Barbarian Virtues Paper
Theories of Development:
Scholarly Disciplines and the Hierarchy of Peoples
In chapter four of his book “Barbarian Virtues,” Matthew Frye Jacobson connects the theories and beliefs used to interpret relationships to the development of humans over time. He states that scholarly methods in academics have been used to systematically rank different groups of people. Jacobson discusses many academic disciplines used in these theories such as, anthropology, genetics, biology, psychology, and linguistics. Throughout this chapter, Jacobson divides his research into three categories: cultures, genes, and minds. Together these theories of human development highlight the superiority and inferiority conflict between races in nineteenth century America.
When thinking about the development of humans, two factions come to mind. The first group are the followers of the Bible, the monogenists, and the second group are the evolution theorists, people referred to as polygenists. Arguments between these groups over a single origin and multiple origins revolve around the interpretations regarding color, physiognomy, custom and stature of humans. (Jacobson 140) This has caused anthropologists and other researchers to perform ethnographic field studies to learn about cultures. A researcher known as George Stocking Jr. wrote, “Social evolutionism is best seen as a synthesis of monogenism and polygenism.” (Jacobson 143) Like Stocking, Charles Darwin studied native tribes to help find answers for his theories on classical evolutionism. Classical evolutionism involved many assumptions in order to sift through the time-lapse of developing humanity.
One assumption dealt with the mechanisms and social forces that can affect human development. Human interaction makes up social and cultural environments. Obviously, Laws are then created to keep order between humans. Next, Jacobson looks at the measurement between social and cultural differences. As time went on humans in different
Scholarly Disciplines and the Hierarchy of Peoples
In chapter four of his book “Barbarian Virtues,” Matthew Frye Jacobson connects the theories and beliefs used to interpret relationships to the development of humans over time. He states that scholarly methods in academics have been used to systematically rank different groups of people. Jacobson discusses many academic disciplines used in these theories such as, anthropology, genetics, biology, psychology, and linguistics. Throughout this chapter, Jacobson divides his research into three categories: cultures, genes, and minds. Together these theories of human development highlight the superiority and inferiority conflict between races in nineteenth century America.
When thinking about the development of humans, two factions come to mind. The first group are the followers of the Bible, the monogenists, and the second group are the evolution theorists, people referred to as polygenists. Arguments between these groups over a single origin and multiple origins revolve around the interpretations regarding color, physiognomy, custom and stature of humans. (Jacobson 140) This has caused anthropologists and other researchers to perform ethnographic field studies to learn about cultures. A researcher known as George Stocking Jr. wrote, “Social evolutionism is best seen as a synthesis of monogenism and polygenism.” (Jacobson 143) Like Stocking, Charles Darwin studied native tribes to help find answers for his theories on classical evolutionism. Classical evolutionism involved many assumptions in order to sift through the time-lapse of developing humanity.
One assumption dealt with the mechanisms and social forces that can affect human development. Human interaction makes up social and cultural environments. Obviously, Laws are then created to keep order between humans. Next, Jacobson looks at the measurement between social and cultural differences. As time went on humans in different
Cited: Jacobson, Matthew. Barbarian Virtues. New York: Hill and Wang, 2000. Print. Johnson, Michael. Reading the American Past. 5th ed. 2. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin 's, 2012. 83- 87. Print.