Philip Carl Salzman


Philip Carl Salzman is professor of anthropology at McGill University.

Research

Salzman received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1972. He has done field research among pastoral peoples, in Baluchistan, Rajasthan, and Sardinia.
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 autocracy, 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.."
David Brooks describes Salzman's work as arguing that, "many Middle Eastern societies are tribal. The most salient structure is the local lineage group. National leaders do not make giant sacrifices on behalf of the nation because their higher loyalty is to the sect or clan. Order is achieved not by the top-down imposition of abstract law. Instead, order is achieved through fluid balance of power agreements between local groups."

Public reception

calls Culture and Conflict in the Middle East "a major event: the most penetrating, reliable, systematic, and theoretically sophisticated effort yet made to understand the Islamist challenge the United States is facing in cultural terms."

Publications

Books