In Harmonium

Being in the main the musings of a Symbolic Anthropologist

“Wheels within wheels”

Posted in September 7th, 2008
by admin in Epistemology, Human Terrain System (HTS), Uncategorized

Years ago, when I was researching Western Magic, I came across a then-obscure book called the Kybalion (my copy is from the 1940’s).  It is a masterpiece of the esoteric genre; a genre designed to hide information in “plain sight”.  Reading the comments on Wired in response to Steve Featherstone’s recent Harpers article brought the [...]

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Untangling ethics 2: lying and “Truth”

Posted in September 2nd, 2008
by admin in Anthropology, Epistemology, Ethics, Human Terrain System (HTS)

One of the more interesting ethical problems in the Anthropologists cannon is the question of when you are required to lie.  For me, it is not only three particular question of when you must lie but, in reality, the perceptual assumptions that structure that “ethical” injunction.  This wasn’t much of a problem for me in [...]

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The Night Battles in the 21st century

Posted in August 19th, 2008
by admin in Ethics, Human Terrain System (HTS), Social Theatre

For over a year, I have been using the term “Witch Hunts”to refer to the actions of some people who are violently opposed to the existence on the Human Terrain System. It is important that people realize that when I use that term, it is not being used in the normal meaning of political [...]

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When politics becomes asymmetric, symbolic warfare

Posted in August 1st, 2008
by admin in Anthropology, Ethics, Human Terrain System (HTS)

The personal is political
Carol Hanish (?)
I don’t usually write about politics. This isn’t because I don’t have strong political beliefs (I do) but, rather, because I prefer to devote my time and energies to other things. This wasn’t always the case, as a few of my close friends know, and I like to [...]

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Some thought on rhetoric and rational discourse

Posted in July 16th, 2008
by admin in Anthropology, Ethics, Human Terrain System (HTS)

so when one dispassionately and accurately speaks of cluster bombing, depleted uranium, torture at Abu Ghraib, and laying siege to civilian population centres, the response is not that it is just “rhetoric.”
Max Forte at openanthropology (NB: there is something weird with the cascading style sheets which interferes with italic script so I have changed the [...]

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Untangling Ethics: A framework for Anthropology

Posted in July 14th, 2008
by admin in Anthropology, Ethics, Human Terrain System (HTS)

In a recent blog post, Max Forte dissected the Human Terrain System’s (HTS) Top Misconceptions page. Now, in general, I have not been very kind about most of the attacks on the HTS and Max’s post is definitely an attack. It is, however, qualitatively different, in my opinion, from the majority of other [...]

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