The Human Cycle:
Bianchi, Eugene C
A primitive argument THE HUNAN CYCLE Colin M. Turnbull Simon & Schuster, $14.95, 283 pp. Eugene C. Bianchi THOSE who have written books know the queasy feeling of being suspended over the...
...Again, Turnbull speaks of the Tibetan practice of turning adolescent sexual energy into spiritual transformation through the young acolyte's attachment to a guru...
...Such reservations do not diminish the book's worth as a thoughtful, creative, and provocative work of cultural comparison...
...One gets suspicious when reading about the Mbuti ritual of adolescent transformation leading to sexual development that is physically, intellectually, and spiritually positive in contrast with Turnbull's Westminster high school experience...
...This may be true, but to make the point convincingly requires more than somewhat facile juxtapositions...
...While these roles are important for elderhood's contribution to society, modern social structures may call for less withdrawal and more concerted action by the old at the center of things...
...Even if the latter repressed the spiritual aspects of adolescence, is it the rule that modern societies fail to open adolescents to spiritual development...
...but even here the analogies seem strained...
...This example further illustrates the point of major differences of consciousness between the modern and the primitive mind...
...Turnbull reflects on five stages of the human life span in "small-scale societies" (for him a less pejorative term than "tribal" or "primitive") in India, Tibet, and Africa...
...Now, this is a good book, one well worth reading...
...This is unfair to authors who try to write a decent book, even to a famous anthropologist like Colin Turnbull...
...Beneath this problem of arguing from limping analogies lies the more basic difficulty of Turnbull's approach...
...This weakness might be described as claiming too much by way of juxtapositions...
...Ashley Montagu raises decibels to the sounds of heavenly predestination: "If there ever was a book that was destined to become a classic, this is it...
...His argument presupposes that traditional or tribal societies are qualitatively superior to modern ones...
...Publishers Weekly says this volume will likely become an anthropological classic...
...Turnbull's vision of a better society is certainly focused in the right direction...
...These divergences of understanding are not "only skin deep" as the author asserts...
...They are at least as broad as Paul Ricoeur's first and second naivete as ways of interpreting life...
...An added benefit is the author's readable style and his engaging use of events drawn from his own life...
...In his section on youth, Oxford University appears in a better light as a milieu for engendering social concern in comparison with African and Indian traditional education...
...In general, Turnbull finds greater social responsibility and role integration in less technologically developed cultures...
...Yet there is a central flaw in Turnbull's procedure...
...But looking to premodern societies for answers may be less valuable to us than assessing the complex and greatly changed framework of our present understanding of the world at various stages of individual life...
...Secondly, the comparative enterprise would demand a more nuanced appreciation of how deeply we technological moderns have undergone changes of consciousness about ourselves and the world...
...When publishers say these things, mortal authors, who may have read one or two true classics, toss uneasily at night fearing Olympian retribution for such unsolicited hubris...
...From a careful appraisal of the present, we need to project future images of realistic and positive growth phases for individuals and communities...
...In many ways it is a very good essay, stimulating comparative thinking on the life cycle...
...He compares positive qualities in these cultures to their counterparts or lack thereof in modern western nations...
...his own family background instilled division, competition, and hostility...
...By accepting at face value this common rationale for celibacy, Turnbull fails to incorporate a modern psychological critique of the acolyte-master relationship, which would disclose other possible motivations for the same ritual...
...Eugene C. Bianchi THOSE who have written books know the queasy feeling of being suspended over the literary abyss by well-intentioned promoters who speak in full-throated superlatives all over the book jacket and publicity flyers...
...These profound alterations of understanding challenge Turnbull's straight-line comparisons...
...Is this saying too much for the Mbuti and not enough for a British privileged class...
...He finds, for example, that among the Mbuti of Africa, children develop a sense of unity, cooperation, and love...
...In contrast, individual fragmentation, competition rather than cooperation, and neglect of spiritual or transcendent experience characterize the modernized world...
...These ancient, small-scale communities, proclaims the subliminal message of Turnbull, are better at teaching social responsibility, holistic awareness, spiritual appreciation, and communal integration...
...For example, he recommends for old age a retreat from active involvement in the world after the fashion of tribal sages, witches, and saints...
...First, it would call for a more critical appraisal of the premodern societies...
Vol. 110 • September 1983 • No. 15
