Pitch wrote: 2.) It probably does matter, if only a little, whether an author/thinker/
investigator/explorer belongs to a particular group or not. Or wants to.
Or can.
When I wrote "What's important is not whether the author belongs to a group or not, it's whether the author can take a viewpoint that can be impartial towards the group -- that can fairly illustrate both strengths and shortcomings without simply taking a position of advocacy," I didn't mean to say that the cultural context in which the author is situated didn't matter -- you know me better than that, Pitch! It matters a lot. What I meant was that the *determining factor* in whether an author can be fair-minded towards a subject matter is not whether s/he belongs to the group about which s/he is writing or not.
Small distinction, but I didn't want to go on record as saying that the authorial context and background are unimportant. Quite the contrary, in fact.
Sabina
Sabina Magliocco
Professor and Chair
Department of Anthropology
California State University - Northridge
18111 Nordhoff St.
Northridge, CA 91330-8244
________________________________________
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of kaligrafr [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Saturday, December 20, 2008 9:57 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Theater and Magic(k)
Aloha,
Sabina Magliocco wrote:
> What's important is not whether the author belongs to a group or not, it's whether the author can take a viewpoint that can be impartial towards the group -- that can fairly illustrate both strengths and shortcomings without simply taking a position of advocacy.
>
Some thoughts and/or responses.
1.) This is, I think, a useful rule of thumb for evaluating things.
2.) It probably does matter, if only a little, whether an author/thinker/
investigator/explorer belongs to a particular group or not. Or wants to.
Or can.
I am, for example, a native of mid-to-late 20th Century Northern
California.
This influences not just my world view, but, to get a little tricksy
about it,
my world view about world views.
I don't recall ever wanting to be, say, Russian, a fundamentalist
Christian, or
a nuclear weaponeer. This also influences my world view.
3.) We probably need to get more "postmodern" about the way advocacy
is built in to our cultures and world views and theories.
Nobody is uninvolved here. We're all enculturated and self-enculturated
and pickers and choosers of cultural stuff.
Richard Dawkins and some of his notions have been mentioned on this thread.
Dawkins has a theory of culture and information. He advocates it, and so do
plenty of others. One element of his advocacy is that there are no
supernatural
beings.
So, in a Dawkins focused investigation of magic, no explanations by
supernatural
beings.
Nonetheless, we know that, culturally and historically, explanations by
supernatural
beings are often central to magic and what goes on around magic.
4.) It seems to me that what Sabina and other list members are promoting is
overall open mindedness about what we study and how we think about it.
Musing Babes In Meme Land ! Rose,
Pitch
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