I was thinking about marxist ideas of progress: that marxism is largely
based on hegelian dialectics, and so has an historical force that drives
history/progress forward
Conservatism, on the other hand, attempts to justify & perpetuate the status
quo: class distinctions/inequalities being "natural" or "eternal" or so on
This morning I remembered late victorian attempts to emphasise prehistoric
and especially classical/roman archaeology as a way of undermining public
support for the supposedly more populistic/egalitarian medieval trends that
were being expressed in things like the "arts & crafts" movement (nowadays
in various versions of goth/creative anachronism?)
There was a good article on lord lubbock's antiquities protection laws by
john carman on the subject a few years back, in the "world archaeology"
series; could drag up the reference
But I think what I'm getting at is something different from the narrow
nationalistic examples of german nazi/italian fascist/soviet archaeology,
which obviously had little influence outside their home spheres, but...
A wider, less ideological body of theory that can actually be used as a tool
for interpretation
What I was trying to get at is the idea that ith marxism & dialectics there
seems to be the innate appeal that it is about progress/change, and that's
what we can document in the archaeological record; somehow it seems less
interesting to document stasis, the status quo
We can sort of document change, and think of why it might happen, but stasis
sort of means... The absence of change? No outside influences on the
system...?
So - away from politix - I was just thinking that maybe, in that sense,
marxism might have an appeal for archaeologists that a conservative
counterpart might not have

-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Iain
Stuart
Sent: April 12, 2007 01:11
To: 
Subject: Opposite of Marxist archaeology

You have to be a bit clearer here.