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[antistructuralistcaitlin]

Josiah, I like the points you make about how understanding meaning through structure can help us contextualize cultural phenomena. It is true that structure can be a helpful tool in ethnography. However, is binary thinking (like “normal” versus neurodivergent, straight vs homosexual) truly reflective of how societies function? While the people within the culture itself may describe it that way, upon closer inspection many culturally constructed binaries tend to fall apart. Is there room in a structuralist approach for hollow structures, structures that are openly acknowledged to be outdated, structures that are clearly not a full reflection of reality? It seems that structures, particularly binaries, better serve to condense rather than to fully convey the complexity of a culture; they are one element to a larger picture. 

Josiah Powe

Structuralism is, more or less, the philosophical belief that understanding comes from systems and that therefore, actual understanding comes after the system; ‘understanding’ is a truth that has been invented by society. Language explains words and words are able to explain each other endlessly. A structuralist understanding of a ‘chair’ would be through descriptions such as “heavy,” or, “wooden,” or, “comfortable.” To a structuralist, the description of the chair presupposes the creation of the chair itself.

To classic structuralist thinker Levi-Strauss, an important structuralist idea is that mythology influences the development of the culture which it is sourced from. In the article, “The Structural Study of Myth,” Strauss draws connections between myth and religion, and the influence religion has on the structure of society, beginning with, “…it would seem that during the past twenty years anthropology has…turned away from studies in the field of religion” (p 428). The use of the word religion is significant because it makes understanding this article, for a Western reader, much easier. Ironically and topically, the word ‘religion’ creates an image of organization and jeaudaochristianity, where the word ‘myth’ may invite ideas of the ‘exotic,’ although either way his argument remains the same. To Strauss, myth predates the culture in which it exists, because the culture forms around the stories it tells about itself.

According to 17th century philosopher Rene Descartes, the only aspect of life one can be certain is real is what happens inside one’s own mind. The article “The solipsism of this philosophy” I interpret as particularly structuralist; reality begins (and sometimes ends) within the confines of individual consciousness. In this argument, the environment does not exist without the self’s interpretation of it, and by extension may not exist at all.

In Michael Foucault’s “Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason,” he, with a structuralist approach, argues that madness, as a construct of society, can only be identified as opposite the norm. In the conclusion of chapter two he writes, “For classical man, madness was not the natural condition…it was only unreason’s empirical form; and the madman, tracing the course of human degradation to the frenzied nadir of animality, disclosed that underlying realm of unreason which threatens man and envelopes…all the forms of his natural existence” (p 83). The term “unreason” in this chapter is a term Foucault purposefully uses to highlight the relationship between it and what it’s existence hinges on, which is “reason;” this unreason cannot exist as the other without something to be othered from.

Structuralist thought is often argued to be presumptuous, however structuralists are naturally suspicious of the conclusions made by foundationalists, who claim a much more presumptuous universal understanding of one or more facets of society. Structuralists view the world in opposite pairs. The binary presented in these theories can be seen as a too black and white way of viewing diverse culture, however, in anthropological study of culture, oftentimes patterns are in fact what something is versus what it is not. In the study of linguistics, a common theme linking all languages is that a language is not an understanding one holds of their environment, but an understanding of what things in their environment are not. The same ideas hold true for the coining of terms relating to personal identities, which would need not exist other than to differentiate themselves from what is considered ‘standard,’ or, ‘normal,’ such as homosexual, or neurodivergent. There is value in anthropology for structuralist thought because these thoughts aim to question the underlying influences of understanding and creation by a culture or individual.

[antistructuralistcaitlin]

I’m intrigued by your creative approach to structuralism and I appreciate how you dismantle it in order to fit more of a contemporary view of anthropology. However, I would argue that Sze’s artwork actually carries anti-structuralist arguments. Her work completely alienates the object from the structure, therefore creating a pathway to understanding the physical world in a completely new, free way. She says in her video that “we don’t see things in white boxes.” I find this to be a powerful anti-structuralist notion, that even if things exist within structure the way in which we understand them isn’t necessarily structured, and we can even understand them better when we free ourselves from this way of thinking. 

Thea’s Core Argument

It’s true. There is a lot to be said about the pitfalls of structural anthropology: it isn’t historial, it creates silences by not acknowledging authors, by paying attention to the structure of something, it erases the actual substance. That being said, I believe that there is a lot to be taken from structuralist thought. Perhaps, in being more forgiving of Lévi-Strauss’ and Saussure’s approach, we can garner something that is relevant to our contemporary method. Maybe in this case, we can, contrary to Lorde, use the tools of structuralism to dismantle the destructive aspects of its approach. In his review of Lévi-Strauss, James Boon posits: “If we take Levi-Strauss at his winking word, structuralism is neither craft (which might regine its “art”) nor engineering (which might perfect its instrumental technique), but bricolage” (810). Bricolage is a “construction (as of a sculpture or a sculpture of ideas) achieved by using whatever comes to hand;” much of the art made in this style seems to echo the structuralist notion that relationships rather than the individuals themselves that form and uphold a structure. 

To understand this further, I look to the installations of Sarah Sze. In one piece, How We See the World, she uses dried paint skins, torn images, and other materials to “[explote] our fragmented relationship to illusionistic images by focusing our attention on each object’s materiality.” Sze pushes against a notion that an idea must be relegated to a white box, and attempts to echo the way that we see the world in making the edges of each work indiscernible from the next. In a Saussurean fashion, Sze questions systems of representation by “pulling out anything that is nameable in [her] work, and putting together fragments.”  Between the fragments of paper, paint, wood, and wire, there seems to be a vibrational current holding these objects together; the relationships that form and fall apart as the viewer walks around the room are evidently a form of structuralism’s bricolage. There is power in throwing away what we hold true, and take for granted—that is the core of anthropological thought. A contemporary structuralist breaks the bounds of the white box, and attempts to describe the complexities of networks that surge and swell with electrical vigor. 

[antistructuralistcaitlin]

Joelle, I love your use of this haunting, multifaceted song to respond to Sassure’s argument about the signifier and signified. The “natural mystic” evades classification into his categories of the signifier and signified because the way one interprets this figure is deeply complex and personal. This speaks to a deeper truth about expressions of culture, especially ones like art and music; the way in which people relate to these things is so vastly dependent on their own perspective that it is difficult to claim that there is necessarily a signifier/signified relationship at play. Music communicates with the listener in a multitude of ways, though lyrics and instrumentals, to create a certain experience that cannot be understood in an objective way.

Post-Structuralist Reading of Natural Mystic

In light of structuralism’s tendency to erase meaning by paying close attention to the context in which the idea is introduced, I’d like to show how meaning is produced through the example of a song, by paying the least attention to trying to understand it according to one meaning. Being a post-structuralist becomes meaningful for an anthropologist, which tries to intuit cultures ascribing layers of meaning to one concept, and understanding the inability to understand as a form of understanding. Take for example deconstructing the lyrics for Bob Marley’s song, “Natural Mystic”.

There’s a natural mystic

Blowing through the air

If you listen carefully now you will hear

This could be the first trumpet

Might as well be the last

Many more will have to suffer

Many more will have to die

Don’t ask me why

Things are not the way they used to be

I won’t tell no lie

One and all got to face reality now

Though I try to find the answer

To all the questions they ask

Though I know it’s impossible

To go living through the past

Don’t tell no lie

There’s a natural mystic

Blowing through the air

Can’t keep them down

If you listen carefully now you will hear

Such a natural mystic

Blowing through the air

 Marley warns humanity to yield to a “Natural Mystic”, the soothsayer of doom. The “Natural Mystic” contains a heavy message, that many people “will have to die”. The construction of “have” and “to” with die imply that death is a consequence of actions humanity has taken in the past. He comforts his listeners with his acknowledgement that it is impossible to go and reflect on the totality of past actions. However, at the same time he says everyone has got to face reality, the present. So which one is it? Does humanity find their mistake by digging up the past or facing the present? He says that things are not the way they used to be, suggesting the reasons for the grave consequences of death lie in the present, but then he suggests that the consequences are because of the past. The answers are intentionally timeless and occupying infinite space of time. Yet, when Marley predicts that his listeners will want to ask him why they will have to die, he rejects their curiosity, and simply states that things have changed, they are “not the way they used to be”. The words “natural mystic” do not mean anything specific. Natural carries connotations of being from nature, not made by man. In this case, the natural mystic is an inevitable message, not made by mankind, not inspired by mankind, which was there before mankind.  How can that be when Marley implies that the reason for the natural mystic’s message of doom is because of the actions of man? Is the natural mystic natural or summoned? We may also interpret natural as something positive and innocent, but this “mystic” which is natural, is an omen of doom, so that interpretation of nature as uncorrupt has no place in this analysis, but at the same time it does. If it is natural in the sense of innocent, then it means that mankind deserves the suffering or that we cannot escape it at the very least.  The word “mystic” is also an empty and loaded word. It points to no meaning in infinite ways. The first way is that it means something which is mysterious, not easily understood, and not easily visible, or defined, it is possibly the cause of fascination and speculation, something one could get lost in.  The second clear way is that by having a meaning which means not understandable, the word also becomes meaningless, and the expansion of the interpretation of this meaninglessness derived from the fact that mystery points to nothing, expands endlessly. So the words which Marley chooses to describe the soothsayer have no meaning. It is a shadow, fog, whisper without words, and mist that is hard to grasp. If the natural mystic is blowing through the air, then it is everywhere, just like air, but it is hard to hear, one has to listen carefully. Yet, the message Marley brings from the “natural mystic” is clear: mass death and suffering are inevitable. So, the natural mystic is defined by its message, but undefined by it’s characteristic, or form, but at the same time it is a message, and the message is its form, and the message is clear, but the origins of the message are unclear and the contradictions repeat themselves as the understanding of what Marley is saying repeatedly builds and deconstructs. The other contradiction is that the natural mystic is a haptic sound, with conceptual meanings attached to a group of words, natural phenomena, and sound, that do not have to mean what Marley interprets them to mean. The natural mystic is blowing through the air. If it is blowing, it is tangible and forceful. If it is blowing, it is always blowing. If it is blowing, one can hear the blow. And Marley says so, that if one listens carefully, they can hear it. But a blow does not speak any language, so why is the message of the blow one of doom? The message of the blow is noticeably clear to Marley, it has a specific prediction and warning of death. But where is the source of the blow and when did it start? Marley says that “this”, this natural mystic, could be the first trumpet, but it might as well be the last. In other words, it is unknowable whether the warning bell is sounding for the first time, or for the last time, such is the timelessness of the warning, and the extension, and such is the nature of its essence. Why is the message of death contained within an ungraspable thing such as the natural mystic so clear to Marley? As Marley describes this natural mystic blowing, it has no source, beginning, or end in comprehendible sight, but as a thing which is blowing, it must start, it must end, and it must come from somewhere. As a message, nobody can ask Marley why the natural mystic contains this specific message of doom, because he tries to find the answers to the questions, but he cannot. The Natural Mystic is a sign without a signifier and a signified. According to Saussure, all language operates on the principle that there is a sign, signifier, and a signified. The signifier is the word that refers to the object, and the signified is the object, the sign is the signified and the signifier put together, the semiotic concept.

 The Natural Mystic is a sign with infinite interpretations of the signified and the signifier. Marley acknowledges the difficulty of the going back to the past but suggests that human history contains the answers for why many will have to suffer. If history is the evidence of the Natural Mystic, then it is the signified, but it is also the signifier that brings on the consequences of death which is the signified in this alternative reading. So, every word Marley says about the Natural Mystic, the warning of destruction of humanity, destructs itself. One cannot understand the reason why it is here, what caused it, because it is impossible. But it is possible to hear it and understand its message. The song itself contains more meaning than the words, this is created through the repetition or chanting of the same warning, that there is a natural mystic that needs attention.

Given that structuralism operates on the idea that language creates existence, and that concepts are defined based on their differences between other things in a system, I push forward an example of communication that does not follow this route. Bob Marley’s song “Natural Mystic” is an example of communication that challenges structuralism by demonstrating Derrida’s language imagination as a system of sliding meanings that refer to one another and contradict each other, and create meaning through their freeplay. The Natural Mystic is defined through its contradictions and likeness to two opposing things that cannot be like one another. If post-structuralism is a build on some ideas of structuralism and a critique of others, then here I showcase how using a structuralist approach to draw out clear singular interpretations of a word and a post-structuralist approach to combine these meanings of the same word becomes useful.

[antistructuralistcaitlin]

Caitlin’s core argument

In order to debate the practicality of a structuralist approach, we must first ask what the goal of ethnography is. Is ethnography an index of the various elements of one culture and how they come together? Saussure's argument about language as the preceding element to all thought and therefore culture would perhaps support this approach; in studying the structure of language, we could then gain an understanding of culture. However, I would argue that culture is not so simply understood, and instead requires the ethnographer to look more deeply into the esoteric, less objective aspects of culture. 

In his seminal text Argonauts of the Western Pacific, Malinowski makes his own argument regarding the purpose of ethnography: “This goal is, briefly, to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realise his vision of his life. We have to study man, and we have to study what concerns him most intimately, that is, the hold which life has on him.” (25) He argues that one can do this by studying three paths: the structure/organization of the culture, the “imponderabilia of actual life,” and “documents of native mentality.” While these categories are a bit stiff and in some ways outdated, the argument still stands that accounting for a combination of both the structured and unstructured elements of a culture are necessary to understand how one experiences it. 

Culture cannot be understood solely through structure because in imposing a structure, the anthropologist inevitably loses a nuanced understanding of the culture they are studying. It is one thing to understand how a religion works, the rites and rituals it involves, but what is the use in noting these structures if the ethnographer does not also ask what they mean to those who practice it? The issue with structuralism is that it aims to know institutions before it aims to know people. Structure is not an inherently negative lens to use when doing ethnographic work, but when it completely overshadows other elements of culture the ethnographer risks losing sight of a more holistic understanding of a society. Culture does to an extent consist of structures, but equally important is how each member of the culture experiences life.