EDITORS' CORNER
OPINION
It’s time to start paying attention to the Marxist infiltration of archeology.
On its surface, the field certainly isn’t as important as medicine or other hard sciences where a lot of the concerns about DEI have been concentrated. And for good reason. These fields more directly impact our day-to-day lives.
But the figurative “book burning” that’s happening in anthropology classrooms, archeological digs, and university museums sets a dangerous precedent that, if left unchecked, could be equally devastating to society.
The problem boils down to this: So-called “marginalized” groups being given the power to dictate the pursuit of knowledge.
Consider this case a couple years ago at the University of Tennessee when its McClung Museum of Natural History removed content that displayed “knowledge that we weren’t supposed to be sharing”:
As a notable example, one display removed by the Museum recreated a dog burial using the skeleton of UT emeritus zooarchaeologist Walter Klippel’s deceased pet in lieu of archaeological skeletal remains. It was a poignant depiction of the long-lasting relationship between man and man’s best friend that bridged the modern and ancient in a moving, and to some, inspiring manner. Popular science educator David Ian Howe cites the display as an inspiration for his interest in “Ethnocynology”, or the study of dogs in a cultural context, an interest that grew into a successful popular science media brand. Of the dog burial display, Curator Sadie Counts says:
“the burial knowledge is not knowledge we can share. So even though this is a facsimile, it still references original knowledge that we [the museum] weren’t supposed to be sharing.”
That’s according to a recent post on the substack Social Stigma, run by an anthropology scholar.
There are other more recent examples uncovered by The College Fix, too.
In January, UCLA “repatriated” hundreds of Native American artifacts from its collection to California tribes.
Notably, one of the items was a set of photo negatives of petroglyphs. Yes, that’s right. Not actual, physical items that may have once belonged to these tribes’ ancestors, but pictures of artifacts.
What’s more, some colleges have banned professors from even showing photos of Native American artifacts to their classes without the tribe’s permission.
The Fix also has covered comments by Indiana University and University of California staff regarding Native American artifacts, including “‘We owe it to science’ is an unacceptable statement,” and “Tribes are in control of this process!”
Other fields are starting to feel the effects of this, too.
Writing this month at The Revealer, Wesleyan University Professor Mary-Jane Rubenstein noted the Navajo Nation’s objections to a business sending cremated human remains to the moon.
She quoted Navajo President Buu Nygren as saying: “… the Moon holds a sacred position in many Indigenous cultures, including ours. We view it as a part of our spiritual heritage, an object of reverence and respect. The act of depositing human remains and other materials … on the Moon is tantamount to desecration of this sacred space.”
In other words, as commercial space flight pioneer Charles Chafer once told Scientific American, the tribe basically wants “ownership of the moon for purposes of their sacraments.”
It doesn’t take too much of a stretch of the imagination to wonder if a field like medicine, where DEI already is a serious problem, could be next.
What, for example, would happen if a tribe decides that an ancient herbal medicine with the potential to save thousands of lives can’t be practiced by the medical community because it, too, is “secret knowledge” exclusive to the tribe? or even that doctors who already practice it can no longer do so?
And what if other “marginalized groups” start demanding the same ability to dictate what scholars and researchers can and cannot do?
It’s time for universities to start pushing back on this nonsense. It’s destroying the pursuit of knowledge and the opportunities gained through that knowledge to make society a better place for all.
MORE: ‘We owe it to science’ is ‘unacceptable’: Indiana U. training prioritizes ‘tribal knowledge’
