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?
Comments
Good prompt Jesteen & Shana.
I cannot wait to here what all will say in response!!
Societies are like the evolutionary process of all living things. They start out small and simple and gradually grow into far more complex entities. Occasionally, environmental or other outside forces disrupts the pattern of growth, and time and time again, the simpler organisms show their strength and return as the dominate form, and the cycle begins all over again. Each organism adapts and fills niches based upon their environmental demands and expectations. No organism is exactly the same or followed the same path of evolution as the next, but their adaptations has helped that specie survive in a competitive or demanding environment, as has every culture.
Based on the very nature of certain collectives, interaction can be uncomfortable to down right dangerous between various entities. Others, especially in the post-modern society, symbiotic relationships have been formed, either through mutual interest, safety concerns, or out of coercion.
There has always been variation within cultures and species. Occasionally, like the pepper moths in England, that variation is what has allowed for the specie to continue. All in all, if a culture or a species wishes to survive they must be dynamic, always changing, always adapting, always struggling to keep their spot on the food chain.
There has always been change with biological and culture. I agree with Shana that societies are evolving in order to adapt to their environment. With culture humans became innovators and this lead to new materials being made such as clothing, shoes, and etc. The early theorist talked much about societies and that it started simple and then got more complicated. That humans were progressing slowly from the savage stage, barbarianism to civilization and this level of categorization does not make sense to me. What then would the people who do not have the same technologies as others who are consider to be civilized be consider. Would they be categorized as barbarians or such. What does progress even mean if we consider progress as having better things. Sometimes what we believe to be progress can lead to the worst. An example would be if we depend on agriculture and then a bacteria causes the crop to go bad than their might be a famine and a shortage of food, and etc. A population would be wiped out. Different societies can defined and interpret progress differently. It would be hard for me to know what the goal of society would be.
Biologic and social evolution both progressed from simple to more complex; racism was commonplace and thought to be justifiable with white people scientifically proven to be morally and intellectually superior (of course, elite whites were more advanced and superior to peasant whites); and girls were stupid because, at a young age, “the needs of reproduction arrested the mental evolution of females.” (text pg 47, note 25) These are the main themes I got from reading our three iconic anthropologist’s “fundamental ideas”. Some of it does make sense to me though, like, I remember how proud my mom was when I jumped from middle savagery to lower barbarism!
However, the person I never knew about until these readings, but now will always remain with me, is Samuel George Morton “thought of as the originator of “American School” ethnography, a school of thought in antebellum American science that claimed the difference between humans was one of species rather than variety and is seen by some as the origin of scientific racism.” (Wikipedia) Samuel George Morton and his “scientific” study, published from 1839 – 1849 “proved” large differences in brain size among races with white people at the top. I just wonder how much human horror and suffering this one scientific test provided justification for? How would someone even go about tracing the complete impact, evolution and influence of this idea through time? Morton’s study, apparently, heavily influenced Lewis Henry Morgan’s ideas. (text pg 47, note 5) Even though this may have been similar to Piltdown Man (reaffirming beliefs widely held at the time) the part that is astounding to me is — everyone considered Morton’s tests correct and nobody double checked his results until 1981 when a Harvard biologist 140 years later “reanalyzed the skulls in Morton’s collection” and discovered “gross errors” and, using Morton’s own skull collection “found no significant differences” in ethnic group skull volumes!!
How ironic that early anthropologists, generally, believed in racial differences, and modern anthropologists, often times, are fighting against it. Is this an unconscious effort at atonement for past sins? (Just kidding, trying to lighten up a bit)
This is in response to Herbert Spencer’s “The Social Organism”. Even though his ideas are a bit far-fetched, it is interesting how he compares the growth of an organism to that of a society. Even though his ideas do not apply when comparing the “growth” of past societies to those of the present, his thoughts do apply when looking at an individual society. For example, he states that individual societies start off with a small aggregate and then increase in number. Also, as a society accumulates laws and shared beliefs, it becomes more structured. And finally, as a society becomes more structured, everything in the society becomes mutually dependent; and this idea relates to the theory of functionalism. (But I don’t agree with his statement that “the activity and life of each part is made possible only by the activity and life of the rest” (pg. 17)). His reasons for why organisms are different than societies are also noteworthy and, in my opinion, allow his ideas to seem more plausible.
Also, I agree with almost everybody else in that the idea of ranking civilizations and giving them a status is ridiculous. This is a great example of ethnocentrism. How is it possible to compare one society to another? Each society is different, and in order to understand a “civilization”, one must look at that particular civilization’s history and culture with as little bias as human nature allows.
These thoughts on society being a progressive machine aimed at being the “top of the mountain” and a role model to others is concept older than the its nineteenth century philosophers/theorists. The only thing that seemed to have changed was the Modus operandi at the time. Most everyone in the past and present has felt that their ways were superior to others. Success can be measured through various traits, everything possible from morals to wealth.
I feel that this change was due to the shift from religion to science. When Christopher Columbus reached the Caribbean, he found these natives eating human flesh, which convinced them that they were godless creatures and should be made into slaves, as “proved by God.” This cannibalism was of course for ritual reasons and a seldom practice, not out of savagery or ruthlessness (its thought the the name “Caribbean” means land of the cannibals); Europeans have done the same thing over the course of history. When there were early studies on why skulls were different from one another, the Europeans place the bigger and more normal-looking skulls in the European group, and put the different and the smaller skulls in the various ethnic groups they thought it would fit. This convinced Europeans that they were the better races, as “proved by science.”
The rapid advancement in technology at the time also contributed to this dynamic change. With more material resources, curiosity, and progressive thoughts, more and more passions towards making the culture better resulted in a battle of wealth and power. To gain power, one had to be in power over something, and American Natives, Africans, and Asians were easy targets as they were thought to be less evolved. The more under your power, the more resources you would obtain, which led to the more finished products made and lastly the more wealth collected. The thought was that this integration of these “lesser” beings into the the European system would help them evolve and survive this period of mercantilism, which obviously did not happen.
This rapid advancement in technology could also be seen as Europeans at the time seeing themselves as the “new Gods” overcoming the “old God.” With new technology and resources, Europeans saw themselves as creators. They saw that they created a “perfect being” that can be called culture and society, whose purpose was to take an unfinished resource and make a finished product. They saw that this perfection required “worshipers” in a sense, using slaves to work for the glory of society.
I know, I’ve put in more than my two cents and you are probably exhausted of reading this post, but I just wanted to point out that Europeans shouldn’t be judged for their ethnocentrism and racism. I feel like every culture has had their achievements and downfalls throughout history, and we just so happen to be living in a point in history where Europeans are seen as “the rulers of the world.” Slavery did not begin 600 years ago, it started well before that. Selfishness and judgement has been seen in most every culture. I also wanted to point out that I appreciated Dr. Mullooly’s comment on the difference between evolution and progression, which I never realized. I very much agree with it, and took from it that it is what the culture thinks of what is best at the time (if that makes sense). All species and thoughts evolve, and with that some may rise and grow, or fall and die.
I found it very ethnocentric of all of them to consider that the world as a whole would evolve all together in the same direction. We know today that there are societies that still practice their same culture that was developed hundreds or even thousands of years ago. If actual real field work was done outside European control and Christian influences they would have recognized how cultures develop at their own pace. I also felt like the comparisons between the evolution of a biological specimens and a society and its culture was very interesting. I can see using that terminology to get Anthropology recognition with the real sciences world might have helped.
I would also have like to see how much religion played a part with the evolution theories of these guys. A lot of the terminology seemed like it was religiously influenced.
I felt that the evolution of culture during the 19th century involved clothing the “savages.” They were trying to explain the “survival of the fittest,” trying to explain how society evolves to succeed. And for them to try to compare their research to the trues sciences of the time, they would have to come up with pretty concrete ideas for the times. But, I also felt that economics had a major influence of society and culture. The rich wanted to stay rice and become even richer. So, their wealth had influence of technology and trends that would mold and guide the society to the future. The development of complex societies there had to be the “haves and have not’s.” Even today that is the norm throughout societies around the world. So, Marx’s economic ideas had a huge role in the evolution of societies and cultures.
I agree with most of the comments above. Societies are always changing, adapting, and improving to be compatible with their present setting. In contrast, early anthropologists believe different groups did not have a perfect ideal of society and were slow in progressing to it. For example, Spencer’s view of Darwin’s theory where only the strong survive, the western ethnocentric view was that their society was superior to other races. Those inferior races needed to be converted to become a civilized society like the western ideals. As mention before, each society is different, from the way they have survive in a habitat and the importance of values they hold are different. One must view each culture through a different perspective and prevent from comparing it to their own or other cultures. Societies are relative in independent class structure, religion, government, etc. in order to survive in their environment.
As has been mentioned several times already, societies are dynamic entities and are constantly changing to meet the challenges or situations that present themselves. Society and culture are adaptive measures that have allowed the species to thrive for an incredibly long time, which, I believe, is the “ultimate goal”. Humans, like any species (except lemmings, of course!), will do most anything for the continuation of the species, which oftentimes means making life easier. In that regard, societies are all very similar. They’re also similar in that they find the best adaptive measures for their situation with the materials at hand — it could be a certain way of structuring society, a religion, or any other part of a culture.
In regards to the “evolution of simple to complex societies”, I’m not entirely sure there is such a thing as a “simple” society. They’re all equally complex — or equally simple, depending on how you look at things.
(I hope this addressed the prompt…)
Well, going off of the blogs, and the discussion in class, since my book should be arriving any time now, hopefully. Societies do change and are adapting to “stuff” that is happening at that time. Culture is something that is slowly evolving, and adapting. Society and culture both go together.
When looking back at this time I imagine some German, old men sitting next to the fire with a glass of brandy, talking about societys and cultures from various parts of the world. They were not the ones out doing research, or even particiapting in the culture that they were speaking of. They were looking at what was being sent to them, and what was being published at the time. This gave them a distorted view of what was going on. By not actually seeing, participating in the society that was being studied they viewed things in an ethnocentric view. Where everything sort’ve revolved around them.
Society is an ever changing thing. The evolution of culture in terms of the evolution of life has a huge part in this change in society. As people come together, individually or as a group, people then create a society. In this society there are many things that make up what you call a society a SOCIETY, such as class structure, religion, materialism, technology innovation or art, knowledge/ education, subsistence, roles and structure of the family, government and division of labor. All of these factor plays a huge role as to how the society will change/evolve and therefore, as I have said, society is an ever changing process. Time has a huge part in this process, in time all of these little factors will shine in its way and that is when a society changes or evolve. For example, at the beginning when people started to become a society, people did not just wake up one morning and decided that they wanted to create a society. They begin small and build on that small factor and keep on building until there is a foundation. When that foundation, for instance, creating a differentiation between class occurs, the ball of a society will start to evolve and grow bigger and over time a Society will come to a halt and the cycle restarts all over again.
How are society related to one another, well I think that whether human or non-human, these factors comes to play. For instance, last semester I read a book on baboons. They are clearly not humans, and they go through the same cycle and yet they have a steady society within the Baboon cycle.
The Ultimate goal in society is to have Utopian society. But then again, if it was a Utopian society, life would be boring.
According to Marx, societies and culture seem to evolve by the notion of conflict as the mechanism for the change in society. I tend to agree with him in that a society will experience massive cultural transformation as it is be impacted by some sort of stimuli. If one looked to the situation in Iraq, the conflict between two governments has caused a change in the culture of the people and their thought process as well. The main stimuli invoking such change comes from the introduction of westernized thoughts and beliefs brought by the American soldiers. The soldiers have left a mark of American culture on the people of this land and region. A McDonalds, I believe, was one of the first American businesses to open in Iraq. Their have been reports of Urban music such as hip-hop entering the mind of the youth as well as other technologies and cultural practices brought by the soldiers of this country. This idea of conflict causing change in a society occurs naturally as we look to the modern day. Thus, the dynamic nature of human evolution (culture) is ongoing process brought by the contact and conflict (whether forced confrontations or peaceful synchronizations) forcing cultures to assimilate in order to meet the conditions presented to them at the time. Cultures will eventually one day become synchronized into one very unique human society or utopian society (probably not textbook utopian) in the centuries to come as a result of the diffusion of beliefs and ideals.
I agree with most of the comment above. Society will slowly evolve to create a better environment. Spence, Morgan, Tylor, and Marx share the same concept of evolutionism. They were able to build their theory upon each other. Regardless they may have their own opinion on how society should be. It is like for an example: They all share a Nikon camera, but they each own a different lens. Depending on how far the lens may zoom in and out that’s their capability of interpreting what society is.
Spenser’s theory of evolution being indeniable progress seems very typical of the times. Western scientists (social scienctists or otherwise) do not seem to have a very good track record regarding humility and the likes, so naturally Spenser (being a man of his time), regards our current evolutionary position as somehow better than before. Spenser’s theory sees evolution in a linear way; according to his ideas each hominid that sprang up was somehow better equipped for survival than the last model. Today we know this is untrue, many of the known hominids in our family tree were evolutionary dead ends, several were evolving around the same time and then some species died out. As Prof. Mullooly pointed out in class, if a global ice age were to occur homo sapiens sapiens would not naturally be very sturdy against such drastic conditions.
This theory of evolution reminds me of a model for the supposed advancement of cultures. The common misconceptions about culture “advancement” were that all cultures began in the “Lithic” stage then progressed through the “Paleoindian”, “Archaic”, “Formative”, “Classic”, and finally the “Post-Classic” stages (in that order). The defining traits of these stages were arbitrary and placed hunter gatherer cultures at a more “primitive” stage of development than western cultures.
Society is always constant. It is always changing and so always evolving in some way, but that does not mean that it is the epitome of what is called civilization. Each culture of a people is different from another and it are these differences that make them so unique from each other whether it is class structure, religion, materialism, structure of the family, government, division of labor, and speech. These are all various components in a culture that makes it so distinct from another that it is impossible to compare cultures to evaluate their progressive changes. They all change at their own pace according to what fits their need as a civilization. That is to say “civilization” should not be looked at as the most materialistically advanced region at a point in time, but merely a place where a group of people who reside as a community. From this point ideas are shared, discoveries are found, and methods are distinguished that contribute together to fit their needs forming their own distinct culture as well becoming more complex than it was before. From this point, culture tends to spread and grow as a progressive process that each generation takes a step further to discover. Perhaps, society can be a living organism as it is always there, producing , creating, and expanding, but a living organism can also die, while society can never do so.
Biologically, people have evolved over millions of years. Science has shown that as early humans began to develop larger brains they began to develop the mental capacity to learn more and associate with other hominids.
Over time, they began to gather at hearths and shelters to eat, survive, and socialize. So as brains became larger and more complex they began to migrate and expanding their social networks that led eventually to the complex social lives of modern humans.. This itself could be literal example of a living organism.
Like many of us have addressed, biological and culture adaption has always been around as a means to survival. We biologically and culturally evolve to adapt to the constant change of nature. As I see it adaption can have a different meaning for each culture and Morgan’s theory cannot be applied to all cultures. Morgan’s theory focuses on the stages of culture evolution; he proposed that there are stages in which we have evolved. There are three stages and lower to higher levels in each stage. The stages start at savagery, barbarism an end with civilization. Which I believe can be question that it was more progressivism than evolutionism. There are many cultures today that still live in areas that we would consider not civilized, this is where I cannot see Morgan’s theory being applied. I believe we are all constantly evolving, some faster than others to meet our demands and some are changing, but at significantly slower pace.
(I had a difficult time with the reading, but this is what I understood the most)
Well those readings were all quite ethnocentric and I found all of them difficult to digest. I can barely relate to any of them but I did find some ideas and concepts interesting. Herbert Spencer was a proponent of science in an era when it was more advantageous to have a religious worldview; he was a skeptic when it came to religion and this was evidenced in his somewhat sarcastic writing style.
Spencer combined evolutionary thought with economic-based ideas. He believed that societies evolved through a natural growth process which accumulated over time and was driven by competition among the people. This is where the “survival of the fittest” came into focus, along with some kind of societal force (like the invisible hand which guided people mysteriously towards beneficial activities).
Sir Edwad B. Tylor believed that “culture” was something to be possessed by groups of people in varying amounts. He based this on his understanding of a “psychic link” between all mankind. Tylor was not a fan of field research but instead he was a numbers-cruncher, an armchair evolutionist who believed that societies evolved from simple to complex, with rational thinking as its driving force.
Although it was said that Lewis Henry Morgan believed all humans could potentially “be equal”, he was not a fan of racial equality. Like other social scientists in this era, he believed those of northern European descent evolved first. He added insult to injury when he equated the brain size of Native Americans to their capacity for intelligence, but again, he was regurgitating the racist “scientific” opinion of his era.
I was amused by Morgan’s Status of Civilization categories and my mind kept wanting to put these 19th century thinkers into the same categories…from the savage early thinkers through the progression to barbaric and then, civilized.
Morgan thinks that the natural logic of the human mind determines human development and I am slightly inclined to agree with this. Where we part ways comes when he tries to link developments to a psychic bond of mankind. I believe in psychic powers but I don’t think we humans have harnassed those abilities to the point of controlling progress.
My attempts at understanding Marx and Engels were in vain.
An important aspect of living among a society is being able to share a culture. The social interactions and behaviors humans and many other animals conduct are necessary for survival. The creation of societies started on a small scale, such as the first single celled organisms on Earth and then slowly began to evolve as the environment around started to develop. In a biological sense going from the primate ancestor to the homo sapiens that walk the Earth today we began to start creating and sharing behaviors from the cultures we developed, while holding onto the survival instincts. Culture is like a living organism because we thrive on the environment around us, “survival of the fittest”. Societies have become complex and Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon’s “key observations were that physical variations occurred within a species’ that different animals had structural similarities; that life multiplied faster than its food supply, promoting a struggle for existence’ and that some life-forms become extinct.” (8) This theory contributed to Charles Darwin’s theory on Natural Selection.
Lamarck’s theory of inheritance of stuck out to me, his theory “acquired characteristics that changed conditions would place stresses on particular body parts, requiring them to be used more often or in new ways, thus growing in size and strength was proven to be a fallacy”. (8) When I first read about this, it seemed to be plausible at first glance but then I started to realize that change doesn’t happen just from disuse of something, it must be based on changes in DNA. An example would be like if a person was born with a fully functional working body and then suddenly lost or damaged a limb and couldn’t use it for the rest of their life. I know a change wouldn’t occur so abruptly, but their offspring wouldn’t be born with born with a bad limb just because the parent’s incident. But enough about those theories, I believe the ultimate goal of society is to be able to stay together as one single cohesive organism and adapt to the ever changing environment.