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Cultural Evolution

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on September 19, 2010 at 1:44:03 am
 

Table of Contents


 

 


 

Main Points

Main Points.

When looking at cultural evolution it is important to first consider the three main elements: the individual, the community, and the society. Cultural evolution starts with the individual. When the individual decides to change his/her belief about a story, then the culture of said story has also begun to change. Though the individual plays a very important and significant role, it is through the help of the community upon which an individual is able to have new experiences and therefore is able to take action. The community amplifies the values of each individual member and essentially causes collectiveness within the group. Finally, the society must adopt the new collective ideas in order for change to occur. According to Robert Evertt, the new idea will be adopted must faster if it is presented as a better idea than the current scenario. Surprisingly, it only takes 20% of the population to accept a new idea in order for the idea to be inescapable, though 70% of the people must at least be exposed to the new idea. Overall, it is seen that culture is passed on and changed via social, environmental, and biological factors.

Memes: An idea, trait, or element passed on from one generation to the next. Memes eventually reproduce and change with the times but are not identical to the original. (ex: with time, the VHS has turned into a DVD player)

Multilinear phenomena: The concept that the evolution of individual cultures or societies is not always the same. There are special paths that different societies may take towards development.  

Horizontal transmission: This is the idea that we learn from not only our parents but also our peers, authority figures, etc. Because the individual learns new traits through many different sources, the traits may not always be the fittest trait for the individual who carries them, but inevitably, the trait is the fittest for the society as a whole.

Directional (cultural evolution): Humans are sometimes forced to change themselves due to non cultural stimulus (i.e. population growth or climate change). Since the culture is always changing it is constantly becoming more complex and moving progressively.  

Heredity: It was Darwin who believed custom, good education, imitation, example of a good man, etc would all eventually become inherited traits. Therefore, inherited traits were seen to Darwin as the most important aspects of cultural evolution.

Organic evolution: Another key aspect of cultural evolution. An example: the ability to digest milk-sugar within human populations has evolved with the consumer of milk throughout the past few thousand years.

Liberation from constraint hypothesis: A specific change throughout history can lead to an evolutionary change. Eventually the culture would be stirred to change in certain manners.   

Modern/Pre-modern cultures:  Modern cultures have the upper hand with competition due to their beliefs, values, and norms inevitably maximizing the number of years they survive. Pre-modern cultures on the other hand differ dramatically from “economically developed” cultures as can be seen through their traditional values.

Conformist bias:  It is more common for the individual to copy the typical (common) type than it is for them to not copy at all. It is also more common for the individual to pick the typical (common) type than to pick a random individual to imitate.

http://www.global-mindshift.org/discover/viewFile.asp?resourceID=231&formatID=261

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evolution-cultural/

 

 

 


 

Key Figures

 

Anthropology, like any other discipline, is influenced through time and by other disciplines. In its beginnings as what we now know as “Cultural Evolution” Charles Darwin and his Origin of Species influenced it. After Darwin came Thomas Henry Huxley, who was greatly influenced by Darwin’s ideas. Huxley developed the idea of “social Darwinism,” which “rationalized social preconceptions”[1] that those such as landed gentry were higher on the evolutionary scale than others. From this came the idea of cultural evolution, developed by educated men such as Lewis Henry Morgan and Edward Burnett Tylor. 

 

 

Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881)     

Often cited as the father of the ethnographical approach to anthropology, Lewis Henry Morgan contributed greatly to theLewis Henry Morgan methodology of Evolutionism in the 19th century, providing Edward Burnett Tylor with the foundation for the unilinear path towards full or complete cultural significance. Considered the first real ethnographical text, Morgan’s 1851 text The League of the Iroquois laid the foundation for anthropological documentation to the current day. His text documents the customs, rituals, and interactions of the Iroquois, and he marks each significant tradition along the line conceived in order to track the tribes progress along a “socio-evolutionary scale”*. His text Ancient Society (1877) depicts his conceptualization of a universal scale, describing the ascent from savagery to civilization, and citing instances and examples in which his theories are demonstrated.

Other significant texts include his 1870 analysis of familial and societal interactions entitled Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family.

Lewis Henry Morgan 

 

 

 

Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917)

 

Tylor was born on October 2, 1832 in Camberwell, England. Not much is known about his early life other than his education at Grove House School, Tottenham. He had a brief stint in business then began working with an anthropologist in Mexico, Henry Christy. Tylor never got a university degree but was still able to become a professor and highly regarded in his field.[2]

Often called the father of British anthropology, Tylor founded the department of anthropology at Oxford in England. In 1907 the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Insitute of Great Britain and Ireland dedicated the current volume to him to commemorate and acknowledge his work in the field, saying even,

 

     "By universal consent, your Researches into the Early History of Mankind, and your study of Primitive Culture, have placed you in the foremost rank of the founders of Anthropology. No living student of this Science fails to acknowledge his debt to your clear analysis and eloquent presentation of the great principles of human progress."[3]

 

His ideas stem from the same concept as Morgan's, but rather than including all of society and culture, he focuses on the evolution of religion. Each society has a religion, however it begins with animalism, then polytheism, monotheism, and culminating in science. The more primitive the culture, the more primitive their religion. Tylor's ideas were also heavily influence (and influential) in debates concerning Charles Darwin's Origin of Species.[4]His most important work was Primitve Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art, and Custom (1871). 

 

More of Tylor's works include: Anahuac; or Mexico and the Mexicans (1861). Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization (1865), Anthropology: An Introduction to the Study of Man and Civilization (1881).[5] 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christian Jurgensen Thomsen (1788-1865)

Danish archeologist Christian Jurgensen Thomsen, known primarily for his development of the “Three Age System” (consisting of a Stone Age, a Bronze Age, and an Iron Age) is also said to have endorsed the systematic association of cultures along a designated scale. As head of Antiquarian Collections at the Copenhagen museum, his work required a classifications system, and the movement toward cultural evolutionism seemed natural to a man used to categorizing, labeling, and scaling the artifacts of ancient societies.

Thomsen worked for the Danish Royal Commission for the Preservation and Collection of Antiquities in 1816. His works includeA Guide to Northern Antiquities published in 1847.

 

Other Notable Figures:

Morgan and Tylor are often considered the most important figures of Cultural Evolution, however they are not the only ones. Additional figures who played key roles in the development include: Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), John Lubbock (1834-1913), and James Frazer (1854-1941).[6] Spencer had many of the same ideas as Tylor about the progress of religion. As more of a philosopher he touches on parts that Tylor did not. Together, their ideas form the Tylor-Spencer synthesis, a more cohesive account of animism towards science.[7]


 

Key Texts

 

Ancient Society

Perhaps one of the most influential texts regarding Cultural Evolutionary theory comes from Lewis Henry Morgan’s Ancient Society, published in 1877.[8] Morgan’s research was an attempt to understand the perceived differences in development across various cultures. Measured mostly by technical developments observed in different cultures, Morgan attempted to cross-culturally compare surveyed groups, aligning them as “Savage”, “Barbarian”, or “Civilized.”[9] Jerry D. Moore, author of An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists, notes that Morgan’s purpose was to clarify that “Savagery in one culture, barbarism in another, and civilization in a third were not the result of different races being genetically condemned to backwardness or development; they were simply societies perched at different stages on a common progression of cultural evolution.”[10] Morgan wrote,

 

“The latest investigations respecting the early condition of the human race are tending to the conclusion that mankind commenced their career at the bottom of the scale and worked their way up from savagery to civilization through the slow accumulations of experimental knowledge.”[11]

Image provided by e-booksdirectory.com

 

 

Primitive Culture 

Edward Burnett Tylor, a contemporary of Morgan, noted his own theory of the evolutionary process of religion in his book, Primitive Culture, first published in 1871.[12]

 

     Edward Tylor’s Primitive Culture is one of the most important texts regarding Cultural Evolution. Through his research Tylor attempts to explain the past and predict the future by classifying and comparing groups of people. His definition of “Culture or civilization, taken it its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society" (Tylor 1).  [13]. Tylor makes broad generalizations about culture and believes that all "savages" anywhere in the world are all alike.  Tylor recognized man as one group but claimed that all men were in different grades of civilization, which could be recognized systematically and concretely. He states also that trusting isolated statements from ethnographers was dangerous and that one needed corresponding accounts from around the world.

 

Image provided by cambridge.org 

 

[14] The bulk of his work focuses on huge generalizations. Tylor claims that even though there is great distance between groups of “savages,” they all have the same qualities. His method for studying culture relies on not focusing on individuals but rather studying the special habits of a group and then studying the prevalence of those habits. By studying those habits and their frequency, he proposes that one can place groups of people into the different levels of culture. Ways of defining culture proposed in his book are definite and systematic. He states, “The principal criteria of classification are the absence or presence, high or low development, of the industrial arts, especially metal-working, manufacture of implements and vessels, agriculture, architecture, the extent of scientific knowledge, the definiteness of moral principles, the condition of religious belief and ceremony, the degree of social and political organization, and so forth" (Tylor 27). [15]

 

             Volume two of Primitive Culture emphasized on the development of religion as a basis for understanding culture. His work recognized primitive cultures as having a religion based in magic or unseen beings. However, he also makes clear that all religion is based on animism and the belief in spiritual beings. He argues that primitive cultures make an intellectual error in believing that objects or things, such as animals, plants, and rocks have souls like people and that these souls were detachable. He discusses souls passing from one being to another, such as from the deceased to a rock or plant.[16] He argues that this is intellectually wrong and these cultures are therefore primitive. His arguments of course were met with some opposition, nevertheless religion made up a great deal of his work and he provided many examples to support his arguments.

 

 

 


 

Critiques

In this section, we are going to present some of the many critiques of the Cultural Evolution theory, that it is unilinear, "armchair anthropology," ethnocentric and ahistorical.

 

Effacing Cultures of it's Countless Dynamics: Unilinear Evolutionism

Cultures do elvove over time and differ depending on space. Human diversity is not linear, nor can all humans be placed in the same development standards.

this is what our culture did so all others must do that or they are not as advanced as us. Is not necessarily true, all will not follow a single path

Development theory:

Is a conglomeration of theories about how desirable change in society is best to be achieved. Such theories draw in a variety of social scientific disiplines and approaches.[17]

 

Modernization theory:

Is a theory of development which states that the development can be achieved through following the process of development that were used by the currently developed countries

[18]

 

Empirically Flawed: Armchair Anthropology

A primary critique of the theory is the critique of Armchair Anthropology in general, which is argued by all contemporary anthropologists. Used largely by Edward Tylor, armchair anthropology was when anthropologist worked with studies and information collected by others, like missionaries, explorers, and colonial officials.  They did not collect their own information. It is called this essentially because the anthropologists did not have to leave their armchairs to do their research.[19]

They based everything off of other peoples’ (possibly biased) descriptions of the culture and did not observe first hand. This form of anthropology focused on theory over practice and therefore did not value the intimate details of societies, which is fallacious when trying to write about them. Armchair anthropology leads to ethnocentricism, judging other  cultures using one’s own cultural standards. [book]

 

Ethnocentricsm

Since its entry into the field, many anthropologists have argued that the cultural evolution theory is ethnocentric, stating that all cultures have a capacity to be on same level as Western civilization of the time: post-Enlightment, modernism. Others are primitive, not yet at the level of western civilizations. Further, the theory holds Christianity as the ideal religion for humanity. Morgan's line of evolution goes towards becoming christian. Therefore, a Jew in today's world would not have been seen as totally civilized.

The theory further allowed for cultural hegemony of the West over the rest in the forms of colonization and ongoing imperialism. It is still applicable today, in our globalized world, where the West holds priority and influence over the rest of the world, particularly the third world.

"We our our present condition... to the struggles, the stufferings, the heroic exertions and the patient toil of our barborous, and more remotely, of our savage ancestors. Their labors, their trials and their successes were a part of the plan of Supreme Intelligience to develop a barabrian out of a savage, and a civilized man out of this barbarian." Lewis Henry Morgan, closing lines of Ancient Society (1877:554) p. 141

 

 

Other Critiques

As a beginning theory in the field of anthropology created by the "fathers" of anthropology, Tylor and Morgan's social evolutionism has been critiqued by many of its contemporaries. Within anthropology, the evolutionary schemes of 19th century theorists like Morgan and Tylor are generally taken to have been definitively refuted in the early 20th century, most of all by the work of culture relativist Franz Boas and his students.[20]
Boas' theory of cultural relativism rejects the idea that we can hold one society as a standard for others (see 
Boasian Anthropology: Historical Particularism and Cultural Relativism). 

 

Ahistorical: 

Anthropology is supposed to be the study of culture across time and space, not in one time or space. Therefore pinning people to a static societal expectation is fallacious. Peoples' lives are still unfolding, so there are not necessarily obvious answers, definitions, patterns to their lives. Each culture, subculture, etc. unfolds in discreet ways.

 

One one hand, this was a vision of a kind of human unity, on the other, it was a device of differentiating and ranking different contemporary societies according to their level of evolutionary development, since (in spite of the best laid plans of the Supreme intelligence) "other tribes and nations have been left behind in the race of progess."

To Tylor, Development was the active principle according to which new and higher stages of human society might emerge out of order and more simple ones. It s the driving motive force that unites all human history. This facilitates the persistant slippage between the contrasts primitive/civilized that

played a key role int he ideologies of colonialism.[21]

 

For Morgan the question of how societies developed from one evolutionary level to the next was nothing if not theoretical. His typology of developmental stages aimed at nothing less than the explanation of boh human history and human diversity. The distinction between "primitive" and "modern" societies was a theoretically argued one, rather than practical.

mold of ahistorical, rural, tribe study[22]

145-6

 

Morgan placed emphasis on sorting societies according to their level of evolutionary development, instead of based on other criteria such as...

Critics, such as James Ferguson, calls the theory ethnocentric, and asks from who's point of view can one society be seen as higher than another

James Ferguson calls the theory "emperically flawed," meaning that there isn't enough evidence and experience to back it up. [23] The theory rested solely on Morgan's research of the Iroquois (?), and on armchair anthropology: that is, readings of other peoples experiences with different cultures. 

DO morgan and tylor allow for evolution to continue past Victorian society? Did they bear in mind future civilization, or think it was at its peak?

Source:

Edelman, Marc. Haugerud, Angelique. The Anthropology of Development and Globalization. From Classical Political Economy to Contemporary Neoliberalism. Blackwell: Oxford, 2008.

 

 

 

 

You can see how this theory was created because of the biased/limited resources available to these authors. However, what is most important about this branch of anth, is how it served as a launch-pad for other more accurate studies of culture...encouraged people to go check out these cultures, just by mentioning them and breeding curiosity?

We cant blame these theorists for globalization, though it is important to recognize the elitist attitude that is certainly derived from a western superiority complex, and definitely

 and continues these ideals and attitudes for future americans both scholarly and generally.

 

 

Boaz states also that trusting isolated statements from ethnographers was dangerous and that one needed corresponding accounts from around the world [primative culture by tylor]

In the era of colonialism, the theorys are bound to be biased, aimed towards Western superiority. Many colonial officials used anthropological discourse to typecast the people of the area they chose to dominate. For example, British discourse of Islamic Society in Egypt as "backwards" gave them free reign to rule over the society, enforcing their superior Western, Enlightened, Christian laws, moral, principles on the people to bring them towards true civilization.

 

 

Broad comparison:

Do not compare specific enough traits of a culture, leave too much out

 

They consider religion as a basis so if their religion doesn’t change, it doesn’t matter what else does they are still in the same stage i.e. ghost (animism)[24] 

Material aspect:

Focus on the material possessions of culture or what they produce i.e. Polynesians not making pottery. [25] 

 

Just cause they don’t have pottery doesn’t mean they are not advanced, they just might not have needed it[26] 

 

 

 

Historical and traditional evidence not available as to low stages of culture [primitive culture]

 

Conclusion to Critique.

In the wake of devastationg criticisms of the emperical adequacy of the 19th century evolutionary schemes, the emphasis on sorting societies according to their level of evolutionary development largely dropped out of anthropology in the first half of the 20th century. In both the US and in Britain, the task instead came to be seen as one of understanding each unique society in its own terms, as one of many possible ways of meeting human social and psychological needs (see Malinowski's Functionalism), or as one "pattern of culture" (see Benedict), one "design for living" (Kluckholm.)

Nonwestern cultures were no longer to be understood as "living fossils" trapped in evolutionary stages through which the West itself had already passed. Differient societies are really different, not just the same society at a different stage of development. Different primitive societies must not be placed ona  ladder and ranked against each other; all are equally valid, forming whole cultere paterns or functioning systems worth studying in their own right."

 

Citing:

 

Lecture, Professor Carole McGranahan, ANTH2100 Frontiers of Cultural Anthropology, 1 September 2010

 

Conrad Kottak, Cultural Anthropology: Appreciating Cultural Diversity, New York: McGraw Hill, 2009, p. __________

 

 Edward B. Tylor, Primitive Culture,  . . . 

 

 

 

 

 

Footnotes

  1. Rogers, James Allen. “Darwinism and Social Darwinism.” Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1972), pp. 265-280.
  2. Lowie, Robert H. "Edward B. Tylor," American Anthropologist. Vol. 19-2, 262.
  3. "Edward Burnett Tylor," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. Vol. 37 (Jan. - June, 1907), p. 1-2.
  4. Moore, Jerry. 2009. Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists (Third Edition). Lanham and New York: Alta Mira Press.
  5. Lowie, "Edward B. Tylor," 262-263.
  6. Erickson, Paul A. and Liam D. Murphy. 2008. A History of Anthropological Theory (Third Edition). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 49.
  7. Erickson, A History of Anthropological Theory, 53.
  8. Morgan, H. Lewis. Ancient Society. First Indian ed. London: MacMillan & Company, 1877. Transcribed by Ibne Hasan, February 2004. www.marxist.org. Web. 13 September 2010.
  9. Moore, Visions of Culture.
  10. Moore, Visions of Culture.
  11. Morgan, Lewis Henry. Ancient Society. 4 vols. London: MacMillan & Company, 1877. N. pag. Marxists.org. Web. 18 Sept. 2010. .
  12. Moore, Visions of Culture.
  13. Tylor, Edward B. Primitive Culture. New York: Brentano's Publishers, 1871. Print.
  14. Tylor, Primitive Culture.
  15. Tylor, Primitive Culture.
  16. McClenon, James. "Tylor, Edward B." Encyclopedia of Religion and Society. Ed. William H Swatos. Hartford Institue for Religion Research, n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2010.
  17. Edelman, Marc. Haugerud, Angelique. The Anthropology of Development and Globalization. From Classical Political Economy to Contemporary Neoliberalism. Blackwell: Oxford, 2008.
  18. Edelman, The Anthropology of Development and Globalization.
  19. Lecture, Carole McGranahan, ANTH 2100 Fronteirs of Cultural Anthropology, 1 September 2010
  20. Ferugson, James. Anthropology and Its Evil Twin IN 142
  21. Ferguson, James. "Anthropology and Its Evil Twin" IN Edelman, Marc. Haugerud, Angelique. The Anthropology of Development and Globalization. From Classical Political Economy to Contemporary Neoliberalism. Blackwell: Oxford, 2008. 142.
  22. Ferguson, James. "Anthropology and Its Evil Twin" IN Edelman, Marc. Haugerud, Angelique. The Anthropology of Development and Globalization. From Classical Political Economy to Contemporary Neoliberalism. Blackwell: Oxford, 2008. 145-6.
  23. Ferguson, James. "Anthropology and Its Evil Twin" IN Edelman, Marc. Haugerud, Angelique. The Anthropology of Development and Globalization. From Classical Political Economy to Contemporary Neoliberalism. Blackwell: Oxford, 2008. p. 144.
  24. Kottak, Conrad. Cultural Anthropology: Appreciating Cultural Diversity, New York: McGraw Hill, 2009, p. 63
  25. Kottak, Cultural Anthropology, 63.
  26. Kottak, Cultural Anthropology, 63.

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