KINGDOM COME, BUT WHO IS THE KING? ESSAY ON THE CONCEPT OF AMBIGUITY AS CLAIMED BY E. R. LEACH
KINGDOM COME, BUT WHO IS THE KING? ESSAY ON THE CONCEPT OF AMBIGUITY AS CLAIMED BY E. R. LEACH

Summary/Abstract: I discuss analytic purpose of the term ambiguity, as used by E. R. Leach, for the issues concerning identification with cultural heroes. Cultural heroes represent cultural cognitive models, which are unquestionable concerning norms and values they stand for in the real life, no matter some contradictions could be noted within them by the external observer. People striving to improve their status – as Leach has put it – by identifying with the figures of cultural heroes do not take into consideration such contradictions, taking the model and its representative, cultural hero, as granted form for the object of their identification. If we study what those people think and how they behave accordingly, and not that what we the anthropologist think they think and do, I argue that the term ambiguity is analytically obsolete.

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