Anthropology 152 -Lecture 12 -10/24/22

Car-Vehicle Culture Test 3 item: Start keeping an 1) inventory of symbolic, , iconographic and indexical signs you receive and send while driving; 2) Safety habits you practice while driving . This Test item will continue as an item on Test 4. Focus on signs related to driving, not so much advertising signs. The word “sign” in this car culture context has two meanings. Road signs, such as Stop Signs , 1) are signs in the common meaning, the non- anthropological/semiotic meaning; that is words or pictures that are large enough to see at a distance in time to obey or to anticipate what’s ahead ; written on large boards and posted on poles. This the sense that everybody here uses “sign” before coming to this class; 2) and road signs have WORDS or PICTURES , which are symbolic/iconographic signs in the anthropological /semiotic sense. Analysis of Stop Sign: The _word_ “stop” is on the sign, so it is a symbolic sign. Words are arbitrarily related to their meaning. The sign is colored red. This also means stop, in the road symbolic system wherein , red means stop, green means go, and yellow means caution. The colors are symbolic signs. So , the stop sign has two symbolic messages. The word “stop” is actually an abbreviation for a fuller command like ,” stop and then continue on after making sure there is no vehicle going intersecting your path.” Many road signs are abbreviation. Analysis of raining and wet pavement _indexical_ sign: Wet pavement is an indexical sign of the potential hazard of sliding: it is a warning. There is a necessary, not arbitrary , connection between the sign and the thing signified. Humans did not put “wet road” and “potential crash hazard” together. Nature, physics did. A pothole is an indexical sign of another potential hazard, a warning sign of potential damaging a tire. A speeding car is an indexical sign of a potential crash. Analysis of a horn honking: A honking horn is a symbolic sign with multiple potential meanings. It may be directed at you because of a potential collision. It may be directed at you as a greeting. It may be directed at you as a criticism of your driving. It may be directed at someone else. (A honking horn is also an indexical sign of the physical horn making mechanism in the vehicle) Notice language has ambiguity. Indexical signs can be ambiguous or with different degrees of certainty. No parking sign is a symbolic sign of a legal hazard. Iconographic signs A picture of children with books is an iconographic sign. They are often combined with words ; in this case “school children “ A road lane line is a picture directing drivers to stay between the lines . When the lines curve they are a picture of where to drive and so iconographic in a sense. Most of the road signs are _visual_, not sounds or spoken. Science is the discovery of INDEXICAL SIGNS. For example, a fossil is an indexical sign of once living life form. Handout on forms of human society Stone Age / So-called Civilization Stone Age: 1) Sexual _Equity_ or equal status : Division of Labor: foraging labor/childcare labor Egalitarian between adults; Adults/Children is the only hierarchy; no state or standing bodies of armed men as in Civilization. 2) Public or Shared Property; very small toolkit relative to Civilization technology . The land is shared. Foraging , Hunting and gathering, direct appropriation of wild plants and animals, is done socially, not individually. Childcare also done socially, not in “nuclear family”. Nomadic, mobile , temporary settlements . Stone , bone and wood are the hard material out of which technology is made. 3) Ancestor Veneration : Society organized based on Language-Culture-Tradition-Morality passed on from Dead Ancestor Generations. This tradition is passed on orally and in pictures. 4) See Marshall Sahlins’s essay “The Original Affluent Society” on the Comparative Method inference that life in the Stones Age was _not_ nasty, brutish , miserable or starving compared with life in So-called Civilization. Not only that Stone Age didn’t have War or poverty, defined as difficulty in satisfying basic needs and culturally required needs. Quote Sahlins. So-Called Civilization: 1) Male supremacy or unequal status between males and females : however, continuing with same division of labor 2) Males divided into economic classes based on private property. There begins production on a _large scale_ ( larger than in the Neo-lithic) , in the form of planting seeds, cultivation , and domestication of animals . Private property means slaves doing the work, producing surpluses to support the masters , and for trade. This is the origin of trade, commodity production , or production for exchange. 3) Origin of the State, or standing bodies of armed men , who capture slaves and force them to produce the surpluses; and give up them up to ownership of the masters; origin of War. 4) Origin of Cities, large settlements ( Latin root of City is Civis ; thus “Civilization”; monumental architecture ( pyramids and the like); still in stone on a larger scale. 5) Origin of alphabetic Writing 6) Origin of Religion, with _immortal_ individual beings, Gods.