Most American Anthropologists = CIA Hacks

[robertdreed]

I've held the opinion that making false, misleading, hyperbolic, or extravagant advertising claims should be a criminal offense since I was about 10 years old. <p></p><i></i>

[banned]

Yes, I remember wondering when I saw they were called the Clio's what that had to do with the Muse of History.<br><br>I was a history major and believe history is the mother of all other disciplines, and while it's possible to be a technician of one sort or another I don't believe someone can be considered truly educated if they are not familiar with history.<br><br>Talk about traditional values going into the woodchipper--on my last job most of my coworkers were half my age. Most had majored in business. One day when I said I had majored in history, one of the kids, a 23 year old guy, said "History...isn't that just the past?"<br><br>To the credit of the other young people there, they all laughed as hard as I did, and he never lived it down. But unfortunately, that seems to be a trait, not just of the young, but of Americans in general these days. We as a nation think we can just pile in the old SUV or the old tank and tool into some country, any country, and purport to tell them how to run their society. It doesn't matter that most of us can't find it on a map, or give even a vague account of its history, or its current political/socioeconomic/cultural scene. No, we've got good old American know how and we'll fix these folks up if they just listen, and of course if they don't listen we kill them hoping that'll learn the rest of 'em to listen but it doesn't. At no point do we try to understand where they came from to understand where they are now. Hellshit, we don't even do that for our own history!<br><br>Re: Mass marketing, glub to the third power: For some reason makes me think of the Ferlinghetti poem:<br><br>"Oh the world is a beautiful place<br>to be born into<br>if you don't much mind<br>a few dead minds<br>in the higher places<br>or a bomb or two<br>now and then<br>in your upturned faces<br>or such other improprieties<br>as our Name Brand society<br>is prey to<br>with its men of distinction<br>and its men of extinction<br>and its priests<br>and other patrolmen" <p></p><i></i>

[robertdreed]

"We as a nation think we can just pile in the old SUV or the old tank and tool into some country, any country, and purport to tell them how to run their society. It doesn't matter that most of us can't find it on a map, or give even a vague account of its history, or its current political/socioeconomic/cultural scene. No, we've got good old American know how and we'll fix these folks up if they just listen, and of course if they don't listen we kill them hoping that'll learn the rest of 'em to listen but it doesn't. At no point do we try to understand where they came from to understand where they are now."<br><br>That bespeaks a scoffing ignorance of anthropology, as well.<br><br>In fact, I find it unfortunate that it's possible to be very well-versed and credentialed in history, while remaining ignorant of anthropological insights. That's what I detect in the neocon Bush crowd- some of them may know history, but they've reduced it to a game of Risk. It's all about what Leaders do with their power. War is an abstraction to them, instead of being considered as a sustained atrocity, by definition. <br><br>Therefore, to them the critical factor in their decisions is that they control the mightiest military machine to ever exist on the planet. <br><br>Yet they can't even control the road between the military base and the airport in Baghdad. And while they have the power to level the place, that will render much of the imperial plunder unavailable. Iraq will never work without Iraqis. The locals run it. <br><br>For that matter, nuking Mecca won't "stop terrorism." <br><br>As for this binding arbitration they're attempting to force on the various Iraqi factions...that's simply more of what you've already said. American hubris. <br><br>Among other things, the architects of this policy don't seem to have any awareness of the "powers of the weak" in resistance. If enough of the Iraqi people- regardless of their faction- coalesce in solidarity around a loathing of the occupiers, they have cards they haven't even begun to play. I don't even want to get specific. I posted about those latent capabilities before the war began, but now I don't want to appear to be giving anyone ideas. But if you think about it yourself for a while...<br><br>Jon Lee Anderson quoted one of his Iraqi sources delivering an explict warning in one of the articles he wrote in the New Yorker before the war: the Iraqis might not mind the US invading and getting rid of Saddam, but they detest foreign occupiers.<br><br>And- as history illustrates- they have a lot of experience in dealing with them. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 10/15/05 7:02 pm<br></i>

[banned]

....yes, sometimes they use 'history' as shorthand for a reductionist geopolitical view. <br><br>I take an expansive view of history, it's not just a listing of dates and battles. My major was cultural and intellectual history so I took everything from History of Science to art history to anthropology. I was really interested in the joint Ph.D. program at U of Michigan in history and anthropology but at the point where I started thinking of moving back there to get residency and applying (part of my family's from MI and I lived there myself in 198<!--EZCODE EMOTICON START 8) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/glasses.gif ALT="8)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> I got really sick and broke and defaulted on my student loans, so I'm not going to be going to grad school. :/ Which is OK, I've always been an autodidact, and at this point am too old to hope for a teaching job once I got out. <p></p><i></i>

[Homeless Halo]

Banned: U M ?<br>(I'm there now)<br><br>I find it amusing the think of my bicycle riding, well tanned, holistic, hippie, pot smoking, anthro teachers as being secret spies for the CIA. Fascinating. I wonder if they know he spends his CIA pay on the "excess" from the "botany lab". (Genetically modified super marijuana is what the teachers at U M smoke today, or so I hear...<!--EZCODE EMOTICON START ;) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif ALT=";)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> )<br><br>I know that U M has a long history of association with the intelligence community and that a disproportionate amount of their think tankers come from our non-linear studies laboratories (the best place to meet geek girls).<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[robertdreed]

Academia is obviously necessary, but it doesn't hold me in its thrall.<br><br>I don't like what's been done with the values of the institutions. Too much paper chase, too much gradgrind, too much careerism. Ego trips. It can really narrow people who ought to be keeping their minds more intellectually omnivorous. <br><br>It didn't used to cost so much time and money to get credentialed for a teaching job or professorship, and it didn't used to be so cutthroat in terms of competition for liberal arts teaching jobs. Mendacity, glad-handing, cliqueism, ass-kissing are to some extent inevitable in any field of professional advancement- but they don't have to be enshrined as virtues, or necessities. I don't want to indict entire disciplines, but at too many schools, that's corrupted entire departments. <br><br>Then, there's the orthodoxy problem- although once one considers the shoddy scholarship and the unlettered hucksterism out there, you'll thank your lucky stars for academia, which at least requires some rigor, peer review, and availability to criticism and refutation. <br><br>Banned, it sounds to me as if you actually had a pretty well-rounded curriculum set up for yourself. UM has quite a good reputation in Anthro, for what that's worth... <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 10/15/05 6:57 pm<br></i>

[Iroquois]

What, no credit for turn of the century archaeologists with developing the techniques of aerial photography? I thought that was how the marriage got started.<br><br>Anyway, the impression I got from one of my Anthro profs at UofM (hey banned & HH) in the early 90's was that the problem was not nearly as bad as back in the Mauser Broomhandle and bullwhip days of the first two WW's. Still, he did feel it was enough of an issue to warn students against involvement with intelligence agencies as it puts real anthropologists at risk.<br><br>I'm sure the same gets said to journalism students, or at least should be. I have to imagine there's more agents in that field or in the chemical and oil industries where the focus of the cover work is more in line with typical intelligence activity: current conflicts, critical industries, and natural resources. Though, I wonder if agent/anthropologists are frequently involved in the less typical intelligence activities. My grades, apparently, weren't high enough to find out first hand. <p></p><i></i>

[banned]

...for the 'gradgrind' anyway, rdr. <br><br>I did get an excellent education--took me 9 years, worked my way through at one small undistinguished liberal arts school and two state schools. I started out majoring in zoology but stalled on chemistry and trig, so I switched to my first love since junior high, history. Major field 19th-20th C. European cultural and intellectual history, minors in Near Eastern studies and zoology, 2 studio courses and a seminar short of a second major in art history, electives ranging from astronomy to psychology, fit in acting and creative writing plus the studio art courses, added French and German to the four years of Latin I had in high school. I worked on the student newspaper and co-founded a literary mag for extracurriculars, plus working part time during the year and full time summers and during several stop outs to amass more dough.<br><br>With all that highfalutin' edjermacation, a magna cum laude degree, recommendations from the history and art department chairmen, and a Danforth Fellowship nomination, in 1977 Clevo I ended up working for $2.69 an hour in the Admitting Department of the same hospital where I'd emptied bedpans to pay for college, to keep a roof over my head. Took me almost a full year to find a 'real' job as an editorial assistant in a university at the princely sum of 9 grand a year. My boss made over twice what I did, I did all the work, he got all the credit, and I was referred to as his 'girl.' When I complained, the Dean said "You're too smart for this job" but never suggested a raise or a different job. When I left it took 3 people at $11K each to replace me. If they'd offered me $33K, I'd have stayed. <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :lol --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/laugh.gif ALT=":lol"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <p></p><i></i>