Anthropology
you are required to make( FIVE )annotations (thoughtful comments about an article). Thoughtful annotations may engage in key points in the readings, stimulate discussion, offer informative questions or comments. Highlight a sentence or paragraph and make an annotation. Each annotation should be around 3-4 sentences in length.
The example is from my other class
ANSWER
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Asians have attitudes and values that inhibit progress. “Oriental philosophies [emphasize] emotions, values and cosmologies,” at the expense of empirical thought. Orientals are lazy (163). They (likeAfricans) have a “love of luxury” (170), and they love to buy things like“ kingfisher feathers . . . precious stones . . . drugs no modern pharmacopeia would own” (164). They have a “servile spirit,” their armies lack“tough” petty officers
Comments
This claim presented in the article seems to be true Attitudes and values not only influence progress but also influences consumption pattern of an individuals. Having a positive attitude towards something and having specific values can stimulate development.
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Multiple wives had “ethological significance,” as also, perhaps, did the “amassing” of slaves for “display purposes.” “Great attention was paid to submission symbols, kneeling, prostration, thekotow” (209). In India, a “similar calculus . . . underlay human demographic behavior and veneration of the cow” (19). Recall the“commensalism” in Africa.
Comments
Polygamy has been part of the culture of various ethnic groups in the world. This is reflected in the statements presented in the article. Having multiple wives had ethological significance in the past. However, some associated polygamy with domestic violence. Thus, polygamy contribute to increase in domestic violence.
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But tools do not invent themselves or reproduce themselves. If you invoke technological determinism, you must not only show that the technology appeared and had such-and-such effects, you must also explain why it was invented, and by whom. In nearly all (I think) technologically deterministic arguments made as part of some explanation for Europe’s historical progress, technological arguments end up being arguments about the inventors, not the inventions.
Comments
Undeniably, technology affects social life and human culture as suggested. The level of technological development and invention determines the level of economic growth. Besides, technology affects how people think, learn and communicate.
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Traditional families, it was argued, have tended to reflect strong kinship ties at a scale larger and wider than the nuclear family; they have tended to form large, extended-family households; and they have tended to be associated with high birthrates. In the absence of much evidence concerning the medieval European family and household, it was rather widely assumed that earlier European families had conformed to the traditional model, which was seen as the “preindustrial” family, contrasted with the’modern, post-industrial-revolution nuclear family, forming a small household, with looser kin ties beyond the household, and with fewer children.
Comments
Family and kinship are some of the key issues associated with European miracle. Kinship has its own significance when it comes to social structure. Kinship ties determines marital relationships, culture of a community and the degree of economic development.
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It was then argued, for instance, that Africans were endowed with lower intelligence than Europeans, so it was both natural and moral for Europeans to colonize Africa and make all decisions on behalf of the Africans who, themselves, either did not have the innate ability to make these decisions, to govern themselves.
Europeans were brighter, better, and bolder than non-Europeans because of their heredity. Generally the descriptive category used was not “Europeans” but rather “members of the white race,” but the distinction was not usually very important.
According to history, Europeans are considered more intelligent than African. Is this true? Europeans are known to be more intelligent than Africans due to the great inventions and development made in the past. But then, does this mean than African have not invented anything. The fact that Europeans controlled Africans and made decision for them in the past does not mean than Africans are not intelligent.
