Publication Date:December 17, 1989 Shipping:Eligible for Super Saver Shipping Promotion:Save $10.00 when you spend $50.00 or more on Qualifying Items offered by Amazon.com. Enter code BMLSAVES at checkout.Terms and Conditions Availability:Usually ships in 24 hours
Product Description This book challenges those who argue that we can change the world by changing the way people think. Harris shows that no matter how bizarre a people's behavior may seem, it always stems from concrete social and economic conditions.
The title means it!May 27, 2008 Yes, there are Cows, and Pigs, and Wars. Also messiahs and humankind, and society in all its glory. I reached the book following Jared Diamond's works, anthropology for the layman. And this book is as good. Very interesting, distancing from the society and humankind, looking as an espectator, you find that the simplest common sense rules do apply to all your life, but one is usually so close to it as not to notice.
If you like understanding and taking apart myths, and understanding cultural references and icons, you will like the book. For any person practising critical thinking on our everyday's life, this is a bit of fresh air, and a reason to keep doing that.
religion and witchcraft in the same room among other odd couplesApril 25, 2008 My teacher once called Harris a practitioner of gross anthropology because it seemed that, to the latter, there was a simple utilitarian explanation to anything that was either considered deviant or profane. I suppose if you can't take it, the natural reaction would be to demonize. I guess my teacher couldn't take it. This book has the capacity to explain and shock beyond explanation. That may or may not be a good thing.
On Harris' StyleMarch 25, 2008 Harris was a wonderful writer both in style and in substance. Harris wrote out an intense idea with near perfect logic and simplicity. You will notice this the moment you breeze through the chapter on "Mother Cow". He disentangles one of the strongest held beliefs in one of the most complex religions without taking away from its spirituality, mysticism, and beauty. He also writes in a "passing the torch" manner as though he is writing to the younger generations.
Anthropology is a uniquely holistic discipline. Harris' book is a fine example of this as Harris takes from every conceivable direction. This is most clear in his analysis of the Messiah or the Prince of Peace or Jesus.
For the pseudo-anthropologist or even the casual reader, this book will certainly please.
Neat ideas, but no consideration of the mechanismsJanuary 2, 2008 1 out of 3 found this review helpful
The book presents a sort of quaint functionalism that is wholly inadequate in its neglect of mechanisms which could bring such functions into being. It is the type of work that pisses off most biologists who insist that evolution works by individual level selection. In Harris's wholehearted implicit acceptance of group selection, he commits a scientific blunder. On the other hand, there is good reason to consider multi-level (group) selection (see Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior for more info) as an explanation for some human characteristics. There is a beauty in Harris's attempts to find rational explanations for social phenomena, even if he neglects the question of how such systems could evolve/emerge.
Harris tries to explain medieval European allegations of witchcraft as an elaborate system to keep the peasants scared and from uprising against the religious and secular oligarchs. He then ends the book in a sort of rampage against hippies. He makes the case that the sort of post-modern nihilism advocated by hippie and new-age movements has similar trappings of witch-craft. That is, by becoming a disorganized mob that just wants peace and love and tries to achieve it through personal transformation rather than interpersonal and systematic action they dispell real threats to the oligarchy. It is ironic that while Harris critiques the new-age movements for their lack of systematic and scientific thinking, he persistently forgets to say how his functional systems could develop. He presents neat ideas, but they are not quite developed into science.
Again--its major fault is a lack of mechanisms to explain itself.
Entertaining Well Written RationalizationFebruary 23, 2007 2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book is no doubt well written with some interesting anthropological details. It attempts to tie together disparate and highly varied human behavior. The gist one gets is that the author believes that societies do not act irrationally sometimes but that there is always some sort of practical explanation. Some of these explanations make sense such as taboos on the slaughter of cows or the eating of pork, but the more complex analysis of war as practical population control or Jesus being a "military messiah" seems speculative to me and the logic used does not always add up or remain consistant. It seems that the author easily rationalizes what he sees as a somewhat understandable survival motivated jusitification for tribal warfare. But what of such same analysis applied to modern war? For the people that get killed there is no justice. It is convienient to say that otherwise they would die a slow death from starvation. But who is to judge who lives and dies? The most intelliegent or the most ruthless or the most humane? Are the consequences always dire propositions but can never become self perpetuating traditions of violence for less savory oppressive motives or bloodlust? It's easy to conjecture about other cultures or time periods of long ago but these theories should be tested by applying them to one's own culture and seeing if the same conclusions are drawn. In the minds of the "irrational" there is some sense of twisted explanation even for the craziest behavior but there is still a distinction to be made about what may be less than practical and self destructive. Those that choose who is to live and who is to die don't volunteer.
