ANTHROPOLOGISTS LOOK THROUGH EYES OF THE GROUP/SYSTEM: WHAT MAKES INDIVIDUALS TICK? In preparing my paper for this congress I asked myself two questions TWO CORE QUESTIONS How enables TABOO, seen anthropologically from indigenous societies, to explain and deal with contemporary transgression problems of/with young men in our societies? Can we find and determine human cultures/communities/ contexts where TABOO TRANSGRESSIONS are managed effectively from a system’s survival point of view?

1. ANTHROPOLOGISTS LOOK THROUGH EYES OF THEANTHROPOLOGISTS LOOK THROUGH EYES OF THE
GROUP/SYSTEM:GROUP/SYSTEM: WHATWHAT MAKES INDIVIDUALSMAKES INDIVIDUALS TICK?TICK?
In preparing my paper for this congress I asked myself two questions
TWO CORE QUESTIONS
How enables TABOO, seen anthropologically from indigenous
societies, to explain and deal with contemporary transgression
problems of/with young men in our societies?
Can we find and determine human cultures/communities/
contexts where TABOO TRANSGRESSIONS are managed
effectively from a system’s survival point of view?

2. MEDIATORS BETWEEN TABOOS & THE SACRED
REDRESSING YOUNG MEN’S TRANSGRESSIONSREDRESSING YOUNG MEN’S TRANSGRESSIONS FROM SYSTEMIC ANTHROPOLOGYFROM SYSTEMIC ANTHROPOLOGY
REYNARD THE FOX
A cultural hero in medieval European mythology mimicking contemporary human society.
Though Reynard is sly, amoral, cowardly, and self-seeking and transgressor of ‘sacred
values’. Still a sympathetic hero, whose cunning is a necessity for survival of society.
source: Charles Solomon Hyperion 1995
paper presentation (copyright Moira CTT)
Dirck van Bekkum (moira@ctt.nl (www.ctt.nl)
Cultural & Systemic Anthropologist, The Netherlands
Taboo Conference II (TaCo2104) Durham University United Kingdom

3. CLINICAL ANTHROPOLOGYCLINICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
As a ‘clinical’ Dutch anthropologist/therapist/teacher I:
1) worked for 10 years in NL psychiatry with young men
2) trained hundreds (mental) health care of professionals
3) since 2007 educate transcultural family therapists.
ad 1) About 500 young men I guided in mental health setting
ad 2) Our students are experienced youth & mental health
care workers with experience and for more than 50% from
families/communities with migration histories.
Transgressing taboos are important in young men’s
worlds and in professionals works settings.

4. YOUNG MEN AS TRANSGRESSORS OF CORE VALUESYOUNG MEN AS TRANSGRESSORS OF CORE VALUES
About 500 young men I guided were somehow
transgressing Dutch core values while they ended up in
rehabilitation/resocialization programs in youth care,
psychiatric and juvenile correctional settings
- Sexual, physical and psychological violence
(assault, rape, bullying, harassing, knives etc)
- Criminality
(sexual assaults, shoplifting, resisting arrest, robbery)
- ‘Abnormality’
(learning disorders, drug abuse, psychiatry disorders: impulse
disorder, anti-social personality, ..)

5. YOUNG MEN’S TRANSGRESSING TABOOSYOUNG MEN’S TRANSGRESSING TABOOS
AS DESIRE TO CONNECT WITH THE SACREDAS DESIRE TO CONNECT WITH THE SACRED
Close to THE SACRED means feeling whole/beautiful
To be in the ZONE (in chilling, dancing, rapping),
To tune yourself in bodily skills (sport/break-dance)
To space yourself out in taking drugs
To make fine love to a girl is arriving at your destination
To feel bliss in dare deviling, taking risks
To feel bliss by wearing yourself out to the limit
To feel good and deeply connected during dance events
CAN BE SEEN AS CRAVING FOR THE SACRED

6. YOUNG MEN’S WORLDS IN WHICH TOYOUNG MEN’S WORLDS IN WHICH TO
COPE WITH SACRED VALUES (TABOOS)COPE WITH SACRED VALUES (TABOOS)
- Coming of Age (in transition from leaving child to enter adult worlds)
- Gender (socializing male sexual and aggression drives into ‘fitting’ masculinities)
- Family Issues (divorce, domestic/sexual violence, unsafely)
- Education (schools: motivation problems, learning disorders, etc)
- Occupation (how get a fitting, steady, payed job?)
- Racism and Sexism (young men experience one or more forms of destructive exclusion)
Major issues from young men’s view were: ‘LIMINAL VULNERABILITIES’,
UNSAFE ENVIRONMENTS and ‘CONFLICTING LOYALTIES’ in their worlds
How do other indigenous societies cope with theses issues?
We co-developed several ‘clinical concepts/models’ from anthropological insights:
- ‘Balancing Ethnic & National Loyalties’ (1999, 2001, 2006)
- ‘Transitional Model’Taking migration as life-phase-transition (1996; 2010)
This paper redresses these issues in a Batesonian systemic framework

7. INDIGENOUS CULTURES PREVENTINGINDIGENOUS CULTURES PREVENTING
TRANSGRESSING OF TABOOSTRANSGRESSING OF TABOOS (SACRED VALUES)(SACRED VALUES)
A TRICKSTER IS GUARDIANA TRICKSTER IS GUARDIAN OFOF TABOOS AND ..TABOOS AND ..
AA MEDIATOR BETWEEN TABOOS & THE SACRED.MEDIATOR BETWEEN TABOOS & THE SACRED.
HE/SHE JOKES AND SCARES PEOPLE TO THE BONE ANDHE/SHE JOKES AND SCARES PEOPLE TO THE BONE AND
..CONVEYS THE DEEPER MESSAGE..CONVEYS THE DEEPER MESSAGE
HOWHOW CRUCIAL TABOOS ARE IN SURVIVAL/PROSPERITYCRUCIAL TABOOS ARE IN SURVIVAL/PROSPERITY
.. AS FRAGILE AS HUMAN SOCIETIES/COMMUNITIES ARE.. AS FRAGILE AS HUMAN SOCIETIES/COMMUNITIES ARE
Source: artist BritishSource: artist British Columbia Indigenous PeoplesColumbia Indigenous Peoples

8. REDRESSING THE TABOO CONCEPTREDRESSING THE TABOO CONCEPT
Redressing the taboo concept:
- from an anthropological-systemic
Batesonian perspective
- leads to an innovative explanation of
transgressions of young men in
contemporary societies

9. Some western projections:
“taboos are not necessarily sacred anymore”
“taboos prevent us from ‘real freedom’ so let go of them”
“‘primitive (non-western) cultures’ need taboos to
control their sexual/aggression instincts: we don’t!”
Overcoming taboos concern mostly religion and sex
Marshall Sahlins claims in his 2008 Tanner Lecture:
that Europe’s most suppressed taboo is a deep seated
collective anxiety for chaos and anarchy in society
TABOO CONCEPTTABOO CONCEPT
BURDENED WITH WESTERN PROJECTIONSBURDENED WITH WESTERN PROJECTIONS

10. CROSSCROSS--CULTURAL COMPARISON AS METHODCULTURAL COMPARISON AS METHOD
TO CLEANSE THE TABOO CONCEPTTO CLEANSE THE TABOO CONCEPT
Steiner (1956): 4 active ingredients in TABOO in indigenous societies:
1) represents values crucial to survival of the community
2) defines the value and effectiveness of rituals
3) protects the individual in danger
4) protects society from endangered/dangerous persons
Cross-Cultural Compared ..a taboo transgressing
individual and his family/community run the risk of
being punished by supernatural (ancestral) powers
(Haviland et al. 2013).

11. TABOO IS CONNECTED WITHTABOO IS CONNECTED WITH
SACRED VALUES AND RITUALSSACRED VALUES AND RITUALS
Expanding Bateson systems theory…
transgressing taboos can be translated as
endangering a system’s stability and survival.
He coins this as ‘runaway schismogenetic
communication patterns’ (Bateson 1972; 1987)
Schismogenesis, making differences, is all
present in biological, and thus in human, systems

12. CENTRAL THEME IN BATESON'S WORKCENTRAL THEME IN BATESON'S WORK
Schismogenesis can be translated to anthropological
conceptions of TABOO as disrupting/damaging sacred
values. (Bateson 1969/1991)
How to differentiate between constructive
(promoting survival) and destructive
(endangering survival) schismogenesis?
In his cybernetic systemic conception:
How do human systems restrain control
destructive tendencies of schismogenesis?
Bateson did not offer a definite answer to this question!

13. TRANSGRESSING INDIVIDUALSTRANSGRESSING INDIVIDUALS
AS CORRECTING SCHISMOGENETIC ERRORSAS CORRECTING SCHISMOGENETIC ERRORS
Bateson saw, following Durkheim on social
deviant (transgressing) individuals as change
agents in social systems. He himself tried to be one!
Can young men be seen as champions challenging
prevailing values and ethics? And…as systemic
‘whistle blowers’ when communicational patterns
become incongruent, pathological, and/or outdated?

14. COMBINING BATESON THEME WITHCOMBINING BATESON THEME WITH
TURNER’S CONCEPTION OFTURNER’S CONCEPTION OF COMMUNITASCOMMUNITAS
..combining Bateson’s question with Victor and Edith Turner’s
conception of COMMUNITAS in rituals a clinical (applicable
and testable) answer emerges.
(V. Turner 1969; 1974; E. Turner 2012).
Young men, being liminal in order to leave child worlds and
enter adult worlds, are desperately in need of deep safe, congruent
transformational spaces where they can synchronize their
biological/hormonal with social maturation.
Being in COMMUNITAS emerging in initiation
rituals these ‘transitional’ spaces are offered.

15. CAN TABOOS BECOME PATHOLOGICAL?CAN TABOOS BECOME PATHOLOGICAL?
Self-evident value-loaden patterns of
communication, according to Bateson, can
indeed become pathological and can disrupt a
system’s self-correcting abilities. (domestic violence!!)
Connecting this with young men’ transgressing
could be taken as signaling unsafe contexts in
families, peergroups, schools, public spaces (rape),
companies (mass lay-off) etc.

16. COMMUNITAS AS A SACRED SPACECOMMUNITAS AS A SACRED SPACE
During the second ‘liminal’ phase in indigenous
rites of passage a sacred/transitional space emerges
in which, when sufficient emotional security
is generated ‘COMMUNITAS’ may occur.
This is a collective, trance but conscious, state during
which temporarily (gender-age-class-ethnic)
differences, inequalities, tensions and animosities
disappear to make room for deep feelings of
belonging, of bliss, of home, of heaven, of joy.
Edith Turner (2012) Communitas: The Anthropology of Collective Joy).

17. COCO--CREATING SACRED/TRANSITIONAL SPACESCREATING SACRED/TRANSITIONAL SPACES
IN CLINICAL AND EDUCATIONAL SETTINGIN CLINICAL AND EDUCATIONAL SETTING
In our clinical settings with young men and
their families (Van Bekkum 2001) and in educating
transcultural family therapists we experienced in
numerous occasions co-creation of sacred/
transitional spaces in which collective experiences
of (different intensities of) communitas emerge.
(Van Bekkum 1999; Van Bekkum et. al. 2010).

18. YOUNG MEN AS UNCONSCIOUS TRICKSTERSYOUNG MEN AS UNCONSCIOUS TRICKSTERS
BY DISRUPTING OUR DAILY COMFORT ZONESBY DISRUPTING OUR DAILY COMFORT ZONES
CAN WE SEE YOUNG MEN AS MEDIATORS
BETWEEN TABOOS AND THE SACRED?
In any case, I see.. young men’s transgressing
TABOOS (time & context bound) as signaling
‘pathological’ schismogenetic tendencies in
social systems in which they come of age.
(families, peergroups, schools, companies, religions)

19. ...the sacred cannot be housed only represented ...over and again......the sacred cannot be housed only represented ...over and again...
((after Dudley Young, The Origins of the Sacredafter Dudley Young, The Origins of the Sacred, 1991), 1991)
NO ARCHETYPES, BUT MOVING CONCEPTIONS
A GREAT FATHER AND A GREAT MOTHER
ANCIENT, FLEXIBLE, PERMABLE, ENOUGH
TO HOUSE OUR PAINS, FEARS, DESIRES
TO DIRECT US HOME AGAIN
this are wooden sculptures made Dirck van Bekkum in 1995
in longing for the SACRED in-between Female and Male worlds