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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
informative
medium-paced
i did not understand this book lowkey but enjoyed reading nonetheless
Excellent - anthropology that is accessible but never feels like it’s simplified. Written lucidly and I find the conclusions convincing and thought provoking. I personally appreciated the subtle, gentle, and nontotalising apologetic for Christian - specifically Douglas’ Roman Catholic - sense of ritual and sexual morality.
The chapter on Leviticus is excellent and I will use it to help me appreciate that rather difficult book of the Bible more.
The chapter on Leviticus is excellent and I will use it to help me appreciate that rather difficult book of the Bible more.
informative
medium-paced
Just as, when a man wanting to clarify water has taken a karuka nut and put his hand inside the pot and rubbed it once or twice but the water does not come clear, he does not throw the karuka nut away; on the contrary, he rubs it again and again, and as he does so the fine mud subsides and the water becomes transparent and clear—so too, the bhikkhu should not give up, but he should again and again comprehend, give attention to, discern and define materiality only. So the defilements that are opposing him subside, his consciousness becomes clear like the water above the [precipitated] mud, and the states [of concentration] become plain of themselves too. And this meaning can also be explained in this way by other analogies such as the [pressing of] sugarcane, [the beating of] criminals [to make them confess], and [the cooking of] fish. — Visuddhimagga, (672)
On Concentration
The undergraduate who appears to be in possession of a supernormal power may merely be someone who is capable of a sustained effort beyond that which is strictly necessary for his courses. Meanwhile, the rest of the class appears to be caught in a quiet despair; between a desire for phantastic self advancement and the intense aversion to "doing work." The Bard is speaking to such a state when he has King Richard remark, "Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth Of that sweet way I was in to despair! (Richard II) (Kierkegaard is fond enough of this phrase to quote it directly in The Sickness Unto Death (63).) (Not the only way in which the student and the monarch are alike.) Adorno speaks more directly to this subject in DoE, "The [undergraduates], whose lives are split between school and private life, their private life between ostentation and intimacy, their intimacy between the sullen community of relationship and the bitter solace of being entirely alone, at odds with themselves and with everyone, are virtually already [graduates], who are at once enthusiastic and fed up." (Dialectic of Enlightenment, 125) This whole time, such an intensity is existing entirely as undercurrent, with little or nothing to do with the course material being pursued. It was under such circumstances that I found myself, in an interview, unable to describe the most "impactful" course I had ever taken (had anything been worthwhile?).
An apropos response came to mind, unfortunately, several hours later when I recalled the most boring course I had ever taken. Administered in 12-seat conference room — nowhere to hide (attendance dropped to four students by the second week), our lecturer would opine for 90 minutes on a subject of his choosing. Amicable as he was — and amicability being crucial as a less well-liked lecturer wouldn't command such attention — it was difficult to be believe a professor of folklore could be so boring. Speaking at length, uninterrupted, he would often recall that episode in his youth in which he had met Ben Gurion on the Sde Boker kibbutz. (In my internet search preparing this review, I found that our professor has unfortunately passed away in 2023, though, per the eulogy of the American Folklore Society, he upheld his vow never to retire.) Such material qualitatively exceeded prior categories of boredom. It was as if we were, "negotiating boredom as one would a terrain, its levels and forests and endless wastes," (DFW, Pale King) (Though I resist, by reason of horror vacui DFW's ontological implication that, "There may be more to [boredom]... as in vastly more, right here before us all, hidden by virtue of its size.") Such experiences recall Sebald's adaptable phrase from Austerlitz, "that [Boredom] will not pass away, has not passed away, that I can turn back and go behind it," That's to say, at the very least, it was a worthwhile experience as grist for a future assistance to concentration (as a supernormal power).
For several weeks this course was also audited by an interested community busybody (likely deriving a very similar experience), who would pose the occasional question. On the subject of Abrahamic dietary restrictions, in which he displayed sustained interest, I recall the our professor answered in much the same way as Douglas, by also cautioning "medical materialism" and instead proposing the dietary interdiction on the basis of the "liminal category." Our professor's advantage over Douglas, who is doing comparative anthropology with similar "facility" (pejorative sense) as Freud in his Totem and Taboo, is the concentration on minutiae which is the sign of actual engagement with the material before the "facile" intercession of the abstracting Theory — but also therefore painfully boring. (Douglas's advantage is the happy use of Mosaic, as in, "related to Moses.") There's something to be said for the fact that, when evenly applied, the professor's (juridical) concentration cannot be distinguished from "[the beating of] criminals [to take them confess]" (Visuddhimagga).
Easy-to-read, yet genuinely insightful book that is not called a classic for nothing. While I'm personally not a huge fan of the Durkheimian approach, Douglas does a good job in interrogating the idea of taboo and pollution rites. Importantly, she makes the point (that Kai Erikson made on the same year, 1966, in his slightly less classic Wayward Puritans) that pollution and taboo are interesting and important, because they tell us not only about the 'dark side' of society, but are always a mirror image of what is considered valuable and good.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
fast-paced