The Bridge to Humanity How Affect Hunger Trumps the Selfish Gene

by Goldschmidt, Walter

• ISBN13: 9780195179668
• ISBN10: 0195179668
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-07-21
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Bridge to Humanity: How Affect Hunger Trumps the Selfish Gene explores the relationship of biology and culture in the evolution of human behavior. Building upon several of the theoretical issues he first addressed in Man's Way, renowned anthropologist Walter Goldschmidt presents a uniquelook at how human culture functions through biological mechanisms that have evolved from our distant past. "Affect hunger"--the need for affective expressions from others--underlies nurturance and mutuality. Goldschmidt contends that affect hunger--in combination with other factors unique to the human species--in effect "trumps" the selfish gene and is therefore the essential missing key tounderstanding human behavior. Employing discussions of primate behavior, ethnographies, cognitive studies, psychological research, and hormonal and neurological studies, he demonstrates how affect hunger not only provides a reward system for learning language and other cultural information, but alsoremains a motive for social behavior throughout life. Transforming the debate on nature versus culture to one on nature and culture, The Bridge to Humanity provides a fresh perspective on the ways that biology and culture fit together. Indeed, in this book Goldschmidt reinterprets anthropologicalknowledge, profoundly affecting all students concerned with human behavior and reaching far beyond the discipline's borders.

Author Biography

Walter Goldschmidt is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Psychiatry, and Sociology at UCLA

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Nature and Nurture	p. 1
The Confrontation and Its Background
Public Interest in the Issue
Toward a Resolution of the Conflict
Heritage from the Distant Past	p. 10
The Issue of the "Selfish Gene"
Fundamental Elements for Humanity
Learning
Our Ancient Heritage
Tools for the Transition	p. 20
The Evolutionary Gamble
The Relevance of Human Speech to Tool-Making
On the Origin of Language
Language and the Brain
The Emotions
Ritual
Psychological Miscellany
Affect Hunger	p. 47
Definition
The Ethology of Infancy
The Chemistry of Affect Hunger
The Brain and Affect Hunger
Affect Hunger and the Social Order
Revolution in the Nursery	p. 60
Summary of Our Heritage
The Nature of the Revolution
"Intrinsic" Indoctrination of Personality
An Unanticipated Experiment
Affect and Adulthood
Culture	p. 76
Definition of Culture
Language as Communication of Cultural Understanding
Ritual as Communication of Cultural Sentiment
Careers
Reinforcement
Cultural Adaptability
Summary
Cultural Evolution	p. 101
The Nature of Cultural Evolution
The Search for Eden
Ecological Adaptations
Belonging and the Self: Kinship
Clans
Urban Transformations
Possessions and the Self
Arete
Affect Deprivation
Body and Soul	p. 120
The Ontology of Reality
Body
Soul
The Soul and Culture
A View of the Bridge	p. 139
Duality
Affect Hunger
Love
Language
Fabrication
Communicating Feeling
Cultural Worlds
The Symbolic Self
Affect Hunger and Cultural Evolution
Self and Other
One Final Thought
Coda	p. 151
References Cited	p. 153
Index	p. 159
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.