Well, not everyone. Not the outsider, raised in a different culture.
> You can't by it from
>him for $22. He won't even sell it to you for $100. You offer him $1000,
>$10,000 and he just laughs in your face. No, it's worth *more* than all
>that. But you can have it if you want it. It'll take a while, though.
>You might have to study for ten years, but if you *really* want it...
And what will I end up with? I'll be a shaman. What will I have done of
worth for any generation to come, or for a stranger, or another culture?
Nada.
>(This is the point, Wade, where the scientificly trained white
>anthropologist throws up his hands and, declaring it all a sham, goes back
>home to his safe, simple suburban home.)
Actually, once people get by the idea that only this immersion is a valid
method of studying them, they are free to actually start analyzing them
objectively and disinterestedly. (And yes, I know the whole cycle is
required....) This leads to some important medical findings, once you
take the 'magic' out of the herb. It's all heresy, of course, to the
shaman.
I reiterate- the shaman is only a shaman within his own culture. Taken
outside, he is a sham. Science, and the scientist, do not have a culture
(in the same sense- I don't want a semantic squabble about 'culture')
which they can step outside of and perish.
Now- to you, (I think) this validates the shaman. To me, this relegates
him and his methods to curiosity.
Not that I ain't curious.
But I (personally) ain't got ten years, either.
*****************
Wade T. Smith
morbius@channel1.com | "There ain't nothin' you
wade_smith@harvard.edu | shouldn't do to a god."
morbius@cyberwarped.com |
******* http://www.channel1.com/users/morbius/ *******