Conformist Cultural Praxis or `oh my god, we are all racists`

This piece, which was written by Radu Ioviţă (a.k.a. The Hairy Carpathian Sheep), will be read in an adaptation of "Conu Leonida faţă cu reacţiunea" (Mr. Leonida faced with the Reaction) by Ion Luca Caragiale. I think, it is a very insightful and novel look on the issue of multiculturalism. Enjoy.

55 years have now passed since Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled their now famous list of the then available 164 definitions of the term "culture", and we still haven't arrived at a satisfactory one. In fact, the degree of variation found in this set of definitions necessarily renders a statement that could satisfy everyone of them so general and vague that most anthropologists have ceased trying to define culture, and have limited their activities to merely studying the thing in itself. If one were, however, to enunciate such a general and broad definition, it would be something like this: "Culture is the set of all socially learnt and socially transmitted behaviours." Note that this definition does not exclude a number of non-human animals from its application, nor does it specify a group size or longevity in terms of generations across which the said behaviours are transmitted, but it does exclude idiosyncratic stereotyped behaviours of particular individuals. The culture concept as defined above, therefore, is a very flexible and yet somewhat abstract one, which departs in a number of important ways from folk definitions of culture, most of which only refer to a minuscule component of institutionalized and curated behaviors, such as religion, language (langue as opposed to langage), and music, literature, and the arts and sciences. It must be said here that not only is this scientific definition at odds with the folk understanding of culture for semantic reasons, but also because the latter lends itself much more easily to political manipulation in the scope of the formation of new group identities.

The term 'multiculturalism' emerges, in light of the above, as a purely politically-motivated discursive label which denotes the alleged desire of a society to promote the existence on equal terms of multiple 'cultures,' in the folk sense I have described earlier. Usually, it is employed at an institutional level by the dominant members of that society and their affiliated representatives in order to categorize, catalogue, and control cultural expression that does not conform to otherwise acceptable norms of behaviour. It stands to reason that a system where the dominant group determines the forms of culture that subaltern groups are allowed to display for the edification of the general public is little more than a cultural petting-zoo, featuring one's own neighbours and friends. Thus, the creation of the foreign Other serves not only the function of raising mainstream awareness of It but, in that process, of taming it and reducing it to an unthreatening entity.

Because the premise is that two or more 'cultures' must have equal status, multiculturalism naturally presupposes that forms of behaviour can be evaluated according to lists of criteria in order to determine their inclusion or exclusion from the policy. In most countries, multiculturalism tacitly refers to the acceptance of ethnic groups and their behavioural manifestations, but fails to incorporate the majority of other groups which may be linguistically or religiously similar to the mainstream, but otherwise play by radically different rules. It follows naturally that artists, academics, farmers, punks, sailors etc. are forced to align themselves with the group identity as defined by the policy itself if they wish to benefit from it. In the case of artists and intellectuals, this is a kind of mild yet stern censorship, which forces their creativity to conform, at least outwardly, to norms that can be parsed by the policy machine.

Yanlışlanabilir Cehennemler

Yağmurlu bir gündü... Bilim Kulübünün küçücük odasında sıkış tepiş oturmuş, nefeslerimizle odayı, elimizi yakan yarı erimiş plastik bardaklar içinden yudumladığımız kalitesiz hazır kahve ile de içimizi ısıtıyorduk.

Bilimkurgu alt-komisyonunun bilmem kaçıncı toplantısıydı ve Asimov’un evrenini, Frank Herbert’inki ile karşılaştırıyorduk. Hepimiz Asimov’dan gizli gizli zevk alsak da, onun sıradan, bilim fetişizmi ile kendinden geçmiş bir sosyal değişim karşıtı olduğunu dile getirmekten geri durmuyorduk. Fremen’lerin baş kaldırışını, evrimsel süreçlerin sosyal sistemlere indirgenebileceğini söyleyen bir arkadaşa hepimiz bağıra çağıra tepkimizi gösteriyor, bütün bu keşmekeş içinde kapının altından sızan soğuk hissedilmez oluyordu.

Size orada aklımda kalan o tarif edilemez hisleri, mesela PDK’nın androidlerinin, Asimov’un robotlarından ne kadar daha gerçek olduğunu söylemek için sabırsızlanmamı veya benimle aynı fikirde olmayan insanlara karşı duyduğum o öfke-saygı karışımı duyguyu anlatmam mümkün değil.

Bir ömür önceymiş gibi hatırlıyorum şimdi bunları ve hatırlamamın nedeni elimde tuttuğum “Başka Dünyalar Mümkün” isimli bir derlemenin kapağındaki isim: Murat Güney. Murat’ı çok da tanımıyorum. İki dönem mi küçüğümdü, bir mi, önemli değil. Aynı okuldan ve aynı kulüpten olmamız da çok önemli değil. Hatta ikimizin de, çok da alakalı bölümler okumamış olduğumuz halde, antropolojiye yönelmemiz de çok anlamlı olmayabilir. Asıl önemli olan, o yağmurlu günde aynı kahveyi içmemiz, aynı heyecanı paylaşmamız ve en önemlisi onun bu heyecanına emeğini de katarak şimdi sanki kendiminmiş gibi sahiplendiğim düşüncelerin, tartışmaların asıl sahiplerinin seslerini duyabildiğim bir derlemeyi bana, hepimize ulaştırması.

Neyin peşindeydik hala tam bilemiyorum. Duygularıyla, kurduğu sosyal yapılarla, cinsiyetleriyle, yaptıkları ve yapamadıklarıyla, kavgaları ve aşklarıyla insanı merak ediyorduk herhalde. Bilimkurgu işte tam burada, insanı başka dünyalarda, yetkin ve aciz, asil ve yoz, yaşlı ve genç, kadın ve erkek, makine ve organik, binlerce şekilde, kimi zaman indirgeyerek, kimi zaman küçücük dünyalarla kısıtlayarak, kimi zaman tüm evrenin sonsuzluğunda eriterek anlamaya çalışıyor. Sonsuz boyutlu disütopyalar evreninde, bilimkurgu kendi cehennemlerini, Popper’ın söylemi ile, “yanlışlanabilir” olarak kurguluyor. Bu cehennemler, benim gibiler için, postmodern dünyanın onlarca kaçışı arasında, gerçekliği ve dolayısı ile insanı bulamamanın acısını paylaşmama yardımcı oluyor olsa gerek.

Bu sorunsal üzerine Murat benden çok daha uzun zamandır ve daha yoğun bir şekilde kafa yoruyor. Hatırlıyorum, anarşist bir bilimkurgu dergisi çıkarmışlardı, kısa soluklu ama geniş fikirli: Davetsiz misafir, şimdilerde, ismine uygun bir şekilde, davetsizce, internette rahatsız ediyor yerinden memnun organik entellektüelleri.

Burada Murat’ın derlemesinin eleştirisini yapmayacağım (ki yapılmışı var). Tek söyleyeceğim, bilimin, kültürün ve evrenin dinamiklerinin birleştiği bir yerde varoluyor insanın gerçekliği. Bu sanal gerçek, insan olmamızın sınırlılığı içinde de olsa, elimizdeki tek gerçek. İşte bu yüzden bilimkurgu tam da bu kültür, bilim, evren birleşmesinin ortasına insanı koyarak, ister istemez, kendi gerçeğimizle yüzleşmemizi (bkz. Aylak Madam Tuvaleti) sağlıyor. “Başka Dünyalar Mümkün” de yer alan karamsar ütopyaların anlamlandırılması süreci, garip bir umut bırakıyor insanın damağında. Kimbilir, belki de kendi küçük varoluşumuzla bile, hatta sırf varoluşumuz küçük olduğu için başka dünyalar mümkündür.

Nuray Mert'e Mektup

Sayın Nuray Mert,

8 Ekim 2007 tarihli “Bilim budalalığı” isimli yazınız, olağandışı olarak, sığ, demogojik ve de entellektüel olarak kısıtlayıcı bulduğumu üzülerek belirtmeliyim. Her ne kadar yazınızda belirttiğiniz üzere, Avrupa Konseyi Parlementerler Meclisi (AKPM) gibi politik bir kurumun, bu tip tartışmalarda açık ve ahlaki bağlamda kararlar alması bana da abes gelse de, siz bu konuya eleştirinizi açık bir bilim karşıtı kampanyaya çevirerek yapmışsınız. Bilime yaptığınız suçlamalar entellektüel olarak derinliksiz, politik açıdan ise zaten üniversitelerinde, rasyonel düşüncenin serpilemediği politik duruşların bilimsel yeterlilikten daha fazla önem arz ettiği, garip, yetersiz ve de en önemlisi kalitesiz bir entellektüel ortamın dışına çıkamayan bir ülkede, manasız.

Alınan kararı “pozitivist, bilim budalalığı” olarak tanımlarken, hem tüm bilim insanlarını, hem de bilim epistemolojisini. Halbuki, AKPM’de alınan karar, politik bir kurum tarafından alınmıştır, bilimsel bir oluşum tarafından değil. Dahası, yazınızda, bilimle ilgili çok temel önyargıları ortaya koyuyorsunuz. Örneğin:

“Bilim, mevcut fizik ve biyolojik dünyanın keşfi, bu keşiften hareketle, fizik dünyada insan konforu lehinde icatlar ve biyolojik dünyada insan sağlığına yönelik gelişmelerin temelini oluşturur. Varoluşla ilgili soruların cevabını vermez, veremez. Bu, felsefe, yani spekülasyonun alanıdır.”

şeklinde bir genelleme yapmışsınız. Bu son derece sığ önerme, bütün bilim felsefesini olduğu gibi çöpe atmakla kalmıyor, felsefenin rasyonel epistemolojisini (özellikle mantık) hiçe sayıyor.

Ama yazınızın en garip yanı evrimi açıklarken teori ile varsayım kavramlarını aynı anlama geliyormuş gibi kullanmanız. Aynı Adnan Oktar ve diğer bilinen adı ile Harun Yahya’nın yaptığı üzere, teorinin mantık, “peer-review,” test edilme vb. süreçlerle ortaya çıkmış, devamlı yenilenen karmaşık bir düşünsel yapı olduğunu hiçe saymışsınız.

Yine genellemelerinizden birisinde, bütün aydınlanma söylemini ve tarihini hiçe sayarak “insan hakları ve demokrasi gibi konuların, evrim teorisiyle hiçbir alakası yoktur” diyerek aydınlanmanın, insan haklarının ve demokrasinin modernleşme süreci içerisinde birlikte geliştiği varsayımını görmezden gelmişsiniz.

Modern tarihte, bir çok politik ve insanı felaketin çarpık bir bilim adına yapıldığı saptaması doğrudur. Ama bugün Amerikan Devleti, sizin de devamlı belirttiğiniz üzerine Demokrasi adına insanlık suçları işlemekte. Bu demek değildir ki, Demokrasi bir kavram ve bir düşünce sistemi olarak “kötüdür.” Hatırlatmak isterim ki, bugün, bilimin kendisi, kendi tarihi ile hesaplaşmakta diğer tüm bilgi üretme yollarından daha başarılıdır ve sosyal Darwinizmin ve öjeni bağlamında yapılan haksızlıkları yine akademinin kendisi ortaya çıkarmıştır büyük ölçüde.

“Pozitivist dar kafalılar,” diyerek kınadığınız insanlar, bence akademinin içinde değil de, daha ziyade bilimsel epistemolojiyi, evrim teorisini ve bilgi üretme süreçlerini yanlış anlayan veya politik amaçlarla bilinçli olarak çarpıtanlar olsa gerek. Yaratılış tezlerini genelleyenler ve bunu politik araç olarak kullananlar bilim adamları değil, evrime açık bir savaş açmış dini gruplardır. Tam olarak ne olduğunu anlayamadığım “kadim dini gelenekleri” de indirgeyen çoğunlukla onlardır.

Bilginiz için söylüyorum Türkiye’de evrim teorisini kabul edenlerin oranı Avrupa'da sonuncu sıradadadır ve %30’un altındadır (J. D. Miller et al. Science 313, 765–766; 2006). Dahası, Türkiye’deki biyoloji öğretmenlerinin sadece %47’si evrim teorisinin doğruluğuna inanmaktadır (Somel et al. Nature 445, 147 2007). Halbuki, evrim teorisi biyoloji, tıp, ekoloji vb. bilimlerin temel olarak kullandığı, ve bilim dünyasının en sağlam teorilerinden birisidir. Bugünkü savunulduğu şekliyle (bkz. http://www.harunyahya.com/) yaradılışa inanan bir tıp doktorunun veya biyoloğun nasıl kendi işinde tutarlı olabileceğini düşünüyorsunuz bilemiyorum.

Yazınızı gerçekten esefle karşıladım. Amerika’nın dış politıkasına duyduğunuz tepkiyi anlıyorum. Ama bu tepki yüzünden, Türkiye’de zaten son derece kuvvetsiz olan bilimi ve daha genelde rasyonel düşünce sistemlerini bu kadar ağır ve dayanaksız eleştirmeniz gerçekten çok sıkıntı verici. Unutmayın ki, tek savaş, sizin savaşınız değil.

Saygılarımla

The anthropologist as a soldier.

There was a very interesting discussion recently in the anthropology department of Penn. The discussion was stemmed from the NY times article that reported the work of an anthropologist named "Tracy," who works for the American Army in Afghanistan (for the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/05/world/asia/05afghan.html?hp)

Of course, this article entails many ethical and professonal dilemmas that sparked a pretty interesting discussion... Below is a excellent response by a fellow anthropologist and a very close friend, who wanted to be identified as the "furry carpathine sheep." (Slightly edited)

Here's my "doi bani" (2 Romanian cents, ironically, an expression that means "worthless" in Ro), or, if you prefer something more familiar, meine drei Groschen :What is actually the subject of discussion seems to be split into several issues, whereas the emotional attitude seems to be the same in all cases. I suggest we look at the ramifications.

First, we are dealing with the immediate, literal issue of the employment of anthropologists in the armed forces as troops, similar to engineers, doctors, and chaplains. Second, there is the question of the involvement of anthropology in helping US government agencies, and its ethical consequences. Finally, and most generally, we are discussing applied anthropology in principle, and its ethical dilemmas. So, when people express outrage, which one of these things are they talking about? (My list is by no means exhaustive, and anyone could rearrange the issues whichever way they wanted, the fact that there are different levels of ramification of the problem remains).

There are some contradictions at play here. Regarding the first level, the employment of individual persons with degrees in anthropology to work for the military is somewhat irrelevant - it is a personal choice related to employment and does not concern the rest of academic anthropologists. Does anyone know "Tracy"? Who is she? Does she publish? This is not an anthropologist, but a military technician with a specialization in tribesmen, or Pashtun, or whatever.

Second, should academic anthropologists be involved in governmental actions? Well, this is a question of what academic anthropologists of the US nationality believe about their government - is it a transparent, democratic, benign government, or a cunning, imperial, secretive, fascist dictatorship? Or something in between (for the popular fence-dwellers)? I for one cannot see what is wrong with top experts in the anthropology of the government offering their consulting services to the government in a public fashion as to how they see things ought to be done. If, on the other hand, they believe that the government will misuse the information, shouldn't they be on the streets protesting the new Order? Or making public announcements about what they as top experts in the culture of the zone think, and why their thinking is ignored or suppressed by said government? I do not expect to see outrage regarding any other form of cooperation with the government. Or should anthropology be fundamentally CONTRA? The gadfly...

Finally, on the application of anthropology in general, what are the ethics of supporting a particular political cause with one's scholarly work? Academics enjoy a privileged position in society - at least in theory, they have access to resources for collecting information, and for disseminating it FREELY. This is academic freedom. However, this is based on the concept that knowledge production in and of itself, is valuable, a concept in which perhaps only old-fashioned folk still believe, but nevertheless one that forms the basis for this freedom we enjoy - honesty independent of interest . When academics openly involve their research with political agendas (and this does not mean just right-wing, war-mongering agendas, but all agendas, communist, racist, liberal, neo-liberal, pacifist, environmentalist etc.), they enter a different realm. I'm just trying to separate research from action, knowledge production from the use of knowledge for a predetermined purpose. Just to pre-empt more 'outrage', I am not saying this other realm is dirty, disgusting, immoral, less intelligent, or otherwise reprehensible in any way. But it is different. Once outside the realm of knowledge production it is harder and harder to defend from political attacks - this is a risk that must be assumed by those who engage in such endeavors. They are subject to ethical concerns not related to the research, but to the cause they are serving. Therefore, the ethical concerns should be different for each of the causes in question. In this case, "is the Iraq war morally correct?".

Now, there are many anthropologists who wish to devote themselves to applying anthropological concepts to trying to find the solution to a crisis, injustice, etc. For instance, the famous Grameen Bank lending strategies in rural Bangladesh were highly influenced by an anthropologically-informed micro-economic policy that emphasized lending to women. Business anthropology seems to be a hot topic nowadays, as evidenced by the multiple courses taught in our department. Where am I going with this? Well, I ask what is the difference in offering expertise to a Bank or to the Army? Or at least being interested in such a cooperation? (as I stated before, I don't consider anonymous people who work for any institution with non-transparent results to be 'anthropologists', so I'm referring to people who apply anthropological concepts in a public fashion). Imagine for example, that, like in the Grameen Bank case, the Army allowed anthropologists to videotape and publish their findings - of course, they might not, but I bet none of us has asked what terms we could get from the Army for carrying research under their auspices.

I'm not condemning either of these practices, but I simply do not think that 'outrage' is the answer that will sort these things out. Provided transparency, dissemination, public discourse, etc., wouldn't it be good for all of us to know how Iraq soldiers relate to the local population? How they think about them, what are they afraid of, what they wish for, why they think they're there etc. Such interactional data are not covered by most newspaper reporters, because of a lack of a way of thinking that anthropology has developed over the last hundred years. Have prominent, politically active, anthropologists had meetings and petitions to inform the US government of their thinking on these issues both prior to the war and during it?

I simply don't know. There are benefits, but they have to be weighed in the right context. In my opinion, Aye this or Nay that doesn't cut it.

The first instance that defined Split: The distraction

Alone in a hotel room’s balcony. Dark. 11pm. Just after the long trip from Sarajevo. A bottle of wine on the table. Looking at the dark, ancient Adriatic.

“Sea. What an amazing, overwhelming, frightening thing. It is natural and poetic; physical and mystical at the same time. Real, as it storms through the coasts of Islands, turning boats upside down, and as it is the home and life of many creatures of this world. .Yet, it turns into something else in one of Hokusai’s magical paintings. It becomes the prison for Robinson Crouse; freedom for the young Sinbad; and a deep trap for the curious in Poe’s Maelstrom. It was dark and evil in Japanese folk tales and treacherously beatiful under the control of capricious Greek gods. We imagine sea as one of us.”

That was pretty much what I was thinking, sitting there, like a nocturnal turtle, when I spotted one, single glittering light in the vast darkness of the sea. Was it a loner fisherman, trying to make an early start to the fishing season? Was it a forgotten sign that warned the lost sailors? Or was I simply dreaming? I will never know. What I know is the fact that I could not think anything else but the source of that light. There it was, making me look at that single point, probably preventing me to think the thousand other meanings of the sea.

As sleep came over me with the changing tides, I wondered how many distracting lights there were in the world; which one of those lights, I managed to see past, and which ones stayed in my mind.

This first Croatian evening was a peaceful and serene one. The Sirens were silent, and that was more dangerous than their songs.

* First picture is Hokusai's painting: The Great Wave off Kanagawa, 2. Second picture is a painting by Liliane Tellier: Sinbad le Marin, Third is my photograph of the Adriatic.

The unexpected normalcy at the gates of Klis

I was somewhere close to Sarajevo airport. I did not have time. I had to go to a distant city of an old, powerless emperor, but, like all the travelers who do not have a plan; I could not actually go anywhere. It was three hours and 30 miles later that I realized hitchhiking was not the way to go.

I managed to make somebody to drive me a to a town center, where I met Samir; a big, blue eyed fellow with a lot of wit but not so much grace. After a very though and fruitless bargaining, there I was, in a pretty neat Volkswagen Sedan, going west with uncomfortable speed.

We drove through tiny roads, heroically entering small, dark tunnels with millions of warning signs on them, and dangerously rejecting the call of mesmerizing landscape in each curve of the road.

And we talked mostly about soccer and food. I avoided asking anything about the war as much as I could. It was hard to do so, as my eye was constantly catching images of countless cemeteries along the road. It was futile anyways.


I just innocently asked Samir about his family and he told me about her mother, who died recently of breast cancer. Suddenly, his face went dark and he told me:

“It was, of course, the war.”

He said:

“It was too much for her. Not hearing from me during the war, losing my father.”

He continued, without me asking:

“I searched for him for months, you know. We never saw his body again, but I am sure he is dead”

Here it was, just slipping from the man’s lips: A too-well-known, almost cliché dialogue. It was cheesy, it was blunt, it was simple. But, somehow, there, in that car, and on that road, it was too painful to listen, and too simple to ignore.

It was real.

And he continued even further.

“Well, now I have a little kid, a girl. She is the only meaning in life for me”

At that moment, thinking about the dramatic construct of a Hollywood film, I expect a mine to explode, or a sniper to hit Samir on the forehead.

I closed my eyes.

Nothing happened, but silence fell between us.

Hours later, that silence was awarded with the calming view of an Adriatic Sunset.
The war was over.