Classical Readings

8 Pages 1890 Words

the other passages. It is a well-known fact, in all walks of life that men and women of any race, creed, or culture are different and that we have different and sometimes contrasting ways of communicating with each other. I was surprised to find this seemingly simple theory in this book. Yet again back to my question; am I getting the intended message from the author?

The Christmas Ox story made so much more sense to me and had great importance when I read the passage on Potlach. This helped solidify my thinking about how perception and perspective changes reality. When Richard Borshay Lee wrote about the conundrum with the ox, he was writing from the perspective of hurt feelings. He had spent a year with these people and they humiliated him and hurt him and he needed to find out why. Then along comes someone else, Marvin Harris, and he uses the exact same incident as an “amusing story” to point out the need of the peoples to curb the ego. I don’t think Mr. Lee thought is was amusing at the time, however that is how Mr. Harris perceived it.

I don’t think that either of these stories belonged in the Economics and Ecology section. It appears to me that Mr. Harris has taken his the...