Overview of anthropology

Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

From: Charles Brown <cb31450@gmail.com>
Date: January 5, 2016 at 10:50:31 AM EST
To: charles brown <cb31450@gmail.com>, PHILLIP BROWN <psb2@prodigy.net>
Subject: Could you print this for me please ?

Overview of anthropology

By Professor Charles Brown

Ant 152 introduces students to the four branches of anthropology.
Physical anthropology explores the biological basis for human
evolutionary origins and human physical diversity.  Archaeology  and
ethnology  explores the development of culture through the Stone Age
and so-called Civilization, examining artifacts, material culture,
fossil remains , etc. and examining theories about modes of production
from cooperative/egalitarian foraging and horticulture to
domestication of plants and animals with private property and economic
classes and male dominance.  Ethnology or Socio-cultural anthropology
, also gives and understanding of diverse customs , traditions; and
religion, economic classes, nations and race in the present historical
era of capitalism and globalism. Linguistic anthropology investigates
language, like culture, an exclusive human capacity enabling us to
share knowledge and experience with people remote in time and space;
and like culture , shaping our worldviews and perception and
interpretation of events.

Anthropology is the study of human beings  in all times and place;
study that is systematic and objective, that is to say scientific,
based on logical consideration and testing of material evidence, and natural theories  ;
from 100's of thousands of years ago to the present; from Detroit to
the ends of the Earth. This is in contrast with understanding humans
based on whims,  superstition, untested intuition , uncritical faith
or unquestioned authority or supernatural beings. It is an understanding of human societies
and individuals biologically and historically, that is as they have
changed and developed over  time. It seeks to be truly holistic in
approach and scope. It welcomes contributions to its understanding of
people from all the other academic disciplines, natural sciences,
social sciences and humanities.  It even considers respectfully and
sympathetically systems of thought and belief from cultures very
different than our own.  In fact , learning the culture or customs,
beliefs , ideas, religions of foreign and other peoples is the
original focus of anthropology in contrast to sociology, psychology
and the other social sciences which focus on Western and European
society's ways of being. In this regard , it is important to be honest
and confess that anthropology and ethnology was often a "handmaiden"
of European colonialism and imperialism, especially in its beginning.
Anthropology and ethnology  has largely overthrown that legacy today
and, predominantly champions the interests of the foreign peoples who
are the main subjects of its study. Also, many anthropologists today
study American and European culture, with applied anthropology to
practical problems "at home" a major section of the discipline today.

 Anthropology's special contribution to scientific understanding
of humanity is the concept of _culture_. Culture is a system of
shared customs, traditions, values, ideas  and material products of a
particular group of people.  Culture and language are unique and
exclusive characteristics of human beings. No other animal species has
them.  Culture and language provided the human species with an
enormous adaptive and Darwinian selective advantage in the tens of
thousands of years that the human species came to be and inhabit the
whole globe, again to a greater extent than any other species.  This
is because it made humans extremely socially interconnected both with
living other humans so that human labor and methods of physical
survival are very _social_, not individualistic; and perhaps more
importantly, socially connected to dead generations of the species
through , again, language and culture, as in ancestor "worship" ,
myths, stories, customs, historical accounts of past generations'
experiences.  Two heads are better than one in the struggle for
survival.  By sharing the experiences , discoveries, knowledge of many
generations past and those of fellow living people, humans had and
have a big Darwinian or natural selective advantage especially in the
stone age in prehistoric times over the course of tens of thousands of
years and starting going back tens of thousands of years. Again , this
enormous social networking within living generations and between
living and dead generations is encapsulated in the concepts of culture
and language, the _differentia specifica_ of the human species.

Another special contribution of anthropology to our wisdom is the idea
of ethnocentrism or anti-ethnocentrism; and the concept of
culture-bound.  Ethnocentrism is the belief that the ways of one's own
culture are the only proper ones.  It is a form of racism and
xenophobia.  Culture-bound ideas are theories about the world and
reality based on the assumptions and values of one's own culture.  A
big part of the study of anthropology is to broaden one's scope , make
one less parochial , open one's mind to a wider world of people.  In a
way, anthropology is theoretical world travel, that is going other
places without having to actually go there physically; and trying on
different ways of thinking about the world; with the effect that when
one looks back at oneself, one gains a more objective and full
understanding one's own culture, philosophy, beliefs, society, etc.
It can give us a gift of seeing ourselves as others  see us, as the
poet once wished for. The growth of "applied anthropology" ( "applied"
to domestic or Western society) is an institutional development within
the discipline expressing this metaphor of looking at ourselves
through the eyes of others.

Thus,  if some of the ways of anthropology are a bit foreign to I hope
you will use this course as an opportunity to  step out of your
intellectual comfort zone and think a little differently than you
usually do; a chance to "travel" and broaden your scope without having
to go through all the physical discomforts and annoyances of an actual
trip abroad.  Hopefully it will give you some new knowledge about your
humanity and fundamental commonality with all humans from all times
and places; and encourage you to respect some of the differences you
might have with others;  you might even decide to adopt some of other
people's culture a bit.  On the other hand, you might understand
yourself and your history and culture better and be happier with whom
you are.

Finally , I add a fifth sub field to the conventional 4 : philosophical anthropology raising questions like "What is life ? " , "What is human life and human nature ?", etc.