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Re: Race, Science, & Political Correctness
Bob Whitaker (bwhit@conterra.com)
Sat, 30 Nov 1996 12:01:05 -0500
Phil Nicholls wrote:
>
> Bob Whitaker <bwhit@conterra.com> wrote:
>
> > As I keep repeating, you are saying that the fact that Scientific
> >Antropoly at any moment is ALWAYS politically correct just happens to be
> >one of the great happy perfect coincidences of human history. I think
> >that's absurd.
>
> Well, Bob, the fact that you continue to repeat something does not
> make it more true. You seem to regard any kind of critique of
> western culture as "political correctness, " rather than the more
> narrow usage of that term popularized by D'Souza and others.
>
> Scientific Anthropology is always engaged in cultural critique because
> that is one of the two things it is supposed to do.
"Cultural critique", my ass!
You're trying to get his back into the cliches you're used to. I didn't
say a damned thing about "cultural critique". I said the whore
"anthropology" goes along with absolutely anything the establishment
wants to believe about race, when the establishment wants to believe it.
>
> > As I keep repeating, Franz Boas went from a bit a joke to
> >anthropologists in 1939 to The Only True Anthropologist in 1945. By a
> >happy coincidence, there was a war in that period, which made the Boas
> >conclusion de rigeur if Scientific Anthropology was to reamin
> >Politically Correct.
>
> Again, repetition does not improve truth content.
>
> Franz Boas established the first department of anthropology in the
> America in 1888. In 1892 he was the chief assistant in anthropology
> at the Chicago Exposition. The Field Museum in Chicago grew out of
> that exposition. Between 1901 and 1905 he was curator of
> anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History. In 1910 he
> established the Internation School of Amercian Archaeology and
> Ethnology. By 1936 he had retired and he died in 1942.
>
> By 1945 American Anthropology had moved well beyond Boas. Boas shaped
> the early years of anthopology in this country. At no time was he
> regarded as a joke nor was he every regarded as the ONLY
> anthropologists. By 1945 Alfred Kroeber, Robert H. Lowie, Edward
> Sapir, Ruth Benedict, Ralph Linton and Leslie White AND MANY OTHERS
> had all made their marks on American anthropology with ideas very
> different from those of Boas.
The pressure hadn't been put on yet. I knew Carleton Coon and his
descriptions of your Polticial Correctness in action were most
enlightening.
>
> > By a wild coincidence, that was the VERY period when Science marched on
> >and made Boas scientific Truth.
> > What utter crap.
> > Anthropology gives the side it's paid to give.
>
> Utter crap is a rather good explanation of your revisionist approach
> to the history of anthropology. Since you can't even get the
> chronology straight, why do you think anyone should accept your
> treatment of ideas, even if you "keep repeating" them.
>
> Phil Nicholls
> pnich@digiworldinc.com
> "To ask a question, you must first know
> most of the answer." Robert Sheckley
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