So I'm taking an anthropology class and as part of an assignment we had to reply to others assignments on a discussion thing. We had to answer a couple questions that the teacher posted. Question 1: What would your response be if your relatives(or ancestors) were dug up to make way for a road? Question 2: If you were the one in charge of everything(the road crew, contacting state offices and relatives and scientists to study the bones) how would you prioritize things? So I was reading through peoples responses and came across this little beauty and just wondering what you guys think of it. Honesty please. I just want to know if my gut feeling is right or wrong on how I feel about it but I think I should follow my gut. =) You can read those two responses or you can jump below the long "====" line and read that instead as thats just something else the guy wrote. Let me know what you think. __________________________________ Anthropology 100 Discussion Questions 1. If deceased relatives of mine were displaced by a road grader during the development of a highway, I might cringe. The irony of the situation would be numbing; a place of eternal rest may ease the mind of those who visit, a highway could never resemble such a place. Highways to modern Americans, folks which necessitate the existence of highways themselves, are looked on with despair and frustration. Highway traffic is a loud and constant source of noise pollution. How can a person’s prayers to the dead compare to noise pollution? One cannot see noise anymore than one may see a dead relative inside of a tomb underground. Still, progress makes progress. One who hates highways because interred relatives were cast aside by a bull-dozer during the highway’s construction may offer a refreshing aspect on hatred of highways. Because highways might represent noise to urban dwellers, who then hate highways, may gravitate to a rural type who connects directly (by the relatives’ un-interment) with such a permanent, sterile, inhuman, immovable manifestation of American culture. On the other hand, the highway development plan may come of a design by karma. Envision a family very social, very political, and very influential in the ancient past. Perhaps this family originated a profound type of religion. Perhaps the family in mind were independent thinkers, scientific types during time prior of the agricultural revolution. Perhaps they knew a terrific recipe for fried-chicken. In any-case, respected, loved, feared, or admired, the highway should not pass anywhere except over their gravesite. The spot those bones rested for thousands of years leaked fumes of success, joy, whatever, and anyone who drove over the spot at which they rested may find the same terrific experiences the ancestors in question invented, if desired. Further still, roads are roads. The ancient folks of Pueblo Bonita knew the trigonometry needed to build a straight road. Modern Americans know how to build them too, except with more curves which add scenic perspectives from a quickly moving vehicle. All the same, if the ones who built the first roads walked, the road necessitated straightness. Imagine a time with wide expanses of time, the earth a place of invention; an original human. Of course things changed, original invention undertaken in the basement may still take place, with some limitations. If my relatives’ remains shifted in the soil, then sifted through gigantic machinery which design roads, it would probably only come because of ignorance of the location of the gravesite. The dense irony of the situation would make me feel numb. 2. The project must reach completion, and I know the way to complete it. The desires of several parties must get satisfied. The family of the interred relatives, the contractors designing the road, the state offices which find special labor for the project, and the desires of fellow scientists need to know they are all working together on the project (road). Again, the project does not belong to them; it belongs to me. They just need to know of the presence of one another so they can use each other when necessary. For example, the state offices alert a contractor’s union special labor called “Archeologists” would work on the site; prepare for, or hire, some. The contractor’s union may reply, “Why, Jerks?” To which the State would reply, “Because, of the demands of such-and-such a group.” By knowing the structure of an excavation effort toes would not get stepped on, fewer feelings would get hurt. So, the tricky part: Notifying who cares about who’s in the ground about what will cover the ground after the project finishes. How might one begin finding the appropriate nation of people a gravesite will be paved over with two feet of limestone gravel, steel re-bar, and concrete? This may take a while without the help of a few state offices, perhaps within which anthropologists may exist. If I may find an archeologist, a biological anthropologist, a cultural anthropologist, or an interpreter I would immediately ask him/her to begin a file on our project. I would then command, “Contact folks who may have relatives in-ground, or who might know of folks with relatives in-ground and where those folks may be found. Then alert these particular folks to the urgency of the situation!” If no anthropologists exist, I would quickly begin to invent a new science; I would have much work to do before the road could go down. Assuming the scientist(s) available well versed in Native American culture and reach a point of interest in three dimensional spaces, the gravesites would resolve their hidden locations to the mystical relatives. The relatives portray the locations to the archeologist of the State, who would begin the systematic destruction of the gravesite. I expect labor would patiently watch, everyday, until the excavation reached completion to the satisfaction of the pleasant relative(s) of the bones. After, the road with cars on it would be hex free. All parties involved could come together, with some food to share, and speak about the experience we shared with one another. ========================================================= Priority Number One by - With so many activities to keep a person busy in contemporary times, losing a job and staying unemployed might challenge most people. Instead of keeping methods to maintain idleness to oneself, share them. Men and women of all ages must suppress their telos (their purpose in life), and remain unemployed from the field of their pleasure at all costs. A new telos indoctrinated into the American public will loosen the drive to succeed from their grip. A telos of an apathetic, purposeless, zombie-like existence will make angels of lazy, dirty, uneducated heathen. In this bliss-like state, men and women will raise children of their own stock or the stock of others. Scientifically reproduced in a womb of a laboratory, the children will merely develop few of the original five senses cherished by countless generations of human families before them. Identifiable officers will bestow these kids to couples joined together by a Marriage Matrix. The strange will live among strangers who are strangers married to each other. Will love exist after generations of these zombie kids are pulled from the genome? One hopes not. First, in the opening stages of the human telos decomposition, adults must behave in accordance with certain activities which were deemed appropriate by the Holy See, like during the Middle Ages when the world burned. These activities include gestures discouraging intent. These gestures generally appear anti-social: Not shaking hands, use of psycho energy, sexual abuse of men during teen years, segregation of gender and physical violence. Emotional mistreatment will work when the abuse happens early on or after a point when the recipients may no longer describe what happens to them. Men and women who are forced to mistrust one another will not continue to procreate. This will make exactly the right time to begin genome manipulation in human reproduction. Men and women will begin to recognize small versions of themselves (children) in places outside of the home, but they will find themselves powerless to explain what they see. The New Telos will begin to take hold. Next, after basic discouragement, any thirst for social interaction must satisfy those who use the Internet on small computer screens. The ones who use it may only make acquaintances with images of people in unknown, unverified places. Being under the visual control of the Internet will ease and relieve more strongly-willed folks from their critical thinking skills. They will begin to stare at each other during the meat meal which will be held six times a day, at home and in industry. Families will stare into the eyes of one another while they dine. The meat will be held in the hand. Because the steak will come from the county laboratory instead of the federal slaughterhouse, good hygiene will no longer necessitate cooking it. Dry goods and perishable items must remain locked away in storage. Those who require tasties will show identification for access to tasty treats. Ethically, these ideas are not far off. Clearly the most good will benefit the greatest number of people when these ideas are instituted, or put in place. The New Utilitarianism will acquiesce future generations of “humans” by easing them, forcefully, into a zombie-like state which they will maintain themselves. The children of the age of New Telos will slip away from vice and malice like an avalanche on a mountain side. Of course, the generations between may feel the pinch, but one may put down resistance if necessary. In the New Utilitarianism, the New Telos will hit America: Priority number one. Obviously accomplishing these objectives appear merely a matter of time; the seeds have been planted, beginning with the Biological Revolution of the 1970s. Unemployment can turn people to a cultureless blob, impossible for simple humans to fight in any way. ________ If you were toking the good stuff when you 'review' this let me know as it may or may not make more sense when 'enlightened.'