Really interesting article, thanks for posting. A couple of thoughts:
1.They do it by manipulating universal heartfelt human sentiments that I think are probably innate and part of biological evolution. In fact, I think most culture is a manipulation of innate desires.
Yes there is a lot to that, but it isn't just that "culture is a manipulation of innate desires," it is also an "expression" of innate desires. Distinguishing between those two is mighty difficult, though. His examples of fast food and porn are clearly manipulations on the one hand (manipulations of others), but expressions on the other (of greed, of the form greed takes in our culture).
2. Then we found that what the spirits prefer--not what the people think is important but what they think the spirits think is important--actually predicts species distributions... Those trees most valued by the spirits--the Brosimum alicastrum, or "breadnut," and the chicazapote, the tree that yields the resin that is the natural base for chewing gum--are actually those trees with the widest distribution, which produce fruit all year round and which have the largest number of ecological relations with other animals. We're able to predict, just on the basis of the Itza' spirit preferences, all sorts of ecological things happening on the ground. What I think is going on is that these spirits represent human preferences built up over generations.
I think he's right. Some people who work with elephants in Africa found that they go to trees or sometimes plants when members of their group are sick or wounded, and give them to the sick one to eat or rub sap on wounds. Testing the plants yielded a startling discovery--that the plants actually had medicinal value. No one can begin to understand how the elephants knew this, but somehow they allegedly did. Whether this is an urban legend or not (or a "forest legend"), I don't really know, but I choose to believe it, and suspect that long ago humans had the same kind of knowledge. |
