n apprenticeships, paid internships, and on-the-job training, the supervisor’s salary doesn’t come out of the pockets of students and, likewise, the student receives compensation. One key difference is that both engage in work that’s of value beyond the teacher-student relationship.

Universities, on the other hand, seem to be upholding a strong division between “work” and “education.” Students do work, but the tasks are “exercises” that don’t become “real work” unless they take up a teaching position at a university. Many have to do outside jobs in addition to school work.

Having both engaged in work that could bring compensation seems ideal, but, especially in anthropology, little of the work has direct value outside the university. If I’m not mistaken, the hard sciences have more external sources for funding and training.

Maybe it’s seen as a cop-out to mix education and money, but, if so, it’s a huge hypocrisy that works to the detriment of the students alone. Faculty do “work” and get paid, and do so at the expense of students who are being “educated.” Obviously they don’t see mixing education and paid work as a cop-out, so why not do the same for the benefit of students? Probably because the ‘business’ wouldn’t be sustainable if this were how it had to function . . . I really don’t know . . . it does seem to speak to problems in the kind of work being done at universities & within anthropology . . .

In the end, we should just question everything, no? Keeps us on our toes.

In terms of who makes sameness central to their work — good question. It might be the unconscious underpinning of the meta-hypotheses they carry in their heads, or it might be closer to the surface — think of those anthropologists who study human rights, cosmopolitanism, development, indigenous rights, kinship, religions, among others.

Anyway, those are some of my rough thoughts.

That anthropologists are largely interested in the “power to explain” makes sense, but the emphasis on Sameness & difference is harder for me to see. At some very broad theoretical/historical levels it does seem to be there, but among individual anthropologists? I’m not sure if Sameness is as widespread a motivator as he seems suggests.

What about why anthropology must continue with its focus on Sameness:

“We forget to objectify Sameness…. If we did, we would have to recognize that Sameness is itself a construct and hence that whatever sense, meaning, and purpose we find in the world exists only because we placed it there in the first place. And, as we well know, this is a dangerous thought. To quote Geertz (1973:102) again, “it sets ordinary human experience in a permanent context of metaphysical concern and raises the dim, back-of-the-mind suspicion that one may be adrift in an absurd world.” Ethnology, then, must persist in its endeavor to uphold Sameness in the face of all those representations that produce difference and division.” (S37)

Is the point simply that anthropologists exist who are motivated by these concerns, and they’re not going to disappear? Which is why he proposes undercutting their discourse? By showing people that anthropology is no better than any other quest for meaning? The “Same” as other quests?:

“… it may begin to do what we wish but are unable to achieve, namely, to undermine whatever power ethnological discourse exercises over Others. It would now be possible for Others to respond to our discourse with a knowing smile, the sort of smile that recognizes ethnology as a quest for meaning, one to be taken no more – and no less – seriously than any Other such quest.” (S37)

Even if people recognize anthropology as no better than other quests for meaning, how does this recognition undermine the power the discourse exercises over them? The power of the discourse doesn’t seem to be entirely within their own minds…. For that matter, how does speaking within anthropological theory result in a change in the perspectives of Others, when the discourse is directed at anthropologists? Wouldn’t Others who have different quests for meanings already recognize that anthropologists’ quests are not the “Same” value as their own? Maybe they already recognize it and still wonder why anthropologists’ discourse has become elevated to such a supreme status, because recognition alone doesn’t fix the problem… ?

Writing within anthropology seems, to me, more likely to change anthropologists’ perceptions… but … how Argyrou writes about Sameness & the will to meaning seems to suggest anthropologists’ agenda is fairly set-in-stone. So, I’m still confused about how Sameness fits with what he says are his ultimate goals, what we might call his ‘will to undermine the power of the discourse.’

If he’s an anthropologist, that ‘will’ seems different from the ‘will to Sameness,’ so is he contradicting himself? Or is this somehow another manifestation of Sameness?

Do my questions make sense?

Does this make sense, or does it make it worse?

Also, if someone else read this differently, please feel free to share your interpretation.

This is one that I need explained:

“But this is not simply or even mainly a will to power or a will to truth. It is above all a will to meaning – a desire for an ethically meaningful, that is, socially unified world.” (1999, S37)

Try finding a paragraph or sentence from Argyrou that really has you stumped, and paste it in here. I will see if I can do some translation. Yes, there is plenty of theory-speak, and it is always a challenge to speak in other terms when speaking about theory itself. Anyway, this will get easier as the posts come…which will be god knows when because grading papers is taking me much longer than I wished, or expected…as usual.

“…this game as always is only open to those willing to pay a door fee and table charge, or, an annual club membership fee.”

Yes, open to those willing to pay, but also sustained by those happy to collect and pocket the funds. Professors don’t have to pay to read books out of the library freely available to them. They GET PAID to do it.

I guess the other question is whether or not I should cheer him on, if I could agree with some of the goals, which I would definitely consider if I could see some common aims… BUT, I think the abstractness of his argument hurts him.

I haven’t been out of a university for long, but I can barely stand to read anthro theory now because most seems out-of-touch. It took almost a year for one of my neighbors to realize I agree with him on most of the issues he rants about daily, probably because I spend too much time listening and nodding. That’s what students do right? Anyway, that’s how I always played the teacher-student game. Finally, I got an email one day from my neighbor with the subject line, “I never knew you cared,” and first sentence, “You have appeared to be a well-mannered college graduate…”. Clearly, HOW you communicate the message impacts WHO understands what you’re saying.

Knowing this, I’m not especially interested in going back to anthro-theory-speak. I’m not convinced that communicating in this way is going to get anyone anywhere, especially if the discussion is only directed at the in-crowd, when they seem pretty content with how things are going. The fact that I can’t understand what Argyrou is saying, after reading his article more than once, only reaffirms that.

I don’t think it’s an issue of being more “educated,” that if I were more educated I could understand him. We’re working off different styles of communication and thought that are hard to piece together and don’t exactly “speak” to each other. I could spend more time trying to make them fit but don’t have the patience when I can’t see the value yet.

Partially, I think Argyrou and others don’t WANT to give up on the game, for a variety of reasons.

Example: Do professors make SO LITTLE money that they’re forced to put their research into a book to sell for monetary gain? NO. He’s charging $35+ for the mere privilege of reading what he’s said about US (anthropologists) …. $35 just to PLAY the game. Why didn’t he publish online so we could all read it? You can’t play a fair game with people who limit the game.

They specify the players and the rules (…grad school, publishing…). Then THEY play a game ABOUT other people, charging those others admission just to watch or jeer. Even if others do pay, that doesn’t mean they’re being allowed to play. No, the game goes on, and if the fans get too rowdy, the ref boots them.

Something similar bothered me in the discussion of HTS. Someone proposed that if we wanted to learn about HTS we should read the newest book written. Isn’t it ironic that to learn about a PUBLICLY-FUNDED program, US citizens have to purchase a book? Shouldn’t those who demand the funding be required to disclose key information? Instead, they don’t HAVE to, because they already have a system of securing direct funding from us without full consent, backed by police and legal force.

I’m even hesitant to call it “a game.” Sure, we’d LIKE to be able to laugh, but it’s not exactly laughable. Laughing does *something,* esp. when egos are involved, but not enough. I especially don’t the idea of seeing peoples’ lives as “a game”. That’s what anthropologists are doing, writing about other people’s lives. Maybe anthropologists HAVE traditionally seen it as a game, and maybe that’s part of the problem: A game of grades, of getting a job, of getting published, of coming up with the newest theory and getting recognition from peers.

I would cite THAT as the anthropological game Argyrou is playing, more than some vague abstraction about “Sameness.” I mean, I’d like to be able consider Argyrou’s ideas sincerely. I’m cynical precisely BECAUSE I don’t have access to “The Book” so can’t play the same game.

http://openanthropology.wordpress.com/files/2009/12/evolution.gif

In terms of what is “new” in anthropology, certainly the concept of “sameness” is not — but his point is that we do not really stop to reflect on the implications of how we go about establishing that “sameness” exists. By “we” he means our dominant theories, and generations of anthropologists who followed those theories, and later in the book he goes through each theory one by one. Essentially he extends the line of thinking that we saw in those two previous posts to which I linked, and the argument works like this:

To prove that ultimately we are all the Same, what do we do about the obvious differences? Well one thing is to say that the differences are superficial, merely differences in form, that all we have to do is to explain away their veneer of difference to find how they are like us, culturally. There are a couple of other strategies, each of which I will get to in upcoming posts (it may take a while). In each case, their cultures get undervalued, while ours is preserved as the bedrock, the standard for establishing sameness. In upholding such sameness, we have just denigrated their cultures. The “proof” of sameness comes via ethnocentrism…the very opposite of sameness.

Another example would be monogenesis/cultural evolutionism — ostensibly anti-racist, right? We are all the same, the “psychic unity of mankind”. So how do the cultural evolutionists explain difference? They explain them away: we all evolve along the same single cultural trajectory, we will all think the same thoughts because we all have the same brains, wired in the same way, we have the exact same capacities, and everything invented by one group of humans could be independently invented by all others without diffusion. But we are not all the same…well, the evolutionists say, that’s because some of us (Europeans by chance) are most advanced along this single line of evolution, and others are more backward, as if further back in time…let’s say, like Africans. Suddenly, the proponents of unity and equality have created an argument that treats others as backward…ethnocentrism again. In fact, when theory became policy, ethnocentrism became ethnocide.

By “inescapable” I think he means that as long as preserve this construct, Sameness, we will continue to reproduce that which we think we oppose. And we do preserve it, because if we did not believe that there was Sameness, we would have to give up on fieldwork altogether…because how do you understand and explain others if you possess only Difference? It is a dramatic statement, but then again, remember what he says about playing the game.

I doubt I answered everything, sorry.

“There is no need for any confusion about Anthropology and the Will to Meaning”

Speak for yourself! I don’t get it.

“Sameness itself is a construct and hence … whatever sense, meaning, and purpose we find in the world exists only because we placed it there in the first place.” (1999, S37)

Is this really new to anthropology? Also, in a critique of sameness, why does Argyrou keep using the word “we”? If his points about “we,” our collective mindset (?), resonated with my experience, I wouldn’t have to think so hard to understand what he’s saying. For example, he speaks about the fear of an absurd world…. Do I really fear an absurd world? Maybe I recognize it andprefer making sense of things and having aims to direct my actions. Certainly I have fears, worth examining, but absurdity wouldn’t make that list by a long-shot … No, I think his argument needs to recognize that anthropology fits into different peoples’ lives in different ways.

In particular, not everyone is acting on a “will to secure Sameness.” He says,

“But this is not simply or even mainly a will to power or a will to truth. It is above all a will to meaning – a desire for an ethically meaningful, that is, socially unified world.” (1999, S37)

Every anthropologist from Victorian anthropology to heterodox discourse has had this same will? A universal anthropological will? If that was my will, wouldn’t I recognize it? — Which I don’t. Maybe some people would place themselves in this category, but not all, and I’m sure there are many other desires influencing people’s actions.

Given his claim that we all “strive to demonstrate Sameness,” he also argues that ethnology “must persist” in doing this (1999, S37). I was concerned by his discussion of what, in his opinion, incorporating Sameness means:

“… the incorporation of Sameness into history would mean nothing less than tolerating the arbitrariness and absurdities of the world, chief among them racism and ethnocentrism. This is not to say recognizing that such absurdities exist; it is to say, rather, recognizing that they are intrinsic and inescapable characteristics of the world, and anthropologists do not.” (S36)

Is he saying that we “do not” and should not incorporate Sameness in this way, or that we “do not” and should? Yes, maybe racism and ethnocentrism are arbitrary and historically intrinsic, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say “inescapable,” or that they should be completely “tolerated.”

There’s a difference between (a) not being able to escape a belief and (b) imposing it on others. The latter is where I would draw the line, with respect to tolerance. To give a personal example: On racism, my parents don’t believe white people (i.e. me) should date black people. I did, once in high school, and they went berserk (“what will the grandparents think?”), making my house a living hell, forcing me to *choose.* Yes, I tolerated it, even though it was arbitrary, and gave in. And, being even more of a jerk, I told my boyfriend the reason. But was it all“inescapable”? My parents could’ve kept their mouths SHUT and let me live my life. I could’ve ignored them, hoping they’d get over their fit, but chose not to. In short, “tolerate” it AS “inescapable” is what I did. I regret it. And, for this, Argyrou’s sentences strike me as wrong. He says “ethnology must exist.” BUT, ethnology is a discourse, directed at other people, not unlike my parents’ comments about race. Maybe, in some cases, ethnology just needs to shut up and leave people alone.

People can still make personal meaning in their lives without enforcing a “socially unified world.”