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Re: Defenders of the West
John McCreery (jlm@TWICS.COM)
Wed, 31 Jul 1996 09:23:56 +0900
[snip]
>> >>I am really glad you liked this, and impressed. Does he identify this them
>e
>> >>of Western uniqueness with multiculturalism? I think that would be a mista
>ke.
>> >>
>> >>Best wishes. R. Snower rs222@worldnet.att.net
>> >
>> >The reviewer sees Lewis as strongly opposed to current trends labeled
>> >"multiculturalism."
>>
>> >John McCreery
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -----
>> I am relieved to hear you say that. Multiculturalism denigrates individual
>> merit in favor of ethnic collectivism. Ethnic collectivism is the theme of
>> prehistoric culture, and we owe to it such survivals as racism, sexism,
>> statism, imperialism, as well as less noxious versions which perhaps are
>> more literal versions of the original.
>>
>> Best wishes. R. Snower rs222@world.att.net
>>
>
>Gentlemen, could you please expand on this? Are you impying homogeneity is
>preferable to heterogeneity?
>
>arthur baron
Speaking only for myself, heavens no! Let a thousand flowers bloom.
Communicating between them makes jobs for anthropologists and admen; I
happen to belong to both categories.
As should be clear from my remarks on religious variation, I do not at all
share Snower's enthusiasm for the evolutionist tale in which the primitive
horde gradually develops into a society of free individuals.
In reading Lewis' defense of the West, I am at this moment influenced by
some remarks of Pierre Bourdieu in _Invitation to Reflexive Sociology_,
where he notes that the canons of scientific rationality are historically
specific and require the existence of groups organized in certain ways and
are not less worth defending on that account! If someone emotionally
invested in (thanks Rosemary) "spirituality" or spiritismo deserves
respect for their views, so certainly does the scientist who has labored
hard to develop his own brand of cultural competence.
John McCreery
3-206 Mitsusawa HT, 25-2 Miyagaya, Nishi-ku
Yokohama 220, JAPAN
"And the Lord said unto Cyrus, 'Shall the clay say to him who moldest it,
what makest thou? Let the potsherd of the earth speak to the potsherd of
the earth." --An anthropologist's credo
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