Anthropology

What is anthropology? I get that question a lot. When I first switched majors and people asked me what I was doing and I said "anthropology" they often repeated my response with a kind of hushed awe, as though I had told them I was majoring in Superheroism. Given that nobody seems to know what it is, I surmise that all those people must have mistaken anthropology for something else. The most common confusions are archaeology (which is technically not incorrect, but I'll explain that more in a moment) or entomology, the study of insects. More often than not, however, people just give me a blank look when I tell them what I study.

Anthropology, as the etymology would suggest, is the study of mankind. In the US anthropology is divided into four main subgroups: Linguistic anthropology, archaeology, physical anthropology and cultural anthropology. Linguistics is the study of language and thus instrumental in the study of humans. The results of linguistic research are absolutely fascinating and make for great conversation at parties. Actually researching and plotting vowel shifts and cognates and charting the increase in bilabial fricatives in Proto-Indo-European (known affectionately as PIE) is the most boring and tedious work possible. Linguistic anthropology seeks to explain how and why languages change, covering everything from whole language groups to the introduction of words and phrases into small groups of people (think: "lock it up", "daydoodah", "the Logo" and the subtle difference between "uh-huh" and "uh huh").

Archaeology is the study of extinct peoples through the analysis of the remains of their culture. If an archaeologist is lucky you'll get an Ankor Wat or Tut's Tomb, stuff that was very meaningful indeed to the culture in question. More often than not you get a piece of pottery or a pile of ashes from a hearth and you have to analyze what it was used for. Did the pot have functional purposes (did it hold wine, water, rice etc.?) or was it ceremonial or decorative? What kind of wood did they use in the fire? Is there evidence of it being used for cooking? And so on. Contrary to popular belief, archaeologists don't particularly care about the sites and artifacts themselves, they want to know about the culture. If they could just ask an ancient Minoan what they used this pot for, or how their society was structured, they would—it's a hell of a lot more efficient (and accurate) than rummaging through people's garbage. The public image of archaeologists is Indiana Jones or Lara Croft, these people are more concerned with treasure or rare artifacts rather than their significance in the greater whole of the site in which they were found. As I mentioned in the previous post, these people are antiquarians, grave robbers, "Tomb Raiders". Removing an artifact from a site is like moving a body or weapon from a crime scene, it destroys the context. Patience, precision and an eye for detail are the traits required for a true archaeologist. Because the very act of excavating a site destroys the context, you have to be sure to record every single detail so that way someone in the future can look on your notes and hopefully discover something that they couldn't have from the now-contaminated site itself.

Physical anthropology is the study of the human body. Its focus ranges from the subtle, such as the Human Genome Project, to the gross, such as forensics. Thanks to CSI and other such shows, this is perhaps the most well known part of anthropology, even if people don't know that's what it is. There's the study of how the body works, the evolution of the human form and how human bodies vary between groups. This guy was one of my professors and gives a pretty good idea of some of the stuff physical anthropology studies. Biological and medical anthropology are also parts of physical anthropology and focus on human variation and how differences among peoples can be applied to medicine, respectively. One example of how this is extremely important would be the distribution of humanitarian aid and food supplies. The US sent powdered milk to starving countries in Africa, failing to realize that most of the world's population is lactose intolerant.

Lastly, there's cultural anthropology, my specialty. Quite simply, it's the study of people and cultures. What do people think? Why do they think that? How do they behave? Basic questions but sometimes they're extremely difficult to answer. When I was little and I heard that anthropology was the study of people I thought that sounded like the most boring job in the world; I imagined somebody just watching people in cubicles, writing down something like "10:13AM, Subject sips from coffee mug." And perhaps cultural anthro would be that boring if not for a wonderful little thing called "participant observation." Participant observation means you go and live with, talk to and personally get to know the people you're studying. More often than not they become your friends, though you should always keep in mind a sense of professionalism in your field work. There are no famous examples of cultural anthropologists known to the general public (Daniel Jackson from Stargate would be a good example if people knew about it), so in order to point them in the right direction I tell them about the guys in the khaki safari outfits who go to some tropical island and study the natives. That's anthropology, but you don't have to go to a tropical island to do it, you can study any culture that's not your own (you take too much for granted in your own culture so you would never ask any really good questions). So I study people, what does that entail in practice, people often ask. Basically, I hang out with interesting people, drinking beer and having them tell me their life story. At that point, as surely as they gave me a blank look when I first mentioned anthropology, there's a change in their expression and stance as they realize that sounds like a really cool job.

But, certain career concerned individuals ask, what good is it? Sure it's intellectually stimulating but it's as careerworthy as a degree in philosophy, right? Well, like so many things, that might be true if you overspecialize. But as a field, the only places where anthropology is inapplicable is somewhere where there are not, nor were there ever, any people. As for cultural anthropology, that will only be rendered obsolete when all people everywhere perfectly understand one another.
Yeah, you worry about your own job security.

Indy

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull with Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett with ShiaLaBeouf. I can't say this was a bad movie, and I didn't have any expectations that it would be better than Raiders of the Lost Ark, but there was something off about this movie. We'll start with what I did like: the fact that Harrison Ford kept himself in such good shape that he didn't need any alterations done to his costume and that he could still believably kick ass. The mythos of Soviet psychics. But most importantly, I'm glad that they specifically addressed how in previous films Indiana Jones does not act like any self-respecting archaeologist should. As my archaeology professor pointed out, because he cares nothing for the context of artifacts within an archaeological site, just their prettiness and their value to a museum, he is in fact an antiquarian. This movie had no treasure hunting, per se, and and Indy left valuable relics in their place. I was glad to see that technicality was addressed.
Now for what bugged me: Shia LaBeouf does not make a convincing greaser. Period. More importantly, the movie lacked the same feel as the other movies. Maybe it's the fact that CGI has a very distinct look that the other films didn't have. I suspect its the motivation: in Raiders and The Last Crusade Indy is trying to keep the Nazis from getting the the powerful artifacts for the sake of national and global security. Hell, he nearly blows up the Ark to keep it from being opened. In this one, he seems to forget that hiding the skull (which was Oxley's plan) would probably be a better idea than bringing it back to the temple and leave it there, hoping the Soviets don't find it.
Another thing that didn't sit right with me, and I might be all alone on this one, is that this installment of the series makes the Indiana Jones universe not make sense. The Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail mean that the Bible is true, there is a God, and Moses and Jesus did exist. OK, so Christian myth is all true, and there are also aliens? God's sending down stone tablets, angels and all sorts of holy stuff while he's not only keeping people in the New World ignorant of the One True Faith, but he's letting fucking aliens mess around with the people made in His image? I suppose you could make a similar argument with Temple of Doom and the premise that Hindu mythology is also true, but maybe the unifying theme there is that all the old god myths are all true. There's not just one God, but a whole pantheon of otherwise religiously unrelated, but equally real deities. But again, except in the New World. The Abrahamic God is real, and the Hindu gods are real, but we learn those poor South Americans don't have real gods, just aliens.
And yet, as frustrating as all this is, I don't factor that into my analysis of the film's quality. It's just a pesky sidenote. My final vote is that it's better than Temple of Doom, possibly equal to Last Crusade (though that one bears rewatching) and inferior to Raiders.

Love

No, this isn't going to be an uncomfortably personal diatribe and certainly not a post-modernist aren't-I-so-clever analysis of love. Instead, this will be an overview of the Western concept of romantic love, with many borrowed concepts from the often (but not always) brilliant Culture and Identity by Charles Lindholm. The thing Lindholm wants us to understand is that while there is a concept of romantic love in all cultures, the Western take on it is rather unique and not nearly as widespread as you'd imagine. Love and sex are intimately linked in Western society. Weddings are based on love and consummating a marriage is a consummation of love, hence why sex is called "making love." But many societies do not see that "obvious" connection between sex and love that we do, or of marriage and love for that matter. The ancient Greeks and Romans apparently regarded love as a dangerous thing (not so different from us) that had to be properly vented. So the men would visit prostitutes and fall in love with them. They would make love to these women while they simply made babies with their wives. In many cultures, such as the Bedouins and Medieval Europe, love is chaste and unconsummated, just talking and holding hands, watching the sun rise and all that stuff.
One culture, the Marri Baluch of Pakistan, is highly patriarchal, the women have no rights and are treated as chattel. Marriages are unions between families—alliances and trade agreements. They are seen as a stabilizing force in society while love is considered an inherently divisive thing, antithetical to marriage. In fact, in their culture loving one's wife is considered unnatural and wrong. The wives still do have love affairs behind their husbands' backs, but again these are chaste loves and they are despised not because of any infidelity but because they see them as destructive to society. People from enemy families can and do meet and fall in love. Think of the destruction wrought by Romeo and Juliet, all the collateral damage and political repercussions and you can see why if they think that's what happens when two people fall in love why it would be thought of so dimly.
The Oneida cult, who advocated communal love and actively discouraged monogamous relationships, collapsed shortly after their leader died. It's usually figured that because toward the end many of the cult members had abandoned communal love for monogamous relationships ("special love") that the collapse was due to the separation of sex and love. I suspect that it's because romantic love was forbidden and, unlike the Marri Baluch, the people who were in love could always leave their society for a more accepting one.

The Western version of romantic love generally appears in "open, competitive, individualistic and fluid" societies whereas hierarchical, structured societies do not have such a concept. As such, it's rather unlikely for a love story in a society much different from our own to have actually played out. For example, in 300 Leonidas probably would not have loved his wife, not because he was such a tough soldier, but because the rigidity of society wouldn't have allowed the idea to cross his mind. With this in mind I wonder about the plausibility of the romances played out in various sci-fi/fantasy worlds that are not connected to the real world. Star Wars, Farscape and Battlestar Galactica come to mind where certain societies (not to mention species) are alien to ours yet romantic plotlines involving those characters progress exactly as if they were from a Western society. I'm not complaining, I just think it's funny how much we take it for granted.

And finally, I leave you with this: for all those cynics and post-modernists that say that love is just a neurochemical concoction devised by Nature into tricking us into reproducing, you are dead wrong. If love motivated people to reproduce then the West would have the highest birthrate. Instead, we have the lowest while societies that do not believe love, sex and marriage are the same thing have the highest. So, if anything, love actually serves to moderate population growth.