Mike Drinane
Soc/Anthro Distinction Essay
4-18-08
Struggles in Avoidance of Normlessness:
Reflections of a Soon-to-be Soc/Anthro Grad
More and more it seems to me that the philosopher, being of necessity a man of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, has always found himself, and had to find himself, in contradiction to his today: his enemy was ever the ideal of today.
- Friedrich Nietzsche, “Beyond Good and Evil” (1886)
Sociology and Anthropology are not always the most heartening of disciplines. From investigating the desperate plights of indigenous peoples to examining the effects of the imbalanced power relationships between the nations of the world, the anthropologist, like Nietzsche’s philosopher, is frequently in “contradiction to his today” (327). The reflexive natures of Sociology and Anthropology frequently reveal less-than-stellar realities about the ideologies and structures that guide our lives. These identified realities, again like the philosopher, can point towards a more ethical tomorrow and day after tomorrow though.
One of the allures of Sociology and Anthropology has been their great diversity in subjects. My limited time here at Olaf has witnessed wandering studies ranging from the Middle East, to an explication on Ritzer’s analysis of the credit card industry, and even to a robust project on St. Olaf’s drinking policies. Demonstrative of this variety on a professional level, just the other day I found an ethnography on the socio-cultural aesthetics and ethics involved in American bodybuilding. The essay called for anthropologists to “develop visual skills within an ethics of seeing” (Linder, 467). Despite the seemingly limitless topic potential, commonalities in method and aspirations are what have proven the disciplines’ import to me.
I initially transferred to St. Olaf without a major in mind. I was reading a lot of Hemingway at the time and thought that I would probably enjoy a life of adventure, drinking, and writing (who wouldn’t). As such, an English major was at the forefront of my mind. My wonderful former Gustavus advisor, a humanistic and personality psychologist, had suggested numerous fields I should try out. Sociology/Anthropology was one of them. So was English. There were others as well. I spent my first year at Olaf ruling out Poli-Sci. and Psychology and failing to enter any courses in my ideal major, English. I ended up taking Intro to Cultural Anthropology first semester and Religion, Culture, and Society and Indigenous Peoples second semester. I loved them all. Still, I thought that English was what I wanted to do.
I declared the English major and finally took some courses the next fall, but I again had schedule problems for the next spring. I had signed up for The Arab World and realized that I still had another class to fill. Why not Sociological Theory? I would never recommend that a non-major decide to take that course so flippantly but nonetheless, I’m grateful that I did. Samiha pushed the students in both courses, especially 8am Soc. Theory. In spite of the hard work and disgustingly early noise from my alarm clock, I realized that I genuinely enjoyed what I was doing. From Goffman’s micro-level dramaturgy all the way out to macro-level neo-Marxian theories of globalization, I was hooked and quickly declared Soc/Anthro as my major.
One particular theory that stuck with me from Sociological Theory is Merton’s conception of anomie. He states that “aberrant behavior may be regarded sociologically as a symptom of dissociation between culturally prescribed aspirations and socially structured avenues for realizing these aspirations” (188). In other words, when structures prevent the use of accepted, legitimate means to reach the valued state of being, one is more likely to utilize illegitimate means to meet those values.
A commonly cited example of anomie is the idea of the American Dream. Merton continues later to write that first, “striving for success… is a socially-defined expectation” and second, it “is regarded as appropriate for everyone, irrespective of his initial lot or station in life” (221). The hypocrisy of the American Dream is revealed in economic data. In contrast to the apparent economic goals of wealth and prosperity, only the top 5% of the American population holds nearly 60% of U.S. wealth. Similarly, the top 20% holds nearly 85% of U.S. wealth. Both figures are on a rising trend (Wolff, 6-8). Trade union organizer Bob Muehlencamp stated that in the recent economic boom from 2001-2006, only the top 6% of families benefited from the increased profits (Muehlencamp). The prosperity of the minority, me included, is achieved off the backs of the exploited majority. The Durkheimian normlessness that Merton describes is easily perceptible when contrasting American disparity in wealth with the overemphasized cultural goal of economic and material success. As our culture is currently structured, the majority cannot meet the values that the country clings to.
In a less overbearing but still relevant application, my research partner Jacey Reese and I found anomie within college drinking patterns. St. Olaf is technically a dry campus but Jacey and I discerned that, “there is a distinct disconnect between the college’s structures regarding alcohol use and the cultural values held by the students concerning its usage” (Drinane and Reese, 20). St. Olaf conjoins a dry-campus policy and forcibly high on-campus resident rates to confront a national college culture of heavy drinking. The rules governing over residents of St. Olaf College are in distinct contradiction to the demands of the cultural values.
Another point that Merton makes regarding anomie is that “the theory holds that any extreme emphasis upon achievement... will attenuate conformity to the institutional norms governing behavior designed to achieve the particular form of success” (220). As our observations and interviews displayed, attenuate is far too dainty of a word to describe most students’ behavior in relation to college policy. ‘Deliberate deviance’ from college policy is more appropriate in regards to the situation of student’s drinking behaviors.
In less than a month, college drinking policy will become a complete frivolity of the past for me. A new issue of anomie has emerged. St. Olaf professes in its mission statement that it “inspires students to act on intellectual ideas and ethical ideals to better the world at home and abroad.” This sentiment is even more profoundly stressed in the Soc/Anthro department. For that I am thankful. Every class I have taken in the department has had at its core a deep concern with problems of injustice and inequality, at home and abroad, elaborating upon the school’s purported mission. It has become clear in recent discussions in Senior Seminar that my classmates and I are all desirous of finding some sort of life calling that addresses these issues.
While abroad on Term in the Middle East, I grappled with the socio-economic realities of traveling from a privileged existence in the most economically powerful country in the world to areas far less affluent. What follows are quotes from my Moroccan journals and brief expansions on the quotations’ relevance in regards to themes, issues, and concepts I have studied in the Soc/Anthro department.
This evening was the first time I gave money to a beggar. A boy of about twelve years came up to me at the corner store across from the hotel. He was forlorn looking and eating this shitty looking piece of bread…
9-28-06, Fes
Upon arrival in Fes, Morocco it was quickly evident that the various economic classes were far more integrated together within the city than the plush, upper-class area of Istanbul we had left. What is the appropriate response to poverty from a clearly advantaged tourist such as me?
The women in my household receive a lot of help from the men, but they simply aren’t out much in public and are still generally subservient. Fes is clearly easier for the males in our group too. The women in the group regularly speak of things ranging from tepid cat-calls to scarier events like being followed and touched.
10-7-06, Fes
I lived in a homestay in the Fes medina with a large family. There were only two women around and I hardly ever saw them. The sons of the family were gregarious and helpful in the household. Sometimes I even cooked meals along with the men. Nonetheless, there was something disconcerting about having the women eat in a separate room and only infrequently interacting with them.
As Leila [the boarding house director] explained it to us, these 12-16 yr olds girls would be otherwise unable to continue education, undergoing lives of menial labor, forced and early marriages and exploitation.
10-23-06, Marrakech
My group of girls was the youngest. The English instruction was entirely informal and probably just as fun for me as it was for the girls. At dinner the last night, I was fortunate enough to dine with Leila, along with some of the girls I taught. After witnessing their ability to do ‘Head, shoulders, knees and toes,’ and hold basic greetings, she celebrated how comfortable they had become interacting with an unfamiliar male. Leila emphasized their move away from traditional Moroccan gender roles. I felt a tension over the issue of cultural relativity. A definite hierarchy was being placed upon a Western conception of modernity but if indeed these girls would be married off young and uneducated, is it okay to make a judgment and in so doing, maybe make a beneficial comprise between Moroccan culture and female empowerment?
They [the three state department employees] were more revelatory [than Istanbul consulate workers] about the challenges of their jobs in negotiating personal beliefs with government policy. They all agreed that it’s necessary to separate the two, thereby “not allowing personal values to affect the way in which one conducts their work.”
10-29-06, Casablanca
We visited consulates in Istanbul and Casablanca during the trip. Though a career abroad would be exciting, I don’t think that ‘not allowing personal values’ to inform my work decisions is something I can morally consent to.
My experience in Morocco, as well as the remainder of the Term in the Middle East, was immensely valuable towards my conceptions of self, views of the world, and understanding of the direction I want to go in life. But still, the aforementioned anomie remains. Though thoroughly well-off financially, especially on the global scale that was reflected in my Moroccan journal, I have pragmatic concerns that must be resolved. I want to pursue an ethical career working towards the empowerment of the marginalized, of course, but I am also leaving St. Olaf thousands of dollars in debt, with only temporary shelter, and facing a job market in a late-capitalist society that is almost entirely unappealing given the limitations of just a bachelor’s degree. My ability to obtain employment for an equitable cause is impeded upon by the socio-structural limitations of post-undergrad realities.
Does not anomie lie in the stereotypically idealistic-Ole value for a life of worth being prevented by the very nature of the exploitative structures of neo-liberalism? In his essay, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, David Graeber introduces a conceptual framework of what an anthropology of anarchism would look like. He states that we can, “argue that modern capitalism is really just a newer version of slavery. Instead of selling us or renting us out we rent out ourselves. But it’s basically the same sort of arrangement” (71). Graeber, Marx and so many other theorists we’ve studied in the Soc/Anthro department have argued that capitalism is an inherently exploitative enterprise; if this is the case I would add that it obstructs the cultural value of an ethical life’s work, creating the anomie. If normlessness exists due to socio-structural limitations in obtaining an ethical career, what would the deviance to avoid it look like?
Earlier in his essay, Graeber points to just this deviance. Simply put, it is revolution. It is not the violent or monumental types of revolution that exist in popular conceptions though. Graeber states that “revolutionary action is any collective action which rejects, and therefore confronts, some form of power or domination and in doing so, reconstitutes social relations – even within the collectivity – in that light” (45). Graeber’s definition lays at the very heart my most treasured acquisition from my time studying in the Soc/Anthro department. I’m not sure where my future lies. It could be in as wide ranging of careers as law, academics, or women’s shoe-sales (hopefully not the last one). Regardless of where I end up, I will bring with an ingrained desire to confront the inequalities constantly brought forth by unequal relationships of power and the domination that ensues, striving to remold the abstract ideals I have studied at St. Olaf into applied actualities of change in the post-collegiate world.
Citations:
Drinane, Mike and Jacey Reese. “The Three ‘A’s of St. Olaf’s Dry Campus Policy: Arbitrariness, Anomie, and Alcohol.” Unpublished manuscript. 21 May 2007.
Graeber, David. Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2004.
Linder, Fletcher. “Life as art, and seeing the promise of big bodies.” American Ethnologist. 34.3 (2007): 451-472.
Merton, Robert K. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: The Free Press, 1968.
Muehlencamp, Bob. “The American Labor Movement: Dingbats, Dinosaurs, or Dynamic Duo,” St. Olaf Civic Engagement Week. Viking Theater, St. Olaf Colleg, 19 February 2008.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. “Beyond Good and Evil.” Basic Writings of Nietzsche. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: The Modern Library, 2000.
Wolff, Edward N. "Changes in Household Wealth in the 1980s and 1990s in the U.S," Economics Working Paper Archive 407. The Levy Economics Institute, 2004.
