Theorists as the Objects of Their Own Study

I believe that Grimes challenge – “Bell blames ritual theorists for constituting the object of their study. Do theorists of other sorts do any differently?” (127) – sufficiently demonstrates the problematic nature of theorizing in general. I believe that Grimes’ claim that theorists inevitably constitute the object of their study rings true, is very well articulated, and, moreover, is very highly troubling.

Consider Masuzawa’s statement “The project of comparative theology has been deemed not scientific on the grounds that it either presupposed or invariably drew the self-same conclusion as Christian theology, that Christianity was fundamentally different from all other religions, thus, in the last analysis, beyond compare.” (111). Again, Masuzawa’s work demonstrates how historically there has been a highly political dimension to theory-making and classification. Moreover, her work demonstrates how the early discourse concerning the ideology of “world religions” was focused in an apologetic way towards classifying and ordering the world’s religious traditions in a (usually) hierarchical formation under Christianity.

Grimes states: “Bell is at her most persuasive in showing how inevitably theory-making is a strategic activity.” (128). Inevitably, Grimes is correct in his assessment that theory-making is strategic for several reasons. First, it is clear that it is strategic, in so far as, we take a group of phenomena or facts and attempt to classify them, and explain them and how they relate to one another. In other words, there is a goal in mind when one theorizes. The goal, however, is politicized and inevitably reflects values and presuppositions of the theorizer.

Consider, for example, Grimes’ discussion about Milton Singer. Grimes explains that Singer went to India and inquired into “how he might study the cultural pattern of India”, and he was directed to the “rites, festivals, recitations, prayers, and plays” (110). These things he called “cultural performances” (11). He maintained that the core cultural values could be captured in them, and that they are more ready to study than values of the heart (110). In other words, Singer believed that the essence of a religion might be captured most accurately through action rather than through doctrine, or holy writings, etc. Geertz, similarly, maintained that “we have access to things emotional and conceptual, to a people’s ethos and world view, by way of public cultural performances.” (111). Thus, Singer and Geertz both, clearly, demonstrate their own presuppositions within their methodology by privileging performance over belief.

In addition, Grimes writes “Is there any important term in Western scholarship—religion, matter, mind, creation, reality—that is not marked by its own history and sociology?” (127). Of course, one can never definitively demonstrate how each and every scholar brings his or her own biases into their study; however, Grimes’ statement rings very true in light of Masuzawa’s book surveying the development of the notion of ‘world religions’. Thus, I find Grimes’ earlier comment, at least in part, frighteningly true. Thus, in light of the problematic nature of posing theories when we read a given scholar’s work do we learn more about the object of study or the scholar? Personally, even upon reading Grimes’ own work, I feel that more than learning about performance, I have learned about Ronald Grimes and how he understands the study of ritual. However, there seems to me a third option of what we may learn most about when reading scholarship.

Since it is evident that scholars inevitably bring personal biases and values into the texts we study, there is, evidentially, a third hermeneutical layer that is created when reading a given scholar’s work. In particular, one will learn something about oneself when reading a theory since the reader too brings their own assumptions and prejudices into the text? Initially, I find that this renders the issue of doing any sort of ‘pure’ scholarship very discouraging. Namely, can it even be said that there can be any truly scholarly discourse at all? Can we even say that we gain any sort of intrinsic knowledge from the works we read? It does seem that we as scholars are affected by what we read; however, are we affected by anything essential to the text or are we affected by some sort of personal interpretation of the text? When anthropologist 1 speaks to anthropologist 2, to discuss anthropology, do they really discuss a ‘field of anthropology’ or do they both discuss their own field of anthropology which is relative to themselves? Initially, this may seem absurd, but even if we take a more moderate view and begin to think about a discourse where at least some communication is achievable, there seems to be some truth to this problem.

It appears to be a very slippery scale, which becomes even more slippery when we begin to discuss the problems of what one even considers scholarship (as per our discussion in class last week). Should this problematic outlined here not make sense, might one say that they have solved this difficult problem or has the reader merely misinterpreted the author and, hence, not discovered the intrinsic problematic outlined in the text?