The Cultural Crimes of Anthropology

The story of words is often the soul of history. From times immemorial a schism has festered, and a dichotomy has prevailed that has been indelibly etched into language. The word “heathen” evokes a negative connotation, yet the word is derived from heath and untilled land, a tiller of the land. The word “Pagan” was birthed from the Latin term paganus which means simply a villager or countryman. The Hebrew term `am ha·´a´rets original expressed the simple idea, “people of the earth,” but came to be used by the religious leaders to denote the dregs of society. These trite phrases shower light on this fracture in society between those branded civilized and those who are anything but such. The prevalence of this incubus that has haunted the attempts of mankind to understand one another has been veiled by a sheet of religion and borderline jingoism until modern times. The scars that less wealthy, or less advanced militarily, have brandished as a result of this cultural flogging, have often cicatriced the soul of the people, and caused deformations and deviations, rendering them nearly unidentifiable with their former existence. The study of these cultures or, Anthropology as it has come to be known, has in an enigmatic way, both fostered such distinction driven oppression, and attempted to resolve it. Although volumes have been penned on this topic I will consider here, in brevity, just two points: Anthropological guilt, and anthropological reconciliation.

To begin we must address the guilt of anthropology for these cultural crimes. Egotism and presumption seem to go hand in hand with learning and power, although never with wisdom. For the more heavily documented past three centuries, much of the outreaching to other cultures by men of inquiring minds has originated from the great European societies, or “western” as they have come to be known. These societies of Spain, France, England, and their offspring, have branded in their people, especially those of the academia, the premise that their nation, people, and way of life, have been and are the pinnacle of existence. This superciliousness has been coupled with wealth and power, and has been ingested as a noxious concoction, driven under canvas over the great seas, to the lands unknown, by men of good intent but cultural delusion. Like the great diseases that wiped out up to, or over eighty percent of the native inhabitants of many lands they “discovered”, the vigorous attempts to, modernize, civilize, or indoctrinate these people released a cultural miasma that served to poison many indigenous cultures. Theses early forays where marked less by true study of man as the Greek origins of the term “anthropology” imply, and more by as Richard A. Shweder intimated, “Western initiated globalization and Empire Building.” With knowledge though does come discernment, and with discernment comes repentance.

As time progressed, particularly toward the dawn of the twentieth century, it seemed that there was a maturation of the field of Anthropology. The eyes of what had previously been a nearsighted method of study begin to come into focus. This was an Anthropological reconciliation. The more empiricist or scientific methods such as those of Frank Boas’ “historical Particularism”, or Malinowski’s pioneering of the participant-observation methods where great strides in the field. The recognition of how hazy the definition of “civilized” or “advanced” truly are, when applied to a culture milieu or society, begin to dominate the study of man. Kenneth R. Good’s observations of the Yanomamis of Venezuela’s upper Orinoco region provides keen examples. Noting how this indigenous people have no formal numbering system, a fact that would have grated like a field hoe on a chalkboard in the minds of early discoverers, is in-fact an attribute of strength of culture. It was also noted insightfully by Schweder that the view of women by many Islamic cultures that disturbs many in the “West”, is in function a sign of, “dignified modesty, control, self-respect, civility.” The recognition of how important it is to have an open mind when peering into other cultures or peoples has allowed for great advancement, and will continue to do so, but it is not without its challenges.

How far is to far? How deep is too deep? What is truth? These questions are some of the latest in the idea of Anthropological ethics. In an attempt to eschew archaic methods of study or indoctrination, and work to preserve each cultures unique identity Anthropologist have to constantly adjust the lines of right and wrong, while not losing sight of the goal of discovery or impartial observation. This is a difficult struggle and sometimes a slippery slope. Researchers such as J Christopher Kovats-Bernat have noted candidly the need to be furtive or untruthful at times, not only for the preservation of the people being studied, but for their very life. Tkeyuki Tsuda spoke at length of the need to assume multiple fabricated identities for the sake of research, sometimes at the cost of his own emotional or psychological well-being. It is though, these very struggles that mark the striving toward better methods. It is this wrestling, or agonizing, that propagates discovery and advancement in fields of research. The dispelling of the notion of “primitive” or “savage”, a class set that has dominated society for millennia, is an arduous task. With Anthropologists at the leading edge of the fight advancements are being made, new standards are being set, and maybe one day the concept if epi-gnosis, or “accurate knowledge,” will be the hallmark of Anthropology.

References:

Firth, Raymond. “Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism”

Fall 1996

Behe J. Michael. Darwin’s Black Box.

New York: Simon & Schuster 1996

Peter D. Ward, Donald Brownlee. Rare Earth.

New York: Copernicus 2000

Rev. Walter W Skeat. An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language.

Clarendon Press 1888

Shweder, Richard. “On the Return of the Civilizing Project.”

Daedalus Summer 2002

Good, Kenneth R. “A Race Against Time.”

Americas

Lavenda, Robert H., Shultz, Emily. Core Concepts in Cultural Anthropology.

Phil Butcher 2007

Conklin, Beth A. Consuming Grief.

University of Texas 2004

Kovats-Bernat, Chrisotpher J. “Negotiating Dangerous Fields: Pragmatic Strategies for Fieldwork Amid Violence and Terror”

Washington: American Anthropologist March 2002

Tsuda, Takeyuki. “Ethnicity and the Anthropologist: Negotiating Identities in the Field”

Washington: Anthropological Quarterly July 1998

Incongruity and Spirituality

A study by Bruner and Postman in 1949 published as "On the perception of incongruity: a paradigm" was interesting. Bruner and Postman asked experimental subjects to identify on short an controlled exposure a series of playing cards. Many of the cards where normal, but some where made anomalous,e.g., a red six of spades and a black four of hearts. Each experimental run constituted by the display of a single card to a single subject in a series of gradually increased exposures. After each exposure the subject was asked what he had seen, and the run was terminated by two successive correct identifications.

Even on the shortest exposures many subjects identified most of the cards, and after a small increase all the subjects identified them all. For the normal cards these identification where usually correct, but the anomalous cards were almost always identified, without apparent hesitation or puzzlement, as normal. The black four of hearts might, for example, be identified as the four of either spades or hearts. Without any awareness of trouble, it was immediately fitted to one of the conceptual categories prepared by prior experience. One would not even like to say that the subjects had seen something different from what they identified. With a further increase of exposure to the anomalous cards, subjects did begin to hesitate and to display awareness of anomaly. Exposed, for example, to the red six of spades, some would say: That's the size of spades, but there is something wrong with it - the black has a red border. Further increase of exposure resulted in still more hesitation and confusion until finally, and sometimes quite suddenly, most subjects would produce the correct identification without hesitation. Moreover, after doing this with two or three of the anomalous cards, they would have Little further difficulty with the others. A few subjects, however where never able to make the requisite adjustment of their categories. Even at forty times the average exposure required to recognize normal cards for what they where, more then 10 percent of the anomalous cards where not correctly identified. And the subjects who then failed often experienced acute personal distress. One of them exclaimed: "i cant make the suit out, whatever it is. It didn't even look like a card that time. I don't know what color it is now or whether its a spade or a heart. I'm not even sure what a spade looks like. My God!" Others expressed being acutely uncomfortable when shown the incongruous cards with experiences bordering on real pain.

Now here is analogous tie in. Many who grow up in the truth see only the metaphorical cards that fit their conceptual categories for much of their early life. Some isolate themselves sufficiently their entire life to avoid any "incongruous cards" all-together. But often in today's system the inundation of information that is anomalous or incongruous when placed against the truth its inevitable that exposure will happen. This may come in the form of exposure to information in seemingly innocuous ways such as higher education or more insidious ways as debased entertainment or literature formed with the soul intent to plug incongruous ideas, or ones that tear down individual spirituality. For most this information will be passed over when exposure is brief, and for a good number when when exposure is lengthened they will intuitively made adjustments to the perception of such anomaly's and make fitting categorizations of these observations so as to protect their faith. For some though this exposure to incongruous information, information that does not fit the conceptual categories they had formed in the truth, is debilitating. Like the test subject that exclaimed, "I'm not even sure what a spade looks like." many in a spiritual way have been so addled by the flood of incongruous non-spiritual information that they too have lost there ability to identify even seemingly basic truths; they have lost touch with the elementary spiritual principals. Also like the test subjects in the study they have experienced a real form of pain and acute discomfort and have then lashed out not only at their core beliefs but often those that where incongruous leaving them further lost and often spiritually and emotionally exhausted.

Just thought that was a interesting study, and incite-full when we encounter those that seem like they have lost bearings spiritually.
(Much of the study details quoted above where pulled word for word from Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.")