Gazing Through the Anthropological Lens: Holistic Views

Of all the assigned readings in this segment, this first chapter in James Peacock's book was the one that held my interest most. I suppose, overall, that it opened my eyes to what anthropology truly is: A multidisciplinary means of studying a culture or cultures. It awoke me to the fact that I had unwittingly engaged in an anthropological study of my own in 1990, during which year I lived and worked with a Cuban family in Puerto Rico.



There is much here of significance to absorb and expound upon; more than time or space will permit. I'll attempt to address what I found to be the key highlights.



I was pleasantly surprised to find that Peacock's experience as an anthropologist has led him to place no small measure of gravity on Alfred North Whitehead's concept of "the fallacy of misplaced concreteness" -- or put otherwise, personification of abstract concepts. The last writer I've come across to have addressed this crucial concept was David Bergland in Libertarianism in One Lesson. One of the greatest problems, and most significant tragedies, in nearly all societies is to imbue fictitious concepts with the color of substance. We must pass this law for "the greater good" or to "protect the public." Yet both the "greater good" and the "public" don't exist. They are phantoms. What is real are individuals who may be thought of as collectively comprising the vessels that such cogitations propose. However, when these abstractions are deferred to in preference to the inviolable liberty of an actual physical individual, they cease to remain seated in reality. They cease at once to be of any use.

In this vein, I'd like to add my name to the long and distinguished line of libertarians who have taken it upon themselves to debunk Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan. Hobbes' ultimate conclusion, of course, is that ultimately men must give up their freedom to someone in order to be "protected" from everyone. What Hobbes so naively failed to address is whom, then, is going to "protect" such an individual from that very someone. Further, contrary to Hobbes' view, there is no "social contract." It's a myth and a flat-out lie. Government "laws" are mere opinions backed up by a lot of guns. Few, if any of us, actually consent to them. They are one-sided contracts -- in other words, non-contracts -- made up by the political class, and as such have no legitimate bearing on anyone. Anthropology, while of necessity a field of study that must take any number of factors into consideration, and so must too often adjudge matters from a collectivist perspective, would nonetheless do well to admit of the logic Hobbes failed to attain.

As for Emile Durkheim, in large part, I carry here no brief for his generally astute observations. I would only take exception to his insistence upon placing the collective first in summarizing the capabilities and measure of a given society. This is rather like placing the chicken before the egg. For example, while it may be perfectly true that the evolution of a language is dependent upon contributions and participation among many in order for it to grow and possess meaning (after all, what form of communication possesses any meaning without many to communicate amongst one another?), nevertheless it required one individual to innovate the concept. The fact that almost no person, regardless of the endeavor, accomplishes anything entire by themselves is missing the point. The nascent idea, the focus and foundation, must always come from one individual.

At any event, it would seem that anthropological holistics must deal with the often irrational ideosyncrasies of cultures not nearly as egalitarian, and thus, must encompass such views with nuetrality. Science must often be more dispassionate than philosophy (though philosophy does well to emulate science in this regard). Anthropology would seem to be a science that demands such temperance in all of its various modalities, often even to reach a purely subjective truth. That said, through the voice of James Peacock, it is made to be fascinating.