Posts Tagged ‘apprenticeship’
Not terribly affected by External Influences: Community Anthropology
Posted by: adonis49 on: May 26, 2014
Not terribly affected by External Influences: Community Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of traditional family structure along with relationship with the neighbors. For example, the rate of mixed marriages with foreign ethnic groups of immigrants, even to the second generation.
Most countries have a patrilinear family structure (from father) where the father represents the family status in the community, even if the wife is of a higher status. And the daughters are considered implicitly of a lower status than the sons.
Modern fast communication facilities, transportation and trades cannot obliterate the rooted family structures in the short term.
The traditional family structure in Germany, and the Germanophone countries or Homo-Helveticus such as Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, the three tiny States of Latvia, Estonia , Lithuania, and including Sweden, Ukraine, Japan and Rwanda has this additional characteristic:
Even the sons are not equals in the family attitudes and one of them, preferably the elder son, is the one representing the dynasty and the status of the family.
In these countries the community:
1. Blindly obey laws and respect hierarchy and authoritative figures: They are willing to stop at the red light for ever in a desolate street, and refrain from jaywalking when no cars are passing…
2. They are isolationists and abhor the universality in philosophical thinking.
3. Communities enjoy self-autonmous political policies and consensus is the common denominator process.
4. Apprenticeship ,after graduation and for several years, is the main qualification for a well-oaid job. Consequently, graduate students don’t mind being paid pittance during their period of apprenticeship.
These communities are prone to jump on the bandwagon of dictatorial regimes when opportunities are available in period of calamities.
The Anglo-Saxon societies such as England and the Netherland are universal in nature, but they don’t go as far the Latin countries such as France, Spain and Italy in applying their administrative systems on other societies when they occupy or colonize them.
The Anglo-Saxon societies refrained from applying blindly their unique laws on the colonies.
Their politics is: “Don’t meddle in internal affairs that don’t harm the sovereignty of the motherland, and make sure to take the money and wealth and run”
Latin countries attempt to force uniform administrative systems on their colonies
Propaganda spread the myth that the US follow the anthropology of Anglo-Saxon societies. I beg to differ:
1. The US short history has demonstrated an isolationist trend in every turn and was comfortable growing and relying on its internal market.
Most of the discrimination behaviors of Germany were emulated according to the US laws and trends.
The US didn’t join the war against Germany in the two World wars until the very end, for financial reasons because Germany didn’t accumulate much capital to repay its debts.
2. Until recently, the US exhibited the Anglo-Saxon economical strategy of “taking the money and run” and let the communities overseas fight out their differences.
The traditional family structure in Poland is highly individualistic
The Slavic societies in central Europe and the Balkan countries (Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia…) have a different anthropology than Russia and Germany.
The Russian societies and Belarussia, including Viet Nam and Croatia, share the same anthropological trends
Note: It appears that a language is the expression of the anthropology of a society. The more common the terms and syntax structure the closer are the communities.
“Unfruitful Nostalgia”, controlled nationalism and degraded sharing of cultures…
There was a tradition, long time ago, in several City-States in the Levant. This custom was for the city council to encourage and coax unmarried males and new couples, who could not afford the life-style in the city, to buy them a one-way ticket to a far away land, to work in mines, fend for themselves and survive on their own, and eventually participate in building a new town
These “unwanted citizens”, as was the case in the modern colonial nations, and as it’s practiced now in financially “depressed countries”, discovered lands and transferred their knowledge, language, customs and traditions.
The world was dominated by the rule of the Elite Class of dispatching abroad the unwanted, undesirables, and untouchables.
This “civilized world” was built with the unwanted classes of people who quickly learned that “It is not where you were born, but where you live and were accepted, as one of the community member in the “New World”, that is Your Home”
New City-States around the Old World were created with the knowledge and customs of the period of the current generation of unwanted caste-off people.
Not long ago, apprenticeship was the system for acquiring the skills for an artisan job. There were a few disadvantages in that system:
1. The kids lived as a slave with his master, and if the sons of the master or one of his close relatives turned out to be as talented as the slave, there were no outlet for the kid to be paid decently as a talented artisan. The Gild system would cast out the talented poorer relative and he was to move outside the city limits or be transferred to one of the “colonies”
2. After many years of slaving, it is possible that the kid showed no talent in what he was supposed to master. Given the short life expectancy, it was difficult to change job.
There came a time when transportation were relatively accessible to return to the Homeland, and to die there, setting the stage to this Unfruitful Nostalgia.
This kind of nostalgia gave rise to Controlled Nationalism, a gathering of closed-minded citizens who refused to associate with the world communities and share with their cultures.
“I want to die where I was born” generated the downhill of cultural sharing trend.
As the unwanted got it in their mind to return and confront the old system, the Old Guard decided that it would be best to control the poorer classes instead of sending them to taste freedom abroad.
Instead, The Old Guard dispatched the poor citizens to wars of expansion under the premise that “What benefit the Elite class will trickle down to the poorer classes of the newer generations”.
After colonizing a land, the less skilled “citizens” were sent to manage, direct, and train the promising natives in the mines and manufacturing outlet… where they spent most of their lives in foreign lands and left generations of new breeds.
The Roman Empire started the process of forcing their “civilization” on native people. The European colonial powers added insult to injury by allowing their criminals and violent prisoners to instill Law and Order on the occupied natives.
The less educated members of their elite classes were sent to “administer” the colonies, adopting the brute force and the latest techniques and vilest of ideologies in crushing the will of the natives, labeling them animals and barbarians, devoid of mankind soul that enable them to enjoy human rights.
And the ugly preemptive wars degenerated into the nastier of violence and brutality, and mankind learned to increase his brutality by a notch with every war.
Note: I wrote this post around 4 am while watching the movie Marugi or Ohuru Freedom. A 80-year old Kenyan who participated in the Mao Mao uprising against the British colonial power. The British killed his two kids and wife, and was detained in several concentration camps and was beaten and handicapped.
Marugi decided to learn to read and to joined a school with the kids after Kenya independence. He eventually was allowed to sit with the kids and was asked to deliver a speech at the UN to encourage learning and free schools for children…
Adonis Diaries 