Diagnóstico del proceso administrativo

The link between cultural indices and the group members’ genealogical roots is asserted via ethnic discourse, usually in the form of history. We saw above that both Smith and Hall include a shared sense of history in their characterizations of ethnic groups. Smith has pursued that aspect of ethnicity in depth, comparing ethnic rhetoric of diverse groups, both modern and ancient, in order to synthesize and generalize about how ethnic identities are asserted and argued. He summarizes:

that the ‘core’ of ethnicity, as it has been transmitted in the historical record and as it shapes individual experience, resides in a quartet of ‘myths, memories, values and symbols’ and in the characteristic forms or styles and genres of certain historical configurations of populations. …

Special emphasis is laid on what is termed the ‘myth-symbol’ complex,

and particularly the ‘mythomoteur’ or constitutive myth of the ethnic

polity . . .56

Further, he emphasizes that this myth-symbol complex entails “peculiar claims about the group’s origins and lines of descent. These claims and this complex provide the focus of

a community’s identity and its mythomoteur, or constitutive political myth.”57

Smith distinguishes two types of myth corresponding to two varieties of ethnic groups. Regarding pre-modern eras, he designates the two types of myth as “dynastic”

and “communal.”58

The former tend to support the identity and legitimacy of elites, aristocracies, or dynastic groups whose identity and privilege are to be insulated from 56 Smith, Origins, 15. 57 Ibid., 57-58. 58

Ibid., 57-68. He adjusts his categories slightly for modern ethnic identities in the context of the nation-state where the distinction is between “genealogical” and

“ideological” types of descent; cf. Smith, Myths and Memories, 70-71. Nevertheless, the

former type, even in modern examples, tends to legitimate elite establishments, whereas the latter tend to infuse more broad-based sentiments and collective action. Hall’s

appropriation of Smith for ancient Greek genealogies adopts his terms “genealogical” and “ideological” types of descent. But as both types involve genealogical reckoning, I find labeling only one “genealogical” confusing and have opted for Smith’s “dynastic” versus “communal” genealogical labels. His main distinction between pre-modern and modern instances of these modes seems to be that modern nation-states often reflect both types

working in tandem with varying amounts of inherent tension. Smith, Origins, 58; Smith,

those of the populations over whom they rule. Smith labels these social bodies “lateral- aristocratic ethnie.”59

They are “lateral” because the members tend to be more concerned

about identifying with aristocratic members of other ethnie than with the common

population of their realm. Conversely, “[i]n contrast to the more fluid and open

aristocratic type of ethnie, demotic or vertical communities emphasize the ethnic bond

that unites them against the ‘stranger’ or ‘enemy’.”60

These “vertical-demotic ethnie”

tend to employ myths of the communal variety that “focus on an image of the whole

community rather than a privileged lineage or state institution.”61

With its emphasis on an entire people, inclusive of all social strata, it is both less viable and less imperative to delineate bloodlines, however specious. Hence the genealogical aspects of this sort of myth tend to embrace mythic ancestors as the ground for common cultural distinctives. In this sense, the communal myth involves more ideological or spiritual genealogical

trajectories than the dynastic myth. We can affirm that Paul deploys ideological and spiritual genealogies for the believers (e.g. Gal 3:6-9, 26-29; 4:4-7, 19, 24-31; 1 Cor 10:1-4; 15:20-24, 45-50; Col 1:3, 12-15).

Among the communal myths, Smith discerns two further sub-types: political and religious. Historically, the more explicitly religious a communal myth the more it penetrates all strata of society, effectively mobilizes for action, and enables longevity of the ethnic group. Here from another angle we see the role of religion in ethnic identity construction that we noted above. Smith presents ancient Judaism as one of his

representative pre-modern ethnie that exemplify use of such a religious, communal

myth.62

This study will adopt his categorization of the ancient Jewish myth type and also apply it to the Pauline Christian identity. Clearly, the communal identity Paul advocates

59

Smith, Origins, 79-83. Smith prefers the French noun ethnie to the more cumbersome

English ethnic group.

60 _{Ibid., 83.} 61

Ibid., 61.

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is religious, rooted as it is in the exclusive monotheism of Judaism modulated by the worship of Jesus Christ. Paul’s frequent appeal to the social definition implicit in their religious rituals—the Lord’s Supper, baptism—make their common cult central to their identity.

In order to examine “the special qualities and durability of ethnie,” Smith asserts,

“one has to look at the nature (forms and content) of their myths and symbols.”63

Typical content of religious, communal ethnic myths includes an ideological or spiritual

genealogy and a strong in-group/out-group contrast designated by indicia corelated to the genealogical and religious identity. In terms of form, ethnic discourse is first a story, a common history that legitimates the group identity and provides its unique sense of dignity. That common history need not be formally recounted often, but it forms the foundational narrative in terms of which conventional allusions and symbols become significant to the members. Smith writes,

…the myths coalesce and are edited into chronicles, epics and ballads, which combine cognitive maps of the community’s history and situation with poetic metaphors of its sense of dignity and identity. The fused and elaborated myths provide an overall framework of meaning for the ethnic

community, a mythomoteur, which ‘makes sense’ of its experiences and

defines its ‘essence’. Without a mythomoteur a group cannot define itself

to itself or to others, and cannot inspire or guide collective action.64

The Hebrew Scriptures for the Jews and those same Scriptures in conjunction with

Christian kerygma for the early church function as such elaborated myths. Baptism and

the Lord’s Supper ritualize those mythic foundations that are also evoked by prayers, liturgies, and hymns. We will see Paul’s frequent appeal to just these resources to establish the believers collective identity and to warrant their particular ethos.

Smith delineates four typical consequences of mythically motivated ethnic collective action. They are special identity, special dignity, specific territories, and specific

63

Ibid., 15.

64

autonomy.65

Each of these requires brief explanation and corelation with the ethnic theory elaborated above. By special identity, he means that the embodiment of the ethnic myth “sharpens boundaries between communities and points up similarities between members and differences with non-members. Moreover, the myth of descent suggests a rationale for these differences.” He notes the similarity between this consequence and Barth’s emphasis on ethnic boundaries. His second consequence, special dignity, refers to how the myth establishes and enhances the group’s sense of status or worth vis-à-vis other groups. Here the myth grants “status confirmation—for dominant communities—or status

reversal—for suppressed minorities.”66

This sense of ethnic pride accords well with the emphasis above that ethnic groups are self-ascribing, inter-subjective realities. In other words, group members will seek to maintain an identity that is desirable to them, even if

dominant groups marginalize it.67

Smith’s emphasis on the mandate for a specific territory as a typical consequence of ethnic myth-symbol complexes derives from his

definition of an ethnie as a group identified by “a link with an historic territory or

‘homeland’,” and conforms to the observations of ethnologists and to ancient Judaism, in particular.68

I have made a case above for removing a territorial claim from criteria of ethnicity, in order to promote the special case of a “diaspora identity.” Furthermore, I have suggested a way that Paul’s vision of the community as the new temple of God has displaced geographical fixation. Finally, Smith highlights the typical ethnic claim to a specific autonomy, which “is not any freedom; it is a collective liberty in which the self’s laws are those of the nation-to-be, and a specific liberty for that community in those conditions.”69

This is the ethnic mandate that members conform to the cultural norms

65

Smith, Myths and Memories, 68-70.

66

Ibid., 69.

67

Esler, Galatians, 52-53, refers to such strategies as “social creativity.”

68

Smith, Myths and Memories, 13. Barclay, Diaspora, 413; Bauckham, "The Parting of

the Ways," argue that this geocentric focus on Jerusalem and the Temple was a powerful social and symbolic link common to diverse and distant Jewish communities.

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legitimized by their foundational myth. Such freedom for pursuing their collective ethos is precisely the kind of freedom Paul urges in Gal 5:13, “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another” (cf. 1 Cor 9:1, 19; 10:29). This differs from special identity, which emphasizes particular, contextually salient, boundary markers. Autonomy is the freedom to embrace and exhibit all aspects of their tradition and its significance to them for their own sakes, apart from which aspects function as boundary markers enclosing this cultural “content.” In other words, special identity concerns differentiation from outsiders, whereas autonomy is the full ethos practiced

within the group.70

To summarize, ethnic discourse draws upon mythic historical traditions to ground a group’s characteristic culture and boundary markers in genealogical roots. This discourse informs praxis and creates for the group a special identity, dignity, vision for a homeland and mandate for a particular, corporate way of life. The presence of an ethnic mythic substratum to discourse may be discerned by the presence of genealogical references or conventional symbols pointing to them.