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Summary
Summary
From a renowned American anthropologist comes a proud celebration of human capacities. For too long, people have taken their own ways of life for granted, ignoring the vast, international cultural community that srrounds them. Humankind must now embark on the difficult journey beyond culture, to the discovery of a lost self a sense of perspective. By holding up a mirror, Hall permits us to see the awesome grip of unconscious culture. With concrete examples ranging from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake to the mating habits of the bowerbird of New Guinea, Hall shows us ourselves. Beyond Culture is a book about self-discovery; it is a voyage we all must embark on if mankind is to survive.
"Fascinating and emotionally challenging. . . . The book's graceful, non-technical style and the many illuminating, real-life illustrations make it a delight to read." -- Library Journal
"Hall's book helps us to rethink our values. . . . We come away from it exhilarated." --Ashley Montagu
"In this penetrating analysis of the culturally determined yet 'unconscious' attitudes that mold our thought, feeling, communication and behavior. . . . Hall makes explicit taken-for-granted linguistic patterns, body rhythms, personality dynamics, educational goals. . . . Many of Hall's ideas are original and incisive . . . [and] should reward careful readers with new ways of thinking about themselves and others." -- Publishers Weekly
"A fascintaing book which stands beside The Hidden Dimension and The Silent Language to prove Hall one of the most original anthropologists of our era." --Paul Bohannan
Reviews (1)
Kirkus Review
The ""cultural unconscious"" for this eclectic anthropologist is that inescapable behavioral matrix which programs us according to sets of complex signals of which we are ordinarily unaware. Not only do unconscious cultural norms control our outward behavior, but they are the mechanisms by which each person unknowingly controls perceptual input--custom-designing the blinders which also have to serve as his spectacles. Hall, no deathless prose stylist, employs a dauntingly jargonistic vocabulary but provides an intelligently mapped survey of several interrelated areas of thought--ethology, psychology, physiology, comparative art. Once ""beyond culture,"" we find that traditional Western learning situations ignore the actual physiology and anatomy of the brain, that the influence of spatial contexts on the functioning of the human organism is extremely precise and detailed, that the brain waves of people conversing demonstrate remarkable synchrony. Cultural norms govern aspects of our lives that can only be guessed at, but it is literally impossible to detect them at work unless something happens to derange them. Only the bowerbird shares with humanity the extraordinary ability to externalize evolutionary processes; it has suffered less as a result. Despite his grim awareness of the damage done by unperceived cultural prescriptions and proscriptions, Hall is optimistic about the outlook for cutting some cultural umbilical cords and setting to work to redesign many of our institutions from the inside out. A sprawling, awkward, but exhilarating work. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.