In my anthropology classes which I have been teaching for more than 15 years, it doesn't fail to amaze me that despite how progressive and advanced we in the industrialized, capitalized world think we are, we still learn to easily to think that WE are rational and right, and that THEY are irrational and wrong. WE of course are the scientifically grounded, industrial, largely urban societies of the West, and THEY are.... anyone who is not.
One piece of this that intrigues me is the comparison often made between magic and religion as elements, respectively, of THIER cultures, and OUR cultures. Of course, in OUR culture, religion has a tenuous existence, in that most of the time it is compartmentalized and made to fit within the technical, economically driven patterns of mainstream society; some might say it is "domesticated." And I say this not as a typical complainant in some supposed "culture war," but simply as an observer of "social facts," following Durkheim's use of the concept.
