Aloha,
>On 2/13/2006 at 9:58 AM jason winslade wrote:
>Any individual when he or she becomes assimilated into a group will
>tend to take on the language and beliefs of that group. That holds true
>whether it's a magical group, an online forum, a therapy group, the
military,
>or even a place of employment.
Yes. And when all of these competing subsets come from the same overarching
dominant culture complex, the dominant culture complex of a modern society,
talking about similarities and differences becomes, I think, quite tangled.
Identifying membership and affiliation with this or that interest group and
its cultural subset becomes complicated. Group members have multiple and
overlapping affiliations with a range of interest groups simultaneously.
Belief takes on a purposive function, often serving to support the interest
group
in a context of an actor's membership.
But in other contexts, other belief subsets may come to the fore.
One may intentionally engage in a magical endeavor in the context of a
magical-oriented group, but one may intentionally engage in other endeavors
in different contexts.
What's more, some actors may experience cognitive dissonance, but others
may
not. The nature and effects of cognitive dissonance, if there are any, have
to
be described case-by-case, probably actor-by-actor.
One quasi-methodological problem and practical hindrance in academia
involves
an assumption that one belief subset, the one that happens to belong to
one's
committee, department, and/or discipline is--by virtue of its
believers--the
correct and proper one. This may become a bed of Procrustes, and much of
what
one wants to say has to be trimmed to fit.
The problem is not in the topic of study but in the form and formality of
the reporting.
One cannot say that *magic* operates effectively if the form of reporting
holds that
*magic* cannot operate effectively.
Where is the interpretive drift? In the belief subset of the magic workers
or in the
belief subset of the academics who rule out effective magic a priori.
One more comment.
In studying interest groups who belong to the same social class as the
researcher,
and who probably uphold much the same culture, the customary distinction
between studied other and studying actor may blur and disappear. The
studied
other who believes in magic may also turn out to be, oh say, a physician
who
treats the studying actor.
Musing Just Drifting Along On The Tides Of Culture,
Wondering Where I'll Wash Up Next...Rose,
Pitch
Hawawa ka he’e nalu haki ka papa.
*When the surfrider is unskilled, the board is broken.*
--Mary Kawena Pukui, translating a Hawaiian proverb
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