Ranthropologist

Tag: culture

  • Nature, Nurture, and Sexual Assault

    When I was six years old, a neighborhood boy promised me that he would “show me his” if I “showed him mine.” That seemed like a fair deal to me. He told me to wait in his closet, which my six-year-old mind didn’t question, and when the door opened a few minutes later, several boys from the neighborhood had gathered in his room. I was scared, but I “showed them mine.” I didn’t get to see theirs. When I was in junior high, a fellow student threatened to rape me during a sleepover, and chased me into a bathroom where I locked myself in while he pounded on the door. When I was in college, a car full of men at a stoplight motioned to me to roll down my window, and when I did, they asked me if I gave good head. Also in college, I experienced two separate incidents with two different men where I engaged in a consensual kiss, and a few minutes later had a penis being forced into my mouth. In both incidents, I was alarmed, but followed through with the sexual activity because it seemed more dangerous to stop… and because I was embarrassed. As a woman in my late twenties, I had sex with a man I didn’t want to have sex with, again because it seemed more dangerous – and embarrassing – to tell him no. As a working adult, I endured a supervisor who peppered nearly every interaction with deeply sexual remarks and innuendoes. I told myself I was ok with it because he didn’t really mean it, he did it to a lot of women, not just me… and because I needed my job and had no confidence that anything would be done about his behavior if I reported it.

    The torrent of sexual harassment, abuse, and assault allegations that is currently sweeping through the nation is making me simultaneously angry (on behalf of the women), sad (same), and uneasy. Why uneasy? Because we seem to be experiencing a pendulum swing during which any behavior by a man that can possibly be interpreted as inappropriate is being called assault;* and more so because behavior that actually IS assault is being denied, brushed off, or treated as a deliberate lie or conspiracy. This is a dangerous dichotomy. The pendulum will eventually return to center, but when it does, I hope it is with a new calibration. To be perfectly clear: I believe the women (and men, in some cases) who have come forward. I also believe that any unwanted touching, words, innuendoes, actions, etc. is inappropriate at best, and truly constitutes assault at worst. Luckily, I don’t feel permanently scarred or damaged by any of the incidents I went through, but I understand why some victims carry lifelong feelings of fear and shame.

    This moment of reckoning had gotten me thinking again about something I have often wondered: why do human males engage in this sort of behavior? How much is nature, and how much is nurture? Broadly, it is easy to answer this question very quickly: it is both. But again, I need to make myself completely clear: the nature/biological component of this behavior does not excuse it. And, at the same time, the nurture/cultural component of this behavior shares much of the blame.

    Humans are primates – specifically, we are one of the great apes (along with orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos) . Our closest living relative is the chimpanzee. Chimps have active sex lives that are also linked to their social lives and to the status of individuals within the group. Now, our close genetic relationship with chimps does not destine us to behave in the same ways, but it gives us some insight into the biological underpinnings of some aspects of our behavior. Broadly, the point of sex is reproduction; and when you look at reproduction through a biological, evolutionary lens, it provides a set of explanatory principles for mating behaviors. Does this apply to humans too? Of course. Another caution about making myself perfectly clear: sexual behavior as an evolutionary strategy does not excuse sexual harassment, abuse, or assault. Nor does it provide a full explanatory mechanism for the ways in which humans engage in reproductive behavior. We are unique among animals in that we have learned how to have intercourse purely for pleasure – we invented birth control, and have found ways to have sex without reproducing. That means sex, for humans, is as much social as it is biological. But that doesn’t remove the biological underpinnings. The sex drive is still about the possibility of reproduction, but in humans, as in chimps, it is also linked to status; and in humans, status is the same thing as power. Here’s where we get the terrible overlap between sex as biology and sex as culture: men who engage in sexually abusive behavior are motivated by lust for power just as much as lust for physical gratification. 

    During episodes of war or conflict, men are often reported to rape captive enemy women. Again, very broadly, this is about power, status, and the dehumanization of the enemy. Nature or nurture? Powerful men are now being accused of treating women (or in the case of Kevin Spacey, men) as objects of sexual gratification, rather than as human beings – similar to the men who rape captive enemy women, even if their behavior does not (always) rise to the level of rape. Nature or nurture?

    I am not a sociobiologist, but I believe it is a mistake to dismiss or ignore the biological underpinnings of human behavior. BUT, and this is a hugely important but: unlike other animals, humans have culture. We have nurture. We have the ability to teach people right from wrong. So why are men still assaulting, abusing, and harassing women? Because they’ve learned they can get away with it. It’s nurture, not nature, that lets down the victims. It’s nurture, not nature, that says “Boys will be boys.” It’s nurture, not nature, that says “It’s just locker-room talk.” It’s nurture, not nature, that says “Who will believe the intern over the Congressman?” It’s nurture, not nature, that says “men can’t control themselves” and that women should “take it as a compliment.” And now it’s nurture, not nature, that is saying WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH. It’s nurture, not nature, that has to teach our boys and girls about respect, equality, and consent. It’s nurture, not nature, that has to battle the perpetuation of toxic masculinity. It’s nurture, not nature, that has to point to the past and say it was wrong then and it’s wrong now. Let the pendulum continue to swing, and when it comes to rest, maybe, finally, this time, nurture will have taught men that they’ve gotten away with it for the last time.

     

    *This is a topic to cover at another time, but briefly, I do think that we need to have a discussion about how to define and approach actions that are inappropriate but do not rise to the level of harassment, abuse, or assault. And that said, we need to work on reducing inappropriate behavior too, but in a way that is educational rather than accusatory. I believe that elevating the merely inappropriate to the realm of assault can serve to minimize actions that truly rise to that definition.

  • (R)anthropology Class: Revitalization Movements

    (R)anthropology Class: Revitalization Movements

    Around 1870, when colonization of the western United States by Europeans and their descendants was reaching its zenith, a movement that came to be known as the Ghost Dance began appearing in Native American communities. Taught by a Paiute spiritual leader named Wokova, the Ghost Dance was a ritual meant to cleanse the spirit, promote clean living, and reunite the living with the spirits of the dead. With the help of these spirits, the living would ultimately drive the white usurpers from the land; bring back the buffalo; usher in a time of peace, prosperity, happiness, and unity; and restore the ways of life that had been crushed by colonialism. As the Ghost Dance spread, it changed somewhat in form depending on the culture that adopted it; amongst the Lakota, it invoked the promise of a total transformation of society. Perceiving the Lakota’s wish for a new and better world as a threat, in 1890 the United States Army slaughtered at least 153 Lakota at Wounded Knee in South Dakota. Over time, the Ghost Dance slowly petered out, and although it is still practiced by a few tribes today, it is no longer with the expectation that adherence to the dance and its teachings will usher in a new era.

    Phenomena like the Ghost Dance are a part of what anthropologists call revitalization movements. Similar to millenarianism, revitalization movements generally spring up in times of extreme social unrest, such as colonialism, war, or government oppression of citizens or social groups. The purpose of the movement is to usher in a new type of society; restore social values that have been repressed or denied; or return life to the way it “used to be.” They generally involve a ritual component and special rules that are adhered to by the followers, and can sometimes manifest as cults. A modern example is the Heaven’s Gate cult, in which the followers believed that a spaceship was concealed in the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet and was coming to pick them up to take them to a better life away from Earth on a heaven-like planet. Unfortunately, validating your ticket to board this heavenly ship meant forsaking your life on Earth – via suicide. In 1997, 38 cult members dosed themselves with phenobarbitol, applesauce, and vodka, and left this earthly plane. I’m going to go ahead and assume that they did NOT make it to heaven’s gate.

    Sometimes revitalization movements are successful. There’s an excellent argument that Christianity began as a revitalization movement. Unhappy with Roman rule, many citizens throughout the Roman empire looked to prophets who promised a better life; Jesus of Nazareth was just one of those prophets, but he turned out to be one of the few with tremendous staying power. He promised that by following his teachings, a better life could be had – both in this life AND in the next one. In fact, that is the trick of Christianity’s longevity: unlike the Ghost Dance, which promised change in this life, Jesus promised the ultimate reward in the heavenly afterlife. Why is that important? Because unlike the Ghost Dance, where people eventually began to realize that the change they sought was not coming, no one has returned from heaven to either refute or verify Jesus’ teachings – therefore, people can keep believing because there’s no one around to say otherwise. (I realize this is a gross oversimplification of Christianity overall, but I believe it is key to why it is still around after 2,000+ years; and the same is true for all religions that promise rewards after this life or in the next one.) What of more recent religions like Mormonism and Scientology, or even New Age spiritualism? I think there are at least some aspects of revitalization movements in all of them.

    I’ve been thinking a lot about revitalization movements recently, because I think it provides a basis for analyzing not just recent religious movements and cults but the sometimes hysterical and irrational adherence of people to their particular political ideologies. We are living in a time, believe it or not, that is actually safer and more peaceful than any other time in history (an idea explained in great detail by many authors, but to great effect by both Steven Pinker’s book The Better Angels of Our Nature and Michael Shermer’s bookThe Moral Arc). BUT (and it’s a big but): people feel less safe. We feel threatened by conflict and violence. We fear the loss of our most cherished values. We see economic inequality, a loss of stability, a lack of trust, an increase in terrorism, a deepening of racial and cultural divides, greater political differences, more apathy, more protesting, more rioting, more destruction, more fear… In short, we see the things that the Indians saw during colonialism and that the Jews saw under the Romans. So it comes as no surprise to me that, in this election season, some people’s adherence to their candidate’s values has taken on the quality of a revitalization movement. And I admit that I’m a partisan, but I feel that this is more evident amongst conservatives – and particularly among Donald Trump’s supporters. Without doubt, it also exists amongst the die-hard Bernie Sanders supporters, or the third-party supporters of Jill Stein (Green) and Gary Johnson (Libertarian), but it seems to have reached a fever pitch on the far right of the Republican party. And it makes sense: the very dictionary definition of conservative is “disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.” And is that not exactly what Trump is proposing with his slogan, “Make America Great Again“? The Ghost Dance movement sought the same thing: a return to previous conditions.

    I believe the revitalization movement concept also applies to terrorist groups such as ISIS (see here for other names for the group; some have started using the term Da’esh or Daesh specifically because ISIS doesn’t like it). Clearly, ISIS wants to see a different kind of world and intends to usher it in not through a dance or by committing suicide and boarding a spacecraft, but by terrorizing the world into accepting their extreme interpretation of Islam (one which, I am compelled to note, is not shared by the vast majority of Muslims). ISIS adherents tend to be disillusioned young men who feel ignored or unappreciated by their families, friends, and/or cultures, so they are easily drawn in to ISIS’ promise of a new and better life. I can’t think of a much better description of a revitalization movement.

    So why all these revitalization movements now? Some of these ideas deserve posts of their own, but in general, I think there are a few things at play. For one, human groups tend to operate at maximum efficiency with maximum communal cooperation at the hunter-gatherer level, when everybody knows everybody else, and the survival of the group and the individual are inextricably intertwined (I wrote more about this idea, and the overall concept of cultural collapse, here). With global population fast approaching 7.5 billion people, the hunter-gatherer model is all but extinct (there are still foraging groups, but they are heavily influenced by the modernized world in which they live). Plus, as noted above, people are living in fear, and it’s a fear that I think is massively exacerbated by the internet and social media and the ease of global information exchange we now have. We hear about everything that happens now, good and bad, which leads to the mistaken assumption that bad things happen more than they actually do. Finally (and trust me, this paragraph is not meant to be exhaustive of all the potential causes of revitalization-movement-like behavior), we are living at a time of economic and social inequality that has not been seen for generations. Many, if not most, historical revitalization movements have arisen in similar times. Put all this together, and we have no reason to be surprised that it’s happening again.

  • Conspiracism

    Conspiracism

    As we begin a new year and approach a presidential election, I find myself wondering if the polarizing ideological conflicts that convulse our nation are going to become more extreme. I have read articles talking about how people used to be able to differ politically without also, apparently, hating each other. Yet today’s ideological differences are expressing themselves much less as reasoned disagreements than they are as vitriolic and insult-laden shouting matches, whether between televised talking heads or anonymous keyboard warriors. Rather than engaging in civil and open-minded debate, people align themselves with one position and cling to it ferociously, even in the face of rational arguments and clear facts to the contrary. I believe much of this has to do with the double-edged ease with which information now flows to people from so many different sources. I say double-edged because for every factual piece of information, there is a converse piece of utter nonsense, and because people are so easily swayed by their own confirmation bias (and I am not immune!) they find what they seek and then guard their bit of “proof” as tenaciously as a mother bear guarding her cubs.

    One of the reasons I keep this blog is because I am practicing being a better critical thinker. No one is immune from logical fallacies, but by writing about them (and, I hope, making them familiar to others), I hope to keep them at the forefront of my mind when I am confronted by new information and, especially, differences of opinion. I am just as likely as anybody else to scoff at a headline or article that does not align with what I already (want to) believe; but with practice, I am learning to recognize these errors and try to overcome them. So, I try to remember to fact-check ideas even if they support my point of view. I explore further when I am confronted with information that refutes what I already believe. I am especially cautious about sources that I know to be ideologically aligned with what I already think – in other words, just because an article comes from Mother Jones or Think Progress or Vox, I am still responsible for approaching it critically. There are certain sources I have stopped consulting, even though they purport to be progressive or liberal, because I have found with investigation that they are exaggerating, distorting, or omitting the facts. No side is blameless when it comes to this practice, so you always have to be cautious. Of course, when a preponderance of the evidence supports a point of view, like any good scientist I am going to be supportive of that view. This is simple enough when dealing with factual information, but less so when it comes to opinions and interpretations. Still, if you have the facts to support the opinion, the ground becomes pretty solid. And, I am more than happy to debate with people who can logically and rationally employ (sometimes the same) facts and come up with a different conclusion. That is what good civil discourse is all about.

    But now for the crux of this post: people whose beliefs in support of their ideologies have become so irrational and paranoid that no amount of countering factual information will possibly sway them. This way of thinking is called conspiracism, in contrast with rationalism. Do I mean to imply that conspiracism is irrational? Absolutely – but don’t try telling a conspiracist that. Just like belief in the supernatural, conspiracism is not subject to logical testing because there is always an answer to your rational counter-argument. As I noted above, every person is prone to using logical fallacies, but conpiracism elevates it to an art form. No lapse of logic is off-limits in defense of the conspiracy. You have a news account or article that refutes the conspiracist’s argument? That’s from the lame-stream media – you can’t trust them! Ask the conspiracist for factual proof in support of their hypothesis? I can’t show you – THEY are powerful and THEY don’t want us to know! Question the validity and objectivity of the conspiracist’s source? Of course s/he isn’t affiliated with a university or research institution or respected media outlet – OTHER people got rid of them because they were threatened by the truth s/he discovered! Just like people defending their belief in God, conspiracists have an answer for everything. Here are a few other characteristics of your typical conspiracist, courtesy of Michael Shermer’s wonderful book Why People Believe Weird Things (1997, p. 206):

    1. Absolute certainty they have the truth.
    2. America is controlled to a greater or lesser extent by a conspiratorial group. In fact, they believe this evil group is very powerful and controls most nations. (My addition: or, the conspiratorial group may be the government itself).
    3. Open hatred of opponents. Because these opponents (actually “enemies” in the extremists’ eyes) are seen as a part of or sympathizers with “The Conspiracy,” they deserve hatred and contempt. (My addition: the contempt often takes the form of the epithet “sheeple,” to describe people who aren’t “smart enough” to recognize the conspiracy – they are sheep).
    4. Little faith in the democratic process. Mainly because most believe “The Conspiracy” has such influence in the U.S. government, and therefore extremists usually spurn compromise.
    5. Willingness to deny basic civil liberties to certain fellow citizens, because enemies deserve no liberties.
    6. Consistent indulgence in irresponsible accusations and character assassination.

    It’s no coincidence that at least five of these characteristics seem to apply to that idol of the far right, Donald Trump! (The only one I’m not sure of is number 2.) But at the same time, I want to be clear that conspiracism is not limited to those on the political right. Whether you are anti-vaccine, anti-GMO, or anti-fur, or a Birther, a Truther, or a Holocaust denier, there is enough conspiracism to cover the entire spectrum of ideologies. We can even include non-political conspiracists like flat-Earthers! Not every conspiracist has all the characteristics listed above, but it only takes adherence to a few. And these aren’t the only typical characteristics. Conspiracists believe that they are special. They, in amongst all the sheeple, have been able to resist the lies. Only they have the mental toughness and intelligence to recognize the truth. They are immune to the conspiracy, and they may even be in danger because of their special knowledge – which is why they really can’t tell you how they know what they know. They are members of an exclusive club of the super-smart, the super-aware, and the super-prepared. They can’t be fooled. Just imagine what a powerful feeling this must be, and maybe it starts to make sense why some people become adherents of conspiracism.

    I don’t really have a point to end on here. Mostly, I’m dismayed at how widespread at least some degree of conspiracism has become. And let me stress that I’m not saying that I think every person who disagrees with me is a conspiracist! In fact, most of the people with whom I discuss opposing ideas do not fall into this category; or at least, they only exhibit one or two of the characteristics from the list. And I do have reason for hope. I frequently change my stance in light of new information, and I know other people do, too. Just this morning, I read this wonderful quote from one of my science heroes, Alfred Russel Wallace:

    Truth is born into this world only with pangs and tribulations, and every fresh truth is received unwillingly. To expect the world to receive a new truth, or even an old truth, without challenging it, is to look for one of those miracles that do not occur.

    A few days ago, a friend of mine and I civilly debated someone on her Facebook feed about an issue we feel passionately about (appropriation of Native American culture). He wasn’t buying our arguments, but the next day he posted on the original thread to say he’d done some reading and research of his own, and he had changed his mind. Moments like this give me hope – and I think when people are approached with civility and friendliness, when they aren’t insulted or bullied or accused but are instead invited to spell out their differences – well, when that happens, miracles CAN occur.

  • Us/Not Us

    Us/Not Us

    As I write this, over 100 people have been reported killed in Paris in multiple terrorist attacks. The news is jamming my social media feed and my RSS feed. It’s on every major television station. It’s being continuously updated on news websites. It’s a terrible tragedy. I’m not writing this to minimize it. I am upset and dismayed and disheartened and grieved by it – but I have a few observations to make.

    Who noticed the story from yesterday, November 12, about the suicide attacks that killed 41 and injured over 200 in Beirut, Lebanon? Did any of you change your profile picture on Facebook to a Lebanese flag, or post a photo of a Beirut landmark in tribute to the victims? Did you know that on October 27 in Syria, 115 people were killed? On October 25, it was 161 people. On September 18, it was 255. These are typical days for Syria. The death toll in the Syrian civil war so far is over 250,000. Anyone posting those status updates in their feed? And how about the rash of stabbings in Israel? On October 13, three people were killed and over 20 were wounded. Other attacks have occurred since then. So, where are the Israeli flags on social media?

    I’m not stupid. I know there’s a war in Syria and daily casualties are to be expected. I know that Lebanon experiences frequent unrest, and bombings and attacks there are sadly common. I know that the Palestinians and the Israelis are acting out generations’ worth of struggle and conflict, and attacks and violence are frequent there, too. I’m not trying to say that because bad things happen everywhere, every day, that we should just shrug our shoulders at what has happened today in France. Not at all. But I do want to observe that when it happens to people who we regard as being more like us – well, then we sit up and take notice. When political violence happens in places we don’t expect it to – places we think of as safe – then we react with shock. When terror happens in western or northern Europe (not so much in eastern Europe, though) we feel more connected to it. I’ve done it too – I made a drawing in tribute after the Charlie Hebdo attack last January. I posted it to Twitter and Facebook. I felt connected to France in their shock and grief because I felt an empathy that stretched back to September 11, 2001. So why don’t we react in the same way to the daily stream of violence in other places?

    I have some tentative answers. We become accustomed to violence happening to the Other. We don’t empathize, generally, with people whose countries and cultures – and, let’s face it, oftentimes colors – don’t match our own. It doesn’t mean we don’t sympathize, but we’ve become inured to violence and unrest in the non-Western world. We think of it as happening to “those people” – again, not in an unkind or dismissive way, but in a way that speaks to the differences we perceive between us. It’s a classic, unconscious us/not us mentality – an artifact of Western, and particularly US, hegemony.

    Is it any different when we shrug or tsk at reports of a drive-by shooting of a young person of color in a gang-heavy neighborhood, yet hold candlelight vigils for a white victim of violence? Is it any different when a sex worker or a homeless person is found dead in an alley and gets a few lines, if that, in the local paper, vs. when a person with a job and family is murdered and gets front page headlines? Is it any different when a working class mom reports her daughter missing and is told she’s probably a runaway, vs. an upper class family’s missing child who gets immediate media coverage and police attention?

    It is hard for us to feel empathy for the so-called Other, but the Others are human, too. We’d be exhausted by grief and shock if we reacted to every act of violence the way we react to what happens to people like us – the way we are reacting to the attacks in France now. But we have to remember to feel something. We have to remember that the suffering of the outcast, the minority, the underprivileged, the uneducated, the tossed away – is of equal import to the suffering of the powerful, the privileged, the lucky, the elite, and everyone in between. And the suffering and death and terror experienced by the Other – the people not like us – is no different than the suffering and the terror experienced by those like us. I grieve for France. I grieve for Lebanon. I grieve for Syria. I grieve for Israel and Palestine. I grieve for us all.

  • (R)anthropology Class: Cultural (Mal)adaptation

    (R)anthropology Class: Cultural (Mal)adaptation

    There are about as many different definitions of culture as there are cultural anthropologists. Much ink has been spilled by people attempting to refine the concept to make it account for all the detail and nuance of the human experience. In my classes, though, I don’t have that kind of time, so we keep things simple: culture is the ideals, values, and standards of behavior shared by a group of people. I spend most of the semester explaining and illustrating how this simple definition can encompass everything from the most extraordinarily complex group behaviors at the macro level to the smallest, most (seemingly) insignificant behaviors at the individual level. There is a reason that cultural anthropologists choose a specialty; it is impossible to be an expert in the culture of everything.

    I could write pages and pages on this, but the point of this post is not to exhaustively analyze the concept of culture. Instead, I want to discuss the broad strokes of what defines a successful culture, and then talk about what happens when cultures start to break down – that is, when they become maladaptive. First, a few main points about the general defining characteristics of culture:

    • Culture is shared. This means that everybody within a particular cultural group has internalized the same ideals, values, and standards of behavior  The shared nature of culture also means, vitally, that we are able to predict what other members of our cultural group are likely to do in a given situation. It’s like driving – imagine how terrifying it would be if we had no idea what the person in the next lane was about to do as we whizzed past each other at 70+ miles per hour in our 3,000 pound glass, metal, plastic, and hot fluid-filled machines! But we drive with no fear most of the time because we can (usually) safely predict that the other drivers are going to follow the same rules that we follow. The rules of culture operate in much the same way.
    • Culture is learned. Through the process of enculturation, we are taught what the shared rules of our culture are by our parents, family members, teachers, peers – basically, by every person we encounter, whether intimately as a parent or fleetingly as a stranger. Obviously, as children, we don’t know all of the rules yet – which is why we chuckle with amusement when a toddler runs naked across a public beach, but gasp in shock when an adult does it. By the time we are young teens we have learned all the basic rules.
    • Culture is symbolic. This is best illustrated through the example of language, although almost every aspect of culture is symbolic. Language is a system of arbitrary sounds that, through learning and sharing, we all agree serve as stand-ins for particular concepts. There is nothing necessary or natural about the fact that the set of shared sounds we call English have to symbolize the things that they do; but English speakers have learned, collectively, what those sounds symbolize and can thus use them to communicate ideas about our world. Many other symbolic cultural systems – economic, religious, political, artistic – operate in the same way.
    • Culture is integrated. This means that all the parts of culture work together, like gears in a machine. No part is independent of the other parts. And if something changes in one of the parts, it can affect the rest of the machine. Sometimes these changes are small and have limited effect; sometimes they are enormous and have a tremendous effect throughout the machinery of culture. The recent recognition that gay marriage is legal is an example of a cultural change with far-reaching reverberations.
    • Culture is all-encompassing. This one is simple. It means that no aspect of human behavior is insignificant enough to not be a part of culture. Everything from the food we eat to the complexities of our economic system are a part of culture.
    • Finally, culture changes. This can happen through new inventions (how to use fire; agriculture; television; the internet) and it can happen through disagreements between members of the culture (again, gay marriage makes a good example). A lot of cultural change can be easily illustrated if you think in terms of generations. What kinds of things did you do as a teen or young adult that you thought were okay but that horrified your parents? I vividly remember my grandpa, who was born in 1920, bashing me on the head with an empty plastic soda bottle when he spied my first tattoo as I sat lounging by the pool. He was furious because to him, a woman with tattoos was a woman of loose morals. Today, tattoos are everywhere and are generally accepted. Remember, back in the Victorian era, a woman who showed her ankles (GASP!) was a woman of ill repute – a concept my grandpa would have laughed off but that his grandparents may well have taken seriously!

    These are the main characteristics of culture, but they don’t define whether or not a culture can be deemed successful. Fortunately, that definition is simple: a successful culture is one that meets the needs of most of its members in a satisfying way most of the time. Successful cultures meet every member’s need for water, food, shelter, and material resources. They develop strategies for the production, distribution, and consumption of resources. They provide guidelines for appropriate social interaction. They make sure that the members of the group are protected from threats and harm, from within and without. They have a system for making sure every person has a role to fill in the group’s maintenance, and for sanctioning members when they do not adequately fill their role. They are flexible in adapting to individual needs and find ways to accommodate difference. They find ways to comfort and soothe their members in the face of difficulty, tragedy, and doubt. They provide a story for how the culture came to be and where its members will go. They provide cohesion, organization, stability, and purpose. They ensure survival.

    A culture that is unable to secure these things for its members in a satisfying way most of the time is in danger. The danger of a maladapted culture can be acute; maladaptation can result in the extinction of the culture and its members. And that leads us to the problems of today. The adaptive strategies of culture have worked extraordinarily well for over 100,000 years – but they are strategies designed for small groups of people who know and depend upon one another. Cultures have certainly adapted to changes – bigger groups of people find ways to manage the larger population in a satisfactory way; hunter-gatherers who began to grow food and domesticate animals adapted to the new lifestyles of horticulture and pastoralism; even the larger populations that developed as intensive agriculture began to take hold still, mostly, managed to find ways to accommodate to change. But as history shows us, the larger and more technologically advanced human cultures have a frightening tendency to collapse as they become increasingly maladapted to the needs of the majority of the members.

    So the question is: is culture today – and now by culture I mean not just specific small groups or even countries, but global culture – adapting? Consider these symptoms of a maladapted culture:

    • crime and violence
    • mental illness
    • substance abuse
    • suicide
    • alienation
    • warfare
    • revolution

    Any of this sound familiar?

    I am convinced that our current culture is maladapted to the modern world. I am also convinced that this maladaptation is a driving force behind so much of the trouble we see today. Individuals are alienated. They don’t feel recognized or important. They see themselves as tiny gears in a vast, impersonal machine controlled by people who don’t care about them. Unlike in the small groups of prehistory or the close-knit small towns and villages of recent centuries, we have no possible way to know and recognize every single member of our group; it’s not uncommon for people to not even know their neighbors – I don’t know mine. We don’t have to depend upon each other as individuals any more, but we do have to depend on this enormous, teetering edifice that is struggling to fulfill the needs of nearly 7,500,000,000 – that’s 7.5 billion – people, and growing, with adaptations designed for populations that number in the hundreds. Is it any wonder that we have ISIS? Is it any wonder that we have global terrorism? Is it any wonder that we have refugees swarming all over the globe in the terrified hope that somewhere, they will find welcome and respite from hunger, hardship, and violence? It is any wonder that disaffected young men have formed online groups where they fantasize about exacting revenge on the women who ignore them? Is it any wonder that some people turn to guns and spray bullets at innocent people in public places? Is it any wonder that there are protests in our cities over systemic inequality, violence, oppression, and racism? Is it any wonder that there is a whole subculture of people who are preparing themselves for Armageddon? Is it any wonder that people turn to magical thinking and conspiracy theories? Is it any wonder that so many people are living in fear? I still believe most people are good. I still believe we can turn back from maladaptation and find a way. But it’s still not a wonder to me.

  • Daily Read: Tolerating the Intolerant

    Daily Read: Tolerating the Intolerant

    I struggle with deciding what to post as a Daily Read sometimes because I want the articles I highlight to have relevance beyond what may be in the news at the moment I post them; at the same time, current events are good opportunities for talking about more generally applicable issues.* To wit: I have written before about intolerance in a broad sense, and today I have an article to post about it that is specific. It relates to Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis and her refusal, even after a court order, to issue marriage licenses to anybody so she can avoid issuing them to gay couples. Davis claims she is acting under “God’s authority,” as gay marriage conflicts with her religious beliefs. I have zero sympathy for that argument for obvious reasons: religious convictions are not grounds for violating the law or refusing to serve the public in your capacity as a public official; we have a separation of church and state; and she is issuing a civil, not a religious, license, so issuing that license creates absolutely no personal religious conflict (I continue to be baffled about why people find it so hard to distinguish between civil marriage as recognized by the government and religious marriage as performed and sanctified by clergy; the government does not give a rat’s ass about how or where your ceremony is performed, but they still require a civil license if you want  your marriage to be recognized for the purpose of the legal rights and responsibilities it confers. No religious ceremony is necessary for that). So make no mistake: I think Kim Davis is legally wrong. I also think she is ethically wrong, but that’s really not the issue. I disagree with her religious beliefs, but I respect her right to hold them as an individual; however, she has crossed the line by illegally imposing her religious beliefs on others in her function as a public official.

    I could go on about why I disagree with Davis but that is not the point of today’s Daily Read. Although the article does not use the word tolerance, I think it is relevant, because it pinpoints an insidious and shameful side effect of Davis’ new-found notoriety: the punishment and intolerance of the internet. Many people who disagree with Davis, rather than making rational and legal arguments about why she is wrong to deny the marriage licenses, are instead making fun of her appearance. She is being mocked for her plain, old-fashioned clothing. She has been urged to learn to use and wear makeup. She has been called horrible names. She has been taken to task for her hypocrisy, given that she has been married multiple times and had a child out of wedlock (I agree that this is indeed hypocritical; however, Davis claims that her religious conversion occurred after her multiple marriages. Be this as it may, her history is still irrelevant to the legality or lack thereof of her actions. In other words, even if she had only been married once, was still married, and had her child within that marriage, it would still have no relevance to the legal question at hand).

    This has gotten long for an introduction to a Daily Read, so let me get to it: this article from Julie Compton in The Advocate points out the hypocrisy (and, not incidentally, the misogyny) of those who support gay marriage and likely see themselves as tolerant turning on Davis with ad hominem attacks and luxuriating in schadenfreude over her plain looks and checkered past. Again, I disagree strenuously with Davis and find her position to be legally, ethically, and logically untenable, but attacking her looks and personal life is just as intolerant and hypocritical as people are claiming Davis is – and I wish, fruitlessly, that we could be better than this.

    Op-Ed: Kim Davis Deserves Criticism But Not For Her Looks

    *Related: I am pondering a name change for this feature since it is rarely daily any more. I’m open to suggestions!