Marvin Harris
Marvin Harris
Marvin Harriswas an American anthropologist. He was born in Brooklyn, New York City. A prolific writer, he was highly influential in the development of cultural materialism. In his work he combined Karl Marx's emphasis on the forces of production with Thomas Malthus's insights on the impact of demographic factors on other parts of the sociocultural system...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth18 August 1927
CountryUnited States of America
people doe commandments
The commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' does not say it's O.K. to kill some people and not others.
growing-up healthy important
Like most North Americans, I'd been raised on the notion that milk is the first food, and everybody must like it because it's so good and so important for growing up and for being healthy.
men years want
Like all dominant groups, men seek to promote an image of their subordinate's nature that contributes to the preservation of the status quo. For thousands of years, males have seen women not as women could be, but only as males want them to be.
mother children giving
When a woman gives birth to a child, the child needs to be able to digest the mother's milk; but when this child is old enough to begin to eat other foods, there is some switching off of this ability to consume milk.
trying done world
Every theory presented as a scientific concept is just that; it's a theory that tries to explain more about the world than previous theories have done. It is open to being challenged and to being proven incorrect.
dirty animal pigs
Pigs prefer to wallow in clean mud, but if nothing else is available, they will frequently wallow in their own urine, giving rise to the notion that they are dirty animals.
mean people culture
Ethnography literally means 'a portrait of a people.' An ethnography is a written description of a particular culture - the customs, beliefs, and behavior - based on information collected through fieldwork.
too-much world danger
Now we are in a situation in which for a significant part of the industrial world too much could become a danger, especially too much of the things which are really not good for us in such large quantities.
vegetarianism meat-eating victory
Hindus and Westerners alike see in the meat-eating taboos of India a triumph of morals over appetite. This is a dangerous misrepresentation of cultural processes. Hindu vegetarianism was a victory not of spirit over matter but of reproductive over productive forces.
world slavery way
In many ways the rise of the state was the descent of the world from freedom to slavery
sugar revolution technique
But with the Industrial Revolution and introduction of various industrial techniques for purifying sugar, we have a situation in which what we are consuming is not good nutritionally or ecologically.
writing ifs values
I don't see how you can write anything of value if you don't offend someone.
commercial contribute general overall production resources third
The general proposition is that the resources that will be utilized are the ones that contribute most to the overall efficiency of the production system. The third parameter has to do with our commercial world, our search for profits.
people
The commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' does not say it's O.K. to kill some people and not others.