Re: Anthro's mission to the public...

Christopher J. Morgan (Christopher.Morgan@JCU.EDU.AU)
Thu, 16 Jun 1994 03:32:12 +1000

Mizrach said:

> We still have to fight the naive variant of cultural evolutionism
>which says that people who are pre-literate or pre-industrial are "savage,"
>"primitive," or "inferior," e.g. need to have their cultures wiped out and
>replaced by our own.
> I would say the most difficult mission of anthropology is to teach
>people cultural relativism.

Forgive me, but am I missing something here? Isn't there something quaintly
technocentric about such terminology as "pre-literate" or "pre-industrial"
(cf. Sir Hubert Wanker in my signatire quote). Doesn't the "pre" imply
exactly that which you would seem to wish to avoid?

Pedantically yours,
Maddog.

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