People wonder why I have such a love-hate relationship with anthropology. This is why. You can't really exoticise the other if you see them as fellow human beings that just do and think differently. You totally hit the nail on the head.

Gee, Meep, looking from the outside in at US modern Anthropological Realities {say for example the recent mania to acquire that strange plastic bauble, the iPhone} I would opine that Statesiders are exotic and different if not downright alarming . Let's not even look too closely at the tattooing and piercing, the communal rituals {MySpace, YouTube}, the religious cults {Catholicism, Scientology, Fundamentalism} and the elite ruling classes who preside over a culture of invasion, conquest and death. Anthropology begins at home!

Nez, this is a great post and dude, your top pic of creepy Mel is giving me nightmares and I'm not even asleep yet.

thank ya 'mano.

but RC....are you sure that the USA isn't just normal, and everyone else is whacked? i'm pretty sure that the US is the default that Gawd judges by.

thanks Joan K! hey, that's what i'm here for.

Mel can't have my heart, because my head just asploded with fury and the shrapnel took it out of commission. Ya know, it's too bad that time-traveling is not available because I would lurve to see what the United States Exhibit will look like from El Museo de Las Mexicas that will reside en el zócalo de Los Angeles when it becomes the northern capital to a resurgent indigenous people. Do you think Paris Hilton will get her own kiosk?

the Hilton Kiosk. I can see it.

I like the Gawd's default theory Nez, it at least explains a lot about the average US citizen's conceptualizations.
Honestly, having lived in a few cultures, and having studied dozens of them intensely {studying is a poor cousin to living}I would have to say that I think that the Humids {I hold that Trademark} are ALL whacked as hell. Yes, I include my silly self.
If God made man in his own image, as my catechism assured me, then I am very sure that God is one crazy guy. Or doll.
The mind world of the Humids, the wavering and twitchy sapience of Homo Sapiens is not a stable state phenomenon. But shall we blame God or the Devil?

This reminds me of a co-worker of mine who is working on his degrees in Anthropology/History. His "specialization" is in native North and South American cultures which he says he's interested in studying because, in his words, they don't get enough attention or respect in history... however, he then comes up with some stupid ass racist shit about modern day peoples living in these areas. It’s so strange to me that so many people who study history and anthropology have this dichotomy between I want to study and I want to control. When I and other people on the staff who have a different perspective of respect try and talk to him about it, he gets all "I'm studying this in school so I must be right" attitude. Anyway, just reminded me of that. As always, another great post from Nez.

Nez:

I didn't see "Apocalypto" because I thought it was a slasher film about a steel drum band that became possessed and went on a rampage on a Carnival Cruise. I should have paid more attention to the ads, I guess.

Anthropology, can anyone say, "Hey, Margaret Mead--Gotcha!", sure ya can.

Nez, could you do me a favor and start putting up a swear word or phrase, in Spanish, each day. I need to brush up on my language skills for when the local GOPers come around to "get out the vote" just before the post-election raids by the INS and Border Patrol (of which for some reason there are a lot of in upstate NY--it must be to stop the Canadian "Frostbacks" from illegaly swimming across Lake Ontario.

I'm going down to that exihibit and have a look for myself!

This post makes me ashamed of those academic anthropologists. I'm an Anthro major, and I think this comes from a complete lack of connection--these people have forgotten that "anthro" means "human". I say we toss these cabrones in a full-immersion program for a year and THEN let them try to claim that they're experts.

But RC! Everything the US does is normal because we Americans said so! But those other people who live here aren't *true* Americans because we're SPECIALER.

Thanks, Chan. That's a very perverse, interesting, and human dynamic you're talking about with your friend. And I can see, that would be utterly frustrating. Let's hope he comes around. That kind of contradiction in a person in such a field (or having accreditation and authority, i mean to say) can do more harm than the average person walking around operating on unknown blindness.

--

Molina, let me know your thoughts!

PaleAndNerdy, you have my vote! Although I am kinda hoping you mean "immersion" in cornmeal. Because I think that would be fun to see.

I accidentally posted my comments about how entirely hellaciously fucked that is to one of your earlier posts on this.

too much fascinated in the lookin' at a car crash way link followin' I suppose.

anyway. what i said back there was basically that in a summer camp for "gifted" kids (whose parents had the dough to enroll us) I studied the "ancient" Maya

and, y'know... TWELVE YEAR OLD ME coulda told you this crazy ass Apocalypto crap is hellaciously fucked. wow.

mel must be stopped!

hey nez, next we can have a european exhibit that mixes french culture with great britian with dutch with italian because, hell, it's all the same, right?

not all anthropologists are horrible, culture smashing, fuckwits thu. that is just how anthropology started--by caging american indian's in uc berkeley's museum to study them and africans in the brooklyn zoo (or was that the bronx zoo?). now, there are a few great anti-imperialist anthropologists (like Renato Rosaldo) who are helping to make the major interdisciplinary and not as full of crap. but that is true for all majors, right? when a field of study is born out of an ivory tower as eurocentric as the american university system, it is not like we expect them to do mayan math in the math department (even if it is more advanced....).

great post.

Thanks for the enlightenment Meep. I could never figure out what normal was so I left decades ago.

There is a critical dichotomy at play--and it may be even more complicated than simply a dichotomy. i just got word from the Museum's Director that the exhibition closed as of August 1. Obviously, the scholarship (or lack thereof) was too much to overcome. What is a damn shame is that so many other 'authorities" and first-voice participants living in the area and they did not bother to reach out!

Thanks for the update, Xavier. It is a damn shame! If they couldn't have it popcorn style, they don't want their fun show. But what of the history they wanted to teach? I guess after the movie glow wore off, Mesoamerica didn't seem so happenin'?