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BIOGRAPHIES: Clifford Geertz

Clifl'ortl Geetlzwas bom August 23rd, 1926 in San Francieco. His pareniB diWI'Ced.., he was line
and he was raised by a distant relatille in nnl Celiforrla. ., 1943, at the age of 88\UII8en, Geertz
wlunlaered for the U.S. Navy, inwNch he served fortv.o years (1943-1946). Allar the end ofWolld War
Two, like many other seNicemen. he welt to college in 1946 with fundi11J from the Gl Bil. At Antioch
College, El1)1ah was Geerlz's first major, as he wanlad to become a writer. Howe\oer, he fcMn:l ErQiah
liDO "coi'IH'BIIii'Q" ancl became a phlbaoplrj major, where almoat any cia he IDok 'WlMi:l cout toward
major (Geetlz 2000a:6). Geertz graduated from Anlloch In 1950 with an A.B.In PHioeophy (t'lgls 2000:3-
6).
Subsequently, Geer1z attended graduate school at HaMrtl Unlwnti\Y, eamll1) his Ph.D.In antllopobgy
from the Depar1ment of Social RelaUona In 1958. Both hlsllldergraduate educallon ancl graduate
education the humarftes. The Departmelt of Social Relations placed c:UUalanhopobgy
next to ps)dlology ancl soclobgy, not next to the tradltlorel partnena of cultural61od 1opology. archeobgy
ard pi?JslcalaJthiQpolagy. The deep readlrQsln the humaliUes Geertz greatly. lis to these lntluence61Ns essaywll
tum to next.
Points of Reaction and Early Wollas
Geertz was especially inftuenced by bm llilic8n>. n. first is Ludwig WiUgerosteirL As Geertz WIO!B:
His (Witlgenstein's) atlack upon the idea of a pri\'llle wtich brougtj thougtj out of ils giQIID in the head iniD the ptj)lc
square where one could look at it, and tis proposal of "fonns of life" as (to qLJOte one commentator) the "c:orqllex of nalmll and
cUIInl circwnatances which are Pf8SI4IPOB8d in ... anypattiW!Innlerstarding of the world," aaem amostc:us!Dm designed to
enable the sort of anthiQpological sludy I, and othena of my ilt, do. (Geertz200DbJCii)
Ona can see the goal of Geerlz's theoly othana' 111derstardings) and his methodology ptjllc mearirus,
or symbola} in thia single statement.
The aeoond irlluence ia Max Weber. Geer1z often credils Weber with the irMI1ion of an iniBrpretatiw social science (e.g. Geertz
1973t5)and clearlyaeea hia OM'! work as inl8tpretatiw social science. BjjWeber'a uae of culture, religion ancl ideals to bplain
moderrlzation was also atrol1)1y present in Geerlz's ealleat v.ork. Weber' a influence can be seen in Agricultural
lllvolutlon (1963a) and Peddlersand Pdnces (1963b). As both use a Weberlan tamework ID examine ID elCBIIIIne moclenizatlon
In hioneala,l will only glw detalll on the lattsr.
Peddlers snd Pdnt:H (1963b) Is an attempt to &lCIIImlne cdllal faetona of economic dewlopment thiQugh an elCBIIIInellon of
e1traprare1n In t\\0 hloneelan 1Dw18. After a descllp11on of economic dewlopmelt In both IDwns, Geertz concU1eslhat thera ara
six ('1anlaUw") generallmtlons about economic devebpmerl,lncludlng "1. hlo\etlw economic leadenahlp (81 drepnmewaHp)
OCCin Ina fairly well defined and soclalyhomogenoua gro..., (Geertz 1963b:147)and "4. On the ldeoloalcaii8Y81 the lmovaUve
gro..., concelwa of llself as the main wlicle of relglous ard moral e)CCGIJence within a generally waywartl, l.llel'lghtened or
lwedless communl\f (Geertz 1963b:150). The Insistence UIBt most knowledge Is local Is also absent from INs WOlle- Geertz
aUempts to generaiiZB the ciAtural factols that bplaln tha conditions befora rapid economic development '11'1s obMMIUon Is
made not ID fault an old mas!Br Hs mind, bjj to point ojj an In Geerlz's thinking.
One of the paradigms Geertz was reactiru to was British Flftltiorelism. Ritual and Social Change (19738:142169), ona of
Geerlz's first articles (originally publislwd in 1959), is an argwnelt agairst a static furlllionalist appiQ8ch and for a d)ftlmic
approach thet takes iniD account the s)ftD!Ic c:Uimll fonns as well social stJuclure. i1 this article, Geertz examines how a fmeral
for a boywaa lnluc:ces1lful because relgious s)'ldlols and pollical symbola had become intertwined and did notmalchth8 social
strucUe in the transitional period that hlonesia was goiru hough. Geertzcollllincinglyargues that hlonesian cUIIm was not a
system in balance, nor was it n. social ard cUIInl systems were changing, and Geertz analyzBs llis ltmugh an
examination of symbolic meaningsllmugh time.
Geerlz'a tater emphasis on a semiotic approach 1D ClAm can alae be seen aa reaction against the sbuclu'alsm of Le\'ioSiraU88
arw.t others. While Levi.StraU88,Iike Geetlzwas intareated in symbolic aresie, Geertzditl'ered with LJM.Strall88 in how symbols
eho!KI be emmined. Geertz wae not inl8re818d in symbols for their own aake, bjj in how symbola codd explain social pro ceases.
Tlls diaaatisfaction can be seen in Geerlz's statement 'Whatewr, orwherewr, symbol aya18ma 'in their own tanns' maybe, we
gain empirical acceaa to them by inapeclii'Q ewnts, not by abstracled el1itiea iniD unified patl8m8" (Geertz 1973f:17).
Symbola get their meaning not from their relallonsHps with each other, bjj ttom the roles they play In people'&IY88.
Laller Theoretical Contribution
As the19608 pasted, Geer1z deYGioped an elCCUIIYe focus on cUtin, and Its place as an anthropological obJect n.
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12/1/13 ANTHROPOLOGIST BIOGRAPHIES- Geer1z
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meaning.
Culture
Geerlz's theoretical contributions start with his definitions and descriptions of culture. For Geertz, culture is "an historically
transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of
which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and their altitudes toward life" (Geertz 1973d:89). nan
alternative (and more quoted) formulation, Geertz states, "Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of
significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science
in search oflaw but an interpretative in search of meaning" (Geertz 1973f:5).
Geertz, following Willgenstein's stance on language, believes that culture is not something that occurs in the heads of
humans; "Culture is public, because meaning is" (Geertz 1973f:12). Cognition is largely the same throughout humanity (Geertz
1973t.13), while the symbols that people use to communicate are different. Symbols are not to be studied to gain access to mental
processes, but as formations of social phenomena. tt is the anthropologisfs job to unravel the webs of meaning and interpret them.
Culture is also nota force or causal agent in the world, but a context in which people live out their lives (Geertz 1973f:14).
This goes back to Geerlz's early distinction between social structure and culture. Culture is only the pattern of meanings
embedded in symbols. Social structure is the "economic, political, and social relations among individuals and groups" (Geertz
1973c:362). Geertz does not dismiss the study of social structure, but takes culture to be his object of study.
Ethnography
Geerlz's second contribution is an examination of what ethnography is and what it does. To paraphrase another well-
quoted passage of Geerlz's, ethnography is an elaborate exercise in thick description (Geertz 1973f:6). Thick description is a
phrase that Geertz borrowed from Gilbert Ryle; it is set apart from thin description by the former's attention to the meaning of
actions. In the classic example, one boy's eye involuntarily twitches, while another boy winks. The physical phenomena are the
same, but a wink is the sluff of culture, whereas a twitch is nol n researching a culture, the ethnographer must record the winks, not
the twitches.
Ethnographies are also interpretations (Geertz 1973f:14 ). 'We begin with our own interpretations of what our informants are up to,
or think they are up to, and then systematize those" (Geertz 1973f:15). Ethnographies are not
Scientifically tested and approved hypotheses. They are interpretations, or misinterpretations, like any others, arrived at in the
same way as any others, and the attempt to invest them with the authority of physical experimentation is but methodological sleight
of hand. Ethnographic descriptions are not privileged, just particular: another country heard from." (Geertz 1973f:23)
However, viewing ethnographical knowledge as interpretation does not require an accompanying view that what an ethnographer is
recording is false or unfactual. Geertz merely stresses that"allhough culture exists in the trading post, the hill fort, or the sheep run,
anthropology exists in the book, the article, the lecture, the museum display, or sometimes nowadays, the film" (Geertz 1973f:16). A
good ethnography is an interpretation that gets to the heart of another culture, or a part of another culture, at a particular time.
Culture as 'Text"
n Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight (1973a), Geertz develops his idea of reading cultural practices as "texts."
Examining the cockfight as text enables Geertzto bring out an aspect of it that might otherwise go unnoticed: "its use of emotion for
cognitive ends" (Geertz 1973a:449). Going to cockfights is an emotional education for Balinese- it teaches and reinforces the
emotions and reactions of Balinese culture in an external text Eventually, Geertz makes his general statement: "The culture of a
people is an ensemble of texts, themselves ensembles, which the anthropologist strains to read over the shoulders of those to
whom they properly belong" (Geertz 1973a:452).
Cultural Relativism
In his distinguished lecture, "Anti-Anti-Relativism" (1984), Geertz writes an article that only he could (or only he could get
away with)- a polemic against anti-relativism. This double negative is necessary due to the fact that "whatever cultural relativism
maybe or originally have been, it serves these days largely as a specter to scare us away from certain ways of thinking and toward
others" (Geertz 1984:263). The type of thinking anti-relativism is meant to scare anthropologists away from is a wishy-washy world
where anything goes; however, relativism scares us away from provincialism. The end resutt is a "choice of worries" (Geertz
1984:265). Geertzthinks that provincialism is the greater danger. Moreover, unlike anti-relativist stances, cultural relativism is not
the product of a grand unifying theory, but the result of anthropological data (Geertz 1984:264 ). As Geertz says
One cannot read too long about Nayar matriliny, Aztec sacrifice, the Hopi verb, or the convolutions of the hominid transition and not
begin at least to consider the possibility that, to quote Montaigne again, "each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own
praclice ... forwe have no other criterion of reason than the example of idea of the opinions and customs of the country we live in.
(Geertz 1984 264-265)
To this end, Geertz wants to end the debate on relativism and reorient anthropology's focus on local anthropological data, not
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homogenizing theory; however, adwcating a focus on the local, even if one does not ignore the global, is a relativist stance.
Religion as a Cultural System
Geertz does not only talk about theory in broad terms- he also delves into particular theory, such as the anthropology of
religion. In accordance with his emphasis on symbols, Geertz defines religion as "1) a system of symbols which acts to 2) establish
powerful, pervasiw, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by 3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence
and 4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that 5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic" (Geertz
1973d:90). Geertz then breaks down his definition to examine exactly what the study of religion as a cultural system should be.
The important aspect of symbols in this definition is that symbols are models- and importantiy, both models of and
models for(Geertz 1973d:93). Systems of symbols function similar1y; that is, systems of symbols act as models of reality and
models for reality.
Religion also must establish something. What this "something" is differs from culture to culture, but in each culture this
"something" must make sense of the lives people are leading. n addition, this something must be perceived as "uniquely realistic";
i.e., this feeling should be the ground-level interpretation of a culture. A man may not be religious, but when a man needs to find
meaning at its deepest level, religion will be the system of symbols he uses.
Applications ofTheory
This essay will now tum to some of Geertz's applications of the above ideas, focusing on the works that typify his later
period, in which he has a semiotic view of
Islam ObseNed (1968) is an attempt to "lay out a general frameworik for the comparative analysis of religion and to apply it to a
study of the development of a supposedly single creed, Islam, in two quite contrasting civilizations, The Indonesian and the
Moroccan" (Geertz 1968:v). n this short worik, Geertz traces the development of Islam in Indonesia and Morocco through key
figures and symbols that explain the ewlution of Islam in the two countries. For example, Sunan Kalidjaga represents the "classical"
form of Islam in Indonesia. Kalidjaga is born into the royal culture of a Hindu-Buddhist kingdom and spends his ear1y life gambling,
drinking, and whoring. After meeting a Muslim holy man with great spiritual power, Kalidjaga meditates (on the instructions of the
holy man) for years. When the holy man returns, he tells Kalidjaga that as a of the latter's meditations, he now knows more
than the holy man. To use Geertz's words
He (Kalidjaga) had become a Muslim without ever having seen the Koran, entered a mosque, or heard a prayer- through an inner
change of heart brought on by the same sort of yoga-like psychic discipline that was the core religious act of the lndic tradition from
which he came ... His redemption ... was a seW-produced inner state, a willed mood. And his Islam, if that is what it should be called,
was but a public faith he was assigned" (Geertz 1968:29)
Geertz uses the symbol of Kalidjaga to characterize Javanese Islam. there are (obviously) other symbols that Javanese
use to explain the island's conversion period and classical form of Islam, it is important to note that Geertz finds Javanese culture
(and meaning) through a symbol, and communicates it to another culture through the same symbol.
Negara: The Theatre-State in Nineteenth-Century Bali (1980) is Geertz's examination of, as promised, the state in
nineteenth-century Bali. This worik asserts that, during this time period, the state in Bali was not held together by military force, but
instead was a theatre-state which governed through spectacle. Geertz uses his "model-of/model-for" paradigm to show that the
state was both "the public dramatization of the ruling obsessions of the Balinese culture: social inequality and social pride" and
"paradigmatic, not merely reflective, of social order. What it is reflective of, the priests declare, is supernatural order, 'the timeless
ndian wor1d of gods', upon which men should, in strict proportion to their status, seek to pattern their lives" (Geertz 1980:13). To
use the latter concept as an example, a Balinese king is both a model of divinity and a model of behavior for his subjects. Thus, the
king must perform in the theatre-state to display his divinity and to set an example of behavior. Given the differences between the
theatre-state and the political formations more familiar to Western readers, Geertz is ultimately setting a path to study how the
political process itseW is culturally shaped.
Legacy
Clifford Geertz is probably the best-known anthropologist alive today. He is one of the few anthropologists who is frequentiy cited
outside, as well as inside, the discipline. For those who find inspiration in his texts, and for those who only find vexation, Geertz
continues to prowke thought regarding the nature of culture and ethnography. While this essay is necessarily (woefully) incomplete,
those seeking to find further stimulation from Geertz are urged to peruse the list below.
Select Bibliography
Geertz is an exceptionally prolific writer- however, most of his important articles can be found in compilations (e.g., The
Interpretation of Cultures, Local Knowedge, Available Light), so only books will be listed here.
The Religion of Java, Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1960 .

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rvuruuurr, ur vrre:mge 111 ur vctrrrumrct r-re:;::;, 1 tl!O.).
Peddlers and Princes, Chicago: UniversityofChicago Press, 1963.
Person, Time and Conduct in Bali: An Essay in Cultural Analysis, Yale Southeast Asia Program Cultural Report Series,
No. 14, 1966.
Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and ndonesia, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968.
The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, New York: Basic Books,1973, 2000.
(Editor), Myth, Symbol and Culture, New York: Norton, 1974.
(with Hildred Geertz), Kinship in Bali, Chicago: UniversityofChicago Press, 1975.
(with Hildred Geertzand Lawrence Rosen), Meaning and Order in Moroccan Society, New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1979.
Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth Century Bali, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.
Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, New York: Basic Books, 1983, 2000.
After the Fact: Two Countries, Four Decades, One Anthropologist, Harvard University Press, 1995.
Available Light: Anthropological Reflections on Philosophical Topics, Princeton University Press, 2000.
References:
Geertz, Clifford
1963a Agricultural Involution: the Processes of Ecological Change in Indonesia. Berkeley: UniversityofCalifomia Press.
1963b Peddlers and Princes: Social Change and Economic Modernization in Two Indonesian Towns. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
1968 Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and ndonesia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
1973a Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight. In The Interpretation of Cultures. Pp. 412-453. New York: Basic
Books.
1973b The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.
1973c Person, Time, and Conduct in Bali In The Interpretation of Cultures. Pp. 360-411. New York: Basic Books.
1973d Religion As a Cultural System. In The Interpretation of Cultures. Pp. 87-125. New York: Basic Books.
1973e Ritual and Social Change: A Javanese Example In The nterpretation of Cultures. Pp. 142-169. New York: Basic
Books.
1973f Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture. In The Interpretation of Cultures. Pp. 3-30. New York:
Basic Books.
1980 Negara: The Theatre-State in Nineteenth Century Bali. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
1984 Distinguished Lecture: Anti Anti-Relativism. American Anthropologist 86:263-278.
2000a A Life of Leaming./n Available Light: Anthropological Reflections on Philosophical Topics. Pp. 3-20. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
2000b Preface. In Available Light: Anthropological Reflections on Philosophical Topics. Pp. x-xiv. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
hglis, Fred
2000 Clifford Geertz: Culture, Custom and Ethics. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Richard Wilk's Home Page I Theory Main Webpage
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