My problem with the thick/thin distinction is that I I don’t think the differences are a matter of degree but a matter of type: social norms vs. institutional/procedural norms. We have a shared social norm of democracy but we implement these norms differently in each of our institutions (indeed some institutions, like the military, have rejected those norms altogether as inappropriate for their membership). As I have implied in a few posts (including this one) but perhaps never said clearly, I think we have to carefully consider whether our institutional norms and those of the military are sufficiently compatible that someone can abide by the institutional norms of both organizations without violating one or the other. I don’t think it is possible, which is why I don’t think anthropologists in the military should be called “anthropologists.” I worry that if we allow them to claim the authority of our professional institution it will undermine the legitimacy of those norms.

At the same time, I do think it is possible for someone to share my social norms and work in an institution with very different institutional norms. I have good friends who were Marines and they are some of the most upstanding people I’ve ever met in my life. I believe this is partially because of their socialization into the Marines (even though my friends were very critical of that socialization process). And I can see how an anthropologist might wish to take up work in the military to support certain beliefs they have about what an applied anthropology should look like. But I still don’t think that what they do in the military should be called anthropology, unless extra care is made to ensure that they conform to the norms of our profession, and I don’t see such extra care in HTS program.

The issue, as I see it, is how these wider (and deeper) ethical issues are ‘passed down’ into the more restricted realm of our professional ethics. The problem with anthropologists, as I see it, is that we have developed a very ‘thin’ professional ethics to accommodate the wide range of viewpoints within our discipline. Oneman would claim our ethics are sufficiently ‘thick’ that we could reach consensus on this. I hope this is true but I am not optimistic.

I’m not an Ottoman expert, but then again neither is Schweder, so here goes: the Ottoman empire managed to maintain the balance of power between European powers (esp. Prussia and Russia) in a way that convinced them to keep it around. Is HTS going to do this for the US? Pffft.

Richard Schweder has an op-ed in the NYT today: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/27/opinion/27shweder.html. He comes out mildly in favor of using “cultural translators.” Then again, he also thinks that maybe it would be a good thing for the US to act like the Ottoman Empire, which “lasted a much longer time than the British Empire in part because they had a brilliant counterinsurgency strategy. They did not try to impose their values on others. Instead, they made room — their famous “millet system” — for cultural pluralism, leaving each ethnic and religious group to control its own territory and at liberty to carry forward its distinctive way of life.”

That said, I often find myself in a similar kind of argument (with myself) as Kerim. To be honest, however, my Gramscian side tends to win out.