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"Fittest Culture" an Anachronism
SS51000 (SS51@NEMOMUS.BITNET)
Wed, 13 Sep 1995 10:05:13 CDT
The idea of a "fittest culture" is scientifically detrimental and
socially dangerous--as is, I think, the concept of "cultural
complexity." What we can--and probably should--say instead is that human
societies show a ten-thousand-year trend to grow larger, and that larger
societies have been expanding at the expense of small ones.
Accordingly, cultural features incompatible with large societal size
have been disappearing--noteworthy among which is reliance on wild plant
and animal food sources. This is clearer, more quantifiable, and less
ethnocentric than talk of cultural fitness or complexity. As a person,
I wish to add that the processes by which large societies have been
expanding at the expense of small ones appear to me--and I hope to us
all--as morally repugnant and often tragic. --Bob Graber
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