Social Evolutionism

The readings from this section share some similar tendencies, one among these is the idea of human interaction as an evolutionary process.  Spenser’s theory is very unilateral in suggesting that civilization progress, or evolve.  His writing gives an analogous view of civilization and human interaction as a biological organism, suggesting that the social factors of human interaction have evolved from simplistic to more complicated.  This is also intertwined with  authors such as Taylor, who also compare anthropology with the natural sciences, echoing the sentiments of Darwinian theory by applying the idea to human civilization.  Feuerbach takes this idea a step further with the productions of intercourse, adding more specific elements of human interaction into what is basically the same idea presented by Spencer and Taylor.   It is important here to focus on material and its role as a driving force in this evolutionary theory.

Based on this idea, and the more in-depth literature that supports it, we would like to discuss the following:

In the spirit of 19th Century Evolutionism:  Explain the evolution of culture in the terms of the evolution of life, or as an analogy of a living organism or body, or a progressive process of change, or as the development of mental capacities.  You may want to consider: the evolution of simple to complex societies, interdependency, class structure, religion, materialism, technology innovation or art, knowledge/ education, subsistence, roles and structure of the family, government,  division of labor, or speech.  How are all these ideas related, or how are all societies related to one another?  Is there a progression of society, and if there is, what is the ultimate goal of society?

What came before Anthropology?

Presentation of The Development of Science by James Mullooly 

Who is this charming fella? 

19th Century Evolutionism

Nineteenth-Century Evolutionism

This was a period in science and human thought that affected great changes in how people understand the world and human development.

Notable people of this era include:
Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace,
Herbert Spencer,
Sir Edward Burnett Tylor,
Lewis Henry Morgan,
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Notable publications include:
-Herbert Spencer, The Social Organism (1860)
-Lewis Henry Morgan, Ethnical Periods (1877)
-Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Feuerbach. Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook (1845-1846)
-Edward Burnett Tylor, Science of Culture (1871)

Joshua Liggett’s Wonderful World of Prezi

Here are some great examples of what you can do to spread the noble word of anthropological theory:

Functionalism - Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, & Gluckman, sans Evans-Pritchard:
http://prezi.com/ty1m09nfn7uh/functionalism-malinowski-radcliffe-brown-gluckman-sans-evans-pritchard/

 Historical Particularism - Eighteen Professions – A.L. Kroeber:
http://prezi.com/68vqsc8woquu/eighteen-professions-al-kroeber/

Structuralism – Levi-Strauss and Ortner
http://prezi.com/kw1o_4onrhek/structuralism-levi-strauss-and-ortner/

Sociobiology, Evolutionary Psychology, and Behavioral Ecology – Wilson & Barkow
http://prezi.com/6z8_qfokbhu-/sociobiology-evolutionary-psychology-and-behavioral-ecology-wilson-barkow/

Rousseau’s “Emile” mkII (this last one is only tangentially applicable but good none-the-less)
http://prezi.com/n2frzetwksxb/rousseaus-emile-mkii/

by Joshua Liggett zephramseazephyr@gmail.com

Spring 2011 Anthropology 104 Skits

The Skits from the 2011 Anthropology 104 class with Dr. Mullooly, have been posted on YouTube!!

Post-Modernism… (queue X-Files theme song)

The basic sense I get from post-modernity, is that all things are to be deconstructed or at least critiqued.

Vulgar Post Modernism -

“Sitting on the porch with your forty-ouncer complaining about all the cars that go by instead of building your own.”

- Unknown

Anthropology and Gender: The Feminist Critique; Slocum, Leacock, and Stoler.

Like all fields of Academia, Anthropology was a bastion for “good ol’ boys” ( as a certain professor  states in his oft-repeated caveat, “pardon my genitalia”). Even in the days of Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict, women “were marginalized, pigeonholed, and excluded from important aspects of the discipline.” It was not until the fifties that discussions of women were found in more than the “introductory textbook chapters on marriage, family and kinship.”

Skits for Theorits

Dear Anthro Theorits:

Here is the skit guideline that Hank developed a few years back. Students have gone beyond this considerably. Hence the term “guide”.
In the end, it should be fun and illustrate your synthesis of some person’s work.
-jim
PS. We meet on the Monday after the break. Mark your calendars.!!
Now off to Daytona Beach!! (just kidding)

Skits
Anthropology 104

This is an evolving assignment that dates back a few years. Here is the current semester version of it. You are free to make changes, and not all of these have to be done. However, everyone should have a role to play.

Form groups of 5 or 6 students to compose and perform an approximately 15 minute skit in which key theorists from the course are portrayed. Use a plot that facilitates the presentation of their ideas.

The plots of the skits could go in several ways. The key to all of them is that the theorists in question get a chance to express their views clearly in the dialogue. You might dream up a novel plot, or “rip off” a pre-existing plot; either way is fine. Standard plots that might work include:
• Guests attend a dinner party; one of the guests is murdered. Sorting out who done it would provide opportunities for a detective character to interrogate various guests and try to find the one with the best motive, maybe the one with the most theoretical differences with the murdered guest…
• A group of people is shipwrecked on a deserted island and must work out a way to survive the island, and each other. Better still, it turns out that there are “natives” on the island… “Survivor,” “Lost,” and so on are all open game!
• Etc..

Anachronism and general creativity will obviously be necessary, since most of the theorists involved in the skits were not contemporaries. Feel free to play around with the details of who, what, when, where, etc., but DO pay attention to representing the ideas of the theorists accurately. Costumes, props, etc., really help to convey the messages of your skits.

Group 1: Steward (cultural ecology) and Leacock (feminist anthropology)
Key tension: Steward was notorious for ignoring gender in his analysis, while Leacock and other feminist anthropologists maintain that gender is a central issue in any sociocultural analysis. On the other hand, both Steward and Leacock were materialists, so they do have some common ground.

Group 2: Morgan (unilineal evolutionism) and Boas (historical particularism)
Key tension: Morgan and other UEs envisioned a progression of societies from primitive to civilized, while Boas argued that such a scale is inherently evaluative and, anyway, not supported by the evidence. The tension is between a form of “ethnocentric anthropology,” and the father of modern cultural relativism.

Group 3: Wolf (political economy) and Geertz (symbolic anthropology)
Key tension: Wolf was a materialist and Marxist, while Geertz emphasized the primacy of “symbols and meanings” in defining and driving human life; he has been often criticized for lack of attention to the power inequalities that are central to political economy. Also, Wolf was interested in large-scale interconnections, while Geertz was known for a rather tight focus on particular cultures. There is a lot to work with here.

Group 4: Steward (cultural ecology) and a representative of post-modernism
Key tension: Steward had a strong commitment to anthropology as a science and to finding cause-effect relationships with a particular emphasis on materialism. Post-modernists (depending on the particular type) would question the assumptions that underlie a science of humanity, attack the certainty with which Steward drew his conclusions, and emphasize biases inherent in anthropological work.

Group 5: Mead, Ortner (structuralism and feminism), Leacock (anthro and gender) Lila Abu-Lughod (postmodernism), Aihwa Ong (postmodernism), and any one of the males we have studied.
Tension: Bearded or mustachioed, perhaps, but on this occasion outnumbered, he at lasts decides to listen, really listen, to what the women anthropologists have to say. Where are they? A desert island? A dinner party? Witnesses to a headhunter’s rage? Held hostage by religious radicals? Delegates to the Democratic Party National Convention? How do their differences play out? See if you can do this without making the male the center of attention—I think there are more tensions among the women, but they may argue it out using him as the audience.

Feminism

You have to check out Hannah Arendt’s work, particularly with regard to labor.

The following is from:

i. Labor: Humanity as Animal Laborans
Labor is that activity which corresponds to the biological processes and necessities of human existence, the practices which are necessary for the maintenance of life itself. Labor is distinguished by its never-ending character; it creates nothing of permanence, its efforts are quickly consumed, and must therefore be perpetually renewed so as to sustain life. In this aspect of its existence humanity is closest to the animals and so, in a significant sense, the least human (“What men [sic] share with all other forms of animal life was not considered to be human”). Indeed, Arendt refers to humanity in this mode as animal laborans. Because the activity of labor is commanded by necessity, the human being as laborer is the equivalent of the slave; labor is characterized by unfreedom. Arendt argues that it is precisely the recognition of labor as contrary to freedom, and thus to what is distinctively human, which underlay the institution of slavery amongst the ancient Greeks; it was the attempt to exclude labor from the conditions of human life. In view of this characterization of labor, it is unsurprising that Arendt is highly critical of Marx’s elevation of animal laborans to a position of primacy in his vision of the highest ends of human existence. Drawing on the Aristotelian distinction of the oikos (the private realm of the household) from the polis (the public realm of the political community), Arendt argues that matters of labor, economy and the like properly belong to the former, not the latter. The emergence of necessary labor , the private concerns of the oikos, into the public sphere (what Arendt calls “the rise of the social”) has for her the effect of destroying the properly political by subordinating the public realm of human freedom to the concerns mere animal necessity. The prioritization of the economic which has attended the rise of capitalism has for Arendt all but eclipsed the possibilities of meaningful political agency and the pursuit of higher ends which should be the proper concern of public life.

Sociobiology, Evolutionary Psychology, and Behavioral Ecology – Edward Wilson

http://prezi.com/6z8_qfokbhu-/sociobiology-evolutionary-psychology-and-behavioral-ecology-wilson-barkow/

Structuralism – Levi-Strauss, Ortner

Structuralism

http://prezi.com/kw1o_4onrhek/structuralism-levi-strauss-and-ortner/

Claude Levi-Strauss (b. 1908)

Linguistics and Anthropology

A Breakdown of the Reading

 In this article, Levi-Strauss discusses at length the multi-tiered nature of the notions of the relationship between language and culture. And it it his premise that if you study the Culture, than you will have an intimate knowledge of the  Language. This is the opposite of what is known as linguistic determinism as defined by the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis. Instead of Language determining the culture, the culture determins the language. I see both as hard to prove empirically, but linguistic determinism seems harder to swallow. That each may influence the other ro a greater or lesser degree would appear more plausible to me.

According to Levi-Strauss, the relationship between language and culture can be broken down into three categories.

1.) The degree to which a language and culture are separable,

2.) The Relationship between Language and Culture as global concepts, rather than singular entities like English, French or Spanish and their respective cultures, and

3.) The Relationship between the studies of Linguistics and Anthropology.

He goes on to state that there are individual cultural ramifications of this relationship, which is particularly notes in cultural attitudes towards silence.

Another concept to note is that Language is the means by which Culture is transmitted, but both are visible manifestations of the same underlying mental processes, therefore Linguistics can be used as a tool to analyse culture.

This notion was particularly seductive to anthropology at the time of this publication, because it was before the widespread use of ethnographic work, and Linguistics had long since been steeped in empirical methods of fields concidered to be “more scientific”.

An example of this is the apparent disparity between the kinship systems of the areas considered Sino-Tibetan and Indo-European. The result is a seemingly dichotomous arrangement of terms for kin, the clan type of Sino-Tibetan cultures having many terms differentiating the maternal and paternal side of ego’s family( Paternal Grandfather: JOO-foo, Maternal Grandfather:wai-JOO-foo); whereas, the extended family type of Indo-European cultures that lack that level of differentiation, and maternal and paternal sides are only differentiated by gender (e.g. Aunt, Uncle, Grandfather, Grandmother).

Four Winnebago Myths: A Structural Sketch

A Breakdown of the Reading

This article is based on myths collected by Radin during his ethnography of the Winnebago. The myths that Levi-Strauss chose are all of the same genre, in that the protagonist must experience death in some form, but they each differ slightly from each other.

The first myth introduces us to the concept of  the the “capital of life” and that all people are entitled to a specific “quota of years” of life and experience. When someone dies before that quota has been fulfilled, the remaining life returns to the tribe. Additionally, Levi-Strauss dichotomizes the heroic and ordinary with regard to lives; the former being renewable, but short lived; whereas, an ordinary full life is non-renewable. A hellenistic example of this concept is found with the story of Achilles, embodies by Brad Pitt in 2004 box office hit Troy, when his mother told him he could live a full life and die known only to his children, who would after many generations forget his name; or,

Sherry Ortner (b.)

Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture

A Breakdown of the Reading

Neomaterialism – Evolutionary, Functionalist, Ecological, Marxist

Neomaterialism

Steward and White from the previous section laid the foundations of Ecological Anthropology materialistic cultural analysis,  but it wasn’t until the next generation of Anthropologists that these fields underwent true development.

As with all things, the course of the good ship Anthropology was sent in the same direction as the concomitant winds of scientific thought, with particular note to General Systems theory and the field of ecology.

General Systems theory - is the transdisciplinary study of systems in general, with the goal of elucidating principles that can be applied to all types of systems in all fields of research. The term does not yet have a well-established, precise meaning, but systems theory can reasonably be considered a specialization of systems thinking and a generalization of systems science. The term originates from Bertalanffy‘s General System Theory (GST) and is used in later efforts in other fields, such as the action theory of Talcott Parsons and the system-theory of Niklas Luhmann.

In this context the word “systems” is used to refer specifically to self-regulating systems, i.e. that are self-correcting through feedback. Self-regulating systems are found in nature, including the physiological systems of our body, in local and global ecosystems, and in climate.

Many early systems theorists aimed at finding a general systems theory that could explain all systems in all fields of science. The term goes back to Bertalanffy’s book titled “General System theory: Foundations, Development, Applications” from 1968.^[6] According to Von Bertalanffy, he developed the “allgemeine Systemlehre” (general systems teachings) first via lectures beginning in 1937 and then via publications beginning in 1946.^[16]

Von Bertalanffy’s objective was to bring together under one heading the organismic science that he had observed in his work as a biologist. His desire was to use the word “system” to describe those principles which are common to systems in general. In GST, he writes:

…there exist models, principles, and laws that apply to generalized systems or their subclasses, irrespective of their particular kind, the nature of their component elements, and the relationships or “forces” between them. It seems legitimate to ask for a theory, not of systems of a more or less special kind, but of universal principles applying to systems in general.^[17]

Ervin Laszlo^[18] in the preface of von Bertalanffy’s book Perspectives on General System Theory:^[19]

Thus when von Bertalanffy spoke of Allgemeine Systemtheorie it was consistent with his view that he was proposing a new perspective, a new way of doing science. It was not directly consistent with an interpretation often put on “general system theory”, to wit, that it is a (scientific) “theory of general systems.” To criticize it as such is to shoot at straw men. Von Bertalanffy opened up something much broader and of much greater significance than a single theory (which, as we now know, can always be falsified and has usually an ephemeral existence): he created a new paradigm for the development of theories.

Ludwig von Bertalanffy outlines systems inquiry into three major domains: Philosophy, Science, and Technology. In his work with the Primer Group, Béla H. Bánáthy generalized the domains into four integrable domains of systemic inquiry:

Domain                                     Description

Philosophy              The ontology, epistemology, and axiology of
systems;

Theory                      A set of interrelated concepts and principles
applying to all systems

Methodology        The set of models, strategies, methods, and
tools that instrumentalize systems theory
and philosophy

Application           The application and interaction of the domains

These operate in a recursive relationship, he explained. Integrating Philosophy and Theory as Knowledge, and Method and Application as action, Systems Inquiry then is knowledgeable action.

- Wikipedia

It is also important to note that this is the basis for cybernetics.

Ecology – Ecology (from Greek: οἶκος, “house”; -λογία, “study of”) is the scientific study of the relation of living organisms with each other and their surroundings.

- Wikipedia

Further development of the field moved the “units of analysis” to cultures rather that local populations. The resultant field, called ecological materialism, can be subdivided into two subfields: neoevolutionists, who revisit the writings of Lewis Henry Morgan, were interested in finding the origins of cultural phenomenae, particularly with respect to a pattern of stages (e.g. band-tribe-chiefdom-state) or with respect to social inequality (e.g. egalitarian-rank-stratified-state); neofunctionalists, like psychological and structural functionalists, are interested in the function and purpose of institutions, yet differing in their description of institution (in terms of adaptation), particularly in how these institutions serve to “maintain and reproduce populations.” (Archeology is of chief importance to this field)

Morton Fried (1923-1986)

As a graduate student and subsequent holder of a professorship at Columbia University, Fried’s “understanding of social evolution” was influenced by both professors (particularly Julian Steward, but also White and V. Gordon Childe) and fellow students (such names as Service, Diamond, Wolf and Manners).

On the Evolution of Social Stratification and the State

A Breakdown of the Reading

According to Fried, cultures will progress, in a pristine environment, in the following way:

Stage A (egalitarian organization) –>Stage B (rank society) –> Stage C (stratification society) –> Stage D (state society)

Egalitarian – group organizations with “as many positions of prestige … as there are persons capable of filling them.” Such groups are usually hunter-gatherer, participating in reciprocal exchange, with little in the way of significant harvest periods or food storage.

Rank – group organizations with “fewer positions of valued status than there are persons capable of handling them.” Such groups include rules of accession, rights to succession, and participation in a “redistributive economy.”

Stratification – group organizations with “differential relationships between the members of the society and its subsistence means.” These differential statuses lead to differential access to resources. There are two forms of resource access based on social status: priveliged and unimpeded, where access is unrestricted; the other is impaired, where a complex series of permissions are required for permitted levels of access.

State - group organizations with the “organization of the power of the society on a supra-kin basis.”

As the pristine environments found early in the Chinese and African river valleys no longer exists in the presence of so many modern states, the process has become more of an “acculturation phenomenon.”

The sequence of transitions from one stage to the next has never been documented. Also, when a society does transition, it is in an “inexorable” manner and done so without the cognizance of the “culture carriers.”

Marvin Harris (1927-2001)

Hailing from Columbia University, Harris was a student of both Boas and Steward (perhaps framing his later work) and was attracted to a paper by Leslie White that criticized Boasians, but it should be noted that he did not officially move to materialism until after his field work in Mozambique and his experience with Portuguese colonialism. His work carries the Marxist tenor of Leslie White.

The Cultural Ecology of India’s Sacred Cattle

A Breakdown of the Reading

Roy Rappart (1926-1997)

Ritual Regulation of Environmental Relations Among a New Guinea People

Eric Wolf (1923-1999)

Peasantry and Its Problem

Julian Steward – “The Patrilineal Band”

All quotes are taken from the reading unless otherwise noted.

After “the ‘mid-century collapse’ of Historical Particularism” a resurrection of the dearly departed “cross-cultural comparison” or evolutionary perspectives on culture, began to crop up. A good example of this is the following reading, where the author states that societies that occur in similar environments develop in the same ways. Defining cultural types as those sharing cultural features forming a “core” of practices associated with subsistence, ranging in complexity from family to multi-family and finally state, hi students later “refined” this series to the “now familiar classifications of band, tribe, chiefdom, and state.” Contrary to unilineal evolutionists, Stewart believed that “cultures could evolve in any number of distinct patterns depending on their environmental circumstances.” Despite being a student of Kroeber, he butted heads with his mentor by his interest in the causes of cultural traits, Krober being the author or “The Eighteen Professions” said many times that anthropology should not be concerned with teleology, in fact anthropologists should not be concerned with causation at all, needless to say the relationship was contentious. Steward’s text is a prime example of how he shows culture to be an adaptation to the environment.

A few definitions to get us started…

Patrilineality - ”is a system in which one belongs to one’s father’s lineage. It generally involves the inheritance of property, names or titles through the male line as well.” -Wikipedia

Patrilocality – “is a term referring to the social system in which a married couple resides with or near the husband’s parents.” – Wikipedia
It is important to note that patrilocality is more readily visible through the examination of marriage practices.

Exogamy – In this context, “exogamy is the marrying outside of a specific group.” Particularly, avoiding incest by marrying outside of the immediate family, potentially cross or parallel cousins may be preferred marriage partners.

 A Breakdown of the Reading

It is important to note that a recurring theme that permeates Steward’s writings are far from the Historical Particularists of his day in that he is almost consumed with an interest in discovering “general laws of culture.” In this instance Steward is attempting to find a correlation between environment and the subsequent cultural construction. The result of this study is the notion of, as so termed by Dr. Mullooly, Environmental Determinism.

According to White….(By Jackie)

Hello Everyone! I love our discussion in class today, everyone had at least something to say about our (Ben and I) presentation of Leslie White’s “Energy and the Evolution of Culture”.

I want to bring up another topic to continue our discussion from class. According to White, “…by means of agriculture man was able to harness, control, and put to work for himself powerful forces of nature. With greatly augmented energy resources man was able to expand and develop his way of life, i.e., his culture^14″ (2nd ed: pp 249). He also goes on to say, “In agriculture… this limit has not been reached, and, indeed it is not yet even in sight” (pp 250). My question to you is do you believe that “end” to efficiency when man is no longer able to supply himself with his most basic necessity, food, in sight? Our world’s population is quickly approaching 7 Billion people, (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/01/seven-billion/kunzig-text). It is not unrealistic to assume that our planet cannot support our increasing population without some consequences, there is only so much food agriculture can produce, only so many water resources. What’s going to happen to our culture, by culture I’m including the human race, when we come to as White claims our “end”?

It’s my opinion that man is still largely relying upon an agricultural system to supply and harness his need for food. What is the next technological advancement man needs to make if agriculture can no longer supply and feed the world’s population? What happens to our culture?

this is a link for something i found very interesting, it relates to my argument for our need to find alternative sources for fuel, energy, food, etc.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/dupont/src=NatGeo2011_ROS_160x600_Ngco-branded

 

Ruth Benedict’s psychological types in the SW (by ben johnson)

Ruth benedict, in her article Psychological types in the Cultures of the southwest, explains a disunion she notices between the ritualistic practices of the pueblo peoples and all the other tribes in the region. This she attempts to outline with the framework of the famous psychologist Friedrich Nietzsche. In his work he develops an existing opposition of two Greek gods: Apollo and Dionysus. These two Greek characters represent different and opposing philosophies, and Nietzsche extends them to the psychological development of individuals.

Benedict begins her article with defining the two personas, stating that their importance lies the different “ways of arriving at the values of existence”. The Apollonian arrives at his values with characteristics of order, control of the senses, and maintaining stability in self and behavior. By doing this, the Apollonian can draw conclusions in the moment and be sure of his existence. The Dionysian, as benedict describes, “seeks to attain in his most valued moments, escape from the boundaries imposed upon him by his five senses, to break through to another order of existence.” In other words, he values the experience of control loss.

Benedict relates these two perspectives to the Pueblo peoples’ ritualistic behavior in relation to all the other tribes in the surrounding regions. She notes that only the Pueblo people value complete sobriety and intent ritualistic behavior in ceremony. She notes that in contrast to surrounding tribes, the Pueblo groups do not produce alcoholic beverages, take hallucinogens, nor participate in self-induced trance (these are considered to be the Dionysian behaviors).

She notes that the use of these out-of-control type substances and behaviors are used to provide ritualistic and ‘holy’ experiences. Her examples include: the “tizwin” drinking and production by the Pima, the use of Peyote by various groups including the Winnebago, Serrano, and Cahuilla, the practice of orgy, or more specifically fertility and sex practices, and the presence or conceptual presence of self-mutilation or suicide. It is through these concepts and ritualistic practices that we see foundation for drawing such a conclusion.

—Notes—

Interestingly, Nietzsche eventually abandoned his original conclusion of the Apollonian/Dionysian conflict heavily influencing the psychological state of an individual; however, I believe that we all probably find one applying to us more than the other. As a younger adult I had my fair share of experimentation with substances, and can say with some assurance that the things I enjoy most now in my life, involve extending and pushing my mental and social capacities. I can say that I do value Dionysian experience, but I also make sure that the Apollonian side of me has everything in order.