It is very difficult to be a post-modernist in a post-post-modern world.
I don't think that you give them enough credit. It is so difficult that
very few academic disciplines can actually write it and fewer even can
actually read it. You should be glad your not in the field of
architectural theory or literary criticism. Now your talking about two
fields where nobody can read the discourse.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tim Scarlett [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 1999 6:07 AM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      verbiage...
>
> I am reviewing for my comprehensive exam tomorrow, and I re-discovered
> this passage:
>
> "... One regrettable by-product of this mechanistic outlook in the New
> World is a desire to over-rationalize archaeology in an unnecessary
> attempt to justify it, and to disguise the obvious (and, one may
> suspect
> at times, the trite) under a cover of pseudo-technical verbiage.
> Thus,
> Walter Taylor (1948: 117):  "The empirical form of an archaeological
> manifestation will be taken to mean the sum and arrangement of its
> component chemico-physical parts taken together with its empirical
> affinities; in other words that aspect of the phenomenon, whose
> expression can be observed directly and which, therefore, can be
> utilized as empirical data by the archaeologist" or "[historiography]
> is
> projected contemporary thought about past actuality, integrated and
> synthesized into contexts in terms of cultural man and sequential
> time"
> (1948: 34-5).  Do the phrases like "processual interpretation" or
> "cultural-historical integration" used and defined by Willey and
> Phillips (1958: part 1) contribute materially to our understanding of
> prehistory, and if indeed they do, why cannot simple English be used?
> What great unsung truths may lurk coyly behind such titles and
> "Archaeological Systematics and the Study of Cultural Process"
> (Binford
> 1965).  This approach leads to disintegration:  one reason for the
> number of self-styled philosophers may be the lack of any truly great
> philosopher, but in the writer's opinion one major cause is the
> publish-or-perish attitude which begets the principle that it is
> better
> to write chaff than to write nothing at all."  etc.
>
> Iain Walker 1967 "Historic Archaeology: Methods and Principles"
> _Historical Archaeology_, 1(1):26.
>
>
> So.... does this mean that
> 1. we don't learn from our ancestors? (apologies to those of Iain's
> generation)
> 2. we shouldn't be so hard on the post-modernists?
> 3. we should be as hard on the modernists?
> 4. we should all take a lesson from Margaret Mead?
> 5. there really is nothing new to argue about.
>
> hmm, just thinking.
> Tim