Head trips and freak-outs cannot alter the material basis of exploitation and alienation. Consciousness III will change nothing that is fundamental or causative in the structure of capitalism or imperialism. What lies ahead, therefore, is not a do-it-yourself utopia, but some new and more malignant form of military messianism, brought on by the antics of a middle class that tried to tame its generals with telepathic messages and that thought it could humanize the greatest concentration of corporate wealth the world has ever seen by going barefoot and eating unhomogenized peanut butter.
As I said at the beginning of this book, the most pernicious fabrication perpetrated in the name of the freedom to believe is the contention that we are menaced by an overdose of “objectivity” about the causes of our own lifestyles. The lifestyle of groups such as the Yanomamo and Maring make clear what utter nonsense it is to suppose that scientific objectivity is humanity’s original sin. It is evident from the history of Europe alone that the maiming, drawing and quartering, racking, hanging, drowning, crucifying, and burning of innocent people long antedate the rise of modern science and technology.
Some of the specific forms of inequity and alienation characteristic of industrial society are clearly products of the specific tools and techniques made available by advances in the natural and behavioral sciences. But none of the pathologies of contemporary life can be blamed on an overdose of scientific objectivity concerning the causes of lifestyle phenomena. Scientific objectivity about the fundamental causes of racism is not what keeps our ethnics at each others’ throats, overturns school buses, and blocks the construction of apartments for underprivileged families. Scientific objectivity is not the cause of male, female, or homosexual chauvinism. It was not an overdose of scientific objectivity about lifestyles that produced the lopsided priorities that favor moon landings and missiles over hospitals and houses. Nor is it an overdose of scientific objectivity about lifestyles that has created the population crisis. And what has scientific objectivity got to do with the infinite itch of consumerism, conspicuous consumption, conspicuous waste, built-in obsolescence, status hunger, the TV wasteland, and all the other weird driving forces of our competitive capitalist economy? Was it a lack of freedom of belief that led to the looting of minerals, forests, and soils, to the sewers running in the sky and the tarpits on the beaches? What was rational, reasonable, “objective,” or “scientific” about all that? How does an overdose of objectivity about lifestyles explain a war that three Presidents couldn’t give a rational reason for fighting but also couldn’t stop?
One might as well believe that objectivity was the commanding lifestyle of Germany in 1932, that the Aryan beast cult of blond manhood, anathematization of the Semites, gypsies, and Slavs, worship of the fatherland, and the Wagnerian chanting, goose-stepping and Sieg-Heiling in front of der Führer all resulted from the atrophy of the “non-intellective capacities” and feelings of the German people. Ditto Stalinism with its Uncle Joe cult, genuflections before the corpse of Lenin, Kremlin intrigues, Siberian slave camps, and party-line dogmatism.
Of course we have our Strangelove zero-sum-game specialists, would-be super-objectifiers who objectify human life by counting corpses and computerizing death. But the moral flaw of such technologists and their political handlers is a shortage of scientific objectivity about the causes of lifestyle differences, not a surplus. The moral collapse of Vietnam was scarcely caused by an overdose of objective consciousness about what we were doing. It consisted of the failure to expand consciousness beyond mere instrumental tasks to the practical and banal significance of our national goals and policies. We kept the war going in Vietnam because our consciousness was mystified by symbols of patriotism, dreams of glory, unyielding pride, and visions of empire. In mood we were exactly what the counter-culture people want us to become. We imagined we were menaced by slant-eyed devils and worthless little yellow men; we enthralled ourselves with visions of our own ineffable majesty. In short, we were stoned.
I see no reason why the further indulgence of involuted, ethnocentric, irrational, and subjective modes of consciousness should result in anything markedly different from what we have always had: witches and messiahs. We don’t need more weird vibrations, bigger psychotropic cults, and zanier head trips. I make no claim for the millenarian splendors that will come from a better understanding of the causes of lifestyle phenomena. Yet there is a sound basis for assuming that by struggling to demystify our ordinary consciousness we shall improve the prospects for peace and economic and political justice. If this potential change of odds in our favor be ever so slight, I think, we must regard the expansion of scientific objectivity into the domain of lifestyle riddles as a moral imperative. It’s the only thing that’s never been tried.
References
and Acknowledgments
MOTHER COW
Marvin Harris, et al., “The Cultural Ecology of India’s Sacred Cattle.” Current Anthropology 7 (1966), pp. 51–60. • Ford Foundation, Report on India’s Food Problem and Steps to Meet It. New Delhi: Government of India, Ministry of Food and Agriculture (1955). • Mohandas K. Gandhi, How to Serve the Cow: Ahmedabad. Navajivan Publishing House (1954). • Alan Heston, et al., “An Approach to the Sacred Cow of India.” Current Anthropology 12 (1971), pp. 191–209. • K. N. Raj, “Investment in Livestock in Agrarian Economies: An Analysis of Some Issues Concerning ‘Sacred Cows’ and ‘Surplus Cattle.’ ” Indian Economic Review 4 (1969), pp. 1–33. • V. M. Dandekar, “Cow Dung Models.” Economic and Political Weekly (Bombay). August 2, 1969, pp. 1267–1271. • C. H. Hanumantha Rao, “India’s ‘Surplus’ Cattle.” Economic and Political Weekly 5 (October 3, 1970), pp. 1649–1651. • K. N. Raj, “India’s Sacred Cattle: Theories and Empirical Findings.” Economic and Political Weekly 6 (March 27, 1971), pp. 717–722. • Stewart Odendlial, “Gross Energetic Efficiency of Indian Cattle in Their Environment.” Journal of Human Ecology 1 (1972), pp. 1–27.
PIG LOVERS AND PIG HATERS
The Jewish Encyclopedia (1962). • James Frazer, The Golden Bough, New York: Criterion Books (1959). • Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. New York: Praeger (1966). • Frederick Zeuner, A History of Domesticated Animals. New York: Harper and Row (1963). • E. S. Higgs and M. R. Jarman, “The Origin of Agriculture,” in Morton Fried, ed., Explorations in Anthropology. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell (1973), pp. 188–200. • R. Protsch and R. Berger, “The Earliest Radiocarbon Dates for Domesticated Animals.” Science 179 (1973), pp. 235–239. • Charles Wayland Towne, Pigs, from Cave to Corn Belt Norman: University of Oklahoma Press (1950). • Lawrence E. Mount, The Climatic Physiology of the Pig. London: Edward Arnold (1968). • P. J. Ucko and G. W. Dimbleby, eds., The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals. Chicago: Aldine (1969). • Louise Sweet, “Camel Pastoralism in North Arabia and the Minimal Camping Unit,” in Andrew Vayda, ed., Environment and Cultural Behavior. Garden City, N.J.: Natural History Press (1969), pp. 157–180. • Roy A. Rappaport, Pigs for the Ancestors: Ritual in the Ecology of a New Guinea People. New Haven: Yale University Press (1967). • Andrew P. Vayda, “Pig Complex,” in Encyclopedia of Papua and New Guinea. • Cherry Loman Vayda, personal communication. • Some of the ideas for this chapter were first published in my column in Natural History magazine in October 1972 and February 1973.
PRIMITIVE WAR
Morton Fried, “On Human Aggression,” in Charlotte M. Otten, ed., Aggression and Evolution. Lexington, Mass.: Xerox College Publishing (1973), pp. 355–362. • Andrew P. Vayda, “Phases of the Process of War and Peace Among the Marings of New Guinea.” Oceania 42 (1971), pp. 1–24; “Hypotheses About Function of War,” in M. Fried, M. Harris, and R. Murphy, eds., War: The Anthropology of Armed Conflict and Aggression. New York: Doubleday (1968), pp. 85–91. • Frank B. Livingstone, “The Effects of Warfare on the Biology of the Human Species,” in Fried, Harris, and Murphy, eds., op. cit., pp. 3–15. • Napoleon Chagnon, Yanomamo: The Fierce People. New York: Holt, R
inehart and Winston (1968); “Yanomamo Social Organization and Warfare,” in Fried, Harris, and Murphy, eds., op. cit., pp. 109–159. • E. Richard Sorenson et al, “Socio-Ecological Change Among the Fore of New Guinea.” Current Anthropology 13 (1972), pp. 349–384. • H. C. Brookfield and Paula Brown, Struggle for Land. Melbourne: Oxford University Press (1963). • William T. Divale, “Systemic Population Control in the Middle and Upper Paleolithic : Inferences Based on Contemporary Hunters and Gatherers.” World Archaeology 4 (1972), pp. 222–243, and personal communications. • William Langer, “Checks on Population Growth: 1750–1850.” Scientific American 226 (February 1972), pp. 94–99. • Brian Spooner, ed., Population Growth: Anthropological Implications. Cambridge: MIT Press (1972), especially pp. 370ff. • Some of the ideas for this chapter were first published in my column in Natural History magazine in March 1972.
THE SAVAGE MALE
David Schneider and Kathleen Gough, Matrilineal Kinship. Berkeley: University of California Press (1961). • Eleanor Burke Leacock, Introduction to Frederick Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. New York: International Publishers (1972), pp. 7–67. • Marvin Harris, Culture, Man and Nature: An Introduction to General Anthropology. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell (1971). • Ian Hogbin. The Island of Menstruating Men. San Francisco: Chandler (1970). • Napoleon A. Chagnon, Yanomamo: The Fierce People. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston (1968). • Johannes Wilbert. Survivors of Eldorado. New York: Praeger (1972). • Ettore Biocca, Yanoama: The Narrative of a White Girl Kidnapped by Amazonian Indians. New York: Dutton (1970). • Judith Shapiro, Sex Roles and Social Structure Among the Yanomamo Indians in North Brazil. Columbia University Ph.D. dissertation (1971). • Betty J. Meggers, Amazonia: Man and Culture in a Counterfeit Paradise. Chicago: Aldine (1971). • Jane Boss and Eric Ross, unpublished papers and personal communications. • Some of the ideas in this chapter were first published in my column in Natural History magazine in May 1972.
POTLATCH
Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Modern Library (1934). • Franz Boas, “The Social Organization of the Kwakiutl.” American Anthropologist 22 (1920), pp. 111–126. • Ruth Benedict, Patterns of Culture. New York: Mentor (1946). • Douglas Oliver. A Solomon Islands Society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press (1955). • Ian Hogbin, A Guadalcanal Society: The Kaoka Speakers. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston (1964); “Social Advancement in Guadalcanal,” Oceania 8 (1938). • Marshall Sahlins. “On the Sociology of Primitive Exchange,” in Michael Banton, ed., The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology. London: Association of Social Anthropology Monographs 1 (1965), pp. 139–236. • Andrew P. Vayda. “A Re-Examination of Northwest Coast Economic Systems.” Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, Series II, 23 (1961), pp. 618–624. • Stuart Piddocke, “The Potlatch System of the Southern Kwakiutl: A New Perspective,” in Andrew P. Vayda, ed., Environment and Cultural Behavior. Garden City, N.J.: Natural History Press (1969), pp. 130–156. • Ronald P. Rohner and Evelyn C. Rohner, The Kwakiuth Indians of British Columbia. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston (1970). • Helen Codere, Fighting with Property: A Study of Kwakiutl Pot-latches and Warfare. Monographs of the American Ethnological Society, 18 (1950). • Robert K. Dentan, The Semai: A Non-violent People of Malaya. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston(1968) • Richard Lee, “Eating Christmas in the Kalahari.” Natural History, December 1969, pp. 14ff. • Marshall Sahlins, Tribesmen. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall (1968). • David Damas, “Central Eskimo Systems of Food Sharing.” Ethnology II (1972), pp. 220–239. • Richard Lee, “Kung Bushman Subsistence: An Input-Output Analysis,” in Andrew P. Vayda, ed., op. cit., pp. 47–79. • Morton Fried, The Evolution of Political Society. New York: Random House (1967).
PHANTOM CARGO
Ronald Berndt, “Reaction to Contact in the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea.” Oceania 23 (1952), pp. 190–228,255–274. • Peter Worsley, The Trumpet Shall Sound: A Study of “Cargo” Cults in Melanesia. New York: Schocken Books (1968). • Pacific Islands Monthly, July 1970-April 1972. • Jean Guiart, “John Frum Movement in Tana.” Oceania 22 (1951), pp. 165–175. • “On a Pacific Island, They Wait for the G.I. Who Became a God.” The New York Times, April 12, 1970. • Palle Christiansen, The Melanesien Cargo Cult: Millenarianism as a Factor in Cultural Change. Copenhagen: Akademish Forlag (1969). • Peter Lawrence, Road Belong Cargo. Manchester: Manchester University Press (1964) • Glyn Cochrane, Big Men and Cargo Cults. Oxford: Clarendon Press (1970). • Vittorio Lanternari, The Religions of the Oppressed. New York: Knopf (1963). • E. J. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels. New York: W. W. Norton (1965). • Ronald M. Berndt and Peter Lawrence, eds., Politics in New Guinea. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press (1971). • Sylvia Thrupp, ed., Millennial Dreams in Action. The Hague: Mouton and Co. (1962).
MESSIAHS
Wilson D. Wallace, Messiahs: Their Role in Civilization. Washington, D. C.: American Council on Public Affairs (1943). • The Holy Bible: Scofield Reference Bible. New York: Oxford University Press (1945). • Salo W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, second, revised and enlarged edition. 14 vols. New York: Columbia University Press. • The Jewish Encyclopedia. • Flavius Josephus, The Jewish War, translated by G. A. Williamson. Baltimore: Penguin Books (1970); Jewish Antiquities, translated by H. St. John Thackeray. 6 vols. London: Heinemann (1926). • Morton Smith, “Zealots and Sicarii: Their Origins and Relations.” Harvard Theological Review 64 (1971), pp. 1–19. • William R. Farmer, Maccabees, Zealots and Josephus. New York: Columbia University Press (1956). • Robert Grant, A Historical Introduction to the New Testament. New York: Harper and Row (1963). • Erich Fromm, The Dogma of Christ: And Other Essays. Garden City, N.J.: Anchor paperback (1966). • Mikhail Rostovtsev, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press (1957). • Michael E. Stone, “Judaism at the Time of Christ.” Scientific American, January 1973, pp. 80–67.
THE SECRET OF THE PRINCE OF PEACE
Robert M. Grant, A Historical Introduction to the New Testament. New York: Harper and Row (1963); Religion in Ancient History. New York: Scribner (1969). • Rudolf Bultman, Primitive Christianity in Its Contemporary Setting. New York: World Publishing Co. (1966). • Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. New York: Macmillan (1964). • John M. Allegro, The Treasure of the Copper Scroll. New York: Doubleday (1964). • The Song of Victory is from George R. Edwards, Jesus and the Politics of Violence. New York: Harper and Row (1972). • Oscar Cullmann, State in the New Testament. New York: Harper and Row (1956); Jesus and the Revolutionaries. New York: Harper and Row (1970). • S. G. F. Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots: A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity. New York: Scribner (1968); The Trial of Jesus of Nazareth. London: B. T. Batsford (1968). • Samuel Sandmel, The First Christian Century in Judaism and Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press (1969). • Robert Grant, Augustus to Constantine: The Thrust of the Christian Movement into the Roman World. New York: Harper and Row (1970).
BROOMSTICKS AND SABBATS
H. R. Trevor-Roper, The European Witch Craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries and Other Essays. New York: Harper and Row (1969). • Henry C. Lea, Materials Toward a History of Witchcraft. 3 vols. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press (1939). • H. J. Warner, The Albigensian Heresy. New York: Russell and Russell (1967). • Jeffrey B. Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages. Ithaca: Cornell University Press (1972). • H. Institor and J. Sprenger, Malleus Maleficarum, translated by the Reverend Montague Summers. London: Pushkin Press. • Michael Harner, “The Role of Hallucinogenic Plants in European Witchcraft,” in Michael Harner, ed., Hallucinogens and Shamanism. New York: Oxford University Press (1972), pp. 127–150; The Jívaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls. New York: Doubleday (1972). • Peter Fürst, Flesh of the Gods. New York: Praeger (1972). • Julio C. Baroja, The World of the Witches. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1964).
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nbsp; THE GREAT WITCH CRAZE
Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium. New York: Harper Torchbooks (1981). • Gordon Leff, Heresy in the Later Middle Ages. 2 vols. New York: Barnes & Noble (1967). • George H. Williams, The Radical Reformation. 2 vols. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press. (1957). • John Moorman, A History of the Franciscan Order. Oxford: Clarendon Press (1968). • Jeffrey B. Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages. Ithaca: Cornell University Press (1972). • H. C. Erik Midelfort, Witch Hunting in Southwestern Germany. Stanford: Stanford University Press (1972).
RETURN OF THE WITCH
Philip K. Bock, Modern Cultural Anthropology, second edition. New York: Alfred Knopf (1974). • Theodore Roszak, The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition. Garden City: Anchor (1969). • Charles A. Reich, The Greening of America. New York: Random House (1970). • Kenneth Keniston. Young Radicals. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (1968). • Carlos Castaneda. The Teachings of Don Juan. Berkeley: University of California Press (1968); A Separate Reality. Simon and Schuster (1970); Journey to Ixtlan. Simon and Schuster (1972). • Paul Reisman, “The Collaboration of Two Men and a Plant.” The New York Times, October 22, 1972. • Michael Harner, “The Role of Hallucinogenic Plants in European Witchcraft,” in Michael Harner, ed., op. cit. (1972) • “Don Juan and the Sorcerers Apprentice,” Time magazine, Mardi 5, 1973, pp. 36–45. • Philip Nobile, ed., The Con III Controversy: The Critics Look at the Greening of America. New York: Pocket Books (1971). • Martin Schiff, “Neo-transcendentalism in the New Left Counter-Culture: A Vision of the Future Looking Back.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 15 (1973), pp. 130–142. • Roberta Ash, Social Movements in America. Chicago: Markham (1972).
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