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Why we blame victims, accuse witches, invent taboos, and invoke spirits: a model of strategic responses to misfortune
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute ( IF 1.673 ) Pub Date : 2022-09-20 , DOI: 10.1111/1467-9655.13826
Pascal Boyer 1
Affiliation  

Explanations of misfortune are the object of much cultural discourse in most human societies. Recurrent themes include the intervention of superhuman agents (gods, ancestors, etc.), witchcraft, karma, and the violation of specific rules or ‘taboos’. In modern large-scale societies, people often respond by blaming the victims of, for example, accidents and assault. These responses may seem both disparate and puzzling, in the sense that the proposed accounts of untoward events provide no valuable information about their causes or the best way to prevent them. However, these responses make sense if we see them in an evolutionary context, where accidents, assault, and illness were common occurrences, the only palliative being social support to victims. This would create a context in which all members of a group might be (a) required to offer support, (b) willing to offer such support to maintain a reputation as co-operators, and (c) desirous to limit that support because of its cost. In this context, recurrent explanations of misfortune would constitute strategic attempts to create and broadcast a specific description of the situation that concentrates responsibility and potential costs on a few individuals. This strategic model accounts for otherwise perplexing features of explanations based on mystical harm (ancestors, witchcraft, etc.), as well as the tendency to denigrate victims, and offers new predictions about those cultural phenomena.

中文翻译:

为什么我们责怪受害者、指责女巫、发明禁忌和祈求神灵:应对不幸的战略反应模型

在大多数人类社会中,对不幸的解释是许多文化话语的对象。反复出现的主题包括超人代理人(神、祖先等)的干预、巫术、业力以及违反特定规则或“禁忌”。在现代大型社会中,人们的反应常常是指责事故和袭击等事件的受害者。这些反应可能看起来既不同又令人费解,因为拟议的不幸事件的描述没有提供有关其原因或预防它们的最佳方法的有价值信息。然而,如果我们在进化的背景下看待这些反应,那么这些反应是有道理的,在进化的背景下,事故、攻击和疾病是常见的,唯一的缓解措施是对受害者的社会支持。这将创造一个环境,在这个环境中,一个团体的所有成员可能 (a) 需要提供支持,(b) 愿意提供此类支持以维持作为合作者的声誉,并且 (c) 由于其成本,希望限制该支持。在这种情况下,对不幸的反复解释将构成战略尝试,以创建和传播对情况的具体描述,将责任和潜在成本集中在少数人身上。这种战略模型解释了基于神秘伤害(祖先、巫术等)的解释的其他令人困惑的特征,以及诋毁受害者的倾向,并提供了关于这些文化现象的新预测。对不幸的反复解释将构成战略尝试,以创建和传播对情况的具体描述,将责任和潜在成本集中在少数人身上。这种战略模型解释了基于神秘伤害(祖先、巫术等)的解释的其他令人困惑的特征,以及诋毁受害者的倾向,并提供了关于这些文化现象的新预测。对不幸的反复解释将构成战略尝试,以创建和传播对情况的具体描述,将责任和潜在成本集中在少数人身上。这种战略模型解释了基于神秘伤害(祖先、巫术等)的解释的其他令人困惑的特征,以及诋毁受害者的倾向,并提供了关于这些文化现象的新预测。
更新日期:2022-09-20
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