SENSE
A Field Guide to Science & Culture
Theory . Storytelling . Transformation
On the island of Tannain (Vanuatu), residents celebrate John Frum Day (February 15) with totemic increase rites designed to entice cargo treasures as well as to celebrate a return to traditional customs. Most cargo cults of the region disappeared long ago (years of empty skies and seas have crushed all hope), but Tannain believers exude resilience that extends back some sixty years.
Likewise, every January for the last 48 years, the Hashknife Pony Express delivers a postal cargo to Scottsdale Arizona. While braving weather, terrain, modern-day obstacles and questionable personal hygiene practices, the cult known as the 'Scottsdale Jaycees' celebrates the Hashknife Riders' resilience of western character, a fetish they carry forward into the everyday commerce of sandwich making and trinket selling.
Interestingly, many university graduate students engage practices that functionally mimic those of Tannain and Scottsdale (e.g., fetish wine & cheese parties; supplication to professors, Republican neocons or radical anarchists; daily visits to Starbucks; alternate rounds of good and bad hygiene).
These varied groups all operate with a theory in their heads -- the 'Theory of Making It All Up' -- which serves as a provisional vision of the way they want group or individual reality to unfold into the future. Hope springs eternal where big men, heroes and religions conjure. Believe in them, desire them, and gain focus and direction to become like them.
Over the last 20-30 years, cult practitioners in Anthropology have deployed four theories (Practice Theory, Positionality Theory, Performance Theory, and Queer Theory), all seemingly human-focused and organized around individuals and groups reacting to gender or the body, and the conjured desires and impositions of others.
Sociologists, interested in teams and in organizational development, study achievement oriented practice theories to direct action -- for example, the Learning Action Matrix, a system that maps practitioners to process in order to foster continuous learning and achieve desired results.
Technology-oriented individuals keep their desire focused on consultants like Robbie Blinkoff, principal anthropologist with Context-Based Research Group. His company provides explanations of technology-mediated consumer behavior -- really, a theory for every desire.
The earth-focused turn to Solistalgia, a term coined by Glenn Albrecht, to understand how environmental change causes induced distress and sadness. The desire to resolve distress and sadness leads to positive involvement in place protection and restoration schemes that re-value landscapes and environments.
In 1963, Fran Jeffries presented a theory that everything depends upon timing -- Melglio stasera. Quite young at the time, captivated with nascent lust, I swallowed every word of her musical proposition. (A female acquaintance has similar problems with every move Troy Aikman makes).
Our desires and favorite theories work to dust up and quickly send us out the door each morning.
So yes, Theory!
Fa Subito! Quickly! Baby, go go go!
If you've anything to tell me it had better be tonight, or somebody else may tell me, and whisper the words just right...
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