Violence in Western Culture

I grew up playing video games.  Several years ago, I would have vehemently resisted the notion that video games promote violence, but as I've shifted my focus to other pastimes and begun to take philosophy more seriously, I have come to seriously question the effects that playing these games has on the mind.  When my anthropology professor, Dr. Devon Peña, showed the class a decidedly shocking video game based on killing Mexican immigrants (he showed it as a demonstration of the racist tendencies of our culture), I returned to the question of why we play video games in the first place.  (If you really want to, you can see the game here: http://www.aztlan.net/racist_anti-mexican_game.htm.)

Here's my thinking on the subject: as I've discussed before, our culture is based on striking out against perceived enemies.  However, we've reached a level of education (or at least many of us have) at which we realize that our violent tendencies more often destructive than constructive.  So we play violent video games as a way to divert our violent tendencies into a channel where no one gets hurt.  However, there is significant debate as to whether playing the games actually works to expend the violence stored in our minds or it simply reinforces the violent tendencies.

In the case of Border Patrol, the violence is directed at virtual Mexicans.  And in this case, the violence is certainly not being harmlessly diverted.  In fact, I say that it's impossible to really divert the violence so that no harm is done.  That's not to say that all video games are bad--there are certainly games that focus on intellectual challenge rather than primal satisfaction, and games that stand as works of art--but we need to reexamine our value system if so much of our entertainment is based on simulated violence.

Of course, it's extremely difficult to abandon a philosophy based on violence/struggle.  It forms a positive feedback loop--when your greatest value is strict adherence to your values, it is nearly impossible to abandon that system.  However, it is possible.  The alternative philosophy is one of inhabitation--forming a mutually respectful relationship with the surroundings rather than subjugating the surroundings.  The connection between these two totally different views is that education is an aspect of both.  While inhabiting the surroundings expressly entails knowing the surroundings, though, defeating the surroundings only involves learning if the person in question is smart enough to realize his or her ignorance.  In other words, Westerners only seek to educate themselves if it is necessary to their continued sense of progress.  In any case, the pursuit of knowledge ("piercing through the veil," as Herman Melville wrote in Moby Dick) is one way that we fight against the world.  That is fortunate, because if we continue educating ourselves, then at some point we will realize the folly of our egocentric, violent worldviews.

This is evident in the fact that some of us play video games, rather than acting out our violent fantasies on our neighbors (though that activity is not yet extinct, sadly).  At least we're making an attempt to stop our violence.  I say we take this a step further, though, and shift our whole philosophies; recognize the power of cooperation, stop loving those near us more than those far from us.  Stop getting into battles of "us versus them."  Egocentric thinking is what ruins the world.

Let me know what you think.  Should we keep trying to channel our aggression, or should we try to abandon the worldview that causes these tendencies?

-Casey

Our genes, our future.

The discovery of a small group of Gambian women with an apparent immunity to HIV infection

(Related Article)

Scientists have determined that Ashkenazi (European dissent) Jewish women have an increased genetic susceptibility to breast cancer.

(Related Article)

For more on the breast cancer (BRCA I and II) patents, which gave ownership of this gene to a private corporation in Cambridge, Mass (Myriad Genetics), see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/business/30gene.html

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Whether anyone would like to admit it or not, evolution is still happening. We are the "top dogs" or "top of the food chain" for now but everything around us and inside of us is still changing with or without our consent.

The new issue that is coming to pass is the idea of a given company OWNING these genes. Imagine for a moment that you are one of these people with a special gene, and little pieces of you technically don't belong to you. Would you feel disgusted, would you want your genes back? Especially having not given them up with any sort of consent?

Once again man shows his wish to dominate nature, though in this case the "nature" of the human body and it's jeans explicitly overlap with culture in the fact that it is the case of parts of  human beings being owned by others.

This is a topic I have just been introduced to and will be delving into further even after Anthropology is over for fall quarter. It is incredibly interesting in the world of anthropology, as well as medical ethics. I wanted to introduce it to anyone listening who maybe hasn't heard of the topic before and see what you all thought. Any input or discussion would be interesting and worthwhile as I continue to investigate further myself.

-Stephanie

Individualism in Western Society

I would like to devote a blog post to the concept of individualism as it affects Western society.  I believe that the desire to be set apart from one's surroundings is the aspect of Western culture that fundamentally differentiates it from the rest of the cultures in the world.

Evolutionarily, individualistic behavior is illogical.  If we were to perform a test in which several small human populations were put into self-contained environments with natural-style ecosystems, then only the populations who best exhibited the group mentality would survive.  Why would this happen?  Because they would respect the Common Property Resources.  No one would overfish, or overgraze their cattle, or take more than their share of any resource, knowing that the continued availability of those resources depended on responsible, respectful use.  They would see themselves as a part of a whole ecosystem.

However, groups rarely inhabit totally isolated places.  Apparently, Western culture emerged from  a situation in which a group of humans realized that they could save energy by draining their environment of its resources, using them, and then moving on to a new location to repeat the process, rather than working the land for subsistence (I'm no expert on early human behavior, so this is entirely speculative).  This type of behavior leads to a mindset in which the surroundings are the "enemy" to be bled for resources for the self.  The outside becomes "bad" and the inside becomes "good."  This mindset is extremely apparent in the Westernized world: we build cities so that we don't have to deal with nature--so that we don't have to adjust.  We say, instead, that nature must adjust to us.  We love cowboys and samurai and mavericks and astronauts.  We have sayings like "Life's a bitch."  We build skyscrapers because the ground apparently isn't good enough, so the sky must be better.  This can also be extended to much of Western religion.  We have constructed the concept of Heaven as if life on Earth were not good enough.

Why do we feel as if there is somewhere else that we ought to be?

This is the concept of individualism: I, the self, am good, and you, the outside, are bad; I am different from you and I do not belong with you.  It has become so ingrained in Westerners' brains that it is impossible to avoid.  It's part of our ancestral memory, our collective unconscious.  I am even motivated right now by a desire for individualism to seek objective understanding of the world, as if subjective understanding were inferior.  Westerners invented objectivity, which is the ideal of totally separating oneself from the observed thing, in order to understand it from an outside perspective.  It is, of course, impossible, and only reflects our strange desire to be outside of our bodies.

It is quite ironic that our rational, objectivity-seeking thought patterns have eventually led us to see that this very thought pattern causes the destruction of the natural habitat.  Western science is finally admitting that the knowledge of indigenous peoples is, in fact, often quite comprehensive and useful (see Fairhead and Leach 1995 for an interesting example of this).  We've already permanently changed our planet as a result of our hubris, however.  It's possible we will meet an untimely and uncomfortable end as a result.  In fact, it's hard to imagine any way for us to sustain the population explosion we're currently experiencing for much longer.

My uninformed, impractical and purely theoretical advice is that we need to do all we can to reverse our instinctive desire to be individuals.  There's nothing wrong with being different--in fact diversity breeds resilience--but there is no need to be different just for the sake of being different.  We need to think of how our actions affect the greater group.  This is true now more than ever, because in the globalized world, our actions (or failures to act) can affect everything.  Humanity is one big community, so we had better start acting like one.

Since I am coming from such a purely theoretical standpoint, I would love to hear other views on this.  Please, leave a comment letting me know what you think about individuality and global society.

-Casey

Language's Point of View: Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that a person's language, through its vocabulary and structure, shapes the way that person perceives reality, thinks and behaves. In reality this theory is very controversial; the strong hypothesis (that language determines thought) is practically debunked, but the weak version of the hypothesis (that language influences thought) is quite arguably true at least in some situations, though there is significant debate over the extent of how true it is and in what situations it is true.

Many Native American languages—Navajo and Apache, for instance—use the same word for 'foreigner' and 'enemy' as they were wary of people they were unfamiliar with (since they had come to know all in the area). Interesting also, it’s actually a bit like that in Indo-European languages where "guest" and "hostile" (via Latin "hostis") are both derived from the same Proto-Indo-European word meaning "stranger". In both cases it is a lack of knowledge about the subject that forces a negative connotation to the term “stranger” in societies. This automatically creates linguistic connections between a neutral word like “stranger” and a more negative word like “enemy” or a “hostile” person/thing etc.

As these languages have connected/ combined words and meanings, which initially misplaces connotation and eventually simply integrates that connotation into the word, other misconceptions have continually been made about languages being interpreted by non-native speakers. For example it's a common urban myth that the Inuit people have an unusually large number of words for 'snow'. This is an illusion caused by the particularities of Inuit grammar, and the fact there are multiple dialects of the Inuit language. In fact, in each dialect they don't have a large number of words for ‘snow’, but have a detailed terminology for different types of snow. (Examples found in article: “What are nine Eskimo words for snow”) This makes sense as they live in a place where it's snowy almost year round and knowing what kind of snow you're dealing with could be vital in many situations. Then, too, English has quite a number of words for snow itself - especially English spoken by people in places where it snows a lot. Just goes to show, the inverse Sapir-Whorf effect - that language tends to adapt rather quickly in order to more easily convey concepts one needs to talk about, is inarguably true.

“An estimated 7,000 languages are spoken in the world but more than half of them are dying out so fast that they will be lost completely by the end of the century as children learn more common languages, such as English or Spanish.” -Native languages hold the key to saving species

So if the weak version of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is at all correct in that language influences thought, then we are losing all of these different culture’s ways of thinking and the knowledge that they’ve acquired through these particular ways of thinking.

In the movie “Teachings of the Tree People” there are an incredible number of examples of this knowledge, which was acquired through their belief in the coexistence, and interconnectedness of man and nature, that is quickly becoming extinct – with language, but also if this hypothesis is correct, it is possible that knowledge is becoming extinct in direct correlation with the loss of language- because of it. Think about it, one of the best ways to encourage the degradation of a culture is to create a lack of interest among its adolescent population – and what’s a great way to do that? To not allow their native language to be their first language, in terms of this hypothesis, to give them a different way to think, behave, and perceive the world right off the bat.

In this movie Bruce Miller (above) is the sort of “main character” and his life story is a very interesting one. This Skokomish man as a youth went to a western college, joined the army and served for America overseas, he lived in New York and was a member of the Native American Theater, and after all of his travels and life as a westerner he ached for home, so he went back to his home in Washington State and lived among his people as an elder who knew many of the old ways and traditions. He was so important to the native peoples for this reason, he grew up in extended family and not a boarding school like many – he had knowledge he could pass down to the next generation to keep the culture alive. He taught some people how to weave baskets, some to strip a tree's bark for the materials to create shelter, others of the native plants species and their medicinal uses. Their knowledge was of the surrounding nature because their “perception of the world,” their thought patterns, as well as their language were shaped by the world around them, and by the belief that man and nature could live in “coeval,” a mutual determining relationship.

Those plants and animals that these natives are not only closely tied to, but also very knowledgeable of are needlessly becoming extinct or threatened in the same way the languages are. Buried in some of these languages is the key to learning more about them and maybe even saving them.

Dr. David Harrison (in the article quoted above) cited the example of a South American skipper butterfly, Astraptes fulgerator, which scientists thought was just one species until a DNA study six years ago revealed that it was in fact 10 different species whose camouflaged coloration made the adult forms appear practically identical to one another.

If the scientists studying this species had spoken to the Tzeltal-speaking people of Mexico (descendants of the Maya) they might have come to this conclusion much sooner because Tzeltal has several descriptions of the butterflies based on the different kinds of caterpillar. The people living in the territory of these butterflies care very little about the adult butterfly, but care very much about the larvae because the caterpillars affect their crops and agriculture; in fact their survival could ultimately depend (some years) on their knowledge of which larvae is eating which crop etc. Because of this they have a very fine-tuned classification system for them.

Dr. Harris said “Indigenous people often have classification systems that are often more fine-grained and more precise than what Western science knows about species and their territories."

If, as in this case their knowledge of the species is less obvious than say, medicinal uses (which westerners are very interested in), then the knowledge embedded in their language, and the point of view that the specific language creates in a person can die forever with that language. We cannot let this trend continue; we cannot let upwards of 3,500 languages be lost by the turn of the century.


Stephanie

How nature became "man’s" pet/ hobby/life source/ and nightmare all at once.

The pyramids of Egypt, the Coliseum in Rome, Big Ben in London, Eifel Tower in Paris, Washington Monument in Washington, DC, or the Taj Mahall in India. Man makes his mark wherever he goes.

Eifel Tower

Taj Mahall

For centuries man has been doing just this, but maybe I should clarify “man” - Western man. Nature is something to be feared, to be changed, or to retreat to when in need of spiritual release. Think about it…

Greeks/ Romans Myths – Charybdis was once a nymph-daughter of Poseidon and Gaia who flooded lands for her father's underwater kingdom until Zeus (or in some cases by Circa) turned her into a monster and have her suck in and out water three times an day (the tides). She lived in a cave at one side of the Strait of Messina, opposite the monster Scylla (sea monster), the two of them forming a dangerous threat to passing ships.

American Folklore- Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, is purportedly an ape-like creature that inhabits forests, mainly in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Bigfoot is usually described as a large, hairy, bipedal humanoid. This ape-man draws plenty of media attention, and though presented as hoax and folklore still makes people more cautious about entering certain forests.

French Tales– The Beast of Gévaudan is a name given to man-eating wolf-like animals alleged to have terrorized the former province of Gévaudan in the Mountains in south-central France from 1764 to 1767. There were always said to be eye-witnesses. Women, children, and eventually men were discouraged by their community and official guardsmen to go into forests or high grass during this time period. The beast was also said to have connections to Satan and therefore everyone should be attending Mass and services as often as possible.

Mexican Folklore – The chupacabras is a legendary cryptid rumored to inhabit parts of the Americas. It is associated more recently with sightings of an allegedly unknown animal in Puerto Rico (where these sightings were first reported), Mexico, and the United States, especially in the latter's Latin American communities. The name comes from the animal's reported habit of attacking and drinking the blood of livestock, especially goats.

All of these cultures were scared – to some extent – to venture into nature and leave the civilized world at their backs. They created stories and myths that not only instilled a fear of nature into its citizens, but also blamed nature for all of the deaths that somehow occurred in nature, therein giving it an all around negative connotation.

This ignorance and fear stems from a lack of knowledge about the environment that they were living in. When housing became easy, and the food source changed from personal livestock and agriculture to people obtaining their necessities from market places and others, western society as a whole (any of the different societies) gradually forgot about how to coexist with the land, what it meant to plant/ harvest your own food, and the mutually determining relationship between Nature and Culture.

Case and Point: The Kayapó.

Researcher Darrel Posey discusses the indigenous people’s (Kayapó) management of the land, and recognizes that the forest patches are often in very close vicinity to villages, initially estimating that about 75% of those patches are manmade. He writes about how the Kayapó create mosaic forests that actually mimic nature (biomimicry). The forests rely on these people for their great biodiversity and the people need the forest for basic necessities.

BBC Article including the picture above

They are coeval (University of Washington - Professor Peña’s term) – they grew and developed together, balancing out.

They too created myths – however these, though still considered“stories” were simply a way of translating real, factual information to the general public (being studied in Ethobiology) instead of legitimately stating fiction as fact based on loose accounts by many people that were probably incredibly similar to the game “telephone” in terms of dependability.

The Kayápo people believed in a metaphysical eel, a sacred entity know as “Kr’yak.” This eel was said to have frequented certain ponds or streams along the Xingu River during certain times of year and while it occupied the water, no fisherman would fish there. The times during which this sacred eel occupied the water coincided with the spawning season of native fish species. The lesson to be learned from this story is that just because a group of people does not use the “language” of conservation biology does not meant that they are ignorant of relationships between organisms in their environment or that they don’t have their own reasons/ methods for conservation of their “place.”

Why does the typical “western man,” or western society in general fear nature and desire control over instead of cooperation with? Because they do not understand it; they forgot about that possibility.

Stephanie

The Nature/Culture Dichotomy Fallacy

We cannot claim to know it all. We are raised from the west but expand our minds enough to realize this isn't all there is out there. For years, decades, and centuries native or indigenous cultures have been suppressed, and with their loss of home comes a loss of culture, language, religion, and all of the knowledge that goes along with it. Their way of living was fundamentally different from ours and thus it was discredited as inferior, and their knowledge was not accepted as legitimate. This was, put simply, a mistake.

"The [Nature/Culture] dichotomy makes it seem like common sense that parks must be set aside from people, and that real nature is not found in cities." - Dove/Carpenter Reading

The Nature/Culture dichotomy is a common oversimplification of the relationship between humans and their environment, and one that exposes key differences between the traditional "Western" school of thought and that of most indigenous cultures. This dichotomy stems from a concept characterized by Descarte’s most famous quote: "cogito ergo sum" (I think therefore I am). This idea that humans are special because they think; they recognize this self asserted crown in the hierarchy of the animal kingdom as a trait that completely separates the human being from "nature" and thus that being's environment. The person is the subject and all else: rocks, animals, plants, water are objects. (Subject/Object Dichotomy)

As a civilization we observe natives. "Cultural Voyeurism" is the term Andy Isaacson (Travel Journalist) writes in his New York Times article "Amazon Awakening." We think it's a fitting term (although we find fault in other aspects of the article). A Voyeur watches something with no intent to partake—no desire to "walk in their shoes."  We observed, but we didn't learn from them. “They live in harmony with nature” sounds corny, so we won’t use it instead: they live in cooperation with nature. In Darrel Posey’s “Indigenous Management of Tropical Forest ecosystems: The Case of the Kayapó Indians of the Brazilian Amazon” it is brought to attention that these forests – not even just forest patches – and several islands were anthropogenic in nature. The Kayapó not only did not harm their environment but they enhanced it, they increased biodiversity by who knows how much, and they lived with the mosaic, natural looking environment they had managed for so long. Professor Devon Penã at the University of Washington calls this way of life “Living like a Beaver.” A beaver will alter its environment, develop a home for itself, but in doing so it creates a new environment that holds a place for other life forms, therein increasing biodiversity. The Kayapó’s way of life and relation to their environment is only one example proving that man mustn’t necessarily live in competition with nature.

Although some may argue that Nature/Culture Dichotomy is needed and in fact relevant to the evolution of Western Culture, Dove and Carpenter point out an equally opposing argument with the notion that the local place based cultures can actually assist the environment. The Guinea island forests are other prime examples of this anthropogenic "assistance. Unfortunately western misconceptions have tarnished the acknowledgement of generations of increased biodiversity made possible by the first nations in Guinea. This again is evidence that the whole concept of the Nature/Culture Dichotomy is flawed because not all people choose to live separate from the environment.

Beyond the preservation of other species, it would be in our own best interest as humans to recognize the “Co-evalness,” (another of professor Penã's terms) or mutual determinism, of our culture and the environment in which we live.  One undeniable fact about humanity is that we must live in some kind of environment—there must be something that provides our food, our air, our water, etc.  If we see the environment as something that must be bent to our will, as an enemy to be bled for resources rather than as an ally to cooperate with, we will destroy our environment and thus destroy ourselves.

Humanity and nature do not form a binary – forever cast to the opposite ends of the spectrum. Competition with nature can cease and give way to cooperation; the so-called “common sense” in separating the place of habitation from the place of nature may one day be laughed at.


-Stephanie, Joe, Logo, Casey