Friday, January 1, 2016
*Janus, Bacchus, and the Red Monkey
As the hours build up to crescendo, the turn of the new year is marked by the celebratory ritual of libation, song and the custom of reflection. One that simultaneously looks back into the past and onwards into the future. It is the tradition of the double-headed Janus coupled with the body of Bacchus.
The ordinary ethics places a value on reflection and celebration. Although we can question the psychology of it all and ask the extent in which people do in fact think about the past year, remember the good, the bad, and the extent to which meaning is created by the act of reconstructing and projecting into the future: creating goals, "resolutions," and anticipating what life will be like in what is to come. In this sense, new years is, cognitively, an individualist tradition engaged with actively skiming one's recollected history within the parameters of what is memorable (accurate or not) and simultaneously constructing a fantasy predicated on the former. It is no surprise that the heads of Janus are connected rather than separated by two necks. The blood that goes into the heads are of the same source, pumped from a single heart.
Ironically, the value of reflection is intensified or negated by the act of celebration ('Bacchus'). The consumption of alcohol can sharpen or dull our thinking. It is a paradox that sustains the perennial ritual. Depending on one's perspective, meaning is enhanced or made hollow (especially in the light of systemic injustices, poverty - it is useful to keep in mind that the celebrating the holidays is an act of privilege - and violence around the world). Bacchus thereby becomes a form of ritual intensification, positively or negatively, in the creation of meaning (of course, Bacchus is not a necessary component for the act of meaning-making and the act of not participating may simply be a form of apathy to it all).
The actions symbolized by Janus and Bacchus are thereby instigators of meaning and mood, intensified by perennial social conventions. By contrast to the western custom, which now spreads across much of the modern world, the turn of the new year is marked by a different clout of meaning in the (far) eastern traditions. For many, 2016 is the year of the monkey - more specifically the red monkey - as the 12 animals cycle over. Just as the western zodiac interprets one's birthday in terms of constellations, the eastern zodiac takes the year, time and date of one's birth into a form of fortune telling by looking at the interaction of your birth animal and the overarching animal of the year. At the most basic level, it is an interaction between two animals. But if one dives deeper, one's birth is also associated with the elements (water, metal, wood, fire). This makes for an interesting comparative structuralist study of meaning and value between eastern and western forms of divination or fortune telling. I would be interested to see how many aim to have a child during this year because of its associations and meaning embedded in the red monkey. A practice that is not really seen in the west (but perhaps this is my ignorance - I have yet to meet anybody who says they will have a baby this year because their star zodiac and their partners' aligns well with the year of whichever constellation).
In the academic realm of discussing "lived religion," we can trace the western roots of celebration and reflection (which probably exists somewhere) and situate the perennial new years ritual within the context of Christianity and Paganism and its influence on the customs of "society." In Korea, the turn of the new year is marked by the ritual of visiting one's relatives (more ostensibly on the lunar new year in February) and if we cannot visit, we exchange communications by phone, email, social media platforms, chat applications etc. The custom is marked by the greeting: "receive many blessings/fortunes in the new year" accompanied by a big bow. An action of value that symbolizes reverence, familial relations, and prosperity. In this regard, the new years is relational. When younger generations give this greeting to the elder, we receive a few words of wisdom that take us into the new year. Moreover, these words are accompanied by the gift of money. A material symbol of prosperity and a greater symbol marking, what Keith Hart calls, the memory bank; money holds the function of remembering.
By contrast to the quotidian uses of money, the money exchanged during the new years is not documented in any official records (i.e. bank statements) but rather recorded in memory; reminding us of our familial relationships and that we are tied to a greater structure of family and society. This is inherently a Confucian framework of filial piety and social/kinship relations. The new year is not only associated with agricultural trends but also speaks to the greater forms of relationality and distribution. The exchange of money (and gifts) within families and kinship relations contribute towards strengthening social bonds and acts directly on the distribution of wealth and the economy (the Marxist would be right to speak about the levels of social class and the circulation of wealth at similar levels of affiliation - changing the topic to 'class' instead of typical arguments around the 'modes of production' or 'consumption'. While this may be correct in general, there will be examples and cases of wealthier older generations giving to the poorer younger generations within an extended family and kinship relations).
The dynamics of gift, money, and filial relations go much deeper and are more complex than what happens on new years and we can certainly speak of the collision of "modernity" (and neoliberal capitalism) with "traditional" family values that are manifesting in Korean society today (e.g. increase in suicide rates of the elderly, increase in household debts, increase in wealth inequality, the commodification of rituals around death and birth, and the recent creation of social contracts between aging parents and their children to fulfil their filial duty, etc.). But the sustainment/reproduction of this tradition - not out of a morality of freedom but a morality of duty and aspiration - is simultaneously social and economic. This situates the discussion of religion and money in terms of its positive value and meaning-making capacities as opposed to the typical diatribe against its negative meaning-making dimensions (which are, of course, very much evident in the world today). Moreover, the Korean context (which will have subtle nuance from region to region just as they will take on variations in China and Japan) also places money and gift within dialectical discussions of tradition and modernity, private and public, household and labor; sacred and profane which becomes re-configured in very different ways (i.e. the religious-secular divide crumbles effectively delegating that discussion to a form of parochialism).
The ordinary ethics places a value on reflection and celebration. Although we can question the psychology of it all and ask the extent in which people do in fact think about the past year, remember the good, the bad, and the extent to which meaning is created by the act of reconstructing and projecting into the future: creating goals, "resolutions," and anticipating what life will be like in what is to come. In this sense, new years is, cognitively, an individualist tradition engaged with actively skiming one's recollected history within the parameters of what is memorable (accurate or not) and simultaneously constructing a fantasy predicated on the former. It is no surprise that the heads of Janus are connected rather than separated by two necks. The blood that goes into the heads are of the same source, pumped from a single heart.
Ironically, the value of reflection is intensified or negated by the act of celebration ('Bacchus'). The consumption of alcohol can sharpen or dull our thinking. It is a paradox that sustains the perennial ritual. Depending on one's perspective, meaning is enhanced or made hollow (especially in the light of systemic injustices, poverty - it is useful to keep in mind that the celebrating the holidays is an act of privilege - and violence around the world). Bacchus thereby becomes a form of ritual intensification, positively or negatively, in the creation of meaning (of course, Bacchus is not a necessary component for the act of meaning-making and the act of not participating may simply be a form of apathy to it all).
The actions symbolized by Janus and Bacchus are thereby instigators of meaning and mood, intensified by perennial social conventions. By contrast to the western custom, which now spreads across much of the modern world, the turn of the new year is marked by a different clout of meaning in the (far) eastern traditions. For many, 2016 is the year of the monkey - more specifically the red monkey - as the 12 animals cycle over. Just as the western zodiac interprets one's birthday in terms of constellations, the eastern zodiac takes the year, time and date of one's birth into a form of fortune telling by looking at the interaction of your birth animal and the overarching animal of the year. At the most basic level, it is an interaction between two animals. But if one dives deeper, one's birth is also associated with the elements (water, metal, wood, fire). This makes for an interesting comparative structuralist study of meaning and value between eastern and western forms of divination or fortune telling. I would be interested to see how many aim to have a child during this year because of its associations and meaning embedded in the red monkey. A practice that is not really seen in the west (but perhaps this is my ignorance - I have yet to meet anybody who says they will have a baby this year because their star zodiac and their partners' aligns well with the year of whichever constellation).
In the academic realm of discussing "lived religion," we can trace the western roots of celebration and reflection (which probably exists somewhere) and situate the perennial new years ritual within the context of Christianity and Paganism and its influence on the customs of "society." In Korea, the turn of the new year is marked by the ritual of visiting one's relatives (more ostensibly on the lunar new year in February) and if we cannot visit, we exchange communications by phone, email, social media platforms, chat applications etc. The custom is marked by the greeting: "receive many blessings/fortunes in the new year" accompanied by a big bow. An action of value that symbolizes reverence, familial relations, and prosperity. In this regard, the new years is relational. When younger generations give this greeting to the elder, we receive a few words of wisdom that take us into the new year. Moreover, these words are accompanied by the gift of money. A material symbol of prosperity and a greater symbol marking, what Keith Hart calls, the memory bank; money holds the function of remembering.
By contrast to the quotidian uses of money, the money exchanged during the new years is not documented in any official records (i.e. bank statements) but rather recorded in memory; reminding us of our familial relationships and that we are tied to a greater structure of family and society. This is inherently a Confucian framework of filial piety and social/kinship relations. The new year is not only associated with agricultural trends but also speaks to the greater forms of relationality and distribution. The exchange of money (and gifts) within families and kinship relations contribute towards strengthening social bonds and acts directly on the distribution of wealth and the economy (the Marxist would be right to speak about the levels of social class and the circulation of wealth at similar levels of affiliation - changing the topic to 'class' instead of typical arguments around the 'modes of production' or 'consumption'. While this may be correct in general, there will be examples and cases of wealthier older generations giving to the poorer younger generations within an extended family and kinship relations).
The dynamics of gift, money, and filial relations go much deeper and are more complex than what happens on new years and we can certainly speak of the collision of "modernity" (and neoliberal capitalism) with "traditional" family values that are manifesting in Korean society today (e.g. increase in suicide rates of the elderly, increase in household debts, increase in wealth inequality, the commodification of rituals around death and birth, and the recent creation of social contracts between aging parents and their children to fulfil their filial duty, etc.). But the sustainment/reproduction of this tradition - not out of a morality of freedom but a morality of duty and aspiration - is simultaneously social and economic. This situates the discussion of religion and money in terms of its positive value and meaning-making capacities as opposed to the typical diatribe against its negative meaning-making dimensions (which are, of course, very much evident in the world today). Moreover, the Korean context (which will have subtle nuance from region to region just as they will take on variations in China and Japan) also places money and gift within dialectical discussions of tradition and modernity, private and public, household and labor; sacred and profane which becomes re-configured in very different ways (i.e. the religious-secular divide crumbles effectively delegating that discussion to a form of parochialism).
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