The Wisdom of Marshall Sahlins
Anthropologists wanted. No experience actually necessary. Make more than most poets.
____________________________________________________________________________
Utilitarianism.
A people who conceive life to be the pursuit of happiness must be chronically unhappy.
____________________________________________________________________________
Relevance.
I don’t know about Britain, but in America many graduate students in Anthropology are totally uninterested in other times and places. They say we should study our own current problems, all other ethnography being impossible anyhow, as it is just our “construction of the other.”
So if they get their way, and this becomes the principle of anthropological research, fifty years hence no one will pay the slightest attention to the work they’re doing now. Maybe they’re onto something.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Orientalism.
(dedicated to Professor Gellner)
In Anthropology there are some things that are better left un-Said.
_____________________________________________________________________________
The word “culture” has become common fare. For
the present generation it does much of the work that
was formerly assigned to “psychology” or again
“ethos.” We used to talk about “the psychology of
Washington (D.C.)” or “the ethos of the university;”
now it is “the culture of Washington” and “the
culture of the university.” It is also “the culture of
the cigar factory,” “the culture of drug addiction,”
“the culture of adolescence,” “the culture of the
Anthropology meetings,” etc. For a long while I was
worried about this apparent debasement of the
anthropological object. One day I realized that
Economics is still going as a discipline despite that
everyone talks about “economics,” and “economies,”
Sociology likewise survives all the uses of “social.”
And recently I saw the following poster in a hotel
elevator: “50 hotels, 22 countries, one philosophy.”
You think we got troubles with “culture?” What
about Philosophy? Everybody’s got a philosophy. It
didn’t kill Philosophy.
___________________________________________________________________________
How to Solve the World's Problems.
There is a sure, one word solution to all the world's
current problems: Atheism.
___________________________________________________________________________
The Chinese Restaurant Syndrome
Why are well-meaning Westerners so concerned
that the opening of a Colonel Sanders in Beijing
means the end of Chinese culture? A fatal
Americanization. Yet we have had Chinese restaurants
in America for over a century, and it hasn’t
made us Chinese. On the contrary, we obliged the
Chinese to invent chop suey. What could be more
American than that? French fries?
____________________________________________________________________________
Some Laws of Civilization.
First law of civilization: All airports are under construction.
Second law of civilization: I'm in the wrong line.
Third law of civilization: Snacks sealed in plastic bags cannot be opened, even using your teeth.
Fourth law of civilization: The human gene whose discovery is announced in the New York Times- there's one every day, a gene du jour-is for some bad trait, like schizophrenia, kleptomania, or pneumonia. We have no good genes.
Fifth law of civilization: Failing corporate executives and politicians always resign to spend more time with their families.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Postmodern Terrorism
One of the more poignant aspects of the current postmodernist mood is the way it seems to lobotomize some of our best graduate students, to stifle their creativity for fear of making some interesting structural connection, some relationship between cultural practices, or a comparative generalization. The only safe essentialism left to them is that there is no order to culture.
______________________________________________________________________________
Economic Development.
Developing countries, with American help, never develop.
______________________________________________________________________________
Whatever Happened to “Late Capitalism”?
It became neo-liberalism.
______________________________________________________________________________
The Political Economy of the Humanities
Anthropologists have become the working-class of
the Cultural Studies movement. Relegated to the
status of ethnographic proles in the academic division
of labor, they are the ones condemned to long
days, months and years of dirty and uncomfortable
(field) work. Their minds numbed by laboring on
obdurate cultural realities, they leave higher theory
to English professors. These cult studs are the
thinking class, an emancipated (and emancipating)
literati, while anthropologists are content to be the
subaltern clients of their hegemonic discourses.
Anthropologists of the world unite…
____________________________________________________________________________
Utilitarianism.
A people who conceive life to be the pursuit of happiness must be chronically unhappy.
____________________________________________________________________________
Relevance.
I don’t know about Britain, but in America many graduate students in Anthropology are totally uninterested in other times and places. They say we should study our own current problems, all other ethnography being impossible anyhow, as it is just our “construction of the other.”
So if they get their way, and this becomes the principle of anthropological research, fifty years hence no one will pay the slightest attention to the work they’re doing now. Maybe they’re onto something.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Orientalism.
(dedicated to Professor Gellner)
In Anthropology there are some things that are better left un-Said.
_____________________________________________________________________________
The word “culture” has become common fare. For
the present generation it does much of the work that
was formerly assigned to “psychology” or again
“ethos.” We used to talk about “the psychology of
Washington (D.C.)” or “the ethos of the university;”
now it is “the culture of Washington” and “the
culture of the university.” It is also “the culture of
the cigar factory,” “the culture of drug addiction,”
“the culture of adolescence,” “the culture of the
Anthropology meetings,” etc. For a long while I was
worried about this apparent debasement of the
anthropological object. One day I realized that
Economics is still going as a discipline despite that
everyone talks about “economics,” and “economies,”
Sociology likewise survives all the uses of “social.”
And recently I saw the following poster in a hotel
elevator: “50 hotels, 22 countries, one philosophy.”
You think we got troubles with “culture?” What
about Philosophy? Everybody’s got a philosophy. It
didn’t kill Philosophy.
___________________________________________________________________________
How to Solve the World's Problems.
There is a sure, one word solution to all the world's
current problems: Atheism.
___________________________________________________________________________
The Chinese Restaurant Syndrome
Why are well-meaning Westerners so concerned
that the opening of a Colonel Sanders in Beijing
means the end of Chinese culture? A fatal
Americanization. Yet we have had Chinese restaurants
in America for over a century, and it hasn’t
made us Chinese. On the contrary, we obliged the
Chinese to invent chop suey. What could be more
American than that? French fries?
____________________________________________________________________________
Some Laws of Civilization.
First law of civilization: All airports are under construction.
Second law of civilization: I'm in the wrong line.
Third law of civilization: Snacks sealed in plastic bags cannot be opened, even using your teeth.
Fourth law of civilization: The human gene whose discovery is announced in the New York Times- there's one every day, a gene du jour-is for some bad trait, like schizophrenia, kleptomania, or pneumonia. We have no good genes.
Fifth law of civilization: Failing corporate executives and politicians always resign to spend more time with their families.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Postmodern Terrorism
One of the more poignant aspects of the current postmodernist mood is the way it seems to lobotomize some of our best graduate students, to stifle their creativity for fear of making some interesting structural connection, some relationship between cultural practices, or a comparative generalization. The only safe essentialism left to them is that there is no order to culture.
______________________________________________________________________________
Economic Development.
Developing countries, with American help, never develop.
______________________________________________________________________________
Whatever Happened to “Late Capitalism”?
It became neo-liberalism.
______________________________________________________________________________
The Political Economy of the Humanities
Anthropologists have become the working-class of
the Cultural Studies movement. Relegated to the
status of ethnographic proles in the academic division
of labor, they are the ones condemned to long
days, months and years of dirty and uncomfortable
(field) work. Their minds numbed by laboring on
obdurate cultural realities, they leave higher theory
to English professors. These cult studs are the
thinking class, an emancipated (and emancipating)
literati, while anthropologists are content to be the
subaltern clients of their hegemonic discourses.
Anthropologists of the world unite…