PART TWO
Dark Matter and Language
5
The Presupposed Dark Matter of Texts
I believe that for each scholar and each writer, the particular way he or she thinks and writes opens a new outlook on mankind. And the fact that I personally have this idiosyncrasy perhaps entitles me to point to something which is valid, while the way in which my colleagues think opens different outlooks, all of which are equally valid.
CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS, Myth and Meaning: Cracking the Code of Culture
Part 1 of this book laid the foundation for parts 2 and 3. It developed a pedigree of the notion of dark matter, and it offered a new theory of culture as knowledge structures, social roles, and ranked values (among other things). In this second part of the book, we take on the role of dark matter in language: in texts, translation, grammar, and gestures. This first chapter examines the content of texts of different sorts in English and Pirahã, showing how the implicit, unspoken material of texts contains some of the most important dark matter of culture—knowledge and values in particular—and the individual.
Implicit Values in Texts
As we saw in the previous chapter, in spite of their lack of expertise with visual symbols, young US children have arguably even more experience with two-dimensional representations than either adult or nonadult Pirahãs, acquiring emic understanding of two-dimensional representations early on.
There are other forms of emically interpreted experiences. Emicization and apperception are the two “power tools” for systematizing our knowledge about the world around us. We have just seen in the previous chapter that dark matter profoundly affects our ability to perceive the world. Yet it seems to me that dark matter exerts itself most powerfully in our stories. And our stories are fundamental to building our concepts of self and culture. Therefore, in what follows I want to examine texts at differing levels of detail from American and Pirahã culture to bring out the role of dark matter in their storytelling, writing, and interpretation.
To begin slowly, I offer some straightforward comments on an editorial from the Wall Street Journal in 1969 on the Woodstock Festival that marked the high-water point of the 1960s hippie movement. My cultural interpretations are embedded in the text in italic, enclosed in brackets. A story on the same event from the New York Times immediately follows this one. I make no comments on that one because I believe the contrasts between the two texts are clear—striking, in fact—and that the reader familiar with US culture can fill in the dark matter of the second text as I did partially for the first. Of course, an editorial is a type of text whose purpose is to express opinion, whereas a report—the case of the NYT text—is supposed to be more objective. For readers, though, dark matter is created in both cases via implicit values communicated. These texts present two very different sets of value rankings, which we can represent simply for discussion as:
INNOVATION IN VALUES >> STATUS QUO
STATUS QUO >> INNOVATION IN VALUES
Following these two stories, we examine in detail two Pirahã texts: one procedural (how to make an arrow) and the other narrative (about the exploitation of the Pirahãs by the Brazilian river traders that used to ply the Maici River). These were two of the first texts I ever collected from the Pirahãs, in 1978.
Let’s consider, then, the Wall Street Journal report on Woodstock, from August 1969. Most of the values embedded in the narrative are easy to discover, though I want to point them out for discussion anyway because we often fail to register such implicit information. In comments on other texts in this chapter, I focus on dark matter knowledge. Here I focus on values in texts. Imagine the potential effect of reading such stories as part of a newspaper one reads on a regular basis over time—reading them passively, perhaps, while sipping coffee at the breakfast table or on the train or bus to work. Their effect could be largely subliminal, reinforced with every story that assumes similar values, which is the case of particular newspapers, the WSJ being a voice of conservatism and the Times speaking for liberalism. We begin with an examination of the dark matter in the WSJ report on Woodstock.
By Squalor Possessed
Wall Street Journal, August 28, 1969, 6
The so-called [The author denies by this phrase the reality of the claim.] generation gap is not really so much a matter of age as it is a gap between more civilized and less civilized tastes. [“Civilized” is a strong value judgment. It is vague, unanchored, and unspecified, but equates the Woodstock participants with barbarians.] As such, it may be more serious, both culturally and politically, than it first appeared. [The original coinage of the term “generation gap” referred to a lack of communication, a change in values, a shift in culture. Talk of civilization making the phrase more “serious” indicates that the author sees this as a decline in the quality of life, a weakening of civilization.]
Starting with the relatively small hippie movement several years ago, the drug-sex-rock-squalor “culture” [The author manages to denigrate even the word “culture” in this line, placing it in scare quotes. He then equates this culture with drugs, sex, rock, and squalor. He doesn’t ask whether the squalor—and there was some at Woodstock—was the result of the hygiene of the participants or the poor planning and failure of the organizers of Woodstock to anticipate the huge crowds. If the latter, then there is no value of squalor shared by all attendees. Everyone is sorry for it and would rather avoid it. Are soldiers living in squalor in combat to be equally denounced? Is such forbearance even admirable or courageous? Notice that no evidence for any assertion has yet been given.] now permeates colleges and high schools. When 300,000 or 400,000 young people, most apparently from middle-class homes, [Apparently coming from middle-class homes indicates something negative, such as that they “should have known better” or, more likely, that these hippies are “spoiled” or pampered. But in fact, the author offers no evidence whatsoever for the claim that the participants come from any particular social class.] can gather at a single rock festival in New York State, it is plainly a phenomenon of considerable size and significance.
We would not want to exaggerate. Probably a goodly number will grow out of it, in the old-fashioned phrase. On campus, the anti-radicals [Why think the hippies are radicals? Their politics? Their dress? This is not explained, merely used as a scary word. And aren’t the opposite of radicals usually taken to be “reactionaries?” Why not call the anti-radicals reactionaries?] seem to be gaining strength, and it may well be that these more conservative youngsters will be the people who will be moving America in the future. [“More conservative” apparently is intended to be a positive value judgment.]
But that prospect is by no means certain enough to encourage complacency. [By “complacency” the author seems to indicate that there is clearly something we should be worried about and taking action on, not merely reading the news about. These Woodstock people represent a problem.] For various reasons it is being suggested that many rebels will not abandon their “life-styles” (the clichés in this field!) [This rejection of a new term seems to imply that variation from the norm is not a “style” but a movement of anti-civilization, as per above. It is most certainly a negative judgement in content. And orthographically it is also sarcastic, with the use of the scare quotes around “life-styles.”] and that there are enough of them to assume some of the levers of power [something we should be concerned about, apparently] in the future American society. It would be a curious America if the unwashed, [a double-entendre—meaning both unworthy and dirty] more or less permanently stoned [What observation could justify this statement? What percentage of Woodstock participants were high—and how high—for what percentage of the festival? And why would we think that they would replicate their festival behavior in the workplace? This is again a value judgement based on the author’s personal taste, not research.] on pot or LSD, were running very many things. [Where does the evidence emerge that people were permanently stoned? The fact that they may have been stoned off and on
during the festival is translated into “permanently” via dark matter values. Of course, now the “Woodstock Generation” is running everything.] Even if the trend merely continues among young people in the years ahead, it will be at best a culturally poorer America and maybe a politically degenerated America. [What values bad for the culture or country do these hippies hold? Again, this is unanchored value judgment with no evidence, no quantification at all.]
Now taste is that amorphous quality about which one is not supposed to dispute, [But in merely saying this, once again the author expresses a negative judgment.] so we won’t argue whether rock is a debased form of music; we don’t like it, but never mind. [By selecting this form of the statement, the author’s opinion is expressed but there is no need to defend it.] Without pursuing that argument, it is possible, we think, to say a couple of things quite categorically [The author believes that knowledge is a matter of certainty.] about rock and related manifestations. [The author, like most of us, sees values as part of a network. With this I agree.]
One is that a preference for a particular kind of music is not necessarily a matter of age. [Here the author denies that ages can have their own cultures. Simultaneously he claims that there is no generation gap but, rather, a “taste gap”—he again offers a value judgment.] In times past many young people were drawn to classical music and retained that taste as they grew older. Today the young’s addiction to rock is at the same time a rejection of classical and the more subdued types of popular music, and considering the way rock is presented it must be counted a step down on culture’s ladder. [There is no evidence provided for the assertion that rock is worse than classical music, which is what this assertion is intended to convey. One could have argued, for example, that classical music is more complex than rock. But if that makes it better, jazz might even be superior to classical; Miles Davis could arguably be compared in talent to Mozart. Thus there is no attempt to argue—merely, again, to assert a value judgement.]
That is our second point: The orgiastic [The author first assumes that orgies are bad. Why? Second, the author asserts something similar to the claim that the movements, body postures, screaming, etc., are not music or dance so much as lack of proper sexual inhibitions.] presentation on the part of some of the best-known groups. It is not prudish, we take it, [Meaning: “Wouldn’t it be silly to criticize me for what I am about to say?”] to suggest that a certain amount of restraint [What kind of restraint? Are you sure that conductors of symphonies are not orgiastic in their movements at times? This is simply another value judgment.] is appropriate in these matters. But then, the whole “life-style” of many of the performers is incredible—disgusting or pitiful or both, but certainly hoggish. [more unanchored value judgments]
[From this point in the text, I make no more comments. It should be clear that both the remainder of this text and the next are (like all texts) chock-a-block with value judgments.]
The same applies to public sex in the audience, also in evidence at the mammoth Woodstock festival. It is not necessary to be a Puritan to say that such displays are regressive from the point of view of civilization. As for the ubiquitous drugs—well, we guess on that score we feel more sorry for the kids than anything else.
What perhaps gets us most is the infatuation with squalor, the slovenly clothes and the dirt; at Woodstock they were literally wallowing in mud. How anybody of any age can want that passes our understanding. Again, though, it’s not a question of age. A person doesn’t have to be young to be a hobo. He does, however, have to have certain tastes and values (or non-tastes and non-values) which are not generally regarded as being of a civilizing nature.
Now we are aware of all the cant about how these young people are rejecting traditional tastes and values because society has bitterly disappointed them, and we would be the last to deny the faults in contemporary society. It is nonetheless true that their anarchic approach holds no hope at all.
They won’t listen, but if they, and some of the unduly sympathetic adults around, would listen, here are some words worth hearing. They occur in a speech by Professor Lawrence Lee to a social fraternity at the University of Pittsburgh, quoted in National Review:
“You have been told, and you have come to believe, that you are the brightest of generations . . . You are, rather, one of the most self-centered, self-pitying, confused generations . . .
“The generation gap is one of the delusions of your generation—and to some men of my generation . . . The only generation gap is that we have lived longer, we know more than you do from having lived, and we are so far ahead of you that it will take you a lifetime to have the same relative knowledge and wisdom. You had better learn from us while you can . . .
“It is not mawkish to love one’s country. The country, with all of its agony and all of its faults, is still the most generous and the most open society on earth . . . All generations need the help of all others. Ours is asking yours to be men rather than children, before some frightened tyrant with the aid of other frightened and ignorant men seeks to make all of us slaves in reaction to your irresponsibility.”
In any event, opting for physical, intellectual and cultural squalor seems an odd way to advance civilization.
Well, we know now not only about this writer’s (professed) values, but also about the values he assumes will resonate with the larger readership of the WSJ, a culture in its own right. The New York Times text, as a report rather than an editorial, presents more numbers and actual facts than the Journal. Still, that reporter chose not to comment on some of the more prurient aspects of Woodstock that so exorcised the Wall Street Journal (e.g. “public sex,” etc.). This means that dark matter also guided his focus, as it guided the WSJ editorial.
In other words, values are also shown in the foci of the separate texts, as well as in their words. That is, dark matter values are also seen in the answers to questions like “What did they choose to write about what they did?” It is like a cameraman who sees a naked woman in one corner of a room and a man giving a lecture in another. Which will he turn his camera onto if he has to choose? And what values does the choice reveal? I reproduce here only a small portion of the original report, as the lesson emerges quickly.
200,000 Thronging to Rock Festival Jams Roads Upstate
By Barnard L. Collier, special to the New York Times, August 16, 1969
Bethel, N.Y., Aug 15—A crowd estimated at more than 200,000 poured into this Catskill Mountain hamlet today for a three-day rock and folk music festival, creating massive traffic jams and a potentially serious security problem.
The police reported that an increasing number of cars were being abandoned by motorists on the shoulders of highways as drivers and passengers decided to walk to Bethel. Estimates of the total number of people both at the festival and in the surrounding area were as high as 400,000.
Wes Pomeroy, director of security for the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, who issued the 200,000 figure, warned late afternoon that Bethel should be avoided.
“Great Big Parking Lot”
“Anybody who tries to come here is crazy,” he said. “Sullivan County is a great big parking lot.”
At about midnight, the festival promoters announced that, with their full cooperation, the state police and local authorities would start turning back all cars heading for the fairgrounds. This would primarily affect vehicles attempting to reach Route 17B from the Quickway (Route 17).
A state police official said, “We’re just going to re-route everybody. Sullivan County is filled up.” . . .
. . . The police and the festival’s promoters both expressed amazement that despite the size of the crowd—the largest gathering of its kind ever held—there had been neither violence nor any serious incident.
As a state police lieutenant put it, “There hasn’t been anybody yelling pig at the cops and when they asked directions they are polite and none of them has really given us any trouble yet.” . . .
. . . The security force has be
en augmented by 100 members of the Santa Fe, N.M. Hog Farm Commune, whose members wear colorful clothing, beads and beards, with orange armbands depicting winged pigs perched atop guitar frets.
Sullivan County Sheriff Louis Ratner said today “We don’t want any confrontations,” indicating that the police were not seeking to make mass arrests.
So far there have been about 50 arrests, most of them for possession of such drugs as LSD, barbiturates and amphetamines. The number of arrests could only be estimated, Sheriff Ratner said, because they have been made at various places through the county, and those arrested were arraigned before various judges. . . .
. . . “As far as I know the narcotics guys are not arresting anyone for grass. If we did there isn’t enough space in Sullivan or the next three counties to put them in.” . . .
Scheduled for the first performance, which will run into tomorrow’s early hours, are Joan Baez, Ravi Shankar and Sly and the Family Stone. Tickets for the three-day program cost $18 each. . . .
. . . The directors of the fair, who invested $500,000 in the promotion and organization of the event, reported late today that a fleet of trucks carrying packaged food was en route to Bethel. Meanwhile, free rice kitchens were available to festival visitors. Restaurants in the area are being hard pressed to provide food and service.
Six wells have been dug in the field and water runs continuously from spigots driven down to the water supply. In addition, water tanks have been placed in the parking lots surrounding the farm. Six hundred portable toilets have been brought to the fair site.
As the audience waited for the afternoon performance to begin—it was delayed as workmen struggled to finish outfitting the 80-foot wide stage—it was diverted by strolling musicians, improvised group performances, and debates among long-haired girls and their bearded boy friends. The debate topics included Vietnam, campus disorders and the merits of various music groups. . . .
Dark Matter of the Mind Page 23