Man the slave & master / by Mark Graubard.

  • Graubard, Mark, 1904-1992.
Date:
1939
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Man the slave & master / by Mark Graubard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the tiller of the soil is a serf or a free farmer, whether a nation is divided into rigid castes as in India, or all citizens are equal before the law, as in the United States. This in turn determines our views about the equality of man and related concepts. All or most of these factors, it may be argued, are man-made; hence, one might assume, easily modified. But we soon discover that, although man creates his social institutions and therefore theoretically controls them, they are not easily modifiable. Often man finds it easier to overcome powerfully hostile forces of nature than to correct some trivial human habit. Indeed, when it comes to social organization, the difficulties are almost insurmountable. Resistance to change is not only psycho logical, it is rooted in economic causes. If viewed solely from the standpoint of behaviour social change seems naively simple. Thus, we may decide upon desired changes. The means for realizing them exist. By reorganizing our social institutions according to just and humane standards an ideal society may be created. This in turn will produce the desired conduct. At this point it is relevant to introduce the previously mentioned innate tendencies as evinced through man's drive for culture formation. This characteristically human trait is so important in any discussion of human behaviour that it must necessarily be considered from a variety of angles, even at the risk of repetition. The study of tribal cultures, embodying a vast array of patterns of human conduct as revealed by the science of anthropology, forces upon us the inescapable conclusion that the mind of man is endowed with an intimately inter woven set of responses leading to culture formation. Granted that the very nature of the material precludes watertight, objective verification, the widespread and definitely independent origins of such concepts as magic,