Modern and Primitive Ideas of Dirt and Purity as to Mary Douglas - Book Report/Review Example

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OUR MODERN AND OUR PRIMITIVE IDEAS OF DIRT AND PURITY (Author’s Name) (Institutional Affiliation) Introduction As an anthropologist who is greatly recognized for her studies in areas of social anthropology, Mary Douglas’s book “Purity and Danger” was first published in 1966. Her main field of concern and study had a great focus on both religion and symbolism. She developed a fieldwork and research in the Congo on its claimed highly pollution-conscious cultural setting where she started looking for a systematic approach. In this book purity and danger, her analysis is more on the ideas of pollution and taboo. She highly considered the different cultures from a structural point of view and also with some insight from the Gestalt psychology[Dou02]. Mary’s main aim was to keep off a limited explanation in regards to the phenomena and its relation to the entire structure. To be able to drive her point home, she puts it down in in ten chapters of her book which include: Ritual Uncleanness[Dou02], Secular Defilement[Dou02], The Abominations of Leviticus[Dou02], Magic and Miracle[Dou02], Primitive Worlds[Dou02], Powers and Dangers[Dou02], External Boundaries[Dou02], Internal Lines[Dou02], The System at War With Itself[Dou02], The System Shattered and Renewed[Dou02] through which she fully expounds on the subject. From her argument, we can in general derive that the terms such as abominations, punishment also restriction which represent the power present in social boundaries but notes that the dangerous things may have within themselves power that is ultimately creative. The quality of her argument is improved by the discussions behind the true difference between primitive cultures and modern cultures and the wide presence of the symbolism of the body. A critical analysis on a contemporary aspect of 'our ideas of dirt'. There is an extricable confusion between defilement and hygiene. Primitive ideas of dirt and purity are born from religious fear and the idea it blocks functioning of the mind which seems to be a wrong approach to understand these religions. Hygiene is a more excellent approach by contrast as long as it’s accompanied with some self-knowledge. Hence dirt is essentially a disorder not to be viewed as an absolute but according to the eyes of the beholder[Dou66]. Dirt offends the order and eliminating it is a positive step to organize the environment to comply with an idea. Dirt avoidance is a creative movement in an attempt to relate form to function; to make unity of experience. This is the same light that should be used to interpret primitive ideas and prophylaxis. Symbolic patterns are worked out and publicly shared based on a central project of religion whose positive contributions lead to atonement. Pollution ideas work in two levels. The first being people trying to influence other people’s behavior. This beliefs reinforce social pressure. The ideal order of society is guarded by dangers which threaten transgressors.[Dou66] These danger beliefs are as much threats which one man coerces another as dangers which he personally fears to incur by his own lapses of righteousness.[Dou66] Certain social rules defined by beliefs such as metrological disaster is an effect of political disloyalty. The other level is that pollution ideas relate to social life. Hence societal order is symbolized through sexuality. Sexual dangers are therefore interpreted as symbols of the relation between parts of the society expressed through symmetry and hierarchy which apply in the larger social system. Pressures on boundaries and margins of the primitive society have ideas such as separating, purifying, demarcating and punishing transgressions have as their main function is to impose system on an inherently untidy experience. Only through exaggerating the differences that a semblance of order is created. The ideas of purity and impurity in the primitive culture may seem timeless in existence can be supposed to continually modify and enrich them. Culture is brought about by standardized values that are shared, agreed upon and practiced by the society. The relation between the primitive ritual and modern ideas of cleanliness such as scrubbing, washing, isolating and disinfecting were known to ward off spirits but modernly known to kill germs and serves for a hygienic purpose. There are three degrees of religious purity. The highest are those who perform the acts of worship, the middle is the expected normal condition and the last is the impure. The highest state is achieved by daily bathing of which in contact with the middle or the last stage whereby those in a highest state shall become impure. A distinction between cooked and uncooked food can act as carriers of pollution. Cooked food unlike uncooked may pass the pollution test. Eating potentially polluting through saliva pollution which can be transmitted through material substances[Dou66]. Our ideas of dirt are also express symbolic systems of the primitive culture and difference between pollution behaviors from one to another part of the world is a matter of detail. The main two differences between modern ideas of dirt and the primitive culture is that in contemporary living dirt avoidance is more for the purpose of hygiene or aesthetics rather than religion tied. The other is that our idea of dirt is dominated by the knowledge of pathogenically organisms. The meaning of dirt is thus that it is a by-product of a systematic ordering and a classification of matter involving rejection of inappropriate matter. Culture provide a pattern of ideas, values and tidily order. Patterns can be negative or `assumptions hence any given culture should be able to confront events which seem to defy its assumption; hence there should be a clear distinction to sacred and secular.[Dou66] There is no particular outstanding distinction between primitives and moderns since we are all subjected to the same rules only that the primitive culture rules of patterning works is associated with greater forces while to the moderns it applies to the separate areas of existence. Holiness is the attribute of Godhead. According to the Old Testament blessings was the source of good things while withdrawal of blessings was the source of all dangers. Observing God’s commandments brought prosperity while infringing them brings danger. Holy was a state of completeness and wholeness and physical perfection was observed when dealing with holy affairs in the temple Holy also required for people to conform to their class with no confusion hence no animal hybrids were present then. Order implies restrictions while disorder means lack of patterns which can be destructive to existing powers thus symbolizing power and danger.in these beliefs there are two ventures of articulateness. One is the disorder in the mind the other is beyond the confines of the society. Form and formlessness in ritual society can be positive or negative. Their beliefs for the persons in marginal state, menstruation blood and miscarriage. Danger lies in transitional status which is done ritually separating one from his old status and segregates him for a time (in which exposing them to this powers may be enough to kill them or make their manhood) and his new status in publicly declared[Dou66]. To have being in margins is to be in contact with danger. Dirt, obscenity and lawlessness are symbolic to the rites of seclusion as other ritual expressions of their condition. There is power in the forms and other powers in the articulate areas, margins, confused lines and beyond the external boundaries. There two classes of spiritual powers which are internal and they reside in the psyche of the agent such as evil eye ,witchcraft , gifts of vision or prophesy while external symbols on which the agent must consciously act as spells ,blessings ,curses ,charms ,formulae’s and invocations.[Dou66] The idea of a society is a powerful image which has form; external boundaries, margins and internal structures. There is energy its margins and unstructured areas. The body is a model which can stand for a bounded system. Boundaries can represent precarious boundaries hence a complex structure. The function of its different parts and their relations afford a source of symbol for the other complex structures. Rituals concerning subjects like excreta and breastmilk cannot be possibly interpreted unless we prepare to see in the body a symbol of the society and powers and dangers credited to a societal structure. Public rituals enacted on the human body are taken to express personal and private concerns. Public rituals express a common infantile fantasies and all margins are dangerous and is the most vulnerable part of the structure of ideas which can be symbolized by orifices. Bodily pollution can be expressed as dangers to the society[Far99]. The four kinds of societal pollution include danger pressing on external boundaries, danger from transgressing the apparent[Dou66] internal lines of the system, the danger in the margins of the lines and danger from internal contradiction.[Dou66]The caste system acts as a societal body. The beliefs of all bodily issues were polluting can be mirrored modernly as for the integrity, unity and purity of the body. To deal with dirt; first it has to be recognized as its out of place ,a threat to good order and it may be objective and vigorously brushed away. Long processes such as pulverizing, dissolving and rotting awaits physical things recognized as dirt leading to loss of identity. Purity is the enemy of change and ambiguity and whenever a strict pattern is imposed it can either be highly uncomfortable, contradictory which may be followed by hypocrisy[Dou66]. Conclusion The insights of this book “Purity and Danger” give a profound study of the concepts of pollution as well as an advanced approach of the general reinforcement of rules. The talk about dirt according to the book, it is necessary to look into and consider religion as a complex system of values and not only in its belief in spiritual beings. Dirt according to her is a subject that is a subject which by a great extent necessitates the thinking that goes across different scales of evidence ranging from everyday materiality to cultural symbolism and language. Dirt is something she uses to provide the evidence for cultural and social systems. In a nutshell, the difference between our modern and primitive ideas of dirt and purity is that in primitive culture they held a religious meaning though some are considered extreme and of no use in the contemporary culture the others are used for hygienic purposes or to enhance aesthetics. The main characteristic in primitive societies was fear as the inspiration for the primitive culture in the confusion between defilement and hygiene hence different to modern era where it’s viewed from a universal point rather than per culture. References Dou02: , (Douglas, 2002), Dou66: , (Douglas, 1966), Far99: , (Fardon, 1999), Read More