For My Friends in Media : Excerpts : Diamond believes, for example, that Britain’s response to the loss of its empire after the second world war was striking. “[Then] we would never have guessed that Britain would have dealt with problems of becoming a heterogeneous society as peacefully as it has. Today no one talks about the empire on which the sun never sets – Britain has a new identity.” The World Until Yesterday , which describes how humans live in societies which are not “WEIRD”, or “Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic”.This is a fun, lively read that sets out to illustrate two simple points: humans can live their lives in numerous, different ways; and the WEIRD approach is not always best. On the contrary, America and Europe could sometimes improve their own cultures and lives by looking at how other, more traditional cultures live. It is provocative stuff – having read Diamond’s book I was left reflecting on many aspects of childcare myself. And as somebody who once studied for a PhD in cultural anthropology, I am thrilled that Diamond’s work has highlighted a point that is central to the discipline: namely that studying “other” cultures is not just valuable in terms of understanding how the wider world works – but also because it helps to “flip the lens” and garner fresh perspective on our own lives. “Whenever I hear the word environmental ‘determinism’, I know you will get a poor quality of reasoning,” he declares, explaining that people have misunderstood him: he does not view culture as something merely determined by material factors. Instead, he is fascinated by the variations of culture within a single ecosystem, citing the colourful example of widow-strangling in Papua New Guinea. “There is one group that does that after a man dies – it’s considered entirely normal. But other groups do not do that and they live in identical environments,” he observes. “Or look at Europe, and think about dogs, horses and frogs. The French eat horses and frogs but the British eat neither and Germans don’t eat frogs – yet all have frogs, horses and dogs. I am not aware of any environmental explanation for that difference or for the fact we don’t eat dogs.” That means, he concludes, that both environment and culture need to be analysed: if you want to understand political polarisation in Washington, in other words, look at Tea Party ideology and the advent of cheap airline flights. “In academia people talk about interdisciplinary thinking and run courses and programmes – but Lord help you if you try to make an interdisciplinary career, unless you are already so high that there is nothing they can do to you.” ft/intl/cms/s/2/1f786618-307a-11e3-80a4-00144feab7de.html
Posted on: Mon, 02 Dec 2013 05:31:31 +0000