Cargo Cults and Discursive Madness.

Cargo Cults and Discursive Madness. ABSTRACT Understood as mimetic mimetic/mi��met��ic/ (mi-met��ik) pertaining to or exhibiting imitation or simulation, as of one disease for another. mi��met��icadj.1. Of or exhibiting mimicry.2. portrayals of the image of unlimited goodprojected by European colonial culture, Melanesian 'cargocults' are therefore viewed as 'irrational' withinindigenous understandings. Consequently, Western anthropologicaldiscourse has sought to functionally normalize normalizeto convert a set of data by, for example, converting them to logarithms or reciprocals so that their previous non-normal distribution is converted to a normal one. and nativize 'cargocult' behaviors at the expense of denying their nonrationalcharacter. The result has been a lexical and semantic uncertainty andexplanatory instability in 'cargo cult' discourse that can beanalyzed as a type of discursive 'madness.' A strategy ofreading the 'madness' of 'cargo cult' discourse isoutlined and applied to key anthropological texts, in particular PeterWorsley's The Trumpet Shall Sound. Ever since F. E. Williams (1979a[1923], 1979b[1934]) characterizedwhat was to be called the 'cargo cult' phenomenon as a kind of'madness,' even though this characterization has been widelychallenged by anthropologists, 'madness' has nonethelesscontinued to haunt 'cargo cult' discourse. Williams'essay was a plea to recognize and preserve the functionality oftraditional ritual, which he viewed as primarily an outlet for emotionswhich, once denied ritual expression, found a liberation in cargo cult cargo cult,native religious movement found in Melanesia and New Guinea, holding that at the millennium the spirits of the dead will return and bring with them cargoes of modern goods for distribution among its adherents. The cult had its beginnings in the 19th cent. 'madness.' Yet in his view this 'madness' bydefinition did not have the same functionality as did traditionalritual. He therefore thought that the useful aspects of'traditional' culture should be preserved while the bad ones,like those manifest in the liminal liminal/lim��i��nal/ (lim��i-n'l) barely perceptible; pertaining to a threshold. lim��i��naladj.Relating to a threshold.liminalbarely perceptible; pertaining to a threshold. dysfunctionality of 'cargocults,' should be done away with. Williams' evolutionist ev��o��lu��tion��ism?n.1. A theory of biological evolution, especially that formulated by Charles Darwin.2. Advocacy of or belief in biological evolution. notion that this deluded, irrationalbehavior would eventually give way to greater rational comprehension wassoon displaced by explanations that focused even more on its functionalutility and cultural sense, which had the advantage of at leastaccounting for why so-called 'cargo cults' never went away.What has been identified (Lutkehaus 1995; Bruner 1986) as atransformation between two literary modes -- from 'narratives ofdecline' to 'narratives of resistance' -- thus took placein anthropology and, as Lindstrom (1993) has shown, what was originallythought strange was thereby culturally and functionally nativized andnormalized. Now often thought of as Melanesians' standard way ofdoing things, it is widely held that 'cargo cults' do notreally exist as discrete phenomena. So-called 'cargo cults' are not only often impossible todistinguish from practical political and economic activities andmovements, the category 'cargo cult' was also clearlyhistorically used to suppress legitimate native endeavors thatthreatened white colonial domination. These findings, however, havecreated something of an impasse: in explaining why cargo cult phenomenadid not go away, 'cargo cult' disappeared as a type ofactivity. Yet fieldworkers continue to encounter the strange behaviorsthat are their hallmark. Recent ethnographers (Leavitt this volume;Whitehouse 1995), for example, report themselves being identified asreturned dead ancestors and associated with millenarian mil��le��nar��i��an?adj.1. Of or relating to a thousand, especially to a thousand years.2. Of, relating to, or believing in the doctrine of the millennium.n.One who believes the millennium will occur. expectations. Itappears as though as soon as anthropologists figured out how to explaincargo cult phenomena, they ceased to exist as phenomena, even thoughthey continue to be discovered. Because of the recurrence of cargo cult type behavior, a certain'madness' therefore continues to inhabit cargo cult discourse.Cargo cult discourse requires the explanatory reduction, forgetting, ordenying of the irreducible irreducible/ir��re��duc��i��ble/ (ir?i-doo��si-b'l) not susceptible to reduction, as a fracture, hernia, or chemical substance. ir��re��duc��i��bleadj.1. irrationality of these millenarian beliefsand behaviors. But as Wagner (1979:164) writes, 'Melanesian"cults" or "movements"' are 'strangelyimpervious to the kind of "argument through dependency" thatour rationalistic outlook fosters.' The Western rationalexplanations that govern cargo cult discourse and the strange irrationalbehavior that defines the 'cargo cult' phenomenon work atcross purposes: one 'explains' through rationalistic argumentswhile the other works at a completely different level through symbolicelicitation or mimetic enactment. Marilyn Strathern Dame Ann Marilyn Strathern, DBE MA, PhD, FBA, (born 6 March 1941) is a British anthropologist, currently William Wyse Professor of Anthropology at Cambridge University and Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge. (1990:33) points outthat 'Melanesians did not have to "make sense" of...[and]were under no compulsion to "explain"' the advent ofEuropeans, which provided its own imagery and context and elicited itsown effects. Thi s behavior therefore continually unsettles, challenges,interrupts, and erupts within the certainty of rational explanation ofthe cargo cult discourse it inhabits, causing this discourse toregularly 'go mad.' In this paper I outline a strategy for reading the 'goingmad' of cargo cult discourse. I first outline a theory orhypothesis regarding the phenomenon of 'cargo cult.' I thenconsider the idea of cultural madness, characterize the general'going mad' of cargo cult discourse, and apply a method ofreading the 'going mad' of cargo cult discourse to a key textin the history of anthropological thinking about cargo cults -- onewhich I greatly admire -- that of Peter Worsley (1968). I do not mean toargue that 'cargo cults' cannot be comprehended, but only thatthey need to be comprehended in a way other than our usual rationalistic'argument through dependency' dictates. I believe we need tounderstand 'cargo cults' as liminal type phenomena thatinclude absurd and unworkable belief and behavior as fundamentalaspects. In the conclusion, I reiterate the view of 'cargocults' that informs this reading of cargo cult discourse andcomment on the shift in thinking that I believe is required tocomprehend cargo cul t phenomena so as to manage the discursive madnessof their explanation. THE PHENOMENON OF 'CARGO CULTS' The term `cargo cult' has generally been used to refer to theemployment of native Melanesian magical-religious, irrational ornon-rational cultural means to obtain and comprehend rational Westerneconomic-political as well as pan-human moral ends. They are consideredto be 'non-rational' not because religion does not functionbut because in the case of 'cargo cult' it does not functionto obtain European economic wealth or political power in any but themost indirect way. While many aspects of this concept can be seen ascolonial and paternalistic pa��ter��nal��ism?n.A policy or practice of treating or governing people in a fatherly manner, especially by providing for their needs without giving them rights or responsibilities. and although it grades easily into otherpolitical and religiously-based social movements This is a partial list of social movements. Abahlali baseMjondolo - South African shack dwellers' movement Animal rights movement Anti-consumerism Anti-war movement Anti-globalization movement Brights movement Civil rights movement , the problem of itsexistence is nonetheless a methodological definitional one. Theexpression 'cargo cult' can be and has been applied tomovements that have prominent magical-religious elements directed towardso-called 'cargo' goals and to those aspects of Melanesiansocial movements that conform to Verb 1. conform to - satisfy a condition or restriction; "Does this paper meet the requirements for the degree?"fit, meetcoordinate - be co-ordinated; "These activities coordinate well" this characterization, as in theexpression 'cargo cult thinking.' The cate gory go��ry?adj. go��ri��er, go��ri��est1. Covered or stained with gore; bloody.2. Full of or characterized by bloodshed and violence. 'cargocult' has thus proven methodologically quite reliable for manydecades. However, its validity has more recently been challenged. While I agree that the idea of 'cargo cult' misconstruesthe phenomenon it addresses, the problem with these challenges is theirsubstitution of functional and cultural rationality for, and theresulting obfuscation of, the irreducible crying irrationality that isthe defining feature and most intriguing aspect of 'cargocult' phenomena, for they have generally been understood asinvolving a disparity between their goals and means. Even those who findfunctional value in them have difficulty imagining how they might enablethe multiplication of money or the political economic displacement ofEuropeans. Rater than entailing a means-ends relationship between theRest and the West, which construes 'cargo cult' as a kind ofreasoning and in terms of rationality, I begin with the proposition that'cargo cult' is a mimetic phenomenon -- a parodic enactment ofparticularly absurd aspects of Western colonial bourgeois culture andthe image of unlimited good it projects. As Wagner (1981:31) If we call such phenomena 'cargo cults,' thenanthropology should perhaps be called a 'culture cult,' forthe Melanesian 'kago' is very much the interpretivecounterpart of our word 'culture.' The words are to someextent 'mirror images' of each other, in the sense that welook at the natives' cargo, their techniques and artifacts, andcall it 'culture,' whereas they look at our culture and callit 'cargo.'... 'Cargo' is practically a parody, areduction of Western notions like profit, wage-labor, and production forits own sake to the terms of tribal society. (my emphasis) As an example of how, from another point of view, mimetic parodydisplaces the category 'cargo cult,' I offer the followingillustration. When the Japanese army arrived on Buka Island inBougainville at the beginning of the Pacific war, a group of villagersproceeded to identify activist factional rivals as 'cargocultists' so that the Japanese would prosecute them. A Japanesemilitary court was unable to prove the charge of 'cargocultism,' however, but it did nonetheless find several of themguilty of being 'Englishmen,' and for that reason put them todeath (Rimoldi and Rimoldi 1992:32-33). It may perhaps be wrong to call this 'parody' because ofthe seriousness of the events to the people involved. It only appears asparody from the perspective of the people whose culture is mimicked.However it is not simply serious behavior either. It is better to thinkof this behavior as mimetic enactment. In such ritual enactments thoseinvolved can be jovial (Jules' Own Version of the International Algebraic Language) An ALGOL-like programming language developed by Systems Development Corp. in the early 1960s and widely used in the military. Its key architect was Jules Schwartz. and sober about their performances and so seriousmimesis mimesis/mi��me��sis/ (mi-me��sis) the simulation of one disease by another.mimet��ic mi��me��sisn.1. The appearance of symptoms of a disease not actually present, often caused by hysteria. can grade into parody or something very close to it.'Cargo' mimetic - parody can entail exaggeration of thebehavior being mimed to the point of recognizing it as being absurd anddysfunctional, i.e. as a behavior whose end is its own enactment. Theremay therefore be a range of 'cargo cult' behaviors from moreserious to much less so. Serious play is involved in all'cult' behavior, sometimes less serious and more playful. It is perhaps difficult to identify the 'cargo cult'phenomenon because it is difficult to see ourselves in the other. Wemight therefore conclude that 'cargo cults' do not actuallyexist, but not in the sense that there is no phenomenon or behavior towhich the term 'cargo cult' can be applied, but in the sensethat it defies or at the very least severely complicates the objectiverelation necessary for scientific comprehension and explanation becausethe behavior to which it refers is a type of mimicry mimicry,in biology, the advantageous resemblance of one species to another, often unrelated, species or to a feature of its own environment. (When the latter results from pigmentation it is classed as protective coloration. or even parody andthus perhaps disavowal dis��a��vow?tr.v. dis��a��vowed, dis��a��vow��ing, dis��a��vowsTo disclaim knowledge of, responsibility for, or association with. of European colonial bourgeois culture.Therefore, to investigate the 'cargo cult' phenomenon entailsstudying not only scientific phenomena but also ourselves as subjects:Western rational ideals governing the European enlightenment quest toharness, predict, and control the forces of nature and to obtainobjective scientific truth are in part the theme of Melanesian'cargo cult' mimesis. Mimetic behavior has long been noted in anthropological discussionsof 'cargo cults': from E E. Williams ((1979a[1923]:343 etpassim PASSIM - A simulation language based on Pascal.["PASSIM: A Discrete-Event Simulation Package for Pascal", D.H Uyeno et al, Simulation 35(6):183-190 (Dec 1980)]. .) to Burridge (1960:38, 160, 190, 203), Worsley (1968:251), andmore recently Errington and Gewertz (1995), hardly an ethnographer hasindeed failed to note the emulation of Europeans in 'cults.'Jarvie (19 64:65) noted that '[a]ll the cults borrow Europeanrituals of one sort or another - both secular and religious. This may bea matter of definition in that we only recognize as cargo cults thosewhich are borrowing from European rituals.' While Williams andothers considered this aspect of 'cults' pathological, evendubbing these behaviors 'pathomimetic' (Schwartz1976:184-186), Williams (1979a[l923]:344, 351) also found them to be'almost comic and 'sometimes amusing,' and others havegenerally considered this aspect of 'cultic' behavior to beits inconsequential 'symbolic' side (e.g. Worsley 1968:251),representative of some more significant and specific goal. Mimesis, much less parody, has thus not been a central component inthe explanation or interpretation of so-called 'cargo cults'(but see Errington and Gewertz 1995) and has instead been passed overfor rational, functional, meaningful strategies and goals wherebyEuropean emulation is considered to be the irrational component of the'cult' behavior being explained away. However, more recently,enactment and emulation have come to be theorized in the study ofMelanesian cultures as a mode of knowledge and power. Wagner (1986:216)finds in Barok culture that cultural perception and imagery 'mustbe experienced in order to be understood, and the experience of itseffect is at once its meaning and its power. To achieve such anexperience is to attain power.' This mimetic means of knowledge andpower, moreover, has also recently been theorized in relation tocolonial experience (Bhabha 1994; Guha 1983; Keesing 1992; Taussig 1993;Thomas 1991, 1994) and applied to 'cargo cult' (Errington andGewertz 1995; Lattas 1992, this session). To make mimesis the central component in understanding so-called'cargo cult' behavior brings us closer to native conceptionsand modes of power-knowledge and obviates the functional rationalutility governing 'cargo cult' discourse. It thus addressesprecisely the strange irrationality that has been the definingcharacteristic of 'cargo cult' and compelled its Westernrational explanation. To thoroughly theorize the��o��rize?v. the��o��rized, the��o��riz��ing, the��o��riz��esv.intr.To formulate theories or a theory; speculate.v.tr.To propose a theory about. mimesis also requires us tocomprehend ourselves and Western rational discourse from another pointof view. In this view, 'cargo cult' is the parodic mimeticenactment of an impossibility in indigenous understanding which Westerncolonial culture assumes and projects. Melanesian cultures generally seethemselves as fundamentally cursed with Adj. 1. cursed with - burdened with; "stuck with the tab"stuck withcursed, curst - deserving a curse; sometimes used as an intensifier; "villagers shun the area believing it to be cursed"; "cursed with four daughter"; "not a cursed drop"; "his cursed mortality and finitude fin��i��tude?n.The quality or condition of being finite.Noun 1. finitude - the quality of being finiteboundedness, finiteness , andinfinitely displaced from a primordial unity and origin. Among Rawaspeakers -- the case I know best -- this condition of contingency andfinitude leads them to consciously live within an irresolveableexistential paradox (among others ) between sharing, giving,expenditure, and mortal sacrifice in the domestic household, on the onehand, and external exchange, separation, competition, and mortalconflict, on the other. Given this self-understanding, the image posited and presented byWestern European colonial bourgeois culture of unlimited good and theability to grasp the infinite origins and complexities and therebyharness, predict and control the forces of nature, defies thisMelanesian understanding of the human condition. In a colonialsituation, moreover, Europeans typically represent themselves, both toothers and to themselves, as possessing and enjoying material abundancebecause of the superior rational technical mastery of nature bestowedupon them by their Christian creator, which is their burden and manifestdestiny manifest destiny,belief held by many Americans in the 1840s that the United States was destined to expand across the continent, by force, as used against Native Americans, if necessary. to bring to native peoples, rather than their capitalistapartheid system entailing gross economic exploitation of indigenouslabor and resources. So-called 'cargo cults' can therefore be seen asindigenous Melanesian enactments, in native terms, of this European'rationality,' and the particularly irrational behaviors thatare the hallmark of 'cargo cult' behavior can be analyzed asthe incisive mimetic working out of the absurd inanity in��an��i��ty?n. pl. in��an��i��ties1. The condition or quality of being inane.2. Something empty of meaning or sense.Noun 1. of this conceptof European colonial bourgeois privilege. Melanesian enactments do notconstitute 'madness' so much as the behavior they mime does.In Melanesian 'cargo cults,' villagers typically act as thoughthey had died and gone to heaven, reunited with ancestors and theinfinitely displaced creative origin of growth and increase, thereforegiving and sharing profusely pro��fuse?adj.1. Plentiful; copious.2. Giving or given freely and abundantly; extravagant: were profuse in their compliments. and enjoying unlimited goods and returns,free from conflict and contradiction by virtue of having grasped theinfinite origin, and having thus arrived at the end of time and historyand the final unity of the sensible and intelligible, thereby obviatingthe need to labor in gardens, to engage in external exchange, and tofollow a variety of taboos designed to ensure domestic life and containthe inevitable contradictions and conflicts resulting from humanfinitude. This includes forgoing many sexual taboos, especially assexual substances embody the origin of growth and fecundity fecundity/fe��cun��di��ty/ (fe-kun��dit-e)1. in demography, the physiological ability to reproduce, as opposed to fertility.2. ability to produce offspring rapidly and in large numbers. . Alternatively, 'cults' also institute new regimentations,labors, taboos, and sexual regulations as though, instead of havingarrived at an infinite origin that obliviates all difference, absolutelyeverything is rendered countable and is enumerated, accounted for, andperfectly regulated. Either way, conflict and difference are overcomeand rendered superfluous, infinite productive capacities are liberated,and endless returns realized. The achievement of this state oftenincludes Melanesians employing various European technologies,organizations, and tidy appearances supposedly tantamount to the graspof infinite origins. The Melanesian 'cargo cult' can thus be viewed as aparticularly incisive serious mimetic parody of the supposed conflictand guilt free, justified and rationalized happy European colonialbourgeois existence which allows many Europeans both to supposedly dogood and to do well, and to thus 'get to heaven economically'(Derrida 1992). This view requires a theory and analytic of mimesis inrelation to power and rationality: it is predicated on the understandingof mimesis and physical enactment as a basic human way of knowing - ofknowledge and power - more fundamental and prior to rational knowledge;and it involves an analysis of a rationally construed colonial ideologyin which rationality becomes rationalization, entailing a'cognitive incapacity' (Appiah 1992:14) and so utterly failingits own avowed a��vow?tr.v. a��vowed, a��vow��ing, a��vows1. To acknowledge openly, boldly, and unashamedly; confess: avow guilt.See Synonyms at acknowledge.2. To state positively. purpose, which the most irrational elements of cargocults spontaneously discover. We might also consider that, faced with arationalist ideology that so steadfastly refuses to recognize rationalcounter-arg uments and counter-factuals, parodic mimesis is the onlymeans of comprehending and disputing it. In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke"put differently , mimetic parodyis both a basic Melanesian mode of knowledge-power and compelled byWestern rationalism. 'CARGO CULT' AND DISCURSIVE MADNESS The 'madness' within cargo cult discourse has been notedbefore. Jarvie (1964) went so far as to characterizeanthropologists' uncritical belief in the efficacy of functionalist func��tion��al��ism?n.1. The doctrine that the function of an object should determine its design and materials.2. A doctrine stressing purpose, practicality, and utility.3. method to arrive at scientific truth as itself like irrationalMelanesian cargo cult doctrine. When McDowell (1988) applied to'cargo cult' Levi-Strauss' (1963:1) analogy betweentotemism totemismComplex of ideas and practices based on the belief in kinship or mystical relationship between a group (or individual) and a natural object, such as an animal or plant. The term derives from the Ojibwa word ototeman, signifying a blood relationship. and hysterical disorders, whose 'symptoms themselvesvanish or appear refractory to any unifying interpretation' themoment one identifies their diagnostic signs, hysteria was shown toconfound and afflict af��flict?tr.v. af��flict��ed, af��flict��ing, af��flictsTo inflict grievous physical or mental suffering on.[Middle English afflighten, from afflight, cargo cult discourse. Levi-Strauss went on toidentify totemism as simply an example of the way archaic peoplesclassify the world, and anthropologists proceeded to view cargo cults asthe way Melanesians normally view change. However, if we take thisnon-fortuitous analogy between hysteria and cargo cults more seriously,it is necessary to consider them as both genuine disturbances, asfunctions and refractions of external circumstances, and thus as signsof actual social pathology. Because, as Levi-Strauss points out, hysterical symptoms dissipatethe moment they are perceived as a syndrome, thus presenting a falseunity, the disturbance they indicate must be understood as an externalimpingement whose origin is not within but without - a kind of'possession.' As with Martin's (1987) analysis ofpre-menstrual syndrome, which she shows is an expression of normalinnate feminine creativity compelled and rendered'pathological' by the patriarchal discipline of the industrialworkplace, hysteria depends upon social context for its false identityand pathology. For many French feminist theorists (Cixous 1986:99;Cornell 1991; Dane 1994; Diamond 1990; Grosz grosz?n. pl. gro��szySee Table at currency.[Polish, from Czech gro 1994:157-159; Irigaray1985), hysteria represents an arrested corporeal Possessing a physical nature; having an objective, tangible existence; being capable of perception by touch and sight.Under Common Law, corporeal hereditaments are physical objects encompassed in land, including the land itself and any tangible object on it, that can be mimetic presentation ofunutterable feminine desires that cannot be articulated within theconstraints of a patriarchal symbolic language (1) A programming language that uses symbols, or mnemonics, for expressing operations and operands. All modern programming languages are symbolic languages.(2) A language that manipulates symbols rather than numbers. See list processing. , and thus the suprememeans of female expression. As Irigaray (1985:136-137 original emphasis)describes it in one interview: Hysteria: it speaks in the mode of a paralyzed gestural faculty, ofan impossible and also forbidden speech.... It speaks as symptoms of an'it can't speak to or about itself'.... And the drama ofhysteria is that it is inserted schizotically between that gesturalsystem, that desire paralyzed and enclosed within its body, and alanguage that it has learned in the family, in school, in society, whichis in no way continuous with - nor, certainly, a metaphor for - the'movements' of its desire. Both mutism MutismDefinitionMutism is a rare childhood condition characterized by a consistent failure to speak in situations where talking is expected. The child has the ability to converse normally, and does so, for example, in the home, but consistently fails and mimicry are thenleft to hysteria. Hysteria is silent and at the same time it mimes. And- how could it be otherwise - miming/reproducing a language that is notits own, masculine language, it caricatures and deforms that language:it 'lies', it 'deceives', as women have always beenreputed to do. Wagner (1981) explains how hysteria is the conventional inversionin tribal society of the relation between the realm of human activityand artifice ar��ti��fice?n.1. An artful or crafty expedient; a stratagem. See Synonyms at wile.2. Subtle but base deception; trickery.3. Cleverness or skill; ingenuity. - that of shameless creative improvisation - and thediscovery and experience of the 'innate' moral human self orsoul that it precipitates: hysteria is the deliberate creative inventionof the 'innate' collectivizing moral self and is thereforeexperienced and perceived as 'soul loss' and'possession' by external forces. In Wagner's account,with the rise of the European bourgeoisie, Western society articulateditself as rational principle - as the enlightenment quest to harness,predict, and control 'nature' - in opposition to thespontaneity and creativity of the lower classes, women, and colonialothers, who provided its motivating resistance. Cases of middle classhysteria were cured with scientific rationality: Freud took patientswith hysterical symptoms and trained them to be compulsive neuroticslike himself (Wagner 1981:131). The Western bourgeoisie and its Others thus 'act atcross-purposes,' each providing the motivating resistance of theother: 'Because they have different aims, each perceives theactions of the other as motivational "resistance," spurring iton to greater efforts,' including, for Melanesians,"'cargo cults" raised against the imposition of alienideas' (Wagner 1981:127). The 'madness' of 'cargocults' and of cargo cult discourse can therefore be seen as highlymotivated and exaggerated, externally elicited and provoked mimetichysterical enactments on the part of the 'cultists,' and ahighly motivated and exaggerated neurotic obsessive-compulsive disorderon the part of Western rationalists, on the one hand promptingincreasing mimetic parody and, on the other compelling ever greaterrational comprehension and control. [1] Both of these 'madnesses' can be found to inhabit cargocult discourse. On the one hand, this discourse is characterized andguided by an obsessive compulsion to fill in an empty 'discursivespace' created in the colonial encounter with a myriad of culturalcategories and determinations, and to continue to locate and explainwhat has supposedly already been identified and accounted for. On theother hand, the resulting string of explanations alternately denies andreformulates the potential of 'cargo cult' to be explained,identified, and even its existence. The compulsion to comprehend thesupposed 'cargo cult' object is motivated by the resistancethat thus manifests itself in what can be seen as eruptions of madness,parody, irrationality, and hysterical mimicry within the rationality ofcargo cult discourse, effecting more linguistic and lexical uncertainty.As with the 'certain aphasiacs' which preface Foucault's(1970) assessment of the human sciences, who continually arrange andrearrange endless sets of incongruous and heterotopic heterotopicpertaining to heterotopia. categories and soundermine the possibility of a stable, coherent syntactic order ofthings, this uncertainty calls into question the possible utopic unityof a consistent explanation. The problem with 'cargo cult' explanation can be relatedto the syntactic problems that Jakobson (1971a, 1971b, 1971c, 1971d)identifies with two types of linguistic aphasia aphasia(əfā`zhə), language disturbance caused by a lesion of the brain, making an individual partially or totally impaired in his ability to speak, write, or comprehend the meaning of spoken or written words. . The aphasiacs to whomFoucault referred Jakobson described as having a linguistic'similarity disorder' or impairment of the ability to freelyselect and substitute words. The construction of stable categories, theinternal manipulation of linguistic code, the use of metaphor, and theuse of metalanguage depend on this ability. Bateson (1972) showed howthe inability to employ metalanguage can be related to the double-bindsituation which leads to schizophrenia. We might therefore suppose thatthe double-binds in which colonial powers put their subjects cause thistype of aphasia. Like hysterics hysterics/hys��ter��ics/ (his-ter��iks) popular term for an uncontrollable emotional outburst. , people afflicted with 'similaritydisorder' rely upon external context and relations of contiguity contiguity/con��ti��gu��i��ty/ (kon?ti-gu��i-te) contact or close proximity. con��ti��gu��i��tyn.The state of being contiguous. tocreate communicative constructs, which can thus be related to mimeticexpressions. The complementary type of aphasia Jakobson described as alinguistic 'contiguity disorder' or impairment of the abilityto freely combine words into larger contexts and syntactic relations.The interpretation of messages and construction of logical propositionsdepends upon this ability. This person instead relies upon similarityand substitutions within a highly delimited context to communicate. Thistype of linguistic disturbance can therefore be related to the neuroticcompulsion to articulate a single rational principle and perspective andparticular set of categories and delimited contexts to harness, predict,and control the forces of 'nature,' properly construe construev. to determine the meaning of the words of a written document, statute or legal decision, based upon rules of legal interpretation as well as normal meanings. theorder of 'things,' and thus govern the world. This type oflinguistic disturbance tends to characterize Western 'cargocult' discourse although, as already noted, this discourse can alsobe seen to be continually interrupted by substitution disorders as well. THE 'GOING MAD' OF 'CARGO CULT' DISCOURSE These linguistic lexical disturbances may be seen to characterizethe entire anthropological discourse on 'cargo cult.' Taken asa whole, the discourse on 'cargo cult' is characterized,first, by an amazing proliferation of texts and ideas, evincingseemingly illimitable theoretical deliberation on the topic of'cargo cult.' In addition, in spite of some very strongtendencies towards wholly clarifying and normalizing 'cargocult' within a kind of neo-evolutionary functional paradigm,particularly in several excellent, high-quality, now classic accounts(Worsley 1968 [1957]; Burridge 1960; Lawrence 1964), this discourse isnevertheless distinguished by a series of formulations andreformulations regarding the identity and explanation of the 'cargocult' phenomenon. While some theoretical reformulations are offered as criticalimprovements over previous views, and thus as purveyors of intellectualand scientific progress, in the best and most classic accountsalternative views and explanations are instead merged and harmonized har��mo��nize?v. har��mo��nized, har��mo��niz��ing, har��mo��niz��esv.tr.1. To bring or come into agreement or harmony. See Synonyms at agree.2. Music To provide harmony for (a melody). ,each view or interpretation offered as accounting for a different aspectof the complex phenomenon of 'cargo cult.' There is thuslittle polemic among diverse views. As Jarvie (1964:159-160) noted inhis critical assessment of 'cargo cult' theories, In the normal course of the publication of learned journals onewould have expected articles proposing theories, other articlesconfuting con��fute?tr.v. con��fut��ed, con��fut��ing, con��futes1. To prove to be wrong or in error; refute decisively.2. Obsolete To confound. them and proposing alternatives to have appeared as thequarterly issues succeeded one another. This is the usual way in whichprogress in deepening and extending knowledge is achieved in academicsubjects. Nothing much like this has happened in the case of cargocults. ... It seems as though a tacit anti-polemical conventiondiscourages explicitness about who and what is under attack. However, despite this strong centralizing strain towards anormalized discourse regarding the politically sensitive topic of'cargo cult,' the continual reformulations regarding the topicof 'cargo cult' ofttimes punctuate punc��tu��ate?v. punc��tu��at��ed, punc��tu��at��ing, punc��tu��atesv.tr.1. To provide (a text) with punctuation marks.2. this normalizing discourseas a series of eruptions which question its sense, explainability,unity, and existence. Indeed even before being labeled 'cargocult,' Williams' (1979a[1923]) account of the 'VailalaMadness' seemed to erupt within the orderliness, control, andrational purpose of the Australian colonial regime. As Lattas (1992:3)wrote nearly seventy years later, 'Cargo cults are movements wherewhites lose control of their ability to police and direct the desires oftheir subjects.' And as Wagner (1981) makes clear,'cults' therefore motivate their Western rationalcomprehension as well as colonial repression. Where these Melanesian movements were first understood as a type of'madness,' however, as their identity as 'cargocult' was being formulated, the explanatory emphasis shifted towardthe West and away from the Rest when they precipitated a kind of'madness' in the expatriate community that was argued in thePacific Islands Monthly (see Lindstrom 1993:15-33). Planters blamed thesuspect unpatriotic sympathies and religious irrationality ofmissionaries for outbreaks of native 'cults,' missionariesblamed the harsh treatment of natives by the colonial planters andgovernment officers, and colonial government officials blamed theirliberal rivals in the Australian government. Following this colonialfolly, anthropologists were able to formulate the phenomenon of'cargo cult' and explain it within a functional paradigm byextending Williams' functional analysis of native ritual whiletaking exception to his colonial, implicitly evolutionary,characterization of the movements as native 'madness,'demonstrating in stead that they functioned nearly as well as Williamsthought indigenous rituals did. It was not long, however, before Inglis (1957, 1959) questionedwhether it was possible for anthropologists to arrive at an explanationof 'cargo cults,' and Jarvie (1963, 1964) criticized thefunctionalist method of explaining of 'cargo cults.' Thesecriticisms did not go very far, however, in part because Jarvie directedhis criticisms against Inglis and attempted to reaffirm an evolutionaryview, and also perhaps because the major classic synthetic accounts of'cults' (Worsley 1968 [1957]; Burridge 1960; Lawrence 1964)were being conceived about the same time, effectively contradictingthese critical claims. Inglis was only answered by Stanner (1958) andJarvie (1964:121), and Jarvie's only rejoinder The answer made by a defendant in the second stage of Common-Law Pleading that rebuts or denies the assertions made in the plaintiff's replication.The rejoinder allows a defendant to present a more responsive and specific statement challenging the allegations made came from Worsley(1968) who, while denying Jarvie's characterization of him as an'economic determinist,' nonetheless accepted the major thrustof Jarvie's criticisms, incorporating them within his owntheoretical synthesis. A decade later, Wagner (1981 [1975], 1979) argued that 'cargocult' is intrinsically refractory to Western rational explanationand motivated by Western bourgeois rational colonial ordered principle.Soon thereafter, McDowell (1985, 1988) questioned the very existence ofthe category 'cargo cult,' Buck (1989, 1991) similarlypointedly argued that 'cargo cult' is a Western colonialcategory that serves to blame indigenous peoples for their ownunderdevelopment, and then Lindstrom (1993) located the impetus of'cargo cult' in desire emanating from the West. Theseeruptions thus issued with increasing frequency in the history of'cargo cult' discourse, challenging the prevailing tendency todevelop a coherent synthetic explanatory framework. Although they diverge in significant ways, these contributionsshare a critical family resemblance and coalesce into a kind ofanti-colonial intellectual mode which has been increasingly employed andaccepted in discussions of 'cargo cult' (e.g. Kaplan 1995;Lattas 1992; Otto 1992). Nevertheless, the destruction of the category'cargo cult' tends to support an interpretation of'social movement' that reinforces explanations based on itssocial and political utility, and precludes the critical self-reflectionand examination of Western culture and social scientific rationalismthat discussions which understand 'cargo cult' to be aphenomenon emanating from the West necessitate (Wagner 1979, 1981;Lindstrom 1993). 'Cargo cult' discourse thus finds itself inthe impasse outlined at the beginning of this paper and being consideredin this volume. These irruptions of irrationality within 'cargo cult'discourse are evidence of a type of 'aporetic' experience,that is, the experience of crossing an invisible boundary governing acertain form of discourse that depends upon the impermeability im��per��me��a��ble?adj.Impossible to permeate: an impermeable membrane; an impermeable border.im��per of thisboundary (Derrida 1993). Here, the boundary prevents a certain depth ofcritical self-reflection on Western cultural precepts whose inspectionthreatens to undermine the utopic ordered syntax of consciouslyarticulated rational principle. This experience suggests that thephenomenon in question, 'cargo cult,' is a logicalimpossibility a condition or statement involving contradiction or absurdity; as, that a thing can be and not be at the same time. See Principle of Contradiction, under Contradiction.See also: Impossibility whose explanation and location is similarly fallacious,like 'looking for noon at two o'clock' (Derrida 1992),and that this illogical aim is, as Lindstrom suggests, a kind of desireemanating from the West. In other words, it suggests that what needs tobe examined to comprehend 'cargo cult' is the Western idea ofit, the Western compulsion to explain it and, moreover, theirrationality of the Western views Melanesians mimic i n what appears tobe 'cargo cult' type behavior, which includes 'cargocult' discourse. The so-called 'cargo cult' parodies andmimes the Western aim or telos to perfectly grasp natural forces andphenomena and to thereby comprehend infinity and generate endlesseconomic returns, the Christian bourgeois illusion of earthly salvationand social moral perfection, and the modernist utopic Westernphilosophical fantasy of reaching the end of time and history. LikeMelanesians' giving and sharing within the domestic household orthe gift without return, whose infinite expenditure engenders meaningfuldeath, and like the theory of the gift which attempts to account for andthus calculate the incalculable in��cal��cu��la��ble?adj.1. a. Impossible to calculate: a mass of incalculable figures.b. Too great to be calculated or reckoned: incalculable wealth. infinite expenditure of the gift(Derrida 1992), 'cargo cult' enthusiasts act in what Turner(1982) called the subjunctive subjunctive:see mood. 'as if' mood as though they hadgrasped infinity, engendered endless returns, and reached the end ofhistoric time. The theory of 'cargo cult' attempts to accountfor and so calculate this inca lculable infinite return at the end ofhistory. In this way, Melanesian gift exchange and 'cargocult' are precise opposites: gifts calculate atopic atopic/atop��ic/ (a-top��ik) (ah-top��ik)1. ectopic.2. pertaining to atopy; allergic.atopic1. displaced; ectopic.2. pertaining to atopy. infiniteexpenditures and the 'cargo cult' utopic infinite returns.Both thus explain, account for, and so calculate the incalculableinfinite expenditure or return, and thus account for an impossibility,irreality, and non-existent entity. This latter impossibility, however,is the implicit worldview world��view?n. In both senses also called Weltanschauung.1. The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world.2. A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group. of the Western bourgeiosie mimed byMelanesians. Western 'cargo cult' discourse thus finds itselfexplaining an irreality. Because 'cargo cult' theory attempts to account for anabsolute impossibility, the best of classic comprehensive theoreticalsyntheses are led to rely on the most abstract concepts possible toexplain 'cargo cult.' While the extensive detailed accountsthese authors supply make clear what they mean by these concepts, theyare nevertheless difficult to operationalize and have other difficultieswhich reflect the irreality of 'cargo cult.' For example, Worsley's (1968:xlii) central characterization of'cargo cult' activities as 'movements of thedisinherited' lumps 'cargo cult' together with otherpolitical, social, and religious movements among colonized peoplesaround the globe, and so not only cannot account for the unique aspectsof Melanesian 'cargo cult,' but also exists at such anabstract level that it leads one to question the integrity of thesemovements as a coherent phenomenon. The abstract and ubiquitous natureof this notion is testimony to the irreality driving 'cargocult' behavior and its discursive consideration. Lawrence's (1964:222-223) explanation of 'cargocult' as a 'rudimentary form of revolutionary"nationalism"' whose 'conservative' uniquelyMelanesian embryonic 'epistemological system' prevents itsrealization is an oxymoron. This formulation thus captures theimpossibility of the phenomenon of 'cargo cult.' However,Lawrence's characterization of 'cargo cult' in terms of ameans-ends relation nonetheless construes it as a rational phenomenon,albeit fundamentally flawed, and so also cannot account for its glaringirrationality. Burridge's (1960:27) theoretical notion of the'myth-dream' perhaps best captures the irreality of the'cargo cult' phenomenon. When Burridge writes that 'thefact that the myth-dream may not have been reported as such does notmeans that it did not exist' (op.cit.), or that: As a concept 'myth-dream' does not lend itself to precisedefinition. Nevertheless, myth-dreams exist, and they may be reduced toa series of themes, propositions, and problems which are to be found inmyths, in dreams, in the half-lights of conversation, and in theemotional responses to a variety of actions, and questions asked.Through this kind of intellectualization intellectualization/in��tel��lec��tu��al��iza��tion/ (in?te-lek?choo-al-i-za��shun) an unconscious defense mechanism in which reasoning is used to avoid confronting an objectionable impulse, emotional conflict, or other stressor and thus to myth-dreams become'aspirations' (ibid.:148), I have to admire both the acuity and impossibility of thisformulation: it appears as though Burridge comes face to face with theaporetic experience and grasps the fundamental irrationality of the'cargo cult' phenomenon only, however, to ultimately side withthe humanist hope that prevents him from crossing over the culturalboundary to comprehend its irreducible Western absurdity and madness. THE MADNESS OF 'CARGO CULT' TEXT Given the strange imperviousness of 'cargo cult' toWestern rationalist discourse noted by Wagner (1979:164), specific'cargo cult' texts thus evince e��vince?tr.v. e��vinced, e��vinc��ing, e��vinc��esTo show or demonstrate clearly; manifest: evince distaste by grimacing. a kind of 'madness'in trying to explain the impossible and irrational: because of theirruption ir��rup��tionn.The act or process of breaking through to a surface. of hysterical mimetic expressions of disorder within theirrational discourse, 'cargo cult' texts have to go to greatlengths to arrive at rational sensible explanations and interpretationsas evinced in their highly abstract and contradictory nature. Like'cargo cult' discourse itself, these texts, particularly theclassic ones, have a difficult time settling on a single explanation. Assoon as one is proffered, a text often moves on to others in order toaccount for the entire phenomenon of 'cargo cult' without,however, moving out of the context of 'cargo cult' itself. Nevertheless, despite the strain towards a coherent stable unityand normalized Western discourse comprehending 'cargo cult,'these texts are also punctuated by critical interruptions of thisrationality. In other words, given the post-F. E. Williams explanationsand understandings of 'cargo cult' and 'socialmovement,' which nativize and normalize 'cargo cult' bydemonstrating its cultural sense and functional utility, the irrational'madness' that Williams noticed and which has been thehallmark of 'cargo cult' nonetheless intrudes within thisdiscourse, and these texts must entertain the question of 'cargocult' irrationality. When this question inevitably arises, a numberof textual and theoretical strategies are deployed to manage thisintrusion. Because, as Jarvie (1964:163) notes, the evidence of 'cargocult' tends to be second hand and fragmentary, it is possible forauthors upholding the rational sense of these 'movements' tosimply deny the purported existence of much irrational mimetic behavior(e.g. Rimoldi and Rimoldi 1992). However, most texts simply resolve thisquestion in the negative by claiming either that these behaviors makesense within a kind of native cultural logic or indigenous culturalcategory system, or that this irrationality makes sense as a reaction toa harsh colonial situation of apartheid and inequality, and very oftenboth. The two claims that these movements are quite neatly indigenouslylogical, functional, and rational, on the one hand, and nonetheless theresult of very extreme colonial stress, racism, cultural disruption, andapartheid, on the other, contradict one another. One view makes themappear as a perfectly normal phenomenon while the other has them seemvery unusual indeed. The functional rationality which guides 'cargocult' explanations therefore leads to rather contradictoryformulations. Having thus disposed of the question of irrationality, however,texts purporting to account for 'cargo cult' nonetheless go onto attribute to 'cargo cult' behavior a psychological motiveor desire which 'cargo' supposedly embodies or represents, beit the desire for human moral or economic equality, for the politicaleconomic power of whitemen, for political sovereignty, or simply tosatisfy the ineluctable pull of Western commodities (Thomas 1991). Giventhese motives, it is therefore not surprising that when 'cargocult' texts arrive at guiding encompassing theoreticalformulations, they are often phantoms such as the 'myth-dream'or the 'dispossessed.' 'Cargo cult' texts are thuscharacterized by an unsettled uncertainty evinced by continual movement:as soon as they appear to have pinned down the behavior and phenomenonof 'cargo cult,' these texts continue on to account for itsirrationality and various other elements of 'cargo cult'behavior not directly addressed by their particular perspective, and theentire phenomenon eventually disappears inside extremely generalformulations. 'Cargo cult' discourse is thus characterized not by itsfailure but by its success: it provides a myriad and, indeed, seeminglyendless parade of perspectives and explanatory concepts, albeit oftensomewhat contradictory ones, with which to continually and completelyaccount for the various aspects of 'cargo cult,' including itsmost irrational elements. While 'cargo cult' discoursetherefore appears open-ended and inconclusive, it thereby neverthelessprecludes a consideration of the 'madness' of Western rationaldiscourse. Yet 'cargo cult' texts can also be seen totherefore continually 'go mad' insofar in��so��far?adv.To such an extent.Adv. 1. insofar - to the degree or extent that; "insofar as it can be ascertained, the horse lung is comparable to that of man"; "so far as it is reasonably practical he should practice as they propound To offer or propose. To form or put forward an item, plan, or idea for discussion and ultimate acceptance or rejection. TO PROPOUND. To offer, to propose; as, the onus probandi in every case lies upon the party who propounds a will. 1 Curt. R. 637; 6 Eng. Eccl. R. 417. interminable and contradictory theories. I apply this characterization of 'cargo cult' texts toone particular example -- Peter Worsley's (1968) The Trumpet ShallSound. Worsley's study is the most comprehensive account ofMelanesian 'cargo cults.' It is both an excellent introductionand an extremely valuable scholarly resource. Worsley employs a kind ofinductive method, allowing his interpretive ideas to emerge in thecourse of his numerous detailed accounts of 'cults' ratherthan stating them at the outset. His account relies on a Marxistframework with which I have great sympathy, and so apparently departssomewhat from the functionalist underpinnings of post-F. E. Williamsinterpretations. However, his inductive strategy seems to fail for,despite the fact that his convictions are very understated,Worsley's Marxist leanings earned him the criticisms of Jarvie(1964) and Mair (1958) and his second edition begins with a sixty-pageintroductory theoretical rejoinder. [2] Like Jarvie, Worsley is one of the interpreters of 'cargocult' who was never in Melanesia and so, like Mair, never didfieldwork on 'cults' (Jarvie 1964:163). Worsley neverthelessread all the available literature and, by the time he wrote hisintroduction to the second edition, after considering the classicfirst-hand field accounts of Burridge and Lawrence, he saw no reason tochange his interpretation. Following a very short preface andintroduction, his original account begins simply, with a description ofthe Tuku movement in Fiji (cf. Kaplan 1995). But it is quickly followedby a more general chapter in which Worsley considers the question ofirrationality. On a page facing a graph clearly depicting the vagariesof copra prices on the world market, Worsley (1968:35-36) states that: Many writers have drawn attention to important features of Europeansociety which must appear to be beyond rational explanation to theMelanesian with his limited knowledge.... This underlying irrationality [of boom and slump] of Europeansociety not only created great hardships; it undermined confidence inrational activity, it created frustrations, and it sapped morale morethan mere ignorance of productive processes could do.... a Melanesianmight make out a good case for flinging the label of 'madness'which has often been applied to these cults back at us, and askingwhether his people, given the knowledge they possessed, have not madequite logical criticisms and interpretations of our own unpredictableand irrational society Worsley (1968:43) goes on to note the irrational instability ofEuropean political regimes and rival missionary sects and the'divergence natives note between Christian doctrines of equalityand brotherly love Noun 1. brotherly love - a kindly and lenient attitude toward peoplecharitybenevolence - an inclination to do kind or charitable actssupernatural virtue, theological virtue - according to Christian ethics: one of the three virtues (faith, hope, and , and actual practice' before attempting toexplain '[t]he hysterical phenomena found in most of thecults' as 'the product of the ambivalent attitudes andfeelings of men torn between hatred of the White people who haddestroyed the old way of life and who now dominated them by force, andthe desire to obtain for themselves the possessions of these veryWhites.' In the absence of knowledge of the material reality of Europeansociety, in the belief that Europeans apparently did not work for thegoods they obtained, and under the influence of all-pervading missioneducation, the Melanesians concluded that secret magical power was thekey to the wealth of the Europeans. This power they were determined toobtain. Their desperation is mirrored in the powerful emotionality of thecults with their compulsive twitching.... (1968:44) At the end of the chapter, Worsley provides accounts of'non-millenarian forms of resistance' in order to depict thepolitically rational element of 'cargo cults.' The followingchapters go on to provide accounts of a great many more movements and'cults,' beginning with non-millenarian magical-practicalproblem solving problem solvingProcess involved in finding a solution to a problem. Many animals routinely solve problems of locomotion, food finding, and shelter through trial and error. activities and then showing how they can transform intofull fledged 'cargo cults' in colonial situations. Thus havinggone a little mad in Chapter Two, Worsley's text settles down intoa relatively routine descriptive account of reported 'cults.'Though they continue to be haunted by hysteria and madness,Worsley's portrayals assume his account of the rational logicunderlying this madness in Chapter Two. It must be noted, however, how this logic fails to hold together.Worsley explains the irrationality of 'cults' as stemming from1) the irrational irregularities of European economics and politics, 2)the illogical fragmentation, capriciousness, and hypocrisy of Europeanpolitical hierarchies and missionaries, 3) the sheer harshness of thecolonial situation, 4) the psychological ambivalence of nativesengendered by this harshness coupled with the ineluctable attraction ofWestern commodities, and 5) the emotional desperation resulting from acombination of this ambivalence and Melanesians' ignorance of andconsequent irrational magical beliefs, reinforced by missionaryteachings, about the source of Europeans' wealth. This madness isthus far from resolve or situated: it is oddly inconsistent andunsettling un��set��tle?v. un��set��tled, un��set��tling, un��set��tlesv.tr.1. To displace from a settled condition; disrupt.2. To make uneasy; disturb.v.intr. . Worsley's text here appears to suffer from a type of'contiguity disorder': the coherent stable relations betweenwords and concepts articulated in terms of logical propositionsevidently disintegrate and give way to a series of seeming similarities,resemblances, and substitutions, albeit not logically or propositionallycompletely consistent ones. The text instead offers a set of oddlyvarious and inconsistent reasons which all share, however, the aim toexplain either or both the rationality or irrationality of'cargo' behavior, and thus have a kind of family resemblance.His text acts as if a kind of hysterical mimicry- itself a kind of'similarity disorder' that relies entirely on forging logicalrelations of contiguity, which vainly attempts to rearrange and dissolvethe stable categories of colonial discourse, and thereby break down thedelimited context of Western rational discourse - has erupted within it.Despite the radical Marxist suggestion Worsley makes regarding theirrationality of European c ulture, he thus nevertheless agrees with hisadversaries regarding the limited rational knowledge and consequentillogical beliefs of Melanesians. While this madness continues to haunt the rest of his discourse,his narrative is nevertheless governed by the premise that 'cargocult' movements are grounded in non-millenarian practical, albeitrebellious, political activities. The account that follows is achronological exposition of movements, beginning with non-millenarianmovements and ending with rational political ones, between whichirrational 'cult' behaviors are chronicled along with harshcolonial treatment, gradually giving way to orthodox political activity. At the beginning of his conclusion, Worsley's text once againseems to disintegrate into an account of apocalyptic religions fromOceania to the Americas, Asia, Siberia, and historical Europe, showingthem to be found 'amongst people who feel themselves to beoppressed ... especially by the populations of colonial countries'(1968:225). Having thus reiterated his guiding theme, 'cult'religions of the oppressed appear to be irrational as a result of thepressures of an irrational colonial situation. However, Worsley thenthematizes the political 'integrative function' of'cults' and the 'general trend in the development of thecults away from apocalyptic mysticism towards secular politicalorganization...from religious cult Noun 1. religious cult - a system of religious beliefs and rituals; "devoted to the cultus of the Blessed Virgin"cultus, cultfaith, religion, religious belief - a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny; "he lost his to political party andcooperative' (1968:231), and thus rescues the reasonableness ofcults by showing them to be basically rational functional politicalphenomena. Nevertheless, he continues on to explain the millenarianreligiosity re��li��gi��os��i��ty?n.1. The quality of being religious.2. Excessive or affected piety.Noun 1. religiosity - exaggerated or affected piety and religious zealreligiousism, pietism, religionism of 'cults' as the result of low levels ofpolitical integration in Melanesian stateless Refers to software that does not keep track of configuration settings, transaction information or any other data for the next session. When a program "does not maintain state" (is stateless) or when the infrastructure of a system prevents a program from maintaining state, it cannot take societies, which creates aneed for prophets to 'externalize' and 'project ...common values on to the supernatural plane, against a background oflesser private conflicts' (1968:238). With this explanation firmlyin hand, however, at this point in the text Worsley's discourseagain appears about to go a little mad as he nevertheless continues toadd explanations of 'cult' behavior. First suggesting that'[t]here are other corollaries to the low level of politicalorganization...for these societies also lack advanced technological andscientific knowledge' (1968:238) as another reason for illogical'cult' behavior, two pages later he attributes this ignoranceto the influence of missionaries: Besides this general predisposition to misinterpret mis��in��ter��pret?tr.v. mis��in��ter��pret��ed, mis��in��ter��pret��ing, mis��in��ter��prets1. To interpret inaccurately.2. To explain inaccurately. Europeanactivity, there are other special reasons why a supernaturalistinterpretation of the European order is made. As in most colonialregions, organized mission activity is a powerful force in Melanesia.(1968:240) In another two pages, Worsley (1968:242) shifts this blame toEuropean society and returns to his Marxist criticisms: We have already shown how the instability and unpredictability ofthe European economy and of the European political order producedconfusion in native minds...the millenarian cult may thus be seen not asan irrational flight from reality or a regression from the present intothe past but as a quite logical interpretation and criticism of aEuropean-controlled order that itself is full of contradictions whichseem inexplicable in rational terms to the natives. Worsley thus nearly exhausts the possible explanations of therationality of irrational 'cults' and comes full circle toreturn to his original radical Marxist insight and point of departure,reversing the trajectory of his earlier exposition in Chapter Two andthus guiding the reader back from the oppressed Melanesian Other to theirrational West. Upon arriving, however, Worsley quickly sets off onceagain to continue to explain the madness of these strange cultphenomena, first reiterating his theme regarding the oppressed anddisinherited by describing the basic motivating condition of'cults' as 'a situation of dissatisfaction with existingsocial relations and of yearnings for a happier life,' but thenadding that these yearnings are 'actuated by a desire for the goodsof the White man' (1968:243). Quickly admitting that such 'a"climate" of Cargo ideas may exist, without producing anyactual Cargo organization' (op.cit.), however, Worsley once againfinds that '[t]he greatest single agency for the world -widespreading of millenarism has been the Christian mission'(1968:245). In the following several pages, after having thus again locatedirrational 'cargo' beliefs in the teachings of missionaries,Worsley's language goes quite mad in the attempt to still accountfor the hysterical 'madness' of 'cults' as he beginsto conflate con��flate?tr.v. con��flat��ed, con��flat��ing, con��flates1. To bring together; meld or fuse: "The problems [with the biopic]include . . and collate col��late?tr.v. col��lat��ed, col��lat��ing, col��lates1. To examine and compare carefully in order to note points of disagreement.2. To assemble in proper numerical or logical sequence.3. the series of not entirely logically consistentbut similar propositions already produced. He finds 'cargo'madness to be the simultaneous result of oppression, consumer desires,European vagaries, and native ignorance that inspire bizarre behaviorswhich Worsley describes as simultaneously vain, unreal, irrational,'fantastic' failures, on the one hand, and 'quitepractical,' 'not ineffective,' and 'rational,'on the other, finally explaining them as an 'emotional outlet'found in 'imaginary projection' -- i.e. as ends in themselveswhose own self-fulfilling purpose is to 'express social and moralsolidarity' and 'ethical values' (1968: 247-248)! InWorsley's words: The hysterical and paranoid phenomena - mass possession, trances,fantasies, twitching, and so on - which we have found in so manymovements are thus no mere accidental features. They are the product,firstly, of the lack of means to satisfy enormously inflated wants.Feelings of deprivation and frustration are heightened by the apparentirrationality of White society, whose incomprehensible economic andpolitical changes the natives vainly strive to understand and manipulatein their own interest. Though there is no real solution in the Cargocult - for the Cargo will never come - the ardent wishes and hopespoured into the movement bolster it up and revive it time after timedespite failure. And large-scale activities, some of them quitepractical, are carried out under the stimulus of these fantasticyearnings. There is not merely destruction and avoidance of rationaleconomic activity. We have also seen the cultivation of large gardensand the building of stores, sheds, jetties and landing-grounds for thereception of goods which will never come...the work itself is anemotional outlet...In one sense then, the work is not ineffective. It isin itself part of the satisfaction sought. It is part of the symbolicvalidation given to the idea that the things wanted are morallyjustifiable. (1968:247) It is impossible not to admire the rigor rigor/rig��or/ (rig��er) [L.] chill; rigidity.rigor mor��tis? the stiffening of a dead body accompanying depletion of adenosine triphosphate in the muscle fibers. with which Worsley carriesthis line of reasoning Noun 1. line of reasoning - a course of reasoning aimed at demonstrating a truth or falsehood; the methodical process of logical reasoning; "I can't follow your line of reasoning"logical argument, argumentation, argument, line involving unsettled and contradictorypropositions explaining the reasonable irrationality of bizarre'cargo cult' behavior to its logical conclusion. Thisinexplicable behavior, whose source and explanation is already highlyoverdetermined Overdetermined can refer to Overdetermined systems in various branches of mathematics Overdetermination in various fields of psychology or analytical thought , ends up having no other end than its own being. Ittherefore makes perfect rational sense as a completely self-fulfillingnon-rational phenomenon. Having reached this conclusion, however, Worsley then attributes itto 'moral and emotional tensions' and 'strains'issuing from 'the long-standing failure to control the outsideworld' (1968:248). And further, one page later, Worsley (1968:249)also supposes that '[t]his emotionality is heightened by thecults' insistence on deliberately breaking with the customs,traditions, habits and values of the past.' In other words, thesource of 'cults" bizarre hysterical behavior is its owncreative enactment - i.e. the behavior itself! Still, having thus located 'cargo cult' hysteria in itsown creativity, Worsley then comes face to face with the irrationalityof Western culture once again when he considers the mimetic aspect of'cargo cult': it ends up that the self-fulfilling end/meansand effect/cause of enacting a new reality is 'symbolized inEuropean objects like money, "Cargo" itself, [and] theintroduced crops like rice. The 'institutionalized means' people use in theirfantastic efforts to reach these goals are also often derived from theEuropean order: flagpoles, wirelesses, poles and ladders with which toget in touch with God and the ancestors; flashlights to see Him with;and books, papers and the Bible as both symbols and means of acquiringthe Secret of the Cargo. (1968:251) Why this symbolism should be employed is not clear. But in order tomake it clear that Melanesians are not merely stupidly miming Europeanbehavior, Worsley (op.cit. original emphasis) immediately adds that'[o]ther less transparent themes are those of renunciation The Abandonment of a right; repudiation; rejection.The renunciation of a right, power, or privilege involves a total divestment thereof; the right, power, or privilege cannot be transferred to anyone else. andrejection ... deliberate defiance ... [and] inversion of the existingsocial order.' Nevertheless, at the end of his conclusion, theseenactments are finally understood as a means of becoming like Europeans:i.e. 'The First Stirrings of Nationalism' (original emphasis1968:254). Worsley's exposition does not end with this conclusion. Headds an appendix in which he argues for the scientific value ofhistorical studies against the tenets of structural-functionalism, andmaintains that the 'essential rationality of Melanesian thought andaction is shown on a larger scale by the directional tendency of themovements, the transition from magical to political action'(1968:269). He also adds a lengthy theoretical introduction to thesecond edition of his work incorporating new data and addressing thecriticisms of Mair and Jarvie. But Worsley's new introduction onlyreinforces his previous theoretical formulation and its difficulties. Worsley's inexorable logic leads him to discover the source ofthe irrationality of 'cargo' behavior in its creativity (cf.Wagner 1981; McDowell 1985), and then pushes him to formulate thiscreativity as a kind of mimetic behavior nearly identical to that ofsubaltern social theorists (Bhabha 1994; Guha 1983; cf. Keesing 1992),which is simultaneously mimicry, parody, and disavowal. However, at thiscritical moment, as Worsley gazes into an abyss, nearly comprehendingthe absolute irreducible irrationality of 'cargo cult,' hesuddenly and completely pulls back, formulating instead an evolutionarynotion: incipient nationalism. Having thus nearly experienced an'aporia,' instead of abandoning himself to its otherness, hedramatically returns to this side,that is, to the side of Westernreason, and to the society which articulates itself as rationalprinciple, whereby the West assumes its position at the origin and endof mankind. This supposition was assumed by and governed his entirediscourse. CONCLUSION This discussion of Worsley's text suggests that what isrequired to avoid linguistically 'going mad' is a kind ofcrossing over to the Other -- to embrace the aporetic experience andcomprehend irrationality--not the irrationality of the other but theirrationality of Western bourgeois culture. Otherwise 'cargocult' illogic il��log��ic?n.A lack of logic.Noun 1. illogic - invalid or incorrect reasoningillogicality, illogicalness, inconsequence leads 'cargo cult' discourse to suffer a'contiguity disorder' whereby language seems to go mad. I havesuggested that 'cargo cult' irrationality can be comprehendedas a type of incisive mimetic behavior. This behavior can be conceivedboth as the kind of hysterical mimicry in which tribal people engagewhen they deliberately invent their innate moral human selves and as aform of expression in the colonial double bind double bindn.1. A psychological impasse created when contradictory demands are made of an individual, such as a child or an employee, so that no matter which directive is followed, the response will be construed as incorrect.2. situation in whichrationality ceases to be reasonable. In this situation, colonialdiscourse experiences a type of contiguity disorder and combinescontradictory albeit similar propositions in order to control andmaintain contexts, and colonized people enact a kind of si milaritydisorder, instead forging logical mimetic relations of contiguity withtheir Other in an effort to completely change contexts. 'Cargo cult' therefore does not fit within either Westernor Melanesian culture and is in this sense an absolutely irrationalnon-sensical 'excess' in both the global Western capitalistand local Melanesian economies (Dalton 1996), fulfilling the purposes ofneither. 'Cargo cult' is instead mimetic parody and disavowal:the acting and working out of the illogic of Western society asdetermined by Western colonialism. In other words, 'cargocult' is the Melanesian enactment, in indigenous terms, of what itwould be like if what whitemen supposed were actually true. To grasp the irrationality and impossibility of 'cargocult' is therefore to grasp the impossibility and blindnesses ofour own discourse. In saying this, however, I do not mean to discount ordenigrate den��i��grate?tr.v. den��i��grat��ed, den��i��grat��ing, den��i��grates1. To attack the character or reputation of; speak ill of; defame.2. the often brilliant achievements of scholars such as Worsleywho have written on the topic of 'cargo cult.' Indeed, despitethe necessity of passing over into another context and anotherdiscourse, it is not actually possible to do so, that is, to cross overto the Other, forgo rational discourse, and engage in parody anddisavowal ourselves, or of ourselves, without risking a kind ofNeitzschian demise: it is only possible to challenge the limits of, anddelimited contexts of, Western rationality from within the logic of itsown discourse. 'Cargo cult' is the opening of thispossibility. NOTES (1.) Using the term 'madness' in conjunction withMelanesian behaviors harkens back to F. E. Williams' delegitimizinguse of the term and is likely to be offensive to anthropologists who seetheir role as defending natives against such charges by showing therationality of so-called 'cults' (and/or excusing their lessrational' aspects). However this view seems to me to uncriticallyaccept a Western view of 'normalcy' which should also bequestioned in order not to impose it on native peoples. An alternativeto investigating the normalcy of normative collective'culture' would be to explore the human condition of paradoxand dislocation. (2.) In opposition to Worsley, Mair claims that Melanesian'cargo cults,' because they are basically religious movementsand because religions are generally not rational, are likewise notrational, while Jarvie considers 'cults' to be rationalphenomena insofar as their purpose is to explain. REFERENCES APPIAH, K. A. 1992. In My Father's House. 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