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Ephemeral Reality” L I a Is Understanding What We Have in Common Trough Discovering Our Differences

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Ephemeral Reality” L I a Is Understanding What We Have in Common Trough Discovering Our Differences How is Man to be defined? Can this fascinating, yet at times disappointing being truly be understood? re U Is there any noticeable pattern in what weare, what we do, say or think, and why… in whatever we tend to find beautiful or meaningful? lt U EPHEMERAL Are there any constant and unchangeable rules, strict and predictable principles C in human history, society and culture? F How can we understand people – their behavior, their activities, their sense of S O belonging, their personalities? E REALITY Anthropology seeks to conceive of human behavior by developing a comprehen- MANY FACES OF CUltUre sive understanding of the diversity of humankind. Cultural anthropology is a FAC field of anthropological knowledge that focuses on the basic patterns of everyday Y life and attaches cultural significance to social places and practices. Culture is a constantly changing reality. Through thirteen glimpses into diverse MAN cultural worlds, this book seeks to capture moments of shared “ephemeral realities” . we are about to analyze. Once captured, cultural anthropology strives to preserve TY such moments... without these ’snapshots’, we would miss the opportunity to marvel I at each other’s differences and similarities. In fact, the essence of “ephemeral reality” L A is understanding what we have in common trough discovering our differences. Richard Papp’s book applies an anthropological perspective to universal cul- L REL tural concepts and their interpretations in distinctive cultures, religious tradi- A tions and social groups. EMER H EP pp D PA R TÁTK RICHA ISBN 978-963-489-257-1 RICHARD PApp papp_borito_eng.indd 1 2020.11.11. 14:37:03 ManyEphemeral Faces of Culturereality E P H E M E R A L R E A L I T Y 1 2 E P H E M E R A L R E A L I T Y Richárd Papp ManyEphemeral Faces of Culturereality Budapest, 2020 E P H E M E R A L R E A L I T Y 3 This publication was financed by Eötvös Loránd University’s Funding Program for academic publication. © Papp Richárd, 2020 ISBN 978-963-284-241-7 www.eotvoskiado.hu Executive Publisher: The Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences of Eötvös Loránd University Layout: Katalin Jeszenszky Cover: Ildikó Csele Kmotrik 4 E P H E M E R A L R E A L I T Y Contents INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 7 1 Pony on a spit ......................................................................................................................... 9 2 “Rationality”, “factuality” and “normality” ................................................................... 11 3 Time of cultures – Time and culture ............................................................................... 16 4 Friendships and cultures .................................................................................................... 20 5 Culture and humor .............................................................................................................. 23 6 Virgins and cultures ............................................................................................................ 33 7 Body and soul, and that’s all? Cultural meaning of body and soul ......................... 36 8 Religion and ritual: the stake of sacrality ...................................................................... 46 9 Eternity of the moment: Modern myths ......................................................................... 61 10 Myths of Jim Morrison and the Jim Morrison myth .................................................... 77 11 How to conduct culture research? ................................................................................... 91 12 “Authenticity” of cultural anthropology and its relation to “general truths” ................................................................................. 103 13 Epilogue: Anthropology of Lajos Boglár, ‘Many Faces of Culture’ and Ephemeral Reality ......................................................... 124 REFERENCES and BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................... 127 E P H E M E R A L R E A L I T Y 5 6 E P H E M E R A L R E A L I T Y INTRODUCTION In the picture above, a man is performing one of the most meaningful, most expressive forms of human activity: he is drawing Chinese characters with water on asphalt. Once drawn, the characters slowly evaporate in the sun, readable only for a moment before they disappear. The man is practicing what is called “water calligraphy”, commonly found in/across China in parks, squares, and streets. The Chinese characters displayed may be syllables carrying mere aesthetic value but may also be poems or quotes from Lao Ce, Confucius, even Mao Ce Tung. For me, this represents the most sensual metaphor of culture, telling more than any definition could say. Culture, much like the fading characters, is there and still not there; absent, yet still present. Water-written reality is painted by the man with purpose; an effort he makes to create, to bring into existence a visible, tangible reality, some reality of experience. The small water pot and the brush he works with are products of his material culture. The syllables, poems, thoughts, political phrases, though not conceivable, enclose concrete meanings of a reality known to everyone, and convey those meanings to the people walking in the park. The activity of the man writing with water is hardly separable from his socio-cultural environment. The ‘how’, ‘when’ and ‘why’ of whatever he does, the motivation behind – may that be a physical exercise, health maintenance practice, leisure time amusement or selfless con- tribution to the aesthetic joy of the passersby, a renewal, patriotic cultivation, and (re) presentation of Chinese tradition or perhaps the combination of all the above – are encoded in the words written with water. The passersby in the park understand the man’s action through/along similar constructions. The transient characters on the asphalt are invisibly entwined with the web of cultural meanings, symbols, social patterns, systems and identity components. Culture, even if it does not (or does only for moments) become “visible”, is there with us, inherent in us. And the solemn anthropologist, while observing a man in a Shanghai park, tries to catch him in a freeze-frame moment, capturing what is by nature invisible. This makes it is such a beautiful, imperfect, fragile and indispensable challenge to under- stand and describe culture. E P H E M E R A L R E A L I T Y 7 8 E P H E M E R A L R E A L I T Y 1 Pony on a spit How is Man to be defined? Can this fascinating, yet at times disappointing being truly be understood? Is there any noticeable pattern in what we are, what we do, say or think, and why, in whatever we tend to find beautiful or meaningful? Are there any constant and unchangeable rules, strict and predictable principles in human history, society and culture? How can we understand people – their behavior, their activities, their sense of belonging and their personalities? William A. Haviland in his book Cultural Anthropolology quotes an article from the Wall Street Journal, May 13, 1983 issue: Salt Lake City – Police called it a cross-cultural misunderstanding. When a man showed up to buy the Shetland pony advertised for sale, the owner asked what he intended to do with the animal. “For my son’s birthday”, he replied, and the deal was closed. The buyer thereupon clubbed the pony to death with a two-by-four, dumped the carcass in his pickup truck and drove away. The horrified seller called the police, who tracked town the buyer. At his house they found a birthday party in progress. The pony was trussed and roasting on aluau pit. “We don’t ride horses, we eat them”, explained the buyer, a recent immigrant from Tonga. (HAVILAND 1990: 32) Can a man be judged whether he sees a pet in a pony or a delicious festive dinner instead? Posing the question from a different perspective: can a man be understood if we are unfa- miliar with his culture? How does the way/process of defining our culture tell of our life and our personality? The science of anthropology seeks to understand men, the general human behavior of man, by attempting to get a comprehensive understanding of the diversity of mankind. Cultural anthropology is a sphere of anthropological cognition that focuses on the patterns and cultural significances of life and the practices of societies. (HAVILAND 1990: 5–10) The most expressive definition of culture was formulated by Lajos Boglár. In the inter- pretation of Professor Boglár, culture is E P H E M E R A L R E A L I T Y 9 in the general sense, the total social heritage of man, while the concrete meaning of it is the learned tradition and lifestyle of a particular group of people in which the members of the group partake. This cultural understanding [...] is probably the main contribution of anthropology to getting to know man. The essence of the concept is that human behavior is not instinctive and not inherited by genetic mechanisms but acquired and learned behavior that has been communicated from generation to generation. (BOGLÁR 1995: 5) The following lecture notes are based on my notes to the university course titled “Faces of Culture”, conceived by Professor Boglár, and on related interpretations. In the light of what has been described, the examples of this paper allow us to look at these phenomena as things that we carry with us, and most of us treat them as unques- tionable evidence or universal facts, since they stem
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