Life happens
Posted By Marc on March 1, 2009
I have had a rather heavy schedule for the past couple of weeks, and I am leaving for Toronto in an hour or so. What this means is that I have had to cut back on my blogging. Of course, this doesn’t mean that I haven’t been doing anything 
.
I have been followingthe Dudley-Flores debate over at OpenAnthropology with quite a bit of interest (here and here). This debate has a number of important issues that are, at present, unresolved for me. Normally, I probably would have jumped in anyway, but there is, to my mind, just too much contradictory evidence and I can see several equally plausible, and mutually contradictory, explanations for the reported events. I’ll be following it, as time permits, while I am in Toronto.
JWC on 
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http://www.ops-alaska.com/humanterrain
Marc–
You’ll want to take a look at the contents located above. Scroll down first, then back up top.
–John
Hi John,
I read through it yesterday – one seriously disturbing picture (okay, a lot more than one…). I am truly wondering if this entire episode can’t be described as a triumph of collective idiocy over rationality…
More Cowbell? You have got to be kidding me. Since it’s become a Saturday Night Live “meme” I can’t believe even a propagandist like Stanton would try to somehow turn that into a menacing thing.
I think since the “more cowbell” sketch came out, the “This wxyz needs more cowbell” has been pretty standard across a bunch of organizations.
While the comments about death threats are disturbing, (what, precisely are they supported by?) All I see in this story are more of the “usual suspects” spinning more tales. Even IF it’s true, all it points out is that a unit in the US Army has some issues.
I also find Max Forte’s insinuation that HTS desires to creat martyrs by killing female HTS members to be some pretty weak sauce. Along with his demagogery of those he disagrees with.
Drew, if the death threats happened, I would certainly want to know! More importantly, I would really want to know if the were serious or for pure intimidation.
Honestly, I’m torn about this entire story. Too many possibilities, mutually exclusive, and not enough facts as facts for me to see. Have you picked up anything on it while you’re over there?
Real death threats? No. But it fits in with the basic language of some troopers that I know.
If your order gets messed up at McDonald’s it’s not unheard of to say something like “Too bad you can’t shoot some people in the face, just out of principle.”
It’s entirely possible that this is a misunderstanding of cultural linguistics. I’ve been called out by someone for using the slang “two to the chest and one to the face” myself, when referring to someone in business who need fired/counselled/given a bad review. It never crossed my mind that someone would take that as an actual threat.
And if the HTS member involved DID violate OPSEC and PERSEC to the extent the one poster implies, I can see where bad blood would happen. And I’m wondering where violating those two military cultural taboos falls in within the precious Anthropological “ethics”.
On female contractors going armed… D’ya think it’s a good idea? I mean, female, in a land where your choices are thousands of sex-starved Alpha males and/or a culture that ostensibly treats women as property? I’d be shocked if a female in theater DIDN’T have concern for their physical safety.
We have one female with us, and her physical safety is a constant Kabuki dance. It just pays to be prudent, in these cases. Unless you’re color-blind to reality, that is.
What I’m really concerned about, is the willingness of so many people to assume the worst while giving those they agree with a pass. If I were in a position to judge, I’d be tempted to call that “bias”.
Hey Drew,
I’ve wondered if they were “real” in the sense you are talking about as well. It’s certainly possible that one of us overly sensitive types (aka academics) might just possibly perceive a comment like “two to the chest and one to the face” as a threat (grin). I could certainly understand and, actually, would expect comments like that if OPSEC or PERSEC was violated.
“What I’m really concerned about, is the willingness of so many people to assume the worst while giving those they agree with a pass. If I were in a position to judge, I’d be tempted to call that “bias”.”
NO!!!!! LOLOL, yeah, of course it is, Drew! I do, however, agree that it is a serious problem; basically, it means that we don’t think about ourselves and, if academics, have therefore failed the charter of academia “Know Thyself”. Flip side, is that one can know oneself and still take a position that is “biased” (honestly, I prefer the term “polarized” since there may well be no immediately apparent right and or wrong).
I keep running into trouble with language; when I say “biased”, I mean quite literally, in the fabric sense of it. Because of my aviation maintenance background, working with antique tube and fabric aircraft, I’m accustomed to thinking in terms of “weave” and “woof”, and how they lie in relation to anything is it’s “bias”.
So, when I hear someone say “bias”, I automatically equate it to the tendency to conform to a certain “set” when confronted with a fact structure. No rights or wrongs.
Hey Drew, I’ll let you in on a secret – everyone has their own definitions for words based on how we use them or analogs of them, in the real world (GRIN). It’s actually a rather classic problem called the Language Game – how can you talk about language without using language? I’d guess that about half of my consulting work looks at the boundaries of terms to try and get a “map” of how the term is perceived by a group of people.