ANSO 103-01, Introduction to Anthropology, Spring 2002

Abstract

We enter the world with the marvelous capacity to live any one of a thousand different kinds of lives, as the anthropologist, Geertz, says. Nevertheless once we begin to live that life that is to become ours, we often live it with the amazing conviction that it is the best and possibly only way to live. Those other lives that could possibly have been ours are also lived with equal conviction. Many of those thousand different kinds of lives are lived next door when society sees "race"1, gender, age, religious conviction, wealth, etc. as differences that make a difference in the life you are allowed to live. Yet many of those lives are also found spread across six continents and thousands of islands on this planet.