high-stakes gambling, what Bentham called “deep play.” Geertz is right. But he can
also be somewhat misleading.
- Sloterdijk’s insights are worth learning about, but it is telling that he does not
cite one Symbolic Interactionist thinker and he ignores the discipline of sociology.
However, his ideas on “space” have been picked up by social geographers (i.e.,
“human geography”) and his use of metaphors like “bubbles” has appealed to
many people on popular web sites. To some extent, of course, I am using him as a
“straw man” to symbolize all those widely recognized thinkers who do not bother
to read the literature before making sweeping generalizations.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Lonnie Athens, Ralph Brown, John Johnson,
Thaddeus Mueller, and J. Heidi Gralinski-Bakker for useful comments
on an earlier draft. The mistakes remain my own. My “Neo-Marxian
Neo-Weberian” Interpretive CHS perspective has been deeply influenced
by Randall Collins, Norbert Wiley, and Irving Zeitlin. This essay is dedi-
cated to John Smail, an external examiner who was a stickler for idio-
graphic, historically specific, archival detail!
REFERENCES
I have been guided by many sources. Some of the references listed are more directly relevant to
a twin essay entitled “Deepest Play” that concerns the once in a century ritual held at
the most sacred of all of the Balinese temples:Besakih.
Ackerman, D. (2000 [1999]). Deep play. New York, NY: Vintage, Random House. [This book
is listed due to the title, but the author uses the term in an entirely different way, mostly
to refer to creative flow in artistic and sports activities].
Anderson, B. (2006 [1983]).The imagined community(New Rev. ed.). London: Verso.
Anderson, B. R. O. G. (1972). The idea of power in Javanese culture. In C. Holt (Ed.),Culture
and politics in Indonesia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Athens, L. (2011). Interactionism: The growing threat of intellectual extinction. In N. K.
Denzin, L. Athens, & T. Faust (Eds.),Blue ribbon papers: Interactionism: The emerging
landscape(Vol. 36, pp. 115). Studies in Symbolic Interaction. Bingley, UK: Emerald
Group Publishing Limited.
Athens, L. (2012). The self-revelations of 20th and 21st century interactionists: Breaking the
“academic mold”. In N. K. Denzin (Ed.),Blue-ribbon papers: Behind the professional
mask: The autobiographies of leading symbolic interactionists(Vol. 38, pp. 18). Studies
in Symbolic Interaction. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Bakker, F. L. (1993). The struggle of Hindu Balinese intellectuals. Amsterdam: Vrije
Universiteit University Press. [Bakker is a very common name in the Netherlands].
Geertz’s “Thick Description” and a Balinese Temple Ritual 111