Biden-Harris: Unity Over Division
Endorsing Biden-Harris from anthropology: Tribal Nations, immigration, racial equity, global community, and the climate emergency.
Anthropology – Understanding – Possibility
The “Moral Optimism” category of Living Anthropologically contains blog-posts related to the idea of anthropology’s moral optimism. The term moral optimism comes from anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s book Global Transformations. See the page on Anthropology & Moral Optimism for elaboration and a free PowerPoint.
At the end of the day, in this age where futures are murky and utopias mere reminders of a lost innocence, we need to fall back on the moral optimism that has been anthropology’s greatest–yet underscored–appeal. But we need to separate that optimism from the naïveté that has been liberalism’s most convenient shield. We need to assume it as a choice–whether we call it moral, philosophical, or aesthetic in the best sense. We need to hang on to it not because we are historically, socially, or politically naïve–indeed, as social scientists we cannot afford such naïveté–but because this is the side of humanity that we choose to prefer, and because this choice is what moved us to anthropology in the first place. We need to assume this optimism because the alternatives are lousy, and because anthropology as a discipline is the best venue through which the West can show an undying faith in the richness and variability of humankind. (Trouillot, 2003, 139)
Endorsing Biden-Harris from anthropology: Tribal Nations, immigration, racial equity, global community, and the climate emergency.
Reconsidering the purpose of Living Anthropologically and adjusting to global convulsions. We need to document history, interconnection, & power. We need to care for others as we attempt to build a world together
Academia should be at the forefront of imagining more radical possibilities for going beyond our current coronavirus crisis.
From anthropology, the reasons for Trump’s immediate impeachment include treatment of migrants, international destabilization, and the climate crisis.
Human history is marked by migration, cooperation, group permeability, & interconnection. Recent efforts to build walls harms human potential.
In NY-19 we elected Antonio Delgado as a representative to do the job of providing oversight. In 2019, that oversight should include supporting impeachment.
Sustainable production of food will in the future require more of us to be involved in the process. The world is going to need a lot more farmers & food makers.
There is a lot of great anthropology studying immigration in the United States. Immigration is central to the study of anthropology and to humanity.
Anthropology has studied immigration and stands with immigrants against mass human rights violations.
With the Venezuela elections, questions of “Will Venezuela recover?” or “Will Venezuela collapse?” arise. Anthropological resources for longer-term perspective.
We seem to be living through a process of declining US hegemony. However, if the United States collapses as an event rather than a process, what’s the plan?
The United States is running nearly one trillion dollar annual deficits, piling onto a mountain of existing debt. What happens if people stop funding the U.S.?
The US Executive & Legislative branches are non-functioning institutions. Even scarier, they risk authoritarian takeover in a political or economic crisis.
The first indicator we could be headed for a collapse in the United States may be a US stock market collapse. Translating from CNBC, it does look dire.
In historical perspective, what seem like lived events become identifiable as processes. However, recent rumblings indicate a US collapse could be swift.
In 2016, the Electoral College should have stopped Trump from becoming president. In 2019, blocking Trump depends on impeachment.
In November 2018, we can assemble the “coalition of the diverse” that almost came together in 2016: A racially mixed crowd in the November Rain.
As gun violence continues in the United States, this gun control podcast reflects on how anthropology can bring sanity and contribute to political debate.
“The first anthropological emotion is hope” (Carole McGranahan) and also via Ingold, Trouillot, Lennon & Ono “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”
Is the time gone for reaffirming that the Bongobongo are “humans just like us”? And does Open Access anthropology spell out the stakes for a wider public?
“A near-present that challenges our technical mastery, and an aftermath … our imagination has yet to seize” makes liberal arts college planning difficult.
For tuition-dependent liberal arts colleges, even a small change in the discount rate opens a hole in the operating budget, which can mean painful cuts.
Globalization was supposed to render the national state irrelevant. Such claims had already been disproved by an anthropology of the state.
Reanimating college on Oyaron Hill, infusing it with “the sense of wonder that comes from riding the crest of the world’s continued birth” (Ingold 2011:75).
Arguments against gun control are rooted in shoddy anthropology: ideas about human nature, culture & history which anthropology does not support.