East meets West: The Mideast vs the Mideast inside your head

I can't guarantee this post is going to wrap-up very neatly. In fact, as I type this I have absolutely no idea where it's going. What I do know is that it concerns an important topic that has bedevilled me - and those around me - since I got here. And for me will continue to do so long after I leave.

Probably the best place to start is with this picture:

A few days ago, I sent this picture, which I had taken on the coast highway (and travelling fast), to a group of friends and family. I wanted to illustrate a common sight, which I'd mentioned previously, and even discussed in one of my blog posts. I could take a hundred such photos in a day, from any street corner in Beirut. I received a variety of responses, ranging generally from shock to disbelief. These mirrored my own reactions pretty well. I'd taken the photo (and mentioned this type of behavior) in the first place because I find it shocking and very disturbing. The responses I received fit quite well with my presumptions and gave me that feeling of validation that comes from what one might call 'cultural confirmation'.

There were two outliers. Once came from Pam, who has a long and intimate experience in the Mideast (including, but not limited to, the 5 years we lived together here in the 70s). She said: 'one would develop a certain sense of destiny living in these times'. This comment put her into a category by herself as far as responses from outside were concerned.

The other quite different response was from May, who was actually with me when I took the photo. May found the whole exercise very problematic and felt it was an example of something she and I have had numerous discussions about: Western perceptions of the East (and vice versa). This problem has many dimensions, but insofar as it concerns the photo what bothered her was the easy sense of superiority that accompanies this kind of cultural transposition. She asked me a trenchant question: do you in the West have no unexamined behaviors that might endanger your children? She asked a second question: have you stopped to think why this behavior might exist? What it might be about the content of people's lives that would produce it?

I've been mulling this over for the last couple of days, without much success at achieving clarity. May's point is very obviously true. With regard to the Arab world it has very deep ties to European colonialism and US imperialism. Academically, a whole school of thought spawned by Edward Said is concerned with this issue.

The larger problem is how difficult it is to effectively analyze one's own assumptions, predispositions and other cultural baggage. Most of this stuff is unconscious or, at best, very elusive. Because it forms the bedrock of our personalities it intercedes even when trying to think about it, creating a kind of negative feedback loop that can contaminate the very process of examination. This probably has a lot to do with why decades of anthropological controversy surround questions of this sort.

Parenthetically, if the cultural baggage of the observer is an issue in the process of observation then it's also true to say that culture is a determinant on the other side of the equation, as well. The motorcylist with his tiny child clinging to the handlebars is also operating from unexamined cultural norms and behaviors.

Is anthropology even possible? In what sense is it valuable? Is its value always contextual or is there a 'higher level' where the study of human behavior can illuminate something more absolute?

A few mornings ago I ran across an article, Anthropology's Orient, by Palestinian anthropologist Lila Abu Lughod, whom I knew briefly here in Beirut almost 40 years ago. In it she describes some of the 'meta-interactions' she had with a group of Egyptian Bedouin she had been researching. By 'meta-interaction' I mean discussions she had with them about her study of them, and its value and importance. I'm sure that as the world gets smaller and anthropological subjects of study become ever more aware of the outside world, of history and of their place in it, these meta-interactions must become ever more important to the process.

In her article Abu Lughod raises some questions that are related to my mullings over the motorcycle photo and my visit to Lebanon generally. She brings up Edward Said's seminal critique of Orientalism, which forever changed the nature and the practice of 'oriental' studies.

Said's thesis rested in part upon the idea that the practice of Oriental studies was inevitably imbued with and tainted by the legacy of colonialism and by deep-seated ideas of the exoticism of the East. This made it impossible to fairly carry out a study of the East within a Western context - which, in this connection, meant by Westerners in general. Said singled out Bernard Lewis, at the time considered the dean of Oriental studies, for particular criticism. And one could argue that Lewis, who is still active, went on to prove Said's point when, after 9/11, he became a leading voice in the 'clash of civilizations' camp.

Nevertheless, Bernard Lewis and many others in the tradition to which he belongs are not so easily brushed aside. During Lewis' heyday Orientalism was a thriving and distinguished field. Its practitioners, often English, had mastery of multiple languages often stretching back millennia. Individually and collectively they represented a vast storehouse of knowledge about their subjects of study, having read and absorbed primary and secondary materials on every facet of their speciality. Many had lived for long periods within the cultures they studied.

Although the field of Orientalism would normally include India, China and Southeast Asia, the Arab and Islamic world were clear favorites. This was the ground upon which Said attacked, and questioned their ability to carry out any form of balanced study. Said's particular focus was Palestine, and he felt that the problems brought up by his critique were particularly evident with relation to Palestine. Again, it's hard at this point to raise a coherent rebuttal to Said's argument. With the perspective of 65 years it seems self-evident - at least to me - that Said was entirely right in asserting that Orientalism utterly failed in Palestine, at least to the degree that it was unable to counter the prevailing myths that ultimately won public opinion to the Israeli version of events.

But was this entirely because the field is rotten at the core? That Orientalism as a pursuit represents a contradiction and an impossibility?

Lila Abu Lughod's article points out that Said's critique can be broadened to the study of anthropology, generally. The same factors are at play. Since every human being carries his or her cultural context into every aspect of life, the study of other cultures is NEVER possible in a vacuum.

But does that make it valueless or inherently wrong-headed? The problem can be broadened even further by asking: can or should anthropological study be carried out by members of the culture under study? What additional strengths or weaknesses result? Abu Lughod alludes to the problem in a very eloquent passage about cultural clues and understandings: is the movement of an eyelid a simple tic, or is it a wink? The observer needs to be very close to his subject's context in order to understand nuance and motivation. A western anthropologist arriving fresh in Beirut and watching interactions would very likely be mystified: why do people seem to be disagreeing when they should be agreeing, and vice versa? Things as simple as winks, head nods and shakes, shrugs and other even tinier gestures carry crucial information.

On the other hand, even though understanding is crucial, if the observer shares the subject's complete context how can any distance be achieved? If everything makes perfect sense, then critical evaluation becomes difficult, to say the least. And critical evaluation is an essential component in illuminating understandings, motivations, behaviors and their consequences.

To return schematically to my original point: if West studies East or East studies West misunderstandings and worse, a temptation to stigmatize, are perennial problems. But if West studies West or East studies East uncritical acceptance and the lack of a larger context present problems, as well.

The Bernard Lewis' of yesteryear tried very hard to bridge this gap. By immersing themselves in the culture, language and history of their subjects they tried to open a door of understanding without, however, entering and becoming one with their subjects. One wonders if a better method can even exist. Said's criticisms, valid as they are, could also be applied to Chinese anthropologists studying the Arab world, or Arabs studying US culture. And, in fact, a brief survey of Youtube shows an endless number of occasionally hilarious, occasionally horrific misunderstandings of Western history and culture by any number of Arab commentators, professors, immams, and so on. And almost without exception, the intent of these misunderstandings is to bolster a view of the superiority of Arab culture to all others. For the most part, these persons are not anthropologists. But they play an important and somewhat analogous role in mediating and translating understandings of foreign cultures to their own societies.

So, with all that said, what about the photo and the issue it raised? After thinking about this problem almost non-stop for three months, the result - other than a bad headache - is the following: everybody is partly right. This isn't the cop-out it sounds like, and I'll try to explain why.

I've come to the conclusion that pure evaluation of cultural phenomena is impossible because no one is without culture. And even if such an observer existed, being without culture is still one of the manifestations of culture, so it wouldn't constitute a higher point of view. There's no 'meta-view'. At least not among the inhabitants of this planet. In addition, behavior is relativistic. Its meaning and importance are never exactly the same in different contexts. Trying to find absolutes requires looking at a different level entirely. And this level is very difficult to find, to bring into focus or to enunciate in a culturally-neutral way.

Those absolutes are in fact very much in contest right now, because they inevitably clash with cultural norms more or less everywhere. A comparison of the International Declaration of Human Rights and the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights shows this quite clearly. I'm not picking on the Muslim world here. A 'Delhi Declaration' - were one to exist, and were it to be based on Hindu cultural norms - would have to find a way to work the caste system into its schema. And a 'Chicago Declaration' that included cultural/economic norms prevalent in the US would need to shoehorn in acceptance of a system that can throw millions out of their homes (recall that 'shelter' is one of the basic human rights in the International Declaration) while enriching a tiny few through their misfortune.

Nevertheless, the rights of the child and the obligations of parenthood are some of the most deeply felt and widely shared notions we have. They are as close to 'human culture' as anything can be.

Which explains why everybody's reaction to the photo is valid. Those who were shocked were reacting to a failure of the bond between parent and child insofar as it involves protection from physical harm. This bond transcends culture, though its expression may be mediated by culture. The fact that they might have unexamined behaviors of their own that also fail that bond doesn't disqualify their observation; it only means that indulging in a sense of superiority without careful study would be rather hasty.

In this schema Pam gets to play the role of Bernard Lewis (sorry, Pam!). Her open door into the understandings and imperatives of life in Lebanon lead her to a very straightforward statement of context and motivation. She 'gets it', which is not the same thing as saying she would do it herself.

May's reaction is the most rooted in history, in the political and social relations between Western and Eastern cultures, and in the legacy of colonialism. My little exercise was indeed problematic because it stooped to the level of millions of Western tourists snapping photos of the natives all over the world and sending them back home with the implied or stated caption: look what these crazy people do! While revealing a truth, it fed cultural stereotypes and easy assumptions, and invited viewers to indulge in feelings of superiority.

How does one avoid that trap? I frankly don't know. More mulling is in store. At the moment, I'm in Athens, and going through another cultural re-orientation. This one is much easier. In fact, it's so easy it's worrying. Something tells me my unexamined assumptions are having a field-day, but I'm at a complete loss how to deal effectively with that. All I do know is that I made an error in the last paragraph; instead of 'Western tourists' I could have said 'Chinese tourists' or 'Japanese tourists' or even 'Arab tourists'. We all do this, all the time. We judge others according to our understandings and they do the same to us. So, at least, there's something like a new balance developing, as compared to the days when Orientalism, anthropololgy and even stupid old tourism were essentially Western phenomena.