I’m currently reading Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature which, 100 pages in, seems more or less an extended polemic aimed at those who want to ignore or refute or minimize the genetic component of Human Nature. Since I take Pinker very seriously I’ll probably write more about this when I’m finished, but I have to share this list that he talks about and then helpfully includes, of Human Universals, from Donald E. Brown, of whom I know nothing. Brown devised this list in 1989. If there is such a thing as Human Nature, this list is all about it.
The complete citation is Brown, D.E. 1991 Human Universals. New York: McGraw-Hill., and it it also appeared in N. Roughley (ed.) Being Human: Anthropological universality and particularity in transdisciplinary perspectives. The idea is that these have showed up in every human culture that anthropologists have ever looked at. I’ll pick one or two from each letter of the alphabet to the extent possible; some letters are missing or very thin. If you like these, there are lots more (400 or so).
actions under self-control distinguished from those not under control
baby talk
copulation normally conducted in privacy
division of labor by sex
economic inequalities, consciousness of
facial expressions, masking/modifying of
government
grammar
hairstyles
inheritance rules
jokes
kin, close distinguished from distant
language, prestige from proficient use of
males more prone to lethal violence
meal times
music
overestimating objectivity of thought
poetic lines demarcated by pauses
private inner life
rape proscribed
snakes, wariness around
sweets preferred
taxonomy
tools to make tools
And in late-breaking additions to the list since 1989 we find:
husband older than wife on average
proverbs, sayings
resistance to abuse of power, to dominance
thumb sucking
tickling
