Culture As Given, Culture As Choice

by Van Der Elst, Dirk; Bohannan, Paul

• ISBN13: 9781577660460
• ISBN10: 1577660463
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-10-01
• Publisher: Waveland Pr Inc

Table of Contents

The Point	xiii
Dirk van der Elst
Another View of the Same Point	xvii
Paul Bohannan
Beginning with Sex: Why Males Exist and How Women Are Unique	1	(12)
Sex in Nature	4	(2)
Sex among Humans	6	(3)
The Human Sexes	9	(4)
The Other Double Helix: From Reflex to Culture	13	(16)
The First Imperatives	16	(3)
Unconditioned Responses	19	(2)
Conditioned Responses	21	(2)
Creatures of Habit	23	(2)
Fetalizing a Primate	25	(4)
How Your Culture Works on You: Perception and Behavior as Cultural Artifacts	29	(18)
The Culture Concept	32	(1)
How You Got Culture	33	(12)
A Ray of Hope	45	(2)
Getting a Grip on Culture: Making the Concept Manageable	47	(8)
Levels of Culture	50	(2)
The Wheel Analogy	52	(1)
On Definitions	53	(2)
In the Beginning Was the Word: Language	55	(8)
All in the Family: Relations, Generations and Obligations	63	(32)
The Social Life	65	(3)
The Sexual Division of Labor	68	(2)
Working the Reproductive Drives	70	(9)
Kinship	79	(10)
Descent	89	(3)
Corporate Descent Groups	92	(3)
The Shaft, and How You Got It: Inequality	95	(32)
The Attributes of Inequality	98	(2)
The Consequences of Inequality	100	(2)
The Origins of Inequality	102	(6)
The Prerequisites for Stratification	108	(4)
Types of Stratification	112	(10)
Sexual and Racial Inequality	122	(3)
The Purposes of Inequality	125	(2)
If It Works, It's Obsolete: Technology and Culture Change	127	(16)
From Fire to the Stars	129	(5)
The Revolutionary Inventions	134	(1)
Change and Evolution	135	(3)
Evolution: Adaptation to Ongoing Change	138	(3)
You and Culture Change	141	(2)
The Unquenchable Thirst: Knowing	143	(20)
How Knowledge Is Gained	145	(3)
The Pervasiveness of Magic	148	(2)
Scientific Thinking	150	(13)
Worth Dying For: A Reason to Live: Believing	163	(28)
Stories	166	(8)
Ideology	174	(3)
Religion	177	(10)
Ideology as Agent of Change	187	(4)
Futures and Alternatives: Cultural Trends	191	(20)
The Population Bomb	193	(3)
Environmental Collapse	196	(1)
Inequality in the Third Millennium	197	(4)
The Eternal Dichotomy	201	(5)
The Slippery Slope	206	(5)
Prepping for the Third Millennium: Improving Your Odds	211	(18)
Bringing It Home	213	(3)
Surviving Well in Interesting Times	216	(8)
And Now a Word from Our Sponsor	224	(3)
Scenarios	227	(2)
Index	229