Whoever Dances is One with the Universe

Ohhh, to-day was a cake made of badness--a triple-layer Bad cake with Bad frosting and a Badberry jam filling. I hate filled cakes.

Woke up at seven for Anthro, seriously considered skipping, did not skip, got my exam back, and then got into a fight with the professor. >_< Because she stated that band societies were totally egalitarian, and then went on to say that in band societies men were considered expendable. I asked how they could then be egalitarian. She said because men's work was valued as much as women's. I said that wasn't what I was asking. She said that I was missing the point. I said that it didn't seem possible to state that a society was egalitarian and then say the lives of a portion of that society were valued less. She said that they didn't see it that way. I said that it wasn't a question of how they viewed it, it still wasn't egalitarian. She said that I just wanted to argue with her. I wished that I had skipped class after all.

...anyway, I did skip French so I could work on my philosophy paper, which is due Friday. I worked on it for six hours, stopping only to go to Religion, and to go to supper at the Chinese restaurant with Charlie, Liz, Phil, Matt, Shawn, and Liz's friends.

Shawn was surprisingly nice. Charlie was an asshole and made me have an anxiety attack. Then we went to Wal*Mart and I had another anxiety attack because Wal*Mart is fucking huge and I had to go sit in the foyer and breathe into my hands. Charlie was so asshole-y that he actually apologised for his behaviour, something he has literally never done before, and that includes the time he punched me for surprising him when I was a freshman. It did not help, incidentally. He is no longer a Safe person, and honestly this is a time I can ill afford to be losing Safe people. I don't get them all that often. Now I feel sick to my stomach when I'm around him.

Then I worked on the essay until eleven, when Michelle kidnapped me and we reached the high point of the day, which was her reading to me and Maggie (we finished our book!). And now it's one a.m., I haven't checked any of my sites, I'm still not done with the goddamn essay (I have all eight pages of text, but I still have to organise and clarify and basically make them not suck), and I need to get to bed because I have therapy to-morrow morning which I probably need, not least because I really don't want to go to it. I am going through one of those squicky periods where I really really hate talking to a therapist.

...I am going to go lie in my bed and hate everything. I haven't even gotten any other homework done for any of my other classes because of this.

Have been studying anthropology this semester, and have noticed two overwhelming attitudes in this field, at least as far as our teacher (who shares said attitudes) has chosen to expose to us:

First, dramatic fatphobia--the number of articles we've read in which cultures are praised because the people in them are skinny, or the devastating effects of white influence were summed up with "AND THEN PEOPLE GOT FAT OH NOES" is really squicky to me. Really? Really? Moreover, there is a definite trend of 'and all European societies are evil because they eat processed food and have bad teeth and teh fat'. I will grant that processed food is bad for you, but I think that making a value judgement about a culture based on the food they eat is really ridiculous. I don't think anyone I know is a bad person for eating at McDonald's, even though I think the food from McDonald's is disgusting. The plain fact is you are not what you eat, and the implication that Europeans brought processed food to various tribal peoples and TURNED THEM FAT OHGOD is just. What.

(please note that I'm not endorsing the idea that European culture has deeply influenced tribal culture and caused tribal cultures to change significantly, including in their eating. Again, I just don't think this tone of disdain towards European culture for their food choices is appropriate.)

Second, romanticism of band cultures. Our professor is hardcore in love with band societies, and basically spends ridiculous quantities of time talking about how much better they are than any other society, and some of our readings have definitely enforced this point of view. Once again, cultures are cultures. They have good and bad aspects, but you can't really assign value judgements to them as a whole. They just are.

Plus she (and, again, some of the texts) are just so in love with the idea that tribal peoples are more innocent and natural and attuned to the earth that some days it is like sitting in on an hour of James Cameron's Avatar at goddamn eight in the morning, and I am just not okay with that.

And if I sound touchy about this, it's because yesterday I had to listen to an hour-long lecture about how we all suck because of what we eat. YOU TERRIBLE PEOPLE AND YOUR SATURATED FATS. Goddammit I'll be in my corner with my chickens and my piggies and my screw you.

Anyway, has anyone else experienced this in anthropology? FWIW, there was a large focus on Maori people and how European New Zealanders corrupted them with cavities.