Suchergebnisse

This article is concerned with the nature of what federal legislation calls "the human environment" as a preliminary to understanding impacts upon it and risks to it. After discussing the features that distinguish human systems from others, emphasizing nonmetrical aspects of their sociocultural characteristics, eighteen points concerning risks and impacts are made. The article concludes with a discussion of the possible place in the human environment of what Stephen Toulmin calls "post-modern science and risk analysis."

Given the nature of what federal legislation calls "the human environment," discusses the features that distinguish human systems from others, emphasizing nonmetrical aspects of their sociocultural characteristics; eighteen points concerning risks & impacts are made. Discussed in conclusion is the possible place in the human environment of what Stephen Toulmin calls "post-modern science & risk analysis" (1982). Adapted from the source document.

Book reviewed in this article: The Chosen Primate: Human Nature and Cultural Diversity. Adam Kuper.

This essay was presented as the Distinguished Lecture in General Anthropology at the 91st Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, December 4, 1992, in San Francisco, California.

The role of the sacred in human communication and in the regulation of social and ecological systems is approached through ritual. After a brief review of salient features of Maring ethnography, formal characteristics of rituals making them suitable for communication and regulation functions are examined. From this discussion a concept of sanctity relating it to a problem inherent in symbolic communication is derived. The non‐discussiue basis of sanctity is then considered and the role of the sacred in the cybernetics of social and ecological systems is then discussed. Next it is suggested that the relationship between sanctity and authority changes with technological development. Finally, some tentative suggestions concerning the origins of the sacred are advanced.