In Search of the Primitive: A Critique of Civilization

by Stanley Diamond

Book Overview

Anthropology is a kind of debate between human possibilities?a dialectical movement between the anthropologist as a modern man and the primitive peoples he studies. In Search of the Primitive is a tough-minded book containing chapters ranging from encounters in the field to essays on the nature of law, schizophrenia and civilization, and the evolution of the work of Claude L?-Strauss. Above all it is reflective and self-critical, critical of the discipline...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B002IVZ9J6
• ISBN13: 9780878555826
• Release Date: May 2017
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 284 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Cotlow's book

I have owned this book for many years by Lewis Cotlow. I reread it every now and then. It is a good nonfiction look at a man that wanted to see life on the wild side through the eyes of native people while respecting their culture. In many instances, Cotlow "joined" the tribe and became one with them. It is a great look at unvarnished native life in all its charm and terror.

A great criticism of civilization

Despite some passages where Diamond spends a little too much time defining what anthropology should be, this book is truly wonderful and one of its kind. An absolute must-read.

Brilliant anthropology and philosophy

I love this book, and refer to it constantly, both in my life and in my books. It has the best first sentence of any book I've ever read: "Civilization originates in conquest abroad and repression at home." And the book takes off from there. It is an extraordinary exploration of the indigenous peoples with whom Diamond worked, and explores the differences between, for example, indigenous and civilized moralities. Here is what he wrote about morality in a civilized world: ?Our moral syntax has no predicate. Hence we speak of doing good, good for its own sake, or evil. We convert each to a pure substantive, beyond experience, abstract. That is what [anthropologist] Paul Radin meant when he observed that the subject (or object) to which love, remorse, sorrow, may be directed is regarded as secondary in our civilization. All have the rank of virtues as such: they are manifestations of God?s if not of Man?s way. But among primitives . . . the converse holds. Morality is behavior, values are not detached, not substantives; the good, the true, the beautiful or rather, the ideas of these things, do not exist. Therefore, one does not fall in love, one loves another; and that is an intricately learned experience, as hate, in a certain sense, also is.?The whole book is that good. Fabulous. Fabulous.