Hi Ed, At 19:49 06/02/02 -0500, you wrote: (EW) <<<< Forgive me Keith, I'll reread the rest of your posting tomorrow morning. However, one paragraph struck me as needing and immediate response: (KH) > It wasn't inappropriate once. For millions of years, our primate > predecessors and early species of man needed this propensity so that the > small social groups in which we then lived could respond instantly when > facing a sabre-tooth tiger or other emergencies. There had to be instant > rank order, and this could only be the product of years of mutual > assessment and testing brought about by boys at play, youthful fights, and > then aggressive coups d'etats and new rank-orderings by new cadres of young > adult males when they felt that they were more able than their ageing > leaders. If the new leader turned out to be too oppressive in the normal > daily lives of the group, as must have happened many times, then the social > group was small enough, and the leader was accessible enough, for him to be > pulled down easily by coalitions of other males. >>>>
(EW) <<<< This seems to be an argument for male dominance, male leadership, or whatever. Did you know that the northern Dene Indian societies were historically matriachial - i.e. run by women? As one elderly Dene woman put it: "Men -- they are boys! We let them play until they're forty. Then we make them get serious." >>>> I think you've misunderstood me! I wasn't arguing "for" (in favour of) male dominance. I was attempting to show just how much rank ordering and male dominance is already in our genes. As for the influence of women . . . well, I believe that they're much more perceptive than men when it comes to assessing character or complex situations. And, as I wrote in my reply to Ray Harrell, women in many societies are able to exercise a lot of influence -- though, as is their wont, it is usually exercise quietly without the sort of braggadoccio that males exhibit. I love the quote you give! That's superb. But, at the end of the day, as I also wrote to Ray, it's men they choose to be the actual leaders, and it's the men who take the decisions -- for good or for ill -- in crisis situations. Violent crime, the nastiness in politics, cruelty, torture, warfare, etc, etc, are almost exclusively male preserves. There are very few women terrorists -- Tamil Tiger suicide bombers in Sri Lanka, and the recent Palestine martyr are rare examples and exist in special situations only because women are not expected to be terrorists. I very much doubt that women hold the actual formal positions of power in Dene society and I'd like to see primary sources for that if you insist that this is so. I'm willing to be persuaded. Anthropologists, to my knowledge, have never found a genuinely matriarchal society. Keith __________________________________________________________ �Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in order to discover if they have something to say.� John D. Barrow _________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________
