Warning: if you think the Bible speaks the language, not of men, but of angels, read no further. You are about to be deeply offended. In a two-part series, I will explore the role of sexual organs in two forms of communication: male-on-male gestures of greeting and male-on-male threatening speech. Sicilian and Andalusian traditional practice will serve to illustrate the first kind of communication. 1 Kings 12:10 will serve to illustrate the latter.
“Our” culture no less than any other communicates
by means of metaphors. In order to grasp this, it is essential to work with a
broad definition of metaphor which takes in both body-language and language in
the strict sense.
For example, in terms of body-language, a
tight pair of jeans is a metaphor. A blouse which shows cleavage is a metaphor.
Context, of course, determines the exact purport of the metaphor, the “tenor,”
shall we say, of the “vehicle” (for the sense in which I use these terms, go here).
Then there are metaphors of a linguistic
sort. "Give me an example." Neruda looked at his watch and sighed. "Well,
when you say the sky is weeping, what do you mean?" "That's easy---that
it's raining." "So, you see, that's a metaphor." That’s dialogue
in a film which puts somatic and linguistic metaphors on display with great
power: Il Postino (The Postman), by Antonio Skármeta. For an excellent overview
of The Postman, go here.
It’s possible to fix the concept of metaphor
in the broad sense by means of clips from the film.
(2) Body Language
Metaphors of the kind Pablo Neruda majored in are relatively
familiar. Male-on-male somatic and linguistic metaphorical conventions, in
comparison, receive less cinematic expression. Nonetheless, male-on-male metaphors form
the background to and come to expression in biblical literature
more than is usually noticed. See Part Two of this series.
While a pastor in rural Sicily, I was struck
by the practice of one man greeting another man by grabbing hold of his
testicles. The act is an assertive statement of a male-on-male bond. Henk
Driessen in an essay entitled “Gestured masculinity: body and sociability in
rural Andalusia” doesn’t mention the testicular form of greeting, but otherwise
introduces the subject well enough (go here
for the full essay):
Men perform a large number of body-contact gestures when greeting each
other or taking leave. These include striking the back of the head, the back of
the neck, the chest, or stomach. Such slaps of ‘affection’ among equals and
drinking partners are usually executed with considerable force. They
communicate a man’s strength and test the other man’s toughness, how much he
can take, and whether he is able to control himself.
In Andalusia, as elsewhere in Spain, virility is thought to reside in the
testicles [note: I understand what Driessen is getting at, but he confuses “thought”
with convention and too facilely equates virility and testicles]. Hence they
play an important part in the body language of men in bars [the observation
point of Driessen’s study]. Men frequently touch their testicles, lifting them
up with one hand, for instance, upon entering a bar, taking a position at a
counter, or while driving a point home during a debate. These are all
situations in which they have to assert themselves. . . . Testicles are also
targets of pranking. A man stealthily approaches a friend, who is involved in a
conversation at the counter, surprising him by grabbing his testicles from behind to the
amusement of his drinking partners.
Something of the purport of the somatic
gestures just described finds expression in metaphorical speech of the
same culture. The use of the word cojones (testicles) in Spanish to
reference assertiveness is frequent. Precisely because the metaphor is
gender-specific, its use in reference to the opposite gender is that much more
piquant. For example, “Maria ha le palle quadrate” in Italian means that Mary has
balls – “square” balls, literally, a figure of speech whose details do not
carry over from one language to the other very successfully.
A throwaway question for those interested in sociobiology:
how does this relate to nature,
red in tooth and claw? (I thus return to a
discussion
Duane
and I
were have having). I’ve read that chimpanzees often use an erection as a
display to their rivals, and baboons grab a friend's testicles in greeting. Google
the previous sentence if you are looking for exact references.
To be continued.
Two things: i) are you going to talk about the custom of grabbing testicles in order to pledge allegiance (I think translated as 'thigh' in modern English; I'm thinking of passages in the OT)?; ii) are you familiar with the story of how and why Wittgenstein realised his earlier theories about language were mistaken? "Wittgenstein and Piero Sraffa, a lecturer in economics at Cambridge, argued together a great deal over the ideas of the Tractatus. One day (they were riding, I think, on a train) when Wittgenstein was insisting that a proposition and that which it describes must have the same 'logical form', the same 'logical multiplicity', Sraffa made a gesture, familiar to Neapolitans as meaning something like disgust or contempt, of brushing the underneath of his chin with an
outward sweep of the finger-tips of one hand. And he asked: 'What is the logical form of that?' Sraffa's example produced in Wittgenstein the feeling that there was an absurdity in the insistence that a proposition and what it describes must have the same 'form'. This broke the hold on him of the conception that a proposition must literally be a 'picture' of the reality it describes.' (From Norman Malcolm's memoir)
Posted by: Sam Norton | March 03, 2009 at 05:18 AM
Its funny that you brought up 1 Kings 12.10. I preached on it a little while ago to a group of young adults. The metaphor wasn't too shocking for them because it seems men will always be men. Do you think its a universal male trait to compare finger sizes?:)
Posted by: Justin Richter | March 03, 2009 at 06:54 AM
Read any Ricoeur? You'd love him.
Posted by: Tommy | March 03, 2009 at 10:23 AM
Sam,
No, I'm not planning to cover the ground you suggest. It would be interesting, but more that I can bite off at the moment. The anecdote about Wittgenstein and Sraffa is precious. Thanks.
Justin,
In the end, I think it helps people to know that the Word of God contains within itself a witness to such things and such language. Otherwise salvation would regard not us, but us without the parts we like to pretend are not a part of who we are.
Tommy,
I love Ricoeur and have read my share of him. I like his concept of reading the Bible from the point of view of a second naivete.
Posted by: JohnFH | March 03, 2009 at 01:44 PM
John,
What does Ricouer mean by that? I've heard so many people say that they are looking for a second naivety in their spiritual experience, but I've never understood it. Does he mean a movement back to a pre-critical state in our reading?
Posted by: Ranger | March 03, 2009 at 04:47 PM
Hi Ranger,
No, Ricoeur means a *post*-critical naivete, if you get the difference.
Here's an example, which you may or may not like. For reasons of intellectual honesty (I may be wrong about it, but nonetheless), I am not and cannot be a YECer (a young earth creationist). The evidence for an incredibly old universe with a Big Bang at the beginning across multiple scientific disciplines seems strong.
Yet, when I read Gen 1:1-2:4, I think of 24 hour days, concluding with a 24 hour Shabbat or day of divine rest. Within the world of the text, a naive reading of that kind seems right. It speaks the truth to me on several levels.
Then, I can step back and remember that a thousand years are as a day to the Lord.
On the other hand, as a post-critical "naive" reader, I don't have to resolve anything, because I see Gen 1:1-2:4 as expressing cosmological truth and knowledge, science in the highest sense, which remains that on a level of abstraction above that of the physical and biological sciences.
In short, "critical" forms of knowledge are not set aside, but neither are they allowed to stand *above* and *in judgment of* "naive" knowledge whose source is revelation.
Just thinking out loud. What I've said probably needs qualification in more than one sense. But perhaps the drift is clear.
Posted by: JohnFH | March 03, 2009 at 05:55 PM
"Warning: if you think the Bible speaks the language, not of men, but of angels, read no further. You are about to be deeply offended."
You did a great job with this one, you had nearly explained the two things very well, glad I had dropped by to your post
Posted by: Virility | August 04, 2009 at 02:49 AM