How the past has shaped our behavior

From Ernest A. Vargas' article Cultural Contingencies: A Review of Marvin Harris's Cannibals and Kings.

We want and require a determination of the future in which we are aware of what might happen. In practical terms this means simply that we can tell ourselves the possible consequences of our actions prior to their occurring. In this way we come under current control of what could be said to be verbal surrogates of the future.

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Harris, too, believes in the potential importance of verbal behavior: "To change the world in a conscious way one must first have a conscious understanding of what the world is like (p. 194)."

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In short, we can design our future if we know how the past has shaped our behavior and the present controls it.