Human Nature & Group Dynamics
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Group Identity
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Anthropology Anthropology means the study of man, anthropos. Man means in this context humans, male and female, young and old. I first encountered anthropology in two forms, the study of human origins and the study of other societies, especially distant ones who had not acquired all the complications and vices of urban industrial society. Stones and bones are the evidence used by paleoanthropologists to study early humans going back millions of years. Archeologists study the stones, bones and artifacts left by humans in the past 10 thousand years. You might consider sociology to be a division of anthropology that studies contemporary societies at close range. One of the tools of anthropology is ethnography, descriptions of kinship, language, organization and dynamics of local groups. You could argue that all human studies are studies of human nature and that anthropology should grow to embrace all other disciplines or all disciplines should incorporate anthropology. Since anthropology existed as a department within universities, competing for funds, students and recognition, the discipline has remained a specialty, more or less confined to a limited set of tools and assumptions. European colonization of distant countries led to studies of the local flora and fauna, using descriptive taxonomies, drawings and hand written notes. A similar approach was taken by early anthropologists in their studies of human groups. The Wikipedia entry on anthropology offers this description: “In the twentieth century, academic disciplines have often been institutionally divided into three broad domains. The natural and biological sciences seek to derive general laws through reproducible and verifiable experiments. The humanities generally study local traditions, through their history, literature, music, and arts, with an emphasis on understanding particular individuals, events, or eras. The social sciences adopted scientific methods to understand social phenomena with methods distinct from those of the natural sciences. Anthropology does not easily fit into one of these categories, and different branches of anthropology draw on one or more of these domains.” Harris reviewed the history of anthropology in his book, The Rise of Anthropological Theory'. Harris considered ecology and demographic dynamics as determinant factors in sociocultural evolution. In his later works, he and others considered the importance of food as a social determinant. In his book, Cannibals and Kings he considered the vices of centralized control of essential natural resources that lead to institutionalized oppression, an inevitable characteristic of imperial states throughout history. His ”cultural materialism” focused on the practical concerns that support survival, on the infrastructures of food production, reproduction, and local group cohesion. The desire to discover truly innate features of human nature has been a main feature of anthropology and the arguments that prevailed in the 20th century. While ethnographies reveal a remarkably diversity of human expressions, underlying themes emerge that are common to all. My strategy is to use Anthropology resources, selecting the best ideas that are most compatible with 21st century understanding, avoiding polemics and historical references. Anthropology, like all other disciplines, involves critically disputatious humans who invested much of their time and energy arguing with each other.
Ideas useful in the 21st century idea developed with increasing, multidisciplinary sophistication. You could divide essential ideas into two groups. The first group involves general principles that can be applied in every situation. The second and largest group involves science and technology complete with a growing repertoire of concepts and techniques that promise to make older approaches to understanding human conduct obsolete. One essential idea is that human nature is animal nature, somewhat modified in the past one million years. Another idea implicit in all viable explanations is that the details of human systems change continuously and technologies evolve. The critical disputatious nature of humans does not change. The basic dynamics of competition, copying and conflict do not change. We can now state with confidence that every group organizes around kinship and ad hoc affiliations. Every group has technologies of tool making, food production and distribution. Every group has levels of dominance and submission. Every group has rules about social interactions, privileges, marriage, child care and property. Every group has internal conflicts and conflicts with neighbouring groups. Every group has methods of resolving conflicts without killing. When conflict resolution fails, humans kill each other. Killings tend to multiply since humans seek revenge for harm done to members of their local group. We must also recognize that humans are best suited for living in small groups and become dysfunction in predictable ways when groups get larger.
Human Nature & Group Dynamics is a 21st century description of anthropology, sociology and psychology - disciplines that need to be integrated as they are in this book. The topics are essential to understanding human nature, its origins and its problems. You could treat each topic as module of a larger system that develops emergent properties as the modules interact. Each reader discovers the features of human nature in himself or herself and then discovers similar features in others. After you understand more about the dynamics of close relationships, you can look at larger groups. You can continue by applying your insights into human dynamics to governments, countries and international affairs. Other Persona Digital books describe the same dynamics but emphasize different vantage points and concerns. Click the download button on the right to
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Human Nature & Group Dynamics is one volume in the Psychology & Philosophy series, developed by Persona Digital Books. We encourage readers to quote and paraphrase topics from Group Dynamics published online and expect proper citations to accompany all derivative writings. The author is Stephen Gislason and the publisher is Persona Digital Books. The most recent date of publication is 2011 rev 4/10/2011. The URL to the book description is http://www.personadigital.net/Persona/groupdynamics/
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