entropology

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   The study of human actions that lead to the disintegration and increasing disorder of…

   The study of human actions that lead to the disintegration and increasing disorder of highly evolved social systems.

   • Surely under such inclusive circumstances, the erstwhile frightening prospect of a grimly reductive "entropology" (Levi-Strauss, 1955:397) seems far less ominous.
   • Thus, anthropology is 'entropology', the science of the running down of things.
2. 2

   The tendency of social systems to disintegrate.

   • The kind of agency I though I had—and the ethnocentric bias that led me to it—is symptomatic of the narrative motif of entropology. Make no mistake—entrolpology is real.
   • The poem thematizes more than it enacts entropology, a contemplation of materials in process over time.

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