DC superheroes explain Margaret Mead (no, really)

[box_in_the_box]

My cross-post on Superman sponsoring socialized medicine inspired fenris_lorsrai to post the following scan of Superman (and friends) holding forth on an equally unexpectedly heavy topic:



Up next: Aquaman breaks his silence on Roe v. Wade!

Comments

[halialkers]

Anthropology's origin was all about strengthening imperialism. It's why I take anything fond of people like Mead with severe skepticism. And that said....I do not believe in a single human nature any more than I believe in a single Volcano Rabbit nature. Species do whatever works in the environment they're in. Humans just spread wider than anything except the brown rat and house mouse.

[shewhohashope]

As a student of anthropology: yes, it's kind of skeevy.

But I do have a soft spot for Margaret Mead. Even though there are earlier influential works based on studying living people: Argonauts of the Western Pacific, anyone? Franz Boas?

[halialkers]

Then there's Ishi, last of the Yahi.....who was before Mead, I do believe.

[shewhohashope]

I had to look him up, and putting scare quotes around 'wild' doesn't make it any less skeevy, anthropology! This is just the sort of crap I was talking about.

[halialkers]

Yeah....but the USA's biggest streak of douchebaggery in terms of length and intensity has always been with the Indians. Blacks were at least given some rudimentary freedom to worship in a church as they pleased under segregation (so long as it was a black church). Indians weren't even allowed to practice their own religions until the 20th Century, and the late 20th Century as that.

[aaron_bourque]

Anthropology's origin was all about strengthening imperialism.

So? That's like saying corn flakes' origins were all about preventing masturbation. Just because it's true doesn't make it relevant. The good of anthropology completely outweighs it's "sinister" origins.

[galateus]

Corn flakes: a physical, actual thing easily separated from the original purpose.

Anthropology: An academic field with underlying assumptions and systems of thought that draw on past work to inform new work.

Analogies: You're doing 'em wrong.

[aaron_bourque]

I wasn't drawing an analogy. Anthropology is an evolving science. Alchemy was originally meant to discover a way to achieve immortality. That doesn't discredit what it actually achieved.

[fierysea]

Well, I like to think that anthropology has come some ways since our founding...

[ladymirth]

How about "Psychology was invented so people could pin their mental problems on their mothers?".

[darkblade]

Um I don't buy corn flakes for that reason. Well that and that I just don't like them.

[aaron_bourque]

Have you tried them with fruit?

[ladymirth]

Try them with sugar. SUGARRR makes everything better.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Wait a minute, corn flakes' origins were WHAT? What on earth do corn flakes have to do with boxing the trouser mouse?

[cricharddavies]

"The occidental legacy of corn flakes goes back to the late 19th century, when a team of Seventh-day Adventists began to develop new food to meet the standards of their strict vegan diet. Members of the group experimented with a number of different grains, including wheat, oats, rice, barley, and of course corn. In 1894, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, the superintendent of The Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan and an Adventist, used these recipes as part of a strict vegetarian regimen for his patients, which also included no alcohol, tobacco, or caffeine. The diet he imposed consisted entirely of bland foods. A follower of Sylvester Graham, the inventor of graham crackers and graham bread and supporter of sexual abstinence, Kellogg believed that spicy or sweet foods would increase passions. In contrast, cornflakes would have an anaphrodisiac property and lower the sex drive."

Wikipedia.

[okkult3000]

That reminds me of a bit written by Patton Oswalt for Geek magazine. He claimed that people shouldn't want flying cars because all those old "spaceship and rocket-pack" stories from the '40s and '50s were written by racist old white men. By this logic, we should ditch democracy because it was invented by pederasts. We should burn the Declaration of Independence because it was written by a rapist.

[halialkers]

Technically, the Declaration of Independence was only distinguishable from the secession conventions of the 1860s in that the former was able to win against the unbeatable foe, the latter got the shit kicked out of it. And I wouldn't want a flying car anyway because traffic accidents in the skies = dead pedestrians.

[darkblade]

Well traffic accidents on the ground usually mean dead pedestrians too.

[aaron_bourque]

Properly enforced air traffic restrictions and a suitably rigid screening process would help.

Aaron "The Mad Whitaker" Bourque; and of course, by the former I mean gunship flyway patrols with sos authorization, and by the latter I mean at least 100 questions on the test and an 80% needed for passing and renewal, at least 3 months before a failed test can be retaken, and the engine won't start if the electronic swipe-card license hasn't been renewed in the last 6 months. Oh, sure, the magnetic tape may fade, but you get a new card at each renewal, anyway.

[ladymirth]

Rapist? What? D:

[glprime]

Sally Hemings, I assume is the reference.

[halialkers]

He was like most slave holders and not above stchupping the property. Problem is that this property was human. So that makes him a douchebag. Bigger problem? This particular girl he slept with was underage, which makes it statutory rape. Back in slavery days it was bad enough to claim slaves were property and then fuck the women and have kids with them. To do that with an underage girl underlines the douchebaggery.

[mullon]

Oh yeah, well what has she done for us lately?

[thosefew]

Why isn't Batman present? Did he send Robin in his place or what?

[yaseen101]

He found out he didn't have any contingent plans for a possible attack by Margaret Mead so he sent Robin in his place and he is currently building plans and satelights and etc just in case. That or that's Batman is Robin's costume so no one will suspect that Robin will be a tough one to fight so he can easily pull a fast one on them.