toblerone3
Grrrrr
Still wouldn't dismiss Chris Stringer as an intellectual lightweight.
http://london.indymedia.org/events/5493
radical anthropology - what is it?
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Still wouldn't dismiss Chris Stringer as an intellectual lightweight.
http://london.indymedia.org/events/5493
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
Yes! We're all Dividual!
Don't start me on Marilyn S. and her theory of the dividual.
toblerone3
Grrrrr
Also its not just one person's ideas there is a whole of group intellectuals involved. Seemed to have provoked quite a lot of new research.
http://www.radicalanthropologygroup.org/old/journal_04.pdf
http://www.radicalanthropologygroup.org/old/journal_04.pdf
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
Funny how it never turns up in the mainstream journals, though.
invisibleplanet
porter des cornes
Funny how toblerone3 doesn't answer the question I put to him.
@toblerone3 (again, again): How does Stringer's review equate to support for Knight's grand theory?
toblerone3
Grrrrr
He probably doesn't accept all of Blood Relations indeed many of the academics within the core Radical Anthropology Group school argue about certain aspects. Probably Chris Knight has also changed his mind about certain arguements. Its not a grand (static) theory its a developing school of thought.
Would need to see the full review to judge any reservations he might have. I also take your point about speaking once at in RAG lectures not amounting to anything much in itself. But when Professor Stringer turns up and speaks at events organised by Chris Knight not just once but again and again over a period of 10-15 years I would suggest that would strongly suggest some considerable degree of respect and acceptance of some of the ideas.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Btw, you know the RAG distanced themselves from Chris Knight some time ago - around the time of J20 i believe.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Annoying that isn't it?
toblerone3
Grrrrr
It probably does though. The academics associated with RAG probably published in mainstream journals in related areas such as primatology.
toblerone3
Grrrrr
I wouldn't be surprised at that all.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
And what did you conclude from that then?
toblerone3
Grrrrr
I think they found his political amateur dramatics embarassing while still being deeply influenced by and broadly supportive of his academic ideas.
invisibleplanet
porter des cornes
I'm not annoyed by it, as by doing so he defeats his own argument without my having to do so.
@toblerone3 - when you say 'probably', is it because you don't have any evidence and are resorting to guessing?
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
The creation of Dublin was the very worst of your crimes against the Irish people. You lot treated us WORSE THAN THE BRITS.
TruXta
tired
No wonder, they were our creation too.
toblerone3
Grrrrr
Yes I'm just guessing but its an intelligent guess. I'm not an expert at what counts as a "mainstream" journal in primatology.
TruXta
tired
Just compare impact factors. The higher, the more mainstream. It should say on the journals' webpages.
colacho
gorau arf, arf dysg
Mick was briliant (Devil and Commodity Fetishism especially) but he seems a bit nuts these days. Goes round saying stuff like "all you need is one informant"... And the law in a lawless land piece he did on paramilitarism in Colombia was weak, though that was hardly anthropology...
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
has he been at funny hallucinogenics or something?
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
He's famous for that sort of thing (really).
Just came across this discussion.
It’s understandable that right-wing journalists and other conservatives would be shocked by Chris Knight’s “political amateur dramatics” - so shocked that they would therefore dismiss his academic work. But it is worrying how so many ‘radicals’ conclude that Knight’s work cannot be serious because he also likes performing street theatre. (Knight has ably defended his activism here: 'Chris Knight Replies to his Critics'.)
In answer to the question of whether Chris Knight’s work is “well regarded”, it is worth pointing out that the academic establishment did make him a Professor. Moreover his work has been published in prestigious mainstream journals such as The Cambridge Archaeological Journal (‘The human symbolic revolution: A Darwinian account’, Vol.5, 1, 1995).
Professor Knight has also co-organised numerous international conferences on the evolution of language. As well as his classic Blood Relations, he has edited various academic books: Approaches to the Evolution of Language (1998), The Evolution of Culture (1999), Approaches to the Evolution of Language (2000), The Prehistory of Language (2009) and The Cradle of Language (2008).
Knight’s theories are certainly not accepted by every anthropologist. But this is hardly surprising as most anthropologists do not specialise in human origins research. Furthermore Knight's theories are based on a Marxist approach and Marxism is a minority tendency in every area of social science. For someone at the top of the scientific establishment, such as Chris Stringer, to praise (but then not agree with) Knight’s work is evidence enough that his theories are taken very seriously by experts who read him.*
Of course none of this means Chris Knight is right about anything, but his theories do have more evidence for them than many other ideas promoted by both social scientists and Marxists or anarchists (eg see ‘Engels was Right: Early Human Kinship was Matrilineal’ and 'The Science of Solidarity'). Chris set up the Radical Anthropology Group and his theories are discussed there, but the group consists of people with a wide range of views on both Chris’s anthropology and his activism. Why not come along and check it out at the Tuesday evening talks?
* In his latest book, The Origins of Our Species, Chris Stringer (Research Leader at the Natural History Museum) writes:
“From the evidence of burials and symbolic objects, rituals and religious beliefs probably go back more than 100,000 years, but could they actually have been central to the origins of modern humans? A British anthropologist, Chris Knight, certainly thinks so, and in a wide-ranging synthesis of data from present-day anthropology, primatology and sociobiology, together with archaeology, he and his collaborators have argued that women collectively produced a social revolution in Africa over 100,000 years ago. The symbolic use of red ochre began as part of a female response to accumulating social and reproductive stresses caused by increasing demands of pregnancy, infant and childcare, and the need for male provisioning. The blood-red pigment was deployed by menstruating and non-menstruating women, smeared on their bodies to spread the taboo of menstruation across alliances of female kin. This instituted a ‘sex-strike’, which could only be broken when the men returned from collaborative hunts with food to share. Female rituals evolved around the sex-strike, male ritual around the hunt (begun under dark moon, returning at full moon, thus linking menstrual and lunar cycles and the blood of women and of animals), and tribal rituals of celebration and feasting would follow the return of the successful hunters.
I think these ideas are ingenious, and I do believe that human behaviour changed in revolutionary ways during the middle Stone Age, to trigger our expansions within and then outside of Africa. However, I don’t think that Knight's views provide the correct explanation, or even the correct kind of explanation. This is because I no longer think that there is a single 'right' answer to the question of our behavioural origins."
It’s understandable that right-wing journalists and other conservatives would be shocked by Chris Knight’s “political amateur dramatics” - so shocked that they would therefore dismiss his academic work. But it is worrying how so many ‘radicals’ conclude that Knight’s work cannot be serious because he also likes performing street theatre. (Knight has ably defended his activism here: 'Chris Knight Replies to his Critics'.)
In answer to the question of whether Chris Knight’s work is “well regarded”, it is worth pointing out that the academic establishment did make him a Professor. Moreover his work has been published in prestigious mainstream journals such as The Cambridge Archaeological Journal (‘The human symbolic revolution: A Darwinian account’, Vol.5, 1, 1995).
Professor Knight has also co-organised numerous international conferences on the evolution of language. As well as his classic Blood Relations, he has edited various academic books: Approaches to the Evolution of Language (1998), The Evolution of Culture (1999), Approaches to the Evolution of Language (2000), The Prehistory of Language (2009) and The Cradle of Language (2008).
Knight’s theories are certainly not accepted by every anthropologist. But this is hardly surprising as most anthropologists do not specialise in human origins research. Furthermore Knight's theories are based on a Marxist approach and Marxism is a minority tendency in every area of social science. For someone at the top of the scientific establishment, such as Chris Stringer, to praise (but then not agree with) Knight’s work is evidence enough that his theories are taken very seriously by experts who read him.*
Of course none of this means Chris Knight is right about anything, but his theories do have more evidence for them than many other ideas promoted by both social scientists and Marxists or anarchists (eg see ‘Engels was Right: Early Human Kinship was Matrilineal’ and 'The Science of Solidarity'). Chris set up the Radical Anthropology Group and his theories are discussed there, but the group consists of people with a wide range of views on both Chris’s anthropology and his activism. Why not come along and check it out at the Tuesday evening talks?
* In his latest book, The Origins of Our Species, Chris Stringer (Research Leader at the Natural History Museum) writes:
“From the evidence of burials and symbolic objects, rituals and religious beliefs probably go back more than 100,000 years, but could they actually have been central to the origins of modern humans? A British anthropologist, Chris Knight, certainly thinks so, and in a wide-ranging synthesis of data from present-day anthropology, primatology and sociobiology, together with archaeology, he and his collaborators have argued that women collectively produced a social revolution in Africa over 100,000 years ago. The symbolic use of red ochre began as part of a female response to accumulating social and reproductive stresses caused by increasing demands of pregnancy, infant and childcare, and the need for male provisioning. The blood-red pigment was deployed by menstruating and non-menstruating women, smeared on their bodies to spread the taboo of menstruation across alliances of female kin. This instituted a ‘sex-strike’, which could only be broken when the men returned from collaborative hunts with food to share. Female rituals evolved around the sex-strike, male ritual around the hunt (begun under dark moon, returning at full moon, thus linking menstrual and lunar cycles and the blood of women and of animals), and tribal rituals of celebration and feasting would follow the return of the successful hunters.
I think these ideas are ingenious, and I do believe that human behaviour changed in revolutionary ways during the middle Stone Age, to trigger our expansions within and then outside of Africa. However, I don’t think that Knight's views provide the correct explanation, or even the correct kind of explanation. This is because I no longer think that there is a single 'right' answer to the question of our behavioural origins."
Oh, here's an interesting review of Chris Stringer's most recent book with explains his differences with the approach of the others in the Radical Anthropology Group:
Simon Wells, 'What Made us Human'
Simon Wells, 'What Made us Human'
