Re: STEPS TO AN ECOLOGY OF MIND: COLLECTED ESSAYS IN ANTHROP
Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2015 5:09 am
Part 3 of 4
Balinese Ethos
The next step, therefore, is to ask about Balinese ethos. What actually are the motives and the values which accompany the complex and rich cultural activities of the Balinese? What, if not competitive and other types of cumulative interrelationship, causes the Balinese to carry out the elaborate patterns of their lives?
The Witch, the personification of fear, frequently uses a gesture called kapar, which is described as that of a man falling from a coconut palm on suddenly seeing a snake. In this gesture the arms are raised sideways to a position somewhat above the head.
The ordinary Balinese term for the period before the coming of the white man is “when the world was steady” (doegas goemine enteg).
Applications of the Von Neumannian Game
Even this very brief listing of some of the elements in Balinese ethos suffices to indicate theoretical problems of prime importance. Let us consider the matter in abstract terms. One of the hypotheses underlying most sociology is that the dynamics of the social mechanism can be described by assuming that the individuals constituting that mechanism are motivated to maximize certain variables. In conventional economic theory it is assumed that the individuals will maximize value, while in schismogenic theory it was tacitly assumed that the individuals would maximize intangible but still simple variables such as prestige, self-esteem, or even submissiveness. The Balinese, however, do not maximize any such simple variables.
In order to define the sort of contrast which exists between the Balinese system and any competitive system, let us start by considering the premisses of a strictly competitive Von Neumannian game and proceed by considering what changes we must make in these premisses in order to approximate more closely to the Balinese system.
In sum it seems that the Balinese extend to human relationships attitudes based upon bodily balance, and that they generalize the idea that motion is essential to balance. This last point gives us, I believe, a partial answer to the question of why the society not only continues to function but functions rapidly and busily, continually undertaking ceremonial and artistic tasks which are not economically or competitively determined. This steady state is maintained by continual nonprogressive change.
Schismogenic System versus the Steady State
I have discussed two types of social system in such schematic outline that it is possible to state clearly a contrast between them. Both types of system, so far as they are capable of maintaining themselves without progressive or irreversible change, achieve the steady state. There are, however, profound differences between them in the manner in which the steady state is regulated.
The Iatmul system, which is here used as a prototype of schismogenic systems, includes a number of regenerative causal circuits or vicious circles. Each such circuit consists of two or more individuals (or groups of individuals) who participate in potentially cumulative interaction. Each human individual is an energy source or “relay,” such that the energy used in his responses is not derived from the stimuli but from his own metabolic processes. It therefore follows that such a schismogenic system is—unless controlled—liable to excessive increase of those acts which characterize the schismogeneses. The anthropologist who attempts even a qualitative description of. such a system must therefore identify: (1) the individuals and groups involved in schismogenesis and the routes of communication between them; (2) the categories of acts and contexts characteristic of the schismogeneses; (3) the processes whereby the individuals become psychologically apt to perform these acts and/or the nature of the contexts which force these acts upon them; and lastly, (4) he must identify the mechanisms or factors which control the schismogeneses. These controlling factors may be of at least three distinct types: (a) degenerative causal loops may be superposed upon the schismogeneses so that when the latter reach a certain intensity some form of restraint is applied as occurs in Occidental systems when a government intervenes to limit economic competition; (b) there may be, in addition to the schismogeneses already considered, other cumulative interactions acting in an opposite sense and so promoting social integration rather than fission; (c) the increase in schismogenesis may be limited by factors which are internally or externally environmental to the parts of the schismogenic circuit. Such factors which have only small restraining effect at low intensities of schismogenesis may increase with increase of intensity. Friction, fatigue, and limitation of energy supply would be examples of such factors.
In contrast with these schismogenic systems, Balinese society is an entirely different type of mechanism, and in describing it the anthropologist must follow entirely different procedures, for which rules cannot as yet be laid down. Since the class of “nonschismogenic” social systems is defined only in negative terms, we cannot assume that members of the class will have common characteristics. In the analysts of the Balinese system, however, the following steps occurred, and it is possible that some at least of these may be applicable in the analysis of other cultures of this class: (1) it was observed that schismogenic sequences are rare in Bali; (2) the exceptional cases in which such sequences occur were investigated; (3) from this investigation it appeared, (a) that in general the contexts which recur in Balinese social life preclude cumulative interaction and ( b) that childhood experience trains the child away from seeking climax in personal interaction; (4) it was shown that certain positive values—related to balance—recur in the culture and are incorporated into the character structure during childhood, and, further, that these values may be specifically related to the steady state; (5) a more detailed study is now required to arrive at a systematic statement about the self-correcting characteristics of the system. It is evident that the ethos alone is insufficient to maintain the steady state. From time to time the village or some other entity does step in to correct infractions. The nature of these instances of the working of the corrective mechanism must be studied; but it is clear that this intermittent mechanism is very different from the continually acting restraints which must be present in all schismogenic systems.
Style, Grace, and Information in Primitive Art [51]
Introduction
This paper consists of several still-separate attempts to map a theory associated with culture and the nonverbal arts. Since no one of these attempts is completely successful, and since the attempts do not as yet meet in the middle of the territory to be mapped, it. may be useful to state, in non-technical language, what it is I am after.
Aldous Huxley used to say that the central problem for humanity is the quest for grace. This word he used in what he thought was the sense in, which it is used in the New Testament. He explained the word, however, in his own terms. He argued—like Walt Whitman—that the communication and behavior of animals has a naivete, a simplicity, which man has lost. Man’s behavior is corrupted by deceit—even self-deceit— by purpose, and by self-consciousness. As Aldous saw the matter, man has lost the “grace” which animals still have.
In terms of this contrast, Aldous argued that God resembles the animals rather than man: He is ideally unable to deceive and incapable of internal confusions.
In the total scale of beings, therefore, man is as if displaced sideways and lacks that grace which the animals have and which God has.
I argue that art is a part of man’s quest for grace; sometimes his ecstasy in partial success, sometimes his rage and agony at failure.
I argue also that there are many species of grace within the major genus; and also that there are many kinds of failure and frustration and departure from grace. No doubt each culture has its characteristic species of grace toward which its artists strive, and its own species of failure.
Some cultures may foster a negative approach to this difficult integration, an avoidance of complexity by crass preference either for total consciousness or total unconsciousness. Their art is unlikely to be “great.”
I shall argue that the problem of grace is fundamentally a problem of integration and that what is to be integrated is the diverse parts of the mind—especially those multiple levels of which one extreme is called “consciousness” and the other the “unconscious.” For the attainment of grace, the reasons of the heart must be integrated with the reasons of the reason.
Edmund Leach has confronted us, in this conference, with the question: How is it that the art of one culture can have meaning or validity for critics raised in a different culture? My answer would be that, if art is somehow expressive of something like grace or psychic integration, then the success of this expression might well be recognizable across cultural barriers. The physical grace of cats is profoundly different from the physical grace of horses, and yet a man who has the physical grace of neither can evaluate that of both.
And even when the subject matter of art is the frustration of integration, cross-cultural recognition of the products of this frustration is not too surprising.
The central question is: In what form is information about psychic integration contained or coded in the work of art?
Style and Meaning
They say that “every picture tells a story,” and this generalization holds for most of art if we exclude “mere” geometric ornamentation. But I want precisely to avoid analyzing the “story.” That aspect of the work of art which can most easily be reduced to words—the mythology connected with the subject matter—is not what I want to discuss. I shall not even mention the unconscious mythology of phallic symbolism, except at the end.
I am concerned with what important psychic information is in the art object quite apart from what it may “represent.” “Le style est l’homme meme” (“The style is the man himself”) (Buffon). What is implicit in style, materials, composition, rhythm, skill, and so on?
Clearly this subject matter will include geometrical ornamentation along with the composition and stylistic aspects of more representational works.
The lions in Trafalgar Square could have been eagles or bulldogs and still have carried the same (or similar) messages about empire and about the cultural premises of nineteenth-century England. And yet, how different might their message have been had they been made of wood!
But representationalism as such is relevant. The extremely realistic horses and stags of Altamira are surely not about the same cultural premises as the highly conventionalized black outlines of a later period. The code whereby perceived objects or persons (or supernaturals) are transformed into wood or paint is a source of information about the artist and his culture.
It is the very rules of transformation that are of interest to me—not the message, but the code.
My goal is not instrumental. I do not want to use the transformation rules when discovered to undo the transformation or to “decode” the message. To translate the art object into mythology and then examine the mythology would be only a neat way of dodging or negating the problem of “what is art?”
I ask, then, not about the meaning of the encoded message but rather about the meaning of the code chosen. But still that most slippery word “meaning” must be defined.
It will be convenient to define meaning in the most general possible way in the first instance.
“Meaning” may be regarded as an approximate synonym of pattern, redundancy, information, and “restraint,” within a paradigm of the following sort:
Any aggregate of events or objects (e.g., a sequence of phonemes, a painting, or a frog, or a culture) shall be said to contain “redundancy” or “pattern” if the aggregate can be divided in any way by a “slash mark,” such that an observer perceiving only what is on one side of the slash mark can guess, with better than random success, what is on the other side of the slash mark. We may say that what is on one side of the slash contains information or has meaning about what is on the other side. Or, in engineer’s language, the aggregate contains “redundancy.” Or, again, from the point of view of a cybernetic observer, the information available on one side of the slash will restrain (i.e., reduce the probability of) wrong guessing. Examples:
The letter T in a given location in a piece of written English prose proposes that the next letter is likely to be an H or an R or a vowel. It is possible to make a better than random guess across a slash which immediately follows the T. English spelling contains redundancy.
From a part of an English sentence, delimited by a slash, it is possible to guess at the syntactic structure of the remainder of the sentence.
From a tree visible above ground, it is possible to guess at the existence of roots below ground. The top provides information about the bottom.
From an arc of a drawn circle, it is possible to guess at the position of other parts of the circumference. (From the diameter of an ideal circle, it is possible to assert the length of the circumference. But this is a matter of truth within a tautological system.)
From how the boss acted yesterday, it may be possible to guess how he will act today.
From what I say, it may be possible to make predictions about how you will answer. My words contain meaning or information about your reply.
Telegraphist A has a written message on his pad and sends this message over wire to B, so that B now gets the same sequence of letters on his message pad. This transaction (or “language game” in Wittgenstein’s phrase) has created a redundant universe for an observer O. If 0 knows what was on A’s pad, he can make a better than random guess at what is on B’s pad.
The essence and raison d’etre of communication is the creation of redundancy, meaning, pattern, predictability, information, and/or the reduction of the random by “restraint.”
It is, I believe, of prime importance to have a conceptual system which will force us to see the “message” (e.g., the art object) as both itself internally patterned and itself a part of a larger patterned universe—the culture or some part of it.
The characteristics of objects of art are believed to be about, or to be partly derived from, or determined by, other characteristics of cultural and psychological systems. Our problem might therefore be oversimply represented by the diagram:
[Characteristics of art object/Characteristics of rest of culture]
where square brackets enclose the universe of relevance, and where the oblique stroke represents a slash across which some guessing is possible, in one direction or in both. The problem, then, is to spell out what sorts of relationships, correspondences, etc., cross or transcend this oblique stroke.
Consider the case in which I say to you, “It’s raining,” and you guess that if you look out the window you will see raindrops. A similar diagram will serve:
[Characteristics of “It’s raining”/Perception of raindrops]
Notice, however, that this case is by no means simple. Only if you know the language and have some trust in my veracity will you be able to make a guess about the raindrops. In fact, few people in this situation restrain themselves from seemingly duplicating their information by looking out of the window. We like to prove that our guesses are right, and that our friends are honest. Still more important, we like to test or verify the correctness of our view of our relationship to others.
This last point is nontrivial. It illustrates the necessarily hierarchic structure of all communicational systems: the fact of conformity or nonconformity (or indeed any other relationship) between parts of a patterned whole may itself be informative as part of some still larger whole. The matter may he diagrammed thus:
[(“It’s raining”/raindrops)/You-me relationship)
where redundancy across the slash mark within the smaller universe enclosed in round brackets proposes (is a message about) a redundancy in the larger universe enclosed in square brackets.
But the message “It’s raining” is itself conventionally coded and internally patterned, so that several slash marks could be drawn across the message indicating patterning within the message itself.
And the same is true of the rain. It, too, is patterned and structured. From the direction of one drop, I could predict the direction of others. And so on.
But the slash marks across the verbal message “It’s raining” will not correspond in any simple way to the slash marks across the raindrops.
If, instead of a verbal message, I had given you a picture of the rain, some of the slashes on the picture would have corresponded with slashes on the perceived rain.
This difference provides a neat formal criterion to separate the “arbitrary” and digital coding characteristic of the verbal part of language from the iconic coding of depiction.
But verbal description is often iconic in its larger structure. A scientist describing an earthworm might start at the head end and work down its length—thus producing a description iconic in its sequence and elongation. Here again we observe a hierarchic structuring, digital or verbal at one level and iconic at another.
Levels and Logical Types
“Levels” have been mentioned: (a) It was noted that the combination of the message “It’s raining” with the perception of raindrops can itself constitute a message about a universe of personal relations; and (b) that when we change our focus of attention from smaller to larger units of message material, we may discover that a larger unit contains iconic coding though the smaller parts of which it was made are verbal: the verbal description of an earthworm may, as a whole, be elongated.
The matter of levels now crops up in another form which is crucial for any epistemology of art:
The word “know” is not merely ambiguous in covering both connaitre (to know through the senses, to recognize or perceive) and savoir (to know in the mind), but varies —actively shifts— in meaning for basic systemic reasons. That which we know through the senses can become knowledge in the mind.
“I know the way to Cambridge” might mean that I have studied the map and can give you directions. It might mean that I can recall details all along the route. It might mean that when driving that route I recognize many details even though I could recall only a few. It might mean that when driving to Cambridge I can trust to “habit” to make me turn at the right points, without having to think where I am going. And so on.
In all cases, we deal with a redundancy or patterning of a quite complex sort:
[(“I know…”/my mind)//the road]
and the difficulty is to determine the nature of the patterning within the round brackets, or, to put the matter another way: what parts of the mind are redundant with the particular message about “knowing.”
Last, there is a special form of “knowing” which is usually regarded as adaptation rather than information. A shark is beautifully shaped for locomotion in water, but the genome of the shark surely does not contain direct information about hydrodynamics. Rather, the genome must be supposed to contain information or instructions which are the complement of hydrodynamics. Not hydrodynamics, but what hydrodynamics requires, has been built up in the shark’s genome. Similarly, a migratory bird perhaps does not know the way to its destination in any of the senses outlined above, but the bird may contain the complementary instructions necessary td cause it to fly right.
“Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point” (“The heart has its reasons which the reason does not at all perceive”). It is this—the complex layering of consciousness and unconsciousness—that creates difficulty when we try to discuss art or ritual or mythology. The matter of levels of the mind has been discussed from many points of view, at least four of which must be mentioned and woven into any scientific approach to art:
Classical Freudian theory assumed that dreams were a secondary product, created by “dream work.” Material unacceptable to conscious thought was supposedly translated into the metaphoric idiom of primary process to avoid waking the dreamer. And this may be true of those items of information which are held in the unconscious by the process of repression. As we have seen, however, many other sorts of information are inaccessible to conscious inspection, including most of the premises of mammalian interaction. It would seem to me sensible to think of these items as existing primarily in the idiom of primary process, only with difficulty to be translated into “rational” terms. In other words, I believe that much of early Freudian theory was upside down. At that time many thinkers regarded conscious reason as normal and self-explanatory while the unconscious was regarded as mysterious, needing proof, and needing explanation. Repression was the explanation, and the unconscious was filled with thoughts which could have been conscious but which repression and dream work had distorted. Today we think of consciousness as the mysterious, and of the computational methods of the unconscious, e.g., primary process, as continually active, necessary, and all-embracing.
These considerations are especially relevant in any attempt to derive a theory of art or poetry. Poetry is not a sort of distorted and decorated prose, but rather prose is poetry which has been stripped down and pinned to a Procrustean bed of logic. The computer men who would program the translation of languages sometimes forget this fact about the primary nature of language. To try to construct a machine to translate the art of one culture into the art of another would be equally silly.
Allegory, at best a distasteful sort of art, is an inversion of the normal creative process. Typically an abstract relation, e.g., between truth and justice, is first conceived in rational terms. The relationship is then metaphorized and dolled up to look like a product of primary process. The abstractions are personified and made to participate in a pseudomyth, and so on. Much advertising art is allegorical in this sense, that the creative process is inverted.
In the cliche system of Anglo-Saxons, it is commonly assumed that it would be somehow better if what is unconscious were made conscious. Freud, even, is said to have said, “Where id was, there ego shall be,” as though such an increase in conscious knowledge and control would be both possible and, of course, an improvement. This view is the product of an almost totally distorted epistemology and a totally distorted view of what sort of thing a man, or any other organism, is.
Of the four sorts of unconsciousness listed above, it is very clear that the first three are necessary. Consciousness, for obvious mechanical reasons, [52] must always be limited to a rather small fraction of mental process. If useful at all, it must therefore be husbanded. The unconsciousness associated with habit is an economy both of thought and of consciousness; and the same is true of the inaccessability of the processes of perception. The conscious organism does not require (for pragmatic purposes) to know how it perceives —only to know what it perceives. (To suggest that we might operate without a foundation in primary process would be to suggest that the human brain ought to be differently structured.) Of the four types, only the Freudian cupboard for skeletons is perhaps undesirable and could be obviated. But there may still be advantages in keeping the skeleton off the dining room table.
In truth, our life is such that its unconscious components are continuously present in all their multiple forms. It follows that in our relationships we continuously exchange messages about these unconscious materials, and it becomes important also to exchange metamessages by which we tell each other what order and species of unconsciousness (or consciousness) attaches to our messages.
In a merely pragmatic way, this is important because the orders of truth are different for different sorts of messages. Insofar as a message is conscious and voluntary, it could be deceitful. I can tell you that the cat is on the mat when in fact she is not there. I can tell you “I love you” when in fact I do not. But discourse about relationship is commonly accompanied by a mass of semivoluntary kinesic and autonomic signals which provide a more trustworthy comment on the verbal message.
Similarly with skill, the fact of skill indicates the presence of large unconscious components in the performance.
It thus becomes relevant to look at any work of art with the question: What components of this message material had what orders of unconsciousness (or consciousness) for the artist? And this question, I believe, the sensitive critic usually asks, though perhaps not consciously.
Art becomes, in this sense, an exercise in communicating about the species of unconsciousness. Or, if you prefer it, a sort of play behavior whose function is, amongst other things, to practice and make more perfect communication of this kind.
I am indebted to Dr. Anthony Forge for a quotation from Isadora Duncan: “If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it.”
Her statement is ambiguous. In terms of the rather vulgar premises of our culture, we would translate the statement to mean: “There would then be no point in dancing it, because I could tell it to you, quicker and with less ambiguity, in words.” This interpretation goes along with the silly idea that it would be a good thing to be conscious of everything of which we are unconscious.
But there is another possible meaning of Isadora Duncan’s remark: If the message were the sort of message that could be communicated in words, there would be no point in dancing it, but it is not that sort of message. It is, in fact, precisely the sort of message which would be falsified if communicated in words, because the use of words (other than poetry) would imply that this is a fully conscious and voluntary message, and this would be simply untrue.
I believe that what Isadora Duncan or any artist is trying to communicate is more like: “This is a particular sort of partly unconscious message. Let us engage in this particular sort of partly unconscious communication.” Or perhaps: “This is a message about the interface between conscious and unconscious.
The message of skill of any sort must always be of this kind. The sensations and qualities of skill can never be put in words, and yet the fact of skill is conscious.
The artist’s dilemma is of a peculiar sort. He must practice in order to perform the craft components of his job. But to practice has always a double effect. It makes him, on the one hand, more able to do whatever it is he is attempting; and, on the other hand, by the phenomenon of habit formation, it makes him less aware of how he does it.
If his attempt is to communicate about the unconscious components of his performance, then it follows that he is on a sort of moving stairway (or escalator) about whose position he is trying to communicate but whose movement is itself a function of his efforts to communicate.
Clearly, his task is impossible, but, as has been remarked, some people do it very prettily.
Balinese Ethos
The next step, therefore, is to ask about Balinese ethos. What actually are the motives and the values which accompany the complex and rich cultural activities of the Balinese? What, if not competitive and other types of cumulative interrelationship, causes the Balinese to carry out the elaborate patterns of their lives?
(1) It is immediately clear to any visitor to Bali that the driving force for cultural activity is not either acquisitiveness or crude physiological need. The Balinese, especially in the plains, are not hungry or poverty-stricken. They are wasteful of food, and a very considerable part of their activity goes into entirely nonproductive activities of an artistic or ritual nature in which food and wealth are lavishly expended. Essentially, we are dealing with an economy of plenty rather than an economy of scarcity. Some, indeed, are rated “poor” by their fellows, but none of these poor are threatened by starvation, and the suggestion that human beings may actually starve in great Occidental cities was, to the Balinese, unutterably shocking.
(2) In their economic transactions the Balinese show a great deal of carefulness in their small dealings. They are “penny wise.” On the other hand, this carefulness is counter-acted by occasional “pound foolishness” when they will expend large sums of money upon ceremonials and other forms of lavish consumption. There are very few Balinese who have the idea of steadily maximizing their wealth or property; these few are partly disliked and partly regarded as oddities. For the vast majority the “saving of pennies” is done with a limited time perspective and a limited level of aspiration. They are saving until they have enough to spend largely on some ceremonial. We should not describe Balinese economics in terms of the individual’s attempt to maximize value, but rather compare it with the relaxation oscillations of physiology and engineering, realizing that not only is this analogy descriptive of their sequences of transactions, but that they themselves see these sequences as naturally having some such form.
(3) The Balinese are markedly dependent upon spatial orientation. In order to be able to behave they must know their cardinal points, and if a Balinese is taken by motor car over twisting roads so that he loses his sense of direction, he may become severely disorientated and unable to act (e.g., a dancer may become unable to dance) until he has got back his orientation by seeing some important landmark, such as the central mountain of the island around which the cardinal points are structured. There is a comparable dependence upon social orientation, but with this difference: that where the spatial orientation is in a horizontal plane, social orientation is felt to be, in the main, vertical. When two strangers are brought together, it is necessary, before they can converse with any freedom, that their relative caste positions be stated. One will ask the other, “Where do you sit?” and this is a metaphor for caste. It is asking, essentially, “Do you sit high or low?” When each knows the caste of the other, each will then know what etiquette and what linguistic forms he should adopt, and conversation can then proceed. Lacking such orientation, a Balinese is tongue-tied.
(4) It is common to find that activity (other than the “penny wisdom” mentioned above) rather than being purposive, i.e., aimed at some deferred goal, is valued for itself. The artist, the dancer, the musician, and the priest may receive a pecuniary reward for their professional activity, but only in rare cases is this reward adequate to recompense the artist even for his time and materials. The reward is a token of appreciation, it is a definition of the context in which the theatrical company performs, but it is not the economic mainstay of the troupe. The earnings of the troupe may be saved up to enable them to buy new costumes, but when finally the costumes are bought it is usually necessary for every member to make a considerable contribution to the common fund in order to pay for them. Similarly, in regard to the offerings which are taken to every temple feast, there is no purpose in this enormous expenditure of artistic work and real wealth. The god will not bring any benefit because you made a beautiful structure of flowers and fruit for the calendric feast in his temple, nor will he avenge your abstention. Instead of deferred purpose there is an immediate and immanent satisfaction in performing beautifully, with everybody else, that which it is correct to perform in each particular context.
(5) In general there is evident enjoyment to be had from doing things busily with large crowds of other people. [39] Conversely there is such misfortune inherent in the loss of group membership that the threat of this loss is one of the most serious sanctions in the culture.
(6) It is of great interest to note that many Balinese actions are articulately accounted for in sociological terms rather than in terms of individual goals or values. [40]
This is most conspicuous in regard to all actions related to the village council, the hierarchy which includes all full citizens. This body, in its secular aspects, is referred to as I Desa (literally, “Mr. Village”), and numerous rules and procedures are rationalized by reference to this abstract personage. Similarly, in its sacred aspects, the village is deified as Betara Desa (God Village), to whom shrines are erected and offerings brought. (We may guess that a Durkheimian analysis would seem to the Balinese to be an obvious and appropriate approach to the understanding of much of their public culture.)
In particular all money transactions which involve the village treasury are governed by the generalization, “The village does not lose” (Desanne sing dadi potjol). This generalization applies, for example, in all cases in which a beast is sold from the village herd. Under no circumstances can the village accept a price less than that which it actually or nominally paid. (It is important to note that the rule takes the form of fixing a lower limit and is not an injunction to maximize the village treasury.)
A peculiar awareness of the nature of social processes is evident in such incidents as the following: A poor man was about to undergo one of the important and expensive rites de passage which are necessary for persons as they approach the top of the council hierarchy. We asked what would happen if he refused to undertake this expenditure. The first answer was that, if he were too poor, I Desa would lend him the money. In response to further pressing as to what would happen if he really refused, we were told that nobody ever had refused, but that if somebody did, nobody would go through the ceremony again. Implicit in this answer and in the fact that nobody ever does refuse is the assumption that the ongoing cultural process is itself to be valued.
(7) Actions which are culturally correct (patoet) are acceptable and aesthetically valued. Actions which are permissible (dadi) are of more or less neutral value; while actions which are not permissible (sing dadi) are to be deprecated and avoided. These generalizations, in their translated form, are no doubt true in many cultures, but it is important to get a clear understanding of what the Balinese mean by dadi. The notion is not to be equated with our “etiquette” or “law,” since each of these invokes the value judgment of some other person or sociological entity. In Bali there is no feeling that actions have been or are categorized as dadi or sing dadi by some human or supernatural authority. Rather, the statement that such-and-such an action is dadi is an absolute generalization to the effect that under the given circumstances this action is regular. [41] It is wrong for a casteless person to address a prince in other than the “polished language,” and it is wrong for a menstruating woman to enter a temple. The prince or the deity may express annoyance, but there is no feeling that either the prince, the deity, or the casteless person made the rules. The offense is felt to be against the order and natural structure of the universe rather than against the actual person offended. The offender, even in such serious matters as incest (for which he may be extruded from the society) [42] is not blamed for anything worse than stupidity and clumsiness. Rather, he is “an unfortunate person” (anak latfoer), and misfortune may come to any of us “when it is our turn.” Further, it must be stressed that these patterns which define correct and permissible behavior are exceedingly complex (especially the rules of language) and that the individual Balinese (even to some degree inside his own family) has continual anxiety lest he make an error. Moreover, the rules are not of such a kind that they can be summarized either in a simple recipe or an emotional attitude. Etiquette cannot be deduced from some comprehensive statement about the other person’s feelings or from respect for superiors. The details are too complex and too various for this, and so the individual Balinese is forever picking his way, like a tightrope walker, afraid at any moment lest he make some misstep.
(8) The metaphor from postural balance used in the last paragraph is demonstrably applicable in many contexts of Balinese culture:
The fear of loss of support is an important theme in Balinese childhood. [43]
(a) Elevation (with its attendant problems of physical and metaphorical balance) is the passive complement of respect. [44]
The Balinese child is elevated like a superior person or a god. [45]
(b) In cases of actual physical elevation [46] the duty of balancing the system falls on the supporting lower person, but control of the direction in which the system will move is in the hands of the elevated. The little girl in the figure standing in trance on a man’s shoulders can cause her bearer to go wherever she desires by merely leaning in that direction. He must then move in that direction in order to maintain the balance of the system.
(c) A large proportion of our collection of 1200 Balinese carvings shows preoccupation on the part of the artist with problems of balance. [47]
The Witch, the personification of fear, frequently uses a gesture called kapar, which is described as that of a man falling from a coconut palm on suddenly seeing a snake. In this gesture the arms are raised sideways to a position somewhat above the head.
The ordinary Balinese term for the period before the coming of the white man is “when the world was steady” (doegas goemine enteg).
Applications of the Von Neumannian Game
Even this very brief listing of some of the elements in Balinese ethos suffices to indicate theoretical problems of prime importance. Let us consider the matter in abstract terms. One of the hypotheses underlying most sociology is that the dynamics of the social mechanism can be described by assuming that the individuals constituting that mechanism are motivated to maximize certain variables. In conventional economic theory it is assumed that the individuals will maximize value, while in schismogenic theory it was tacitly assumed that the individuals would maximize intangible but still simple variables such as prestige, self-esteem, or even submissiveness. The Balinese, however, do not maximize any such simple variables.
In order to define the sort of contrast which exists between the Balinese system and any competitive system, let us start by considering the premisses of a strictly competitive Von Neumannian game and proceed by considering what changes we must make in these premisses in order to approximate more closely to the Balinese system.
(1) The players in a Von Neumannian game are, by hypothesis, motivated only in terms of a single linear (sc. monetary) scale of value. Their strategies are determined: (a) by the rules of the hypothetical game; and (b) by their intelligence, which is, by hypothesis, sufficient to solve all problems presented by the game. Von Neumann shows that, under certain definable circumstances depending upon the number of players and upon the rules, coalitions of various sorts will be formed by the players, and in fact Von Neumann’s analysis concentrates mainly upon the structure of these coalitions and the distribution of value among the members. In comparing these games with human societies we shall regard social organizations as analogous to coalition systems. [48]
(2) Von Neumannian systems differ from human societies in the following respects:
(a) His “players” are from the start completely intelligent, whereas human beings learn. For human beings we must expect that the rules of the game and the conventions associated with any particular set of coalitions will become incorporated into the character structures of the individual players.
(b) The mammalian value scale is not simple and monotone, but may be exceedingly complex. We know, even at a physiological level, that calcium will not replace vitamins, nor will an amino acid replace oxygen. Further, we know that the animal does not strive to maximize its supply of any of these discrepant commodities, but rather is required to maintain the supply of each within tolerable limits. Too much may be as harmful as too little. It is also doubtful whether mammalian preference is always transitive.
(c) In the Von Neumannian system the number of moves in a given “play” of a game is assumed to be finite. The strategic problems of the individuals are soluble because the individual can operate within a limited time perspective. He need only look forward a finite distance to the end of the play when the gains and losses will be paid up and everything will start again from a tabula rasa. In human society life is not punctuated in this way, and each individual faces a vista of unknowable factors whose number increases (probably exponentially) into the future.
(d) The Von Neumannian players are, by hypothesis, not susceptible either to economic death or to boredom. The losers can go on losing forever, and no player can withdraw from the game, even though the outcome of every play is definitely predictable in probability terms.
(3) Of these differences between Von Neumannian and human systems, only the differences in value scales and the possibility of “death” concern us here. For the sake of simplicity we shall assume that the other differences, though very profound, can for the moment be ignored.
(4) Curiously, we may note that, although men are mammals and therefore have a primary value system which is multidimensional and nonmaximizing, it is yet possible for these creatures to be put into contexts in which they will strive to maximize one or a few simple variables (money, prestige, power, etc.).
(5) Since the multidimensional value system is apparently primary, the problem presented by, for example, Iatmul social organization is not so much to account for the behavior of Iatmul individuals by invoking (or abstracting) their value system; we should also ask how that value system is imposed on the mammalian individuals by the social organization in which they find themselves. Conventionally in anthropology this question is attacked through genetic psychology. We endeavor to collect data to show how the value system implicit in the social paganization is built into the character structure of the individuals in their childhood. There is, however, an alternative approach which would momentarily ignore, as Von Neumann does, the phenomena of learning and consider merely the strategic implications of those contexts which must occur in accordance with the given “rules” and the coalition system. In this connection it is important to note that competitive contexts—provided the individuals can be made to recognize the contexts as competitive—inevitably reduce the complex gamut of values to very simple and even linear and monotone terms. [49] Considerations of this sort, plus descriptions of the regularities in the process of character formation, probably suffice to describe how simple value scales are imposed upon mammalian individuals in competitive societies such as that of the Iatmul or twentieth-century America.
(6) In Balinese society, on the other hand, we find an. entirely different state of affairs. Neither the individual nor the village is concerned to maximize any simple variable. Rather, they would seem to be concerned to maximize something which we may call stability, using this term perhaps in a highly metaphorical way. (There is, in fact, one simple quantitative variable which does appear to be maximized. This variable is the amount of any fine imposed by the village. When first imposed the fines are mostly very small, but if payment is delayed the amount of the fine is increased very steeply, and if there be any sign that the offender is refusing to pay— ”opposing the village”—the fine is at once raised to an enormous sum and the offender is deprived of membership in the community until he is willing to give up his opposition. Then a part of the fine may be excused.)
(7) Let us now consider an hypothetical system consisting of a number of identical players, plus an umpire who is concerned with the maintenance of stability among the players. Let us further suppose that the players are liable to economic death, that our umpire is concerned to see that this shall not occur, and that the umpire has power to make certain alterations in the rules of the game or in the probabilities associated with chance moves. Clearly this umpire will be in more or less continual conflict with the players. He is striving to maintain a dynamic equilibrium or steady state, and this we may rephrase as the attempt to maximize the chances against the maximization of any single simple variable.
(8.) Ashby has pointed out in rigorous terms that the steady state and continued existence of complex interactive systems depend upon preventing the maximization of any variable, and that any continued increase in any variable will inevitably result in, and be limited by, irreversible changes in the system. He has also pointed out that in such systems it is very important to permit certain variables to alter. [50]The steady state of an engine with a governor is unlikely to be maintained if the position of the balls of the governor is clamped. Similarly a tightrope walker with a balancing pole will not be able to maintain his balance except by varying the forces which he exerts upon the pole.
(9) Returning now to the conceptual model suggested in paragraph 7, let us take one further step toward making this model comparable with Balinese society. Let us substitute for the umpire a village council composed of all the players. We now have a system which presents a number of analogies to our balancing acrobat. When they speak as members of the village council, the players by hypothesis are interested in maintaining the steady state of the system—that is, in preventing the maximization of any simple variable the excessive increase of which would produce irreversible change. In their daily life, however, they are still engaged in simple competitive strategies.
(10) The next step toward making our model resemble Balinese society more closely is clearly to postulate in the character structure of the individuals and/or in the contexts of their daily life those factors which will motivate them toward maintenance of the steady state not only when they speak in council, but also in their other interpersonal relations. These factors are in fact recognizable in Bali and have been enumerated above. In our analysis of why Balinese society is nonschismogenic, we noted that the Balinese child learns to avoid cumulative interaction, i.e., the maximization of certain simple variables, and that the social organization and contexts of daily life are so constructed as to preclude competitive interaction. Further, in our analysis of the Balinese ethos, we noted recurrent valuation: (a) of the clear and static definition of status and spatial orientation, and (b) of balance and such movement as will conduce to balance.
In sum it seems that the Balinese extend to human relationships attitudes based upon bodily balance, and that they generalize the idea that motion is essential to balance. This last point gives us, I believe, a partial answer to the question of why the society not only continues to function but functions rapidly and busily, continually undertaking ceremonial and artistic tasks which are not economically or competitively determined. This steady state is maintained by continual nonprogressive change.
Schismogenic System versus the Steady State
I have discussed two types of social system in such schematic outline that it is possible to state clearly a contrast between them. Both types of system, so far as they are capable of maintaining themselves without progressive or irreversible change, achieve the steady state. There are, however, profound differences between them in the manner in which the steady state is regulated.
The Iatmul system, which is here used as a prototype of schismogenic systems, includes a number of regenerative causal circuits or vicious circles. Each such circuit consists of two or more individuals (or groups of individuals) who participate in potentially cumulative interaction. Each human individual is an energy source or “relay,” such that the energy used in his responses is not derived from the stimuli but from his own metabolic processes. It therefore follows that such a schismogenic system is—unless controlled—liable to excessive increase of those acts which characterize the schismogeneses. The anthropologist who attempts even a qualitative description of. such a system must therefore identify: (1) the individuals and groups involved in schismogenesis and the routes of communication between them; (2) the categories of acts and contexts characteristic of the schismogeneses; (3) the processes whereby the individuals become psychologically apt to perform these acts and/or the nature of the contexts which force these acts upon them; and lastly, (4) he must identify the mechanisms or factors which control the schismogeneses. These controlling factors may be of at least three distinct types: (a) degenerative causal loops may be superposed upon the schismogeneses so that when the latter reach a certain intensity some form of restraint is applied as occurs in Occidental systems when a government intervenes to limit economic competition; (b) there may be, in addition to the schismogeneses already considered, other cumulative interactions acting in an opposite sense and so promoting social integration rather than fission; (c) the increase in schismogenesis may be limited by factors which are internally or externally environmental to the parts of the schismogenic circuit. Such factors which have only small restraining effect at low intensities of schismogenesis may increase with increase of intensity. Friction, fatigue, and limitation of energy supply would be examples of such factors.
In contrast with these schismogenic systems, Balinese society is an entirely different type of mechanism, and in describing it the anthropologist must follow entirely different procedures, for which rules cannot as yet be laid down. Since the class of “nonschismogenic” social systems is defined only in negative terms, we cannot assume that members of the class will have common characteristics. In the analysts of the Balinese system, however, the following steps occurred, and it is possible that some at least of these may be applicable in the analysis of other cultures of this class: (1) it was observed that schismogenic sequences are rare in Bali; (2) the exceptional cases in which such sequences occur were investigated; (3) from this investigation it appeared, (a) that in general the contexts which recur in Balinese social life preclude cumulative interaction and ( b) that childhood experience trains the child away from seeking climax in personal interaction; (4) it was shown that certain positive values—related to balance—recur in the culture and are incorporated into the character structure during childhood, and, further, that these values may be specifically related to the steady state; (5) a more detailed study is now required to arrive at a systematic statement about the self-correcting characteristics of the system. It is evident that the ethos alone is insufficient to maintain the steady state. From time to time the village or some other entity does step in to correct infractions. The nature of these instances of the working of the corrective mechanism must be studied; but it is clear that this intermittent mechanism is very different from the continually acting restraints which must be present in all schismogenic systems.
Style, Grace, and Information in Primitive Art [51]
Introduction
This paper consists of several still-separate attempts to map a theory associated with culture and the nonverbal arts. Since no one of these attempts is completely successful, and since the attempts do not as yet meet in the middle of the territory to be mapped, it. may be useful to state, in non-technical language, what it is I am after.
Aldous Huxley used to say that the central problem for humanity is the quest for grace. This word he used in what he thought was the sense in, which it is used in the New Testament. He explained the word, however, in his own terms. He argued—like Walt Whitman—that the communication and behavior of animals has a naivete, a simplicity, which man has lost. Man’s behavior is corrupted by deceit—even self-deceit— by purpose, and by self-consciousness. As Aldous saw the matter, man has lost the “grace” which animals still have.
In terms of this contrast, Aldous argued that God resembles the animals rather than man: He is ideally unable to deceive and incapable of internal confusions.
In the total scale of beings, therefore, man is as if displaced sideways and lacks that grace which the animals have and which God has.
I argue that art is a part of man’s quest for grace; sometimes his ecstasy in partial success, sometimes his rage and agony at failure.
I argue also that there are many species of grace within the major genus; and also that there are many kinds of failure and frustration and departure from grace. No doubt each culture has its characteristic species of grace toward which its artists strive, and its own species of failure.
Some cultures may foster a negative approach to this difficult integration, an avoidance of complexity by crass preference either for total consciousness or total unconsciousness. Their art is unlikely to be “great.”
I shall argue that the problem of grace is fundamentally a problem of integration and that what is to be integrated is the diverse parts of the mind—especially those multiple levels of which one extreme is called “consciousness” and the other the “unconscious.” For the attainment of grace, the reasons of the heart must be integrated with the reasons of the reason.
Edmund Leach has confronted us, in this conference, with the question: How is it that the art of one culture can have meaning or validity for critics raised in a different culture? My answer would be that, if art is somehow expressive of something like grace or psychic integration, then the success of this expression might well be recognizable across cultural barriers. The physical grace of cats is profoundly different from the physical grace of horses, and yet a man who has the physical grace of neither can evaluate that of both.
And even when the subject matter of art is the frustration of integration, cross-cultural recognition of the products of this frustration is not too surprising.
The central question is: In what form is information about psychic integration contained or coded in the work of art?
Style and Meaning
They say that “every picture tells a story,” and this generalization holds for most of art if we exclude “mere” geometric ornamentation. But I want precisely to avoid analyzing the “story.” That aspect of the work of art which can most easily be reduced to words—the mythology connected with the subject matter—is not what I want to discuss. I shall not even mention the unconscious mythology of phallic symbolism, except at the end.
I am concerned with what important psychic information is in the art object quite apart from what it may “represent.” “Le style est l’homme meme” (“The style is the man himself”) (Buffon). What is implicit in style, materials, composition, rhythm, skill, and so on?
Clearly this subject matter will include geometrical ornamentation along with the composition and stylistic aspects of more representational works.
The lions in Trafalgar Square could have been eagles or bulldogs and still have carried the same (or similar) messages about empire and about the cultural premises of nineteenth-century England. And yet, how different might their message have been had they been made of wood!
But representationalism as such is relevant. The extremely realistic horses and stags of Altamira are surely not about the same cultural premises as the highly conventionalized black outlines of a later period. The code whereby perceived objects or persons (or supernaturals) are transformed into wood or paint is a source of information about the artist and his culture.
It is the very rules of transformation that are of interest to me—not the message, but the code.
My goal is not instrumental. I do not want to use the transformation rules when discovered to undo the transformation or to “decode” the message. To translate the art object into mythology and then examine the mythology would be only a neat way of dodging or negating the problem of “what is art?”
I ask, then, not about the meaning of the encoded message but rather about the meaning of the code chosen. But still that most slippery word “meaning” must be defined.
It will be convenient to define meaning in the most general possible way in the first instance.
“Meaning” may be regarded as an approximate synonym of pattern, redundancy, information, and “restraint,” within a paradigm of the following sort:
Any aggregate of events or objects (e.g., a sequence of phonemes, a painting, or a frog, or a culture) shall be said to contain “redundancy” or “pattern” if the aggregate can be divided in any way by a “slash mark,” such that an observer perceiving only what is on one side of the slash mark can guess, with better than random success, what is on the other side of the slash mark. We may say that what is on one side of the slash contains information or has meaning about what is on the other side. Or, in engineer’s language, the aggregate contains “redundancy.” Or, again, from the point of view of a cybernetic observer, the information available on one side of the slash will restrain (i.e., reduce the probability of) wrong guessing. Examples:
The letter T in a given location in a piece of written English prose proposes that the next letter is likely to be an H or an R or a vowel. It is possible to make a better than random guess across a slash which immediately follows the T. English spelling contains redundancy.
From a part of an English sentence, delimited by a slash, it is possible to guess at the syntactic structure of the remainder of the sentence.
From a tree visible above ground, it is possible to guess at the existence of roots below ground. The top provides information about the bottom.
From an arc of a drawn circle, it is possible to guess at the position of other parts of the circumference. (From the diameter of an ideal circle, it is possible to assert the length of the circumference. But this is a matter of truth within a tautological system.)
From how the boss acted yesterday, it may be possible to guess how he will act today.
From what I say, it may be possible to make predictions about how you will answer. My words contain meaning or information about your reply.
Telegraphist A has a written message on his pad and sends this message over wire to B, so that B now gets the same sequence of letters on his message pad. This transaction (or “language game” in Wittgenstein’s phrase) has created a redundant universe for an observer O. If 0 knows what was on A’s pad, he can make a better than random guess at what is on B’s pad.
The essence and raison d’etre of communication is the creation of redundancy, meaning, pattern, predictability, information, and/or the reduction of the random by “restraint.”
It is, I believe, of prime importance to have a conceptual system which will force us to see the “message” (e.g., the art object) as both itself internally patterned and itself a part of a larger patterned universe—the culture or some part of it.
The characteristics of objects of art are believed to be about, or to be partly derived from, or determined by, other characteristics of cultural and psychological systems. Our problem might therefore be oversimply represented by the diagram:
[Characteristics of art object/Characteristics of rest of culture]
where square brackets enclose the universe of relevance, and where the oblique stroke represents a slash across which some guessing is possible, in one direction or in both. The problem, then, is to spell out what sorts of relationships, correspondences, etc., cross or transcend this oblique stroke.
Consider the case in which I say to you, “It’s raining,” and you guess that if you look out the window you will see raindrops. A similar diagram will serve:
[Characteristics of “It’s raining”/Perception of raindrops]
Notice, however, that this case is by no means simple. Only if you know the language and have some trust in my veracity will you be able to make a guess about the raindrops. In fact, few people in this situation restrain themselves from seemingly duplicating their information by looking out of the window. We like to prove that our guesses are right, and that our friends are honest. Still more important, we like to test or verify the correctness of our view of our relationship to others.
This last point is nontrivial. It illustrates the necessarily hierarchic structure of all communicational systems: the fact of conformity or nonconformity (or indeed any other relationship) between parts of a patterned whole may itself be informative as part of some still larger whole. The matter may he diagrammed thus:
[(“It’s raining”/raindrops)/You-me relationship)
where redundancy across the slash mark within the smaller universe enclosed in round brackets proposes (is a message about) a redundancy in the larger universe enclosed in square brackets.
But the message “It’s raining” is itself conventionally coded and internally patterned, so that several slash marks could be drawn across the message indicating patterning within the message itself.
And the same is true of the rain. It, too, is patterned and structured. From the direction of one drop, I could predict the direction of others. And so on.
But the slash marks across the verbal message “It’s raining” will not correspond in any simple way to the slash marks across the raindrops.
If, instead of a verbal message, I had given you a picture of the rain, some of the slashes on the picture would have corresponded with slashes on the perceived rain.
This difference provides a neat formal criterion to separate the “arbitrary” and digital coding characteristic of the verbal part of language from the iconic coding of depiction.
But verbal description is often iconic in its larger structure. A scientist describing an earthworm might start at the head end and work down its length—thus producing a description iconic in its sequence and elongation. Here again we observe a hierarchic structuring, digital or verbal at one level and iconic at another.
Levels and Logical Types
“Levels” have been mentioned: (a) It was noted that the combination of the message “It’s raining” with the perception of raindrops can itself constitute a message about a universe of personal relations; and (b) that when we change our focus of attention from smaller to larger units of message material, we may discover that a larger unit contains iconic coding though the smaller parts of which it was made are verbal: the verbal description of an earthworm may, as a whole, be elongated.
The matter of levels now crops up in another form which is crucial for any epistemology of art:
The word “know” is not merely ambiguous in covering both connaitre (to know through the senses, to recognize or perceive) and savoir (to know in the mind), but varies —actively shifts— in meaning for basic systemic reasons. That which we know through the senses can become knowledge in the mind.
“I know the way to Cambridge” might mean that I have studied the map and can give you directions. It might mean that I can recall details all along the route. It might mean that when driving that route I recognize many details even though I could recall only a few. It might mean that when driving to Cambridge I can trust to “habit” to make me turn at the right points, without having to think where I am going. And so on.
In all cases, we deal with a redundancy or patterning of a quite complex sort:
[(“I know…”/my mind)//the road]
and the difficulty is to determine the nature of the patterning within the round brackets, or, to put the matter another way: what parts of the mind are redundant with the particular message about “knowing.”
Last, there is a special form of “knowing” which is usually regarded as adaptation rather than information. A shark is beautifully shaped for locomotion in water, but the genome of the shark surely does not contain direct information about hydrodynamics. Rather, the genome must be supposed to contain information or instructions which are the complement of hydrodynamics. Not hydrodynamics, but what hydrodynamics requires, has been built up in the shark’s genome. Similarly, a migratory bird perhaps does not know the way to its destination in any of the senses outlined above, but the bird may contain the complementary instructions necessary td cause it to fly right.
“Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point” (“The heart has its reasons which the reason does not at all perceive”). It is this—the complex layering of consciousness and unconsciousness—that creates difficulty when we try to discuss art or ritual or mythology. The matter of levels of the mind has been discussed from many points of view, at least four of which must be mentioned and woven into any scientific approach to art:
(1) Samuel Butler’s insistence that the better an organism “knows” something, the less conscious it becomes of its knowledge, i.e., there is a process whereby knowledge (or “habit” —whether of action, perception, or thought) sinks to deeper and deeper levels of the mind. This phenomenon, which is central to Zen discipline (cf. Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery), is also relevant to all art and all skill.
(2) Adalbert Ames’ demonstrations that the conscious, three-dimensional visual images, which we make of that which we see, are made by processes involving mathematical premises of perspective, etc., of the use of which we are totally unconscious. Over these processes, we have no voluntary control. A drawing of a chair with the perspective of van Gogh affronts the conscious expectations and, dimly, reminds the consciousness of what had been (unconsciously) taken for granted.
(3) The Freudian (especially Fenichel’s) theory of dreams as metaphors coded according to primary process. I shall consider style—neatness, boldness of contrast, etc.—as metaphoric and therefore as linked to those levels of the mind where primary process holds sway.
(4) The Freudian view of the unconscious as the cellar or cupboard to which fearful and painful memories are consigned by a process of repression.
Classical Freudian theory assumed that dreams were a secondary product, created by “dream work.” Material unacceptable to conscious thought was supposedly translated into the metaphoric idiom of primary process to avoid waking the dreamer. And this may be true of those items of information which are held in the unconscious by the process of repression. As we have seen, however, many other sorts of information are inaccessible to conscious inspection, including most of the premises of mammalian interaction. It would seem to me sensible to think of these items as existing primarily in the idiom of primary process, only with difficulty to be translated into “rational” terms. In other words, I believe that much of early Freudian theory was upside down. At that time many thinkers regarded conscious reason as normal and self-explanatory while the unconscious was regarded as mysterious, needing proof, and needing explanation. Repression was the explanation, and the unconscious was filled with thoughts which could have been conscious but which repression and dream work had distorted. Today we think of consciousness as the mysterious, and of the computational methods of the unconscious, e.g., primary process, as continually active, necessary, and all-embracing.
These considerations are especially relevant in any attempt to derive a theory of art or poetry. Poetry is not a sort of distorted and decorated prose, but rather prose is poetry which has been stripped down and pinned to a Procrustean bed of logic. The computer men who would program the translation of languages sometimes forget this fact about the primary nature of language. To try to construct a machine to translate the art of one culture into the art of another would be equally silly.
Allegory, at best a distasteful sort of art, is an inversion of the normal creative process. Typically an abstract relation, e.g., between truth and justice, is first conceived in rational terms. The relationship is then metaphorized and dolled up to look like a product of primary process. The abstractions are personified and made to participate in a pseudomyth, and so on. Much advertising art is allegorical in this sense, that the creative process is inverted.
In the cliche system of Anglo-Saxons, it is commonly assumed that it would be somehow better if what is unconscious were made conscious. Freud, even, is said to have said, “Where id was, there ego shall be,” as though such an increase in conscious knowledge and control would be both possible and, of course, an improvement. This view is the product of an almost totally distorted epistemology and a totally distorted view of what sort of thing a man, or any other organism, is.
Of the four sorts of unconsciousness listed above, it is very clear that the first three are necessary. Consciousness, for obvious mechanical reasons, [52] must always be limited to a rather small fraction of mental process. If useful at all, it must therefore be husbanded. The unconsciousness associated with habit is an economy both of thought and of consciousness; and the same is true of the inaccessability of the processes of perception. The conscious organism does not require (for pragmatic purposes) to know how it perceives —only to know what it perceives. (To suggest that we might operate without a foundation in primary process would be to suggest that the human brain ought to be differently structured.) Of the four types, only the Freudian cupboard for skeletons is perhaps undesirable and could be obviated. But there may still be advantages in keeping the skeleton off the dining room table.
In truth, our life is such that its unconscious components are continuously present in all their multiple forms. It follows that in our relationships we continuously exchange messages about these unconscious materials, and it becomes important also to exchange metamessages by which we tell each other what order and species of unconsciousness (or consciousness) attaches to our messages.
In a merely pragmatic way, this is important because the orders of truth are different for different sorts of messages. Insofar as a message is conscious and voluntary, it could be deceitful. I can tell you that the cat is on the mat when in fact she is not there. I can tell you “I love you” when in fact I do not. But discourse about relationship is commonly accompanied by a mass of semivoluntary kinesic and autonomic signals which provide a more trustworthy comment on the verbal message.
Similarly with skill, the fact of skill indicates the presence of large unconscious components in the performance.
It thus becomes relevant to look at any work of art with the question: What components of this message material had what orders of unconsciousness (or consciousness) for the artist? And this question, I believe, the sensitive critic usually asks, though perhaps not consciously.
Art becomes, in this sense, an exercise in communicating about the species of unconsciousness. Or, if you prefer it, a sort of play behavior whose function is, amongst other things, to practice and make more perfect communication of this kind.
I am indebted to Dr. Anthony Forge for a quotation from Isadora Duncan: “If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it.”
Her statement is ambiguous. In terms of the rather vulgar premises of our culture, we would translate the statement to mean: “There would then be no point in dancing it, because I could tell it to you, quicker and with less ambiguity, in words.” This interpretation goes along with the silly idea that it would be a good thing to be conscious of everything of which we are unconscious.
But there is another possible meaning of Isadora Duncan’s remark: If the message were the sort of message that could be communicated in words, there would be no point in dancing it, but it is not that sort of message. It is, in fact, precisely the sort of message which would be falsified if communicated in words, because the use of words (other than poetry) would imply that this is a fully conscious and voluntary message, and this would be simply untrue.
I believe that what Isadora Duncan or any artist is trying to communicate is more like: “This is a particular sort of partly unconscious message. Let us engage in this particular sort of partly unconscious communication.” Or perhaps: “This is a message about the interface between conscious and unconscious.
The message of skill of any sort must always be of this kind. The sensations and qualities of skill can never be put in words, and yet the fact of skill is conscious.
The artist’s dilemma is of a peculiar sort. He must practice in order to perform the craft components of his job. But to practice has always a double effect. It makes him, on the one hand, more able to do whatever it is he is attempting; and, on the other hand, by the phenomenon of habit formation, it makes him less aware of how he does it.
If his attempt is to communicate about the unconscious components of his performance, then it follows that he is on a sort of moving stairway (or escalator) about whose position he is trying to communicate but whose movement is itself a function of his efforts to communicate.
Clearly, his task is impossible, but, as has been remarked, some people do it very prettily.