Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 November 14

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November 14

Did patriarchy evolve in a human population, or did it evolve independently in several human populations?

I am not sure if this question goes in the Humanities desk, because it deals with society, or if it goes in the Science desk, because it deals with evolutionary theory. In any case, the question is as follows: did patriarchy evolve in a human population a long time ago, or did it evolve many times independently in several human populations? Is there any evolutionary advantage to patriarchy? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 02:22, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't know anything about evolutionary theory but it's obvious that patriarchy was discovered independently in several human populations as might makes right. There are some exceptions i.e. the matriarchial Minoans of Crete and at least one society where only women own the land.
Sleigh (talk) 02:40, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Sleigh -- A true throughgoing matriarchy would be where women dominate all significant positions of public power and authority, to the exclusion of men, and modern scholars strongly doubt that such a society has ever existed in human history. Minoan Crete was obviously less patriarchal in several respects than Classical Athens, but it would be an oversimplification to call it "matriarchal". Also, the "society where only women own the land" is actually probably a society in which agricultural land is partitioned among matrilineal lineages and is ordinarily inalienable (cannot be bought or sold). The adult brothers of the women of the matrilineage would probably have a lot to say about how the land is used... AnonMoos (talk) 18:27, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Gorillas and chimps are patriarchal. Bonobos are matriarchal. Gibbons seem to live in mated pairs. Orangutans seem to live solitarily, like bears, but sexually dominant adult males have a distinct physiology similar to the silverback gorilla implying male dominance. As for humans, its seems to depend on the ecological lifestyle. The farmers that inhabited Europe before the advent of the Proto-Indo-European people from the Eurasian steppe seem to have mainly worshipped goddesses. This can be seen in archaeology and in the fact that almost all of the monsters slain by male Greek heroes were some supernatural combination of female and animal. See Marija Gimbutas and The White Goddess by Robert Graves. The fairytale trope of the princess with a dead or elderly father who comes into her own seems to reflect an ancient inheritance of the land by the king's daughter, with the princess's hand sought for her vast tracts of land. once the patriarchal Indo-Europeans with iron swords and horses became thoroughly ensconced in settled, heritable lands, male primogeniture took over. μηδείς (talk) 02:48, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

The White Goddess belongs in the fiction section, since Graves was less qualified than James George Frazer (and that is no praise for Frazer). Gimbutas, while very knowledgeable and important for her work on Kurgan culture, has been criticized for her sweeping statements about the pre-Indo-European European cultures. The idea that Europe was a goddess-worshipping matriarchy before the Indo-European migrations is generally regarded as political revisionist history by feminists. "Egalitarian" would be more accurate, which is in line with most prehistoric hunter-gather societies and even some that survived to this day.

Patriarchy#History pretty much says that there doesn't appear to have been a single geographical source of patriarchy, that it just sort of simultaineously popped up in a bunch of places with agriculture after a climate change prompted a number of tribes to adopt more warlike hierarchies. Ian.thomson (talk) 04:16, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Wow, Ian, who stepped on your puppy? Graves' work is exactly what he says it is, the speculations of a poet who thinks he's noticed some interesting coincidences. Notice I didn't link to a rump of the article with the criticisms erased. Gimbutas is perfectly respectable as an archaeologist of Europe around the time of Indo-Europeanization. There's simply no better source. Her ideas of a peaceful communitarian mother-goddess matriarchy are apparently balderdash as conclusions in my opinion too. But, again, there's no better source for the matrilineal nature of pre-IE Europe. Is there anything better than our article on Patriarchy you can offer? See also, Lady of Elche. μηδείς (talk) 06:08, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

This is a forum for references, which the articles I linked to include. I'm not angry with you (please WP:AGF), but the content of your post would be removed from most articles as fringe by merit of including Graves (whose White Goddess is inaccurately subtitled "A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth"). My post merely summarized the articles I've linked to, which are sourced, which does indicate there are better sources. If you need additional sources:

• Archaeology and Language: Correlating archaeological and linguistic hypotheses by R. Blench and Matthew Spriggs, Psychology Press, 1998 - Has a chapter repeating the problems that most scholars have with Gimbutas: that while her individual findings are excellent and a boon to the community, the way she assembles them together into broader hypotheses is problematic.
• The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature, by Bron Taylor, A&C Black, 2008 - "Gimbutas' later theory concerning a goddess-centered belief system underlying East European Neolithic communities is much more controversial and unaccepted in archaeological circles" (p.696). Taylor's Encyclopedia also notes that The White Goddess "has been challenged on historical, literary and political grounds, and it has also met with criticism in the wider world," and points out that even he doubted it, since he felt it was "magically inspired rather than consciously researched and written."
• A Companion to Gender Prehistory, by Diane Bolger, John Wiley & Sons, 2012 - Points out that even feminist scholars have believe her work is unevidenced, inconsistent, inaccurate, and ignored large evidence contrary to her theories; that Gimbutas regularly misinterpreted figures as part of a widespread and monolithic goddess cult instead of part of local cultures, even treating cultures that "many geographical miles and a 1000-year gap" apart as the same culture (imagine if the precolonial Mayans and modern New Yorkers were treated as the same culture).
• The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won't Give Women a Future, by Cynthia Eller, Beacon Press, 2001 - the whole book is specifically about the problems with Gimbutas's research, and why her broader claims were popularized for political reasons rather than academic ones.

Those sources are in addition to the couple dozen citations in the articles sections I linked to, most of which are by archaeologists and other historians. Again, while Gimbutas's individual findings are great, and while the Kurgan hypothesis is one of the more plausible IE urheimats, her claims of goddess worship are a revisionist conspiracy theory. Graves has little (if any) academic support outside of the English department.

The Lady of Elche is from the 4th century BCE, and so well after patriarchy had spread through the Phoenicians colonization. Ian.thomson (talk) 15:48, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Intriguing titles. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 23:27, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

The presence of Phoenicians certainly did not mean then replacement of the original cultures at that time. μηδείς (talk) 20:07, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

The "presence" having been for several centuries by the time that statue was made (in half that time, Rome went from worshiping their own gods to worshiping a practitioner of completely alien religion they executed in a backwoods territory). The statue was also made after a couple of centuries of Hellenistic colonization, and the statue is sometimes cited as evidence of Hellenistic influence. Since it could have held a funerary urn, it's possible it was not a goddess figure but a deceased noblewoman. If the statue was a goddess, it could have been Tanit or Demeter; and if it was an Iberian goddess, we have no evidence that her cult extended beyond Iberia (or even Elche). Occam's razor cuts away the goddess cult hypothesis.

The goddess cult hypothesis also ignores conspicuous voids of evidence, as well as major differences between supposedly identical goddesses. To reverse the gender situation, it's like finding the top half of an ancient Armenian Christian crucifix, an ancient Iranian statue of Ormazd, a medieval Indian statue of Brahma, a modern Mongolian statue of Genghis Khan, and a modern statue of Colonel Sanders in Japan, and assuming that some sort of "Bearded god cult" dominated Asia for two thousand years. Perhaps the crucifix represents the bearded god holding a couple of broken eggs with disappointment, before resurrecting and cooking them in his triumphant Colonel Sanders form; and this "isn't" just me trying to find historical justification for my regional culture's association between religion and fried chicken. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:00, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

I fear I miss your point entirely, are you saying that different cultures having different goddesses disproves the theory of a single goddess? That archeaology doesn't show the presence of a more female-oriented society prior to Indo-Europeanization? Or that Christianity had displaced paganism throughout the Roman Empire in 250 years? That Christmas Trees, Jack-o-lanterns and Easter eggs are the body and blood of Christ? I find your reasoning difficult to scrute. The OP hasn't asked for further clarification of my suggested reading, so I'll rest on what I have said. μηδείς (talk) 03:05, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

The hypothesis of a single goddess operates on the assumption that many distinct goddesses were the same figure, that archaeology shows egalitarian societies rather than matriarchial ones, and that the Lady of Elche doesn't provide any real proof of a pre-IE goddess-worshiping matriarchy. My initial point is that the sources you mentioned are either outdated (in the case of Gimbutas) or completely fringe (Graves). Ian.thomson (talk) 21:11, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

So, any insights to the Far East Asian patriarchy or South Asian patriarchy? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 13:46, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Medeis -- unfortunately, saying that "Chimps are patriarchal, Bonobos are matriarchal" is a gross oversimplification (and probably anthropomorphization). Patriarchy in human societies can often be diagnosed by the control which a father has over his unmarried daughters, or which a husband has over his wife -- while chimpanzees don't really have male-female pair bonds at all, and a male would be unlikely to know who his daughters were.

Also, Gimbutas deserves all credit for synthesizing Soviet archaeological discoveries with linguistic reconstructions, and arriving at a basic hypothesis of the where and when of early Indo-European origins which is accepted (with inevitable slight revisions) by the great majority of linguists (though less overwhelmingly so by scholars in other fields). However, Gimbutas' claims to know the exact meaning of every scratch and dot on old inscribed artefacts, and her tendencies to polarize imperfectly-known ancient societies into binary oppositions between metaphysical absolutes, have really not found favor among scholars... AnonMoos (talk) 18:17, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, I certainly hope my post didn't confuse the OP into thinking chimps and bonobos were human! Given I didn't write a 20 page essay, of course a one sentence allusion is a simplification. But for the context it's neither an oversimplification nor false. You seem to miss that fact with many of your criticisms. Of course I am aware of the criticisms and caveats. I'd also recommend, without, godforbid, endorsing all it's oversimplifications, Nicholas Wade's Before the Dawn on the structure of early human societies. μηδείς (talk) 20:07, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Poem: Do not go gentle into that goodnight

In the final verse of the poem "Do not go gentle into that goodnight", what is Dylan Thomas saying re: his father's tears? He wants his father to cry angrily because he's dying and Dylan will find this simultaneously a good and a bad thing?

 And you, my father, there on the sad height,
 Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
 Do not go gentle into that good night.
 Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

--78.148.109.47 (talk) 02:56, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

This sounds either like a homework assignment or a request for opinion, which we can't do for you. We can, however, give you links to books that may help you develop your own informed opinion:

• Dylan Thomas: An Original Language, by Barbara Nathan Hardy, University of Georgia Press, 2000, p.52
• Between Philosophy and Poetry: Writing, Rhythm, History by Massimo Verdicchio and Robert Burch, A&C Black, 26 Dec 2006, p. 51
• Dylan Thomas: A New Life, Andrew Lycett, Orion Publishing Group, 23 Oct 2014
• Dylan Thomas: The Code of Night, by David Holbrook, A&C Black, 13 Jan 2014, p.268
• A Reader's Guide to Dylan Thomas, by William York Tindall, Syracuse University Press, 1962, p.203

Ian.thomson (talk) 03:54, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm 29 years-old and haven't studied English since age 16. When I did study English it was shit, forgettable poems by living authors collected in some cheap anthology that I think that school received for free. I'm now a biologist. I've started reading one of those sources but there are pages missing from the preview. I only know of this poem because it featured prominently in the film Interstellar. How long do you think I will need to study these texts in order to understand these two lines? How long do you think is reasonable? 78.148.109.47 (talk) 04:19, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

From the sources I linked:

• Dylan Thomas: A New Life says that the poem is about "his dying father's loss of facilities," (i.e. dementia or something similar).
• Dylan Thomas: The Code of Night says "The fact that the father is a nonentity and is going to his death in inconspicuous quietude is what seems terrible to the poet. The old man should be raging against being swept into nothingness." Page 197 discusses that line about tears in more detail.

Those are, however, those authors interpretations, though they appear to be textbook interpretations that other interpretations would have to include or work around. Interstellar may be using the poem in a different context, and I haven't seen the film (or read enough about it) to begin to guess.

Interpretation (even formal interpretation, and especially any original interpretation) is not done in isolation but in relation to the author, their world, our world, other interpretations of the same work, and even interpretations of similar or contrasting works (otherwise one ends up repeating an old idea while thinking it's new). It's usually good idea to at least check our article on the author and the work, if not search Google books (or if you have access to it, JSTOR and other journal libraries). In college, I only had to take one course specifically about Literary criticism, but I also took several that combined particular schools of literary criticism with specific genres or other groupings (e.g. African-American literature and postcolonial criticism). How long it takes to learn such things is entirely a matter of what text is being interpreted (Keats is straightforward compared to Yeats) and the student's prior experience and attitude. I had prior knowledge of Biblical hermeneutics, Carl Jung, and Marxism before, so I all but slept through the lectures on Psychoanalytic literary criticism and regularly annoyed my children's lit professor by using Marxist literary criticism to counter the moral of the story. Ian.thomson (talk) 05:12, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

I have always understood it in the context of someone with dementia,who is quite capable of cursing and blessing in the same breath. Maybe Thomas experienced his father not recognising him at first and telling him to go away, then recognising him and giving him his blessing, just as many of us have who care for people with dementia. The "fierce" tears can be seen as a reaction to the loss of facilities which (understandably) make people angry and want to fight their decline. Does that help? --TammyMoet (talk) 10:48, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

I've always understood it the other way; he's asking his father to give him ANY emotion, a bless or a curse would do just as well. His father's dementia and his lack of emotional response to his son is what Thomas is lamenting. --Jayron32 13:01, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Fighting for another country

So, the UK Prime Minister is on the verge of breaking "international law" because he wants to prevent jihadists who leave the UK to fight for IS in Syria or Iraq from returning, after their "battle", to the UK. Is this commonplace? Have there been examples of prominent people leaving one country to fight for another (ostensibly against the country they just left) and then return there? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:40, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

One of the key problems here is hinted at in your last sentence; only relatively recently, that same Prime Minister was asking Parliament to authorise UK military action against the same government (the Assad regime) that many of the "jihadists" supposedly went to Syria to fight against. In the absence of these people formally allying themselves with Islamic State or Al-Qaeda and their associates, the designation seems shaky.

Historical examples of not entirely dissimilar nature, and sometimes located in similar places, include the Ten Thousand and the International Brigades. Only the second of those articles discusses what happened when they got back home, though there are sources that could be filled out regarding the first. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:07, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

There have been many examples of people who fought for countries other than their own; some are mercenary armies hired out to fight wars for others (see Hessian (soldiers)), the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War (famously, George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway), the Marquis de Lafayette and Tadeusz Kościuszko in the American Revolutionary War, etc. There have also been many people who have fought against their own government; ostensibly every single soldier involved in a war of independence or a civil war has fought against their own country. People join wars for any number of reasons, and there is nothing unique about someone fighting for a country they are not born in, or are subjects of. And there's nothing unique about fighting against one's own country either. --Jayron32 00:33, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Irish citizens who fought against Nazism were barred from state employment, and stripped of pensions by the Eire/the Republic after the war. See WWII Irish 'deserters' finally get pardons. DuncanHill (talk) 01:47, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Neither Hemingway nor Orwell fought in the International Brigades; Hemingway was a kind of aggressive loud-mouthed war correspondent, while Orwell fought in the POUM militias. AnonMoos (talk) 02:29, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

I used to work with a man who claimed to have fought with the International Brigades in Spain, but was conscripted into the RAF shortly afterwards. Tom Wintringham, a leading Communist and Spanish Civil War veteran, was refused a commission in the British Army in 1939, and went on to run a private Home Guard training centre until it was officially adopted and he was subtly eased out of the picture.

However, there is a big difference between the International Brigades and IS: read From Portsmouth to Kobane: the British jihadis fighting for Isis written by a worker from the The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, and then tell me that these people will be able to assimilate themselves with civil society on their return. I quote: "British fighters have been filmed executing prisoners of war and beheading rebels. Some have been pictured posing with severed heads. It is striking that not one of the jihadists we have spoken to have expressed concern at the ill-treatment of their enemies by fellow fighters. Beheadings are not seen as particularly cruel and victims are always dismissed as spies or traitors. In recent months, British fighters have also been associated with the executions of western journalists and aid workers being held by IS." Alansplodge (talk) 11:09, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

See mercenary in general. Odd how some armies ostensibly fight for freedom, for a government that doesn't let its citizens choose which ideals to kill and die for. You'd think that'd be a personal decision. InedibleHulk (talk) 13:17, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Fun Fact: The Foreign Enlistment Act 1870 hasn't had a prosecution for 118 years. Something about a Jameson Raid.InedibleHulk (talk) 13:32, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Lord Byron. 86.176.254.87 (talk) 19:23, 15 November 2014 (UTC)