Anthropology Essay: Learn and Play Again!

Here is another anthropological essay from the crypt.  Enjoy!

If the musical “Fiddler on the Roof” has taught us anything other than what Tevye would do if he were a rich man, it has taught us that the sun rises and that it also sets.  What does this phrase have to do with anthropological theoretical approaches?  First off, slow down buster, the answers will come, but your eagerness is well noted and appreciated.  The answer is that theories have their day and rise like the majestic sun in the east, but then will set after they have been dissected and discredited by ravenous graduate students and other followers in their respective fields.  Two theories will be discussed in this essay, the first is still rising well into the noon day sun, while the second is on its way back down, hoping to rise again.  A theoretical approach that is most appealing is that of postmodern anthropology by way of James Fernandez.  A theoretical approach that is not appealing at all is that of the evolutionary approach by way of Henry Lewis Morgan.  These two approaches will be explained, have their strengths and weaknesses examined, and also why they both offer such a promising insight on cultural phenomena. We start with the theory of postmodern anthropology.  To start this exploration take the red pill, but only swallow as far down to see the first film, not the awful sequels.  Postmodern anthropological thought is concerned with how we view culture and that an immaculate truth about other cultures may not be obtained.  There is not one truth about a culture or society.  There could be multiple truths.  We only view the world through our own frame of reference and our own experiences (Moore p. 267-8).  Postmodern anthropological thought associates itself with a “total acceptance of the ephemerality, fragmentation, discontinuity, and the chaotic.” (Moore p.267).  The acceptance of chaos rules postmodern anthropological thought and a part of this theory is that postmodern theorists are never concerned with trying to break down or reduce chaos into one single meaning.  The goal in this theoretical model is to identify significant concepts that members in a society deem relevant (Moore p. 268). There are many reasons as to why this approach offers the most promising insight on cultural and social phenomena.  First off, it eliminates and critiques the bias and problems that the modernist school of anthropology has accumulated.  The modernist approach usually takes on a heavy pro-western and male dominated bias when dealing with other cultures.  It is just an extension of domination and doesn’t serve other cultures well.  They are being critiqued on how closely they resemble western society.  Postmodern theory takes into account what members of a society deem as relevant.  It is not the anthropologist who has the judging power, but the people in the culture themselves.  They get to deem what is important and crucial to their civilization, not the weird white man in the matching white suit with the ivory pen and that sinister look in his eyes.  By taking out the western and male bias, we can come to truer revelations of what a culture really is. Another strong point of postmodernist thought is the belief that there isn’t one sole truth to be found.  Multiple truths can exist in a society.  Societies aren’t all uniform and neatly formulated that they can be boiled down to one truth or essential fact.  Contradictions upon paradoxes upon illogicalities make up societies.  It just seems like pure chaos.  This is where postmodernism pulls the anti-Alex Rodriguez and hits a home run in a key situation.  Postmodern thought accepts chaos (but does Chaos accept me-Bob Dylan) and treats it like a friend.  The discontinuity that contradiction and paradox can bring is well understood in the postmodern school of thought.  It is never reduced or reversed.  The deep complexities and chaotic nature of modern life is understood and not questioned.  It is not something to pick apart, but rather to revel in.Unfortunately, postmodernism is not the end all of cultural approaches.  It has some problems like many of us (I'm looking at you Janet).  But the problems postmodernism faces aren’t that of a loveless marriage or crystal meth addiction.  It faces something almost as ennui inducing.  Postmodernism has a weakness with cultural relativism.  This idea that every culture is relative to each other and that nothing is better or more right than one another is not such a great idea.  You cannot just accept every cultural practice just because they make sense within that specific culture.  There have to be some universal truths.  If a society practiced slavery under cultural relativist practices, we as a global community would be helpless to stop it because we would have to respect their cultural norms.  We couldn’t stop slavery in that society because it would entail us making a critical judgment of another culture.  We would be saying that a culture is wrong and that they are failing to uphold a universal standard.  It is in this field that postmodernism suffers.  Other than that, it is the theoretical approach to go with.Where there is good in the world there must also be evil.  If that sounds a tad over dramatic, you are probably right (you’re always right, Janet).  Whereas postmodern thought is the most appealing theoretical approach, the evolutionary framework model leaves a lot to be desired.  Evolutionary anthropology follows the framework that progress happens on a single thread and that different cultures are just at different places on the evolutionary scale.  Progress is based on technological innovation and advancement (Moore p.23-24).  The discovery of fire or the invention of pottery predicates movement into a higher position on the evolutionary scale.  Culture has a singular progression and that civilizations that seem backwards or savage are just a bit behind on the flow chart of progress.  Or as Mr. T would put it if he were a cultural anthropologist, pity the civilization that has fallen behind on the scale of progress.  Hopefully, he would be a lot more eloquent in real life than how he is presented here.
This theoretical approach has many problems with it.  The first one is that it imparts a heavy western bias.  In the eyes of the evolutionary anthropologist, western culture is the most advanced civilization.  It supposes that every other culture is striving to become the west and that the west is closer to the ideal civilization than any other.  This is in the words of a squeamish 19^th century Victorian male, pure poppycock.  The west is far from perfect and the numerous wars and atrocities of the 20^th century proved that point.  This kind of pro-western bias makes it impossible to learn about a society without dominating it or subjecting it to the anthropologists own leanings.  They will constantly be comparing any non-western civilization to the west and they will only be interested in how it isn’t the west.  Instead of learning about the culture and civilization at hand, the evolutionary mindset focuses on how it is not the west.  The domination of the western lens towards other cultures doesn’t breed an understanding of the other culture.  It just seeks to extend the domination of the western gaze and ideology whether the anthropologist is doing it consciously or unconsciously.Another failing of the evolutionary approach is this whole idea about every culture and civilization being on the same singular path.  What’s the deal with that (and also airline food-it’s terrible.  Remember to tip your waitress!).  First of all, there is no evidence to be found that civilization progresses on one singular track.  That is some damning evidence against the evolutionary approach.  This theoretical approach completely ignores that cultures develop due to their context and environment.  The singular evolutionary path seems to discount environmental factors or the cultural context to which these civilizations grow from.  The theory suggests that cultures develop and exist in a vacuum and are not subject to outside stimuli.  Culture is something that is fluid and always changing.  There is not one set path for it to take.  It is always changing with the times.  Culture is made up of individual people with differing ideas.  How can such unique entities with such differing parts all be on the same road and in turn all be heading foe the same outcome?  It doesn’t make much sense.  A singular track approach invokes a strange sense of predetermination and inevitability that isn’t congruent with different cultures.  Civilizations are too different to be on the same road to ruin (line courtesy of the Ramones).After all this bashing of the evolutionary framework, there are still some positives about the theoretical approach.  This is the first real theoretical approach for anthropology, so of course it is going to have some errors.  These things take time to prefect.  It took Bob Dylan two albums to achieve greatness.  Also, this framework has a strong organizational side to it.  It was the first to organize data into a framework of cultural evolution rather than to treat cultural difference as ethnographic oddities (Moore p.27).  The real positive of this approach is that it is the framework for the whole field.  This would be the starting point for all the great thinkers in cultural anthropology.  What to do and what not to do in cultural anthropology is found in the evolutionary framework approach.In conclusion, there are many theories in cultural anthropology.  Some are good, some are not so good.  Then some are the evolutionary framework model.  Let’s leave that one to rest shall we.  The postmodern approach is the most appealing theoretical approach, while the evolutionary framework model is the least appealing.  This has something to do with the order in which they were conceived.  Soon though, postmodern thought will become quaint and silly and will be edged out by a new system of thought.  It will spend the rest of its’ days drinking in a lonely bar mumbling how it used to be something.  No one will hear it.  No one will care.  It will look out the bar window to see a new theory getting all the praise, while it reminisces about the time it was king.  Now it will understand sunrise and sunset.  The new theory will look into the bar and see the old drunk theory and quietly ponder the future of its’ fate.  Then it will go back to being king of Mardi Gras!Works CitedMoore, Jerry D. Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists. 4th ed. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 2012.