The Discovery of Anthropology

The raise of anthropology department in the 20th Century frequently came from the original formation of sociology or sociology/anthropology departments, Sociology, based on the divisions within Anglo/European civilization and its institutions, is the method for the study of society. This approach however, left unexplained the more exotic experience with Other peoples and cultures that western colonialism brought back to Europe. An anthropological approach with its holistic approach to the human animal, its organization, and its evolution provides a more objective inclusiveness, based on the "culture" concept, rather than simpler institutional perspective of society.

From my perspective, anthropology emerges as the "superior" approach since it focuses on the whole person as the atom of the socio/cultural world. That is, it incorporates both the physical nature of the human animal as well as how that animal is both aware of itself and its context, environment, history, and evolution. This is not to take away from the other social sciences. They are academic specialties with methodologies and applications that serve the social needs of an Anglo/European civilization to organize and administer its members through institutions. Archaeology and ancient history have demonstrated that civilizations have depended upon the evolution of such institutions. Anthropology provided the connection between the "present" and the "past" by challenging the dominant Judeo-Christian assumptions of Anglo/European society.

The reason we need to create a historical archive for anthropology is to help future generations to understand both that which has been lost in human history, and how we salvaged part of that. It will also show how we have responded to this lose by developing methods and adapting techniques for expanding the length and depth of that history; Most of all, It will demonstrate to ourselves what our basic nature (good, bad and ugly) are and the limits of being a human being. This is, I feel, the ultimate goal that our intellectual ancestors set out to find when they took the wider global view of a "cultural" humanity. And, in the practical, pragmatic sense, what we have learned about ourselves  as anthropologists and how that is influenced by who we are as individuals. We need this to calibrate our selves as "participants" and "observers;" and to enable the discipline and others to evaluate our products.