Re: WHITAKER'S LAWS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE
smaceach@polar.bowdoin.edu
Sun, 26 Jan 1997 11:41:37 -0600
bwhit@conterra.com wrote:
>
> It is alwayts the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, which means
> that no one who offends the most militantly Poltically Correct people on
> earth, the sociologists, goes nowhere in his academic career. Do you
> think people do not understand academic politics?
Ohhh, no, lots of people understand academic politics. I simply think
that _you_ don't. I've got the AAA Guide here, which you use to find
academic anthropologists in North America; it's organized by departments.
Between 2/3 and 3/4 of the university/college departments are independent
anthro departments (estimate -- I'm damned if I'm going to count them, you
go ahead); the rest are soc/anthro, anthro/soc and a whole bunch of weird
ones (marine biology??). The combined ones are pretty much all at small
places, with relatively low enrollments and fewer resources.
Doesn't really matter, though, as that's no evidence of one discipline
controlling the other. Tell ya what, Bobby ol' boy -- it's _extremely_
common to have Departments of Romance Languages in universities, too --
so in your opinion, does that mean that French controls Italian, or
Spanish controls Catalan, or what?
> You are claiming YOU are being scientific by using genetic
> terminology. But every conclusion is always Poltically Correct.
I think that that should be an indication to you that _your_
political philosophy may be obsolete. You've amply demonstrated that
you're not equipped to argue anthropological questions on evidentiary
grounds -- so you just dismiss them as politically correct. Cop-out.
> Well, at least you've dropped the scientifc pretense. You have simply
> stated taht your polical faith is the true faith.
Nope. I didn't sign anything when I got my Fudd that said that I couldn't
make ethical judgements on issues -- neither do any of the rest of us. And
anthropological examination of the race concept,anthropological examination
of gender roles in different societies, anthropolgical examination of
the variation in human culture that has helped these issues along a bit.
Good thing too. Anthropological research can't take all, or even much, of
the credit for that, but every bit helps, I guess.
If you'd wanted successes strictly within my sub-discipline, archaeology,
I would've talked about processualism and post-processualism, settlement
archaeology, ethnoarchaeology, the increase in gender studies, the
great extensions of lithic research, faunal analysis, style theories...
lots of other stuff over say the last 30 years. I'd let the cultural people
talk about their side of it. But I didn't want to lose you completely.
> What successes?
All of 'em, both those strictly within the discipline and those that have
resonances outside it.
Scott
__________________________
Scott MacEachern
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bowdoin College
Brunswick, ME 04011
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
|