Mesolore/Mesolore - Disc 2.iso/mac/data/tutorial.dir/00141_Field_FemaleCommonerLeft.txt

Text File | 2001-03-05 | 921b | 15 lines

The expressive nature of the Balinese state was apparent through the whole of its known history, for it was always pointed not toward tyranny, whose systematic concentration of power it was incompetent to effect and not even very methodically toward government, which it pursued indifferently and hesitantly, but rather
toward spectacle, toward ceremony,
toward the ruling obsessions of Balinese
culture: social inequality and status pride. It
was a theater state in which the kings and
princes were the impresarios, the priests
the directors, and the peasants the
supporting cast, stage crew, and audience.
The stupendous cremations, tooth filings,
temple dedications, pilgrimages, and blood
sacrifices, mobilizing hundreds if not
thousands of people and great quantities
of wealth, were not the means to political
ends: they were the ends themselves, they
were what the state was for. Court