In the previous articles, I’ve tried to show why custom seems to be such an important aspect of culture. An overview of all that’s been written shows that we may see custom as the practical side of culture, this meaning that it is directly connected with actions, ways of proceeding – or, in a word, with conduct; a general conduct followed by the majority of the members of any given human culture. In general, conduct is synonym with behavior, that is, the peculiar shape assumed by an individual, or group’s actions. The sense we tend to attribute to conduct originates in Latin verb conduco, a verb which is interesting to observe as it will allow us to perceive the peculiar nature of conduct from one very different perspective.
As a synonym of behaviour, conduct is a word that may be used in relation to both individual and group actions. Anyway, from its very origin, the Latin verb from where it derives, conduco, meant to lead, collect, assemble together, with a special focus on the intensity of this assembling, so much so that it also meant to unite. This verb owes its existence to being a contraction with one other verb: duco, to conduct, bring forward. When used with the words road or way, it alluded to their leading, or guiding, to some place. Let us now try to assimilate these notions into our modern way of looking at conduct.
The idea that most interests me is the one having to do with conduct as a being guided along a road that seems to lead to a place where something collects. To say it in other words, we’re invited to look at custom as being a channel, a conduit collecting water and driving it to one specific place. When looked at this way, custom seems to be much less of a personal option than of a common acquiescence to follow a way that has been previously prepared, and that serves as a means for conveying something. Please keep this verb in mind: to convey. Would you say that behavior has anything to do with transporting? If the answer is no, then think twice. The verb to transport derives from porto, meaning to bear, convey or carry along – which is also the source of comportamento, the Portuguese equivalent of English comport, meaning to bear oneself in a specific way.
Custom may then be seen as a way commonly used – a sort of thoroughfare – to convey some kind of merchandise. We still do not know what’s being conveyed, but we now know that individual behavior, as well as group behavior, is lead through that common road, which means that, in general, custom is just another way of naming a conduct to which individuals are drawn together. This kind of behavior is not the same that arises from an individual’s own decision; quite the opposite: this is the behavior following previously established roads – a channel collecting water that is not flowing freely; a conduit that will lead that water to a place where it will fulfill a purpose. If we accept this new face of custom, then we’ll have to see it as a procedure – in other words, as a series of of established forms or methods that are conducted in a specific way to achieve one specific result.
I do not wish to focus on what the result may be; but I do wish to emphasize that when one follows a procedure, that is, one is surrendering the possession of something that one owed. This is not a personal opinion. This is a fact that can be witnessed in the Latin word from where procedure derives. No doubt that procedo points to a going forwards, to an advancing – but, according to cedo, the verb from where procedo was generated, the direction of that motion – that is, the advancing - was gained at the expenses of the yielding, giving preference, submitting to something, someone, that is superior. In English, as well as in Portuguese, the verb to cede is sometimes used as a synonym of to give up, surrender. So it seems that custom is founded on a rather puzzling scheme: the individual’s transference of a possession to the group – which is nothing more than an alienation. If I define alienation as a turning away, estrangment, you’ll probably think that I’m rendering things a bit obscure, as you not only do not see any relation between custom and estrangement – but, what’s more, they seem to be the opposite of each other… This apparent obscurity will vanish as soon as I tell you that I’m using the word alienation in its original meaning, as conveyed by Latin alienatio: the transferring of something owned to the possession of another so as to make it his legal property. We find something similar in cedo, as this was the verb used in relation to a debtor that handed over his property instead of payment. Perhaps the transference enunciated by alienatio had something to do with this, as the word was also embeded with the sense of a desertion, aversion, as well as, in relation to the mind, loss of reason. Anyway, this discomfort that shows in the word was somehow mitigated in its verbal form, alieno, that kept the idea of making something the property of another, while adding the notion of the transference of property through sale, and so nowadays, its Portuguese derivative, alienar, means to transfer to other’s possession through sale, exchange, donation, etc… Anyway, as nothing, and no one, is capable of effacing the traces of its own origin, alienar keeps on meaning to hallucinate, grow mad as well.
We read in the Qu’ran: “Tell My servants who have believed to establish prayer and spend from what We have provided them, secretly and publicly, before a Day comes in which there will be no exchange, nor any friendships. (14:31). According to Edward William Lane’s Arabic Lexicon, the primary signification of Arabic root بيع (bi’), that translates as exchange – and that’s nowadays used as meaning to sell, sale or being sold - is the exchanging, or exchange, of property; or the making an exchange with property. It may also be used in relation to someone that has gained the mastery over another.
As for friendship, it is conveyed by root خل (khl), that also denotes habit, custom, social behaviour – as well as the filling with holes and vinegar. The two main features of vinegar is that it’s bitter, and is an astringent agent. A substance is said to be astringent roughly speaking when it tends to draw organic tissues together, an attribute whose name derives from Latin astringo, to draw close, to bind, to tighten. Though it may seem strange, this same verb, when used metaphorically, meant to put under obligation, which is interesting indeed, since the sense of friendship in the Arabic root appears side by side with the notion of close connection, agreement in ideas, feelings, etc. But probably there’s coherence here – I mean, it is perhaps not a coincidence to find vinegar and social behaviour side by side, because something similar happens with ثقف (thqf), a root that is the cradle of the Arabic word equivalent to English culture (ثقافة)… the same root that, when used in relation to vinegar, means very acid… Besides this, we find one other meaning that is becoming familiar: to have the mastery over.
[to be continued]
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