Cultural materialism (anthropology)

Some people study how groups live. They look at how we use things. A man named Marvin Harris had an idea. He said our tools and food change things.

He said how we get food is key. This helps how we live and act. It also changes how we think.

This idea looks at how we act. It looks at our rules and art. It looks at our games too.

People still study these ideas today. They want to learn more about us. It is a big way to see the world.

Some people study how groups live. This is called anthropology. A man named Marvin Harris had a big idea. He wrote about it in 1968. He also wrote more in 1979. His idea is called cultural materialism.

Harris said three things change a group. First is the infrastructure. This is how people use the land and food. Second is the structure. This is how people live in groups. Third is the superstructure. This includes art, sports, and science.

Harris thought the first part is most important. He called this infrastructural determinism. This means how we get food and tools shapes our world. The other parts help keep things in order. They do not just happen by chance.

Many thinkers helped Harris. He read books by Karl Marx. He also looked at work by Leslie White. These thinkers studied how cultures change over time. Today, young students still study his work. They look at how tools and land shape our lives.

Anthropology is the study of human cultures. One big way to study them is called cultural materialism. This idea helps us understand how groups change over time. It looks at how the world around us shapes our lives. Scientists use this method to find real patterns in how people live. It is a way to study culture using science.

This method uses three main parts to look at a society. The first part is called the infrastructure. This includes how people get food and use the land. The second part is called the structure. This is how people organize their homes and politics. The third part is the superstructure. This includes art, sports, games, and science.

Marvin Harris was the man who started this idea. He first wrote about it in 1968. He wrote a book called The Rise of Anthropological Theory. Later, he wrote another book in 1979. He built this idea from many older thinkers. He looked at the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. He also studied ideas from Karl August Wittfogel.

Harris had a special rule for his theory. He called it probabilistic infrastructural determinism. This means the infrastructure is the most important force. It helps drive how a culture evolves. The structure and superstructure are still very important too. They act as ways to regulate the whole system. They are not just small things that happen by chance.

Many different people helped build these ideas. Harris learned from thinkers like Leslie White and Julian Steward. He also looked at 19th-century ideas about evolution. He even talked with psychologists like Sigrid Glenn in the 1980s. Today, young anthropologists are still using his work. They are starting a new study called the anthropology of infrastructures.

Cultural materialism is a specific way of studying human societies. It is used by anthropologists to understand how cultures work. This approach serves as both a theoretical paradigm and a research strategy. A paradigm is a set of ideas that guides how scientists think. This method helps researchers find patterns in how people live. It treats culture as something that can be studied using scientific methods. Anthropologists use it to explore why societies change over time.

This theory relies on three main layers of a society. These layers are called the infrastructure, the structure, and the superstructure. The infrastructure involves how people interact with their environment. This includes modes of production, which are ways to make goods. It also includes modes of reproduction, which are ways to sustain a population. The structure refers to the social relations within a group. This includes domestic and political economies. Finally, the superstructure covers the symbolic and ideational aspects of a culture. This includes things like art, rituals, sports, and science.

Within the superstructure, there is a deeper level called the emic or mental superstructure. This layer focuses on what people actually think and believe. It includes conscious and unconscious cognitive goals and rules. It also includes values, philosophies, and different categories of thought. These are the meaningful or ideological relations of a group. This is different from the etic or behavioral superstructure. The etic view looks at the actual things people do, like playing a game. The emic view looks at the internal meaning behind those actions.

Marvin Harris was the person who introduced this idea in 1968. He first presented it in his book, "The Rise of Anthropological Theory." He later wrote a full defense of the idea in 1979. His book was titled "Cultural Materialism." Harris believed that social change depends on the three layers mentioned before. He used a principle called probabilistic infrastructural determinism. This principle suggests that the infrastructure is the most significant force. It is the primary driver behind how a culture evolves over time.

However, Harris did not say the other layers were unimportant. He did not view the structure or superstructure as mere reflexes. Instead, they act as regulating mechanisms for the entire system. This means they help keep the society functioning and balanced. The theory was built upon many different historical ideas. Harris was influenced by the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. He also studied the work of Karl August Wittfogel. Wittfogel wrote a book in 1957 called "Oriental Despotism."

Other thinkers helped shape the foundation of this research strategy. In the 19th century, Herbert Spencer, Edward Tylor, and Lewis Henry Morgan proposed ideas about evolution. They suggested that cultures move from less complex to more complex states. In the 20th century, Leslie White and Julian Steward worked on cultural evolution. They also studied cultural ecology, which is how biology and culture interact. Harris took inspiration from these evolutionist theories. He also considered the work of Thomas Malthus regarding reproduction and production.

Cultural materialism uses the scientific method to find truths. It follows several important epistemological principles. These are rules for how we gain knowledge. The theory uses operational definitions to keep research clear. It also uses the concept of falsifiability from Karl Popper. This means a theory must be able to be proven wrong to be scientific. It also uses Thomas Kuhn's idea of paradigms. Finally, it uses positivism, which was popularized by the Vienna Circle. This approach helps scientists decide how to study what people say versus what they do.

This field continues to grow and change today. During the 1980s, Marvin Harris worked with behavioral psychologists. One notable person he worked with was Sigrid Glenn. They wanted to combine their different fields of study. Recently, young anthropologists have returned to Harris's original work. They are using his ideas to start a new field. This new area is called the anthropology of infrastructures. It shows that these materialist ideas are still very useful for understanding our world.