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Lionel Tiger

Lionel Tiger is a Canadian-born, American-based anthropologist. He is the Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University and co-Research Director of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.

Biography

Born February 5, 1937 in Montreal, Quebec, he is a graduate of McGill University, and the London School of Economics at the University of London, England. He is also a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense on the future of biotechnology. Lionel Tiger lives in New York City, and regularly contributes to mainstream media such as Psychology Today and The New York Times.

Tiger started his path towards his later career with his study on the decolonization of Africa. While in Ghana and Nigeria on a summer fellowship, he studied Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first postcolonial president. Tiger wanted to find out if a theory that Max Weber had about the "routinization of charisma" would be applicable in the political realm of Ghana. While researching, he was inspired by Weber's questions and new discoveries in Africa by Raymond Dart and Lewis Leaky. Along with other studies that were being conducted at the time, including the discovery of DNA and that of research of primates in the wild, Tiger was inspired to do his own research on the human species, mainly that of males and the way they interact with one another. Since he noticed that primates and other animals in the wild created their own social structures between males and females (thanks to research conducted by Jane Goodall, Desmond Morris and Irven DeVore), he wanted to see if there was a biological connection to social constructs. Tiger was fighting against the thought that "only humans displayed ongoing and intelligent agency...". He teamed up with Robin Fox to write Men in Groups (1969) and is credited with coining the term "male-bonding." He argued that the bonds between males were just as important as those between males and females. In his book Men in Groups he introduced his hypothesis that there was an "evolutionary basis of the cross-cultural regularity of male bonds and groups." The book put Dr. Tiger in the headlines, some good and some bad. After writing Men in Groups he went on to continue his research, bringing forward controversial concepts in his book The Imperial Animal and Women in the Kibbutz. Once a self declared feminist, Tiger said "it seemed to me that the firmness and pervasiveness of obstacles women faced in human communities were serious indeed." It was this stance that had him in disbelief and dismayed when feminists started to criticize his works. One of his latest works, The Decline of Males has also come under fire for his controversial view of birth control for women.

Works

Some of Tiger's works have included controversial concepts, including the biological origins of social interactions. Tiger published a work, The Imperial Animal, with Robin Fox in 1972, that advocated a 'social carnivore theory' of human evolution.

Tiger has predicted the higher status of women within society, in books such as The Decline of Males and Men in Groups. He has also written books such as The Pursuit of Pleasure, which discussed the concept that evolution has established the biological mechanisms of pleasure and that they have survival origins.

Criticisms

On the whole it is agreeable that Lionel Tiger is a well liked and charismatic man. However, Tiger's works have been considered controversial because of strong claims that have been made in his books. One such claim (in The Decline of Males) is that birth control for women has emasculated men and forever changed the family dynamic. He claims that when women use birth control, they are taking power and choice away from the men in their lives. He also says that with women working outside of the home means that men are earning less and can no longer function as "effective providers." Tiger has received death threats, bomb threats, threats of physical harm and his book The Imperial Animal has been compared to Mein Kampf by Maureen Duffy.

Books

• Tiger, Lionel (1969). Men in Groups. Nelson. ISBN 978-0-17-138007-1.
• Tiger, Lionel; Fox, Robin (1971). The Imperial Animal. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. ISBN 978-0-03-086582-4.
• Tiger, Lionel; Shepher, Joseph (1975). Women in the Kibbutz. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ISBN 978-0-15-198365-0.
• Tiger, Lionel (1979). Optimism: The Biology of Hope. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-22934-4.
• Tiger, Lionel (1987). The Manufacture of Evil: Ethics, Evolution and the Industrial System. Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-06-039070-9.
• Tiger, Lionel (1992). The Pursuit of Pleasure. ISBN 978-0-7658-0696-3.
• Tiger, Lionel (1999). The Decline of Males. Golden Books. ISBN 978-0-312-26311-9.
• Tiger, Lionel; McGuire, Michael T. (2010). God's Brain. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-61614-164-6.

External links

• Rutgers biography

Category:1937 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century Canadian non-fiction writers Category:20th-century Canadian male writers Category:21st-century Canadian non-fiction writers Category:20th-century Canadian scientists Category:21st-century Canadian scientists Category:Academics from Montreal Category:Academics from New York (state) Category:Alumni of the London School of Economics Category:Canadian anthropologists Category:Canadian expatriate academics in the United Kingdom Category:Canadian expatriate academics in the United States Category:McGill University alumni Category:Scientists from Montreal Category:Scientists from New York City Category:Writers from Montreal Category:Writers from New York City Category:Rutgers University faculty Category:Canadian expatriate writers Category:American anthropologists Category:20th-century American scientists Category:21st-century American scientists Category:20th-century American essayists Category:20th-century American male writers Category:21st-century Canadian male writers Category:21st-century American essayists Category:21st-century American male writers Category:Canadian male non-fiction writers