fool, as is true of every human being, lives a biological life during certain years. After his death, he
can be remembered by others, a cult can be established in his name, a vita can be written, they can
inspire figures in
literature, and all this material can be an object of study.
Jurodstvo seems to be an extremely malleable phenomenon,
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with the capacity to embody
paradoxical meanings, able to change the way it is perceived once and again, until it acquired its
actual shape as an enigmatic cultural riddle.
II. Towards a Diachronic Understanding of jurodstvo as Socio-Cultural Construct
With this introduction in mind, the diachronic aspect of
jurodstvo can now be emphasized by
attempting to understand the history of holy foolery not as a series of several developmental stages
but as a process of continuous reconstruction, with different manifestations that spread with varying
degrees of intensity through different periods of ascendancy and reduction. The goal of this study is
to find an interpretational framework based on a systemic approach that will lead to a better
understanding of that complexity represented by
jurodstvo as a socio-cultural phenomenon. To state
the goal even more precisely – based on the notion of an autopoietic system, I propose to describe
and understand the phenomenon of
jurodstvo within the context of the continuous reconstruction of
a sociocultural system,
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a system closely tied to many different temporal and cultural
environments. To the best of my knowledge, such
a holistic perspective of jurodstvo is new.
The principles of the proposed new approach to the understanding of
jurodstvo are based on
System Theory
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, which attempts to provide a theoretical framework for the understanding of many
171 Borrowing the term from its use in philosophical phenomenology,
which aim is to describe phenomena in their
most radical form, as they stand before they get defined by supposition. By “phenomena” we understand things as
they appear to us. See Barfield 1997: 353.
172“The idea of system implies a concern with interrelation, context , and holism. A systems
perspective is thus
congenial for anthropology, implying an effort to understand social life not through the radical simplification and
abstraction characteristic of classical physics, but by seeking the complex relationships that situate any element of
human behavior in its cultural context.”
See Winthrop 1991: 290-291.
173In the first half of the 20th century, System Theory began in the fields of ecology and biology, focusing
on the study
of the relations between organisms and their surrounding environments (Maturana & Varela 1980). This theory
provided a general definition of “system” (Hall & Fagen 2009: 81-92). Inspired by the interdisciplinary promise of
various studies, Ludwig von Bertalanffy was among the first to propose a general systems theory. His attempt was
criticized and failed (Bertalanffy 2009: 11-36). However, the subsequent work of ecologists
such as Robert May
(1974) stressed the instability of the equations showed by living organisms and their communities. This, in turn,
became a new impulse and revitalized the discussion. This new approach to systems theory is in part a response to
chaos theory, that is, the mathematical response to the developments described in ecology. The new formulation of
what was known as General Systems Theory received different names such as “dynamical systems theory,”
“complexity theory,” or “nonlinear dynamics,” and brought together modern developments in social sciences such as
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problems in different fields of knowledge, from biology and cognition (Maturana & Varela 1980) to
the behavioral and social sciences (Luhmann 1995). These problems are multivariable problems for
which new conceptual tools are needed, because classical solutions were concerned with linear
causal trains. In the last century, modernity has discovered and studied the specific complexity of
our world's understanding, from elementary particles, via atoms, organisms, human beings, culture
and society. Thus, postmodernity is forced to deal with the idea of evolution of complexity in
separate disciplines, such as physics, biology, sociology, etc. As an answer to this situation, systems
theory unifies transdisciplinary knowledge. Bauman (2002: 431) proposes the use of “system, in a
new sociological theory of postmodernity, as a totality logically prior to its parts, […] a totality
whose welfare or perpetuation all smaller (and, by definition, subordinate) units serve; in short, a
totality assumed to define, and be practically capable of
defining, the meanings of individual actions
and agencies that compose it.” This approach is focused on the concept of self organization in
complex adaptive systems. A “complex adaptive system is a network of interacting agents, which
behavior as a group is dynamic and understood in terms of process. From this, interactions emerge
as spontaneous patterns” (Kauffman 1993).
One of these conceptual tools is the notion of autopoiesis and autopoietic system (Maturana
& Varela 1980). A brief introduction specifically to the notion of autopoietic system should begin
with a definition of its characteristics and be followed by a consideration of their consequences in
our field of study. Bailey (1994:44-50) states a generic definition of a system based on previous
studies. The following is a synopsis of his definition: a system is formed by a set of units “that may
be called components, parts, units, characteristics, variables, attributes etc.” He further explains that
these units are connected in different ways and means, and may also be referenced under different
names, such as “relationships, interrelationships, connections, correlations, etc.” These relationships
are not random. This means that “entropy (the degree of disorder) is below the maximum (complete
disorder, which implies no predictive or explanatory possibilities).” A boundary limits the system,
which is surrounded by the environment. In only one sentence we can define a system “
as a
bounded set of interrelated components that has an entropy value below the maximum” (his italics).
Since autopoiesis refers to the capacity of self-creation, an autopoietic system is a system that
selects and creates its own life's conditions (Bailey ibid). In this regard, the use of this conceptual
tool has practical application in our attempt to understanding the socio-cultural phenomenon of
“Game Theory” (Leyton-Brown 2008), “Information Theory” (Garfinkel 2008) or “Decision Theory” (Bermúdez
2009). In anthropology, this “system” perspective was first adopted by anthropologists such as Clifford Geertz and
Roy A. Rappaport (1967). Clifford's definition of religion as a cultural system is a standard
reference formulation
(1966).
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