Blog Ten

Clifford Geertz. First of all I’d just like to admire his name Clifford…that’s an awesome name. Second of all, I think it’s interesting that he was also a student of Talcott Parsons, just like Merton was. Merton followed Parson’s footsteps while Geertz was critical of his teacher.

Geertz was a cultural anthropologist. He was interested in the role of ethnographies and symbols. As simple as it is, he talks about thin and thick descriptions. He takes the example of boys who are winking, but are they really winking? If you haven’t analyzed the situation of the boys, then it’s a thin description which to Geertz isn’t true anthropology. In order to understand the situation of each boy, one must dive deeper into each scenario. This would be Geertz’s thick description. This is the heart of real anthropology and ethnographies.

Geertz also defines culture. He believes it is a system of inherited concepts that are expressed in symbolic forms. Culture is public because meaning is. Symbols are objects that we prescribe a meaning to and all agree upon the meaning. The middle finger is a symbol. What is it? The middle finger is a finger on each hand which is surrounded by the ring finger and forefinger. Profanely, it is just a finger but since we prescribed meaning to it, it became an obscene gesture. Weirdly enough this gesture dates back to the classical era, when this symbol was referring to anal intercourse. Also, a symbol such as this could be a symbol for a specific country. For example, the middle finger could be an obscene gesture in the United States, but not in Australia. In certain countries, giving the “V” sign, otherwise known as the peace sign, with the back of the hand facing the person, could be taken as obscene, equivalent to our middle finger.

I don’t know if any of you remember the character Mr. Bean, but on one of the episodes he perceives giving the middle finger as a good symbol. He snaps a picture of a man on a motorcycle so the man gives Mr. Bean the bird. He then proceeds to flip everyone off with a smile because he doesn’t know it’s an offensive symbol. He is not well received, but it makes me laugh every time. This timeless clip is called Mr. Bean Points his Middle Finger. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH0kugMR4BI) This is a great example that Mr. Bean doesn’t share the same meaning of the symbol. Lesson learned; understand the prescribed meaning of shared symbols in a country or you might get beaten up.