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Re: Naive question
Fcattus (fcattus@aol.com)
20 Dec 1996 06:27:19 GMT
The idea of "etic analysis" arose in response to what some (many?) saw as
a growing dominance of a "one side is enough" philosophy; idealists were
giving lip-service to complete descriptions and analyses but in practice
ignoring nonideational or ideal "stuff." (Idealisim is not used here to
mean what it usually means!!) Materialists may sometimes go to the
opposite extreme, but they are far outnumbered by people in the profession
who believe (or act?!) as if myth, belief, etc. are the only things truly
important to study. As another person just wrote, it depends on what
questions are being asked--but some folks seem to think the only
worthwhile questions are about ideas and ideals ..... I'd submit (and
probably be considered flame-trolling!) that the minority who focus on
etic analyses are more attuned to the interesting nature of emics TOO than
are most of the "emicists" interested at all in etics (Lousy syntax--but
is this clear??). I mean, too many emics types really ignore and disparage
etics. Why a dualism growing out of vulgar materialism and its embrace of
non-dialectical, Hegel-less materialism? Ask your neighborhood Marxist, I
think!!
--John
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