We as a society are surrounded by life, as we know it each day. Never stopping to look around and absorb what is going on around us. Our surroundings pass us by and we never take a glimpse at what those surroundings may hold. Our society presses forward without looking over their shoulder to see where we have been. Without acknowledging our present culture and studying our culture in the past, where are we going? Studying Clifford Geertz, Patricia Limerick, John Wideman, and Ralph Waldo Emerson has made it easier for me to answer my own question.
These four authors of varying expertise tied together a common thread called culture. Clifford Geertz in his essay “Deep Play” brought us the world of cockfighting in Bali. In this essay he portrays the culture of our present American society through the use of the Balinese cockfight. Amazingly enough Geertz used what some would call a primitive culture to show us the aspects of our culture and the role these aspects play in our culture. Social structure, family, tradition, and money are just a few of the aspects brought out by Geertz that govern our present society.
Geertz sums up our culture when he states, “Their life, as they arrange it and perceive it, is less a flow, a directional movement out of the past, through he present, toward the future than an on-off pulsation of meaning and vacuity, an arrhythmic alternation of short periods when “something” (that is, something significant) is happening and equally short ones where “nothing” (that is, nothing much) is- between what they themselves call “full” and “empty” times, or, in another idiom, “junctures” and “holes” (387).
Patricia Limerick in her essay “Empire of Innocence” exposed many other aspects of our culture. One aspect in particular is tradition. Limerick showed us how tradition in our culture can rape other cultures of their rightful place in history. She enlightened us with the idea that history tends to portray our culture as a victim when that was not always the case. This idea is seen today in our culture because even today many try to portray themselves as a victim of society when they are not.
In addition to tradition, Limerick exposed the use of Christianity and religion in a culture and how it was forced upon a culture that already had their beliefs. To provide us with a different perspective on culture, John Wideman in his essay “Our Time,” writes about race issues, family, and our search for happiness. Wideman shows us how we as individuals attempt to change our culture in pursuit of happiness. He leads us down the path of his pursuit of happiness that only ends in gloom. This gloom being what he found when he attempted to forsake his family and culture.
In addition, Wideman uses his essay to paint a picture of the racial tension of the past compared to the racial tension in today’s culture. Ralph Waldo Emerson while delivering his presentation “The American Scholar” to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge on August 31, 1837 sums up our culture in a nutshell. Emerson epitomizes the burning desire behind all mankind then and now when he said, “Men such as they are, very naturally seek money or power; and power because it is as good as money, -the “spoils,” so called, “of office.
And why not? for they aspire to the highest, and this, in their sleep-walking, they dream is highest. Wake them, and they shall quit the false good and leap to the true, and leave governments to clerks and desks. This revolution is to be wrought by the gradual domestication of the idea of Culture. The main enterprise of the world for splendor, for extent, is the upbuilding of a man” (304). In my opinion Emerson describes man as the soul of our culture.
Patricia Limerick and John Wideman’s essays are similar because both authors deal with race, stereotyping, family, the pursuit of happiness, and victimization. These two author’s essays contrast because Limerick describes how a culture’s history can be misconstrued by using only one point of view and Wideman’s essay describes how an individual tries to escape from his culture by using only one point of view. Clifford Geertz’s essay is similar to all the author’s essays because he uses the Balinese cockfight to describe our culture.
This idea is similar because it encompasses all of the author’s varying aspects of culture such as family, rules, race, and mankind, just to name a few. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s presentation is different than all the author’s essays because he wrote and spoke about our culture and people like Geertz, Limerick, and Wideman long before they began to shape their own culture. I believe Emerson and the other authors are similar because Geertz, Limerick, and Wideman are not stopping with what they already know, but building on their knowledge so that our culture may continue to advance.
Upon completing my study of the essays by Geertz, Limerick, Wideman, and Emerson, I believe that all the essays have a common idea. This common idea is that as long as man exists on this earth there will be varying cultures, but no matter how different the cultures are, their basic similarities will remain the same. These similarities are rules, reasonable expectations, and the pursuit of happiness. If I had to rate these essays as to their effectiveness, I would rate them as so. Emerson’s “American Scholar” would lead the way because it creates a foundation for our study on culture.
Following Emerson’s presentation would be Clifford Geertz’s essay “Deep Play. ” Geertz’s essay continues to lay a foundation for culture and begins to expose the rules that cultures follow. Next would be Patricia Limerick’s essay “Empire of Innocence. ” Limerick takes the rules that Geertz established for culture and uses them to show us how the rules apply to different cultures, but not always from a single point of view. Completing the effectiveness list would be John Wideman’s “Our Time.
Wideman continues building on all the other author’s information by showing us how the rules that have been established for culture apply to family, race, and the pursuit of happiness. Considering the facts that the essays discussed here were written at different times and encompass various subjects, we have torn them into pieces and used the pieces to complete one puzzle. Upon completion of the puzzle, we now have a picture of culture. Furthermore, the essays have given us a common thread that we can now use to tie our puzzle pieces together. This common thread is our culture.
