The central idea of the reading shows how attitudes towards races and gender have changed in secular and scientific society through the dynamics of the stories of progressive scientists. The destruction of stereotypes was accompanied by a long fermentation of thought and testimonies of the book’s heroes, who, ahead of their time, turned out to be free from the framework and labels of gender and race as characteristics of a person’s personality. The clash of cultural anthropologism with established values passed down from generation to generation about the uniqueness of the white race turned out to be a turning point and an essential phenomenon for that time to split these traditions.
Cultural relativism is the crucial term describing the work of the represented scientists. In addition, the author uses various vocabulary to describe the understanding of the race of that time: “higher and primitive,” as well as how it is related to culture (King, 2020). The culture was identified with common sense, built on white race comfort values, not critical thinking. In the context of confirming the doubts about the biological influence of race on human life, scientists have brought moral questions, human attitudes, and the prism of compassion to science.
The author focuses on comparing and identifying “primitive” races with animals. First of all, King cites as an example the neighborhood in museums of exhibits of animals and tribes of the ancient world, which were people with different skin color (2020). At the same time, the author shows that the attitude towards animals was much better than towards representatives of other races, even though the latter was an essential labor force and represented an incredible help, unlike animals.
A personality is not made up of biological characteristics but actions, words, and positions. Once my communication with one person stopped after his constant negative value judgments about others, which turned out to be often undeserved. I knew that one day I might be in their place. The authors’ position is helpful in this case with a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of culture: the surrounding social reality requires, first of all, the study and then the creation of assessments and labels, as Boas believed (King, 2020). If there is scientific skepticism in our eyes towards any of the people we study, we must maintain the same attitude when we look at ourselves. In this case, the culture of diversity in communication can give us greater fairness.
Reference
King, C. (2020). Gods of the upper air: How a circle of renegade anthropologists reinvented race, sex, and gender in the twentieth century. Anchor.