SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang

186 I Social Theory and Social Action
this type of scientific metalanguage the codes and rules of social life are represented
by an explanatory language which destroys the cultural specificity of its
represented object. Conventions that could not be otherwise or which obey the
requirements of some higher logic are, of course, no longer conventional. But this
naturalization of convention can be observed in many places other than in the
positivistic (mis) apprehension of cultural phenomena, namely, in the operation
of societies themselves which regularly represent their conventions as necessary,
immutable, or motivated constructs. If it can be documented that the naturalization
of convention is itself a pervasive social phenomenon, then the theoretical
arguments sketched above can be shown to be not only in principle incapable of
(accounting for this data but also understandable as merely another, unprivileged
example of a widespread occurrence.
The crucial difference, however, between the naturalization of convention as
part of a theoretical metalanguage and that as part of the data of social life is
that only in the latter do the poles of nature and convention remain in a dynamic
tension: in society, naturalization in fact perpetuates conventions by imputing
powerful motivation to arbitrary constructs. My own cross-cultural reading and
experience suggest that the social construction and function of the relationship
between nature and convention can be as diverse as the different kinds of customs
and rules often cited to prove the relativity of cultures. In order to move
beyond the purely anecdotal I will present four ethnographic cases in order of
increasingly explicit conventionality, that is, from examples where social conventions
are relatively naturalized from the perspective of actors within the system
to those where social rules confront actors as highly artificial, if not arbitrary,
constructs.
Conventions, especially those dealing with norms of action, can operate
hegemonically in a society by drawing into their scope groups which not only
have no role in their construction but also become implicated in perpetuating
their own subordination. Rebellion against disfranchisement is made difficult either
because antinormative sentiments only incite strengthened authoritative
pressure or because challenges presuppose the very conventions in dispute. In the
case of the Baruya of New Guinea, as described by Godelier (1976,1986), forms
of domination of men over women are perpetuated by institutions and ideologies
in which women become the principal agents of their own domination. To men
are reserved the ownership of land, the knowledge of magic, the practice of warfare,
the manipulation of sacred objects, and the control over affinal exchange.
These objective manifestations of dominance are coupled with a difference in
orientation of men and women, according to which men see their interests in
terms of the tribe as a whole, while women, whose life course takes them from
their fathers' houses to their husbands', view their sphere of activity as restricted
to domestic space.
Naturalization of Convention I 187
In contrast to the ten-year, intensive initiation process required for young
boys, girls undergo brief, secret initiation lasting only two weeks, which nevertheless
establishes powerfully the legitimacy of rules and concepts supporting
masculine domination. During their initiation girls are instructed by female elders
to obey certain behavioral conventions as necessary elements of the social
order: for example, never resist your husband's sexual advances or cry out during
intercourse, never cut your husband's sugarcane without his permission unless to
serve his guests, never have sexual relations with visitors, and—this one to protect
fragile male egos—never laugh if you catch sight of your husband's accidentially
exposed genitals. After receiving these admonitions, the initiates ritually
chew sugarcane, a crop planted only by men and symbolic of the penis, and whip
themselves with stinging nettles (Godelier 1986:45-46). Having internalized
these rules and experienced these hardships, the young girls are then taught that
their subordinate position is not merely a matter of convention but is rooted in
the "natural" differences between their bodies and sexual processes and those of
men.
As Godelier (1976:284) concludes: "In a society without classes, the dominant
ideas are the ideas of the dominant sex and the greatest force of domination
is the consent of the dominated to their subordination." Without an independent
set of concepts with which to confront their condition, the women are forced to
use the symbolic language of the dominant males; and so as long as this condition
prevails the men need only make minimal use of external forms of coercion (cf.
Genovese 1982). The hegemonic function of social conventions has been cited
frequently in recent discussion of the way linguistic categories perpetuate gender
asymmetries. As Goldsmith (1980:182) remarks: "Therefore, when marginal
people turn to the conventional language in an effort to interpret their suffering
and devise valid means for altering their lives, at best they confront confusion
and, at worst, they meet their own failure."
Rather than enforce oppressive conventions through the ruse of imputed naturalness,
the Belauan culture of Micronesia—if I may turn briefly to my own
ethnographic fieldwork—goes to no trouble to hide the fact that control over
social conventions rests primarily in the hands of members of high-ranking or
chiefly houses. In Belau conventions are called "paths," a term much like the
Latin via, which refers not only to roads and sea lanes but to prescriptive channels
of social relationships (e.g., the "path" between allied chiefly houses) and
recognized strategies of political action (e.g., the "path of fire," a rhetorical technique
involving heated threats). Although these relationships and strategies are
widely known and actively discussed, the ability to have one's actions typified or
categorized as being a token of a type and, more importantly, the power to create
new "paths" which will be subsequently presupposed by others are guarded prerogatives
of high rank. In the absence of writing (at least in traditional Belau)