Comments on: A note on ethnography http://cultureby.com/2007/03/a_note_on_ethno.html This Blog Sits At the Intersection of Anthropology and Economics Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:10:58 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Peter http://cultureby.com/2007/03/a_note_on_ethno.html/comment-page-1#comment-2924 Peter Thu, 05 Apr 2007 09:26:11 +0000 http://grantmccracken.com/cco/http:/grantmccracken/page-title#comment-2924 <p>Expanding my comment above, the dominant strain in our culture favours:</p> <p>- thinking over action<br /> - writing over speech<br /> - word & text over image & diagrams <br /> - our visual sense over other senses<br /> - formality over informality<br /> - permanence over ephemerality<br /> - logic over intuition<br /> - reason (so-called) over emotion<br /> - individual work over team work<br /> - rehearsal over improvisation<br /> - rigidity over spontaneity<br /> - seriousness over wit.</p> <p>Despite this dominant strain, there are some redoubts in our society fighting for the minority side. Art, film and music schools still train people to do, rather than to write about doing. Likewise, the military show a bias for action -- or at least, they did before Donald Rumsfeld. Software companies still mostly prefer working programs over documented code. </p> <p>But most formal education, from B-schools down to kindergartens, is firmly on the side of the dominant strain. Perhaps it is unrealistic to expect an education system to take a critical stance to the society which pays for it, but we all suffer as a result.<br /> </p> Expanding my comment above, the dominant strain in our culture favours:

- thinking over action
- writing over speech
- word & text over image & diagrams
- our visual sense over other senses
- formality over informality
- permanence over ephemerality
- logic over intuition
- reason (so-called) over emotion
- individual work over team work
- rehearsal over improvisation
- rigidity over spontaneity
- seriousness over wit.

Despite this dominant strain, there are some redoubts in our society fighting for the minority side. Art, film and music schools still train people to do, rather than to write about doing. Likewise, the military show a bias for action — or at least, they did before Donald Rumsfeld. Software companies still mostly prefer working programs over documented code.

But most formal education, from B-schools down to kindergartens, is firmly on the side of the dominant strain. Perhaps it is unrealistic to expect an education system to take a critical stance to the society which pays for it, but we all suffer as a result.

]]> By: Eric Arnould http://cultureby.com/2007/03/a_note_on_ethno.html/comment-page-1#comment-2923 Eric Arnould Tue, 03 Apr 2007 23:18:09 +0000 http://grantmccracken.com/cco/http:/grantmccracken/page-title#comment-2923 <p>Never fails that I find the ready aphoristic insight here at cultureby. Cant wait for installment #3. There is a LOT of dead air in social science programs and I suspect the ratio of dead to live air is increasing unfortunately as anthropology fails to transition to the 21st century cultural hotspots, but still all those concepts and more ritual, liminality, communitas, binary opposition, rituals of rebellion, totem, mazeway resynthesis, cargo cult, are floating around somewhere like butterlies waiting for a flower on which to take new nourishment. Where are the grand conceptualizers of yore?</p> Never fails that I find the ready aphoristic insight here at cultureby. Cant wait for installment #3. There is a LOT of dead air in social science programs and I suspect the ratio of dead to live air is increasing unfortunately as anthropology fails to transition to the 21st century cultural hotspots, but still all those concepts and more ritual, liminality, communitas, binary opposition, rituals of rebellion, totem, mazeway resynthesis, cargo cult, are floating around somewhere like butterlies waiting for a flower on which to take new nourishment. Where are the grand conceptualizers of yore?

]]> By: James http://cultureby.com/2007/03/a_note_on_ethno.html/comment-page-1#comment-2922 James Mon, 02 Apr 2007 08:40:19 +0000 http://grantmccracken.com/cco/http:/grantmccracken/page-title#comment-2922 <p>LSE does a one year "media and communications" masters. I found it a pretty freewheeling find-your-own-way through a lot of social science. Lecture courses and essays can range right across interpreting data, the limits of quant, criticisms of scientism, cultural theory, and all sorts of qual techniques. It is great for situating thoughts and it gives you something to hang practice and craft on. </p> LSE does a one year "media and communications" masters. I found it a pretty freewheeling find-your-own-way through a lot of social science. Lecture courses and essays can range right across interpreting data, the limits of quant, criticisms of scientism, cultural theory, and all sorts of qual techniques. It is great for situating thoughts and it gives you something to hang practice and craft on.

]]> By: Tom Guarriello http://cultureby.com/2007/03/a_note_on_ethno.html/comment-page-1#comment-2921 Tom Guarriello Sun, 01 Apr 2007 15:07:07 +0000 http://grantmccracken.com/cco/http:/grantmccracken/page-title#comment-2921 <p>Did you actually write, "brutish empiricism"? That's funny. I can almost hear Locke chuckling now.</p> Did you actually write, "brutish empiricism"? That's funny. I can almost hear Locke chuckling now.

]]> By: Peter http://cultureby.com/2007/03/a_note_on_ethno.html/comment-page-1#comment-2920 Peter Sat, 31 Mar 2007 12:56:37 +0000 http://grantmccracken.com/cco/http:/grantmccracken/page-title#comment-2920 <p>How little of our formal education (in the contemporary West, at least) trains us for any of the skills you describe, Grant. Our technocratic culture is so overwhelmingly text-based and reductive that the abilities to speak, to orate, to recite, to ask, to listen, to respond, to empathize, to improvise, to feel-a-vibe, to understand-a-whole, and even to play-with-concepts are educated-out of most of us by the time we leave secondary school. Americans, in my experience, are better at some of these than the rest of us, because of the prevalance of show-and-tell activities in their primary schools. </p> <p>It doesn't have to be this way. It is still the case that mathematics (yes, mathematics!) in Russia is examined by oral exams, right through university to PhD level. No western mathematician would question Russian mathematical competence. So why is our culture so opposed to developing non-textual and holistic skills? <br /> </p> How little of our formal education (in the contemporary West, at least) trains us for any of the skills you describe, Grant. Our technocratic culture is so overwhelmingly text-based and reductive that the abilities to speak, to orate, to recite, to ask, to listen, to respond, to empathize, to improvise, to feel-a-vibe, to understand-a-whole, and even to play-with-concepts are educated-out of most of us by the time we leave secondary school. Americans, in my experience, are better at some of these than the rest of us, because of the prevalance of show-and-tell activities in their primary schools.

It doesn't have to be this way. It is still the case that mathematics (yes, mathematics!) in Russia is examined by oral exams, right through university to PhD level. No western mathematician would question Russian mathematical competence. So why is our culture so opposed to developing non-textual and holistic skills?

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