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marct
01-24-2007, 02:36 PM
Inside Anthropology, there is a tradition of looking at theater. There is an interesting article that was just published in the latest issue of Cultural Anthropology that ties in directly to post-combat operations (sort of Phase IV+).


DISPLACING VIOLENCE: Making Pentecostal Memory in Postwar Sierra Leone (http://www.anthrosource.net/doi/abs/10.1525/can.2007.22.1.66)
ROSALIND SHAW
Tufts University, Medford, MA

In this article, I seek to locate the anthropology of social recovery within the work of memory. Following a decade of violent armed conflict in Sierra Leone, displaced youth in a Pentecostal church write and perform plays that are silent on the subject of the war, but renarrate it in the idiom of spiritual warfare against a subterranean demonic realm known as the Underworld. Ideas of the Underworld are part of a local retooling of the Pentecostal deliverance ministry to address Sierra Leone's years of war. Through their struggle against the Underworld, these Pentecostal youth reimagine Sierra Leone's war, reshaping experiences of violence that have shaped them and thereby transforming demonic memory into Pentecostal memory. Just as their own physical displacement is not an entirely negative condition, their displacement of violent memory is enabling rather than repressive. By "forgetting" the war as a direct realist account and reworking it through the lens of the Underworld, they use war itself to re-member their lives. Although they do not lose their memories of terror and violence, they learn to transform these in ways that allow them to create a moral life course in which they are much more than weak dependents.

I'm going to have to go through this one carefully, but it may have some useful insights into how people re-construct memories into a religious format.

Marc

goesh
01-24-2007, 04:38 PM
It would be interesting to see some longitudinal studies on the duration of the conversion to non-violent conflict resolution techniques in their personal and collective lives. Implicit in my concept of conversion is the assumption of a desire to not again take up arms for a cause once having been able to recapture parts of their lost childhood and times of normalacy. Spirituality may or may not be shown to be as decisive a factor in all of this as say a decent job and peaceful communities in which to reside. Fat bellies and steady paychecks can go a long ways you know and I am not denigrating anything ritually spiritual that can and does assist in this process. However, having known a number of old WW2 Vets who after all the years of living the 'good life' still had regular nightmares, suffice it to say PTSD from combat is a strange psychological beast that is really not understood to this day.

P.W. Singer (Parameters, Winter 01-02) has some interesting things to say about kids and combat and he suggests that for those recently converted and/or coereced into combat roles, quick disruption works the best to then set the stage for conversion out of a combat mentality. With regards to the Sierra Leone kids you mention, we can quite possibly thank Executive Outcomes for the quick disruption that has set them hopefully on a better path - at least for the boys that were up in the diamond fields if Singer's assertions are correct. It would be an interesting Academic aside to see if and how many of the boys most into theatre-as-salvation were actually up in the diamond fields when EO hit that area and freed it in record time. Easy come, easy go as they say and the ol' Bible or ju-ju IMHO may or may not recapture lost youth as easily as we may desire, particularily in volatile 3rd world environments. If in looking at the mau-maus for instance, we see spirituality played a crucial role in working the lads up for some real butchery, the correlative opposite of what is happening in Sierra Leone with these kids.

It is gratifying to see Academics such as yourself having a genuine interest and making contributions to things Military and Security related when so many of your peers eschew said vital matters. Good day to you, sir.

marct
01-24-2007, 05:17 PM
Hi Goesh,


It would be interesting to see some longitudinal studies on the duration of the conversion to non-violent conflict resolution techniques in their personal and collective lives.

I agree, it would be interesting. Theatre, and especially "religious" or "ritual" theatre, has an interesting history in large parts of Africa as a form of dealing with political conflict.


Implicit in my concept of conversion is the assumption of a desire to not again take up arms for a cause once having been able to recapture parts of their lost childhood and times of normalacy.

Hmmm, certainly something to test out. Honestly, though, I doubt that there is so much a desire to not take up arms again as there is to "place" the experiences within a coherent and comprehensible framework. In many ways, the very action of "conversion" may increase the likelihood of taking up arms, depending on the symbol system used to comprehend the original events.


Spirituality may or may not be shown to be as decisive a factor in all of this as say a decent job and peaceful communities in which to reside. Fat bellies and steady paychecks can go a long ways you know and I am not denigrating anything ritually spiritual that can and does assist in this process. However, having known a number of old WW2 Vets who after all the years of living the 'good life' still had regular nightmares, suffice it to say PTSD from combat is a strange psychological beast that is really not understood to this day.

It's an interesting problem that, I believe, works both ways: a lack of food and security motivated many of the Palestinian terrorist groups and, today, many of the al-Qaida people are recruited from middle class families because of a "spiritual poverty". On the PTSD issue, I agree. You might want to take a look at some of the work by WHR Rivers from WW I - he had some interesting takes on PTSD back when it was first being diagnosed as Shell Shock.


With regards to the Sierra Leone kids you mention, we can quite possibly thank Executive Outcomes for the quick disruption that has set them hopefully on a better path - at least for the boys that were up in the diamond fields if Singer's assertions are correct. It would be an interesting Academic aside to see if and how many of the boys most into theatre-as-salvation were actually up in the diamond fields when EO hit that area and freed it in record time.

I certainly agree with that! EO did a really good job in Sierra Leone. And you are righyt, it would be interesting to find out. I'll try t remember to email the author and see if she knows.


Easy come, easy go as they say and the ol' Bible or ju-ju IMHO may or may not recapture lost youth as easily as we may desire, particularily in volatile 3rd world environments. If in looking at the mau-maus for instance, we see spirituality played a crucial role in working the lads up for some real butchery, the correlative opposite of what is happening in Sierra Leone with these kids.

Certainly. Ritual is really about changes in perception more than anything else, and those changes can lead in any number of directions.


It is gratifying to see Academics such as yourself having a genuine interest and making contributions to things Military and Security related when so many of your peers eschew said vital matters. Good day to you, sir.

Thank you, sir. As to my peers and their opinions, well you are, unfortunately, correct.

Marc

John T. Fishel
02-13-2007, 03:30 PM
If you haven't read Marc's article in the new issue of the magazine, I recommend it to you all. As a political scientist with enough courses for a graduate minor in anthropology, I learned much. Marc develops the theme of conflict between card carrying anthropologists and the "military" in a way that demands a dialogue - although how you have a dialogue with those who do not want to talk to you, I don't know.

The only quarrel I have with Marc is regarding his comments on Project Camelot - a study of political instability in Latin America in the 1960s sponsored by the US Army and conducted by the Special Operations Research Office at American University. The lead investigator was a political scientist, not an anthropologist. My quarrel, then, is that by confining the discussion to anthropolgy Marc doesn't show that the problem extends to nearly all the social sciences to a greater or lesser extent.

I would close these comments on two humorous notes:

1. Some have said that the last refuge for Marxist-Leninists is the American university.

2. Several years ago, a retired Army Col and FAO at the Army War College, Don Boose, created what he called the Malinowski Cultural Sensitivity Award. It was based on the fact that cultural anthropoligist Bronislaw Malinowski's 1930s studies of the Trobriand Islanders were marvels of cultural sensitivity. However, when his field notes surfaced some 30 years later in the 1960s, they were scathing and scatological comments on the customs and culture of those same people. In recognition of this human failing Don created the award to be given to that individual who, despite knowing better, makes a truly stupid and culturally insensitive remark. Needless to say, the majority of the recipients have been Army FAOs!

goesh
02-14-2007, 02:16 PM
Dr. Tyrrell referenced the Savage Minds blog. I browsed and read for a couple of months from Savage Minds about a year ago and I remember thinking to myself, "there is a fair amount of morality being injected here." I find the cited comments by Paul McDowell and Gerald Sider to be somewhat alarming, beyond disconcerting. I can't help but wonder what in their heart-of-hearts McDowell and Sider would truly have to say about the tactics of ELF and PETA for instance, in light of their blatant efforts to politicize their Discipline(s). Indeed! "We're trying to do something against mealy-mouthed policies that don't hold responsible those scum with Ph.D.'s who stand beside torturers" (Gerald Sider) This is the language of disciplined, objective, professional science and highly paid Academics? It sounds more Marxist avant-garde.

McDowell bemoans the poor, exploited Natives with this bitter polemic cited by Dr. Tyrrell:"Like the Government and its military, corporations don't give a rat's posterior about so-called target populations." Fine, but where was his voice and the voices of others like him when the poor Natives were being exploited by the likes of Ward Chruchill out of the Universtiy of Colorado? Here was a Prof. on the fast tenure track who not only fabricated and misrepresented information on Native Americans, he also plagarized and misrepresented himself as being an Indian. Boas wouldn't like that now would he? What I call the silence of the lambs on not only the part of Anthropologists but Academics in general over this fiasco and unprofessional product associated with a male bovine's posterior, can be directly attributed to the politicizing of Academia. In short, Ward Churchill was blatantly anti-American, anti-Government and a Bush hater, which is all that saved him from being publically and vigorously castigated. In fact, some universities, like Wisconsin, paid him to come and give a presentation. Talk about savage minds, Churchill actually had the audacity to claim heritage from a couple of different tribes and to this day, I am not aware of any outrage expressed over this from the Academic community. A number of Native Americans have spoken out over this of course but one would have expected at least some outrage coming from the Anthropology camp.

marct
02-14-2007, 04:43 PM
Hello John,


If you haven't read Marc's article in the new issue of the magazine, I recommend it to you all. As a political scientist with enough courses for a graduate minor in anthropology, I learned much. Marc develops the theme of conflict between card carrying anthropologists and the "military" in a way that demands a dialogue - although how you have a dialogue with those who do not want to talk to you, I don't know.

Thanks for the recommendation :wry:. You are quite correct about me trying to develop the theme of a conflict between Anthropology and the "military". My intention was, indeed, to try and lay out where I saw that conflict coming from as well as some of the more extreme versions of it that are surfacing.

I have been concerned by the anti-corporation, anti-military stance within Anthropology for years, now. This is not because I do not believe that there have been corporate or military abuses of power - there have been and there continue to be. Rather, what has bothered me most, is the extreme form of polarization that has happened where any actions by the military and corporations are characterized as "evil". I honestly do not believe that any profitable form of dialog can happen where the "sides" automatically assume evil intentions on the part of the other.

Is a dialog possible? Certainly, but the strategy of setting one up and keeping it going has more in common with a COIN operation than with the more conventional "academic dialog".


The only quarrel I have with Marc is regarding his comments on Project Camelot - a study of political instability in Latin America in the 1960s sponsored by the US Army and conducted by the Special Operations Research Office at American University. The lead investigator was a political scientist, not an anthropologist. My quarrel, then, is that by confining the discussion to anthropolgy Marc doesn't show that the problem extends to nearly all the social sciences to a greater or lesser extent.

John, you are, of course, quite correct in that the problem certainly permeates the entirety of the social sciences. I didn't deal with any of the others for several reasons. First, I know Anthropology best and that is the discipline that has taken the most publicly radical stance. Second, over the past couple of years, the "military" has been identifying Anthropology as a "must recruit" discipline. Third, Anthropology and, to a lessor extent qualitative Sociology, uses a rather unique primary methodology that significantly alters the perception of the user. To my mind, this sets it in opposition to the more "theologically" oriented disciplines - the difference between gnosis and logos as it were.


I would close these comments on two humorous notes:

1. Some have said that the last refuge for Marxist-Leninists is the American university.

True, and the ones who are too radical even for American universities end up in Canada :eek:.


2. Several years ago, a retired Army Col and FAO at the Army War College, Don Boose, created what he called the Malinowski Cultural Sensitivity Award. It was based on the fact that cultural anthropoligist Bronislaw Malinowski's 1930s studies of the Trobriand Islanders were marvels of cultural sensitivity. However, when his field notes surfaced some 30 years later in the 1960s, they were scathing and scatological comments on the customs and culture of those same people. In recognition of this human failing Don created the award to be given to that individual who, despite knowing better, makes a truly stupid and culturally insensitive remark. Needless to say, the majority of the recipients have been Army FAOs!

I can think of a few Anthropologists who should receive it :wry:.

Marc

marct
02-14-2007, 05:22 PM
Hi Goesh,


Dr. Tyrrell referenced the Savage Minds blog. I browsed and read for a couple of months from Savage Minds about a year ago and I remember thinking to myself, "there is a fair amount of morality being injected here." I find the cited comments by Paul McDowell and Gerald Sider to be somewhat alarming, beyond disconcerting. I can't help but wonder what in their heart-of-hearts McDowell and Sider would truly have to say about the tactics of ELF and PETA for instance, in light of their blatant efforts to politicize their Discipline(s). Indeed! "We're trying to do something against mealy-mouthed policies that don't hold responsible those scum with Ph.D.'s who stand beside torturers" (Gerald Sider) This is the language of disciplined, objective, professional science and highly paid Academics? It sounds more Marxist avant-garde.

"Dr. Tyrrell"? Since when have you been so formal with me in your comments? :D

I definitely agree with you about the inclusion of "morality being injected" into the debates on Savage Minds. And believe me when I say it is not only there! The discipline has been politicized for years - sometimes for causes I would consider good, sometimes for causes I consider silly. BTW, Boas' work opposing race laws in the US in the 1920's - 1940's, his violent opposition to the Nazi takeover in Germany, and his insistence on mentoring and promoting women in academia are all examples of what I would consider to be "good causes".

I think that the major problem that has happened centers around an increasing marginalization of the discipline of Anthropology and the concomitant glorifying in marginal status by some people (not all). In part, this marginalization comes from a denying of advances in the biological sciences and an increasing refusal to consider biology as having anything to do with culture (this stems from a disciplinary reaction against the Nazi eugenics ideology).

I'm not going to write another paper here on it, so don't worry :D.


McDowell bemoans the poor, exploited Natives with this bitter polemic cited by Dr. Tyrrell:"Like the Government and its military, corporations don't give a rat's posterior about so-called target populations." Fine, but where was his voice and the voices of others like him when the poor Natives were being exploited by the likes of Ward Chruchill out of the Universtiy of Colorado? Here was a Prof. on the fast tenure track who not only fabricated and misrepresented information on Native Americans, he also plagarized and misrepresented himself as being an Indian. Boas wouldn't like that now would he? What I call the silence of the lambs on not only the part of Anthropologists but Academics in general over this fiasco and unprofessional product associated with a male bovine's posterior, can be directly attributed to the politicizing of Academia. In short, Ward Churchill was blatantly anti-American, anti-Government and a Bush hater, which is all that saved him from being publically and vigorously castigated. In fact, some universities, like Wisconsin, paid him to come and give a presentation. Talk about savage minds, Churchill actually had the audacity to claim heritage from a couple of different tribes and to this day, I am not aware of any outrage expressed over this from the Academic community. A number of Native Americans have spoken out over this of course but one would have expected at least some outrage coming from the Anthropology camp.

A very apropos question, Goesh, and one I can't really answer. I do know that some Anthropologists have spoken out against it but, in institutional settings where adopting that type of a moral stance is necessary for survival, it's not likely to happen that often. And, in many universities, the "anti-American, anti-Government and a Bush hater" trope is just normal <sigh>.

Marc

goesh
02-14-2007, 05:33 PM
"First, I know Anthropology best and that is the discipline that has taken the most publicly radical stance."

In a horse race with Sociology in this category, Anthro might win by a nose. Even after Chancellor DiStefano from U of C set forth the findings of a 5 member panel levied against Churchill, the Public Sociology blogs had any number of credentialed Academics rallying to his defense. Unbelievable.

In DeStefano's statement is mentioned that despite Churchill misrepresenting himself as a Native American, it was not an actionable offense. This could suggest that the hyper-charged politicized environment of Western Academia has yet to reach its zenith, when lying on employment applications in order to attain a salary is not actionable due to other more pressing considerations, like First Amendment rights.

From the Committee's report comes this gem: " However, questions raised in regard to the allegation of misrepresentation of ethnicity to gain credibility and an audience for scholarship were also reviewed, and the Committee felt that such misrepresentation might constitute research misconduct and failure to meet the standards". This sounds like something evil corporations and the evil government would do to 3rd worlders, doesn't it? One could suggest conversely the smaller and poorer an ethnic group is, the less professional standards are applied in interacting with them. Anyway, this Post will probably be sent to the My Bloody Soapbox section of this forum......

marct
02-14-2007, 06:00 PM
Anyway, this Post will probably be sent to the My Bloody Soapbox section of this forum......

Not yet :D. Actually, Academic ethics fit here, and that's what you are talking about.

On the issue of "lying on employment applications", I do have a couple of comments. First, I have never felt comfortable with the race declarations that may American universities use. Technically, they are not required but, according to a number of people I've talked with, you'd better list yours. The first time I filled one out, I was flumoxed: the definitions were so "weird" and poorly defined that I ended up checking off every box. Needless to say, the head of HR emailed me wanting to know what the frak I was doing. My comments back were along the lines of my skin is white, my family lived in Spain 1200 years ago (their definition of "hispanic"), by Mohawk law I am a Mohawk (long story), my family originated on the Asian steppes 2000 years ago, and all modern humans came out of Africa. Her response was, we only care about 3 generations back. These days I just tick off "White" :cool:.

Let's get back to academic ethics for a minute. One of the things that has always fascinated me about "academic ethics" is how plastic it is depending on who you are and what your supposed identity is. For example, when I was applying for PhD programs, I originally wanted to study how modern Witchcraft was being institutionalized (I'd done my MA on that topic). I was informed by the Chair of one department that a) I knew a lot about the topic (we'd talked for over an hour) and b) I would never get a job in academia with that specialization because I was a man.

To my mind, "ethics" should be based on transcendent principles. I honestly think that Boas tried to do this 100 years ago. Somewhere along the line, however, these principles got replaced with moral statements masquerading as principles. For example, when I started my PhD fieldwork, it was drummed into me how "privileged" a position the ethnographer is in, and how unequal a power relationship exists between the ethnographer and their subjects. Certainly, this is true in some cases but, in my case, I was doing my fieldwork in the offices of the largest accounting / consulting firm in Canada. There was an unequal power relationship all right, but I certainly didn't have the whip hand!

I truly doubt that, had I been a student of Boas in the 1920's or 1930's, I would have had to deal with either of these problems :wry:.

Marc

120mm
02-15-2007, 09:44 AM
I love your "race" comment, Marc. I am allegedly Irish-Something, but because I am an anonymous adoptee, who really knows?

My eye-doctor studies ethnic anthropomorphic(sp?) characteristics, and claims my large and well-developed epicanthric eye folds suggest Asian or Middle-eastern descent.

Basically, in the racist world of "equal opportunity" you are what you say you are.

goesh
02-15-2007, 02:05 PM
Had Ward Churchill claimed Black heritage based on remotely reported ancestoral connections, like he did with his Native American lineage, he would have been drummed out long ago, despite his vehement, Liberal anti-American stances. He claimed Cherokee then Choctaw heritage. How much traction would he have had if he claimed his great, great, great, great Grandma was a slave on Georgia plantation, then next year he connected himself to a Grandfather coming out of a South Carolina plantation? None. Some cultures simply have more clout than others.

marct
02-15-2007, 02:28 PM
Hi 120mm,


I love your "race" comment, Marc. I am allegedly Irish-Something, but because I am an anonymous adoptee, who really knows?

My eye-doctor studies ethnic anthropomorphic(sp?) characteristics, and claims my large and well-developed epicanthric eye folds suggest Asian or Middle-eastern descent.

Basically, in the racist world of "equal opportunity" you are what you say you are.

It is an odd setup in a lot of ways :wry:. One of the things that Boas really pushed was to look at individuals rather than phenotypic groups. You're right about the self-declared categories but, it's interesting to note, that you can only use "approved" categories.

I got called by Statistics Canada for a survey of PhD graduates, and one of the questions was my "ethnicity". Being in a somewhat frustrated mood with such silly questions, I answered with my father's family ethnicity, which is Visigoth (yeah, we can track our family back about 1600 - 2000 years, or at least the clan). Well, Visigoth wasn't an "approved" ethnicity so they asked for another one. I gave them Mohawk, which is legally true by Mohawk law (not Canadian law) even though I have no Mohawk blood (long story). It probably ruined their stats but, if they are going to not accept a self-defined ethnicity that they don't list, then their survey isn't worth much.

One of the things I've noticed about PC academia is that there is a distinct game of victim poker going on. The more "your people" have been "abused", the higher the cards in the game. This really came out when I was doing my MA (in Canadian Studies). I realized very quickly that I had 5 strikes against me: white, male, straight, Anglophone, from Toronto. I was informed by one professor that I could never "really understand Canadian culture" because of my "limitations" - this despite the fact that my family has been in Canada for over 200 years and she, who of course did understand Canadian culture, was an American who came to Canada in the early 1970's with her draft dodging boyfriend :rolleyes:. Needless to say, I became quite "sensitized" to the "racist, sexist and homophobic" attitudes of my "culture", i.e. PC academia :(.

The one good thing about that entire experience was that I developed a distinct distaste for PC morality masquerading as "academic research";).

Marc

Steve Blair
02-15-2007, 03:16 PM
We see this in history as well, Marc, especially with the rise of the post-modernist mafia. I actually had an article come back with "feedback" saying that I wasn't telling enough of the Native American perspective. The article, by the way, was an analysis of the operation patterns of a cavalry regiment. It had more to do with where companies were stationed and their patterns of activity as opposed to any sort of battle history. In fact, there really was no Native American side to show.

On the other hand, I've seen plenty of articles dealing with the Frontier Army period that will dismiss the Army out of hand and go on to focus on the NA perspective or some such. I like balance in my history, but when you start seeing forced "perspective" then I get a little touchy...:wry:

marct
02-15-2007, 04:18 PM
Hi Steve,


We see this in history as well, Marc, especially with the rise of the post-modernist mafia.

"Mafia" - a good description :wry:. Personally, being an individualist, I've always tended to refer to the extreme post-modernist crowd as suffering from Post Modernist Syndrome (PMS); a psychological syndrome characterized by occasional outbreaks of ego-maniacal paranoia, irrational assaults, and the adoption of psychotic forms of reality occasionally accompanied by command hallucinations (e.g. "Foucault has said that...") .


I actually had an article come back with "feedback" saying that I wasn't telling enough of the Native American perspective. The article, by the way, was an analysis of the operation patterns of a cavalry regiment. It had more to do with where companies were stationed and their patterns of activity as opposed to any sort of battle history. In fact, there really was no Native American side to show.

I've had the same thing happen, both from the PMS crowd and from Marxist-Leninist true believers. What always bothered me about the Anthro PMS crowd was their habit of disregarding anything pre-Geertz (~1970). Their rejection of the older works in the discipline didn't come from actually reading them but, rather, from the assumption that they were flawed. Certainly some of them were, but their automatic rejection of all works that didn't meet their "purity laws" meant that they also neglected all of the insights available. Since this included all of the core philosophical assumptions behind the post-modernist movement, many of which had been in Anthro from the 1920's, I was frequently left feeling that the pomos were acting like people who, having just reinvented the wheel, were trying to prove to the world that they were the first to come up with it :rolleyes:.


On the other hand, I've seen plenty of articles dealing with the Frontier Army period that will dismiss the Army out of hand and go on to focus on the NA perspective or some such. I like balance in my history, but when you start seeing forced "perspective" then I get a little touchy...:wry:

Too true! I have no problems with biases since they are inevitable. Still and all, I think that biases should be stated - e.g. "This article is concerned with cavalry tactics" - or an attempt should be made to present all sides involved. A forced perspective, and maybe we should translate that as a PC perspective that valorizes "victims", is a travesty that, to my mind, erodes core scientific values. As you can tell, I get a bit "touchy" as well :D.

Marc

Stan
02-15-2007, 08:31 PM
Evening Marc !

Fieldwork, for a cultural Anthropologist, is a lot more than going to bars and watching people. The North American tradition is to spend a "decent" amount of time, e.g. a minimum of nine months, living with the group you are studying, and time periods, on and off, of twenty to thirty years working with
the same group are not that uncommon. Officially, this time is required to gather data and gain a good understanding of the more subtle and hidden aspects of the culture.

This is not something new, but for some reason, we ignore it with our tours overseas. The typical tour abroad is 2 to 3 years. The first 6 months is literally a waste, as the individual can barely drive home on his/her own. About the point that Dick or Jane is productive, the tour is half over and once he/she rotates, the knowledge (if anything tangilble) is gone.

I might be one of the few exceptions staying for 10 to 12 years in one place. I felt comfort in my surroundings and communicated well with my counterparts. So well, that I began to understand the social and cultural exchanges as if I was one of them. Only then, did I begin to realize how much easier life was among them.

Case in point (Tom pointed out to me): I hated the Zairois even after 10 years of teaching and observing them. Thieves! But I somehow managed to get along with them even during a civil war where the white man was the enemy. I have no idea how I did it and kept my sanity.

I hope you write more (I need the free anthro lessons) :D
Regards, Stan

120mm
02-19-2007, 09:54 AM
I have to confess that I didn't read the article until now. But I've been down with a virus for the last 5 days and am going stir-crazy, and now that I've read it, my pulse has pegged at least three times.

After I calmed down, I am reminded of a young Anthropologist who came to live with us in a small midwestern town in the early 90s. She was from upstate "NWYARK", and was studying the small town midwest (nothing like working what you know, eh?). In particular, she was interested in the interaction of the old guys downtown, and spent a lot of time just hanging around them.

I let her run on the line for about 3 months before I shattered her little idealistic world. I was working in a Social Work field at the time, which is how she came to us, and one night over supper the conversation turned to her work. She discussed some of what she'd "learned" in her observations, and I let the hammer drop. I merely asked her how she was dealing with contaminating her subject. Long silence and look of confusion. "Contaminating my subject?" she responded. In short, I asked her how she thought that she was actually observing genuine "old man in a midwestern town" behavior, when she was 23, from upstate "Nwyark" and quite beautiful. She had no idea that old men in a small midwestern town might adapt their behavior when in the presence of a young, beautiful woman who was considered by the men to be their social superior AND was there for some ulterior purpose. She also had absolutely no clue about male-female interaction, as she had been thoroughly washed in the PC "men and women are no different" blood.

If she is an example of what passes for Anthro today, I wonder just how useful Anthropologists will actually BE for the military.

marct
02-19-2007, 03:26 PM
Hi 120mm,


I have to confess that I didn't read the article until now. But I've been down with a virus for the last 5 days and am going stir-crazy, and now that I've read it, my pulse has pegged at least three times.

Well, a least it brought some "excitement". Honestly, when I was researching / writing it, my pulse spiked about 20-30 times. I had to rewrite the final section at least 10 times before calmed down.


After I calmed down, I am reminded of a young Anthropologist who came to live with us in a small midwestern town in the early 90s. She was from upstate "NWYARK", and was studying the small town midwest (nothing like working what you know, eh?). In particular, she was interested in the interaction of the old guys downtown, and spent a lot of time just hanging around them.

let her run on the line for about 3 months before I shattered her little idealistic world. I was working in a Social Work field at the time, which is how she came to us, and one night over supper the conversation turned to her work. She discussed some of what she'd "learned" in her observations, and I let the hammer drop. I merely asked her how she was dealing with contaminating her subject. Long silence and look of confusion. "Contaminating my subject?" she responded. In short, I asked her how she thought that she was actually observing genuine "old man in a midwestern town" behavior, when she was 23, from upstate "Nwyark" and quite beautiful. She had no idea that old men in a small midwestern town might adapt their behavior when in the presence of a young, beautiful woman who was considered by the men to be their social superior AND was there for some ulterior purpose. She also had absolutely no clue about male-female interaction, as she had been thoroughly washed in the PC "men and women are no different" blood.

What always gets me about the "observer effect" is how poorly it is taught and understood. 120, I've seen people who are just like the woman you are describing; all too many of them, and you are absolutely right to tie it back into the PC assumptions that now permeate much of the discipline.

I think a large part of the roots of this problem go back to two culture traits inside much of modern Anthropology: a) a "distaste" (trans. "hatred") of mathematics, and b) a "distaste" (trans. "ignorance" or "politically motivated rejection") of older (pre-1973) Anthropology.

For years, now, the discipline has been importing ideas from physics. Indeed, Malinowski, who I consider to be one of the best Anthropologists of the 20th century, had his first doctorate in natural philosophy (math, physics, etc.). Ever since the mid to late 1960s or so, there was an increasing rejection of mathematical axioms and an increasing reliance on "theological / theoretical axioms". The general popularizations of physics and mathematics were coming into the discipline as opposed to the models which had been written by people who understood the mathematics.

Starting sometime in the 1970's, I think, the concept of Schrödinger's cat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat) starts to appear in the form of "the Observer Effect". The problem is that it appears out of its mathematical context and, often, is applied outside of the theoretical space in which it was created (i.e. the idea that, without direct observation, no exact statement of "reality" can be made but, once observed, the act of observation "creates" that reality by "selecting" one option from a manifold of potential options). In it's original formulation, designed to talk about quantum mechanics, you have to at least theorize an infinity of possible states.

So, now we come to your example of the 23 year old, good looking female Anthropologist. Ideally, she should "know" that she will affect the people she is studying. If absolutely nothing else, there is something very disturbing about the idea of a young, pretty woman not recognizing that she will have an effect on older men (thank you very much radical separatist feminism!). Now, if she had been trained well, or had bothered to study how she influenced people, or if she had bothered to read Malinowski's Appendix G to Coral Gardens and their Magic, she would have realized that she will influence how they react and what they would talk about in her presence. Ideally, if she had followed the older traditions in American Anthropology, she would have been working with a male partner.

You are quite right when you say she was blinded by the "equality of the sexes" axiom. She has confused a transcendent, "ideal" (in the Platonic sense) valuation with a material reality and, from the sounds of it, like many true believers, she confused "Truth" with "reality" and her research would, inevitably, be seriously flawed as a result.


If she is an example of what passes for Anthro today, I wonder just how useful Anthropologists will actually BE for the military.

That is a very good question :wry:. So, let me toss an observation back a you in my usual round about way. As with many groups, the military tends to conceive of people outside of their group using stereotypes. This isn't a value statement, it's actually a very pro-survival characteristic (hey, you don't train soldiers to stop and exhaustively analyze every situation rationally, do you? Nope, train for specific mission types and "guide" the "analysis" of a given specific by the ROE). But this type of training encourages stereotypical thinking, and we see this all the time in the search for the stereotyped, "ideal" weapons system.

The current "popularity" of Anthropology with the military as an institution comes out of this mind set: Anthropologists are being "sold" as an "ideal weapons system" based on the idea that you can plug in an Anthropologist (120 volt, DC power source needed) and get actionable intelligence. Take a look at how the Human Terrain Project is described and you will see what I mean.

There is, however, a flawed assumption operating here: Cultural Anthropology is not a "plug and play" discipline by its very nature (that's why I went into all that stuff about verstehen). To make matters even worse, many of the current conditions within the discipline mediate against the proper use of verstehen while maintaining the outward form of participant observation research. In order for it to "work", it must a) be balanced with other types of knowledge and b) the person using it must "know themselves". If either of these additional two criteria are missing, and both have been under attack in the PC theocratic environment, then the results will be seriously flawed. There is one other point to make about these two criteria: they become, in effect, the divisors for choosing Anthropologists to work with the military. Let me expand on this.

What the military "needs", as opposed to what the Human Terrain Project "wants", is Anthropologists who will give them the best research, analysis and interpretation possible even when it conflicts with accepted military wisdom. This means that you are going to have to find Anthropologists who are willing to tell the military people they are working with that they are flat out wrong at times; not exactly the best way to win friends and influence people :wry:. It also means that you are going to have to find Anthropologists whose egos can take being told that they are full of Sierra - an equally rare occurrence ;).

So, to conclude this monograph :rolleyes:, let me just say that Anthropologists, as a group, could help the military - I think we have certainly proved that in the past and continue to do so today. But it becomes crucial to consider Anthropologists not as a group, but as individuals.

Marc

120mm
02-19-2007, 04:48 PM
Marc, are familiar with the Science Fiction series called "The Harriers?" For some apparent reason, a technologically superior race of Politically Correct Anthropologists take over the universe, but reluctantly agree that a military is necessary, but only if supervised by a direct representative. Very funny and apropos stuff.

marct
02-19-2007, 04:51 PM
Hi 120mm,


Marc, are familiar with the Science Fiction series called "The Harriers?" For some apparent reason, a technologically superior race of Politically Correct Anthropologists take over the universe, but reluctantly agree that a military is necessary, but only if supervised by a direct representative. Very funny and apropos stuff.

No, I haven't heard of it which, since I'm an SF junky, is an embarrassment :o. I'll check it out - thanks for the note. BTW, the idea of PC Anthropologists in that role really scares me :eek:.

Marc

Shek
02-19-2007, 04:55 PM
The current "popularity" of Anthropology with the military as an institution comes out of this mind set: Anthropologists are being "sold" as an "ideal weapons system" based on the idea that you can plug in an Anthropologist (120 volt, DC power source needed) and get actionable intelligence. Take a look at how the Human Terrain Project is described and you will see what I mean.

Marc,

We need a 240V version too so we can plug you guys into local power grids as well when we deploy :D

marct
02-19-2007, 04:58 PM
Marc,

We need a 240V version too so we can plug you guys into local power grids as well when we deploy :D

Definitely! And it's got to be better than the 12V version using D cell batteries :eek:!

Marc

Steve Blair
02-19-2007, 05:01 PM
You also have to remember one of the axioms of PC research - you're doing the work to confirm what you already know is true. One of the most irritating things I've encountered in the history PC community is the smug conviction that the practitioner of PC history somehow has a unique insight to truth just because they happen to be PC or of a specific gender/racial subset. By this I mean that "only a woman can truly understand Women's History", but she is somehow also qualified by this unique insight to pass unquestionable judgment on any other subset of history she happens to encounter (to include African-American History, Native American History, Political Science, and anything else she latches onto). By the same token, this "researcher" (although often of upper-middle class origins) is somehow qualified by gender or race to understand the situation faced by those of a much lower social class, whose lifestyle she may never have seen up close, let alone experienced.

Sorry...PC always gets my pulse rate spiked.:mad:

marct
02-19-2007, 07:12 PM
Hi Steve,


You also have to remember one of the axioms of PC research - you're doing the work to confirm what you already know is true.

Oh, too true! What's that old saying? "Everything has to happen immediately for puppies, 2 year olds and reformers of any age"? I'd add PC theologians to the list. BTW, it this exact axiom that has led me to refer to them as "theologians" - they "know" the "Truth" and anything that disagree with it is "false consciousness".


One of the most irritating things I've encountered in the history PC community is the smug conviction that the practitioner of PC history somehow has a unique insight to truth just because they happen to be PC or of a specific gender/racial subset. By this I mean that "only a woman can truly understand Women's History", but she is somehow also qualified by this unique insight to pass unquestionable judgment on any other subset of history she happens to encounter (to include African-American History, Native American History, Political Science, and anything else she latches onto). By the same token, this "researcher" (although often of upper-middle class origins) is somehow qualified by gender or race to understand the situation faced by those of a much lower social class, whose lifestyle she may never have seen up close, let alone experienced.

Yupper, that's definitely one of the big ones. One of the problems I've always had with it is that it is actually antithetical to the entire idea of verstehen; which leads me to wonder how any cultural Anthropologist with two neurons to ru together could actually support it!


Sorry...PC always gets my pulse rate spiked.:mad:

Mine too :D. Someday, when we're in an F2F situation, I'l recount what one of the great female Anthropologists told me (it's on how to distinguish a "true" post-modernist from a post-modernist manquee, but it can't be posted on a public board :eek:).

Marc

120mm
02-20-2007, 06:16 AM
Marc, all, is it time for the invention of another field to supplant Anthropology in the field of military matters? My MA is in International Relations, which was "invented" to supplant political science in the field of post-WWII nation-state relations. I see so many interdisciplinary PhDs these days that you'd think some ambitious fellows could find a school interested in producing some PhDs who saw war as a "normal" state of human existence and would be interested in studying what makes people fight and what makes them decide to stop fighting.

It seems to me that COIN is the art/science of determining how to make a person/culture lay down arms, or decide not to pick them up in the first place.

You'd need to call it something, though.....

marct
02-20-2007, 01:34 PM
Hi 120mm,

This is a really good question - so good, in fact, that I snipped it out to create a new thread.


Marc, all, is it time for the invention of another field to supplant Anthropology in the field of military matters? My MA is in International Relations, which was "invented" to supplant political science in the field of post-WWII nation-state relations.

Anthropology, in many ways, started as a Science of Humanity (Anthropos - Mankind; logos - "authoritative word" or science) for some (e.g. Wilson) and as a Science of Culture for others. Both of these projects were, for all intents and purposes, highly "inter-disciplinary" and neither, to my mind, has ever been completed despite several really promising lines of research.

While I am not really an historian of the discipline, I leave that to such greats as Regna Darnell (http://publish.uwo.ca/%7Erdarnell/), I *think* that one of the main reasons why Anthropology has not developed these lines of research is the limits of the languages we use. For example, much of what we study is "patterns": patterns of action, patterns of thinking, etc., and the relationships between these patterns and certain other factors (e.g. environment, livelihood, technology, etc.). But we use natural languages to describe almost all of this, rather than mathematics.

We have used mathematics in some instances, e.g. some of the early work by E.B. Tylor (e.g. On a Method of Investigating the Development of Institutions - 1888), most of the material on physical Anthropology, and some statistics in cultural Anthropology (mainly descriptive). Most of our work, however, doesn't use mathematics and this is, to my mind, a real handicap. I think that we will have to get over the disciplinary neuroses about math before we can move forward :wry:.


I see so many interdisciplinary PhDs these days that you'd think some ambitious fellows could find a school interested in producing some PhDs who saw war as a "normal" state of human existence and would be interested in studying what makes people fight and what makes them decide to stop fighting.

It seems to me that COIN is the art/science of determining how to make a person/culture lay down arms, or decide not to pick them up in the first place.

Personally, I would hold that we should treat conflict, including both sublimated conflict such as business and sports and over conflict from politics to open warfare as a natural continuum. The differing "states", probably "quasi-stable equilibria" to use an old functionalist term, would have specific perceptually (i.e. cultural) defined boundary conditions and would probably operate under different inter-culturally defined "natural laws".

As such, COIN would be one particular engineering application of these "natural laws" in one particular state (an unstable state of "insurgency") whose counterpart would be insurgency theory (e.g. the old Maoist stuff). Each of these engineering applications could, then, profitably be examined in terms of their vector states or attempts to produce change in a particular dimension that defines the boundaries of the state (e.g. security, basic needs, social organization, etc.). If we took this line of thought forward, then the Islamist irhabi are practicing a rather different form of insurgency "engineering".

You'd need to call it something, though.....[/quote]

How about "Applied Interdisciplinarity" :D? Actually, that's the term we are using for a new journal I'm involved in starting, and it certainly seems to capture the basic idea.

Marc

goesh
02-20-2007, 01:49 PM
"...war as a "normal" state of human existence and would be interested in studying what makes people fight and what makes them decide to stop fighting."
That's the ticket to sell the need for more Anthropological and Sociological insight and contributions but there are strong vested interests in viewing the Military as an essentially destructive enterprise run by barbarians.

marct
02-20-2007, 02:02 PM
Hi Goesh,


That's the ticket to sell the need for more Anthropological and Sociological insight and contributions but there are strong vested interests in viewing the Military as an essentially destructive enterprise run by barbarians.

Unfortunate, but true. I was talking with one of my students last term about this very problem and trying to find an historical analogy that captured my thinking about why "we" (social scientists) should be involved in the current global COIN. As usual in cases like this, the discussion surrounded professional ethics and "morality" which, in turn, led to a discussion of the relative values of individual vs. corporate mysticism. I really believe it's time for someone to post the Social Scientific equivalent of Luther's 95 Theses to the doorway of PC academia.

Marc

Tc2642
02-20-2007, 02:09 PM
I really believe it's time for someone to post the Social Scientific equivalent of Luther's 95 Theses to the doorway of PC academia.

Interesting, What would you include your theses, if you had the chance to write such a document?

Stan
02-20-2007, 02:12 PM
My Psychology professor on our first day circa 1982: "According to Maslow, an individual is ready to act upon the growth needs if and only if the deficiency needs are met. The biggest human tragedy is that most people simply do what they are told."

He continued: "This form of reduced maturity is dangerous when coupled with authoritarianism and dominance, as we have learned from Saddam, Hitler, and others."

Marc, does Maslow have a point in this thread ?

Steve Blair
02-20-2007, 02:12 PM
Count me in for the history portion of same.

marct
02-20-2007, 02:29 PM
Hi Folks,


Interesting, What would you include your theses, if you had the chance to write such a document?

Tc2642, think part of the answer to that question is in Stan's comment.


My Psychology professor on our first day circa 1982: "According to Maslow, an individual is ready to act upon the growth needs if and only if the deficiency needs are met. The biggest human tragedy is that most people simply do what they are told."

He continued: "This form of reduced maturity is dangerous when coupled with authoritarianism and dominance, as we have learned from Saddam, Hitler, and others."

Marc, does Maslow have a point in this thread ?

Stan, I think the answer is "yes". Tc2642 asked me what I would include in such theses, and I think Maslow's ideas contain some of the answers. So, let me take a whack at 5 thesis statements.
Giants exist so that people can see farther, not to crush inquiring minds.
All knowledge is inherently limited and, in that sense, "false". As such, the goal of any science is not the production of "perfection" but the continual struggle to achieve it.
"Proofs" that can be communicated exist only in limited components of described part of transcendental reality and should never be mistaken for transcendental "Truth".
Information is a difference that makes a difference (Definition by Gregory Bateson).
How we communicate defines both what we are capable of communicating and the limits of information that can be transmitted and received.I think I'll leave it at that for now - I have to finish editing a case study for an HRM text book :cool:.

Marc

Stan
02-20-2007, 02:53 PM
Marc,
Strange (well, for me anyway), that Maslow's work (in spite of any support or evidence) enjoys wide acceptance. Never really grasped that, even today.

Norwood (required reading even today) made more sense to me. Perhaps simpler terms for those without Phds :D

Norwood sounded as if he had been divorced three times (consecutively) by describing behavior as insecure, disorganized, disoriented, etc. Already begins to sound like a female was involved. :eek:

With that, I think I'll have a beer :)

Regards, Stan

goesh
02-20-2007, 03:56 PM
"I really believe it's time for someone to post the Social Scientific equivalent of Luther's 95 Theses to the doorway of PC academia."

A big, fat Amen! to that. Islamic terrorists already posted their thesis on the walls of the WTC and the Pentagon using jet liners.

Bill Moore
02-20-2007, 05:34 PM
While no theory is perfect this one helped me make sense of Maslov's, which was obviously too rigid. The ERG explains people will sacrifice their existance needs for the good of the group or personal growth (self actualization), which is helpful in understanding terrorist/insurgent motivation. You will not get them to quit fighting by simply providing economic aid, that isn't the real issue.

http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/erg/



How the existence, relatedness, and growth theory differs from Maslow's hierarchy:

ERG allows different levels of needs to be pursued simultaneously.

Allows the order of needs to be different for different people.

If a higher level need is unfullfilled the person "may" regress to a lower level.

Bottom line it is not a rigid hierarchy, and explains a wider range of behaviors, such as the "starving artist" who may place growth above existence needs. (this is paraphrased)

The best part of this theory to me is it refutes Maslov's, which all of us who have been in the real world outside a labatory know just doesn't apply to the behavior we see.

120mm
02-20-2007, 06:35 PM
One theory that I've seen that resonates with my "verstehen" and tangentially contradicts Maslov, is the matrix that John Dalmas uses in his "The Regiment" Science Fiction novel.

There are four basic compartments

Play - Study

War - Work

For the great majority of people, "War" is restricted to a disagreement or at worst, physically fighting. For a few, "War" means the kind where people die. For the some people, "War" overlaps with "Work". For some, "War" is "War". For others, "War" overlaps with "Play". It sounds a little weird, though, to equate "Enemy" with "Playmate", but the parallels can be found, if you look for them.

Children instinctively know this. I think if you raised kids in an isolation chamber, they'd get right out and "play war" if given the chance. I'm not a psycho-babble kind of guy; this just struck a chord with me, when I heard it for the first time.

marct
02-20-2007, 06:46 PM
Hey 120mm


One theory that I've seen that resonates with my "verstehen" and tangentially contradicts Maslov, is the matrix that John Dalmas uses in his "The Regiment" Science Fiction novel.

I knew there was a reason we got on so well - we're both Dalmas fans :D.


Children instinctively know this. I think if you raised kids in an isolation chamber, they'd get right out and "play war" if given the chance. I'm not a psycho-babble kind of guy; this just struck a chord with me, when I heard it for the first time.

I'm not sure if you are aware of this or not, but Dalmas' Matrix of the T'Sel also resonates with Tibetan Buddhism, some variants of Gnosticism (mainly 3rd century Alexandrian stuff and the Cathars), the Zurvanites and, strangely enough, with Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

I've thought about trying to work some of it into my organizational culture work (it fits really well with concepts such as the "learning organization"). I usually end up not doing so, because the Anthro stuff I use is pretty far out as far as many of the Management people are concerned and I don't want to freak them too badly :wry:.

You are certainly right about the rigidity of the Maslow work, as is Bill. It is way to "linear" in its conception of people's "programming", and it can't account for all too many observations. It think that it is a useful heuristic if we are examining populations, but tends to drop in utility when we get down to the level of individuals.

Marc

120mm
02-21-2007, 07:57 AM
Dalmas, like a few other Science Fiction writers, only write "fiction" because the money is better and you don't have to be as diligent with your references, imho.

I'm also a big fan of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". I especially like Pirsig's attack on The Dialogs. It also explains why I distrust "metrics" and people who need them in order to function. I implicitly trust "The Groove" and "Gut Feelings". I suppose if you broke it down, you could demonstrate, in tangible terms, how "The Groove" works. As in the Combat Tracking thread, Tracking is just Terrain Forensics and could be demonstrated scientifically, but would that be a worthwhile expenditure of time and effort?

Which brings us to Marc's continual hinting about Anthro's pathological fear of mathematics. I have been dying to hear some examples of how one could apply math into Anthropology. Oddly enough, though I trust my "Gut", I see Mathematics as the highest form of Science. On one hand, it is a powerful tool to demonstrate reality. On the other, it is a powerful demonstration of the "rightness" of the world.

marct
02-21-2007, 12:58 PM
Hi 120mm,


Dalmas, like a few other Science Fiction writers, only write "fiction" because the money is better and you don't have to be as diligent with your references, imho.

Could well be, I don't know the man, although I would love to sit down and drink a couple of pints with him.


I'm also a big fan of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". I especially like Pirsig's attack on The Dialogs. It also explains why I distrust "metrics" and people who need them in order to function. I implicitly trust "The Groove" and "Gut Feelings". I suppose if you broke it down, you could demonstrate, in tangible terms, how "The Groove" works. As in the Combat Tracking thread, Tracking is just Terrain Forensics and could be demonstrated scientifically, but would that be a worthwhile expenditure of time and effort?

Actually, it's already been done by psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi in his book Flow (http://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Mihaly-Csikszentmihalyi/dp/0060920432/sr=1-2/qid=1172060686/ref=pd_bbs_2/104-0046598-2588730?ie=UTF8&s=books). For Csikszentmihalyi, being "in the groove" is a balance between skill and challenge in a particular "game field" (i.e. a bounded, rule ordered set of tasks with clear win-lose settings). I've used his work to explain how certain types of ritual activity effect behaviour patterns such as looking for work.

One of the things I have been interested in doing is looking at the relationship between Flow states and basic forms of social relationships. I haven't had the chance to put that down on paper yet, though <sigh>.


Which brings us to Marc's continual hinting about Anthro's pathological fear of mathematics. I have been dying to hear some examples of how one could apply math into Anthropology. Oddly enough, though I trust my "Gut", I see Mathematics as the highest form of Science. On one hand, it is a powerful tool to demonstrate reality. On the other, it is a powerful demonstration of the "rightness" of the world.

"Hinting"? Nah, I'll make it an outright statement - many Cultural Anthropologists are terrified of any mathematics more complex than descriptive statistics. I've seen this fairly consistently for the past 10 years or so, and I suspect that a lot of people entered Cultural Anthropology so hat they wouldn't have to do any mathematics.

I find it interesting that you see "Mathematics as the highest form of Science". Personally, I would say that Mathematics is a collection of languages for describing particular components of reality and not a science at all :D.

If you want an example of how Anthropology could use mathematics, let me give you one that I have been struggling with for several years (I still don't have it right because I am mathematically illiterate in the applicable dialects :wry:). I have been trying to use set theoretic topology to examine how "perception space" is created within a culture based around basic forms of social relations (they are five of them, including the null set). Now, it strikes me that each of these basic forms is fairly "stable"; probably rooted in evolved neuro-psychology, as are some of the transformation sequences between forms (e.g. Turner's Rites of Passage theory). I suspect, although I can't offer a mathematical roof, that these basic social forms are also extensible though multiple dimensions in the same way as the Platonic Solids are extensible.

This type of idea, call it a form of "cultural geometry", is really fairly old - the original versions of it were used to analyze kinship patterns in the 1920's, and Tylor used it to analyze cultural institutions back in 1888. But, in part due to the tide of Marxist and Post Modernist thought in the discipline, these works aren't being taught any more, so they are not part of the "received heritage" of many new Anthropologists. When you add in the institutional reality of getting degrees today, you also have to remember that no one who wants to go to graduate school can afford to take classes where they wil get poor marks. This is even worse in graduate school where you can be kicked out of your program for getting less than a B-. So, the end result is that intellectual exploration is not encouraged and you cannot afford to try and get the tools that are needed.

Marc

selil
02-21-2007, 02:17 PM
I find it interesting that you see "Mathematics as the highest form of Science". Personally, I would say that Mathematics is a collection of languages for describing particular components of reality and not a science at all :D.


I'll jump on that band wagon. Science is the systematic study of something. Biological science is biology (http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?sourceid=Mozilla-search&va=biology), the study of faith is theology (http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?sourceid=Mozilla-search&va=theology), etc.. There is no Mathology though you have mathematics (http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=mathematics) it is basically a just another language like Spanish or English. When I put forth that technology (http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?sourceid=Mozilla-search&va=technology) is more of a science than math you should see the gray beards sputter.

I really like the Wikipedia article for science (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science) where it says "Mathmatics is sometimes classified in a third grouping, called formal science..." I like that "sometimes"...

120mm
02-21-2007, 06:03 PM
This type of idea, call it a form of "cultural geometry", is really fairly old - the original versions of it were used to analyze kinship patterns in the 1920's, and Tylor used it to analyze cultural institutions back in 1888. But, in part due to the tide of Marxist and Post Modernist thought in the discipline, these works aren't being taught any more, so they are not part of the "received heritage" of many new Anthropologists. When you add in the institutional reality of getting degrees today, you also have to remember that no one who wants to go to graduate school can afford to take classes where they wil get poor marks. This is even worse in graduate school where you can be kicked out of your program for getting less than a B-. So, the end result is that intellectual exploration is not encouraged and you cannot afford to try and get the tools that are needed.

Marc

So... what stops an individual from conducting "Guerilla Learning". That is, deciding what they Need To Know(tm) beforehand, mastering the skill, and then taking the classes in order to get the credit.

The problem being, you can't be a scientist without the sheepskin. Especially if you want to work for the people who are in charge of War.

A perfect world would allow someone to apply for the job by demonstrating skill and mastery rather than "punched tickets".

120mm
02-21-2007, 06:10 PM
Actually, it's already been done by psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi in his book Flow (http://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Mihaly-Csikszentmihalyi/dp/0060920432/sr=1-2/qid=1172060686/ref=pd_bbs_2/104-0046598-2588730?ie=UTF8&s=books). For [SIZE=-1]Csikszentmihalyi, being "in the groove" is a balance between skill and challenge in a particular "game field" (i.e. a bounded, rule ordered set of tasks with clear win-lose settings). I've used his work to explain how certain types of ritual activity effect behaviour patterns such as looking for work.

One of the things I have been interested in doing is looking at the relationship between Flow states and basic forms of social relationships. I haven't had the chance to put that down on paper yet, though <sigh>.

Marc

I will attest to that. When I am "on", women make eye contact, smile and otherwise flirt. If I am not "on", I don't exist, in their eyes.

Likewise with mechanical things. I sometimes fabricate parts for machines, and if I am "happy", nothing goes wrong. I can work for hours and even my sloppy tries end up being "right".

Same thing with tracking or navigation. I've followed critters or folks without even looking for sign. Or at a map, if I need to get somewhere.

GRIM
02-21-2007, 06:51 PM
Hi all,
This looks like an interesting thread, so I signed up to add to it. I did my undergraduate work in anthropology and completed a year of doctoral work before my health shut me down. Violence and warfare are primary interests of mine, particularly the synthesis of biological/evolutionary approaches with realistic (not dogmatic and PC) cultural anthropology. I wrote a short paper on this if anyone is interested. Violence and warfare are as "natural" as any other human behavior and the tools of the anthropologist can be very effective in studying them if the individual's approach is not tainted by their "politics." Unfortunately, those who study these subjects looking for answers and not just PC ones become pariahs in the Ivory Tower very quickly, although there are some exceptions.

Here are some papers by peace researcher Johann van der Dennen, as well as his entire book the Origin of War: http://rint.rechten.rug.nl/rth/dennen/dennen3.htm

marct
02-21-2007, 08:09 PM
120mm,

Let me go back, for a sec, to the original question:


Marc, all, is it time for the invention of another field to supplant Anthropology in the field of military matters?

I think that the answer to that is "no"; but with some caveats. First, Anthropology has some excellent tools that can help the military immeasurably in many current situations. Second, the military is already engaged in what be called "direct ethnographic research" already and can benefit both from the analyses we can provide and, possibly more important, from our understanding of how this type of "work" changes perceptions.

I think it is more likely that what is needed is a specific sub-discipline within Anthropology that deals with "military matters" - Brian Selmeski at the Centre for Security, Armed Forces & Society (RMC) calls it "Security Anthropology". At the present time, Anthropology is probably the most interdisciplinary "discipline" around, but there isn't an institutional base for such a sub-discipline, at least in the civilian academic environment (and it seems quite limited in the military academic environment).

This lack of an institutional base creates all sorts of problems. First, it means that there is a great big black hole at the end of graduation - where are you going to get a job? Admittedly, you could go to work for any number of military organizations, but there are very few academic positions available. Where are you going to publish? There are certainly some journals that come to mind - Armed Forces and Society being one - but you really need a lot more to encourage the type of critical debate that produces useful theoretical models. Which brings me to the subject of conferences, as in where are the conferences for Security Anthropologists? Answer, there aren't any.

Without this solid institutional base, you end up with a situation where many of the people who are interested in the area cannot afford to do it full time. Again, lacking that base, you also have the problem that what support does come from the military has a tendency to be focused on very precise "products" rather than on "pure research".

Now, there already exists a network of military Anthropologists, which is the first step towards producing an academic infrastructure. In addition, most of us already speak, if nt exactly the "same" language, then at least recognizable dialectic variants of the "same" language. If we were to try and create a "new" discipline, we would have to go through all of that all over again and, believe me, that would be a real pain :eek:.

All of which isn't to say that Anthropology, as presently constituted, is the answer :D. There is still, IMHO, too much PC induced "morality" <growled with acid dripping from my mouth> that permeates what passes for "professional ethics". Some of the AAA "Ethics" guidelines are, to my mind, poorly worded and appear to be based on a "morality of the day" type of thinking rather than on a set of "first principles" that allow for individual extrapolation to deal with new situations.

For example, Article 2a of the AAA guide (http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/ethstmnt.htm) says:

Anthropologists should not communicate findings secretly to some and withhold them from others.
and article 3a an 1g state:

Anthropologists should undertake no secret research or any research whose results cannot be freely derived and publicly reported.

In accordance with the Association's general position on clandestine and secret research, no reports should be provided to sponsors that are not also available to the general public and, where practicable, to the population studied.
Now, if we look at this in light of the Human Terrain Teams (HTT) that are being deployed to Iraq soon, we see an interesting problem. If I was a member of one of these teams, I could not identify any individuals involved in any particular terrorist / insurgent network unless I also informed them that they had been identified.

This is exacerbated by article 1a

Where research involves the acquisition of material and information transferred on the assumption of trust between persons, it is axiomatic that the rights, interests, and sensitivities of those studied must be safeguarded.Notice that there is an inbuilt assumption that I would be receiving the information from the same people I am studying? This assumption creates all sorts of nightmares that could have been avoided by changing "those studied" to "your informants". What if I am studying terrorist / insurgent networks in Iraq and I am getting my information from a variety of sources including both direct observation as wel as people on the ground?

Finally, article 6 states:

In relation with their own government and with host governments, research anthropologists should be honest and candid. They should demand assurance that they will not be required to compromise their professional responsibilities and ethics as a condition of their permission to pursue research. Specifically, no secret research, no secret reports or debriefings of any kind should be agreed to or given. If these matters are clearly understood in advance, serious complications and misunderstandings can generally be avoided.Now, just to make matters worse (:D), "advocacy" is not only allowed but encouraged. There is an often unstated assumption that "advocacy" will be for an oppressed group, since that tends to be who we work with (hey, everyone is oppressed, right? :eek:). However, if I choose to work with a seriously oppressed group, let's say US military personnel embedded in Iraq units, I will probably be put onto the wrack.

Now, despite my somewhat acid comments, I actually agree with the vast majority of the first principles that are embodied the AAA code of ethics (surprise!). Where I disagree is with wording and interpretation that assumes I hold both a moral, and economic, position based in academia. I, personally, believe that the MB inspired irhabi, including their AQ descendants, are an incarnation of evil and I feel no ethical compulsion to inform them about any work I may do that will lead to their downfall. And, given their penetration of North American universities, I find that the requirement to inform those I study, should I study them, to be insane. I have certainly done so with the groups I have studied in the past but this groups is, to my mind, diametrically opposed to my own personal understanding of transcendent ethics as, I believe, they have shown time and time again.

After that rambling, tangential, diatribe, let's go back to your original question:


Marc, all, is it time for the invention of another field to supplant Anthropology in the field of military matters?

No. We need to rework the institutional and ethical base of Anthropology to deal with this area.

Marc

marct
02-21-2007, 08:13 PM
Hi GRIM,


Hi all,
This looks like an interesting thread, so I signed up to add to it. I did my undergraduate work in anthropology and completed a year of doctoral work before my health shut me down. Violence and warfare are primary interests of mine, particularly the synthesis of biological/evolutionary approaches with realistic (not dogmatic and PC) cultural anthropology. I wrote a short paper on this if anyone is interested. Violence and warfare are as "natural" as any other human behavior and the tools of the anthropologist can be very effective in studying them if the individual's approach is not tainted by their "politics." Unfortunately, those who study these subjects looking for answers and not just PC ones become pariahs in the Ivory Tower very quickly, although there are some exceptions.

Here are some papers by peace researcher Johann van der Dennen, as well as his entire book the Origin of War: http://rint.rechten.rug.nl/rth/dennen/dennen3.htm


Thanks for the link! I'd definately be interested in reading your paper as well. BTW, Jerome Barkow was my Ph.D. external and I've used a fair bit of evolutionary psychology / sociobiology in my own work. Glad to have you on board.

Marc

Stan
02-21-2007, 08:48 PM
Grim,
Welcome !


Like Spencer, he emphasized that warfare succeeds not so much through the genocidal elimination of rivals as by promoting superior organization and obedience to leadership: the most obedient and the tamest tribes are the strongest. "The compact [probably meaning the same as Spencer's 'cohesive'] tribes win, and the compact tribes are the tamest. Civilisation begins, because the beginning of civilisation is a military advantage" (p. 47). There was no doubt in his mind that the "strongest killed out the weakest as they could". Progress, habitually thought of as a normal fact in human society, is actually a rare occurrence among peoples. Of the existence of progress in the military art there can be no doubt, however, nor of its corollary that the most advanced will destroy the weaker, that the more compact will eliminate the scattered, and that the more civilized are the more compact (Hofstadter, 1955).


I would be sincerely interested in your views regarding the most recent Rwandan genocides (April to July 94). I watched it and see it today in my dreams (nightmares).

My previous post:

The first massacres in Rwanda took place in 1959. Thereafter, almost in a regular manner, killings of the Batutsi became a habit. In the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s massacres of Batutsi were common. Between April and July 1994, over 1 million Rwandese people, mainly Batutsi and some Bahutu opposition were killed by the genocidal regime. So many people were involved in the killings. Those who planned and organised the genocide include the late President, Major General Juvenal Habyarimana, top government officials, including members of the so-called Provisional Government, the presidential Guard, the National Gendarmerie, the Rwanda Government Forces (FAR), the MRND-CDR militia (Interahamwe), local officials, and many Bahutu in the general population.

This sounds like a poorly translated para, or a bad smoker's habit.

Marc, please also step in as you are most welcome.

Regards, Stan

Mondor
02-21-2007, 09:47 PM
120mm,

For example, Article 2a of the AAA guide (http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/ethstmnt.htm) says:

Anthropologists should not communicate findings secretly to some and withhold them from others.
and article 3a an 1g state:
[INDENT]Anthropologists should undertake no secret research or any research whose results cannot be freely derived and publicly reported.


Marc

Sounds like the Camalot project had a few negative consequences.

marct
02-21-2007, 10:00 PM
Hi Mondor,


Sounds like the Camalot project had a few negative consequences.

More than a few! Actually, it was one of the projects that destroyed the last vestiges of Anthropology working with the intel / military sector. David Price's articles (referenced in my SWJ article) deal with this in great detail if you are interested.

Marc

GRIM
02-21-2007, 10:15 PM
Hi GRIM,




Thanks for the link! I'd definately be interested in reading your paper as well. BTW, Jerome Barkow was my Ph.D. external and I've used a fair bit of evolutionary psychology / sociobiology in my own work. Glad to have you on board.

Marc

Thanks marct. There is really a wealth of information by Van der Dennen that would make for some very interesting discussion for those who are interested here. His letter ( http://rint.rechten.rug.nl/rth/dennen/letter.htm ) is a fine example of the pariah status immediately granted those in this area of academia with interests in violence. While I respect the researchers he mentions, read quite a bit of their work at one point, and even contacted De Waal for advice concerning graduate work, I still am critical of the points where the more PC "side" of things seem to be talking past the issues.

marct
02-21-2007, 10:32 PM
Hi GRIM,


In the past, everybody who has propagated the notion that health is something more than just the absence of disease has turned out to be a quack. I am reasonably sure that those scholars who now claim that peace is something more than the absence of war, let me call them the ‘peace and harmony mafia’ for short, will similarly turn out to be the intellectual equivalent of quacks.

Gods! I love it! I am definitely going to have to read more of Van der Dennen's work!


Thanks marct. There is really a wealth of information by Van der Dennen that would make for some very interesting discussion for those who are interested here. His letter ( http://rint.rechten.rug.nl/rth/dennen/letter.htm ) is a fine example of the pariah status immediately granted those in this area of academia with interests in violence. While I respect the researchers he mentions, read quite a bit of their work at one point, and even contacted De Waal for advice concerning graduate work, I still am critical of the points where the more PC "side" of things seem to be talking past the issues.

The radical PC side has, to my mind, conflated morality with ethics (i.e. confused immediate wish state proscriptions with the "operational rules of reality"). On a purely personal level, I dislike violence. That doesn't mean that I don't know how to defend myself should the situation arise. Maybe it's just a reflex habit inculcated in me by the Baden-Powell mythos of the Boy Scouts, but I do like to "be prepared" :D.

I have long held a suspicion that the desire to find a "peaceful way of life" amongst many intellectuals is a result of a radical agnosticism that inverts Christian beliefs and emotionally "requires" them to "find" a "heaven on Earth": a requirement to find the "Peaceful Savage" to warp Rousseau's phrase.

Marc

selil
02-22-2007, 01:19 AM
On a purely personal level, I dislike violence. That doesn't mean that I don't know how to defend myself should the situation arise.


What is that quote.... "The true warrior shuns violence but is very good at it..." something like that.

MountainRunner
02-22-2007, 06:08 AM
Actually, it was one of the projects that destroyed the last vestiges of Anthropology working with the intel / military sector. David Price's articles (referenced in my SWJ article) deal with this in great detail if you are interested.

Marc,
I haven't read David Price's article (or your SWJ article I'm sorry to say, but I'd appreciate a link :) ), but I'm sure you've read Montgomery McFate's article "Anthropology and Counterinsurgency: The Strange Story of their Curious Relationship"? (available here (http://mountainrunner.us/files/mcfate_2005_anthropology_and_counterinsurgency_the _strange_story_of_their_curious_relationship.pdf)) . McFate mentions an ostracized anthro:


Anthropologist Gerald Hickey explored the indigenous Vietnamese cultural
concept of accommodation. While Taoist roots of the Vietnamese value system stressed individualism, in the Vietnamese worldview, accommodation was
also necessary to restore harmony with the universe. In Washington, D.C., Hickey’s views on accommodation were treated as heresy. In 1967, at the conclusion of Hickey’s brief to a Pentagon audience, Richard Holbrooke said, “What you’re saying, Gerry, is that we’re not going to win a military victory in
Vietnam.” Because it did not conform to the prevailing view of the conflict, Hickey’s message was promptly dismissed...Hickey was awarded the medal for Distinguished Public Service by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Despite his medal (or perhaps because of it), Hickey was not able to get an
academic job when he returned to the United States. He was refused a position at the University of Chicago by fellow anthropologists who objected to his association with RAND. Ironically, Hickey was also forced out of
RAND because it was no longer interested in counterinsurgency.

And then there's a "movement" (?) to continue this institutional culture clash:

The fact that Kilcullen and others are eager to commit social-science knowledge to goals established by the Defense Department and the CIA is indicative of a new anthropology of insurgency. Anthropology under these circumstances appears as just another weapon to be used on the battlefield — not as a tool for building bridges between peoples, much less as a mirror that we might use to reflect upon the nature of our own society.
See Fighting the militarization of anthropology (http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/2007/01/29/fighting-militarization-of-anthropology/) for more on Kilcullen=bad.

120mm
02-22-2007, 08:31 AM
What is that quote.... "The true warrior shuns violence but is very good at it..." something like that.

I have heard that, but due to some "verstehen" issues with the statement I've amended it:

"The true warrior is so attracted to intense, life or death violence, he doesn't want to be bothered by the piddly kind that fascinates others."

But then, aren't we all trying to describe the same elephant?

120mm
02-22-2007, 08:34 AM
And then there's a "movement" (?) to continue this institutional culture clash:

See Fighting the militarization of anthropology (http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/2007/01/29/fighting-militarization-of-anthropology/) for more on Kilcullen=bad.


Wow. I didn't realize that there still were people who believed in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Fundamental Goodness of Man(tm). Building bridges between societies through communication and understanding? Now I realize that those people study Anthropology....

And they must not have ever raised kids.

marct
02-22-2007, 04:02 PM
Hi Folks,


Marc,
I haven't read David Price's article (or your SWJ article I'm sorry to say, but I'd appreciate a link :) ), but I'm sure you've read Montgomery McFate's article "Anthropology and Counterinsurgency: The Strange Story of their Curious Relationship"?

Actually, the McFate article, and the brouhaha that it sparked, we the tipping point to get me to write my article. It's in the latest SWJ (http://smallwarsjournal.com/mag-current/)(Vol 7) and also available here (http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/swjmag/v7/tyrrell-swjvol7.pdf).

I have certainly heard of Hickey and his problems :wry:. In many ways, that case exemplifies some of the differences in mind set or worldview between Anthropologists and people in the military - that's a generalization, not a prescription :D. In a lot of ways, Cultural Anthropologists are "closer" in worldview to a weird cross between Intel, PSYOPs and long duree historians - we are cultural technologists who rarely get to experiment and have a very long time horizon (~5 million years or so for many of us).


And then there's a "movement" (?) to continue this institutional culture clash:

See Fighting the militarization of anthropology (http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/2007/01/29/fighting-militarization-of-anthropology/) for more on Kilcullen=bad.

Now that is an interesting article. I read some interviews with him after the AAA resolutions and, while I think his heart may be in the right place,I doubt that his head is. He seems to have abandoned, or at least severely restricted, the long view of time. By concentrating on the anti-torture component he is neglecting the long term effects of either a protracted war, a loss of that war, and, also, the long term effects of trying to control information.

I certainly agree with his anti-torture position - torture just isn't very effective at eliciting information as a recent DIA study showed once again (sorry, can't find the link). Torture used for other purposes, e.g. intimidation, ritual, etc. may be useful in some cultures but not in the Anglo complex where it tends to cause a degradation in the psyche (that's a book in itself, so we'll just leave it there).

The effects of a protracted war should be obvious to anyone who has studied history, which makes me wonder about Gonzalez. Pretty much every society that has become involved in protracted conflict situations has ended up becoming extremely rigid and controlling of its members, the shifting of Rome from a Republic to the Principate in the 1st century bc is a good example of this, or has ended up falling apart (e.g. post-Periclean Athens, especially in the last 10 years of the Peloponnesian War).

What about losing the long war? Some of the more alarmist literature showing up, e.g. While Europe Slept (http://www.amazon.com/While-Europe-Slept-Radical-Destroying/dp/0385514727/sr=1-1/qid=1172159243/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-0046598-2588730?ie=UTF8&s=books), gives a pretty good example of what could happen. Personally, I think the MB inspired ideology of the irhabists would not only destroy Western civilization but, also, be a disaster for Islam and the species as a whole.

Maybe Gonzalez believes that a quick retreat will ameliorate the effects of a long war and / or a loss. I don't know, and I doubt that we will ever sit down over a couple of beers (probably Perrier for him) and discuss it in a rational manner (we are too polarized to use one of Dalmas' terms :D). I would, however, say that when I ead his material and his quotes in various articles, I am reminded of the words of Flanders and Swan:

The Ostrich

Peek-a-Boo, I can't see you,
Everything must be grand.
Boo-ka-Pee, they can't see me,
As long as I've got me head in the sand.
Peek-a-Boo, it may be true,
There's something in what you've said,
But we've got enough troubles in everyday life,
I just bury me head.

Oh, Ostrich consider hw the world we know
Is trembling on the brink.
Have you heard the news, may I hear your views,
Will you tell me what you think.
The Ostrich lifted its head from the sand,
About an inch or so;
'You will please excuse, but disturbing news
I have no wish to know.'

Oooh, Peek-a-Boo, I can't see you,
Everything must be grand.
Boo-ka-Pee, they can't see me,
As long as I've got me head in the sand.
Peek-a-Boo, it may be true,
There's something in what you've said,
But we've got enough troubles in everyday life,
I just bury me head.

Then I noticed suddenly where we were,
I saw what time it was.
Make haste, I said, It'll be too late,
We must leave this place because....
He stuffed his wingtips into his ears;
He would not hear me speak,
And back in the soft Saharan sand
He plunged his yellow beak.

Oooh, Peek-a-Boo, I can't see you,
Everything must be grand.
Boo-ka-Pee, they can't see me,
As long as I've got me head in the sand.
Peek-a-Boo, it may be true,
There's something in what you've said,
But we've got enough troubles in everyday life,
I just bury me....

(BOOM)

From a sheltered oasis a mile away
I observed that dreadful scene.
And a single plume came floating down
Where my Ostrich friend had been.
Because he could not bear the sound
Of these words I had left unsaid;
'Here in this nuclear testing ground
Is no place to bury your head!'
Marc

MountainRunner
02-23-2007, 06:18 AM
Marc,
first thanks for reminding me of the J in SWJ and adding to my reading. Second, I came in after the brouhaha over the article apparently. Who & What?

marct
02-23-2007, 02:54 PM
Hi Matt,


Marc,
first thanks for reminding me of the J in SWJ and adding to my reading. Second, I came in after the brouhaha over the article apparently. Who & What?

It was basically a reaction from a number of violently anti-military, anti-intel Anthropologists. Most of the details are in my SWJ article up to about early December, but the snipping continues.

Marc

selil
02-23-2007, 10:46 PM
......basically a reaction from a number of violently anti-military, anti-intel Anthropologists. Most of the details are in my SWJ article up to about early December, but the snipping continues.

Marc


Don't you love academia Marct? The open minded intellectual discussion irrespective of the viewpoints and political philosophies?



urp.

marct
02-24-2007, 09:59 PM
Don't you love academia Marct? The open minded intellectual discussion irrespective of the viewpoints and political philosophies?

Leave us not forget the charming ambiance (concrete block construction), the fascinating discussions in the Graduate Pub (the Faculty Club was closed by the University administration 6 years ago), the erudite discussions in the hallways (in Arabic, but whose listening?), and the bright eyes in the students faces ('nough said about possible sources).

Sigh.

Marc

120mm
03-02-2007, 07:44 AM
Marc,

I've been busily reading the van der Dennen stuff, and think he may have the origin of the "anti-militarization of anthropology" crowd down cold.

You see, the "warrior" males have most of the sexual opportunities and that leaves the "non-warrior" anthropologist males out in the cold, if you will. ;) Their reaction is one of sexual frustration and jealousy.

I floated this idea in front of my wife, and she rolled her eyes and said "Harumph!" I think this could mean she agrees with me, or something....

marct
03-02-2007, 04:20 PM
Hi 120mm,


I've been busily reading the van der Dennen stuff, and think he may have the origin of the "anti-militarization of anthropology" crowd down cold.

You see, the "warrior" males have most of the sexual opportunities and that leaves the "non-warrior" anthropologist males out in the cold, if you will. ;) Their reaction is one of sexual frustration and jealousy.

LOLOL You should read Richard Dawkins on the Peacock's Tail :D. Freud, even filtered through sociobiology is so passe!

Marc

Stan
03-02-2007, 04:28 PM
Not sure if this is what you were talking about.

http://www.dailyalert.org/archive/2004-06/2004-06-29.html

or this one

http://www.blogscanada.ca/egroup/CommentView.aspx?guid=aeef6c1d-6402-4e4f-ae73-5cced41be927

marct
03-02-2007, 04:32 PM
Hi Stan,

This is the one I was talking about http://www.fas.org/irp/dni/educing.pdf

Marc

120mm
03-03-2007, 08:26 AM
It is now that I will admit to being an Interrogator for the Army, back in the 90s. And our training consisted of "screening" and "interviews". At no time were we trained, asked, encouraged or allowed to "pressure" the screenee or interviewee. In fact, we were trained that "getting information" was not the issue, dealing with the vast amounts of information that you will get is the real issue and determining what is useless and what is useful and relevant.

There are truly not that many resistent subjects. Especially among tribal cultures. It is pretty easy to transition from "core belief" issues to tactical information.

Stan
03-03-2007, 09:54 AM
Hey 120 !


It is pretty easy to transition from "core belief" issues to tactical information.

My background is different, but then somewhat similar with intel. I would however argue that such a transition would be arduously slow and drive one or the other crazy (then comes torture :wry: ).

We also deal with enormous amounts of info (to include quasi interviews..a tad more friendly environment...over dinner :D ) and then decide if we were going anywhere. That said, without sufficient knowledge of customs, cultures, etc., all the info in the world may not be enough to draw a conclusion.

Perhaps I should have learned Interrogation.

Regards, Stan

120mm
03-04-2007, 07:44 AM
IMO, a good interrogator is someone who has good "people skills" and comes off as empathetic. While there are some mild payoffs for using small amounts of pressure at the point of capture, torture is just not a good idea.

I remember my initial training in screening and interviews; I thought the same thing you just said. It wasn't that different from going to a social event and collecting information on people you find attractive and want to get to know better.

marct
03-04-2007, 02:50 PM
I remember my initial training in screening and interviews; I thought the same thing you just said. It wasn't that different from going to a social event and collecting information on people you find attractive and want to get to know better.

And that's pretty much how we operate doing fieldwork, too :wry:. The difference is more in the environment of the interviews / observations than in the techniques (although we don't torture people except by making them read our dissertations :eek:).

Marc

GRIM
03-04-2007, 09:23 PM
And that's pretty much how we operate doing fieldwork, too :wry:. The difference is more in the environment of the interviews / observations than in the techniques (although we don't torture people except by making them read our dissertations :eek:).

Marc

The agony!

marct
03-05-2007, 12:52 AM
The agony!

Especially when you follow the pure PC (aka post modernist) practice of sending rafts to all your informants. Given what mine was like, I think the practice should be banned by the Geneva Convention :D.

Marc

Stan
03-05-2007, 07:47 AM
Hi Marc !

practice of sending rafts to all your informants.

Tom and I gave them rice and chicken which, probably is banned by the Geneva Convention :D

Mondor
03-05-2007, 09:56 PM
Marc, all, is it time for the invention of another field to supplant Anthropology in the field of military matters?

Hasn't that already been done? Anthropology and Sociology are closely related; in fact I have seen a few universities that have joint Anthropology and Sociology departments. It would seem that if a person wants to practice traditional anthropological work and avoid all of the institutionalized anti-military and anti-government bias of the Anthropology world all one has to do is call ones self a Sociologist.

At least that is the way it seems from this layman’s perspective. Does that argument have any validity?

Tom Odom
03-06-2007, 02:29 PM
Tom and I gave them rice and chicken which, probably is banned by the Geneva Convention:D

Those EU donated chickens that we ended up buying on the black market after who knows how many thaws and refreezes probably would be a violation :eek:

But as you recall, no one complained and besides even at their worst, those chickens smelled better that those feces fed grubs our drivers used to munch on for lunch...

Tom :cool:

Stan
03-06-2007, 06:19 PM
Hey Tom !
Now don't get Marc going. He recently promised me a Canadian student (for the US Army). Frozen, et al.

As I recall from my 5th group days after the '3-day map reading course' at Bragg, we at least had a choice between a chicken or a rabbit. They were to some extent still alive. Who cares ?


But as you recall, no one complained and besides even at their worst, those chickens smelled better that those feces fed grubs our drivers used to munch on for lunch...

You know, those grubs were still alive, and served on toast every A.M. :D

The EU chickens...however...Well, another story. Hmmm, got me thinking why they were always missing the left leg :wry:

I was always partial to the fries in front of the embassy freshly wrapped in unclas message traffic from the previous day :cool:

PS. Your pics left this morning.

Regards, Stan

Tom Odom
03-06-2007, 07:36 PM
You know, those grubs were still alive, and served on toast every A.M.

I am happy to say that in all my years as a FAO I never felt compelled to sample the grubs on toast--gives new meaning to the old GI term "SOS" for breakfast..

For those who are not familiar with this particular delicacy, the Congolese used to grow these grubs in "honey pots". They would toss 'em on a hot griddle just enough to wake 'em up and serve on toast still wiggling, The post-prandial aroma of our drivers after their lunch was eye-watering.



The EU chickens...however...Well, another story. Hmmm, got me thinking why they were always missing the left leg

They were truly sad specimens of EU poultry science...


I was always partial to the fries in front of the embassy freshly wrapped in unclas message traffic from the previous day

That was part of the Comm center's "think green" program I am sure :cool:


Thanks for shipping the photos!

Best

Tom

Stan
03-06-2007, 07:51 PM
Tom,
Com' on already !


am happy to say that in all my years as a FAO I never felt compelled to sample the grubs on toast--gives new meaning to the old GI term "SOS" for breakfast..

For those who are not familiar with this particular delicacy, the Congolese used to grow these grubs in "honey pots". They would toss 'em on a hot griddle just enough to wake 'em up and serve on toast still wiggling, The post-prandial aroma of our drivers after their lunch was eye-watering.


I saw you looking at those :eek: Who could resist ? I suddenly have a craving for French C-rats :D

marct
04-30-2007, 03:15 PM
On the continuing debate inside Anthropology.


The Fate of McFate: Anthropology’s Relationship with the Military Revisited (http://savageminds.org/2007/04/29/the-fate-of-mcfate-anthropologys-relationship-with-the-military-revisited-2/)

Back in January, Matthew Stannard at the SF Chronicle, having come across my SM piece Anthropologists as Counter-Insurgents (http://savageminds.org/2005/05/19/anthropologists-as-counter-insurgents/), contacted me about doing an interview for an upcoming profile on Montgomery McFate, the advocate for anthropology in the military whose work I was responding to. The piece is now online, entitled Montgomery McFate’s Mission: Can one anthropologist possibly steer the course in Iraq? (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/04/29/CMGHQP19VD1.DTL). I’m not quite ready to revisit this topic—I’m up to my neck in grading and other work, with the semester’s end a week-and-a-half away, but I thought I’d mention it now while I put together some further thoughts on the matter. It’s a fairly good article, even though I’m only quoted once (Stannard apparently has not been taught the maxim that the more quotes of me a paper has, the better it is). Interestingly, though the interview ranged all over, I’m quoted more in my capacity as historian of anthropology than in my—I think more relevant—role as anthropological ethicist.

Cori
04-30-2007, 07:25 PM
I think the second link is bad, can you check?
thanks

marct
04-30-2007, 07:34 PM
Hi Cori,


I think the second link is bad, can you check?
thanks

I think their server is really slow! try

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/04/29/CMGHQP19VD1.DTL

If that doesn't work, I can email you the entire story.

Marc

Stan
04-30-2007, 09:04 PM
Hi Marc,


but it is a good indication of the military’s problem, and why those anthropologists who have cooperated with the military have often come to regret it. To return to my imagined example above, the military is committed to invade the region our researcher’s expertise is in, regardless of the quality of their intelligence.

I personally think it's a relations issue. The military are not trained to get along with their Anthropologists in order to get the job done, and our politicians are also not interested in why Dr. Johnny won't go !

I realize that perhaps somewhere in history this was often the case. Your recent and detailed analysis was excellent in covering that subject.

Did we truly invade Iraq based on knowledge gained from Anthropologists ?

Now that we are indeed 'there', what's the opinion ? Is it now OK to assist and make the situation less painful, make it 'go away' smoother, faster, and without further regret ?

My rotations in Afghanistan were not graced with experts, and the learning curve was steep. By the 3rd rotation, our teams were functioning well. Would it have hurt one's pride to get us going faster with far less risk ? I would have loved someone getting me ahead of the game without further loss of life. That's my Bravo-Sierra-Bible-Study take.

As I reflect on the years of experience in Sub-Sahara, Tom and I were always in a sense 'used'. Yes, we knew it from the start. It may not have always been pleasant, but we convinced ourselves that, what we were doing was better than standing on the sidelines watching things go to hell, when we could have prevented it.

Thanks, I enjoyed the article !

marct
05-04-2007, 03:45 PM
Hi Stan,

Sorry for the delayed reply...


I personally think it's a relations issue. The military are not trained to get along with their Anthropologists in order to get the job done, and our politicians are also not interested in why Dr. Johnny won't go !

True and, let's face it, there are some serious disconnects with how the military and Anthropology view the world :D.


I realize that perhaps somewhere in history this was often the case. Your recent and detailed analysis was excellent in covering that subject.

Did we truly invade Iraq based on knowledge gained from Anthropologists ?

Thanks, Stan. Information from Anthropologists, specifically some cultural insights from a book published in the 1960's, was used in some cases. The invasion certainly was not "based on" anthropology - in fact, the vast majority of Anthropologists opposed the Iraqi war and would have nothing to do with it.


Now that we are indeed 'there', what's the opinion ? Is it now OK to assist and make the situation less painful, make it 'go away' smoother, faster, and without further regret ?

In a word - "poor". There are serious problems getting anyone to work on the Human Terrain Teams, anyone who tries to work with the military is subject to be ostracized by PC radicals, and the vast majority of Anthropologists just don't want to have anything to do with it. Assisting now is viewed as being a "traitor to the discipline" by some of the extremist, and highly vocal, PC crowd.


My rotations in Afghanistan were not graced with experts, and the learning curve was steep. By the 3rd rotation, our teams were functioning well. Would it have hurt one's pride to get us going faster with far less risk ? I would have loved someone getting me ahead of the game without further loss of life. That's my Bravo-Sierra-Bible-Study take.

Afghanistan is somewhat different from Iraq, although there is still a lot of negativity attached to it. I was actually involved in a project for CIDA at the time, tracking world opinion of what was happening in Afghanistan, and it became pretty clear to me that many government agencies, at least in Canada, didn't want Anthropologists involved.

You know, in some ways we are dealing with a situation where Anthropology has backed itself into a corner. First, yelling "Hands Off!!!" in the 1960-70's to governments established a situation where these agencies wouldn't think of Anthropology. Later on, when people start realizing how useful we could be, the radicals who were yelling "Hands Off" are now the senior members of the discipline and, as with old generals, they are always ready to fight the last war :wry:.


As I reflect on the years of experience in Sub-Sahara, Tom and I were always in a sense 'used'. Yes, we knew it from the start. It may not have always been pleasant, but we convinced ourselves that, what we were doing was better than standing on the sidelines watching things go to hell, when we could have prevented it.

Yeah, I understand the feeling :wry:.

Marc

John T. Fishel
05-15-2007, 11:21 PM
Marc, you sure hit a raw nerve with your article! The boys claim that they are not making ad hominem attacks as they take out their billy clubs and whale away for just that purpose. I'll take your "shoddy scholarship" over their whining any day. Looking forward to seeing your response.

Cheers

John

SWJED
05-16-2007, 01:03 AM
... The boys claim that they are not making ad hominem attacks as they take out their billy clubs and whale away for just that purpose...

Odd, that is what stood out for me too. Ball passed to you Marc - slam dunk this time and please - don't offend by mispelling a name - though that may have been our fault - the SWJ guys - not sure...

selil
05-16-2007, 01:49 AM
Odd, that is what stood out for me too. Ball passed to you Marc - slam dunk this time and please - don't offend by mispelling a name - though that may have been our fault - the SWJ guys - not sure...

Welcome to academic scholarly discussion in the finest tradition of the academy. When fact, reason, and discourse fail go for spelling grammar and word choice.

What you also saw within the response was the failure of reason in rejection of experience based on the communications model (lack of peer review and academic journal process). Military topical writing in general was attacked and therefore nullified in one broad sweep regardless of what the review process for SWJ is...

In one glorious ad hominem attack filled with vitrol fanciful violence of logic and rejection of the communications medium of today (psuedonym web forums) they proved marct totally correct in his evaluation of why Doctor Johnny doesn't go to war.

marct
05-16-2007, 02:50 AM
In one glorious ad hominem attack filled with vitrol fanciful violence of logic and rejection of the communications medium of today (psuedonym web forums) they proved marct totally correct in his evaluation of why Doctor Johnny doesn't go to war.

Now, now Sam - don't give away all of my response points :D. Gentlemen, the response is in draft form awaiting one set of comments and will be sent in final form tomorrow.

Marc

Tom Odom
05-16-2007, 12:13 PM
Odd, that is what stood out for me too. Ball passed to you Marc - slam dunk this time and please - don't offend by mispelling a name - though that may have been our fault - the SWJ guys - not sure...

Oh go ahead and mispell their names...

Give 'em somethin to squawk about...

Tom

Steve Blair
05-16-2007, 01:03 PM
One way to tell how close an article hits home in the "civilized" realm of academics is how vicious, personal, and without substance the counter-thrust is. Marc sure hit a sensitive point with this one! Can't wait to see the rebuttal.

selil
05-16-2007, 01:23 PM
My only concern is "old line" academics WILL censure other academics for their ideas. From Newton to Oppenheimer the history of academia is littered with the corpses of careers. Because somebody disagreed and the offender was no longer funded or publishable their career ended.

I'm NOT a social scientist but I percieve within that community it is much more of an issue. Within my community of technologists we're performance oriented and have raised insults to a high form. The tools we create in technology are multi-use and my colleagues get all up in arms about the ethics of that use.

Steve Blair
05-16-2007, 01:32 PM
My only concern is "old line" academics WILL censure other academics for their ideas. From Newton to Oppenheimer the history of academia is littered with the corpses of careers. Because somebody disagreed and the offender was no longer funded or publishable their career ended.

I'm NOT a social scientist but I percieve within that community it is much more of an issue. Within my community of technologists we're performance oriented and have raised insults to a high form. The tools we create in technology are multi-use and my colleagues get all up in arms about the ethics of that use.

And this is one thing that I find totally disgusting about academics. They claim to be about freedom of expression and informed opinion, but they are also VERY quick to censor and ostracize those who don't agree with them.

SWCAdmin
05-16-2007, 02:30 PM
Welcome to academic scholarly discussion in the finest tradition of the academy. When fact, reason, and discourse fail go for spelling grammar and word choice.

What you also saw within the response was the failure of reason in rejection of experience based on the communications model (lack of peer review and academic journal process). Military topical writing in general was attacked and therefore nullified in one broad sweep regardless of what the review process for SWJ is...

In one glorious ad hominem attack filled with vitrol fanciful violence of logic and rejection of the communications medium of today (psuedonym web forums) they proved marct totally correct in his evaluation of why Doctor Johnny doesn't go to war.
Well said, selil.

We did ask that the first draft of the response be edited for less of a personal assualt and more of an issues discussion, in order to give us a better glimpse into their culture/world (i.e. anthropology / -ists)

While the authors did make some changes in that regard, the persistence of the former and its specific manifestations do indeed go a long way to offering that glimpse.

Shek
05-17-2007, 12:30 AM
Marc's response is here.

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?p=16139#post16139

Stan
05-17-2007, 01:54 PM
Marc’s response to this was calculated and dead on.

Although half of me wanted squealing pigs and mud flyin' (one of Tom’s more famous quotes), I immediately recognized the sometimes ‘not so subtle’ differences between refined gentlemen and mere scholastic achievers.

What a true shame…So much intellect and anger in just two people and the best that they come up with are spelling errors.

With that, it’s 1700 my time and I think I’ll have a beer before Anthro lessons :D

Marc, a job well done !

marct
05-17-2007, 02:33 PM
Hi Stan,


Marc’s response to this was calculated and dead on.

Although half of me wanted squealing pigs and mud flyin' (one of Tom’s more famous quotes), I immediately recognized the sometimes ‘not so subtle’ differences between refined gentlemen and mere scholastic achievers.

What a true shame…So much intellect and anger in just two people and the best that they come up with are spelling errors.

Well, after I got very my initial anger at the pettiness of their response, I was feeling somewhat depressed. I mean, after all, David is probably the best scholar in the area and this is what he comes up with?!?


With that, it’s 1700 my time and I think I’ll have a beer before Anthro lessons :D

Marc, a job well done !

Thanks Stan :). Enjoy the beer!

Marc

John T. Fishel
05-17-2007, 03:02 PM
Marc, your very gentlemanly and substantive response is clearly within the traditions (recent though they are) of the Small Wars Council and SWJ.

I have been reading some of David Price's comments on various sites including CounterPunch. What I found particularly interesting is his citation of Phillip Agee and John Stockwell. He certainly could have added Frank Snepp's Decent Interval. Consider the publication dates - the 1970s. One should also note that these are different kinds of books. Both Snepp and Stockwell address policy issues and wrote to focus the debate on policy. Agee, in contrast, wrote about his experiences as a case officer in the Clandestine Service and went out of his way to reveal the identities of some of his colleagues who were operating under light cover. The result was the murder of the CIA Station Chief in Athens by non-governmental terrorists. But that is old news. I cite the case only to highlight that Price's world is that of an era long past - not that we can't learn from that era.

I would also point out that in his writing Price fails to make a distinction between intelligence analysts and operators. Analysts are not covert, operators are. Certainly, there is some degree of overreaching in making all members of the CIA's operations directorate covert and a tendency varying with the times to not identify the employer of some analysts (making for some silly statements by intelligence employees as "I work for the government.") but this does not make for clandestine infiltration of the academy under the guise of intelligence related scholarships.

Indeed, the opposition to the intelligence scholarship programs on the basis that they are hidden, require prior security clearances, and a payback either in work (for which the analyst is well paid) or cash is illiberal in the true sense of the word. In the name of protecting unsuspecting and naive stuents from wage slavery for the big bad intelligence machine, those who hold these views would deprive some students of having their education paid for and the government of analysts who would be better prepared for the kind of research required to protect the government and the nation.

Oh, BTW, in the interests of full disclosure, I was a US Army Military Intelligence Officer for 28 years who served for some 8 years in active and reserve capacity as an analyst at the national level.

Cheers

John

Steve Blair
05-17-2007, 03:10 PM
Very good response, Marc. Now we'll see if they bother to come out and play...:D

What got to me was their very disingenuous attempt to resurrect the old "ROTC is evil" saw (can we say 1960s?) with the clip of their own article. Personally it doesn't strike me as a bad deal to get your education paid for and then get paid again for four years of work (with higher wages than most of the private sector can pony up), and in many cases ROTC is the only option open to some of our cadets when it comes to financial assistance for school.

I honestly don't think they were interested in responding to your article. That struck me more as the academic version of "Witch! Burn the Witch!" than anything else.

Which of course leads into the almost obligatory "Can she float?" references from Monty Python and the Holy Grail....which in turn leads me to look under desk for the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch...:eek:

marct
05-17-2007, 03:38 PM
Hi John,


Marc, your very gentlemanly and substantive response is clearly within the traditions (recent though they are) of the Small Wars Council and SWJ.

Thank you. I must say that, on the whole, the traditions at SWC /SWJ are, to my mind, much more in keeping with both the forms and the intent of civility as it was practiced in the academy 100 years ago; something I, personally, find much more comfortable than the current version of academic "debate".


I have been reading some of David Price's comments on various sites including CounterPunch. What I found particularly interesting is his citation of Phillip Agee and John Stockwell. He certainly could have added Frank Snepp's Decent Interval. Consider the publication dates - the 1970s. ... I cite the case only to highlight that Price's world is that of an era long past - not that we can't learn from that era.

One of the things that I have noticed about different professional disciplines is the time horizons inherent in them. On the whole, out of all of the social sciences, I think that Anthropology has the longest time horizon, probably because of paleo-Anthropology. Just as an example, I can think of numerous times at conferences (or in bars :D) where illustrative examples would get tossed out from 5 million years ago up to the present. For years, many of my first year students would remember that I used to talk a lot about Sumeria in my courses...


I would also point out that in his writing Price fails to make a distinction between intelligence analysts and operators. Analysts are not covert, operators are. Certainly, there is some degree of overreaching in making all members of the CIA's operations directorate covert and a tendency varying with the times to not identify the employer of some analysts (making for some silly statements by intelligence employees as "I work for the government.") but this does not make for clandestine infiltration of the academy under the guise of intelligence related scholarships.

I agree, and I think that it is an absolutely crucial distinction that needs to be made in the debate within Anthropology. Personally, I wold consider Anthropologists acting as analysts to be perfectly ethical, but acting as covert operatives to be unethical. While I didn't really touch on this too much in my article, the reason why I would consider covert operations to be unethical is fairly simple: it's effects on the Anthropologist (I have a somewhat different definition of "ethics" than most - I view them as "right action" in accordance with natural laws rather than as inter-subjective agreements).

When I was talking about verstehen vs. erklaren in the article, this is really what I was driving at. If one internalizes a verstehen model of research and then "betrays" that internalized model, you have acted "unethically" and will degrade both yourself and the discipline. I think that a good analogy is in the debate over the use and/or constitution of torture by the military - use it and you degrade both yourself and the military as an institution.

Because of how I define "ethics" and "morality", I would say that the emphasis on following the forms of an ethical code (e.g. informed consent) are really moral conventions that, as David himself has shown many times, are quite mutable. I think that some of the "fear of infiltration" (e.g. that one question - "Are faculty right to fear that PRISP scholars may be covertly compiling dossiers on them?") is actually inherent in how they have accepted a definition of "ethics" as being an inter-subjective convention.


Indeed, the opposition to the intelligence scholarship programs on the basis that they are hidden, require prior security clearances, and a payback either in work (for which the analyst is well paid) or cash is illiberal in the true sense of the word. In the name of protecting unsuspecting and naive stuents from wage slavery for the big bad intelligence machine, those who hold these views would deprive some students of having their education paid for and the government of analysts who would be better prepared for the kind of research required to protect the government and the nation.

I agree with you on this. I have certainly seen a pattern developing and about the only parallels I can find historically are from failing ideologies: the development of the Inquisition, the state of Communism in the mid-1980's and NAZIism in about 1945. The consistent pattern is one of outright attack on anyone who disagrees with a particular perception of reality. Hans Holzner talked about this as one of four possible reactions to a phenomenological "breach in reality".

Marc

marct
05-17-2007, 03:47 PM
Hi Steve,


Very good response, Marc. Now we'll see if they bother to come out and play...:D

Thanks :D. I guess we will just have to wait and see.


What got to me was their very disingenuous attempt to resurrect the old "ROTC is evil" saw (can we say 1960s?) with the clip of their own article. Personally it doesn't strike me as a bad deal to get your education paid for and then get paid again for four years of work (with higher wages than most of the private sector can pony up), and in many cases ROTC is the only option open to some of our cadets when it comes to financial assistance for school.

Technically, they are correct about the debt-servitude model. Still and all, that same model is also the basis of capitalism and, unlike almost every other model of human societies (barring some of the Hunter-Gatherer groups), it at least has the "Right of Departure" built in (as in "Take this job and..." :D).

On the whole, it doesn't strike me as a bad deal either, especially since there are increasing difficulties for new graduates to actually find jobs. I now that in Canada, for instance, someone with a newly mined 4 year BA will, on average, take about 13 months to find a job that uses any of those skills. Being able to start one without a crushing load of student debt is, to my mind, quite useful.


I honestly don't think they were interested in responding to your article. That struck me more as the academic version of "Witch! Burn the Witch!" than anything else.

And, since I did my MA on modern Witchcraft, you can bet I picked up on that pattern :D!!

Marc

marct
05-17-2007, 04:00 PM
From Special Dispatch—Syria/Reform Project (http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD159007)
May 18, 2007
No. 1590

Syrian Liberal Nidhal Na'isa On the West, Pan-Arabism, Islamism, and Al-Jazeera


"In Our Totalitarian Societies... Leaving [the Fold of] Collective Thought is Considered Error, Heresy, and Atheism"

When asked about the phenomenon of increasing religiosity in Syria, Na'isa said that it was part of "the spread of the culture of the herd and 'group' thinking, which means the negation of the individual and the individual's importance in creation, development, and originality."

He continued: "Western civilization was founded on unleashing individual initiative and glorification of individual reason – and not collective reason, which is generally emotive and not of sound judgment.

"In our totalitarian societies, the collective 'I' prevails over the individual 'I,' and all become equals under the podiums of the [Islamic] jurisprudents. Leaving [the fold of] collective thought is considered error, heresy, and atheism..."

John T. Fishel
05-17-2007, 05:09 PM
Hi Marc--

Is an antropologist (or other social scientist) who joins the Clandestine Service of his country unethical? Just because I have a PhD doesn't mean that I define myself always and for all time as an academic. Professionally, I have been a military officer, an intelligence officer, an academic, and a consultant - some of those during the same time periods (interesting what a Reserve Officer can do). The ethical issue, for me, is one of role. As a scholarly researcher I have to be open and transparent with both the subjects of my research and my discipline. As an intelligence analyst, I have an obligation to keep secret information that I receive in that form. But what if, in the course of my research, I discover information that would be both useful and of interest to my and the host government - and, it would be helpful to society to see that the governments in question received that information. Should I report it or not? In the real world case - which was the diversion of legal coca into the illegal drug trade - I saw no ethical problem with reporting it so long as I protected my sources, which I did. Some might well disagree with my choice but it seemed the ethical one to me. In other cases, I have used my academic skills to support my other roles but I have not tried to say I was in an academic role at the time, rather I was in one of my other professional roles. For those of us on all sides of this issue who are blogging away, clearly we are using our academic and other training to make points and enter the debate. Are any of us being unethical - including David Price? I think not. And BTW, Price and Gusterson are to be commended for their willingness to join this debate on what to them must seem "hostile ground."

Cheers

John

Stan
05-17-2007, 05:21 PM
One might add (based on my 14 years with DIA), that such individuals are not likely candidates for any Intel-related occupation and are soon weeded out.

John has more than adequately covered an obvious blunder (if I may):


In our own article on the Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program (PRISP), we are concerned (among other things) by the way in which it
allows intelligence agencies to exploit financially and emotionally vulnerable students, locking them into working for the national security state through a pronounced form of debt bondage.

Steve Blair
05-17-2007, 05:31 PM
One might add (based on my 14 years with DIA), that such individuals are not likely candidates for any Intel-related occupation and are soon weeded out.

John has more than adequately covered an obvious blunder (if I may):


In our own article on the Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program (PRISP), we are concerned (among other things) by the way in which it
allows intelligence agencies to exploit financially and emotionally vulnerable students, locking them into working for the national security state through a pronounced form of debt bondage.

Doesn't this also apply to students who are locked through academic, financial and occasionally emotional reasons into working for professors who happen to be on their graduate advisory committee?:wry:

Stan
05-17-2007, 05:39 PM
Evening Steve !
Oh, C'mon already :D

I read the final hearing after 'my' Canadian/almost U.S. Army candidate/Spy Student code-named 'Greg' revealed the ugly truth about studying under Doctor T.

Marc was later cleared...he never took a Canadian 'nano' quarter for the Anthro lessons provided :cool:


Doesn't this also apply to students who are locked through academic, financial and occasionally emotional reasons into working for professors who happen to be on their graduate advisory committee?:wry:

marct
05-17-2007, 06:04 PM
Hi John,


Is an antropologist (or other social scientist) who joins the Clandestine Service of his country unethical?

In a word, "No". I would say that there are inherent "ethical dangers" inherent for an Anthropologist or anyone else for that matter, who has internalized the verstehen methodology acting as a covert operative, but I certainly wold not say that it is "inherently" and absolutely unethical. I would say that the danger of becoming affected by covert actions is much higher than by acting solely as an analyst, but not that it is an absolute, 1:1 equation.


Just because I have a PhD doesn't mean that I define myself always and for all time as an academic. Professionally, I have been a military officer, an intelligence officer, an academic, and a consultant - some of those during the same time periods (interesting what a Reserve Officer can do). The ethical issue, for me, is one of role.

I totally agree, John. Look, one of the reasons why I use this rather oddball definition of morality and ethics is because I act in so many different roles that, after a while, they are like masks in a play. I either am / have been / or have acted as a professional academic, actor, singer, career counsellor, priest, game designer, market researcher and social worker.

Given the disparity of professional roles that both of us have used at one or more times in our lives, I think we can probably both agree that "code of ethics" tend to be limited to singular professions. What is "ethical" for a law enforcement officer may be "unethical" for an academic researcher, and vice versa (one of my students got caught in that particular one). This is why I shifted my definition of "ethics" to "right action in accordance with natural law" (okay, Buddhist, I know, but it was the best model I could come up with).

So, and getting back to your original question, I am more concerned with the effects of action on the, for want of a better term, "spiritual well being" of the individual than I am with the specifics of any particular action per se.


But what if, in the course of my research, I discover information that would be both useful and of interest to my and the host government - and, it would be helpful to society to see that the governments in question received that information. Should I report it or not? In the real world case - which was the diversion of legal coca into the illegal drug trade - I saw no ethical problem with reporting it so long as I protected my sources, which I did. Some might well disagree with my choice but it seemed the ethical one to me.

And here is where I find myself in an absolute, categorical disagreement with the position of Gusterson and Price. I would, in all probability, have done exactly the same thing as you. For me, it is not a question of "professional ethics" ("morality" in my terminology), it is a question of true ethics - what must I do, as a competent and self-aware individual in order not to "destroy my soul"?

Maybe I have internalized too many Protestant concepts, despite going to an Ursuline convent for school :eek:, but I hold, as a categorical position, that each individual must ultimately stand before their God(s) and account for their actions. One corollary of this is that I, as an individual, cannot rely on the judgement of anyone else to define what I consider to be "ethical". Another corollary of this is that if I do not ask for advice from "those who know", then I am a fool, and the final corollary is, IMHO, best stated by Cromwell - "Brethren, I beseach ye in the bowels of Christ to consider that ye may be wrong"!

In short, I believe that "ethics" are too important to the individual to hand them over to the control of a group.


In other cases, I have used my academic skills to support my other roles but I have not tried to say I was in an academic role at the time, rather I was in one of my other professional roles. For those of us on all sides of this issue who are blogging away, clearly we are using our academic and other training to make points and enter the debate. Are any of us being unethical - including David Price? I think not. And BTW, Price and Gusterson are to be commended for their willingness to join this debate on what to them must seem "hostile ground."

John, I agree totally with that! Despite my disagreements with David, I certainly would agree that he is acting in a manner that is within the moral boundary of established discourse. Do I consider him to be "unethical"? No, not at all. I truly believe that he is answering a "calling", despite the fact that I disagree with his position. I would never demand that he or Hugh Gusterson accept my position - that, to my mind, would be unethical. I can, and will, however, demand that they grant me the same courtesy.

Marc

marct
05-17-2007, 06:17 PM
Hi Steve,


Doesn't this also apply to students who are locked through academic, financial and occasionally emotional reasons into working for professors who happen to be on their graduate advisory committee?:wry:

Yes, it does. Despite Stans' comments about Greg (:D), the pattern is one of "unequal power relations" - regardless of whether that is with an agency or an individual. The real question, to my mind, is how this relationship is defined: is it one which encourages the student to grow or one that stunts their growth?). To my mind, these unequal relationships will always exist, and to attempt to deny their inevitability is either an exercise in ideological BS or an act that indicates an incipient psychotic break with reality. If absolutely nothing else, there is always the parent-child relationship. I would love to see Hugh and David try to argue that such a "debt bondage" relationship doesn't exist at the parent-child level!

Having said that, I would also recommend that they take a look at the introduction to the second edition of Emile Durkeim's Division of Labor in Society which deals with "intermediate structures" - i.e. organizations that stand between the individual and the state (yes, David, I lecture on Durkheim in my Introduction to Anthropology courses - consider his effects on the thinking of Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski, to say nothing of Mary Douglas it is appropriate).

Marc

marct
05-17-2007, 06:24 PM
Hi stan,


I read the final hearing after 'my' Canadian/almost U.S. Army candidate/Spy Student code-named 'Greg' revealed the ugly truth about studying under Doctor T.

Damn! He told you?!? I hope he didn't mention the whips ;).

Seriously, though, Greg is a good case in point on "applied ethics" (and I know he monitors SWC so maybe he can jump in here!). When dealing with Greg, I have always tried to consider him as an individual. Yeah, I have berated him on some of the "c*^p" he has produced, but I have also taken him off on fieldwork practicums so that he can understand the reality of what it is like to do fieldwork.

And Stan, let's do a bit of a correction on your characterization of Greg - he's not and incipient "Spy Student" - he's just interested in getting into the arms trade :eek:!


Marc was later cleared...he never took a Canadian 'nano' quarter for the Anthro lessons provided :cool:

True, although he has bought a few beers (okay, more than a few) :D.

Marc

Stan
05-17-2007, 07:24 PM
Hey Marc !
Honestly, I thought Steve was pullin' a 'Tom or RTK' to see if I would spin up (for lack of better terms), and in a feeble attempt to release tension herein, it became 'Kita Kidogo' time (where did Bill get that Bravo Sierra from?).

Back to reality for just a second, PRISP candidates are not fledglings barely making it with less than admirable moral qualities and questionable pasts, AND hopeless futures. The USG no longer doles out scholarship funds for potential (inept and introvert) spies that can’t communicate with other human beings…IMHO….doh !

Regards, Stan


Hi stan,



Damn! He told you?!? I hope he didn't mention the whips ;).

Seriously, though, Greg is a good case in point on "applied ethics" (and I know he monitors SWC so maybe he can jump in here!). When dealing with Greg, I have always tried to consider him as an individual. Yeah, I have berated him on some of the "c*^p" he has produced, but I have also taken him off on fieldwork practicums so that he can understand the reality of what it is like to do fieldwork.

And Stan, let's do a bit of a correction on your characterization of Greg - he's not and incipient "Spy Student" - he's just interested in getting into the arms trade :eek:!



True, although he has bought a few beers (okay, more than a few) :D.

Marc

selil
05-17-2007, 08:08 PM
.....The ethical issue, for me, is one of role. As a scholarly researcher I have to be open and transparent with both the subjects of my research and my discipline......


In other cases, I have used my academic skills to support my other roles but I have not tried to say I was in an academic role at the time, rather I was in one of my other professional roles. ....

It must be a social science thing this open and transparent stuff. In technology if I'm working on the next great thing I patent it, hide it, and only publish about the most general factors of it.... I can't imagine the Manhattan project as open and transparent...

John T. Fishel
05-17-2007, 08:08 PM
Hi Marc,

D'accord - in all you have said. Except maybe the ethics of accepting a few beers ... you should have hit him up for the meal too:)

Cheers

John

marct
05-17-2007, 08:13 PM
D'accord - in all you have said. Except maybe the ethics of accepting a few beers ... you should have hit him up for the meal too:)

We trade off on dinners :D.

Marc

SWJED
05-28-2007, 11:24 PM
Well damn, Dr. Marc heads off to Europe and those guys / girls at antropologi.info go and post this:

The Dangerous Militarisation of Anthropology (http://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/anthropology.php?title=the_dangerous_militarisatio n_of_anthropo&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1)


On 15 December 2006 the US Army released a new counterinsurgency manual, FM 3-24. At least one anthropologist played a role in preparing the 282-page document: Montgomery McFate. Anthropological knowledge is even considered as more important than bombs: Military generals call for for "culturally informed occupation" and ‘culture-centric warfare’. But this development undermines and endangers the work of anthropologists and will end up harming the entire discipline, Roberto J. Gonz&#225;lez and David Price write in the June issue of Anthropology Today (not yet published)...

What are the consequences of anthropologists engaging in counterinsurgency work? It's obvious that it both undermines and endangers the work of anthropologists and the life of their families and informants: It is plausible, Gonzales argues, that ‘once Thai peasants or Somali clansmen learn that some anthropologists are secretly working for the US government, they begin to suspect all other anthropologists. Fieldwork will be a lot more dangerous...

Steve Blair
05-29-2007, 01:58 AM
What else can I say but....:wry:

If they're using "informants" it's obvious that they're up to something shady to begin with. With all that cultural subversion going on maybe someone should write a counterpiece called "The Dangerous Anthropologization of the Military" and how we're all going to "go native" and live in strange vine-covered compounds at the end of rivers with Dennis Hopper taking pictures of us while we write bad poetry and mutter "the horror" over and over again....:eek:

Sorry...seemed like the only immediate response to this piece. Maybe Marc will have something to say once he gets back in-theater.

FascistLibertarian
05-29-2007, 10:56 AM
Anthropologists have been used in the first world war and the vietnam war by the Americans. Not to mention in South America. As well Ruth Benedict was contracted to research Japan during ww2.

It does undermine anthropologists everywhere. As well I have read about programs in place in the US where you get your anthropology degree paid for if you work for the government after (this was a few years ago so the details escape me).

John T. Fishel
05-29-2007, 11:08 AM
Hi FL--

You need to look at MarcT's article in Vol 7 of the mag and the reply to it in Vol 8. Then go to the 2 threads generated for a more complete picture. Your comment is correct but it is amplified in those locations.

Cheers

JohnT

John T. Fishel
05-29-2007, 11:18 AM
Academics are so much fun, especially social scientists, and among them, anthropologists. Some of them really are paranoid. They just know the military, government, CIA, industrial complex is out to get them. Not too bright though: don't they realize that the real power is now in the hands of the DNI? And he's just waiting to pounce on any naive and unsuspecting anthro grad student with MONEY while he gets his PhD in exchange for going to work for one of the DNI's community members as an analyst where he will be paid better than in academia and have as many or more opportunities for research. Oh, he won't be discouraged from doing a little adjunct work at the universities in the DC area, either.

Sounds just like a real raw deal to me!:p

SWJED
05-29-2007, 11:22 AM
SWJ Magazine - Why Dr. Johnny Won't Go to War (http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/swjmag/v7/tyrrell-swjvol7.pdf) by Marc W.D. Tyrrell

SWJ Magazine - Reconsidering "Why Dr. Johnny Won't Go to War" (http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/swjmag/v8/gusterson-price-swjvol8-excerpt.pdf) by Hugh Gusterson and David H. Price.

SWJ Comment via e-mail - The Response to the Response (http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/response-to-gusterson-and-price.pdf) by Marc W.D. Tyrrell

SWC Thread - Comments on Marc T's article in Vol 7 (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=2194)

SWC Thread - SWJ Mag vol 8 - Reconsidering "Why Dr. Johnny Won't Go to War" (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=2921)

Van
05-29-2007, 11:45 AM
"Scientific" researchers travelling abroad have been in the employ of governments as long as there have been "scientific" researchers, and even before they were "scientific". Didn't Lewis and Clark have intelligence collection tasks from the government? Early surveyors were also scientists, but today we're open about it and admit that the mapping agency of the government, the National Geospacial Intelligence Agency is part of the intelligence community.

This sort of thing is how the British Empire got by with such a ridiculously small formal intelligence office.

The idea that "scientific" researchers work only for an academic institution, or private corporation is relatively new.

Now, while it is fashionable in academia to voice off against anything the U.S. government does, were the anthropologists in question directed/employed to do these things, did they volunteer, or did the U.S.G. make use of research that had been done already for academic reasons?

The cynic in me has to ask: is there really a problem, or is there a bunch of Anthropology grad students who just realized that to do field work, they'd be seperated from comprehensive medical care, the internet, flush toilets, health inspected restaurants, etc, and were looking for an excuse to stay at their nice comfy university? (I know I'm going to get flamed for saying this, but how many of y'all were thinking it?)

goesh
05-29-2007, 01:06 PM
- all I know is for years there wasn't a problem for many Anthros to dig up Native burial sites in the name of Science and despite the throes of conscience during the time of Project Camelot in the 1960s, the practice of violating burial sites continued for some time. Anthros still retain the right to possess Native bones that are unearthed. I know of a case of Native grave robbery in Kentucky and when a local Native organization requested the bones be returned so a ceremony could be done and the ancestor be returned to earth, they were denied access because the ancestor's tribe could not be identified, hence no member of the organization could claim rights of heritage and cultural affiliation. It took the landowners and their attorney asserting the rights of property to get him back and given to the Natives for a return to earth ceremony. Anthros are far from being pristine and their professional ethics are as perforated as the next. Issues of site interpretation, plagarism, slanted questionaires, informed consent, data manipulation via direct intervention rear their ugly heads on a regular basis. Social advocacy is fine and dandy as long as it is PC and working with indigenous forces visa-via the US military is not at all PC.

Tom Odom
05-29-2007, 01:11 PM
If they're using "informants" it's obvious that they're up to something shady to begin with. With all that cultural subversion going on maybe someone should write a counterpiece called "The Dangerous Anthropologization of the Military" and how we're all going to "go native" and live in strange vine-covered compounds at the end of rivers with Dennis Hopper taking pictures of us while we write bad poetry and mutter "the horror" over and over again....

Steve,

Stan and I already did that. My poetry was good; Stan's singing was another matter.:D

Best

Tom

Steve Blair
05-29-2007, 01:46 PM
Anthropologists have been used in the first world war and the vietnam war by the Americans. Not to mention in South America. As well Ruth Benedict was contracted to research Japan during ww2.

It does undermine anthropologists everywhere. As well I have read about programs in place in the US where you get your anthropology degree paid for if you work for the government after (this was a few years ago so the details escape me).

Yet no one forces them to do that work, or to accept government financial aid (especially since the part about working for the government once one graduates from college is NOT hidden in the fine print or anything else). It seems to me that this policy is intended more to restrict the professional and research opportunities available to interested anthropologists.

Restricting who people can work for based on ideology? Isn't that rather against the concept of academic freedom?

(just had to toss that one out there...:D)

And Goesh makes some good points about the fluidity of ethical accountability within the safety of the ivory tower. And no flames coming from me, Van. I think some of 'em might have gotten ticked off when they found out that they might actually have to DO something for that government money...:eek:

FascistLibertarian
05-29-2007, 03:17 PM
SWJED - thanks
goesh - I agree anthropology and anthropologists have done some horrible things. However I disagree that this is relevant to the current issue under discussion.
Van-

The cynic in me has to ask: is there really a problem, or is there a bunch of Anthropology grad students who just realized that to do field work, they'd be separated from comprehensive medical care, the internet, flush toilets, health inspected restaurants, etc, and were looking for an excuse to stay at their nice comfy university? (I know I'm going to get flamed for saying this, but how many of y'all were thinking it?)
To become an Anthro. Prof. you would need to do some serious fieldwork. Where you do it is your choice (one of my fav. anthropologists did his fieldwork with the Vice Lords in 1960's Chicago, another did his with crack dealers in Harlem).

Steve Blair
Oh I have nothing against people getting anthropology degrees and going to work for the US government or getting funding from the government.
What I do have a problem with is how certain Anthropologists acted during Vietnam. My understanding of this is limited so I could be wrong but what I think happened is:
They worked for the US gov't but told no one (neither the uni's nor their informants). In their fieldwork they figured out specifically and generally who should be high priority anti-communist targets and then the US Military went in and killed those specific people and general people who fit the profile. If they want to do this fine, but they should do it as private citizens not by using their unis and the AAA as a shield.
I believe it is still a matter of controversy as to which anthrologists in S.E. Asia during Vietnam did what and many people still have clouds over their heads.

As for the program to send students through school, regardless of if I am for or against it I think the US Gov't did a horrible job on PR and selling it in an intelligent manner. They could also have made a statement about how the students would not spy on the profs.

selil
05-29-2007, 03:29 PM
Most American academics work for the federal agencies at some level. Whether they admit it or not. All state schools are well "state" schools. Their autonomy is regulated usually by the legislature of the state and a board or regents/governors.

Even more importantly in the United States the principle and primary funding agency is the National Science Foundation (NSF). NSF is a competitive federally funded program. With major notable exceptions like Lilly, Macarthur, Carnegie, etc. few if any private agencies fund academics who aren't working for them directly.

Almost all of my external funding is from NSF, NSA, DOD, DOJ, NIJ and really few of my funding dollars are from NSF directly. I do have a tidy no strings attached grand from CISCO for $120K but they were just being nice to me when I started my laboratory.

Personally I've been on a grant seeking/funding hiatus (not a good choice professionally but rewarding personally) as getting the PhD (75&#37; funded by my University, 24% funded by NSA/DOD, 1% by me) is more important for my goals as University faculty.

It is interesting that a doctorate is not required for tenure but funding is required. My choice (knowingly putting myself at risk for continued employment) was to get the doctorate. The drive in academia for funding is something called salary savings. You buy back your salary and are given "release" time to do "research" and they fill the "release" time up with committee assignments and grunt work.

I really enjoy research and as I learn more about my field of study my research questions get more and more interesting. I don't really know what those social science, history, anthropologists do for research. All I need is a bunch of computers and some victims (I mean students) to get my research done.

Steve Blair
05-29-2007, 04:06 PM
As for the program to send students through school, regardless of if I am for or against it I think the US Gov't did a horrible job on PR and selling it in an intelligent manner. They could also have made a statement about how the students would not spy on the profs.

Now would the statement really have mattered? There's a strong segment in academia that wouldn't believe it anyhow. No matter how it was presented (and there are certainly always aspects that could have been handled differently), some would still claim that it was "government-funded spying on free intellectuals."

With your Vietnam story, please name the timeframe and location if at all possible. That might help us narrow down the validity of the story.

FascistLibertarian
05-29-2007, 09:48 PM
The locations I believe were the countries outside of Vietnam where the US was fighting (ie cambodia and laos). The timeframe I am not sure of. I have looked for my old course packs from uni but I think they may be in storage.
Anyways my understand of anthropologists in vietnam comes from left wing canadian anthro profs so the version I got was not overly sympathic to the us military. :D
Bascially I think the best counter offensive would be if there was an educated, well spoken, well funded conservative group dedicated to getting more conservatives as profs. Besides maybe economics the liberals basically control most of the higher education. :P

marct
06-03-2007, 12:11 PM
Hi FL,


The locations I believe were the countries outside of Vietnam where the US was fighting (ie cambodia and laos). The timeframe I am not sure of. I have looked for my old course packs from uni but I think they may be in storage.

You are probably thinking about Operation Camelot, or about the behind the lines strikes into Cambodia and Laos in the late 1960's (I believe it was '68 or '69). OC itself was designed to create predictive social system models that could be used to test out COIN theories and theories of mass psycho-cultural manipulation. Take a look at some of David Price's work in the area, he has accessed most of the documents (his researh is fantastic even if I think his politics is execrable!:D).


Anyways my understand of anthropologists in vietnam comes from left wing canadian anthro profs so the version I got was not overly sympathic to the us military. :D

No :eek:! LOLOL. I'll bet half of them were originally from the US and came up during the 1960's.


Bascially I think the best counter offensive would be if there was an educated, well spoken, well funded conservative group dedicated to getting more conservatives as profs. Besides maybe economics the liberals basically control most of the higher education. :P

Honestly, I really dislike the idea of hiring academics based on their secular politics - left or right. The "Academy", it its broad and idealistic sense, should be a place of competing views with a guiding spirit of inquiry - not a PC or right wing ideology farm designed to produce mental clones.

Marc

marct
06-03-2007, 12:31 PM
Hi Guys,


Well damn, Dr. Marc heads off to Europe and those guys / girls at antropologi.info go and post this:

The Dangerous Militarisation of Anthropology (http://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/anthropology.php?title=the_dangerous_militarisatio n_of_anthropo&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1)


What else can I say but....:wry:

.... Sorry...seemed like the only immediate response to this piece. Maybe Marc will have something to say once he gets back in-theater.

Well, I'm still "out of the theatre", but I finally got a couple of hours of connectivity and I don't have another concert until Wednesday....

I just tried accessing AT to see if the actual article was up - okay, I wanted to see how badly David flamed me :D. It's still not up yet, so I guess I'll have to wait.

There are a few points in the anthropologi.info blog that should, however, be addressed.


What are the consequences of anthropologists engaging in counterinsurgency work? It's obvious that it both undermines and endangers the work of anthropologists and the life of their families and informants: It is plausible, Gonzales argues, that ‘once Thai peasants or Somali clansmen learn that some anthropologists are secretly working for the US government, they begin to suspect all other anthropologists. Fieldwork will be a lot more dangerous.<sigh>I wonder if anyone has every to this,..., no, I won't say it, "person", that life is dangerous? Is Gonzalez so simplistic that he thinks that anything he writes won't be looked at by other people and, despite his best intentions, some of it might be useful for either insurgents or counter-insurgents?


It's obvious that it both undermines and endangers the work of anthropologists and the life of their families and informants.Let's look at this claim a little more closely. First off, if he truly believes this he should logically never publish a thing since anything he writes may be used by someone he doesn't approve of. Second, he is insulting all anthropologists with this statement by implying that any COIN work must be done in secret which, by definition, implies that some anthropologists will break the research code established by the AAA and conduct covert research. My final comment on this, which I will admit is a bit of a reductio ad absurdam, is more of a visual image that appeared in my head. Does he believe that hordes of vengeful "natives" will show up on his doorstep and slaughter his family? Crucify his dog?? Leave tire tracks on his lawn??? Maybe <shudder> imply that he isn't 110% "native friendly" by uncovering his secret stash of twinkies that aren't a "Fair Trade" product???? :eek:

On a more serious note, what in the name of all that is unholy and indecent does this idiot take "Thai peasants and Somali tribesmen" as? The only way I can read this is that he assumes that they are credulous automatons who are incapable of rational thought and action.


If they're using "informants" it's obvious that they're up to something shady to begin with. With all that cultural subversion going on maybe someone should write a counterpiece called "The Dangerous Anthropologization of the Military" and how we're all going to "go native" and live in strange vine-covered compounds at the end of rivers with Dennis Hopper taking pictures of us while we write bad poetry and mutter "the horror" over and over again....

Hey, Steve, at least 100 years down the road, we can all have Bollywood actors playing us in a "Last of the Westerners" movie or, if we really luck out, in a TV show :D.

Marc

Merv Benson
06-03-2007, 04:12 PM
It appears that they don't mind fighting on paper anyway. Thankfully we have Marc to cover our back.

I hope to get my review of Richard Shultz and Andrea Dew's Insurgents Terrorist and Militias up this week. It looks at warfare in Somalia, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq using an anthropologist approach. It is an interesting study and provides some insights into these wars and particularly the associated intelligence failures in fighting them.

I also look forward to seeing Marc's review of this book.

FascistLibertarian
06-03-2007, 05:09 PM
Hey Marct


Honestly, I really dislike the idea of hiring academics based on their secular politics - left or right. The "Academy", it its broad and idealistic sense, should be a place of competing views with a guiding spirit of inquiry - not a PC or right wing ideology farm designed to produce mental clones.

I agree with you. I just feel that anthropology could use more small c conservatives in general. I am of course against making a % of profs that have to be liberal or conservative etc. As someone who has at least right of centre views you must understand what I mean about the majority of anthro profs being hard or soft left.

I think the answer is to have more conservatives apply for jobs as profs. I think if there were more conservative anthro and soc people the debate would be a lot better and more intellegent. Anthro is always going to be a left wing subject but a little balance is always nice.

As to their response to your article I have to agree with the idea of informed consent, disclourse, and following the code of ethics if you wish to be an anthropologist (last page).

If you wish to get anthropological training and follow these rules and work for the US Govt I am fine with that. If you wish to get anthro training and work for the govt and not follow those rules I am fine with that as well, I just dont think that those people are anthropologists (this is not automatically a bad thing, most people who get anthro undergrads probabaly dont become anthropolgists and many people who get masters in anthro didnt get undergrads in it).

Overall I found your article very intresting, the subject is not something I know that much about.

On another note, have you ever read or looked through The Chrysanthemum and The Sword? If so what do you think of it? I have read the start of it and flipped through it but am really torn about what I think about it, on the whole it teaches us a lot about the Japanese but to me it kinda of comes off as unhelp racist sterotyping. The Japanese couldnt live without their emperor and were different that anyone else etc.

marct
06-03-2007, 08:20 PM
Hi FL,


I agree with you. I just feel that anthropology could use more small c conservatives in general. I am of course against making a % of profs that have to be liberal or conservative etc. As someone who has at least right of centre views you must understand what I mean about the majority of anthro profs being hard or soft left.

I agree with you that many are either hard or soft "left", no question. I'm just worried about a greater degree of politicization in the academy. Most of the profs I had were sort of "leftish" and it made no difference - they were more interested in ideas than in ideology, which is a position I really like.


I think the answer is to have more conservatives apply for jobs as profs. I think if there were more conservative anthro and soc people the debate would be a lot better and more intellegent. Anthro is always going to be a left wing subject but a little balance is always nice.

Why do you say anthro will always be a left wing subject? The majority of the idealist values that the discipline has had over the past century are about the status of humans rather than about politics per se in any left or right wing sense.


As to their response to your article I have to agree with the idea of informed consent, disclourse, and following the code of ethics if you wish to be an anthropologist (last page).

If you wish get anthropological training and follow these rules and work for the US Govt I am fine with that. If you wish to get anthro training and work for the govt and not follow those rules I am fine with that as well, I just dont think that those people are anthropologists (this is not automatically a bad thing, most people who get anthro undergrads probabaly dont become anthropolgists and many people who get masters in anthro didnt get undergrads in it).

There is a very old debate in the profession's literature over whether or not an individual can be a professional within a discipline if they are not a member of the association which claims to represent that discipline. It's an interesting debate, and both sides can be argued until the cows come home without changing anyones minds :wry:. Personally, I am enough of an individualist to believe that if you have the training and the mindset, you are a member of the profession even if you choose not to join a particular association.


Overall I found your article very intresting, the subject is not something I know that much about.

On another note, have you ever read or looked through The Chrysanthemum and The Sword? If so what do you think of it? I have read the start of it and flipped through it but am really torn about what I think about it, on the whole it teaches us a lot about the Japanese but to me it kinda of comes off as unhelp racist sterotyping. The Japanese couldnt live without their emperor and were different that anyone else etc.

Thanks :). The Chrysanthemum and The Sword is, in my opinion, one of the best books of its type. As with all ethnographies, it has to be contextualized, so you may want to read the preface carefully to see exactly who it was aimed at - the military and political crowd in late 1944. It was really designed as a manual for running an occupation, and all the fieldwork was conducted in the US. Worth reading over very carefully, as are all of Benedict's books.

Anyway, I'm down to 40 minutes connectivity left and I'm not sure when I'll get to login next. Sayonara!

Marc

selil
06-03-2007, 11:12 PM
Why do you say anthro will always be a left wing subject? The majority of the idealist values that the discipline has had over the past century are about the status of humans rather than about politics per se in any left or right wing sense.



The reason is that any academic discipline involving education, intelligence, and structured scholarly activity that is not considered a physical or chemical science is under attack by rabid conservatives. Many people get snookered into believing the lie rather than looking at the evidence, and it the lazy thinker who lets other people do the heavy lifting of cognition for them rather than doing their own thinking.

Our western culture for some time has been vilifying thinking and though I don't know the roots of it I can see the evidence of the behaviors.

120mm
06-04-2007, 07:48 AM
I think it's more likely that as "social" sciences try to portray themselves as "hard" science, they build up a level of internal contradiction that critical thinkers start being deterred from entering the field.

It also doesn't help that academics are continually degraded into either a business or a "hoop" you jump through in order to get on with your life.

The reasons that "conservatives" attack academia, is probably because what they say is true: It has become a bastion of people who are limited by failed socialist/communist dogma, whose performance is self-adjudicated, and where they can deliver their screed to fairly defenseless minds of mush. Some of the poorest critical thinkers I have ever met are academicians.

marct
06-11-2007, 12:51 PM
Hi Folks,

(I'm back home again, although still a touch jet lagged)


The reason is that any academic discipline involving education, intelligence, and structured scholarly activity that is not considered a physical or chemical science is under attack by rabid conservatives. Many people get snookered into believing the lie rather than looking at the evidence, and it the lazy thinker who lets other people do the heavy lifting of cognition for them rather than doing their own thinking.

Our western culture for some time has been vilifying thinking and though I don't know the roots of it I can see the evidence of the behaviors.

Selil, that's a somewhat jaundiced, if accurate, view of NA culture :wry:. I have a suspicion that the roots lie in several developments, including the sacralization of Science (i.e. turning science into a secular "religion") that happened in the 1940's and 50's (a bastard descendant of the Darwin debates of the 1860's) and the use of many social science tools to manipulate the general culture (e.g. via market research, opinion polling, etc. cf Quetelet's une treatise sur l'homme (http://www.amazon.com/Sur-lhomme-Adolphe-Quetelet/dp/2213026653/ref=sr_1_5/104-5368079-3599113?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181564654&sr=1-5) or, for the X-files fans, Michael Flynn's In the Country of the Blind (http://www.amazon.com/Country-Blind-Michael-Flynn/dp/076534498X/ref=sr_1_6/104-5368079-3599113?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181564582&sr=8-6)).

To misquote my friend Stewart Clegg, it's all about power. If one group has the tools to manipulate another group, they will do what they have to do in order to make those tools more effective, including destroying the education system. There is an interesting evolutionary analogy in the biological world - look at Richard Dawkin's arguments about the development of the oil sack in the head of a sperm whale.


I think it's more likely that as "social" sciences try to portray themselves as "hard" science, they build up a level of internal contradiction that critical thinkers start being deterred from entering the field.

Yeah, that is part of it I suspect. The social sciences aren't really paradigms in Kuhn's sense; they are more of "schools". Trying to turn them into paradigms tends to make them fall apart, in part because of the experimentation requirement. About the only place, outside of totalitarian societies, where experimentation can take place is in either voluntary organizations (e.g. the commune movement, religious communities, etc.) or in private corporations. Since social scientists are usually prohibited from setting up any of these experimental "communities" by professional ethics codes, all that can be done is to analyze ones hat have been set up and use inference to analyze them.

The problem that you mention with critical thinkers being deterred from entering the various disciplines, to my mind, comes from a distinct lack of desire on the part of social scientists to admit that what we practice is an art (a school in Kuhn's terminology) and not a science in the paradigmatic sense. This is made even worse by not spelling out the specific logics of trying to develop paradigms that actually do operate in the social sciences, and by not rigorously analyzing the epistemologies that underly these models.


It also doesn't help that academics are continually degraded into either a business or a "hoop" you jump through in order to get on with your life.

Too true!


The reasons that "conservatives" attack academia, is probably because what they say is true: It has become a bastion of people who are limited by failed socialist/communist dogma, whose performance is self-adjudicated, and where they can deliver their screed to fairly defenseless minds of mush. Some of the poorest critical thinkers I have ever met are academicians.

Well, I won't deny that - I've met some pretty poor thinkers in academia as well :wry:. I have often, in recent years, felt that academia is suffering its own period of circumscribed decadence with the absinthe of 100 years ago replaced by screeching post-modernism and the overly rotted stench of communist doctrines dulling our senses. The few people inside the academy who I have viewed as trying to cut through the haze and malaise tend to not be taught any more - Gregory Bateson comes to mind.

Argh! Now I'm starting to get depressed :eek:. Time to stop this and et back to work....

Marc

John T. Fishel
06-12-2007, 12:06 PM
Hi Marc--

And welcome back. I guess that while I generally agree with your comments I can't get so depressed by the situation in academia and the social sciences. The bright spots are found where academic leadership insists on civility in disagreement. I saw this in the School of International Service of American University under its Dean, Louis Goodman and I see it among my colleagues here at Oklahoma, and, of course, in this non-academic setting of the SWC.

The old debate of science or non-science I find somewhat sterile. Clearly, Astronomy is a science but one where no experimentation is possible. What one can do in the social sciences is frame questions carefully, build hyptheses which can be tested, and from that develop theories that both explain and predict in probabilistic terms. That all depends on careful observation and recording of data. Out of that effort, does one build a paradigm or a school? I don't think it matters very much. In practice, if what you define as a school is what I would call a paradigm, then if I want to talk to you I will gladly call it a school.

To drop back a bit, I find the debate about your article within your profession rather encouragin. Here are some guys who really disagree with your approach who are willing to do battle on your turf. Perhaps, this is the start of a dialogue within Anthropology that will set some new and more realistic ethical parameters - ones that can extend to the rest of the social sciences and other academic disciplines.

Cheers

JohnT

selil
06-12-2007, 12:52 PM
I have an interesting relationship with academia. I'm a faculty member at my institution and a PhD student at another. There seems to be this boundary between technology and science and as I was discussing some of the issues we've been discussing in several threads on SWC my PhD adviser said "then create a course and reading list for us...." oops. My job this summer when I'm normally drinking Corona and trying to determine if the lawn will mow itself is instead to consider the philosophy of science. Egads.

Thanks Marct

marct
06-12-2007, 01:54 PM
Hi John,


And welcome back.

Thanks :). My head is still halfway somewhere in Europe and in singing mode.


I guess that while I generally agree with your comments I can't get so depressed by the situation in academia and the social sciences.

I'll admit that I find myself wandering in and out of being depressed with academia. Sometimes, I am actually quite optimistic about it, but that is usually when I dealing with people, colleagues and students, who have a passion for discovery.


The bright spots are found where academic leadership insists on civility in disagreement. I saw this in the School of International Service of American University under its Dean, Louis Goodman and I see it among my colleagues here at Oklahoma, and, of course, in this non-academic setting of the SWC.

I agree - I have certainly found that in The Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies at Carleton, with ICAN at UTS and here at the SWC. It makes all the difference.


The old debate of science or non-science I find somewhat sterile. Clearly, Astronomy is a science but one where no experimentation is possible. What one can do in the social sciences is frame questions carefully, build hyptheses which can be tested, and from that develop theories that both explain and predict in probabilistic terms. That all depends on careful observation and recording of data. Out of that effort, does one build a paradigm or a school? I don't think it matters very much. In practice, if what you define as a school is what I would call a paradigm, then if I want to talk to you I will gladly call it a school.

A couple of really good points, John. BTW, I would distinguish between a "school" and a "paradigm" based on a) predictive capacity (schools often have non-statistically significant predictive capacities) and b) dominance / acceptance within a discipline (20th century Physics is the oddball in Kuhn's thesis because there were two equally accepted paradigms).

I think that we are starting to see the gradual emergence of a paradigm in social sciences but, I suspect, that is because we are finally getting direct observational evidence of the way in which the brain operates.


To drop back a bit, I find the debate about your article within your profession rather encouragin. Here are some guys who really disagree with your approach who are willing to do battle on your turf. Perhaps, this is the start of a dialogue within Anthropology that will set some new and more realistic ethical parameters - ones that can extend to the rest of the social sciences and other academic disciplines.

One can hope :wry:. I had a long talk with my wife last night about ethics, morality, and the philosophy of science (red wine and gin and tonic will lead us into some intriguing areas :D). I had been telling her about what I perceived as the shortcomings in modern theories of ethics (hearkening back to our earlier conversations here at SWC), and the trouble I was having with describing a model I could "see" in my mind, but only describe using the vocabulary of theology (and pretty mystical theology at that). No conclusions really came out of the discussion, but I think I am starting to get a better feel for how I can describe my perceptions. I think it's time to re-read Mary Douglas' How Institutions Think...

Marc

marct
06-12-2007, 01:56 PM
Hi Selil,


I have an interesting relationship with academia. I'm a faculty member at my institution and a PhD student at another. There seems to be this boundary between technology and science and as I was discussing some of the issues we've been discussing in several threads on SWC my PhD adviser said "then create a course and reading list for us...." oops. My job this summer when I'm normally drinking Corona and trying to determine if the lawn will mow itself is instead to consider the philosophy of science. Egads.

Thanks Marct

You're welcome :D!

Marc

120mm
06-19-2007, 04:38 AM
I have an interesting relationship with academia. I'm a faculty member at my institution and a PhD student at another. There seems to be this boundary between technology and science and as I was discussing some of the issues we've been discussing in several threads on SWC my PhD adviser said "then create a course and reading list for us...." oops. My job this summer when I'm normally drinking Corona and trying to determine if the lawn will mow itself is instead to consider the philosophy of science. Egads.

Thanks Marct

I have years of study before I can speak authoritatively on the philosophy of science, or where that mythical boundary between technology and science lies (And I doubt I will know any more then, than when I started out), but I suspect that "technology" is the "works" portion of the "faith-based" scientific "church".

Technology is Science's Book of James, if you will.

Stevely
06-19-2007, 05:26 AM
Technology is Science's Book of James, if you will.

Can I steal that from you? Brilliant.

marct
06-19-2007, 02:49 PM
Hi 120,


I have years of study before I can speak authoritatively on the philosophy of science, or where that mythical boundary between technology and science lies (And I doubt I will know any more then, than when I started out), but I suspect that "technology" is the "works" portion of the "faith-based" scientific "church".

Technology is Science's Book of James, if you will.

Love it! BTW, Bronislaw Mailinowski, Magic, Science and Religion (http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Science-Religion-Other-Essays/dp/0881336572/ref=sr_1_1/104-7365246-3767119?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182264481&sr=8-1) has pretty much made the same argument.

Marc

120mm
06-20-2007, 09:35 AM
Can I steal that from you? Brilliant.

Sure! You are welcome to any "Epistle of Straw" you can use!

mde
06-25-2007, 02:58 PM
I go to school with a couple anthropoligists, and have met another two, who have "crossed over to the dark side" so to speak and are actively working, researching, teaching, and travelling for the military and the larger government machine. So what? The academics spend so much time bickering between themselves and being "holier than thou" to each other that they miss the point of their education: to DO SOMETHING. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is wasted time unless you choose to improve the world with it. That is exactly what the military is trying to do with the new Army COIN manual, the FID campaigns going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, Philippines, Djibouti, Colombia, and other places that have not been in the spotlight (and ought not to if we want to succeed). In this, the military is finally conceding that they aren't the smartest people in the world, that the western-traditional military approach does not fit all situations, and they are enlisting the assistance of the people who do actually know better than they.
The anthropologists who choose to work for the government believe they are trying to improve the way our government works. And they know they have an impossible taks ahead of the them, and without mutual support from their academic community. They are indeed shunned -- I have heard all but one of the ones I know talk about that very aspect of their profession and the choices they have made. Companies like RAND are interesting cross-over points, though the commercialism tends to get in the way.
The biggest downside to academics teaching military people -- especially now that we have a battle-hardened and well-travelled military and paramilitary community -- is that often times the academics either have never been to the places they claim to know so much about (and their military student just came from his third tour there), or that their information is from their post-doctoral thesis twenty years ago and, by the way, there was no war going on then. Violent Salafism hadn't reared its ugly head in most parts of the world twenty years ago, and that hurts much of academia's stranglehold on the social scientific crystal ball. Wisdom comes from knowing that you are relatively dumb in the face of real experience. No single person can know everything -- especially in the face of real-world experience in foreign cultures, no matter how restrictive (USMC in Iraq) or permissive (USSF everywhere) their experience may have been. The really good and wise anthropologists will concede this and will use the classroom as an opportunity to learn IN BOTH DIRECTIONS. I had one that did just that last quarter and it was one of my favorite classes I have ever taken.

SteveMetz
06-25-2007, 03:15 PM
I go to school with a couple anthropoligists, and have met another two, who have "crossed over to the dark side" so to speak and are actively working, researching, teaching, and travelling for the military and the larger government machine. So what? The academics spend so much time bickering between themselves and being "holier than thou" to each other that they miss the point of their education: to DO SOMETHING. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is wasted time unless you choose to improve the world with it. That is exactly what the military is trying to do with the new Army COIN manual, the FID campaigns going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, Philippines, Djibouti, Colombia, and other places that have not been in the spotlight (and ought not to if we want to succeed). In this, the military is finally conceding that they aren't the smartest people in the world, that the western-traditional military approach does not fit all situations, and they are enlisting the assistance of the people who do actually know better than they.
The anthropologists who choose to work for the government believe they are trying to improve the way our government works. And they know they have an impossible taks ahead of the them, and without mutual support from their academic community. They are indeed shunned -- I have heard all but one of the ones I know talk about that very aspect of their profession and the choices they have made. Companies like RAND are interesting cross-over points, though the commercialism tends to get in the way.
The biggest downside to academics teaching military people -- especially now that we have a battle-hardened and well-travelled military and paramilitary community -- is that often times the academics either have never been to the places they claim to know so much about (and their military student just came from his third tour there), or that their information is from their post-doctoral thesis twenty years ago and, by the way, there was no war going on then. Violent Salafism hadn't reared its ugly head in most parts of the world twenty years ago, and that hurts much of academia's stranglehold on the social scientific crystal ball. Wisdom comes from knowing that you are relatively dumb in the face of real experience. No single person can know everything -- especially in the face of real-world experience in foreign cultures, no matter how restrictive (USMC in Iraq) or permissive (USSF everywhere) their experience may have been. The really good and wise anthropologists will concede this and will use the classroom as an opportunity to learn IN BOTH DIRECTIONS. I had one that did just that last quarter and it was one of my favorite classes I have ever taken.


Excellent points. I was once a university professor but in the 20 years I have worked for the military, I stopped going to academic conferences and panels that dealt with security issues, and reading pure academic journals, mostly because I now know that the vast majority of academic security experts don't know what they're talking about. Once of the best indicators of this is that most articles in academic journals have NO primary source citations. Rather than read, for instance, the National Security Strategy or the COIN manual, they'll just cite some other academic who was citing some other academic who was citing some other academic.

I kind of stuck my foot in the water in the discussion thread linked at the beginning of this thread, but decided it wasn't worth the effort. Academic anthropologists, like political scientists, have decided that any thing that has any real world relevance is "not scientific" or tainted. As a result, they have become increasingly irrelevant.

FascistLibertarian
06-25-2007, 04:51 PM
"not scientific"
If anything anthropology has turned against science. No one is looking for big T Truths. It has turned the corner into post modernism and most of the marxists and 1960's anthologists are retiring.

skiguy
06-25-2007, 07:03 PM
What's a FID campaign? (and what is FID an acronym for?)

Steve Blair
06-25-2007, 07:17 PM
Foreign Internal Defense, if my acronym memory serves.

SteveMetz
06-25-2007, 08:01 PM
Foreign Internal Defense, if my acronym memory serves.

Yep. See Joint Publication 3-07.1, Joint Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Foreign Internal Defense (FID), April 2004.

selil
06-25-2007, 10:12 PM
Oooh Boy the guns are aimed at the academics today.

Well us Academics are smarter than the military types. Y'all go to Leavenworth Kansas, We (or I) on the other hand am currently in Key West. So while I'm sipping on my Margarita in Margaritaville consider the following.

1) How can an academic use primary source material that is banned or controlled by security mechanisms?

2) In academia we want to see real research that is peer reviewed and military types not volunteering for that service at conferences will keep the truck bogged down.

3) When I ask about going to Iraq to look at how military types are handling digital "evidence" guess what the answer is.... And, I've been shot at before.

4) Do you really want somebody like me who can piece together evidence from disparate sources and synthesize uncontrolled data sources into information you want to control, but can't?

5) Is it really research when a third party gets to vote on it's content? If I have to pay my way to the combat zone, take all the risks, have little to no support, and be shunned the entire time you can dang well bet I ain't going to be interested in approval before publication.

Oh look my drink is empty... toodles

SteveMetz
06-25-2007, 10:36 PM
Oooh Boy the guns are aimed at the academics today.

Well us Academics are smarter than the military types. Y'all go to Leavenworth Kansas, We (or I) on the other hand am currently in Key West. So while I'm sipping on my Margarita in Margaritaville consider the following.

1) How can an academic use primary source material that is banned or controlled by security mechanisms?

2) In academia we want to see real research that is peer reviewed and military types not volunteering for that service at conferences will keep the truck bogged down.

3) When I ask about going to Iraq to look at how military types are handling digital "evidence" guess what the answer is.... And, I've been shot at before.

4) Do you really want somebody like me who can piece together evidence from disparate sources and synthesize uncontrolled data sources into information you want to control, but can't?

5) Is it really research when a third party gets to vote on it's content? If I have to pay my way to the combat zone, take all the risks, have little to no support, and be shunned the entire time you can dang well bet I ain't going to be interested in approval before publication.

Oh look my drink is empty... toodles

My slam about primary sources had nothing to do with controlled or classified material, but with stuff that was easily available if the author had done the work. I recently reviewed a book manuscript by a well known British political scientist (which has since been published despite the fact that I slammed it) which had NO primary source citations in the entire thing. Even when he discussed a study by my research institute, rather than look at the study itself (which is available on the web) he instead cited a newspaper which talked about the study.


"Peer review" is kind of a sham when all the peers suffer the same pathologies. It's kind of like expecting balanced policies from the House of Lords.

(I'm not quite sure to make of the statement, "Well us Academics are smarter than the military types. Y'all go to Leavenworth Kansas, We (or I) on the other hand am currently in Key West." After all,there are crack dealers who can make the same statement.)

selil
06-25-2007, 11:39 PM
The crack was in regards to this thread (CLICK HERE) (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=3264) and I guess we can dispense with any humor.

So, let's consider your thesis that academics don't use primary source material and little if any of material when it is available.

You failed to answer any of my salient points to the discussion but let's look at your thesis.

The broad brush of over generalization not withstanding what and when do you use primary source material. Any good police officer will tell you that a witness is likely the worst primary source for an incident because they carry all of the associated filters and emotional impact of a crime. Police like to find cameras or other less emotional recording instruments and rely on forensics to insure the story matches the facts.

Where should we find these primary sources in the military world where they won't be filtered through the eyes of those who would control that same information as "sensitive but unclassified" or "no foreign agents". You immediately suggest "your" institute as the paragon of material to be provided yet what is the academic rigor you apply to your material. You claim that academic peer review fails at the task yet it works. What do you have to replace it?

I'm no apologist for the academic malfeasances found in pandering the same ideas over and over again in widening circles of non-critical pantheism. In a world where stepping to the edge of a new idea is career suicide I have a tendency to leap. The scientific principles and academic principles are closely aligned and to throw them out with zero suggestion of a better course that will be at least as critical is a red herring and intellectually dishonest. Academics evaluate and rate others research based on not just publication but the data and methods used to gather it. That being said you would not attempt to apply rigor or objectivity to a "news paper" article, but you might ignore a "report" if it might be construed to have that rigor where it doesn't exist. A consistent criticism of the military and government publications is that review of "scientific" materials is not done with rigor.

Academia has specific and concrete issues with government and military entities. Pure research and military needs are not closely aligned and what people in the military really want is expertise on tap for exploitation. What researchers want is access to data and opportunities to conduct or observe subjects. As an academician I'm bound by rules and laws that say I can't do certain things ever in that role. University research review boards (IRB) have fairly stringent rules on the social sciences and their conduct. Lucky for me personally though described as a scientist I'm actually a technologist.

That technologist label is interesting because it is where the glue between fanciful research and absolute application resides. We make things happen in my case with computers that make people nervous. Application of ideas and publication of results allows us to be more stringent in our world view. In the last few years I've enjoyed funding as a tertiary funded individual because I could accomplish that interface of specific expertise that was needed. The primary investigator was being asked to do something that they were ill equipped to accomplish. Not to fault the investigator but the expectations of either party involved were not aligned correctly.

Much of the issue I think with the softer sciences is this misalignment of expectation between what either side is looking for out of the other.

SteveMetz
06-25-2007, 11:47 PM
The crack was in regards to this thread (CLICK HERE) (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=3264) and I guess we can dispense with any humor.

So, let's consider your thesis that academics don't use primary source material and little if any of material when it is available.

You failed to answer any of my salient points to the discussion but let's look at your thesis.

The broad brush of over generalization not withstanding what and when do you use primary source material. Any good police officer will tell you that a witness is likely the worst primary source for an incident because they carry all of the associated filters and emotional impact of a crime. Police like to find cameras or other less emotional recording instruments and rely on forensics to insure the story matches the facts.

Where should we find these primary sources in the military world where they won't be filtered through the eyes of those who would control that same information as "sensitive but unclassified" or "no foreign agents". You immediately suggest "your" institute as the paragon of material to be provided yet what is the academic rigor you apply to your material. You claim that academic peer review fails at the task yet it works. What do you have to replace it?

I'm no apologist for the academic malfeasances found in pandering the same ideas over and over again in widening circles of non-critical pantheism. In a world where stepping to the edge of a new idea is career suicide I have a tendency to leap. The scientific principles and academic principles are closely aligned and to throw them out with zero suggestion of a better course that will be at least as critical is a red herring and intellectually dishonest. Academics evaluate and rate others research based on not just publication but the data and methods used to gather it. That being said you would not attempt to apply rigor or objectivity to a "news paper" article, but you might ignore a "report" if it might be construed to have that rigor where it doesn't exist. A consistent criticism of the military and government publications is that review of "scientific" materials is not done with rigor.

Academia has specific and concrete issues with government and military entities. Pure research and military needs are not closely aligned and what people in the military really want is expertise on tap for exploitation. What researchers want is access to data and opportunities to conduct or observe subjects. As an academician I'm bound by rules and laws that say I can't do certain things ever in that role. University research review boards (IRB) have fairly stringent rules on the social sciences and their conduct. Lucky for me personally though described as a scientist I'm actually a technologist.

That technologist label is interesting because it is where the glue between fanciful research and absolute application resides. We make things happen in my case with computers that make people nervous. Application of ideas and publication of results allows us to be more stringent in our world view. In the last few years I've enjoyed funding as a tertiary funded individual because I could accomplish that interface of specific expertise that was needed. The primary investigator was being asked to do something that they were ill equipped to accomplish. Not to fault the investigator but the expectations of either party involved were not aligned correctly.

Much of the issue I think with the softer sciences is this misalignment of expectation between what either side is looking for out of the other.

I wasn't drawing generalizations but commenting on the field I'm part of and know fairly well--strategic and national security policy studies. I think your suggestion that primary source documents are unreliable and tainted is a red herring. I find it a bit hard to believe that something an academic said citing another academic citing another academic is more authoritative than the actual documents that the long skein of academics is referring to. To give a more concrete example, I've seen major conference papers on the National Defense Strategy and National Security Strategy that give no indication that the author had read said documents, but only what other people said about them.

Is it "exploitation" when defense leaders and policymakers would like to be informed by policy relevant academic analysis? I guess so. But by the same token, students are also exploiting academics. And, equally, academics are exploiting the policymakers which they use as resources.

Personally, I think there is a middle ground between academics being the unwitting tool of policymakers and academic insisting on being policy irrelevant. That's all I'm looking for. And in my experience, academia still suffers from a Vietnam hangover that leads many of its members to lean far toward policy irrelevance.

Mark O'Neill
06-26-2007, 12:33 AM
But I am inclined to side with Steve here.

I am 2.5 years of part time study into my PhD related to COIN and Strategy. I have read and continue to drown in what I regard as an alarming number of books , journal articles, newspaper articles, other thesis and dissertations and our own and allied military doctrine publications.

A large percentage (exceeding 60% - ball park figure) of the matter appears written by authors blissfully ignorant of what would routinely be regarded as the basis of 'foundation' knowledge in the area. There is little of no citation of primary source material, or even reputable secondary source material. Where primary sources are used, there frequently is scant evidence of critical evaluation of of the source or material presented. For example, a quote form an interview subject is summarily unadorned by analysis for bias or context and presented as fact.

The technique of assertion based reasoning is alive and well - we all know that one - someone asserts an unproven viewpoint, and by repetition and persistant referral throughout the text (without ever actually verifying it), behold - by the end of the text is is an 'unassailable fact'.

To be fair, it is not just academics who do this. Amongst the biggest offenders are journalists turned academics or even worse , journalists / columnists who are bitten by the military bug (although they patently would have had trouble gaining entry to a JROTC program) and who write with the assuredness (and language) of a three combat tour veteran about a world that they will never really be a member of. ( A good example of this was posted on these pages just recently concerning an article about Africa in Esquire..)

Soldiers such as my self are equally bad in our own way. One example of this - we tend to mistake our conviction about something for the 'sole' truth and that leads us sometimes (ok, often!) to ignore wider alternatives. This is because we have been trained / inculcated to have an inordinate amount of self-confidence and belief (necessary for our primary work, perhaps not so useful at all times when trying to write reasoned, balanced arguments).

I think part of the problem is that there are relatively few people who are practitioners of military and strategic arts, and even fewer who are 'educated' in them (as opposed to trained). Of his relatively small group, only a few are inclined to put pen to paper in order to argue and reason things through.

The reasons for this are many - a common one is disdain for learning (as described in Norman Dixon's amusing text on the psychology of military incompetence) or disdain for academia (as outlined by Ralph Peters in his recent essay in American Interest). The net result - when someone writes a clearly inadequate piece - there are not many who can actually critique it, the publisher's desire to make money kicks in, and out comes another weak or useless text (like the circumstance Steve described).

By way of example - compare the field of security studies to medicine. To publish on a medical subject the writer must have some credibility (technical knowledge, registration / certification). Furthermore, he or she is publishing in a field where the profession tightly holds onto and evalutes professional applied knowledge against a known body of fact. If someone could get 'rubbish' into the Lancet for example, it would quite quickly be exposed. No such system operates effectively in our field.

It is my opinion that we will keep getting 'comic strip' sophistication in Military and Security studies publications as long as those with expertise do not engage, and the 'Walter Mitty' types keep getting 'free hits' at using the resultant professional vacuum to build fame, influence and fortune.

selil
06-26-2007, 02:34 AM
I think Mark, Steve and I would likely agree more on the details then disagree on the interpretation.

I think Mark names the issue with military writing with his example of the Lancet.

John T. Fishel
06-26-2007, 12:51 PM
Mark, Steve, and Selil--

As Steve knows, I spent some time at his Institute - I then followed him to Leavenworth. I also spent 15 years as a tenured faculty member at a civilian university, and now am teaching again at the U of Oklahoma.

In terms of research, I never was subject to any restrictions while working for DOD. The "peer" review process at SSI, CHDS, and Leavenworth, although sometimes informal was quite real. In all cases, I was given the opportunity to seek out primary sources on the ground. Moreover, there were fewer "politics" involved in getting research funding than in the civilian academia that I expereinced.

Here at Oklahoma, I am finding an environment that is similar in its collegiality to that which I found at SSI. Bottom line is that all of this tends to revolve around the individuals who have to make the various systems of research credibility work.

Cheers

JohnT

marct
06-26-2007, 02:05 PM
Interesting comments Mark, Steve and Selil. I'd like to pick up on a comment John made about research credibility systems.

One of the more memorable discussions I had right after my PhD defense was over the concept of "peer review" and the problems of trying to conduct, and publish, research that went across disciplinary boundaries (my dissertation went from neuro-biology, through Psychology, Anthropology and macro-Sociology and most of it couldn't be "tested" by ethical guidelines). How then could you find "peers" to review it? It wasn't a problem for my committee (2 @ Psychologists, Anthropologists and Sociologists) but, when I tried to get some of it published, I ran head on into the "not pure" syndrome" (i.e. it didn't meet disciplinary orthodoxy) and had to publish it in a fourth discipline where it was all "alien".

So, what credibility systems are we actually seeing in academia? Within established disciplines we have "peer review" which seems to operate fairly well by enforcing orthodoxy, however that may be defined in the discipline. In some disciplines, and I think that Selil's area fits here along with engineering, "orthodoxy" is defined by whether or not it works "in the world". In a few cases, strangely enough Management is one of them, you can breach orthodoxy and still get published if you are an "accepted shaman" (it's about the only way to describe the phenomenon). So, three different credibility systems:

Orthodoxy (aka "peer review");
"Does it work?"; and
"Accepted shaman"What's interesting about these is that they roughly parallel Webers' forms of authority: traditional, rational / logical and charismatic.

Marc

SteveMetz
06-26-2007, 02:19 PM
Interesting comments Mark, Steve and Selil. I'd like to pick up on a comment John made about research credibility systems.

One of the more memorable discussions I had right after my PhD defense was over the concept of "peer review" and the problems of trying to conduct, and publish, research that went across disciplinary boundaries (my dissertation went from neuro-biology, through Psychology, Anthropology and macro-Sociology and most of it couldn't be "tested" by ethical guidelines). How then could you find "peers" to review it? It wasn't a problem for my committee (2 @ Psychologists, Anthropologists and Sociologists) but, when I tried to get some of it published, I ran head on into the "not pure" syndrome" (i.e. it didn't meet disciplinary orthodoxy) and had to publish it in a fourth discipline where it was all "alien".

So, what credibility systems are we actually seeing in academia? Within established disciplines we have "peer review" which seems to operate fairly well by enforcing orthodoxy, however that may be defined in the discipline. In some disciplines, and I think that Selil's area fits here along with engineering, "orthodoxy" is defined by whether or not it works "in the world". In a few cases, strangely enough Management is one of them, you can breach orthodoxy and still get published if you are an "accepted shaman" (it's about the only way to describe the phenomenon). So, three different credibility systems:

Orthodoxy (aka "peer review");
"Does it work?"; and
"Accepted shaman"What's interesting about these is that they roughly parallel Webers' forms of authority: traditional, rational / logical and charismatic.

Marc

I'll give you my take on it (which tracks closely with yours). I think the process of peer review works fine in hard sciences where results are replicable and there is a minimum influence for ideology. In the social sciences and humanities, I think the process of peer review leads to groupthink as much as to the "truth."

In the political science journals, this has lead to conformity and a constriction of not only the topics considered, but also the methods used. And it reinforces the post-Vietnam bias against research and analysis that is policy relevant. Although I don't think you'd find it articulated this way, I believe social scientists feel that if they focus on policy irrelevant pure theory, there is no risk of their work being misused by political leaders they personally disagree with.


In security studies, I constrast this situation with the 1950s and 1960s where scholarship informed and shaped policy.

marct
06-26-2007, 03:03 PM
Hi Steve,


I'll give you my take on it (which tracks closely with yours). I think the process of peer review works fine in hard sciences where results are replicable and there is a minimum influence for ideology. In the social sciences and humanities, I think the process of peer review leads to groupthink as much as to the "truth."

Hmmm, I think you are right, at least at he aggregate level (which is, after all, what we are talking about). I think peer review works best for "normal science" (in Kuhn's sense), but fails badly when a paradigm is either challenged or is breaking down. What may be operational here is the difference between review criteria: normal science as "orthodoxy" (traditional authority) or normal science as "pragmatism" (rational-legal authority).


Although I don't think you'd find it articulated this way, I believe social scientists feel that if they focus on policy irrelevant pure theory, there is no risk of their work being misused by political leaders they personally disagree with.

I think you actually can find examples of this being openly stated, at least in Anthropology.


In security studies, I constrast this situation with the 1950s and 1960s where scholarship informed and shaped policy.

I think there is a fine line to be drawn between informing and shaping policy and being conducted at the behest of policy interests and, as a result, being tainted by the political ideology underlying the stance of that policy. This is the exact area where I feel most professional associations have let their members down in by attempting to internally legislate individual ethical decisions (way too long to get into here). I ran into this situation directly when I was doing some contract research for a Canadian Government department and was told exactly what results the minister wanted to see. As it turned out, the minister was scientifically correct, but only chose to publish part of the research (the rest contravened his political agenda).

I have a suspicion that part of the group think (psuedo-)ethics of academics comes from a distaste for spending the time, and effort, to really build a set of personal ethics (there are, I should note, many individual exceptions to this - I'm just identifying what I see as an aggregate trend that is being taught to graduate students). This becomes a lot easier to sustain if you remain inside the ivory tower and if your research is "real-world" irrelevant.

Marc

SteveMetz
06-26-2007, 03:31 PM
Hi Steve,



Hmmm, I think you are right, at least at he aggregate level (which is, after all, what we are talking about). I think peer review works best for "normal science" (in Kuhn's sense), but fails badly when a paradigm is either challenged or is breaking down. What may be operational here is the difference between review criteria: normal science as "orthodoxy" (traditional authority) or normal science as "pragmatism" (rational-legal authority).



I think you actually can find examples of this being openly stated, at least in Anthropology.



I think there is a fine line to be drawn between informing and shaping policy and being conducted at the behest of policy interests and, as a result, being tainted by the political ideology underlying the stance of that policy. This is the exact area where I feel most professional associations have let their members down in by attempting to internally legislate individual ethical decisions (way too long to get into here). I ran into this situation directly when I was doing some contract research for a Canadian Government department and was told exactly what results the minister wanted to see. As it turned out, the minister was scientifically correct, but only chose to publish part of the research (the rest contravened his political agenda).

I have a suspicion that part of the group think (psuedo-)ethics of academics comes from a distaste for spending the time, and effort, to really build a set of personal ethics (there are, I should note, many individual exceptions to this - I'm just identifying what I see as an aggregate trend that is being taught to graduate students). This becomes a lot easier to sustain if you remain inside the ivory tower and if your research is "real-world" irrelevant.

Marc


The U.S. government contracts for a lot of academic research but I think very little of it is actually used to bolster a particular policy. My organization, for instance, has contracted monographs that are quite critical of official policy. We wouldn't do a Noam Chomsky/Chalmbers Johnson type of poorly informed ideological screed, but are happy to publish well informed and argued criticism. I've seen the same elsewhere in the Department of Defense and in the intelligence community.

I made a comment on the anthropology board linked at the beginning of this thread where I tried to draw a distinction between academics being counterinsurgents and academics educating practicing counterinsurgents. The reply I got suggested that person, at least, didn't get it. What I was sensing was the old, stale Vietnam-era attitude that the U.S. is an agent of evil and anything it touches is, by definition, tainted. I got the impression that the poster didn't really know much about real world insurgents given this moral parity that she apparently took as an article of faith.

This reminded me of times I tried to engage with people who were protesting the presence of recruiters on college campuses to hire entry level intelligence analysts. I asked several of them if they thought the world would be a better place if the United States did not have intelligence analysts and thereby operated with even more ignorance than we currently do. I got the impression that the minds of the protesters weren't able to grapple with that level of complexity.

marct
06-26-2007, 03:55 PM
Hi Steve,

I can certainly understand those reactions; I've seen enough of them myself - and been on the receiving end of proto-Dominican style academic inquisitors. Hmm, maybe I'll start calling them "The Hounds of Dog" (since they are atheists) :D.

Honestly, I don't think "complexity" is the right word for what we are seeing. I've spent a lot of time developing a theoretical model of subjective "perception" and one of the key things in it that seems to be backed up by most data is that very few people take the time to develop enough "self awareness" to spot when they are applying a socially constructed perception / interpretation (it's also a contra-survival trait in Darwinian terms).

Ideally, this is what is meant by "critical thinking" but, from my own observations, this term has come to mean either making finer and finer distinctions within an accepted paradigm or just saying "it sucks" if one is in one of the institutionalized "radical" paradigms. It's like watching a bad soap opera in the first case and bad stand-up comedy in the second <sigh>.

Marc

SteveMetz
06-26-2007, 04:06 PM
Hi Steve,

I can certainly understand those reactions; I've seen enough of them myself - and been on the receiving end of proto-Dominican style academic inquisitors. Hmm, maybe I'll start calling them "The Hounds of Dog" (since they are atheists) :D.

Honestly, I don't think "complexity" is the right word for what we are seeing. I've spent a lot of time developing a theoretical model of subjective "perception" and one of the key things in it that seems to be backed up by most data is that very few people take the time to develop enough "self awareness" to spot when they are applying a socially constructed perception / interpretation (it's also a contra-survival trait in Darwinian terms).

Ideally, this is what is meant by "critical thinking" but, from my own observations, this term has come to mean either making finer and finer distinctions within an accepted paradigm or just saying "it sucks" if one is in one of the institutionalized "radical" paradigms. It's like watching a bad soap opera in the first case and bad stand-up comedy in the second <sigh>.

Marc

What I was suggesting was that the protesters, like the anthropologists in the linked board, seemed to assume that if the U.S. government was ignorant it would not act, and this would be a good thing. I tried to tell them that I found that logic pretty weak on two counts: 1) ignorance was not going to stop the United States from acting like a great power, it would just make the United States act more ignorantly; and 2) the idea that the world would be a better place if the United States simply disengaged is, in my opinion, ideological fantasy--more of the lingering Vietnam hangover. I find that the vast majority of people making this argument have never actually been in a conflict zone. The world looks different when viewed from Berkeley.

marct
06-26-2007, 04:18 PM
But Steve, you are missing their logic :eek:


What I was suggesting was that the protesters, like the anthropologists in the linked board, seemed to assume that if the U.S. government was ignorant it would not act, and this would be a good thing.

Of course they wouldn't, since the font of all knowledge is inside the theologically inspired academy! If they can't access that sacred knowledge, then they will just be reduced to not acting!!!!!


I tried to tell them that I found that logic pretty weak on two counts: 1) ignorance was not going to stop the United States from acting like a great power, it would just make the United States act more ignorantly;

Again, according to the paradigm, the US [Gov't] is inherently ignorant and will automatically use all sacred academic knowledge to further the ends of nefarious politicians. The only way form an academic to maintain ritual purity is to avoid that source of pollution, to whit the US Gov't. QED.


and 2) the idea that the world would be a better place if the United States simply disengaged is, in my opinion, ideological fantasy--more of the lingering Vietnam hangover.

Na, it's not a fantasy - just a safe teleological position for a group of "thinkers" who act like a religious cult. Look at the "effects" on academia of the end of communism and then read Hoffer's The True Believer (http://www.amazon.com/True-Believer-Thoughts-Movements-Perennial/dp/0060505915/ref=sr_1_2/104-7365246-3767119?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182874503&sr=8-2).


I find that the vast majority of people making this argument have never actually been in a conflict zone. The world looks different when viewed from Berkeley.

Of course not! That would imply tacit support for the US Gov't and would be a clear sign of incipient heresy :eek:!

Marc

ps. While my tounge was planted firmly in my cheek for this reply, most of it is disturbingly predictive - make of that what you will!

SteveMetz
06-26-2007, 04:22 PM
But Steve, you are missing their logic :eek:



Of course they wouldn't, since the font of all knowledge is inside the theologically inspired academy! If they can't access that sacred knowledge, then they will just be reduced to not acting!!!!!



Again, according to the paradigm, the US [Gov't] is inherently ignorant and will automatically use all sacred academic knowledge to further the ends of nefarious politicians. The only way form an academic to maintain ritual purity is to avoid that source of pollution, to whit the US Gov't. QED.



Na, it's not a fantasy - just a safe teleological position for a group of "thinkers" who act like a religious cult. Look at the "effects" on academia of the end of communism and then read Hoffer's The True Believer (http://www.amazon.com/True-Believer-Thoughts-Movements-Perennial/dp/0060505915/ref=sr_1_2/104-7365246-3767119?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182874503&sr=8-2).



Of course not! That would imply tacit support for the US Gov't and would be a clear sign of incipient heresy :eek:!

Marc

ps. While my tounge was planted firmly in my cheek for this reply, most of it is disturbingly predictive - make of that what you will!

Well, we all know that like substance abuse, someone who has left a a cult is never entirely free. Maybe that applies to me and academia.

SteveMetz
06-26-2007, 06:16 PM
I'm reading a draft essay on asymmetric conflict by Harvard's Ivan Arreguin-Toft and came across this sentence which seems germane to this thread: "...a great deal of our collective energies are absorbed by questions of who among us should be more hired, published, and promoted based, to paraphrase the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., not on the content of our research, but on the color of our research methods." I likes that!

marct
06-29-2007, 01:15 PM
Some very interesting articles here.


CONTENTS
Peter Jan Margry and Cristina Sánchez-Carretero 1
Memorializing traumatic death
Sylvia Grider 3
Public grief and the politics of memorial: Contesting the memory of ‘the shooters’ at Columbine High School
David H. Price 8
Buying a piece of anthropology, Part 1: Human Ecology and unwitting anthropological research for the CIA
Roberto J. González 14
Towards mercenary anthropology? The new US Army counterinsurgency manual FM 3-24 and the military-anthropology complex
COMMENT
David Kilcullen 20
Ethics, politics and non-state warfare: A response to González
Montgomery McFate 21
Building bridges or burning heretics?: A response to González
Stephen Ellis, Jeremy Keenan 21
The Sahara and the ‘war on terror’: A response to Jeremy Keenan (AT 22[6])
Laura A. McNamara 22
Culture, critique and credibility: A response to Houtman (AT 23[2])
Gerhard Anders 23
Follow the trial: Some notes on the ethnography of international criminal justice

Marc

Steve Blair
06-29-2007, 01:16 PM
Any links or is it just paper?

marct
06-29-2007, 01:25 PM
Hi Steve,


Any links or is it just paper?

The TOC is here (http://www.therai.org.uk/pubs/at/contents/current_issue.html). I'll see if I can find the URLs for the rest; probably need an institutional account for access though...

[added]
It looks like it's available online via Blackwell Synergy - you definitely need an institutional account.

Marc

SteveMetz
06-29-2007, 01:38 PM
The solution is for anthropologists to concentrate on sexual mores in Samoa. Then people who have to deal with contemporary, real world problems won't come bothering them.

marct
06-29-2007, 02:11 PM
Hi Steve,


The solution is for anthropologists to concentrate on sexual mores in Samoa. Then people who have to deal with contemporary, real world problems won't come bothering them.

But that would be imposing a Western ideological hegemony upon them via the obviously misrepresented presentation of such sexual mores :eek:!!!! The more obvious recourse is to just sit safely in the ivory tower and critique anyone who is actually out doing anything productive. Far safer, from a moral purity standard, to just should how impure everyone else is :D.

Marc

SteveMetz
06-29-2007, 02:51 PM
Hi Steve,



But that would be imposing a Western ideological hegemony upon them via the obviously misrepresented presentation of such sexual mores :eek:!!!! The more obvious recourse is to just sit safely in the ivory tower and critique anyone who is actually out doing anything productive. Far safer, from a moral purity standard, to just should how impure everyone else is :D.

Marc

I'll give the journal credit for letting Montgomery and Dave respond. It may be a rare chance for Mongtomery to use both her anthro Ph.D. and her law degree at the same time!

marct
06-29-2007, 02:56 PM
Well, I just finished reading the Gonzalez article, and its critiques from Dave Kilcullen and Montgomery McFate. I would have to describe it as a WMC - Weapon of Mass Condescension. In general, he criticizes FM 3-24 as being poor Anthropology, arguing that MFate's co-authored chapter (3) is


In anthropological terms, the chapter is not innovative. It is essentially a primer on cultural relativism and social structure. At times it resembles a simplified introductory anthropology textbook – though with few examples and no illustrations. Much of the material is numbingly banal. Some concepts are incomplete or outdated, notably the culture concept...

He obviously does not realize that FM 3-24 is not an Introduction to Anthropology textbook. His critique of Dave Kilcullen's appendix is even harsher, and he spends considerable time arguing that it is a take-off from Lawrences' 27 articles. He concludes by noting that


Despite its energetic prose, the appendix includes little substantive cultural knowledge. At bottom, Appendix A is a collection of counterinsurgency guidelines for manipulating local social relationships in order to pry insurgents away from bases of support.


His "conclusions" about FM 3-24 are interesting


FM 3-24 generally reads like a manual for indirect colonial rule – though ‘empire’ and ‘imperial’ are taboo words, never used in reference to US power. The authors draw historical examples from British, French and Japanese colonial counterinsurgency campaigns in Malaya, Vietnam, Algeria and China. They euphemistically refer to local leaders collaborating with occupying forces as the ‘host nation’ (rather than indirect rulers) and uniformly describe opponents as ‘insurgents’. Yet they never mention empire – hardly surprising, since FM 3-24 is a document written for the US Army and Marine Corps, and from a perspective ensconced within US military culture.[6] Indeed, is it possible to imagine that any US Army field manual would ever use such terms?

Instead, FM 3-24’s authors imply that a culturally informed occupation – with native power brokers safely co-opted by coalition forces, community policing duties carried out by a culturally sensitive occupying army, development funds doled out to local women, etc. – will result in a lighter colonial touch, with less ‘collateral damage’ and a lower price tag. The question of whether military occupation is appropriate is not addressed, nor is there any serious exploration of assessing the legitimacy of insurgents’ grievances. This is not just a simple oversight. Because it ignores the broader context of US imperial power, it is incomplete, inadequate, and at times inane.

This "conclusion" is followed by a rather tired recitation of what I consider to be a very weak "ethical" argument showing how working with the military will inevitably result in Anthropologists being killed. In other words, more of the same tired, worn-out rhetoric surrounding ritual purity.

I should note that SWJ is mentioned in the text (page 17 and a snide reference to my article in footnote 9). Also, SavageMinds higlights the AT articles in a recent blog entry (http://savageminds.org/2007/06/26/more-on-war/).

Marc

SteveMetz
06-29-2007, 03:03 PM
Well, I just finished reading the Gonzalez article, and its critiques from Dave Kilcullen and Montgomery McFate. I would have to describe it as a WMC - Weapon of Mass Condescension. In general, he criticizes FM 3-24 as being poor Anthropology, arguing that MFate's co-authored chapter (3) is



He obviously does not realize that FM 3-24 is not an Introduction to Anthropology textbook. His critique of Dave Kilcullen's appendix is even harsher, and he spends considerable time arguing that it is a take-off from Lawrences' 27 articles. He concludes by noting that




His "conclusions" about FM 3-24 are interesting



This "conclusion" is followed by a rather tired recitation of what I consider to be a very weak "ethical" argument showing how working with the military will inevitably result in Anthropologists being killed. In other words, more of the same tired, worn-out rhetoric surrounding ritual purity.

I should note that SWJ is mentioned in the text (page 17 and a snide reference to my article in footnote 9). Also, SavageMinds higlights the AT articles in a recent blog entry (http://savageminds.org/2007/06/26/more-on-war/).

Marc

I pulled up the guy's CV. His focus appears to be Mexico. I wonder if he's ever talked to someone who has lived through an insurgency? Probably not, since that might "taint" his analysis.

Tom Odom
06-29-2007, 03:37 PM
Hi Steve,



But that would be imposing a Western ideological hegemony upon them via the obviously misrepresented presentation of such sexual mores :eek:!!!! The more obvious recourse is to just sit safely in the ivory tower and critique anyone who is actually out doing anything productive. Far safer, from a moral purity standard, to just should how impure everyone else is :D.

Marc


I don't want to impose anything thing on a Somoan. I might watch but only from a safe distance :eek:

FascistLibertarian
06-29-2007, 04:41 PM
The solution is for anthropologists to concentrate on sexual mores in Samoa. Then people who have to deal with contemporary, real world problems won't come bothering them.
At the time it was written coming of age in samoa was dealing with the contemporary real world issue of youth culture in the 1920's.


But that would be imposing a Western ideological hegemony upon them via the obviously misrepresented presentation of such sexual mores
She was trying to show that the Wests view of human sexuality, and the 'crisis' of the 1920's with declining morality might be questionable.

Mead might not have done the most important work ever. I think point is to try and do ethnographic work that does something.
I doubt there have ever been more well done and important ethnographic studies being done right now.
Its just information overload bc the whole world has gone open source.

whsieh
06-29-2007, 04:42 PM
Gentlemen,

I suppose I should introduce myself real quick. I'm on the civilian faculty at the Naval Academy, where I'm the US Civil War specialist in the History Department. More broadly, I do nineteenth-century US military history. Anyhow, I also teach an unconventional warfare in Am. history course here (our department is also offering a more 20th-century orientated course in the Fall, we have also offered a Roman counterinsurgency warfare course, and Poli Sci has a Low-Intensity conflict course). Anyhow, I and some colleagues at USNA have been keeping an eye on stuff at this site, which is most interesting for obvious reasons.

Anyhow, does anyone know if Gonzalez is the same chap who wrote a piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education magazine on the same topic? As I recall, that article seemed to think that Dr. Kilcullen et al were only interested in anthropology in order to find ever more ingenious and villainous methods of torturing people. I'm working from home today, and I don't have immediate access to my photocopy of that piece. I'm sorry to say USNA does not have a subscription to Blackwell Synergy, or even the print journal, although I will try to dig it up the next time I'm at the Library of Congress. I'm happy that they did let Dr. McFate and Dr. Kilcullen respond, though.

Would anyone be willing to characterize the responses of Dr. McFate and Dr. Kilcullen?

WWSH

SteveMetz
06-29-2007, 04:55 PM
Gentlemen,

I suppose I should introduce myself real quick. I'm on the civilian faculty at the Naval Academy, where I'm the US Civil War specialist in the History Department. More broadly, I do nineteenth-century US military history. Anyhow, I also teach an unconventional warfare in Am. history course here (our department is also offering a more 20th-century orientated course in the Fall, we have also offered a Roman counterinsurgency warfare course, and Poli Sci has a Low-Intensity conflict course). Anyhow, I and some colleagues at USNA have been keeping an eye on stuff at this site, which is most interesting for obvious reasons.

Anyhow, does anyone know if Gonzalez is the same chap who wrote a piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education magazine on the same topic? As I recall, that article seemed to think that Dr. Kilcullen et al were only interested in anthropology in order to find ever more ingenious and villainous methods of torturing people. I'm working from home today, and I don't have immediate access to my photocopy of that piece. I'm sorry to say USNA does not have a subscription to Blackwell Synergy, or even the print journal, although I will try to dig it up the next time I'm at the Library of Congress. I'm happy that they did let Dr. McFate and Dr. Kilcullen respond, though.

Would anyone be willing to characterize the responses of Dr. McFate and Dr. Kilcullen?

WWSH

Our library doesn't have access so I haven't been able to get it. I've asked the anthropologist who works for me if she subscribes. Will summarize the replies if she does.

whsieh
06-29-2007, 04:57 PM
Much thanks.

Sorry for not giving my name in the earlier post--I accidentally botched setting up my sig.

WWSH

SteveMetz
06-29-2007, 05:04 PM
Much thanks.

Sorry for not giving my name in the earlier post--I accidentally botched setting up my sig.

WWSH

My name is John Nagl. I just use "Steve Metz" as a pen name.

Shek
06-29-2007, 05:12 PM
Will the real Steve Metz (http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/people.cfm?authorID=22), um, John Nagl (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/authors/john-nagl/bio/), please stand up :D

Steve Blair
06-29-2007, 05:13 PM
Does that mean we can call him Shirley?:eek:

(if you don't get it, watch Airplane)

marct
06-29-2007, 05:16 PM
Hi FL,


At the time it was written coming of age in samoa was dealing with the contemporary real world issue of youth culture in the 1920's.

Quite true and, at the time, a very daring project on her part. Then again, from what I have heard from people who knew her (including my grandmother), she never let "common <sniff> morality" interfere with her work :D....


She was trying to show that the Wests view of human sexuality, and the 'crisis' of the 1920's with declining morality might be questionable.

I think we need an "irony" emoticon ;).

Marc

marct
06-29-2007, 05:32 PM
Sorry for not posting this earlier, but I've been working on other stuff (i.e. what I get paid to do :eek::D). Maybe we could ask Dave if he would be willing to post the entire text - it's only a page, but very good reading.

Kilcullen's response disregards the ad hominen attacks of Gonzalez and concentrates on the twin concepts of jus in bello and jus ad bellum - loosly translated as "rightness in war" and "rightness of a war". As an ethical starting point, he holds that


There are two questions here: the first is whether using anthropological knowledge in counterinsurgency is ethical, that is, whether it engenders the greatest good of the greatest number. Since the greatest number is the non-belligerent population, the people’s welfare (not that of insurgents or governments) is what counts. This is jus in bello – right conduct in war once engaged, not jus ad bellum – rightness in deciding to wage war.

He proceeds with a very nice argument to show that troops involved in a counterinsugency will a) do better and b) cause less collateral damage if they are culturally aware.


The second question, implied in much recent discussion among anthropologists and in Dr González’ paper, is whether it is legitimate for anthropologists to support or countenance the current conflicts (in Iraq, Afghanistan and the greater war on terrorism). This question, in effect, asks whether current conflicts are just wars. This is a jus ad bellum question – ‘were we right to engage in these wars in the first place’?

He makes, what to my mind, are two important points. First, reasonable people can disagree, and second, that the place to hold such debates, in a democracy, is at the ballot box and not by claiming a moral highground for a particular discipline.

He goes on to note the three main weaknesses in Gonzales' argument:


There are three weaknesses in Dr González’ argument, in my view. First, he seems to conflate jus ad bellum and jus in bello....

Second, Dr González seems to be arguing that any conflict against a non-state enemy constitutes, by definition, the oppression of innocent populations....

Third, Dr González seems to misunderstand the purpose of FM 3-24....

His conclusion sums it up nicely


In conclusion, I congratulate Dr González for raising this important issue, but I believe there are weaknesses in his argument, as he conflates the ethics of war’s conduct with the justness of the decision to make war. The field evidence to which I have access suggests that ethnographic knowledge renders counterinsurgency more, not less humane. And the question of whether the wars in Iraq and elsewhere are just wars is for every citizen, is political not ethical, and is an area in which anthropologists have no special authority. I would urge all anthropologists who oppose the war to make their views known in political debate and through the ballot box. In the meantime, the ethical path is to ensure the war is humanely and effectively conducted, and I believe there is a clear place for anthropologists in this endeavour.

Marc

marct
06-29-2007, 05:49 PM
Montgomery McFate's reply is a touch more pointed than Dave Kilculen's. Entitled "Building Bridges or Burning Heretics?", she starts off with a very nicely bracketed piece of cunter-battery fire:


Professor González is yet again on the warpath, accusing others of committing ‘ethical transgressions’ in what amounts to a proxy discussion of US foreign policy. Apparently Professor González’ efforts to polarize the discipline do not leave much time for selfreflection: if he is so concerned with ‘building bridges between peoples’, as he has written elsewhere (see González 2007), then why is he taking a position of intellectual isolationism towards the military?

First she draws on an argument made by Gonzalez (apologies for no accent on the name, but my keyboard doesn't have one) and Price that the military / intelligence community should not be allowed access to anhropological knowledge.


The view that the military should remain ignorant of anthropology is a truly alarming perspective for professional educators. Is the use of anthropological knowledge by the national security community less ethical than the censorship and control of such knowledge by academic anthropologists who claim to believe in truth and freedom?

Next, she points out that Gonzalez' comments about FM 3-24 not "being innovative" are, in fact, stupid. As she notes,


While long-winded discussions on ‘capitalism’ and ‘colonialism’ may hold great interest for scholars, military personnel have other more pressing tasks to attend to.

I a going to synopsize her final point and conclusion with a two quotes...


Professor González appears to believe that direct engagement of anthropologists with the military or the intelligence community is somehow unethical. On the contrary, anthropological knowledge applied to military problems has the power to save lives, both military and civilian, and it has done so in many 20thcentury wars....

Of course, many anthropologists will never engage with the military because they view Iraq as a ‘bad war’. Perhaps one ought to ask, why exactly is it a bad war? Some of the many reasons might include: problematic government policies, flawed intelligence, counterproductive strategies, etc. In each of these cases miscalculations resulted, in part, from a lack of understanding about other societies. Aren’t anthropologists then obliged to educate the military and policy-makers to prevent mistakes in the future? Speaking truth to power should mean something more than sniping from the ivory tower – rather, it should mean constructive engagement with the national security community in a spirit of open-minded discourse.

Marc

J Wolfsberger
06-29-2007, 06:43 PM
Marc,

You are clearly not reading this with the enlightened perspective of independence from eurocentric, male dominated imperialism. In fact, your lack of post modern, reductionist analysis seems obvious.

:rolleyes:

Steve Blair
06-29-2007, 06:44 PM
Marc,

You are clearly not reading this with the enlightened perspective of independence from eurocentric, male dominated imperialism. In fact, your lack of post modern, reductionist analysis seems obvious.

:rolleyes:

Thank God! At least this way we can stand to be downwind of him.:D

marct
06-29-2007, 07:21 PM
Hi JW,


Marc,

You are clearly not reading this with the enlightened perspective of independence from eurocentric, male dominated imperialism. In fact, your lack of post modern, reductionist analysis seems obvious.

:rolleyes:

Unfortunate, I will admit - SIGH.... My students complain that I still refer to Dominion Day rather than Canada Day, and I am one of the few people under 70 who seems to know several verse to Rule Britannia (to say nothing about Marching to Pretoria!). It's that old, colonial Imperialist past coming back to haunt me <sniff, sniff>.

120mm
07-01-2007, 11:19 AM
I'm just a dumb Reservist, but I have a question: If FM 3-24 needs to have a substantial discussion on the "rightness" and "wrongness" of a particular war, does The Betty Crocker Cookbook need a substantial discussion on the ethics of baking of chocolate chip cookies?

I mean, what if the "reasons behind the cookies" are wrong?

SWCAdmin
07-01-2007, 12:45 PM
I am contacting Anthropology Today in the hope that they will grant us some access to these works. If they do, I will let you know. Please respect their copyright.

RJO
07-23-2007, 01:18 AM
(I just came across this thread. Apologies if it's expired and no longer of interest.)

Jonathan Shay in Achilles in Vietnam argues that one of the functions of Athenian theater was the reintegration of combat veterans into civil society. From his footnote on pp. 229-230:


The ancient Greeks had a distinctive therapy of purification, healing, and reintegration that was undertaken by the whole community. We know it as Athenian theater. While a complete presentation is beyond the scope of this book, I want to summarize my view that the distinctive character of Athenian theater came from the requirements of a democratic polity made up entirely of present or former soldiers to provide communalization for combat veterans.... The Athenians communally reintegrated their returning warriors in recurring participation in rituals of the theater. The key elements of my argument are: the notable military backgrounds of Aeschylus and Sophocles; the prominence of military matters in the processions and ceremonies held before and between theatrical events; the use of the theater (according to Aristotle) for military training graduations; ... the distinctively transgressive character of the actions of the powerful main characters, played against themis [rightness/justice] voiced by the disempowered chorus; and that the centuries-old controversy over what Aristotle meant when he said that tragedy brings about katharsis of compassion and terror can be resolved by reference to the experience of combat veterans. [etc.]

There is a stunning version of Aeschylus' Agamemnon now available online in ten parts (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqFgCGuBn4A).

RJO

marct
07-23-2007, 02:11 PM
Hi Bob,


(I just came across this thread. Apologies if it's expired and no longer of interest.)

Jonathan Shay in Achilles in Vietnam argues that one of the functions of Athenian theater was the reintegration of combat veterans into civil society. From his footnote on pp. 229-230:

There is a stunning version of Aeschylus' Agamemnon now available online in ten parts (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqFgCGuBn4A).

RJO

Thanks for the reference and the link! I did a lot of research on theatre as a community integration tool in my MA and PhD (more in the MA). As a communal integration tool, it is really amazing, although somewhat tricky to use in the modern world.

Marc

marct
08-05-2007, 01:36 PM
Our old friend Hugh Gusterson is at it again. In the latest edition of Anthropology Today (23.4, August 2007) he has written a response to David Kilcullens earlier comment. Those with access can get the entire article (it is only 1 page), but, I think, his conclusions define it fairly well:


What is advocated here amounts to a social science inspired approach to Empire, using ‘information warfare’, ‘ethnographic intelligence’ and culturally informed soldiers as a velvet glove around the brute fist of military might that Empire requires. Do anthropologists really want to be part of this sordid, neo-colonialist project?

selil
08-05-2007, 02:19 PM
Why does elitist dilettante keep ringing any time Gusterson speaks?

marct
08-05-2007, 02:31 PM
Why does elitist dilettante keep ringing any time Gusterson speaks?

Well, for me, I keep thinking of Domingo de Guzmán or Arnaud-Amoury. I'm just waiting to hear him say "Caedite eos! Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius".

Nat Wilcox
08-05-2007, 02:34 PM
Marc, it seems that Anthro has these heated, politically-wound-up spats fairly regularly...I remember the Chagnon/Tierney affair from awhile back. Searching the net, though, I don't find any sign that this particular spat has been picked up by the non-academic media as the Chagnon/Tierney biz was (and how).

In this respect, Econ is less noisy. URPE (the Union of Radical Political Economists) is at most the miniature schnauzer of Econ--noisy and annoying but ultimately small and inconsequential. :D Being running dog imperialist child-murderers has its advantages...but not many. :D

Beelzebubalicious
08-05-2007, 05:29 PM
Using a sophisticated content analysis algorithim, I broke down Gusterson's conclusion and the underlying message behind the usage of terms like "velvet glove" and "sordid" clearly imply an excessive amount of intellectual, or other, masturbation....

Nat Wilcox
08-05-2007, 06:06 PM
Using a sophisticated content analysis algorithim...

For me, that would be skimming it during the beer commercials. :D

marct
08-06-2007, 02:45 PM
Using a sophisticated content analysis algorithim, I broke down Gusterson's conclusion and the underlying message behind the usage of terms like "velvet glove" and "sordid" clearly imply an excessive amount of intellectual, or other, masturbation....


For me, that would be skimming it during the beer commercials. :D

Far be it from me to comment about his sub-conscious (?) utilization of terms from Antonio Gramsci. I will note, however, that his initial point of contention with Kilcullen stems from his argument that there was no jus ad bellum for the war in Iraq based on our current understanding.


The US Congress voted to authorize military action in Iraq in response to arguments made by the Bush administration about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. As we all know, there were no such weapons, and it is now widely believed in the US that the Bush administration misrepresented the evidence about them in order to secure Congressional authorization to invade Iraq.

This is an intriguing position since it relies on knowledge not in evidence at the time of the decision. It also de facto states that a jus ad bellum can only be decided after the fact in a state of complete knowledge. I wonder if he would extend this principle of a requirement of foreknowledge to other areas. For example, if it can later be shown that the HTTs would have made a material difference in the number of Iraqi civilians and US troops killed but an insufficient number of them were deployed due, in part, to Gusterson's actions, would he then becomes liable for charges of accessory to murder?

Something to think on...

Marc

Tom Odom
08-06-2007, 03:00 PM
This is an intriguing position since it relies on knowledge not in evidence at the time of the decision. It also de facto states that a jus ad bellum can only be decided after the fact in a state of complete knowledge. I wonder if he would extend this principle of a requirement of foreknowledge to other areas. For example, if it can later be shown that the HTTs would have made a material difference in the number of Iraqi civilians and US troops killed but an insufficient number of them were deployed due, in part, to Gusterson's actions, would he then becomes liable for charges of accessory to murder?

Something to think on...

Marc

What I want to know is if this guy has a blog or Anthro Today has a comments blog that we can ALL go to and spew like sick buzzards all over his scribbling....

Tom

Nat Wilcox
08-06-2007, 03:25 PM
"The US Congress voted to authorize military action in Iraq in response to arguments made by the Bush administration about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. As we all know, there were no such weapons, and it is now widely believed in the US that the Bush administration misrepresented the evidence about them in order to secure Congressional authorization to invade Iraq."

This is an intriguing position since it relies on knowledge not in evidence at the time of the decision.

* This is "Decision Making Under Uncertainty 101:" The quality of a decision made under uncertainty cannot be judged by later outcomes that weren't known with certainty at the time of the decision.

Of course, there is an allegation here that "Bush really knew," but I vividly remember Jacques Chirac nodding affirmative and saying "oh probably, probably!" when interviewed by one U.S. journalist and asked point blank whether he thought Iraq had WMD. Some of this is no doubt hindsight bias, in a very formal sense.

There is a wonderful paper by the psychologist Baruch Fischhoff on this, for those of you who are interested. It appears that most of us are not even able to correctly recall our own past states of uncertainty--that is, how uncertain we were prior to events which removed the uncertainty. Baruch is (well, was) the foremost expert on this, and has a wonderful, non-technical discussion of it for historians here:

Fischhoff, Baruch. 1980. For Those Condemned to Study the Past: Reflections on Historical Judgment. New Directions for Methodology of Social and Behavioral Science 4:79-92.

At any rate, one can make that (*) principle sound so obvious. Yet in the real world, people find it nearly impossible to live by it. There are, of course, practical reasons for holding people accountable for the outcome of the decisions they made under uncertainty. But that is obviously not the same thing as holding them culpable or criminal.

Dominique R. Poirier
08-06-2007, 03:35 PM
(....) Some of this is no doubt hindsight bias, in a very formal sense.

There is a wonderful paper by the psychologist Baruch Fischhoff on this, for those of you who are interested. It appears that most of us are not even able to correctly recall our own past states of uncertainty--that is, how uncertain we were prior to events which removed the uncertainty. Baruch is (well, was) the foremost expert on this, and has a wonderful, non-technical discussion of it for historians here:

Fischhoff, Baruch. 1980. For Those Condemned to Study the Past: Reflections on Historical Judgment. New Directions for Methodology of Social and Behavioral Science 4:79-92.

At any rate, one can make that (*) principle sound so obvious. Yet in the real world, people find it nearly impossible to live by it. There are, of course, practical reasons for holding people accountable for the outcome of the decisions they made under uncertainty. But that is obviously not the same thing as holding them culpable or criminal.

Little contribution to this information.

Robert Jervis too wrote interesting things about that in Perception and Misperception in International Politics, Princeton University Press, 1976.

marct
08-06-2007, 04:00 PM
Hi Tom,


What I want to know is if this guy has a blog or Anthro Today has a comments blog that we can ALL go to and spew like sick buzzards all over his scribbling....

Here's their web site - http://www.therai.org.uk/pubs/at/anthrotoday.html
No commentary / blog that I can find.

Marc

marct
08-06-2007, 04:30 PM
Hi Nat,


At any rate, one can make that (*) principle sound so obvious. Yet in the real world, people find it nearly impossible to live by it. There are, of course, practical reasons for holding people accountable for the outcome of the decisions they made under uncertainty. But that is obviously not the same thing as holding them culpable or criminal.

Thanks for the reference. You are quite right about the uncertainty issue and the question of accountability vs. culpability. A lot of it, on the culpability side, comes down to a question of foresee-ability along the lines of "could the person, as an intelligent actor in the social world, have foreseen the consequences of their action?" Basically a mens rea argument. On the accountability side, we have to ask both could they have foreseen the consequences and should they have foreseen those consequences.

I would argue that the jus ad bellum argument has to be split into two separate cases: at the time of the declaration of war and in the present. This would give us an interesting little 2 x 2 matrix for our decisions

Past Present
Just
Unjust

At the time of the declaration of war, the US government, as expressed by Congressional vote, believed the war to be just. Now a majority of that same government believes it to have been unjust (present understanding applied to the past). This present understanding, however, should not influence present analysis of the "justness" current situation. By declaring war, the US and some of its allies have accepted a burden to achieve particular outcomes. Furthermore, the war itself has set particular events in motion for which the US and some of its allies bear an ethical responsibility.

It's all well and good for Gusterson, and others, to complain "This is another fine mess you've gotten us into Georgie", but it is unethical, IMO, for them to say "therefore we will hamstring your attempts to clean up that mess". To my mind, their position is one that encourages corporate irresponsibility while, at the same time, relying on that same corporate body to provide them with certain advantages - like freedom of speech. If rights are not held in balance with duties, and the two kept in focus by a sense of ethics (both transcendent and immanent - another monograph sometime in the future :wry:), then we are, to my mind, dealing with a person who is a "free rider" who encourages unethical and immoral behaviour in others to cover their own ethical shortcomings.

As a note, let me point out that I view morality as deriving from group codes and ethics as being both transcendent to and immanent within the individuals. I now, John, this is not the "normal" definition :D.

Marc

Nat Wilcox
08-06-2007, 05:11 PM
This present understanding, however, should not influence present analysis of the "justness" current situation. By declaring war, the US and some of its allies have accepted a burden to achieve particular outcomes. Furthermore, the war itself has set particular events in motion for which the US and some of its allies bear an ethical responsibility.

I couldn't agree more, and moreover, I think one gets to this same conclusion from the standpoint of several different systems of philosophical ethics--both deontic ones that stress duties and responsibilities, and consequentialist, utilitarian ones. There is something of the sunk cost fallacy in the kinds of things people like Gusterson say, for instance, which is usually called a fallacy on the basis of a strictly consequentialist, utilitarian perspective.

Sometimes, I suspect that underneath the blustery illogic of these positions, there really lurks a judgment that some decison making apparatus has been shown to be not simply fundamentally untrustworthy, but to actually systematically make the wrong decisions...so that an empiricist ought to be betting against it all the time. I wonder if, really, what a person like Gusterson really wants to articulate is something along these lines:

"Look, this administration has shown itself over and over again to be incapable of making good decisions: In fact, its decisions in retrospect seem to be systematically bad ones. So, let's all commit the fallacy of induction like all good organisms in the real world, Hume notwithstanding, and draw the conclusion that whatever decisions this administration argues in favor of are probably the wrong ones. That is, let us always bet against it. This will be profitable in the long run."

I am not saying that I necessarily buy the facts that would make this a reasonable position for a "social bookie" (that one could "make money" so to speak by betting against the administration's decisions). But sometimes when I read or listen to people who argue like Gusterson, especially if they get a little hot, at some point they will announce something like: "Look these guys just screw up all the time...!"

Anyway, just a thought.

Dominique R. Poirier
08-07-2007, 07:59 AM
I took a look at Gonzalez and was unable to find patterns suggesting that this person might be either an authentic and skilled “frontrunner,” or a thinker/strategist coming under the limelight.

Unless I overlooked something his views have been promoted, or, say, hijacked, by highly suspect online media twice only, and recently (from early 2007 to now).

So, the hypothesizes I found at this point are that he might be:

-an unconscious co-opted newcomer on the propaganda stage because he was spotted by the opposition as a potential who reached his required maturity;

-an “awakened;” or a thinker/strategist getting out the shadow for some unknown reasons (but his syntax and heavy style doesn’t match and is, say, “immature,” still in my own opinion).

It remains that this person unmistakably crossed the guidelines of science and those of objectivity to publicly engage into partisan political activism since, at least, early 2005.

Well, that’s a personal opinion.

My main sources:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/05/15/RVGHLCL11V1.DTL

http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/2007/01/29/fighting-militarization-of-anthropology/

http://dialogic.blogspot.com/2007/06/roberto-j-gonzlez-alberto-gonzales.html

http://zmagsite.zmag.org/June2007/gonzalez0607_print.html

marct
08-07-2007, 01:48 PM
Hi Dominique,


I took a look at Gonzalez and was unable to find patterns suggesting that this person might be either an authentic and skilled “frontrunner,” or a thinker/strategist coming under the limelight.

....

It remains that this person unmistakably crossed the guidelines of science and those of objectivity to publicly engage into partisan political activism since, at least, early 2005.

I am not sure if I would agree with the "partisan" statement, although he is certainly involved in political activism. There is a long tradition within Anthropology of being engaged in popular political activism that goes back to Boaz. And, on the whole, I see nothing wrong with this at all in either a republic or a parliamentary democracy. Indeed, I would argue that attempts to hinder the free speech of individuals is both anti-democratic and treason against the Crown (for those of us who live in parliamentary monarchies like Canada and Britain).

I would also note that he has not crossed the guidelines of science or objectivity in the works you referenced; he has argued from a particular position within the science of Anthropology.

Having said that, I also have to note that I disagree completely with a lot of his conclusions and, on the whole, with the stance he has chosen. His argument that cultural information has been used for unethical purposes (i.e. torture) is quite true, but his conclusion that it must never be used for that, and that conclusions inevitable institutional corollaries, is, IMO, insupportable. It is based on the fallacious assumption that knowledge can be held as a secret by a select group of people who will a) never abuse it and b) never reveal it to the uninitiated. Both of which have proven to be impossible historically.

Then there are the corollaries of the attempt to create this idealized state: organizational secrecy, extreme methods of defining and maintaining the Us/Them boundary, and the inevitable necessity to silence "heretics" (from the Greek heresis or "one who chooses"). I documented some examples of this anti-heretical trend in my SWJ paper, and others have commented on it as well.

Let me return for a moment to his observations concerning the use of ethnographic information for use in "torture". Has this happened? Yes, it has. Should people be concerned about it? Yes, and also about attempts to circumvent the rule of law which Gonzales has also noted.

Let me make a couple of utilitarian arguments here.

First, "torture" and "abuse" are slippery terms that are culturally defined. For the individual who engages in them, as defined by their culture within their own psyches, these actions degrade the practitioner. As an example of this, I would point to the "cult deprogrammers" of the 1980's and 1990's who kidnapped and subjected their "victims" to repeated psychological manipulation in order to change their patterns of thought and perception. This action was viewed as "ethical" by the practitioners, but it is, when analyzed at the level of actions alone, quite analogous to the ethnographicaly informed, psychological torture Gonzalez is speaking of. On the basis of actions alone (the actus rea) it is "torture" under current definitions. For the deprogrammers, and the families who hired them, the actions were justified by an ethical argument that the individual in question, the "victim", had had their free will stripped from them and, thus, were incapable of making decisions. It was not, in their minds, "torture" since it served to free the individual from mental bonds that had been imposed on them.

Now, let's take another case - the CIAs use of extraordinary rendition. Baring the international scope of the kidnapping, the actus rea is similar to that of the cult deprogrammer, but the mens rea is totally different. The ethical justification is one based on protection of the group from those who disagree with the group. Furthermore, there is a clear and obvious intent to circumvent the rule of law, both US law and international law. Clearly, this is a case where the actus rea is culturally defined as torture, a situation that will lead to the individual degradation of the practitioner's psyche, and, also, a situation that will reduce the validity of any claims made by the organization that sponsored such torture to their adherence to and support of the rule of law. Thus this action degrades both he individual and the organization.

Where Gonzalez fails, in my mind, to make a valid argument is by not distinguishing between ethical principles, the mens rea as it where. He does not appear to be interested in making a distinction between individual growth and group protection. Then again, that lack of distinction is, perhaps, unsurprising given the corollaries I noted above concerning the "necessity" for protecting ethnographic knowledge from "profane" use :wry:.

The same lack of distinction between ethical principles is, to my mind, behind his stance in opposition to the use of ethnographic knowledge and Anthropological methodology in the prosecution of the current long war.

By opposing the ethical use of Anthropology in the current conflicts, he increases the toll of suffering and death of both civilian and military personnelle. This arises from his arguments for secrecy. First, he, and others such as Gusterson, employ a tactic of threats to the careers, livelihoods and reputations of any Anthropologists who work with the military. This tactic, I will note, is grounded in the same ethical principle of protection of the group from those who disagree with the group - the principle he decries in the CIA, he and his fellow travellers apply within Anthropology. Second, by threatening people whose actions could reduce suffering and death in combat zones, he is encouraging the existence of stereotypes and cultural misunderstandings amongst the people in those zone thereby reducing the chances of achieving workable solutions for all parties. In effect, he is encouraging a situation that reduces individual capabilities and free will, a position that is certainly in keeping with position of keeping Anthropology "pure" (not a quote, just used for emphasis).

While I personally find his position to be indefensible, I do believe that what he has to say needs to be said if for no other reason that to bring these concerns out in the open. I think that his analogic analysis of the similarities between the actions of the NAZI party in Germany and the Bush presidency are potentially quite useful for anyone who is concerned with civil liberties - not that it is exact of course, but there are some disturbing trends. I just wish that he had extended that analysis to look at his own actions within the American Anthropological Association.

Marc

Dominique R. Poirier
08-07-2007, 03:33 PM
Marc,
it’s all right. I didn’t enquire on the way he professes anthropology; I do not have the required academic background for, so far.

Instead, and when I said patterns, I was looking at the way he introduces and advocates his point, no matter what his field of expertise or profession is. If this person was a trained true activist aiming at doing agitprop or similar in the frame of organized and collective works, then he would not act the way he does, between other little things.
Even though he is Ph.D. and, as such, supposed to be an intelligent person, he expresses himself too bluntly to be, say, a shrewd specialist in the other field I’m making allusion to.

All this suggests to me that he is certainly a person acting entirely by his own and that he is unlikely to have been, say, suggested to write what he wrote. At best, some ones somewhere must consider him as a useful idiot who acted so unwisely already that he lost a sizeable part of credibility likely to provide him with authority when addressing to a broad audience.

The last but not the least, he managed to be published by some media which seem to be more involved in agitprop than in anthropology or science in general. But that fact doesn’t make him the suspect I was looking for.

Now, I do not neglect the possibility that, perhaps, I was looking for something else you were not interested in.


"I just wish that he had extended that analysis to look at his own actions within the American Anthropological Association."

I also believe so, at least.

Tom Odom
08-17-2007, 05:46 PM
This on the ebird if you have access. WSJ requires access as well :mad:

Tom Hayden is back. Who's next, Hanoi Jane?


Wall Street Journal
August 17, 2007
Pg. W11

Professors On The Battlefield

By Evan R. Goldstein

Marcus Griffin is not a soldier. But now that he cuts his hair "high and tight" like a drill sergeant's, he understands why he is being mistaken for one. Mr. Griffin is actually a professor of anthropology at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Va. His austere grooming habits stem from his enrollment in a new Pentagon initiative, the Human Terrain System. It embeds social scientists with brigades in Afghanistan and Iraq, where they serve as cultural advisers to brigade commanders.

Mr. Griffin, a bespectacled 39-year-old who speaks in a methodical monotone, believes that by shedding some light on the local culture -- thereby diminishing the risk that U.S. forces unwittingly offend Iraqi sensibilities -- he can improve Iraqi and American lives. On the phone from Fort Benning, two weeks shy of boarding a plane bound for Baghdad, he describes his mission as "using knowledge in the service of human freedom."

The Human Terrain System is part of a larger trend: Nearly six years into the war on terror, there is reason to believe that the Vietnam-era legacy of mistrust -- even hostility -- between academe and the military may be eroding.

SWJED
08-17-2007, 08:34 PM
Professors on the Battlefield (http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110010483)...

selil
08-17-2007, 10:25 PM
Nearly six years into the war on terror, there is reason to believe that the Vietnam-era legacy of mistrust -- even hostility -- between academe and the military may be eroding.



No freaking way.... Nobody would trust academics. Egg head idealistic clue missing theorists. And the military YAH RIGHT.... Bunch of knuckle dragging trigger happy boom stick drivers.

I'm a former military current academic who don't trust anybody I can't shoot first.

SWJED
09-07-2007, 01:52 AM
7 September Christian Science Monitor - US Army's Strategy in Afghanistan: Better Anthropology (http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0907/p01s08-wosc.html) by Scott Peterson.


Evidence of how far the US Army's counterinsurgency strategy has evolved can be found in the work of a uniformed anthropologist toting a gun in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. Part of a Human Terrain Team (HHT) – the first ever deployed – she speaks to hundreds of Afghan men and women to learn how they think and what they need.

One discovery that may help limit Taliban recruits in this rough-hewn valley: The area has a preponderance of widows – and their sons, who have to provide care, are forced to stay closer to home, where few jobs can be found. Now, the HHT is identifying ways to tap the textiles and blankets traded through here to create jobs for the women – and free their sons to get work themselves.

"In most circumstances, I am 'third' gender," says Tracy, who can give only her first name. She says that she is not seen as either an Afghan woman or a Western one – because of her uniform. "It has enhanced any ability to talk to [Afghans]. There is a curiosity."

Such insight is the grist of what US forces here see as a smarter counterisurgency. "We're not here just to kill the enemy – we are so far past the kinetic fight," says Lt. Col. Dave Woods, commander of the 4th Squadron 73rd Cavalry. "It is the nonkinetic piece [that matters], to identify their problems, to seed the future here." Nearly six years after US troops toppled the Taliban, the battle is for a presence that will elicit confidence in the Afghan government and its growing security forces. "Operation Khyber," which started Aug. 22, aims for a more effective counterinsurgency – using fewer bullets and more local empowerment.

US commanders have doubled US troop strength in eastern Afghanistan in the past year. They are also fielding the HHT – a "graduate-level counterinsurgency" unit, as one officer puts it – to fine-tune aid and to undermine the intimidating grip of militants in the region...

Much more at the link...

Beelzebubalicious
09-07-2007, 07:35 AM
This point has probably already been made, but I find the use of "counterinsurgency" as an umbrella term for all these efforts is confusing. From what I understand, there are efforts to weaken/destroy/counter the insurgents, but the core of this seems to be about "winning the hearts and minds" of the general populace so that insurgents can't make footholds in the community. The former is opposition, the latter is more partnernship. Given that it's often difficult to know who is friend and foe, the whole matter is confused.

Is the equation counterinsurgency (including win hearts and minds/build and hold) or is it counterinsurgency + win hearts and minds/build and hold? Perhaps I just miss the point, but I would be interested in hearing what SWJ folks have to say about this....

Rank amateur
09-07-2007, 01:26 PM
Is the equation counterinsurgency (including win hearts and minds/build and hold) or is it counterinsurgency + win hearts and minds/build and hold? Perhaps I just miss the point, but I would be interested in hearing what SWJ folks have to say about this....

My humble amateur opinion. The mission is to separate the insurgents from the population. Once they are out in the open we can use our superior firepower/training etc. to kill them.

Hearts& minds, build hold, etc. are all tactics. Like any tactics, you need to be proficient at them all and use whatever combination works to complete your mission. Like any enemy the insurgents can adapt. Just like they can reinfiltrate captured territory they can reinfiltrate "cleared" populations. To make things even harder, insurgents can become civilians and stay civilians before changing back to insurgents. Anything that turns them into civilians, or prevents civilians from becoming insurgents, is a highly effective tactic. If you can use an anthropologist to prevent civilians from becoming insurgents, do it.

Tactical success is supposed to lead to a political end to the insurgency. The key words being "supposed to." The strategy, and the ability to achieve the ultimate objective, is in the hands of diplomats.

For the trigger puller, it's not that much different from traditional combat. You just complete the mission: take the hill. Someone at HQ worries about what's happening on all the surrounding hills and will tell you if you have a new mission. For the boots on the ground, COIN just means learning and deploying new tactics.

It's really the HQ guys who need a new mindset. Militarily, they need to get used to managing tactical missions. If they want strategic progress, they need to become diplomats.

Tom Odom
09-07-2007, 01:57 PM
For the trigger puller, it's not that much different from traditional combat. You just complete the mission: take the hill. Someone at HQ worries about what's happening on all the surrounding hills and will tell you if you have a new mission. For the boots on the ground, COIN just means learning and deploying new tactics.

That simply is not true and therein lies the complexity of COIN. The Soldier on the ground is strategic in his effects. The mission is not take a hill; it maybe search a house. It may be escort a VIP to a meeting. It may be simply patrolling with a purpose. The greatest source of information in COIN is the small units and the tactical HUMINT teams out there on the ground. They--not the headquarters--know better than anyone what is happening on the ground.

Keeping those same Soldiers motovated in such a war is a leadership challenge; it is easy to allow the troops --and oneself--to slip into the "just another mission" mode. Then the troops get careless.

Best,

Tom

tequila
09-07-2007, 02:15 PM
LTC Gian Gentile wrote about this dichotomy in AFJ, an article I looked up after reading his comments on SWJ's Blog.

Eating Soup With a Spoon (http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/09/2786780) - LTC Gian P. Gentile, Armed Forces Journal.


The natural instinct for a combat soldier when attacked is to protect himself and his buddies. Yet the paradox that "the more you protect yourself, the less secure you are" becomes counterintuitive to the soldier. It does not make sense because he experiences the essence of war fighting almost every day. So the paradox creates cognitive dissonance in the mind of a combat soldier in Iraq because it essentially tells him to do something that is unnatural to him and his environment — to not fight.

A blog I read a month or so ago makes clear that many soldiers believe that concern for civilian casualties gets soldiers killed:

http://armyofdude.blogspot.com/2007/05/imperfect-world.html


You might have heard about the six soldiers and one Russian reporter that died when their Stryker hit one such bomb. They were on their way to investigate the actual site before it blew. They knew it was there. Beforehand, an Apache helicopter identified several men digging a hole in the road, putting something large in the hole, and running away. The pilot asked for clearance to shoot a Hellfire missile at them. It was the best catch a pilot can hope for: killing Al Qaeda and taking out a bomb at the same time. Once again however, our rules and tactics became a bigger enemy than any terrorist could. They were denied permission to fire repeatedly because of the possibility of collateral damage. In the sagacious words of Hurley from the TV show Lost, we looked in the face of the enemy and said ‘whatever man!’

...

I don’t think I have to go into details about what came next. A whole squad, save the driver, was no more. They didn’t die for Iraqi liberty or American freedom. They died for trial and error. They died because an officer somewhere didn’t want to fill out paperwork because some dude’s car might have been damaged in a missile strike.

Also (http://armyofdude.blogspot.com/2007/01/stupidest-####ever.html):



American soldiers are breaking their backs to be the good guys in this war, to represent our leaders and the public we serve. We’re trying to remove the shame of Abu Ghraib and soldiers who raped and murdered Iraqi girls. When clearing blocks, we cut locks and if necessary, kick doors off hinges to search for weapon caches. If the people are home, we give them a number to call so they can collect money for their damaged property. In WWII, troops cleared houses by throwing in grenades without checking to see if a family is huddled in the corner. A terrible thing could happen, but it’s a war after all. We now have paintball guns and non-lethal shotgun rounds. Do you think the enemy carries the same? Who is this really helping?

...

Minutes after the firefight, all of us noticed a black sedan making the same rounds through alleys and side streets. ...

This car was using textbook actions in a moving sniper platform. Immediately my team leader called up to my squad leader, who too became suspicious. We all wanted to take a shot, at least in the trunk of the car to scare the driver off, who was more than 300 meters away.

...

It came back down the chain: don’t take the shot. It became a political decision; what if we were wrong? That's a lot of paperwork. We all cursed whoever kicked it back ...

We watched the car leave, only to round the corner one more time and stop. He backs up, once again exposing his rear right window in a perfect line of sight to our rooftop.

Once again the request to open fire was denied.

The window comes down.

Children in the alleyway scatter in all directions.

A flash of light fills the open window.

PSSSSSHEW.

...

Kill or no kill, the sniper made it back to his family that night. He used against us our most honorable and foolhardy trait: our adherence to the rules. And we, the most powerful force the earth has known, have been effectively neutered ...

SWJED
04-23-2008, 10:05 AM
Council member Matt Armstrong has a new post up on his MountainRunner web log - Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency: to some, a natural pairing, to others, not so much (http://mountainrunner.us/2008/04/anthropology_and_global_counte.html).


This should be interesting. This weekend the University of Chicago holds a conference titled Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency...