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Contents 1 Discussion 2 Reaction papers 2.1 Desirae Kim 2.2 Philibert Leow 2.3 Adena Stevens 2.4 Myrtle Jones 3 Archives

Discussion

Reaction papers

Assignment

Each reaction paper should be between 500 and 1000 words long. Each should minimally focus on one of the issues raised in one of the required readings in term of one of the other required or recommended readings. Maximally, and particularly as the course progresses, the reaction papers should cross reference more of the required or recommended readings, including those for earlier sections.

Guidelines

1. Write up your paper on a word processor like Microsoft Word
2. Find your name on the list and click on "Edit". It should open up a box that shows a space for you to enter text
3. Copy and paste your paper from the word processor onto the StudyPlace window
4. Click on "Show Preview" if you want to see what it looks like
5. Click on "Save Page" to finalize your changes
6. Email a copy of your paper to Professor Varenne and Aaron Hung. If you are stuck at any point, feel free to email Aaron.
7. Feel free to comment on other students' assignments. You can put your comments at the bottom of the other student's paper. Be sure to sign your name by typing ~~~~. This will automatically sign and date your comment.

You can also watch a video tutorial of this on Youtube.

The assignment should be on StudyPlace by the time class starts on the day that it is due.

Desirae Kim

Goody and Wittfogel take an exceedingly deterministic point of view on their respective subjects. In both accounts, the needs of production propel social patterns in a very primary, direct fashion. They both clearly concede with the Marxist view that human interaction and relationships are determined by production, but they do handle the subject of human decision-making in different ways in the readings.

In the reading by Goody, there is not much treatment of decision-making when he outlines the correlation between plough agriculture and transmission of property. Wittfogel does acknowledge the presence of human decision-making in his chapters on hydraulic systems: “…history offered most of them [men] a genuine choice, and man proceeded not as the passive instrument of an irresistible and unilinear developmental force but as a discriminating being, actively participating in shaping his future (Wittfogel, 17). Overall, however, an assessment of human motivations in determining larger social patterns is nearly void in both readings, understandably so since this was not the authors’ objective.

However, there are very strong limitations to viewing only modes of production and social interactions in the way that Goody and Wittfogel do in these readings. A question that is not really explored (at least in what we have read) is how these social changes were brought about in conjunction with a universal set of principles or morals. Throughout the readings, I often found myself wondering if and how morals were formed according to the social changes that took place. Especially when considering the despotic systems that were required to complete huge projects like highways and hydraulic systems, was there any moral framework on which certain decisions or actions were based? Rather, did a moral or ethical framework develop afterward? I think that our own modern-day systems of morality have strongly impacted how we regard times of ‘despotism’ or other forms of dictatorship. Nowadays, there is strong condemnation of social inequities and certain types of government; we lengthily discuss and defend human rights that are deemed ‘universal’, but many of these human universals are relatively recent formulations of thought. There have been many periods during which conceptions of morality could be considered immoral or amoral when judged by our current standards. Although the moral framework may have been vastly different, it seems likely that there was some set of principles in how rulers dispensed commands or in how wealth was passed down from generation to generation. Assuming this to be the case, it seems like perhaps an unanswerable but intriguing situation to think about the correlation of moral codes and how humans adapt to the needs of production or survival. For example, were there moral views about women’s rights or gender-based roles that were shaped by how inheritance patterns changed?

Viewed from a quasi-Marxist-Darwinian perspective, we could imagine that production is the foremost priority. Finding the most expedient way of production would take precedence above all else, and social patterns would change as a consequence. Perhaps moral rules and taboos would take place only as a result of the patterns that inevitably form out of necessity. Examples of such correlations could include the taboo against incest resulting from the threat of disease, or the birth of democratic principles after the rise of a middle class. It is imprudent to draw stark, clear lines of connection, but it does seem worth contemplating whether and how morals intersected in the events recounted by both authors, either as an influence or as a product of major social change.

Philibert Leow

Adena Stevens

The idea that marriage should be about love was not always the case. Goody (1976) explains how “love was potentially a rebellious passion, running contrary to reason, good sense and filial obedience” (17). Goody discusses how marriages were arranged in a system of homogamy and within a specific clan were justified in terms of retaining property and other rights. The method of reducing elopements and clandestine marriages was to limit contact between the sexes and place a high value on virginity. Premarital sex could lead to a forced marriage to an inappropriate husband, to someone of less stature and a bad matching of resources. The goal was to marry off one’s children to someone of the same or higher position in the society. This way of creating marriages made it very hard for people to move up in class and status and reinforced whatever class one was born into was probably going to be the one they and their children would remain in.

In America, the ideal is to marry for love. Fairy tales teach young girls early on that love conquers all and one day your prince will come and you’ll live happily ever after. This idea is carried out in romantic comedies and other movies that love will prevail over all obstacles and the couple ends up together or married. In reality we know this isn’t true and that relationships need more than love to survive successfully, yet when looking for a partner in life, many people I know still claim that being in love will help them have a happy marriage. I’m not saying people shouldn’t and don’t marry for love, but with so many marriages ending in divorce, maybe people of the current generations aren’t really looking closely at why they are marrying their partner and what each of them is bringing to the table. It still matters what each partner’s finances are when coming into a union (as it was when marriages were arranged) and what each person can contribute to the whole of the marriage. Online dating websites like match.com literally match the qualities you have listed about yourself with the qualities and descriptions of others to create the best “matches” for you. They are running their dating website as one that similarities amongst its members will create the best relationships. I personally don’t think you need to have everything in common with your partner, that they differences you have and can share with one another can be good for the relationship. At the same time, I know that having similar outlooks on things like how we spend our money, value in education and religion can be good to bolster a successful relationship. Many marriages that are entered into by love and not arranged still may knowingly and unknowingly be continuing social norms and classes, just to a lesser extent than in the past.

Just as marriage was seen as a way of maintaining property and prestige, it’s also a way of keeping acquisitions in the family (and with those who have the power). The opposite can be said of hydraulic societies. Wittfogel (1976) discusses the bureaucratic operations that are in place to maintain the hydraulic state with communicational and defensive tasks as well as taxation and proprietary control working together. The people in charge of the hydraulic state depend on the population’s surplus for their maintenance. It’s has to be a community effort to work successfully, and not for people to look out only for their best interest. If the society doesn’t work together, then the structure fails the community.

It seems to me that for societies to work well, there needs to be a balance of working with one another in the community to reach a shared goal, whether that be in irrigation or producing food, as well as finding a way to pass along shared values and ideas with one’s partner and family. American’s may believe that love is the key to a successful marriage, but if one looks closer at marriage, they will see that there are many similar beliefs to our current form of marriage as compared to arranged marriages of former generations. I think there will always be some form of homogamy in pairing off in this country, in people wanting to marry someone who is like them. But at the same time, the differences that one may bring with them to a marriage may help in the larger picture when looking at how the society can function at its peak.

Myrtle Jones

Both Goody and Wittfoge present arguments regarding the impact of agricultural technology on social structure. The introduction of both arguments shed light on the various techniques and data analysis which can come to what may appear to be similar conclusions albeit with very different analysis and results. These approaches both present a less deterministic view than the work of Karl Marx, Wittfoge moreso than Goody, yet it still bounds the individual. Additionally Goody’a analysis seems wrought with gross generalizations which may not hold-up when presented with alternate data. Wittfoge asserts, “man never stops affecting the environment. He constantly transforms it and He actualizes new forces whenever his efforts carry him to a new level of operation” (11). This “agency” which Wittfoge attributes to man remains bounded by “the institutional order and the ultimate target of man’s activity the physical, chemical and biological world available to him” (11) In the footnote of the text Wittfoge further explains his departure from the work of Karl Marx and his new move towards “the recognition of man’s freedom to make a genuine choice in historically open situations” (11). This makes room for an anthropological purview into the structure of society based on technological production, in the case of Wittfoge an analysis of the social structure of hydraulic societies. Man’s ability to “affect” his environment presents a framework for data analysis enabling a look at the social structure within the context of the types of technology used in labor production, while also allowing man the ability to change and impact the environment. The issue becomes which is first the change, i.e. “affect” or the social structure. Goody does not seem to offer man the same type of agency and instead concerns himself more with the correlations that exist between the various data points, with a focus on the methods used to analyze the data. Goody finds a correlation between types of agricultural tools used, hoe and plough, kinship and property, sex and compares the role of women in marriage, concubinage building upon his previous correlations. The example of the gens de couleur in Louisiana and their practice of placage in the United States, present some interesting challenges to Goody’s assertions. The gens de couleur practiced a concubinage system which afforded concubines rights to property in some cases upon the death of their partner and in other cases during the life of their partner. What makes this interesting when considering Goody’s assertions is that often these women were slaves or the descendants of slaves operating in an agricultural economy. Although Goody’s analysis is of Eurasia and Africa, the example of this system in the Americas with both Euopean and African peoples presents an interesting challenge to some of Goody’s assertions. Wittfoge in using a historical analysis which covers the globe, as his references are from the entire globe, presents an argument without as many gross generalizations as Goody. Goody relies heavily on data from the Ethnographic Atlas, and the works of fellow anthropologists such as Ester Boserup (31), and Nadel, for his definition of social structure (41). Goody lumps Europe and Asia into one geographic area, termed Eurasia and compares this with Africa. Goody uses data collected from others to test several hypothesis (22), which lead him to correlations and weak causal relationships (28). The varying data collection and analysis methods offer some interesting insights into how various methods and theories can result in similar findings in that both see a correlation between agricultural technology and social structure. What’s interesting is the differences in the details of their findings, in the case of Goody the impact of the hoe and plough on kinship, as ploughs enable the production of larger plots of land and an excess production of crops. In the case of Wittfoge the “industrialization” of the hydraulic society which “exhibits similarities to heavy industry, and dissimilarities as illuminating as the similarities” (27-28). Of the dissimilarities between hydraulic societies to industry, his emphasis on the hydraulic societies being heavily directed by the government as opposed to heavy industry being directed by private owners and managers is particularly germane given my research interest in cell phone usage and the impact of this particular technology on social relations. In the case of the US cell phone industry it is both a combination of government control , e.g. allocation of bandwidth, municipal approval of cell towers, and the direction of private owners and managers, particularly in the case of the United States, where the lack of regulation of standards some have argued led to the retarded growth of the US cell phone industry, due to lack of a mandated standard.

Goody, Jack Production and Reproduction: A Comparative Study of the Domestic Domain

Mills, Gary (1966) The Forgotten People of Color. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Press

Wittfogle, Karl A. Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power Appendix A:

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