Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Contexte: The debate as to where "magic" ends and "religion" begins is an old one, and it appeared to have been settled some decades ago when scholars concluded that no discernible boundary was to be found. As a result, the two were often lumped together in the adjective "magico-religious"...
Peter Farb:
92
citations
0
J'aime
Peter Farb: Citations en anglais
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Contexte: General Phil Sheridan... had urged the destruction of the bison herds, correctly predicting that when they disappeared the Indians would disappear along with them; by 1885 the bison were virtually extinct, and the Indians were starving to death on the plains.... the Indian Wars finally ended; and with the enforced peace came an economic recession in the West, for the United States government had spent there about one million dollars for every Indian killed by 1870.
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968), p. 13
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Contexte: Following the War of 1812, the young United States had no further need for Indian allies against the British, and as a result the fortunes of the Indians declined rapidly. By 1848, twelve new states had been carved out of the Indian's lands, two major and minor Indian wars had been fought, and group after group of Indians had been herded westward, on forced marches, across the Mississippi River.
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968), p. 38
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Contexte: One of the things that amazed the earliest explorers, almost without exception, was the hospitality with which Indians received them. When the Indians later learned that the Whites posed a threat, their attitude changed, but the initial contacts were idyllic.... Hospitality and sharing were characteristic of all Indian societies.
“Group by group, the Indians rose in rebellion only to be crushed”
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Contexte: Up to 1868, nearly four hundred treaties had been signed by the United States government with various Indian groups, and scarcely a one had remained unbroken. By the latter part of the last century, the Indians finally realized that these treaties were real-estate deals designed to separate them from their lands. In the last three decades of the nineteenth century, Indians and Whites skirmished and then fought openly with ferocity and barbarity on both sides. Group by group, the Indians rose in rebellion only to be crushed...
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Contexte: Social scientists of the past spoke glibly of an "agricultural revolution," a time during which human populations suddenly soared, cities were founded, and many trappings of civilization made their appearance.... The food-production revolution turns out to be a slow evolution, a long period of experimentation rather than a sudden explosion.
Word Play (1974)
Contexte: Freedom of speech does not exist anywhere, for every community on earth forbids the use of certain sounds, words, and sentences in various speech situations.... the habitual liar faces social sanctions... Speakers are not allowed to misrepresent... to defame other people in public, to maliciously shout "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater, or to utter obscenities on the telephone.
“The more simple the society, the more leisured its way of life.”
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968), p. 29
“The seventeenth-century Iroquois”
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Contexte: The seventeenth-century Iroquois... practiced a dream psychotherapy that was remarkably similar to Freud's discoveries two hundred years later. The Iroquois recognized the existence of an unconscious, the force of unconscious desires, the way in which the conscious mind attempts to repress unpleasant thoughts, the emergence of unpleasant thoughts in dreams, and the mental and physical (psychosomatic) illnesses that may be caused by the frustration of unconscious desires. The Iroquois knew that their dreams did not deal in facts but rather in symbols.... And one of the techniques employed by the Iroquois seers to uncover the latent meanings behind a dream was free association...<!-- p. 95
“Culture is all the things and ideas ever devised by humans working and living together.”
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968), p. 19
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Contexte: Up to 1868, nearly four hundred treaties had been signed by the United States government with various Indian groups, and scarcely a one had remained unbroken. By the latter part of the last century, the Indians finally realized that these treaties were real-estate deals designed to separate them from their lands. In the last three decades of the nineteenth century, Indians and Whites skirmished and then fought openly with ferocity and barbarity on both sides. Group by group, the Indians rose in rebellion only to be crushed...
“The Shoshone did not wage war, because it served no purpose.”
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968), p. 31
“The Whites were determined to fight it out with each other—down to the last Indian.”
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Contexte: The desire of Whites to occupy Indian lands, and the constant rivalry between French and English traders for furs gathered by the Indians, led to many skirmishes and several bloody wars, all of which involved Indians on both sides. The Whites were determined to fight it out with each other—down to the last Indian. These battles culminated in the French and Indian War of 1763, which represented a disaster to many Indian groups in the northeastern part of the continent. In May, 1763, an Ottawa warrior by the name of Pontiac fell upon Detroit and captured the English forts, one after the other. Lord Jeffery Amherst... distributed among the Indians handkerchiefs and blankets from the small pox hospital at Fort Pitt—probably the first use of biological warfare in history.
Word Play (1974)
Contexte: The weakness of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis... the impossibility of generalizing about entire cultures and then attributing these generalizations to the language spoken... is to leave numerous facts about culture unexplained. The great religions of the world... have flourished among diverse peoples who speak languages with sharply different grammars.... Cultures as diverse as the Aztec Empire of Mexico and the Ute hunting bands of the Great Basin spoke very closely related tongues.
“The Indians on their part, did not respond”
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Contexte: Only a few years after the permanent settlement of Virginia, some fifty missionaries arrived to begin the massive task of converting the heathen. The Indians on their part, did not respond with alacrity to the idea of adopting a culture that to them, in many cases, seemed barbarous, indeed.
“Balanced reciprocity is as much a social compact as it is an economic advantage.”
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Contexte: Balanced reciprocity is as much a social compact as it is an economic advantage. It is particularly important in hunting-gathering societies, where no individual could possibly accumulate a surplus, live independently of other members of the band, or become so successful in the quest for food as never to need meat from someone else's kill.<!-- p. 44
“Numerous sophisticated inventions”
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Contexte: Numerous sophisticated inventions undoubtedly originated in the New World. They include many aspects of plant domestication and horticulture, the hammock, the tobacco pipe, an intricate system used for ventilating and cooling ceremonial chambers, the enema, the hollow rubber ball, the toboggan, and numerous other objects and ideas that were brought back to the Old World after Columbus.<!-- p. 204
Word Play (1974)
Contexte: This inseparableness of everything in the world from language has intrigued modern thinkers, most notably Ludwig Wittgenstein... If its limits—that is, the precise point at which sense becomes nonsense—could somehow be defined, then speakers would not attempt to express the inexpressible. Therefore, said Wittgenstein, do not put too great a burden upon language. Learn its limitations and try to accommodate yourself to them, for language offers all the reality you can ever hope to know.
“The colors that a speaker "sees" often depend very much on the language he speaks”
Word Play (1974)
Contexte: The colors that a speaker "sees" often depend very much on the language he speaks, because each language offers its own high-codability color terms.
“No culture can be explained in terms of one or more leaders”
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Contexte: We are in the habit of thinking in terms of great leaders largely because the leaders themselves want it that way. The pharaohs ordered that a record of their accomplishments be carved on stone; medieval nobles subsidized troubadours to sing their praises; today's world leaders have large staffs of public-relations consultants. No culture can be explained in terms of one or more leaders...<!-- p. 93
“Until language has made sense of an experience, that experience is meaningless.”
Word Play (1974)
Contexte: Thinking is language spoken to oneself. Until language has made sense of an experience, that experience is meaningless.
“Sharing is a kinsman's or a friend's obligation, and it is not in the category of a gift.”
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968), p. 44
“Time is said to be wasted or saved”
Word Play (1974)
Contexte: Whorf asked... Do the Hopi and European cultures... conceptualize reality in different ways? And his answer was that they do. Whereas European cultures are organized in terms of space and time, the Hopi culture, Whorf believed, emphasizes events. To speakers of European languages, time is a commodity that occurs between fixed points and can be measured. Time is said to be wasted or saved... their economic systems emphasize wages paid for the amount of time worked, rent for the time a dwelling is occupied, interest for the time money is loaned. Hopi culture... instead thinks... The span of time the growing takes is not the important thing, but rather the way in which the event of growth follows the event of planting. The Hopi is concerned that the sequence of events in the construction of a building be in the correct order, not that it takes a certain amount of time to complete the job.
