Anthropology & the Geek

[azurelunatic]

When asked how many races there are, and can you name them, to say, "At least four: human, elvish, dwarf, hobbit...oh, and orc; that makes five" marks one as a geek.

And then you double-take and realize that the question must have been more aimed at answers like you'd find on the demographics portion of a survey. Ooops.

Klingon, too.

I tend to lump most of the races from the classic Federation together, and see the Klingon/Romulan political... thing, as separate. 'Ni confuse race with nationality in head. Bad 'Ni.

Comments

[godai.livejournal.com]

If you are going by tolkein. then wouldn't orc be considered elf. since orcs are corrupted elves.

*shrug*

[azurelunatic]

Good point.

[dmlaenker.livejournal.com]

Well, I wouldn't think there's more similarity between orcs and elves than there would be between Latinos/Hispanics and pre-Columbian whites/blacks/aboriginals. Probably less, even.

Just a thought.

[sithjawa.livejournal.com]

From a demographic standpoint I want to answer that question with either "meaningless" "infinity" or (to show off my math-geekiness) "one for every real number between zero and one".

Do the demographics people hate mixed-race people like me as much as I imagine they do? :D

[azurelunatic]

Depends on the demographics person. Someone like me, who understands the whole concept, will either help you cheerfully sabotage the system (answering "human" is my favorite trick), or ask you which of the possible categories you identify most with, and if you can truly fit in none, if possible noting the actual, or if not, putting you down as "rather not say".

Someone just wanting to fill in the damn form will be grumpy.

[darthtall.livejournal.com]

Don't forget the Ents!

*hoom-hoom*

[azurelunatic]

Oh yeah!

And Trolls

[yaksha42.livejournal.com]

Though, Treebeard says Trolls were made in mockery of the Ents, so they probably fit into the whole "Orc/Elf" category. If you wanted to get really technical, Tolkien had lots of theories on how Orcs were created, saying they were created by Melko, sometimes in mockery of Elves, sometimes corrupted Men ... it varies, the guy could never make up his mind.