At 04:44 PM 1/22/99 -0500, Lenny wrote:
>Okay, Matt, test your lamentable mental prowess on this postulate
>unabashedly stolen from a provocative two dimensional electronic survey of
>celestial mounds, quetzal sounds, and the shining flight of the Itzaes
>volodores recently diffused across the ARCH-L:
>
>"There is no practice that does not have either an intended or an eventual
>function (effect), whether on the individual or social level. "
Please excuse my "lamentable mental prowess", but am I seeing shades of the
old Max Weber/Robert Dunnell/Julian Steward/Karl
Marx/neo-evolutionist/selectionist/postwhateverist/processIONalist/dys-funct
ionalist/pronationalist anti-pro human
agentive/voluntary/involuntary/instinct/praxis/consciousness/behavioralism/i
nactivism/immaterialism conglomerativism debate again?
If anybody had the good fortune of having missed this one, with intent or
as an involuntary instinct/strategy/extrasomatic means of subsurvival,
consider yourself lucky, it produced "lamentable mental prowess" in most
participants. Some of which, unfortunately, had lingering effects.
I briefly glanced over a few of the droppings on arch-l regarding
accoustical archaeology recently (I actually finished reading a few of
your's, Lenny, since you, at least, temper your ideas with appropriate
levels of silliness and self deprecation), but failed to attain the level
of energy required for the regurgitation of a response. To quote somebody
who used to post on this list back in the good old days
.... "ho hum."
I also checked out Chris Lees' beautiful web site on the tao of
chair-making, and it brought a smile to my face. Jaded? Me? Nostalgic,
maybe. Oh well.
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to conceive of anything terribly
intractible or non-serious enough lately to provoke passionate comment from
arch-theorists. Between fits of grant proposal writing, I've been
re-reading a few hundred pages of Karl Butzer's work on Iberian
agriculture... paying particular attention to his use of positivistic
research methods to support an explicitly political position. Neat stuff.
I used to read this stuff for informational value, now I'm excited about
the rhetorical methods. Familiar with this?
Matt Tomaso
New Jersey
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