re: #11 freetoken

For those who are not aware, there is a huge imbroglio in the anthropology world over world views and factions - the latest being Chagnon vs. Sahlins, with some trying to morph it into a Diamond+Chagnon vs. Sahlins conflict.

Sahlins himself quit the NAS over what he perceives as the militarization of the NAS, which is strange if one accepts that the NAS was created by the Commander in Chief of US forces on the eve of our nation’s greatest conflict. IMO Sahlin has confused the issue by throwing this anti-war feeling into the anti-Chagnon stance.

Anyway, all the noble savage believers are up in arms about how Chagnon has painted his favorite Amazonian tribe as war-like. I think this is too simplistic a view, as any view of humanity over a long period - say over the past 5000 years - will inevitably lead one to conclude that humans do have an enduring tendency for inter-tribal warfare.

Dude, I know Sahlins by way of my dad. His stated objection is that Chagnon has taken his work with the Yanomamo and extrapolated it into a evo psych theory about selection of aggression in males.

Which is a leap from micro to macro, and also problematic because the premise assumes that the Yanomamo represent “primitive” caught-in-amber humanity as opposed to a culture that has experienced adaptive changes. Just because the tech tree doesn’t advance in an isolated community doesn’t mean that they haven’t changed.