I'm obliged to
Gitane for pointing me in the direction of
Stratagems and Spoils by the anthropologist
FG Bailey. I shall read it in
conjunction with the
Penguin Modern Classics edition of Tarzan Of The Apes that I have just got hold of. I like to get a
balanced view.
2 comments:
Excellent I can feel a good old row brewing! Viscount Greystoke as I remember was so disgusted by civilisation he went back to live among the apes and then went on to have a barney with the ant men. Bailey's work is piece of original political anthropology describing how the politics of tribalism works and how transactionalism underpins some models of political power. For a more modern and far more hilarious account of how this is manifest in American redneck life try Joe Bageant's "deer hunting with jesus; guns, votes, debt and delusion in redneck america", journalism or anthropology?the fictional Viscount
Greystoke was aware of the tribalism his title represented and rejected the life it represented. Maybe we should shove the Etonions in the monkey house in London Zoo and see how they get on. And when they've tired of that give'em a dose of the big society in the ant section of the insect enclosure.
Gitane, what have you got against monkeys that you want them to suffer?
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