Mark A. Schneider

Olfactory sexual inhibition and the Westermarck effect

The Westermarck effect (sexual inhibition among individuals raised together) is argued to be mediated olfactorily. Various animals, including humans, distinguish among individuals by scent (significantly determined by MHC genotype), and some avoid cosocialized associates on this basis. Possible models of olfactory mechanisms in humans are evaluated. Evidence suggests aversions develop during an early sensitizing period, attach to persons as much as to their scents, and are more powerful among females than among males. Adult to child aversions may develop similarly, but more likely result from stimulus generalization. This hypothesis accords with current evidence and yields testable predictions (e.g., anosmia will prevent inhibition) that, should they be supported, will conclusively ground the Westermarck effect in a biological mechanism.

Assumptions on Sex and Society in the Biosocial Theory of Incest

The biosocial theory of incest holds that the universal aspect of the taboo grows from innate sexual inhibitions triggered by intimacy in early childhood relationships everywhere. Much evidence suggests that this sexual inhibition does occur. However, the theory contains problematic assumptions that either interfere with the logic of the theory or are empirically questionable. We suggest that more attention to variation in early intimacy, sexual inhibitions, and taboos is needed for further development of the theory. We discuss sibling marriage in Egypt to suggest how research might be more fruitful if it were centered on variation in this way.

Knowledge as Culture: The New Sociology of Knowledge

Drawing on the Marxist, French structuralist and American pragmatist traditions, this is a lively and accessible introduction to the sociology of knowledge.

Sociology on Culture

argues that humans in all times and places use goods to objectify their social relations and create the common meanings that make social life possible. He further posits that the cognitive search for the uncanny, not corporate manipulation, predisposes humans to seek out new things when familiarity erodes the mystery of old ones. While this cognitive approach illuminates some aspects of consumer products, it obscures the structural and historical aspects of societies that affect goods. Molotch illustrates his points with examples from a broad range of societies, from hunting-and-gathering tribes to postindustrial capitalist nations, without recognizing that goods might have different meanings in societies structured so differently. He ignores the early works of Roland Barthes and Jean Baudrillard, which reveal how the semiotics of material culture are profoundly transformed by the historical rise of commodity-producing societies. But most important, he ignores the pioneering work of Pierre Bourdieu, whose extensive research demonstrates that the cognitive categories through which people perceive the world, including consumer goods, are not universal but differentially shaped by positions in the hierarchical structures of resource distribution. Without attention to the influence of social structure on the meanings of goods, Molotch’s findings, however illuminating, are limited. His chapter on industrial designers, for example, is revealing, giving us an intimate peek into the independent studios where many goods are designed. But his ahistorical, micro focus neglects the corporate power structure that constrains the design process, and also obscures the fact that the very existence of this profession resulted from the deskilling of workers in early capitalism and the resultant split of the unitary labor process split into the separate tasks of conception and execution. Molotch’s discussion of the false dichotomy between the form and function of products is also insightful, convincingly showing that aesthetic form and its sensual pleasure often drive the invention of functional goods. But this does not change the structural fact that in capitalist societies the aesthetics of goods are secondary to and contingent upon their function as profit-generating commodities. This, incidentally, is the argument of the Frankfurt School: not, as Molotch holds, that the aesthetic pleasures of consumption are an irrational detraction from production, but that the rationality of capitalist production reduces aesthetics to an instrument of profit and prevents an authentic aesthetic society of pleasure from emerging. Perhaps the most original and insightful chapter is on place in products, which draws on Molotch’s work on urban dynamics to reveal how certain products become associated with particular places. But the discussion of corporations that follows disappoints. While promising to address macro issues, it ultimately reduces the hard reality of corporate structure to the narratives of micro interaction, and neglects the important work on corporate structure and the production of culture by Richard Peterson and Paul Dimaggio. Molotch concludes with suggestions for reforming product design in order to combat the racism, sexism, wasteism, and global inequalities of consumption. His suggestions are reasonable, especially the call for regulating the initial design rather than subsequent consumption of products. But even he recognizes the structural obstacles to such reforms. Trying to change the world through changing the design of commodities is like trying to push a locomotive with a string. We need more analysis of the macro structures that prevent changing our goods for the better. Hopefully, Molotch’s engaging book will stimulate such sociological research in this neglected but crucial area.

SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF EPISTEMOLOGICAL DISPUTES: The Case of Literary Theory

Epistemological reflection has been a major source of innovation in the human sciences while having very little influence on the arts or sciences. This variation is explained using a sociological framework emphasizing the organizational forms that underpin or are implicit in epistemological positions. The fine arts and the harder sciences are, respectively, too weakly and too strongly organized to be open to epistemological influence. By contrast, the human sciences might plausibly be organized either more loosely or more tightly, and epistemological argument is used in part to urge movement in one or the other direction. This perspective is applied to the academic study of literature both historically and in relation to a current epistemological dispute between realist and relativist scholars. The argument is unresolvable in practice, it is argued, because of constraints on scholarly interpretation set by consumers. Parallels are drawn with circumstances in sociology.