Re: Race, Science, & Political Correctness

gkeyes6988@aol.com
25 Nov 1996 19:43:45 GMT

Ron Kephart wrote <snip>

Bob Whitaker returns with:

> 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.

Is this really supposed to make sense?

> As I keep repeating, Franz Boas went from a bit a joke to
>anthropologists in 1939 to The Only True Anthropologist in 1945.

This only shows that you know zero about the history of anthropological
theory.

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.

Giving you this puerile assertion for just one second, are you suggesting
that before WW II, Politically Correct meant supporting racist ideology
with totalizing theories of race and rigid typologies? If so, explain why
this older Political Correctness -- one which biologically justified the
separation of "races" and their unequal treatment -- was more "objective"
than the current Political Correctness.

> By a wild coincidence, that was the VERY period when Science
>marched on
>and made Boas scientific Truth.

Anthropology's move away from the concept of race didn't come from Boaz --
anthropologists were still earnestly constructing race typologies with a
will in the 50's and 60's. It was really the multivariate analysis of
researchers like Lewontine (not even an anthropologist) which started
hammering the real nails into that coffin.

> What utter crap.
> Anthropology gives the side it's paid to give.

There are plenty of people like you with plenty of money and a will to
spend it for the "White" race. Why can't they entice us into saying what
they want? Hell, make me an offer. It shouldn't be hard to pay me more
than I make teaching anthropology, and the job market after grad school
looks pretty brutal. Given "our" merecenary predisposition, it should be
no problem domesticating one of "us".

--Greg Keyes