If the month of December ushers in the festive season for a
large proportion of the human population, namely, Secularists and Christians, ancient Romans and other people groups,
then it is indeed appropriate to pause, even if briefly, to reflect and think
about ‘festivals’ in general – What are festivals? Why are festivals important
to humans? How can we make the most of festivals?
I am tempted to stop right here, with just raising these
questions and throw the ball to the reader, saying, ‘pray, answer these
questions, please?’ Even as I pause to ponder as to whether that is fair at
all, I hear your quick reply, ‘sure, but why don’t you begin with your answers,
after all they are your questions!’ The implicit logic in your rejoinder – of
questioners having to answer their questions first, can be definitely
questioned, but conversationally speaking, you have indeed thrown the ball back
into my court and to question your logic would take the focus elsewhere. ‘You
have forced my hand,’ I retort, slightly irritated by the wicked grin covering
your face. Here I was, thinking of a nice dialogue, which in my view was, of
course, me with the questions and you with the answers, but now I am being
forced to answer my own questions, which would indeed make me more vulnerable
than I would want. On a side note, [now, this is silly – talking of a side
note! This entire paragraph is a side note, having nothing to do with festivals!],
it is indeed interesting that those who ask questions are in positions of power
and those required to answer are under power. Articulations of question-answers
are exercises and performances of power! The most immediate and safest example
is that of a teacher-student. The teacher asks, and the student answers. The
answers determine the fate of the student – being in the good graces of the
teacher or…! Now, what happens when the student questions? Normally it affirms
the same power relationship, because the student asks in ignorance of some
knowledge possessed by the teacher which is supplied by the teacher in her
response. But what happens if the student is at par with his teacher in the
knowledge of a particular subject or topic and then questions her beyond it?
Well, we all have different experiences of either being in or witnessing such
incidents. But that is another topic and we have already strayed far off our
intended discussion or maybe we will come back to this discussion and learn
from it towards the end.
So let us begin with the first question, ‘what are festivals’?
Immediate answers include – (1) celebration of special events of the
past, (2) commemoration or remembrance of significant happenings, (3) cheer
or happiness being expressed. I would add here that there is a fourth element
in a festival, it is the (4) opportunity for the performance of the Carnivalesque.
This term, in English translations of Mikhail Bakhtin’s works, represents both
a historical phenomenon of the carnival and also a literary tendency. For
Bakhtin, who set to interpret the deeper social processes involved in medieval
carnivals, particularly the Feasts of
Fools held in Europe from the fifth century onwards to the sixteenth
century, the carnivalesque represented the inversion of the ideological,
political, legal and religious authority of both the church and the state. As
Terry Eagleton points out, it can be best described as ‘licensed
transgression’. During the Carnival, established social, political and
religious norms and behaviour were subverted through untamed revelry. Set
beliefs and rules were ridiculed and mocked. Social hierarchies along with
their solemn pieties and etiquettes were profaned and overturned. The public and
the laity whose voices were normally subdued and suppressed were given space
during the carnival. A spirit of free thinking was legally allowed during the
carnival, which Bakhtin sees as the precursor to the European Renaissance. Bakhtin
explores the idea of the carnivalesque at length in Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (1929) and Rabelais and his World (1965). In Carnival and Carnivalesque, Bakhtin offers four categories of the
‘carnivalistic sense of the world’ – (1) Free and Familiar engagement between
people, (2) Eccentric Behaviour, (3) Carnivalistic misalliances, and (4)
Sacrilegious. Thus one could say that the idea of carnivalesque for Bakhtin
entails that aspect of a carnival or festival in which there is an upturning of
the regular and routine and a sacrilegious of the sacred power equations, and
thus opens new space for new thinking, new alliances and new worlds. Charles
Taylor, making a reference to Bakhtin in his famed The Secular Age, argues that carnivalesque entails the idea of ‘anti-structure’.
The medieval world entailed within it a space for ‘anti-structure,’ a time when
the normal given structures could be critiqued, parodied, critically analysed
and overturned. In doing so, the power binaries within which the majority of
humanity suffered throughout the year were overturned, albeit briefly, and in
so doing, the entire social structure found respite, in a sense, strength to
live through the tyranny of the rest of the year. During carnival the peasant
is indeed king!
However, I can already anticipate a Zizekian critique of
Bakhtin’s carnivalesque of which I am unable to find in Zizek’s writings. Zizek
would or could argue that the medieval world domesticated revolution by
offering legitimate space for the Taylorian anti-structure to play out during
the Bakhtinian carnival. As the space of carnival is brief and temporary, so is
the revolt. The real parody of the carnivalesque is the parody of revolt, as
the powerful continue to be powerful and their seat of power is not truly
overturned in spite of the antics of the carnival. Although the Bakhtinian carnivalesque
critique offers a fresh insight into the significance of festivals and the
powerful role they play in the healthy maintenance of social structure, the
Zizekian counter-critique offers a powerful challenge precisely to the very
celebration of festivals and carnivals. If the carnivality of festivals at the
most are only able to offer a parody and mockery of existing power structures,
then carnivality is truly a parody not of the power structures – but of the
powerless and the oppressed, who even in their rebellion and anti-structures
are following the dictate of the ruling structures.
If this be taken seriously, then celebration of any festival,
including the December festivals, becomes highly problematic in three different
ways. Let’s spell out the problematic explicitly: first, the naïve celebration
of festivals which is in accordance with existing social structures and
authority/power maintains and affirms existing power structures and necessarily
even celebrates it. This can be equated to a simplistic understanding of
festivals and their celebration. Often, here is where the majority of the
population lies, simply unaware of the deeper structures of their celebrations.
Here there is no threat, whatsoever, to the existing power structures, who
stand behind as the puppeteer and watch the celebration of festivals with
patronizing glee.
Secondly, following the critique of Bakhtinian carnivalesque,
the celebration can become a Taylorian anti-structure, and can mock and
ridicule existing power structures. Here both the state and the religious
institutions that govern the populace throughout the year become objects of fun
and mockery and are delivered a fatal blow. But it is here that Zizek steps in
to ask – have we really delivered a fatal blow to the puppeteer, or is he, in
spite of the revelry, still standing behind the curtains with a smirk on his
face and holding the strings only tighter? This brings us back to our side-note
at the beginning, the power relationship between teacher-student. If the
student merely replies to the teacher’s question, she is following the dictate
of the powerful teacher, but equally if she questions the teacher, within the
boundaries of the teacher-student relationship and the politics of knowledge,
then in spite of the student questioning and the teacher replying, the power
equation is not disturbed, only affirmed, even more vigorously – the student’s
questioning further establishes the authority of the teacher in her answering.
This reveals the really sad state of affair of the carnivalesque, because in
spite of the questioning student, who appears to be revolting, rebelling, and
even parodying, everyone including the student knows who the one with power is,
ultimately – the teacher of course! This expression of power is more sinister
and sadistic, in that it has swallowed up the revolt and makes a mockery of it
and thus disarming it even in its very performance. I am reminded of time given
to question-answer after a lecture or paper is presented. During this time,
although questions of challenge can be presented, it is domesticated and
dissent is overruled simply by being given time during the session. Rarely do
we find someone stand up and walk out in true challenge!
Thus thirdly and finally, following a Zizekian
counter-critique, one may have to learn a new language of celebration – which
on the one hand is not naïve and complaint, constrained by the demands of the
powerful even in celebration, while equally on the other hand it is not a
mockery of revolt by revolting under the same conditions of oppression that
enables the rebelling revelry. Then how should we celebrate? Or maybe, to push
it further, should we celebrate at all? What should the student do? Should he
continually listen to his teacher’s answers unquestioningly, should he respond
with questioning or should he turn his gaze, get up and leave the classroom?
Probably there is another way forward in which festivals can
be retained and celebrated, but not necessarily as Bakhtinian carnival. This
leads us to the second question we began with – Why are festivals important to
humans?
*I have
taken seriously the advice of dear friends who have reminded me rather strongly
that the goal of writing is for the text to be read and not abandoned midstride,
and hence to write shorter pieces. Therefore I have broken this piece into
three parts.
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