{"title":"The meaning of being numerous","authors":"Brendan H. O'Connor","doi":"10.1111/anhu.12542","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this essay, I describe my experience of looking to anthropological and other social scientific scholarship to try to come to terms with the changes of identity and worldview that often accompany early sobriety. I argue for an “anthropological humility” that acknowledges the limitations of cultural analysis in representing and interpreting life changes, like addiction recovery, with existential dimensions. I reflect on the figure of Sir Lancelot in Robert Creeley's poem “Bresson's Movies” and his predecessor George Oppen's phrase “the meaning of being numerous” to express what Gregory Bateson (1971) called a shift from symmetrical to complementary ways of being in addiction recovery.</p>","PeriodicalId":53597,"journal":{"name":"Anthropology and Humanism","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Anthropology and Humanism","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/anhu.12542","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"Arts and Humanities","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
In this essay, I describe my experience of looking to anthropological and other social scientific scholarship to try to come to terms with the changes of identity and worldview that often accompany early sobriety. I argue for an “anthropological humility” that acknowledges the limitations of cultural analysis in representing and interpreting life changes, like addiction recovery, with existential dimensions. I reflect on the figure of Sir Lancelot in Robert Creeley's poem “Bresson's Movies” and his predecessor George Oppen's phrase “the meaning of being numerous” to express what Gregory Bateson (1971) called a shift from symmetrical to complementary ways of being in addiction recovery.
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