Harris
Bruce D. Scott (bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de)
8 May 1995 11:07:37 GMT
[Posting only to sci.anthropology -- this has nothing to do with cosmology]
Gil Hardwick (gil@landmark.iinet.net.au) wrote:
: In article <3od1e8$12om@sat.ipp-garching.mpg.de>, Bruce D. Scott (bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de) writes:
: >Ob this thread: I would be quite interested, actually, to see some serious
: >anthropologists give comment. So far it has just been the jealous ranting
: >club of what Marvin Harris calls the "obscurantists" (although I do confess
: >I got into it initially to bask in the afterglow of Gil's enlighted
: >offerings).
: Marvin Harris? Do you actually mean the paperback writer after the
: fashion of Von Daniken and Wilson? Please any "serious anthropologist"
: do give comment. Welcome indeed.
Please give the series of arguments by which you denigrate Wilson and
Harris in this fashion. I hope you don't make the mistake of claiming
Harris defends the status quo. He most certainly does not, as several
passages in _Cultural Materialism_ and _America Now_ make clear. As a
non-anthropologist, _I_ know Harris mainly through his books, but are you
as an anthropologist actually claiming he hasn't written several texts and
a large number of articles in peer-reviewed journals?
What is your critique of the emics/etics distinction raised by Harris?
Do you think environmental constraints are important in limiting the
freedom of action of a culture deciding, consciously or otherwise, what its
power structure is going to be?
This is enough for a start.
--
Gruss,
Dr Bruce Scott The deadliest bullshit is
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik odorless and transparent
bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de -- W Gibson
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