The sadness of sweetness - The native anthropology of western cosmology

Journal/Book: Curr Anthropol. 1996; 37: 5720 S Woodlawn Ave, Chicago, IL 60637. Univ Chicago Press. 395-428.

Abstract: This paper attempts to lend a broad ''archaeological'' support to Sidney Mintz's Sweetness and Power by discussing certain major anthropological themes of the long term in the Judeo-Christian cosmology that seem particularly relevant to Western economic behavior-especially consumption issues-in the I8th century. The pleasure-pain principle of human action, the idea of an irresistible and egoistical human nature underlying social behavior, the sense of society as an order of power or coercion, and a confidence in the greater providential value of human suffering figure among these anthropological themes. It is also argued that they continue to inhabit mainstream Western social science-to the bedevilment of our understandings of other peoples.

Note: Review M Sahlins, Univ Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637 USA

Keyword(s): CULTURE

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