Quote:
Originally Posted by Martian
Food for thought: if you go back far enough, we're all inbred.
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You don't have to go very far back in Iceland.
(They actually have an online database here, where every member of the population can type in their ID # and someone else's ID # to get an exact chart of how they are related... the average is about 7 generations back, though I have found some friends/celebrities who are 4 or 5 generations back, related to me). People check it often when dating, I've heard.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Starkizzer
and the little hairs on the back of our necks stand up as warning flags?
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That kind of reaction usually signals that your culture (the one you were raised in) is being messed with. Going against your cultural grain can produce that kind of visceral response. Even though no one is born with culture, it's something that every person is taught from birth, and it almost becomes part of the nerves, over time...
I often had to explain that to anthro 101 students, since it's a way of dealing with culture shock/stress and realizing that the reaction is a cultural one rather than a moral one. They usually freak out a bit when we have a unit on first-cousin marriage as a preferred pattern in some societies, and they have to come down from that American cultural revulsion for such things before we can discuss the issue academically. It's one of the fun things about teaching anthropology.