On Clifford Geertz, and a Golden Age

Clifford Geertz died last week. He will be remembered, perhaps not very well, by a few academics, mostly older, many of whom have never read more than fragments of what he wrote. But they will identify him as a kind of mandarin: the first social scientist to grace the faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study at and the very definition of a wise and cultivated old-school intellectual.

Lest he fade away into a decent obscurity, the Wall Street Journal celebrated his demise with a mean-spirited valedictory from Lionel Tiger, a professional colleague of Geertz’s but (as it now appears) no admirer (no link, I got my copy be email from a friend). “He was a major contributor,” growled Tiger, “to the willfully fuzzy illogic which continues to plague the social sciences.” More generally

He sternly advocated that anthropologists turn to ‘thick description’ (an unfortunately apt term) rather than the terse empirical accounts of ethnographers committed to facts rather than elegant rendition. Meanwhile, he continued to write imposing and influential works on the difficulty of bridging the gaps between the consciousness of individuals and between different societies. He emphasized words about acts rather than the acts themselves.”

“Fuzzy,” complains Tiger, “fuzzy.” I won’t attempt to tangle with Tiger directly, except to remark that as an ex-newspaperman, I have always nurtured a kind of affinity for “thick description.” Rather, I want to focus on a remarkable aside, and a curious connection. Tiger says:

[Geertz] became the anthropological enforcer for the New York Review of Books and, like Steven [sic] Jay Gould in biology, intricately upheld a conventional world view which provided intimidating intellectual cover for politically correct thoughts and deeds.

That’s the aside. Here’s the connection: Antioch College. Geertz graduated in 1950, Gould in 1963.

Coincidence? I think not. It happens I was at Antioch College for a while—apparently after Geertz and before Gould, neither of whom I ever met. I contributed just about nothing to the honor of the College: I left with my tail between my legs, and without a degree. But I think I am qualified to testify: in those days, there was no better place in America to nurture the life of the mind. Indeed, that was part of my problem: I was having so much fun talking and (sometimes) listening (not to say sleeping on the couch in the campus newspaper office) that I never got any real work done. How Geertz and Gould did it is beyond me, but I’m not surprised to find that two such distinguished sensibilities could emerge from so fissiparous a milieu.

There were others, of course. Antioch likes to showcase Warren Bennis (1951), the business guru, and Fred Greenstein (1953), Geertz’ neighbor and a distinguished political scientist. And there were countless more with names not so well known who learned at Antioch how to mix intellect, imagination, and a constructive social imagination.

Sadly, Antioch has gone downhill since those days. Through a combination of bad luck and (occasional) colossal mismanagement, it has slid deep into the swamp of the mediocre. Too bad: Yellow Springs is still a lovely college town and Antioch itself (if you ignore a patina of deferred maintenance) looks like a central-casting poster of a small liberal arts college.I don’t know if it has any future, but it certainly has a past, and Geertz (and Gould) did much to create it.