|
|
Re: reply to Mizrach
Steve Mizrach (SEEKER1@NERVM.NERDC.UFL.EDU)
Sat, 24 Sep 1994 17:36:15 +0000
>(1) No one writing implied that all small scale societies degrade their
>environment.
And I didn't *say* so either (that they do or that anybody said they did)
> In fact, all of those pointing out that the noble, ecological,
>savage was a modern twist on an old myth did so the way any professional
>anthropologist would--with specific data on specific societies. There is
>nothing polemical about this procedure.
True, but the evaluative (as opposed to descriptive-etic) term "sick
societies" *is* polemical. This is what I was referring to.
>Just further specification of what we
>already know: the range of variation among human populations is too great for
>any single empirical generalization to fit all of them.
Indeed. Agreed.
>(2) Mizrach's point on the technological potential of large scale societies to
>implement their cultural premises in large scale disastrous ways echoes what
>several others have said and is well taken. Bateson had some very interesting
>things to say on this score--he is still well worth reading.
Yes. But then, I like what his daughter has to say too.
>(3) I doubt that elctronic media will ever result in faculty not teaching for
>two reasons. First, most faculty I know can't resist a captive audience
>appearing to hang on their every word.
The operative word being "appearing."
>Second, those most thoroughly engaged
>in research to which they are utterly committed need access to the classroom.
>This is the place where you are most likely to find out if your ideas hold
>water. This is because you are forced to make your ideas clear enough for
>students to comprehend and respond to. Second, once students comprehend your
>ideas, they are the ones most like to ask the naive questions that cut to
>the heart of the issue you are wrestling with. If you can't connect your
>theory to the most naive questions, then your theory is probably in need of
>repair or a long rest in the trash can.
*AGREED.* I am often the one with the "naive" questions from the back of
the room. But I would prefer the more precisely analytic term of "cutting
through all the B.S." as opposed to the less precise "naive."
>But you have to give the students
>enough background to understand the context of your own ideas. You prepare
>them to be discussants. In the process, of course, they learn a good deal
>about the issue under consideration. You can get naive questions from your
>colleagues, of course, but only from those colleagues who are adult enough to
>be too unselfconscious to care what their more self-conscious brethren
>think about their naivete.
Well put there, Mike.
> Mike lieber
=============================================================================
! Seeker1 [@Nervm.Nerdc.Ufl.Edu] (real info available on request) !
!----------------------------------------------------------------------------!
! CyberAnthropologist, TechnoCulturalist, Guerilla Ontologist, Chaotician !
! Discordian Society, Counter-Illuminati Operations Branch !
! "One measures a circle beginning anywhere." -- Charles Fort
!
=============================================================================
-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: 2.2
mQCPAi5EzS8AAAED/RXcR1tZKqST97Dvf9V9G6YhKqYaKHSe1DUIZbY8x3PEkHbw
iniyTG1Htwcquyc+zSyPs9DxF3I1ZiFBSkV/+O0ZajJv9HGBPg7ksZLe/2344/4p
y+HI8Er13fIA2Pd50tkxyD7411ZxfTQGkm6hvmjLZEPqiuDmwjW43Zo1Mhs9ABEB
AAG0K1N0ZXZlIE1penJhY2ggPFNFRUtFUjFATkVSVk0uTkVSREMuVUZMLkVEVT4=
=52cS
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
|