Arthur P. Wolf

Incest Avoidance and the Incest Taboos (eBook, ePUB)

Two Aspects of Human Nature

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Why do most people never have sex with close relatives? And why do they disapprove of other people doing so? Incest Avoidance and Incest Taboos investigates our human inclination to avoid incest and the powerful taboo against incest found in all societies. Both subjects stir strong feelings and vigorous arguments within and beyond academic circles. With great clarity, Wolf lays out the modern assumptions about both, concluding that all previous approaches lack precision and balance on insecure evidence. Researchers he calls "constitutionalists" explain human incest avoidance by biologically-based natural aversion, but fail to explain incest taboos as cultural universals. By contrast, "conventionalists" ignore the evolutionary roots of avoidance and assume that incest avoidant behavior is guided solely by cultural taboos. Both theories are incomplete.

Wolf tests his own theory with three natural experiments: bint'amm (cousin) marriage in Morocco, the rarity of marriage within Israeli kibbutz peer groups, and "minor marriages" (in which baby girls were raised by their future mother-in-law to marry an adoptive "brother") in China and Taiwan. These cross-cultural comparisons complete his original and intellectually rich theory of incest, one that marries biology and culture by accounting for both avoidance and taboo.

---

Dieser Download kann aus rechtlichen Gründen nur mit Rechnungsadresse in A, D ausgeliefert werden.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 188
• Erscheinungstermin: 16. April 2014
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780804791694
• Artikelnr.: 48417042

Autorenporträt

Keith J. Bybee is the Paul E. and the Hon. Joanne F. Alper '72 Judiciary Studies Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University and their Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Distinguished Lecturer for 2016-2017. He is the author of several books, including All Judges Are Political-Except When They Are Not (Stanford, 2010).

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
1The Promise of Civility
chapter abstract
This chapter first outlines the standard argument for returning civility to
American public life, and then raises key questions that any advocate of
civility must confront. Given the long history of rudeness in the United
States, why should we think that civility is possible? Given the strong
American tradition of free speech, why should we want to be civil? Why not
instead encourage people to speak their minds and to develop thick skins?
The chapter concludes by suggesting that we can only understand how
civility works if we learn to see that, paradoxically, civility's strengths
are in its weaknesses.
2Civility Defined
chapter abstract
This chapter defines civility as a form of good manners and as a code of
public conduct. Civility is distinguished from other types of good manners,
including politeness, courtesy, chivalry, and gallantry. The chapter then
surveys the competition between different varieties of civility in the
United States, dating from the ratification of the Constitution to the
presidential election of 2016. The possibility of enforcing civil etiquette
through law is considered. The chapter concludes by observing that the
profusion of different beliefs about civility creates an environment in
which common courtesies do not seem very common.
3The Excellence of Free Expression
chapter abstract
This chapter examines the argument against civility's repressive use made
by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty. Contemporary examples of repressive
civility in the context of AIDS activism, hip-hop music, and on-campus free
speech are discussed. The chapter argues that even though civility can
obstruct free speech, civility also underwrites free speech by creating an
accessible, easily employed means of communicating good character and
personal decency. The importance of civility as a means of communication is
illustrated through discussion of Aristotle, Erasmus, table manners, and
decorum in the United States Congress.
4Are You Just Being Polite?
chapter abstract
This chapter begins by arguing that even though civility has the great
virtue of giving people a method for publicizing their good character,
civility also has a glaring vice: the messages that civility communicates
can easily be faked. The disadvantages of hypocritically exploiting
civility are detailed, and the possibility of controlling such hypocrisy by
treating civility as a form of morality is discussed. The chapter then
argues that the inauthenticity of civil behavior has the advantage of
allowing flawed people appear to be better than they actually are. This
positive use of hypocrisy is examined through discussion of Lord
Chesterfield, Edmund Burke, Dale Carnegie, Judith Shklar, Ruth Grant, and
Miss Manners.
5Strength in Weakness
chapter abstract
This chapter summarizes how civility relies on a series of paradoxes. We
feel civility's absence as a result of its abundance. We see civility as an
impediment to free expression, and at the same time we demand civility to
sustain the free exchange of ideas. We encounter civility as a bulwark of
hierarchy and domination, and we also enlist civility to level social
relations and promote inclusion. We condemn civility's inauthenticity, yet
we depend on the many opportunities for hypocrisy that civility affords.
The chapter concludes by arguing that the work of enacting better and more
acceptable means of getting along requires us to embrace the paradoxes on
which civility depends.