1001:2020:1.3.2
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+ | ====== Cultural determinism and utilitarianism ====== | ||
- | ====== Culture, the natural environment, | + | ===== Cultural determinism |
- | ===== Culture, the natural environment, | ||
Ryan Schram | Ryan Schram | ||
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Marshall Sahlins “The Original Affluent Society,” in //Stone Age Economics// (London: Routledge, 2017), 1–37, doi: | Marshall Sahlins “The Original Affluent Society,” in //Stone Age Economics// (London: Routledge, 2017), 1–37, doi: | ||
- | ===== References | + | ===== Closer to nature? |
- | Lee, Richard Borshay. “Eating Christmas in the Kalahari.” //Natural History//, December 1969. | + | ==== Contradictory stereotypes of foragers ==== |
+ | * They’re starving; and they have a naturally healthy diet | ||
+ | * They forage and hunt because they don’t know how to do anything else; and they are in harmony with nature | ||
- | Sahlins, Marshall. “The Original Affluent Society.” In //Stone Age Economics//, | + | ==== The West’s favorite prop for any debate about life ==== |
+ | |||
+ | * Hunter-gatherers are “our contemporary ancestors” (Some anthropologists say this about every indigenous society; viz. Chagnon (1983, 214)). | ||
+ | |||
+ | In other words, some people are closer to nature, to human nature, and to human origins. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Why do people want to believe that foragers are closer to nature? ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | On the one hand it is true that for about 90–95% of human history, people lived in small, mobile societies and foraged, hunted, and gathered. Sedentary horticulture is very recent. | ||
+ | |||
+ | On the other hand, it is not true that some lucky people suddenly learned how to grow crops and said, hey, let’s become sedentary and eat potatoes forever. | ||
+ | |||
+ | If we define foragers negatively, i.e. people who don’t grow crops, we assume they lack something they need. Foraging societies can be very different from each other, and highly adaptable. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Utility ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | There is a theory of human life which starts from the position that all people are rational maximizers of utility. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * People always perform means–ends calculations on every choice | ||
+ | * Everything has a utility. People want different things, but they can figure out how useful each thing is for them and compare them | ||
+ | |||
+ | If a foraging society learned they could produce more calories staying in one place growing potatoes, then, they should stop doing foraging and start doing potato-growing, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Utility maximization supports a theory of technological progress ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | The theory that all people are rational actors leads to the idea that life is a series of practical problems and people are always trying to solve them in more efficient ways. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== There is another practical solution to subsistence ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | According to Sahlins ([1972] 2017), foraging societies follow a “Zen road to affluence” [p. 2] | ||
+ | |||
+ | Rather than worry about how to meet unlimited needs with few means, they decide to define their needs differently and find that their means are more than enough. | ||
+ | |||
+ | From the outside, foragers appear to be poor because they lack the things that observers have. | ||
+ | |||
+ | But foragers tend to work less hours, and are still well fed and (except for epidemics introduced by foreigners) have historically had long lives. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== People do seek practical solutions, but that doesn’t mean every technology is always an improvement ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Foragers do adopt new technologies, | ||
+ | * Judgments about the level of technological progress are often biased | ||
+ | * Ester Boserup: female farming systems and male farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa (Boserup [1970] 2007) | ||
+ | * The move from female systems to male systems deprived women of power, and confined them to the domestic household | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== The move to sedentary horticulture may have social causes, not practical ones ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | Many foraging and horticultural societies are like people of /ai/ai described by Lee | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Being wealthy is not worth it, because everyone should be equal. | ||
+ | * Having a lot or having a little is luck you should share with others. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Sedentary horticulturalists can produce greater quantities of a few domestic crops, and generally far more than anyone needs or could even eat. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Sahlins argues that the impetus to adopt this technology—and give up foraging knowledge and technology—was social in origin | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Many sedentary horticulturalists use their food surpluses as gifts and tributes in large feasts | ||
+ | * They adopt a mode of subsistence in which they always need to work more, not to eat well, but to participate in social institutions that serve a political purpose | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Is life rational? (A quiz question with a debatable answer) ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | Where does it make sense to assume that people make means–ends calculations to decide what to do? | ||
+ | |||
+ | Go to Canvas, and look for the quiz question for today. | ||
+ | |||
+ | This question has an answer that Ryan thinks is “right, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ## References | ||
+ | |||
+ | Boserup, Ester. (1970) 2007. //Woman’s Role in Economic Development// | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | Chagnon, Napolean. 1983. // | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | Lee, Richard Borshay. 1969. “Eating Christmas in the Kalahari.” //Natural History//, December 1969. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | Sahlins, Marshall. (1972) 2017. “The Original Affluent Society.” In //Stone Age Economics//, | ||
1001/2020/1.3.2.txt · Last modified: 2020/03/08 21:28 by Ryan Schram (admin)