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Story
of Bali, Indonesia
Bateson
and Mead had only superficial and partly erroneous understanding
of psychoanalytic theory of the era . After two months
at Bayung Gede, Mead wrote : 'I've got my major clues,
I think, on the superego formation and the latency point'
An example of questionable understanding is their discussion
of superego formation the relationship between child
nurse and baby is not of such a kind as would result
in introjections of a personalized superego. The implied
reasons were that 'the baby is treated mostly not as
a person capable of learning by reward and punishment,
but simply as more or less awkward bundle'; and 'for
the Western type of character structure (i.e., superego),
it is surely necessary that there be a great contrast
between (ages of) the two persons the first mason was
unverifiable from the authors' knowledge and observations.
The second reason is not held as valid by theorists
of psychoanalysis: child nurses as young as 6 years
of age can be strong objects of identification and superego
formation.
Many
of the psychological interpretations lack comprehensibility
or are not supportable. Examples are 'the notion that
scrambling for money (in association with funerals)
is a means of eliminating the unclean and the-'identification
of food with feces.
These notions, as Bateson and Mead purported to illustrate
in the photos and associated descriptions, are inconsistent
with meanings held by the Balinese. For example, the
people scrambled for the cash at funerals because they
wanted the money to reuse it, either for ceremonies
or for purchase of goods. The people do not believe
such money has an unclean connotation. This is an illustration
of a common methodological failing of Bateson and Mead
the observation was astute but they applied their own
interpretation to it without regard to and probably,
in ignorance of, the meaning of the behavior to the
Balinese.
The authors found considerable problems in Mead's psychoanalytic
theory oriented interpretation of self-stabbing in the
kris dance: a turning of anger on oneself and an expression
of repressed sexual orgasm. There is little data to
support either as pointed out, the meaning for the Balinese
is entirely different Bateson and Mead confused 'somnambulistic
state' with 'trance'. Strictly defined, the terms refer
to separate states; somnambulism pertains to a sleep-related
state and not to trance or possession
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