Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Heredity and Culture Reading

As I have not yet had the benefit of discussing this reading in class, my perception may not be as clear as it could be. However, I think that the main idea of the "Heredity and Culture" reading is as follows: one cannot attribute behaviors or tendencies of a group of people to their race or ethnicity without a historical and anthropological understanding of that group's circumstances. Avoiding these presumptions will help to prevent sweeping, unfounded generalizations based on race. Also, Alain Locke is calling for an academic implementation of the understanding of the difference between correlation and causality.

"Heredity and Culture" was published in 1924. My question is, HOW DID IT TAKE THIS LONG for these points to come to the forefront of academic thought? Calculus was discovered in the 1600s. Advancements in physics leading to the discovery of quantam mechanics were made in 1897. How could it have possibly taken us until 1924 to come to the conclusion that we cannot just attribute cultural characteristics to racial determination without any understanding of that group's history?

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1 comment:

  1. ChishalaMarch 14, 2010 at 8:27 PM

    i think that is a good question, it is making wonder though, that isnt the study of other cultures as cultures a pretty recent thing? isnt it that before it was a study of different forms of people instead of different ways of life and circumnstance? am thinking that with the attempt at explaining the differences while really looking at the context of the sudied people has helped reach this point and bring it to the fore front
    i may be wrong

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