Overdosing on the Silverstein Kool Aid
by Alex
Michael Silverstein is one of the only anthropologists that I know of (if you can think of other candidates let me know) who really has a megatheory for what anthropology is and where it’s going. For those who drink the Silverstein Kool Aid the world resolves into a clarity that you forgot you once had — like getting a new pair of glasses. You begin to see why everyone around you kept chanting “resistance is futile, you will be assimilated” as you lifted the paper cup to your lips.
On the other hand, sometimes the easily-influenced become a little over enthusiastic. You can usually tell who they are by the way they pepper their conversation with the words ‘reticulate’ and (more lately) ‘metalepsis’. For this reason I think there’s something a little over done about “Adamzero”:http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/AA3YC4CHS5WDG/ref=cm_aya_bc_aya/002-1728795-4172847 and his Amazon list “‘cultural semiotic; language as social action; metapragmatics’”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/2MJDVK8ZSADPZ/qid=1125342589/sr=5-2/ref=sr_5_2/002-1728795-4172847, whose title, to be frank, renders his self-description as ‘a Chicago undergrad’ superfluous.
On the other hand, it’s a _really_ good list.
I’m glad to see people are reading “Talking Heads”! Great book. Contains some of the best writing on Peirce and Whorf I’ve seen anywhere. Come to think of it, it is about time I read it again!
A great two-in-one: a solid list of books (esp. talking heads!) and a wonderful unintentional parody of every reason people might be (wrongly) driven away from this very distinctively Chicagoan approach. Is the list’s pomposity perlocutionary, illocutionary, or just plain ill?