ANTB19H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Primitive Culture, Aryan Nations, Cosmogony
Document Summary
The theory of human degradation to explain the existence of savages and of barbarians is no longer tenable. It came in as a corollary from the mosaic cosmogony, and was acquiesced in from a supposed necessity which no longer exists. As a theory, it is not only in capable of explaining the existence of savages, but it is without support in the facts of human experience. The remote ancestors of the aryan nations presumptively passed through an experience similar to that of existing barbarous and savage tribes. In this passage by morgan he states that human degradation can no longer explain the existence of barbarianism or savages. The theory of human degradation, holds that the religion and the way of life by remote cultures are to be considered shameful, humiliating, or in other being less than or a primitive culture. Morgan explains that a theory as such to describe a group does not take into consideration the human experience.