Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA07828 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 30 Mar 2001 14:08:22 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745D3C@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: taboos Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 14:04:33 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
The incest taboo would appear to have a biological basis, as do some others.
Cavalli-Sforza talks in his recent book ('People, Genes, Languages') about a
hunter-gatherer tribe of pygmies IIRC, who have a taboo on having more
children before a first child is about 3 years old, which he puts down to
the practialities of constant movements and carrying more than one child at
a time. The hunter-gatherer lifestyle is being eroded by farming, and when
members of the tribe ebcome farmers, this taboo disappears also, apparently.
Other taboos, say certain restrictions on what food can be eaten, also
arguably have "natural" explanations, related to hygiene issues in ancient
societies.
Where many other taboos come from, and what makes some change widely over
time (e.g. attitudes over homosexuality) is what Kenneth and I were
discussing a while ago, so I won't repeat myself (well, any more than I have
already, no doubt too much for some).
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Wade T.Smith
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2001 1:51 pm
> To: Memetics Discussion List
> Subject: taboos
>
> Yes, one may well wonder what taboos are really- where the 'crime' comes
> from.
>
> Incest can lead to unfit progeny. Whether that is a path that develops to
> a taboo, who knows? It would seem logical.
>
> As for 'unconscious' communication? I, for one, don't think there is any
> such thing- it's much more a matter of the level of awareness of body
> language, but, perception, by very definition, is a conscious activity.
>
> - Wade
>
> *************
>
> A sexual revolution in South Africa
>
> Visiting the US, women advocate frank discussion
>
> By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff, 3/30/2001
>
> http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/089/metro/A_sexual_revolution_in_South_A
> f
> ricaP.shtml
>
> Zanele Hlatshwayo wants women to have the freedom to have sex - but to be
> able to choose when and how they want it, and with whom.
>
> In her native South Africa, she said, this message of sexual empowerment
> can help women avoid the all-too-common fate of AIDS infection through
> rape or unfaithful lovers. Hlatshwayo, on a speaking tour in
> Massachusetts, expected this to be old hat in the United States,
> birthplace of the Sexual Revolution and ''Baywatch.'' Not so, she said.
>
> ''I'm surprised. I find Americans very conservative. I suppose through
> fashion, through the media, you come to think sex and sexuality is more
> open here,'' she said.
>
> Hlatshwayo, 37, and a colleague spoke to a group of local activists at
> the YWCA in downtown Boston yesterday, and they explained their work in
> AIDS-racked South Africa. Their experience here underscores just how
> differently the virus has affected the two countries.
>
> In South Africa, one in four adults is HIV-positive. There are no taboos
> in fighting the virus, said Hlatshwayo. A sexual revolution in that
> deeply macho country is underway, she said. But the mores of the United
> States, in the eyes of the South African activists, seem unchanged by the
> virus.
>
> ''Often people think that talking about sexuality is a Western thing. And
> everything Western is American,'' said Ndivhuwo Selinah Masindi, 34, as
> she walked off stage at the YWCA. ''I was very surprised at how people
> here react to certain words. They shrink away.''
>
> The pair, members of the Women's Health Project of South Africa,
> addressed about 40 activists yesterday, mostly women, as part of an
> exchange program that grew out of the 1980s antiapartheid movement here.
> They are scheduled to spend 11 days sharing their stories before
> returning home.
>
> One story they told yesterday involved a disabled South African girl who
> was raped by her father. She bore his child, but nothing was done. Months
> later, she became pregnant by him again. But this time, activists got
> noisily involved. Charges were filed and the girl was removed from the
> home.
>
> Heads in the audience shake, and some cluck their tongues. Behind the two
> activists is an overhead projection of their manifesto. It includes,
> ''have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related
> to sexuality'' and, ''Shared responsibility for sexual behavior and its
> consequences.''
>
> In South Africa, ''our religious groups have realized that abstinence is
> not effective,'' explained Masindi.
>
> Her nation has an enormous HIV caseload and the highest rate of rape in
> the world. A recent survey in an industrial province of South Africa
> found that male adolescents viewed rape as a game, a rite of passage. One
> in six South African women are in abusive relationships, Masindi said.
>
> One of the activists' goals is to prod the South African criminal justice
> system to deal effectively with sex crimes. They teach women to properly
> report rapes, doctors to preserve evidence, and police to take charges
> seriously.
>
> ''The desire to rape stems from oppression,'' said Hlatshwayo of
> apartheid, the now-defunct South African governing system that treated
> blacks as inferior. ''If you feel oppressed, you need to find someone to
> oppress.''
>
> In the 1990s, black South Africans toppled apartheid after a
> decades-long, often bloody, struggle. The resulting sense of empowerment
> has given the nation, at least for the moment, the sense that anything is
> possible, including reducing HIV, said Hlatshwayo. That has produced an
> atmosphere of frankness lacking in the United States, she said.
>
> ''My theory is that the struggle against apartheid mobilized all kinds of
> people. You had to talk about what was going on,'' she said. ''I expected
> the US to be even more open about issues of sexuality.'' But Boston
> struck Masindi as quite similar to Johannesburg, a modern, cosmopolitan
> city. There was one form of openness here, though, that did surprise her:
> street parking.
>
> ''Cars here park outside. In South Africa, they're all in garages, the
> crime is so bad,'' she said.
>
> This story ran on page 2 of the Boston Globe on 3/30/2001. © Copyright
> 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.
>
>
>
> ==============================================================This was
> distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Mar 30 2001 - 14:13:45 BST