Fragments of Radical Thought: Paradigms and the Power Structure Apparatus

What Actually Happened in the History of Anthropology?

      In the myth-cum-history that legitimates anthropology, there are revolutions which mark time’s passage and posts which mark the significant places we all hope to have passed. I argue the radical shift from 19^thcentury thinkers to contemporary cultural anthropologists occurred as a reaction to the evolutionist-models only insofar as they entertained ideas deemed “dangerous” to the social order. The ideas of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions will be employed to illustrate the reaction of 20^th century anthropologist as a reflection of a larger, collective social response.

      All of us are born into a “tribal mentality” of various forms. These include our family unit, religious background, country of origin, ethnicity, etc. The tribal mentality effectively indoctrinates an individual into the tribe’s beliefs, ensuring that all believe the same. The structure of reality – what is and is not possible for the members of the group – is thus agreed upon and maintained by the tribe. While the tribal mentality has definite benefits in terms of establishing common ground and ensuring group survival, it is not a conscious agreement. We are born into it. Yet at a certain stage, both personally and collectively, the tribal mentality must be challenged.

      Our notion of “social” or “cultural” or “human”  research grew out of the Western tradition of “scientific”  research. (I have denoted the previous words in quotations marks so as to later reveal their relative and contextual nature.) Kuhn argues that science is based above all on shared paradigms, not methods or sets of facts. The formulation of a paradigm is followed by a period of “normal science” governed by the paradigm. Subsequently, the discussed theories reflect the ideas of the paradigmatic environment from which they arose. Thus, to recall the history of anthropology is to discover the values of Western peoples from which these norms and methods emerge. As a “science”, like all other types of human activities, it is a fundamentally social and community-based process; as such, the discontinuity of its origins and the revolutions throughout its progress are reflected in the broader paradigmatic movement of human knowledge.

      A "scientific" view of science requires acceptance of the fact that it shares many features with religion organizations (in their more rigid forms).  Irrationality coexists with rationality and those who deny their capacity for irrational belief systems take and idealized and illusionary (non rational) view of themselves. If we view a paradigm as a kind of myth by which individuals perceive reality then we can see how this myth serves to shape and determine reality insofar as it generates collective behavior. The process by which contemporary cultural anthropology was established was a result of historical conflict between the individual and the state. Individuals who challenged the myth were met with the State who by nature seeks to establish control over the myth. I employ the concept of Myths to paradigms to describe that the transition from 19th to 20th c. anthropology was a result of the efforts of the power-structure apparatus to hijack "science" and use it towards proliferating Truth as a product of the capitalist mode of production. Which is actually convenient, at least insofar as academic power is largely about establishing ownership rights over a certain form of knowledge and ensuring that others don’t really have much access to it. By tracing the evolution of the study of “culture” and the act of ethnography, we will discuss the prominent individuals who shaped the anthropological practice in terms of their form and function by noting both their contributions to theory and method and their role as agents of the power-structure apparatus (PSA).

      We begin with the 19^th century idea of Primitive Culture (Tylor) and the evolution of Ancient Society(Morgan) as it relates to the presuppositions of what should be the object of inquiry and the means by which problems are solved in anthropology. Central to Tylor’s contribution of modern anthropology is his definition of culture: “Culture or Civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (Tylor: 1). Culture as synonymous with Civilization emerges as the complex “whole” of which all the “parts” are inclusive. “…By collecting and grouping…” these parts, “The Early Culture History of Mankind is capable of being treated as an Inductive Science” (1964: 137).

      Induction simply means, at its core, that a theory is based on sound research and observation. Tylor sifted through missionaries’ accounts, explorers’ journals, ancient text, and ethnological reports to try and account for how similarities among people of different regions exist. Essentially there are two possible explanations: The similarity is either the result of parallel invention- “the like working of men’s minds under like conditions”- or it is evidence of contacts-direct or indirect, contemporary or historical- between the societies and the consequent diffusion of cultural knowledge. Tylor’s comparative method of British social anthropology was emulated by many scholars until its fierce criticism by Franz Boas and other American cultural anthropologist. His argument that social differences are not of a biological nature set him apart from the racial explanations that have characterized Western thought since the ancient Greeks. By outlining general principles of social life, Tylor gave new directions to comparative inquire into human life. Finally in defining the cultural dimensions of human existence, Tylor created anthropology, the study of humankind.

      Kuhn argues that science is based above all on shared paradigms, not methods or sets of facts. Anthropology is not a paradigm. Therefore it is not a science. It is not a paradigm of science because the models from which it springs are not completely and firmly shared. Anthropology, by nature, is a reactionary field of research with which the dynamic systems of culture are understood. Only a shared belief in holism unites individuals in solidarity of anthropology, not method or fact. The science of culture does not adequate describe the nature of this field. Anthropologists utilizes science in their attempts to capture human nature but do not rely in it; they transcend it. Anthropology, is therefore based above all on holism, the shared belief that normality is culturally defined and thus the normal method of studying culture must also be relative to the culture being studied. Therefore rather than science it is holism. Any attempt to force the dynamic systems of culture into a concrete set of beliefs has been challenged by another to the extent that the field has no clear boundaries. 

      A paradigm shift as the structure of revolution reflects the historical conflict between the individual and the State. The conclusion is that paradigms and scientific revolutions are valid and useful concepts for use in the history of anthropology, but that for the particular period under study they are insufficient. Our society has taken for granted the knowledge derived from the capitalist mode of production influences the people who practice a particular science and the future development of that field. 

      With the dawn of mansic, the processes of globalization have continued to spread both individuals and with that, their ideas, most notably that of economy and religion. The needle, by which the tapestry of life is woven, follows the direction of globalization to reflect the natural flow of humans across our world. However historically the needle has been seized by those individuals who seek power and by means of persuasion, establish alternative trends of global movements; structures of power have made artificial the natural process of globalization to maintain authority and control of human resources and human knowledge. Globalization is natural; collective awakenings are natural. Neoliberal globalization is a syndrome, paradigmatic shifts are their treatment.

      It has been the case for centuries that new theories have been developed which explain more things with less assumption, and thus help to remove some of the earlier paradoxes and the proliferation of ad hoc solutions to emerging problems. A paradigm is a common belief in a theory and its principles, and Thomas Kuhn was correct when he wrote his book that the principles of reality were not known and thus this incomplete knowledge always left puzzles. His error is to tacitly assume that this absolute knowledge of reality can never be found and that there will always be puzzles. Kuhn’s ducky-rabbit example depicts the power-structure’s control over the individual’s adherences to, and establishment of paradigmatic models. Society moves between two perspectives of the same whole; this perspective is determined by the objective focus of the subject. The individual is persuaded to view either the duck or the rabbit depending on the object of his inquiry. Is it a rabbit? Yes, the individual perceives a rabbit as truth. Is it a duck? Yes, the individual perceives a duck as truth. Is it a ducky-rabbit? No, the two are incomparable; the perspective of one functions as a structure of the other.

      A paradigm shift is a kind of treatment. The remedy is made by one individual and prescribed by another, for another. Boas offers a remedy which is processed by means of the PSA in terms of funding, research capacity, etc., and in turn, proliferated throughout the propaganda systems for the purpose of treating the masses. The natural condition of anomie, a resultant of the capitalist mode of production, sets in among individuals who inherently deviate from the social norm. In response, the PSA uses fear as tool to slander those ideas with which individuals could make use of in subverting order. For example the revolutionary conclusions of Tylor and Morgan where rightfully attacked for their less-developed/less-open minded theory and practice. However, the prevailing ideas which society most notably follows were those in which the PSA could make agent of in their act towards maintaining authority and power. A paradigm shift is a response to anomie; the subsequent manifestation of a prevailing paradigm is the result of the PSA capacity to stop the spread of illness and mask the symptoms. Anomie creates the initial crises with which individuals in response seek authenticity in the other as a symbolic cure for the alienation caused by the capitalist mode production. 

      In the establishment of modern society, the individual act of ethnography is probably less important than the symbolic meaning of “cultures”  as objects of ultimate value, a ratification at once caused by and resulting in a gathering of anthropologist and others, around an attractive object and measurable to a certain degree by the form and function this inquiry reached.  The actual act of communion between the researcher and attraction is less important than the image or the idea of society that that the collective act generates. Such images of the other served as attractions to anthropologist escaping the alienation of capitalists society; objects of inquiry only insofar as they respond to the illness established by the PSA.  The image of “culture” that is the production of knowledge towards them is more enduring than any specific visit, although, of course, the visit is indispensable to the image. A specific act of ethnography is, in itself, weightless and, at the same time, the ultimate reason for the orderly representation of the social structure of modern society in the system of “cultures”. Today we see that “cultures” are being rectified to serve the interest of the PSA to promote market-growth and assist their capacity to control knowledge.

      I’m not convinced that I share nothing in common with 98% of human existence insofar as my “paradigm” is incommensurable. Paradigms don’t exists. Religion and Economy serve as both the mode of production and the meaning attributed to it. With the spread of the economy in the form of neoliberal globalization, our contact with the other increased and thus our desire to understand it. Yet as individuals sought to identify with the other, the power-structure apparatus sought domination over them. The government was met with new challenges of how to shape and determine individuals to function within the confines of capitalism. Therefore in an attempt to maintain authority and power over both the mode of production and the meaning thereof, the PSA made agent of those individuals who studied the other so as to use this Knowledge as a tool of conformity. By shifting the authority of the Church to the power of the State in the form a Civil Religion with which could be applied to the other as a secular myth by which truth is established; the PSA maintained control over Knowledge. For he who controls the Nile, controls Life; and he who controls Life is God. Life is the combination of religion and economy, the meaning and mode of production. In response to globalization, the PSA symbolically separated religion from economy so as to seemingly spread one without the other. However what actually happened was, the government used the knowledge of the other, which was practically given as a gift to the PSA by their agents, to shape and determine ways of establishing Civil Religion as the secular meaning attributed to the economy. Thus the prevailing anthropologists were agents of the PSA whose ideas were tools to which the spread of capitalism can be credited. 

      When reason challenged religion as authority of intellect, science emerged and with it a fight for knowledge. By nature, there is not inherent conflict between science and society; however the war springs from the efforts of the power-apparatus to hijack science and propagate an ulterior agenda. The reactionary school of anthropology to that of theology began with Darwinian thought and the radical attack of Christian ideology. The emergence of evolutionists’ anthropology began with scholars Tylor and Morgan of which developed theories of cultural evolution on the basis of a progressive scale towards the penultimate establishment of Civilized Modernity, that is, Western Capitalist valuation.  From this; another reactionary school developed as a result of the emergence of anomalies in the ideas of the 19^th century thinkers. However this reactionary school has accommodated itself to the prejudices and dogmas of the ruling class and assumed the obligation of stamping out the spread of revolutionary conclusions by establishing anthropological inquiry as the disembodied study of culture as an “ethnographic now”.

      So we’re back to the original problem. There is assumed to be an absolute rupture between the world we live in, and the world inhabited by anyone who might be characterized as “primitive,” “tribal,”  or even as “peasants.” Anthropologists are not to blame here: we have been trying for decades now to convince the public that there’s no such thing as a “primitive,” that “simple societies”  are not really all that simple, that no one ever existed in timeless isolation, that it makes no sense to speak of some social systems as more or less evolved; but so far, we’ve made very little headway. It is almost impossible to convince the average American that a bunch of Amazonians could possibly have anything to teach them—other than, conceivably, that we should all abandon modern civilization and go live in Amazonia—and this because they are assumed to live in an absolutely different world; which is, oddly enough, again because of the way we are used to thinking about revolutions. The term “revolution”  has been so relentlessly cheapened in common usage that it can mean almost anything. We have revolutions every week now: banking revolutions, cybernetic revolutions, medical revolutions, and an internet revolution every time someone invents some clever new piece of software. This kind of rhetoric is only possible because the commonplace definition of revolution has always implied something in the nature of a paradigm shift: a clear break, a fundamental rupture in the nature of social reality after which everything works differently, and previous categories no longer apply. It is this which makes it possible to, say, claim that the modern world is derived from two “revolutions”: the French revolution and the Industrial revolution, despite the fact that the two had almost nothing else in common other than seeming to mark a break with all that came before.

      Revolutionary conclusions were already made yet they challenged the social order and were therefore demonized by the PSA. The “bad science” of the 19^th century thinkers was a bad because they mistook their dreams for scientific certainties. The role of intellectuals is most definitively not to form an elite that can arrive at the correct strategic analyses and then lead the masses to follow. Sorel argued that since the masses were not fundamentally good or rational, it was foolish to make one’s primary appeal to them through reasoned arguments. “…Truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." (T.S. Kuhn, 1962)Therefore politics becomes the art of inspiring others with great myths. For revolutionaries, he proposed the myth of an apocalyptic General Strike, a moment of total transformation. To maintain it, he added, one would need a revolutionary elite capable of keeping the myth alive and by their willingness to engage in symbolic acts of violence-an elite which, like the Marxist, Mauss described as a king of perpetual conspiracy, a modern version of the secret political men’s societies of the ancient world.

      I can't consider myself a cultural anthropologist anymore because "culture" does not exist. "culture" is an object of inquiry only insofar as it represents the other. The "other" can only exists as a concept to the extent that we conceive of the self; a sense of personal agency that is not universal and therefore the very foundations of our field are not universal and thus inadequate. I claim radical ethnography: a project which sets out to begin creating the institutions of a new society "within the shell of the old" to expose, subvert, and undermine structures of domination but always, while doing so, proceeding in a Democratic fashion, a manner which itself demonstrates those structures are unnecessary.

      Applied to theory, this would mean accepting the need for diversity of high theoretical perspectives, united only by certain shared commitments and understandings. It consensus process, everyone agrees from the start on certain broad principles of unity and purpose for being for the group; but beyond that they also accept as a matter of course that no one is ever going to convert another person completely to their point-of-view, and shouldn't try; and that therefore discussion should focus on concrete questions of action, and coming up with a plan that everyone can live with and no one feels is in fundamental violation of their principles. One could see a parallel here: a series of diverse perspectives, joined together by their shared desired to understand the human condition, and move it in the direction of greater freedom. Rather than be based on the need to prove others' fundamental assumptions wrong, it seeks to find particular projects on which they reinforce each other. Just because theories are incommensurable in certain respects does not mean they cannot exists or even reinforce each other. The business of constructing culture is no longer an inherited and precisely defined task but a radical act demonstrating to others that they are not alone and to ourselves that we are still human. "the philosophers have interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it. (Marx)"