Post #4: Changing patterns of consumption

Cultural materialism is an anthropological school of thought (or a "research strategy") that states that the best way to understand human culture is to examine material conditions such as food supply, climate or geography. Marvin Harris, interviewed in this video, was the leading proponent of the cultural materialist strategy to anthropological research. While I agree with Dr. Harris on his point that the "hyper-industrialization" of our society has brought drastic changes to many aspects of society such as our family life or the way we work (how long each day, etc.) I also disagree with how much importance he places on these material conditions when he claims that such conditions are culture-changing (link). Marvin Harris mentions in his interview that women had increasingly started to join the workforce, leaving the domestic sphere out of simple necessity so as to better feed their families under drastically changed living conditions (link). That is with increasing industrialization people were forced to adopt new social norms relating to things like gender in order to better feed their families. But Dr. Harris doesn't seem to give any credit to the tremendous influence that new ideas and philosophies, particularly feminism and socialism (which in many ways arose alongside industrial revolution) had on the emergence of a more egalitarian division of labour. Besides if cultural change was solely influenced by things like availability of food or access to fresh water then we would have a MUCH more diverse variety of world cultures than we actually have today. By examining historical context, one sees that many present ethnic groups went through periods of upheaval such as natural disasters, wars or even climate change, and yet the main character of their culture remained the relatively stable from generation to generation. American culture is still uniquely American despite the fact that the living conditions in United States were not always as favourable as in the latter part of the 20th century.