Create an Account
username: password:
 
  MemeStreams Logo

Us and Them: Understanding Your Tribal Mind

search

noteworthy
Picture of noteworthy
My Blog
My Profile
My Audience
My Sources
Send Me a Message

sponsored links

noteworthy's topics
Arts
  Literature
   Fiction
   Non-Fiction
  Movies
   Documentary
   Drama
   Film Noir
   Sci-Fi/Fantasy Films
   War
  Music
  TV
   TV Documentary
Business
  Tech Industry
  Telecom Industry
  Management
Games
Health and Wellness
Home and Garden
Miscellaneous
  Humor
  MemeStreams
   Using MemeStreams
Current Events
  War on Terrorism
  Elections
  Israeli/Palestinian
Recreation
  Cars and Trucks
  Travel
   Asian Travel
Local Information
  Food
  SF Bay Area Events
Science
  History
  Math
  Nano Tech
  Physics
  Space
Society
  Economics
  Education
  Futurism
  International Relations
  History
  Politics and Law
   Civil Liberties
    Surveillance
   Intellectual Property
  Media
   Blogging
  Military
  Philosophy
Sports
Technology
  Biotechnology
  Computers
   Computer Security
    Cryptography
   Human Computer Interaction
   Knowledge Management
  Military Technology
  High Tech Developments

support us

Get MemeStreams Stuff!


 
Us and Them: Understanding Your Tribal Mind
Topic: Society 12:45 pm EST, Nov  5, 2005

I've blogged about this book before, but now it's finally on the shelves at local bookstores.

Read more about this book at Us and Them: The Blog

An eye on science, current events and flummery about race, ethnicity, nationalism, religion, caste, class, ideology and other "human kinds."

The author, David Berreby, participated in the Edge World Question Center in 2004:

Berreby's First Law: Human kinds exist only in human minds.

Human differences and human similarities are infinite, therefore any assortment of people can be grouped together according to a shared trait or divided according to unshared traits. Our borders of race, ethnicity, nation, religion, class etc. are not, then, facts about the world. They are facts about belief. We should look at minds, not kinds, if we want to understand this phenomenon.

Berreby's Second Law: Science which seems to confirm human-kind beliefs is always welcome; science that undermines human-kind belief is always unpopular.

To put it more cynically, if your work lets people believe there are "Jewish genes'" (never mind that the same genes are found in Palestinians) or that criminals have different kinds of brains from regular people (never mind that regular people get arrested all the time), or that your ancestors 5,000 years ago lived in the same neck of the woods as you (never mind the whereabouts of all your other ancestors), well then, good press will be yours. On the other hand, if your work shows how thoroughly perceptions of race, ethnicity, and other traits change with circumstances, well, good luck. Common sense will defend itself against science.

Us and Them: Understanding Your Tribal Mind



 
 
Powered By Industrial Memetics
RSS2.0