Savage Minds: The Opposite of Anthropology

Hello everyone,

I was browsing through some of the other posts when I came across this article and another discussion thread on the merit of Christian Lander's blog, Stuff White People Like. Just for the record, I love this blog for its color and nuance, but I also think it raises a larger issue about the way culture around the world is studied. After reviewing Nielsen and Murphy's textbook, A History of Anthropological Theory, I noticed that most social thinkers derive from four countries: Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. From these presupposed academic superpowers, scholars then disperse and investigate the far corners of the world, immersing themselves in foreign lands but still observing with a distinctly Western eye.

Lander's blog instantly (and sometimes uncomfortably) transforms the world's historically predominant observer (i.e. white people) into the observed. In conversation with my non-Caucasian friends, we've all wondered whether Lander was also Caucasian or not, because, according to one friend, "no white person would ever realize the things that we see all the time." Then it hit me: what if this blog is actually doing more harm than good? What if we're simply passing the buck of racism from one group to another, rather than opening up a more educated dialogue on the matter? Let's face it: if Lander were to write about "Stuff Black People Like" or something to that nature, he would be branded without hesitation as a white supremacist. So why is writing about white people somehow okay? (I may have answered this question earlier...)

Since it's inevitable that we compare everything to anthropological archetypes, I'd like to continue the matter of armchair anthropology place in the field today. A lot of Lander's writings remind of me James Frazer's trite assumptions on various artifacts collected throughout the globe as written in The Golden Bough, although Lander is far more satirical. Sure, Lander hasn't done the kind of thorough investigate field work that is expected of a true scholar, but it's hard to not acknowledge the "truths" that the site offers, albiet extremely stereotypical and perhaps even offensive. Although racism and comedy have had a long and tumultuous marriage for centuries, I continue to struggle with drawing the line between what brings humanity forward and what sets it back. I'd like to say Lander's work is a step forward, but I'd also like to hear any dissenting voices on the matter.

For the record, I'd like to keep the discussion in the pursuit of clarity and not noise. I'm not interested in pointing fingers and arguing over "who did what to who," but more to reconcile these challenges we face as scholars of humanity. I leave the floor to you.