Mausss Evolutionary Concept of Person and the Cultural Hegemony - Literature review Example

Mauss’s Evolutionary Concept of ‘Person’ and the Cultural Hegemony Introduction In his article “A Category of Human Mind: the Notion of Person; the Notion of Self” Marcel Mauss’s proposition for the concept of ‘person’ and its development in a human being attempts to define it an entity of which the features are essentially determined by the surrounding of a human being whether this surrounding is identified as society or clan. Therefore the notion of person changes from time to time and society to society. But in her article, “Refiguring the Person: the Dynamics of affects and Symbols in an African Spirit Possession Cult” Ellen Corin tends to view Mauss’s concept of ‘person’ in evolution or transition as one that is influenced by the legacy of European hegemonic attitude to the cultures of the non-European country. According to her, Mauss’s historical evaluation of ‘person’ is engrossed with the concept of the “other’ that bars the European scholars to perceive the ‘person’ of the non European societies as something “self-interested and self indulgent, and which is determined by outsides references to clans and divinities” (Corin 85). In Mauss’s conception of ‘person’ it is evident that the ‘person’ –which he is concerned with- is different from the concept of person as something “natural’. Though he does not completely defy the natural definition of ‘person’, he clearly asserts this definition of ‘person’ as unfocused, vague and simplistic. For Mauss, the definition that tend s to describe ‘person’ as something “natural, clearly determined in the depth of [human] consciousness” is, as he says at the beginning of the article, “still imprecise, delicate and fragile, one requiring further elaboration” (Mauss 5). The major steps in evaluation of “person’ lies in the following speech of Mauss, “From a simple masquerade to the mask, from a ‘role’… to a ‘person’…, to a name, to an individual; from the latter to a being metaphysical and moral value; from a moral consciousness to a sacred being; from the latter to a fundamental form of thought and action- the course is accomplished” (Mauss 22) Preconditions of Mauss’s Concept of ‘Person’: Spirituality and Physicality Whereas Corin tends to view the concept of person from the anthropological desire to “have access to the Other’s alterity and to transcend to the contingencies and boundaries of …..cultural condition” (Corin 81), Mauss’s attempt to view ‘person’ from a socio-historical point is, as Corin criticizes, biased, therefore not absolute, by the cultural hegemony of the author. According to him the ‘person’ needs to exist both spiritually and physically, as in the first place the physical awareness provides a man with the scope to grow his or her spirituality. Thus physicality or physical awareness and spirituality in other words, natural consciousnesses of one’s physical and spiritual being becomes compatible and complementary to each other in Mauss’s definition of ‘person’, as he says, “it is plain……that there has never existed a human being who has not been aware, not only of his body, but also at the same time of his individuality, both spiritual and physical” (Mauss 3). For Mauss, the slave cannot posses the ‘person’ because they do not own their own body. In this regard Mauss says, “Servus non habet personam. He has no ‘personality’” (Mauss 17). In order to support his claim regarding the concept of person he approaches to it sociologically in a relativistic way. He compares his claimed features of the ‘person’ in different historical and cultural contexts and tries to a conclusion. Indeed Mauss’s evaluation of the essentiality of physicality and spirituality is objectionable from Corin’s point of view. If Corin’s point is considered, it will be found that Mauss, by adopting the objective hegemonic view and by ignoring subjectivity of his topic, has failed to transcend the boundary of his own culture. Personage: the Initial Stage of ‘Person’ What Mauss tells his readers is the social history of the ‘person’. In the first place he is concerned with the role of human being –as he calls it “personage” in the societies from the ancient ones to the modern societies. For him the ‘person’ of human beings has developed through certain stages. In the ancient societies ‘person’ of a man emerged in his social role. Human beings’ social role determines the person of the ancient people to an extent that is not visible in modern society. In this regard Mauss draws an example of the Pueblo to define the social role as ‘person’, as he says that in this society “the clan is conceived of as being made up of a certain number of persons, in reality of characters” (Mauss 5). In the formation of ‘personage’ Mauss traces two points that are essential to this formation. First, in each clan “a limited number of forenames” (Mauss 4) exist to identify the members and secondly, “the definition of exact role played by each one in the cast list of the clan [is] expressed by that name” (Mauss 4). In this name-designation of the Pueblos members Mauss’s primary concern is to define the importance of the social role of a man in the development of the person along the passage of history. Therefore the beginning stage of the concept of ‘person’ is considered by Mauss as ‘personage’ that is determined by the role of members imposed by the society. Persona and Individual Self: the Role-playing Components of Person Now Mauss traces the last resorted form of ‘person’ in modern societies, especially the ones of the modern Europe. For him ‘person’ in modern European societies is ‘the indivisible self’ that is integrated with, -that he discusses in the twenty second page of the text- “the condition of consciousness and of science, of pure reason” (Mauss 22). The present stage of ‘person’ in the modern European society is preceded by the Christian concept of ‘person’, as he says, “Our notion of the human person is still basically the Christian one” (Mauss 20). The Christian concept ‘Person’ as a “rational substance, indivisible and individual” dominates the European mind (Mauss 6). Mauss attempts to characterize the concept of ‘person’ in a transitory stage that changes with the changes of the times and with the changes in the geo-socio-political features of a society. Mauss asserts that role-playing is one of the major indispensable parts of the modern notion of person. The stage that follows the “personage” or the social role is persona that was first initiated in the indigenous Australian and the North-west American tribes. In this development of the ‘notion of person’ from its social role in the ancient societies to the modern ‘reason dominated individual self’ there appears to be several stages depending on the factors that tend to characterize it in different casts. For example the notion of person in the Roman era is considered to be significant stage. In the Roman social orders the notion ‘notion of person’ appears to receive a new trend that significant set the milestone in the way to the birth of a modern individual self. Indeed according Mauss the origin of the modern reason dominated individual self lies in this era. In the Roman the term ‘persona’ receives a new meaning as ‘mask’ through the extensive use of ancestral mask (Evers 5). Mauss’s term “persona” is “synonymous with the true nature of the individual” in the Roman era (Mauss 15). Corin’s Criticism of Mauss’s Evolutionary Approach to ‘Person’ Corin complains that the whole process of evaluating the concept of person from a socio-historical point of view is itself not neutral. As such attempt of Mauss to evaluate the cultures of the societies of the world is influenced by the hegemonic idea of the Other, it is bound to produce an “imaginary screen for projecting the hidden fantasies, desires, anxieties and the dark sides” (Corin 80) about the Other. Simply in Corin’s view such approach is problematic, as it reveals the “difficulties and limitations of the encounter with the Other” (Corin 80). In Mauss’s evaluation, it is evident that his definition of ‘personage’ fits with the description of the non-European societies to a great extent. When he describes the Indian, Australian and other non-European societies, the socio-centrism rings his description. But when he describes the European societies, it necessarily reveals the egocentrism of these societies. His description of the person in both the European and the non-European societies appears to be free of the effect of the notion of the Other to the extent that it evaluates these societies in a non-generic and evidence based manner. But his whole approach is bound to reveal the fact that it is designed to legalize the cultural of hegemony of the west, as Corin says, in Mauss’s evaluation “Modern Western societies are considered the paradigm of egocentric societies but the current literature tends to recast this feature as an “anomaly” rather than as the ultimate term of cultural evolution” (Corin 83). The evolutionary concept of person is objectionable on the ground that it does not attempt to look into the self from the vantage point of a man. Therefore Corin tends to characterize it as one-sided, as he says, “We have difficulties imagining differences which would not represent inequalities and conceive forms of heterogeneity which are both irreducible and constructive” (Corin 82). Mauss’ Individuation and Corin’s Approach to Person Mauss’s evolutionary concept of “person” is greatly influenced by the relationship of man and his surroundings, especially the society to which he belongs. Therefore according Mauss individuation is an essential trend of the emerging person. But apparently he seems to ignore the factors why ‘personage’ needs to change into ‘person’ and individual self. Mauss takes it for granted that Christianity has greatly influenced the evolution of ‘person’ and to turn into the individual self, as in this regard Corin says, “the notion of individuation…..refers not to the concrete subjective experience but to the structural possibility, framed from within the culture itself, of distancing vis-à-vis the defining power of the social and cultural order” (Corin 84). Thus for Mauss, individuation appears to be the process through which a man becomes aware of his own existence both physically and spiritually. The spiritual existence necessarily causes the emergence of “I”. According to Mauss though cultures and society are the entities that exert influence on selfhood is an individual, the rational part of the European culture and Christianity tends to individuate the mind by providing him the right and at the same time by assigning his social role. Indeed his established right motivates him to perform his role spontaneously. But the notion of Mauss’s individuation is further promoted by the European culture that frees the individual from his role, as he says, “the person is more than an organizational fact, more than a name or a right to assume a role….” (Mauss 14). Therefore according to Mauss, European culture and societies are in such a way that they promote individualism. It is remarkable that Corin’s approach to the idea of person is psychoanalytical and anthropological and at the same time it is influenced by Freud’s understanding of the self. While Corin –inspired by Freud’s concept of the Other Scene in the Unconscious- criticizes Mauss’s evaluation of the Other as the projection of the “hidden fantasies, desires, anxieties and the dark sides” (Corin 80) of an European mind, he scrutinizes the individuation in African societies from Freud’s psychoanalytical view of human mind. In this regard he emphasizes the importance of ethno-psychology as it “emphasizes the needs to understand subjective phenomena from within particular culture and from how they conceive the person and the self-other relationship” (Corin 5). Conclusion The psychoanalytical approach of Freud to the mind of an individual –this individual is to be considered different from the individual of Mauss, because Mauss’s individual is the outcome of a man’s interactions with his society and culture, whereas Freud’s individual is one in general- is ignored in Mauss’s evaluation, as he says, “the notion of the ‘person’ was still to undergo a further transformation to become what it has become over less than one and a half centuries, the category of self” (Mauss 20). Also he ignores the ego of human being that is evident in as one of the essential constituents of Freud’s individual, as it is said in the following lines, All dreams are absolutely egoistical; in every dream the beloved ego appears, even though in a disguised form. The wishes that are realized in dreams are invariably the wishes of this ego; it is only a deceptive appearance if interest in another person is believed to have evoked a dream. (Freud 87) But on the contrary to Mauss’s approach, Corin says that individual and person are two different concepts. In Corin’s view individual is to be perceived from a biological and objective point as an entity ………when the concept of the “person” that “encompasses broader human reality of participation, sociality, communion and depends on a mythical basis” (Corin 85). The ideas of ‘Individual’ and “person” are scrutinized by Corin from Freud’s unconscious region of human mind. For an example Corin examines the contribution of the conscious and unconscious mind to the development of the Melanesian ‘person’. He finds that this development of the Melanesian person is embedded in the unconscious conflict in the mind that has to confront the traditional mythical world of the Melanesian society. This development process of the Melanesian ‘person’ is “grounded in the unconscious debate in the person……is foreshadowed by the positioning of heroes or heroines who have rejected the constraints of their social role” (Corin 85). Corin’s analysis of the “person” appears to resonates with the Freudian concept of mind, that is, “All thinking is merely a detour from the memory of gratification (taken as a purposive idea) to the identical cathexis of the same memory, which is to be reached once more by the path of motor experiences” (Freud 187). Works Cited Corin, Ellen. “Refiguring the Person: the Dynamics of affects and Symbols in an African Spirit Possession Cult” Bodies and Person. Ed. Michael Lambek and Andrew Strathern, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Mauss, Marcel. “A Category of Human Mind: the Notion of Person; the Notion of Self,” The category of the Person. Edited by Michael Carrithers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Sigmund, Freud. The Interpretation of Dreams. 1900, 20 Oct. 2009 Read More