Surprise Gift: How Inherited Generational Traits Underpin Our Societies, with Harvey Whitehouse

Jul 17, 2024

Harvey Whitehouse, a renowned social anthropologist and Director at Oxford's Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, delves into the impact of inherited generational traits on modern societies. He shares transformative experiences from Papua New Guinea that reshaped his understanding of conformity, tribalism, and ritual. Together with Brian Klaas, they explore how these traits could help or hinder our response to current global challenges like environmental degradation and political instability, emphasizing the importance of collective inheritance for cooperation.

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ANECDOTE

Papua New Guinea Fieldwork

Harvey Whitehouse lived in remote Papua New Guinea for two years.
He was surprised to find more cultural similarities than differences.

INSIGHT

Collective Inheritance

Humans share a collective inheritance, both biological and cultural.
This inheritance includes conformism, religiosity, and tribalism.

INSIGHT

Cultural Lens

Observing other cultures helps us see our own rituals as strange.
Whitehouse realized the similarities between Cambridge high table dinners and Papua New Guinean rituals.

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Renowned social anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse is Director of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Oxford and has crisscrossed the globe, living in remote parts of Papua New Guinea as well as sitting down with militias during Libya’s Arab Spring uprising, in order to learn what it means to be a human. The groups that have largely been the focus of Whitehouse’s work could be an organised religion, a tribe or a kingdom – but perhaps key to them all are the concepts of inherited ritual, allegiances and bias. His latest book, Inheritance: The Evolutionary Origins of the Modern World, asks a new question about how inherited frameworks inform these perspectives. As we face an era of environmental destruction, political destabilisation and wars fought by forces with ever deadlier arsenals, could the same evolutionary traits that have pushed the world towards ever more sophisticated societies now be failing us? Joining Whitehouse to talk about it for this episode is Brian Klaas, Associate Professor in Global Politics at University College London and the author of books including Fluke and Corruptible. Klaas is also a writer for The Atlantic and you can read more of him on his substack, The Garden of Forking Paths.

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