Just Another Job

This article brought an issue into the spotlight that I hadn't given any thought to. Personally I feel there isn't a need to hire a nanny to raise your own children or help to clean your house. If you can't clean your own house because it is too big or for other reasons then you shouldn't have purchased something you can't handle. I don't feel it is good enough if the only reason these people hire help is so they can spend their time not raising their kids or doing a little cleaning. Your house and children are your responsibility to take care of. I would feel embarrassed to have someone cleaning up my messes, handling my laundry, or being in my household 24/7. It would be an invasion of my privacy. The fact that these women are having to resort to such horrible conditions to take care of their family is heartbreaking.

In one of the blogs someone said that they had two immigrant workers who were actually professionals back home. Why would they move all the way over here, where they are unable to use their degrees'? To go from being a engineer to being a housekeeper just seems so disappointing. I know that if I went to school to be an engineer, I would want to be working as an engineer. Instead they moved to the U.S. where their work cannot transfer? I feel bad that they are unable to use they skills in which they posses from years of schooling.

Just a Job

The house that I stayed at in Poland had a lady who came in and cleaned every week. It made me uncomfortable when I was informed we would have to be out of the house all day, and then arrived back to find all of my things moved and reorganized to where I couldn’t find things. I never got the chance to meet the woman, but I imagine she was treated very well and paid fairly by my host family who happen to be very nice people. The article had some very appalling examples of racism and abuse which I could never imagine happening. Unfortunately, these sorts of things do happen in the U.S. If parents are unable to raise their own children or clean their own house, they should take classes or something before having kids or owning their own house to learn how to make their house a home, rather than subjecting immigrants to such labor. I would never hire someone else to do housework for me. There is a big difference between having an underpaid, illegal immigrant do backbreaking work 24/7 and having your best friend baby-sit for one night.

Just Another Job

I truly think it is sad how some of these domestic workers are not being treated fairly or even abused because their employer does not value them. Or sometimes the immigration troubles an individual might be having may indeed be solved by working in a household, however some employers might take advantage of them through bribing or fear. To me, working in a domestic household would be an especially precarious situation, especially if I didn't check it out first and became comfortable with the family. However, these women do not have the choice. The racist statements in this article took me aback...especially when one of the employers was remarking on the different workers she had hired...like the race of an individual determined their character, or their personality. I think that is so wrong. In some ways these women become so close to the children that they help raise, that the child in turn becomes closer to the au pair or the nanny rather than their own mother. But then, when that nanny or au pair gets fired by the employer, what happens to the relationship between them and the child? This whole thing is riddled with sadness...so I hope that something comes about that resolves the issues that these women are facing.

Just Another Job?

This article nicely summarizes some of my primary reasons for being against illegal immigration. Effectively these people are modern day slaves, subjected to all sorts of abuses by the client/host relationship they are stuck in because they have no documentation and little to no recourse with the authorities when they are here illegally and there are abuses against them. I have personally seen this in the construction field, illegal undocumented workers are treated extremely poorly by the companies which they work for, low pay, no benefits, hazardous working conditions and the ever present fear of deportation. I was working on a medium-rise mixed use building one day inspecting rebar and some concrete, all of the ironworkers that were placing the rebar were illegal undocumented workers from Guatemala and Mexico. They were all great guys and as I was the only inspector that could communicate directly with them I always worked with them. The highest paid worker on the job was getting paid $12/hour with no overtime, 20 minutes for lunch, and no breaks. In contrast, a union ironworker at the journeyman level is paid $32/hour with excellent benefits, mandatory breaks, retirement and a union system to prevent hazardous and unsafe working conditions. The illegal workers that I worked with were all deported one day at the job site towards the end of construction and union labor was brought in to finish the job. There was a lot of speculation in the industry as to whom had reported to illegal workers, but I heard from a reliable source that the owner of the building owed the illegal workers company a lot of money in back wages and reported them himself to avoid having to pay them and also to be able to say that his building was union built.

Just another job

The Commodification of Domestic Labor written by Bridget Anderson addresses an issue that effects a large number of people; immigrant domestic workers. I used to have housekeepers come to my house once a week. They were both from Russia. Both professionals back at home. My first housekeeper was an engineer but couldn't transfer work to the states so, on the side she also taught piano lessons. Eventually she got so busy that she referred her friend to me to work. The new housekeeper was a teacher back home but said she could never teach American children because they are so misbehaved and disrespectful.

These women were close to our family because they came once a week for 6 hours. They did dishes, laundry, cleaned bathrooms, washed the floors, washed windows and dusted. I kept in touch with them until they moved away. I'm not wealthy by any means but they were charging so little it seemed crazy not to have them helping out.

I feel like this is no longer a luxury but a necessity because our life as it is now, with women and men working and women mainly responsible for all the domestic duties in addition to working outside the home, housekeeping can suffer and who wants to live in a dirty house?

What is so sad in this story is how people treat some domestic workers poorly. I was shocked by the large numbers of women being regularly abused. I just can't understand why some people think they are better than other simply because they have more money.

Adaptive value of religious ritual

I generally do not see a value in modern day life to organized religion. Most modern religions, in my opinion, use the ancient strictures that may have once been an adaptive value to survival as a group, for their own enrichment. A particular instance I was reminded of when reading this article is a local church where the pastor and his wife lease new Mercedes every year, really?! Is this necessary? If I were inclined to be religious, and also inclined to attend this church this would disgust me.

Price of Progress

This reminds me of the same theme in the work by Jared Diamond and others in regards to our modern lifestyle vs a tribal and traditional lifestyle. So we can see that the foods we consider normal are just as bad for people who are not used to them as they are for people who are habituated to them. Is it right or wrong? Of course we wil all agree that doing these things to groups is wrong, yet what can we do about it? Not much. These multinational corporations are beholden to no one (ostensibly they are responsible to their stockholders) except the CEO's who are paid 1000 times the amount of the lowest paid worker, and this is in the USA! SO these multinational corporations are effectively becoming their own countries which are not bound by the same laws as the regular companies in a country and hold no allegance to any country.

Price of Progress

Would we be here if progress didn't happen? well probably but we would be living in the woods and forging for berries. Instead of reading about how humans have messed up everything, and blogging about it. With out progress we would not have IPhones or the Internet but we also would not have a hole in the ozone layer or global warming. The thing that amazed me about this article is that our health has gotten worse and we have bad teeth because of progress and the invention of agriculture. This article also ties into the movie we just watched on Africa and how most of Europe just crapped on its native people. I as a ignorant American had no idea what African history was about. I guess this is the price of progress, and I guess it is up to us and future generations to make progress a positive thing.

The Price is Right? Wrong!

Ok. Let me get this straight. Europeans have gone into tribal lands, taken away their traditions, changed their diets, introduced new diseases and cut down their forrests and now they are not better off?? NO WAY!! I would have no idea!
Hello. Obviously anytime you overtake a people (traditions, land, rituals, food, resources, etc.) you are practicing ethnocentrism at its finest. Nothing good can ever come of this. Wait, let me rephrase this. Nothing good for the majority of the world can come from this. For the power elite few, however, this is a dream come true for several reasons. First, they have drawn more people into their capitalism slavery machine. More people working their asses off to bring them more money while practically starving, trying to eek out a living off their weager wages. Second, they are driving tribal people off their lands to gain more property. Third, they are stealing their resources to use as they desire, in whatever way will suit them best. Lastly, they are simply killing them off with diseases previously unknown to them before the Europeans took over.
So, what we learn is this model:
1. Use your power to take over entire tribes.
2. Teach them how to make money for you.
3. Tax them to take back some of the money you have to give them for working for you.
4. Take their land for yourself.
5. Take their resources to do with as you wish.
6. Destroy their traditions at their very core so that it will be impossible in the future for them to band together and rise up against you.
7. After you have taken absolutely everything you can from them, rendering them useless, unleash some deadly diseases on them and get rid of them altogether.
8. Welcome any survivors to the world of progress.
Sound familiar?

Jennifer Lucero

Going along with someone else said about the killer disease, this is pretty scary stuff. With all the precautions we take to prevent illness, it could actually making things worse for us in the long run. What if there comes a point in time when all of our hand washing and whatnot doesn't work anymore? What if we all become immune to the vaccinations in which work now? This is all serious stuff that is a concern in our reality.

Price of Progress

Progress has a price. Personally, I would rather live in a jungle and forage for food without access to electronics. I hate how our society is dependant on technology to do everything these days. You can’t even register for college without creating about 15 different accounts and passwords and filling out hundreds of forms online. Whatever happened to in-person meetings? Another thing about progress that bothers me is how many different gadgets people have these days. It’s like everybody has to have an ipod and a laptop and 3 emails and an iphone, etc. ipods are nice, but a live concert is so much more valuable. Are standards of civilization are going down, and with it our health, because of agriculture. Easy access to food doesn’t mean access to quality food. Most of the stuff we get is processed junk. As regards the decline of our health, I can testify to that. My grandpa has about two real teeth left. The rest have fallen out or decayed because of the food he has had access to. If we were expected to gather our own food, we would take more care in eating healthy and natural food. We should have left Africa alone. They have got the idea on how to live. Why don’t we learn from them instead of trying to teach them our ways, which are clearly wrong?

The Price of Progress

I find articles like this one and the previous article about how we automatically assume that certain events in history were the best thing to happen to us while we ignore the negative effects. I find it interesting when people challenge what we believe to be common sense and have a real argument that makes clear sense. I may not agree with the authors, but I do admit to being entertained by what they have to say. This article like the article "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race" talked about things that I am familiar with and have heard of before. This makes it easier for me to understand and see their point. I am the most familiar with the argument about disease. I've heard that there are supervirus being created with all the chemicals we use to kill germs and disease. By using more and stronger antibacterial handwash we force bad germs to evolve into things that are resistant. Soon there will be supergerms that can't be killed by anything. Also I've heard that eventually obsesive handwashing with chemicals can lead to a weakening in a person's immune system. That can also lead to people being able to get sick easier even if they are infected by just a normal germ that a normal person would not be affected by. I'm not saying that its bad to wash your hands, but just don't go overboard.

Price of Progress

I think that no matter how you try to rationalize the progress of something it will always have its downfalls. This article show that very well. What is progress for one person is a disadvantage for another, its all perspective. With the growth of a society diseases will also grow and become more hazardous. People do not want to accept the fact that their idea of progress can harm others instead of bringing them a higher “standard of living”. Its like they all just forgot that there cant be a higher or upper class with a high standard of living without a lower class with a lower standard of living. Some places are indeed better off without our standards being imposed upon them.

The Price of Progress

I thought this article a very interesting read, especially considering all of the discussions we've been having about the affects progress has had on human kind. I think the most interesting part about this article was its description of the diseases; how migration of people and the progress made by modern medicine has actually created harsher, deadlier diseases than in the past. But I suppose that it also falls into the debate of the evolutionary processes or not. If you believe in uniformitarianism, then the same natural processes that went on millions of years ago, are going on today. So I guess you could say that those diseases would have grown and evolved anyway, except that they were fueled to an even faster rate of growth by industry and the progress of production.

Religious Ritual

Religion is a funny thing millions of people believe in something that they have never seen or have proof that it exists. But yet they give up their whole life, in devotion to a God. I myself am agnostic, meaning I can't say that there is or is not a god but I don't want to do anything bad to find out. My parents are Catholics that have strayed away from the church partially because of the mainstream changes, such as the removal of kneelers and touching of the bread. But the main factor was the amount of money the church wanted to be a " good member" of the church. I remember being about ten years old and sitting at the top of stairs and hearing a representative from the church tell my parents how much they should be giving. I thought to myself what kind of god wants you to pay to worship him. This can also be said for people that stand fully clothed in the blazing sun. But I do believe that religion can give hope to some people, it gives them something to be apart of and something to live for.

Religious Ritual

When I first began reading this article I found myself having negative feelings towards how Richard Sosis talked about religion like those who practiced different rituals were crazy or not in their right mind. In his article he tried to explain why people are religious and the reasons how it would benefit its believers. I find myself to be more neutral when it comes to religion, but I do believe that part of being religious is to just accept things for how they are and to know that not everything is under our control; believing in something that is higher than ourselves. Some people are religious because they just believe certain things about life, for example fate or destiny. I believe that people don’t need a reason to be religious. There may be contributing factors to being religious, but I think that it starts with either you believe in something or you don’t. After reading Sosis’s article, I can understand what he is saying but I don’t fully agree with him. Not everyone needs a reason for doing something, sometimes people just do it.

Religious Ritual

Religion, in my opinion, is one of the most controversial topics and I never like discussing it. It is hard because people love to voice their opinions, but they do not want to listen to others. Religion is also very interesting, because there are so many diverse beliefs within a culture. It does not matter where you live or who you are, you believe what you believe. It is based on your upbringing as well as personal experience and the way you view life itself. There are many rituals involved in being part of a religion that you must follow. Of course some may seem out of the ordinary to one, while another it may seem like the right thing. In the movie Religulous they say, "It's like the lotto. You can't get saved if you don't play." Meaning the people who participate in these religions, participate in different rituals or events. As much as I dislike it, religion plays an important part in peoples lives and can even determine who you marry, when you have kids, how many kids you have and so on. It is in every single culture and it will never, ever disappear.

Religion is a very hard topic for many people to discuss. It is a very personal thing. There are many different types of religions, and each on believes that they are the "right one". There is so much controversy about religion in just one culture alone. With so many different cultures in the world, debate and whatnot is a never ending story with religion. Many people look at another religion and think wow that is strange, but in reality it's the "strange" religion people think the same about them. Just like anything else, your religion is determined by your culture.

Religious Ritual

Religion is always interesting to me. I don’t personally care for it, but I do realize that many people need it. I’m always intrigued when I happen upon some people or someone performing a “religious ritual”. For some reason I also like to listen debate about how their religion is better then the next, people just get so worked up about it.
Like I said I don’t care to have a religion myself. Some of the rituals religions do just boggles my mind at times. People will put themselves through so much just so they can feel like they belong. I do understand that religion gives people a feeling of peace and well being, that there is a greater purpose and bigger picture that they are involved in. It’s the concept of universalism that makes people feel so much better. It gives them the sense that they are not alone.
Now I think universalism is all good and dandy, too an extent. Only eating certain things, having to donate so much money and doing things in a certain order so many times a day at specific times in the day. All of that just seems like such a large commitment and requirement just to have the feeling that you are worthy to be part of that community. For some people it’s the norm. Some people need religion so that they can make sense of their world.
In all, sometimes religion is good and all of the many rituals they perform can help make people feel like they belong. It is interesting, but I just don’t see a need for all of it in our modern western society. I’m just weird like that I guess.

Religious Ritual

In this article, the author Richard Sosis talks about finding answers to why people in certain religions perform seemingly unnecessary rituals, some of them which seem counterproductive. Some of these religions, he noted, have what he calls 'costly requirements'. In other words, the rituals that seem counterproductive. He uses as an example, praying three times a day, eating only kosher foods, donating a percentage of your income and even as extreme as giving all of your material belongings away. These religions are continually growing and retaining more of it's members. To me, one of the obvious reasons that these people would stay longer in the groups with more 'costly requirements' is that they have more at stake in leaving. Imagine if you have given away everything you own. Wouldn't you be a little more hesitant to drop out of that membership and try a new one? Also, maybe your friends or family are calling you crazy for joining in the first place. You would essentially be admitting they were correct in their assumption if you gave up.
Also, I find it interesting that he didn't go into the reason for these rituals. Often these stem from the religious texts in which they follow. Take circumcision as an example. The Bible talks about circumcising boys and the reason they should do so. If you follow a certain religion and believe in your heart that it is the truth, you would do anything the religious texts told you to do. These rituals are much more than just a show to the outside world, or even to the group itself, how committed you are.
Jennifer Lucero

The Adaptive Value of Religious Ritual

At first this article seemed rather cut and dry when trying to explain the origins of religion. I think in many ways, religion is a subject that is different for everyone. I know that I have grown up in a rather ambiguous religious back ground, so I can't make many judgements on anyone else's religion. I think that any ritual that causes physical or emotional harm is unethical, but then again, I could be very well considered a flaming ethnocentrist on that particular issue. For me, I think religion is a way of living, rather than a ceremonial or spiritual enigma. I mean, yes, for some it does explain where they came from or how this earth goes around. But for some it doesn't. So as a generalized statement, I think religion is a lifestyle because it is a formulaic quota of things to follow, sets out certain boundaries, and gives people certain priveledges or protection. It's a safety blanket, a comforting thought, or maybe just a pursuit of purpose or reason. But whatever it is, it make human kind unique from anything else. So I think its really fascinating how religions developed, especially considering that most of them want to solve the greatest mystery of all. The reason for life. But no one can really know about that until they experience what all of us must do one day...except they can't come back and explain it to you. Now that would be something.

Money Politics

In the United States, our government has tendencies to spend our tax dollars as they see fit, which mostly goes towards our countries defense/military actions. Spending a good portion of our money on defending our political values is a "power play" in my opinion. We are spending all that money to defend the fact that we are right and superior over the other countries in which we have conflict with. The US at times can act like we are better then everyone else as well as more powerful beacuse of the fact that we do have the ability to put our money where our mouth is. But what would our country be like if we didnt have that money to throw around to defend our egos and powertrips?

Scared Barriers to Conflict Resoolution

This article pointed out the countries priorities based on conflicts that they may have. Many countries spend money on political issues because it gives them power. When a country has power, they have a lot of control and influence on others. The problem with war is that people do not agree with the reasonings, if there is any at all, and it is impossible for everyone to agree on one thing. This causes people to point fingers and blaming others for them being in the wrong. Counties involved in war, politics and the economy have many issue that will never be completely solved, so they will continue to argue until they prove they are right. When the want of all this power, money and control fades away, the world will understand what peace is. Those three things are the most important things to survive in this fast-paced money making world. World peace is not in our agenda anytime soon, no matter how much we would like it to be.

It is hard for a countries to forgive each other even with a "apology." They can try to pay them off, but in reality there will always be a grudge. I honestly don't know if there could be peace. Even if you are a nicest person in the world, there will be someone out there who does not like you. This goes for countries as well. There is no way for everyone to get along, therefore there cannot be "world peace."

Scared Barriers to Conflict Resoolution

We entrapped the Japanese in WWII, all they had to be was 1/16 Japanese to be taken off and put in a camp. People were taken that did not even know they had any Japanese in their blood lines. But the United States government thought they might still be a threat. Now this was not as bad as what we did to the Native Americans or what Nazi Germany did to the Jews. But the US should not be pointing fingers at any one. I do not know much about the war that is going on now and frankly I don't want to know, all you hear is lies any ways. I do know that it started because we set up camp in their holy land and try to fix some thing we had no business in. Apologies never work people will still hold grudges. The Native Americans and the African Americans will never forgive the American settlers and the Jews will never forgive the Nazi. That is just how humans are, so the lesson is never make anyone mad because they really will never forgive you.

Sacred....

It seems that if this were all it would take to make peace in the region, the innumerable talks, peace summits, and strong arming done over the years would have found these avenues to make peace. Yet this has not been accomplished and there is still strife in the region. I do not think there will ever be a substantial and long lasting peace in Israel.

Sacred Barriers

This article was a little interesting. I understand that people want an apology from the country that committed the wrong doing. But it almost seems like a cop-out to me. The country that was in the wrong can say “we’re sorry” and try to play it off. An apology alone cant solve problems though. Like Palestine and Israel made clear was that an apology is just a place to start. There really isn’t much more of an opinion from me, it all seemed pretty common sense to me.

Sacred Barriers

I felt that the article pointed out that countries put their money towards country conflicts for political reasons rather than what is ethical. For example the United States didn't want to get too close to Hanoi because they didn't want to ruin ties with Japan who is a stronger political power. Also a country will make sure the country in the wrong will admit their wrong actions before making reconciliations. For example in 1948 Israel insisted that before any money issues were addressed that Germany had to publicly declare contributing for the murders and suffering of Jews at German hands. Overall I don't really have an opinion on this issue.

Kpelle Moot

I really liked how it was dealt with in this. I also though dont understand it because of my western view points to me it was just a tad weird for me. A woman who has multiple husbands must be going out of her mind. I think though to each is own and i have no place in telling them what i think but i still believe that it is wrong and that it is reckless and not needed

Kpelle Moot

I think that some aspects of the Moot would be a superior conflict resolution tool than the traditional courtroom experience. For all of the divorce and other litigation that does not necessarily require a court with the power to punish a person, but rather one which has some ability to make them see the other side of the disagreement this is definitely superior. I particularly like the practice of bringing rum and snacks for the Moot attendees if one is found to be at fault or as a punishment for speaking out of turn. It really reminds me of being a kid and getting in a fight with my cousins and having our grandfather mediate our dispute. We had a choice between a switch and mediation, so we usually chose mediation!

Worst Mistake....

Diamond makes some compelling arguments for the case. However, there are many human accomplishments and acheivements that never would have happened if we continued along as hunter gatherers. One could say that maybe we would have developed some sort of modern technology, yet the reality is that any sort of modern technology takes the many generations of accumulation of knowledge that the agricultural lifestyle gives us. Perhaps, in some sort of future utopia, our technological advancement will have proceeded to the point that we can once again live like our ancestors did.
In the meantime, we can take some of the information we know about how our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived and apply it to our own lives. Eating food that is as local as possible and in season in one area we can all make a difference in how our consumption affects the world.

Kpelle Moot

I really liked the way situations are dealt with there. I am sure there are downfalls to this system like ours but overall they seem to have a moral/decent structure down. Their way of solving problems seems very old school and low key but I feel that eliminates a lot of drama and anger. This seems like a way for everyone to win and do away with animosity. I think many cultures including our own can benefit from observing this culture.

Worst Mistake In History

After reading the article I agree with the author and believe agriculture is the biggest mistake in human history. I agree with the fact that agriculture does cut out vitamins and minerals that we would get from getting our own food from nature if there wasn't agriculture. As we as people grew and became plenty they became in need of agriculture to survive. So more and more was grown. Supply and demand made it so that there is always a need for more. A neverending cycle. Another way to look at it is that we wouldn't be where we are today if it wasn't for agriculture. The Industrial Revolution is a big part of this. The quality of the food we have is far more down than what it could be but we're doing fine. Medicine is growing fast and people are gonna start being able to live longer so in the near future or actually now we're dealing with it quite fine and are very successful.

Kpelle Moot

I found the Kpelle Moot to be a pretty interesting article. I feel like the moot would be a very effective system for solving disputes. It would be effective because both sides are satisfied, instead of just punishing one side. Punishing one side instead of resolving the conflict just makes harsh feelings between the two parties, which we see in our culture very frequently. In our culture, when a divorce happens, one person often loses their stuff, which just creates more anger towards the other person.

Brothers share Blog

I disagree and find the idea of fraternal polyandry inconceivable to be reckless and abrupt. I can't imagine the type of chaos that goes through a womans mind having multiple husbands. In our country, America, this type of behavior is wrong and uncivilized. I'm looking at the Tibetan culture at which I view this from a "westerner" point of view. I don't think it is normal. After reading their view of it I see where they're coming from but still think that it's wrong. I'm not a believer in what they're trying to convince others why. It might just be the article and how it was made up. Maybe they have a more in depth perception of it and I'm not seeing it. But from what I read in the article, I'm not convinced. It's all about the land and there are other ways to be successful and wealthy instead of marrying a new girl. It's not needed.

Blog: Problem Solving

If our culture could sovle problems like the culture in this article, then there would be a lot less problems and our lives would run a lot smoother. Looking at what goes to court in today's world, a lot of the court cases consist of frivilous lawsuits and stupid people looking for money. If people could somehow workout their probelms on their own, outside of the court rooms and without lawyers and other legal involvment, then our world would be a happier place. There are way too many people who try to find someone to blame so they dont have to take responsibilitity for their actions or lack there of. In my opinion, if two people have a problem, then they should be able to work it out on thier own in priviate without involving lawyers or spending an excess amount of money unnecessarly. But unfortuently thats will probably never happen beacuse there are too many selfish and greedy people in our society today :(

Blog #12

In both the formal court and moot, the person at fault of the case has to give gifts to accused person as a form of apology. The person at fault also has to bring rum to the mediator and those present in both cases. In the formal court, the judge is the one in control of the hearing while in the moot the power is shared more equally between parties. This leads to the outcome of the case to be more consensual in a moot which means the parties will have less of a chance of having the same conflict arise again. The overall feel I get from a moot is that the objective is to make an agreement and not just a decision of who is right and who is wrong. The drinking at the end of the hearing in a moot symbolizes that both parties are on good terms with each other again. I don’t think that a moot would work in the present day America because people who are trying to get a divorce for example have too strong of feelings toward each other than can’t be changed easily just by discussing the problems. The idea Americans that are working toward a divorce is to separate and get away from each other instead of resolving the problems and getting back together again. I do admire how the Kpelle can work problems out by just talking about them which then forms stronger bonds between people because instead of separating, people are being understanding towards each other and accept others.

Kpelle Moot vs US court

Although a difficult read due to being so bland, this article had interesting points. I like how the Kpelle handle disputes in their society. Acting on a dispute right away prevents things from getting too blown out of porportion. Also, it prevents some people (attorneys) from making huge monetary gains at the expense of others. Because of their desire to live in harmony, everyone benefits from this way of dispute resolution.
It is fair that everyone involved gets a chance to air their greivances in front of family and neighbors. In this way, they are all held accountable which in turn causes most of them to act in a becoming manner. In the end, everyone makes ammends through gift giving.
I think we have alot to learn when it comes to resolving disagreements in our society. Modeling ourselves after the Kpelle would be a good start.

Kpelle Moot

This article was very interesting, in that people would come together as a community to solve a problem. A lot of this could be very useful for our own culture. Being able to solve a small claims matter or just a small problem in general in a much less informal matter would make things much easier. What we do now creates a lot of resentment and hostility between both parties. The way they handle things makes it so they can all just go back to doing what they do everyday without having to worry about the relations with everyone else. It seems a lot more peaceful and better for the community as a whole. Plus having the losing party provide everyone with rum and the sorts would make it all the better afterwards.

The Kpelle Moot

I thought this article a little dry, however I did get some major points out of it: that possibly our culture could learn from, and how those differences could affect our judicial system. The Kpelle moot system would use exchange and compromise to solve issues, and then the problem would hold no power or resentment over them after it was solved. I thought this a really interesting ideal, especially compared to how our own system works; i.e. divorce court, where there is often hostility and resentment towards the winning party after the problem is 'solved' (more or less that the assests are divided up). And what I found very cool about this system was that afterwards, it was like the issue was never there in the first place. Or if it was, then they were okay with how things worked out. I don't know, this system may have some adverse side effects, however; especially when dealing with issues of violence and abuse. Perhaps in this system there might be more of a chance of repeat abuse....not sure. Again, all very subjective.

Blog #11 The worst mistake

Yes, the new advances in the agricultural field have made the population grow because we don't have to worry about starvation as much and people are healthier yet I don't feel this is the "worst" mistake we've made in history. The example of the women having to work harder than the men is not a result of the farming but a cultural difference. I feel there are much bigger contributors to the destruction of the world such as technological advances. For example the newest oil spill. The spill is greatly affecting the planet, farming has nothing to do with an issue like that. To state that farming is the "worst" mistake is a great exaggeration.

Blog #10

I guess I'd never taken a real deep look into the act of gift giving and that a gift can be used as a weapon or the meaning of the act can be misconstrued as harmful. I've never thought of giving a gift as anything more than to show kindness and love towards another person. However after reading this article I can think back to examples in history where gifts were used for different reasons other than to bring good such as the Trojan Horse. The ignorance of other culture's traditions and such is the cause of such animosity and can easily be prevented.

Blog #9 Dowry Death in India

This issue to be quite frank is very barbaric and clearly a huge issue. The fact tat women are being burned alive, murdered, and/or commiting suicide just because they cannot afford these marriage expenses is ridiculous! The sotry of the 3 sisters committing suicide because their father couldn' t afford to pay the unreasonable dowry price is a waste of 3 perfectly good lives. It is very hard not to compare their culture to ours and say they are wrong. After reading this article it made me realize ho fortunate I truely am. I take for granted the rights women have in America. I guess it is almost being cocky to expect to be treated with respect and equality where ever I go. You can compare the way women are treated in India to how women in America were treated not too long ago before women's rights movements. Yes, we didn't dowse women in kerosene and then light them on fire but women were considered inferior to men and still are in some way. ( Yes, my post is way late but Im hopeing to still get some points)

Worst Mistake

The Worst Mistake in History

Agriculture is something that is so important to us but we never really stop and think about. It was the cause of an industrial revolution for America and it is a major part in our culture. It feeds our economy and when it fails, so does the economy. We are so involved in our money, we do not focus on the quality of the product but how fast we can produce it no matter what. Organic food is the newest thing to our culture, I think, even though it has been around for a while. There is a lot of controversy over the pesticides and preservatives companies use to make their product taste great and last longer. Most people do not even care how the food got here, how it was grown or even preserved. If there is food on the table they are satisfied.

Worst Mistake

Who could have predicted the domino effect that switching to agriculture would someday have? Personally, I would like to live back in the hunter-gatherer society. Women were not pressured to have tons of kids to help out with the work and their jobs were to care for the children, and to help gather food. Obviously, we still have the need instinctively to hunt and gather as although we have the ability to go to Safeway and put all-ready cut beef and vegetables into plastic baggies, some men still go hunting for fun and alot of women love to garden and raise vegetables.
They didn't have Jenny Craig or Nutrisystem back then. They didn't need diet programs. They lived off the land, ate what they killed/ picked, and moved from place to place as needed.
Maybe the new diet fad should be a hunter-gatherer group.
Jen Lucero

I understand that there is a huge demand for food, but does that mean we have to take out the nutritional value and whatnot of the food we produce? I read in a different article that they actually pick tomatoes when they are green and then gas them when they get overseas, to make them red...We are not getting nearly enough nutrients from the fruits and vegetable that we get at the store. Quality fruits and vegetables are grown on the plant until they are ripe. Picking them before they are ripe and not getting enough nutrients is causing people to have to take all these supplementary vitamins.

Blog #11

Prior to reading this article I had never thought about the negative effects that agriculture had on societies. I can clearly see the arguments Jared Diamond has about farming being the biggest mistake in history and I fully accept them, but I think that what societies have gained from farming outweighs the negative effects. I also believe that if we hadn’t had adopted agriculture at that time, we would have later on. I don’t think societies can survive with farming due to population growth which was mentioned in the article. Eventually we would have had to make a change. People can argue this topic as much as they want, but it won’t change what happened in the past. It would be impossible for America to revert back to being hunters and gathers and to forget all we know about agriculture and technology. We have become dependent on what we’ve created and now we can’t get unhooked.

Blog #10

After reading this article, I thought about what my family is like and I have come to the conclusion that we are more towards a balanced reciprocity. However, instead of giving gifts or physical objects, we do tasks for each other. For example, to be able to do something we want, a person must do a good thing for someone else to earn the wanted activity. If someone does something for you, then you should repay them by doing something for them. Reading this article made me wonder about those who took advantage of the gift giving system. Were they punished? Or was it even acknowledged that a person was being greedy and abusing the ways of the economy and the good nature of others? I think a general reciprocity would never work in America in the present day. People are too greedy and believe too much in the value of objects instead of people and relationships. It is difficult for me to imagine people who give to support and build relationships and absolutely don’t expect anything in return. Someone like that would not be able to survive in America. To learn that there are cultures that truly are like that give me some peace of mind that we aren’t all bad.

Our society today is more focused on quanity as opposed to quality. look at geneticlly modified foods... the whole point is to create some kind of super plant so they can survive certian conditions and grow a more bountiful harvest to increase production which in turn increases profits. thats the problem with today's agriculture market... they are more concerned with the amount of money they make and the amount of crops they produce, they completly over look the quality of their products or their nutritional value or lack there of in some cases. Im not saying that all crops need to be certified organic or anything like that, but i am saying the farmers should take better care of their crops and worry more about quality as opposed to quanity. I dont know about you but i would rather have less of a quality product then more of a lower quailty or crappy product...!

The Worst Mistake in History

What the author put forth in arguing for agriculture being the greatest mistake in human history is all true. Agriculture does cut out the vitamins and minerals that we would otherwise get from gathering our own food from nature. But nature alone cannot feed a growing race. The growth of the human population needed agriculture to survive, and agriculture allowed us grow that much more. A continuous and unending cycle of supply and demand.

Though through the advances of getting large quantities of food we sacrificed quality. The lower amount of vitamins we got from agriculture was indeed and still is a big problem for the rest of the world. If you only have the basic crops that give out a large quantity of food you are hurting your self.

If it wasn’t for agriculture we wouldn’t have come to the industrial revolution and been able to be where we are. Through those advancements we did get many more infectious diseases and ailments. But now the advancements are helping us to cure and stop those diseases and help better everyone else with more diverse crops. It may have been the worst mistake we ever made, but now its getting better and is becoming our greatest achievement.

the worst mistake in history

Hunter-gatherers showed hhow careful dieting can be and should be. The future of farming contained to much starchy foods that caused what seems to be considered an out break. And the fact that back when hunter-gatherers were around their was no such thing as concentrated foods. The thing that bothers me the most is that farming i believe was the start of inequality between sexes. and the fact that we were forced to choice to up production or lower the growth rate of people caused me to think that people could have just upped production to help the population that stood with out pressuring more citizens to have children. we could have had a controlled setting to where reproduction could only be done when produce was high.

The Worst Mistake in History

I thought this article very opinionated, but also very interesting in the fact that agriculture was such a huge catalyst for production and industry. It also helped with innovation and invention, which lead to mass production of goods and resources, which is an ideal that is so prevalent in modern society. The author of this article posed many theories in this article as agriculture being a negative product on society, whereas some people might feel differently. In my opinion, the boom of agriculture and producitivity, like anything else, has both it's positives and negatives. For example, I'm a huge believer in the use of modern medicine, not only to prolong life and well being, but to also to find cures to diseases that cause great suffering. I guess you could say I'm a philanthropist because I don't think that natural selection should just run it's course; by letting a person die from cancer or HIV. And I believe that the research for the cures is something that could only come from productivity of new resources and tools; all building up from the years of technological advancements, started by industry and agricultural movements. So to me, through this "worst" mistake in history, it could've been our greatest achievement. But I suppose that all of this is subjective anyway, for we are but brief vignettes in our world's history.

Strings attached

The first thing I thought after reading this article was who would complain about a gift that was given to them... In our society we were taught to always thank the person who got you a gift because it's polite and curtious. We're taught this at a very young age and it's second nature for us to thank for any gift. I do believe that there is a string attached where you have to get the other person something, but it doesn't have to be at that moment, it can be in the future. I think it's good to thank people after they got you a gift. The person went out of their way to get YOU something and if you can't give them a thanks even if you hate it then you are very very rude. =)

Strings Attached

From what I have experienced, we are a very polite gift-giving culture compared to some others. Most people are thankful, or at least pretend to be, when you give them a gift. It's a cultural norm to act in this way. As far as whether or not strings are attached, I think it is situational. For holidays, it is expected that you both "give and receive." I think it is the same for birthdays, in that if you get someone a present, they would feel obligated to return one. But, I think there are exceptions for situations such as getting someone a present to feel better.

Crimes against women.

This article was very very very disturbing. I couldn't believe that they burned their wives or women. That right there made it so I didn't finish the article. I don't like the way they operate with there marriage and birth situations. I found it very stupid to get an abortion because they had a source tell the father that their wife was going to have a baby girl... Chiiiild Please. That is so stupid on every level. They did it because it wasn't worth that much. Women should absolutely not have a price tag put on them in any way. Not right. I think we need to show them what we do in the United States and hopefully change their attitude and beliefs on it.

Strings Attached

In our culture we are always taught to accept gifts even if we do not like them. Of course it is polite to decline something that is not necessarily needed but we still accept it. We learn this at such a young age, because our parents tell us to say thank you no matter what. We have plenty of experience from all of our birthdays and Christmases. It is extremely rude for someone to not appreciate a gift you have given them because most gifts come with meaning. I do not think that we are lying by saying thank you for the gift even if you hate it. A lot of times it is very awkward because if someone gives a gift they feel like they have to give one back or show great appreciation. All in all our culture is very polite when it comes to gift giving, and sometimes uncomfortable but we learn to move on.

Crimes against Women

Our class discussion reminded me that I for got to write about this last week so I hope it is not to late. This class has opened my eyes to things that I have never known before, such as the dowry. I try to keep an open mind about most things and try to see the good in any circumstance, but it is hard for me to find any good in the way that women are treated in a lot of India. It was said that the dowry was an expense for the prestige of the grooms family, but if they live in a house made of mud and straw with no money where is the prestige? what is the woman's family paying for, they kill themselves to come up with the money just so their daughter can get beaten and sent back home or worse burned alive. In India their are very rich and very poor people so I can see may be a rich family giving another rich family some money as a sign that they can also take care of their daughter. But if you have no money you get no money. Women are so important they are what keep men from acting like idiots. I believe that this country is so wealthy because it is expected of men to work to keep our women and families happy. We don't expect things to happen to us just because they are supposed to or because we feel we are entitled to them.

Gift Giving Culture

Reading this article made me think of how my parents taught me to say thank you and say I liked it no matter what and write thank you notes whenever I received a gift since I was very little. We are taught to say thank you in return for a gift here, whereas in other cultures a gift is expected in return. My first encounter with reciprocal gift giving was when we had Russian exchange students staying with us. They presented us with gifts from their family, to which we were expected to give gifts to their family in return. Another encounter I had with this form of gift giving was when we hosted Polish exchange students. We exchanged gifts when they arrived, and both times I visited to stay with them. Different cultures have different expectations and rules about gift giving, and there are certainly strings attached no matter which culture you are born into. Now that I am old enough to buy gifts for people on my own, I have started giving gifts to family members and close friends, as well as writing thank you notes, to show appreciation and emphasize strong friendships.

Strings Attached

It seems funny to me that there are people out there that would actually critique and complain about a gift given to them. In our culture that is not accepted. Even if you do not like that gift given to you, you still say thank you and don't complain. Like someone else said, the gift giving process is something that we learned very young. When you receive a gift, you always send a thank you in return. Gift giving is kind of a weird thing. We would like to say there are no "strings attached" when we give a gift... but in reality there is.

Strings Attached

This article got me thinking, what is a gift? I think of a gift as something that is given without strings attached something that is given to a person either to make your self feel better or the person that you are giving it to feel better. If I was given a peace pipe from a chief I think I would also take it home and put it in my mantle, but I think I would also bring him something from my culture as well. Not as an exchange of goods but as an exchange of culture, I would probably roast some coffee beans or bring him a fishing lure something practical that shows, where I come from. We all expect to receive gifts on special days such as holidays and birthdays and we would be very bummed out if we didn't. why is this? is it because we expect praise on the day we were born or on holidays that we don't even know why we celebrate them anymore. Jehovah's Witeness can not recive get any gifts, it is agents the law. I have an uncle that was one and on the first Christmas he spent with my family he started crying when my grandmother gave him a gift. Their should never be strings attached to gifts you should do it because you want to not because you feel you have to.

Strings Attached

It is commonplace, I suppose, that when one recieves a gift, that they automatically send back a letter of thanks or something to that effect. I think that reciprocity is quite common among today's culture, and that if it is not met, then the individual would be seen as rude or snobbish to not thank someone for the gift. And then there are those cultures who believe that gift giving is not as essential, and that it cannot be completely as honest as some people make it out to be. Another thing I found funny when reading this article was that, people in this culture re-gift a lot! I wonder what an anthropologist would say about re-gifting in our culture...it would definately be something to look into. :) This certain network of exchange may allude to a social standard that we may have set for ourselves because we know we must give a gift, but we have to time to go out and pick something new. Or rather, we want to get rid of something that is useless to us or something we don't like. Who knows?

Strings Attached

Reciprocal gift giving is something most children learn at a young age. Even if you are just returning a Thank You note when someone gives you a birthday gift, it is in the back of your mind to get them a gift on their birthday. I think, however, that Christmas, the major gift-giving holiday, is out of control. I see people spending thousands and thousands of dollars on their kids and the result is, the kids put less value on those expensive gifts over time because they come to expect them, not appreciate them.
I feel gifts should be thoughtful and special, given from the heart, not just because Hallmark tells you it's time for a gift, 'buy this card.'

Dowry and Disgust (A day late and a dollar short)

In the article, The Problem with Dowry Death in India, written by Willigen and Channa, it explains the dowry system in India as it was, as it is and hopefully how it will be abolished in the future, in addition to what steps are being taken to try to destroy the idea. It seems nothing good can come from a tradition in which, if not followed, results in death by fire. I suggest they have it backwards in India. Logically, if we were to consider payment for marriage of any kind, it should be payment for the bride's family from the groom's family. If we look at this money transfer in terms of paying for services, the same way you would pay to get your carpets shampooed, when you are paying for a bride, you are making an investment toward future offspring, a chef, a housekeeper, a nanny, an escort (sorry ladies. I was trying to put it in the nicest possible way), house manager, dishwasher, seamstress, and the list goes on and on.
If this were the case and the groom's family did indeed pay the bride's family in exchange for the bride, I seriously doubt there would be burnings of any kind, the bride would not likely beat the crap out of her groom, and the women of India would get their worth and status back from the oppressors who have been bringing it down for years and years.
And whatever happened to trading spouses for cows anyways? That's how we did it in the good ole days =)

Strings Attatched

I think that when many people get a gift from someone the first thought may be, “what do you want?” Throughout my life I’ve seen people gift things to others either because they themselves don’t want the gift or they have an ulterior motive associated with the gift. That’s not always the case, but that’s what I’ve noticed that others think when they receive a gift. For us and like many other cultures its been instilled in us that gifts have a deeper meaning then just sincerity. Though I do like the idea of gift giving as a warfare tactic. How entertaining would it be to see two warring nations giving gifts to one another in an attempt to shame the other; “Take that! I’m a better gift giver then you!”

Crimes Against Women

This article was absolutely shocking. Before reading it, I knew that people payed dowries to, but I never realized the magnitude or the importance of them. To me, it just seems insane that you would kill your wife because you aren't receiving enough in return. I mean, why would marry her in the first place if you knew her family couldn't pay a "sufficient" dowry, just to end up killing her. It makes no sense. I can't even imagine the mental pressure that this would put on the women and their families.

Strings attached

This articl under scored something I thnik we have all known, a gift without anything attached is very rare, even in our culture. Most peopleare not explicit in there desire to have a fift given in return, yet there nearly always exists an unconscious or unsaid tally that compares what people of similar social status exchange as gifts . A mother or father isnot going to tally th gifts that there son or daugter givEs to them. The really interesting unsaid claim in the aRticle is that by bankrupting themselves in an effort to win the arms races with the USA the usssr actually won the exchange if we follow the rules of the potlatch.

The whole thought of killing someone over dowry seems almost unreal to me. I don't even know what to say about this. I find it very offensive. A woman's life should not be taken just because her family cannot pay the dowry. Why does it have to be such an extreme? If dowry is so important to them then why don't they do some type of punishment that isn't so drastic?

The Jerks in India

It's funny, I almost apologized for being so open minded about all these articles because my responses seemed so casual... "It may not work for me, but if it works for them great" All the other articles "make sense" and seem to fit either the times or lifestyles of the cultures being observed. They were all pretty much relative. This is where I draw the line...this is where the being MORAL bell goes off in my head about something being relative, or me being judgemental. I don't support the criminals in this article at all, for any reason. I knew there were arranged marriages and gifts for such, but except for random acts, I knew nothing about these crimes. Eye for an eye that's what I say. Jerks. Sorry for being blunt its not against India or the people there, it just the ones who choose to take part in these acts. I have friends from India who had an arranged marriage by their parents and it worked great for them, they've been married 17 years and are very happy and in love. :)

Crimes against Women

I think the most graphic image in my mind from this article was the three daughters who committed suicide by hanging themselves from the ceiling fan with their scarves, all because their father could not pay dowry. How sick is that?!? I can't believe that some of these customs go on, or atleast the tragedy is so unfathomable that I just am having a hard time dealing with the fact that people have actually done this. It honestly angers me. How could someone kersone their wife and light her on fire? Clearly people who do this don't think anything of it, or rather suffer from a guilty conscience after the deed has been done. I'm sorry if this offends people, but this REALLY pisses me off. And the sad thing is, I had no idea! I had no idea that any of this had been going on. I can't be culturally relative on this one. Money and gifts for a dowry is not worth the lives of the women. You can't take material items with you when you finally kick the bucket, so why on earth would anybody commit such a blasphemous act for something like a dowry? I'm just mad and confused about this...so sorry for being a little too ethnocentric on this one.

Blog #9

Before reading this article I was aware about the tradition of giving dowry when people got married, but to take it as far as torturing and killing the wife because of it, is just insane. I can understand that the purpose and reason for dowry is to help pay expenses for the wife and that if she works the dowry will be less. Also the difference in the value of a woman’s economic contribution between the north and south which leads to a difference in the amount of dowry needed in a marriage makes a lot of sense to me. It’s just hard for me to believe that they go to the extreme actually value material possessions over the life of a human and worse yet, their own wives. I can’t fathom that people can rationalize the killing of their own wives. I find myself wondering why a woman would want to get married if she didn’t have enough payment that would meet the groom’s and groom’s family’s expectations. I’m glad that the government is stepping in and making laws to stop the deaths. Now that the economy has had its impact on the dowry making it harder to save up for, I’m happy that it’s being outlawed. One thing sticks out in my mind however. The article said that the lower the class of the person the less dowry would be required. In addition if the woman worked, her family would have to contribute less dowry as well. It seems like women ways of getting out of paying a large dowry. In my mind, women in the lower class don’t have decent paying jobs while women in the middle class do have good jobs so either way they wouldn’t have to pay a big dowry. Only the women of high class would have to give a lot when getting married.

Crimes Against Women

Its hard for me to understand why someone would kill their own wife because her family can’t pay you enough money to be married to her. I’ve heard of families paying a dowry as a courtesy and as a gift to the newlyweds, but I didn’t know that the family of the groom and the groom himself would threaten the life of his wife if they weren’t compensated. The fact that they have the term “bride-burning” and don’t really try to do anything about it just makes it that much more wrong. It seemed like many of them thought it was just normal to kill the bride if her family couldn’t afford what the grooms family wanted. They treat the bride as a burden on the husband and put a price on her life.

When it was talking about the lower and middle class families emulating the higher classes, it just seemed so strange. I can understand wanting be of a higher status in your community, but trying to exploit a bride to be to do so just seems wrong to me. The brides family would try and show that they could afford to marry her with a large amount of money in an attempt to buy high status. The grooms family would want to charge a large amount in an attempt to show everyone that he must be of a higher class. That sounds just a little to selfish. I could never understand how someone could rationalize killing someone for something so temporary like money.

I want to know why not just use the money for your own family or put it towards the community to show that you are well off and letting your daughter marry someone for love who doesn’t care about a dowry, instead of subjecting her to possible death?

I was glad to know that the government was trying to step in and stop what was happening. It was just too little too late. Trying to change a cultural tradition that is so materialistic like that is quite the undertaking. As long as the lower and middle class people think that they can buy status I think its just going to continue.

Save the Muslim Women?

In reading this essay, I was a bit confused. I think as American's, at least female American's, we are all for fashion, freedom of expressing yourself through dress and wearing what you choose, not what someone insist you wear however, my memories of "saving" the Afghani women had less to do with the burqa itself but with the stories of abuse we were hearing about back here in the states. Keeping in mind the news is the news and you can't take everything you see on TV as utter truth, the stories we heard at that time were of abusive corrective action that was taken against the women for not wearing their veils properly. I remember stories of a woman being beaten in public because her ankles were exposed for all the world to see from under the black veil. I think I even heard more than one story like this.
Personally, it is not the fact that they choose to cover themselves that I take issue with, if it is in fact a choice, but that they are being forced to be veiled and more importantly, being beaten and abused for not doing so. At what point does an anthropologist step in? I understand why it is important not to push our ways, norms, values and beliefs on another culture. I agree it is not our place to judge, based on our own individual experiences. I do believe, however, that we must draw the line at human rights. A human being has a right to live without fear. A human being has a right to not be abused or beaten. The issue on choosing your own clothing is not to me, a human right. That is where I would draw the line. Yes, I feel you should have the freedom to do so but I can't live the experience, with all the history, norms, values and beliefs, that these woman have for centuries to say either way you should or should not let the men rule your closet. Not such an issue.
I wish Lila Abu-Lughod would have addressed the issue of abuse. I feel that would have a bigger impact, whether it was true or false, it gave her the perfect opportunity to clear the air.

Crimes against women

This is a practice that it is safe to say is over everyone's 'line' for cultural relativism. The practice of burning another person alive is horrible, not even something that the Mafia would do if you were late on your payments to them. In my mind any cultural practice that harms another person should be condemned. This is an illustration of what we were talking about in class today, the relative 'value' of women in other cultures. In virtually all cultures founded on farming and labor we find women have a low value compared to men because of the sheer physical difference's between men and women. On average a man can work longer and harder than a woman and is valued more highly in farming/labor cultures. So in these traditional cultures the 'value' of women must be enhanced by their family to make them attractive wives to their prospective husbands. The continued demands on the brides family are even stranger to me than the practice as a whole, this implies that the bride is a burden on the man's family and must be continually compensated for with the consequence being if her family does not pony up some cash in this shakedown the woman will be killed. The article's point that by eliminating dowries you will downgrade woman's rights is one that does not make much sense to me. The man, and his angry family, will still control the woman's assets and see her as his chattel to do with as they want if she isn't making high enough payments. Really the only way to combat this is to raise the intrinsic worth of women in this society. I have read that the Industrial Revolution was the single greatest advancement in feminism since we transferred form hunter-gatherer's to agricultural societies. Taking this one step further we can see that modern technology is making women more equal in terms of civil rights to men as societies are further industrialized. How much strength and stamina does it take to type at a keyboard or study medical textbooks? Hopefully the feminist groups and others who oppose dowries in India will be able to make some cultural headway and advance the society away from this disgusting practice.

When Brothers Share a Wife

I find the idea of fraternal polyandry inconceivable. I can't imagine having multiple husbands. Of course I am looking at the Tibetan culture from the eyes of a Westerner and in America the idea of brothers sharing a wife is culturally wrong. That would not be "normal". I understand their reasoning behind this type of marriage but do not think the reasons are good enough. I am sure the Tibetans have more in depth reasons but I don't feel the reasons the article gave are completely viable. There are other ways to live off the land and other ways to financially support themselves. For example those men could have moved to another part of the region to live off of more prosperous farming land or pursue higher education so they could earn money becoming a doctor or business owner. I feel fraternal polyandry is unnecessary.

When Brothers Share A Wife

This article was kind of shocking. I had no idea that this kind of shared spouse relationship could work in this way. I have heard of one many having many wives, but not of men sharing a wife. I know I could never stand this kind of relationship. The idea just seems so alien to me, and I know I am a very jealous individual. I did find it very interesting that their relationships are successful, however.

Brothers & Wife

This is a difference in motives. Of course to most of us this seems strange but its impossible to compare our culture with theirs and decide who's "right". When we think of marriage, our motive is to have one person all to ourselves and know what actions would interfere with that. They've done the same thing except, their motive is materialistic security and keeping it in the family(no pun intended) Therefore their priorities are totally different than ours. When you look at it from their point of view, it makes total sense, and as the article mentions as the their production and trade develops it will most likely phase out, it just wont be necessary.

When Brothers Share a Wife

This article was very interesting to me. I am sure our society would find this topic quite strange, but other places this is extremely common. This reminds me of arranged marriages as well. Our culture seems to have many questions on the subject to come to an understanding. Sure their are positives and negatives to this topic, depending on what is important to you or your family. I hope this never becomes a norm here because I would not be able to get used to it. I think the way we live in this fast paced environment with big egos and envious women, it would never work out. People get jealous and it is a confusing relationship. People in our society can not even manage a normal relationship let alone marriage. This article was overall interesting but did open up my mind to plenty of questions.

When to Say “you’re too young”

It would seem that having more than one adult male in a family would cause more conflict than resolution, but that’s probably just because of my background of being raised in a household with one father and one mother. I found it difficult to understand how a marriage like the ones described in the article would work out, especially with the age differences between brothers. It would be almost impossible for a wife to not show favoritism towards one brother over the other two, or for children to treat each father the same, especially when they know who the real father is. While it may be acceptable for a wife to treat all husbands equally, that rule is hard to follow when it comes to sexual aspects of the relationship; especially if one of them is 15. That part stuck out in my mind as really unusual. I think 15 is too young to be married, especially to a woman who has already married two of your older brothers. I understand that the reason fraternal polyandry is practiced in Tibetan culture is so that family farms are not broken up, and so that the work load is distributed evenly between the brothers so there is less for each person to do. The opposite of this idea would be American culture, where individuality is stressed. Here, the focus is more on making a life for yourself.

Blog #8

After reading this article, I see that there are actually many reasons why this type of marriage works. However I don’t believe that it would ever work in the US. I think that because of the type of culture and environment that the Tibetans live in, it makes it acceptable for them to share a wife. Unlike here in the US, their main source of income is farming and animals which take a lot of work and therefore the extra hands are very helpful. In the US it is a lot easier to become successful and earn good money on your own as an individual. This makes the idea of polygamy unthought-of and has grown a negative meaning. I also understand that the wife has to treat all the husbands equally sexually, but when one of them is only 15 I think that’s crossing a line. I can accept that she has to treat all of them equally, but there should also be a limit to the difference in the age between the wife and husband.

When Brothers Share a Wife

The thought of having 3 brothers share 1 wife just seems so odd. I guess my culture is so ingrained in me that it's hard for me to see how this could work. I get the financially it would make things easier on the family, but emotionally wouldn't it cause problems? Do the brothers not get jealous of each other when the wife gives one more attention over the other? I think it is hard enough for 2 people to make it in a marriage let alone 4 people.

Brothers Sharing a Wife

The concept of sharing a wife between three brothers is really disturbing in my opinion and goes against everything i have been taught to be normal or acceptable. I was always taught that a man is supposed to marry a woman and then they create a family. In America, an arrangement like the one mentioned in this article would never be accepted because people that live in America tend not to accept that which they deem as not acceptable. An example of this is gay marriage! There is a lot of controversy surrounding gay marriage because people deem it "unacceptable", therefore they fight against it, and thats a marriage between just two people. How different is that kind of realtionship from the one where three borthers share one wife??? They are all performing sexual acts with the same woman... Even though this type of arrangement works for other cultures, it would not work for ours b/c its not a traditional realtionship style and would prob cause a lot of problems in the form of protests!

When Brothers Share a Wife

This is a story of polyandry, where 3 brothers take 1 wife. Many people speculate why this happens in Tibet. They say, lack of eligible females due to female infanticide, and that the high altitude would not sustain several families at once farming the land. The truth is materialistic in the most simplest terms. The brothers of a family marry 1 wife to prevent the division of the family property. The brothers benefit by keeping the family wealth and not losing it to others families and the wife also benefits. As one wife says, 'I have 3 husbands to support me and my children financially. '
This would NEVER work in America. Not in my opinion. Jealousy is a major factor of relationships in our culture. Like it or not, that fact is, if someone is flirting with your significant other, how does that make you feel? Sure, in the beginning you may feel a sense of pride as though your significant other is a trophy to be desired and they choose to be with you. This feeling quickly fades to panic when you realize, they might find that they like the other flirty person better than you. Then you just get pissed off. Anger subsides to jealousy and we all know where that goes. Downhill, and fast!
So, my question, then, is who claims head of household on the tax return?? =]

>Brothers than Wives

It is interesting to see cultural practices that we would find unusual being practiced around the world as normal. I can see the monetary benefits that would occur by not having to divide up the familial lands. The people involved would have to be very self-aware to not have some serious jealousy issues arise from having more men than women in a relationship. What I am most curious about is how this practice originated? Who were the first brothers to decide this was a good idea and persuade a women that it was as well?

When Brothers Share a Wife

In our culture monogamous marriages are the normal and expected thing. Polygamy where a man has multiple wives is also common in western culture and other cultures around the world. But to think of a woman who has many husbands all of whom are brothers is quite strange in the eyes of the people of our society.
When I was first started to read this I thought it was a strange concept, but as I continued to read the article it made quite a bit of sense. Their reasoning behind why they would marry multiple brothers to the same woman is very smart. A monogamous marriage would only divide the family property and possessions. By marrying all the brothers to one woman everything stays in the family.
Someone from America who has no prior knowledge of that culture may think that system and way of marriage to be wrong or at least very odd. Such a taboo thing to western society allows the Tibetan people who marry to live well and provide their children with a good life in which to grow. Instead of living in poverty the family pools their income together so that they can live a “good life.”
For something that we may consider to be strange, its actually very intelligent.

When Brothers Share a Wife

When several brothers share one wife, just like the article said, it is quite an exotic ideal when compared to the marital arrangements in my own culture. One partner relationships dominate our culture, sometimes leading to adversity when these lines are breached and an individual has multiple spouses. Usually, as seen throughout history, men who acquire multiple wives are more common than the other way around. I thought this may be due to the fact that male dominance in society perpetuates throughout history and is common in other cultures today. In this Tibetan community women were shared among multiple husbands; and brother's even! In our society, I think that if someone practiced this, then it would not only cross those boundries, but also cause great role conflict within the family as a unit. But to hear that these families who share one wife actually get along, emotionally and economically, with eachother is quite amazing. This system economically keeps wealth, animals, farmland, etc. within the family. I think it's just so fascinating how some other cultures operate to get by; especially because it is so different than our culture's way of thinking. At first, I found this idea alarming and gross, but then to be culturally relative, there could be some benefits to this sort of lifestyle.

Babies

In this article it made me think of the future when I'm older and married and think of having children. I find it interesting of all the different styles of raising children. I might have a different belief or way of raising my children than the rest but I'm not gonna really say anything bad to any of the other parents styles. It's not right of me to do so. I understand that certain cultures raise their children a certain way and I respect that. I want to take things that I like from all these cultures and use them in the future hopefully.

Strange Country

This article isn't my favorite. After reading about the indians, I thought it was cool that the women seemed to be treated equally to men. They rode in battle together. I found the homosexual aspect of it interesting to a point. I'm a religeous guy and am sort of against it and think that their choices are wrong but think that everyone should be treated equal. I didn't for certain the way people viewed Homosexuals in the article.

Strange Country

Ive never read any information on this before at all. I keep catching myself comparing these circumstances to modern day disputes of homosexuality. But it was viewed extremely differently in these other cultures. Its sad how our society looks so superficially when labeling what gay is. Its interesting all the different meanings and reasoning behind some of these cultures sexual orientation, and labels these individuals have for their situation. Unfortunately our culture doesn't seem to take the time to look deep enough into peoples real feelings about what orientations they choose, and what that choice means to the individual or group. In our society there is not a broad scale to be compared to when gay. If your gay, your gay.

Babies

When the motives are good and for the well being of the child, the ways that other cultures rear children should be accepted. We've learned about relativism and it applies here too, the families discussed who raise children differently than us in the US, have different lifestyles, work different jobs and for different durations. One thing that stuck out to me was US mothers reacting to how mothers left infants in the care of young children. What we fail to include in our opinion of disapproval, is that obviously these siblings were taught and given resources to provide adequate care. In our society it may seem scary to allow a young child to care for an infant because we've not taught them that its our way of life.

Like the article mentions, even with different feeding and sleeping schedules most children turn out the same as far as health is concerned. I'm not fond of the idea of stating weather one culture is "better" than another. (Personally I tend to want to pick up a crying baby though:)

Joking Culture (late)

I liked this article. I'm thankful for the invention of humor, joking, and sarcasm. I'm a big practicer (word?) of all. Joking in general can be so adaptive, you can adjust its appropriateness for any occasion. Ive always known Ive been a jokester and usually people agree, but I just thought it was my personality. I didn't put much thought into why I am that way. This article has shed some light on the reasons why Ive continually adopted joking habits. Mostly good reasons, but after reading this Ive realized sometimes its not my responsibility to try fix everything with humor!

Strange Country This

I found this article interesting, it kind of disputes the idea of the 'Noble Savage' in Western European philosophy from the European (or at least Puritan) background we look at things through. Looking at other cultures we can see there is nothing new or novel about homosexuals being productive members of society and allowed full access to all the rights and services the majority enjoys. I can only imagine the shock and dismay of those religious groups that use the bible to justify their actions and prejudices against homosexuals if they were to read this article. Reading this article I kept thinking about a song by Tenacious D, 'I'm The Only Gay Eskimo', perhaps gay Eskimo's weren't as unusual as we would have thought before reading this article?

Blog #7

What stuck out to most to me about this article was how much being of a third or fourth gender was accepted in other cultures. It has such a negative meaning in the US which made me think that there weren’t places where it was so openly accepted, so much that it was even seen as having special powers. Also the way that one becomes a berdache is very different. In the US, the main reason you are considered one because you are interested in the same gender of yourself. In Native American cultures you take on an alternative gender role because you were influenced by dreams, visions, or the moon. They were seen as those that took on the specialized work roles of the other gender, dressed as the opposite sex, and had same-sex relations. One thing that I was at least partially familiar was the part about testing a child if he/she was going to be a berdache. I heard of something similar to this were instead of putting out a masculine and feminine object there were objects related to different careers. For example there might be a pen, a ball, and a coin. If the child picks the pen then he/she will be a writer, the ball then an athlete, or the coin then a business person. Reading this article sadness me a little because to read how good a non-heterosexual could be treated compared to how they are treated in the present US.

Strange Country

This is such a touchy subject in our culture today. It’s hard to believe that the concept of homosexuality has been so readily accepted as normal for thousands of years by people who we consider to be savages. In western culture it is not politically correct for a person to be attracted to the same sex, but there are cultures which have no problem accepting non-heterosexual individuals. A lot could be learned from Native American tribes. They are a more peaceful civilization because of their accepting nature towards each other. I thought it was particularly interesting that some women would ride out into battle alongside the men, and some men in turn would take up women’s positions. It seems as though everyone was treated equally, which solves a lot of conflicts. Our culture could be much more peaceful if we could embrace our differences. Anthropology shows us sides of the story we would not readily see on our own.

Strange Country This

This article kind of took me by surprise. I had no idea that Native American culture would be so accepting to difference in sexuality. One thing that stood out to me was that they accepted and sometimes honored a woman who led men into battle and had four wives was a respected chief. This seems so strange. I mean if a man can have multiple wives and be a chief, why can't a woman? I don't know I guess I find it weird because of our culture. Because in our culture this would be simply looked down upon.

Strange Country

It was interesting for me to read about the Native Americans having homosexual people in their communities. I guess this is because I still tend to think of Native Americans as a rough and tough culture and cross dressing and role reversal seems to me like something that would be frowned upon. But it wasn't it was actually revered and they were some times at a higher status because of it. It is funny that now we think women shouldn't ride motor cycles or work in construction let alone go out and hunt and be chief of a tribe. It seems that the Native Americans were more culturally advanced then we are now. Just to day I was sitting at the doctors office and two women were being all lovey dovey and I could not stop thinking how weired it sounded, and I grew up in Olympia and have been around gay people all of my life, I don't know. Something that stuck out to me was that they were classified as different genders ( three and four ) I think there is only two genders male and female well I guess three transgender but you still turn into a male or female eventually.

I liked this article very much. To learn how the native people of our land are so much more accepting of people who are attracted to opposite sex then modern western culture has been and still is, was quite uplifting. Modern western culture has in many ways despised and looked down upon homosexuality for so long that its just absurd. To dislike and hate someone for such a little difference is just so stupid.
Its almost unbelievable that the rest of the world couldn’t have been more accepting of berdaches. Learning how Native Americans held them with such high esteem was very interesting. My gay friends have to be careful who they tell that their gay too because they are afraid of being judged or hated by people who didn’t give them the chance to get to know them. If only our culture could be just as accepting.
You shouldn’t hate someone for just being who they are. Our American culture could learn so much from Native Americans if people would just learn about the past history of where we live.

Strange Country This

I have read about other cultures giving special roles to men and women who aren't attracted to the opposite sex. For example the Samoan people have a special name and role in their society for non-heterosexual individuals call Fa'afafine. They are men who choose to be raise as women during childhood. Fa'afafine are know for their hard work and dedication to the family. They are more willing to help raise their nieces and nephews, help pay medical expenses, and so on. Western interpretation is to call them gay or homosexual however there is no stigma attached to being fa'afafine in the Samoan culture. In fact homosexuality is seen as different and often repugnant, even by some fa'afafine.

Anthropology allows us to understand how sexuality is expressed in other cultures, how other cultures perceive non-heterosexual individuals and how they incorporate them into their societal institutions. It seems as though the foreigners from Europe who studied these different Indian tribes frowned upon how they chose to integrate these individuals into their culture because they would do so differently.

After learning about both cultures I found it interesting how each culture treated them with respect, acceptance, and superiority. Where we often discriminate and judge people who are born that way

Our Babies

I am not yet a mother but after reading this article it makes me wondering how i am going to take care of my children and how people are going to view my methods of raising my kids. This was one of the most interesting articles we have had yet. I liked reading about how other mothers in different countries care for their children. I feel it is hard to judge other mothers on their care giving methods because what might appear to be horrible parenting skills to us is clearly not for them and vise versa. Each method obviously works for that culture because otherwise their babies wouldn't be surviving.

Strange Country This

This was an eye opening article for me. Yes, I realize there has been people who are gay since there has been people. What I didn't realize, however, was that there were cultures who not only accepted them, but held them to high esteem. This article, specifically, is about Native Americans and is recorded back to the 16th century. The male "berdaches", as they were called in anthropological literature, held female positions and dressed as women and the women "berdaches" held male positions. Some women rode into battle alongside their male counterparts. Within their cultures, they were referred to as the third and fourth gender people.
When Eupopeans discovered the berdaches, they were disgusted and one Spaniard even put forty of them "to the dogs" and was praised for doing so and called a good Catholic Spaniard.
We have come a long way....haven't we? In 1986, the US Supreme court held up a law in Georgia against sodomy. Are we still telling people what they can do in their bedrooms? Behind closed doors? Why not? We are still telling grown men and women, living in the land of the free, that they can only marry those we deem appropriate for them to marry. Same sex marriage is a hot debate over the last 10 years and we haven't come very far where that is concerned.
Ususally, the berdache is chosen through a dream or a vision. Occassionally, they were chosen at birth and allowed to make a decision regarding their future ( to be-rdache or not to be-rdache?) during adolescence.
I find it interesting that we once referred to Native Americans as savages, yet we have proven over the years we are way more savage.
Jen Lucero

Raising Babies

I had a negative reaction to this article at first, thinking I have no experience with babies. But as I thought about it more I recalled how I was brought up. When I was 3 I distinctly remember having to sleep in a crib in my brothers’ room, while my older sister had a room to herself. I remember this because we started not getting along around that age, especially at night when I wanted to sleep and they would stay up late talking. Around that time I moved into my sister’s room, where we had our own beds, and we would sleep in the same bed a lot because we were good friends and liked to talk, like my brothers. This gave me comfort, having an older sister I could trust. As a result I became closer to my sister than my mother. As I said, I have no experience with babies, nor do I remember how I was raised before the age of 3. But I do believe that by comforting babies more in the US, duration of crying could lessen. As studies have shown, the frequency of crying episodes may not be affected by what care babies are given, but how long they last is greatly affected. How we raise our children depends on how we ourselves have been raised. We go off of what our society deems to be the "right" way to do things. Expectations and traditions vary from society to society, between different culture groups, and from person to person. The way a Kenyan mother raises her family differs from the way an American woman raises her children, or a Japanese, Dutch, or Australian mother. Every culture is different, and it is not our responsibility to criticize others for their methods of bringing up their family. We are just going by what our culture has set forth as the "right" way, and so is everybody else in the world.