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Table of Contents
Society as a total system
Society as a total system
Week 2: Society as a system of total services
Ryan Schram
ANTH 1002: Anthropology in the world
Monday, August 08, 2022
Slides available at https://anthro.rschram.org/1002/2022/2.1
Main reading: Eriksen (2015)
Other reading: Mauss ([1925] 1990)
A Dalle-2 generated image using the prompt: “A cubist painting that depicts the concept of society: A society is a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. It is a collective consciousness. Society is a big brain that thinks for you. Social facts are the thoughts of the collective consciousness, but to each individual they feel real, like they are objective and external to consciousness.” See https://labs.openai.com/s/CZd7CFowKpWhrgBj2wwoeXVB.
All in one
Many other scientists and scholars ask what it means to be human besides anthropology, and they often start from a universal definition of humanity.
There are universal facts about humans, things that are true about people in all places and all times. We eat, sleep, breathe, etc.
How important should these universal facts be? Is there one universal definition of the human person that should matter a lot when we seek to understand people's lives?
References and further reading
Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. 2015. “Exchange and Consumption.” In Small Places, Large Issues: An Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology, 4th ed., 217–40. London: Pluto Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt183p184.16.
Mauss, Marcel. (1925) 1990. “Selections from introduction, chapters 1-2, and conclusion.” In The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies, translated by W. D. Halls, 1–14, 39–46, 78–83. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.