GEERTZ: "The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man"

Geertz’s thesis:

Geertz’s main idea in this chapter is that to truly understand humanity, we need to look at the specificity of culture. He presents other views found in anthropology on “Man” and “Culture” and contends that the best way to do anthropology is to replace the “stratigraphic” way of doing anthropology with what he calls a “synthetic” model. Geertz’s argument, basically, is that culture is not something that obscures the true nature or universal concept of man, nor is it a set of universals that vary depending on time and place. Instead, culture is a set of rules that people (and these rules vary depending on the culture) have to learn to maneuver their way through life. People traffic in the symbols that pervade their culture. The specificity of these behaviors is what is important to anthropological inquiry, and not the universal sameness of them. (Calling out any of these things as universal dilutes or diminishes their importance anyway.)

What else:

Geertz presents two other ways of looking at man and culture—the enlightenment view, and the search for universals that have dominated anthropology in his day, and he explains why these views are problematic. The enlightenment view, that man is universal and wears culture like a costume is flawed because there is nowhere a man that exists that is not somehow modified by culture. The more recent method (when Geertz wrote this) of using a stratigraphic method, is also problematic. The stratigraphic method of doing anthropology consists of viewing people as containing different levels and layers—at different layers there are different basic underlying factors that can be compared to the culture that different peoples belong to. Geertz is critical of this method because it results in generalizations that diffuse the power of the specific cultural behaviors. For example, religion can be generalized as meeting a universal need for a “fundamental orientation to reality,” (40), but this generalization does not take into account how varied the conceptions of religion that different cultures have. Quite simply, Geertz fears that this move to name things as universal boils too many things down to some beige generalities that lose their meaning. He speaks of this method as doing little more than creating a “John Q Public sort of cartoon,” (40).

There is really so much here, but I hope I’ve covered the basics…

What’s cool:

My favorite quote from the chapter is, “One of the most significant facts about us may finally be that we all begin with the natural equipment to live a thousand kinds of life but end in the end having lived only one,” (45). So the life we live is specific to the culture that we live in—we are capable of many things but act in accordance to the systems that surround us. He calls us “incomplete or unfinished animals who complete or finish ourselves through culture,” (49).

What’s super mega awesome cool (or, extending the conversation):

Geertz says we humans need to navigate through all sorts of symbols and activities in order to reach any sort of meaningful experience in life. This observation lends itself well to a discussion about genre theory, because this is essentially what we need to master—the genres of our own culture—to make our own meaning in life. These codes, symbols, and behaviors that we learn, mimic, or don’t even know we’re learning but somehow absorb and play into---these are all different sorts of genres that we master to maneuver our way through life, but they also shape who we are, what we do, and why we do it.

GEERTZ, "Thick Description"/ Kinsey

"Thick Description" is the title of Chapter 1 of Clifford Geertz's seminal essay collection, The Interpretation of Cultures. Because this essay is Chapter 1, it describes Geertz's theoretical approach to ethnography. This essay is theoretical because Geertz is explaining not only how he approaches the practice of ethnography and how he thinks about ethnography but is arguing what ethnography is and what it is good for. It is theoretical, moreover, because he uses only two examples (and none from his own ethnographic work) to elaborate his theory. The first example he uses involves winking (shutting the eyelid), and the second example he uses is a "fiction" or narration of an event that took place in Morocco in the early 19th century.

Geertz argues that the ethnographers job is to write culture. He argues, moreover, that how ethnographers approach the writing of culture is very important. He argues for "thick description." Thick description involves, above all, a commitment to writing about the concrete: the nitty-gritty details. Thick description entails being a body (witnessing, experiencing) amongst other bodies and immersing oneself and becoming intimately acquainted in/with "extremely small matters." Geertz's argument is that we do not come to know how other human groups think or mean from flying over at 60,000 feet. We come to understand other cultures (and only partially) by living on the ground and for an extended period of time.

Geertz calls his approach semiotic; he believes that actions - like words which partially constitute and explain actions - are symbolic. There is no "rosetta stone" to translate culture. To understand a cultural logic (and again that understanding is only ever partial and contingent), the ethnographer must immerse himself -- not in the abstract possibilities, but in the immediate minutiate -- working deeply rather than broadly.

While Geertz believes that ethnography is worthwhile, for it provides for humankind a record of what man has said and, in the best cases, how he has said it, the project is never and can never be complete. The project of writing culture, of understanding what one is-always already outside of, is filled with trouble. For while the project requires tremendous attention on working deeply, the deeper one goes, the more nuance one finds; generalities become even more problematic. Thus, as Geertz says recounting another's tale, it's "turtles all the way down."

Geertz's work is interesting for all who engage in qualitative research practices. He outlines a theory of practice - how those of us who study writing and writing about writing - might ethically engage someone else's work. He argues for immersing ourselves in the culture, refraining from generalizations (especially generalizations made before we have exhausted our powers of thick description), and recognizing our own position as interpreters with only partial, limited, and contingent understanding. Geertz offers a way of moving forward and interpreting texts ethically and scrupulously. He also reminds us that even the most banal interchanges, texts, artifacts, are constructed in vast and rich discourses -- discourses which open up possibilities of interpretations rather than close them down.