CLASTRES ON THE DUTY TO SPEAK &
THE POWER OF NOT LISTENING
A passage from
one of the papers in Pierre Clastres'
Society
Against the State, a book in which he argues -- using Amazonian
Indians as his examples -- that so-called "primitive societies" don't lack
state institutions because they are backward, but because they actively
fight against the institutionalisation of the sorts of inequalities upon
which the state is based. A feature of master/slave, lord/subject, leader/citizen
{prof/student?} relations, he says, is that the one speaks and the other
obeys (viz: the law), so that mastery of social power is also mastery of
words. In societies without a state, the village spokesman ("chief") also
masters speech, but there is a difference.
Over the tribe reigns the chief, and the latter
also reigns over the language of the tribe. In other words... the chief
-- the man of power -- also holds the monopoly of speech. In the case of
these Savages, the question to ask is not: who is your chief? but rather:
who among you is the one who speaks? The master of words is what many groups
call their chief....
A difference emerges in the combination of speech
and power that is both quite apparent and very profound. If in societies
with a State speech is power's right, in societies without a State
speech is power's
duty. Or, to put it differently, Indian societies
do not recognize the chief's right to speak because he is the chief: they
require that the man destined to be chief prove his command over words.
Speech is an imperative obligation for the chief. The tribe demands to
hear him: a silent chief is no longer a chief.
Let there be no mistake; involved here is not the
taste, so keen among many Savages, for fine speeches, oratorical talent,
and facile language. Here it is not a question of aesthetics, but of politics.
The whole political philosophy of primitive society can be glimpsed in
the obligation of the chief to be a man of speech. This is where the space
occupied by power unfolds, a space that is not as one might imagine it....
What does the chief say? What is the word of the
chief like? First of all, it is a ritualized act. Almost without exception,
the leader addresses the group daily, at daybreak and at dusk. Stretched
out in his hammock or seated next to his fire, he delivers the expected
discourse in a loud voice. And his voice certainly needs to be strong in
order to make itself heard. As a matter of fact, there is no gathering
around the chief when he speaks, no hush falls, everybody goes about their
business as if nothing was happening. The word of the chief is not spoken
in order to be listened to. A paradox: nobody pays attention to the
discourse of the chief. Or rather, they feign a lack of attention. If the
chief, by definition, must submit to the obligation to speak, the people
he addresses, on the other hand, are obligated only to appear not to hear
him.
In a sense they lose nothing in the bargain. Why?
Because the chief, for all his prolixity, literally says nothing. His discourse
basically consists of a celebration, repeated many times, of the norms
of traditional life: "Our ancestors got on well living as they lived. Let
us follow their example and in this way we will lead a peaceful existence
together." That is just about what the speech of the chief boils down to.
One understands why those for whom it is intended are not overly disturbed
by it.
What does speaking signify in this instance? Why
does the chief have to speak just in order to say nothing? To what demand,
coming from primitive society, does this empty speech that emanates from
the apparent seat of power respond? The discourse of the chief is empty
precisely because it is not a discourse of power. In primitive societies,
in societies without a State, power is not found on the side of the chief:
it follows that his word cannot be the word of power, authority or command.
An order? Now there is something the chief would be unable to give; that
is the kind of fulness his speech is denied....The chief crazy enough to
dream not so much of the abuse of a power he does not possess, as of the
use of power, the chief who tries to act the chief, is abandoned...
because society itself, and not the chief, is the real locus of power.
It is in the nature of primitive society to know
that violence is the essence of power. Deeply rooted in that knowledge
is the concern constantly to keep power apart from the institution of power,
command apart from the chief.... By compelling the chief to move about
in the area of speech alone, that is, the opposite of violence, the tribe
makes certain that all things will remain in their place, that the axis
of power will turn back exclusively to the social body, and that no displacement
of forces will come to upset the social order. The chief's obligation to
speak, that steady flow of empty speech that he owes the tribe,
is his infinite debt, the guarantee that prevents the man of speech from
becoming a man of power.
{I find the ideas here quite interesting, but
it's my opinion that Clastres commits one of the cardinal sins of ethnology
in this passage (and throughout his book): he acts as if the Amazonian
people among whom he worked are exemplary of all "primitives". His
analysis may work for the people he describes, but it may not be true for
all tribal peoples. Please note that this is translated from the French
and that, in French, the words "primitive" and "savage" have not been banned,
as they have in English.}
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