The Seattle Times has a piece titled Anthropology: the great divide. Here’s the essential bit:
At the extremes, one school of thought insinuates dark, possibly racist intentions of scientists under sway of their Eurocentric biases, linear thinking and arrogance in their dealings with modern tribes. The other school is dismissive of the slaves to political correctness and their warm and fuzzy research — or, as one physical anthropologist smirked to another: “What do you think? Are cultural anthropologists scientists?”
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On one side were cultural and social anthropologists, generally humanists interested in interpreting living cultures. On the other side were anthropologists who used more traditional scientific methods to study the role of human evolution in culture.
Myself, I can usually talk to physical (biological) anthropologists and make myself understood. Many of these people simply consider themselves biologists who just happen to study humans. Since the focus of this blog tends toward human genetics obviously many of the papers have biological anthropologists on their author lists, and I often link to John Hawks, a physical anthropologist.
On the other hand many (though not all) from a cultural anthropological perspective are almost unintelligible; and I really don’t know where they get the “facts” that they repeat to me on occasion. There is no intersection between the discourses. I do on occasion read cultural anthropology which takes a fine-granted and critical perspective on a particular people and decomposes elements from a million perspectives as well as attempting to correct for their own biases. Though the prose is often tortured with superfluous jargon (in my opinion) there is value in this sort of interpretation. For me the problem is that there is no positive analysis and organization of the material to precede the critique, the critique is all that exists. This is like having a finely honed DNA repair mechanism, but no DNA!
Additionally, I think there is an element of self-contradiction in the stance of many cultural anthropologists who would eschew the label ‘scientist.’ On the one hand they accept multiple truths and come close to asserting the unintelligibility of alternative discourses and cultural frames, but they place themselves in the god-like position of interpreting these other cultures from their own frame. I feel for all their the premises which they promote in regards to the distinctiveness of various cultures, their assertions about the opaqueness of communication across the chasm of perspective undermines any attempts they are making to translate and comprehend another culture. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
In contrast, taking a less empathetic but more scientific perspective which at least strives for objectivity offers the hope that general abstract principles can emerge. In other words, models through which we an sift the mountain of data. Not respecting as sacred or valuable in and of itself a cultural tradition may lack sensitivity, but at least it allows one to gather data, proceed with analysis and increase the body of knowledge, without the crushing overhead of recursive critique. This is why I lean toward the naturalistic tradition in cultural anthropology, which is itself a minority subculture. The aims are grand and it is quite likely that the tools are not up to the task, but though the works of anthropologists in this tradition are filled with technical terms from many disciplines (cognitive science & evolutionary biology in particular), looking up these terms actually adds value in terms of comprehending what they are saying, instead of adding another layer of inscrutability.
Of course you may think I’m being quite hard on the standard American cultural anthropologist or someone trained in that tradition. Sure, I am, but mostly because I wish cultural anthropologists would just become literary or cultural critics, because that is what their tools are appropriate for. Cultural anthropologists who I have encountered seem stuck in a stance of agnosticism on all generalizations or factual assertions about particular cultures, simultaneous with a host of assertions which they themselves make, generally colored by their own political views. This tiresome self-contradictory dance is neither enlightening nor entertaining.
Note: Some of the stereotypes of cultural anthropologist above are much more applicable toward the American academic context from what I gather.
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