I'm Native American Native Americans are predisposed to believe that rules the world operates under can change. The world can work out for itself that a change should be made and make one. So when things get crazy, grab onto a Native American, because he or she keep you from walking off a cliff that wasn't there 10 minutes ago. My first hint of this was at the annual Indian Parade in Anadarko Oklahoma. The main attraction were the Indian Princesses in their regalia sitting on their Indian blankets on the hood of a big car. But there are many horses too. Now you know what you get when there are horses. The Indian kids in the marching bands never stepped in what the horses left behind. The non-Indians didn't seem to notice and did. The rules changed for the day. Not an issue for a Native American. While I am on the subject, I am on the tribal roles of the Laguana Pueblo and the Cherokee Nation. I don't look particularly Indian. Red-in-the-head, I call it. I Studied the Sociology of Knowledge In this field of study, you ask how ideas get promoted to be knowledge that defines your reality. Since we are all in charge of our own reality nowadays, this idea might catch on after all. Resisting the drive to certainty about small things and large is a losing battle. Getting it wrong happens often enough that certainty has to pull itself together. When that happens, steal away from your awkward enthusiasms to find more productive ones. My interest in the subject began as an undergraduate after reading Alfred Schutz's Phenomenology of the Social World. Also, Harvey Sack's work in ethnomethodology was important. Studied with Burkhard Holzner, author of Reality Construction in Society. I also studied with the great Paul Lazarsfeld.after he was obliged to retire from Columbia and worked at Pitt briefly before his death. |