Marshall Sahlins's essay was intended to reflect the acquisitive nature of modern society, characterized by bourgeois individualism and current economic practices. This is achieved by presenting examples of foraging societies that valued autonomy, mobility, and ample free time over material accumulation.
Sahlins contrasts the capitalist drive for wealth via production and consumption with the Zen pursuit of abundance, achieved by minimizing desires. Consequently, Sahlins aimed to critique acquisitive societies by showcasing communities that opted for non-materialistic lifestyles. Therefore, Option A is the correct answer.
Option B: The primary emphasis is on illustrating the values and decisions of foraging societies, rather than asserting a societal decline.
Option C: While Sahlins's essay critiques certain modern economic theories, its core purpose is to demonstrate alternative models through non-materialistic societies, not to directly disprove Galbraith's bleak outlook.
Option D: Sahlins's essay primarily draws parallels between foraging societies and contemporary economic structures, despite acknowledging the increased inequality and social stratification resulting from the Neolithic Revolution.
Hence, the correct option is (A): to act as a reflection of acquisitive societies, featuring examples of other communities that have successfully adopted non-materialistic approaches.
This analysis scrutinizes Sahlins's essay, "Original Affluent Society," evaluating its content and lasting influence. The review commends Sahlins for questioning standard economic theories, recognizing hunter-gatherer societies as a contrast to modern materialistic aspirations.
Nevertheless, it identifies weaknesses, particularly the insufficient attention paid to the impacts of racism and colonialism. The passage's conclusion, "While acknowledging the violence of colonialism, racism, and dispossession, it does not thematize them as heavily as we might today," underscores the author's view of the essay's superficial engagement with these subjects.
Consequently, the criticism regarding Sahlins's handling of these matters corresponds to the first option: cursory treatment of the effects of racism and colonialism on societies. Therefore, this option is the correct selection.
The passage indicates that Sahlins's essay, "The Original Affluent Society," critiqued modern consumerism and inequality, aligning with themes in John Kenneth Galbraith's "The Affluent Society." Sahlins's work contrasts foraging societies' values with capitalism's pursuit of wealth, mirroring Galbraith's skeptical view of postwar affluence and its inherent inequality. Therefore, Option C accurately reflects the passage's explanation of how Sahlins's perspective supports Galbraith's critique of contemporary society.
Option B: The passage suggests compatibility between Galbraith's and Sahlins's theories, not contradiction.
Option D: The passage does not primarily compare forager lifestyles to Galbraith's views on modern development.
Option A: The passage emphasizes how Sahlins's essay supports Galbraith's critique of modern society, rather than detailing the influence of Galbraith's views on Sahlins's analysis.
Correct Option: (C) — Demonstrates how Sahlins's perspectives reinforced Galbraith's critique of contemporary society's consumerism and inequality.
Option C is validated as the passage employs the Hadza community in Tanzania to illustrate that forager societies, exemplified by the Hadza, defy a simple dichotomy of human diversity or victimhood. Their lifestyle is a result of active decision-making. The text states that the Hadza, despite coexisting with agriculturalists, possessed knowledge of alternative lifestyles and consciously opted against them. This instance emphasizes that forager communities are not constrained by a lack of awareness regarding alternatives; their chosen way of life is a product of deliberate choices. Consequently, Option C precisely encapsulates the Hadza example presented in the text.
Option A: The passage's primary focus is not on the survival tactics of contemporary hunter-gatherer groups, but rather on their decision-making frameworks and rationale.
Option B: The passage does not link the Hadza community to the agricultural practices of neighboring populations, rendering this option extraneous to the provided example.
Option D: The passage does not suggest that the Hadza community coexisted with vastly dissimilar lifestyles and occupations over extended durations.
Correct Option: (C) — That forager communities' lifestyles derived not from ignorance about alternatives, but from their own choice.
You may laugh at a hat, but what you are making fun of, in this case, is not the piece of felt or straw, but the shape that men have given it, -- the human caprice whose mould it has assumed. It is strange that so important a fact, and such a simple one too, has not attracted to a greater degree the attention of philosophers. Several have de ned man as "an animal which laughs." They might equally well have de ned him as an animal which is laughed at; for if any other animal, or some lifeless object, produces the same effect, it is always because of some resemblance to man, of the stamp he gives it or the use he puts it to.
Here I would point out, as a symptom equally worthy of notice, the ABSENCE OF FEELING which usually accompanies laughter. It seems as though the comic could not produce its disturbing effect unless it fell, so to say, on the surface of a soul that is thoroughly calm and unru ed. Indifference is its natural environment, for laughter has no greater foe than emotion. I do not mean that we could not laugh at a person who inspires us with pity, for instance, or evenwith affection, but in such a case we must, for the moment, put our affection out of court and impose silence upon our pity. In a society composed of pure intelligences there would probably be no more tears, though perhaps there would still be laughter; whereas highly emotional souls, in tune and unison with life, in whom every event would be sentimentally prolonged and re-echoed, would neither know nor understand laughter. Try, for a moment, to become interested in everything that is being said and done; act, in imagination, with those who act, and feel with those who feel; in a word, give your sympathy its widest expansion: as though at the touch of a fairy wand you will see the imsiest of objects assume importance, and a gloomy hue spread over everything. Now step aside, look upon life as a disinterested spectator: many a drama will turn into a comedy. It is enough for us to stop our ears to the sound of music, in a room where dancing is going on, for the dancers at once to appear ridiculous. How many human actions would stand a similar test? Should we not see many of them suddenly pass from grave to gay, on isolating them from the accompanying music of sentiment? To produce the whole of its effect, then, the comic demands something like a momentary anesthesia of the heart. Its appeal is to intelligence, pure and simple
This uidity and situational dependence is uniquely human. In other species, in-group/outgroup distinctions re ect degrees of biological relatedness, or what evolutionary biologists call “kin selection.” Rodents distinguish between a sibling, a cousin, and a stranger by smell—xed, genetically determined pheromonal signatures—and adapt their cooperation accordingly. Those murderous groups of chimps are largely made up of brothers or cousins who grew up together and predominantly harm outsiders. Humans are plenty capable of kin-selective violence themselves, yet human group mentality is often utterly independent of such instinctual familial bonds. Most modern human societies rely instead on cultural kin selection, a process allowing people to feel closely related to what are, in a biological sense, total strangers. Often, this requires a highly active process of inculcation, with its attendant rituals and vocabularies. Consider military drills producing “bands of brothers,” unrelated college freshmen becoming sorority “sisters,” or the bygone value of welcoming immigrants into “the American family.” This malleable, rather than genetically xed, path of identity formation also drives people to adopt arbitrary markers that enable them to spot their cultural kin in an ocean of strangers—hence the importance various communities attach to ags, dress, or facial hair. The hipster beard, the turban, and the “Make America Great Again” hat all fulfill this role by sending strong signals of tribal belonging. Moreover, these cultural communities are arbitrary when compared to the relatively axed logic of biological kin selection. Few things show this arbitrariness better than the experience of immigrant families, where the randomness of a visa lottery can radically reshu e a child’s education, career opportunities, and cultural predilections. Had my grandparents and father missed the train out of Moscow that they instead barely made, maybe I’d be a chain smoking Russian academic rather than a Birkenstock-wearing American one, moved to tears by the heroism during the Battle of Stalingrad rather than that at Pearl Harbor. Scaled up from the level of individual family histories, our big-picture group identities—the national identities and cultural principles that structure our lives— are just as arbitrary and subject to the vagaries of history.