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"Younger anthropologists have the notion that anthropology is too diverse. The number of things done under the name of anthropology is just infinite; you can do anything and call it anthropology."
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"It is not as if farming brought a great improvement in living standards either. A typical hunter-gatherer enjoyed a more varied diet and consumed more protein and calories than settled people, and took in five times as much viatmin C as the average person today."
"Man is at the bottom an animal midway a citizen and at the top divine. But the climate of this world is such that few ripen at the top."
"One-on-one revenge was common in foraging societies, and kin-against-kin blood feuds were common in tribal societies that had not been pacified by a colonial or national government, particularly if they had an exaggerated culture of manly honor."
"He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature."
"Human cultures vary widely in the plants they use to gratify the desire for a change of mind, but all cultures (save the Eskimo) sanction at least one such plant and, just as invariably, strenuously forbid certain others. Along with the temptation seems to come the taboo."
"Anthropology is the most humanistic of the sciences and the most scientific of the humanities."
"Anthropology never has had a distinct subject matter, and because it doesn't have a real method, there's a great deal of anxiety over what it is."
"Men were primitive in the eyes of angel beingsas men are primitive in the eyes of wilier races."
"Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made."
"I've often been accused of making anthropology into literature, but anthropology is also field research. Writing is central to it."
Explore more quotes by Clifford Geertz
"I do think the attempt to raise consciousness has succeeded. People are very aware of gender concerns now."
"We need to think more about the nature of rhetoric in anthropology. There isn't a body of knowledge and thought to fall back on in this regard."
"I'm writing a review of three books on feminism and science, and it's about social constructionism. So I would say I'm a social constructionist, whatever that means."
"I was trained in the '50s as a New Critic. I remember what literature was like before the New Critics, when people stood up and talked about Shelley's soul and such things."
"Two people have been really liberating in my mind; one is Wittgenstein and the other is Burke. I read Burke before he was a secular saint, before everyone was reading him."
"I had a hard time convincing students that they were going to North Africa to understand the North Africans, not to understand themselves."
"If I remember correctly, a writer is someone who wants to convey information. Language or writing is a code."
"Anthropology never has had a distinct subject matter, and because it doesn't have a real method, there's a great deal of anxiety over what it is."
"The way in which mathematicians and physicists and historians talk is quite different, and what a physicist means by physical intuition and what a mathematician means by beauty or elegance are things worth thinking about."
"Has feminism made us all more conscious? I think it has. Feminist critiques of anthropological masculine bias have been quite important, and they have increased my sensitivity to that kind of issue."
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