How Social Anthropology Can Change Our Lives in a Good Way

Applied philosophy to apply to life

Social anthropology is essentially a combined study of cultures and philosophy. Traditionally, it focuses on more “exotic” communities as the study began when imperialists conquered the world and needed to understand the local culture better.

However, ignoring this colonial past, anthropologists have learned a great deal about life and cultures from the different ways people organize their lives around the world.

Surprise surprise, there is more than one way to see life (!)

Being a Hong Kong Chinese who moved to the UK at the age of 16, I was already experiencing a significant cultural shock. After crawling through Marxism and many other great theorists, we finally got to read some fantastic ethnographic studies.

I thought all my course mates were being enlightened by these studies, but by the end of our first year, 6 out of the 23 of us dropped out.

Why?

Because of one overwhelming question.

Are things even real?

After the first year of university, we have learned that almost everything that we’ve taken for granted was made up by humans. This ranges from money to gender, sexuality, and even the concept of maternity.

There are numerous studies that prove there are many people seeing life differently on each of these topics. From the added interpretations of paper money by different cultures to the concept of gender and sex.

This had disillusioned many bright-eyed 18-year-old students. I don’t know why did they choose social anthropology in the first place, but they most probably were looking to learn about exotic cultures and become a world traveler. What we had learned instead, was to walk around the city of London questioning the validity of all institutions.

Luckily I questioned life at the age of 18

I can see why some people weren’t ready for the harsh reality, but it was perfect for me at the time. If I hadn’t confronted this reality, I would’ve gone through life like an auto-pilot, and hit an un-revivable rock bottom by middle age.

Instead, I did everything in my life, including my decade in the finance world, with a kind of transcended, stoic attitude. I knew that the fame, prestige, and status we worked so hard to achieve were pretty much a creation of religion, capitalism, and even communism.

An expensive bottle of wine is only meaningful if people attribute value to it. Otherwise, it’s just alcoholic grape juice that gets people drunk. This same concept applies to everything, absolutely everything in life.

Knowing something is made up is one thing, the ability to think above and beyond it is another. This is why I managed to enjoy a job I didn’t love.

If you are hitting a crisis at this moment and desperately seeking life-changing transformation, social anthropology may just be the unexpected right thing for you.

3 life-changing takeaways from social anthropology

1.) Question the value attributes to anything and everything

Let’s use red wine as it’s quite a neutral subject. It really is simply fermented grape juice. But society has attributed a lot of values to this red wine. From the “purist” Bordeaux winemakers attribute to their history and tradition of winemaking, to Chinese people seeing owning a vineyard in France as a status symbol.

Great anthropologists will be able to see through this and accept the true value of red wine — the ones that taste nice is the one we want to drink, no matter how the price, no matter the origin.

Lesson: Find the right tribe that values things the same way you do.

2.) Question the authority of the time

This is big because many of us think that time is linear and objective. But some scholars have found different understandings of time from an African tribe and others.

As the language is different, people’s concept of time is different too. To put this in our context, as people in most developed societies are educated under the 3-stage model of study, work, retire, the need to achieve certain things at a certain stage of life has been hardwired to us.

But as this amazing book discussed, as our life span prolongs, it’s time to rethink this model.

Lesson: stop worrying about what’s lacking at a certain age, and rethink what can be done now to achieve your passion.

3.) Ignore the rites of passage

Rituals are one of the most fascinating things created by humans (having said that, animals do it too. For example, male bower birds create a stage for their dance during mating season).

Anthropologists love to study rites of passages, i.e. the rituals that signify a person moving from one stage of life to another. Examples including baptism, circumcision, Coming of Age Day in Japan, etc.

Similar to point 1 above, i.e. these rites of passage only have meanings as people participating and observing them attribute value to them.

Another point to consider here is how the value system works both ways.

For example, in England, when a child turns 18 years old, the parents have a lot less authority over the behavior of the child. They can have sex, drink, etc. The parent and the child both respect this rule and act accordingly.

However, the same thing doesn’t work in Asia. My mum is still trying to probe my sex life, nag me about my drinking, and comment on my choice of clothes and men (!) Of course, I can ignore her, but her nagging breaks this unspoken pact.

You can be the person to break the pact and discredit a certain system, rule or tradition you find horrendous and doesn’t serve you. Of course, it’s not easy, but that doesn’t mean you can’t free yourself from it.

Lesson: Learn which part of the system can be cracked, and be freed from it.

Jump like that fantastic guy in the image

In essence, social anthropology is a break-free pass supported by academics, for me at least. It helps me to identify the cultural constructs that don’t need to be there and slowly release us from these pointless shackles.

It sounds easier said than done, but the point is, social anthropology tells us that there are people in the world who are already doing it without any restrictions. They just simply have never thought about things the way our society makes us do.

As a Chinese person in the UK, that was extremely freeing. I have quit my job and moved into a van with my 22-year-old boyfriend by the seaside. People are questioning me constantly if I have given up on marriage, money, career, babies, EVERYTHING.

But I’m not responding to their value system, I break the chain and do my own thing. I have found my own tribe and created my own timeline.

This is what freedom means, choose what you want to believe in, and choose wisely.

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