The Ethnic Phenomenon (Paperback)

~ Pierre L. van den Berghe (Author) "It is probably fair to say that the academic specialty usually called "race and ethnic relations" is rich in literature but poor in theory..." (more)
Key Phrases: more ethnies, several ethnies, other ethnies, United States, South Africa, World War (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A gem of a book for scholars in race and ethnic relations and sociobiology.... Van den Berghe analyzes various forms that race and ethnic relations have displayed including colonial empires, slavery, middleman minorities, caste systems, and assimilation. The causes and consequences of these systems are brilliantly teased out employing historical and crosscultural examples. Libraries with any work at all on race and ethnic relations or sociobiology should acquire this book.”–Choice --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description

Van den Berghe contends that intergroup relations are reducible to individuals competing for scarce resources. He argues that ethnic nepotism is, at its very foundation, biological. This new approach is expanded further, taking into account how ethnicity is responsive to a wide spectrum of environmental factors. He analytically relates his own ideological biases to the substance of his work. What results is an intensely personal book of monumental scope and admirable intellectual honesty.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 318 pages
• Publisher: Praeger Paperback (August 19, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0275927091
• ISBN-13: 978-0275927097
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,004,203 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterpiece of disillusionment: Marx meets E.O. Wilson, November 25, 1998

By	Steve Sailer (Chicago) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Van Den Berghe is a white sociologist born in the old Belgian colony of the Congo. Disgusted by white oppression of Africans, he became a fairly conventional liberal on race relations. But, as he overcame his Eurocentric focus on white crimes, he realized that race-based exploitation and violence are universal human curses. This lead him to sociobiology, and its bedrock finding: the theory of kin selection: The more genes we share with another individual, the more altruistic we are toward him. And the less kind we are toward our more distant kin.

Since there is no fundamental boundary between family, ethnic group, and race, Van Den Berghe coined the brilliant term "ethnic nepotism" to describe the human tendency to favor "our people" at the expense of others.

This is the most significant advance ever in the Marxist analysis of economic exploitation. By substituting kinship for class as the great engine of history, Van Den Berghe has invented a neo-Darwinian Marxism with enormous explanatory power and predictive power. This 1981 book's accuracy was confirmed by the subsequent breakup of the communist world into clashing ethnic groups.

Steve Sailer

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great work on Sociobiology., September 27, 2009

By	Warren R. Grayson "Constant Reader" (Birmingham, AL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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Despite having been written nearly 30 years ago this book stands as a landmark in the field of sociobiology. It is an exceptional book and I highly recommend it. The book covers the topic of Kin Selection, which is a hallmark of evolutionary psychology/ sociobiology. While some scientists do disagree as to whether sociobiology is the be-all and end-all for explaining human behavior, it is still interesting and helpful in certain situations. (Edward O. Wilson is the founder. You can learn more by reading Sociobiology: The Abridged Edition or On Human Nature: Revised Edition)
For an introduction to this discussion, or just further reading, I recommend: The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, Human Nature: Fact And Fiction - Literature, Science And Human Nature or The Origin and Evolution of Cultures (Evolution and Cognition).

5.0 out of 5 stars Ethnocentrism As Nepotism Among Extended Kin, May 30, 2009

By	V. E. Lane (UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Ethnocentrism and Kin Selection
Van den Berghe's central claim is that racism, xenophobia, nationalism and ethnocentrism can be understood as kin-selected nepotism (Hamilton 1964). In the same way evolution favours individuals who sacrifice themselves for the benefit of their kin, because they share genes by common descent, he argues that individuals may also favour their extended kin, namely fellow ethnics.
Before reading the book I was doubtful as to whether the degree of kinship shared among fellow-ethnics would be sufficient to invoke the application of Hamilton's Rule (Brigandt, I. 2001; but see Salter 2004 or On Genetic Interests: Family, Ethnicity, and Humanity in an Age of Mass Migration). However, contrary to both critics (Brigandt, I. 2001) and others developing similar ideas (Rushton 2005; Salter 2000), van den Berghe is agnostic as to whether ethnocentricism is adaptive in modern societies where the shared kinship of nations or ethnies are largely fictive, and suggests this may be the misfiring of a mechanism that evolved among small kin-based hunter-gatherer groups (p35). He certainly emphasises that ethnic sentiments are vulnerable to manipulation by exploitative elites (e.g. kinship terms such as `fatherland' and `brothers-in-arms' encouraging sacrifice during wartime) but concludes "kinship can be manipulated but not manufactured" (p27).
Van den Berghe views race-based discrimination (i.e. discrimination on the basis of heritable physiological phenotypic group differences such as skin colour) as relatively rare historically, because different races rarely came into contact before recent technological advances in transportation. Therefore, cultural rather than racial markers are adopted to distinguish ethnic groups (e.g. language, clothing, bodily modification). What is innate is not racism but ethnocentrism. However, where racial differences do exist within a population, these are likely to be especially salient.
The analysis in the central section of the book, discussing various historically recurrent situations as slavery, caste and colonialism, is by no means dependent acceptance of the sociobiological basis of ethnocentrism and is worth reading even for readers unconvinced of this thesis - or even sceptical of sociobiological approaches to human behaviour altogether.

Synthesising Marxism and Sociobiology?
Given its potential appeal to nationalists, it is surprising the extent to which van den berghe's draws on Marxism. Sociobiologists themselves have frequently noted the potential compatibility of a Marxist analysis of contemporary society with sociobiology (e.g. Sanderson 2001; van den Berghe 1979: p82n), although van den Berghe remains the only figure to actually successfully synthesise the two forms of analysis to produce novel theory. For example, he argues that the class exploitation inherent in contemporary and historical societies is disguised by an `ideology' that disguises exploitation as either kin-selected nepotistic altruism (e.g. dictator as `father' of the nation) or mutually beneficial reciprocity (the `social contract' under democracy) (p60).
However, contrary to Marxian orthodoxy, van den Berghe sees ethnic feelings as running deeper than class loyalty ("Blood runs thicker than money" p243). Whereas the former is "dependent on a commonality of interests" (p243), the latter is often irrational ("It seems a great many people care passionately whether they are ruled and exploited by members of their own ethny or foreigners" p62). Furthermore, whereas Marxists see the competition to control the `means of production' as underlying societal conflict, Darwinians see the `forces of reproduction' as the ultimate source of human conflict (Betzig 1986: 67).
Of course, whereas the claim that exploitation underlies capitalist society chimes with the Darwinian's cynical view of human nature, the Marxist's naïvely utopian view of communist society does not. Curiously, although healthily cynical about exploitation in Soviet-style communist societies (p60), van den Berghe describes himself as an anarchist (van den Berghe 2005). However, anarchism seems even more hopelessly utopian than communism, given human's innate sociality and desire to exploit reproductive competitors. A Hobbesian State of Nature is no utopia.

A Paradox for the Theory of Ethnic Nepotism
Van den Berghe argues that "the subordinate group in an ethnic hierarchy invariably `loses' more women to males of the dominant group than vice versa" (p75; see also p27). However, despite the disadvantaged economic and social position of blacks in contemporary America, recent census data suggests that black men are about 2 and a half times as likely to marry white women as black women are to marry white men (Fryer 2007).
This data comes from an atypical society encumbered with evolutionary novelties such as contraception. However, given that, in Darwinian terms, reproduction represents the ultimate resource for which individuals compete, it cannot be brushed aside. Perhaps the beginnings of a solution to this paradox can be sought in van den Berghe's later collaboration with Peter Frost (van den Berghe and Frost 1986; Fair Women, Dark Men: The Forgotten Roots of Racial Prejudice.

Betzig, LL 1986 Despotism and Differential Reproduction: A Darwinian View of History New York: Aldine

Brigandt, I 2001 "The homeopathy of kin selection: an evaluation of van den Berghe's sociobiological approach to ethnicity." Politics and the Life Sciences 20: 203-215.

Fryer, RG Jr 2007. "Guess Who's Been Coming to Dinner? Trends in Interracial Marriage over the 20th Century", Journal of Economic Perspectives 21(2), pp. 71-90

Hamilton, WD 1964 The genetical evolution of social behaviour Journal of Theoretical Biology 7: 1-52

Rushton, 2005 JP Ethnic Nationalism, Evolutionary Psychology and Genetic Similarity Theory Nations and Nationalism 11(4): 489-507

Salter, F. 2000 "A Defence and Extension of Pierre van den Berghe's Theory of Ethnic Nepotism". In James, P. and Goetze, D. (Eds.) Evolutionary Theory and Ethnic Conflict (Praeger Studies on Ethnic and National Identities in Politics) Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.

Sanderson, SK 2001 The Evolution of Human Sociality Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield

van den Berghe, PL 1979 Human Family Systems: An Evolutionary View New York Elsevier

van den Berghe PL 2005 Review of On Genetic Interests: Family, Ethny and Humanity in the Age of Mass Migration by Frank Salter Nations and Nationalism 11(1) 161-177

van den Berghe, P. L. & P. Frost. 1986 Skin color preference, sexual dimorphism, and sexual selection: A case of gene-culture co-evolution? Ethnic and Racial Studies, 9: 87-113