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Sociology Of Primitive Thought, James Acheson

Senior Scholar Papers

The object of this paper was to explore the relationships that exist between ideas and other elements of the social systems of primitive peoples. Taking a clue from sociologists of knowledge, who are especially concerned with the problem of ideology, I began my exploration of primitive thought by searching for primitive ideology. An ideology might be defined as a conscious deliberate attempt by one group of people to take advantage of another group by the manipulation of ideas. It soon became apparent that primitives had nothing comparable to ideology in this sense, save for perhaps the Aztecs. The question then …