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Re: Build Your Own Best-Seller [was work (markets)]
John McCreery (jlm@TWICS.COM)
Wed, 2 Oct 1996 08:20:17 +0900
>Of course he's not officially an anthropologist, but still Jonathon Kozol has
>been doing this in his own way for a long time, very eloquently and
>passionately. And in the end, as he himself points out, it has made little or
>no difference in terms of the structural violence committed by "our" society.
>I'm not saying that we shouldn't try- I believe very strongly that we have to-
>I'm not very optimistic about the likely results, tho.
>
>Ron Kephart
>Univ. of North Florida
I'm glad Ron included that "I believe strongly that we have to [try]."
Besides Kozol, I would recommend psychologist Robert Coles, whose books on
children are among the best ethnography of American society we have.
Kozol is an interesting case. His books have sold well and, better yet, are
likely to remain of more than merely historic significance for a long time.
He himself has achieved considerable fame. He is bitter and disillusioned.
Why? He hoped that his books would change the world. In his eyes, they have
not. I think that perhaps they have, in small but continuing and very
significant ways. I imagine that there are hundreds, perhaps even thousands
of people who have read them (or read about them) and been moved do make a
contribution, participate in volunteer activities, hold out a helping hand.
They haven't changed "the system"; they may have saved a life.
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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