Quotes About Anthropology

The only thing different about the Aztecs is that the meat was human meat.

Strictly speaking, human flesh itself contains the highest-qual­ ity protein that one can eat.

In view of the frequent occurrence of modern domestic groups that do not consist of, or contain, an exclusive pair-bonded father and mother, I cannot see why anyone should insist that our ancestors were reared in monogamous nuclear families and that pair-bonding is more natural than other arrangements.

Men and women are not free to love decently until they have analyzed themselves completely and swept away every mystery from sex; and this means the acquisition of a profound philosophical theory based on wide reading of anthropology and enlightened practice.

It is sad, is it not, that no one today displays an interest in the art of shrunken heads. Men, women, and children walk on the streets, they cross fields and enter forests, they run along the edges of oceans, but none of them, to the best of my knowledge, are thinking about shrunken heads.

Conversely, we do not need innumerable friends: according to the anthropologist Robin Dunbar, the human brain can only process approximately 150 interpersonal relations. This is known as Dunbar's number, and it's about the size of a small tribe.

Words originated, as did the concept of God, with our species.

One finds societies which do not have an Oedipus complex (cf. Malinowski). The Oedipus complex might be an 'institutiton' tied to the structure of our society.

The visible has to be described as something that is realized through man, but which is nowise anthropology. Nature as the other side of man (as flesh--nowise as 'matter'). Logos also as what is realized in man, but nowise as his property.

Anthropologists teach others to try to avoid the pitfalls of ethnocentrism by learning to understand a culture in terms of its own assumptions about reality. Western shamans can do a similar service with regard to cognicentrism. The anthropologists' lesson is called cultural relativism. What Western shamans can try to create, to some degree, is cognitive relativism.

Human culture is early human cooperation writ large.

Why do you think we are the only animal that kisses? She was near again. Because the area in front of our faces is our most intimate zone. She drew a breath. This is why humans are the only romantic animal!

the Platonized eschatology so popular over many centuries (how will my soul get to heaven?) has played host to a moralized anthropology (what's to be done about my sin?), generating a quasi-pagan soteriology (God killed Jesus instead of punishing me).

The aborigines were a source of wonder and amusement to be alternately fed, clothed, teased, educated, and petted.

By growing a beard, a man turns his face into an echo of his crotch; and the capacity to grow a beard very likely predates the use of cosmetics by a few hundred thousand years.

Instead of looking for explanations for the fact of inequality, anthropologists should look for the explanation for the notion of equality.

By means of the notion of "cultural evolution," the democratic anthropologist tries to avoid questions of biology.

The contemporary anthropologist, under democrats' severe gaze, skips quickly over ethnic differences like over hot coals.

Anthropology largely neglects the individual to deal in generalizations. Generalizations always tell a little lie in the service of a greater truth.

Der Punkt ist, dass Feldexkursionen häufig eher ein Versuch des Forschers sind, eigene, sehr persönliche Probleme zu lösen, als dass sie dem Bemühen entspringen andere Kulturen zu verstehen.

If psychoanalysis is right, virtually the totality of what anthropologists call culture consists of sublimations.

As for meat, let me say it upfront:Humans haven't fully adapted to eating meat.

Humans were designed by evolution to live in societies, but they may not understand how societies work.

Someone once told me that archaeologists are anthropologists who don't like live people. They dig up dead ones because dead ones can't talk back. That's not quite true. But I think live people are too fast for most archaeologists. We're a slow-moving lot.