On An intro to this blog, Daniel Hunninghake states that a person’s identity can “face anonymity”, similarly to a culture dying out, if one cannot change or adapt with the changing environment (i.e. internet). It strikes me as odd, to think of my identity of becoming anonymous due, solely, to inadequacies of adapting to the “ebb and flow of the digital world”. As a person without a facebook, myspace, blog, or twitter page, I would like, to some degree, refute Hunninghake’s argument. On the one hand, I agree that the internet can help change or reshape a person’s identity. On the other hand, I do not agree that the internet can kill a person’s identity. To claim a person’s identity is anonymous is to claim that the person does not have metaphysical attributes that make them individual or different from the rest of the world. Take for example, the young “actor” in Numa Numa. Many years ago, that man established an identity for himself through a YouTube video. If he fell off the face of the “internet planet” and never again made another post, or video, he would still have an internet identity. How then, can a person lose their identity by not adapting? Is it realistic to relate a culture dying out or assimilating, to a person’s identity becoming anonymous?
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Can my Identity truly die out or "face anonymity"?
Monday, October 5, 2009
A return to ethnoscience?
Maybe I'm late in considering this idea, and it has already been proposed and refuted (a major fear of mine).... but wouldn't the new genetic evidence (genetic map of human migrations) and linguistic evidence (a more lucid picture of language change over time) provide the possibility for a new interpretation of the cultural taxonomies used in ethnoscience?
We can follow the migrations of people pretty closely using DNA, and it's helped a lot in illumining the lingual changes (and subsequent diffusion) following migrations of people. Is it radical to consider reviving cultural taxonomy in light of new studies in genetics and language? A loss of cachet does not always signify a worthless theory. Is ethnoscience firmly old hat and without tangible merit?
We can follow the migrations of people pretty closely using DNA, and it's helped a lot in illumining the lingual changes (and subsequent diffusion) following migrations of people. Is it radical to consider reviving cultural taxonomy in light of new studies in genetics and language? A loss of cachet does not always signify a worthless theory. Is ethnoscience firmly old hat and without tangible merit?
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Literary Deductions
The fallacy of "deduction" was brought home for me in a very real way, as I sat down to write a paper for one of my classes. The class is one I would place in the realm of humanities, although I suppose one could make an argument that it serves a more scientific purpose.
As usual, I began with a thesis. The thesis is often the toughest part of the essay, tough to define, to measure, to conceive. And yet once I have it, the muse has struck. I have my work lain out before me like a plate of dessert -- fresh, fulfilling, sensually palpable.
Then the backbreaking work begins. I have a few quotes in my head, to start, some of which are probably the root of the thesis itself. I commandeer slivers of others' thoughts and compressions of the primary source(s). I add them to the batter. In the end, I have a fresh, sweet batch of essay, with a few source-derived chips speckled here and there amid the great, fragrant composite, swirled, marbled, pinwheeled theory which is the brunt of the opus.
True, the work is "substantiated" by evidence -- the evidence I meticulously selected as if I were shopping for fruit in a market or harvesting blueberries. (I truly hope I'm not an outlier here!)
Now, is this process not deduction at its most appalling? What if I had taken the text itself, read it, categorized it, carefully measured every aspect of it, and from these chunks, _maybe_ tried to make some orderly sense of it? Preposterous, non? As preposterous as proving anthropology could manifest itself in poetry? Or that culture is an empirical science? -- both of which are quite true, according to some folks.
La grande théorie really is inescapable. I shall never view a thesis in quite the same way!
As usual, I began with a thesis. The thesis is often the toughest part of the essay, tough to define, to measure, to conceive. And yet once I have it, the muse has struck. I have my work lain out before me like a plate of dessert -- fresh, fulfilling, sensually palpable.
Then the backbreaking work begins. I have a few quotes in my head, to start, some of which are probably the root of the thesis itself. I commandeer slivers of others' thoughts and compressions of the primary source(s). I add them to the batter. In the end, I have a fresh, sweet batch of essay, with a few source-derived chips speckled here and there amid the great, fragrant composite, swirled, marbled, pinwheeled theory which is the brunt of the opus.
True, the work is "substantiated" by evidence -- the evidence I meticulously selected as if I were shopping for fruit in a market or harvesting blueberries. (I truly hope I'm not an outlier here!)
Now, is this process not deduction at its most appalling? What if I had taken the text itself, read it, categorized it, carefully measured every aspect of it, and from these chunks, _maybe_ tried to make some orderly sense of it? Preposterous, non? As preposterous as proving anthropology could manifest itself in poetry? Or that culture is an empirical science? -- both of which are quite true, according to some folks.
La grande théorie really is inescapable. I shall never view a thesis in quite the same way!
Saturday, September 19, 2009
What makes a meal a meal?
So I was wondering, what make a meal a meal? Is it the same for everyone? I mean, is there a structure to a meal that we all understand?
Personally I rarely eat dessert, at least not at home, yet I recognize that dessert is considered an expected part of a meal, at least at dinner. When I go to someone's house for dinner, or when I have people over, I expect to serve and be served dessert. Unless I go to my parents' house, where they also rarely eat dessert. Unless they have company or the meal is considered a "dinner" or dinner party or something like that.
So, in my family, we knowingly break a rule about the proper components of a specific meal (dinner), but only under certain circumstances (no other guests besides immediate family).
But, does the absence of dessert at my parents' house say something deeper about the nature of our relationship? I mean, since I grew up not eating dessert at home, I don't notice it so much, but there are other things that my mom does wrt breaking the rules of what counts as a meal. Does that mean she'd just rather have a "drinks-only" kind of relationship with her kids?
Oh, man -- have the psychoanalysts discovered Mary Douglas yet?!
Personally I rarely eat dessert, at least not at home, yet I recognize that dessert is considered an expected part of a meal, at least at dinner. When I go to someone's house for dinner, or when I have people over, I expect to serve and be served dessert. Unless I go to my parents' house, where they also rarely eat dessert. Unless they have company or the meal is considered a "dinner" or dinner party or something like that.
So, in my family, we knowingly break a rule about the proper components of a specific meal (dinner), but only under certain circumstances (no other guests besides immediate family).
But, does the absence of dessert at my parents' house say something deeper about the nature of our relationship? I mean, since I grew up not eating dessert at home, I don't notice it so much, but there are other things that my mom does wrt breaking the rules of what counts as a meal. Does that mean she'd just rather have a "drinks-only" kind of relationship with her kids?
Oh, man -- have the psychoanalysts discovered Mary Douglas yet?!
Thursday, September 17, 2009
new project
come check out a project that Daniel Hunninghake is working on (with me). he is exploring the ways that identity construction is mediated by, well, media. social media, that is.
here's a link to his blog, where you will also find links to the twitter feed and facebook fan page.
here's a link to his blog, where you will also find links to the twitter feed and facebook fan page.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Sapir vs. Benedict
Does linguistic relativism shape psychology writ large?
First things first: Please refute this post. I'm not an expert, so feel free to share/respond.
I wanted to offer some linguist evidence. I tend to want to relate culture to linguistics, and I noticed a few interesting lingual elements of the specific cultures Benedict cites. I'm emphasizing both linguistic determinism and also relatively long and distinct histories (vis-a-vis Boas) of the cultures Benedict describes.
--
The Kwakiutl are a well-established subset of the Amerind language family (If you're not familiar with the broad distinctions between American languages, the three major language families -- Amerind, Na-Dene, and Eskimo-Aleut, respectively -- all represent major migrations into the Americas across the Bering Strait, thousands of years apart from one another). See page 379 of Language in the Americas.
Zuni, however, is presently reckoned a language isolate (see ethnologue) and was intensely studied by Edward Sapir. Greenberg includes Zuni in the Amerind family (like Kwakiutl), under the "Penutian" tree, and I generally tend to agree with him (they use the characteristic n-/m- pronouns). That said, the two languages (Kwakiutl and Zuni) have quite visible differences.
Another interesting aspect of the Southwest area is that it houses both Amerind families and Na-Dene families. The Navajo (who live in vicinity to the Zuni) come from a language family much newer to the Americas than do the Zuni. Arguably these later migrations (including the one which brought the Navajo) carried with them an influx of new cultural traits. The marked differences between cultures within the Southwest area may have much deeper roots than Benedict could have envisioned -- roots that extend into Siberia and beyond. In addition, the profound differences in the Zuni language which led Sapir to go so far as calling it an isolate (not related to _any_ other language) suggest a very long occupation in the Southwest and rather older culture (areally, at least).
The differences between these cultures' "personalities" are probably partly a result of rather different histories.... not just individual personality particulars and cultural reinforcement. And what is more, the great differences in the languages doubtless influence the "personae" of the culture. A stigma, positive or negative, is attached to a word by a culture and influences the "deviant"/normative status of the aspect of culture which it describes.
Look at the word "cataleptic" contrasted with "touched by God" -- the respective negative/positive language stigmas are obvious here and, indeed, alter our own ideas of the "signified" concept which these words describe (regardless that these words actually describe precisely the same thing).
"gross indecency" (the criminal charge which designated homosexuality) vs. "GLBT"
Etc.
A slight change in terminology has a profound effect on perceived deviance! Imagine the vast differences in culture entirely special lexica could facilitate. So... 'personality writ large' or linguistic determinism? Or both?
First things first: Please refute this post. I'm not an expert, so feel free to share/respond.
I wanted to offer some linguist evidence. I tend to want to relate culture to linguistics, and I noticed a few interesting lingual elements of the specific cultures Benedict cites. I'm emphasizing both linguistic determinism and also relatively long and distinct histories (vis-a-vis Boas) of the cultures Benedict describes.
--
The Kwakiutl are a well-established subset of the Amerind language family (If you're not familiar with the broad distinctions between American languages, the three major language families -- Amerind, Na-Dene, and Eskimo-Aleut, respectively -- all represent major migrations into the Americas across the Bering Strait, thousands of years apart from one another). See page 379 of Language in the Americas.
Zuni, however, is presently reckoned a language isolate (see ethnologue) and was intensely studied by Edward Sapir. Greenberg includes Zuni in the Amerind family (like Kwakiutl), under the "Penutian" tree, and I generally tend to agree with him (they use the characteristic n-/m- pronouns). That said, the two languages (Kwakiutl and Zuni) have quite visible differences.
Another interesting aspect of the Southwest area is that it houses both Amerind families and Na-Dene families. The Navajo (who live in vicinity to the Zuni) come from a language family much newer to the Americas than do the Zuni. Arguably these later migrations (including the one which brought the Navajo) carried with them an influx of new cultural traits. The marked differences between cultures within the Southwest area may have much deeper roots than Benedict could have envisioned -- roots that extend into Siberia and beyond. In addition, the profound differences in the Zuni language which led Sapir to go so far as calling it an isolate (not related to _any_ other language) suggest a very long occupation in the Southwest and rather older culture (areally, at least).
The differences between these cultures' "personalities" are probably partly a result of rather different histories.... not just individual personality particulars and cultural reinforcement. And what is more, the great differences in the languages doubtless influence the "personae" of the culture. A stigma, positive or negative, is attached to a word by a culture and influences the "deviant"/normative status of the aspect of culture which it describes.
Look at the word "cataleptic" contrasted with "touched by God" -- the respective negative/positive language stigmas are obvious here and, indeed, alter our own ideas of the "signified" concept which these words describe (regardless that these words actually describe precisely the same thing).
"gross indecency" (the criminal charge which designated homosexuality) vs. "GLBT"
Etc.
A slight change in terminology has a profound effect on perceived deviance! Imagine the vast differences in culture entirely special lexica could facilitate. So... 'personality writ large' or linguistic determinism? Or both?
Sunday, September 13, 2009
interesting book about Mead & Benedict
I haven't read this book yet, but it has been highly recommended by friends:
http://www.amazon.com/Intertwined-Lives-Margaret-Benedict-Circle/dp/0679776125/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252901069&sr=8-1
I have it, if anyone has spare time and wants to check it out. The book describes Mead's and Benedict's childhoods, marriages, and also (especially) their intimate relationship with one another (they were lovers).
If you're planning a report on Mead or Benedict, you should probably holler.
Emma
http://www.amazon.com/Intertwined-Lives-Margaret-Benedict-Circle/dp/0679776125/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252901069&sr=8-1
I have it, if anyone has spare time and wants to check it out. The book describes Mead's and Benedict's childhoods, marriages, and also (especially) their intimate relationship with one another (they were lovers).
If you're planning a report on Mead or Benedict, you should probably holler.
Emma
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