What Indonesia - Bali is all about ?

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

Further illustrative of questionable understanding of psychoanalytic theory is Mead's comment about Bali in a letter to John Dollard, psychologist not an ounce of free intelligence and free libido in the whole culture'.Ibis latter statement makes no sense in terms of psychoanalytic libido theory or cognitive theory. Sexual libido is clearly present in the culture. Seductive and sexy dancers (joged) and flirtatious folk songs have been a part of Balinese culture for centuries. The authors observed indications of libido in a youth in Bayung Gede a wall of his sleeping room was decorated with pictures of glamourous and sexy women. In Bayung Gede, the villagers separate children from the parents' room sharply at the age of 3 for which they gave no reason but which presumably was to give the parents some privacy. Mead herself wrote of dancers flirting with members of the orchestra during the performance and of sexual dramas. One possible explanation for Meads comment about the absence of free intelligence and libido is that for Balinese individuals, who have intelligence and libido, as do all human beings according to Freudian theory, the 'outlet' or expression was not free but severely constrained.

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