A Ton of Crap (116 page)

Cultural Anthropology
Cultural anthropology focuses on people living today. Cultural anthropologists look at practices and patterns across cultures, especially in regard to how groups of people govern and organize themselves. An important part of cultural anthropology is that it examines the similarities and differences among societies with topics such as race, class, sexuality, and nationality. One distinction between cultural anthropology and the other types of anthropology is that researchers usually have the chance to participate and get hands-on experience, while dealing with very real topics such as ecology, health, education, the environment, development, social change, and agriculture.

CHEROKEE

The Writing System
The syllabary that Sequoyah introduced is still in use to this day. The syllabary features a total of eighty-five characters, some of which are based (in shape only) on the Latin alphabet, and is read from left to right, horizontally. Sequoyah had been introduced to English, Greek, and Hebrew letters without any knowledge of how to read them. Within a time period of just a year since the introduction of the writing system, 90 percent of the Cherokee people could read and write. Each symbol in the syllabary is representative of a syllable, not a phoneme.

KOREAN WAR

Dismissal of MacArthur
Without telling anyone else, General MacArthur sent an ultimatum to China to withdraw their troops or he would attack. When Truman found out about MacArthur’s actions, he was outraged and knew he had to fire MacArthur. Truman waited, however, and when Congress approved NATO, Truman needed to find another reason. News spread that MacArthur wanted to go against Truman’s policies and use the Chinese Nationalist Forces to anger the People’s Republic of China. When a congressman read MacArthur’s plan before Congress, Truman began to discuss dismissing MacArthur. General MacArthur was fired on April 11, 1951.

EXISTENTIALISM

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
One of the most important existentialist novelists was the Russian essayist and novelist, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who lived from 1821 to 1881. Dostoyevsky is perhaps best known for his novels
Crime and Punishment
,
The Brothers Karamazov
, and
The Idiot
. Dostoyevsky’s most important work relating to existentialism, however, was his
Notes from the Underground
. His work focused on the problem of freedom. To Dostoyevsky, man was limited by everything, including society, the economy, the church, and God. Though Dostoyevsky had extreme political and social views, he was a devout Christian.

UNSOLVED MATH PROBLEMS

Yang-Mills Existence and Mass Gap
Physicists have been able to unify three out of the four fundamental forces (electromagnetism, the weak force, and the strong force). Chen Ning Yang and Robert Mills came up with a theory in which they suggested that strong and weak nuclear forces could be illustrated with action functionals that had more complex, non-Albelian symmetry groups. Though their theory is successful, no one is able to make any logical sense of why it works.

ANTHROPOLOGY

Linguistic Anthropology
Linguistic anthropology is the study of languages, and more specifically, how language influences and mirrors social life and culture. Linguistic anthropology examines the role language has in establishing ideologies, belief systems, and social identities, as well as creating communication patterns and cultural representations of one’s social and natural world. To study linguistic anthropology, one must take on an active role, performing interviews, and observing the use of language.

CHEROKEE

Dialects
There were originally three major dialects found in the Cherokee language: the Lower dialect, the Middle dialect (known as the Kituhwa or Giduwa dialect), and the Western dialect (also known as the Overhill or Otali dialect). In 1900, the Lower dialect became extinct. The Middle dialect spoken by the Eastern band is currently the closest dialect to the original Cherokee language. The Otali dialect is the most different, containing pronunciation differences and words adopted from English.

KOREAN WAR

End of the “Accordion War”
Following the dismissal of MacArthur, Matthew Ridgway controlled the U.S. effort. On April 22, 1951, the Chinese attempted to recapture Seoul, but failed. Following another failed attack, the United States believed a counterattack would be successful. By May 30, the UN/US/ROK forces were back at the 38th parallel, and both sides were at a stalemate. Truman began to push for an end to the war, and the United States contacted the Soviet Union, which was willing to negotiate. Peace talks began on July 8.

EXISTENTIALISM

Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher who lived from 1813 to 1855 and is one of the founders of existentialism, though much of his work was based on his faith in God. His book
Fear and Trembling
is key to the origins of existentialism. Kierkegaard attempted to understand Abraham’s anxiety when God told him he had to kill Isaac, his only son, to show his faith. To understand this, Kierkegaard creates the “Knight of Faith” and the “Tragic Hero.” To Kierkegaard, the Tragic Hero commits acts within social or ethical codes, which Abraham, Kierkegaard claimed, did not do. Instead, Abraham was a Knight of Faith who knew killing his son was wrong, but if he didn’t do it, he would be going against God. Ethics now turns into temptation, and the Knight of Faith shows that faith is a reason to rise above ethics.

UNSOLVED MATH PROBLEMS