Only the expedient ideology has shown itself universally indigenous. The others may have originated independently in more than one location, but their presence over most of the world has to be ascribed to transmission, evidenced by the spread of the activities indicating their presence. The ideology of principle / domination, bringing with it agriculture and… read more »
In recent decades physical science has declined from the position it once held. Its connections with pollution and weaponry have lowered its prestige, its representatives are less welcome to pontificate, and even the literary genre still known as science fiction has turned towards occult fantasy. Neither the profession nor its supporters have retreated willingly, and… read more »
Any reader of anthropology (or at least any reader not committed to the conventions of the profession) will have been impressed, and perhaps puzzled, by the elaborate detail, precision and complexity of the kinship and marriage practices reported. One encounters phrases like this: ‘of the general type called Iroquois or bifurcate-merging, and of the particular… read more »
DO YOU BELIEVE IN LIFE AFTER WORK? While other things change work persists, grinning at us every Monday morning. Those who have it grumble; those without it want it. We even hear of a right to it. Unlimited education and medical care for everybody, a big detached house, a Rolls and a luxury yacht for… read more »
S.i. identifies the first ideology, originally displayed, by the hunter-gatherers, as expedient and the second (which first appeared together with agriculture, production, civilization and trade) as principled. One ethnographer notes a later appearance of the distinction. After saying that Navaho behave in one way towards fellow-tribesmen and in another towards outsiders, he continues: Under the… read more »
Reprinted, with minimal revision, from Fourth World Review No. 47. – GW In Fourth World Review 40 / 41 the article ‘Start Preparing Now,’ by Kirkpatrick Sale, speaks of destruction of the environment only in connection with expansive European civilization of the last five centuries. If this be all there is to it we face… read more »
UNITED Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation predicts that population will rise from five billion to eight billion by A.D.2020. IS BORIS GOOD ENOUGH? Under this headline Norman Stone recalls that when the tanks stormed into Moscow they stopped at red traffic lights. Memory adds that when the Parisian Communards wanted to open the bank vaults… read more »
Social anthropology has developed as a science fairly recently, and many of its results have still to be incorporated into advanced political thinking. John E. Pfeiffer has studied the literature; he finds anthropology going far to demolish the conception of the first human communities, and their way of life, that has become almost standard in… read more »
Systematic ideology has now been around for over half a century. Those critically accepting the theory have not become a large and powerful group and do not seem likely to do so. When examining the (A-) SPGB IC points out that nearly everybody who has heard its case has rejected it, and there is no… read more »
AMONG foragers the only economic entity was the separate person (or at most the separate family) and the only political entity the community. The arrangement provided neither economic support nor political freedom. ONE theme of s.i. is that the eidodynamics, both as groups and as individual people, assert their intellectual individuality while the eidostatics prefer… read more »