culture X is “better than” culture Y without specifying “better at what?” Some cultures are certainly larger than others, and some cultures are certainly better at hunting or making war than others. As long as the standards of comparison are stated (and perhaps it is also explained why those particular standardswere selected) comparisons may of course be made. In fact, recall that the first part of the anthropological perspective was “comparative” study. We can compare two or more cultures on any variable without making value judgments about them.
2
2.. AAnntthhrrooppoollooggyy sshhoowwss uuss wwhhaatt hhuummaann bbeeiinnggss rreeaallllyy aarree. All of the social sciences and humanities have one aim: to know humanity. However, almost all efforts to
“know humans” before anthropology suffered from one fatal flaw: they took only one type of human – the researcher’s own type – as typical. The only meaningful way to study a subject is to study the rangeof the subject. If the subject is human beings, then the only way to study them is to study them in all their diversity, physically and culturally. All of the diverse ways of being human are ways of being human. One’s own way is not the only way, certainly not the natural way, not even the “best” way, since “best” is a judgment – and one that not all people share.
The other flaw that has limited previous attempts to know humanity is the lack of awareness or concern for the “learning” or developmental aspect of human know- ledge and behavior. Too many intelligent scholars of humanity have assumed, or written as if they assumed, that human individuals essentially invent their own realities independently or abruptly turn into spontaneous philosophers on their eighteenth birthday, after an irrelevant childhood. However, humans become humans very gradually and not at all independently, and the kinds of humans they ultimately become vary enormously. Only a view of humanity that emphasizes enculturation and cross-cultural comparison can grasp the true extent of human nature.
3
3.. WWee aallll lliivvee ““aanntthhrrooppoollooggiiccaall”” lliivveess,, wwhheetthheerr wwee kknnooww iitt oorr wwaanntt iitt oorr nnoott. Most people reading this book or taking an anthropology course will not go on to become professional anthropologists. Most students who take psychology or history courses do not become professional psychologists or historians either. But all of us living in the world today are and will be amateur anthropologists – every day, whether we like it or not, whether we know it or not. We can simply no longer assume that we will spend our lives in the company of people who think and feel and value and behave like we do. We will be neighbors, co-workers, friends, perhaps even spouses, but certainly co-inhabitants of the world, with people who are very different from morality of coercive interrogation and torture is not one we can or want to open here, but a question we can open is its effectiveness. An “anthropological” lesson was learned in 1943, when Marine Major Sherwood Moran wrote a report on his remarkably successful technique of interrogating the charac- teristically difficult-to-interrogate Japanese prisoners of war. He determined that coercion and torture, including indignities and intimidations, do not produce useful information. His alternate approach had two prongs. The first was to redefine the situation – to consider the subject, and to get the subject to consider himself, “as out of the war, out of the picture, and thus, in a way, not an enemy” (quoted in Budiansky 2005: 34). The second was to know the subject’s culture and language, not just super- ficially but deeply. “If you know anything about [their] history, art, politics, athletics, famous places, department stores, eating places, etc. a conversation may be relatively interminable” (35). Technical/
military knowledge was less important than familiarity with “idiomatic phrases and cultural references”
which establish a rapport and social relationship – which demonstrate that the interrogator really knows them and wants to know more.
See Chapter 5
us – who speak a different language, follow a different religion, have a different ancestry, belong to a different race, hold a different political view, and so on. We cannot eliminate this diversity, and we cannot condemn it, since that would encour- age them to condemn us too. We have no choice but to accept it, appreciate it, and perhaps even enjoy it. This is not merely a matter of “foreigners” or people from obviously different countries and cultures than one’s own. Americans cannot assume that all other Americans think and feel exactly as they do. Modern multicultural societies like the U.S.A. or the U.K. are too large and complex to expect everyone to have the same views, the same tastes, and the same understandings. Every encounter with another human being is (or has the potential to be) an anthro- pological encounter, one in which each participant has to determine what the others mean and how to communicate across the meaning gap. This may seem exhausting – and it often is – but it can also be invigorating and eye-opening. But mostly, it is just unavoidable. So, “culture” is not merely out there in remote villages and desert islands. Culture is what you do, and what I do, and what each human being does.
And anthropology is how we make sense of it all.
4
4.. AAnntthhrrooppoollooggyy aalllloowwss uuss –– aanndd ccoommppeellss uuss –– ttoo tthhiinnkk aabboouutt oouurrsseellvveess ddiiffffeerreennttllyy.
The most natural thing in the world is to take one’s own way of life as good, natural, even universal. Perhaps this was possible in the past, but no longer. Having seen that there are many ways to be human, each of us recognizes, has no choice but to recognize, that our way is only one of many. Other people, very different from us in numerous ways, get along fine without our beliefs and values and norms and rules.
Further, we discover that, but for the grace of culture, we would have their beliefs and values and norms and rules: if we were born and raised in their society, we would be like them. We would be them. Even more, if culture is human-made, then our
PLATE 1.3 The author standing in front of the Besaki Temple in Bali, 1988
culture is human-made. Humans made it this way, humans keep it this way, and humans could (and did and will) make it some other way. Anthropology did not start out as “culture criticism,” but it quickly opens that avenue. One’s own culture, as certain and secure and “right” as it feels to oneself as a member of that culture, now appears as a fragile, ephemeral, relative, constructed“social reality” that is maintained only by transmission and by the concerted efforts of all its members. As Shakespeare said, we are all mere players on a stage, but we work together to keep the reality of the act (and the stage) going – and convincing.
As a consequence of its colonial history in Africa, France has a large resident population of North African Muslims. France also has a national history of stern separation of religion and state. On March 15, 2004 the French President enacted a law to ban from public primary and secondary schools the wearing of any religious symbol or garb that indicates the wearer’s religious affiliation. The policy applied specifically to Jewish yarmulkes, Sikh turbans, large Christian crosses, and Muslim headscarves. Although the law was not aimed at any particular religion, Muslims – particularly Muslim women – viewed it as a direct attack on their religion, sparking street protests and national and international complaints about violations of religious freedom. Nevertheless, a member of the Australian Parliament, Bronwyn Bishop, recommended similar action in 2005, arguing that the Muslim headscarf “has become the icon, the symbol of the clash of cultures” – although Bishop stated no objections to crosses and yarmulkes. What do you think?
BOX 1.3 CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL CONTROVERSIES: BANNING RELIGIOUS SYMBOLS IN FRANCE