User:Ssstephen/Reading/Deep Play

Republished in Daedelus, Fall 2005. Originally published in the same journal, Winter 1972.

trapped … look … probing feel … vaguely disembodied … "away" … you are real … bemused … expose … secluded … secrecy … without attracting attention … the superorganism came instantly apart as its components scattered in all directions … everything was dust and panic … northward … looking for … found … seeing … double take … an impassioned description … barely communicated … looking … in the eye … to study culture … to tell … we had not seen … bewildered … no longer invisible … attention … interest … knew … small detail by small detail … only watching … mimicked … the underworld … called … ask us … extraordinariness … accepted … we were quite literally "in." … opened up … informants … caught, or almost caught … rapport … acceptance … penetrate … immediate, inside-view … subjects … emotional explosion, status war, and philosophical drama … inner nature I desired to understand.

There is definitely observation happening in this first section which is good, also awareness of observation from the villagers, the anthropologists and the police towards eachother. Some acceptance on the part of the anthropologists of the effect their presence has on the situation. Although I would like to see this examined in more detail later in the essay.

a well-studied place … microscopically examined … a few passing remarks … noticed … a popular obsession … a revelation … phenomena … surfaces … apparently … actually … deep psychological identification … men with their cocks … conception … the body as a set of separately animated parts … self-operating penises … ambulant genitals … masculine symbols … the language of everyday moralism … 'sabung' the word for cock … appears in inscriptions … to mean … behavious presumes … compared to … likened to … compared to … a good impression … perceived … the intimacy of men with their cocks … gazing at them with a mixture of rapt admiration and dreamy self-absorption … abstract sensuality … get a feel for … high-walled enclosures where the people live … wicker cages … far more care than it is when mere humans are going to eat it … inspected for flaws … squinted concentration of a diamond merchant … "I am cock crazy" … afficianado … "We're all cock crazy" … less visible dimensions … expressions … animality … demons … scripture, dance, ritual, myth … The Powers of Darkness … a blood sacrifice … The Day of Silence … to avoid … the creative power of aroused masculinity and the destructive power of loosened animality fuse in a bloody drama of hatred, cruelty, violence, and death … social embarrassment, moral satisfaction, aesthetic disgust, and cannibal joy.

I was hoping this thick description to be a bit less lyrical, I'm a little disappointed. It is dramatic and drawing big conclusions and I wonder if these conclusions are realistic in any sense of how it is experienced by those more accustomed to the cockfights than a visiting anthropologist. A very big narrative seems to be created in the mind of Cliff and I'm not sure it's basis is very solid. If he were more accepting or up front of this as his own interpretation of culture, in a consistent way I think it would be helpful. Even for example using the first person voice.

seek to find … obsessively deliberate … the lore … sharpened only at eclipses and the dark of the moon … animal fury so pure, so absolute, and in its own way so beautiful, as to be almost abstract, a Platonic concept of hate … to show … demonstrates … he blows in its mouth, putting the whole chicken head in his own mouth and sucking and blowing … make the dead walk … moving their bodies in kinesthetic sympathy with the movement of the animals … turnings of the head … it is said that spectators sometimes lose eyes … being too attentive … they glance off toward another … palm-leaf manuscripts … I have never seen … judgement … nor have I ever heard … decides … a judge, a king, a priest, and a policeman … I saw … I never once saw … I never saw … searching for … something not vertebrate enough to be called a group and not structureless enough to be called a crowd … a "focused gathering" … a set of persons engrossed in a common flow of activity and relating to one another in terms of that flow … they take their form from the situation that evokes them … the focus … duty of citizenship; taxation of fights … the connection between the excitements of collective life and those of blood sport … to expose it … the gambling.

Ok here I'm getting a bit more into his method. More first person descriptions. Relations of individual emotions values and actions with those of others, the group, and bigger social structures. Examination of the crowd present at the event itself and attempts to describe without defining the group dynamics and behaviours. Descriptions of the roles of participants (the umpire, the owner, the man who attaches the spurs); what they do, their beliefs and values, how they are viewed by others in society generally and in specific situations.

do … do … is … there are … there is … there is … is typically … typically … is … is … as we shall see most revealingly … 'is always' … 'without exception' … 'equally without exception' … 'is never' … what is … is … is … official … a webwork of rules … is made … overseer and public witness … as I say … to show … I have exxact and reliable data … the range … a mean … the distribution … trimodal … percent … percent … percent … the extremes … the normal … the average … if he shouts … if he shouts … indicates … crying out … they unlock gazes and the search goes on … men crying … finding themselves … clearly … the general pattern … nonexistent pole … the overwhelming majority … almost frenzied proportions … to find … the sense that sheer chaos is about to break loose … an effect … an iron rule … reported … critical analytical problem … a theory which sees … suggests … solving … demonstrating … the point that needs to be made … simple considerations of rationality suggest … care is taken … less advantageous angle … more care … genuinely … consciously … approximately equal … what statistics I have … the favourite … the underdog … ratio … the ratios … take the extremes … the ratio … from this proposition … two things more or less immediately follow … the logic … in fact … therefore … that this is the case is apparent from mere inspection, from the Balinese's own analysis of the matter, and from what more systematic observations I was able to collect … difficulty of making precise and complete recordings … a quite pronounced minimax saddle … in detail, the fit is not, of course, exact … the general pattern is quite consistent … directly proportional … directly proportional … volume … more is at stake … the paradox … merely apparent … formally incongruent … not really contradictory … the "center of gravity" … "makes the game" … defines it … signals … "depth" … "deep" … most painters, poets, and playwrights are mediocre … a means, a device … "interesting", "deep" matches … out of the realm of formal concerns into more broadly sociological and socio-psychological ones, and to a less purely economic idea of what "depth" in gaming amounts to.

I think a measurement of this technique's efficacy might be: Does this describe in enough detail that I feel confident to recreate the event accurately? This section started off with a lot of "is" and "does" statements, and proceeded to a more romantic description of the fight, and then to a statistical analysis of the betting. I like this mix, but I wonder would it be useful to emphasise the method or methods of enquiry being used at any one point to draw attention to why that method is being used. Maybe that's not necessary though dunno.

Bentham's concept of "deep play" … by it he means play in which the stakes are so high that it is, from his utilitarian standpoint, irrational for men to engage in it at all … they are both in over their heads … immoral from first principles … men are irrational - addicts, fetishists, children, fools, savages … the explanation … moral import … utility and disutility … unexpanded sense … pleasure and pain … happiness and unhappiness … esteem, honor, dignity, respect … affirmed or insulted … watching … appraisive drama is deep … a conclusion would be absurd … risks … very publicly … to lay one's public self, allusively and metaphorically, throught the medium of one's cock, on the line … meaningfulness … follow Weber rather than Bentham … imposition of meaning on life is the major end and primary condition of human existence … access of significance … what the sport is all about … the point of it all … regarded … wuite general … a sociomoral hierarchy … the extremely poor, the socially despised, the personally idiosyncratic … ashamed … status … the really substantial members of the community, the solid citizenry … these men generally dominate and define … an 'affaire d'honneur' … what makes Balinese cockfighting deep is … the migration of the Balinese status hierarchy into the body of the cockfight … the idea/demonic rather narcissistic, male self … animal mirrors of psychic form … a simulation of the social matrix … crosscutting, overlapping, highly corporate groups - villages, kingroups, irrigation societies, temple congregations, "castes" … the necessity to affirm it, defend it, celebrate it, justify it and just plain bask in it … " a status bloodbath" … to make this clear … to demonstrate it … my statistical data … intricately organised, a labyrinth of alliances and oppositions … we may concentrate on [patriarchal kingroups and village units] in a part-for-whole way, without undue distortion … as explained … the exact situation is thus … the general pattern … as support of the general thesis … a dramatisation of status concerns … the following facts … facts … concrete evidence-examples … statements and numbers … 1 … 2 … 3 … 4 … 5 … 6 … 7 … 8 … 9 … 10 … 11 … 12 … 13 … 14 … 15 … 16 … 17 … you must pretend not to notice what he is doing … he tends to wander off for a cup of coffee r something to avoid … like playing with fire only not getting burned … 1 … 2 … the deeper the match … 1 … 2 … 3 … 4 … 5 … The Cockfighter … status virtue, the arrogant, resolute, honor-mad player with real fire, the ksatria prince.

Further reading: The Sociology of Religion, Max Weber.

What I like about this section is that it is finally giving the impression that it is not the description that is thick, but the cultural practices it describes. The description feels real rather than attempting to find meaning that may or may not be there. It feels descriptive rather than creative. Of course it is also creative, but I find it believable. I really like when he starts to explain why humans make and do culture:

to affirm it, defend it, celebrate it, justify it and just plain bask in it

I find the labyrinth reference interesting in the context of the article coming from Daedelus. The journal's website says this:

Dædalus was founded in 1955 and established as a quarterly in 1958. The journal’s namesake was renowned in ancient Greece as an inventor, scientist, and unriddler of riddles. Its emblem, a maze seen from above, symbolizes the aspiration of its founders to “lift each of us above his cell in the labyrinth of learning in order that he may see the entire structure as if from above, where each separate part loses its comfortable separateness.”

This doesn't seem to align perfectly with what I think is Geertz's attempt to learn from within, no flying too close to the sun here, no attempt to even escape the labyrinth.