scholarly journals Mode and tempo in the evolution of socio-political organization: reconciling ‘Darwinian’ and ‘Spencerian’ evolutionary approaches in anthropology

2011 ◽  
Vol 366 (1567) ◽  
pp. 1108-1117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Currie ◽  
Ruth Mace
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Regular Sequence ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Political Complexity ◽  
Herbert Spencer ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary

Traditional investigations of the evolution of human social and political institutions trace their ancestry back to nineteenth century social scientists such as Herbert Spencer, and have concentrated on the increase in socio-political complexity over time. More recent studies of cultural evolution have been explicitly informed by Darwinian evolutionary theory and focus on the transmission of cultural traits between individuals. These two approaches to investigating cultural change are often seen as incompatible. However, we argue that many of the defining features and assumptions of ‘Spencerian’ cultural evolutionary theory represent testable hypotheses that can and should be tackled within a broader ‘Darwinian’ framework. In this paper we apply phylogenetic comparative techniques to data from Austronesian-speaking societies of Island South-East Asia and the Pacific to test hypotheses about the mode and tempo of human socio-political evolution. We find support for three ideas often associated with Spencerian cultural evolutionary theory: (i) political organization has evolved through a regular sequence of forms, (ii) increases in hierarchical political complexity have been more common than decreases, and (iii) political organization has co-evolved with the wider presence of hereditary social stratification.

scholarly journals Towards a Pricean foundation for cultural evolutionary theory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Baravalle ◽  
Victor J. Luque
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Fundamental Equation ◽  
Price Equation ◽  
Dual Inheritance Theory ◽  
Heuristic Device ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary ◽  
Fundamental Equations ◽  
Dual Inheritance

The Price equation is currently considered one of the fundamental equations – or even the fundamental equation – of evolution. In this article, we explore the role of this equation within cultural evolutionary theory. More specifically, we use it to account for the explanatory power and the theoretical structure of a certain generalised version of dual-inheritance theory. First, we argue that, in spite of not having a definite empirical content, the Price equation offers a suitable formalisation of the processes of cultural evolution, and provides a powerful heuristic device for discovering the actual causes of cultural change and accumulation. Second, we argue that, as a consequence of this, a certain version of the Price equation is the fundamental law of cultural evolutionary theory. In order to support this claim, we sketch the ideal structure of dual-inheritance theory and we stress the unificatory role that the Price equation plays in it. 

Deductive Hedonism and the Anxiety of Influence

Utilitas ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Weinstein
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
The Real ◽  
Herbert Spencer ◽  
Anxiety Of Influence

This paper examines the undervalued role of Herbert Spencer in Sidgwick's thinking. Sidgwick recognized Spencer's utilitarianism, but criticized him on the ground that he tried to deduce utilitarianism from evolutionary theory. In analysing these criticisms, this paper concludes that Spencer's deductive methodology was in fact closer to Sidgwick's empiricist position than Sidgwick realized. The real source of Sidgwick's unhappiness withSpencer lies with the substance of Spencer's utilitarianism, namely its espousal of indefeasible moral rights.

Extended evolutionary theory makes human culture more amenable to evolutionary analysis

2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 374-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Mesoudi
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Evolutionary Analysis ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Genetic Mechanisms

AbstractJablonka & Lamb's (J&L's) extended evolutionary theory is more amenable to being applied to human cultural change than standard neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory. However, the authors are too quick to dismiss past evolutionary approaches to human culture. They also overlook a potential parallel between evolved genetic mechanisms that enhance evolvability and learned cognitive mechanisms that enhance learnability.

A Macroregional Perspective on Chiefly Cycling in the Central Region of Panama During the Late Ceramic Ii Period (A.D. 700–1522)

2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 449-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam C. J. Menzies ◽  
Mikael J. Haller
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Central Region ◽  
Social Hierarchy ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Wealth Accumulation ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Prestige Goods ◽  
High Ranking ◽  
The Pacific

AbstractThe sixteenth-century indigenous societies who inhabited the Pacific plains of Panama have occupied an important place in discussions of social hierarchy in the Americas. Beginning with the discovery of the richly stocked tombs at Sitio Conte in the 1930s the origins of social hierarchy and wealth accumulation has been a key theme in the Central Region of Panama. Although the most lavish burial hoards at Sitio Conte contained hundreds of sumptuary goods elaborately decorated with cosmological iconography, no other contemporary cemetery shows evidence for this degree of wealth accumulation. The only other site with mortuary patterning suggestive of high ranking individuals is He-4, where high ranking mound burials were interred following the abandonment of the Sitio Conte cemetery. From a macroregional perspective the increase in access to prestige goods in mound burials at He-4 contemporaneous with, or immediately after, the decline of Sitio Conte is best explained as a result of changes in political organization of the kind often associated with the growth and decline of chiefly polities.

scholarly journals THE CONCEPTS «CHIEFDOM» AND «STATE» IN THE EVALUATION OF THE POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS IN THE EARLY MEDIEVAL EMPIRES OF CENTRAL ASIA

2016 ◽  
pp. 22-27
Author(s):  
S. A. Vasyutin
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Complexity Level ◽  
Total Compliance

The article deals with the evaluation of the political institutions in early medievalCentral Asia. The existing approaches to defining the governing systems of the imperial nomad unions focus on the concepts "chiefdom" and "state", but in both cases researchers have to state an absence of total compliance of the nomadic empires' governing structures to the classical attributes of chiefdom and state, thus constantly making reservations, which blur these concepts. The purpose of the work is to consider the possibility of solving this problem by using a broader "net" of terms determining different political systems and stages in their development in relation to early medieval nomadic empires. The methodological base of the article is the modern conceptions of multilinearity and diversity of the political genesis. The research has resulted in determination of a range of concepts which could better reflect the specificity of political institutions of different nomadic empires or make this evaluation more neutral but providing a clearer understanding of the complexity level of the political organization. 

Nations, Nationalism, National Identity: New Dimensions in Academic Discourse

2015 ◽  
Vol 59 (11) ◽  
pp. 91-102
Author(s):  
I. Semenenko
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Russian Science ◽  
Interethnic Relations ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Nation States

Analyzing discourses on interethnic relations can contribute to a clearer understanding of the focal points of tensions in contemporary political communities sharing a common territory and common political institutions. These discourses represent the complex of problems related to nation-building and are generated both in the public sphere and in academic discussion. As such, they often develop separately one from the other. Assessing the current academic discourse on nations and nationalism, on nation-building and the nation-state, on citizenship, cultural diversity and interethnic conflict can contribute to the formation of the agenda of a politics of identity aimed at building a civic nation. Memory politics deserve special attention in this context, as the interpretation of historic memory has today become a powerful instrument that political elites can use to consolidate the nation and, in different contexts, to politicize ethnicity and deepen cleavages in existing nation-states. The affirmation of a positive civic (national) identity is a reference framework for modern democratic societies, and it is in meeting the challenges of politicizing ethnicity that political priorities and academic interests meet. However, the current domination of politics over academia in this conflict prone sphere contributes to its radicalization and to the formation of negative and exclusive identities that can be manipulated to pursue elitist group interests. Evaluating models of political organization alternative to the ones known today (such as “the nation-state”) does not aspire to “write off” the nation, but this can help to come up with visions and ideas politics can take up to overcome the conflict potential that contemporary societies generate over ethnic issues. Acknowledgements. This article was prepared with financial support provided by the Russian Science Foundation [research grant № 15-18-00021, “Regulating interethnic relations and managing ethnic and social conflicts in the contemporary world: the resource potential of civic identity (a comparative political analysis)”]. The research was conducted at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), RAS.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Crawford Gribben
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Northwest ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The World ◽  
Christian Reconstruction ◽  
Christian Influence ◽  
Northern Idaho

The Introduction describes the revitalization of one of the most controversial religious and political movements in recent American history. During a period of significant demographic and cultural change, a large number of religious and political conservatives have migrated into the Pacific Northwest. Many of these migrants are influenced by the claims of Christian Reconstruction, or “theonomy.” From their base in northern Idaho, these latter-day theonomists are developing the work of R. J. Rushdoony, Gary North, and others of the first generation of the writers of Christian Reconstruction, reiterating their optimistic view of the future, an eschatological position known as postmillennialism, as well as their expectation that the expansion of Christian influence around the world will be marked by changes in government and by a widespread return to the demands of Old Testament law.

Spencer, Herbert (1820–1903)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim S. Gray
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Herbert Spencer ◽  
The World ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Herbert Spencer is chiefly remembered for his classical liberalism and his evolutionary theory. His fame was considerable during the mid- to late-nineteenth century, especially in the USA, which he visited in 1882 to be lionized by New York society as the prophetic philosopher of capitalism. In Britain, however, Spencer’s reputation suffered two fatal blows towards the end of his life. First, collectivist legislation was introduced to protect citizens from the ravages of the industrial revolution, and Spencer’s spirited defence of economic laissez-faire became discredited. Second, his evolutionary theory, which was based largely on the Lamarckian principle of the inheritance of organic modifications produced by use and disuse, was superseded by Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Nearly a century after his death, however, there is renewed interest in his ideas, partly because the world has become more sympathetic to market philosophies, and partly because the application of evolutionary principles to human society has become fashionable once more.

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