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September 01, 2003
Monday
 
 
Anthropology and anti-westernism
Alex Singleton (London)  Personal views

For the benefit of our student readers, here is a cartoon pointing out some of the ideas being put forward by university anthropology departments.

Attack of the social anthropology department

Comments

this will end up on a lot of doors @ berkeley, courtesy of little ol' me & an old mita copier.


Posted by harm d. at September 1, 2003 09:51 PM

NICE!

Oh, and I really love the table too! :>


Posted by Jay Solo at September 1, 2003 10:17 PM

It's not only in anthropology courses, of course. Hell, I get some of that crap in my business courses! My biology prof from a couple of years ago was a huge Marxist who wasted no opportunity to bash capitalism and consumerism (and bashed the US for a good three minutes at the beginning of class on 9/12/01).


Posted by Kevin White at September 1, 2003 10:43 PM

Hmm. People who knock "moral relativism" worry me. Not because I have any love for trendy-lefties, but because those who do the knocking usually fail to specify what nonrelative ethical sytem they'd prefer - or how they intend to impose it.


Posted by Julian Morrison at September 1, 2003 11:21 PM

At the mildly conservative university in Virginia I attended in the mid-1990s, I had a sociology prof who not only did the "we don't know if Communism would work because it's never reallly been tried" routine, but also taught us the "October Surprise" story as something that was probably true, showed us one of those documentaries about the U.S. killing everyone in sight in Panama, etc.; it was like the "warmed-over hippie professor greatest hits parade" or something.

Then again, I had a libertarian political-communication prof who devoted one day of his Persuasion class to showing us some videotape about how if we get rid of the capitalist media then there would be no more pollution and some really good media that serves real people and fluffy bunnies and stuff would come into existence, then after showing us the video the prof commented about how that should be enough to get the Marxism requirement out of the way so he could devote the rest of the course to teaching us what he really thought.


Posted by Combustible Boy at September 2, 2003 12:42 AM

I just like it=)


Posted by Ghaleon at September 2, 2003 02:37 AM

harm d,

Some schools would consider this "hate speech"....certainly Cal Poly SLO.

Go for it!


Posted by Carl LaFong at September 2, 2003 03:05 AM

In order to be really accurate, they need a crowd of people standing around with signs saying, "Beam me up!" or "Take me! Take me!"


Posted by Angie Schultz at September 2, 2003 03:55 AM

The cartoon is not loading in my browser is there a link where I could go get it.


Posted by Lorenzo at September 2, 2003 09:42 AM

the link seems to have been removed (www.alexsingleton.com/images) Can you repost a copy??


Posted by Ron at September 2, 2003 10:34 AM

We have now moved a copy of the image to the Samizdata.net server as Alex's own server just went tits-up


Posted by Samizdata Admin at September 2, 2003 10:51 AM
Moral relativism holds that there are no rational, universal principles of ethics, but only arbitrary preferences. It holds that since reason is an inadequate guide, we should blindly follow our emotions.

Quotation from Peter Schwartz's article Reason vs Faith


Posted by Alex Singleton at September 2, 2003 01:46 PM

Actually, moral relativism was brought on stage by David Hume. It's called Hume's fork: we cannot derive an "ought" from an "is."

Moral relativism is the least problematic feature of the blank slate brigade. The problem is that they are choc-a-block full of their own perverted morals;
Thou shalt not state that Sub-Saharan Africans are genetically a basket case.
Thou shalt not familiarize thyself with sociobiology.
Thou shalt not claim that some people are less educable than others.
Thou shalt not take measures to prevent Europe from being balkanised by low-IQ religious maniacs from Northern Africa and other turd world regions.
Thou shalt not indulge in freedom of contract.

Etcetera ...


Posted by Charles Copeland at September 2, 2003 02:10 PM

I see that Charles Copeland is determined to take every opportunity to show the world how silly he is.


Posted by Paul Coulam at September 2, 2003 02:33 PM

No one would have believed in the last years of the twentieth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by overinflated egos greater than the common man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the colleges and universities as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most ordinary men fancied there might be other ordinary men in academia, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of society, egos that are to ours as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellectuals vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twenty-first century came the great disillusionment.


Posted by Alan K. Henderson at September 3, 2003 07:49 AM

If moral relativism is true, how can we say capitalism is evil?


Posted by Businesspundit at September 4, 2003 01:33 PM

Even more simply, if you are a relativist, how can you say that something is true?


Posted by Lauren at September 6, 2003 02:59 PM

"If moral relativism is true, how can we say capitalism is evil?"
Since we live capitalism, the relativism rules does not apply. That's sort of the point of it all.

People who are 100% reletavists are obviously silly, but then again, people who totally refuse to see the point of reletavism are plain stupid.


Posted by Jonatan at October 15, 2005 11:40 AM
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