The tribal imagination : civilization and the savage mind / Robin Fox.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fox, Robin, 1934-2024.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Tribes--Philosophy.

Tribes.

Civilization.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 417 pages) illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"We began as savages, and savagery has served us well—it got us where we are. But how do our tribal impulses, still in place and in play, fit in the highly complex, civilized world we inhabit today? This question, raised by thinkers from Freud to Lévi-Strauss, is fully explored in this book by the acclaimed anthropologist Robin Fox. It takes up what he sees as the main—and urgent—task of evolutionary science: not so much to explain what we do, as to explain what we do at our peril.Ranging from incest and arranged marriage to poetry and myth to human rights and pop icons, Fox sets out to show how a variety of human behaviors reveal traces of their tribal roots, and how this evolutionary past limits our capacity for action. Among the questions he raises: How real is our notion of time? Is there a human “right” to vengeance? Are we democratic by nature? Are cultural studies and fascism cousins under the skin? Is evolutionary history coming to an end—or just getting more interesting? In his famously informative and entertaining fashion, drawing links from Volkswagens to Bartók to Woody Guthrie, from Swinburne to Seinfeld, Fox traces our ongoing struggle to maintain open societies in the face of profoundly tribal human needs—needs which, paradoxically, hold the key to our survival."--Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Prologue: The Miracle and the Drumbeats

1. Time out of Mind: Tribal Tempo and Civilized Temporality

2. The Human in Human Rights: Tribal Needs and Civilized Ideals

3. The Kindness of Strangers: Tribalism and the Trials of Democracy

4. Sects and Evolution: Tribal Splits and Creedal Schisms

5. Which Ten Commandments? Tribal Taboo and Priestly Morality

6. Incest and In- Laws: Tribal Norms and Civilized Narratives

7. Forbidden Partners: Ancient Themes in Modern Literature

8. In the Company of Men: Tribal Bonds in Warrior Epics

9. Playing by the Rules: Savage Rhythms and Civilized Rhymes

10. Seafood and Civilization: From Tribal to Complex Society

11. The Route to Civilization: From Tribal to Political Society

12. Open Societies and Closed Minds: Tribalism versus Civilization

13. The Old Adam and the Last Man: Taming the Savage Mind

Epilogue: The Dream-Man

Appendix: Transitional Time at the Edge of Chaos.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780674263567

0674263561

9780674060944

0674060946

OCLC:

742361661