Re: Obscurantism
Gil Hardwick (gil@landmark.iinet.net.au)
Thu, 11 May 1995 23:47:28 GMT
In article <3oock0$3cm7@sat.ipp-garching.mpg.de>, Bruce D. Scott (bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de) writes:
>please). In my view, it is better to say "people are people" (like the
>protest one often hears in soc.culture.native, "we are neither saints nor
>devils, just people"), and simply arrive at an understanding of how people
>organise themselves into societies without making value judgements about
>this or that particular example.
and then goes on to assert:
>Fazit: There is nothing wrong at all with refuting an avenue of study. But
>it is not acceptable to do it with unscientific means.
My question is, are we to see the same sort of fieldwork method from
Bruce Scott as we were accustomed to expect from Dr Rindos, who made
phone calls to Aboriginal outstations "gathering data" in refute of my
argument?
Are we to see the research you are carrying out in support of your
position, Bruce old chaps, done in <soc.culture.native>?
Tell me, since we discern an environmental bent to your ranting, is
the climate there sub-tropical perhaps? What do they live on, taro,
or maybe bananas?
Let's see your report, shall we?
If on the other hand you really do want me to reply to you, to accept
you arguments as a serious attempt at clarifying any differences of
opinion between, say, your already cited Marvin Harris and Marshall
Sahlins, would you care maybe to present some facts?
Marshall Sahlins made his name, BTW, with Stone Age Economics. I can
hardly see that their views differ so markedly as you assert, but
since you have refused to read the other theorists I had asked you to
address, perhaps you might read Sahlins' Culture and Practical Reason.
You would do very well indeed to take Bordieu and Foucault into your
account, but that's your prerogative.
Just don't keep on gathering your field data off the Internet, eh?
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