Not being an artist myself, and certainly not having everything I need, I not only feel exempt from B. Dylan's erstwhile lover's implied imperative not to reflect upon the past, but also actively resist any implication that such refusal constitutes some sort of hipsteresque modern virtue. Vampires don't reflect either -- a rich vein in itself, but perhaps best left for mining at a time a bit further removed from this recent full moon. All this by way of a gentle warning, gentle reader, that we are entering the world of what anthropologist Clifford Geertz called "thick description" -- it's not just that things are not what they seem, but that everything is far more than it seems.

from: Cross burning, cockfighting, and symbolic meaning: toward a First Amendment ethnography by Timothy Zick
source: William and Mary Law Review, 1 April 2004

Interpretive or hermeneutic ethnography is a branch, or school, of anthropological thought which emphasizes the cultural significance of signs and symbols. The approach, popularized by its leading proponent, Clifford Geertz, is semiotic in orientation; it focuses on the interpretation of symbols and symbol systems within a culture. As Geertz himself summarizes the agenda, interpretive ethnographers are "mostly engaged in trying to determine what this people or that take to be the point of what they are doing."

The reference (and link) to Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, by the way, is not intended as a recommended prototype for this process, as Bellamy was actually not looking back, but rather looking forward -- to an end-of-the-20th-century "utopia" that reads more like a nightmare of social planning run amok. Among Bellamy's "improvements" was a strongly implied program of eugenics to weed out the "unfit" and increase the number of superior -- read upper-class white -- worthies.

All this was to be part of my usual elliptically brain-bending introduction to what I was actually going to write about, to wit: How did I get from The Cluetrain Manifesto and Gonzo Marketing to the sorts of ideas I've been writing about lately. If you've been following CBO for any length of time preceding the Gonzo clips, you know these ideas include large -- and what's most interesting to me, interlinked -- categories like narcissism, self-esteem, "human potential," manifest destiny, Transcendentalism, Social Darwinism, fascism, eugenics, the occult, and various "alternative spiritualities" of the erroneously labeled New Age.

But I bit off more than I could chew. I chewed the above opening paragraphs all Tuesday night and only succeeded in confusing myself. I suppose should add: even more. So I gave up and went to bed at 6am. I'm posting this as a sort of prolegomenon to a potential introduction to a hypothesis as to what, in keeping with Geertz, I take to be the point of what I'm doing. Gods willing and the phase-of-moon conducing to furtherance along such lines, there will be more on this general score real soon. Hail Eris. Stay tuned...

The following is offered strictly as Extra Credit for Advanced Readers.

from: A shared authority: an impossible goal? by Lorraine Sitzia
source: The Oral History Review, 1 January 2003

I believe the final narrative has much to contribute, not just in terms of understanding the impact of war on a so-called "ordinary" man, but also enabling us to think about the complex relationship between self, identity, and the stories we choose to tell. Indeed, there is an increasing acknowledgement that an understanding of the dialectical relationship between memory and identity and the ways in which people tell their life stories is important in any life history research. By exploring the ways in which individuals present their life stories we can gain a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between past and present identities, and the ways in which individuals attempt to make sense of their lives. Equally, by understanding the connections and interaction between individual and collective memory we can begin to see how memories of events change over time for both the individual and society. (20) Employing Clifford Geertz's idea of "thick description" we can use one person's life story as the means by which not only to understand and investigate his/her construction of his/her stories, but also as a mode for understanding wider social issues and how these are played out in individuals' lives.