The Culture Cult: Designer Tribalism And Other Essays [Paperback]

Roger Sandall (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0813338638 | ISBN-13: 978-0813338637 | Publication Date: December 8, 2000

The Culture Cultis an acerbic critique of that longing widespread in society today to “retreat from civilization.” From Rousseau and the Noble Savage to modern defenders of ethnicity such as Isaiah Berlin and Karl Polanyi, a prominent intellectual tradition has over-romanticized the virtues of tribal life. In contrast, another tradition, represented by Karl Popper, Michael Polanyi, and Ernest Gellner, defends modern values and civil society. The Culture Cult discusses both sides of this divide between "culture" and "civilization," and between "closed" and "open" societies. The romantic insistence on the superiority of the primitive is increasingly grounded in a fictionalized picture of the past-a picture often created with the aid of well-meaning but misguided anthropologists. Such idealizations work to the detriment of the very people they are meant to help, for they isolate minorities from such undeniable benefits of modern society as literacy and health care, and discourage them from participating in modern life. Few will find comfort in The Culture Cult, but many will recognize a valuable criticism of currently popular social politics.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Roger Sandall is a writer who recently retired as Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Sydney, Australia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Westview Press (December 8, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813338638
• ISBN-13: 978-0813338637
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,339,143 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A well argued, thought-provoking book, October 3, 2003

By 

Y. Cunnington (Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Culture Cult: Designer Tribalism And Other Essays (Paperback)

It's no secret that in academia these days, political correctness and identity politics often trump critical reason. So when a book comes out that eloquently defends our modern open society and deconstructs the increasing nostalgia for simpler, even primitive times, the result is invigorating. Roger Sandall's, The Culture Cult: Designer Tribalism and Other Essays is a brave, acerbic book that takes on the folly of romanticizing and idealizing tribal/communal life, an enterprise often aided and abetted by anthropologists presenting an overly sanitized, even fictionalized, picture of the past.

Sandall, a retired lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Sydney, Australia, traces a "discontented nostalgia for the communal life" through the work of many modern thinkers. Too often, he says, today's view of aboriginal peoples depicts "a benignly Disneyfied way of life, all flowers and contentment, all stress-free smiles and communal harmony." In reality, the lives and prospects of many aboriginal peoples today are not happy ones, and Sandall argues that the politics of preserving traditional cultures at all costs, as is now the policy in Australia and North America, may in the end do indigenous peoples a tremendous disservice. Certainly, discontent with modernity abounds within the western world, perhaps fuelled, among other things, by the collapse of traditional religious beliefs and the moral codes that went with them, as well as fear of environmental catastrophe. Thus it's not surprising that fantasies about tribal/communal alternatives to modernity have their appeal. Sandall's book exposes the fallacies of going down that road, and the pitfalls of trying to make a new moral order out of the half-understood and deeply mysterious world of Primitive Man. His passionate defence of civilization may ruffle feathers, but the book is as bracing and stimulating a read as I've enjoyed in a long time.

55 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Big Ditch between the tribal and modern world does exist, April 21, 2001

By 

Amanda Jones (Chattanooga, TN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Culture Cult: Designer Tribalism And Other Essays (Paperback)

I am an Anthropology student and I chose to do a reivew of this book as my final term paper in my college career. Sandall is an extraoridinary writer and he presnets the hokey jargon associated with romantic primitivism and communalism clearly and cleverly. Many college students assume that the entire world is on the same level of social development-(unilineal evolution, psychic unity, etc)divided only by MISUNDERSTANDING. If you suffer from this dreamy belief, than I urge you to read The Culture Cult as soon as possible.

Sandall explains how a New Stone Age exists today. "One community after another is wiped out as countless millions of dollars of welfare payments were pissed against the wall, and petrol sniffing became widespread among juvenilles." (Sandall, 2001: 14). The self determination for Aboriginal peoples has become somewhat of a joke in the realm of education. Thousands of Aborinines are illiterate, but had grandparents who could read and write. This is progress???

Sandall addresses tribal collectivism, idyllic fantasies held by romantic primitivists, and an array of questions cut to the chase, e.g., "Why do some cultures succeed, and some fail?" or "Will cultural anthropology be phased out because it is too genral?"

This is a great read, I couldn't put it down.

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Spirited Challenge to Cultural Relativism, February 16, 2001

By 

Rafe Champion (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Culture Cult: Designer Tribalism And Other Essays (Paperback)

Roger Sandall is a retired anthropologist and film maker who had the mixed fortune to spend some time filming the tribal rituals of Australian Aboriginals, only to find that the film was literally put into cold storage, not to be seen by human eyes for fear of giving offence. At the same time he observed the progressive takeover of academic Anthropology and related social sciences by the new wave of political correctness and relativism. These essays can be described as a mordant and somewhat mournful reflection on some of the tribal customs of progressive modernists.

The essays are grouped in three parts. Those in the first part, "Romantic Primitivism: The Anthropological Connection" are designed for a broad and general readership, to alert outsiders to some of the foibles of cultural relativists. These are the people who Ian Jarvie described as "absolutists at home" (in condemning the sins and shortcomings of the western world) and relativists abroad (it's all relative really, however cruel and irrational).

The essays in Part II "Academic Primitivism: The Political Implications" examine the way that romantic tribalism impacted on Karl Polanyi, Isaiah Berlin and Professor Ivan Sutherland, the ill-fated superior of Karl Popper in New Zealand.

The main theme of the collection is that all cultures and civilisations need to be judged by much the same set of standards, allowing for a tolerable amount of pluralism. This means that the violent and cruel initiation ceremonies of the Australian and New Guinea natives need to be viewed with the same jaundiced eye as the sadistic rites of passage in some military academies. It means that the revival of the notion of the "noble savage", originally popularised by Rousseau, is nothing short of disastrous in its implications for policies for indigenous people. Compared with the degenerates of western civilisation, the noble savage, supposedly, has a greater connection to nature and true reverence for it, a deeper spirituality and a genuine sense of community.

The essay on Karl Polanyi indicates the capacity of unworldly academics to take on board irrational and destructive views. He thought he had located the epitome of successful central planning in the West African slave-owning, large-scale human sacrificing kingdom of Dahomey. Sandall has cast a critical eye over Berlin's tolerance of cultural pluralism, claiming that Berlin accepted and promulgated the idea of Herder and the 18th century German romantics that all culture are "incommensurable" - possibly the first use of that loaded term which recently did so much damage in the hands of Feyeraband and Kuhn. This interpretation of Berlin's thought is vigorously disputed by his admirers.

Sandall's writing is clear and vigorous throughout, so anyone will find value in most of the essays, though some may be daunted by the final two pieces in the collection.