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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?
What's in it for me?
Consider the field of economics. Economics is the study of more than just the economy; economists would say that study people's behavior, and specifically the choices people make.
Economics assumes that each person is a rational thinker. This is a universal definition of the human person. Specifically
- Everyone thinks rationally—they reason and deliberate—about what they do.
- People make choices based on rational thinking.
- Each individual will tend to choose what gets them the most in return for the least.
- When faced with a choice, people think “Which of these alternatives will benefit me the most relative to the time, money, effort, or valuable resources that I will give up to acquire it?”
For an economist, each individual seeks a rational maximization of utility.
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.