In Harmonium

Posted By Marc on October 1, 2008

Note: This is a very difficult post for me to write.  The difficulty doesn’t lie with the subject area but, rather, in what language I will have to use in order to try and communicate my thoughts on the topic.

One of the axiomatic assumptions that professions, as a group, seem to hold is a taken-for-granted (in the phenomenological sense) belief in a unitary professional “ground of being”.  Now, “ground of being” is, really, just a way of referring to two questions:

• Why are we doing what we are doing? (in the sense of what gives our “work” some absolute “value” or “purpose”), and
• Where is our “touchstone” for the correctness of our answer? (in the sense of where do we go to re-affirm our belief in the correctness of our purpose).

Grounds of being are often shortened or “compacted” into a short phrase or a single symbol such as “God”, “Patriotism”, “Science”, “Family”, “Profession”, “Identity”, “Ideology”, etc., but the very act of symbolic compaction hides many of the (assumed) symbolic relationships that operate at the sub-conscious or semi-conscious (“I knew that, I just didn’t think about it”) levels.

For Anthropologists, and especially Cultural Anthropologists, this is an especially poignant and important question.  Amongst all of the academic disciplines, we are perhaps the one that is most caught betwixt and between different cultures and sub-cultures each of which have their own grounds of being.  At the same time, our primary “tool” is ourselves – our minds and our senses – and our primary methodology is evenly split between what Dilthey called verstehen (“empathic understanding”) and erklären (“explanation” or “explanation by natural laws”) and is, in a great degree, influenced by his observation that

All science is experiential; but all experience must be related back to and derives its validity from the conditions and context of consciousness in which it arises, i.e., the totality of our nature.

Now, Dilthey wrote his Introduction to the Human Sciences in 1883; a turbulent time for scholars but, also, one in which there was a generally “optimistic” view that “science” both could and should act as the ground of being for scholarship.  Indeed, his writing was, in part, in reaction to the earlier emergence of what today we would call “social engineering” (e.g. Comte) and “geographic determinism” (e.g. Buckle), which he collectively characterizes as “borrowing principles and methods from the natural sciences” and, thereby, tipping the act of scientific inquiry significantly in favour of erklären, while the Historical School lacked a corrective.

Dilthey’s work was both widely read in the late 19th century and certainly an influence on Franz Boas and his project to professionalize Anthropology (see Matti Bunzl “Franz Boas and the Humboldtian Tradition” in Volksgeist as Method and Ethic by George W. Stocking, Jr., especially page 27).  Indeed, my suspicion is that Boas’ view of “science” was very similar to Dilthey’s, and a similar view appears to have been shared by many of his students, at least in the form of their investigations and thinking (cf Invisible Genealogies by Regna Darnell).

One would be excused for wonderng just why I am talking about Dilthey and Boas in a post on ethical grounds of being.  The reason, however, is that Boas’ ground of being has acted as the de facto guide to the current discussions of ethics within the discipline.  Indeed, his statement that

A person, however, who uses science as a cover for political spying, who demeans himself to pose before a foreign government as an investigator and asks for assistance in his alleged researches in order to carry on, under this cloak, his political machinations, prostitutes science in an unpardonable way and forfeits the right to be classed as a scientist.

has become one of the more highly referenced comments in the current debates.

But let us step back from that specific comment and look, instead, at how Boas viewed “science” as a ground of being.  There are several very interesting, and enlightening, quotes that do make some of his views clearer.  First, from the same letter to the Nation

The very essence of his [the Scientists'] life is the service of truth.

Second, from a letter (11/6/39) to John Dewey

There are two things to which I am devoted: absolute academic and spiritual freedom, and the subordination of the state to the interests of the individual; expressed in other forms, the furthering of conditions in which the individual can develop to the best of his ability — as far as it is possible with a full understanding of the fetters imposed upon us by tradition; and the fight against all forms of power policy of states or private organizations.

I do not think that I would be far off if I were to characterize Boas’ ground of being as a via negativa perception of “science”, where the term “science” is used in Dilthey’s sense (or something similar) and where the “best” way in which it can be pursued is via personal freedom of inquiry, always aimed at, if never achieving, “truth”.  In many ways, this is an extremely romantic ground of being where the Quest is both the ends and the means for a continuous unveiling and re-affirmation of the purpose of that Quest and it shares a common structure with other expressions of a Quest motif.  Certainly it would make sense that if Boas held this as a personal ground of being, then the greatest betrayal of it would be a purposeful misuse of the process of the Quest to achieve an “anti-Truth” (e.g. “spying” while claiming to be a scientist).

[note: all of the Boas quotes used here are available here]

I mentioned earlier that a ground of being encompasses both a “purpose” and a “touchstone” to re-affirm that purpose and I would suggest that, for Boas, the purpose was the Quest for Truth, while the touchstone was personal experiences along the path of that Quest.  In light of this, I think it is now important to introduce a distinction from theology between immanent and transcendent.  Within this universe of discourse, “immanent” refers to the sense of “God” within the individual, while “transcendant” refes to the sense of “God” external to the individual.  If we drop “God” from the usage, then we could say that Boas’ purpose was transcendant (and transcendental too, i.e. not in the “material world”), while his touchstone was immanent.

Indeed, I suspect that Boas’ ground of being was in the twilight zone between transcendent and immanent, a “zone” often accessed by mystics and visionaries who can only communicate a fragment of their experience of it, but who “know” it (in the sense of gnosis).  But, as with all charismatic prophets, Boas’ message and vision has become routinized over time (cf Max Weber’s The Sociology of Religion for this process).  Some of his “disciples” still show this ground of being, while others appear to have replaced it with other grounds of being that are, in my opinion, quite different.

Right now, I only want to consider one other ground of being which, for want of a better term, I will call “careerism”.  Now, being an Anthropologist, I have to tell a story .  Back when I was doing my Ph.D. work, I was told by a friend, who was an associate professor, that my goal should be to publish as much as I could as quickly as I could.  This would lead to me getting a tenure track position, grant money, academic honours, etc.  It would make me “a success”.  Over the course of several years, my friend would constanly chide me for spending too much time reading and thinking and not enough time publishing and “getting on with my career” (an accusation also made by my wife at times).

This ground of being, careerism as opposed to the Quest, is, to my mind, firmly rooted in a transcendent, but not transcendental, purpose – personal “success” – and it’s touchstones are also transcendent – the number of articles and books published, grant money received and academic “position”.  In my opinion, this ground of being has led to what Max Forte calls A Crisis of Vast Quantities in Academia; a phrase I quite like.  I feel, however, that this ground of being, while an inevitable outgrowth of the trends in academia for the past 40 years, is doing a disservice to both the discipline of Anthropology and, at the same time, to the individuals who practice it.

I can’t help but think of Matthew 16:25 – For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?  And this is where I tie grounds of being back into “ethics”.  In Anthropology, at least when we practice participant observation, we engage with not only our minds and our sense but, also, our “souls”.  Can we experience  “the conditions and context of consciousness” of the Other with an external touchstone?  At the same time, if we operate with an internal touchstone, can we as individual accept the strictures and limitations, “the fetters imposed upon us by tradition” of operating within a group that is dominated by external touchstones?

I honestly do not believe that these questions can, or should, be answered by or for a group.  They are extremely personal and require a degree of self-knowledge that goes well beyond what we usually talk about inside the academy, although not beyond many late night discussion I have had both with my mentors and several of my students.  But, while we do not often talk about it, I think we must.

Category: Anthropology, Ethics
Tags: Ethics, Ground of being