From: loren@lintilla.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Loren Petrich)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: "Non-Patriarchal" Tribes: Leacock's Claims
Date: 7 Apr 92 00:32:14 GMT

In article <!bmjln#.sheaffer@netcom.com>, sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
|> In article <121479@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> loren@tristan.llnl.gov (Loren Petrich) writes:

|>    I will *agree* that the literature does suggest that simpler
|>    societies have less FORMALIZED hierarchy, and less formalized
|>    male dominance. But I think Goldberg is correct when he says
|>    that even in those cases, there is strong informal male
|>    dominance.

	Evasion. After having one claim of his deflated, S.M. backs
off into another. And even strong _informal_ male dominance is
doubtful, given the evidence presented by Leacock and others.

	[Discussion of an approving Marxist commentary to Leacock's
work omitted...]

	S.M. equates approving praise of using "historical
materialism" as a method to being a Marxist. Does that mean that
anyone who tries to argue that capitalism is a wonderful system is
also a Marxist? After all, it is a form of economic determinism to
argue that capitalism produces wonderful societies, just as it is a
form of economic determinism to argue just the opposite.

	Interestingly, from a Marxist standpoint, the existing, and
recently demised, "Marxist" states are pseudo-Marxist at best; they
have ruling elites that behave just like the Marxist view of how
capitalists behave. That is, in fact, one of the sources of resentment
to them, I may add.

|> >: >	Still, what makes the existence of a non-patriarchal society,
|> >: >whether matriarchal, or equi-archal, an extraordinary claim?

|>   Because there AREN'T ANY such societies, despite numerous claims
|>   to the contrary.

	But that is what we have been arguing about :-).

|>   In response to the now-favored technique of pushing supposed
|>   equi-archies back in time to the safely-unobservable past,
|>   Steven Goldberg suggested that this is like claiming that the
|>   ancient Egyptians had two heads until *just before* the time
|>   from which we have definite records.

	Safely unobservable my buttocks. It is true that the source
material is sometimes difficult to work with, but it is not
_impossible_. Consider the Jan 1992 SciAm article on "Tribal Warfare".
It uses _exactly_ the method you criticize ethnohistorians for using.
I wonder when S.M. will write the SciAm editors a long, flamey letter
accusing them of political propaganda about "noble savages".

	And you still insist on making a hero of Steven Goldberg?

	Leacock notes that he argues that it is natural for a woman to
feel dominated by her menfolk; she herself notes some counterexamples,
even among heavily male-dominated societies. For instance, in one
traditional New Guinea society, the "perambulating punitive penis" is
opposed to, not the submissive female, but the "vagrant voracious
vulva" (Leacock's words). Classical Athens was thoroughly
male-dominated, but celebrated victories over legendary Amazons and
viewed respectable women as to be seen and not heard (see Eva Keuls's
_The Reign of the Phallus_ for more details). It was as if they
thought women had to be kept in check by force. Medieval monks and
present-day strict Muslims both view women as dangerous distractions
for men, and to be kept out of sight as much as possible. So the view
that women are naturally submissive is only a cultural stereotype.

/Loren