Straw Men and Hyperbole: A Response to “Ethics and Hyperreality of the Archaeological Thought World”

Abstract

It was with great curiosity, and ultimately great disappointment, that I read the latest essay from Dr. Jay Custer (2005). His article stands as a very interesting study of a personal journey. For 28 of his 33 years of experience, Custer chose to ignore surviving Indian groups in Delaware and to downplay the relationship of extant Indians and people of the pre-Contact periods. After being called on his failings, Custer transformed into (from his perspective) one of the only archaeologists to work properly with Indians. The article is self-serving, rife with logical gaps, and full of misrepresentation of extreme positions as the norm (sensu Rush Limbaugh).The organizational failings of the essay make it difficult to dissect. One would hope that an article bemoaning a hyperreality and a universally shared (among Euro-american archaeologists) archaeological thought world would explicitly define those terms and would include extensive case studies to demonstrate the existence of attributes expected in hyperrealities and the archaeological thought world. Custer fails to do this.To prevent duplicating his failings, I here define a straw man as a falsehood or extreme position presented as the truth or norm. A straw man is often created and then readily destroyed in the name of debate, precluding the advocate from having to address the true complexity of an issue. When the National Rifle Association (NRA) paints all liberals as wanting to confiscate and destroy all *This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of my employer. 71Ó 2005, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc. / ESPENSHADE

The Archaeology of Native Societies in the Chesapeake: New Investigations and Interpretations

“…Central to his message are three priorities: fostering dialogue between archaeologists and Indians, allowing native priorities to shape research agendas, and incorporating a stronger preservation ethic to protect unthreatened sites. A flurry of responses to Custer's programmatic statement published in the same issue of North American Archaeologist documented a range of reactions by archaeologists (e.g., Espenshade 2005;Moeller 2005). Some questioned Custer's choice of (possibly rhetorical) language to characterize archaeologists' failures, and others noted his tendency to write of American Indians and of archaeologists in rather monolithic terms.…”