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Napoleon Chagnon, Alternative Writers, and the Ivory Tower Elitist Conspiracy

3/10/2013

31 Comments

 
This past week eSkeptic published an interesting interview with Napoleon Chagnon, an American anthropologist who became world famous for his intensive study of the Yanomamö, an Amazonian tribe. His findings were published in a series of books, beginning with Yanomamö: The Fierce People (1968) and several widely-seen documentary films done in conjunction with Tim Asch. His 1968 book is the bestselling anthropological text of all time and is a standard text in many classrooms.

Chagnon experienced controversy in his career, first when he was accused of sparking violence among the Yanomamö by providing some members of the tribe with Western weapons, and again when in 2000 he was accused of sparking a devastating measles epidemic among the Yanomamö. A report from the American Anthropological Association in 2002 exonerated Chagnon of the measles charges but accused him of providing negative representations of the tribe and failed to obtain proper consent for his studies. The AAA rescinded its report in 2005 after finding serious errors in its methodology.

In his interview with Skeptic’s Frank Miele, Chagnon accused organized academia of dogmatism and unwillingness in the 1970s and 1980s to accept Chagnon’s findings that the Yanomamö engaged in warfare because of an ideological predisposition to seeing Native peoples as pacific:

Well, I didn’t realize until I began committing these heresies, how entrenched that orthodoxy was. […] And my descriptions apparently annoyed my colleagues that some of them began to publish statements “correcting” me.

Specifically, other anthropologists resisted the idea that any group would fight for control of females instead of material resources. Part of the reluctance was due to a reaction against colonial-era anthropology’s depiction of native peoples as sub-human, violent savages, as well as the then-dominant anti-colonial ideology that idealized native peoples. However, over the next several years, additional research and new arguments led to the widespread acceptance of the idea that native peoples could be and often were quite violent.

I’m not quite sure how that differs from normal academic debate, whereby a new idea is proposed, opposing views are presented, and, eventually, a consensus emerges. Chagnon was of course right that Native peoples engaged in violence, and a similar resistance occurred when the first evidence of cannibalism among the ancient inhabitants of the southwestern United States emerged. In both cases, though, evidence overturned old ideas, and the consensus changed.

But Chagnon raised a much more interesting point that I think is worth highlighting. He suggested that academic anthropologists were blind to the idea of men fighting over women because most came from an elite background where such fighting does not occur:

It may be that a number of cultural anthropologists come from a general class of the American public that goes to private high schools and elite colleges and universities and ends up teaching in major universities. Not enough of them have spent time in pool halls and bars, as maybe you and I have, so they haven’t anything called common sense. […] [One critic wrote that] Chagnon grew up in a very poor community and he has rather lower-class tastes because he drinks beer and he hunts.

I can’t help but think of how Chagnon’s points exactly parallel the anti-elitism of Scott Wolter and of Ancient Aliens, forever accusing academics of blindly pronouncing Truth from their sequestered ivory towers. Chagnon specifically accused a few individual anthropologists of treating him as déclassé, but his complaint seems to be about interpersonal relationships, not scholarly output. After all, Chagnon’s work is widely used in university classrooms, indicating that most anthropologists see it as valuable and largely correct. It reads to me like Chagnon—for understandable reasons—has elevated the personal to the political.

I’ve met quite a few archaeologists and anthropologists, and I don’t know that I’ve met any elitists who’ve never set foot in a bar, but I do know that by the time one becomes a tenured professor, one has entered a well-paying, relatively comfortable lifestyle and can—sometimes unintentionally—absorb the values of the socioeconomic class of one’s university peers. Additionally, students who study anthropology or archaeology today are typically those who come from privileged backgrounds because such studies fall under the liberal arts (and thus are not “practical”) and open primarily to those whose immediate concerns are not financial. Increasingly, many are also political activists who come to the discipline to support native cultures and native rights movements.

This is a difficult question because it’s one that plays directly into the views of “alternative” writers and TV hosts. To what extent are the academic elite separate and apart from the “lower classes”? To what extent are they to be distrusted because of it? Part of the appeal of America Unearthed is Scott Wolter’s quest to unmask academia as a dogmatic, blinkered conspiracy of out-of-touch elites. Similar to Chagnon, Wolter also accuses specific academics of treating him as a dilettante and a low-class ruffian, paradoxically reinforcing his conviction in his own correctness. Ancient astronaut writers like Erich von Däniken have made the same charges about their work. But Chagnon had decades of careful, scientific fieldwork, while alternative writers have slapdash “theories” cobbled together from scraps of real scholars’ work.

That, I think, is the essential point. In the end, even the most elitist academics have a respect for the scientific method and can be convinced by scientific arguments. Even if some academics have blinders derived from ethnocentrism, socioeconomic status, or ideology, academia is not homogenous and there is no one dogma enforced from on high. The diversity of views, in practice, pushes better ideas forward and dismantles bad arguments. This doesn’t happen instantly—nor could it, for we don’t know what the better ideas are until they’ve been disputed and interrogated—but, over time, it happens.

So here’s the difference: Anthropologists and archaeologists think a great deal about how ethnocentrism can affect their science, and they also consider the ethical implications of their work, and its effects. You may not agree with the conclusions, but they do think about it. When was the last time you hear alternative thinkers seriously consider their own cultural or ideological biases or its effects on their work? 

31 Comments
Cathleen Anderson
3/10/2013 05:56:29 am

I think you hit the nail on the head there, as it were. Scientific method is really important as is critical thinking.

Reply
Survival International link
3/15/2013 04:50:58 am

Survival International has compiled a list of materials from experts, anthropologists and the Yanomami themselves on the Chagnon debate, and how Chagnon's work has been disastrous for the tribe.

Visit http://www.survivalinternational.org/articles/3272 for statements from Davi Yanomami, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Philippe Descola and Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, and an open letter signed by over a dozen anthropologists who have worked for years with the Yanomami and who 'disagree with Napoleon Chagnon's public characterisation of the Yanomami as a fierce, violent and archaic people.'

Reply
Tara Jordan
3/10/2013 08:59:14 am


Reminds me the controvery over Claude Lévi-Strauss "Tristes Tropiques" back in mid 50`s.There is so much ideological, political,philosophical preconditions attached to anthropology,but field work in ethno-anthropology precisely requires a total absence of ethical & moral conditioning.

Reply
Coridan Miller
3/11/2013 10:00:40 am

A lot of information put out there about Amerindians could be considered racist, even when put out by someone who puts them in positive light. Whenever it is ignored that they are human like everyone else and you can not generalize thousands of cultures over ten thousand years spread across two continents!

Reply
Gunn Sinclair link
3/11/2013 04:15:47 pm

"The diversity of views, in practice, pushes better ideas forward and dismantles bad arguments. This doesn’t happen instantly—nor could it, for we don’t know what the better ideas are until they’ve been disputed and interrogated—but, over time, it happens." - Jason

Such is the case with mid-North American stonehole rocks. We have diverse views, and bad views are slowly being dismantled, right before our very eyes. We don't know what the better ideas are until we get our noses right directly into an aged, triangulated stonehole, but over time that may happen...even with our good host here. Up until now, it looks like he has purposely chosen to ignor the real evidence of aged, triangulated stoneholes in the MN and SD areas. Why? Well, maybe it's because Scott Wolter believes the stoneholes are neither 19th century blasting holes, nor mooring stone holes...so this is a viewpoint to be avoided. Though I don't agree with Mr. Wolter about many things, I believe he deserves credit for understanding these stoneholes better than sherm or Jason. My viewpoint happens to be the same, but it is based on a lot of research and personal in-field inquiry, just as it was with Mr. Wolter. Purposely ignoring the stoneholes won't make them go away or won't turn them into modern 19th century blasting holes, and calling them mooring stones won't make them into mooring stones. Hopefully, enough said on that.

Throughout history, mankind has been absolutely savage to one another, all across earth. It is no different with people who came to ancient America, no matter when. Torture and displacement of others have been the rule most of the time, from the very earliest. The Native Americans were no better or worse than their European counterparts, inasfar as expanding territories, or stealing and ravaging. Let's not pretent that Native Americans were gentle to their neighbors any more than any other curtures. All humans have the same natural condition of being born degenerates, which is why we need to be...what...born again, from the flesh world to the spirit world? We are all naturally sinful in the flesh world and need to be redeemed to a higher standard. Anyone who chooses to can be redeemed to a higher standard, even here on this blog, as we've seen.

Reply
Christopher Randolph
3/11/2013 04:38:05 pm

"Throughout history, mankind has been absolutely savage to one another, all across earth.... The Native Americans were no better or worse than their European counterparts, inasfar as expanding territories, or stealing and ravaging. Let's not pretent that Native Americans were gentle to their neighbors any more than any other curtures."

You really need to take your apologist racist nonsense off to Stormfront or whatever.

Disadvantaged European whites were welcomed into - and much preferred - living among native peoples to returning to "civilization."

http://www.shsu.edu/~jll004/colonial_summer09/whiteindians.pdf

As reviewed ad nauseum, the population of the Americas had a 400 year program of genocide visited upon them which most mainstream historians say was unparalleled in human history.



"We are all naturally sinful in the flesh world..."

Here it comes... everybody's cultures are equally bad, except oh that's right yours happens to have The Answer... .

The more you type the more I'm convinced that that your ancient visitors fever dream is driven by mythology which comforts your racial and religious proclivities in an increasingly confusing world. You're not a happy clown, you're one of those weeping / singing arias in Italian types of clowns.

Let's review how Christianity - which the Arawaks were ignorant of along with 'arms'- guided the hand of Columbus:

"A quote from Columbus’ own journal describes his initial encounter with the peoples of the West Indies (the Arawaks). Columbus states, “…they do not bear arms, and do not know them…They would make fine servants…With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.” Upon his return to Spain, Columbus freely declared to the Spanish crown that he would return from another journey with, “as much gold as they need…and as many slaves as they ask…Thus the eternal God, our Lord, gives victory to those who follow His way over apparent impossibilities.”

"In 1495 1,500 Arawak were rounded up and 500 loaded onto ships. 200 of those died on route to Spain, and Columbus later wrote: “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.”"

So the people who didn't know Jesus also didn't know swords. The people who did know Jesus the moment they encountered the former started killing them, raping them enslaving them and demanding gold from them. In the name of the Holy Trinity.

This is your "higher standard?" What might your lower standard look like?

Reply
Tara Jordan
3/11/2013 05:43:34 pm

"You really need to take your apologist racist nonsense off to Stormfront or whatever....".And you Christopher Randolph,really need to control your emotions. You have the right to disagree & disapprove with particular comments,but systematically resorting to accusation of racism,is both disgraceful & immature.

Christopher Randolph
3/11/2013 06:52:47 pm

Tara -

So far as I'm concerned and have been concerned for nearly three decades, the most mature thing that I can do as a white American is call out other white Americans on their weird racial baggage.

"Gunn Sinclair" - a pseudonym selected to conjure a crusader image - is here once again clearly making apologies and excuses for genocide. And doesn't even stop there, but continues as plainly laid out to suggest that the perpetrators of same are the bearers of a "higher standard."

This is the mentality which drives people - in spite of all evidence to the contrary - to hold a belief in ancient American land claims by white crusaders. Working backward from there, and from nowhere else, these beliefs become at least coherent if not true.

Do you have anything concrete with which to counter my points, aside from the fact you don't like me making them? What I've also noticed since the '80s is that when people are holding an argument bag filled with nothing they start focusing on the manner in which things are said instead of their substance.

Coridan Miller
3/11/2013 10:53:51 pm

Wow are you way off. Not only am I not racist, I am an Indianphile and would likely have been one of those people to run off from the puritans and joined the natives. My point was only that the people who want to paint the image of every tribe as tree-hugging hippies are just as racist and condescending as those who would paint them all as savages.

Christopher Randolph
3/12/2013 05:18:40 am

Cordian -

Unless you're posting under two names I wasn't actually aiming any comment at you.

Tara Jordan
3/12/2013 01:28:52 am

Christopher.Thank you for your feedback. Actually I do have few point to make.

1)Although I am not a US citizen,I am fully aware of the inherently racist & xenophobic,jingoistic nature of American society, this is not an issue.I do consider racism & any other expressions of racial,religious,ethnic discrimination to be the product of ignorance, extreme prejudice & intellectual poverty.I don't even feel obliged to mention that I am not racist,there is no ambiguity whatsoever.

2)I do not know who this "Gunn Sinclair" character is,& basically I disagree with 99% of what he says.I do find myself in a difficult position,since I do agree with you on many points(having read most of your posts on this blog). You are well educated & knows what you are talking about.I guess we have a fundamental disagreement which is more philosophical than political or ideological,regarding the very nature of man.

3)Western cultures & civilizations have an extensive history of racism,bigotry & discrimination,but non Western societies are not immune from cruelty,violence & barbarism towards each others.The only difference being,that Western civilizations because of their technological developments & achievements could rely from an early age, on a quasi industrial capacity to butcher,discriminate & enslave "less developed" societies.

This is precisely because I see you as extremely well educated that I consider unfortunate, the fact that you have to rely on accusation of racism, to make your point.Gunn Sinclair could be racist, but so far I haven't read anything that allows me to define him as such.

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Christopher Randolph
3/12/2013 05:16:45 am

"non Western societies are not immune from cruelty,violence & barbarism towards each others."

I've never said anything to the contrary.

A few points of my own:

- Let's stop pretending that A) the odd temporary state of warfare between a couple of Indian groups is the equal of B) 400 years of sustained genocide (including overt efforts to destroy language and culture and including overt and knowing white supremacy) with the express intent to clear two continents while claiming it's the will of God.

- You have yet to deal with the central substance of my post(s), that 'Gunn Sinclair' is making overt connections between himself and crusader figures while claiming same settled this country and made land claims, all of which he believes to be divinely guided by the 'higher standard' of the superior Christian God.

- I'll append that as it turns out some native groups such as the Arawak were in fact pacifist societies of a sort pretty well unknown in Europe. They were enslaved, tortured and destroyed.

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tubby
3/12/2013 07:23:52 am

I'd go so far as to suggest that even sustained warfare between two Indian groups is not equivalent to 400 years of genocide.

Gunn Sinclair link
3/12/2013 04:52:40 am

I am enjoying this blog. Well, for six decades now, I have been personally witnessing and experiencing what it is like to be a white person in America. "I was born a poor white child," having a hole in my mattress. I could play "otter" during the day and stuff a blanket into the hole to keep from falling through at night. Across from my home was a pickle field. Little kids were working with their parents and I went to play with them, but they couldn't play. Afterwards, my father told me not to go to play with them again. He was a racist from Florida.

I joined the US Army ten days after I turned seventeen, and I went to S. Korea. I lived and bunked with blacks and Koreans and other races. I even knew a few Canadians. I am presently married to a S. Korean for over thirty years and I have three beautiful mixed-blood children and four beautiful mixed-blood grandchildren.

I simply have no illusions when it comes to the condition of man. I have a degree in criminal/social justice, and I worked in a state medium-security prison for several years. I worked and interacted in a very professional manner with persons of all races. At night, I ran a calm dorm known for experiencing very few fights. I was respected as a white man. Here in this blog I am not respected as a white man, or as a Christian. I watch the history channels like so many of you. We see together how wretched humanity is...we see the history of a depraved species. Who can deny it?

I'm glad someone brought up the point of how a group of people using the rune hooked x character would have made it to Kensington. If I may continue the person's travels: From Lake Superior, to the St. Croix River, flowing southward to join the Mississippi, but then backing up a short distance to the Minnesota River, then up the Chippewa River, to within roughtly three miles of Runestone Hill. All by faering, except for that last hike. Using knowledge from existing maps, and also using an astrolobe, compass and knowledge from the stars would have enabled a travel-savvy group access to the center of North America. We here in MN see evidences all around us, but nothing has provenance, unfortunately. Not only are there many stoneholes chiseled into rocks to define territory ownership, but there are many medieval-era iron weapons too, which can be seen at the Runestone Museum in Alexandria, where the runestone is kept.

To be skeptical is one thing, but to be unimaginative or purposely unseeing is another. I make no apoligies for being a white person who believes that other white people came to MN in medieval times to get away and start over. Sometimes I feel like getting away and starting over myself.

By the way, I studied Native American history and culture around the Great Lakes when one had to go to the library to so so. Sault Ste. Marie, MI had some great, early books. I recall that a tribe or nation of Native Americans living north of the area had higher standards than those around them...they killed their enemies right away, not believing in torture. A good lesson for George W. Bush, I reckon. (Maybe I can throw someone off with a signal of humor.)

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Christopher Randolph
3/12/2013 05:35:11 am

I was also born a poor white child. I'm not only the first male in my family to graduate from college but the first to graduate from high school. No one is making a case that all white people have easy lives nor any other strawman argument you'd like.

I didn't realize that the Army was letting people pick their own living arrangements, and you're far from the first white guy to fancy an East Asian lady. If you'd like to see some extremely advanced racist argument that "the Koreans are alright" - honorary whites you might say - I'd suggest checking out the Lyndon Larouche stuff. He and his followers have determined that the two non-jungle musics which don't disturb the brain are classical European and classical Korean, both of which have middle C registering at the 'correct' range of cycles. I'm not making this up.

Here's a little sample:

http://www.schillerinstitute.org/fid_91-96/962_ksw_korea_lyric.html

By 'junk music' they of course are referring to the jungle rhythms of the African, and by extension pretty much all American popular music. 'Lower standard', you see.

Even the most formal racist groups have elaborate pecking orders of more and less 'civilized' and 'acceptable' groups, with equally elaborate justifications.

It's pathetic that you come on here with the express intent support a show that belittles and completely ignores (except to make threatening) - really commits a sort of archeological 'genocide' - against the native peoples of this continent, make excuses for how really, heck, we've all made mistakes so in perspective really the genocide wasn't all that bad, and top it off with your 'higher standard' nonsense that the current survivors on this continent would be better off following the 'higher standard' of your religion / culture...

... and then back away from what all of that clearly means when called on it.

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Gunn Sinclair link
3/12/2013 06:58:18 am

Opher, I thought I was making some progress with you, but I guess not. Apparently, you want that I should have been born black, or Native American. I cannot change my skin color.

If you don't mind my saying so, you come across here in the blog as possibly being somewhat deranged...or at least very confused about race relations. You seem to see a white racist behind every tree. You keep trying to figure me out, but so far you've been way off base. I hope you haven't been drinking and then going to this blog, because something doesn't seem quite right with you.

Are you running from a perceived angry white God? Do you feel guilty for being so white so long? Why are you attacking white people? Do you secretly hate yourself for not being a person of color? What is making this white demon rise up within yourself, Opher?

Here's a new paragraph for you: Am I the only Christian who visits this site? There is a pervasive sense of un-Godliness here on the blog. When I said you appeared to be ungrateful, before, it wasn't because I thought you didn't appreciate me or my input...no, Opher, I was referring to your apparent lack of respect for or gratitude for either God, or your country. I will not comment further with you now, remembering the lesson about casting pearls before swine...just an illustration, I'm not calling you a pig, though I can see how you might take it that way.

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Christopher Randolph
3/12/2013 07:20:37 am

Boo hoo persecution complex boo hoo. A white Christian American can't catch a break in this wicked old world. It's as if you're trying to prove everything every skeptic on this blog says about the modern social origins of your fantasy alternative history.

No one feels guilty for being white and no one ever said you should. You have a lion and a tin man to go with that strawman? What you need to stop doing is making excuses for terrible actions by people who happened to be white and stop projecting historical fantasies for which there's no evidence. You also need to stop doing so on a site dedicated to archeology, particularly if others' insistence on evidence is offensive to you.

It's amazing, the more evidence there is for white people having done something in North America the less you want to talk about it, and vice versa.

I'm not afraid of God because I don't believe in God; many of God's followers however do frighten me and not without some well documented justification.

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Jason Colavito link
3/12/2013 07:39:21 am

I appreciate the enthusiasm on display in the exchange between Gunn and Christopher, but I don't think this discussion of personal beliefs, religious ideology, and alleged racism is going anywhere. I'd like to ask you guys to take your personal disagreement elsewhere if you'd like to debate one another. Otherwise, let's try to keep the comments related to the blog posts rather than one another. Thanks in advance.

Gunn Sinclair link
3/12/2013 10:39:01 am

A little late, Jason. I already said I wouldn't communicate with him further. You should have jumped in earlier when this person was making accusations of racism, and just attacking as usual. Like I said before in my opening comments, in my opinion, you run a bad blog. Also, you like to think you are open-minded, but you cannot tell the blog audience that you've looked at the aged, triangulated stoneholes I presented, so then, in effect, you're still standing by your position on these hundreds of stoneholes being leftovers from 19th century blasting. I don't think you're very responsible to the art of enquiry...you obviously cannot admit that the stoneholes were for another purpose other than blasting, just as sherm couldn't stop labeling them mooring stone holes. Unless you edit out comments from this blog, people in the future will see how unfair you are in how you run the blog. You let go people who should be chastised, and chastise some who only protect their dignity here. You and your blog guests seem to have the same God-less view as Scott Wolter, the man you, Jason, relentlessly pursue. Just remember this, Scott knows more about stoneholes than you. He kept up his own personal inquiry until he understood them. You refuse to do that, out of pride I guess. I wish you had that degree of pride in how you run your future blog. I'm quite finished now with all of you.

If the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom...what does that make some here?

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Byron DeLear
3/12/2013 01:18:41 pm

What's the Hallmark Emporium? (Gunn's website link)

When people start saying this race did this, is way worse than this other race, and fixate on making these racial arguments, pitting one race over another in the mind, or better than, or worse than, or ‘dispassionately cruel’ --whatever—then doesn’t that start to become its own racial bias and depart from history and get into, um, racism? Right? Reductio…

Humankind lived in a different universe in the not-so-distant past, Pinker's History of Violence essay opens with the story of people taking glee from carbonized cats, or rather, what happens when you carbonize a cat... a mere century ago. The value of life and its preservation is increasing in modernity, meaning we are learning to value individual rights and the pursuit of justice and equality -- this has had a very real impact on the ethics (or lack of) in war and peace. I think its okay to look at modern civilization of the last few centuries and attempt to divine its negative capacity for industrialized levels of carnage --- but making it all a racial narrative avoids the underlying commonality and universal characteristics of our species. Humans are capable of great evil and great good. I'm sure you've all seen this, but its good re-watch every now and again: http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/imperial-history.html

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Christopher Randolph
3/12/2013 04:29:44 pm

"The value of life and its preservation is increasing in modernity, meaning we are learning to value individual rights and the pursuit of justice and equality.."

Is it and are we? You might like to do a search on phrases such as "due process" and "drone strike", perhaps in tandem. I don't think that certain groups of people who don't read English and don't have internet access would, if polled, have the highest estimations of our current regard for human life and individual rights. Plus ca change...

Neither I nor anyone else here to my recollection has made any claim that white people are worse individuals than other groups either now or in the past. I am a 'white' person.

Rather what I do point out is that given the context of the particularly miserable record of European Americans in this continent one can't ignore that record when discussing the best-rated show in years (which purports to be) about North American archeology and yet either systemically ignores or discredits the Native American.

I don't think that's reducing things to a racial narrative. That's following the logic trail of someone else's racial narrative. The group delusions of 'alternative' history discussed on this blog and elsewhere are restricted to some very specific demographics of people with shared (or perceived shared) heritage, and there isn't going to be any understanding of that without examining those demographics. Jason did a good job of following the money trail on this on another post about this sort of data collected by H2's advertising sales bean counters.

It happens some of us share that same heritage and don't fall into the same traps, thus we might well ask what it is about our worldviews which lead us to skepticism on the same subject. AU itself is too stupid to consider at face value.

There isn't much sense in trying to understand the big picture of AU outside of these considerations because then we're just left with people who are terrible at science, math, logic and the like. There are a lot of ways to be terrible at science, math, logic and the like which won't always lead one to 'find evidence' of Europeans in America centuries too early.

Very few chupacabras are detected in Sweden. Does this tell us about the chupacabra or about the people who believe in same?

Incidentally the fact this has played out on a Chagnon thread has its own level of accidental appropriateness.

I don't if anyone has seen this, anthropologist Jonathan Marks points out that Chagnon's methodology was miserable, and then the interpretation of others about his work makes things even worse:

http://anthropomics.blogspot.com/2013/02/meet-joe-science.html

It's worth any interview with anthropologist Marshall Sahlins, who's resigning from in protest from the NAS in reaction to the election of Chagnon. From him we get this quote from Professor Eduardo Viveiros de Castro in Brazil:

"Chagnon’s writings on the Yanomami of Amazonia have contributed powerfully to reinforce the worst prejudices against this indigenous people, who certainly do not need the kind of stereotyping pseudo-scientific anthropology Chagnon has chosen to pursue at their cost. The Yanomami are anything but the nasty, callous sociobiological robots Chagnon makes them look – projecting, in all likelihood, his perception of his own society (or personality) onto the Yanomami. They are an indigenous people who have managed, against all odds, to survive in their traditional ways in an Amazonia increasingly threatened by social and environmental destruction. Their culture is original, robust and inventive; their society is infinitely less “violent” than Brazilian or American societies.

Virtually all anthropologists who have worked with the Yanomami, many of them with far larger field experience with this people than Chagnon, find his research methods objectionable (to put it mildly) and his ethnographic characterizations fantastic. Chagnon’s election to the NAS does not do honor to American science nor to anthropology as a discipline, and it also bodes ill to the Yanomami. As far as I am concerned, I deem Chagnon an enemy of Amazonian Indians. I can only thank Prof. Sahlins for his courageous and firm position in support of the Yanomami and of anthropological science.”

Gunn Sinclair link
3/13/2013 04:55:04 am

BYRON: I was working on the site. Its back up. I hope you enjoy the rare photos of the so-called Viking Altar Rock; I include close-ups of obviously aged, triangular stoneholes, which Jason refuses to be educated about, I guess because it would call into question whether or not Europeans did in fact come to America before Columbus. These stoneholes are associated with the Kensington Runestone, circa 14th century. Wouldn't it be terrible for this blog if Wolter were right about something!

Byron DeLear
3/13/2013 03:51:38 am

Christopher please stop throwing boomerangs.

“do a search on phrases such as "due process" and "drone strike", perhaps in tandem. I don't think that certain groups of people who don't read English and don't have internet access would, if polled, have the highest estimations of our current regard for human life and individual rights.”

Instead of just spouting what you imagine people would assert in a poll—read my comment a little closer and you might find the academic sources for my statement: “The value of life and its preservation is increasing in modernity.”

Polling people’s opinions is hardly an objective anthropological measure of social progress or lack thereof. But for someone forwarding an emotional agenda, it’s easy to lean and rely on romantic preconceptions and comfortable stereotypes to make a point instead of doing the work. Centuries of noble savage fallacy come to mind.

Debunking the romantic notion of the noble savage illuminates the fact—contrary to your “poll of non-English speaking people”—that, yes, we are becoming more evolved, enlightened and less violent; drones, signing statements and Habeas notwithstanding.

Stephen Pinker has been studying this for years. I mentioned his “History of Violence” essay he wrote for the Edge.

To wit, “In the decade of Darfur and Iraq, and shortly after the century of Stalin, Hitler, and Mao, the claim that violence has been diminishing may seem somewhere between hallucinatory and obscene. Yet recent studies that seek to quantify the historical ebb and flow of violence point to exactly that conclusion.

Some of the evidence has been under our nose all along. Conventional history has long shown that, in many ways, we have been getting kinder and gentler. Cruelty as entertainment, human sacrifice to indulge superstition, slavery as a labor-saving device, conquest as the mission statement of government, genocide as a means of acquiring real estate, torture and mutilation as routine punishment, the death penalty for misdemeanors and differences of opinion, assassination as the mechanism of political succession, rape as the spoils of war, pogroms as outlets for frustration, homicide as the major form of conflict resolution—all were unexceptionable features of life for most of human history. But, today, they are rare to nonexistent in the West, far less common elsewhere than they used to be, concealed when they do occur, and widely condemned when they are brought to light.”

To be sure, Pinker has his proponents and detractors, but Christopher, to utilize a style of criticism you've repeatedly leveled at others here, how can you begin to equate “drone strikes” and “due process” to the wholesale sacking of entire cities, nay, even nations; rampant slavery, torture and cruelty, all as commonplace norms for most of human history?

There is a progressive arrow of time, its evolution after all.

Three years ago I visited this progressive arrow of time in a piece on the raging health care debate, making the argument that the blessings of science and modern medicine, in an society concerned with equitability, could never be largely enjoyed by elites. And that health care in the United States, as a form of universal social insurance, would follow many of the other aspects of social progress that’s occurred in the West. The amplification of universal values toward a kinder and gentler society is a trend worth examining when attempting to divine whether social progress is real or just another romantic notion in itself.

“But where is all this headed? Can we glean from history and the march of cultural progress what may be inevitable? Maybe.

Examining Western democracy’s social trends over the last 200 years of industrialization might shed some light on what direction our health care system will eventually go.

Trend: public services have emerged and expanded coverage providing access for most citizens.

• Public education established throughout the nation by the late 1800s. Strictly private school education became our current private / public mixed system.
• Public utilities moved from non-existence to widespread proliferation and availability with government subsidies and support for lower income wage earners.
• Public transportation advanced to greater penetration throughout all modern democracies, with significant governmental support for affordability and availability.
• Social Security modern social insurance, income maintenance and social protection programs adopted in all modern democracies.
• Capital punishment shifted from universal practice to moratoriums on death penalty by nearly all modern democracies.
• Environmental protections established to safeguard nature for future generations, protect human health and preserve the commonwealth.
• Emergency services expanded from vo

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Christopher Randolph
3/13/2013 04:49:12 am

Byron -

I've read the Pinker essay and I'm not impressed. In fact I thought it was about the most ignorant, childish and self-congratulatory essay anyone has written to gain attention in a very long time; it recalls Fukuyama's "End of History." We're supposed to stagger backward in awe at these Big Thinkers looking at the Big Picture. I just stagger backward.

I did not literally mean "take a poll" and then use that as form of scientific device. What I meant was that if you asked a Yemeni or a Pakistani what our commitment to human life was you'd likely get a very different answer than at a luncheon at the Kennedy School of Government. What I meant was the people on the receiving end of violence don't appear to have been consulted.

"yes, we are becoming more evolved, enlightened and less violent; drones, signing statements and Habeas notwithstanding"

Aside from what's actually happening, you mean? If we simply ignore anything that doesn't conform to the model, the model works? Fantastic. I'll append that those are minor counterexamples and not an exhaustive list. How anyone takes in the available information and spits back out that there's more commitment now than ever to human rights is well beyond my understanding (of course a good number of academics have interesting definitions of both "human" and "rights" as individual words...)

This isn't the time or place for an examination of US foreign policy (not picking on the US; I start there as the familiar example, but we're also the world's leading exporter of weapons, the only global power and most of the people reading are American), but Pinker got where he got by pretty much ignoring that, and ignoring the backlash.

If what happened to Iraq and Libya (and the attempt in Venezuela) wasn't sacking and looting I don't know what is. Or Iraq going into Kuwait, A person has to be wearing deliberate blinders not to realize why some powers take interest in certain places. We want their stuff, and we're willing to use force to get it.

You're right, people don't sack cities any longer... they go for entire countries. Invaders can lean more on technology now to reduce their own casualties; how does that mean invaders are less violent? We just don't need guys in helmets and ladders in long boats going over a wall to take your stuff any longer. Over the past 15 years alone this country alone has directly killed people in about 10 countries on at least three continents (with countering violence from people on the other sides) and backed other violent actions in at least a dozen more. The Romans or Genghis Khan couldn't hope to do more. It happens now that one can fly to one's target instead of riding horses and taking out the people in between here and there along the way (in part as a means of resupply). That doesn't mean people are less violent, it simply means that technology allows more precision, cheaper and more immediate violence.

One could also use 9/11 as an example of same. Now humans pick fights with people half a world away, and the opportunities and options for same in the modern world don't need to (or can't) involve an armada or a horde any longer.

Using the US as an example once again, we've officially reintroduced torture as a social tool. Now instead of witnessing it in person one can watch a Hollywood movie or popular TV show in which torture is not only effective but 'necessary.' Just a few decades ago I don't know if that would have flown.

It's hard to rape someone with a bomber or a drone but I'm sure someone is working on it. If you think slavery is disappearing you might want to look into how you got your chocolate or for that matter iPhone.

Pinker and Fukuyama both have these notions of "the West" leading the world down an inevitable path to a happy place, and seem to believe that this is both permanent and inevitable, no backsliding and so forth. I say poppycock.

The commitment to provision of healthcare is not something that is necessarily western-driven nor inevitable. There isn't time to go into this in detail (if we must we can) but again this seems the sort of statement one makes deliberately ignoring the evidence within one's own society.

It's weird that you mention public education at the exact time we're dismantling it. I happen to live in Philadelphia, where 27 (more!) schools are facing closure this September as of last week, and where private institutions - for profit ones in many cases - have already overtaken 40% of the student population who used to attend the public schools. My wife is a public school teacher.

The commitment to public schooling (in our society, again not to pick on the US but it's what we know best) is in full retreat. It's extremely obvious on a daily basis that my wife is given "tests" for the school which are loaded in the direction of the school "failing," as a pretext for getting rid of same. The schools replacing the public schools face none of these "tests" nor the

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Christopher Randolph
3/13/2013 04:58:04 am

[cont.] ... that my wife is given "tests" for the school which are loaded in the direction of the school "failing," as a pretext for getting rid of same. The schools replacing the public schools face none of these "tests" nor their consequences. In several years there won't be many public schools left at this rate (one company spokesman stated directly that their aim is 100% of Phila. schools). No one would have predicted this a couple of decades ago, but here we are. There's a huge, well-funded movement afoot to end public schools, and they're winning, and this is the moment we pick to congratulate humanity/the West for having them..?

Likewise civil institutions such as the post office are being dismantled; you might notice that societies as diverse as the US and Russia and restructuring public retirement funds and raising collection ages etc. In the US SS contribution was just slashed for a few years, and lo and behold this places the fund "in trouble" and furthers the argument to privatize. Commitments to these forms of social security might well have peaked a few decades ago.

Again those are small counterexamples and not meant to be exhaustive. Usually when someone attempts to propose a Big Idea that's going to neatly sew things up for the social sciences, it's simple enough to poke very deflating holes in it... provided one wants to.

Byron DeLear
3/13/2013 07:52:21 am

Christopher, IMHO, your counter examples are in the weeds, you're not seeing the forest for the trees. Despite millions spent promoting vouchers, etc. public schools will not end nor be "dismantled." Public schooling is not in “full retreat”, as you state. And when you make overreaching statements like that it devalues any of your other valid points. Again you are in the weeds on public education, but I do commend your wife for being a teacher; I often jokingly said when running for U.S. House the first law I would propose is having all teachers and lawyers swap salaries (always got a laugh).

You're still missing my point about the march of cultural progress for our species—not USA USA, but human culture at large. My comments here were not USA-centric statements regarding enlightenment (although our nation has had many societal innovations to her credit) nor the growth of empathy on an institutional level (virtually nonexistent is the recent past) springing solely from an American fount.

You said, “I did not literally mean "take a poll" and then use that as form of scientific device.”

You actually suggested polling “certain groups” of non-English speaking people ostensibly to confirm your refutation of my statement that ‘things are getting better’, viz. “the value of life and its preservation is increasing in modernity.”

Your use of the phrase “certain groups” is what betrays the non-scientific and non-statistical—hence emotional and romantic—nature of your position. Like you mention, it is easy to poke smaller holes in a larger truth, and yet you don’t refrain from doing so. Any of your counter examples, IMHO, do not falsify the theory of human progress.

The thought of the ‘noble savage’— that things were pure and better and ‘at peace’ with nature in the Stone Age—in ways harkens back to the Biblical idea an undefiled Eden. It is poppycock.

The basic gist of the progressive arrow of time, is that we are kinder and gentler as a whole, on a per capita basis.

That you, as an individual, is less likely to be victimized by violence at the hands of another human being than in the past—even including the 200 million dead (a larger estimate) of the 20th century due to warfare and genocide. We are becoming kinder and gentler and less violent. This is due to education and the evolution of universal cultural mores.

“What I meant was that if you asked a Yemeni or a Pakistani what our commitment to human life was you'd likely get a very different answer than at a luncheon at the Kennedy School of Government. What I meant was the people on the receiving end of violence don't appear to have been consulted.”

I agree that being victimized is horrible. The worst. But citing specific ongoing or historical injustices doesn’t negate the overall progress of our species—that per capita you are less likely to be a victim of warfare, genocide, murder, torture, rape, etc. in this era, than in eras past. I’m sure there are bumps in the graph. Gargantuan tragedies like the Armenian genocide and the Shoah each occurring in a relatively short period of time would create spikes.

"yes, we are becoming more evolved, enlightened and less violent; drones, signing statements and Habeas notwithstanding” Aside from what's actually happening, you mean?”

No, not aside from what’s happening.

Christopher, we are having a kind of a glass is half empty-half full debate. Again, when the overarching statistics are examined, the glass is not half-empty. There is progress occurring incrementally.

Christopher Randolph
3/13/2013 09:03:52 am

Pinker arrives at 'statistical likelihoods' and the "arrow of history" (very Fukuyama or Marx for that matter) by discounting tons of people who don't fit the narrative. I don't think historical trends neatly flow in one direction; anyone of course can make that case at any time by highlighting and ignoring what they prefer to highlight and ignore.

I'm not impressed that having nearly completely wiped out the native population of North America that we're doing *statistically better* in the century when there's not much of anyone left to kill and there isn't any land left to take. Reframed it's just a silly argument, is it not?

Obviously I'm not talking about the USA alone. That's not a point of confusion. Refuting Pinker's polyanna view of the world is a book-length task, and a book most people would not be happy to read. As I said I focused on the US in part because most of us here are American and the examples are familiar.

At the same time Pinker states that the West is 'leading the way' on the tip of this arrow, and when the trends in the US (and to a lesser extent Europe) are decidedly away from providing the social services you list that's a very weird conclusion.

Aside from ideological tilting we have serious questions of environmental and resource concern regarding the limits to growth and standards of living. Pinker has no particular concern that this might deflect the arrow.

In the 10 years after the USSR broke up, male Russian life expectancy dropped a horrid 3 years. Freefall. That's certainly not the arrow pointing in positive direction, but easy enough to causally dismiss if you don't happen to be a Russian male. Any person remotely familiar with development issues is aware of Africa's "lost decade"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jul/09/population.aids

""For many countries the 1990s were a decade of despair. Some 54 countries are poorer now than in 1990. In 21, a larger proportion is going hungry.

"In 14, more children are dying before age five. In 12, primary school enrolments are shrinking. In 34, life expectancy has fallen. Such reversals in survival were previously rare."

There was nothing inevitable about any of that but also no reason to believe it won't be repeated.

Public education in the US - the largest country comprising the West - is very obviously being dismantled. I live in a city that's having nearly 30 public schools closed this year alone. Look at Chicago, which might well be closing 90 this year alone. There's a concerted national effort to move toward for profit schools, cyber "schools" and "homeschooling."

As always the reporting and framing of history is shaped by what's happening now. I find it interesting that when we decide to turn our backs on public education that the hot history essay claps us on the back for commitment to same, when we formally OK torture the hot history essay congratulates us for turning away from torture, when we no longer even debate remote control undeclared warfare the hot history essay notes that we're turning away from warfare.

It's a bit stunning that the essay on everyone's lips congratulates us for raising living standards for everyone regardless of any traits while this is happening:

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/24/741231/household-income-for-african-americans-dropped-11-percent-since-end-of-recession/?mobile=nc

Byron DeLear
3/13/2013 12:22:30 pm

Please see my comment below--for some reason there was no reply button on your last remark.

Byron DeLear
3/13/2013 03:58:29 am

(continued from above...)

• Emergency services expanded from volunteer fire fighting to full-time professional police, paramedic and fire departments, providing service to those in need.
• Labor laws minimum wage, limited work week and safety in the workplace legislation adopted in all modern democracies.
• Universal health care coverage for all citizens in most modern democracies.

What these trends reveal is very specific. The West’s cultural trajectory, and much of the world, has been a collective push toward offering opportunity, providing safety, security; in sum, promoting the general welfare of the people. Yes, all too often gifts of progress have been granted to citizens only, while national policies have engaged in colonialism and warfare abroad.

But it's clear that over the course of last 200 years the benefits of science, technology, transportation and modern medicine are steadily emerging as universal social values, increasingly available regardless of race, class or gender distinctions.

(BTW, in my earlier comment I mentioned cat carbonization was popular 100 years ago, it was really 16th century France.)

Reply
Byron DeLear
3/13/2013 12:15:20 pm

CR---I don't disagree with your examples, and, like you, am troubled by trends. But I also step back and see the larger arch. Tech allows the speedier proliferation of enlightenment values, ethics, and the further entrenchment of Westphalian principles for national behavior. This dissemination is unprecedented in human history and is allowing for us to be on the threshold of a true global community. But this hasn't only happened with the advent of tech---social mores build in a compound sense. Magna Charta and Lubeck Law (13th century) opened up more equitable possibilities and we never turned back. Because they, like the wheel, worked better. These values are like pitons driven into an evolutionary mountain; breaking our fall, unless major, major catastrophe hits. There will be ups and down--the Russian example you provide, for instance.

The exponential growth of human population due to the green revolution coupled with reports of nearly every living system on the planet being in decline, will have its day in court should we desire to preserve and protect the ecosystem that sustains us. You are wise to see this as the real potential flaw in Pinker’s optimism—should thw worst happen, we won't be alive anymore to weigh the reduction (or increase) of violence if our garden is irreparably poisoned.

You mention people not wanting to read Pinker's book, yet Bill Gates considers it one of the most important books he's read (wiki).
AND BTW, this is guy we're talking about—Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-born experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist and popular science author. He is a Harvard College Professor and the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, and is known for his advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. He’s no slouch and is backing his theories with hard (and large amounts of) evidence.

I am very familiar with the injustices you cite and have worked for years for progressive causes, including fostering understanding between the Middle East and West and helping build major clean energy initiatives that contribute to sustainability and economic development (jobs).

CR---you have a lot of passion about these issues. I'm curious, where does the rubber meet the road so-to-speak with seeing your passions become real change? How do you direct you enthusiasm toward real change in the world around you? Have you yet to apply ideas and theories and concepts into reality?

A life coach once told me to always offer solutions when criticizing and being negative—and then back those solutions with action.

Where do you think the best change for the most human beings can occur?

Reply
Christopher Randolph
3/13/2013 06:31:37 pm

Hi Byron -

Let me say first of all that it's a delight to meet you. You are a thoughtful person and clearly bright, and hopefully it's not presumptuous of me to state that.

Maybe we should let Jason get on with his blog (which I also enjoy greatly). We might be getting a bit off of the central topic here. I'm going to think about your questions and encourage you to send an email to [anything you like] @ quizmasterchris dot com, which would be fwded my way as domain administrator. Perfectly happy to take this offline.

In general I'll say I cut my teeth on Buckminster Fuller's work, so I'm not a general pessimist. I do see the human as a 'success machine' given the proper environment. I hang to his later work such as "Grunch of Giants" which isn't exactly a bowl of cherries either!

And thanks to Jason for indulging us.

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