As the political consequences of Nazism and the liberal tone of the postwar world proved i

As the political consequences of Nazism and the liberal tone of the postwar

world proved inhospitable to Darwinist thinking, so the disintegration of the

postwar order, the end of traditional leftwing politics, a growing social

conservatism and disillusionment with the idea of social progress has led to its

(5) return. As anthropologist Foley expounded, the history of the twentieth

century has transformed our vision of humanity, leading to a loss of confidence

in the notion that humans may be raised on a taxonomical pedestal above the

swamp of animal brutishness. In deriding any social explanation of human

behavior, and implying that emotions are biologically shaped, hence universal,

(10) scientists have come to odds with cultural anthropologists, who ridicule any

biological interpretation of human behavior. and view humans in strictly cultural

terms.

There is convincing evidence that the anthropologists are correct, for even

something as fundamental as an emotion is far more than simply an evolutionary

(15) trait, given that only some emotions--anger, disgust, sadness, enjoyment and

fear--are known to be universal, while others, such as jealousy and envy, vary

in their expression and are arguably not emotions at all. Even emotions known

to be universal cannot be regarded as simply "natural", given that the evocation

of a particular emotion is both culturally and historically specific. The

(20) connotation of anger or sadness and the elicitors of these emotions may vary

across cultures and throughout human history. There are also culturally bound

"display rules", often unconscious, which dictate the means or time of

displaying emotion. For instance, Japanese and American students are privately

shown very similar emotions in response to similar stimuli, but their public

(25) expressions are far from identical, a fact that may owe to the Japanese cultural

tendency of remaining demure in public expression.

Even more contentious is the question of what emotions animals possess, of

whether they are aware of such emotions, and of the relationship between

animal responses and human emotions. The way of responding to these debates

(30) depends as much upon one's philosophical inclinations as on the facts: scientists

philosophically disposed to minimize the gap between humans and animals are

more likely to perceive animals as having emotions, as being aware of them,

while those anthropologists who seek an unbridgeable gap between humanity

and lower life forms are likely to see appreciable differences between human

(35) emotions and animal responses. Thus, the scientific idea of the human is not simply an

objective truth, but shaped by wider issues such as the prevailing ideas of progress,

notions of racial difference, and the comprehension of the relationship between Man and

Nature. All that may safely be concluded is that what constitutes a human is not only

innate, but also nurtured.

The author of the passage is primarily concerned with

A．refuting the notion that emotions are socially constructed

B．delineating the difference between relative and universal behavior

C．describing how anthropologists identify emotions in foreign cultures

D．measuring the extent to which emotions can be equated with evolutionary traits

E．comparing how emotions are expressed in various cultures