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Ivan Fyodorovich's avatar

This was an excellent and horrifying review. It occurs to me that a recurring, though not universal, feature of these maladaptive societies is that they seem to have rules that are driven by maximal indulgence of the worst male impulses. The Marind-anim traditions are at the extreme end of this.

Before reading this I'd always thought of gender relations along an egalitarian vs. traditional framework, but I realize there's a second axis: friendly vs. adversarial. I hadn't thought about this axis because except for some internet weirdos, pretty much everyone in North America in 2024 wants men and women to love each other. Perhaps in an egalitarian structure, perhaps in one with required roles, but there's no notion that I am trying to hurt my wife and she is trying to poison me. This is nice, let's keep it this way people.

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Strange Ian's avatar

Re. the footnote about sati - my understanding is that the women who got burnt alive were generally given a truly staggering amount of opium first, so they couldn't feel a thing. William Dalrymple has a long section about it in The Age Of Kali. He rules by the way, you should have a look at his books if you haven't read them already.

Obviously this is an important corrective to the Western idealisation of indigenous cultures (which is beginning to seem itself like just another maladaptive behaviour). One of the things that's really interested me recently is exploring the canon of "forbidden anthropology" - guys who are willing to say things like, actually this culture just fucking sucks, and who get in trouble because they violate the whole system of taboos that Western universities have developed around what kind of conclusions you're supposed to draw. Napoleon Chagnon might be the best known example.

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