196 Quotes About Anthropology

It was a big mistake for me to take a degree in anthropology anyway, because I can't stand primitive people — they're so stupid.

Inside our skulls are fish, reptile and shrew brains, as well as the highest centers that allow us to integrate information in our unique way; and some of our newer brain components talk to each other via some very ancient structures indeed. Our brains are makeshift structures, opportunistically assembled by Nature over hundreds of millions of years, and in multiple different ecological contexts.

Casi no hemos teorizado en el Perú porque siempre otros han pensando por nosotros. El traslado de esquemas de otras realidades no ha hecho sino impedir nuestro propio desarrollo intelectual

Ha sido evidentemente por aquello que llamamos responsabilidad que el primate se convirtió en humanao, en sujeto de derecho o sujeto moral que debe asumir las consecuencias de sus actos y ser, por lo mismo, objeto de castigo o de recompensa, de repudio o de estima social, de desprecio o de respeto.

A lição é clara: enquanto nós arquitetos rebeldes não conhecermos a coragem de nossa mente e estivermos preparados para dar um mergulho igualmente especulativo em algum desconhecido, também nós continuaremos a ser objetos da geografia histórica (como abelhas operárias) em vez de sujeitos ativos que levem conscientemente ao limite as possibilidades humanas.

There’s this myth that certain cultures have a better way of handling their old leathery people, but we just called him a shaman because Fruit Roll Up with Braids wasn’t on our cultural radar.

The result has been strangely paradoxical: anthropological reflections on their own culpability has mainly had the effect of providing non-anthropologists who do notwant to be bothered having to learn about 90% of human experience with a handy two or three sentence dismissal (you know: all about projecting one’s sense of Otherness into the colonized) by which they can feel morally superior to those who do.

If you have time, a lot of things are enjoyable. Making this type of woodblock, or collecting the wood for the fire, or even cleaning things - it's all enjoyable and satisfying if you give yourself time - Nakamura.

The story of human evolution is the story of bones.