Agustin Fuentes: On Lies
In 2012, Hartwick College welcomed Agustin Fuentes for a public lecture building on his book Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You: Busting Myths about Human Nature. Agustin Fuentes delivers an exciting and engaging lecture, encapsulating and defending the essential lessons of an Introduction to Anthropology. There are many ways to successfully be human.
Agustin Fuentes writes big question, popularly accessible books. Since 2017, Fuentes signed on to produce an Intro-to-Anthropology textbook Anthropology: Asking Questions about Human Origins, Diversity, and Culture.
Defending Introduction to Anthropology
The Fuentes lecture is basically a condensed greatest hits from his book. It is well worth the experience. Students who had read the book praised the lively style and found it especially convincing. Fuentes constantly engages the audience, seamlessly blending pop culture references with the latest scientific study. He tacks between the deepest philosophical concerns of Western thought and anthropological study.
Fuentes conveys what I most want to tackle in a semester-long Introduction to Anthropology course, but all in 45 minutes! We chatted about this topic, lamenting how professors often seem to avoid teaching Introduction to Anthropology. Fuentes, like Sidney Mintz, considers teaching Anthropology 101 to be a “moral responsibility.” We agreed that perhaps part of the problem is the idea that Anthropology 101 is an “introduction,” or a building block course. Really for most students Anthropology 101 is our one chance to convey essential anthropological understandings about human beings.
It reminded me of a comment from anthropologist Richard Shweder:
'things we take for granted as natural, divinely given, logically necessary, or practically indispensable for life in an orderly, safe & decent society are neither natural, divinely given, logically necessary, nor... indispensable'Click To TweetIt would be comforting to believe that the true message of Anthropology 101 is still something we care to defend and to teach:
Many of the things we take for granted as natural, divinely given, logically necessary, or practically indispensable for life in an orderly, safe and decent society are neither natural, divinely given, logically necessary, nor practically indispensable for such life. They are products of a local history, ways of seeing and being in the world that may lend meaning and value to our own form of life but not the only ways to lead a meaningful and valuable life. (Richard Shweder comment on “Cultural Relativism 2.0” by Michael F. Brown)
Indeed, that is the key message from Agustin Fuentes: There is not just one way of being human, not one human nature, but many successful ways of being human, the naturenurtural.
Three Big Lies: Race, Aggression, Sex
Agustín Fuentes addresses myths that we are divided into biological races, that we are naturally aggressive and warlike, and that men and women are radically different in their neurological wiring, desires and behavior. Presenting scientific evidence from diverse fields including anthropology, biology, and psychology, Fuentes dismantles persistent fallacies about the validity of biological races, innateness of aggression and violence, nature of monogamy and differences between sexes.
I use Agustín Fuentes for the section on Human Biologies and the Biocultural Naturenurtural. Fuentes is a one-two punch with Jonathan Marks for biological anthropology.
Fuentes has blogged for Psychology Today, Busting Myths About Human Nature, and for the Huffington Post. His 2019 book is Why We Believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being
To cite: Antrosio, Jason. 2012. “Agustin Fuentes as Introduction to Anthropology: Race, Monogamy and Other Lies.” Living Anthropologically website, https://www.livinganthropologically.com/agustin-fuentes-race-monogamy-lies/. First posted 30 October 2012. Revised 30 May 2021.