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He sees countries and even extremist groups as complex, motivated by power, greed and fear as much as by pure ideology. His interest in diplomacy seems motivated by the sense that one can probe, learn and possibly divide and influence countries and movements precisely because they are not monoliths. When speaking to me about Islamic extremism, for example, he repeatedly emphasized the diversity within the Islamic world, speaking of Arabs, Persians, Africans, Southeast Asians, Shiites and Sunnis, all of whom have their own interests and agendas.

Obama never uses the soaring language of Bush's freedom agenda, preferring instead to talk about enhancing people's economic prospects, civil society and—his key word—"dignity." He rejects Bush's obsession with elections and political rights, and argues that people's aspirations are broader and more basic—including food, shelter, jobs. "Once these aspirations are met," he told The New York Times's James Traub, "it opens up space for the kind of democratic regimes we want." This is a view of democratic development that is slow, organic and incremental, usually held by conservatives.

derived. Others such as Nancy Chodorow mention and relate Mead's
studies like this:

"Cross-cultural research suggests that there are no absolute personality
differences between men and women, that many of the characteristics we normally classify
as masculine or feminine tend to differentiate both the males and females in one
culture from those in another, and in still other cultures to be the reverse of our
expectations.

Margaret Mead's studies describe societies in which both men and women are gentle and
nonaggressive (the Arapesh); in which women dislike childbearing and children and both
sexes are angry and aggressive (the Mundugumor); in which women are unadorned, brisk and
efficient, whether in childrearing, fishing, or marketing, while men are decorated and
vain, inter

Nancy Chodorow is speaking about personality, or temperament differences in certain
few selective societies, for she realizes that in most cultures male and female
behavior does conform to our traditional expectations:

"This is not to claim that within most cultures, male and female differences do
not generally conform to our traditional expectations. George Murdock's and Roy
D'Andrade's data on the division of labor by sex indicate that most work is divided
regularly between men and women, along conventional lines. Men's work, for instance, is
strenuous, cooperative, and...may require long periods of travel'; women's work is mainly
associated with food gathering and preparation, crafts, clothing manufacture, child care,
and so forth."[10]

 

Therefore what Nancy Chodorow is saying, in her own words, is that: "Cross-Culture
research suggests that there are no absolute personality
differences...."[11]

Some like Chodorow say that the studies like Margaret Mead's suggest that many
of the differences in sex behavior are culturally determined, while at other times they
claim Mead's work prove that gender behavior is mainly determined by culture
conditioning. They forget often that Mead's work, even if it were true, can only suggest
that gender behavior differences are determined by culture conditioning, and thus they act
like it is true, or a proven fact. In Chodorow's own words; "This essay refutes the
claim for universal and necessary differentiation, and provides an explanation based on a
comparison of cultures and socialization practices to account for such differences where
and when they occur."[12] She projects her bias here.

Notice how Mead puts it in her book, Sex and Temperament. After describing three
cultures (Arapesh, Mundergumor, and Tchambuli) where sex behavior is claimed to be of a
different order than traditionally expected, Mead concludes:

Margaret Mead first says that three different cultures suggest the malleability
of sex roles, then she concludes that culture conditioning determines sex behavior
differences "almost entirely, "we are forced to conclude that human nature is
almost unbelievably malleable." She believes sex roles are forced on the
sexes:

"In the division of labour, in dress, in manners, in social and religious
functioning -- sometimes in only a few of these respects, sometimes in all -- men and
women are socially differentiated, and each sex, and a sex, forced to conform to the role
assigned to it."[14]

Moreover in Mead's thinking, as in many radical feminists' thinking, if society
recognized individual differences instead of conditioned sex differences:

"It might abandon its various attempts to make boys fight and to make girls remain
passive, or to make all children fight, and instead shape our educational institutions to
develope to the full the boy who shows a capacity for maternal behavior, the girl who
shows an opposite capacity that is stimulated by fighting against obstacles. No skill, no
special aptitude, no vividness of imagination or precision of thinking would go because
the child who possessed it was of one sex rather than the other."[15]

Exceptions Rule. Mead as well as others base their 'thinking' on certain
cultural studies which seem to them to manifest the extreme malleability of sex behavior.
Of course these certain cultural studies are exceptions to the universal gender
behavior differences, but this doesn't stop radical feminists. For them the exceptions
rule. To them, we must change all societies to fit their idea of equality. And their way
to do this is through social conditioning. Thus, radical feminists call any thought
"sexist" if it manifests any idea of difference between the sexes. If there are
differences, they are culturally derived. Women Liberators only concede the very obvious
-- the genitals and breasts, and downgrade the other differences.

Representative Don Edwards before the Committee on the Judiciary House of
Representatives in 1971 concerning the Equal Rights Amendment asked:

"I refer you back to Margaret Mead who more than 50 years ago, who in her studies
of the New Guinea nation and tribes, came to the conclusion that sex roles result from
social learning rather than biologically inherited tendencies.

In other words she is saying that it is cultural, not biological. I am sure you will
recall that among the Mundugumor Tribe of New Guinea both the sexes acted about the same;
they

were hostile, aggressive and violent, qualities that we generally associated with men
in this country.

In the Tchambuli Tribe, the women were practical, domineering and aggressive; the men
sensitive, artistic, emotional, and dependent.

In other words, the roles were theoretically reversed.

In the Arapesh, the men had the general temperament which some people think is
feminine.

Do you believe that men and women, except for the one or two obvious differences, the
differences of sex and the fact that women do have babies, do you think that men and women
are really about the same

Boas became powerfully convinced that human nature, feelings
and behaviour were entirely determined by the social conditioning
of culture, and he communicated this to generations of students,
many of whom became leading figures in American anthropology.

In 1917 his followers decreed that human culture is
"superorganic", thus "instigating a massive intellectual schism,
proclaiming there was an abyss between cultural anthropology and
evolutionary biology, an 'eternal chasm' that could not be
bridged." "Boasian culturism was poised to become one of the
leading ideologies of the twentieth century", and by the mid 1930's
Boas had succeeded in "suppressing the classical theory of
evolution among practically the entire group of leading American
ethnologists".

Yet in 1924 evidence for this ideology was still lacking. Boas
decided that it might be obtained by a study of heredity and
environment in the behaviour of adolescent girls in a "primitive"
society somewhere or other. One documented exception would make his
case. Hoping that Samoa would provide it, he arranged for the
brilliant and ambitious young Margaret Mead to have a National
Research Council fellowship in the biological sciences for this
specific purpose.