Dear
everybody—
Warning: This message is very
long…
Mike wrote in his attached
message,
“I strongly
sympathize with Eugene’s point about the relational nature of
friendship and Clifford’s way of thinking about culture. But how to I think
about a thingless world, personless, no body there, just relations? Not how
even to talk about the absence of
an inside of culture being absent the
duality inside-outside is invoked, or in denying
a
separation between inside and outside,
inside and outside are invoked.
When I contract cancer, there is
something rather inside about what is happening to me. My wife, to be certain,
is affected in many ways that follow the objective laws
of
the external world, our life-long
friendship, her introspections about her past,
present,
and future. She also “feels for me” in a
very literal, not psycho-babble sense. But is
she not there? Could I have a
relationship with her if I had never met her?
(Certainly
I cannot not have a relationship with
her, even if she were to disappear from where she is reading on the couch this
moment, never to return).
…
A rock appears solid and unchanging, but
is not. As Eugene says, its all relational, but
relations with out “things” relating are more than my tiny mind can deal with
except by using all the tools at my disposal to parse reality differently, for
the purposes at hand.”
Mike, I wonder where you read in
my message that I argue for “a thingless world, personless, no body there,
just relations”? It is NOT what I meant. Relationships are not possible
without bodies and things. Relationships are mediated and embedded. And so on…
Let me illustrate the idea that
culture does not have “internal territory”. Ironically my example also
involves a case of cancer.
About seven years ago, my uncle,
who still lives in Russia, was diagnosed with stomach
cancer. However, he was not told about that -- rather he was told that he had
curable ulcer. It is quit a typical practice in Russia (and before in the Soviet Union) not tell a patient about his or her
terminal illness. The doctor usually lies to the patient but tells the truth
to the closest relatives. They lie to the patient to save his or her feelings,
to keep hope, and prevent depression.
When my father, who immigrated to
US and lived in California, told my wife and me about his
brother’s cancer and that his family and his doctor kept the truth about
cancer from my uncle we were very angry. The situation was aggravated by the
fact that the doctor recommended an immediate surgery for cancer before it
could spread, while my uncle thinking that he had ulcer was planning less
radical treatment for his ulcer of going to a southern Russia resort
to drink mineral water. According to the doctor, going to mineral water resort
not only would have postponed the surgery and let the cancer spread but this
particular mineral water in addition to other medicine against ulcer that my
uncle planned to take could have facilitated growth of the cancer tumor. My
wife and I were angry because under this serious threat, neither my uncle’s
wife nor his daughter (my cousin) did not want to tell him truth. They tried
to convince my uncle to undergo “ulcer surgery” and not to go to mineral water
resort. In part, they called my father to elicit his support in convincing my
uncle to undergo the required surgery without telling him the
truth.
My father and my mother were
ambivalent. They acknowledged that it was “stupid” not to tell the truth but
they were not willing to call my uncle and tell it. When I pushed my father,
he said that they were about 70 years old and they did not have time enough
for breakdown their relations. He said that he did not want to lose his
brother because by going against his wife and daughter’s will he would become
enemy number 1. My counterargument was that it would be better to be enemy
number 1 with alive brother than “a good relative” with a dead brother. But
neither I nor my wife could convince my father. So, I told him that I was
going to call myself. My father was reluctantly negative to this
idea…
Meanwhile, during these few days
of the debates, my parents got visitors from East Coast of the
US. My dad’s college friend and his
wife came to visit them. My dad’s friend was also a very close friend of my
uncle since their college time. His wife was a retired medical doctor also
from Russia. His friend was as
ambivalent as my parents but his wife, as a doctor, strongly took our position
that my uncle had to be told the truth. Finally, she decided to call herself
as a compromise with my parents.
She called and told the truth to
my uncle. My uncle immediately agreed to undergo the surgery, which was very
successful. He lives now without cancer but… His wife and daughter have
stopped talking with their friend and his wife. But even more, my uncle has
stopped talking with them as well – they became enemy#1 as my father
predicted. Two years ago when I visited my uncle and his family in
Russia I talked with him (and other
relatives) about that. I also talked with my parents, my brother, and other
relatives in US. Here is the summary of my
conversations:
My US relatives (all immigrants from the Soviet
Union): Russia is an irrational, barbaric,
and backward country. People there are stupid and
selfish.
My Russian relatives: “You [i.e.,
immigrants from Russia] are Americanized” (they did
not use the term “internalization” although J). “You
become very cold, calculative, and arrogant. You calculate everything. You
lost your soul and spirituality (“duchovnost’”). You do not understand us
anymore.”
Talking to my uncle, I said that I
had been planning to call him myself. He said, “I think that you would have
done it differently than my friend’s wife.” I replied that I doubted that I
have done it differently.
But I would like to find an
approach to do it differently! I’m not searching for how to win an argument or
convinced my Russian relatives or make my American relatives and myself more
understanding. I just want to make a circle, a community again… Maybe it is a
utopia but maybe not…
I like Latour’s idea of “ready
made science/truth” in contrast to “science/truth-in-action.” I think my
US and Russian relatives referred
to “ready made cultures” while I’m searching for “culture-in-action.” I’m not
saying that my US and Russian relatives are wrong but I think it is more
useful in the given conditions to find ways of disrupting and redrawing the
socially constructed boundary between our communities than to spend time on
accurate description of the already constructed and stable boundary
constituting these cultures. I also think that Latour’s notion of
interobjectivity can be useful for this purpose.
What do you
think?
Eugene
PS I just talked with my very
close Russian friend on the phone. His mother is very-very sick – she had a
lung and heart problem (I do not know how this disease is called in English).
However, his mother does not know the true diagnosis and prognosis. And my
friend is not going to tell the truth to her. After long debates with me, my
friend replied by almost repeating an old peasant from Luria’s experiment
(about Russian tzar). He said that my truth works well in America and his truth works well in Russia…
My wife’s aunt died of cancer last
March without knowing her true diagnosis. So many of my other Russian
relatives.
-----------------------
Eugene
Matusov,
Ph.D.
Associate Professor of
Education
School of
Education
University of
Delaware
Newark,
DE 19716, USA
http://ematusov.soe.udel.edu
Office:
1-302-831-1266
Fax:
1-302-831-4110
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