with the active cooperation the sermonizing spiritual guru put to- of ) the putative star. Not many would gether in London; nor did he ½t any bet- weep, for example, for Maharishi Ma- ter the caricature of “Stupendranath hesh Yogi when the Beatles stopped li- Begorr” to be found in Bernard Shaw’s onizing him and left suddenly; in an- “A Glimpse of the Domesticity of Frank- swer to the Maharishi’s question of why lyn Barnabas.” were they leaving, John Lennon said, “You are the cosmic one; you ought to These different approaches have had know.”35 very diverse impacts on the understand- But it is a different matter altogether ing of Indian intellectual traditions in when both the boom and the bust are the West. The exoticist and magisterial thrust upon the victim. One of the most approaches have bemused and befud- discouraging episodes in literary recep- dled that understanding even as they tion occurred early in this century, when have drawn attention to India in the Ezra Pound, W. B. Yeats, and others led West. The curatorial approaches have 33 See John H. Muirhead, Coleridge as a Philoso- been less guilty of this, and indeed his- pher (London: G. Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1930), torically have played a major part in 283–284, and Drew, India and the Romantic bringing out and drawing attention to Imagination, chap. 6. the different aspects of Indian culture, including its nonmystical and nonexotic 34 The nature of exoticist reading has typically had a strongly “Hindu” character. This was, features. Nevertheless, given the nature in some ways, present even in William Jones’s of the curatorial enterprise, the focus in- curatorial investigations (though he was him- evitably leans towards that which is dif- self a scholar in Arabic and Persian as well), but ferent in India, rather than what is simi- he was to some extent redressing the relative lar to the West. In emphasizing the dis- neglect of Sanskrit classics in the previous peri- tinctiveness of India, even the curatorial ods (even though the version of the Upanishads that Jones ½rst read was the Persian translation approaches have sometimes contributed prepared by the Moghul prince Dara Shikoh, to the accentuation of contrasts rather Emperor Akbar’s great-grandson). The Euro- than commonalities with Western tradi- pean Romantics, on the other hand, tended to tions, though not in the rather extreme identify India with variants of Hindu religious form found in the exoticist and magiste- thought. rial approaches. 35 William Davis, The Rich (London: Sidgwick The magisterial approaches played and Jackson, 1982), 99. quite a vigorous role in the running of

Dædalus Fall 2005 179 Amartya the British Empire. Even though the Raj some years ago, near the Aldwych sta- Sen is dead and gone, the impact of the asso- tion in London, viewing with disgust a ciated images survives, not least in the thousand posters pasted everywhere car- United States (as discussed earlier). To rying pictures of the obese–and holy– some extent, the magisterial authors also physique of Guru Maharajji (then a great reacted against the admiration of India rage in London). Our dedicated racist that can be seen in the writings of cura- was busy writing “fat wog” diligently torial observers of India. For example, under each of the pictures. In a short both Mill and Macaulay were vigorous- while that particular wog would be gone, ly critical of the writings of authors such but I do not doubt that the “disgusted of as William Jones, and there are some im- Aldwych” would scribble “lean wog” or portant dialectics here. The respectful “medium-sized wog” under other curatorial approaches painted a picture posters now. of Indian intellectual traditions that was It might be thought that since the much too favorable for the imperial cul- exoticist approaches give credit where ture of the nineteenth century, and con- it may not be due and the magisterial tributed to the vehemence of the magis- approaches withhold credit where it may terial denunciations of those traditions. well be due, the two might neutralize By the time Mill and Macaulay were each other nicely. But they work in very writing, the British Indian empire was asymmetrical ways. Magisterial cri- well established as a lasting and exten- tiques tend to blast the rationalist and sive enterprise, and the “irresponsibili- humanist aspects of India with the great- ty” of admiring the native intellectual est force (this is as true of James Mill as traditions–permissible in the previous of Katharine Mayo), whereas exoticist century for early servants of the East admirations tend to build up the mysti- India Company–was hard to sustain as cal and extrarational aspects with par- the favored reading of India in the con- ticular care (this has been so from Apol- solidated empire. lonius of Tyana down to the Hare Krish- Turning to the exoticist approaches, na activists of today). The result of the the outbursts of fascinated wonder two taken together is to wrest the under- bring India into Western awareness in standing of Indian culture forcefully big tides of bewildering attention. But away from its rationalist aspects. Indi- then they ebb, leaving only a trickle of an traditions in mathematics, logic, sci- hardened exoticists holding forth. There ence, medicine, linguistics, or episte- may well be, after a while, another tide. mology may be well known to the West- In describing the rise and decline of ern specialist, but they play little part in Rabindranath Tagore in London’s liter- the general Western understanding of ary circles, E. M. Forster remarked that India.36 Mysticism and exoticism, in London was a city of “boom and bust,” contrast, have a more hallowed position but that description applies more gener- in that understanding. ally (that is, not con½ned only to literary circles in London) to the Western appre- Western perceptions and character- ciation of exotic aspects of Eastern cul- izations of India have had considerable tures. 36 On this issue, see Bimal Matilal, Perceptions The tides, while they last, can be hard (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986). See also work though. I remember feeling quite Ronald Inden, Imagining India (Oxford: Black- sad for a dejected racist whom I saw, well, 1990).

180 Dædalus Fall 2005 influence on the self-perceptions of In- past has extensively focused on the ob- Indian traditions dians themselves. This is clearly con- jects of exoticist praise, concentrating & the nected to India’s colonial past and con- more on the mystical and the antira- Western tinued deference to what is valued in the tionalist, for which many in the West imagination West.37 However, the relationship need have such admiration.39 not take the form of simple acceptance– Second, the process ½t into the poli- it sometimes includes strategic respons- tics of elitist nationalism in colonial In- es to the variety of Western perceptions dia and fed the craving for a strong intel- of India that suit the interests of inter- lectual ground to stand on to confront nal imaging. We have to distinguish be- the imperial rulers. Partha Chatterjee tween some distinct aspects of the influ- discusses the emergence of this attitude ence that Western images have had on very well: Indian internal identities. . . . anticolonial nationalism creates its First, the European exoticists’ inter- own domain of sovereignty within colo- pretations and praise found in India a nial society well before its political battle veritable army of appreciative listeners, with the imperial power. It does this by who were particularly welcoming given dividing the world of social institutions the badly damaged self-con½dence re- and practices into two domains–the sulting from colonial domination. The material and the spiritual. The material admiring statements were quoted again is the domain of the “outside,” of the and again, and the negative remarks by economy and of statecraft, of science the same authors (Herder, Schlegel, Goe- and technology, a domain where the West the, and others) were systematically had proved its superiority and the East overlooked. had succumbed. In this domain, then, In his Discovery of India, Jawaharlal Western superiority had to be acknowl- Nehru comments on this phenomenon: 39 While the constitution of independent In- There is a tendency on the part of Indi- dia has been self-consciously secular, the ten- an writers, to which I have also partly dency to see India as a land of the Hindus re- succumbed, to give selected extracts and mains quite strong. The confrontation between “secularists” and “communitarians” has been quotations from the writings of European an important feature of contemporary India, scholars in praise of old Indian literature and the identi½cation of Indian culture in main- and philosophy. It would be equally easy, ly Hindu terms plays a part in this. While it is indeed much easier, to give other extracts certainly possible to be both secular and com- giving an exactly opposite viewpoint.38 munitarian (as Rajeev Bhargava has noted in “Giving Secularism Its Due,” Economic and Po- In the process of accepting the exoticist litical Weekly, July 9, 1994), the contemporary praise, the Indian interpretation of the divisions in India tend to make the religious and communal identities largely work against 37 On this issue in general, and on the hold of India’s secular commitments (as Bhargava also “a predominantly third-person perspective” in notes). I have tried to scrutinize these issues in self-perception, see Akeel Bilgrami, “What Is a my paper “Secularism and Its Discontents,” in Muslim? Fundamental Commitment and Cul- Kaushik Basu and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, eds., tural Identity,” Critical Inquiry 18 (4) (1992). Unravelling the Nation: Sectarian Conflict and In- dia’s Secular Identity (Delhi: Penguin, 1996). See 38 Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India also the other papers in that collection, and the (Calcutta: Signet Press, 1946; centenary edi- essays included in Bose and Jalal, eds., National- tion, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989), ism, Democracy and Development: State and Poli- 158. tics in India.

Dædalus Fall 2005 181 Amartya edged and its accomplishments careful- of colonial history, focusing more on Sen ly studied and replicated. The spiritual, the rural masses and the exploited ple- on the other hand, is an “inner” domain beians–a broad group often identi½ed bearing the “essential” marks of cultural by the capacious term “subalterns.”41 identity. The greater one’s success in imi- The move is entirely appropriate in its tating Western skills in the material do- context (in fact, much overdue), and in main, therefore, the greater the need to understanding colonial history, this is a preserve the distinctiveness of one’s spiri- very important corrective. tual culture. This formula is, I think, a fun- While this shift in focus rejects the damental feature of anticolonial nation- emphasis on elitist intellectual traditions alisms in Asia and Africa.40 in general (both of the materialist and the nonmaterialist kind), it is in many There was indeed such an attempt to ways easier to relate the religious and present what was perceived to be the spiritual traditions of the elite to the “strong aspects” of Indian culture, dis- practices and beliefs of the nonelite. The tinguished from the domain, as Chatter- cutting edge of science and mathematics jee puts it, “where the West had proved is inevitably related to formal education its superiority and the East had suc- and preparation. In this context, the im- cumbed.” mense backwardness of India in mass Chatterjee’s analysis can be supple- education (an inheritance from the Brit- mented by taking further note of the ish period but not much remedied yet) dialectics of the relationship between compounds the dissociation of elite sci- Indian internal identity and its external ence and mathematics from the lives of images. The diagnosis of strength in that the nonelite. Acceptance of the achieve- nonmaterialist domain was as much ments of Indian spirituality tends to helped by the exoticist admiration for look less “alienated” from the masses Indian spirituality as the acceptance of than the achievements in ½elds that de- India’s weakness in the domain of sci- mand more exacting formal education. ence, technology, and mathematics was Thus, the exoticists’ praise of India is reinforced by the magisterial dismissals more easily accepted by those who are of India’s materialist and rationalist tra- particularly careful not to see India in ditions. The emphases on internal iden- elitist terms. tity that emerged in colonial India bear The fact remains, however, that illit- powerful marks of dialectical encounters eracy is a deprivation. The issue of in- with Western perceptions. terclass justice cannot be a matter only Third, as the focus has shifted in re- of recognizing the real role of the subal- cent decades from elitist colonial histo- terns in history (for example, in antico- ry to the role of the nonelite, the concen- lonial national movements), important tration on the intellectual traditions of the elite has weakened. Here we run into one of the most exciting developments 41 The most effective move in that direction in historiography in India. There has came under the leadership of Ranajit Guha; see his introductory essay in Subaltern Studies I: been a signi½cant shift of attention from Writings on South Asian History and Society, ed. the elite to the underdogs in the writing Ranajit Guha (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982). See also the collection of “subaltern” 40 Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Frag- essays edited by Ranajit Guha and Gayatri ments (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Chakravorty Spivak, Selected Subaltern Studies Press, 1993), 6. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).

182 Dædalus Fall 2005 though it is. It is also a matter of reme- with the typically classical understand- Indian traditions dying the immense inequalities in edu- ing of the intellectual heritage of the & the cational and other opportunities that se- West produces a false contrast between Western verely limit, even today, the actual lives the respective intellectual traditions. In imagination of the subalterns. comparing Western thoughts and cre- Interestingly enough, even by the elev- ations with those in India, the appropri- enth century, the seriousness of this loss ate counterpoints of Aristotelian or Sto- was noted by Alberuni himself (one of ic or Euclidian analyses are not the tradi- the major curatorial authors whose work tional beliefs of the Indian rural masses was referred to earlier). Alberuni spoke or of the local wise men but the compa- of the real deprivation of “those castes rably analytical writings of, say, Kautilya who are not allowed to occupy them- or Nagarjuna or Aryabhata. “Socrates selves with science.”42 This substantive meets the Indian peasant” is not a good deprivation remains largely unremedied way to contrast the respective intellectu- even today (except in particular regions al traditions. such as Kerala), with half of the adult population of India (and nearly two- The internal identities of Indians draw thirds of the adult women) still remain- on different parts of India’s diverse tra- ing illiterate.43 In understanding the na- ditions. The observational leanings of ture of Indian cultures and traditions, Western approaches have had quite a focusing mainly on the achievements major impact–positively and negative- –rather than deprivations–of the In- ly–on what contributes to the Indian dian subaltern can yield a deceptive con- self-image that emerged in the colonial trast. period and survives today. The relation- This shift in emphasis has also, to ship has several dialectical aspects, con- some extent, pushed the interpretation nected to the sensitivity towards selec- of India’s past away from those achieve- tive admirations and dismissals from ments that require considerable formal the cosmopolitan West as well as to the training. While this move makes sense mechanics of colonial confrontations. in some contexts, a comparison of a self- The differences between the curatori- consciously nonelitist history of India al, magisterial, and exoticist approaches to Western understanding of Indian in- ii tellectual traditions lie, to a great extent, 42 Alberuni’s India, chap. , 32. in the varying observational positions 43 Indeed, in conceptualizing “the good life” from which India has been examined even from the perspective of the deprived un- and its overall images drawn. The de- derdog, it would be a mistake to ignore alto- pendence on perspective is not a special gether the intellectual achievements of the elite, characteristic of the imaging of India since part of the deprivation of the exploited alone. It is, in fact, a pervasive general lies precisely in being denied participation in these achievements. While Marx might have feature in description and identi½ca- 44 exaggerated a little in his eloquence about “the tion. “What is India really like?” is idiocy of the village life,” there is nevertheless a substantial point here in identifying the na- 44 I have tried to discuss this general issue in ture of social deprivation. There is, in fact, no “Description as Choice,” Oxford Economic Pa- basic contradiction in choosing the subaltern pers 32 (1980) (reprinted in Choice, Welfare and perspective of history and taking systematic Measurement [Oxford: Blackwell; Cambridge, note of the scholarly accomplishments of the Mass.: mit Press, 1982]), and in “Positional elite. Objectivity,” Philosophy and Public Affairs (1993).

Dædalus Fall 2005 183 Amartya a good question for a foreign tourist’s (Buddhism) is of Indian origin, and, fur- Sen handbook precisely because the descrip- thermore, the atheistic schools of Carva- tion there may sensibly be presented ka and Lokayata have generated exten- from the particular position of being a sive arguments that have been serious- foreign tourist in India. But there are ly studied by Indian religious scholars other positions, other contexts, other themselves.46 Heterodoxy runs through- concerns. out the early documents, and even the The three approaches investigated ancient epic Ramayana, which is often here have produced quite distinct views cited by contemporary Hindu activists of Indian intellectual history, but their as the holy book of the divine Rama’s overall impact has been to exaggerate life, contains dissenting characters. For the nonmaterial and arcane aspects of example, Rama is lectured to by a world- Indian traditions compared to its more ly pundit called Javali on the folly of his rationalistic and analytical elements. religious beliefs: “O Rama, be wise, While the curatorial approaches have there exists no world but this, that is cer- been less guilty of this, their focus on tain! Enjoy that which is present and what is really different in India has, to cast behind thee that which is unpleas- some extent, also contributed to it. But ant.”47 the bulk of the contribution has come What is in dispute here is not the rec- from the exoticist admiration of India (par- ognition of mysticism and religious ini- ticularly of its spiritual wonders) and the tiatives in India, which are certainly magisterial dismissals (particularly of its plentiful, but the overlooking of all the claims in mathematics, science, and ana- other intellectual activities that are also lytical pursuits). abundantly present. In fact, despite the The nature of these slanted emphases grave sobriety of Indian religious preoc- has tended to undermine an adequately cupations, it would not be erroneous to pluralist understanding of Indian intel- say that India is a country of fun and lectual traditions. While India has inher- games in which chess was probably ited a vast religious literature, a large invented, badminton originated, polo wealth of mystical poetry, grand specu- emerged, and the ancient Kamasutra told lation on transcendental issues, and so people how to have joy in sex. Indeed, on, there is also a huge–and often pio- Georges Ifrah quotes a medieval Arab neering–literature, stretching over two poet from Baghdad called al-Sabhadi, and a half millennia, on mathematics, who said that there were “three things logic, epistemology, astronomy, physiol- on which the Indian nation prided it- ogy, linguistics, phonetics, economics, self: its method of reckoning, the game political science, and psychology, among of chess, and the book titled Kalila wa other subjects concerned with the here Dimna [a collection of legends and fa- and now.45 46 For example, the fourteenth-century book Even on religious subjects, the only Sarvadarsanasamgraha (Collection of All Philos- world religion that is ½rmly agnostic ophies) by Madhava Acarya (himself a good Vaishnavite Hindu) devotes the ½rst chapter 45 This contrast is discussed in my joint paper of the book to a serious presentation of the with Martha Nussbaum, “Internal Criticism arguments of the atheistic schools. and Indian Rationalist Traditions,” in Michael Krausz, ed., Relativism: Interpretation and Con- 47 English translation from H. P. Shastri, The frontation (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Ramayana of Valmiki (London: Shanti Sadan, Notre Dame Press, 1989). 1959), 389.

184 Dædalus Fall 2005 bles].”48 This is not altogether a differ- Indian traditions ent list from Voltaire’s catalog of the & the important things to come from India: Western “our numbers, our backgammon, our imagination chess, our ½rst principles of geometry, and the fables which have become our own.”49 These selections would not ½t the cultivated Western images of Indian historical traditions, which are typically taken to be ponti½cally serious and un- compromisingly spiritual. Nor would it ½t the way many Indians perceive themselves and their intellectual past, especially those who take a “separatist” position on the nature of Indian culture. I have tried to discuss how that disparity has come about and how it is sustained. I have also tried to speculate about how the selective alienation of India from a very substantial part of its past has been nourished by the asymmetrical relationship between India and the West. It is, oddly enough, the rationalist part of India’s tradition that has been affected most by this alienation. The impact of the West on internal identities in India has to be seen in fundamentally dialectical terms.

48 Ifrah, From One to Zero, 434.

49 Voltaire, Les ouevres completes, vol. 124; translated by Halbfass, India and Europe, 59.

Dædalus Fall 2005 185 Robert Frost

On Emerson

On the evening of October 8, 1958 the Amer- rules for oral rhetoric, and his idiom was ican Academy of Arts and Sciences made its tuned for direct communication with respon- ½rst award of the Emerson-Thoreau Medal sive hearers. The printer has no font for the to Robert Frost in recognition of his long and intonation of his voice, the rhythms of his distinguished contribution to the creative arts. speech, its change of pace, its eloquent pauses. His response appears below, as revised by him All who were present carried away an indeli- from his words of that evening. ble impression of the spirit, the personality, As be½tted the eminence of the guest of and the mind of the poet we were proud to honor and the importance of the occasion, salute.–k.b.m. the House of the Academy was ½lled. To accord with Mr. Frost’s wishes, the atmosphere All that admiration for me I am glad was informal and the ceremony simple–that of. I am here out of admiration for Em- of friends honoring a friend. Before dinner he erson and Thoreau. Naturally on this chatted with some of his hosts, and after din- proud occasion I should like to make ner he escaped for a short catnap. When he myself as much of an Emersonian as I took his place before his enthusiastically ap- can. Let me see if I can’t go a long way. plauding audience, it was as a member of You may be interested to know that I the Academy, at home in its House, the man have right here in my pocket a little ½rst whom Amy Lowell called “a neighbor of edition of Emerson’s poetry. His very neighbors.” ½rst was published in England, just as What he then said was essentially a conver- was mine. His book was given me on sation with friends. It followed the higher law account of that connection by Fred of his own feeling rather than any formal Melcher, who takes so much pleasure in bringing books and things together Robert Frost, one of America’s leading twentieth- like that. century poets and a four-time winner of the Pu- I suppose I have always thought I’d litzer Prize, became a Fellow of the American like to name in verse some day my four Academy in 1931. His remarks, given on the night greatest Americans: George Washing- he accepted the American Academy’s first Emer- ton, the general and statesman; Thom- son-Thoreau Medal, appeared in the Fall 1959 as Jefferson, the political thinker; Abra- issue of “Dædalus.” Frost died in 1963. ham Lincoln, the martyr and savior; and fourth, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the poet. © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts I take these names because they are go- & Sciences ing around the world. They are not just

186 Dædalus Fall 2005 local. Emerson’s name has gone as a po- enough to want to be a follower, but On etic philosopher or as a philosophical he had me there. I never got over that. Emerson poet, my favorite kind of both. He came pretty near making me an I have friends it bothers when I am antivocabularian with the passage in accused of being Emersonian, that is, “Monadnock” about our ancient speech. a cheerful Monist, for whom evil does He blended praise and dispraise of the not exist, or if it does exist, needn’t last country people of New Hampshire. As forever. Emerson quotes Burns as speak- an abolitionist he was against their poli- ing to the Devil as if he could mend his tics. Forty percent of them were states- ways. A melancholy dualism is the only rights Democrats in sympathy with the soundness. The question is: is soundness South. They were really pretty bad, my of the essence. own relatives included. My own unsoundness has a strange The God who made New Hampshire history. My mother was a Presbyterian. Taunted the lofty land We were here on my father’s side for With little men;– three hundred years but my mother was fresh a Presbyterian from Scotland. The And if I may be further reminiscent smart thing when she was young was to parenthetically, my friend Amy Lowell be reading Emerson and Poe as it is to- hadn’t much use for them either. “I have day to be reading St. John Perse or T. S. left New Hampshire,” she told me. Why Eliot. Reading Emerson turned her in- in the world? She couldn’t stand the to a Unitarian. That was about the time people. What’s the matter with the peo- I came into the world; so I suppose I ple? “Read your own books and ½nd started a sort of Presbyterian-Unitari- out.” They really differ from other New an. I was transitional. Reading on into Englanders, or did in the days of Frank- Emerson, that is into “Representative lin Pierce. Men” until she got to Swedenborg, the But now to return to the speech that mystic, made her a Swedenborgian. I was his admiration and mine in a burst was brought up in all three of these reli- of poetry in “Monadnock”: gions, I suppose. I don’t know whether I Yet wouldst thou learn our ancient speech was baptized in them all. But as you see These the masters that can teach. it was pretty much under the auspices Fourscore or a hundred words of Emerson. It was all very Emersonian. All their vocal muse affords. Phrases of his began to come to me ear- Yet they turn them in a fashion ly. In that essay on the mystic he makes Past the statesman’s art and passion. Swedenborg say that in the highest heav- Rude poets of the tavern hearth en nothing is arrived at by dispute. Ev- Squandering your unquoted mirth, erybody votes in heaven but everybody That keeps the ground and never soars, votes the same way, as in Russia today. While Jake retorts and Reuben roars. It is only in the second-highest heaven Scoff of yeoman, strong and stark, that things get parliamentary; we get the Goes like bullet to the mark, two-party system or the hydra-headed, And the solid curse and jeer as in France. Never balk the waiting ear. Some of my ½rst thinking about my own language was certainly Emerso- Fourscore or a hundred is seven hun- nian. “Cut these sentences and they dred less than my friend Ivor Richard’s bleed,” he says. I am not submissive basic eight hundred. I used to climb

Dædalus Fall 2005 187 Robert on board a load of shooks (boxes that height be taken.” Of untold worth: it Frost haven’t been set up) just for the pleasure brings home some that should and some I had in the driver’s good use of his hun- that shouldn’t come. Let the psycholo- dred-word limit. This at the risk of lik- gist take notice how unsuccessful he has ing it so much as to lose myself in mere to be. picturesqueness. I was always in favor of I owe more to Emerson than anyone the solid curse as one of the most beauti- else for troubled thoughts about free- ful of ½gures. We were warned against it dom. I had the hurt to get over when I in school for its sameness. It depends for ½rst heard us made fun of by foreigners variety on the tones of saying it and the as the land of the free and the home of situations. the brave. Haven’t we won freedom? Is I had a talk with John Erskine, the ½rst there no such thing as freedom? Well, time I met him, on this subject of sen- Emerson says God tences that may look tiresomely alike, Would take the sun out of the skies short and with short words, yet turn out Ere freedom out of a man. as calling for all sorts of ways of being said aloud or in the mind’s ear, Horatio. and there rings the freedom I choose. I took Emerson’s prose and verse as my Never mind how and where Emerson illustration. Writing is unboring to the disabused me of my notion I may have extent that it is dramatic. been brought up to that the truth would In a recent preface to show my aver- make me free. My truth will bind you sion to being interrupted with notes in slave to me. He didn’t want converts reading a poem, I ½nd myself resorting and followers. He was a Unitarian. I am to Emerson again. I wanted to be too on record as saying that freedom is noth- carried away for that. There was much ing but departure–setting forth–leav- of “Brahma” that I didn’t get to begin ing things behind, brave origination of with but I got enough to make me sure the courage to be new. We may not want I would be back there reading it again freedom. But let us not deceive ourselves some day when I had read more and about what we don’t want. Freedom is lived more; and sure enough, without one jump ahead of formal laws, as in help from dictionary or encyclopedia I planes and even automobiles right now. can now understand every line in it but Let’s see the law catch up with us very one or two. It is a long story of many ex- soon. periences that let me into the secret of: Emerson supplies the emancipating formula for giving an attachment up for But thou, meek lover of the good! an attraction, one nationality for another Find me, and turn thy back on heaven. nationality, one love for another love. If What baffled me was the Christianity you must break free, in “meek lover of the good.” I don’t like Heartily know, obscurity and obfuscation, but I do like When half-gods go dark sayings I must leave the clearing of The gods arrive. to time. And I don’t want to be robbed of the pleasure of fathoming depths for I have seen it invoked in Harper’s Maga- myself. It was a moment for me when I zine to excuse disloyalty to our democra- saw how Shakespeare set bounds to sci- cy in a time like this. But I am not sure ence when he brought in the North Star, of the reward promised. There is such a “whose worth’s unknown although his thing as getting too transcended. There

188 Dædalus Fall 2005 are limits. Let’s not talk socialism. I feel so you can’t ½nd out yourself what it is On projected out from politics with lines all about. Emerson like: A young fellow came to me to com- plain of the department of philosophy Musketaquit, a goblin strong, in his university. There wasn’t a philos- Of shards and flints makes jewels gay; opher in it. “I can’t stand it.” He was They lose their grief who hear his song, really complaining of his situation. He And where he winds is the day of day. wasn’t where he could feel real. But I So forth and brighter fares my stream,– didn’t tell him so I didn’t go into that. Who drink it shall not thirst again; I agreed with him that there wasn’t a No darkness stains its equal gleam, philosopher in his university–there And ages drop in it like rain. was hardly ever more than one at a time in the world–and I advised him to quit. Left to myself, I have gradually come to Light out for somewhere. He hated to see what Emerson was meaning in “Give be a quitter. I told him the Bible says, all to Love” was, Give all to Meaning. “Quit ye, like men.” “Does it,” he said. The freedom is ours to insist on mean- “Where would I go?” Why anywhere ing. almost. Kamchatka, Madagascar, Brazil. The kind of story Steinbeck likes to I found him doing well in the education- tell is about an old labor hero punch- al department of Rio when I was sent on drunk from ½ghting the police in many an errand down there by our govern- strikes, beloved by everybody at head- ment several years later. I had taken too quarters as the greatest living hater of much responsibility for him when I sent tyranny. I take it that the production him glimmering like that. I wrote to him line was his grievance. The only way with troubled conscience and got no an- he could make it mean anything was swer for two whole years. But the story to try to ruin it. He took arms and ½sts has a happy ending. His departure was against it. No one could have given him not suicidal. I had a postcard from him that kind of freedom. He saw it as his this Christmas to tell me he was on Rob- to seize. He was no freedman; he was inson Crusoe’s island Juan Fernandez a free man. The one inalienable right is on his way to Easter Island that it had al- to go to destruction in your own way. ways been a necessity for him some day What’s worth living for is worth dying to see. I would next hear from him in for. What’s worth succeeding in is worth Chile where he was to be employed in failing in. helping restore two colleges. Two! And If you have piled up a great rubbish the colleges were universities! heap of oily rags in the basement for No subversive myself, I think it very your doctor’s thesis and it won’t seem Emersonian of me that I am so sympa- to burst into flame spontaneously, come thetic with subversives, rebels, runners away quickly and without declaring re- out, runners out ahead, eccentrics, and bellion. It will cost you only your Ph.D. radicals. I don’t care how extreme their union card and the respect of the union. enthusiasm so long as it doesn’t land But it will hardly be noticed even to your them in the Russian camp. I always credit in the world. All you have to do is wanted one of them teaching in the to amount to something anyway. The next room to me so my work would be only reprehensible materiality is the ma- cut out for me warning the children tak- terialism of getting lost in your material ing my courses not to take his courses.

Dædalus Fall 2005 189 Robert I am disposed to cheat myself and oth- the monument at Concord that he glo- Frost ers in favor of any poet I am in love with. ri½ed with lines surpassing any other I hear people say the more they love any- ever written about soldiers: one the more they see his faults. Non- By the rude bridge that arched the flood sense. Love is blind and should be left Their flag to April breeze unfurled so. But it hasn’t been hidden in what I Here once the embattled farmers stood have said that I am not quite satis½ed And ½red the shot heard round the world. with the easy way Emerson takes disloyalty. He didn’t know or ignored his Not even Thermopylae has been cele- Blackstone. It is one thing for the desert- brated better. I am not a shriner but two er and another for the deserted. Loyal- things I never happen on unmoved: one, ty is that for the lack of which your gang this poem on stone; and the other, the will shoot you without bene½t of trial by tall shaft seen from Lafayette Park across jury. And serves you right. Be as treach- the White House in Washington. erous as you must be for your ideals, but don’t expect to be kissed goodbye by the idol you go back on. We don’t want to look too foolish, do we? And probably Emerson was too Platonic about evil. It was a mere Tò µ`η o’´v that could be disposed of like the butt of a cigarette. In a poem I have called the best Western poem yet he says: Unit and universe are round. Another poem could be made from that, to the effect that ideally in thought only is a circle round. In practice, in nature, the circle becomes an oval. As a circle it has one center–Good. As an oval it has two centers–Good and Evil. Thence Monism versus Dualism. Emerson was a Unitarian because he was too rational to be superstitious and too little a storyteller and lover of stories to like gossip and pretty scandal. Noth- ing very religious can be done for people lacking in superstition. They usually end up abominable agnostics. It takes superstition and the prettiest scandal story of all to make a good Trinitarian. It is the ½rst step in the descent of the spirit in- to the material-human at the risk of the spirit. But if Emerson had left us nothing else he would be remembered longer than the Washington Monument for

190 Dædalus Fall 2005 Umberto Eco

Innovation & repetition: between modern & postmodern aesthetics

It is not by chance that modern aes- ates the way the token meets the require- thetics and modern theories of art (and ments of the type: but the modern aes- I mean by “modern” those born with thetics did not recognize such a proce- Mannerism, developed through Roman- dure as an artistic one. That is why the ticism, and provocatively restated by the Romantic aesthetics made such a care- early twentieth-century avant-gardes) ful distinction between “major” and have frequently identi½ed the artistic “minor” arts, between arts and crafts. message with metaphor. Metaphor (the To make a parallel with sciences: crafts new and inventive one, not the worn- and industry were similar to the correct out catachresis) is a way to designate application of an already known law to something by the name of something a new case. Art, on the contrary (and by else, thus presenting that something in art I mean also literature, poetry, movies, an unexpected way. The modern criteri- and so on) corresponded rather to a “sci- on for recognizing the artistic value was enti½c revolution”: every work of mod- novelty, high information. The pleasura- ern art ½gures out a new law, imposes a ble repetition of an already known pat- new paradigm, a new way of looking at tern was considered, by modern theories the world. of art, typical of Crafts–not of Art–and Modern aesthetics frequently forgot of industry. that the classical theory of art, from an- A good craftsman, as well as an indus- cient Greece to the Middle Ages, was not trial factory, produces many tokens, or so eager to stress a distinction between occurrences, of the same type or model. arts and crafts. The same term (techne, One appreciates the type, and appreci- ars) was used to designate both the performance of a barber or a shipbuilder, the work of a painter or a poet. The clas- Umberto Eco, best known in America for his best- sical aesthetics was not so anxious for selling novel “The Name of the Rose,” wrote this innovation at any cost: on the contrary, essay for the Fall 1985 issue of “Dædalus.” For it frequently appreciated as “beautiful” more than two decades, he has been a professor the good tokens of an everlasting type. of semiotics at the University of Bologna. Even in those cases in which modern sensitivity enjoys the “revolution” per- © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts formed by a classical artist, his contem- & Sciences porary enjoyed the opposite aspect of

Dædalus Fall 2005 191 Umberto his work, that is, his respect for previous Likewise, the reading of a traditional Eco models.1 detective story presumes the enjoyment This is the reason why modern aes- of a scheme. The scheme is so impor- thetics was so severe apropos the indus- tant that the most famous authors have trial-like products of the mass media. A founded their fortune on its very immu- popular song, a tv commercial, a comic tability. strip, a detective novel, a Western movie Furthermore, the writer plays upon a were seen as more or less successful to- continuous series of connotations (for kens of a given model or type. As such example, the characteristics of the detec- they were judged as pleasurable but non- tive and of his immediate “entourage”) artistic. Furthermore, this excess of plea- to such an extent that their reappearance surability, repetition, lack of innovation, in each story is an essential condition was felt as a commercial trick (the prod- of its reading pleasure. And so we have uct had to meet the expectations of its the by now historical “tics” of Sherlock audience), not as the provocative pro- Holmes, the punctilious vanity of Her- posal of a new (and dif½cult to accept) cule Poirot, the pipe and the familiar world vision. The products of mass me- ½xes of Maigret, on up to the famous dia were equated with the products of idiosyncracies of the most unabashed industry insofar as they were produced heroes of the hard-boiled novel. Vices, in series, and the “serial” production was gestures, habits of the character por- considered as alien to the artistic inven- trayed permit us to recognize an old tion. friend. These familiar features allow us to “enter into” the event. When our According to the modern aesthetics, favorite author writes a story in which the principal features of the mass-me- the usual characters do not appear, we dia products were repetition, iteration, are not even aware that the fundamen- obedience to a preestablished schema, tal scheme of the story is still like the and redundancy (as opposed to infor- others: we read the book with a certain mation).2 detachment and are immediately prone The device of iteration is typical, for in- to judge it a “minor” one. stance, of television commercials: one All this becomes very clear if we take distractedly watches the playing out of a a famous character such as Nero Wolfe, sketch, then focuses one’s attention on immortalized by Rex Stout. I shall re- the punch line that reappears at the end view here the main characteristics of of the episode. It is precisely on this fore- Nero Wolfe and his partners because it seen and awaited reappearance that our is important to ascertain how important modest but irrefutable pleasure is based. they are for the reader of Stout’s books. Nero Wolfe, from Montenegro, a natu- 1 On the opposition between innovation and ralized American from time immemori- repetition, see my works Opera aperta (Milan: Bompiani, 1962) and Apocalittici e Integrati (Mi- al, is outlandishly fat, so much so that lan: Bompiani, 1964). Partial English transla- his leather easy chair must be express- tions appear in The Role of the Reader (Bloom- ly designed for him. He is fearfully lazy. ington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, In fact, he never leaves the house and 1979). depends for his investigations on the 2 I repeat here some of my old remarks in “The smart and brilliant Archie Goodwin, Myth of Superman” (1962), now in The Role of with whom he indulges in a continu- the Reader. ous sharp and tense polemic, tempered

192 Dædalus Fall 2005 somewhat by their mutual sense of hu- faithful reader enjoys in Stout’s novels. Innovation mor. Nero Wolfe is an absolute glutton, To make it palatable, the author must & repetition: between and his cook, Fritz, is the vestal virgin invent every time a “new” crime and modern & in the pantry, devoted to the unending “new” secondary characters, but these postmodern care of this highly cultivated palate and details only serve to recon½rm the per- aesthetics equally greedy stomach; but along with manence of a ½xed repertoire of topoi. the pleasures of the table, Wolfe culti- Not knowing who the guilty party is vates an all-absorbing and exclusive pas- becomes an accessory element, almost a sion for orchids; he has a priceless col- pretext. It is not a matter of discovering lection in the greenhouse on the top who committed the crime, but, rather, floor of the villa where he lives. Quite of following certain “topical” gestures possessed by gluttony and flowers, as- of “topical” characters whose stock be- sailed by a series of accessory tics (love havior we already love. The reader, little of scholarly literature, systematic misog- interested in the “new” psychological yny, insatiable thirst for money), Nero or economic motivations of the “new” Wolfe conducts his investigations, mas- crime, in fact enjoys those moments terpieces of psychological penetration, when Wolfe repeats his usual gestures, sitting in his of½ce, carefully weighing when he goes up for the nth time to take the information verbally furnished by care of his orchids while the case itself Archie, studying the protagonists of is reaching its dramatic climax, when each event who are obliged to visit him Inspector Cramer threateningly enters in his of½ce, arguing with Inspector with one foot between the door and the Cramer (attention: he always holds a wall, pushing aside Goodwin and warn- methodically extinguished cigar in his ing Wolfe with a shake of his ½nger that mouth), quarreling with the odious Ser- this time things will not go so smooth- geant Purley Stebbins; and, ½nally, in a ly. The attraction of the book, the sense ½xed setting from which he never veers, of repose, of psychological extension summoning the protagonists of the case which it is capable of conferring, lies to a meeting in his studio, usually in the in the fact that, plopped in an easy chair evening. There, with skillful dialectical or in the seat of a train compartment, subterfuges, almost always before he the readers continuously recover, point himself knows the truth, he drives the by point, what they already know, and guilty one into a public demonstration of what they want to know again: that is hysteria by which he gives himself away. why they have purchased the book. They The gamut is much more ample: Ar- derive pleasure from the nonstory (if in- chie’s almost canonical arrest under sus- deed a story is a development of events picion of reticence and false testimony; which should bring us from the point the legal diatribes about the conditions of departure to a point of arrival where on which Wolfe will take on a client; the we would never have dreamed of arriv- hiring of part-time agents like Saul Pan- ing); the distraction consists in the re- zer or Orrie Carther; the painting in the futation of a development of events, in studio behind which Wolfe or Archie a withdrawal from the tension of past- can watch, through a peephole, the be- present-future to the focus on an instant, havior and reactions of a subject put to which is loved precisely because it is the test in the of½ce itself; the scenes recurrent. with Wolfe and an insincere client . . . . It seems that mechanisms of this kind Such is the “eternal” story that the proliferate more widely in the popular

Dædalus Fall 2005 193 Umberto narrative of today than in the eigh- pected, namely, that Fleur-de-Marie was Eco teenth-century romantic feuilleton, where the daughter of Rodolphe of Gerolstein. the event was founded upon a develop- The formal principle does not change. ment and where the characters were re- Perhaps one of the ½rst inexhaust- quired to march towards their death in ible characters during the decline of the the course of unexpected and “incredi- feuilleton and bridging the two centu- ble” adventures. ries at the close of la belle époque is Fan- If this were true, it would be because tomas. Each episode of Fantomas closes the feuilleton, founded on the triumph with a kind of “unsuccessful catharsis”; of information, represented the pre- Juve and Fandor ½nally come to get their ferred fare of a society that lived in the hands on the elusive one when he, with midst of messages loaded with redun- an unforeseeable move, foils the arrest. dancy; the sense of tradition, the norms Another singular fact: Fantomas, re- of social life, moral principles, the rules sponsible for blackmail and sensational of proper comportment in the frame- kidnappings, at the beginning of each work of a bourgeois society designed a episode ½nds himself inexplicably poor system of foreseeable messages that the and in need of money and, therefore, al- social system provided for its members, so of new “action.” In this way the cycle and which allowed life to flow smoothly is kept going. without unexpected jolts. In this sphere, the “informative” shock of a short story I would like to consider now the case of by Poe or the coup de théâtre of Ponson an historical period (our own) for which du Terrail provided the enjoyment of the iteration and repetition seem to domi- “rupture.” In a contemporary industrial nate the whole world of artistic creativi- society, instead, the social change, the ty, and in which it is dif½cult to distin- continuous rise of new behavioral stan- guish between the repetition of the me- dards, the dissolution of tradition, re- dia and the repetition of the so-called quire a narrative based upon redundan- major arts. In this period one is facing cy. Redundant narrative structures the discussion of a new theory of art, would appear in this panorama as an in- one that I would label postmodern aesthet- dulgent invitation to repose, a chance of ics, which is revisiting the very concepts relaxing. of repetition and iteration under a differ- In fact, even the nineteenth-century ent pro½le. Recently in Italy such a de- novel was repetitive. Its fundamental bate has flourished under the standard patterns were always the same, and it of a “new aesthetics of seriality.” I rec- was not so dif½cult, for a smart reader, ommend my readers to take “seriality,” to tell before the end of the story if in this case, as a very wide category or, if Miss So-and-So was or was not the lost one wants, as another term for repetitive daughter of the duke of X. One can on- art. ly say that the nineteenth-century feuil- Seriality and repetition are largely in- leton and contemporary mass media use flated concepts. The philosophy of the different devices for making the expected history of art has accustomed us to some appear unexpected. Archie Goodwin technical meanings of these terms that is explicitly expecting, with the read- it would be well to eliminate: I shall not ers, that Nero Wolfe will act in a certain speak of repetition in the sense of Kier- way, while Eugène Sue pretended not to kegaard, nor of “répétition différente,” know in advance what her readers sus- in the sense of Deleuze. In the history of

194 Dædalus Fall 2005 contemporary music, series and seriality Let us now see the case in which (1) Innovation & repetition: have been understood in a sense more something is offered as original and dif- between or less opposite what we are discussing ferent (according to the requirements modern & here. The dodecaphonic “series” is the of modern aesthetics); (2) we are aware postmodern aesthetics opposite of the repetitive seriality typi- that this something is repeating some- cal of all the media, because there a giv- thing else that we already know; and (3) en succession of twelve sounds is used notwithstanding this–better, just be- once and only once within a single com- cause of it–we like it (and we buy it). position. If you open a current dictionary, you The ½rst type of repetition is the retake. will ½nd that for “repeat” the meaning In this case one recycles the characters is “to say something or do something of a previous successful story in order to the second time or again and again; it- exploit them, by telling what happened eration of the same word, act or idea.” to them after the end of their ½rst adven- For “series” the meaning is “a continued ture. The most famous example of re- succession of similar things.” It is a mat- take is Dumas’s Twenty Years Later, the ter of establishing what it means to say most recent ones are the “to be contin- “again” or “the same or similar things.” ued” versions of Star Wars or Superman. To serialize means, in some way, to re- The retake is dependent on a commer- peat. Therefore, we shall have to de½ne cial decision. There is no rule establish- a ½rst meaning of “to repeat” by which ing whether the second episode of the the term means to make a replica of the story should reproduce, with only slight same abstract type. Two sheets of type- variations, the ½rst one, or must be a to- writer paper are both replicas of the same tally different story concerning the same commercial type. In this sense one thing characters. The retake is not strictly con- is the same as another when the former demned to repetition. An illustrious ex- exhibits the same properties as the lat- ample of retake are the many different ter, at least under a certain description: stories of the Arthurian cycle, telling two sheets of typing paper are the same again and again the vicissitudes of Lan- from the point of view of our function- celot or Perceval. al needs, even though they are not the same for a physicist interested in the The remake consists in telling again a molecular structure of the objects. From previous successful story. See the innu- the point of view of industrial mass pro- merable editions of Dr. Jekyll or of Muti- duction, two “tokens” can be considered ny on the Bounty. The history of arts and as “replicas” of the same “type” when literature is full of pseudo-remakes that for a normal person with normal re- were able to tell at every time something quirements, in the absence of evident different. The whole of Shakespeare is a imperfection, it is irrelevant whether remake of preceding stories. Therefore one chooses one instead of the other. “interesting” remakes can escape repeti- Two copies of a ½lm or of a book are tion. replicas of the same type. The repetitiveness and the seriality The series works upon a ½xed situation that interests us here look instead at and a restricted number of ½xed pivotal something that at ½rst glance does not characters, around whom the secondary appear the same as (equal to) something and changing ones turn. The secondary else. characters must give the impression that

Dædalus Fall 2005 195 Umberto the new story is different from the pre- rediscovery does not change the psycho- Eco ceding ones, while in fact the narrative logical pro½le of the character, which is scheme does not change. I have said ½xed already, once and for all. In topo- something above on the scheme of the logical terms this subtype of the series novels by Rex Stout. may be de½ned as a loop. To the same type belong the tv serials Usually the loop-series comes to be such as All in the Family, Starsky and Hutch, devised for commercial reasons: it is a Columbo, etc. (I put together different tv matter of considering how to keep the genres that range from soap opera to sit- series alive, of obviating the natural uation comedy, and to the detective seri- problem of the aging of the character. al). Instead of having characters put up with With a series one believes one is enjoy- new adventures (that would imply their ing the novelty of the story (which is al- inexorable march toward death), they ways the same) while in fact one is en- are made continually to relive their past. joying it because of the recurrence of a The loop solution produces paradoxes narrative scheme that remains constant. that were already the target of innumer- The series in this sense responds to the able parodies. Characters have a little infantile need of hearing again always future but an enormous past, and in any the same story, of being consoled by the case, nothing of their past will ever have “return of the Identical,” super½cially to change the mythological present in disguised. which they have been presented to the The series consoles us (the consumers) reader from the beginning. Ten different because it rewards our ability to foresee: lives would not suf½ce to make Little we are happy because we discover our Orphan Annie undergo what she under- own ability to guess what will happen. went in the ½rst (and only) ten years of We are satis½ed because we ½nd again her life. what we had expected, but we do not The spiral is another variation of the attribute this happy result to the obvi- series. In the stories of Charlie Brown, ousness of the narrative structure, but apparently nothing happens, and any to our own presumed capacities to make character is obsessively repeating his/ forecasts. We do not think, “The author her standard performance. And yet in has constructed the story in a way that I every strip the character of Charlie could guess the end,” but rather, “I was Brown or Snoopy is enriched and deep- so smart to guess the end in spite of the ened. This does not happen either with efforts the author made to deceive me.” Nero Wolfe, or Starsky or Hutch: we are We ½nd a variation of the series in the always interested in their new adven- structure of the flashback: we see, for tures, but we already know all we need example, some comic-strip stories (such to know about their psychology, their as Superman) in which the character is habits, their capacities, their ethical not followed along in a straight line dur- standpoints. ing the course of his life, but is continu- I would add ½nally that form of seriali- ally rediscovered at different moments ty that, in cinema and television, is moti- of his life, obsessively revisited in order vated less by the narrative structure than to discover there new opportunities for by the nature of the actor himself: the new narratives. It seems as if these mo- mere presence of John Wayne, or of Jer- ments of his life have fled from the nar- ry Lewis (when they are not directed by rator out of absentmindedness, but their a great director, and even in these cases)

196 Dædalus Fall 2005 succeeds in making, always, the same in which a text quotes, in a more or less Innovation & repetition: ½lm. The author tries to invent different explicit way, a stylistic feature, a way of between stories, but the public recognizes (with narrating typical of another author– modern & satisfaction) always and ever the same either as a form of parody or in order postmodern aesthetics story, under super½cial disguises. to pay homage to a great and acknowledged master. There are imperceptible The saga differs from the series insofar quotations, of which not even the auth- as it concerns the story of a family and or is aware, that are the normal effect of is interested in the “historical” lapse of the game of artistic influence. There are time. It is genealogical. In the saga, the also quotations of which the author is actors do age; the saga is a history of aware but that should remain ungras- the aging of individuals, families, peo- pable by the consumer; in these cases ple, groups. we are usually in the presence of a ba- The saga can have a continuous line- nal work and plagiarism. age (the character is followed from birth What is more interesting is when the to death; the same is then done for his quotation is explicit and recognizable, son, his grandson, and so on, potential- as happens in literature or postmodern ly forever), or it can be treelike (there is art, which blatantly and ironically play a patriarch, then the various narrative on intertextuality (novel on the tech- branches that concern not only his di- niques of the narrative, poetry on poet- rect descendents, but also the collateral ry, art on art). lines and the kin, each branch branching There is a procedure typical of the out in½nitely). The most familiar (and postmodern narrative that has been recent) instance of saga is certainly much used recently in the ½eld of mass Dallas. communications: it concerns the ironic The saga is a series in disguise. It dif- quotation of the commonplace (topos). fers from the series in that the charac- Let us remember the killing of the Arab ters change (they change also because giant in Raiders of the Lost Ark and the the actors age). But in reality the saga staircase of Odessa in Woody Allen’s repeats, in spite of its historicized form, Bananas. What joins these two quota- celebrating in appearance the passage tions? In both cases, the spectator, in of time, the same story. As with ancient order to enjoy the allusion, must know sagas, the deeds of the gallant ances- the original topoi. In the case of the giant, tors are the same as the deeds of their it is a situation typical of the genre; in descendents. In Dallas, grandfathers the case of Bananas–on the contrary– and grandsons undergo more or less the the topos appears for the ½rst and only same ordeals: struggle for wealth and for time in a single work, and only after that power, life, death, defeat, victory, adul- quotation the topos becomes a shibbo- tery, love, hate, envy, illusion, and delu- leth for movie critics and moviegoers. sion. In both cases the topoi are recorded by the “encyclopedia” of the spectator; I mean by intertextual dialogue the they make up a part of the treasury of phenomenon by which a given text the collective imagination and as such echoes previous texts. Many forms of they come to be called upon. What dif- intertextuality are outside my present ferentiates the two quotations is the fact concerns. I am not interested, for exam- that the topos in Raiders is quoted in or- ple, in stylistic quotation, in those cases der to contradict it (what we expect to

Dædalus Fall 2005 197 Umberto happen, based on our experience, will The game becomes complicated in Eco not), while in Bananas the topos is intro- the “retake” of Raiders, that is, in Indi- duced only because of its incongruity ana Jones and the Temple of Doom: here (the staircase has nothing to do with the the hero encounters not one but two rest of the story). giant enemies. In the ½rst case, we are The ½rst case recalls the series of car- expecting that, according to the classi- toons that was published years ago by cal schemes of the adventure ½lm, the Mad, under the heading “a ½lm which hero will be disarmed, and we laugh we would like to see.” For example, the when we discover that instead the hero heroine, in the West, tied by bandits to has a pistol and easily kills his adversary. the railroad tracks: the alternating shots In the second case, the director knows show on one side the approaching train that the spectators (having already seen and on the other the furious cavalcade the preceding ½lm), will expect the hero of rescuers trying to arrive ahead of the to be armed, and indeed, Indiana Jones locomotive. In the end, the girl (contrary quickly looks for his pistol. He does not to all the expectations suggested by the ½nd it, and the spectators laugh because topos evoked) is crushed by the train. the expectation created by the ½rst ½lm Here we are faced with a comic ploy is this time frustrated. which exploits the presupposition (cor- The cases cited put into play an in- rect) that the public will recognize the tertextual encyclopedia. We have texts original topos, will apply to the quota- that are quoted from other texts and the tion the “normal” system of expecta- knowledge of the preceding ones–taken tions (I mean the expectations that this for granted–is supposed to be necessary piece of encyclopedical information is for the enjoyment of the new one. supposed to elicit), and will then enjoy More interesting for the analysis of the way in which its expectations are the new intertextuality in the media is frustrated. At this point the ingenuous the example of E.T., in the scene where spectator, at ½rst frustrated, overcomes the creature from outer space (an inven- his frustration and transforms himself tion of Spielberg) is led into a city dur- into a critical spectator who appreciates ing Halloween and encounters another the way in which he was tricked. personage, disguised as the gnome in In the case of Bananas, however, we The Empire Strikes Back (an invention of are at a different level: the spectator Lucas). E.T. is jolted and seeks to hurl with whom the text establishes an im- himself upon the gnome in order to plicit agreement (tongue-in-cheek) is embrace him, as if he had met an old not the ingenuous spectator (who can friend. Here the spectators must know be struck at most by the apparition of an many things: they must certainly know incongruous event) but the critical spec- of the existence of another ½lm (inter- tator who appreciates the ironic ploy of textual knowledge), but they must also the quotation and enjoys its desired in- know that both monsters were created congruity. However, in both cases we by Rambaldi, that the directors of the have a critical side effect: aware of the two ½lms are linked together for vari- quotation, the spectator is brought to ous reasons (not least because they are elaborate ironically on the nature of the two most successful directors of the such a device and to acknowledge the decade); they must, in short, have not fact that he has been invited to play up- only a knowledge of the texts but also a on his encyclopedic competence. knowledge of the world, circumstances

198 Dædalus Fall 2005 external to the texts. One notices, natu- ple, every Broadway musical (in the the- Innovation & repetition: rally, that knowledge of the texts and the ater or on ½lm) is, as a rule, nothing oth- between world are only two possible chapters of er than the story of how a Broadway mu- modern & encyclopedic knowledge, and that there- sical is put on. The Broadway genre postmodern aesthetics fore, in a certain measure, the text al- seems to require (postulate) a vast in- ways makes reference to the same cul- tertextual knowledge: in fact, it creates tural patrimony. and institutes the required competence Such phenomena of “intertextual dia- and the presuppositions indispensable logue” were once typical of experimen- to its understanding. Every one of these tal art, and presupposed a Model Read- ½lms or plays tells how a Broadway mu- er, culturally very sophisticated.3 The sical is put on, and furnishes us, in effect, fact that similar devices have now be- with all the information about the genre come more common in the media world it belongs to. The spectacle gives the leads us to see that the media are carry- public the sensation of knowing ahead ing on–and presupposing–the posses- of time that which it does not yet know sion of pieces of information already and will know only at the moment. We conveyed by other media. stand facing the case of a colossal pret- The text of E.T. “knows” that the pub- erition (or “passing over”). In this sense, lic has learned, from newspapers or from the musical is a didactic work that takes television, everything about Rambaldi, account of the (idealized) rules of its Lucas, and Spielberg. The media seem, own production. in this play of extratextual quotation, to Finally, we have the work that speaks make reference to the world, but in ef- of itself: not the work that speaks of a fect they are referring to the contents of genre to which it belongs, but a work other messages sent by other media. The that speaks of its own structure, and of game is played, so to speak, on a “broad- the way in which it was made. Critics ened” intertextuality. Any difference be- and aestheticians were inclined to think tween knowledge of the world (under- that this device was an exclusive feature stood naively as a knowledge derived of the works of the avant-garde and alien from an extratextual experience) and to mass communications. Aesthetics intertextual knowledge has practically knows this problem and indeed gave it vanished. Our reflections to come, then, a name long ago: it is the Hegelian prob- must not only question the phenomenon lem of the Death of Art. But in these lat- of repetition within a single work or a er times there have been cases of pro- series of works, but all the phenomena ductions in the mass media capable of that make various strategies of repeti- self-irony, and some of the examples tion producible, understandable, and mentioned above seem to me of great commercially possible. In other words, interest. Even here the line between repetition and seriality in the media pose “highbrow” arts and “lowbrow” arts new problems for the sociology of cul- seems to have become very thin. ture. Another form of intertextuality is Let us now try to review the phenome- the genre-embedding that today is very na listed above from the point of view common in the mass media. For exam- of a “modern” conception of aesthetic value, according to which every work 3 Cf., for the idea of “the model reader,” my aesthetically “well done” is endowed The Role of the Reader. with two characteristics:

Dædalus Fall 2005 199 Umberto (1) It must achieve a dialectic between different) but for the strategy of the vari- Eco order and novelty–in other words, be- ations; in other words, he enjoys the way tween scheme and innovation; in which the same story is worked over (2) This dialectic must be perceived by to appear to be different. the consumer, who must not only grasp This enjoyment of variations is obvi- the contents of the message, but also ously encouraged by the more sophisti- the way in which the message transmits cated series. Indeed, we can classify the those contents. products of serial narratives along a con- This being the case, nothing prevents tinuum that takes into account the dif- the types of repetition listed above from ferent gradations of the reading agree- achieving the conditions necessary to ment between the text and the “smart” the realization of aesthetic value, and the reader (as opposed to the naive one). It history of the arts is ready to furnish us is evident that even the most banal nar- with satisfactory examples for each of rative product allows the reader to be- the types in our classi½cation. come, by an autonomous decision, a Retake. Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso is critical reader, able to recognize the in- nothing else but a retake of Boiardo’s novative strategies (if any). But there Orlando Innamorato, and precisely be- are serial works that establish an explic- cause of the success of the ½rst, which it agreement with the critical reader and was in its turn a retake of the themes thus, so to speak, challenge him to ac- of the Breton cycle. Boiardo and Ariosto knowledge the innovative aspects of the added a goodly amount of irony into ma- text. terial that was very “serious” and “taken Belonging to this category are the tele- seriously” by previous readers. But even vision ½lms of Lieutenant Columbo. It the third Superman is ironical in regard is worth noticing that in this series the to the ½rst (mystical and very, very seri- authors spell out from the beginning ous). It appears as the retake of an arche- who the murderer is. The spectator is type inspired by the gospel, made by not so much invited to play the naive winking at the ½lms of Frank Tashlin. game of guessing (whodunit?) as (1) to Remake. I have already suggested that enjoy Columbo’s detection technique, Shakespeare remade a lot of very well- appreciated as an encore to a well- known stories of the previous centuries. known piece of bravura (and in this Series. Every text presupposes and con- sense the pleasure provided by Columbo structs always a double Model Reader is not so different from the one provided (let us say, a naive and a “smart” one). by Nero Wolfe); and (2) to discover in The former uses the work as semantic what way the author will succeed in win- machinery and is the victim of the strat- ning his bet, which consists in having egies of the author who will lead him lit- Columbo do what he always does, but tle by little along a series of previsions nevertheless in a way that is not banal- and expectations; the latter evaluates the ly repetitive. Every story of Nero Wolfe work as an aesthetic product and enjoys was written by Rex Stout, but every epi- the strategies implemented in order to sode of Columbo is directed by a different produce a model reader of the ½rst level. person. The critical addressee is invited This second-level reader is the one who to pronounce a judgment on the best enjoys the seriality of the series, not so variation. much for the return of the same thing I use the term “variation” thinking of (that the ingenuous reader believed was the classical musical variations. They,

200 Dædalus Fall 2005 too, were “serial products” that aimed treelike saga, as much as Dallas does. Innovation & repetition: very little at the naive addressee and that Balzac is more interesting than Dallas between bet everything on an agreement with because every one of his novels increases modern & the critical one. The composer was fun- our knowledge of the society of his time, postmodern aesthetics damentally interested only in the ap- while every program of Dallas tells us the plause of the critical listener, who was same thing about American society–but supposed to appreciate the fantasy dis- both use the same narrative scheme. played in his innovations on an old Intertextuality. The notion of intertex- theme. tuality itself has been elaborated within In this sense, seriality and repetition the framework of a reflection on “high” are not opposed to innovation. Nothing art. Notwithstanding, the examples giv- is more “serial” than a tie pattern, and en above have been taken up provoca- yet nothing can be so personalized as a tively by the world of mass communi- tie. The example may be elementary, but cation in order to show how even these that does not make it banal. Between the forms of intertextual dialogue have by elementary aesthetics of the tie and the now been transferred to the ½eld of pop- recognized “high” artistic value of the ular production. Goldberg Variations, there is a gradated It is typical of what is called postmod- continuum of repetitious strategies, ern literature and art (but did it not al- aimed at the response of the “smart” ready happen thus with the music of addressee. Stravinsky?) to quote by using (some- The problem is that there is not, on times under various stylistic disguises) the one hand, an aesthetics of “high” quotation marks so that the reader pays art (original and not serial), and on no attention to the content of the cita- the other a pure sociology of the serial. tion but instead to the way in which the Rather, there is an aesthetics of serial excerpt from a ½rst text is introduced forms that requires an historical and into the fabric of a second one. Renato anthropological study of the ways in Barilli has observed that one of the risks which, at different times and in differ- of this procedure is the failure to make ent places, the dialectic between repeti- the quotation marks evident, so that tion and innovation has been instantiat- what is cited is accepted by the naive ed. When we fail to ½nd innovation in reader as an original invention rather the serial, this is perhaps less a result of than as an ironic reference.4 the structures of the text, than of our We have so far put forward three ex- “horizon of expectations” and our cul- amples of quotations of a previous to- tural habits. We know very well that in pos: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Bananas, and certain examples of non-Western art, E.T. Let us look closer at the third case: where we always see the same thing, the spectator who knows nothing of the the natives recognize in½nitesimal vari- production of two ½lms (in which one ations and feel the shiver of innovation. quotes from the other) cannot succeed Where we see innovation, at least in the in understanding why what happens serial forms of the Western past, the does happen. By that gag, the movie original addressees were not at all inter- focuses both upon movies and upon the ested in that aspect and conversely en- media-universe. The understanding of joyed the recurrences of the scheme. 4 “Dal leggibile all’illegibile,” in Luigi Russo, Saga. The entire Human Comedy by Bal- ed., Letteratura tra consumo e ricerca (Bologna: zac presents a very good example of a Mulino, 1984).

Dædalus Fall 2005 201 Umberto this device is a condition for its aesthetic (critically relevant) difference in the Eco enjoyment. Thus, this episode can work functioning and use of textual strategy. only if one realizes that there are quota- We come now to the case of Bananas. tion marks somewhere. One can say that On that staircase there descend, not on- these marks can be perceived only on ly a baby carriage, but also a platoon of the basis of an extratextual knowledge. rabbis and I do not remember what else. Nothing in the ½lm helps the spectator to What happens to the spectator who has understand at what point there ought to not caught the quotation from the Po- be quotation marks. The ½lm presuppos- temkin mixed up with imprecise fancies es a previous world-knowledge on the about the Fiddler on the Roof? I believe part of the spectator. And if the specta- that because of the orgiastic energy with tor does not know? Too bad. The effect which the scene–the staircase with its gets lost, but the ½lm knows of other incongruous population–is presented, means to gain approval. even the most naive spectator may grasp These imperceptible quotation marks, the symphonic turbulence of this Brue- more than an aesthetic device, are a so- ghel-like kermis. Even the most ingen- cial arti½ce; they select the happy few uous among the spectators “feels” a (and the mass media usually hopes to rhythm, an invention, and cannot help produce millions of happy few . . . . ). To but ½x his attention on the way it is put the naive spectator of the ½rst level, the together. ½lm has already given almost too much: At the extreme other end of the pole that secret pleasure is reserved, for that of the aesthetic interests, I would like to time, for the critical spectator of the sec- mention a work whose equivalent I have ond level. not succeeded in ½nding in the contem- The case of Raiders is different. Here, porary mass media; it is not only a mas- if the critical spectator fails–does not terpiece of intertextuality but also a par- recognize the quotation–there remain amount example of narrative metalan- plenty of possibilities for the naive spec- guage, which speaks of its own forma- tator, who at least can always enjoy the tion and of the rules of the narrative fact that the hero gets the best of his ad- genre: I refer to Tristram Shandy. versary. We are here confronted by a less It is impossible to read and enjoy subtle strategy than in the preceding ex- Sterne’s antinovel novel without real- ample, a mode inclined to satisfy the ur- izing that it is treating the novel form gent need of the producer, who in any ironically. Tristram Shandy is so aware case must sell his product to whomever of its nature that it is impossible to ½nd he can. While it is dif½cult to imagine there a single ironical statement that Raiders being seen and enjoyed by those does not make evident its own quotation spectators who do not grasp the inter- marks. It brings to a high artistic resolu- play of quotations, it is always possible tion the rhetorical device called pronunti- that this will happen, and the work is atio (that is, the way of stressing imper- clearly open even to this possibility. ceptibly the irony). I do not feel like saying which, be- I believe that I have singled out a ty- tween the two texts cited, pursues the pology of “quotation marking” that “more aesthetically noble” ends. It is must in some way be relevant to the enough for me (and perhaps for the ends of a phenomenology of aesthetic moment I have already given myself value, and of the pleasure that follows much to think about) to point out a from it. I believe further that the strate-

202 Dædalus Fall 2005 gies for matching surprise and novelty realize that all I have said until now Innovation I & repetition: with repetition, even if they are semiotic still represents an attempt to reconsid- between devices in themselves aesthetically neu- er the various forms of repetition in the modern & tral, can give place to different results on media in terms of the “modern’’ dialec- postmodern aesthetics the aesthetic level. tic between order and innovation. The Some conclusions follow: fact, however, is that when one speaks Each of the types of repetition that we today of the aesthetics of seriality, one have examined is not limited to the mass alludes to something more radical, that media, but belongs by right to the entire is, to a notion of aesthetic value that history of artistic creativity: plagiarism, wholly escapes the “modern” idea of art quotation, parody, the ironic retake, the and literature.5 intertextual joke, are typical of the entire It has been observed that with the phe- artistic-literary tradition. nomenon of television serials we ½nd a Much art has been and is repetitive. new concept of “the in½nity of the text”; The concept of absolute originality is a the text takes on the rhythms of that contemporary one, born with Romanti- same dailiness in which it is produced, cism; classical art was in vast measure and that it mirrors. The problem is not serial, and the “modern” avant-garde one of recognizing that the serial text (at the beginning of this century) chal- varies inde½nitely upon a basic scheme lenged the Romantic idea of “creation (and in this sense it can be judged from from nothingness,” with its techniques the point of view of the “modern” aes- of collage, mustachios on the Mona Lisa, thetics). The real problem is that what art about art, and so on. is of interest is not so much the single The same type of repetitive procedure variations as “variability” as a formal can produce either excellence or banal- principle, the fact that one can make ity; it can put the addressees into con- variations to in½nity. Variability to in- flict with themselves and with the inter- ½nity has all the characteristics of rep- textual tradition as a whole; thus it can etition, and very little of innovation. provide them with easy consolations, But it is the “in½nity” of the process projections, identi½cations: it can estab- that gives a new sense to the device of lish an agreement exclusively with the variation. What must be enjoyed–sug- naive addressee, or exclusively with the gests the postmodern aesthetics–is smart one, or with both at different lev- the fact that a series of possible varia- els and along a continuum of solutions tions is potentially in½nite. What be- that cannot be reduced to a rudimentary comes celebrated here is a sort of vic- typology. tory of life over art, with the paradox- Nevertheless, a typology of repetition ical result that the era of electronics does not furnish the criteria that can es- –instead of emphasizing the phenom- tablish differences in aesthetic values. ena of shock, interruptions, novelty, Yet, since the various types of repeti- and frustration of expectations–would tion are present in the whole of artistic produce a return to the continuum, and literary history, they can be taken the Cyclical, the Periodical, the Regu- into account in order to establish cri- lar. teria of artistic value. An aesthetics of repetition requires as a premise a semi- 5 The “manifesto” of this new aesthetics of se- otics of the textual procedures of repeti- riality is the special issue of the journal Cinema tion. & Cinema 35–36 (1983): 20–24.

Dædalus Fall 2005 203 Umberto Omar Calabrese has thoroughly can migrate in combinations of the high- Eco looked into this:6 from the point of view est improbability around the various of the “modern” dialectic between repe- characters.” tition and innovation, one can easily rec- Organized differentiations, polycen- ognize how in the Columbo series, for trism, regulated irregularity–such example, on a basic scheme some of the would be the fundamental aspects of best names in American cinema have this neobaroque aesthetic, the princi- worked in variations. Thus it would be pal example of which is musical varia- dif½cult to speak, in such a case, of pure tions à la Bach. Since in the epoch of repetition: if the scheme of the detection mass communications “the condition and the psychology of the protagonist for listening . . . it is that for which all has actor remains unchanged, the style of already been said and already been writ- the narrative changes each time. This is ten . . . as in the Kabuki theater, it may no small thing, especially from the point then be the most minuscule variant that of view of the “modern” aesthetics. But will produce pleasure in the text, or that it is exactly on a different idea of style form of explicit repetition which is al- that Calabrese’s paper is centered. In ready known.” these forms of repetition “we are not so What results from these reflections much interested in what is repeated as is clear. The focus of the theoretical in- we are in the way the components of the quiry is displaced. Before, mass mediol- text come to be segmented and then how ogists tried to save the dignity of repeti- the segments come to be codi½ed in or- tion by recognizing in it the possibility der to establish a system of invariants: of a traditional dialectic between scheme any component that does not belong to and innovation (but it was still the inno- the system, can be de½ned as an indepen- vation that accounted for the value, the dent variable.” In the most typical and ap- way of rescuing the product from degra- parently “degenerated” cases of seriali- dation and promoting it to a value). ty, the independent variables are not al- Now, the emphasis must be placed on together the more visible, but the more the inseparable knot of scheme-varia- microscopic, as in a homeopathic solution, where the variation is no longer tion where the potion is all the more po- more appreciable than the scheme. The tent because by further “succussions” term neobaroque must not deceive: we the original particles of the medicinal are witnessing the birth of a new aes- product have almost disappeared. This thetic sensibility much more archaic, is what permits Calabrese to speak of the and truly post-postmodern. Columbo series as an “exercice de style” As Giovanna Grignaf½ni observes, à la Queneau. We are, says Calabrese, “the neobaroque aesthetics has trans- facing a “neobaroque aesthetics” that formed a commercial constraint into is instantiated, not only by the “cultivat- a ‘formal principle.’” As a result, “any ed” products, but even, and above all, by idea of unicity becomes destroyed to its those that are most degenerated. Apro- very roots.”7 As happened with Baroque pos of Dallas, one can say that “the se- music, and as (according to Walter Ben- mantic opposition and the articulation jamin) happens in our era of “technolog- of the elementary narrative structures ical reproduction,” the messages of mass

6 “I replicanti,” Cinema & Cinema 35–36 (1983): 7 “J.R.: vi presento il racconto,” Cinema & 25–39. Cinema 35–36 (1983): 46–51.

204 Dædalus Fall 2005 media can and must be received and un- microscopic variations? In spite of the Innovation & repetition: derstood in a “state of inattention.” fact that today the spectator still weeps between It goes without saying that the authors in the face of the Texan families’ tribu- modern & I have quoted see very clearly how much lations, ought we to expect in the near postmodern aesthetics commercial and “gastronomical” con- future a true and real genetic mutation? solation there is in putting forward sto- If it should not happen this way, the ries that always say the same thing and radical proposal of the postmodern aes- in a circular way always close in on thetics would appear singularly snobby: themselves. But they do not only apply as in a sort of neo-Orwellian world, the to such products a rigidly formalistic cri- pleasures of the smart reading would be terion, but also suggest that we ought reserved for the members of the Party to conceive of a new audience that feels and the pleasures of the naive reading perfectly comfortable with such a crite- reserved for the proletarians. The entire rion. Only by presupposing such agree- industry of the serial would exist, as in ment can one speak of a new aesthetics the world of Mallarmé (made to end in a of the serial. And only by such an agree- Book), with its only aim being to furnish ment is the serial no longer the poor rel- neobaroque pleasure to the happy few, ative of the arts, but the form of art that reserving pity and fear to the unhappy can satisfy the new aesthetic sensibility, many who remain. indeed, the post-postmodern Greek tragedy. According to this hypothesis we We would not be scandalized if such should think of a universe of new con- criteria were to be applied (as they have sumers disinterested in what really been applied) to abstract art. And in happens to J.R., and bent on grasping fact, here we are about to outline a new the neobaroque pleasure provided by aesthetics of the “abstract” applied to the form of his adventures. However, the products of mass communication. one could ask if such an outlook (even But this requires that the naive ad- though warranting a new aesthetics) dressee of the ½rst level will disappear, can be agreed to by an old semiotics. giving place only to the critical reader Baroque music, as well as abstract art, of the second level. In fact, there is no is “a-semantic.” One can discuss, and I conceivable naive addressee of an ab- am the ½rst to do so, whether it is possi- stract painting or sculpture. If there is ble to discriminate so straightforwardly one who–in front of them–asks, “But between purely “syntactic” and “seman- what does it mean?” this is not an ad- tic” arts. But may we at least recognize dressee of either the ½rst or second lev- that there are ½gurative arts and abstract el; he is excluded from any artistic ex- arts? Baroque music and abstract paint- perience whatever. Of abstract works ing are not ½gurative; television serials there is only a critical “reading”: what are. is formed is of no interest, only the way Until what point shall we be able to it is formed is interesting. enjoy as merely musical those variations Can we expect the same for the serial that play upon “likenesses”? Can one products of television? What should escape from the fascination of the possi- we think about the birth of a new pub- ble worlds that these “likenesses” out- lic that, indifferent to the stories told line? (which are in any case already known), Perhaps we are obliged to try a differ- only relishes the repetition and its own ent hypothesis.

Dædalus Fall 2005 205 Umberto We can say then that the neobaroque what would happen if today we were Eco series brings to its ½rst level of fruition able to see them and read them all to- (impossible to eliminate) the pure and gether? Would our evaluations of the simple myth. Myth has nothing to do originality of Sophocles or Aeschylus be with art. It is a story, always the same. different from what they are currently? It may not be the story of Atreus and it Would we ½nd in these authors varia- may be that of J.R. Why not? Every ep- tions on topical themes where today och has its mythmakers, its own sense of we see indistinctly a unique (and sub- the sacred. Let us take for granted such a lime) way of confronting the problems “½gurative” representation and such an of the human condition? Perhaps where “orgiastic” enjoyment of the myth. Let we see absolute invention, the Greeks us take for granted the intense emotion- would have seen only the “correct” var- al participation, the pleasure of the reit- iation on a single scheme, and sublime eration of a single and constant truth, appeared to them, not the single work, and the tears, and the laughter–and ½- but precisely the scheme. It is not by nally the catharsis. Then we can conceive chance that, when speaking of the art of an audience also able to shift onto an of poetry, Aristotle dealt mainly with aesthetic level and to judge the art of the schemes before all else, and mentioned variations on a mythical theme–in the single works only for the sake of an ex- same way as one succeeds in appreciat- ample. ing a “beautiful funeral” even when the Since at this point I am playing what deceased was a dear person. Peirce called “the play of musement” Are we sure that the same thing did and I am multiplying the hypotheses– not happen even with the classical trag- in order to ½nd out, maybe later, a sin- edy? gle fruitful idea–let us now reverse our If we reread Aristotle’s Poetics we experiment and look at a contemporary see that it was possible to describe the tv serial from the point of view of a fu- model of a Greek tragedy as a serial one. ture neoromantic aesthetics which, sup- From the quotations of the Stagirite we posedly, has assumed again that “origi- realize that the tragedies of which he nality is beautiful.” Let us imagine a so- had knowledge were many more than ciety in the year 3ooo a.d., in which 90 have come down to us, and they all fol- percent of all our present cultural pro- lowed (by varying it) one ½xed scheme. duction had been destroyed and of all We can suppose that those that have our television serials only one show of been saved were those that correspond- Lieutenant Columbo had survived. ed better to the canons of the ancient How would we “read” this work? aesthetic sensibility. But we could also Would we be moved by such an origi- suppose that the decimation came about nal picture of a little man in the struggle on the basis of political-cultural criteria, with the powers of evil, with the forces and no one can forbid us from imagin- of capital, with an opulent and racist so- ing that Sophocles may have survived ciety dominated by wasps? Would we by virtue of a political maneuver, by appreciate this ef½cient, concise, and in- sacri½cing better authors (but “better” tense representation of the urban land- according to what criteria?). scape of an industrial America? If there were many more tragedies When–in a single piece of a series– than those we know, and if they all fol- something is simply presupposed by the lowed (with variations) a ½xed scheme, audience, which knows the whole series,

206 Dædalus Fall 2005 would we speak perhaps of an art of syn- Innovation & repetition: thesis of a sublime capacity of telling between through essential allusions? modern & In other words, how would we read a postmodern aesthetics “piece” of a series, if the whole of the series remained unknown to us? Such a series of questions could continue inde½nitely. I started to put them forth because I think that we still know very little about the role of repetition in the universe of art and in the universe of mass media.

Dædalus Fall 2005 207 Susan Sontag

An argument about beauty

1 Responding at last, in April of 2002, to health) an indisputable excellence, has the scandal created by the revelation of been a perennial resource in the issuing innumerable cover-ups of sexually pred- of peremptory evaluations. atory priests, Pope John Paul II told the Permanence, however, is not one of American cardinals summoned to the beauty’s more obvious attributes; and Vatican, “A great work of art may be the contemplation of beauty, when it is blemished, but its beauty remains; and expert, may be wreathed in pathos, the this is a truth which any intellectually drama on which Shakespeare elaborates honest critic will recognize.” in many of the Sonnets. Traditional cele- Is it too odd that the Pope likens the brations of beauty in Japan, like the an- Catholic Church to a great–that is, nual rite of cherry-blossom viewing, are beautiful–work of art? Perhaps not, keenly elegiac; the most stirring beauty since the inane comparison allows him is the most evanescent. To make beau- to turn abhorrent misdeeds into some- ty in some sense imperishable required thing like the scratches in the print of a lot of conceptual tinkering and trans- a silent ½lm or craquelure covering the posing, but the idea was simply too al- surface of an Old Master painting, blem- luring, too potent, to be squandered on ishes that we reflexively screen out or the praise of superior embodiments. The see past. The Pope likes venerable ideas. aim was to multiply the notion, to allow And beauty, as a term signifying (like for kinds of beauty, beauty with adjec- tives, arranged on a scale of ascending Susan Sontag was elected a Fellow of the Ameri- value and incorruptibility, with the met- can Academy in 1993. Best known as a novelist aphorized uses (‘intellectual beauty,’ and essayist–her books have been translated in- ‘spiritual beauty’) taking precedence to thirty-two languages–she also composed sto- over what ordinary language extols as ries and plays, wrote and directed movies, and beautiful–a gladness to the senses. worked as a theatre director in the United States The less ‘uplifting’ beauty of face and and Europe. In 2000 she won the National Book body remains the most commonly visit- Award for her novel “In America,” and in 2001 ed site of the beautiful. But one would received the Jerusalem Prize for the body of her hardly expect the Pope to invoke that work. This piece appeared in the Fall 2002 issue sense of beauty while constructing an of “Dædalus.” She died in 2004. exculpatory account of several generations’ worth of the clergy’s sexual mo- © Susan Sontag lestation of children and protection of

208 Dædalus Fall 2005 the molesters. More to the point–his to mean ‘merely’ beautiful: there is no An argument point–is the ‘higher’ beauty of art. more vapid or philistine compliment. about However much art may seem to be a Elsewhere, beauty still reigns, irre- beauty matter of surface and reception by the pressible. (How could it not?) When senses, it has generally been accorded that notorious beauty-lover Oscar Wilde an honorary citizenship in the domain announced in The Decay of Lying, “No- of ‘inner’ (as opposed to ‘outer’) beauty. body of any real culture ever talks about Beauty, it seems, is immutable, at least the beauty of a sunset. Sunsets are quite when incarnated–½xed–in the form of old-fashioned,” sunsets reeled under art, because it is in art that beauty as an the blow, then recovered. Les beaux-arts, idea, an eternal idea, is best embodied. when summoned to a similar call to be Beauty (should you choose to use the up-to-date, did not. The subtraction of word that way) is deep, not super½cial; beauty as a standard for art hardly sig- hidden, sometimes, rather than obvious; nals a decline of the authority of beauty. consoling, not troubling; indestructible, Rather, it testi½es to a decline in the be- as in art, rather than ephemeral, as in na- lief that there is something called art. ture. Beauty, the stipulatively uplifting kind, perdures. 3 Even when Beauty was an unquestioned 2 criterion of value in the arts, it was de- The best theory of beauty is its history. ½ned laterally, by evoking some other Thinking about the history of beauty quality that was supposed to be the es- means focusing on its deployment in the sence or sine qua non of something that hands of speci½c communities. was beautiful. A de½nition of the beau- Communities dedicated by their lead- tiful was no more (or less) than a com- ers to stemming what is perceived as a mendation of the beautiful. When, for noxious tide of innovative views have example, Lessing equated beauty with no interest in modifying the bulwark harmony, he was offering another gen- provided by the use of beauty as unex- eral idea of what is excellent or desir- ceptionable commendation and conso- able. lation. It is not surprising that John Paul In the absence of a de½nition in the II, and the preserve-and-conserve insti- strict sense, there was supposed to be an tution for which he speaks, feels as com- organ or capacity for registering beauty fortable with beauty as with the idea of (that is, value) in the arts, called ‘taste,’ the good. and a canon of works discerned by peo- It also seems inevitable that when, al- ple of taste, seekers after more rare½ed most a century ago, the most prestigious grati½cations, adepts of connoisseur- communities concerned with the ½ne ship. For in the arts–unlike life–beauty arts dedicated themselves to drastic proj- was not assumed to be necessarily appar- ects of innovation, beauty would turn ent, evident, obvious. up on the front line of notions to be dis- The problem with taste was that, how- credited. Beauty could not but appear a ever much it resulted in periods of large conservative standard to the makers and agreement within communities of art proclaimers of the new; Gertrude Stein lovers, it issued from private, immediate, said that to call a work of art beautiful and revocable responses to art. And the means that it is dead. Beautiful has come consensus, however ½rm, was never

Dædalus Fall 2005 209 Susan more than local. To address this defect, to been regarded as beautiful (or: the Sontag Kant–a dedicated universalizer–pro- beautiful in the ugly). posed a distinctive faculty of ‘judgment’ Similarly, there is more and more re- with discernable principles of a general sistance to the idea of ‘good taste,’ that and abiding kind; the tastes legislated by is, to the dichotomy good taste/bad this faculty of judgment, if properly re- taste, except for occasions that allow flected upon, should be the possession one to celebrate the defeat of snobbery of all. But ‘judgment’ did not have its and the triumph of what was once con- intended effect of shoring up ‘taste’ or descended to as bad taste. Today, good making it, in a certain sense, more dem- taste seems even more retrograde an ocratic. For one thing, taste-as-princi- idea than beauty. Austere, dif½cult ‘mod- pled-judgment was hard to apply, since ernist’ art and literature have come to it had the most tenuous connection with seem old-fashioned, a conspiracy of the actual works of art deemed incon- snobs. Innovation is relaxation now; testably great or beautiful, unlike the pli- today’s E-Z Art gives the green light to able, empirical criterion of taste. And all. In the cultural climate favoring the taste is now a far weaker, more assailable more user-friendly art of recent years, notion than it was in the late eighteenth the beautiful seems, if not obvious, then century. Whose taste? Or, more insolent- pretentious. Beauty continues to take a ly, who sez? battering in what are called, absurdly, As the relativistic stance in cultural our culture wars. matters pressed harder on the old as- sessments, de½nitions of beauty–de- 4 scriptions of its essence–became emp- That beauty applied to some things and tier. Beauty could no longer be some- not to others, that it was a principle of thing as positive as harmony. For Valéry, discrimination, was once its strength and the nature of beauty is that it cannot be appeal. Beauty belonged to the family of de½ned; beauty is precisely ‘the ineffa- notions that establish rank, and accord- ble.’ ed well with social order unapologetic The failure of the notion of beauty re- about station, class, hierarchy, and the flects the discrediting of the prestige of right to exclude. judgment itself, as something that could What had been a virtue of the concept conceivably be impartial or objective, became its liability. Beauty, which once not always self-serving or self-referring. seemed vulnerable because it was too It also reflects the discrediting of binary general, loose, porous, was revealed as– discourses in the arts. Beauty de½nes it- on the contrary–excluding too much. self as the antithesis of the ugly. Obvi- Discrimination, once a positive faculty ously, you can’t say something is beauti- (meaning re½ned judgment, high stan- ful if you’re not willing to say something dards, fastidiousness), turned negative: is ugly. But there are more and more ta- it meant prejudice, bigotry, blindness to boos about calling something, anything, the virtues of what was not identical ugly. (For an explanation, look ½rst not with oneself. at the rise of so-called political correct- The strongest, most successful move ness, but at the evolving ideology of con- against beauty was in the arts: beauty, sumerism, then at the complicity be- and the caring about beauty, was restric- tween these two.) The point is to ½nd tive; as the current idiom has it, elitist. what is beautiful in what has not hither- Our appreciations, it was felt, could be

210 Dædalus Fall 2005 so much more inclusive if we said that old insolence lies mainly in its disdain An argument something, instead of being beautiful, for the consequences of actions and of about was ‘interesting.’ judgments. As for the truthfulness of the beauty Of course, when people said a work of ascription–that does not even enter the art was interesting, this did not mean story. One calls something interesting that they necessarily liked it–much less precisely so as not to have to commit to that they thought it beautiful. It usually a judgment of beauty (or of goodness). meant no more than they thought they The interesting is now mainly a con- ought to like it. Or that they liked it, sort sumerist concept, bent on enlarging its of, even though it wasn’t beautiful. domain: the more things that become Or they might describe something as interesting, the more the marketplace interesting to avoid the banality of call- grows. The boring–understood as an ing it beautiful. Photography was the art absence, an emptiness–implies its anti- where ‘the interesting’ ½rst triumphed, dote: the promiscuous, empty af½rma- and early on: the new, photographic way tions of the interesting. It is a peculiarly of seeing proposed everything as a po- inconclusive way of experiencing reality. tential subject for the camera. The beau- In order to enrich this deprived take tiful could not have yielded such a range on our experiences, one would have to of subjects; and soon came to seem un- acknowledge a full notion of boredom: cool to boot as a judgment. Of a photo- depression, rage (suppressed despair). graph of a sunset, a beautiful sunset, Then one could work toward a full no- anyone with minimal standards of ver- tion of the interesting. But that quality bal sophistication might well prefer to of experience–of feeling–one would say, “Yes, the photograph is interesting.” probably no longer even want to call 5 interesting. What is interesting? Mostly, what has 6 not previously been thought beautiful Beauty can illustrate an ideal; a perfec- (or good). The sick are interesting, as tion. Or, because of its identi½cation Nietzsche points out. The wicked, too. with women (more accurately, with To name something as interesting im- Woman), it can trigger the usual ambiv- plies challenging old orders of praise; alence that stems from the age-old deni- such judgments aspire to be found inso- gration of the feminine. Much of the dis- lent or at least ingenious. Connoisseurs crediting of beauty needs to be under- of the interesting–whose antonym is stood as a result of the gender inflection. the boring–appreciate clash, not har- Misogyny, too, might underlie the urge mony. Liberalism is boring, declares to metaphorize beauty, thereby promot- Carl Schmitt in The Concept of the Poli- ing it out of the realm of the ‘merely’ tical, written in 1932 (the following year feminine, the unserious, the specious. he joined the Nazi Party). A politics For if women are worshiped because conducted according to liberal princi- they are beautiful, they are condescend- ples lacks drama, flavor, conflict, while ed to for their preoccupation with mak- strong autocratic politics–and war– ing or keeping themselves beautiful. are interesting. Beauty is theatrical, it is for being looked Long use of ‘the interesting’ as a crite- at and admired; and the word is as likely rion of value has, inevitably, weakened to suggest the beauty industry (beauty its transgressive bite. What is left of the magazines, beauty parlors, beauty prod-

Dædalus Fall 2005 211 Susan ucts)–the theatre of feminine frivoli- it up into ‘inner’ and ‘outer,’ ‘higher’ Sontag ty–as the beauties of art and of nature. and ‘lower’ beauty, is the usual way that How else to explain the association of judgments of the beautiful are colonized beauty–i.e., women–with mindless- by moral judgments. From a Nietz- ness? To be concerned with one’s own schean (or Wildean) point of view, this beauty is to risk the charge of narcissism may be improper, but it seems to me un- and frivolity. Consider all the beauty avoidable. And the wisdom that be- synonyms, starting with the ‘lovely,’ the comes available over a deep, lifelong merely ‘pretty,’ which cry out for a virile engagement with the aesthetic cannot, transposition. I venture to say, be duplicated by any “Handsome is as handsome does.” other kind of seriousness. Indeed, the (But not: “Beautiful is as beautiful various de½nitions of beauty come at does.”) Though it applies no less than least as close to a plausible characteriza- does ‘beautiful’ to appearance, ‘hand- tion of virtue, and of a fuller humanity, some’–free of associations with the as the attempts to de½ne goodness as feminine–seems a more sober, less such. gushing way of commending. Beauty is not ordinarily associated with gravitas. 8 Thus one might prefer to call the vehicle Beauty is part of the history of idealiz- for delivering searing images of war and ing, which is itself part of the history of atrocity a ‘handsome book,’ as I did in consolation. But beauty may not always the preface to a recent compilation of console. The beauty of face and ½gure photographs by Don McCullin, lest call- torments, subjugates; that beauty is im- ing it a ‘beautiful book’ (which it was) perious. The beauty that is human, and would seem an affront to its appalling the beauty that is made (art)–both raise subject. the fantasy of possession. Our model of the disinterested comes from the beauty 7 of nature–a nature that is distant, over- It’s usually assumed that beauty is, al- arching, unpossessable. most tautologically, an ‘aesthetic’ cate- From a letter written by a German gory, which puts it, according to many, soldier standing guard in the Russian on a collision course with the ethical. winter in late December of 1942: “The But beauty, even beauty in the amoral most beautiful Christmas I had ever mode, is never naked. And the ascrip- seen, made entirely of disinterested tion of beauty is never unmixed with emotions and stripped of all tawdry moral values. Far from the aesthetic trimmings. I was all alone beneath an and the ethical being poles apart, as enormous starred sky, and I can remem- Kierkegaard and Tolstoy insisted, the ber a tear running down my frozen aesthetic is itself a quasi-moral project. cheek, a tear neither of pain nor of joy Arguments about beauty since Plato but of emotion created by intense expe- are stocked with questions about the rience. . . .”1 proper relation to the beautiful (the irre- Unlike beauty, often fragile and imper- sistibly, enthrallingly beautiful), which manent, the capacity to be overwhelmed is thought to flow from the nature of by the beautiful is astonishingly sturdy beauty itself. 1 Quoted in Stephen G. Fritz, Frontsoldaten: The perennial tendency to make of The German Soldier in World War II (Lexington, beauty itself a binary concept, to split Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 1995), 130.

212 Dædalus Fall 2005 and survives amidst the harshest distrac- An argument tions. Even war, even the prospect of cer- about tain death, cannot expunge it. beauty 9 The beauty of art is better, ‘higher,’ according to Hegel, than the beauty of nature because it is made by human beings and is the work of the spirit. But the discerning of beauty in nature is also the result of traditions of consciousness, and of culture–in Hegel’s language, of spirit. The responses to beauty in art and to beauty in nature are interdependent. As Wilde pointed out, art does more than school us on how and what to appreciate in nature. (He was thinking of poetry and painting. Today the standards of beauty in nature are largely set by photography.) What is beautiful reminds us of nature as such–of what lies beyond the human and the made–and thereby stimulates and deepens our sense of the sheer spread and fullness of reality, inan- imate as well as pulsing, that surrounds us all. A happy by-product of this insight, if insight it is: beauty regains its solidity, its inevitability, as a judgment needed to make sense of a large portion of one’s energies, af½nities, and admirations; and the usurping notions appear ludi- crous. Imagine saying, “That sunset is interesting.”

Dædalus Fall 2005 213 President Patricia Meyer Spacks Executive Of½cer Leslie Cohen Berlowitz Vice President Louis W. Cabot Secretary Jerrold Meinwald Treasurer John S. Reed Editor Steven Marcus Librarian Robert C. Post Vice President, Midwest Center Geoffrey R. Stone Vice President, Western Center Jesse H. Choper

Dædalus Board of Editors Committee Steven Marcus, Chair, Joyce Appleby, Russell Banks, Stanley Hoffmann, Donald Kennedy, Martha C. Nussbaum, Neil J. Smelser, Rosanna Warren, Steven Weinberg; ex of½cio: Patricia Meyer Spacks, Leslie C. Berlowitz

Committee on Publications & Public Relations Jerome Kagan, Chair, Emilio Bizzi, Jesse H. Choper, Denis Donoghue, Jerrold Meinwald; ex of½cio: Patricia Meyer Spacks, Steven Marcus, Leslie C. Berlowitz

Inside back cover: Nanjing now–a Confucian temple housing an American fried-chicken franchise. See Tu Wei-ming on Cultural China: the periphery as the center, pages 145– 167: “. . . the real challenge to the mainland Chinese intellectuals is not the modern West per se but the modern West mediated through industrial East Asia.” Image © Liu Liqun/Corbis.

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