SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
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ij4<br />
I Social Theory and Social Action<br />
come clearer about its methodology of comparison, along at least three axes: modality,<br />
scope, and ground. By modality I refer to the status of the terms of comparison,<br />
whether imputed by the analyst, as in Schrempp's (1990) comparison of<br />
Maori cosmology and Kantian philosophy, Yearley's (1990) comparison of Mencius<br />
and Aquinas, and Patton's comparison of Benjamin's reading of Parisian<br />
arcades and Indian interpretations of Vedic mantras, or motivated by historical<br />
linkages, as is the case in the articles by Poole, Bantly, Al-Azmeh, and Stout<br />
(1994). The analyst must take extra care in making explicit the motivation for<br />
creating the artificial juxtaposition. Imputed comparison across cultural levels<br />
(India/Paris, Maori/Kant) and comparison between well-articulated systems<br />
(Plato/Kükai, Mencius/Aquinas) are particularly difficult. By scope I mean the<br />
range of the units of comparison: are the units entire philosophical systems, key<br />
interpretive mechanisms (analogy, typology, metaphor), or specific religious doctrines<br />
or philosophical principles (good action, miracles)? Given that philosophical<br />
discourse tends toward systematic formulation, comparison operating at a<br />
lesser scope requires vigilance against atomization or fragmentation. Finally, by<br />
ground I mean the metric, criteria, or reason upon which the comparison is<br />
based. Whereas some authors take the ground from one of the units to be compared<br />
(usually from the Western one), others attempt comparative analysis without<br />
realizing, as the present commentary has insisted, that their scholarly activities<br />
have deep historical roots and find echoes in the traditions under study.<br />
8 Naturalization of Convention<br />
To become aware that one is following a tradition and is dependent on it can<br />
have a disturbing effect on persons who thought that they were free from it.<br />
Intellectual and literary traditions have much in common with substantive<br />
traditions. "Reason," "life," and "naturalness" appear differently when their<br />
proponents become conscious that these too are borne by tradition. Just as the<br />
argument that one's unquestioned beliefs were particular to one's own time<br />
and culture unsettled those who espoused them as universally valid, so the<br />
perception that the practice of reason and "naturalness" of conduct are<br />
traditional has a similar unsettling effect.<br />
—Edward Shils (1981:309)<br />
Arbitrariness and Motivation<br />
THE CONTRIBUTION OF received anthropological wisdom to the study of conventionality—wisdom<br />
I propose to challenge here—can be summarized as follows.<br />
From the external perspective of analytical reflection (philosophical,<br />
scientific, linguistic, or ethnographic) social convention appears arbitrary in stipulating<br />
a non-natural, socially derived retattonship^betweeria^regurative or constitutive<br />
principle and its corresponding appropriate context (different nations<br />
prescribe driving on different sides of the road) or between an expressive sign<br />
and its signified meaning [arbor and kerrekar mean "tree" in different lan-*"<br />
guages). But from the internal perspeciiv£jQlsc«JaLaçtors these same conventions<br />
appear necessary: if I drive on the left side of the road in this country I will either<br />
be arrested or cause an accident; if I want to talk about trees in the Belauan<br />
language of Micronesia I must use the phonetic shape kerrekar. Indeed, because<br />
it would never occur to me to consider the possibility of an alternative practice,<br />
I do not imagine myself as following a rule at all as I drive or speak. As Benveniste<br />
(1971:44-46) points out in his critique of the Saussurean doctrine of the<br />
linguistic sign, there is no real contradiction here, since the external observer has '1<br />
the benefit of comparativeSmowledge-of different societies, while"the active participant<br />
is oriented toward achieving immediate commuhTcafiönäTor pragmatic/<br />
goals. Arbitrariness in "these'"examples refers to the lack of natural or external<br />
motivation between rule and context or between signifier and signified and not^<br />
of course, to the random or free choice of individuals (cf. Holbwka 1981).' In<br />
1<br />
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