On Tue, 9 Dec 2003, Michael Dawson -PSU wrote:
> Of course you're not arguing that arranged marriages are better. That's
> because they are worse, as is hunting and gathering as an economy and a
> lifestyle.
I guess it's an occupational hazard as a social scientist, but I get very uncomfortable about making blunt statements about the inferiority and superiority of human societies like you do above. You're assuming that there are some universally held values that can be applied to arrange all human societies on a scale from good to bad, and I assume human values are contingent and local. If you apply the standards and values of industrial societies to hunting and gathering societies, of course life in an industrial society is much better. However, the reverse is also true: If you value egalitarianism and the central role of family interactions in social life, as many hunting and gathering people do, then their way of life is clearly superior to ours.
I think one of the major sources of social conflict is the conflation of "these are the values we live by in our way of life" and "these are the universal values all people should live by". (--An odd parallel occurs to me between Michael's claims in this thread and the rhetoric of the Catholic Church during the Crusades--)
Miles