What I learned

I much prefer the style given to me by blogging. If I want to place a picture

There you go.

If I want to place a footnote, I am usually just needing a link, not a large chunk of text at the very end of the paper that seems to end with nothing^[1]. In truth, the world is headed toward such things as seeing blogs like this as assignments than the old papers that the footnote was purposed for.

When we were studying all of this, I was also studying Anthropological theory, and found it to be mixing in my head at high speeds^[2]. I could see the Dialectic in Anthropology working on its own without anyone admitting it was there.

The great Philosopher Yogi Bera understood it very well.

Gramsci’s Hegemony seemed to cover everything about the courses. It felt like I was watching a Hegemony slowly fall and be replaced by another one in Anthropology. The build up in our classes seemed to be that the philosophers kept adding to thoughts and then found them to be too unwieldy. Another philosopher points out the problems with all of this and then a new idea is placed by someone on how all of it works out.

What seemed odd was that this did not happen in order. Stuart Hall and Thomas Adorno were both supporters of the ideas of Hegemony with the Marxist ideals. Yet, Nietzsche came before these men disproving their thoughts. Then again, much of the writings by Nietzsche were misused by several people that even Nietzsche hated.

In case you try to hit that link in school, it will be blocked. There is good reason for this. The website is fairly vulgar and tries to keep a low brow sense of humour. Yet, the information it gives and insights it uses will likely be the predominant opinion by people for the next few years.

This brings up the strangest thing I have been seeing. Even while people talk about Gramsci or Hegel, they don’t recognize it happening in their own lives. They don’t really think the Hegemony they belong to is controlling them, nor do they realize that it will be replaced.

And straight ahead of you is Gramsci’s Hegemony.

So we have things controlling us. Or at least trying to make it seem that way. I have been wondering about this for a while now. If all of this was true, TV would still be watched instead of youtube slowly destroying it.

And now the only thing on TV is the Wii.

Let’s look at that in another way. Stuart Hall said that Lower Culture was creating true culture and that as a cultural item grows in popularity it loses its authenticity. Nietzsche explained that it is completely unknown how things started or where they began so we should stop believing that culture only happens in certain ways.

Freud said that our understanding is based on our own desires and our environment. De Saussure, Pierce, and Barthes all looked at this and used it for language. They said that we build up communication using strange sounds that are made up, and pictures to talk about things. This builds up into myths and images that are believed even though they don’t really exist.

Does this actually work? Not really, there is a bunch of things that should not make sense but does completely within our own culture.

Do you realize the kid in that video is over 50 years old?

That seems ridiculous until I point out that money has the exact same idea behind it. Money represents gold, which is being kept at fort knox. We view gold as valuable, so each dollar in our hand has an equivalent amount in gold hidden away. What happens when we stop viewing gold as valuable? No one knows, it seems to absurd to think about.

The Island of Yap has the worlds largest money. The giant stones are seen as valuable for no reason at all. To buy something a person simply has to say they will give over the giant stone coin. It doesn’t move, just gets a new owner.

In fact usually the stereotypes being sold to us are not real.

There was only one tribe among all of the Native Americans who dressed like that, yet most people associate those clothes with every tribe. The other people only wear these clothes because someone in the past wore them, even though those people were rare even in their own time.

What we see is that even though a theory is disrpoven it will continue to be believed until someone gives another answer. Derrida took Barthes and others apart, seeing the problems and pointing them out, but no one has given an answer to that so we will continue to learn about Barthes.

bell hooks is building off of other people who found an answer to Marx’s thoughts on how society was holding down everyone. But it appears to take a while for it all to happen.

When being taught history it always appeared that the Rennaissance happened suddenly and everyone joined in. The truth is that it took a long time to spread, and some groups skipped it entirely.

For instance, as I write this blog and point out it is the future of papers, a friend leaned over and asked if I was making a prezi of all of this.

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[1]Even I can’t remember what the purpose of the text means at the end of the paper.

[2]Metaphor

Strauss' Structure

        Lets get something over and done with. Claude Levi Strauss was very likely related to Levi Strauss of jeans fame. Levi Strauss is the family name, and many Jews of the time simply used that as the entire name. Claude was actually of Jewish descent, though his family was Christian. So He was fired from his job in France after the German take over of France, not killed. Levi Strauss of Jeans fame was a German Jew who immigrated to the Americas. So yes, they were probably related, but never met.

        I disagree with Claude Levi Strauss’ work in how He used it and not on the basic ideas creating his structuralist theories. The understanding of Raven and Coyote is just off beat from how I know those legends. The structure does exist, but it is constantly changing because the people in charge are constantly changing. There is also the realization that a culture has the structure to it but also an underlying other culture that is not following any of those rules.

        The structuralist statement by Levi Strauss on culture is that "mythical thought always progresses from the awareness of oppositions toward their resolution^[1]."

        Then using this he looks for things that contradict each other and then for something that mediates for that subject. Thus Coyote and Raven in his theories mediate between life and death.

        The argument against this is that, “"the Trickster names 'raven' and 'coyote' which Lévi-Strauss explains can be arrived at with greater economy on the basis of, let us say, the cleverness of the animals involved, their ubiquity, elusiveness, capacity to make mischief, their undomesticated reflection of certain human traits^[2]."

        The above theory is much easier to understand for one very good reason. Coyote and Raven are almost always the heroes in their stories, and death or life have very little to do with the stories. In fact, the ones I grew up with had Coyote making stars, or Crow singing songs. There was never a mention of death, because the animals were immortal in these stories.

        The trickster is a major and beloved character in stories. He is only hated or thought of differently when dealing with those who want order to things.

        To show my reasoning I will use another legendary figure, Robin Hood. There are several legends of Robin Hood, but they follow after two different patterns. The first is that of the trickster common thief who was constantly stealing from the rich and getting away with it. The other is the legend of Robin of Locksley^[3] who was a small lord and went on to being a thief to thwart an evil king.

        Robin Hood may have actually existed, there are many people who believe this. But for this matter I will say there were several different people that fell under Robin Hood.

        The Noble Gentry used Robin as a way to hold themselve above the common peasant. The pious nature and the attitude of a great man. The idea promoted by the yeomen or small land owners was that they were just as noble as those above them. Thus Robin Hood becomes a symbol to them of equality, and a sign to us of a heirarchal system.

        The other Robin Hood is known as a rebel. Many men took on the name when in open rebellion against the government. Other criminals used it or had it used against them at different times^[4]. Thus Robin Hood was an outlaw and to be hated by the upper class.

        These two different ideas built up and around each other to make the legend we know today.

        Thus we have a trickster, the man who robs from the rich and gives to the poor. His cunning and skill is beloved by many, and even today people will call a criminal a Robin Hood as a way of praising someone. Yet, among those who must make the rules and keep order to them, a Robin Hood is a very different figure.

        Levi Strauss looks at the trickster and seems to apply his own logic within the idea of the heroic/hated figure. The eater of the dead does not work, but the idea that there are several references, two sides on those references, and then a legend built around that idea does follow the French Structuralist ideas.

        That may be the big problem within French Structuralism, the ideas are true but the application has major problems. The reasoning behind it may simply be the same as why Robin Hood was viewed as an outlaw and a hero. The people who write the rules demand that everyone follow them. The French Structuralists were writing rules for everyone and thus had ideas that everything must follow their rules.

        Culture has ways of sneaking in without any real explanation. Let’s use another trickster to explain what I mean. Anansi is the spider god of West African lore. He is also the basis for the story of Br’er Rabbit and was an inspiration to millions of African Slaves.

        While growing up I was told the songs sung by slaves trying to escape were called “Anansi Songs.”

        We can find this same cultural undertow within Germanic lore and the modern world. A person only has to look at the days of the week and see that most of them are named after old gods.

        Although I do agree that there are patterns of how people react around things, I do not see it as explaining everything like Levi Strauss did. Therefore I will agree with it, but not for the reasons given.

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[1]Structural Anthropology, p. 224

[2]Diamond, p.311

[3]For a while new.Familysearch.org said my ancestor was this same Robin Hood. I had to research the subject to find out if this was true.

[4]The histories above give a great deal of context to this story and very little ability for me to just say which page to look up.