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Resonance
Beyond the Words
By Unni Wikan
The University of Chicago Press
Copyright © 2012 The University of Chicago
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-226-92446-5
Chapter One
Beyond the Words The Power of Resonance
As I was completing the manuscript of my book Managing Turbulent Hearts: A Balinese Formula for Living (1990b), I felt a deep sense of puzzlement. Something seemed wrong, and it was not that the Balinese I described were quite different from those depicted in major anthropological works. I was reconciled to that, and quite prepared to stand up for my own interpretation. What troubled me instead was that the Balinese of my account should seem so plain and ordinary, so nonexotic.
True, they did believe in black magic and that one could speak with the souls of the dead and so forth. But that did not detract from the fact that they seemed basically like you and me, picking their way through the world much as we do and living by the same sorts of stratagems. The Balinese of Gregory Bateson, Jane Belo, Margaret Mead, and Clifford Geertz, by contrast, seemed to come out of another world. And they were brilliantly exotic.
To give you an idea of what I have in mind, we might note Bateson and Mead's notion of a lack of climax in Balinese affairs (1942:32–33). Or their assertion that Balinese are entirely confused if they lose their sense of direction, of knowing "which way is north" (1942:6). Or Belo's observation that "the babies do not cry, the small boys do not fight.... The women accept without rancor the role of an inferior.... The system of stratification works smoothly as a rule, and all those individuals who conform to it seem happy" ([1935] 1970:106–9). Or Geertz's observation that Balinese have no selves beyond what is encapsulated in their masks ([1974] 1984:128). Or his argument that they are guided not by morality but by aestheticism: "to please the gods, to please the other ... but to please as beauty pleases, not as virtue pleases" ([1966] 1973a:400).
What I, at least, gathered from such accounts was that the Balinese were truly, as Geertz had said, impossible to meet. They even do not "meet" one another (ibid.:365). Those I met, by contrast, though puzzling in many ways, seemed to reach out to me in a very recognizable way.
Now there might be various reasons for the discrepancies between our accounts, and I tried to speculate on them. I had focused on people's ordinary, everyday affairs, not their colorful rituals and ceremonies. But so, to some extent, had Bateson, Belo, Mead, and Geertz. What is more, those authors converged in their accounts; their Balinese resembled one another, though they had been studied by different persons at different places and different times. Had I then missed an important dimension? Why was my study lacking—as I felt it was—in exotic features?
There was a second reason for my sense of puzzlement. I had written a book that aimed to convey the lived experience of actual Balinese, yet I had not told what they did for a living or what their political (in the narrow sense at the term) concerns were. I had, paradoxically, preached the virtues of contextualizing interpretations and positioning actors and anthropologist while leaving actors, in these respects, floating in the air. Again, what was wrong?
Translation
I am posing these questions as my way of entry into the problem of translation. In the end, and when there was still time to remedy these faults or omissions, Balinese persons came to my rescue and convinced me that what I had done was all right. Of course, they did not simply read my manuscript and pass a final judgment. But inadvertently this was the message I received when, on my last visit (in March 1989), I engaged some men—or they engaged me—in a discussion of epistemology, and they proposed a theory of translation which, I believe, holds potential general relevance.
I shall link this theory to a theory of language and communication proposed by Donald Davidson and elaborated by Richard Rorty in his book Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989). I shall further use these theories to reflect upon my fieldwork in three other "cultures"—in Egypt, Oman, and Bhutan—trying to test their more general applicability to fieldwork methodology and transcultural understanding. Last, I shall trace some implications of what these theories purport for the concept of culture, arguing that it needs to be fundamentally reworked if we are to help build a world based on enhanced understanding among peoples.
What the two theories have in common, as I see it, is that each advocates a procedure of going beyond words, of looking past outer trappings and semblances to that which counts more, similarities in human experience. Moreover, they converge in being anchored in "practical reason" (Schutz 1970)—a universe of moral discourse about how best to learn in order to live, and vice versa. To put it in Rorty's words: "The view I am offering says that there is such a thing as moral progress ... in the direction of greater human solidarity, ... thought of as the ability to see more and more traditional differences (of tribe, religion, race, customs, and the like) as unimportant when compared with similarities with respect to pain and humiliation—the ability to think of people wildly different from ourselves as included in the range of 'us'" (1989:192).
His words echo those of a Balinese priest and healer who after lecturing my husband on the stark differences between the world religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam—concluded with a bright smile: "You see, completely different, exactly the same!" (Barth 1993).
This sameness in the face of diversity is my starting point and ultimate concern. It is born not of conviction but of the reluctant realization of a confirmed cultural relativist that the stance I had embraced neither was substantiated by my own experience cross-culturally nor proved a feasible way to live. Robert Paul has warned us to take care not to build theories that contradict our "own actual experience of what being alive is like" (1990:433). This article is an exercise in that spirit. I begin with the Balinese theory that first opened my eyes to these issues.
Convergence of Tongues
I once went with a Muslim friend to a Hindu balian, or traditional healer. My friend was in great pain, for her family had long been afflicted with a series of misfortunes. She had tried to alleviate their suffering by seeking the help of healers—all Muslim, as she told me—from all over Bali. When her efforts had proved in vain, I convinced her to come with me to this Hindu healer. He was a man I understood her to hold in high respect, for she had been the one to introduce me enthusiastically to him.
She had argued against it. It would be of no use. The balian would treat her as if she were a Hindu and prescribe remedies consonant with his religion. But she proudly considered herself a devoted Muslim (orang Islam fanatik) and was so esteemed by her community. When now she agreed to accompany me, she stressed that it was only as a friend and to help me in my work. She would not bring up her own problems with the balian.
When the balian saw my friend, his face lit up. He was so glad she had come. Actually, he had been waiting for her. He knew all about her problem, which had three causes. And taking her in with his broad, contagious smile, he proceeded to explain. Both black magic and supernatural spirits were involved. But third, and most important, was an oath that her husband's ancestors had made to the gods to place offerings in the Muslim holy place once they became prosperous enough to go there. They had not kept their promise, and this constituted a grave sin in the eyes of the gods. That was why her family had been so afflicted.
My heart sank as I listened. I was distraught to think that she would now have her worst suspicions confirmed. Even to me, this talk of oath and ancestors and offerings in the Muslim holy place (presumably Mecca) reeked of idolatry and ancestor worship. What must not she—a fanatik Muslim—think? (And as Balinese give little public clue to what they think, I was left to suffer through my distress, only half listening to their conversation. To be frank, I felt slightly let down. Surely the balian could have managed better.)
But on the way home my friend's face was luminous and her voice buoyed with hope. It was true, all that he had said: the black magic, the supernatural spirits, and particularly the oath. She would take it upon herself to remedy the faults of the ancestors. She would make a promise to God that very night. And she launched into a long, enthusiastic appraisal of the balian's wisdom and erudition, which, perforce, I have to cut short. Her eulogy ended with the words "He says karma pala, I say taqdir—it's all the same!"
In terms of religious ideology it certainly is not, and she should know; she is known for her religious learning. Karma pala is the doctrine of reincarnation, according to which one's fate in this life is determined by actions (one's own or of one's ancestors) in previous lives. But for Muslims there is only one life, and so taqdir (fate or destiny) refers merely to God's omnipotence in deciding what the course of that life will be. Nor, for Muslims, should an ancestor's oath have any bearing, for the ancestors are powerless to afflict you by what they do or fail to do. Only God has such power.
So I brushed off my friend's facile reconciliation of major theological differences as the wishful thinking of an afflicted soul desperately in search of meaning and relief. Perhaps you did as well? I did not even ask: What could she be meaning to say? What was at stake? To me, karma pala and taqdir are "completely different," certainly not "exactly the same." If words do not actually stand for themselves, there must at least be limits to how one can circumvent them.
Resonance and Appreciation
It was a long time afterward, and I was sitting with a group of scholars pondering Western views of knowledge in comparison with Balinese epistemology. They belonged to a lontar society, an association devoted to the study of sacred scriptures harboring age-old wisdom, and were all very learned: one was a philosopher-priest, another a professor and poet, a third a medical doctor and writer. Now they were at pains to impart to me their visions of how I must write—and think—if I wished to convey to the world an understanding of what the Balinese are like. (They knew my book was nearing completion.) Their message was: I must create resonance (ngelah keneh) between the reader and my text. But first, they said, I must create resonance in myself with the people and the problems I sought to understand. To explain this concept of resonance, the professor-poet said:
It is what fosters empathy or compassion. Without resonance there can be no understanding, no appreciation. But resonance requires you [and here he looked entreatingly at me] to apply feeling as well as thought. Indeed, feeling is the more essential, for without feeling we'll remain entangled in illusions.
It bears mention that Balinese do not split feeling from thought but regard them as part of one process, keneh, which I translate as "feeling-thought." While they recognize in themselves feelings as distinguished from thoughts, and have concepts to differentiate the two, the Indonesian perasaan and pikiran, they are emphatic that the two are linked: "Can anyone think but with the heart?" they ask, rhetorically.
They know some people can, in a self-afflicting move that severs their comprehension and ability to live ethically but can bring short-term worldly gain. They also suspect that Westerners see it differently: that we believe we can think only with our thoughts and yet arrive at genuine insight. To Balinese, this is like "reaching for the sky with a short string," basing one's search for knowledge on a self-eroding foundation. Without feeling it is impossible to appreciate (menghayati) any situation or problem.
Perhaps he saw the deep furrows on my forehead, reflecting my endeavor to understand, once again, by the power of thought, for the philosopher-priest Made Bidja now spoke. What he had to say hit me in my heart with a resonance he could not have anticipated:
Take as an example Muslims in Bali who have no concept of karma pala. And yet they understand what it's all about. How do they come to appreciate? By the power of resonance. They use their feelings, and so they understand the basic idea as just returns, heaven and hell. But Westerners have no resonance with the idea of karma pala because they use their thoughts only, and so ideas and understandings do not spring alive.
My thoughts leaped, as he spoke, to my Muslim friend with the Hindu balian. Now I saw why his talk of "oath" (sumpah), "ancestors" (leluhur), and "offerings" (banten) in the Muslim holy place—concepts that go against the grain of Muslim thinking—had yet resonated with her, a devoted and knowledgeable Muslim. She had listened with attention to what he was trying to say and do, going beyond the words. It was I who was at a disadvantage, for I had gotten stuck on the words and their precise conceptual entailments, and so the thrust of his message did not resonate with me.
Made Bidja continued—we were on the point of how to make ideas and understandings spring to life:
Take my friend Dr. Soegianto, who now writes the story of Panci Sakti [a Balinese culture hero and reputed founder of the Buleleng dynasy, ca. AD 1660–80 (Worsley 1972)]. How do you think he can? Well, because of his readings about Hannibal and Alexander the Great! He used his feelings then to understand about their lives, and so there was resonance between him and them. Now he uses this appreciation to understand the texts about Panci Sakti, and to communicate an understanding to others.
Resonance thus demands something of both parties to communication, both reader and author: an effort at feeling-thought; a willingness to engage with another world, life, or idea; an ability to use one's experience—as the Muslim did with the Hindu balian—to try to grasp, or convey, meanings that do not reside in words, "facts," nor text but are evoked in the meeting of one experiencing subject with another or with a text.
Hannibal, Alexander the Great, and Panci Sakti—they had something in common, as these Balinese men saw it. Separated by some two thousand years and great distances, they were men, warriors, and heroes. They had friends and enemies, lovers, parents; they fought for what was dear to them, and in this they had same commonality of experience.
So it is with Muslims and Hindus or with Balinese and us. We can use this commonality—this "shared space" (Tambiah 1990:122)—to try to understand one another. Indeed we must, for we have nothing else. The men advised me to make this the very foundation of my writing and understanding.
Language as a Tool for Tasks
But how can this be accomplished across cultures? And what of the role of language, and the pitfalls if we do not learn it—and learn it exceptionally well? Was it not this which had misled Bateson, Belo, Mead, and Geertz—that their knowledge of Balinese was inadequate? Did it not also disable me? Moreover, I have argued that we must ground interpretations in people's own forms of discourse and the concepts they use in their daily lives:
To grasp how people actually experience their lives, we need to attend ... not [to] their terms for gods, institutions, calendars and rituals so much as [to] the concepts with which they feel and think about, and handle, the tasks and tribulations of their individual existences. (Wikan 1990b:xvi)
Does this not contradict the notion that one should leapfrog words, so to speak, to try to grasp meanings that lie somehow beyond but can be evoked when one experiencing subject meets another? Let us turn to Donald Davidson.
Davidson, according to Rorty, takes the ultimately radical stance of trying to break with the notion that there is any such thing as language in the sense of a medium that can represent or express a relation between a core self and the world (Rorty 1989:10). Davidson faces up to the contingency of language, the fact that truths are made rather than found. Because all vocabularies are manmade, they do not "fit" the world—indeed, as Rorty reminds us, "most of reality is indifferent to our descriptions of it" (1989:7). Language thus can neither express the intrinsic nature of an organism, for there is no such thing, nor represent facts of the world to the self, for there are no such "facts." In Rorty's words, "The world does not speak. Only we do" (1989:6).
This theory raises a number of epistemological and other problems. But let us use it for its more limited suggestion: what we are offered is a more adequate view of language, adequate in the sense of fitting certain purposes better. Davidson suggests we regard language not as a medium but as a tool that works better or worse for the tasks at hand. As Mark Hobart notes: "We are back not just to what words 'mean' but what people do in using them" (1986a:12).
Davidson suggests we think of words as ways of producing effects rather than as entities that have or convey intrinsic meaning (Rorty 1989:15). His position entails a critical focus on linguistic pragmatics and how we do things with words (Austin [1962] 1975) that could have far-reaching implications for anthropology, especially for how we use language to communicate with persons in the field and to convey an understanding to readers and colleagues. On Davidson's theory both are fraught with effects—indeed, the pragmatics and the "meaning" cannot and should not be separated. My own experience in Bali illustrates the double nature of this problem.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Resonance by Unni Wikan Copyright © 2012 by The University of Chicago. Excerpted by permission of The University of Chicago Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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