Cultural Politics

“We can speak of a “network” of cultural ideas without being essentialist Anti-essentialist caveat: diverse societies cannot be reduced to a single common core. Wrong Right

Essentialism Essentialism requires a single “core” of characteristics, often a means to dominate or exploit a group: eg “women are less intelligent, more emotional than men and therefore cannot attend universities” 2) Essentialism can also be used against domination: Eg Maria Montissori believed that women are inherently superior to men in brains, and that technology eliminates significance of male physical strength. Just because essentialists might give compliments doesn’t mean we have to buy their premise. The price is too high!

Biological vs Cultural Essentialism Biological essentialism = genetically fixed mental characteristics = racism 2) Cultural essentialism = culturally fixed mental characteristics = ethnocentrism.

Essentialism and “backhanded compliments” The “authentic native” sounds like it might help indigenous groups who do not want outsiders claiming land rights, fake beads, etc. But this helped colonists jail rebels among Black South Africans and Native Americans It helps colonial rulers: guilt-ridden lament “we are to blame for having accidently polluted the natural purity of these “children of the forest” with our own troubling artifice.” Film from Apartheid south africa, “The Gods Must be Crazy”

Haraway, “Teddy Bear Patriarchy” 1921: The Second International Conference on Eugenics American Museum of Natural History (NYC) “Eugenics and conservation were closely linked in philosophy and in personnel at the Museum, and they tied in closely with exhibition and research. For example, the white-supremacist author of “The Passing of the Great Race,” Madison Grant, was… a co-founded of the California Save-The-Redwoods-League, an activist for… national parks, and secretary of the New York Zoological Society”