Culture and Practical Reason Two Paradigms of ... - Moodle

Chapter Two 96 CUlture and Practical ReasonTwo Paradigms of Anthropological Theory97And more, this conclusion from "experience" that culture does not existis an illusion doubly compounded. For it takes as the model of all sociallife not the reality of bourgeois society but the self-conception of thatsociety. It credits the appearance of Western culture as its truth, thusconspiring in the illusion that it really is the socialized product of practicalactivity by ignoring the symbolic constitution of the practical activity.Social science elevates to a statement of theoretical principle whatbourgeois society puts out as an operative ideology. Culture is thenthreatened with a neglect in anthropology that is matched only by theconsciousness of it in society.It is some consolation that in the line of praxis theory initiated by JulianSteward this neglect has become the source of a certain regret.Julian StewardSteward's founding perspective on "cultural ecology" is in general termsthe same as Morgan's decultured problematic, and in the details of theparadigmatic article on patrilineal bands (1936) it is exactly Murdock'sidea of social structure. Thus it would not be worthwhile to make anexposition here were it not for the paradoxical context in which Steward,and later Murphy (1970), places his cultural ecology-as an opposition tothe biological. The paradox is instructive. Its unraveling will show how themystification of the cultural logic as the a priori of economic action establishesthe practical logic as the determinant of cultural form.In preamble to the main ecological argument on "primitive bands,"Steward in one way or another allows himself the main technical and socialconditions of hunters and gatherers-referring some of these to economicadvantage, others to human nature, and still others simply to empiricalfact. Territorial "ownership" is understandable on the basis that "anyanimal may secure food and water more efficiently in terrain which ithabitually utilizes"; family groups, on the basis of "a chronic sex excitability"in the human species; and the band offamilies, on the grounds that"In practically all human groups several families cooperate.... This providesa kind of subsistence insurance" (Steward 1936, p. 332). The principalrelations of production-the division of labor by sex-are assumed byvirtue of their empirical generality among hunters. So also is the simpletechnology given, not only as a set of tools in themselves but as a selfevidentset of intentions, the provision of "subsistence." This technologyis deployed in areas of limited food resources; hence, hunters are able toachieve only small band aggregates, on the order oftwenty to fifty persons,and have low population densities.Given these conditions, the argument proceeds to determine the ecologicalbasis of various band forms, "patrilineal," "matrilineal," and "composite."As in Murdock's analysis, the critical link between environmentand social structure is residential practice. Steward concentrates on themost widespread band type, the patrilineal, which he understands as theformalization of patrilocal residence. In the first version of the study(1936), patrilocality is explained by innate male dominance and theeconomic importance of men in hunting cultures (p. 333). In a later version,patrilocality is referred particularly to its economic advantages inareas of dispersed but fixed animal resources: "an environment in whichthe principal food is game that is nonmigratory and scattered, which makesit advantageous for men to remain in the general territory of their birth"(i.e., since they already know the territory) (1955, p. 135). With patrilocalitythus established on the grounds of its economic advantage, the structureof the band follows as recognition and articulation-in a way by nowfamiliar to us. Patrilocal residence must aggregate "patrilineal" relatives.Therefore the incest tabu is imposed at the band level, and the group isorganized as an exogamous patrilineage. To sum up the argument in generalterms: economic effectiveness in the given set of technical and environmentalcircumstances requires certain social practices and relations(patrilocal residence) which are in tum formulated and codified as a socialstructure (patrilineal band). Pure Morgan. 3tThe proposition is also pure praxis. For it is specifically the "behaviorpatterns of work." as "required" by the ecological context, that arerealized in cultural form. Murphy explains Steward's perspective:The environment per se is not the critical factor, for the "behaviorpattems" required in its exploitation using certain "economic devices"are the key elements. These behavior patterns are work, and the"economic devices" technology. Quite simply, the theory of culturalecology is concerned with the process of work, its organization, itscycles and rhythms and its situational modalities [1970, p. 155].. . . Patterns ofwork are directly derivative from the tools andresources to which they are applied, and these two factors serve to31. The paradigm, praxis -+ practice -+ structure, is generalized by Steward in the fonn of"three fundamental procedures of cultural ecology": "First, the inter-relationship ofexploitative or productive technology and environment must be analyzed .... Second,the behavior patterns involved in the exploitation of a particular area by means ofa particular technology must be analyzed.... The third procedure is to acenain theextent to which the behavior patterns entailed in exploiting the environment affect otheraspects of culture" (1955, pp. 40-41).