Subject:
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Re: Evolution vs Scientific Creationism
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 12 Jul 2002 03:11:32 GMT
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Viewed:
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6283 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Joseph Williams writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Lindsay Frederick Braun writes:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Lindsay Frederick Braun writes:
> > > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Joseph Williams writes:
> > > > When anthropologists encountered stone age tribes in Africa they exposed
> > > > them to many objects of the industrial world including pictures. They didn't
> > > > perceive them as a representative image, let alone the object they were
> > > > depicting.
> > >
> > > I call "bullhockey." Citation, please. This just screams
> > > residual imperial mentality and the racist anthropology of
> > > the pre-WWI era--and the fact that you use it to make a
> > > point about nonhumans is extremely problematic.
> >
> > (probably should clarify--I'm not calling you racist, but calling
> > the example one that's generated by racist hierarchy and totally
> > useless in the context.)
> >
> > -LFB
>
> thanks for clarifying to me that I'm not a racist there, I was wondering
> about that for awhile now, nice for you to set me straight. As far as it
> being a useless point out of context, I was replying to a statement that
> dolphins could not see themselves in a mirror: a 2 dimensional plane
> representing an image. Since the discussion was about the relevance of a
> human soul and lack thereof in other animals it seemed relevant to me. Are
> you in denial that there are tribes of humans that are stone age or recently
> have been? The fact that I mention one from Africa does not mean I'm making
> a broad sweeping classifacation that all of Africans are in the Stone age.
> As far as citations go this one isn't bang on my topic but :
> http://www.fsmitha.com/~fesmitha/h1/ch00.htm
> 'In modern times, Stone Age people seeing a photograph of themselves
> believed that the photographer had captured something of their spirit and
> often for this reason they objected to being photographed.'
> I can't remember the exact instance of what I'm referring to but I'm sure it
> popped up somewhere in my 4 years taking archaeology and anthropology.
> Saying that statement is racist is like saying our skin colour is different
> due to our geographic latitude. And mabye it sounds like pre-ww1 era
> anthropology because it probably happened during that era * shrugs * what's
> the problem?
Because "tribes in the stone age" is a severe value judgement. It
implies that they exist along a continuum that has us at the "good"
end and them at the "primitive" or less developed end. That's the
core of development theory. And it's generally mobilized to show
that X or Y people are, implicitly, less human than industrial states.
It ignores that not becoming industrial indicates a different path,
not a "more primitive state." I'm not denying that there are groups
of humans who live materially unsophisticated lives, but I defy the
characterization "stone age" as implicitly making a value judgement
about those peoples' basic humanity. That's my problem with it,
at the core--that "stone age" is a bankrupt and morally suspect
descriptor.
A reading suggestion for a really good (and accessible) book on the
characteristics of anthropo/archaeological research were before WWI
and why they were implicit in the domination and subjugation of
people--often horribly brutally--by Europeans and their proxies,
take a look at Annie Coombes's _Reinventing Africa_; there are
others I can recommend for specific issues in geography and
ethnology.
The "spirit capture" by photography is a far cry from not under-
standing the representative value of a photograph, though. I
read the latter in your comment, not the former. I'm aware of
cases of the concern that photography may constitute spiritual
pollution, but that's because representative art has spiritual
power for those peoples (I'm thinking of the Maasai in particular)
even when it's drawn in botanical pigment on fieldstone.
best
LFB
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Evolution vs Scientific Creationism
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| (...) I'm OK with that so far as it goes... Tribes in the stone age ARE less developed. And I am perfectly OK characterising my life (and my society) as "better" than theirs. We have LEGO(r). They don't. QED. Next! ++Lar (23 years ago, 12-Jul-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Evolution vs Scientific Creationism
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| (...) I had no idea that Stone Age was an unpc term. I must update my civilization terminolgy lexicon. Mabye metallurgically challenged? Not preferring alloys? Archae/anthro 'gists have been the worst ambassadors and tomb raiders since recorded (...) (23 years ago, 12-Jul-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Evolution vs Scientific Creationism
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| (...) thanks for clarifying to me that I'm not a racist there, I was wondering about that for awhile now, nice for you to set me straight. As far as it being a useless point out of context, I was replying to a statement that dolphins could not see (...) (23 years ago, 12-Jul-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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