Comparative Scholarship and Politics

“In myth, as in life, knowledge of difference is the key to… politics.”
Doniger, p. 32

There are two topics that stood out in Doniger’s book, which I want to discuss, namely, comparative scholarship and academia as a political playground. These points intersect so the overall view is that comparative scholarship is a type of political activism.

Although Doniger is constructing her comparative method in the context of myth, any good liberal studies student will find her method familiar territory. She explains in defense of the comparative endeavor that:

“Indeed, one of the arguments in favor of the comparative method is that even methods that pretend to be culturally specific are in fact comparative, when you take into account the fact that the scholar studying the one Other culture will always be making implicit judgments based upon implicit comparisons between the Other culture and the scholar’s own.” (Doniger, p. 35)

I take culture to mean not merely different geographical groups, but also different historical periods and situations, as well as different genders. Interpreted in this way (which seems to be in line with the attitudes in Doniger’s book) the individual is, although not necessarily explicitly or even consciously, always interpreting his/her field of inquiry in comparison to his/her own experiences/beliefs. This should be qualified by Doniger’s position that knowledge is acquired through the experience of difference. Sameness is equivalent to identity, and therefore does not produce any new knowledge outside of the premise of equivalence. It is by exploring, again either consciously or unconsciously, how the subject is different (from us) that we gain scholarly knowledge. Doniger goes on (p. 36) construct the comparative enterprise as a triangle, and I want to go on to say that any academic enterprise is a rotating coin, one side the subject of study and the other the individual’s own subjectivity.

This position shapes how the comparative approach is defined. Doniger cautions against falling into the traps of universalism or similitude, where inevitably one voice is engulfed by the other, the familiar silences the distinctness of the unfamiliar. She explains that: “The key to the game of cross-cultural comparison lies in selecting the sorts of questions that might transcend any particular culture. (Doniger, p. 40) These questions must engage difference; they must look through the microscope and the telescope. The microscope looks at how it is a human experience, and how these compared experiences, are unique. The telescope explores how this uniqueness is an interpretation of a larger worldview. Asking the questions, shaped along these lines, of both units of comparison emphasize that while both are concerned with similar questions surrounding human existence, each has a different, yet equally valid, answer.

I now want to briefly shift gears to the political, although as the idea of the implied spider will show, this is not so much a shift in thought as a change in angle. Doniger’s implied spider may or may not be (is and is not?) the creation of the scholar. The set of questions that guide the comparative enterprise create a web, this is not just a web for myth, for any comparison unearths a web. The web is the mysterious connectedness between the units of comparison that exists outside of history. Doniger explains that: “Indeed, if we think there is no spider, there is no spider; only our belief makes it (like Tinker Bell) real… And if we think there is a spider, there is a spider.” (Doniger, p. 61) A belief in a spider, a design behind the web, is contingent upon the scholar’s acceptance of the web. The web and spider exist only if the scholar allows them to. This means that new webs can be constructed and deconstructed. How does this relate to politics? On pp. 101-107 Doniger discusses political readings and reinterpretations of myths, for example, Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” as interpreted by the Nazis and then by Coppola in “Apocalypse Now” shows how different interpretations give the myth different connotations for a modern audience. And an examination of the celebration of Guy Fawkes Day shows that participants could equally be celebrating Guy as heroic, or celebrating his capture and death. Are the webs of the comparative enterprise equally politically malleable? Masuzawa’s book showed us that the Religious Studies discipline began with a Christian centric agenda. It created a specific web, but slowly scholars deconstructed it and created new webs and spiders. If the comparative method holds the power to create these webs does it then hold the power to shape how its subjects are viewed? If the scholar who uses the coin rather than the triangle is also creating webs, then does he/she also hold the power to shape how his/her subject is viewed? If the answer is yes, then can scholars shape and re-shape political attitudes?