Kiss and Kill: Lovingly Destroying Ignorance

In this episode Jim sits down with LCC Anthropology Professor Kali Majumdar to discuss mental health through a multicultural lens. The conversation ranges from collectivistic versus individualistic ethics, exploring false dichotomies, and understanding the overlap of biology, sociology, and psychology in understanding the human experience.

Learning is a lifelong process which includes both unlearning some concepts as well as learning new ones. Anthropology, Dr. Majumdar says, offers a wider view of what it means to define oneself as a member of the human race. Though everyone is having a unique experience of life as an individual, the commonalities of life and identity that we all share can live alongside a collective sense of self without subjugating one to the other. The oversimplified classifications of identity may limit a person from experiencing a more full and whole life.

Kali says we all have much in common, that we never really meet a stranger, we meet a friend, and that we need only to begin the conversation with another person to discover how connected we are.