Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches
Sacred cows, pig taboos and witch hunts, each read as a solution to a problem you have not spotted.
Marvin Harris takes practices that look irrational from outside — sacred cows, pig taboos, witch hunts, messianic movements — and argues each has a material logic rooted in ecology and economics. Whether or not every case convinces, the method is the value: assume the strange custom is solving a problem you have not identified.
Recommended by 1 Person
Derek Sivers
Mind-blowing anthropology. Great argument that the reasons that religions worship cows or hate pigs, that tribes wage wars, or Europe's 200 years of witch hunts, are all very practical economic reasons usually unknown to the participants or washed out of history.
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