Word: alland
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...cliché of popular ethology that man is no more than an animal among animals, a naked ape dominated by his own savage biology and driven by killer instincts. More sophisticated scientists think otherwise, and one of them, Anthropologist Alexander Alland Jr., has now produced a ringing rebuttal. In a new book called The Human Imperative (Columbia University; $8.50), Alland counters the sophistry of Robert Ardrey (The Territorial Imperative), Konrad Lorenz (On Aggression) and Desmond Morris (The Naked Ape) with a view of man as a human animal, a creature whose biologically rooted nature can be modified by the uniquely...
Prime Example. If Homo sapiens were innately and inevitably aggressive, Alland observes, all men would behave aggressively and in a predictable, stereotyped manner. In fact, some societies are nonviolent, and in others aggression is expressed in widely varying, culturally determined ways that are "a far cry from the rather automatic and highly patterned aggressive responses which occur in lower animals...
...prime example of a pacific people, Alland cites the Semai of Malaya. A band of 12,000 farmers, the Semai adopt and name animals, talk to and caress them as if they were children, and even suckle them. Youngsters are never physically punished; they rarely see any form of violence, and so have no model of aggressive behavior to imitate. One result is that murder is unknown among the Semai. When angry, they generally confine themselves to voicing insults and spreading malicious rumors. True, they sometimes throw their own belongings around, but they are careful not to hurt anyone. Even...
Kane's last word was "rosebud." Thompson (William Alland), the newsreel reporter, spends two feverish weeks in interviewing five people. Thompson talks to Kane's trollopish second wife (Dorothy Comingore), whom he tried to make a singer, finally established in the castle. There she passed the years assembling jigsaw puzzles until she walked out in boredom. Then there is Kane's rich guardian (George Coulouris) whom Kane hated; Kane's general manager (Everett Sloan), the sad, loyal, philosophical Jew who stuck by to the end; his former drama editor and best friend (Joseph Gotten) with whom...
Councillors for next year were also chosen: Assistant Professor Louis Alland, Assistant Professor Andre Morize, Assistant Professor L. J. A. Mercier, Mr. E. L. Raiche, Edgar Scott '20 and Nathaniel Thayer...