Message-ID: <9605248356.AA835660054@hudsmtphq.hud.gov> Date: Mon, 24 Jun 1996 16:47:34 EST From: Michael Patterson <mailto:Michael_O._Patterson@HUD.GOV> Subject: Re: New Directions in Anthropology To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
Speaking as a person with a degree in Anthropology, I find it fascinating that the writer uses so many negatives. If I tell my daughter "don't you dare eat that delicious ice cream, or put maple syrup or strawberries on it..." what does she hear? The image of ice cream. And she'll act on that image, the negation is lost.If you seriously want a Wittenberg thesis, you must come up with a positive alternative for the negative stuff, something so fascinating that people will forget all the petty non-uses, something that really touches the heart, something so attractive that people abandon all their foolishness for something much bigger than themselves... Sales metaphors speaking to the emotions and heart work much better than "J'Accuse!" methods. Part of the price is giving up one's self-righteousness, which is just so very difficult...
By way, Martin Luther originally did up his theses to discuss w/friends, he had no intention of spreading them, his buddies, in a sort of analog internet, printed them up and shared them with friends till they spread all over Europe...
Coyote... an interesting choice. "Coyote learning", to Native peoples of the Southwest, is precisely what Wile E. Coyote goes through with the Roadrunner, repeated hard knocks in the school of hard experience.
And, lest you think me not practicing what I preach, I put together a handbook on "soft skills" community building, which is better than anything else I can find in the field, to support my work, using all that Anthro background. I'm not the only one, I have 2-3 other manuals on related areas, put together similarly, by people who want to make a difference. You have all that anthropological skill, what is it that makes a community so healthy it can resist societal disease? Then, how can we spread those ideas? Now that would be a subject that would interest me. Systems theory and Chaos theory offer some really neat paradigms. How much fun could you have writing something really simple, and profound, that would accomplish the changes you wish to see?
Your sentiment is good. However, it is also a footprint in the sands of the beach. Well formed, it will shortly be blurred by the waves of circumstance, and soon disappear. To quote Mahatma Ghandi, you must become the change you wish to see if you wish to change the world. Merlin said the most important quality of a Knight of the Round Table was truth, and that all truth came from the heart. What universal truths can you offer, to support the changes you wish to see?
Ho! Mitakuye Oyasin!
Like the thesis of Wittenberg,
nail these to the doors...
ANTHROPOLOGY CAN NO LONGER BE DEFINED BY RACIST AND SEXIST INSTITUTIONS, NOR THOSE INSTITUTIONS WHICH PARTICIPATE IN THE PHYSICAL AND CULTURAL GENOCIDE OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES.
ANTHROPOLOGY MUST AID THOSE WHO RISE AGAINST THEIR PHYSICAL AND CULTURAL GENOCIDE.
ANTHROPOLOGY MUST CEASE TO WHORE ITSELF TO THOSE WHO COMMIT SYSTEMATIC MURDER AGAINST INDIGENOUS PEOPLES, OR APPEASE THOSE WHO LOOT AND SELL THEIR PEOPLES TO "DEVELOPMENT."
ANTHROPOLOGY MUST CEASE TO PROVIDE "POLITICALLY CORRECT" FACADES FOR CORPORATE LOOTING, ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION, AND MURDER.
ANTHROPOLOGY MUST CEASE ITS BLINDNESS AND OBJECTIFICATION OF POVERTY, TRANSPORTATION OF PEOPLES, AND CULTURAL DESTRUCTION.
ANTHROPOLOGY MUST LIBERATE ITSELF FROM THOSE WHO WOULD SELL IT TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER, LICENSE ITS MEMBERS LIKE AN "APPROVED" AND ACQUIESCENT MOB, AND THOSE WHO SEEK TO SILENCE ITS VOICES OF REVOLT.
COYOTE