Caste in India 2 Mar 2010 3 Quarks Daily has an excellent essay on the evolution (cultural, of course) of the Varna and Jati system in India. This is often referred to by westerners as “the” caste system. Politics Religion Social dominance Social evolution
Evolution An interesting paper on cultural evolution 31 Dec 2009 PNAS has a very interesting paper about cultural evolution in Taiwan at the beginning of the 20th Century, by Melissa Brown and Marcus Feldman. It basically argues that two different selective forces, Cultural and Social, influenced the decline in footbinding – it became seen as a low status practice, which… Read More
Ecology and Biodiversity 50 words for snow 4: what counts as sociocultural? 3 Oct 20171 Mar 2019 Series Conceptual confusion The economics of cultural categories What are phenomena? What counts as sociocultural? Species Constructing phenomena Explanations and phenomena Jim Harrison made the following comment on the last post: … I have trouble understanding how you distinguish the s and the c in your pseudo equation. You mention… Read More
Creationism and Intelligent Design So many bad puns, so little time 28 Apr 2009 Wilkins is fragile and destablised Intellectual tourist attacks local inhabitants All happy bacteria are alike (or is that like each other?) Australian current affairs gets vaccination right! [That’s not a pun, it’s an act of God] The original video is here. Evolution does spreadsheets in origin of genetic code Siris… Read More
Its rather nice. Hierarchy when it is flexable does resolve problems and tension. Perhaps why it has been around for so long. When it becomes rigid it cannot fuction effectivly. Social tension increases, the lines become even more rigidly drawn between competitive social groups. Culture that is shared particularly material artifacts that may be used by all members of an ethnos will be made to look distinct. At times of tension they will start to bare ethnic markers and symbols. Diffrence has a high value under such circumstances. But it is in part I think an understanding of ethnicity and how it is used to negotiate and change identity that is playing out in modern India. As it certainly is in other parts of the world as understanding and cultures evolve. Just as it has always done. As the subject of ethnology did in the mid. 19th cen. when it found it’s methodology and first spoke in the ethnological socities of London and Paris into a sea of considerable noise. Some shamless flag waving for ethnology but it is an important subject I think.
The Indo-Aryan Theory has been quite rigorously disproven with genetic evidence. They occupants of the Indian sub-continent are all from the same original source. The Indo-Aryan theory is just another product of racist Europeans deciding that White people had to have started all great civilizations. It’s no different from the theories that used to propose that the ruins in Africa where from ancient European colonists and not native ancestors. It’s just Nazi science, pure and simple.