Comparative Civilizations Review
Volume 25
Number 25 Fall 1991
Article 10
10-1-1991
Stanley Diamond. In Search of the Primitive, A
Critique of Civilization
Carroll J. Bourg
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Recommended Citation
Bourg, Carroll J. (1991) "Stanley Diamond. In Search of the Primitive, A Critique of Civilization," Comparative Civilizations Review: Vol.
25 : No. 25 , Article 10.
Available at: http://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol25/iss25/10
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Bourg: Stanley Diamond. <em>In Search of the Primitive, A Critique of Ci
Book
Reviews
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. . . and . . . it is possible to write a prehistory of women." In this precise
and professional book, she may well have actualized the first of these two
possibilities for herself. For most laymen, however—especially for those
in search of a distinctively feminine vision—she has hardly begun to
actualize the second.
Hilja B. Wescott
Roger W. Westcott
A C R I T I Q U E OF C I V I L I Z A T I O N A L RATIONALISM
Stanley Diamond. In Search of the Primitive, A Critique of Civilization. New
Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books: 1974 (3rd printing, 1987).
We don't talk about the primitive as much as we did just two decades
ago when Stanley Diamond wrote his critique of civilization by
contrasting it with the primitive. It may be that tbe primitive, like many
other terms, seems now to evoke pejorative, indeed odious comparisons.
T h e implied note of superiority in such comparisons stems from the view
that the premodern, or the traditional, or the primitive, was somehow
less developed, less humanly accomplished, less expansively creative
than the modern.
One line of reasoning was based in the set of dichotomies whereby
sociologists contrasted some previous societal form with the current,
societal frame. T h e r e was society based on status as opposed to contract,
or on tradition as opposed to rationality, or on mechanical solidarity as
opposed to organic solidarity, and so on.
Another approach was less neutral in seeking analytical categories for
the study of various societies. It seemed propelled by the modern
conviction that progress was to be found principally in society itself. T h e
modernization of society could be traced in its economic, its political, and
indeed in its cultural characteristics. T h e m o d e r n economy was
industrial, the modern polity was a state, usually a nation-state, and the
modern culture was literate, sponsoring education, and a range of art
forms in music, painting, literature and poetry. What preceded the
modernized society offered little if anything that was thought to be
pertinent, and useful, for the contemporary ways of life. T h e prior
circumstance, whatever it was called, and however it was analyzed, filled
out the more exotic ranges of human behavior, and was instructive about
what modern men and women had now left behind and transcended.
Stanley Diamond takes a strong position in opposition to the
comparison of the contemporary, so-called civilized world and what had
preceded. He introduces the book with the statement: "Civilization
originates in conquest abroad and repression at home." Although he
discusses some of the characteristics of archaic and modern civilizations,
his principal theme is the human meaning of the "breach between
civilized and primitive culture."
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COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATIONS
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Unlike many of his anthropological colleagues, Diamond searches for
the primitive so that he can understand civilization; and he reports on
civilizations so that he can identify more clearly what the primitive is.
T h e n he identifies, a n d frequently laments, the evident losses and the
o f t e n questionable gains when a n d w h e r e civilization s u p p l a n t e d
primitive culture.
In rereading In Search of the Primitive, I was surprised to find that
Diamond was a postmodern before the letter. What could be read as an
attack on anthropology and on the civilizations which have e n g e n d e r e d
"the study of man," can also be understood as a strong desire to be
m o d e r n and also to hold onto the best that he f o u n d in his studies of
primitive cultures. At best, the postmodern sentiment is to retrieve and
recover, i n d e e d to reinvent, the better qualities of t h e past. Yet
Diamond's language is not always consistent. Sometimes, he contrasts the
primitive and civilization as mutually exclusive. At other times, he
assumes a postmodern posture by seeking the better qualities of each.
In his criticism of progress, it seems, in some texts, that Diamond's
focus is exclusively on western civilization, the historically specific
instance where progress has become a central dynamic. Yet, some
statements seem to reject civilization tout court, as an u n f o r t u n a t e disaster
f o r h u m a n k i n d . By narrowing his attention to the predominantly
p r o t e s t a n t , capitalist, a n d highly rationalist instance of western
civilization, he focuses on an extreme case. While a powerful civilizational
influence t h r o u g h o u t the world, the west is not the only civilization.
Indeed, the comparative study of civilizations in the contemporary world
may give a special place to western hegemony, but it does not ignore the
diverse civilizational matrices within which many peoples cope with the
contemporary, global agenda.
T h e study of Plato's influence is a central chapter in the book.
Diamond raises the question about Plato's hostility to poets in The
Republic. But he fails to highlight the poet as educator in the oral culture.
I n d e e d he is critical of Plato's conclusions about the need for a new type
of education leading to self-reflective knowledge. Yet in my view, he does
not adequately appreciate the f u n d a m e n t a l conflict between the oral and
written cultures. It may be because he assigns literacy as a secondary tool
and symptom of civilization (126).
Eric Havelock in A Preface to Plato, and Walter O n g in Orality and
Literacy, have thoroughly analyzed the differing characteristics of the
oral and literate cultures. Indeed, Levi-Strauss, whose structuralism is
targeted in Diamond's critique of the profession, had said d u r i n g an
interview that it would be better to r e f e r to oral rather than primitive
cultures. I wish to make two points about that issue. One, Stanley
Diamond, in arguing for the better qualities of the primitive and the
civilized, could be said to be arguing for maintaining the immediacy a n d
concrete dimensions of the oral culture while having the capability of
participating actively in the literate culture. Two, the criticism of
civilization, then, could be seen as a critique of the extreme, and
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Bourg: Stanley Diamond. <em>In Search of the Primitive, A Critique of Ci
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e x t r e m e l y n a r r o w i n g , f o r m of rationality which is f o u n d in
contemporary, advanced industrial societies. Thus, it is less a rejection of
the industrial civilization as such, and more a criticism of the stultifying
forms of the rationalized modes of social life.
All human beings begin in the oral culture of family and immediate
environs. Some rather early in life are expected to acquire literacy and
thereby to develop literate skills as necessary to participate in society. T h e
literate skills may be seen as superior because they increase human
capabilities, or they are superior because required for full participation
in society. But literacy can destroy the vitality and dynamism of oral
culture. T h e conflict generates misperception and misunderstanding.
T h e distance between the extremes is great, the distance, that is, between
an oral culture untouched by literacy, and a literate culture that has
suppressed the vibrancy of orality. My interpretation of Diamond's
analytical intent is that the civilizational destruction of oral cultures is a
major loss, whatever the alleged gains.
Ancient Greece was a center of cultural conflict. As a mediterranean
civilization, it was influenced by the Egyptian and Mesopotamian
civilizations. Recent scholarship is uncovering the evidence of deep
ambivalence in the literature about patriarchy, about women, about
place. Vic Walter has attempted in Placeways to recover the tradition of
place in Oedipus at Colonics and other sources. In that tradition there is a
spatial dimension to identity, and indeed to citizenship. T o be able to speak
with authority, and to be listened to by others, it was not enough merely
to be someone, but one had to be from somewhere. If consideration of
the primitive is opened more broadly to include the oral cultures, and the
spatial dimensions in the actual way of life, then we see more clearly the
losses resulting from any civilizational discarding of these dimensions of
human life.
In searching for the primitive, Diamond finds Rousseau to be a guide
for an appropriate anthropology. T o Diamond, "anthropologists are
spiritual double agents" because anthropology is both an academic
discipline and a search for "human possibilities"(89). He finds Rousseau
calling f o r a p r o p e r a n t h r o p o l o g y (93) whose p u r p o s e is
"self-knowledge" and the means "the authentic understanding of
others"(94).
In the nineteenth century, the concept of the primitive no longer
meant the search for "natural man," because an evolutionary perspective
located the primitive at the base of civilization. T h u s the concern was for
progress through the conquest of nature, and through imperialism. T h e
result was that reason was reduced to rationality, and a widespread
distrust of reason, according to Reinhard Bendix, grew alongside the
dominance of a narrowed rationality.
By contrast, Rousseau was "alive to the human possibilities that he
sensed in the primitive culture"(106). He seemed to be committed to a
"journey" to the "center of his own civilized being"(l 12). Diamond finds
in Rousseau that his desire to understand primitive people is connected
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COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATIONS
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to his e f f o r t to u n d e r s t a n d his own possibilities as a civilized person (113).
For D i a m o n d , c o n t e m p o r a r y primitive peoples, while marginal, a n d in
locations r e m o v e d f r o m the centers of social life, are " o u r c o n t e m p o r a r y
pre-civilized ancestors."
D i a m o n d discusses in detail ten characteristics of primitive peoples.
But he fails to note the intrusion f r o m outside that makes it difficult to
maintain the ancient customs. I n d e e d , the view of the isolated primitive
people seems romanticized particularly in his discussion of the "public"
(168). H e t e n d s to consider the primitive peoples only in their isolation,
a n d thus he laments the t h r e a t to their ability to c o n t i n u e a way of life
without intrusion f r o m outside, o r to protect themselves f r o m conquest,
the main m e a n s t h r o u g h which civilization gains h e g e m o n y over t h e m .
Yet when D i a m o n d poses " t h e central p r o b l e m of a n t h r o p o l o g y "
(175), which is to h e l p so that man can be r e u n i t e d with his past, a n d the
primitive can be reconciled with the civilized, he could be expressing the
p o s t m o d e r n p r o b l e m for the anthropologist. I n d e e d , is he not posing the
p r o b l e m for social science a n d f o r the comparative study of civilizations?
T h e idea of the primitive is connected with the idea of civilization. It is
civilized m a n who searches f o r the primitive, as "the Utopia of the
past"(208). T h e civilized person creates the notion of the primitive,
according to D i a m o n d , in the search f o r " h u m a n identity." T h e s e quests
o c c u r r e d as a result of the E n l i g h t e n m e n t , d u r i n g which the primitive
a n d the civilized were both created. While anthropologists d i f f e r in their
consideration of the relations between t h e m , D i a m o n d argues that the
conceptions of primitive society enable us to p u t "critical aspects of o u r
civilization in critical perspective"(226).
Major contrasts are d r a w n between primitive societies a n d civilized
societies by noting the presence of schizophrenia a n d alienation in the
latter a n d their absence in the f o r m e r . Moreover, customs, in primitive
societies, are j u d g e d s u p e r i o r to the rule of law in civilized societies. T h e
f o r m e r is social morality, the latter a continuing response to pathologies.
A third contrast is between the trickster a n d J o b . A m o n g primitive
peoples, D i a m o n d writes, "all antinomies are b o u n d into the ritual
cycle"(p. 290).
D i a m o n d concludes by r e f e r r i n g to Marx who conceived of "primitive
society as the critique of civilization." But D i a m o n d does m o r e than
Marx. H e cites approvingly T . S. Eliot who urges us to go back so that we
would be better e q u i p p e d to go f o r w a r d . I find that to be a t h e m e in the
p o s t m o d e r n m o m e n t which tries to e m b r a c e both the primitive a n d the
civilized in a c o n t i n u i n g dialectic.
Carroll J . B o u r g
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