Overblown mistrust of cultural influence
Our brains evolved to make use of the cultural tools available to us. Brains and culture coevolved. So, is the mistrust of cultural influence vs "strictly biological evolution" (surely an abstraction) based on fear of social control?
Does this need to be rethought given it’s culture that gives us our cognitive tools, given culture is what enables us to be us?
Have we conflated all social influence with genuinely nefarious projects of mind control from peer pressure to murderous cults?
Does the term "social construction" need to be rethought rather than ruled out in favour of biological factors?
(Several respectable sources in consilience on this point so not interested in questioning whether brains and culture coevolve. Has interesting implications all around, IMO.)
Does this need to be rethought given it’s culture that gives us our cognitive tools, given culture is what enables us to be us?
Have we conflated all social influence with genuinely nefarious projects of mind control from peer pressure to murderous cults?
Does the term "social construction" need to be rethought rather than ruled out in favour of biological factors?
(Several respectable sources in consilience on this point so not interested in questioning whether brains and culture coevolve. Has interesting implications all around, IMO.)
Comments (52)
So in light of this I wonder why people are wont to insist on human nature being "hardwired" versus socially constructed. In a tweet from skeptic pundit, Michael Shermer from February 2018, he says
He's either gone down a slippery slope or his last sentence is the premise for the preceding.
He also says in a tweet from May 2018
So taken together we can see Shermer thinks that moral realism and social constructivism are at odds. (Might be framed as absolutism vs relativism).
But I'm saying that they're outdated views and more accurately, that we need to rethink this very deeply. We cannot conclude that being socialized is more inhibiting than freeing. And Quoting Coben would be something that cultural influence also enables. We require to be socialized to develop properly and have options available to us. But we need to get beyond a nature/nurture paradigm to think about this more clearly.
At stake: ethics, free will and sources of human agency/individualism, theories of "hardwired human nature" and likely many other things I haven't thought of.
I'm glad you explained this more. My first reaction to your fist post in the thread was, "What are you talking about? What mistrust over cultural influence?" But then, later in that same post, you mentioned "mind control" and "murderous cults," and I thought, "Hmm . . . okay, so I guess we're just talking about paranoid/conspiracy-theory-prone people?"
But what I quoted above gives more insight into what you were hoping to get at. The problem, though, is this:
I'm not someone with "cultural mistrust."
But I'm someone who doesn't at all agree with these statements:
* "Your brain wouldn't work without the 'cultural software' that gets installed as you grow."
* "Your culture literally gives you your values." (That's not quoting you, but it seems like something you're more or less claim.)
* "Your culture literally provides the entirety of language for you, including meaning." (Ditto re my parenthetical above.)
My disagreement with those statements has nothing to do with "cultural mistrust." It has to do with a belief that those statements get wrong how brains work as well as the ontology of things like values and meaning, and what it's possible/not possible to do with value and meaning, which results in getting wrong how language works, etc.
I'd definitely agree with claims that cultural and environmental influences are significant factors in the way that people turn out. But that doesn't mean that someone's brain wouldn't work sans culture, etc.
For example, if values can only obtain culturally, then how would the first cultural instantiation of a value begin? It couldn't begin by someone having a personal disposition towards one behavior over another, because that would negate our premise. We'd have to claim that values somehow arise not in persons' individual dispositions, but somehow pop into existence due to people interacting with each other, where they supervene in the interaction somehow. But how? Ontologically, how in the world would that work?
The same goes for social meaning, etc.
I'm not a big fan of computer metaphors, but that might just be a tangential remark, we'll see. The cumulative enhancements and modifications may include things I would be critical or simply suffer without quite knowing why. When I read the OP and then this response I think of this as you saying we can't throw out acculturalization and the reason we might want to or the arguments to do this would be using the culture software. So kind of all or nothing. IOW it is silly to argue that the whole shebang is bad since even this argument is part of the whole shebang, and also because it gives us all sorts of useful tools. I certainly agree with that and would not suggest that we throw out the whole shebang.
I do think parts are problematic and should be eliminated or modified. These vary culture to culture, subculture to subculture and even down to what specific individuals need, want, don't need, are damaged by, etc.
Quoting Izat SoNot just socialization enables it. IOW I think parts can feel wrong. Adn not because of other cultural tools and ideas. IOW we are not infinitely malleable. I don't think, say a few hundred years ago, some women might have felt there was something wrong with footbinding or that men did not take them seriously as thinkers required other cultural ideas and tools to make them skeptical about the status quo. Some things fit us better than others. I am certainly using cultural tools right now to argue this, but I think our decisions to fight this or that cultural custom can come from the physical emotional - yes, I acknowledge that the physical emotional is not easily separable from the cultural. But that does not mean that what I am arguing is false, it just means it will not always be easy to tell what is inciting the reaction.
But again, I want to point out that we could easily write at cross purposes here. When I am skeptical, as you quoted me above, about certain types of cultural influence, this does not mean cultural customs and tools are bad as a whole. That I want the raw human, whatever that is, some feral child become adult. I was saying that I think there are cultural aspects that I think are damaging and worse than others and/or it would better if I and many others simply were without. Not the whole thing, but specifics. Often a rather large array of these things. This may be a banal truth and really off topic from your perspective.
In a sense I am just making sure you are not arguing that since we would need to use culture tools to criticize aspects of the culture, they are really fine and we shouldn't criticize them. Or that since we need the whole we must accept the parts, any of them. That any criticism of supposedly damaging cultural aspects is wrong headed per se.
Quoting Izat So
Perhaps, I failed to get beyond the nature/nurture paradigm above with my arguments that we are not infinitely malleable and reactions based on feeling. (again I will acknowledge that we can react based on feeling due to cultural tools and customs. And since we grow up, especially these days, with mixtures of cultures and contradictory messages and beliefs, we are bound to be critical based on these contradictions freedom vs. duty as an example off the top of my head, or current ideas about branding oneself and being happy and messages that we should be intimate and open with others. But even beyond these triggers coming out of cultural contradictions, I do think some cultural ideas will fit us better than others. Danish kids have more trouble learning their language than Swedish kids have learning theirs. The former language is much less articulated, the latter follows spelling and is articulating much more clearly. The Danish cultural tools work less well, at least in the beginning, because the bodies can't use them as well. I think we will thrive more with some cultural tools than others - though this is very hard for us to work out hence the culture wars and a whole lot of ridiculous self-help books. I do think we will thrive with some set of cultural tools. I am not arguing we need to throw out the whole and I certainly don't want to.
Yes, the brain would work but the person would be intellectually maimed until rehabilitated, which is sometimes not possible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XSxjnxgdFY
Quoting Terrapin Station
I don't think "socially constructed" is the right word. Culturally informed maybe? So I don't think that you'd have in mind something like a group of rational, thoroughly self-directed adults living alone and then coming together to decide how to live, do you? I mean, we have always been fundamentally social. Values emerge through interaction and they probably relate to the conditions for human flourishing - until they don't and the society fails.
Quoting Coben
Agree. Glad I didn't grow up in a society that practiced human sacrifice or one that thought the shows they put on at the Roman Coliseum were quite acceptable entertainment.
I wouldn't say that values "emerge through" interaction. They're just influenced by interaction. But they emerge from an individual's brain.
Also, what counts as "flourishing" is subjective , at least insofar as we're attaching value connotations to "flourishing."
I'm disagreeing with the perspective, because I believe it gets things wrong.
I'm going to naysay something if I believe it's incorrect. And if you're going to interact with people in a philosophical context, you need to expect that, and you need to be able to support, against objections, claims you make or endorse. That's how the whole philosophy game works.
So enjoy this instead:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo6yAJo77-Y
You cannot honestly expect people to just ignore the falsehood because you don’t wish to discuss it do you?
If I’m being generous it is fair to say that the whole nature nurture question is merely a delineation of convenience. No serious behavioral biologist views this as an either or question - things moved on some times ago.
I’m pretty sure Dawkins put this mor succinctly so I’d recommend using a quote from him next time - without brains there is no culture.
The nature nurture delineation is one of convenience for studying. There is no clear line between the environment and the biological animal. We are what we are because of where we happen to be.
There has been a pretty well known correlation between the prefrontal cortex and social skills for some time.
Here's a 20 minute version if you haven't time for the whole lecture. It comes with a summary of his position as well: http://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-6/donald-on-the-evolution-of-human-consciousness
Note: I watch that tomorrow. Thanks!
Strictly speaking that goes without saying. Generally speaking, which I can only assume you meant, it is untrue. Many people believe things have an effect on them that don’t have an effect on them - we’re not exactly infallible when it comes to assuming X does Y when X is merely coincidental. Our facilities to make the leap from absolute causation to possible causation - combined with an ability to seek evidence - is not exactly in keeping with the statement that what is important to us has a possible effect on us. What has an effect on us is certainly part of our investigation though.
I don’t even understand your example of goat’s milk? What effected genes? Are you talking about epigenetic effects here? If not I’ve no idea what you’re referring to.
Also false beliefs do have an effect, not the one we believe they have. Anti-Vax for instance.
Here’s a link to an abstract explaining my milk example. in this case it refers to cows but same idea. https://www.nature.com/articles/ng1263
BTW, Just in case anyone is confused by “culture” I don’t just mean arts and ideas. I mean technology, economy, language, public institutions, social norms, and the prehistorical and historical roots of all that.
Humans are domesticated too. I remember reading an article a while ago talking about how dogs are more related to humans than chimps simply because we’ve coexisted side by side for millennia. Is that the kind of thing you’re talking about? Selective breeding?
What "cultural tools" were available to the culturally naive brain? The answer has to be "zero". So... where did culture come from? The answer has to be, "Brains made culture."
A long time ago, when our fictive Homo Erectus "Adam and Eve" found each other and mated--culture not required--thus spawning the Homo sapiens species, what cultural tools did they have available to them?
Their Homo Erectus predecessors deployed some culture. They used fire and stone tools; their children needed care for an extended period of time. They had to cope with large predators and various environmental challenges using instinctive and learned behaviours. There were almost certainly more cultural practices (aka 'learned behaviours) but what other cultural features they possessed is unknown -- and is likely to stay unknown.
The predecessors of Homo Erectus probably depended more on instinct and less on culture. If you go back in time, you will eventually reach an ancestor that didn't produce or use culture.
Brains create culture and are then influenced by their own creations; it's a feedback loop. Creating stone tool culture improved one's survival. Better survival chances allowed brains to exploit more life opportunities, and we are off to the races.
Of course not. Dogs happen to be more ingratiating than chimps. Pleasing humans is their specialty. The very fact that chimps are not all that ingratiating, they being [s]willing[/s] prone to throw their faeces at us, is evidence of their close genetic relationship to us, because we aren't all that ingratiating either.
In his book "Seeing voices: A Journey Into the World of the Deaf" Sacks also shows how the lives of deaf people (adults, for instance) who have limited and ineffective spoken language imitation tools are enhanced by learning a full-fledged sign language.
Language seems to be something we are genetically primed to produce. Some degree of cooperation also seems to be biologically programmed. (We are not the only animals that cooperate, and a good share of the time we don't even do it very competently.) Does brain = language = culture? I think so, since without language we don't seem to be able to function together.
Our species-ancestors were perhaps able to function with much less language than we require--but all this is speculation, since we don't have any video tapes of our primitive forebears.
Thanks
What I'm asking you for is supporting claims. Why do I have to supply them when you don't, when you're the one initiating claims?
I hope he wasn't disputing that, but it seems like he was.
Can the idea that [i]the organic structure and functioning of the brain coevolved with culture[/I] be tested?
The content of the brain clearly changes with exposure to culture (and everything else) but that doesn't mean "evolution". Homo sapiens have been a mobile hunter-gathering species for 15,000 to maybe 300,000 years. Can we show that culture, specifically, has played a role in selection? I'm not claiming that such a relationship can not be demonstrated, just that I don't know that it has, or can be.
At this point, a million and more years since culture was first invented by brains, it is impossible to disentangle culture from biology in our time and place. I can't tell whether the people around me (or around you) are behaving the way they do because of culture or because of biology, or some combination of both. Nobody else can either. Even mental illnesses like bi-polar disorder which may be inherited and which appear to be biological in origin, are affected by cultural factors.
So, a question: If we could bring someone forward in time from 150,000 years ago -- a newborn baby -- and raise them in the contemporary culture, do you think that their brain could process the vastly more complex culture of today than a band of hunter gatherers 300,000 years ago?
My guess (no proof, of course -- time travel is incredibly expensive) is that the baby would grow up and do just fine -- might even turn out to be an urban sophisticate/kulture kritik/bon vivant. Or, he might be a successful criminal, or had it we time traveled him 45 years ago, Teresa May's successor as conservative UK Prime Minister -- all sorts of possibilities. Maybe that's where Trump came from?
Culture exists across brains and in laws and in networks of roads and in the various media from mythical narratives to digital media that function as external memory storage, etc. Being the arena or ongoing history it extends beyond any living brains into the mists of primal our past and to into our future. It is distributed across media, across generations.
We are not merely a collection of individual brains, regardless of how much some of us like to think of ourselves as thoroughly self-authoring and autonomous. We use the tools that our brains have evolved to be able to use insofar as our hominid brains have coevolved with culture over millions of years.
Primates became a thing around 55 million years ago. Presumably there was a time (about 8 million years ago, at least) when the proto-human and the proto-monkey lineage split apart. The common ancestor probably did not have had a culture. It had biological traits and behaviours. Initially, the early creatures in our branch of the tree would not have had culture either. It would have had a collection of biological traits and behaviours.
I don't know how social Lucy's species was. We were not producing culture, at the time. Culture would have to wait until our brains were big enough to carry out the tasks of culture creation and cultural reproduction. We may not have been able to talk yet, either. Lucy's brain (3 million years ago) was about a third the size of ours, and she represented 3 or 4 million years of development.
So yes, at some point in our evolutionary history (about 2.5 million years ago) forebears came along who could make a tool out of material that was not a tool (like a rock), and pass that information on, and then take that information on into the future. That's when culture production began, and it was probably later, rather than sooner.
We don't know when speech began. We don't know what it was like. But there was a beginning to the use of language -- albeit very limited. Maybe it began with signs, or sounds, or both. Don't know. Can't know. But 300,000 years ago, it is likely that languages were fully deployed--another cultural invention.
Occasionally we find artifacts--a sea shell with a hole drilled in it and stained red--that indicate that objects were being fashioned for some nonfunctional purpose (decoration?) maybe 40,000 years ago. 25,000 years ago we find the cave paintings.
Nobody would claim that shell decoration, cave painting, or gathering around a fire was "invented" by one person and then was picked up by others. But cultural behaviours had to begin at some time--maybe in multiple places.
True enough. We may not even be "conscious" the way we think we are; we may be pretty much the sum of deterministic forces and events. As somebody once said, "We've been dethroned. Copernicus showed us that we were not the centre of the cosmos. Darwin showed us we were descended from apes. Then Freud showed us we were not even in charge of our own minds."
http://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Renfrew-Cognitive-Archaeology-Symbolic-Storage-Mind.pdf
I tend to call the ‘mimesis’ referred to as ‘kinesthetic language’ - simply because I came to this conclusion myself prior to reading the term in Renfrew’s work that references Donald.
I’d recommend reading “The Sacred and The Profane” by Eliade. Eliade can be quite heavy to read sometimes, but that particular book is short and less of a pure scholarly (not too robotic). The point on sedentary life is touched on by both Eliade and Renfrew.
I bought three books a year or so ago that compliment each other really nicely when read in together (The Sacred and The Profane, Interpretations of Cultures - Geertz, and Structural Anthropology - Levi-Strauss).
If you have any recommendations I’d be delighted to hear what they are.
Thanks
There are some rare instances of animals (macaque primates) doing a cultural thing: Some macaques started washing the dirt off sweet potatoes before eating them. That was a novel behavior. Some other macaques copied them. One macaque taught it's young to wash the potatoes. That's not quite culture, but it is heading in that direction.
You seem to be more on the side of learned behaviour and culture. I'm more on the side of instinct -- even for people. Some of us believe that much of our behaviour is genetically encoded. People learn language whether they want to or not. They just start absorbing it. It's instinctual. so on and so forth
In the lecture provided there is also a distinction made between “what we call language” and communication (quoting Merlin Donald there). When it comes to what we generally call ‘language’ different species of animals possess one, or more, attributes of communication that humans possess. We just happen to have all of these communication capacities combined. I wouldn’t agree that ‘language’ - in this here general sense - is required for ‘culture’ to develop. I would say a certain degree of interaction with concepts of time is required.
For starters verbal thought is not required for ‘thinking’. This is something MANY people struggle with (believe it or not!)
Animals are more nature than we are, hence they can do things like start walking right out of the womb in some cases, but they still have cultural aspects, as you are saying.
Without being socialized by adults animals like these would lack all sorts of social and even skill tools (behavioral patterns). They are not hardwired for everything. Much more than us, but not at all completely.
If I was to follow that kind of logic I’d end up saying rocks are more natural than animals and plants.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Merlin Donald's approach is to see culture evolving in stages that have ultimately allowed humans an open-ended repertoire of behaviours. He draws from anthropology, archaeology, genetics and neuroscience to defend his position. I could not replicate his arguments adequately in this space but a reasonably short essay might interest you in which Donald addresses how the brain evolved with culture and provide solid reasons for thinking that it would have to have done so. "An Evolutionary Approach to Culture" in The Axial Age and its Consequences, eds Bellah and Joas. 47-75.
Quoting Bitter Crank
The fact that we can learn it is because our brains evolved to be able to represent and share things symbolically and these repertoires exist in the "external memory storage" enabled by culture, our shared distributed cognitive space . It is culture through which infants are socialized. (Even deaf children realize communication of ideas is possible as they can observe people. Helen Keller took time to realize that Annie Sullivan was communicating something but learning took off once she understood.) Voluntary behaviour is enabled by culture. The remarkable thing about humans is that much of our repertoire is not encoded, we have the open-ended capacity to learn and draw on and add to our cultural repertoire. Probably about the only thing you could say was hardwired in humans are all the things that give us the great capacity to adapt.
I'm glad you liked the lecture. I will follow up your recommendations. I recently read Laland, Darwin's Unfinished Symphony and Morris, Foragers, Farmers and Fossil Fuels. Did you read Bellah's Religion in Human Evolution?
Well, if you uncharitably took the line out of context. I meant as opposed to nurture. In the how much they behave in certain ways due to nature vs. nurture, they are more determined by nature, as it is distinguished from nurture in such discussions.
And once the word social is applicable to an animal, there is culture. I don't know if bees are social. But the social mammals are. And if they are not raised in a way to learn what being a member of social group is, they will fail at it. They will lack the knowledge of cultural cues and tools.
My interest in anthropology is particularly focused on the development and origins of religion.
In a nutshell: Why do people mistrust the idea that we are thoroughly socially informed to the point of denying it, even given that it's obvious and culture is what allows us to be us?
So far most have said they don't deny it, others have denied it but are not interested in providing any reasons.
I hope you understood that I was supporting your position. Animals to improve things they learn, certainly many of the social mammals do. This is cultural. IOW I am supporting the idea that this is a co-evolution between culture and brains, say, but pointing we are not alone in this. Yes, we are vastly more plastic in our learning systems.