11 years ago
Showing posts with label humanities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humanities. Show all posts
25 January 2012
The Artists Liberal
I'm involved in a new project collaborating with some of my fellow Butler graduates. We're writing a news blog. Find fiction and reporting and creative commentary all arising out of the liberal arts tradition. New(s) articulations. See us at http://theliberalartist.org/.
03 December 2011
Ethnographic Perspectives on Laxyuup Gitxaala
The following is a paper I presented at the American Anthropological Association annual meeting in Montreal. November 2011.
---
The question is easy: What are the changes undergone in archaeology under a collaborative setting, and why is it worth it? Experience speaks for itself in the moment, but the following is a representation of the transformation undergone in archaeology as experiences across time and space collide in the field.
---
Part I: Katrena Leslie
Here is Katrena Leslie, our platform upon which we moved and lived across the water in the Gitxaala territory. And the boat floats, it bobs up and down, it rolls and leans. The people on board do as well, some tossed more violently than they expect, others lulled to sleep, and a few lulled to sickness. But Katrena Leslie is not inert, she is not some welded piece of steel propelled by diesel. She takes on as many roles are there are persons on board. She is a table around which planning and meals are shared at once. She is a location, central and mobile, pivotal in her role as mediator between perspectives and goals. And she is our guide, her belly full, like a well-packed backpack, of tools and data, books and food. And with her at our sides we were able to move through the territory, finding and visiting and experiencing disparate sites of knowledge with her as our constant. Katrena Leslie, she helped us see, from top to bottom, accumulated ways of knowing, oral histories beneath the ground, and caked on all our faces, evidence of having been and having done, and having seen.
---
Part II: Lach Klan
So now we start moving across the territory. We begin as I did in Lach Klan, the village, the central home of the Gitxaala First Nation. And we, all of us involved, have been here, walked upon the anthropogenic deposits upon which the houses of our hosts and friends sit and have sat for many years. The island landscape is the space we navigate, but no matter how far we wander in kilometres and miles, we are never far from the village. Though physically inhabiting distinct geographic space, we are transported, in moments, far from the active practice of archaeology. The flat leaves of devil’s club are reminders, opaque windows through which the beam of the total station travels in space back to the people who call this home. The leaves and bushes and fallen trees were reminders of our purpose, to supplement a way of knowing. In these moments and otheres we carried Gitxaala in our pockets, as the global positioning handhelds might well have been called Gitxaala Position Systems. Anthropology and Gitxaala are old acquaintances, but now become more and more colleagues as their components are at once and always moving and contributing to what makes up the Laxyuup Gtixaala.
---
Part III: Mapping
And we mapped, oh how we mapped. Got it. Yep. Got it. Face the prism toward me. Level? Let’s shoot in the next station. And so on across the sites.
Each laser beam from the total station a vision, each vision a point. The maps are a living, yawning thing, moving point to point across a landscape big or small. I learned on a skiff one evening from my friend Greg, that the people used to navigate their ocean routes moving point to point. Each point a point of reference. And so it is with topography, each point a way of visiting and remembering a place. And each map is a record of visiting, a physical (or digital) memory of a place, and a reference for the future. To map, for us, is to situate ourselves. Like a spider we stretch a web across a landscape, each point drawing us closer and closer to an understanding. Manufacturing an artifcatual world, a base upon which to live our work.
---
Part IV: Practice
Let’s move to the real meat of it now. The practice of archaeology. The object of study, the culture area, the regional specialization. Archaeology takes place upon the map, upon the land, upon the anthropogenic evidence of time immemorial. Each percussion core, each ping an intrusion into the past. Archaeologists are time travelers, which is not to be cliché, but rather literal. Far from fiction, the practicing archaeologist, with each scrape of a trowel, passes from the present into the past and back again. It is the hermeneutic. It is the empirical.
But to examine what is empirical, is to get at that experience of discovery, of finding and unearthing. In examining the empirical in collaborative archaeology I find we are never confined solely to a square. We are never so myopic as to see only the silt in the screen. Nor are our practices so confined. Far from specialized we are mappers, and collectors, we are excavators and screeners, we are finders and fishers, explorers in residence, we are the makers of fires and pies. We are the screen tossers and the joke tellers. And some of us are less graceful than others. We are all these things at once, amalgamations, characters inhabiting a plot we write ourselves.
---
Part V: Fishing
What better after a long day of swallowing flies than a fresh-boiled crab? Nothing. Except maybe halibut stew. And so we come to fishing. We come to the anecdotal, the fantastical stories of halibuts reeled in by hand. The personal feats of touching live crabs. The unsure looks of a man tasting urchin goo for the first time. Fishing, and stories about fishing, occupied a primary space alongside Katrena Leslie. Indeed it enveloped us from all angles. Each return to the kitchen was the beginning of a rising tide of fishing stories. And once again, as water seeps through the stones of a fish trap, the fishing stories permeate our lives and experience. We are transported in time, suddenly glimpsing and embodying bits of practices ancient. Five more minutes of five thousand years of history played out on Katrena’s decks and with our hands. Not ethnoarchaeology, not experimental archaeology, the collaborative is experiential archaeology. Katrena hosted the sea creatures upon her deck and there we mingled, learning names and gaining insight into character. Names and knowledges we’d carry with us into the excavation units, into the auger’s bucket and into the corer’s tube.
---
Part VI: Midden
Fish eaten and bones discarded. Shells picked clean and crushed underfoot. Such is the creation of midden. Midden, the heap upon heap of heaping helpings of human being. The excavation units come alive with it. Shells pouring out of the walls and clacking as they hit the ground. But the fishing allows a new vision. The shells, the shapes, the hues, the sizes are all suddenly familiar. They are not discard but living and slimy and revealing ways of life that have come and gone and stayed. Surely we cannot uncover a salmon bone without tasting tasty sockeye. Same goes for urchins. And as our vision becomes embodied in our tongues, so too does it become refined. Slowly, like eyes adjusting to the dark, a collaborative vision is born in archaeological practice.
---
Part VII: Abalone
Enter abalone, iridescent, shimmering and shapely. The shell of value, the shell of controversy. The shell now supplementing understandings of statistical significance. Abalone lives deep in the archaeological and Gitxaala imagination. It crawls upon the wet rocks and hides. But there are those with vision good enough to see. They bring experience, they bring memory and practice and a pinch of good luck to these places normally unseen. In our case the underground. Each fragment of shell that emerged from Ks’waan was another piece of evidence tying together the labour of archaeology, the land we worked on and the fishing practiced. EU NS1 filled to the brim with abalone shells, overflowing and soon filling the house basin. Work slowed and was never the same. We saw, we learned, we experienced and we found. Surely such experience cannot be insignificant.
---
Part VIII: Transformation
Archaeology has undergone transformation in Laxyuup Gitxaala. Like salmon running we’ve been pooled and trapped behind the stone walls of an archaeological feature. The Gitxaala have created the world, shaped it and know it intimately. In collaboration we come to inhabit it, swim around and move from border to border. When the tide rises we can drift out and away and come back again. When the tide is out all we know is intersection between ourselves and others. The stories told in collective gatherings, around shared meals follow us into the field where they articulate with the same landscape we ourselves interact with.
---
My thanks to the Gitxaala Nation for allowing us to visit and work in their traditional, unceded territory. This research made possible by Charles Menzies and the Laxyuup Gitxaala 2011 summer team: Greg, Teddy, Russ, Naomi, Kenzie, Kisha and Andrew. Thank you all for your participation and a fun summer.
09 May 2011
Arriving
Welcome to the Northwest, where eagles sing and scream, where sea planes soar over harbors and the greenest greens you've ever seen tower over towns.
I've arrived here for fieldwork. To head out into remoteness, to dig, to talk and to think. This thing we do, anthropologists, this thing called research is an interesting place to visit. Apart and strange, outside the university the researcher is a baffling presence; hailing from far away places, transient, lonely, with vague purposes even remoter.
Arrival is process, one of making place, making a place. All beginnings are arrivals.Arrival is the beginning of the creation of memories. Memories that come to construct the familiar.
Arrival is experience. Touch and feel and sense; new smells of ocean and the sounds of eagles flapping. Seeing, becoming part of landscape by contributing to it, by taking it in, literally embodying. Arrival is moving and pausing.
I've arrived here, in the Northwest, ready again to set out anew. To the ocean, to floating scapes of sea and land and group. I'm here to see how archaeology arrives, by boat and plane and skiff. By tool and question and boot. By poetic narrative, perhaps. Tonight archaeology arrives and tomorrow it stays and the day after it leaves again. My job is to see and experience and write it.
Listen:
13 April 2011
On the Future of Anthropology
Since then the character of the blog has changed nearly as much as the thoughts and experiences inside me. And I feel obligated to offer some updates with regards to the role and future of anthropology.
My feelings on the state of the world and the values that anthropology has to offer have not changed significantly. Anthropology has precisely the nuanced, worldly perspectives which can give important meaning and insight into contentious issues of human rights, violent conflict, capitalist ethics and the like. The future and anthropology are almost certainly well suited for each other.
However, the future of anthropology is far less certain. I've now been a student of anthropology for nearly six academic years and this past year has made something abundantly clear to me: anthropology spends its days around the world learning things, but sleeps with its head in its ass.
Since the original post I've entered a graduate program and anthropology and I am undergoing the academic and professional training of its future practitioners. I have found that as graduate students we are not taught how to write, how to teach, how to engage, how to listen or even how to speak. We are instead taught how to become effective and tactical academics, working to succeed in an academic system that almost any professor will say is broken.
As students, we learn to write for publication and not for an audience. We learn that presentations are venues to place information in front of an audience, instead of presenting it to them. We learn that teaching is a form of employment and a hassle conflicting with what our truer academic goals should be. And we take these lessons and apply them in classrooms full of young undergraduate students. And we take these lessons and apply them to our own classrooms full of our peers. And we take these lessons to anyone we know who might, for a minute, entertain a masturbatory exposition on the theoretical context of our research.
This is only one experience and it is not intended to reflect on the abilities and motives of my colleagues, professors or mentors. It is also likely that other departments better emphasize the possibilities of contribution in anthropology, or at the very least, the encouragement of innovation. However, I must at once place blame on the individuals as well as the structures. We are agents, each day making decisions to contribute, create or re-create.
Professional anthropologists complain of the stigma attached to writing for popular audiences, but do not confront it. They sit bored to tears in graduate seminars listening to bright students drone on illustrating an astounding ability to retain and comprehend (without contributing to knowledge), but they do not change the format. They endlessly pour over poorly written term papers, but do not teach writing.
They complain and wait for tenure honestly, I think, expecting to change the system when they have the clout. But to change the system whilst sitting atop its structure would place careers and standings in jeopardy. Change will not come from the top, it will not come in time.
There are glimmers of hope, those individuals who would demand that we find a voice before all else. And it is precisely a voice that anthropology needs to find. Not a unified voice necessarily, but one that is spoken clearly. Not an applied voice necessarily, but one that engages. Not a popular voice necessarily, but one that appreciates an audience.
As a musician, an artist and, perhaps, a scholar, I have come to recognize the role that performance plays in every day of life. Writing a term paper is a performance. Writing a journal article is a performance. Presenting a paper is a performance. Teaching is a performance. Celebrating with colleagues is a performance.
Performances do not need to be perfect. In fact, it is the imperfections which make them lively and real. Their value lies in creating a shared space of communication, translation, listening and reflection; what have I heard and seen, what have I learned and taught, what have I created and how have I shared it?
Anthropology needs to learn to perform instead of present. To create instead of write. To engage instead of teach. As students we should demand a change in vocabulary and expectations to follow. If anthropology can do these things, if we can do these things, then the discipline will have a bright future. If we cannot, then anthropology might as well stay where it is.
08 January 2008
Honesty
A friend, perhaps a co-conspirator, turned me on to an interesting blog written by a Stanely Fish at the NY Times that suggest that the humanities are useless in our world and that they are essentially (in a philosophical sense) useless as they seek not to validate themselves. This is one of the top things that could produce a truly "honest" if not agitated response from me. Here goes...
Contrary to Fish I think that the humanities are one of the only good things left in the world, indeed one of the few things that I see as hopeful, something so hopeful that I plan to devote my life to the uselessness of the humanities. It is easy, (naive?), to see the humanities are existing in their own little world, having locked themselves within the imposing confines of the ivory tower. Indeed, we bicker among ourselves about trivialities, insignificant details of theory, translation and interpretation. Much of our highly theoretical discussion is lost upon the "lay" people mingling at the gates of our towers. But is this not also so for medical jargon, legalese and the highly specific lingo of biochemists and the like? Perhaps our most fatal flaw is that our subject matter tends to me flaky at best, things uninteresting and often highly dependent on intimate familiarity with ivory debate. I have even described my ethnography as "basically a really long diary entry."
Fish makes three main arguments in his entry: 1, that the best chance of relevancy that the humanities has in its abilities to open minds and impart noble lessons and ideas to its participants. 2, that this is utterly false because professors and students of the humanities are often not the epitome of do-gooders. 3, that the humanities do not have inherent in their studies a need to relate or legitimize against other worldly pursuit and therefore have no relevance in their very definition.
I'll save the first point for last. Regarding points 2 and 3, I suggest that perhaps scholars within the humanities have been driven to their sorry state by a need to compete in a money-hungry and humanitarily empty world that rewards competency, specialization and production in lieu of the subtle noble lessons and wisdoms that drew those scholars to pursue the humanities. As a college student I know that the majority of the student population relates to their field of study with regards to their expected salaries upon graduation. We in the humanities tend to focus elsewhere because of the dismal discussion that would ensue upon discussion of our future after graduation in such terms. The humanities have been squeezed into a world that resists their core ideals. They have become jobs, professions. My very survival as an organic being is tied to my ability to compete in a job market, one that is very small for the humanities. I have already begun to specialize in radical ways, to get caught up in frivolous debate (my decisions within which will likely make or break my career). Perhaps scholars in the humanities are bitter, prime examples of the destruction wrought by a world that has all but forgotten is human side. For A Deity's sake, there is actual ardent debate in this country about the benefits and downfalls of using torture, rather specific types of torture. (Torture that is too tortuous?) Yet we have sought legitimization and for what reasons? What do the humanities offer?
Contrary to Fish again I think that the humanities do offer the ability and time to gain noble wisdom and humanitarian (in a humanist sense, not a Peace Corp sense) lessons. There is far more to offer than just insight into perhaps being, if not a better person, than a more insightful one. I think that that the humanities will be the only thing to save the world, that if not in my time then in the time of my future students, the most respected and relevant positions will be within the humanities. Reliance on science and medicine and business will result in the dismal and dark machine-ridden worlds once described by the likes of H.G. Wells, Asimov, Vonnegut and others. Worlds where human worth is fading as our inefficiencies are exposed. War will reign as resources grow scarce and political decisions are based on a bloody, perhaps nuclear, war for hegemony. Social darwinism will re-emerge. Riots will rage and the rich hide in their own steel towers as the power of medicine falls in the light of pandemic flu and radiation poisoning.
The humanities offer what is already inherent in their name. The human element. A connection to ourselves and the abstract. We offer a break in the rapidity of the day, a chance to reflect, a chance to blog. We recognize the beauty of the human condition, of the great works and varieties of humans. This is an abstract thing, it is terribly difficult to describe the humanitarian message in our language. The humanities offer ourselves, not the selves of scholars, but the self within each and everyone of us; something that has been turned over to the likes of medicine and business. We often associate ourselves with our healths. And truly, how many devote their lives to profit, having been told since childhood that arts and crafts are girly, that music is for nerds, having excelled based on tests that reward scientific and math centered thinking. Like it or not, Fish, were it not for the humanities the world would be a sad place; naught but concrete structures, Fox News, a starving working class and ethnic war. We hold the very essence of the human within our frivolous debate and abstract speak. Likely, we will continue to exist as useless, merely a vessel, but projects like Human Terrain System are already showing the bleak brick wall that is hit without the humanities.
We certainly don't fit in a statistic and we certainly don't force our message down the throats of developing minds like business, science and the like, but our importance is not to be seen as futile and fruity in a world run by the ever false and misleading "fact," facts which are as much products of individuals as are the works of DaVinci. Such talk, as Fish's, shakes me to my very core as I see humanity slipping from the world. If I must, I charge myself with raising and unholy army and waging a humanitarian war on capitalism, democracy and conservatism! And as we march gloriously upon the smitten ruins of our first victory we shall sound our Horn of Culture and cry, "For LJ!"
Contrary to Fish I think that the humanities are one of the only good things left in the world, indeed one of the few things that I see as hopeful, something so hopeful that I plan to devote my life to the uselessness of the humanities. It is easy, (naive?), to see the humanities are existing in their own little world, having locked themselves within the imposing confines of the ivory tower. Indeed, we bicker among ourselves about trivialities, insignificant details of theory, translation and interpretation. Much of our highly theoretical discussion is lost upon the "lay" people mingling at the gates of our towers. But is this not also so for medical jargon, legalese and the highly specific lingo of biochemists and the like? Perhaps our most fatal flaw is that our subject matter tends to me flaky at best, things uninteresting and often highly dependent on intimate familiarity with ivory debate. I have even described my ethnography as "basically a really long diary entry."
Fish makes three main arguments in his entry: 1, that the best chance of relevancy that the humanities has in its abilities to open minds and impart noble lessons and ideas to its participants. 2, that this is utterly false because professors and students of the humanities are often not the epitome of do-gooders. 3, that the humanities do not have inherent in their studies a need to relate or legitimize against other worldly pursuit and therefore have no relevance in their very definition.
I'll save the first point for last. Regarding points 2 and 3, I suggest that perhaps scholars within the humanities have been driven to their sorry state by a need to compete in a money-hungry and humanitarily empty world that rewards competency, specialization and production in lieu of the subtle noble lessons and wisdoms that drew those scholars to pursue the humanities. As a college student I know that the majority of the student population relates to their field of study with regards to their expected salaries upon graduation. We in the humanities tend to focus elsewhere because of the dismal discussion that would ensue upon discussion of our future after graduation in such terms. The humanities have been squeezed into a world that resists their core ideals. They have become jobs, professions. My very survival as an organic being is tied to my ability to compete in a job market, one that is very small for the humanities. I have already begun to specialize in radical ways, to get caught up in frivolous debate (my decisions within which will likely make or break my career). Perhaps scholars in the humanities are bitter, prime examples of the destruction wrought by a world that has all but forgotten is human side. For A Deity's sake, there is actual ardent debate in this country about the benefits and downfalls of using torture, rather specific types of torture. (Torture that is too tortuous?) Yet we have sought legitimization and for what reasons? What do the humanities offer?
Contrary to Fish again I think that the humanities do offer the ability and time to gain noble wisdom and humanitarian (in a humanist sense, not a Peace Corp sense) lessons. There is far more to offer than just insight into perhaps being, if not a better person, than a more insightful one. I think that that the humanities will be the only thing to save the world, that if not in my time then in the time of my future students, the most respected and relevant positions will be within the humanities. Reliance on science and medicine and business will result in the dismal and dark machine-ridden worlds once described by the likes of H.G. Wells, Asimov, Vonnegut and others. Worlds where human worth is fading as our inefficiencies are exposed. War will reign as resources grow scarce and political decisions are based on a bloody, perhaps nuclear, war for hegemony. Social darwinism will re-emerge. Riots will rage and the rich hide in their own steel towers as the power of medicine falls in the light of pandemic flu and radiation poisoning.
The humanities offer what is already inherent in their name. The human element. A connection to ourselves and the abstract. We offer a break in the rapidity of the day, a chance to reflect, a chance to blog. We recognize the beauty of the human condition, of the great works and varieties of humans. This is an abstract thing, it is terribly difficult to describe the humanitarian message in our language. The humanities offer ourselves, not the selves of scholars, but the self within each and everyone of us; something that has been turned over to the likes of medicine and business. We often associate ourselves with our healths. And truly, how many devote their lives to profit, having been told since childhood that arts and crafts are girly, that music is for nerds, having excelled based on tests that reward scientific and math centered thinking. Like it or not, Fish, were it not for the humanities the world would be a sad place; naught but concrete structures, Fox News, a starving working class and ethnic war. We hold the very essence of the human within our frivolous debate and abstract speak. Likely, we will continue to exist as useless, merely a vessel, but projects like Human Terrain System are already showing the bleak brick wall that is hit without the humanities.
We certainly don't fit in a statistic and we certainly don't force our message down the throats of developing minds like business, science and the like, but our importance is not to be seen as futile and fruity in a world run by the ever false and misleading "fact," facts which are as much products of individuals as are the works of DaVinci. Such talk, as Fish's, shakes me to my very core as I see humanity slipping from the world. If I must, I charge myself with raising and unholy army and waging a humanitarian war on capitalism, democracy and conservatism! And as we march gloriously upon the smitten ruins of our first victory we shall sound our Horn of Culture and cry, "For LJ!"
18 November 2007
Fluidity, Humanity and Hope.
What does the future hold? Where do I see myself in 10-20 years? What is going to play the biggest role in the lives of humankind? These are hard questions, but I can up with only one answer; the humanities. In our shrinking world it is not science, medicine or business that will save us from ourselves. Not to say that these are not noble goals. Science is the hallmark of logic in thinking, something that will hopefully overcome in the minds of many people in this country. Medicine, while problematic at some levels, has only good intentions to keep people healthy. Business, I am not able to see how it is vital, but I'm sure that it plays a role in the organic mesh that is the world.
However, the humanities will be the most important aspect of our futures. In 10-20 years I see myself working as an anthropologist, teaching at a university, making anthropology and social science more accessible to all people, to begin to incorporate its most helpful insights into the minds of all people. I will provide opportunities to think outside the box, cross disciplinary lines and incorporate critical thinking and reflexivity into all aspects of life.
I want to show people that reliance on science as an alternate to religion will only result in bad things. Technology cannot save us, it cannot incorporate itself into the most fundamental levels of humanity and open our eyes. Science, technology, the internet; it creates an illusion of people being closer to each other with connections made with the touch of a button. In reality, it is bringing us father apart. We've created a world where it is possible to live one's life completely on the internet, leaving the house is not neccessary. Indeed, networks like second life allow an individual to create another state of existence, one separate from true human contact. Science encourages us to forget about interactions and problems, and to simply wait until the new ideas comes along that will solve whatever problem there is. Desertification you say? Science will come up with something to solve that. Drying up of oil? Science will create alternate fuel sources, until then we'll just do like always. Developments in technology and scientific understandings of the earth will be important, but they should be the sole idea considered in the "future."
I want to make people critical of medicine, consider the impacts of the biomedical tradition. Consider different forms of healing, forms that often have comparable success rates as biomedicine. Consider how the idea of illness and health varies across the world. The biggest worry I have about relying on medicine is that we will attempt to cure all illness and disease, perhaps with hopes of conquering death. People die for a reason, not to teach a lesson or set an example, not as punishment. Natural evolutionary processes require death. I can't help but wonder if by finding cures to disease after disease we create a population that is prone to illness, where sickly genes can defy the laws of natural selection and create a humanity that must live in hypoallergenic bubbles with weekly immunizations. It is ironic that the more germ-conscious and afraid of this disease and that one, the more we limit exposure to natural elements (no matter how discomforting they might be) that we will breed super-bugs that are resistant to the many ways we attempt to kill them. What will the population of the earth look like in 100 years if we cure cancer and heart disease, problems that have been unable to hamper massive population expansion? What far reaches of the earth will we marginalize people to to make room for people living to be 120, 150?, years old?
I want people to question the position of the US in the future. Capitalism will very soon be on its way out as we see how sick and problematic Adam Smith's capitalism really is. In the future a degree in business will be the equivalent to holding on to a dying tradition.
I want people to think critically, as I do here on this blog. I want people to take a step back and evaluate both the extremely good and the extremely bad to make as well rounded as an understanding as possible. This hope lies in strong support of the humanities, the social sciences, English, international studies, the liberal and fine arts. I want people to think of the world as a fluid place where people drift hour by hour from one role to another, to one lifestyle to another, not as a world where we are bound by cultures and vocations. Specialization will inevitably occur, but this does not mean shutting oneself out from interdisciplinary influences. Fluidity, humanity and hope will be the mantra to consider. With a grounding the humanities we can incorporate many ideas and disciplines, while accepting nothing as doctrine, nothing as universal truth. We will be able to weed out the goods and bads that are hidden within all ideas and ways of acting. The Humanities is where our future lies, it is where my future lies and, quite frankly, I think it is our only hope.
However, the humanities will be the most important aspect of our futures. In 10-20 years I see myself working as an anthropologist, teaching at a university, making anthropology and social science more accessible to all people, to begin to incorporate its most helpful insights into the minds of all people. I will provide opportunities to think outside the box, cross disciplinary lines and incorporate critical thinking and reflexivity into all aspects of life.
I want to show people that reliance on science as an alternate to religion will only result in bad things. Technology cannot save us, it cannot incorporate itself into the most fundamental levels of humanity and open our eyes. Science, technology, the internet; it creates an illusion of people being closer to each other with connections made with the touch of a button. In reality, it is bringing us father apart. We've created a world where it is possible to live one's life completely on the internet, leaving the house is not neccessary. Indeed, networks like second life allow an individual to create another state of existence, one separate from true human contact. Science encourages us to forget about interactions and problems, and to simply wait until the new ideas comes along that will solve whatever problem there is. Desertification you say? Science will come up with something to solve that. Drying up of oil? Science will create alternate fuel sources, until then we'll just do like always. Developments in technology and scientific understandings of the earth will be important, but they should be the sole idea considered in the "future."
I want to make people critical of medicine, consider the impacts of the biomedical tradition. Consider different forms of healing, forms that often have comparable success rates as biomedicine. Consider how the idea of illness and health varies across the world. The biggest worry I have about relying on medicine is that we will attempt to cure all illness and disease, perhaps with hopes of conquering death. People die for a reason, not to teach a lesson or set an example, not as punishment. Natural evolutionary processes require death. I can't help but wonder if by finding cures to disease after disease we create a population that is prone to illness, where sickly genes can defy the laws of natural selection and create a humanity that must live in hypoallergenic bubbles with weekly immunizations. It is ironic that the more germ-conscious and afraid of this disease and that one, the more we limit exposure to natural elements (no matter how discomforting they might be) that we will breed super-bugs that are resistant to the many ways we attempt to kill them. What will the population of the earth look like in 100 years if we cure cancer and heart disease, problems that have been unable to hamper massive population expansion? What far reaches of the earth will we marginalize people to to make room for people living to be 120, 150?, years old?
I want people to question the position of the US in the future. Capitalism will very soon be on its way out as we see how sick and problematic Adam Smith's capitalism really is. In the future a degree in business will be the equivalent to holding on to a dying tradition.
I want people to think critically, as I do here on this blog. I want people to take a step back and evaluate both the extremely good and the extremely bad to make as well rounded as an understanding as possible. This hope lies in strong support of the humanities, the social sciences, English, international studies, the liberal and fine arts. I want people to think of the world as a fluid place where people drift hour by hour from one role to another, to one lifestyle to another, not as a world where we are bound by cultures and vocations. Specialization will inevitably occur, but this does not mean shutting oneself out from interdisciplinary influences. Fluidity, humanity and hope will be the mantra to consider. With a grounding the humanities we can incorporate many ideas and disciplines, while accepting nothing as doctrine, nothing as universal truth. We will be able to weed out the goods and bads that are hidden within all ideas and ways of acting. The Humanities is where our future lies, it is where my future lies and, quite frankly, I think it is our only hope.
11 November 2007
On the Future and Anthropology
See an update to this entry here...
Whether or not we like it, the world is a shrinking place. I think most would wonder why advances in technology and communication could be disliked, but I say this because there are those of us who don't appreciate and, quite frankly, detest what our world has become. Therefore, it is a shame, for us, to see the world we have come to know and hate slowly creep over all that has potential for good. This is beside the point though, at least for me because I have resigned myself to the fact that the takeover of materialism, capitalism, neo-colonialism and ethnocentrism is inevitable. Simply put, we must wait it out.
This statement, then, coincides with the contradictory nature that thrives within me. While I have resigned myself to this fact, I can't simply let it happen. As a humanist I have hope in humanity and the human condition. It lies in education. Not the type that humanitarians think we should spread across the "third" world (as if this planet allowed some to be fenced off from others!), not the type that Oprah gives to the girls in South Africa, not the type that the Catholics have traditionally offered at home and abroad. No, in my own recognized ethnocentric nature, I suggest a different kind of education; anthropology. I have been embedded in this discipline for three years now and it saddens me that it is such a forgotten discipline. (As I write this, I can't help but wonder if maybe anthropology is one of those few good things left in the world.) Anthropologists are an interesting breed. We're often impossible to describe on an individual basis so let's forget generalizing. The fact is, the more anthropologists I spend time with the more my mind opens, the happier my life gets and the more I hope I have for the future. I think it is the ideas we have, the knowledge we gain and the perspective we take that offers hope for the future.
I was going to offer a case study of my own university, but for fear of becoming to lengthy, I thought better of it. The point is that current "diversity" and cultural education in this country is severely lacking, if not non-existent. As I wrote somewhere once, we unabashedly celebrate difference without sensitivity and thereby alienate ourselves and others. Somehow we think that we can teach students about others without approaches developed by a field which has devoted itself to studying cultures. I've attended few "diversity" events at my university, but I have taken the course that defines our approach to worldly understanding; instead of students learning of others, they learn of otherness. I see current approaches only reinforcing strict "them and us" dichotomies. This leads to a security in thought and action. We believe that our actions can only be good because we understand other people, we have dealt with "diversity" and we are sensitive to other cultures. In fact, while made strikingly aware of cultural differences, our own way is still celebrated, we only discuss others in our own terms. This is a dangerous security.
Anthropology, simple introductory classes, cultivate different and often times new understandings. The most simple concept to an anthropologist in the 21st century is cultural relativism. Cultures can only be understood and should only be considered on their own terms. Reflexivity is massively important, for we must be aware of biases. Why do we feel the way we do about things? Anthropologists are not gods, we cannot overcome our biases, but the very act of recognizing them and considering how they shape what we learn about others is a skill we all (at least those true anthropologists) acquire and seek to master.
We do not have the power to change differences between "us" and "them" and we should not want such power. Difference is something to live joyously alongside with. However, the one way barrier between us and them need not be impenetrable. Simply considerations of biases and how we have come to be who we are break down this barrier, allowing for a two way transfer where all factors are considered. This is what anthropology has to offer to our shrinking world; a world where cultures are clashing and clashing on a daily basis. A world where all that people know falls apart around them forcing them to reckon with unfamiliar and confusing norms. A world where populations of people, internally as diverse as the sun and the moon, are generalized and told that they do not understand our ways, they cannot function in the modern world without our help. It is in this world and the near future that the one-way barriers between us and them must be perforated if not torn down.
I'm not saying that everyone should be an anthropologist, indeed, it is a field suited for very few. But the ideas and approaches that we practice and study should not be kept and secret and left hidden deep within the ivory tower of academia. This is a call, not only to those who could benefit from such education, but also to those who live it every day. Why contradict ourselves and create barriers between the "lay" and ourselves? We must share and make our ideas accessible, we must create programs that share our approaches and allow students (from graduate to elementary) to learn how to break down barriers and reach better understandings around them. I believe that it is in our hands that the impetus for change lies, we cannot change the world by locking ourselves deep within the halls of scholarship. No, we must make available those ideas and theories that lie at our core, that make use who we are. Cultural relativism and reflexivity, the most basic of our tenets, this is where the future of humanity lies.
Whether or not we like it, the world is a shrinking place. I think most would wonder why advances in technology and communication could be disliked, but I say this because there are those of us who don't appreciate and, quite frankly, detest what our world has become. Therefore, it is a shame, for us, to see the world we have come to know and hate slowly creep over all that has potential for good. This is beside the point though, at least for me because I have resigned myself to the fact that the takeover of materialism, capitalism, neo-colonialism and ethnocentrism is inevitable. Simply put, we must wait it out.
This statement, then, coincides with the contradictory nature that thrives within me. While I have resigned myself to this fact, I can't simply let it happen. As a humanist I have hope in humanity and the human condition. It lies in education. Not the type that humanitarians think we should spread across the "third" world (as if this planet allowed some to be fenced off from others!), not the type that Oprah gives to the girls in South Africa, not the type that the Catholics have traditionally offered at home and abroad. No, in my own recognized ethnocentric nature, I suggest a different kind of education; anthropology. I have been embedded in this discipline for three years now and it saddens me that it is such a forgotten discipline. (As I write this, I can't help but wonder if maybe anthropology is one of those few good things left in the world.) Anthropologists are an interesting breed. We're often impossible to describe on an individual basis so let's forget generalizing. The fact is, the more anthropologists I spend time with the more my mind opens, the happier my life gets and the more I hope I have for the future. I think it is the ideas we have, the knowledge we gain and the perspective we take that offers hope for the future.
I was going to offer a case study of my own university, but for fear of becoming to lengthy, I thought better of it. The point is that current "diversity" and cultural education in this country is severely lacking, if not non-existent. As I wrote somewhere once, we unabashedly celebrate difference without sensitivity and thereby alienate ourselves and others. Somehow we think that we can teach students about others without approaches developed by a field which has devoted itself to studying cultures. I've attended few "diversity" events at my university, but I have taken the course that defines our approach to worldly understanding; instead of students learning of others, they learn of otherness. I see current approaches only reinforcing strict "them and us" dichotomies. This leads to a security in thought and action. We believe that our actions can only be good because we understand other people, we have dealt with "diversity" and we are sensitive to other cultures. In fact, while made strikingly aware of cultural differences, our own way is still celebrated, we only discuss others in our own terms. This is a dangerous security.
Anthropology, simple introductory classes, cultivate different and often times new understandings. The most simple concept to an anthropologist in the 21st century is cultural relativism. Cultures can only be understood and should only be considered on their own terms. Reflexivity is massively important, for we must be aware of biases. Why do we feel the way we do about things? Anthropologists are not gods, we cannot overcome our biases, but the very act of recognizing them and considering how they shape what we learn about others is a skill we all (at least those true anthropologists) acquire and seek to master.
We do not have the power to change differences between "us" and "them" and we should not want such power. Difference is something to live joyously alongside with. However, the one way barrier between us and them need not be impenetrable. Simply considerations of biases and how we have come to be who we are break down this barrier, allowing for a two way transfer where all factors are considered. This is what anthropology has to offer to our shrinking world; a world where cultures are clashing and clashing on a daily basis. A world where all that people know falls apart around them forcing them to reckon with unfamiliar and confusing norms. A world where populations of people, internally as diverse as the sun and the moon, are generalized and told that they do not understand our ways, they cannot function in the modern world without our help. It is in this world and the near future that the one-way barriers between us and them must be perforated if not torn down.
I'm not saying that everyone should be an anthropologist, indeed, it is a field suited for very few. But the ideas and approaches that we practice and study should not be kept and secret and left hidden deep within the ivory tower of academia. This is a call, not only to those who could benefit from such education, but also to those who live it every day. Why contradict ourselves and create barriers between the "lay" and ourselves? We must share and make our ideas accessible, we must create programs that share our approaches and allow students (from graduate to elementary) to learn how to break down barriers and reach better understandings around them. I believe that it is in our hands that the impetus for change lies, we cannot change the world by locking ourselves deep within the halls of scholarship. No, we must make available those ideas and theories that lie at our core, that make use who we are. Cultural relativism and reflexivity, the most basic of our tenets, this is where the future of humanity lies.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
