SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
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lyo I Social Theory and Social Action<br />
move in certain ways characreristic of people belonging to court society. (Elias<br />
1983:231-32)<br />
And since the king and the palace at Versailles were the focal point of the entire<br />
system, proper behavior of those at the lower reaches of the court hierarchy was<br />
rendered meaningful by being oriented toward the same point as was the behavior<br />
of their superiors.<br />
A final example of the institutional basis of conventionality comes from<br />
Lotman's (1985) analysis of Russian culture in the eighteenth century, a case in<br />
which the nobility went to extremes to highlight the hyper-conventionality of<br />
their behavior. Lotman begins by locating the natural/conventional distinction<br />
in two levels of behavior, everyday norms considered by members of society as<br />
ordinary, instrumental and "natural," on the one hand, and ceremonial, ritual,<br />
and nonpragmatic "poetic" behavior regarded as bringing to contexts of action<br />
an independent signification, on the other hand. While both levels are, from the<br />
point of view of an outside observer, fully conventional, the semiotic character<br />
of the former level vanishes from the actors' point of view, or so Lotman claims:<br />
When a language is first recorded and studied, descriptions of everyday speech<br />
are generally oriented toward rhe external observer. This correlation is not coincidental;<br />
like language, everyday behavior belongs to the sort of semiotic system<br />
that "native speakers" view as natural, a part of Nature and not Culture.<br />
Its semiotic and conventional character is apparent only to the external observer.<br />
(Lotman 1985:68)<br />
As the data Lotman presents reveal, however, this "external" perspective is not<br />
reserved for the theoretical observer but can characterize the perceptions of social<br />
groups who experience some significant "other" as proof of the relativity of<br />
custom.<br />
From the period of Peter the Great, Lotman documents a process in which<br />
the nobility increasingly adopted, even flaunted, behavior patterns borrowed<br />
from the European middle class, to the degree that they acted like foreigners in<br />
their own country. The motive for this seems to be that these nobles ensured that<br />
their conventional behavior could resist being naturalized through repetition precisely<br />
because it appeared foreign, thereby demanding—in a perfect reversal of<br />
Benveniste's argument—an attitude of externality. The resulting need for intensive<br />
instruction of children, the publication of manuals of polite conduct, and the<br />
value placed on learning foreign languages further differentiated nobility and<br />
peasants.<br />
This "semiotization of everyday behavior" took many forms, from the<br />
heightened theatricality of costume to the ritualization of what had previously<br />
been "natural" activity. What all these "poetic" forms of behavior had in common<br />
was the availability of alternative norms or styles, again contrasting with<br />
peasant behavior regulated by the invariable boundaries of the agricultural cycle.<br />
Naturalization of Convention I 191<br />
(Curiously, but predictably, Peter himself inverted this inversion by displaying<br />
strikingly unaffected, "natural" behavior in ceremonial contexts.) The extremes<br />
to which this hyper-conventionality could run is illustrated by the case of one<br />
Vasilii Vasil'evich Golovin, a learned gentleman whose daily schedule was a cross<br />
between a theatrical performance and liturgical rite:<br />
If anything prevented the master from falling asleep right away, he did not stay<br />
in bed and was restless for the entire night. In this case, he would either begin<br />
reading aloud his favorire book, The Life of Alexander the Great by Quintus<br />
Curtius, or he would sit in a large armchair . . . and intone the following<br />
words, now raising and now lowering his voice: "Satan, get thee to the barren<br />
places, to the thick woods and to the crevices of the earth, where the light of<br />
God's countenance shineth not. Satan, Enemy of Mankind, unhand me, get<br />
thee to the dark places, to the bottomless seas, to the shelterless uninhabited<br />
mountains of the wilderness where the light of God's countenance shineth not.<br />
Cursed wretch, be off to the Tartars! Be off, cursed wretch, to the inferno, to<br />
the eternal fire and appear to me no more. Thricedamned, thriceheathen and<br />
thricecursed! I blow on you and spit on you!" After finishing these exorcisms,<br />
he would rise from his chair and begin walking back and forth through all<br />
seven of his rooms shaking a rattle. These strange habits naturally provoked<br />
curiosity, and many of the servants peeked through the cracks to see what the<br />
master was doing. But this too was taken into account. The housemaids would<br />
begin shouting, employing various witticisms and proverbs, and pour cold<br />
water on the eavesdroppers from an upper window. The master approved all<br />
these actions, saying, "It serves the culprits right. Suffering means nothing to<br />
them, thricedamned, thriceheathen and thricecursed, untortured, untormented<br />
and unpunished!" Stamping his feet, he would repeat the same thing over and<br />
over again. (Quoted in Lotman 1985:79—80)<br />
Lotman observes that this carnivalization of daily life implied not only that individuals<br />
played theatrical roles but also that life itself was viewed as a textual plot,<br />
often intentionally patterned after literary heroes (see also Lotman 1976).<br />
Conclusion<br />
Philosophy commences when this immediate synthesis [of ethos and<br />
worldview] falls apart, when physis and nomos become distinguished and their<br />
relation is transformed into a problem. Its history is that of constant attempts<br />
both to reformulate this distinction and to construct a relation between the<br />
concepts distinguished. Its end is present when the relations between nature<br />
and convention, objects and values, facts and norms, science and morality, etc.<br />
are no longer seen as a meaningful problem.<br />
—György Markus (1980:24)<br />
The theoretical and ethnographic examples in the preceding sections are intended<br />
to challenge the simple idea that social conventions always appear arbi-