Talk:Margaret Mead/Archive 1

Other Article
There was an article here, but it seemed to be identical to the one at http://www.mead2001.org/Biography.htm. I couldn't spot any copyright notice over there, but in most countries stuff is copyright by default and can't be used without permission, so i think it is best to not use the article unless someone gets explicit permission. -- Moved above comments here, to Talk, and added stub bio and bibliography. BruceMiller

I actually do not know any anthropologists who support Freeman, but I think it is wise to avoid definitive statements through words such as "most" or "many." But I did remove this line:


 * There are many anthropologists who take the middle ground, both denouncing Mead's earliest works and upholding the quality of her later, more experienced and less controversial research.

I have no objection to it being moved back into the article after "many anthropologists" is followed with a few notable examples. slrubenstein

Where's Gregory Bateson?
When I entered Gregory Bateson's name in the search bar a page came up with his information. It mentions that he was married to Margaret Mead and mentions "Trance Dance in Bali" which is a work they did together. Yet he is not mentioned at all in the page on Margaret Mead. He is not listed in the Anthropologists category. Is there a particular reason for this? Also on Freeman. It seems that Freeman's intent it is to provide a conservative 'alternative' to ideas that were taken seriously in the 20th century. The world is round? "Opinions differ" says Freeman. This is part of the well funded neo conservative goal to nullify as much of the underpinnings of post modern thought as possible. Result? Creationism is now taught side by side with Darwin's theory of evolution. Freeman's observations, based on interviews with women now thoroughly brainwashed with christian shame, have no credence. Bateson and Mead can be criticized for many things but mendacity is'nt one of them. Freeman's intent in using the surviving women Mead interviewed was not to produce new information at all but to nullify and discredit what Mead had observed before. Why? Because Mead's life and her work informed many of the women who would be at the forefront of the women's liberation movement in the second half of the 20th century. That is something the neo conservatives have wanted to root out of our academic institutions since Barry Goldwater.

Gregory Bateson is mentioned in the Wikipedia as beeing famous among other things for beeing the husband of Margaret Mead, Mead is not introduced as the wife of Bateson. Now, in my mileue (Central Europe, psychology and psychotherapy) it is the other way round - citing Mead (occasionally), I would add, "by the way she was married to Gregory Bateson and Mary Catherine Bateson is their daughter", while mentioning Bateson(often), I would expect everyone to know the name.--Georgius 18:38, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This article is not yet a Margaret Mead bio/entry
As yet, the article is much more about Ms. Mead's renowned study (on Samoa), rather than an adequate entry on Margaret Mead. She had a life. I'm no expert on Ms. Mead, but I have read things here and there (such as by Jean Houston, Stewart Brand, etc) and it's clear that Mead's continuing personal and professional lives did influence the evolution of her interests and opinions. Otherwise, there might just as well only be an entry for Coming of Age in Samoa, per se.

For a few bio models, see the entries on J.R.R. Tolkien, Amory Lovins, Gary Snyder.

As good as the one about Tolkein is the biographical article (life & work) about Jonathan Swift.

But I agree, this one on Margaret Mead leaves much to be desired, so far.


 * As you know, all Wikipedia articles are works in process. None are ever considered "complete."  There is no one "in charge" of this article -- please go ahead and become a contributor/editor of Wikipedia!  Write away! Slrubenstein 17:22, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * There seems to be a missing dimension: Margaret Mead the social activist and encourager of social activism. She's often quoted about how small groups of committed citizens can trigger social shifts, even in complex societies. Joel Russ

How well does Mead's research hold up?
I just rewrote a good deal of Arnold Perey's recent contribution. To be clear, I did not do this because I think he is wrong; on the contrary, I am sympathetic to his views and they added important balance to the article. BUT much of what he wrote seemed like editorializing, and expressing his own opinions. This violates our policy against original research. If we can provide sources from published re-evaluations of Mead's ethnography, or contemporary published ethnography of New Guinea, then we can put those points into the article. Slrubenstein  |  Talk  17:37, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Excellent research, sometimes shaky interpretations
Thanks for noting the difference between editorializing and encyclopedia writing. I'll catch on. Yes, for some of this material I can add documentation. It isn't "opinion" as such, although some of these views definitely are my own observations. Her ethnography was of the first order, by the way--though sometimes her analyses contained too-swift summing up. Meanwhile, they were always based on something she saw and felt in the field, and she was an accurate and sensitive observer. I was a student of Mead, took courses with her, heard her lecture on Tchambuli, Arapesh, Mundugumor, complete with slides etc, and have read closely her 3 volume The Mountain Arapesh ethnography (much detail about these interesting people). Also her other work.

As to Gregory Bateson, he was, at one time, her husband and is an outstanding anthropologist in his own right. His Naven concerning a New Guinea ceremonial is deeply insightful and can be of use today. They did collaborate on trance in Bali.--Arnold Perey 19:09, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I am glad you are contributing. Hopefully, our main policies are clear. Surely you have a lot to add, but all of us try to write in a relatively impersonal style, in part because no article belongs to any one author, and in part because we must be very careful not to put our own views in the article, Slrubenstein  |  Talk  22:30, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Is the "first hand account by an anthropologist who studied with Mead" original research? It appears that the anthropologist in question is the editor who added the information. Wikipedia has a strict ban on material of this type. -Willmcw 21:03, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

premiere, premier, etc
Whatever it means, it's a pretentious word in this context. According to my dictionary, "premiere" as an adjective is the same as "premier". And for "premier", the adjective, it says "first in rank, position, or importance. First in time.  EARLIEST." So not only is it pretentious, it is equivocal. So I'm glad you changed my edit to "first" rather than back to "premiere". But, of course, it is also (arguably, I suppose) also her most important work. Hayford Peirce 15:13, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Trivia section?
The addition of a "trivia" section seems somewhat frivolous, and even moreso when one considers that this section currently contains only one fact, and that this one fact is not even related to Margaret Mead. Margaret Mead's "small group of dedicated citizens" quote has been featured in the mission statement of every single activist group formed since it was first spoken. Does the fact that a quote of Mead's prefaced a book otherwise entirely unrelated to her life really deserve inclusion in this article? Does it really deserve its own section?

Is there any valid reason for keeping the section? It seems that at the moment it serves no purpose, and that even if it were to be expanded, any facts about her life might be more appropriately integrated into her biographical information. If they aren't relevant enough to include as biography, are they relevant enough to include at all? I hesitate the delete the section outright myself without prior discussion, so please contribute if you disagree with me.


 * I agree. We already have a long list of quotes, including that one. We already have an even longer list of quotes at Wikiquotes, incluindg that one. If we didn't have the quote in two other locations, this particular mention is still of little importance. Thank you for spotting this - I'm going to delete it. -Willmcw 05:05, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

I've been trying to find the source of that quote. Does anybody know its context? Where/when it was said or written and for what purpose? Thanks. 13:30, Nov. 1, 2005 Argentina Dan 19:40, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Collegiate Studies Institute
I removed the part about the collegiate studies institute naming her book as worst book of the 20th century because puritan values. Their stated claim is against the scholarly value of her research. The drawn connection with American puritan values is unprovable unless you can read minds. If someone wants to put it back in adjusted, go ahead, but I removed the single sentence as it was because it is not "encyclopaediac".

--Erik

Weird Republic = BatSh*t Crazy (and racist)
Hey so I clicked on the Weird Repubublic link about Margaret Mead. It's a poorly written peice of extreme polemic (which isn't necesarily a bad thing) but I wonder just how relevant it would be to someone wanting to learn more about Margaret Mead. I mean if you go on the Weird Republic site there are links to the "Brown vs. Board of Education Hoax" and "Race Norming for Dummies", whoever writes this site is not only out of his mind but is a paranoid anti-communist racist homophobe too. I don't know if this is enough to disqualify the link in of itself, but I can't imagine it provides any new or relevant information. I'm thinking either get rid of it entirely or just put a qualifier, something like "The Margaret Mead Hoax: The Batsh*t crazy perspective".

--24.127.127.236 21:26, 26 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree. Thomas Clough certainly isn't a notable critic. I can't imagine adding links to the articles on other topics he's written about, like the IRS, the Electoral College, the New York Times, etc. He does recommend reading Freeman, who we've already listed. I suggest we remove the link, as it is not needed to provide NPOV. -Willmcw 21:44, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Neutrality Dispute
While I don't have a Wikipedia username yet (will rectify shortly), I ran across this article during some studies and it seems to be generally non-neutral. It takes a somewhat harsh stance towards any criticism of Mead--the section regarding Freeman spends more time criticising Freeman (better handled on his own page) than on discussing Mead herself. The comment to the effect that male anthropologists miss things that female anthropologists do not is basically an unsupportable opinion at this point. In all, it's best to avoid hero worship in an article, so I thought I'd tag it for now, and hopefully we can get it cleaned up soon. --Thanks!
 * Hero-worship is indeed a bad idea. However, many anthropologists have reviewed Mead and Freeman's work and the vast, vast, vast majority conclude that Mead's work was superior, and that Freeman both misinterpreted her and came up with a poor analysis of his own data.  Freeman of course was (is?) himself an anthropologist, so this is not a disciplinary turf-war.  Moreover, most of the people (I know of) who have commented on the debate or who have reexamined the material or who have done their own research in Samoa are not former students of Mead, so I do not think they started out being partisan, I think they reached their conclusions in a professional manner.  In short, the article must mention Freeman's arguments.  But it should accurately reflect the views of anthropologists.  I don't know of any peer-reviewed articles by anyone other than Freeman who have confirmed his analysis, of either Mead or Samoans.  If there are any, I imagine there are few.  If you know them, by all means cite them.  But as long as most anthropologists side with Mead, most of this article should reflect that. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 21:37, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, the American Anthropological Association has made it clear that the Freeman objection lacks sufficient substance in the eyes of the majority of anthropologists. It might be wise to quote the AAA so the nature of the objection is clear


 * As far as male anthropologists missing things that take place in the female portions of a culture, I had conversations with my peers decades ago on this subject and it was generally accepted as obvious. It had nothing to do with Freeman. It was only a caution to men who were about to embark of field work to be sure to be extra sensitive to cues you might otherwise miss. However, this idea is merely parenthetical and can easily be deleted from the article without damaging the assessment of Freeman's research in Samoa. I don't know of any published reference or any definite source for this hard-won ethnographers' bit of wisdom, which was once circulated at Columbia University.


 * For the record, it is clear that there are taboo subjects that women have traditionally steered clear of talking to men about. A man in Oksapmin, PNG wasn't even supposed to know of the existence of the afterbirth when I was there. I shocked a woman informant when I asked about it. And, of course, there are matters of feminine power that women haven't wanted men to know. For whatever reason, hardly anything of the female side of the political structure of the Nuer is described by E.E. Evans-Pritchard in his first monograph (for instance) although the text does show that he knew a bit about its existence. (Page references on request)--samivel 20:42, 10 December 2005 (UTC)


 * This is a pretty good article on the male researcher thing:
 * Gregory, James. 1984.  “The Myth of the Male Ethnographer and the Woman’s World.” American Anthropologist 86(2):316-27.
 * He argues that there is a lot of research men can and have done with women, although he acknowledges that it is very difficult to talk about sex and sexuality across the gender divide (he is not specifically addressing Mead-Freeman; consider this an indipendent source) Slrubenstein  |  Talk 20:54, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I feel I must agree with the original writer's (who had no username)point of view. I read seven lines criticizing Freeman's method, not a single line criticizing Mead's. Not even Freeman's critique of Mead's methods is quoted. Freeman is accused of projecting his own ideas on the Samoans, Mead is not. Furthermore, I read no critique of Mead's far-fetched way of drawing conclusions of the entire human nature based on a comparison of only two cultures. In its current form, I must strongly question this article's neutrality. Sensemaker 10:04, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Sensemaker, I agree with you up to a point. This article should have a minimal account of freeman's arguments, as much as is needed to understand the controversy.  A more detailed acouunt of freeman's views whould be in an article on him or on Samoa, with links to those articles here.  As to your second point, that you read no critique of Mead's far-fetched way of drawing conclusions about all human nature from limited cass, that is because this was not her method and she never did this.  On the contrary, Mead and her colleagues were doing the complete opposite of what you seem to think.  Other scholars had made (and many continue to make) general claims about human nature based on their experience of their own culture at one point in time.  Mead and her colleagues simply asked, "If this is really universal, then we will find it in all other cultures."  To not find it in any one culture falsifies the claim of universality and that is all Mead was doing, showing how prior claims about cultural universals are not universal.  I see nothing far-fetched about this. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 07:20, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Bisexual writer category?
I didn't know Mead was bisexual and it isn't discussed in the article. The category is silly, anyway, makes me wonder if they were having sex while writing or if they were ambidextrous. --68.217.111.53 19:56, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I do not believe she ever identified herself as bisexual. We need to be careful about what these categories mean. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 20:56, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree with Slrubenstein. She did not identify herself as bisexual to my knowledge either.--samivel 18:05, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * It is clear from the Jane Howard biography that Mead's relationship with Ruth Benedict (who certainly was lesbian) had a sexual element. Masalai 08:48, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
 * It is clear from their letters and Mead's writings that Mead had great intellectual respect for Benedict, and that was the key thing in their relation. Mead was an individual with a much deeper appreciation of good in people, whether men or women, than is usual. Again, what Slrubenstein writes is a proper precaution: We need to be careful about what these categories mean.--samivel 05:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
 * The bisexual category would mean the person had a sexual orientation to persons of either sex. Keep in mind that the value of categories is not necessarily how they relate to the individual, but also how they facilitate research on more general topics.  If somebody wants to categorize blue-eyed people, or left-handed, more power to them.  It's a fact that Margaret Mead was bisexual.  There's no reason to remove her from that category, even if the fact had little or no impact on her (and it can certainly be argued that it did.)  Also, it's irrelevant whether she "identified herself" as bisexual -- that's not the definition. Kstern999 01:57, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Provide us with a verifiable source that Mead identified herself as a bisexual. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 16:28, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I provided a verifiable source with quotation and citation that she was identified as a lesbian, which you reverted. Without comment. Wjhonson 01:23, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

See all the discussion above. Some people calim Mead as a Lespbian. She never identified herself as such. When you find evidence that Mead identified herself as a lesbian, then we can add the category. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 15:07, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Self-identification is not the standard for the use of this category. Never has been. Wjhonson 17:12, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Comply with our NPOV policy. All you have proven is that SOME people think she was a lesbian. That doesn´t mean she was one. At most, all we can say is "some people identify her as a lesbian." and I do not dispute that. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 22:00, 27 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Her daughter is "some" person? That's completely disengenious.  If her daughter is not clearly identified as THE person who outed her mother, then your changes cannot stand.  They obscure the very detailed work in that book. Wjhonson 03:00, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Find me the wuote where Bateson calls her mother a lesbian, please. (by the way, Bateson did not out her mother) Slrubenstein  |  Talk 16:06, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Re: Luther Cressman.
Re: Luther Cressman. At the time he married Margaret Mead Luther Cressman was not an anthropologist but a clergyman and sociologist.

I believe the revision by slrubenstein re: Luther Cressman is definitive and should stand.

At the time he married Margaret Mead, Luther Cressman was not a "fellow anthropologist." He was a clergyman. The year was 1923.

During the years Cressman and Mead were married, he was primarily interested in the ministry and in sociology--minoring in anthropology. It was only long after they were divorced that he became fully an anthropologist, as the passages below make clear.

This is rather important because the way he saw anthropology, Margaret Mead's chosen intellectual pursuit (and not a 'minor' matter with her) could have had bearing on the fate of their relationship.


 * "Luther Cressman married anthropologist Margaret Mead in 1923. They were together for 5 years, divorcing in 1927." 


 * "Troubled by war and the prospect of killing others, Cressman dedicated his life to becoming an Episcopalian priest. Ordained in 1923 by the church, he continued his studies at Columbia University in New York City. Cressman earned his Masters Degree and Ph.D. at Columbia in 1925, studying Sociology and minoring in Anthropology. In 1928, Luther Cressman left the church, pursuing his career at the University of Oregon in 1929. For six years he was as a Professor of Sociology. He then was instrumental in the development of the Department of Anthropology and was Chair of the Department from 1935 – 1963 (Bishop 1994). While at the University of Oregon, Cressman organized the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural History and was a founding Director of the Oregon State Museum of Anthropology (Bishop 1994). Luther Cressman is known as the Father of Oregon anthropology for work that punched holes in the standing theories of the prehistoric Northwest...." --samivel 23:27, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Blog citations
External links to a blog (Live journal) are not appropriate as an encyclopedia citation. A blog is not a publication, and has no editorial review. Please find a more reliable source for the article. --Blainster 20:03, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

reverted paragraph
Someone put in the edit summary that the delted (and reverted) paragraph is plagiarism. Okay, I wil bite: where is it plagiarized from? Slrubenstein  |  Talk 13:54, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

NPOV tag on section about Samoa
The following are reasons why I tagged this section as having a POV in favor of Mead on the controversial issue of her work in Samoa.
 * The article states: "After an initial flurry of discussion, most anthropologists concluded that the absolute truth would probably never be known." The first statement conforms with NPOV by saying the truth of the issue may never be known with certainty. But then...
 * Maybe this should read, "the absolute truth would probably never be known by American anthropologists." I assume the Samoan girls know if they engage in casual sex or not. duh. The body of knowledge that is western science does not equate to "all knowledge". -Flangiel 14:43, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The article states: "Many, however, find Freeman's critique highly questionable." Much more space is then devoted to criticism of Freeman's work than to fairly presenting Freeman's criticism of Mead's work. The controversy has two sides: Freeman's criticism of Mead's work, and subsequent criticisms of Freeman's works. Only one side of this controversy is being presented in detail. That makes the section biased in favor of Mead.
 * More space haas been given to criticisms of Fredman because more scholars have written criticizing Freedman thans supporting him. The ratio reflects the ratio of published scholarship. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 00:09, 27 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The article then states: "In the years that followed, anthropologists vigorously debated these issues but generally supported the critique of Freeman's work (see Appell 1984, Brady 1991, Feinberg 1988, Leacock 1988, Levy 1984, Marshall 1993, Nardi 1984, Patience and Smith 1986, Paxman 1988, Scheper-Hughes 1984, Shankman 1996, and Young and Juan 1985)." The lengthy list of anthropologists who support the criticism of Freeman's work effectively diminishes the impact of the words immediately prior to it--that anthropologists vigorously debated the issues.
 * These articles represent a good portion of the debate,k which is not simply over whether Freedman was right or wrong. If you want to add more citations of scholars published in peer-reviewed journals who take opposing positions to those cited, feel free! Slrubenstein   |  Talk 00:09, 27 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The section concludes: "However, Margaret Mead and her work with Samoans continues to stand unassailed." This is flatly contradicted by everything that came before it. To be assailed means to be attacked or vigorously criticized. It is absolutely the case that Mead's work was attacked and vigorously criticized by Freeman. The claim that Mead's work has withstood the cricisms contradicts the first statement, which says the truth may never be known for certain. It's not logical to say Mead's work has withstood the criticisms when the truth about whether Mead was right or Freeman was right cannot be known with certainty.
 * I will change this sentence. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 00:09, 27 August 2006 (UTC)


 * This article may not be the place to rehash the debate. If you want to cover the debate, then the debate needs to be covered fairly, which means giving Freeman's criticisms a fair and equal presentation as are given the criticisms of Freeman. NPOV requires that. It might be better to find some way of simply mentioning the controversy, avoiding details of the debate, and pointing out that Mead continues to retain her historical status in the field as a respected anthropologist (which is not the same as saying all her works remain unassailed). There is little controversy in saying Mead was an important figure in anthropology regardless of the debates over some of her specific works. Kelly 21:35, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * NPOV is not acheived by providing equal space for two sides, it is accomplished through an accurate account of a controversy. That said, if you want to develop the section on Freeman´s criticisms, go for it.  And if you know of other anthropologists who supported Freeman in articles published in peer-reviewed journals, add their names and citations. SR
 * Actually, the Wikipedia policy on NPOV states: "The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting views. The policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these should be presented fairly, but not asserted. All significant published points of view are presented, not just the most popular one. It should not be asserted that the most popular view or some sort of intermediate view among the different views is the correct one. Readers are left to form their own opinions." This does say each side should be presented fairly and not to assert the most popular view as the correct one. My criticism of this section are that it contains contradictory statements and that it presents a controversy in a manner that clearly favors one side...not that Freeman was correct. My recommendation would be to rework this section to minimize references to Freeman and the controversy he raised. For example, it can be pointed out that Mead's work on Samoa helped catapult her to fame in the field of anthropology, and that her work on Samoa got anthropologists to think in new ways about their own work. It can be mention that some criticisms of her work on Samoa have been raised (no need to go into detail), but these criticisms are eclipsed by the historical contributions the work made to anthropology. Mead continues to remain an important figure in the history of anthropology. Kelly 14:00, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand me. NOWHERE have I said that the controversy should no0t be presented fairly. I do not claim the article is perfect. On the contrary, I suggested it could be improved. All wikipedia articles are works in progress so one should expect to find articles that could be improved. where we differ is this: instead of deleting accurate content, i am for adding more accurate content. The Mead Freeman controversy is important in the history of anthropology, and such controversies reveal a lot about anthropology. They should be explained accurately. It is inaccurate to say that the controversy has been eclipsed, as if more recent events have taken the place of informed debate among anthropologists. That is not the case. Anthropologists debated the matter and the majority ended up rejecting the bulk of freeman´s argument. To state that group x does not accept a particular position is not a violation of NPOV; it is to providce a point of view properly identified and sourced. You seem to think that so far the article is weighted too heavily in favor of Mead. All i suggest is to create balance by adding what is lacking. This is an encyclopedia. the more information we provide, the more informative we are. So let us add information rather than delete it. Go ahead and add what you think is missing, as long as you follow our policies. SR


 * When I was in school, the first day of class of anthropology class the teacher showed a video about Samoa. They went and found the original girls who had been interviewed by Mead, who were now old ladies, and on video they verified that all of their stories were fabricated and embelished due to the way Mead did the questioning process. 66.229.52.47 22:39, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I removed this because no one questions that the women said these things - this is not disputed and it is enough that Freeman reported this (indeed, he elicited the statements). The issue is not whether the statements were made, but how to interpret them. That film was made to express Freeman´s arguments, which it did. This does not change the fact that most anthropologists reject this argument. Many of the journal articles cited in this encyclopedia article go into detail why. SR

I don't know if this is the right place to put this, but anyway... I think that the section on Coming of Age is, on the whole, dreadful. Way too much space (more than half the section!) is given to Freeman, when the article should be telling us about Mead, her work, and her significance in relation to anthropology and perhaps society. Freeman deserves little more than a footnote. --Quasitopia 05:28, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Gotta agree with the person who tagged this article NPOV. The author of the section on Freeman presents criticism about him even before the conflict is fully described. There's no mention of the specific criticisms that Freeman and others have made of Mead's work -- i.e. claims that interviews were conducted in Samoan, claims that she had immersed herself in Samoan culture. Reliance on terms like "vast majority" and "many" are vague and slanted. Scientists generally sign off on criticisms as groups rather than individually in order to avoid this kind of thing. Further, the criticism of Freeman's work is more focused on his motivations and personality than the actual facts of his claims while there is little mention of the counter claims about Mead's motivations. --70.22.192.127 13:25, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * You make good points. It sounds like all of your points can be addressed by carefully adding more information.  As long as you provide verifiable source I encourage you to do this!  It doesn{t sound like you need to cut anything (e.g. concerning the defense of Mead) but if you have more details on freeman{s case by all means add them! Slrubenstein   |  Talk 00:07, 5 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I've recently done some work on Coming of Age in Samoa, upon which someone had done a fairly NPOV (anti-Mead) revision, and I was wondering whether this section could maybe be merged onto the book page, as Mead's work isn't ONLY that which was critiqued by Freedman. It might also more usefully distinguish criticism of the book from criticism of the people invovled, and draw out the substanstive methodological and ideological issues a bit better than is possible on a bio page. 202.12.233.21 00:30, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

After this kangaroo court session, dismissing Freeman's subsequent 1999 publication without acknowledging its vital new information can only rebound against Wiki if it gets "out". Ombudswiki 24 September 2006


 * One issue mentioned in some places I remember is that Mead's work was itself misrepresented and that publishers emphasized the more shocking to gain sales. Further that "she did not portray a free-love society in her book" or really intend to. Although that anthropologists could be easily misled by non-Westernized people is also something I think they could only accept with great difficulty, even if it is clearly true in some cases, as it'd put way too much of their work into question. She might have been in the right, but I think they'd have reason to side with her regardless. That part is just opinion though, not something I'd want in the article.--T. Anthony 09:12, 5 February 2007 (UTC)