4 ms·

I'm actually quite impressed with Mead's recollections of von Neumann and the early cybernetic movement here. She is generally remembered today for her perhaps

I'm actually quite impressed with Mead's recollections of von Neumann and the early cybernetic movement here. She is generally remembered today for her perhaps too naive belief in the sexual utopia of 1920s Samoa, but it is clear from this that she had other interests.

throw4847285 3y ago
You could fill a phone book with Mead's other interests. LSD, semiotics, Dr. Spock, polyamory, folk music, Episcopal prayer books, race and intelligence, you name it. To make an unsupportable hyperbolic claim, she might be the most important academic of the 20th Century.
harvey9 3y ago
I thought she was remembered for not retracting when shown to be wrong about Samoa.
- leafmeal 3y ago
  See my comment above, but the short of it is that it seems she didn't retract because she probably was not wrong. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39759898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39759898
leafmeal 3y ago
I think it’s worth pointing out that your impression of Mead might be shaped by a strong critic who worked hard to invalidate her work and erase her legacy. This section of her Wikipedia article sums it up pretty well. Essentially, more recent reviews of the research bears out Mead’s conclusions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead#Criticism_by_Derek_Freeman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead#Criticism_by_Der... Another interesting tangent about Mead was her almost foray into LSD research which I learned about from this submission https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39328747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39328747
- lo_zamoyski 3y ago
  I don't see how that shows that "free love" is supported by credible scientific research. Worth noting is that Mead herself had an adulterous past. Sexual misbehavior can produce feelings of guilt and disgust with oneself, and one (unhealthy) way to try to cope with that guilt is to rationalize one's misbehavior. If Samoans, seen through modern Western eyes as a representation of the "pure state of nature", can be shown to be promiscuous, then, according to this highly tendentious and fallacious interpretation, promiscuity must be "natural", the state of nature, and it is the West, or perhaps even "civilization" in general, with its weird sexual hangups, that is in error. So why feel guilty? Of course, as the aforementioned expose shows, there were Samoan police records of men with broken jaws or whatever that contrary to Mead's account, Samoan men expressed exactly the kind of reaction to their wives' adulterous affairs as one would expect. Not that contrary evidence would change anything anyway. Aldous Huxley admitted to a similar rationalizing process, but one that was even more deeply offensive from a metaphysical point of view. He admitted that the real reason he and those of his generation and his milieu celebrated a nihilistic view of life is to rationalize their own promiscuity. If nothing means anything, then why not sleep around? Of course, he later had the honesty to admit his motives. Alfred Kinsey is another one we can add to the list. Kinsey himself suffered from sexual pathologies, and his "studies" were riddled with selection bias wherein the selection of those he interviewed skewed heavily toward sex criminals and people with various sexual disorders. Never mind the sexual abuse of children he engaged in. We could add Reich, Freud, Satre,... to the list.
  - AlecSchueler 3y ago
    Are you slut shaming Margaret Mead?
  - bbor 3y ago
    I don’t think people are so simple - that Aldous Huxley joked about wanting more sex doesn’t convince me that’s truly the driving force of his entire life. And, just practically speaking, a smart scientist man could live a sex-filled emotionless life at that time, and still today… you don’t need to be a nihilist to go on Ashley Madison or seek a Sugar Baby. More substantively, it seems like you’re endorsing a view that Wikipedia sums up as anti scientific and biased. I hate to dismiss someone so blithely but it is fairly strongly worded. To quote the spiciest parts: Freeman's book was controversial in its turn and was met with considerable backlash and harsh criticism from the anthropology community, but it was received enthusiastically by communities of scientists who believed that sexual mores were more or less universal across cultures. Later in 1983, a special session of Mead's supporters in the American Anthropological Association (to which Freeman was not invited) declared it to be "poorly written, unscientific, irresponsible and misleading." Some anthropologists who studied Samoan culture argued in favor of Freeman's findings and contradicted those of Mead, but others argued that Freeman's work did not invalidate Mead's work because Samoan culture had been changed by the integration of Christianity in the decades between Mead's and Freeman's fieldwork periods. Eleanor Leacock traveled to Samoa in 1985 and undertook research among the youth living in urban areas. The research results indicate that the assertions of Derek Freeman were seriously flawed. At the least, I think we should all agree that no one was out to “prove the way humanity should be”, just explore non-western ways of life. And I believe the consensus among gender theorists and anthropologists is that western sexuality is arbitrary in many ways. That’s not a condemnation of every single part of it, especially dishonest adultery as you seem focused on, but it’s certainly a reason to investigate non-western society’s IMO.
AlecSchueler 3y ago
> it is clear from this that she had other interests. Why wouldn't she have other interests? And who is generally remembering this way? I think you've been missing out on a great mind and a great woman.
- dr_dshiv 3y ago
  There is a broad motivation, by some, to disbelieve that a woman deserves to be called a great mind. I’m surprised, but they come out in droves on HN.
  - AlecSchueler 3y ago
    I know it's inappropriate to say it but I honestly find myself increasingly alienated from the community here and the single reason for it is the frequent and pervasive dismissal of women.
    - dr_dshiv 3y ago
      It’s a small number of people, really. It seems to be based on woke backlash as well as general misogyny.
      - throw4847285 3y ago
        It depresses me because I look around at my fellow engineers at work and wonder how many of them are secretly posting misogynistic BS on Hackernews.
        AlecSchueler 3y ago
        My concern is how many of the coders downplaying things like the risks of deepfakes are also operating and profiting from the many revenge porn websites etc. That and simply how self-reinforcing it all is. The more hostile these discussions are to women's experiences the fewer women who will push through and take part in the conversation, meaning we just press ahead in the safety of our own homogeneity.

throw4847285 3y ago

You could fill a phone book with Mead's other interests. LSD, semiotics, Dr. Spock, polyamory, folk music, Episcopal prayer books, race and intelligence, you name it. To make an unsupportable hyperbolic claim, she might be the most important academic of the 20th Century.

harvey9 3y ago

I thought she was remembered for not retracting when shown to be wrong about Samoa.

leafmeal 3y ago
See my comment above, but the short of it is that it seems she didn't retract because she probably was not wrong. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39759898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39759898

leafmeal 3y ago

I think it’s worth pointing out that your impression of Mead might be shaped by a strong critic who worked hard to invalidate her work and erase her legacy. This section of her Wikipedia article sums it up pretty well. Essentially, more recent reviews of the research bears out Mead’s conclusions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead#Criticism_by_Derek_Freeman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead#Criticism_by_Der... Another interesting tangent about Mead was her almost foray into LSD research which I learned about from this submission https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39328747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39328747

lo_zamoyski 3y ago
I don't see how that shows that "free love" is supported by credible scientific research. Worth noting is that Mead herself had an adulterous past. Sexual misbehavior can produce feelings of guilt and disgust with oneself, and one (unhealthy) way to try to cope with that guilt is to rationalize one's misbehavior. If Samoans, seen through modern Western eyes as a representation of the "pure state of nature", can be shown to be promiscuous, then, according to this highly tendentious and fallacious interpretation, promiscuity must be "natural", the state of nature, and it is the West, or perhaps even "civilization" in general, with its weird sexual hangups, that is in error. So why feel guilty? Of course, as the aforementioned expose shows, there were Samoan police records of men with broken jaws or whatever that contrary to Mead's account, Samoan men expressed exactly the kind of reaction to their wives' adulterous affairs as one would expect. Not that contrary evidence would change anything anyway. Aldous Huxley admitted to a similar rationalizing process, but one that was even more deeply offensive from a metaphysical point of view. He admitted that the real reason he and those of his generation and his milieu celebrated a nihilistic view of life is to rationalize their own promiscuity. If nothing means anything, then why not sleep around? Of course, he later had the honesty to admit his motives. Alfred Kinsey is another one we can add to the list. Kinsey himself suffered from sexual pathologies, and his "studies" were riddled with selection bias wherein the selection of those he interviewed skewed heavily toward sex criminals and people with various sexual disorders. Never mind the sexual abuse of children he engaged in. We could add Reich, Freud, Satre,... to the list.
- AlecSchueler 3y ago
  Are you slut shaming Margaret Mead?
- bbor 3y ago
  I don’t think people are so simple - that Aldous Huxley joked about wanting more sex doesn’t convince me that’s truly the driving force of his entire life. And, just practically speaking, a smart scientist man could live a sex-filled emotionless life at that time, and still today… you don’t need to be a nihilist to go on Ashley Madison or seek a Sugar Baby. More substantively, it seems like you’re endorsing a view that Wikipedia sums up as anti scientific and biased. I hate to dismiss someone so blithely but it is fairly strongly worded. To quote the spiciest parts: Freeman's book was controversial in its turn and was met with considerable backlash and harsh criticism from the anthropology community, but it was received enthusiastically by communities of scientists who believed that sexual mores were more or less universal across cultures. Later in 1983, a special session of Mead's supporters in the American Anthropological Association (to which Freeman was not invited) declared it to be "poorly written, unscientific, irresponsible and misleading." Some anthropologists who studied Samoan culture argued in favor of Freeman's findings and contradicted those of Mead, but others argued that Freeman's work did not invalidate Mead's work because Samoan culture had been changed by the integration of Christianity in the decades between Mead's and Freeman's fieldwork periods. Eleanor Leacock traveled to Samoa in 1985 and undertook research among the youth living in urban areas. The research results indicate that the assertions of Derek Freeman were seriously flawed. At the least, I think we should all agree that no one was out to “prove the way humanity should be”, just explore non-western ways of life. And I believe the consensus among gender theorists and anthropologists is that western sexuality is arbitrary in many ways. That’s not a condemnation of every single part of it, especially dishonest adultery as you seem focused on, but it’s certainly a reason to investigate non-western society’s IMO.

AlecSchueler 3y ago

> it is clear from this that she had other interests. Why wouldn't she have other interests? And who is generally remembering this way? I think you've been missing out on a great mind and a great woman.

dr_dshiv 3y ago
There is a broad motivation, by some, to disbelieve that a woman deserves to be called a great mind. I’m surprised, but they come out in droves on HN.
- AlecSchueler 3y ago
  I know it's inappropriate to say it but I honestly find myself increasingly alienated from the community here and the single reason for it is the frequent and pervasive dismissal of women.
  - dr_dshiv 3y ago
    It’s a small number of people, really. It seems to be based on woke backlash as well as general misogyny.
    - throw4847285 3y ago
      It depresses me because I look around at my fellow engineers at work and wonder how many of them are secretly posting misogynistic BS on Hackernews.
      - AlecSchueler 3y ago
        My concern is how many of the coders downplaying things like the risks of deepfakes are also operating and profiting from the many revenge porn websites etc. That and simply how self-reinforcing it all is. The more hostile these discussions are to women's experiences the fewer women who will push through and take part in the conversation, meaning we just press ahead in the safety of our own homogeneity.