Philip Carl Salzman

Philip Carl Salzman is professor of anthropology at McGill University.

Salzman received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1972. He has done field research among pastoral peoples, in Baluchistan (Iran), Rajasthan (India), and Sardinia (Italy).

He has a particular interest in the study of social change, and in "the ways in which particular groups have transformed over time." Perceiving change as "part of social organization rather than extraneous to it."

Salzman is drawing attention for his book Culture and Conflict in the Middle East.

He applies his expertise in the study of tribal societies to contemporary conflicts. He demonstrates "how the dual pattern of tribal self-rule and tyrannical centralism continues to define life in the Middle East, and using it to explain the region's most characteristic features, such as , political mercilessness, and economic stagnancy. It accounts [...] for [...] Islam's 'bloody borders' - the widespread hostility toward non-Muslims."

"The Arab Middle East has remained largely a pre-modern society, governed by clan relationships and violent coercion. People... tend to trust only their relatives, and then only relative to their degree of closeness... A pervasive cult of honour requires that people support their own groups, violently if necessary, when conflict arises.

"What is missing in the Arab Middle East are the cultural tools for building an inclusive and united state. The cultural glue of the West and other successful modern societies --consisting of the rule of law and constitutionalism, which serve to regulate competition among unrelated groups -- is absent in the Arab world. The frame of reference in a tribalized society is always "my group vs. the other group." This system of "balanced opposition" is the structural alternative that stands in stubborn opposition to Western constitutionalism [...] Islam [...] has failed as a political organizing principle.."

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