Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id WAA11837 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 14 Jul 2000 22:37:45 +0100 Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000714161056.021f1ca0@popmail.mcs.net> X-Sender: aaron@popmail.mcs.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.1 Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 16:33:38 -0500 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: Aaron Lynch <aaron@mcs.net> Subject: RE: Memes and sexuality In-Reply-To: <000001bfedb7$f067dd40$13281e8c@ultracom.net> References: <4.3.1.0.20000714113715.01eea1e0@popmail.mcs.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
At 01:21 PM 7/14/00 -0400, Joseph 1 wrote:
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>Aaron Lynch wrote on Friday, July 14, 2000 12:59 PM:
>
> > At 02:12 PM 7/14/00 +0100, Vincent Campbell wrote:
> > >Isn't that one of the famous cases where the natives were
> > playing tricks on
> > >the investigators?
> >
> > Vincent,
> >
> > Do you have a reference, or can you recall any general information
> > about your source?
>
>I think he's referring to Margaret Mead's "Coming of Age in Samoa",
>where the natives basically made up everything they told the
>credulous anthropologist. It only came out years later that the book
>was basically worthless.
>
>Joseph 1
I don't know if Vincent is referring to the allegations of hoaxing lodged
against Margaret Mead by Derek Freeman. But since Freeman has depicted Mead
as describing the Samoans as a free love society, it seems possible.
However, the assertion that _Coming of Age in Samoa" was "basically
worthless" seems to be the result of severe bullying and falsification by
Derek Freeman. That is, Freeman is apparently the real hoaxer--a wolf in
sheep's clothing. See "Much Ado About Nothing: The 'Fateful Hoaxing' of
Margaret Mead" by James Côté, _Skeptical Inquirer_ 22 (6),
November/December 1998.
It should not be surprising, incidentally, to find someone going on a
fearsome campaign against someone who describes child sexuality as being
something other than chastity. Merely talking about it can be seen as
dangerous, evil liberalism by much of sexually repressive society. It can
also be seen as threatening the morality of today's children, thus making
it seem "necessary" to some that Margaret Mead be eliminated from curricula
by whatever means possible. Freeman's efforts also play into the hands of
evolutionary psychologists who assert that sexually repressive morality is
genetically innate, rather than a product of culture. If Freeman and others
have launched similar attacks against Malinowski, I would not be surprised.
--Aaron Lynch
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