1. The Fragility and the resilience of complex systems 2/21 Watts: Small Worlds Anderson: the Code of the street Harris: the sacred cow of India.

2. Complex systems Social structures illustrate a dynamic that is currently under intense exploration: A structure of mutually reinforcing and mutually inhibiting components has a discontinuous dynamic of expansions and extinctions. Sometimes it is extremely resilient to stress, and sometimes it goes through a catastrophic collapse from an apparently minor stress. Finding the “Achilles heel” of Al Quaeda is like that of destroying KOS in 187. –Destroying the head will probably not do it. –Driving others into alliance with it will not either. –We need to understand its roots and change its environment.

3. Small Worlds as Complex systems Duncan Watts** Duncan Watts** analyzes social networks, power grids, the WWW, epidemics, the Melissa virus, the stock market, biological systems, the brain, etc. as “small worlds”, clusters in netwrorks. Duncan Watts** Small Worlds (1999), Structure and Dynamics of Networks (2002), Six Degrees (2003) –Looking at the architecture by which they are connected –And the dynamics that result. Model: Milgram’s small world experiment

4. An example of small world dynamics We saw that the entire Western portion of the US power grid went down in 1996 when one power line hit one tree. That happens all the time. To deal with that the system searches for alternate routes, searches for alternate sources, and shuts down systems and lines that are overloading. It was those control systems that caused collapse

5. The dynamic of biological extinctions: punctuated equilibria Note that the ecological pattern is one of alternation of periods of relative stability with massive extinctions of different sizes. The particular causes vary; the extinction of the dinosaurs may have been due to a meteor; but that extinction was not even one of the larger ones.

6. Analyzing the dynamic The dynamics of the system would be simple to analyze if: 1.There were few connections so that changing one thing did not affect everything. 2.All the feedbacks were positive, so that any change just proliferated. 3.All the feedbacks were negative, so that the system was a fixed, functional control system But most dynamic systems are complex, like the structure of an authority dealing with several subordinates who do not want to obey.

7. The relations between ideas and social structure Anderson and Harris each show that ideas and culture do not hang in mid air. Both use anthropological participant observation Culture is created and sustained by social relationships. Culture neither changes nor persists by itself. It depends on the persistence or change of the structure on which it is based. It depends on the persistence or change of the structure on which it is based.

8. The dynamics of culture If the problem is not replacing a person in the role, but getting rid of the role, you need to understand the social roots of culture. Sometimes culture changes very fast; and sometimes it resists change every powerfully. Culture is usually a set of small worlds. –E.g. the sacred cow – E.g. the code of the streets.

9. Elijah Anderson: Vice president of ASA 2002 Streetwise: Race, Class and Change in an Urban Community (1990) Code of the Streets: Decency, Violence and Moral Life in the Inner City (1999). Topic of symposium American Journal of Sociology May 2002 ( Entry to the methodological and substantive findings of urban ethnography as possible paper topics)

10. Groups and Norms along Germantown Ave. The head of Germantown Ave. (Chestnut Hill) is very upper class; and the foot is very lower class. *pp. 366-7 shows the same structure of Lancaster Ave. from ghetto poverty to the “main line.” The head is characterized by a norm of civic politeness; the foot by “rep” or “juice.” The head is white; the foot is black. Is this an example of institutional racism?

11. Structures that make the code of the streets crazy in Chestnut Hill Some Chestnut Hill residents see most blacks from down town as very “rude.” Where does that behavior come from? Anderson argues that down town, showing that you are “bad” and that anyone who “messes with you” is “asking for trouble” is adaptive. If you behave that way in Chestnut Hill, people will look at you as though you are crazy, and you may be arrested. Anderson argues it is like a language, a code.

12. Situations and structures making resisting the code of the streets hard at the foot of Germantown Ave. Similarly, if you behave, downtown, in a way that would work and would be appropriate in Chestnut Hill, people will look at you as though you are a turkey, and take advantage of you. But in Chestnut Hill being “nicey-nicey” signals status, class, kindness and character.

13. e.g. #1 The Story of Robert: Small business and Old Heads “When I was dealing, I was treated as a king, and no one messed with me.” “When I follow the rules, I am in a dead end, everyone steals from me and every petty bureaucrat dumps on me.” The view of the “old heads” in Mantua is that they are suckers and pathetic Toms. Why?

14. “Old Heads” In Streetwise Anderson argued that the social disorganization of Mantua stemmed from the loss of status of the “old heads.” i.e. those people who had played by the rules and who had been able to get good jobs in the period 1969-1973, were the “last hired” (in 1969-73); and so they were “first fired” (in 1972-81). Anderson argues that this was not just tough luck for them, but a catastrophe for the community and a disaster for the society. Similar debates concern whether street venders are a crucial role model and escape hatch for urban youth.

15. Why Does the city discourage venders? In the overall structure of power and influence, people like Robert are at the bottom. The city department that issues and enforces vendor licenses is mainly responsive to storeowners that regard Robert as a nuisance. What are the main priorities of the police? Anderson suggests that no one with any power or influences is particularly interested in having Robert succeed; but his success is key to who wins the battle between the “street” and “decency”

16. Example #2: the story of Tyree Tyree’s Grandmother - “decent folk.” The ‘bols’ Tyree’s situation. Tyree’s solution. The Outcome of Tyree’s solution: He is now in a gang, fighting in the street; and hanging around with the worst people.

17. Why doesn’t he “Just Say No” The structure does not insure that every person joins a gang; certainly not with commitment, but –It insures that enough do so that the structure is reproduced. –Those not in a gang, get it from all sides. “Not an option?” Well, not quite. But there is a special role for those who have no group. –They are losers; they are bullied; they are cowards; they are turkeys. The structure of alternatives means that the constrained choices reproduce the structure.

18. How do group and institutional structures get inside one’s head? 1. If you lived at the foot of Germantown Ave. would you join a gang? Why? Or why not? 2. If you were Hindu, would you feel real loathing for cow-killers. Why? or Why not? 3. If you worked at Auschwitz would you gas Jews? Why? or why not?

19. The Persistence of Culture: a third anthropological example Do ideas and cultural systems persist, out of inertia. What are the dynamic structures of persistence? What groups, activities and rewards come into play?

20. Harris’ “Cultural Materialism” Marvin Harris: Cows Wars, Pigs and Witches. Thesis: no element of culture persists without reasons These reasons usually have to do with class, economic and ecological structures. Food (pigs, dogs, cows, people) are exceptionally clear examples.

21. The “sacred cow” of India The cow has been sacred for 2,000 yrs. Only “untouchables” butcher or eat cows; cow-killing produces an even more powerful reaction than murder. Most Indian food is cooked in butter-fat Nearly 100,000,000 foraging cows are everywhere. Even cow dung is used and is treated as pure.

22. Is the sacred cow a “sacred cow?” In the West a “sacred cow” is usually used as an archetype of irrational, hidebound, superstitious traditionalism.

23. The Rockerfeller view Millions of people starve while millions of cows are protected by religious superstition. Avoiding cow-killing is: Avoiding cow-killing is: 1. Inefficient, 2. Wasteful, 3. Superstitious, 4. Traditionalism India needs capitalist agriculture like the US India needs capitalist agriculture like the US

24. Problems with that explanation, according to Harris Millions of Indian villages have destroyed their livelihood. A sustainable economy must preserve the land and the population, unlike the commercial farming that created the dust bowl. Killing a cow creates one feast for one family in the short run, and disaster for the community in the not very long run. Even when a cow is too old to calf and is past milking, it is crucial to the ecology.

25. Harris’ explanation: 700,000,000 tons of cow manure per year are crucial to preventing ecological disaster. The non-cow-owners have a particularly strong motive for saving even an old cow. Unless we look at the social and ecological long run dynamics, we cannot understand present arrangements or suggest reasonable changes. Mixture of functionalism and conflict theory

26. But why make the cow sacred? The cultural rules that preserve the society as a whole – particularly those that require that people act in the public interest – usually take this form. Bargaining over when to kill which cows could never preserve the society. For all cows to be sacred for all Hindus can and did preserve the society. For Harris maintaining the sacred cow is crucial to avoiding famine, ecological disaster and social collapse