Is the problem with anthropology the use of pseudointellectual P.C. left wing c**p & protocol meaning nothing?

Question

http://ocha-gwapps1.unog.ch/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/ACOS-64BUQD?OpenDocument

Here is a fine example of good academic writing;

Answer 1

No. But what is your problem?

Answer 2

No and Yes. As Maveri stated anthropology is a well respected discipline with its own theoretical approaches and time tested methodology. Anthropological journals are reputed. Just look up Annual Review of Anthropology and Current Anthropology, you would simply appreciate the level of intellectualism. Anthropology contributes immensely to cultural understandings. If, in practical terms, we appreciate cultural differences in today's world much of the disagreements and conflicts would have been easily solved. Yet, there are people who use the name of the discipline to meet their immediate needs. Beware of them.

Answer 3

The problem with anthropology is not faults of anthropology itself but the image of anthropology becuase some laypeople think they know what it is when they really don't.  This is an excellent example.  If you want to read the sort of work that anthropologists do, you don't choose some random International Politics forum; you go to the peer-reviewed journals like the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, American Anthropologist, Annual Review of Anthropology, Medical Anthropologist Quarterly, etc.  

Anthropology is not pseudo-intellectual.  It is a critical examination of our own assumptions through the lenses of other cultures.  It is a study of other cultures that are always changing and may not be so different from us before long.  It is a search for differences because they enrich our lives, they challenge our beliefs, and they provide ideas, methods, and even medications that are new to Western ideas.  Just becuase you think left-wing equals c**p doesn't mean that extensive examination of prejudices for veracity really is c**p.  We don't do P.C. becuase it is P.C.  We speak respectfully of other cultures becuase we see things in them that are worth thinking about.  This doesn't equal P.C.  In fact, one of the leading contemporary anthropologists, Scheper-Hughes, is someone the vast majority of people would immediately label as forceful.  She's possibly the most prominent writer among activist anthropologists (the anthropologists that primarily work to redress indecencies they observe).  Do you have any specific criticism you'd like credible sources for or aren't you that concerned with gathering data before making decisions?

Edit: per Jon's request - Anthropology is fundamentally about the methodology of cultural relativism.  http://www.anthrobase.com/Dic/eng/def/cu...

http://vlib.anthrotech.com/guides/anthro...

Answer 4

Do you really want to argue with people that like looking at skeletons for a living?

Answer 5

Pretty much.

So, if your verbose defense of anthropology is valid, Maverick, you won't mind elucidating the overarching theory that holds anthropology  together in a cohesive manner.

Oh, that is right, there is no overarching theory in any social science.

Cultural relativism is a concept that holds in cultural anthropology and is not well supported empirically; in fact not empirically supportable at all.

The truth of the matter is, anthropology has no overarching theory, such as the theory of evolution by natural selection. To say otherwise is misleading.

What in the name of all that is incoherent is an " activist anthropologist? " Sounds exactly like the ideological incoherence in anthropology I am speaking of.