Cultural Purity and the Refute

Folklore, Myth, and Culture - 355:201 12/12/01 Cultural Purity and the Refute of the Inevitable Momentum In the introduction to “The Pure Products Go Crazy,” James Clifford offers a poem by William Carlos Williams about a housekeeper of his named Elsie. This girl is of mixed blood, with a divided common ancestry, and no real collective roots to trace. Williams begins to make the observation that this is the direction that the world is moving in, as …

…making sense of their world, and by keeping them happy with their role in their society. Thji is the essence of what Clifford argues against, as he believes all cultures are “inauthentic.” Clifford argues that Identity is conjunctural, not essential; I believe this is the case only in a culture that has run its course. The “pure products” may go crazy, but the importance of the matter is that the products going crazy are “pure.”