| Anthropologist? |
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More used to being the subject of anthropology. I was rather taken aback when a facebook friend said 'you're an anthropologist.
I'm more used to being the subject of questions such as - bring up the fair-skin people white, put them in an assimilationsist environment - will it work? Like if you wanna breed better cows you can mix in superior genes. Or like dogs, they need good breeding - plus training. (Civilising) How much is nature nurture?
So it felt a like an insult to be an called an anthropologist, and while people and culture is naturally a subject close to my heart, it was like you'd have to carry a shovel to get through the bullshit. And this is an essential. This is one of the things that transcends race and culture, education presents in the same way to anyone with personality.
Where the line between deepest principle and conformity? What a slow expensive way of learning. Australians tend to take folk as we find them, take the days as they unfold. The thought of going to university was distressing, liable to display how deeply entrenched belief is.
these superior people who look at culture and write about this. And use language so hideous it's hilarious. And assume a world-view that turns people into subjects. Into ideas.
However letting this pass by the mind, I came to accept the western thinking, at it's deepest, like in Justice, Law or good governance is pure, they are Arts in the same way maths and science can be.
One does not have to assimilate, give in, deny self, let go of your God given brain, autonomy, and free-will. In fact if you do just tout back facts and figures you're really no use- parrots can do that anyway.
That clicked for me in a couple of ways, through observation... One: How come people with brains like Enstein say "I'm dum - I dropped out of school at 15." and believe this to be true. Articulately present the evidence like a poet or a trained lawyer, work with ideas like a scientist, add up the numbers on the dart board faster than a calculting machine, and tell you how to save 2 bob in the process.
Two: Oh my God - try to avoid being a hypocrite - have no voice at all to avoid trouble - and that which you did not manifest is now absent from its place in the world. In fact I heard the name of that recently - it's what one famous theologian called the 'sin of ommision' I like the Santanas song "leave your light on" Matthew Fox
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