A video reading by Colin Liddell of the introductory chapter of Sir Arthur Keith's 1948 book A New Theory of Human Evolution.
Sir Arthur Keith (1866 - 1955) was the leading anthropologist of his day and did groundbreaking work on the science of human evolution. In harmony with the nationalistic spirit of today, he emphasized the importance of territorialism and in-group/ out-group modes of thinking. His work, which was of the highest standard, provides a much better basis for nationalist ideologies than that of the politically compromised anthropologists whose often substandard work came to dominate the science of evolution in the benighted second half of the 20th century. In particular Keith criticized the over-emphasis on the "nomadic" and "race-mixing" aspects of human development.
Sir Arthur Keith (1866 - 1955) was the leading anthropologist of his day and did groundbreaking work on the science of human evolution. In harmony with the nationalistic spirit of today, he emphasized the importance of territorialism and in-group/ out-group modes of thinking. His work, which was of the highest standard, provides a much better basis for nationalist ideologies than that of the politically compromised anthropologists whose often substandard work came to dominate the science of evolution in the benighted second half of the 20th century. In particular Keith criticized the over-emphasis on the "nomadic" and "race-mixing" aspects of human development.
Keith also made groundbreaking insights into the unique nature of the Jews, a group that managed to create strong group cohesion outside of a territorial context.
0:00 Introduction
1:50 Hormones
2:40 Link between Pituitary Gland disorders and Neanderthals
4:37 The role played by isolated communities in human evolution
5:28 Main thesis
5:46 Mosaic pattern of evolution in Man and Apes
6:37 Evolutionary units
7:09 Speech as an isolating mechanism
8:07 Tribes as the secondary stage of human evolutionary units
9:07 National units as a late stage of human evolution
9:50 Transition from tribe to nation
10:47 The connection between unit size and evolutionary change
11:48 The primacy of territorialism over kinship
12:48 Kinship overvalued due to the exceptional case of the Jews
13:30 The importance of clannishness in evolutionary diversity
14:27 Consciousness of community
15:13 Only the Group Theory explains human evolution
15:52 Human evolution driven by in-group/ out-group attitudes
17:04 The code of amity and the code of enmity
18:30 The importance of balancing the dual nature of humanity
19:28 Qualities that apply to both codes of behavior
20:50 Mistaken belief in migratory nature of man
22:26 Migratory behavior dependent on animal domestication
22:40 Inconsistency of migratory theory with racial distribution
23:39 Recapping
Hm... various points ring interesting... but... actually what´s the point? What´s your main take-away, Colin.. that you present it? That... the occurence of different races may be explained by territorial separatedness?
ReplyDelete.. I may add that I still think that the most useful approach to "race" is simple "personal preference": let´s just sort it all out in that way that all people group together the way they want, and then we put borders around these groups (i.e. almost like it was 99% of all the time in 99% of all the places). No need for any theory. I´ll join the all-White group; lefties may join mixed-race groups.
Really: isn´t that the approach of choice?