The Human is More than Human - Cultural Anthropology

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scientist stomps his wading boots); when the danger passes, the animated algae, the green worms then reemerge into the sunlight. The “planimal” is fed by the green building of its body, the living architecture that it gardens and which feeds it from within. It seems unlikely that any cosmic deity arranged for the partners that are C. roscoffensis to come together but they did, partially of their own accord, and they probably would have looked odd anyway on Noah'ʹs Ark. Identifiable new behaviors, combined skills and physiologies, and even multigenome personalities also affect us. Human gut microbiota are not simply hangers-‐‑on but influence the timing of maturation of our intestinal cells, our internal nutrient supplies and distribution, our blood vessel growth, our immune systems, and the levels of cholesterol and other lipids in our blood (Brown 2010). They also—partly because of the presence of neurons in the mammalian intestinal tract, and the communication between gut and brain—influence human mood. Lab work with Campylobacter jejuni shows that this bacterium increases increased anxiety in mice, whereas the soil bacterium Mycobacterium vacca inside them cheers them up. In people it has been suggested that yogurt with live cultures, for example with bifidobacteria, improves our sense of well being. Toxo Toxoplasma gondi is a protist notorious for infecting pregnant mothers who may contract it from kitty litter. From the mother Toxoplasma moves to the fetus, often devouring it and leading to a miscarriage. Toxoplasma gondi sexually reproduces in bodies of members of the Felidae family, notably house cats. But mice, usually afraid of cats, lose their fear when their brains become infected with Toxoplasma. Also, and curiously, they become sexually attracted to feline urine. Toxoplasma also infects large numbers of humans. Even though a possessor of Toxo may not know it'ʹs there, he or she can be affected by it. Toxoplasma infection in men correlates with enhanced risk-‐‑taking and jealousy. An index of the risk-‐‑taking behavior is provided by the fact that males in car and motorcycle accidents are more likely to test Toxoplasma-‐‑positive (e.g., Flegr et al 2009). Toxo-‐‑men are more likely to be unfriendly, unsociable, and withdrawn. Even if bereft of obvious symptoms, men who carry Toxoplasma are less likely, relative to controls, to be found attractive to women. Women are another story. Women with Toxoplasma are more likely to be judged outgoing, friendly, and conscientious—and promiscuous. There is of course the complication of the stereotype of the woman in the house who lives alone with all the cats. The caricature of such a woman is not of someone outgoing. Perhaps Toxo'ʹs effects alter with age. However confounding, Toxo'ʹs effects seem real. Toxoplasma makes enzymes 6
(tyrosine hydroxylase, phenylalanine hydroxylase) that alter brain levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter involved in attention, sociability, and sleep. Cocaine and amphetamines work in large part by blocking the reuptake of dopamine in the brain. Dysfunctional dopamine regulation is theorized to be linked to schizophrenia, and several antipsychotic drugs target dopamine receptors. Up to a third of the world population is thought to be infected with Toxo, with an estimated infection rate of almost 90 percent in France. We have other “inner aliens.” Candida albicans is the yeast fungus which causes vaginal infections and perlèche, a cracking at the corners of the lips. It thrives on easily digestible sugars and carbs such as found in beer, wine, cracker crumbs and confections. It was perhaps spread among the wine-‐‑drinking revelers of Provencal, troubadours who sang and jested, and who may have used makeup as a way to cover cracked lips that literally hurt when they smiled. (Sagan and Margulis, 2005) Spirochetes are a stranger case still. Disease species cause Lyme disease and syphilis, and perhaps other conditions. Spirochetes can go into hiding and form “round bodies,” becoming virtually undetectable in cells. Nietzsche and others are thought to have infected by syphilis, whose “tertiary stage” is sometimes marked by a strange clarity of expression and artistic genius as well as madness. 2: Whitehead on Facts I have talked about how the “facts” of symbiogenesis can in some sense be considered superior to the theory of neoDarwinism. But since I am speaking about scientific facts to anthropologists I should probably be careful, as there is always the possibility that I am projecting cultural ideas onto the data, and that all that we see or seem is but a culturally refracted dream. According to A. N. Whitehead (1962[1925]), science is the bastard offspring of “irreducible and stubborn facts” (p 10) and the Greek genius for lucid theorizing. Whitehead argues that, far from mental gymnastics, an “anti-‐‑intellectualist” (p 15) strain was crucial for science'ʹs development—to protect it from the insular hyper conceptualization of mere academic thought. While the Greeks had developed a remarkable ability to think boldly and clearly, and proceed through precise logic, the medieval scholastics, following Aristotle, expanded reason into a self-‐‑perpetuating empire out of touch with the real world. And the antidote was not more thinking but engagement with the real world. Of course, for natural science engagement did not mean observation of other people, their thoughts or practices, but rather of things and organisms. Whitehead traces this anti-‐‑scholastic attentiveness, which first developed among some Europeans but belongs to anyone who will have it, in part to, of all things, Greek tragedy—whose essence he says is “not unhappiness [but] the remorseless working of things. This inevitableness of destiny . . . This remorseless inevitableness” which in 7
Page 1 and 2: The Human is More than Human: Inter
Page 3 and 4: coming and going, invading pathogen
Page 5: viral DNA (Carter 2010). Some partn
Page 9 and 10: space and slightly reducing the sol
Page 11 and 12: It is a thermodynamic fallacy that
Page 13 and 14: typical of immature thermodynamic l
Page 15: McFall-‐‑Ngai, Margaret, 2011

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