Anthropology (catch all)

[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