without venting too much frustration.

The notion of objectivity is self-delusional. Objectivity is best left to God, Allah, Yahweh, fill in your preference. Modern specialization in professions skews that self-understanding. We are products of our environment, culture, and upbringing. Pretending otherwise is foolish. This self-hypnosis creates conceptual blocks that confuse, distort, and hamper creative thinking and new ideas. Emerson and Whitman wrote about this over a century ago. Nothing changes.

Anthropologist desire to remain neutral observers of society while attempting to penetrate. Ironically, the best ethonography I've read was Greg Mortenson's 3 Cups of Tea. He was simply a rock climber and a dude that builds schools.

Reporters wish to transcend the event while they report. Even if they are successful, the end product is edited by an editor ensuring he can market the report.

I think we'd be better off by acknowledging our own limitations and mental blocks.

An interesting aside, or maybe it's relevant is a conversation that I had at LAX a couple of days ago...

“I would not expect that from someone like you,” commented the soccer mom from Los Angeles.

“Excuse me?” I flushed with anger.

“Well, I did not think someone from the military could be intelligent,” she replied.

“Well, you are misinformed.”

Sometimes we are much too pretentious.

v/r

Mike