Anthropology (catch all)

[FascistLibertarian]

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.
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]

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!).

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.

No ! 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]

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

What else can I say but....

.... 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 . 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????

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 .

Marc

[Merv Benson]

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]

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]

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 . 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]

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]

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]

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 . 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 or, for the X-files fans, Michael Flynn's In the Country of the Blind).

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 . 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 . Time to stop this and et back to work....

Marc

[John T. Fishel]

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]

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]

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 . 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 ). 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]

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 !

Marc

[120mm]

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]

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

Can I steal that from you? Brilliant.

[marct]

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 has pretty much made the same argument.

Marc

[120mm]

Can I steal that from you? Brilliant.

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

[mde]

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]

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]

"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.