Death of a human

I say “a human” because he really understood what life was about—what it meant to be human, to think and feel like a human. Clifford Geertz died on October 30. He was my favorite anthropologist. That may sound funny, but I studied many. During my undergrad we read many influential theorists such as Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, Malinowski, Geertz, Marx, Hegel, Darwin, Frazer, Lamarck, Levi-Strauss, etc.

Geertz’s book “local knowledge” was my favorite—it was about how knowledge that may seem universal varies from locale to locale. He was always trying to make anthropology more human—he originally wanted to be a writer, studying English and philosophy before anthropology. He was interested in symbology and in not creating gross-overgeneralizations about cultures, but about about finding meaning in basic human interactions.

I admired Geertz first because of his story about running from a cockfight in Bali. He went there to study the people. He had lots of experience as an ethnographer, but had never experienced such resistance from the people to open up like he did when he first arrived in Bali. He soon discovered that cockfights, although illegal, were hugely popular. He talks about how the nation’s pastime reflects their culture—their values, their beliefs, their joys, their sorrows. While attending his first cockfight the police show up to break up the show and arrest attendees. Geertz takes off running along with the other observers, following a couple of young men all the way to their home in the village and sitting down at their table as if they had been there all along. When the police stopped by houses in the village, he was still there enjoying a meal with the family who embraced him completely. Following that event he had no trouble at all getting the people of Bali to open up to him, thus he concluded that nothing can forge a bond like running from the cops with someone.

If you want to get in some trouble with me, let me know.