Each week I will just post a brief sketch of my notes. You can help make these better by signing in, clicking EasyEdit above, and adding your own.

"Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all."
- Thomas Szasz, 1973

Hello, I’m Professor Wesch. (about me)

This first week we have two very simple goals.
1. get to know one another.
2. get to know why you are here.

First, a survey:

Raise your hand if:

• How many do not like school?
• How many do not like learning?
  
• This is your first university class ever
• Freshman, Sophomore, etc.
• Major: Anthropology, Hard Science (Physics, Chem, Biology), Social Science, Humanity, Art, Ag, Education, Engineering, Business
• From Kansas
• From the Plains / Midwest
• ... Not from the Plains / Midwest
• ... Not from America
• Grew up in a city, town, country
• Lived in a foreign country
• Been to Kansas City
• Been to a larger city
• Been to the east coast, west coast
• Been to a foreign country
• ... a third world country
• Speak a foreign Language
• Spanish, French, Russian, Other ...
• Music says a lot about a person?
• Hip-Hop
• Country
• Alternative - something most have never heard of (melodic screamo, something like that)
• been to the library
• ... to the stacks of the library
• Taking this class because you have to
• ... because you want to
• ... would rather be sleeping at 8:30am
• How many think they know what anthropology is?
• Difference between cultural anthropology and physical anthropology?

I didn’t know either. I had to look it up. Here is the brief answer:
Anthropology is the study of all humans in all times in all places.

Amazed by cultural variation around the world – had to go explore the world. – warning – because of this class, at least 20 people in this room will be out of the country one year from today.
Let me ask some more questions ...
How many of you have ever:

• thought about what makes some people popular and others not so popular.
• Check the Top 40 and wonder WHY?
• Follow politics
• Considered what makes men different than women.
• Why you can’t understand your girlfriend? Boyfriend?
• considered the differences between jocks, geeks, motorheads, frat boys, sorority girls, and tomboys ... just to name a few of the little subcultures within youth culture.
• Wondered why people do weird things?
• Wondered why there is not world peace?
• Evil? Why is there evil in the world? Or is there evil in the world?
• How can we all get along?
• Should we all get along?
• How can we survive as a species for the next 100, 1000, 10000, 1 million years?
• Where did we come from and where are we going?
• How can we assure equality and human rights to all?
  • What are rights?
  • Who decides?
  • What is “human”? (What is human nature?)
• How do we tell good from bad?
• Why are poor people poor?
• Wonder is there a first world and a third world? What makes that difference?
• Wonder why there are still almost entirely white and entirely black neighborhoods over 100 years after emancipation and over 30 years after the civil rights movement?
• Wonder where Taco Bell meat comes from?
• What kind of person do you want to become? Who do you want to be?
• What is love?
• How can we make love stay?
• Change? Is change good or bad? (depends)
• What societal changes should be encouraged? Discouraged? Why?
• Who are you? What your place is? Who are those around you?

To the extent that you have asked these questions you have already engaged in cultural anthropology. Because you are doing a cultural or social analysis of the world you live in. And THIS CLASS WILL MAKE YOU SMARTER ABOUT THE STUFF YOU DEAL WITH EVERYDAY: fashion, popularity, friendship, love, religion, the sacred, and some of the other things you deal with everyday but you don’t realize it: like global trade.

Cultural Anthropology takes the pondering of such questions as its core activity, using both scientific and artistic methods and by broadening its worldview to include all humans in all times and places. Each of these questions poses a tremendous challenge. We travel the world to see the nuances of these questions – and to see how other people with different cultural backgrounds deal with these same challenging questions.

Getting to know even more about you ...

• How many of you have taken the red pill?

• What does that mean to you?
• Fallen in love?
• lost love?
• been loved?
• love now?
• in love now?
• love is an ability? or a feeling?
• Concerned about ...
• AIDS & Malaria worldwide
• Hunger
• Poverty
• Inequality
• War
• How many use the word "meh"?
• How many feel oversaturated with media?
• Found yourself?
• feel complete?
• ever will?
• lost yourself?
• feel lost?
• like reading more than TV?
• Read non-self-help non-fiction
  
• pay your own way to school
• here to ...
• better self
• get ahead
  
• better outer life
  
• better inner life
• better job
• killing time / parents or society makes you feel like you should

This class may be the red pill for some of you. May be transformational.

What we will do in this class:
Try to step outside of our normal way of seeing things – jump into other cultures to see the world through new eyes – and then jump back in to our own culture to see our own culture from a new perspective - seeing the connections and power relations around the world as we go.

WHERE WE WORK
Far away places – (me in the penis gourd joke) (picture of same people looking at the same picture) – but also closer to home. (corporate anthropology)
anywhere and everywhere because anthropology is about all people in all times in all places.

OUR PERSPECTIVE
Regardless of where we are, we strive to be HOLISTIC, COMPARATIVE, and use the ETHNOGRAPHER'S TOOLKIT:


The toolkit is what we use to face all those big questions – most important is EMPATHY.

We have many biases we don't often recognize.

Consider the human eye itself:
"We as a species have eyes because it prevents us from going around and licking everything all the time," boroditsky says. "We can explore things from a distance. Everything we know about the world comes in through two little holes in our heads." So whereas flies taste with their feet and see with 10,000 eyeballs; whereas spiders have eight eyes and each pair has a different function; whereas snakes have infra-red vision; whereas scallops have oculi that line their ribs for the length of their bodies – we humans (most of us, anyway) only have two inch-round instruments for cognition, anticipation, and interpretation, and they only work if there's light.

Also
Natural bias – only see a very small part of the spectrum – much more to reality than meets the eye.
Personal/contextual
Cultural bias



Central goal of the class is to recognize such cultural biases so we can move beyond them.

We then reviewed the goals on the syllabus and discussed the wiki.

Why a wiki?
because "Nobody is as smart as everybody." - Kevin Kelly
and if you missed this lecture, watch:



Looked at books, points and assignments, and then ....

THE WORLD SIMULATION



World Simulation Basics
* Answer BIG Questions
* Create own culture
* Meet in Union Ballroom
* Simulate World History
Learn how the world system works AND how we may be able to change it for the better.

This class is exactly what we make of it – And I have VERY HIGH EXPECTATIONS

I am a K-State alumni – part of the Wildcat clan. And this means that I have a vested interest in your education – NOT your degree – but in your education. In fact, if you are not getting an education, I have a vested interest in assuring that you do not get a degree.

Let's hold each other to the highest standards possible.

Importance of anthropology
Scientific: move beyond culture-bound theories
Ethical: empathy, know others
Practical: better perception, thought, creativity (leads to better jobs)
Personal: Relationships

Now it’s your turn to figure out why this class is important to you.

Take Control of your education.



"Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one." Malcom S. Forbes