Comments on: Nonhuman Cultures

By: John hartigan

John hartigan — Sun, 12 Apr 2015 16:12:32 +0000

Further, on the theoretical ground here, a choice synopsis in a review of Frans de Waals’ The Ape and the Sushi Master: “Culture — behavior learned from others — was long vaunted as inimitably human. But de Waal points out how tired this presumption is. Monkeys teach their siblings how to wash sweet potatoes in the ocean; chimpanzee mothers show their young how to use stones to crack nuts; apes learn to medicate themselves with herbs. In 1999, an international survey of wild chimpanzees published in Nature described 39 distinct behavior patterns. In other words, separate communities of chimpanzees, even in the same environment, develop different social customs.

”The question whether animals have culture is a bit like whether chickens can fly,” de Waal writes. ”Compared to an albatross or falcon, perhaps not, but chickens do have wings, they do flap them, and they do get up in the trees.” He suggests that we’d learn far more by fully exploring the rich array of varied behaviors among nonhuman primates than continuing to quibble over categorical distinctions, a stance he chalks up to ”anthropodenial.” from, “Are You in Anthrodenial,” NYTimes https://www.nytimes.com/books/01/04/08/reviews/010408.08fostert.html

By: John hartigan

John hartigan — Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:58:55 +0000

Thanks for this elaboration, and I'll develop my argument further in another post. But just to clarify: my theoretical justification for this line of thought is that the recognition of culture in nonhumans is 1) expanding rapidly and 2) offering important, generative opportunities to advance multispecies ethnography and other forms of analysis. It's a moment similar to that depicted by Raymond Corbey (The Metaphysics of Apes Negotiating the Animal-Human Boundary), of the desperate effort to redefine the criteria of human uniqueness around "tool use" as it kept showing up in the activities of an array of nonhumans.

By: TNT

TNT — Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:02:25 +0000

Hi Prof. Hartigan,

It is possible to aptly describe the particular biological and behavioral characteristics shared by both humans and other species without distorting a theoretical notion of culture. I believe we both share an interest in understanding these behavioral similarities and differences across species. We disagree about the definition of culture. It remains a nontrivial fact that culture is comprised of language and meaning making–both of which are the results of nontrivial neurological and cognitive processes.

By excluding the aforementioned characteristics from a definition of culture you want to downplay the very processes that are central to our species’ very existence, and you do so (at least it seems on these blog posts) without any theoretical justification. Your only recourse has been to claim that meaning is fetishized and I can imagine that you might go on to claim that language or meaning isn’t of your particular interest.

Again, I believe we can justly display that various species display similar behavioral patterns–that is, in some instances particular differences between humans and other species are more along the lines of a continuum than a fine cut line and in others it seems that these differences are more stark. This is where practitioners of anthropology (the study of humanity as stated in the name) can benefit from engaging with practitioners of ethology.

Finally, I still do not understand how anyone can do an ethnography of corn. Had we removed corn and plugged in ‘chimpanzee’ I would quickly state that it is an ethology. I’ll just have to wait until you publish your book to find out.

By: John hartigan

John hartigan — Sun, 12 Apr 2015 13:48:07 +0000

yes, exactly, I opt for the widest definition of culture, away from what makes humans unique and towards what we share in common with a large array of monhumans. I think we’ve fetishized meaning too much in cultural analysis; we need to rehearse Durkheim on social facts, which opens up a wide scope of nonhuman socially.

By: TNT

TNT — Sun, 12 Apr 2015 13:37:31 +0000

I’m pleased to read that you’ve taken the time to list a few very interesting facts concerning role of social learning in the life spans of various organisms. Social learning is simply a mechanism of transmitting information, but in itself doesn’t constitute culture.
Yet, this does not constitute “nonhuman culture.” That sparrows learn particular song dialects, might suggest that some of the very (neurological?) processes involved in transmitting culture are widespread. Of course, one would need to identify first if indeed there is a neurological basis (which I take as fact) to social learning across species and whether or not this is due to homology or analogy. In the case of songbirds, it might be due to convergent evolution.

With respect to your view of culture, in order to substantiate your implicit claim–that nonhumans possess culture–you narrowly define human culture actually is.

Your definition of culture runs along the following lines:

Culture generates adaptive behaviors that have the power to transform environments (“niche construction” or place-making), but that also can funnel the flow of genes in a species through mating rituals and kinship dynamics.

Humans speak languages. This an important characteristic with cognitive prerequisites: The ability to distinguish between frames (e.g., is this a play or real life? Is this a game or serious?); the ability to be self-reflexive; the ability to discuss abstract times, places, people.

I will not exhaust the list. This one characteristic excludes most, if not all, species from possessing culture.

Another human cultural characteristic closely linked to language is our ability to create meaning. Our species imposes meaning on the world. In the words of Terrence Deacon we are a symbolic species.

Your definition of culture excludes these pivotal human characteristics, thus making it seems as if ‘culture’ was widespread.

By: johnmccreery

johnmccreery — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 04:49:09 +0000

We need to know more about this powerful dynamic or capacity, and we are best served if we open up the inquiry beyond the human.

But to do so the intramural bickering that has separated cultural anthropologists from their colleagues in archeology, linguistics, and biological anthropology will have to be dispensed with, along with the proposition that ontologies can be treated as discrete phenomena instead of permutations of widely shared ideas.

On the other side of the coin, those who imagine a continuum of differences between species will need to learn to recognize that phase transitions are a common feature of evolution in both human and non-human systems, and both sides will need fresh thinking to describe and account for them.

P.S. For those unfamiliar with “phase transitions,” just think of water as ice, liquid and steam. It’s all H2O, the chemistry doesn’t change, the effects are dramatically different depending on other conditions, in this case temperature and pressure.

P.P.S.That social learning and tool use, for example, are found in far more species than H. sapiens is now indisputable. That neither has been elaborated to the same extent found in H. sapiens is also indisputable. We know that there is a bridge to cross. We have only vaguely imagined how to build it.