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Seeing the relevance of Anthropology in Everyday Life

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How Karl Marx Ruined My Dinner Party

June 2, 2016 by Carie Little Hersh 4 Comments

How Karl Marx Ruined My Dinner Party

At dinner one night, I made two fatal social errors in rapid succession. First, during casual conversation with two good friends, I began talking about American culture. Not just culture, but how culture is linked to power and the broader social structure. If your eyes are glazing over at this point, you are beginning to understand how my dinner guests felt. Now imagine you are only half-way through dinner and I am seated between you and the door. My second social gaffe was that I invoked the name of the infamous social critic, Karl Marx. And I had the audacity to state my opinion that part of what he observed about culture is correct. The conversation went a little like this: Me: You know, I was thinking lately about Marx’s observation that modern society is divided between the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: American Culture, Culture, Law and Politics, Social Class, Uncategorized Tagged With: advertisements, advertising, American culture, bootstraps, Bourgeois, Bourgeoisie, capitalism, class structure, Communism, Communist Manifesto, consumer culture, Cultural Anthropology, elections, labor, Marx, Marxism, poor, possessions, Proletariat, social class, sociology, superdelegates, voting, wealth gap, wealthy

Stop Blaming Parents for Our Society’s Failures

April 23, 2016 by Carie Little Hersh 1 Comment

Stop Blaming Parents for Our Society’s Failures

Yet another parenting article popped up in my Facebook feed this week. Not a How-To parenting article, which is annoying enough, but a You’re-Doing-Everything-Wrong parenting article. Generation X’s Parenting Problem, published in 2015 but making the rounds again now, is a diatribe about how today’s parents are doing everything wrong. Life was so great when we were kids. Parents today are stressed-out maniacs who need to relax. We turned out fine. Kids these days have it too easy. If only parents today followed their parents’ and grandparents’ choices, everything would be great. The problem is, we don’t live in our parents’ or grandparents’ world. Just like the insipid and ubiquitous memes about how "My childhood was awesome: I was beaten with a belt and I learned respect", these … [Read more...]

Filed Under: American Culture, Culture, Ecology, Food and Foodways, Kinship, Parenting, Social Systems Tagged With: “Generation X’s Parenting Problem”, Anthropology, blame, capitalism, carcinogens, child development, criminalizing parents, ecology, economy, food toxicity, Generation X, housing, industrialism, kinship, parental leave, parenting, plastics, social institutions, social welfare, socialism, stress, support structures, toxic, toys

Dr. Carie Little Hersh

Dr. Carie Little Hersh is an American cultural anthropologist, former attorney, and teaching professor in Anthropology at Northeastern University. This is her personal blog about anthropology and its relevance to everyday life.

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Disclaimer

As someone who was an attorney for between 3-7 minutes, I feel compelled to state that the views on this blog are mine and don’t reflect those of my employer.

 

relevANTH is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

 

Bonus Disclaimer: References to specific products and services on this podcast do not constitute or imply an endorsement and the views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily state or reflect those of either relevANTH or Dr. Hersh.

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