Yuliya Sesina
February 26th, 2009
Anthropology 1001 TV24A/Gaunt
Marvin Harris “Life without Chiefs”
Power, is highly desirable. Many people spend their entire lives trying to acquire it one way or another. However, most of us also know that power has a tendency to corrupt, especially great power. When reading about the bands and tribes that existed for thousands of years with no “official” leader or “official” punishments for broken rules it at first seems impossible. Perhaps it seems that way because we are used to the vast human and monetary resources used by our society to simply keep order among individuals.
So, I thought about the reasons why people act “disorderly”. One of the reasons that came to my mind is to stand out, or to stand apart from the rest. These people are simply willing to do anything to be “distinguished”, and it doesn’t matter whether it is in a positive or negative light. Evidence of similar tendencies are seen in the abuse of power by chiefs when people came to ask for their help. It is easy to say that it is human nature to want what is best for yourself, because it gives us an excuse for acting the way we often do. However, the author really put it in perspective, our species lived without such egocentrism for many more years than with it.
Nevertheless, there is another trend that should be seen in the changes of our society. During the time when bands and tribes were most common, resources were scarce. As resources increased, certain individual or individuals began to hold positions of power. This made me think of the “if the world were a village” video, which said that only a few people will hold most of the wealth. Perhaps our drive for power and prestige were always present, but as resources that provide them increased so did our desire to control as much of it as possible.
Bibliography
Marvin Harris. “Life without Chiefs”. In Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology, 12 ed., ed. Spradley and McCurdy. Allyn & Bacon, 2008, 95 - 103.
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I think it's easy to figure out things in your mind but rarely does it give you what you really are after---what actually happened and the complexity of how it was lived and still is lived. The best bet we have are the Kalahari Bushmen who still live these ways in South Africa. There are videos on our class blog about them.
ReplyDeleteSo I question why you think "as resources increased, certain individual or individuals began to hold positions of power." That is not the full story according to Kottak. Take another look. Consider how the adaptive strategies evolved.
Well written, still have to work out how you are perceiving all this new material beyond simply the conceptual level. What helps is the ethnography reading but also do some other research outside your own thinking to get a grip from more knowledgeable scholars. Use the web to find it too or re-read Kottak and see what you notice.