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Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman  

April 2013

Anthropology Wars Affect Us All.

Anthropology Wars Affect Us All.

Humans have always been curious about the customs of others, as first systematically applied by the ancient Greek historian, Herodotus, who traveled the ancient world observing its varied cultures. It is obvious that human cultures differ. We are not just the product of natural instinct; rather, we make survival decisions based on our geography, experience with our neighbors, responses to dangers, and the luck of bad or good leadership.

In the 17th century, as Europeans (English, Spanish, Portuguese) were acquiring empires around the globe, imperial officials needed to understand the nature of the peoples they had conquered. This was at a time of the European Enlightenment, educated elites promoting scientific method. It was also in the interest of religious missionaries to spread their faiths to remote areas of the world. The disciplines for studying mankind branched out from history, geography, and theology into a new science, Anthropology, specifically designed to study “primitive” cultures.

For the next few centuries, scholars explored whether the entirety of human cultural evolution could be understood by studying primitive (e.g. simple) societies. Do all societies go through the same trajectory of social evolution, just as they had through physical evolution? Is it lack of contact with the outside world that traps “primitive” people in an unchanging culture?

Scientific curiosity is not the only reason for studying anthropology. There was also the need to justify colonialism by those claiming they were spreading their “enlightened” culture to the “primitives.” In response to this cultural imperialism (as it was called), came new anthropologists after World War II who made every effort to study primitive cultures without judging them.

The most horrific practices were simply excused as arising out of “survival value.” It is here that anthropology spills over into political science and history and becomes the father of the “politically correct.” It also returns to one of earliest issues among both scholars and theologians: is man born evil, in need of divine guidance, or is man born good, only to be turned evil by an evil society?

Most human religions are based on the former view, whereas Marxists and anarchists believe the latter. Some like myself have difficulty with both views. We think instead that human babies are born with personal attributes, all with survival value under certain circumstances, and which attributes are encouraged depend upon the society in which they are reared.

The latest dispute among anthropologists is important even to those of us who are not anthropologists. It has to do with how we should regard cultures with some truly horrific qualities.

Professor Emeritus Napolean Chagnon’s book: Noble Savages: My Life Among Two Dangerous Tribes—the Yanomamö and the Anthropologists, describes an isolated and warlike tribe in the Amazon jungles, among whom he lived (in great danger), and his bitter battles with the anthropological establishment which has attacked his work as “racist.” Is it amiss to describe a culture as violent due to its environment and do the most violent men have the most progeny? Or must anthropologists avoid any judgment lest they appear to be western imperialists? The latter philosophy has permeated current academic (and political) life throughout the western world.

For example, anthropologists once thought that Mayans were gentle stargazers who were destroyed by the wicked Spanish. We now know that Mayans self-destructed in civil violence. Did the scholars only see what they wanted to see, not as things were?

Today throughout many public high school and university history, sociology, and anthropology classes, students are taught that the most evil societies are those of the West, and that those of the “developing” world are given a pass despite their religious bigotry and violence, including endemic violence against women. All such terrible customs are blamed on their “colonial experiences” (the “colonial” being European). Even people on the far left, who should be supporting the equality of women, religious tolerance, and multiculturalism, avoid criticizing third world horrors (Muslim world and India) lest they appear to be western imperialists.

I will stand with Napolean Chagnon on this one. The Yanamamo are not noble savages and anthropologists need to clean house.

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Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman is a historian, lecturer, and author of Ten Inventions that Changed Everything. You may contact her at Lfarhat102@aol.com or www.globalthink.net.

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