Bongo's Aesthetics

[prozak at anus.com]

> In the 1950s, the American economist Rostow attempted a similar argument to
> promote Western (ie US) democracy as the model for newly-independent (ie
> post-colonial) states in the developing world. Be like us, don't be tempted
> by communism, there are no short cuts.

This hasn't changed, except in scale.

> In a global economy based on colonialism, anthropology was the attempt to
> make sense of cultural differences, that is, think globally, outside what we
> know as here. Clearly (inevitably?) much of it was ethnocentric, and might
> have been used to justify colonialism as a mission to civilise. 

Are you sure he's speaking of colonialism here, or using colonialism 
as a part of his argument against capitalism?

> Antropology,
> even when radical, might have a conservative dimension. One example I am
> familiar with is that of Margaret Mead, whose work demonstrated that
> gendered behaviour was a social construct and not determined by biological
> differences. 

Something under some debate as to its veracity, namely because she 
essentially formulated her thesis before leaving - Boas, her advisor, 
was a cultural determinist.

> However, her descriptions of 'primitive' cultures is also a
> vehicle for her dissatisfaction with modern US society (she shared TS
> Eliot's distaste for mass society).

Mass society = product of capitalism. 

-- 
Backup Rider of the Apocalypse
www.anus.com/metal/
DEATH AND BLACK METAL