An unsentimental look at the ways in which "primitive" or "folk"
societies, independent of colonial influence, engender in their
inhabitants the anxiety, alienation, and suffering we have
historically attributed to urban civilization. Edgerton
(Anthropology and Psychology/UCLA; Mau Mau, 1989, etc.) defines and
documents "maladaptations" in societies as customs or behaviors
that compromise a people's well-being. Drawing on a wide range of
ethnographic records, he cites as examples: food taboos that result
in poor diets; religious beliefs that engender fear; rites of
initiation into puberty or marriage that, along with other areas of
institutionalized inequality between the sexes, promote hostility
and dysfunctional relationships. Edgerton disagrees with the
adaptive or "whatever is right" school of anthropology, and he
abhors the reluctance of cultural relativists to evaluate clear
evidence of human misery as such. He documents conversations with
tribal people who admit their ambivalence or, in some cases, their
repugnance with traditional ways, and he is emphatic in pointing
out that apparent and widespread individual suffering equals - and
must be regarded as - societal malfunction. Edgerton is less
successful in the second half of the book, where repetition and
circular reasoning impede his analysis of the broader collapse of
societies. Maladaptive decisions, he argues, are made in all
societies, and every society can be evaluated on a (human) measure
of sickness or health. The goal of studies like anthropology is to
foster a better understanding of the sources of maladaptation so
that we may reduce human suffering. Fascinating for its
documentation of tribal cultures; admirable for its ability to keep
the humanitarian aims of anthropological study always within reach.
(Kirkus Reviews)
Author and scholar Robert Edgerton challenges the notion that
primitive societies were happy and healthy before they were
corrupted and oppressed by colonialism. He surveys a range of
ethnographic writings, and shows that many of these so-called
innocent societies were cruel, confused, and misled.
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