Talk:Margaret Mead/Archive 1

message: When I entered Gregory Bateson's name in the search bar a page came up
with his information. It mentions that he was married to Margaret Mead and
mentions "Trance Dance in Bali" which is a work they did together. Yet he is not mentioned at all in the page on Margaret Mead. He is not listed in the Anthropologists category. Is there a particular reason for this? Also
on Freeman. It seems that Freeman's intent it is to provide a conservative 'alternative' to ideas that were taken seriously in the 20th century. The world is round? "Opinions differ" says Freeman. This is part of the well
funded neo conservative goal to nullify as much of the underpinnings of
post modern thought as possible. Result? Creationism is now taught side by side with Darwin's theory of evolution. Freeman's observations, based on interviews with women now thoroughly brainwashed with christian shame, have no credence. Bateson and Mead can be criticized for many things but mendacity is'nt one of them. Freeman's intent in using the surviving women Mead interviewed was not to produce new information at all but to nullify and discredit what Mead had observed before. Why? Because Mead's life and
her work informed many of the women who would be at the forefront of the
women's liberation movement in the second half of the 20th century. That
is something the neo conservatives have wanted to root out of our academic
institutions since Barry Goldwater.
----
Gregory Bateson is mentioned in the Wikipedia as beeing famous among other things for beeing the husband of Margaret Mead, Mead is not introduced as the wife of Bateson. Now, in my mileue (Central Europe, psychology and psychotherapy) it is the other way round - citing Mead (occasionally), I would add, "by the way she was married to Gregory Bateson and Mary Catherine Bateson is their daughter", while mentioning Bateson(often), I would expect everyone to know the name.--Georgius 18:38, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where's Gregory Bateson? 

message: I just rewrote a good deal of Arnold Perey's recent contribution.  To be clear, I did not do this because I think he is wrong; on the contrary, I am sympathetic to his views and they added important balance to the article.  BUT much of what he wrote seemed like editorializing, and expressing his own opinions.  This violates our policy against original research.  If we can provide sources from published re-evaluations of Mead's ethnography, or contemporary published ethnography of New Guinea, then we can put those points into the article. Slrubenstein   |  Talk  17:37, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  How well does Mead's research hold up? 

message: Whatever it means, it's a pretentious word in this context.  According to my dictionary, "premiere" as an adjective is the same as "premier".  And for "premier", the adjective, it says "first in rank, position, or importance.  First in time.  EARLIEST."  So not only is it pretentious, it is equivocal.  So I'm glad you changed my edit to "first" rather than back to "premiere".  But, of course, it is also (arguably, I suppose) also her most important work. Hayford Peirce 15:13, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: premiere, premier, etc

message: The addition of a "trivia" section seems somewhat frivolous, and even moreso when one considers that this section currently contains only one fact, and that this one fact is not even related to Margaret Mead.  Margaret Mead's "small group of dedicated citizens" quote has been featured in the mission statement of every single activist group formed since it was first spoken.  Does the fact that a quote of Mead's prefaced a book otherwise entirely unrelated to her life really deserve inclusion in this article?  Does it really deserve its own section?  
Is there any valid reason for keeping the section?  It seems that at the moment it serves no purpose, and that even if it were to be expanded, any facts about her life might be more appropriately integrated into her biographical information.  If they aren't relevant enough to include as biography, are they relevant enough to include at all?  I hesitate the delete the section outright myself without prior discussion, so please contribute if you disagree with me.
: I agree. We already have a long list of quotes, including that one. We already have an even longer list of quotes at Wikiquotes, incluindg that one. If we didn't have the quote in two other locations, this particular mention is still of little importance. Thank you for spotting this - I'm going to delete it. -Willmcw 05:05, September 3, 2005 (UTC)
I've been trying to find the source of that quote.  Does anybody know its context?  Where/when it was said or written and for what purpose?  Thanks.  13:30, Nov. 1, 2005 Argentina Dan 19:40, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trivia section? 

message: Hey so I clicked on the Weird Repubublic link about Margaret Mead.  It's a poorly written peice of extreme polemic (which isn't necesarily a bad thing) but I wonder just how relevant it would be to someone wanting to learn more about Margaret Mead.  I mean if you go on the Weird Republic site there are links to the "Brown vs. Board of Education Hoax" and "Race Norming for Dummies", whoever writes this site is not only out of his mind but is a paranoid anti-communist racist homophobe too.  I don't know if this is enough to disqualify the link in of itself, but I can't imagine it provides any new or relevant information.  I'm thinking either get rid of it entirely or just put a qualifier, something like "The Margaret Mead Hoax: The Batsh*t crazy perspective".
--24.127.127.236 21:26, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Thomas Clough certainly isn't a notable critic. I can't imagine adding links to the articles on other topics he's written about, like the IRS, the Electoral College, the New York Times, etc. He does recommend reading Freeman, who we've already listed. I suggest we remove the link, as it is not needed to provide NPOV. -Willmcw 21:44, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weird Republic = BatSh*t Crazy (and racist)

message: I didn't know Mead was bisexual and it isn't discussed in the article. The category is silly, anyway, makes me wonder if they were having sex while writing or if they were ambidextrous. --68.217.111.53 19:56, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I do not believe she ever identified herself as bisexual.  We need to be careful about what these categories mean. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 20:56, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Slrubenstein. She did not identify herself as bisexual to my knowledge either.--samivel 18:05, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It is clear from the Jane Howard biography that Mead's relationship with Ruth Benedict (who certainly was lesbian) had a sexual element. Masalai 08:48, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is clear from their letters and Mead's writings that Mead had great intellectual respect for Benedict, and that was the key thing in their relation.  Mead was an individual with a much deeper appreciation of good in people, whether men or women, than is usual. Again, what Slrubenstein writes is a proper precaution: We need to be careful about what these categories mean.--samivel 05:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The bisexual category would mean the person had a sexual orientation to persons of either sex.  Keep in mind that the value of categories is not necessarily how they relate to the individual, but also how they facilitate research on more general topics.  If somebody wants to categorize blue-eyed people, or left-handed, more power to them.  It's a fact that Margaret Mead was bisexual.  There's no reason to remove her from that category, even if the fact had little or no impact on her (and it can certainly be argued that it did.)  Also, it's irrelevant whether she "identified herself" as bisexual -- that's not the definition. ----Kstern999 01:57, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I provided a verifiable source with quotation and citation that she was identified as a lesbian, which you reverted. Without comment. Wjhonson 01:23, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Self-identification is not the standard for the use of this category.  Never has been. Wjhonson 17:12, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Her daughter is "some" person?  That's completely disengenious.  If her daughter is not clearly identified as THE person who outed her mother, then your changes cannot stand.  They obscure the very detailed work in that book. Wjhonson 03:00, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bisexual writer category? 

message: Re: Luther Cressman. At the time he married Margaret Mead Luther Cressman was not an anthropologist but a clergyman and sociologist. 
I believe the revision by slrubenstein re: Luther Cressman is definitive and should stand.
At the time he married Margaret Mead, Luther Cressman was not a "fellow anthropologist." He was a clergyman. The year was 1923. 
During the years Cressman and Mead were married, he was primarily interested in the ministry and in sociology--minoring in anthropology. It was only long after they were divorced that he became fully an anthropologist, as the passages below make clear. 
This is rather important because the way he saw anthropology, Margaret Mead's chosen intellectual pursuit (and not a 'minor' matter with her) could have had bearing on the fate of their relationship.
:"Luther Cressman married anthropologist Margaret Mead in 1923.  They were together for 5 years, divorcing in 1927." <http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/abcde/cressman_luther.html>  
:"Troubled by war and the prospect of killing others, Cressman dedicated his life to becoming an Episcopalian priest. Ordained in 1923 by the church, he continued his studies at Columbia University in New York City. Cressman earned his Masters Degree and Ph.D. at Columbia in 1925, studying Sociology and minoring in Anthropology. In 1928, Luther Cressman left the church, pursuing his career at the University of Oregon in 1929. For six years he was as a Professor of Sociology. He then was instrumental in the development of the Department of Anthropology and was Chair of the Department from 1935 – 1963 (Bishop 1994).  While at the University of Oregon, Cressman organized the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural History and was a founding Director of the Oregon State Museum of Anthropology (Bishop 1994). Luther Cressman is known as the Father of Oregon anthropology for work that punched holes in the standing theories of the prehistoric Northwest...." <http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/abcde/cressman_luther.html>--samivel 23:27, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re: Luther Cressman. 

message: External links to a blog (Live journal) are not appropriate as an encyclopedia citation.  A blog is not a publication, and has no editorial review. Please find a more  reliable source for the article.  --Blainster 20:03, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Blog citations

message: Someone put in the edit summary that the delted (and reverted) paragraph is plagiarism.  Okay, I wil bite: where is it plagiarized from? Slrubenstein   |  Talk 13:54, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  reverted paragraph