ABSTRACT
M. Strathern describes anthropological writing as polemical and innovatory, as regenerative, extending existing viewpoints and overthrowing categorizations. Strathern's project for anthropology would seem to be in accordance with this ethos. Cosmopolitan politesse is that mechanism which would keep the dualism current: an actual and practical concern; a moral imperative. Anthropology has long recognized the significant role played by norms and routines of social interaction in sociocultural milieux: both mundane means by which societies maintain themselves as domains of exchange and manifestations of fundamental notions of identity and value. Idioms and ideologies of cultural absoluteness may serve as convenient flags and badges of belonging and may be instrumental as currencies of internal exchange, but anthropology ought not to describe or prescribe them as anything more real, nor as having any ontological or contractual primacy. An idiom of speech, comportment and movement led to a sense of 'being Javanese': an able-bodied, competent and mature individual.
