SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
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188 I Social Theory and Social Action<br />
rules of customary behavior are codified only in oral traditions, including myths,<br />
historical narratives, and proverbs, and even then conventions are represented by<br />
exemplification rather than by a regimenting metalanguage. Taken together these<br />
traditions, called literally "words/deeds from ancient times," provide the most<br />
frequently cited reason for the existence of conventions. Interestingly, the origination<br />
of customs is almost invariably the act of mythological or heroic characters<br />
acting alone, in contrast to the myth of collective agreement in our own<br />
culture.<br />
As an island society which existed in relative isolation for at least a millennium,<br />
Belau developed a strong sense of the coherence and self-sufficiency of its<br />
own culture. And Belau's experience as the object of powerful yet passing colonial<br />
regimes (Spanish, German, Japanese, and American) only served to intensify<br />
its sense of historical continuity, stability, and uniqueness. Although possessing<br />
the qualities of totality, consistency, and permanence, the category of culture in<br />
Belau is not interpreted in terms of a category of nature. In fact, the origin myth<br />
describes the transition from the amorphous depth of the sea to a land-based<br />
social existence as the creation of "paths" of migration (Parmentier 19873:127-<br />
37). Bekusn trsdition is, thus, in total accord with Lévi-Strauss's (1969:8) dictum:<br />
"The absence of tules seems to provide the surest criterion for distinguishing<br />
a natural from a cultural process." Second, a pervasive dynamic of<br />
factionalism at all levels of social organization also contributes to the continued<br />
commitment to conventional behavior, since competition between rival segments<br />
normally presupposes rather than challenges social rules and understandings (Parmentier<br />
1985c). Third, the systems of hierarchically ranked institutions interlock<br />
in such a fashion—with high-ranking titleholders heading high-ranking houses<br />
and these houses constituting high-ranking villages which in turn head political<br />
federations—that the exercise of typifying power constantly reinforces the institutional<br />
structure making it possible.<br />
Acting according to conventional norms can signal to others one's knowledge<br />
of the convention, possession of a requisite level of skill for manipulating<br />
complex rules, and a positive valuation of the standard in question. But, in social<br />
contexts where there is a significant asymmetry in the power to establish conventions<br />
or in the availability of training to master them, conventional behavior can<br />
also index one's position in this institutionalized hierarchy. Distinction or differentiation<br />
in terms of conventions is one way that dominant groups can exercise<br />
what Bourdieu (1979) has termed "symbolic power," the ability to manipulate<br />
the arbitrariness of convention to set themselves apart from the general population,<br />
whose everyday behavior seems in contrast inflexible, rustic, and "natural."<br />
An excellent example of this social-indexical function of convention is the<br />
French court of Louis XIV as described by Elias (1982, 1983). As Elias points<br />
out, the florescence of aristocratic court life corresponded to the rise of a middle<br />
class, or bourgeoisie, so that the fine gradations of rank found at court not only<br />
Naturalization of Convention I 189<br />
constituted a class-internal hierarchy but also distinguished courtly civility as a<br />
whole from lower strata of society. The courtly aristocracy is so much more sensitive<br />
to lower-class gestures than was the warrior nobility of the Middle Ages<br />
that it strictly and emphatically excludes everything "vulgar" from its sphere of<br />
life. Finally, this permanently smouldering social fear also constitutes one of the<br />
most powerful driving forces of the social control that members of this courtly<br />
upper class exert over themselves and other people in their circle. It is expressed<br />
in the intense vigilance with which they observe and polish everything that distinguishes<br />
them from people of lower rank: not only the external signs of status,<br />
but also their speech, their gestures, their social amusements and manners. The<br />
constant pressure from below and the fear it induces above are, in a word, one<br />
of the strongest driving forces—though not the only one—of that specifically<br />
civilized refinement which distinguishes the people of this upper class from others<br />
and finally becomes second nature to them (Elias 1982:304). There is, in fact a<br />
contrast between the norms of sincerity, hard work, individualism, enrichment<br />
through education, in short, the idealization of "natural" behavior for the middle<br />
class, and the aristocratic pattern of artificially exaggerated manners, theatrical<br />
ceremonialism, and calculated control of affective impulses. 4 Court conventions<br />
concerning interpersonal etiquette, dress, and speech which might appear trivial,<br />
oppressive, or absurd to us constitute for those involved a coherent guide for establishing<br />
relational identity, as is shown in the following contemporary satirical<br />
passage cited by Elias:<br />
You require a doublet made of four or five layers of different taffetas; stocking<br />
such as you see, frieze and scarlet, accounting, I assure you, for eight ells of<br />
cloth at least; then you need boots, the flesh-side outermost, the heel very high,<br />
and spur-slippers also very high ... the spurs must be gilded When, thus<br />
attired, you have arrived in the Louvre courtyard,—one alights between the<br />
guards, you understand—you begin to laugh at the first person you meet, you<br />
salute one, say a word to anothet: "Brother how you bloom, gorgeous as a<br />
rose. Your mistress treats you well; that cruel rebel has no arms against this<br />
fine brow, this well-curled moustache. And then this charming river-bank, one<br />
could die of admiration." This must be said while flinging the arms, agitating<br />
the head, moving from one foot to the othet, painting with the hand now the<br />
moustache, now the hair. (Agrippa d'Aubigne in Elias i983:23o) 5<br />
Glossing this text, Elias notes a combination of fluctuating convention and the<br />
participants' high degree of commitment to their necessity:<br />
To keep one's place in the intense competition for importance at court, to avoid<br />
being exposed to scorn, contempt, loss of prestige, one must subordinate one's<br />
appearance and gestures, in short oneself, to the fluctuating norms of court<br />
society that increasingly emphasize the difference, the distinction of the people<br />
belonging to it. One must wear certain materials and certain shoes. One must