Hindus and Westerners alike see in the meat-eating taboos of India a triumph of morals over appetite. This is a dangerous misrepresentation of cultural processes. Hindu vegetarianism was a victory not of spirit over matter but of reproductive over productive… — Marvin Harris Copy Share Image
There are very important and practical issues raised by following this alternative route which says, let's look to material conditions, to the systems of… — Marvin Harris Copy Share Image
I think that by following the route that I have tried to outline, one gets into a much more interesting and productive series of… — Marvin Harris Copy Share Image
Ethnography literally means 'a portrait of a people.' An ethnography is a written description of a particular culture - the customs, beliefs, and behavior… — Marvin Harris Copy Share Image
When a woman gives birth to a child, the child needs to be able to digest the mother's milk; but when this child is… — Marvin Harris Copy Share Image
Unfortunately, the food industry has not yet faced this situation and begun taking measures to avoid exploiting our weakness for not knowing when we… — Marvin Harris Copy Share Image
“The availability of domesticated animal species played an important role in the prohibition of cannibalism and the development of religions of love and mercy… — Marvin Harris Copy Share Image
The commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' does not say it's O.K. to kill some people and not others. — Marvin Harris Copy Share Image
Pigs prefer to wallow in clean mud, but if nothing else is available, they will frequently wallow in their own urine, giving rise to… — Marvin Harris Copy Share Image
The general proposition is that the resources that will be utilized are the ones that contribute most to the overall efficiency of the production… — Marvin Harris Copy Share Image
But with the Industrial Revolution and introduction of various industrial techniques for purifying sugar, we have a situation in which what we are consuming… — Marvin Harris Copy Share Image
In many ways the rise of the state was the descent of the world from freedom to slavery — Marvin Harris Copy Share Image
Here you do have forests, where pigs could be raised by letting them root about in the forests for a good part of the… — Marvin Harris Copy Share Image
If I can bring some light to bear on problems like that, I feel that people will be enlightened not only on the question… — Marvin Harris Copy Share Image
“I hold it perniciously false to teach that all cultural forms are equally probable and that by mere force of will an inspired individual… — Marvin Harris Copy Share Image
“Many humanists and artists recoil from the proposition that cultural evolution has hitherto been shaped by unconscious impersonal forces. The determined nature of the… — Marvin Harris Copy Share Image
