Cultural Materialism
Description
Richard Feinberg:
"Harris was an early adopter of the now-common view of the Agricultural Revolution as an adaptive response to environmental shifts at the end of the Pleistocene, a period of dramatic climate change. Glaciers were receding and species (especially big herbivorous prey animals such as mammoths and mastodons) faced extinction, with human predation hurrying that extinction process along. “In all centers of early agricultural activity,” writes Harris,
- the end of the Pleistocene saw a notable broadening of the subsistence base to include more small mammals, reptiles, birds, mollusks, and insects. Such ‘broad spectrum’ systems were a symptom of hard times. As the labor costs of the hunter-gatherer subsistence systems rose, and as the benefits fell, alternative sedentary modes of production became more attractive.
Lifestyles based on cultivation took root and spread, and with them (eventually) came villages and chiefdoms. In certain places, the latter in turn mutated to produce the most radical social invention of all, the state:
The paleotechnic infrastructures most amendable to intensification, redistribution, and the expansion of managerial functions were those based on the grain and ruminant complexes of the Near and Middle East, southern Europe, northern China, and northern India. Unfortunately these were precisely the first systems to cross the threshold into statehood, and they therefore have never been directly observed by historians or ethnologists. Nonetheless, from the archaeological evidence of storehouses, monumental architecture, temples, high mounds and tells, defensive moats, walls, towers, and the growth of irrigation systems, it is clear that managerial activities similar to those observed among surviving pre-state chiefdoms underwent rapid expansion in these critical regions immediately prior to the appearance of the state. Furthermore, there is abundant evidence from Roman encounters with “barbarians” in northern Europe, from Hebraic and Indian scriptures, and from Norse, Germanic, and Celtic sagas that intensifier-redistributor-warriors and their priestly retainers constituted the nuclei of the first ruling classes in the Old World.
While I have omitted most of Harris’s detailed explanation, nevertheless we have here, in essence, an Ecological Explanation for the Origin of Civilization. What’s more, Harris is not merely proposing an entertaining “just-so” story, but a scientific hypothesis that is testable within the limits of available evidence.
Cultural Materialism is capable of illuminating not just grand societal shifts, such as the origin of agriculture or the state, but the deeper functions of cultural institutions and practices of many sorts. Harris’s excellent textbook Cultural Anthropology (2000, 2007), co-authored with Orna Johnson, includes chapters with titles such as “Reproduction,” “Economic Organization,” “Domestic Life,” and “Class and Caste”; each features illustrative sidebars showing how a relevant cultural practice (peacemaking among the Mehinacu of central Brazil, polyandry among the Nyimba of Nepal) is adaptive to environmental necessity. Throughout this and all his books, indeed throughout his entire career, Harris aimed to show that Probabilistic Infrastructural Determinism is the only sound basis for a true “science of culture” that is capable of producing testable hypotheses to explain why societies evolve the way they do."
(http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-06-16/want-to-change-the-world-read-this-first)
Typology
Andrea Farias:
"Marvin Harris's Cultural Materialism theory (mentioned in Metacrisis Series by GreenPill Podcast) proposes 3 layers to civilization:
- Infrastructure: The foundation of a civilization is its infrastructure, which encompasses its mode of production (e.g., agriculture, industry) and its mode of reproduction (e.g., family structure, population growth). The infrastructure sets the basic conditions for social organization, such as the division of labor and the distribution of resources. Changes in the infrastructure, such as technological innovations or environmental pressures, can drive transformations in the other two elements.
- Social Structure: The social structure of a civilization includes its economic, political, and social institutions. These institutions, such as social classes, political hierarchies, and legal systems, emerge as a way to manage resources and maintain order. The structure of a civilization is constantly adapting to changes in the infrastructure, while also shaping the possibilities for further technological and economic development.
- Superstructure: The superstructure of a civilization consists of its cultural practices, beliefs, and values. These cultural elements are influenced by the material conditions of the infrastructure and the social arrangements of the structure. At the same time, the superstructure can also shape the development of the infrastructure and structure, such as when religious beliefs promote certain forms of economic activity or when artistic movements inspire technological innovations."
(https://diome.xyz/2+%F0%9F%8C%BF+Leaves/Cultural+Materialism)
Discussion
Andrea Farias on Holistic Cultural Materialism
Andrea Farias:
"I propose an expanded theory I'll call Holistic Cultural Materialism, in which the development and characteristics of civilizations are understood as emerging from the complex interactions between six interconnected elements:
- Infrastructure: The material base of a society, including its technologies, economic systems, and modes of production and reproduction.
- Structure: The social, political, and economic institutions that organize and regulate human activities and relationships.
- Superstructure: The cultural beliefs, values, practices, and symbolic systems that shape individual and collective consciousness and behavior.
- Physiologic Structure: The biological and psychological dimensions of human existence, including human bodies, brains, and behaviors, as well as the environmental factors that influence them.
- Multi-Species Structure: The networks of relationships and interactions between human societies and other species, including the ways in which humans depend on, co-evolve with, and impact the lives of other organisms.
- Planetary Structure: The Earth's ecosystems, biogeochemical cycles, and climate system, which provide the fundamental life-support systems for all species and shape the conditions for the development of civilizations."
(https://diome.xyz/2+%F0%9F%8C%BF+Leaves/Cultural+Materialism)