> Nonsense. Some of my best friends are anthropologists.
So are mine. They're the ones who told me about the Maya.
I've read "Coming of Age in Samoa" and it describes behavior
that the Samoans themselves were very upset about.
You are right about that! However, people everywhere indulge in behavior that other people in their culture are very upset about. Mead loved to describe such behavior. She was like Kinsley -- she talked a great deal about common behavior right here in the US of A that some people find upsetting. I realize it was portrayed in "Coming of Age . . ." as socially acceptable. She did that wrong, which I think was naive. But in my experience, what is socially acceptable to young men & women is not always equally acceptable to their parents, and for some reason when those young people grow middle-aged they often change their minds. Even our esteemed president seems to have undergone a change of heart regarding the use of "recreational drugs."
This was not a language problem or a cultural disconnect, this
was deliberate misrepresentation.
It is *always* a language problem. Anyone who tells you otherwise is like a soldier who claims he is not frightened in battle. When you consider how difficult it is to represent an alien culture in the first place, making a deliberate misrepresentation would be a remarkable accomplishment. It is like the difference between newspaper reporting and writing a convincing novel.
I guess it depends on
whom you wish to believe, Mead or the Samoans themselves.
Which Samoans? Try asking a bunch of Americans about their values and their sex life. To say that you will get mixed answers hardly begins to tell the tale.
- Jed
