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Quote by Thomas Hylland Eriksen

“... the smallest unit we study in anthropology is not the single person, but the relationship between two. It is not the innermost thoughts of the individual that constitute our object of study, but the social dynamics between people and their products; where the innermost thoughts of the person, incidentally, are often expressed.”

Quote by Thomas Hylland Eriksen

Book:What Is Anthropology?
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What Is Anthropology?

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Thomas Hylland Eriksen

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“I do not feel I truly belong to any group. I can walk into a gathering, even share a smile, yet I remain somewhat apart, drawn not to the crowd but to the rare few with whom a real bond can be formed. I live more through solitude than through society; independence is the air I breathe. It is not that I dislike people, I enjoy being around them, but I enjoy it most as an observer, not as one who throws himself fully into the noise. My heart does not find strength in the chatter of many; it longs for the depth of a single honest conversation. And so, in groups I often feel out of place, but in the presence of one kindred spirit I feel truly alive. I am steady in solitude, creative in my distance, yet always at odds with the world’s demand that I belong.”

SolitudeIndividualityIntrovertBondExtrovertDeepconnections
Author:Mohmod Irfan Shah
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“Causing any damage or harm to one party in order to help another party is not justice, and likewise, attacking all feminine conduct [in order to warn men away from individual women who are deceitful] is contrary to the truth, just as I will show you with a hypothetical case. Let us suppose they did this intending to draw fools away from foolishness. It would be as if I attacked fire -- a very good and necessary element nevertheless -- because some people burnt themselves, or water because someone drowned. The same can be said of all good things which can be used well or used badly. But one must not attack them if fools abuse them.”

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Book:The Book of the City of Ladies
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“It is pointless to ask: Why then is sex so secret? What is this force that so long reduced it to silence and has only recently relaxed its hold somewhat, allowing us to question it perhaps, but always in the context of and through its repression? In reality, this question, so often repeated nowadays, is but the recent form of a considerable affirmation and a secular prescription: there is where the truth is; go see if you can uncover it. [...] It is reasonable therefore to ask first of all: What is this injunction? Why this great chase after the truth of sex, the truth in sex?”

PhilosophyTruthSexRepressionThe History Of Sexuality
Author:Michel Foucault
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“In addition to conformity as a way to relieve the anxiety springing from separateness, another factor of contemporary life must be considered: the role of the work routine and the pleasure routine. Man becomes a 'nine to fiver', he is part of the labour force, or the bureaucratic force of clerks and managers. He has little initiative, his tasks are prescribed by the organisation of the work; there is even little difference between those high up on the ladder and those on the bottom. They all perform tasks prescribed by the whole structure of the organisation, at a prescribed speed, and in a prescribed manner. Even the feelings are prescribed: cheerfulness, tolerance, reliability, ambition, and an ability to get along with everybody without friction. Fun is routinised in similar, although not quite as drastic ways. Books are selected by the book clubs, movies by the film and theatre owners and the advertising slogans paid for by them; the rest is also uniform: the Sunday ride in the car, the television session, the card game, the social parties. From birth to death, from Monday to Monday, from morning to evening - all activities are routinised, and prefabricated. How should a man caught up in this net of routine not forget that he is a man, a unique individual, one who is given only this one chance of living, with hopes and disappointments, with sorrow and fear, with the longing for love and the dread of the nothing and separateness?”

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Book:THE ART OF LOVING
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“He loves hot dogs—obsessively loves hot dogs. He'd eat a hot dog every day for the rest of his life if he could. Isn't it funny that this is the kind of information that makes a person unique? That they love to eat a stick of meat in a round bed of bread. Absurd. When you grow up, Bean, maybe you will love trains. Or brussels sprouts. And we will all marvel over this thing that makes you you.”

WonderHuman NatureUniqueIndividualityUniqueness Of Individual
Book:Tilt
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