B. Lahire's book is a book that can challenge us as libertarian
communists. There are stimulating aspects and disturbing aspects because
they apparently contradict our militant objectives of an egalitarian
society. His voluminous book (950 pages), is based on a lot of
scientific work (from Darwin to today) and calls on revolutionary
activists, notably Marx (to a lesser extent Bakunin, Kropotkin,
Pannekoek, Elisé Reclus , ...). It seeks to establish the
transhistorical and transcultural social imperatives of human societies
and therefore the laws of their functioning. To do this, it uses
comparisons between species and between human societies.
The first two parts of the book (430 pages) are a plea for the human
sciences to have a scientific, materialist approach and to break with
dominant relativism/postmodernism. The third part addresses the
substance of its development. Lahire distinguishes between what is
social (relationships between the different parts making up a society)
and what is cultural (what is transmitted and transformed: knowledge,
know-how, objects/tools, institutions, etc.). It is impossible to draw a
boundary between innate/acquired, nature/culture because there is a
dialectical relationship between organism and environment. Currently we
reason as if humans were only cultural, made of infinite variations and
with no regularity other than temporary. From a materialist point of
view, culture and history cannot develop in any direction because they
are constrained by the limits (biological and social) constitutive of
the human species. B. Lahire therefore considers that human societies
are faced with similar problems and the responses to these demands lead
to universal behavior and mental tendencies. There are consequently
laws/lines of force which combine and therefore emerge from "invariants"
(which does not mean universals). The deep logics of the current world
and of the early times of humanity would be the same.
The great law proposed is that all societies manifest relationships of
domination and he seeks to detect the fundamental reasons for this.
Humans are characterized above all by secondary altriciality[1]. The
latter generates a relationship of domination of parents over children
which becomes the matrix of all relations of domination in society. The
need for pregnant or breastfeeding women to be helped by others
(particularly men) generates a division of labor and a relationship of
sexual domination. A hierarchy based on seniority also exists because of
these established relationships of domination and the cultural knowledge
of the "elders". For B. Lahire, the state structure is linked to
elementary parental logic, age and sex are the basic building blocks of
hierarchies in human societies. However, in his conclusion, the most
political part, he affirms that we must understand these mechanisms in
order to free ourselves from them and not fall into reactionary fatalism.
What B. Lahire develops has the advantage of being positioned from a
rigorous materialist point of view, based on a very voluminous
scientific literature and we agree with his criticism of current social
and human sciences. However, the basis of the domination that it
develops is based on the parental relationship and we can imagine a
society developing an educational framework that is much more
emancipatory than relationships of domination which definitively
structured the minds of individuals in a form of submission. Above all,
the State only appears as the extension of this original relationship of
domination. However, the function of a State is to perpetuate
relationships of domination and exploitation through legitimate
violence. It is therefore much more than a macrosocial transcription of
pre-existing microsocial relationships. Here inter-individual relations
of domination and a qualitatively different form of domination come
together.
In conclusion, the book develops a lot of aspects of a materialist point
of view that we have not talked about. Despite its length and some
repetitions, it is very rich and stimulating even if certain
developments sometimes suffer from shortcuts. The conclusion is intended
to be optimistic by posing political perspectives against reactionary
currents. Campaigning for general emancipation does not mean denying the
determinisms of human societies. As Lahire says, not everything can
change, not simple good will because we must confront reality, taking up
Marx "It is not consciousness which determines existence, but the
conditions of existence which determine the forms that can gain
consciousness. ". Positing determinisms does not mean being subject to
them, such as the fact that age and partly sex no longer structure
relations of domination as much as previously. As the author says,
humans are characterized by strong socialization leading to cooperation
and altruism; it differentiates itself from other animals by cultural
accumulation. There is therefore no political fatalism because, thanks
to the cultural character, we can become aware of the laws and act on
them and free ourselves from these determinisms (at least partially).
The work of anarchist anthropologists or archaeologists shows precisely
that sometimes the evolution of societies has much more flexible limits
than a mechanistic determinism would lead one to believe[2].
Notes
[1]secondary altriciality or neoteny: prolonged state of dependence of
the small human for his survival, and that of the child and the
adolescent who must assimilate technical and social knowledge in order
to find their place as an adult.
[2]See among others Graeber and Wengrow "In the beginning was... a new
history of humanity"; Scott "Homo domesticus" and "Zomia or the art of
not being governed"
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4112
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
communists. There are stimulating aspects and disturbing aspects because
they apparently contradict our militant objectives of an egalitarian
society. His voluminous book (950 pages), is based on a lot of
scientific work (from Darwin to today) and calls on revolutionary
activists, notably Marx (to a lesser extent Bakunin, Kropotkin,
Pannekoek, Elisé Reclus , ...). It seeks to establish the
transhistorical and transcultural social imperatives of human societies
and therefore the laws of their functioning. To do this, it uses
comparisons between species and between human societies.
The first two parts of the book (430 pages) are a plea for the human
sciences to have a scientific, materialist approach and to break with
dominant relativism/postmodernism. The third part addresses the
substance of its development. Lahire distinguishes between what is
social (relationships between the different parts making up a society)
and what is cultural (what is transmitted and transformed: knowledge,
know-how, objects/tools, institutions, etc.). It is impossible to draw a
boundary between innate/acquired, nature/culture because there is a
dialectical relationship between organism and environment. Currently we
reason as if humans were only cultural, made of infinite variations and
with no regularity other than temporary. From a materialist point of
view, culture and history cannot develop in any direction because they
are constrained by the limits (biological and social) constitutive of
the human species. B. Lahire therefore considers that human societies
are faced with similar problems and the responses to these demands lead
to universal behavior and mental tendencies. There are consequently
laws/lines of force which combine and therefore emerge from "invariants"
(which does not mean universals). The deep logics of the current world
and of the early times of humanity would be the same.
The great law proposed is that all societies manifest relationships of
domination and he seeks to detect the fundamental reasons for this.
Humans are characterized above all by secondary altriciality[1]. The
latter generates a relationship of domination of parents over children
which becomes the matrix of all relations of domination in society. The
need for pregnant or breastfeeding women to be helped by others
(particularly men) generates a division of labor and a relationship of
sexual domination. A hierarchy based on seniority also exists because of
these established relationships of domination and the cultural knowledge
of the "elders". For B. Lahire, the state structure is linked to
elementary parental logic, age and sex are the basic building blocks of
hierarchies in human societies. However, in his conclusion, the most
political part, he affirms that we must understand these mechanisms in
order to free ourselves from them and not fall into reactionary fatalism.
What B. Lahire develops has the advantage of being positioned from a
rigorous materialist point of view, based on a very voluminous
scientific literature and we agree with his criticism of current social
and human sciences. However, the basis of the domination that it
develops is based on the parental relationship and we can imagine a
society developing an educational framework that is much more
emancipatory than relationships of domination which definitively
structured the minds of individuals in a form of submission. Above all,
the State only appears as the extension of this original relationship of
domination. However, the function of a State is to perpetuate
relationships of domination and exploitation through legitimate
violence. It is therefore much more than a macrosocial transcription of
pre-existing microsocial relationships. Here inter-individual relations
of domination and a qualitatively different form of domination come
together.
In conclusion, the book develops a lot of aspects of a materialist point
of view that we have not talked about. Despite its length and some
repetitions, it is very rich and stimulating even if certain
developments sometimes suffer from shortcuts. The conclusion is intended
to be optimistic by posing political perspectives against reactionary
currents. Campaigning for general emancipation does not mean denying the
determinisms of human societies. As Lahire says, not everything can
change, not simple good will because we must confront reality, taking up
Marx "It is not consciousness which determines existence, but the
conditions of existence which determine the forms that can gain
consciousness. ". Positing determinisms does not mean being subject to
them, such as the fact that age and partly sex no longer structure
relations of domination as much as previously. As the author says,
humans are characterized by strong socialization leading to cooperation
and altruism; it differentiates itself from other animals by cultural
accumulation. There is therefore no political fatalism because, thanks
to the cultural character, we can become aware of the laws and act on
them and free ourselves from these determinisms (at least partially).
The work of anarchist anthropologists or archaeologists shows precisely
that sometimes the evolution of societies has much more flexible limits
than a mechanistic determinism would lead one to believe[2].
Notes
[1]secondary altriciality or neoteny: prolonged state of dependence of
the small human for his survival, and that of the child and the
adolescent who must assimilate technical and social knowledge in order
to find their place as an adult.
[2]See among others Graeber and Wengrow "In the beginning was... a new
history of humanity"; Scott "Homo domesticus" and "Zomia or the art of
not being governed"
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4112
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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