Anti-Violence Issue Needn’t Get Political
‘Before the beginning of great brilliance, there must be chaos. Before a brilliant person begins something great, they must look foolish to the crowd.”
- I Ching
The papers are full of debate about today’s popular culture, its violence and crudeness. There is both support and derision for the comments of Sen. Bob Dole and others.
Dole is right to criticize, but he must also include the work of Arnold Schwarzenegger when he condemns Oliver Stone.
He must include the violence and crudeness of some talk radio and some political organizations.
It has all become a part of the culture, and to pick and choose is to lose the point. He must speak to the violence of political marketing and the selling of favors to the tobacco and sugar industries.
Injustice and corruption lead to the same loss of faith and cynicism that is created by trash television.
Last night, as I flipped through 30 channels, I encountered scene after scene of unrelenting violence, so I turned off the set.
If you want to do something about this, take the chance of looking foolish, buck the tide, list the commercial sponsors of these programs, write to them and boycott their products.
Write to Bob Dole and ask him to risk being great by making his message fit the problem, not the politics.
Dear Jennifer,
I like your ideas and attitudes towards life.
I am currently a junior in high school who is interested in anthropology. When I read your “Lion King” article, I thought, ‘That is what I want to do - analyze stories and relate them to our culture.”
I wondered what jobs are available to you because you have a doctorate in anthropology.
Lindsey
Dear Lindsey,
Anthropology is a wide open field, very much like a liberal arts education.
“Anthrop” is human, and “logy” is science, i.e., the science of humankind.
There are too many options within the field (language, primates, early civilizations, religion, economics, art, music, kinship, etc.) for me to write about. You have identified the most important element in your letter: “attitude.”
Anthropology opens its students to the world and all the attitudes or perceptions of its cultures.
Perhaps our most important assignment now as humans is the raising of global consciousness. Humans do not need to evolve physically in this era as much as they need to evolve in consciousness.
The greatest barriers to peace and quality of life are belief systems that deny others equal access to the world’s resources. Political, religious, class, sex and race bias constantly churn up our societies and suppress our ability to solve problems with intelligence, awareness and dialogue.
Cultural anthropologists try to understand belief and value systems.
If you have not seen the Joseph Campbell (PBS) video series, try to get it from your local library. It is called “The Power of Myth,” and it takes the beliefs, values and stories of the world and describes how they take us in one direction or another.
Campbell was a passionate and brilliant man. He was a mythologist, which requires an education in the classics. You may find you are drawn that direction as well as toward anthropology.
The jobs will follow: teacher, professor, researcher, writer, speaker, physician, zoologist, archaeologist, media, human resources, government, management, United Nations, etc. They will depend upon the direction your interests take you.
There isn’t a single professional field that an anthropology background won’t enhance.
Whatever path you take, your generation is inheriting a world that is moving through a time of chaos to the next great period of “enlightenment.”
The more you know about the elusive elements of what we are and can be, the more you will be free to live a life of passion and to give to your world.
xxxx