3 ms·

Can you elaborate?

thejackgoode 5y ago
For example, ex-nomadic and Caucasian “honor culture” is linked to necessity of trust in regions with predominant animal husbandry. If your cattle gets stolen before winter, you die of hunger. That’s why honor killings and hospitality are the flip sides of the same coin — you can’t afford losing trust. Robert Sapolsky gave a lecture about it.
- Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
  While i can't make absolute statements of what he may or may not have said in every lecture he ever gave, i doubt Sapolsky would claim that honor killings and hospitality are the flip sides of the same coin. In "Behave The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst" Sapolsky differentiates "honor killings" as inwards violence, whose victims are usually young women, from "retribution" against animal thieves, and links it to social power structures in families and to religious laws, not ethnicity or nomadic origins.
  - thejackgoode 5y ago
    Here’s a piece that I found, I vaguely remember there was more in that lecture on the topic: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz3hBuq-Huk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz3hBuq-Huk While it’s possible to differentiate these two things like you mentioned, if you look at honor as a concept, it’s useful function is about curbing higher cost of distrust. And that Sapolsky does explain in the linked video.
    - Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
      Well Sapolsky sure seems to love to make dubious absolute statements and oversimplifications in his lectures, and yet he still says that pastoral nomadic honor cultures foster strict rules of hospitality, which is not the same as hospitality in and of itself, even if it can be an amplyfiyng effect. I would be more inclined to agree that "strict rules (of hospitality)" and "violent enforcement (of subservience)" are flip sides of a coin. Note that "honor killing" is a very loaded term and quite different from domestic violence and retribution.
- nmfisher 5y ago
  Interesting. Does that mean there's a low level of petty crimes like theft?
  - unionpivo 5y ago
    yes

Can you elaborate?

For example, ex-nomadic and Caucasian “honor culture” is linked to necessity of trust in regions with predominant animal husbandry. If your cattle gets stolen before winter, you die of hunger. That’s why honor killings and hospitality are the flip sides of the same coin — you can’t afford losing trust. Robert Sapolsky gave a lecture about it.

Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
While i can't make absolute statements of what he may or may not have said in every lecture he ever gave, i doubt Sapolsky would claim that honor killings and hospitality are the flip sides of the same coin. In "Behave The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst" Sapolsky differentiates "honor killings" as inwards violence, whose victims are usually young women, from "retribution" against animal thieves, and links it to social power structures in families and to religious laws, not ethnicity or nomadic origins.
- thejackgoode 5y ago
  Here’s a piece that I found, I vaguely remember there was more in that lecture on the topic: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz3hBuq-Huk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz3hBuq-Huk While it’s possible to differentiate these two things like you mentioned, if you look at honor as a concept, it’s useful function is about curbing higher cost of distrust. And that Sapolsky does explain in the linked video.
  - Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
    Well Sapolsky sure seems to love to make dubious absolute statements and oversimplifications in his lectures, and yet he still says that pastoral nomadic honor cultures foster strict rules of hospitality, which is not the same as hospitality in and of itself, even if it can be an amplyfiyng effect. I would be more inclined to agree that "strict rules (of hospitality)" and "violent enforcement (of subservience)" are flip sides of a coin. Note that "honor killing" is a very loaded term and quite different from domestic violence and retribution.
nmfisher 5y ago
Interesting. Does that mean there's a low level of petty crimes like theft?
- unionpivo 5y ago
  yes