Cultural universal

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"Human universals" redirects here. For the 1991 anthropology book, see Human Universals.

A cultural universal (also called an anthropological universal or human universal) is an element, pattern, trait, or institution that is common to all known

Emile Durkheim, George Murdock, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Donald Brown
.

Donald Brown's list in Human Universals

In his book Human Universals (1991), Donald Brown defines human universals as comprising "those features of culture, society, language, behavior, and psyche for which there are no known exception", providing a list of hundreds of items he suggests as universal. Among the cultural universals listed by Donald Brown are:[2]

Language and cognition

Main article: Linguistic universal

Society

  • Personal names
  • Family or household
  • Kin groups
  • Peer groups not based on family
  • Actions under self-control distinguished from those not under control
  • Affection expressed and felt
  • Age grades
  • Age statuses
  • Age terms
  • Law: rights and obligations, rules of membership
  • Moral sentiments
  • Distinguishing right and wrong, good and bad
  • Promise/oath
  • Prestige inequalities
  • Statuses and roles[3][4]
  • Leaders
  • Inclination towards patriarchy (dominance of men in society)
  • De facto oligarchy
  • Property
  • Coalitions
  • Collective identities
  • Conflict
  • Cooperative labor
  • Gender roles
  • Males on average travel greater distances over lifetime
  • Marriage
  • Husband older than wife on average
  • Copulation normally conducted in privacy
  • Incest prevention or avoidance, incest between mother and son unthinkable or tabooed
  • Collective decision making
  • Etiquette
  • Inheritance rules
  • Generosity admired, gift giving
  • Mood- or consciousness-altering techniques and/or substances
  • Redress of wrongs, sanctions
  • Sexual jealousy
  • Sexual violence
  • Shame
  • Territoriality
  • Triangular awareness (assessing relationships among the self and two other people)
  • Some forms of proscribed violence
  • Visiting
  • Trade

Beliefs

Further information: Myth and ritual
  • Magical thinking
  • Use of magic to increase life and win love
  • Beliefs about death
  • Beliefs about disease
  • Beliefs about fortune and misfortune
  • Divination
  • Attempts to control weather
  • Dream interpretation
  • Beliefs and narratives
  • Proverbs, sayings
  • Poetry/
    rhetorics
  • Healing practices, medicine
  • Childbirth customs
  • Rites of passage
  • Music, rhythm, dance, and to some degree associations between music and emotion
  • Play
  • Toys, playthings
  • Death rituals, mourning
  • Feasting
  • Body adornment
  • Hairstyles
  • Art

Technology

Nicholas Christakis' innate social universals

Based on experiments and studies of accidental and utopian societies, sociologist and evolutionary biologist Nicholas Christakis proposes that humans have evolved to genetically favor societies that have eight universal attributes, including:[5]

Non-nativist explanations

The observation of the same or similar behavior in different cultures does not prove that they are the results of a common underlying psychological mechanism. One possibility is that they may have been invented independently due to a common practical problem.[6]

Outside influence could be an explanation for some cultural universals.[7] This does not preclude multiple independent inventions of civilization and is therefore not the same thing as hyperdiffusionism; it merely means that cultural universals are not proof of innateness.[8]

Criticism of Brown's universals

Donald Brown's perspective echoes a common belief held by many anthropologists of his time and earlier (increasingly those who have transitioned into the fields of

female sexuality (such as the sexual double standard), often deliberately neglecting to mention the copious ethnographic evidence against these being universal traits. By the time of the publication of his 1991 book "Human Universals", it was common knowledge among anthropologists that many societies had egalitarian gender relations[9] and did not police women's sexuality[10]
, but Brown chose to ignore this data and instead cobble together a narrative which seems to fit with his sociobiological presuppositions, selectively citing authors who agreed with him and ignoring those (such as Gwen J. Broude) who did not.

In fact, one major problem with Brown's work is that it is classic "

Hopi[19]). Even the claim of consistently higher male age at marriage struggles to conform itself to the widely known pattern among social historians of higher female age at marriage in some parts of Bulgaria[20], Russia and especially the Volga region[21]
during the nineteenth century.

Brown attempted to respond to criticism by citing highly questionable authorities and ideas now considered discredited or pseudoscientific. For instance, in order to "disprove" Margaret Mead's work on Samoa, he gave an uncompromisingly positive appraisal of Derek Freeman's so-called "refutation" of Mead; Freeman's work is now mostly regarded by anthropologists as being itself problematic and unreliable, more so than Mead's original research[22][23]. He also makes copious reference to the universality of the Oedipus complex, which is now rejected as pseudoscience even within our own western society.

See also

References

  1. ^ Schacter, Daniel L, Daniel Wegner and Daniel Gilbert. 2007. Psychology. Worth Publishers. pp. 26–27
  2. ISBN 978-0070082090
    .
  3. S2CID 8406753
    .
  4. S2CID 17129083
    .
  5. ^ Nicholas Christakis (2019). Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society. Little, Brown Spark.
  6. ^ Language: The cultural tool DL Everett - 2012 - Vintage
  7. ^ Equal Recognition: The Moral Foundations of Minority Rights, Alan Patten 2014
  8. ^ Cultures and Globalization: Cultural Expression, Creativity and Innovation, Helmut K Anheier, Yudhishthir Raj Isar 2010
  9. ^ Farber, C. (1982). Female Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality. Peggy Reeves Sanday. Atlantis, 7(2), 154–157. https://journals.msvu.ca/index.php/atlantis/article/download/4611/3849
  10. ^ Broude, G. J., & Greene, S. J. (1976). Cross-Cultural codes on twenty sexual attitudes and Practices. Ethnology, 15(4), 409. https://doi.org/10.2307/3773308
  11. ^ Brown, D. (1991). Human universals. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages.
  12. ^ Pelto, P. J. (1960). Individualism in Skolt Lapp society.
  13. ^ Goethals, G. W. (1972). Human Sexual Behavior: Variations in the Ethnographic Spectrum.Donald S. Marshall , Robert C. Suggs. American Journal of Sociology, 77(4), 806–808. https://doi.org/10.1086/225221
  14. ^ Dentan, R. K. (2008). Overwhelming terror: Love, Fear, Peace, and Violence among Semai of Malaysia. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
  15. ^ https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/belief/articles/daf-yomi-123
  16. ^ https://www.amaliah.com/post/51477/womans-right-orgasm-feminism-bedroom-muslim-womans-right-to-sex-marriage-what-does-islam-say-about-sex
  17. ^ Briggs, L. C. (1967). Tribes of the Sahara. Ardent Media.
  18. ^ Kennedy, J. G., & Porter, F. W. (1990). The Tarahumara. Chelsea House Publications.
  19. ^ Göttner-Abendroth, H. (2012a). Matriarchal Societies: studies on Indigenous cultures across the globe. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BB10517513
  20. ^ Rački, F., Jagić, V., & Torbar, J. (1866). Književnik.
  21. ^ https://www.encyclopedia.com/places/commonwealth-independent-states-and-baltic-nations/cis-and-baltic-political-geography/mordvins
  22. ^ Orans, M. (1996). Not even wrong: Margaret Mead, Derek Freeman, and the Samoans. Chandler & Sharp Publishers, Incorporated.
  23. ^ Shankman, P. (2009). The trashing of Margaret Mead: Anatomy of an Anthropological Controversy. Univ of Wisconsin Press.

Bibliography

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