341april17

The speaker is discussing materialist approaches to culture and society, specifically focusing on Marvin Harris and Karl Marx. They explain that materialist analyses examine the mode of production and property ownership as determining factors in shaping culture, religion, ethics, and art. They compare different modes of production, such as capitalism, feudalism, and tribal-scale production, and how they influence ideology and rituals. They also mention Julian Steward's concept of cultural adaptation as another form of materialism. The speaker suggests that materialist thinking has its merits, but also acknowledges the need to avoid extreme ideologies. They mention the fear of teaching Marxist ideas due to political biases and discuss the importance of adaptation in cultural practices. stuff every day, right? I want to buy that already. You can sell that in Hollywood, you know, turn it into, you can do the showrunner and everything. Awesome. Sam is here, Austin is here, David is there, Audrey is there, Jessica is there, Megan is there, Val is there, Rebecca, Haley, Chris is there. Good. Good to see everybody. And here we are coming to an end. I'm getting a feeling here, like this class definitely is coming to an end here. We've got our test on Friday. Everybody ready for the test on Friday? I feel like we could even review a little bit for the test on Friday. Why not? Do that here just so that everybody can do as well as possible. But as part of that review, maybe we should go over this material again and make sure we understand all of this material here in chapter twelve. So, we understand, but I guess maybe where we didn't get to here, Dave, sorry to do it to you again, you know, are these whole materialist birthday cake thing here. Like, did we get that whole point? It's kind of a huge point for, I mean, all of these materialist approaches, I would say, but, you know, particularly this Marvin Harris is often called, you know, a vulgar materialist approach. In other words, it's too simplistic. It doesn't leave enough room for variation. It's overly deterministic. You know, so do you have anything on those materialist birthday cakes? Well, I know that Harris was definitely a lot different than Marx. He took a lot of, like, the...he, like, took his material basis society and kind of, like, what was it, the mode of production? Yeah, it was the mode of reproduction, but he, like, basically took that and was completely different than, like, Marx. The thing is, so, it's the same. You know, like, he changed the name but all the concepts are the same. You know, it's basically like this watered down version of Marx is the key point here. So, here, you know, I mean, what's the basic concept here? You know, like, what is the point of materialist analyses of culture and society? Did you get that? Somewhere in my neck. Here, I'll let you do it for you here. Who needs a great pen? There you go. You're gonna love that pen. So, the key thing about this, of this, is, like, what's the most important part? Like, here's Marx's cultural dialectical materialist birthday This is Marx down here. You know, here we're on page 313. That's Marx. You know? Okay. So, what's the most important part of this? What determines the rest of it? That's where we're getting into the issue here. It's the mode of production. You know, it's all of these forces of production. It's the technology. It's the factories. It's the, you know, peasants working in the field. It's all of that. You know? It's the resources that are in that particular place. And it's the social relations of production. In other words, it's the king demanding that the peasants go out and cultivate flack in the king's field and provide half of the, you know, share crop back to the king as tribute. It's the capitalists who own the factory and the workers who are forced to work in the factory. See, there's the property ownership. It's the organization of production. You know, my example here. So then, you know, what is determined by this mode of production? Thanks. Everything else. You know? Everything else is determined by the mode of production. You know? So, in other words, if you have a mode of production and the property ownership is based on money, you know, like the way you get land is through money and the way you control property is through money, what's the ideology of that system going to be according to Marx's analysis? Say it, Thomas. You can go on more specifically. What about money, for example? The money is natural and normal. It's, you know, everybody has money. We can't, you know, there's no way to organize society in any other way. You know, money determines the entertainment system. Money determines the religion. It's the billionaires that are going to support the, you know, churches that are supporting the property relation. You know, there's going to be all kinds of rituals of wealth involved. Like, for example, the Super Bowl or Coachella are rituals of wealth. You see what I mean? That's all determined. The values and philosophy, the ethics, and the art are all going to be determined by that underlying mode of production, you know? So, if it was instead of a capitalistic mode of production, if it was an ancient tributary mode of production, you know, like European kings, for example, you know, a feudal mode of production, well, then it would be a different kind of property ownership. It wouldn't be about money. Kings don't own property as a result of money. How do kings manage to own property? They don't buy property. In ancient tributary states, you can't buy and sell land. Where do the kings get land in those old tributary states? They inherit them. Exactly. From who? Their parents. You know, their noble parents. Or they conquer them. You know, you don't buy land in the ancient... So, in other words, property ownership, then, is based on the divine right of kings. You see what I mean? Like, that's the basis of the property relationship. So, what would the religion be about? It would be all about, you know, fancy oil paintings with kings, you know, showing them, you know, standing at the foot of God, and there would be all these rituals around the castle, and all of the values would be about how the king is fundamentally noble and connected to the, you know, God and to himself, you know, and the philosophy and the ethics and the art would all be about supporting that mode of production, whatever it was, you know? And Marx would also say, you know, and also, you know, Marvin Harris, is the same thing, you know, when you're talking about a mode of production that's like a sustainable, agricultural mode of production, you know, like a tribal-scale mode of production. Well, there, the property ownership, there is no land ownership. Land is use-across. People can use the land as they want. If you're not using the land, you don't get to maintain the land, you know, and so everybody has equal access to the land is the idea there. Nobody should control access to the land. And so, as a result of that particular property ownership and mode of production, there's going to be a particular ideology. What's that ideology going to be like in a basically egalitarian society where everybody has access to the land? It's going to be about sustainability. There's going to be characters that look like Jesus Cula, for example, you know, it's going to be a law-giving ancestral deity who says that everybody needs to have access to the land, everybody needs to be included in community decisions, you know, to do decent, you know, everyone's included, and we can't overuse the land, you need to leave the land for other non-human relatives, you know, that's going to be the religion, ritual, and there's going to be ritual about that. It's going to look like a stomp dance, you know, it's going to look like a green corn dance, you know, where people are celebrating the harvest and then redistributing that harvest among themselves. What do you mean by that? You know, like that's just one example, but there are thousands of examples of that. So, Katie, you know, when you're saying it's different than Marx, you're right, it's different than Marx, but really notice how similar it is. He's just changing the name to infrastructure, he's changing the name to structure, and he's changing the name to superstructure. Why would he be afraid of, like, presenting, you know, his Marxist approach using Marxist terminology? Well, not too long ago, I mean, it was kind of viewed as, like, communist and everything. He'd be fired. He'd be fired. You know, just like he could be fired for teaching about race, class, or gender in the United States, you know, increasingly in North Carolina and any other red, quote-unquote, state, increasingly is going to be fired for teaching those kinds of things. So, he was afraid, basically, and he was hiding his Marxist orientation, which, after all, it does, there is, you know, a logic to it, you know, you don't want to take it too far and create, like, a totalitarian communist system that's, you know, dominating people and, you know, destroying the environment, but there is a logic to that kind of materialist thinking that, you know, also you can see has an origin in Julian Stewart, you know? Like, Julian Stewart's Culture 4 is also materialist. Do you get that? In what sense is, you know, not to go back there, Seth, and put you on the spot from a previous week, but Julian Stewart's Culture 4 is also materialist. How so? Now, let's see, this is the problem. I'm sitting right here, Robin. You know, how is Julian Stewart's Culture 4 materialist? What's the Culture 4 all about? Adaptation. Thank you. When I say Culture 4, you say adaptation. And in the other section, I said, when I say Culture 4, and somebody says, and you say it, and he says, no! So, yeah, absolutely. Adaptation, you know, so you're adapting to the land, right? So, in other words, all of that material reality of you adapting to the land, you know, actually going out and hunting rabbits, you know, like, you need to modify your own behavior so that you can do that rabbit hunting. You're going to have a culture that encourages people to come together once or twice a year, whenever the rabbits get together, so that they will want to get together and have a rabbit hunt. You're going to have a big ritual or a ceremony where people are looking forward to that animal rabbit hunt. You see what I mean? So, that's still a materialist point of view, you know. I'll just make the distinction here. The difference between, and, you know, this might seem like a small distinction to you, but I think it's an important one. The difference between this cultural materialism and cultural ecology is the amount of determination. You know, like, Marvin Harris is saying that all of your ideas are going to be determined by the material base of your reality. That's the, you know, infrastructure. Is that the term that they're using here? You know, the infrastructure. He's not using the term mode of production, but it's the same concept. And so, Marvin Harris, that's why he's considered a vulgar materialist. He's just way over-deterministic. So, for example, when he's saying that the reason that Hindu people are not eating cows is because of this one infrastructure mode of production materialist reason, in other words, the need to plow, that's fundamentally what he's saying, you know, that you can get more energy by using those cows to plow so that you can have a vegetarian diet than you can get from actually eating the cows, you know. It's just too simplistic. You know, like, anyone who's a Hindu person is gonna tell you there's a lot of reasons we're vegetarian. You know, it's like, there's the whole cow system, there's the ancient mythology, there's the Bhagavad Gita, you know, there's like a whole lot of reasons why we're not vegetarian. You know, for example, there's the whole bodily schema that Hindu caste societies have, which is to say that those people who are in higher caste who are Brahmin and vegetarian are associated with one part of the body, this part of the body, you know, the clean part of the body, and those people who are lower caste and who might eat meat are associated with lower parts of the body, and so therefore are unclean, is the concept. You know, that's all important, you know, and if you're gonna be a realistic anthropologist, you want to take in all of that. You know, it's like, yeah, okay, they're useful for plowing, that's nice, you know, I can see that argument, but it's not like that's the only reason, you know, you gotta use some kind of nuance here, and Marvin Harris is just beating people over the head with a kind of vulgar materialism, you know, it's almost like a simplified Marxism, because even Marx talks about how there was a contradiction, it's not so simplistic, now some of that ended up getting, you know, lost as communist governments took over and they turned it into their own, you know, kind of guiding, ruling ideology, but, so do you see the difference? You know, a cultural-ethological approach would say, yeah, the culture core is gonna be the key thing, you know, if you're a nomadic pastoralist, you're gonna have to live in a tent, that's for sure, you know, why do you have to live in a tent if you're a nomadic pastoralist? You gotta follow the herd, you know, like, why do you have to, why does the herd have to move, why doesn't the herd just stay in one place? Say it, Thomas. Because you're overgrazing the area, so in other words, if you're a pastoralist, you need grass, you know, your grass is gonna determine your life, you know, like, that is gonna be determined, if you can't be a pastoralist and not have grass, you know, you've got to find grass, and if it means you're going up onto a mountain top to find the grass, so you're doing, you know, if it means that you've got to wander around in the desert to this place where thunderstorms cause grass to grow, then you gotta do it, you know, so there are parts of your culture that are gonna be determined, that's the culture core, you know, but famously, Julian Stewart said, that what is in the culture core has to be empirically determined, so it's not like, you know, it's gonna be simplistic, like Marvin Harris, you know, Marvin Harris sold a lot of books because he was doing this kind of simple-minded argument about it, you know, but when Julian Stewart is talking about the culture core, it's like, yeah, you're gonna have to live in a tent, does it have to be a yurt? No, it doesn't have to be a yurt, could be a teepee, you know, could be a teepee, could be, you know, could be, you know, goat skin, you know, shelter over sticks, you know, like, you could have a whole lot of different ways, the thing is, you gotta be mobile with your herd, that's the number one thing, you know, but that every little bit of your culture right down to, like, ideas about what's edible and what's not edible, you know, like, that's all directly determined by the, you know, infrastructure, as Marvin Harris says, that's going to be fine, you know what I mean, but that's basically what this materialist birthday cakes are about, it's just like trying to figure out, you know, the key thing here is they're materialists, and they're like, well, what, you know, what's being determined by what, you know, here, this is my example, I hope it works for you, you know, famously Pittsburgh used to be a steel town, you know, it was, like, one of the biggest steel towns in the United States, I think the biggest steel town in the United States, so it had a particular culture, what was the culture that comes with being in a steel town? What are steel workers like? What must you be like if you're a steel worker, you know, it's, like, it's going to be determined for you what you're going to be like if you're a steel worker. Say it, Katie. Probably kind of rough. Kind of rough, you know, like, you're working in this giant furnace, you know, you've got to be rough, tough, you know, whatever it is, you know, that's going to be a fundamental aspect of your culture that you're going to have to have in Pittsburgh, you know. So, maybe you're going to have a culture in Pittsburgh that's going to include sports and entertainment. What might be your gene in Pittsburgh? Could be, say, the Steelers, you know what I mean? Like, that's directly determined there by steel companies. So, let me make my point, though, you know. So, now, here's my question. Is steel still important in Pittsburgh? Not at all. I don't believe there are any steel manufacturing plants in Pittsburgh at all. What's the name of the football team from Pittsburgh? The Steelers, you know what I mean? Like, so, is that culture being directly determined by the, you know, mode of production at this point? Not at all, you know. Like, at this point, the football team should be called the, you know, EV cars, or whatever it is, because Pittsburgh's trying to reinvent itself as a high-tech club now, you know. But it's the Steelers. Oh, I was going to say, another funny thing with the Pittsburgh culture, the older houses that are there that were built in the 20th century, if you walked into them at the entrance, there is a shower that's right at the entrance, because when they come out, they're covered in soot. Right, so, at that time, that was necessary. Like, you could say that that was part of the infrastructure, the mode of production, the culture core, you know, it's being determined by light in Pittsburgh, you know. And you could still find a lot of houses there, and probably now people are going to use those showers to shower off after taking a jog with your dogs, or whatever like that, because, you know, you were a new tech entrepreneur in Pittsburgh, you know, and so, the meaning of the culture is going to totally change. In other words, it's not directly always determined. Don't be so simplistic. Don't be functionalist. That's why cultural imperialism is functionalist, you know. And, you know, it's nice when things function, but they don't always function in reality, you know, that's the Panglossian fallacy, so we want to be aware of that. You see how cultural materialism is functionalist? You're always answering those cultural riddles, you know. That section is asking cultural riddles, you know, or answering cultural riddles. There's always an answer for it in Marvin Harris' cultural materialism, you know. Whatever the weirdo cultural trait is, he's going to find the materialist reason for that cultural trait, and so that's why it's always functionalist. Whereas, sometimes, it just doesn't make sense, you know. Like, say, you move into your house in Pittsburgh today, and it's got a shower in the front, you're like, this makes no sense to me at all, you know. I am going to remove this, you know, and remodel my house so that this is not in my house anymore, because it doesn't function anymore, you know what I mean? And so, that's the difference between cultural ecology and cultural materialism, is the degree of determination. People talk a lot about this, y'all. In the 80s, it was a long time ago. Now, it's like, it don't matter that much. We're just trying to, like, understand that we want to have some kind of materialist approach, but we don't want to be too simplistic in our materialism. So, the reason that this cultural ecological, I mean, excuse me, this cultural materialist approach was, you know, so deterministic is because of this. You know, what Marvin Harris was thinking is that human populations are always on the edge. That's what he's thinking. You know, he's like, because human beings breed like rabbits, therefore, they're always on the edge of survival, therefore, the culture must be determined directly by that mode of production, that structure, as Marvin Harris would call it, or else the people die. In other words, Hindu cows. You know what I mean? The population is on the edge, you know? And so, if people were to not, if people were to start eating these cows, then they would actually die because they wouldn't have any animals to father to. You know, that's his idea. Now, is that actually true? No. It's not true. You know, really, you know, maybe in that situation, they were on the edge of survival. Probably people could have just exchanged cows. Do you really need all those cows? You know, like, you can go to a city in India today, and the cows are like rats. You know, like, it's nice to, you know, not eat the cows and treat the cows like dogs, but they're also like pets. Do you really need that many cows? And then, let's face it, many of those cows that are wandering around the streets of India are not good for flowering anyway. You know, they're just like these ragged old cows that people haven't been killing because they have a belief in what's called Ahimsa. You know? It's the idea of Ahimsa. That's the Hindu philosophy of non-killing. You know, like, don't kill things. The reason that you don't kill things if you're a Hindu person is why? You're a Hindu, and if you start killing things and you're a Hindu, what happens to you in the next life? Nothing good. Nothing good. Exactly. You know, like, if you live a clean life, this life, you know what I mean? You wash your hands, you keep all those bodily secretions away from you, you know, you stay clean, then when you are reincarnated, you're reincarnated as a higher being. On the other hand, if you don't follow the principle of Ahimsa, non-killing, then you'll be reincarnated as a lower being. You know? And so, there's all these philosophical reasons why you wouldn't want to eat Hindu cows, so, ah, that's the whole thing there. You know? It's not so direct. And that's why it's functionless as well. It's just super simplistic. So, do you get this idea of the structural boat? Explain it if you would. I see you shaking your head, yeah? We understood eating versus eating. So, how does the question then is, how does this eating approach lead to treating people as structural donors? Like, for example, Marvin Harris is treating Hindu people as structural donors. He's saying, no eating. Taking into consideration, like, any of, like, how they feel about life, why they don't eat cows, like, it's just being like, oh, this is the reason why, and like, it's not really... A lot of science is here. Let me explain. Whereas, like, eating, ah, you know, you don't really know. You know, I'm the one who really knows. Okay, excellent. Yeah, so, you know, I mean, if you were gonna do a more rounded analysis, and that's our goal here, you know, the ultimate, like, solution to all this, you know, you might be thinking to yourself, why do I want to be serious? You know, the answer is to use them all. You know, it's not like one is correct and another one is mistaken. There's something to all of them, you know. And if you're gonna do any kind of analysis, you're gonna try to use them in some kind of balanced way, you know. So, you could be like, wow, these cows really do have a function in the sense of that they're used for plowing. But also, there's the concept of amoeba, you know. This is where Martin Luther King Jr. got his idea of nonviolence, by the way, you know. It is from the Hindu concept of Vahimsa. His idea was, if you just directly confront overwhelming power, that overwhelming power is gonna overwhelm you, you know. So, you're only bringing on bad things to yourself if you try to confront evil power directly. Instead, you have to practice nonviolence. And then, when people you know, deploy their power on you, you have the moral authority there. You're like, you know, you could say, be reincarnated into a higher level of existence or something, you know. It's like, so, there's that. You know, now you could dismiss that as just, well, that's just an emic explanation, but it's also a valid explanation of what's going on. Does that make sense? So, that's why cultural imperialism is functionalist, functionalist, and then there was one more, this one that I, did we get this idea here? As we're just, like, picking up the pieces, picking up the pieces. How does Malthusianism encourage brutality? This is getting into, you know, your ancient Rumble land here. So. Well, I know that he, like, in the early or late 20th century that he kind of got, uh, he basically was, like, associated with eugenics. Yeah, which is on starts on page 321. Implications of Malthusian thinking is what we're talking about. I think that it's just with generalizations. How so? Like, the kind of point of view. So, it's just unhealthy generalizations about... What is the generalization that Malthus is making? That human populations will always grow. That's the unhealthy generalization. So, how is that used, that idea, that human populations always grow, how is that idea used to encourage brutality by political politically powerful people? So, in his 1979 volume, Cultural Materialism, Marvin Harris argues that a Marxist theory of society would be strengthened by incorporating the population theories of Thomas Malthus. That's why he, Marvin Harris, is saying that culture is so heavily determined by the material realities of life. Because nobody has breathing room. That's their population that's constantly pushing up against limits. Go on. Right. In other words, these scummy poor people will continue to breathe until they're killed. Therefore, they should be killed. Is that too plain? Is there something you're gonna say, Chris? We're gonna probably say it in a nicer way than that, I would hope. I was gonna say, actually, it's very apocalyptic. You're right. Malthus' notice is behind both. I know, also, he was saying that poor people are poor because of their own actions and they're just gonna continue to be poor. If you have more children, it's just gonna continue the cycle and everything. I know, later on, it was saying, just sterilize. But besides that, let them die. Put them in border prisons. If they're brown, let them rot in a prison. Because otherwise, they'll just keep on growing. And that's actually worse than anything. As it says here, going back to where you were saying on 322, anthropologist Eric Ross notes that this is one of the most pervasive ideologies in modern society, shared by liberals and conservatives alike. So you can find, for example, liberal environmentalists who will say, oh, well, we need to kill all those brown babies because we want to preserve our native environment type of a thing. And so that's kind of like eco-fascist is the term for that. But notice here it says, Marx was, and going back to 321, as we were talking about how Marvin Harris was interested in Malthus, but Marx was actually well acquainted with Malthus' ideas. And he quite deliberately and vehemently rejected them, dismissing the clergyman Thomas Malthus as a bot advocate for the ruling class and a baboon. Marx's antagonism towards Malthus arose because he saw him not as a serious demographer and scholar, but as a propagandist who floats his opinions in the cover of natural law. Just like all of those unilineal evolutionists that are continuing to work today quite commonly in the pages of esteemed news sites and books today, like Yuval Harari's book, Sapiens, that book, like any kind of tech pro who's saying that AI or any technology innovation is the next stage of humanity. Any time you hear anyone say that anything is the next stage of humanity, you know they are a bot advocate for propagandists who are cloaking their opinions in the cover of natural law. You see what I mean by that? So that's like the politics of anthropology. That's the politics that Boas founded in anthropology, which is like, no, these proposed natural laws are actually bogus propaganda that are meant to encourage and secure the power of the least. Like, for example, by killing four people. Or letting them die. Like putting them in a country, like Honduras, for example. And we'll call that a country, even though it was never a country before. It was created as a country by the United Fruit Corporation in order to make the laws that allowed them to convert all of the land in that area into banana production for breakfast for the United States. But now that it's a country, people have to stay in that country. You see what I mean? Now you're forced to stay in this country, or else you're illegal if you leave that country. You see what I mean? And we can't have these illegals coming and leaving that country because at that point, who knows how many brown people will overwhelm us. You see what I mean? That concept. As it is today, countries are concentration camps. You know, many countries. Not rich countries, you know, because people from rich countries can get passports and leave whenever they want. But people from poor countries can't. Reminds me of Indian Reservations. You know, Indian Reservations were a kind of internal colony set up as bogus little countries in order to keep the people in those internal reservation colonies. Like South African homelands during apartheid, for example. You know, it's a classic technique. You know, and you say, well, why are you brutally holding these impoverished people in these open air concentration camps? And their answer is, well, Malthus says, you know, if we don't, you know, control this population, then they will overwhelm us is the idea. You know what I mean? So that's why Malthusianism encourages brutality. You know, I hope I'm not being too explicit here, you know, but I'm just trying to be like honest and straightforward, you know, so that you understand the point of view here. Well, shall we get into the testing? Do we feel good about that? Feel good about Chapter 12? I was thinking, I don't know if this is going to work, but I was thinking that you could help me format the test. I was thinking that you could help me format the test. Let's see. And, whoops, that didn't work. So, here it is. We all know what roles are. Don't we know what roles are in a social structure? Here's one that you might not feel good about, which is the whole synchronic approach. Do you understand what the synchronic approach is? What is the synchronic approach of structural functionalism? And why might the synchronic approach of structural functionalism be so appealing to colonial administrators? Synchronic, as opposed to diachronic. Go on, you got it, Megan. No, not really. No, it's not. No, sorry, you got it wrong. Gloria, hey, and Robin, look at this. Go on. Okay, go, Robin. You take the stage. You don't want it? Go, Robin. No, that's not it. Sorry, Robin. Go. Yeah, thanks. Okay, Kenzie's got it one hundred percent. So, it's just like they're looking at what's happening right now. It's like a freeze frame moment. Structural functionalism has no historical angle on it. It's all about like, now you could say that an anthropologist goes to that society and says, let's freeze frame this moment and try to figure things out here. But, of course, that anthropologist also knows that nothing is ever freeze framed. That's an illusion. Is that what you had, Robin, by the way? Yeah, see, shouldn't have let Gloria get in there. And so, here's my question then. Why is it that that synchronic approach would be so encouraged by colonial administrators in Africa? Go, Thomas. Because if you were to take into account the history, what would the history look like? Very, very dark. The history would look like slaughtering indigenous people by the thousands and tens of thousands and actually millions. When we're talking about colonial control of Africa, we're talking about massive ethnocides and genocides of the tens of millions of people. Still hasn't been recognized to this day. See what I mean by that? So, when you take a synchronic approach, you're like, oh, look, let's take more of that history. So, here's another one. With the collapse of colonialism, anthropologists increasingly became aware of the unethical actions of those anthropologists who had actively worked with colonial authorities. What did they do that was so wrong? What were those anthropologists that were working with colonial authorities doing that was so wrong? Go, Robin. Go exploit the locals. Dominate the locals. Go, Chris. They were also studying the political control structure and reporting it back to the British. For example, the British colonial administrators didn't know how to rule the people in control of Africa. So, you're saying that those anthropologists were more aligned with the colonial administrators than the actual people they were working with and that they were actually working as spies for those colonial administrators, essentially. Even as they were pretending, Gloria, to work healthily with the local people and pretending to make friends with the local people like Lewis Henry Morgan did with native people in New York. So, yeah, exactly. And so that is it. So, here's my question. What's the main advantage and disadvantage of structural functionalism? The advantage we got... You were getting at it, Gloria. You saw the advantage of structural functionalism. She's like, why did I ever volunteer? Now it's gonna come back to me all the time. Go, Sam. What's the main advantage of structural functionalism? You know. Come on. Okay, help her out. Structural functionalism. Is it useful to find out how structures function? Yeah, you know. Like, say you're starting a new job at the Appalachians Women's Museum, you know. Might you want to do sort of like a structural functional analysis of how it works, you know. It's like, oh, Dave Russell's over here. These are the volunteers. This is all the job descriptions that are required. I want to understand the structure so that I can figure out how it functions. The disadvantage of structural functionalism is it's functionalist. It's functionalist. And so it's the same disadvantage of any kind of functionalist analysis. It's assuming that things are functioning. Even when things are not functioning. So that's why we need to have like a nuanced approach. And so here's one that you might have. What's the basic idea of Max Gluckman and the Manchester School? Max Gluckman is part of the Manchester School. The basic idea. Go on, Adrian. Thank you. Gluckman talked about the rules of rebellion. Rituals of rebellion. You know, that's a huge mistake to make. Do you see why? You know, because, you know, the whole point of that rituals of rebellion approach is that people don't always follow the rules. Yeah, it's because, like, he says that, you know, like, cultural rules are meant to be manipulated, bent, and broken. Like, they aren't always supposed to function. But the thing is, rituals of rebellion helps the society to function. It teaches children how things work. Still functionalist. Yeah, you're right. The Manchester School and Max Gluckman is still functionalist. But he's saying it's not like the society just stays the same at all times. It's not synchronic. You know, don't get confused about your analysis of the structure that the society actually is the same at all times, which is the problem of those colonial administrators and Radcliffe Brown. In other words, societies kind of oscillate. They come together. They fly apart. They come together. Then it's Halloween. It flies apart. And then it comes back together. Then we're putting the vice principal in the dump tank. It flies apart. Then it's coming back together. You know, like, there's like this kind of oscillation in society. So I'm skipping some that are just way too obvious. Like, what is a ritual of rebellion? But then there are some that you might be interested in, like this one here. Raymond Spurt and other transactionalists in Chapter 10 criticize structural functionalism. Why do they criticize structural functionalism? Why do they criticize? You know, that's the remember just the other day. Thank you. I must go. Well, not only that, but sometimes people don't even accept the roles that they're given as themselves at all. You know? In other words, that whole structural approach lacks an emphasis on not randomness, but structure versus agency. Structure versus agency. You know? It's not randomness. It's to say, I'm not going to be that kind of mom. You know what I mean? Like, oh, okay. There's a social role that's mom or whatever like that, but I'm actually going to be a cool mom. You know what I mean? Like, I'm going to be a different kind of mom. You know? And so maybe, whatever the role is. You know what I mean? I'm going to be a different kind of teacher. I'm going to be a different kind of student. You know? I'm going to use my agency to actually undermine the whole concept of this social structure. You know? I'm going to like you are doing right now. Perfect example. You know? And so you know, making a cool face and you know, there it is. Alright. So, we got that understanding. And so here, Marcel Mauss offers a critique of simple-minded transactionalism. How so? And that gets us into Marcel Mauss' whole approach. Marcel Mauss. Simple-minded transactionalism would say, I'm going to use my agency to get what I want so that it's mine. Me, mine, I. It's not about structure. It's about me. Agency for me. But Marcel Mauss' whole approach to transactionalism undermines that idea. Yes, he was the gift guy. What does that mean to you? The concept is that you give people gifts. You can give physical gifts. They can do physical gifts. Yeah. Someone said they're going to give you physical gifts. I guess it's not supposed to be a gift. Who benefits in my situation? Everybody benefits. You know, everybody benefits. It's not about, you know, me, mine, me. You know, which is that simple-minded transactionalism that's supposed to be opposed to structure. It's, yeah, we're using our agency. It's not even requiring us to say good morning to other people. It's not required of a role or anything. But at the same time, you know, you can improve everybody's life by involving yourself in gift-giving relationships. So, I think we understand the presentation of self and society, don't we? Irving Goffman and the presentation of self and society. Don't we? You know, like, for example, do you feel like you need to get dressed up for class, Aubrey? And I'm looking at Aubrey here. And the answer is, yes. You know, like, you're dressed up for class, you know. It's awesome. You're presenting yourself in a particular way in society, you know. And it's like, that's awesome. She's making her, they're making their lives an art. You know what I mean? And so, that's amazing, you know. And so, on the other hand, some of us, Robyn, are not, you know, or Gloria, or not, or Ben, or not, you know. I mean, even me, I wash my jeans, y'all. I wash my jeans. I was out cutting wood and I washed my jeans. So, I'm at least trying to do a little bit of presentation of self. And so, here's one that I'll, so that's Irving Goffman. We understand that. Here's one that I will bring up here. And I think you'll understand this, you know. Why did anthropologists criticize the common approach to economics that traces itself to Adam Smith's book, The Wealth of Nations, and his idea of the invisible hand? Hmm, interesting. Why do we criticize that idea? I just did. He just criticized it. You know, when I was talking about that simple minded approach to economics. He has this fantasy that selfishness leads to instability. And that's what benefits the economy. And that's what is supposed to benefit everyone. Yeah, his idea that, go on, Megan. And because of that virtue, you know, and that basically gets to our, I'll point out this next question here, you know. And so, here it is, you know. And here we're basically almost up to cultural mythology now, so that's a pretty good review. According to most prominent economists today, the selfish behaviors of the richest people on Earth are supposed to, in the end, benefit us all economically. In other words, even if you're the piggiest pig on Earth, if you're rich and a capitalist, your piggish behavior, your lack of virtue, you know. Pigs have more virtue than many of these rich people, so I shouldn't, you know, put down pigs as a result of that, you know. That's supposed to, like, benefit people in the end, you know. Why do they get that idea? It's just exactly what you said, Hayden, you know. It's just exactly as you said. Let's see. Here we have two more minutes here. Culture 4. Go, Robin. What are the key characteristics of the pathological band of the cultural-ethological type? Okay, here's one I think that's good for you. Here's two more. Two more in one minute, Robin. Two more in one minute. Here. How would the culture core of pastoralists be similar whether in the high Andes or in the lowland tropical savanna of East Africa? My point there being that cultural ecology is not about similar environments. It's about similar adaptations. So you could live in a totally different environment, the high Andes or the savanna of East Africa, so you could have the same ecological adaptation. Or even this one, right? What is the only sustainable way of life for people to enjoy? What is the only sustainable way for people to enjoy an absolute way of life on Earth? There's only one way. And it's not up for debate. You know, because cultural ecology is a science of adaptation. So we can tell when a society is adapting to the land and when a society is not adapting to the land. And global capitalism is not adapting to the land. You know, like, not. So that is just a reality. Alright, well, this is it.