The Art of Being Preachy

It has not escaped me that this blog has become very preachy as of late. I've been venting about political events and the climate of discourse with no real coherence to speak of. And as I speed every fast towards my fate as a graduate student in anthropology (assuming I take care of the red tape matters at hand) I wonder about what kind of anthropologist I'm going to be. Maybe as importantly, I wonder what kind of person I am going to be.

The question of what kind of person I am is not as easy to answer as I thought. After all, I am very aware of who I am trying to be- what ethical questions I have to answer on a day by day basis are shaped by who I imagine myself as- but I don't have a great idea of who I am right now. Its entirely possible that its an impossible question to answer because we may all be highly dynamic to the point that asking questions about ourselves in stasis is moot. Or maybe I'm just very, very bad at being truly self-reflexive.

Except when it comes to being self-conscious about what I write on this blog. Whenever I finish talking about some political event or climate I have to step back and say "how would an anthropologist talk about this?" or more often "would an anthropologist talk about this at all?" These are really inane questions- of course- because it always comes across as contrived and boring when someone tries to pigeonhole their entire life based on what they do for a living. But still, the question extends to my thoughts about my career as I move forward.

For four years I got very good at talking about politics (contrary to what this blog may indicate). I don't mean political forecasting or superficial analysis, rather discussions of philosophical genealogies of contemporary political events and questions of identity in international politics. But at the same time I really got frustrated with the fields of International Relations and Political Science. The kinds of questions, and the way I can answer the questions. Anthropology allowed my line of questioning and curiosity to really have room to breathe, and the more I learned about the field the more I really came to love it. But I'm still very new at this, and maybe I need more practice at talking about anthropology.

Yet, it would be disingenuous to suggest that the things I write about here don't matter. They matter to me a great deal. I think they are important discussions to have with serious implications for the world I am coming up into. What I wonder is what my perspective is. I fall into the trap, far too often, that ones perspective is singular and tied to what they do principally. If all I did was write entries in the voice of an anthropologist, whatever that would be, I would be very bored with what I am doing.

When I write here, I am mostly venting. I am sometimes asking people who are reading to think about things from a new angle. When I talk about the debt ceiling, I often want to think about how our discursive climate has affected things, not what the politicians are doing. So, when it comes to it, this blog is not me trying to be something, but just being what I am. That doesn't mean I know what that is, simply that I am acting that out. And the perspective that I bring cannot be forced.

Perspectives are not limited by who we want to be, but who we were and are as well. The most valuable things I have to offer are not to be sectioned off and defined as being "anthropological" but are those things which are collectively influenced by my experience.

So the moral of the story- don't ever expect me to write like I would in an academic setting. And I'm sorry I'm so preachy. Kind of.