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o'iio 


The 

Collected  Works 

of 

Edward  Sapir 

III 


w 

DE 

G 


The  (\illccted  Works  o(  Edward  Sapir 
Editorial  Board 

Philip  Sapir 
Editor-in-Chief 

William  Bright 

Regna  Darnell 

Victor  Golla 

Eric  P.  Hamp 

Richard  Handler 

Judith  T.  Irvine 

Pierre  Swiggers 


The 

Collected  Works 

of 

Edward  Sapir 

III 

Culture 

Volume  Editors 
Sections  I  and  III 

Regna  Darnell 
Judith  T.  Irvine 

Section  II 

Judith  T.  Irvine 

Section  IV  and  V 

Richard  Handler 


1999 

Mouton  de  Gruyter 

Berlin  •  New  York 


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rmcrlv  Vlouton,  Ihc  Hague) 

Jc  Cir'uvicr  timbH  &  Co.  KG.  Berlin. 


,  Pnn,cd  on  acd-lrcc  paper  .  h.ch  falls  w.thm  the  guidelines  of  the  ANSI  to  ensure  permanence 
dnd  durjbihtN 


lihrarv  of  Congress  Cataloging-m-Puhlication-Data 


Sapir.  Edward.  1884-1939 

Culture  /  \olume  editors.  Regna  Darnell  ...  [et  al.]. 

p         cm.  -  (The  collected  works  of  Edward  Sapir  ;  3) 

Includes  bibliographical  references  and  index. 

ISBN  3-11-012639-7  (alk.  paper) 

I  Culture.     2.  Cognition  and  cuhure.     3.  Ethnopsychology. 
I  Darnell.   Regna.        II.  Title.        III.  Series:   Sapir,   Edward, 
18*4- 1939.  Works.  1990  ;  3. 
GN357.S27     1999 

30ft    dc:i  98-33370 

CIP 


Drulsche  Bihliothek  -  Cataloging  in  Puhlication  Data 


Sapir,  FUlward: 

(The  collected  works] 

The  collected  works  of  Edward  Sapir  /  ed.  board  Philip  Sapir 

ed  -m-chief  .     -  Berlin  ;  New  York  :  Mouton  de  Gruyter 

ISBN  3-II-0I0I04-1  (Berlin) 

ISBN  0-89925-138-2  (New  York) 

3.  Culture  /  vol.  ed.  Regna  Darnell  ;  Judith  T.  Irvine  -  1999 
ISBN  3-1 1 -01 2639-7 


©  Copyright  1999  by  Walter  de  Gruyter  GmbH  &  Co.  KG,  D- 1 0785  Berlin. 
All  rights  reserved,  including  those  of  translation  into  foreign  languages.  No  part  of  this  book 
may  be  reproduced  or  transmitted  in  any  form  or  by  any  means,  electronic  or  mechanical,  includ- 
mg  photcKopy  recording,  or  any  information  storage  and  retrieval  system,  without  permission  in 
writmg  from  the  publisher. 

Disk  conversion  and  printing:  Arthur  Collignon  GmbH,  Berlin.  -  Binding:  Liideritz  &  Bauer, 
Berlin.  Printed  in  Germany. 


Edward  Sapir,  about  1928,  Chicago,  Illinois 

(Courtesy  of  Sapir  family) 


Edward  Sapir  (1884-1939)  has  been  referred  to  as  "one  of  the 
most  brilliant  scholars  in  linguistics  and  anthropology  in  our  coun- 
try" (Franz  Boas)  and  as  "one  of  the  greatest  figures  in  American 
humanistic  scholarship"  (Franklin  Edgerton).  His  classic  book.  Lan- 
guage (1921),  is  still  in  use,  and  many  of  his  papers  in  general  linguis- 
tics, such  as  "Sound  Patterns  in  Language"  and  "The  Psychological 
Reality  of  Phonemes,"  stand  also  as  classics.  The  development  of  the 
American  descriptive  school  of  structural  linguistics,  including  the 
adoption  of  phonemic  principles  in  the  study  of  non-literary  lan- 
guages, was  primarily  due  to  him. 

The  large  body  of  work  he  carried  out  on  Native  American  lan- 
guages has  been  called  "ground-breaking"  and  "monumental"  and 
includes  descriptive,  historical,  and  comparative  studies.  They  are  of 
continuing  importance  and  relevance  to  today's  scholars. 

Not  to  be  ignored  are  his  studies  in  Indo-European,  Semitic,  and 
African  languages,  which  have  been  characterized  as  "masterpieces 
of  brilliant  association"  (Zellig  Harris).  Further,  he  is  recognized  as 
a  forefather  of  ethnolinguistic  and  sociolinguistic  studies. 

In  anthropology  Sapir  contributed  the  classic  statement  on  the  the- 
ory and  methodology  of  the  American  school  of  Franz  Boas  in  his 
monograph,  "Time  Perspective  in  Aboriginal  American  Culture" 
(1916).  His  major  contribution,  however,  was  as  a  pioneer  and  pro- 
ponent for  studies  on  the  interrelation  of  culture  and  personality,  of 
society  and  the  individual,  providing  the  theoretical  basis  for  what  is 
known  today  as  symbolic  anthropology. 

He  was,  in  addition,  a  poet,  and  contributed  papers  on  aesthetics, 
literature,  music,  and  social  criticism. 


Note  to  the  Reader 


ThrouglKHii  Ihc  Collected  Works  of  Edward  Sapir,  those  publications 
whose  typographic  complexity  would  have  made  new  typesetting  and 
proofreading  ditVicult  have  been  photographically  reproduced.  All  other 
material  has  been  newly  typeset.  When  possible,  the  editors  have 
worked  from  Sapir's  personal  copies  of  his  published  work,  incorporat- 
ing his  corrections  and  additions  into  the  reset  text.  Such  emendations 
are  acknowledged  in  the  endnotes.  Where  the  editors  themselves  have 
corrected  an  obvious  typographical  error,  this  is  noted  by  brackets 
around  the  corrected  form. 

The  page  numbers  of  the  original  publication  are  retained  in  the 
photographically  reproduced  material;  in  reset  material,  the  original 
publication's  pagination  appears  as  bracketed  numbers  within  the  text 
at  the  point  where  the  original  page  break  occurred.  To  avoid  confusion 
and  to  conform  to  the  existing  literature,  the  page  numbers  cited  in 
introductions  and  editorial  notes  are  those  of  the  original  publications. 

Footnotes  which  appeared  in  the  original  publications  appear  here  as 
footnotes.  Editorial  notes  appear  as  endnotes.  Endnote  numbers  are 
placed  in  the  margins  of  photographically  reproduced  material;  in  reset 
material  they  are  inserted  in  the  text  as  superscript  numbers  in  brackets. 
The  Tirst,  unnumbered  endnote  for  each  work  contains  the  citation  of 
the  original  publication  and,  where  appropriate,  an  acknowledgment  of 
permission  to  reprint  the  work  here. 

All  citations  of  Sapir's  works  in  the  editorial  matter  throughout  these 
volumes  conform  to  the  master  bibliography  that  appears  in  Volume 
XVI;  since  not  all  works  will  be  cited  in  any  given  volume,  the  letters 
following  the  dates  are  discontinuous  within  a  single  volume's  refer- 
ences. In  volumes  where  unpublished  materials  by  Sapir  have  been 
cited,  a  list  of  the  items  cited  and  the  archives  holding  them  is  appended 
to  the  References. 


Contents 

Frontispiece:  Edward  Sapir,  about  1928 6 

Preface 15 

Section  One:  Culture,  Society,  and  the  Individual 
REGNA  DARNELL  AND  JUDITH  T.  IRVINE,  EDITORS 

Introduction 19 

Do  We  Need  a  "Superorganic"?  (1917) 27 

Culture,  Genuine  and  Spurious  (1924) 43 

Notes  on  Psychological  Orientation  in  a  Given  Society  (1926): 

Hanover  Conference  Presentation  and  excerpts  of  discussion  73 

Anthropology  and  Sociology  (1927) 99 

Speech  as  a  Personality  Trait  (1927) 119 

The  Meaning  of  Religion  (1928) 133 

Proceedings,  First  Colloquium  on  Personality,  American  Psychi- 
atric Association  (1928) 147 

The  Unconscious  Patterning  of  Behavior  in  Society  (1928)  ....  155 
Proceedings,  Second  Colloquium  on  Personality,  American  Ps\- 

chiatric  Association  (1930) 173 

The  Cultural  Approach  to  the  Study  of  Personality  ( 1930): 

Hanover  Conference  presentation  and  excerpts  of  discussion  1 99 
Original  Memorandum  to  the  Social  Science  Research  C  ouiicil  243 
A  Project  for  the  Study  of  Acculturation  among  the  American 
Indians,  with  Special  Reference  to  the  Investigation  o(  Prob- 
lems of  Personality 246 

The  Proposed  Work   of  the  Committee  on   Pcrsonalii>    and 

Culture    249 

Custom  (1931) 255 

Fashion  (1931) 265 

Cultural  Anthropology  and  Psychiatry  (1932) 277 


10  ///   Oil  lure 

Group  (1932)    293 

The  l-mcrgcncc  o\~  the  Concept  o(  Personality  in  a  Study  of 

Cultures"!  1934) 303 

Personality  (1934)    313 

S>mbolism  (1934)    319 

Extracts  from  the  Proceedings  of  the  Conference  on  Personality 

and  Culture  (1935)   .  .  .  .  ^ 327 

Suniniar\  o\'  proceedings  and  excerpts  of  discussion,  1935  .  .  .  328 

Extracts  from  the  minutes,   1936  and  1938  meetings  of  the 
C\^mmitlee  on  Personality  in  Relation  to  Culture 332 

The  Application  of  Anthropology  to  Human  Relations  (1936)  .  .      335 

The  Contribution  of  Psychiatry  to  an  Understanding  of  Behavior 
in  Society  (1937) 343 

\Mi>  Cultural  Anthropology  Needs  the  Psychiatrist  (1938)  ....      353 

Letter  to  Philip  S.  Selznick,  25  October  1938  (1980) 363 

Psychiatric  and  Cultural  Pitfalls  in  the  Business  of  Getting  a 
Living  (1939) 367 

References.  Section  One 381 

Shction  Two:  The  Psychology  of  Culture 
JUDITH  I    IRVINE,  EDITOR 

Acknowledgements 387 

Introduction 3g9 

Outlme  for  I'/w  Psychology  of  Culture  {\92^) 413 

The  Psychology  of  Culture  (1927-37) 421 

References,  Section  Two 579 

Section  Thru;:  Assessments  of  Psychology  and  Psychiatry 
REGNA  DARNELL  AND  JUDITH  T  IRVINE,  EDITORS 

Introduction /-^^ 

A  Freudian  Half-Holiday:  Review  of  Sigmund  Freud,  Delusion 

ami  Dream  (1917) ^qc 


Contents  11 

Psychoanalysis  as  PathUndcr:  Review  of  Oskar  Pfister.  The  Psy- 
choanalytic Method  (\9\1)    699 

A  Touchstone  to  Freud:  Review  of  William  \\.  R.  Rivers.  Instinct 

and  the  Unconscious  (1921) 704 

Practical  Psychology:  Review  of  Frederick  Pierce,  Our  Lucon- 
scious  Mind  and  How  to  Use  It  {\922)    708 

An   Orthodox   Psychology:    Review   of  Robert   S.  Woodworth. 
Psychology  (1922) 711 

Two  Kinds  of  Human  Beings:  Review  of  Carl  G.  Jung,  Psycho- 
logical Types  {\92?>) 714 

Review  of  George  A.  Dorsey,  Why  We  Behave  Like  Human  Be- 
ings {\926) 719 

Review  of  Knight  Dunlap,  Old  and  New  Viewpoints  In  Psychology 
(1926) '.....'.      720 

Speech  and  Verbal  Thought  in  Childhood:  Review  of  Jean  Piaget. 
The  Language  and  Thought  of  the  Child  {\921) 722 

Psychoanalysis  as  Prophet:  Review  of  Sigmund  Freud,  The  Future 
of  an  Illusion  (1928 725 

References,  Section  Three 727 


Section  Four:  Reflections  on  Contemporary  Civilization 
RICHARD  HANDLER,  EDITOR 

Introduction  to  Sections  Four  and  Five:  Edward  Sapir's  Aesthetic 
and  Cultural  Criticism 731 

Culture  in  the  Melting  Pot  (1916) 749 

Review  of  Paul  Abelson,  English-Yiddish  Encyclopedic  Dictionary 
(1916) 753 

God  as  Visible  Personality:  Review  of  Samuel  Butler,  (iiul  the 

Known  and  God  the  Unknowtt  (1918)    756 

The  Ends  of  Man:  Review  of  J.  M.  Tyler,  The  \cw  Stone  Age  in 
Northern  Europe;  Stewart  Paton,  Human  Behavior:  and  E.  G. 
Conklin.  Hw  Direction  of  Ilunuin  Evolution  (1921) 760 


12  ///   Culture 

Review  of  Gilbert  Murray,  Tnulitkm  and  Progress  (1922) 766 

The  Epos  o'(  Man:  Rc\  lew  of  Johannes  V.  Jensen,  The  Long  Jour- 
ney {\')2})  '76'7 

Racial  Superiority  (1^)24) 770 

Arc  the  Nordics  a  Superior  Race?  (1925) 784 

Let  Race  Alone  (1^)25) 787 

L  ndesirables       Klanned  or  Banned  (1925) 794 

The  Race  Problem:  Review  of  F.  G.  Crookshank,  The  Mongol  in 
Our  Midsi:  H.  W.  Siemens,  Raee  Hygiene  and  Heredity;  Jean 
I-inot,  Race  Prejudice;  and  J.  H.  Oldham,  Christianity  and  the 
Race  Problem  {\925) 799 

Is  Monotheism  Jewish?  Review  of  Paul  Radin,  Monotheism 
among  Primiti\e  Peoples  (1925) 804 

Review  o^  Ludwig  Lewisohn,  Israel  (1926) 810 

A  Reasonable  Eugenist:  Review  of  F.  H.  Hankins,  The  Racial 
Basis  of  Civilization  (1927) 816 

Observations  on  the  Sex  Problem  in  America  (1928;  also  pub- 
lished as  The  Discipline  of  Sex,  1929,  1930) 818 

Review  of  Waldo  Frank,  The  Rediscovery  of  America  (1929)  .  .  .      833 

What  is  the  Family  Still  Good  For?  (1929;  also  pubhshed  1930)       835 

Franz  Boas:  Review  of  Franz  Boas,  Anthropology  and  Modern 
Life  (\929) 845 

The  Skepticism  of  Bertrand  Russell:  Review  of  Bertrand  Russell, 

Sceptical  Essays  (1929)    847 

Two  Philosophers  on  What  Matters:  Review  of  F.  C.  S.  Schiller, 
Tantalus,  or  the  Future  of  Man,  and  Bertrand  Russell,  How  to 
Be  Free  and  Happy  (n.d.,  circa  1929) 850 

Review  of  M.  E.  DeWitt,  Our  Oral  Word  as  Social  and  Economic 

Factor  (1929) 353 

Our  Business  Civilization:  Review  of  James  Truslow  Adams,  Our 
Business  Civilization  (1930) 855 

Review  of  Thurman  W.  Arnold,  The  FoMore  of  Capitalism  (1938)      858 

Appendix:  John  Dewey,  "American  Education  and  Culture" 
^'916) 863 


Contents  1 3 

Section  Five:  Aesthetics 
RICHARD  HANDLER,  EDITOR 

Percy  Grainger  and  Primitive  Music  (1916)    867 

Literary  Realism  (1917) 876 

Realism  in  Prose  Fiction  (1917) 880 

The  Twilight  of  Rhyme  (1917) 886 

"Jean-Christophe":  An  Epic  of  Humanity:  Review  of  Romain 

Rolland,  Jean-Christophe  (1917) 891 

A  Frigid  Introduction  to  Strauss:  Review  of  Henry  T.  Finck, 

Richard  Strauss,  the  Man  and  His  Works  (1917) 898 

Representative  Music  (1918)    902 

Sancho  Panza  on  His  Island:  Review  of  G.  K.  Chesterton,  Uto- 
pias of  Usurers  and  Other  Essays  (1918) 909 

A  Note  on  French  Canadian  Folk-Songs  (1919) 913 

The  Poet  Seer  of  Bengal:  Review  of  Rabindranath  Tagore,  Lover's 

Gift,  Crossing,  Mashi  and  Other  Stories  (1919) 915 

Review  of  Cary  F.  Jacob,  The  Foundations  and  Nature  of  Verse 

(1919) 920 

The  Heuristic  Value  of  Rhyme  (1920) 922 

The  Poetry  Prize  Contest  (1920) 926 

The  Musical  Foundations  of  Verse  (1921) 930 

Maupassant  and  Anatole  France  (1921) 945 

Gerard  Hopkins:  Review  of  Robert  Bridges,  ed..  Poems  of  Gerard 

Manley  Hopkins  (1921) 950 

Writing  as  History  and  as  Style:  Review  of  W.  A.  Mason,  History 

of  the  Art  of  Writing  (1921) 955 

Poems  of  Experience:  Review  of  Edward  Arlington  Robinson, 

Collected  Poems  (1922)    958 

Maxwell  Bodenheim:  Review  of  Maxwell  Bodenheim,  Introducing 

Irony  (1922) 962 

Introducing  Irony:  Review  of  Maxwell  Bodenheim,  I/itroducing 

Irony  {1922) 964 

The  Manner  of  Mr.  Masefield:  Review  of  John  Masefield.  King 

Cole  {\922)    967 

Review  of  John  Masefield,  Esther  and  Berenice  (1922) 970 


14  ///  Culture 

Mr.  Masters'  Later  Work:  Review  of  Edgar  Lee  Masters,  The 

Open  Sea  ( 1 922;  also  published  as  Spoon  River  Muddles,  1 922)      97 1 
Review  of  Edgar  Lee  Masters,   Children  of  the  Market  Place 

(1922) 974 

A  Peep  at  the  Hindu  Spirit:  Review  of  Ellen  C.  Babbitt,  More 

Junika  Tales  (1922) 976 

Heavens:  Review  of  Louis  Untermeyer,  Heavens  (1922) 978 

Review  of  Edward  Thomas,  Collected  Poems  (1922)    980 

Review  of  Arthur  Davison  Ficke,  Mr.  Faust  (1922) 981 

Review  of  George  Saintsbury,  A  Letter  Book  (1922)    982 

Review  of  Selma  Lagerlof,  The  Outcast  (1922) 983 

Review  of  Edwin  Bjorkman,  The  Soul  of  a  Child  (\923) 984 

Mr.  Houseman's  Last  Poems:  Review  of  A.  E.  Houseman,  Last 

Poems  (\92}) 987 

Twelve  Novelists  in  Search  of  a  Reason:  Review  of  The  Novel  of 
Tomorrow  and  the  Scope  of  Fiction,  by  Twelve  American  Novel- 
ists (1924)   991 

.An  American  Poet:  Review  of  H.  D.,  Collected  Poems  (1925)    .  .      998 
Emily  Dickinson,  a  Primitive:  Review  of  Emily  Dickinson,  The 
Complete  Poems  of  Emily  Dickinson,  and  M.  D.  Bianchi,  The 

Life  and  Letters  of  Emily  Dickinson  (1925) 1001 

The  Tragic  Chuckle:  Review  of  Edward  Arlington  Robinson,  Di- 
onysus in  Doubt  (1925) 1007 

Preface  and  Introduction  to  Marius  Barbeau  and  Edward  Sapir, 

Folk  Songs  of  French  Canada  (1925) 1009 

Review  of  Harold  Vinal,  Nor  Youth  nor  Age  (n.d.,  circa  1925)  .  .    1018 

Review  of  Mabel  Simpson,  Poems  (n.d.,  circa  1925) 1020 

Leonie  Adams:  Review  of  Leonie  Adams,  Those  Not  Elect  (1926)     1023 
Review  of  James  Weldon  Johnson,  ed..  The  Book  of  American 
Negro  Spirituals  (1928) 1026 

When  Words  are  Not  Enough:  Review  of  Clarence  Day,  Thoughts 

without  Words  (1928) IO30 

Review  of  Knut  Hamsun,  The  Women  at  the  Pump  (1928)    ....  1032 

References,  Sections  Four  and  Five 1033 


*  *  * 
Index  


1037 


Preface 

Volume  III  of  The  Collected  Works  of  Edward  Scipir  is  divided  into 
five  Sections.  Section  I,  "Culture,  Society,  and  the  Individual,"  edited 
by  Regna  Darnell  and  Judith  T.  Irvine,  contains  Sapir's  essays  on  theo- 
retical and  conceptual  topics  in  cultural  anthropology,  psychology,  and 
other  social  sciences.  Most  of  these  essays  were  published  between  1917, 
the  date  of  the  beginning  of  the  debate  with  Alfred  Kroeber  on  the 
"superorganic,"  and  Sapir's  death  in  1939.  We  are  particularly  pleased, 
however,  to  be  able  to  include  two  major  papers  not  previously  pub- 
lished: Sapir's  presentations  at  the  1926  and  1930  Hanover  Conferences 
sponsored  by  the  Social  Science  Research  Council.  Digests  of  the  con- 
ference discussions,  as  well  as  other  supporting  materials  Sapir  offered 
at  these  meetings,  are  included  together  with  his  conference  pre- 
sentations. 

Section  Two,  "The  Psychology  of  Culture,"  prepared  by  Judith  T.  Ir- 
vine, is  an  edited  version  of  a  book  Sapir  contracted  to  write  but  did 
not  live  to  put  on  paper.  The  manuscript,  a  shorter  edition  of  which 
was  published  by  Mouton  de  Gruyter  in  1993,  was  reconstructed  along 
lines  indicated,  in  part,  by  Sapir's  prospectus  sent  to  Alfred  Harcourt 
in  1928  (q.v.),  and  correspondence  relating  to  the  book.  The  principal 
materials  for  the  reconstruction,  however,  were  student  notes  on  the 
lectures  Sapir  intended  to  be  the  basis  for  his  written  text. 

Section  Three,  "Assessments  of  Psychology  and  Psychiatry,"  edited 
by  Regna  Darnell  and  Judith  T.  Irvine,  contains  reviews  of  books  in 
psychology  and  psychiatry.  Sapir  published  these  reviews  in  the  period 
from  1917  to  1928. 

Sections  Four  and  Five,  "Reflections  on  Contemporary  Civilization" 
and  "Aesthetics,"  have  been  edited  by  Richard  Handler.  Section  Four 
contains  Sapir's  previously-published  essays  and  book  reviews  on  social 
and  political  topics  of  the  day.  Written  primarily  for  a  general  audience, 
they  show  Sapir  taking  a  role  we  might  now  call  that  o'(  the  "public 
intellectual,"  bringing  the  insights  of  anthropology  to  bear  upon  con- 
temporary public  issues.  Also  included  is  one  item,  a  review  of  philo- 
sophical works,  not  previously  published.  Section  Five  contains  essays 
and  reviews  on  music  and  contemporary  literature.  Among  Sapir's 


///   Culture 


works  of  literary  criticism  included  in  this  section  are  a  few  not  pre- 
viously  published. 

The  reader  with  a  special  interest  in  anthropology  should  refer  to 
Volume  1  for  Sapir's  general  studies  touching  on  anthropological  hn- 
guislics,  and  to  Volume  IV  for  his  early  papers  in  ethnology  (including 
the  well-known  "Time  Perspective  in  Aboriginal  American  Culture:  A 
Study  in  Method"  [1916]),  his  essay-length  ethnographic  studies,  his 
reviews  of  ethnological  works  by  his  contemporaries,  and  his  admin- 
istrative reports  as  Chief  Ethnologist  of  the  Anthropological  Division  of 
the  Geological  Survey  of  Canada  (1910-1925).  Sapir's  anthropological 
monographs  and  collections  of  Native  American  texts  appear  in  vol- 
umes VH  through  XV  of  77?^  Collected  Works.  They  include  the 
following  (the  roman  numeral  in  brackets  indicates  the  volume 
number):  Wishram  Texts  and  Wishram  Ethnography  (with  Leslie  Spier) 
(\1I];  Takclma  Texts  [VIII];  Yami  Texts  and  Notes  on  the  Culture  of  the 
Yana  (with  Leslie  Spier)  [IX];  Texts  of  the  Kaibab  Pahites  and  Uintah 
Lies  (Part  11  of  The  Southern  Paiute  Language)  [X];  Nootka  Texts:  Tales 
and  Ethnological  Narratives  with  Grammatical  Notes  and  Lexical  Materi- 
als (with  Morris  Swadesh),  with  a  group  of  previously  unpublished  fam- 
ily origin  legends  [XI];  Native  Accounts  of  Nootka  Ethnography  (with 
Swadesh)  with  an  additional  group  of  unpubHshed  Nootka  texts  [XII]; 
and  Navaho  Texts  (with  Harry  Hoijer)  [XV].  The  previously  unpub- 
lished "Ethnographic  Field  Notes  on  the  Kaibab  Paiute  and  Northern 
Ute,"  edited  by  Catherine  S.  Fowler  and  Robert  C.  Euler,  have  ap- 
peared in  Volume  X  (1992).  Additional  previously  unpubHshed  materi- 
als with  ethnographic  content  will  appear  as  follows:  a  selection  of  Yahi 
texts  [IX];  Kutchin  and  Sarcee  texts  [XIII];  and  Hupa  and  Yurok  texts 
[XIV]. 

The  reader  with  a  special  interest  in  music  should  refer  to  Volume  IV, 
which  includes  Sapir's  papers  and  reviews  in  ethnomusicology,  as  well 
as  a  newly-prepared  presentation  of  his  Southern  Paiute  song  texts  and 
musical  scores  (together  with  a  note  on  the  wax  cylinder  recordings  and 
musical  transcriptions). 

The  editors  wish  to  thank  the  Sapir  family  for  permission  to  quote 
from  unpublished  materials  by  Edward  Sapir  in  their  possession.  The 
Social  Science  Research  Council  gave  permission  to  publish  portions  of 
the  transcripts  of  the  Hanover  Conferences  of  1926  and  1930  We  are 
also  grateful  to  the  archivists  at  the  Bancroft  Library  of  the  University 
of  California  at  Berkeley  for  access  to  the  papers  of  Alfred  L.  Kroeber 
and  Robert  H.  Lowie,  and  to  the  archivists  at  the  National  Museum  of 


Preface  17 


Man,  Ottawa  (now  the  Canadian  Museum  of  Civilization)  for  permis- 
sion to  consult  papers  relating  to  Sapir.  Portions  of  the  final  manuscript 
for  this  volume  were  prepared  for  publication  by  Jane  McGary. 

Additional  acknowledgements  will  be  found  at  the  beginning  of  Sec- 
tion Two  of  this  volume. 


Section  One 
Culture,  society,  and  the  individual 

Regna  Darnell  and  Judith  T.  Irvine,  editors 


Introduction 

Sapir  is  so  well  remembered  for  his  work  in  linguistics  that  his  role 
in  cultural  anthropology,  represented  by  a  much  smaller  number  o\' 
publications,  has  been  overshadowed.  It  is  clear,  however,  that  he  hoped 
to  make  a  major  contribution  to  anthropological  theory  and  to  the 
social  sciences  in  general,  and  that  many  of  his  contemporaries  looked 
to  him  to  do  so.  When  Ruth  Benedict  invited  him  to  address  a  sympo- 
sium on  anthropological  theory  in  1938,  the  invitation  reflected  Sapir's 
reputation  as  cultural  anthropologist,  and  the  increasing  interest  theo- 
retical issues  in  anthropology  and  other  social  sciences  had  come  to 
have  for  him  in  the  preceding  dozen  years.  Unfortunately,  by  1938. 
Sapir  was  too  ill  to  take  up  the  invitation.  Many  of  his  ideas  remained 
unpublished  at  the  time  of  his  death  in  1939.  Although  the  bibliography 
of  his  published  writings  reflects  the  importance  these  subjects  held  for 
him  in  the  late  1920's  and  throughout  the  1930's,  this  output  does  not 
represent  the  sum  of  what  he  had  planned  to  produce. 

For  many  readers  today,  Sapir's  status  as  a  cultural  anthropologist 
probably  rests  on  an  even  smaller  corpus:  the  papers  appearing  in  David 
Mandelbaum's  (1949)  Selected  Writings  of  Edward  Sapir.  We  are  pleased 
to  be  able  to  assemble  a  more  complete  set  of  materials  here,  including 
some  important  items  never  previously  published. 

The  present  volume  contains  all  of  Sapir's  publications,  as  well  as  all 
of  his  recorded  lectures,  not  previously  published,  on  the  concept  o( 
"culture,"  and  on  its  relationship  to  the  individual  as  a  member  of  soci- 
ety. These  works  derive  from  the  second  half  of  his  career,  when  he  was 
less  engaged  in  fieldwork  than  in  earlier  years  and  more  engaged  in 
teaching.  It  was  a  period  in  which  social  scientists  and  other  American 
academics  increasingly  interested  themselves  in  psychology  and  psychia- 
try. These  trends  paralleled  events  in  Sapir's  personal  life  as  well  (see 
Darnell  1990,  Chapter  7).  It  was  a  time,  too,  when  the  Boas  school  o( 
anthropology,  of  which  Sapir  was  without  question  a  core  member. 
began  to  shift  its  focus  from  a  strong  emphasis  on  culture  history  and 
regional  comparisons  toward  the  patterning  of  culture  as  an  integrated 
system  and  the  impact  of  culture  on  the  indi\ idual  personalit\.  I£\en 
the  label  of  the  subdiscipline  changed,  from  "ethnology"  to  "cultural 


-)-> 


///  Culture 


anthropology."  This  volume,  therefore,  assembles  Sapir's  contributions 
to  the  emergence  of  this  cultural  anthropology. 

Sapir's  ethnological  studies  -  which  differed  from  those  of  his  Boa- 
sian  contemporaries  largely  in  their  greater  emphasis  on  indigenous- 
language  labels  for  cultural  concepts  -  date  primarily  from  the  first 
half  of  his  career.  These  studies,  as  well  as  many  of  his  ethnographic 
essays,  may  be  found  in  Volume  IV  {Ethnology)  of  the  Collected  Works 
oi  Edwani  Sapir}  That  volume  also  includes  his  1916  monograph  on 
the  methodology  of  culture-historical  studies,  "Time  Perspective  in  Ab- 
original American  Culture,"  Sapir's  most  important  statement  within 
the  framework  of  early  Boasian  anthropology. 

As  "Time  Perspective"  shows,  Sapir  -  the  paramount  linguist  among 
the  Boasians  -  first  became  a  theoretician  of  culture  within  the  context 
of  historical  inference,  in  which  linguisfic  evidence  loomed  large.  Al- 
though this  essay  includes  much  discussion  of  ethnological  evidence 
considered  in  its  own  right,  Sapir  argued  that  linguisfic  facts,  partly  by 
virtue  of  their  integrafive  formal  framework,  maintain  their  historical 
character  through  diffusional  processes  as  no  other  cultural  facts  do. 
Yet,  his  vision  of  historical  methodology  in  this  essay  broadens  out- 
ward, from  the  specifically  linguistic  work  he  had  recently  been  engaged 
in  (that  is,  especially,  the  effort  to  group  the  languages  of  native  North 
America  into  a  small  number  of  linguistic  stocks),  toward  a  comprehen- 
sive view  of  culture,  within  which  language  is  included.  His  final  com- 
ments, emphasizing  the  psychological  setting  of  cultural  elements  equ- 
ally with  the  geographical,  anficipate  his  later  concerns. 

Although  Sapir  continued  to  pubHsh  ethnographic  reports  after  1916, 
his  interests  soon  expanded  well  beyond  the  description  and  histori- 
cally-motivated comparison  of  North  American  languages  and  cultures. 
The  present  volume  opens  with  his  1917  paper,  "Do  We  Need  the  'Su- 
perorganic'?",  Sapir's  first  statement  on  some  of  the  theoretical  issues 
that  would  occupy  much  of  his  later  work.  This  essay,  responding  to 
Alfred  Kroeber's  paper  of  the  same  year  on  "The  Superorganic,"  repre- 
sents one  pole  of  an  ongoing  debate  within  the  Boasian  school  about 
the  concept  of  culture  and  its  relation  to  the  individual.  Sapir  accepted 
Kroeber's  argument  insofar  as  it  rejected  biological  explanations  for 
cultural  forms.  He  challenged  Kroeber's  cultural  determinism,  however, 
because  it  ignored  the  role  of  the  creative  individual  in  culture  and 
ignored  epistemological  problems  arising  in  cultural  analysis.  These 
themes  recur  again  and  again  in  Sapir's  work  and  permeate  the  writings 
assembled  in  this  volume. 


One:  Culture,  Society,  and  the  Individual  23 

Beginning  with  the  "Superorganic"  paper,  the  section  of  this  volume 
entitled  "Culture,  Society,  and  the  Individual"  includes  all  of  Sapir's 
essay-length  works  in  cultural  anthropology  and  social  psychology  from 
the  1920's  and  1930's.  Two  major  papers,  originally  given  as  conference 
presentations,  are  published  here  for  the  first  time:  "Notes  on  Psycho- 
logical Orientation  in  a  Given  Society"  (1926),  and  "The  Cultural  Ap- 
proach to  the  Study  of  Personality"  (1930).  Also  previously  unpublished 
are  Sapir's  comments  in  discussion  sessions  at  these  conferences;  his 
written  presentations  at  the  1930  meeting;  his  comments  at  the  Confer- 
ence on  Personality  and  Culture  (1935);  and  his  remarks  to  a  meeting 
of  the  Committee  on  Personality  in  Relation  to  Culture  (1938).  It  is 
worth  noting  the  inclusion  of  a  1936  essay,  "The  Application  of  Anthro- 
pology to  Human  Relations,"  which,  though  published,  has  been  little 
known,  due  to  its  omission  from  the  bibliography  of  the  1949  Mandel- 
baum  collection  {Selected  Writings  of  Edward  Sapir).  Finally,  although 
it  has  not  been  possible  to  edit  Sapir's  unpubHshed  letters  for  this  vol- 
ume,-^ we  do  include  an  important  one  that  was  pubhshed  in  1980: 
Sapir's  1938  letter  to  Philip  Selznick. 

The  next  section,  The  Psychology  of  Culture,  represents  a  book  for 
which  Sapir  negotiated  a  publication  contract  with  Alfred  Harcourt  in 
1928.  Throughout  the  1930's,  Sapir  gave  a  course  of  lectures  that  was 
to  be  the  basis  of  the  book,  but  he  did  not  live  to  complete  it.  Unlike 
some  of  his  other  unpublished  work,  which  existed  in  full  or  partial 
manuscript  at  his  death,  no  materials  in  Sapir's  own  hand  were  found 
for  this  book  apart  from  the  prospectus  sent  to  Harcourt  in  1928  and 
some  ensuing  correspondence.  Nevertheless  -  following  through  on  an 
idea  initiated  by  Sapir's  widow,  Jean  McClenaghan  Sapir,  and  Leslie 
Spier  only  three  months  after  Sapir's  death  -  a  book-length  text  has 
been  reconstructed  by  Judith  T.  Irvine  from  notes  taken  by  students 
attending  various  versions  of  this  course  of  lectures,  given  by  Sapir 
during  his  years  at  the  University  of  Chicago  and  Yale  University.  Pub- 
lished separately  (by  Mouton  de  Gruyter,  1993)  in  a  shorter  version  and 
without  the  analytical  apparatus,  this  work  appears  here  for  the  first 
time  in  its  full  form,  including  annotation  of  sources  and  explanations 
permitting  the  reader  to  see  how  the  reconstruction  was  done. 

Finally,  a  section  on  Assessments  of  Psychology  and  Psychiatry  assem- 
bles Sapir's  published  reviews  of  works  in  these  fields,  reviews  which 
appeared  between  1917  and  1928.  These  reviews  afforded  him  an  oppor- 
tunity to  acquaint  himself  with  a  body  of  literature  outside  the  usual 
anthropological  domain  but  eventually  influential  within  it,  and  to  be- 


24  ///   Culture 

gin  working  out  some  of  his  ideas  on  psychological  topics.  These  items 
are  grouped  separately  in  this  volume  because  they  give  a  sense  of  how 
Sapir  read  a  literature  which  he  first  approached  as  an  anthropologist 
but  which  he  would  later  adapt  to  interdisciplinary  purposes  as  well  as 
to  a  rethinking  of  anthropology's  own  theoretical  basis.  By  the  late 
I92()'s  and  ihc  1930's  the  effects  of  his  excursions  into  psychology  and 
psychiatry  became  evident  in  his  published  writing,  especially  in  his 
etTorts  to  reformulate  and  refine  the  concept  of  culture  which  stood  at 
the  core  of  anthropology  as  a  discipline. 

The  first  o\'  these  excursions  dates  from  1917,  the  same  year  as  the 
response  to  Kroeber,  which  had  emphasized  the  need  for  a  theory  of 
culture  that  would  be  accountable  to  individual  psychology  and  individ- 
uals' actions.  In  1917,  however,  the  study  of  psychology  was  far  re- 
moved from  Sapir's  job  descripfion:  he  was  in  Ottawa,  a  civil  servant 
responsible  for  the  Canadian  government's  research  on  the  aboriginal 
peoples  of  the  Dominion.  In  1925,  he  moved  to  the  University  of  Chi- 
cago, where  he  established  effective  collaborations  with  Chicago  sociol- 
ogists and  with  political  scientist  Harold  D.  Lasswell.  Although  Chi- 
cago psychologists  also  figured  among  his  acquaintances,  more  impor- 
tant to  Sapir's  intellectual  development  in  this  period  was  his  associa- 
tion with  psychiatrist  Harry  Stack  Sullivan.  At  Chicago,  Sapir's  work- 
ing out  of  his  own  theoretical  position  on  culture  acquired  momentum 
in  these  interdisciplinary  contexts,  which  found  further  support  in  the 
emergence  of  an  interdisciplinary  social  science  funded  by  the  Rockefel- 
ler Foundation. 

Sapir's  role  as  an  anthropological  theorist  was  already  conspicuous 
in  the  foundation-sponsored  conferences  of  the  late  1920's,  and  in  the 
newly-founded  Social  Science  Research  Council.  Indeed,  as  the  only 
anthropologist  who  played  a  central  role  in  these  interdiscipHnary  acfiv- 
ities,  he  had  the  responsibility  of  represenfing  the  discipline  to  outsiders. 
As  anthropology's  representafive,  Sapir  refused  to  allow  himself  to  be 
dismissed  as  a  mere  purveyor  of  the  exotic.  His  writings  for  this  audi- 
ence persistently  chose  examples  from  the  everyday  behavior  of  ordi- 
nary North  Americans.  Even  when  drawing  on  ethnographic  examples, 
he  tried  to  diminish  the  aura  of  exotica,  instead  showing  that  the  indivi- 
dual in  any  society  behaves  in  consistent  ways,  calibrated  by  the  cultural 
context  within  which  the  behavior  occurs  and  within  which  it  is  inter- 
preted. And  if  many  of  his  examples  concern  linguistic  behavior,  it  is 
because  he  saw  language  as  a  prime  exemplar  of  cultural  patterning, 
and  therefore  central  to  anthropological  concerns. 


One:  Culture.  Socictv.  luul  flu-  lihlivntuul  25 

The  Rockefeller  FoundalicMi.  wilh  ils  sponsorship  dI  a  special  seminar 
on  "The  impact  of  Culture  on  Personality,"  was  largely  instrumental  m 
bringing  Sapir  to  Yale  University  in  1^)31 .  There  he  also  took  on  various 
atiministralixe  aiul  leaching  roles  in  the  departments  of  anthrupologv 
and  linguistics;  and  although  he  contiiuictl  ic^  attend  conferences,  the 
interdisciplinary  initiative  was  plagued  by  declines  in  funding  during 
the  Depression.  Where  his  theoretical  views  on  culture  were  concerned. 
Sapir's  efforts  later  in  the  I930's  began  to  focus  more  on  the  discipline 
of  anthropology  itself,  and  less  on  an  interdisciplinary  social  science. 
Still,  he  drew  a  wide  audience  both  within  anthropology  and  outside  it. 
Even  at  Yale,  despite  troubles  connected  with  the  university's  academic 
politics,  Sapir"s  course  offerings  in  anthropology  were  well  attended. 
They  also  served  as  an  important  forum  for  his  intellectual  de\elop- 
ment.  While  he  "continued  presenting  linguistic  seminars  for  his  post- 
doctoral students,  his  large  seminars  were  devoted  to  his  inncn  ations  m 
anthropological  theory"  (C.  F.  Voegelin  1984  [1952]:  36). 

At  the  time  of  Sapir's  death  in  1939,  the  generation  o\'  cultural 
anthropologists  influenced  by  his  teaching  were  still  ejuite  junior  aca- 
demics, perhaps  too  young  to  coalesce  into  a  "school."  What  did  emerge 
after  World  War  II  was  the  culture  and  personality  school  associated 
with  Margaret  Mead,  Ruth  Benedict,  and  Abram  Kardiner.  Although 
anthropologists  today  sometimes  recall  Sapir  in  connection  with  that 
group  because  of  some  overlap  of  interests,  his  position  was  actuall\ 
quite  distinct.  As  their  approach  became  dominant,  his  became  margin- 
alized. 

Mead  (1959)  saw  her  school's  work  as  marking  a  new  ps\ etiological 
direction  which  fundamentally  reoriented  the  Boasian  paradigm,  while 
Sapir  had  seen  himself  as  contributing  to  the  theory  o^  culture  from 
within  that  paradigm.  Some  of  what  made  the  culture  and  personalit) 
group's  efforts  "new,"  however,  entailed  epistemological  difficulties  for 
which  they  were  later  criticized.  Sapir  had  not  tumbled  into  these  pit- 
falls, and  indeed  had  warned  against  such  errors  as  confusing  cultural 
norms  and  patterns  with  the  psychodvnamics  of  actual  indixiduals  (see 
The  Psyeholoi^y  of  Culture,  chapter  9).  Moreover,  he  alwa>s  opposed 
the  label  "culture  and  personality"  because  it  implied  that  the  two  terms 
could  be  defined  contrastively  and  iiulependentl\.  1  le  preferred  to  speak 
of  the  "psychology  of  culture,"  in  which  anthropolog\  and  ps\chology 
represented  different  analytical  stances  with  respect  to  the  same  phe- 
nomena. In  the  process  of  theoretical  refinement,  as  well  as  in  response 
to  interdisciplinary  colleagues,  Sapir  increasingl\  added  the  term  "soci- 


26  ///   Culture 

ety"  as  a  concept  distinct  tVom  "culture."  Whereas  society  might  for 
some  purposes  be  analytically  contrasted  with  the  individual,  culture  - 
as  a  realm  o'i  symbolic  form,  invested  with  meanings  -  could  not  be 
contrasted  with  personality. 

This  conception  of  culture,  at  which  Sapir  had  arrived  by  the  mid 
193()'s,  shows  how  far  he  had  moved  away  from  the  definition  of  culture 
as  an  assemblage  o'(  tangible  "traits,"  a  definition  that  had  earlier  been 
conventional  in  anthropology.  That  definition  had  become  less  and  less 
appropriate  to  Sapir  as  he  increasingly  emphasized  the  role  of  the  indi- 
vidual in  responding  to  symbolic  forms.  The  shift  is  documented  most 
clearly  in  the  "Psychology  of  Culture"  lectures  (this  volume)  and  the 
encyclopedia  article  on  symbolism.  Unlike  the  psychologists  for  whom 
symbolism  and  the  unconscious  were  keys  to  the  depth  of  the  human 
psyche,  Sapir  was  interested  in  imbuing  the  anthropological  concept  of 
culture  with  a  dynamic  and  processual  character  reflecting  the  actions 
of  the  individuals  living  in  a  social  world. 

Sapir  remains  significant  in  anthropology  not  because  he  founded  a 
school  or  a  particular  subfield,  but  because  he  explored  ideas  that  con- 
tinue to  occupy  the  discipline  today:  the  relations  of  individuals  to 
groups;  problems  in  moving  from  observation  to  generalization  in  an- 
thropological analysis;  the  role  of  the  creative  individual  in  cultural 
tradition;  the  impact  of  sociahzation  on  individual  creativity  (and  vice 
versa);  variation  and  conflict  in  culture  and  society;  the  relationships 
between  cultural  symbolism  and  the  physical  world;  the  emergence  of 
cultural  meanings  in  social  interaction;  the  necessity  of  relating  cultural 
systems  to  life  histories  and  individual  satisfaction;  the  essential  same- 
ness of  so-called  "primitive"  and  "modern"  human  persons  ...  and 
more.  His  is  an  ongoing  legacy. 


Notes 

Most  of  Sapir's  shorter  ethnographic  essays,  as  well  as  his  Southern  Paiute  song  texts 
(previously  unpublished),  have  been  included  in  Volume  IV  (Ethnology).  A  few  works  in 
which  ethnographic  description  is  included  together  with  linguistic  analysis  are  grouped  in 
those  volumes  containing  Sapir's  linguistic  studies  of  the  same  peoples.  The  posthumous 
ethnography  of  the  Yana,  completed  by  Lesie  Spier,  is  to  be  included  in  Volume  IX, 
while  a  precis  of  the  Nootka  field  notes,  Sapir's  most  intensive  ethnographic  effort,  is  to 
accompany  the  Nootka  linguistic  and  text  materials  in  Volumes  XI  and  XII. 
Indeed,  there  is  no  single  source  for  Sapir's  correspondence.  He  did  not  leave  behind  a 
personal  archive,  although  much  was  preserved  by  colleagues  to  whom  he  wrote  (e.  g., 
Franz  Boas,  Alfred  Kroeber,  Robert  Lowie,  Berard  Haile)  and  by  institutions  at  which 
he  was  employed  (Canadian  Museum  of  Civilization,  Ottawa;  University  of  Chicago;  Yale 
University). 


Do  We  Need  a  "Superorganic'*?  (1917) 
Editorial  Introduction 

Sapir's  first  foray  into  the  relationship  ot  culture  and  ihc  individual 
was  written  in  response  to  Alfred  L.  Kroeber's  "The  Supcrorganic." 
which  appeared  in  the  American  Authwpolofiist  in  1917.  ""Do  We  Need 
a  Superorganic?"  -  Sapir's  immediate  rhetorical  counter  appeared 
in  the  next  issue,  and  sparked  debate  within  the  Boasian  group  o\er 
how  their  conception  of  culture  should  provide  for  the  studs  of  histori- 
cal process,  individual  action,  and  cognitive  patterning.  The  exchange 
identified  Kroeber  and  Sapir  with  the  polar  positions  and.  for  contem- 
poraries, catapulted  Sapir  into  a  critical  status  as  a  theoretician  i>f  cul- 
ture. We  present  the  debate  here  in  considerable  detail,  as  context  for 
Sapir's  response  to  Kroeber's  long  and  complex  essay. 

Despite  its  historical  importance,  Sapir's  seminal  paper  was  omitted 
from  David  Mandelbaum's  1949  collection.  Selected  II  riiings  of  lu/wurJ 
Sapir  because  it  was  relatively  accessible  and  because  of  its  overtones  of 
conflict  within  Boasian  ranks.  Mandelbaum  wrote  to  his  fellow  editors 
Murray  Emeneau,  Harry  Hoijer  and  Verne  Ray  (21  July  1947:  Sapir 
family  documents)  that  "the  later  personality  papers  make  the  same 
points  and  more  incisively  without  the  kind  oi"  personal  reference  that 
this  reply  necessarily  has."  In  terms  of  Sapir"s  oeu\re.  howe\er.  the 
paper  represents  the  first  codification  of  his  thinking  about  the  nature 
of  culture.  It  made  him  the  premier  theoretician  among  those  anthro- 
pologists who  looked  to  individual  personalit)  as  the  locus  o\'  culture 
itself  Among  them  one  would  include,  at  least.  Paul  Radm.  Wilson 
Wallis  and  Alexander  Goldenweiser  (later  Ruth  Ik-nedict.  Margaret 
Mead,  and  A.  Irving  Hallowell). 

To  a  great  extent,  however,  the  protagonists  in  the  pubiiNhed  debate 
were  talking  past  one  another.  Kroeber  was  not  niieresied  m  distin- 
guishing between  the  individual  and  culture.  This  reading  was  imposed 
by  Sapir.  Kroeber  intended,  rather,  to  legitimi/e  the  autiMiomous  disci- 
plinary status  of  anthropology  by  virtue  o\'  its  dependence  on  the  con- 
cept of  culture.'  His  classic  paper  staked  out  a  unique  claim  for  the 
social  sciences  in  opposition  to  both  ihc  natural  sciences  and  the  hu- 


28  ///  Cidlitrc 

inanities.-  Its  intended  audience  was  outside  anthropology.  Kroeber 
spoke  less  as  a  theoretician  than  as  an  organizational  leader  of  a  small 
but  expanding  discipline.  Sapir,  on  the  other  hand,  was  more  interested 
in  theory  than  in  disciplinary  autonomy. 

Kroeber's  overview  of  anthropology's  place  among  the  sciences  rested 
on  the  assumption  that  the  exact  methods  of  the  natural  sciences  were 
inapplicable  to  the  data  of  anthropology;  the  organic  and  the  social 
were  different  kinds  of  phenomena,  requiring  different  methods  of 
analysis. "*  Kroeber  portrayed  the  superorganic  distinction  as  inherent  in 
the  nature  of  reality,  as  "natural"  as  the  long-established  distinction 
between  organic  and  inorganic.  Anthropology  had  obscured  the  distinc- 
tion between  social  and  organic,  however,  by  inappropriately  applying 
principles  of  natural  selection  to  cultural  facts.  This  reasoning  by  anal- 
ogy begged  for  reexamination  through  closer  definition  of  the  nature  of 
the  cultural,  which  Kroeber  called  the  superorganic. 

Unlike  organic  evolution,  the  development  of  civilization"^  was  cumu- 
lative. Culture  did  not  operate  through  heredity;  it  altered  the  environ- 
ment rather  than  the  organism.  Human  intelligence  was  a  precondition 
of  culture  but  not  equivalent  to  it.  Culture,  including  language,  was 
learned,  a  process  in  which  individual  differences  were  of  minimal  signi- 
ficance. Human  and  animal  speech  were  of  different  orders,  with  the 
former  based  on  tradition  (culture)  and  the  latter  on  instinct.  Kroeber 
catalogued  numerous  examples  of  the  essential  differences  between  hu- 
man and  animal  behaviour.  To  biology,  man  added  society  and  history. 

Social  psychology  was  not  equipped  to  distinguish  between  individual 
personality  and  social  infiuences  on  it,  the  two  being  intertwined  in 
any  particular  case.  Tradition  operated  outside  the  individual  organism. 
Because  of  the  attached  emotional  valence,  racial  or  hereditary  biologi- 
cal influences  on  the  individual  could  not  be  determined  discretely. 
Nonetheless,  "a  complete  and  consistent  explanation  can  be  given,  for 
all  so-called  racial  differences,  on  a  basis  of  purely  civilizafional  and 
non-organic  causes"  (1917:  182-183).  That  is,  explanafion  of  group 
differences  resided  in  culture  rather  than  in  biology;  therefore,  anthro- 
pology was  the  discipline  which  held  the  key  to  human  nature. 

After  a  highly  negative  review  of  the  thinking  of  several  social  evolu- 
tionists (Gustave  Le  Bon,  Herbert  Spencer,  Lester  Ward,  Francis  Gal- 
ton,  Pearson),  Kroeber  condemned  eugenics  as  an  inappropriate  "bio- 
logical short-cut  to  moral  ends"  (1917:  188).  Simply  because  both  the 
psychic  and  the  physical  were  organically  based,  it  did  not  follow  that 
heredity  maintained  civilization.  Civilization,  according  to  Kroeber,  was 


One  Culture.  Society,  and  the  Imlivuhuil  29 

a  product  of /?76^/7/<:// activity;  society  was  non-indi\idual  (and  iluis  non- 
organic) by  definition.  Knowledge,  a  product  of  cultiue.  was  iiu)re  im- 
portant than  individual  variabiliiy. 

Indeed,  Kroeber  argued  that  genius  and  ability  appeared  with  equal 
frequency  under  all  cultural  conditions.'^  Johann  Sebastian  Bach  would 
have  created  some  kind  of  music  even  if  he  had  been  born  in  a  society 
with  a  vastly  different  musical  tradition,  hnentions,  however,  depended 
directly  on  their  context  within  a  culture,  it  was  no  accident  that 
Charles  Darwin  and  Alfred  Russell  Wallace  "discovered"  e\olution  al- 
most simultaneously  and  without  being  in  direct  contact.  Likewise,  the 
South  Pole  was  reached  twice  in  the  same  summer.  In  contrast,  the 
genetic  experiments  of  Gregor  Mendel  were  meaningless  to  scientists  of 
his  day  because  he  was  ahead  of  his  culture;  three  laboratories  indepen- 
dently reached  similar  conclusions  in  1900  when  science  had  de\  eloped 
the  concepts  to  interpret  Mendel's  results.  Kroeber  recognized  "an  end- 
less chain  of  parallel  instances"  (1917:  199-200).  He  summarized  Ivri- 
cally  (1917:  200-201): 

When  we  cease  to  look  upon  invention  or  discovery  as  some  mysterious  inherent 
faculty  of  individual  minds  which  are  randomly  dropped  in  space  and  time  by  fate; 
when  we  center  our  attention  on  the  plainer  relation  of  one  such  advancing  step  lo 
the  others;  when,  in  short,  interest  shitts  trom  indi\iduall\  biographic  elements, 
which  can  be  only  dramatically  artistic,  didactically  moralizing,  or  ps)choli>gically 
interpretable,  and  attaches  whole  heartedly  to  the  social,  evidence  on  this  point  will 
be  infinite  in  quantity,  and  the  presence  of  a  majestic  order  pervading  civilization 
will  be  irresistibly  evident. 

In  spite  of  cultivation  through  education,  individual  congenital  facul- 
ties such  as  memory,  interest,  and  abstraction,  were  fairly  specialized. 
Regardless  of  the  number  of  abilities,  each  indixidiial  remained  ulti- 
mately unique.  Flowerings  such  as  occurred  in  fifth-centurN  Athens 
could  not  change  heredity  and  therefore  must  be  attributed  to  cultural 
conditions.  Kroeber  attacked  the  assumptions  o(  conventional  scxial 
reform  (and  the  psychology  of  his  day)  that  all  personalities  were  o^ 
essentially  equal  capacity.  There  were  considerable  dilTerences  in  nulivi- 
dual  ability  to  adapt  to  environment,  defined  as  the  "dimly  pcrcei\ed'* 
infiuence  of  civilization.  Civilization,  in  turn,  determined  how  much 
infiuence  the  individual  might  have  on  it.  Thus,  the  indi\idual  and  indi- 
viduality certainly  existed,  but  both  lay  outside  the  proper  domam  oi 
the  social  sciences.  It  was  on  this  point  that  Sapn  uould  take  his  col- 
league to  task. 

Kroeber  then  turned  to  the  role  of  histoi\  in  social  science  explana- 
tion, arguing  for  the  inadequacy  o\^  mechanistic  explanations  based  on 
a  faulty  organic  analogy  (1917:  207): 


30  ///  Culture 

...there  may  be  a  third  activity,  neither  science  nor  art  in  their  strict  senses,  but 
history,  the  understanding  of  the  social,  which  also  has  an  aim  that  cannot  be  denied 
and  whose  juslitleation  must  be  sought  in  its  own  results  and  not  by  the  standard 
of  any  other  activity. 

History,  therefore,  requires  methods  different  from  those  of  science 
or  art.  History  represents  the  social  without  the  individual  (organism). 
Therefore,  organic  and  historical  or  cultural  evolution  are  "two  wholly 
disparate  evolution^s"  (1917:  208;  emphasis  ours).  Social  evolution  be- 
gins later  than  organic  and  provides  a  "missing  Hnk,"  a  new  factor,  "a 
leap  to  another  plane"  (1917:  209).  Once  civilization  gets  going,  how- 
ever, its  rate  of  progress  (pace)  is  much  greater  than  that  of  organic  or 
inorganic  evolution.  Complexity  of  organization  becomes  more  impor- 
tant than  content.  The  historical  is  unable  to  explain  such  qualitative 
changes  in  the  evolution  of  human  cultures.  Having  recognized  the 
"crucial  gap"  in  the  nature  of  phenomena,  the  historian  cum  anthropol- 
ogist cuf)!  social  scientist  must  proceed  with  concepts  and  methods  quite 
distinct  from  those  of  the  natural  sciences. 

Kroeber's  classic  paper  did  not  expand  on  his  choice  of  the  label 
"superorganic"  for  the  new  level  of  evolution  he  identified.  Most  of  his 
attention  was  given  to  the  limitations  of  biological  or  organic  explana- 
tion. Within  anthropology,  however,  the  concept  of  "the  superorganic" 
became  a  critical  theoretical  issue.  Although  many  anthropologists  took 
for  granted  that  "culture"  was  the  defining  realm  of  their  study,  they 
came  to  disagree  on  what  the  term  implied.  Those  trained  by  Boas 
generally  accepted  Kroeber's  emphasis  on  the  history  of  particular  civi- 
lizations (historical  particularism).  But  Sapir  was  the  most  articulate 
among  those  who  believed  that  "culture"  (or  civilization)  could  be  the 
core  of  a  disciplinary  theory  without  being  reified  as  independent  of  the 
individuals  who  were  its  members. 

Privately,  Sapir  wrote  to  Robert  Lowie  (10  July  1917:  UCB)  that 
Kroeber's  paper  was  based  on  "dogmatism  and  shaky  metaphysics." 
He  wanted  to  respond  in  the  American  Anthropologist  but  preferred  not 
to  be  the  only  challenger.  In  addition  to  his  personal  friendship  with 
Kroeber,  Sapir  was  undoubtedly  motivated  to  demonstrate  that  other 
Boasian  anthropologists  also  saw  the  individual  as  crucial  to  cultural 
analysis.  He  told  Lowie  that  Kroeber's  "excessive  undervaluafion"  of 
the  role  of  the  individual  in  history  was  an  "abstractionist  fetishism," 
psychologizing  in  the  worst  possible  sense.  In  print,  of  course,  he  was 
less  personally  critical. 

Sapir  began  his  published  critique  in  a  conciliatory  fashion,  empha- 
sizing his  agreement  with  Kroeber  that  exact  science  methods  could  not 


One:  Culture.  Society,  luul  the  Indixiduul  31 

be  applied  to  social  phenomena,  lie  insisted  thai  onl\  ihc  Muli\idiial 
"really  thinks  and  acts  and  dreams  and  revoUs"  (1917:  442);  i.  c..  culture 
is  manifested  exclusively  through  individual  actions.  Kroeber's  ctTort  to 
establish  the  autonomy  of  social  science  methods  had  o\eremphasi/cd 
dramatically  the  degree  of  social  delermimsm  of  eiihinal  jMicnomena. 
Sapir  argued  that  Kroeber's  model  could  not  explain  religion,  philoso- 
phy, aesthetics  or  free  will. 

For  Sapir,  Kroeber  drew  a  false  analogy  when  he  claimed  thai  the 
cultural  was  as  distinct  a  realm  of  reality  -  above  and  beyond  the 
organic  -  as  the  organic  itself  was  in  relation  {o  the  inorganic.  The  on\\ 
objective  realities,  in  Sapir's  view,  were  the  organic  and  inorganic.  The 
cultural,  in  contrast,  was  inevitably  a  construction  o['  the  anaKsi.  It 
drew  on  processes  that  were  simultaneously  organic,  inorganic  and  psy- 
chic. Indeed,  to  study  the  development  of  culture,  or  social  inheritance, 
was  to  observe  the  growth  of  self-consciousness  in  human  hisiors.  not 
to  observe  an  autonomous  object. 

For  both  Sapir  and  Kroeber,  the  issue  was  the  relationship  between 
the  social  and  the  psychic  (and  where  "culture"  stood  in  relation  to 
these).  Neither  man  wished  to  absolutely  reduce  the  one  to  the  other. 
Sapir,  for  his  part,  saw  no  necessity  for  positing  a  new  "superorganic" 
realm  just  in  order  to  escape  the  methodology  of  the  natural  sciences. 
History  indeed  allowed  the  social  scientist  to  focus  on  particulars,  and 
if  historical  phenomena  were  unique,  the  uniqueness  o(  indi\iduals 
should  pose  no  particular  conceptual  problems.  These  are  the  questions 
that  preoccupied  Sapir  in  all  of  his  later  papers  in  culture  theory.  While 
Kroeber  never  addressed  all  of  them,  his  formulation  o\'  the  superor- 
ganic  first  inspired  Sapir  to  articulate  his  own  position. 

A  much  briefer  critique  by  Alexander  Goldenweiser  appeared  along- 
side Sapir's  in  the  American  Anthropologist.  Goldenweiser  acknowl- 
edged that  Kroeber  had  made  the  superorganic  concept  "peculiarl)  his 
own"  (1917:  448).  He  suggested  that  Kroebers  cultural  determinism 
would  break  down  for  any  particular  civilization  because  it  uas  based 
on  a  theory  of  probability.  Accidental  events  would  alwa>s  inier\ene  in 
particular  cases.  Like  Sapir,  Goldenweiser  heiiexed  that  the  actions  of 
individuals  could  affect  their  cultures.  The  ci\  ili/aiional  stream  was 
"not  only  carried  but  also  fed  by  indi\  iduals;'  the  "biographical  indivi- 
dual" was  best  understood  as  a  "historic  complex  sui  generis."  Ihal 
complex,  unique  to  each  individual,  was  composed  o\'  "biological,  psy- 
chological and  civilizational  factors'"  (U)!"":  44S). 


32  ///  Culture 

In  fact,  Goldenweiser,  who  preferred  the  term  "civiHzation"  to  "cul- 
ture," claimed  that  the  major  difference  between  the  history  of  an  Amer- 
ican Indian  tribe  and  a  modern  nation-state  was  the  absence  of  bio- 
graphy in  the  former  case.  In  spite  of  the  absence  of  written  historical 
records,  the  anthropologist  was  challenged  to  put  the  individual  into 
the  cLillurc  history  -  a  process  incompatible  with  the  definition  of  cul- 
ture as  sLiperorganic. 

Sapir.  Goldenweiser  and  Paul  Radin  would  develop  this  revision  of 
culture  theory  in  terms  of  the  interaction  between  culture  and  the  indivi- 
dual. Radin,  in  particular,  developed  the  hfe  history  genre  in  ethnogra- 
phy to  this  end  (cf.  Nyce  and  Leeds-Hurwitz  1986). 

Kroeber  responded  privately  to  Sapir's  critique  (24  July  1917:  UCB) 
by  minimizing  the  distance  between  the  two  positions.  He  claimed  that 
he  had  simply  codified  established  Boasian  practice: 

I've  left  absolutely  everything  to  the  individual  that  anyone  can  claim  who  will  admit 
to  the  social  at  all...  What  misleads  you  is  merely  that  you  fall  back  on  the  social  at 
such  occasional  times  as  you're  through  with  the  individual;  whereas  I  insist  on  an 
unqualified  place,  an  actuality,  for  the  social  at  all  times. 

Sapir  replied  (29  October  1917:  UCB)  that  "our  common  tendency  is 
away  from  conceptual  science  and  towards  history.  Both  of  us  seem  to 
want  to  keep  psychology  in  its  place  as  much  as  possible."  For  Sapir, 
but  not  for  Kroeber,  psychology  inevitably  overlapped  with  the  study 
of  culture.  There  was  a  very  real  disagreement  in  Sapir's  view;  he  did 
not  expect  to  persuade  Kroeber  of  the  importance  of  emphasizing  the 
individual. 

Kroeber  became  quite  irate  that  Sapir  was  indifferent  to  his  concern 
to  promote  Boasian  anthropology  (to  Sapir,  n.d.  November  1917: 
UCB): 

I  don't  give  a  red  cent  whether  cultural  phenomena  have  a  reality  of  their  own,  as 
long  as  we  treat  them  as  if  they  had.  You  do,  most  of  us  do  largely...  If  we're  doing 
anything  right,  it  deserves  a  place  in  the  world.  Let's  take  it,  instead  of  being  put  in 
a  comer.  That's  not  metaphysics:  it's  blowing  your  own  horn. 

Sociologist  William  Fielding  Ogburn,  whom  Sapir  met  in  Berkeley  in 
1915,  responded  to  his  critique  of  the  superorganic  (31  December  1917: 
NMM)  that,  for  him,  Kroeber 's  formulation  provided  an  ideal  model 
for  the  social  sciences.  Sapir,  recognizing  that  sociologists  were  disin- 
clined by  their  professional  training  to  study  the  individual,  sfill  tried 
to  explain  his  point  of  view.  History,  ignoring  the  individual,  was  "but 
a  passing  phase  of  our  hunger  for  conventional  scientific  capsules  into 
which  to  store  our  concepts."  The  various  "experiments  in  massed  ac- 


One:  Culture,  Socicly.  and  the  Indiviihuil  33 

tion"  would  ultimately  prove  disappointing,  leading  to  a  reaction 
against  the  superorganic.  But  Sapir  admitted  that  revisionist  vindication 
of  his  position  on  the  individual  at  the  basis  of  social  science  was  likely 
to  lie  in  the  indeterminate  future. 

For  the  rest  of  his  life,  Sapir  continued  to  define  his  theoretical  posi- 
tion in  terms  of  relationships  between  culture  and  the  individual.  Years 
later,  while  planning  his  book  on  'The  Psychology  of  Culture"  (I*ari  II 
of  this  volume),  he  wrote  to  Kroeber  (24  May  1932:  LiC  H)  thai  he 
still  saw  "the  dichotomy  between  culture  as  an  impersonal  concern  and 
individual  behavior"  as  a  useful  myth  "for  the  preliminary  clearing  o{ 
the  ground"  but  as  ultimately  dangerous  in  its  implicalie)ns  for  under- 
standing either  culture  or  personality.  Only  a  few  months  before  his 
death,  he  again  wrote  to  Kroeber  (25  August  1938:  UCB): 

Of  course,  Fm  interested  in  culture  patterns,  linguisiic  included.  All  I  claim  is  that 
their  consistencies  and  spatial  and  temporal  persistences  can  be.  and  ullimalcly 
should  be,  explained  in  terms  of  humble  psychological  formulations  with  particular 
emphasis  on  interpersonal  relations.^  I  have  no  consciousness  whatsoever  of  being 
revolutionary  or  of  losing  an  interest  in  what  is  generally  phrased  in  an  impersonal 
way.  Quite  the  contrary.  I  feel  rather  like  a  physicist  who  believes  that  immensities 
of  the  atom  are  not  unrelated  to  the  immensities  of  interstellar  space.  In  spite  of  all 
you  say  to  the  contrary,  your  philosophy  is  pervaded  by  fear  of  ihe  individual  and 
his  reality. 

A  dichotomy  between  culture  and  the  individual  still  seemed  unneces- 
sary to  Sapir,  even  misleading,  with  Kroeber's  formulation  locking 
anthropology  into  intellectual  sterility.  If  Sapir  in  193S  had  no  con- 
sciousness of  being  revolutionary,  however,  he  was  o\erlooking  the 
originality  and  importance  of  his  1917  paper  and  of  his  particular  work- 
ing-out, in  later  years,  of  these  complex  issues. 

*  *  * 


Do  We  Need  a  "Superorganic"".' 

Nothing  irritates  a  student  of  culture  more  than  to  ha\e  the  methods 
of  the  exact  sciences  Haunted  in  his  face  as  a  saluiar>  antidote  to  his 
own  supposedly  slipshod  methods.  He  feels  that  he  deals  with  an  en- 
tirely different  order  of  phenomena,  that  direct  comparison  between  the 
two  groups  of  disciplines  is  to  be  ruled  out  o\'  court.  It  is  some  such 
irritation  that  seems  to  have  served  as  the  emotional  impetus  o^  Dr. 
Kroeber's  very  interesting  discussion  o\'  "Hie  Superorganic.     Man\ 


34  ///  Culture 

anthropologists  will  be  disposed  to  sympathize  with  him  and  to  rejoice 
that  he  has  squarely  taken  up  the  cudgel  for  a  rigidly  historical  and 
anti-biological  interpretation  of  culture.  His  analysis  of  the  essential 
difference  between  organic  heredity  and  social  tradition  is  surely  sound 
in  the  main,  though  doubts  suggest  themselves  on  special  points  in  this 
part  of  the  discussion.  The  common  fallacy  of  confounding  the  cultural 
advancement  of  a  group  with  the  potential  or  inherent  intellectual 
power  of  its  individual  members  is  also  clearly  exposed.  There  is  little 
in  Dr.  Kroeber's  general  standpoint  and  specific  statements  that  I 
should  be  disposed  to  quarrel  with.  Yet  I  feel  that  on  at  least  two  points 
of  considerable  theoretical  importance  he  has  allowed  himself  to  go 
further  than  he  is  warranted  in  going.  I  suspect  that  he  may  to  some 
extent  have  been  the  victim  of  a  too  rigidly  classificatory  or  abstraction- 
ist tendency. 

In  the  first  place,  I  believe  that  Dr.  Kroeber  greatly  overshoots  the 
mark  in  his  complete  elimination  of  the  peculiar  influence  of  individuals 
on  the  course  of  history,  even  if  by  that  term  is  understood  culture 
history,  the  history  of  social  activities  with  practically  no  reference  to 
biographical  data  as  such.  All  individuals  tend  to  impress  themselves 
on  their  social  environment  and,  though  generally  to  an  infinitesimal 
degree,  to  make  their  individuality  count  in  the  direction  taken  by  the 
never-ceasing  flux  that  the  form  and  content  of  social  activity  and  inevi- 
tably are  subject  to.  It  is  true  that  the  content  of  an  individual's  mind 
is  so  overwhelmingly  moulded  by  the  social  traditions  to  which  he  is 
heir  that  the  purely  individual  contribution  of  even  markedly  original 
minds  is  apt  to  seem  swamped  in  the  whole  of  culture.  Furthermore, 
[442]  the  dead  level  of  compromise  necessitated  by  the  clashing  of  thou- 
sands of  wills,  few  of  them  of  compelling  potency,  tends  to  sink  the 
social  importance  of  any  one  of  them  into  insignificance.  All  this  is  true 
in  the  main.  And  yet  it  is  always  the  individual  that  really  thinks  and 
acts  and  dreams  and  revolts.  Those  of  his  thoughts,  acts,  dreams,  and 
rebellions  that  somehow  contribute  in  sensible  degree  to  the  modifica- 
tion or  retention  of  the  mass  of  typical  reactions  called  culture  we  term 
social  data;  the  rest,  though  they  do  not,  psychologically  considered,  in 
the  least  differ  from  these,  we  term  individual  and  pass  by  as  of  no 
historical  or  social  moment.  It  is  highly  important  to  note  that  the  dif- 
ferentiation of  these  two  types  of  reaction  is  essentially  arbitrary,  rest- 
ing, as  it  does,  entirely  on  a  principle  of  selecfion.  The  selection  depends 
on  the  adoption  of  a  scale  of  values.  Needless  to  say,  the  threshold  of 
the  social  (or  historical)  versus  the  individual  shifts  according  to  the 


One:  Culture.  Society,  ami  the  Imlividunl  35 

philosophy  of  the  evaluator  or  interpreter.  I  find  ii  iiUcrK  inconcciNahlc 
to  draw  a  sharp  and  eternally  valid  dividing  line  between  them.  ClcarK. 
then,  "individual"  reactions  constantly  spill  over  into  and  lend  color  to 
''social"  reactions. 

Under  these  circumstances  how  is  it  possible  for  the  social  to  escape 
the  impress  of  at  least  certain  individualities?  It  seems  to  me  that  ii 
requires  a  social  determinism  amounting  to  a  religion  to  deny  to  m- 
dividuals  all  directive  power,  all  culture-moulding  intluence.  Is  it  con- 
ceivable, for  instance,  that  the  dramatic  events  that  we  summarize  under 
the  heading  of  the  Napoleonic  Period  and  which  are  inextricably  bound 
up  with  the  personality  of  Napoleon  are  a  matter  of  indifference  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  political,  economic,  and  social  de\  clopmcnt  of 
Europe  during  that  period  and  since?  Would  the  administration  o\'  the 
law  in  New  Orleans  be  what  it  now  is  if  there  had  not  existed  a  ccriain 
individual  of  obscure  origin  who  hailed  from  Corsica?  It  goes  without 
saying  that  in  this,  as  in  similar  cases,  the  determining  intluence  of 
specific  personalities  is,  as  a  rule,  grossly  exaggerated  by  the  average 
historian:  but  a  tendency  to  deprecate  too  great  an  insistence  on  the 
individual  as  such  is  not  the  same  thing  as  the  attempt  to  eliminate  him 
as  a  cultural  factor  altogether.  Shrewdly  enough.  Dr.  Kroeber  chooses 
his  examples  from  the  realm  of  inventions  and  scientific  theories.  Here 
it  is  relatively  easy  to  justify  a  sweeping  social  determinism  in  \  iew  o'( 
a  certain  general  inevitability  in  the  course  of  the  acquirement  o[^  know  I- 
edge.  This  inevitability,  however,  does  not  altogether  reside,  as  Dr. 
Kroeber  seems  to  imply,  in  a  social  "force"  but,  to  a  very  large  exieni. 
in  the  fixity,  conceptually  speaking,  of  the  objective  world.  This  fi\ii> 
[443]  forms  the  sharpest  of  predetermined  grooves  for  the  unfolding  o\' 
man's  knowledge.  Had  he  occupied  himself  more  with  the  religious, 
philosophic,  aesthetic,  and  crudely  volitional  activities  and  tendencies 
of  man,  I  believe  that  Dr.  Kroeber's  case  for  the  non-cultural  signifi- 
cance of  the  individual  would  have  been  a  far  more  ditficult  one  \o 
make.  No  matter  how  much  we  minimize  exaggerated  claims.  I  fail  to 
see  how  we  can  deny  a  determining  and,  in  some  cases,  even  extraordi- 
narily determining  cultural  influence  to  a  large  number  o{  outsiandmg 
personalities.  With  all  due  reverence  for  social  science.  1  would  not  e\en 
hesitate  to  say  that  many  a  momentous  cultural  dc\ elopmeni  or  ten- 
dency, particularly  in  the  religious  and  aesthetic  spheres,  is  at  last  anal>- 
sis  a  partial  function  or  remote  consequence  of  the  temperamental  pecu- 
liarities of  a  significant  personality.  As  the  social  units  grow  larger  and 
larger,  the  probabilities  of  the  occurrence  of  striking  and  influential 


36  ///  Culture 

personalities  grow  vastly.  Hence  it  is  that  the  determining  influence  of 
individuals  is  more  easily  demonstrated  in  the  higher  than  in  the  lower 
levels  of  culture.  One  has  only  to  think  seriously  of  what  such  personali- 
ties as  Aristotle,  Jesus,  Mahomet,  Shakespeare,  Goethe,  Beethoven 
mean  in  the  history  of  culture  to  hesitate  to  commit  oneself  to  a  com- 
pletely non-individualistic  interpretation  of  history.  I  do  not  believe  for 
a  moment  that  such  personalities  are  merely  the  cat's-paws  of  general 
cultural  drifts.  No  doubt  much,  perhaps  even  the  greater  part,  of  what 
history  associates  with  their  names  is  merely  an  individually  colored 
version  of  what  they  found  ready  to  hand  in  their  social,  philosophic, 
religious,  or  aesthetic  milieu,  but  not  entirely.  If  such  an  interpretation 
of  the  significance  of  the  individual  introduces  a  repugnant  element  of 
"accident"  into  the  history  of  culture,  so  much  the  worse  for  the  social 
scientists  who  fear  "accident." 

The  second  point  in  Dr.  Kroeber's  essay  that  I  find  myself  compelled 
to  take  exception  to  concerns  his  interpretation  of  the  nature  of  social 
phenomena.  If  I  understand  him  rightly,  he  predicates  a  certain  social 
"■force"  whose  gradual  unfolding  is  manifested  in  the  sequence  of  so- 
cially significant  phenomena  we  call  history.  The  social  is  builded  out 
of  the  organic,  but  is  not  entirely  resolvable  into  it,  hence  it  implies  the 
presence  of  an  unknown  principle  which  transcends  the  organic,  just  as 
the  organic,  while  similarly  builded  out  of  the  inorganic,  is  not  resolv- 
able into  it  but  harbors  a  new  and  distinctive  force  that  works  itself  out 
in  organic  phenomena.  I  consider  the  analogy  a  false  one.  Moreover,  I 
do  not  believe  that  Dr.  Kroeber  has  rightly  seized  upon  the  true  nature 
of  the  opposition  between  history  and  non-historical  science.  [444] 

The  analogy  is  a  false  one  because,  while  the  organic  can  be  demon- 
strated to  consist  objectively  of  the  inorganic  plus  an  increment  of  ob- 
scure origin  and  nature,  the  social  is  merely  a  certain  philosophically 
arbitrary  but  humanly  immensely  significant  selection  out  of  the  total 
mass  of  phenomena  ideally  resolvable  into  inorganic,  organic,  and  psy- 
chic processes.  The  social  is  but  a  name  for  those  reactions  or  types  of 
reaction  that  depend  for  their  perpetuation  on  a  cumulafive  technique 
of  transference,  that  known  as  social  inheritance.  This  technique,  how- 
ever, does  not  depend  for  its  operation  on  any  specifically  new  "force," 
but,  as  far  as  we  can  tell  at  present,  merely  implies  a  heightening  of 
psychic  factors.  No  doubt  the  growth  of  self-consciousness  is  largely 
involved  in  the  gradual  building  up  on  this  technique  of  social  transfer- 
ence. While  we  may  not  be  able  to  define  safisfactorily  the  precise  nature 
of  self-consciousness  or  trace  its  genesis,  it  is  certainly  no  more  mysteri- 


One:  Culture.  Society,  mul  the  Individucil  37 

ous  a  development  in  the  history  o\'  mind  than  earlier  stages  in  this 
most  obscure  ot  all  evolutions.  In  short,  its  appearance  involves  no  new 
force,  merely  a  refinement  and  complication  o\'  an  earlier  force  or  of 
earlier  forces.  Hence  social  activities,  which  1  define  as  a  selected  group 
of  reactions  dependent  at  last  analysis  on  the  growth  of  self-conscious- 
ness, do  not  result  from  the  coming  into  being  of  a  new  objective  prin- 
ciple of  being.  The  differential  characteristic  of  social  science  lies  thus 
entirely  in  a  modulus  of  values,  not  in  an  accession  of  irresoUably  dis- 
tinct subject  matter.  There  seems  to  be  a  chasm  between  the  organic 
and  the  inorganic  which  only  the  rigid  mechanists  pretend  to  be  able 
to  bridge.  There  seems  to  be  an  unbridgeable  chasm,  in  immediacy  of 
experience,  between  the  organic  and  the  psychic,  despite  the  undeniable 
correlations  between  the  two.  Dr.  Kroeber  denies  this  en  passant,  but 
neither  his  nor  my  philosophy  of  the  nature  of  mind  is  properly  germane 
to  the  subject  under  discussion.  Between  the  psychic  and  the  social  there 
is  no  chasm  in  the  above  sense  at  all.  The  break  lies  entirely  in  the 
principle  o^  selection  that  respectively  animates  the  two  groups  o^  sci- 
ences. Social  science  is  not  psychology,  not  because  it  studies  the  resul- 
tants of  a  superpsychic  or  superorganic  force,  but  because  its  terms  are 
differently  demarcated. 

At  this  point  I  begin  to  fear  misunderstanding.  It  might  almost  ap- 
pear that  I  considered,  with  certain  psychological  students  o['  culture, 
the  fundamental  problem  of  social  science  to  consist  o\'  the  resolution 
of  the  social  into  the  psychic,  of  the  unraveling  of  the  tangled  web  of 
psychology  that  may  be  thought  to  underlie  social  phenomena.  This 
conception  of  social  science  I  have  as  much  abhorrence  ot  [as]  Dr. 
Kroeber  [does].  [445]  There  may  be  room  for  a  "social  psycholog\."'  hut 
it  is  neither  an  historical  nor  a  social  science,  it  is  merel>  a  kind  ol 
psychology,  of  somewhat  uncertain  credentials,  for  the  present;  at  ain 
rate,  it  is,  like  individual  psychology,  a  conceptual  science.  It  is  quite 
true  that  the  phenomena  of  social  science,  as  claimed  h\  Dr.  Kroeber. 
are  irresolvable  into  the  terms  of  psychology  or  organic  science,  but  this 
irresolvability  is  not,  as  Dr.  Kroeber  seems  to  imply,  a  conceptual  one. 
It  is  an  experiential  one.  This  type  of  irresolvability  is  toto  each  distmcl 
from  that  which  separates  the  psychic  and  the  organic  or  the  organic 
and  the  inorganic,  where  we  are  confronted  b\  true  conceptual  incom- 
mensurables. 

What  1  mean  by  "experiential  irresoKabilily"  is  something  that  meets 
us  at  every  turn.  I  shall  attempt  to  illustrate  it  by  an  example  from  a 
totally  different  science.  Few  sciences  are  so  clearly  defined  as  regards 


38  JJJ  Culture 

scope  as  geology.  It  would  ordinarily  be  classed  as  a  natural  science. 
Aside  from  palaeontology,  which  we  may  eliminate,  it  does  entirely 
without  the  concepts  of  the  social,  psychic,  or  organic.  It  is,  then,  a 
well-defined  science  of  purely  inorganic  subject  matter.  As  such  it  is 
conceptually  resolvable,  if  we  carry  our  reductions  far  enough,  into  the 
more  fundamental  sciences  of  physics  and  chemistry.  But  no  amount  of 
conceptual  synthesis  of  the  phenomena  we  call  chemical  or  physical 
would,  in  the  absence  of  previous  experience,  enable  us  to  construct  a 
science  of  geology.  This  science  depends  for  its  raison  d'etre  on  a  series 
of  unique  experiences,  directly  sensed  or  inferred,  clustering  about  an 
entity,  the  earth,  which  from  the  conceptual  standpoint  of  physics  is  as 
absurdly  accidental  or  irrelevant  as  a  tribe  of  Indians  or  John  Smith's 
breakfast.  The  basis  of  the  science  is,  then,  firmly  grounded  in  the 
uniqueness  of  particular  events.  To  be  precise,  geology  looks  in  two 
directions.  In  so  far  as  it  occupies  itself  with  abstract  masses  and  forces, 
it  is  a  conceptual  science,  for  which  specific  instances  as  such  are  irrele- 
vant. In  so  far  as  it  deals  with  particular  features  of  the  earth's  surface, 
say  a  particular  mountain  chain,  and  aims  to  reconstruct  the  probable 
history  of  such  features,  it  is  not  a  conceptual  science  at  all.  In  method- 
ology, strange  as  this  may  seem  at  first  blush,  it  is  actually  nearer,  in 
this  aspect,  to  the  historical  sciences.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  species  of  history, 
only  the  history  moves  entirely  in  the  inorganic  sphere.  In  practice,  of 
course,  geology  is  a  mixed  type  of  science,  now  primarily  conceptual, 
now  primarily  descriptive  of  a  selected  chunk  of  reality.  Between  the 
data  of  the  latter  aspect  and  the  concepts  of  the  former  lies  that  yawning 
abyss  that  must  forever,  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  divorce  the  real 
world  of  directly  experienced  phenomena  from  the  ideal  world  of  con- 
ceptual science.  [446] 

Returning  to  social  science,  it  is  clear  that  the  leap  from  psychology 
to  social  science  is  just  of  this  nature.  Any  social  datum  is  resolvable, 
at  least  theoretically,  into  psychological  concepts.  But  just  as  little  as 
the  most  accurate  and  complete  mastery  of  physics  and  chemistry  en- 
ables us  to  synthesize  a  science  of  geology,  does  an  equivalent  mastery 
of  the  conceptual  science  of  psychology  -  which,  by  the  way,  nobody 
possesses  or  is  likely  to  possess  for  a  long  time  to  come  -  enable  us  to 
synthesize  the  actual  nature  and  development  of  social  institutions  or 
other  historical  data.  These  must  be  directly  experienced  and,  as  already 
pointed  out,  selected  from  the  endless  mass  of  human  phenomena  ac- 
cording to  a  principle  of  values.  Historical  science  thus  differs  from 
natural  science,  either  wholly  or  as  regards  relative  emphasis,  in  its  ad- 


One:  Culture,  Society,  and  the  Imlividual  39 

herence  to  the  real  world  of  phenomena,  not,  like  ihc  laiicr,  u>  ihc 
simplified  and  abstract  world  of  ideal  concepts.  It  strives  to  value  ihe 
unique  or  individual,  not  the  universal,  "individual"  may  naturalK  here 
mean  any  directly  experienced  entity  or  group  o\'  eniiiies  ilic  earth. 
France,  the  French  language,  the  French  Republic,  the  romantic  mi>\e- 
ment  in  literature,  Victor  Hugo,  the  Iroquois  Indians,  some  specil'ic 
Iroquois  clan,  all  Iroquois  clans,  all  American  Indian  clans,  all  clans  ot 
primitive  peoples.  None  of  these  terms,  as  such,  has  any  relevancy  in  a 
purely  conceptual  world,  whether  organic  or  inorganic,  physical  or  psy- 
chic. Properly  speaking,  "history"  includes  far  more  than  what  ue  i>rdi- 
narily  call  historical  or  social  science.  The  latter  is  merely  the  "hisiori- 
cal"  (in  our  wider  sense),  not  conceptual,  treatment  of  certain  selected 
aspects  of  the  psychic  world  of  man. 

Are  not,  then,  such  concepts  as  a  clan,  a  language,  a  priesthood  com- 
parable in  lack  of  individual  connotation  to  the  ideal  concepts  of  natu- 
ral science?  Are  not  the  laws  applicable  to  these  historical  concepts  as 
conceptually  valid  as  those  of  natural  science?  Logically  it  is  perhaps 
difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  make  a  distinction,  as  the  same  mental 
processes  of  observation,  classification,  inference,  generalizatitm.  and 
so  on,  are  brought  into  play.  Philosophically,  however.  I  belie\e  the  two 
types  of  concepts  are  utterly  distinct.  The  social  concepts  are  con\enient 
summaries  of  a  strictly  limited  range  of  phenomena,  each  element  o\' 
which  has  real  value.  Relatively  to  the  concept  "clan"  a  particular  clan 
of  a  specific  Indian  tribe  has  undeniable  value  as  an  historical  entit\. 
Relatively  to  the  concept  "crystal"  a  particular  ruby  in  the  jeweler's 
shop  has  no  relevancy  except  by  way  of  illustration.  It  has  no  intrinsic 
scientific  value.  Were  all  crystals  existent  at  this  moment  suddenly  disin- 
tegrated, the  science  of  crystallography  would  still  be  valid.  pro\  ided 
the  physical  and  chemical  forces  that  make  possible  the  growth  (447)  oi 
another  crop  of  crystals  remain  in  the  world.  Were  all  clans  now  evisienl 
annihilated,  it  is  highly  debatable,  to  say  the  least,  whether  the  science 
of  sociology,  in  so  far  as  it  occupied  itself  with  clans,  would  ha\e  prog- 
nostic value.  The  difference  between  the  two  groups  o^  concepts  K'- 
comes  particularly  clear  if  we  consider  negative  instances.  If  out  ot  one 
hundred  clans,  ninety-nine  obeyed  a  certain  sociological  "law.  ue 
would  justly  flatter  ourselves  with  having  made  a  particularl>  neat  and 
sweeping  generalization;  our  "law"  would  ha\e  \alidiiy.  e\en  it  we  ne\er 
succeeded  in  "explaining"  the  one  exception.  But  if  out  of  one  million 
selected  experiments  intended  to  test  a  physical  law.  999.999  ci^rri>bo- 
rated  the  law  and  one  persistently  refused  to  do  so.  alter  all  disturbing 


40  ///   Culture 

factors  had  been  eliminated,  we  would  be  driven  to  seek  a  new  formula- 
tion of  our  law.  There  is  something  deeper  involved  here  than  relative 
accuracy.  The  social  "law"  is  an  abbreviation  or  formula  for  a  finite 
number  of  evaluated  phenomena,  and  rarely  more  than  an  approxi- 
mately accurate  formula  at  that;  the  natural  "law"  is  a  universally  valid 
formulation  of  a  regular  sequence  observable  in  an  indefinitely  large 
number  of  phenomena  selected  at  random.  With  the  multiplication  of 
instances  social  "laws"  become  more  and  more  blurred  in  outline,  natu- 
ral "laws"  become  more  rigid.  However,  the  clarification  of  the  sphere 
and  concepts  of  social  science  in  its  more  generalized  aspects  is  a  diffi- 
cult problem  that  we  can  not  fully  discuss  here. 

I  strongly  suspect  that  Dr.  Kroeber  will  not  find  me  to  differ  essen- 
tially from  him  in  my  conception  of  history.  What  I  should  like  to 
emphasize,  however,  is  that  it  is  perfectly  possible  to  hold  this  view  of 
history  without  invoking  the  aid  of  a  "superorganic."  Moreover,  had 
the  uniqueness  of  historical  phenomena  been  as  consistently  clear  to 
him  as  he  himself  would  require,  it  would  be  difficult  to  understand 
why  he  should  have  insisted  on  eliminating  the  individual  in  the  narrow 
sense  of  the  word. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  American  Anthropologist  19,  441-447  (1917). 
Reprinted  by  permission  of  the  American  Anthropological  Association. 


Notes 

1.  This  remained  a  persistent  concern  throughout  his  hfetime.  Kroeber  and  Kluckhohn 
(1952)  present  the  range  of  definitions  of  the  cuhure  concept  used  by  anthropologists 
throughout  the  history  of  the  discipline  as  a  metaphor  for  the  theoretical  territory  staked 
out  by  anthropology. 

2.  In  1956,  at  the  end  of  his  long  career,  Kroeber  wrote  two  papers  dealing  with  the  historical 
roots  of  anthropology.  He  argued  that  both  the  natural  sciences  and  humanities  had 
more  infiuence  on  the  emergence  of  the  discipline  than  did  the  more  recent  affiliation  of 
anthropology  with  other  social  sciences.  The  tenuous  link  of  anthropology  to  social  sci- 
ence still  required  theoretical  justification. 

3.  The  argument  is  parallel  to  that  of  Franz  Boas  in  "The  Study  of  Geography"  (1887 
[1940]). 

4.  Kroeber  used  the  term  "civilization"  here  as  in  the  classic  definition  of  culture  by  Edward 
B.  Tylor  (1871:  1)  in  which  it  is  equated  with  "culture."  "Culture  or  civilizafion,  taken  in 
its  widest  ethnographic  sense,  is  that  complex  whole  which  includes  knowledge,  belief. 


One:  Culture.  Society,  and  the  InJiviJuul  41 

art,  morals,  law,  custom,  and  any  oilier  capabilities  and  habits  acquired  by  man  as  a 
member  of  society."  The  discourse  oi  Kroeber's  paper  is  situated  in  an  older  vocabulary 
which  is  largely  irrelevant  to  Sapir's  critique. 

5.  He  was  to  pursue  this  argument  throughout  his  career.  Compare  Connguraiions  of  Culiurr 
Growth  (1944)  and  the  more  popularized  Ciilturc  and  Civilizulum  ( 1952). 

6.  The  term  "interpersonal  relations"  was  used  by  Sapir's  Iriend  and  collaborator,  inlcrac- 
tional  psychiatrist  Harry  Slack  Sullivan.  Sapirs  later  rormulatu)ns  of  culture  lhfor\  drew 
heaxilv  on  this  collaboration,  bci:inniim  in  1926. 


Culture,  Genuine  and  Spurious  (1924) 
Editorial  Introduction 

Despite  the  1924  date  usually  cited  for  it  today.  '•Ciiliurc.  Cjciuiinc 
and  Spurious"  was  written  years  earlier,  probably  no  later  tlKm  191 S. 
Part  I,  entitled  "Civilization  and  Culture,"  appeared  in  a  litcrar\  maga- 
zine. The  Dial,  in  1919.  In  1922,  that  text  was  published  without  nnHlifi- 
cation  in  The  Dalhousie  Review,  with  promises  of  a  sequel  discussing 
"the  new  problem  of  cultured  individuality  in  the  countries  called 
'new'."  The  continuation  -  Part  II  of  the  essay  in  the  present  \oIume 
-  accordingly  appeared  in  the  next  Dalhousie  Review  issue  under  the 
title  "Culture  in  New  Countries."  This  part  had  two  sections,  dealing 
(respectively)  with  "the  cultured  individual  and  the  cultural  group"  and 
"the  geography  of  culture."  The  whole  paper  was  lust  published  for  a 
scholarly  audience  in  the  social  sciences  in  1924,  in  the  American  Journal 
of  Sociology.  This  version,  whose  only  new  text  was  an  initial  paragraph 
as  the  beginning  of  section  III,  is  the  one  reproduced  here. 

Sapir's  concern  with  the  variable  uses  of  the  term  culture  was  initialls 
directed  at  establishing  for  the  general  educated  public,  especially  those 
who  read  literary  magazines,  that  the  anthropological  concept  o\'  cul- 
ture was  properly  distinguished  from  culture  as  ci\ili/ation  and  from 
culture  as  the  achievements  of  the  cultured  (or  "cultivated"  that  is, 
specially  educated)  individual.  His  essay  had  relexance  within  the  social 
sciences  as  well,  however,  as  its  publication  \eiuies  attest.  Ihe  relexancc 
for  anthropology  is  perhaps  most  clearly  evidenced  in  the  Inst  chapter 
of  The  Psychology  of  Culture  (this  volume).  There,  drawmg  heavily  on 
the  1924  paper  for  the  opening  of  his  course  and  hook.  Sapir  compared 
three  uses  of  the  term  culture  -  as  "cultivation."  as  A////;//(the  Clemian 
concept),  and  as  social  inheritance  -  in  order  to  develop  the  anthropo- 
logical conception  o(  culture  in  new  ways.  The  llrst  luo  uses  ol  the 
term  should  not  be  jettisoned,  he  suggested;  nistead.  then  emphases 
on  individual  variability  and  on  \aluc  should  be  niciMporated  mio  the 
anthropologist's  usage. 

As  part  of  this  argument,  the  contrast  between  "genume"  and  "spuri- 
ous" was  similarly  double-faceted.  On  the  ow^  hand,  it  Cimcerned  eslab- 


44  ///  Culture 

lishing,  for  the  general  audience,  the  importance  of  the  anthropological 
concept.  What  was  spurious  was  the  popular  belief  that  only  high  civili- 
zations, or  only  the  activities  of  an  elite  within  them,  could  properly  be 
called  culture.  Genuine  culture  existed  at  any  level  of  civilization  and 
societal  complexity.  On  the  other  hand,  the  opposition  of  genuine  and 
spurious  also  concerned  the  ability  of  any  particular  cultural  system  to 
satisfy  the  intellectual,  emotional,  and  aesthetic  needs  of  individuals 
living  under  its  sway.  This  second  theme,  directed  at  both  the  general 
and  the  social  science  audiences,  also  appears  again  in  Sapir's  later  an- 
thropological writings  (see,  e.  g.,  chapters  9  and  10  of  The  Psychology 
of  Culture,  and  Sapir  1939c). 

Pursuing  the  second  theme  for  the  original  audience,  Sapir  turned  his 
cross-culturally  conditioned  attention  to  exploring  the  "spiritual  malad- 
justments" of  his  own  society  (1924:  410).  The  modern  American  indivi- 
dual had  been  reduced  to  a  cog  in  society,  a  mere  machine,  he  argued, 
thereby  stifling  creative  and  emotional  development.  Sapir's  argument 
here  is  part  of  a  critique  of  contemporary  North  American  society,  a 
critique  in  which  Boas  and  many  of  his  students  engaged  and  which 
continued  through  the  interwar  years  and  after  (cf.  Geertz  1988  on  Ruth 
Benedict,  for  example).  Most  of  Sapir's  other  contributions  to  public 
debates  can  be  found  in  a  separate  section  of  this  volume,  entitled  "Re- 
flections on  Contemporary  Civilization."  Comments  on  specific  aspects 
of  his  own  society  were  not,  however,  an  effort  utterly  distinct  from 
Sapir's  sense  of  his  anthropological  work.  As  we  have  noted  elsewhere, 
he  was  persistently  concerned  to  minimize  the  association  of  anthropol- 
ogy with  exotica;  to  argue  that  there  was  no  essential  difference  between 
the  psychologies  of  "primitive"  and  "modern"  persons;  to  apply  anthro- 
pological insights  to  contemporary  life;  and  to  draw  upon  contempo- 
rary life  for  examples  illustrating  theoretical  points. 

Although  Boasian  cultural  relativism  opposed  external  moral  judg- 
ment or  ranking  of  ethnographically  known  cultures,  Sapir's  attention 
to  a  link  between  aesthetic  and  emotional  needs,  and  his  focus  on  the 
individual's  assessment  of  "genuine"  value  in  his/her  own  culture,  re- 
turns humanistic  ideals  to  cross-cultural  comparison.  This  adroit  move 
allowed  Sapir  to  criticize  the  "sterile  externality"  of  American  culture 
(1924:  412)  by  contrast  with  the  less  specialized  social  and  economic 
forms  of  simpler  societies.  Idealizing  the  salmon  fishermen  of  the  Pacific 
Northwest  as  spiritually-satisfied  exemplars,  the  essay  suggested  that 
modern  North  Americans  could  still  seek  cultural  genuineness  through 
the  "spiritual  heightening"  of  functions  that  still  remained  to  the  indivi- 


One:  Culture.  Society,  and  i/ic  Imlividuul  45 

dual  (1924:  412).  To  this  end,  art,  science  and  reliLiiDn  uould  all  reqiinc 
reassessment.  These  were  themes  to  which  Sapir  would  rciiirn  as  he- 
developed  his  position  on  culture,  society  and  the  individual,  (in  this 
volume,  see,  for  example,  'The  Meaning  o['  Religion""  [192S].  and  ihc 
discussions  of  "progress"  and  of  society  as  unconscious  ariist.  m  Ihe 
Psychology  of  Culture;  see  also  the  discussion  of  "form""  and  aesthetics 
in  Language  [1921].) 

There  is  much  of  Sapir's  own  biography  in  "Culture,  Gcnuuie  and 
Spurious."  It  took  part  of  its  direction  from  Sapir's  own  aesthetic  ef- 
forts at  poetry,  literary  criticism  and  music  (see  Darnell  1986,  1988). 
efforts  he  seriously  attempted  to  integrate  with  his  social  science,  in  this 
essay  his  emphasis  on  the  creative  individual  recalls  the  theoretical  is- 
sues he  had  begun  to  engage  in  his  1917  debate  with  Kroeber.  The 
critique  of  American  culture  reflects  his  disenchantment  with  the  Ameri- 
can dream,  as  well  as  his  highly  unpopular  pacifism  during  World  War 
I.  His  prospectus  for  the  future  involved  creative  activities  in  which  he 
himself  was  already  engaged  between  about  1917  and  his  move  from 
Ottawa  to  Chicago  in  1925. 

Professional  colleagues  were  uncertain  how  to  respond  lo  liiis  hu- 
manities-oriented argument.  Fellow  anthropologist  Robert  Lowie 
(1965)  considered  this  paper  irrelevant  to  Sapir's  professional  work. 
Sociologist  William  Fielding  Ogburn  wrote  to  Sapir  (31  August  1922: 
NMM)  that  he  had  gained  a  real  sense  of  what  was  genuine  and  what 
was  spurious,  although  he  preferred  more  overtly  sociological  language, 
such  as  might  be  expressed  in  terms  of  "varying  parts  of  culture,  corre- 
lation, original  nature,  and  adaptation."  To  the  extent  thai  Sapir's 
method  failed  to  separate  art  and  science,  Ogburn  found  it  'unscien- 
tific" and  almost  mystical:  "You  seem  to  be  struggling  lo  articulate 
something  that  you  feel  emotionally  rather  than  coldly  and  scientific- 
ally." Sapir's  point  that  social  science  must  address  emotional  and  hu- 
manistic issues  was  largely  lost  on  Ogburn,  as  was  the  idea  thai  such 
issues  were  appropriately  addressed  through  the  aesiheiic  diinenMons 
of  form.  Sapir's  notion  of  form  in  language  resulted  in  grammatical 
statements;  but  in  his  consideration  o\^  the  genuineness  o^  culture's 
"form"  more  conspicuously  relates  lo  the  aesthetic  values  from  which 
individuals  take  satisfaction. 

In  1924,  the  literary  audience  was  more  responsive  than  the  profes- 
sional audience.  Both  anthropology  and  sociology  were  then  dominated 
by  something  much  closer  to  Kroeber's  superorganic  concept  of  culture 
than  to  Sapir's  concept  of  the  creative  indi\  idual  defining  and  modify- 


46  ///  Culture 

ing  his/her  own  tradition.  Indeed,  for  many  decades  this  paper  ap- 
peared, to  many  anthropologists,  to  be  anomalous  in  Sapir's  oeuvre  - 
a  primarily  literary  move,  outside  the  domain  of  his  scholarly  writing. 
Today,  however,  many  anthropologists  have  taken  up  concerns  with 
cultural  aesthetics,  with  individual  creativity  and  agency,  and  with  the 
analysis  -  and  need  to  revitalize  -  contemporary  American  society. 
The  links  between  this  essay  and  Sapir's  anthropology  should  be  more 
evident  to  today's  readership  than  formerly. 

*  *  * 


Culture,  Genuine  and  Spurious 
Abstract 

Varying  definitions  of  culture.  The  ethnologist's  or  cuhure-historian's  use  of  the  term. 
Individual  culture  as  a  traditional  ideal.  The  general  spirit  or  the  "genius"  of  a  national 
civilization:  France  and  Russia  as  examples.  Genuine  culture,  as  here  defined,  possible 
on  all  levels  of  civilization;  culture  may  be  but  a  spurious  thing  in  the  most  sophisticated 
or  progressive  of  societies.  Efficiency  no  measure  of  culture.  Maladjustments  between 
cultural  values  and  new  economic  conditions.  Immediate  ends  and  remoter  ends  of 
human  activity.  Tendency  toward  a  gradual  shift  of  emphasis,  the  immediate  ends  com- 
ing to  be  felt  as  means  toward  the  remoter  ends,  which  originally  resulted  from  the 
play  of  surplus  energy.  Necessity  of  the  psychological  shift  owing  to  modern  man's 
inability  to  arrive  at  individual  mastery  within  the  sphere  of  direct  ends.  The  relation 
of  the  individual  to  the  culture  of  the  group.  A  rich  cultural  heritage  needed  to  enable 
the  individual  to  find  himself  The  relativity  of  cultural  values.  The  cultural  utilization 
of  the  past.  The  self  finding  itself  in  its  cultural  environment,  must  be  granted  a  primary 
reality.  The  significance  of  art  for  culture.  The  danger  of  spreading  a  culture  over  a  large 
territory.  The  independence  of  economic-political  and  cultural  bounds.  The  intensive 
development  of  culture  within  a  restricted  area  no  bar  to  internationalism.  The  unsatis- 
factory condition  of  contemporary  America  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  genuine  culture. 


I.  The  varying  conceptions  of  culture 

There  are  certain  terms  that  have  a  peculiar  property.  Ostensibly, 
they  mark  off  specific  concepts,  concepts  that  lay  claim  to  a  rigorously 
objective  validity.  In  practice,  they  label  vague  terrains  of  thought  that 
shift  or  narrow  or  widen  with  the  point  of  view  of  whoso  makes  use  of 
them,  embracing  within  their  gamut  of  significances  conceptions  that 
not  only  do  not  harmonize  but  are  in  part  contradictory.  An  analysis 


One:  Cullwc.  Society,  uml  the  Imliviiiual  47 

of  such  terms  soon  discloses  [402]  ihc  fact  thai  uiulcnicalh  the  clash  of 
varying  contents  there  is  a  unifying  feehng-lone.  Whai  makes  it  possible 
for  so  discordant  an  array  of  conceptions  to  answer  to  the  same  call  is, 
indeed,  precisely  this  relatively  constant  halo  that  surrounds  them. 
Thus,  what  is  "crime"  to  one  man  is  "'nobility'"  to  another,  yet  both  arc- 
agreed  that  crime,  whatever  it  is,  is  an  undesirable  category,  that  nobil- 
ity, whatever  it  is,  is  an  estimable  one.  In  the  same  way,  such  a  term  as 
art  may  be  made  to  mean  divers  things,  but  whatever  it  means,  the 
term  itself  demands  respectful  attention  and  calls  forth,  normally,  a 
pleasantly  polished  state  of  mind,  an  expectation  of  lofty  satisfactions. 
If  the  particular  conception  of  art  that  is  advanced  or  that  is  implied  m 
a  work  of  art  is  distasteful  to  us,  we  do  not  express  our  dissatisfaction 
by  saying,  "Then  I  don't  like  art."  We  say  this  only  when  we  are  in  a 
vandalic  frame  of  mind.  Ordinarily  we  get  around  the  ditllcully  by  say- 
ing, "But  that's  not  art,  it's  only  pretty-pretty  conventionality,"  or  "It's 
mere  sentimentality,"  or  "It's  nothing  but  raw  experience,  material  for 
art,  but  not  art."  We  disagree  on  the  value  oi^  things  and  the  relations 
of  things,  but  often  enough  we  agree  on  the  particular  value  of  a  label. 
It  is  only  when  the  question  arises  of  just  where  to  put  the  label,  that 
trouble  begins.  These  labels  -  perhaps  we  had  better  call  them  empts 
thrones  —  are  enemies  of  mankind,  yet  we  ha\e  no  recourse  but  to 
make  peace  with  them.  We  do  this  by  seating  our  fa\orite  pretenders. 
The  rival  pretenders  war  to  the  death;  the  thrones  to  which  thc>  aspire 
remain  serenely  splendid  in  gold. 

I  desire  to  advance  the  claims  of  a  pretender  to  the  throne  called 
"culture."  Whatever  culture  is,  we  know  that  it  is.  or  is  considered  lo 
be,  a  good  thing.  I  propose  to  give  my  idea  o\'  what  kind  of  a  good 
thing  culture  is. 

The  word  "culture"  seems  to  be  used  in  three  main  senses  or  groups 
of  senses.  First  of  all,  culture  is  technically  used  b\  the  ethnologist  and 
culture-historian  to  embody  any  socially  inherited  element  in  the  life  of 
man,  material  and  spiritual.  Culture  so  defined  is  coterminous  with  man 
himself,  for  even  the  lowliest  savages  live  in  a  social  world  characterized 
by  a  complex  network  of  traditionally  conserved  habits,  usages,  and 
attitudes.  The  South  African  Bushman's  method  o\'  hunting  game,  the 
belief  of  the  [403]  North  American  Indian  in  •medicine."  the  Periclcan 
Athenian's  type  of  tragic  drama,  and  the  electric  dynamo  o\  modern 
industrialism  are  all,  equally  and  indifferenllv.  elements  of  culture,  each 
being  an  outgrowth  of  the  collective  spiritual  elTort  o\  man.  each  being 
retained  for  a  given  time  not  as  the  direct  and  autiMiiatic  resultant  of 


48  ///  Culture 

purely  hereditary  qualities  but  by  means  of  the  more  or  less  consciously 
imitative  processes  summarized  by  the  terms  "tradition"  and  "social 
inheritance."  From  this  standpoint  all  human  beings  or,  at  any  rate,  all 
human  groups  are  cultured,  though  in  vastly  different  manners  and 
grades  of  complexity.  For  the  ethnologist  there  are  many  types  of  cul- 
ture and  an  infinite  variety  of  elements  of  culture,  but  no  values,  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  attach  to  these.  His  "higher"  and  "lower," 
if  he  uses  the  terms  at  all,  refer  not  to  a  moral  scale  of  values  but  to 
stages,  real  or  supposed,  in  a  historic  progression  or  in  an  evolutionary 
scheme.  I  do  not  intend  to  use  the  term  "culture"  in  this  technical  sense. 
"Civilization"  would  be  a  convenient  substitute  for  it,  were  it  not  by 
common  usage  limited  rather  to  the  more  complex  and  sophisticated 
forms  of  the  stream  of  culture.  To  avoid  confusion  with  other  uses  of 
the  word  "culture,"  uses  which  emphatically  involve  the  application  of 
a  scale  of  values,  I  shall,  where  necessary,  use  "civilization"  in  heu  of 
the  ethnologist's  "culture." 

The  second  application  of  the  term  is  more  widely  current.  It  refers 
to  a  rather  conventional  ideal  of  individual  refinement,  built  up  on  a 
certain  modicum  of  assimilated  knowledge  and  experience  but  made  up 
chiefiy  of  a  set  of  typical  reactions  that  have  the  sanction  of  a  class  and 
of  a  tradition  of  long  standing.  Sophistication  in  the  realm  of  intellec- 
tual goods  is  demanded  of  the  applicant  to  the  title  of  "cultured  per- 
son," but  only  up  to  a  certain  point.  Far  more  emphasis  is  placed  upon 
manner,  a  certain  preciousness  of  conduct  which  takes  different  colors 
according  to  the  nature  of  the  personality  that  has  assimilated  the  "cul- 
tured" ideal.  At  its  words,  the  preciousness  degenerates  into  a  scornful 
aloofness  from  the  manners  and  tastes  of  the  crowd;  this  is  the  well- 
known  cultural  snobbishness.  At  its  most  subtle,  it  develops  into  a  mild 
and  whimsical  vein  of  cynicism,  an  amused  skepticism  that  would  not 
for  the  world  find  itself  betrayed  into  an  unwonted  enthusiasm;  [404] 
this  type  of  cultured  manner  presents  a  more  engaging  countenance  to 
the  crowd,  which  only  rarely  gets  hints  of  the  discomfiting  play  of  its 
irony,  but  it  is  an  attitude  of  perhaps  even  more  radical  aloofness  than 
snobbishness  outright.  Aloofness  of  some  kind  is  generally  a  sine  qua 
non  of  the  second  type  of  culture.  Another  of  its  indispensable  requisites 
is  intimate  contact  with  the  past.  Present  action  and  opinion  are,  first 
and  foremost,  seen  in  the  illumination  of  a  fixed  past,  a  past  of  infinite 
richness  and  glory;  only  as  an  afterthought,  if  at  all,  are  such  action 
and  opinion  construed  as  instrumentalifies  for  the  building  of  a  future. 
The  ghosts  of  the  past,  preferably  of  the  remote  past,  haunt  the  cultured 


One:  Culture.  Society,  ami  the  hulividuul  49 

man  at  every  step.  He  is  uncannily  responsive  to  then  slightest  touch; 
he  shrinks  from  the  employment  of  his  individuality  as  a  creative 
agency.  But  perhaps  the  most  extraordinary  thing  about  the  cultured 
ideal  is  its  selection  of  the  particular  treasures  of  the  past  which  it  deems 
worthiest  of  worship.  This  selection,  which  might  seem  bi/.arre  to  a 
mere  outsider,  is  generally  justified  by  a  number  of  reasons,  sometimes 
endowed  with  a  philosophic  cast,  but  unsympathetic  persons  seem  to 
incline  to  the  view  that  these  reasons  are  only  rationalizations  aJ  hoc. 
that  the  selection  of  treasures  has  proceeded  chiefiy  according  tt>  the 
accidents  of  history. 

In  brief,  this  cultured  ideal  is  a  vesture  and  an  air.  The  vesture  may 
drape  gracefully  about  one's  person  and  the  air  has  often  much  charm, 
but  the  vesture  is  a  ready-made  garment  tor  all  that  and  the  air  remains 
an  air.  In  America  the  cultured  idea,  in  its  quintessential  classical  tbrm, 
is  a  more  exotic  plant  than  in  the  halls  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge, 
whence  it  was  imported  to  these  rugged  shores,  but  fragments  and  de- 
rivatives of  it  meet  us  frequently  enough.  The  cultured  ideal  embraces 
many  forms,  of  which  the  classical  Oxonian  tbrm  is  merely  one  of  the 
most  typical.  There  are  also  Chinese  and  talmudic  parallels.  \\  hercver 
we  find  it,  it  discloses  itself  to  our  eyes  in  the  guise  of  a  spiritual  heir- 
loom that  must,  at  all  cost,  be  preserved  intact. 

The  third  use  made  of  the  term  is  the  least  easy  to  define  and  lo 
illustrate  satisfactorily,  perhaps  because  those  who  use  it  are  so  seldom 
able  to  give  us  a  perfectly  clear  idea  of  just  what  they  themsehes  mean 
by  culture.  Culture  in  this  third  sense  shares  [405]  with  our  first,  techni- 
cal, conception  an  emphasis  on  the  spiritual  possessions  o(  the  group 
rather  than  of  the  individual.  With  our  second  conception  it  shares  a 
stressing  of  selected  factors  out  of  the  vast  whole  o\'  the  ethnologist's 
stream  of  culture  as  intrinsically  more  valuable,  more  characteristic, 
more  significant  in  a  spiritual  sense  than  the  rest.  To  say  that  this  culture 
embraces  all  the  psychic,  as  contrasted  with  the  purely  material,  ele- 
ments of  civilization  would  not  be  accurate.  pariK  because  the  resuliinc 
conception  would  still  harbor  a  vast  number  of  relatively  trivial  ele- 
ments, partly  because  certain  of  the  material  factors  might  well  occups 
a  decisive  place  in  the  cultural  ensemble.  Jo  limit  the  term,  as  is  some- 
times done,  to  art,  religion,  and  science  has  again  the  disad\antage  of 
a  too  rigid  exclusiveness.  We  may  perhaps  conic  nearest  the  mark  by 
saying  that  the  cultural  conception  we  are  now  tr>uig  to  grasp  aims  to 
embrace  in  a  single  term  those  general  attitudes,  views  o\'  hie.  and  sfx*- 
cific  manifestations  of  civilization  that  give  a  particular  people  its  dis- 


50  ///  Culture 

tinctive  place  in  the  world.  Emphasis  is  put  not  so  much  on  what  is 
done  and  believed  by  a  people  as  on  how  what  is  done  and  believed 
functions  in  the  whole  life  of  that  people,  on  what  significance  it  has 
for  them.  The  very  same  element  of  civilization  may  be  a  vital  strand 
in  the  culture  of  one  people,  and  a  well-nigh  negligible  factor  in  the 
culture  of  another.  The  present  conception  of  culture  is  apt  to  crop  up 
particularly  in  connection  with  problems  of  nationality,  with  attempts 
to  find  embodied  in  the  character  and  civilization  of  a  given  people 
some  peculiar  excellence,  some  distinguishing  force,  that  is  strikingly 
its  own.  Culture  thus  becomes  nearly  synonymous  with  the  "spirit"  or 
"genius"  of  a  people,  yet  not  altogether,  for  whereas  these  loosely  used 
terms  refer  rather  to  a  psychological,  or  pseudo-psychological,  back- 
ground of  national  civilization,  culture  includes  with  this  background  a 
series  of  concrete  manifestations  which  are  believed  to  be  peculiarly 
symptomatic  of  it.  Culture,  then,  may  be  briefly  defined  as  civilization 
in  so  far  as  it  embodies  the  national  genius. 

Evidently  we  are  on  pecuHarly  dangerous  ground  here.  The  current 
assumption  that  the  so-called  "genius"  of  a  people  is  ultimately  reduci- 
ble to  certain  inherent  hereditary  traits  of  a  biological  and  psychological 
nature  does  not,  for  the  most  part,  bear  [406]  very  serious  examination. 
Frequently  enough  what  is  assumed  to  be  an  innate  racial  characteristic 
turns  out  on  closer  study  to  be  the  resultant  of  purely  historical  causes. 
A  mode  of  thinking,  a  disfinctive  type  of  reaction,  gets  itself  established, 
in  the  course  of  a  complex  historical  development,  as  typical,  as  normal; 
it  serves  then  as  a  model  for  the  working  over  of  new  elements  of  civili- 
zation. From  numerous  examples  of  such  distincfive  modes  of  thinking 
or  types  of  reaction  a  basic  genius  is  abstracted.  There  need  be  no  spe- 
cial quarrel  with  this  conception  of  a  national  genius  so  long  as  it  is  not 
worshipped  as  an  irreducible  psychological  fetich.  Ethnologists  fight 
shy  of  broad  generalizations  and  hazily  defined  concepts.  They  are 
therefore  rather  timid  about  operating  with  national  spirits  and  ge- 
niuses. The  chauvinism  of  national  apologists,  which  sees  in  the  spirits 
of  their  own  peoples  peculiar  excellences  utterly  denied  to  less  blessed 
denizens  of  the  globe,  largely  justifies  this  timidity  of  the  scientific  stu- 
dents of  civilizadon.  Yet  here,  as  so  often,  the  precise  knowledge  of  the 
scientist  lags  somewhat  behind  the  more  naive  but  more  powerful  in- 
sights of  non-professional  experience  and  impression.  To  deny  the  ge- 
nius of  a  people  an  ultimate  psychological  significance  and  to  refer  it 
to  the  specific  historical  development  of  that  people  is  not,  after  all  is 
said  and  done,  to  analyze  it  out  of  existence.  It  remains  true  that  large 


One:  Culture.  Society,  ami  the  Indivuluul  51 

groups  of  people  everywhere  lend  to  ihmk  aiul  lo  aci  in  accordance 
with  estabhshed  and  all  but  instinctive  forms,  which  are  in  large  mea- 
sure peculiar  to  it.  The  question  as  to  whether  these  forms,  that  in  their 
interrelations  constitute  the  genius  of  a  people,  are  primariK  explainable 
in  terms  of  native  temperament,  of  historical  development,  or  of  both 
is  of  interest  to  the  social  psychologist,  but  need  no{  cause  us  much 
concern.  The  relevance  of  this  question  is  not  always  apparent.  It  is 
enough  to  know  that  in  actual  fact  nationalities,  using  the  \\o\\\  w  iihoui 
political  implication,  have  come  to  bear  the  impress  in  thought  and 
action  of  a  certain  mold  and  that  this  mold  is  more  clearly  discernible 
in  certain  elements  of  civilization  than  in  others.  The  specific  culture  of 
a  nationality  is  that  group  of  elements  in  its  civilization  which  most 
emphatically  exhibits  the  mold.  In  practice  it  is  sometimes  con\enicnt 
to  identify  the  national  culture  with  its  genius.  [407] 

An  example  or  two  and  we  shall  have  done  with  these  preliminary 
definitions.  The  whole  terrain  through  which  we  are  now  struggling  is 
a  hotbed  of  subjectivism,  a  splendid  field  for  the  airing  o(  national 
conceits.  For  all  that,  there  are  a  large  number  of  international  agree- 
ments in  opinion  as  to  the  salient  cultural  characteristics  o\'  \arious 
peoples.  No  one  who  has  even  superficially  concerned  himself  with 
French  culture  can  have  failed  to  be  impressed  by  the  qualities  of  clarity, 
lucid  systematization,  balance,  care  in  choice  of  means,  and  good  taste, 
that  permeate  so  many  aspects  of  the  national  civilization.  These  quali- 
ties have  their  weaker  side.  We  are  familiar  with  the  overmechanization. 
the  emotional  timidity  or  shallowness  (quite  a  different  thing  from  cmo- 
tional  restraint),  the  exaggeration  of  manner  at  the  expense  of  content, 
that  are  revealed  in  some  of  the  manifestations  o\'  the  French  spuit. 
Those  elements  of  French  civilization  that  give  characteristic  evidence 
of  the  qualities  of  its  genius  may  be  said,  in  our  present  limited  sense, 
to  constitute  the  culture  of  France;  or,  to  put  it  somewhat  ditTerenil). 
the  cultural  significance  of  any  element  in  the  civilization  o\'  France  is 
in  the  light  it  sheds  on  the  French  genius.  From  this  standpoint  we  can 
evaluate  culturally  such  traits  in  French  civilization  as  the  formalism  o\ 
the  French  classical  drama,  the  insistence  in  F-rench  education  on  the 
study  of  the  mother-tongue  and  of  its  classics,  the  prevalence  of  epigram 
in  French  life  and  letters,  the  intellectualisi  cast  so  ofien  gi\en  to  aesthe- 
tic movements  in  France,  the  lack  of  iiirgidity  in  modern  I  rench  music, 
the  relative  absence  of  the  ecstatic  note  in  religion,  the  slnnig  tendency 
to  bureaucracy  in  French  administration,  luich  and  all  o{  these  and 
hundreds  of  other  traits  could  be  readily  paralleled  from  the  civiii/alion 


52  ///  Culnn-c 

of  England.  Nevertheless,  their  relative  cultural  significance,  I  venture 
to  think,  is  a  lesser  one  in  England  than  in  France.  In  France  they  seem 
to  lie  more  deeply  in  the  grooves  of  the  cultural  mold  of  its  civilization. 
Their  study  would  yield  something  like  a  rapid  bird's-eye  view  of  the 
spirit  of  French  culture. 

Let  us  turn  to  Russia,  the  culture  of  which  has  as  definite  a  cast  as 
that  of  France.  1  shall  mention  only  one,  but  that  perhaps  the  most 
significant,  aspect  of  Russian  culture,  as  I  see  it  -  the  tendency  of  the 
Russian  to  see  and  think  of  human  beings  not  as  representafives  [408] 
of  types,  not  as  creatures  that  appear  eternally  clothed  in  the  garments 
of  civilization,  but  as  stark  human  beings  existing  primarily  in  and  for 
themselves,  only  secondarily  for  the  sake  of  civilizafion.  Russian  democ- 
racy has  as  its  fundamental  aim  less  the  creation  of  democratic  institu- 
tions than  the  effective  liberafion  of  personality  itself.  The  one  thing 
that  the  Russian  can  take  seriously  is  elemental  humanity,  and  elemental 
humanity,  in  his  view  of  the  world,  obtrudes  itself  at  every  step.  He  is 
therefore  sublimely  at  home  with  himself  and  his  neighbor  and  with 
God.  Indeed,  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  extremest  of  Russian  atheists  is 
on  better  speaking  terms  with  God  than  are  the  devout  of  other  lands, 
to  whom  God  is  always  something  of  a  mystery.  For  his  environment, 
including  in  that  term  all  the  machinery  of  civilization,  the  Russian 
has  generally  not  a  little  contempt.  The  subordination  of  the  deeps  of 
personality  to  an  institution  is  not  readily  swallowed  by  him  as  a  neces- 
sary price  for  the  blessings  of  civilization.  We  can  follow  out  this  sweep- 
ing humanity,  this  almost  imperfinent  prodding  of  the  real  self  that  lies 
swathed  in  civilization,  in  numberless  forms.  In  personal  relations  we 
may  note  the  curious  readiness  of  the  Russian  to  ignore  all  the  institu- 
tional barriers  which  separate  man  from  man;  on  its  weaker  side,  this 
involves  at  times  a  personal  irresponsibility  that  harbors  no  insincerity. 
The  renunciation  of  Tolstoi  was  no  isolated  phenomenon,  it  was  a  sym- 
bol of  the  deep-seated  Russian  indifference  to  insfitutionalism,  to  the 
accreted  values  of  civilization.  In  a  spiritual  sense,  it  is  easy  for  the 
Russian  to  overthrow  any  embodiment  of  the  spirit  for  insfitufionalism; 
his  real  loyalties  are  elsewhere.  The  Russian  preoccupation  with  elemen- 
tal humanity  is  naturally  most  in  evidence  in  the  realm  of  art,  where 
self-expression  has  freest  rein.  In  the  pages  of  Tolstoi,  Dostoyevski,  Tur- 
genev,  Gorki,  and  Chekhov  personality  runs  riot  in  its  morbid  moments 
of  play  with  crime,  in  its  depressions  and  apathies,  in  its  generous  en- 
thusiasms and  idealisms.  So  many  of  the  figures  in  Russian  literature 
look  out  upon  life  with  a  puzzled  and  incredulous  gaze.  'This  thing 


One:  Culture,  Society,  and  the  Indiviihuil  53 

that  you  call  civilization  -  is  thai  all  there  is  to  life?"  we  hear  them  ask 
a  hundred  times.  In  music  too  the  Russian  [409]  spirit  delights  to  un- 
mask itself,  to  revel  in  the  cries  and  gestures  of  man  as  man.  It  speaks 
to  us  out  of  the  rugged  accents  of  a  Moussorgski  as  out  o{  the  ucll- 
nigh  unendurable  despair  of  a  Tschaikovski.  It  is  hard  to  think  i)f  the 
main  current  of  Russian  art  as  anywhere  infected  by  the  dry  rot  o\ 
formalism;  we  expect  some  human  flash  or  cry  to  escape  from  behind 
the  bars. 

I  have  avoided  all  attempt  to  construct  a  parallel  beluccii  ilic  spirit 
of  French  civilization  and  that  of  Russian  civilization,  between  the  cul- 
ture of  France  and  the  culture  of  Russia.  Strict  parallels  force  an  empha- 
sis on  contrasts.  1  have  been  content  merely  to  suggest  that  underl\ing 
the  elements  of  civilization,  the  study  of  which  is  the  province  of  the 
ethnologist  and  culture-historian,  is  a  culture,  the  adequate  interpreta- 
tion of  which  is  beset  with  difficulties  and  which  is  often  left  to  men  o^ 
letters. 


II.  The  genuine  culture 

The  second  and  third  conceptions  of  the  term  "culture"  are  what  I 
wish  to  make  the  basis  of  our  genuine  culture  -  the  pretender  to  the 
throne  whose  claims  to  recognition  we  are  to  consider.  We  may  accept 
culture  as  signifying  the  characteristic  mold  of  a  national  ci\  ilization. 
while  trom  the  second  conception  of  culture,  that  of  a  traditional  i\pe 
of  individual  refinement,  we  will  borrow  the  notion  o{  ideal  form.  I  el 
me  say  at  once  that  nothing  is  farther  from  my  mind  than  to  plead  the 
cause  of  any  specific  type  of  culture.  It  would  be  idle  to  praise  or  blame 
any  fundamental  condition  of  our  civilization,  to  praise  or  blame  an> 
strand  in  the  warp  and  woof  of  its  genius.  These  conditions  and  these 
strands  must  be  accepted  as  basic.  They  are  sio\\l\  modinable,  to  be 
sure,  like  everything  else  in  the  history  of  man,  bul  radical  nuHiilicaiu>n 
of  fundamentals  does  not  seem  necessary  for  the  production  ol  a  genu- 
ine culture,  however  much  a  readjustment  of  their  relations  ma\  be.  In 
other  words,  a  genuine  culture  is  perfectly  concei\able  m  an\  i>pe  or 
stage  of  civilization,  in  the  mold  of  any  national  genius.  It  can  be  con- 
ceived as  easily  in  terms  of  a  Mohammedan  polygammis  society,  or  ol 
an  American  Indian  "primitive"  non-agnculiuial  sociei\.  as  in  those  of 
our  familiar  occidental  societies.  On  ihe  1410]  i>ihcr  haiui.  uli.ii  ma>  b\ 


54  ///  Culture 

contrast  be  called  "spurious"  cultures  are  just  as  easily  conceivable  in 
conditions  of  general  enlightenment  as  in  those  of  relative  ignorance 
and  squalor. 

The  genuine  culture  is  not  of  necessity  either  high  or  low;  it  is  merely 
inherently  harmonious,  balanced,  self-satisfactory.  It  is  the  expression 
of  a  richly  varied  and  yet  somehow  unified  and  consistent  attitude  to- 
ward life,  an  attitude  which  sees  the  significance  of  any  one  element  of 
civilization  in  its  relation  to  all  others.  It  is,  ideally  speaking,  a  culture 
in  which  nothing  is  spiritually  meaningless,  in  which  no  important  part 
of  the  general  functioning  brings  with  it  a  sense  of  frustration,  of  misdi- 
rected or  unsympathetic  effort.  It  is  not  a  spiritual  hybrid  of  contradic- 
tory patches,  of  water-tight  compartments  of  consciousness  that  avoid 
participation  in  a  harmonious  synthesis.  If  the  culture  necessitates  slav- 
ery, it  frankly  admits  it;  if  it  abhors  slavery,  it  feels  its  way  to  an  eco- 
nomic adjustment  that  obviates  the  necessity  of  its  employment.  It  does 
not  make  a  great  show  in  its  ethical  ideals  of  an  uncompromising  oppo- 
sition to  slavery,  only  to  introduce  what  amounts  to  a  slave  system 
into  certain  portions  of  its  industrial  mechanism.  Or,  if  it  builds  itself 
magnificent  houses  of  worship,  it  is  because  of  the  necessity  it  feels  to 
symbolize  in  beautiful  stone  a  religious  impulse  that  is  deep  and  vital; 
if  it  is  ready  to  discard  institutionalized  religion,  it  is  prepared  also  to 
dispense  with  the  homes  of  institutionalized  religion.  It  does  not  look 
sheepish  when  a  direct  appeal  is  made  to  its  religious  consciousness, 
then  make  amends  by  furtively  donating  a  few  dollars  toward  the  main- 
tenance of  an  African  mission.  Nor  does  it  carefully  instruct  its  children 
in  what  it  knows  to  be  of  no  use  or  vitality  either  to  them  or  in  its  own 
mature  life.  Nor  does  it  tolerate  a  thousand  other  spiritual  maladjust- 
ments such  as  are  patent  enough  in  our  American  life  of  today.  It  would 
be  too  much  to  say  that  even  the  purest  examples  yet  known  of  a  genu- 
ine culture  have  been  free  of  spiritual  discords,  of  the  dry  rot  of  social 
habit,  devitalized.  But  the  great  cultures,  those  that  we  instinctively  feel 
to  have  been  healthy  spiritual  organisms,  such  as  the  Athenian  culture 
of  the  Age  of  Pericles  and,  to  a  less  extent  perhaps,  the  English  culture 
of  Elizabethan  days,  have  at  least  tended  to  such  harmony.  [411] 

It  should  be  clearly  understood  that  this  ideal  of  a  genuine  culture 
has  no  necessary  connection  with  what  we  call  efficiency.  A  society  may 
be  admirably  efficient  in  the  sense  that  all  its  activities  are  carefully 
planned  with  reference  to  ends  of  maximum  utility  to  the  society  as  a 
whole,  it  may  tolerate  no  lost  motion,  yet  it  may  well  be  an  inferior 
organism  as  a  culture-bearer.  It  is  not  enough  that  the  ends  of  activities 


One:  Culfinv.  Soiicly.  mul  the  liulniiluul  55 

be  socially  satisfactory,  thai  each  niemhcr  ol  the  coninuiiuly  reel  in 
some  dim  way  that  he  is  doing  his  bit  toward  ihc  aiianimeni  of  a  social 
benefit.  This  is  all  very  well  so  far  as  it  goes,  but  a  genuine  culture 
refuses  to  consider  the  individual  as  a  mere  cog,  as  an  entit\  whose  sdIc 
raison  d'etre  lies  in  his  subservience  to  a  collective  purpose  thai  he  is 
not  conscious  of  or  that  has  only  a  remote  rele\anc\  {o  his  imcresis 
and  strivings.  The  major  activities  of  the  individual  must  always  be 
something  more  than  means  to  an  end.  The  great  cultural  fallac\  of 
industrialism,  as  developed  up  to  the  present  time,  is  that  in  harnessing 
machines  to  our  uses  it  has  not  known  how  to  avoid  the  harnessing  of 
the  majority  of  mankind  to  its  machines.  The  telephone  girl  who  lends 
her  capacities,  during  the  greater  part  of  the  living  day.  to  the  manipula- 
tion of  a  technical  routine  that  has  an  eventually  high  efficiency  value 
but  that  answers  to  no  spiritual  needs  of  her  own  is  an  appalling  sacri- 
fice to  civilization.  As  a  solution  of  the  problem  of  culture  she  is  a 
failure  -  the  more  dismal  the  greater  her  natural  endowment.  As  uiih 
the  telephone  girl,  so,  it  is  feared,  with  the  great  majority  of  us,  sla\e- 
stokers  to  fires  that  burn  for  demons  we  would  destroy,  were  it  not  that 
they  appear  in  the  guise  of  our  benefactors.  The  American  Indian  who 
solves  the  economic  problem  with  salmon-spear  and  rabbit-snare  oper- 
ates on  a  relatively  low  level  of  civilization,  but  he  represents  an  incom- 
parably higher  solution  than  our  telephone  girl  of  the  questions  that 
culture  has  to  ask  of  economics.  There  is  here  no  question  o^  the  imme- 
diate utility,  of  the  effective  directness,  of  economic  etTort,  nor  o\'  any 
sentimentalizing  regret  as  to  the  passing  of  the  "natural  man."  The 
Indian's  salmon-spearing  is  a  culturally  higher  type  of  activity  than  that 
of  the  telephone-girl  or  mill  hand  simply  because  there  is  normalK  no 
sense  of  spiritual  frustration  [412]  during  its  prosecution,  no  feeling  o^ 
subservience  to  tyrannous  yet  largely  inchoate  demands,  because  it 
works  in  naturally  with  all  the  rest  of  the  Indian's  acti\ilies  instead  o{ 
standing  out  as  a  desert  patch  of  merely  economic  etTori  in  the  whole 
of  life.  A  genuine  culture  cannot  be  defined  as  a  sum  of  absiraciK  desir- 
able ends,  as  a  mechanism.  It  must  be  looked  upon  as  a  sturd>  plant 
growth,  each  remotest  leaf  and  twig  o[^  which  is  organically  fed  by  the 
sap  at  the  core.  And  this  growth  is  not  here  meant  as  a  metaphor  tor 
the  group  only;  it  is  meant  to  apply  as  well  to  the  individual.  A  culture 
that  does  not  build  itself  out  of  the  central  interests  and  desires  oi  its 
bearers,  that  works  trom  general  ends  to  the  individual,  is  an  external 
culture.  The  word  "external,"  which  is  so  often  instincti\el>  chosen  to 


56  ///  Culture 

describe  such  a  culture,  is  well  chosen.  The  genuine  culture  is  internal, 
it  works  from  the  individual  to  ends. 

We  have  already  seen  that  there  is  no  necessary  correlation  between 
the  development  oi^  civilization  and  the  relative  genuineness  of  the  cul- 
ture which  tbrms  its  spiritual  essence.  This  requires  a  word  of  further 
explanation.  By  the  development  of  civilization  is  meant  the  ever 
increasing  degree  of  sophistication  of  our  society  and  of  our  individual 
lives.  This  progressive  sophistication  is  the  inevitable  cumulative  result 
of  the  sifting  processes  of  social  experience,  of  the  ever  increasing  com- 
plications of  our  innumerable  types  of  organization;  most  of  all  our 
steadily  growing  knowledge  of  our  natural  environment  and,  as  a  conse- 
quence, our  practical  mastery,  for  economic  ends,  of  the  resources  that 
nature  at  once  grants  us  and  hides  from  us.  It  is  chiefly  the  cumulative 
force  of  this  sophistication  that  gives  us  the  sense  of  what  we  call  "pro- 
gress." Perched  on  the  heights  of  an  office  building  twenty  or  more 
stories  taller  than  our  fathers  ever  dreamed  of,  we  feel  that  we  are  get- 
ting up  in  the  world.  Hurling  our  bodies  through  space  with  an  ever 
increasing  velocity,  we  feel  that  we  are  getting  on.  Under  sophistication 
I  include  not  merely  intellectual  and  technical  advance,  but  most  of  the 
tendencies  that  make  for  a  cleaner  and  healthier  and,  to  a  large  extent, 
a  more  humanitarian  existence.  It  is  excellent  to  keep  one's  hands  spot- 
lessly clean,  to  eliminate  smallpox,  to  administer  anesthetics.  Our  grow- 
ing sophistication,  our  ever  [413]  increasing  solicitude  to  obey  the  dic- 
tates of  common  sense,  make  these  tendencies  imperative.  It  would  be 
sheer  obscurantism  to  wish  to  stay  their  progress.  But  there  can  be  no 
stranger  illusion  -  and  it  is  an  illusion  we  nearly  all  share  -  than  this, 
that  because  the  tools  of  life  are  today  more  specialized  and  more  re- 
fined than  ever  before,  that  because  the  technique  brought  by  science  is 
more  perfect  than  anything  the  world  has  yet  known,  it  necessarily  fol- 
lows that  we  are  in  like  degree  attaining  to  a  profounder  harmony  of 
life,  to  a  deeper  and  more  satisfying  culture.  It  is  as  though  we  believed 
that  an  elaborate  mathematical  computation  which  involved  figures  of 
seven  and  eight  digits  could  not  but  result  in  a  like  figure.  Yet  we  know 
that  one  million  multiplied  by  zero  gives  us  zero  quite  as  effectively  as 
one  multiplied  by  zero.  The  truth  is  that  sophistication,  which  is  what 
we  ordinarily  mean  by  the  progress  of  civilization,  is,  in  the  long  run, 
a  merely  quantitative  concept  that  defines  the  external  conditions  for 
the  growth  or  decay  of  a  culture.  We  are  right  to  have  faith  in  the 
progress  of  civilization.  We  are  wrong  to  assume  that  the  maintenance 
or  even  advance  of  culture  is  a  function  of  such  progress.  A  reading  of 


One:  Culture.  Socfcty.  and  the  IndivUluul  57 

the  facts  of  ethnology  and  ciihiiic  hisioix  j^roves  plainls  that  niaxinia 
of  CLikure  have  frequently  been  reached  m  low  levels  of  sophislicalion; 
that  minima  of  culture  have  been  plumbed  in  scmie  of  the  hiuhesl.  C'i\ili- 
zation,  as  a  whole,  moves  on;  culture  comes  and  goes. 

Every  profound  change  in  the  tlou  of  ci\ili/alion.  particularK  e\er\ 
change  in  its  economic  bases,  tends  to  bring  about  an  unsettling  and 
readjustment  o[^  culture  values.  Old  culture  forms,  habitual  types  o\ 
reaction,  tend  to  persist  through  the  force  of  inertia.  The  maladjustment 
of  these  habitual  reactions  to  their  new  civilizational  ein  ironmeni  brings 
with  it  a  measure  of  spiritual  disharmony,  which  the  more  sensitive 
individuals  feel  eventually  as  a  fundamental  lack  of  culture.  Sometimes 
the  maladjustment  corrects  itself  with  great  rapidity,  at  other  times  it 
may  persist  for  generations,  as  in  the  case  of  America,  where  a  chrome 
state  of  cultural  maladjustment  has  for  so  long  a  period  reduced  much 
of  our  higher  life  to  sterile  externality.  It  is  easier,  generally  speaking, 
for  a  genuine  culture  to  subsist  on  a  lower  lever  of  civilization:  the 
differentiation  of  individuals  as  regards  their  social  and  economic  func- 
tions is  so  much  less  than  in  [414]  the  higher  le\els  that  there  is  less 
danger  of  the  reduction  of  the  individual  to  an  unintelligible  fragment 
of  the  social  organism.  How  to  reap  the  undeniable  benefits  o^  a  great 
differentiation  of  functions,  without  at  the  same  time  losing  sight  o\  the 
individual  as  a  nucleus  of  live  cultural  values,  is  the  great  and  ditllcult 
problem  of  any  rapidly  complicating  civilization.  We  are  far  from  hav- 
ing solved  it  in  America.  Indeed,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  more  than 
an  insignificant  minority  are  aware  of  the  existence  of  the  problem,  ^el 
the  present  world-wide  labor  unrest  has  as  one  of  its  deepest  roots  some 
sort  of  perception  of  the  cultural  fallacy  o'i  the  present  form  oi  indu- 
strialism. 

It  is  perhaps  the  sensitive  ethnologist  who  has  studied  an  aboriginal 
civilization  at  first  hand  who  is  most  impressed  b\  the  frequent  \italil> 
of  culture  in  less  sophisticated  levels.  He  cannot  but  admire  the  well- 
rounded  life  of  the  average  participant  in  the  ci\ili/aiion  of  a  typical 
American  Indian  tribe;  the  firmness  with  which  e\er>  part  of  that  lite 
-  economic,  social,  religious,  and  aesthetic  -  is  bound  together  into  a 
significant  whole  in  respect  to  which  he  is  far  from  a  passive  pawn; 
above  all,  the  molding  role,  oftentimes  defimiclN  creative,  that  he  plays 
in  the  mechanism  of  his  culture.  When  the  political  integrity  of  his  tribe 
is  destroyed  by  contact  with  the  whites  and  the  old  cultural  values  cease 
to  have  the  atmosphere  needed  for  their  continued  viialit\.  the  Indian 
finds  himself  in  a  stale  o\'  bewildered  \acuit\.  I\cn  if  he  succeeds  in 


58  ///   Ciilfurc 

making  a  fairly  satisfactory  compromise  with  his  new  environment,  in 
making  what  his  well-wishers  consider  great  progress  toward  enlighten- 
ment, he  is  apt  to  retain  an  uneasy  sense  of  the  loss  of  some  vague  and 
great  good,  some  state  of  mind  that  he  would  be  hard  put  to  it  to  define, 
but  which  gave  him  a  courage  and  joy  that  latter-day  prosperity  never 
quite  seems  to  have  regained  for  him.  What  has  happened  is  that  he 
has  slipped  out  of  the  warm  embrace  of  a  culture  into  the  cold  air  of 
fragmentary  existence.  What  is  sad  about  the  passing  of  the  Indian  is 
not  the  depletion  of  his  numbers  by  disease  nor  even  the  contempt  that 
is  too  often  meted  out  to  him  in  his  life  on  the  reservation,  it  is  the 
fading  away  of  genuine  cultures,  buih  though  they  were  out  of  the  mate- 
rials of  a  low  order  of  sophistication.  [415] 

We  have  no  right  to  demand  of  the  higher  levels  of  sophistication 
that  they  preserve  to  the  individual  his  manifold  functioning,  but  we 
may  well  ask  whether,  as  a  compensation,  the  individual  may  not  rea- 
sonably demand  an  intensification  in  cultural  value,  a  spiritual  height- 
ening, of  such  functions  as  are  left  him.  Failing  this,  he  must  be  admit- 
ted to  have  retrograded.  The  limitation  in  functioning  works  chiefly  in 
the  economic  sphere.  It  is  therefore  imperative,  if  the  individual  is  to 
preserve  his  value  as  a  cultured  being,  that  he  compensate  himself  out 
of  the  non-economic,  the  non-utilitarian  spheres  —  social,  religious,  sci- 
entific, aesthetic.  This  idea  of  compensation  brings  to  view  an  important 
issue,  that  of  the  immediate  and  the  remoter  ends  of  human  effort. 

As  a  mere  organism,  man's  only  function  is  to  exist;  in  other  words, 
to  keep  himself  alive  and  to  propagate  his  kind.  Hence  the  procuring 
of  food,  clothing,  and  shelter  for  himself  and  those  dependent  on  him 
constitutes  the  immediate  end  of  his  effort.  There  are  civilizations,  like 
that  of  the  Eskimo,  in  which  by  far  the  greater  part  of  man's  energy  is 
consumed  in  the  satisfaction  of  these  immediate  ends,  in  which  most 
of  his  activities  contribute  directly  or  indirectly  to  the  procuring  and 
preparation  of  food  and  the  materials  for  clothing  and  shelter.  There 
are  practically  no  civilizations,  however,  in  which  at  least  some  of  the 
available  energy  is  not  set  free  for  remoter  ends,  though,  as  a  rule, 
these  remoter  ends  are  by  a  process  of  rationalization  made  to  seem  to 
contribute  to  the  immediate  ones.  (A  magical  ritual,  for  instance,  which, 
when  considered  psychologically,  seems  to  liberate  and  give  form  to 
powerful  emotional  aesthetic  elements  of  our  nature,  is  nearly  always 
put  in  harness  to  some  humdrum  utilitarian  end  -  the  catching  of  rab- 
bits or  the  curing  of  disease.)  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  are  very  few 
"primitive"  civilizations  that  do  not  consume  an  exceedingly  large  share 


One  Culiinr.  Sociclv.  and  ///<■  lihlivuliuil  59 

of  their  energies  in  ihc  piirsuii  of  the  iciiKUcr  ciuK.  iluuiyli  n  remains 
true  that  these  remoter  ends  are  nearly  always  runclionally  or  pseudo- 
tunctionally  interwoven  with  the  immediate  ends.  Art  for  art's  sake  may 
be  a  psycliological  fact  on  tliese  less  sophisticated  le\els:  it  is  ci-it.nnlv 
not  a  cultural  tact. 

On  our  own  le\el  o^  civilization  the  remoter  ends  tend  to  spin  oil 
altogether  tVom  the  immediate  ones  and  lo  assume  the  form  of  a  (416) 
spiritual  escape  or  refuge  from  the  pursuit  o'i  the  latter.  The  separation 
of  the  two  classes  of  ends  is  never  absolute  nor  can  it  e\er  be:  it  is 
enough  to  note  the  presence  o\^  a  powerful  drift  o\^  the  luc)  away  from 
each  other.  It  is  easy  to  demonstrate  this  drift  by  examples  taken  out 
of  our  daily  experience.  While  in  most  primitive  cisili/ations  the  dance 
is  apt  to  be  a  ritual  activity  at  least  ostensibly  associated  with  purposes 
of  an  economic  nature,  it  is  with  us  a  merely  and  self-consciousl)  plea- 
surable activity  that  not  only  splits  off  from  the  sphere  o['  the  pursuit 
of  immediate  ends  but  even  tends  to  assume  a  position  o\'  hostilit)  to 
that  sphere.  In  a  primitive  civilization  a  great  chief  dances  as  a  mailer 
of  course,  oftentimes  as  a  matter  of  exercising  a  peculiarly  honored 
privilege.  With  us  the  captain  of  industry  either  refuses  to  dance  at  all 
or  does  so  as  a  half-contemptuous  concession  to  the  tyranny  o'i  social 
custom.  On  the  other  hand,  the  artist  of  a  Ballet  Russe  has  sublimated 
the  dance  to  an  exquisite  instrument  of  self-expression,  has  succeeded 
in  providing  himself  with  an  adequate,  or  more  than  adequate,  cultural 
recompense  for  his  loss  of  mastery  in  the  realm  of  direct  ends.  Ihe 
captain  of  industry  is  one  of  the  comparatively  small  class  of  indi\iduals 
that  has  inherited,  in  vastly  complicated  form,  something  of  the  feeling 
of  control  over  the  attainment  of  direct  ends  thai  belongs  b>  cultural 
right  to  primitive  man;  the  ballet  dancer  has  saved  and  intensified  for 
himself  the  feeling  of  spontaneous  participation  and  creati\eness  in  the 
world  of  indirect  ends  that  also  belongs  by  cultural  right  to  primitive 
man.  Each  has  saved  part  of  the  wreckage  of  a  submerged  culture  \o\ 
himself. 

The  psychology  of  direct  and  indirect  ends  undergoes  a  gradual  modi- 
fication, only  partly  consummated  as  yet,  in  the  higher  le\els  ol  ci\ili/a- 
tion.  The  immediate  ends  continue  to  exercise  the  same  tyrannical  sway 
in  the  ordering  of  our  li\es.  but  as  our  spiritual  selves  become  enriched 
and  develop  a  more  and  more  inordinate  craving  for  subtler  lorms  ol 
existence,  there  develops  also  an  attitude  of  impatience  uith  the  solution 
of  the  more  immediate  problems  o\^  life.  In  other  words,  the  immediate 
ends  cease  to  be  felt  as  chief  ends  and  gradual!)   bcci^nc  necessary 


60  ///  Culture 

means,  but  only  means,  toward  the  attainment  of  the  more  remote  ends. 
These  remoter  ends,  in  turn,  so  far  from  being  looked  upon  as  purely 
[417]  incidental  activities  which  result  from  the  spilling  over  of  an  en- 
ergy concentrated  almost  entirely  on  the  pursuit  of  the  immediate  ends, 
become  the  chief  ends  of  life.  This  change  of  attitude  is  implied  in  the 
statement  that  the  art,  science,  and  religion  of  a  higher  civilization  best 
express  its  spirit  or  culture.  The  transformation  of  ends  thus  briefly 
outlined  is  far  from  an  accomplished  fact;  it  is  rather  an  obscure  drift  in 
the  history  of  values,  an  expression  of  the  volition  of  the  more  sensitive 
participants  in  our  culture.  Certain  temperaments  feel  themselves  im- 
pelled far  along  the  drift,  others  lag  behind. 

The  transformation  of  ends  is  of  the  greatest  cultural  importance 
because  it  acts  as  a  powerful  force  for  the  preservation  of  culture  in 
levels  in  which  a  fragmentary  economic  functioning  of  the  individual  is 
inevitable.  So  long  as  the  individual  retains  a  sense  of  control  over  the 
major  goods  of  life,  he  is  able  to  take  his  place  in  the  cultural  patrimony 
of  his  people.  Now  that  the  major  goods  of  life  have  shifted  so  largely 
from  the  realm  of  immediate  to  that  of  remote  ends,  it  becomes  a  cul- 
tural necessity  for  all  who  would  not  be  looked  upon  as  disinherited  to 
share  in  the  pursuit  of  these  remoter  ends.  No  harmony  and  depth  of 
life,  no  culture,  is  possible  when  activity  is  well-nigh  circumscribed  by 
the  sphere  of  immediate  ends  and  when  functioning  within  that  sphere 
is  so  fragmentary  as  to  have  no  inherent  intelligibility  or  interest.  Here 
lies  the  grimmest  joke  of  our  American  civilization.  The  vast  majority 
of  us,  deprived  of  any  but  an  insignificant  and  culturally  abortive  share 
in  the  satisfaction  of  the  immediate  wants  of  mankind,  are  further  de- 
prived of  both  opportunity  and  stimulation  to  share  in  the  production 
of  non-utilitarian  values.  Part  of  the  time  we  are  dray  horses;  the  rest 
of  the  time  we  are  listless  consumers  of  goods  which  have  received  no 
least  impress  of  our  personality.  In  other  words,  our  spiritual  selves  go 
hungry,  for  the  most  part,  pretty  much  all  of  the  time. 


III.  The  cultured  individual  and  the  cultural  group 

There  is  no  real  opposition,  at  last  analysis,  between  the  concept  of 
a  culture  of  the  group  and  the  concept  of  an  individual  culture.  The 
two  are  interdependent.  A  healthy  national  culture  is  never  a  passively 
accepted  heritage  from  the  past,  but  implies  [418]  the  creative  participa- 
tion of  the  members  of  the  community;  implies,  in  other  words,  the 


One    Ciillurc.  Society,  ciml  ihc  I/ii/ivulual  (^\ 

presence  of  ciillurctl  indi\  idiials.  An  auioiiialic  pcrpclualion  of  slan- 
dardized  values,  not  subjecl  to  the  conslanl  remodeling  ot"  individuals 
willing  to  put  some  part  of  themseKes  into  the  forms  they  reeei\e  from 
their  predecessors,  leads  ic^  the  dominance  of  impersonal  formulas.  Ihe 
individual  is  left  out  in  the  cold;  the  culture  becomes  a  manner  rather 
than  a  way  of  life,  it  ceases  to  be  genuine.  It  is  just  as  true,  however. 
that  the  individual  is  helpless  without  a  cultural  heritage  to  work  on. 
He  cannot,  out  of  his  unaided  spiritual  powers,  weave  a  strong  cultural 
fabric  instinct  with  the  Hush  of  his  own  personality.  Creation  is  a  bend- 
ing of  the  form  to  one's  will,  not  a  manufacture  o\'  form  c.v  nihilo  It 
the  passive  perpetuator  of  a  cultural  tradition  gives  us  merely  a  manner, 
the  shell  of  a  life  that  once  was.  the  creator  tVom  out  of  a  cultural  waste 
gives  us  hardly  more  than  a  gesture  or  a  yawn,  the  strident  promise  o\ 
a  vision  raised  by  our  desires. 

There  is  a  curious  notion  atloat  that  "new"  countries  are  especialK 
favorable  soil  for  the  formation  of  a  virile  culture.  By  new  is  meant 
something  old  that  has  been  transplanted  to  a  background  de\oid  o\ 
historical  associations.  It  would  be  remarkable  if  a  plant,  flourishing  m 
heavy  black  loam,  suddenly  acquired  new  \irilil\  on  transplaniatuMi 
into  a  shallow  sandy  soil.  Metaphors  are  dangerous  things  that  pro\e 
nothing,  but  experience  suggests  the  soundness  o\'  this  particular  meta- 
phor. Indeed,  there  is  nothing  more  tenuous,  more  shamelessly  imitati\e 
and  external,  less  virile  and  self-joyous,  than  the  cultures  of  so-called 
"new  countries."  The  environments  of  these  transplanted  cultures  are 
new,  the  cultures  themselves  are  old  with  the  sickly  age  o\'  arrested  de- 
velopment. If  signs  of  a  genuine  blossoming  of  culture  are  bekitedly 
beginning  to  appear  in  America,  it  is  not  because  America  is  still  new; 
rather  is  America  coming  of  age,  beginning  to  feel  a  little  old.  In  a 
genuinely  new  country,  the  preoccupation  with  the  immediate  ends  ol 
existence  reduces  creativeness  in  the  sphere  oi"  the  more  remote  ends  to 
a  minimum.  The  net  result  is  a  perceptible  dwarfing  of  culture.  The  old 
stock  of  non-material  cultural  goods  lingers  on  witlunit  being  subiecled 
to  vital  remodelings,  becomes  [419]  progressively  impoverished,  and 
ends  by  being  so  hopelessly  ill-adjusted  to  the  economic  and  social  cn\i- 
ronment  that  the  more  sensitive  spirits  tend  to  break  with  it  altogether 
and  to  begin  anew  with  a  frank  recognition  o\'  the  new  einiriMimenlal 
conditions.  Such  new  starts  are  invariahls  crude:  the\  are  K>ng  m  hear- 
ing the  fruits  of  a  genuine  culture. 

It  is  only  an  apparent  paradox  thai  the  suhilesi  and  the  most  dccisiNC 
cultural  intluences  of  personality,  the  most  fruitful  revolts,  are  disccrni- 


62  ///  Culnirc 

ble  in  those  environments  that  have  long  and  uninterruptedly  supported 
a  richly  streaming  culture.  So  far  from  being  suffocated  in  an  atmo- 
sphere of  endless  precedent,  the  creative  spirit  gains  sustenance  and 
vigor  tor  its  own  unfolding,  and,  if  it  is  strong  enough,  it  may  swing 
free  of  that  very  atmosphere  with  a  poise  hardly  dreamed  of  by  the 
timid  iconoclasts  of  unformed  cultures.  Not  otherwise  could  we  under- 
stand the  cultural  history  of  modern  Europe.  Only  in  a  mature  and 
richly  differentiated  soil  could  arise  the  iconoclasms  and  visions  of  an 
Anatole  France,  a  Nietzsche,  an  Ibsen,  a  Tolstoi.  In  America,  at  least 
in  the  America  of  yesterday,  these  iconoclasms  and  these  visions  would 
either  have  been  strangled  in  the  cradle,  or,  had  they  found  air  to 
breathe,  they  would  have  half-developed  into  a  crude  and  pathetic  isola- 
tion. There  is  no  sound  and  vigorous  individual  incorporation  of  a  cul- 
tured ideal  without  the  soil  of  a  genuine  communal  culture;  and  no 
genuine  communal  culture  without  the  transforming  energies  of  person- 
alities at  once  robust  and  saturated  with  the  cultural  values  of  their  time 
and  place.  The  highest  type  of  culture  is  thus  locked  in  the  embrace  of 
an  endless  chain,  to  the  forging  of  which  goes  much  labor,  weary  and 
protracted.  Such  a  culture  avoids  the  two  extremes  of  "externality"  - 
the  externality  of  surfeit,  which  weighs  down  the  individual,  and  the 
externality  of  barrenness.  The  former  is  the  decay  of  Alexandrianism, 
in  which  the  individual  is  no  more;  the  latter,  the  combined  immaturity 
and  decay  of  an  uprooted  culture,  in  which  the  individual  is  not  yet. 
Both  types  of  externality  may  be  combined  in  the  same  culture,  fre- 
quently in  the  same  person.  Thus,  it  is  not  uncommon  to  find  in  Amer- 
ica individuals  who  have  had  engrafted  on  a  barren  and  purely  utilitar- 
ian culture  a  [420]  cultural  tradition  that  apes  a  grace  already  em- 
balmed. One  surmises  that  this  juxtaposition  of  incongruous  atmo- 
spheres is  even  typical  in  certain  circles. 

Let  us  look  a  little  more  closely  at  the  place  of  the  individual  in  a 
modern  sophisticated  culture.  I  have  insisted  throughout  that  a  genuine 
culture  is  one  that  gives  its  bearers  a  sense  of  inner  satisfaction,  a  feeling 
of  spiritual  mastery.  In  the  higher  levels  of  civilization  this  sense  of 
mastery  is  all  but  withdrawn,  as  we  have  seen,  from  the  economic 
sphere.  It  must,  then,  to  an  even  greater  extent  than  in  more  primitive 
civilizations,  feed  on  the  non-economic  spheres  of  human  activity.  The 
individual  is  thus  driven,  or  should  be  if  he  would  be  truly  cuUured,  to 
the  identification  of  himself  with  some  portion  of  the  wide  range  of 
non-economic  interests.  From  the  standpoint  adopted  in  this  study,  this 
does  not  mean  that  the  identification  is  a  purely  casual  and  acquisitive 


One:  Culture.  Smictv.  and  i he  hulnuluul  63 

process;  it  is.  indeed,  nuide  not  so  nuieh  lor  iis  own  sake  as  in  order  lo 
give  the  self  the  vvherevviihal  lo  develop  iis  powers.  Concretel>  consid- 
ered, this  would  mean,  for  instance,  that  a  mediocre  person  moderately 
gifted  with  the  ability  to  express  his  aesthetic  instincts  m  plastic  form 
and  exercising  that  gift  in  his  own  sincere  and  humble  way  (lo  ihe  ne- 
glect, it  may  be.  o['  practicalK  all  other  interests)  is  ipso  facto  a  more 
cultured  indi\idual  than  a  person  of  brilliant  endowments  who  has 
acquainted  himself  in  a  general  way  with  all  the  "best"  that  has  been 
thought  and  felt  and  done,  but  who  has  never  succeeded  in  bringing 
any  portion  oi"  his  range  o\'^  interests  into  direct  relatuMi  with  his  voli- 
tional self,  with  the  innermost  shrine  of  his  personality.  An  individual 
of  the  latter  type,  for  all  his  brilliance,  we  call  "flat."  A  tlat  person 
cannot  be  truly  cultured.  He  may,  of  course,  be  highly  cultured  in  the 
conventional  sense  of  the  word  "culture,"  but  that  is  another  story.  I 
would  not  be  understood  as  claiming  that  direct  creativeness  is  essential. 
though  it  is  highly  desirable,  for  the  development  of  individual  culture. 
To  a  large  extent  it  is  possible  to  gain  a  sense  of  the  required  masters 
by  linking  one's  own  personality  with  that  of  the  great  minds  and  hearts 
that  society  has  recognized  as  its  significant  creators.  Possible,  that  is. 
so  long  as  such  linking,  such  vicarious  experience,  is  attended  by  some 
portion  of  the  etYort,  the  tluttering  toward  [421]  realization  that  is  in- 
separable from  all  creative  effort.  It  is  to  be  feared,  however,  that  the 
self-discipline  that  is  here  implied  is  none  too  often  practiced.  Ihe  link- 
ing, as  I  have  called  it,  of  self  with  master  soul  too  often  degenerates 
into  a  pleasurable  servitude,  into  a  tacile  abnegation  of  one's  in\n  indi- 
viduality, the  more  insidious  that  it  has  the  approval  o\'  current  judg- 
ment. The  pleasurable  servitude  may  degenerate  still  further  into  a  vice. 
Those  of  us  who  are  not  altogether  blind  can  see  in  certain  of  our 
acquaintances,  if  not  in  ourselves,  an  indulgence  in  aesthetic  or  scientific 
goods  that  is  strictly  comparable  to  the  abuse  of  alcoholic  intoxicants. 
Both  types  of  self-ignoring  or  self-submerging  habit  are  signs  of  a  debili- 
tated personality;  both  are  antithetical  to  the  formation  of  culture. 

The  individual  self,  then,  in  aspiring  to  culture,  fastens  upon  the  accu- 
mulated cultural  goods  of  its  society,  not  so  much  for  the  sake  o\  ihc 
passive  pleasure  oi'  their  acquirement,  as  for  the  sake  oi'  the  stimulus 
given  to  the  unfolding  personalitv  and  o\'  the  orientation  derived  in  the 
world  (or  better,  a  world)  of  cultural  values.   Ihe  orientation,  com 
tional  as  it  may  be,  is  necessary  if  onlv  [o  give  the  self  a  moJu.s  wi...... 

with  society  at  large.  The  individual  needs  [o  assnnilale  much  o\  ihc 
cultural  background  o\~  his  societv.  nianv  o(  the  current  sentiments  of 


64  ///  Culture 

his  people,  to  prevent  his  self-expression  from  degenerating  into  social 
sterility.  A  spiritual  hermit  may  be  genuinely  cultured,  but  he  is  hardly 
socially  so.  To  say  that  individual  culture  must  needs  grow  organically 
out  of  the  rich  soil  of  a  communal  culture  is  far  from  saying  that  it 
must  be  forever  tied  to  that  culture  by  the  leading  strings  of  its  own 
childhood.  Once  the  individual  self  has  grown  strong  enough  to  travel 
in  the  path  most  clearly  illuminated  by  its  own  light,  it  not  only  can 
but  should  discard  much  of  the  scaffolding  by  which  it  has  made  its 
ascent.  Nothing  is  more  pathetic  than  the  persistence  with  which  well- 
meaning  applicants  to  culture  attempt  to  keep  up  or  revive  cultural 
stimuli  which  have  long  outlived  their  significance  for  the  growth  of 
personality.  To  keep  up  or  brush  up  one's  Greek,  for  example,  in  those 
numerous  cases  in  which  a  knowledge  of  Greek  has  ceased  to  bear  a 
genuine  relation  to  the  needs  of  the  spirit,  is  almost  a  spiritual  crime.  It 
is  acting  "the  dog  in  the  manger"  with  one's  own  soul.  If  the  traveling 
in  the  path  of  the  [422]  self's  illumination  leads  to  a  position  that  is 
destructive  of  the  very  values  the  self  was  fed  on,  as  happened,  though 
in  very  different  ways,  with  Nietzsche  and  with  Tolstoi,  it  has  not  in  the 
slightest  lost  touch  with  genuine  culture.  It  may  well,  on  the  contrary, 
have  arrived  at  its  own  highest  possible  point  of  cultural  development. 

Nietzsche  and  Tolstoi,  however,  are  extreme  types  of  personality. 
There  is  no  danger  that  the  vast  army  of  cultured  humanity  will  ever 
come  to  occupy  spiritual  positions  of  such  rigor  and  originality.  The 
real  danger,  as  is  so  abundantly  attested  by  daily  experience,  is  in  sub- 
mitting to  the  remorselessly  leveling  forces  of  a  common  cultural  heri- 
tage and  of  the  action  of  average  mind  on  average  mind.  These  forces 
will  always  tend  to  a  general  standardization  of  both  the  content  and 
the  spirit  of  culture,  so  powerfully,  indeed,  that  the  centrifugal  effect  of 
robust,  self-sustaining  personalities  need  not  be  feared.  The  caution  to 
conformity  with  tradition,  which  the  champions  of  culture  so  often  feel 
themselves  called  upon  to  announce,  is  one  that  we  can  generally  dis- 
pense with.  It  is  rather  the  opposite  caution,  the  caution  to  conformity 
with  the  essential  nature  of  one's  own  personality,  that  needs  urging.  It 
needs  to  be  urged  as  a  possible  counter-irritant  to  the  flat  and  tedious 
sameness  of  spiritual  outlook,  the  anemic  make-believe,  the  smug  intol- 
erance of  the  challenging,  that  so  imprison  our  American  souls. 

No  greater  test  of  the  genuineness  of  both  individual  and  communal 
culture  can  be  applied  than  the  attitude  adopted  toward  the  past,  its 
institutions,  its  treasures  of  art  and  thought.  The  genuinely  cultured 
individual  or  society  does  not  contemptuously  reject  the  past.  They 


One:  Culture,  Sociciy.  mul  ihc  /m/iviJuctl  65 

honor  the  works  o\^  the  past,  bul  not  because  ihey  are  genis  ot  hisiorical 
chance,  but  because,  being  out  otour  reach,  they  must  needs  be  looked 
at  through  the  enshrining  gkiss  of  museum  cases.  These  works  of  the 
past  still  excite  our  heartfelt  interest  and  sympathy  because,  and  onl\ 
in  so  far  as,  they  may  be  recognized  as  the  expression  of  a  human  spirit 
warmly  akin,  despite  all  differences  of  outward  garb,  to  our  own.  Ihis 
is  very  nearly  equivalent  to  saying  that  the  past  is  of  cultural  interest 
only  when  it  is  still  the  present  or  may  yet  become  the  future.  Paradoxi- 
cal as  it  may  seem,  the  historical  spirit  has  always  been  something  oi' 
an  anticultural  force,  has  always  acted  in  some  measure  as  an  unwitting 
deterrent  of  the  cultural  utilization  of  the  past.  The  historical  [423]  spirit 
says,  "Beware,  those  thoughts  and  those  feelings  that  you  so  rashl> 
think  to  embody  in  the  warp  and  woof  of  your  own  spirit  thes  are 
of  other  time  and  of  other  place  and  they  issue  from  alien  motives.  In 
bending  over  them  you  do  but  obscure  them  with  the  shadow  o(  your 
own  spirit."  This  cool  reserve  is  an  excellent  mood  for  the  making  o\' 
historical  science;  its  usefulness  to  the  building  of  culture  in  the  present 
is  doubtful.  We  know  immensely  more  about  Hellenic  antiquity  in  these 
days  than  did  the  scholars  and  artists  of  the  Renaissance;  ii  umild  be 
folly  to  pretend  that  our  live  utilization  of  the  Hellenic  spirit,  accurately 
as  we  merely  know  it,  is  comparable  to  the  inspiration,  the  creative 
stimulus,  that  those  men  of  the  Renaissance  obtained  from  its  fragmen- 
tary and  garbled  tradition.  It  is  difficult  to  think  o\'  a  renaissance  o\' 
that  type  as  thriving  in  the  critical  atmosphere  of  today.  We  should 
walk  so  gingerly  in  the  paths  of  the  past  for  fear  of  stepping  on  anachro- 
nisms, that,  wearied  with  fatigue,  we  should  finally  sink  into  a  heavy 
doze,  to  be  awakened  only  by  the  insistent  clatter  o\'  the  preseni  It  ma\ 
be  that  in  our  present  state  of  sophistication  such  a  spirit  of  criticism, 
of  detachment,  is  not  only  unavoidable  but  essential  for  the  preserxalion 
of  our  own  individualities.  The  past  is  now  more  of  a  past  than  ever 
before.  Perhaps  we  should  expect  less  o(  it  than  e\er  before.  Or  rather 
expect  no  more  of  it  than  it  hold  its  portals  wide  open,  that  we  may 
enter  in  and  despoil  it  of  what  bits  we  choose  for  our  prett>  nu^saics. 
Can  it  be  that  the  critical  sense  of  history,  which  galvanizes  the  past 
into  scientific  life,  is  destined  to  slay  it  for  the  life  o\'  euliure'.'  More 
probably,  what  is  happening  is  that  the  spuiiual  currents  of  ioda\  arc 
running  so  fast,  so  turbulently,  that  we  find  it  difficult  to  gel  a  culturally 
vital  perspective  of  the  past,  which  is  thus,  for  the  time  being.  Icli  as  a 
glorified  mummy  in  the  hands  o(  the  pundits.  .And.  for  the  time  being, 
those  others  of  us  who  take  their  culture  neiiiier  .is  knowledge  nor  as 


66  ///  Culture 

manner,  but  as  life,  will  ask  of  the  past  not  so  much  "what?'  and 
"when?"  and  "where?"  as  "how?"  and  the  accent  of  their  "how"  will  be 
modulated  in  accordance  with  the  needs  of  the  spirit  of  each,  a  spirit 
that  is  free  to  glorify,  to  transform,  and  to  reject. 

To  summarize  the  place  of  the  individual  in  our  theory  of  culture,  we 
may  say  that  the  pursuit  of  genuine  culture  implies  two  types  [424]  of 
reconciliation.  The  self  seeks  instinctively  for  mastery.  In  the  process  of 
acquiring  a  sense  of  mastery  that  is  not  crude  but  proportioned  to  the 
degree  of  sophistication  proper  to  our  time,  the  self  is  compelled  to 
suffer  an  abridgment  and  to  undergo  a  molding.  The  extreme  differenti- 
ation of  function  which  the  progress  of  man  has  forced  upon  the  indivi- 
dual menaces  the  spirit;  we  have  no  recourse  but  to  submit  with  good 
grace  to  this  abridgment  of  our  activity,  but  it  must  not  be  allowed  to 
clip  the  wings  of  the  spirit  unduly.  This  is  the  first  and  most  important 
reconciliation  -  the  finding  of  a  full  world  of  spiritual  satisfactions 
within  the  straight  limits  of  an  unwontedly  confined  economic  activity. 
The  self  must  set  itself  at  a  point  where  it  can,  if  not  embrace  the  whole 
spiritual  life  of  its  group,  at  least  catch  enough  of  its  rays  to  burst 
into  light  and  fiame.  Moreover,  the  self  must  learn  to  reconcile  its  own 
strivings,  its  own  imperious  necessities,  with  the  general  spiritual  life  of 
the  community.  It  must  be  content  to  borrow  sustenance  from  the  spiri- 
tual consciousness  of  that  community  and  of  its  past,  not  merely  that 
it  may  obtain  the  wherewithal  to  grow  at  all,  but  that  it  may  grow 
where  its  power,  great  or  little,  will  be  brought  to  bear  on  a  spiritual 
life  that  is  of  intimate  concern  to  other  wills.  Yet,  despite  all  reconcilia- 
tions, the  self  has  a  right  to  feel  that  it  grows  as  an  integral,  self-poised, 
spiritual  growth,  whose  ultimate  justifications  rest  in  itself,  whose  sacri- 
fices and  compensations  must  be  justified  to  itself.  The  concentration 
of  the  self  as  a  mere  instrument  toward  the  attainment  of  communal 
ends,  whether  of  state  or  other  social  body,  is  to  be  discarded  as  leading 
in  the  long  run  to  psychological  absurdities  and  to  spiritual  slavery.  It 
is  the  self  that  concedes,  if  there  is  to  be  any  concession.  Spiritual  free- 
dom, what  there  is  of  it,  is  not  alms  dispensed,  now  indifferently,  now 
grudgingly,  by  the  social  body.  That  a  different  philosophy  of  the  rela- 
tion of  the  individual  to  his  group  is  now  so  prevalent,  makes  it  all  the 
more  necessary  to  insist  on  the  spiritual  primacy  of  the  individual  soul. 

It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  wherever  there  is  discussion  of  culture, 
emphasis  is  instinctively  placed  upon  art.  This  applies  as  well  to  indivi- 
dual as  to  communal  culture.  We  apply  the  term  "cultured"  only  with 
reserve  to  an  individual  in  whose  life  the  [425]  aesthetic  moment  plays 


One:  Culture.  Society,  ami  the  Imlniduul  67 

no  part.  So  also,  if  \\c  wcnild  calch  soiiiclhing  o\'  the  spirit,  the  genius. 
of  a  bygone  period  or  of  an  exotic  ci\  ih/alion.  ue  turn  first  and  lore- 
most  to  its  art.  A  thoughtless  analysis  would  see  in  this  nothing  but 
the  emphasis  on  the  beautiful,  the  deeorative.  that  ecMnporis  uiih  the 
conventional  conception  of  culture  as  a  life  of  iradiiii)iiall\  molded  re- 
finement. A  more  penetrative  analysis  discards  such  an  interpretation. 
For  it  the  highest  manifestations  of  culture,  the  very  quintessence  of  the 
genius  of  a  civilization,  necessarily  rest  in  art.  for  the  reason  that  art  is 
the  authentic  expression,  in  satisfying  form.  o\'  experience;  experience 
not  as  logically  ordered  by  science,  but  as  directly  and  intuitively  pre- 
sented to  us  in  life.  As  culture  rests,  in  essence,  on  the  harmonious 
development  of  the  sense  of  mastery  instinctively  sought  by  each  indi\i- 
dual  soul,  this  can  only  mean  that  art,  the  form  o[^  consciousness  in 
which  the  impress  of  the  self  is  most  direct,  least  hampered  by  outuard 
necessity,  is  above  all  other  undertakings  of  the  human  spnit  bound  to 
reflect  culture.  To  relate  our  lives,  our  intuitions,  our  passing  moods  to 
forms  of  expression  that  carry  conviction  to  others  and  make  us  li\e 
again  in  these  others  is  the  highest  spiritual  satisfaction  ue  know  o{, 
the  highest  welding  of  one's  individuality  with  the  spirit  o\'  his  ci\ili/a- 
tion.  Were  art  ever  really  perfect  in  expression,  it  would  indeed  be  im- 
mortal. Even  the  greatest  art,  however,  is  full  of  the  dross  of  con\en- 
tionality,  of  the  particular  sophistications  of  its  age.  As  these  change, 
the  directness  of  expression  in  any  work  of  art  tends  to  be  increasingl\ 
felt  as  hampered  by  something  fixed  and  alien,  until  it  gradualK  falls 
into  oblivion.  While  art  lives,  it  belongs  to  culture;  in  the  degree  thai  it 
takes  on  the  frigidity  of  death,  it  becomes  o\'  interest  onl>  to  the  stud> 
of  civilization.  Thus  all  art  appreciation  (and  production,  for  that 
matter)  has  two  faces.  It  is  unfortunate  that  the  face  directed  to  ci\ili/a- 
tion  is  so  often  confounded  with  that  which  is  fixed  on  culiure 


IV.  The  geography  (.>!"  ciiliuic 

An  oft-noted  peculiarity  of  the  development  o\  culture  is  ilie  laci 
that  it  reaches  its  greatest  heights  in  comparaineh  small,  auiononunis 
groups.  In  fact,  it  is  doubtful  if  a  genuine  culture  [426]  ever  properly 
belongs  to  more  than  such  a  restricted  group,  a  group  between  the 
members  of  which  there  can  be  said  to  be  something  like  direct  intensne 
spiritual  contact.  This  direct  contact  is  enriched  by  the  CiMiimon  cultural 
heritage  on  which  the  minds  of  all  are  led;  it  is  rendered  swifi  and 


68  ///  Culture 

pregnant  by  the  thousands  of  feelings  and  ideas  that  are  tacitly  assumed 
and  that  constantly  glimmer  in  the  background.  Such  small,  culturally 
autonomous  groups  were  the  Athens  of  the  Periclean  Age,  the  Rome  of 
Augustus,  the  independent  city-states  of  Italy  in  late  medieval  times,  the 
London  of  Elizabethan  days,  and  the  Paris  of  the  last  three  centuries. 
It  is  customary  to  speak  of  certain  of  these  groups  and  of  their  cultures 
as  though  they  were  identical  with,  or  represented,  widely  extended 
groups  and  cultures.  To  a  curiously  large  extent  such  usages  are  really 
figures  of  speech,  substitutions  of  a  part  for  the  whole.  It  is  astonishing, 
for  instance,  how  much  the  so-called  "history  of  French  literature"  is 
really  the  history  of  literary  activity  in  the  city  of  Paris.  True  enough,  a 
narrowly  localized  culture  may,  and  often  does,  spread  its  influence  far 
beyond  its  properly  restricted  sphere.  Sometimes  it  sets  the  pace  for  a 
whole  nationality,  for  a  far-flung  empire.  It  can  do  so,  however,  only  at 
the  expense  of  diluting  in  spirit  as  it  moves  away  from  its  home,  of 
degenerating  into  an  imitative  attitudinizing.  If  we  realized  more  keenly 
what  the  rapid  spread  or  imposition  of  a  culture  entails,  to  what  an 
extent  it  conquers  by  crushing  the  germs  of  healthier  autonomous 
growth,  we  would  be  less  eager  to  welcome  uniformizing  tendencies, 
less  ready  to  think  of  them  as  progressive  in  character.  A  culture  may 
well  be  quickened  from  without,  but  its  supersession  by  another, 
whether  superior  or  not,  is  no  cultural  gain.  Whether  or  not  it  is 
attended  by  a  political  gain  does  not  concern  us  here.  That  is  why  the 
deliberate  attempt  to  impose  a  culture  directly  and  speedily,  no  matter 
how  backed  by  good  will,  is  an  affront  to  the  human  spirit.  When  such 
an  attempt  is  backed,  not  by  good  will,  but  by  military  ruthlessness,  it 
is  the  greatest  conceivable  crime  against  the  human  spirit,  it  is  the  very 
denial  of  culture. 

Does  this  mean  that  we  must  turn  our  back  on  all  internationalistic 
tendencies  and  vegetate  forever  in  our  nationalisms?  Here  we  are  con- 
fronted by  the  prevalent  fallacy  that  internationalism  is  [427]  in  spirit 
opposed  to  the  intensive  development  of  autonomous  cultures.  The  fal- 
lacy proceeds  from  a  failure  to  realize  that  internationalism,  national- 
ism, and  locahsm  are  forms  that  can  be  given  various  contents.  We 
cannot  intelligently  discuss  internationahsm  before  we  know  what  it  is 
that  we  are  to  be  internationalistic  about.  Unfortunately  we  are  so  ob- 
sessed by  the  idea  of  subordinating  all  forms  of  human  association  to 
the  state  and  of  regarding  the  range  of  all  types  of  activity  as  contermi- 
nous with  political  boundaries,  that  it  is  difficult  for  us  to  reconcile  the 
idea  of  a  local  or  restrictedly  national  autonomy  of  culture  with  a  purely 


Oni'.  Cult  inc.  Society,  und  the  hull  vidua!  69 

political  state-sovereignty  and  with  an  economic-political  international- 
ism. 

No  one  can  see  clearly  what  is  destined  to  be  the  larger  outcome  of 
the  present  world  contlicts.  They  may  exacerbate  rather  than  alla\  na- 
tional-political animosities  and  thus  tend  to  strengthen  the  prestige  of 
the  state.  But  this  deplorable  result  cannot  well  be  other  than  a  passing 
phase.  Even  now  it  is  evident  that  the  war  has,  in  more  ways  than  one. 
paved  the  way  tor  an  economic  and,  as  a  corollary,  a  semi-poliiical 
internationalism.  All  those  spheres  of  activity  that  relate  to  the  satislac- 
tion  of  immediate  ends,  which,  from  the  vantage  point  that  we  have 
gained,  are  nothing  but  means,  will  tend  to  become  international  func- 
tions. However  the  internationalizing  processes  will  shape  themscKes  in 
detail,  they  will  at  bottom  be  but  the  retlection  of  that  growmg  impa- 
tience of  the  human  spirit  with  the  preoccupation  with  direct  ends, 
which  I  spoke  of  before.  Such  transnational  problems  as  the  distribu- 
tion of  economic  goods,  the  transportation  of  commodities,  the  control 
of  highways,  the  coinage,  and  numerous  others,  must  e\entuall>  pass 
into  the  hands  of  international  organizations  for  the  simple  reason  that 
men  will  not  eternally  give  their  loyalty  to  the  uselessly  naiiiMial  admni- 
istration  of  functions  that  are  of  inherently  international  scope.  As  this 
international  scope  gets  to  be  thoroughly  realized,  our  present  infatua- 
tions with  national  prestige  in  the  economic  sphere  will  show  themsehes 
for  the  spiritual  imbecilities  that  they  are. 

All  this  has  much  to  do  with  the  eventual  development  of  culture.  As 
long  as  culture  is  looked  upon  as  a  decorative  appendage  o\'  large  (428] 
political  units,  one  can  plausibly  argue  that  its  preservation  is  bound 
up  with  the  maintenance  of  the  prestige  o(  these  units.  But  genuine 
culture  is  inconceivable  except  on  the  basis  of  a  highly  individual  spiri- 
tual consciousness,  it  rarely  remains  healthy  and  subtle  when  spread 
thin  over  an  interminable  area,  and  in  its  higher  reaches  it  is  in  no 
mood  to  submit  to  economic  and  political  bonds.  Nin\  a  generalized 
international  culture  is  hardly  thinkable.  The  national-political  unit 
tends  to  arrogate  cuhure  to  itself  and  up  to  a  certain  point  it  succeeds 
in  doing  so,  but  only  at  the  price  of  serious  cultural  impo\erishmeni  o( 
vast  portions  of  its  terrain.  If  the  economic  and  political  intei!ni\  of 
these  large  state-controlled  units  becomes  graduall>  uiuicrmined  b\  the 
growth  of  international  functions,  their  cultural  niison  dctre  must  also 
tend  to  weaken.  Culture  must  then  tend  with  e\er  increasing  intensii> 
to  cling  to  relatively  small  social  and  to  minor  political  units,  units  that 
are  not  too  large  to  incorporate  the  individuality  that  is  to  culture  as 


70  ///  Culture 

the  very  breath  of  life.  Between  these  two  processes,  the  integration  of 
economic  and  poHtical  forces  into  a  world  sovereignty  and  the  disinteg- 
ration of  our  present  unwieldy  culture  units  into  small  units  whose  Hfe 
is  truly  virile  and  individual,  the  fetish  of  the  present  state,  with  its 
uncontrolled  sovereignty,  may  in  the  dim  future  be  trusted  to  melt  away. 
The  political  state  of  today  has  long  been  on  trial  and  has  been  found 
wanting.  Our  national-political  units  are  too  small  for  peace,  too  large 
for  safety.  They  are  too  small  for  the  intelhgent  solution  of  the  large 
problems  in  the  sphere  of  direct  ends;  they  are  too  large  for  the  fruitful 
enrichment  of  the  remoter  ends,  for  culture. 

It  is  in  the  New  World,  perhaps  more  than  in  any  other  part  of  the 
globe,  that  the  unsatisfactory  nature  of  a  geographically  widespread 
culture,  of  little  depth  or  individuality  to  begin  with,  is  manifest.  To 
find  substantially  the  same  cultural  manifestations,  material  and  spiri- 
tual, often  indeed  to  the  minutest  details,  in  New  York  and  Chicago 
and  San  Francisco  is  saddening.  It  argues  a  shallowness  in  the  culture 
itself  and  a  readiness  to  imitation  in  its  bearers  that  is  not  reassuring. 
Even  if  no  definite  way  out  of  the  flat  cultural  morass  is  clearly  discerni- 
ble for  the  present,  there  is  no  good  basking  forever  in  self-sufficiency. 
It  can  only  be  of  benefit  [429]  to  search  out  the  depths  of  our  hearts 
and  to  find  wherein  they  are  wanting.  If  we  exaggerate  our  weakness, 
it  does  not  matter;  better  chastening  than  self-glorification.  We  have 
been  in  the  habit  of  giving  ourselves  credit  for  essentially  quantitative 
results  that  are  due  rather  to  an  unusually  favoring  nature  and  to  a 
favoring  set  of  economic  conditions  than  to  anything  in  ourselves.  Our 
victories  have  been  brilliant,  but  they  have  also  too  often  been  barren 
for  culture.  The  habit  of  playing  with  loaded  dice  has  given  us  a  danger- 
ous attitude  of  passivity  -  dangerous,  that  is,  for  culture.  Stretching 
back  opulently  in  our  easy  chairs,  we  expect  great  cultural  things  to 
happen  to  us.  We  have  wound  up  the  machinery,  and  admirable  ma- 
chinery it  is;  it  is  "up  to"  culture  to  come  forth,  in  heavy  panoply.  The 
minute  increment  of  individuality  which  alone  makes  culture  in  the  self 
and  eventually  builds  up  a  culture  in  the  community  seems  somehow 
overlooked.  Canned  culture  is  so  much  easier  to  administer. 

Just  now  we  are  expecting  a  great  deal  from  the  European  war.  No 
doubt  the  war  and  its  aftermath  will  shake  us  out  of  some  part  of  our 
smugness  and  let  in  a  few  invigorating  air  currents  of  cultural  influence, 
but,  if  we  are  not  careful,  these  influences  may  soon  harden  into  new 
standardizations  or  become  diluted  into  another  stock  of  imitative  atti- 
tudes and  reactions.  The  war  and  its  aftermath  cannot  be  a  sufficient 


One:  Cullurc.  Society,  ami  i he  hulnulunl  7| 

cultural  cause,  they  arc  al  best  hiii  aiuuhcr  set  of  laNoring  conditions. 
We  need  not  be  too  much  astonished  if  a  Periclcan  cullurc  docs  not 
somehow  automatically  burst  into  bloom.  Sooner  or  later  \se  shall  have 
to  get  down  to  the  humble  task  o^  exploring  the  depths  ol  our  con- 
sciousness and  dragging  to  the  light  what  sincere  hits  olrenecied  experi- 
ence we  can  find.  These  bits  will  not  always  be  beautiful,  thev  will  nol 
always  be  pleasing,  but  they  will  be  genuine.  And  then  we  can  build.  In 
time,  in  plenty  ot  time  -  for  we  must  have  patience  -a  genuine  culture 
-  better  yet,  a  series  of  linked  autonomous  cultures  uill  grace  our 
lives.  And  New  York  and  Chicago  and  San  Francisco  uill  li\e  each  in 
its  own  cultural  strength,  not  squinting  from  one  to  another  to  see 
which  gets  ahead  in  a  race  for  external  values,  but  each  serenely  oblivi- 
ous of  its  rivals  because  growing  in  a  soil  of  genuine  cultural  \alues. 


Editorial  Notes 

Originally  published  in  The  Anierlain  Jourmil  of  Socioloi^y  29. 
401-429  (1924).  Reprinted  by  permission  of  the  I  ni\ersity  of  Chicago 
Press.  Section  II,  with  the  exception  of  the  first  three  sentences,  also 
appeared  under  the  title  "Civilization  and  Culture"  in  77/c  /)/(//  67. 
233-236  (1919).  Section  I  also  appeared  as  "Culture,  (ienuine  and  Spu- 
rious^'  in  The  Dalhousie  Review  2,  165-178  (1922);  sections  Ml  and  1\. 
with  the  exception  of  the  first  paragraph  of  section  III.  also  appeared 
as  "Culture  in  New  Countries"  in  The  Dalhintsic  Review  2,  358-368 
(1922). 


Notes  on  Psychological  Inlerprclalioii  in  a  Cji\cn 

Society  (1926) 

The  Social  Science  Research  Council  (SSRC  ).  toundcd  in  1925  by  Lnucrsily  of  Chi- 
cago poHtical  scientist  Charles  Merriani.  hcuan  in  the  following  year  to  sponsor  annual 
conferences  for  prominent  scholars  in  the  emerging  intercliseiplinary  social  sciences  The 
conferences  were  held  at  Dartmouth  College  in  Hanover.  New  Hampshire.  (For  further 
information  on  these  conferences  and  the  interdisciplinary  social  science  movement  dur- 
ing this  period,  see  Darnell  1990.) 

Sapir's  talk  at  the  first  of  these  "Hanover  Conferences'"  in  1926  modestly  referred  to 
"notes  on"  his  chosen  topic;  nonetheless,  the  paper  summarized  his  thinking  on  what 
would  later  be  called  ditlerences  in  national  character.  Sapir  preferred  other  labels,  such  us 
"as-if  personality."  a  concept  he  developed  further  in  preparing  his  lectures  on  Pw  Psychol- 
ogy of  Culture.  Sapir  published  little  on  these  ideas  during  his  lifetime.  howe\er;  instead. 
anthropological  conceptions  of  national  character  reached  their  culmination  in  the  work 
of  Margaret  Mead  and  Ruth  Benedict  -  both  of  whom  were  substantially  influenced  b> 
Sapir's  thinking  up  to  this  period  (1926)  but  were  not  in  such  close  contact  with  him  there- 
after. The  culture-and-personality  school  which  the  latter  two  scholars  de\ eloped  within 
anthropology  was  quite  different  from  Sapir's  subsequent  work  on  personality,  work  w  hich 
was  influenced  by  Sapir's  association  with  the  psychiatrist  Harry  Stack  Sullivan. 

Although  copies  of  this  1926  paper  were  circulated,  along  with  transcripts  of  other 
portions  of  the  conference  proceedings,  among  the  conference  participants.  Sapir  ne\er 
published  it.  It  appears  in  this  volume  for  the  first  time.  The  text  is  taken  from  the 
transcripts  of  the  conference  and  was  evidently  never  prepared  in  an>  other  form.  .Ap- 
parently, most  participants  in  the  conference  spoke  extemporaneoush  and  were  re- 
corded by  SSRC  stenographers. 

The  1926  conference  lasted  from  August  9  to  September  3  and  included  19  plenary 
lectures,  as  well  as  other  activities.  The  transcripts  of  discussion  of  other  lectures  record 
only  a  few  remarks  by  Sapir.  none  particularly  extensive.  Accordingly,  we  present  here 
only  the  session  of  August  19,  1926,  which  began  with  Sapir's  paper  and  continued  with 
a  discussion,  which  we  represent  in  abbreviated  form.  In  order  to  preser\e  something  of 
the  oral  and  spontaneous  quality  of  the  occasion,  and  because  the  iranscnpl  itself  is 
the  only  record  of  what  was  said,  we  have  not  attempted  lo  edit  the  portions  we  prcMrnl 
verbatim,  other  than  in  punctuation  and  spelling. 


Notes  on  Psychological  Oricniiiiioii  iii  a  (ii\oii  Sociciy 

I  am  afraid  this  particular  subject  tails  outside  ihc  iicncra!  rubric  o( 
the  proceedings  of  this  week.  Hie  discussions  thai  ha\e  preceded  this 


74  ///  Culture 

have  all  been  very  special  and  detailed  studies  which  were  intended,  I 
believe,  to  illustrate  method.  A  paper  which  is  not  special  in  detail  is 
supposed  to  illustrate  method.  Unfortunately,  I  am  not  aware  of  having 
any  method  or  illustrations  of  method,  inasmuch  as  my  paper  is  going 
to  contain  little  of  factual  interest.  I  hope  however  that  the  discussions 
will  give  some  body  to  what  I  was  going  to  say. 

In  order  to  reassure  apprehensive  members,  I  was  asked  if  I  was 
going  to  say  anything  improper.  I  hasten  to  assure  you  that  all  of  my 
illustrations  are  chaste. 

The  subject  of  social  psychology  is  one  that  has  interested  all  of  us, 
but  as  far  as  I  myself  am  concerned,  I  find  myself  redefining  it  every 
time  I  use  the  term,  and  very  much  up  in  the  air  as  to  what  it  really 
means.  As  soon  as  I  try  to  give  it  a  definite  connotation,  I  find  I  ask 
myself  the  same  old  questions  over  again.  I  sometimes  wonder  whether 
I  am  any  the  wiser  for  all  the  cogitations. 

Perhaps  the  best  way  to  get  at  this  concept  of  social  psychology, 
which  will  be  the  setting  of  the  remarks  which  I  wish  to  make  later,  is 
to  ask  ourselves  a  few  questions  and  answer  them  yea  or  nay. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  a  certain  notion  which  used  to  be  current 
that  social  psychology  is  a  kind  of  psychology  that  inhered  in  a  mind 
different  from  the  ordinary  mind,  supposed  to  be  some  sort  of  super- 
mind,  which  carried  on  somehow  and  which  was  lodged  in  fragmentary 
fashion  in  individual  minds.  That  old-fashioned,  metaphysical  notion 
lingers  on  in  the  Jung  psychology,  and  of  course  it  is  one  of  the  criti- 
cisms of  that  psychology  that  it  operates  so  much  with  this  super-per- 
sonal mind  in  which  social  phenomena,  social  values,  are  supposed  to 
inhere.  I  think  all  of  us  have  got  away  from  that,  it  is  so  utterly  meta- 
physical. 

There  is  a  second  conception  which  I  think  is  even  more  mischievous 
because  it  is  more  plausible.  It  is  a  very  current  conception,  and  my 
private  opinion  is  that  it  is  the  most  pernicious  difficulty  that  students 
of  social  science  have  to  deal  with.  This  definition  or  conception  of 
social  psychology  I  am  going  to  try  to  define.  I  may  be  all  wrong;  if  so, 
I  would  Hke  to  have  it  come  out  in  the  discussion.  If  you  will  not  profit 
by  my  remarks,  I  shall  by  yours. 

It  seems  to  me  a  great  deal  of  the  discussion  I  have  listened  to  in 
regard  to  the  social  sciences,  which  social  psychology  is  supposed  to 
clear  up  for  us,  rests  on  the  assumption  that  these  social  sciences  are 
the  direct  functions  of  the  group,  of  society,  as  such,  the  solidarity  of 
human  beings  getting  together  and  doing  things.  Therefore,  if  you  only 


One  Culture.  Society,  utnl  the  liulivuhtal  75 

knew  how  the  group  functions  psychologically,  you  would  have  a  lc\cr 
to  the  understanding  of  social  science;  in  fact,  you  would  have  social 
science.  It  sounds  plausible,  but  I  think  it  is  wrong,  it  is  so  \ery  nearly 
self-evident  as  to  be  pernicious.  I  will  try  to  explain  as  best  I  can  uh\  i 
think  it  is  wrong,  and  why  it  has  caused  confusion  in  our  nnnds. 

In  the  fnst  place,  if  we  take  up  the  social  sciences  and  study  their 
subject  matter  without  preconceptions,  we  find  they  are  not  built  up  o\ 
all  those  reactions  that  are  due  to  the  interaction  o\'  human  beings  as 
groups  -  manifestly  not.  If  A  and  B  come  together  and  hit  each  other 
on  the  head  with  sticks  they  happen  to  pick  up,  that  is  communal  activ- 
ity of  a  definite  sort,  but  the  laws  of  that  kind  of  acti\ity  are  o^  no 
special  interest,  so  tar  as  I  can  see,  for  the  social  sciences.  At  any  rate, 
that  type  of  behavior  is  not  the  subject  matter  of  social  science.  I  think 
that  is  evident.  I  am  not  interested  in  acti\ities  of  that  kind.  Why  not* 
If  social  science  were  the  collectivity  of  studies  devoted  to  all  those 
reactions  that  grow  out  of  communal  human  conduct,  that  kind  o'i 
activity  -  the  hitting  of  A  by  B  in  this  random  way  -  should  be  o^ 
supreme  interest  to  us,  but  it  just  isn't,  which  shows  we  ha\e  neglected 
one  very  important  factor  in  the  definition  of  the  subject  matter  i>f 
social  science.  There  is  something  there  we  haxen'i  clearl\  envisaged. 
What  is  that  something? 

Anthropologists  (and.  in  their  wake,  a  great  many  sociologists)  have 
gradually  become  clear  what  that  something  is.  It  is  a  very  simple  thing 
but  it  is  easy  to  ignore  it.  It  is  the  fact  that  we  have  a  cumulative 
tradition  of  patterns  of  behavior  which  we  <So  not  lose  sight  o\'  from 
generation  to  generation,  and  only  those  kinds  o{  human  behavior  are 
of  interest  to  the  social  scientists  that  run  in  the  grooses  ot  those  pal- 
terns.  A  hitting  B  in  the  manner  described  was  not  following  an)  \er>' 
special  pattern  that  was  of  that  kind  of  interest.  It  was  of  group  interest. 
It  illustrated  nicely  the  action  of  mind  on  mind,  and  bod\  on  body,  but 
it  did  not  illustrate  the  operation  of  any  socially  sigmficanl  pattern. 
Therefore,  it  tell  outside  o\^  the  rubric  o\^  social  science.  It  is  a  simple 
example  but  possibly  clear  enough  for  our  purpose. 

We  see,  then,  that  we  are  justified  in  skepticism  at  the  oulscl  as  lo 
the  possibility  of  defining  an>   psychology  that  is  to  help  us  in  siKial 
science  in  terms  of  a  "group  psycholog\.""  in  the  simplest,  most  elcn     - 
tary  sense  of  the  term.  If  we  don't  hold  lo  that,  we  are  going  lo  tloui.-:. 
helplessly  in  any  methodology  we  ma\  construct,  and  I  am  quilc  sure  I 
have  seen  many  such  fiounderings. 


76  ///   Culture 

Let  us  give  another  example  in  order  to  clarify  our  minds  on  this 
point.  I  am  going  to  take  a  more  dubious  example.  I  invite  a  friend  of 
mine  to  a  meal.  We  sit  down  at  the  Hanover  Inn  to  eat  a  very  good 
meal.  From  one  standpoint,  the  behavior  that  results  in  the  eating  of 
the  meal  is  social,  and  from  another  standpoint  it  is  individual.  It  de- 
pends entirely  on  how  I  look  at  it.  (I  am  using  the  term  "social"  this 
time  with  reference  to  the  social  sciences;  it  is  an  ambiguous  term,  I 
admit.)  It  is  social  in  so  far  as  my  meal  is  a  ritual,  following  a  pattern. 
I  am  not  spurred  on  by  hunger  necessarily,  or  not  very  greatly.  I  don't 
react  as  an  "original  man"  might  react.  I  am  heavily  conditioned.  But 
from  an  anthropological  standpoint  I  am  something  else,  not  merely 
conditioned,  but  following  out  patterns  worked  out  by  my  ancestors  or 
those  who  set  the  pace  in  my  society.  But  in  so  far  as  I  am  satisfying 
the  cravings  of  hunger,  I  am  illustrating  certain  truths  of  individual 
psychology.  This  is  a  very  complicated  substitute  for  a  simple  pattern 
the  individual  psychologist  can  work  out.  In  the  first  example,  there 
was  no  social  significance  in  the  act.  There  probably  was,  as  we  will  see 
in  a  moment,  but  in  a  rough  way  there  wasn't.  In  the  second  example, 
there  was  some  social  significance. 

Now  all  these  very  self-evident  remarks  I  have  made  have  a  very 
important  corollary.  They  show  that  there  is  no  contrast,  properly 
speaking,  from  the  psychologist's  viewpoint,  between  individual 
psychology  and  social  psychology.  That  is  an  unfortunate  and  most 
fictitious  contrast,  it  seems  to  me.  But  there  is  a  difference  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  social  scientist  between  socially  unvalidated  or  indivi- 
dual conduct  and  socially  validated  or  cultural  conduct.  But  that  is  a 
distinction  the  psychologist  has  no  use  for,  as  I  see  it  -  none  whatever. 
The  psychologist  is  interested  in  reactivities  as  such.  He  is  not  interested 
in  the  fact  that  some  of  these  methods  of  conditioning  reactions  need 
an  historical  tradition  to  explain  them.  As  a  psychologist  pure  and  sim- 
ple, he  is  not  really  interested. 

Let  us  look  a  little  more  closely  at  the  distinction  made  between  indi- 
vidual and  social  conduct.  Personally,  I  think  it  is  an  unfortunate  one, 
because  it  is  hard  for  me  to  think  of  any  activity  which  is  not  social  in 
the  simple,  primitive  sense  of  group  activity,  which  is  not  the  kind  of 
social  activity  we  are  really  interested  in,  in  social  science.  If  you  stop 
to  think  of  it,  there  isn't  any  activity  that  is  not  in  a  communal  matrix 
of  some  kind.  Theoretically,  we  abstract  from  our  fellow-men,  parents, 
brothers  and  sisters,  from  all  the  thousands  of  human  beings  that  sur- 
round us,  but  actually  there  is  very  little  of  which  we  are  conscious  in 


One:  Cuhurc.  Society,  and  ilw  lnili\uliuil  77 

psychology,  or,  lo  piil  it  more  acemalcls.  in  aclual  luiiiuin  behavior, 
which  does  not  presuppose  the  existence  o^  this  society  we  are  hving  in. 

It  is  as  much  a  fiction  to  speak  of  individual  psychologv  as  to  speak 
of  social  psychology.  It  is  true  that  we  have  the  illusion  that  any  particu- 
lar human  reaction  we  engage  in  is  carried  by  the  individual  in  some 
kind  of  emironmcnl  thai  has  lo  be  defined.  But  inasmuch  as  that  reac- 
tivity is  always  directed  toward  or  presupposes  other  individuals,  it  is 
just  as  logical  to  start  with  social  psychology  and,  by  process  of  abstrac- 
tion, to  work  out  an  individual,  theoretical  psychology,  which  1  think 
is  going  to  be  done.  Individual  psychology  is  a  secondary  thing  vshich 
has  to  be  arrived  at  by  the  process  of  abstraction  and  elinnnation. 

I  am  not  so  specially  interested  in  that  distinction,  but  leave  that  to 
the  psychologists.  All  I  am  interested  in  is  blurring  the  distinction  be- 
tween social  and  individual  psychology.  It  may  be  useful  to  make  it, 
but  take  behavior  as  it  is,  not  as  it  is  arrived  at  by  a  process  of  elimina- 
tion, and  there  is  no  real  difference.  You  will  realize  I  do  not  jump  at  the 
conclusion,  therefore,  that  this  psychology,  call  it  individual  or  social  or 
both,  is  necessarily  capable  of  direct  application  to  the  understanding 
of  patterned  human  conduct. 

In  the  first  place,  this  patterned  human  conduct  is  a  sort  of  arbitrary 
selection;  certainly  it  is  tYom  the  psychologist's  standpoint.  There  is  no 
earthly  reason  why  such  activity  as  the  dance,  the  svmphony.  or  the 
actions  in  a  political  campaign,  or  any  of  the  dozens  and  hundreds  and 
thousands  of  patterns  of  activity  we  study  in  social  science,  so  far  as 
the  psychologist  can  see.  should  have  been  taken  out  as  o['  special  inter- 
est and  codified  in  the  types  o[^  behavior  in  which  the  social  scientist  is 
interested. 

I  don't  see  why  the  psychologist  should  contentedly  assume  that  the 
science  of  economics  envisages  a  type  o^  behavior  naturally  distinct 
from  the  kind  I  defined  in  the  case  of  A  hitting  B  on  the  head  But 
economic  behavior  is  of  interest  to  us  in  the  social  sciences. 

The  concept  of  culture  has  been  defined  caiefullv  At  the  risk  of  carry- 
ing coals  to  Newcastle,  I  am  going  to  say  a  few  words  about  it.  If  i  pick 
up  a  stick  and  hit  a  man  on  the  head  with  it.  and  somebodv  else  sees 
me  doing  this,  takes  note  of  it,  and  hits  somebody  else  on  the  head  in 
the  same  way,  and  thus  starts  a  cumulative  process.  si>  that  that  becomes 
the  accepted  way  in  which  you  express  vmir  anger,  always  to  hit  some- 
body on  the  head,  then  1  have  started  something.  1  have  started  a  tradi- 
tion, a  patterned  type  o^  behavior.  So  far  as  the  psychologist  is  con- 
cerned, it  makes  no  ditTerence  how  you  envisage  this  sequence  hislori- 


78  ///   Culture 

cally;  it  is  always  the  same  kind  of  process.  It  is  what  it  was  to  begin 
with,  spontaneous.  So  far  as  individual  psychology  is  concerned,  you 
never  get  away  from  the  starting  point.  So  far  as  the  culture  student  is 
concerned,  that  type  of  behavior  has  to  be  studied  as  a  pattern,  with 
definite  historical  sequence,  tending  in  a  certain  direction. 

It  means,  therefore,  that  as  students  of  social  science,  we  study  not 
only  the  reactions  of  the  individual  which  have  social  significance,  but 
that  we  also  use  the  imponderable  cultural  stimuli  themselves  of  such 
reactions,  which  are  laid  down  in  the  form  of  patterns,  carried  on  from 
generation  to  generation.  We  never  dare  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the 
conduct  is  envisaged  historically. 

You  may  say  history  is  bunk,  with  our  friend,  Henry  Ford,  but  you 
dare  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  your  method  of  envisaging  social 
behavior  is  that  of  a  series  of  cross-sections  in  history.  You  may  be 
interested  only  in  the  mechanics  of  social  activity  in  the  present,  but 
actually  you  are  simply  defining  one  of  the  cross-sections  in  the  histori- 
cal current. 

I  want  to  say  a  few  words  about  the  conception  of  drift  or  direction 
in  this  historical  stream  of  patterned  activities.  It  has  often  been  noticed 
that  historical  events  have  a  sequential  logic.  Even  if  you  take  so  appar- 
ently spontaneous  and  personal  a  thing  as  the  writing  of  dramas,  you 
find  that  there  is  a  certain  definite  drift  that  takes  place.  You  see  how 
the  Elizabethan  drama  grew  up.  It  went  through  the  early  blood  and 
thunder  stage  with  Kidd  and  Greene,  and  then  you  see  how  this  tech- 
nique was  worked  up  to  the  magnificent  achievement  of  Shakespeare, 
then  how  certain  principles  involved  became  over-elaborated  and  led  to 
a  luxuriance  of  expression,  a  lack  of  vitality,  and  a  decline.  That  is  a 
short  span,  but  the  Elizabethan  drama  went  through  a  certain  gamut 
of  stages. 

While  we  know  it  is  only  a  figure  of  speech  to  say  that  there  was  a 
certain  history  of  this  drama  which  can  be  defined  impersonally,  we  do 
feel  there  is  some  truth  in  that  way  of  putting  it.  It  means  that  if  Shake- 
speare had  come  a  little  earlier,  he  would  not  have  been  Shakespeare. 
Marlowe  a  little  later  might  have  been  greater  than  Shakespeare.  We 
don't  envisage  these  particular  types  of  cultural  acfivity  as  condidoned 
entirely  by  the  personalities  that  carry  them.  They  have  to  occupy  stra- 
tegic points  in  the  historical  stream.  We  see  again  that  we  cannot  under- 
stand social  activity  as  a  series  of  personal  reactions  to  which  the  tech- 
nique of  a  supposed  social  psychology  has  been  applied.  We  have  to  see 


One:  Culture,  Society,  and  the  hu/iviJual  7y 

these  activities,  whether  \\c  arc  explicit  abtuii  ihcin  ov  iu>i.  as  historical 
sequences  ahhough  we  may  only  envisage  i^ne  nioiiienl  in  that  sequence. 

Let  us  take  an  entirely  different  example,  the  example  oi  language. 
Our  English  language  has  certain  peculiarities.  Vbu  can  dci'me  ihcm 
without  reference  to  the  idiosyncrasies  of  a  particular  person  It  is  my 
organs  that  articulate,  my  emotionalit\  that  coK)rs  the  arliculatu>fi  I 
can't  really  abstract  from  my  particular  reactions  and  arri\e  at  a  notion 
which  is  of  any  particular  value  psychologically.  Ne\erlheless.  I  can 
defme  my  speech  in  institutional  terms  so  as  to  make  it  a  concept  of 
value  for  social  science.  It  is  a  bit  oi'  a  crux.  How  are  wc  going  to  use 
any  kind  of  psychology  for  the  understanding  of  a  phenomenon  which 
is  depersonalized?  Perhaps  I  had  better  elaborate,  as  it  seems  a  bit  cr\p- 
tic. 

Suppose  I  say  such  a  thing  as  "Get  out  o(  here."  Well,  that  has  a 
certain  emotional  charge,  certain  peculiarities  of  articulation  of  mme. 
If  I  wanted  to  understand  the  complete  psychology  of  that  utterance.  I 
couldn't  neglect  any  of  those  factors.  That  is  exactly  what  I  don't  do.  I 
don't  care  about  my  particular  emotional  charge.  I  can  stud\  m\  partic- 
ular reactions,  and  others  like  them,  until  I  am  blue  in  the  face  and 
know  mighty  little  about  the  English  language  as  an  institution.  I  can 
study  all  the  psychology  I  have  a  mind  to,  so  far  as  it  is  illustrated  by 
this  pattern  of  activity,  and  know  nothing  about  it.  as  the  result  o\'  m> 
laborious  studies.  That  is  my  conviction.  I  can  be  as  unpsychological- 
minded  as  you  like,  but  if  I  go  about  the  historical  study  o\'  I-nglish  in 
the  right  spirit  and  with  the  right  technique,  I  can  arrive  at  \er>  valid 
conclusions  as  to  what  the  English  language  is  like,  what  kind  of  form 
it  has,  how  it  has  developed,  and  what  its  tendcncv  is  in  the  future,  it 
is  a  bit  of  a  paradox,  but  it  is  true. 

Here  is  the  peculiar  thing  about  it  all:  If  1  abstract  from  the  purel> 
personal  peculiarities  of  this  sentence,  this  utterance,  and  ha\e  a  sort  of 
residuum  left  involving  certain  average  types  o\'  articulatuMi.  certain 
general  morphological  principles,  and  so  on.  1  can  eventuallv  make 
statements  that  seem  to  envisage  some  kind  o\  psvchologv.  paradoxi- 
cally enough. 

Here's  what  I  mean.  This  sentence,  "(Jet  out  o\'  here,"  is  an  example 
of  a  million  articulations  involving  certain  principles  oi  historical  pro- 
cess. If  I  have  the  proper  documentarv  e\  idence.  I  can  set  this  in  relation 
to  millions  that  have  preceded  it  in  the  past,  and  I  can  show  there  has 
been  in  the  course  of  time  a  series  of  complicated  changes  in  the  pallcrn. 
I  can  show  how  certain  consonants  change,  luns  certain  lorms  change. 


80  ///  Culture 

I  can  show  how  this  institution  that  we  call  the  English  language,  as 
exemplified  in  this  sentence,  was  shifting  in  form.  I  can  show  that  those 
changes  have  a  kind  of  logic  of  their  own  and  a  psychology  of  their 
own  apparently.  There  is  a  certain  consistency  of  change,  a  certain  di- 
rection of  drift.  If  I  gather  all  the  changes  that  have  taken  place  in  the 
English  language,  expressed  in  general  terms,  I  can  show  that  they  are 
not  helter-skelter  changes,  but  that  they  happened  according  to  prin- 
ciples that  can  be  formulated.  I  can  show,  for  instance,  that  there  was 
a  tendency  for  final  syllables  to  be  unaccented,  and  I  can  show  that  all 
the  vocalic  changes  follow  certain  laws;  the  tongue  tended  to  move  up, 
say,  and  affected  the  set  of  vowel  sounds  in  certain  ways. 

It  is  very  much  as  though  we  had  a  person  slipping  away  from  some 
habit  he  had  formed.  You  know  how  when  you  abbreviate  a  process, 
through  repeated  activity,  you  tend  to  slur  it.  Something  happens  in  the 
deformation  of  the  pattern  of  activity.  I  have  got  away  from  the  person 
himself  in  socialized  activity,  and  yet,  I  am  able  to  show  that  in  the 
historical  changes  there  is  a  kind  of  process  which  looks  superficially 
like  the  kind  of  process  that  takes  place  in  the  individual. 

So  we  have  allowed  a  certain  kind  of  social  psychology  to  slip  in  by 
the  back  door,  but  it  is  a  metaphorical  psychology  or  unreal  kind  of 
social  psychology.  How  can  we  explain  that?  Evidently  there  is  some 
kind  of  a  cumulative  process,  some  principle  of  selection,  according  to 
which  certain  tendencies  to  change  human  activities  are  allowed  uncon- 
sciously by  society,  in  so  far  as  it  patterns  its  conduct,  and  certain  others 
are  not  allowed.  That  is,  any  individual  varies  the  pattern  pretty  much 
at  random.  If  his  variations  are  in  the  direction  of  certain  drifts  or 
tendencies,  they  will  somehow  (I  can't  give  the  philosophy  of  it)  have  a 
greater  potency  than  if  their  drift  or  tendency  were  in  an  opposite  direc- 
tion. It  can  be  shown  by  historical  evidence  that  if  an  individual  pro- 
nounces a  certain  vowel  or  consonant  in  a  direction  opposite  to  the 
accumulated  drift  up  to  that  point,  his  particular  variation  will  have  no 
value.  It  will  fall  by  the  wayside  so  far  as  the  historical  current  is  con- 
cerned. He  may  be  the  King  of  England  -  it  just  doesn't  count.  But  it 
his  pronunciation  seems  to  reaffirm  the  accumulated  drift,  it  is  accepted. 

I  don't  think  any  of  us  are  powerful  enough  to  quite  understand  what 
that  means,  but  the  actuality  of  these  drifts,  these  cumulative  processes, 
cannot  be  doubted  by  anyone  who  has  studied  history,  language,  or 
whatever  type  of  patterned  activity  he  may  take  up.  In  so  far  as  the 
psychologist  has  never  worked  out  a  methodology  of  cumulative  drifts 
in  human  behavior,  he  is  not  at  present  of  much  value  in  the  major 


One:  Culture.  Soeietv.  unil  the  Imliviihutl  g| 

problems  of  social  science.  Thai  is  ihc  way  it  seems  ii>  me.  Thererorc. 
loo  much  must  not  be  expected  from  psychology  at  the  present  lime  m 
the  clearing  up  of  our  particular  problems.  I  think  indeed  we  may  have 
more  to  offer,  through  the  establishment  i>f  historical  sequences,  to  ihc 
psychologist  than  he  has  to  offer  to  us.  I  ha\e  noticed  a  great  many 
formulations  in  configurative  psychology  which  ha\e  been  familiar  m 
other  terms  to  philologists  for  generations,  it  ui>uld  be  inlereslmg  lo 
develop  that  point  in  a  special  study. 

We  have  arrived  at  the  conception  o^  a  drift  in  patterns  o{  human 
conduct  that  has  some  kind  of  psychological  value.  It  cant  be  the  ordi- 
nary type.  It  is  a  type  of  disembodied  psychology  that  we  ha\e  here. 
Let  me  jump  a  bit  and  take  up  something  different:  you  will  see  hou  ii 
hitches  on  later. 

Suppose  I  take  up  such  a  phenomenon  as  war.  There  are  i\so  ways 
of  looking  at  war  from  a  psychological  standpoint.  1  can  look  upon 
war  as  directly  expressive  of  the  kind  of  simple  emotional  response  that 
war  is  supposed  to  be  expressive  of,  call  it  whatever  >ou  like.  On  the 
other  hand,  I  can  refuse  to  look  upon  war  in  any  such  way  and  consider 
it  cold-bloodedly  as  a  patterned  institution.  The  two  points  o\'  view  are 
rather  different.  There  is  a  problem  here:  on  the  one  hand,  war  does. 
surely,  if  we  are  honest,  express,  in  a  highly  complicated  social  stylized 
tbrm,  an  emotion  of  hostility.  I  don't  think  we  can  deny  that  categori- 
cally. You  can't  altogether  conceive  of  war  as  a  peaceful  pursuit  that 
happens  to  kill  certain  people.  That  isn't  quite  the  whole  story,  in  spile 
of  the  cynical  remarks  often  made  about  the  nature  o\'  war.  \ou  have 
to  feel  hot  and  angry  to  carry  on  war  successful  1\.  Here  is  a  pretty 
problem,  it  seems  to  me,  of  the  relation  beiueen  the  indiNidual  and 
society. 

If  you  look  at  the  actual  facts,  you  discover  many  individuals  who 
are  not  warlike.  Such  an  individual  does  not  feel  angry  about  a  particu- 
lar war.  He  doesn't  care  a  rap  who  caused  it.  He  dix'sn't  hate  his  icxhni- 
cal  enemy.  He  feels  as  though  he  were  playing  a  game  of  poker  or  chess. 
There  are  such  people.  A  general,  one  o(  the  prime  movers  in  the  con- 
duct of  the  war,  might  have  a  psychology  of  just  that  \\\k.  If  vou  gel 
hold  of  that  person  and  study  him  with  your  laboratory  technique,  you 
don't  Tind  out  anything  about  the  supposed  psychological  motivation 
of  war.  So  far  as  you  can  see,  what  led  to  his  warlike  activity  was  a 
desire  to  work  out  the  tactics  o\^  strategy,  or  the  desire  lo  gel  ahead  of 
somebody  else  who  was  in  a  similar  position  as  himself,  and  he  v^anis 
to  get  ahead  so  as  to  win  a  medal,  to  be  pnnid  o\  the  medal.  So  far 


82  ///  Culture 

as  this  individual  is  concerned,  warlike  activity  has  no  psychological 
experience  previsaged  for  him  at  all.  It  is  a  design  which  society  has 
wrought  for  his  delectation.  He  gives  it  a  psychological  meaning,  but  it 
is  a  psychological  meaning  that  isn't  supposed  to  be  the  same  as  the 
kind  of  psychological  significance  we  believe  to  be  inherent  in  warlike 
conduct. 

It  seems,  then,  that  no  matter  what  your  psychological  origin  may 
be,  or  complex  of  psychological  origins,  of  a  particular  type  of  pat- 
terned conduct,  the  pattern  itself  will  linger  on  by  sheer  inertia,  which 
is  a  rather  poor  term  for  the  accumulated  force  of  social  tradition;  and 
entirely  different  principles  of  psychology  come  into  play  which  may 
even  cancel  those  which  originally  motivated  the  nucleus  of  the  pattern 
of  activity.  Patterns  of  activity  are  continually  getting  away  from  their 
original  psychological  incitation.  There  are  many  kinds  of  patterned 
activity  which  need  to  be  revalidated  from  time  to  time  in  order  to  have 
them  retain  their  significance,  unless  we  can  give  them  a  new  signifi- 
cance by  putting  a  new  psychology  into  them,  as  it  depends  on  what 
the  pattern  is,  as  to  whether  revalidation  takes  place  or  not. 

War  can  persist  out  of  sheer  inertia  of  the  pattern  of  war,  and  it  does 
so  persist,  but  it  needs,  somewhere  or  other,  to  have  a  revalidation  in 
the  original  terms,  psychologically  speaking. 

Contrast  two  individuals:  one,  the  general,  who  perhaps  moves  the 
springs  of  warfare,  but  has  little  of  the  feeling  of  hatred,  and  another, 
a  patriot  perhaps,  who  feels  bitterly  about  the  aggressor  and  puts  punch 
into  his  warlike  reactions.  For  whom  has  the  warlike  activity  a  greater 
significance?  From  the  standpoint  of  the  original  motivation  of  war,  it 
is  for  the  latter  that  war  means  more. 

We  see,  then,  that  we  have  two  kinds,  roughly  speaking,  of  psycholog- 
ical validation  for  any  particular  pattern:  an  individual  validation  which 
may  not  correspond  to  the  original  one,  and  a  revalidafion  in  terms  of 
the  original  one,  more  or  less. 

That  is  badly  stated,  I  believe,  but  you  will  see  pretty  much  what  I 
mean.  This  is  a  somewhat  disturbing  point  of  view  because  it  means 
that  there  can't  be  any  general  psychology  for  the  patterned  conduct 
which  alone  we  really  know.  In  the  back  of  our  minds  we  know  pretty 
well  that  any  particular  type  of  patterned  conduct  means  different 
things  to  different  people,  but  we  are  constantly  forgetting  it  or  pretend- 
ing to  forget  it,  in  order  that  we  may  conceive  of  humanity  as  banded 
together  in  groups  that  carry  on  under  the  influence  of  communal  stim- 
uli. The  latter  formulation  doesn't  adequately  represent  the  true  state 


One:  Culture.  Society,  iiml  t/w  Individuul  Bj 

of  affairs.  If  \\c  ccnild  ha\c  a  Hue  rccortl  o\'  the  iiulividual  psychology 
o\^  patterned  conduct,  we  would  llnd  thai  \\  meant  differenl  things  to 
different  people.  Religious  conduct  means  quite  different  things  for  dif- 
ferent people.  We  are  getting  far  away.  then,  from  the  possibihl)  of 
applying  any  kind  of  social  psychology  to  cultural  beha\ior.  because 
there  isn't  anything  in  society  to  psychologize.  We  are  dealing  with  the 
evolution  of  forms  in  social  science  which  incidentally  receive  indi\idual 
psychological  validation.  When  you  so  \alidale.  \ou  ha\e  \nui  si.ri.il 
psychology,  or  individual  psychology,  call  it  what  you  like. 

Now  this  matter  of  revalidation  in  original  terms  that  I  spoke  ot  is 
very  important,  it  seems  to  me.  because  it  appears  that  owing  to  the 
consistent  direction  of  the  drifts  of  change,  there  are  certam  kinds  o\ 
psychological  significance  that  are  more  orthodox,  as  it  uere.  m  terms 
of  the  patterns  themselves  than  other  kinds  of  validation. 

Let  me  give  a  simple  example.  I  gave  war  before;  I  will  give  one  which 
is  perhaps  a  little  clearer.  Let  us  take  religious  activity.  A  man  goes  to 
church.  He  goes  through  all  the  motions,  sits  in  the  pew,  reads  his  pra\- 
ers,  sings  the  hymns,  but  he  is  thinking  of  something  dilTerent  -  for 
instance,  the  game  of  golf  that  he  is  going  to  play  afterwards.  He  is 
simply  going  through  certain  forms.  So  tar  as  the  psychology  o\'  re  Hi:  ion 
is  concerned,  there  isn't  any.  You  aren't  going  to  get  information  of 
much  value  out  of  his  mental  experience,  but  from  the  standpoint  of 
social  science,  he  is  a  good  subject  for  the  study  o\'  "religious"  behavior. 
We  have  no  right  to  rule  him  out. 

But  there  happen  to  be  some  individuals  who  are  vers  fervent,  even 
at  this  late  date.  They  really  do  believe.  They  have  certain  emotions  that 
might  appropriately  be  called  religious.  They  are  feiveni.  address  their 
prayers  with  conviction,  are  in  a  state  of  ecstasy,  so  that  thev  are  under- 
going reactions  that  are  like  those  that  the  speculative  psychoii^gisi  has 
in  mind  when  he  deals  with  the  origins  of  religious  conduct.  These  may 
be  as  he  determines  them,  or  not:  that  is  another  storv.  The  conduct  of 
the  second  individual  is  more  nearly  like  the  conduct  the  student  has  in 
mind  when  he  speculates  psychologicallv  about  these  origins.  Nou  might 
say  that  the  second  type  o\^  religious  conduct  is  more  ■"valuable."  al- 
though the  pattern  of  religious  behavior  as  such  nia>  Iv  more  poorly 
represented  by  it. 

In  other  words,  we  would  say  that  the  second  individual  is  "Imnc" 
the  pattern,  giving  it  vitality,  and  helping  to  carr>  on  the  psvchological 
drift  of  significance  of  the  pattern.  If  there  were  not  a  great  number  ot 
individuals  like  hini.  the  paticin  would  have  to  be  "revalued"  or  Nxomc 


84  ///  Culture 

extinct.  It  would  have  to  lose  its  vitality,  as  patterns  do,  and  maybe 
wait  for  something  of  an  entirely  different  nature  to  take  its  place. 

Here's  what  I  want  to  point  out:  that  we  can  say  of  all  individuals 
who  go  through  the  forms  of  religious  conduct  that  they  are  acting  as 
//they  were  inspired  by  the  feelings  of  those  who  really  feel  religiously, 
whether  they  really  are  or  not.  For  the  moment,  we  don't  care  whether 
they  are  or  not.  They  are  leading  a  life  which,  to  be  understood  in 
"maximum"  psychological  terms,  has  to  be  interpreted  as  religious  con- 
duct in  a  psychological  sense,  even  though  it  doesn't  really  illustrate  it 
for  a  moment.  It  means  that  certain  people  are  undergoing  types  of 
behavior  that  suggest  a  psychology  that  they  don't  experience.  In  other 
words,  we  can  look  upon  socialized  behavior  as  symbolic  of  psychologi- 
cal processes  not  illustrated  by  the  individuals  themselves. 

There  is,  then,  room  for  a  new  kind  of  "social  psychology."  I  think 
it  is  a  very  real  study.  Psychoanalysts  have  vaguely  got  a  slant  on  that 
kind  of  social  psychology,  but  poorly  in  their  actual  instances.  But  by 
looking  upon  patterns  as  symbols  of  real  or  supposed  psychological 
processes,  they  have  done  something  of  service,  something  which  the 
anthropologists  also  have  worked  out  in  a  crude,  elementary  way.  I 
think  psychologists  have  a  great  deal  to  learn  from  the  social  sciences 
of  that  kind  of  validation  of  readily  accepted  and  maintained  symbols. 

Now  I  am  going  to  take  another  leap  in  order  that  you  may  see  what 
I  mean  by  the  term  "orientation."  We  are  all  familiar  with  the  concept 
of  the  "spirit"  of  a  given  culture.  Of  course,  we  pooh-pooh  it  in  careful 
scientific  work,  but  we  have  a  hunch  that  there  is  something  there.  We 
are  all  familiar  with  the  metaphor  of  handling  a  whole  society  as  though 
it  were  a  kind  of  individual  with  a  certain  mentality.  We  know  it  isn't 
"true,"  but  we  know  there  is  some  kind  of  truth  there.  We  say,  for  in- 
stance, that  there  is  a  certain  psychological  slant  in  Russian  culture.  We 
can't  put  our  finger  on  it  but  we  know  there  is  something  of  real  truth 
involved  in  phrases  of  this  sort.  Let's  see  what  kind  of  truth  it  is.  I'll 
say  something  about  French  culture,  true  or  not.  I'll  say  French  culture 
is  characterized  by  a  spirit  of  extreme  formalism.  I  see  it  in  all  kinds  of 
ways.  I  see  it  in  the  bureaucracy  of  French  government,  the  over-clarity 
of  human  conduct.  I  see  it  in  the  tendencies  to  over-stylized  activity  in 
the  graces  of  life.  I  see  it  in  their  art.  I  notice  that  French  poetry  is  very 
formal.  It  chooses  its  words  with  great  meticulousness.  To  choose  a 
wrong  word  counts  for  a  more  deplorable  slip  in  French  than  in  English. 
I  see  it  in  their  music,  which  is  always  well-formalized  even  where  it 
seems  "formless";  it  is  just  as  stylized,  just  as  patterned,  as  the  older 


One:  Culture.  Socicly.  and  the  hulivichuil  g5 

classical  music.  The  French  novel  is  known  lo  be  well  construeled  even 
where  it  is  poor  in  content;  such  crude  formless  writers  as  Dickens  and 
Wells  are  impossible  in  French.  It  was  not  accidental  that  the  Ireneh 
called  Shakespeare  a  "barbarian." 

All  these  isolated  remarks  aim  to  point  out  tiiai  ihe  French  genius  or 
spirit  has  aimed  unconsciously  to  express  itself  in  very  detlnitely  stylized 
form,  that  it  has  sacrificed  intensity  to  lucidity.  Does  that  mean  thai 
your  Frenchman  as  an  individual  is  possessed  of  a  psychology  that 
necessarily  gives  rise  to  that  kind  of  expression?  It  is  too  often  assumed 
that  he  is.  But  if  you  deal  with  actual  Frenchmen,  Hesh-and-blood 
Frenchmen,  you  don't  find  that  to  be  true.  You  know  the  lYenchman 
is  just  as  irrational,  just  as  temperamental  as  the  Englishman;  in  fact, 
some  people  think  he  is  more  so  because  he  gesticulates  more.  Vet  we 
can  understand  the  spirit  of  lucidity  in  French  culture  without  reference 
to  some  kind  of  peculiar  psychology  lurking  somewhere  or  other.  The 
point  is,  the  psychological  slant  given  at  some  time  or  other  in  the 
general  configurations  we  call  French  culture  by  particular  individuals 
became  dissociated,  acted  as  a  sort  of  symbol  or  pattern  so  that  all 
following  have  to  act  as  though  they  were  inspired  by  the  original  moti- 
vation, as  though  they  were  acting  in  such  or  such  a  psychological  sense, 
whether  they  temperamentally  were  or  not.  They  in  a  sense  dissociated 
themselves:  into  cultural  beings,  and  into  individuals  pure  and  simple. 
I  think  it  is  important  to  understand  that. 

Therefore,  any  particular  Frenchman  who  comes  in  at  a  ceriaui  tune 
and  wishes  to  make  a  dent  on  the  patterns  of  French  culture  will  not 
succeed  unless  he  somehow  falls  in  line  with  the  general  drift  o\  lYench 
culture.  If  he  is  too  individual  and  acts  in  a  manner  which  is  entirel>  at 
variance  with  the  general  spirit  of  French  culture,  he  won't  ha\e  much 
infiuence.  He  may  be  a  very  much  less  talented  indi\idual.  but  if  he 
gives  quite  the  right  turn  to  the  general  cultural  drift,  he  might  be  a 
potent  personality,  because  culture  tends  to  preserve  itself  in  measurable 
stable  form. 

So  we  can  characterize  whole  cultures  psychologicalK  without  predi- 
cating those  particular  psychological  reactions  o\'  the  individuals  who 
carry  on  the  culture.  That  is  somewhat  uncanns.  but  I  think  it  is  a 
reasonably  correct  view  to  take  of  society. 

The  particular  application  I  really  had  it  in  mind  tv>  make  in  this 
whole  conception  of  orientation  was  the  contrast  between  the  mtrovcri 
and  the  extravert.  Suppose  I  contrast  the  Hindu  with  the  Chinese.  We 
know  that  Hindus  differ  from  each  other,  and  that  is  likewise  true  of 


86  ///   Culture 

the  Chinese.  There  is  not  the  slightest  reason  to  beheve  that  Hindus  are 
extraverted  or  introverted  as  a  group.  There  is  not  the  sHghtest  reason 
to  beheve  the  Chinese  are  extraverted  or  introverted  as  a  group.  Both 
undoubtedl)  run  the  usual  gamut  o(  individual  \ariation.  such  as  we 
run  ourselves.  I  think  that  it  is  impossibly,  unless  one  refuses  to  follow 
"hunches,"  to  avoid  the  conviction,  after  some  kind  of  study,  however 
superficial,  that  the  Hindu  culture  is  relatively  introverted  and  the  Chi- 
nese culture  is  relatively  extraverted.  I  don't  know  how  it  is  possible  to 
avoid  it.  While  that  kind  of  formulation  may  not  seem  valuable  for 
particular  purposes,  I  think  that  it  has  some  value.  Let  me  point  out  a 
few  of  the  reasons  that  lead  me  to  make  that  statement. 

I  won't  define  introvert  and  extravert.  We  may  as  well  take  these 
terms  for  granted.  Just  take  this  question:  Will  the  introverted  person 
or  extraverted  person  attach  more  importance  to  the  documentation  of 
the  history  of  his  own  people?  What  is  the  type  of  personality  that  is 
very  particular  about  the  gathering  of  documents  and  their  evaluation? 
The  extravert,  I  should  say.  because  he  lives  in  the  real  world  oi'  time 
and  place.  If  he  abstracts  from  that  world,  he  doesn't  exist.  The  intro- 
vert has  to  be  timeless,  so  to  speak.  He  constructs  formulations  that 
have  value  regardless  of  time  and  place.  He  doesn't  need  the  en\  iron- 
ment  of  maximal  color. 

What  is  one  of  the  outstanding  facts  about  Hindu  culture?  The  fact 
that  it  is  hard  to  find  dates  in  Hindu  literature.  One  of  the  great  prob- 
lems that  historians  of  Hindu  culture  have  to  contend  with  is  the  finding 
of  dates.  We  don't  know  when  the  great  Hindu  epics  were  written.  Why? 
Because  the  dating  of  a  document  is  not  a  matter  of  any  value  to  the 
Hindu.  The  Maluibharata  is  something  that  exists  in  a  timeless  world. 
He  conceives  the  sacred  writings,  the  Vedas,  as  existing  in  a  timeless 
world.  It  doesn't  occur  to  him  to  ask  when  they  were  composed.  Of 
course,  we  have  beliefs  somewhat  similar  to  these,  but  nowhere  have 
such  formulations  gone  to  such  extremes  as  in  India. 

The  Chinaman  is  different.  He  is  tremendously  interested  in  the  docu- 
mentation of  his  own  history.  He  is  interested  in  telling  you  that  in  the 
year  462  A.  D.  turnips  were  imported  from  Turkestan.  Trivial  facts  of 
that  kind  are  constantly  being  reported  in  Chinese  history.  You  can't 
conceive  of  a  greater  contrast  than  the  tone  and  spirit  in  which  Hindu 
literature  is  conducted  and  that  in  which  Chinese  literature  is  con- 
ducted. The  Chinese  are  extraverted  on  that  point,  and  the  Hindus  are 
introverted. 


One:  Culture.  Society,  ami  ihc  /nJiviJuul  87 

Take  another  example,  poelr\.  1  am  purposely  taking  \ery  random 
examples,  so  you  may  see  that  they  all  tend  to  point  the  same  way. 
Chinese  poetry  is  very  sober.  That  is  win  there  is  a  great  fad  lor  it  now. 
We  try  to  live  in  a  world  o(  tlesh  and  blood,  a  world  of  reality,  as 
eontrasted  with  a  world  of  formulated  fancies.  That  is  one  of  the  charms 
of  Chinese  poetry.  Chinese  poetry  is  interested  in  friendship  more  than 
in  love,  because  friendship  is  more  of  a  realit\  perhaps.  Chinese  poetry 
is  ne\er  extra\agant.  The  Chinese  poet  represents  what  he  has  himself 
experienced.  He  holds  on  to  the  modest  things  that  ha\e  meaning  to 
him. 

Hindu  poetry  is  exceedingly  extra\agant.  The  lo\e  poeir>  o\'  India 
abounds  in  far-fetched,  and.  to  us,  rather  absurd  metaphors;  that  is. 
the  Hindu  is  content  to  formalize  his  emotions  and  his  imagery  in  this 
particular  realm  of  acti\ity,  perfectK  content  to  look  away  from  the 
world  of  experience  and  li\e  in  an  inner  world  o\  fanc\  thai  takes  the 
place  of  the  w  orld  of  experience. 

Let  us  take  another  tacet  of  cultural  activity.  philosoph\  and  religion. 
What  is  characteristic  of  Chinese  religion?  It  is  extremely  sober.  The 
great  religious  teacher,  Contucius.  was  really  an  ethical  philosopher.  He 
simply  took  the  maxims  o(  his  people  and  their  patterns  o\'  religious 
and  ethical  conduct  and  tbrmulated  them.  He  was  close  to  the  actual 
humble  life  of  the  people.  There  is  \er\  little  in  his  philosophs  that  wc 
can't  understand  today. 

What  is  characteristic  of  the  Hindu  in  respect  to  philosoph\  anu  icii- 
gion?  It  gets  clean  away  from  the  world  of  experience.  It  formulates  a 
whole  lot  of  remote  conceptions,  puts  them  into  elaborate  systems 
which  have  little  body,  but  which  are  held  to  \\\\h  a  fren/\  of  adoration 
by  the  Hindu. 

At  this  point  I  want  to  tell  you  a  funny  little  anecdote  o\  an  experi- 
ence I  had  with  a  Hindu  student  \isiting  in  the  I'nited  Stales.  .At  a 
scientific  meeting  I  pointed  out  that  there  were  a  great  man>  variations 
in  the  pronunciation  o\^  consonants  o(  the  class  h:p.  a  gamut  of  vana- 
tions  in  which  we  could  select  \arious  points,  and  specif)  a  series  of 
consonants  pronounced  with  the  lips.  Then  the  contrast  o(  h  to  />  was 
seen  to  be  in  a  sense  artificial.  Those  were  merel>  selected  types  of 
articulation.  A  Hindu  was  present,  an  engineer,  a  practical  man  He 
was  very  much  interested  because  he  had  a  certain  linguistic  hobb>.  He 
couldn't  understand  me.  He  said.  "But  you  don't  reall>  mean  thai  there 
isn't  a  real  h  and  a  real  /',  do  you*.'  There  is  a  real  h.  onl>  some  people 
pronounce  it  correctly  and  some  iSo  not."  ^■ou  see.  he  was  reitymg  these 


88  ///  Culture 

experiences.  Isn't  it  rather  interesting?  I  don't  know  whether  he  was  a 
typical  Hindu,  but  isn't  it  rather  interesting  that  he  found  it  hard  to  see 
what  I  meant  by  my  statement?  You'd  think  he  might  with  his  mathe- 
matical training  have  understood;  but  he  couldn't,  because  on  the  basis 
of  Hindu  culture,  he  had  learned  there  were  certain  supernatural  letters 
-  consonants  -  embodied  in  the  Sanskrit  language,  and  there  wasn't 
any  question  what  was  h  and  what  was  p.  I  am  sure  another  friend  of 
mine,  a  Chinaman,  would  not  make  a  remark  like  that.  I  found  he  was 
uninterested  in  abstractions.  I  found  he  was  tolerant  of  anything  I  could 
say  about  his  language,  whereas  I  am  sure  the  Hindu  wouldn't  have 
been.  Those  are  significant  differences,  it  seems  to  me,  and  one  might 
go  on  multiplying  them.  There  is  meaning  in  the  statement  that  Hindu 
culture  has  an  introverted  slant.  There  is  meaning  in  the  statement  that 
the  Chinese  culture  has  an  extraverted  slant.  Our  American  culture  also 
has  an  extraverted  slant. 

I  want  further  to  make  very  emphatically  the  point  that  it  does  not 
follow  from  these  statements  that  every  Hindu  is  an  introvert,  and  that 
every  Chinaman  is  an  extravert,  but  in  so  far  as  your  Hindu  acts  in 
patterned  form,  he  acts  as  if  he  were  animated  more  or  less  by  an  intro- 
verted psychology,  whether  he  is  or  is  not;  and  the  Chinaman  acts  as  if 
he  were  actuated  by  an  extraverted  psychology.  You  see  that  brings  up 
problems  of  conflict.  You  can  ask  yourself  the  question,  can  a  culture 
which  prevails  in  a  given  society,  be  satisfactory  to  a  natural  introvert 
and  a  natural  extravert?  I  think  it  is  a  real  problem.  I  think  that  one 
cay  say  that  particular  individuals  are  more  at  home  in  certain  cultures 
than  in  others.  I  think  one  can  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  certain  maladjust- 
ments, even  psychoses,  are  helped  along  by  the  fact  that  there  is  a  subtle 
disaccord  between  the  orientation  of  an  individual  and  the  orientation 
of  the  culture  itself  with  its  psychological  potentiality,  depersonalized 
though  patterned  conduct  is.  It  has  a  psychological  suggestiveness.  It  is 
a  series  of  symbols  that  suggest  psychological  significance. 

In  order  to  indicate  more  clearly  the  reahty  of  this  point  of  view,  I 
am  going  to  contrast  the  culture  of  the  Eskimo  with  the  culture  of  the 
Mojave  Indians.  Eskimo  culture  I  think  of  as  extraverted  culture,  and 
Mojave  culture  I  think  of  as  introverted  culture.  I  do  not  mean  that 
every  Eskimo  is  an  extravert.  One  of  the  characteristic  things  about 
Eskimo  culture  is  its  extreme  sobriety.  They  have  to  use  every  help  the 
environment  gives  them.  Their  myths  are  hero  tales  rather  than  myths. 
There  is  very  little  that  is  incredible  in  Eskimo  mythology.  There  is  a 
certain  air  about  them  of  being  at  home  in  the  real  world.  The  Eskimo 


One:  Culliirc.  Socicly.  and  the  Jiu/iviiJual  89 

has  evolved  a  technology  that  is  superbly  adapted  to  his  environment. 
His  tloats.  sleds,  tents,  everything  that  he  has  ecMistrueted  has  a  maxi- 
mum \alue  for  his  preservation  in  a  forbidding  environment;  il  is  almost 
as  though  he  took  an  in\enlor\  o\'  the  environment  and  studied  its 
possibilities.  He  has  gradually  become  adapted  lo  the  environment. 

The  Indians  directly  to  the  south  you  find  are  uncomfortable  in  the 
same  environment;  they  shiver,  where  the  Fskimo  almi>si  n-tasts.  They 
have  a  very  much  harder  time  of  it.  It  probably  means  that  they  are  not 
so  well  adapted  to  the  environment,  but  is  also  means  that  they  have  not 
developed  the  extreme  extraversion  the  Eskimo  has.  rhe\  ha\e  \alucs. 
orientations  in  their  values,  that  are  not  of  so  much  ser\ice  to  them  m 
their  forbidding  environment.  Presumably  they  were  originally  more  ai 
home  in  an  environment  in  which  that  orientation  was  not  so  inimical, 
and  later  moved  on  into  a  less  friendly  environment. 

Take  such  a  thing  now  as  the  habits  of  life  of  the  Eskimo,  in  villages. 
You  find  the  Eskimo  doesn't  plague  himself  with  imponderable  values. 
A  man  may  take  residence  in  any  village.  His  tbrms  of  marriage  are  ni>t 
very  well  fixed.  You  have  a  very  slight  development  of  polygamy,  a  little 
polyandry,  but,  on  the  whole,  monogamy.  Their  whole  spirit  is  one  o( 
casual  adaptation,  an  extraverted  manner  of  looking  at  things.  He 
thinks,  "Oh,  wait  till  I  get  there;  then  Til  see  what  is  best  to  be  done." 
The  Eskimo  culture  has  the  sort  of  spirit  as  though  in  its  cnoIuIumi 
people  had  acted  in  accordance  with  that  formula,  not  that  they  did. 
but  that  this  is  the  slant  of  Eskimo  culture.  One  of  the  striking  things 
about  Eskimo  culture  is  the  colorfulness  of  it.  Eskimo  art  is  far  from 
despicable.  The  patterning  of  Eskimo  clothing  is  carefully  worked  out. 
There  is  a  certain  buoyance,  a  certain  jubilant  spirit,  in  Eskimo  culture 
that  is  unmistakable,  as  though  these  people  were  \er\  much  at  home 
in  the  world  about  them,  and  wanted  to  have  the  best  o\'  themselves 
exteriorized  in  what  they  produced.  I  realize  that  1  am  s[x\iking  in 
rather  vague  terms,  but  I  want  this  to  be  rather  a  hint  than  a  demonstra- 
tion. 

Mojave  culture  is  a  pretty  drab-looking  thing.  Iheic  is  no  superb 
development  of  basketry.  The  niatcnal  arts  are  not  uell  advanced.  It  is 
very  hard  to  say  what  those  people  are  doing,  ^ou  get  the  idea  thai 
they  are  a  sorry  lot,  but  those  who  have  studied  the  culture  ol  the 
Mojave  Indians  know  they  have  an  ideology  \er\  much  more  complex 
than  that  of  the  Eskimo.  Then  \aUies  are  noi  so  \sell  e\terion/ed.  Picy 
have  more  remote,  more  indirect,  formulations  o\  patterns  of  conduct 


90  ///  Culture 

than  those  you  find  among  the  Eskimo.  Their  reahty  is  more  sub- 
jectively colored  than  the  reality  of  the  Eskimo. 

I  will  give  you  one  very  striking  type  of  conduct  which  I  think  you 
will  admit  is  as  introverted  as  the  Hindu's  contempt  for  dates,  and  it  is 
all  the  more  striking  because  we  have  so  many  preconceived  notions 
about  primitive  mentality.  How  does  the  mythology  of  the  Mojave  con- 
trast with  the  mythology  of  the  Eskimo,  which  deals  with  a  quasi-real 
world  and  which  is  carried  on  by  the  tradition  of  the  group? 

You  have  a  theory  among  the  Mojave  of  an  individually  constructed 
mythology.  If  you  want  to  find  out  about  the  creation  of  the  world, 
how  do  you  do  it?  You  are  not  supposed  to  Hsten  to  what  somebody 
else  says  about  it,  or  has  said  about  it.  You  are  supposed  to  find  out 
from  your  inner  consciousness  because  your  inner  consciousness  is  the 
court  of  last  appeal.  That  is  what  the  introvert  does.  The  introvert  will 
tell  you  that  you  must  first  construct  a  theory  and  then  see  if  it  fits. 
That  is  what  the  Mojave  Indian  does.  He  does  nothing  less  than  go  into 
a  dream  state,  because  he  thinks  that  dreams  are  more  real  than  waking 
realities.  In  his  dream,  he  is  transported  back  to  the  creation  of  the 
world.  As  an  individual,  then,  brought  back  in  this  dream  to  the  origin 
of  things,  he  sees  certain  things  happen.  He  sees  how  certain  supernatu- 
ral beings  act  and  how  they  ascend  a  fabulous  mountain.  He  wakes 
from  the  trance-like  condition  and  composes  a  long  chant  in  which  he 
details  these  events,  and  he  says,  "I  saw  these  things.  This  is  the  truth." 

He  didn't  invent  this  myth.  The  same  myth  others  have  told  before 
him.  He  has  dreamed  himself  into  the  same  kind  of  incidents  that  he 
has  heard  others  tell.  It  is  as  though  you  had  two  versions  of  the  gospel 
of  St.  Matthew,  or  as  if  the  life  of  Christ  as  given  by  St.  Matthew  were 
remodeled  in  the  gospel  of  St.  Luke.  He  has  that  kind  of  feehng  about 
it:  "I  was  there,  I  saw  it.  Maybe  my  sight  is  keener  and  therefore  I  am 
more  correct." 

These  are  the  materials  of  truth  for  the  Mojave  Indian.  That  is  a 
queer  mythology,  highly  introverted.  I  could  go  on  giving  other  details. 
It  is  as  though  the  individuals  were  of  introverted  types,  but  if  you  were 
to  go  and  take  them  to  the  laboratory  and  apply  tests  for  introversion 
and  extra  version,  you  would  not  find  they  are  more  or  less  introverted 
or  extraverted  than  anybody  else,  but  in  so  far  as  they  were  carrying 
out  patterns,  they  fell  into  their  cultural  orientafion. 

We  have  a  very  much  more  difficult  problem  in  this  domain  of  social 
psychology  than  most  of  us  have  been  aware  of.  How  best  to  solve  it, 
I  prefer  to  leave  to  cultural  students  and  psychologists.  I  don't  think 


One:  Cult  tire.  Sociclv.  and  the  Individual  91 

we  are  ripe  for  tliesc  prohlcins  al  prcsciil.  but  it'  I  have  succeeded  in 
making  iheir  reality  soniewhal  clearer  by  gi\ing  you  a  "hunch"  ihere 
may  be  a  psychological  orienlalion  wilhoul  any  correlated  peculiarities 
of  psychology  in  the  individual,  I  will  have  done  all  I  wish  \o  do.  It 
bears  on  the  whole  question  o\'  the  supposed  mentality  o^  races.  You 
can't  conclude  anything  from  their  patterned  conduct,  for  reasons 
which  are  obvious  in  what  I  have  said.  It  doesn't  follow  that  because  \\e 
are  extraverted  in  conduct  today  for  the  most  part,  we  are  as  indnidiKds 
extravert  or  introvert.  That  remains  to  he  eiisco\ered.  I  submit,  lurihei. 
for  each  individual  this  point  of  view  makes  a  liiilc  more  signillcant  the 
whole  psychology  of  contlict  both  in  individuals  and  m  societs  and  as 
between  individuals  and  society.  Thus  \ery  much  o\'  what  \se  ha\e  to 
say  about  neuroses  and  psychoses  is  implicitly  in\ol\ed  with  cultural 
conceptions  of  the  type  I  am  trying  to  advance.  1  find  some  psychoana- 
lysts have  more  or  less  stumbled,  in  a  rather  feeble  way.  on  concepts  o^ 
this  type.  Burrow  puts  forward  notions  that  are  familiar,  but  in  peculiar 
terms.  So  one  sees  a  kind  of  convergence  of  hunches  along  the  line  I 
have  been  pointing  out  to  you.  Perhaps  1  haveni  put  these  indi\idual 
hunches  at  all  clearly,  but  I  hope  the  discussion  that  follows  will  correci 
me  where  I  need  to  be  corrected. 

I  may  say  this  whole  matter  bears  on  the  problems  o['  compensatiiMi 
that  many  psychologists  are  interested  in.  If  you  arc  brought  up  m  a 
culture  that  has  an  introverted  slant,  and  you  are  rather  e\tra\erted. 
you  will  have  to  compensate  in  the  introverted  direction.  That  is  what 
compensation  means.  You  have  to  pretend  to  be  extraverted  il  you  are 
living  in  an  extraverted  culture  and  are  natively  an  intro\en  In  abstract 
formulations  of  all  kinds,  you  have  to  tic  up  somehow  with  the  techno- 
logical world  we  are  living  in  and  what  you  have  to  do  is  make  applica- 
tions of  your  particular  kind  of  ideology.  But  if  you  are  honest.  \ou 
find  you  are  more  interested  in  the  subjective  formulations  than  \ou 
are  in  the  applications.  That  is  your  way  of  compensating,  ironing  out 
the  conflict  of  orientations. 

It  means,  then,  you  can't  tell  whether  a  person  is  extraverted  or  intro- 
verted by  a  simple  study  of  overt  beha\  ior.  That  is  where  man\  make 
drastic  mistakes.  If  your  whole  culture  is  extia\ cried,  it  has  a  bias.  Any 
individual  has  to  be  very  extraverted  in  order  to  count  as  extras  cried 
Kinds  of  compensations  that  are  habitual  will  need  to  be  of  dilTerent 
types  in  different  individuals.  I  have  sometimes  arri\ed  at  conclusions 
that  are  different  than  those  overtly  suggested.  I  am  ihmking  of  a  cer- 
tain individual  who  would  generally  be  considered  an  intnnerl.  I  am 


92  ///   Culiurc 

convinced  he  is  an  extravert.  He  is  playing  up  to  an  introverted  society, 
to  an  introverted  orientation  familiar  to  him  in  childhood.  His  compen- 
sations are  of  a  kind  that  need  a  certain  kind  of  cultural  knowledge  to 
understand.  If  you  carry  these  ideas  to  a  logical  conclusion,  you  will 
see,  alarmingly  enough,  that  psychology,  psychiatry,  all  practical  things 
we  are  interested  in  as  to  personality,  are  very  much  more  involved  with 
the  problems  of  social  science  than  we  had  thought. 

Perhaps  we  social  scientists  who  are  always  asking  psychologists  to 
aid  us  can  be  of  assistance  to  them  in  suggesting  reformulations  of 
psychological  problems.  I  don't  think  it  is  too  supercilious  to  suggest 
that  the  borrowing  need  not  be  all  on  one  side. 

*  *  * 

Following  Sapir's  presentation,  the  meeting  was  opened  for  discussion.  Besides  Sapir, 
participants  in  the  discussion  were: 

G.  V.  Hamihon  (practicing  psychiatrist.  New  York  City) 

Truman  L.  Kelley  (Professor  of  Education  and  Psychology,  Stanford  University) 

G.  Elton  B.  Mayo  (industrial  psychologist;  Associate  Professor  of  Industrial  Re- 
search. Graduate  School  of  Business  Administration.  Harvard  University) 

Harold  G.  Moulton  (economist;  Director  of  the  Institute  of  Economics,  Washington, 
D.  C,  and  chair  of  the  session) 

Leonard  Outhwaite  (Berkeley-trained  anthropologist,  staff  member  of  the  Laura 
Spelman  Rockefeller  Memorial) 

Frederic  L.  Wells  (psychologist;  chief  of  the  Psychology  Laboratory.  Boston  Psycho- 
pathic Hospital) 

Robert  S.  Woodworlh  (Professor  of  Psychology.  Columbia  Llniversity) 

Clarence  S.  Yoakum  (psychologist;  Professor  of  Personnel  Management  and  Direc- 
tor of  the  Bureau  of  University  Research,  University  of  Michigan) 

Tlie  discussion  proceeded  as  follows: 

YOAKUM.  -  Would  you  take  for  the  moment  the  interest  of  the  anthropologist  in 
skulls  and  bones  and  contrast  it  with  his  interest  in  cultures? 

SAPIR.  -  The  anthropologist  is  interested  in  both.  It  is  a  verbalism  that  we  use  the 
term  anthropology  for  both.  We  started  out  with  the  idea  in  evolution  that  primitive 
man  was  somehow  at  the  beginning  of  things  -  [that]  we  can  understand  the  begin- 
nings of  both  races  and  institutions  by  studying  primitive  man.  The  term  anthropol- 
ogy is  a  bad  one,  in  my  personal  opinion.  There  is  no  reason  why  physical  anthropol- 
ogy should  be  used.  I  think  it  would  be  better  if  we  had  a  general  term  for  the  study 
of  the  form  of  society,  whether  advanced  or  primitive,  and  subdivided  into  primitive 
sociology  and  advanced  sociology,  and  allowed  physical  anthropology  to  go  off  by 
itself. 

YOAKUM.  -  Am  I  correct  in  assuming  that  you  believe  that  variability  of  the 
individuals  is  practically  infinite? 


One    Culture.  Society,  and  the  Individual  93 

SAPIR.  -  I  dont  know  whai  inftniie  means.  You  ha\c  continuous  vanatioa  but  I 
don't  know  whether  \ou  would  call  it  infmiic. 

^OAKl'M.  -  If  It  happened  to  be  finite,  you  might  cxammc  a  suffiacni  numK-r  .f 
individuals  and  so  formulate  that  examination  that  wc  could  gener 
somethmg  in  the  form  of  a  proposition    WouK'    '  -ition  am\cU  al  m  vuch 

a  wa\  e\er  b\  an\  chance  conform  to  some  cu 

SAPIR    -  Could  \ou  give  me  an  example  oi  the  sort  oi  thing  you  ha\'e  in  mind? 

"^  OAK.UM.  -  The  conception  of  the  introvert  which  wc  think  we  can  armr  at  b\ 

examination  of  a  series  of  indi\iduals.  We  think  we  can 

b\  that  process.  .\s  1  understand,  it  is  not  arrned  at  b\  i 

way.  That  is.  1  cant  take  Jones  in  the  laboratory  and  examine  him  and  then  take 

Smith  in.  [and]  so  on  through  the  series,  and  arri\e  at  the  conclusion  of  who  is  an 

intro\ert.  \et  1  believe  we  think  we  ha\e  done  that 

SAPIR.  -  I  think  we  might  show  he  was  on  the  whole  oi  the  introverted  t\pe   I 

think  theories  could  be  done  but  1  think  it  is  \ery  ditTicult  to  do  I  think,  .i 
of  fact,  one's  judgement  as  to  whether  one  is  intro\ori  .>r  om-  <v.tt  h  ..  t.- 
from  w  hat  seem  to  be  the  best  indications  of  that. 

Suppose  I  were  a  personality  student.  My  idea  would  be  iiii>   1  ^>. 

whether  Jones  was  an  intro\ert.  I  would  eliminate  those  indications  i. ,_  

direction.  I  would  have  to  get  at  the  unconscious  leakage  of  his  orientation,  not  so 
hea\il\  st\led,  to  know  what  he  is.  It  might  be  less  signitlcan; 
which  are  indicati\e  of  it.  Where  your  acti\it\  i>  dofimt^-K  Nt\ 
has  no  value  for  the  study  of  personality 

\Mien  \ou  want  to  get  at  the  indi\idual.  you  ha\c  to  i. - 
importance  in  the  con\entional  sense.  What  is  of  maximum      , 

WELLS.  -  Mr.  ^oakum.  are  you  alluding  to  such  lists  of  traits  as  those  gocien  up 
by  Freud?  I  think  one  can  in  most  cases  agree  those  represent  mtroNcrt  and  cxiravcrt 
patterns  in  so  far  as  those  terms  can  be  satisfactonU  defined,  but  whether  t*^  -.- 
actions  are  fundamental  or  compens^ilory  in  the  individual.  I  doni  know    I 
Dr.  Sapir  made  that  point.  We  may  say  this  indi\idual  act; 
superficialK  the  characteristics  of  an  introvert.  NMiether  wit 
ronmental  and  genetic  setting  he  would  ha\e  shown  thv>se  ^ 
matter. 

VO.AKl'M.  -  Take  the  case  cited  b\  Dr  Sapir  o! 
that  is  a  case  in  which  we  shall  ncNcr  know  whethc:  ^ 
the  form  or  with  the  proper  spint. 

WELLS.       Wc  can  infer  tVom  other  factors  m  their  lives 

VO.\Kl  NL  -  1  dont  know  how  we  can  use  the  lives. 

S.\PIR         Sureh  we  find  out  something  abv>ut  the  su*^--  "^  •  .--tlni^tr*  hx  Jirc-vt 

inquir\.  We  make  certain  inferences  iVom  more  or  lesv 

intuitively  know  when  a  person  is  telling  you  a  lie  although  wha;  Iw 

and  taken  at  tace  \alue. 

VO.AKIM.      What  I  am  interested  in.  in  those  two  cases,  there  must  be  ^ 

in  their  behavior  to  indicate  the  difference,  one  having  the  spint  and  the  other  mA. 


94  ///  Culture 

SAPIR.  -  One  never  behaves  according  to  behavior.  I  gave  you  an  example  of  the 
expression,  "Get  out  of  here."  There  are  a  great  many  things  about  that  individually 
characteristic  of  myself.  Here  is  the  point  (and  psychologists  ignore  it):  I  have  to 
know  what  is  the  formalized  cultural  pattern  of  that  reaction  before  I  can  say  any- 
thing about  what  is  individual  reaction. 

Let  me  give  you  an  example:  How  do  you  know  that  the  fact  that  I  accented  the 
word  "out"  a  little  more  heavily  is  significant?  You  know  it  because  you  know  that 
as  a  matter  of  stylized  activity,  the  syllable  "out"  has  a  slight  accent  as  compared 
with  the  preceding  syllable  and  the  two  following.  The  plus  is  indicative  of  certain 
individual  reaction[s].  In  some  unknown  language  you  wouldn't  at  all  know  from 
experience  in  the  laboratory  whether  one  were  emotional  or  not.  He  might  be  jocose. 
You  couldn't  tell  until  you  knew  what  the  social  background  was,  until  you  could 
relate  individual  expression  to  the  cultural  pattern. 

Take  an  interrogation  like,  "Isn't  that  so?"  We  know  how  to  interpret  that  in 
emotional  terms,  terms  of  attitude,  because  we  have  certain  habits.  We  have  a  sort 
of  social  form  which  allows  us  to  recognize  that,  and  a  certain  plus  of  individual 
significance.  Suppose  we  had  a  language  that  stylized  these  intonational  differences; 
such  a  statement  as  "Isn't  that  so?"  might  mean,  "I  took  a  walk  yesterday."  You 
have  no  right  to  assume  that  you  understand  the  individual  connotation  of  such  a 
reaction  until  you  see  what  immense  significance  that  has  if  you  carry  it  to  its  logical 
conclusion,  in  tests  of  people  whose  cultural  activities  we  are  not  familiar  with. 

We  often  say  Frenchmen  or  Italians  are  very  emotional.  It  may  be  they  cannot 
be  a  member  of  their  community  until  they  act  as  if  they  were  very  much  excited. 
Your  psychological  experiments  aren't  worth  anything  until  you  have  a  cultural 
gauge. 

HAMILTON.  -  I  was  thinking  you  might  facilitate  in  clarifying  this  discussion  by 
agreeing  on  what  you  mean  by  extravert  and  introvert.  It  seems  to  me  the  situation 
is  a  little  simpler  than  it  sounds  when  we  consider,  I  believe,  that  we  say  of  a  person 
whose  preponderance  of  interest  is  in  direct  experience  rather  than  external  provoca- 
tives, he  is  an  introvert.  On  the  other  hand  if  we  may  say  of  a  person  his  preponder- 
ance of  interest  is  in  the  external  provocatives  rather  than  in  direct  experience,  then 
we  may  call  him  an  extravert.  I  think  if  you  take  that  perhaps  rather  acceptable 
definition  of  extravert  and  introvert,  a  good  deal  of  difficulty  in  determining  to  what 
extent  behavior  is  following  some  traditional  behavior  which  may  have  subjective 
characteristics  of  introversial  behavior,  the  difficulty  in  allowing  that  won't  be  so 
great. 

SAPIR.  -  I  think  it  is  a  matter  that  needs  to  be  stressed,  a  point  of  view  a  little 
unfamiliar.  It  is  not  often  allowed  for.  I  think  it  is  too  often  assumed  an  individual, 
in  reacting,  illustrates,  so  to  speak,  his  native  trends.  I  think  it  is  not  enough  envis- 
aged to  what  extent  that  becomes  an  important  differential,  because  we  are  in  the 
habit  of  comparing  the  reactions  of  people  as  such.  You  have  to  apply  superficial 
corrections. 

Hamilton  then  asked  the  clinicians  Mayo  and  Wells  to  comment  on  whether  they 
encountered  difficulties  in  assessing  introversion  and  extraversion  in  relation  to  pat- 
terned behavior.  Both  Mayo  and  Wells  indicated  that  they  did  not  find  the  terms  intro- 
vert and  extravert  could  apply  in  the  same  ways  to  clinical  settings  and  to  society  at 
large.  The  sense  of  the  terms  as  used  tonight  did  not  seem  to  be  of  value  for  the  clinic. 


One:  Culture.  Society,  n/ul  the  hhlivuluul  i)5 

HAMILTON.  -  I  am  not  personal  in  whai  I  am  gomg  to  say  to  Dr.  Sapir.  bul  I 

am  thinking  of  anthropologists  in  general:  What  training  have  anlhrop.  '  ,. 

qualify  them  to  sort  people  out  as  extraverls  anil  introverts".'  Of  what  v.ii,.  ,c 

concepts  extravert  and  introvert  to  ihem'.' 

SAPIR.  -  The  important  thing  to  bear  m  miiul  is  iluii  this  contrast  wa->  >  -i 

illustration.  It  may  be  this  particular  illustration  that  I  look  of  the  ps\.  il 

slant,  as  I  call  it.  was  a  poor  one.  One  might  show  that  there  was  more  emotion 
latent,  as  it  were,  in  the  pattern  of  conduct.  The  onus  o^  proof  rests  with  those  who 
invented  the  terminology,  the  psychologists  themselves.  Ihe  anthropologists  like  lo 
use  the  terms  for  what  they  are  worth.  If  psNchoaiiaKsts  see  they  arc  not  of  much 
value,  they  will  have  to  discard  them. 

OUTHWAITE.  -  It  seems  to  me  il  is  just  possible  a  rather  interesting  point  is 
getting  by  ...  that  is,  this  point  about  significant  behavior,  perhaps  particularly 
psychoneurotic  behavior  or  aberrant  behavior  of  one  form  or  other  in  connection 
with  the  social  context  or  background  of  the  individual  who  manifests  it.  ... 

As  an  example.  Outhwaite  raised  the  problem  o^  ps\chialric  assessment  in  "the  case 
of  the  American  negro."  Given  the  unequal  availability  of  hospitalization  in  North  and 
South,  the  cultural  dilTerences  between  regions,  and  the  cultural  dillerences  between 
negro  and  white,  psychiatric  assessments  would  be  subject  to  considerable  error. 

SAPIR.  -  We  know  our  own  culture;  we  are  not  conscious  o\'  it.  however,  and  that 
is  where  the  differential  error  comes  in.  I  wanted  to  give  an  example  bearing  that 
out.  We  find  among  the  Eskimo  the  shaman  or  medicine  man  acts  as  if  he  were  a 
hysteric.  He  goes  through  all  the  motions  of  hysteria,  and  perhaps  he  is,  I  don't 
know.  I  am  not  a  psychiatrist.  Their  pattern  of  medicine-man  activity  demands  hys- 
terical conduct.  He  autosuggests  hysteria  complex.  I  am  not  in  a  position  lo  disen- 
tangle what  happens.  The  diagnosis  of  that  hysteria  is  not  the  same  as  that  of  hyste- 
ria among  ourselves,  because  the  cultural  background  is  notabh  dilTerent  in  the  two 
cases. 

I  will  give  you  another  example,  even  more  melodramatic,  that  is,  that  homosexu- 
ality has  been  patterned  as  the  social  type  of  acti\  ity  among  certain  people.  Some- 
times the  medicine-men  are  recruited  from  that  group.  It  isn't  necessary  to  suppose 
that  you  are  really  dealing  with  types  of  personality  that  lead  {o  that  kind  of  beha\i»>r 
naturally.  You  have  a  certain  propulsion  in  the  very  patterns  o\  the  groups  I  think 
they  are  drastic.  My  point  is,  you  have  no  right  to  treat  the  psychopalhology  in 
those  settings  in  exactly  the  same  way  as  you  would  in  our  own  setting. 

That  has  in  it  quite  definitely  a  criticism  of  a  great  deal  o\'  psNchoanaiysis.  thai 
is.  the  attempt  to  interpret  symbols  frctm  cultures. 

Chairman  Moulton  called  on  the  psychologists  Woodworth  and  Kelley  locommcni. 
Both  indicated  substantial  agreement  with  Sapir.  Kelley  remarked.  ""It  seems  to  me  the 
most  important  point  of  \iew  Mr.  Sapir  has  expressed  is  the  idea  that  the  expression  of 
a  person  might  be  attributed  to  a  culture  situation  and  not  to  an  original  di;' 
his  makeup."  As  an  example,  he  mentioned  a  study  of  Chinese  and  Japanes.  .. 
born  in  California.  The  study  showed,  he  suggested,  that  sufvnor  malhemalical  ..' 
among  the  Japanese,  and  superior  verbal  ability  among  the  t  hinese.  wim 
able  to  cultural  ditTerences  as  they  might  have  been  had  the  children  h 
China  and  Japan. 


96  ///  Culture 

Sapir  questioned  the  study  and  suggested  that  "at  that  time  they  would  be  heavily 
conditioned  by  cultural  stimuli."  Kelley  thought  "those  encouragements  are  solely  lim- 
ited to  the  school." 

SAPIR.  -  Verbalism  is  so  highly  derivative,  it  is  a  cultural  concept  in  itself.  I  don't 
see  how  you  could  have  [an]  original  difference  in  concept  that  involves  the  concept. 
You  would  have  to  reduce  it  to  something  simpler,  on  a  lower  level.  ...  Some  anthro- 
pologists will  say  they  have  a  hunch  there  may  be  emotional  differences,  but  differ- 
ences of  any  such  derived  or  secondary  type  as  you  speak  of,  would  be  looked  on 
with  general  skepticism.  You  may  be  right. 

Woodworth  and  Sapir  then  discussed  possible  racial  differences  in  cognitive  abilities. 
Sapir  pointed  out  the  difficulty  of  devising  tests  that  would  reveal  differences  in  inherent 
ability  rather  than  cultural  differences.  Referring  to  experiments  made  by  Bruner  at  the 
World's  Fair  at  St.  Louis,  he  noted: 

SAPIR.  -  Experiments  are  made  as  to  higher  faculties,  and  there  is  often  the  diffi- 
culty of  technique  in  getting  the  kind  of  stimulus  to  reach  the  native. 

WELLS.  -  Porteus  had  some  material  in  which  they  compared  some  white  and 
aboriginal  children.  It  is  my  impression  that  the  children  were  equal  during  the 
earlier  years,  and  that  there  was  considerable  disparity  later. 

SAPIR.  -  Suppose  our  culture  is  the  kind  of  culture  that  demands  certain  types  of 
relations,  wouldn't  that  be  a  selective  factor? 

WOODWORTH.  -  It  looks  as  if  it  would  be.  Putting  forms  in  httle  holes,  that  is  a 
thing  that  would  be  uniform  in  different  cultures. 

SAPIR.  -  Take  one  of  the  performance  tests:  You  have  a  certain  kind  of  machine, 
a  simple  thing,  with  a  part  missing,  and  you  are  supposed  to  point  out  what  part  is 
missing.  To  recognize  the  missing  part  is  to  know  the  cultural  use  of  the  thing. 

WOODWORTH.  -  We  can't  get  the  Indians  to  come  and  test  us.  so  we  get  the 
anthropologists  to  do  the  next  best  thing  to  test  us. 

SAPIR.  -  I  am  very  much  interested  in  this  problem:  Would  you  think  it  probable 
that  an  Indian  woman  who  spoke  English  imperfectly  but  her  own  language  well, 
would  or  could  by  the  intuitivity  of  suggestion,  when  you  work  with  her,  get  a  hunch 
in  a  short  time  of  facts  in  grammatical  structure,  abstract  from  particular  cases,  and 
make  more  or  less  imaginary  forms  which  would  be  true,  or  show  a  recognition  of 
formal  relations  pure  and  simple? 

WOODWORTH.  -  Yes. 

SAPIR.  -  That  is  what  actually  happened. 

WOODWORTH.  -  They  will  take  a  new  word  and  put  it  in  the  right  form,  such 
forms  as  they  have. 

SAPIR.  -  That  isn't  what  I  mean.  I  am  speaking  of  the  more  explicit  recognition 
of  formal  relationships:  Suppose  for  instance  I  put  a  series  of  words  in  certain  con- 
ventional form,  according  to  my  grammatical  idea,  first,  second  and  third  person, 
singular  and  plural,  as  we  are  taught.  There  is  no  reason  why  the  Indian  should 
formalize,  but  if  you  have  done  that  to  any  extent  with  an  Indian,  he  will,  without 
suggestion  sometimes,  comply,  showing  he  acquires  the  ability  to  exceed  his  own 
language  in  point  of  view. 


One:  Culture.  Society,  ami  llw  InJiviiiuui  97 

WOODWORTH.  -  No  psychologisl  would  cxpccl  the  Indian  would  be  deprived  of 
any  of  the  abilities  that  the  white  man  has,  but  to  those  who  believe  the  Indian  lo 
be  inferior,  there  would  be  a  small  degree  of  doubt. 

SAPIR.  -  I  don't  believe  we  know  very  mueh  about  these  raeial  dilTerences  anyway. 

The  transcript  records  nothing  further,  except  tiiat  the  meeting  adjourned  al  ten 
o'clock. 


Editorial  Note 

This  material  appeared  in  the  transcripts  of  the  Hanover  Conference 
of  the  Social  Science  Research  Council,  Volume  I,  pages  231  260 
(1926).  Not  previously  printed,  it  is  published  here  by  permission  of  the 
Social  Science  Research  Council. 


Anthropology  and  Sociologv  (1^)27) 
Editorial  Introduction 

Sapir's  increasing  staUirc  in  interdisciplinary  soeial  seience  uas  il- 
lustrated by  his  invitation  in  1927  to  contribute  to  The  Social  Sciences 
and  Their  Interrelations,  a  volume  on  the  social  science  disciplines  and 
their  potential  collaborations.  The  senior  editor.  William  Tielding  Oyh- 
urn,  had  just  joined  Sapir  in  the  Department  of  Sociology  and  Anthro- 
pology at  the  University  of  Chicago.  The  co-editor  was  anthropologist 
Alexander  Goldenweiser,  like  Sapir  a  former  student  o\'  Hoas.  The  \i>l- 
ume's  aim  was  to  orient  social  scientists  toward  the  range  of  a\ailahle 
methods  and  theoretical  problems  other  disciplines  might  olTer  their 
own,  but  which  no  single  individual  could  possibly  explore  for  each  oi 
the  relevant  disciplinary  combinations. 

Anthropology,  the  editors  felt,  had  remained  outside  the  emerging 
social  science  framework  because  it  lacked  syntheses  to  communicate 
its  perspective  to  colleagues  in  other  disciplines.  Sapir  was  their  choice 
to  remedy  this  unfortunate  state  of  affairs.  He  was  to  write  on  the 
relationship  between  anthropology  and  sociology. 

In  addition  to  sociology,  anthropology  was  also  discussed  in  rclaiion 
to  economics,  history,  law  (by  Robert  Lowie),  political  science,  ps\ etiol- 
ogy (by  Goldenweiser),  religion  and  statistics  (by  Boas,  who  consis- 
tently taught  this  subject  to  would-be  professional  anthropologists  at 
Columbia).  There  were  five  papers  linking  economics  with  \arious  disci- 
plines, five  on  history  (including  a  paper  by  Wilson  Wallis  on  hislors 
and  psychology),  three  on  political  science,  and  seven  on  sociology  (in- 
cluding Ogburn's  own  piece  on  statistics,  his  specialization).  lour  pa- 
pers discussed  social  sciences  in  relation  to  more  distant  fields:  bioli>i:\ 
(Frank  Hankins),  education  (William  Kilpatnck).  the  natural  sciences 
(Morris  R.  Cohen),  and  philosophy  (William  P.  Montague). 

In  their  introduction,  Goldenweiser  and  Ogbuin  lanicntcJ  the  isola- 
tion resulting  from  the  increased  speciali/aiion  oi  the  social  sciences, 
such  that  their  "common  philosophical  matrix"  could  no  longer  be 
taken  for  granted  (1927:  3).  An  urgent  need  lor  practical  applications, 
however,  argued  for  dissolving  arbitrar>    boundaries  o\   iheor\   and 


100  ///  Cult  we 

method.  The  editors  called  for  a  conception  of  social  evolution  indepen- 
dent of  biology,  and  for  the  integration  of  psychology  with  the  social 
sciences.  With  these  points  Sapir  would  doubtless  have  agreed;  their 
lyrical  defense  of  the  need  for  statistics  would,  however,  have  failed  to 
inspire  him. 

Sociology  was  the  most  prestigious  of  the  social  sciences  at  this  time, 
particularly  at  Chicago,  and  Sapir's  topic  allowed  him  a  crucial  forum 
for  his  own  message,  with  the  implicit  understanding  that  it  would  be 
representative  of  anthropology.  Many  anthropological  colleagues  would 
not  have  recognized  themselves  here,  however. 

Sapir  argued  that  although  the  proper  subject  matter  of  anthropology 
was  "primitive  sociology,"  this  subject  matter  could  not  be  interpreted 
in  social  evolutionary  terms.  The  new  anthropology,  in  contrast,  would 
lead  to  "insight  into  the  essential  patterns  and  mechanisms  of  social 
behavior"  (1927:  336).  This  insight  into  society  might  be  supplemented 
by  historical  reconstruction  of  culture.  Such  historical  work,  however, 
would  have  to  proceed  ethnographically,  as  "strictly  localized  social 
history,"  involving  the  gradual  diffusion  of  cultural  patterns  (not,  he 
emphasized,  the  distribution  of  unrelated  elements).  The  psychological 
dimensions  of  these  patterns  were  not  accessible  to  individual  awareness 
within  a  culture.  This  concept  of  the  "basic  and  largely  unconscious 
concepts  or  images  that  underlie  social  forms"  (1927:  238)  was  devel- 
oped more  elaborately  in  the  paper  for  the  symposium  on  the  uncon- 
scious (also  1927;  this  volume).  In  short,  after  considering  society,  cul- 
ture, and  individual  psychology,  Sapir  defined  culture  in  cognitive 
terms,  as  a  realm  of  concepts  and  symbolic  forms. 

Sapir's  theoretical  vision  distinguished  social  pattern,  cultural  func- 
tion (an  analyst's  construct),  and  an  "associated  mental  attitude"  deriv- 
ing from  individual  psychology.  These  were  independent  variables, 
whose  investigation  promised  "a  social  philosophy  of  values  and 
transfers,"  the  latter  including  culture  change  (1927:  323).  Much  of  the 
imagery  in  which  he  described  this  programmatic  agenda  was  drawn 
from  psychiatry,  including  the  idea  of  emotional  transfer.  Modern 
psychology,  he  suggested,  studied  "the  projection  of  formal  or  rhythmic 
configurations  of  the  psyche  and  ...  the  concrete  symbolism  of  values 
and  social  relations"  (1927:  343;  emphasis  ours).  Because  such  factors 
were  obscured  in  complex  modern  society  by  conscious  rationalizations, 
the  anthropological  cross-cultural  perspective  would  rescue  the  psychol- 
ogist and  the  traditional  sociologist  from  their  inability  to  take  an  ana- 
lyst's stance;  that  stance  required  an  outsider's  perspective. 


One:  Ciihurc.  Smictv.  iiiui  ilw  ImlivUlual  101 

Anthropology,  Sapir  concluded,  inighi  he  dctlncd  as  "ilic  sdcuiI 
psychology  of  the  symbor"  (1927:  345).  Historical  explanations  of  eth- 
nographic data  from  so-called  primitive  societies,  characteristic  of 
American  anthropology  up  until  that  time,  uould  gi\e  way  to  a  new 
vision  o\'  integration  at  the  formal  ov  s\niholic  level.  Sapir  did  not 
acknowledge  how  far  he  had  come  from  the  particularisi  ethnography 
of  his  own  training  or  how  few  fellow  anthrt^pologists.  in  1927,  would 
have  shared  his  enthusiastic  re\isionism. 

*  *  * 


Anthropology  and  Sociology 
Primitive  Society:  the  Evolutionary  Bias 

Just  as  unlettered  and  primitive  peoples  ha\e  an  economic  basis  o\ 
life  that,  however  simple  in  its  operation,  is  strictly  comparable  to  the 
economic  machinery  that  so  largely  orders  the  life  of  a  modern  ci\ili/ed 
society;  and  just  as  they  have  attained  to  a  definite  system  o{  religious 
beliefs  and  practices,  to  traditionally  conserved  modes  of  artistic  expres- 
sion, to  the  adequate  communication  of  thought  and  feeling  in  terms 
of  linguistic  symbols,  so  also  they  appear  everywhere  as  rather  clearl> 
articulated  into  various  types  of  social  grouping.  No  human  assemblage 
living  a  life  in  common  has  ever  been  discovered  that  does  not  possess 
some  form  of  social  organization.  Nowhere  do  we  find  a  horde  in  which 
the  relations  between  its  individuals  is  completel\  anarchic 

The  sexual  promiscuity,  for  instance,  that  was  such  a  fa\orile  topic 
of  discussion  in  the  speculative  writings  o['  the  earlier  anthropi>Iogis!s 
seems  to  be  confined  to  their  books.  Among  no  primitne  pei^ple  that 
has  been  adequately  studied  and  that  conforms  to  its  oun  traditional 
patterns  of  conduct  is  there  to  be  found  such  a  thing  as  an  unregulated 
sexual  commerce.  The  "license"  that  has  been  so  often  reported  is  either 
condemned  by  the  group  itself  as  a  transgression,  as  is  the  case  on  our 
own  level,  or  is  no  license  at  all.  but,  as  among  the  Todas  o{  India  and 
a  great  many  Australian  tribes  thai  are  oigam/ed  into  marriage  classes, 
is  an  institutionally  fixed  mode  o\'  behavior  that  Hows  naturalK  from 
the  division  of  the  group  into  smaller  units  between  only  certain  ones 
of  which  are  marital  relations  allowed.  Hence  "group  marriage."  a  none 
too  frequent  phenomenon  at  best,  is  mnvhere  an  index  of  siKial  anar- 


102  ///  Culture 

chy.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  but  a  specialized  example  of  the  fixity  of 
certain  traditional  modes  of  social  classification  and  is  psychologically 
not  at  all  akin  to  the  promiscuity  of  theory  or  of  the  underground  life 
of  civilized  societies. 

If  it  be  objected  that  intermarrying  sub-groups  do,  as  a  matter  of  [98] 
fact,  argue  a  certain  social  anarchy  because  they  disregard  the  natural 
distinctiveness  of  the  individual,  we  need  but  point  out  that  there  are 
many  other  intercrossing  modes  of  social  classification,  the  net  result 
of  which  is  to  carve  out  for  the  biological  individual  a  social  individual- 
ity while  securing  him  a  varied  social  participation.  Not  all  the  members 
of  the  same  marriage  class,  for  instance,  need  have  the  same  totemic 
affiliations;  nor  need  their  kinship  relations,  real  or  supposed,  toward 
the  other  members  of  the  tribe  be  quite  the  same;  nor  need  they,  whether 
as  hunters  or  as  votaries  in  ancestral  cults,  have  the  same  territorial 
associations;  nor  need  their  social  ranking,  based  perhaps  on  age  and 
on  generally  recognized  ability,  be  at  all  the  same;  the  mere  difference 
of  sex,  moreover,  has  important  social  consequences,  such  as  economic 
specialization,  general  inferiority  of  social  status  of  the  women,  and 
female  exclusion  from  certain  ceremonial  activities.  The  details  vary, 
naturally,  from  tribe  to  tribe  and  from  one  geographical  province  to 
another. 

All  this  is  merely  to  indicate  that  a  large  and  an  important  share  of 
anthropological  study  must  concern  itself  with  primitive  types  of  social 
organization.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  primitive  sociology,  and  the  soci- 
ologist who  desires  a  proper  perspective  for  the  understanding  of  social 
relations  in  our  own  life  cannot  well  afford  to  ignore  the  primitive  data. 
This  is  well  understood  by  most  sociologists,  but  what  is  not  always  so 
clearly  understood  is  that  we  have  not  the  right  to  consider  primitive 
society  as  simply  a  bundle  of  suggestions  for  an  inferred  social  prehis- 
tory of  our  own  culture.  Under  the  powerful  aegis  of  the  biological 
doctrine  of  evolution  the  earlier,  classical  anthropologists  tacitly  as- 
sumed that  such  characteristic  features  of  primitive  life  as  totemism  or 
matrilineal  kinship  [99]  groups  or  group  marriage  might  be  assigned 
definite  places  in  the  gradual  evolution  of  the  society  that  we  know 
today. 

There  is  no  direct  historical  evidence,  for  instance,  that  the  early  Teu- 
tonic tribes  which  give  us  the  conventionally  assumed  starting  point  for 
the  Anglo-Saxon  civilization  had  ever  passed  through  a  stage  of  group 
marriage,  nor  is  the  evidence  for  a  totemistic  period  in  the  least  convinc- 
ing, nor  can  we  honestly  say  that  we  are  driven  to  infer  an  older  organ- 


One:  Culture.  Sociclv.  ciiul  the  liuliviilunl  \()\ 

ization  into  matrilineal  clans  for  these  peoples.  \\i\  so  coininccd  ucrc 
some  of  the  most  brilliant  of  the  earlier  anthropologists  thai  jusi  such 
social  phenomena  could  be  inferred  on  comparative  evidence  \\m-  the 
cruder  peoples  as  a  whole,  and  so  clear  was  it  to  them  thai  a  parallel 
evolutionary  sequence  of  social  usages  might  be  assumed  for  ail  man- 
kind, that  they  did  not  hesitate  to  ascribe  to  ihc  prehistoric  period  of 
Anglo-Saxon  culture  customs  and  social  classifications  that  were  famil- 
iar to  them  from  aboriginal  Australia  or  Africa  or  North  America.  !"he\ 
were  in  the  habit  of  looking  for  "survivals''  of  primitive  conditions  in 
the  more  advanced  levels,  and  they  were  rarely  unsuccessful  in  fmding 
them. 


Critique  of  Classical  Evolution 

The  more  critical  schools  of  anthropology  that  followed  spent  a  great 
deal  of  time  and  effort  in  either  weakening  or  demolishing  the  ingenunis 
speculative  sequences  that  their  predecessors  had  constructed.  It  grad- 
ually appeared  that  the  doctrine  of  social  stages  could  not  he  made  lo 
fit  the  facts  laboriously  gathered  by  anthropological  research.  One  o^ 
the  favorite  dogmas  of  the  evolutionary  anthropologists  was  the  great 
antiquity  of  the  sib  (clan)  or  corporate  kinship  group.  The  earliest  form 
of  this  type  of  organization  was  believed  to  be  based  on  a  matrilineal 
mode  of  reckoning  descent.  Now  while  it  is  true  that  a  large  number  o\' 
fairly  primitive  tribes  are  organized  into  matrilineal  sibs,  such  as  many 
of  the  tribes  of  Australia,  it  proved  to  be  equally  true  thai  other  iribcs 
no  whit  their  superior  in  general  cultural  advance  counted  clan  (gens) 
descent  in  the  paternal  line. 

Thus,  if  we  consider  the  distribution  of  sib  instnuiions  m  abonguial 
North  America,  it  is  not  in  the  least  obvious  that  the  bulValo-hunimg 
Omaha  of  the  American  Plains,  organized  into  patrilineal  sibs  (genics). 
were  culturally  superior  to,  or  represented  a  more  e\ol\ed  type  ofstxial 
organization  than,  say,  the  Haida  or  Tlingit  or  Tsimshian  o\'  the  west 
coast  of  British  Columbia  and  southern  [100]  Alaska,  who  possessed  an 
exceedingly  complex  system  of  caste  and  privilege,  had  developed  a  very 
original  and  intricate  art  that  was  far  beyond  the  modest  advances  made 
by  any  of  the  tribes  of  the  Plains,  and  lived  as  fishermen  m  defmiich 
localized  villages,  yet  whose  sibs  (clans)  were  o{  the  matrilineal  l\|xv 
Other  American  evidence  could  easily  be  adduced  to  prove  that  on  the 
whole  the  matrilineally  organized  tribes  represciiled  a  later  jXTiod  ol 


104  ///   Culture 

cultural  development  than  the  patrilineal  ones,  whatever  might  be  the 
facts  in  aboriginal  Australia  or  Melanesia  or  other  quarters  of  the  primi- 
tive world.  It  was  remarkable,  for  instance,  that  the  confederated  Iroqu- 
ois tribes  and  the  town-dwelling  Creeks  of  the  Gulf  region  and  many 
of  the  Pueblos  (for  example,  ZunT  and  Hopi)  of  the  Southwest,  all  three 
agricultural  and  all  three  obviously  less  primitive  in  mode  of  life  and  in 
social  polity  than  our  Omaha  hunters,  were  classical  examples  of  socie- 
ties based  on  the  matrilineal  clan.  Criticism  could  go  farther  and  show 
that  the  most  primitive  North  American  tribes,  like  the  Eskimo,  the 
Athabaskan  tribes  of  the  Mackenzie  Valley  and  the  interior  of  Alaska, 
and  the  acorn-eating  peoples  of  California,  were  not  organized  into  sibs 
at  all,  whether  of  the  matrilineal  or  the  patrilineal  type. 

Countless  other  examples  might  be  enumerated,  all  tending  to  show 
that  it  was  vain  to  set  up  unilinear  schemes  of  social  evolution,  that 
supposedly  typical  forms  of  archaic  society  had  probably  never  devel- 
oped in  certain  parts  of  the  globe  at  all,  and  that  in  any  event  the 
sequence  of  forms  need  not  everywhere  have  been  in  the  same  sense. 
The  older  schematic  evolution  thus  relapsed  into  the  proverbial  chaos 
of  history.  It  became  ever  clearer  that  the  culture  of  man  was  an  exceed- 
ingly plastic  process  and  that  he  had  developed  markedly  distinct  types 
of  social  organization  in  different  parts  of  the  world  as  well  as  interest- 
ingly convergent  forms  that  could  not,  however,  be  explained  by  any 
formula  of  evolutionary  theory. 

At  first  blush  critical  anthropology  seems  to  have  demolished  the 
usefulness  of  its  own  data  for  a  broader  sociology.  If  anthropology 
could  not  give  the  sociologist  a  clear  perspective  into  social  origins  and 
the  remoter  social  developments  that  were  consummated  before  the 
dawn  of  history,  of  what  serious  consequence  was  its  subject-matter  for 
a  general  theory  of  society?  Of  what  particular  importance  was  it  to 
study  such  social  oddities,  charming  or  picturesque  though  they  might 
be,  as  the  clan  totemism  or  the  clan  exogamy  of  [101]  Australian  blacks 
or  American  redskins?  It  is  true  that  anthropology  can  no  longer  claim 
to  give  us  a  simple  scaffolding  for  the  building  of  the  social  history  of 
man,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  its  data  are  a  rubbish  heap  of  odd- 
ments. It  may  be  and  probably  is  true  that  anthropology  has  more  to 
tell  us  than  ever  before  of  the  nature  of  man's  social  behavior;  but  we 
must  first  learn  not  to  expect  its  teachings  to  satisfy  any  such  arbitrary 
demands  as  were  first  made  of  it. 

The  primary  error  of  the  classical  school  of  anthropology  was  (and 
of  much  anthropological  theory  still  is)  to  look  upon  primitive  man  as 


One:  Culture.  Society,  ami  tin-  hulivuluul  105 

a  sort  of  prodromal  type  of  cultured  hmnaniiy.  Muis.  there  was  an 
irresistible  tendency  to  see  his  significance  not  in  terms  o\  unfolding 
culture,  with  endless  possibilities  for  intricate  de\elopmenl  aU)ng  s[x*- 
cialized  lines,  not  in  terms  of  place  and  of  environing  circumstance,  but 
always  in  terms  o['  inferred  and  necessarily  distorted  time.  The  present 
anthropological  outlook  is  broader  and  far  less  formalized.  What  the 
sociologist  may  hope  to  get  from  the  materials  of  social  anthropi)k)gy 
is  not  predigested  history,  or  rather  the  pseudo-history  that  called  itself 
social  evolution,  but  insight  into  the  essential  patterns  and  mechanisms 
of  social  behavior.  This  means,  among  other  things,  that  we  are  to  be 
at  least  as  much  interested  in  the  many  points  of  accord  between  primi- 
tive and  sophisticated  types  of  social  organization  as  in  their  sensatiDiial 
differences. 


The  Family  as  Primary  Social  Unit 

We  can  perhaps  best  illustrate  the  changing  point  o['  \  ieu  by  a  brief 
reference  to  the  family.  The  earlier  anthropologists  were  greatK  im- 
pressed by  the  importance  and  the  stability  of  the  family  in  modern  life. 
On  the  principle  that  everything  that  is  true  of  ci\ilized  societ>  must 
have  evolved  from  something  very  different  or  e\en  opposed  in  primi- 
tive society,  the  theory  was  formulated  that  the  family  as  we  understand 
it  today  was  late  to  arrive  in  the  history  of  man,  that  the  most  primiiiNc 
peoples  of  today  have  but  a  weak  sense  of  the  reality  o\  the  famil\.  and 
that  the  precursor  of  this  social  institution  was  the  more  inclusive  sib 
(clan).  Thus  the  family  appeared  as  a  gradually  evolved  and  somewhat 
idealized  substitute  of,  or  transfer  from,  a  more  cumbersome  and  tyran- 
nically bound  group  of  kinstblk. 

A  more  caretul  study  of  the  facts  seems  to  indicate  thai  the  family 
[102]  is  a  well-nigh  universal  social  unit,  that  ii  is  the  nuclear  l>pc  o{ 
social  organization/;^//-  excellence.  So  far  iVoni  a  study  of  clans,  genies. 
and  other  types  of  enlarged  kinship  group  giving  us  the  clue  to  the 
genesis  of  the  family,  the  e.xact  oppt>site  is  true.  Ihe  family.  \Mih  its 
maternal  and  paternal  ties  and  its  caiduIlN  elaborated  kinship  relations 
and  kinship  terminology,  is  the  one  social  pattern  inli>  which  man  has 
ever  been  born.  It  is  the  pattern  that  is  most  likel>  to  serve  as  the 
nucleus  for,  or  as  model  oW  other  social  units.  We  can.  then,  understand 
the  development  of  sib  and  kindred  institutions  as  proliferations  of  the 
universal  family  image.  The  ternnnology  of  clan  alTiliaiion  or  non-aO'ili- 


106  ///   Culture 

ation  is  simply  an  extension  of  the  terminology  of  specific  familial  and 
extra-familial  relationships.  The  modern  family  represents  the  persis- 
tence of  an  old  social  pattern,  not  the  emergence  of  a  new  one.  Clan 
and  gentile  organizations  blossomed  here  and  there  on  a  stem  that  is 
still  living.  What  is  distinctive  of  practically  all  primitive  societies  is  not 
the  clan  or  gens  or  moiety  as  such,  but  the  tremendous  emphasis  on  the 
principle  o^  kinship.  One  of  the  indirect  consequences  of  this  emphasis 
may  be  the  gradual  overshadowing,  for  a  certain  period,  of  the  family 
by  one  or  more  of  its  derivatives. 


Diffusion  and  Inferred  History 

Such  an  example  as  this  illustrates  the  value  of  anthropological  data 
for  the  fixing  of  formal  perspectives  in  social  phenomena.  Meanwhile,  if 
anthropology  no  longer  indulges  in  the  grand  panorama  of  generalized 
prehistory,  it  has  by  no  means  given  up  all  attempts  at  reconstructing 
the  history  of  primitive  societies.  On  the  contrary,  there  is  more  inferen- 
tial history  being  built  out  of  the  descriptive  data  of  primitive  life  than 
ever  before;  but  it  is  not  a  pan-human  history,  finely  contemptuous  of 
geography  and  local  circumstance.  Social  institutions  are  no  longer  be- 
ing studied  by  ethnologists  as  generalized  phenomena  in  an  ideal 
scheme,  with  the  specific  local  details  set  down  as  incidental  avatars  of 
the  spirit.  The  present  tendency  among  students  of  primitive  society  is 
to  work  out  the  details  of  any  given  institution  or  social  practice  for  a 
selected  spot,  then  to  study  its  geographical  distribution  or,  if  it  is  a 
composite  of  various  elements,  the  distribution  of  each  of  these  ele- 
ments, and  gradually  to  work  out  by  inferences  of  one  kind  and  another 
a  bit  of  strictly  localized  social  history.  The  greatest  importance  is  at- 
tached to  the  discovery  of  continuities  in  these  distributions,  [103]  which 
are  felt  to  be  most  intelligibly  explained  by  the  gradual  diffusion  of  a 
given  social  feature  from  one  starting  point. 

Today  we  are  not  satisfied,  for  instance,  to  note  the  existence  of  ma- 
ternal clans  among  the  Haida,  of  Queen  Charlotte  Islands,  and  to  com- 
pare them,  say,  with  the  maternal  clans  of  the  ZunT  and  Hopi  in  the 
Southwest.  Nothing  can  be  done  with  these  isolated  facts.  Should  it 
appear  that  the  clans  of  the  two  areas  are  strikingly  similar  in  the  details 
of  their  structure  and  functioning  and  that  the  areas  are  connected  by 
a  continuous  series  of  intermediate  tribes  possessing  maternal  clans, 
there  would  be  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  Haida  and  ZunT-Hopi 


One:  Culture.  Saiictv  luul  tlu    /lu/ixuluul  li*" 

organizations  are  derivatives  ol  a  single  hislorieal  process.  Bui  this  is 
not  the  case.  The  clan  organizations  are  vers  dilTerent  and  the  clan 
areas  are  separated  by  a  vast  territory  occupied  b\  chniless  irihes.  The 
American  ethnologist  concludes  thai  the  general  sunilarils  ui  the  siKial 
structures  ot  the  separated  areas  is  not  due  to  a  common  history  but  lo 
a  formal  convergence;  he  has  no  notion  that  the  antecedents  o\'  clan 
development  were  necessarily  the  same  in  the  two  cases.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Haida  clan  system  is  strikingly  similar  in  structure,  type  of 
localization,  totemic  associations,  privileges,  and  functions  to  the  clan 
systems  of  a  large  number  of  neighboring  tribes  (Tlingit.  Nass  River. 
Tsimshian,  Bella  Bella,  Kitamat).  so  that  one  is  irresistibly  led  to  believe 
that  the  social  system  arose  only  once  in  this  area  and  that  it  was  grad- 
ually assimilated  by  peoples  to  whom  it  was  originally  foreign. 

Analogous  cases  of  the  diffusion  of  social  features  over  large  and 
continuous  but  strictly  limited  areas  can  be  cited  without  end  (for  exam- 
ple, Australian  maternal  clans;  Australian  marriage  classes;  men's  clubs 
in  Melanesia;  age  societies  in  the  North  American  Plains;  caste  institu- 
tions in  India),  and  in  nearly  all  of  these  cases  one  may  legitimate!) 
infer  that  their  spread  is  owing  chietly  to  the  imitation  of  a  pattern  that 
was  restricted  in  the  first  place  to  a  very  small  area. 


The  Reality  of  Parallel  Social  Dc\  clopmciits 

The  recent  tendency  has  been  to  emphasize  diffusion  and  historical 
inferences  from  the  facts  of  diffusion  at  the  expense  of  con\ergences  in 
social  structure,  certain  extremists  even  going  so  far  as  to  deny  the 
possibility  of  the  latter.  It  is  important  for  students  o\  the  structural 
variations  and  the  history  of  society  to  realize  the  [l()4j  important  part 
that  the  borrowing  of  social  patterns  has  played  at  all  times  and  on  all 
levels  of  culture;  but  the  reality  and  the  significance  of  formal  paral- 
lelisms should  never  be  lost  sight  o[\  At  present  anthropologists  are 
timid  about  the  intensive,  non-historical  study  o\'  typical  social  forms. 
The  "evolutionary"  fallacies  are  still  fresh  in  their  minds,  and  the  danger 
of  falling  into  any  one  of  a  variety  o\'  facile  •"psNchological"  modes  of 
interpretation  is  too  obvious.  But  anthiopolog>  cannot  long  ci>nimuc 
to  ignore  such  stupendous  facts  as  the  independent  development  of  sibs 
in  different  parts  of  the  world,  the  widespread  tendencs  toward  the  rise 
of  religious  or  ceremonial  societies,  the  rise  ol  occupational  castes,  the 
attachment  of  differentiatiniz  svmbt^ls  to  social  uniis.  and  a  host  of  olh- 


108  ///   Culture 

ers.  Such  classes  of  social  phenomena  are  too  persistent  to  be  without 
deep  significance.  It  is  fair  to  surmise  that  in  the  long  run  it  is  from 
their  consideration  that  the  sociologist  will  have  the  most  to  learn. 

Few  anthropologists  have  probed  deeply  into  these  problems.  Hasty 
correlations  between  various  types  of  social  phenomena  have  been 
made  in  plenty,  such  as  Rivers 's  brilliant  and  unconvincing  attempt  to 
derive  systems  o(  kinship  terminology  from  supposedly  fundamental 
forms  of  social  organization;  but  the  true  unraveling  of  the  basic  and 
largely  unconscious  concepts  or  images  that  underlie  social  forms  has 
hardly  been  begun.  Hence  the  anthropologist  is  in  the  curious  position 
of  dealing  with  impressive  masses  of  material  and  with  a  great  number 
of  striking  homologies,  not  necessarily  due  to  historical  contact,  that  he 
is  quite  certain  have  far-reaching  significance,  but  the  nature  of  whose 
significance  he  is  not  prepared  to  state.  Interpretative  anthropology  is 
under  a  cloud,  but  the  data  of  primitive  society  need  interpretation  none 
the  less.  The  historical  explanations  now  in  vogue,  often  exceedingly 
dubious  at  best,  are  little  more  than  a  clearing  of  the  ground  toward  a 
social  interpretation;  they  are  not  the  interpretation  itself.  We  can  only 
glance  at  a  few  of  those  formal  convergences  or  underlying  tendencies 
in  primitive  social  organization  which  we  believe  to  be  of  common  inter- 
est to  anthropology,  to  sociology,  and  to  a  social  psychology  of  form 
which  has  hardly  been  more  than  adumbrated. 


The  Kinship  "Image" 

It  has  frequently  been  noted  that  the  kinship  principle  tends  to  take 
precedence  in  primitive  life  over  other  principles  of  social  classification. 
[105]  A  good  example  of  this  is  afforded  by  the  West  Coast  tribes  of 
Canada.  Here  the  integrity  of  the  local  group,  the  village,  with  a  recog- 
nized head  chief,  is  pretty  soHdly  established.  Nevertheless  we  are  con- 
stantly hearing  in  the  legends  of  a  particular  family  or  clan,  if  feeling 
itself  aggrieved  for  one  reason  or  another,  moving  off  with  its  house 
boards  and  canoes  either  to  found  a  new  village  or  to  join  its  kinsmen 
in  an  old  one.  There  is  also  direct  historical  evidence  to  show  that  the 
clan  or  family  constitution  of  the  villages  was  being  reassorted  from 
time  to  time  because  of  the  great  inner  coherence  and  the  relative  mobil- 
ity of  the  kinship  groups.  Among  the  Nagas  of  Assam  the  villages  as 
such  had  little  of  the  spirit  of  community  and  mutual  helpfulness,  but 
were  split  up  into  potentially  hostile  clans  which  lived  apart  from  one 


One:  Culture.  Soclav.  und  ihc  huiiviJual  l(i>-> 

another  and  were  constantly  on  guard  against  attack  from  fellow  \illag- 
ers.  Here  the  feeling  of  kinship  solidarity,  stinuilaled,  ii  is  iruc.  by  cere- 
monial ideas  with  regard  to  feuds  and  head-hunluig,  actually  turned 
the  village  into  a  congeries  o\^  beleaguered  camps.  The  significance  of 
such  facts  is  that  they  show  with  dramatic  clarity  how  a  poiciii  M>cial 
pattern  may  Hy  in  the  face  of  reason,  of  mulual  ad\anlage.  and  e\en  oi 
economic  necessity. 

The  application  to  modern  conditions  is  obvunis  enough.  The  ideol- 
ogy which  prevents  a  Haida  clan  from  subordiiiaimg  its  petty  pride  to 
the  general  good  of  the  village  is  precisely  the  same  as  that  which  today 
prevents  a  nation  from  allowing  a  transnational  economic  unit,  say  the 
silk  industry,  tVom  functioning  smoothly.  In  each  case  a  social  group- 
pattern  -  or  formal  "image,"  in  psychological  terms  (clan;  nation)  - 
so  dominated  feeling  that  services  which  would  natural!)  tlou  in  the 
grooves  of  quite  other  intercrossing  or  more  inclusise  group-patterns 
(mutual  defense  in  the  village;  effective  production  and  distribution  of 
a  class  of  goods  by  those  actively  engaged  in  handling  it)  must  sulTcr 
appreciable  damage. 


Function  and  Form  in  Sociology 

This  brings  us  to  the  question  of  the  functional  nature  of  social 
groups.  Our  modern  tendency  is  to  see  most  associations  oi"  human 
beings  in  terms  of  function.  Thus,  it  is  ob\'ious  that  boards  oi  trade, 
labor  unions,  scientific  societies,  municipalities,  political  parlies,  and 
thousands  of  other  types  of  social  organization  are  most  easily  ex- 
plained as  resulting  tYom  the  etTorts  of  like-minded  or  similarh  inter- 
ested individuals  to  compass  certain  ends.  As  we  go  [KKi]  back  to  the 
types  of  organization  which  we  know  to  be  more  deeply  rooted  in  iuir 
historic  past,  such  as  the  family,  the  naiioiKili(\.  aiui  the  political  stale. 
we  find  that  their  function  is  far  less  obvious,  it  is  either  all  but  absent 
from  consciousness,  as  in  the  case  of  the  family,  or  inextricably  inter- 
twined with  sentiments  and  loyalties  that  are  not  explicable  b\  ihe  mere 
function,  real  or  supposed,  of  the  social  unit.  Ihe  stale  mighi  be  defined 
in  purely  territorial  and  functional  terms,  but  political  history  is  lililc 
more  than  an  elaborate  proof  that  the  state  as  we  ha\e  actually  known 
it  refuses  either  to  "stay  put"  or  to  "■stick  to  business."'  However,  ii  is 
evident  that  the  modern  state  has  tended  more  and  more  in  the  dirtxtion 
of  a  clearer  functional  definition.  b\   \\a\   both  of  reslriclion  and  of 


110  ///   Culnire 

extension.  The  dynastic  and  religious  entanglements,  for  instance,  which 
were  at  one  time  considered  inseparable  from  the  notion  of  a  state,  have 
loosened  or  disappeared.  Even  the  family,  the  most  archaic  and  perhaps 
the  most  stubborn  of  all  social  units,  is  beginning  to  have  its  cohesive- 
ness  and  its  compulsions  questioned  by  the  intercrossing  of  functional 
units  that  lie  outside  of  itself. 

When  we  compare  primitive  society  with  our  own,  we  are  at  once 
impressed  by  the  lesser  importance  of  function  as  a  determinant  of  or- 
ganization. Functional  groupings  there  are,  of  course,  but  they  are  sub- 
sidiary, as  a  rule,  to  kinship,  territorial,  and  status  groups.  There  is  a 
very  definite  tendency  for  communal  activities  of  all  sorts  to  socialize 
on  the  lines  suggested  by  these  groups.  Thus,  among  the  West  Coast 
Indians,  membership  in  the  ceremonial  or  secret  societies,  while  theore- 
tically dependent  upon  the  acquirement  of  power  from  the  initiating 
guardian  spirits,  is  in  reaUty  largely  a  matter  of  privilege  inhering  in 
certain  lines  of  descent.  The  Kwakiutl  Cannibal  Society,  for  instance,  is 
not  a  spontaneous  association  of  such  men  and  women  as  possess  unu- 
sual psychic  suggestibility,  but  is  composed  of  individuals  who  have 
family  traditions  entitling  them  to  dance  the  Cannibal  dance  and  to 
perform  the  rituals  of  the  Society.  Among  the  Pueblo  Indians  there  is  a 
marked  tendency  for  the  priesthood  of  important  rehgious  fraternities 
to  be  recruited  from  particular  clans.  Among  the  Plains  tribes  the  polic- 
ing of  the  camp  during  the  annual  buffalo  hunt  was  entrusted  not  to  a 
group  expressly  constituted  for  the  purpose  but  to  a  series  of  graded 
age  societies,  each  serving  in  turn,  as  among  the  Arapaho,  to  the  sibs, 
as  among  the  Omaha,  or  to  some  other  set  of  social  units  that  had  other 
grounds  for  existence.  [107] 

We  must  be  careful  not  to  exaggerate  the  importance  of  facts  such  as 
these,  for  undoubtedly  there  is  much  intercrossing  in  primitive  society 
of  the  various  types  of  social  organization;  yet  it  remains  true  that,  by 
and  large,  function  tends  to  wait  on  alien  principles,  particularly  kin- 
ship. In  course  of  time,  as  numbers  grow  and  pursuits  become  more 
specialized,  the  functional  groups  intercross  more  freely  with  what  may 
be  called  the  natural  status  groups.  Finally,  with  the  growing  complexity 
of  the  mechanism  of  life  the  concept  of  the  purpose  of  a  given  group 
forces  itself  upon  the  social  consciousness,  and  if  this  purpose  is  felt  to 
be  compelling  enough,  the  group  that  it  unifies  may  reduce  to  a  second- 
ary posifion  social  units  built  on  other  principles.  Thus,  the  clan  tends 
to  atrophy  with  the  growth  of  political  institutions,  precisely  as  today 


One:  Culiurc,  Socicly.  ami  the  Iiu/ivic/mil  \  \  \ 

State  autonomy  is  beginning  to  weaken  in  ihc  face  of  transnalii>nal  func- 
tions. 

Yet  it  is  more  tiian  doubtful  if  ihe  gradual  unfi)ldnig  o\'  sdcuiI 
patterning  tends  indetlnitely  to  be  controlled  b\  function.  The  prag- 
matic temper  of  present-day  thinking  makes  such  an  assumpiiDii  seem 
natural.  Both  anthropology  and  history  seem  to  show,  however,  that 
any  kind  of  social  grouping,  once  established,  tends  to  persist,  and  that 
it  has  a  life  only  partly  conditioned  by  its  function,  which  may  be 
changed  from  age  to  age  and  from  place  to  place.  Certainly  anthropol- 
ogy has  few  more  impressive  hints  for  sociological  theory  than  the  func- 
tional equivalence  of  different  types  of  social  units. 

Among  the  Indians  of  the  Plains,  whether  organized  into  sibs  or  mer- 
ely into  territorial  bands,  the  decoration  of  articles  of  clothing,  in  so  far 
as  it  does  not  involve  a  symbolic  reference  to  a  vision,  in  which  case  it 
becomes  a  matter  of  intimate  personal  concern,  is  neither  \ested  in  par- 
ticular women  nor  differentiated  according  to  sib  or  territorial  umis. 
The  vast  majority  of  decorative  motives  are  at  the  free  disposal  o\'  all 
the  women  of  the  tribe.  There  is  evidence  that  in  certain  o(  the  Plains 
tribes  the  women  had  developed  industrial  guilds  or  sororities  for  the 
learning  of  moccasin  techniques  and  similar  items,  but  if  these  sex-func- 
tional groups  specialized  in  any  way  in  the  use  of  particular  designs,  it 
would  only  emphasize  the  point  that  the  decoration  o\'  clothing  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  basic  organization  of  the  tribe.  The  facts  read 
quite  differently  for  such  West  Coast  tribes  as  the  Haida  and  Tsimshian. 
Here,  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  clans  had  mythological  crests  and  to 
the  further  fact  that  these  crests  were  often  represented  on  articles  o\' 
[108]  clothing  in  highly  conventionalized  form,  artistic  expression  was 
necessarily  intertwined  with  social  organization.  The  representation  o\' 
a  conventionalized  beaver  or  killer-whale  on  a  hat  or  dancuig  apron 
thus  actually  becomes  a  clan  privilege.  It  helps  to  defme  or  obiectity 
the  clan  by  so  much. 

Another  example  of  an  identical  or  similar  function  applied  to  dit- 
ferent  social  units  is  afforded  by  the  ceremonial  playmg  o['  lacrosse 
among  several  eastern  tribes  of  the  North  American  abiMigmes.  Both 
the  Iroquois  and  the  Yuchi,  of  the  Southeastern  area,  uere  orgam/cd 
into  clans  (matrilineal  sibs),  but  while  the  Iroquois  pitted  their  i\so 
phratries,  or  clan  aggregations,  against  each  other,  among  the  \in:h\  the 
game  was  not  a  clan  or  phratric  function  at  all  but  \sas  pla>ed  b\  the 
two  great  status  groups,  "Chiefs"  and  "Warriors."  membership  in  \Khich 
depended  on  patrilineal,  not  matrilineal.  descent. 


112  ///   Culture 

The  Transfer  of  Social  Patterns 

Such  instances  are  not  exceptions  or  oddities.  They  may  be  multipHed 
indefmitely.  Any  student  who  has  worked  through  a  considerable  body 
of  material  of  this  kind  is  left  with  a  very  lively  sense  of  the  reality  of 
types  of  organization  to  which  no  absolutely  constant  functions  can  be 
assigned.  Moreover,  the  suspicion  arises  that  many  social  units  that  now 
seem  to  be  very  clearly  defined  by  their  function  may  have  had  their 
origin  in  patterns  which  the  lapse  of  time  has  reinterpreted  beyond  re- 
cognition. A  very  interesting  problem  arises  -  that  of  the  possible 
transfer  of  a  psychological  attitude  or  mode  of  procedure  which  is 
proper  to  one  type  of  social  unit  to  another  type  of  unit  in  which  the 
attitude  or  procedure  is  not  so  clearly  relevant.  Undoubtedly  such 
transfers  have  often  taken  place  both  on  primitive  and  on  sophisticated 
levels. 

A  striking  example  of  the  transfer  of  a  "pattern  of  feeling"  to  a  social 
function  to  which  it  is  glaringly  inapplicable  is  the  following,  again 
quoted  from  the  West  Coast  Indians:  The  psychic  peculiarity  that  leads 
certain  men  and  women  to  become  shamans  ("medicine-men"  and  "me- 
dicine-women") is  so  individual  that  shamanism  shows  nearly  every- 
where a  marked  tendency  to  resist  grooving  in  the  social  patterns  of  the 
tribe.  Personal  ability  or  susceptibility  counts  far  more  than  conven- 
tional status.  Nevertheless,  so  powerful  is  the  concept  of  rank  and  of 
the  family  inheritance  of  privilege  of  every  conceivable  type  among  the 
West  Coast  people  [109]  that  certain  tribes  of  this  area,  such  as  the 
Tlingit  and  Nootka,  have  actually  made  of  shamanistic  power  an  inher- 
itable privilege.  In  actual  practice,  of  course,  theory  has  to  yield  to 
compromise.  Among  the  Nootka,  for  instance,  certain  shamanistic  of- 
fices are  supposed  to  be  performed  by  those  who  have  an  inherited  right 
to  them.  Actually,  however,  these  offices  necessitate  the  possession  of 
supernatural  power  that  the  incumbent  may  not  happen  to  possess.  He 
is  therefore  driven  to  the  device  of  deputing  the  exercise  of  his  office  to 
a  real  shaman  whom  he  pays  for  his  services  but  who  does  not  acquire 
the  titular  right  to  the  office  in  question.  The  psychology  of  this  pro- 
cedure is  of  course  very  similar  to  the  more  sophisticated  procedure  of 
rubber-stamping  documents  in  the  name  of  a  king  who  is  profoundly 
ignorant  of  their  contents. 

A  very  instructive  example  of  pattern  transfer  on  a  high  level  of  cul- 
ture is  the  complex  organization  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  Here 
we  have  a  bureaucrafic  system  that  neither  expresses  the  personal 


One:  Culture.  Society,  uiul  the  Im/ivuhml  \\\ 

psychology  of  snobbery  and  place-hunting  nov  can  be  seriously  cx- 
phiined  as  due  to  the  exigencies  of  the  rehgious  spirit  which  the  organ- 
ization serves.  There  is,  of  course,  reason  to  beheve  that  this  organiza- 
tion is  to  a  large  extent  a  carry-over  of  the  complex  structure  ot  Runian 
civil  administration.  That  the  Jews  and  llic  c\ angelical  Protestant  sects 
have  a  far  looser  type  of  church  organization  does  not  prove  thai  ihcy 
are,  as  individuals,  more  immediately  s\va\ed  b\  the  demands  o\'  reli- 
gion. All  that  one  has  a  right  to  conclude  is  that  m  iheir  case  religion 
has  socialized  itself  on  a  less  tightly  knit  pattern,  a  pattern  that  was 
more  nearly  congruent  with  other  habits  of  their  social  life. 

Nor  can  there  be  a  serious  doubt  that  some  of  our  current  aiiiiudes 
toward  social  units  are  better  suited  to  earlier  types  o\'  organization 
than  to  the  social  units  as  they  actually  function  today.  A  dispassionate 
analysis  of  the  contemporary  state  and  a  full  realization  o\'  the  extent  to 
which  its  well-being  depends  upon  international  understandings  would 
probably  show  that  the  average  individual  views  it  with  a  more  pro- 
found emotion  than  the  facts  warrant.  To  the  state,  in  other  words,  arc 
carried  over  feelings  that  seem  far  more  appropriate  for  more  ncarl> 
autonomous  social  bodies,  such  as  the  tribe  or  the  self-supporting  na- 
tionality. It  is  not  unreasonable  to  maintain  that  a  too  passionate  stale 
loyalty  may  hinder  the  comfort  of  its  object  in  precisely  the  same  way 
that  an  overzealous  mother,  wrapped  up  in  the  family  image,  nia>  hin- 
der the  social  [110]  functioning  of  her  beloved  son.  it  is  ditTicult  to  \iew 
social  and  political  problems  of  practical  importance  with  a  cool  eye. 
One  of  the  most  subtle  and  enlightening  of  the  fruits  of  anthropological 
research  is  an  understanding  of  the  very  considerable  degree  to  w  hich 
the  concepts  of  social  pattern,  function,  and  associated  mental  attitude 
are  independently  variable.  In  this  thought  lies  the  germ  o\^  a  svKial 
philosophy  of  values  and  transfers  that  joins  hands  in  a  very  suggestive 
way  with  such  psychoanalytic  concepts  as  the  "'image"  and  the  iranster 
of  emotion. 


Rhythmic  Configurations  in  Socict\ 

Modern  psychology  is  destined  to  aid  us  m  our  understanding  of 
social  phenomena  by  its  emphasis  on  the  projection  of  formal  or  rh\lh- 
mic  configurations  of  the  psyche  and  on  the  concrete  symbolizalion  o( 
values  and  social  relations.  We  can  do  no  more  than  suggest  here  ihal 
both  of  these  kinds  of  mental  functioning  arc  plcniifull>  illustrated  in 


114  ///   Culture 

primitive  society,  and  that  for  this  reason  anthropology  can  do  much 
to  give  their  consideration  an  adequate  place  in  sociological  theory. 
They  are  just  as  truly  operative  in  our  more  sophisticated  culture,  but 
they  seem  here  to  be  prevented  from  a  clear-cut  expression  along  the 
lines  of  social  organization  by  the  interference  of  more  conscious,  ratio- 
nal processes  and  by  the  leveling  and  destructive  influence  of  a  growing 
consciousness  of  purpose. 

The  projection  in  social  behavior  of  an  innate  sense  of  form  is  an 
intuitive  process  and  is  merely  a  special  phase  of  that  mental  function- 
ing that  finds  its  clearest  voice  in  mathematics  and  its  most  nearly  pure 
aesthetic  embodiment  in  plastic  and  musical  design.  Now  it  has  often 
been  observed  how  neatly  and  symmetrically  many  primitive  societies 
arrange  their  social  units  and  with  how  perfect,  not  to  say  pedantic,  a 
parallelism  functions  are  distributed  among  these  units.  An  Iroquois  or 
Pueblo  or  Haida  or  Australian  clan  is  closely  patterned  on  the  other 
clans,  but  its  distinctive  content  of  behavior  is  never  identical  with  that 
of  any  of  these.  Then,  too,  we  find  significantly  often  a  tendency  to 
exteriorize  the  feeling  for  social  design  in  space  or  time.  The  Omaha 
clans  or  Blackfoot  bands,  for  instance,  took  up  definite  positions  in  the 
camp  circle;  the  septs  of  a  Nootka  or  Kwakiutl  tribe  were  ranked  in  a 
certain  order  and  seated  according  to  definite  rule  in  ceremonial  gather- 
ings; each  of  the  Hopi  clans  was  referred  to  one  of  the  four  cardinal 
points;  the  Arapaho  age  societies  were  graded  in  a  temporal  series  [111] 
and  took  their  turn  from  year  to  year  in  policing  the  camp;  among  some 
of  the  Western  Bantu  tribes  of  Africa  the  year  was  divided  into  segments 
correlated  with  territorial  groupings.  The  significance  of  such  social 
phenomena  as  these,  which  could  easily  be  multipled,  is  probably  far 
greater  than  has  generally  been  assumed.  It  is  not  claimed  that  the 
'tendency  to  rhythmic  expression  is  their  only  determinant,  but  it  is  cer- 
tainly a  powerful  underlying  factor  in  the  development  of  all  social 
parallelisms  and  symmetries. 


Symbolical  Associations 

The  importance  of  symbolical  associadons  with  social  groupings  is 
well  known.  Party  slogans,  national  flags,  and  lodge  emblems  and  rega- 
lia today  can  give  only  a  diluted  idea  of  what  power  is  possessed  by  the 
social  symbol  in  primitive  life.  The  best-known  example  of  the  socializa- 
tion of  symbols  among  primitive  people  is  of  course  that  complicated. 


One:  Culture.  Society,  urn/  the  linlividual  \  \  S 

indefinitely  varied,  and  enormously  disinhuicd  class  o^  phenomena  thai 
is  conveniently  termed  totemism.  The  central  importance  of  toiemism 
lies  not  so  much  in  a  mystic  identification  of  the  individual  or  uroup 
with  an  animal,  a  plant,  or  other  classes  of  objects  held  in  religious 
regard  (such  identifications  are  by  no  means  uncommon  iii  primitive 
cultures,  but  are  not  necessary  to,  or  even  typical  of,  toiemism)  as  in 
the  clustering  of  all  kinds  of  values  that  pertain  to  a  social  unit  around 
a  concrete  symbol.  This  symbol  becomes  surcharged  with  emoiiDual 
significance  not  because  of  what  it  merely  is  or  is  thought  lo  be  in 
rational  terms,  but  because  of  all  the  vital  experiences,  inherited  and 
personal,  that  it  stands  for.  Totemism  is,  on  the  plane  o\'  primitive  soci- 
ology, very  much  the  same  kind  of  psychological  phenomenon  as  the 
identification  in  the  mind  of  the  devout  Christian  of  the  cross  with  a 
significant  system  of  religious  practices,  beliefs,  and  emotions. 

When  a  Haida  Indian  is  a  member  of  a  clan  that  possesses,  say,  the 
Killer-whale  crest,  it  is  very  ditTicult  for  him  to  function  in  any  social 
way  without  being  involved  in  an  explicit  or  implicit  reference  lo  the 
Killer-whale  crest  or  some  other  crest  or  crests  with  which  it  is  associ- 
ated. He  cannot  be  born,  come  of  age,  be  married,  give  feasts,  be  iin  itcd 
to  a  feast,  take  or  give  a  name,  decorate  his  belongings,  or  die  as  a  mere 
individual,  but  always  as  one  who  shares  in  the  traditions  and  usages 
that  go  with  the  Killer-whale  or  associated  crests.  Hence  the  social  sym- 
bol is  not  in  any  sense  a  [112]  mere  tag;  it  is  a  traditional  index  o\'  ihe 
fullness  of  life  and  of  the  dignity  of  the  human  spirit  which  transcends 
the  death  of  the  individual.  The  symbol  is  operative  in  a  great  many 
types  of  social  behavior,  totemism  being  merely  one  of  its  most  articu- 
late group  expressions.  The  symbol  as  unconscious  evaluator  of  indivi- 
dual experience  has  been  much  discussed  in  recent  years,  li  needs  no 
labored  argument  to  suggest  how  much  light  anthropolog\  ma\  ihrou 
on  the  social  psychology  of  the  symbol. 


Selected  References 

Boas,  F. 

1911         The  Mind  of  Primitive  Man. 

1895        The  Social  Organization  and  Secret  Societies  o^  the  KwakiutI  Indi- 
ans. Report.  U.  S.  National  Museum,  pp.  ."^I'^    ^'^' 
Codrington,  R.  H. 

1891         The  MeUmesians:  Studies  in  their  .inihropolojiy  and  Folk-Lore. 


116  ///  Culture 

Cunow,  H. 

1894        Die  Vermimitseliafts-Orgcmisatkmen  der  Australneger. 
1912        Zur  Urgeschichte  der  Ehe  und  der  Familie. 
Dorsey,  J.  O. 

1 884       Omaha  Sociology.  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  3rd  Annual  Re- 
port, pp.  211-37. 
Frazer.  J.  G. 

1911         Tofemism  and  Exogamy. 
Gifford,  E.  W. 

1918        Clans  and  Moieties  in  Southern  Cahfornia.  University  of  California 
Publications    in    American    Archaeology    and    Ethnology,     XIV, 
pp.  155-219. 
Goldenweiser,  A.  A. 

1922  Early  Civilization,  an  Introduction  to  Anthropology.   (Particularly 
chaps.  XII  and  XIII.) 

1910  Totemism,  an  Analytical  Study.  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore, 
XXXIII,  pp.  179-293. 

Graebner,  F. 

1911  Methode  der  Ethnologie. 
Hartland,  E.  S. 

1917        Matrihneal  Kinship  and  the  Question  of  its  Priority.    Memoirs  of 
the  American  Anthropological  Association,  IV,  pp.  1-90. 
Junod,  H.  A. 

1912  The  Life  of  a  South  African  Tribe. 
Kroeber,  A.  L. 

1917        ZunT  Kin  and  Clan.  American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  Anthro- 
pological Papers,  XVIII,  pp.  39-205. 

1 923  Anthropology. 
Lowie,  R.  H. 

1910       Plains  Indian  Age-Societies:  Historical  and  Comparative  Summary. 

American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  Anthropological  Paper s,X\, 

pp.  877-984. 
1920        Primitive  Society. 
Malinowski,  B. 

1913  The  Family  among  the  Australian  Aborigines. 
Morgan,  L.  H. 

1871        Systems  of  Consanguinity  and  Affinity  of  the  Human  Family. 

Smithsonian  Contributions  to  Knowledge,  XVII. 
1877        Ancient  Society. 

1 904        League  of  the  Ho-de-no-sau-nee  or  Iroquois. 
Radin,  R 

1915        The  Social  Organization  of  the  Winnebago  Indians,  an  Interpreta- 
tion. Geological  Survey  of  Canada,  Museum  Bulletin,  no.  10. 


One:  Culture,  Society,  and  the  Imlividiuil  \  \  7 

Rivers,  W.  H.  R. 

1906        The  Todas. 

1914        The  History  of  Melanesian  Society. 

1914        Kinship  and  Social  Ori^anizafion. 
Sapir,  E. 

1916        Time   Perspective   in   Aboriginal   American   Culture,   .i    ^m.i'.    m 
Method.  Geological  Survey  of  Canada.  Memoirs,  no.  90 
Schurtz,  H. 

1902  Altersklassen  und  Mdnnerhiinde. 
Spencer,  B.,  and  Gillen,  F.  J. 

1899        The  Native  Tribes  of  Central  Australia. 
Swanton,  J.  R. 

1905        Contributions  to  the  Ethnology  of  the  Haida.  .\fcni(>ir\  at  ih,-  tm,  ,• 

ican  Museum  of  Natural  History,  Vlll. 
1905        The  Social  Organization  of  American  Indians.  Anicricun  Amiiropol- 
ogist,  N.  S.,  pp.  663-73. 
Thomas,  William  I. 

1909        Source  Book  for  Social  Origins. 
Tylor,  E.  B. 

1889        Primitive  Culture. 

1889        On  a  Method  of  Investigating  the  Development  of  Institutions;  ap- 
plied to  Laws  of  Marriage  and  Descent.  Journal  of  the  .Anthropologi- 
cal Institute  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  XVI 11.  pp.  24.>-''2 
Webster,  H. 

1908        Primitive  Secret  Societies. 
Wissler,  C. 

1911        The  Social  Life  of  the  Blackfoot  Indians.  .American  Museum  of  \ai- 

ural  History,  Anthropological  Papers,  VII,  pp.  1-64. 
1923        Man  and  Culture. 
Westermarck,  E.  A. 

1903  The  History  of  Human  Marriage.  3d  ed. 


Editorial  Notes 

Originally  published  in  The  Social  Sciences  und  Iluir  Interrelations. 
edited  by  William  Fielding  Ogburn  and  Alexander  Cioldenwciscr  (Bos- 
ton: Houghton  Mifflin),  97- 1 13  (1927).  Reprinted  by  permission. 


Speech  as  a  Personality  Trail  ( 1927) 
Editorial  Introduction 

In  response  to  the  experimental  evidence  presented  b\  his  inicrdisci- 
phnary  colleagues,  especially  in  psychology,  Sapir  turned  to  what  he 
called  "language  psychology"  to  clarify  his  intuitions  about  individual 
personality.'  He  argued  that  people  unconsciously  extracted  informa- 
tion about  the  personality  of  others  from  the  stream  o\'  beha\  ior.  Per- 
sonality was  not  accessible  through  the  isolated  individual  but  oiil\  uiih 
the  mediation  of  culture  (cf.  Sapir's  1926  Hanover  Conference  paper. 
this  volume).  Although  people  were  only  minimally  aware  of  their  own 
cultural  patterns,  they  regularly  recognized  deviations  from  the  patterns 
they  expected.  Thus,  their  intuitions  could  shed  light  on  the  relation- 
ships between  individual  and  culture. 

Sapir's  quasi-experimental  variables  included  voice  (closest  lo  biolog- 
ical heredity),  the  socially  expressive  parameters  of  \oice  dynamics,  pro- 
nunciation and  vocabulary,  and  style  (the  most  culturalls  experiential ).- 
Although  Sapir  did  not  pursue  this  experimentational  elTori  \er>  far. 
there  are  echoes  of  his  foray  in  "The  Psychological  Realii>  o\'  the  I'ho- 
neme"  (1933)  and  in  his  paper  on  phonetic  symbolism  ( 1929). 

The  essay's  emphasis  on  cultural  convention,  as  mediating  between 
the  individual  personality  and  the  behaviors  through  which  that  person- 
ality finds  expression,  ran  counter  to  many  currents  in  the  mielleclual 
context  of  the  time.  Many  psychologists  and  even  anthropologists  as- 
sumed that  personality  could  be  inferred  directly  from  behavior,  and 
that  insofar  as  cultures  differed  in  the  bcha\KMs  tlic>  fostered,  so  also 
did  peoples  differ  in  their  essential  personality.  Attributing  typical  per- 
sonality to  entire  social  groups  -  especially  nations  on  the  basis  of 
behavioral  details  judged  according  to  what  the>  would  mean  in  Anglo- 
American  contexts  was,  in  those  days,  iniclkvtiKill>  respectable.  Sapir*8 
essay  counters  those  prevailing  notions,  both  in  its  interposing  of  cul- 
tural convention  and  in  its  insistence  on  the  \ariabilit\  o\'  indi\iduals' 
personalifies,  and  expressive  behaviors,  uilhiii  a  communil\ 


120  ///   Ciillurc 

Speech  as  a  Personality  Trait 
Abstract 

Speech  is  intuitively  interpreted  by  normal  human  beings  as  an  index  of  personal 
expression.  Its  actual  analysis,  however,  from  this  standpoint  is  difilcult.  Several 
distinct  strands  may  be  detected  in  what  looks  at  first  sight  like  an  integral  phenome- 
non. The  social  norm  is  always  to  be  distinguished  from  the  individual  increment  of 
expression,  which  is  never  discernible  in  itself,  but  only  as  measured  against  this 
norm.  Moreover,  "speech"  consists  of  at  least  five  levels  of  behavior,  the  expressive 
value  of  any  one  of  which  need  not  be  confirmed  by  all  the  others.  These  levels  are 
the  voice  as  such,  speech  dynamics,  the  pronunciation,  the  vocabulary,  and  the  style 
of  connected  utterance.  Owing  to  the  possibility  of  detecting  conflict  and  other  symp- 
tomatic reactions  in  speech,  language  behavior  becomes  a  suggestive  field  for  re- 
search in  problems  of  personality. 

If  one  is  at  all  given  to  analysis,  one  is  impressed  with  the  extreme 
complexity  of  the  various  types  of  human  behavior,  and  it  may  be  as- 
sumed that  the  things  that  we  take  for  granted  in  our  ordinary,  everyday 
life  are  as  strange  and  as  unexplainable  as  anything  one  might  find. 
Thus,  one  comes  to  feel  that  the  matter  of  speech  is  very  far  from  being 
the  self-evident  or  simple  thing  that  we  think  it  to  be;  that  it  is  capable 
of  a  very  great  deal  of  refined  analysis  from  the  standpoint  of  human 
behavior;  and  that  one  might,  in  the  process  of  making  such  an  analysis, 
accumulate  certain  ideas  for  the  research  of  personahty  problems. 

There  is  one  thing  that  strikes  us  as  interesting  about  speech:  on  the 
one  hand,  we  find  it  difficult  to  analyze;  on  the  other  hand,  we  are  very 
much  guided  by  it  in  our  actual  experience.  That  is  perhaps  something 
of  a  paradox,  yet  both  the  simple  mind  and  the  keenest  of  scientists 
know  very  well  that  we  do  not  react  to  the  suggestions  of  the  environ- 
ment in  accordance  with  our  specific  knowledge  alone.  Some  of  us  are 
more  intuitive  than  others,  it  is  true,  but  none  is  entirely  lacking  in  the 
ability  to  gather  and  be  guided  by  speech  impressions  in  the  intuitive 
exploration  of  personality.  We  are  taught  that  when  a  man  speaks  he 
says  something  that  he  [893]  wishes  to  communicate.  That,  of  course, 
is  not  necessarily  so.  He  intends  to  say  something,  as  a  rule,  yet  what 
he  actually  communicates  may  be  measurably  different  from  what  he 
started  out  to  convey.  We  often  form  a  judgment  of  what  he  is  by  what 
he  does  not  say,  and  we  may  be  very  wise  to  refuse  to  limit  the  evidence 
for  judgment  to  the  overt  content  of  speech.  One  must  read  between 
the  lines,  even  when  they  are  not  written  on  a  sheet  of  paper. 

In  thinking  over  this  matter  of  the  analysis  of  speech  from  the  point 
of  view  of  personahty  study,  the  writer  has  come  to  feel  that  we  might 


One    C'uliuir.  Socicly.  uml  ilw  Imtivuhul  121 

have  two  quite  distincl  approaches;  two  quite  distinct  analyses  might 
be  undertaken  that  would  intercross  in  a  \ery  intricate  fashion.  In  the 
first  place,  the  analysis  niiiihi  dilTeienliale  the  indi\idual  and  sociel).  in 
so  far  as  society  speaks  ihrousih  the  Midi\idual.  The  second  kind  of 
analysis  would  take  up  the  dilTereni  levels  of  speech,  starting  from  the 
lowest  level,  which  is  the  Nc^ice  itself,  clear  up  to  the  formation  of  com- 
plete sentences.  In  ordinar\  life  we  say  that  a  man  coineys  certain  im- 
pressions by  his  speech,  bul  we  rarely  stop  to  analyse  this  apparent  unit 
of  behavior  into  its  superimposed  levels.  We  might  give  him  credit  lor 
brilliant  ideas  when  he  merely  possesses  a  smooth  voice.  We  are  often 
led  into  misunderstandings  o^  this  sort,  though  we  are  not  generally  so 
easily  fooled.  We  can  go  over  the  entire  speech  situation  without  being 
able  to  put  our  finger  on  the  precise  spot  in  the  speech  complex  thai 
leads  to  our  making  this  or  that  personalitv  judgment.  Just  as  the  dog 
knows  whether  to  turn  to  the  right  or  to  the  left,  so  we  know  that  wc 
must  make  certain  judgments,  but  we  might  well  be  mistaken  if  we  tried 
to  give  the  reason  for  making  them. 

Let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  the  justification  for  the  first  kind  of 
analysis,  the  differentiation  between  the  social  and  the  pureh  individual 
point  of  view.  It  requires  no  labored  argument  to  prove  that  this  distinc- 
tion is  a  necessary  one.  We  human  beings  do  not  e.xist  out  of  socicly.  If 
you  put  a  man  in  a  cell,  he  is  still  in  societv.  because  he  carries  his 
thoughts  with  him,  and  these  thoughts,  pathologic  though  they  be,  were 
formed  with  the  help  of  society.  On  the  other  hand,  we  Ctin  never  have 
experience  as  such,  however  greatly  we  may  be  interested  in  them.  lake 
so  simple  a  social  pattern  as  the  word  "horse."  A  horse  is  an  animal 
with  [894]  four  legs,  a  mane,  and  a  neigh;  but.  as  a  matter  o\'  fact,  the 
social  pattern  of  reference  to  this  animal  does  uo\  exist  in  its  purity. 
All  that  exists  is  my  saying  "horse"  today,  "horse"  veslerdav.  "horse" 
tomorrow.  Each  of  the  events  is  different.  There  is  something  peculiar 
about  each  o[^  them.  The  voice,  for  one  thing,  is  never  quite  the  simic. 
There  is  a  different  quality  o{  emotion  m  each  articulation,  and  the 
intensity  of  the  emotion,  too,  is  different.  It  is  not  dilficull  to  see  wh> 
it  is  necessary  to  distinguish  the  social  point  of  view  from  the  individual, 
for  society  has  its  patterns,  its  set  ways  of  di^ng  things,  its  dislmctivc 
"theories"  of  behavior,  while  the  individual  has  his  melhiul  i>f  handling 
those  particular  patterns  of  societv,  giving  them  just  enough  of  a  iwisl 
to  make  them  "his"  and  no  one  else's.  We  are  so  interested  in  ourselves 
as  individuals  and  in  others  wlu>  dilfer.  however  slightly,  from  us  thai 
we  are  always  on  the  alert  to  mark  the  variations  from  the  nuclear 


122  ///   Cullurc 

pattern  of  behavior.  To  one  who  is  not  accustomed  to  the  pattern,  these 
variations  appear  so  shght  as  to  be  all  but  unobserved.  Yet  they  are  of 
maximum  importance  to  us  as  individuals;  so  much  so  that  we  are  liable 
to  forget  that  there  is  a  general  social  pattern  to  vary  from.  We  are 
often  under  the  impression  that  we  are  original  or  otherwise  aberrant 
when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  are  merely  repeating  a  social  pattern  with 
the  very  slightest  accent  of  individuality. 

To  proceed  to  the  second  point  of  view,  the  analysis  of  speech  on  its 
different  levels:  If  we  were  to  make  a  critical  survey  of  how  people  react 
to  voice  and  what  the  voice  carries,  we  should  find  them  relatively  naive 
about  the  different  elements  involved  in  speech.  A  man  talks  and  makes 
certain  impressions,  but,  as  we  have  seen,  we  are  not  clear  as  to  whether 
it  is  his  voice  which  most  powerfully  contributes  to  the  impression,  or 
the  ideas  which  are  conveyed.  There  are  several  distinct  levels  in  speech 
behavior  which  to  linguists  and  psychologists  are,  each  of  them,  sets  of 
real  phenomena,  and  we  must  now  look  at  these  in  order  to  obtain 
some  idea  of  the  complexity  of  normal  human  speech.  I  will  take  up 
these  various  levels  in  order,  making  a  few  remarks  about  each  of  them 
as  I  proceed. 

The  lowest  or  most  fundamental  speech  level  is  the  voice.  It  is  closest 
to  the  hereditary  endowment  of  the  individual,  considered  [895]  out  of 
relation  to  society,  "low"  in  the  sense  of  constituting  a  level  that  starts 
with  the  psychophysical  organism  given  at  birth.  The  voice  is  a  compli- 
cated bundle  of  reactions  and,  so  far  as  the  writer  knows,  no  one  has 
succeeded  in  giving  a  comprehensive  account  of  what  the  voice  is  and 
what  changes  it  may  undergo.  There  seems  to  be  no  book  or  essay  that 
classifies  the  many  different  types  of  voice,  nor  is  there  a  nomenclature 
that  is  capable  of  doing  justice  to  the  bewildering  range  of  voice  phe- 
nomena. And  yet  it  is  by  delicate  nuances  of  voice  quality  that  we  are 
so  often  confirmed  in  our  judgment  of  people.  From  a  more  general 
point  of  view,  voice  may  be  considered  a  form  of  gesture.  If  we  are 
swayed  by  a  certain  thought  or  emotion,  we  may  express  ourselves  with 
our  hands  or  some  other  type  of  gesturing,  and  the  voice  takes  part  in 
the  total  play  of  gesture.  From  our  present  point  of  view,  however,  it  is 
possible  to  isolate  the  voice  as  a  functional  unit. 

Voice  is  generally  thought  of  as  a  purely  individual  matter,  yet  is  it 
quite  correct  to  say  that  the  voice  is  given  us  at  birth  and  maintained 
unmodified  throughout  life?  Or  has  the  voice  a  social  quality  as  well  as 
an  individual  one?  I  think  we  all  feel,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  we  imitate 
each  other's  voices  to  a  not  inconsiderable  extent.  We  know  very  well 


One:  Cnliiiir.  Soiiciv.  unJ  i/ic  /nJivtJiiul  123 

that  if.  for  some  reason  (^r  oilier,  llie  liiiibre  ol  the  \oice  ihal  wc  arc 
lieir  lo  lias  been  eriliei/ed.  we  Irv  lo  iiiodity  il.  so  thai  il  ma>  nol  be  a 
socially  unpleasant  insirunienl  o\'  speech.  There  is  aluays  si>melhing 
about  the  voice  that  nuisl  be  ascribed  lo  the  st)cial  backiirourul.  prc- 
cisel\  as  in  the  case  of  gesture,  (iestures  are  not  the  siniple,  indiMduai 
things  they  seem  lo  be.  They  are  largely  peculiar  to  this  or  ihal  society. 
In  the  same  way,  in  spite  of  the  personal  and  relati\el\  fixed  character 
of  the  \oice,  we  make  iii\oluntar\  adjustments  in  the  lar\n\  that  bring 
about  significant  modifications  in  the  \oice.  Therefore,  in  deducing  fun- 
damental traits  of  personality  from  the  \i>ice  ue  must  tr\  to  discnlanglc 
the  social  element  from  the  purely  personal  one.  If  ue  are  nol  careful 
to  do  this,  we  may  make  a  serious  error  of  judgment.  A  man  has  a 
strained  or  raucous  voice,  let  us  say.  and  we  might  infer  thai  he  is 
basically  "coarse-grained."  Such  a  judgment  might  be  entirely  wide  o\ 
the  mark  if  the  particular  societ\  in  which  he  hxes  is  an  oul-of-doors 
society  that  indulges  in  a  good  deal  of  swearing  and  (S96j  rather  rough 
handling  of  the  voice.  He  may  have  had  a  very  soft  voice  to  begin 
with,  symptomatic  of  a  delicate  psychic  organization,  which  gradually 
toughened  under  the  intluence  o(  social  suggestion.  The  personality 
which  we  are  trying  to  disentangle  lies  hidden  under  its  overt  manifesta- 
tions, and  it  is  our  task  to  de\elop  scientific  methods  to  gel  at  the 
"natural,"  theoretically  unmodified  voice.  In  order  to  interpret  the  \oice 
as  to  its  personality  value,  one  needs  to  have  a  good  idea  o\'  how  much 
of  it  is  purely  individual,  due  to  the  natuial  formation  of  the  lar\n\.  lo 
peculiarities  of  breathing,  to  a  thousand  and  one  factors  that  the  anato- 
mist and  the  physiologist  may  be  able  lo  define  for  us.  One  might  ask 
at  this  point:  Why  attach  importance  to  the  quality  o\'  the  \oicc'.'  What 
has  that  to  do  with  personality?  After  all  is  said  and  done,  a  man's  voice 
is  primarily  tbrmed  by  natural  agencies,  it  is  w  hat  CJod  has  blessed  him 
with.  Yes,  but  is  that  not  essentially  true  o\'  the  whole  o\  personality? 
Inasmuch  as  the  psychophysical  organism  is  \ery  much  of  a  unit,  we 
can  be  quite  sure  on  general  principles  that  m  loi>kmg  for  the  thing  wc 
call  personality  we  have  the  right  to  attach  importance  to  the  thing  wc 
call  voice.  Whether  personalil\  is  cxi^rcssed  as  adequately  in  the  voicv 
as  in  gesture  or  in  carriage,  we  i.\o  not  know.  Perhaps  it  is  e\en  more 
adequately  expressed  in  the  voice  than  in  these.  In  an\  CNcnt.  it  is  clear 
that  the  nervous  processes  that  control  \oice  production  must  share 
in  the  indi\idual  trails  o\  ihc  ncr\ous  organization  that  condition  the 
personality. 


124  ///  Culture 

The  essential  quality  of  the  voice  is  an  amazingly  interesting  thing  to 
puzzle  over.  Unfortunately  we  have  no  adequate  vocabulary  for  its  end- 
less varieties.  We  speak  of  a  high-pitched  voice.  We  say  a  voice  is 
"thick,"  or  it  is  "thin";  we  say  it  is  "nasal"  if  there  is  something  wrong 
with  the  nasal  part  of  the  breathing  apparatus.  If  we  were  to  make  an 
inventory  of  voices,  we  should  find  that  no  two  of  them  are  quite  alike. 
And  all  the  time  we  feel  that  there  is  something  about  the  individual's 
voice  that  is  indicative  of  his  personality.  We  may  even  go  so  far  as  to 
surmise  that  the  voice  is  in  some  way  a  symbolic  index  of  the  total 
personality.  Some  day,  when  we  know  more  about  the  physiology  and 
psychology  of  the  voice,  it  will  be  possible  to  line  up  our  intuitive  judg- 
ments as  to  voice  quality  with  a  scientific  analysis  of  voice  formation. 
We  do  not  know  [897]  what  it  is  precisely  that  makes  the  voice  sound 
"thick,"  or  "vibrant,"  or  "flat,"  or  what  not.  What  is  it  that  arouses  us 
in  one  man's  voice,  when  another's  stirs  us  not  at  all?  I  remember  listen- 
ing many  years  ago  to  an  address  by  a  college  president  and  deciding 
on  the  spur  of  the  moment  that  what  he  said  could  be  of  no  interest  to 
me.  What  I  meant  was  that  no  matter  how  interesting  or  pertinent  his 
remarks  were  in  themselves,  his  personality  could  not  touch  mine  be- 
cause there  was  something  about  his  voice  that  did  not  appeal  to  me, 
something  revealing  as  to  personahty.  There  was  indicated  -  so  one 
gathered  intuitively  -  a  certain  quahty  of  personality,  a  certain  force, 
that  I  knew  could  not  easily  integrate  with  my  own  apprehension  of 
things.  I  did  not  listen  to  what  he  said;  I  listened  only  to  the  quality  of 
his  voice.  One  might  object  that  that  was  a  perfectly  idiotic  thing  to  do. 
Perhaps  it  was,  but  I  believe  that  we  are  all  in  the  habit  of  doing  just 
such  things  and  that  we  are  essentially  justified  in  so  doing  —not  intel- 
lectually, but  intuitively.  It  therefore  becomes  the  task  of  an  intellectual 
analysis  to  justify  for  us  on  reasoned  grounds  what  we  have  knowledge 
of  in  pre-scientific  fashion. 

There  is  little  purpose  in  trying  to  list  the  different  types  of  voice. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  on  the  basis  of  his  voice  one  might  decide  many 
things  about  a  man.  One  might  decide  that  he  is  sentimental;  that  he  is 
cruel  -  one  hears  voices  that  impress  one  as  being  intensely  cruel.  One 
might  decide  on  the  basis  of  his  voice  that  a  person  who  uses  a  very 
brusque  vocabulary  is  nevertheless  kind-hearted.  This  sort  of  comment 
is  part  of  the  practical  experience  of  every  man  and  woman.  The  point 
is  that  we  are  not  in  the  habit  of  attaching  scientific  value  to  such  judg- 
ments. 


One:  Culture.  Society,  and  the  Imlniiiuul 


i^2 


We  have  seen  ihal  llic  \i)ice  is  a  siKial  as  well  as  an  individual  phc- 
iKMiienon.  If  one  v\ere  {o  make  a  prDt'iniiKi  eiiouuh  analysis,  one  might. 
at  least  in  theory.  car\e  out  the  soeial  part  of  the  voiee  and  discard  it 
-  a  diirieiilt  thing  to  (\o.  One  finds  people,  for  example,  who  hase  \cry 
pleasant  \oices.  hut  it  is  sociel\  that  has  made  them  ple»isanl.  One  may 
then  try  to  go  back  to  what  the  \oiee  would  ha\e  been  wilhoul  Us 
specific  social  development.  This  nuclear  or  primary  qualit\  of  voice  has 
in  many,  perhaps  in  all,  cases  a  [89S]  symbolic  \alue.  I  he  unconscious 
symbolisms  are  of  course  not  limited  to  the  \oice.  II  \ou  wrinkle  >our 
brow,  that  is  a  symbol  of  a  certain  attitude.  If  you  act  expansively  by 
stretching  out  your  arms,  that  is  a  svmbol  of  a  changed  attitude  lo  your 
immediate  environment.  In  the  same  manner  the  voice  is  to  a  laivc 
extent  an  unconscious  symbolization  of  one's  general  attitude 

Now  all  sorts  of  accidents  may  iiappen  to  the  \oice  and  depri\e  it. 
apparently,  of  its  ''predestined  form.""  In  spite  of  such  accidents,  how- 
ever, the  voice  will  be  there  for  our  discovery.  These  factors  that  spoil 
the  basic  picture  are  found  in  all  forms  of  human  behaxior.  and  we 
must  make  allowances  tor  them  here  as  e\er\ where  else  in  beha\ior. 
The  primary  voice  structure  is  something  that  we  cannot  get  at  immedi- 
ately, but  must  uncover  by  hacking  awa\  the  \arious  superimpi^scd 
structures,  social  and  individual. 

What  is  the  ne.xt  level  of  speech?  What  we  ordinaril\  call  voice  is 
voice  proper  plus  a  great  many  variations  of  behavior  that  are  inter- 
twined with  voice  and  give  it  its  dynamic  qualit\.  This  is  the  le\el  o\ 
voice  dynamics.  Two  speakers  may  have  \erv  much  the  same  basic  qual- 
ity of  voice,  yet  their  "voices,"  as  that  term  is  tndinarily  understood, 
may  be  very  different.  In  ordinary  usage  we  are  not  always  careful  lo 
distinguish  the  voice  proper  from  voice  dynamics.  One  of  the  most  im- 
portant aspects  of  voice  dynamics  is  intonation,  a  \ery  interesting  field 
of  investigation  for  both  linguist  and  psychologist.  Intonation  is  a  much 
more  complicated  matter  than  is  generally  believed.  It  may  ho  divided 
into  three  distinct  levels,  which  intertwine  into  the  unit  pattern  of  K-ha- 
vior  which  we  may  call  "individual  intonation."  In  the  first  place,  there 
is  a  very  important  social  element  in  intonatu>n  uhich  has  lo  he  kepi 
apart  from  the  individual  \ariation;  in  the  second  place,  this  social  ele- 
ment of  intonatit^n  has  a  tuofold  determination.  We  have  certain  ill- 
ations which  are  a  necessar\  part  of  mir  speech.  II  I  say.  lor  exan.j.^. 
"Is  he  coming?""  I  raise  the  pitch  o{  the  \oice  on  the  last  word.  There  is 
no  sutTicient  reason  in  nature  uh>  I  should  ha\e  an  upward  inllcx'tion 
o[^  the  voice  in  sentences  o\'  this  i\pe.  We  are  apt  lo  assume  that  this 


126  ///   Culture 

habit  is  natural,  even  self-evident,  but  a  comparative  study  of  the  dy- 
namic habits  of  many  diverse  [899]  languages  convinces  one  that  this 
assumption  is  on  the  whole  unwarranted.  The  interrogative  attitude 
may  be  expressed  in  other  ways,  such  as  the  use  of  particular  interroga- 
tive words  or  specific  grammatical  forms.  It  is  one  of  the  significant 
patterns  of  our  English  language  to  elevate  the  voice  in  interrogative 
sentences  of  a  certain  type,  hence  such  elevation  is  not  expressive  in  the 
properly  individual  sense  of  the  word,  though  we  sometimes  feel  it  to 
be  so. 

But  more  than  that,  there  is  a  second  level  of  socially  determined 
variation  in  intonation,  the  musical  handling  of  the  voice  generally, 
quite  aside  from  the  properly  Hnguistic  patterns  of  intonation.  It  is 
understood  in  a  given  society  that  we  are  not  to  have  too  great  an 
individual  range  of  intonation.  We  are  not  to  rise  to  too  great  a  height 
in  our  cadences;  we  are  to  pitch  the  voice  at  such  and  such  an  average 
height.  In  other  words,  society  tells  us  to  limit  ourselves  to  a  certain 
range  of  intonation  and  to  certain  characteristic  cadences,  that  is,  to 
adopt  certain  melody  patterns  peculiar  to  itself  If  we  were  to  compare 
the  speech  of  an  English  country  gentleman  with  that  of  a  Kentucky 
farmer,  we  should  find  the  intonational  habits  of  the  two  to  be  notably 
different,  though  there  are  certain  important  resemblances,  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  language  they  speak  is  essentially  the  same.  Neither  dares 
depart  too  widely  from  his  respective  social  standard  of  intonation.  Yet 
we  know  no  two  individuals  who  speak  exactly  alike  so  far  as  intonation 
is  concerned.  We  are  interested  in  the  individual  as  the  representative 
of  a  social  type  when  he  comes  from  some  far  place.  The  southerner, 
the  New  Englander,  the  middle-westerner  -  each  has  a  characteristic 
intonation.  But  we  are  interested  in  the  individual  as  an  individual  when 
he  is  merged  in,  and  is  a  representative  of,  our  own  group.  If  we  are 
dealing  with  people  who  have  the  same  social  habits,  we  are  interested 
in  the  slight  intonational  differences  which  the  individuals  exhibit,  for 
we  know  enough  of  their  common  social  background  to  evaluate  these 
slight  differences.  We  are  wrong  to  make  any  inferences  about  personal- 
ity on  the  basis  of  intonation  without  considering  the  intonational  habit 
of  one's  speech  community  or  that  carried  over  from  a  foreign  language. 
We  do  not  really  know  what  a  man's  speech  is  until  we  have  evaluated 
his  social  background.  If  a  Japanese  talks  in  a  monotonous  voice,  we 
[900]  have  not  the  right  to  assume  that  he  is  illustrating  the  same  type 
of  personality  that  one  of  us  would  be  if  we  talked  with  his  sentence 


One:  Cull  lire.  Sociclv.  and  the  Indnuluul  127 

melody.  Furthermore,  ifue  liear  an  Italian  running  through  his  whole 
possible  gamut  o^  tone  we  are  apt  to  say  that  he  is  lemperamenlal  or 
that  he  has  an  interesting  personality.  Yet  we  {\o  not  know  whether  he 
is  in  the  least  temperamental  until  we  know  what  are  the  normal  Italian 
habits  of  speech,  wlial  Italian  st)ciet\  allows  its  members  in  the  way  of 
melodic  play.  Hence  a  major  intonation  curve,  objectively  considered, 
may  be  of  but  minor  importance  from  the  standpoint  of  indiMdual 
expressiveness. 

Intonation  is  only  one  o['  the  man\  phases  o\'  \oice  dsnamics. 
Rhythm,  too,  has  to  be  considered.  Here  again  there  are  several  layers 
that  are  to  be  distinguished.  First  of  all.  the  primary  rhythms  of  speech 
are  furnished  by  the  language  one  is  brought  up  in.  and  are  not  due  to 
our  indiv idual  personality.  We  have  certain  \ery  defmite  peculiarities  of 
rhythm  in  English.  Thus,  we  tend  to  accent  certain  syllables  strongly 
and  to  minimize  others.  That  is  not  due  to  the  fact  that  \se  wish  to  he 
emphatic.  It  is  merely  that  our  language  is  so  constructed  that  we  must 
follow  its  characteristic  rhythm,  accenting  one  syllable  in  a  word  or 
phrase  at  the  expense  of  the  others.  There  are  languages  that  do  not 
follow  this  habit.  If  a  Frenchman  accented  his  words  in  our  English 
fashion,  we  might  be  justified  in  making  certain  inferences  as  to  his 
nervous  condition.  Furthermore,  there  are  rhythmic  forms  which  are 
due  to  the  socialized  habits  of  particular  groups,  rhsihms  which  are 
over  and  above  the  basic  rhythms  of  the  language.  Some  sections  of  our 
society  will  not  allow  emphatic  stresses;  others  allow  or  demand  a 
greater  emphasis.  Polite  society  will  allow  far  less  pla>  in  stress  and 
intonation  than  a  society  that  is  constituted  b\  attendance  at  a  baseball 
or  football  game.  We  have,  in  brief,  two  sorts  of  socialized  rhsthm;  the 
rhythms  of  language  and  the  rhythms  of  social  expressiveness.  .And. 
once  more,  we  have  individual  d\namic  factors.  Some  ol  us  lend  lo  be 
more  tense  in  our  rhythms,  to  accent  certain  syllables  more  definilelN. 
to  lengthen  more  vowels,  to  shorten  unaccented  \owels  more  frecK 
There  are,  in  other  words,  individual  rhythmic  \ariations  in  addilK>n  lo 
the  social  ones. 

There  are  still  other  dynamic  facti^rs  than  inionalion  and  (901) 
rhythm.  There  is  the  relative  continuity  of  speech.  .A  great  mans  people 
speak  brokenly,  in  uneasy  splashes  of  word  groups;  others  speak  contin- 
uously, whether  they  ha\e  anything  to  say  or  nol.  With  the  lallcr  1>|X- 
it  is  not  a  question  o\'  having  the  nece.ssar\  words  al  i>ne's  dispt>s;il;  il 
is  a  question  o\^  mere  continuity  o\'  linguistic  expression.  Hierc  arc  six-ial 


128  ///  Culmrc 

speeds  and  continuities  and  individual  speeds  and  continuities.  We  can 
be  said  to  be  slow  or  rapid  in  our  utterances  only  in  the  sense  that  we 
speak  abo\e  or  below  certain  socialized  speeds.  Here  again,  in  the 
matter  of  speed,  the  individual  habit  and  its  diagnostic  value  for  the 
study  of  personality  can  be  measured  only  against  accepted  social 
norms. 

To  summarize  the  second  level  of  language  behavior,  we  have  a 
number  of  factors,  such  as  intonation,  rhythm,  relative  continuity,  and 
speed,  which  have  to  be  analyzed,  each  of  them,  into  two  distinct  levels: 
the  social  and  the  individual.  The  social  level,  moreover,  has  generally 
to  be  divided  into  two  levels,  the  level  of  that  social  pattern  which  is 
language  and  the  level  of  the  linguistically  irrelevant  habits  of  speech 
manipulation  that  are  characteristic  of  a  particular  group. 

The  third  level  of  speech  analysis  is  pronunciation.  Here  again  one 
often  speaks  of  the  "voice"  when  what  is  really  meant  is  an  individually 
nuanced  pronunciation.  A  man  pronounces  certain  consonants  or  vow- 
els, say,  with  a  distinctive  timbre  or  in  an  otherwise  peculiar  manner, 
and  we  tend  to  ascribe  such  variations  of  pronunciation  to  his  voice; 
yet  they  may  have  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  the  quality  of  his  voice.  In 
pronunciation  we  again  have  to  distinguish  the  social  from  the  indivi- 
dual patterns.  Society  decrees  that  we  pronounces  certain  selected  con- 
sonants and  vowels,  which  have  been  set  aside  as  the  bricks  and  mortar, 
as  it  were,  for  the  construction  of  a  given  language.  We  cannot  depart 
very  widely  from  this  decree.  We  know  that  the  foreigner  who  learns 
our  language  does  not  at  once  take  over  the  sounds  that  are  peculiar  to 
us.  He  uses  the  nearest  pronunciation  that  he  can  find  in  his  own  lan- 
guage. It  would  manifestly  be  wrong  to  make  inferences  of  a  personal 
nature  from  such  mispronunciations.  But  all  the  time  there  are  also 
individual  variations  of  sound  which  are  highly  important  and  which  in 
many  cases  have  a  symptomatic  value  for  the  study  of  personality.  [902] 

One  of  the  most  interesting  chapters  in  linguistic  behavior,  a  chapter 
which  has  not  yet  been  written,  is  the  expressively  symbolic  character 
of  sounds  quite  aside  from  what  the  words  in  which  they  occur  mean 
in  a  referential  sense.  On  the  properly  linguistic  plane,  sounds  have  no 
meaning;  yet  if  we  were  to  interpret  them  psychologically  we  should 
find  that  there  is  a  subtle,  though  fleeting,  relation  between  the  "real" 
value  of  words  and  the  unconscious  symbolic  value  of  sounds  as  actu- 
ally pronounced  by  individuals.  Poets  know  this  in  their  own  intuitive 
way.  But  what  the  poets  are  doing  rather  consciously  by  means  of  art- 


One:  Culture.  Society,  ami  the  luiliviihuil  129 

istic  devices,  we  are  doing  Lincc>nsciousl\  all  ot  ihc  nine  on  a  vast,  if 
humble,  scale.  It  has  been  pointed  out,  tor  instance,  that  there  arc  cer- 
tain expressive  tendencies  toward  diminuti\e  forms  of  pronunciation  If 
you  are  talking  to  a  child,  you  change  \iHir  "le\cl  o\  communication" 
without  knowing  it.  The  \\o\\\  'tin\"'  ma\  become  ■teeiu  '  There  is  no 
rule  o\^  English  grammar  that  justifies  the  change  of  \ouel.  but  the  word 
"teeny"  seems  to  ha\e  a  more  directly  symbolic  character  than  "tins." 
and  a  glance  at  the  symbolism  o'i  phonetics  gives  us  the  reason  for  this 
When  we  pronounce  the  ec  of  "teeny."  there  is  very  little  space  belueen 
the  tongue  and  the  roof  of  the  mouth;  in  the  first  part  of  the  /  of  "liny" 
there  is  a  great  deal  of  space.  In  other  words,  the  cc  variation  has  the 
value  of  a  gesture  which  emphasizes  the  notion,  or  rather  feeling.  o\' 
smallness.  In  this  particular  case  the  tendency  to  symbolize  diminutise- 
ness  is  striking  because  it  has  caused  one  word  to  pass  over  to  an  en- 
tirely new  word,  but  we  are  constantlv  making  similar  symbolic  adjust- 
ments in  a  less  overt  way  without  being  aware  of  the  process.  Some 
people  are  much  more  symbolic  in  their  use  of  sounds  than  others.  .A 
man  may  lisp,  for  instance,  because  he  is  unconsciously  symbolizing 
certain  traits  which  lead  those  who  know  him  to  speak  of  him  as  a 
"sissy."  His  pronunciation  is  not  due  to  the  fact  that  he  cannot  pro- 
nounce the  sound  of  .s  properly;  it  is  due  to  the  fact  that  he  is  dri\en  to 
reveal  himself  He  has  no  speech  defect,  though  there  is  o\'  course  also 
a  type  o\^  lisping  that  is  a  speech  defect  and  that  has  to  be  kept  apart 
from  the  symbolic  lisp.  There  are  a  great  man\  other  unconsciously 
symbolic  habits  of  articulation  for  which  we  ha\e  no  current  terminol- 
ogy. But  we  cannot  discuss  such  variation  fruitfull\  until  [903]  ue  ha\e 
established  the  social  norm  of  pronunciation  and  ha\e  a  just  notion  ot 
what  are  the  allowable  departures  within  this  social  norm.  If  one  goes 
to  England  or  France  or  any  other  fcMcign  count r\  and  sets  down  im- 
pressions on  the  interpretative  significance  o\'  the  voices  and  pronuncia- 
tions perceived,  what  one  says  is  not  likely  to  be  o\'  value  unless  one 
has  first  made  a  painstaking  study  o\^  the  social  norms  ot  which  the 
individual  phenomena  are  variants.  The  lisp  that  one  notes  may  bo  what 
a  given  society  happens  to  require,  hence  it  is  no  psychological  lisp  in 
our  sense.  One  cannot  draw  up  an  absolute  psychological  scale  lor 
voice,  intonation,  rhythm,  speed,  or  pronunciation  o{  vowels  and  con- 
sonants without  in  every  case  ascertaining  the  social  background  ot 
speech  habit.  It  is  always  the  individual  variation  that  matters;  never 
the  objective  behavior  as  such. 


130  ///  Culture 

The  fourth  speech  level,  that  of  vocabulary,  is  a  very  important  one. 
We  do  not  all  speak  alike.  There  are  certain  words  which  some  of  us 
never  use.  There  are  other,  favorite,  words,  which  we  are  always  using. 
Personality  is  largely  reflected  in  the  choice  of  words;  but  here  too  we 
must  distinguish  carefully  the  social  vocabulary  norm  from  the  more 
significantly  personal  choice  of  words.  Certain  words  and  locutions  are 
not  used  in  certain  circles;  others  are  the  hall-mark  of  locale,  status,  or 
occupation.  We  listen  to  a  man  who  belongs  to  a  particular  social  group 
and  are  intrigued,  perhaps  attracted,  by  his  vocabulary.  Unless  we  are 
keen  analysts,  we  are  likely  to  read  personality  out  of  what  is  merely 
the  current  diction  of  his  society.  Individual  variation  exists,  but  it  can 
properly  be  appraised  only  with  reference  to  the  social  norm.  Sometimes 
we  choose  words  because  we  like  them;  sometimes  we  slight  words  be- 
cause they  bore  or  annoy  or  terrify  us.  We  are  not  going  to  be  caught 
by  them.  All  in  all,  there  is  room  for  much  subtle  analysis  in  the  deter- 
mination of  the  social  and  individual  significance  of  words. 

Finally,  we  have  style  as  a  fifth  speech  level.  Many  people  have  an 
illusion  that  style  is  something  that  belongs  to  literature.  Style  is  an 
everyday  facet  of  speech  that  characterizes  both  the  social  group  and 
the  individual.  We  all  have  our  individual  styles  in  both  conversation 
and  considered  address,  and  they  are  never  the  [904]  arbitrary  and  ca- 
sual things  we  think  them  to  be.  There  is  always  an  individual  method, 
however  poorly  developed,  of  arranging  words  into  groups  and  of 
working  these  up  into  larger  units.  It  would  be  a  very  complicated  prob- 
lem to  disentangle  the  social  and  individual  determinants  of  style,  but 
it  is  a  theoretically  possible  one. 

To  summarize,  we  have  the  following  materials  to  deal  with  in  our 
attempt  to  get  at  the  personality  of  an  individual  in  so  far  as  it  can  be 
gathered  from  his  speech.  We  have  his  voice.  We  have  the  dynamics  of 
his  voice,  exemplified  by  such  factors  as  intonation,  rhythm,  continuity, 
and  speed.  We  have  pronunciation,  vocabulary,  and  style.  Let  us  look 
at  these  materials  as  constituting  so  and  so  many  levels  on  which  expres- 
sive patterns  are  built.  One  may  get  a  sense  of  individual  patterning  on 
one  of  these  levels  and  use  this  sense  to  interpret  the  other  levels.  Objec- 
tively, however,  two  or  more  levels  of  a  given  speech  act  may  produce 
either  a  similarity  of  expressive  effect  or  a  contrast.  We  may  illustrate 
from  a  theoretical  case.  We  know  that  many  of  us,  handicapped  by 
nature  or  habit,  work  out  compensatory  reactions.  In  the  case  of  the 
man  with  a  lisp  whom  we  termed  a  "sissy,"  the  essentially  feminine 
type  of  articulation  is  likely  to  remain,  but  other  aspects  of  his  speech. 


One  Culture.  Society,  (uul  the  Ifu/ivuluiil  \}\ 

including  his  voice.  nia\  shcn\  something  ot  his  etTorl  lo  compensate. 
He  may  affect  a  masculine  type  e>f  intonation  or.  abo\e  all.  consciousK 
or  unconsciously,  he  may  choose  words  that  are  intended  lo  show  ihal 
he  is  really  a  man.  In  this  case  we  ha\e  a  \er\  mteresting  ct>nnicl. 
objectified  within  the  realm  of  speech  behavior.  It  is  here  as  in  all  other 
types  of  behavior.  One  may  express  on  one  level  ol  patterning  what  i>ne 
will  not  or  cannot  express  on  another.  One  may  inhibit  on  one  le\el 
what  one  does  not  know  how  to  inhibit  on  amnher.  whence  results  a 
"dissociation"  -which  is  probably,  at  last  analysis,  nothing  but  a  nota- 
ble divergence  in  expressive  content  of  functionally  related  patterns. 

Quite  aside  from  specific  inferences  which  we  may  make  from  speech 
phenomena  on  any  one  of  its  levels,  there  is  a  great  deal  o\'  interestmg 
work  to  be  done  w  ith  the  psychology  of  speech  woven  out  o\'  its  dif- 
ferent levels.  Perhaps  certain  elusive  phenomena  of  \oice  are  the  result 
of  the  interweaving  of  distinct  patterns  of  expression.  We  sometimes  get 
the  feeling  that  there  are  two  things  [905]  being  communicated  by  the 
voice,  which  may  then  be  felt  as  splitting  itself  into  an  "upper"  and  a 
"lower"  level. 

It  should  be  fairly  clear  from  our  hasty  review  that  if  we  make  .i 
level-to-level  analysis  of  the  speech  of  an  indi\idual  and  if  we  carefulls 
see  each  of  these  levels  in  its  social  perspective,  we  obtain  a  \aluable 
level  for  psychiatric  work.  It  is  possible  that  the  kind  of  analysis  which 
has  here  been  suggested,  if  carried  far  enough,  may  enable  us  to  arrne 
at  certain  very  pertinent  conclusions  regarding  personalit\.  intuni\el\ 
we  attach  an  enormous  importance  to  the  voice  and  to  the  speech  beha- 
vior that  is  carried  by  the  voice.  We  ha\'e  not  much  to  say  about  it  as  a 
rule,  not  much  more  than  an  "I  like  that  man's  \oice."  or  "I  do  not  like 
the  way  he  talks."  Individual  speech  analysis  is  difficult  to  make.  paril> 
because  of  the  peculiarly  fleeting  character  of  speech,  partly  because  it 
is  especially  difficult  to  eliminate  the  social  determinants  of  speech,  in 
view  of  these  difficulties  there  is  not  as  much  significant  speech  analssis 
being  made  by  students  of  behavior  as  we  might  wish,  but  the  dilUcul- 
ties  do  not  relieve  us  of  the  responsibilit\  o(  making  such  researches. 


Editorial  Notes 

Originally  published  in  the  American  Jonnuil  ol  .Set/c/cvi  M. 
892-905  (1927).  Reprinted  by  permission  of  the  I'niversiiy  of  Chicago 
Press.  An  abstract  of  this  article  also  appeared  in  Hcalih  HulU'im.  Illi- 
nois Society  for  Mental  Hygiene.  December  \^)2(\ 


132  ///  Culture 

Notes 

1.  An  abstract  of  this  paper  appeared  in  the  December  1926  issue  of  Health  Bulletiiu  pub- 
lished by  the  Illinois  Society  for  Mental  Hygiene. 

2.  Sapir's  student.  Stanley  Newman,  pursued  this  line  of  research  through  much  of  the 
1930's,  partly  in  collaboration  with  psychiatrist  Harry  Stack  Sullivan. 


The  Meaniim  o\^  Rcliizion  ( 192S) 
FdiU^rial  IiilriHluctioii 

Sapir's  claim  that  religion  was  universal,  albeit  elaborated  into  a  reli- 
gious system  onl\  in  developed  society,  originally  appeared  in  /he 
Anicrican  Mercury  and  was  directed  toward  a  popular  audience  as- 
sumed to  be  unaware  of  the  functional  equivalence  o\'  diverse  cultural 
forms.  Every  human  society  provides  the  religious  person  with  conven- 
tional symbols  to  attain  ''spiritual  serenitv "  in  dealing  with  the  px'rplexi- 
ties  of  everyday  life.  Sapir  worried,  however,  about  his  inability  to  dis- 
tinguish religious  behavior  from  the  religious  sentiment  which  he  as- 
sumed to  underlie  it.  He  considered  the  formal  features  oi  religion,  c.  g., 
gods  and  spirits,  as  mere  rationalizations  for  the  religious  behavior  of 
individuals.  This  behavior  was  external  to  the  true  function  o(  religion 
as  providing  emotional  security  to  the  individual  through  a  coherent 
philosophy  of  life  (cf.  ''Culture,  Genuine  and  Spurious,"  this  volume). 

The  ethnographic  record  documented  multiple  forms  of  religious  be- 
havior as  well  as  different  psychological  interpretations  of  those  forms. 
Amerindian  peoples  of  the  plains  and  the  pueblos,  for  example,  shared 
many  religious  forms;  but  the  former  stressed  the  loneliness  o(  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  latter  depersonalized  ritual.  Moreover,  religion  was  inte- 
grated with  other  parts  of  ciilliirc  and  cmild  not  be  fully  separated  from 
them.  The  same  behavioral  act  could  have  multiple  functions.  Sapir's 
recurrent  concern  with  the  cultural  form  and  its  function  for  the  indivi- 
dual pervades  both  his  crosscultural  comparative  framework  and  his 
theory  of  culture. 

This  essay  was  published  again  in  1929,  under  the  title  "Religu^n  and 
Religious  Phenomena,"  in  a  twelve-volume  series.  \/iin  atui  His  \\t>rUl 
Northwestern  University  Hssdys  in  C'tinteniponirv  Thouj^ht.  assembled 
under  the  editorship  of  the  philosopher  Haker  Brownell.  Coniribulors 
included  such  notables  as  Clarence  Darrow.  Berlrand  Russell.  Charlotte 
Perkins  (}ilman,  and  Stuart  Chase,  among  manv  others  Most  o\  the 
anthropologists  in  the  group  were  represented  in  v<>lume  4.  Stiiking 
Mankind,  which  included  papers  bv  Clark  Wissler,  Sapir's  Chicago  col- 
league Fay-Cooper  Cole,  Melville  .1    Herskovits.  William  M    NKd.n 


134  ///   Cullurc 

ern,  and  the  historian  Ferdinand  Schevill.  Sapir's  contribution,  how- 
ever, was  placed  in  volume  11,  Religious  Life,  along  with  papers  by 
Shailer  Mathews,  Ernest  F.  Tittle,  Rufus  M.  Jones,  and  Francis 
J.  McConnell. 


The  Meaning  of  Religion 

A  very  useful  distinction  can  be  made  between  "a  religion"  and  "reli- 
gion." The  former  appears  only  in  a  highly  developed  society  in  which 
religious  behavior  has  been  organized  by  tradition;  the  latter  is  univer- 
sal. 

The  ordinary  conception  of  a  religion  includes  the  notions  of  a  self- 
conscious  "church,"  of  religious  officers  whose  functions  are  clearly  de- 
fined by  custom  and  who  typically  engage  in  no  other  type  of  economic 
activity,  and  of  carefully  guarded  rituals  which  are  the  symbolic  expres- 
sion of  the  life  of  the  church.  Generally,  too,  such  a  religion  is  invested 
with  a  certain  authority  by  a  canonical  tradition  which  has  grown  up 
around  a  body  of  sacred  texts,  supposed  to  have  been  revealed  by  God 
or  to  have  been  faithfully  set  down  by  the  founder  of  the  religion  or  by 
followers  of  His  who  have  heard  the  sacred  words  from  His  own  lips. 

If  we  leave  the  more  sophisticated  peoples  and  study  the  social  habits 
of  primitive  and  barbaric  folk,  we  shall  find  that  it  is  very  difficult  to 
discover  religious  institutions  that  are  as  highly  formalized  as  those  that 
go  under  the  name  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  or  of  Judaism.  Yet 
religion  in  some  sense  is  everywhere  present.  It  seems  to  be  as  universal 
as  speech  itself  and  the  use  of  material  tools.  It  is  difficult  to  apply  a 
single  one  of  the  criteria  which  are  ordinarily  used  to  define  a  religion 
to  the  religious  behavior  of  primitive  peoples,  yet  neither  the  absence 
of  specific  religious  officers  nor  the  lack  of  authoritative  religious  texts 
nor  any  other  conventional  lack  can  seriously  mislead  the  student  into 
denying  them  true  rehgion.  Ethnologists  are  unanimous  in  ascribing 
religious  behavior  to  the  very  simplest  of  known  societies.  So  much  of 
a  commonplace,  indeed,  is  this  assumption  of  the  presence  of  religion 
in  every  known  community  -  barring  none,  not  even  those  that  flaunt 
the  banner  of  atheism  -  that  one  needs  to  reaffirm  and  justify  the 
assumption. 


One:  Culture.  Soeietv.  and  the  hulnuluiil  \'S^ 

How  arc  uc  to  define  religion'.*  Can  ue  yet  behind  pricsls  and  prayers 
and  gods  and  rituals  and  discover  a  lornuila  thai  is  nol  loo  broad  lo 
be  nieaning[rul]  nor  so  specific  as  to  raise  rmile  questions  of  exclusion 
or  inclusion'.'  1  beliexe  it  is  possible  to  i\o  this  it"  we  ignore  for  a  moment 
the  special  tornis  of  beha\  ior  deemed  religious  and  attend  to  the  essen- 
tial meaning  and  function  of  such  behavior.  Religion  is  precisely  one  of 
those  words  that  belong  to  the  more  intuiti\e  portion  i>f  mir  vocabulary. 
We  can  often  apply  it  safely  and  une\pectedl\  uilhoul  the  slighlesl 
concern  for  whether  the  individual  or  group  termed  religious  is  priesi- 
ridden  or  not.  is  addicted  to  pra\er  or  nol.  or  belie\es  or  does  nol 
believe  in  a  god.  Almost  unconsciously  the  term  has  come  to  have  for 
most  of  us  a  certain  connotation  o^  personality.  Some  indi\iduals  are 
religious  and  others  are  not,  and  all  societies  have  religion  in  the  sense 
that  they  provide  the  naturall\  religious  person  with  certain  read>-made 
symbols  for  the  exercise  o\'  his  religious  need. 

The  formula  that  I  would  venture  to  suggest  is  simply  this:  Religion 
is  man's  never-ceasing  attempt  to  discover  a  road  to  spiritual  seremts 
across  the  perplexities  and  dangers  of  dails  life.  Wow  this  serenity  is 
obtained  is  a  matter  of  infinitely  varied  [73]  detail.  Where  the  need  for 
such  serenity  is  passionately  felt,  we  have  religious  yearning;  where  it  is 
absent,  religious  behavior  is  no  more  than  sociall\  sanctioned  form  or 
an  aesthetic  blend  of  belief  and  gesture.  In  practice  it  is  all  but  impos- 
sible to  disconnect  religious  sentiment  from  foinial  religious  conduct, 
but  it  is  worth  divorcing  the  two  in  order  that  \se  ma>  insist  all  the 
more  clearly  on  the  reality  o['  the  sentiment. 

What  constitutes  spiritual  serenity  must  be  aiisuered  afresh  fore\ery 
culture  and  for  every  community  -  in  the  last  analysis,  for  e\ery  indivi- 
dual. Culture  defines  for  every  society  the  world  in  which  it  lives,  hence 
we  can  expect  no  more  of  any  religion  than  that  it  awaken  and  over- 
come the  feeling  of  danger,  of  individual  helplessness,  that  is  proper  lO 
that  particular  world.  The  ultimate  problems  of  an  Ojibw.i  Indian  are 
different  as  to  content  from  those  of  the  educated  devotee  i>f  nuxiern 
science,  but  with  each  o{  them  religion  means  the  haunting  realization 
of  ultimate  powerlessness  in  an  inscrutable  \\o\W.  and  the  unquestion- 
ing and  thoroughly  irrational  conviction  o{  the  possibility  of  gaining 
mystic  security  by  somelunv  identifying  i>neself  with  what  can  never  be 
known.  Religion  is  omnipresent  fear  and  a  vast  humility  paradmically 
turned  into  bedrock  security,  for  once  the  fear  is  imaginalivelv  taken  lo 
one's  heart  and  the  humility  confessed  for  good  and  all.  the  triumph  of 
human  consciousness  is  assuretl.  Ihere  can  be  neither  fear  nor  humilia- 


136  III  Culture 

tion  for  deeply  religious  natures,  for  they  have  intuitively  experienced 
both  of  these  emotions  in  advance  of  the  declared  hostility  of  an  over- 
whelming world,  coldly  indifferent  to  human  desire. 

Religion  of  such  purity  as  I  have  defined  it  is  hard  to  discover.  That 
does  not  matter;  it  is  the  pursuit,  conscious  or  unconscious,  of  ultimate 
serenity  following  total  and  necessary  defeat  that  constitutes  the  core 
of  religion.  It  has  often  allied  itself  with  art  and  science,  and  art  at  least 
has  gained  from  the  alliance,  but  in  crucial  situations  religion  has  al- 
ways shown  itself  indifferent  to  both.  Religion  seeks  neither  the  objec- 
tive enlightenment  of  science  nor  the  strange  equilibrium,  the  sensuous 
harmony,  of  aesthetic  experience.  It  aims  at  nothing  more  nor  less  than 
the  impulsive  conquest  of  reality,  and  it  can  use  science  and  art  as  little 
more  than  stepping  stones  toward  the  attainment  of  its  own  serenity. 
The  mind  that  is  intellectualist  through  and  through  is  necessarily  baf- 
fled by  religion,  and  in  the  attempt  to  explain  it  makes  Httle  more  of  it 
than  a  blind  and  chaotic  science. 

Whether  or  not  the  spirit  of  religion  is  reconcilable  with  that  of  art 
does  not  concern  us.  Human  nature  is  infinitely  complex  and  every  type 
of  reconciliation  of  opposites  seems  possible,  but  it  must  be  insisted 
that  the  nucleus  of  religious  feeling  is  by  no  means  identical  with  aesthe- 
tic emotion.  The  serenity  of  art  seems  of  an  utterly  different  nature  from 
that  of  religion.  Art  creates  a  feeling  of  wholeness  precipitating  the  flux 
of  things  into  tangible  forms,  beautiful  and  sufficient  to  themselves; 
religion  gathers  up  all  the  threads  and  meaninglessnesses  of  life  into  a 
wholeness  that  is  not  manifest  and  can  only  be  experienced  in  the  form 
of  a  passionate  desire.  It  is  not  useful  and  it  is  perhaps  not  wise  to  insist 
on  fundamental  antinomies,  but  if  one  were  pressed  to  the  wall  one 
might  perhaps  be  far  from  wrong  in  suspecting  that  the  religious  spirit 
is  antithetical  to  that  of  art,  for  rehgion  is  essentially  ultimate  and  irrec- 
oncilable. Art  forgives  because  it  values  as  an  ultimate  good  the  here 
and  now;  religion  forgives  because  the  here  and  now  are  somehow  irrel- 
evant to  a  desire  that  drives  for  ultimate  solutions. 


II 

Religion  does  not  presuppose  a  definite  belief  in  God  or  in  a  number 
of  gods  or  spirits,  though  in  practice  such  beliefs  are  generally  the  ra- 
tionalized background  for  religious  behavior.  [74] 


One:  Culture.  Sociciv.  inul  i/ic  JndiviJual 

Belief,  as  a  matter  o\  tact,  is  not  a  properly  religious  conccpl  at  all. 
but  a  scienlitlc  one.  The  sum  total  of  one's  beliefs  may  be  said  lo  consti- 
tute one's  science.  Some  of  these  beliefs  can  be  suslamed  by  an  appeal 
to  direct  personal  experience,  others  rest  for  their  warrant  on  the  au- 
thority of  society  or  on  the  authority  of  such  indniduals  as  are  known 
or  believed  to  hold  in  their  hands  the  keys  of  llnal  deminisiralion.  So 
far  as  the  normal  indi\idual  is  concerned,  a  belief  m  the  realil\  of  mole- 
cules ov  at(.")ms  is  of  c\actl\  the  same  naluie  as  a  belief  in  (iod  or  immor- 
tality. The  true  di\ision  here  is  not  between  science  and  religious  belief, 
but  between  personally  serifiable  and  personally  uinerillable  belief.  A 
philosophy  o\'  life  is  not  religion  if  the  phrase  connotes  merel\  a  cluster 
of  rationalized  beliefs.  Only  when  one's  philosophy  o\'  life  is  \iiali/ed 
by  emotion  does  it  take  on  the  character  of  religion. 

Some  writers  have  spoken  of  a  specifically  religious  emotion,  but  it 
seems  quite  unnecessary  to  appeal  to  any  such  hypothetical  concept. 
One  may  not  rest  content  to  see  in  religious  emotion  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  a  cluster  o\~  such  t\pical  emotional  experiences  as  fear,  awe. 
hope,  love,  the  pleading  attitude,  and  any  others  that  may  be  experi- 
enced, in  so  far  as  these  psychological  experiences  occur  in  a  context  of 
ultimate  values.  Fear  as  such,  no  matter  how  poignant  or  ecstatic,  is 
not  religion.  A  calm  belief  in  a  God  who  creates  and  rewards  and  pun- 
ishes does  not  constitute  religion  if  the  believer  fails  to  recogni/e  the 
necessity  of  the  application  of  this  belief  to  his  personal  problems.  ()nl> 
when  the  emotion  of  fear  and  the  belief  in  a  Ciod  are  somehow  inte- 
grated into  a  value  can  either  the  emotion  or  the  belief  be  said  to  be  of 
a  religious  nature.  This  standpoint  allows  for  no  specific  religious  emo- 
tions nor  does  it  recognize  any  specific  forms  o\'  belief  as  necessary  for 
religion.  All  that  is  asked  is  that  intensity  of  feeling  join  with  a  philoso- 
phy of  ultimate  things  into  an  unanalyzed  con\  iction  o\'  the  possibility 
of  securit>  in  a  world  of  values. 

One  can  distinguish,  in  theory  if  not  in  practice,  between  individual 
religious  experience  and  socialized  religious  beha\ior.  Some  writers  on 
religion  put  the  emphasis  on  the  realit>  and  intensity  of  the  mdiMdual 
experience,  others  prefer  to  see  in  religion  a  purely  social  pattern,  an 
institution  on  which  the  iiulix idiial  must  draw  m  t^rder  to  have  religious 
experience  at  all.  The  contrast  between  these  two  points  of  \iew  is  prob- 
ably more  apparent  than  real.  Ihe  suggestions  for  religious  behaMor 
will  always  be  found  to  be  o(  .social  origin;  it  is  the  validation  of  this 
behavior  in  indi\idual  or  in  soci.il  terms  that  may  be  thought  to  Nar>'. 
This  is  equi\alent  to  sa>ing  that  some  societies  tend  lo  seek  the  most 


138  ///   Culture 

intense  expression  of  religious  experience  in  individual  behavior  (includ- 
ing introspection  under  that  term),  while  others  tend  toward  a  collective 
orthodoxy,  reaching  an  equivalent  intensity  of  life  in  forms  of  behavior 
in  which  the  individual  is  subordinated  to  a  collective  symbol.  Religions 
that  conform  to  the  first  tendency  may  be  called  evangelistic,  and  those 
of  the  second  type  ritualistic. 

The  contrast  invites  criticism,  as  everyone  who  has  handled  religious 
data  knows.  One  may  object  that  it  is  precisely  under  the  stimulation 
of  collective  activity,  as  in  the  sun  dance  of  the  Plains  Indians  or  in 
the  Roman  Catholic  mass,  that  the  most  intense  forms  of  individual 
experience  are  created.  Again,  one  may  see  in  the  most  lonely  and  self- 
centered  of  religious  practices,  say  the  mystic  ecstasies  of  a  saint  or  the 
private  prayer  of  one  lost  to  society,  little  more  than  the  religious  beha- 
vior of  society  itself,  disconnected,  for  the  moment,  from  the  visible 
church.  A  theorist  like  Durkheim  sees  the  church  implicit  in  every 
prayer  or  act  of  ascetic  piety.  It  is  doubtful  if  the  mere  observation  of 
religious  behavior  quite  justifies  the  distinction  that  I  have  made.  A 
finer  psychological  analysis  would  probably  show  that  the  distinction  is 
none  the  less  valid  —  that  societies  differ  or  tend  to  differ  according 
[75]  to  whether  they  find  the  last  court  of  appeal  in  matters  religious  in 
the  social  act  or  in  the  private  emotional  experience. 

Let  one  example  do  for  many.  The  religion  of  the  Plains  Indians  is 
different  in  many  of  its  details  from  that  of  the  Pueblo  Indians  of  the 
Southwest.  Nevertheless  there  are  many  external  resemblances  between 
them,  such  as  the  use  of  shrines  with  fetishistic  objects  gathered  in  them, 
the  color  symbolism  of  cardinal  points,  and  the  religious  efficacy  of 
communal  dancing.  It  is  not  these  and  a  host  of  other  resemblances, 
however,  that  impress  the  student  of  native  American  religion;  it  is 
rather  their  profound  psychological  difference.  The  Plains  Indians'  reli- 
gion is  full  of  collective  symbols;  indeed,  a  typical  ethnological  account 
of  the  religion  of  a  Plains  tribe  seems  to  be  little  more  than  a  list  of 
social  stereotypes  -  dances  and  regalia  and  taboos  and  conventional 
religious  tokens.  The  sun  dance  is  an  exceedingly  elaborate  ritual  which 
lasts  many  days  and  in  which  each  song  and  each  step  in  the  progress 
of  the  ceremonies  is  a  social  expression.  For  all  that,  the  final  validation 
of  the  sun  dance,  as  of  every  other  form  of  Plains  religion,  seems  to  rest 
with  the  individual  in  his  introspective  loneliness.  The  nuclear  idea  is 
the  "blessing"  or  "manitou"  experience,  in  which  the  individual  puts 
himself  in  a  relation  of  extreme  intimacy  with  the  world  of  supernatural 
power  or  "medicine." 


One    Culture.  Sociciv.  luul  the  hulnuiiuil  \V) 

Complctclv  sociali/ctl  iiliials  aic  noi  ilic  primary  tact  in  ihc  siruclurc 
of  Plains  religion;  ihcy  arc  ralhcr  an  cxlciuicd  \'ovm  i)rihc  nuclear  indi- 
\idual  experience.  The  recipienl  of  a  blessniii  may  and  docs  m\ilc  others 
to  participate  in  the  pri\ate  ritual  which  has  grown  up  around  the  Msion 
in  which  j^owei-  and  secLini>  ha\e  heeii  xouciisafed  li>  hnn;  he  may  even 
transfer  his  interest  in  the  \isK>n  to  another  indi\idual;  m  the  course  of 
time  the  original  ritual.  ci>mplicated  by  man\  accretions,  mas  become 
a  communal  form  in  which  the  whole  tribe  has  the  most  ii\el>  and 
anxious  interest,  as  is  the  case  with  the  be.i\ci  buiulles  or  medicine  pipe 
ceremonies  o\  the  Blackfoot  Indians.  A  non-religious  indi\idual  may 
see  little  but  show  and  outward  circumstance  in  all  this  business  of 
vision  and  bundle  and  ritual,  but  the  religious  consciousness  of  the 
Plains  Indians  never  seems  to  ha\e  lost  sight  of  the  inherently  indiMdual 
warrant  of  the  \ision  and  of  all  rituals  which  may  e\enlually  (low  from 
it.  It  is  highly  significant  that  e\en  in  the  sun  dance,  which  is  probabK 
the  least  individualized  kind  of  religious  conduct  ann^ng  these  Indians, 
the  high-water  mark  o\^  religious  inlensil\  is  fell  to  reside,  not  in  an\ 
collective  ecstasy,  but  in  the  individual  emotions  o\'  those  who  ga/e  at 
the  center  pole  of  the  sun  dance  lodge  and,  still  more,  o\'  the  resolute 
few  who  are  willing  the  experience  the  unspeakabl\  painful  ecstasy  o{ 
self-torture. 

The  Pueblo  religion  seems  to  offer  very  much  o\'  a  contrast  to  the 
religion  of  the  Plains.  The  Pueblo  religion  is  ritualized  to  an  incredible 
degree.  Ceremony  follows  relentlessly  on  ceremony,  clan  and  religious 
fraternity  go  through  their  stalel\  s\mbolism  of  dance  and  prayer  and 
shrine  construction  with  the  regularit\  o\'  the  seasons.  All  is  anxious 
care  for  the  norm  and  detail  o[^  ritual.  But  it  is  not  the  mere  bulk  of 
this  ritualism  which  truly  characterizes  the  religion  of  the  Hopi  or  /urti. 
It  is  the  depersonalized,  almost  cosmic,  qualitx  o\'  the  rituals,  which 
have  all  the  air  of  pre-ordained  things  i>f  nature  which  the  mdi\idual  is 
helpless  either  to  assist  or  to  thwart,  and  w hose  mystic  mtentuMi  he  can 
only  comprehend  by  resigning  himself  to  the  traditions  of  his  tribe  and 
clan  and  fraternity.  No  private  inlensils  c>f  religious  experience  will  help 
the  ritual.  Whether  the  dancer  is  aroused  to  a  strange  ecstasy  ox  remains 
as  cold  as  an  automaton  is  a  matter  of  perfect  indilTerence  to  the  Pueblo 
consciousness.  All  taint  o\'  the  orgiastic  is  repudiated  by  the  Pueblo 
Indian,  who  is  content  with  ihe  calm  constraint  and  power  of  ihmgs 
ordained,  seeing  in  himself  wo  disct>\erer  o\'  religii>us  \irtue.  hut  or' 
correct  and  [76]  measured  transmitter  o)^  things  fx*rfect  in  themsc 
One  might  teach  Protestant  revi\  alism  to  a  Blacktool  or  a  Sioux;  a  ZuAi 
would  smile  uncompicheiulmgl). 


140  ///  Cull  we 

III 

Though  rehgion  cannot  be  defined  in  terms  of  beHef,  it  is  none  the 
less  true  that  the  religions  of  primitive  peoples  tend  to  cluster  around  a 
number  of  typical  beliefs  or  classes  of  belief.  It  will  be  quite  impossible 
to  give  even  a  superficial  account  of  the  many  types  of  religious  belief 
that  have  been  reported  for  primitive  man,  and  I  shall  therefore  be 
content  with  a  brief  mention  of  three  of  them:  belief  in  spirits  (animism), 
belief  in  gods  and  belief  in  cosmic  power  (mana). 

That  primitive  people  are  animistic  -  in  other  words,  that  they  be- 
lieve in  the  existence  in  the  world  and  in  themselves  of  a  vast  number 
of  immaterial  and  potent  essences  -  is  a  commonplace  of  anthropology. 
Tylor  attempted  to  derive  all  forms  of  religious  behavior  from  animistic 
beliefs,  and  while  we  can  no  longer  attach  as  great  an  importance  to 
animism  as  did  Tylor  and  others  of  the  classical  anthropologists,  it  is 
still  correct  to  say  that  few  primitive  religions  do  not  at  some  point  or 
other  connect  with  the  doctrine  of  spirits.  Most  peoples  believe  in  a  soul 
which  animates  the  human  body;  some  believe  in  a  variety  of  souls  (as 
when  the  principle  of  life  is  distinguished  from  what  the  psychologists 
would  call  consciousness  or  the  psyche);  and  most  peoples  also  believe 
in  the  survival  of  the  soul  after  death  in  the  form  of  a  ghost. 

The  experiences  of  the  soul  or  souls  typically  account  for  such  phe- 
nomena as  dreams,  illness,  and  death.  Frequently  one  or  another  type 
of  soul  is  identified  with  such  insubstantial  things  as  the  breath,  or  the 
shadow  cast  by  a  living  being,  or,  more  materially,  with  such  parts  of 
the  human  body  as  the  heart  or  diaphragm;  sometimes,  too,  the  soul  is 
symbolized  by  an  imaginary  being,  such  as  a  mannikin,  who  may  leave 
the  body  and  set  out  in  pursuit  of  another  soul.  The  mobile  soul  and 
the  ghost  tend  to  be  identified,  but  this  is  not  necessarily  the  case. 

In  all  this  variety  of  primitive  belief  we  see  Httle  more  than  the  dawn 
of  psychology.  The  religious  attitude  enters  in  only  when  the  soul  or 
ghost  is  somehow  connected  with  the  great  world  of  non-human  spirits 
which  animates  the  whole  of  nature  and  which  is  possessed  of  a  power 
for  good  or  ill  which  it  is  the  constant  aim  of  human  beings  to  capture 
for  their  own  purposes.  These  "spirits,"  which  range  all  the  way  from 
disembodied  human  souls,  through  animals,  to  god-like  creatures,  are 
perhaps  more  often  feared  than  directly  worshipped.  On  the  whole,  it 
is  perhaps  correct  to  say  that  spirits  touch  humanity  through  the  indivi- 
dual rather  than  through  the  group  and  that  access  is  gained  to  them 
rather  through  the  private,  selfish  ritual  of  magic  than  through  religion. 


One    ('nit tire.  Sociclv.  ami  the  JtidivUlual  141 

AH  such  Liciicrali/ations,  lunsc\ci\  arc  exceedingly  dangerous.  Almost 
any  association  of  beliefs  and  atliliides  is  possible. 

Tylor  believed  that  liie  series:  soul,  ghost,  spirit,  god.  nn.i>  .i  ikxi. 
genetic  chain,  "(iod'"  uould  be  no  nu^e  than  the  Muli\iduali/ed  it-i 
of  all  spirits,  locali/cd  iii  earth  or  air  or  sea  and  specialized  as  lo  func- 
tion or  kind  o\'  pouer.  ihe  single  "god"  o\'  a  polytheistic  panlhcon 
would  be  the  transition  stage  between  the  urnndi\iduali/ed  spirit  and 
the  Supreme  Being  o\'  the  great  histi>rical  religions.  Ihese  simple  and 
plausible  connections  are  uo  longer  lightly  taken  for  granted  by  the 
anthropologists.  There  is  a  great  deal  o\'  disturbing  evidence  which 
seems  to  show  that  the  idea  of  a  '^zoiS  or  of  (u>d  is  not  necessarily  to  be 
considered  as  the  result  o\'  an  evolution  o^  the  idea  of  soul  or  spirit.  It 
would  seem  that  some  o^  the  most  primitive  peoples  we  know  o^  have 
arrived  at  the  notion  of  an  all-powerful  being  who  stands  quite  outside 
the  world  of  spirits  and  who  tends  to  be  identified  with  such  cosmic 
objects  as  the  sun  or  the  sky.  [77] 

The  Nootka  Indians  of  British  Columbia,  for  instance,  believe  m  the 
existence  of  a  Supreme  Being  whom  thcv  idcnlifv  with  dav light  and 
who  is  sharply  contrasted  both  with  the  horde  o^  mysterious  beings 
("spirits")  tVom  whom  they  seek  power  for  special  ends  and  with  the 
m>thological  beings  of  legend  and  ritual.  Some  form  of  prinntive  nu>no- 
theism  not  infrequently  co-exists  with  animism.  Polytheism  is  not  ncx'cs- 
sarilv  the  forerunner  of  monotheism,  but  ma\.  for  certain  cultures,  be 
looked  upon  as  a  complex,  systematized  product  o\  several  regional 
ideas  of  God. 

The  idea  of  "mana,"  or  diffused,  non-indi\  iduali/ed  power,  seems  to 
be  exceedingly  widespread  among  primitive  peoples.  I  he  term  has  been 
borrowed  from  Melanesia,  but  it  is  as  applicable  to  the  .Mgonkian.  Ir- 
oquois, Siouan,  and  numerous  other  tribes  of  aboriginal  .America  as  to 
the  Melanesians  and  Polynesians.  Ihe  whole  world  is  believed  lo  be 
pervaded  by  a  mysterious  polcncv  that  mav  be  concentrated  in  particu- 
lar objects  or.  in  many  cases,  possessed  by  spirits  or  animals  or  gtKls. 
Man  needs  to  capture  some  o\^  this  power  in  order  to  attain  his  dcsire^i. 
He  is  ever  on  the  lookout  for  blessings  from  the  unkiu>wn,  which  may 
be  vouchsafed  to  him  in  unusual  or  uncannv  experiences,  m  visions. 
and  in  dreams.  The  notion  o^  immaterial  power  often  takes  curious 
forms.  Thus  the  Ilupa  Indians  o\'  Ni>rthwestern  California  believe  in 
the  presence  of  radiations  which  stream  to  earth  from  mvslerious  realms 
beyond,  inhabited  by  a  supernatural  and  holy  folk  who  once  lived  upon 
earth  but  vanished  with  the  ct^mim;  o{  the  Indians.  Tliese  radiations 


142  ///   Culture 

may  give  the  medicine-woman  her  power  or  they  may  inspire  one  with 
the  spirit  of  a  ritual. 

I  can  hardly  do  more  than  mention  some  of  the  typical  forms  of 
religious  behavior,  as  distinguished  from  belief,  which  are  of  universal 
distribution.  Prayer  is  common,  but  it  is  only  in  the  higher  reaches  of 
culture  that  it  attains  its  typically  pure  and  altruistic  form.  On  lower 
levels  it  tends  to  be  limited  to  the  voicing  of  selfish  wants,  which  may 
even  bring  harm  to  those  who  are  not  members  of  one's  own  household. 
It  is  significant  that  prayers  are  frequently  addressed  to  specific  beings 
who  may  grant  power  or  withhold  ill  rather  than  to  the  Supreme  Being, 
even  when  such  a  being  is  believed  to  exist. 

A  second  type  of  religious  behavior  is  the  pursuit  of  power  or  ''medi- 
cine." The  forms  which  this  pursuit  takes  are  exceedingly  varied.  The 
individual  "medicine"  experience  is  perhaps  illustrated  in  its  greatest 
purity  among  the  American  aborigines,  but  it  is  of  course  plentifully 
illustrated  in  other  parts  of  the  world.  Among  some  tribes  the  receipt 
of  power,  which  generally  takes  place  in  the  form  of  a  dream  or  vision, 
establishes  a  very  personal  relation  between  the  giver  of  the  blessing 
and  the  suppliant. 

This  relation  is  frequently  known  as  individual  totemism.  The  term 
totemism,  indeed,  is  derived  from  the  Ojibwa  Indians,  among  whom 
there  is  a  tendency  for  the  individual  to  be  "blessed"  by  the  same  super- 
natural beings  as  have  already  blessed  his  paternal  ancestors.  Such  an 
example  as  this  shows  how  the  purely  individual  relation  may  gradually 
become  socialized  into  the  institution  typically  known  as  totemism, 
which  may  be  defined  as  a  specific  relation,  manifested  in  a  great  variety 
of  ways,  which  exists  between  a  clan  or  other  social  group  and  a  super- 
natural being,  generally,  but  by  no  means  exclusively,  identified  with  an 
animal.  In  spite  of  the  somewhat  shadowy  borderland  which  connects 
individual  totemism  with  group  totemism,  it  is  inadvisable  to  think  of 
the  one  institution  as  necessarily  derived  from  the  other,  though  the 
possibility  of  such  a  development  need  not  be  denied  outright. 

Closely  connected  with  the  pursuit  of  power  is  the  handling  of  magi- 
cal objects  or  assemblages  of  such  objects  which  contain  or  symbolize 
the  power  that  has  been  bestowed.  Among  some  of  the  North  American 
Indian  tribes,  as  we  have  seen,  the  "medicine  bundle,"  with  its  associ- 
ated [78]  ritual  and  taboos,  owes  its  potency  entirely  to  the  supernatural 
experience  which  lies  back  of  it.  Classical  fetishism,  however,  as  we  find 
it  in  West  Africa,  seems  not  to  be  necessarily  based  on  an  individual 
vision.  A  fetish  is  an  object  which  possesses  power  in  its  own  right  and 


One:  Cult  lire.  Society,  ami  the  Indnuliutl  i43 

which  nia\  be  used  ic^  clVccl  dcMicd  clui^  b\  .ipproprialc  handling. 
pra\cr,  or  olhcr  means.  In  niaii>  cases  a  siiperiialural  being  is  bclicxcid 
lo  be  actuall)  resiJeiil  in  ihe  fetish,  ihouuh  this  conception,  ^^hlch  mosl 
nearly  corresponds  lo  the  pt>pular  notion  of  "idol."  is  probably  nol  as 
common  as  might  be  expected.  Hie  mam  reliuu>us  significance  ol  medi- 
cine bundles,  tetishes  and  other  tokens  o\  the  supernatural  is  the  reas- 
suring power  e.xerted  on  the  primiti\e  mind  by  a  concrete  s\mbol  uhich 
is  felt  to  be  closely  connected  with  the  mysterious  unknown  and  Us 
limitless  power.  It  is  of  course  the  persistence  i^f  the  suggcslibililv  of 
\ isual  s\nibols  w hich  makes  even  the  highest  forms  o^  religion  tend  ti» 
cluster  about  such  objects  as  temples,  churches,  shrines.  crucillveN.  and 
the  like. 

The  fourth  and  perhaps  llie  most  imporlanl  o'i  the  forms  of  religious 
behavior  is  the  carrying  out  o\'  rituals.  Rituals  are  t\picall>  symbolic 
actions  which  belong  to  the  whole  community,  but  among  primitive 
peoples  there  is  a  tendency  for  many  o\^  them  to  be  looked  upon  as  the 
special  function  of  a  limited  group  within  the  wlu>le  tribe.  Sometimes 
this  group  is  a  clan  or  gens  or  other  division  not  based  on  reli 
concepts;  at  other  times  the  group  is  a  religious  fraternity,  a  bri  ;.... 
hood  of  priests,  which  exists  for  the  sole  purpose  of  seeing  to  the  correct 
performance  o{  rituals  which  are  believed  to  be  o\'  the  utmost  conse- 
quence for  the  safety  of  the  tribe  as  a  whole,  it  is  dilllcult  to  generalize 
about  primitive  ritual,  so  varied  are  the  forms  which  it  assumes.  Nearly 
everywhere  the  communal  ritual  whips  the  whole  tribe  into  a  stale  of 
great  emotional  tension,  which  is  interpreted  bv  the  folk  as  a  visitation 
from  the  supernatural  world.  The  most  powerful  means  known  t(^  bring 
about  this  feeling  is  the  dance,  which  is  nearlv  always  accomn  .nw.!  b\ 
singing. 

Some  ethnologists  have  seen  in  primitive  ritual  little  more  than  the 
counterpart  of  our  own  dramatic  and  pantomnmc  performances  His- 
torically there  is  undoubtedly  much  truth  in  this,  but  it  would  be  very 
misleading  to  make  of  a  psychology  o\'  primitive  ritual  a  mere  chapter 
in  the  psychology  of  aesthetic  experience.  The  exaltation  ot"  the  Sioux 
sun  dancer  or  of  a  Northwest  C\xist  Indian  who  imperst>nales  the  Can- 
nibal Spirit  is  a  very  different  thing  from  the  excitement  o\  the  perform- 
ing artist.  It  seems  very  much  more  akin  to  the  intense  rcvcr>'  of  ihc 
mystic  or  ascetic.  Externally,  the  rituals  may  be  described  as  a  s;icrcd 
drama;  subjectively,  it  may  bring  the  participant  to  a  reali/alion  of  m\s- 
tery  and  power  for  which  the  fetish  or  other  religious  object  is  but  an 
external  token.  The  psychological  interpretation  of  ritual  naturally  dif- 
fers with  ihc  temperament  of  the  individual. 


144  ///  Culture 

IV 

The  sharp  distinction  between  reHgious  and  other  modes  of  conduct 
to  which  we  are  accustomed  in  modern  Hfe  is  by  no  means  possible  on 
more  primitive  levels.  Religion  is  neither  ethics  nor  science  nor  art,  but 
it  tends  to  be  inextricably  bound  up  with  all  three.  It  also  manifests 
itself  in  the  social  organization  of  the  tribe,  in  ideas  of  higher  or  lower 
status,  in  the  very  form  and  technique  of  government  itself.  It  is  some- 
times said  that  it  is  impossible  to  disentangle  religious  behavior  among 
primitive  peoples  from  the  setting  in  which  it  is  found.  For  many  primi- 
tives, however,  it  seems  almost  more  correct  to  say  that  religion  is  the 
one  structural  reality  in  the  whole  of  their  culture  and  that  what  we  call 
art  and  ethics  and  science  and  social  organization  are  hardly  more  than 
the  applications  of  the  religious  point  of  view  to  the  functions  of  daily 
Hfe. 

In  concluding,  attention  may  be  called  [79]  to  the  wide  distribution 
of  certain  sentiments  or  feelings  which  are  of  a  peculiarly  religious  na- 
ture and  which  tend  to  persist  even  among  the  most  sophisticated  in- 
dividuals, long  after  they  have  ceased  to  believe  in  the  rationalized  justi- 
fication for  these  sentiments  and  feelings.  They  are  by  no  means  to  be 
identified  with  simple  emotions,  though  they  obviously  feed  on  the  soil 
of  all  emotions.  A  religious  sentiment  is  typically  unconscious,  intense, 
and  bound  up  with  a  compulsive  sense  of  values.  It  is  possible  that 
modern  psychology  may  analyze  them  all  away  as  socialized  compul- 
sion neuroses,  but  it  is  exceedingly  doubtful  if  a  healthy  social  life  or  a 
significant  individual  life  is  possible  without  these  very  sentiments.  The 
first  and  most  important  of  them  is  a  "feeling  of  community  with  a 
necessary  universe  of  values."  In  psychological  terms,  this  feeling  seem 
to  be  a  blend  of  complete  humility  and  a  no  less  complete  security.  It 
is  only  when  the  fundamental  serenity  is  as  intense  as  fear  and  as  neces- 
sary as  any  of  the  simpler  sentiments  that  its  possessor  can  be  properly 
termed  a  mystic. 

A  second  sentiment,  which  often  grows  out  of  the  first,  is  a  feeling 
for  sacredness  or  holiness  or  divinity.  That  certain  experiences  or  ideas 
or  objects  or  personalities  must  be  set  apart  as  symbols  of  ultimate 
value  is  an  idea  which  is  repellent  to  the  critical  modern  mind.  It  is 
none  the  less  a  necessary  sentiment  to  many,  perhaps  to  most,  human 
beings.  The  consciously  justified  infraction  of  sentiments  of  holiness, 
which  cannot  be  recognized  by  the  thinking  mind,  leads  frequently  to 
an  inexplicable  personal  unhappiness. 


One:  Culture.  .Soiiciv.  and  i lie  Imiivtdual  14^ 

The  taboos  o\^  priiniii\c  peoples  strike  us  as  very  bizarre  and  it  is  a 
commonplace  o\^  psychoanalysis  that  many  of  them  have  a  strange  kin- 
ship with  the  apparently  self-imposed  taboos  of  neurotics.  It  is  doubtful 
if  many  psychologists  or  students  o\'  culture  reali/e  the  psschological 
significance  o\'  lahoo.  which  seems  noihmg  more  ium  less  than  an  un- 
conscious striving  for  the  strength  that  comes  from  any  form  of  sacrifice 
or  deferment  of  immediate  fuifillments.  Certainly  all  religions  ha\e  in- 
sisted on  the  importance  (^f  hinh  lahoo.  in  its  narrower  sense  of  specific 
mlerdiclion.  and  sacrifice.  It  ma\  be  thai  the  feeling  of  the  necessity  of 
sacrifice  is  no  more  than  a  iranslalion  mlo  action  o\'  the  sentiment  of 
the  holy. 

Perhaps  the  most  difficult  o\'  the  religious  sentiments  to  understand 
is  that  of  sin,  which  is  almost  amusingl\  abhorrent  to  the  nu>dern  mind. 
Every  constellation  of  sentiments  holds  within  itself  its  own  opposiies. 
The  more  intense  a  sentiment,  the  more  certain  is  the  potential  presence 
of  a  feeling  which  results  from  the  Houting  or  thwarting  of  it.  The  price 
for  the  reality  and  intensity  of  the  positi\e  sentiments  that  I  ha\e  men- 
tioned, any  or  all  of  which  must  of  necessit\  be  frequenth  \iolated  m 
the  course  of  daily  life,  is  the  sentiment  o{  sin,  which  is  a  necessar> 
shadow  cast  by  all  sincerely  religious  feeling. 

It  is,  of  course,  no  accident  that  religion  in  its  most  authentic  mo- 
ments has  always  been  prepared  to  cancel  a  factual  shortcoming  in 
conduct  if  only  it  could  assure  itself  that  this  shi^ricoming  was  accompa- 
nied by  a  lively  sense  of  sin.  Good  works  are  not  the  ec|ui\alent  of  the 
sentiment  o^  ultimate  value  which  religion  insists  upon.  The  shadow 
cast  by  this  sentiment,  v\hich  is  a  sense  of  sin.  ma\  be  intuitively  fell  as 
of  more  reassuring  value  than  a  bene\olence  which  proceeds  from  mere 
social  habit  or  from  personal  indifference.  Religion  has  alwa\s  been  the 
enemv  o\^  self-satisfaction. 


Editorial  Note 
Originally  published  m  The  AnuiUiin  Mci\ur\   1^   12    7^)  (1928) 


A.  P.  A.  I  (192cS,  published  1929) 

Proivi'ilitii^s.  First  Colhu/iiinni  an  Pcrstnuilttv  /nvvslii^nlion.  lUlit  umUr  the    \  -f 

the  Anwrican  Psychiatric  Association.  Coniinittcc  on  relations  with  the  Sin  u: 
December  1-2.  192S.  New  York  Ciiv   Baltiiiu>ic:  Lord  Baltimore  Press 

Sapir's  associate,  psychiatrist  Harry  Slack  Sullivan,  was  the  organi/ing  force  behind 
a  colloquiiini  on  pcrsonalii\  investigation  sponsored  by  the  American  Psychiatric  Asso- 
ciation through  lis  coniniillee  on  the  relations  of  psychiatry  to  the  siKia!  science>.  Tlic 
committee's  chair.  William  Alanson  White,  was  a  close  colleague  of  Sulli\an  Held  in 
December  1928,  the  colloquium  brought  together  a  group  of  some  24  stKial  scicnlisis. 
psychologists,  psychiatrists,  and  physicians  (21  invited  participants  and  3  representa- 
tives of  the  committee).  Some  of  the  participants  were  alread>  acquainted  with  each 
other  from  earlier  conferences,  including  ihe  1^)2(>  Hani)\er  Conference,  where  Sapir 
had  presented  a  paper. 

Interdisciplinary  collaboration  prtned  elusive  al  the  A.  I*  A.  Colloquium's  discus- 
sions, with  some  participants  emphasizing  the  dilTerences  between  approaches  rather 
than  their  potential  connections.  The  widest  gulf  was  that  which  separated  proponents 
of  qualitative  approaches  from  proponents  of  quantitative  methods  and  non-symbolic 
perspecti\es.  Sapir.  Sullivan,  and  their  conference  allies  (including  ("hicagi*  s.kioIolmsI 
Robert  Park)  emphasized  conceptual  patterns  and  sNstems  i>f  ideas,  as  agamsi  p.iitn.i- 
panls  representing  such  disciplines  as  beha\  iorist  psychology  and  psychonietrics.  Sapir's 
most  substantial  comments  -  remarks  anticipating  his  I9.'^4  encNclopcdia  article  on 
"Personality,"  and  chapter  7  of  The  Psychoh)^}  of  Culture  attempted  to  hridre  the 
di\ide. 

In  this  meeting  Sapir  was  seen  not  just  as  a  representative  of  anthropolog)  >•!  mij. un- 
ties, but  -  at  least  by  some  participants  -  as  leading  the  way  to  interdisciplinary 
cooperation.  The  colloquium  organizers  evidently  thought  the  prospects  for  prinluciivc 
interaction  sufllcientK  promising  to  organize  a  second  A  P  A  c<»M«H|uiuni  the 
following  year. 

A  complete  transcript  of  the  colloquium  was  published  in  1^J2W  Wc  icprvnlucc  here 
only  those  portions  of  the  discussion  in  which  Sapir  p.uiiv miiiii  mp  II  12  '2 
77-80),  and  summarize  the  rest. 

Besides  Sapir,  participants  quoted  or  mentioned  herein  iikIuJc 

Allport,  Floyd  (Professor  of  Social  and  Political  Psycholog>.  S\i.t.>...  I  iHNcrsily) 
Burgess,  Ernest  W.  (Professor  of  Sociology.  I'nnersitN  of  Chicago) 
Dickinson,  Z.  Clark  (Professor  of  Economics.  I'niversitN  of  NtkhiLMn) 
Draper,  George  (practicing  physician.  Columbia-Presbytcrian  .Mcdual  Center) 
Frank.  Lawrence  (educational  psychologist;  stalT  member.  Laura  Spelman  RiKkefel- 

ler  Memorial) 
Glueck,  Sheldon  (crinunologisi;  Instructor  in  (  iiminology  and  Penolopy.  Dcpnn- 

ment  of  Social  Ethics,  Harvard  I'niversity) 


148  ///  Culture 

Healy.  William  (physician  and  child  psychologist;  Director,  Judge  Baker  Foundation, 

Boston) 
Knight.  Frank  H.  (Professor  of  Economics,  University  of  Chicago) 
May.  Mark  (Professor  of  Educational  Psychology,  Yale  University) 
Outhwaitc,  Leonard  (Berkeley-trained  anthropologist;  staff  member,  Laura  Spelman 

Rockefeller  Memorial) 
Park.  Robert  (Professor  of  Sociology.  University  of  Chicago) 
Shaw.  ClilTord  (sociologist.  Institute  for  Juvenile  Research,  Chicago) 
Sullivan,  Harry  Stack  (psychiatrist;  Director  of  Clinical  Research,  Sheppard  and 

Enoch  Pratt  Hospital.  Baltimore) 
Thomas,  William  L  (sociologist;  Lecturer,  New  School  for  Social  Research) 
Thurstone,  Louis  L.  (Professor  of  Psychology,  University  of  Chicago) 
Wells.  Frederic  Lyman  (psychologist;  Chief  of  Psychology  Laboratory,  Boston  Psy- 
chiatric Hospital) 
White,  William  Alanson  (neurologist  and  psychiatrist;  Superintendent,  St.  Elizabeth's 

Hospital.  Washington,  D.  C.) 
Young,  Kimball  (Professor  of  Social  Psychology,  University  of  Wisconsin) 

Other  participants  included  Gordon  W.  Allport  (social  psychologist,  then  at  Dart- 
mouth College).  E.  R.  Groves  (sociologist.  University  of  North  Carolina),  Ehon  Mayo 
(industrial  psychologist.  Graduate  School  of  Business  Administration,  Harvard  Univer- 
sity), G.  E.  Partridge  (psychologist,  Sheppard  and  Enoch  Pratt  Hospital),  and  -  repre- 
senting the  A.  P.  A.,  along  with  Sullivan  and  White  -  psychiatrists  George  M.  Kline, 
Edward  J.  Kempf,  and  Arthur  Ruggles. 


Chairman  William  A.  White  introduced  the  conference  as  "informal  conversazione" 
in  which  psychiatrists  and  social  scientists  could  discuss  questions  of  overlapping  and 
joint  interest.  The  principal  problem  concerned  the  relationship  between  the  individual 
and  society  -  between  part  and  whole. 

William  L  Thomas,  a  sociologist,  opened  with  a  presentation  of  "Proposals  for  the 
Joint  Application  of  Technique  as  between  Psychiatry  and  the  Social  Sciences."  The 
presentation  mentioned  several  areas  of  relevant  ongoing  research,  such  as  studies  of 
the  effects  of  adoption  on  intelligence,  delinquency  and  psychopathology;  studies  of 
dominance  and  subordination  among  children;  studies  of  mental  disturbance  among 
different  races  and  nationalities;  and  studies  on  the  relationships  among  crime,  psycho- 
pathology,  and  occupations.  Thomas  argued  for  sociological  approaches  rather  than 
biological  ones  (a  point  tacitly  agreed  on  by  all  conference  participants),  and  called  for 
better  life  histories  and  records.  The  discussion  then  proceeded  as  follows: 

EDWARD  SAPIR.  -  I  was  very  much  interested  in  Professor  Thomas'  proposal 
that  we  take  up  the  question  of  behavior  monographs.  It  has  always  seemed  to  me 
that  was  one  of  the  prime  needs  of  all  personality  studies.  I,  myself,  am  only  an 
amateur  and  dabbler  in  the  question  of  personality  but  I  have  always  wished  that 
there  were  some  place  where  one  could  go  in  order  to  get  acquainted  with  life  person- 
ality. I  should  like  to  see  someone  found  a  series  of  behavior  monographs  in  which 
the  cases,  after  revealing  themselves  as  far  as  possible,  are  minutely  discussed  by  a 
number  of  people  interested  in  personality  from  different  points  of  view,  [so]  that  we 


One:  Culture.  Smuiv.  ami  i In-  hulivuhuil  149 

would  all  get  acquainted  more  or  less  with  a  few  do/cn  typical  persons,  as  it  were. 

in  our  community,  and  be  able  to  talk  of  Case  A,  H,  or  ('.  and  be  familiar  with  ihc 
interpretations  of  the  various  reactions  (to)  those  cases.  It  seems  it)  me  il  \^c  cul.! 
have  a  series  of  monographs  of  behavior  of  personalities  and  a  careful  anah 
what  seems  to  be  relevant  in  these  various  cases,  we  might  discover  how  wuicu 
dilTerent  could  be  our  conception  of  what  might  be  a  dilference  m  pcrsonalils. 

FREDERIC  1  \\  ELLS.  -  What  sorts  of  persons  would  be  the  subjects  of  the  beha- 
vior monographs  which  are  under  ciMisideration  here,  and  lu>w  W(^uld  the  factual 
material  be  gathered?  It  is  possible  to  gather  material  of  this  kind  in  a  \cr>  close 
way  through  psychological  settings.  What  Dr.  Sapir  has  in  mind  is  normal  indi\id- 
uals.  How,  under  the  conditions  of  our  present  culture,  is  material  of  the  sort  he  has 
in  mind  to  be  gathered? 

SAPIR.  -  I  can't  sa\  thai  I  had  in  mind  cniircl\  iu>rmal  personalities.  I  had  in  mind 
both  normal  and  abnormal.  There  are  \arious  methods  of  obtaining  case  histt>rics 
Dr.  Kimball  "ibung  and  Dr.  Shaw  can  probably  illuminate  us,  and  Dr.  Thomas  him- 
self. I  am  not  at  all  clear  in  my  own  mind  as  to  in  w  hat  form  case  histories  of  this 
kind  should  be  presented.  It  might  be  belter  to  experiment  \sith  dilTerent  kinds  of 
presentations  and  subject  those  to  criticisms,  as  well  as  the  analyses  of  them,  but  it 
seems  to  me  that  my  own  personal  dilllculty  in  considering  the  question  of  personal- 
ity was  that  I  was  never  quite  sure  whether  my  private  definition  of  "personalits" 
corresponds  to  the  other  person's  definition  of  "personalii>."  I  think  \^e  can't  get 
very  far  by  discussing  these  concepts  of  ours  in  the  abstract,  but  that  we  must  work 
through,  experimentally,  the  usual  definitions  and  concepts  \ia  the  actual  handling 
of  the  material. 

We  have  to  be,  as  it  were,  driven  to  the  wall  to  accept  fairly  elaborate  working 
patterns  of  personality  from  the  case  material  itself,  and  that  is  a  very  elaborate  but 
I  think  decidedly  worth  while  idea.  I  would  like  to  see  someone  develop  techniques 
for  presenting  and  citliccting  cases,  both  norma!  and  abnormal. 

Comments  by  William  Healy,  Kimball  Young,  and  Frank  H  Knight  then  explored 
the  question  of  what  is  meant  by  "abnormal  personality."  Ideational  content,  the 
psychology  of  symbolism,  and  cultural  background  should  be  emphasized.  thc>  sug- 
gested, and  subjects  should  not  come  only  from  hospital  or  penal  institutions.  l^\%rcncc 
Frank  proposed  that  the  social  history  and  ecology  of  psychiatric  patients  was  a  place 
for  immediate  interdisciplinary  cooperation.  Arthur  Ruggles  and  Robert  Park  notcil 
the  difllculties  of  translating  analytical  vocabularies  across  disciplines.  "A  fact  is  a  fact 
only  in  a  universe  of  discourse,"  commented  Park. 

Chairman  White  then  called  for  each  participant  to  state  his  pt^sition  on  the  problem 
of  interdisciplinary  cooperation. 

Lawrence  Frank  suggested  some  central  questions:  the  relationship  between  indiM- 
dual  and  aggregate  (or  institutional)  behavior,  and  the  relationship  between  conven- 
tional (or  modal)  behavior  and  deviance.  All  the  disciplines  present  share  > 
problems,  such  as  developing  a  conception  of  human  nature,  and  in\  •'• 
individuals  adjust  to  norms,  sanctions,  and  material  conditions 

ClitTord  Shaw  reported  on  sociological  research  on  delinquciK>  in  < 
sponse  to  questions,  Shaw  emphasized  "culture"  as  a  factor  in  the  It. 
linquency  in  certain  areas  of  the  city.  Sapir  enquired: 


150  ///  Culture 

SAPIR.  -  I  have  just  one  ditTieulty,  Mr.  Shaw,  with  your  conception  of  the  cultural 

nature  of  these  areas.  I  think  I  follow  you  in  the  main  sympathetically,  but  there  is 

just  one  question  in  my  mind.  Do  you  mean  essentially  that  the  populations  in 

these  zones  value  delinquent  conduct  as  such,  and  that  the  intensity  of  the  valuation 

diminishes  as  you  proceed  away  from  the  Loop,"  or  do  you  mean  that  the  cultural 

conditions  of  conflict  are  such  as  to  bring  about  in  decreasing  proportions  those 

deviations  of  conduct? 

SHAW.  -  I  should  say  the  latter  was  true. 

SAPIR.  -  If  that  is  so,  it  isn't  so  much  the  case  of  cultural  mapping  as  the  mapping 

of  lack  of  functioning  of  a  culture. 

SHAW.  -  Yes.  or  the  disintegration  of  a  given  culture. 

SAPIR.  -  If  I  felt,  for  instance,  that  the  people  right  on  the  inside  of  the  Loop 
made  a  kind  of  heroic  code  of  certain  types  of  shoplifting  or  homosexual  misdemea- 
nor, that  would  give  me  an  entirely  different  point  of  view. 

SHAW.  -  That  may  be  true. 

SAPIR.  -  For  instance,  horse  stealing  is  the  result  of  delinquent  conduct,  but  if  you 
are  studying  the  life  of  the  Black[foot]  Indians,  it  is  a  sort  of  delinquent  conduct 
looped  up  with  all  sorts  of  supernatural  ideas.  You  would  therefore  have  to  know 
how  to  interpret  that  delinquent  conduct. 

Other  participants  then  reported  on  their  research.  Ernest  W.  Burgess  and  Sheldon 
Glueck  discussed  research  on  parole  violators  and  reformatory  inmates,  respectively. 
George  Draper,  a  physician,  raised  the  problem  of  how  clinical  manifestations  of  dis- 
ease relate  to  a  patient's  personality.  Lewis  L.  Thurstone  and  Floyd  Allport  discussed 
psychometric  measurements  and  analysis,  a  topic  also  taken  up  by  Frederic  Wells.  Mark 
May  mentioned  his  research  on  children's  honesty  and  deceptiveness.  Z.  Clark  Dickin- 
son pointed  out  several  intersections  between  psychology  and  economics,  suggesting 
that  some  important  theoretical  connections  had  yet  to  be  very  well  developed. 

Discussion  on  the  following  day  tended  to  focus  on  the  disciplines'  differences:  differ- 
ences in  object  of  interest  (groups  and  generalizations  vs.  individuals  and  differences), 
and  differences  in  technique  (quantitative  vs.  qualitative).  Harry  Stack  Sullivan  started 
this  discussion  off,  arguing  that  the  participants  might  merely  end  up  raiding  each 
other's  vocabulary  without  actually  understanding  each  other's  conceptions.  How  was 
something  practical  to  be  achieved,  rather  than  just  extending  the  range  of  one's  ineffi- 
ciency? 

The  comments  of  some  participants  (such  as  L.  L.  Thurstone  and  Mark  May)  be- 
came quite  critical,  interpreting  methodological  differences  as  deficiencies.  Other  parti- 
cipants attempted  to  bring  about  a  rapprochement  by  re-focusing  the  interdisciplinary 
objectives  of  the  conference.  Among  these  was  Sapir: 

EDWARD  SAPIR.  -  I  have  been  disturbed  by  the  obvious  unwillingness  or  hesita- 
tion of  most  of  us  to  throw  bridges  across  the  chasms  which  separate  our  respective 
disciplines.  We  have  hesitated  to  integrate  our  interests  but  it  is  the  very  purpose  of 
a  conference  of  this  kind  that  we  throw  away  all  modesty  and  hesitation,  and  hazard 
the  difficult  task  of  seeing  our  various  interests  from  a  common  viewpoint. 

Thinking  over  this  caution  which  we  all  share,  I  seem  to  find  that  the  sticking 
point  is  that  we  will  not  admit  what  we  tacitly  accept  at  every  stage,  and  that  is  this: 


One:  Citllurc.  Society,  and  l he  InJivu/iutl  151 

Whether  we  talk  ahmit  an  iiulividiial  as  a  physiolojiical  organism  or  abtnil  sivicly. 
at  the  other  end  o\'  tlie  heha\ior  gamut,  what  we  are  really  talking  about  is  swiims 
of  ideas.  1  hese  ideas  iiia\  he  re-interpreted  in  terms  of  emotion  or  any  other  physio- 
logieal  or  psychologieal  terms  ue  please.  lAen  if  we  ilescribe  a  human  being  fr»>m 
what  seems  to  be  a  physiological  standpoint,  pure  ami  simple,  we  arc  not  really 
especially  interested  in  the  iiiere  process  ol  thus  analyzing  him  into  his  lowest  biologi> 
cal  terms.  If  he  lifts  his  arm.  that  means  that  he  is  going  to  strike  somebody  or  throw 
a  stone,  and  he  does  that  because  he  wants  to  break  the  window  ol  some  person 
whom  he  dislikes,  or  he  wants  to  strike  him  directly.  We  get  down,  in  other  words, 
to  a  specific  motive,  say.  of  revenge.  So  that  even  if  we  study  perst)nality  from  the 
very  coldest  and  most  objective  point  of  view,  we  are  more  i>r  less  laculv  ailmitiing 
that  we  are  interested  in  some  system  of  ideas. 

Now  let  us  take  society,  at  the  other  end.  As  social  students,  we  have  ixcn  m  ttic 
habit  of  stressing  the  idea  that,  when  all  is  said  and  done,  an  mduidual  is  helpless. 
as  an  individual,  in  the  llu.x  of  cultural  history.  At  the  beginning  o{  the  course  that 
I  am  in  the  habit  of  giving,  for  example  1  try  to  destroy  all  confidence  in  the  meaning 
of  the  "individual,"  only  to  find  that  1  must  let  the  individual  in  by  the  back  door. 
as  it  were,  toward  the  end  of  the  course.  But  society,  whatever  we  may  say  ab<.>ut  it 
in  our  books,  is  actually  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  system  of  ideas,  or  se\cral 
intercrossing  systems.  We  may  talk  our  head  otT  about  marriage,  for  instance,  but  if 
we  do  not  see  marriage  as  somehow  connected  with  the  process  of  earning  a  li\ing. 
being  born  and  dying,  having  children,  living  in  peace  with  our  neighbors,  btvoming 
personally  significant  in  some  little  circle  that  we  can  call  our  enlarged  ego.  if  we 
cannot  see  marriage  in  such  a  complex  of  meanings,  it  is  not  anything  real  So  that. 
whether  we  like  it  or  not,  we  are  really  always  dealing  with  systems  of  ideas,  not 
with  mere  reactions,  or  institutions  as  such.  Here  is  where  the  psychiatrist  comes  in. 
He  is  the  intuitive  scientist  who  is  more  keenly  interested  in  these  systems  oi  human 
ideas  than  any  other  student  of  behavior.  Therefore.  1  would  say  that  while  the 
psychiatrist  probably  commits  more  sins  against  common  .sense  and  fact  than  any 
other  known  scientist,  he  has  the  most  \aluable  hunch  o\'  any  o\'  them,  and  that 
many  a  sociologist  and  anthropologist,  while  he  has  at  his  disposal  the  most  \aluablc 
facts  of  all  facts,  frequently  commits  the  most  unpardonable  sin  of  all  sin.s.  whK'h  is 
not  to  see  those  facts  as  constitutive  of  a  real  "personality"'  or  "personalities  " 

We  are  all  dealing,  in  some  fashion  or  other,  with  the  concept  o\  personality  But 
we  were  careful  at  the  start  not  to  define  personality,  and  perhaps  it  would  have 
been  a  good  thing  if  we  had  defined  it.  One  may  give  at  least  \'\\c  distinct  defmitu^ns 
of  personality,  which  are  so  dilferenl  from  each  other  that  any  one  o\  them  would 
have  given  a  distinct  slant  to  our  proceedings  It  is  our  job  as  a  group  to  find  out 
what  is  the  working  definition  of  persi>naiity  that  the  psychiatrist  brings  us  Whether 
that  is  the  same  dcfinilion  o\'  personality  as  the  sociologist  finds  most  usclul  lor  his 
own  purposes  is  quite  another  question  It  is  perfectly  pi>ssible  and  useful  to  have 
diflerent  conceptions  of  personality.  Let  the  sociologist's  "personality."  for  instance. 
be  what  certain  psychiatrists  call  a  "persona."  an  indi\idual  conccixcd  of  as  the  iiKre 
carrier  of  social  institutions.  That  is  a  perfectly  good  concept,  abstracted  Irom  the 
whole  of  behavior,  but  it  has  little  to  do  with  what  the  psychiatrist  is  interested  in 
He  is  thinking  of  a  connected  system  oi  ideas  which  is  carried  by  an  individual 
organism  and  which  is  somehow  being  interpreted  in  divers  ways  by  other  individ- 


152  ///  Culture 

uals,  each  swayed  by  a  system  of  ideas  which  both  resembles  and  differs  from  the 
first. 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  psychiatrist,  society  as  such  is  not  of  paramount  im- 
portance. Society  is  simply  that  e.xternal  human  force  that  cramps  the  individual.  If 
you  read  Freud's  work,  you  are  always  being  told  that  society  is  the  "censor,"  in 
other  words,  the  thing  that  you  have  got  to  resist  in  order  to  realize  yourself.  That 
may  be  an  unscientific,  even  an  irrational,  point  of  view,  but  it  is  a  significant  one 
for  all  that.  In  any  case  it  shows  the  psychiatrist's  bias,  which  we  have  to  recognize. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  sociologist  and  the  anthropologist,  and  I  confess  I  sympathize 
with  them  in  many  ways,  look  upon  the  individual  as  nothing.  "Who  are  you?"  they 
conceive  society  to  say  to  the  unformed  individual.  "You  are  just  a  set  of  muscular, 
endocrine,  and  other  physiological  possibilities,  and  I,  society,  possess  all  possible 
meanings  and  values.  I  am  going  to  make  you  into  some  kind  of  representative  of 
the  total  system  of  ideas  which  constitutes  my  being."  Obviously  enough,  neither 
point  of  view  expresses  more  than  a  useful  fiction.  There  is.  therefore,  it  seems  to 
me.  a  common  ground  of  discussion  in  "personality,"  and  whether  we  call  personal- 
ity that  part  of  the  individual's  functioning  which  has  meaning,  or,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  call  personality  that  in  society's  behavior  patterns  which  can  some  day  be 
translated  into  terms  of  meaning  for  the  individual,  is  essentially  indifferent.  We 
arrive,  therefore,  at  this  somewhat  curious,  yet  really  necessary,  conception  that  in 
the  last  analysis  there  is  no  conflict  between  the  concept  of  "culture"  and  the  concept 
of  "personality,"  if  only  we  make  our  abstractions  correctly.  I  would  say  that  what 
really  happens  is  that  every  individual  acquires  and  develops  his  own  "culture"  and 
that  "culture,"  as  ordinarily  handled  by  the  student  of  society,  is  really  an  environ- 
mental fact  that  has  no  psychological  meaning  until  it  is  interpreted  by  being  referred 
to  personalities  or,  at  the  least,  a  generalized  personality  conceived  as  typical  of  a 
given  society. 

"Why  do  people  resemble  each  other  so  much?"  asks  the  psychiatrist.  "Because 
they  have  all  been  formed  out  of  common  terms  in  the  common  matrix  of  socialized 
behavior,"  answers  the  sociologist.  Why  does  the  psychiatrist  always  feel  dissatisfied 
with  the  sociologist  when  he  is  given  this  information?  Because  he  wants  to  brush 
away  all  of  those  factors  of  human  behavior  that  make  the  human  beings  of  a  society 
measurably  alike,  in  order  to  find  out  to  what  extent  the  given  individual  is  "integ- 
ral," true  to  a  certain  something  -  he  does  not  quite  know  what  -  that  is  himself. 
If  the  psychiatrist  is  a  behaviorist,  he  believes  that  he  can  prove  all  of  his  theories 
of  personahty  in  terms  of  behaviorism;  if,  like  Jung,  he  is  a  philosopher,  he  may  read 
in  types  of  personality  all  manner  of  uncanny  revelation;  if  he  is  a  sociologist,  he 
has  a  sociological  slant.  But  whatever  he  is,  I  think  the  psychiatrist  deals  with  an 
unformulated  conception  of  personality  which  is  something  like  this:  Here  is  a  person 
who,  in  ways  to  be  defined  by  the  geneticist,  by  the  physiologist,  by  the  psychologist, 
and  by  the  sociologist,  has  a  definite  "form."  We  do  not  really  see  him,  we  see  him 
only  as  society  declares  him  to  be.  We  see  the  mask  that  he  wears.  The  psychiatrist 
would  like  to  take  that  mask  off  and  discover  what  he  really  "is." 

Obviously,  we  cannot  get  hold  of  the  individual  immediately  on  the  fertilization 
of  the  egg.  We  must  assume  as  given  all  the  genetic  determinants  of  personality;  we 
will  also  assume  all  the  prenatal  factors;  and  we  will  assume,  further,  all  the  condi- 
tioning factors  of,  say,  the  first  year  or  year  and  a  half  or  two  years  of  life  which  we 


One:  Culture.  Sociciy,  ami  the  Individual  15*^ 

cannot  put  our  fingers  on  at  present  but  which  wc  feel  arc  of  the  uiniost  c. 

In  other  words,  as  psychiatrists,  we  are  deahng  with  a  human  being  uho  i  .ily 

"formed"'  at  the  moment  that  society  first  gets  hold  of  him.  Let  us.  ul  ihis  stage,  call 
him  the  "sub-cuhural  personahty.  "  That  is  the  personahty.  it  seems  lo  me.  that  the 
psychiatrist  is  essentially  interested  in.  all  later  aspects  of  ■personality"  being  seen 
as  socially  determined  modifications  of  a  beha\ior  configuration  which  persists  m 
maintaining  itself  as  best  it  can.  The  psychiatrist  and  the  scK-ial  scientist,  therefore. 
can  best  get  together  not  by  scolding  each  other,  but  by  telling  each  other  what 
aspects  of  behavior  lo  consider  as  eliminated  in  their  respective  views.  Haeh  must 
teach  the  other  what  to  avoid  as  irrele\ant.  and  what  to  call  the  "essential  personal- 
ity." We  must  get  together,  whether  we  like  it  ox  not,  because  we  are  already  eliminat- 
ing, well  or  badly,  in  ways  which  seem  to  be  demanded  for  our  particular  purposes. 
Why  not  frankly  recognize  this  dilTering  process  of  elimination  in  the  field  of  beha- 
vior, in  order  that  we  may  steer  clear  o^  each  other,  recognizing  the  distinctiveness 
and  the  legitimacy  of  each  other's  problems? 

I  think  that  if  the  psychiatrist  will  admit  that  he  is  ni>t  so  much  interested,  so  far 
as  his  nuclear  concept  of  personality  is  concerned,  in  w  hat  people  do  as  in  what  thcv 
are.  in  their  early-formed  latencies  of  behavior  rather  than  in  their  socially  interpre- 
ted conduct,  and  if  furthermore,  the  psychiatrist  will  admit  in  speaking  lo  the  sih.ioI- 
ogist  that  what  the  sociologist  is  interested  in  is  a  dilTerent  conception  of  personalitv. 
there  ought  to  be  no  special  difficulty  of  mutual  understanding.  I  would  plead  for 
the  study  of  actual  case  histories  from  the  standpoint  o^  an  analysis  from  every 
possible  point  of  view,  ranging  from  the  purely  organismal  type  of  interpretation  up 
to  the  impersonal  and  abstract  formulations  of  the  theoretical  sociologist  and  the 
philosopher. 

Frederic  Wells  remarked  that  "Sapir  has  just  crystallized  the  wide  range  of  topics  cov- 
ered in  the  conference."  He  then  returned  to  the  problems  of  psychometrics.  however. 
and  the  discussion  returned  to  methodological  debates.  Finally  Leonard  Outhwaite. 
referring  to  Sapir's  1926  Hanover  Conference  presentation  as  an  example  o{  the  inter- 
disciplinary middle-ground,  argued  that  the  A.  P.  A.  participants  had  "created  unreal 
difficulties."  Chairman  White  suggested  that  there  was  "alreadv  a  situati-*"  •>•'  '■>!>' 
prochemeni,  whether  we  want  it  or  not." 


Note 

1.   "The  Loop"  is  the  downtown  district  of  Chicago. 


The  Unconscious  Patterning  o(  Bcha\  lor 
in  Society  (1928) 

Editorial  Introduction 

Sapir's  ideas  about  the  unconscious  nature  ot  culiuidl  paiicnung  were 
elaborated  for  a  conference  on  the  concept  of  the  unconscious  in  various 
social  science  disciplines.  Held  April  29  -  May  1,  1927.  under  the  aus- 
pices of  the  Illinois  Society  for  Mental  Hygiene,  the  conference  was 
organized  by  W.  I.  Thomas,  the  preeminent  theoretician  of  the  first  gen- 
eration of  Chicago  sociologists,'  and  financed  by  Chicago  socialite 
Ethel  Dummer.  The  proceedings  were  published  the  following  year,  un- 
der Dummer's  editorship. 

Distinguished  participants  in  this  interdisciplinary  critique  o\'  the 
Freudian  concept  of  the  unconscious  included  Kurt  Koffka.  a  founder 
of  gestalt  psychology  whose  work  Sapir  discovered  in  1924.  ulio  dis- 
cussed the  psychological  reformulation.  Beha\iorisi  experimental 
psychology  was  represented  by  its  primary  American  propi>ncni.  John 
B.  Watson. 

Thomas  was  intrigued  by  personality  configuration  as  understood  b\ 
the  social  sciences.  Sapir's  interest  in  testing  the  psychological  ct>ncept 
against  social  science  data  was  directly  in  line  v\ith  Thomas's  program. 
Language,  representafive  of  culture  more  generally,  provided  Sapir  with 
evidence  for  the  "unconscious  patterning  o\^  beha\ior."'  a  priKcss  he 
clearly  distinguished  from  the  Freudian  unconscious  as  a  distinct  mech- 
anism of  the  human  mind.  Sapir  sought  a  concept  ol  the  unconscious 
which  would  strengthen  his  anthropological  theor\  ol  culture. 

Participation  in  this  symposium  brought  Sapir's  formulation  ot  the 
individual  in  culture  and  society  to  the  wide  attention  ot  colleagues  in 
other  social  sciences  for  the  first  time.  The  s\niposiuni.  and  the  resuliing 
publication,  involved  a  high-powered  collection  o\'  indi\iduals  and 
ideas.  The  intellectual  prestige  of  W.  I.  Thomas  solidified  Sapir's  role  as 
a  spokesman  for  the  emerging  interdisciplinary  audience.  Indeed.  Sapir 
was  the  only  anthropologist  who  participated  actively  in  the  interdisci- 
plinary efforts  of  the  twenties  and  thirties.  In  those  elTorts  he  functioned 


156  ///  Culture 

as  a  mediator  between  the  group  emphasis  of  the  sociologists  and  the 
individual  emphasis  of  the  psychologists,  and  in  that  mediating  capacity 
he  played  a  more  significant  role  than  he  might  have  done  solely  as  a 
representative  of  anthropology  as  such. 

Both  in  the  study  of  culture  and  in  the  study  of  the  individual  person- 
ality. Sapir  emphasized  meaning  contextualized  in  symbolic  systems,  as 
against  the  broad  current  toward  behaviorism  in  the  social  sciences. 
The  latter  was  to  dominate  in  the  post-war  period  after  Sapir's  death; 
Sapir's  semantic  and  symbolic  approach  has,  however,  had  considerable 
resurgence  in  recent  disciplines  almost  as  diverse  as  those  of  the  interdis- 
ciplinarians  of  the  interwar  period. 


The  Unconscious  Patterning  of  Behavior  in  Society 

We  may  seem  to  be  guilty  of  a  paradox  when  we  speak  of  the  uncon- 
scious in  reference  to  social  activity.  Doubtful  as  is  the  usefulness  of  this 
concept  when  we  confine  ourselves  to  the  behavior  of  the  individual,  it 
may  seem  to  be  worse  than  doubtful  when  we  leave  the  kinds  of  beha- 
vior that  are  strictly  individual  and  deal  with  those  more  complex  kinds 
of  activity  which,  rightly  or  wrongly,  are  supposed  to  be  carried  on,  not 
by  individuals  as  such,  but  by  the  associations  of  human  beings  that 
constitute  society.  It  may  be  argued  that  society  has  no  more  of  an 
unconscious  than  it  has  hands  or  legs. 

I  propose  to  show,  however,  that  the  paradox  is  a  real  one  only  if  the 
term  "social  behavior"  is  understood  in  the  very  Hteral  sense  of  behavior 
referred  to  groups  of  human  beings  which  act  as  such,  regardless  of  the 
mentalities  of  the  individuals  which  compose  the  groups.  To  such  a 
mystical  group  alone  can  a  mysterious  "social  unconsciousness"  be  as- 
cribed. But  as  we  are  very  far  from  believing  that  such  groups  [115] 
really  exist,  we  may  be  able  to  persuade  ourselves  that  no  more  especial 
kind  of  unconsciousness  need  be  imputed  to  social  behavior  than  is 
needed  to  understand  the  behavior  of  the  individual  himself.  We  shall 
be  on  much  safer  ground  if  we  take  it  for  granted  that  all  human  beha- 
vior involves  essentially  the  same  types  of  mental  functioning,  as  well 
conscious  as  unconscious,  and  that  the  term  "social"  is  no  more  exclu- 
sive of  the  concept  "unconscious"  than  is  the  term  "individual,"  for  the 
very  simple  reason  that  the  terms  "social"  and  "individual"  are  con- 
trastive  in  only  a  limited  sense.  We  will  assume  that  any  kind  of  psychol- 
ogy that  explains  the  behavior  of  the  individual  also  explains  the  beha- 


One:  Culture.  Society,  ami  the  Iminuhuil  157 

vior  of  society,  in  so  far  as  the  psychological  point  of  vicvs  is  applicable 
to  and  sufficient  for  the  study  of  social  behavior.  It  is  true  thai  tor 
certain  purposes  it  is  very  useful  to  look  away  entirely  from  the  nidivi- 
dual  and  to  think  of  socialized  behavior  as  though  it  were  carried  on 
by  certain  larger  entities  which  transcend  the  psycho-physical  organism. 
But  this  viewpoint  implicitly  demands  the  abandonment  of  the  psycho- 
logical approach  to  the  explanation  of  human  conduct  in  society. 

It  will  be  clear  from  what  we  have  said  that  we  do  not  find  the  essen- 
tial difference  between  individual  and  social  behavior  to  lie  in  ihe 
psychology  of  the  behavior  itself.  Strictly  speaking,  each  kind  of  beha- 
vior is  individual,  the  difference  in  terminology  being  entirely  due  to  a 
ditTerence  in  the  point  of  view.  If  our  attention  is  focussed  on  the  aciUiil. 
theoretically  [116]  measurable  behavior  of  a  given  individual  ai  a  gi\en 
time  and  place,  we  call  it  "individual  behavior."  no  mailer  uluii  ihe 
physiological  or  psychological  nature  of  that  behavior  may  be.  It,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  prefer  to  eliminate  certain  aspects  of  such  indi\idual 
behavior  from  our  consideration  and  to  hold  on  only  to  those  respects 
in  which  it  corresponds  to  certain  norms  of  conduct  which  ha\e  been 
developed  by  human  beings  in  association  with  one  another  and  uhich 
tend  to  perpetuate  themselves  by  tradition,  we  speak  o{  "social  beha- 
vior." In  other  words,  social  behavior  is  merely  the  sum  or,  belter,  ar- 
rangement of  such  aspects  of  individual  behavior  as  are  referred  to 
culture  patterns  that  have  their  proper  context,  not  in  the  spatial  and 
temporal  continuities  of  biological  behavior,  but  in  historical  sequences 
that  are  imputed  to  actual  behavior  by  a  principle  o^  selection. 

We  have  thus  defined  the  difference  between  individual  and  social 
behavior,  not  in  terms  of  kind  or  essence,  but  in  lerms  of  organization. 
To  say  that  the  human  being  behaves  individually  at  one  moment  and 
socially  at  another  is  as  absurd  as  to  declare  that  mailer  follows  ihc 
laws  of  chemistry  at  a  certain  time  and  succumbs  to  the  supposedly 
different  laws  of  atomic  physics  at  another,  for  mailer  is  alua>s  obeymg 
certain  mechanical  laws  which  are  at  one  and  the  same  lime  boih  ph\si- 
cal  and  chemical  according  to  the  manner  in  which  ue  choose  to  define 
its  organization.  In  dealing  with  human  beings,  we  simpls  find  ii  more 
convenient  for  certain  purposes  to  refer  a  gi\en  act  ti>  [  1 1  ^)  ihe  psycho- 
physical organism  itself.  In  other  cases  the  interest  hap|KMis  to  he  m 
continuities  that  go  beyond  the  individual  organism  and  its  funclionmg, 
so  that  a  bit  of  conduct  that  is  ob|ecli\el\  no  more  and  no  less  indivi- 
dual than  the  first  is  interpreted  in  lerms  of  the  noii-indi\  idual  patterns 
that  consfitute  social  behavior  or  cultural  beha\ior. 


158  ///  Culture 

It  would  be  a  useful  exercise  to  force  ourselves  to  see  any  given  hu- 
man act  from  both  of  these  points  of  view  and  to  try  to  convince  our- 
selves in  this  way  that  it  is  futile  to  classify  human  acts  as  such  as  having 
an  inherently  individual  or  social  significance.  It  is  true  that  there  are  a 
great  many  organismal  functions  that  it  is  difficult  to  think  of  in  social 
terms,  but  I  think  that  even  here  the  social  point  of  view  may  often  be 
applied  with  success.  Few  social  students  are  interested,  for  instance,  in 
the  exact  manner  in  which  a  given  individual  breathes.  Yet  it  is  not  to 
be  doubted  that  our  breathing  habits  are  largely  conditioned  by  factors 
conventionally  classified  as  social.  There  are  polite  and  impohte  ways  of 
breathing.  There  are  special  attitudes  which  seem  to  characterize  whole 
societies  that  undoubtedly  condition  the  breathing  habits  of  the  individ- 
uals who  make  up  these  societies.  Ordinarily  the  characteristic  rhythm 
of  breathing  of  a  given  individual  is  looked  upon  as  a  matter  for  strictly 
individual  definition.  But  if,  for  one  reason  or  another,  the  emphasis 
shifts  to  the  consideration  of  a  certain  manner  of  breathing  as  due  to 
good  form  or  social  tradition  or  some  other  principle  that  is  usually 
[118]  given  a  social  context,  then  the  whole  subject  of  breathing  at  once 
ceases  to  be  a  merely  individual  concern  and  takes  on  the  appearance 
of  a  social  pattern.  Thus,  the  regularized  breathing  of  the  Hindu  Yogi, 
the  subdued  breathing  of  those  who  are  in  the  presence  of  a  recently 
deceased  companion  laid  away  in  a  coffin  and  surrounded  by  all  the 
ritual  of  funeral  observances,  the  style  of  breathing  which  one  learns 
from  an  operatic  singer  who  gives  lessons  on  the  proper  control  of  the 
voice,  are,  each  and  every  one  of  them,  capable  of  isolation  as  socialized 
modes  of  conduct  that  have  a  definite  place  in  the  history  of  human 
culture,  though  they  are  obviously  not  a  whit  less  facts  of  individual 
behavior  than  the  most  casual  and  normal  style  of  breathing,  such  as 
one  rarely  imagines  to  have  other  than  purely  individual  applications. 
Strange  as  it  may  seem  at  first  blush,  there  is  no  hard  and  fast  line  of 
division  as  to  class  of  behavior  between  a  given  style  of  breathing,  pro- 
vided that  it  be  socially  interpreted,  and  a  religious  doctrine  or  a  form 
of  political  administration.  This  is  not  to  say  that  it  may  not  be  infinitely 
more  useful  to  apply  the  social  mode  of  analysis  of  human  conduct  to 
certain  cases  and  the  individual  mode  of  analysis  to  others.  But  we  do 
maintain  that  such  differences  of  analysis  are  merely  imposed  by  the 
nature  of  the  interest  of  the  observer  and  are  not  inherent  in  the  phe- 
nomena themselves. 

All  cultural  behavior  is  patterned.  This  is  merely  a  way  of  saying  that 
many  things  that  an  individual  [119]  does  and  thinks  and  feels  may  be 


One:  Culture.  Society,  urn/  i/u-  huinuiuul  159 

looked  upon  ncn  merely  IVoiii  ihc  siiiiulpoiiii  ot  ihc  iDrms  otbchavior 
that  are  proper  to  himself  as  a  biological  organism  but  from  ihc  stand- 
point of  a  generalized  mode  of  conduct  that  is  imputed  ti)  society  rather 
than  to  the  individual,  though  the  personal  genesis  of  conduct  is  ot" 
precisely  the  same  nature,  whether  ue  cluH)se  to  call  the  conduct  indivi- 
dual or  social.  It  is  impossible  to  say  what  an  individual  is  doing  unless 
we  have  tacitly  accepted  the  essentially  arbitrary  modes  o\'  interpreta- 
tion that  social  tradition  is  constantly  suggesting  to  us  from  the  vcrv 
moment  of  our  birth.  Let  anyone  who  doubts  this  try  the  expenmeni 
of  making  a  painstaking  report  o\^  the  actions  o\'  a  group  o{  natives 
engaged  in  some  form  of  activity,  say  religious,  to  which  he  has  not  the 
cultural  key.  If  he  is  a  skilful  writer,  he  may  succeed  in  gi\  ing  a  pictur- 
esque account  of  what  he  sees  and  hears,  or  thinks  he  sees  and  hears, 
but  the  chances  of  his  being  able  to  give  a  relation  o{  what  happens  in 
terms  that  would  be  intelligible  and  acceptable  to  the  natives  themselves 
are  practically  nil.  He  will  be  guilty  of  all  manner  o{  distortii>n.  His 
emphasis  will  be  constantly  askew.  He  will  find  interesting  what  the 
natives  take  for  granted  as  a  casual  kind  of  beha\KM  worih\  o{  no 
particular  comment,  and  he  will  utterly  fail  to  observe  the  crucial  turn- 
ing points  in  the  course  of  action  that  give  formal  significance  to  the 
whole  in  the  minds  of  those  who  do  possess  the  key  to  its  understand- 
ing. This  patterning  or  formal  analysis  of  behasior  is  to  a  surprising 
degree  [120]  dependent  on  the  mode  of  apprehension  which  has  been 
established  by  the  tradition  of  the  group.  Forms  and  significances  which 
seem  obvious  to  an  outsider  will  be  denied  outright  by  those  who  carr> 
out  the  patterns;  outlines  and  implications  that  are  perfectly  clear  to 
these  may  be  absent  to  the  eye  of  the  onkmker.  Ii  is  the  failure  to 
understand  the  necessity  of  grasping  the  native  patterning  which  is  re- 
sponsible for  so  much  unimaginative  and  misconceiving  description  ol 
procedures  that  we  have  not  been  brought  up  with.  It  becomes  aciualK 
possible  to  interpret  as  base  what  is  inspired  b\  the  noblest  and  c\en 
holiest  of  motives,  and  to  see  altruism  or  beaut\  where  luMhing  ol  the 
kind  is  either  telt  or  intended. 

Ordinarily  a  cultural  pattern  is  to  be  defined  both  in  terms  of  function 
and  of  form,  the  two  concepts  being  inseparably  intertwined  in  praclicc 
however  convenient  it  may  be  to  dissociate  them  m  theor\  Mans  Junc- 
tions of  behavior  are  primary  in  the  sense  that  an  mdi\idual  organic 
need,  such  as  the  satisfaction  of  hunger,  is  being  fulfilled,  but  ollcn  the 
functional  side  of  behavior  is  either  cntireK  transformed  or.  al  the  least. 
takes  on  a  new  increment  o\'  sigmficaiice.  In  this  wa\  new  lunclional 


160  ///  Culture 

interpretations  are  constantly  being  developed  for  forms  set  by  tradi- 
tion. Often  the  true  functions  of  behavior  are  unknown  and  a  merely 
rationalized  function  may  be  imputed  to  it.  Because  of  the  readiness 
with  which  forms  of  human  conduct  lose  or  modify  their  original  func- 
tions and  take  on  entirely  new  ones,  it  becomes  necessary  [121]  to  see 
social  behavior  from  a  formal  as  well  as  from  a  functional  point  of  view, 
and  we  shall  not  consider  any  kind  of  human  behavior  as  understood  if 
we  can  merely  give,  or  think  we  can  give,  an  answer  to  the  question 
"For  what  purpose  is  this  being  done?"  We  shall  have  also  to  know 
what  is  the  precise  manner  and  articulation  of  the  doing. 

Now  it  is  a  commonplace  of  observation  that  the  reasoning  intelli- 
gence seeks  to  attach  itself  rather  to  the  functions  than  to  the  forms  of 
conduct.  For  every  thousand  individuals  who  can  tell  with  some  show 
of  reason  why  they  sing  or  use  words  in  connected  speech  or  handle 
money,  there  is  barely  one  who  can  adequately  define  the  essential  out- 
lines of  these  modes  of  behavior.  No  doubt  certain  forms  will  be  im- 
puted to  such  behavior  if  attention  is  drawn  to  it,  but  experience  shows 
that  the  forms  discovered  may  be  very  seriously  at  variance  with  those 
actually  followed  and  discoverable  on  closer  study.  In  other  words,  the 
patterns  of  social  behavior  are  not  necessarily  discovered  by  simple  ob- 
servation, though  they  may  be  adhered  to  with  tyrannical  consistency 
in  the  actual  conduct  of  life.  If  we  can  show  that  normal  human  beings, 
both  in  confessedly  social  behavior  and  often  in  supposedly  individual 
behavior,  are  reacting  in  accordance  with  deep-seated  cultural  patterns, 
and  if,  further,  we  can  show  that  these  patterns  are  not  so  much  known 
as  felt,  not  so  much  capable  of  conscious  description  as  of  naive  prac- 
tice, then  we  have  the  right  to  speak  of  the  "unconscious  patterning  of 
[122]  behavior  in  society."  The  unconscious  nature  of  this  patterning 
consists  not  in  some  mysterious  function  of  a  racial  or  social  mind 
reflected  in  the  minds  of  the  individual  members  of  society,  but  merely 
in  a  typical  unawareness  on  the  part  of  the  individual  of  outlines  and 
demarcations  and  significances  of  conduct  which  he  is  all  the  time  im- 
plicitly following.  Jung's  "racial  unconscious"  is  neither  an  intelligible 
nor  a  necessary  concept.  It  introduces  more  difficulties  than  it  solves, 
while  we  have  all  we  need  for  the  psychological  understanding  of  social 
behavior  in  the  facts  of  individual  psychology. 

Why  are  the  forms  of  social  behavior  not  adequately  known  by  the 
normal  individual?  How  is  it  that  we  can  speak,  if  only  metaphorically, 
of  a  social  unconscious?  I  believe  that  the  answer  to  this  question  rests 
in  the  fact  that  the  relations  between  the  elements  of  experience  which 


One   Culture.  Society,  urn/  the  huJiviJual  161 

serve  to  give  them  their  torm  aiui  siiLiiitlcanee  are  move  po\\crtuIly 
"felt"  or  "intuited"  than  eonseiously  pereeived.  It  is  a  matter  of  com- 
mon knowledge  that  it  is  relatively  easy  to  fix  the  attention  on  some 
arbitrarily  seleeted  element  o\'  experience,  such  as  a  sensation  or  an 
emotion,  but  that  it  is  far  from  easy  to  become  conscious  of  the  exact 
place  which  such  an  element  holds  in  the  total  constellations  o\  beha- 
vior. It  is  easy  for  an  Australian  nati\e,  for  instance,  to  say  b\  what 
kinship  term  he  calls  so  and  so  or  whether  or  not  he  may  undertake  such 
and  such  relations  with  a  given  indi\idual.  It  is  exceedingly  difficult  for 
him  to  give  a  general  rule  [123]  oi'  which  these  specific  examples  ol 
behavior  are  but  illustrations,  though  all  the  while  he  acts  as  though 
the  rule  were  pertectly  well  known  to  him.  In  a  .sense  it  is  well  kn(n\n  to 
him.  But  this  knowledge  is  not  capable  of  conscious  manipulation  in 
terms  of  word  symbols.  It  is,  rather,  a  very  delicately  nuanced  feeling 
of  subtle  relations,  both  experienced  and  possible.  To  this  kind  of 
knowledge  may  be  applied  the  term  "intuition,"  which,  when  so  de- 
fined, need  have  no  mystic  connotations  whatever.  It  is  strange  hou 
frequently  one  has  the  illusion  of  free  knowledge,  in  ilic  light  o\'  which 
one  may  manipulate  conduct  at  will,  only  to  discover  in  the  lest  that 
one  is  being  impelled  by  strict  loyalty  to  tbrms  of  behavior  that  one  can 
feel  with  the  utmost  nicety  but  can  state  only  in  the  \aguest  and  most 
approximate  fashion.  It  would  seem  that  we  act  all  the  more  securely 
for  our  unawareness  of  the  patterns  that  conirc^l  us.  It  ma\  well  be  that, 
owing  to  the  limitations  of  the  conscious  life,  any  attempt  to  subject 
even  the  higher  tbrms  of  social  behavior  to  purely  conscious  control 
must  result  in  disaster.  Perhaps  there  is  a  far-reaching  moral  in  the  fact 
that  even  a  child  may  speak  the  most  difficult  language  with  idiomatic 
ease  but  that  it  takes  an  unusually  analytical  t\  pe  o\'  mind  to  define  the 
mere  elements  of  that  incredibly  subtle  linguistic  mechanism  which  is 
but  a  plaything  of  the  child's  unconscious.  Is  it  not  possible  that  the 
contemporary  mind,  in  its  restless  attempt  to  drag  all  the  forms  of  beha- 
vior into  consciousness  and  to  apply  the  results  of  (124)  its  fragmentary 
or  experimental  analysis  to  the  guidance  of  conduct,  is  realK  throwing 
away  a  greater  wealth  for  the  sake  o\'  a  lesser  and  more  dazzling  one? 
It  is  almost  as  though  a  misguided  enthusiast  exchanged  his  lhous;inds 
of  dollars  of  accumulated  credit  at  the  bank  lor  a  few  glillenng  coins 
of  manifest,  though  little,  worth. 

We  shall  now  give  a  number  of  examples  o\'  patterns  o\'  social  beha- 
vior and  show  that  they  are  very  incompleteh.  if  at  all.  known  b>  the 
normal,  naive  individual.  We  shall  see  that  the  penumbra  o(  uncon- 


162  ///  Culture 

scious  patterning  of  social  behavior  is  an  extraordinarily  complex  realm, 
in  which  one  and  the  same  type  of  overt  behavior  may  have  altogether 
distinct  significances  in  accordance  with  its  relation  to  other  types  of 
behavior.  Owing  to  the  compelling,  but  mainly  unconscious,  nature  of 
the  forms  of  social  behavior,  it  becomes  almost  impossible  for  the  nor- 
mal individual  to  observe  or  to  conceive  of  functionally  similar  types 
of  behavior  in  other  societies  than  his  own,  or  in  other  cultural  contexts 
than  those  he  has  experienced,  without  projecting  into  them  the  forms 
that  he  is  familiar  with.  In  other  words,  one  is  always  unconsciously 
finding  what  one  is  in  unconscious  subjection  to. 

Our  first  example  will  be  taken  from  the  field  of  language.  Language 
has  the  somewhat  exceptional  property  that  its  forms  are,  for  the  most 
part,  indirect  rather  than  direct  in  their  functional  significance.  The 
sounds,  words,  grammatical  forms,  syntactic  constructions,  and  other 
linguistic  forms  that  we  assimilate  in  [125]  childhood  have  only  value 
in  so  far  as  society  has  tacitly  agreed  to  see  them  as  symbols  of  refer- 
ence. For  this  reason  language  is  an  unusually  favorable  domain  for  the 
study  of  the  general  tendency  of  cultural  behavior  to  work  out  all  sorts 
of  formal  elaborations  that  have  only  a  secondary,  and,  as  it  were,  "after 
the  event"  relevance  to  functional  needs.  Purely  functional  explanations 
of  language,  if  valid,  would  lead  us  to  expect  either  a  far  greater  unifor- 
mity in  linguistic  expression  than  we  actually  find,  or  should  lead  us  to 
discover  strict  relations  of  a  functional  nature  between  a  particular  form 
of  language  and  the  culture  of  the  people  using  it.  Neither  of  these 
expectations  is  fulfilled  by  the  facts.  Whatever  may  be  true  of  other 
types  of  cultural  behavior,  we  can  safely  say  that  the  forms  of  speech 
developed  in  the  different  parts  of  the  world  are  at  once  free  and  neces- 
sary, in  the  sense  in  which  all  artistic  productions  are  free  and  necessary. 
Linguistic  forms  as  we  find  them  bear  only  the  loosest  relation  to  the 
cultural  needs  of  a  given  society,  but  they  have  the  very  tightest  consis- 
tency as  aesthetic  products. 

A  very  simple  example  of  the  justice  of  these  remarks  is  afforded  by 
the  English  plural.  To  most  of  us  who  speak  English  the  tangible  expres- 
sion of  the  plural  idea  in  the  noun  seems  to  be  a  self-evident  necessity. 
Careful  observation  of  English  usage,  however,  leads  to  the  conviction 
that  this  self-evident  necessity  of  expression  is  more  of  an  illusion  than 
a  reality.  If  the  plural  were  to  be  understood  [126]  functionally  alone, 
we  should  find  it  difficult  to  explain  why  we  use  plural  forms  with 
numerals  and  other  words  that  in  themselves  imply  plurality.  "Five 
man"  or  "several  house"  would  be  just  as  adequate  as  "five  men"  or 


One:  Cu/lurc.  Sucictv.  ami  the  liulnutiuil  163 

"several  houses."  Cleaiis.  what  has  happened  is  ihai  I  iiglish.  hkc  all  o\ 
the  other  Indo-European  languages,  has  developed  a  feeling  for  ihe 
classification  of  all  expressions  which  have  a  nominal  form  mio  singu- 
lars and  plurals.  So  much  is  this  ihc  case  that  in  the  earl>  per  U)d  i)f  ihe 
history  of  our  linguistic  famil\  c\cn  ihc  adjective,  which  is  nominal  in 
form,  is  unusable  except  in  conjimcliDn  with  ihc  categt>ry  o{  number. 
In  many  of  the  languages  of  the  group  tins  habii  still  persists.  Such 
notions  as  "white"  or  "long"  are  incapable  o'(  expressit)n  in  Irench  or 
Russian  without  formal  commitments  on  the  score  of  whether  the  qual- 
ity is  predicated  of  one  or  several  persons  or  objects.  Now  it  is  not 
denied  that  the  expression  of  the  concept  of  plurality  is  useful.  Indeed, 
a  language  that  is  forever  incapable  of  making  the  difference  betucen 
the  one  and  the  many  is  obviously  to  that  extent  hampered  in  its  tech- 
nique of  expression.  But  we  must  emphatically  deny  that  this  particular 
kind  of  expression  need  ever  develop  into  the  complex  formal  system 
of  number  definition  that  we  are  familiar  with.  In  many  other  linguistic 
groups  the  concept  of  number  belongs  to  the  group  o^  optionally  ex- 
pressible notions.  In  Chinese,  for  instance,  the  word  "man"  ma>  be 
interpreted  as  the  English  equivalent  of  either  "man"  o\-  "men.'"  accord- 
ing to  the  [127]  particular  context  in  which  the  word  is  used.  It  is  to  be 
carefully  noted,  however,  that  this  formal  ambiguity  is  never  a  func- 
tional one.  Terms  of  inherent  plurality,  such  as  "five,"  "all,"  or  "sev- 
eral," or  of  inherent  singularity,  such  as  "one"  or  "m\"  in  the  phrase 
"my  wife,"  can  always  be  counted  upon  to  render  factually  clear  what 
is  formally  left  to  the  imagination.  If  the  ambiguity  persists,  it  is  a  useful 
one  or  one  that  does  not  matter.  How  little  the  expression  o\'  mir  con- 
cept of  number  is  left  to  the  practical  exigencies  o\'  a  particular  case, 
how  much  it  is  a  matter  of  consistency  of  aesthetic  treatment,  will  be 
obvious  from  such  examples  as  the  editorial  "we  are  in  favor  of  prohibi- 
tion," when  what  is  really  meant  is  "I,  John  Smith,  am  m  fa\i>r  of 
prohibition." 

A  complete  survey  of  the  methods  o\'  handling  the  category  ol 
number  in  the  languages  of  the  world  would  reveal  an  astonishing  vari- 
ety of  treatment.  In  some  languages  number  is  a  necessary  and  well- 
developed  category.  In  others  it  is  an  accessory  or  optional  one.  In  Mill 
others,  it  can  hardly  be  considered  as  a  granunatical  category  at  all  bul 
is  left  entirely  to  the  implications  o\'  vocabulary  and  syntax,  Nmv  ihc 
interesting  thing  psychologically  about  this  variety  of  forms  is  this,  thai 
while  everyone  may  learn  to  see  the  need  of  distinguishing  the  one  from 
the  many  and  has  some  sort  o^  notion  that  Ins  language  more  or  less 


164  ///  Culture 

adequately  provides  for  this  necessity,  only  a  very  competent  philologist 
has  any  notion  of  the  true  formal  outlines  of  the  expression  of  plurality, 
of  [128]  whether,  for  instance,  it  constitutes  a  category  comparable  to 
that  of  gender  or  case,  whether  or  not  it  is  separable  from  the  expression 
of  gender,  whether  it  is  a  strictly  nominal  category  or  a  verbal  one  or 
both,  whether  it  is  used  as  a  level  for  syntactic  expression,  and  so  on. 
Here  are  found  determinations  of  a  bewildering  variety,  concerning 
which  few  even  among  the  sophisticated  have  any  clarity,  though  the 
lowliest  peasant  or  savage  head-hunter  may  have  control  of  them  in  his 
intuitive  repertoire. 

So  great  are  the  possibilities  of  linguistic  patterning  that  the  lan- 
guages actually  known  seem  to  present  the  whole  gamut  of  possible 
forms.  We  have  extremely  analytic  types  of  speech,  such  as  Chinese,  in 
which  the  formal  unit  of  discourse,  the  word,  expresses  nothing  in  itself 
but  a  single  notion  of  thing  or  quality  or  activity  or  else  some  relational 
nuance.  At  the  other  extreme  are  the  incredibly  complex  languages  of 
many  American  Indian  tribes,  languages  of  the  so-called  polysynthetic 
type,  in  which  the  same  formal  unit,  the  word,  is  a  sentence  microcosm 
full  of  delicate  formal  elaborations  of  the  most  specialized  type.  Let  one 
example  do  for  many.  Anyone  who  is  brought  up  in  English,  even  if  he 
has  had  the  benefit  of  some  familiarity  with  the  classical  languages,  will 
take  it  for  granted  that  in  such  a  sentence  as  "Shall  I  have  the  people 
move  across  the  river  to  the  east?"  there  is  rather  little  elbow  room  for 
varieties  of  formal  expression.  It  would  not  easily  occur  to  us,  for  in- 
stance, that  the  notion  of  "to  the  east"  might  be  [129]  conveyed  not  by 
an  independent  word  or  phrase  but  by  a  mere  suffix  in  a  complex  verb. 

There  is  a  rather  obscure  Indian  language  in  northern  California, 
Yana,  which  not  only  can  express  this  thought  in  a  single  word,  but 
would  find  it  difficult  to  express  it  in  any  other  way.  The  form  of  expres- 
sion which  is  peculiar  to  Yana  may  be  roughly  analyzed  as  follows.  The 
first  element  in  the  verb  complex  indicates  the  notion  of  several  people 
living  together  or  moving  as  a  group  from  place  to  place.  This  element, 
which  we  may  call  the  "verb  stem,"  can  only  occur  at  the  beginning  of 
the  verb,  never  in  any  other  position.  The  second  element  in  the  com- 
plete word  indicates  the  notion  of  crossing  a  stream  or  of  moving  from 
one  side  of  an  area  to  the  other.  It  is  in  no  sense  an  independent  word, 
but  can  only  be  used  as  an  element  attached  to  a  verb  stem  or  to  other 
elements  which  have  themselves  been  attached  to  the  verb  stem.  The 
third  element  in  the  word  is  similarly  suffixed  and  conveys  the  notion 
of  movement  toward  the  east.  It  is  one  of  a  set  of  eight  elements  which 


One    Culture.  Society,  und  the  liulnuluitl  iO> 

convey  the  respective  noiit)ns  of  nu)\ciiicnl  toward  the  east,  south,  west. 
and  north.  None  o{  these  elements  is  an  nilelhyible  word  \\\  iisell  but 
receives  meaning  only  in  so  far  as  it  falls  into  iis  proper  place  in  the 
complexly  organized  verb.  The  foLirlh  element  is  a  siitllx  thai  indicates 
the  relation  of  causalit\.  thai  is,  of  causing  o\\\:  lo  i\o  or  be  something, 
bringing  it  about  that  one  does  or  is  in  a  certain  way,  treating  one  in 
such  [130]  and  such  an  indicated  manner.  At  this  point  the  language 
indulges  in  a  rather  pretty  piece  o^  formal  play.  The  vowel  o{  the  verb 
stem  which  we  spoke  of  as  occupying  the  fust  position  in  the  verb 
symbolized  the  intransitive  or  static  mode  of  apprehension  o\'  the  act. 
As  soon  as  the  causative  notion  is  introduced,  however,  the  \erb  stem 
is  compelled  to  pass  to  the  category  of  transitivized  or  active  noiu>ns. 
which  means  that  the  causative  sulTix,  in  spite  of  the  parenthetical  inclu- 
sion of  certain  notions  of  direction  of  movement,  has  ihe  retroactive 
effect  of  changing  the  vowel  of  the  stem.  Up  to  this  point,  therefore,  we 
get  a  perfectly  unified  complex  of  notions  which  may  be  rendered  "'to 
cause  a  group  to  move  across  a  stream  in  an  easterly  direction." 

But  this  is  not  yet  a  word,  at  least  not  a  word  in  the  finished  sense 
of  the  term,  tor  the  elements  that  are  still  to  follow  have  just  as  liiile 
independent  existence  as  those  we  have  aliead\  referred  to.  Of  the  more 
formal  elements  that  are  needed  to  complete  the  word,  the  first  is  a 
tense  sutTix  referring  to  the  future.  This  is  followed  by  a  pronominal 
element  which  refers  to  the  first  person  singular,  and  is  ditferenl  in  form 
from  the  suffixed  pronoun  used  in  other  tenses  and  nuulalilies.  FinalK. 
there  is  an  element  consisting  of  a  single  consonant  which  indicates 
that  the  whole  word,  which  is  a  complete  proposition  in  itself,  is  to  be 
understood  in  the  interrogative  sense.  Here  again  the  language  il- 
lustrates an  interesting  kind  of  specialization  of  form.  Nearly  all  words 
of  the  language  [131]  differ  slightly  in  form  according  to  whether  ihc 
speaker  is  a  man  speaking  to  a  man  or,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  wi>man 
or  is  a  man  speaking  to  a  woman,  the  interrogative  form  that  we  have 
just  discussed  can  only  be  used  by  a  man  speaking  to  a  man.  In  the 
other  three  cases  the  suffix  in  question  is  not  used,  but  the  last  vowel 
of  the  word,  which  in  this  particular  case  happens  to  be  the  final  Nowel 
of  the  pronominal  suffix,  is  lengthened  in  order  to  express  the  interroga- 
tive modality. 

We  are  not  in  the  least  interested  in  the  details  o\  this  .uminms.  «'ui 
some  of  its  implications  should  interest  us.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  bear  in  mind  that  there  is  nothing  arbitrary  or  atxidcntal  or 
even  curious  about  the  slruclurc  o\'  (his  word    f-\er\  element  tails  into 


166  ///  Culture 

its  proper  place  in  accordance  with  definitely  formulable  rules  which 
can  be  discovered  by  the  investigator  but  of  which  the  speakers  them- 
selves have  no  more  conscious  knowledge  than  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
moon.  It  is  possible  to  say,  for  instance,  that  the  verb  stem  is  a  particu- 
lar example  of  a  large  number  of  elements  which  belong  to  the  same 
general  class,  such  as  "to  sit,"  "to  walk,"  "to  run,"  "to  jump,"  and  so 
on;  or  that  the  element  which  expresses  the  idea  of  crossing  from  one 
side  to  another  is  a  particular  example  of  a  large  class  of  local  elements 
of  parallel  function,  such  as  "to  the  next  house,"  "up  the  hill,"  "into  a 
hollow,"  "over  the  crest,"  "down  hill,"  "under,"  "over,"  "in  the  middle 
of,"  "off,"  "hither,"  and  so  on.  We  may  quite  [132]  safely  assume  that 
no  Yana  Indian  ever  had  the  slightest  knowledge  of  classifications  such 
as  these  or  ever  possessed  even  an  inkling  of  the  fact  that  his  language 
neatly  symbolized  classifications  of  this  sort  by  means  of  its  phonetic 
apparatus  and  by  rigid  rules  of  sequence  and  cohesion  or  formal  ele- 
ments. Yet  all  the  while  we  may  be  perfectly  certain  that  the  relations 
which  give  the  elements  of  the  language  their  significance  were  some- 
how felt  and  adhered  to.  A  mistake  in  the  vowel  of  the  first  syllable, 
for  instance,  would  undoubtedly  feel  to  a  native  speaker  like  a  self- 
contradictory  form  in  Enghsh,  for  instance  "five  house"  instead  of  "five 
houses"  or  "they  runs"  instead  of  "they  run."  Mistakes  of  this  sort 
are  resisted  as  any  aesthetic  transgression  might  be  resisted  -  as  being 
somehow  incongruous,  out  of  the  picture,  or,  if  one  chooses  to  rational- 
ize the  resistance,  as  inherently  illogical. 

The  unconscious  patterning  of  linguistic  conduct  is  discoverable  not 
only  in  the  significant  forms  of  language  but,  just  as  surely,  in  the  sev- 
eral materials  out  of  which  language  is  built,  namely  the  vowels  and 
consonants,  the  changes  of  stress  and  quantity,  and  the  fleeting  inton- 
ations of  speech.  It  is  quite  an  illusion  to  believe  that  the  sounds  and 
the  sound  dynamics  of  language  can  be  sufficiently  defined  by  more  or 
less  detailed  statements  of  how  the  speech  articulations  are  managed  in 
a  neurological  or  muscular  sense.  Every  language  has  a  phonetic  scheme 
in  which  a  given  sound  or  a  given  dynamic  treatment  of  a  [133]  sound 
has  a  definite  configured  place  in  reference  to  all  the  other  sounds  recog- 
nized by  the  language.  The  single  sound,  in  other  words,  is  in  no  sense 
identical  with  an  articulation  or  with  the  perception  of  an  articulation. 
It  is,  rather,  a  point  in  a  pattern,  precisely  as  a  tone  in  a  given  musical 
tradition  is  a  point  in  a  pattern  which  includes  the  whole  range  of  aes- 
thetically possible  tones.  Two  given  tones  may  be  physically  distin- 
guished but  aesthetically  identical  because  each  is  heard  or  understood 


One:  Culture.  Society.  <///</ //;c  Indnulunl  167 

as  occupying  the  same  formal  position  in  the  total  set  o\'  rccogni/cd 
tones.  In  a  musical  tradition  which  does  not  recognize  chromatic  m- 
tervals  "C  sharp"  would  have  to  be  identitled  with  "c"  and  would  he- 
considered  as  a  mere  deviation,  pleasant  or  unpleasant,  from  '*C"."  In 
our  own  musical  tradition  the  dirrcrencc  between  "C""  and  "C  sharp"  is 
crucial  to  an  understanding  of  all  oiii  music,  and,  b\  unconscious  pro- 
jection, to  a  certain  way  o'i  misunderstanding  all  other  music  buih  on 
different  principles.  In  still  other  musical  traditions  there  are  recognized 
still  finer  intervalic  differences,  none  of  which  quite  corresponds  to  our 
semitone  interval.  In  these  three  cases  it  is  obvious  that  ni>ihing  can  be 
said  as  to  the  cultural  and  aesthetic  status  of  a  gi\en  tone  in  a  song 
unless  we  know  or  feel  against  what  sort  o\^  general  tonal  background 
it  is  to  be  interpreted. 

It  is  precisely  so  with  the  sounds  of  speech.  From  a  purely  objective 
standpoint  the  difference  between  the  A'  of  "kill"  and  the  k  of  "skill"  is 
as  easily  [134]  definable  as  the,  to  us,  major  difference  between  the  k  of 
"kill"  and  the  g  of  "gill"  (of  a  fish).  In  some  languages  the  i:  smmd  of 
"gill"  would  be  looked  upon,  or  rather  would  be  iiuuitnely  interpreted, 
as  a  comparatively  unimportant  or  individual  divergence  from  a  sound 
typically  represented  by  the  k  of  "skill."  while  the  k  o\'  "kill."  with  Ms 
greater  strength  of  articulation  and  its  audible  breath  release,  would 
constitute  an  utterly  distinct  phonetic  entity.  Obviously  the  two  disiuici 
k  sounds  of  such  a  language  and  the  two  wa\s  o\'  pronouncing  the  k  m 
English,  while  objectively  comparable  and  even  identical  phenomena, 
are  from  the  point  of  view  of  patterning  utterly  dilTerent.  Hundreds  of 
interesting  and,  at  first  blush,  strangely  paradoxical  examples  o\  this 
sort  could  be  given,  but  the  subject  is  perhaps  too  lechmcal  for  treat- 
ment in  this  paper. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  no  normal  speaker  has  an  adequate  kni>\sl- 
edge  of  these  submerged  sound  configurations.  He  is  the  unconscious 
and  magnificently  loyal  adherent  of  thoroughly  socialized  phonetic  pal- 
terns,  which  are  simple  and  self-evident  in  daiiv  practice,  but  subtly 
involved  and  historically  determined  in  actual  fact.  Owing  to  the  ncvcs- 
sity  of  thinking  of  speech  habits  not  merely  in  overt  terms  but  as  involv- 
ing the  setting  up  of  intuitively  mastered  relations  in  suitable  contexts. 
we  need  not  be  surprised  that  an  articulatorv  habit  which  is  perfectly 
feasible  in  one  set  of  relations  becomes  subjectivelv  impi>ssiblc  when  the 
pattern  in  which  it  is  to  be  fitted  is  changed.  (I.V>|  Ihus.  an  l.nghsh- 
speaking  person  who  is  utterly  unable  to  pronounce  a  I-rench  nas«ilizcd 
vowel  may  nevertheless  be  quite  able  to  execute  the  necessar>'  articula- 


168  ///   Culture 

tion  in  another  context,  such  as  the  imitation  of  snoring  or  of  the  sound 
of  some  wild  animal.  Again,  the  Frenchman  or  German  who  cannot 
pronounce  the  "wh"  of  our  American-English  "why"  can  easily  produce 
the  same  sound  when  he  gently  blows  out  a  candle.  It  is  obviously 
correct  to  say  that  the  acts  illustrated  in  these  cases  can  only  be  under- 
stood as  they  are  fitted  into  definite  cultural  patterns  concerning  the 
form  and  mechanics  of  which  the  normal  individual  has  no  adequate 
knowledge. 

We  may  summarize  our  interpretation  of  these,  and  thousands  of 
other,  examples  of  language  behavior  by  saying  that  in  each  case  an 
unconscious  control  of  very  complicated  configurations  or  formal  sets 
is  individually  acquired  by  processes  which  it  is  the  business  of  the 
psychologist  to  try  to  understand  but  that,  in  spite  of  the  enormously 
varied  psychological  predispositions  and  types  of  conditioning  which 
characterize  different  personalities,  these  patterns  in  their  completed 
form  differ  only  infinitesimally  from  individual  to  individual,  in  many 
cases  from  generation  to  generation.  And  yet  these  forms  lie  entirely 
outside  the  inherited  biological  tendencies  of  the  race  and  can  be  ex- 
plained only  in  strictly  social  terms.  In  the  simple  facts  of  language  we 
have  an  excellent  example  of  an  important  network  of  patterns  of  beha- 
vior, each  of  them  exceedingly  complex  and,  [136]  to  a  large  extent,  only 
vaguely  definable  functions,  which  is  preserved  and  transmitted  with  a 
minimum  of  consciousness.  The  forms  of  speech  so  transmitted  seem  as 
necessary  as  the  simplest  reflexes  of  the  organism.  So  powerfully,  in- 
deed, are  we  in  the  grip  of  our  phonetic  habits  that  it  becomes  one  of 
the  most  delicate  and  difficult  tasks  of  the  linguistic  student  to  discover 
what  is  the  true  configuration  of  sounds  in  languages  alien  to  his  own. 
This  means  that  the  average  person  unconsciously  interprets  the  pho- 
netic material  of  other  languages  in  terms  imposed  upon  him  by  the 
habits  of  his  own  language.  Thus,  the  naive  Frenchman  confounds  the 
two  sounds  "s"  of  "sick"  and  "th"  of  "thick"  in  a  single  pattern  point 
—  not  because  he  is  really  unable  to  hear  the  difference,  but  because  the 
setting  up  of  such  a  difference  disturbs  his  feeling  for  the  necessary 
configuration  of  Hnguistic  sounds.  It  is  as  though  an  observer  from 
Mars,  knowing  nothing  of  the  custom  we  call  war,  were  intuitively  led 
to  confound  a  punishable  murder  with  a  thoroughly  legal  and  noble  act 
of  killing  in  the  course  of  battle.  The  mechanism  of  projection  of  pat- 
terns is  as  evident  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other. 

Not  all  forms  of  cultural  behavior  so  well  illustrate  the  mechanics  of 
unconscious  patterning  as  does  Hnguistic  behavior,  but  there  are  few,  if 


One:  Culture.  Soiiciv.  ciml  ilu   Individual  16V 

any,  types  of  cultural  behavior  which  do  not  illusirale  it.  Functional 
considerations  o^  all  kinds,  leading  \o  a  greater  degree  of  conscious 
control,  or  apparent  control,  o{  the  patterns  o\'  behavior,  lend  to  ob- 
scure the  unconscious  [137]  nature  o\'  ihc  patterns  themselves,  bul  ihc 
more  carefully  we  study  cultural  behavior,  the  mtue  thoroughly  we  be- 
come convinced  that  the  ditTerences  are  but  differences  of  degree.  A 
very  good  example  of  another  Held  for  the  de\elopmenl  of  unconscious 
cultural  patterns  is  that  of  gesture.  Gestures  are  hard  to  classify  and  it 
is  ditficult  to  make  a  conscious  separation  between  that  in  gesture  which 
is  o^  merely  individual  origin  and  that  which  is  referable  to  the  habils 
of  the  group  as  a  whole.  In  spite  of  these  difficulties  of  conscious  analy- 
sis, we  respond  to  gestures  with  an  extreme  alertness  and,  one  might 
almost  say.  in  accordance  with  an  elaborate  and  secret  code  that  is 
written  nowhere,  known  by  none,  and  understood  by  all.  Hut  this  code 
is  by  no  means  referable  to  simple  organic  responses.  On  the  contrary, 
it  is  as  finely  certain  and  artificial,  as  definitel>  a  creation  o{  social 
tradition,  as  language  or  religion  or  industrial  technology.  Like  every- 
thing else  in  human  conduct,  gesture  roots  in  the  reactive  necessities  of 
the  organism,  but  the  laws  of  gesture,  the  unw  ritten  ^o^\c  o\'  gestured 
messages  and  responses,  is  the  anonymous  work  of  an  elaborate  social 
tradition.  Whoever  doubts  this  may  soon  become  convinced  when  he 
penetrates  into  the  significance  of  gesture  patterns  o'i  other  societies 
than  his  own.  A  Jewish  or  Italian  shrug  of  the  shoulders  is  no  more  the 
same  pattern  of  behavior  as  the  shrug  o'i  a  typical  .American  th.in  the 
forms  and  significant  evocations  of  the  \'iddish  or  Italian  sentence  are 
identical  with  those  of  any  thinkable  English  [I3S|  sentence.  Ihe  ditTer- 
ences are  not  to  be  referred  to  supposedly  deep-seated  racial  ditlerences 
of  a  biological  sort.  They  lie  in  the  unconsciousls  apprehended  builds 
of  the  respective  social  patterns  which  include  ihem  and  out  ol  which 
they  have  been  abstracted  for  an  essentially  artificial  comparison.  .A 
certain  immobility  o\^  countenance  in  New  ^'ork  or  Chicago  may  be 
interpreted  as  a  masterly  example  o\'  the  art  o{  wearing  a  poker  face. 
but  when  worn  by  a  perfectly  average  inhabitant  o\  Iok>o.  ii  ma>  be 
explainable  as  nothing  more  interesting  or  important  than  the  simplest 
and  most  obvious  of  good  manners.  It  is  the  failure  to  understand  the 
relativity  of  gesture  and  posture,  the  degree  to  which  these  classes  ol 
behavior  are  referable  to  social  patterns  which  transcend  merel>  indiM- 
dual  psychological  significances,  which  makes  it  so  easy  for  us  lo  find 
individual  indices  of  personality  where  ii  is  onl\  the  alien  culture  that 
speaks. 


170  ///  Culture 

In  the  economic  life  of  a  people,  too,  we  are  constantly  forced  to 
recognize  the  pervasive  influence  of  patterns  which  stand  in  no  immedi- 
ate relation  to  the  needs  of  the  organism  and  which  are  by  no  means  to 
be  taken  for  granted  in  a  general  philosophy  of  economic  conduct  but 
which  must  be  fitted  into  the  framework  of  social  forms  characteristic 
of  a  given  society.  There  is  not  only  an  unconscious  patterning  of  the 
types  of  endeavor  that  are  classed  as  economic,  there  is  even  such  a 
thing  as  a  characteristic  patterning  of  economic  motive.  Thus,  the 
acquirement  of  [139]  wealth  is  not  to  be  lightly  taken  for  granted  as  one 
of  the  basic  drives  of  human  beings.  One  accumulates  property,  one 
defers  the  immediate  enjoyment  of  wealth,  only  in  so  far  as  society  sets 
the  pace  for  these  activities  and  inhibitions.  Many  primitive  societies 
are  quite  innocent  of  an  understanding  of  the  accumulation  of  wealth 
in  our  sense  of  the  phrase.  Even  where  there  is  a  definite  feeling  that 
wealth  should  be  accumulated,  the  motives  which  are  responsible  for 
the  practice  and  which  give  definite  form  to  the  methods  of  acquiring 
wealth  are  often  signally  different  from  such  as  we  can  readily  under- 
stand. 

The  West  Coast  Indians  of  British  Columbia  have  often  been  quoted 
as  a  primitive  society  that  has  developed  a  philosophy  of  wealth  which 
is  somewhat  comparable  to  our  own,  with  its  emphasis  on  "conspicuous 
waste"  and  on  the  sacrosanct  character  of  property.  The  comparison  is 
not  essentially  sound.  The  West  Coast  Indian  does  not  handle  wealth 
in  a  manner  which  we  can  recognize  as  our  own.  We  can  find  plenty  of 
analogies,  to  be  sure,  but  they  are  more  likely  to  be  misleading  than 
helpful.  No  West  Coast  Indian,  so  far  as  we  know,  ever  amassed  wealth 
as  an  individual  pure  and  simple,  with  the  expectation  of  disposing  of 
it  in  the  fullness  of  time  at  his  own  sweet  will.  This  is  a  dream  of  the 
modern  European  and  American  individualist,  and  it  is  a  dream  which 
not  only  brings  no  thrill  to  the  heart  of  the  West  Coast  Indian  but  is 
probably  almost  meaningless  to  him.  The  concepts  of  wealth  and  the 
display  of  honorific  [140]  privileges,  such  as  crests  and  dances  and  songs 
and  names,  which  have  been  inherited  from  legendary  ancestors,  are 
inseparable  among  these  Indians.  One  cannot  publicly  exhibit  such  a 
privilege  without  expending  wealth  in  connection  with  it.  Nor  is  there 
much  object  in  accumulating  wealth  except  to  reaffirm  privileges  al- 
ready possessed,  or,  in  the  spirit  of  a  parvenu,  to  imply  the  possession 
of  privileges  none  too  clearly  recognized  as  legitimate  by  one's  fellow 
tribesmen.  In  other  words,  wealth,  beyond  a  certain  point,  is  with  these 
people  much  more  a  token  of  status  than  it  is  a  tool  for  the  fulfillment 


One  Ciiliuir.  Socii'tv.  ami  the  huliviJiuil  17 1 

of  personal  desires.  We  may  go  so  far  :is  to  sa\  thai  among  ihc  W'csi 
Coast  Indians  it  is  not  the  individual  at  all  who  possesses  \seallh.  It  is 
priniaril)  the  ceremonial  patrimon\  of  which  he  is  the  lemporarN  custo- 
dian that  demands  the  symbolism  ol  wealth.  Arrived  al  a  certain  age. 
the  West  Coast  Indian  turns  his  privileges  over  to  those  who  are  bv  km 
or  marriage  connection  entitled  to  manipulate  them.  Hencelorth  he  may 
be  as  poor  as  a  church  mouse,  without  loss  o\'  prestige.  I  should  not 
like  to  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  the  concepts  o\'  wealth  among  ourselves 
and  among  the  West  Coast  Indians  are  utlcrlv  ditlerent  things.  Obvi- 
ously they  are  nothing  of  the  kind,  but  thev  are  measurably  distinct  and 
the  nature  of  the  difference  must  be  sought  in  the  tcnal  pattermng  ol 
life  in  the  two  communities  from  which  the  particular  pattern  of  wealth 
and  its  acquirement  has  been  extracted.  It  slunild  be  fairlv  clear  that 
where  the  patterns  of  manipulation  [141]  ol'  wealth  avc  as  dilTerent  as 
they  are  in  these  two  cases,  it  would  be  a  mere  exercise  o\'  the  academic 
imagination  to  interpret  the  economic  activities  of  one  society  in  terms 
oC  the  general  economy  which  has  been  abstracted  from  the  mode  of 
life  of  the  other. 

No  matter  where  we  turn  in  the  field  of  social  behavior,  men  and 
women  do  what  they  do,  and  cannot  help  but  do.  not  merel>  because 
they  are  built  thus  and  so,  or  possess  such  and  such  differences  o\'  per- 
sonality, or  must  needs  adapt  to  their  immediate  environment  in  such 
and  such  a  way  in  order  to  survive  at  all,  but  very  largely  because  they 
have  found  it  easiest  and  aesthetically  most  satisfactory  to  pattern  their 
conduct  in  accordance  with  more  or  less  clearlv  orgam/ed  forms  ot 
behavior  which  no  one  is  individually  responsible  for,  which  arc  not 
clearly  grasped  in  their  true  nature,  and  which  one  might  almost  say 
are  as  self-evidently  imputed  to  the  nature  ol'  things  as  the  three  dimen- 
sions are  imputed  to  space.  It  is  sometimes  necessarv  to  become  con- 
scious of  the  forms  of  social  behavior  in  order  to  bring  about  a  more 
serviceable  adaptation  to  changed  conditic>ns.  but  1  believe  it  can  be 
laid  down  as  a  principle  of  far-reaching  applicaiuMi  that  m  the  normal 
business  of  life  it  is  useless  and  even  nnschievous  for  the  individual  to 
carry  the  conscious  analysis  o\'  his  cultural  patterns  around  with  him. 
That  should  be  left  to  the  student  whose  business  it  is  to  understand 
these  patterns.  A  healthy  unconsciousness  of  the  forms  ol  v  d 

behavior  to  which  we  are  subject  is  as  necessary  to  (142)  stKki;  ..^  is 
the  mind's  ignorance,  or  better  unawareness.  o\'  the  workings  o(  the 
viscera  to  the  health  o\'  the  bod  v.  In  great  works  o\  the  imagination 
form  is  significant  onl>  in  so  far  as  we  feel  i>urselves  to  be  in  Us  gnp. 


172  ///  Culture 

It  is  unimpressive  when  divulged  in  the  expHcit  terms  of  this  or  that 
simple  or  complex  arrangement  of  known  elements.  So,  too,  in  social 
behavior,  it  is  not  the  overt  forms  that  rise  readily  to  the  surface  of 
attention  that  are  most  worth  our  while.  We  must  learn  to  take  joy  in 
the  larger  freedom  of  loyalty  to  thousands  of  subtle  patterns  of  behavior 
that  we  can  never  hope  to  understand  in  explicit  terms.  Complete  analy- 
sis and  the  conscious  control  that  comes  with  a  complete  analysis  are 
at  best  but  the  medicine  of  society,  not  its  food.  We  must  never  allow 
ourselves  to  substitute  the  starveling  calories  of  knowledge  for  the  meat 
and  bread  of  historical  experience.  This  historic  experience  may  be  theo- 
retically knowable,  but  it  dare  never  be  fully  known  in  the  conduct  of 
daily  life. 


Editorial  Notes 

Originally  published  in  Ethel  Dummer  (ed.).   The  Unconscious:  A 
Symposium  (New  York:  A.  A.  Knopf,  1928),  114-142. 


Note 

1.  His  influence  persisted  even  after  he  left  the  University  of  Chicago  in  1918. 


American  Psychiatric  Associalioii  II 
(1929,  published  1930) 

ProcccJini^s.  Second  Colloijuiwu  on  Personality  InvcMiiiuiion.  Held  under  the  Jmni  Aus- 
pices of  the  American  Psychiatric  Association  Commit  tee  on  the  Relations  oj  Psyihiulry 
and  the  Social  Sciences,  and  oj  the  Social  Science  Research  Council,  November  29-30. 
1929,  New  York  City.  Baltimore:  Johns  Hopkins  Press. 

The  second  A.  P.  A.  colloquium  on  personality  investigation,  held  in  November  1^2^. 
was  sponsored  jointly  with  the  Social  Science  Research  Council.  Seven  of  the  partici- 
pants had  been  present  at  the  first  colloquium.  Prior  to  the  meeting,  the  organi/ers  had 
asked  each  participant  to  submit  a  statement  explaining  his  conception  of'pcrsonahty." 
so  that  the  statements  could  be  mimeographed  and  distributed  to  all.  Participants  were 
also  requested  to  prepare  presentations  on  studies  the\  uere  now  conducting  that  re- 
lated to  personality,  and  to  mention  the  kinds  of  information  they  believed  other  in\es- 
tigations  might  supply  for  them.  In  addition,  they  provided  bibliographies  of  their  own 
publications  and  lists  of  recommended  readings  in  their  particular  fields. 

Unlike  the  colloquium  of  the  previous  year,  this  A.  P.  A.  meeting  was  dominated 
by  qualitative,  meaning-based  approaches  to  personality.  Although  representaiivcs  of 
quantitative,  nonsymbolic  approaches  in  psychology  were  present,  including  some  who 
(in  1928)  had  criticized  the  qualitative  perspective,  they  did  not  participate  on  an  equal 
footing.  The  table  of  contents  for  the  colloquium's  Proceedint^s  rellects  this  dispanl). 
showing  distinctive  entries  for  presentations  by  Sulli\an.  Sapir.  and  Lasswcll.  while 
other  participants  are  not  specially  singled  out. 

After  the  initial  discussion  of  participants"  current  projects.  Sulli\an  preNcntcd  a 
statement  on  schizophrenic  individuals  as  a  source  of  data  for  comparali\c  invc>liga- 
tion  of  personality.  Later  in  the  meeting  Sullivan,  Sapir,  and  Lasswcll  olTercd  propos,ils 
for  future  interdisciplinary  research.  Sullivan  again  led  otT.  with  his  brief  "'Propovil  lor 
research  in  personality  investigation  by  the  personality  document  (life  history)  mcihixl." 
This  was  followed  immediately  by  Sapir's  contribution,  "A  proposal  for  thrcc-lold  in- 
quiry into  personality."  Finally,  Lasswcll  spoke  on  the  training  o\  research  personnel. 
a  theme  Sapir  was  later  to  take  up  in  committee  meetings  o(  the  StKial  .Science  Revrarch 
Council. 

At  first,  the  colloquium  participants  seem  to  ha\e  looked  to  Sapir  \o  pro\idc  cxolic 
examples  from  "primitive  cultures"  as  "marginal  situations"  comparable  to  the  commu- 
nities formed  by  psychiatric  patients  and  (heir  aticiuiants  (p  AS).  Althi>ugh  Sapir  did 
offer  several  examples  of  cultural  settings  illustrating  dillerenl  en\ironmcnls  lot  |KrM»n- 
ality  adjustment,  his  research  proposal  argued  that  culture  as  such  was  ouJmJc  the 
purview  of  the  colloquium's  concerns.  To  studs  |XMsiMialil>  w.in  to  studs  n  '  '  'v 
culture  was  but  the  background  against  which  the  indnidual  apfvarcd    I!..  h 

he  advocated  emphasized  life  histories  of  specific  indniduals.  starting  wHh  conlcmpi>- 


174  ///   Culture 

rary  urban  America  and  "normal"  cases,  then  comparing  these  with  a  study  of  Ameri- 
can schizophrenics,  on  the  one  hand,  and  studies  of  individuals  in  other  societies,  on 
the  other. 

This  research  proposal  is  sketched  only  in  very  general  terms.  Sapir  himself  never 
actually  undertook  serious  research  of  this  type.  Although  he  had  experimented  with 
the  life  history  as  a  genre  for  presenting  ethnography  to  a  popular  audience  (1918i, 
1922y).  its  possible  role  as  the  focus  of  research  did  not  crystallize  for  him  until  after 
he  had  met  Sullivan.  By  the  1930's,  he  was  encouraging  students  to  work  along  these 
lines.  Walter  Dyk's  Son  of  Old  Man  Hat,  to  which  Sapir  contributed  a  Foreword 
{1938a).  became  an  anthropological  classic  of  the  genre. 

A  full  transcript  of  the  A.  P.  A.  meeting  was  published  in  1930.  We  reproduce  here 
only  those  portions  of  the  discussion  that  include  substantive  comments  by  Sapir 
(pp.  37-39,  48-54.  60-61,  64,  67,  84-87,  96-97,  122-27,  153),  with  a  digest  of  the 
remainder  to  provide  context.  A  few  queries  and  minor  comments  Sapir  addressed  to 
other  participants  are  omitted. 

Appended  to  the  transcript  of  the  colloquium  (as  Appendix  A)  are  the  participants' 
formulations  of  their  conceptions  of  personality,  submitted  before  the  meeting.  Sapir's 
contribution  recalls  his  brief  comments  at  the  A.  P.  A.  meeting  of  the  previous  year.  It 
was  later  to  be  further  developed  in  his  encyclopedia  article  on  "Personality"  and  in 
chapter  7  of  Vie  Psychology  of  Culture.  In  a  second  Appendix,  colloquium  participants 
provided  bibliographies  of  their  own  writings,  with  asterisks  indicating  those  works 
they  considered  to  be  most  relevant  to  the  problem  of  personality  investigation.  Sapir's 
bibliography  includes  most  of  his  substantive  academic  publications  in  anthropology 
and  linguistics  through  1929  (brief  contributions,  administrative  reports,  writings  on 
contemporary  literature,  and  reviews  are  omitted).  Our  summary  lists  the  marked  items 
by  date,  within  the  headings  Sapir  provided.  Finally,  a  third  Appendix  presented  a  set 
of  annotated  bibliographies  (a  "reading  list")  prepared  by  the  colloquium  participants. 
Sapir  contributed  most  of  the  bibliographic  entries  in  anthropology  and  linguistics.  A 
few  other  entries  in  those  categories,  such  as  the  entries  for  Sapir's  own  "Time  Perspec- 
tive" essay  and  his  book  Language,  were  offered  by  Sullivan  and  Thomas,  but  we  repro- 
duce only  the  ones  Sapir  himself  annotated. 

Colloquium  participants  quoted  or  mentioned  herein,  besides  Sapir,  include: 

Anderson,  John  E.  (Professor  of  Psychology  and  Director  of  the  Institute  of  Child 
Welfare,  University  of  Minnesota) 

Blatz,  William  A.  (psychologist.  University  of  Toronto;  member,  National  Commit- 
tee for  Mental  Hygiene,  Canada) 

Blumer,  Herbert  (Professor  of  Sociology,  University  of  Chicago) 

Burgess,  Ernest  W.  (Professor  of  Sociology,  University  of  Chicago) 

Casamajor,  Louis  (physician  and  psychiatrist,  Columbia  University) 

Field,  Henry  E.  (anthropologist.  University  of  New  Zealand) 

Frank,  Lawrence  K.  (educational  psychologist;  staff  member,  Laura  Spelman  Rocke- 
feller Memorial) 

Gesell,  Arnold  (clinical  psychologist;  Yale  Psycho-Clinic,  Yale  University) 

Healy,  William  (physician  and  psychologist;  Director,  Judge  Baker  Foundation,  Bos- 
ton) 

Kelley,  Truman  L.  (Professor  of  Education  and  Psychology,  Stanford  University) 

Lasswell,  Harold  (political  scientist,  University  of  Chicago) 


One   Culture.  Society,  mul  flw  InJi\iihuil  1"*; 

Levy,  David  (psychiatrist.  Institute  lor  Child  Ciuidancc) 
Lowrcy,  Lawson  G.  (psychiatrist.  Institute  lor  Child  Cjuidancc) 
May,  Mark  (Professor  of  Educational  Psychology,  >i'ale  l'nivcrsit\) 
l^lant,  James  S.  (psychiatrist,  Lssex  County  .lu\enile  Clinic) 
Slavvson,  John  S.  (social  psychologist,  Jewish  Welfare  foundation  of  Detroit) 
Sullivan,  Harry  Stack  (psychiatrist,  Sheppard  and  f-noch  Pratt  Hospiial.  Baltimore) 
Thomas,  Dorothy  S.  (sociologist.  Columbia  and  ^ale  Universities) 
Thomas,  William  I.  (sociologist,  ex-lecturer.  New  School  for  Social  Research.  New 
York  City) 

As  in  the  previous  year,  the  A.  P.  A.  was  represented  by  psychiatrists  White.  Sullivan. 
George  M.Kline,  Arthur  H.  Rugglcs.  and  CIKnd  Il;i\ihiiui  (replacing  lidward 
J.  KempO- 


William  A.  White  being  absent,  the  collocjuium  was  opened  by  another  A.  P  A  com- 
mittee member,  George  M.  Kline,  who  read  an  introductory  statement  nniling  interdis- 
ciplinary cooperation,  disparaging  disciplinary  "imperialism,"  and  highlighting  ihc  im- 
portance of  investigations  of  childhood  personality  dexelopment  and  socialization  I"hc 
remainder  of  the  meeting  was  jointly  chaired  b\  the  psychiatrist  JI.uia  Si.ick  Siilln.m 
and  the  political  scientist  Harold  D.  Lasswell. 

The  first  part  of  the  meeting  focused  on  reports  of  work  in  progress,  prcsciucd  h\ 
each  participant.  The  majority  of  the  projects  concerned  personality  de\elopmenl  in 
children  or  adolescents.  John  E.  Anderson.  Dorothy  Thomas,  and  Lawrence  K.  Frank 
each  reported  on  observations  of  children's  play  acti\  ities.  mainly  in  nurser>  sch«>ols. 
Frank's  report  also  emphasized  relationships  between  social  functioning  and  ph\ steal 
growth.  Louis  Casamajor,  Arnold  Gesell,  and  Lawson  G.  Lowrey  described  research 
in  clinical  settings,  while  William  Healy  reported  on  European  work,  especially  from 
researchers  he  had  visited  in  Germany  and  Switzerland.  Lowrey.  Heal\.  and  John 
S.  Slawson  were  particularly  concerned  with  deviant  or  pathological  personalilics,  as 
was  James  S.  Plant,  who  discussed  cultural  and  social-situational  factors  in  a  slud>  ol 
psychiatric  case-histories.  David  M.  Levy  described  studies  of  mothers"  inlliicncc  on 
children,  using  a  combination  of  methods.  Emphasizing  quantitative  melhinls  were  Tru- 
man L.  Kelley,  who  reported  on  the  development  of  testing  measures  for  various  cogni- 
tive abilities,  and  Mark  May,  who  discussed  questionnaire  studies  of  students  in  profes- 
sional graduate  schools. 

Projects  not  specially  focused  on  developmental  issues  included  those  reported  by 
Ernest  W.  Burgess  (a  sociologist  describing  criminology  research  in  Chicago).  Harold 
D.  Lasswell  (reporting  on  community  studies).  William  I.  'nu>mas  (dis^;. 
logical  study  comparing  behavior  problems  among  S\sedes  and  Itali.n  -     ^ 

Stack  Sullivan  (describing  his  experiences  with  adult  schizophrenics).  Sapir  s  npon  Icll 
in  this  group: 

SAPIR.  -  I  am  rather  an  outsider  in  many  respects  in  this  conference  The  partK-ubr 
problems  that  I  have  been  interested  in.  and  which  I  hope  to  continue  to  be  inlerotcd 
in,  are  in  the  field  of  speech.  The  experiments,  which  are  onl\  in  an  i  •   '  ■'.' 

at  present,  are  of  two  sorts.  One  of  them  has  grown  out  of  some  woi  •  f 

the  Institute  of  Juvenile  Research  in  C  hicago;  another  is  one  that  has  not  yet  been 


176  ///  Culture 

started  and  which  I  wish  to  say  a  word  about  a  Httle  later.  As  to  the  first  of  these,  I 
may  describe  it  as  constituting  a  study  of  individual  symbolism  in  the  domain  of 
speech. 

The  gist  of  this  type  of  work  is  reported  on  in  a  paper  entitled  "The  Study  of 
Symbolism,"  in  the  June,  1929  number  of  the  Journal  of  Experimental  Psychology.^ 
I  do  not  need  to  enlarge  upon  that  here,  but  I  should  like  to  read  a  few  extracts 
from  the  paper.  Before  doing  so  let  me  briefly  explain  the  sort  of  thoughts  that  I 
had  in  mind  when  I  instituted  this  somewhat  peculiar  experiment. 

I  have  wanted  to  find  some  sort  of  evidence  for  the  existence  of  preferential  re- 
sponses in  individuals  in  the  domain  of  word  investigation  aside  from  actual  social 
experience.  "Word  investigation''  sounds  somewhat  paradoxical;  it  is,  in  a  sense,  and 
yet  it  has,  I  think,  a  certain  significance  in  practice.  We  know  from  experience  that 
words  have  a  meaning  or  a  modicum  of  meaning  that  is  over  and  above  the  official 
meaning  that  attaches  to  the  word  in  actual  social  usage  and  that  comes  out  in  slight 
variations  of  emphasis  or  feeling-tone  or  what  not.  It  seemed  to  me  that  the  person- 
ality was  expressing  itself  in  all  individuals  in  these  increments  of  meaning  to  a 
certain  varying  extent  ditTicult  to  detect.  In  this  particular  set-up  I  tried  to  eliminate 
as  well  as  I  could  the  social  determinants  of  speech  and  to  remove  the  whole  problem 
to  an  artificial  context. 

"In  this  experiment,"  as  I  proceed  to  explain  in  the  paper,  "an  artificial  word  was 
taken  as  a  starting  point  and  assigned  an  arbitrary  meaning  by  either  the  investigator 
or  the  subject.  The  subject  was  asked  to  hold  on  to  this  arbitrary  meaning  and  to 
try  to  establish  as  firm  an  association  as  possible  between  the  imaginary  word  and 
its  given  meaning.  Some  phonetic  element  in  the  word,  a  vowel  or  a  consonant,  was 
then  changed  and  the  subject  asked  to  say  what  difference  of  meaning  seemed  natu- 
rally to  result.  The  answer  was  to  be  spontaneous,  unintellectualized. 

"The  process  was  kept  on  for  as  long  a  period  as  seemed  worth  while,  the  satura- 
tion point  of  meaningful  and  interested  responses  being  reached  very  soon  in  some 
cases,  very  late  in  others.  In  the  case  of  certain  individuals,  more  than  fifty  distinct 
words  were  found  to  build  up  a  constellated  system  in  which  the  meanings  were 
rather  obviously  the  results  of  certain  intuitively  felt  symbolic  relations  between  the 
varied  sounds.  In  the  case  of  other  individuals,  actual  word  associations  tended  to 
creep  in,  but  on  the  whole  there  was  surprisingly  little  evidence  of  this  factor.  The 
subjects  were  found  to  differ  a  great  deal  in  their  ability  to  hold  on  without  effort 
to  a  constellation  once  formed  and  to  fit  new  meanings  into  it  consistently  with  the 
symbolisms  expressed  in  previous  responses.  Some  would  give  identically  the  same 
responses  for  a  stimulus  word  that  had  been  -  so  it  was  claimed  -  forgotten  as 
such.  In  its  imaginary,  constellated  context  it  evoked  a  consistent  response.  Others 
lost  their  moorings  very  rapidly. 

"It  is  hoped  to  discuss  these  interesting  variations  of  sensitivity  to  sound  symbolism, 
/.  e.,  to  the  potential  meaningfulness  of  relations  in  sound  sets,  in  the  final  report  of 
these  investigations." 

These  response  groups  have,  I  am  convinced,  a  very  real  significance  from  the  stand- 
point of  personality.  We  can  probably  show  that  there  are  symbolic  sets  in  any  type 
of  behavior,  say  auditory,  visual,  or  kinaesthetic.  We  may  find  that  there  are  very 
striking  differences  in  individuals.  In  the  case  of  some  individuals,  for  instance,  we 
will  probably  find  that  self-developed  symbolism  sets  can  be  broken  up  very  rapidly 


One:  Cull  lire.  Socicly.  and  the  Iminidiuil  177 

and  adjusted  to  the  functional  needs  of  the  social  environment.  In  the  case  of  other 

individuals  we  might  have  what  may  be  termed  personal  constellati  ig 

that  can  be  eliminated  by  the  indi\idual  onl\  uiih  some  dillicult>.  ih  nj 

unconscious  before  he  adjusts  socially.  1  may  refer  to  a  particular  case  that  interested 
me.  One  of  the  subjects  from  whom  1  got  a  set  of  responses  had  the  reputation  of 
being  rather  unreasonable.  She  said  herself  that  the  reasons  for  things  olicn  seemed 
perfectly  clear  to  her  but  that  there  were  not  understood  by  others.  The  intcreMing 
thing  about  her  responses  was  that  they  were,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  cxtraordinarih 
"logical"  in  then  given  setting.  It  will  be  well  to  go  into  a  little  detail  m  regard  to 
them.  We  were  investigating  a  set  of  imaginary  words  beginning  with  a  certain  wurd 
for  which  she  gave  the  meaning  "eucalyptus  tree."  As  1  changed  certain  vowels  and 
consonants  in  this  word,  she  kept  on  to  the  idea  of  some  kind  of  tree,  but  as  the 
sound  changed,  the  tree  changed.  She  would  come  to  certain  points  m  the  scries 
where  she  would  say,  "1  don't  know  enough  about  botany  to  tell  you  what  this 
particular  tree  is,  but  I  can  see  it.  It  is  short  and  shady."  for  instance,  and  her 
response  would  fit  in  nicely  with  the  terms  and  meanings  which  preceded  and  fol- 
lowed. The  point  of  all  this  is  that  she  was  carrying  around  uiih  her  a  tendency  to 
systematization  of  symbols  regardless  of  overt  experience,  or.  at  least,  the  experience 
was  deeply  hidden  and  very  indirectly  related  to  its  symboli/ation.  lliere  were  plenty 
of  other  subjects,  however,  that  did  not  react  in  this  way  at  all.  Some  o\  them  could 
keep  the  symbol  sequence  up  for  only  two  or  three  responses.  It  seemed  to  me  that 
here  was  illustrated  a  very  interesting  dilTcrencc  in  indi\iduals  in  what  might  be 
called  the  tendency  to  constellate  symbolisms. 

This  is  a  type  of  experiment  that  we  might  carry  over  into  many  dilTercnt  realms 
of  sensory  behavior.  I  am  hoping,  with  the  help  of  some  of  our  graduate  studentN. 
to  go  on  with  this  type  of  work. 

The  second  type  of  research  in  which  I  shall  he  interested,  and  of  which  I  know  Intlc 
and  have  everything  to  learn,  is  the  personality  \alue  o\'  the  \oice  itself  I  esvised  a 
couple  of  years  ago  to  write  a  little  preliminary  statement  in  the  Atmriiun  Journal 
of  Sociology  on  this  matter  in  a  paper  entitled  "Speech  as  a  Personality  Trait."  In 
this  I  attempted  to  show  that  there  were  four  or  \'\\x  relatively  distinct  "layers  of 
expression"  in  speech,  starting  from  the  physiological  or  the  lar\ngeal  basis  up  to  a 
highly  socialized  strata,  such  as  facts  o\'  form  and  diction  in  the  actual  sentence,  and 
that  in  these  different  layers  one  expresses  certain  nune  or  less  s\mptomaiic  pcrv>n- 
ality  tendencies. 

We  are  hoping,  at  the  University  of  Chicago,  in  the  set-up  which  Dr  Lasswcll 
referred  to  this  morning,  to  install  a  device  for  the  exact  recording  of  speech,  v^hich 
can  then  be  studied  at  leisure  in  order  that  we  may  work  out  some  oi  the  more 
obvious  traits  of  personality  which  are  revealed  in  speech  Ilie  only  way  lo  do  ihts 
is  to  study  the  voice  apart  from  other  behavior  studies  and  then  later  lo  ir>  lo  check 
up  with  the  case  records  or  other  types  o'(  personalil>  studies  of  the  subiecls  t\s  a 
matter  of  fact,  we  react  to  speech  keenly  in  ordinary  life  It  is  pertcciK  .  ■  «i 

our  judgments  of  people  and  of  situations  are.  to  a  large  extent,  due  to  su^'  ,  '>• 

ena  as  tone  of  voice,  chronic  hesitation  in  speech,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  vokx  and 
speech  characters,  only  these  impressions  are  never  tornuilalcd  in  ^  ^ 

Indeed  our  vocabulary  for  peculiarities  o^  voice  and  for  ways  i>l  h.u  »» 

strangely  limited.  One  of  the  things  we  should  like  to  do  is  develop  such  a  vtKabulary 


178  ///   Culture 

on  the  basis  of  almost  microscopic  study  of  actual  speech  records.  As  I  say,  I  have 
no  results  at  all;  I  have  everything  to  learn. 

After  the  reports.  Chairman  Lasswell  called  for  discussion,  asking  Sapir  to  comment 
as  a  representative  of  anthropology: 

CHAIRMAN  LASSWELL.  -  So  far  this  discussion  has  summarized  the  projects 
on  which  everyone  is  engaged.  I  take  it  that  one  of  the  most  unique  and  valuable 
things  that  could  happen  in  a  conference  of  specialists  would  be  the  stimulation  of 
creative  fantasy.  What  are  the  opportunities  for  personality  study  which  are  left 
ungrasped?  What,  in  particular,  are  the  situations  which  offer  the  greatest  contrast 
to  those  with  which  we  are  most  famihar? 

Dr.  Sullivan  has  used  the  instance  of  the  community  formed  by  psychiatrist,  atten- 
dant, and  schizophrenic  patient  tor  the  purpose  of  suggesting  that  a  somewhat  ex- 
traordinary social  situation  might  reveal  factors  about  every  social  situation  which 
we  have  failed  to  see.  I  wonder  whether  it  would  be  possible  for  those  present  to 
detach  themselves  in  some  measure  from  their  preoccupations  with  the  details  of 
their  own  research  enterprises,  as  was  suggested  in  the  President's  opening  discus- 
sion, and  think  somewhat  at  large  about  the  kinds  of  marginal  situations  which  we 
would  like  to  be  able  to  study  or  to  have  studied  in  the  modern  world.  One  sees,  in 
this  group  Dr.  Sapir,  representing  those  who  study  primitive  cultures,  and  it  might 
be  advisable  (as  a  follow-up  to  Dr.  Sullivan's  suggestion)  to  ask  Dr.  Sapir  to  impro- 
vise at  some  length  about  the  situations  which  one  finds  in  certain  types  of  primitive 
societies,  and  which  would  seem  to  offer  special  possibilities  for  the  exposure  of 
some  neglected  aspects  of  social  relationships. 

I  wonder  if  Dr.  Sapir  is  in  a  position  to  indicate  some  of  these  possibilities,  placing 
them  side  by  side  with  the  suggestions  which  Dr.  Sullivan  made  for  the  study  of 
another  group  which  lives  in  a  world  of  unusual  presuppositions. 

SAPIR.  -  You  mean,  I  presume,  with  reference  to  our  basic  interest.  The  first  thing 
that  occurs  to  me  in  connection  with  a  study  of  primitive  society  -  the  major  interest 
being  personality  -  is  simply  this:  that  every  society  presents  the  individual  with 
well-developed  patterns  of  behavior,  entirely  conditioned  in  character,  that  either 
favor  or  do  not  favor  certain  of  his  innate  tendencies.  To  rephrase  this  somewhat 
awkward  statement,  I  do  not  think  that  it  is  quite  as  correct  as  it  is  often  assumed 
to  be  that  an  individual,  taken  at  random,  has  quite  the  same  chance  of  success  or 
failure  in  all  societies.  I  think  that  there  are  certain  preferential  differences  owing  to 
the  fact  that  characteristic  behavior  patterns  get  socialized  in  different  ways  in  dif- 
ferent societies. 

To  give  an  example  of  the  sort  of  thing  I  have  in  mind.  In  our  modern  American 
community  there  is  little  tendency  to  indulge  in  visions.  To  prophesy  out  of  a  spirit 
of  conviction  not  based  on  hard  facts  is  to  be  considered  pretty  much  of  a  loss  on 
the  whole.  One  would  have  to  indulge  in  one's  prophetic  fancies  in  some  very  indirect 
ways,  via  all  kinds  of  academic  techniques,  via  the  use  of  an  accredited  jargon  and 
all  that  sort  of  thing.  This  social  cramping,  necessary  in  our  society,  would  deprive 
the  expression  of  the  "visionary  tendency"  of  much  of  its  value  to  the  individual 
possessed  of  it.  But  there  are  a  good  many  primitive  societies  that  are  somewhat 
favorably  disposed  to  individuals  of  that  kind.  Such  individuals  could  more  easily 
be  made  to  fit  into  a  social  groove,  because  their  society  encourages,  rather  than 


One:  Culture.  Siniclv.  and  ilic  Imliviihuil  179 

discourages  a  man  possessed  dI"  "ihe  spinl."  otie  ulio  cm  look  mlo  ihc  future  and 

lead  others  on  to  important  t\pes  ot  activity.  lo  that  extent  the  ehanees  ol  ■ 

ing  v\ilh  his  society  and  developing  what  our  society  wi>uld  call  a  ps\.  c 

somewhat  less  than  they  would  be  among  ourselves.  We  might  say  that  the  potcnlial 

psychosis  is  capitalized  by  his  society  and  given  an  evaluated  name,  which  mak.cs 

such  an  individual  less  abnormal  in  his  social  environment  tlKiii  he  would  K-  sMih 

us. 

A  good  actual  example  ol"  this  sort  oi  thing  would  be  the  incidence  i>r  tiNslcrta 
among  the  Eskimo  and  some  of  the  peoples  o\'  Siberia.  The  calling  of  the  medicine- 
man is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  one  that  requires  the  abilit\  to  put  one's  self  into  a 
hysterical  trance.  Those  who  are  by  nature  pre-disposed  to  that  kind  of  conduct  have 
a  better  chance  of  being  significant  as  medicine-men  than  others.  In  other  words,  it 
would  seem  that  it  is  not  altogether  a  question  of  an  individual's  adjustment  to 
society  as  such;  it  is  not  altogether  a  matter  of  society's  standing  for  a  generalized 
act  of  human  values  which  either  make  or  break  the  individual.  That  is  looking  at 
the  question  of  adjustment  too  broadly.  It  is  a  question  of  one's  preferential  pattern 
of  expression  or  behavior  fitting  in  or  not  fitting  in  so  well  into  the  socialh  transmit- 
ted patterns  of  behavior. 

I  feel  very  strongly  that  the  type  of  work  that  Professor  Tliomas  has  m  mind  is 
eminently  worthy  of  prosecution  and  I  hope  that  he  will  have  a  great  measure  i»f 
success  in  working  out  the  social  ditTerentials  in  their  relation  to  the  development  of 
behavior  problems  in  the  individual.  I  believe  that  the  proper  adjustment  of  an  indi- 
vidual to  society  is  not  a  single  problem,  but  a  multiple  one.  depending  on  the  s«Kiety 
that  the  individual  is  brought  up  in. 

LASSWELL.  -  Is  it  true.  Dr.  Sapir.  that  in  certain  societies  vcni  find  that  individuals 
are  able  to  contribute  a  long  account  of  their  own  inner  experience  or  inner  life,  an 
autobiography;  while  in  other  societies  it  is  highly  improbable  that  the  individual 
can  contribute  an  introspective  account  of  his  experience'.' 

SAPIR.  -  Yes,  I  think  that  is  true.  We  find  that  there  are  some  societies  that  do  not 
value  the  purely  individual  experience  in  fantasy  or  speculation,  while  other  societies 
value  them  most  highly.  I  should  think  that  the  Pueblo  group,  for  instance,  would 
have  very  little  interest  in  the  private,  non-sociali/ed  dreams  or  mystic  re\elaiu>ns  i^( 
an  individual.  Public  rituals  would  carry  the  burden  of  mystic  meaning  for  the  group 
An  individual  who  interpolated  meanings  not  thcMoughly  in  conformitv  with  the 
tribal  ones  would  have  small  chance  of  being  a  significant  individual  But  with  an 
individualistic  and  autistic  type  of  society,  such  as  we  have  among  the  Plains  Indians. 
I  think  an  entirely  dilTerent  mode  of  social  reaction  is  to  be  expected. 

You  may  examine  the  history  of  certain  new  pn^phetic  .American  Indian  religion* 
-  the  Ghost  Dance  and  the  Peyote  cult.  Both  failed  to  interest  the  Puchli>  Indian* 
but  spread  like  wildfire  among  the  Plains  Indians.  In  the  case  of  the  Pueblo  Indian*. 
a  purely  individual  expression  could  not  readily  Kvome  spcciali/cd  because  there 
was  no  special  formula  of  value  attaching  to  individual  nnsiic  evpi-- 
in  the  latter  case  such  experience,  if  properly  presented  in  accordance  ^  d 

patterns  of  symbolism  and  enn)iion,  could  infiuence  the  fellowman  m  the  tribe.  Dixr* 
that  answer  your  question? 

LASSWELL.  -  The  point,  here,  seems  of  such  importance  that,  if  >ou  pcmiit.  I  will 
reformulate  my  questions:  It  seems  that  those  of  us  who  arc  engaged  in  eliciting  life 


180  ///  Culture 

stories  from  individuals  are  employing  a  technique  of  investigation  which  presup- 
poses certain  cultural  sets;  the  investigator  is  unaware  of  these  cultural  sets  and  so, 
of  their  etTects  on  the  results  that  he  obtains;  is  that  the  implication  of  what  you  are 
saying? 

SAPIR.  -  I  think  your  answer  will  depend  very  largely  on  the  kind  of  values  that 
are  peculiar  to  various  societies.  If  you  ask  the  successful  American  business  man  to 
give  an  account  of  his  life,  the  chances  are  he  will  tell  you  a  good  deal  about  his 
ambitions,  his  overt  failures  and  successes,  but  he  is  not  likely  to  bother  very  much 
about  certain  uneasy  spells  that  he  may  have  had  from  time  to  time,  though  they 
are  psychologically  significant,  because  he  would  consider  them  too  private  and  irrel- 
evant for  mention. 

ANDERSON.  -  If  you  took  the  unsuccessful  individual,  those  very  things  would 
become  the  prominent  part  of  the  story. 

SAPIR.  -  Yes. 

THOMAS.  -  Dr.  Sapir  referred  to  the  Arctic  sickness.  There  is  too,  a  similar  one 
among  the  Malays.  One  is  of  the  arctic  and  one  is  of  the  tropics.  Would  one  find  in 
the  two  situations  any  common  element  other  than  the  rigor  of  the  climates? 

I  was  asking  whether  there  is  a  predisposition  -  perhaps  climatic  -  in  those 
regions,  or  is  it  a  behavior  pattern  developed  by  some  incident  in  connection  with 
which  individuals  became  conspicuous  in  both  countries,  not  necessarily  on  the  basis 
of  the  same  behavior;  whether  it  is  a  socialization  of  an  occasional  form  of  behavior 
which  assumes  considerable  magnitude. 

SAPIR.  -  I  take  it  rather  for  granted  that  we  have  a  socialized  form  of  behavior  in 
both  cases.  I  should  always  consider  it  highly  probable  that  the  socialization  is  im- 
portant in  fixing  a  pattern  of  that  sort. 

THOMAS.  -  Those  reactions  are  quite  different  from  the  one  Dr.  Sullivan  was 
elaborating,  that  is,  running  amuck  and  killing  somebody.  Do  we  have  to  assume 
some  constitutional  base? 

SAPIR.  -  I  don't  imagine  for  one  minute  that  it  is  the  purely  constitutional  factor 
that  keeps  a  pattern  of  this  sort  going;  once  it  becomes  socialized,  it  may  be  perpetu- 
ated quite  aside  from  the  distribution  of  personality  traits.  I  shouldn't  imagine  that 
a  statistical  psychiatric  survey  would  show  very  many  more  hysterics  among  the 
Eskimos,  for  instance,  than  among  ourselves.  There  may  be  more,  but  the  real  point 
is  that  our  society  has  relatively  little  use  for  hysterics. 

THOMAS.-  Take  the  Crazy  Dog  society;  what  can  you  say  about  the  severity  of 
exaction  of  conformity  among  these  ethnological  groups  in  comparison  with  modern 
life?  Is  the  strain  greater  among  the  groups  that  you  worked  with? 

SAPIR.  -  That  is  rather  a  large  order.  I  don't  quite  see  how  we  are  going  to  measure 
the  strain  that  society  imposes  upon  us.  We  may  feel  ourselves  living  a  rather  soft 
and  contented  and  passive  life  and  yet  the  actual  strains  will  be  much  greater  than 
we  realize.  On  the  other  hand,  I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  even  these  excessive  demands, 
as  we  would  call  them,  are  felt  as  severe  by  the  Crazy  Dogs  of  the  Plains  Indians. 
Much  depends,  of  course,  on  the  social  background.  You  can  project  your  own  esti- 
mate of  strain  of  course. 

THOMAS.  -  If  it  is  not  felt  as  strain,  it  is  not  strain. 


One    Culnirc.  Sociclv.  uml  ilic  ImliMdiuil  181 

SAPIR.  '-  On  the  other  hand.  I  dtin't  think  it  is  quite  as  simple  as  that  either. 
because  undoubtedly  there  is  a  vers  definite  tendency  to  preserve  one's  life  ai  all 
costs.  There  must  be  a  strain  caused  by  the  threat  ol  death  under  set  siKial  condi- 
tions; otherwise  we  wouldn't  have  the  neurotic  and  psychotic  breakdown,  wc  do 
have  in  our  own  wars,  for  instance.  I  think,  by  the  way.  that  it  would  be  a  very 
interesting  thing  to  study  just  such  crisis  situations  among  primitive  peoples  from 
the  psychiatric  viewpoint. 

fOWFRY.  -  Do  I  understand  correctly  that  in  those  social  gri>ups  in  \*,\\w\\  there 
is  this  seeking  of  death,  there  is  a  strong  belief  that  in  that  way  the  individual  chiefs 
have  them  without  further  diUlculty,  so  to  speak'.'  Is  there  another  complex  system 
that  is  easily  submerged  completely  in  a  desire  to  drive  for  self-preservalion? 

SAPIR.  -  It  may  be  in  particular  cases. 

In  the  case  of  the  Crazy  Dogs  of  the  Plains,  I  am  sure  there  is  no  belief  in  happi- 
ness in  heaven  beyond  the  happiness  accorded  to  any  individual,  but  simpK  the 
feeling  of  loyalty  to  one's  comrade.  Perhaps  I  ought  to  explain  that  in  the  C'ra/y 
Dogs  fraternity  two  or  three  individuals  go  out  on  the  warpath,  risk  the  utmost  and 
vow  to  come  back  as  a  group  or  to  stay  behind  dead  as  a  group;  if  one  dies,  the 
other  one  or  two  have  to  die  as  well.  It  seems  to  me  that  before  you  can  estimate 
custom  of  that  kind  psychologically,  you  have  to  know  how  strong  is  the  underKing 
sentiment. 

LOWERY.  -  In  both  instances  however,  you  have  to  do  with  \ery  stnmg  emotional 
conditions,  which  easily  have  greater  value  than  the  single  \alue  oi  hie  itself 

SAPIR.  -  Certainly.  There  would  have  to  be  some  great  \alue  to  overcome  the  mere 
value  of  self-preservation. 

SULLIVAN.  —  Dr.  Sapir.  you  speak  of  this  formation  among  these  particular  Indi- 
ans, of  groups  of  two  and  three  who  are  sulTiciently  close  knit  that  a  sur\i\or  would 
prefer  death.  That  seems  to  me  significant  indeed  for  the  understanding  of  many 
phenomena  \\ith  which  I  deal.  As  it  has  appeared  to  me.  so  also  it  seems  from  some 
of  Dr.  Shaw's  studies  that  the  magnitude  o'(  intimate  social  groups  is  distinctly  lim- 
ited. I  wonder  if  it  would  not  be  valuable  to  ha\e  your  \  iews  as  to  just  what  consti- 
tutes these  groups:  by  that  I  mean  the  forces,  how  can  we  talk  about  that  which 
constitutes  these  groups  in  which  sur\i\al  oi  the  remaining  one  is  not  \\ox\\\  the 
trouble.  What  binds  them  together?  How  do  they  happen?  What  has  been  done  to 
investigate  that? 

SAPIR.  -  In  the  case  of  the  Plains  Indians.  I  think  the  social  background  is  compar- 
atively easy  to  understand.  The  man  becomes  a  man  o{  real  impitrtancc  insofar  as 
he  distinguishes  himself  in  war.  Tlie  greatest  \alue  that  the  Blackfoot  or  the  Sioux 
Indians  recognized  was  the  value  of  being  a  distinguished  warrior.  particularU  frv>m 
the  point  of  view  of  having  been  caught  in  danger,  whether  actually  escaping  from 
it  or  not.  It  is  rather  important  that  the  taking  of  a  scalp  isn't  realK  the  important 
thing  that  it  is  supposed  to  be.  among  these  Indians  at  least.  It  is  rather  ha\ing  been 
in  contact  with  a  live  enemy,  risking  a  very  great  danger.  The  so-called  touching  of 
the  enemy  with  a  coupstick  is  really  a  sign  oi  greater  honor  than  the  getting  o\  the 
scalp.  The  getting  of  the  scalp  might  mean  that  you  simply  scalped  a  slam  encnn 
There  is  no  particular  credit  in  that  as  compared  with  the  other.  That  is.  these  Indians 


182  III  Culture 

have  constructed  for  themselves  a  real  value  in  the  courting  of  danger,  regardless  of 
whether  they  individually  survive  or  not  in  the  pursuit  of  war. 

With  that  as  a  sort  of  obsessive  background,  and  with  constant  horse  raids  and 
other  military  expeditions  undertaken,  often,  by  just  a  handful  of  people  for  the  sake 
of  going  through  this  dangerous  process,  it  isn't  so  difficult  to  go  further  and  develop 
the  extreme  form  of  military  prowess  which  the  Crazy  Dogs  illustrate.  Of  course 
there  is  much  more  than  that  to  it. 

I  am  afraid  we  don't  know  enough  about  the  social  psychology  of  these  patterns 
of  behavior.  The  meaning  of  friendship  among  males,  for  instance,  is  a  thing  that 
suggests  itself  as  highly  important  in  this  society,  just  as  it  undoubtedly  was  in  the 
society  of  the  Spartans  and  among  some  of  the  feudal  classes  of  Japanese.  It  seems 
to  me  this  would  be  well  worth  looking  into. 

As  to  the  question  to  what  extent  the  primary  psychology  has  gone  out  of  the 
fixed  behavior  and  to  what  extent  it  is  being  revalidated  all  the  time  in  the  lives  of 
particular  individuals,  I  suspect  you  would  find  very  great  differences  as  you  went 
from  individual  to  individual.  Some  would  follow  the  pattern  very  blindly,  in  a  sense 
unemotionally  and  unintending,  others  would  realize  themselves  much  more  fully  in 
these  patterns.  It  is  the  same  story  that  we  find  illustrated  among  ourselves  in  reli- 
gion, for  instance.  We  are  all  given  the  opportunity,  as  it  were,  for  certain  typical 
kinds  of  religious  expression,  but  few  avail  themselves  significantly  of  these  opportu- 
nities. 

SULLIVAN.  -  Now  you  touch  upon  a  problem  which  seems  to  be  identical,  except 
in  matter  of  approach,  with  one  of  the  conspicuous  situations  in  the  psychiatry  of 
schizophrenia.  The  sort  of  rebuff  which  most  of  my  patients  seem  to  have  suffered 
is  in  that  very  field  of  affection  among  males.  They  have  not  been  able  to  establish 
the  little  group  that  they  felt,  for  a  reason  that  someone  might  tell  us,  they  should 
establish.  What  is  the  anthropologist's  approach  to  the  understanding  of  that  situa- 
tion in  American  culture,  let  us  say?  How  can  we  arrange  any  experiment  for  eluci- 
dating that  matter? 

SAPIR.  -  Possibly  the  psychiatrist  could  contribute  much  to  the  enrichment  of  the 
anthropologist's  study.  It  looks  almost  as  though  there  were  certain  types  of  human 
association  which  crave  certain  tokens  of  personal  intimacy,  and  as  though  there 
were  some  societies  that  granted  these  tokens  more  freely  than  others.  One  of  the 
very  distinctive  things  about  modem  American  culture  is  the  relative  difficulty  of 
establishing  highly  emotional  friendships  between  males,  and  between  females  for 
that  matter.  The  emphasis  is  rather  on  the  disruption  of  too  great  intimacies  of  these 
types.  But  where  society,  with  a  complete  distinction  of  the  roles  of  male  and  female, 
rather  favors  that  type  of  expression,  certain  individuals  at  least  are  provided  with 
an  outlet  that  perhaps  saves  them  from  the  schizophrenic  debauch,  it  is  perfectly 
possible. 

SULLIVAN.  -  In  turn  the  parallelism  increases  because  that  is  precisely  what  we 
do  in  the  mental  hospital.  We  lead  to  complete  distinction  of  the  roles  of  the  male 
and  female  and  try  to  set  up  groupings  between  intelligent  and  sensitive  employees 
and  psychotic  and  sensitive  patients  of  the  same  sex,  and  it  seems  to  be  remarkably 
successful  in  reducing  the  stress  and  strain  of  living,  and  thus  in  reducing  the  neces- 
sity for  psychotic  behavior. 


One:  Ciihwc.  Soviet  v.  mui  ihc  Imlivulual  1X3 

SAPIR.  -  I  may  mention  another  detail  in  reyanl  to  the  military  expeditions  of  ihc 
Plains  Indians.  It  was  necessary  lor  those  wht)  entered  on  an  expedition  to  confers 
all  sexual  irregularities.  Hone  o'(  the  lollowers  had  committed  adultery  with  the  xMfc 
of  the  leader,  he  would  have  to  admit  that  publicly,  and  no  redress  could  be  taken 
SULLIVAN.  -  In  the  mental  hospitals  we  again  parallel  these  more  or  less  primiinc 
people  in  that  while  there  is  not  any  public  confession,  one  ol  the  most  helpful  things 
about  treatment  is  the  acceptance  as  having  occurred  of  the  sort  of  ihmg  thai  your 
Indians  might  be  confessing.  In  other  words,  in  my  particular  group  it  K-cdmics 
common  property  by  tradition  that  presumably  these  irregularities  happen,  and  vOiat 
of  it?  That  situation  certainly  facilitates  the  thing  that  the  Indian  is  required  to  do. 
to-wit;  more  or  less  direct  confession;  and  in  psychiatric  material  it  seems  to  relic\c 
a  vast  amount  of  tension,  with  marked  improvement  of  the  patient's  adaptability 

THOMAS.  -  May  I  ask  whether  this  confession  is  made  in  order  to  assure  group 
solidarity,  or  as  a  device  for  efficiency  in  the  spiritual  sense;  in  a  sense,  perhaps  that 
if  one  carried  a  load  of  guilt  one  might  not  have  spiritual  cooperation  Dr  persDn.i! 
confidence  in  oneself? 

SAPIR.  -  I  am  afraid  that  isn't  very  easy  to  answer.  The  ethnologist  is  glad  to  get 
enough  facts  together  to  establish  some  sort  of  a  case.  You  can't  always  get  behind 
the  facts  and  find  out  the  ultimate  motivations.  Very  often  questions  which  are  in- 
tended to  elicit  such  information  are  not  answered  cooperatively,  or  are  not  fully 
understood.  Then  again  you  have  to  deal  with  the  question  of  tribal  rationalization. 
I  think  you  have  a  number  of  problems  there  that  need  to  be  looked  into. 

THOMAS.  -  How  widespread  is  confession? 

SAPIR.  -  I  couldn't  say  offhand;  it  is  pretty  common  among  a  great  many  primitive 
peoples.  The  Eskimo  have  it  in  another  form.  I  think  the  point  is  worth  looking  into. 
It  may  have  escaped  us  in  many  cases.  The  opportunities  for  public  confession  oi 
transgressions,  whether  sexual  or  otherwise,  is  a  real  ethnological  problem.  It  might 
very  well  be  worked  on  in  connection  with  these  problems  of  psychiatr>  that  we  are 
interested  in  here.  We  don't  know  the  full  extent  of  the  confession  pattern,  but  I 
think  it  is  widespread  in  one  form  or  other. 

The  discussion  then  shifted  toward  child  psychology.  Anderson  described  observa- 
tions of  a  particular  young  child  who,  among  other  characteristics,  had  habits  ol  tidi- 
ness that  contrasted  with  the  behavior  o'l  the  rest  o^  her  family.  Sapir  inquired: 

SAPIR.  -  What  of  the  girl's  habit  o^  neatness;  putting  her  shcK-s  away,  and  all  that 

Are  there  other  kinds  of  behavior  that  seem  to  link  up  with  that'.'  /\re  il  '    f 

things  linked  up  with  it  in  such  a  way  that  it  nught  Ix-  considered  a  s>mi 

an  isolated  fact? 

ANDERSON.  -  One  of  the  most  interesting  reports  we  obtained  eon. 

general  manner  in  which  she  handled  objects  about  the  house,  lor  instaiu. 1 

not  attempt  to  tear  books  or  papers.  On  being  given  an  object  she  would  run  her 
fingers  over  it  very  gently.  Her  general  attitude  was  one  of  care  and  delicac)  in  the 
handling  of  objects  and  toys. 

SAPIR.  -  How  does  she  react  if  she  is  thuaried  in  any  of  these  soothing  silualions"^ 
Suppose  someone  messes  up  her  nicely  arranged  shoes' 


184  ill  Culiure 

ANDERSON.  -  It  doesn't  bother  her  particularly.  She  just  rearranges  them. 
SAPIR.      Suppose  she  had  the  attitude  toward  society  of  considering  them  as  play- 
thmgs.  which  she  would  be  handling  caressingly  and  soothingly,  and  somebody  "dis- 
arranged" them  and  society  wouldn't  let  her  "rearrange"  them.  If  you  took  the  whole 
thmg  as  a  subtle  kind  o(  syniboli/ation,  wouldn't  that  perhaps  help? 

Vou  spoke  before  of  social  adjustment.  It  occurred  to  me  that  perhaps  the  term 
"social  adjustment"  was  ambiguous.  I  imagine  from  what  I  have  been  able  to  see  of 
people  thai  one  kind  of  social  adjustment  consists  in  feeling  with  the  other  person, 
that  is.  putting  your  own  claims  on  the  attention  of  others  in  abeyance  for  a  while. 
Another  type  is  one  that  seems  unconscious  of  the  fact  that  your  environment  is 
distincl  from  yourself;  you  handle  your  environment  as  though  it  were  your  property, 
as  though  it  were  yours  to  play  with.  I  am  not  at  all  sure  whether  these  two  kinds 
of  social  adjustment  would  look  identical  or  different. 

ANDERSON.  -  I  remember  talking  with  a  very  successful  man  about  the  traits 
which  led  to  success.  He  characterized  a  degree  of  ruthlessness  in  situations  as  one 
of  these  traits.  This  may  be  a  description  of  what  Dr.  Sapir  means  by  his  second 
type.  It  is  characterized  by  a  lack  of  social  sensitivity  and  the  maintenance  of  a 
relatively  aggressive  attitude  toward  the  environment. 

S.APIR.  -  Some  measure  of  symbolic  consistency,  as  it  were.  It  would  seem  very 
strange  that  in  one  social  situation  an  individual  adjusted  in  a  perfectly  normal  way, 
but  in  another  situation  that  did  not  seem  to  be  of  a  very  different  nature  did  exactly 
the  reverse.  I  would  like  another  formula  to  iron  out  the  difference. 
ANDERSON.  -  This  child  may  be  an  extraordinarily  sensitive  youngster. 

A  little  later.  William  Healy  described  a  woman  patient  who  was  angry  at  her  mother 
for  gi\  ing  her  an  enema  as  a  child.  Sapir  commented: 

SAPIR.  -  Isn't  there  another  point  involved  in  this  situation?  Retrospectively  events 
that  have  happened  to  us  take  on  new  meaning  with  the  growth  of  our  vocabulary. 
It  is  conceivable  that  when  the  enema  was  administered  the  shock  was  not  as  great 
as  it  is  later  represented  to  be,  as  a  result  of  reorganization  of  past  experiences. 

Discussion  for  the  rest  of  the  day  ranged  over  many  of  the  research  reports,  espe- 
cially those  concerning  children.  Slawson's  report  on  a  study  of  delinquency  led  to 
debate  on  the  relationship  between  social  and  "constitutional"  factors  in  personality 
formation: 

THOMAS.  -  I  would  like  to  ask  this  question  of  Dr.  Slawson  and  in  general:  There 
is  such  a  thing  as  a  reading  disability  or  a  mathematical  disability  or  a  memory  span 
disability.  You  would  assume  that  these  are  not  invariably  wholly  social,  wouldn't 
you? 

SLAWSON.  -  Yes. 

THOMAS.  -  This  judgment  as  to  what  is  important  and  unimportant,  what  is 
moral  and  not  moral  -  for  instance,  a  man  murders  a  woman  and  then  feeds  the 
canary  before  he  leaves;  or,  when  Wainwright  killed  a  lady  he  was  asked  why  he  did 
it  and  he  said,  "For  the  life  of  me  I  don't  know,  unless  it  was  because  she  had  thick 
legs,"  and  the  story  of  the  man  who  murdered  his  father  and  then  spoke  of  him  as 
"my  late  father,"  always  with  great  equanimity.  Couldn't  there  be  a  disability  in  the 


One:  C'ulnav.  Soiuiv.  ii/ul  [In   liuh\i,/uiil  |S^ 

region  of  such  discriniiiKiiioiis.'   I  luis.  ,i  Imlc  (.iciiiuin  gul  pu^; 
window  in  order  lo  get  a  bracelet  that  she  had,  and  thcrcaltcr  n:  .    :.  h 

except  to  complain  that  they  gave  her  dry  bread  withoul  any  dripping).  Her  cyc» 
blazed  at  that.  Isn't  it  pt>ssible  that  we  have  something  fundamental,  constitutional. 
in  such  cases? 

SAPIR.       I  would  suggest  that  we  are  oversimplifying  when  we  think  that  wc  c;in 

dellne  a  certain  bit  of  beha\ior  in  purely  objectiNe  terms    If  one  first  c«m' 

important  factor  of  symbolic  meaning  of  the  behavior,  one  must  in  each  .. .». 

whether  or  not  a  gi\en  bit  o\'  behavior  can  be  the  same  thing  for  all  indiMduals. 
Murdering  one's  father  under  certain  circumstances  and  in  certain  contexts,  whether 
in  actual  life  or  a  fantasy,  might  be  no  more  than  kicking  a  cat  out  of  a  window  On 
the  other  hand,  depriving  one's  canary  bird  of  a  morsel  ol  cake  might  be  extraordi- 
narily tragic.  We  must  learn  to  see  each  bit  of  behavior  as  not  onI\  what  it  is  m 
measurable  terms  or  as  roughh  estimated  by  society  at  large,  but  alst>  as.  in  the 
individual  case,  something  distinctly  other  than  what  it  seems  to  be.  There  is  the 
necessity  of  evaluating  any  type  symbolically.  I  think  we  should  get  into  the  habit  of 
thinking  of  this  as  a  step  in  our  procedure. 

The  following  morning.  Chairman  Lasswell  turned  the  discussion  toward  proposals  for 
future  research: 

LASSWELL.  -  As  was  said  in  the  opening  statement,  it  is  hoped  that  this  group 
will  be  fertile  in  the  invention  of  lines  of  research  which  promise  to  proMde  usciul 
controls  upon  the  type  of  work  which  is  already  under  way.  Yesterday  aftcrniH>n 
several  types  of  in\estigations  were  hinted  at.  as  rather  crucial  for  the  issues  which 
were  discussed,  but  relatively  few  specific  proposals  actually  went  into  the  record, 
so  I  am  wondering  whether  we  might  not  retrace  our  steps,  and  ask  Dr.  Sapir  lo 
indicate  rather  more  specifically  what  might  be  studied  in  primitive  culture  which 
would  sccni  to  have  some  pertinence  to  the  matter  in  hand. 

SAPIR.  -  I  haven't  outlined  in  my  mind  any  program  at  all  that  would  be  intended 
to  integrate  what  we  know  about  primitive  culture  for  personality  studies,  but  it 
seems  fairly  obvious  that  something  might  be  devised. 

Have  you  any  particular  direction  in  mind.  Dr.  Lasswell' 

LASSWELL.  -  Yes.  For  example.  >ou  lui\c  somcuhcrc  said  that  in  certain  cultures 

there  is  relatively  little  introversion;  if  you  approached  indi\iduals  :      "  '      . 

asking  them  for  life  histories,  the  document  umild  be  \ery  thin,  and  . 

Does  this  relatively  non-introverted  culture  sur\i\e  sulTicienils  intact  lo  make  ; 

sible  a  study  which  would  indicate  how  it  happens  that  such  a  state  o\  aflTauN  can 

come  to  pass? 

SAPIR.        It  seems  lo  mc  thai  the  sort  o\  uork  sou  have  in  mind  would  combine 

all  the  dilTiculties  and  expense  of  a  normal  ethnological  field  trip    • 

dilTiculties  which  we  are  all  aware  of,  of  getting  reliable  first-hand  : 

individuals  in  our  own  culture.  That  type  of  investigation  would  be  vcr>  dinkult 

You  would  have  to  work  with  interpreters  \ery  largeK.  or,  i' 

acquainted  with  the  language  to  work  with  direct  native  U: 

you  would  have  to  content  yourself  with  the  labor  oi  taking  down  lc*ts.  which  would 

then  have  to  be  translated. 


Ig5  ///   Culture 

1  don't  sa\  thai  the  task  is  impossible  at  ail,  but  if  you  want  to  undertake  anything 
hkc  a  scrums  studv  oi  the  actual  significance  of  an  alien  culture,  you  have  an  enor- 
mous problem.  You  have  the  problem  of  selection  of  adequate  cultures,  and  you 
have  technical  problems  in  the  field,  which  transcend  very  definitely  the  difficulties 
iu>rmallv  recogm/cd. 

Personally  I  think  it  is  worth  while  meeting  these  difficulties.  It  simply  means  that 
work  o(  this'typc.  which  is  a  rather  new  thing,  would  have  to  be  generously  provided 
lor  if  It  is  to  be  a  success  at  all.  We  might  make  a  few  exploratory  researches  here 
and  there.  I  find  that  a  great  many  anthropologists  are  interested  in  just  these  prob- 
lems, but  they  don't  as  a  rule  get  very  tar,  because  it  takes  so  very  long  to  get 
acquainted  with  the  native  in  other  than  a  superficial  sense.  There  is  a  very  definite 
wall  between  you  and  the  average  primitive,  even  if  you  have  got  to  the  state  of 
normal  friendliness  with  them.  They  are  not  in  the  habit,  perhaps,  of  being  any  too 
free  with  each  other:  there  is  jealousy  from  house  to  house,  and  it  would  be  none 
too  easy  to  get  life  histories  that  would  be  of  interest  to  psychiatrists. 
LEVY.  -  I  was  talking  to  one  of  your  students,  who  told  me  of  a  certain  Indian 
tribe,  which  she  was  acquainted  with,  the  children  of  which  differ  from  the  children 
observed  about  the  University  of  Chicago  in  not  being  at  all  shy  in  the  presence  of 
adults.  She  tried  to  explain  that  on  the  basis  that  children  in  this  tribe  enter  into 
communal  dancing  from  the  very  early  ages  and  were  quite  used  to  dancing  with 
adults. 

S.APIR.  -  How  many  children  had  she  known? 

LEVY.  -  This  was  a  general  observation.  She  had  made  that  interesting  suggestion 
for  the  possibility  of  studying  children  and  the  influence  of  such  customs  upon  them. 
If  the  observation  is  correct,  it  is  interesting.  We  observe  among  our  children  that  in 
the  case  of  those  who  associate  with  adults  there  is  a  different  vocabulary  and  type 
of  behavior  from  the  others,  the  difference  being  due  to  this  association  with  adults. 

SAPIR.  -  I  don't  know  what  particular  tribe  was  referred  to;  I  don't  know  how 
many  children  there  were  -  perhaps  there  were  only  one  or  two  children  that  she 
had  an  impression  of;  I  don't  know  whether  they  were  truly  representative  of  their 
own  tribal  culture  or  had  become  pretty  well  assimilated  to  the  white  man's  culture. 
There  are  a  number  of  questions  that  one  would  have  to  ask  in  order  to  be  clear 
about  her  point.  I  should  think  that  the  study  of  the  children  of  primitives  would  be 
very  interesting  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  think  most  primitive  groups,  as  they 
actually  are  today,  would  present  even  greater  difficulties  than  adults,  because  it  is 
precisely  the  children  that  are  in  the  very  ticklish  and  difficult  and  interesting  twilight 
zone  between  the  old  culture  and  the  new,  so  that  new  problems  come  up  in  dealing 
with  them. 

This  whole  type  of  work  is  difficult  wherever  you  touch  it.  And,  by  the  way,  in 
speaking  of  primitive  cultures  we  must  be  clearer  as  to  the  realities  of  the  facts. 
Much  of  what  is  presented  in  ethnological  books  is  a  reconstruction  based  on  the 
statements  of  a  few  old  men  and  women;  much,  on  the  other  hand,  is  suggested  by 
traits  that  one  actually  does  see,  for  integration  of  the  old  with  the  new  has  taken 
place  at  varying  rates.  Some  things  are  absolutely  gone,  others  are  kept  intact. 

I  suppose  that  if  you  went  to  the  Blackfoot  Indians  today  in  Montana  you  would 
find  that  a  great  deal  of  the  old  mythology  might  be  recovered  for  the  asking;  and 


One  C'lilittiv.  Soiii'iv.  and  ihc  liulnulunl  187 

if  you  selected  your  inrorinaiUs  troni  the  conser\;iti\c  element  in  the  iribc.  you  would 
find  them  wearing  moeeasms  decorated  with  good  old  tribal  paKcrns.  On  ihc  olhcr 
hand,  if  you  wanted  to  learn  about  the  old  military  stKicties.  you  would  find  that 
the  whole  thing  has  gone  absiilutcK  ti>  pot  and  sou  Nsould  ha\c  to  fish  up  a  lew  old 
men  who  still  remember  the  lacts,  though  hardK  m  all  their  complclcnciks.  Such 
information  as  this  you  would  piece  together  uith  what  you  actually  obM:r\c.  and 
in  this  way  you  get  what  looks  like  a  unified  account  on  the  printed  page  bul  it  \s 
an  account  that  has  to  be  weighted  dilVerently  at  dilVerenl  points  so  lar  as  the  realities 
oi  life  ar  concerned.  So  that  for  this  type  of  work  you  have  gol  lo  gel  back  of  ihe 
ethnologists"  field  accounts  and  weigh  every  single  fact  with  reference  to  its  pcrvinal. 
not  merely  tribal,  reality.  That  is  a  big  job. 

FRANK.  -  I  uiMider  if  we  ccnild  broaden  that  and  ask  if  there  would  be  any  panic* 
ular  virtue  in  considering  a  program  ol  personalit\  research  which  ci>ntemplatcd  the 
stud\  in  a  \ariety  o\'  contemporary  cultures,  Irench.  Iiiglish.  Cjeniian.  and  so  on. 
either  in  the  nati\e  countries  or  to  a  certain  extent  for  preliminary  reconnaissance 
by  approach  through  the  representatives  here. 

SAPIR.  -  That  doesn't  contradict  the  other  in  any  way. 

FRANK.  -  Could  we  broaden  the  original  proposal  so  we  would  be  discussing  not 
only  primitive  peoples  but  those  that  might  be  more  immediately  accessible  to  this 
group? 

SAPIR.  —  I  think  the  selected  primiti\e  groups  would  be  all  right,  but  the  prelimi- 
nary work  is  very  considerable.  But  then  I  don't  think  that  even  a  fragmentary  study 
of  the  personal  problem  in  primiti\e  groups  is  without  value  I  think  that  a  careful 
record  of  the  life  experiences  ol  the  older  men  and  wnmen  would  be  decided!)  worth 
while,  provided  you  had  enough  know  ledge  and  imagination  to  reconstruct  the  back- 
ground. 

I  don't  think  it  is  possible  lo  sail  into  an  ethnological  field  with  a  few  generalities 
in  one's  mind,  ask  a  few  questions  and  expect  to  get  anything  that  is  worthy  of 
serious  consideration.  The  work  will  require  years  of  careful  approach. 

FRANK.  -  What  I  am  trying  lo  bring  out  is  a  rather  explicit  question  as  to  how 
far  this  group  considers  it  necessary  to  make  what  might  be  called  a  cultural  study 
as  either  a  preliminary  to  or  as  contemporary  with  the  personality  stud>  of  other 
groups.  In  other  words,  are  we  facing  the  pn^blem  here  i>f  what  such  a  sludv  wi>uld 
involve  in  terms  of  either  a  clinical  approach  to  a  lew  selected  individuals  or/and  a 
careful  investigation  of  the  whole  cultural  contrast  as  we  see  it  in  the  larger  studies 
which  the  social  scientists  are  concerned  with. 

That  is  a  very  real  question  that  inight  to  be  considered  explicitlv.  because  in 
suggesting  new  types  of  approach,  we  ought  to  decide  whether  we  consider  that  t>pc 
of  investigation  really  important  and  necessary  to  personahtv  I  take  it  >ou  agree 
that  it  is. 

SAPIR.  -  I  certainly  do.  I  think  it  is  decidedl>  wv^rth  while  to  gei  into  n.miu-  h-i.i- 
tively  intact  culture,  such  as  that  of  the  Hopi.  or  into  a  culture  that  has  ap|\ircntl> 
gone  lo  seed,  like  that,  say,  of  the  Tlingit  in  .Southern  .Maska.  but  which  is  ali\c 
psychologically  because  it  still  forms  a  large  part  oi  the  mental  content  of  the  men 
and  women.  I  think  it  is  decidedly  worth  while  getting  perM>nal  data  from  such 
cultures  before  it  is  too  late.  Now  is  tlie  time  to  ^\o  the  work  if  it  is  lo  be  done  at 


IJ^S  III  Culture 

all  I  ihink  that  such  work  should  be  undertaken  as  a  joint  enterprise  of  well  trained 
field  ethnologists,  primitive  linguists,  psychologists,  psychiatrists,  economists,  and 
other  social  scientists. 

f  RANK.  -  Would  you  be  willing  to  go  further  and  say  if  we  were  to  approach  a 
contemporary  culture  such  as  the  European,  the  same  thing  would  obtain? 
SAPIR.  I  think  we  ought  to  have  a  three-step  program;  we  should  study  individual 
variations,  as  we  are  doing  within  our  own  culture,  remembering  that  we  cannot 
easily  define  our  own  culture  objectively  because  we  are  immersed  in  it.  We  should 
then  no  on  to  the  alien  but  not  too  distant  cultures,  such  as  the  Italian,  Swedish, 
and  Russian  cultures.  We  should  then  use  the  experience  of  field  ethnologists  and 
integrate  with  their  work  for  the  study  of  personality  in  primitive  cultures.  I  consider 
that  the  most  important  and  likely  to  lead  the  most  thankless  results  here  and  there, 
but  1  am  sure  that  wc  should  get  very  illuminating  results  by  such  parallel  studies  of 
the  individual  in  diJTering  cultures. 

FRANK.  -  Haven't  we  at  our  very  doorstep  certain  opportunities  in  the  sense  that 
we  have  the  French  Canadian  culture  just  across  the  border,  the  Spanish  Latin  cul- 
ture iust  across  the  border  on  the  other  side,  so  that  if  we  were  disposed  to  start 
something  along  these  lines  in  this  country,  we  might  by  some  preliminary  work 
bring  out  some  of  the  difficulties  and  some  of  the  relevant  factors,  before  launching 
a  more  ambitious  program. 

SAPIR.  -  There  is  a  good  deal  that  could  be  done  in  a  preliminary  way  at  compara- 
tively little  expense.  For  instance,  there  are  a  great  many  Indians  drifting  around  in 
our  cities  here  that  are  none  too  well  adjusted  to  modern  life  and  who  know  quite 
a  little  about  the  old  life.  If  you  could  make  it  clear  to  them  that  you  wanted  frank 
autobiographic  statements,  going  into  as  much  detail  as  possible  as  to  their  difficul- 
ties of  adjustment,  at  so  much  per  page,  I  think  one  could  get  a  great  deal  of  very 
valuable  material. 

Later,  after  a  discussion  of  urban  problems  and  children's  need  for  intimacy,  Lass- 
well  again  called  on  Sapir: 

LASSWELL.  -  I  wonder.  Dr.  Sapir.  if  one  is  well  advised  to  say  that  all  primitive 
children  have  greater  opportunities  for  intimacy  than  children  reared  in  Western 
European  culture? 

SAPIR.  -  I  think  that  is  true  to  a  very  large  extent.  The  whole  quesfion  of  intimacy 
in  various  groups  of  human  beings  seems  to  me  to  be  a  very  involved  one.  I  was 
thinking  a  good  deal  about  what  Mr.  Plant  said  as  he  spoke.  I  envisage  the  problem 
which  he  implies  to  be  something  like  this:  Assuming  that  all  normal  human  beings, 
whether  primitive  or  civilized,  whether  living  in  congested  districts  or  in  scattered 
rural  districts,  have  certain  basic  needs  of  a  psychological  nature,  what  particular 
means  does  their  culture  possess  for  the  fulfillment  of  these  needs?  Some  intimacy 
must  be  found,  either  actual  or  symbolic;  the  ego  must  be  maintained;  and  so  forth. 
What  form  does  the  yearning  for  intimate  relations  take  in  a  given  culture?  What 
constitutes  for  it  a  healthy  maintenance  of  the  ego? 

What  surprises  Mr.  Plant,  apparently,  starting,  as  he  does,  with  the  presumption 
of  our  traditional  culture,  is  that,  as  conditions  change  rapidly  in  the  economic  or- 
dering of  our  lives,  human  beings  turn  out  to  be  more  plastic  than  he  had  any  idea 


One:  Culiiiir.  Society,  ami  ilic  InJividual  189 

they  might  be.  I  should  say  his  error,  in  so  far  as  it  was  an  error  of  expectation.  wa» 
due  to  the  fact  that  he  was  taken  in.  as  we  all  are.  by  the  overt  character  of  ttu 
materials  of  culture.  One  should  lr>  to  see  these  malerials  symbolicall>  It  diK  i,  ; 
seem  to  make  so  very  much  diOerence.  so  far  as  psychi>logical  mtmiac\  is  ti»nccrncd. 
whether  you  Uve  in  an  immensely  scattered  community,  like  that  of  the  Na^aju  Indi- 
ans, where  you  ha\e  to  travel  miles  in  order  to  meet  your  neighbor,  or  li\*e  in  a 
pueblo,  where  you  are  massed  even  more  lightly  than  we  are  in  the  apartments  of 
New  York  City,  in  an  American  rural  district  or  in  a  small  town  or  in  a  congealed 
district  like  New  York.  There  are  certain  dilTerenccs.  of  course;  conditions  will  aflfcct 
the  forms  that  intimacs  will  take,  but  they  are  not  likeK  to  alVcct  materially  the 
psychological  tact  of  intiniac\. 

It  seems  to  me  ouv  prt^blcm  is  one  o{'  the  adjustment  by  people  to  an  almost 
infinite  \ariet\  of  social  forms.  I^ilTercnt  t>pes  of  neurotics  and  psschotics  arc  pro- 
duced on  the  basis  of  dilTering  social  determinations,  but  the  essentially  normal  per- 
son will  accommodate  himseli'  to  practicalK  any  kind  of  condition  that  has  the  war- 
rant of  sociel\.  That  is  about  as  much  as  we  need  to  know,  as  normal  people  It  imi'i 
for  us,  as  individuals,  to  ask  whether  this  or  that  social  feature  conslitutes  a  go.Hj 
condition  or  a  bad  condition,  whether  it  is  a  possible  or  an  impossible  condition 
We  know,  as  members  of  our  society,  that  it  is  a  potentially  good  condition  if  onl> 
because  people  say  it  is. 

The  subsequent  discussion  included  a  lengthy  report  by  William  A   Blal/,  who  had 
just  joined  the  group,  on  field  observations  of  children's  interactions  in  Toronto.  After 
lunch,  the  conversation  centered  on  Sulli\an"s  work  with  schizophrenics,  and  the  ; 
of  patients"  cultural  background  and  social  environment.  Sulh\an  called  for  comni. 
tary  from  Sapir: 

S.APIR.  -  I  am  rather  impressed,  Mr.  Chairman,  by  the  small  amount  of  dissent 
that  is  aroused  in  my  own  mind  as  I  hear  these  various  proposals,  some  of  ihcin 
apparently  proceeding  from  very  difTerent  horizons.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  essential 
problem  we  have  before  us  is  not  so  much  one  of  hospitalit>  to  all  sorts  of  i* 

suggestions  and  possibilities  as  one  of  concentration.  1  am  trying  to  think  re...  : 

from  two  points  of  view:  first,  from  the  point  of  view  of  general  scientific  actiMl>  in 

human  behavior,  and  secondly,  from  the  point  of  \iew  of  the  constiiuli' 

particular  group  as  a  partly  psychiatric  and  a  partly  social  science  group   i 

we  bear  these  two  external  factors  in  mind  it  will  help  us  to  cr\stali/e  our  program 

somewhat. 

First,  as  to  the  former,  we  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  there  arc  a  good 
many  agencies  at  present  that  are  prosecuting  valuable  work  of  many  difTcrcnl  iorti 
in  the  general  field  of  social  science,  ranging  all  the  way  H 
behavior  or  collective  human  behavior  or  statistically  control 

impersonally  conceived  social  aclivhy.  that  is.  cultural  studies    I1»erc  i»  $o  miKh  oi 
that  kind  of  work  going  on  that  if  we  are  merel>  going  lo  dabble  h. 
within  this  tremendous  terrain  we  are  not  likely  to  constitute  l>u(scl^c^ 
tive  body.  We  all  hope,  more  or  less,  to  do  just  that.  howe>er. 

I  should  therefore  suggest  in  a  surgical,  but  not  hostile,  spirit  th.u 
not  coming  within  the  purview  of  this  particular  griuip  the  siud>  ol  ci. 
Secondlv.  that  we  do  not  consider  as  ciMiiing  within  the  purview  of  ihw  giuup  ihe 


190  ill   Culture 

siudy  of"  social  processes  as  such,  although  we  shall  have  plenty  of  opportunity,  of 
course,  to  illustrate  many  social  processes  as  they  aflect  individuals.  Thirdly,  that  we 
take  no  very  special  interest  in  statistical  methods  as  such,  though  it  goes  without 
saying  that  \se  are  not  to  be  so  foolish  as  to  scorn  them  where  they  are  helpful  to 

us. 

Irom  the  second  point  o^  view,  as  regards  the  participation  of  psychiatrists  and 
social  scientists  in  a  common  endeavor,  it  seems  to  me  that  we  are  driven  by  the 
very  terms  o^  our  association  to  the  problem  of  personality.  The  psychiatrist  starts 
Uo\\\  the  deranged  individual  and,  whatever  he  may  think  about  the  existence  or 
non-existence  o^  personality,  he  has  to  deal  with  individuals  who  are  either  getting 
along  pretty  uell  in  life  or  who  are  not  getting  along.  The  psychiatrist  starts,  then, 
from  the  individual  and  is  rather  curious,  sometimes  hopefully  and  sometimes  skepti- 
cally, about  where  society  comes  in.  The  social  scientist,  on  the  other  hand,  has 
worked  out  certain  official  patterns  of  behavior  and  is  inclined  to  wonder  whether 
there  is  any  "individual"  to  speak  of.  There  is,  then,  a  common  terrain  carved  out 
by  implication  for  us  all  here,  that  of  personality  in  society. 

We  have  had  many  skeptical  remarks  made  about  what  constitutes  personality, 
but  1  think  no  one  every  really  loses  sight  of  the  concept.  I  suppose  it  is  the  only 
thing  we  really  know  anything  about,  inasmuch  as  we  have  a  conception  of  ourselves 
and  project  that  conception  into  all  other  bodies  that  we  see  about  us.  Practically, 
then,  we  are  not  going  to  succeed  in  getting  away  from  the  concept  of  personality.  I 
would  suggest,  therefore,  that  we  take  the  bull  by  the  horns  and  admit  that  the  one 
thing  we  are  really  interested  in  and  yet  tend  to  neglect  is  precisely  personality,  what 
the  individual  is.  how  he  appears  against  various  backgrounds,  what  kind  of  trouble 
he  may  get  into  in  the  terms  of  a  given  background,  how  he  may  get  out  of  that 
trouble  and  reintegrate  himself  in  the  terms  of  that  background,  and  so  on.  That  is 
the  psychiatric  point  of  view,  I  take  it,  and  it  is  not  one  which  is  in  the  least  inimical 
or  unfavorable  to  the  standpoint  of  the  social  scientists.  I  think  we  have  that  much 
in  common. 

I  would  say,  then,  that  the  guiding  point  of  view  that  clearly  differentiates  us  from 
other  groups  and  institutions  is  that  we  are  only  secondarily  interested  in  social 
phenomena  or  in  group  behavior  or  in  physiological  processes  as  such,  that  we  are 
primarily  interested,  as  our  starting  point,  in  given  individuals  and  in  where  they 
belong,  from  the  somatic  to  the  cultural,  but  always  with  a  frank  emphasis  on  the 
individual.  If  we  bear  this  clearly  in  mind  it  seems  to  me  that  we  cannot  take  very 
much  interest  in  mass  data  or  in  statistical  data  as  such,  however  much  we  value 
them  for  purposes  of  preliminary  differentiation.  We  must  hold  fast  to  individual 
differentials  as  our  main  interest;  that  is,  whether  we  admit  it  or  not,  we  are  inter- 
ested in  what,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  we  call  types.  Whether  there  are  innumerable 
types  of  individuals  or  only  a  few  fundamental  types  is  a  secondary  question. 

The  life  history  must  be  the  document  par  excellence  which  interests  us,  not  be- 
cause it  is  an  interesting  document,  but  because  we  hope  by  its  means  to  get  together 
in  order  that  we  may  clarify  the  concept  of  personality.  As  far  as  an  actual  program 
is  concerned,  one  might  suggest  dozens  and  dozens  of  interesting  ones,  but  in  view 
of  the  constitution  of  this  group,  I  would  suggest  that  we  proceed  in  some  such  way 
as  this:  being  interested,  first  of  all,  in  individuals  and  in  the  problem  of  personality 
but  feeling  in  the  light  of  everything  that  has  been  said  that  these  personalities  cannot 


One:  Culture.  Sociciv.  mul  ihc  hulivuJucil  |9| 

be  conceived  as  isolated  entities  hut  nuist  he  tlioui:hi  of  against  given  backgrounds. 
we  frame  our  pri>grani  uilli  primary  reference  lo  ivjx-s  of  ciilliiral  ha*.  • 

Roughly  speaking,  we  ha\e  three  kinds  o\  background  thai  uc  .iic  ..  i  lci» 
famihar  with.  The  background  ot  daily  experience  here  in  New  York  Ciiy,  for  in- 
stance, which  we  ha\e  an  intimate  inluitne  knowledge  o\  but  which  wc 
unable  lo  delimit  in  properly  scientific  terms,  we  may  ci>nsidcr  .is  kn»)wii 
less.  We,  as  a  personality  group,  need  not  encourage  studies  oi  the  Middleio<*-n  lypc 
but  we  cannot  but  use  studies  o\'  this  sort  and  whate\er  others  mas  be  prepared  by 
other  agencies. 

Secondly,  there  are  backgrounds  for  which  we  have  a  kind  o\  friendly  fechng  and 
of  which  we  have  a  good  measure  o\'  understanding  but  which  we  do  not  know  or 
"intuit"  in  any  detail.  Such,  for  instance,  is  the  life  of  the  Scandinasians  or  the 
Sicilians  referred  to  by  Dr.  Thomas.  In  some  cases  there  is  a  considerable  amount  i»f 
literature  on  these  cultures,  which  can  be  digested  as  a  preparation  for  persi>nalii\ 
studies;  in  other  cases  there  is  much  to  be  done  as  a  preliminary  lo  such  studies,  but 
these  cultural  explorations  should  be  left  to  other  agencies. 

Thirdly,  there  is  the  remote  but  extremely  \aluable  type  of  background  which  has 
been  often  referred  to  in  these  meetings,  that  of  primitive  man.  I  would  not  at  all 
suggest,  though  I  am  personally  much  interested  in  ethnological  studies,  that  wc.  as 
a  group,  engage  in  cultural  studies  of  primiti\e  folk  in  the  Held,  but  rather  that  wc 
try,  through  certain  spokesmen  that  we  might  select,  to  acquaint  ourselves  with  what 
has  been  done  on  the  culture  of  selected  primiti\e  grt>ups,  say  two  or  three  selected 
primitive  groups,  in  order  that  we  may  then  set  about  the  work  i)f  siiid\ine  ivrs.>ii.d- 
ity  in  these  given  environments. 

As  to  just  exactly  what  a  personality  study  slunild  consist  ol  m  these  iliiee  i..iscs. 
that  is  a  matter  for  further  thought.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  interest  that  has  been 
brought  to  light  in  this  conference  suggests  that  there  are  two  rather  distinct  types 
of  approach.  First,  the  discovery  of  signitlcanl  personahtN  types  and  corre^ 
personality  adaptations  to  dilTerent  backgrounds.  That  is  a  large  problem   ^ 
the  special  problems  of  maladjustment,  leading  to  mental  disorders  of  vanous  sorts. 
It  seems  to  me  that  we  would  be  well  advised  to  capitalize  both  of  these 
interest,  and  -   not  because  I  wish  to  force  a  program  in  any  sense  but  f 
should  like  to  have  something  tangible  put  before  us  for  discu.ssion  -  I  would  sug- 
gest that  these  various  programs  be  envisaged  in  the  following  terms:  First,  ihal  a 
very  careful  study  be  made  of  a  rather  small  number  of  selected  casc^  in  our  own 
culture,  which  would  throw  light  on  personality  diflerentials.  these  cases  to  he  nor- 
mal or  not  very  far  from  the  normal.   Ihat  this  study  be  made  from  c\cr>  pi^sMhk 
point  of  view,  ranging  from  the  somatic  to  the  cultural.  b\  a  scientific  group  that 
has  enough  interest,  each  and  e\ery  one  of  the  group,  m  intimate  problem*  ol  per- 
sonality to  follow  in  more  or  less  detail  and  participation  the  \arious  types  of  pcr>*'n- 
alily  study  made  of  these  selected  indi\iduals.   Ihis  is  \ery  much  the  kind  ol  stud> 
that  was  suggested  before  for  schizophrenics.  That  we  i.\o  that  particularK  with  mem- 
bers of  our  own  culture.  Secondly,  that  we  carry  on  the  same  l\pe  of  study  with  a 
selected  group  of  schizophrenics,  the  two  stuilies  more  or  Icvs  eontrolhng  each  other 
And.  further,  1  would  suggest  that  we  extend  the  schizophrenic  v' 
of  the  near  cultures,  such  as  that  of  the  Sicilians  and  of  the  Scan^ 
the  primitive  cultures.  It  seems  to  me  that  one  of  the  crying  needs  in  the  whole  field 


192  in  Culture 

of  human  behavior  is  to  discover  what  maladjustment  means  in  the  remoter  cultures. 
We  have  raised  that  particular  point  over  and  over  again.  There  isn't  a  man  alive 
who  has  much  o\'  real  value  to  say  about  that.  We  are  not  familiar  with  mental 
disorders  as  distinct  entities  in  any  other  levels  than  our  own,  but  I  think  that  a 
really  profound  attack  on  the  problem  of  neurosis  and  psychosis  in  two  or  three 
selected  primiti\e  cultures  is  by  no  means  hopeless.  How  to  go  about  it  is  a  question 
of  tactics.  I  would  suggest  that  a  psychiatrist  acquaint  himself  very  fully  with  all  the 
pertinent  cultural  material,  which  should  be  brought  to  his  attention  before  he  begins 
work,  and  that  he  then  go  to  the  field  himself  and  reinterpret  what  he  has  learned 
in  the  light  o\'  his  own  experience  with  other  subjects.  That  will  at  least  give  us  a 
pi>nil  of  departure. 

Tliese  three  studies  -  and  I  might  include  Professor  Thomas',  but  Professor 
Thomas.  I  understand,  is  planning  for  his  work  another  type  of  support  -  are  the 
ones  I  would  plead  for.  To  summarize  briefly:  first,  the  very  careful  study  of  a  rather 
small  number  of  selected  normal  types,  illustrative,  one  hopes,  of  several  distinct 
types  and  studied  exhaustively  by  a  group  of  people  interested  in  personality  as  such. 
Secondly,  a  similar  study  of  a  schizophrenic  group.  And  thirdly,  the  extension  of  the 
second  study  to  alien  cultures,  including  the  primitive. 

ANDERSON.  -  I  have  one  question  in  which  I  am  not  quite  clear  in  Dr.  Sapir's 
presentation,  that  is  his  determination  of  these  personality  differentials.  It  seems  to 
me  that  any  study  of  personality  differentials  implies  to  some  extent  at  least  a  study 
of  trends,  and  that  you  immediately  get  over  into  at  least  some  statistical  considera- 
tions. 

SAPIR,  -  I  agree  fully  with  you.  I  don't  want  to  be  interpreted,  or  rather  misinter- 
preted, as  implying  a  lack  of  interested  in,  or  theoretical  hostility  to,  any  other  types 
of  interest  than  those  indicated.  I  think  we  are  going  to  be  driven  inevitably  to  a 
certain  amount  of  statistical  work,  to  a  certain  amount  of  preoccupation  with  cul- 
tural problems  and  definitions,  to  a  study  of  social  processes  as  such,  to  somatic 
classification,  and  so  on.  I  take  that  for  granted,  but  we  should  never  lose  sight  of 
the  fact  that  the  center  of  our  interest  is  the  actual  individual  studied. 

I  think  it  is  important  to  have  a  general  objective  in  mind  and  to  be  swayed  by 
that  objective. 

BURGESS.  -  Might  you  take  care  of  that  interest  by  a  phrase  in  these  case  studies 
that  we  hoped  they  would  give  criteria  for  studies? 

GESELL.  -  May  I  ask  is  this  a  cross  sectional  type  of  study  of  the  normal  group 
of  individuals? 

SAPIR.  -  Cross  sectional  in  what  sense? 

GESELL.  -  Time  sense  or  what  is  the  individual  chronologically? 

SAPIR.  -  That  I  should  prefer  to  leave  for  further  discussion.  I  wasn't  thinking  of 

crystallizing  a  program  quite  to  that  extent. 

LEVY.  -  Did  you  have  an  age  group? 

SAPIR.  -  I  didn't  have  a  particular  age  group  in  mind. 

ANDERSON.  -  Personally  I  am  tremendously  in  sympathy  with  the  first  part  of 

Dr.  Sapir's  suggestion,  because  it  seems  to  me  that  the  place  where  we  have  fallen 

down  most  decidedly  is  in  our  study  of  adjusted  individuals,  that  we  really,  with 


One:  Culture.  Sociav.  und  the  liiilnulual  |93 

reference  to  main  o\'  tlicse  problems.  ha\c  iu>  frame  i>f  reference,  so  lo  speak,  and 
that  perhaps  the  most  helpful  thing  we  cmiltl  ilt>  ti>  throw  certain  problems  tnlo  clear 
relief  with  reference  to  both  sociological  aspect  and  psychiatric  aspect  wtiuld  be  lo 
project  some  sort  of  study  in  which  essentially  the  same  complete  mcthodolog>  was 
applied  to  normal  or  successful  or  well  adjusted  indi\iduals  as  is  now  applied  lo 
maladjusted  or  schi/ophrcnic  or  psychiatric  cases. 

KELLEY.  -  If  I  might  add  a  word  about  the  statistical  cases,  1  can  follow  directly 
in  the  thought  that  Dr.  Anderson  has  advanced.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  function  of 
the  statistical  work  is  to  provide  a  frame  o{  reference.  Personally  I  don't  see  an> 
interest  in  that  frame  as  a  frame;  it  is  valuable  only  because  it  works  in  mterprctm^ 
individual  cases.  In  this  sense  I  agree  completely  with  Dr.  Sapir.  I  don't  have  any 
interest  in  a  statistical  study  as  such.  In  the  use  o\'  that  term  by  Dr  Sapir,  I  was 
quite  at  a  loss  to  know  what  that  might  be. 

The  only  thing  I  can  see  in  the  accumulation  of  statistical  data  is  the  value  thai 
it  gives  in  enabling  the  handling  o\'  the  individual  issue,  so  I  do  not  believe  there  is 
any  need  for  a  great  amount. 

SAPIR.  -  In  self-defense  I  ought  to  clarifv  mv  statement  a  little,  rheorclically.  I 
dont  suppose  there  is  a  single  statistician  living  who  would  sav  he  was  interested  in 
statistics  as  such.  He  is  always  interested  in  whatever  problems  statistics  are  sup- 
posed to  throw  light  on.  but  in  the  sad  actuality  oi  experience  we  know  that  if  one 
happens  to  have  a  specialist's  interest  in  the  statistical  method  he  tends  to  select 
those  particular  problems  which  yield  or  seem  to  vield  to  statistical  trc.iimcnt  I 
think  that  is  a  matter  of  common  observation. 

I  was  merely  pleading  for  the  guarding  against  that  particular  kind  ol  dancer, 
which  I  think  is  a  very  real  danger  in  the  social  science  world  today.  I  sec  a  tremen- 
dous number  of  studies  being  made  that  are  only  mildly  interesting  to  social  science 
but  what  appeals  to  me  as  significant  about  them  is  that  thcv  are  the  kind  of  studies 
that  can  be  handled  statistically. 

When  you  turn  around  and  suggest  another  problem  which  is  of  crucial  impor- 
tance to  the  understanding  of  the  individual  in  society,  you  are  likelv  to  b 
the  statistical  social  scientist  that  you  can't  do  much  with  it  because  the 
method  is  the  quantitative  method  and  it  seems  not  to  be  applicable  in  the  suggested 
study.  There  is  some  kind  of  statistical  magic  circle  that  seems  lo  form 
point  or  other  in  the  field  of  social  science,  and  I  think  we  ought  lo  K 
our  minds  that  in  spite  of  the  obvious  difllculties  of  understanding  individuals.  «rc 
are  interested  precisely  in  the  individual  and  all  the  diO'iculties  thai  he  presents  and 
that  in  most  cases  statistics  won't  help  us  to  any  significant  extent. 

We  are  not  to  idolize  statistical  techniques  merely  because  Ihey  give  us  clear,  easily 
handled  "results"  of  minor  interest,  if  iiuiecil  they  have  interest  at  all 
KELLEY.  -  If  they  do  that,  tlicy  merely  become  measurements  of  unessential  fea- 
tures. 

SAPIR.  -  Yes.  but  it  seems  to  mc  that  a  great  deal  o{  the  slalislical  sliKk  in  trade 
today  gives  us  material  that  is  of  rather  little  essential  interest    W 
what  it  docs  give  us.  but  it  does  not  help  us  very  much  in  Us  undi  i 
a  given  individual  or  of  society  as  a  whole. 


194  ///  Culture 

THOMAS.  -  Dr.  Sullivan,  what  is  the  relation  of  Dr.  Sapir's  statement  to  your 
proposal  o{  study?  What  would  be  the  scope,  in  other  words,  of  the  study  that  you 
propose  in  the  light  o^  what  Dr.  Sapir  has  said? 

SULLIVAN.  It  strikes  inc  that  it  would  require  very  little  effort  to  bring  the  two 
into  identity,  much  less  agreement.  Dr.  Sapir  has  included  everything  of  which  1  had 
thought  and  more,  it  seems  to  me  that  in  Dr.  Sapir's  suggestions  we  have  an  actual 
basis  for  beginning  something  of  very  great  importance. 

Some  discussion  of  Sapir's  and  Sullivan's  proposals  followed.  Chairman  Sullivan 
then  called  upon  Harold  Lasswell,  whose  comments  centered  on  the  development  of  a 
training  program  for  the  study  of  personality  along  the  lines  proposed  in  the  collo- 
quium. Other  participants  commented  from  the  perspective  of  their  disciplines  and  in- 
stitutions, linally.  the  two  guests.  Henry  E.  Field  and  Herbert  Blumer,  were  called  upon 
for  remarks,  and  the  meeting  adjourned. 


Appendix  A:  Formulations  of  Personality 

S.XPIR.  -  "Personality"  can  be  defined  from  various  points  of  view:  first,  as  a 
philosophical  concept,  the  subjective  awareness  of  the  self  as  distinct  from  other 
objects  of  observation;  second,  as  a  purely  physiological  one,  the  individual  human 
organism,  u  ith  emphasis  on  those  behavior  aspects  which  differentiate  it  from  other 
human  organisms;  third,  as  a  descriptive  psycho-physical  one,  the  human  being  con- 
ceived as  a  given  totality,  at  any  one  time,  of  physiological  and  psychological  reac- 
tion systems;  fourth,  as  a  sociological  or  symbolic  one,  those  aspects  of  behavior 
which  give  "meaning"  to  an  individual  in  society  and  differentiate  him  from  other 
members  of  the  community,  each  of  whom  embodies  countless  cultural  patterns  in 
a  unique  configuration;  fifth,  as  a  psychiatric  one,  the  individual  abstracted  from  the 
actual  psychophysical  whole  and  conceived  of  as  a  comparatively  stable  system  of 
reactivity  -  cognitive,  affective  and  conative.  The  first  concept  treats  "personality" 
as  an  invariant  point  of  experience;  the  second  and  third,  as  an  indefinitely  variable 
reactive  system,  the  relation  between  the  sequence  of  states  being  one  of  continuity, 
not  identity;  the  fourth,  as  a  gradually  cumulafive  entity;  the  fifth,  as  an  essentially 
invariable  reactive  system. 

It  is  the  last  concept  which  it  seems  most  important  to  stress.  The  psychiatrist 
does  not  deny  that  the  little  child.  Tommy,  who  rebels  against  his  father  is,  in  many 
significant  ways,  "different  from"  the  middle-aged  Prof.  Thomas  Jones  who  has  a 
penchant  for  subversive  theories,  but  he  is  primarily  interested  in  noting  that  the 
same  reactive  ground-plan,  physical  and  psychic,  can  be  isolated  from  the  behavior 
totalities  known  as  Tommy  and  Prof.  Jones.  He  establishes  his  "invariance  of  person- 
ality" by  a  complex  system  of  concepts  of  behavior  equivalences,  such  as  sublima- 
tion, affective  transfer,  rationalizadon,  libido  and  ego  relations. 

The  question  arises  at  what  stage  in  the  history  of  a  human  organism  is  it  most 
convenient  to  consider  the  "personality"  as  an  achieved  system,  from  which  all  sub- 
sequent cross-sections  of  the  individual's  psychophysical  history  may  be  measured 
as  minor,  or  even  irrelevant,  variations.  It  is  suggested  that  this  stage  be  that  of  the 


Oiw    Cult  lire.  Socictv.  and  the  hulivulual  |95 

"prc-cultuiar'  child,  the  human  organism  as  dclcrmincd.  in  many  ways,  by  heredity. 
by  pre-natal  conditioning,  and  by  post-natal  ci>nditionmg  up  to  ihc  poini  where 

culture  patterns  are  consciously  nuHiilyuig  his  bcha\ior. 

*  *  * 


Appendix  B:  Select  Bibliographies  Subiiiiiicci  h>  Members 
of  the  Second  Colloquiiini 

In  a  list  of  his  own  publications,  Sapir  niaikcil  the  t'olUuMng  items  with  aslcnsks 
(headings  are  his): 

General  Liiii^tilsiics.  Sapir  191  lb,  192 Id,  1925p.  19:7c.  192ym. 

American  Indian  Lini^uisiies.  Sapir  1912h,  1921a.  1929a.  1929d. 

Ethnology  and  Social  Psyelwloiiv.  Sapir  1915g.  191.Sh.  19l6g.  19kih.  lM:4b   H.irJxMu 

and  Sapir  1925.  1926i.  1927a.  1928a,  i928j,  1928b,  I921g. 


Appendix  C:  Annotated  Reading  List  Prepared  b\  Menibcrs 
of  the  Second  Colloquium  and  Others 

Sapir's  contributions  are  as  follows: 

ANTHROPOLOGY 

Boas,  Franz: 

The  Mind  of  Primitive  Man.  New  York:  Macmillan;  1911. 

This  book  comes  the  nearest  of  all  Boas'  writings  to  expressing  his  general  poinl  of 

view  in  studying  human  culture.  Important  because  it  shakes  us  free  lr>  ■ 

Occidental  values,  shows  the  unimportance  o\'  race  (as  a  biological  cim;.    , 

understanding  of  culture,  and  stresses  the  necessity  o\'  studying  the  historical  m.  Ibc 

psychological  background  of  custom  if  we  are  to  understand  human  behavior 

E.  S. 

Golden weiser,  A.  A.: 

Early  Civilization.  New  York:  Knopf;  1922. 

A  con\enient  introduction  to  cultural  anthropolog\.  Cii\es  biKl>v.^«.   ..^.^^  ..  ..  .v- 

selected  primitive  cultures,  outlines  the  essentials  of  various  aspects  of  pnmitive  culture 

in  general,  and  gives  a  con\enient  siunmars  of  ethnological  theories 

E.  S. 

Kroeber,  A.  L.: 

Anthropology.  New  York:  Ilarcourt.  Hr.ice:  1^'2V 

A  very  readable  introduction  to  the  wlu>le  Held  of  anthiiM^^'l>\i:>    lmprcNsmi:i>  Mrcx*o 

the  unity  of  the  whole  historical  privcss  o\'  the  de\elopmcnt  ol  culture 

E.  S. 


196  III  Culture 

Lcvy-Bruhl,  L.: 

How  Natives  Think.  (Tr.  Lilian  A.  Clare,  from  "Les  Fonctions  Mentales  Dans  Les  So- 
cietes  Infeneures").  New  ^ork:  Knopf;  1925. 

An  altempi  to  show  that  primitive  man  is  controlled  by  a  "prelogical  mentality"  that 
dilVers  m  character  from  the  mentality  of  civilized  man.  Suggestive  rather  than  convinc- 
ing. 
E.  S. 

Lowie.  R.  H.: 

Are  We  Civilized?  New  York:  Harcourt,  Brace;  1929. 

A  light  but  informative  introduction  to  the  vagaries  and  inconsequences  of  the  develop- 
ment oi  human  culture. 
E.S. 

Primitive  Society.  New  York:  Boni  &  Liveright;  1920. 

.An  excellent  analytical  study  of  the  varieties  of  association  and  social  differentiation 

among  primitive  peoples.  Lays  several  evolutionary  ghosts. 

E.S. 

Malinowski.  Bronislaw: 

Crime  and  Custom  in  Savage  Society.  New  York:  Harcourt,  Brace;  1926. 

A  brilliant  study  of  the  clash  in  a  primitive  society  (Trobriand  Islanders)  between  incest 

custom  and  the  surges  of  individual  impulse  and  sentiment.  A  good  antidote  to  the 

uniformitarianism  of  most  anthropological  writing. 

E.S. 

Se.x  and  Repression  in  Savage  Society.  New  York:  Harcourt,  Brace;  1927. 
A  valuable,  if  somewhat  thinned  out,  contribution  to  the  reinterpretation  of  psychoana- 
lytic doctrines  in  the  light  of  data  from  a  selected  primitive  community. 
E.S. 

Radin,  Paul: 

Primitive  Man  as  Philosopher.  New  York:  Appleton;  1927. 

Stresses  the  higher  life  of  the  primitive.  Contains  a  convenient  anthology  of  primitive 

literature. 

E.S. 

Rivers,  W.  H.  R.: 

Psychology  and  Ethnology.  New  York:  Harcourt,  Brace;  1926. 

A  set  of  interesting  contributions  to  the  study  of  various  phases  of  primitive  culture. 

Rivers'  work  is  important  because,  starting  as  a  psychologist,  he  was  led  to  evaluate 

the  purely  historical  factors  in  the  growth  of  custom. 

E.S. 

Tylor,  E.  B.: 

Primitive  Culture.  New  York:  Putnam;  1924 

Classical  treatment  continuing  to  have  real  importance. 

E.S. 

Wissler,  Clark: 

Man  and  Culture.  New  York:  Crowell;  1923. 


One  Culture.  Sociciv.  ami  i/w  liulnuhuil  |97 

An  excellent  and  simple  analysis  o\'  (he  luitiirc  of  human  culture  and  of  its  geographical 
spread.  The  treatment  of  the  "universal  pattern"  of  culture  as  an  innate  tendency  at  Ihc 

end  o{'  the  book  needs  to  be  viewed  skeptically. 
E.  S. 

LANGUAGE 

Dominian,  Leon: 

The  Frontiers  o^  Language  and  Nationality  in  Lurope.  Neu  ^ork:  1917. 

A  splendid  object  lesson  in  the  independence  of  linguistic,  cultural,  and  racial  llnc^  and 

in  the  importance  of  language  as  a  symbol  of  nascent  natiiMialism 

E.  S. 

Jespersen,  Otto: 

Language.  New  York:  Hold;  1922. 

A  readable  treatment  of  fundamental  problems  o\  language,  the  emphasis  being  on  the 
modern  languages  of  Europe  and  the  spirit  of  the  book  practical  rather  than  penetrat- 
ingly analytical. 
E.S. 

Vendryes,  J.: 

Language:  A  Linguistic  Introduction  to  History.  (Tr.  Paul  Radiii  i  New  York:  Knopf. 

1925. 

A  good  presentation  of  the  dynamics  of  linguistic  development  from  the  standpoint  of 

an  Indo-Europeanist. 

E.S. 


Note 

1.  Sapir  1929m.  "A  Study  in  Phonetic  Symbolism."  -  LI). 


The  Cultural  Approach  lo  ihc  SukK 
of  PersonalilN  ( 1^)30) 

Contents: 

1.  Introduction:  the  Hanover  Conference.  August  2^^Septeniher  2. 
1930 ^ \'N 

2.  Daytime  sessions:  excerpts  troni  discussion 202 

3.  "The  Cultural  Approach  to  the  Stud>  o\'  Personality"  (lecture 
and  discussion,  evening  of  August  31.  1930) 207 

4.  Other  evening  sessions:  excerpts  from  discussion  .  .  235 

5.  "Original  Memorandum  to  the  Social  Science  Research  C  ouncii 
from  the  Conterence  on  Acculturation  and  IVMsonaiil)."  Hano- 
ver, September  2,  1930    243 

6.  "A  Project  for  the  Study  of  Acculturation  anuMig  the  American 
Indians,  with  Special  Reference  to  the  linestigation  of  Problems 
of  Personality,"  ms.  presented  to  the  Social  Science  Research 
Council,  September  2,  1930 246 

7.  "The  Proposed  Work  of  the  Committee  on  Personalit\  and  Cul- 
ture"      249 

a.  Outline,  September  2,  1930 249 

b.  Revised  version,  Februarv  18,  1932 250 


1.  Introduction:  the  liaiuncr  Conference. 
August  29  -  Scplcnihcr  2.  1930 

The  Social  Science  Research  Council  (SSRt  )  continued  lor  scxcral  yean  lo  hold 
annual  conferences  at  Hanover,  New  Hampshire.  Alter  his  1^26  .iddrcs*.  however.  Sapir 

olTered  only  one  other  major  presentatuMi:  "'nie  Cultural  App 
Personality."  a  paper  delivered  at  the  Hano\er  Conlerencc  on  T 
in  1930.' 

In  this  presenlalioii  Sapir  continued  to  de\eU>p  his  the 
linked  it  crucially  with  a  psychiatric  approach  lo  person.dii .    i 
standpoint,  psychiatric  understandings  about  pcrsonalily  dcvclopmeni  and  intcKmtKia 


200  III  Culture 

were  drawn  into  culture  theory;  from  an  interdisciplinary  standpoint,  he  added  a  cul- 
tural dimension  to  personality.  Characteristically,  Sapir  argued  that  personality  and 
culture  were  distinguishable  solely  in  the  analyst's  point  of  view.  Rather  than  two  sepa- 
rate orders  of  phenomena,  each  one  if  properly  studied  led  inevitably  toward  a  consider- 
ation of  the  other.  It  \sas  the  meeting-point  of  culture  and  personality,  therefore,  that 
most  demanded  attention. 

Psychiatric  concepts.  Sapir  argued,  required  considerable  broadening  to  incorporate 
cross-cultural  variability.  Even  within  our  own  society,  nuclear  personality  was  inacces- 
sible to  the  analyst  except  against  the  background  of  cultural  (and  subcultural)  conven- 
tion and  social  personae.  The  psychiatrist  should  pay  attention  to  the  individual's  un- 
conscious adjustment  to  that  background,  while  the  anthropologist  should  pay  atten- 
tion to  the  variability  of  individuals'  experiences  and  orientations  even  within  a  suppos- 
edly homogeneous  group.  Unlike  some  other  anthropologists  of  his  day,  Sapir  expected 
as  much  behavioral  variation  across  individuals  in  so-called  primitive  societies  as  in 
American  society.  Looking  ahead  to  interdisciplinary  collaboration,  he  envisioned 
anthropologists  focusing  on  culture  and  psychiatrists  focusing  on  the  individual  as 
meeting  in  the  middle,  their  insights  merging. 

This  was  the  first  time  Harry  Stack  Sullivan  was  at  Hanover,  and  he  echoed  Sapir's 
version  of  the  potential  collaboration.  Senior  psychiatrist  Adolf  Meyer  protested,  how- 
ever, that  his  "common  sense  psychiatry"  did  not  have  to  separate  culture  and  indivi- 
dual. While  Meyer  seems  to  have  felt  sympathetic  to  some  of  Sapir's  goals,  he  missed 
Sapir's  problematic  in  relation  to  culture  theory  -  and  so,  he  also  missed  the  way 
Sapir's  proposed  research  program  spoke  to  this  two-pronged  rationale. 

As  with  his  1926  Hanover  presentation,  Sapir  never  published  the  text  of  his  lecture, 
although  the  ideas  he  developed  in  it  are  closely  related  to  those  in  his  publications  on 
culture  and  personality  in  the  early  1930's,  as  well  as  his  course  on  TJie  Psychology  of 
Culture.  The  1930  lecture  was  recorded  by  SSRC  stenographers  and  the  transcripts  were 
circulated  to  the  Conference  participants,  but  no  other  written  version  has  ever  ap- 
peared until  now.  Published  here  for  the  first  time,  the  text  is  taken  from  the  conference 
transcripts. 

Sapir  gave  his  lecture  in  the  evening  of  August  31,  1930.  The  conference  extended 
over  several  days,  however  (August  29  -  September  3),  and  included  several  types  of 
sessions.  SSRC  committees,  each  devoted  to  a  particular  subject  area,  met  concurrently 
in  the  mornings;  Sapir  participated  in  the  newly-formed  Committee  on  Personality  and 
Culture.  In  the  evenings  all  conference  participants  gathered  for  a  plenary  lecture. 

The  Committee  on  Personality  and  Culture  had  been  organized  because  several  pro- 
ject proposals  recently  presented  to  the  SSRC  seemed  to  have  this  interdisciplinary 
theme  in  common.  The  morning  sessions  of  August  29  and  30  were  taken  up  with  the 
presentation  and  discussion  of  four  such  proposals;  projects  by  William  I.  Thomas, 
Lawrence  Frank,  Edward  Sapir,  and  Robert  Redfield.  Besides  Sapir's  own  project  (on 
American  Indian  acculturation),  Frank's  proposal  is  of  particular  interest  since  it  con- 
cerned what  became  the  Rockefeller  Seminar  on  the  Impact  of  Culture  on  Personality, 
held  at  Yale  under  Sapir's  direction  in  1932-33.  (For  more  detail,  see  Darnell  1990  and 
the  editorial  introduction  to  Tlxe  Psychology  oj  Culture,  this  volume.) 

For  the  remaining  morning  sessions,  other  members  of  the  committee  each  made 
some  presentation  of  issues  relevant  to  their  research.  Finally,  the  committee  members 
considered  and  adopted  a  report  of  their  recommendations  to  the  SSRC.  This  report. 


One  Cullurc.  Society,  ami  the  InJiviJiuil  201 

reprinted  here  as  the  "Oriuinal  Mcmi>raiuiuin  lo  the  SiKial  Science  K 

cil...."  was  presented  under  Sapir's  signature,  ahhough  ii  <■»...  ||..-.     ,...^,.    .,,.„,.,„ 

who  read  it  aloud  lo  the  cont'erenee  participants. 

The  program  of  evening  lectures  was  as  follows: 

Frederick  P.  Keppel  (Carnegie  l"oundalion).  "F'oundatUMi  I'roblcms  and  ihc  Socul 
Sciences"  (August  29) 

Isaiah  Bowman  (American  Geographical  Society,  New  York).  "Gcogruphy  a«  a 
Social  Science"  (August  30) 

Edward  Sapir  (University  of  C'hicagt)).  The  Cuhural  Approach  to  the  Study  of 
Personality"  (August  31) 

C.  M.  Hincks  (Canadian  National  Committee  for  Mental  Hnlmciici,    Mental  H\- 
giene  and  Social  Science"  (September  1) 

Beardsley  RumI  (Rockefeller  Foundation),  "liach  According  to  the  Nature  of  his 
Experience"  (September  2) 

Carlton  J.  H.  Hays  (Columbia),  "Research  Problems  m  the  I  leld  of  International 
Relations"  (September  3). 

Except  for  the  e\ening  lecturers,  most  of  the  participants  at  the  Hanover  Confc- 
are  identified  in  the  transcripts  only  by  surname.  Nevertheless,  from  corresponds ;... 
and  other  sources  we  have  reconstructed  the  following  lists  of  conference  attendees. 

with  their  affiliations  in  1930: 

Committee  on  Personality  and  Culture: 

Allport,  Gordon  (social  psychologist.  Harvard  University) 

Anderson,  John  (Professor  of  Psychology.  University  of  Minnesota  and  Institute  of 

Child  Welfare) 
Frank,  Lawrence  (staff  member.  Laura  Spelman  Rockefeller  Memorial) 
May.  Mark  (Professor  of  Educational  Psychology.  Yale  University) 
Murphy  (probably  Gardner  Murphy,  Assistant  Professor  of  Psychology.  Columbij 

University) 
Redfield,  Robert  (Associate  Professor  of  Anthropology.  University  of  Chicago) 
Sapir,  Edward  (Professor  of  Anthropology.  l'ni\ersity  of  Chicago) 
Sutherland  (probably  Edwin  H.  Sutherland,  a  criminologist  at  the  Univcrsily  of  Chi- 
cago; but  possibly  Robert  Lee  Suthorlaiui,  Professor  of  Sociology  at  Bucknell 
University) 
Tozzer.  Alfred  M.  (Professor  of  Anthropology.  Harvard  University) 
Young  (probably  Kimball  Young.  Professor  o\  Social  Psychology.  University  of  Wis- 
consin) 

Other  participants,  some  of  whom  visited  committee  meetings  as  guests,  included 
Anderson.  William  (Professor  of  Political  Science,  University  of  Minnesota) 
Bott,  Edward  A.  (Professor  of  Psychology.  University  of  Toronto) 
Bowman,  Isaiah  (Director.  American  Geographical  Siviets.  New  York) 
Chapin.  F.  Stuart  (Professor  of  Sociology.  Uni\erMt>  o\  Minnesota) 
Cobb,  Stanley  (Professor  of  Neuropathology.  American  Academy  of  Art*  and  Sci- 
ences) 
Ford,  Guy  S.  (Professor  of  History.  University  oi  Minnesota) 
Hayes,  Carleton  J.  H.  (Professor  of  History,  Columbia  Univcnity) 


^02  ///   Culture 

Hincks,  C  M.  (Canadian  National  Committee  for  Mental  Hygiene) 

Judd.  Charles  H.  (Professor  of  Education,  University  of  Chicago) 

kcp|x-l.  Jrederick  (President,  Carnegie  Foundation) 

Linton,  Ralph  (Associate  Professor  of  Anthropology,  University  of  Wisconsin) 

Lynd.  Robert  (Commonwealth  Fund,  New  York;  from  1931,  Professor  of  Sociology, 

Columbia  University) 
Mann.  Albert  R.  (Dean.  New  York  State  College  of  Agriculture  at  Cornell  Univer- 
sity; also  Dean.  New  \brk  State  College  of  Home  Economics,  Cornell  University) 
Meyer.  Adolf  (Professor  of  Psychiatry,  Johns  Hopkins  University;  Director,  Phipps 

Psychiatric  Clinic) 
Rice.  Stuart  A.  (Professor  of  Sociology  and  Statistics,  University  of  Pennsylvania) 
Ruml.  Beardsley  (Executive  Officer,  Laura  Spelman  Rockefeller  Memorial) 
Schlesinger.  Arthur  M.  (Professor  of  History,  Harvard  University) 

Among  others  present,  but  about  whom  we  have  no  further  information,  were  F.  M. 
Anderson  and  two  persons  surnamed  Hart  and  Wright. 


2.  Daytime  Sessions:  Excerpts  from  Discussion 

From  the  unpublished  minutes  of  the  morning  meetings  of  the  Committee  on  Person- 
ality and  Culture,  we  reproduce  excerpts  that  include  Sapir's  substantive  contributions, 
and  we  briefly  summarize  the  rest  of  the  discussion. 

August  29,  1930 

Mr.  Sapir  explained  the  circumstances  that  had  led  to  the  organization  of  the  Com- 
mittee. Three  projects  (the  Frank,  W.  L  Thomas,  and  Sapir  projects)  seemed  to  have 
enough  in  common,  in  their  consideration  of  the  problem  field  marginal  to  both 
culture  and  personality,  to  suggest  a  conference  on  problems  in  this  field. 

Mr.  Sutherland  [representing  the  Thomas  project]  stated  the  essential  features  of  the 
proposed  research  on  "Crime  and  Insanity  in  Scandinavia  [and  Sicily]".  Mr.  Sapir 
then  recalled  an  objection  made  to  the  project  when  it  had  been  brought  before  the 
Council,  to  the  effect  that  it  might  not  be  justified  to  treat  a  study  of  crime  and 
insanity  as  equivalent  to  a  study  of  personality  in  a  cultural  setting. 

Mr.  Sutherland  replied  that  it  was  felt  that  these  two  aspects  of  behavior  (crime  and 
insanity)  were  foci  of  activity,  a  study  of  which  would  necessarily  involve  a  wide 
range  of  factors  (e.  g.,  the  family). 

...  Mr.  Sapir  asked  what  hypothesis  lay  behind  the  proposal.  Mr.  Sutherland  replied: 
"How  does  a  variation  in  the  culture  affect  the  behavior  of  peoples?" 
Mr.  Sapir:  "Does  Mr.  Thomas  think  that  perhaps  certain  types  of  solution  of  emo- 
tional strain  are  more  likely  in  Scandinavia  than  in  Sicily?" 
Mr.  Sutherland  assented. 

[Mr.  Young  asked  about  the  role  of  the  Mafia  and  other  institutions  in  Sicily.]  Mr. 
Sapir  stated  the  hypothesis  as  follows:  Where  institutional  controls  (feud,  Mafia, 
etc.)  are  lacking,  there  the  ground  is  prepared  for  psychoses. 


One:  Cii/tinr.  Society,  nnil  l/ic  liulnuhuil  203 

...  [A  methodological  discussion  ensued.   Inlelligencc  icsts  were  mentioned  )  Mr. 
Sutherland  said  the  plans  of  the  Committee  uicluded  securmg  such  and  other  tc^t* 
Mr.  Sapir  suggested  that  the  tests  themselves  nuulit  he  rcmin.iliK nu-  ih,-  tniponanl 
cultural  factors. 

...  [Discussion  of  the  proposal's  concern  with  Scandinavians  and  Sicilians  as  immi- 
grant groups.]  ...  Mr.  Sapir  pointed  out  that  the  double  parallelism  (North  F.uropc 
vs.  South  Europe,  old  loved  environment  vs.  immigrant  community)  added  to  ihc 

likelihoiHi  o['  tVuilliil  results. 


Mr.  Frank  then  prosciilcd  ihc  projects  lor  a  "Propo.scd  Seminar  tor  foreign  Students 
on  the  impact  of  Culture  on  Personality".  The  purpose  is  to  find  persi)ns  from  a 
variety  o^  cultures  interested  \\\  problems  o\'  culture  and  personality,  bring  them 
together  and  organize  a  systematic  endeavDr,  usmg  all  specialists  interested  in  thcMr 
problems,  to  formulate  an  iincnlory  or  schedule  for  the  study  of  contemporary  cul- 
tures in  the  countries  represented.  After  this  training  they  would  be  set  to  stud>ing 
the  li\es  of  their  nationals  in  America.  A  second  period  of  association  would  bring 
about  a  further  clarification  o\'  the  siuiaiiori.  Finally,  these  persons  would  be  sent 
hack  to  their  own  countries  for  simultaneous  study  of  their  own  cultures.  The  essen- 
tial desideratum  is  to  de\elop  a  pattern  of  cultural  research, 

Mr.  Young  asked  if  nati\e  American  [i.  e.,  Anglo-American)  students  were  to  be  in- 
cluded; the  American  student  might  thereby  be  helped. 

Mr.  Sapir  suggested  the  objectivity  of  the  atmosphere  might  thereby  be  curbed  by  a 
feeling  of  sensitiveness  or  apology  on  the  part  o\'  the  foreign  students. 

In  response  to  questions,  Mr.  Frank  staled  thai  although  some  foreign  lecturers 
might  be  included,  most  would  prohahK  be  Americans.  Their  function  would  be  to 

act  as  critics,  presenting  an  organized  point  of  \iew. 

Mr.  Sapir  pointed  out  four  aspects  of  the  proposal: 

1)  A  possibility  of  seeing  the  morphology  of  culture. 

2)  A  possibility  of  seeing  what  are  the  fundamental  needs  o{  human  K-n).'v 

3)  Of  seeing  how  these  human  needs  get  patterned,  socialized. 

4)  Tlie  problem  of  what  are  the  indi\idual  variations  (maladjustments,  etc.)  in  the 
dilTerent  cultures. 


August  .^0,  \'n^) 
The  session  opened  with  a  brief  discussion  of  a  proposed  symposium  on  accullura* 
tion  between  European  and  native  peoples  in  the  Pacific  area. 

...  Mr.  Sapir  then  presented  the  project  for  the  "Study  of  Acculturation  and  Ptrsoo- 

ality  among  the  American  Indians."  In  primitive  life  as  in  our  own  life,  there  i*  a 

distinction  between  fundamental  human  beha\ior,  expressed  in  |v 

■'olTicial"  patterns  of  culture.  The  ethnographical  account  is  olteii 

inventory  of,  to  us,  bizarre  forms.  One  way  of  coming  to  understand  what  these  old 

forms  meant  is  to  investigate  what  they  mean  toda\:  Im   ' 

terns  often  persist  over  changes  in  material  culture    In>; 

not  simply  a  substitution  o\'  new  customs  for  old.  but  rather  adaptation  ol  the  okl 


204  UI  Cidtwc 

culture  to  now  conditions.  It  is  important  to  get  some  hint  as  to  how  much  of  this 
old  culture  may  persist.  It  may  be  that  many  contemporary  patterns  go  back  to  very 
early  patterns  that  have  merely  been  adjusted  to  new  institutions.  We  have  two  types 
of  problems;  ( I )  what  is  it  essential  to  retain  under  new  conditions;  (2)  problems  of 
acculturation,  re-definition  o^  old  patterns.  We  might  go  further  and  study  these 
problems  of  acculturation  in  the  behavior  of  the  individual.  Probably  the  Indian  is 
in\i>l\ed  in  a  passionate  attempt  to  reinterpret  the  old  ways  in  terms  of  the  new. 
Perhaps  ciMillicts  considered  by  psychiatrists  can  be  more  effectively  understood 
when  obser\ed  in  this  acute  form  as  they  occur  in  this  cultural  margin. 
Mr.  Sullivan  suggested  that  if  the  Navajo  still  think  of  themselves  as  a  people,  while 
other  Indians  do  not  so  think  of  themselves,  it  might  be  possible  to  get  light  on 
mental  maladjustments,  because  of  the  likelihood  that  the  incidence  and  character 
o\'  such  maladjustments  [are]  affected  by  the  state  of  organization  of  the  supporting 
group.  ...  Furthermore,  we  might  here  get  some  controls  on  our  theories  of  personal- 
ity growth.  In  the  disintegrating  Indian  community  at  least,  parental  inculcation  of 
the  old  folkways  is  no  doubt  often  ineffective.  ... 

Mr.  Sapir  stated  his  impression  that  among  contemporary  Indians  the  individual 
problem  is  in  a  sense  lost  in  the  general  problem,  all  members  of  the  community 
being  in  the  same  situation;  and  further  that  conflict  between  individuals  in  the 
community  appears  to  involve  less  emotional  stress.  Relations  of  affection  between 
kin.  for  e.xample,  appear  to  be  relatively  unshaken  by  the  culture  conflict  situation. 
Why  is  this? 

Another  fruitful  aspect  of  the  situation  lies  in  the  attitude  of  the  Indians  toward  the 
whites.  While  respecting  white  instrumental  values,  Indians  appear  to  judge  more 
fundamental  white  values  unfavorably. 

...  Mr.  Anderson  asked  about  the  technique  to  be  used. 

Mr.  Sapir  mentioned  careful  case  studies. 

Mr.  Anderson  suggested  that  old  difficulties  of  finding  suitable  technique  would  be 
repeated  in  this  Indian  situation.  Would  essentially  new  situations  for  study  be  en- 
countered that  are  not  already  encountered  in  studying  contemporary  white  society? 

Mr.  Sapir  replied  that  he  thought  it  likely  that  the  culture  conflicts  were  more  acute. 

...  Mr.  May  asked  if  the  study  proposed  was  thought  of  as  fundamentally  different 
from  the  proposed  Scandinavian  study. 

Mr.  Sapir  replied  that  while  they  were  theoretically  much  alike,  the  actual  situations 
were  so  different  that  it  was  probable  that  different  problems  would  be  encountered. 
The  Indian  situation  introduces  such  a  new  factor  as  a  great  sense  of  corporate 
inferiority. 

Mr.  Sullivan  felt  that  with  the  Thomas  study  the  cultures  involved  were  too  much 
alike  to  make  it  probable  much  light  would  be  thrown  on  personality  problems;  the 
Indian  project  was  therefore  welcome. 

Mr.  Allport  asked  to  what  extent  the  inferiority  feeling  was  thought  to  be  a  vital 
part  of  the  problem. 

Mr.  Sapir  indicated  special  circumstances  in  the  Indian  situations,  among  them  the 
preservation  of  old  values  in  the  old  habitat  under  enormously  changed  conditions. 


One    ( 'uliurc.  Society,  ami  the  Imlivuhuil  205 

There  ensued  a  lengthy  discussion  ol  Redfield's  proposed  exploratory  »ludy  of  **lhc 
frontiers  of  acculturation  in  four  communities  in  Yucatan  chosen  to  rcprc      ■  ' 

points  on  the  scale  from  primiti\e  Indian  life  to  ci\ili/ed  cil\  life  "   Ilu 
the  day's  session  concludes  uitli  a  summary  by  Sapir: 

Summing  up  these  proposed  studies  of  primiti\e-ciMli/ed  culture  contact    ^' 
said  he  thought  o\  these  studies  as  in  three  stages;  (a)  a  reconstruction  • 
culture;  (b)  a  siud\  iM  acculiuraiRMi;  (c)  a  more  precise  personality  study. 

And  in  relating  these  proposed  iinestigatums  to  studies  of  child  beha\ior.  Mcnntv 
Sapir  and  Anderson  stated  the  question;  To  what  extent  are  the  parents  and  ncii 
kin  the  eflective  representatives  of  the  general  culture?  The  presumption  is  that  in 
the  primitive  communitN  the\  mr  elTectiNe  representatives;  the  transition  to  adult  life 

is  therefore  easy. 

August  31.  1930 

Young  presented  a  survey  of  work  on  the  psychology  of  immigrants  in  the  l'  S  He 
included  a  discussion  of  work  in  intelligence  testing,  noting  that  "these  studle^  ha\c 
assumed  dilTerences  resting  in  heredity,  and  tend  to  ignore  early  conditioning,  espe- 
cially by  cultural  patterns."  The  transcript  continues; 

...  Mr.  Sapir  suggested  a  distinction  between  two  sorts  of  cultural  influences:  (a) 
those  bringing  about  technical  ditTiculties  of  approach  to  the  test;  (h)  those  afTccling 
"inteHigence".  e.g..  alertness.  Culture  must  be  thought  of  as  a  general  ssnthctK; 
stimulus  to  etTort.  for  example. 

Mr.  Anderson  asked  if  this  did  not  assume  that  the  cultural  factor  was  impf»rtant 
he  would  be  willing  to  show  that  inherent  dilTerences  are  substantialK  identical  He 
could  not  conceive  of  a  cultural  factor  universally  afl'ecting  all  negro  groups  unfavor- 
ably. Mr.  Sapir  suggested  a  well-patterned  inferiority  feeling. 

...Mr.  Redfield  and  Mr.  Sapir  referred  to  the  ditTerence  between  F*ueblo  and  Plain\ 
patterning  with  respect  to  personal  competitive  distinctii>n[s).  and  a  probable  expla- 
nation of  Garth's  results,  wherein  Plains  Indians  did  better  than  Pueblo  Indians  on 
the  test. 

[The  discussion  turned  to  studies  o\'  parental  attitudes  that  compared  statements  by 
parents  with  what  parents  actualK  did  ] 

Mr.  Murphy  mentioned  similar  studies  of  political  attitudes,  as  \crb 
actually  made  manifest,  where  high  correspondence  was  found   Mr,  .\..,      :  ,         -  ' 
out  that  both  response  to  stereotype  and  response  to  actual  situation  uere  invol\«d 
in  these  tests.  Mr.  Sapir  suggested  that  furthermore  there  were  possibU  important 
individual  diflerences  in  verbalization. 

[Finally,  Young  mentioned  recent  papers  by  I. una  and  \ygotsky  attempting  to  mea- 
sure cultural  influence  in  performance  tests  ] 

After  the  morning  recess.  Mr.  Murphy  reported  on  ".Attitudes  aiui  '  ' 
lion  to  Personal  Backgrounds'.  [Studies  mentioned  included  .in  i: 
single  individual's  religious  experience;  European  studies  i>r  children  »  changing  am- 

tudes  toward  the  social  order,  especially  in  Russia,  a  stud>  of  dilTerences  m  .i -• 

ciation  between  Japanese  and  Occidentals;  and  his  own  several  studies  ol    \ 
political  attitudes.] 


206  111   Culfiirc 

...  [Concerning  the  study  of  racial  attitudes  in  the  U.  S..]  Mr.  Sapir  suggested  the 
wisdom  o{'  confining  the  investigation  to  an  inquiry  as  to  what  the  subject  would  do 
in  crucial  instances. 

September  I.  1930 
Mr.  Frank  spoke  on  "the  family  as  an  agent  lor  the  socialization  of  the  individual". 
We  distinguish  first,  the  imposition  on  the  child  of  patterns  (taboos)  with  regard  to 
persons  and  with  regard  to  things.  ...  The  family  is  probably  the  initial  and  most 
pervasive  agency  that  imposes  these  patterns.  ...The  child  learns  to  get  along  with 
persons  before  he  encounters  the  most  important  institutional  patterns  (money,  mar- 
riage, etc.).  All  these  imposed  patterns  check  naive  behavior.  ...These  institutional 
patterns  are  subject  to  a  secular  change.  The  breakdown  of  an  individual  may  be 
attributed  to  the  failure  of  the  individual  to  satisfy  his  wants  through  the  institutional 
patterns. 

Mr.  .Allpori  asked  if  it  might  not  be  possible  for  breakdowns  to  come  about  by 
increased  conformity  to  institutional  patterns. 

Mr.  Sapir  replied  that  the  locus  of  the  thwarting  need  not  be  in  the  totality  of  culture 
patterns. 

Mr.  Anderson  remarked  that  in  modern  life  the  individual  is  presented  with  a  com- 
plex and  unintegrated  cultural  situation.  There  may  be  no  real  culture,  as  we  have 
been  using  the  term. 

Mr.  Frank  resumed,  pointing  out  that  there  is  great  uncertainty  and  inconsistency  in 
the  instiiulional  patterns  presented  to  the  individual.  This  makes  value-behavior  dif- 
ficult to  pursue,  and  the  individual  tends  to  break  down. 

Mr.  Sapir  asked  if  it  did  not  follow  that  religion  was  a  favorable  kind  of  value- 
behavior. 

Mr.  Frank  replied  it  was  conceivable  that  a  religious  renaissance  might  develop  in 
the  precarious  and  uncertain  world. 

Mr.  Allport  pointed  out  a  distinction  between  family  as  the  mere  persons  living 
together,  and  family  as  a  body  of  values  and  patterns. 

...  Mr.  Sapir  suggested  the  importance  of  a  comparative  study  of  the  actual  func- 
tional significance  of  the  family  in  various  cultures. 

...  A  general  discussion  emphasized  the  importance  of  intensive  studies  of  the  family 
as  function;  of  the  actual  intimate  interaction  of  individuals  objectively  reported  and 
recorded,  detail  by  detail. 

After  the  morning  recess  Mr.  Sullivan  discussed  "Personality  Differentials  as  Ante- 
cedents and  Consequents  in  Acculturation".  [Sullivan  termed  the  child's  learning 
and  adaptation  to  its  environment  "acculturation."  Conflicts  arise  with  advanced 
civilization,  since  cultural  change  outstrips  cultural  integration.  Personality  types 
dilTer  in  their  ability  to  integrate  situations.] 

September  2,  1930 
Mr.  May  presented  his  views  on  "Method  in  the  Field  of  Personality  and  Culture." 
These  remarks  dealt  with  methods  employed  in  the  study  of  personality,  and  included 
suggestions  for  a  plan  of  [research  on]  the  impact  of  culture  on  personality. 


One    C^ilturc.  Society,  uml  thf  ImliviJiuil  207 

...  [Concerning  May's  discussu>n  nt  qucstiDnnaircs.)  Mr  Sapir  here  pointed  out  the 
frociucnt  ditllculty  of  answering  ihe  questions  presented  by  categoric  ansv^er> 

[I  urlher  discussion  of  questionnaires  ensued.  May  then  turned  to  ^ludle^  c-' • 

personality  ditTcrcnces  in  terms  of  inner  mechanisms,  as  »>ppi>scd  to  the  v: 
approach] 

A  discussion  here  inter\ened  as  to  the  logical  \alidii>  o|  this  disiin 
approaches  cinphasi/ing  exterior  and  interior  factors.  Dr.  Sapir  p*>ii 
danger  of  coming  to  regard  concepts  as  entities.  (The  discussion  digressed  lor  a  mo- 
ment onto  the  meaning  of  the  term  "common-sense,"  then  returned  to  the  il:  * 
between  inner  and  outer  factors.]  Mr.  Murphy  pointed  out  that  it  was  oftci. 
terminological  distinction  between  "inner  mechanism"  and  "siiualu>n"    Ilic  previous 
situation  becomes  in  elTect  an  inner  mechanism.  Mr.  Sapir  rephed  that  this  vies* 
necessarily  implied  mechanisms  for  "building  in"  these  previous  situations 

...  [The  discussit>n  emphasized]  the  importance  o\'  more  careful  analysis  of  situations. 
Mr.  Sapir  said  the  question  realK  was  practical,  is  it  useful  .it  this  stage  to  formali/e 
the  available  materials  conccplualK'.* 

After  the  nuMniiig  recess,  Mr.  Sullivan  read  the  "Memorandum  from  the  Conferencx 
on  Research  in  .Acculturation  and  F\Msonalitv  to  the  Social  Science  Research  Coun- 
cil" (appended  to  these  minutes).  Mr.  Young  moved  the  .idi>ption  ol  this  nieinor.iu- 
dum  as  the  report  and  recommendation  of  the  conference.  In  the  resulting  discus* 
sion.  minor  amendments  to  the  report  were  proposed  and  carried.  Tlie  report-memo- 
randum was  then  unanimously  adopted. 

Mr.  Sutherland  presented  his  rcpi>rt  on  inelhods  of  study  of  crime  and  personality. 

and  a  discussion  followed. 


3.  "The  CulUiral  Approach  to  ihc  Siud\  of  I\Tsonahl>" 
(lecture  and  discussion,  evening  i^f  .Aiiiiust  '^1.  I'-iM)) 

The  evening  session  of  August  31  was  chaired  by  LawreiKc  k   I  i.uik,  >■;  Uiv  i  .tw..4 
Spelman  Rockefeller  Memorial  (i.e.,  the  Rockefeller  loundalion).   ITic  audience  con- 
sisted of  all  the  regular  conference  participants  and  may  have  also  includc>' 
No  guest  list  for  that  evening  is  available,  however,  apart  from  the  tra:.--. 
session  itself,  which  identifies  (by  surname  only)  persons  who  spt>ke  in  the  i! 
following  the  lecture. 

From  the  stenographers  transcript,  we  reproduce  Sapir's  Icxture  in  its  entircu    .i\ 
well  as  those  portions  of  the  subsequent  discussion  in  which  he  responded  to  . 
from  the  audience.  Other  portions  ol  the  discussion  (in  particular,  lengthy  staunwnU 
by  Harry  Stack  Sullivan  and  Adolf  Meyer)  are  summarized 

This  paper  is  of  particular  interest  for  its  arguments  vihich  foreshadou  Sapir '%  pub- 
lished essays  from  later  in  the  \^)M)\.  as  well  as  his  plan  for  Vu    ' 

but  the  Hanover  lecture  is  not  identical  with  anv  of  these  .\y  H.i' 

between  approaching  his  topic  from  the  cultural  pt>int  of  viev%  and  apprt-uching  it  Irom 


208  til  Culture 

the  perspective  o^  the  individual,  without  yet  proposing  any  mediating  level  of  analysis. 
In  later  works,  however  (such  as  Sapir  1937a,  "The  Contribution  of  Psychiatry  to  an 
I'nderstanduig  oi  Behavior  in  Society."  and  chapter  10  of  The  Psychology  of  Culture, 
both  in  this  volume),  he  argued  that  an  analysis  of  specific  situated  conversations  is  the 
crucial  mediating  step.  That  argument  seems  to  have  been  the  product  of  Sapir's  in- 
teraction with  Harry  Stack  Sullivan.  Although  the  two  men  had  become  acquainted 
before  19.30,  the  Hanover  meeting  was  probably  an  important  moment  in  the  crossfertil- 
ization  oi  their  ideas. 

Although  Sapir's  lecture  is  not  principally  about  language,  he  characteristically 
draws  on  language  as  the  prime  example  of  cultural  patterning  (here  illustrated  in  rela- 
tion to  individual  conduct).  The  linguistic  material  is  presented  in  a  non-technical  way, 
and  some  of  it  derives  from  the  everyday  experience  of  American  speakers  of  English. 
Some  o\'  it,  however,  derives  from  Sapir's  then-current  research,  such  as  his  discussion 
of  a  Liberian  language  (Gweabo;  see  Sapir  1931i,  CWES  II). 

This  lecture  also  includes  a  passage  that  is  of  interest  with  regard  to  Sapir's  version 
oi  what  has  come  to  be  known  as  the  "Sapir- Whorf  hypothesis"  of  linguistic  relativity 
and  determinism.  Following  a  discussion  of  conversation  at  a  hypothetical  party,  Sapir 
concludes  with  a  statement  that  suggests  a  strong  version  of  the  hypothesis:  "So  far, 
then,  from  your  manipulating  the  cultural  machine  called  'language',  you  were  to  a 
certain  very  significant  extent  being  manipulated  by  it."  But  unlike  Whorfs  examples, 
which  focus  on  individual  perception  and  cognition  about  the  physical  world,  Sapir's 
example  focuses  on  social  interaction.  In  this  passage,  it  is  not  the  speaker's  thought  so 
much  as  his  conduct  that  is  "forced  in  certain  channels"  because  of  the  fact  of  speaking 
English.  The  speaker  may  be  aware  that  he  has  "not  been  able  to  express  quite  what 
he  wanted  to  express,"  but  his  interlocutors  have  no  other  means  of  interpreting  what 
that  was.  The  particular  language  has  an  effect  on  the  social  outcome  because  social 
communication  must  take  place  through  a  symbolic  system.  Related  arguments  may  be 
found  in  the  discussions  of  symbolism  in  77?^  Psychology  of  Culture  (this  volume). 


Chairman  Frank  introduced  Sapir's  lecture  as  follows: 
FR.'XNK:  -  The  meeting  will  please  come  to  order. 

This  term  "personality"  is  being  met  with  frequent  continuity  and  outlets  in  a 
form  in  which  it  was  seldom  found  formerly.  You  are  mostly  all  familiar  with  the 
clinical  approach,  and  it  will  be  therefore  exceedingly  interesting  to  hear  Dr.  Sapir 
talk  on,  "The  Cultural  Approach  to  the  Study  of  PersonaHty."  Dr.  Sapir! 


The  Cultural  Approach  to  the  Study  of  Personality 

Two  of  the  outstanding  tendencies  in  modern  social  scientific  thought 
are  of  a  somewhat  contradictory  nature.  One  of  them  is  concerned  with 
the  concept  "culture."  The  other  is  concerned  with  the  concept  "person- 


One:  Culture.  Soewtv.  and  the  InJivuiual  209 

ality."  They  arc  of  a  scimcuhal  ciMilradiclor\  son  because  the  two  icrms 
are  generally  opposed  lo  each  other;  whether  nuhtly  or  wrongly,  is  an- 
other matter.  If  ymi  emphasi/e  the  culliiral  aspect  of  hehavior.  if  \ou 
say,  tor  instance.  "I  he  reason  John  goes  to  church  is  because  cvcrvboil\ 
else  in  the  community  goes  to  church/'  that  he  is  merely  lollovMng  oui 
a  '■cultural  pattern,"  you  feel  that  you  arc  not  saying  very  much  ahoul 
his  personalilN.  That  is,  whether  consciously  or  unci>nsciously.  you  chm- 
inate  the  act  of  his  going  to  church  as  comparati\el\  ummporlani  m  an 
estimate  of  his  personality. 

if,  on  the  other  hand.  \ou  point  to  the  fact  that  this  same  Ji>hn  is 
peculiar  because  he  goes  lo  church,  you  imply  that  you  are  saying  some- 
thing more  or  less  significant  about  his  personality.  You  make  the  ci>r- 
relati\e  tacit  assumption  that  the  kind  o\'  people  he  associates  \Mth  are 
not  such  as  ordinarily  go  to  church.  Ihal  the  culture  of  this  parlicuiar 
group  does  not  include  church-going,  in  other  wurds,  is  ihe  lacil  as- 
sumption. Therefore  his  going  to  church  seems  b>  contrast  lo  lake  on 
the  quality  of  an  individual  variation  and  seems  to  throw  light  on  uh.ij 
is  naively  called  "personality." 

Another  example  of  exactly  the  same  kind  o\'  preliminary  conirasi  is 
as  follows:  if  a  man  associates  with  other  men  known  as  longshoremen, 
and  it  is  a  question  of  unloading  a  cargo,  and  somebody  shouts  to  him 
with  concomitant  profanity,  and  he  answers  in  kind,  that  is  not  ordinar- 
ily considered  an  evidence  oi'  his  personality.  He  is  merel>  being  "regu- 
lar." He  is  playing  the  game  or  acting  out  the  culture  pattern  o\'  his 
particular  group.  But  if  the  same  person,  or  an  equi\alent  person,  were 
to  raise  his  voice  to  the  same  extent  and  to  the  accompammenl  o\  ihc 
same  expletives  in  a  drawing-room,  \ou  wcuild  remark  on  the  singular- 
ity of  his  conduct.  You  would  be  led  [o  the  inference  that  there  is  some- 
thing peculiar  about  his  character.  In  the  latter  case.  \ou  would  imply 
that  his  group  is  not  in  the  habit  of  acting  as  he  then  acted  \ou  would 
be  implying  the  theory  or  tact  that  the  culture  of  (7."^j  his  group  is  such 
as  to  have  that  particular  conduct  seem  aberrant,  and  therefore  illustra- 
tive of  a  peculiar  individual  variation. 

In  these  two  very  simple  examples  which  1  have  gi\en.  examples 
which  could  obviously  be  multiplied  b\  the  thousand  without  special 
ditTiculty,  you  have,  I  think,  an  important  cntr\  into  the  whole  tangled 
field  of  personality  and  culture.  I  am  nol  meaning  to  impK.  what  fvr- 
haps  some  would  wish  that  1  might  imply,  that  there  is  i\o  such  thing 
as  personality,  on  the  one  hand,  or  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  culture 
on  the  other.  Both  ihcones  arc  hold    1  am  tar  from  subscribing  to  cither 


210  ///   Culture 

of  those  negative  theories.  But  the  two  illustrations  which  I  have  given 
and  the  thousands  of  others  that  might  be  supplied  to  supplement  them 
certainly  suggest  some  negative  theory  of  that  kind,  because  they  sug- 
gest that  It  is  a  question  o^  the  relativity  of  judgment  rather  than  of  a 
ditTerence  of  essence  in  the  reactions  themselves. 

We  are  confronted  by  many  contacts  in  ordinary  life  in  which  it  be- 
comes difficult  to  say  whether  to  ascribe  a  particular  element  in  human 
beha\ior  to  culture  or  to  personality,  because  we  have  not  the  key,  the 
contextual  key,  to  the  situation.  It  is  a  commonplace  that  people  who 
come  from  a  foreign  country  are  to  a  certain  extent  difficult  in  the  sense 
that  it  is  not  easy  to  calculate  their  motives  -  by  which  we  do  not 
necessarily  mean  that  they  are  queer  people.  They  may  be  quite  normal 
people.  But  we  do  not  know  what  kind  of  a  Hne  of  normality  to  assume 
from  which  we  may  measure  their  distinctive  variations,  if  they  have 
any  worth  speaking  about.  What  we  can  do  in  such  cases,  and  what  we 
do  do  consciously  -  or  more  often  unconsciously  -  is  to  assume  that 
the  line  of  normality  is  the  same  as  the  one  that  we  unconsciously  adopt 
for  our  own  civilization.  We  project  the  variations  from  that  approxi- 
mate line  of  normality  into  the  foreign  behavior  and  arrive  at  a  person- 
ality judgment;  for  instance,  we  say,  'The  Italian  is  a  queer  person, 
because  he  is  demonstrative  as  compared  with  the  normal  or  average 
American,  who  does  not  carry  his  heart  on  his  sleeve."  Of  course,  if  we 
have  any  such  premature  notion  in  our  minds,  if  we  actually  go  to  Italy 
and  proceed  on  the  assumption  that  the  Italians  are  the  kind  of  people 
that  our  preliminary  analysis  has  made  them  out  to  be,  we  are  doomed 
to  disappointment.  We  find  that  they  are  quite  hard-boiled  and  realistic 
in  action,  in  spite  of  their  seeming  to  be  so  demonstrative,  so  emotional, 
and  so  temperamental.  We  find,  contrariwise,  that  a  man  who  lives  in 
a  group  that  takes  pride  in  hiding  emotion  and  in  being  officially  hard- 
boiled  may  actually  have  the  tenderest  sentiments,  if  only  we  catch  him 
in  those  particular  contexts  in  which  it  is  possible  for  a  member  of  his 
particular  culture  to  exhibit  an  individual  variation  without  being 
thought  abnormal. 

All  this  suggests  that  the  field  of  personality  versus  culture  is  exceed- 
ingly tangled,  exceedingly  difficult.  It  suggests  that  perhaps  it  requires 
a  certain  courage  to  undertake  the  carrying  on  of  the  two  concepts  at 
the  same  time.  And  so  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  that  so  many  have 
tried  to  construct  simplicist  theories  which  minimize  the  reality  of  cul- 
ture, of  the  social  patterning  of  behavior,  as  much  as  possible,  or  theo- 
ries [74]  which  minimize  the  reality  of  personality. 


One:  Cu/turc.  Sociiiv.  iiiul  ilu  lihtixuluiil  211 

rk'fcMc  I  ui)  on  Willi  ihc  aiuil\Ms.  I  shmiki  like  to  point  out  that  there 
has  been  a  subtle  shili  of  meaning  in  the  term  "personality"  in  ihc 
history  of  our  modern  languaiies.  We  siill  have  a  feeling  for  an  .'■ 
meaning  of  the  \\o\\\  "personalii\'"  when  ue  sas,  "He  is  a  great  \  ..  .,  ., 
ality."  He  ma\  aeliiall\.  in  ihc  mhrnale  psychoU>gieal  sense  of  the  word. 
be  a  terrible  nincompoop,  lie  ma\  be  ihc  knul  ol  man  whose  actions 
or  senlimenls  \ou  can  ecuml  on  m  athance  uilh  unfailmg  accuracy,  if 
you  ha\e  had  any  experience  with  people  ol  his  i\pe.  But  >ou  might 
refer  lo  him  as  "a  great  pcisonalil\.""  meaning  that  he  iKcupies  some 
kind  o\'  sociall\  accredited  thuMic.  is  a  key  figure  perhaps  in  certain 
cases,  or.  at  any  rate,  a  symbol  standing  for  a  group  to  \\hich  \alue  of 
some  kind  is  attached  -  a  superii>r  class,  for  instance,  or  a  nationality 
whose  votes  are  important,  or  tlic  uhole  set  o\  labor  unions,  or  any 
entit\  of  that  kind  that  \ou  can  think  o\\ 

Personality  in  that  sense  is  really  the  old  meaning  of  the  word  "per- 
sonality." It  is  the  most  paradoxical  meaning  o\'  the  word  l\>r  us  of 
today,  because  the  word  "person"  which  lies  back  of  "persi>nality"  is  in 
turn  nothing  but  the  old  \A\\\n  pcrsoiui,  itself  laken  o\er  from  the  Greek, 
and  originally  meaning  "mask".  The  word  was  originalls  used  for  the 
mask  worn  by  actors  in  carrying  out  heroic  parts  in  the  (Jreek  tragedies, 
and  in  the  Roman  plays  modeled  on  the  Greek.  .A  man  in  those  days, 
acting  such  a  heroic  part.  artificiallN  increased  his  height;  he  wore  a 
helmet;  he  did  all  sorts  of  things  to  disguise  his  irrele\ant  human  "per- 
sonality." in  our  sense,  which  did  not  in  the  Cireek  sense  exist  at  all. 
because  it  had  no  accredited  social  \alue  as  such. 

Our  modern  contrast,  then,  is  a  new  thing,  and  >ei  it  is  possible  lo 
hold  on  lo  the  old  notion  of  personalit\.  if  onl\  we  deepen  it  b>  deepen- 
ing the  cultural  concept  itself.  In  the  old  days,  only  certain  kinds  of 
activity  were  considered  important,  as  \ouched  for  b>  svKiets.  it  you 
were  a  king,  you  reigned,  and  reigning  consisted  of  certain  s\niptomatic 
or  symbolic  acts,  signing  certain  documents,  making  certain  speeches. 
proceeding  to  battle,  or  what  not.  .\s  lime  went  on.  however,  the  actual 
behavior  o[^  such  marked  individuals  became  more  and  rr  ■  •  -  ■•tc- 
worthy,  and  there  was  a  tendency  \o  carry  over  the  original  i  ;•  of 

"personality."  which  was  thai  of  "role."  ci>nduct  following  from  slalus 
and  assigned  by  convention.  \o  actu.il  conduct,  which  one  tried  to  read 
in  terms  of  that  role. 

So  we  get  to  the  somewhat  idealistic  or  sentimental  phase  in  which 
one  speaks  o\'  "the  real  mother."  for  instance,  or  of  what  "a  true  king" 
does,  or  o\'  "the  heart  o\'  a  sister."  it  mav   be.  or  of  "a  wife."  or  of 


212  ///   Culture 

whatever  you  like.  This  is  a  stage  that  we  have  not  entirely  emerged 
from  yet.  It  is  the  stage  in  which  the  old  persona  idea,  the  collectivity 
of  behavior  patterns  ascribed  to  a  status,  is  identified  without  criticism 
with  actual  bcha\ior. 

Naturally,  under  such  a  regime  as  that,  all  kinds  of  problems  arise 
which  we  should  consider  more  or  less  bogus,  many  of  us  today  -  all 
sorts  o\'  problems  as  to  the  difference  between  the  supposed  and  the 
real.  [75]  between  the  essential  conduct  and  the  actual  conduct,  which 
is  always  looked  upon  in  such  cases  as  a  falling  short,  as  it  were,  as  an 
unwarrantable  deviation. 

We  ha\e  learned  that  the  actual  conduct  of  human  beings  in  every 
case  is  inordinately  complex;  that  the  kind  of  first-approach  psychology 
that  we  use  to  explain  overt  behavior  in  well  defined  situations  in  which 
roles  are  played  is  very  far  from  interpreting  the  sum  of  human  beha- 
vior, except  by  certain  logical  fictions,  as  in  the  case  of  the  economic 
man,  for  instance.  These  fictions  work  very  well  for  conceptually  de- 
fined discipline,  and  we  cannot  get  along  without  them.  But  no  one  is 
so  blind  today  as  to  assume  that  the  kind  of  conduct  that  flows  from 
these  conceptual  systems  is  actual  conduct  in  the  psychological  sense. 

The  interest  in  psychology  is  really  a  new  interest.  The  older  writers, 
even  as  late,  I  should  say,  as  the  Elizabethan  dramatists,  were  not  so 
greatly  interested  in  what  we  should  call  psychology.  At  any  rate,  their 
psychological  outlines  are  of  a  very  bold  or  "essential"  type.  They  are 
not  of  an  intimate  type. 

1  suppose  that  Rousseau  with  his  Confessions  was  a  startling  phenom- 
enon when  he  appeared.  People  had  not  been  in  the  habit  of  displaying 
their  weaknesses.  At  the  moment  that  Rousseau  (this  is  merely  a  histori- 
cal symbol;  you  need  not  take  it  as  a  historical  fact)  displayed  his  weak- 
nesses and  stood  before  man  as  still  a  man,  at  that  moment  our  modern 
conception  of  personality  was  born.  The  older  conception  would  have 
bid  him  refrain  from  the  exhibition  of  any  part  of  himself  that  did  not 
correspond  to  the  earlier  persona  or  mask  or  status  conception.  So  that 
he  effected  very  much  of  a  revolution  in  the  history  of  the  Western 
human  mind.  And  we  are  only  now  beginning  to  reap  the  harvest,  as  it 
were,  of  this  subtle  movement  in  thought  that  was  initiated  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

Much  in  Shakespeare,  if  one  were  entirely  honest,  which  one  is  not 
in  dealing  with  the  literature  of  the  past,  is  a  little  foreign  to  us  -  not 
because  the  situations  are  remote  in  a  historical  sense.  That  does  not 
matter  so  much.  One  can  always  paint  the  local  scene  with  historical 


One    Culture.  Socii'tv.  uiul  ilu-  InJnuhuil  213 

color.  But  it  is  fcMcign  to  us  because  a  knui  of  staiulardi/cd  motivation 
is  assumed  that  seems  unreal  to  us.  \Vh\  should  a  man  who  occupies 
the  clown's  position,  tor  instance,  be  necessaril)  the  kind  of  man  he  is'* 
Why  should  a  kingly  man  be  just  the  kind  o\'  man  he  is  -  and  he  is 
generally  either  very  much  of  a  \illam.  ov  \ery  much  of  a  king  I  think 
honesty  would  compel  us  to  admit  that  the  conception  of  the  person  as 
an  actual  carrier  o(  beha\ior  that  \se  ha\e  in  those  plays  is  difTcrcnt 
from  the  conception  we  have  toda\. 

So  this  modern  conception  of  personalits.  uhen  all  is  said  and  done. 
is  not  \er\  old.  In  fact,  it  ma\  be  said  not  to  have  been  thoroughly  bom 
yet.  It  is  possible  e\en  at  this  late  date  tor  a  winkle  school  of  social 
scientists  to  maintain,  and  with  some  show  o\'  reason,  that  even  the 
most  subtle  di\ergences  of  behavior,  which  we  ascribe  to  an  unanaly/ed 
nuclear  entit\  called  "personality."  are  ol"  a  cultural  type.  .And.  as  a 
matter  oi'  fact.  I  shall  now.  with  \our  lea\e,  tr\  to  show  that  there  is 
much  truth  in  that  surmise.  Later  I  shall  return  to  the  concept  of  pcr- 
sonalit>,  and  it  will  be  my  total  task.  I  hope,  to  ha\e  shown  that  (76) 
much  of  our  trouble  comes  tVom  not  allowing  a  complex  enough  terrain 
of  possibilities  to  tie  the  strictly  and  simply  cultural  point  of  \iew  with 
the  strictl)  and  simply  psychological  or  elemental  point  o\'  \iew;  thai 
we  allow  these  two  points  of  view  to  meet  too  quickls.  to  fertilize  each 
other  too  quickly,  without  patientK  exploring  into  the  vast  realm  of 
human  behavior  which  lies  between. 

Let  us  start  with  culture.  Let  us  take  beha\ior  uhich  is  seemed  cul- 
tural in  the  strictly  overt  sense  oi'  the  word,  and  point  to  preliminary* 
indications  of  significant  individual  variation  within  it.  I'or  instance,  in 
a  drawing-room  there  are  so-and-so  many  people  sitting  about,  stand- 
ing, chatting,  eating,  drinking,  joking,  doing  \arious  things.  Our  first 
impression  would  be  that  the  only  cultural  element  in  the  fact  o\  these 
people  gathering  and  behaving  as  the\  are  behaving  is  that  it  is  a  party 
of  some  kind.  There  is  not  very  much  more  to  sa\  than  that. 

Well,  it  is  a  particular  kind  o\'  party.  Perhaps  it  is  a  birthdas  party. 
Maybe  it  is  a  card  party,  maybe  it  is  talk  after  a  parlicularl>  impiJrlanl 
dinner  to  which  an  ambassador  has  been  nuiied  Nbu  can  define  the 
thing  culturally  as  much  as  \ou  like,  but  we  would  certainly  have  the 
illusion  -  for  I  think  it  is  something  i>t  an  illusion  we  wi>uld  certainly 
have  the  impression  that  most  ot  the  indi\idual  facts  of  behavior  within 
that  party  are  tacts  that  bear  on  individual  personalities,  oncx  the  party 
has  been  defined  as  a  eeneral  background  i>r  setting. 


214  til   Culture 

It  lakes  no  very  great  powers  of  analysis  for  the  sociologist  or  anthro- 
pologist to  show' us  that  this  is  very  much  of  an  illusion:  that  at  every 
turn  in  the  course  o'^  the  events  that  mark  the  evening,  cultural  patterns 
manifest  themselves.  One  o\^  the  most  obvious  of  these  is,  for  instance, 
the  fact  that  English  is  being  spoken.  English  cannot  be  spoken  out  of 
whole  cloth.  English  has  to  be  learned.  Speaking  English  means  that 
your  conduct  is  forced  in  certain  channels.  For  instance,  you  might  have 
a  certain  kind  o^  feeling,  but  if  you  have  not  quite  the  word  to  express 
it,  you  use  an  approximate  expression  for  your  feeling;  and  the  person 
with  whom  you  are  communicating  interprets  you  as  having  such-and- 
such  a  feeling,  which  he  then  imputes  to  a  mysterious  something  in  your 
personality.  At  that  moment,  you  were  at  the  mercy  of  the  techniques 
of  your  language.  You  may  not  have  been  able  to  express  quite  what 
you  wanted  to  express.  So  far,  then,  from  your  manipulating  the  cul- 
tural machine  called  'language,"  you  were  to  a  certain  very  significant 
extent  being  manipulated  by  it. 

The  stereotype  comes  to  mind  as  an  obvious  example  of  this  type  of 
conduct.  Even  witty  remarks  obey  the  same  laws  of  analogy.  They  have 
implied  references  to  very  complex  cycles  of  experience  held  by  sophisti- 
cated people  in  common,  so  that  even  the  bright,  the  sparkling,  the 
epigrammatic  remark  which  seems  to  stamp  one  as  an  unusual  person 
is  nevertheless,  so  far  as  its  actual  texture  is  concerned,  nothing  but  a 
highly  complex  blend  of  cultural  patterns.  That  is  true. 

Furthermore,  you  will  observe  postures  at  this  gathering.  Some  peo- 
ple have  a  somewhat  stiff  carriage.  Others  have  a  nonchalant,  perhaps 
[77]  too  nonchalant,  carriage.  Here  again,  your  first  impression  is  that 
they  are  being  themselves;  they  are  not  being  merely  participators  in 
cultural  patterns,  they  are  manifesting  their  true  nuclear  selves.  Yet  how 
unreal  is  that  simple  picture,  when  you  realize  that  these  people  come 
from  different  parts  of  the  country;  that  they  have  participated  in  en- 
tirely different  kinds  of  patterned  or  institutional  experiences!  These 
have  necessarily  left  their  mark  upon  them  in  the  form  of  postural  beha- 
vior, which  is  symbolic,  to  some  extent,  of  their  institutional  experience. 
So  while  these  slight  variations  in  behavior  are  not  in  the  most  obvious 
sense  of  the  word  "cultural"  in  the  given  context,  they  are  nevertheless 
cultural  in  the  wide  sense  of  the  word. 

If  for  instance,  you  have  been  a  polished  diplomat  and  have  been 
deferring  to  a  sovereign  a  good  part  of  the  time,  it  is  quite  likely  that 
you  will  have  a  certain  manner  of  address,  a  certain  method  of  inclining 
the  head  and  the  body,  which  is  a  symbol  in  the  last  analysis  of  your 


One:  Culture.  Society,  mul  the  Itulivuiunl  215 

role  in  socicls.  It  nia\  he  that  ihe  particular  symbol  docs  not  quite  apply 
at  this  party.  Well,  that  simply  complicates  the  problem.  It  may  be  thai 
you  unconsciously  correct  your  general  tendency  to  decorum  b\  adopt- 
ing a  somewhat  more  frivolous  or  io\ial  tiMie  .mil  posture,  m  \shich 
case  you  ha\e  the  inlerpla\  o\'  \\\o  cultural  patterns,  blending  inlo  a 
more  complicated  one.  Notice  that  the  more  complicated  these  patterns 
of  an  instituticMial  or  cultural  sort  become,  the  less  eas\  does  it  bect>me 
to  ascribe  them  lo  an\  one  given  pattern. 

We  need  simplicit\  o\'  C(Mile\t  m  order  to  understand  a  cultural 
pattern  as  a  cultural  paltcrn.  If  \ou  are  marching  m  a  regiment,  thai  is 
simple.  We  know  what  this  mode  o{  beha\ior  s\mboli/es.  If  you  are 
answering  a  response  in  church,  we  know  what  that  ssmboli/es.  If  uc 
hear  an  educator  talking  to  the  children  in  a  particular  tone  of  voice. 
we  reckon  with  that  as  part  of  the  symbolism  of  the  particular  situation. 
But  these  are  very  simple  situations.  Most  situations  in  human  life  arc 
not  so  simple.  As  we  extend  our  anahsis  of  actual  beha\ior.  we  get  lo 
reckon  more  and  more  with  the  concept  o'i  the  blend  o\'  dilTercni  cul- 
tural patterns  in  one  behaxior  act. 

That  is  a  somewhat  difficult  concept  for  some  to  adopt,  a  very  easy 
one  for  others  -  much  depending,  1  suppose,  on  the  nature  o\'  line's 
own  experiences,  for  these  give  one  the  means  wherewith  to  see  still 
other  experiences  symbolically.  There  are  people  who  llnd  it  very  hard 
to  understand  how  one  person  can  he  diMiig  two  things  at  the  same 
time  in  the  very  same  beha\ior  act;  that  one  can  be  sa\ing  ">es"  and 
"no."  with  a  wrinkle  o'i  the  mouth,  perhaps,  or  with  the  spoken  word 
"yes."  But  the  skillful  actor  makes  situations  o\'  that  kind  clear  enough 
to  us.  though  it  needs  no  skill  in  acting  lo  illustrate  facts  oi  this  sort. 
We  all  blend  patterns  thousands  o{  times  e\er>  da>.  I\>r  the  mosl  part, 
we  are  unconscious  o\^  the  fact. 

Now  the  net  result  o\^  this  type  o\'  thinking  is  to  lead  lo  a  possible 
theor\  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  an  eleinentar\  i>r  nuclear  personal- 
ity, except  as  a  secondary  concept.  We  are  then  brought  back  lo  the  old 
concept  of  the  pcr.sona.  the  role,  the  dilTerence  between  the  old  and  the 
new  viewpoints  being  simply  this:  that  in  the  old  da\s.  when  lhe>  talked 
of  [78]  the  pcr.sofhi.  they  were  mleresled  onl\  m  cerlain  bold,  heroic 
contours,  which  were  symbolic  of  a  class  o\  human  K-ings.  whereas  now 

that  we  have  deepened  our  conception  o\'  what  is  sigmficanl  in  » " 

behavior,  now  that  we  care  more  about  the  una\owed  l>|vs  ol 
behavior  and  understand  more  clearK  what  symbolism  is  (or  arc  begin- 
ninu  to  l\o  so),  we  can  subsume  under  this  concept  of  ihe /»<T,w»mi.  ihc 


216  III   Culture 

role,  many  more  facets  of  activity  than  we  could  in  the  old  days.  Then, 
divergences  of  all  kinds  were  unvalued  and  needed  no  special  name; 
they  were  merely  the  accidents,  the  quips  of  fancy,  of  people,  and  had 
no  special  value  attached  to  them,  except  in  an  unconscious  or  intuitive 
sense.  This  unconscious  or  intuitive  sense,  we  maybe  sure,  has  been 
characteristic  of  human  perception  and  appreciation  at  all  times,  for  we 
llnd  it  in  primitive  man  as  we  find  it  among  ourselves  today. 

While  these  remarks  that  I  have  been  making  are  either  unacceptable 
or  else  commonplaces,  they  are  certainly  deepened  by  the  data  of 
anthropology,  because  in  the  study  of  cultural  anthropology  we  are 
confronted  to  a  very  much  greater  degree  than  in  our  daily  experience 
by  the  concept  of  relativity  of  general  cultural  backgrounds.  In  modern 
life,  the  important  outlines  in  the  cultural  background  do  not  vary  so 
greatly,  when  all  is  said  and  done;  for,  while  we  are  always  talking  about 
A's  background  being  very  different  from  B's,  we  really  assume  that 
there  is  a  substantial  unity  in  the  institutional  background  of  both.  Both 
A  and  B,  for  instance,  thoroughly  understand  the  use  of  money.  Both 
A  and  B  understand  that  depositing  money  at  the  bank  has  such-and- 
such  implications.  Both  A  and  B  understand  that  services  are  exchange- 
able for  commodities  through  the  medium  of  money.  No  matter  how 
ditlerent  they  seem  to  be  in  their  overt  behavior,  and  however  different 
are  their  cultural  backgrounds  in  detail,  both  A  and  B  understand  that 
it  is  possible  for  the  market  to  break  and  that  their  bank  savings  may 
not  be  as  secure  as  they  had  hoped.  Both  A  and  B  understand  that 
going  to  the  theatre  is  recreation  rather  than  duty.  Both  A  and  B  under- 
stand that  going  to  church  is  supposed  to  be  a  duty,  but  both  feel  that 
it  is  not  as  stringent  a  duty  as  the  word  implies.  A  and  B,  in  short, 
understand  literally  thousands  of  things  which  are  not  set  down  in  any 
list  of  tacit  understandings,  for  they  are  so  clear  that  we  never  bother 
to  mention  them.  This  being  true,  the  concept  of  significant  variation 
in  behavior  is  somewhat  narrowed  or  channeled  in  advance;  and  there- 
fore, the  concept  of  the  nature  of  the  personality  is  not  apt  to  take  the 
same  form  as  when  we  compare  examples  of  behavior  against  entirely 
different  backgrounds. 

What  happens  when  we  compare  entirely  different  backgrounds?  Two 
things.  First,  the  notion  of  relativity  that  is  comparatively  weakly  devel- 
oped if  one's  experience  is  taken  from  a  society  which  is  not  too  greatly 
varied  in  its  understandings  becomes  infinitely  deeper,  more  extended. 
It  becomes  more  of  a  real  thing.  We  see  more  of  human  life  as  possibly 
institutional  in  character  than  we  might  have  seen  before,  when  we 


One:  Cullurc.  Society.  luhI  tin  InJiviJiuil  217 

had  not  thoroughly  analyzed  all  the  uiKonscious.  social!)  dcicrmined 
elements  of  the  beha\ior  situation. 

On  the  other  hand,  aiuuher  t\pe  olexpeiienee  emerges  \shich  is  vcr> 
baffling.  This  is  the  mtuiti\e  eon\icHon.  uhich  is  shared.  I  bclicsc.  by 
all  who  ha\e  had  nuieli  to  i.\o  unh  prinntise  people  or  foreign  people, 
that  m  spite  oi'  these  very  significant  dilTerences  in  cultural  (79)  back- 
ground, there  are  always  present  \ariations  in  indi\idual  conduct  that 
are  roughly  parallel  to  the  kind  o\'  \ariations  that  \se  consider  signifi- 
caiil.  in  a  nuclear  sense,  among  tnirscKes.  ^ou  uill  begin  to  sec  ^^hal  I 
meant  b\  the  deepening  o\'  our  sense  o\'  the  complexity  of  the  terrain 
lying  between  official  or  inslilutional  life,  the  culturali/ed  part  of  con- 
duct, on  the  one  hand,  and  the  simpler  somatic  or  psychological  forms 
of  behavior  on  the  other,  because  this  conviction  both  of  the  relaliMiy 
of  CLilluicil  background  and  of  essential  parallelism  of  human  types  in 
spite  of  these  great  differences  of  background  squarely  raises  the  ques- 
tion of  where  our  intuitions  as  to  personality  begin  and  end,  and  up  to 
what  point  our  inferences  as  to  culture  ha\e  a  right  to  extend  them- 
selves. 

It  is  an  unfortunate  thing  that  in  arguments  about  the  relatue  place  of 
cultural  conditioning  versus  biological  determinants  and  fundamental 
psychological  conditioning,  too  little  account  is  taken  of  the  extremely 
complicated  nnddle  ground.  It  is  as  though  one  assumed  that  the  sky 
met  the  trees  of  the  landscape  at  a  soon  definable  point,  minimi/ing  the 
reach  o(  the  atmosphere  in  between.  An  unfortunate  parallel.  I  admit 
-because  it  dooms  our  analysis  to  a  kind  of  futility.  I  had  meant  a  final 
meeting  of  sky  and  trees.  But  certainly  the  finding  of  that  meeting  point 
is  indefiniteK  delayed  in  our  actual  experience,  and  I  imagine  that  the 
finality  of  our  behavior-analyzing  is  similarly  subject  to  indefinite  dcLiN 
in  the  field  of  personality  and  culture. 

Let  us  take  a  particular  cultural  pattern  and  see  at  what  point  \se  run 
across  the  thing  called  "personality."  if  at  all;  and  then.  re\ersel>.  let  us 
take  the  thing  called  "personality."  and  see  at  what  point  we  meet  cul- 
ture, if  at  all.  riial  will  he  an  imagiiKiti\e  reconstructive  melhiHl  which 
would  justify  both  concepts,  at  least  in  theiu\  Notice  that  the  current 
of  these  investigations,  the  direction  in  which  the\  priKced.  as  ii  weic. 
is  different.  In  one  case,  we  are  starting  from  an  msiiiulional  pattern  in 
behavior  which  all  men  ol'  the  group  ha\e  in  common.  In  the  other 
case,  we  are  assuming  that  there  are  certain  elemental  contours  of  per- 
sonality which  we  are  seeing  maintained  as  this  personalily  gets  more 


2  IS  III   Cull  lire 

and  more  modified  by  contact  with  his  tellow-men  in  society.  Let  us  see 
if  these  two  processes  are  real,  or  can  be  so  considered. 

We  shall  take  language  as  our  example.  Language  is  a  somewhat 
peculiar,  even  paradoxical,  thing,  because  on  the  face  of  it,  it  is  one  of 
the  most  patterned,  one  o\^  the  most  culturalized  of  habits  -  yet  that 
one.  above  all  others,  which  is  supposed  to  be  capable  of  articulating 
our  inmost  feelings.  The  very  idea  of  going  to  the  dictionary  in  order 
to  find  out  what  we  ought  to  say  is  a  paradox.  What  we  "ought"  to  say 
is  how  we  spontaneously  react;  and  how  can  a  dictionary  -  a  store- 
house of  prepared  meanings  -  tell  us  how  we  are  spontaneously  react- 
ing'.' Fvervone  senses  the  paradoxical  about  the  situation,  and  of  course 
the  more  of  an  individualist  he  is,  the  more  he  proclaims  the  fetish 
o^  "preservation  of  his  personality,"  the  less  patience  he  has  with  the 
dictionary.  The  more  conformist  he  is,  the  more  he  thinks  that  people 
should,  by  whatever  ethical  warrant  you  like,  be  what  society  wishes 
them  to  be,  the  more  apt  he  is  to  consult  the  dictionary.  [80] 

Language,  then,  suggests  both  individual  reality  and  culture.  To  be 
sure,  we  shall  not  find  individual  reality  in  the  word,  not  in  the  actual 
word.  It  is  true  that  there  are  some  bizarre  writers  who  invent  words. 
Suppose,  however,  you  try  to  invent  a  word:  what  happens?  Well,  I 
imagine  that  in  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  thousand 
you  would  invent  something  that  a  careful  analysis  would  show  had 
dozens  of  cultural  repercussions  that  you  were  entirely  unaware  of.  Let 
me  point  out  one  very  simple  thing  that  is  likely  to  happen.  You  would 
have  a  certain  number  of  syllables  in  that  word,  and  the  number  of 
syllables  would  be  a  function  of  the  syllabic  behavior  of  words  in  your 
language.  If  you  had  been  brought  up  in  China  and  tried  the  same 
experiment  in  your  capacity  of  chairman,  you  would,  no  doubt,  invent 
a  monosyllabic  word.  It  would  never  occur  to  you  to  have  a  word  of 
two.  three,  or  even  four  syllables.  If  you  were  talking  certain  American 
Indian  languages,  however,  you  might  have  a  polysyllabic  word  of  eight 
or  nine  syllables,  and  think  nothing  of  it.  Why  is  that?  You  are  not 
making  up  an  actual  word,  and  yet  you  find  yourself  in  the  grip  of 
culture.  You  are  being  manipulated  by  a  machine  that  society  has,  in  a 
sense,  invented  for  you,  and  of  which  you  have  no  explicit  cognizance. 
If  course,  what  you  are  doing  there,  as  the  psychologist  would  tell  you, 
is  following  the  force  of  habit.  But  the  word  "habit"  does  not  suffi- 
ciently stress  the  part  that  culture  plays  in  the  process.  You  are  accus- 
tomed to  certain  rhythms,  to  certain  distributions  of  syllables,  to  certain 


One   Culture.  Society,  uml  the  hiJiviJtiul  219 

Stresses,  and  c\cn  when  \ou  "\n\cn\."  \oii  relapse  inli)  one  or  more  of 
society's  cultural  paiicriis. 

That  is  \cr\  significam.  because  at  ycuir  Ireesl.  at  sour  mosi  bi/aiic 
-  when  you  are  so  tree  as  [o  seem  crazy  -  you  are  slill  ihe  slave,  as  it 
were,  ol'socici).  Bui  il  is  not  nieiels  a  inaiier  ot  nnenling  the  word  as 
a  word.  Let  us  suppose  thai  you  know  exactly  what  you  are  goiiii:  t.' 
say,  that  you  teel  you  can  manilesi  your  personality  by  choosmi!  \si>ids 
in  a  novel  way.  that  you  can.  b\  juxtaposing  words  in  a  peculiar  manner. 
gain  new  meanings,  ^oii  can  lake  words,  for  msiance.  ih<it  do  not  ordi- 
narily go  together,  and  hil  upon  a  new  nuance  o\'  meaning.  And.  of 
course,  man\  modernists  do  just  ihal.  hoping  that  in  this  way  they  mas 
adserlise  lo  the  world  their  "true"*  indisidualily.  The  sery  fact,  hosseser. 
thai  we  ha\e  lo  resort  to  such  exlrenic  devices  shosss  hosv  ditllcult  it  is 
to  be  sure  ihat  we  are  nalinali/ing  or  s\niholi/ing  ihis  feeling  of  the 
reality  of  our  personalities  with  society's  tools. 

An  analysis  of  the  words  used  by  particular  writers  leads  lo  somesshal 
disappointing  results.  We  find  something  like  this,  if  we  lake  a  single 
writer  who  is  removed  from  us  in  lime  and  place;  we  are  struck  by  all 
kinds  of  interesting  peculiarities,  and  we  say.  ".Aha!  This  man  works 
with  the  same  background  that  I  possess,  but  he  has  so  many  diser- 
gences  of  expression  that  I  must  guess  there  is  something  peculiar  abvnii 
him."  But  if  we  proceed  to  read  his  ci^nlemporaries.  we  find  that  much 
that  we  considered  interestingly  peculiar  is  quite  commonplace  after  all 
And  so  those  who  are  inclined  to  make  much  o\'  the  mere  dicluMi.  sas. 
of  Shakespeare,  should  not  read  too  much  o\'  the  other  Mi/abelhan 
writers.  They  will  find  thai  nnicli  ihai  ihey  attributed  to  Shakespeare  is 
common  Elizabethan  stock:  in  faci.  that  some  o\  ihe  ihings  that  they 
thought  most  characteristic  oi'  Shakespeare  are  heller  illustrated,  per- 
haps, in  Marlowe.  And  so  it  goes.  [HI] 

We  may  proceed  from  invented  words  and  from  actual  ssords  juxta- 
posed in  new  positions  to  slill  more  subtle  evidences  of  individiialns  in 
speech,  such  as  intonations.  What  can  be  more  individual  than  intona- 
tion? Here  again  we  are  confronted  b\  \er\  peculiar  and  tangled  lads. 

If  you  were  to  go  to  Ijberia,  where  one  of  our  research  men  at  ihc 
University  of  Chicago  is  al  ihe  presenl  moment  investigating  certain 
technical  problems  o\'  music  and  language,  drum  signaling  and  horn 
signaling,  you  would  discover  some  interesting  facts,  ^ou  vsi>uld  lind 
that  these  people  have  a  very  lively  way  of  expressing  themselves,  that 
they  trip  up  and  down  the  musical  scale  in  a  |x*culiar  way.  \ou  would. 
if  you  were  not  a  crilical  anihropologisl  or  sociologist,  develop  the  feci- 


220  Hi   Culture 

ing  that  these  (aha!)  are  the  real,  temperamental  Negroes  from  whom 
our  American  Negroes  are  descended,  and  whose  volatility  and  tonal 
expressiveness  they  still  have  in  modified  form. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  you  would  not  know  how  much  of  this  speech 
was  expressi\c  until  you  knew  the  rules  of  the  game.  That  is  fairly 
obvious.  You  would  have  to  know  what  the  mechanics  of  such  a  lan- 
guage were  betbre  you  could  even  venture  to  guess.  And,  indeed,  the 
mechanics  of  this  particular  language  happen  to  be  extraordinary. 
Imagine  a  language  in  which  it  makes  a  difference  whether  you  pro- 
nounce the  word  "damn"  on  the  note  C,  on  the  note  A,  on  the  note  F, 
or  on  the  note  D;  and  that  in  the  first  case  "damn"  means,  say,  "beauti- 
ful," in  the  second  "ugly,"  in  the  third  "hallelujah,"  and  in  the  fourth 
really  "damn!" 

That  would  be  a  bizarre  situation,  from  our  standpoint.  It  would 
simply  mean  that  a  technique  that  we  had  unconsciously  appropriated 
for  expressive  purposes  had  invaded  the  realm  of  meaning  symbolism. 
That  is  the  sober  fact  in  such  a  language.  Moreover,  you  would  find 
that,  not  content  with  these  four  distinct  registers,  the  native  can  com- 
bine them  into  inflected  patterns.  Thus,  you  can  say  "Aha!"  or  anything 
of  that  kind,  and  expect  to  be  understood  in  an  intonational  sense  as 
we  would  be  in  English.  But  you  have,  first,  to  know  the  theory  of 
possible  combinations  of  the  four  registers  in  an  upward  and  downward 
direction,  all  the  mathematical  possibilities  of  the  case.  If  you  will  make 
a  rapid  calculation,  you  will  find  that  with  a  four-register  system,  four 
notes  taken  as  units,  you  can  have  six  falling  inflections  and  six  rising 
inflections.  Each  one  of  those  inflections  is  a  distinct  phonetic  entity  in 
the  language.  For  instance,  if  in  this  language  I  want  to  say  'door',  I 
use  a  certain  syllable  which  starts  on  the  highest  register  and  ends  on 
the  lowest,  a  nasalized  moo.  You  say,  "Well,  of  course  it  might  mean 
'door\  It  is  just  like  our  own  word  door.'"  But  when  a  native  happens 
to  say  moo  with  an  incomplete  downward  inflection,  does  he  mean 
'door'?  Well,  he  does  not  mean  that  at  all;  he  means  'I  am  closing 
something.' 

You  can  see  that  with  a  whole  terrain  of  intonational  possibilities 
thus  preempted,  as  it  were,  by  tone  patterns,  the  meaning  in  an  expres- 
sive sense,  of  this  chattering  speech  that  you  hear  when  you  land  on  the 
coast  of  Liberia  becomes  a  fairly  inexplicable  thing  until  you  have 
worked  out  the  rules  of  that  particular  game;  and  you  feel  that  there 
are  no  significant  inferences  that  you  could  make  as  to  purely  personal 
revelations  [82]  except  on  the  basis  of  a  complete  understanding  of  that 


One    Culture.  Sociciv.  unJ  the  Individual  221 

framework.  That  is.  ihc  subtle  \arialions  thai  you  could  not  hear  at  all 
at  first,  so  drowned  out  wore  they  in  the  general  contused  intonalional 

picture,  and  which  \i>u  now  alter  mans  years"  habit  perhaps  b- ^ 

disentangle  from  the  mass,  would  be  the  only  things  thai  ha\c 
sive  xaluc. 

C  oming  back  to  cnir  own  Fnglish-speaking  terrain,  we  have  lo  note 
two  things.  First,  the  field  of  intonation  is  not  si>  thoroughly  socialized 
in  the  simple  linguistic  sense  as  in  the  case  of  this  l.iberian  language.  !>o 
thai  iiilonalioiial  play  seems  to  be  of  more  value  lor  inferences  as  lo 
personality  than  in  Liberia.  The  next  point,  however,  is  lo  see  thai  even 
so,  we  are  not  done  with  our  institutional  problem.  It  is  a  commonplace 
that  people  have  varying  intonations  according  to  the  particular  pari 
of  the  country  from  which  they  come.  We  have  the  speech  habits  called 
"drawls."  We  have  the  lively,  melodious,  rippling  speech  o^  the  Hnglish 
gentleman  or  lady.  We  ha\e  the  peculiar  type  of  speech  o\  the  Har- 
vardian,  let  us  say,  or  of  the  Oxfordian.  These  all  insi^Ke  intonalional 
patterns. 

Now,  it  is  a  crude  analysis,  is  it  not.  to  assume  that  e\er\  individual 
who  follows  these  intonalional  patterns  manifests  a  certain  personality 
peculiarity  in  common  with  all  others  o\'  the  group'.'  We  do  not  really 
believe  that.  We  tend  to  think  so  at  first,  before  we  have  a  sulTicienl 
social  critique  at  our  disposal  \o  apply  to  the  situation.  Bui  as  our 
acquaintanceship  with  the  group  becomes  extended,  we  lend,  more  and 
more,  to  discount  these  intonalional  peculiarities,  until  finalK  we  have 
to  say,  "Here,  too,  speech  is  standardized." 

It  seems,  then,  that  while  the  intonalional  limitations  in  Mnglish  arc 
of  a  very  different  nature  technicall\  frcnii  the  intonalional  limitations 
in  this  Liberian  language,  in  the  deeper  psschological  sense  the>  are  not 
quite  so  different  as  seemed  to  be  the  case  at  first  sight.  It  is  merels  that 
the  cultural  patterns  to  which  these  intonalional  habits  are  referred  arc 
of  a  greater  or  lesser  order  of  comple\ii\.  Wc  are  having  dilTiculty.  then. 
as  we  pass  through  this  much  traveled  domain  ot  speech,  in  discovering 
indisputable  indices  o\'  personalit\. 

If  in  spite  of  all  these  difficulties.  \ou  were  ti>  look  back  and  deMrribc 
your  impressions  of  a  parlicular  iiuli\idual  whose  speech  you  had  thus 
analyzed  and  in  which  \xhi  had  found  so  much  disappoinimcnt  in  the 
way  of  definite  personality  indices  that  you  could  put  your  fiiv""  -'v 
you  would  be  quite  sure  (unless  \ou  were  a  certain  kind  ol  psvc; 
or  sociologist.  I  might  add)  that  there  nevertheless  was  something  rather 
distinctive  about   the  individual.    Moreover,   if  you  had  hapjxrned  lo 


222  It  I    Ciilfurc 

know  him  lucniy  years  ago,  you  might,  very  hkely,  in  spite  of  all  the 
things  that  had  liappencd  to  him.  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  had 
adopted  an  Oxford  drawl,  in  spite  of  all  kinds  of  other  things  of  a 
similar  sort,  ha\e  the  feeling  that  there  was  enough  in  speech  alone,  not 
to  speak  of  other  indices  of  behavior,  that  was  in  common  between  his 
actual  performance  today  and  his  performance  as  you  remembered  it 
in  the  old  days,  to  justify  your  considering  him  the  same  person,  with 
the  same  personality  peculiarities.  [83] 

And.  quite  frankly,  we  do  not  exactly  know  why  we  make  these  judg- 
ments. We  are  simply  compelled  to  make  them  because  we  adjust  to 
each  other,  not  on  laborious  analytical  grounds  which  have  been  ration- 
alized for  us,  but  intuitively,  because  of  our  quick  perception  of  signifi- 
cant relations  in  the  totality  of  behavior.  What  exactly  that  process  is, 
how  it  can  be  analyzed  in  its  precise  detail,  it  is  of  course  for  the 
psychologist  of  the  future  to  tell  us,  and  the  realistic  psychologist  is  the 
first  one  to  admit  that  he  has  everything  to  learn. 

Mm  will  remember  that  I  said  that  if  we  proceed  to  a  primitive  culture 
and  work  out  all  its  different  patterns  of  behavior,  we  are  still  left  with 
a  residuum  oi"  feeling  that  the  purely  individual  variations  are  roughly 
parallel  to  those  that  we  stubbornly  feel  exist  in  a  society  such  as  our 
own.  At  this  point  the  psychiatrist,  it  seems  to  me,  is  of  importance. 
His  particular  theories  are  often  difficult  to  accredit,  but  his  type  of 
thought  seems  to  me  to  be  valuable,  because  he,  of  all  individuals  in  the 
modern  scientific  world,  tries  to  rationalize  as  best  he  can  the  stubborn 
intuition  of  normal  human  beings.  He  finds  it  difficult  sometimes  to 
quite  convey  his  meaning  to  the  sociologist,  who  can  point  out  fallacies 
in  his  actual  instances  in  many  cases;  but  in  spite  of  all  that,  he  just 
knows,  from  dealing  with  human  material,  often  over  a  long  period  of 
years,  that  his  individual  remains  significantly  the  same  in  spite  of  all 
social  modifications.  And  this  belief  of  the  psychiatrists  comes  to  the 
aid  of  the  simple,  unanalyzed  feeling  of  the  persistence  of  personality 
that  the  culturist  admits,  though  he  says  very  little  about  it  in  the  official 
literature  of  anthropology  or  sociology.  This  is  the  feeling  that  indivi- 
dual variations  of  a  non-cultural  character  somehow  obtain. 

It  may  be  that  the  contrast  is  illusory  and  is  entirely  due  to  the  very 
perspective  that  I  pictured  at  the  beginning.  It  may  be  that  these  resid- 
ual feelings  are  due  to  the  last  contrasts  of  contours  that  we  only  sense 
as  individual  variations  in  the  total  field  of  conformity  which  has  been 
analyzed  as  culture,  and  that  we  have  not  wit  enough  to  see  these  last 
stubborn  outlines  as  themselves  cultural  in  character.  Much  that  is 


One    C'ultwc.  Soiicfv.  uml  tin-  /niliviJuul  223 

called  signitkaiit  iiuliMcliial  \aiiaiion  m  pcisonalil)  is  orcullural  ongin. 
no  doubt,  bill  1  would  not  go  so  far  as  lo  bclic\c  ihal  in  llicsc  "lasl 
stubborn  outlines"  we  arc  mn  somehow  approaching  certain  dilTcrciKcs 
in  the  human  bemg  that  tianscend  the  inlerpla>  ot  cultural  patterns 
I'or  one  ihin^.  it  is  dirfieiih  \o  helie\e  that  \s  here  physical  dilTcrciuc 
are  as  pronounced  as  the\  are.  there  should  not  be  some  correIali\c 
psychical  ditTerences.  C'ertainl\  one  expects  dilTerences  iilsix-ed.  for  in- 
stance, in  emotioiieil  reaction.  It  is  iiard  to  believe  that  there  is  not 
something  in  the  pi^pular  concejM  o\'  a  naturally  sluggish  person  con- 
trasted \Mlh  a  naluralls  alert  person.  I  he  lallac)  comes  in  allowing  the 
intuition  of  the  distinction  between  the  two  to  rest  uith  too  highls  com- 
plex, socialized  examples.  To  contrast  the  alert,  intellectual  behaMor  ol 
a  college  graduate,  for  instance,  wiili  that  of  a  sluggish,  dull  farmer 
means  nothing.  But  when  we  find  analogous  dilTerences,  often  quite  as 
pronounced  as  this  simple  one.  in  exactly  the  same  cultural  en\iron- 
ment,  in  persons  who  are  earmarked  by  just  such  dilTerences  as  this,  we 
begin  to  suspect  that  something  more  is  invoked  than  the  pla\  of  cul- 
tural forces.  [84] 

There  are  many  psychiatrists  who  do  not  think  that  purely  somatic 
determination  is  ol"  the  greatest  consequence,  it  is  true;  but  there  are 
still  other  determinations,  not  cultural  in  character,  which  come  upon 
the  scene  and  which,  for  the  psychiatrist,  make  the  jx-rsonalits  at  an 
early  period  of  life.  Such  are  the  attitudes  of  the  infant  toward  its  father. 
mother,  brothers,  sisters  -  attitudes  which  seem  to  gi\e  a  set  lo  his 
whole  world,  and  while  these  are  not  innate  in  the  sense  in  which  so- 
matic factors  are  innate,  still  one  ma\  belie\e  that  the>  priKecd  from 
somatic  differentiations  lo  a  certain  extern.  It  ma\  be  true  that  the  nuxl- 
ifying  forces  are  very  much  more  important  than  the  prepared  b.ise.  but 
the  prepared  base  cannot  be  entirely  eliminated.  Otherwise,  it  would  be 
very  difficult  to  understand  why  negati\ism.  for  instance,  is  de\elopcd 
by  one  child,  whereas  the  exact  opposite  is  de\ eloped  by  another.  It  is 
very  easy  to  say,  as  is  always  said  in  such  cases,  that  the  environmenis 
of  the  two  children  are  not  the  same.  Of  course  the\  are  ne\er  quite  the 
same.  But  there  should  be  enough  similarit>  m  mans  cases  to  preNcnl 
the  very  considerable  variation  o\'  personality  features  that  wc  aclually 
find. 

I  think  any  honest  parent  who  examines  his  owu  children  tr^ '*'^ 

standpoint,  whatever  may  be  his  olTicial  theors.  is  left  alnu^st  iiu 

with  the  feeling  that  there  is  si^mething  stubbornly  nuclear  >%hich  cannot 

be  explained  by  an>  iheiHies  of  conditioning  with  which  wc  arc  familiar. 


2'>4  ///   Culture 

However  thai  nia\  be.  the  psychiatrist  does  develop  the  notion  of  a 
personahty  -  partly  innate,  we  will  say,  partly  modified  by  very  early 
conditionings  -  that  tends  to  persist,  in  some  sensible  meaning  of  the 
word  "persist;"  throughout  the  rest  of  life. 

Here  we  are  ira\eling  in  the  opposed  direction,  for  we  are  going  to 
meet  culture  now.  The  psychiatrist,  as  psychiatrist,  does  not  care  about 
culture.  He  sees  culture  merely  as  complicated  kinds  of  behavior  which 
are  modifiable  by  the  actual,  persisting  personality,  and  which  are  food 
for  the  private  symbolisms  of  the  personality.  The  psychiatrist  is  not 
interested,  for  example,  in  religion  as  an  institution,  except  in  so  far  as 
it  is  a  background  fact.  He  is  interested  in  it  in  exactly  the  same  way  in 
which  he  is  interested  in  the  sunshine  or  the  grass  or  anything  else  that 
is  present  in  the  environment.  To  him,  its  institutional  definition  does 
not  constitute  a  human  fact.  To  the  anthropologist  and  sociologist,  it 
does.  The  psychiatrist  wants  to  see  just  what  matters  to  the  given  indivi- 
dual with  his  "set,"  however  prepared  in  the  earliest  years  of  life,  when 
he  "meets"  the  institution,  as  it  were.  He  may  ask  the  question,  "Going 
to  church?"  and  receive  the  answer  "Yes,"  and  feel  that  his  knowledge 
is  merely  of  culture,  not  of  personality.  "Well,  what  about  it?"  he  pon- 
ders. Is  church-going  in  this  instance  a  casual  habit,  or  is  it  a  symbol  of 
loyalty  to  the  father?  If  it  is  a  symbol  of  loyalty  to  the  father,  then  the 
future  conduct  of  the  individual  with  regard  to  church-going  will  have 
a  psychological  characteristic  peculiar  to  the  father  attitude.  And  if  it 
is  a  problem  of  breaking  away  from  the  habit  of  going  to  church,  mere 
scientific  belief  will  not  quite  solve  the  personal  problem,  because  he 
has  to  break  away,  at  least  to  a  meaningful  extent,  from  the  influence 
of  the  father.  If  he  happens  to  develop  an  antagonism  to  the  father, 
breaking  away  from  church  will  be  comparatively  easy;  in  fact,  too  easy. 
It  may  even  outrun  his  intellectual  convictions.  If  he  has  intellectual 
convictions  that  indicate  [85]  the  possibility  of  breaking  away  from 
church,  but  has  a  strong  attachment  to  the  father,  then  a  conflict  arises, 
in  many  cases  involving  much  more  important  patterns  than  that  of 
church-going  itself,  as,  say,  in  the  sex  sphere.  The  psychiatrist  tells  us 
that  such  conflicts  may  in  particular  cases  lead  to  neurosis,  to  psychosis, 
to  all  kinds  of  aberrant  conduct,  to  all  sorts  of  strange  symbolism. 

We  see.  then,  that  to  the  psychiatrist  the  whole  field  of  culturalized 
behavior,  which  means  all  behavior  as  expressly  labeled  by  language,  is 
of  no  interest  whatever  until  it  has  been  seen  from  the  point  of  view  of 
how  it  hooks  up  with  the  very  earliest  attitudinal  symbolism  of  the 
individual,  however  they  in  turn  are  determined.  If  you  want  to  save 


One    Culture.  Stniciv.  and  the  InJtvuJuuI  225 

the  culuiral  siiiialii>n,  you  ina>  sa\  that  these  earliest  delcrminalions  of 
personahty  are  really  elementary  cultural  determinations.  They  arc  nol 
such  as  we  would  ordinariK  thuik  of"  as  cultural,  but  perhaps  \^e  can 
express  them  in  cultural  terms.  The  peculiarit\  about  them.  hi)\*evcr.  is 
that  they  are  infinitely  variable  as  we  go  from  perstni  to  person.  There 
arc  certain  t\pcs  o\'  personality  determination  which  tend  lo  remain 
constant,  but  the  variations  are  so  numerous  that  the  purely  cultural 
point  of  view  leaves  us  rather  in  the  lurch. 

But,  even  so,  let  us  assume  that  there  is  nothmii  to  take  accounl  of 
but  secondar\.  cultural  deleriiiinalions  that  is.  the  imposition  of  cul- 
tural paiierns  of  various  degrees  of  complexity  on  the  indermiiely  plas- 
tic human  organism.  Then  the  whole  problem  which  we  ha\e  been  la- 
boring with  takes  on  a  new  aspect,  and  we  simpl\  see  one  type  of  cul- 
tural conditioning  as  prior  to  another,  and  as  symboh/ed  b\  it.  so  iha! 
all  human  behavior  takes  on  a  highl\  relaii\ist  tinge:  and  it  becomes 
possible  to  say.  Yes,  A  goes  to  church  and  B  goes  to  church,  bul  is  As 
going  to  church  a  more  archaic  symbol,  personally,  than  B's,  or  not? 
That  is,  in  the  chronological  development  of  the  personalitv.  the  cultural 
patterns  come  in  at  various  points  o(  the  fundamental  personality  con- 
figurations and  take  on  meanings  assigned  to  ihem  b\  these 

The  process  of  such  adjustment  is  of  course  exceedingls  complex. 
There  are  all  kinds  oi"  blends  and  conflicts  w hich  make  it  \er\  dilllcul! 
to  give  simple  examples,  but  in  order  that  you  may  mi>re  clearlv  perceiNC 
how  complex  I  feel  the  field  of  personality  development  lo  be.  let  mc 
for  a  minute  discuss  the  term  "ambivalence."  which  the  psychoanalyst 
is  fond  of  using.  Ambivalence  means  that  >ou  feel  in  conirar\  ways 
about  the  given  object.  You  hate  your  friend  and  you  love  your  friend. 
Or  you  love  your  wife  and,  one  fine  da\.  sou  forget  to  kiss  her.  The 
psychoanalyst,  that  very  gruesome  individual,  tells  you  that  this  really 
means  that  you  hate  your  wife,  and  (hat  this  hatred  "leaked  out"  at 
that  particular  moment.  Never  mind  about  the  literal  truth  o(  such 
analysis  as  that.  Let  us  assume  for  the  sake  o\'  argument  thai  such  an 
analysis  is  possible.  The  psychoanalyst  will  go  even  further,  if  he  is 
cranky  and  meticulous,  and  he  will  sa>.  "  ^es.  vou  <//</  kiss  your  wife, 
bul  first  you  started  to  go  {o  the  doov  and  then  you  \\enl  biick  lo  kiss 
her.  That  shows  that  you  corrected  vour  essential  conduct,  you  may 
have  punished  yourself,  perhaps  you  managed  lo  come  lale  to  your 
appointment.  Perhaps  you  gloried  in  the  coming  late  because  that 
meant  thai  \ou  had  onl\  punished  yourself  for  your  disloyalty  (86)  to 


226  ^^^   Culture 

your  wife."  These  are  examples  of  what  some  would  call  the  vagaries 
of  psychoanalytic  explanation. 

The  really  important  thing  to  observe  about  situations  of  this  kind  is 
this:  that  while  you  have  an  ambivalent  attitude,  you  are  not  really 
analyzing  the  situation  until  you  begin  to  see  that  even  an  object,  if  one 
may  use  that  word  for  something  as  close  to  you  as  your  own  wife,  is 
not  a  simple,  single,  indivisible  object.  She  belongs  to  different  contexts 
of  meaning.  (This  is  in  some  cases  only  too  deplorably  the  case.)  We 
have  the  romantic  ideal  of  oneness  of  meaning  of  the  wife,  and  one 
hopes,  romantically,  that  one  can  carry  that  single  meaning  through  all 
of  life.  But  that,  of  course,  the  gruesome  psychoanalyst  tells  us,  is  mer- 
ely one  of  the  pleasant  fictions  of  hfe.  Actually,  your  wife  is  a  symbol 
of  a  great  many  other  things.  For  instance,  she  is  the  sister  of  your 
brother-in-law... and  to  that  extent  she  is  the  symbol  of  brother-in-law, 
parents-in-law,  alien  family. 

If  you  look  at  any  "object"  in  that  way,  new  problems  arise  of  a  very 
disturbing  kind.  You  may,  for  instance,  quite  frankly  detest  your 
brother-in-law.  At  the  particular  moment  when  you  forgot  to  kiss  your 
wife,  you  may  have  been  punishing  her  for  being  your  brother-in-law's 
sister.  You  transfer  your  dislike  for  the  nonce  to  her.  She  was  at  that 
moment  a  symbol  of  something  other  than  the  wife  of  yourself.  This 
somewhat  ludicrous  example  is  not  intended  to  be  taken  too  seriously, 
although  I  think  that  for  some  cases  it  is  serious  enough;  but  it  is  merely 
an  example  of  thousands  of  possible  complications  of  meaning. 

The  term  "ambivalence,"  in  other  words,  is  not,  it  seems  to  me,  suffi- 
ciently analyzed  by  the  psychoanalysts  themselves,  because  they  do  not 
tell  us,  when  they  talk  about  ambivalence,  exactly  who  the  person  that 
you  are  feeling  ambivalent  toward  really  is  in  his  multiple  symbolic 
significance;  and  until  you  find  out  exactly  whom  or  what  you  love  in 
the  double  or  triple  or  quadruple  entity  the  "object"  may  be,  and  whom 
or  what  you  hate  or  are  indifferent  to,  you  do  not  understand  the  mean- 
ing of  the  term  "ambivalence." 

A  simple  and  perhaps  more  serious  example  of  the  complexity  of 
behavior  is  seen  in  the  distinction  between  individual  and  class.  A  man, 
for  instance,  has  a  very  good  Chinese  friend,  but  all  of  a  sudden  he 
finds  himself  acting  toward  this  Chinese  friend  as  though  he  were  not 
his  friend,  but  as  though  he  were  any  Chinaman;  that  is,  he  discovers 
that  he  has  some  feelings  about  Chinamen.  Of  course,  this  is  a  very 
simple  case  of  ambivalence.  It  means  that  the  person  in  question  is  not 


One    C  III f lire.  Socictv.  and  tin-  hulivuhuil  227 

ihc  same  pcrsiMi.  is  not  ihc  same  cnlii\.  ihc  same  object,  in  ihc  iwo 
contexts. 

It  is  the  hiismess  ot  the  ps\eho<iiial\st  of  the  realistic  psyclit'i.'i'ist. 
I  would  rather  sa\.  for  I  think  the  term  "psychoanalyst"  is  fated  to 
disappear  sooner  or  later  to  be  eonsianlls  worrying  about  what  is 
the  true,  symbolic  significance  m  rundamenlal  personality  pattern>  ol 
anything  that  you  choc^se  to  handle  in  \(>ur  en\ironmenl.  The  \sht>le 
world  ofcultiue.  thererore.  is  of  interest  to  the  ps\ehoK>gist  only  in  so 
tar  as  it  can  he  disinlegialed  and  discharged  as  irrele\ant  until  reana- 
lyzed in  terms  or[87]  tiie  more  rimdamenlal  patterns  of  the  \ery  ear!ie>t 
years  of  conditioning. 

How  much  o\^  these  more  fundamentid  patterns  are  nativistic.  and 
how  much  ol"  them  are  secondary.  I  leave  to  future  investigators.  I  am 
not  so  bold  as  to  suggest  anxlhing  al  all  Bui  as  lo  the  reality  of  the 
dual  problem  of  seeing  the  "set"  personality  and  set  alarmingly  earls. 
in  my  opinion  -  going  out  into  culture  and  embracing  it  and  making 
it  always  the  same  thing  as  itself  in  a  constantl\  increasing  comple\M> 
of  blends  o(  behaxior  in  some  sensible  meaning  o\'  the  word  "same."  on 
the  one  hand,  and  seeing  the  historically  determined  stream  of  culture. 
which  takes  us  right  back  to  paleolithic  man.  actualizing  itself  in  gi\en 
human  behavior  on  the  other  -  this  dual  problem  set  by  two  opposed 
directions  of  interest,  is  the  real  problem,  it  seems  to  me.  of  the  analyst 
of  human  behavior.  The  difficuIiN  at  present  is  no\  so  much  the  under- 
standing of  the  problem  as  a  problem,  but  the  coinincing  inirseKes  that 
it  is  a  real  one. 


Following  Sapir's  presentation,  the  meeting  was  t>peneil  lor  iIincunm 
Frank  asked  first  for  specific  questions  of  clarification  that  shoulii  K-  .nf 
starting  a  general  discussion  ot  tiie  piiper's  thesis. 

U.ART.        I  should  like  to  have  explained  a  little  more  clcarls  the  li 

Dr.  Sapir  meant  to  make  hetween  persmialits  and  indivulualily.  hcl- 

taking  up  llie  psychoanalMic  part  of  tlie  talk. 

SAPIR.  -  I  purposely  refrained  from  defining  terms  because  the  ' 

is  rather  a  hopeless  one  in  the  present  tangle  ol'  usages.  It  can  be  >.:_ 

of  several  do/ens  of  ways  as  Dr.  Sullivan,  who  is  present,  can  Icslify   There  are 

almost  as  many  definitions  of  personality  as  there  .ire  |X-' 

I  thought  it  was  much  more  important  to  point  out  the  p 

of  a  concept  of  persistence  of  behavior  pattern  in  the  individual,  on  Ihc  one  hand. 

and  some  kind  of  concept  of  institutional  fixation  . 

it  was  to  worry  about  uliellier  we  should  call    "|Vi 

assemblage  of  behavii>r  patterns. 


228  fif  Ciilmrc 

liKiividuality.  I  think,  is  a  little  more  easily  defined  because  it  does  not  commit 
iiscll  to  any  particular  theory.  All  we  mean  by  the  term  is  a  difference  which  is 
smnificanl  enough  to  merit  the  name.  Whether  that  modicum  of  difference  is  due  to 
innate  factors  or  to  the  very  earliest  kind  of  subcultural  conditioning  or  to  very 
complex  cultural  experiences  of  later  life  is  a  comparatively  indifferent  matter. 

A  man  may.  for  instance,  at  the  age  of  thirty  learn  to  talk  like  Harry  Lauder  and, 
having  done  so.  he  will  be  credited  with  that  particular  trait  of  "individuality."  Of 
course  such  individuality  is  of  very  little  interest  to  the  psychiatrist,  say,  except  as  a 
mere  symbol  of  his  wish  to  be  different.  That  is  all  he  will  get  out  of  it,  and  that 
much  may  of  course  be  very  important.  But  the  actual  behavior,  the  Harry  Lauder- 
like  behavior  as  such,  is  of  no  interest  to  him  whatever.  It  would  only  interest  him 
as  a  culturalist,  if  for  instance,  he  wanted  to  know  how  a  Scotchman  is  supposed  to 
talk  and  this  were  the  only  example  he  had  at  his  disposal  to  illustrate  the  Scotch 
dialect.  In  such  a  case  he  makes  the  most  of  the  cultural  experience.  When  we  go 
out  among  Indians  or  other  primitives  to  study  their  cultures,  we  use  any  evidence 
of  a  cultural  sort  that  we  have,  not  because  we  hope  to  find  out  much  about  the 
people  as  people  but  because  we  are  interested  in  the  official  outlines  of  behavior. 

From  the  ordinary  human  standpoint  such  an  extreme  variation  in  behavior  as  I 
have  cited  would  be  an  example  of  individuality  but  it  would  not  be  significant  for 
personality,  as  I  use  [the]  term,  because  it  does  not  connote  that  persistence  of  the 
fundamental  individual  or  personal  pattern  which  the  term  "personality"  implies. 
H.ART.  -  I  thought  in  the  first  part  of  the  talk  you  dealt  simply  with  individuality 
in  the  sense  of  people  being  different,  and  I  do  not  see  the  problem  that  was  raised 
there.  In  the  second  part  of  the  talk  I  see  the  difficulty  raised,  but  I  did  not  see  why 
the  fact  that  people  are  individually  different  from  each  other  should  be  such  a 
perplexing  problems.  Coats  are  different  from  each  other  and  leaves  are  different 
from  each  other  as  we  get  to  know  them  and  feel  about  them  as  though  they  are 
different  and  to  recognize  the  individual  thing  simply  because  it  is  a  different  combi- 
nation of  well-known  — 

SAPIR.  -  I  did  not  assume  that  there  was  any  special  difficulty  about  the  fact  of 
difference.  The  point  of  interest  in  the  earlier  part  of  my  remarks  was  the  varying 
evaluation  of  such  differences.  The  point  that  I  was  particularly  interested  in  making 
at  the  beginning  was  that  many  of  these  differences  do  not  necessarily  involve  the 
nuclear  concept  of  personality  which  I  was  hoping  to  develop  later  on,  although 
they  may  seem  to  -  merely  that.  I  was  simply  sounding  a  warning,  as  it  were. 

Chairman  Frank  then  opened  the  meeting  for  general  discussion. 

WRIGHT.  -  I  was  not  quite  able  to  see  why  you  needed  to  find  anything  out  of 
culture  to  account  for  the  personality.  Why  can  you  not  simply  say  that  you  have  a 
uniqueness  in  a  particular  combination  of  cultural  elements;  that  that  combination 
or  pattern  persists?  You  certainly  have  a  sufficient  number  of  cultural  elements  so 
that  you  can  by  putting  them  together  get  any  number  of  unique  combinations.  Why 
is  not  that  a  sufficient  explanation  of  the  uniqueness  of  personality? 
SAPIR.  -  That,  of  course,  is  a  theory  held  by  some  sociologists,  who  believe  that 
the  essential  personality  is  precisely  what  society  makes  of  the  person,  but  you  are 
not  referring  to  the  sociological  personality  in  the  strictly  technical  sense  of  the  word. 
You  would  grant  indefinite  variability  of  personality  but  you  would  think  that  the 


One    Culture.  Society.  anJ  the  hulnuiiuil  229 

chances  of  combination  of  various  experiences  given  by  culture  arc  so  great  that 

(here  would  be  a  unique  development  lor  each  and  c\ei  . 

1  ihink  that  is  a  pcilectly  possible  theory,  and  >i»u  ii.  thai  1  Ined  lo 

save  the  possibility  of  that  theory  as  a  theory  of  personality  by  pointing  out  tlial 
certain  cultural  determinations  might  be  looked  upon  as  so  imp*'r'     •  ! 

with  all  others,  because  of  a  prior  occurrence,  perhaps,  or  be*., 
emotional  \alue.  as  to  define  a  concept  of  personality  for  the  psychiairiM  thjt  \*ouId 
be  just  as  firm,  just  as  persistent,  as  the  concept  of  personality  defined  with  the  help 
of  inborn  traits  and  non-cultural  forces. 

I  would  not  think  it  wise  for  anyone  lo  commit  himself  to  that  at  all  at  i 
time.  1  hope  that  others  who  know  more  about  psychology  and  about  aK. ......  ..».- 

man  behavior  may  throw  light  on  these  possibilities. 

.Ml  I  can  say  is  that  1  personally  prefer  the  other  hypothesis,  and  the  rcas4»n  I 
prefer  it  is  largely  the  \ery  kind  of  experience  that  1  referred  to  before,  namel).  that 
we  get  parallels  in  the  general  personality  gamut,  as  we  go  from  one  culture  lo 
another,  u  hich  seem  to  me  to  override  all  the  determining  forces  of  culture  H»clf. 
even  the  most  subtle  ones. 

WRIGHT.  -  Of  course  I  can  see  that  there  are  inherited  elements  which  you  <ipcak 
of  that  is.  if  you  merely  mean  to  distinguish  between  inherited  elements  and  cultural 
elements. 

SAPIR.  -  I  do  not  know  whether  we  understand  the  same  thing  by  "inherited  ele- 
ments." Would  you  give  an  example  of  what  you  call  an  ■inherited  elemenl"  in  Ihu 
particular  connection? 

WRIGHT.  -  Apart  from  hereditary  elements  which  do  not  enter  into  the  problem 
of  personality  which  I  understand  you  are  speaking  of  it  seems  to  me  you  tusx 
ample  opportunities  for  uniqueness  in  merely  the  organization  of  cul: 
Vou  spoke  for  instance  of  language  and  intonation.  Doubtless  if  \. 
Englander  who  uses  a  word  characteristic  of  New  England  coupled  with  an  iir 
tion  which  is  characteristic  of  Virginia  you  have  a  combination  which  is  a  luuc 
unusual  and  you  could  readily  say  that  that  was  a  trait  of  personaht)    But  each  .»f 
the  elements,  both  the  intonation  and  word,  .ire  of  course  cultural  element* 
SAPIR.  -  Tliat  was  exactly  the  kind  of  example  I  quoted  myself  in  supptHi  of  thai 
very  point.  But  suppose  we  use  another  example. 

Suppose  you  find  that  one  individual  has  a  rather  strident  type  of  voice  Ihai  *ccm4 

needlessly  insistent,  whereas  another  individual  belonging  to  the  ur"   -■  1 

using  exactly  the  same  words,  the  same  tyjx-  oi'  pronunciation,  and 
that  is  socially  definable  in  speech  has  a  voice  that  somehow  imp 
apologetic.  Would  you  consider  that  there  was  anything  there  thai  ........ 

concept  of  a  nuclear  personality  mvoKing  perhaps  hereditary  Icalurc*.  or  w 
think  that  there  was  nothing  new  in  that  particular  Icaturc  ol  ' 
that  I  am  not  very  clear  about  that,  but  I  shi>uld  think  il>.rr  \s. 
there  that  would  transcend  the  cultural  sphere 

Chairman  Frank  called  for  contributions  "from  those  who  arc  partKniUriy  coo- 
cerned  with  deviations  in  human  behavior." 

Harry  Stack  Sullivan  expressed  his  strong  symp;ithy  for  Sapir'i  analyw.  and  »uf. 
gested  (without  quite  naming  him)  that  Wright  had  challenged  il  oul  of  prejudice  and 


230  111   Cult  lire 

"a  cullural  pattern  which  requires  him  to  dctraci/"  Again  emphasizing  his  agreement 
with  Sapir,  Sulhvan  then  spoke  to  the  overhip  between  psychiatry  and  the  social  sciences: 
SULLIVAN.  -  ...  ir  he  [i.  e..  the  psychiatrist]  i<new  anything  about  the  social  sci- 
ences his  problems  as  a  psychiatrist  would  be  much  more  capable  of  attack.  Many 
of  the  problems  of  the  psychiatrist  actually  are  economic  problems  of  his  patients. 
Many  more  of  them  are  of  another  variety.  But  there  are  economic  problems  and  so 
on  and  he  knows  nothing  about  economics  and  therefore  is  inclined  to  omit  from 
his  data  for  classification  and  study  all  these  aspects  that  do  not  have  good  medical 
background  and  so  on,  and  as  a  result  his  subject  matter,  the  disorders  of  personality, 
loses  its  resemblance  to  anything  that  any  of  you  gentlemen  study  in  the  social  beha- 
vior of  people. 

I  wish  to  say,  as  my  real  contribution,  thai  all  psychiatry  of  that  kind  fails  so  far 
as  its  victims,  the  patients,  are  concerned;  that  the  very  process  of  converting  them 
into  objects  of  a  purely  medical  specialty  omits  nearly  all  the  difficulties  that  go  to 
make  up  their  illnesses  ... 

As  soon  as  psychiatry  begins  to  be  concerned  with  the  particular  utilization  of 
cultural  patterns  and  so-called  "social  processes"  by  the  individual  who  is  its  subject, 
then  it  begins  to  be  useful  to  the  individual,  which  is  convenient  for  the  doctor  who 
lives  by  its  success,  but  it  also  becomes  a  field  for  research  in  all  the  social  sciences, 
since  they  are  all  supposed  to  apply  to  each  member  of  society. 

What  1  got  from  Dr.  Sapir's  address  was  that  he  was  indicating  how  inseparable 
are  the  two  aspects,  how  genuine  is  personality  which  concerns  the  psychiatrist,  how 
general  is  an  infinity  of  cultural  patterns  which  go  to  make  up  each  subject  of  the 
psychiatrist,  because  there  are  unusual  utilizations  of  social  patterns  ...  I  should  say 
that  in  psychiatric  material,  by  cooperation  between  the  culturalist  and  the  psychia- 
trist, much  light  can  be  shed  in  both  directions.  In  other  words,  one  might  start  in 
the  middle  and  walk  both  ways.  (Laughter  and  applause) 

Chairman  Frank,  noting  that  the  members  of  the  ongoing  Conference  on  the  Study 
of  Personality  (i.  e.,  the  meeting  of  the  Committee  on  Personality  and  Culture)  had 
expressed  varying  viewpoints  during  the  daytime  sessions,  called  on  Adolf  Meyer  to 
contribute  to  the  discussion.  After  some  initial  demur,  Meyer  asked: 

MEYER.  -  I  was  inclined  to  ask  the  question  of  Dr.  Sapir  as  to  whether  he  would 
perhaps  give  us  an  idea  of  some  specific  anthropological  problems  in  which  the 
difTerentiation  of  personality  and  of  culture  would  come  out  in  a  more  distinctive 
way  than  in  the  relatively  casual  matters  which  he  has  used  for  exemplification.  The 
activities  of  the  human  being  are  so  multiple  that  one  naturally  likes  to  make  con- 
trasts only  when  they  are  of  sufficient  importance  ... 

Citing  an  early  paper  of  his  own  on  the  problem  of  differentiating  personalities,  Meyer 
suggested  that  it  was  not  true  that  physicians  did  not  interest  themselves  in  culture.  He 
then  rephrased  his  question: 

MEYER.  -  My  question  would  be:  What  are  the  things  in  anthropology  that  force 
us  to  try  to  make  such  an  ultra-sharp  division  between  what  is  individual  and  what 
is  culture?  As  a  physician  I  cannot  separate  the  two  things.  It  is  a  more  organically 
determined  or  a  more  environmentally  determined  issue,  but  how  I  could  make  an 
absolute  distinction  I  would  be  utterly  unable  to  declare  without  doing  harm  to 
either  the  facts  or  the  patient  or  the  whole  situation. 


One    Culture.  Society.  iinJ  the  InanuiUiil  231 

When  \vc  come  finally  lo  such  a  mailer  lor  mstancc  as  the  C'hincxc  u 
iilar  lineo  and  our  lype.  where  shall  we  liim*  We  know  ihal  ih.ii  • 
has  a  dilTerenl  analonn  than  we  ha\e   He  has  dilVerenl  laeial  inn 
Where  shall  we  draw  the  line?  Are  those  determined  h>  accident,  and  the 
perhaps  somewhat  related  to  it.  or  are  they  habits'  What  has  determined  the  |v«.mi.ir 
dillereiKcs  o\'  the  facial  muscles  in  the  Chinese  and  in  other  races' 

There  are  e\ identK  things  there  which  ma\  \er>  easils  he  strong!) 
is  only  where  the  matter  is  conspicuous  enough  that  we  begin  lo  ask  ;mv 
What  is  tribal  just  by  cultural  habit,  and  whal  is  tribal  more  in  the  form 
or  morphological  de\elopiiieiu.' 

The  reeling  1  ha\c  is  that  the  stud\   *>!  |XTsonalit>   is  tremendously  inwv.n  .fu 
because  it  leads  us  lo  focusing  on  certain  types  and  those  types  are  undou 
more  importance  to  us  if  tlie\  are  morphologically  determined  as  well  as  ihivu^h 
habit  formation. 

At  ihc  beginning  o\'  the  discussion  this  e\ening  1  could  not  help  conjunng  up 
some  picture  of  contrasts  and  problems  that  I  see    1  thought  of  some  of   ' 
funerals  that  1  had  an  (.opportunity  \o  attend,  where  families  are  much  m 
to  come  together  in  large  groups  tluin  would  be  possible  in  this  country.  There  I 
might  see  the  farmer,  the  lawyer,  the  doctor,  the  minister  in  one  famiK.  ai;  ' 
entl\  with  totall\  ditVerent  habits.  It  would  be  exceeding!)  diHlcult  to  think  . 
the  farmer  into  the  minister,  and  vice  versa,  if  they  once  ha\e  taken  the  fold 

Personality  is  not  something  that  is  acquired  at  birth  and  remair      -     •'     •' 
same.  Personality  to  me  is  something  plastic  and  it  will  refer  lo  those  ; 
not  likely  to  be  changeable  under  tiic  mlluences  either  of  en\iri>nmeni  or  ol  pcrvinal 
di  (Terence. 

Applied  to  anlliiopoK>g\  I  would  sa\  of  course  it  is  dilTicull  to  know  when  t»r 
have  just  individual  traits  and  when  we  ha\e  group  traits,  but  that  has  not  been 
decided  by  comparisons  o'i  large  numbers,  and  I  should  like  \er>  much  to  hj\e 
some  forceful  instance  where  making  that  sort  of  dilVerentialion  has  cut  u  figure  in 
anthropological  discriminations.  On  the  surface  it  is  \ery  easy  but  as  to  fundamental 
ones.  1  do  not  know.  (Applause) 

SAPIR.       1  am  not  at  all  sure  that  I  understand  the  question.  Il  may  be  ihrtt  lo  h 
certain  extent  we  are  thinking  at  cross-purposes,  but  in  order  that  I  ma>  ' 
get  the  drift  o{  Dr.  Meyer's  remarks  1  should  like  lo  ask  one  queMt  "   ^"^  • 
Dr.  Meyer,  that  there  may  be  anatomical  determmatuMis  in  s|\ 
which  slu>w  in  the  thing  that  wo  c.ill  speech  as  a  pattern,  as  an  organi/alumal  *>'»»««. 
as  a  cultural  fact' 

MLYhR.       1  would  not  be  sure  ol  that. 

SAPIR        I  just  wanted  \.o  get  the  general  form  of  your  thought 
MEVI  K         I  should  not  like  to  put  excessive  emphasis  on  il  bul  I  '•^ 
open  to  the  liistiMical  inquirN  which  of  course  is  not  acvcMibk  becauw  uc  n.iM,-  n.' 
history  o^  those  deep-laid  things 

[To]  what  extent  functional  tendencies  alTtvied  stOK'tural  ; 
extent  structural  tendencies  alTected  functional  ones       \\ 
interesting  lacti>r  that  we  ha\e  such  marked  dillereiucs  : 
detail  of  muscle  development 


232  III  Culture 

As  I  said  I  do  not  want  to  stress  that  point  excessively  but  it  seems  to  me  that 
when  wc  go  over  to  that  funeral  assemblage  and  the  consequences  that  I  drew  from 
those  observations,  when  wc  take  up  this  question  as  to  whether  the  personality  that 
has  developed  as  the  farmer  is  going  to  be  transformed  into  the  ministerial  personal- 
itv,  in  the  same  familv.  or  vice  versa,  then  we  have  something  that  is  opened  within 
our  generation. 

SAPIR.  Well.  1  still  do  not  exactly  know  where  the  point  of  attack  that  I  should 
ccMiibat  is  meant  to  be.  but  perhaps  I  can  start  the  ball  rolling  at  least  by  taking  up 
the  question  o'(  language,  because  it  is  a  peculiarly  complex  cultural  pattern. 

It  seems  to  me  that  in  that  particular  case  we  have  some  pretty  good  evidence, 
both  direct,  that  is.  in  a  historical  sense,  and  inferential,  in  a  reconstructive  sense.  I 
think  it  is  the  consensus  of  opinion  of  all  students  of  comparative  linguistics  and  of 
all  anthropologists  that  there  is  not  a  single  fact,  not  one  single  fact  in  the  whole 
complex  welter  of  details  dealing  with  socialized  linguistic  expression,  that  can  be 
explained  by  any  kind  of  reference  to  anatomical  facts.  There  is  not  a  single  sound, 
no  matter  how  bizarre  or  strange  it  is  -  and  many  of  them  are  strange  from  our 
standpoint  when  we  are  first  confronted  by  them  -  which  can  be  shown  to  be  depen- 
dent on  the  peculiar  formation  of  the  larynx,  for  instance,  or  any  peculiarities  of  the 
lips  or  palate  or  nose.  You  might,  for  instance,  try  to  work  out  a  correlation  between 
the  presence  of  nasalization  in  speech,  say  nasalization  of  vowels,  as  you  get  it  in 
French,  and  the  conformation  of  the  nose,  but  the  task  is  absolutely  hopeless  if  only 
you  look  at  it  from  the  point  of  view  of  distribution,  because,  observe,  you  find  that 
the  distribution  of  this  habit  of  nasalization,  as  a  phonetic  feature  in  language,  has 
absolutely  no  relation  to  the  facts  of  distribution  of  anatomical  features.  If  you  take 
the  continent  of  Europe,  you  find  that  there  are  just  a  few  languages  that  have  these 
nasalized  vowels.  You  have  French,  Portuguese,  Polish,  and  a  few  German  dialects, 
such  as  certain  Swabian  dialects,  where  these  nasalized  vowels  are  supposed  to  be 
due  to  the  cultural  influence,  by  diffusion,  of  French.  If  you  go  to  the  African  conti- 
nent, you  find  that  a  great  many  African  languages  have  nasalization,  and  a  great 
many  others  have  not.  Some  Chinese  dialects  have  it,  and  a  great  many  have  not. 
We  even  find  distinct  differences  in  language  on  this  score  on  the  American  continent 
in  cases  where  its  dialects  are  very  closely  related  to  one  another. 

Of  course  you  may  say  that  this  is  too  specific  an  instance,  but  if  you  generalize 
from  such  instances  as  these  into  the  thousands  and  thousands  of  cases  that  you 
collect,  you  finally  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  all  the  cultural  or  institutional  facts, 
which  I  have  called  "cultural  patterns,"  insofar  as  they  deposit  themselves  in  the 
traditions  known  as  language  habits,  are  of  that  nature;  that  there  is  no  possible 
correlation  that  we  can  point  to,  at  any  rate,  between  the  patterns  and  the  organismal 
facts  of  any  sort  whatever.  We  are,  then,  driven  by  our  data  to  believe  that  there  is 
a  very  large  segment,  and  a  very  important  segment,  of  total  human  behavior  that 
can  be  explained  without  meticulous  regard  to  organismal  facts,  which  does  not 
mean  that  the  actualization  of  these  patterns  in  the  behavior  of  a  particular  indivi- 
dual at  a  given  time  and  place  does  not  need  reference  to  the  organism  -  certainly 
not.  The  anthropological  answer  to  that  would  simply  be  that  if  I  actually  pronounce 
a  French  word  I  do  more  than  simply  actualize  the  pattern;  I  also  express  private, 
individual,  symbolisms  that  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  language  as  an  organization. 


One  C  iiltiuc.  Sociciv.  unJ  the  InJiviJunl  233 

In  fact.  I  pcrstMially  believe  that  al  the  \er>  mv)mcm  ihal  I  am  |  am 

illuslialinu  in  speech  luU  merely  the  variDus  patterns  which  arc  con, v..  •- 

posited  in  speech  according  to  the  tradition  which  I  happen  to  be  heir  lo.  t 
of  other  personahty  revelations        or  perhaps  we  should  no{  t 

symptoms       that  i.\o  not  belong  to  speech  at  all.  Speech  is  mei 
of  these  meanings. 

Some  of  these  indices  of  my  total  peisi)nalii\  or  iiKii\idiialii\ 
use  whatever  term  you  like  -   obviously  belong  to  the  analoinic.ii    .  i  t 

be  something  about  the  conformation  of  my  laryn.x.  for  instance,  which  lorccft  mc 
to  speak  as  I  do.  If  you  changed  my  larynx,  there  is  not  the  slightest  dou^*  ■'    ■    '  c 
sounds  I  would  make  would  be  quite  dilTerent  from  the  sounds  1  am  m  • 
and  the  acoustician  could  pro\e  it  by  a  study  of  the  sound  waves  thai  I  am  priHliK- 
ing. 

But  the  anthropologist  is  not  interested  in  total  behavior  any  more  than  ihc  loci- 
ologist  is.  He  is  interested  in  definable  contours  or  patterns  which  ha\e  a  li  ! 

a  distribution  and  which  exist  in  some  real  meaning  of  the  WDrd  "exist."  rc^;  .  I 
the  actual  physical  variations  of  the  body.  He  may  be  wrong  in  many  of  his  infer- 
pretations,  but  so  far  as  I  know  the  data  of  anthropology,  we  can  gel  al.  "     • 

didly  without  the  slightest  recourse  to  any  thei^ry  of  the  human  bod>    \  c 

can  assume  in  the  conceptual  world  of  the  history  of  culture  that  these  paiiemi 
unfold  themselves  owing  to  the  coming  together  of  ideas,  of  systems,  of  a  conceptual 
nature  without  anybody  as  the  carrier  of  them.  We  know  of  course  that  that  i» 
ridiculous,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  but  so  far  as  the  understanding  of  culture  is  concerned 
we  can  get  along  remarkably  well  w ith  that  kind  o\'  hypothesis,  and  in  fact  the  mini- 
sion  of  the  body  at  every  turn  in  the  explanation  of  cultural  outlines  is  the  greatcM 
nuisance  in  the  study  of  the  social  sciences. 

From  this  point  of  view  I  am  very  much  in  synipalhv  with  the  cvonomisi  when 
he  talks  of  the  fictitious  entity  known  as  "economic  man."  which  does  not  mean  thai 
if  he  wishes  to  understand  the  total  behavior  of  individuals  m  economic  sin:  •  ■  'r 
can  dispense  with  more  realistic  contours  of  the  indnidual.  But  so  far  as 
functioning  in  the  main  is  concerned,  he  does  not  need  much  more  than  the  iKiion 
that  we  call  "economic  man"  and  the  kind  of  motives  that  are  said  >■'  ^^^  ••  ">•"» 
self-interest. 

That  particular  example  may  or  may  not  be  sound  but  I  want  ti-  ; 
a  rough  analogy  of  the  kind  ol'  thinking  that  the  anthropologist  has  t.  _  i 

constructing  the  hundreds  and  hundreds  ol'  pattern  lines  that  make  up  Ihc  culture 
history  of  mankind. 

We  also  find  more  direct  evidence,  which  is  interesting.  We  find,  for  inM.^ncr.  Ihal 
the  phenomenon  of  diffusion,  the  spread  of  patterns,  is  such  as  U>  v 
violently  the  presuppositions  of  a  racial  analysis.  We  find,  for  insianw 
of  behavior,  forms  of  belief,  forms  of  speech,  ideals,  anything  \ou  like 
entirely  dissociated  from  the  particular  bodies  that  prcsumabl\  u 
cialed  with  them,  and  finally  find  an  anchorage  in  Kxlics  that 
minds  that  believe  themselves  to  be  as  the  poles  asunder  from  ihc  said  onginalor* 

I  do  not  know  whether  that  particularly  answers  your  question 

Meyer  replied  that  he  had  not  intended  to  raise  any  obieclion.  ".ind  u  ••.. 
unfortunate  on  my  part  that  I  gave  the  impression  that  I  wished  to  pl.uc  the 

on  the  soma."  He  continued: 


234  III  Culture 

MEYF.R.  -  ...  The  physician  has  to  use  all  the  social  facts,  all  the  religious,  all  the 
economic  facts  that  are  available,  or  he  is  not  a  good  physician.  And  he  will  naturally 
also  use  all  those  things  that  are  not  social,  that  are  more  the  problem,  let  us  say,  of 
structural  dvnaniics  or  growth  developments  and  individual  changes,  and  finally  ra- 
cial changes,  and  things  of  that  sort. 

1  am  very  anxious  not  to  leave  the  impression  that  I  wished  to  antagonize  the 
exceedingly  interesting  and  well-illustrated  field  from  the  ordinary  point  of  view,  but 
I  feel  that  we  must  recognize  that  the  differentiations  of  personality  as  the  physician 
uses  them  have  a  somewhat  diflerent  and  more  extended  origin  than  was  intimated; 
that  he  also  has  a  forward-looking  [i.  e.,  prognostication]  rather  than  a  backward- 
looking  interest  and  that  that  probably  was  very  much  more  important  in  the  devel- 
opment of  the  personality  type  as  the  physician  looks  at  it. 

The  very  discussion  shows  I  think  what  a  tremendously  complex  field  we  are 
entering  upon  and  we  therefore  do  well  to  have  the  relativity  of  the  concepts  before 
us.  And  when  we  deal  with  that  sort  of  thing  we  should  make  sure  that  we  know 
why  we  make  the  emphasis  on  a  certain  thing.  And  I  should  say  that  in  the  anthropo- 
logical field  very  much  the  same  things  will  have  to  be  utilized  that  we  used  in  that 
example  that  I  mentioned,  the  funeral. 

ALLPORT.  -  I  merely  wanted  to  ask  Dr.  Sapir  whether  it  might  not  be  possible 
that  the  ancestors  of  the  present  races  that  speak  these  different  languages  might 
have  been  of  a  physical  type  a  little  bit  more  pure,  and  a  little  bit  less  mixed  by 
interbreeding,  so  that  there  might  have  been  some  anatomical  characteristics  at  the 
time  of  the  beginning  of  the  differentiation  of  the  language  that  might  have  been 
associated  with  the  different  sounds.  It  is  queer  that  the  human  organism  is  so  adapt- 
able and  can  learn  so  readily  that  very  slight  differences  of  facial  architecture  would 
not  play  an  important  part,  but  when  it  comes  to  the  beginning  of  those  things,  the 
initiation  of  those  patterns  of  speech,  it  may  be  that  small,  very  slight  anatomical 
dilTerences  would  give  a  cast  to  the  infiection  or  the  speech  which  might  remain  fixed 
by  habit  as  a  part  of  the  culture  pattern. 

SAPIR.  -  I  would  not  at  all  deny  [it]  as  a  possible  theory,  in  answer  to  both  Dr. 
Meyer's  last  remarks  and  Dr.  Allport's,  that  slight  physiological  and  anatomical  vari- 
ations might  have  been  socialized  and  then  have  set  certain  historical  processes  go- 
ing. I  think,  as  a  speculation,  that  is  perfectly  possible.  All  I  claim  is  that  so  far  as 
we  have  any  direct  or  reconstructed  evidence  at  our  disposal,  we  never  seem  to  be 
led  to  the  use  of  purely  biological  differentiae  in  explaining  our  culture. 

We  actually  have  very  definite  evidence  as  to  the  development  of  those  habits  of 
nasalization  that  I  spoke  about.  Every  Portuguese  nasalized  vowel  and  every  French 
nasalized  vowel  goes  back  to  an  actual  consonant  "N"  or  "M"  in  Latin.  In  other 
words,  the  nasalization  as  a  physical  habit  disappears,  in  a  sense.  I  mean  it  is  shown 
to  be  the  perfectly  regular  development  of  a  certain  anterior  stage  in  which  that 
particular  habit  of  speaking  does  not  exist.  We  not  only  have,  then,  the  quite  un- 
correlated  distribution  of  types  of  man  and  types  of  culturalized  articulation  on  the 
one  hand,  but  we  actually  have  very  definite  historical  evidence,  directly  in  the  form 
of  Latin,  inferential  by  comparison  of  languages,  of  changes  of  sound  on  non-ana- 
tomical grounds,  so  far  as  we  can  see. 

I  do  not  know  whether  that  particularly  answers  the  question,  but  one  has,  after 
all.  to  trust  to  the  cumulative  experience  -  and  I  believe  it  is  vast  -  of  the  cultural 


One   Cn/turc.  Sociriv.  and  the  hhliMUiuil  235 

student  in  ilicsc  MKittcrs  and  to  attach  some  importance  to  the  Malcmcni.  which  I 

think  lie  Muist  make  quite  llatly.  \vhate\er  it  ma\  mean,  thai   • 

o\  sheer  einpirieal  taei.  led  to  in\oke  somatic  ditVerences  ol  .. 

cultural  dilTeiences.    Iliai  these  are  to  be  entirely  eliminated  Irom  the  \\ 

picture  I  do  not  claim  ai  all.  I  think  it  is  perfectly  pi>ssiblc  that  fun.?  ■ 

distinctions  may  become  socialized  and  that  in  the  process  of  dii: 

there  may  be  sliuht  denectii>ns  from  the  original  forms  which  register  son>eihiiH'  •■! 

the  racial  distinctii>ns  themselves,  but  I  would  not  be  inclined  to  ovcrxscight  ih.n    I 

think  It  is  a  dangerous  pt^inl  to  make  at  this  stage  o\  the  game    I  think  th.n  when 

the  concept  and  the  historicit\  of  culture  are  more  cheerfulK  accepted  bs  a!' 

than  they  are  now.  then  will  be  the  time,  as  a  matter  o\  tactics,  to  insi.;  .-..  ...v 

possibility  o^  this  i^ther  point. 

Noting  that  the  hour  had  alieady  struck  ten.  Chairman  Trank  called  the  mccling 

adjiHirned. 


4.  Other  Evening  Sessii^ns:  l-\ccipis  tVoin  Discussion 

In  addition  to  the  discussion  ol  his  own  lecture.  .Sapir  participated  in  the  di^  mvvi.ui 
of  other  lecturers'  presentations.  We  reproduce  here  those  portions  of  the  di 
in  which  he  made  some  substantial  comment. 

Concerning  the  comments  on  Bowman's  geography  lecture,  related  arguments  ma) 
be  found  in  chapter  3  o^  The  Psyclioloi^y  of  Culture  (this  volume);  sec  also  the  much 
earlier  work.  Sapir  1912b  ("Language  and  nn\iri>nment."  CWFS  I).  The  • 
cal  comments  on  Ruml's  lecture  on  social  science  metlu>ds  and  traininr 
comparisons  o^  the  social  aiui  natural  sciences  in  cliapter  2  oi  'Pw  Psycholoi: 
ture.  Discussions  of  eticiuelle  may  also  be  found  in  that  uork. 

Sapir's  comments  on  Hincks's  lecture  on  ■"Mental  hsgiene  and  Social  Sctcnce"  are 
not  reproduced  here.  They  are  brief  and  consist  of  questions  abt>ut  the  dcmogntph 
characteristics  and  qualifications  of  psychiatric  social  workers. 


lie 


.August  .^0 

Alter  the  lecture  by  Isaiah  Bowman  on  "Geograph)  as  a  Social  Science."  >c»ion 
chairman  Guy  S.  Ford  opened  the  meeting  for  discussion.  Various  questions  ^trc  asked 
about  the  charts  and  diagrams  with  which  Bowman  had  illustraled  his  prcacnlJilion 
Sapir  then  broached  some  larger  issues: 

SAPIR.  -  In  spite  o\:  all  the  detail  uhich  I  followed  with  the  vcr>'  grcalcst  inlcrcn. 

I  could  not  make  clear  to  myself  exacth  what  \li    Bowman  would  Mxk  lo  show  a» 

the  subject  matter  of  geography. 

I  can  illustrate  my  question  b>  taking  such  a  thing  a.s  meteorology',  which  I  ihink 

we  all  understand  fairly  well,  in  relation  ti>  dress  Human  ' 

of  dress  according  to  the  state  o\  the  weather.  If  \ou  h   ,  . 

interested  in  human  dress  and  think  about  the  weather  you  may  fin 

yourself,  it  seems  to  me,  that  meteorology  includes  the  st  •  ' 

seasonable  changes.  If  that  h.ippens  to  be  the  Ukus  ol  in: 

far  as  to  talk  o{  meteon^loizN  in  the  modification  of  s<Kial  science 


236  111   Culture 

The  parallel  is  very  simple.  I  do  not  think  that  anybody  denies  that  any  given 
interest  which  deals  with  objects  localized  on  the  earth  has  a  geographical  point  of 
view,  and  I  think  that  Mr.  Bowman's  particular  point  of  view  in  regard  to  anthropol- 
ogy is  very  farsighted.  1  think  it  is  much  keener  than  the  point  of  view  of  many 
anthropologists  because  so  far  from  trying  to  explain  culture  in  terms  of  geography, 
he  almost  explains  geography  in  terms  of  culture  which  I  think  in  a  sense  is  an 
advance.  He  says  practically  that  we  see  on  the  earth  what  we  are  made  to  see  by 
our  culture.  If  we  are  living  in  a  culture  where  mining  is  not  possible,  mining  can 
not  exist. 

I  heartil\  agree  in  spirit  with  what  he  said  in  the  earlier  part  of  his  lecture  but 
what  I  do  not  clearly  see  yet  -  and  here  is  where  I  seek  enlightenment  -  is  what  is 
the  conceptual  justification  of  geography  as  a  science  if  it  takes  in  the  human  scene 
at  all.  And  it  is  quite  obvious  that  Mr.  Bowman  wishes  geography  to  be  considered 
as  a  human  science. 

I  can  easily  see  where  one  actuated  by  human  interests  may  wish  to  read  the 
human  implications  in  geographic  facts  just  as  one  may  wish  to  read  human  implica- 
tions in  meteorological  facts  or  physical  facts.  That  is  merely  saying  that  you  can 
have  what  I  call  intersecting  types  of  interest,  due  to  the  meeting  of  two  kinds  of 
inquiry.  That  I  do  not  deny  at  all.  But  have  you  the  right,  do  you  think  conceptually, 
Mr.  Bowman,  to  go  so  far  as  to  actually  define  geography  in  terms  of  human  interest 
instead  of  a  purely  objective  humanly  indifferent  description  of  certain  land  masses? 

What  would  be  your  point  of  view  with  regard  to  this  fundamental  matter  of 
di  (Terence? 

BOWMAN.  -  I  am  afraid  I  have  spoken  in  vain  if  I  have  given  you  the  impression 
that  conceptually,  to  use  your  term,  geography  is  primarily  a  human  science.  I  do 
not  have  that  impression. 

Bowman  then  described  several  schools  of  geography  in  terms  of  how  they  relate 
geology  and  physiography  to  "the  human  aspects  of  the  subject."  He  believed  "the 
geographer  has  by  far  his  greatest  competence  at  the  present  time  on  the  physical  side 
of  the  subject.  He  continued: 

What  I  have  done  in  selecting  this  and  other  illustrations  is  to  lead  to  a  generalization 
which  runs  like  this:  that  the  geographer  takes  the  characteristics  of  his  regions  and 
sets  them  up  in  an  attempt  to  discover  whether  region  by  region  in  the  same  or 
different  cultures  there  is  any  repetition  of  the  characteristics,  a  pattern.  That  is  to 
say,  if  you  get  the  white  man  going  into  a  pioneer  land,  for  example,  in  some  other 
place  than  Australia,  have  we  a  repetition  of  the  conditions  of  culture  and  conditions 
of  living  that  are  found  in  Australia  today? 

...I  would  not  approve,  however,  of  your  phrase  "humanly  indifferent."  The  em- 
phasis in  geography  is  not  upon  "land  masses"  as  you  term  them,  but  upon  the 
elements  in  the  environment  that  have  the  most  marked  human  associations  or  rela- 
tions. After  he  has  gained  a  degree  of  order  and  rationality  in  the  treatment  of  his 
physical  data,  his  next  and  most  important  step  is  to  develop  the  human  bearings  of 
those  data  in  their  regional  combinations.  Geography  can  be  defined  in  terms  of 
"human  interest,"  (again  employing  your  term)  as  the  relation  of  human  activities 
and  culture  to  the  earth,  region  by  region,  in  the  present  (primarily),  in  contrast  to 
the  primary  interest  of  anthropology  which  may  be  defined  as  the  study  of  cultural 
evolution  in  the  larger  past. 


One  C  iiliuif.  S<uic[\.  iuul  ihf  Individual  237 

SAPIR.  -  Mr.  Bowman,  it  I  may  risk  ihc  suggestion,  would  you  change  the  Utle  of 

your  address  to.  "The  Value  of  CJeoiiraphy  lor  Social  Sciences"? 

BOWMAN  I  hat  would  be  mueh  heller 

SAPIR.  I  ilimk  ihere  would  be  \er\  liiile  lo  quarrel  with  such  a  conception  a% 
that. 

CHAIRMAN  FORD.  -  The  meelnii!  siands  adjourned. 

September  2 

The  lecture  by  Beardsle>  Riunl.  ol"  the  Rockeleller  I  oundation.  t<.H)k  it 
inspiration  from  Sapirs  presentation  two  nights  earlier.  Runil  suiniu.in/cil 
Sapirs  lecture  as  follows: 

RUML.  -  After  showing  the  etTcct  of  a  cultural  pattern  on  one  aspect  ol  pcrv>; 
in  a  simple  and  artificial  case,  Sapir  referred  to  the  complexity  arising  in  real 
tions  in  the  combination  and  fusion  oi  the  many  patterns  of  a  culture;  anil 
Sapir  said,  paraphrasing  somewhat.  "The  elTect  of  the  impact  of  this  fusion  i>i 
tural  patterns  upon  the  so-called  personality  at  any  moment  will  he  mlerprclcJ  i',> 
each  according  to  the  nature  of  his  own  experience." 

Although  this  statement  of  Sapir's  is  in  anthropological  terms,  it  has  a  dc" 
application  to  the  whole  range  of  social  science  and  to  the  individual  and  partiv 
disciplines  as  well.  Historian,  economist,  sociologist,  political  scientist,  psycho).   • 
the  student  of  jurisprudence  and  o'(  business,  each  is  interested  in  the  cuh 
ronment,  in  its  impact  upon  individuals  and  of  individuals  upon  it.  .\nd    .;...  .... 

interpretation  of  this  impact  is  by  each  according  to  the  nature  of  his  own  cxpcrKncc. 
the  experiential  background  o\~  the  social  scientist  is  a  matter  which  may  require 
more  attention  than  it  is  probably  receiving. 

Ruml  then  discussed  some  examples  o{  how  ditVerent  social  sciences  record  -  i.  c  . 
transform  into  symbols  -  their  experiential  data,  and  the  need  for  scnsidvity  lo  ihc 
symbols'  inadequacy  to  represent  all  aspects  of  a  problem.  He  then  mo\c  ' 

the  training  of  social  science  researchers,  and  the  need  to  provide  experic:.. ,  , 

nities.  Following  the  lecture.  Chairman  Charles  E.  Mcrriam  asked  Sapir  lo  comn>cnl 

SAPIR.  -  There  are  several  thoughts  thai  I  should  like  lo  exprev*.  which  ha\r  N 

raised  by  Mr.  RumKs  very  engaging  presentation.  I  just  want  lo  echo  wmc  o\  ru-. 
statements  and  enlarge  on  a  few  points  that  ha\e  been  raised  in  m>  mind  I  »ill 
begin  with  those  eight  peaches  divided  .imong  four  boss. 

(Ruml  had  posed  a  pmblem  -  how  to  divide  eight  peaches  equalK  ar 
-  in  which  the  arithmetical  solution,  two  per  boy,  seems  sir' 
qualitative  dilTerences  among  the  peaches,  such  as  the  i 

peaches  are  not  ripe,  il  will  not  acluallv  result  in  an  equal  division.     Ihc  pic 

sented  only  a  partial  aspect  o'i  the  reality."  Ruml  had  suggested  )  S.ir" 

The  obvious  critique  that  was  made  at  that  point,  if  I  did  not  '  «hc 

point  which  Mr.  Ruml  made,  was  that  we  musl  beware  of  conccpiuaIi/al»on.  we 

must  beware  of  carrying  over  operations  th.it  arc  i 

the  conceptual  sphere  into  the  world  o\  il-.iIkv    I  th     • 

the  criticism. 


238  tJf   Culture 

I  think  that  in  this  particular  case  and  millions  of  others  like  it  the  same  kind  of 
apparently  paradoxical  statement  might  be  made  that  is  often  made;  measurements 
are  critici/ed,  not  less  measurements  but  more  measurements.  1  should  say  the  real 
cure  tor  this  particular  fallacy  Mr.  Ruml  spoke  about  would  be  not  less  conceptual- 
ization but  more  conceptualization. 

rhc  point  is,  so  far  as  I  see  it,  that  there  has  been  a  fusion  of  two  distinct  concep- 
tual analyses  of  that  particular  situation  indicated  by  the  problem  of  dividing  eight 
peaches  among  four  people.  You  might  look  upon  that  as  a  mathematical  problem: 
eight  entities  of  any  type  to  be  divided  among  four  individuals  of  any  type.  So 
considered,  "boys'"  is  simply  a  content  for  a  class,  individuals  who  can  receive  some- 
thing; and  "peaches"  is  simply  a  content  for  a  class  which  can  be  divided.  That  is  of 
course  a  mathematical  point  of  view  and  the  solution  is  perfectly  correct.  But  after 
all  the  problem  was  not  meant  that  way.  Eight  peaches  to  be  divided  among  four 
bo\  s  meant  a  certain  mass  conventionally  represented  as  eight  peaches,  of  enjoyable 
food,  to  be  divided  among  four  urchins  who  are  so  constituted  as  to  enjoy  such 
food.  So  put,  the  solution  is  indicated  as  fallacious  not  merely  from  the  experiential 
viewpoint  but  from  the  strictly  conceptual  viewpoint.  That  is,  the  analysis  of  the 
situation  required  not  less  but  more  algebra  and  the  whole  trick  of  the  problem  is 
of  course  in  reading  one  meaning  into  a  verbal  presentation  which  is  possible  on 
purely  verbal  grounds,  but  is  not  so  intended.  So  that  the  whole  thing  is  a  kind  of 
linguistic  sleight-of-hand. 

That  is  one  fancy  that  occurred  to  me. 

So  that  I  do  not  think  with  examples  of  that  kind  we  can  be  absolved-  from  the 
necessity  of  abstract  thinking  in  our  social  problems,  and  we  have  to  so  mass  our 
abstract  thinking,  so  see  particular  situations  as  referable  to  intersecting  contexts,  as 
to  make  up  the  thing  that  we  call  concreteness  of  the  situation.-^  Excess  then  of 
abstraction  or  multiplication  of  abstraction  leads  to  concreteness,  if  you  want  to 
look  at  it  in  that  way.  One  may  take  that  or  leave  it  but  at  any  rate  I  would  not 
consider  that  that  particular  example  and  others  like  it  mean  the  death  of  conceptual 
approaches. 

There  was  another  fancy  that  arose  in  my  mind  and  that  was  this:  if  I  understood 
Mr.  Ruml  correctly,  he  implied  that  the  natural  scientist  has  a  certain  peculiar  advan- 
tage as  compared  with  the  social  scientist.  He  experiences  his  materials.  I  think  that 
was  somewhat  in  your  mind,  was  it  not  -  the  man  who  handles  weights,  masses, 
densities,  deals  with  physical  objects  that  he  can  stroke,  fondle,  toss,  weigh,  respond 
to  in  a  sensory  manner?  But  it  seems  to  me  that  that  participation  in  the  objects  that 
he  studies  is  somewhat  of  an  illusion. 

After  all,  the  ivory  of  the  billiard  ball  as  you  experience  it  is  not  helping  you  very 
much  with  the  final  analysis  of  that  sphere,  or  mechanics  of  a  moving  sphere  on  a 
certain  kind  of  a  surface.  You  can  get  a  certain  sort  of  enrichment  of  the  two  experi- 
.,  jences,  that  is,  the  conceptual  and  the  sensory,  by  associating  them,  enlarging  the 
total  field  of  experience,  but  actually  the  more  the  physical  scientist  concerns  himself 
with  the  direct  experience  of  the  kind  of  objects  that  he  deals  with  the  less  he  is 
going  to  conceptualize  and  the  less  of  the  scientist  he  is  going  to  be.  So  he  has  to 
effect  some  kind  of  association  in  his  total  experience  if  he  is  to  be  a  real  scientist. 
The  real  point  it  seems  to  me  in  his  situation  as  compared  with  the  situation  of  the 
social  scientist  is  that  that  association  is  safe,  because  nothing  matters  much  in  that 


One    Culture.  Society.  anJ  tin  Itulnuiuul  239 

process  of  abstraction  which  leads  him  id  his  laws  He  goc%  on  with  hisdjiUv  expcn- 

cnces  with  objects  in  quite  an  inelTeeti\e  manner,  and  the  (ornuil.!i 

i>f  pli\sical  science  do  not  ha\e  li>  be  tested  \\\  the  language  nl 

in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word.  They  do  of  course  in  the  final  priK 

tion  but  there  only  under  very  special  controlled  ciMulitions  which  arc  nut  l>pital  ul 

experience  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word. 

So  that  really  the  strength  o^  this  experiential  philosophy  of  Mr.  Ruml't  of  Ihc 
physical  scientist  is  that  he  does  not  need  ti>  enrich  his  conceptual  exp. 
terms  o(  the  correlated  sensory  experience  in  the  same  sense  in  which  Mr  I 
-  and  1  think  rightly       that  the  social  scientist  needs  to  enrich  his  conception*,  and 
therein  lies  a  very  important  distinctimi.  it  seems  to  me.  which  is  consl.ir*'-   ' — c 
overlooked,  between  social  science  and  physical  science,  a  disimclion   ■■  .^ 

made  best  I  think  by  Rickert,  a  (jerman  philosopher,  in  his  critique  ol  hisiorKjl 
science  \ersus  natural  science.  And  the  essence  ol  that  distinction  is  simpK  this  thai 
there  are  two  ways  of  apprehending  the  world,  one  to  destroy  il  by  concept uaii/in^ 
it,  and  thai  process  of  destruction  means  getting  a  hold  of  it;  the  other  * 

the  actual  as  a  historical  entity.  Social  science  is  a  sort  of  meeting-place  ■.  :  : 

impulses,  ^ou  want  to  conceptualize  the  social  world  in  order  to  understand  il  in 
general  terms.  But  at  the  same  time  you  dare  not  conceptualize  too  much  because. 
if  you  do,  you  lose  \our  sense  of  familiarit\. 

\\'h\  do  we  not  want  to  lose  that  sense  oi  familiarit\''  Why  is  it  that  the  physKTHl 
can  finalK  get  down  to  perfectK  unreal  entities,  in  the  psschologic.il  s^.•I1^ 
atoms  and  electrons,  and  so  on,  without  daring'.'  It  is  because  he  hasn  i  •  n 

data  in  ad\ance.  It  really  makes  no  dilTerence  to  him  whether  a  given  object  he  i* 
expcrinieniing  with  is  destro\ed  or  not.  1 1  always  is  destroyed.  No  particubr  event 
matters  a  hang  to  any  physical  scientist. 

The  social  scientist  is  not  in  that  posiiuMi.  Whether  he  acknowledges  history  as 
being  particularly  interesting  {o  him  or  not  he  is  actualK  swaNcd  h.  *'       "'  f 

history.  He  does  \alue  the  particular  event,  the  particular  thing    .An. 
always  two  impulses  that  cross  in  his  mind  and  to  gel  a  healthy  balance  between 
those  two  impulses  is  the  crucial  dilTiculty  o\'  the  si>cial  scientist   On  the     ■-  '■  ■  * 
he  must  conceptualize  to  get  control  at  all.  On  the  other  hand  he  inu-i  » 
experiential  realij^y.  I  think  if  these  conditionings  are  called  sound  it  n. 
obvious  that  the  problem  of  the  social  scientist  is  a  ver>  dilTerenl  prtWh... 
of  the  physical  scientist,  and  this  feeling  of  safety  and  familiarit>  that  il- 
scientist  has  is  simply  due  to  the  fact  that  an  assiKiation  is  pi>ssiblc  in 
would  be  dangerous  and  misleading  in  the  case  o\  the  sixial  sclcntl^;     . 
task  of  concepluali/ing  on  the  one  hand,  verifying  in  terms  of  c<'l«»r(ul  . 
on  the  other,  confronts  the  social  scientist. 

The  third  fancy  which  came  to  me  on  the  basis  ol  .Mr    Rumi's  words  «a*  m 
connection  with  the  enrichment  o^  experience  itself.  If  I  understtXMl  him 
pleaded"*  for  enrichment.  Enrichment  has  two  meanings  to  nK  li  • 
more  things  or  doing  less  things,  lather  is  possible.  Vou  can  cnru 
of  love  by  having  more  people  to  love,  or  you  can  ennch  your  oonoeplKM  of  love 
by  loving  one  person  more.  Take  it  either  way. 

1  noticed  that  in  illustrating  his  principle  of  enrichment  or  his  ideal  of  enrKhincnt 
he  spoke  of  doing  A.  doing  B.  doing  C.  doing  D.  In  other  words,  he  illustrated  i»hat 


240  m   Culture 

seems  \o  nic  \o  be  ihc  chronic  contemporary  American  incoherent  mental  philoso- 
phy: if  only  you  can  do  enough  things  which  are  obviously  different,  some  kind  of 
a  synthesis  will  be  reached  which  you  can  call  richness  of  experience. 

So  that  finally  in  my  own  fantastic  world  Mr.  Rumfs  remarks  lead  to  a  critique 
-  of  contemporary  culture  and  it  seems  to  me  that  in  the  last  analysis  the  profoundest 
'  ^  reason  why  the  social  scientist  cannot  make  real  his  concept  world  in  terms  of  experi- 
ence hangs  together  with  the  fact  that  he  has  not  a  thickly  massed,  well-integrated, 
thoroughly  consistent  [amount]  of  experience  under  observation  to  draw  from.  He 
is  full  of  contradictions.  He  is  conceptually  self-contradictory  on  a  great  many  points 
and  1  will  close  by  quoting  as  an  example  of  what  I  mean  a  very  humble  experience 
at  the  luncheon  table.  Two  of  my  friends  here  are  already  familiar  with  it  because 
we  discussed  it  at  the  lime  -  something  involving  etiquette.  I  am  not  talking  about 
my  friends.  I  am  very  polite.  (Laughter) 

Etiquette  is  a  crucial  kind  of  experience  because  it  is  a  crystallization  of  profound 
symbolisms  which  have  become  so  habitual  that  one  does  not  need  to  worry  about 
the  actual  analysis. 

At  this  particular  luncheon  there  took  place  two  streams  of  talk.  One  was  between 
the  three  scientists  assembled  around  the  table,  and  that  was  very  comforting  and 
comfortable.  The  other  stream  of  talk  was  that  which  was  due  to  the  waitress.  Now, 
there  are  two  theories  about  waitresses  serving  at  a  table  at  which  scientists  are 
gathered  together.  One  theory  is  the  democratic  theory.  The  other  theory  is  the  more 
or  less  aristocratic  theory  or  the  strictly  patterned  theory,  and  of  course  there  are 
blends  or  confusions  possible  between  the  two.  According  to  the  first  theory  all 
human  beings  are  alike.  If  a  number  of  human  beings  are  gathered  together  at  a 
certain  point  in  space  and  happen  to  talk  the  same  medium,  which  in  this  instance 
was  English,  they  are  entitled  to  talk  to  each  other  as  a  reciprocal,  meaningful  assem- 
blage of  human  beings.  There  is  no  reason  why  therefore  the  waitress  might  not  butt 
in  and  join  in  our  psychological  conversation. 

On  the  other  hand,  one  might  -  this  did  not  really  happen  but  it  might  have  - 
adopt  another  point  of  view.  Her  function  so  far  as  we  were  concerned  was  simply 
to  serve.  Inasmuch  as  she  was  to  be  an  administrant  to  our  unexpressed  wishes  she 
might  even  be  considered  as  deprived  of  the  power  of  speech;  all  that  she  needed  to 
do  was  to  dispense  service  in  the  form  of  moving  plates  along  as  expeditiously  and 
discreetly  as  possible  in  order  that  we  might  be  accorded  the  privilege  of  carrying 
on  our  conversation. 

What  actually  happened  was  a  blend  of  those  two  possible  conceptualizations  or 
abstractions  which  I  have  presented  to  you.  What  actually  happened  was  that  she 
undoubtedly  had  the  feeling  inside  of  herself  that  she  was  very  polite  because  she 
did  not  join  with  us  in  our  talk  on  psychology.  She  kept  discreetly  aloof  from  her 
standpoint,  and  she  felt  that  her  business  was  to  serve  the  dishes.  In  fact,  she  was  so 
zealous  about  the  serving  of  the  dishes  that  she  did  it  most  effectively. 

One  of  the  most  effective  ways  of  doing  a  thing  when  we  do  not  quite  know  how 
to  do  it  is  to  ask  what  is  wanted.  So  that  we  found  practically  in  this  condensation 
of  experience  which  actually  happened  that  at  all  sorts  of  crucial  moments  where  we 
were  following  the  trail  of  psychological  thought  she  wanted  to  know  whether  it  was 
pie  that  was  wanted  or  something  else  that  was  wanted,  or  whether  it  was  A  that 
ordered  a  certain  thing  or  B. 


One    Ciilnnr.  Society,  and  the  ImUvhlual  241 

I  claim  ihal  that  is  profoundly  simple  because  it  meant  that  two  quite  di«iiru-i 
patterns  were  In^pclcssly  confused.  It  may  be  that  she  was  \en  c- 
not  (liink  ymi  will  recogni/e  this  as  an  exceptional  case    I  thniK 
admit  it  is  a  laiiK  typical  case  in  the  commerce  of  human  activities. 

You  might  say  that  it  would  be  quite  snubbish  for  her  on  Ii 
severely  aloof  and  not  to  talk  out  loud,  but  here  is  the  point    n 
clarity  of  experience  in  that  particular  situation,  it  should  have  been  one  or  Ihc  olhcr 
either  we  should  ha\e  a  relentlessly  democratic  philosophN  which  i  "   ' 

ress  to  join  in  our  coinersation.  if  we  happened  to  ha\e  the  phen 
ress  who  could  join  in  a  conversation  on  psychology,  or  she  should  be  an  admin* 
istrant  to  our  wishes  and  keep  her  mouth  shut.  In  so  far  as  she  did  n    "' 
the  other,  the  context  was  hopelessly  confused  and  the  experience  w.i 

I  give  this  as  a  kind  o\'  instance  or  model  o[  what  I  think  is  the  matter  vmh 
contemporary  American  culture:  that  it  is  symbolically  self-contradictory  ut  so  many 
points  that  it  is  very  dilTicult  even  for  the  wise  social  scientist  to  know  what  it  i%  all 
about.  (Laughter) 

Several  other  participants  responded  to  Sapir's  remarks.  RumI  commenteil 

RUML.  -  ...  It  does  seem  to  me  that  we  ha\e  been  depending  too  much  en  this 
transmission  of  experience  purely  by  symbol.  I  do  ni>t  want  to  be  irre\crent  but  I 
think  it  would  be  a  good  thing  if  these  people  could  smell  some  of  ihe^  social 
institutions  (Laughter),  if  not  literalh  at  least  in  some  form  that  wnuld  m.ikc  it 
possible  when  the  symbol  comes  again  and  again  for  them  to  K*  critical  i>l  n  And 
of  course  that  is  the  real  point  o^  the  peaches  story  uhich  I  was  surpnscd  that  Or 
Sapir  missed.  (Laughter)  Not.  mind  you.  that  an  accurate  anahsis  ».■  '  ' 
been  made  by  further  conceptualization,  but  that  without  the  check 
knowing  that  boys  would  want  peaches  and  not  entities,  the  conccpluali/ation  wa» 

not  pursued  to  the  point  where  it  would  \ield  a  realistic  answer,  which ■- 

again,  a  ditTerent  story.  And  it  seems  to  me  that  is  the  type  of  experience.  •>. 
provide  that  check  against  your  symbols,  \erbal  or  arithmetical  or  algebraic,  that 
we  lack  so  much. 

September  y 

On  the  final  evening  of  the  conference,  in  a  session  chaired  b>  /Vrthur  M.  Ss.f 
Carlton  J.  H.  Hayes  spoke  on  "Research  problems  in  the  Field  o^  Inlcmalioniil  RcLi 

tions."  Much  of  the  lecture  actually  concerned  natuMiahsm.  and  s»>f  '     '• 

research  undertaken  on  nationalism  in  several  disciplines.  One  ol  the    .  . 

recommended  was  psychological,  anthropological,  and  sociological:  "MutlKr*  of  hi»» 

and  why  men  behave  as  nationalist  indi\iduals  or  groups."  .Sapir.  late  in  Ihc  diwuv%u>o 

period,  raised  further  questions  on  this  point: 

SAPIR.  -  May  I  ask.  Mr.  Chairman,  what  function  dixrs  Mr  Hayes  bclic%c  national- 
ism to  have?  Is  that  funclion  a  necessary  one'  If  not.  how  can  wc  dissipate  naliooal- 
ism? 

...  Let  us  assume  that  nationalism  is  dispensed  with   I  lUst  \%anl  \o  get  your  point 
of  view  on  this.  I  think  the  intellectual  can  \ery  easily  v     ■ 
that  might  take  the  place  of  nationalism  but  so  far  as  i 
cerned,  the  man  on  the  street,  he  needs  some  representation  of  himself  on  «  Ur»e 


242  III   Ciihurc 

scale.  How  would  you  expect  him  to  work  for  anything  Hke  internationaHsm?  Why 
would  not  nationalism  be  so  necessary  as  to  have  to  be  accepted  in  some  form  or 
other? 

What  is  your  position  in  regard  to  that  whole  matter  of  a  large  structure  that  we 

call  nationalism' 

H.-WFS.  I  do  not  know  that  I  have  any  very  decided  position  about  that.  What 
I  should  like  w  ould  be  to  discover  whether  we  can  get  a  larger  number  of  our  fellow 
human  beimzs  to  be  a  little  more  rational  and  a  little  less  devotional  about  their 
various  kinds  of  loyalties  and  to  develop  some  sane  loyalty  that  will  transcend,  rather 
than  [be]  subordinated  to.  this  particular  loyalty  which  we  call  nationalism... 

Later.  Sapir  was  asked  to  elaborate  on  his  question: 

SECRETARY  LYND.^  -  Mr.  Chairman,  I  wonder  if  Mr.  Sapir  would  care  to  com- 
ment on  some  of  the  varying  forms  and  varying  functions  which  this  self-identifica- 
tion with  a  larger  group  appears  to  take  in  individuals  in  some  groups  with  which 
he  is  familiar? 

SAPIR.  -  I  do  not  think  I  should  like  to  go  into  any  detail  on  that  but  I  should 
like  to  relate  an  incident. 

1  knew  a  gentleman  who  was  born  in  Yorkshire.  He  spoke  with  a  great  deal  of 
feeling  of  his  associations  in  Yorkshire  and  it  was  obvious  from  the  way  he  spoke 
his  sentiments  were  profound.  He  said  every  time  he  returned  to  Yorkshire  something 
welled  up  in  his  heart  and  so  forth,  and  yet  owing  to  the  fact  that  he  had  come  to 
this  country  at  a  fairly  early  age  and  identified  himself  with  a  rural  community  here 
he  had  changed  his  allegiance.  It  was  perfectly  obvious  from  the  way  this  gentleman 
spoke  that  he  was  not  an  intellectualist  although  he  was  connected  with  intellectual 
pursuits  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  but  he  spoke  pretty  much  as  a  man  on 
the  street  might  speak  on  these  matters.  I  should  say  that  his  critical  abilities  were 
perhaps  no  more  than  mediocre. 

Here  is  the  thing  that  interested  me  and  seemed  a  little  paradoxical.  He  said  that 
after  the  war  he  returned  to  England  once  and  he  got  in  with  a  bunch  of  English 
rural  squires  and  others  who  discussed  in  some  inn  that  he  was  staying  at  the  ques- 
tion of  America's  participation  in  the  war,  and  they  produced  the  usual  arguments 
that  America  came  in  too  late  and  that  Americans  had  the  bad  manners  to  proclaim 
that  they  or  "we"  won  the  war  and  that  they  were  very  tyrannical  in  the  imposition 
of  their  financial  terms.  And  he  said  he  could  not  stand  for  that. 

Mind  you,  he  was  a  Yorkshire  man  revisiting  his  Yorkshire  colleagues,  and  in 
defiance  of  prudence  which  would  have  dictated  that  he  hold  his  peace,  because  he 
was  in  a  rather  peculiar  position  -  he  might  have  been  considered  a  traitor  -  some- 
thing or  other  in  this  simple  soul  demanded  that  he  get  up  and  protest,  and  while 
his  arguments  were  not  very  refined  or  elaborate  he  produced  the  usual  parlor  argu- 
ments: that  intelligent  Americans  did  not  say  they  won  the  war,  but  that  there  was 
a  reasonable  presumption  that  the  war  might  not  have  been  won  by  the  Allies  if  the 
Americans  had  not  stepped  in  when  they  did  and  that  after  all,  the  Americans  were 
quite  reasonable  in  their  financial  settlements. 

I  was  very  much  impressed  by  the  necessity  that  this  newly  termed  American  felt 
for  espousing  the  cause  of  America. 


One   Culiiiir.  Stnuii.  iind  tin   liulnutiuil  243 

I  would  put  the  problem  iii  this  way:  Why  was  ii  so  impDrtanl  lor  him  to  capi- 

tali/c  the  abstract  scntiiiicni  or  espouse  rather  the  abstract  scnliiii 

than  specific  allegiance'.'  You  might  suppose  the  fact  that  he  h.i 

about  Yorkshire  on  the  one  hand  and  certain  secondary  fechngs  about  Amcnca  on 

the  other  would  produce  a  kind  o['  psychological  blend  which    •      ' ' 

mind,  but  that  is  not  the  way  he  acted  at  all.  Being  a  fairly  avcr.i 

\o  di>  something  quite  ditTerent.  something  that  the  mtelleclualisis  do  not  Mcm  lo 

do.  at  least  those  who  write  articles  about  mternationalism.  What  he  did  was  lo  quilc 

calmly  -  he  was  a  very  peaceful  man  who  hates  war      surrender  his  m>uI  as  it  wcic 

to  the  abstract  ideal  o\'  natimialism,  some  kind  of  identification  of  himself  with  a 

great  corporate  body,  and  inasmuch  as  he  was  now  identified  and  had  been  for  man> 

years  in  a  most  significant  way  with  America  that  identificatn>n  seemed  the  moM 

natural  to  him. 

1  simply  would  like  to  ask  Mr.  Hayes  and  other  internationalists  uh>  ti  is  so  ea%> 
for  a  notably  peaceful  man  w  ho  has  more  than  the  usual  home  allegiance  lo  sacrifKc 
so  much  for  what  you  might  call  the  abstract  idea  o\  nationalism.  It  seems  lo  mc 
that  there  is  a  psychological  reality. 

HAYES.  -  1  think  that  probably  more  light  can  he  thrown  on  that  question  and  a 
better  answer  gi\en  by  the  anthropologists  than  b\  any  other  group 

SAPIR.  ~  I  am  simply  stating  the  facts.  I  do  not  know  any  more  about  il  ihan  you 
do.  Mr.  Hayes. 

ALLPORT.  -  It  might  he  that  that  mans  feeling  was  due  to  his  own  slalus  in  ihal 

particular  group  with  which  he  came  in  cmitact  in  \'orkshire.  in  Iingiand.  . 

Allport  expounded  at  some  length  m  response  to  Sapir's  queslion.  as  did  Adolf 
Meyer  and  Guy  Ford.  After  a  few  briefer  comments  Chairman  .Schlcsingcr  adjourned 
the  meetinu. 


5.  "Original  Memorandum  lo  ihc  Social  Science  Research 

Council  from  the  Conference  on  Acculluriilion  and  IVrsiMialil>."* 

Hanover,  September  2,  1930.  B\  Professor  Sapir. 

Chairman  o'i  Conference. 

Personality  research  cuts  in  many  directions  across  ihc  held  o\  tlic 
social  sciences.  While  the  social  sciences  can  exist  without  p.io-  "'■' 
attention  to  the  problems  of  persiMicilit>,  for  useful  icsults  from  t. 
in  most  social  science  problems.  i\u^  leizard  for  such  lactors  is  fu\ 
The  data  of  each  social  discipline  fiiul  ihcir  origin  and  functional  mani- 
festations in  personal  acts.  And  the  h^rmiilatii>ns  of  each  ol  ih; 

ences  are  distinguished  from  those  of  the  natural  .sciences  b>  the  u  . 
ment  for  their  factual  demonstration  and  validation  of  inferences  kiscd 
on  the  actual  performance  of  luiinan  peisonalities. 


244  ///  Culture 

Regardless  o\'  individualities  of  definition  that  may  be  given  to  the 
term,  personality,  research  useful  alike  to  the  social  scientist  and  to 
those  dealing  with  specific  individual  living,  must  concern  itself  with 
the  description  of  specific  behavior  manifestations  and  with  the  discov- 
ery of  the  processes  that  enter  as  factors  into  the  differentiated  behavior 
manifested  by  the  person.  Such  data  are  already  available  indicating 
that  these  latter  processes  may  be  studied  as  "inner"  components  -  the 
specific  functioning  of  organismic  constitution,  of  neurological  integrat- 
ing apparatus,  of  will-power,  drives,  prejudices,  desires,  predispositions, 
sentiments,  directing  tendencies,  tissue  tensions,  motives,  complexes,  re- 
pressed atTects,  and  so  on.  Equally  validly,  they  may  be  studied  as  the 
manifestations  of  cultural  patterns  -  mores,  customs,  institutionalized 
patterns  o(  behavior,  fashions,  etc.,  these  incorporated  in  and  function- 
ing through  the  person.  It  is  evident  that  neither  of  these  approaches 
used  independently  will  give  us  a  complete  understanding  of  the  func- 
tional activity  of  personality  as  it  is  manifested  in  behavior.  Personality 
research  must  study  the  interdependence  of  "inner"  components  and 
available  cultural  patterns. 

There  are  available  no  adequate  descriptions  of  behavior  manifesta- 
tions as  they  occur  in  daily  life.  There  is,  however,  a  body  of  data  of  this 
kind  bearing  on  behavior  manifested  in  more  or  less  highly  controlled 
situations.  There  are  data  bearing  on  gross  observable  behavior  of  some 
primitive  individuals.  The  largest  collection  of  data  fairly  approximating 
description  of  behavior  is  that  accumulated  by  psychiatrists  interested 
in  seriously  disordered  personalities.  The  beginning  of  really  adequate 
descriptions  has  been  made  in  the  study  of  infants  and  children;  e.  g., 
Gesell,  D.  S.  Thomas,  J.  E.  Anderson.  The  obvious  difficulties  of  this 
phase  of  personality  research  lie  in  the  ubiquity  of  the  manifestations 
and  our  lack  of  techniques.  The  success  of  the  psychiatrist  comes  from 
the  extraordinary  character  of  the  behavior  that  he  studies.  The  success 
of  the  infant  and  the  child  investigator,  in  turn,  arises  from  the  simplic- 
ity of  the  behavior.  The  ordinary  behavior  of  everyday  people,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  often  enormously  more  complex,  and,  curiously,  more 
inaccessible  even  for  the  crudest  recording. 

The  promising  approaches  to  this  phase  of  research  are  found  in  (1) 
the  systematic  observation  and  recording  of  particular  types  of  behavior 
selected  from  the  total  complex,  including  laboratory  techniques;  (2) 
self-observations  recorded  in  diaries,  journals,  letters,  and  other  literary 
forms;  (3)  certain  types  of  performance  tests  in  which  the  behavior  of 
the  individual  is  more  or  less  automafically  recorded;  (4)  guided  in- 


One:  Culture.  Society,  ami  the  Indivulual  245 

terviews  supplemented  by  free-fantasy,  as  used  b\  ilic  psychialrisi;  and 
(5)  investigation  by  study  of  recorded  instances  of  past  performances. 
The  expanded  utilization  o\^  these  techniques,  simply  or,  preferably,  m 
combination,  should  be  pushed  in  many  directions. 

On  the  side  of  the  exploration  of  beha\ior  by  unesligalion  o{  ihc 
interaction  of  **inner"  and  cultural  factors,  there  is  accumulated  a  great 
body  of  one-sided  data.  Some  of  this  may  be  suspeciible  of  successful 
infcr-conrlaflo/h  once  techniques  have  been  worked  out  bv  study  o( 
actual  instances  of  interaction  manifesting  m  adequalels  described  be- 
havior. Here  and  there  such  an  elTori  has  been  made.  In  great  measure, 
however,  effort  has  been  misdirected  to  the  "explanation"  of  one  of  this 
body  of  factors  by  appeal  to  the  other.  Interpretations  of  anthropologi- 
cal data  on  behavior  by  an  appeal  to  psychological,  biological,  or  psy- 
chiatric formulations,  for  any  purpose  other  than  the  drafting  of 
hypotheses  to  be  tested  by  subsequent  investigation,  are  useless. 

It  is  the  sense  of  the  Committee  that  the  fruitful  united  attacks  on 
this  problem  are  to  be  made  by  the  study  ol"  some  relaii\el>  small 
groups  possessed  of  well-developed  cultural  patterns  conspicuously  dif- 
ferentiated from  those  with  which  we  are  so  identified  as  ic^  make  their 
functional  activity  obscure.  Many  such  groups  are  easy  of  access  in  (a) 
the  Indian  reservations;  e.  g.,  the  Navajo,  the  Plains  Indians:  and  (b) 
various  immigrant  communities;  e.  g..  the  Scandina\ian  ciMiiinuiiitiL's  of 
the  Northwest. 

A  rough  suggestion  of  method  for  the  investigation  of  such  communi- 
ties takes  the  form  of  (a)  studies  of  the  life  of  the  group  as  a  whole;  (b) 
intensive  personality  studies  of  all  or  a  selected  number  of  the  indiMd- 
uals  actually  engaged  in  the  group  life;  and  (c)  studies  o(  group  and 
individual  manifestations  referable  to  environing  cultural  factors  actu- 
ally incorporated  into  some  of  the  individuals.  This  sort  o(  study  will 
require  the  active  team  work  of  the  cultural  anthropologist,  the  sikmoIo- 
gist,  the  psychologist,  and  the  psychiatrist,  each  sensiti\e  to  ihc  view- 
points of  all  the  others. 

From  the  findings  of  this  study  there  will  come  formulations  o\  per- 
sonality in  which  the  interacting  factors  of  culture  and  •"inner"  compo- 
nents receive  intelligible  roles.  The  conclusions  will  be  susceptible  to 
meaningful  reference  to  historic  data  on  the  evolution  o\  the  existing 
patterns  of  Indian  and  Scandina\ian  ciiliurcs.  Ihey  will  shed  light  on 
changes  in  culture  actually  underway  in  the  selected  groups,  and  on 
the  processes  and  factors  actually  concerned.  rhe>  uill  provide  control 
material  for  such  experimental  variations  in  culture-environments  as 


246  lit   Culture 

those  utilized  of  laie  in  the  treatment  of  crime  and  mental  disorder.  On 
the  basis  of  these  formulations,  a  technique  can  be  evolved,  for  example, 
for  etTective  utilization  of  representatives  of  other  culture-groups,  such 
as  foreign-born  and  foreign-educated  Fellows  assembled  in  a  seminar. 

These  investigations  should  provide  means  for  analysis  of  our  own 
cultural  patterns,  and  of  their  interaction  with  "inner"  components  in 
the  genesis  of  behavior. 

It  is  the  sense  of  this  conference  that  the  Social  Science  Research 
Council  appoint  a  Committee  on  the  Interrelationships  of  Personality 
and  Culture. 


6.  "A  Project  for  the  Study  of  Acculturation  among  the 

American  Indians,  with  Special  Reference  to  the  Investigation  of 

Problems  of  Personality,"  ms.  presented  to  the  Social  Science 

Research  Council,  September  2,  1930 

Sapir's  proposal  for  studying  American  Indian  acculturation  called  for  fieldwork  by 
a  research  team  to  amass  an  empirical  data  base  for  the  ethnographic  study  of  personal- 
ity. The  proposal  was  effectively  tabled,  however,  until  resuscitated  in  1936  by  Robert 
Rcdfield,  Ralph  Linton,  and  Melville  Herskovits  ("Memorandum  for  the  Study  of  Ac- 
culturation," American  Anthropologist  38:  149-152).  Emphasis  on  personality  and  the 
individual  was  much  attenuated  in  the  later  version. 

We  reproduce  here  only  the  introduction  to  the  proposed  project.  The  original  pro- 
posal continues  with  details  concerning  the  project's  supervisory  committee,  staff,  dura- 
tion of  study,  and  budget. 


The  present  brief  memorandum  of  an  anthropological  project  . . .  may 
be  fairly  looked  upon  as  having  back  of  it  the  consensus  of  opinion  of 
the  anthropologists  of  this  country.  Owing  to  the  rapidly  growing  inter- 
est in  problems  of  personality,  in  the  relation  between  personality  and 
cultural  background,  and  in  the  large  borderland  of  interests  that  link 
up  cultural  anthropology,  sociology  and  social  psychology  with  each 
other,  it  is  believed  that  the  present  project,  however  specifically  anthro- 
pological in  subject  matter,  is  by  no  means  exclusively  or  even  predomi- 
nantly so  in  spirit. 

In  the  main,  anthropologists  have  concerned  themselves  with  primi- 
tive cultures  in  their  original  form,  and  have  shown  comparatively  little 
interest  in  the  fate  of  these  primitive  cultures  when  they  are  brought  in 
contact  with  our  modern  civilization.  In  this  attempt  to  get  at  the  out- 


One:  Culture.  Socicly.  ami  the  Individual  247 

lines  ciflhc  iinconlaniiiialccl  nali\c  liiIiuic  ihc  aiilhropologisl  has  often 
had  to  cliniinalc  scci>iKlai\  mlliiciKcs  tliic  to  ilic  while  man.  More  and 
more,  however,  the  aiitliropologist  is  beeommg  interested  in  prLX'isciy 
those  aspects  o\^  native  hfe  w hicli  he  was  fiMnierl)  at  pams  to  ignore  or 
weed  out.  All  social  pheiu>niena  are  o\'  interest  to  the  si>cial  scientist, 
and  amhiopology  stands  read\  lo  y>oo\  its  resources  with  sociology  and 
social  psychology.  It  is  suggested  that  it  would  be  extremely  valuable  to 
study  in  some  detail  exactly  what  happened  with  a  number  of  selected 
American  Indian  cultures  under  the  stresses  and  strains  of  adaptation  to 
modern  life.  Such  studies  winild  require  a  large  amount  of  preliminary 
ethnological  work,  which,  however,  has  rorlunatel>  been  done  for  a 
considerable  number  o'i  American  tribes.  A  careful  studv  o{  historical 
sources  and  other  documenlarv  material  would  also  be  necessary  in 
order  lo  enable  one  to  gauge  as  accurately  as  possible  the  extent  o^  the 
gradual  change  in  culture  that  was  being  etTected  bv  contact  with  the 
whites. 

The  main  part  o(  the  work  which  it  is  proposed  \o  underttikc  i>  a 
fresh  field  study  of  some  five  or  six  Indian  tribes,  with  a  \iew  not  to 
reconstructing  the  aboriginal  culture  but  to  seeing  exact  1>  iiow  these 
tribes  maintain  themselves  under  modern  conditions,  how  much  o^  the 
old  life  is  relevant  for  modern  conditions.  hcn\  much  has  been  sacrificed 
without  regret,  how  much  is  being  ihougiil  to  continue  in  spite  of  nuHl- 
ern  conditions,  what  new  interpretations  o^  old  material  have  been 
brought  in  by  cultural  blends,  and.  above  all.  w  hat  personalitv  problems 
have  been  raised  by  the  introduction  of  new  ways  of  life  and  what  elTecl 
these  problems  have  on  a  selected  number  o\'  individuals  wht>  m  'v  >^- 
taken  as  illustrative  of  various  types  of  personalitv. 

The  particular  tribes  suggested  for  this  stud\  are;  the  1  laida.  of  Queen 
Charlotte  Islands;  a  selected  tribe  of  California;  the  Dakota  or  other 
tribe  of  the  Plains  region;  the  Navaho;  and  the  Hopi  or  other  tribe  of 
the  Pueblo  region.  These  tribes  are  so  selected  as  to  illustrate  five  rather 
distinctive  American  Indian  cultures  which  ha\e  made  a  fairly  gcxxJ 
adjustment  to  modern  life,  ilunigh  illustrating  at  the  same  time  many 
problems  of  social  and  perst>nal  disintegration. 

It  should  be  pointed  out  that  the  project  connects  with  work  thai  has 
already  been  done  by  a  number  o\'  anthropt^logisls  and  with  work  in 
other  cultural  fields  that  it  is  proposed  to  undertake  KeeMni!"s  studv  of 
the  Menomini  Indians  of  Wisconsin  and  Mekeels  studv  ot  ih  ''  '.i 
Indians  have  recently  been  undertaken  under  the  auspices  ol  W  il 

Yale  University  and  stress  the  historical  factors  in  cultural  adjustment 


248  ff^  Culture 

lo  modern  conditions  of  life.  The  experiences  gained  in  these  researches 
would  be  invaluable  in  carrying  out  the  present  project,  which  is,  how- 
e\er.  to  lav  rather  more  emphasis  on  the  psychological  factors  but 
somewhat  less  on  the  purely  historical  ones,  though  by  no  means  ignor- 
ing the  latter.  Not  unrelated  also  are  the  researches  of  Redfield,  who 
has  been  studying  the  nature  of  the  blend  of  aboriginal  Mexican  culture 
with  the  Old  World  culture  brought  in  by  the  Spanish  conquerors.  The 
Personality  Committee  of  the  University  of  Chicago  Social  Science  Re- 
search Council  has  been  hoping  for  some  time  to  raise  funds  for  the 
study  of  personality  problems  in  alien  cultures  and  of  the  changes  in 
personality  which  take  place  in  individuals  who  are  expected  to  adjust 
to  entirely  different  cultural  conditions  than  those  in  which  they  have 
been  brought  up  or  which  constitute  the  social  heritage  of  their  people. 
The  two  recent  Colloquia  on  Personality  conducted  by  the  American 
Psychiatric  Association  have  drawn  repeated  attention  to  the  impor- 
tance of  studying  cultural  backgrounds  for  the  understanding  of  grave 
personal  maladjustments,  and  it  is  the  hope  of  a  number  of  anthropolo- 
gists, social  psychologists  and  psychiatrists  that  it  may  be  possible  for 
the  cultural  anthropologist  and  the  psychiatrist,  apparently  so  far  re- 
moved from  each  other,  to  study  in  the  field  problems  that  are  of  com- 
mon interest.  W.  I.  Thomas'  Scandinavian  project  and  the  proposed 
seminar,  presumably  at  Yale,  of  foreign  students  who  are  to  take  up 
problems  of  the  impact  of  culture  on  personality,  are  also  rather  closely 
related  to  the  present  project. 

Much  of  the  value  of  the  present  proposal  would  seem  to  lie  in  the 
relative  aloofness  from  practical  problems.  The  state  of  the  Indian  is, 
after  all,  of  minor  concern  to  the  administrator  or  the  student  of  con- 
temporary affairs.  But  the  extreme  psychological  distance  between  the 
aboriginal  American  Indian  cultures  and  the  kind  of  Hfe  they  are  ex- 
pected to  lead  today  should  prove  an  excellent  gauge  for  estimating  the 
possibilities  of  relatively  quick  adjustment.  It  is  the  essential  viewpoint 
of  the  proposed  study  that  the  individual  is  seen  as  the  meeting  place 
of  contrasting  cultures.  It  is  believed  that  cultural  anthropology  could 
hardly  be  of  more  direct  service  to  sociology  and  psychology  than  in 
the  manner  indicated.  The  Indian  and  his  cultures  are  rapidly  passing. 
The  present  types  of  halfway  adjustment  are  likely  to  pass  in  the  not 
distant  future.  It  will  seem  very  important  retrospectively  to  have  ana- 
lyzed in  some  detail  the  psychological  nature  of  the  adjustment  process 
in  the  transitional  period. 


One:  Culture.  SocU'ty.  uml  ihc  Iminuiual  249 

7.  "The  Proposed  Work  ot  ihc  C'oniniiUcc  on  IVrsonalily  and 

C'lillurc"' 

a.  Oullinc.  September  2.  1930 

A  note  attached  to  the  following  oiithne  nulicales  that  the  proposed  work  of  ihc 

committee  was  based  on  the  attached  memorandum  (Ongmal  Mcmorundum  lo  ihc 

Social  Science  Research  Council),  and  that  "the  menn^randum  is  designed  ;  -ul 

the  approach  and  contribution  by  anthropok>gy.  recogni/ing  that  other  I.k  irc 
consideration  in  their  proper  place." 


1.  Scope:  To  study  the  relation  between  the  developinenl  i>l  the  pcrson- 
aUty  and  the  eultural  and  psychologieal  characteristics  ot  the  com- 
munity in  which  the  personaHty  develops. 

2.  Objective  of  program:  Two  related  groups  of  studies  concerning: 

(a)  General  behavior  patterns  peculiar  to  given  commumlies. 

(b)  A  more  sharply  tbcussed  objective,  i.  e.  to  explain  the  individual 
against  culturally  defined  backgrounds. 

-  While  several  factors  may  be  responsible  for  individual  dilTcr- 
ences  in  personality  the  one  of  considerable  importance  siKiall) 
is  to  find  what  the  general  social  patterns  mean  to  mdividuals 
who  participate  in  them.  (The  thesis  is  that  the  degree  o\  agree- 
ment between  the  meaning  which  the  individual  comes  lo  sex*  in 
social  patterns  and  the  general  meaning  that  is  inherent  (for  oth- 
ers] in  those  patterns  is  significant  for  an  undersiandmg  oi  the 
individual's  process  of  adjustment,  as  revealing  harmony  or  con- 
flict.) 

3.  Aim: 

-  The  relationship  of  objectives  (a)  and  (h).  Worn  the  staiKip<Min  oi 
anthropological  investigation,  is  sequential  r.iilu-i  ili.ni  e»>rrcLi- 
tive.  Therefore: 

-  We  should  begin  through  close  alliance  uiih  current  work  m  cul- 
tural anthropology  and  sociology,  e.  g.  community  suncys, 
studies  of  acculturation. 

-  These  are  necessary  preliminaries  lo  anv  type  o\  pcrsonaliiy 
studies  that  shall  aim  properly  to  stress  the  social  cnvironmcnl  as 
a  factor  that  conditions  ihc  formation  of  the  complete  personal- 
ity. 

4.  Organization:  A  Committee  rcprescnlmg  all  approaches  lo  ihe  sludy 
of  behavior. 


250  ///  Culture' 

5.  Contacts:-  With  individual  social  scientists  (sociological,  anthropo- 
logical. psNchiainc.  psychological  physiological  etc.)  who  are  al- 
ready engaged  on  certain  aspects  of  personality  problems. 

-  With  institutions  (Universities)  that  are  developing  a  program. 

-  Witii  younger  promising  students  in  cultural  anthropology  and 
social  psychology. 

6.  Fields  for  research: 

(a)  Surveys  of  local  communities  (preferably  small  and  self-con- 
tained) with  special  reference  to  detailed  study  of  individuals 
therein  over  a  considerable  period  of  their  development.  E.g. 
Connecticut  community,  Canadian  Dukhobors. 

(b)  Studies  of  acculturation  among  primitive  peoples.  E.g.  American 
Indians  (Navajo),  peoples  of  Polynesia  (Samoa). 

(c)  Personality  deviations  (normal  and  abnormal)  in  groups  that  are 
racially  and  culturally  distinct. 

b.  Revised  version,  February  18,  1932 

It  seems  that  the  general  objectives  of  the  Committee  are  fairly  clear. 
It  is  supposed  to  study  the  problem  of  the  relation  between  the  develop- 
ment of  the  personality  and  the  general  cultural  and  psychological  char- 
acteristics of  the  community  in  which  the  personality  develops.  This 
would  seem  to  indicate  that  the  work  of  the  Committee  would  fall  into 
two  groups  of  distinct,  yet  related,  studies.  One  series  of  studies  would 
take  up  the  clarification  of  the  general  behavior  patterns  that  are  pecu- 
liar to  given  communities,  this  part  of  the  work  of  the  Committee  would 
ally  itself  very  closely  with  current  work  in  cultural  anthropology  and 
sociology.  Community  surveys  and  studies  of  acculturation  would  be 
types  of  the  kind  of  work  envisioned  in  this  part  of  the  Committee's 
program.  Such  studies  should  be  looked  upon  as  necessary  preliminaries 
to  the  more  sharply  focussed  objective  of  the  Committee,  which  is  to 
explain  the  individual  against  culturally  defined  backgrounds.  If  these 
more  detailed  studies  of  personality  differ  at  all  from  current  studies  in 
psychology,  it  would  be  in  laying  more  continuous  stress  on  the  factors 
of  the  social  environment  which  condition  the  formation  of  what  we 
call  the  complete  personality.  It  is  not  assumed  that  these  factors  are 
wholly,  or  perhaps  even  mainly,  responsible  for  personahty  differentials, 
but  if  there  is  reason  to  think  that  they  are  so  to  at  least  a  considerable 
extent,  it  becomes  important  not  merely  to  study  a  community  as  such 
but  to  see  exactly  what  the  generalized  social  patterns  mean  for  a  large 
variety  of  individuals,  to  what  degree  they  actually  participate  in  them 


One:  Culture.  Sociciv.  inul  the  ImiivUlual  251 

and  U^  what  cxlcnl  the  general  nicaniniis  uhieh  inlicrc  in  inslilulional 
and  other  social  patterns  afUrm  or  eonliailiet  the  meanings,  conscious 
and  unconscious,  which  the  indi\idual  has  de\eloped  \u  the  course  of 
his  adjustment  to  society.  Thus,  both  problems  o\'  harmonious  adjusl- 
ment  and  conflict  are  suggested. 

These  general  objectives,  while  eas\  to  state,  are  diU'icult  to  translalc 
into  specific  projects  which  would  be  ccmu  incmg  to  all  siudenls  of  hoha- 
vior.  Merely  by  way  of  submitting  tentative  proposals  which  arc  lo  be 
thoroughly  discussed  by  the  Committee  as  a  whole,  the  writer  would 
like  to  suggest  that,  among  other  studies,  attention  be  directed  to  three 
distinct  series  of  specific  problems. 

The  first  of  these  would  be  surveys  of  selected  communities  with  par- 
ticular reference  to  the  detailed  study  of  indi\iduals  o\er  a  considerable 
period  of  time  with  a  view  to  watching  the  ps\chological  developmeni 
of  these  individuals,  both  personall\  and  as  statistical  aggregates,  in 
the  communities  which  will  first  have  been  studied.  Lynd's  study  of 
Middletown  might  serve  as  a  model  but  it  is  hoped  that  the  more  strictly 
psychological  aspects  of  such  a  sur\ey  would  be  emphasized  to  a  greater 
extent.  Owing  to  the  enormous  difficulis  o\'  understanding  the  larger 
and  more  complex  urban  communities  o\'  coniemporar\  America  il  is 
proposed  that  these  community  sur\e\s  specialize  on  rather  small,  rela- 
tively homogeneous  and  self-contained  communities  that  roughly  ap- 
proximate the  conditions  to  be  found  among  more  primitive  people. 
Specific  examples  might  be  a  small  Connecticut  community  of  say 
20.000  inhabitants  or  a  religious  communits  such  as  that  i>f  the  Dukho- 
bors  of  Canada.  These  communities  should  be  selected  in  \arious  parts 
of  the  United  States  and  Canada  with  a  view  to  having  as  many  geo- 
graphical environments  represented  as  the  limited  funds  will  allow. 

It  is  further  proposed  that  we  undertake  selected  studies  of  accultura- 
tion among  primitive  peoples.  The  attached  memorandum  on  the  study 
of  acculturation  among  the  American  Indians,  with  sixvial  reference  lo 
the  investigation  of  problems  of  personality,  was  originally  prepared  by 
E.  Sapir  for  consideration  b\  the  SiKial  Science  Research  Council  and 
is  given  by  way  of  initial  suggestion  to  the  present  committee  II  may 
be  said  that  there  is  some  reason  to  emphasize  the  studs  i>l  the  Na\ajo 
because  of  certain  work  in  this  direction  already  being  undertaken  by 
Yale.  A  further  series  o\'  studies  ami>ng  primitive  peoples  is  ^  d 

by  C.  Wissler's  memorandum  i^n  Polynesia.  Naturalh.  the  pre  \\ 

field  selected  tor  study  would  ha\e  to  be  determined  alter  due  .  '• 

alion  by  the  committee  as  a  whole.   Il  ma>   Ix-  poinied  oul  thai  wc 


252  III  Culture 

have  promise  o\^  excellent  personnel  for  this  type  of  work  because  a 
considerable  number  of  students  of  cultural  anthropology  are  becoming 
more  and  more  interested  in  psychological  problems  connected  with 
their  work. 

As  a  third  specifically  delimited  field  of  inquiry  may  be  mentioned 
the  more  intensive  study  of  personality  deviations,  both  normal  and 
abnormal,  in  racially  and  culturally  distinct  groups.  Two  specimen  pro- 
jects falling  within  this  general  field  are  herewith  appended.  One  is  a 
psychiatric  project  of  Harry  Stack  Sullivan,  the  other  a  study  of  emo- 
tion among  primitive  peoples  suggested  by  O.  Klineberg,  now  in  the 
department  of  psychology  at  Columbia  University.  In  the  first  two  sets 
of  studies  proposed,  the  emphasis  is  on  the  particular  community  and 
the  emergence  of  personality  in  that  community.  In  this  third  series  of 
studies  the  emphasis  is  rather  on  the  general  psychological  comparison 
o^  a  given  community  with  others.  If  this  field  seems  too  broad,  as  well 
it  might,  it  is  suggested  that  it  be  defined  as  the  psychiatric  study  of 
selected  groups  by  persons  who  qualify  for  this  type  of  work  because 
of  their  combined  interest  in  cultural  differentials  and  in  personality 
problems  as  studied  by  the  psychiatrist. 

The  question  was  raised  of  affiliation  of  the  proposed  work  of  the 
Committee  with  various  institutions  already  interested  in  similar  work. 
These  affiliations  are  numerous  and  obvious.  One  has  merely  to  men- 
tion Toronto,  Chicago,  Columbia,  Yale  and  Harvard  to  realize  how 
wide-spread  is  interest  in  the  fields  covered  by  the  name  of  the  Commit- 
tee. It  may  be  pointed  out  that  the  Institute  of  Human  Relations  at  Yale 
is  particularly  interested  in  developing  a  program  for  the  intensive  study 
of  a  small  urban  community  in  Connecticut.  Plans  are  now  under  way 
for  the  launching  of  this  project  and  it  is  hoped  that  the  work  of  the 
Institute  of  Human  Relations  in  this  regard  can  eventually  be  linked  up 
with  the  similar  work  proposed  for  the  present  Committee. 

A  word  should  be  said  as  to  available  personnel.  There  may  be  a  Httle 
initial  difficult  in  finding  quite  the  right  person  for  the  various  types  of 
work  envisaged  in  this  memorandum,  but,  on  the  whole,  the  writer  has 
been  impressed  by  the  large  number  of  promising  students  of  culture 
and  personality  who  are  interested  precisely  in  the  fields  that  have  just 
been  mapped  out.  An  excellent  example  of  a  very  promising  young  man 
who  is  interested  precisely  in  problems  of  acculturafion  is  Dr.  E.  Beag- 
lehole,  who  has  recently  published  a  general  book  on  "Property"  from 
the  standpoint  of  cultural  anthropology  and  who  is  eager  to  do  inten- 
sive work  in  some  Polynesian  area,  for  instance  Samoa.  His  proposed 


One:  Culture.  Socicly.  ami  tin-  InJiviihuil  253 

project  on  acculturation  in  Samoa  is  herewith  submiiicJ  as  a  kind  of 
appendix  to  Wisslcr's  general  siaiciiicni  i>ii  I\>iyncsian  problems.  A  fur- 
ther source  of  strength  for  the  prosecution  of  our  work  would  be  Dr. 
Harry  Stack  Sullivan,  a  far  more  mature  person.  While  his  experience 
has  been  chietly  with  schizophrenic  disorders,  he  should  be  helpful  lo 
the  Committee  because  o\'  his  coiniction  lluii  e\en  profound  behavior 
deviations,  such  as  we  observe  in  the  insanities,  are  by  no  means  with- 
out important  relations  to  cultural  differences  i^f  the  enviri>nmenl.  lor 
participation  in  a  psychologically  weighted  study  of  a  selected  urban 
community,  S.  Mekeel  stands  ready  to  serve  at  an  early  opporlunily.  He 
has  had  a  great  deal  of  experience  in  studying  the  acculturation  o(  the 
Teton-Sioux  to  modern  conditions.  He  is  eager  to  enter  the  siud>  of 
personality  development  in  a  community  representati\e  of  our  own  civi- 
lization. Mention  may  also  be  made  of  Dr.  W.  Morgan  o(  Cambridge. 
Massachusetts,  who  is  a  physiologist  who  is  passing  cner  into  the  field 
of  personality  development  in  various  cultures  with  pariicuhir  reference 
to  primitive  communities.  He  has  started  work  oi'  this  kind  among  the 
Navajo  at  his  own  expense  and  prepared  some  valuable  papers  which 
indicate  the  fruitfulness  of  the  proposed  field  o\'  nnestigaiion.  It  is 
hoped  that  the  Committee  may  be  sufficientl\  interested  in  this  t\pc  of 
work  to  warrant  the  submission  of  a  more  detailed  memorandum  on 
the  study  of  personality  development  among  the  Navajo  at  a  later  time. 

Copies  appended  of  the  following  projects: 

(a)  Study  of  acculturation  among  the  American  Indians,  with  special 
reference  to  the  investigation  of  problems  of  personalit\  -  E.  Sapir. 

(b)  Cultural  factors  in  emotional  expression       O   Klineberg. 

(c)  Polynesian  projects  -  C.  Wissler. 

(d)  A  study  of  the  process  of  acculturation  in  Samoa      I     Ik-aglehoic. 

(e)  Proposed  investigation  of  schi/ophrenia       IIS   Sulli\an. 


Editorial  Note 

These  memoranda,  discussion  excerpts,  and  Sapir"s  address  to  ihc 
Social  Science  Research  Council  at  the  Hanover  Conference  of  1930 
originally  appeared  in  ilie  contcrence  u.inscripts.  Not  previously 
printed,  they  are  published  here  with  the  permission  o\'  ihc  S.  '  "^^ i- 
ence  Research  Council.  Minor  changes  in  punctuation  and  c»  i^ 

of  typographical  errors  have  been  made  for  this  publication. 


254  JJf  Culture 

Notes 

1.  For  a  summary  o^  Sapir's  brief  remarks  at  the  1928  Hanover  Conference,  see  Darnell 
199U;3U1.  Sapir  did  not  attend  the  conferences  of  1927  or  1929. 

2.  The  transcript  has  "absorbed". 
3    The  transcript  has  "students". 

4.  ITic  transcript  has  "pleased". 

5.  Robert  L\nd,  of  the  Commonwealth  Fund.  New  York. 


Cusloni  ( \')}\ ) 
Edilc^iial  IiUihkIucIumi 

Between  1931  and  1934,  Sapir  conlrihuied  eight  ciuiics  to  inc  /.my- 
c/opcclid  of  Social  Sciences  edited  by  C\ilinnhia  l'ni\ersiiy  political  sci- 
entist R.  A.  Seligman  and  AI\in  Johnsi)n.  Director  of  the  New  School 
for  Social  Research.  Although  the  Encyclopedia  editorial  bi>ard  incliklcd 
no  anthropologists,  representatives  of  the  discipline  did  ser\e  in  \anous 
other  ad\  isory  capacities.  An  ad\  isory  committee  from  ciMisiiiuenl  stKJ- 
eties  of  the  Social  Science  Research  Council  included  Robert  I.owic 
and  Clark  Wissler,  acting  on  behalf  of  ihc  American  Anthropological 
Association.  Alfred  Kroeber  served  as  an  ad\  isory  editiM-  for  anthropol- 
ogy, and  W.  R.  Ogburn  and  W.  1.  Thomas  shared  a  similar  position  for 
sociology.  Franz  Boas  served  on  the  Encyclopedia's  btnird  of  directors. 

With  so  many  other  anthropologists  in\t^l\cd.  Sapii'.  whose  ostensible 
specialty  was  in  linguistics,  was  assigned  important  topics  only  in  thai 
field.  In  anthropology  he  was  allotted  only  entries  the  editors  appar- 
ently considered  tangential.  Undaunted,  he  focused  these  assigned  top- 
ics so  as  to  elaborate  aspects  oi"  his  increasingK  integrated  theory  of 
culture.  He  took  these  essays  sufficiently  seriousls  that  he  included  them 
as  reading  assignments  tor  his  Yale  seminar  on  '"'rhe  Impact  o[  Culture 
on  Personality""  in  1932-33.  Taken  together,  these  brief  articles  present 
a  succinct  overview  of  Sapirs  maturing  theory  of  culture.  six"iciy  and 
the  individual  as  presented  for  an  inlcrdisciplinar\  siKial  science  in- 
formed by,  but  not  exclusive  to,  anlhropologs. 

Five  of  Sapir's  encyclopedia  entries  appear  in  the  present  volume: 
"Custom"  (Sapir  I93id),  'T^^ashion"  (19311).  -(iroup'  ll'^."^2b).  "Per- 
sonality" (1934c).  and  "Symbolism"  (19>4e)  His  more  spccincally  lin- 
guistic entries  -  "Communication"  (1931a).  'nialeci"  (l9"^leJ.  and 
"Language"  (1933b)  -  appear  in  CII7:\  \olume  1. 

Regarding  "Custom""  (1931 ).  Sapir  argued  that  the  "fomial  cohesion" 
o\^  isolated  customs  formed  them  mto  "larger  configurations"  which 
were  understood  as  functional  units  despite  disparate  origins  This  con- 
figurational  perspective,  which  strongK  connects  "custom"  uilh  "cul- 
ture;" countered   Lowie's   1920  dictum  that  culture  was  "a  thing  o( 


256  Jit  Culture 

shreds  and  patches."  Even  while  emphasizing  configurations,  however, 
Sapir  did  not  abandon  his  interest  in  individuals,  and  the  ways  individ- 
uals attached  feelings  to  these  customary  patterns.  Culture,  convention, 
and  custom  were  all  interpreted  as  individual  habits,  indirectly  func- 
tional and  inalienably  symbolic  and  integrated. 

Sapir's  ethnographic  examples  of  custom  characteristically  evaded  ex- 
otica in  favor  of  commentary  on  contemporary  urban  North  America. 
Custom  was  not  to  be  identified  with  so-called  primitive  society  more 
than  with  the  Encyclopedia  readers'  own  society,  which  might  have  a 
more  complex  division  of  labor  and  an  increasing  emphasis  on  the  indi- 
\  idual  (among  other  divergences)  but  depended  on  custom  and  conven- 
tion nonetheless. 


Custom 

The  word  custom  is  used  to  apply  to  the  totality  of  behavior  patterns 
which  are  carried  by  tradition  and  lodged  in  the  group,  as  contrasted 
with  the  more  random  personal  activities  of  the  individual.  It  is  not 
properly  applicable  to  those  aspects  of  communal  activity  which  are 
obviously  determined  by  biological  considerations.  The  habit  of  eating 
fried  chicken  is  a  custom,  but  the  biologically  determined  habit  of  eating 
is  not. 

Custom  is  a  variable  common  sense  concept  which  has  served  as  the 
matrix  for  the  development  of  the  more  refined  and  technical  anthropo- 
logical concept  of  culture.  It  is  not  as  purely  denotative  and  objective  a 
term  as  culture  and  has  a  slightly  affective  quality  indicated  by  the  fact 
that  one  uses  it  more  easily  to  refer  to  geographically  remote,  to  primi- 
tive or  to  bygone  societies  than  to  one's  own.  When  applied  to  the 
behavior  of  one's  own  group  the  term  is  usually  limited  to  relatively 
unimportant  and  unformalized  behavior  patterns  which  lie  between  in- 
dividual habits  and  social  institutions.  Cigarette  smoking  is  more  readily 
called  a  custom  than  is  the  trial  of  criminals  in  court.  However,  in 
dealing  with  contemporary  Chinese  civilization,  with  early  Babylonian 
culture  or  with  the  life  of  a  primitive  Australian  tribe  the  functional 
equivalent  of  such  a  cultural  pattern  as  our  court  trial  is  designated  as 
custom.  The  hesitation  to  describe  as  custom  any  type  of  behavior  in 
one's  own  group  that  is  not  at  once  collective  and  devoid  of  major 
importance  is  perhaps  due  to  the  fact  that  one  involuntarily  prefers  to 
put  the  emphasis  either  on  significant  individualism,  in  which  case  the 


One:  ( 'ulturc.  Society,  ami  tin-  /nJiviJual  257 

word  habit  is  used,  or  on  a  iluMouuhls   ralionali/cd  and  formalized 
collecti\L'  inlciuion,  m  which  case  the  term  insiituiion  seems  in  place. 

Custom  is  often  used  iiiierchaugeabls  with  convention,  iradilion  and 
mores,  but  the  connotations  are  nol  quite  the  same.  C'onvenlu^n  empha- 
sizes the  hick  of  inner  necessity  in  the  behavior  pattern  and  often  unphes 
some  measLue  o\'  agreement,  express  or  tacit,  that  a  certain  mode  of 
behavior  be  accepted  as  proper.  The  more  symbolic  or  indirecl  the  func- 
tion of  a  custom,  the  more  readil\  is  it  referred  to  as  a  convention.  It 
is  a  custom  to  write  w ith  pen  and  ink;  it  is  a  con\entii>n  to  use  a  certain 
kind  of  paper  in  formal  correspondence.  Tradition  emphasi/es  the  his- 
toric background  of  custom.  No  one  accuses  a  community  of  being 
wanting  in  customs  and  comeniions,  but  if  these  are  not  felt  as  pos- 
sessed o(  considerable  antiquity  a  community  is  said  to  have  few  if 
any  traditions.  The  difference  between  custom  and  tradition  is  more 
subjective  than  objective,  for  there  are  feu  customs  whose  complete 
explanation  in  terms  of  history  does  not  take  one  back  to  a  remote 
antiquity.  The  term  mores  is  best  reserved  for  those  customs  which  con- 
note fairly  strong  feelings  of  the  righlness  or  wrongness  o\  nu>des  ot 
behavior.  The  mores  oi'  a  people  are  its  unftMiiuilated  ethics  as  seen  in 
action.  Such  terms  as  custom,  institution,  coinention.  tradition  and  mo- 
res are,  however,  hardly  capable  of  a  precise  scientific  definitiim.  .All  o\ 
them  are  reducible  to  social  habit  or,  if  one  prefers  the  anihri>pological 
to  the  psychological  point  of  view,  to  cultural  pattern.  Habit  and  culture 
are  terms  which  can  be  defined  with  some  degree  o(  precision  and  (65^^1 
should  always  be  substituted  for  custom  in  strictly  scientific  discourse, 
habit  or  habit  system  being  used  when  the  locus  of  behavior  is  thought 
of  as  residing  in  the  individual,  cultural  pattern  or  culture  when  its  Kvus 
is  thought  o\'  as  residing  in  societ\. 

From  a  biological  standpoint  all  customs  are  in  origin  individual  hab- 
its which  have  become  diffused  in  society  through  the  interaction  of 
indiv  idual  upon  indi\  idual.  These  diffused  or  socialized  habits,  however. 
tend  to  maintain  themselves  because  i>f  the  unbroken  continuity  of  the 
ditTusion  process  from  generation  to  generation.  One  more  often  sees 

custom  helping  to  form  individual  habit  than  individual  hab-'  '^ i: 

made  over  into  custom.  In  the  main,  grouj^  psychologv  takes  pu  e 

over  individual  psychology.  In  no  societv.  however  primitive  or  remote 
in  time,  are  the  interactions  o\'  its  members  not  controlled  b>  a  v 

network  of  custom.  liven  at  an  early  stage  of  the  palaeo!  *'■  : 

human  beings  must  have  been  ruled  bv  custom  to  a  vcr>  v 
extent,  as  is  shown  by  the  rather  sharply  delimited  tvjvs  of  arti* 


258  III   Culture 

iluii  were  made  and  ilie  inferences  thai  can  be  drawn  from  some  of 
these  as  to  behefs  and  attitudes. 

The  crystallization  of  individual  habit  into  custom  is  a  process  that 
can  be  followed  out  theoretically  rather  more  easily  than  illustrated  in 
practice.  A  distinction  can  be  made  between  customs  of  long  tenure  and 
customs  o^  short  tenure  generally  known  as  fashions.  Fashions  are  set 
bv  a  specific  individual  or  group  of  individuals.  When  they  have  had  a 
long  enough  lease  of  life  to  make  it  seem  unimportant  to  recall  the 
source  or  original  locality  of  the  behavior  pattern,  they  have  become 
customs.  The  habit  of  wearing  a  hat  is  a  custom,  but  the  habit  of  wear- 
ing a  particular  style  of  hat  is  a  fashion  subject  to  fairly  rapid  change. 
In  the. sphere  of  language  custom  is  generally  referred  to  as  usage. 
L'ncrystallized  usages  of  speech  are  linguistic  fashions,  of  which  slang 
forms  a  particular  variety.  Food  habits  too  form  a  well  recognized  set 
o\'  customs,  within  which  arise  human  variations  that  may  be  called 
fashions  of  food  and  that  tend  to  die  out  after  a  brief  period.  Fashions 
are  not  to  be  considered  as  additions  to  custom  but  rather  as  experimen- 
tal variations  of  the  fundamental  themes  of  custom. 

In  course  of  time  isolated  behavior  patterns  of  a  customary  nature 
tend  to  group  themselves  into  larger  configurations  which  have  a  formal 
cohesion  and  which  tend  to  be  rationalized  as  functional  units  whether 
they  are  such  historically  or  not.  The  whole  history  of  culture  has  been 
little  more  than  a  ceaseless  effort  to  connect  originally  independent 
modes  of  behavior  into  larger  systems  and  to  justify  the  secondary  cul- 
ture complexes  by  an  unconscious  process  of  rationalization.  An  excel- 
lent example  of  such  a  culture  complex,  which  derives  its  elements  from 
thousands  of  disparate  customs,  is  the  modern  musical  system,  which 
is  undoubtedly  felt  by  those  who  make  use  of  it  to  be  a  well  compacted 
functional  whole  with  various  elements  that  are  functionally  interdepen- 
dent. Historically,  however,  it  is  very  easy  to  prove  that  the  system  of 
musical  notation,  the  rules  of  harmony,  the  instrumental  techniques,  the 
patterns  of  musical  composition  and  the  conventional  uses  of  particular 
instruments  for  specific  purposes  are  independently  derivable  from  cus- 
toms of  very  different  provenience  and  of  very  different  age,  and  that 
it  is  only  by  slow  processes  of  transfer  of  use  and  progressive  integration 
of  all  these  socialized  modes  of  behavior  that  they  have  come  to  help 
each  other  out  in  a  complex  system  of  unified  meanings.  Hundreds  of 
parallel  instances  could  be  given  from  such  diverse  fields  of  social  activ- 
ity as  language,  architecture,  political  organization,  industrial  tech- 
nique, religion,  warfare  and  social  etiquette. 


One    Culture.  Society,  and  the  ImlivUliuil  259 

The  iinpciinaiicncc  cW  ciisloin  is  i\  iruisin.  Hclid  iii  ihc  rapidily  of 
change  o\'  clisIdih  is  cxaggcralctl.  hcnvcver,  because  it  is  preciscK  ihc 
comparatively  sliuhi  cii\cigciKcs  IVdih  uhai  is  socially  csiablishcil  ihal 
arouse  attention.  A  comparison  ot  American  life  today  with  the  life  oi 
a  mediaesal  Enghsh  town  would  in  the  larger  perspective  ol"  cultural 
anthropology  illustrate  rather  the  ielali\e  permanence  i^t"  culture  than 
its  tendency  to  change. 

The  disharmony  which  cuiiuilati\ely  results  from  the  use  of  tools. 
insights  or  other  manipulative  types  of  behavior  which  had  enriched  the 
cultural  stock  in  trade  o\^  society  a  little  earlier  results  in  cluingc  ol 
custom.  The  inlroductiiMi  o\'  ihe  autonn>hile.  lor  instance,  was  not  at 
first  felt  as  necessarily  disturbing  custom,  hui  m  ihe  long  run  all  those 
customs  appertaining  to  visiting  and  other  miKles  of  disposing  of  i»ne's 
leisure  time  have  come  to  be  seriouslv  miKlified  by  the  automobile  as  a 
power  contrivance.  Amenities  of  social  inlcrcourse  felt  to  be  obstructive 
to  the  free  utilization  o'i  this  new  source  o{  power  tend  to  be  dismissed 
or  abbreviated.  Disharmony  resulting  from  the  rise  of  new  values  also 
makes  [660]  for  change  in  custom.  For  example,  the  greater  freedom  of 
manner  of  the  modern  woman  as  contrasted  with  the  far  more  conven- 
tionally circumscribed  conduct  of  women  of  generations  ago  has  come 
about  because  of  the  rise  of  a  new  attitude  toward  woman  and  her 
relation  to  man.  The  influences  exerted  by  foreign  peoples,  e.  g.  the 
introduction  of  tea  and  coffee  in  occidental  societv  and  the  spread  oi 
parliamentary  government  from  countrv  to  countrv.  are  stressed  by 
anthropologists  more  than  by  the  majoritv  of  historians  and  sociologists 
as  determinants  of  change.  Most  popular  examples  of  the  imposition  of 
fashions  which  proceed  from  strategic  personalities  are  probablv  lanci- 
ful  and  due  to  a  desire  to  dramatize  the  operation  o\'  the  more  imper- 
sonal factors,  which  are  much  more  imporlanl  in  the  aggregate  than 
the  specific  personal  ones.  With  the  gradual  spread  of  a  custom  that  is 
largely  symbolic  and  characteristic  o\'  a  selected  portion  o{  the  pv>pula- 
tion,  the  fundamental  reason  for  its  continuance  weakens,  so  that  it 
either  dies  out  or  lakes  on  an  entirely  new  function.  Ihis  mechanism  is 
particularly  noteworthy  in  the  life  o\'  langu.ige.  l-iKulu>ns  w'  ' 
considered  smart  or  chic  because  they  are  the  pro|XTt>  ol  p:;.... 
circles  are  soon  taken  up  by  the  masses  and  then  die  bcxause  ol  : 
banality.  A  nuicli  nioic  pcuvcrtiil  and  exact  knowledge  of  the  nature  ol 
individual  interaction,  parlicularlv  as  regards  the  unconscious  trai-^ 
of  teeling.  is  needed  before  a  reallv  salisfving  thci^rv  of  cultural  ch.i;... 
can  be  formulated. 


260  III   Culture 

Those  customs  survive  the  longest  which  either  correspond  to  so  basic 
a  human  need  that  they  cannot  well  be  seriously  changed  or  else  are  of 
such  a  nature  that  lhe>  can  easily  be  functionally  reinterpreted.  An 
example  o^  the  former  type  of  persistence  is  the  custom  of  having  a 
mother  suckle  her  child.  There  are  numerous  departures  from  this  rule, 
vet  both  modern  America  and  the  more  primitive  tribes  preserve  as  a 
custom  a  mode  o'i  behavior  which  obviously  lies  close  to  the  life  of  man 
in  nature.  An  example  of  the  latter  type  of  persistence,  which  may  be 
called  adaptive  persistence,  is  language,  which  tends  to  remain  fairly 
true  to  set  form  but  which  is  constantly  undergoing  reinterpretation  in 
accordance  with  the  demands  of  the  civilization  which  it  serves.  For 
example,  the  word  robin  refers  in  the  United  States  to  a  very  different 
bird  from  the  English  bird  that  was  originally  meant.  The  word  could 
linger  on  with  a  modified  meaning  because  it  is  a  symbol  and  therefore 
capable  of  indefinite  reinterpretation. 

The  word  survival  should  not  be  used  for  a  custom  having  a  clearly 
defined  function  which  can  be  shown  to  be  different  from  its  original 
place  and  significance  in  culture.  When  used  in  the  latter,  looser  sense 
the  word  survival  threatens  to  lose  all  useful  meaning.  There  are  few 
customs  among  us  today  which  are  not  survivals  in  this  sense.  There 
are,  however,  certain  customs  which  it  is  difficult  to  rationalize  on  any 
count  and  which  may  be  looked  upon  as  analogous  to  rudimentary 
organs  in  biology.  The  useless  buttons  in  modern  clothing  are  often 
cited  as  an  example  of  such  survivals.  The  use  of  Roman  numerals 
alongside  of  Arabic  numerals  may  also  be  considered  a  survival.  On  the 
whole,  however,  it  seems  safest  not  to  use  the  word  too  freely,  for  it  is 
difficult  to  prove  that  any  custom,  no  matter  how  apparently  lacking 
in  utility  or  how  far  removed  from  its  original  application,  is  entirely 
devoid  of  at  least  symbolic  meaning. 

Custom  is  stronger  and  more  persistent  in  primidve  than  in  modern 
societies.  The  primitive  group  is  smaller,  so  that  a  greater  degree  of 
conformity  is  psychologically  necessary.  In  the  more  sophisticated  com- 
munity, which  numbers  a  far  larger  total  of  individuals,  departure  from 
custom  on  the  part  of  a  few  selected  individuals,  who  may  in  turn  prove 
instrumental  for  a  change  of  culture  in  the  community  at  large,  does  not 
matter  so  much  for  the  solidarity  of  the  group  to  begin  with,  because  the 
chance  individual  of  the  group  finds  himself  reinforced  by  the  vast  ma- 
jority of  his  fellow  men  and  can  do  without  the  further  support  of  the 
deviants.  The  primitive  community  has  also  no  written  tradition  to  ap- 
peal to  as  an  impersonal  arbiter  in  matters  of  custom  and  therefore  puts 


One:  Culture.  Society,  ami  the  InJivUhutl  261 

more  cncre\  wno  the  conservation  ot  uluil  is  iransniilicd  ihrough  acliv- 
it\  and  i>ral  iraJilion.  Ilie  presence  ot docunienls  relieves  the  individual 
from  ihe  necessity  of  lakinu  personal  responsibility  lor  the  perpetuation 
of  custom.  Far  too  great  stress  is  usually  laid  on  the  actually  consei 
as  contrasted  with  the  symbolically  conser\nie,  power  o\'  the  w 
word.  Custom  among  primitive  peoples  is  apt  to  deri\e  some  mc.i 
o\^  sacredness   from   its  association   with   magical   and   religious  pro- 
cedures. When  a  certain  type  of  activity  is  linked  uilh  a  ritual  which  is 
in  turn  apt  to  be  associated  with  a  legend  that  to  the  native  mind  ex- 
plains the  activity  in  question,  a  radical  departure  from  the  traditionalls 
conserved  pattern  [661]  of  behavior  is  felt  as  blasphemous  or  perilous 
to  the  safety  of  the  group.  There  is  likewise  a  far  lesser  division  of  labor 
in  primitive  communities  than  in  our  own,  which  means  that  the  forces 
making  for  experimentation  in  the  solution  o(  technical  problems  are 
proportionately  diminished. 

In  the  modern  world  custom  tends  to  be  much  more  conser\ative  in 
the  rural  districts  than  in  the  city,  and  the  reast>ns  are  similar  to  thi>se 
given  for  the  greater  persistence  o\'  custom  among  primitive  peoples 
The  greater  scatter  of  the  rural  population  does  not  generallv  mean  the 
more  intensive  individual  cultivation  of  the  forms  of  custinn  but  rather 
a  compensatory  effort  to  correct  the  threats  of  distance  by  conforniiiN 

Within  a  complex  community,  such  as  is  found  in  modern  cities,  cus- 
tom tends  to  be  more  persistent  on  the  whole  in  the  less  sophisticated 
groups.  Much  depends  on  the  symbolism  of  a  custom.  There  are  certain 
types  of  custom,  particularly  such  as  are  symbolic  of  status,  which  tend 
to  be  better  conserved  in  the  more  sophisticated  or  wealthy  groups  than 
in  the  less  sophisticated.  The  modern  American  custom,  for  instance,  of 
having  a  married  woman  keep  her  maiden  name  is  not  likely  soon  to 
take  root  among  the  very  wealthy,  who  here  jom  hands  with  the  unso- 
phisticated majority,  while  the  custom  is  being  sparsely  dilTuscxi  among 
the  intellectual  middle  class. 

The  varying  degrees  of  conservatism  in  regard  to  cusiiMii  .       '      1- 
lustrated  in  the  behavior  of  a  single  individual  because  ot  the  ........;il 

types  of  social  participation  int^^  which  he  enters.  In  Ingland.  lor  in- 
stance, the  same  individual  ma>  be  m  the  vanguard  of  cuslom  as  a 
Londoner  but  insistent  on  the  pieservation  of  rural  cuslom  as  a  country 
squire.  An  American  university  man  mav  be  disdainful  t^l  ci:  "  —  rv 
opinion  in  his  faculty  club  but  be  meekly  i^bservant  o\  religiou  n 

on  Sunday  at  church.  Loyalty  or  departure  from  cuslom  is  not  a  simple 


2f)2  ffJ   Culture 

iLiiKiion  o{  icmpcramcni  or  personality  but  part  and  parcel  of  the  sym- 
bolism o{  multiple  participation  in  society. 

Custom  is  generally  referred  to  as  a  constraining  force.  The  conflict 
o\'  individual  will  and  social  compulsion  is  familiar,  but  even  the  most 
forceful  and  self-asserlive  individual  needs  to  yield  to  custom  at  most 
pomts  in  order  that  he  may  gain  leverage,  as  it  were,  for  the  imposition 
o^  his  personal  will  on  society,  which  cannot  be  conquered  without  the 
implicit  capture  of  social  consent.  The  freedom  gained  by  the  denial  of 
custom  is  essentially  a  subjective  freedom  of  escape  rather  than  an  effec- 
li\e  freedom  o^  conquest.  Custom  makes  for  a  powerful  economy  in 
ihc  learning  of  the  individual;  it  is  a  symbolic  affirmation  of  the  solidar- 
ity of  the  group.  A  byproduct  of  these  fundamental  functions  of  custom 
is  the  more  sentimental  value  which  results  from  an  ability  to  link  the 
present  and  the  past  and  thus  to  establish  a  larger  ego  in  time,  which 
supplements  with  its  authority  the  larger  ego  represented  by  the  com- 
munity as  it  functions  in  the  present. 

The  formulation  of  customs  in  the  sphere  of  the  rights  and  duties  of 
individuals  in  their  manifold  relations  leads  to  law.  It  is  not  useful  to 
use  the  term  law,  as  is  often  vaguely  done  in  dealing  with  primitive 
societies,  unless  the  enforcement  of  customary  activity  be  made  explicit, 
being  vested  in  particular  individuals  or  bodies  of  individuals.  There  are 
no  societies  that  are  wholly  free  from  the  binding  force  of  implicit  law, 
but  as  there  are  also  many  primitive  societies  which  recognize  some  type 
of  legal  procedure  it  seems  much  better  to  speak  of  law  only  in  the 
latter  case.  There  are,  for  instance,  few  American  Indian  tribes  in  which 
customary  obligations  are  recognized  as  a  system  of  law  that  is  capable 
of  enforcement  by  the  community.  Psychologically  law  prevails,  but  not 
institutionally.  This  is  in  rather  sharp  contrast  to  the  legal  procedure 
which  has  been  developed  by  the  majority  of  African  tribes.  Here  there 
is  not  merely  the  law  of  custom  in  an  implicit  sense  but  the  perfectly 
explicit  recognition  of  rules  of  conduct  and  of  punishment  for  their 
infringement,  with  an  elaborate  method  of  discovering  guilt  and  with 
the  power  of  inflicting  punishment  vested  in  the  king.  The  example  of 
African  law  indicates  that  the  essential  difference  between  custom  and 
law  does  not  lie  in  the  difference  between  oral  tradition  and  the  written 
formulation  of  custom.  Law  can  emerge  from  custom  long  before  the 
development  of  writing  and  has  demonstrably  done  so  in  numerous 
cases.  When  custom  has  the  psychological  compulsion  of  law  but  is  not 
controlled  by  society  through  the  imposition  of  explicit  penalties  it  may 
be  called  ethics  or,  more  primitively,  mores.  It  is  difficult  to  distinguish 


One:  Culture.  Socii'ty.  unJ  flu-  huiivUhuil  263 

law  and  ethics  in  llic  more  simple  loinis  ot"soeiel\.  lioih  emerge  from 
custom  but  in  a  somewhal  JiNcrgent  maimer.  Mundane  or  human  sover- 
eignty becomes  progressively  distinguished  from  socially  dilTuscd  or  su- 
pernatural or  impersonal  so\ereignty.  [662]  Custom  controlled  by  the 
former  is  law;  custom  controlled  b\  the  latter  is  ethics. 

The  agencies  instrumental  in  the  formatic^n  o(  custom  are  for  ihc 
most  part  quite  impersonal  in  characlcr  and  implicit  m  the  mere  facl  of 
human  interrelationships,  riieie  are  also  more  selt'-conscious  agencies 
for  the  perpetuation  oi'  custom.  Among  these  the  most  important  are 
law  and  religion,  the  latter  particularly  in  the  form  o\  an  orgam/ed 
church  and  priesthood.  There  are  also  organizations  which  are  senti- 
mentally interested  in  the  conservation  of  customs  which  threaten  lo  go 
out  of  use.  In  the  modern  world  one  often  sees  a  rather  weak  nationalis- 
tic cause  bolstered  up  by  the  somewhat  artificial  fostering  o\  archaic 
custom.  Much  of  the  ritualism  o\'  the  modern  Scintish  clans  is  secondar- 
ily rather  than  lineally  conservative. 

If  complicated  forms  oi'  conscious  manipulaticMi  oi  ideas  and  tech- 
niques which  rule  the  modern  world  are  excluded  from  the  range  of  the 
term  custom,  the  force  of  custom  may  be  said  to  be  gradually  lessening. 
The  factors  which  favor  this  weakening  o\'  cusioni  are:  the  growing 
division  of  labor  with  its  tendency  to  make  scKiets  less  and  less  homo- 
geneous; the  growing  spirit  of  rationalism,  in  the  light  o\'  which  much 
of  the  justification  of  custom  tades  away;  the  growing  tendency  lo  break 
away  from  local  tradition;  and.  finalK.  the  greater  store  set  by  indiNidu- 
ality.  The  ideal  which  is  latent  in  the  nuHlcrn  mind  wmild  seem  \o  be  to 
break  up  custom  into  the  two  poles  of  indi\kluall>  determined  habit  on 
the  one  hand  and  of  large  scale  institutional  plannmiz  li>r  the  major 
enterprises  of  mankind  on  the  other. 

Consult:  Tylor,  E.  B.,  Prinilfivc  Culture,  2  vols.  (7th  ed.  New  York 
1924);  Boas,  Franz,  The  Miml  of  Pruuitive  Man  (New  \otV  h)Ih.  and 
Anthropology  and  Modern  Life  (New  \ovk  I92S);  Lowie.  R.  H  .  Primi- 
tive Soeiety  (New  York  1920)  and  Are  We  On7/rtv/:M New  York  1929): 
Wissler,  Clark,  Man  and  Culture  (New  ^ork  1923);  KriK-bcr.  A.  L.. 
Anthropology   (New   York    1923);   Sumner.    W.  G.,   /'  "  T^     '  'H 

1907);  Sumner,  W.  G.,  and  Keller.  A.  (i..  The  Science  -  •      -^. 

(New  Haven  1927-28);  Wallis,  W.  D..  Culture  and  Pn  York 

1930);  Malinowski,   Bronislaw.   Crinu-  and  Custom  in  Savtigv  > 
(London  1926);  Hocarl.  A.  M..  "Are  Savages  Custom-'^ 
vol.  wvii  (1927)  220-21);  Benedict.  Ruth.  "'Ilie  Scien.. 
Century  Magazine,  vol.  cwii  (\')2'))  (>4I     49. 


2(^4  ^^^  Culture 

Editorial  Notes 

Originally  published  in  Edwin  R.  A.  Seligman  (ed.),  Encyclopaedia 
of  tlw  Social  Sciences  4,  658-662  (New  York:  Macmillan,  1931).  Copy- 
riizht  1931,  renewed  1959,  by  Macmillan  Publishing  Company.  Re- 
printed by  permission  of  the  publisher. 


Fashion  (1931 ) 

Editorial  InliocliiciiDii 

Another  ol"  Sapir's  brief  entries  tor  the  /ju  vclopiiliu  <;/  the  Stniul 
Sciences,  "Fashion"  was  conceptually  linketl  wiih  the  entry  for  "Cus- 
tom"' (this  volume).  Sapir  identified  fashion  as  custom  in  the  disguise 
of  departure  tVom  custom.  It  could  be  interpreted  in  terms  of  its  conven- 
tionality as  cultural  pattern,  yet  at  the  same  time  it  ser\ed  individuals  as 
a  means  of  expression  of  personality.  Though  fi^llouinL'  the  "povverful 
psychological  drifts"  that  affect  tUher  cullural  patterns  (and  language 
as  well;  ct\  the  discussion  of  language  history  in  Laniiuni^c,  1921 ).  fash- 
ion also  provided  avenues  for  individuals'  behavioral  difTereniiaiion 

Sapir's  approach  to  this  topic  differed  ccnisiderablv  from  that  o\  Al- 
fred Kroeber,  who  had  published  a  papci  on  ii  m  \^)\^)  ("On  the  Prin- 
ciple of  Order  in  Civilization  as  E.xemplified  b\  Changes  o\'  Fashion/" 
American  Anfhropoloi^isf  21:  235-63).  In  keeping  with  his  own  lhet>rcli- 
cal  stance,  Kroeber  had  emphasized  the  importance  of  cullural  pattern 
as  against  individuals'  actions  and  motives,  which  (he  argued)  large- 
scale  trends  in  fashion  revealed  as  illusorv.  Kroeber  again  pursued  this 
theme  in  a  quantitative  study,  published  (with  Jane  Richardson)  in 
1940,  just  af^ter  Sapir's  death;  'Three  Centuries  o\'  Women's  Dress  Fash- 
ions; A  Quantitative  Analysis,"  Anthropoloi^icul  Records  5(2):  i— iv. 
11-153.  The  contrasts  between  Sapir's  and  Kroeber's  approaches  to 
this  topic  recall  the  theoretical  disagreemeni  t'lrsi  articulated  in  iheir 
debate  over  the  "Superorganic"  in  1^M7. 


Fashion 

The  meanmg  o\'  the  term  fashion  mav  be  clarified  by  pi>inling  oul 
how  it  differs  in  connolalion  Uom  a  luimber  o\'  other  terms  whose 
meaning  it  approaches.  A  particular  fashion  dilTers  Irom  'e 

in  suggesting  some  measure  c-)f  ciMiipulsion  on  the  par!  ot  ;...  »s 

contrasted  with  individual  choice  friMn  among  a  numlx*r  of  pt>^ 
A  particular  choice  may  of  course  be  due  to  a  blend  of  fashion  and 


266  ^^^   Culture 

tasic.  riui^.  if  hrighi  and  simple  colors  are  in  fashion,  one  may  select 
\\\\  as  more  pleasing  to  one's  taste  than  yellow,  although  one's  free  taste 
unhampered  by  fashion  might  have  decided  in  favor  of  a  more  subtle 
lone.  To  the  discriminating  person  the  demand  of  fashion  constitutes  a 
challenge  to  taste  and  suggests  problems  of  reconciliation.  But  fashion 
is  accepted  by  average  people  with  little  demur  and  is  not  so  much 
reconciled  with  taste  as  substituted  for  it.  For  many  people  taste  hardly 
arises  at  all  except  on  the  basis  of  a  clash  of  an  accepted  fashion  with 
a  fashion  that  is  out  of  date  or  current  in  some  other  group  than  one's 

own. 

The  term  fashion  may  carry  with  it  a  tone  of  approval  or  disapproval. 
It  is  a  lairly  objective  term  whose  emotional  qualities  depend  on  a 
context.  A  moralist  may  decry  a  certain  type  of  behavior  as  a  mere 
fashion  but  the  ordinary  person  will  not  be  displeased  if  he  is  accused 
of  being  in  the  fashion.  It  is  different  with  fads,  which  are  objectively 
similar  to  fashions  but  differ  form  them  in  being  more  personal  in  their 
application  and  in  connoting  a  more  or  less  definite  social  disapproval. 
Particular  people  or  coteries  have  their  fads,  while  fashions  are  the 
property  of  larger  or  more  representative  groups.  A  taste  which  asserts 
itself  in  spite  of  fashion  and  which  may  therefore  be  suspected  of  having 
something  obsessive  about  it  may  be  referred  to  as  an  individual  fad. 
On  the  other  hand,  while  a  fad  may  be  of  very  short  duration,  it  always 
differs  from  a  true  fashion  in  having  something  unexpected,  irresponsi- 
ble or  bizarre  about  it.  Any  fashion  which  sins  against  one's  sense  of 
style  and  one's  feeling  for  the  historical  continuity  of  style  is  hkely  to 
be  dismissed  as  a  fad.  There  are  changing  fashions  in  tennis  rackets, 
while  the  game  of  mah  jong,  once  rather  fashionable,  takes  on  in  retro- 
spect more  and  more  the  character  of  a  fad. 

Just  as  the  weakness  of  fashion  leads  to  fads,  so  its  strength  comes 
from  custom.  Customs  differ  from  fashions  in  being  relatively  perma- 
nent types  of  social  behavior.  They  change,  but  with  a  less  active  and 
conscious  participation  of  the  individual  in  the  change.  Custom  is  the 
element  of  permanence  which  makes  changes  in  fashion  possible.  Cus- 
tom marks  the  highroad  of  human  interrelationships,  while  fashion  may 
be  looked  upon  as  the  endless  departure  from  and  return  to  the  high- 
road. The  vast  majority  of  fashions  are  relieved  by  other  fashions,  but 
occasionally  a  fashion  crystallizes  into  permanent  habit,  taking  on  the 
character  of  custom. 

It  is  not  correct  to  think  of  fashion  as  merely  a  short  lived  innovation 
in  custom,  because  many  innovations  in  human  history  arise  with  the 


One:  C  'ultinr.  Society.  umJ  the  Individual  267 

iiccJ  \\m-  ihcm  aiul  last  as  long  as  ihcy  arc  iisdiil  or  convcnicnl.  IT.  lor 
iiisiaiicc.  ihcic  Is  a  shoriagc  of  silk  aiiJ  ii  becomes  cuslomary  lo  subsii- 
tule  cotton  for  silk  in  the  nianutaclurc  of  certain  articles  of  dress  in 
which  silk  has  been  [\M)\  the  usual  material,  such  an  enforced  chaniie 
o{  material.  ho\\e\er  important  ecoiu>micallv  or  aestheticalK.  diK*s  nol 
in  itself  conslilule  a  true  change  of  fashion.  On  the  other  hand,  ifcouon 
is  substituted  for  silk  out  o\'  free  choice  as  a  s\rnbol  perhaps  o\  the 
simple  hfe  or  because  o\'  a  desire  to  see  what  no\el  elTect  can  he  pro- 
duced in  accepted  types  of  dress  uith  simpler  materials,  the  change  mav 
be  called  one  o'(  fashion.  There  is  nothing  to  prevent  an  innovation 
from  e\entuall\  taking  on  the  character  of  a  new  fashion.  If.  for  exam- 
ple, people  persist  in  using  the  ctMton  material  e\en  after  silk  has  once 
more  become  available,  a  new  fashion  has  arisen. 

Fashion  is  custom  in  the  guise  of  departure  from  custom.  .Most  nor- 
mal individuals  consciously  or  unconsciousls  ha\e  the  itch  lo  break 
away  in  some  measure  from  a  too  literal  K\\alt\  to  accepted  custom. 
They  are  not  fundamentally  in  revolt  from  custom  but  they  wish  some- 
how to  legitimize  their  personal  deviation  without  laying  ihemsehes 
open  to  the  charge  of  insensiti\eness  to  'd.ooi\  taste  or  good  manners. 
Fashion  is  the  discreet  solution  of  the  subtle  conllict.  Fhe  slight  changes 
from  the  established  in  dress  or  other  lorms  o\'  behavior  seem  for  the 
moment  to  give  the  victory  to  the  individual,  while  the  fact  that  one's 
fellows  revolt  in  the  same  direction  gives  one  a  feeling  of  adventurous 
safety.  The  personal  note  which  is  at  the  hidden  core  of  fashion  heci>mes 
superpersonalized. 

Whether  tashion  is  fell  as  a  sort  o{  sociallv  legitimized  caprice  i>r  is 
merely  a  new  and  unintelligible  form  of  social  t>rannv  depends  on  the 
individual  or  class.  It  is  probable  that  those  most  concerned  with  the 
setting  and  testing  of  fashions  are  the  individuals  who  reali/c  mosl 
keenly  liie  problem  o\^  reconciling  individual  freedom  with  social  con- 
formity which  is  implicil  in  the  \er>  fact  o{  fashion,  ll  is  fX'rhaps  nol 
too  much  to  say  that  most  people  are  at  least  partly  sensitive  lo  this 
aspect  o\^  fashion  and  are  secretly  grateful  for  it.  A  large  mmoritv  ^^i 
people,  however,  are  insensitive  to  the  psychological  complexity  of  i. 
ion  and  submit  to  it  to  the  extent  that  thev  ^\o  merely  because  ihcv 
realize  that  not  lo  fall  in  with  il  would  be  to  declare  themselves  r 
of  a  past  generation  or  dull  people  who  cannot  keep  up  wiih  ihc.  ..^ 
bors.  These  latter  reasons  for  being  fashionable  are  >cvi>ndan.  ihc 
sullen  surrenders  to  bastard  custom. 


268  Ifi   Culture 

riic  fundamental  drives  leading  to  the  creation  and  acceptance  of 
fashion  can  be  isolaicd.  in  the  more  sophisticated  societies  boredom, 
created  by  leisure  and  too  highly  specialized  forms  of  activity,  leads  to 
restlessness  and  curiosity.  This  general  desire  to  escape  from  the  tram- 
mels o(  a  too  regularized  existence  is  poerfully  reinforced  by  a  ceaseless 
desire  to  add  to  the  attractiveness  of  the  self  and  all  other  objects  of 
love  and  tYiendship.  It  is  precisely  in  functionally  powerful  societies  that 
the  individual's  ego  is  constantly  being  convicted  of  helplessness.  The 
mdividual  lends  to  be  unconsciously  thrown  back  on  himself  and  de- 
mands more  and  more  novel  affirmations  of  his  effective  reality.  The 
endless  rediscovery  of  the  self  in  a  series  of  petty  truancies  from  the 
olTicial  socialized  self  becomes  a  mild  obsession  of  the  normal  indivi- 
dual in  any  society  in  which  the  individual  has  ceased  to  be  a  measure 
of  the  society  itself.  There  is,  however,  always  the  danger  of  too  great 
a  departure  from  the  recognized  symbols  of  the  individual,  because  his 
identity  is  likely  to  be  destroyed.  That  is  why  insensitive  people,  anxious 
to  be  literally  in  the  fashion,  so  often  overreach  themselves  and  nullify 
the  very  purpose  of  fashion.  Good  hearted  women  of  middle  age  gen- 
erally fail  in  the  art  of  being  ravishing  nymphs. 

Somewhat  different  from  the  affirmation  of  the  libidinal  self  is  the 
more  vulgar  desire  for  prestige  or  notoriety,  satisfied  by  changes  in  fash- 
ion. In  this  category  belongs  fashion  as  an  outward  emblem  of  personal 
distinction  or  of  membership  in  some  group  to  which  distinction  is  as- 
cribed. The  imitation  of  fashion  by  people  who  belong  to  circles  re- 
moved from  those  which  set  the  fashion  has  the  function  of  bridging 
the  gap  between  a  social  class  and  the  class  next  above  it.  The  logical 
result  of  the  acceptance  of  a  fashion  by  all  members  of  society  is  the 
disappeareance  of  the  kinds  of  satisfaction  responsible  for  the  change 
of  fashion  in  the  first  place.  A  new  fashion  becomes  psychologically 
necessary,  and  thus  the  cycle  of  fashion  is  endlessly  repeated. 

Fashion  is  emphatically  a  historical  concept.  A  specific  fashion  is 
utterly  unintelligible  if  lifted  out  of  its  place  in  a  sequence  of  forms.  It 
is  exceedingly  dangerous  to  rationalize  or  in  any  other  way  psychologize 
a  particular  fashion  on  the  basis  of  general  principles  which  might  be 
considered  applicable  to  the  class  of  forms  of  which  it  seems  to  be  an 
example.  It  is  utterly  vain,  for  instance,  to  explain  particular  forms  of 
dress  or  types  of  cosmetics  or  methods  of  wearing  the  hair  without  a 
preliminary  historical  critique.  Bare  legs  among  modern  women  in  [141] 
summer  do  not  psychologically  or  historically  create  at  all  the  same 
fashion  as  bare  legs  and  bare  feet  among  primitives  living  in  the  tropics. 


One  CiilfKir.  Socii'lv.  und  iln-  huiiviJuul  269 

The  importance  of  iiiulcrsUiiKling  fashion  historically  should  be  obvious 
enough  when  it  is  rccogni/cd  ihai  the  very  essence  o(  fashion  is  thai  ii 
be  valued  as  a  variation  in  an  understood  sequence,  as  a  departure  from 
the  immediately  preceding  mode. 

Changes  in  fashion  depend  on  the  pre\ ailing  culture  and  on  the  siKMal 
ideals  which  inform  il.  I  iidci  the  apparently  placid  surface  of  culture 
there  are  always  powerful  psychological  drifts  of  which  fashion  is  quick 
to  catch  the  direction,  in  a  democratic  society,  for  instance,  if  there  is 
an  unacknowledged  drift  toward  class  distinctions  fashion  will  discover 
endless  ways  of  giving  it  visible  form.  Criticism  can  always  be  met  by 
the  insincere  defense  that  fashion  is  merely  fashion  and  need  not  be 
taken  seriously.  If  in  a  puritanic  society  there  is  a  growing  impatience 
with  the  outward  forms  of  modesty,  fashion  finds  it  easy  to  minisier  to 
the  demands  of  sex  curiosity,  while  the  old  mores  can  be  trusted  to 
defend  fashion  with  an  affectation  o\'  unauareness  o\'  what  fashion  is 
driving  at.  A  complete  study  o\^  the  history  of  fashion  would  undi>ubi- 
ediy  throw  much  light  on  the  ups  and  downs  of  sentiment  and  attitude 
at  various  periods  of  civilization.  Howe\er.  fashion  never  permanenll) 
outruns  discretion  and  only  those  who  are  taken  in  b\  the  sufXTficial 
rationalizations  of  fashion  are  surprised  b\  the  frequent  changes  of  face 
in  its  history.  That  there  was  destined  to  be  a  lengthening  o\'  women's 
skirts  after  they  had  become  short  enough  was  obvious  from  the  outset 
to  all  except  those  who  do  not  believe  that  sex  symbolism  is  a  real  factor 
in  human  behavior. 

The  chief  difficulty  of  understanding  fashion  in  its  apparent  vagaries 
is  the  lack  of  exact  knowledge  of  the  unconscious  ssmbolisms  attaching 
to  forms,  colors,  textures,  postures  and  other  expressive  elements  in  a 
given  culture.  The  difficulty  is  appreciabiv  increased  b>  the  fact  thai  the 
same  expressive  elements  tend  to  have  quite  ditVerent  symbi>lic  refer- 
ences in  different  areas.  Gothic  type,  for  instance,  is  a  nation. i'"  •  *■ 
ken  in  Germany,  while  in  Anglo-Saxon  culture  the  praciicalK  -  'i 
type  known  as  Old  English  has  entirely  dilTerent  connotations.  In  other 
words,  the  same  style  of  lettering  may  symboli/e  either  an  undsing  ha- 
tred of  France  or  a  wistful  look  backward  at  madrigals  aiu'   r 

An  important  principle  in  the  history  ol  fashion  is  that  ti.  ure^ 

of  fashion  which  do  not  configurate  correctK  with  ifie  unconsaouN  ^ 
tem  of  meanings  characteristic  o\'  the  given  culture  are  relalivcly  inse- 
cure. Extremes  of  style,  which  too  frankly  s>mboh/e  the  \:u^      •     t 
feeling  of  the  moment,  are  likely  to  find  themselves  in  exposed  p>- 
as  it  were,  where  they  can  be  outflanked  b\  meanings  which  ihcy  do 


270  ///   Culture 

noi  wish  to  recognize.  Thus,  it  may  be  conjectured  that  Hpstick  is  less 
secure  in  American  cuhure  as  an  element  of  fashion  than  rouge 
discreetly  applied  to  the  cheek.  This  is  assuredly  not  due  to  a  superior 
sinfulness  o\^  lipstick  as  such,  but  to  the  fact  that  rosy  cheeks  resulting 
from  a  healthy  natural  life  in  the  country  are  one  of  the  characteristic 
fetishisms  of  the  traditional  ideal  of  feminine  beauty,  while  Hpstick  has 
rather  the  character  of  certain  exotic  ardors  and  goes  with  flaming  ori- 
ental stufls.  Rouge  is  likely  to  last  for  many  decades  or  centuries  be- 
cause there  is,  and  is  likely  to  be  for  a  long  time  to  come,  a  definite 
strain  o\^  nature  worship  in  our  culture.  If  lipstick  is  to  remain  it  can 
onl\  be  because  our  culture  will  have  taken  on  certain  violently  new 
meanings  which  are  not  at  all  obvious  at  the  present  time.  As  a  symbol 
it  is  episodic  rather  than  a  part  of  the  underlying  rhythm  of  the  history 
of  our  fashions. 

in  custom  bound  cultures,  such  as  are  characteristic  of  the  primitive 
world,  there  are  slow  non-reversible  changes  of  style  rather  than  the 
often  reversible  forms  of  fashion  found  in  modern  cultures.  The  empha- 
sis in  such  societies  is  on  the  group  and  the  sanctity  of  tradition  rather 
than  on  individual  expression,  which  tends  to  be  entirely  unconscious. 
In  the  great  cultures  of  the  Orient  and  in  ancient  and  mediaeval  Europe 
changes  in  fashion  can  be  noted  radiating  from  certain  definite  centers 
o'i  sophisticated  culture,  but  it  is  not  until  modern  Europe  is  reached 
that  the  familiar  merry-go-round  of  fashion  with  its  rapid  alternations 
of  season  occurs. 

The  typically  modern  acceleration  of  changes  in  fashion  may  be  as- 
cribed to  the  influence  of  the  Renaissance,  which  awakened  a  desire  for 
innovation  and  which  powerfully  extended  for  European  society  the 
total  world  of  possible  choices.  During  this  period  Italian  culture  came 
to  be  the  arbiter  of  taste,  to  be  followed  by  French  culture,  which  may 
still  be  looked  upon  as  the  most  powerful  influence  in  the  creation  and 
distribution  of  fashions.  But  more  important  than  the  Renaissance  in 
the  history  of  fashion  is  the  effect  of  the  industrial  revolution  and  the 
rise  of  the  common  people.  The  former  [142]  increased  the  mechanical 
ease  with  which  fashions  could  be  diffused;  the  latter  greatly  increased 
the  number  of  those  willing  and  able  to  be  fashionable. 

Modern  fashion  tends  to  spread  to  all  classes  of  society.  As  fashion 
has  always  tended  to  be  a  symbol  of  membership  in  a  particular  social 
class  and  as  human  beings  have  always  felt  the  urge  to  edge  a  litfle 
closer  to  a  class  considered  superior  to  their  own,  there  must  always 
have  been  the  tendency  for  fashion  to  be  adopted  by  circles  which  had 


One:  Culiuic.  Society,  uiul  the  huiivutiutl  271 

a  Unvcr  status  than  the  uioiip  sctlini:  the  lasliioiis.  liul  on  the  whole 
such  adoption  o(  lashion  from  above  leiuled  lo  be  discrccl  because  of 
the  great  importance  attachetl  to  llie  maintenance  of  scKial  clasNcs 
What  has  happened  m  the  modern  world,  regardless  of  the  olTicidl 
forms  of  government  wliieh  prevail  m  the  dilVerent  nations,  is  that  the 
tone  giving  power  whicli  hes  back  o['  fashion  has  largeh  shpped  away 
from  the  aristocrac\  o\'  lank  to  the  aristocrac\  i>f  ueahh.  I'his  means  a 
psychological  if  not  an  economic  lexelmg  of  classes  because  of  the  feel- 
ing that  wealth  is  an  accidental  or  accreted  cjualit)  t»f  an  individual  as 
contrasted  with  blood,  in  an  aristocracy  o\'  wealth  everyone,  even  the 
poorest,  is  potentially  wealthy  both  in  legal  theory  and  in  private  fancy. 
In  such  a  society,  therefore,  all  nuiividuaK  aie  eciuallv  entitled,  it  is  fell, 
so  far  as  their  pockets  permit,  to  the  insignia  o'i  fashion.  This  universal- 
izing of  fashion  necessarily  cheapens  its  value  in  the  specific  case  and 
forces  an  abnormally  rapid  change  of  fashion.  The  onlv  effective  protec- 
tion possessed  by  the  wealthy  in  the  world  o\'  fashion  is  the  insislentx 
on  expensive  materials  in  which  fashion  is  to  express  itself.  Too  great 
an  insistence  on  this  factor,  however,  is  the  hallmark  of  wealthy  vu!  • 
ity,  for  fashion  is  essentialh'  a  thing  of  forms  and  svnibols,  not  of  iikiIi.- 
rial  values. 

Perhaps  the  most  important  o\'  the  special  facti>rs  which  encourage 
the  spread  of  fashion  today  is  the  increased  faciliiv  for  the  production 
and  transportation  of  goods  and  for  communication  either  personally 
or  by  correspondence  from  the  centers  of  fashion  to  the  outmost  periph- 
ery of  the  civilized  world.  These  increased  facilities  necessarily  lead  \o 
huge  capital  investments  in  the  manufacture  and  distribution  of  fash- 
ionable wear.  The  extraordinarily  high  initial  profits  to  be  derived  from 
fashion  and  the  relatively  rapid  tapering  off  of  profits  make  it  inevit.'^'/ 
that  the  natural  tendency  to  change  in  fashion  is  hel|x*d  along  bv  c>  : 
mercial  suggestion.  The  increasingly  v  aried  activities  o\  modern  lile  also 
give  greater  opportunity  for  the  growth  and  change  of  fashion.  Ttxiay 
the  cut  o\'  a  dress  or  the  shape  o\'  a  hat  stands  readv   lo  svmK  ' 
anything  from  mountain  climbing  i>r  military  efficiency  ihi    •■••^^   ■ 
mobiling  to  interpretative  dancing  and  \eile«.l  harK>lry.  No  ^ 
merely  what  his  social  role  indicates  that  he  is  {o  be  or  may  vary  only 
slightly  from,  but  he  may  act  as  if  he  is  anv thing  else  ihal  mdividual 
fantasy  may  dictate.  The  greater  leisure  and  s(XMHiing  pimer  o'i  the 
bourgeoisie,  bringing  them  externally  nearer  the  up(X-r  classes  ol  former 
days,  are  other  obvious  stimuli  to  change  in  fashion,  as  arc  ihc  gradual 


272  Jit  Culiwc 

psychological  and  economic  liberation  of  women  and  the  greater  oppor- 
tunity given  them  for  experimentation  in  dress  and  adornment. 

Fashions  for  women  show  greater  variability  than  fashions  for  men  in 
contemporary  civilization.  Not  only  do  women's  fashions  change  more 
rapidly  and  completely  but  the  total  gamut  of  allowed  forms  is  greater 
tor  women  than  for  men.  In  times  past  and  in  other  cuUures,  however, 
men's  fashions  show  a  greater  exuberance  than  women's.  Much  that 
used  to  be  ascribed  to  woman  as  female  is  really  due  to  woman  as  a 
sociologically  and  economically  defined  class.  Woman  as  a  distinctive 
theme  for  fashion  may  be  explained  in  terms  of  the  social  psychology 
o^  the  present  civilization.  She  is  the  one  who  pleases  by  being  what  she 
is  and  looking  as  she  does  rather  than  by  doing  what  she  does.  Whether 
biology  or  history  is  primarily  responsible  for  this  need  not  be  decided. 
Woman  has  been  the  kept  partner  in  marriage  and  has  had  to  prove 
her  desirability  by  ceaselessly  reaffirming  her  attractiveness  as  symbol- 
ized by  novelty  of  fashion.  Among  the  wealthier  classes  and  by  imitation 
also  among  the  less  wealthy,  woman  has  come  to  be  looked  upon  as  an 
expensive  luxury  on  whom  one  spends  extravagantly.  She  is  thus  a  sym- 
bol of  the  social  and  economic  status  of  her  husband.  Whether  with  the 
increasingly  marked  change  of  woman's  place  in  society  the  factors 
which  emphasize  extravagance  in  women's  fashions  will  entirely  fall 
away  it  is  impossible  to  say  at  the  present  time. 

There  are  powerful  vested  interests  involved  in  changes  of  fashions, 
as  has  already  been  mentioned.  The  effect  on  the  producer  of  fashions 
of  a  variability  which  he  both  encourages  and  dreads  is  the  introduction 
of  an  element  of  risk.  It  is  a  popular  error  to  assume  that  professional 
designers  arbitrarily  dictate  fashion,  they  do  so  [143]  only  in  a  very 
superficial  sense.  Actually  they  have  to  obey  many  masters.  Their  de- 
signs must  above  all  things  net  the  manufacturers  a  profit,  so  that  be- 
hind the  more  strictly  psychological  determinants  of  fashion  there  lurks 
a  very  important  element  due  to  the  sheer  technology  of  the  manufac- 
turing process  or  the  availability  of  a  certain  type  of  material.  In  addi- 
tion to  this  the  designer  must  have  a  sure  feeling  for  the  established  in 
custom  and  the  degree  to  which  he  can  safely  depart  from  it.  He  must 
intuitively  divine  what  people  want  before  they  are  quite  aware  of  it 
themselves.  His  business  is  not  so  much  to  impose  fashion  as  to  coax 
people  to  accept  what  they  have  themselves  unconsciously  suggested. 
This  causes  the  profits  of  fashion  production  to  be  out  of  all  proportion 
to  the  actual  cost  of  manufacturing  fashionable  goods.  The  producer 
and  his  designer  assistant  capitalize  the  curiosity  and  vanity  of  their 


One:  Culture.  Sociav.  unJ  ilw  huUvUtual  273 

customers  bul  ihcv  nuist  also  be  proicclcd  agamsi  ihc  losses  of  a  rt-v  • 
business.  Those  who  are  lamiliar  with  the  history  of  fashion  arc 
phatic  in  speaking  o{  the  inabiliu  o\'  business  to  combat  the  fashion 
trends  which  have  been  set  going  by  various  psychological  faclons.  A 
fashion  may  be  aesthetically  pleasing  in  the  abstract,  but  if  it  runs 
counter  to  the  trend  or  does  not  help  to  usher  in  a  new  tinul  uln.  h  i^ 
struggling  for  a  hearing  it  may  be  a  Hat  failure. 

The  distribution  of  fashions  is  a  comparati\ely  simple  and  automatic 
process.  The  vogue  of  fashion  plates  and  fashion  magazines,  the  mans 
lines  of  communication  which  connect  fashion  producers  and  fashion 
dispensers,  and  modern  methods  of  marketing  make  it  almost  incxitable 
that  a  successful  Parisian  fashion  should  find  its  wa\  uithin  an  incredi- 
bly short  period  of  time  to  Chicago  and  San  I  rancisco  If  it  were  not 
for  the  necessity  of  exploiting  accumulated  stocks  of  goods  these  fash- 
ions would  penetrate  into  the  remotest  corners  o\'  rural  America  e\cn 
more  rapidly  than  is  the  case.  The  average  consumer  is  chronicall>  dis- 
tressed to  discover  how  rapidly  his  accumulated  property  in  wear  depre- 
ciates by  becoming  outmoded.  He  complains  bitterl>  and  ridicules  the 
new  fashions  when  they  appear.  In  the  end  he  succumbs,  a  victim  to 
symbolisms  of  behavior  which  he  does  not  fully  comprehend.  What  he 
will  never  admit  is  that  he  is  more  the  creator  than  the  \iclim  o^  his 
difficulties. 

Fashion  has  always  had  vain  critics.  It  has  been  arraigned  b>  the 
clergy  and  by  social  satirists  because  each  new  style  o{  wear,  ca!'"^" 
attention  as  it  does  to  the  form  of  the  human  body,  seems  to  the  ci     . 
to  be  an  attack  on  modesty.  Some  fashions  iheie  are,  lo  be  sure,  whose 
very  purpose  it  is  to  attack  modesty,  but  o\er  and  above  spcvific  attacks 
there  is  felt  to  be  a  generalized  one.  The  charge  is  well  founded  bul 
useless.  Human  beings  do  not  wish  to  be  modest;  thev  want  \o  K-   in 
expressive  -  that  is,  as  immodest  -as  fear  allows;  fashion  helps  i;. 
solve  their  paradoxical  problem.   Ihc  charge  of  economic  waste  uhich 
is  often  leveled  against  fashion  has  had  little  or  no  elTect  on  the  public 
mind.  Waste  seems  to  be  of  no  concern  where  values  are  lo  be  constvi 
ered,  particularly  when  these  values  are  both  egoistic  and  unconxu<ux 
The  criticism  that  fashion  imposes  an  unwanted  umformiiy  is  nol  as 
sound  as  it  appears  to  be  in  (he  first  iiisiance    I  he  individual  in  soaciv 
is  only  rarely  significantly  expressive  in  his  own  right.  Kor  ihc  \.iM 
majority  of  human  beings  the  voice  lies  between  unchanging  cuslom 
and  the  legitimate  caprice  of  custom,  which  is  tashK>n. 


2 "4  ///  Culture 

Fashion  concerns  itself  closely  and  intimately  with  the  ego.  Hence  its 
proper  field  is  dress  and  adornment.  There  are  other  symbols  of  the 
e20,  however,  which  are  not  as  close  to  the  body  as  these  but  which  are 
almost  equally  subject  to  the  psychological  laws  of  fashion.  Among 
them  are  objects  of  utility,  amusements  and  furniture.  People  differ  in 
their  sensitiveness  to  changing  fashions  in  these  more  remote  forms  of 
human  expressiveness.  It  is  therefore  impossible  to  say  categorically 
just  what  the  possible  range  of  fashion  is.  However,  in  regard  to  both 
amusements  and  furniture  there  may  be  observed  the  same  tendency 
to  change,  periodicity  and  unquestioning  acceptance  as  in  dress  and 
ornament. 

Many  speak  of  fashions  in  thought,  art,  habits  of  living  and  morals. 
It  is  superficial  to  dismiss  such  locutions  as  metaphorical  and  unimport- 
ant. The  usage  shows  a  true  intuition  of  the  meaning  of  fashion,  which 
while  it  is  primarily  applied  to  dress  and  the  exhibition  of  the  human 
body  is  not  essentially  concerned  w  ith  the  fact  of  dress  or  ornament  but 
with  its  symbolism.  There  is  nothing  to  prevent  a  thought,  a  type  of 
morality  or  an  art  form  from  becoming  the  psychological  equivalent  of 
a  costuming  of  the  ego.  Certainly  one  may  allow  oneself  to  be  converted 
to  Catholicism  or  Christian  Science  in  exactly  the  same  spirit  in  which 
one  invests  in  pewter  or  follows  the  latest  Parisian  models  in  dress. 
Beliefs  and  attitudes  are  not  fashions  in  their  character  of  mores  but 
neither  are  dress  and  ornament.  [144]  In  contemporary  society  it  is  not 
a  fashion  that  men  wear  trousers:  it  is  the  custom.  Fashion  merely  dic- 
tates such  variations  as  whether  trousers  are  to  be  so  or  so  long,  what 
colors  they  are  to  have  and  whether  they  are  to  have  cuffs  or  not.  In 
the  same  way,  while  adherence  to  a  religious  faith  is  not  in  itself  a 
fashion,  as  soon  as  the  individual  feels  that  he  can  pass  easily,  out  of 
personal  choice,  from  one  belief  to  another,  not  because  he  is  led  to  his 
choice  by  necessity  but  because  of  a  desire  to  accrete  to  himself  sNinbols 
of  status,  it  becomes  legitimate  to  speak  of  his  change  oi  attitude  as  a 
change  of  fashion.  Functional  irrelevance  as  contrasted  with  symbohc 
significance  for  the  expressiveness  of  the  ego  is  implicit  in  all  fashion. 

Consult:  Boehn,  Max  von,  Die  Mode:  Menschen  unci  Moden  im  neun- 
zehnten  Jahrhundert,  vols,  i-v,  vii  (Munich  1919-20).  tr.  by  M.  Edw- 
ardes,  4  vols.  (rev.  ed.  London  1927);  Kroeber.  A.  L.,  "On  the  Prmciple 
of  Order  in  Civilization  as  Exemplified  by  Changes  oi  Fashion"  in 
American  Anthropologist,  n.s.,  vol.  xxi  (1919)  235-63;  Elster.  .Alexander. 
"Mode"  in  Handworterbuch  der  Staatswissenschaften,  vol.  vi  (4th  ed. 
Jena  1925)  p.  603-14;  Lowie,  R.  H.,  Are  We  Civilized?  (New  York  1929) 


One    Cultmr.  Sodctv.  and  t/ic  Imlividiuil  275 

ch.  \;  Stem,  Norbcrt.  Mode  iiiiil  Kultur,  2  \o\s.  ( Dresden  I ^^15);  Bradlc\. 
H.  [).,  The  i'.tcniiil  Mdsiiucidilc  (\  o\\(\(n\  h)22);  V'cbk-n.  I  horslcin.  Jlte 
Theory  oj  the  Leisure  Class  (New  York  1X99).  ch.  \ii;  Iroellsch.  Waller. 
I'olkswirlseliaftliehe  Hetnieluuniieniiher  die  Mode  (Marbiiri!  1912);  C'ler- 
get.  Pierre.  "l,e  roleeec)iu)iiiic|ue  el  social  de  la  mode"  in  Revuecconom- 
ii/iie  inierihitioihde,  Brussels,  \ol.  ii  (1913)  126  42.  Ir.  in  Smithsonian 
Institution,  Annmd  Report  (1913)  755-65;  Sombarl,  Werner.  Wirtschafi 
und  Mode  (Wiesbaden  1902);  NystrtMii.  Paul  II..  The  Teonomies  of  Tush- 
ion  (New  York  1928);  Raushenbush.  Winifred,  m  \e\\  Treenum.  vol.  i 
(1930)  10-12,  323-25;  Hurloek,  E.  B.,  The  Psyeh<doi^v  of  Press  (New 
York  1929);  Fliigel,  J.  C,  llie  Psvehoh>gy  of  Clothes  (London  1930). 


Editorial  Notes 

Originally  published  in  Edwin  R.  A.  Seligman  (ed).  TncvclopaeJiu 
of  the  Social  Sciences  6,  139-144  (New  York:  Macmillan,  1931 ).  Cops- 
right  1931,  renewed  1959,  by  Macmillan  Publishing  C'ompans.  Re- 
printed by  permission  of  the  publisher. 


Cultural  Anthropology  and  Ps\chialr\  {\^)}2) 
Editorial  Inlroduclion 

Sapir's  most  explicit  formulation  to  dale  ( 1932)  ot  the  pi>iemial  col- 
laboration between  his  version  of  cultural  anthropology  and  Harry 
Stack  Sullivan's  interactional  psychology,  this  essay  appeared  in  the 
Journal  of  Abnormal  and  Social  Psycholoi^y.  Sapir  challenged  the  an- 
thropological and  sociological  assumption  that  individuals  could  he 
seen  merely  as  typical  of  their  communities.  Any  fieldworker  learns  by 
experience,  he  pointed  out,  how  necessary  it  is  to  cross-check  siatemenis 
by  single  individuals  with  other  members  of  the  same  society.  Nonethe- 
less, the  generic  conventions  oi'  the  ethnography  o(  the  day  precluded 
acknowledgement  of  such  variability  (see  also  Sapir's  discussion  of  this 
point  in  "Why  Cultural  Anthropology  Needs  the  Ps\chiairist."  I^.'^S. 
this  volume).  In  most  ethnographic  accounts,  paiicnis  uere  staled  m 
"relatively  clear  and  impersonal  terms"  regardless  o\'  the  degree  of  cer- 
tainty with  which  they  were  ascertained. 

Cultural  phenomena  could  for  some  purpt^ses  legiiiniaiel>  be  under- 
stood as  impersonal,  Sapir  acknowledged;  but  they  could  not,  on  episic- 
mological  grounds,  evade  attention  to  the  individual.  Moreover,  this 
approach  to  culture  needed  to  be  supplemented  b\  studs  o\'  the  indivi- 
dual in  order  to  arrive  at  some  sense  ol'  process.  I'hai  is.  the  d>naniic 
element  in  Sapir's  theory  of  culture  lay  neither  in  the  individual  nor  in 
society  per  se,  but  in  the  interaction  o\'  the  two 

Simply  adding  psychiatry  to  the  social  scientist's  background  \\ou\\i 
not  answer,  however.  Psychiatry  had  its  own  problems,  stemming  Irom 
the  ad  hoc  interpretation  of  clinical  experience.  Physiology  and  mkkiI 
psychology  were  as  far  as  psychiatrists  usuall\  looked;  culture  and  mvi- 
ety  entered  into  diagnosis  and  treatment  unsysiematicalh.  an>'  n 

the  absence  of  alternatives.  Moreover,  psychoanalvsis  disquali:  i 

from  a  major  role  in  interdisciplinar\  synthesis  bv  using  anthns  -il 

data  only  to  support  racist  or  c\ohiiuMiar>  positions.  In  conlrasi. 
Sapir's  cultural  anthropology  asserted  that  the  psychology  of  the  "prim. 
idve"  and  the  "modern"  were  not  ditTerent  m  kind.  All  hum.i-  »-•"-- 
were  psychologically  "primitive."  and  unci>nscious  symbolism  • 


278  Jt^  Culture 

sen  tor  socialization  in  a  particular  culture  regardless  of  level  of  cultural 
development.' 

In  this  essay  Sapir  offered  a  definition  of  culture  that  was  symbolic 
and  focused  on  the  individual  situated  in  terms  of  his/her  social  interac- 
tion (1932:  236).  The  argument  about  the  "true  locus  of  culture"  in  the 
actions  and  interactions  of  specific  individuals  was  further  elaborated 
in  'The  Contribution  of  Psychiatry  to  an  Understanding  of  Behavior 
in  Society"  (1937)  and  in  The  Psychology  of  Culture,  chapter  10  in  par- 
ticular (from  lectures  given  in  1937).  The  "world  of  meanings"  resulting 
from  these  interactions  for  the  individual  was  unconscious  and  sub- 
jective; nonetheless  it  was  real,  and  engaged  in  culture  process.  The 
epistemological  danger  for  the  anthropologist  lay  in  elevating  the  useful 
statistical  fiction  of  culture  to  a  metaphysical  state.  In  reality  there  were 
only  individuals,  having  variable  interpretations  of  symbolisms,  in 
which  personal  and  institutionalized  meanings  were  intertwined. 

Despite  his  longstanding  critique  of  the  "superorganic,"  a  critique  in 
which  the  present  essay  played  a  part,  Sapir's  discussions  of  culture  in 
interdisciplinary  contexts  continued  to  refer  to  the  cultural  as  a  separate 
analytic  level.  What  he  sought  was  not  to  supplant  cultural  analysis; 
psychiatrists,  in  particular,  needed  to  understand  its  relevance  to  them. 
Instead,  he  called  on  each  of  the  major  social  science  disciplines  to 
reorient  its  conceptual  apparatus  to  focus  on  the  locus  of  patterning  at 
the  intersection  of  culture  and  the  individual. 

The  original  audience  for  this  paper  was  primarily  outside  anthropol- 
ogy. Only  later,  and  especially  after  its  inclusion  in  Mandelbaum's  Se- 
lected Writings  of  Edward  Sapir  {\949},  did  it  gain  much  attention  within 
the  discipline.  Although  the  scope  of  the  argument  escaped  many  of 
Sapir's  colleagues  at  the  time  of  writing  and  for  some  time  afterward, 
its  thrust  has  been  taken  up  in  the  several  disciplines  in  more  recent 
decades. 


Cultural  Anthropology  and  Psychiatry 

Before  we  try  to  establish  a  more  intimate  relation  between  the  prob- 
lems of  cultural  anthropology  and  those  of  psychiatry  than  is  generally 
recognized,  it  will  be  well  to  emphasize  the  apparent  differences  of  sub- 
ject matter  and  purpose  which  seem  to  separate  them  as  disciplines 
concerned  with  human  behavior.  In  the  main,  cultural  anthropology 
has  emphasized  the  group  and  its  traditions  in  contradistinction  to  indi- 


One:  Culture.  Society,  mul  the  ImlhUiual  279 

vidual  sarialions  of  behavior.  Ii  aims  \o  discover  ihc  generalized  lorni!* 
of  action,  lliouglu  and  tcclniu  ulikh.  m  iIkmi  complex  inlerrelaledness, 
constitute  the  culture  ot  a  community.  Whether  the  ullmiaic  aim  of  such 
a  study  is  to  establish  a  typical  sequence  o\'  institutional  forms  in  the 
history  of  man.  or  to  work  out  a  complete  distributional  survey  of 
patterns  and  cultural  types  over  the  globe,  ov  to  make  an  exhaustive 
descriptive  analysis  of  as  man\  cultures  as  possible  in  order  that  funda- 
mental sociological  laws  may  be  arrived  at.  is  important,  indeed,  for 
the  spirit  and  method  of  actual  research  in  the  Held  of  human  culture. 
But  all  these  approaches  agree  in  thinking  o'i  the  individual  as  a  more 
or  less  passive  carrier  of  tradition  or.  to  speak  more  dynamically,  as  the 
infinitely  variable  actualizer  of  ideas  and  o{  modes  o\'  behavior  which 
are  implicit  in  the  structure  and  traditicMi  of  a  given  scK'iely.  It  is  what 
all  the  individuals  of  a  society  have  in  common  in  their  mutual  relations 
which  is  supposed  to  constitute  the  true  subject  matter  o'i  cultural 
anthropology  and  sociology.  If  the  testimony  o^  an  individual  is  set 
down  as  such,  as  often  happens  in  our  anthropological  numographs.  it 
is  not  because  of  an  interest  in  the  individual  himself  as  a  matured  and 
single  organism  of  ideas,  but  in  his  assumed  typicalitv  for  the  com- 
munity as  a  whole. 

It  is  true  that  there  are  many  statements  in  our  ethnological  mono- 
graphs which,  for  all  that  they  are  presented  in  general  terms,  really  rest 
on  the  authority  of  a  few  indiv iduals.  or  even  o\'  one  indiv idual.  who 
have  had  to  bear  testimony  for  the  group  as  a  whole.  Inlormation  on 
kinship  systems  or  rituals  or  technological  processes  or  details  ol  sivial 
organization  or  linguistic  forms  is  not  ordinarily  evaluated  b>  the  cul- 
tural anthropologist  as  a  personal  document.  He  alvva>s  hopes  that  the 
individual  informant  is  near  enough  lo  the  understandings  and  inten- 
tions of  his  society  to  report  them  dulv.  therebv  implicitiv  eliminating 
himself  as  a  factor  in  the  method  of  research.  .Ml  realistic  field  workers 
in  native  custom  and  belief  are  more  or  less  aware  o\  the  dangers  of 
such  an  assumption  and,  naturally  enough,  efforts  are  generally  made 
to  "check  up"  statements  received  from  single  individuals.  This  is  no! 
always  possible,  however,  and  so  our  ethnological  nuMiographs  present 
a  kaleidoscopic  picture  of  varying  degrees  o{  generalitv.  olten  within 
the  covers  of  a  single  volume.  Thus,  that  the  Haida  Indians  of  Queen 
Charlotte  Islands  were  divided  into  two  e\ogamic  phratnes.  the  I 
and  the  Ravens,  is  a  statement  winch  could,  no  doubt,  he  elu'  n 

any  normal  Haida  Indian.  It  has  verv  nearlv  the  same  degree  ■-  ,  r- 
sonality  about  it  that  characterizes  the  statement  that  the  United  Stales 


280  ///  Culture 

is  a  republic  governed  by  a  President.  It  is  true  that  these  data  about 
social  and  political  organization  might  mean  rather  different  things  in 
the  systems  of  ideas  and  fantasies  of  different  individuals  or  might,  as 
master  ideas,  be  construed  to  lead  to  typically  different  forms  of  action 
according  to  whether  we  studied  the  behavior  of  one  individual  or  an- 
other. But  that  is  another  matter.  The  fundamental  patterns  are  rela- 
tively clear  and  impersonal.  Yet  in  many  cases  we  are  not  so  fortunate 
as  in  the  case  of  fundamental  outlines  of  political  organization  or  of 
kinship  terminology  or  of  house  structure.  What  shall  we  do,  for  in- 
stance, with  the  cosmogonic  system  of  the  Bella  Coola  Indians  of  British 
Columbia?  The  five  superimposed  worlds  which  we  learn  about  in  this 
system  not  only  have  no  close  parallels  among  the  other  tribes  of  the 
Northwest  Coast  area  but  have  not  been  vouched  for  by  any  informant 
other  than  the  one  individual  from  whom  Boas  obtained  his  informa- 
tion. Is  this  cosmogonic  system  typical  Bella  Coola  religious  belief?  Is 
it  individual  fantasy  construction  or  is  it  a  peculiar  individual  elabora- 
tion on  the  basis  of  a  simpler  cosmogonic  system  which  belongs  to 
the  community  as  a  whole?  In  this  special  instance,  the  individual  note 
obtrudes  itself  somewhat  embarrassingly.  In  the  main,  however,  the  cul- 
tural anthropologist  believes  or  hopes  that  such  disquieting  interrup- 
tions to  the  impersonality  of  his  thinking  do  not  occur  frequently 
enough  to  spoil  his  science. 

Psychiatry  is  an  offshoot  of  the  medical  tradition  and  aims  to  diag- 
nose, analyze,  and,  if  possible,  cure  those  behavior  disturbances  of  in- 
dividuals which  show  to  observation  as  serious  deviations  from  the  nor- 
mal attitude  of  the  individual  toward  his  physical  and  social  environ- 
ment. The  psychiatrist  specializes  in  "mental"  diseases  as  the  dermatolo- 
gist specializes  in  the  diseases  of  the  skin  or  the  gynecologist  concerns 
himself  with  diseases  peculiar  to  women.  The  great  difference  between 
psychiatry  and  the  other  biologically  defined  medical  disciplines  is  that 
while  the  latter  have  a  definite  bodily  locus  to  work  with  and  have  been 
able  to  define  and  perfect  their  methods  by  diligent  exploration  of  the 
limited  and  tangible  area  of  observation  assigned  to  them,  psychiatry  is 
apparently  doomed  to  have  no  more  definite  locus  than  the  total  field 
of  human  behavior  in  its  more  remote  or  less  immediately  organic  sense. 
The  convenfional  companionship  of  psychiatry  and  neurology  seems  to 
be  little  more  than  a  declaration  of  faith  by  the  medical  profession  that 
all  human  ills  are,  at  last  analysis,  of  organic  origin  and  that  they  are, 
or  should  be,  localizable  in  some  segment,  however  complexly  defined, 
of  the  physiological  machine.  It  is  an  open  secret,  however,  that  the 


One:  Culture.  Society,  and  the  Individual  281 

neurologist's  science  is  one  thing  and  the  psychiatrist's  practice  another. 
Almost  in  spite  o\'  theniseKes  psychiatrists  have  been  forced  lo  be 
content  with  an  elaborate  arra\  of  clinical  pictures,  with  term;'  .i| 

problems  of  diagnosis,  and  with  such  thumb  rules  of  clinical  pn-^cuurc 
as  seem  to  otTer  some  hope  o{  success  in  the  handling  o{  actual  cases. 
It  is  no  wonder  that  psychiatry  tends  \o  be  distrusted  by  its  sister  disci- 
pline within  the  field  of  medicine  and  that  the  psychiatrists  themselves, 
worried  by  a  largely  useless  medical  training  and  secretly  exasperated 
by  their  inability  to  apply  the  strictly  biological  part  o\  their  training  to 
their  peculiar  problems,  tend  to  magnify  the  importance  of  the  biologi- 
cal approach  in  order  that  they  may  not  feel  that  the\  have  sira>cd 
away  from  the  companionship  o{  their  more  illustrious  brethren.  No 
wonder  that  the  more  honest  and  sensitise  psychiatrists  ha\c  come  lo 
feel  that  the  trouble  lies  not  so  much  in  psychiatry  itself  as  m  the  role 
which  general  medicine  has  wished  psychiatr\  to  pla>. 

These  insurgent  psychiatrists,  among  whom  Ireud  must  be  reckoned 
the  most  courageous  and  the  most  fertile  in  ideas.  ha\e  come  to  feel 
that  many  of  the  so-called  nervous  and  mental  disorders  can  be  looked 
upon  as  the  logical  development  of  systems  of  ideas  and  feelings  which 
have  grown  up  in  the  experience  of  the  individual  and  which  have  an 
unconscious  value  for  him  as  the  symbolic  solution  of  profound  diHlcul- 
ties  that  arise  in  an  effort  to  adjust  to  his  human  einironment.  I"hc 
morbidity,  in  other  words,  that  the  psychiatrist  has  to  deal  with  seems, 
for  the  most  part,  to  be  not  a  morbidity  of  organic  segments  or  even  of 
organic  functions,  but  of  experience  itself,  flis  attempts  to  explain  a 
morbid  suspiciousness  of  one's  companions  or  delusion  as  to  one's 
status  in  society  by  some  organically  definable  weakness  of  the  ncr\ous 
system  or  of  the  functioning  of  the  endocrine  glands  may  be  no  more 
to  the  point  than  to  explain  the  habit  o^  swearing  b\  the  absence  of  a 
few  teeth  or  by  a  poorly  shaped  mouth.  This  is  not  the  place  to  gi>  inlo 
an  explanation,  however  brief  o\'  the  new  points  o'i  \iew  which  arc  lo 
be  credited  to  Freud  and  his  followers  and  which  have  invaded  ihc 
thinking  of  even  the  most  conservative  o\  psychiatrists  to  no  wu         "  r- 

able  extent.  All  that  interests  us  here  is  \o  note  the  fact  that  ps. .:y 

is  moving  away  from  its  historic  position  i>f  a  medical  discipline  thai  is 
chronically  unable  to  make  ^2.oo(.\  lo  that  of  a  discipline  thai  is  medial 
only  by  tradition  and  courtesy  and  is  compelled,  with  or  wii! 
mission,  to  attack  fundamental  problems  o\  psscholi^o  and  s.-...  ..  .. 

so  far  as  they  aftect  the  well-being  o\  the  indi\idual  Ihc  Kkus.  then,  of 
psychiatry  turns  out  not  to  be  the  human  organism  al  all  in  any  Iruilful 


282  III  Culture 

sense  o^  the  word  but  the  more  intangible,  and  yet  more  intelligible, 
world  o^  human  relationships  and  ideas  that  such  relationships  bring 
forth.  Those  students  of  medicine  who  see  in  these  trends  little  more 
than  a  return  to  the  old  mythology  of  the  ''souF'  are  utterly  unrealistic, 
for  they  tacitly  assume  that  all  experience  is  but  the  mechanical  sum  of 
physiological  processes  lodged  in  isolated  individuals.  This  is  no  more 
defensible  a  position  than  the  naively  metaphysical  contention  that  a 
table  or  chair  or  hat  or  church  can  be  intelligibly  defined  in  terms  of 
their  molecular  and  atomic  constitution.  That  A  hates  B  or  hopelessly 
loves  B,  or  is  jealous  of  B,  or  is  mortally  afraid  of  B,  or  hates  him  in 
one  respect  and  loves  him  in  another,  can  result  only  from  the  complica- 
tions of  experience.  If  we  work  out  a  gradually  complicating  structure 
of  morbid  relationships  between  A  and  B  and,  by  successive  transfers, 
between  A  or  B  and  the  rest  of  the  human  world,  we  discover  behavior 
patterns  that  are  none  the  less  real  and  even  tragic  for  not  being  funda- 
mentally attributable  to  some  weakness  or  malfunctioning  of  the  ner- 
vous system  or  any  other  part  of  the  organism.  This  does  not  mean  that 
weakness  or  malfunctioning  of  a  strictly  organic  character  may  not  re- 
sult from  a  morbidity  of  human  relationships.  Such  an  organic  theory 
would  be  no  more  startling  than  to  maintain  that  a  chronic  sneer  may 
disfigure  the  shape  of  the  mouth  or  that  a  secret  fear  may  impair  one's 
digestion.  There  are,  indeed,  signs  that  psychiatry,  slowly  and  painfully 
delivering  itself  from  the  somatic  superstitions  of  medicine,  may  take 
its  revenge  by  attempts  to  "mentalize"  large  sections  of  medical  theory 
and  practice.  The  future  alone  can  tell  how  much  of  these  psychological 
interpretations  of  organic  disease  is  sound  doctrine  or  a  new  mythology. 
There  is  reason,  then,  to  think  that  while  cultural  anthropology  and 
psychiatry  have  distinct  problems  to  begin  with,  they  must,  at  some 
point,  join  hands  in  a  highly  significant  way.  That  culture  is  a  superor- 
ganic.  impersonal  whole  is  a  useful  enough  methodological  principle  to 
begin  with  but  becomes  a  serious  deterrent  in  the  long  run  to  the  more 
dynamic  study  of  the  genesis  and  development  of  cultural  patterns  be- 
cause these  cannot  be  realistically  disconnected  from  those  organiza- 
tions of  ideas  and  feelings  which  constitute  the  individual.  The  ultimate 
methodological  error  of  the  student  of  personality  is  perhaps  less  obvi- 
ous than  the  correlative  error  of  the  student  of  culture,  but  is  all  the 
more  insidious  and  dangerous  for  that  reason.  Mechanisms  which  are 
unconsciously  evolved  by  the  neurotic  or  psychotic  are  by  no  means 
closed  systems  imprisoned  within  the  biological  walls  of  isolated  in- 
dividuals. They  are  tacit  commentaries  on  the  validity  or  invalidity  of 


One:  Culture.  Society,  ami  the  Itulividuul  283 

sonic  o[^  the  more  inlinuiie  impliealuMis  o\  culture  for  the  adjuslmcni 
processes  of  given  iiKli\  kIlkiK.  We  arc  not.  iherelbre.  to  begin  wilh  a 
simple  contrast  between  social  patterns  and  individual  behavior, 
whether  normal  or  abnormal,  but  we  are.  rather,  to  ask  what  is  ihc 
meaning  o\^  culture  in  terms  o\'  indi\idual  behaxior  and  whether  the 
indixidual  can  in  a  sense,  be  looked  upon  as  the  etVeclive  carrier  of  ihc 
culture  of  his  group.  As  we  follow  tangible  problems  o{  behavior  rather 
than  the  selected  problems  set  b\  recognized  disciplines,  we  discover  the 
Held  o^  social  psychology,  which  is  not  a  whit  more  social  than  it  is 
individual  and  which  is.  or  should  he.  the  mother  science  from  which 
stem  both  the  abstracted  impeisonal  pi-oblems  as  phrased  by  the  cul- 
tural anthropologist  and  the  almost  impertinently  realistic  e\ploratu>ns 
into  behavior  which  are  the  province  of  the  psychiatrist.  Be  it  remarked 
in  passing  that  what  passes  tor  individual  psychology  is  little  more  than 
an  ill-assorted  melange  o^  bits  o\'  ph\siolog\  and  o{  studies  of  highly 
fragmentary  modes  of  behavior  which  have  been  artificially  induced  by 
the  psychologist.  This  abortive  discipline  seems  to  be  able  to  arrne  at 
no  integral  conceptions  of  either  indi\idual  or  societ\  and  one  can  onl> 
hope  that  it  will  eventually  surrender  all  its  problems  to  physiology  and 
social  psychology. 

Cultural  anthropology  has  not  been  neglected  b\  ps\chiair\.  I  he  ps>- 
choanalysts  in  particular  have  made  very  extensne  use  o^  the  data  of 
cultural  anthropology  in  order  to  gather  e\idence  in  support  o{  iheir 
theories  of  the  supposed  "racial  inherilaiice  of  ideas"  b\  the  individual 
Neurotic  and  psychotic,  through  the  symbolic  mechanisms  which  con- 
trol their  thinking,  are  believed  to  regress  to  a  more  primitive  slate  o\ 
mental  adjustment  than  is  normal  in  modern  societv  and  which  is  sup- 
posed to  be  preserved  tor  our  obser\aiii>n  in  the  institutions  of  pnmm\c 
peoples.  In  some  undefined  way  which  it  seems  quite  impossible  to  ex- 
press in  intelligible  biological  or  psychological  terms  the  cultural  evpcn- 
ences  which  have  been  accumulaled  b>  primitive  man  are  bclievetl  \o 
be  unconsciously  handed  on  to  his  more  civili/ed  progeny.  The  resem- 
blances between  theconlenl  of  primili\e  ritual      and  svmb. 
generally  among  primitive  peoples       and  the  apparentiv  pi.^.. 
and  symbolisms  developed  by  those  who  have  gieater  than  noii 
culty  in  adjusting  to  their  social  environment  are  said  lo  be  so  numerous 
and  far-reaching  that  the  latter  must  be  looked  upon  as  an  inherited 
survival  of  more  archaic  types  o[  thought  and  (eeling.  Hence,  we  arc 
told,  it  is  very  useful  to  study  the  culture  o\  primitive  man.  fi»i  in  this 
way  an  enormous  amount  ol  light  is  thrown  upon  the  fundamcnial 


284  ///   Culture 

significance  o\'  modes  of  behavior  which  are  otherwise  inexphcable.  The 
searching  clinical  investigation  into  the  symboHsm  of  the  neurotic  re- 
covers for  us,  on  a  modern  and  highly  disguised  level,  what  lies  but  a 
little  beneath  the  surface  among  the  primitives,  who  are  still  living  under 
an  archaic  psychological  regime. 

Psychoanalysts  welcome  the  contributions  of  cultural  anthropology 
but  it  is  exceedingly  doubtful  if  many  cultural  anthropologists  welcome 
the  particular  spirit  in  which  the  psychoanalysts  appreciate  their  data. 
The  cultural  anthropologist  can  make  nothing  of  the  hypothesis  of  the 
racial  unconscious,  nor  is  he  disposed  to  allow  an  immediate  psycholog- 
ical analysis  of  the  behavior  of  primitive  people  in  any  other  sense  than 
that  in  which  such  an  analysis  is  allowable  for  our  own  culture.  He 
believes  that  it  is  as  illegitimate  to  analyze  totemism  or  primitive  laws 
of  inheritance  or  set  rituals  in  terms  of  the  peculiar  symbolisms  discov- 
ered or  invented  by  the  psychoanalyst  as  it  would  be  to  analyze  the 
most  complex  forms  of  modern  social  behavior  in  these  terms.  And  he 
is  disposed  to  think  that  if  the  resemblances  between  the  neurotic  and 
the  primitive  which  have  so  often  been  pointed  out  are  more  than  fortu- 
itous, it  is  not  because  of  a  cultural  atavism  which  the  neurotic  exempli- 
fies but  simply  because  all  human  beings,  whether  primitive  or  sophisti- 
cated in  the  cultural  sense,  are,  at  rock  bottom,  psychologically  primi- 
tive, and  there  is  no  reason  why  a  significant  unconscious  symbolism 
which  gives  substitutive  satisfaction  to  the  individual  may  not  become 
socialized  on  any  level  of  human  activity. 

The  service  of  cultural  anthropology  to  psychiatry  is  not  as  mysteri- 
ous or  remote  or  clandestine  as  psychoanalytic  mysticism  would  have 
us  believe.  It  is  of  a  much  simpler  and  healthier  sort.  It  lies  very  much 
nearer  the  surface  of  things  than  is  generally  believed.  Cultural  anthro- 
pology, if  properly  understood,  has  the  healthiest  of  all  scepticisms 
about  the  validity  of  the  concept  "normal  behavior."  It  cannot  deny  the 
useful  tyranny  of  the  normal  in  a  given  society  but  it  believes  the  exter- 
nal form  of  normal  adjustment  to  be  an  exceedingly  elastic  thing.  It  is 
very  doubtful  if  the  normalities  of  any  primitive  society  that  lies  open 
to  inspection  are  nearer  the  hypothetical  responses  of  an  archaic  type 
of  man,  untroubled  by  a  burdensome  historical  past,  than  the  normali- 
ties of  a  modern  Chinese  or  Scotchman.  In  specific  instances  one  may 
even  wonder  whether  they  are  not  tangibly  less  so.  It  would  be  a  rare 
joke  to  turn  the  tables  and  to  suggest  that  the  psychoanalysis  of  an 
over-ritualized  Pueblo  Indian  or  Toda  might  denude  him  sufficiently  to 
set  him  "regressing"  to  the  psychologically  primitive  status  of  an  Ameri- 


One  Cult  Kir.  Society,  und  the  InJiviJual  285 

can  professor's  child  or  oi'd  professor  hiniscll.  I  he  culuiral  anlhf..p.,l.w 
gist's  quarrel  with  ps\elioaiial\sis  can  perhaps  he  piil  most  sigi.  i, 

by  pointing  out  that  the  psychoanalyst  has  confused  the  archaic  in  ihc 
conceptual  or  theoretical  psychologic  sense  with  the  archaic  in  the  iilcral 
chronological  sense.  Cultiual  anlhropologs  is  not  valuable  because  it 
uncovers  the  archaic  ni  the  psychological  sense.  It  is  valuable  because 
it  is  constantly  rediscovering  ihe  ni>rnial.  I  or  ihe  psychiatrist  and  for 
the  student  o\'  personalit\  in  general  this  is  of  the  greatest  impt>rl.;' 
for  personalities  are  not  conditioned  by  a  generalized  process  of  aii 
ment  to  "the  normaT"  but  by  the  necessity  o\'  adjusting  to  the  grc. 
possible  variety  o\^  idea  patterns  and  acluMi  palierns  according  to  the 
accidents  of  birth  and  biography. 

The  so-called  culture  o(  a  group  o(  human  hemgs,  as  ii  in  oidiiuiiii\ 
treated  by  the  cultural  anthropologist,  is  essentially  a  systematic  list  ot 
all  the  socially  inherited  patterns  of  beha\ior  which  may  be  illustrated 
in  the  actual  behavior  of  all  or  more  oi'  the  mdi\iduals  o\'  the  group. 
The  true  locus,  however,  of  these  processes  which,  when  abstracted  into 
a  totality,  constitute  culture  is  not  in  a  theoretical  communit>  of  human 
beings  known  as  society,  for  the  term  'sociei)"  is  itself  a  cultural  con- 
struct which  is  employed  by  individuals  who  stand  in  significant  rela- 
tions to  each  other  in  order  to  help  them  in  the  interpretation  of  certain 
aspects  of  their  behavior.  The  true  locus  of  culture  is  in  the  interactions 
of  specific  individuals  and,  on  the  subjective  side,  in  the  world  of  mean- 
ings which  each  one  of  these  individuals  ma)  unconsciously  abstract  for 
himself  from  his  participation  in  these  interactions.  Every  individual  is. 
then,  in  a  very  real  sense,  a  representative  o\'  at  least  one  sub-culture 
which  may  be  abstracted  from  the  generalized  culture  of  the  group  o( 
which  he  is  a  member.  Frequently,  if  not  ivpically,  he  is  a  representative 
of  more  than  one  sub-culture,  and  the  degree  to  which  the  ^  ! 

behavior  of  any  given  individual  can  be  identilled  with  or  ab>u.uiLd 
from  the  typical  or  generalized  culture  o\'  a  sinL'le  L'roup  vanes  enor- 
mously from  person  to  person. 

It  is  impossible  to  think  o\'  anv  cultural  pattern  or  set  of  cullurnl 
patterns  which  can,  in  the  literal  sense  of  the  word,  be  referred  to  sivietv 
as  such.  There  are  no  facts  o(  political  organization  or  familv  life  oi 
religious  belief  or  magical  privedure  or  technology  or  acslhciic  en- 
deavor  which  are  cotermimuis  with  society  or  with  any  mcvhan  r 

sociologically  defined  segment  of  society.  The  fact  that  John  i  )oc  is 
registered  in  some  municipal  otfice  as  a  member  o\  such  and  such  a 
ward  only  vaguely  defines  him  with  reference  to  those  cultural  patterns 


286  tit  Culture 

which  arc  coinciiicnily  assembled  under  some  such  term  as  "municipal 
administration."  The  psychological  and,  in  the  deepest  sense  of  the 
word,  the  cuhural  realities  of  John  Doe's  registration  may,  and  do,  vary 
enormously,  if  John  Doe  is  paying  taxes  on  a  house  which  is  likely  to 
keep  him  a  resident  of  the  ward  for  the  rest  of  his  life  and  if  he  also 
happens  to  be  in  personal  contact  with  a  number  of  municipal  officers, 
ward  classification  may  easily  become  a  symbol  of  his  orientation  in  his 
world  of  meanings  which  is  comparable  for  clarity,  if  not  for  impor- 
tance, to  his  definition  as  a  father  of  a  family  or  as  a  frequent  partici- 
pant in  golf.  Ward  membership,  for  such  an  individual,  may  easily  pre- 
cipitate itself  into  many  visible  forms  of  behavior.  The  ward  system  and 
its  functions,  real  or  supposed,  may  for  such  a  John  Doe  assume  an 
impersonal  and  objective  reality  which  is  comparable  to  the  objective 
reality  of  rain  or  sunshine. 

But  there  is  sure  to  be  another  John  Doe,  perhaps  a  neighbor  of  the 
first,  who  does  not  even  know  that  the  town  is  divided  into  wards  and 
that  he  is,  by  definifion,  enrolled  in  one  of  them  and  that  he  has  certain 
duties  and  privileges  connected  with  such  enrollment,  whether  he  cares 
to  exercise  them  or  not.  While  the  municipal  office  classifies  these  two 
John  Does  in  exactly  the  same  way  and  while  there  is  a  theory  on 
foot  that  ward  organization,  with  its  associated  functions,  is  an  entirely 
impersonal  matter  to  which  all  members  of  a  given  society  must  adjust, 
it  is  rather  obvious  that  such  a  manner  of  speech  is  little  more  than  a 
sociological  metaphor.  The  cultures  of  these  two  individuals  are,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  significantly  different,  as  significantly  different,  on  the 
given  level  and  scale,  as  though  one  were  a  representative  of  Italian 
culture  and  the  other  of  Turkish  culture.  Such  differences  of  culture 
never  seem  as  significant  as  they  really  are;  partly  because  in  the  worka- 
day world  of  experience  they  are  not  often  given  the  opportunity  to 
emerge  into  sharp  consciousness,  partly  because  the  economy  of  inter- 
personal reladons  and  the  friendly  ambiguities  of  language  conspire  to 
reinterpret  for  each  individual  all  behavior  which  he  has  under  observa- 
fion  in  the  terms  of  those  meanings  which  are  relevant  to  his  own  life. 
The  concept  of  culture,  as  it  is  handled  by  the  cultural  anthropologist, 
is  necessarily  something  of  a  statistical  ficfion  and  it  is  easy  to  see  that 
the  social  psychologist  and  the  psychiatrist  must  eventually  induce  him 
to  carefully  reconsider  his  terms.  It  is  not  the  concept  of  culture  which 
IS  subtly  misleading  but  the  metaphysical  locus  to  which  culture  is  gen- 
erally assigned. 


One:  Culliiir.  Socictv.  hikI  the  liulivUliuil  287 

Clearly,  not  all  cultural  trails  arc  olcciual  iinporiaiKc  \or  ilic  develop- 
ment of  personality,  lor  not  all  o\'  ihcni  arc  equally  ditlused  as  mle^iral 
elements  in  the  idea-systems  o\'  dilTcrcni  nidividuals.  Some  modes  ol" 
behavior  and  attitude  arc  pervasive  and  eompelHng  beyond  the  pimer 
of  even  the  most  isolated  individual  to  wiliistand  or  reject.  Such  pat- 
terns would  be,  for  example,  the  symbolisms  of  atTeclion  or  hosiilii), 
the  overtones  of  emotionally  significant  words;  certain  lundamenial  mi- 
plications  and  many  details  o\^  the  economic  order;  much,  but  by  no 
means  all,  of  those  understandings  and  procedures  which  consiituie  the 
law  of  the  land.  Patterns  of  this  kind  are  compulsive  for  the  \asi  niajDr- 
ity  of  human  beings  but  the  degree  o(  compulsi\cness  is  m  no  smiple 
relation  to  the  official,  as  contrasted  with  the  inner  or  psychological. 
significance  of  these  patterns.  Thus,  the  use  of  an  olTcnsive  word  mas 
be  of  negligible  importance  from  a  legal  standpoint  but  mas.  psycholog- 
ically considered,  have  an  attracting  or  repelling  potency  that  far  tran- 
scends the  significance  of  one's  scientific  thinking.  A  culture  as  a  whole 
cannot  be  said  to  be  adequately  known  for  purposes  o\'  personalil> 
study  until  the  varying  degrees  of  compulsi\encss  which  attach  to  its 
many  aspects  and  implications  are  rather  definitely  understood.  No 
doubt  there  are  cultural  patterns  which  tend  to  be  iini\crsal.  not  onl> 
in  form  but  in  psychological  significance,  but  it  is  very  eas\  to  be  mis- 
taken in  these  matters  and  to  impute  cquixalcnces  of  meaning  which  do 
not  truly  exist. 

There  are  still  other  cultural  patterns  which  are  real  and  compelling 
only  for  special  individuals  or  groups  of  individuals  and  are  as  good  as 
nonexistent  for  the  rest  of  the  group.  Such,  for  instance,  are  the  ideas. 
attitudes  and  modes  of  behavior  which  belong  to  specialized  trades  We 
are  all  aware  of  the  reality  of  such  private  or  limited  worlds  of  meaning. 
The  dairyman,  the  movie  actress,  the  laboraiiM\  physicist,  the  party 
whip,  have  obviously  built  up  worlds  which  are  anonsnious  or  -  ' 
to  each  other  or,  at  best,  stand  to  each  other  in  a  relation  i>l  :  .  •  . 
acceptance.  There  is  much  tacit  mythology  in  such  hugely  complex  soa- 
eties  as  our  own  which  makes  it  possible  for  the  personal  significance 
of  sub-cultures  to  be  overlooked.  For  each  indi\idual.  ihe  ctM' 

accepted  fund  of  meanings  and  values  tends  to  be  powerlulK  s|x\ : 

or  emphasized  or  contradicted  by  types  o(  experience  and  nunles  of 
interpretation  that  are  far  from  being  the  properly  o\'  all  men.  If  y^x 
consider  that  these  specialized  cultural  participations  are  parlK  the  re- 
suk  of  contact  with  limited  traditions  and  techniques.  partK  the  result 
of  identification  with  such  biologically  and  socialK  imposed  croups  as 


288  IJi  Culture 

ihc  familv  or  the  class  in  school  or  the  club,  we  can  begin  to  see  how 
inevitable  it  is  that  the  true  psychological  locus  of  «  culture  is  the  indivi- 
dual or  (/  specif icidlv  enumerate  list  of  individuals,  not  an  economically 
or  politically  or  socially  defined  group  of  individuals.  "Individual," 
however,  here  means  not  simply  a  biologically  defined  organism  main- 
taining itself  through  physical  impacts  and  symbolic  substitutes  of  such 
impacts,  but  that  total  world  of  form,  meaning  and  implication  of  sym- 
bolic behavior  which  a  given  individual  partly  knows  and  directs,  partly 
intuits  and  yields  to.  partly  is  ignorant  of  and  is  swayed  by. 

Still  other  cultural  patterns  have  neither  a  generalized  nor  a  special- 
ized potency.  They  may  be  termed  marginal  or  referential,  and  while 
they  may  figure  as  conceptually  important  in  the  scheme  of  a  cultural 
theorist,  they  may  actually  have  little  or  no  psychological  importance 
for  the  normal  human  being.  Thus,  the  force  of  linguistic  analogy  which 
creates  the  plural  "unicorns"  is  a  most  important  force  for  the  linguistic 
analyst  to  be  clear  about,  but  it  is  obvious  that  the  psychological  immi- 
nence of  that  force,  while  perfectly  real,  may  be  less  than  the  avoidance, 
say,  of  certain  obscene  or  impolite  words,  an  avoidance  which  the  lin- 
guist, in  turn,  may  quite  legitimately  look  upon  as  marginal  to  his 
sphere  of  interests.  In  the  same  way,  while  such  municipal  subdivisions 
as  wards  are,  from  the  standpoint  of  political  theory,  of  the  same  order 
as  state  lines  and  even  national  lines,  they  are  not  psychologically  so. 
They  are  psychologically  related  to  such  saturated  entities  as  New  York 
or  "the  South"  or  Fifth  Avenue  or  "the  slums"  as  undeveloped  property 
in  the  suburbs  is  economically  related  to  real  estate  in  the  business  heart 
of  a  great  metropolis.  Some  of  this  marginal  cultural  property  is  held 
as  marginal  by  the  vast  majority  of  participants  in  the  total  culture,  if 
we  may  still  speak  in  terms  of  a  "total  culture."  Others  of  these  marginal 
patterns  are  so  only  for  certain  individuals  or  groups  of  individuals.  No 
doubt,  to  a  movie  actress  the  intense  world  of  values  which  engages  the 
participation  of  a  physicist  tends  to  be  marginal  in  about  the  same  sense 
as  a  legal  fiction  or  unactualized  linguistic  possibility  may  be  marginal 
cultural  property.  A  "hard-headed  business  man"  may  consign  the 
movie  actress  and  the  physicist  to  two  adjoining  sectors,  "hvely"  and 
"sleepy"  respectively,  of  a  marginal  tract  of  "triviality."  Culture,  then, 
varies  infinitely,  not  only  as  to  manifest  content  but  as  to  the  distribu- 
tion of  psychologic  emphases  on  the  elements  and  implications  of  this 
content.  According  to  our  scale  of  treatment,  we  have  to  deal  with  the 
cultures  of  groups  and  the  cultures  of  individuals. 


One    Culimv.  S(nici\:  ami  the  Indixidual  289 

A  personality  is  carxcd  lUil  h\  ihc  siihilc  iiiicracuon  ol  ihosc  systems 
of  ideas  which  are  characicrisiic  o\'  ihc  ciihure  as  a  whole,  as  well  as 
those  systems  ol  ideas  which  gel  established  lor  the  individual  through 
more  special  types  of  participation,  with  the  physical  and  psychological 
needs  of  the  individual  organism,  which  cannot  lake  over  any  of  ihe 
cultural  material  that  is  offered  in  its  original  form  but  \sorks  it  over 
more  or  less  completely,  so  that  it  integrates  with  those  needs.  The  more 
closely  we  study  this  interaction,  the  more  diUlcult  it  becomes  to  distin- 
guish society  as  a  cultural  and  psychological  unit  fri>m  the  individual 
who  is  thought  of  as  a  member  o^  the  societs  to  whose  culture  he  is 
required  to  adjust.  No  problem  of  social  ps\clu)U)g\  that  is  at  all  realis- 
tic can  be  phrased  by  starting  with  the  conventional  contrast  o{  the 
individual  and  his  society.  Nearly  e\er\  problem  o\'  social  psychology 
needs  to  consider  the  exact  nature  and  implication  of  an  idea  complex, 
which  we  may  look  upon  as  the  psychological  correlate  o'i  the  anthro- 
pologist's cultural  pattern,  to  work  out  its  relation  to  other  idea  com- 
plexes and  what  modifications  it  necessaril\  undergoes  as  it  accommo- 
dates itself  to  these,  and,  above  all,  to  ascertain  the  precise  locus  of  such 
a  complex.  This  locus  is  rarely  identifiable  with  society  as  a  whole,  ex- 
cept in  a  purely  philosophical  or  conccpiual  sense,  nor  is  ii  often  Uxlged 
in  the  psyche  of  a  single  individual.  In  extreme  cases  such  an  idea  com- 
plex or  cultural  pattern  may  be  the  dissociated  segment  o^  a  single  in- 
dividual's mind  or  it  may  amount  to  no  more  than  a  potential  revi\  idea- 
tion of  ideas  in  the  mind  of  a  single  indi\idual  ihrough  the  aid  of  some 
such  symbolic  depository  as  a  book  or  museum.  OrdinariU  the  Kkus 
will  be  a  substantial  portion  of  the  members  o\  a  communils.  each  of 
them  feeling  that  he  is  touching  common  interests  so  far  as  this  particu- 
lar culture  pattern  is  concerned.  We  have  learned  that  the  individual  in 
isolation  from  society  is  a  psychological  fiction.  We  have  not  had  the 

courage  to  face  the  fact  that  formally  organized  groups  aro    "v 

fictitious  in   the  psychological   sense,   for  geographical!)    co;  .n 

groups  are  merely  a  first  approximation  to  the  infinitely  variable  group- 
ings of  human  beings  to  whom  culture  in  its  \arious  aspects  is  act 
to  be  credited  as  a  matter  o{  realistic  ps>cholog>. 

"Adjustment,"  as  the  term  is  ordinaril>  understood,  is  a  suivrtui.il 
concept  because  it  regards  only  the  end  product  of  individual  ' 
as  judged  from  the  standp^^int  o\  the  requirements,  real  or  suppi>Mxl.  ol 
a  particular  society.  In  reality,  'adjustment'"  consists  ol  tw.'  ■ 

even  confiicting  types  of  process.  It  includes.  obMously.  li..    

modations  to  the  behavior  requirements  o{  the  group  without  which 


290  ///   Culture 

the  individual  would  find  himself  isolated  and  ineffective,  but  it  in- 
cludes, just  as  significantly,  the  effort  to  retain  and  make  felt  in  the 
opinions  and  attitudes  of  others  that  particular  cosmos  of  ideas  and 
\alues  which  has  grown  up  more  or  less  unconsciously  in  the  experience 
o\'  the  individual.  Ideally  these  two  adjustment  tendencies  need  to  be 
compromised  into  behavior  patterns  which  do  justice  to  both  require- 
ments. 

it  is  a  dangerous  thing  for  the  individual  to  give  up  his  identification 
with  such  cultural  patterns  as  have  come  to  symbolize  for  him  his  own 
personality  integration.  The  task  of  external  adjustment  to  social  needs 
may  require  such  abandonment  on  his  part,  and  consciously  he  may 
cra\  e  nothing  more  passionately,  but  if  he  does  not  wish  to  invite  dis- 
harmony and  inner  weakness  in  his  personality,  he  must  see  to  it,  con- 
sciously and  unconsciously,  that  every  abandonment  is  made  good  by 
the  acquisition  of  a  psychologically  equivalent  symbolism.  External  ob- 
servations on  the  adjustment  processes  of  individuals  are  often  highly 
misleading  as  to  their  psychological  significance.  The  usual  treatment, 
for  instance,  of  behavior  tendencies  known  as  radical  and  conservative 
must  leave  the  genuine  psychiatrist  cold,  because  he  best  realizes  that 
the  same  types  of  behavior,  judged  externally,  may  have  entirely  dis- 
tinct, even  contradictory,  meanings  for  different  individuals.  One  may 
be  a  conservative  out  of  fear  or  out  of  superb  courage.  A  radical  may 
be  such  because  he  is  so  secure  in  his  fundamental  psychic  organization 
as  to  have  no  fear  for  the  future,  or,  on  the  contrary,  his  courage  may 
be  merely  the  fantasied  rebound  from  fear  of  the  only  too  well  known. 

Strains  which  are  due  to  this  constant  war  of  adjustment  are  by  no 
means  of  equal  intensity  for  all  individuals.  Systems  of  ideas  grow  up 
in  endless  ways,  both  within  a  so-called  uniform  culture  and  through 
the  blending  of  various  aspects  of  so-called  distinct  cultures,  and  very 
different  symbolisms  and  value  emphases  necessarily  arise  in  the  endless 
sub-cultures  or  private  symbol  organizations  of  the  different  members 
of  a  group.  This  is  tantamount  to  saying  that  certain  systems  of  ideas 
are  more  perilously  exposed  to  the  danger  of  disintegration  than  others. 
Even  if  it  be  granted,  as  no  one  would  seriously  argue  that  it  should 
not,  that  individual  differences  of  an  inherited  sort  are  significantly  re- 
sponsible for  mental  breakdowns,  it  yet  remains  true  that  such  a  "fail- 
ure^'  in  the  life  of  an  individual  cannot  be  completely  understood  by 
the  study,  however  minute,  of  the  individual's  body  and  mind  as  such. 
Such  a  failure  invites  a  study  of  his  system  of  ideas  as  a  more  or  less 


One  Cull  lire.  Sinictv.  ami  the  liulnnhutl  291 

distincl  cullural  cnlil\  which  has  hccii  \aiiil\  slri\mi'  i"  fnaintain  . !>,... 
Ill  a  discouraging  environmcnl. 

We  may  go  so  far  as  to  siiiiycsi  qiiiic  liaiikl)  thai  a  psychosis,  for 
instance,  may  be  an  index  al  t)ne  and  the  same  lime  oi  ihe  loo  grcal 
resistance  of  the  indi\idual  to  the  forces  that  phi>  upon  him  and.  so 
far  as  /?/.v  world  o\'  \alues  is  concerned,  o\'  ihe  cuhural  povcriy  o\  his 
psNchological  cm  ironnicnl.  The  int>re  obvious  conflicts  of  cultures  with 
which  we  are  famihar  in  the  modern  \\ov\d  create  an  uneasiness  which 
forms  a  fruitful  soil  for  the  e\entual  de\elopmenl,  in  particular  cases. 
of  neurotic  symptoms  and  mental  breakdowns,  but  lhe\  can  hardK  he 
considered  sufficient  \o  accounl  \'o\-  serious  ps\chological  derangements 
These  arise  not  on  the  basis  o{  a  generalized  cullural  conllicl.  but  oui 
of  specific  conflicts  of  a  more  intimate  sort,  in  which  systems  o\  ideas 
get  attached  to  particular  persons,  or  images  of  such  persons,  who  play 
a  decisive  role  in  the  life  of  the  individual  as  representative  of  cultural 
values. 

The  personal  meaning  of  the  symbolisms  of  an  indi\iduals  sub-cul- 
ture are  constantly  being  realTirmed  by  society  or.  at  the  least,  he  likes 
to  think  that  they  are.  When  they  obviousK  cease  to  be.  he  loses  his 
orientation  and  ihal  strange  inslincl.  or  ulKitc\er  uc  c.ill  il.  which  in 
the  history  of  culture  has  always  tended  to  preserve  a  system  o\  ideas 
fYom  destruction,  causes  his  alienation  from  an  impossible  world.  Both 
the  psychosis  and  the  development  o\'  an  idea  or  insiiiulion  through 
the  centuries  manifest  the  stubbornness  o\'  idea  complexes  and  iheir 
implications  in  the  face  of  a  material  environment  which  is  less  dem, 
ing  psychologically  than  physically.  The  mere  problem  of  bioK^  ■■ 
justment.  or  even  of  ego  adjustment  as  il  is  i>rdinaril>  handle^ 
sociologist,  is  comparatively  simple.  It  is  literall>  irue  that  "man  wants 
bill  liltlc  here  below  nor  wants  thai  Iiille  long."  Hie  trouble  alw.i 
that  he  wants  that  little  on  his  own  terms,  il  is  not  enou.' 
one's  material  wants,  to  ha\e  success  in  one's  practical  ci..:-.. 
give  and  receive  atTeclion.  or  to  accomplish  an>  o'i  the  purpi>se>  laid 
down  by  psychologists  and  sociologists  aiul  moralists.  Personality  or- 
ganizations, which  at  last  analysis  are  psychi)logically  compai.i'  '         S 
the  greatest  cultures  or  idea  systems,  have  as  their  llrNt  law  .  ;     ,..-e: 
their  essential  self-preservalion.  and  all  conscious  attempts  to  define 
their  functions  or  lo  manipiilaie  their  iiiienlion  and  direction  are  but 
the  estimable  rationalization  o{  people  who  are  wanting  lo  "do   " 
Modern  psychiatrists  should  be  tolerant  not  onl>  of  \ar\ing  p 
ties  but  of  the  differenl  types  o\  \ allies  which  pcrsonalit>  \.. 


292  Itl  Culture 

imply.  Psychiairists  who  are  tolerant  only  in  the  sense  that  they  refrain 
trom  criticizing  anybody  who  is  subjected  to  their  care  and  who  do 
their  best  to  guide  him  back  to  the  renewed  performance  of  society's 
rituals  may  be  good  practical  surgeons  of  the  psyche.  They  are  not 
necessarily  the  profoundly  sympathetic  students  of  the  mind  who  re- 
spect the  fundamental  intent  and  direction  of  every  personality  organ- 
ization. 

Perhaps  it  is  not  too  much  to  expect  that  a  number  of  gifted  psychia- 
trists may  take  up  the  serious  study  of  exotic  and  primitive  cultures, 
not  in  the  spirit  of  meretricious  voyaging  in  behalf  of  Greenwich  Vil- 
lage, nor  to  collect  an  anthology  of  psychoanalytic  fairy  tales,  but  in 
order  to  learn  to  understand,  more  fully  than  we  can  out  of  the  re- 
sources of  our  own  cultures,  the  development  of  ideas  and  symbols  and 
their  relevance  for  the  problem  of  personality. 


Editorial  Notes 

Originally  published  in  the  Journal  of  Abnormal  and  Social  Psychol- 
ogy 27,  229-242  (1932). 


Note 

This  was,  in  fact,  the  rationale  on  which  Freud  and  many  of  his  contemporaries  ap- 
proached the  ethnographic  evidence.  Sapir  argued  to  a  different  point,  however  -  the 
comparabiHty  of  the  "primitive"  and  the  "modem." 


Group  ( 1^)32) 
Editorial  liilrodiicliiMi 

In  his  entry  on  "Group"  for  the  EmyclDpcdui  of  the  .Smuil  Siumcs, 
Sapir  addressed  the  perennial  debate  o\er  the  anal\ tieal  priniac\  o\  ihc 
group  or  the  individual.  Although  he  elaborated  on  dilVereni  kinds  of 
group  affiliation,  and  emphasized  the  symbolie  importance  of  group 
identification  tor  individuals,  his  own  position  was  that  the  group  had 
no  independent  existence  apart  tYom  its  meaning  to  its  indnnhial  mem- 
bers. 

Although  the  position  was  similar  to  the  one  he  took  in  the  "supcror- 
ganic"  debate  in  1917,  Sapir's  intervening  association  with  ps>chologisis 
and  psychiatrists  was  refiected  in  his  insistence  that  indisiduaK  \Mth 
different  personalities  enter  into  group  identificatii>ns  ditTerenlly.  \'an- 
ability  was  inherent  in  culture  and  socict\  because  of  this  variation 
among  personalities  and  their  relationships  to  groups.  Among  psychiat- 
ric views  that  had  influenced  his  thinking  on  the  ps\choU\e\  o\  irrtuip 
identification  Sapir  explicitly  cited  Kreud.  but  echoes  o\  H.trr\  Slack 
Sullivan  can  be  heard  also,  especiall\  in  the  statement  that  "the  psycho- 
logical basis  of  the  group  must  rest  on  the  psych(^log\  of  spcvific  per- 
sonal relations"  (1932:  182). 


Group 

There  is  a  wide  variety  of  meanings  attached  to  the  term  group:  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  reality  are  imputed  to  the  concept  b>  psychologists  and 
sociologists  of  different  schools.  To  some  the  group  is  a  pnniar>  conccpl 
in  the  study  of  human  behavior;  many  socioU>gisis  sa\  that  V  '  i- 
dual  has  no  reality,  aside  from  his  biologically  defined  binh.  >  .,-,  as 
a  carrier  or  crystalli/er  of  meanings  that  are  derivative  i^l  group  actum 
and  interaction.  To  others,  however,  the  individual  remains  as  ihc  socio* 
logically  primary  entity  and  groups  are  the  more  or  less  artif'  '  :i- 
structs  which  result  when  individuals,  viewed  as  csscnlialK  v.  ...,  -ic 
physical  and  psychological  entities,  come  mlo  contact  with  each  other. 


294  JJJ  Culture 

For  the  former  sociologists  a  child  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  social 
reality  except  in  so  far  as  there  is  in  prior  existence  a  supporting  family 
or  social  agency  substituting  for  the  family  and  a  fairly  well  defined  set 
of  rules  o^  behavior  defining  the  relation  between  the  child  and  such  a 
family.  In  much  the  same  sense  there  would  be  no  such  individual  as  a 
musician  except  in  so  far  as  there  are  such  groups  as  conservatories, 
historically  determined  lines  of  musicians  and  musical  critics,  dancing, 
singing  and  playing  associations  of  varying  degrees  of  formal  organiza- 
tion and  many  other  types  of  groups  whose  prior  definition  is  needed 
to  make  the  term  musician  actual.  For  the  latter  sociologists  the  child 
and  tiie  musician  exist  as  given  types  of  individuals,  whether  they  are 
so  born  or  so  conditioned;  and  the  groups  which  the  sociologist  discov- 
ers as  operative  in  the  behavior  which  actualizes  such  individual  terms 
as  child  or  musician  are  merely  ad  hoc  constructions  due  to  the  specific 
experiences  of  mdividuals  either  [179]  within  a  given  lifetime  or  over 
many  generations.  The  difficulty  of  deciding  whether  the  group  or  the 
individual  is  to  be  looked  upon  as  the  primary  concept  in  a  general 
theory  of  society  is  enhanced  by  fatal  ambiguities  in  the  meaning  of  the 
term  group. 

Any  group  is  constituted  by  the  fact  that  there  is  some  interest  which 
holds  its  members  together.  The  community  of  interest  may  range  from 
a  passing  event  which  assembles  people  into  a  momentary  aggregate  to 
a  relatively  permanent  functional  interest  which  creates  and  maintains 
a  cohesive  unit.  The  crowd  which  forms  when  there  is  an  automobile 
accident,  drawn  together  in  the  first  place  by  a  common  curiosity,  soon 
develops  certain  understandings.  Its  members  may  feel  themselves  to  be 
informally  delegated  by  society  to  observe  and  eventually  report  or  to 
help  with  advice  or  action  or,  if  there  has  been  an  infraction  of  the 
traffic  rules,  to  constitute  a  silent  or  audible  image  of  criticism.  Such  a 
group  cannot  be  despised  by  the  sociologist  for  all  its  casualness  of 
form  and  function.  At  the  other  extreme  is  such  a  body  as  the  United 
States  Senate,  which  is  fixed  as  to  numbers,  principle  of  selection,  time 
of  meeting,  function  and  symbolic  importance  in  a  representative  capac- 
ity. The  former  consists  of  individuals  who  do  not  feel  that  they  are 
assuming  a  known  or  imputed  role  when  they  become  members  of  the 
group;  the  latter  is  consfituted  by  political  and  legal  theory  and  exists 
in  a  sense  in  advance  of  the  appearance  of  specific  members,  so  that 
those  who  actually  take  part  in  deliberafions  of  the  Senate  are  some- 
thing other  than  or  beyond  themselves  as  individuals.  There  is  in  reality 
no  definite  line  of  division  anywhere  along  the  gamut  of  group  forms 


One:  Culture.  Society,  ami  the  liulivUlual  295 

which  connect  these  extremes.  If  the  auioniobilc  accident  is  serious  and 
one  of  the  members  of  the  crowd  is  a  doctor,  the  informal  group  may 
with  comparatively  little  difficulty  resoKc  iisclf  into  something  like  a 
medical  squad  with  an  implicitly  elected  leader.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
the  government  is  passing  through  a  great  political  crisis,  if  there  is  Imic 
confidence  in  the  representative  character  or  honesty  o\'  the  senators  or 
if  an  enemy  is  besieging  the  capital  and  likely  at  an\  moineni  to  subsii- 
tute  entirely  new  forms  of  corporate  authority  for  those  legalK  recog- 
nized by  the  citizens  of  the  country,  the  Senate  may  easily  become  an 
unimportant  aggregation  of  individuals  who  suddenly  and  \Mth  unex- 
pected poignancy  feel  their  helplessness  as  mere  indi\iduals. 

Sociological  theory  can  hardly  analyze  the  group  concept  into  its 
various  forms  unless  it  uses  definable  principles  of  classification.  The 
primary  principle  of  classification  may  rest  on  the  distinction  between 
physical  proximity  on  the  one  hand  and  the  adoption  of  a  symbolic  role 
on  the  other.  Between  the  two  extremes  comes  a  large  class  of  group 
forms  in  which  the  emphasis  is  on  definite,  realistic  purpose  rather  than 
on  symbolism.  The  three  major  classes  of  groups  are  therefore  those 
physically  defined,  those  defined  by  specific  purposes  and  those  symbol- 
ically defined.  Examples  of  simply  physical  groups  arc  a  bread  line,  a 
little  crowd  milling  in  the  lobby  of  a  theater  between  the  acts  of  a  play, 
the  totality  of  individuals  who  look  on  at  a  football  game,  a  handful  of 
people  going  up  in  an  elevator  and  a  Saturday  afiernoon  crowd  on 
Fifth  Avenue.  Groups  possessed  of  a  relati\cly  firm  organization  and 
of  a  real  or  imputed  specific  purpose  are,  for  example,  the  emplosces 
of  a  factory,  the  administrative  personnel  of  a  bank  or  stock  company, 
a  board  of  education,  a  society  for  the  prevention  of  cruelty  to  animals, 
the  taxpayers  of  a  municipality,  a  trade  union  \icued  as  an  agency 
for  securing  certain  economic  advantages  to  its  members  and  a  slalc 
legislature  viewed  simply  as  an  agency  of  government,  (irour  '  "''c 
third  type  differ  from  those  of  the  second  in  that  to  external  r;,  i- 
tion  and  one  or  more  well  defined  functions  there  is  added  the  iieneral 
symbolic  function  of  securing  for  the  individual  an  integrated  status  in 
society.  Examples  of  such  symbolically  defined  groups  are  the  lai-  * 
the  membership  of  a  particular  church  or  of  a  religious  denomin.n..  ;.. 
a  political  party  in  so  far  as  it  is  not  merely  a  mechanism  for  the  ekvlion 
of  political  officers;  a  social  club  in  so  far  as  it  means  more  than  a 
convenience  for  luncheon  or  an  occasional  game  i>f  billiards;  a  uniNer- 
sity  group  looked  at  as  something  over  and  abo\e  an  msiruiv—'  ''-'v 
for  specific  types  of  education;  the  United  States  Senate  as  a  rc^,  c 


296  JJ^  Culture 

spokesman  o^  ihe  American  government;  a  state  as  the  legalized  repre- 
sentative of  the  nation:  a  nation  as  a  large  aggregate  of  human  beings 
w  ho  feel  themselves  to  be  held  together  by  many  ties  of  sentiment  and 
which  believes  itself,  rightly  or  wrongly,  to  be  a  self-sufficient  social 
entity  in  the  world  of  physical  necessity  and  of  human  relationships. 

The  examples  have  been  purposely  chosen  to  suggest  doubts  and 
multiple  interpretations.  Some  degree  of  physical  proximity  is  either 
required  or  fancied  in  order  to  make  for  group  cohesiveness;  some  de- 
gree o{  purpose  or  function  [180]  can  be  found  in  or  rationalized  for 
any  conceivable  group  of  human  beings  that  has  meaning  at  all;  and 
there  is  no  group  which  does  not  reach  out  symbolically  beyond  its 
actual  composition  and  assigned  function.  Even  so  wide  a  group  as  a 
political  party  needs  from  time  to  time  to  give  itself  the  face  to  face 
psychology  of  a  mere  physical  gathering,  lest  the  loyalty  and  enthusiasm 
which  spring  from  handshakes,  greetings,  demonstrations,  speeches  and 
other  tokens  of  immediate  vitality  seep  away  into  a  colorless  feehng  of 
merely  belonging.  The  members  of  a  church,  standing  obviously  as  a 
symbol  of  the  relation  between  God  and  man,  carry  definite  purposes 
of  a  practical  sort,  such  as  the  securing  of  burial  rights.  SymboHsms  of 
a  potent  sort  may  be  illustrated  in  groups  which  are  most  readily  classi- 
fied under  the  first  and  second  rubrics.  Thus,  a  passer-by  may  be 
attracted  to  the  casual  crowd  brought  together  by  an  automobile  acci- 
dent not  because  he  thinks  he  can  be  of  any  particular  assistance  nor 
because  he  is  devoured  by  curiosity  but  merely  because  he  wishes  half 
unconsciously  to  register  his  membership  in  the  human  universe  of  po- 
tential suffering  and  mutual  good  will.  For  such  an  individual  the  non- 
descript group  in  question  becomes  the  mystic  symbol  of  humanity 
itself.  Thus  defined  it  may  be  more  potent  in  a  symbolic  sense  than  the 
nation  itself.  So  clearly  defined  a  functional  group  as  a  board  of  educa- 
tion has  or  may  have  a  symbolic  significance  for  its  community  that  far 
transcends  its  avowed  purposes.  Nevertheless,  there  are  few  groups  of 
human  beings  that  cannot  be  readily  classified  as  coming  primarily  un- 
der one  or  the  other  of  the  three  indicated  heads.  This  tripartite  classifi- 
cation is  easiest  to  apply  in  the  modern  civilized  world.  In  less  sophisti- 
cated folk  cultures  and  to  an  even  greater  extent  in  primitive  societies 
the  possibility  of  allocating  groups  to  one  rather  than  another  of  the 
three  types  becomes  difficult.  Physical  contact,  a  bundle  of  common 
purposes  and  heavy  saturation  with  symbolism  tend  to  be  typical  of  all 
groups  on  these  more  primitive  levels. 


One:  Ciilnnv.  Sociav.  unJ  ilic  InJiviJuul  297 

The  suggested  classification  is  based  on  an  analysis  of  groups  from 
an  objective  standpoint;  that  is.  iVoin  ihc  siandpoini  of  an  obscr\'ing 
non-participant  or  the  siandpoini  o\'  humanity  or  the  nation  or  any 
other  large  aggregate  in  vvliich  the  significance  of  the  individual  as  such 
tends  to  be  lost.  The  interpretation  of  the  various  i>pcs  ot  gri)ups  from 
the  standpoint  of  individual  pariicipalion  oilers  new  dilTicullics.  and 
new  principles  of  classification  may  be  ventured.  Indi\iduals  dilTcr  in 
the  degree  to  which  they  can  successfully  identify  themsehcs  uiih  the 
other  members  of  the  group  in  which  they  are  includetl  and  in  the  na- 
ture oi'  that  identification.  Such  identification  ma>  he  direct,  sckx'livc 
or  referential.  Direct  participation  implies  that  the  individual  is  or  feels 
himself  to  be  in  a  significant  personal  relation  to  all  c^r  most  of  the 
fellow  members  of  the  group  with  whom  he  comes  in  contact.  For  such 
an  individual  the  reality  of  a  committee,  for  instance,  is  not  given  by 
its  external  organization  and  assigned  duties  but  raiher  by  his  ability  lo 
work  with  or  fail  to  work  with  particular  members  oi'  the  comniiiiec 
and  to  get  his  own  purposes  accomplished  with  or  in  defiance  o\  their 
help.  A  selective  type  of  participation  implies  that  the  indi\idual  is  able 
to  identity  himself  with  the  group  onl\  in  so  far  as  he  can  identify 
himself  with  one  or  more  selected  members  of  the  group  who  stand 
as  its  representatives  and  who  tend  to  exhaust  for  the  individual  the 
psychological  significance  of  the  group  itself  Or  the  seleciK>n  nia>  act 
negatively,  so  that  the  significance  of  the  group  is  damaged  for  the 
individual  because  of  feelings  of  hostility  toward  particular  members  of 
the  group.  This  type  of  group  identification  is  comniiMi  in  the  workaday 
world.  Referential  participation  implies  that  the  indi\idual  makes  no 
serious  attempt  to  identify  himself  with  some  or  all  oi  the  actual  mem- 
bership of  a  group  but  feels  these  fellow  members  to  be  the  more  or 
less  impersonal  carriers  of  an  idea  or  piirpi>se.  Fhis  is  essenlialK  the 
legalistic  type  of  approach. 

The  type  of  individual  participation  in  ihe  group  and  Un  purposes  has 
something  to  do  with  its  unconscious  classification,  so  that  the  objective 
and  subjective  points  of  view  are  not  in  reality  distinct.  It  is  well  to  keep 
them  apart,  however,  and  to  look  upon  them  as  intercrossing  clasNifica- 
tions.  The  least  significant  type  o(  group  psychologically  would  be  the 
mere  physical  group  with  refereniial  participation  of  the  individual.  The 
group  so  defined  is  little  more  than  a  statistical  entity  in  the  field  of 

population.  At  the  other  extreme  is  the  s\mbolicall>  defino'  r  wilh 

direct  individual  participation.  Cireat  art  brings  lo  the  int.  ,  m  of 

symbolically  defined  groups,  which  lend  lo  be  somewhat  colorless  as 


298  ^^^  Culture 

human  entities  because  of  their  indefinite  membership,  the  touchstone 
of  direct  participation.  In  Hauptmann's  Die  Weber  (Berhn  1892;  tr.  by 
M.  Morison  as  The  Weavers.  London  1899),  for  instance,  German  labor, 
a  symbolicallv  defmed  group  as  conceived  by  the  [181]  dramatist,  is 
made  doubly  significant  because  of  the  illusion  of  direct  participation 
in  Its  membership. 

Ihe  nature  of  the  interest  which  lies  at  the  basis  of  the  formation  of 
the  iiroup  varies  indefinitely.  It  may  be  economic,  political,  vocational, 
meliorative,  propagandist,  racial,  territorial,  religious  or  expressive  of 
general  attitudes  or  minor  purposes,  such  as  the  use  of  leisure.  To  go 
Tnto  the  details  of  the  organization  and  purpose  of  such  specifically 
defined  groups  would  be  tantamount  to  a  description  of  the  institutions 
of  society.  A  popular  classification  of  groups  has  been  into  primary  or 
face  to  face  groups  and  secondary  groups.  This  is  a  convenient  descrip- 
tive contrast  but  it  does  not  take  sufficient  account  of  the  nature  of 
individual  participation  in  the  group.  The  distinction  becomes  of  greater 
\alue  if  it  is  interpreted  genetically  as  a  contrast  between  those  types  of 
participation  which  are  defined  early  in  life  and  those  which  come  later 
as  symbolic  amplifications  or  transfers  of  the  earlier  participations. 
From  this  point  of  view  membership  in  a  labor  union  with  a  dominant 
leader  may  have  the  value  of  an  unconscious  psychological  recall  of 
one's  childhood  participation  in  the  family.  Still  another  type  of  classifi- 
cation of  groups  which  can  readily  be  made  is  that  based  on  the  degree 
to  which  groups  are  self-consciously  formed  and  group  membership  is 
voluntary.  From  this  point  of  view  the  trade  union  or  political  party 
contrasts  with  the  family  or  the  state.  The  individual  enters  into  the 
latter  type  of  group  through  biological  or  social  necessity,  while  he  is 
believed  to  align  himself  with  a  trade  union  or  pohtical  party  without 
such  necessity.  This  distinction  is  misleading,  for  the  implicit  social 
forces  which  lead  to  membership  in  a  given  political  party,  for  instance, 
may  for  many  individuals  be  quite  as  compulsive  as  those  which  identify 
him  with  the  state  or  even  the  family.  To  make  too  much  of  the  distinc- 
tion is  to  confuse  the  psychological  realities  of  various  forms  of  partici- 
pation with  the  roles  which  society  imputes  to  the  individual.  The  plu- 
rality of  groupings  for  any  one  individual  is  a  point  that  sociologists 
have  emphasized.  If  one  looks  beyond  the  groups  which  are  institution- 
ally defined  -  in  other  words,  beyond  associations  in  the  narrow  sense 
of  the  word  -  any  society,  above  all  the  complex  society  of  modern 
times,  has  many  more  groups  of  more  or  less  psychological  significance 
than  it  possesses  individuals  who  participate  in  these  groups. 


One:  Culiurc.  Society,  ami  the  Jmlivuiual  299 

The  changes  in  social  uiHuipiiiLis.  sUiJicd  partly  through  hisioncal 
evidence,  partly  thrcuiiih  ihc  direct  ohscr\atii»n  of  conlcmporars  trends. 
constitute  a  large  part  of  the  history  of  society.  'I"herc  arc  changes  in 
the  actual  personnel  o\'  groups  resulting  from  realignments  "  i 

about  by  such  factors  as  economic  change  and  changes  m  the  i... \ 

communication,  changes  in  the  deepening  or  the  impo\erishmenl  i>l  the 
symbolic  significance  o\'  the  group  and  changes  in  the  tendency  to  a 
more  or  to  a  less  direct  participation  o\'  the  indi\idual  m  h: 
These  types  of  change  necessarily  condition  each  other  m  a  gre.ii  ....  i^v 
of  ways.  An  example  of  the  first  type  is  the  gradual  increase  m  the  ii>idl 
potential  membership  of  the  political  parlies  o\'  lingland  and  the  Uniicd 
States.  The  fact  that  individuals  without  property  and  women  now 
share  in  the  activities  of  the  parlies  means  that  their  present  symbolic 
significance  is  different  from  what  it  originall\  was.  I:xamples  ol  the 
second  type  of  change  are  proxided   b\    the  uni\ersal  tendency  for 
groups  which  have  a  well  defined  function  to  lose  their  original  function 
but  to  linger  on  as  symbolically  reinterpreted  groups.  I'hus  a  political 
club  may  lose  its  significance  in  the  realistic  world  o\'  politics  but  may 
nevertheless  survive  significantly  as  a  social  club  in  uhich  membership 
is  eagerly  sought  by  those  who  wish  to  acquire  a  \aluable  symbol  of 
status.  The  third  type  of  change  is  illustrated  by  the  recent  histt>r\  of  the 
American  family,  in  which  on  account  of  many  disintegrating  inlluenccs 
direct  and  intense  participation  has  become  less  pronounced.  .-Vs  far 
as  the  relation  of  brothers  and  sisters  is  concerned,  for  inslancx*.  the 
participation  frequently  amounts  to  hardl\  miMc  than  a  colorle-^ 
ness  of  the  fact  of  such  kinship.  Dexelopments  in  the  famiK 
the  general  tendency  in  modern  life  of  secondary  and  vohinlai..  ,        ,  - 
ings  to  assume  the  dominant  role  as  against  the  primary  and  involun- 
tary ones.  Closely  connected  with  this  is  the  greater  mobilii>  •  :^ 
membership  due  to  a  variety  o\'  factors,  among  which  arc  r  I 
facilities  of  transportation,  the  gradual  breakdown  o\  the  can 
bolic  sanctions  and  an  increasing  tendencs  to  conceive  of  a  group  as 
fundamentally  defined  by  one  or  more  specific  purposes.  Gn« 
are  relatively  permanent  because  they  are  needed  to  carr\  out  ii-             ' 
purposes  tend  to  become  more  and  more  insiitulionali/ed.  Hikn  , 
for  instance,  have  replaced  the  more  casual  association  ol  three  oi 
men  for  the  purpose  of  walking  together  in  the  countr\ 

In  the  discussion  of  the  fundamental  ps>cholog\  (IS-i  ^m  ' 
such  terms  as  gregariousness,  consciousness  of  kind  and  group 
little  more  than  give  names  to  problems  to  uhich  ihcy  arc  in  • 


300  III   Culture 

a  solution.  The  psychology  of  the  group  cannot  be  fruitfully  discussed 
except  on  the  basis  of  a  profounder  understanding  of  the  way  in  which 
ditTerenl  sorts  of  personalities  enter  into  significant  relations  with  each 
other  and  on  the  basis  of  a  more  complete  knowledge  of  the  importance 
to  be  attached  to  directly  purposive  as  contrasted  with  symbolic  motives 
in  human  interaction.  The  psychological  basis  of  the  group  must  rest 
on  the  psychology  of  specific  personal  relations;  no  matter  how  imper- 
sonally one  may  conceive  the  behavior  which  is  characteristic  of  a  given 
group,  it  must  either  illustrate  direct  interaction  or  it  must  be  a  petrified 
"as  if  of  such  interaction.  The  latter  attribute  is,  however,  not  the 
peculiar  property  of  group  psychology  but  is  also  illustrated  in  the  rela- 
tions of  single  human  beings  toward  one  another.  It  is  only  an  apparent 
contradiction  of  this  point  of  view  if  the  individual,  as  he  so  frequently 
does,  allows  himself  to  be  controlled  not  by  what  this  man  or  that  man 
says  or  thinks,  but  by  what  he  mystically  imputes  to  the  group  as  a 
whole.  Group  loyalty  and  group  ethics  do  not  mean  that  the  direct 
relationship  between  individual  and  individual  has  been  completely 
transcended.  They  mean  only  that  what  was  in  its  origin  a  relation  of 
individual  dominance  has  been  successively  transferred  until  it  is  now 
attributed  to  the  group  as  a  whole. 

The  psychological  realities  of  group  participation  will  be  understood 
only  when  theorizing  about  the  general  question  of  the  relation  of  the 
individual  to  the  group  gives  way  to  detailed  studies  of  the  actual  kinds 
of  understanding,  explicit  and  implicit,  that  grow  up  between  two  or 
three  or  more  human  beings  when  they  are  brought  into  significant 
contact.  It  is  important  to  know  not  only  how  one  person  feels  with 
reference  to  another  but  how  the  former  feels  with  reference  to  the  latter 
when  a  third  party  is  present.  A  latent  hosfility  between  two  persons 
may  be  remedied  by  the  presence  of  the  third  party,  because  for  one 
reason  or  another  he  is  an  apt  target  for  the  conscious  or  unconscious 
hostility  of  both.  His  presence  may  serve  to  sharpen  hostility  between 
the  persons  because  of  his  attractiveness  for  both  and  the  consequent 
injection  of  a  conscious  or  unconscious  jealousy  into  the  relations  that 
obtain  between  them.  Precise  studies  in  the  psychology  of  personal  rela- 
tions are  by  no  means  immaterial  for  the  profounder  psychological  un- 
derstanding of  the  group,  for  this  psychology  can  hardly  be  other  than 
the  complex  resultant  of  the  pooling,  heightening,  cancelling,  transfer 
and  symbolic  reinterpretation  of  just  such  specific  processes.  As 
psychology  recognizes  more  and  more  clearly  the  futility  of  studying 
the  individual  as  a  self-contained  entity,  the  sociologist  will  be  set  free 


One  Culrniv.  Sociciy.  unJ  the  ItuiivUtual  301 

{o  study  the  rationale  of  group  101111.  iinuip  lunclion,  group  changes 
and  group  uitcnclalionships  IVcmii  a  ronnal  or  cultural  poinl  of  Me\^. 

Consult:  Macl\ci,  R.  M.,  Society.  Its  Structures  ami  C'lumf^es  (New 
York  1931);  Kollctt,  M.  P..  The  Xcu  State  (New  York  19IS);  Freud. 
Sigmund,  Massenpsyc/io/oi^ie  uiul  Ich-Annlyse  (Lcipsic  1921).  ir.  b\ 
James  Strachey  (London  1922);  l.indenian.  E.  C,  Sociul  Discovery  an 
Approiich  to  the  Study  0/  i'unctionul  (iroups  (New  York  1924);  Coylc. 
Grace  Longwell.  Social  Process  in  Ori^anizcil  (iroups  (New  York  I" 
Bernard,  L.  L.,  An  Intnxhution  to  Social  Psycholoi^y  (New  York  T'-'m 
chs.  xxvi,  xxix-xxxi;  Persotuility  ami  the  Social  (iroup.  ed.  by  I:.  W.  Bur- 
gess (Chicago  1929);  Park.  R.  E..  and  Burgess,  E.  W  .  luiroductum  to 
the  Science  of  Sociology  (2nd  ed.  Chicago  1924);  Cooley.  Charles  M  . 
Social  Organization  (New  York  1909)  ch.  iii;  Allport.  Floyd  M..  Sot  lul 
Psychology  (Boston  1924)  ch.  xi;  Ginsberg.  Morris.  Psychology  of  Soil- 
ety  (London  1921)  ch.  i\;  Giddings,  F-.  H.,  Studies  in  the  Pheory  of  Hu- 
man Society  (New  York  1922)  ch.  x;  Sprowels.  Jesse  W..  Sociul  Psychol- 
ogy (Baltimore  1927)  chs.  v,  ix;  Young.  Kimball.  Social  Psvchohtgy 
(New  York  1930)  chs.  ii,  xii-xiii;  Folsom.  Joseph  K.,  Social  Ps\choli>gv 
(New  York  1931)  chs.  vii-viii;  Vierkandt.  A.,  "I^ie  Theorie  der  (Jruppc" 
and  Lehmann,  G.,  "Zur  Charakterislik  iniimcr  Gruppen"  in  Archiv  fur 
angewandte  Soziologie,  vol.  ii  (1929-30)  111  and  19s    :i)g 


Editorial  Notes 

Originally  published  in  Edwin  R.  A.  Seligman  (ed).  / /;.  XilopacJia 
of  the  Social  Sciences  7,  178-182  (New  ^'ork:  Macmillan.  1^.^21  (  op>. 
right  1932,  renewed  1960,  by  Macmillan  Publishing  Companv.  Re- 
printed by  permission  o\^  the  publisher. 


The  Emergence  of  the  Concept  o(  IVmsoiki1ii\ 
in  a  Sliidy  ofC'iilliircs  (  \')}4) 

Editorial  inlroduclioii 

Originally  prepared  for  a  National  Research  Council  conference  on 
child  de\elopment  held  in  Chicago  in  1933,  this  paper  apjXMred  in  the 
interdisciplinar)  Jour/uil  of  Siuiiil  Psycholoi^y  the  foUounig  Near.  In 
keeping  with  the  conference  theme,  the  paper  focused  on  siKiali/alion. 
linking  it  to  cultural  patterns  and  lo  ihc  emergence  o\'  the  indi\idual 
personality  in  childhood. 

Sapir's  opening  claim  -  that  the  same  hit  of  a  child's  beha\ior  could 
be  interpreted  both  in  cultural  terms  and  in  terms  of  indi\idual  psNchi>- 
dynamics  -  recalls  methodological  arguments  he  iiaJ  been  making 
since  his  critique  of  Kroeber's  "superorganic  "  in  1917.  Whether  an 
analysis  concerned  personality  or  culture  was  a  mailer  o\'  the  anahsl's 
perspective  on  the  same  beha\ior.  not  a  matter  of  dilVereni  beha\uMN. 
In  the  present  paper,  however,  he  turned  the  emphasis  to  dynamkN 
that  is.  to  the  emergence  o(  pcrsonalil\  iii  ihc  child's  inleraclion  with 
culturally-patterned  experiences,  and  the  emergence  o\'  culture  \i\  the 
child's  developing  integration  of  meanings.  If  personalil)  began  lo  ^how 
itself  with  the  child's  increasing  independence  from  parental  coniroj  and 
increasing  awareness  of  his/her  own  j^otcniial  \ov  action,  so  were  cul- 
tural patterns  emerging  in  the  child's  creative  understanding 

This  process  had  a  crucial  relationship  to  cultural  dvnanii. 
argued.  Overemphasis  on  cultural  pallerns,  observed  in  ihe  Ivi 
adults,  had  led  most  sociologists  aiui  anihropologisls  lo  a  misleading 
notion  of  cultural  conservatism  and  cultural  delermmism;  but  cullure 
could  not  be  fully  understood  solely  in  terms  of  adult  inK 

meaning.    Since   that    integration   actually   deveU>ped   onl>    _  

through  socialization,  it  was  neither  static  nor  coniplelel)  dclcrmin.: 
of  individual  action.  Dyiuinui   was  the  kev   word,  widely  u.Ncd  in  ihe 
psychology  and  psychiatrv  of  the  dav 

Personality,  as  a  structure,  had  to  be  seen  as  having  an  inlcrnal  organ- 
ization; so  too  did  culture.  In  this  paper  Sapir  pn^^i^sed  that  ihc  s,imc 


304  III  Culture 

kind  o(  inicgialion  that  might  be  seen  in  personality  would  be  found  in 
culture  also.  The  analogy  is  abstract,  however.  It  derives  only  from  the 
fact  that  both  arc  integrated  organizations  that  develop  in  individuals' 
experience  of  a  meaningful  world.  Sapir  in  1934  had  moved  away  from 
stereotyping  whole  cultures  as  personality  types,  a  characterization  he 
still  appears  to  suggest  in  his  1926  Hanover  presentation  (this  volume). 


The  Emergence  of  the  Concept  of  Personality 
in  a  Study  of  Cultures 

Our  natural  interest  in  human  behavior  seems  always  to  vacillate 
between  what  is  imputed  to  the  culture  of  the  group  as  a  whole  and 
what  is  imputed  to  the  psychic  organization  of  the  individual  himself. 
These  two  poles  of  our  interest  in  behavior  do  not  necessarily  make  use 
of  different  materials;  it  is  merely  that  the  locus  of  reference  is  different 
in  the  two  cases.  Under  familiar  circumstances  and  with  familiar  people, 
the  locus  of  reference  of  our  interest  is  likely  to  be  the  individual.  In 
unfamiliar  types  of  behavior,  such  as  running  a  dynamo,  or  with  in- 
dividuals who  do  not  readily  fit  into  the  normal  contexts  of  social  habit, 
say  a  visiting  Chinese  mandarin,  the  interest  tends  to  discharge  itself 
into  formulations  which  are  cultural  rather  than  personal  in  character. 
If  I  see  my  little  son  playing  marbles  I  do  not,  as  a  rule,  wish  to  have 
light  thrown  on  how  the  game  is  played.  Nearly  everything  that  I  ob- 
serve tends  to  be  interpreted  as  a  contribution  to  the  understanding  of 
the  child's  personality.  He  is  bold  or  timid,  alert  or  easily  confused,  a 
good  sport  or  a  bad  sport  when  he  loses,  and  so  on.  The  game  of 
marbles,  in  short,  is  merely  an  excuse,  as  it  were,  for  the  unfolding  of 
various  facts  or  theories  about  a  particular  individual's  psychic  constitu- 
tion. But  when  I  see  a  skilled  laborer  oiling  a  dynamo,  or  a  polished 
mandarin  seating  himself  at  the  dinner  table  in  the  capacity  of  academic 
guest,  it  is  almost  inevitable  that  my  observafions  take  the  form  of 
ethnographic  field  notes,  the  net  result  of  which  is  likely  to  be  facts  or 
theories  about  such  cultural  patterns  as  the  running  of  a  dynamo,  or 
Chinese  manners. 

Ordinarily  one's  interest  is  not  so  sharply  defined.  It  tingles  with  both 
personal  and  cultural  implications.  There  is  no  awareness  of  the  con- 
stantly shifting  direction  of  interest.  Moreover,  there  is  much  of  that 
confusion  which  attends  all  experience  in  its  initial  stages  in  childhood, 
when  the  significant  personality  is  interpreted  as  an  institution  and  ev- 


One:  Culture.  Socielv.  and  the  Imliviilual  305 

cry  CLilUiral  pdllcrn  is  incicl)  a  niL'iiu)r\  uluhai  this  or  ihal  pcrM>n  ha^ 
[409]  actually  done.  Now  aiul  then,  il  is  inic,  llicrc  arises  in  the  llow  of 
adult  experience  a  certain  mliution  ol  \shat  \souUl  Ix*  the  significant 
eventual  formulation,  personal  or  cultural,  ola  guen  Iragnicni  ot  beha- 
vior. '"Yes.  that  is  just  like  John,"  or  "But  we  mustn't  make  loo  much 
o'i  this  tritle.  Presumably  all  Chinamen  do  the  same  ihmg  under  ihc 
circumstances.""  arc  iliuslralixc  s\mhols  for  ctMilrasiing  interprelalions. 
Naturally  the  confusion  o\'  interests  is  not  merely  one  of  the  mingling  of 
directions  hut  also  of  an  actual  transposition  or  inversion.  A  stubbornly 
indi\idual  \ariation  ma\  be  misinterpreted  as  a  cultural  datum.  Iliis 
sort  of  thing  is  likcl\  to  hapjXMi  when  we  learn  a  foreign  language  from 
a  single  individual  and  are  not  in  a  position  to  distinguish  between  whal 
is  characteristic  of  the  language  and  what  is  peculiar  to  the  teacher's 
speech.  More  often,  perhaps,  the  cultural  pattern,  when  sigmt'icanily 
presented  in  experience,  tends  to  allocate  to  itself  a  far  too  intimate 
meaning.  Qualities  of  charm  or  quainlncss.  for  instance,  are  notoriously 
dangerous  in  this  regard  and  tend  to  be  not  so  much  personal  as  cultural 
data,  which  receive  their  especial  contextual  \alue  from  the  inabilii>  o^ 
the  observer  to  withhold  a  strictly  personal  interpretation 

What  is  the  genesis  of  our  duality  o\'  interest  in  the  facts  of  behavior? 
Why  is  it  necessary  to  discover  the  contrast,  real  or  fictitious,  between 
culture  and  personality,  or,  to  speak  more  accurately,  between  a  seg- 
ment of  behavior  seen  as  a  cultural  pattern  and  a  segment  o\  beha\ior 
interpreted  as  having  a  person-defining  \aluc.'  \\'h\  cannot  our  interest 
in  behavior  maintain  the  undifferentiated  character  which  it  ;  ^ 

in  early  childhood?  The  answer,  presumably,  is  that  each  t\pe  o\  muusl 
is  necessary  tor  the  psychic  preservation  of  the  indi\idual  m  an  euMron- 
ment  which  experience  makes  increasingly  complex  and  unassimilable 
on  its  own  simple  terms.  The  interests  connoted  by  the  terms  culture 
and  personality  are  necessary  for  intelligent  and  helpful  growth  be^^ause 
each  is  based  on  a  distinctive  kind  o\  imaginati\e  participation  b>  the 
observer  in  the  life  around  him.  Ihe  obser\er  ma\  dramali/e  such  beha- 
vior as  he  takes  note  o^  in  terms  o\'  a  set  o\  \alues.  a  conscience  whK'h 
is  beyond  self  and  to  which  he  must  conform.  actualK  or  i-  '\. 

if  he  is  to  preserve  his  place  in  the  world  o\'  aulhorils  t»;   ..  d 

social  necessity.  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  he  ma>  feel  the  behaM*  '• 

expressive,  as  defining  the  reality  o\'  individual  consciousnev*  av- 
the  mass  of  environing  social  determinants.  Obserxatio- 
the  framework  of  the  former  of  these  two  kinds  i^l  pai'u.^. 
tute  our  knowledge  of  culture,  fhose  which  come  within  tl.. 


306  ///   Culture 

of  the  latter  constitute  our  knowledge  of  personality.  One  is  as  sub- 
jective or  objective  as  the  other,  for  both  are  essentially  modes  of  pro- 
jection o\'  personal  experience  into  the  analysis  of  social  phenomena. 
Culture  may  be  psychoanalytically  reinterpreted  [410]  as  the  supposedly 
impersonal  aspect  o(  those  values  and  definitions  which  come  to  the 
child  with  the  irresistible  authority  of  the  father,  mother,  or  other  in- 
dividuals o(  their  class.  The  child  does  not  feel  itself  to  be  contributing 
to  culture  through  his  personal  interaction  but  is  the  passive  recipient 
of  values  which  lie  completely  beyond  his  control  and  which  have  a 
necessity  and  excellence  that  he  dare  not  question.  We  may  therefore 
venture  to  surmise  that  one's  earliest  configurations  of  experience  have 
more  of  the  character  of  what  is  later  to  be  rationalized  as  culture  than 
o\^  what  the  psychologist  is  likely  to  abstract  as  personality.  We  have  all 
had  the  disillusioning  experience  of  revising  our  father  and  mother 
images  down  from  the  institutional  plane  to  the  purely  personal  one. 
The  discovery  of  the  world  of  personality  is  apparently  dependent  upon 
the  ability  of  the  individual  to  become  aware  of  and  to  attach  value  to 
his  resistances  to  authority.  It  could  probably  be  shown  that  naturally 
conservative  people  find  it  difficult  to  take  personality  valuations  seri- 
ously, while  temperamental  radicals  tend  to  be  impatient  with  a  purely 
cultural  analysis  of  human  behavior. 

It  may  be  questioned  whether  a  dichotomy  which  seems  to  depend 
so  largely  on  the  direction  of  one's  interest  in  observed  behavior  can  be 
an  altogether  safe  guide  to  the  study  of  behavior  in  social  situations. 
The  motivations  of  these  contrasting  directions  of  interest  are  uncon- 
scious, to  be  sure,  yet  simple  enough,  as  all  profound  motivations  must 
be.  The  study  of  culture  as  such,  which  may  be  called  sociology  or 
anthropology,  has  a  deep  and  unacknowledged  root  in  the  desire  to  lose 
oneself  safely  in  the  historically  determined  patterns  of  behavior.  The 
motive  for  the  study  of  personality,  which  we  may  term  indifferently 
social  psychology  or  psychiatry,  proceeds  from  the  necessity  which  the 
ego  feels  to  assert  itself  significantly.  Both  the  cultural  disciplines  and 
the  psychological  disciplines  are  careful  to  maintain  objecfive  ideals, 
but  it  should  not  be  difficult  to  see  that  neither  the  cultural  pattern  as 
such  nor  the  personality  as  such,  abstracted  as  both  of  these  are  from 
the  directly  given  facts  of  experience,  can,  in  the  long  run,  escape  from 
the  peculiarly  subtle  subjectivism  which  is  implicit  in  the  definitions  of 
the  disciplines  themselves.  As  preliminary  disciplines,  whose  main  pur- 
pose is  to  amass  and  critically  sift  data  and  help  us  to  phrase  significant 
problems  of  human  behavior,  they  are  of  course  invaluable.  But  sooner 


One:  Culture.  Society,  and  the  ImUvuhuil  307 

or  lalcr  iheir  obscure  opposituMi  ol  spun  iiuisi  be  iraiisecndcd  for  an 
objecti\il\  which  is  noi  inercl\  torinal  ;iiid  non-evalualivc  but  uhich 
boldly  essays  to  bring  every  ciihiual  pattern  back  to  the  living  context 
from  which  it  has  been  abstracted  in  the  tlrst  place  and.  m  parallel 
fashion,  to  bring  e\er\  fact  o\'  personaiit>  lorniation  back  to  its  siKial 
matrix.  The  problems  herewith  suggested  are,  of  course,  neither  simple 
nor  eas\.  The  social  psychologs  into  which  the  conventional  cultural 
[411]  and  psychological  disciplines  must  e\enluall>  be  resoKed  is  related 
to  these  paradigmatic  studies  as  an  iinestigation  into  lising  speech  as 
related  to  grammar.  I  think  lew  cultural  disciplines  are  as  exact,  as 
rigorously  configurated,  as  self-contained  as  grammar,  but  if  it  is  de- 
sired to  have  grammar  contribute  a  significant  share  to  i>ur  understand- 
ing o\^  human  behavior,  its  definitions,  meanings,  and  classifications 
must  be  capable  of  a  significant  restatement  in  terms  o\a  si>cial  psNchol- 
ogy  which  transcends  the  best  thai  we  ha\e  \ei  been  able  to  ofler  in  this 
perilous  field  of  investigation.  What  applies  to  grammar  applies  no  less 
significantly,  of  course,  to  the  study  of  social  organization.  religii>n.  art, 
mythology,  technology,  or  any  segment,  large  or  small,  or  groups  of 
segments  which  convenience  or  tradition  leads  us  to  carve  out  of  the 
actual  contexts  of  human  beha\ior. 

There  is  a  very  real  hurt  done  our  understanding  of  culture  when  wc 
systematically  ignore  the  individual  and  his  types  o\  interrelatuMiship 
with  other  individuals.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  cultural  anal>MS 
as  ordinarily  made  is  not  a  study  of  behavior  at  all  but  is  essentially  the 
orderly  description,  without  evaluation  or,  at  best,  with  certain  implicit 
evaluations,  of  a  behavior  to  be  hereinafter  defined  but  which,  in  the 
normal  case  is  not,  perhaps  cannot  be.  defined.  Culture,  as  it  is  i>rdinar- 
ily  constructed  by  the  anthropologist,  is  a  more  or  less  mechanical  sum 
of  the  more  striking  or  picturesque  generalized  patterns  of  beh. 
which  he  has  either  abstracted  for  himself  out  o\'  the  sum  total  i-i  u.n 
observations  or  has  had  abstracted  for  him  b>  his  inlormanis  in  verbal 
communication.  Such  a  "cullure."  because  generally  constructed  of  un- 
familiar terms,  has  an  almost  unavoidable  picturesqueness  aKnit  it. 
which  suggests  a  vitality  which  it  does  not.  as  a  matter  o\  s«.; 
psychological  fact,  embody.  Ihe  cultures  so  carefull)  descriK.: 
ethnological  and  sociological  monographs  are  not.  and  cannot  be.  the 
irulv  obieclive  enlilies  they  claim  to  be.  No  matter  how  atxurate  their 
individual  itemization,  their  integrations  \n\o  suggested  n'  c 

uniformly  fallacious  and  unreal.  This  cannot  be  helivd  sv    .-  i-' 

confine  ourselves  to  the  priKcdures  recognized  as  sound  by  ^  v 


308  ///  Culture 

ethnology.  It'vve  make  the  test  of  imputing  the  contents  of  an  ethnologi- 
cal monograph  to  a  known  individual  in  the  community  which  it  de- 
scribes, we  would  inevitably  be  led  to  discover  that,  while  every  single 
statement  in  it  may,  in  the  favorable  case,  be  recognized  as  holding  true 
in  some  sense,  the  complex  of  patterns  as  described  cannot,  without 
considerable  absurdity,  be  interpreted  as  a  significant  configuration  of 
experience,  both  actual  and  potential,  in  the  life  of  the  person  appealed 
to.  Cultures,  as  ordinarily  dealt  with,  are  merely  abstracted  configura- 
tions oi'  idea  and  action  patterns,  which  have  endlessly  different  mean- 
ings for  the  various  individuals  in  the  group  and  which,  if  they  are  to 
build  up  into  any  kind  of  significant  psychic  structure,  whether  for  the 
individual  or  the  [412]  small  group  or  the  larger  group,  must  be  set  in 
relation  to  each  other  in  a  complex  configuration  of  evaluations,  inclu- 
sive and  exclusive  implications,  priorities,  and  potentialities  of  realiza- 
tion which  cannot  be  discovered  from  an  inquiry  into  the  described 
patterns. 

The  more  fully  one  tries  to  understand  a  culture,  the  more  it  seems 
to  take  on  the  characteristics  of  a  personality  organization.  Patterns 
first  present  themselves  according  to  a  purely  formalized  and  logically 
developed  scheme.  More  careful  explorations  invariably  reveal  the  fact 
that  numerous  threads  of  symbolism  or  implication  connect  patterns  or 
parts  of  patterns  with  others  of  an  entirely  different  formal  aspect.  Be- 
hind the  simple  diagrammatic  forms  of  culture  is  concealed  a  peculiar 
network  of  relationships,  which,  in  their  totality,  carve  out  entirely  new 
forms  that  stand  in  no  simple  relation  to  the  obvious  cultural  table  of 
contents.  Thus,  a  word,  a  gesture,  a  genealogy,  a  type  of  religious  belief 
may  unexpectedly  join  hands  in  a  common  symbolism  of  status  defini- 
tion. If  it  were  the  aim  of  the  study  of  culture  merely  to  list  and  describe 
comprehensively  the  vast  number  of  supposedly  self-contained  patterns 
of  behavior  which  are  handed  on  from  generation  to  generation  by 
social  processes,  such  an  inquiry  as  we  have  suggested  into  the  more 
intimate  structure  of  culture  would  hardly  be  necessary.  Trouble  arises 
only  when  the  formulations  of  the  culture  student  are  requisitioned 
without  revision  or  criticism  for  an  understanding  of  the  most  signifi- 
cant aspects  of  human  behavior.  When  this  is  done,  insoluble  difficulties 
necessarily  appear,  for  behavior  is  not  a  recomposition  of  abstracted 
patterns,  each  of  which  can  be  more  or  less  successfully  studied  as  a 
historically  continuous  and  geographically  distributed  entity  in  itself, 
but  the  very  matrix  out  of  which  the  abstractions  have  been  made  in 
the  first  place.  All  this  means,  of  course,  that  if  we  are  jusdfied  in  speak- 


One:  Culture.  Socivty.  uiul  tin  InJiviJuul  309 

ing  o\'  the  giDwih  o\'  culluic  dt  all.  ii  imist  be  in  ihc  spinl.  nol  ol  a 
composite  history  made  up  ot  the  pnsate  hislorics  of  parlicular  pal- 
terns,  but  m  tiie  spun  of  the  (.lexeiopment  ol"  a  pcrsonalily.  'I"hc  com- 
plete, impersonali/ed  ■culture"  of  tlie  anlhrt)poli)LMsl  can  rcalls  be  lilllc 
more  than  an  assembly  or  mass  o\'  loosely  o\erlappmg  idea  and  action 
systems  which,  through  verbal  habit,  can  be  made  to  assume  the  appear- 
ance of  a  closed  system  o\'  bcha\ioi.  What  leiuK  to  be  forgotlen  is  that 
the  functioning  of  such  a  system,  if  it  can  be  said  to  have  an\  n- 

able  function  at  all,  is  due  to  the  specific  functionings  and  inu.,,... .  of 
the  idea  and  action  systems  which  ha\e  actually  grown  up  in  the  minds 
of  gi\en  indi\iduals.  In  spite  of  the  oft  asserted  im|x*rsonalily  of  culture. 
the  humble  truth  remains  that  \ast  reaches  o\  culture,  far  from  bcmg 
in  any  real  sense  "carried"  by  a  community  or  a  group  as  such,  arc 
discoverable  only  as  the  peculiar  property  of  certain  indiMduals.  who 
cannot  but  give  these  cultural  goods  the  impress  t>f  their  own  personal- 
ity. With  the  disappearance  [413]  of  such  key  indi\iduals,  the  light,  "ob- 
jectified" culture  loosens  up  at  once  and  is  e\enluall\  seen  ti>  K-  a  con- 
venient fiction  o(  thought. 

When  the  cultural  anthropologist  has  llnished  his  necessary  prelimi- 
nary researches  into  the  overt  forms  of  culture  and  has  gained  for  them 
an  objectivity  of  reference  by  working  out  their  forms,  time  sequences 
and  geographical  distributions,  there  emerges  for  him  the  nii>re  difficult 
and  significant  task  of  interpreting  the  culture  which  he  has  isolated 
and  defined  in  terms  o(  its  rele\ance  for  the  understanding  of  the  per- 
sonalities of  the  very  individuals  from  whom  he  has  obtained  his  infor- 
mation. As  he  changes  his  informant,  his  culture  necessaril>  changes. 
There  is  no  reason  why  the  culturalist  should  be  afraid  of  the  ci>ncepl 
of  personality,  which  must  nol.  howexer.  be  thought  of,  as  one  meviia- 
bly  does  at  the  beginning  of  his  thinking,  as  a  mysterious  entit-  -ig 

the  historically  given  culture  but  rather  as  a  distinctive  ciV-  ■  v»f 

experience  which  tends  always  to  form  a  ps\chologicall\  m^  uI 

and  which,  as  it  accretes  more  and  more  symbols  to  itself,  creates  finally 
that  cultural  microcosm  of  which  i^fficial  •'culture*'  is  little  more  than  • 

metaphorically  and  mechanicalK  expanded  copy.  U\c  ■■'"'      " '  "he 

point  o(  view  which  is  natural  in  the  study  o(  the  gene  ,  ^y 

to  the  problem  of  culture  canmn  but  force  a  revaluation  of  the  maienab 
of  culture  itself.  Man\  pri^blcins  which  are  now  in  the  forct  "V- 

tigation  sink  into  a  secondary  position  and  patterns  ol  K  h 

seem  so  obvious  or  universal  as  not  to  K-  worthy  ol  ii..  -c 

attention  of  the  ethnologist  leap  into  a  new  and  une.xpecled  m  c. 


310  ///  Culture 

The  ethnologist  may  some  day  have  to  face  the  uncomfortable  predica- 
ment o^  inquiring  into  such  humble  facts  as  whether  the  father  is  in  the 
habit  of  acting  as  indulgent  guide  or  as  disciplinarian  to  his  son  and  of 
reiiarding  the  problem  of  the  child's  membership  inside  or  outside  of 
his  father's  clan  as  a  relatively  subsidiary  question.  In  short,  the  applica- 
tion o'i  the  personality  point  of  view  tends  to  minimize  the  bizarre  or 
exotic  in  alien  cultures  and  to  reveal  to  us  more  and  more  clearly  the 
broad  human  base  on  which  all  culture  has  developed.  The  profound 
commonplace  that  all  culture  starts  from  the  needs  of  a  common  hu- 
manity is  believed  in  by  all  anthropologists,  but  it  is  not  demonstrated 
by  their  writings. 

An  excellent  test  of  the  fruitfulness  of  the  study  of  culture  in  close 
conjunction  with  a  study  of  personality  would  be  provided  by  studies 
in  the  field  of  child  development.  It  is  strange  how  little  ethnology  has 
concerned  itself  with  the  intimate  genetic  problem  of  the  acquirement 
of  culture  by  the  child.  In  the  current  language  of  ethnology  culture 
dynamics  seems  to  be  almost  entirely  a  matter  of  adult  definition  and 
adult  transmission  from  generation  to  generation  and  from  group  to 
group.  The  humble  child,  who  is  laboriously  orienting  himself  in  the 
world  of  his  society,  yet  is  not,  in  [414]  the  normal  case,  sacrificing  his 
forthright  psychological  status  as  a  significant  ego,  is  somehow  left  out 
of  the  account.  This  strange  omission  is  obviously  due  to  the  fact  that 
anthropology  has  allowed  itself  to  be  victimized  by  a  convenient  but 
dangerous  metaphor.  This  metaphor  is  always  persuading  us  that  cul- 
ture is  a  neatly  packed-up  assemblage  of  forms  of  behavior  handed  over 
piece-meal,  but  without  serious  breakage,  to  the  passively  inquiring 
child.  I  have  come  to  feel  that  it  is  precisely  the  supposed  "givenness" 
of  culture  that  is  the  most  serious  obstacle  to  our  real  understanding  of 
the  nature  of  culture  and  cultural  change  and  of  their  relationship  to 
individual  personality.  Culture  is  not,  as  a  matter  of  sober  fact,  a 
"given"  at  all.  It  is  so  only  by  a  polite  convention  of  speech.  As  soon 
as  we  set  ourselves  at  the  vantage  point  of  the  culture-acquiring  child, 
the  personality  definitions  and  potentials  that  must  never  for  a  moment 
be  lost  sight  of,  and  which  are  destined  from  the  very  beginning  to 
interpret,  evaluate  and  modify  every  culture  pattern,  sub-pattern,  or 
assemblage  of  patterns  that  it  will  ever  be  influenced  by,  everything 
changes.  Culture  is  then  not  something  given  but  something  to  be  grad- 
ually and  gropingly  discovered.  We  then  see  at  once  that  elements  of 
culture  that  come  well  within  the  horizon  of  awareness  of  one  individual 
are  entirely  absent  in  another  individual's  landscape.  This  is  an  impor- 


One:  Culture.  Society,  ami  the  Indnulual  3|| 

lain  lad.  s\slciiialicall>  ignored  h\  the  Liillural  aiuhropologisi.  It  niay 
be  propeM-  for  the  systematic  eliinologisi  to  ignore  such  pallcrn  dilTcr- 
ences  as  these,  but  for  the  theoretical  aiitliropologisl.  who  wishes  to 
place  cuhiire  in  a  general  view  i-tf  human  behavior,  such  an  «>  "  •  is 

inexcusable,  lurlhermore,  it  is  obvious  that  the  child  will  umca  ..^v..  ..sly 
accept  the  \aricuis  elements  of  culture  with  entirely  dilTcrcnl  mcaiungs. 
according  to  the  biographical  coiKlilii>ns  that  attend  their  introduction 
to  him.  It  ma\.  and  uiukuibtedly  does,  make  a  prtifound  difTercncc 
whether  a  religious  ritual  ciMiies  with  the  sternness  of  the  lather's  au- 
thoritv  or  with  the  somewhat  playful  indulgence  ol'  the  mother's 
brother.  We  have  not  the  privilege  of  assuming  that  it  is  an  irrelevant 
matter  how  musical  stimuli  are  introduced  to  the  child.  Tlie  fact  thai 
the  older  brother  is  already  an  admired  pianist  in  the  little  household 
may  act  as  an  elTective  barrier  to  the  devekipment  ol  interest  in  an) 
form  of  musical  expression.  Such  a  child  mav  grow  up  curiously  obtuse 
to  musical  values  and  may  be  persuaded  \o  think  that  he  was  bom 
w  ith  a  naturally  poor  ear  and  is  therefore  debarred  from  sharing  in  the 
blessings  o'i  one  important  aspect  o^  the  cultural  life  o\  the  community. 
If  we  take  the  purely  genetic  point  of  view,  all  the  problems  which 
appear  in  the  study  of  culture  reappear  with  a  startling  freshness  which 
cannot  but  mean  much  for  the  rephrasing  o^  these  problems.  Problems 
of  symbolism,  of  superordination  and  subordination  of  patterns,  of  rel- 
ative strength  of  emotional  character,  of  transformabilitv  and  transmis- 
sibility,  of  [415]  the  isolability  of  certain  patterns  into  relatively  closed 
systems,  and  numerous  others  o^  like  dynamic  nature,  emerge  at  once. 
We  cannot  answer  any  of  them  in  the  abstract.  All  o^  them  demand 
patient  investigation  and  the  answers  are  almost  certain  to  be 
multiform.  We  may  suggest  as  a  difficult  but  crucial  problem  of  invesli- 
gation  the  following:  Study  the  child  minutely  and  carefully  from  birth 
until,  say,  the  age  often  with  a  view  to  seeing  the  order  in  which  cultural 
patterns  and  parts  of  patterns  appear  in  his  psvchic  world,  studv  the 
relevance  of  these  patterns  for  the  development  of  his  personality;  and. 
at  the  end  o{  the  suggested  period,  see  lunv  much  o{  the  total  ofTicial 
culture  of  the  group  can  be  said  to  have  a  significant  e\isten«.\  *  -  '-m. 
Moreover,  what  degree  o{  systemati/ation.  conscious  or  un^  its, 

in  the  complicating  patterns  and  svmbolisms  of  culture  will  have  been 
reached  by  this  child'  This  is  a  dillicult  problem,  to  be  sure,  but  il  is 
not  an  impossible  one.  Sooner  or  later  it  will  have  to  b  '     '  by 

the  genetic  psychologists.  I  venture  to  predict  that  the  con^,, ire 

which  will  then  emerge,  fragmentarv  and  confused  as  it  will  undoubl- 


312  ///  Culture 

ediy  be,  will  turn  out  lo  have  a  tougher,  more  vital,  importance  for 
social  thinking  than  the  tidy  tables  of  contents  attached  to  this  or  that 
group  which  we  have  been  in  the  habit  of  calling  "cultures." 

Reference:  Sapir,  E.  Cultural  anthropology  and  psychiatry.  /  Abn.  & 
Soc.  P.sve/wl..  1932,27,229-242. 


Editorial  Notes 

Originally  published  in  the  Journal  of  Social  Psychology  5,  408-415 
(1934). 

A  footnote  to  the  title  of  the  publication  notes:  "Based  on  a  paper 
presented  to  the  National  Research  Council  Conference  on  Studies  in 
Child  Development  at  Chicago  on  June  22,  1933." 


PersonalilN  ( 1934) 
Editorial  iiUri>(.lLiclion 

The  entry  on  "Personality"  for  the  /Juvilopci/iu  of  tlic  Sm  uit  s.  /,  m.  v\ 
summarizes  arguments  Sapir  had  earlier  made  at  the  American  INschi- 
atric  Association  colloquia,  A.  P.  A.  II  in  parlieular  I  he  same  argu- 
ments are  further  elaborated,  too,  in  The  PsyclufUti^y  of  Culture  (ihis 
\olume).  especially  chapter  7.  In  all  these  presentations.  Sapir  compared 
concepts  o\^  personalitv  in  ditTerent  disciplmes  to  arrive  at  fue  detlni- 
tions  of  the  term.  These  ditTerent  conceptions  must  not  be  confused 
with,  or  reduced  to,  one  another:  the  sociologist's  emphasis  on  social 
role,  for  example,  was  quite  independent  of  the  psychiatrist's  emphasis 
on  individual  biography.  Although  Sapir  e\identl\  leaned  touard  a  psy- 
chiatric conception,  he  rejected  the  particular  systems  oi  hreud  and 
Jung,  which  did  not  adequatel\  lake  account  o\'  cultural  symbolisms 
and  differences  in  social  arrangements. 

In  accord  with  his  long-standing  interest  in  the  qualii\  of  life  uhich 
ditTerent  societies  presented  to  individuals.  Sapir  insisted  that,  although 
each  culture  had  a  psychological  bias  buih  into  its  socialization  pro- 
cesses, ditTerent  personality  types  responded  dilTerently.  Tlie  tit  betvvccn 
individual  and  culture  could  not  be  taken  for  granted.  C'rosscultural 
comparison  along  these  lines  was  a  responsibility  of  the  stKial  sciences, 
whether  or  not  most  practitioners  o\'  tliese  disciplines  acknowledged  il. 

In  The  Psyehology  of  Culture,  the  chapter  on  "Personalit>"  is  fol- 
lowed by  chapters  discussing  .lungs  approach  to  |X'rsonalit>.  placing 
that  approach  in  cultural  context,  and  considering  problems  o\  indivi- 
dual adjustment  in  culture  and  sociels. 


Persian. ilit\ 

The  term  personality  is  too  variable  in  usage  to  be  m 

scientific  discussion  unless  its  meamng  is  very  carcfulK  "-a 

given  context.  Among  the  various  understandings  which  lo  ihe 

term  there  are  Tive  detuiitions  which  stand  out  as  usefulK  distinci  from 


314  ///  Culture 

one  another,  corresponding  lo  the  philosophical,  the  physiological,  the 
psychophysical,  the  sociological  and  the  psychiatric  approaches  to  per- 
sonality. As  a  philosophical  concept,  personality  may  be  defined  as  the 
subjective  awareness  o\^  the  self  as  distinct  from  other  objects  of  obser- 
\ation.  As  a  purely  physiological  concept,  personality  may  be  consid- 
ered as  the  individual  human  organism  with  emphasis  on  those  aspects 
o'^  behavior  which  differentiate  it  from  other  human  organisms.  The 
term  may  be  used  in  a  descriptive  psychophysical  sense  as  referring 
lo  the  human  being  conceived  as  a  given  totality,  at  any  one  time,  of 
physiological  and  psychological  reaction  systems,  no  vain  attempt  being 
made  lo  draw  a  line  between  the  physiological  and  the  psychological. 
The  most  useful  sociological  connotation  which  can  be  given  to  the 
term  is  an  essentially  symbolic  one;  namely,  the  totality  of  those  aspects 
of  behavior  which  give  meaning  to  an  individual  in  society  and  dif- 
ferentiate him  from  other  members  in  the  community,  each  of  whom 
embodies  countless  cultural  patterns  in  a  unique  configuration.  The  psy- 
chiatric definition  of  personality  may  be  regarded  as  equivalent  to  the 
indi\idual  abstracted  from  the  actual  psychophysical  whole  and  con- 
ceived as  a  comparatively  stable  system  of  reactivity.  The  philosophical 
concept  treats  personality  as  an  invariant  [86]  point  of  experience;  the 
physiological  and  psychophysical,  as  an  indefinitely  variable  reactive 
system,  the  relation  between  the  sequence  of  states  being  one  of  conti- 
nuity, not  identity;  the  sociological,  as  a  gradually  cumulative  entity; 
and  the  psychiatric,  as  an  essentially  invariant  reactive  system. 

The  first  four  meanings  add  nothing  new  to  such  terms  as  self  or 
ego,  organism,  individual  and  social  role.  It  is  the  peculiarly  psychiatric 
conception  of  personality  as  a  reactive  system  which  is  in  some  sense 
stable  or  typologically  defined  for  a  long  period  of  time,  perhaps  for 
life,  which  it  is  most  difficult  to  assimilate  but  important  to  stress.  The 
psychiatrist  does  not  deny  that  the  child  who  rebels  against  his  father 
is  in  many  significant  ways  different  from  the  same  individual  as  a  mid- 
dle-aged adult  who  has  a  penchant  for  subversive  theories,  but  he  is 
interested  primarily  in  noting  that  the  same  reactive  ground  plan,  physi- 
cal and  psychic,  can  be  isolated  from  the  behavior  totalities  of  child 
and  adult.  He  establishes  his  invariance  of  personality  by  a  complex 
system  of  concepts  of  behavior  equivalences,  such  as  sublimation,  affec- 
tive transfer,  rationalization,  libido  and  ego  relations.  The  stage  in  the 
history  of  the  human  organism  at  which  it  is  most  convenient  to  con- 
sider the  personality  as  an  achieved  system,  from  which  all  subsequent 
cross  sections  of  individual  psychophysical  history  may  be  measured  as 


One    Culture,  Society,  ami  the  Imlmduul  315 

minor  or  c\cn  inclcxanl  \ai  lalioiis.  is  Mill  uiidclcrinmcd.  ITicrc  is  no 
way  o\'  telling  how  tar  hack  in  the  lite  ol  the  individual  ihc  conccpl  of 
an  essentially  iinanant  reaeti\e  system  mav  usclully  be  pushed  without 
too  disturbing  a  clash  uith  the  manilest  and  apparently  unhniiled  vari- 
ability ot^ individual  behavior,  it  this  conception  of  (XTsonahl)  is  lu  hi>ld 
its  own.  it  must  in  some  wa>  contradict  etTeeli\eiy  ihe  notion  of  that 
cumulative  growth  ot  personality  to  which  our  practical  inielhgencc 
must  chietly  be  directed.  The  psychiatrist's  concept  ol"  person. iliis  is  to 
all  intents  and  purposes  the  reactive  system  exhibited  b\  the  preciiltural 
child,  a  total  conllguration  ot"  reacti\e  tendencies  determined  b>  hcred- 
it\.  and  b\  prenatal  and  postnatal  conditioning  up  to  the  pt>inl  where 
cultural  patterns  are  conslanlls  modilying  the  child's  behasior.  Die  per- 
sonality may  be  conceived  of  as  a  latent  s\stem  ol  reaction  paltern>  and 
tendencies  to  reaction  patterns  tlnished  slu>rtl\  alter  birth  or  well  into 
the  second  or  third  year  olthe  life  of  the  mdi\idual.  With  all  the  uncer- 
tainty that  now  prevails  with  regard  to  the  relati\e  permanence  or  moili- 
luibility  o\^  lite  patterns  in  the  indi\idual  and  in  the  race  il  is  unuisc, 
however,  to  force  the  notion  of  the  fixation  of  personalits  m  lime. 

The  genesis  of  personality  is  in  all  probabilit\  determined  largely  by 
the  anatomical  and  physiological  makeup  ol"  the  indixidual  but  cannot 
be  entirely  so  explained.  Conditioning  factors,  which  ma\  ri>ughlN  be 
lumped  together  as  the  social  psychological  determinants  of  childhinnl, 
must  be  considered  as  at  least  as  important  in  the  de\elopment  of  per- 
sonality as  innate  biological  faciois.  It  is  entireh  \am  in  the  present 
state  of  knowledge  to  argue  as  to  the  relati\e  importance  oi  these  two 
sets  of  factors.  No  satisfactory  technique  has  been  de\eU>ped  tor  keep- 
ing thetn  apart  and  it  is  perhaps  safe  to  take  for  granted  thai  there  is 
no  facet  of  personality,  however  miiuile.  which  is  nctt  from  the  genetic 
standpoint  the  result  of  the  prolonged  and  subtle  mierpla>  of  K>ih. 

It  is  unthinkable  that  the  build  and  other  ph\sical  charade'-"-  -^f 
an  individual  should  bear  no  relation  to  his  personality.  Il  is  ii.  ' 

to  observe,  however,  that  physical  features  ma\  be  o{  genetic  siv 
cance  in  two  distinct  respects.  Hies  may  be  orgamcalh.  '» 

certain  psychological  features  or  tendencies  or  lhe>  m.is   ^ 
sciously  or  unconsciously  evaluated  s\mbols  of  an  indiNuh.  -^ 

to  others,  belonging  properly  to  the  sphere  of  social  detemiinatu»     ■^ 
example  of  the  former  class  o\'  ph\sical  determinants  would  he  the 
ciation,  according  to  Kretschmer.  ol  the  stocks.  si>-called  psknic.  b 
with  the  cyclothermic  type  o\'  personalits.  which  in  lis  psvchohc  • 
shows  as  manic  depressise  insanity,  the  so-called  asthenic  and  athkrtK 


316  ///  Culture 

builds  being  associated  with  the  schizothymic  type  of  personality, 
which,  under  the  pressure  of  shock  and  conflict,  may  disintegrate  into 
schizophrenia.  An  example  of  the  latter  type  of  determination,  stressed 
by  Alfred  Adler  and  his  school  of  individual  psychology,  would  be  the 
feeling  o^  secret  inferiority  produced  in  a  person  who  is  of  abnormally 
short  stature,  and  the  ceaseless  effort  to  overcome  this  feeling  of  inferi- 
ority by  developing  such  compensatory  mechanisms  as  intelligent  ag- 
gression or  shrewdness,  which  would  tend  to  give  the  individual  a  sec- 
ondary ego  satisfaction  denied  him  by  his  sense  of  physical  inferiority. 
It  is  highly  probable  that  both  of  these  genetic  theories  of  personality 
have  a  substantial  core  of  value  although  too  much  has  doubtless  been 
claimed  for  them.  [87] 

The  most  elaborate  and  far-reaching  hypotheses  on  the  development 
of  personality  which  have  yet  been  proposed  are  those  of  Freud  and  his 
school.  The  Freudian  psychoanalysts  analyze  the  personality  topo- 
graphically into  a  primary  id,  the  sum  of  inherited  impulses  or  cravings; 
the  ego,  which  is  thought  of  as  being  built  upon  the  id  through  the 
progressive  development  of  the  sense  of  external  reality;  and  the  super- 
ego, the  socially  conditioned  sum  of  forces  which  restrain  the  individual 
from  the  direct  satisfaction  of  the  id.  The  characteristic  interplay  of 
these  personality  zones,  itself  determined  chiefly  by  the  special  pattern 
of  family  relationships  into  which  the  individual  has  had  to  fit  himself 
in  the  earliest  years  of  his  life,  is  responsible  for  a  variety  of  personality 
types.  Freudians  have  not  developed  a  systematic  theory  of  personality 
types  but  have  contented  themselves  with  special  hypotheses  based  on 
clinical  evidence.  There  is  no  doubt  that  a  large  amount  of  valuable 
material  and  a  number  of  powerfully  suggestive  mechanisms  of  person- 
ality formation  have  been  advanced  by  the  Freudian  school.  Even  now 
it  is  abundantly  clear  than  an  unusual  attachment  to  the  mother  or 
profound  jealousy  of  the  older  or  younger  brother  may  give  the  person- 
ality a  slant  which  remains  relatively  fixed  throughout  life. 

Various  classificafions  of  personality  types  have  been  advanced,  some 
of  them  based  on  innate  factors,  others  on  experiential  ones.  Among 
the  typological  pictures  the  one  worthy  of  special  note  is  perhaps  that 
of  Jung.  To  him  may  be  attributed  the  popular  contrast  between  intro- 
verts and  extraverts,  the  former  abstracting  more  readily  from  reality 
and  finding  their  sense  of  values  and  personal  idenfification  within 
themselves,  while  the  latter  evaluate  experience  in  terms  of  what  is  im- 
mediately given  by  the  environment.  This  contrast,  it  is  true,  means 
something  substantial,  but  it  is  unfortunate  that  a  host  of  superficial 


One    Culture.  Society.  unJ  the  InJiviJtml  3I7 

ps\clu)louists  ha\c  allcniptcd  lo  fix  Jung's  meaning  wiih  the  aid  of  shal- 
low criteria  of  all  soils.  Junii  lurlher  divides  personality  into  four  main 
funclit>nal  t\pes  ihe  uso  tornicr  heinii  called  rational,  the  two  lallcr 
irrational.  I  or  these  soniewhal  misleading  terms,  organized  and  un<"  • 
nized  may  fitly  be  substituted.  The  classitlcation  aeei>rding  \o  funclw'u.ii 
types  is  believed  by  Jung  to  intercross  with  the  intro\ert-exlra\crl  di- 
chotomy. The  validity  and  exact  delimitation  ot  these  terms  present 
many  ditHcult  problems  of  analysis.  There  is  much  that  is  suggestive  in 
his  classification  o(  personality  and  it  ma\  be  possible  to  integrate  it 
with  the  dynamic  theories  of  Freud  and  .Xdler.  What  is  needed  at  the 
present  time,  however,  is  the  ever  more  minute  analysis  and  comparist^n 
of  indi\idual  personality  types. 

There  is  an  important  relation  between  culture  and  personalitv.  On 
the  one  hand,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  distinctive  persiMialits  !*•:-■ 
may  have  a  profound  intluence  on  the  thmighl  and  action  of  the  t  :: 
munity  as  a  whole.  Furthermore,  while  cultural  anthropologists  and 
sociologists  do  not  consider  that  ihc  forms  o\'  social  interaction  are  in 
themselves  definitive  of  personalit\  t\pes,  particular  forms  c^f  bchaMi>r 
in  society,  however  Hexibly  the  indi\idual  ma>  adapt  himself  to  them, 
are  preferentially  adapted  to  specific  personality  types.  .AggressiNc  mili- 
tary patterns,  for  instance,  cannot  be  equally  congenial  to  all  personali- 
ties; literary  or  scientific  refinement  can  be  developed  onl>  by  indiMd- 
uals  of  highly  differentiated  personalities.  The  failure  o(  siKial  science 
as  a  whole  to  relate  the  patterns  of  culture  to  germinal  personalit>  pal- 
terns  is  intelligible  in  view  of  the  complexity  o\'  social  phenomena  and 
the  recency  of  serious  speculation  on  the  relation  o\'  the  individual  to 
society.  But  there  is  growing  recognition  o\'  the  fact  that  the  intimate 
study  of  personality  is  oi"  fundamental  concern  to  the  si>cial  scientist 

The  socialization  of  personality  traits  may  be  expected  to  lead  cumu- 
latively to  the  development  of  specific  psychological  biases  in  ihe  cul- 
tures o\'  the  world.  Thus  l-skimo  culture,  contrasted  with  most  North 
American  Indian  cultures,  is  extraverted;  Hindu  culture  on  the  \shok 
corresponds  to  the  world  o\'  the  thinking  inlro\ert;  the  culture  of  the 
United  States  is  definitely  extraverted  in  character,  vulh  a  greater  em- 
phasis on  thinking  and  intuition  than  on  feeling;  and  sensational  cval- 
uati^Mis  arc  more  clcarl\  c\idciil  iii  the  cultures  of  the  Medilv 
area  than  in  those  of  northern  l-.urope.  Social  scientists  have  b 
tile  to  such  psychological  characterizations  o\'  culture  bui  m 
run  they  are  inevitable  and  necessars. 


318  ///  Culture 

Consult: 

Allport,  G.  W.,  and  Vernon,  P.  E.,  "The  Field  of  Personality"  in  Psy- 
choloi^lcal  Bulletin,  vol.  xxvii  (1930)  677-730;  Roback,  A.  A.,  A  Bihliog- 
raphy  [88]  of  Character  and  Personality  (Cambridge,  Mass.,  1927);  Mur- 
phy, G.,  and  Jensen,  F.,  Approaches  to  Personality  (New  York  1932); 
Young,  K.,  Social  Psychology  (New  York  1930)  pts.  iii-iv;  Folsom,  J.  K., 
Social  Psychology  (New  York  1931)  chs.  iv-vii;  Problems  of  Personality, 
ed.  by  C^  M.  Campbell  and  others  (New  York  1925);  Gordon,  R.  G., 
Personality  {Ncvj'  York  1926);  Kretschmer,  E.,  Korperhau  und  Charakter 
(4th  rev.  ed.  Berlin  1925),  tr.  from  the  2nd  German  ed.  by  W.J.  H. 
Sprott  as  Character  and  Physique  (London  1925);  Adler,  A.,  Praxis  und 
Theorie  der  Individual-Psychologie  (4th  ed.  Munich  1930),  tr.  by 
P.  Radin  (New  York  1924),  and  Uber  den  nervosen  Charakter  (4th  ed. 
Munich  1928),  tr.  by  Bernard  Glueck  and  J.  B.  Lind  as  The  Neurotic 
Constitution  (New  York  1921);  Kraepelin,  E.,  and  Lange,  J.,  Psychiat- 
ric, 2  vols.  (9th  ed.  Berlin  1927),  tr.  and  adapted  by  A.  R.  Diefendorf 
from  7th  German  ed.  as  Clinical  Psychiatry  (rev.  ed.  New  York  1907); 
Bleuler,  E.,  Lehrbuch  der  Psychiatrie  (5th  ed.  Berlin  1930),  tr.  by  A.  A. 
Brill  (New  York  1924);  Freud,  S.,  Sammlung  kleiner  Schriften  zur  Neuro- 
senlehre,  3  vols.  (lst-3rd  ed.  Leipsic  1906-13),  tr.  by  J.  Riviere  as  Col- 
lected Papers  on  Psychoanalysis,  4  vols.  (New  York  1924—25);  Jung, 
C.  G.,  Psychologische  Typen  (Zurich  1921),  tr.  by  H.  G.  Baynes  (New 
York  1923);  Sapir,  E.,  "Cultural  Anthropology  and  Psychiatry,"  in 
Journal  of  Abnormal  and  Social  Psychology,  vol.  xxvii  (1932)  229-42; 
Hinkle,  B.,  The  Re-creating  of  the  Individual  (New  York  1923);  Benedict, 
Ruth,  "Configuration  of  Culture  in  North  America"  in  American 
Anthropologist,  vol.  xxxiv  (1932)  1-27. 


Editorial  Notes 

Originally  published  in  Edwin  R.  A.  Seligman  (ed.),  Encyclopaedia 
of  the  Social  Sciences  12,  85-88  (New  York:  Macmillan,  1934).  Copy- 
right 1934,  renewed  1962,  by  Macmillan  Publishing  Company.  Re- 
printed by  permission  of  the  publisher. 


Symbolism  (  1^)34) 
Editorial  liiirodiicuMi 

In  his  entr\  on  "Symbolism"  for  the  i'junlopcdia  oi  iiu  S< 

ciicc.s.  Sapir  expanded  the  seope  of  his  diseiission  well  beyond  i ;i 

linguistic  territory  into  a  consideration  o(  a  wide  range  of  symbolic 
modalities.  Indeed,  he  insisted  thai  all  human  heha\ii>r  was  inhcrcnlly 
symbolic,  although  the  balance  between  cultural  and  perst>nal  ingredi- 
ents in  an  indixidual's  symbolic  constructs  and  interpretations  migh! 
vary.  Symbolic  constructs  were  the  mediimi  o\'  si>cial  inieraclion  and 
hence  formed  the  building-blocks  of  society  iisell".  In  that  consiruclion. 
which  built  symbol  upon  symbol,  "\ery  few  bricks  touch  the  grtnind  " 
In  The  P.sych(>l()i!:y  of  Culture  (chapter  9),  Sapir  took  this  metaphor 
further,  even  suggesting  a  model  for  contlicl  and  social  disorder:  ihc 
bricks  crash  down  if  the  tuncliondl  iiitcrpki\  of  nuli\idual  and  cultural 
symbolisms  is  distorted. 

In  1933-34.  the  period  in  which  Sapir  wrote  this  essas.  his  lectures 
for  Tlic  Psychology  of  Culture  also  included  a  presentation  (sec  chapter 
12)  that  evidently  followed  the  text  o\'  his  encyclopedia  article  almost 
word  for  word,  even  though,  as  far  as  we  know,  he  did  not  normally 
rely  on  extensive  written  notes  in  his  teaching.  In  the  lecture  •'•  '  m 
on  symbolism  was  followed  by  a  discussion  of  etiquette,  as  an  .  •  ,  o 
of  seemingly  trivial  behaviors  that  are  aciualK  sulTused  with  rich  sym- 
bolic content. 

Sapir's  ideas  on  types  o\^  symbolisms,  especial!)   his  diNtiiKn." 
tween    referential    symbolism    and    "condensation    ssmbolism." 
proved  especially  stimulating  to  scholars  o\'  a  later  generalion.  NV     • 
in  what  became  known  as  •■s\nibolic  anthropology"  has  been  much 
inlluenced  b\  this  essav. 


S\niholisin 

The  term  symbolism  covers  a  great  \anet>  of  appareniK  ihsMmit.ir 
modes  of  behavior.  In  its  oriuinal  sense  it  was  reslricled  i 


320  ///    ('u  I  lure 

marks  mlLMidcd  lo  recall  or  to  direct  special  attention  to  some  person, 
object,  idea,  e\enl  or  projected  activity  associated  only  vaguely  or  not 
at  all  with  the  symbol  in  any  natural  sense.  By  gradual  extensions  of 
meaning  the  terms  symbol  and  symbolism  have  come  to  include  not 
merely  such  trivial  objects  and  marks  as  black  balls,  to  indicate  a  nega- 
tive attitude  in  voting,  and  stars  and  daggers,  to  remind  the  reader  that 
supplementary  information  is  to  be  found  at  the  bottom  of  the  page, 
but  also  more  elaborate  objects  and  devices,  such  as  flags  and  signal 
lights,  which  are  not  ordinarily  regarded  as  important  in  themselves  but 
w  hich  point  to  ideas  and  actions  of  great  consequence  to  society.  Such 
complex  systems  of  reference  as  speech,  writing  and  mathematical  nota- 
tion should  also  be  included  under  the  term  symbolism,  for  the  sounds 
and  marks  used  therein  obviously  have  no  meaning  in  themselves  and 
can  have  significance  only  for  those  who  know  how  to  interpret  them 
in  terms  of  that  to  which  they  refer.  A  certain  kind  of  poetry  is  called 
symbolic  or  symbolistic  because  its  apparent  content  is  only  a  sugges- 
tion for  wider  meanings.  In  personal  relations  too  there  is  much  beha- 
vior that  may  be  called  symbolic,  as  when  a  ceremonious  bow  is  directed 
not  so  much  to  an  actual  person  as  to  a  status  which  that  person  hap- 
pens to  fill.  The  psychoanalysts  have  come  to  apply  [493]  the  term  sym- 
bolic to  almost  any  emotionally  charged  pattern  of  behavior  which  has 
the  function  of  unconscious  fulfilment  of  a  repressed  tendency,  as  when 
a  person  assumes  a  raised  voice  of  protest  to  a  perfectly  indifferent 
stranger  who  unconsciously  recalls  his  father  and  awakens  the  repressed 
attitude  of  hostility  toward  the  father. 

Amid  the  wide  variety  of  senses  in  which  the  word  is  used  there  seem 
to  emerge  two  constant  characterisdcs.  One  of  these  is  that  the  symbol 
is  always  a  substitute  for  some  more  closely  intermediating  type  of  be- 
havior, whence  it  follows  that  all  symbolism  implies  meanings  which 
cannot  be  derived  directly  from  the  contexts  of  experience.  The  second 
characteristic  of  the  symbol  is  that  it  expresses  a  condensation  of  energy, 
its  actual  significance  being  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  apparent  trivial- 
ity of  meaning  suggested  by  its  mere  form.  This  can  be  seen  at  once 
when  the  mildly  decorative  function  of  a  few  scratches  on  paper  is  com- 
pared with  the  alarming  significance  of  apparently  equally  random 
scratches  which  are  interpreted  by  a  particular  society  as  meaning  "mur- 
der" or  "God."  This  disconcerfing  transcendence  of  form  comes  out 
equally  well  in  the  contrast  between  the  involuntary  blink  of  the  eye 
and  the  crudely  similar  wink  which  means  "He  does  not  know  what  an 
ass  he  is,  but  you  and  I  do." 


One:  Culture.  Society,  and  the  hultvuiual  321 

II  sccnis  useful  U>  Jisliuiiuisti  iwo  nuiiii  l\|X's  ot  symbi>lism    P^--  ''"M 
o{  ihcsc.  which  max    he  called  rctcrcnlial  symbolism,  cmbr.u  .» 

forms  as  oral  speech,  writing,  the  telegraph  code,  national  (lags,  flag 
signaling  and  other  organizations  o\'  sunbols  which  arc  agreed  upon 
as  economical  devices  for  purposes  o\'  reference.  Ihe  scc<*"'  ••  •-•  ••' 
symbolism  is  equall\  economical  and  may  be  termed  conde: 
holism,  for  il  is  a  highly  condensed  form  o\'  substitutive  behavior  for 
direct  expression,  allowing  for  the  reads  release  of  emotional  tension  in 
conscious  or  unconscious  form.  Telegraphic  ticking  is  \irtually  a  pure 
example  o\'  referential  symbolism;  the  apparently  meaningless  washing 
ritual  o\'  an  obsessive  neurotic,  as  interpreted  b\  the  psychoanalysis. 
would  be  a  pure  example  o^  condensation  symbolism.  In  actual  beha- 
vior both  types  are  generally  blended.  Thus  specific  forms  o\  writing. 
conventionalized  spelling,  peculiar  pronunciations  and  verbal  slogans. 
while  ostensibly  referential,  easiK  lake  on  the  character  of  emotional- 
ized rituals  and  become  highl\  impt>riani  to  both  individual  and  society 
as  substitutive  forms  of  emotional  expression.  Were  writing  mercK  ref- 
erential symbolism,  spelling  reforms  would  not  be  so  ditHculi  to  bring 
about. 

Symbols  of  the  refercnlial  ivpe  undouhicdlv  developed  later  as  a  class 
than  condensation  symbols.  It  is  likelv  that  most  referential  svi^  "  n 

go  back  to  unconsciously  evolved  symbolisms  saturated  with  cr...  . d 

quality,  which  gradually  took  on  a  purely  referential  character  as  the 
linked  emotion  dropped  out  of  the  behavior  m  question.  ITius  shaking 
the  fist  at  an  imaginary  enemy  becomes  a  dissociated  and  fmallv  a  r^  ' 
ential  symbol  for  anger  when  no  enemy,  real  or  imaginary,  is  ■  ■ 
intended.  When  this  emotional  denudation  takes  place,  the  sv 
comes  a  comment,  as  it  were,  on  anger  itself  and  a  preparation  for 
something  like  language.  What  is  ordinarily  called  language  ma>  hax-c 

had  its  ultimate  root  in  just  such  dissociated  and  emi>tuMi.i"-    ' '  ^ 

cries,  which  originally  released  emotional  tension.  Once  relc 
holism  had  been  established  as  a  by-product  of  behavior,  more  v 
scious  symbols  of  reference  could  be  evolved  by  the  copying  in 
ated  or  simplified  form  o\'  the  thing  referred  to.  as  in  if. 
graphic  writing.  On  still  more  sophisticated  levels  reteu:.. 
may  be  attained  by  mere  social  agreement,  as  when  a  nun 
is  arbitrarily  assigned  to  a  maifs  hat.  The  less  primary  and  .■• 
the  symbolism,  the  more  dissociated  from  its  original  . 

less  emotionalized  it  becomes,  the  more  it  takes  on  the  ^ .-  - 

reference.  A  further  condition  for  the  rich  development  ol  re  I 


322  ///   Ciiliurc 

symbolism  must  not  be  overlooked  -  the  increased  complexity  and 
homogeneity  of  the  symbolic  material.  This  is  strikingly  the  case  in 
language,  in  which  all  meanings  are  consistently  expressed  by  formal 
patterns  arising  out  o\'  the  apparently  arbitrary  sequences  of  unitary 
sounds.  When  the  material  of  a  symbolic  system  becomes  sufficiently 
varied  and  yet  homogeneous  in  kind,  the  symbolism  becomes  more  and 
more  richly  patterned,  creative  and  meaningful  in  its  own  terms,  and 
referents  tend  to  be  supplied  by  a  retrospective  act  of  rationalization. 
Hence  it  results  that  such  complex  systems  of  meaning  as  a  sentence 
form  or  a  musical  form  mean  so  much  more  than  they  can  ever  be  said 
to  refer  to.  In  highly  evolved  systems  of  reference  the  relation  between 
symbol  and  referent  becomes  increasingly  variable  or  inclusive. 

In  condensation  symbolism  also  richness  of  meaning  grows  with 
increased  dissociation.  The  chief  developmental  difference,  however,  be- 
tween [494]  this  type  of  symbolism  and  referential  symbolism  is  that 
while  the  latter  grows  with  formal  elaboration  in  the  conscious,  the 
former  strikes  deeper  and  deeper  roots  in  the  unconscious  and  diffuses 
its  emotional  quality  to  types  of  behavior  or  situations  apparently  far 
removed  from  the  original  meaning  of  the  symbol.  Both  types  of  sym- 
bols therefore  begin  with  situations  in  which  a  sign  is  dissociated  from 
its  context.  The  conscious  elaboration  of  form  makes  of  such  dissoci- 
ation a  system  of  reference,  while  the  unconscious  spread  of  emotional 
quality  makes  of  it  a  condensation  symbol.  Where,  as  in  the  case  of  a 
national  flag  or  a  beautiful  poem,  a  symbolic  expression  which  is  appar- 
ently one  of  mere  reference  is  associated  with  repressed  emotional  mate- 
rial of  great  importance  to  the  ego,  the  two  theoretically  distinct  types 
of  symbolic  behavior  merge  into  one.  One  then  deals  with  symbols  of 
peculiar  potency  and  even  danger,  for  unconscious  meanings,  full  of 
emotional  power,  become  rationalized  as  mere  references. 

It  is  customary  to  say  that  society  is  peculiarly  subject  to  the  influence 
of  symbols  in  such  emotionally  charged  fields  as  religion  and  politics. 
Flags  and  slogans  are  the  type  examples  in  the  field  of  politics,  crosses 
and  ceremonial  regalia  in  the  field  of  religion.  But  all  culture  is  in  fact 
heavily  charged  with  symbolism,  as  is  all  personal  behavior.  Even  com- 
paratively simple  forms  of  behavior  are  far  less  directly  functional  than 
they  seem  to  be,  but  include  in  their  motivation  unconscious  and  even 
unacknowledged  impulses,  for  which  the  behavior  must  be  looked  upon 
as  a  symbol.  Many,  perhaps  most  reasons  are  little  more  than  ex  post 
facto  rationalizations  of  behavior  controlled  by  unconscious  necessity. 
Even  an  elaborate,  well  documented  scientific  theory  may  from  this 


Oni'.  Cult  nil'.  Society,  ami  the  huiividuul  32  J* 

slandpoiiil  he  litllc  iiu>ic  than  a  s\iiibol  ol  the  unknovvn  ntvt-^" 
the  ego.  Scicnlisls  fiyht  tor  ihcir  theories  not  because  thes  KM, 
\o  be  true  but  beeaiise  llie\  uish  tliein  li>  be  so 

It  will  be  useful  \o  give  examples  of  some  ot  the  less  ob\iou^  |. 

isms  in  socialized  beha\ior.  I-lic|uetle  has  at  least  tvM>  lasers  p;  i- 

ism.  On  a  relali\el\  obvious  plane  of  symbolism  elit|uelle  pr»  ic 

members  of  sociel\  with  a  set  o\'  rules  uhich.  \\\  ci>ndenscd  and  thor- 
oughly conventionalized  form,  express  society's  concern  for  its  members 
and  their  relation  to  one  another.  There  is  another  level  ol"  enqueue 
s\nibolism.  ho\ve\er.  which  lakes  little  or  no  account  ol"  such  specific 
meanings  but  inteii-iiels  etic|uetle  as  a  whole  as  a  pi>werrul  symbohsm 
of  status.  From  this  standpoint  to  know  the  rules  of  etiquette  is  impor- 
tant, not  because  the  feelings  o\'  friends  and  strangers  are  becomingly 
obser\ed  but  because  the  manipulator  o\'  the  rule  prmes  that  he  is  a 
member  of  an  e.xclusixe  group.  By  reason  ol  ihe  richK  dexelopcd  mean- 
ings which  inhere  in  etiquette,  both  posili\e  and  negati\e.  a  sensitive 
person  can  actuallv  express  a  more  bitter  hostility  thnnigh  the  frigid 
observance  of  etiquette  than  b\  llouling  it  on  an  obsious  wave  of  hostil- 
ity. Etiquette,  then,  is  an  unusually  elaborate  ssnibolic  play  in  uhich 
individuals  in  their  actual  lelaiionships  are  the  pla\ers  and  society  is 
the  bogus  referee. 

Education  is  also  a  thoroughls  s\mbiMic  field  of  behaMor.  Mu»...  vi 
its  rationale  cannot  be  tested  as  to  direction  or  \alue.  No  one  knous  or 
can  discover  just  how  much  Latin.  I  lench.  mathematics  or  history  is 
good  for  any  particular  person  to  acc|uire.  The  tests  of  the  ailammeni 

of  such  knowledge  are  themsehes  little  more  than  svmbolic   •• 

For  the  social  psychologist  education,  whatever  else  it  mas  iv 
stands  out  as  a  peculiarly  massive  and  well  articulated  set  of  symK^ls 
which  express  the  needs  of  the  individual  in  siKiely  and  sshich  ■ 
to  orient  himself  in  his  relations  with  his  fellow  men.  Hial  an  inor. 
possesses  the  bachelor's  degree  may  or  may  not  prose  that  he  kii' 
or  once  knew,  something  about  Roman  history  and  irigonomeir)'-  The 
important  thing  about  his  degree  is  that  it  helps  him  lo  secure  a  posilion 
which  is  socially  or  economically  more  desirable  than  some  i>i'  - 

tion  which  can  be  obtained  without  the  aid  o\  this  degree   s. 
misgivings  about  the  functicMi  of  specific  items  in  the  eduv 
cess  and  has  to  make  svmt^i^lic  aionemeni  b>  mvcnimg  such  notion*  as 
the  cultivation  o['  the  mind 

It  is  important  to  observe  that  svmbolic  meanings  can  often  be  recog- 
nized clearly  for  the  first  time  when  the  svmbolic  saluc.  gcncralls  un- 


324  ///  Culimc 

conscious  or  conscious  only  in  a  marginal  sense,  drops  out  of  a  social- 
ized pattern  o\'  behavior  and  the  supposed  function,  which  up  to  that 
time  had  been  believed  to  be  more  than  enough  to  explain  it  and  keep 
it  going,  loses  its  significance  and  is  seen  to  be  little  more  than  a  paltry 
rationalization.  Chairmanship  of  a  committee,  for  instance,  has  sym- 
bolic value  only  in  a  society  in  which  two  things  are  believed:  that 
administrati\e  functions  somehow  stamp  a  person  as  superior  to  those 
who  are  being  directed;  and  that  the  ideal  society  is  a  democratic  one 
and  that  [495]  those  who  are  naturally  more  able  than  others  somehow 
automatically  get  into  positions  of  administrative  advantage.  Should 
people  come  to  feel  that  administrative  functions  are  little  more  than 
symbolic  automatisms,  the  chairmanship  of  a  committee  would  be  rec- 
ognized as  little  more  than  a  petrified  symbol  and  the  particular  value 
that  is  now  felt  to  inhere  in  it  would  tend  to  disappear. 

An  important  field  for  investigation  is  that  of  personal  symbolisms 
in  the  use  of  cultural  patterns.  Personal  symbolisms  are  often  the  more 
valuable  as  they  are  hidden  from  consciousness  and  serve  as  the  springs 
of  effective  behavior.  Interest  in  a  particular  science  may  be  an  elabo- 
rately sublimated  symbol  of  an  unconscious  emotional  attachment  to 
what  a  man  who  is  significant  in  one's  personal  development  is  believed 
to  be  linked  up  with,  such  as  the  destruction  of  religion  or  the  discovery 
of  God,  these  grandiose  preferences  in  turn  serving  as  symbols  of  re- 
pressed hate  or  love.  Much  charitable  endeavor  is  animated  by  an  un- 
conscious desire  to  peer  into  lives  that  one  is  glad  to  be  unable  to  share. 
Society  itself,  perfecting  its  rigid  mechanisms  of  charitable  activity,  can- 
not in  every  case  or  even  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases  subject  the  chari- 
table act  to  a  pragmatic  critique  but  must  rest  content  for  the  most 
part  with  charity  organization  as  its  symbolic  gesture  toward  alleviating 
suffering.  Thus  individual  and  society,  in  a  never-ending  interplay  of 
symbolic  gestures,  build  up  the  pyramided  structure  called  civilization. 
In  this  structure  very  few  bricks  touch  the  ground. 

Consult:  Bally,  Charles,  Le  langage  et  la  vie  (Paris  1926);  Markey, 
John  F.,  The  Symbolic  process  and  Its  Integration  in  Children  (London 
1928);  Ogden,  C.  K.,  and  Richards,  I.  A.,  The  Meaning  of  Meaning  (3rd 
ed.  London  1930);  Sapir,  Edward,  "Language  as  a  Form  of  Human 
Behavior"  in  English  Journal,  vol.  xvi  (1927)  421-33,  and  "A  Study  in 
Phonetic  Symbolism"  in  Journal  of  Experimental  Psychology,  vol.  xii 
(1929)  225-39;  Buhler,  Karl,  Die  geistige  Entwicklung  des  Kindes  (6th 
ed.  Jena  1930);  Dewey,  John,  Human  Nature  and  Conduct  (New  York 
1922);  Hollingworth,  H.  L.,   The  Psychology  of  Thought  (New  York 


One:  Culture.  Society,  ami  the  InJivuhuil  325 

1926)  ch.  \i;  Kaiiloi.  J.  K..  \ii  Analysis  o\  Psychological  language 
Data  ■  111  P.svcholosiiidI  Review,  vol.  \\i\  ( 1922)  261  ~M\^).  Mead.  (ici»rgc 
Herbert,  "A  Beha\iiMistic  Account  of  the  Signillcant  Symbol"  in  Jour- 
mil  of  Philosophy.  \ol.  \i.\  (1922)  157-63;  Semon.  R.  W..  /)/,•  Mncme 
(lis  erhiilfe/hles  Priiizip  iiu  W'eehsel  Jes  or\'imiselien  (iesehelwns  (3rd  cd. 
Leipsic  191 1 ),  tr.  h\  Louis  Simon  as  The  \tt\eme  (London  1921);  Sicrn. 
Clark  J.  and  William.  Die  Kinder.spruehe.  Ntonographienubcr  die  scc- 
lische  Lntuicklung  dcs  Kindes.  \ol.  i  (4th  ed.  Leipsic  192S);  Ncuman, 
Stanley  S.,  "Lurther  Lxperiments  in  l^honetic  Symbolism"  in  Amcruan 
Journal  of  Psyeholoiry,  vol.  xlv  (1933)  53-75. 


Editorial  Notes 

Originally  published  in  l-dwin  R.  A.  Seliuman  (ed).  Encyclopaedia 
of  the  Social  Sciences  14,  492-495  (New  York:  Macnnllan.  1934).  Copy- 
right 1934,  renewed  1962.  by  Macmillan  F^iblishing  Companv  Re- 
printed by  permission  of  the  publisher. 


Proceedings  of  the  Conference  on  IVrsonalii)  and 
Culture,  convened  by  the  National  Research  Council, 
March  1935,  together  with  extracts  from  the  minutes 
of  the  1936  and  1938  meetings  o\'  the  N.  R   ( 

Committee  on  Personality  in  Relalh)ii  to  Cuhuic 

Early  in  1935  Sapir,  who  was  ilicii  Chairman  o\'  ihc  Division  of  Anthropologv  and 
Psychology  of  the  National  Research  Council,  propt>se«.l  that  the  N   R    (  a 

conference  on  personality  and  culture.  "The  conference. '"  Sapir  wrote  to  M .i.ile 

Bniien.  secretary  o\'  the  Division,  "would  interest  itself  in  var>'ing  human  behavior 
against  ditTerenl  cultural  backgrounds."  and  formulate  a  research  program  (Sapir  lo 
Britten,  8  Feb.  1935).  The  conference  was  dul\  hcKI  mi  \ln\  h  ^  P)'>  .ii  ihr  \rnrfi..in 
Museum  of  Natural  History  in  New  York. 

Those   present    were:    Edward    Sapir.   Chairman.    Madison    liciitlcv    I'  -4 

Psychology.  Cornell  University;  Francis  G.  Blake.  Chairman.  OiMsion  oi  M..  ...ac. 
N.  R.  C.  and  Sterling  Professor  of  Medicine.  Yale  University;  A.  Irving  Hallow-cll.  De- 
partment of  Anthropology.  Uni\ersity  o\'  Pennsyhama:  Mark  A  M  »f 
Psychology  and  Director  of  the  Institute  o\'  Human  Relations,  ^ale  I  ;  .  If 
Meyer,  Johns  Hopkins  Hospital;  W.  Lloyd  Warner.  Professor  of  Anthropt>logv  and  S*>- 
ciology.  University  of  Chicago;  Clark  Wissler.  Curator  of  Anthropoloii).  \r  '  'i- 
seum  of  Natural  History,  and  Professor  of  Anthropology,  Yale  Lniscrsii'.  I  i 
Sullivan,  practicing  psychiatrist;  R.  W.  Woodworlh.  Professor  of  Psych 
University;  and  W.  V.  Bingham.  Others  invited,  but  unable  to  attend,  wcic  1  I.  l]:<  ::. 
dike.  J.  McKean  Cattell.  H.  A.  Murray,  and  Stanley  Cobb. 

Much  of  the  discussion  focused  on  defining  key  terms  -culture,  siviciy.  and  pcruw- 
ality  -  and  how  specific  projects  bore  upon  the  relatiiMis  amon^- 
also  given  to  the  problem  of  units  and  levels  o\'  analssis,  Sapir  : 
unwieldy  a  unit  for  studies  concerned  with  personality.  His  allusion  lo  Krocbcf 
on  the  "superorganic."  and  (implicitly)  lo  his  own  critique,  shows  ihe  conlinuil)  m  lus 
thinking  on  these  issues  since  1917. 

From  the  unpublished  transcript  of  the  conference,  we  reproduce  Sapir^ 
remarks  and  summarize  the  rest  of  the  discussion.  Wc  ha\i 
minutes  of  the  1936  and  193S  meetings  i>f  tin-  r"..mmiii(.-c  nn  1' 
Culture,  established  by  the  1935  conference 

A  Subcommittee  on  Training  Jellowships.  ul  \UiiJ»  ^  '^ 

in  December  1935  and  produced  a  proposal  (apparentl>  ai  "• 

ing  selected  cultural  anthropology  students  in  psychiainc  method*.  For  i  '• 

mation  ou  that  meeting  and  its  proposal,  which  was  not  funded,  lec  Darnci 
322-26). 


328  ///   Culture 

1935  meeting 

Sapir,  as  Chair,  opened  the  meeting,  stating  that  there  would  be  no  set  agenda,  but 
he  hoped  that  the  discussion  would  be  quite  free;  and  that  the  purpose  of  the  meeting 
was  to  discuss  and  possibly  outline  a  program  for  research  in  the  subjects  included.  He 
gave  as  his  reasons  for  calling  the  group  together  his  own  interest  in  a  project  of  grow- 
ing importance  to  students  of  culture,  and  the  interest  of  Dr.  Bowman,  then  Chairman 
of  the  Council,  in  "borderland  fields." 

SAPIR.  -  This  field  seemed  particularly  well  suited  for  discussion  by  bordering 
sciences,  since  it  involves  the  cooperation  of  psychology,  psychiatry  and  medicine.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  anthropology  and  medicine  had  not  engaged  in  any  large  re- 
searches joining  their  interests,  and  that  this  is  an  obvious  one  for  such  cooperation. 
Of  course  it  is  a  wide  field,  and  we  will  want  to  define  it  a  little  more  closely.  In  view 
of  Dr.  Bowman's  interest,  it  would  seem  to  be  up  to  us  to  discuss  the  feasibility  of 
a  distinctive  program  which  we  might  present  to  the  foundations  with  some  hope  of 
being  given  a  hearing.  The  objectives  that  I  would  like  to  suggest  in  a  tentative  way 
are  two:  (1)  From  the  anthropological  standpoint,  there  is  a  great  deal  of  material 
that  goes  to  waste  in  the  ethnological  field.  The  ethnologist  is  trained  to  select  those 
types  of  behavior  that  throw  light  on  his  totality  of  pattern  of  behavior  in  a  group. 
Individual  variations  seem  more  like  interferences  with  his  discipline.  Only  a  small 
minority  of  anthropologists  in  this  country  or  any  other  are  tangibly  interested  in 
the  facts  of  individual  behavior  that  are  included  in  patterns  of  culture.  A  book  like 
Crime  and  Custom  in  Savage  Society,  by  Malinowski,  has  been  remarkably  successful, 
and  this  seems  to  indicate  a  real  interest  in  such  individual  variations.  For  instance, 
in  the  primitive  society  of  the  Plains  Indians,  all  males  were  ready  for  warfare:  but 
what  effect  would  this  have  on  individuals,  particularly,  sensitive  individuals?  We 
can  see  variations  of  individual  behavior  in  primitive  society  better  than  we  can  in 
our  own,  perhaps,  because  these  patterns  are  woven  into  our  own  lives.  This  seems 
of  the  greatest  interest  to  anthropology  and  to  psychology,  giving  them  a  common 
ground. 

[2]  From  the  psychological  standpoint  it  seems  to  me  we  suffer  from  the  projection 
of  our  own  habits  into  the  wide  open  field  of  humanity.  For  instance,  ambition  is 
often  spoken  of  as  universal,  but  this  is  part  of  the  actual  program  or  ideal  of  the 
group.  Individuals  may  overcompensate  to  the  extent  of  being  more  ambitious  than 
the  group  standard.  This  seems  to  me  of  the  greatest  interest  to  psychologists  -  the 
problems  coming  up  from  the  tendencies  of  the  individual  and  the  intention  of  ma- 
ture demands  of  the  culture  upon  him. 

We  have  now  to  present  some  sort  of  more  definite  scheme.  This  is  a  preliminary 
group  of  people  interested  in  the  field,  and  the  theme  is  open  to  you  for  discussion. 
Perhaps  Dr.  May  will  begin  by  giving  us  a  statement  as  to  the  history  of  this  project 
in  the  S.  S.  R  C.  [Social  Science  Research  Council]. 

May  reported  that  the  S.  S.  R  C.  had  formed  three  working  subcommittees:  a  group 
of  psychologists,  working  on  "cooperative  and  competitive  habits:"  a  group  working 
on  acculturation;  and  a  group  of  sociologists  whose  agenda  he  did  not  know.  The 
"habits"  group  had  sponsored  research  assistants'  work  on  various  research  projects, 
approaching  its  topic  among  children  and  adults,  locally  and  cross-culturally,  and  from 
the  perspectives  of  psychology,  anthropology,  and  sociology. 


One  Culture,  Society,  and  the  Individual  329 

Mcycr  noted  the  importance  of  cultural  dilTcrcnccs  in  rcp»rtl  to  %\ich  pff>Wcm»  u 
alcoholiNni.  Sullivan  commented  on  cultural  lactors  in  v  ^ 

of  socialization  in  pcrsonalil>  development.  Benllcy  su^^\  >^^.  >,,.,.  ...^  >iuu>  wi  imiiw 
dual  psychology  and  of  cultural  dilTerences  was  not  quite  enough; 

BENTLEY.  -  ...  Not  very  much  has  been  done  to  relate  behavior  lo  what  m«  nu) 

call  culture,  but  the  social  psychologists  will  discover  that    '  m 

the  realm  of  impersonal  beha\ior.  By  that  I  mean  he  mu-  ,{H 

of  culture:  consider  the  individual  not  as  of  a  given  culture  but  as  tx.  tto 

specific,  highly  specified  place  in  that  culture.  Here  there  may  be  w»'r».  un 
do.  but  that  is  as  far  as  I  have  gone  at  the  moment. 

SAPIR.  -  1  am  struck  with  your  statement  that  the  terms  "personal"  and  "culturt" 

are  a  useful  first  approximation  of  something  that  is  not  -  ■         -- 

me  think  oi  the  meaning  of  "culture."'  It  is  clear  that  we  u^. 

when  we  actually  go  on  with  a  subject  to  a  definite  concept.  Bui  thai  is  noi  vaywf 

that  our  concept  is  one  that  the  psychologist  or  psychiatrist  mu  '  " 

body  of  knowledge  goes  on.  but  the  concepts  are  being  constan; 

we  as  a  group  might  penetrate  into  that  field  where  the  term  culture  is  a 

There  are  three  of  these  concepts:  (1 )  society.  (2)  culture  and  (3)  behavior  It  ^uiturc 

is  something  that  society  has  actually,  to  which  the  individual  must  adapt  him^lf. 

-  but  this  is  probably  only  a  metaphor,  and  useful  as  a  metaphor.  .Another  example 

of  this  is  Dr.  Kroeber's  concept  of  the  superorganic.  .Anthropologists"    '  ••  ■     ■  ^tlc 

alluring,  is  perhaps  not  very  useful  lo  psychologists,  because  it  is  a  litr  .  uc 

for  someone  who  is  dealing  with  an  individual  as  an  individual 

BENTLEY.  -  I  am  not  sure  that  the  anthropologist  should  'us 

cultural  terms,  but  keep  his  own  point  of  view,  and  then  try  to  V  ct 

WARNER.  -  I  am  interested  in  what  Dr.  Sapir  has  said  about  the  terms  '•bch«\-iof." 
"society"  and  "culture."  and  his  reference  to  Kroebers  article   I 

not  use  culture  at  all,  but  used  the  word  social  entirely.  /Mso  h^ 

lead  lo  another  plane.  This  seems  a  paradox,  because  man  is  not  ihc  ooI>  social 
creature... 

There  continued  a  discussion  of  terminology  and  ol  units  ot  analysis,  such  a>  • 
race,  family,  individual,  or  some  unit  within  the  individual. 

SAPIR.  -  It  seems  to  me  this  insi.stence  on  a  definition  of  unit  a  sound,  and  il 
makes  me  feel  doubtful  of  studying  a  single  characteristic   '  '< 

as  defined  would  be  so  much  saturated  with  cultural  inllu.:. *< 

difficulty  in  picking  it  out.  Also.  I  think  we  should  have  a  smaller  unit  than  "v. 

It  seems  to  me  a  study  of  an  individu.il  or  a  very  sm  ■  * 

particular  family,  would  be  more  hopeful   Tins  kind '•'  -^ 

up. 

WARNER.  -  ...  It  is  quite  necessary  that  we  put  a  greater  emphasts  o«  ihc  s* 

within  the  culture  or  the  society. 

SAPIR    -  Do  you  mean  deviation  from  a  given  norm,  or  n  crrtsm  «Mmito 

Take  a  certain  activity:  se.xual  relations  between  men 

tyr>e  of  relation,  but  among  the  individuals  you  mav  i.... 

norm  and  the  others  varying  from  it.  Is  there  a  norm' 


330  ///   Culture 

SULLIVAN.  -  Sexual  inlcrcoursc  in  marriage  might  approach  the  irrelevant,  but 
in  the  individual  it  would  be  of  great  importance,  particularly  to  the  psychiatrist. 
We  do  find  people  who  are  entirely  incapable  to  adapt  to  the  circumstances,  but 
most  of  the  indi\iduals  do  get  along... 
WARNER.  -  You  still  have  two  groups  segregated  out. 

SULLIVAN.  -  It  seems  to  me  rather  a  vast  individual  variation.  You  discover  peo- 
ple who  are  startled  by  the  unusual  in  sexual  relations,  but  in  that  group  you  have 
a  slowly  mounting  change  from  the  other  group. 

MAY.  -  In  regard  to  the  size  of  the  unit,  we  must  have  a  manageable  unit,  small 
enough  for  that,  but  still  large  enough  to  be  scientifically  useful.  Here  we  may  ask 
for  a  unit  that  is  most  relevant  to  what  we  are  trying  to  find.  We  may  have  to  go 
beyond  what  is  involved  actually  physically,  but  instead  to  comprehend  all  that  is 
relevant  we  choose  a  distinct  unit  for  the  purpose. 

SAPIR.  -  There  is  a  certain  danger  in  being  sure  that  verbally  comparable  terms 
are  actually  comparable.  In  the  matter  of  marriage,  if  you  start  from  the  large  scale 
of  marriage,  you  are  going  to  have  an  entirely  different  concept  from  that  of  psychol- 
ogy. Still  we  can  classify  them  as  examples  of  the  same  kind  of  a  process.  But  whether 
they  really  are  at  all  the  same?  In  one  it  may  be  an  adjustment  to  society,  and  in 
another  an  utterly  individual  type  from  the  standpoint  of  the  other  pair.  If  you  are 
to  talk  about  the  kind  of  marriage  as  being  a  certain  type  of  event,  there  is  not  a 
single  type  of  culture  that  can  be  taken  for  granted.  All  culture  is  due  for  a  grilling 
review  from  this  point  of  view. 

MAY.  -  Is  there  any  hope  that  we  can  arrive  at  an  agreement  upon  terms;  for 
instance,  as  marriage  may  be  only  the  number  of  documents  signed,  or  you  can 
discuss  it  as  a  psychological  relationship.  Is  there  any  hope  of  agreeing  on  a  set  of 
categories  with  which  we  can  work? 

SAPIR.  —  It  seems  to  me  the  categories  are  of  small  importance  except  as  we  agree 
to  use  them  by  a  consensus.  The  variability  of  meanings  and  therefore  of  cultures  in 
the  long  run  is  due  to  break  down.  I  hope  some  investigations  can  be  made  of  the 
ideal  world  that  will  lend  color  to  this  development  of  culture.  You  can  take  nothing 
for  granted,  once  you  ask  questions  about  the  meanings  of  terms  in  culture,  the 
operations  of  speaking  are  exact,  but  what  objective  validity  this  has  cannot  be 
answered.  I  don't  see  why  culture  should  escape  this  kind  of  analysis.  Therefore  we 
must  address  ourselves  to  the  very  definite  task  of  descriptive  consideration  of  ideas 
and  cultures  in  definite  individuals.  We  will  eventually  arrive  at  culture  as  a  tendency 
toward  a  larger  grouping  of  ideas.  We  have  said  nothing  so  far  about  the  types  of 
personality,  and  the  relevance  of  that  concept  for  a  study  of  culture. 

BENTLEY.  -  Is  there  some  group  of  problems  that  grows  out  of  these  two  terms 
as  grouped?  Why  were  the  terms  put  together?  Do  you  mean  nothing  more  than 
culture  and  the  individuals  concerned  in  it? 

SAPIR.  -  More  than  that,  I  should  think  -  the  tidying  up  of  genesis  of  this  sort  of 
problem.  If  the  term  "the  individual"  has  the  same  connotations  for  you  as  for  me, 
nothing  is  gained.  But  I  find  there  is  a  great  deal  of  variation  in  the  use  of  the  terms. 
They  both  have  all  sorts  of  overtones. 


One  Culture.  SocU'ty.  anJ  the  Itutivtdual 

Ihc  discussion  uiiiK-d  lo  tin.-  icrm  ■■[XTsonaliiy."  Sullivun  prupi>«cd  thai  ihu  unit 
involves  "'biology  plus  meaning"    -   the  meaning  bcmg  dependent  on.  and  manifest 

in,  the  individiiaTs  social  environment.  Not  everyone  found  t!.      '  '  c 

Bingham  suggested  thinking  about  these  terms  m  relatii>n  to  ,  >». 

lems,  siicii  as  iIk-  sIlk1\  oI  ui>ikcrs  nu>\ing  mio  the  Tennessee  Vallcs 

SAPIR.       In  other  words  \ou  wi>uld  want  these  definitions  pn>\al  b\  •■  .|. 

ness  in  a  certain  project.  What  we  call  culture  ma>  be  the  dillusum  ol  ;  ^. 

Or  you  would  ask  uiiai  arc  (he  elTeels  of  personality  of  individuals  on  if  n 

the  Tennessee  \allcy,  I  think,  though,  that  the  skeptical  remarks  ar  tt 

bringing  forward  the  need  of  concentration  on  some  one  lorm  t»f  dcp.i. »a 

that  we  test  ilic  \aluc  o\  the  terms  in  terms  of  their  usefulness  lo  ihc  indiMdual 
worker.  Ma\  1  also  suggest  that  we  set  up  sets  o\'  pri>blems '  ( I )  We  i-  v 

an  indi\idual  in  his  placement,  but  \\o\  study  the  cultures  from  a  ps>^-  il 

o\'  \iew  all  o\er  again,  but  siud\  the  group  as  to  the  genesis  of  his  ch.i'  \. 

going  out  into  his  group  il  nccessar\.  I'hen  take  together  interrclalionshi|)s  ot  (tuac 
indixiduals  with  others.  ... 

SL'LLIVAN.  -  In  your  remarks  is  inherent  the  fact  that  wc  arc  not  so  much  inlcf- 
ested  in  extreme  dilTerences  but  the  smaller  differences  that  we  might  be  aWe  lo 

actually  do  something  with. 

SAPIR.  -  Yes.  My  guess  is  thai  it  would  not  be  very  fruitful  lo  contrast  violently 
dilTerent  societies  as  such.  As  an  example:  the  West  Coast  Indians  arc  spoken  o{  as 

the  businessmen  o^  the  primitive  Americans.  But  when  we  study  this  we  '  *»c 

does  entirely  dilTerent  things  than  we  do  with  the  gold  or  mone>  ihal  he  n— .  A. 

The  "status"  that  he  reaches  is  quite  dilTerent  from  ours.  Thus,  there  is  no  direct 

ci>niparison. 

The  afternoon  session  of  the  conference  focused  on  administrati\e  w  n 

noted  that  the  Division  had  always  preferred  very  specific  research  ; 
maintained  that  the  conferees  were  not  yet  in  a  position  lo  undertake  .1 
but  wore  now  "'discussing  the  possibility  of  framing  and  continui; 
ral."  Il  was  proposed  that  the  conference  carry  on  as  a  pcrmanei;;  -  ^ 

might  later  propose  specific  projects  or  subcommittees  for  support  from  it  I 

The  size  and  name  of  a  permanent  committee  was  discussed   I'-  c 

study  of  personality  among  American  Indians,  in  China,  li '^ 

brielly  mentioned.  After  calling  for  ain  further  prop<.)sals.  Sapir  asked 

SAPIR.  -  Is  it  the  consensus  of  the  group  that  we  should  undertake  the 

the  individual  as  the  unil,  not  to  dodge  the  mslilulion  as  such,  but  appi 

the  point  of  view  o!"  the  mdiMdual.' 

WARNER.  -  I  agree,  though  m>  own  inleresls  have  been  quite  oppimie  Tht%«cfm 

to  me  very  important,  particularly  at  the  present  moment   I  dt^  ■ 

come  a  time  when  we  shall  have  to  consider  ihe  problem  i>l  i. 

that  has  been  diMie  in  the  other  field  to  what  wc  shall  be  allcmplinf;  I  l» 

we  should  emphasi/e  rather  ci>ncrete  projects 

SAPIR.       This  sounds  \er\  encouraL'ing  lo  me,  iv 

general  opinion  ol  social  anthrojiologisis  who  arc 


332  ///   Cult  lire 

WOODWORTH.  -  II  seems  to  me  that  where  the  anthropologists  are  studying 
would  be  a  very  good  plaee  to  eome  in  -  places  that  are  already  pretty  well  known 
from  the  institutional  side  -  and  undertake  there  the  individual  side. 

With  this  general  agreement  on  the  basic  approach,  the  conference  participants  for- 
mally \oted  to  recommend  the  establishment  of  a  permanent  Committee  on  Personality 
in  Relation  to  Culture,  with  a  subcommittee  to  canvass  projects  already  underway  in 
the  field  and  prepare  an  agenda  for  the  first  meeting  of  the  full  committee. 

1 936  meeting 

A  Committee  on  Personality  in  Relation  to  Culture,  chaired  by  Sapir,  was  duly 
formed,  as  was  a  Subcommittee  on  Fellowships,  chaired  by  Harry  Stack  Sullivan.  In 
February  1936  the  Subcommittee,  in  which  Sapir  participated  ex  officio,  presented  to 
the  Division  a  "Proposal  for  Training  of  Four  Cultural  Anthropologists  and  Others  in 
the  Methods  of  Personality  Study."  The  proposal  was  not  approved  by  the  Division's 
Executi\e  Committee,  partly  because  it  had  been  submitted  by  the  Subcommittee  with- 
out ratification  by  the  full  Committee,  and  partly  because  of  its  strong  emphasis  on 
psychoanalysis. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Committee  on  October  25.  1936,  Dr.  W.  S.  Hunter.  Chairman 
of  the  Division,  explained  why  the  proposal  had  been  rejected.  Sapir  commented  that 
"the  Subcommittee  had  intended  this  psychoanalytical  training  of  anthropologists  as 
merely  a  beginning."  The  group  agreed  that  the  topic  was  of  sufficient  interest  to  war- 
rant a  modified  project,  with  a  less  specialized  beginning.  After  a  discussion  of  financial 
issues,  the  committee  voted  to  try  to  form  interdisciplinary  seminars  in  their  own  insti- 
tutions. Post-doctoral  students  would  be  nominated  by  committee  members  as  deserv- 
ing of  special  training,  and  the  committee  would  try  to  help  them  obtain  funding. 

1938  meeting 

The  Committee  on  Personality  in  Relation  to  Culture  had  also  set  up  a  Subcommit- 
tee whose  task  was  to  develop  a  "Handbook  of  Psychological  Leads  for  Ethnological 
Field  Workers."  This  subcommittee  was  chaired  by  A.  Irving  Hallowell.  At  the  full 
committee's  meeting  on  January  29,  1938,  Hallowell  reported  on  the  progress  of  his 
project  and  raised  once  again  the  matter  of  the  training  program  which  had  been  disap- 
proved by  the  Division.  The  Committee  members  commended  Hallowell's  efforts.  They 
agreed  that  the  idea  of  a  training  program  should  not  be  abandoned,  but  postponed 
any  definite  plans  until  after  a  survey  of  existing  institutional  programs,  especially  inter- 
disciplinary efforts,  should  have  been  made. 

Sapir's  health  did  not  permit  him  to  attend  the  1938  meeting  of  the  committee. 
Before  the  meeting,  however,  the  committee's  Chair  (now  Lloyd  Warner)  had  called  on 
all  members  to  submit  written  statements  on  what  general  policies  and  specific  actions 
the  Committee  should  adopt  for  the  future.  Sapir's  response  is  recorded  in  the  minutes 
of  the  meeting  as  follows: 

Mr.  Sapir  believed  that  in  all  stages  of  the  work  the  emphasis  of  our  Committee 
"should  be  on  the  individual,  not  on  culture  or  society  as  such." 

That  "we  should  encourage  an  exhaustive  study  of  individual  cases  that  have  a 
bearing  on  cultural  or  social  problems,  but  would  manifest  little  interest  in  wholesale 
statistical  studies  of  behavior  patterns  in  selected  societies." 


One:  Culture.  Society,  and  the  InJivuhuil  333 

Thai  il  was  advisable  lo  keep    in  close  louch  wnh  psychuitru  ur Jc%  m  ..fvlcf  (.> 
encourage  community  of  interesi  between  social  scicntx  and  ps 

That  this  might  mean  practically  encouraging  "adequate  p^)vhutIu.  iramm^  oi 
sociological  and  anthropological  students." 

He  believes  that  the  original  traming  program,  perhaps  in  a  nuHlified  fonn,  %ht>uld 
be  continued  by  the  larger  committee  and  that  the  Chairman  of  •'     •  ,^ 

should  continue  to  be  in  touch  with  such  agencies  as  ma>  help  i  .rl 

o\'  that  program. 

He  lelt  it  imporlanl  that  llallouell  go  on  with  his  bi)t)k    •■-     ?»■>»•■' ■  |  -.  • 

for  Ethnological  Field  Workers." 


The  Application  of  AnlhropoloLiN  Id  lliiiiian  KcLiiiuns 

(1936)  ^' 

EdiUnial  InlroduclKMi 

This  essay  was  written  for  The  American  Way,  a  \oIuinc  cdilcJ  by 
N.  D.  Baker,  C.J.  H.  Hayes  and  R.  W.  Strauss,  concerning  relations 
among  Catholics,  Protestants  and  Jews  in  the  Iniied  States.  In  ihc 
1930's,  pubHc  discussion  o\^  those  relaiicuis  ol'tcii  invoked  a  concept  of 
race  -  inappropriately,  in  Sapir's  view.  In  this  paper  he  defended  the 
Boasian  position  that  race  is  a  biological  category  which  cannot  anal\/c 
social  relations;  he  tlatly  denied  that  there  was  ans  evidence  for  the 
existence  of  an  Aryan  race,  a  pseudo-categors  that  had  become  increas- 
ingly important  with  the  rise  of  the  Nazi  government  in  Cierman>.  Sapir 
proposed  a  more  scientific  as  well  as  a  more  humane  notion  o\  *  'y 

in  human  history,  focusing  on  culture  rather  than  race.  He  cl.....v....d 
social  scientists  to  intluence  public  opinion,  revising  group  sterct^ispcs 
and  acknowledging  the  power  of  cultural  tradition 

Sapir's  historical  dynamic  relied  on  the  dilTerent  ■siani"  ol  various 
cultures  in  history.  Projection  o[^  cultural  values  from  one  system  of 
meaning  to  another  was  meaningless.  Appreciation  o^  other  cultures 
was  possible  only  in  their  own  terms.  In  the  course  oi  making  this 
argument,  Sapir  offered  a  definition  of  culture  that  cryslalii/cd  some  of 

the  ideas  he  had  been  working  with  in  presentations  for  r "  s- 

sional  audiences.  His  statements  in  this  essay  can  be  comp^; .  ;> 

discussions  in  other  papers  on  culture  theory,  as  well  as  Part  I  of  The 
Psyc/ioloi^y  of  Culture. 


The  Application  of  Anihropologv  to  Human  Relations 

In  a  concept  o['  race  the  view  o\  the  anthropologist  will  be  seen  to 
differ  from  the  view  of  the  man  on  the  street. 

To  the  scientist,  grouping  o\'  human  beings  according  to  race  may  be 
contrasted  with  nonracial  types  o\'  grouping.  For  example,  cultural 


336  ///  Culture 

groups  (composed  of  individuals  having  common  interests),  national 
groups,  political  groups,  religious  groups,  and  linguistic  groups,  are  not 
racial  di\  isions.  These  groups  have  social  existence.  Race  is  not  a  social 
concept  but  a  biological  concept.  Race  is  a  biological  fact  which  gives 
the  mind  o\'  man  or  spirit  of  man  a  chance  to  operate. 

All  the  tangible  groups  with  which  we  have  to  deal  are  social  groups. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  French,  German,  Russian,  Anglo-Saxon  or 
Jew  ish  race.  The  so-called  Anglo-Saxon  race,  for  example,  is  a  mixture 
o(  Celts,  Angles,  Saxons,  Jutes,  Vikings,  Normans  and  pre-Nordic 
stocks.  Therefore,  to  talk  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  is  sheer  nonsense. 
All  that  one  can  say  is  that  here  is  a  group  of  people  of  diverse  biologi- 
cal inheritance  tied  together  by  cultural  bonds  and  rationalizing  their 
cultural  commonality  by  the  [122]  inventing  of  a  physical  basis  for  it. 
It  is  like  giving  a  genealogy  to  the  physical  basis  of  an  idea. 

Nevertheless,  the  anthropologist  by  observation  and  measurement  is 
able  roughly  to  divide  the  people  of  Europe  into  three  more  or  less 
typical  biological  types:  (1)  the  Nordic,  which  predominates  in  the 
north;  (2)  the  Alpine,  which  predominates  in  the  central  part  of  Europe, 
and  (3)  the  Mediterranean,  which  inhabits  the  southern  part.  But  even 
here  the  anthropologist  can  make  only  a  rough  classification  because 
of  the  effect  of  climate,  food  and  other  prevailing  forces  in  the  environ- 
ment. The  Nordic  stock,  for  instance,  predominates  in  Scandinavia, 
Scotland  and  north  Germany.  But  a  majority  of  Germans,  particularly 
in  the  south,  belong  to  the  Alpine  stock,  to  which  group  the  French 
people  also  largely  belong. 

So  far  as  the  so-called  Aryan  race,  of  which  we  hear  much  today,  is 
concerned,  it  was  not  talked  of  until  100  or  150  years  ago.  Sanskrit  was 
discovered  and  studied  by  western  scholars  who  were  impressed  by  its 
close  kinship  with  the  Armenian,  Greek,  Latin,  Slavic,  Baltic,  Germanic 
and  Celtic  languages.  From  the  Sanskrit  word  meaning  "one  of  noble 
birth"  the  adjective  Aryan  was  derived  and  applied  to  these  languages. 
Then  it  was  conjectured  that  a  race  once  existed  which  spoke  the  primi- 
tive Aryan  language  and  to  this  imagined  race  was  given  the  name  Ar- 
yan. There  followed,  of  course,  much  vain  speculation  regarding  the 
place  where  such  a  race  originally  lived.  There  is  no  more  evidence  that 
such  a  race  lived  in  central  Europe  than  there  is  that  it  lived  in  Armenia, 
or  in  other  places. 

Thus  it  is  seen  that  the  anthropologist,  who  works  with  objective 
data,  is  forced  to  class  together  peoples  of  radically  different  cultural 
ideals  and  even  those  who  regard  each  other  with  intense  hatred.  [123] 


O/w:  Culture.  Sociciy.  anJ  the  Indivuluul  337 

Contrariwise,  ihcic  exists  a  popular  notion  of  race,  in  ihc  familv 
relationship  we  learn  to  think  of  those  who  are  nearest  us  and  mow  like 
us  as  being  related  to  us  h\  ties  o\'  hKuul  i  he  popular  notion  of  race  is 
an  extension  of  this  feeling  to  those  with  whom  we  share  a  common 
eulture,  so  that  we  come  to  feel  that  we  are  hound  together  b\  c'  1 

biological  ties.  This  is  the  notion  o\'  race  uhkh  is  m  \.mmi,-   h;.,,  ,. 

masses  today. 

Many  people  believe  that  lhe>  can  icll  what  race  a  |>erson  belongs  lo 
by  looking  at  him.  But  this  may  be  easily  refuted  by  the  reflcx-lion  thai 
a  good  actor  may  cleverly  imitate  members  o\'  other  groups  in  a  con- 
vincing manner  without  lengthening  the  head  or  changing  the  color  of 
the  eye.  The  truth  is  that  what  are  popularly  taken  as  racial  charactens- 
tics  are  really  cultural.  They  are  social,  luu  biological  at  all.  No  racial 
group  has  functional  unity.  Social  groupings  furnish  the  basis  for  func- 
tional unity.  Race  is  a  biological  concept  and  cuts  across  all  t>pr--  -•»■ 
social  groupings.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  not  race  that  draws  p. 
together  but  a  common  culture. 

The  term  culture  is  ambiguous.  It  has  one  meaning  in  goixl  l.ngliNh 
usage  but  quite  a  different  meaning  when  used  as  a  technical  term  by 
the  anthropologist.  In  ordinary  speech  it  refers  to  the  higher  things  of 
life  such  as  education,  music  and  good  manners:  in  short,  to  things 
upon  which  we  put  value.  The  anthropologist,  however.  ust*s  the  term 
to  refer  to  the  results  of  human  history  without  implsing  \alue  as  a 
distinguishing  characteristic.  Cultural  acti\it>,  scientil'icallN  speaking,  i* 
(1)  any  type  of  behavior  historically  transnniied  b\  the  action  of  mind 
on  mind,  or  (2)  any  activity  which  is  the  pri>perty  oi  the  group  rather 
than  of  the  individual. 

An  example  of  the  first  meaning  o[  cultural  acii\it>  ma>  •  .• 
found  in  the  way  in  which  a  person  gives  expression  lo  his  cr..  ..  ■> 
What  would  be  a  very  extreme  expression  of  emotion  for  a  cultivated 
Japanese  gentleman  would  he  oiil>  a  mild  expression  for  most  Ameri- 
cans. Therefore,  before  estimating  the  meaning  o\  behasuu  owe  nuisi 
know  something  about  the  cultural  backgnnmd  o\  the  indiMdual  vUu»se 
behavior  is  being  interpreted. 

The  second  meaning  of  cultural  acti\ii>  ma\  be  illustrated  b>  lan- 
guage. Take  the  word  ■•lahle."  An  i!idi\idual  cannot  own  the  word 
ble"  as  he  can  own  a  luhlc  The  \\o\\\  is  the  prt>peri>  ol  ^ 
activities  of  an  individual  may  help  to  change,  but  can  nc-..  >.. 
determine  the  fate  o\'  ihimzs  which  belong  to  s^Kiety  as  a  whole.  (>     • 


338  ///  Culture 

social  acli\ily  can  do  this  and  more  often  than  not  the  unconscious 

influences  are  more  powerful  than  the  conscious. 
The  conclusions  from  these  observations  are: 

-  1 .  An  event  or  element  of  culture  can  be  understood  and  rightly  inter- 
preted only  in  the  light  of  its  historical  and  cultural  context; 

-2.  The  meaning  of  an  individual's  behavior  can  be  correctly  estimated 
only  by  reference  to  the  ways  of  expression  which  are  characteristic 
of  the  group  of  which  he  is  a  part; 

-3.  There  is  a  tendency  to  overestimate  what  can  be  done  to  accom- 
plish cultural  changes  by  conscious  educational  processes; 

-4.  It  is  impossible  to  judge  one  culture  by  values  which  are  imported 
from  another. 

Early  anthropology  was  not  interested  in  individuals.  Spencer,  and 
those  who  followed  him,  spoke  of  cultural  or  social  evolution  and  re- 
garded the  development  of  culture  as  passing  naturally  through  certain 
inevitable  stages.  The  [125]  fact  that  in  North  America  the  aborigines 
developed  agriculture  without  passing  through  the  pastoral  stage  is  only 
one  example  of  many  facts  which  discredit  such  a  theory.  The  emphasis 
on  the  social  determination  of  cultural  development  was  important  as 
a  corrective  of  an  older  point  of  view  which  regarded  culture  as  fash- 
ioned by  great  individuals,  but  needs  now  to  be  again  corrected  by 
recognizing  the  importance  of  the  contributions  of  individuals. 

In  a  well-integrated  form  or  part  of  culture  the  individual  is  to  a 
large  extent  subordinated  to  influences  from  without  but  all  institutions 
inevitably  change  because  no  individual  will  or  can  reproduce  a  cultural 
pattern  exactly  as  he  learned  it. 

Changes  in  the  cultural  pattern,  therefore,  inevitably  appear  and  are 
communicated  through  the  influence  of  social  suggestion.  Psychology 
is  therefore  tremendously  important  in  the  study  of  culture.  And  due  to 
this  influence  of  the  individual  in  cultural  development  the  impersonal- 
ity of  culture  must  be  tempered  by  the  recognition  and  harmony  both 
of  individual  influence  and  the  influence  of  fortuitous  events. 

Cultures  do  not  refer  to  actual  groups  of  human  beings  but  to  imagi- 
nary groups.  For  example,  there  is  no  culture  of  the  United  States  of 
America  as  a  whole.  Of  course,  for  some  purposes  there  are  cultural 
facts  which  can  be  referred  to  such  a  geographical  entity  -  such  as  the 
use  of  the  post  office.  But  there  are  always  groupings  within  any  larger 
group  which  are  not  entirely  at  home  in  the  life  of  the  whole  and  are 
at  least  in  some  if  not  in  many  respects  at  odds  with  other  groups. 


One  C  'ulturc.  Socicly.  and  ilw  huiivUluul  339 

The  analysis  o{  ihc  siniplcsi  kiiiJ  o\  luiinaii  bcha\u>r  uould  lead  \o 
ihc  tarlhcsl  p<irl  o\  ilic  iilobc  aiul  Id  ihc  most  (126]  ancicnl  human 
practices.  Cultures  arc  lun  dc\  clopcil  in  packets  but  arc  now  undcp»tiHKl 
to  be  more  universal.  Springuii:  Worn  a  few  centers  cultures  become 
speciahzed  and  through  cross-terlili/alion  are  agani  transformed. 

The  arts  o\^  chipping  stone,  o\'  niching  metals,  ol"  nu>klmg  poller); 
o{  domesticating  animals,  of  growing  grains,  were  ne\er  the  exclusive 
property  o\'  any  race  or  group  but  were  borrowetl  and  used  by  all  or 
nearly  all  primiti\e  peoples.  Even  folk  tales,  which  are  among  the  mosl 
stubborn  cultural  traits,  show  the  inlluence  o{  people  ow  pci>ple.  An 
example  o{  this  is  the  fair)  tale  o\'  the  magic  flight  episode  which  is  to 
be  tbund  among  the  folk  tales  o^  primitive  peoples  form  Japan  acro^ 
the  Bering  Straits  to  the  Amazon  Ri\er. 

Therefore,  to  ask  who  created  wluit.  is  relati\el>  unuiiportanl.  To 
push  a  button  and  turn  on  an  electric  light  requires  no  more  intelligence 
than  to  give  a  war  whoop  and  lun  so  much  as  to  make  a  fire  with  flinl 
and  stone.  But  he  who  pushes  the  button      the  electrician,  ilu-  t 

and  the  physicist,  all  alike  -  use  onl\  the  tools  and  the  accu. .J 

wisdom  of  the  group. 

In  summary,  then:  ( 1 )  The  kind  o\'  phssical  ov  intellectual  tools  which 
a  group  uses  at  a  given  time  is  no  indication  o\'  racial  intelligence  The 
technology  which  is  the  proud  boast  of  man\  modern  \sesiern  nations 
is  the  product,  not  of  nations,  but  o\'  h\s\ov\  o{  the  whole  of  human- 
ity. Nations  of  the  West  arc  the  temporal)  custodians  of  loots  which 
may  pass  into  the  keeping  o\^  what  arc  now  regarded  as  ver>  b  I 

peoples.  And  it  is  conceivable  that  lhe\  ma\  m^t  i\o  so  badly  wm^  .wciu 
as  we.  It  is  an  outright  impertinence  to  ascribe  the  cumulaii\e  culture 
of  the  whole  race  to  the  genius  t^f  one  culture.  \\y\ 

(2)  The  planning  of  a  culture  is  not  so  easy  as  the  planning  of  hn/ 
This  is  because  our  emotions  are  in\c>l\ed.  The  intelligence  in  r'  • 

is  only  a  small  fraction  o\^  the  determining  facti>rs.    Hk-  un..  i^ 

intluences  in  cultural  change  arc  more  powerful  than  the  conscious.  We 
need  more  knowledge  and  some  da>  ue  may  have  it.  Meantime  wc  musi 
seek  it. 

(3)  A  new  kind  o\^  history  teaching  is  needed  lo  tell  children  of  the 
little  battles  o\'  the  American  Revolution  is  so  much  less  important  • 

to  teach  them  the  origin  o\'  poilcr>  and  the  relation  of  I  heir  gamo  lo 
the  life  of  primitive  man.  Ihc  function  of  education  is  not  ' 
or  that  kind  o\'  ideal  citizen  but  to  deliver  men  from  pro\..- 
trace  the  history  o\~  human  culture  from  its  beginnings  lo  ihc 


340  ///  Culture 

to  show  ihal  no  idea  and  no  technique  exists  that  does  not  involve  the 
whole  history  of  the  race. 

Cultures  dilTer  not  only  in  details  but  in  general  slant,  or  meaning  in 
the  psychological  sense.  Therefore  they  may  be  classified  not  only  on 
the  basis  of  detailed  characteristics,  but  on  the  basis  of  controlling  ideas. 

Examples  of  controlling  ideas  in  cultures  are  as  follows: 

( 1 )  Tinu'-Sctisc,  according  to  Spengler,  is  one  of  the  master  ideas  of 
western  culture.  We  have  an  amazing  sense  of  time.  It  is  a  pattern  of 
living.  It  is  illustrated  by  an  Institute  of  Human  Relations  which,  while 
it  is  primarily  intended  to  promote  understanding  and  good  will  among 
those  who  are  gathered  together,  nevertheless  is  organized  according  to 
the  strictest  time  schedule.  And,  of  course,  this  interferes  with  the  free- 
dom and  spontaneity  of  the  life  of  the  spirit  in  making  its  discovery  of 
others. 

Moreover,  this  involves  a  philosophy  of  society.  We  say  that  the 
North  American  Indian  wastes  time.  He  knows  [128]  the  value  of  time 
because  he  can  hurry  if  he  needs  to.  But  according  to  our  standards  he 
wastes  time.  His  culture  does  not  include  in  the  same  way  as  ours  what 
for  us  is  the  controlling  idea  of  time.  Hence  we  have  a  clash  of  funda- 
mental feelings  as  we  pass  from  our  culture  to  another.  The  guests,  and 
particularly  the  hostess,  do  not  look  at  their  watches  at  tea.  The  good 
administrator  sometimes  breaks  the  rules  of  the  time  game  -  he  wastes 
a  lot  of  time.  The  prince  and  the  peasant  meet  in  their  defiance  o{  the 
master  idea  of  bourgeois  society. 

(2)  The  idea  of  measure,  so  fundamental  in  the  life  of  the  ancient 
Greeks,  so  important  in  the  culture  o'i  modern  France,  so  characteristic 
of  the  life  of  the  Far  East,  is  not  honored  in  our  Anglo-Saxon  culture. 
It  is  not  possible  for  an  American  business  man  to  understand  the 
iMcnchman  who  retires  from  business  even  while  he  is  a  young  man  and 
has  every  chance  to  "make  a  killing."  It  conllicts  with  the  urge  of  duty 

the  desire  to  go  on,  to  work,  to  use  his  powers  in  his  chosen  field  o^ 
labor.  But  the  American  cannot  conimimicate  his  sense  of  the  value  o^ 
work  to  one  who  docs  not  understand  the  American  culture  with  this 
master  idea. 

(.^)  ///(•  lilca  oj  Holiness  is  a  third  example  of  a  controlling  idea.  The 
.lewish  culture  is  saturated  with  the  itiea  of  holiness.  It  is  like  a  collecti\e 
phobia  that  if  you  <\o  not  behave  yourself  every  minute  of  the  day  you 
cannot  come  into  the  presence  o^  the  Almighty.  This  idea  can  be  con- 
veyed to  the  more  strict  Christian  but  it  is  mere  madness  to  the  Chinese, 


One:  Culture.  Society,  and  the  Individual  jl4 1 

just  as  iwo  minutes  more  or  two  minutes  less  is  madness  to  the  North 
American  Indian. 

(4)  The  Jazz  Stotif.  "pepping  it  up."  the  sense  of  exciting,  tingling 
pleasure  is  another  master  idea  of  American  [12^]  culture.  Some  people 
cannot  enjoy  music  without  "jazzing"  it.  This  tendency  is  seen  in  the 
sensationalism  o\'  all  the  arts  and  of  literature. 

(5)  The  Idea  of  Democracy  is  necessarily  a  controlling  idea  in  a  culture 
where  democracy  is  also  a  master  idea.  Because  of  this  idea  quality  has 
to  be  sacrificed  to  increase  quantitati\e  participation. 

In  sum,  then,  cultures  will  be  vastly  ditTerent  according  to  the  kind 
o\^  \alues  which  are  served  by  their  master  ideas.  A  rule  o\'  intergroup 
conduct  might  be  stated  this  way:  If  you  do  not  understand  another  do 
not  project  your  own  values  and  judge  him  by  them  at  once,  but  seek 
to  understand  his  behavior  in  the  light  of  his  culture,  its  histor\  and  its 
master  ideas.  This  is  a  bit  chillx.  It  ma\  postpone  activity.  It  gives  pa- 
tience to  understand.  It  means  appreciation. 


Editorial  Notes 

Originally  published  in  Baker,  Newton  Diehl.  J.  II.  Hayes,  and  Roger 
Williams  Strauss  (eds.),  7 he  American  Way:  A  Siudv  of  Human  Rcla- 
lions  among  Protestants.  Catholics  and  Jews  (Chicago  and  Nevs  York: 
Willett,  Clark,  1936),  121-129. 


The  Conlribulion  of  Psychialr\  lo  an  rndcisuindini: 
o(  Behavior  in  St>ciel\  ( 1937) 

Editc^rial  lmroducnc)ii 

This  paper  appeared  in  a  special  issue  oi   liic  Anuruan  J  7 

Sociology  (based  in  the  University  of  C'hieagc)  sociology  dc{\.... i) 

addressing  the  relationship  between  sociology  and  psychiatry.  Most  of 
the  contributors  were  psychiatrists;  Sapir,  along  with  Chicago  social 
psychologist  Herbert  Blunier.  represented  thesi>cial  sciences,  ft         '    t 

papers  both  Sapir  and  Bluiner  nia\  be  seen  as  s>nibolic  inlcra^; .*. 

showing  clear  conceptual  links  to  other  scholars  of  that  school  such  as 
George  Herbert  Mead,  as  well  as  ccMitinuiiies  \o  a  Liter  symbohc  and 
interpretive  anthropology. 

This  paper's  connection  w  ith  symbolic  interaclionisis  is  pcrhapN  most 
clearly  evidenced  in  the  concluding  passage,  with  its  suggestion  that 
culture  and  society  emerge  from  -  or  at  least  are  alTcvlcd  by  -  ihc  use 
of  symbols  in  social  interaction.  Sapir  developed  this 

what  further  in  his  1937  lectures  for  The  Psychohiiy  <»/  (  f 

10;  this  volume),  where  he  linked  it  with  Harry  Stack  Sulli\ar. 
personal  relations,"  as  the  middle  iiround  tvt\seen  cultural  an(hropt>l- 
ogy  and  psychiatry. 

Much  of  the  present  paper,  howexer.  uas  de\iMed  \o  cautioning  ukuI 
scientists  against  hasty  applications  o\'  psychiatric  concepts  to  whole 
societies  and  cultures.  Sapir  lauded  some  o\  the  steps  psschialn-  and 
social  science  had  taken  in  the  direction  ol  mutual  inter 

atry  had  liberated  itself  from  a  rigidly  biological  to  a; .,  -^ 

point  of  view,  while  ethnographers,  for  their  part,  had  Icarncil  t. 
scribe  other  cultural  worlds  in  ways  that  would  permit  p^ychlat^^• 
appreciate  the  relativity  of  customs  and  meanings    Mm.  h 

trists  and  social  scientists  were  inclined  \o  characlen/c  wl.   • -  - 

in  the  same  terms  as  the  psycholog)   o{  particular  indi\idu.iU    S»K-h 
short-cuts  credulously  confused  le\els  of  analysis  and  failed  to  i 
that  society  consisted  o\'  the  actual  relationships  o\'  m.c 

Implicitly,  Sapir  was  attacking  the  sMMk  o\  Rulh  Ik;.... 
garet  Mead,  in  a  critique  he  made  explicit  in  his  kvlurcs  on 


344  IJJ  Culture 

oiiv  of  Culture,  as  well  as  in  correspondence  (see  his  letter  to  Philip 
Selznick,  this  volume).  Despite  the  'literary  suggestiveness"  of  their 
mode  of  equating  individual  and  group  psychology,  individual  and  soci- 
ety were  not  reconcilable  by  such  superficial  metaphors  and  inapplicable 
psychological  generalizations. 

The  omission  of  this  paper  from  the  1949  collection  of  Sapir's  works, 
Selected  Writins^s  of  Edward  Sapir,  has  perhaps  obscured  the  difference 
between  Sapir's  approach  and  that  of  Benedict,  Mead,  and  their  succes- 
sors in  the  "culture  and  personality"  school. 


The  Contribution  of  Psychiatry  to  an  Understanding 
of  Behavior  in  Society 

Abstract 

Psychiatrists  are  becoming  more  aware  of  the  social  component  in  conduct  while 
social  scientists  are  becoming  more  aware  of  the  concerns  of  psychiatry.  The  concept 
of  "interpersonal  relations"  constitutes  a  good  meeting-ground.  Psychiatrists,  largely 
due  to  the  problems  with  which  their  science  began,  have  been  excessively  individualistic 
and  have  tended  to  regard  as  universal  and  invariant,  modes  of  conduct  found  only  in 
certain  cultures.  In  the  rebound  from  this  view  it  is  necessary  to  avoid  the  dangers  of 
"sociologism"  which  would  disregard  the  true  task  of  psychiatry  which  is  the  under- 
standing of  the  fundamental  and  relatively  invariable  structure  of  the  personality.  Psy- 
chiatry will  be  of  assistance  to  social  analysis  to  the  extent  that  it  aids  in  revealing  the 
intricate  symbolic  network  which  binds  individuals  together  into  collectivities. 

It  is  with  great  pleasure  that  I  accede  to  the  request  to  comment  in  a 
general  way  on  the  present  symposium  on  psychiatry  and  the  social 
sciences.  The  relation  between  the  two  suggests  many  interesting  and 
complicated  problems,  both  of  definition  and  interpretation.  It  is  a  bold 
man  who  would  venture  to  speak  with  assurance  about  such  abstruse 
entities  as  "individual"  and  "society,"  but  where  it  is  difficult  for  any 
intelligent  person  to  withhold  a  theory  or  an  opinion,  I  may  be  par- 
doned for  not  doing  so  either.  I  have  read  the  seven  psychiatric  papers 
with  great  interest.  Unless  I  am  greatly  mistaken,  the  language  used  in 
these  contributions  as  a  whole  is  measurably  nearer  the  terminology 
used  by  social  scientists  than  was  formerly  the  case  in  psychiatric  litera- 
ture. I  doubt  if  this  is  entirely  due  to  the  fact  that  the  psychiatrists  have 
felt  under  a  compulsion  to  be  courteous  to  the  sociologists  responsible 
for  the  journal  to  which  they  now  find  themselves  a  collective  contrib- 


One:  Culture.  SocU'ty.  and  the  Indivuhuil  345 

utor.  I  finJ  no  ■"pussyfoolinu  "  here;  lalhcr  a  sincere  recognition  of  the 
importance,  perhaps  even  ihc  reality.  o\  the  things  connoted  by  ihc 
words  "society"  and  "ciiliure."  I'ven  if  these  vsords  still  remain  largely 
unanalyzed  in  terms  that  ought  to  be  completely  satisKing  to  .1  —  -  '-.i. 
irisl,  it  is  a  great  gain  to  have  them  given  a  hearing.  The  exlu  ii. 

vidualism  of  earlier  psychiatry  is  evidently  passing.  Even  the  pages  of 
Freud,  with  their  haunting  imagery  of  society  as  (S6.'^)  censor  and  of 
culture  as  a  beautiful  extortion  from  the  sinister  depths  o{  dcMrc.  arc 
beginning  to  take  on  a  certain  character  of  quaintness;  in  other  vu»rds, 
it  looks  as  though  psychiatry  and  the  sciences  devoted  to  man  asconsii- 
tutive  of  society  were  actually  beginning  to  talk  about  the  same  events 
-  to  wit,  the  facts  of  human  experience. 

In  the  social  sciences,  too,  there  has  been  a  complementar>  mosemeni 
toward  the  concerns  o[^  the  psychiatrist.  .At  long  last  the  actual  human 
being,  always  set  in  a  significant  situation.  ne\er  a  mere  biological  il- 
lustration or  a  long-sutTering  carrier  of  cultural  items,  has  been  caught 
prowling  about  the  premises  of  society,  of  culture,  o{  histor\.  It  is  true 
that  long  and  anonymous  confinements  within  the  narrou  columns  of 
statistics  has  made  him  a  timid  subject  for  iiK|un\.  He  seems  always  to 
be  slinking  off  into  anxiety-dri\en  fiesh  and  bone  or  else,  at  the  oddest 
moments,  unexpectedly  swelling  himself  up  into  an  institution.  But  it  is 
easy  to  see  that  the  firm  hand  o^  the  psychiatric  sociologist  will  some 
day  nab  him  in  one  o\'  his  less  rapid  niomenls  o\  transition. 

Of  these  seven  papers,  it  is  chiefiy  Dr.  Sulli\an*s  and  I)r  A!  s 

that  gi\e  me  the  most  comfortable  housing.  The>  seem  to  K  ^..iii.j-^-d 
somewhere  about  the  crossroads  leading  to  pure  ps\chiatr\  and  pure 
sociology  and  1  confess  that  1  find  the  uncertaint\  of  their  location  \ery 
agreeable  indeed.  In  an  atmosphere  of  mollified  contrasts  one  m.i>  hope 
to  escape  the  policemen  of  rival  conceptual  headquarters  Ni»l  being 
bothered  by  too  strict  a  loyalty  to  aristocratic  coiuenlions.  i>ne  may 
hope  to  learn  something  new.  I  am  particularly  fond  of  Dr.  Sullivan's 
pet  phrase  of  "interpersonal  relations."  The  phrase  is  not  as  innocent 
as  it  seems,  for,  while  such  entities  as  societies,  indivuli:  '  '*  .il 
patterns,  and  institutions  logically  impl>  interpersonal  u...  y 

do  little  to  isolate  and  define  them.   loo  great  agility  has  bci  :d 

o\er  the  years  in  jumping  from  ihe  mdiMdual  to  the  collectivity  and 
from  the  collectivity  via  romantic  anthropological  paths  b 

the  culture-saturated  individual.  Refiection  suggests  that  tli.  .-  ...  

dual  was  never  alone,  that  he  ne\er  marched  in  line  with  a  colIecli\il>. 
except  on  literal  state  occasions,  and  that  he  ne\er  signcxJ  up  for  a 


346  ///  Culture 

culture,  riicrc  was  always  someone  around  to  bother  [864]  him;  there 
were  always  a  great  many  people  whom  his  friends  talked  about  and 
whom  he  never  met;  and  there  was  always  much  that  some  people  did 
that  he  never  heard  abt)ut.  He  was  never  formed  out  of  the  interaction 
t)f  individual  and  society  but  started  out  being  as  comfortable  as  he 
could  in  a  world  in  which  other  people  existed,  and  continued  this  way 
as  long  as  physical  conditions  allowed.  It  is  out  of  his  manifold  experi- 
ences that  different  kinds  of  scientists  derived  their  tips  for  the  invention 
of  two  or  three  realms  of  being. 

I  or  a  long  time  psychiatry  operated  with  a  conception  of  the  indivi- 
dual that  was  merely  biological  in  nature.  This  is  easy  to  understand  if 
we  remember  that  psychiatry  was  not,  to  begin  with,  a  study  of  human 
nature  in  actual  situations,  nor  even  a  theoretical  exploration  into  the 
structure  of  personality,  but  simply  and  solely  an  attempt  to  interpret 
"diseased"  modes  of  behavior  in  terms  familiar  to  a  tradition  that  was 
operating  with  the  concepts  of  normal  and  abnormal  physiological 
functioning.  It  is  the  great  and  lasting  merit  of  Freud  that  he  freed 
psychiatry  from  its  too  strictly  medical  presuppositions  and  introduced 
an  interpretative  psychology  which,  in  spite  of  all  its  conceptual  weak- 
nesses, its  disturbingly  figurative  modes  of  expression,  and  its  blindness 
to  numerous  and  important  aspects  o'l  the  field  of  behavior  as  a  whole, 
remains  a  substantial  contribution  to  psychology  in  general  and,  by 
implication,  to  social  psychology  in  particular.  His  use  of  social  data 
was  neither  more  nor  less  inadequate  than  the  use  made  of  them  by 
psychology  as  a  whole.  It  is  hardly  fair  to  accuse  Freud  of  a  naivete 
which  is  still  the  rule  among  the  vast  majority  of  professional  psycholo- 
gists. It  is  not  surprising  that  his  view  o^  social  phenomena  betrays  at 
many  points  a  readiness  to  confuse  various  specific  patterns  of  behavior, 
which  the  culturalists  can  show  to  be  derivative  of  specific  historical 
backgrounds,  with  those  more  fundamental  and  necessary  patterns  of 
behavior  which  proceed  from  the  nature  of  man  and  of  his  slowly  ma- 
turing organism.  Nor  is  it  surprising  that  he  shared,  not  only  with  the 
majority  of  psychologists  but  even  with  the  very  founders  of  anthropo- 
logical science,  an  interest  in  primitive  man  that  did  not  address  itself 
to  a  realistic  understanding  of  human  relations  in  the  less  sophisticated 
societies  but  rather  to  the  schematic  task  of  finding  in  the  patterns  of 
behavior  reported  by  the  [865]  anthropologist  such  confirmation  as  he 
could  of  his  theories  of  individually  "archaic"  attitudes  and  mecha- 
nisms. If  the  contemporary  anthropologist  is  scandalized  by  the  violence 
with  which  Freud  and  his  followers  have  torn  many  of  the  facts  of 


Oni'.  Culiuiw  S(Hh'tv.  iiful  the  hiJivithuil  347 

|iiiniiti\c  bch.iNUM  oiil  ol  iIkmi  ii.iiiii.il  ciiltui.il  scHiiig.  he  shi>uki  rcvall 
dial  iiisl  such  Miilcncc  u.is  the  halhn.nk  o\  the  most  appriucd  kinds  oi 
llunking  ahoiil  ethnological  Jala  iiol  so  long  ago  When  all  is  saul  aiul 
di>nc.  and  in  spite  ol  the  enormous  doeuinentation  o\  the  eulluies  ol 
priniiti\e  gunips,  how  eas\  is  it  to  get  esen  an  inkling,  in  slnetK  psscho- 
logieal  leniis.  of  the  lcnipt\  llie  ielali\e  llexibihty.  the  indi\idual  van- 
abihlN.  the  relative  openness  or  hiddenness  olindiMdual  expiession.  the 
eharaeteristie  emotional  cpialities,  which  are  implied  or  ■camed"  h\ 
e\en  the  most  pencil. iting  cultural  anaKses  that  ue  possess  orpiimiliNe 
comniuiiitics'  li  seems  uiic\peclcdl\  diHicull  lo  coniiue  up  the  image 
ol  li\c  people  m  inlelligihK  li\e  relationships  located  withm  areas  dc- 
lined  as  i-tnmiliNC,  Ihe  personalities  that  inhabit  oui  ethnological  nh>no- 
graphs  seem  alnu">sl  schi/iMcl  m  then  imcmoiional  accept.ince  ol  the 
heavy  colors,  tapestries,  and  ruiiuluic  ol  iheu  ethnological  stage.  Is  it 
any  wonder  that  actors  so  vaguely  conceived,  so  absent-miiuledK  t\pi- 
cal  of  something  or  other,  can  be  bludgeoned  b\  .1  more  persistent  intel- 
ligence than  theirs  into  sawing  wooti  \o\  still  remoter  stages.  s.i\  that 
dread  drama  t>r  the  slain  father  and  the  birth  of  totemism' 

At  the  iiiesenl  lime  the  ad\.mce  guard  ol  ps\chialiic  thinking  is 
rapidly  discovering  the  Iruitlulness  ol  the  conceits  ol  societ\  iind  cul- 
ture lor  a  richer  and  a  nu^re  realistic  anal\sis  ol  personalitN.  The  cli>se 
relation  of  personal  habit  ssslems  to  the  general  patterning  of  culture 
—  that  \ery  insight  which  has  \oi  so  long  been  the  special  pride  o\ 
anthiopology  -  comes  lo  psychiatry  as  something  essentialls  new  Sup- 
posedl)  unisersal  feelings  and  altitudes,  sentiments  about  parents  aiul 
children  and  se\  males,  are  found  U>  be  almost  as  relative  ti>  a  cultuie  n 
set  patterns  o(  behavior  as  fashions  in  clothes  or  tyjX's  o\  arlihuiN 
/\l  am  lale.  this  formula  o\'  ihe  ielali\il\  of  custi>m  has  long  been  a 
commonplace  in  anlhii)polog\  ou  puielv  descriptive  giouiuis  and  is  in- 
vading psychiatry  as  a  new  basis  for  the  philosophv  o\  behavior 

An  age-old  blindness  lends  \o  be  corrected  bv  (>pened  eves  that  arc 
|K661  loo  conlideni  ami  undiscrimmatmg.  .ind  one  wi>nders  vshelher  ihc 
special  vievvpt)int  of  psychiatry  is  not  lending  lo  vield  loo  reailiK  lo  the 
enlighlened  prejudices  of  anlhr»^pologv  and  sociology.  The  presumptive 
or  "as  if  psvchological  character  of  a  culture  is  highlv  delerminalive. 
no  doubt,  ol  MHich  m  ihe  e\lei  nali/eil  svsiem  of  attitudes  and  habils 
which  loiins  Ihc  visible  ••|UMsonalilv ""  of  a  given  individual,  and.  unlil 
Ins  special  social  frame  o\  reference  is  clearlv  established,  anals/ed.  .nul 
applietl  \o  his  behavior,  we  are  necess.irilv  at  a  loss  to  assign  him  .1 
place  in  a  more  general  scheme  oi  human  behavior   It  diK's  nol  lollow. 


348  Hf   Culmrc 

hovvcNcr.  iliat  siricily  social  determinants,  tending,  as  they  do,  to  give 
visible  form  and  meaning,  in  a  ciiiliiral  sense,  to  each  of  the  thousands 
of  modaliiies  oi'  experience  which  sum  up  the  personality,  can  define 
the  fundamental  structure  of  such  a  personality.  If  culture  and  its  pre- 
sumptive psNchology  were  all  that  is  needed  to  explain  what  we  dimly 
reach  out  for  and  call  "indi\  idual  personality,"  we  should  be  put  in  the 
position  o\'  a  man  who  claimed,  for  instance,  that  the  feeling  called 
love  could  not  have  started  its  history  until  the  vocabulary  of  a  specific 
language  suggested  realities,  values,  and  problems  hitherto  unknown. 
All  of  which  would  be  true  in  a  sense  which  matters  more  to  the  cultur- 
alist  than  to  the  closer  student  of  behavior.  A  culture  which  is  constantly 
bemg  invoked  to  explain  the  necessities  and  the  intimacies  of  individual 
relations  is  like  an  ex  post  facto  legalization  of  damage  done.  The  bio- 
logical and  implied  psychological  needs  of  individuals  are  continuous 
and  primary.  If  we  think,  not  of  culture  in  the  abstract  nor  of  society 
as  a  hypoihetically  integrating  concept  in  human  relations,  but  rather 
of  the  actual  day-to-day  relations  of  specific  individuals  in  a  network 
o'(  highly  personalized  needs,  we  must  see  that  culture  is  the  inevitable 
coin  o\^  the  realm  of  behavior  but  that  it  is  far  from  synonymous  with 
those  actual  systems  of  meaning,  conscious  and  unconscious,  which  we 
call  personalities,  and  that  the  presumptive  psychology  of  a  culture  as 
a  \s  hole  is  not  equatable  with  any  actual  personalized  psychology.  Cul- 
tural analysis  is  hardly  more  than  a  preliminary  bow  to  the  human 
scene,  giving  us  to  know  that  here  are  people,  presumably  real,  and  that 
it  is  here  rather  than  there  that  we  must  observe  them. 

It  is  the  privilege  of  psychiatry  to  be  always  looking  at  individuals 
[X67|  and  to  think  of  society  as  merely  a  convenient  term  to  cover  the 
manifold  possibilities  of  actual  human  relationships.  It  is  these  actual 
relationships  that  matter,  not  society.  This  simple  and  intuitively  neces- 
sary viewpoint  of  the  psychiatrist  is  shared,  of  course,  by  the  man  in 
the  street.  He  cannot  be  dislodged  from  it  by  any  amount  of  social 
scientific  sophistication.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  no  psychiatrist  will  ever 
surrender  this  naive  and  powerful  view  of  the  reality  of  personality  to 
a  system  of  secondary  concepts  about  people  and  their  relations  to  each 
other  which  fiow  from  an  analysis  of  social  forms.  The  danger  of  a  too 
ready  acquiescence  in  the  social  formulations  of  the  anthropologist  and 
the  sociologist  is  by  no  means  an  imaginary  one.  Certain  recent 
attempts,  in  part  brilliant  and  stimulafing,  to  impose  upon  the  actual 
psychologies  of  actual  people,  in  continuous  and  tangible  relations  to 
each  other,  a  generalized  psychology  based  on  the  real  or  supposed 


One:  Culture.  Society,  ami  the  liulivuluul  349 

psychological  iniiilicalions  ot  culiiiial  forms,  show  clearly  what  confu- 
sions in  mil  ihinkiiig  arc  likcl\  lo  result  when  social  science  turns  psy- 
chiatric without,  HI  the  process,  allowing  its  own  historically  determined 
concepts  to  dissoKe  into  those  larger  ones  which  have  meaning  for 
psychology  and  psychiatry.  We  then  discover  thai  uhole  cultures  or 
societies  are  paranoid  or  h\  sterical  or  obsessive!  Such  characterizations, 
however  brilliantly  presented,  have  the  value  of  literary  suggestiveness. 
not  of  close  personality  analysis.  At  best  they  help  us  to  see  a  ne\s  facet 
o\^  the  problem  of  personality.  If  they  do  not  help  us  to  see  the  indi\i- 
dual.  in  however  exotic  a  societv.  with  thai  quiet  sharpness  of  gaze 
which  makes  the  true  student  of  personality  something  other  than  a 
discourser  on  "interesting"  facts  about  people,  the  psychiatrist  will  have 
essentially  little  to  learn  from  them  beyond  the  fact,  which  he  might,  of 
course,  have  suspected  all  along,  that  human  motivation  has  expressed 
itself  in  far  more  varied  forms  and  through  far  more  complex  channels 
of  transformation  than  he  had  believed  possible  on  the  basis  of  his 
limited  ethnic  experiences.  This  in  itself  is  a  far  trom  unimportant  in- 
sight, but  it  does  not  constitute  the  true  basis  of  a  science  o\'  psychologv, 
or  of  a  science  of  psychiatry,  which  may  be  defined  as  that  science  o{ 
man  which  undertakes  to  grasp  the  [868]  fundamental,  and  relatively 
invariable,  structure  of  the  individual  personality  with  as  great  a  con- 
ceptual economy  as  our  still  inadequate  psychologies  allow. 

It  is  the  obvious  duty  of  psychiatry,  once  it  has  enriched  its  interpreta- 
tive techniques  with  the  help  of  the  social  sciences,  to  be  always  return- 
ing to  its  original  task  of  the  close  scrutiny  of  the  individual  personalit). 
Not  what  the  culture  consists  of  or  what  are  the  values  it  .seems  to  point 
to  will  be  the  psychiatrist's  concern,  but  rather  how  this  culture  lends 
itself  to  the  ceaseless  need  o{  the  individual  personality  tor  symbols  o'i 
expression  and  communication  which  can  be  intelligentiv  read  bv  line's 
fellow-men  on  the  social  plane,  but  whose  relative  depth  or  shallowness 
of  meaning  in  the  individual's  total  economy  of  symbols  need  never  be 
adequately  divined  either  by  himself  or  bv  his  neighbor.  It  should  K- 
the  aim  of  the  psychiatrist  to  uncover  just  such  meanings  as  these.  He 
must  be  too  little  satisfied  with  a  purely  social  view  o{  behavior  lo 
accept  such  statements  as  that  A's  reason  for  joining  the  orchestra  is 
the  same  as  B's,  or  that  the  motive  ol  cither  can  ever  be  strictly  defined 
in  terms  of  a  generalized  pleasure  which  socialized  human  beings  derive 
from  listening  to  music  or  participating  in  the  production  o^  it.  Such 
blanket  explanations  as  these  are  useful  in  that  lhe\  enable  people  lo 
join  hands  and  give  each  other  an  elleciive  hearing,  lo  the  culturalisi 


350  tff  Culture 

joining  an  orchestra  is  a  valuable  illustration  of  an  important  social 
pattern.  To  the  psychiatrist  it  is  as  irrelevant  as  the  interesting  biograph- 
ical fact  that  this  'Mover  of  music"  first  met  his  future  wife  at  the  corner 
o\  liflh  A\enue  and  Forty-second  Street.  What  the  psychiatrist  can  get 
out  K^^  the  orchestra-joining  pattern  depends  altogether  on  what  sym- 
bolic work  he  can  discover  this  behavior  to  accomplish  in  the  integrated 
pcrsonaliis  systems  of  A  and  B.  To  the  culturist  A's  joining  the  orchestra 
IS  "like"  B's  joining  the  orchestra.  To  the  psychiatrist  the  chances  of 
these  two  events  being  in  the  least  similar  are  quite  small.  He  will  rather 
find  that  A's  joining  the  orchestra  is  "like"  his  earlier  tendency  to  waste 
an  enormous  amount  o\^  time  on  trashy  novels,  while  B's  apparently 
similar  behavior  is  more  nearly  "like"  his  slavish  adherence  to  needlessly 
exacting  table  manners.  The  psychiatrist  cares  little  about  descriptive 
similarities  and  dilTerences,  for,  in  his  view  of  [869]  things,  all  manner 
of  fioisam  and  jetsam  of  behavior  rush  into  an  individual  vortex  of  few 
and  necessary  meanings.  He  does  well  to  leave  the  study  of  the  scheme 
o\'  society  to  those  who  care  for  unallocated  blueprints  of  behavior. 

I  ha\e.  perhaps,  overstressed  the  fundamental  divergence  of  spirit 
between  the  psychiatric  and  the  strictly  cultural  modes  of  observation. 
I  have  done  so  because  it  is  highly  important  that  we  do  not  delude 
ourselves  into  believing  that  a  lovingly  complete  analysis  of  a  given 
culture  is  ipso  facto  a  contribution  to  the  science  of  human  behavior.  It 
is,  of  course,  an  invaluable  guide  to  the  potentialities  of  choice  and 
rejection  in  the  lives  of  individuals,  and  such  knowledge  should  arm 
one  against  foolish  expectancies.  No  psychiatrist  can  afford  to  think 
that  love  is  made  in  exactly  the  same  way  in  all  the  corners  of  the  globe, 
yet  he  would  be  too  docile  a  convert  to  anthropology  if  he  allowed 
himself  to  be  persuaded  that  that  fact  made  any  special  difference  for 
the  primary  differentiation  of  personality.  With  every  individual  of 
whom  the  psychiatrist  essays  an  understanding  he  must  of  necessity 
reanalyze  the  supposedly  objective  culture  in  which  this  individual  is 
said  to  play  his  part.  When  he  does  this  he  invariably  finds  that  cultural 
agreement  is  hardly  more  than  terminological,  and  that,  if  culture  is  to 
be  saddled  with  psychological  meanings  that  are  more  than  superficial, 
we  shall  have  to  recognize  as  many  effective  cultures  as  there  are  in- 
dividuals to  be  "adjusted"  to  the  one  culture  which  is  said  to  exist  "out 
there*"  and  to  which  we  are  supposed  to  be  able  to  direct  the  telescope 
of  our  intelligent  observafion. 

It^  would  appear  from  all  this  that  the  psychiatrist  who  has  become 
sutTiciently  aware  of  social  patterning  to  be  granted  a  hearing  by  the 


One:  Cullurc.  Society,  uml  tlw  /ni/ivlihuil  351 

social  scientist  has  at  least  as  iiuich  to  gi\c  as  to  receive.  It  is  true  that 
he  cannot  be  given  the  privilege  o(  making  a  psychological  analysis  of 
society  and  cultuie  as  such.  He  cannot  tell  us  what  any  cultural  pattern 
is  "all  about"  in  psychological  terms,  for  we  cannot  allow  hnii  to  indulge 
in  the  time-honored  pursuit  of  identifying  society  with  a  personality,  or 
culture  with  actual  behaxior.  He  can.  of  coiuse.  make  these  identifica- 
tions in  a  metaphorical  sense,  and  it  would  be  harmful  to  his  freedom 
of  expression  if  he  were  denied  the  use  of  metaphor.  In  his  particular 
case,  however,  metaphor  is  more  [870]  than  normally  dangerous.  An 
economist  or  historian  can  talk  o\'  the  soul  of  a  people  or  the  structure 
of  society  with  very  little  danger  of  turning  anybody's  head,  it  is  gen- 
erally understood  that  such  phraseology  means  something  but  that  the 
speed  of  verbal  communication  is  generally  too  great  to  make  it  seem 
worthwhile  to  try  to  conveit  the  convenient  metaphor  into  its  realisti- 
cally relevant  terms.  But  the  psychiatrist  deals  with  actual  people,  not 
with  illustrations  of  culture  or  with  the  functioning  of  society,  it  is  our 
duty,  therefore,  to  hold  him  to  the  very  strictest  account  in  his  use  of 
social  terms.  If  he,  too,  is  the  victim  of  slipshod  metaphor,  we  have  no 
protection  against  our  own  credulity.  We  cannot  be  blamed  if  we  tend 
to  read  out  of  the  society  and  culture  which  the  necessities  of  verbal 
communication  have  conjured  into  a  ghostly  reality  of  their  own  an 
impersonal  mandate  to  behavior  and  its  interpretation. 

So  far  the  psychiatrist  has  had  too  many  superstitions  of  his  own  to 
help  us  materially  with  the  task  of  translating  social  and  cultural  terms 
into  that  intricate  network  of  personalistic  meanings  which  is  the  only 
conceivable  stuff  of  human  experience.,  in  the  future,  howe\er.  we  must 
be  constantly  turning  to  him  for  reminders  of  what  is  the  true  nature 
of  the  social  process.  The  conceptual  reconciliation  i>f  the  life  of  society 
with  the  life  of  the  individual  can  never  come  from  an  indulgence  in 
metaphor.  It  will  come  from  the  ultimate  implications  o(  Dr.  Sulli\an's 
"interpersonal  relations."  Interpersonal  relations  are  not  linger  exer- 
cises in  the  art  of  society.  They  are  real  things,  deser\ing  o\'  the  niosi 
careful  and  anxious  study.  We  know  very  little  about  them  as  \et.  If  we 
could  only  get  a  reasonably  clear  conception  of  how  the  li\es  of  A  and 
B  intertwine  into  a  mutually  interpretable  complex  of  experiences,  we 
should  see  far  more  clearl\  than  is  at  present  the  case  the  extreme  im- 
portance and  the  irrevocable  necessity  o\'  the  concept  o\'  personalit>.  We 
should  also  be  moving  forward  to  a  realistic  instead  of  a  metaphorical 
defmition  o\'  what  is  meant  by  culture  and  societ\.  One  suspects  that 
the  symbolic  role  of  words  has  an  importance  for  the  solution  o\'  our 


■^S")  ///  Culture 


problcniN  thai  is  tar  greater  than  we  might  be  willing  to  admit.  After 
all,  it"  A  calls  B  a  'liar,"  he  creates  a  reverberating  cosmos  of  potential 
action  and  iiidgnicnt.  And  if  the  fatal  word  can  be  passed  on  to  C,  the 
iriangulalion  of  society  and  culture  is  complete. 


Editorial  Notes 

Originally  published  in  the  American  Journal  of  Sociology  42, 
862-870  (1937).  Reprinted  by  permission  of  the  University  of  Chicago 
Press. 


Note 

I    TTic  necessity  of  disentangling  it  from  problems  of  personality  value  in  a  given  society. 


Why  Cultural  Anthropology  Needs 
the  Psychiatrist  (1938) 

Editorial  Introduction 

The  initial  issue  of  Harry  Stack  Sullivan's  journal  Psycliiatry  \n  1938 
was  perhaps  the  ideal  sympathetic  environment  tor  the  views  Sapir  had 
developed  in  his  conversations  with  Sullivan  and  political  scientist  Harold 
Lasswell.  In  his  paper  for  that  issue,  Sapir  chose  to  focus  not  on  psvchia- 
try  but  on  modifying  the  impersonal  character  of  traditional  ethnology  by 
introducing  personal  (and  interpersonal)  considerations.  The  argument 
opens  anecdotally,  citing  J.  Owen  Dorsey's  quotation  of  Omaha  elder 
Two  Crows  denying  a  statement  made  by  another  Omaha.  Such  state- 
ments, too  often  ignored  by  ethnologists  intent  on  leaping  to  some  level 
of  communal  cultural  patterning,  were  actually  incontrovertible  evidence 
of  intracultural  variability.  Insofar  as  every  individual's  version  of  his/her 
culture  was  legitimately  unique,  no  individual's  statement  of  culture  could 
possibly  be  wrong.  The  methodological  consequence  of  Two  Crows'  de- 
nial, however,  was  that  the  ethnologist  must  test  all  apparent  cultural  pat- 
terns against  the  statements  and  behaviors  o[^  \arious  indi\ iduals.  Tlic 
longstanding  assumption  that  any  normal  individual  might  equall\  well 
represent  a  homogeneous  culture  was  untenable.  Instead,  culture  could 
be  approached  only  through  its  documented  variations. 

Although  Sapir  had  no  plans  to  test  his  model  in  the  Held,  his  theoret- 
ical position  uas  clear  and  grounded  in  culliiral  aiuhropolog\.  The  the- 
ory of  personality  had  not  yet  developed  to  the  point  where  it  could 
explain  the  variability  of  human  behavior.  Sapir  wanted  to  persuade  an 
audience  of  psychiatrists  o\^  the  promise  to  be  fmrnd  in  the  social  sci- 
ences, particularly  anthropology.  Implicillw  however,  his  paper  ad- 
dresses anthropologists  above  all.  Of  Sapir's  anthropological  writings, 
this  essay  has  been  one  of  the  most  widely  cited  within  the  discipline. 


Why  Cultural  Anthropology  Needs  the  Psvchialrist 

Until  not  so  many  years  ago  cultural  aiUhropologv  and  psychiatry 
seemed  miles  apart.  Cultural  anthropology  was  conceived  of  as  a  social 


354  ^'^   Cult  lire 

science  which  concerned  itself  Httle.  if  at  all  with  the  individual.  Its 
pros  nice  was  rather  to  emphasize  those  aspects  of  behavior  which  be- 
liMiged  to  society  as  such,  more  particularly  societies  of  the  dim  past  or 
exouc  societies  whose  way  o^  life  seemed  so  different  from  that  of  our 
own  people  that  one  could  hope  to  construct  a  generalized  picture  of 
the  life  o^  societN  at  large,  particularly  in  its  more  archaic  stages  of 
development.  There  was  little  need  in  the  anthropology  of  a  Tylor  or 
Fra/er  to  ask  questions  w  hich  demanded  a  more  intimate  knowledge  of 
the  individual  than  could  be  assumed  on  the  basis  of  common  experi- 
ence. Ihe  important  distinctions  were  felt  to  be  distinctions  of  race,  of 
geographical  setting,  o\^  chronology,  of  cultural  province.  The  whole 
temper  o\'  cultural  anthropology  was  impersonal  to  a  degree.  In  this 
earlier  period  o\^  the  development  of  the  science  it  seemed  almost  indeli- 
cate, not  to  say  indecent,  to  obtrude  observations  that  smacked  of  the 
personal  or  anecdotal.  The  assumption  was  that  in  some  way  not  in  the 
least  clearly  defined  as  to  observational  method  it  was  possible  for  the 
anthropologist  to  arrive  at  conclusive  statements  which  would  hold  for 
a  gi\en  society  as  such.  One  was  rarely  in  a  position  to  say  whether 
such  an  inclusive  statement  was  a  tacit  quotation  from  a  primitive 
"John  Doe"  or  a  carefully  tested  generalization  abstracted  from  hun- 
dreds of  personal  observations  or  hundreds  of  statements  excerpted 
from  conversations  with  many  John  Does. 

Perhaps  it  is  just  as  well  that  no  strict  methodology  of  field  inquiry 
was  perfected  and  that  embarrassing  questions  as  to  the  factual  nature 
o'i  the  evidence  which  led  to  anthropological  generalizations  were  cour- 
teously withheld  by  a  sort  of  gentleman's  agreement.  I  remember  being 
rather  shocked  than  pleased  when  in  my  student  days  I  came  across 
such  statements  in  J.  O.  Dorsey's  "Omaha  Sociology"  as  "Two  Crows 
denies  this."  This  looked  a  little  as  though  the  writer  had  not  squarely 
met  the  challenge  of  assaying  his  source  material  and  giving  us  the  kind 
of  data  that  we,  as  respectable  anthropologists,  could  live  on.  It  was  as 
though  he  "passed  the  buck"  to  the  reader,  expecting  him  by  some 
miracle  of  cultural  insight  to  segregate  truth  from  error.  We  see  now 
that  Dorsey  was  ahead  of  his  age.  Living  as  he  did  in  close  touch  with 
the  Omaha  Indians,  he  knew  that  he  was  dealing,  not  with  a  society 
nor  with  a  specimen  of  primitive  man  nor  with  a  cross-section  of  the 
history  of  primitive  culture,  but  with  a  finite,  though  indefinite,  number 
of  human  beings,  who  gave  themselves  the  privilege  of  differing  from 
each  other  not  only  in  matters  generally  considered  "one's  own  busi- 
ness" but  even  on  questions  which  clearly  transcended  the  private  in- 


One  Cullurc.  Society,  iiml  the  Imliviiiiuil  355 

dividuaTs  concern  and  were,  by  ihe  anlliropologisl's  defniition,  implied 
in  the  conception  of  a  detlnitely  delimited  society  with  a  defmitely  dis- 
co\erabIe  culture.  Apparently  Two  [S]  C'rows.  a  perfectly  good  and  au- 
thoritati\e  Indian,  could  presume  to  rule  out  of  court  the  \ery  existence 
of  a  custom  or  attitude  or  belief  vouched  for  by  some  other  Indian, 
equally  good  and  authoritative.  Unless  one  wishes  to  dismiss  the  nn- 
plicit  problem  raised  by  contradictory  statements  by  assuming  that 
Dorsey,  the  anthropologist,  misunderstood  one,  or  both,  of  his  infor- 
mants, one  would  have  to  pause  tor  a  while  and  ponder  the  meaning 
o^  the  statement  that  'Two  Crows  denies  this." 

This  is  not  the  place  to  introduce  anything  like  a  complete  anahsis 
of  the  meaning  of  such  contradictory  statements,  real  or  supposed.  The 
only  thing  that  we  need  to  be  clear  about  is  whether  a  completely  imper- 
sonal anthropological  description  and  analysis  of  custom  in  terms 
which  tacitly  assume  the  unimportance  of  individual  needs  and  prefer- 
ences is,  in  the  long  run,  truly  possible  for  a  social  discipline.  There  has 
been  so  much  talk  of  ideal  objectivity  in  social  science  and  such  eager 
willingness  to  take  the  ideals  of  physical  and  chemical  workmanship  as 
translatable  into  the  procedures  of  social  research  that  we  really  ought 
not  to  blink  this  problem.  Suppose  we  take  a  test  case.  John  Doe  and 
an  Indian  named  Two  Feathers  agree  that  two  and  two  make  four. 
Someone  reports  that  "Two  Crows  denies  this."  Inasmuch  as  we  know 
that  the  testimony  of  the  first  two  informants  is  the  testimony  o'i  all 
human  beings  who  are  normally  considered  as  entitled  to  a  hearing,  we 
do  not  attach  much  importance  to  Two  Crows'  denial.  We  do  not  e\en 
say  that  he  is  mistaken.  We  suspect  that  he  is  crazy.  In  the  case  of  more 
abstruse  problems  in  the  world  of  natural  science,  we  narrow  the  field 
of  authority  to  those  individuals  who  are  known,  or  believed,  to  be  in 
full  command  of  techniques  that  enable  them  to  interpret  the  imper- 
sonal testimony  o'i  the  physical  universe.  Everyone  knows  that  the  his- 
tory of  science  is  full  of  corrective  statements  on  errors  of  judgment  but 
no  value  is  attached  lo  such  errors  beyond  ihe  necessity  o^  ruling  ihem 
out  of  the  record.  Though  the  mistaken  scientist's  hurl  feelings  may  be 
of  great  interest  to  a  psychologist  or  psychiatrist,  they  are  nothing  fc>r 
the  votaries  of  pure  science  to  worry  about. 

Are  correspondingly  ruthless  judgments  p^issible  in  ihe  Held  of  sik'kiI 
science?  Hardly.  Let  us  take  a  desperately  extreme  case.  All  the  members 
of  a  given  community  agree  in  arranging  the  letters  o\'  the  alphabet  in 
a  certain  historically  determined  order,  an  order  so  fixed  and  so  thor- 
oughly ingrained  in  the  minds  of  all  normal  children  who  go  to  school 


356 


///   Culture 


that  ihc  ailcmpl  to  tamper  with  this  order  has,  to  the  man  in  the  street, 
the  same  ridiculous,  one  might  almost  say  unholy,  impossibility  as  an 
attempt  to  have  the  sun  rise  half  an  hour  earlier  or  later  than  celestial 
mechanics  decree  to  be  proper.  There  is  one  member  of  this  hypothetical 
siKiety  who  takes  the  liberty  of  interchanging  A  and  Z.  If  he  keeps  his 
strange  departure  from  custom  to  himself,  no  one  need  ever  know  how 
queer  he  really  is.  if  he  contradicts  his  children's  teacher  and  tries  to 
tell  them  that  they  should  put  Z  first  and  A  last,  he  is  almost  certain  to 
run  foul  o\^  his  fellow  beings.  His  own  children  may  desert  him  in  spite 
o\'  their  natural  tendency  to  recognize  parental  authority.  Certainly  we 
should  agree  that  this  very  peculiar  kind  of  a  Two  Crows  is  crazy,  and 
we  mav  e\en  agree  as  psychiatrists  that  so  far  as  an  understanding  of 
his  aberrant  fantasies  and  behavior  is  concerned,  it  really  makes  little 
dilTerence  whether  what  he  is  impelled  to  deny  is  that  two  and  two  are 
four  or  the  order  of  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  as  a  conventionally,  or 
naturally,  fixed  order. 

At  this  point  we  have  misgivings.  Is  the  parallel  as  accurate  as  it 
seems  to  be?  There  is  an  important  difference,  which  we  have  perhaps 
overlooked  in  our  joint  condemnation.  This  difference  may  be  expressed 
in  terms  of  possibility.  No  matter  how  many  Two  Crows  deny  that  two 
and  two  make  four,  the  actual  history  of  mathematics,  however  re- 
tarded by  such  perversity,  cannot  be  seriously  modified  by  it.  But  if  we 
get  enough  Two  Crows  to  agree  on  the  interchange  of  A  and  Z,  [9]  we 
have  what  we  call  a  new  tradition,  or  a  new  dogma,  or  a  new  theory, 
or  a  new  procedure,  in  the  handling  of  that  particular  pattern  of  culture 
which  is  known  as  the  alphabet.  What  starts  as  a  thoroughly  irresponsi- 
ble and  perhaps  psychotic  aberration  seems  to  have  the  power,  by  some 
kind  of  "social  infection,"  to  lose  its  purely  personal  quality  and  to  take 
on  something  of  the  very  impersonality  of  custom  which,  in  the  first 
instance,  it  seemed  to  contradict  so  flatly.  The  reason  for  this  is  very 
simple.  Whatever  the  majority  of  the  members  of  a  given  society  may 
say,  there  is  no  inherent  human  impossibility  in  an  alphabet  which  starts 
with  a  symbol  for  the  sound  or  sounds  represented  by  the  letter  Z  and 
ends  up  with  a  symbol  for  the  vocahc  sound  or  sounds  represented  by 
the  letter  A.  The  consensus  of  history,  anthropology,  and  common  sense 
leads  us  to  maintain  that  the  actually  accepted  order  of  letters  is  "neces- 
sary" only  in  a  very  conditional  sense  and  that  this  necessity  can,  under 
appropriate  conditions  of  human  interrelationship,  yield  to  a  conflict 
of  possibilities,  which  may  ultimately  iron  out  into  an  entirely  different 
"necessity." 


One    Culture.  Society,  din/  flu-  hu/ividuul  357 

The  iriilh  o\'  the  mailer  is  ihal  if  \sc  think  long  enough  about  Two 
Crows  and  his  persistent  denials,  we  shall  have  to  admit  that  in  some 
sense  Two  Crows  is  never  wrong.  It  may  not  be  a  very  useful  sense  for 
social  science  but  in  a  strict  methodology  of  science  in  general  it  dare 
not  be  completely  ignored.  The  fact  that  this  rebel.  Two  Crows,  can  in 
turn  bend  others  to  his  own  view  of  fact  or  theory  or  to  his  own  prefer- 
ence in  action  shows  that  his  divergence  from  custom  had,  from  the  \ery 
beginning,  the  essential  possibility  o(  culturalized  behavior,  it  seems, 
therefore,  that  we  must  regretfully  admit  that  the  rebel  who  tampers 
with  the  truths  of  mathematics  or  physics  or  chemistry  is  not  really  the 
same  kind  of  rebel  as  the  one  who  plays  nine-pins  with  custom,  whether 
in  theory  or  practice.  The  latter  is  likely  to  make  more  of  a  nuisance  o( 
himself  than  the  former.  No  doubt  he  runs  the  risk  of  being  condemned 
with  far  greater  heat  by  his  fellow  men  but  he  just  cannot  be  proved  to 
contradict  some  mysterious  essence  of  things.  He  can  only  be  said,  at 
best,  to  disagree  completely  with  everybody  else  in  a  matter  in  which 
opinion  or  preference,  in  however  humble  and  useless  a  degree,  is  after 
all  possible. 

We  have  said  nothing  so  far  that  is  not  utterly  commonplace.  What 
is  strange  is  that  the  ultimate  importance  of  these  commonplaces  seems 
not  to  be  thoroughly  grasped  by  social  scientists  at  the  present  time,  if 
ihe  ultimate  criterion  of  value  interpretation,  and  even  "existence."  in 
the  world  of  socialized  behavior  is  nothing  more  than  consensus  of 
opinion,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  cultural  anthropology  can  escape  the 
ultimate  necessity  of  testing  out  its  analysis  of  patterns  called  "social" 
or  "cultural"  in  terms  of  indi\  idual  realities.  If  people  tend  to  become 
illiterate,  owing  to  a  troubled  political  atmosphere,  the  "reality"  o(  the 
alphabet  weakens.  It  may  still  be  true  ihai  ihe  order  of  the  letters  is.  in 
the  minds  of  those  relatively  few  people  who  know  an\  thing  about  the 
alphabet,  precisely  what  it  always  was,  but  in  a  cultural  atmosphere  o\' 
unrest  and  growing  illiteracy  a  Two  Crows  who  interchanges  A  and  Z 
is  certainly  not  as  crazy  as  he  would  have  been  at  a  more  foriunaie  lime 
in  the  past.  We  are  quick  to  see  the  importance  of  the  individual  in 
those  more  flexible  fields  of  cultural  patterning  that  are  referred  to  as 
ideals  or  tastes  or  personal  preferences.  A  trul>  rigorous  analysis  of  any 
arbitrarily  selected  phase  of  individualized  "social  behavior"  or  "cul- 
ture" would  show  two  things:  First,  that  no  mailer  how  llexible.  how 
individually  variable,  it  may  in  the  first  instance  be  thought  \o  be.  it  is 
as  a  matter  o\'  fact  the  complex  resultant  o\'  an  incredibls  elaborate 
cultural  history,  in  which  many  diverse  strands  intercross  at  that  point 


358  ///   Culture 

in  place  and  iinic  at  which  the  individual  judgment  or  preference  is 
expressed  (this  terminology  is  ciiltural)\  second,  that,  conversely,  no 
matter  how  rigorously  necessary  in  practice  the  analyzed  pattern  may 
seem  to  be.  it  ^s  always  possible  in  principle,  if  not  in  experiential  fact, 
for  the  lone  individual  to  etTect  a  [10]  transformation  of  form  or  mean- 
ing which  is  capable  of  communication  to  other  individuals  (this  termi- 
nology \s  psvchiairic  or  pcrsoualistic).  What  this  means  is  that  problems 
o{  social  science  differ  from  problems  of  individual  behavior  in  degree 
of  specificity,  not  in  kind.  Every  statement  about  behavior  which  throws 
the  emphasis,  explicitly  or  implicitly,  on  the  actual,  integral,  experiences 
o^  defined  personalities  or  types  of  personalities  is  a  datum  of  psychol- 
ogy or  psvchiatry  rather  than  of  social  science.  Every  statement  about 
behavior  which  aims,  not  to  be  accurate  about  the  behavior  of  an  actual 
individual  or  individuals  or  about  the  expected  behavior  of  a  physically 
and  psychologically  defined  type  of  individuals,  but  which  abstracts 
from  such  behavior  in  order  to  bring  out  in  clear  relief  certain  expec- 
tancies with  regard  to  those  aspects  of  individual  behavior  which  vari- 
ous people  share,  as  an  interpersonal  or  "social"  pattern,  is  a  datum, 
however  crudely  expressed,  of  social  science. 

If  Dorsey  tells  us  that  "Two  Crows  denies  this,"  surely  there  is  a 
reason  for  his  statement.  We  need  not  say  that  Two  Crows  is  badly 
informed  or  that  he  is  fooling  the  anthropologist.  Is  it  not  more  reason- 
able to  say  that  the  totality  of  socialized  habits,  in  short  the  "culture," 
that  he  was  familiar  with  was  not  in  all  respects  the  same  entity  as  the 
corresponding  totality  presented  to  the  observation  or  introspection  of 
some  other  Indian,  or  perhaps  of  all  other  Indians?  If  the  question 
asked  by  the  anthropologist  involved  a  mere  question  of  personal  affir- 
mation, we  need  have  no  difficulty  in  understanding  his  denial.  But 
even  if  it  involved  the  question  of  "objective  fact,"  we  need  not  be  too 
greatly  shocked  by  the  denial.  Let  us  suppose  that  the  anthropologist 
asked  the  simple  question,  "Are  there  seven  clans  or  eight  clans  in  moi- 
ety A  of  your  tribe?",  or  words  to  that  effect.  All  other  Indians  that  he 
has  asked  about  this  sheer  question  of  "fact"  have  said  eight,  we  will 
assume.  Two  Crows  claims  that  there  are  only  seven.  How  can  this  be? 
If  we  look  more  closely  to  the  facts,  we  should  undoubtedly  find  that 
the  contradiction  is  not  as  puzzling  as  it  seems.  It  may  turn  out  that 
one  of  the  clans  had  been  extinct  for  a  long  time,  most  of  the  infor- 
mants, however,  remembering  some  old  man,  now  deceased,  who  had 
been  said  to  be  the  last  survivor  of  it.  They  might  feel  that  while  the 
clan  no  longer  exists  in  a  practical  sense,  it  has  a  theoretical  place  in 


One:  Culture.  Society,  and  the  huliviiiunl  359 

the  ordered  dcscriplit>n  ofllic  liibe's  social  organization.  Perhaps  there 
is  some  ceremonial  fimclion  oi  placement,  properls  belonging  to  the 
extinct  clan,  which  is  remembered  as  such  and  which  makes  it  a  little 
dirficiilt  to  completely  overlook  its  claims  to  "existence."  Various  tilings, 
on  the  other  hand,  may  be  true  of  Two  Crows.  He  may  have  belonged 
to  a  clan  which  had  )i.O(k\  reason  lo  detest  the  extinct  clan,  perhaps 
because  it  had  humiliated  a  relative  ot  his  in  the  dim  past.  It  is  certainly 
conceivable  that  the  factual  non-existence  o\'  the  clan  coupled  with  his 
personal  reason  for  thinking  as  little  about  it  as  possible  might  gi\e  him 
the  perfectly  honest  conviction  that  one  need  speak  of  only  seven  clans 
in  the  tribe.  There  is  no  reason  why  the  normal  anthropological  investi- 
gator should,  in  an  inquiry  of  this  kind,  look  much  beneath  the  surface 
of  a  simple  answer  to  a  simple  question.  It  almost  looks  as  though 
either  seven  clans  or  eight  clans  might  be  the  "correct"  answer  to  an 
apparently  unambiguous  question.  The  problem  is  very  simple  here.  By 
thinking  a  little  about  Two  Crows  himself,  we  are  enabled  to  show  that 
he  was  not  wrong,  though  he  seemed  to  disagree  with  all  his  fellow 
Indians.  He  had  a  special  kind  of  rightness,  which  was  partly  factual, 
partly  personal. 

Have  we  not  the  right  to  go  on  from  simple  instances  o'i  this  sort  and 
advance  to  the  position  that  any  statement,  no  matter  how  general, 
which  can  be  made  about  culture  needs  the  supporting  testimony  o^  a 
tangible  person  or  persons,  to  whom  such  a  statement  is  of  real  value 
in  his  system  o\^  interrelationships  with  other  human  beings?  If  this  is 
so,  we  shall,  at  last  analysis,  have  to  admit  that  any  indi\idual  o^  a 
group  has  cultural  definitions  which  do  not  apply  to  all  the  [II]  mem- 
bers of  his  group,  which  even,  in  specific  instance,  apply  to  him  alone. 
Instead,  therefore,  of  arguing  from  a  supposed  objectivity  of  culture  lo 
the  problem  of  individual  variation,  we  shall,  for  certain  kinds  of  analy- 
sis, have  to  proceed  in  the  opposite  direction.  We  shall  ha\e  to  operate 
as  though  we  knew  nothing  about  culture  but  were  interested  in  analyz- 
ing as  well  as  we  could  what  a  given  number  o\'  human  beings  accus- 
tomed to  live  with  each  other  actuallx  think  and  do  in  their  da\  to  day 
relationships.  We  shall  then  find  that  we  are  drisen.  wilK-nilK.  tc^  the 
recognition  of  certain  permanencies,  in  a  relati\e  sense,  in  these  interre- 
lationships, permanencies  which  can  reasonabl\  be  counted  on  to  per- 
dure  but  which  must  also  be  recognized  to  be  elernalls  subject  to  serious 
modification  of  form  and  meaning  with  the  lapse  of  lime  and  with  those 
changes  of  personnel  which  are  unaxoidable  in  the  histiMA  of  an\  group 
of  human  beings. 


3^  ///  Cuhurc 

This  mode  of  ihinking  is,  of  course,  essentially  psychiatric.  Psychia- 
trists ma\,  or  ma\  noi.  believe  in  cultural  patterns,  in  group  minds,  in 
historic  tendencies,  or  even  missions:  they  cannot  avoid  believing  in 
particular  people.  Personalities  may  be  dubbed  fictions  by  sociologists, 
anthropologists,  and  even  by  certain  psychologists,  but  they  must  be 
accepted  as  bread  and  butter  realities  by  the  psychiatrist.  Nothing,  in 
short,  can  be  more  real  to  a  psychiatrist  than  a  personality  organization, 
lis  modification  from  infancy  to  death,  its  essential  persistence  in  terms 
o{  consciousness  and  ego  reference.  From  this  point  of  view  culture 
cannot  be  accepted  as  anything  more  than  a  convenient  assemblage,  or 
at  best  total  theory,  of  real  or  possible  modes  of  behavior  abstracted 
from  the  experienced  realities  of  communication,  whether  in  the  form 
of  overt  behavior  or  in  the  form  of  fantasy.  Even  the  alphabet  from  this 
standpoint  becomes  a  datum  of  personality  research!  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  alphabet  does  mean  different  things  to  different  people.  It  is 
loved  by  some,  hated  by  others,  an  object  of  indifference  to  most.  It  is 
a  purely  instrumental  thing  to  a  few;  it  has  varying  kinds  of  overtones 
of  meaning  for  most,  ranging  all  the  way  from  the  weakly  sentimental 
to  the  passionately  poetic.  No  one  in  his  senses  would  wish  the  alphabet 
to  be  studied  from  this  highly  personalistic  point  of  view.  In  plain  Eng- 
lish, it  would  not  be  worth  the  trouble.  The  total  meaning  of  the  alpha- 
bet for  X  is  so  very  nearly  the  same  as  that  for  any  other  individual,  Y, 
that  one  does  much  better  to  analyze  it  and  explain  its  relation  to  other 
cultural  patterns  in  terms  of  an  impersonal,  or  cultural,  or  anthropolog- 
ical, mode  of  description.  The  fact,  however,  that  X  has  had  more  diffi- 
culty in  learning  the  alphabet  than  Y,  or  that  in  old  age  X  may  forget 
the  alphabet  or  some  part  of  it  more  readily  than  Y,  shows  clearly 
enough  that  there  is  a  psychiatric  side  to  even  the  coldest  and  most 
indifferent  of  cultural  patterns.  Even  such  cold  and  indifferent  cultural 
patterns  have  locked  in  them  psychiatric  meanings  which  are  ordinarily 
of  no  moment  to  the  student  of  society  but  which  may  under  peculiar 
circumstances  come  to  the  foreground  of  attention.  When  this  happens, 
anthropological  data  need  to  be  translated  into  psychiatric  terms. 

What  we  have  tried  to  advance  is  little  more  than  a  plea  for  the 
assistance  of  the  psychiatrist  in  the  study  of  certain  problems  which 
come  up  in  an  analysis  of  socialized  behavior.  In  spite  of  all  that  has 
been  claimed  to  the  contrary,  we  cannot  thoroughly  understand  the 
dynamics  of  culture,  of  society,  of  history,  without  sooner  or  later  ta- 
king account  of  the  actual  interrelationships  of  human  beings.  We  can 
postpone  this  psychiatric  analysis  indefinitely  but  we  cannot  theoretic- 


One:  C'lilftiiv.  Sodciv.  iiiul  the  Imliviiliuil  361 

ally  eliminate  il.  Willi  the  iiiodcni  LH\)\\lh  ol  mlcicsi  in  ihc  slud\  ot 
personality  and  with  the  growing  conviction  of  the  enormous  flexibility 
ot^  personality  adjustment  to  one's  fellow  men,  it  is  dinicult  to  see  how 
one's  intellectual  curiosity  about  the  prc^^lems  of  lumian  intercourse  can 
be  forever  satisfied  by  schematic  stateiiieiiis  about  society  and  its  stock 
of  cultural  patterns.  The  very  variations  and  uncertainties  which  the 
earlier  anthropologists  ignored  seem  to  be  the  very  aspects  o\'  human 
behavior  that  future  students  of  [12]  society  will  have  to  look  to  with  a 
special  concern,  for  it  is  only  through  an  analysis  of  variation  that  the 
realil)  and  meaning  o\^  a  norm  can  be  established  at  all.  and  it  is  only 
through  a  minute  and  sympathetic  study  of  individual  beha\  ior  in  the 
state  in  which  normal  human  beings  find  themselves,  namely  in  a  state 
of  society,  that  it  will  ultimately  be  possible  to  say  things  about  societ> 
itself  and  culture  that  are  more  than  fairly  convenient  abstractions.  Sur- 
ely, if  the  social  scientist  is  interested  in  effective  consistencies,  in  tend- 
encies, and  in  values,  he  must  not  dodge  the  task  of  studying  the  etTects 
produced  by  individuals  of  varying  temperaments  and  backgrounds  on 
each  other.  Anthropology,  sociology,  indeed  social  science  in  general,  is 
notoriously  weak  in  the  discovery  of  effective  consistencies.  This  weak- 
ness, it  seems,  is  not  unrelated  to  a  fatal  fallacy  with  regard  to  the 
objective  reality  of  social  and  cultural  patterns  defined  impersonally. 

Causation  implies  continuity,  as  does  personality  itself.  The  social 
scientist's  world  of  reality  is  generally  expressed  in  discontinuous  terms. 
An  effective  philosophy  of  causation  in  the  realm  of  social  phenomena 
seems  impossible  so  long  as  these  phenomena  are  judged  to  ha\e  a  \alid 
existence  and  sequence  in  their  own  right.  It  is  only  when  they  are 
translated  into  the  underlying  facts  of  behavior  from  which  the\  ha\e 
never  been  divorced  in  reality  that  one  can  hope  to  ad\  ance  to  an  under- 
standing of  causes.  The  test  can  be  made  easily  enough.  We  ha\e  no 
difficulty  in  understanding  how  a  given  human  being's  experiences  tend 
to  produce  certain  results  in  the  further  conduct  o^  his  life.  Our  know  1- 
edge  is  far  too  fragmentary  to  allow  us  to  understand  full),  but  there  is 
never  a  serious  difficulty  in  principle  in  imputing  to  the  stream  o^  his 
experiences  that  causative  quality  which  we  take  for  granted  in  the 
physical  universe.  To  the  extent  that  we  can  similarls  speak  of  causati\e 
sequences  in  social  phenomena,  what  wc  are  reall\  iloini:  is  \o  puamid. 
as  skilfully  and  as  rapidly  as  possible,  the  sorts  o^  cause  and  etVect 
relations  that  we  are  familiar  with  in  indi\idual  experience,  imputing 
these  to  a  social  reality  which  has  been  constructed  out  of  our  need  for 
a  maximally  economical  expression  o\'  t\picall\  human  e\ents.  It  will 


3(>2  ///   Culture 

be  ihc  tuturc  lask  o\  the  psychiatrist  to  read  cause  and  effect  in  human 
history.  \\c  cannot  do  it  now  because  his  theory  of  personahty  is  too 
weak  and  because  he  tends  to  accept  with  too  httle  criticism  the  imper- 
sonal mode  o\  social  and  cuUural  analysis  which  anthropology  has 
made  fashionable.  If,  therefore,  we  answer  our  initial  question,  "Why 
cultural  anthropology  needs  the  psychiatrist,"  in  a  sense  entirely  favor- 
able to  the  psychiatrist,  that  is,  to  the  systematic  student  of  human 
personality,  we  do  not  for  a  moment  mean  to  assert  that  any  psychiatry 
that  has  as  yet  been  evolved  is  in  a  position  to  do  much  more  than  to 
ask  intelligent  questions. 


Editorial  Notes 

Originally  published  in  Psychiatry  1,  7-12  (1938).  Reprinted  by  per- 
mission of  Psvchialrv. 


Letter  to  Philip  S.  Selznick.  25  October  1938 
Editorial  Introduction 

Philip  Selznick,  on  his  own  initiative,  sent  his  honors  essay  from  City 
College  o(  New  York  to  Sapir  for  comments.  Sapir's  reply,  written  only 
a  few  months  before  his  death,  offered  an  informal  view  of  the  emerging 
field  of  "culture  and  personality,"  and  summarized  some  aspects  of  his 
own  approach.  Sapir  was  impressed  by  the  young  man's  understanding 
o\^  the  conceptual  basis  of  the  distinction  between  culture  and  indivi- 
dual, but  he  cautioned  him  against  some  potential  pitfalls  -  excessive 
cultural  relativism,  and  false  analogies  between  individual  personality 
and  culture  -  into  which,  Sapir  suggested,  Ruth  Benedict  and  Margaret 
Mead  had  fallen.  He  referred  to  his  own  planned  book.  The  P.sycho/oi^y 
of  Culiuiw  as  the  work  that  would  properly  explicate  his  point  of  view, 
although  he  must  have  realized  that  he  would  not  live  to  complete  ii. 

This  letter,  with  commentary  by  George  W.  Stocking,  Jr..  was  pub- 
lished in  1980  in  the  History  of  Anthropology  Newsletter,  under  the  title. 
"Sapir's  last  testament  on  culture  and  personality." 

Letter  to  Philip  Selznick  (1980) 

October  25,  1938 
Mr.  Philip  S.  Selznick, 
3099  Brighton  6th  Street 
Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

Dear  Mr.  Selznick, 

I  have  read  your  essay  with  very  great  interest  and  am  rcturnnig  ii  to 
you  under  another  cover.  I  believe  that  you  have  assimilated  the  culture 
and  personality  point  of  view  very  successfully.  I  find  myself  in  substan- 
tial agreement  with  you  at  practically  every  pomt  and  I  sincerely  hope 
that  you  are  planning  to  deepen  your  acquaintance  with  the  problems 
suggested. 

While  the  point  of  view  which  you  discuss  has  largely  been  advanced 
by  what  might  be  described  as  the  radical  wing  o\'  anthropologv,  I  be- 
lieve that  further  work  in  this  Held,  if  it  is  to  be  trulv  siiznillcanl  and 


354  f^^  Citlturc 

noi  merely  philosophical  in  lone,  is  destined  to  come  largely  from  those 
thai  arc  immediately  concerned  with  psychiatric  reality,  that  is  from 
people  \sho  lake  seriously  problems  of  personality  organization  and 
de\elopmeni.  Practically,  this  means  that  the  younger  people  like  your- 
>eiruho  aim  to  contribute  significantly  to  a  clarification  of  problems  of 
personality  and  culture  should  plunge  boldly  into  personality  problems. 
Specific  cultural  problems  are  of  course  of  the  greatest  value,  but  I  have 
come  to  feel  that  the  law  of  diminishing  returns  operates  rather  quickly 
in  anthropology.  I  mean  to  say  that  such  ideas  as  cultural  relativity  and 
psychological  reinterpretation  of  cultural  forms  are  assimilated  readily 
enough  by  an  intelligent  person  on  the  basis  of  a  comparatively  slight 
knowledge  o'(  the  ethnographic  field.  An  extended  knowledge  of  exotic 
cultures  deepens  of  course  our  sense  of  cultural  history,  but  it  does  not, 
after  a  certain  point  of  sophistication  has  been  reached,  help  very  much 
with  the  clarification  of  the  more  fundamental  quesfion  of  the  meaning 
o'i  personality  organization  in  cultural  terms.  Psychiatric  insight  can,  I 
feel,  not  be  obtained  by  the  mere  reading  of  a  great  deal  of  literature. 
Clinical  experience  and  a  patient  analysis  of  actual  case  material  are 
indispensable. 

I  Judge  from  a  number  of  passages  in  your  essay  that  you  share  my 
feeling  that  there  is  danger  of  the  growth  of  a  certain  scientific  mythol- 
ogy in  anthropological  circles  with  regard  to  the  psychological  inter- 
pretation of  culture.  I  believe  this  comes  out  most  clearly  in  Ruth  Bene- 
dict's book.  "Patterns  of  Culture."  Unless  I  misunderstand  the  direction 
of  her  thinking  and  of  the  thinking  of  others  who  are  under  her  influ- 
ence, there  is  altogether  too  great  readiness  to  translate  psychological 
analogies  into  psychological  realities.  I  do  not  like  the  glib  way  in  which 
many  talk  of  such  and  such  a  culture  as  "paranoid"  or  what  you  will. 
It  would  be  my  intention  to  bring  out  clearly,  in  a  book  that  I  have 
still  to  write,  the  extreme  methodological  importance  of  distinguishing 
between  actual  psychological  processes  which  are  of  individual  location 
and  presumptive  or  "as  if  psychological  pictures  which  may  be  ab- 
stracted from  cultural  phenomena  and  which  may  give  significant  direc- 
tion to  individual  development.  To  speak  of  a  whole  culture  as  having 
a  personality  configuration  is,  of  course,  a  pleasing  image,  but  I  am 
afraid  that  it  belongs  more  to  the  order  of  aesthetic  or  poetic  constructs 
than  of  scientific  ones. 

The  only  critical  reaction  that  I  have  had  in  reading  your  pages  is  a 
certain  misgiving  as  to  whether  you  were  not  stretching  the  idea  of 
cultural  relativity  too  much.  Like  many  young  people  who  are  obvi- 


One    Culture.  Society,  luul  the  hu/lvidunl  365 

ousl>  cxliilaratcd  b\  ssmbols  o\'  rc\oll  and  sccni  [o  iciul  lo  tear  ihc 
establishment  o\'  iiniversals  in  bclia\iiM\  ymi  lend  [o  hold  otT  the  estab- 
lishment o['  the  'Miormal"  as  much  as  possible.  1  am  sure  that  this  is  a 
healthy  tendency  at  the  beginning  of  one's  scientific  career,  but  I  think 
you  will  fmd  that  it  may  lead  in  the  long  run  to  superficiality.  In  this 
very  sphere  patient  psychiatric  work  is  destined  to  gi\e  us  a  more  aiul 
more  protbund  respect  for  the  recognition  of  certain  fundamental  nor- 
malities regardless  of  cultural  differences,  meanwhile  it  is  perfectly  true 
that  anthropology  has  had  a  healthy  effect  in  forcing  the  psychiatrist 
not  to  identify  his  ill-defined  conception  oi'^  normality  with  specific  cul- 
tural forms.  It  will  be  our  not  too  easy  task  to  redefine  normality  on  a 
broader  cultural  and  psychiatric  basis.  There  is  one  point  that  may  pos- 
sibly not  have  escaped  your  observation,  and  that  is  that  there  is  often 
an  unconscious  or  at  least  an  unacknowledged  motive  for  the  denial  ol' 
normalities  which  transcend  the  compulsions  of  culture.  ...  One  ccnild 
write  a  very  interesting  paper  on  the  usefulness  of  the  concept  of  cul- 
tural relativity  as  a  sophisticated  form  of  what  the  psychiatrist  some- 
what brutally  refers  to  as  a  fiight  from  reality.  Certainly  this  is  not  the 
whole  story,  but  I  have  come  to  feel  that  there  is  far  more  in  it  than  a 
liberal  intelligence  might  wish  to  grant  in  the  first  place. 

Anyway,  I  want  to  congratulate  you  on  your  intelligent  grasp  o\^  the 
problems  that  you  discuss  and  to  thank  you  for  giving  me  the  opportu- 
nity of  reading  your  interesting  essay.  Under  another  cover  I  am  sending 
you  a  few  reprints  that  you  may  be  interested  in. 

Yours  sincerely, 

Edward  Sapir 


Editorial  notes: 

This  letter  was  published  in  1980  in  .-/  /li.slory  oj  Amhropoloi^v  .\e\\\lct- 
tcr  7(2):8-10  under  the  heading,  "Sapir's  Last  Testament  on  Culture 
and  Personality."  George  Stocking,  editor  of  the  Newslciicr.  luned  that 
the  letter  was  reproduced  (with  the  elision  i^f  one  personal  passage)  "by 
the  kind  permission  of  Professor  Sel/nick  and  I'ri^fessiM"  J.  Daxid  Sapir. 


Psychiatric  and  Cultural  Pitfalls  in  the  Business 
ot^  Getting  a  Living  (1939) 

Editorial  Introduction 

This  paper  appeared  as  the  lead  article  in  Mcntdl  Health,  a  publica- 
tion o'i  the  American  Association  for  the  Ad\ancenient  o\^  Science,  dis- 
cussing what  physical  and  cultural  environment  might  be  most  condu- 
ci\e  to  mental  well-being.  Ruth  Benedict  contributed  a  paper  on  cross- 
cultural  studies  of  personality;  Harold  Lasswell  wrote  about  politics  and 
psychiatry;  and  Harry  Stack  Sullivan  served  as  discussant.  This  was 
Sapir's  final  entry  in  the  interdisciplinary  arena  that  consumed  much  of 
his  energy  during  the  1930's. 

Assigned  the  topic  of  mental  health's  relation  to  the  economic  struc- 
ture of  American  society.  Sapir  enlarged  his  focus  to  include  biological 
and  psychological  determinants  o'i  behavior.  He  then  turned  to  a  fa\  or- 
ite  topic,  the  methodology  of  the  social  sciences.  While  economics  relied 
on  a  conception  of  an  idealized  individual,  "economic  man."  uhose 
behaviors  in  aggregate  were  supposed  to  result  in  economic  trends,  psy- 
chiatry offered  case  histories  of  actual  individuals,  and  anthropology 
offered  a  view  of  the  cultural  conditions  and  symbolisms  in  which  in- 
dividuals' behavior  was  framed.  What  was  needed,  howe\er,  was  to  put 
these  insights  together.  Psychiatry,  for  example,  had  ignored  the  social 
and  economic  forces  that  placed  some  indixiduals  in  difficult)  regard- 
less of  personality. 

This  paper  turned  the  tables  on  Sapir's  usual  emphasis  on  inJi\iduaI 
cognition  and  creativity.  The  argument  that  indi\Kiuals"  emotional  reac- 
tions must  be  understood  in  relation  to  an  exterior  econonnc  context 
and  structure  shows,  perhaps  more  conspicuoush  than  in  any  other 
paper,  that  Sapir  was  not  the  methodological  indi\idualist  some  have 
thought  him. 

One  of  the  paper's  examples  that  o{  the  psychological  etVect  o\' 
economic  insecurity  on  the  college  professoi  hiMc  an  e\  ident  relation 
lo  Sapir's  personal  circumstances.  During  the  last  \ear  of  his  life  he  had 
to  return  to  leaching  at  Yale  in  spite  of  a  serious  heart  condition.  But 


368  III   Culture 

although  this  last  cssav  rellects  his  depression  and  precarious  health, 
in  theoretical  terms  it  marks  a  further  development  in  the  innovative 
perspective  on  culture,  society,  and  the  individual  which  began  with  his 
critique  of  the  ""superorganic"  in  1917. 


lN\chiairic  and  Cultural  Pitfalls  in  the  Business 
o\'  Getting  a  Living 

All  special  sciences  of  man^s  physical  and  cultural  nature  tend  to 
create  a  framework  of  tacit  assumptions  which  enable  their  practitioners 
to  work  with  maximum  economy  and  generality.  The  classical  example 
o'i  this  una\oidable  tendency  is  the  science  of  economics,  which  is  too 
intent  on  working  out  a  general  theory  of  value,  production,  flow  of 
commodities,  demand,  price,  to  take  time  to  inquire  seriously  into  the 
nature  and  variability  of  those  fundamental  biological  and  psychologi- 
cal determinants  of  behavior  which  make  these  economic  terms  mean- 
ingful in  the  first  place.  The  sum  total  of  the  tacit  assumptions  of  a 
biological  and  psychological  nature  which  economics  makes  gets  petri- 
fied into  a  standardized  conception  of  "economic  man,"  who  is  en- 
dowed with  just  those  motivations  which  make  the  known  facts  of  eco- 
nomic behavior  in  our  society  seem  natural  and  inevitable.  In  this  way 
the  economist  gradually  develops  a  peculiarly  powerful  insensitiveness 
to  actual  motivations,  substituting  Hfe-like  fictions  for  the  troublesome 
contours  of  life  itself 

The  economist  is  not  in  the  least  exceptional  in  his  unconscious  pro- 
cedure. Any  one  who  deals  habitually  with  what  man  makes  and  thinks, 
not  because  he  is  interested  in  man  directly  but  because  he  wishes  to 
find  law  and  order  in  what  man  makes  and  thinks,  slips,  by  insensible 
degrees,  into  the  assumption  that  such  regularities  of  form  and  process 
as  he  finds  in  selected  categories  of  man's  behavior  are  fundamentally 
due  to  a  peculiar  quality  of  self-determination  in  those  categories  rather 
than  to  the  ceaseless,  eternally  shifting,  balancing  of  concretely  defin- 
able motivations  of  particular  people  at  particular  times  and  in  particu- 
lar places.  The  very  terminology  which  is  used  by  the  many  kinds  of 
segmental  scientists  of  man  indicates  how  remote  man  himself  has  be- 
come as  a  necessary  concept  in  the  methodology  of  the  respective  sci- 
ences. Thus,  in  economics,  one  speaks  of  "the  flow  of  commodities," 
without  special  concern  for  a  close  factual  analysis  of  modifications  of 
demand  which,  if  studied  in  their  full  realism,  might  be  shown  to  be 


One    Cn/ftnr.  Society,  ami  l he  hu/ivli/iuil  369 

due  to  such  factors  as  hatred  of  an  ahen  s:i\>Lip.  jjrouth  of  superstition. 
increased  interest  in  ha\\d\  shows,  or  dechne  o\'  jTrestigc  ol  hotel  lite, 
each  of  these  motivational  categories,  in  turn,  opening  up  a  series  of 
inquiries  into  intricate  problems  o\'  interpersonal  relations,  direct  and 
s\nibolic.  In  aesthetics,  one  can  speak  ol"  "necessary  balances  of  lines  o\' 
tone  masses"  almost  as  though  one  were  the  Demiurge  of  the  uni\erse  in 
whispered  conversation  with  the  law  of  gravitation,  apparentl\  without 
a  suspicion  that  defects  of  eye  and  ear  structure  or  highly  indirect  im- 
putations of  "meaning"  due  to  the  vacillations  of  fashion  ha\e  anything 
to  do  with  the  ""aesthetic"  problem  o\'  how  to  create  "satisfactory  bal- 
ances" of  an  ""aesthetic  order."  In  linguistics,  abstracted  speech  sounds, 
words  and  the  arrangement  of  words  have  come  to  have  so  authentic  a 
vitality  that  one  can  speak  of  "'regular  sound  changes"  and  "loss  oi 
genders"  without  knowing  or  caring  who  opened  their  mouths,  at  what 
time,  to  communicate  what  to  whom. 

Science  vs.  Man.  -  The  purpose  of  these  remarks  is  simply  to  indicate 
that  science  itself,  when  applied  to  the  field  of  normal  human  interest, 
namely  man  and  his  daily  concerns,  creates  a  serious  dilTicully  for  those 
of  us  who  find  it  profitable  to  envisage  a  true  "'psychiatric  science"  or 
"science  of  interpersonal  relations."'  The  nature  of  this  difficulty  may 
be  defined  as  follows.  Inasmuch  as  science  has  greater  prestige  in  our 
serious  thinking  than  daily  observation,  however  shrewd  or  accurate, 
or  than  those  obscure  convictions  about  human  beings  which  result 
from  a  ceaseless  experiencing  of  them,  there  tends  to  grow  up  in  the 
minds  of  the  vast  majority  of  us  a  split  between  two  kinds  o\'  "know  I- 
edge"  about  man.  Every  fragmentary  science  of  man,  such  as  economics 
or  political  science  or  aesthetics  or  linguistics,  needs  at  least  a  minimum 
set  of  assumptions  about  the  nature  of  man  in  order  [o  house  the  partic- 
ular propositions  and  records  of  events  which  belong  to  its  selected 
domain.  These  fragmentary  pictures  of  man  are  not  in  intelligible  or 
relevant  accord  with  each  other  nor  do  the\.  when  wilfulK  integrated 
by  a  sort  of  philosophic  fiat.  gi\e  us  an\ thing  remoteK  resembling  the 
tightly  organized  and  fatefully  moving  individuals  that  we  cannot  but 
know  and  understand  up  to  a  certain  point.  hinve\er  much  it  ma\  be 
to  our  advantage  not  to  know  and  understand  them  at  all.  A  student  o\' 
aesthetics  finds  it  very  much  to  his  advantage  to  make  certain  sweeping 
assumptions  about  the  ""aesthetic  nature"  of  man  in  order  to  gi\e  him- 
self maximum  clearance  for  the  de\elopment  oi  those  propositions  and 
for  the  record  and  explanation  o\'  those  e\ents  which  professionalK 
interest  him,  those  that  work  with  him  and  those  that  have  preceded 


370  ^'^  Culture 

him  in  A  prcsiige-ladcn  tradition.  Random  observations  about  "beauti- 
ful" thinus  or  Mrudurcs,  such  as  arrangements  of  ideas,  such  observa- 
tions as  might  be  made  by  a  child  or  by  any  naive  person  who  cannot 
define  aesthetic  terms  and  who  has  no  conscious  place  for  them  in  that 
personally  useful  \ocabulary  which  defines  his  universe,  tend  to  be  dis- 
missed as  marginal  to  the  proper  concern  of  aesthetics,  as  untutored, 
as  oi  impure  conceptual  manufacture.  The  aesthetician  is  amused  or 
annoyed,  as  the  case  may  be.  He  has  to  be  almost  a  genius  to  be  in- 
structed. The  less  fateful  is  the  split  between  his  professional  conception 
oi  man  as  a  beauty-discerning  and  beauty-creating  organism  and  his 
humble  perceptions  of  man  as  a  psychobiological  organism,  the  less 
dilTiculty  will  he  have  to  surrender  the  rigid  outlines  of  his  science  to 
the  fate  of  all  historical  constructs.  Such  a  synthetist  is  secretly  grateful 
for  anything  that  jars  him  out  of  the  certainties  and  necessities  of  his 
ghost-inhabited  science  and  brings  him  back  to  the  conditionaHties  of 
an  experience  that  was  too  hastily  and  magnificently  integrated 
("cured."  the  psychiatrist  might  say)  by  his  science  in  the  first  place. 

It  is  not  really  difficult,  then,  to  see  why  anyone  brought  up  on  the 
austerities  of  a  well-defined  science  of  man,  must,  if  he  is  to  maintain 
his  symbolic  self-respect,  become  more  and  more  estranged  from  man 
himself.  Economic  laws  become  more  "real"  than  certain  people  who 
try  to  make  a  living;  the  necessities  of  the  "State"  get  to  outweigh  in 
conceptual  urgency  the  desire  of  the  vast  majority  of  human  beings  to 
be  bothered  as  little  as  possible;  the  laws  of  syntax  acquire  a  higher 
reality  than  the  immediate  reality  of  the  stammerer  who  is  trying  lo 
"get  himself  across";  the  absolute  beauty,  or  lack  of  it,  of  an  isolated 
picture  or  isolated  poem  becomes  a  more  insistent  item  in  the  diary  of 
the  cosmos  than  the  mere  fact  of  whether  there  is  anybody  around  who 
is  moved  by  it  or  not. 

Now  fantasied  universes  of  self-contained  meaning  are  the  very  finest 
and  noblest  substitutes  we  can  ever  devise  for  that  precise  and  living 
insight  into  the  nooks  and  crannies  of  the  real  that  must  be  forever 
denied  us.  But  we  must  not  reverse  the  arrow  of  experience  and  claim 
for  experience's  imaginative  condensations  the  primacy  in  an  appeal  to 
our  loyalty,  which  properly  belongs  to  our  perceptions  of  men  and 
women  as  the  ultimate  units  of  value  in  our  day-to-day  view  of  the 
world.  If  we  do  not  thus  value  the  nuclei  of  consciousness  from  which 
all  science,  all  art,  all  history,  all  culture,  have  flowed  as  symbolic  by- 
products in  the  humble  but  intensely  urgent  business  of  establishing 
meaningful  relationships  between  actual  human  beings,  we  commit  per- 


Otic:  Culture.  Society,  uiul  the  Individuul  371 

sonal  suicide.  Ihc  theology  of  economics  ov  aeslhelics  or  ol  liii\  other 
ordered  science  of  man  weighs  just  as  hea\il\  on  us.  whether  we  know 
it  or  not,  as  the  outmoded  theologies  of  gods  and  their  worshippers. 
Not  for  one  single  moment  can  we  allow  ourselves  to  forget  the  experi- 
enced unity  of  the  indixidual.  No  formulations  about  man  and  his  place 
in  society  which  <\o  not  pro\e  strictly  and  literally  acciuate  when  tested 
by  the  experience  of  the  individual  can  have  more  than  a  transitcny  or 
technical  authority.  Hence  we  need  ne\er  fear  to  modify,  prune,  extend, 
redefme,  rearrange,  and  reorient  our  .sciences  of  man  as  social  being, 
for  these  sciences  cannot  point  to  an  order  of  nature  that  has  meaning 
apart  iVom  the  directly  experienced  perceptions  and  \  allies  of  the  indi\i- 
dual. 

"Economic  Man. "  —  Let  us  consider  the  meaning  oi"  the  problem  of 
"earning  a  living."  It  is  not  a  simple  problem,  though  it  is  relatively  so 
for  the  economist.  If  the  economist  hears  that  A  gets  a  salary  of 
$1500.00  a  year,  his  scientific  curiosity  does  not  go  much  beyond  trying 
to  ascertain  if  this  income  is  a  normal  one  for  the  services  that  A  is  said 
to  be  rendering.  Should  he  discover  that  A  is  a  "full  professor"  at  a 
"university,"  he  will  note  the  fact  that  the  salary  is  well  below  the 
average  fee  paid  in  America  for  the  kind  of  work  that  "Mull  professors" 
do.  Beyond  such  observation  he  will  have  nothing  to  otTer,  though,  if 
he  is  himself  a  professor  or  the  son  of  a  professor,  he  may  allow  himself 
a  twinge  of  concern  at  the  imperilment  of  the  economic  status  o\'  a 
peculiarly  valuable  class  of  person  in  the  cultural  scene  of  contemporary 
America.  But,  strictly  speaking,  A's  salary  of  $1500.00  a  \ear  must  be 
interpreted  as  an  item  in  the  strictly  economic  process  o\'  balancing  the 
demand  for  such  services  as  A  is  rendering,  or  is  supposed  to  be  render- 
ing, with  the  supply  of  individuals  capable  of  rendering  them  at  as  low 
a  figure  as  A  is  willing  to  accept.  It  will  not  be  important  for  the  econo- 
mist to  try  to  find  out  if  A's  salary  is  as  low  as  it  is  because  he  is  a 
member  of  a  poor  religious  sect  which  is  not  in  a  position  lo  pa\  more 
for  the  full  professors  of  its  sectarian  uni\ersit\  or  um\ersities  (such 
curiosity  is  as  unseemly  for  an  economist  as  would  be  the  desire  o\'  a 
physicist  to  know  whether  his  falling  body  was  blue  ov  bright  red, 
though  the  economist  might  alU>w  his  less  austere  colleague,  ihe  sociolo- 
gist, to  indulge  in  a  few  musings  on  the  subject)  or  because  A  is.  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  a  millionaire  with  an  educatiiMial  hobby  which  he  feels 
he  ought  to  give  his  fellow  citizens  the  benefit  of  at  small  cost  to  "soci- 
ety." You  can't  get  any  more  of  a  personality  sketch  o\'  A  out  o\'  the 


372  JJ^  Culture 

economist  than  thai  A  just  does  happen  to  illustrate  a  somewhat  unu- 
sual equilibration  o\'  the  law  of  supply  and  demand. 

In  fairness  to  the  economist  it  must  be  stated  that  just  as  he  fails  to 
be  seriously  perturbed  over  the  singularly  low  economic  standard  of  A, 
iiuii  full  professor,  so  he  fails  to  be  greatly  saddened  by  the  spectacle  of 
B's  elTorts  to  get  along  on  $500.00  a  year,  even  if  it  can  be  proved  that 
B  is  married,  has  three  or  four  children,  and  is  not  a  millionaire  in 
disguise.  Should  B  also  prove  to  be  a  full  professor,  the  economist  might 
be  pardoned  if  there  grows  up  in  him  a  more  serious  uneasiness  as  to 
the  uiiperilment  o\'  the  economic  status  of  a  class  in  which,  being  a 
member  o'i  it.  he  has  after  all  a  little  more  than  a  merely  mathematical 
interest.  But  no.  B  is  not  a  full  professor,  he  is  merely  a  farmer  and  the 
economist  is  quickly  reassured  that  all's  well  with  B,  or,  if  B  really  is 
having  a  desperately  hard  time  of  it,  at  least  all's  well  with  B  qua  farmer, 
for  he  finds  that  B's  income  is  snugly  within  the  normal  limits  of  income 
earned  by  American  agriculturists  -  among  the  most  useful  of  our  vari- 
ous classes  of  citizens,  he  is  quite  wilhng  to  add.  Here  too  the  economist 
is  very  skillful  in  placing  B  at  any  one  of  those  strategic  corners  of  space 
and  lime  in  which  certain  factors  of  supply  and  demand  get  properly 
equilibrated.  Anyway,  if  his  irrelevant  "personalistic,"  not  to  say  hu- 
manitarian, interests  are  too  greatly  aroused,  he  can  take  quick  comfort 
in  the  fact  that  the  average  income  of  the  American  farmer  is  well  above 
S500.00  a  year,  so  that  B,  a  member  of  the  farmer  class,  ought  not  to 
be  too  greatly  discouraged.  Or,  if  B  is  not  easily  reassured,  at  least  those 
who  tend  to  be  worried  about  B  should  cease  to  be  so.  Of  course  B  may 
be  a  peculiarly  shiftless  person,  but  the  economist  will  not  press  that 
point.  It  is  better  to  be  statistically  magnanimous  and  to  content  oneself 
with  reflecting  that  B  just  does  happen  to  stand  at  one  of  the  less  re- 
warding corners  of  space  and  time.  There  is  no  need  to  develop  an 
essentially  ''unscientific"  interest  in  B's  personality,  in  his  "cultural" 
background,  and  in  the  nature  of  the  value  judgments  and  "symbol- 
isms" of  society  re  B  that  add  up  to  so  trifling  an  emolument  for  this 
particular  farmer. 

In  still  further  fairness  to  the  economist  it  should  be  said  that  not 
only  is  he  prepared  to  accept  as  "normal"  or  "natural"  incomes  that  an 
ordmary  person  or  even  a  sociologist  might  describe  as  "subnormal"  or 
"unnatural."  from  an  angle  of  observation  that  subtends  much  more 
than  the  field  of  operation  of  "economic  laws,"  but  he  is  also  prepared 
to  accept  as  entirely  "normal"  or  "natural"  incomes  that  are  fantasti- 
cally beyond  the  ability  of  anyone  to  "handle"  except  by  way  of  the 


One:  Cullurc.  Society,  iiml  the  Itulividual  373 

most  peculiar,  remote,  picliiresqiie,  symbolic,  in  shcMl.  dream-like  or 
make-believe,  extensions  of  the  personalities  of  the  recipients  o\'  such 
incomes.  Should  any  impertinent,  thoroughly  unscientific,  snooper 
whisper  to  the  economist  that,  so  far  as  he  can  see,  C's  $500. ()()(). 00 
income  (in  virtue  of  his  vice-presidency  of  the  X  bank  plus  sharehold- 
ership  in  the  \'  compain  plus  imeslmenl  in  the  Z  oil-fields  o\'  Mexico 
plus  a  long  list  of  other  services  rendered  his  fellowmen)  seems  to  be 
strangely  unaffected  by  the  tissue  of  physical  and  psychological  perfor- 
mances o(  the  psychophysical  entity  or  organism  called  C.  it  making 
apparently  little  ditTerence  whether  C  is  on  hand  to  instruct  one  o'(  his 
secretaries  to  cut  his  coupons  or  is  resting  up  in  the  Riviera,  the  econo- 
mist loses  patience.  If  he  then  speaks  at  all,  it  is  to  point  out  that, 
regardless  of  C's  to  him  unknown  and  forever  unknowable  personality, 
C  does,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  render  just  such  services  as  society  is 
"agreed"  naturally  How  form  the  rendering  of  these  services  and  that 
the  supposed  "facts"  about  C  are  of  no  more  interest  to  him  than  are,  to 
a  professor  of  alphabetology,  certain  reports  about  bad  boys  scrawling 
obscene  words  on  a  brick  wall  instead  of  turning  out  Shakespearian 
plays. 

In  desperation,  then,  let  us  admit  that  the  economist  is  right  and 
reflect,  once  and  for  all,  that  the  economist  is  no  more  interested  in 
human  beings  than  the  alphabetologist  is  interested  in  literature,  the 
numismatist  in  the  morality  of  the  kings  of  Bactria,  or  the  theologian 
in  the  chemical  rationalization  o'i  miracles;  that  is  to  sa\.  respectively 
ciua  economist,  qua  alphabetologist,  qua  numismatist,  qua  theologian. 
These  various  scientists  have  their  "universes  o\^  discourse"  that  they 
are  extremely  proud  of,  through  the  instrumentality  o['  w  hich  the\  se- 
cure valuable  definitions  of  their  egos  and  at  least  partialh  earn  their 
living,  and  there's  an  end  of  it.  The  necessarily  fragmentary,  philosophi- 
cally arbitrary  "universe  of  discourse"  gets  provided  with  an  excellent 
terminology,  more  or  less  self-contained  and  self-consistent  principles, 
and  some  insight,  however  tangential,  into  a  highl\  selccii\e  phase  o\' 
human  behavior  (including  human  opinion  about  dnine  behavior). 

There  is  no  mischief  in  all  this,  once  it  is  clearly  underslocui  that  the 
scientist  of  man  has  chief  concern  for  science,  not  for  man,  and  that  all 
science,  partly  for  better  and  partly  for  worse,  has  the  self-feeding  vo- 
racity of  an  obsessive  ritual.  We  must  gi\e  up  om  nai\e  faith  in  the 
ability  of  the  scientist  to  tell  us  anything  about  man  that  is  not  expressi- 
ble in  terms  of  the  verbal  definitions  and  operations  that  pre\ail  in  his 
"universe  of  discourse"  -  a  beautiful,  dream-like  domain  that  has  fitful 


374  ^^^  Culture 

reminiscences  o\'  man  as  an  experiencing  organism  but  is  not,  and  can- 
not be,  immersed  m  ihc  wholeness  of  that  experience.  Hence,  while 
economics  can  tell  us  much  about  the  technical  operations  that  prevail 
in  the  conceptually  well-defined  "economic  field,"  a  specific  type  of 
-universe  o\'  discourse"  which  has  only  fragmentary  and,  at  many 
points,  c\cn  a  fictional  relation  to  the  universe  of  experienced  behavior, 
it  cannot  give  us  a  working  conception  of  man  even  in  his  abstracted 
role  o\'  earning  a  living,  for  the  experiential  implications  of  earning  a 
living  are  not  seen  by  the  economist  as  part  of  his  scientific  concern. 

Man  us  Man.  -  But  it  is  precisely  these  experienfial  implications  that 
we  non-economists  are  interested  in.  We  want  to  know  what  making  a 
living  (just  about  making  it  or  failing  to  make  it  or  making  it  a  hundred 
times  o\er)  does  to  A  and  B  and  C.  To  what  extent  is  the  specific  eco- 
nomic functioning  of  A  and  B  and  C  of  importance,  not  only  to  them- 
selves and  those  immediately  dependent  on  them,  but  to  all  human 
beings  who  come  in  contact  with  them  and,  beyond  these  empirical 
kinds  of  importance,  to  the  eye  of  science?  Not,  to  be  sure,  to  the  eye 
of  any  safely  ticketed  science  that  has  its  conceptual  vested  interests  to 
conserve  but  to  an  inclusive  science  of  man,  one  that  does  the  best  it 
can  to  harbor  the  value  judgments  of  experiencing  human  beings  within 
its  own  catholic  "universe  of  discourse."  Such  a  science  will  perhaps  be 
called  a  dangerous  or  treacherous  congeries  of  opinions,  ranging  all  the 
way  from  the  feeble  aspirations  of  theologically  or  classically  tinctured 
humanism  to  the  sentimental,  direct-action  interferences  of  mental  hy- 
giene. But  we  need  not  be  so  pessimistic.  For  centuries  the  only  escape 
from  fragmentarism  was  into  the  too  ambitious  dream-worlds  of  philos- 
ophy, worlds  defined  by  the  assumption  that  the  human  intelligence 
could  behold  the  universe  instead  of  twinkling  within.  Now  that  philos- 
ophy is  being  progressively  redefined  as  a  highly  technical  critique  of 
the  validity  or  conditionality  of  judgments,  it  is  interesting  to  see  two 
disciplines  -  each  of  them  highly  apologetic  about  its  scientific  creden- 
tials -  which  are  taking  on  the  character  of  inclusive  perception  of 
human  events  and  personal  relations  in  as  powerfully  conceptualized 
form  as  possible.  These  condensafions  of  human  experience  are  cultural 
anthropology  and  psychiatry  -  both  of  them  poorly  chosen  terms,  but 
we  can  do  no  better  for  the  moment. 

Cultural  Anthropology  and  Psychiatry.  -  Each  of  these  disciplines  has 
its  special  "universe  of  discourse"  but  at  least  this  universe  is  so  broadly 
conceived  that,  under  favorable  circumstances,  either  of  them  can  take 
on  the  character  of  a  true  science  of  man.  Through  the  sheer  weight  of 


One:  Culfnrc.  Society,  cinil  i/ic  Imliviiliuil  375 

cultural  detail  and.  more  tlian  that,  through  the  far-reaching  pcrsonal- 
it\-conditi(ining  iiiiplicalitMis  o\'  \arialit>ns  iii  the  lornis  of  sociahzed 
behavior,  the  cultural  anthropologist  may;  if  he  chooses,  advance  from 
his  relatively  technical  problems  of  cultural  definition,  distribution,  or- 
ganization, and  history  to  more  intimate  problems  of  cultural  meaning, 
both  for  individuals  and  Tcm-  significantly  defmable  groups  of  individ- 
uals. And  the  psychiatrist  may.  if  he  chooses,  advance  from  theories 
of  personality  disorganization  to  theories  of  personality  organizatitMi. 
which,  in  the  long  run,  have  little  meaning  unless  they  are  buttressed 
by  a  comprehension  of  the  cultural  setting  in  which  the  individual  cease- 
lessly struggles  to  express  himself  The  Anthropologist,  in  other  words, 
needs  only  to  trespass  a  little  on  the  untitled  acres  of  psychology,  the 
psychiatrist  to  poach  a  few  o\^  the  uneaten  apples  of  anthropology's 
Golden  Bough. 

So  far  the  great  majority  of  both  kinds  of  scientists  -  if  that  proud 
classification  be  granted  them  -  have  feared  to  advance  very  far  into 
the  larger  fields  that  lie  open  before  them,  and  for  a  good  reason.  The 
fear  of  losing  the  insignia  of  standing  in  their  respective  disciplines,  still 
dangerously  insecure  in  the  hierarchy  of  science,  leads  to  an  anxious 
snobbery  which  is  easily  misunderstood  as  modesty  or  self-restraint. 
But  at  least  they  have  this  great  advantage,  so  far  as  the  study  of  man 
is  concerned:  neither,  in  his  heart  of  hearts,  believes  that  the  economist 
or  the  political  scientist  or  the  aesthetician  or  any  other  sort  of  technical 
expert  in  conceptually  isolated  realms  or  aspects  of  man's  behavior  is 
in  a  position  to  talk  real  sense  about  that  behavior.  An  anthrtipologist 
knows  that  you  can't  talk  economics  without  talking  about  religion  or 
superstition  at  the  same  time;  the  psychiatrist  knows  that  you  can't  talk 
economics  without  dropping  some  rather  important  hints  about  mental 
health  and  disease.  On  the  whole,  it  seems  safest  to  keep  such  knowl- 
edge in  one's  heart  of  hearts  and  to  act  as  though  one  were  content  to 
carry  on  from  where  the  economist  left  otT  Therefore,  as  culturalists, 
let  us  not  be  too  much  concerned  with  what  sorts  of  cultural  universes 
A  and  B  and  C  are  living  in;  as  psychiatrists,  let  us  not  be  too  much 
concerned  with  what  the  play  o[^  "economic  forces"  is  doing  to  A  and 
B  and  C  and  be  satisfied  to  nuimhlc.  as  occasion  arises,  something  quite 
discreet  about  how  an  income  of  $500. 00  a  year  would  not  seem  to 
discourage  B\s  paranoid  trends  or  about  how  poor  C"s  Don  Juanism. 
with  its  secret  unhappiness.  might  possibly  have  been  mitigated  if  he 
had  only  had  an  income  of  $5000.00  a  year  to  play  with.  It  is  so  easy 


376  l^^  Culiurc 

to  be  paranoid  on  S5{K).0()  a  year  and  it  is  so  difficult  to  be  a  Don  Juan 
-  and  C".  b\  the  way,  is  not  an  Apollo  -  on  $500.00  a  year. 

Ecoiwnuc  hiutors  in  Personal  Adjustment.  -  Everybody  really  knows 
a  good  deal  about  what  economics  has  to  do  with  the  personal  distribu- 
tion oi  -cultural  patterns"  and  with  mental  health.  The  facts  are  piti- 
fully obvious.  Professors  who  earn  only  $1500.00  a  year  cannot  go  to 
the  opera  very  often  and  must  therefore  go  in  for  plain  living  and  high 
thinking.  If  thev  have  good  health,  are  happily  married,  and  have  more 
than  a\crage  intelligence,  they  and  their  wives  can  manage  to  stave  off 
envy  of  the  banker  and  real-estate  agent  and  their  respective  wives, 
mingle  sturdy  Puritanism  with  a  subscription  to  "The  Nation,"  and 
construct  a  pretty  good  cultural  world  for  themselves.  After  all  $1500.00 
is  three  times  as  much  as  $500.00.  But  if  their  health  is  not  too  good,  if 
they  are  not  too  happily  married,  and  if  their  intelligence,  as  generally 
proves  to  be  the  case,  is  about  average,  then  it  is  to  be  feared  that 
$1500.00  is  not  quite  sufficient  to  buy  themselves  enough  of  cultural 
participation  to  stave  off  that  corroding  envy  of  the  banker  and  real- 
estate  agent  and  their  respective  wives  which,  psychiatrists  tell  us,  is  not 
very  good  for  either  the  digestive  tract  or  the  personality  organization. 
So,  one  surmises,  a  salary  of  $1500.00  a  year  for  a  full  professor  may 
have  a  good  deal  to  do  with  the  gradual  cultural  impoverishment  of 
A's  universe.  A  normal  vitality  will  mask  the  degenerative  cultural  and 
psychiatric  process  from  himself,  his  neighbors,  the  trustees  of  the  uni- 
versity and,  above  all,  the  economist,  who,  having  been  unpleasantly 
jarred  for  a  moment  by  his  threat  to  the  salary  curve  of  full  professors, 
need  never  think  of  him  again. 

At  first  A's  difficulties  find  their  solution  in  a  slightly  apologetic  vein 
of  irony,  which  cultivated  visitors  find  rather  charming.  A  certain 
school  of  social  psychologists  might  at  this  point  even  prove  that  A  was 
quite  appreciably  enriching  culture  both  for  himself  and  society.  (Few 
would  have  the  hardihood  to  suggest  that  he  was  enriching  the  cultural 
world  of  his  wife,  though  his  children  might  be  robust  enough  to  pick 
up  a  few  crumbs  of  value  or,  perhaps,  more  accurately,  a  few  ambiva- 
lently colored  experiences  which  the  softening  retrospect  of  later  years 
will  transmute  into  crumbs  of  value  -  if  not  indeed  into  a  philosophy, 
so  strong  is  the  magic  of  Illusion.)  But  A's  charm  does  not  wear  well, 
no  better  than  the  loveliness,  once  so  fashionable,  of  the  incipiently 
tubercular  flush.  Any  competent  novelist  may  step  in  at  this  point  and 
tell  us  about  the  fascinating  story  of  his  growing  sense  of  isolation,  his 


One    Cullurc.  Socii'tv.  <///</  ///c  Im/iviiliuil  311 

growing  morbidity,  the  growing  concern  oi  the  trustees  o\'  the  university 
tor  the  mental  heahli  of  his  students,  his  mevitable,  though  regrettable, 
dismissal,  and  o\'  iiow,  in  sheer  desperation,  he  founded  a  new  religion 
(it  was  a  sectarian  university  alter  all),  gave  Robinson  Jeffers  a  chance 
to  write  a  masterpiece  (which  the  economist's  wife,  if  not  the  economist, 
can  read  with  comfortable  gusto),  thereby  again  adding  materially, 
though  in  a  more  passive  sense,  to  America's  store  o\'  cultural  \alues, 
when,  apparently  out  of  blue  sky,  his  wife,  unable  to  determine  whether 
she  loved  him  or  hated  him,  committed  suicide.  Apparently  the  equili- 
brating power  of  $1500.00  a  year  was  not  enough  to  avert  the  tragedy. 
Dare  either  the  culturalist  or  the  psychiatrist  say  that  a  salary  raise  of 
$500.00  would  have  had  no  cultural  or  psychiatric  importance?  The 
feeble  vein  of  irony  might  have  grown  into  a  sturdy  fortress,  for  with 
an  extra  $500.00  he  could  have  just  managed  to  buy  his  wife  a  dress 
barely  good  enough  to  have  them  go  to  the  annual  tea  given  b\  the 
banker  (we  forgot  to  say  that  he  was  one  of  the  trustees  of  the  uni\er- 
sity)  for  the  express  purpose  of  having  faculty  and  trustees  get  to  know 
each  other.  As  it  is,  he  was  morbidly  isolated,  she  no  less.  And,  if  the 
truth  were  known,  Robinson  Jeffers  had  a  lot  of  other  things  to  write 
about. 

All  of  this,  the  economist  insists  -  and  quite  rightly  -  is  neither  here 
nor  there.  If  sociologists  want  to  worry  about  such  things,  let  them. 
They  don't  have  to  be  so  scientific.  But  most  sociologists  dearly  wish 
to  be  scientific.  They  collect  case  histories,  to  be  sure,  but  it  is  generally 
seen  to  that  they  contain  just  enough  data  to  make  it  possible  to  dis- 
cover general  truths  (such  as  that  full  protessors  in  southern  universities 
are  less  amply  rewarded  for  their  services  than  in  northern  uni\ersities) 
but  not  enough  data  to  make  A  intelligible.  That  would  be  iinading  the 
field  of  the  novelist  and  no  scientist,  c/ua  scientist,  can  afford  to  do  that. 
So  we  must  turn  to  the  psychiatrist,  it  seems,  and  ask  him  to  be  so 
kind  as  to  add  the  following  law  or  observation  or  principle  (the  exact 
terminological  placement  of  this  truth  to  be  decided  on  later):  "\V'hoe\er 
is  sophisticated  enough,  sensitive  enough  and  representati\e  eiuuigh  oi 
our  country's  higher  culture  to  get  himself  appointed  a  full  professor  in 
one  of  the  universities  of  said  country,  caniun.  if  he  is  married,  be  ex- 
pected, in  view  of  the  known  cost  of  many  requisite  ssnibols  of  status, 
to  be  either  happy  or  comfortable  at  a  salary  u  hich  is  less  than  a  quarter 
(the  figure  is  merely  a  random  suggesiii^n)  o\  the  income  o\'  the 
averagely  prosperous  banker  or  real-estate  agent  o\'  the  communit\  in 


37g  ///   Culture 

^^hlch  he  lives,  it  being  presumed  that  the  remaining  three-quarters  (or 
other  suitable  figure)  be  more  or  less  adequately  compensated  for  by 
such  substitutive  values  as  membership  in  scientific  societies  and  the 
habit  oi  reading  diHlcull  but  not  too  expensive  literature.  It  is  suggested 
that  SI5(M).(M)  a  year  is  well  below  the  safe  minimum  for  such  a  person. 
In  the  absence  of  powerful  personality-preserving  factors,  such  as  unu- 
sually robust  health  or  a  far  more  than  averagely  happy  marriage,  so 
low  a  salar\  must  be  considered  a  definite  factor  in  the  possible  deterio- 
ration o\'  the  professor's  personality." 

if  the  psychiatrist  exclaims  that  this  is  mixing  psychiatry  and  econom- 
ics with  a  vengeance,  we  must  gently  remind  him  that  personalities  live 
in  tangible  environments  and  that  the  business  of  making  a  living  is  one 
of  the  bed-rock  factors  in  their  environmental  adjustment.  We  are  not  in 
a  position  to  distinguish  sharply  between  innate  or  organismal  strains, 
physical  and  psychological,  and  so-called  external  strains.  They  come 
to  us  fatally  blended  in  practice  and  it  is  a  wise  man  who  can  presume 
to  say  which  is  of  more  decisive  importance.  For  all  practical  purposes 
a  too  low  income  is  at  least  as  significant  a  datum  in  the  causation  of 
mental  ill-health  as  a  buried  Oedipus  complex  or  sex  trauma.  Why 
should  not  the  psychiatrist  be  frank  enough  to  call  attention  to  the  great 
evils  of  unemployment  or  of  lack  of  economic  security?  His  recognized 
concern  for  the  well-being  of  the  individual  gives  him  every  right  to  be 
heard,  where  ordinary  opinion  or  common  sense  is  often  dismissed  as 
governed  by  sentimental  prejudices. 

Now  as  to  the  starveling  farmer  and  his  $500.00  income,  he  is  too 
busy,  from  dawn  to  bed-time,  to  know  whether  his  health  is  good  or 
bad  and  he  hasn't  the  faintest  notion  whether  he  is  happily  married  or 
not.  Imperious  task  follows  task  in  an  all-day  grind,  he  barely  manages, 
he  cannot  pay  off  his  mortgage,  he  is  thankful  for  reprieves.  The  notion 
of  mental  ill-health  is  a  luxury  to  him,  he'd  rather  suspect  himself  of 
laziness  -  there's  so  much  to  be  done  -  just  as  he'd  rather  suspect  the 
other  fellow  of  being  a  little  weak  in  the  head  than  waste  breath  on  the 
ill-effects  of  extreme  poverty.  His  class  comes  in  relatively  httle  contact 
with  the  psychiatrist  and  the  mental  hygienist.  You  either  somehow 
manage  or  you  "bust."  If  you  manage,  there's  little  need  to  graduate  the 
psychological  quality  of  the  performance.  Happiness,  soul-weariness, 
apathy,  envy,  petty  greed,  are  just  so  many  novehstic  fancies,  utterly 
dwarfed  by  the  solid  facts  that  the  potatoes  didn't  do  so  well  this  year, 
that  the  cows  must  be  milked  as  usual,  that  the  market  for  hay  is  unex- 


One:  Ciilniiv.  Socicfv.  mul  the  hu/ivli/tml  379 

pectedly  poor.  It  is  only  wlicn  ihc  sober.  inc\ liable,  corrodinii  iiii|">o\cr- 
ishmcnt  oi"  the  farmer's  personality  is  lit  up  b\  some  speelaeular  mor- 
bidity of  sex  or  religion  that  the  psychiatrist  or  novelist  or  poet  is 
attracted  to  him.  The  far  more  important  dullness  of  daily  routine.  o( 
futile  striving,  of  ceaseless  mental  thwarting,  does  not  seem  to  clamor 
for  the  psychiatrist's  analysis. 

All  this  is  known  to  be  "uninteresting,"  hence  we  prettify  the  facts  as 
best  we  can  with  shreds  of  folk-lore,  survivals  of  a  pioneering  culture 
that  had  a  self-containedness  and  salisfyingness  of  its  own.  That  culture 
has  rotted  away  and  our  farmer  is  little  more  than  a  disgruntled  eco- 
nomic drudge  and  a  cultural  parasite.  It  is  not  only  worth  the  ps\chia- 
trist's  while  to  inquire  into  these  conditions  and  report  on  them,  it  is 
his  duty  to  do  so.  Perhaps  we  could  better  understand  morbid  religious 
frenzies,  lynch  law,  and  other  devastating  phenomena  of  contemporary 
American  life  if  we  looked  more  closely  into  the  psychological  tissue  of 
our  rural  life.  "North  of  Boston"  and  Faulkner's  exhibits  need  to  be 
supplemented  by  the  sober  case  history  and  by  the  economico-psychiat- 
ric  appraisal  of  the  conditions  of  life  in  our  rural  sections. 

As  to  C,  the  interest  of  the  psychiatrist  in  his  moods,  contlicts,  and 
aspirations  is  perennial.  He  has  his  troubles,  it  seems,  his  surfeits  and 
futilities,  and  we  are  all  glad  to  know  that  the  psychiatrist  is  eager  to 
put  his  technical  skill  at  his  disposal.  All  human  life  is  sacred  -  to  hark 
back  to  a  nineteenth  century  prejudice  -  and  C  should,  most  certainly, 
be  made  a  happier  man,  if  C  will  only  let  the  psychiatrist  defme  happi- 
ness, which  I  take  to  be  a  synonym  of  mental  health,  for  him.  But  is  it 
wrong  to  remark  that  for  every  suffering  C  there  are  many  thousands 
of  suffering  A's  and  many  thousands  of  suffering  B's?  We  shall  not  try 
to  fantasy  what  ails  C,  there  are  many  admirable  textbooks  o(  psychia- 
try which  give  us  a  fair  notion  of  how  to  be  miserable  though  wealthy. 
Perhaps  C  too  inclines  to  suffer  from  an  economic  ill  that  obscure, 
perverse,  built  feeling  which,  the  psychiatrist  tells  us,  so  often  festers  in 
one's  heart  of  hearts  when  one  tries  to  balance  one's  usefulness  to  soci- 
ety with  the  size  of  one's  income.  Here  too  is  a  chance  for  ps\chiatrists 
to  be  reasonably  vocal.  Is  it  conceivable  that  good  mental  hygiene.  e\en 
expert  psychiatry,  may  find  it  proper  to  recommend  some  share  o\  in- 
come reduction  for  the  sake  o\'  the  mental  health  o\'  those  who  are  loo 
heavily  burdened  by  a  material  prosperity  that  far  outruns  their  needs 
or,  if  the  truth  were  known,  their  secret  desires?  In  this  mysterious  realm 
we  need  further  light. 


380  fff   Culture 

Editorial  Notes 

Orminally  published  in  Menial  Health,  Publication  No.  9  (American 
/Vssocialion  tor  ihc  Advancement  of  Science,  1939),  pp.  237-244. 
I .  As  some  of  my  readers  have  from  time  to  time  expressed  their  diffi- 
culi\  uith  ni>  non-medical  use  of  the  terms  "psychiatry"  and  "psychiat- 
ric." 1  must  explain  thai  1  use  these  terms  in  lieu  of  a  possible  use 
of  "psNchology"  and  "'psychologicar'  with  explicit  stress  on  the  total 
personality  as  the  central  point  of  reference  in  all  problems  of  behavior 
and  in  all  problems  of 'Vulture"  (analysis  of  socialized  patterns).  Thus, 
a  segmental  behavior  study,  such  as  a  statistical  inquiry  into  the  ability 
of  children  o{  the  age  group  7-11  to  learn  to  read,  is  not  in  my  sense 
a  properly  "psychiatric"  study  because  the  attention  is  focused  on  a 
fundamentally  arbitrary  objective,  however  important  or  interesting, 
one  not  directly  suggested  by  the  study  of  personality  structure  and  the 
relations  of  defined  personalities  to  each  other.  Such  a  study  may  be 
referred  to  "psychology"  or  "applied  psychology"  or  "education"  or 
"educational  psychology."  Equally  marginal  to  "psychiatry"  in  my 
sense  is  such  a  study  in  the  externalized  patterning  of  "collective  beha- 
vior" as  the  analysis  of  a  ritual  or  handicraft,  whether  descriptively  or 
historically.  Studies  of  this  type  may  be  referred  to  "ethnology"  or  "cul- 
ture history"  or  "sociology." 

On  the  other  hand,  a  systematic  study  of  the  acquirement  of  reading 
habits  with  reference  to  whether  they  help  or  hinder  the  development 
of  fantasy  in  children  of  defined  personality  type  is  a  properly  "psychi- 
atric" study  because  the  concept  of  the  total  personality  is  necessarily 
utilized  in  it.  A  close  study  of  the  symbolisms  of  ritual  or  handicraft, 
provided  these  symbolisms  are  discussed  as  having  immediate  relevance 
for  our  understanding  of  personality  types,  is  also  a  truly  "psychiatric" 
study.  "Personality"  and  "personalistic"  would  be  adequate  terms  but 
are  too  uncouth  for  practical  use.  My  excuse  for  extending  the  purely 
"medical"  connotation  of  the  terms  "psychiatry"  and  "psychiatric"  is 
that  psychiatrists  themselves,  in  trying  to  understand  the  wherefore  of 
aberrant  behavior,  have  had  to  look  far  more  closely  into  basic  prob- 
lems of  personality  structure,  of  symbolism,  and  of  fundamental  human 
mterrelationships  than  have  either  the  "psychologists"  or  the  various 
types  of  "social  scientists." 


References,  Section  One 

Boas,  Franz 

1887        The  Study  of  Geography.  Science  (O.  S.  9):  1 37     141. 
1911  The  Mliul  oj  Prinilfivc  Man.  New  York:  Macmillan. 

I^anicll.  Regna 

1986a       IVrsonalily  and  C'ullurc:  The  Falc  of  ihc  Sapinan  Allcrnalnc.  JIi.s- 

tory  of  Anthropology  4:  156-  183. 
1986b      The  Integration  of  Sapir's  Mature  Intellect.   In  William  Cowan, 
Michael  Foster  and  Konrad  Koerner.  eds.,  New  Perspectives  in  Lum- 
ginige.  Culture  and  Personality.  Amsterdam  and  Philadelphia:  John 
Benjamins:  553-588. 
1990        Edward  Sapir:  Linguist.  Anthropologist.  Hunianist.  Berkeley  and  Los 
Angeles:  University  of  California  Press. 
Geertz,  Clifford 

1988         Works  and  Lives:  The  .Anthropologist  as  Author.  Stanford:  Stanford 
University  Press. 
Goldenweiser,  Alexander 

1917        The  Autonomy  of  the  Social.  .American  .Anthropologist  19:  447-449. 
Irvine,  Judith  T.,  ed. 

1993         The  Psychology  of  Culture:  .A  Course  of  Lectures  fhy  Edward  Sapir  J. 
Berlin:  Mouton  de  Gruyter. 
Jung.  Carl  Gustav 

1923        Psychological  Types:  or  The  Psychology  of  Individuation.  New  York: 
Harcourt  Brace. 
Kroeber.  Alfred  L. 

1917a      The  Superorganic.  American  .Anthropologist  19:  163  -213. 
1917b      (24  July)  Letter  to  Edward  Sapir.  Archives  of  the  University  of  Cali- 
fornia. Berkeley. 
1919        On  the  Prmciple  of  Order  in  Ci\ilizalion  as  Lxempliiied  b\  Changes 

of  Fashion.  American  Anthropologist  21:  235-263. 
1944        Configurations  of  Culture  Cirowth.  Berkele\  and  Los  Angeles:  Uni- 
versity of  California  Press. 
19S2        Culture  and  Civilization.  Berkeley:  University  of  California  Press. 

-  and  Clyde  Kluckhohn.  eds. 

1952        Culture:  .A  Critical  Review  of  Concepts  and  Definitions.  Cambridge 
MA:  Peabody  Museum  of  American  Archaeology  and  Flhnology. 

-  and  Jane  Richardson 

1940        Three  Centuries  of  Women's  Dress  Fashions:  .A  Ouantitali\c  .Analy- 
sis. Anthropological  Records  5  (2):  i-iv.  11     153. 


y^2  Iff  Culture 

Lccds-Hurwit/.  Wendy  and  James  M.  Nyce 

1986  Linguistic  Text  Collection  and  the  Development  of  Life  History  in 
the  Work  of  Edward  Sapir.  In  William  Cowan,  Michael  Foster  and 
Konrad  Koerner.  eds..  New  Perspectives  in  Language,  Culture  ami 
Personality.  Amsterdam  and  Philadelphia:  John  Benjamins: 
495    531. 

Lowic.  Robert  H. 

1920  Primitive  Society.  New  York:  Harper  Torchbook. 

1965        Letters  from  Robert  H.  Lowie  to  Edward  Sapir.  Berkeley:  privately 
published. 
Mandclbaum.  Da\id.  ed. 

1949        Selected  IVritings  of  Edward  Sapir.  Berkeley  and  Los  Angeles:  Uni- 
versity of  California  Press. 
Mead,  Margaret,  ed. 

1959        An  Anthropologist  at  Work:  The  Writings  of  Ruth  Benedict.  Boston: 
Houghton  Mifflin. 
Ogburn,  William  Fielding 

1917       (31  December)  Letter  to  Edward  Sapir.  Archives  of  the  National 
Museum  of  Man,  Ottawa,  now  the  Canadian  Museum  of  Civiliza- 
tion. 
Ogburn.  William  Fielding  and  Alexander  Goldenweiser,  eds. 

1927        The  Social  Sciences  and  their  Interrelations.  Boston:  Boston  Univer- 
sity Press. 
Preston,  Richard 

1986        Sapir's  'Psychology  of  Culture'  Prospectus.   In  William  Cowan, 
Michael  Foster  and  Konrad  Koerner,  eds.,  New  Perspectives  in  Lan- 
guage. Culture  and  Personality.  Amsterdam  and  Philadelphia:  John 
Benjamins:  533-551. 
Rcdlleld.  Robert,  Ralph  Linton  and  Melville  Herskovits 

1936        Memorandum  for  the  Study  of  Acculturation.  American  Anthropol- 
ogist 38:  149-152. 
Rivers.  W.  H.  R. 

1921  Instinct  and  the  Unconscious.  Cambridge:  Cambridge  University 
Press. 

Sapir,  Edward 

1917        (29  October)  Letter  to  Alfred  L.  Kroeber.  Archives  of  the  University 

of  California,  Berkeley. 
1 932       (24  May)  Letter  to  Alfred  L.  Kroeber.  Archives  of  the  University  of 
California,  Bekeley. 
Spier.  Leslie.  A.  Irving  Hallowell  and  Stanley  Newman,  eds. 

1941  Language,  Culture  and  Personality:  Essays  in  Memory  of  Edward 
Sapir.  Menasha  WI:  Edward  Sapir  Memorial  Fund. 


One    Culture.  Society,  luul  the  /ndividunl  383 

Stocking,  George  W..  Jr.,  cd. 

1980        Letter  o\'  Edward  Sapir  to  Philip  Sclznick  (25  October  r^'^S)    ///s- 
forv  of  .Anthntpoloiiv  Newsletter. 
Tylor,  Edward  B. 

1871         Primitive  Culture,  l^ondon:  John  Murray. 
Voegclin,  Carl  F. 

1984  [1952]  Edward  Sapir.  In  Konrad  Kocrncr.  cd..  luhviird  Supir:  Ap- 
praisals of  his  Life  ami  Work.  Amsterdam  and  Philadelphia:  John 
Benjamins,  pp.  33-36.  [Ilrsl  published  1952,  Word  Study  27  (4): 
1-3. 


Section  Two 
The  Psychology  of  CuUurc 


Judith  T.  Irvine,  editor 


Acknowledgements 

The  work  that  follows  is  a  reconstruction  of  a  course  of  lectures  {-(.luartl  Sapir  gave  at 
■^'ale  L'ni\ersit\.  lectures  that  were  to  have  been  the  basis  of  a  book  he  iiad  ctintraclcd 
to  publish  with  Harcmirt.  Brace.  Most  of  the  material  used  for  the  reconstruction  comes 
from  student  notes,  collected  and  microfilmed  shortly  after  Sapir's  death  uilh  a  siew 
toward  eventual  publication. 

In  embarking  on  this  task  1  was  initially  somewhat  daunted  by  the  prospect  of  con- 
structing a  text  in  which,  inevitably,  I  must  put  words  in  Sapir's  mouth.  I  am  much 
indebted,  therefore,  to  the  late  Fred  Eggan.  the  principal  custodian  of  this  material  o\er 
the  decades,  who  encouraged  me  to  interweave  the  notes,  put  them  in  narrative  form. 
and  treat  the  whole  as  a  Sapir  "manuscript".  I  was  also  encouraged  by  the  example  of 
Charles  Bally  and  Albert  Sechehaye,  without  whose  etTorts  we  would  never  have  seen 
Ferdinand  de  Saussure's  Course  in  General  Lini^iii.siics.  Nevertheless.  I  have  marked  my 
own  insertions  so  that  readers  will  have  some  basis  for  judging  for  themsehes  degrees 
of  certainty  in  the  reconstruction. 

There  are  many  people  who  have  contributed  materials,  encouragement,  or  assis- 
tance to  this  project.  J.  David  Sapir  first  drew  me  in  to  the  plans  for  publishing  a  new 
edition  ol"  Edward  Sapir's  work;  he  has  remained  a  source  of  encouragement,  as  has 
Dell  Hynies,  himself  a  historian  (as  well  as  eminent  practitioner)  of  linguistic  anthropol- 
ogy and.  like  David  Sapir,  my  former  teacher.  Both  were  members  ol'  the  Sapir  Cente- 
nary joint  committee  of  the  Linguistic  Society  of  America  and  the  American  Anthropo- 
logical Association,  which  selected  the  editorial  board  for  The  Collected  Whrks  of  Ed- 
n arc!  Sapir  {CWES). 

For  source  materials  1  am  indebted,  first  of  all,  to  David  Mandelbaum  and  Jred 
Eggan,  who  initially  collected  and  preserved  eleven  sets  of  student  notes  from  Sapir's 
course  at  Yale.  Fred  Eggan  gave  me  a  copy  -  perhaps  the  onl\  one  extant  o\  the 
microfilm  on  which  the  notes  were  recorded.  Both  he  and  Da\id  Mandelbaum  also 
|->ro\ided  me  with  access  to  their  own  notes  on  all  courses  ihey  look  with  Sapir.  as  well 
as  rele\anl  correspondence.  Just  before  his  death.  Mandelbaum  \er\  kindl\  answered 
my  questions  about  Sapir  and  in\ited  me  to  look  at  his  files  in  his  olllce  at  Berkele\.  1 
am  grateful  to  Ruth  Mandelbaum  for  her  help  in  following  through  on  that  in\itation 
and  for  sharing  her  own  recollections  o\'  the  Yale  student  cohort.  The  .Xnthropology 
Department  of  the  L'niversity  of  C\ilifornia  at  Berkeley  hospitabls  assisted  iin  work  in 
their  offices. 

Several  other  students  whose  notes  were  assembled  on  the  ^ale  microfilm  were  still 
available  to  help  me.  I  am  grateful  to  Irving  Rouse.  Mary  Mikami  Rouse.  Weston 
LaBarre.  and  Walter  Taylor  for  permission  to  use  their  notes  and  for  helpful  responses 
to  my  inquiries.  Walter  Taylor  further  permitted  me  to  consult  the  originals  o\'  his  class 
notes  and  related  correspondence.  Two  Yale  students  whose  notes  on  Sapir's  course 
were  not  included  in  the  microfilm  located  them  and  lent  them  to  me:  Beatrice  Bl\th 
Whiting  and  Edgar  Siskin.  I  am  also  indebted  to  them        and  to  John  Whiting  and 


3g8  ///  Culture 

Allan  Smiih.  as  well       lor  sharing  recollections  of  the  Yale  years.  Siskin,  who  was 
especially  encouraging  about  this  project,  also  lent  me  notes  on  other  courses  he  took 

from  Sapir. 

Copies  of  notes  taken  by  the  late  Stanley  Newman  and  Frank  Setzler,  from  an  earlier 
version  of  the  course  gi\cn  at  the  University  of  Chicago,  were  kindly  provided  by 
Richard  Preston.  Preston  has  studied  most  of  the  class  notes  himself  (see  Preston  1986) 
and  his  interpretations  of  them  contribute  much  to  my  own  rendition. 

I  owe  a  considerable  debt  to  Philip  Sapir:  for  providing  me  with  copies  of  Edward 
Sapir's  correspiMidence  with  Harcourt,  as  well  as  other  correspondence  relating  to  the 
Psychology  oj  Culture  notes  and  to  the  1949  volume,  Selected  Writings  of  Edward  Sapir; 
for  permission  to  publish  Sapir's  chapter  outline  and  a  previously  unpublished  excerpt 
from  Sapir's  correspondence;  for  identifying  and  obtaining  for  me  a  further  set  of 
sources,  the  student  notes  from  the  Rockefeller  Seminar  on  "The  Impact  of  Culture  on 
Personality":  for  helping  me  get  funds  for  archival  work  and  research  assistance;  and 
for  many  other  forms  of  assistance  and  encouragement. 

Regna  Darnell  has  read  the  manuscript  at  many  stages  and  provided  helpful  advice 
throughout.  John  Lucy  and  Victor  Golla  have  also  read  and  commented  upon  the 
manuscript  or  portions  of  it.  Michael  Silverstein  provided  me  with  notes  from  his  own 
research  on  Sapir,  and  brought  Eggan's  microfilm  and  other  notes  to  me  so  that  they 
did  not  have  to  be  entrusted  to  the  mails. 

Mary  Catherine  Bateson  gave  permission  to  use  the  Rockefeller  Seminar  materials, 
on  file  with  the  Margaret  Mead  papers  in  the  Library  of  Congress.  I  would  also  like  to 
acknowledge  the  Peabody  Museum  of  Harvard  University  for  permission  to  consult  the 
Walter  Taylor  papers,  then  housed  in  their  archives  (now  at  the  Smithsonian),  and  the 
Bancroft  Library  of  the  University  of  California  at  Berkeley  for  access  to  the  Kroeber 
papers. 

My  efTorts  in  the  early  stages  of  the  process  of  reconstructing  a  text  owe  much  to 
the  assistance  of  Sue  Woodson-Marks.  Jane  Goodman,  Somervell  Linthicum,  Jacque- 
line Baum.  and  Elizabeth  Martin  made  preliminary  reconstructions  of  portions  of  the 
text  and  contributed  (as  did  Laurie  Rothstein  and  Gregory  Button)  to  thinking  through 
how  the  reconstruction  should  be  done. 

Last  but  not  least,  I  am  grateful  for  the  help,  advice,  and  moral  support  of  Marie- 
Louise  Liebe-Harkort  of  Mouton  De  Gruyter,  and  for  the  encouragement  and  forbear- 
ance of  my  family,  Stephen  L.  Pastner  and  Deborah  and  Rebecca  Pastner. 

Judith  T  Irvine 


The  Psychology  of  Culture:  Editor's  Introduction 

Judith  T.  Irvine 

In  1928,  at'ter  a  conversation  with  AltYcd  Harcourt  on  the  Twentieth- 
Century  Limited  out  of  Chicago,  Edward  Sapir  wrote  to  Harcourt, 
Brace  proposing  to  pubhsh  a  book  on  "The  Psychology  of  CuUure". 
Estimated  at  about  100,000  words  in  length,  the  book  was  to  he  based 
upon  a  graduate  course  Sapir  had  been  giving  at  the  University  of  Chi- 
cago. The  course  had  attracted  a  considerable  audience,  drawing  in 
psychologists  as  well  as  anthropologists  and  sociologists.  Sapir  hoped 
that  the  book,  too,  might  appeal  to  a  wide  circle  of  non-professional 
readers.'  The  book  proposal  and  the  chapter  outline  accompanying  it 
were  well  received,  and  Harcourt  contracted  to  publish  the  work. 

Despite  Harcourt 's  enthusiasm  for  the  project  and  Sapir's  sense  of  its 
potential  importance,  the  book  was  not  to  be.  Other  projects  inter- 
vened, including  duties  which  Sapir  undertook  for  financial  or  admin- 
istrative reasons.  But  the  idea  for  the  book  was  not  merely  a  momentary 
fiash  of  enthusiasm  conceived  in  a  heady  train  conversation  and  forgot- 
ten as  soon  as  the  train  pulled  into  the  station.  Although  Sapir's  interest 
in  the  project  appears  to  have  fluctuated,  he  continued  to  teach  and  to 
rework  the  course  on  which  it  was  to  be  based,  and  to  refer  to  his 
intention  to  complete  the  book,  until  almost  the  end  of  his  life.  He  gave 
the  course  several  times  after  his  move  to  Yale  in  1931,  and  materials 
from  the  last  version  of  the  course  ( 1936-37)  suggest  new  ideas  and  a 
renewed  excitement  about  the  project,  especially  toward  the  end  o(  the 
academic  year. 

The  following  summer  (1937),  after  a  strenuous  eight  weeks'  teaching 
at  the  Linguistic  Institute  in  Ann  Arbor.  Sapir  sulTered  a  serious  heart 
attack  and  had  to  curtail  his  work  c\Tov{  and  lra\el  plans  for  his  sabbati- 
cal year  (1937-38).  Still,  in  a  hopeful  motHJ  in  October  1937  he  wrote 
that  "it  is  my  plan  to  work  at  The  Psychology  of  C\ilturc*  during  this 
sabbatical."-  As  it  turned  out,  recurrent  illness  made  it  impossible  to 
carry  out  this  plan.  Though  he  again  mentioned  the  work  in  a  letter  of 
October  1938  as  "a  book  that  I  have  still  to  write", ^  by  that  lime  it  was 


390 


///   Culture 


all  too  clear  that  his  plixMcal  strength  was  waning.  Sapir  died  in  Febru- 
ary W39,  this  project  and  many  others  remaining  unfinished. 

Many  of  Sapir's  untinished  works  were  edited  and  completed  by  his 
student's  and  colleagues  after  his  death.  As  early  as  May  1939  Sapir's 
widow,  Jean  McClenaghan  Sapir,  and  Leslie  Spier  initiated  plans  to 
fuinil  the  Harcourt  contract,  so  that  'The  Psychology  of  Culture"  could 
be  published  posthumously.-*  The  enterprise  differed  from  other  efforts 
to  edit  Sapir's  work,  because  no  actual  manuscript  in  Sapir's  hand  had 
been  found,  other  than  the  chapter  outline  and  correspondence  he  had 
sent  to  the  publisher.^  What  was  proposed,  therefore,  was  to  collect  sets 
of  notes  from  the  students  who  had  attended  the  course  of  lectures  on 
which  the  book  was  to  have  been  based,  and  from  these  to  "present  the 
gist  o\'  it"  as  an  essay.^' 

Sapir's  students  responded  with  alacrity.  Under  the  leadership  of  Da- 
vid Mandelbaum,  who  had  emerged  as  organizer  of  the  festschrift 
eventually  published  as  a  memorial  volume,^  eleven  sets  of  notes  were 
assembled  and  microfilmed.^  Elizabeth  Herzog,  then  the  wife  of  the 
ethnomusicologist  George  Herzog,  was  to  have  attempted  the  recon- 
struction. Although  the  notion  of  fulfilling  the  Harcourt  contract  was 
soon  abandoned,  there  was  considerable  enthusiasm  for  including  some 
version  of  this  material  in  a  collection  of  Sapir's  writings  (the  collection 
published  in  1949  as  Selected  Writings  of  Edward  Sapir,  edited  by  Man- 
delbaum). Commenting,  for  example,  on  a  proposed  table  of  contents 
for  that  volume,  the  linguist  Zellig  Harris  assigned  the  highest  priority 
on  the  list  of  Sapir's  works  to  "The  Psychology  of  Culture;  The  Outline 
of  Sapir's  course,  supplemented  by  an  integrated  transcript  of  students' 
notes".  '"Please,  as  full  as  possible,"  Harris  wrote. ^ 

By  1946,  however,  it  had  become  evident  that  the  class  notes  material 
could  not  be  included  in  Selected  Writings  after  all.  The  task  of  recon- 
structing a  text  from  the  notes  was  much  larger  than  it  had  seemed  at 
first,  and  the  resulfing  text  would  have  been  too  long  to  be  added  to  an 
already  sizeable  volume.  During  the  next  few  decades,  although  many 
people  expressed  interest  in  the  notes  and  in  any  synthesis  that  might 
be  made  of  them,  nothing  came  of  the  idea  until  the  Sapir  Centenary 
in  1984.'"  With  renewed  interest  in  Sapir  and  the  initiation  of  a  new 
publication  project.  The  Collected  Works  of  Edward  Sapir,  which  was 
to  include  as  much  of  Sapir's  academic  work  -  published  or  unpub- 
lished -  as  possible,  an  attempt  to  integrate  the  student  notes  looked 
worth  undertaking. 


Two:  Tlw  Psyclioto^y  of  Culture  391 

riic  present  work  is  llic  rcsiill.  It  is  an  allcnipl  Id  fuirill  ilic  hope 
Sapir's  sliklcnls,  cc^llcagucs.  and  famil)  lia\c  expressed  o\er  the  years: 
thai  a  sel  ol  leeliues  making  a  major  et^nlribulicMi  lo  anthropology  and 
l^isseholog}  should  be  made  piihhe.  Though  Sapir  isjustls  renowned  for 
the  importanee  olliis  uurk  in  linguistics  -  and  his  interest  in  the  details 
o[^  linguistic  analysis  was  almost  always  greater  than  his  interest  in  the 
details  of  ethnological  work  the  cxlenl  of  his  commilmenl  to  rethink- 
ing theory  and  method  in  anthropology  and  psychology  has  tended  to 
be  underestimated.  It  is  not  to  be  measured  by  the  number  of  his  actual 
publications."  Sapir  saw  himself  as  a  central  contribiUor  to  the  social 
sciences,  and  many  of  his  contemporaries  would  ha\e  agreed.  The 
Psycholos^y  of  Culture  was  to  have  been  an  important  work. 

A  synthesis  of  classroom  presentations  is  not,  of  course,  the  same 
thing  as  the  polished,  carefully  thought-through  manuscript  Sapir 
would  himself  ha\e  produced  had  he  lived  to  complete  this  book.  His 
class  lectures  must  often  ha\e  included  spontaneous  flashes  of  insight, 
tentative  explorations  of  ideas,  and  otT-the-cuff  examples,  all  o\'  w  hich 
he  would  have  meticulously  checked,  developed,  and  evaluated  before 
presenting  them  in  print  as  fmal  intellectual  judgements.'-  When  these 
lectures  were  given,  Sapir's  ideas  were  still  evoking,  and  a  classroom 
presentation  to  students  differs  tYom  a  formal  presentation  lo  ciW- 
leagues.  For  instance,  these  lectures  include  a  few  comments  on  Sapir's 
anthropological  contemporaries  that  are  sharper  in  tone  than  any  he 
ever  allowed  to  appear  in  print.  Moreover,  student  lecture  notes  - 
which  make  up  the  vast  preponderance  of  the  source  materials  for  the 
reconstruction  -  must  surely  differ  from  what  was  aclualls  said,  both 
in  inclusiveness  and  in  subtlety. 

Nevertheless,  the  notes  include  so  many  passages  m  which  one  Ncems 
to  hear  the  echo  of  Sapir's  voice,  and  so  many  topics  umepresented  or 
only  hinted  at  in  his  published  writings,  that  Sapir's  students  and  others 
from  1939  on  have  seen  this  material  as  a  significant  part  i>f  his  intellec- 
tual legacy.  Most  important,  perhaps,  is  the  broad  scope  o\'  the  lecture 
course  and  book,  as  compared  with  the  essay  fc^inal  of  his  actual  publi- 
cations in  cultural  anthropology  and  psycholog).  The  I\syih(>h>i:y  of 
Culture  affords  us  a  glimpse  of  how  Sapir  would  have  sketched  a  broad 
\ista  oi^  anthropological  aiul  ps\chological  issues.  Alllunigh  some  o\' 
those  issues  are  perhaps  ol'  less  interest  toda\  than  the\  were  in  the 
193()'s,  on  the  whole  Sapir's  conception  of  culture,  of  anthn^pological 
method  and  theory,  and  o(  individuals  and  their  relationships  remams 


392  JJJ  Ciilmrc 

fresh  and  relevant.  The  work  is  not  only  a  document  of  historical  inter- 
est, bill  a  contribution  to  contemporary  culture  theory  and  psychologi- 
cal anthropology. 


The  Evolution  of  Sapir's  Course 

Since  the  material  drawn  upon  for  reconstruction  comes  from  several 
difTcrent  \ersions  o\^  Sapir's  course,  the  resulting  text  necessarily  masks 
what  those  dilTerences  are  and  in  what  ways  the  course  shifted  over 
time.  It  may  be  useful,  therefore,  to  summarize  the  kinds  of  changes 
that  appear  in  the  source  materials  as  the  course  evolved. ^^  The  most 
interesting  changes  are  those  that  suggest  new  directions  in  Sapir's 
thinking.  Not  all  the  differences  among  versions  of  the  course  are  likely 
to  be  due  to  changed  ideas,  however.  Some  are  more  likely  related  to 
practical  and  pedagogical  concerns. 

I  shall  pay  most  attention  to  the  Yale  period,  since  it  provides  most 
oi  the  material  I  have  used  in  reconstructing  the  text.  But  by  the  time 
Sapir  presented  the  course  at  Yale  he  had  already  given  several  versions 
of  it  elsewhere.  The  earliest  was  a  summer  course  at  Columbia  in  1925; 
no  detailed  records  of  this  remain,  as  far  as  I  know.  At  the  end  of  that 
summer  Sapir  moved  to  Chicago,  where  (in  the  fall  of  1925)  he  offered 
a  set  of  ten  lectures  derived  from  the  Columbia  course  to  a  popular 
audience,  a  group  headed  by  the  Chicago  lawyer  Clarence  Darrow. 
Following  that  condensed  version  came  the  regular  University  course 
on  "The  Psychology  of  Culture",  first  given  in  the  winter  term  of  1926 
and  repeated  several  times.  Since  Chicago  was  on  a  quarter  system,  the 
course  there  occupied  only  30  one-hour  class  meetings  over  ten  weeks, 
a  much  shorter  format  than  at  Yale,  where  it  was  spread  over  a  full 
academic  year. 

Arriving  at  Yale  in  1931,  Sapir  did  not  offer  the  "Psychology  of  Cul- 
ture" course  immediately.  Instead,  he  first  presented  portions  of  this 
material  during  the  international  seminar  on  'The  Impact  of  Culture 
on  Personality"  sponsored  by  the  Rockefeller  Institute  and  held  at  Yale 
in  1932-33.''*  The  students  in  the  seminar  were  young  scholars  in  the 
social  sciences  from  a  variety  of  different  countries.  The  idea  was  that 
these  scholars,  representing  different  cultural  traditions,  would  combine 
the  roles  of  informant  and  analyst,  and  the  resuU  would  be  a  social 
science  transcending  the  limitations  of  any  one  set  of  cultural  assump- 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  Cullun-  393 

tions.  In  leading  the  seminar  Sapir  was  assisted  b\  John  Dollard.  as 
well  as  a  long  list  o^  visiting  speakers. 

Although  the  Rockefeller  Seminar  had  the  same  title  as  Sapir  ga\e  to 
his  lecture  course  in  the  following  year,  its  formal  and  emphasis  were 
different.  In  the  seminar  Sapir  did  not  attempt  to  lecture  on  the  full 
range  of  topics  he  had  discussed  at  Chicago  and  planned  for  the  hook. 
Participants*  activities  included  a  "nuclear  course"  of  two  lectures  per 
week,  but  apparenth  Sapir  did  not  give  many  of  these  lectures  himself 
until  the  second  semester.  Concerned  more  with  psychology  than  with 
culture  per  se,  most  of  his  presentations  that  spring  relate  only  to  por- 
tions of  the  second  half  of  his  book  outline  and  the  Chicago  course. 

It  was  not  until  1933-34,  then,  that  Sapir  first  olTered  a  two-semester 
regular  graduate  course  on  the  material  for  his  book.  Retaining  for  the 
time  being  the  Rockefeller  Seminar  title,  "The  Impact  of  Culture  on 
Personality",  Sapir  expanded  his  Chicago  course  but  devoted  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  course  time  to  student  reports  and  discussion.  Sev- 
eral class  meetings  in  the  fall  were  given  over  to  exercises  in  the  descrip- 
tion and  analysis  of  two  common  American  cultural  patterns:  smoking 
and  piano-playing  (see  Appendix  I).  There  were  also  assignments  on 
definitions  of  "culture"  and  the  concept  of  "the  social"",  on  de\  ising 
cultural  inventories,'-''  and  (in  the  spring  term)  on  the  imestigation  of 
etiquette.  Later  versions  of  the  course  apparently  abandoned  these  ped- 
agogical exercises,  or  at  least  did  not  discuss  them  during  classroom 
hours.  The  lecture  component  of  the  course  was  expanded  instead.  In 
1935-36  and  1936-37  Sapir  also  changed  the  course  title  back  to  '  Ilie 
Psychology  of  Culture". 

These  pedagogical  changes  affect  se\eral  portions  o\  the  recon- 
structed manuscript.  Because  the  1933  exercises  on  smoking  and  piano- 
playing  were  self-contained,  easily  isolated  from  the  rest  o\^  the  course, 
and  never  repeated,  I  have  remosed  llieni  Uom  ihc  main  bod>  o\'  the 
text  and  placed  them  in  an  Appendix.  The  other  assignments  were  not 
so  easily  isolated,  and  since  Sapir  seems  to  ha\e  integrated  their  discus- 
sion into  his  1933  lecture  material,  I  have  included  them  likewise.  Chap- 
ter 2  in  particular,  with  its  leisurely  exploration  o\'  the  term  "social", 
reflects  the  dynamics  of  classroom  gi\e-and-take.  as  (to  a  lesser  extent) 
does  Chapter  12's  treatment  of  etiquette.  Although  a  shift  from  class 
discussion  to  lecture  presents  some  dilTiculties  for  the  editorial  pri>cess. 
differences  between  versions  o\'  the  course  on  these  topics  cannot  be 
attributed  solely  or  even  largely  to  changes  in  Sapirs  thinking. 


394  II f  Cultwc 

Anolher  dilVcrcnce  between  ihe  1933  and  later  versions  of  the  mate- 
rial in  Chapter  2,  "The  Concept  o\^  Culture  in  the  Social  Sciences", 
involves  disciphnary  issues.  Perhaps  because  of  his  involvement  in  the 
interdisciplinary  Rockefeller  Seminar  the  previous  year,  as  well  as  his 
recent  experiences  with  ihc  interdisciplinary  activities  of  the  Social  Sci- 
ence Research  Council.  Sapir"s  discussion  of  Chapter  2's  topic  in  1933 
has  relalisely  little  to  say  about  the  special  disciplinary  concerns  of 
anthropology,  preferring  a  more  diffuse  orientation  to  the  social  sci- 
ences in  general.  In  1935  and  1936  Sapir  seems,  instead,  to  speak  to  an 
audience  of  anthropologists  about  their  own  field  and  its  problems,  such 
as  methodological  dilTiculties  in  cross-cultural  ethnography.  The  sense 
of  anthropological  audience  is  again  apparent  in  Chapter  5,  where  the 
later  versions  o'i  the  course  include  a  lengthy  excursion  into  Sapir's  own 
Nootka  ethnography  lo  illustrate  cultural  configurations  and  methods 
of  investigating  them. 

Gi\en  the  vagaries  of  student  attendance  and  note-taking,  it  is  proba- 
bl>  unwise  to  draw  many  inferences  from  omissions  in  topical  coverage. 
Still,  one  might  notice  that  in  Chapter  3,  "'Causes'  of  Culture",  a  sec- 
tion on  economic  causes  discussed  in  1933  does  not  occur  in  the  records 
for  later  years.  The  putative  "causes"  of  cultural  form  discussed  in  this 
chapter  -  the  others  are  race,  geography,  and  an  aphoristic  psychology 
-  are  raised  here  only  to  be  thoroughly  and  finally  dismissed;  conceiva- 
bly. Sapir  may  have  decided  that  the  role  of  economics  in  culture  was 
a  dilTerent.  more  complicated  kind  of  problem.  Did  he  also  change  his 
mind  as  to  whether  economic  determinants  were  to  be  entirely  dis- 
missed? The  answer  remains  unclear.  What  he  did  say  on  economic 
"causes"  in  1933  does  not  appear  to  be  out  of  line  with  his  published 
statements  of  later  years,  and  he  certainly  never  changed  his  mind  so 
radically  as  to  become  an  economic  determinist.  Yet,  the  1936-37  notes 
show  a  discussion  later  on  in  the  course  (see  Chapter  10,  'The  Adjust- 
ment of  the  Individual  in  Society")  that  closely  follows  a  portion  of  his 
argument  in  the  1939  paper,  "Psychiatric  and  Cultural  Pitfalls  in  the 
Business  of  Getting  a  Living",  in  which  large-scale  economic  organiza- 
tion appears  as  an  independent  social  force  impinging  on  the  indivi- 
dual."' 

With  the  exception  of  the  matters  mentioned  so  far,  and  some  expan- 
sion of  lectures  in  later  years  to  fill  class  time  no  longer  taken  up  by 
discussion  of  student  assignments,  the  contents  and  organization  of  the 
first  two  thirds  of  the  course  -  the  material  represented  in  Chapters  1 
through  8  -   remained  quite  stable  during  the  Yale  years.  Evidently 


Two:  The  Twchoh^y  of  (  uliurc  395 

Sapir  had  scltlcci  on  the  \  icu  orciiltiiic  he  \santcd  lo  present  (l\irt  I. 
chapters  1-6),  and  on  what  lie  wanted  to  say  about  the  concept  ol 
personahtN  (chapters  7  and  S  in  Part  II).  I'p  to  this  point  in  the  bi>t>k. 
culture  and  the  indi\idual  are  discussed  rather  separatels.  It  is  the  re- 
maining chaiileis  thai  explore  then  nexus  and  clinch  the  argument:  and 
the  three  ^'ale  \ersions  of  this  discussion  differ  considerably.  Sapir's 
ideas  in  this  culminating  pt>rtion  o\'  the  course  seem  still  to  have  been 
e\ol\ing.  In  the  later  \ersions  o\'  the  cmirse  lie  revised  the  organization 
of  the  last  two  months"  lectures  and  added  new  material. 

These  changes  had  major  implicalions  l\>r  the  thrust  of  Sapir's  book. 
They  also  created  editorial  problems.  Because  the  student  notes  from 
ditTerent  years  are  not  compatibly  organized,  and  because  Sapir's  new 
ideas  are  represented  onl\  in  the  1936-37  notes,  the  final  chapters  o\ 
the  book  prosed  difUcuil  lo  reconstruct.  1  ha\e  had  to  rel\  more  heavily 
than  elsewhere  on  Sapir's  published  writings  and  letters  o\'  the  same 
period  ( 1937-39)  -  and  on  my  own  interpretation  -  to  fill  in  the  gaps. 
Material  with  which  Sapir  had  concluded  the  course  in  earlier  years, 
including  much  oi'  his  discussion  ol'  symbolism,  could  not  be  smoothly 
integrated  into  the  1937  discussion. 

My  solution  was  to  move  the  earlier  material  out  into  separate  chap- 
ters (12  and  13).  Thus  the  final  ( 1937)  \ersion  o\'  the  course  ends  with 
Chapter  11.  Part  111  is  an  addendum,  representing  earlier  conclusions. 
It  is  not  that  Sapir  had  come  to  disagree  with  the  details  o\'  what  he 
had  then  said,  but  that  he  did  not  use  them  to  conclude  the  course. 
Unfortunately,  the  evidence  as  to  how  he  actually  did  conclude  it  in  the 
final  lecture  o\'  1937  is  relatively  scanty.  Only  a  few  sketch)  notes  on 
that  lecture  survive. 


The  Plan  and  Puiposc  oi'  the  Book 

Because  of  the  lack  o\'  a  strong  cc^ncludmg  statement  in  the  recon- 
structed text,  it  ma\  be  worthwhile  to  summarize  the  book's  argument 
here. 

There  can  be  lillle  doubt  thai  Sapir  einisioned  his  j^roposed  book  as 
a  major  theoretical  statement  of  culuiial  anlhropolog\.  as  that  held  had 
been  defined  by  Pranz  Boas  and  his  students.  Man>  of  the  book's  con- 
cerns were  shared  by  fellow  members  o\  the  lioas  school,  and  some  ol 
the  material  in  chapters  3  and  4  (the  discussion  of  culture,  race,  and 
geography,  and  the  ciitKiue  c>f  cullure-tiail  iineniories)  o\erlaps  sub- 


396  tli  Culfuiv 

staniialK  uiih  statements  by  others.  But  although  not  all  the  ideas  in 
the  book  are  unique  to  Sapir.  it  is  perhaps  insufficiently  recognized 
today  hou  much  he  contributed  to  their  discussion.  For  example,  his 
conception  of  cultural  patterning  and  configuration,  and  their  relation 
to  function,  \sere  developed  prior  to  the  appearance  of  Benedict's  Pat- 
terns of  Culture,  but  not  published  in  detail  until  now  (see  Chapter  5), 
although  he  had  presented  them  in  letters,  lectures,  and  colloquia.  And 
as  Benedict's  book  did  in  1933,  Sapir's  1928  plan  for  The  Psychology  of 
Cuhurc  was  to  explore  the  relationship  between  the  patterns  of  culture 
and  the  psychology  of  individuals  -  though  with  a  different  conception 
of  what  the  relationship  was.  as  his  critique  of  Benedict's  work  reveals 
(see  Chapter  9).  Thus  the  fact  that  Sapir's  sense  of  cultural  anthropolo- 
gv's  agenda  was  shared  with  some  of  his  fellow  Boasians  does  not  di- 
minish the  originality  of  his  contribution. 

As  his  contemporaries  often  recognized,  Sapir's  expertise  in  linguistics 
gave  him  a  special  perspective  that  extended  into  the  rest  of  his  anthro- 
pological work.  One  way  in  which  language  occupies  an  important 
place  in  his  cultural  anthropology  is  that  he  so  frequently  cites  it  as  a 
prime  example  of  a  cultural  phenomenon.  Indeed,  in  the  present  book 
discussions  of  language  appear  again  and  again,  for  that  reason.  These 
discussions  of  language  structure  and  use  serve  Sapir's  arguments  about 
culture  in  several  ways:  linguistic  examples  are  drawn  upon  to  illustrate 
arguments  about  culture;  the  organization  of  cultural  patterns  is  deemed 
analogous  to  the  organization  of  grammatical  forms,  with  lexicon  pro- 
viding a  key  to  the  patterns'  psychological  reality  (see,  especially.  Chap- 
ter 5);  and  conversational  interaction  emerges  as  the  locus  of  cultural 
dynamics  (Chapter  10).  One  might  also  suspect  that  Sapir's  understand- 
ing of  language's  systematicity,  and  the  relation  between  form  and 
meaning  in  language,  contribute  at  a  more  subtle  level  to  his  ideas  about 
cultural  configurations  and  function  -  even  to  his  ideas  about  the  pro- 
cesses of  cultural  change  (Chapter  6). 

Yet,  the  originality  of  the  book  does  not  stem  only  from  the  influence 
of  linguistics  in  it,  but  also  from  Sapir's  conceptions  of  "culture"  and 
"psychology"  themselves  and  the  epistemological  issues  relating  to 
them. 

To  explore  "the  psychology  of  culture",  the  Yale  course  material  di- 
vides into  two  roughly  equal  parts:  a  discussion  of  the  concept  of  cul- 
ture and  a  discussion  of  psychology.  The  rationale  for  this  organization 
may  perhaps  be  best  understood  by  a  glance  at  Sapir's  1930  Hanover 
Conference  paper,  which  seesaws  between  culture  and  personality  in 


7\\(>:  The  l*s\ilu)U)iiy  nj  Culture  397 

order  to  show  thai  an  exploration  o\'  ihc  one  necessarily  leads  to  a 
consideration  of  the  other.  Hies  are  \\\o  poles  of  analytical  interest 
two  approaches  to  the  same  observational  siibiect  matter,  namely  hu- 
man behavior.  Like  the  conference  paper,  the  book  points  to  the  thet>- 
retical  and  methodological  prc^blems  that  arise  if  "culture"  and  '"mdiM- 
dual  ps\cholog\"  are  cc^nlrasli\el\  underslooLl.  Instead,  each  is  to  be 
understood  in  ways  that  lead  toward  the  other. 

In  the  first  half  ot  the  book  Sapir  defmes  ''culture"  in  terms  of  ideas 
and  values,  organized  in  conceptual  systems.  Krom  the  beginning  he 
bases  this  \  iew  c^f  culture  o\^  an  argument  that  in  any  society  - 
individuals  will  represent  society's  values  differently.  Culture  rests, 
therefore,  on  selective  valuation,  and  on  an  imaginati\e  projection  c^f 
ideals  and  wishes  which  some  social  subgroups  will  appear  to  fulfill 
more  than  others  do  (Chapter  1 ).  While  a  psychological  approach  to 
culture  is  o\^  course  a  hallmark  of  Boasian  anthropology,  Sapir's  pre- 
sumption of  intra-socielal  variation  as  basic  to  the  \ery  concept  t>f  cul- 
ture is  clearly  his  own,  as  is  his  emphasis  on  imagination. 

The  methodological  and  theoretical  importance  o\^  individual  varia- 
tion is  a  subject  Sapir  had  been  exploring  at  least  since  1917  (in  "Do 
We  Need  the  'Superorganic'?",  his  reply  to  Kroeber  [1917]),  and  it  occu- 
pies much  o'i  the  present  work  as  well,  especialh'  Cliapter  2.  There,  in 
an  argument  clearly  continuous  with  his  1917  paper.  Sapir  points  out 
the  problematic  methodological  abstractions  iinohed  m  mo\ing  fn^ni 
the  observation  o\^  individuals'  behavior  to  a  statement  o^  cultural 
pattern  pertaining  to  society.  It  is  a  fallacy,  he  contends,  to  identif\ 
culture  with  ph>sical  phenomena,  such  as  material  objects  or  outward 
behavior.  Instead,  culture  resides  in  the  siifnifuancc  of  these,  and  in  the 
conceptual  pattern  undcrl\ing  ihcin.  Il  is  also  a  fallacy  to  identify  cul- 
ture with  societv.  in  the  sense  o\'  some  aggregate  o\'  people.  Despite  the 
fact  that  anthropologists  must  consider  cultural  meanings  to  ha\e  a 
social  (as  opposed  to  a  private)  frame  oi'  reference.  Sapir  warns  that 
"society"  is  not  a  physical  or  obscr\alional  gi\en.  but  a  conceptual 
construct.  As  such  it  intluences  the  beiia\icM  of  e\en  the  most  isolated 
individual. 

Despite  its  scK'ial  fiame  o\'  reference,  then,  culture  must  not  be  as- 
sumed to  be  unilornil\  shared  among  some  aggregate  of  people.  l-\ery- 
one  does  not  know  the  same  things,  and  the  significance  they  attribute 
to  those  things  will  not  be  identical,  since  it  must  always  depend  in  part 
on  individual  experience.  \'et.  the  systems  o\'  symbols  through  which 
people  interact  operate  with  reference  to  a  community  and  its  sanctions. 


398  JJJ  Culture 

rhcsc  symbols  enable  people  wiili  quite  different  personal  experiences 
to  participate  in  the  lite  i^fthe  larger  group.  Through  symbols  an  indivi- 
dual can  come  to  benefit  from  other  participants^  special  knowledge, 
and  e\en,  sometimes,  to  believe  that  everyone  shares  understandings  of 
the  meanings  of  symbols  when  they  actually  share  only  the  forms  (see 
Chapter  9). 

If  Sapir's  conception  of  culture  points  inward,  toward  the  psychology 
o^  the  socialized  individual  interacting  with  others,  his  conception  of 
indi\ idual  psychology  points  outward,  toward  socialization  and  interac- 
tion. It  is  as  much  a  fallacy,  to  him,  to  study  psychology  as  if  the  indivi- 
dual existed  in  isolation,  as  it  is  to  study  culture  as  if  individuals  had 
no  relevance.  Sapir  concedes  that  an  individual's  temperament  may  be 
inlluenced  by  factors  of  biology  or  prenatal  experience,  in  ways  not  yet 
well  understood.  From  the  beginning,  however,  the  child  interacts  with 
and  adapts  to  a  social  world,  and  his  or  her  psychology  cannot  be 
understood  without  reference  to  its  cultural  patterns  and  symbolism. 

Much  of  Chapter  7's  discussion  of  "personality"  clearly  parallels  the 
1934  encyclopedia  article  of  the  same  title  (Sapir  1934a).  Chapter  8's 
discussion  of  Jung,  however,  is  not  represented  in  any  of  Sapir's  work 
published  elsewhere,  apart  from  a  brief  book  review  (Sapir  19231)  writ- 
ten much  earlier.  Like  many  other  intellectuals  of  the  1920's  and  1930's 
Sapir  had  become  interested  in  psychology  and  psychiatry,  and  this 
interest  has  been  well  known;  but  the  depth  of  his  intellectual  apprecia- 
tion of  Jung  has  not  been  obvious  heretofore.  Jung  describes  personality 
as  a  system,  a  psychological  organization  interacting  with  and  adapting 
to  an  external  world.  This  view  of  psychology  must  have  appealed  to 
Sapir  as  he  searched  for  a  conception  of  culture  that  would  be  realistic 
in  terms  of  the  individual.  Despite  the  close  attention  Sapir  gives  to 
Jung's  work  in  Chapter  8,  however,  he  does  not  in  the  end  rest  content 
with  Jung's  analysis,  or  even  with  his  own  revised  version  of  it.  The 
psychology  Sapir  arrives  at  in  The  Psychology  of  Culture  is  a  synthesis 
that  derives  not  only  from  Jung,  but  also  from  Koffka's  Gestalt 
psychology,  from  Sullivan's  interpersonal  psychiatry,  and  from  his  own 
studies  of  linguistic  symbolism. 

"Personality",  in  Sapir's  usage,  is  as  much  a  cognitive  organization 
as  an  emotional  one.  Chapters  9  and  10  explore  the  relationships  this 
organization  has  with  culture.  There  are  three: 

(1)  Personality  as  model,  or  metaphor,  for  culture.  As  he  wrote  in  1934 
("The  Emergence  of  the  Concept  of  Personality  in  a  Study  of  Cul- 
tures"), "the  more  fully  one  tries  to  understand  a  culture,  the  more  it 


l\\(r   r/ic  P.sv( holoj^y  <»f  C'ulturi'  399 

sccnis  [o  lake  on  the  characlci islics  o\  a  pcrsi>nalil\  i>rgani/alion.'"  Il 
personality  is  iiiulersUnKl  as  a  systematic  psycholimical  Drganizalion 
depending  on  constellations  o\'  s\nihi>ls  an  organization  in  which 
each  part  is  interconnected  with  other  parts,  and  which  interacts  with 
an  external  wiMid  then,  in  these  respects,  it  is  analogous  to  the  con- 
cept of  culliiie  Sapir  had  piesenled  m  earlier  chapters.  At  a  tune  when 
some  anthropologists  still  thought  c^f  culture  as  an  assemblage  of  traits, 
a  psychiatry  that  emphasized  the  s\stematicit\  of  personaIit\  must  ha\e 
seemed  a  useful  iiukIcI. 

More  specifically.  Jung's  l\polog\  of  persoiuililies,  classified  accord- 
ing to  the  nature  o\'  their  organization  and  their  interaction  with  their 
en\ironmenl.  pro\ides  Sapir  with  an  analog)  \ov  a  t\polog>  of  cultures. 
The  two  le\els  are  not  to  be  ct)nrused,  howe\er.  in  a  society  basing  an 
'iniroxerted"  culture  there  is  no  special  reason  to  suppose  individuals 
have  introverted  personalities  (see  Chapter  9). 

(2)  ".Vs-iP  Personalities:  Cultural  systems  provide  normative  standards 
for  behavior.  The  patterns  of  culture  con\entionalize  the  lorms  o\  beha- 
vior deemed  acceptable,  within  a  community,  for  its  particular  range  o\' 
social  occasions,  in  so  doing,  Sapir  argues,  the  cultural  patterns  suggest 
a  normative  personalit\  (or  personalities)  -  the  kind  o\'  person  who 
would  behave  in  that  way  even  if  not  required  to  b\  comention.  The 
individual  who  conforms  to  these  behavioral  conxentions  thus  beha\es 
as  //he  or  she  had  that  personality,  or  those  motives,  regardless  of  what 
the  actual  niini\es  or  opinions  might  be  (see  Chapter  9  and  Sapir's 

1926  conference  presentation.  "Notes  on  Psychological  Orientation  in 
a  Given  Society").  Just  as  cultures  differ  in  their  behavioral  coinen- 
tions,  so  they  differ  in  "as-if  personalities.  These  "as-if  personalities 
must  no\  be  confused  with  an  indixichiafs  actual  personalitx.  Sapir  in- 
sists (attributing  that  error  to  Benedict  and  Mead).  The  "as-if  person- 
ality is  merely  an  external  standard,  a  frame  of  reference  that  is  part  o\' 
the  environment  to  which  an  individual  must  adapt. 

(3)  Personalities'  actions  and  interactions  ^i\e  rise  to  cultural  ineanin«^s. 
Without  subscribing  to  a  "great  man"  theory  oi'  histor>.  e\er  since  the 
1917  debate  with  Kroeber  Sapir  had  emphasized  the  role  of  the  creatne 
individual  in  culture.  A  personalit\  is  both  an  organized  s\stem  and  an 
integrative  mechanism,  he  argues.  Shaped  m  terms  provided  bv  the  spe- 
cific patterns  of  culture  to  which  an  individual  is  exposed,  a  personality 
contributes,  in  turn,  to  the  re-shaping  of  the  patterns  themselves.  I'rom 
his  or  her  experience  each  individual  extracts  significant  umtormities. 
systematizes  them,  and  bases  actions  on  them.  In  the  process,  personal 


400  fl^   Culture 

significances  nia\  intliiencc  cultural  ones,  depending  on  an  individual's 
circumstances  and  opportunities  to  affect  the  experiences  of  others. 

Though  1  have  summarized  it  only  roughly,  this  argument  appears 
many  times  in  Sapir's  work,  from  1917  to  the  several  versions  of  the 
"Psychology  of  Culture"  course.  In  1933-34,  the  emphasis  is  on  sym- 
bols as  mediators  between  individual  and  society  (Chapter  12).  The 
constellations  o^  a  symbol's  meanings  shift,  he  suggests,  between  dif- 
ferent individuals  as  well  as  between  different  cultural  systems.  Yet,  pri- 
vate symbolisms  may  come  to  take  on  a  wider,  hence  social,  signifi- 
cance. In  1933  Sapir  says  little  about  how  this  influence  can  come  about; 
in  1937,  he  situates  it  in  the  specific  social  interactions  of  individuals  - 
thus  inserting  a  situational,  interactional  level  of  analysis  between  the 
psychology  of  individuals  and  the  abstracted  patterns  of  societies 
(Chapter  10).  Intluenced  by  Harry  Stack  Sullivan's  interpersonal  psy- 
chiatry. Sapir  now  argued  that  what  we  can  consider  "culture"  to  be 
emerges  from  the  interactions  of  specific  individuals,  and  the  symbols 
involved  in  those  interactions.  In  a  discussion  partly  replicated  in  his 
1937  publication,  "The  Contribution  of  Psychiatry  to  an  Understanding 
of  Behavior  in  Society"  (a  paper  given  in  a  symposium  of  psychiatrists, 
including  Sullivan),  Sapir  seems  to  have  told  his  1937  class: 

Cultural  considerations  alone  can  never  explain  what  happens  from  day  to  day  - 
they  are  inadequate  for  predicting  or  interpreting  any  particular  act  of  an  individual. 
The  reason  for  this,  in  a  nutshell,  is  that  in  those  particular  acts  the  individual  is  not 
adjusting  to  "society",  but  to  interpersonal  relationships.  Faced,  therefore,  with  the 
dilTiculty  of  segregating  the  psychological  and  the  social  systems,  and  convinced  that 
the  gap  between  the  sociological  approach  and  the  psychological  approach  must  be 
filled  and  both  systems  must  be  used,  I  find  that  I  am  particularly  fond  of  Dr.  Harry 
Stack  Sullivan's  pet  phrase  of  "interpersonal  relations"... 

The  study  of  "interpersonal  relations"  is  the  problem  of  the  future.  It  demands 
that  we  study  seriously  and  carefully  just  what  happens  when  A  meets  B  -  given 
that  each  is  not  only  physiologically  defined,  but  each  also  has  memories,  feelings, 
understandings,  and  so  on  about  the  symbols  they  can  and  must  use  in  their  interac- 
tion... In  any  [specific]  situation  when  two  people  are  talking,  they  create  a  cultural 
structure.  Our  task,  as  anthropologists,  will  be  to  determine  what  are  the  potential 
contents  of  the  culture  that  results  from  these  interpersonal  relations  in  these  situa- 
tions.'^ 

Sapir  did  not  end  the  1937  course  with  that  statement.  Instead,  as  in 
earlier  years  and  in  his  1928  chapter  outline  (the  prospectus  for  Har- 
court),  he  took  up  a  subject  then  prominent  in  some  schools  of  psychia- 
try and  anthropology:  the  concept  of  "primitive  mentahty"  (Chapter 
1 1 ).  A  work  on  the  "psychology  of  culture"  in  the  1930's  could  scarcely 
omit  discussing  the  influential  notions  of  Freud,  Levy-Bruhl,  and  Mali- 


Two:  The  I'svchoU)^}' of  Culture  401 

nowski,  authors  whose  umk  nuisi  ha\c  dominalcd  main  readers'  con- 
ceptions (^1  what  culture  and  psychology  might  ha\e  to  do  with  one 
another.  Ahhough  he  had  discussed  fYeudian  psychiatry  elsewhere  (see. 
for  instance,  his  h)17  reviews  of  Ireud  and  Pfister),  Sapir's  published 
writings  hereltWore  had  said  Hllle  about  the  work  o\'  Levy-Bruhl  or  Ma- 
linowski.  In  the  boi>k  and  in  the  course,  he  evidently  intended  to  present 
a  comprehensne  critique  o\'  these  three  authors"  ideas.  The  point  was 
that  there  could  be  no  such  thing  as  a  primitive  mentality  at  all. 

As  the  end  of  Chapter  1 1  shows.  Sapir  shifted  away  from  the  concept 
o'i  "primiti\e  mentalit\""  to  make  a  ct>ncluding  statement  for  the  1937 
course  as  a  whole.  He  seems  to  have  alluded  to  the  indi\ iduafs  creative 
integration  of  cultural  forms  -  "the  springs  for  art  in  every  human 
being",  as  the  class  notes  put  it  -  and  returned  to  the  argument  that 
the  indi\  idiiafs  tendency  to  expression  may,  under  certain  conditions, 
give  rise  to  or  intluence  cultural  patterns.  Regrettably.  \er\  few  notes 
on  this  concluding  passage  survive. 

In  sum.  although  some  of  the  ideas  in  this  book  can  also  be  found  in 
Sapir's  published  essays,  these  lectures  provided  him  with  an  opportu- 
nity to  explore  some  of  them  more  fully  and  to  place  them  in  a  broadly 
comprehensive  argument.  Other  ideas,  and  the  breadth  o['  the  terrain 
he  covers  here,  are  not  to  be  found  in  his  previously  available  work, 
and  so  must  add  to  our  sense  of  his  contribution.  Examining  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  course  sheds  light  on  the  development  o{  his  ideas  in  the  last 
decade  of  his  life,  for  he  was  still  actively  engaged  in  thinking  about  the 
"psychology  of  culture"  right  up  to  the  end.  Whether  he  had  llnally 
arrived  at  a  formulation  that  really  satisfied  him,  however,  we  shall 
never  know. 


Sources  and  Editorial  Procedures 

The  principal  source  materials  for  this  project  were  fifteen  sets  of  stu- 
dent notes  taken  in  Sapir's  course  on  "The  Psychology  o\^  Culture". 
Eleven  sets  were  available  on  the  Yale  microfilm,  a  copy  o\'  which  was 
given  me  by  Fred  Eggan.  Eggan  had  been  given  the  microfilm  bv  Eouis 
Wirth,  who  had  received  it  (or  copies  tif  the  actual  notes)  from  I  li/abeth 
Herzog  sometime  before  June  1942.'^  Apparently,  there  was  some  possi- 
bility at  that  time  or  in  the  next  few  years  that  Wirth  might  have  the 
notes  mimeographed,  or  that  Eggan  might  \ook  them  over  and  do  the 
synthesis  himself. 


402  III  Culture 

Sapir  gave  ihc  course  at  Yale  three  times:  in  1933-34  (when  it  was 
titled  "The  Impact  o^  Cuhure  on  Personality"),  in  1935-36,  and  in 
h;36  37.  Students  from  all  three  years  contributed  notes  to  the  micro- 
film. Of  the  eleven  students,  nine  can  be  firmly  identified: 

Ernest  Beaglehole  (PhD  1931  from  the  London  School  of  Economics; 
a  postdoctoral  visitor  at  Yale  before  completing  his  major  fieldwork  on 
Pukapuka  later  in  the  193()"s;  a  native  of  New  Zealand,  he  returned 
there  in  1937  to  hold  the  first  chair  in  Psychology;  died  in  1965):  notes 
1933-34. 

Willard  W.  Hill  (PhD  Yale  1934;  for  many  years  chair  of  Anthropol- 
ogy at  the  University  of  New  Mexico;  known  for  his  studies  of  peoples 
&[  the  southwestern  U.  S.,  especially  the  Navajo;  died  in  1974):  notes 
1933-34. 

Weston  LaBarre  (PhD  Yale  1937;  Professor  of  cultural  anthropology, 
biological  anthropology,  and  anatomy  at  Duke  University  until  his  re- 
tirement in  1977;  noted  for  studies  of  psychology  and  rehgion,  particu- 
larly the  Peyote  cult;  died  in  1996):  notes  1933-34. 

Da\id  Mandelbaum  (PhD  Yale  1936;  taught  briefly  at  the  University 
of  Minnesota  and  then  for  many  years  at  the  University  of  California 
at  Berkeley;  fieldwork  among  the  Cree  and  in  India;  editor  of  Selected 
Writings  of  Ecluarcl  Sapir,  1949;  died  in  1987):  notes  1933-34. 

Walter  W.  Taylor  (transferred  to  Harvard  for  his  PhD,  which  he  re- 
ceived in  1943;  primarily  an  archaeologist,  often  cited  for  his  interest  in 
the  sociocultural  implications  of  archaeological  data;  Professor  emeri- 
tus at  the  University  of  Southern  Illinois,  Carbondale;  died  in  1996): 
notes  1935-36. 

Lyda  Averill  Taylor  (wife  of  Walter  Taylor;  died  in  1960):  notes 
1935-36. 

Anne  M.  Cooke,  later  Smith  (PhD  Yale  1940;  she  and  Erminie  Voege- 
lin  were  the  first  women  to  receive  anthropology  PhD's  from  Yale;  con- 
ducted ethnographic  research  on  the  Ute;  taught  at  Franklin  and  Mar- 
shall College;  deceased):  notes  1936-37. 

Irving  Rouse  (PhD  Yale  1938;  a  specialist  in  New  World  culture  his- 
tory, especially  in  the  Caribbean  and  surrounding  areas;  Professor  emer- 
itus at  Yale):  notes  1936-37. 

Mary  Mikami  Rouse  (PhD  from  Yale  in  Sinology;  wife  of  Irving 
Rouse):  notes  1936-37. 

Two  other  notetakers  from  the  microfilm  cannot  be  identified.  One, 
who  took  notes  in  1936-37  (the  final  year  of  the  course),  may  be  Ermi- 
nie Voegelin;  the  other,  who  took  notes  in  1933-34,  may  be  Willard 


Two:  riw  P.svcholoi^y  of  Culture  40} 

Park.'''  Among  other  possibilities  lor  the  "33-"34  iu>le-takcr  are  \erne 
Ray,  Walter  Dyk,  Pearl  Beaglehole.  or  DtHi)lhy  llill  (wile  ol  VVillard). 
This  set  of  notes  is  almost  in  complemenlar\  clislnbiiimn  with  Willartl 
Hill's. 

In  addition  to  the  notes  on  mieiofiim.  iwo  other  students  in  Sapir's 
course  at  Yale  were  kind  enough  to  give  me  their  notes: 

Edgar  Siskin  (PhD  Yale  1941;  a  rabbi,  after  early  fieldwork  in  North 
America  he  moved  to  what  was  then  Palestine;  now  head  of  the  Jerusa- 
lem Center  for  Anthropological  Studies):  notes  1933-34;  and 

Beatrice  Blyth  Whiting  (PhD  Yale  1942;  noted  lor  her  work  in  ilie 
cross-cultural  study  of  socialization  and  education;  Professor  emerila  o\' 
Educational  Anthropology,  School  of  Education.  nar\ard  Uni\ersit\): 
notes  1935-36. 

Notes  from  earlier  versions  of  the  course,  given  in  1927  and  1928  at 
the  University  of  Chicago,  were  obtained  from  Richard  Preston  \ia 
Regna  Darnell.  The  Chicago  notetakers  were: 

Stanley  Newman  (PhD  Yale  1932;  a  graduate  student  who  accompa- 
nied Sapir  on  the  move  to  Yale,  Newman's  tlrst  major  research  was  a 
grammar  of  Yokuts;  though  best  known  for  his  studies  of  North  Ameri- 
can linguistics,  he  also  worked  in  educational  psychology;  taught  for 
many  years  at  the  University  of  New  Mexico;  died  in  1984):  notes  1927; 
and 

Frank  M.  Setzler  (after  graduate  work  at  Chicago,  he  held  a  position 
as  archaeologist  and  museum  curator  at  the  U.  S.  National  Museum  in 
Washington;  author  of  many  works  in  North  American  archaeology; 
died  in  1975):  notes  1928. 

Another  source  of  material  derives  from  the  Rockercller  Seminar 
(1932-33).  The  student  participants  wrote  up  summaries  of  each  ses- 
sion. I  have  drawn  upon  the  summaries  for  the  sessions  led  by  Sapir 
during  the  second  semester,  sessions  that  evidently  included  lectures  as 
well  as  discussions.  The  participants'  summaries  are  on  tile  in  the  Mar- 
garet Mead  papers  in  the  Library  of  Congress.  Those  whose  notes  ci>n- 
cerned  Sapir's  sessions  were:  Theodore  P.  Chilambai  (India);  Waller 
Beck  (Germany);  Bingham  Dai  (China);  Leo  Eerrero  (ltaly/(iene\a); 
Ali  Kemal  (Turkey);  Elenry  HaKorsen  (Norway);  and  Robert  \hir|olin 
(France).-" 

1  have  also  drawn  upon  Sapir's  own  outline  prospectus  for  /he 
Psyc/iology  of  Culfurc\  sent  to  Harcourt  in  1928.''  Additional  sources, 
used  only  where  appropriate  and  necessary  to  tlesh  out  an  argument, 
are  Sapir's  correspondence,  his  published  writings,  the  transcripts  of  his 


404  III  Culture 

presentations  at  the  Hano\cr  conferences  of  the  Social  Science  Research 
Council  (1926  and  1930),  and  student  notes  from  other  courses  and 
lectures  given  by  Sapir.  Besides  the  notes  on  Sapir's  lectures  to  the  Fri- 
day NiJit  CMub  (1933;  notes  taken  by  David  Mandelbaum)  and  the 
Medica]  Society  (1935-36;  notes  taken  by  Weston  LaBarre),  which  are 
included  in  the  \\\\q  microfilm,  notes  on  several  other  courses  Sapir 
gave  at  Chicago  and  Yale  were  generously  lent  to  me  by  their  notetak- 
ers:  David  Mandelbaum,  Fred  Eggan,  and  Edgar  Siskin. 

As  a  lecturer,  Sapir  had  an  inspiring,  even  electrifying  effect  on  his 
audience.  Describing  what  it  was  Hke  to  be  a  student  in  Sapir's  class, 
David  Mandelbaum  wrote  (1941:  132-34),  "he  was  more  than  an  in- 
spired scholar,  he  was  an  inspiring  person.  Listening  to  him  was  a  lucid 
adventure  in  the  field  of  ideas;  one  came  forth  exhilarated,  more  than 
oneself...  He  could  explain  his  explorations  so  clearly,  in  such  resplen- 
dent phrases,  that  we  felt  ourselves,  with  him,  heroes  in  the  world  of 
ideas.  An  eminent  psychiatrist  recently  remarked  that  Sapir  was  an  in- 
toxicating man.  That  he  was."^-  Ironically,  however,  the  awe  and  excite- 
ment Sapir  aroused  in  his  students  seems  sometimes  to  have  interfered 
with  note-taking.  As  Walter  Taylor  remarked,  "Sapir's  command  of 
English  was  itself  quite  hypnotic  and  ...  resulted  in  my  listening  to  him 
talk  and  not  to  what  he  was  saying!  And  note-taking  merely  interfered 
with  the  fiow  of  language  and  the  intricacies  of  Sapir's  thinking.  In  fact, 
if  1  remember  correctly,  I  stopped  taking  notes  altogether  toward  the 
end  of  the  course  -  but  I  did  not  stop  being  fascinated  and  excited 
about  the  ideas  he  was  presenfing."^^  In  a  similar  vein  -  and  out  of 
modesty  -  several  notetakers  I  spoke  or  corresponded  with  expressed 
doubts  about  the  usefulness  of  their  own  notes  as  compared  with  oth- 
ers'. 

That  Sapir's  lecture  style  was  complex,  polished,  and  compelling  is 
amply  evident  not  only  from  students'  recollections  but  also  from  the 
existing  transcripts  of  his  conference  presentations  to  the  Social  Science 
Research  Council  (now  published  in  CWES,  this  volume).  It  is  easy  to 
see  how  a  notetaker  might  feel  that  his  or  her  notes  could  not  ade- 
quately represent  the  actual  performance,  and  that  essential  ideas  or 
statements  had  been  left  out.  But  with  regard  to  the  notes'  value  for 
reconstructing  the  gist  of  Sapir's  arguments,  the  note-takers'  doubts 
were  quite  unfounded.  While  any  one  set  of  notes  is  necessarily  only  a 
partial  record,  when  several  sets  are  compared  the  record  becomes  that 
much  more  complete.  Each  note-taker  omits  different  things.  Although 
the  brilliance  of  Sapir's  performance  cannot  be  fully  recaptured,  the 


Two:  The  P.sycholoi^y  of  Culture  405 

essentials  of  his  argument  usually  can  be.  In  fad.  nian\  uiieresiing 
points  emerged  only  as  a  result  ot  the  detective  work  of  comparing  and 
integrating  the  \  arious  sets  of  notes. 

For  these  reasons  the  option  of  simply  reproducing  the  notes  them- 
selves for  publication,  without  synthesis,  has  never  been  seriously  enter- 
tained. It  is  only  through  careful  comparison  that  one  can  get  a  sense 
of  an  individual  note-taker's  omissions  (of  passages,  wording,  or  whole 
lectures),  oi^  note-cards  out  of  order  (mistakes  probably  introduced  in 
the  microfilming  process),  of  repetitions  resulting  from  a  note-taker's 
having  copied  another  student's  notes  to  supplement  his  or  her  own, 
and  so  on. 

The  editorial  procedure,  therefore,  has  been  to  compare,  select 
among,  and  interweave  the  various  sets  of  notes  in  order  to  reconstruct 
Sapir's  text  as  closely  as  possible.  Obviously,  the  result  will  dilTer  from 
Sapir's  written  style,  and  it  cannot  display  the  vividness  and  wit  for 
which  his  spoken  style  was  so  often  lauded.  But  the  contents  of  the 
notes  overlap  sufficiently  with  each  other,  while  remaining  sufficiently 
ditTerent  from  Sapir's  published  writings,  to  make  it  worthwhile  to  at- 
tempt some  approximation  o(  these  lectures  that  infiuenced  so  many 
eminent  anthropologists  and  linguists,  and  which  Sapir  himself  envi- 
sioned as  a  book. 

The  task  of  reconstruction  was  complicated  by  the  fact  that  the  notes 
come  from  several  versions  of  the  course.  There  is  no  single  Sapir  oral 
"text"  to  be  reconstructed  -  no  single  course  of  lectures;  instead,  there 
are  several  overlapping  courses.  Had  there  been  more  material  from  the 
final  (1936-37)  version.  I  might  simply  have  reconstructed  a  text  for 
that  presumably  most  mature  stage  of  his  thinking.  Indeed,  I  began  this 
project  with  that  intention.  But  the  1936-37  material  was  not  adequate 
for  reconstruction  by  itself,  and  it  omitted  or  only  hinted  at  manv  inter- 
esting topics  for  which  notes  existed  from  the  earlier  years. 

The  solution  was  to  incorporate  all  the  notes  from  the  ^ale  period. 
while  giving  greater  weight  to  those  representing  the  latest  version  ol 
the  course.  That  is,  where  the  versions  ditTer,  either  in  the  order  in 
which  topics  are  introduced  or  (which  is  less  ofien)  in  the  Ci^ntent  or 
implications  of  a  discussion,  the  1936-37  version  takes  priorn\.  Ihese 
Yale  materials,  both  from  the  "Psycholog\  of  Culture"  course  and  from 
the  Rockefeller  Seminar,  are  represented  m  then-  entirely.  interuo\en 
for  narrative  presentation.  Sapir's  own  192S  outline  is  also  incorporated 
almost  entirely,  because  it  comes  to  us  as  his  own  typescript,  unmedi- 


406  iff   Culture 

ated  by  notetakcrs:  but  because  o(  its  earlier  date  it  bears  less  organiza- 
tional weight  in  ihe  reconstruction  than  do  the  later  materials. 

Other  sources,  including  the  notes  from  the  Chicago  versions  of  the 
same  course,  are  drawn  upon  only  when  necessary  to  flesh  out  or  clarify 
a  passage.  Although  the  Chicago  notes  -  especially  Newman's  -  are 
ver\  interesting,  they  ditTer  more  substantially  from  the  Yale  versions 
than  the  latter  ditTer  among  themselves.  The  course  was  much  shorter 
at  Chicago,  and  Sapir  seems  to  have  reworked  it  considerably  when  he 
nuned  to  ^'ale.  Only  a  few  excerpts  from  the  Newman  and  Setzler  notes 
are  included  in  ihc  reconstructed  text,  therefore. 

Once  the  content  and  organizational  decisions  were  made,  putting 
the  material  into  narrative  form  required  further  editorial  decisions.  The 
notes  \ary  in  format:  some  are  largely  narrative  (Cooke,  Mandelbaum, 
Beaglehole,  Irving  Rouse,  the  unidentified  notetaker  of  1936-37);  some 
are  largely  in  outline  form  (Hill,  Mary  Mikami  Rouse,  Whiting,  Siskin, 
the  unidentified  notetaker  of  1933-34);  others  are  in  paragraphs  of 
telegram-like  prose  (the  Taylors,  LaBarre).  In  reconstructing  a  text, 
where  I  had  only  to  supply  connectives,  articles,  auxiliary  verbs,  and 
the  like  in  order  to  turn  "telegram  style"  and  outlines  into  narrative,  I 
have  done  so  without  so  indicating  in  the  draft.  Similarly,  for  smooth- 
ness of  flow  I  have  sometimes  altered  the  syntactic  structure  of  a  sen- 
tence in  the  notes.  But  wherever  I  have  had  to  supply  a  content  word 
or  a  content-filled  connecdng  passage,  I  have  marked  my  own  additions 
in  brackets. 

Since  some  of  these  bracketed  additions  are  lengthy,  I  have  supplied 
a  number  of  footnotes  that  try  to  explain  my  rationale  for  inserting 
what  I  did.  It  is  not  always  possible,  however,  to  identify  a  single  source 
or  articulate  a  specific  reason  for  these  insertions.  Some  of  them  derive 
from  the  implications  of  a  notetaker's  spafial  organizafion  of  notes  - 
such  as  placing  one  point  below  another,  or  placing  a  notation  in  the 
margin,  or  drawing  connecting  arrows.  Other  insertions  I  can  only  attri- 
bute to  my  own  interpretation,  after  immersion  in  the  material,  of  what 
Sapir  meant. 

In  addition  to  the  brackets  representing  textual  insertions,  other  not- 
ations on  the  text  show,  in  a  coded  form,  which  notetaker(s)  or  other 
sources  were  drawn  upon  for  a  particular  passage.  For  example,  a  sen- 
tence early  in  Chapter  1  reads  as  follows:  "  -^^xhere  seem  to  be  three 
reasonably  distinct  ways  of  defining  'culture'."  This  passage  comes  from 
the  notes  of  Irving  Rouse  (r2;  see  explanation  of  codes,  below).  Where 
two  or  more  notetakers  have  the  same  or  very  similar  passages,  all  are 


TiiY).   T/h'  P.svcholoiiy  of  C'nlfiirc  407 

identified;  ilOiie  i>rihcni  was  accorded  greater  ueiizhl  in  reeonslriictinii 
the  passage,  thai  iiolelaker  is  listed  fust.  Signiricaiil  dirierenees  between 
notetakers'  versions  are  explained  in  editorial  footnotes. 

Where  notetakers'  wording  of  a  passage  ditTers  in  wa\s  that  are  no{ 
easily  reeoneiled,  an  option  I  ha\e  t^ften  taken  is  to  inelude  binh  ver- 
sions. Leeturers  oWcn  repeal  a  slatenieiil  in  slightl\  ditTerenl  wording 
to  emphasize  a  point;  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  Sapir  did  not  do 
so.  Still,  the  reconstrueted  text  may  sometimes  be  rather  more  repetitive 
than  Sapir's  aetual  leeture  would  have  been.  In  this  as  in  other  respeels 
the  reconstruction  differs  from  what  Sapir  might  ha\e  wished  to  see  in 
print.  His  written  style  was  carefully  polished,  closely  argued,  and  sel- 
dom redundant. 

In  sum,  the  editorial  procedures  and  mode  oi'  presentation  o\'  the 
reconstructed  "text"  have  had  the  aim  of  staying  as  accountable  to  the 
sources  as  possible  while  offering  a  synthesis  that  would  be  accessible 
to  the  reader.  Although  I  cannot  hope  to  have  represented  exactly  the 
book  Sapir  would  have  published  himself,  I  hope  I  have  come  some- 
where close  to  his  intentions,  as  those  were  represented  in  his  course  of 
lectures. 


Explanation  e^f  codes  and  notations  in  the  text 

All  sources  are  identified  in  the  text  by  means  of  a  superscript  code 
placed  before  the  relevant  portion  of  text.  For  notetaker  sources,  1  have 
used  letter  codes  derived  from  the  name  of  the  notetaker.  For  Sapir's 
own  publications,  the  superscript  code  identifies  the  work  by  publica- 
tion date,  as  listed  in  the  CWES  cumulative  bibliography.  An  unpub- 
lished piece  of  correspondence  is  identified  b\  a  Iciicr  code.  I-ditorial 
supplements  (insertions  added  for  narrative  How  and  ease  of  interpreta- 
tion) are  identified  by  being  placed  in  brackets. 

The  superscript  codes  are  as  follows: 

(1)  Class  notes,  r/w  P.wclioloi^y  oJC'uliurc: 

University  of  Chicago,  1927-28: 
ne        Stanley  Newman 
se         Frank  Setzler 

Yale.  1933-34  (The  Inipacf  of  Culture  on  Pcr.sotui/iiv): 
hi         Willard  W.  Hill 
dm       David  Mandelbaum 


408  ^^^   Culture 

lb         Weston  L.aBarrc  (LaBarre  actually  took  the  course  twice,  but 

the  notes  are  apparently  all  from  33-34) 
bj;        l-rnesl  Beaglehole 
si  l-duar  Siskin 

b2        In  identified  note-taker 

>'ale.  1935-36  (TVk'  Psychology  of  Culture): 
1 1         \\  alter  Taylor 
t2         Lyda  A\erill  Ta>lor 
b\\        Beatrice  Blylh  Whiting 

\dk\  1936-37  (The  Psychology  of  Culture): 

rl         Mary  Mikami  Rouse 

r2        lr\ing  Rouse 

ck        Anne  Cooke  Smith 

qq        laiidentified  note-taker  (possibly  Erminie  Voegelin) 
mo.  all  Passage  found  in  most,  or  all,  of  the  notes  on  the  particular 
topic,  in  more  than  one  year  of  the  course 

(2)  Rockefeller  Seminar,  Yale  1932-33  {The  Impact  of  Culture  on  Per- 
sonality): 

eh  Theodore  R  Chitambar  (India) 

\\b  Walter  Beck  (Germany) 

da  Bingham  Dai  (China) 

if  Leo  Ferrero  (Italy/Geneva) 

ak  Ali  Kemal  (Turkey) 

ha  Henry  Halvorsen  (Norway) 

rm  Robert  Marjolin  (France) 

(3)  Sapir's  own  outline  for  77?^  Psychology  of  Culture  (1928): 
ol        Outline 

(4)  Student  notes  on  other  courses  or  lectures  given  by  Sapir: 
Weston  LaBarre,  Yale: 

2ms     "Sapir's  Two  Lectures  to  the  Medical  Society"^"^ 
David  Mandelbaum,  Yale: 

fnc       '-Lecture  to  the  Friday  Night  Club"  (1933;  see  Appendix  3) 
Fred  Eggan,  University  of  Chicago: 

e20      "Linguistics"  (course  notes) 

e65      "Psychological  Survey  of  Primitive  Religion"  (course  notes) 

e85      "Psychology  of  Language"  (course  notes) 

e92      "Northwest  Coast  Tribes"  (course  notes) 


Two:  The  Psvtluthi^y  of  Cuhuri'  409 

Edgar  Siskin,  Yale: 
smp      "Methods   and    Problems   o^  Anthropology"    (course    notes, 

1935;  co-taughl  uilh  Leslie  Spier) 

(5)  Sapir's  publications  and  manuscripts: 

1915a  "Abnormal  Types  of  Speech  in  Nootka" 

1915h  "The  Social  Organization  of  the  West  Coast  Tribes" 

1917a  "Do  We  Need  a  'Superorganic".'" 

19171  "Psychoanalysis  as  Pathtnider."  re\ie\\  o\'  Oskar  Pfisler.  The 
Psychoanalytic  Met  hod 

I921d  "Language.  Race,  and  Culture"  (Chapter  10  o\'  Lani^ua^^c) 

1923]  "Two  Kinds  o[^  Human  Beings,"  review  ofC.  Jung,  Psycholoi:!- 
cal  Types 

19231  "An  Approach  to  Symbolism,"  review  of  C.  K.  Ogden  and 
LA.  Richards,  The  Meanini^  of  Meanini^ 

1924b  "Culture,  Genuine  and  Spurious" 

1924c  "The  Grammarian  and  His  Language" 

1927a  "Anthropology  and  Sociology" 

1927h  "Speech  as  a  Personality  Trait" 

1928e  "Psychoanalysis  as  Prophet."  review  of  Sigmund  Trend.  The 
Future  of  an  Illusion 

1928]  "The  Unconscious  Patterning  of  Beha\ior  in  Society" 

1929m"A  Study  in  Phonetic  Symbolism" 

1932a  "Cultural  Anthropology  and  Psychiatry" 

1932b  "Group" 

1934a  "The  Emergence  of  the  Concept  of  Personality  in  a  Study  o'i 
Cultures" 

1934c  "Personality" 

1934e  "Symbolism" 

1937a  "The  Contribution  of  Psychiatry  to  an  Inderslaiidnig  of  Beha- 
\ior  in  Society" 

1938e  "Why  Cultural  Anthropology  Needs  the  Psychiatrist" 

1939c  "Psychiatric  and  C^iltural  Pitfalls  in  the  I^usuiess  of  (ietlnig  a 
Living" 

1946  (with  Morris  Swadesh)  "American  Indian  CJrammatical  Cate- 
gories" 

1980    Letter  to  Philip  Selznick  (Oct.  25,  193S) 

1997a  "Notes  on  Psychological  Orientation  in  a  (iiven  Societs."  So- 
cial Science  Research  Council.  HcUiover  Conference,  paper  de- 
livered 1926. 


410  J^l  Culture 

1997b  "I  he  C'liliural  Approach  lo  the  Study  of  Personality,"  Social 
Science  Research  Council,  Hanover  Conference,  paper  deliv- 
ered \')M). 

kro       Letter  to  A.  1  .  Kroeber  (Aug.  25,  1938) 

All  quotes  from  Sapir's  own  writings  are  exact,  unless  noted  otherwise. 


Notes 

1.  Edward  Sapir  lo  Alfred  Harcourt.  27  June  1928. 

2.  Eduard  Sapir  lo  David  Mandelbaum.  15  October  1937. 

3.  Edward  Sapir  lo  Philip  Selznick.  25  October  1938. 

4.  Jean  Sapir  to  David  Mandelbaum,  19  May  1939. 

5.  It  is  not  clear  whether  any  manuscript  materials,  such  as  lecture  notes,  ever  existed. 
Sapir's  students  differ  in  their  recollections  of  whether  he  brought  papers  with  him  to 
class.  Judging  from  students'  documentation,  some  of  the  lectures  remained  very  similar 
from  one  year  lo  the  ne.xt  -  perhaps  suggesting  the  use  of  notes  -  but  other  lectures 
did  not. 

6.  Jean  Sapir  lo  David  Mandelbaum,  19  May  1939. 

7.  Leslie  Spier.  Alfred  I.  Hallowell  and  Stanley  S.  Newman,  eds.  (1941)  Language,  Culture 
and  Personality:  Essays  in  Memory  of  Edward  Sapir. 

8.  According  to  Irving  Rouse  (pers.  comm.),  Willard  Park  may  also  have  played  a  central 
role  in  assembling  notes  from  students  still  at  Yale. 

9.  Zellig  Harris  to  Philip  Sapir,  20  July  1942. 

10.  At  the  Centenary  Conference  in  Ottawa,  Sapir's  prospectus  and  the  corpus  of  class  notes 
were  discussed  in  print  for  the  first  time  (Preston  1986). 

1 1 .  Thus  Jean  Sapir  wrote  to  David  Mandelbaum  (30  January  1950)  thanking  him  for  giving 
a  major  place  in  Seleeied  Writings  to  Sapir's  contributions  "in  the  culture  and  personality 
field,  about  which  Edward  thought  so  much  but  wrote  so  little.  The  very  dates  of  what 
he  did  get  into  print  tell  the  whole  story." 

12.  I  owe  this  comment  to  Allan  H.  Smith,  a  student  in  the  1935-36  Yale  course. 

13.  See  also  Preston  (1986). 

14.  For  further  information  on  the  Impact  seminar  see  Darnell  (1990),  chapter  17. 

15.  The  idea  seems  to  have  been  for  the  students  to  discover  that  it  was  impossible  to  devise 
any  cultural  inventory  in  advance  of  ethnographic  investigation. 

16.  In  his  1939  paper,  Sapir's  criticisms  of  the  discipline  of  economics  tend  to  concern  the 
methodological  individualism  according  to  which  some  economists  posit  a  typical  indivi- 
dual, an  "economic  man"  and  his  behavior,  in  order  to  explain  the  workings  of  an 
economic  system.  The  criticisms  do  not  concern  the  study  of  economic  systems  as  such. 

17.  I  quote  from  my  reconstructed  text;  see  Chapter  10.  The  reconstruction  here  is  on  pretty 
firm  ground. 

18.  Elizabeth  Herzog  to  Louis  Wirth,  19  July  1942. 

19.  I  owe  these  suggestions  to  Irving  Rouse. 

20.  Other  participants  in  the  Seminar  included:  Andras  Angyal  (Hungary),  Wilhelm  Gier- 
lichs  (Germany),  Michiji  Ishikawa  (Japan),  Jan  Krzyzanowski  (Poland),  Niilo  Maki  (Fin- 
land), and  Max  Weinreich  (Poland).  For  further  information  on  the  Seminar  Participants 
see  Darnell  (1990). 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  Culftin'  411 

21.  Sapir's  1928  outline  is  published  here  as  a  companion  piece  to  the  reconstructed  text  - 
a  companion  of  special  importance,  since  it  is  from  Sapir's  i>wn  hand. 

22.  DaMd  Maiuiclhaum  (UMI),  "lidward  Sapir"  (an  obituary  appearmg  m  Jewish  Social 
Stthliiw  3:  131  -40).  Sec  also  the  recollections  oi  oilier  lormer  students  of  Supir  at  the 
Ottawa  centenary  conference  (Cowan,  hosier,  and  K(»erner.  1986). 

23.  W.  W.  Taylor  to  J.  T.  Irvine.  18  February  1987. 

24.  The  two  lectures  are  dated  18  February  1935  and  29  F'ebruary  1936  in  LaBarres  notes. 
But  because  the  first  lecture  refers  to  a  topic  as  forthciMiiini!  in  the  second  lecture,  it 
seems  likeJN  that  the  two  uerc  i:i\cii  iii  ihc  same  \car.  rather  than  a  year  apart. 


Outline  for  llic  Psychology  oJCiiliurc  (1928) 

In  .Iiinc  1928,  Sapir  sent  Alfred  Harceniri  (cW'  Harcourt,  Brace  &  Co.) 
a  proposal  for  a  book  to  be  based  on  a  graduate  lecture  course  he  had 
been  offering  at  the  University  of  CMiicago.  About  the  proposal,  which 
consisted  of  a  chapter  outline,  Sapir  wrote: 

I  ha\c  ihiHighl  o\cr  >our  kiiul  olTcr  to  consider  ariaiiiiciiicnts  with  nic  for  a  book 
on  "The  Psychology  of  Cullurc"  a  number  of  times  since  our  con\ersation  ...  but  I 
have  not  had  the  opportunity  to  revise  my  original  plan  until  last  night.  The  enclosed 
outline  is  analysed  only  for  the  first  two  chapters,  the  rest  of  the  outline  giving 
nicrcl\  the  chapter  headings  and  a  few  sentences  or  phrases  to  indicate  the  nature 
of  the  contents  of  each.  You  will  understand,  of  course,  that  much  is  tentative  in  this 
outline,  e\cn  the  title,  and  that  1  may  have  to  change  a  good  deal  of  the  layout  as  I 
get  down  to  the  actual  writing  o^  the  hook.  This  book  would  represent  a  good  deal 
of  experience  in  presenting  m\  ideas  to  graduate  classes,  yet  it  is  not  intended  to  be 
an  academic  text-book,  ll  will  be  rather  a  free  discussion,  though  I  should  hope  to 
avoid  a  breezy,  merely  literary  air...  (ES  to  Harcourt.  18  .June  1928) 

Student  lecture  notes  from  Sapir's  courses  indicate  that  he  continued 
to  work  out  his  ideas  for  the  book  during  the  following  decade,  and 
made  various  revisions  in  the  format  and  substance  initially  proposed 
in  this  1928  outline.  The  outline  remains,  however,  the  only  formal  pre- 
sentation of  the  book  that  survi\es  in  Sapir's  own  typescript. 


Outline  for  The  Psycholoi^v  of  Ciihiur  ( 192S) 

Part  I. 

Introiliulory:  The  Varyini^  Connotations  of  the  H'orJ  "iuliior 

a.  Traditional  English  use  of  the  term  "culture".  Culture  so  defined  implies  stand.ird 
pertaining  to  indi\idual  or  group;  selection  of  traits  implying  "culture";  emphasis 
on  grace;  "spiritual"  or  "mental"  qualities  as  contrasted  with  "material"  \alues 
Critical  remarks  on  absoluteness  of  concept.  The  "cultured  man"  or  "ideal  man"  in 
various  societies:  English,  Chinese,  Hindu,  orthodox  Jewish.  American  Indian. 

b.  Wider,  but  still  selective  or  evaluating,  use  of  terms  as  applied  to  larger  groups. 
Their  "culture"  is  identical  with  their  distinguishing  "spirit"  fxamples  Irench  and 
Russian  cultures  in  a  nutshell. 


414  Iff   Culture 

c.  Smelly  cthnolouical  use  o^  term  •ciiliiirc"  as  embracing  all  reactions  which  are  so- 
eialK  inhenled  as  eontrasled  uith  indiviciual  reactions  which  have  no  historical  con- 
tmuily  and  \Mlh  bioloiiieally  inhenied  types  of  behavior. 


Pari  II.  What  Culture  is  and  What  it  is  Not 

chapter  I.  Ihc  Sacssiiy  oj  the  Concept  of  Culture  in  Social  Science. 

A  \u  attempt  at  a  closer  definition  of  the  term  "culture"  in  its  exact  sense  (C  of 
precedmg  chapter)  leads  to  unexpected  difficulties  because  no  human  behavior  can 
be  discovered  which  is  intrinsically  or  purely  "cultural."  This  leads  to: 

b.  The  difllculty  of  being  clear  as  to  the  subject  matter  of  social  science. 

(a)  The  objective  delimitation  of  the  natural  sciences. 

(b)  The  objective  delimitation  of  psychology  or  of  a  science  of  behavior. 

(c)  The  essentially  arbitrary  differentia  of  "social"  in  the  realm  of  behavior. 

c.  Pitfalls  in  the  use  of  the  term  "social." 

(a)  The  fallacy  of  ascribing  "social  behavior"  to  a  collectivity  as  such.  The  reality 
and  irrele\ance  of  group  behavior  in  its  literal  sense. 

(b)  "Social  behavior."  so  called,  is  both  individual  and  collective.  Why  the  term 
"cultural  behavior"  is  more  exact. 

(c)  How  "culture"  is  ahstracted  from  the  totality  of  human  behavior. 

d.  The  notional  conflict  between  "culture"  and  behavior  deemed  "social."  The  uncer- 
tainty that  generally  prevails  as  to  whether  a  given  study  in  "social  science"  belongs 
to  the  field  of  "culture"  or  to  the  field  of  actual  behavior.  The  justifiability  of  either 
point  of  view.  Much  "social  science"  is  a  half-hearted  study  of  certain  modes  of 
behavior  that  have  been  tacitly  (and  often  unavowedly)  selected  on  cultural,  not 
behavioristic,  lines. 

e.  Social  science  from  the  cultural  angle. 

(a)  The  relativity  of  all  cultural  concepts.  Their  dependence  on  the  historical  back- 
ground and  peculiar  ideology  of  particular  cultures. 

(b)  The  difficulty  of  constructing  a  convincing  "science"  of  cultural  patterns.  The 
study  of  culture,  no  matter  how  generalized,  is  essentially  a  historical  disciphne. 

(c)  The  importance,  nevertheless,  of  the  concept  of  cultural  relativity  for  the  science 
of  behavior. 

f.  Social  science  from  the  behavioristic  standpoint. 

(a)  This  "science"  must  take  the  cultural  facts  for  granted  as  a  body  of  environmen- 
tal determinants. 

(b)  The  laws  of  behavior  in  "society"  or  in  the  carrying  out  of  cultural  patterns  are 
no  other  than  the  laws  of  behavior  generally. 

(c)  Nevertheless,  the  fundamental  laws  of  behavior  may  help  us,  however  inexactly, 
to  understand  the  historical  working  out  of  cultural  patterns.  The  real  and  the 
putative  psychology  of  such  patterns  of  behavior. 


Two:  I'hc  Hsvcholo^y  of  Culture  415 

g.  General  diniculties  of  social  science. 

(a)  The  extreme  complexity  and  the  nuihiple  ileternniuiium  i»l  all.  e\en  the  simplest. 
t\  pes  of  social       i.  e.  cultural       heha\ior. 

(b)  rhe  essential  uniqueness  nl  ;ill  cultural  pheni>mena  Ihc  hurt  {\ouc  our  undcr- 
staiuling  o!  these  phenomena  m  ahstractini!  from  their  particularities  is  not,  it 
seems,  altoiiether  analogous  to  the  necessar\  simpliricatii>n  i^f  experience  in  the 
natural  sciences.  Fhe  concept  ol  "xalue." 

(c)  riie  consequent  inexactness  ol  all  classes  in  the  cultural  domain 

h.  C  ciiam  extrinsic  diniculties  of  social  science. 

(a)  Diniculties  of  observation  due  to  the  ■projection"  ol  unconscious  cultural  pat- 
terns b\  the  investigator. 

(b)  l^illlculties  of  historical  interprctatiiin  aiul  reconstruction. 

(c)  Chronic  paucil\  of  material. 

(d)  I'ncertaintN  cW' interpretation  t>f  i>bjccti\c  data.  "Spuricnis  accuracy"  in  much 
statistical  work  in  the  social  sciences. 

(e)  The  extreme  uncertainty  pre\  ailing  in  the  field  o^  psychology,  the  chief  explana- 
tory tool  of  social  "science." 

i.  The  essential  fallacy  of  all  slricth  conceptual  definitions  of  culture.  Culture  as  his- 
tory. Cultural  "levels  of  discourse"  arc  not  slriclK  congruous  with  biological  or 
psychological  ones.  Culture  as  selection,  not  as  objecti\e  fact. 

Chapter  2.  Rcue  as  a  Supposed  Determinant  oj  Culture. 

The  vanity  of  the  usual  attempts  to  understand  culture  as  a  stricth  racial  expression 
or  as  a  biological  concept. 

Chapter  3.  The  Supposed  Psycholoi^lcal  Causation  oJ  Culture. 

The  strictly  limited  sense  in  which  psychology  can  be  said  to  give  us  the  causative 
factors  of  culture.  Culture  is  not  a  mere  pro\incc  for  either  biological  or  psychologi- 
cal theories. 

Chapter  4.  Culture  and  Tnvironnienl. 

The  usefulness  of  environmental  considerations  in  the  study  of  culture.  Tlieir  insulTi- 
cicncy.  The  supposed  economic  determination  iW' all  cultural  phenomena. 

Pari  ill.  The  Exlcrnaiilics  of  C'uUurc:  its  l-JcMiiciUs 
and  its  Gcograpln. 

Chapter  I.  The  Content  of  Culture. 

What  it  embraces,  or  may  be  supposed  to  embrace,  objectnely.  Hie  impossibih^  .'i 
drawing  up  in  advance  an  intelligible  table  of  contents  or  inventory  of  cullutc 

(  hapler  2.  I'he  .ipparenl  Purpose  ol  Culture. 

rhc  I'unctiiMial  point  of  \ie\\.  Its  limitations.  Ihc  pitfalls  of  ratii>nali/alion. 

Chapter  3.  I'he  hulividual  Tlenunts  luul  Complexes  of  Culture. 

The  analysis  of  culture  into  "elements"  and  "complexes".  How  they  reassert  them- 
selves into  shiltinu  units.  "Secondarv  assiKiations."  Survivals. 


416  JJJ  Culture 

Chapter  4.  Vic  Geography  of  Culture. 

DilTusion  of  culture  traits.  Their  assimilation  to  the  receiving  culture.  The  concepts 
of  •'culture  area"  aiul  "culture  stratum." 


Pari  IV.  The  Patterning  of  Culture. 

Chapter  I.  The  Confisiurative  Point  of  View. 

Ttie  more  intimate  understanding  of  culture  as  form.  The  meaning  of  a  "cultural 
pattern".  A  glance  at  configurative  ("Gestalt")  psychology.  Examples  of  general  pat- 
terns in  behavior  that  are  definable  aside  from  content. 

Chapter  2.  Fallacies  in  the  Observation  of  Cultural  Phenomena. 

ITie  fallacy  of  judging  the  essential  nature  of  a  given  culture  from  external  appear- 
ances. The  inevitability  of  placing  objective  phenomena  according  to  one's  own  pat- 
terns. The  shock  which  one  experiences  on  discovering  the  existence  of  entirely  dif- 
ferent patterns  in  a  given  culture  from  those  that  had  obviously  seemed  to  be  present. 

Chapter  3.  The  Patterning  of  Culture  Exemplified:  Speech. 

Language  as  an  example  of  an  elaborate  pattern  that  keeps  itself  going  as  a  self- 
contained  "organism"  or  system  of  behavior. 

Chapter  4.  The  Multiple  Interpretation  of  Cultural  Data. 

Examples  of  completely  distinct  patterns  and  orientations  in  dealing  with  objectively 
similar  phenomena.  E.g.,  the  "Privilege"  concept  of  the  Nootka  Indians  does  not 
easily  emerge  from  mere  observation.  The  importance  of  native  terminology  as  a  key 
to  the  understanding  of  cultural  patterning. 

Chapter  5.  Tlw  Dynamics  of  Culture  Patterns. 

The  fundamental  dynamic  concepts  involved  in  the  notion  of  "cultural  patterns." 
Nothing  in  behavior,  cultural  or  otherwise,  can  be  understood  except  as  seen  in 
reference  to  configurations.  The  idea  of  relativity  in  culture.  "Absolute"  values  not 
valid. 

Chapter  6.  Vw  Development  of  Culture. 

The  concept  of  development  in  culture.  Growing  complications  in  the  various  levels 
of  a  whole  cultural  complex.  The  idea  of  compensatory  simplifications.  The  notion 
of  "progress";  limitations  of  the  idea.  The  cyclical  or  periodic  point  of  view. 


Part  V.  The  Individual's  Place  in  Culture. 

Chapter  I .  Culture  and  the  Individual. 

The  artificiality  of  the  usual  contrast.  Culture  as  something  transcending  the  indivi- 
dual spirit  or  as  embodied  in  it.  Two  points  of  view:  extravert,  introvert. 


Two:  The  Psycholoi^y  of  Culture  417 

Chapter  2.  The  Prohlcni  of  Pctwonuhiv  Types. 

Atlcinpls  U)  dctliic  t\pcs  ol'  porsoiialilN.  Jung's  classification. 

Chapter  3.  Ciihunil  Types. 

Tlie  possibihly  of  constructing  a  typology  ofcuhure  on  the  basis  of  a  psychology  of 
indi\idual  types.  The  social  psychology  of  such  cultural  types  are  not  to  be  interpre- 
ted literally  but  as  "as  if  psychologies.  We  arri\  e  at  a  new  and  fruitful  point  of  view 
as  regards  the  relation  of  the  individual  to  society. 

Chapter  4.  The  Prohleni  oj  Individual  Adjustment  in  Sueiety. 

Methods  of  adjustment,  successful  and  unsuccessful.  The  concept  o\'  pluralism  of 
culture  in  a  given  society.  Endless  re\aluation  as  we  pass  from  indi\idual  to  indivi- 
dual and  from  one  period  to  another.  Individual  and  cultural  configurations:  hi>w 
they  correspond,  reinforce  each  other,  overlap,  intercross,  confiict.  Compromise  for- 
mations ("pseudo-extraversion"  and  "pseudo-introversion").  Heightenings  of  "per- 
sonality" when  configurations  correspond. 

Chapter  5.  Primitive  Mentality. 

Primitive  and  sophisticated  mentality.  The  theories  of  the  psychoanalysts,  of  Levy- 
Bruhl,  and  of  others.  Critique  of  theories  that  presuppose  a  special  primitive  mental- 
ity. The  apparent  differences  of  behavior  are  due  to  ditTerences  in  the  content  of  the 
respective  cultural  patterns,  not  to  dilTcrences  in  the  method  of  mental  functioning 
in  the  two  supposedly  distinct  levels.  Our  scientific  thinking  does  not  explain  our 
own  culture. 


Part  VI.  Society  as  Unconscious  Artist. 

Chapter  1 .  Culture  as  Purpose  and  as  Art. 

Culture  as  purpose  and  art  or  imagination.  The  necessity  and  the  limitations  ol  the 
idea  of  purpose  in  culture.  Conscious  purpose  as  a  controlling  or  moderating  infiu- 
ence.  Imagination  as  the  unconscious  form-giver  of  culture. 

Chapter  2.  The  Meaning  of  Culture. 

The  concept  of  significant  form  in  culture.  How  the  struggle  for  significant  lv>rni  in 
culture  unconsciously  animates  all  normal  individuals  and  gi\es  meaning  to  their 
lives.  The  problem  of  happiness.  The  limitations  of  a  merely  humanitarian  ideal  It 
is  ameliorative  and  question-begging  at  best. 

Chapter  3.  The  Deeay  and  the  Renaissanee  of  Culture. 

The  necessity  of  "decay"  when  cultural  patterns  are  no  longer  vitalized  b\  the  uncon- 
scious of  the  individual.  Decay  necessarily  leads  to  renaissance.  The  powcrlcssncss  of 
the  conscious  indi\idual  will  to  piv\cnt  decay  or  to  dictate  the  terms  o\  a  renaissance. 


The  Psychology  orCuUurc: 

A  Course  of  Lectures  by  Edward  Sapir. 

1927-1937 

Rcconslruclcd  and  Ldilcd  b>  Judilh   I.  Ii\iiic 

Contents 

Part  I:  Tm  Conc  iiM  oi  Cri  iiRi- 

1.  Iniroduclory:  The  Term  "Culture" 

Three  uses  of  the  term:  culture  as  selection  and  \aluc 421 

2.  The  Concept  of  Culture  in  the  Social  Sciences 

"Cultural"  vs  "social";  methodological  and  epistemological 
problems  in  the  social  sciences  in  general,  and  anthropologx 
in  particular 441 

3.  "Causes"  of  Culture 

To  what  extent  do  factors  such  as  race,  geography,  psychology, 
and  economy  iniluence  cultural  form? 4(>7 

4.  The  Elements  of  Culture 

The  contents  of  culture:  trait  in\entor\  \s.  fimclional  pailcrn     4s;^) 

5.  The  Patterning  of  Culture 

The  configurative  point  o\'  \ic\\;  language  as  an  example  ot 
patterning;  ethnographic  example:  the  Nootka  lo/nifi.  a  con- 
cept of  "pri\ilege"    "''**"^ 

6.  The  Development  of  Culture 

Concepts  oi'  progress  and  change;  technological,  moral,  and 
aesthetic  processes;  developmental  cycles ""^^I 

Park  ii:  Tm   Indix  idi  \i  "s  Pi  aci  in  Ci  i  mri 

7.  Personality 

The  individual  as  bearer  of  culture;  defmitions  o\'  personality; 

the  psychiatric  approach ^-^-^ 


420  IJJ  Culture 

8.  Psychological  Types 

A  review  and  critique  of  Jung 559 

9.  Psychological  Aspects  of  Culture 

The  dilTiculty  o\^  delimiting  a  boundary  between  personality 
and  culture;  attitudes,  values,  and  symbolic  structures  as  cul- 
tural patterns;  culture  as  "as-if  psychology;  critique  of  Bene- 
dict and  Mead 585 

10.  The  Adjustment  of  the  Individual  in  Society 

Individual  adjustment  and  neurosis;  adjustment  to  changing 
social  conditions;  socialization;  can  there  be  a  "true  science  of 
man"?  the  emergence  of  culture  in  interpersonal  relations  .  .  .    603 

1 1 .  The  Concept  of  "Primitive  Mentality" 

Critiques  of  Freud,  Levy-Bruhl,  and  Malinowski;  the  impor- 
tance of  aesthetic  imagination  as  the  form-giver  of  culture    ..    621 

P\ki  III:  Symbolic  Structures  and  Experience  (1933-34) 

12.  Symbolism 

Types  of  symbols;  symbols  and  signs;  speech  as  a  symboHc 
system;  symbolism  and  social  psychology;  etiquette 631 

13.  The  Impact  of  Culture  on  Personality 

The  field  of  "Culture  and  Personality;"  concluding  remarks    .   655 

Appendices 

1 .  Classroom  exercises  on  the  study  of  American  culture:  smok- 
ing and  piano-playing  as  cultural  patterns  (1933) 663 

2.  Notes  on  a  Lecture  to  the  Friday  Night  Club,  October  13,  1933 
(notes  taken  by  David  Mandelbaum) 673 

3.  Sapir's  lists  of  suggested  readings  for  "The  Impact  of  Culture 
on  Personality"  (1933-34)  and  "The  Psychology  of  Culture" 
(1935-36) 677 

Bibliography 


Part  I:  The  Concept  of  Culture 


Chapter  1.  Introductory:  The  Term  "CuUure" 

i^)24h  ji-n^i-,^  -ire  certain  terms  that  have  a  peculiar  property.  Ostensibly 
they  mark  otT  specitlc  concepts,  concepts  that  lay  chiim  to  a  rigorous 
objective  vahdity.  hi  practice,  they  label  vague  terrains  o\'  thought  that 
shift  or  narrow  or  widen  with  the  point  of  view  of  whoso[ever]  makes 
use  of  them,  embracing  within  their  gamut  of  significance  conceptit^ns 
that  not  only  do  not  harmonize  but  are  in  part  contradictor}.  An  analy- 
sis of  such  terms  soon  discloses  the  fact  that  underneath  the  clash  of 
varying  contents  there  is  unifying  feeling-tone.  What  makes  it  possible 
for  so  discordant  an  array  of  conceptions  to  answer  to  the  same  call  is, 
indeed,  precisely  this  relatively  constant  halo  that  surrounds  them. 

^^  [Suppose  we  ask  ourselves,  then,]  what  is  "culture"?  [I  propose  to 
show  you  that  here  is  a  term  of  the  very  type  just  mentioned:  a  label 
that  seems  to  mean  something  particularly  important,  and  yet.]  '''-■*^ 
when  the  question  arises  of  just  where  to  put  the  label,  trouble  begins, 
[for]  ^^^-  '^'- '''  the  uses  of  the  term  "culture"  have  varying  connotations.' 
"^"^  We  cannot  take  culture  for  a  rigidly  defined  thing.  [But  perhaps  there 
are  nevertheless  some  common  themes  we  might  identify  and  thence 
arrive  at  our  own  idea  of]  '^'  the  meaning  oi'  the  concept  of  culture. 


/.  The  tniditioinil  Fji^lish  use 

"■^  There  seem  to  be  three  reasonably  distinct  ua\ s  o\  defining  "cul- 
ture." First  of  all,  ^^-  '^''- '"  consider  its  meaning  in  the  phrase,  "a  man 
of  culture."  ^''  This  is  the  traditional  English  use.  '"  a  conventional  idea 
of  culture  [referring  to  an]  '''-■*^  ideal  of  individual  refinement  [and  im- 
plying] '^''■-  ''  a  normative  ascription  o\'  \alue  a  preconception  thai 
one  type  of  behavior  is  superior  \o  aniUhcr.  '■  and  tiuii  certain  customs 
are  best.  [When  we  speak  of  "a  man  of  culture,"  we  mean  a  man  whose 
conduct  and  qualities  are  those  considered  better  and  more  \aluable 
than  those  of  other  men.]  ^''-  "• ''-  There  is  a  highly  evaluative  [connola- 


422  iff   Culture 

lion  to  the  icnn.  aiul  an|  emphasis  on  selectivity  [among  the  various 
forms  ot]  bcha\u^r  [practiced]  in  a  civilization,-  [such  that  the  selected 
behaviors  seem  to  endow  their  practitioners  with  an  aura  of]  unanalyzed 
excellence  and  nobility.  [There  is  nothing  specially  English  about  the 
evaluati\e  process,  however.]  ^'^  The  ascription  of  value  to  every  type  of 
behavior  is  a  natural  [impulse,  so  fundamental  an  expression  of  human 
psychology  that  we  may  reasonably  expect  to  find  some  idea  resembling 
this  sense  o\'  the  term  "culture"  among  peoples  otherwise  widely  dif- 
ferent.]' 

"'  Culture,  so  defined,  implies  a  standard  pertaining  to  an  individual 
or  group.  ''''•"  To  be  "a  man  of  culture"  involves  participation  in  special 
social  values  clustering  around  tradition.  ''  [It  is  not  the  particular 
content  of  those  traditions  that  is  vital  in  distinguishing  the  "cultured 
person"  from  others  -  for  all  too]  often  the  "culture"  of  an  advanced 
civilization  is  a  [mere]  rehash  of  traditional,  staid  subjects  -  [but  the 
fact  that  they  are  traditional  and  valued.]  Everyone  who  is  "cultured" 
lives  in  a  certain  realm  of  specific  feeling,  [deriving  not  only  from  those 
attitudes  and  typical  reactions  traditionally  prescribed  for  him,  but  also 
from]  a  feeling  o^  security  that  comes  to  the  person  within  the  "cul- 
tured" circle.  Because  of  [this]  personal  and  group  security,  [one's]  rela- 
tion with  the  out-group  becomes  easy  or  supercilious.  ''^-'^'^  Aloofness 
of  some  kind,  [in  fact,]  is  generally  a  sine  qua  non  of  [this]  type  of 
culture.  '"  It  is  an  idea  of  culture  that  depends  largely  on  class,  more 
often  hereditary  class  [than  class  of  any  other  kind],  and  it  centers  upon 
a  literary  tradition  and  a  practical  tradition,  be  it  church,  military,  or 
business. 

"^"^  What  is  it  that  validates  class  stratification  in  any  society?  [Al- 
though this  question  is  a  difficult  one,  let  us  approach  it  by  comparing 
a  few  examples.]  ^s-  ''^-  ■"'•  '-  [We  might  start  by]  examining  the  culture 
of  the  English  country  gentleman  of  the  eighteenth  century.  [What  char- 
acterizes] this  cultured  class?  '^'^  In  1750  it  was  necessary  for  the  "cul- 
tured" gentleman  to  quote  Horace.  [It  was  quite  unnecessary  for  him 
to  engage  in  activities  of  an  immediately  practical  kind;] ''-  the  tendency, 
[instead,]  was  to  deny  that  the  exigencies  of  nature  [had  any  bearing  on 
one's  behavior.]  ^m,  hi  j^^  gu^^  ^^  ^^^^  ^,^^  ^^^^^  themselves  of  the 
natural  urgencies  and  hence  could  be  casual  and  free  from  care.  ^"^  Thus 
sport  developed  in  England  as  one  of  the  earmarks  of  the  gentleman, 
as  was  hunting.  There  were  few  occupations  for  him  to  [take  up,  but  it 
was  quite]  definite  [which  ones  would  be  suitable:  they  were  limited  to 
political  and  military  acfivities,  such  as  being  a  member  of]  ParHament 


Two:  The  Psycholoi^v  (>l  (iiliurc  423 

or  [an  officer  in  lhc|  iiaw.  i>r  [hcing  a  inciiibcr  of]  the  clergy  and  il 
is  rather  pecuHai  [to  l-ngland,  perhaps.]  thai  ihe  geiilrs  and  clergy  were 
so  [closely]  associaled/  ''"'  ''  [In  sum.]  this  cullured  class  [is  dislin- 
guished  by]  its  economic  securily,  wealth,  and  leisure,  its  ediic.ilion  in 
the  classics,  its  engagement  in  hunting  and  sport,  and  [its  in\ol\ement] 
in  public  activities  such  as  politics  and  the  established  church. 

i|ii.  12,  ck.  ii  v;,^^  enjoying  freedom  fr^^m  care  (m  a  colleclne  sense), 
living  a  gracious  life,  and  preoccupied  with  con\entiiMial  literars  \alues. 
these  English  gentlemen  held  a  common  stock  of  cultural  goods  from 
whose  extreme  con\entionalit\  [they  gained]  a  feeling  of  essential  secu- 
rity. ■'•  '^^'^  [That  form  ot]  collecti\e  an\iet\  that  arises  from  a  lack  o{ 
participation  in  know  n  cultural  goods  was  relatively  absent;  instead,  the 
common  fund  of  cultural  symbols  enabled  [this  class  to  enjoy]  a  margin 
of  dissent  and  a  certain  cnnnitMial  freedom.  ('■''  [in  contrast.]  there  is  so 
much  collective  anxiety  in  ciillural  groups  in  America  that  ad\enlurous- 
ness  is  not  permitted  except  in  the  form  o{  humi^r.  ''•  '-•'■''  American 
society  is  anxiety-ridden  because  we  ha\e  not  defined  a  cultural  group 
which  has  meanings  in  common,  nor  have  v\e  uni\ersally  accepted  [a 
set  ot]  customs  as  a  stereotyped  ideal.) 

'"'  One  sense  o\^  "culture.'"  then,  is  "cultivation."  [The  idea  that  some 
members  of  society  are  more  "cultivated"  than  others.]  '-  and  the  ideal 
that  certain  customs  are  best,  [can  be  tbund  in  civilizations  exhibitmg 
the  widest  differences  in  other  respects.]  "  Yet.  the  method  of  arriving 
at  the  "cultured"  state  is  different,  in  different  ci\ili/ations.  ^^-  ^■'^-  "*'" 
[Consider,  for  instance,]  the  old  Chinese  gentleman  o\'  the  mandarin 
class,  who  need  not  be  wealthy  but  who  had  to  pass  stiff  examinations 
on  the  philosophy  of  the  Chinese  poets,  and  w  ho  must  himself  be  able 
to  write  poetry  and  paint  exquisite  characters.  '*'"  Literary  ability  was 
the  great  thing:  ^'^  passing  examinations  on  the  Chinese  classics  gave 
him  a  right  to  receive  a  good  government  post,  and  joined  him  with 
others  who  had  done  the  same  thing.  A  developed  aesthetic  attitude, 
and  the  gracious  side  of  life,  were  emphasized.  '*'"  Thus  the  Chinese  elite 
was  different  [from  the  English]  in  parliciiiai.  but  remarkably  sinnlar  in 
kind,  ^'^•''''  for  although  the  principle  of  selection  of  this  cultured  group 
ditTcred  from  that  of  the  ISth  century  l-nglish  group  in  that  the  manda- 
rin class  was  more  democratically  chosen,  it  was  a  selection  neverthe- 
less; and  several  lotiier)  features  were  rather  similar.  Again  graciousness 
characterized  the  class,  and  membership  was  dependent  upon  familiar- 
ity with  the  literary  tradition.  [Within  the  privileged  circle]  one  was  verv 
secure  in  the  symbolic  system  oi  knowledge  and  in  the  special  cultural 


424  lit  Culture 

iradilion.  and  the  cultural  ideal  was  calmly  accepted  by  elite  and  folk 
alike.  '-'''•  '-  There  was  very  little  strain  between  the  cultural  tradition 
and  the  folk  mind. 

dm.  bg  j\^^.  Athenian  gentleman  of  scholarly  tendency,  with  his  interest 
in  government,  is  another  case  in  point.  '*'"  Here  too  is  an  economically 
secure  class;  (and  in  addition  to]  economic  freedom,  the  criteria  [for 
membership]  again  [emphasize  acquaintance  with]  an  enshrined  litera- 
ture. [This  is  part  o'i  the  gentleman's]  preoccupation  with  [materially] 
useless  things  -  [the  other  side  of  the  coin  being]  freedom  of  thought 
and  [the  opportunity  for]  bold  speculations.  ^^  [So  if  you  start  with  the 
English  gentleman,]  compare  the  Chinese  gentleman,  next  the  Athenian 
gentleman,  and  go  on  to  examine  your  gentlemen  of  all  cultures,  primi- 
tive or  civilized,  [you  will  find  that]  there  will  be  something  of  a  paral- 
lelism in  their  respective  "cultures." 

[.At  this  point  you  may  wish  to  object  that  it  seems  somewhat  odd  to 
speak  of  "gentlemen"  in  any  but  the  higher  civilizations.  Let  me  remind 
you,  however,  that]  '^"^-  °'  we  have  no  rigid  definition  of  culture  nor  an 
absolute  concept  [according  to  which]  we  could  say  who  is  more  or  less 
cultured  among  a  people.  ^^  [And  for  the  same  reasons  it  is]  difficult  to 
determine  which  cultures  are  "higher"  or  "lower."  ^s.  dm  ^  primitive 
people  may  have  a  much  more  complex  and  more  highly  developed 
system  of  kinship  terminology,  [for  example,]  than  have  we,  or  of  seat- 
ing prerogatives  [at  a  feast].  [Nor  could  we  depend  on  our  own  sense  of 
what  constitutes  fine  manners,  for]  the  system  of  etiquette  [also]  differs 
among  different  peoples.  [Even  though  some  form  of  etiquette  conven- 
tion may  characterize  the  elite  in  many  different  societies,  we  cannot 
say  much  in  advance  about  its  content:  even]  belching,  sneezing,  and  so 
on  [may  have  quite  different  evaluations.  So  let  us  not  hesitate  to  exam- 
ine the  characteristics  of  elites  even  in  cultural  groups  where  application 
of  the  label  "gentlemen"  might  seem,  to  some,  quite  surprising.] 

ck.  qq.  ri  ^^  Qrthodox  Jewish  society,  culture  [(in  this  first  sense)]  [per- 
tains to]  a  traditional  rabbinical  group.  Their  special  culture,  [as  in  the 
Chinese  and  English  cases,  also  involves  a]  literary  tradition,  consisting 
of  the  Old  Testament  scriptures,  which  are  accepted  literally  as  an  in- 
spired document,  plus  the  body  of  oral  tradition  codified  in  about  200 
A.  D.  ^^-  ^'  Erudition  in  these  texts  and  the  scholastic  tradidon  [is  valued 
because  of  the]  belief  that  everything  important  is  contained  therein, 
although  there  is  some  freedom  of  interpretation.  '^"^  This  is  a  theocratic 
society,  [then,  although  we  might  also  consider  it]  democratic  [in  the 
sense  that  membership  in  the  rabbinical  class]  has  Httle  to  do  with  birth 


Two:  Tin  Psychology  of  Culture  425 

or  economic  or  inililai"\  stains  ii  Jcpcntls  (hiI\  o\\  learning.  ^''^  '' 
Manipulation  ol"  this  \ast  mass  of  traditiiMi,  aiul  application  of  it  to 
practical  [concerns]  in  everyday  life,  are  the  marks  of  membership  in 
the  cultured  group.  One  becomes  a  member  o\'  this  class  no\  through 
family  or  economic  status,  but  by  acquiring  [the  appropriate]  erudition. 
Although  great  social  prestige  attaches  to  the  [rabbinical]  group,  mem- 
bership in  it  is  informal.  ^^- ''  It  is  a  republic  of  religious  letters,  [based 
upon  a]  "Mineage  of  spirit"  [rather  than  a  lineage  of  birth;  and]  a  humble 
snobbery,  with  a  feeling  of  personal  responsihiiit\  to  (iod's  uori.!.  [char- 
acterizes the  scholarly  elite]. 

ck.  ri.  qq  jhefc  arc  se\eral  similarities  [between  the  rabbinical  group 
and]  other  groups  o^  cultured  persons.  First,  [the  elite]  is  a  compara- 
tively small  group,  looked  up  to  without  strain  by  the  people  at  large: 
second,  "culture"  is  built  around  a  literary  tradition  -  "''"  the  rabbinical 
group  takes  as  their  class  symbol  a  literary  document;  '^^'^-  ''•'«''•  "*'"  third, 
the  cultured  group  has  freedom,  in  at  least  a  psychological  sense,  from 
mundane  economic  care.  ''"'  The  scholars*  world  was  perhaps  a  substi- 
tute for  the  drab  e\eryday  struggle.  They  were  excused  from  common 
[duties]  when  they  wished,  and  could  contribute  their  studies  or  medita- 
tion instead. -"' 

ri.ck.qq  |,-,  pi-jmitive  society,  too,  there  are  "cultured"  groups  accepted 
as  such  by  the  folk,  "f^i-  '^-- "-"^  In  Northwest  Coast  society,  [for  example] 
(that  is,  among  the  Indians  on  the  west  coast  of  British  Columbia), 
there  are  definite  classes:  chiefs,  commoners,  and  slaves.''  ^^-  '^--  '''"•  ^'-  '■'' 
The  elite  are  the  nobles.^  who  marry  [only]  among  themsehes,  and  are 
the  repository  of  the  tribal  lore,  an  oral  tradition  [comprised  ol]  an- 
cestral legends,  impersonal  myths,  folklore,  and  songs.  '''"•  '^-  [So  strong 
is  these  nobles']  connection  with  the  glorious  past  that  they  speak  of  an 
ancestor  [in  the  first  person  -  as]  "I"  -  ^'''  as  if  they  feel  they  are  the 
dramatic  impersonators  of  tradition.  ^^  [Like  our  other  examples,  these 
nobles]  too  are  removed  from  the  necessity  of  earning  a  Ii\ing  and  are 
highly  respected  by  the  people  as  a  whole.  '^--  ^''-  '•''  [So  although  the 
Northwest  Coast  Indians  are]  a  non-agricultural  people,  [subsisting  b>) 
hunting,  fishing,  and  gathering,  [e\en]  here  the  cultured  class  has  a  spe- 
cial economic  and  social  position,  determined  at  least  m  part  b\  famil\ 
lineage,  ^im  ^i^  ''  [The  special  valuation  o{  literature  as  representing  the 
stock  of  cultural  goods  has  its  parallel  here  as  well.  e\en  though)  there 
is  no  writing;  for  the  noble  has  a  special  [crest  ssnibolically]  bearing  [a 
load  ot]  oral  tradition  -  the  ancestral  legends  connected  with  the  no- 
bles' names.  ''  The  name  is  the  emblem  oi^  a  glorious  past.  '''<  Again 


426  Iff  Culture 

there  IS  a  eeiiaiii  niobilii\  [belween  classes],  and  no  fast  line  between 
the  noble  ehiss  and  the  resi;'  '"  [Thus  in  several  respects  the  nobles  of 
the  Norllnvesl  Coast]  show  similarities  with  [the  other  examples  we  have 
considered.  Like  those  others,]  they  are  a  selected  group,  whose  mem- 
bers are  conscious  o^  belonging,  and  [who  are  expected  to  display  a 
certain]  graciousness.  ''•^'^  A  gracious  attitude  is  shown  in  a  tradition 
oi  liberalitN.  about  which  there  is  much  ado,  [despite  the  fact  that  on 
the  whole]  this  is  a  cruel  and  relentlessly  snobbish  society. 

.1,  a.,,,  h:  [Another  example  from  primitive  society  is]  the  Navajo,  al- 
though the  elite  [category]  among  the  Navajo  is  less  formally  [defined] 
and  less  sharply  segregated  [from  the  rest  of  society  than  is  the  elite 
among]  the  Northwest  Coast  Indians,  with  their  hierarchy  and  strong 
class  distinction  which  depend  on  the  doings  of  ancestors.'^  *'  In  Navajo 
[society]  class  distinction  [based  on  birth]  is  not  strong,  so  practicality 
[of  achievement]  is  at  a  premium.  ''^'  'i^-  '^•"'  ^^^  ^s  The  Navajo  elite  are 
the  "chanters"  (as  the  native  term  [describes  them])  or  medicine  men, 
highly  versed  experts  in  ritual  and  the  accompanying  lore,  songs,  and 
so  on.  ''-  It  is  a  greater  honor  [to  be  a  chanter]  than  to  be  a  chief,  ^^  and 
once  an  individual  is  a  chanter  he  is  in  the  "in-group." 

q.).  ck.  dm  y^Yi^  chanters'  performances,]  elaborate  ritual  chants  accom- 
panied by  dramatic  representations  of  origin  legends,  are  used  in  curing 
disease  by  way  of  pleasing  angry  gods.  The  chanter  must  learn  the  leg- 
ends, [along  with  all]  details  of  the  ceremony  and  prayers.  The  set  of 
rituals  involves  a  large  number  of  sand  paintings,  which  he  manufac- 
tures, and  an  even  larger  number  of  different  songs,  which  must  be 
done  absolutely  without  mistake.  ^^-'^^  Yet,  the  chanters  are  sometimes 
employed  for  a  deliberately  faked  illness:  ''  if  a  long  time  has  passed 
u  ith  no  one  sick,  someone  makes  believe  he  is  sick  so  that  the  ceremony 
may  be  performed.  '"''■  '■'•'^''  Apparently,  the  rituals  have  a  transcendental 
value  [causing  them  to  be  performed  if  only]  in  an  effort  to  keep  the 
knowledge  of  them  alive.  ^^-  ^'  The  rituals  are  not  entirely  for  practical 
use.  then;  they  are  appreciated  for  their  beauty,  just  as  in  the  other 
cultures  mentioned. 

'■"^-  •■'  Because  the  Navajo  rituals  [require]  exact  knowledge  on  the 
part  o\'  the  chanters,  they  involve  a  great  deal  of  memory,  [both  verbal 
and]  visual.  It  may  take  ten  years  to  learn  one  chant. '°  [But  the  chanter's 
cumulative  store  of  traditions  transforms  him  into  something  much 
more  than  a  mere  repeater  of  memorized  material,  for]  the  knowledge 
of  chants,  legends,  and  rituals  builds  up  into  a  theological  and  esthetic 
doctrine.  Thus  the  chanters  are  a  group  of  professors  of  theology,  the 


Two:  The  I'sycholoi;}- of  Culture  427 

arislDcrals  o\'  ihc  Na\ajo.  iTicsliuioiis  pcisoiis  lor  uhmii  llic  a\cragc 
Na\ajc>  has  great  resided.  I  hc\  aic  ihc  repositories  of  ihe  load  i>t  theo- 
logical iradilioii;  '"'  and  this  world  ot  holiness  is  a  closed  world,  as  ii  is 
lor  the  Orthodox  Jews.  l"or  the  Navajo,  there  are  no  move  miracles,  no 
more  communications  w  ith  the  gods. 

^*?  [In  sum.]  the  ehte  o(  all  cultures  are  s(Mnelun\  alike  in  that  the> 
are  all  the  keepers  o\'  the  traditional  lore,  be  it  classics,  folklore,  or 
songs.  '''I  ' '  ''-  All  [six]  of  these  groups  cluster  their  \  allies  around  tradi- 
tion, as  laid  down  in  literature,  documents,  or  oral  legend.  '•''  ''  All  six. 
too.  show  a  real  desire  for  a  transcendent  ideal  o\'  life  a  m\stic  insight. 
a  reeling  for  something  beyond  the  necessities  o\'  the  day.  '■^'  "''•'  The 
■"cultured  man"  is  one  who  participates  in  this  ideal  world  of  traditicMial 
\alues.  ''''  This  one  notion  o\^  culture  is  not  rare  or  accidental,  then;  it 
is  something  more  profound  and  universal  than  restricted  to  certain 
classes  of  Western  society.  ^-  Probably  every  society  possesses  some  sort 
oi^  ideal  tradition  around  which  people's  emotions  cluster,  '■''  and  w  here 
people  select,  out  of  the  possible  behavior  patterns  of  their  group,  cer- 
tain ones  that  bring  [prestige.]" 

^^  The  elite  [in  all  these  cases  are  also  alike  in  that]  they  are  all  more 
or  less  economically  free  and  consequently  leisured.  They  [have  both 
the  time  and  the  freedom  to]  preserve  and  dramati/.e  the  glorious  past, 
whence  [comes]  their  esteem  by  the  masses.  '•''  But  w hat  is  the  uni\ersal- 
ity  of  this  phenomenon  due  to?  ^^  What  is  it  that  universally  causes 
peoples  to  support  such  a  leisured  class  and  respect  it?  ''-•  ^^-  "^^^ '~-  '■'^-  '^'" 
[About  this  interesting  problem  I  can  only  offer  speculation;  but  per- 
haps]'- the  explanation  o\^  [the  support  ot]  elites  [lies  in  some  form  ot] 
wish-fulfilment  on  the  part  of  the  masses.  '''"•  ''-^-  ''-•  '•''  in  a  (process  ol] 
transterence  similar  to  the  transfer  of  ambition  Irom  lather  [o  ^on.  the 
[common  people]  transfer  [their  wishes  onto]  the  elite;  and  it  is  because 
of  [this]  unconscious  identification  that  the  elite  are  sc^  casiK  accepted. 
The  dream  life  [of  the  masses]  is  embodied  in  the  elite,  to  which  lhe> 
consequently  pay  homage.  [We  should  not  simpl\  dlsml^s  thl^  ps\cluv 
logical  process  as  delusionar\  and  sclf-defealmg.  for  it  surely  represents) 
a  desire  to  transcend  our  own  stubbt^rn  luimanit\.  that  is  present  in  all 
normal  indi\iduals. 

''-  This  orthodox  [concept  o\'\  "cullurc"  is  higliK  c\aluati\e.  (then, 
and  it  is  even  plausible  lo  think  ol]  "  "cullure"  |in  this  sense)  as  an 
evaluative  attempt  to  shirk  the  problem  o\'  life,  through  an  artificial 
security  and  feeling  o(  well-[being].  Ihe  manifestation  o\  "culture"  is 
[supposed  lo  be]  the  arri\al  at  human  excellence,  [\et  m  each  case  it 


428  fIJ  Culture 

turns  out  that  human  excellence]  is  to  be  arrived  at  through  the  culture 
o^  thai  particular  group,  [and  we  should  look  in  vain  for  any  logical 
reason  to  choose  between  the  excellence  of  reciting  the  Navajo  chant 
and  the  excellence  of  quoting  Horace.]  ^^  There  is  really  no  difference, 
(in  this  moral  realm.]  between  the  value  of  a  written  and  an  unwritten 
literature. 

(In  light  of  the  claim  to  universal  superiority  through  the  preservation 
of  indispensable  spiritual  heirlooms,]'"^  ''^-^^  perhaps  the  most  extraordi- 
nary thmg  about  the  cultured  ideal  is  its  selection  of  the  particular  trea- 
sures of  the  past  which  it  deems  worthiest  of  worship.  This  selection, 
which  might  seem  bizarre  to  a  mere  outsider,  is  generally  justified  by  a 
number  o\'  reasons,  sometimes  endowed  with  a  philosophic  cast,  but 
unsympathetic  persons  seem  to  incline  to  the  view  that  these  reasons 
are  only  rationalizations  ad  hoc,  that  the  selection  of  treasures  has  pro- 
ceeded chiefly  according  to  the  accidents  of  history.  '*"'  [Were  rationality 
the  only  guide]  a  case  could  be  made  for  teaching  Eskimo  in  the  public 
schools  instead  of  Greek  or  Latin;  [but  the  languages  of  the  classical 
world  are  not.  for  us,  merely  grammatical  schemes  for  our  intellectual 
exercise.  Their  importance  rests  primarily  on  their  value  as  symbols  of 
our  tradition.]  In  the  acceptance  of  social  symbols  one  must  not  be  too 
logical. 


2.  The  German  Kultur 

""^  The  foregoing  has  defined  one  conception  of  culture  -  the  contrast 
between  the  cultured  group  and  the  folk.  ^"^  This  idea  of  culture  is  the 
evaluational  term  referring  to  the  activities  of  the  elite.  A  second  defini- 
tion of  culture  is  the  German  kultur,  ^^^  ^-  which  even  when  used  by 
German  anthropologists  seems  always  to  have  something  mystical  in 
its  meaning.  It  somehow  embraces  the  idea  of  the  geist  of  a  people,  the 
underlying  soul  or  spirit.  ^^"^  The  German  philosophers'  idea  was  that 
there  were  general  and  absolute  values  which  transcended  trivialities 
and  could  be  said  to  be  characteristic  of  a  group.  [If  we  wish  to  try  to 
put  this  less  mystically  we  might  say  that]  '-^  ■■'•  ^-  kultur  is  a  unified  or 
integrated  conception  of  culture,  [emphasizing]  its  complex  of  ideas,  its 
sense  of  the  larger  values  of  life,  and  its  definition  of  the  ideal  (for 
example,  the  Greek  ideal  of  calmness  and  the  perfect,  static  image).  °^ 
Though  wider  [than  the  first  conception  of  culture  it  is]  still  a  selective 
or  evaluating  use  of  the  term,  as  applied  to  larger  groups.  '^-  ^"^  Thus 


Two:  The  P.sycholoiiv  <>/  Culture  429 

kiihiir  belongs  U>  a  uholc  people  and  ineliules  (iheir  notion  ol]  those 
things  that  are  fine  and  thai  dilTerenliale  the  hiinian  raee  troni  the  ain- 
mal  \\o\W  -  and,  i^llen.  Worn  humans  [eonsidered]  more  prmiitive.  ^^ 
Certain  soeieties  ha\e  defmile  ideals:  and  an\lhing  et>nirar\  to  the  ideal 
is  not  cultured,  it  is  barbaric. 

^t^  Distinguishing  kulfur  from  mimr,  ^'^'^^  Rickerl'"*  makes  the  state- 
ment thai  piimili\e  peoples  ha\e  no  culture.  I  he  distinction  seems  to 
be  based  on  the  supposed  self-consciousness  ol  the  spirit  (among  "civi- 
lized" peoples  as  opposed  to  the  primiti\es,] ''''  such  as  Hottentots,  who 
l\o  not  ha\e  it.  '"''  ''  A  good  conception  of  this  meaning  can  be  obtained 
from  Spengler's  Vntcrgan^  ties  Ahciulhuulcs  {Decline  i)J  the  West).  [Rick- 
ert's  statement  about  primitive  peoples  must  be  rejected,  however,  for) 
^^  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  state  of  nature,  or  a  man  without  cultural 
conditioning.  [If  this  conception  o'i  "culture"  has  any  usefulness  it  will 
be  found  to  be  as  suitably  applied  to  the  Hottentots  as  to  ourselves.]'*' 
*"'-  It  is  not  easy  to  defme  the  i^cist  o'i  a  culture  (or  people,  rather)  - 
'•'"  to  estimate  a  whole  civilization  in  terms  of  these  archetype  values. 
^^  [Still,  let  us  try  some  examples  and,  for  each,  consider  its]  "culture" 
from  the  standpoint  of  basic  ideas.  For  instance,  '^'^^  '■''  French  culture 
might  be  characterized  by  the  ideal  of  the  golden  mean:  ''  nothing  in 
excess.  ^^^  There  seems  to  be  a  pervading  formality,  [an  emphasis  on] 
clarity  and  closure  in  configurations  and  patterns  "  that  results  in  a 
standardization  of  spiritual  values  as  well  as  of  many  other  values.  '''" 
The  French  take  forms  very  seriously;  although  they  emphasize  grace 
and  ease  they  don't  want  things  to  go  casually  or  informally,  [and  they 
have  little  interest  in]  spic-and-span  American  efllciency.  ''''  '-  "  The 
philosophy  of  standardization  to  an  ideal  [is  a  pervading  theme  in  many 
areas  of  life,  such  as]  the  regularization  (^\'  language  [decreed  b\]  the 
French  Academy,  ''"^-  ^"^  the  devotion  to  clear  and  lucid  expression,  le 
mot  juste,  and  [the  operation  ot]  the  French  bureaucracy."'  *"''  [Notice, 
however,  that  this  is  not  at  all  the  same  thing  as]  industrial  standardiza- 
tion, [which  is  resisted  in  France,]  especially  if  it  comes  into  conflict  with 
family  traditions  [o\^  business  management,  as  occurred]  for  instance  m 
the  linen  trade  and  in  bookbinding. 

ii.  r2.  ck.  MM  Ip,  Pri^nt;!-,  culture  self-expression,  [too.  should  display) 
taste,  restraint,  and  discretion.  '-  '^  There  is  a  distrust  o\'  fundamental 
drives  unless  they  are  checked  by  discretion  and  convention:  \ox  [the 
French]  beauty  lies  in  reason,  not  in  some  Faustian  spirit  of  exhilaration 
in  self-expression.  "''  So  cooking  and  eating  are  arts,  a  sublimation  o{ 
bodily  needs        and  the  I-rench  think  it  is  barbaric  not  to  sublimate 


430  lit  Culture 

thus.  ^'^  The  real  I  rcncli  arlisi  would  never  be  lacking  in  good  taste.  ^^ 
rhcrc  IS  wo  abundance  o^  emotion  and  nothing  which  is  not  precise, 
clear,  and  measured,  be  ii  music  or  literature.  '-  Voltaire  and  Debussy 
caught  the  French  spirit,  where  there  can  be  profound  thought  but  it  is 
coNcred  with  a  certain  airiness.  "  an  exact  casualness.'"^  '-•  ^^'  ^"^  Wagner, 
[o\\  the  oihei  hand.]  was  not  accepted  in  France  -  he  is  too  stirring, 
(too  expressive  ot]  revolt:  and  the  French  dislike  Shakespeare  because 
of  the  lack  of  emotional  measure  and  [classical]  form.  ^'^  Robinson  Jef- 
fers  would  be  impossible  in  French  literature.  '^''  [Of  course,  not  every 
French  author  perfectly  represents  the  ideal.]  Victor  Hugo  cannot  be 
classic  and  chaste  although  he  is  impressionistic  in  technique. 

[Another  aspect  of  the  French  "spirit"]  '^^-'"'^  is  their  supreme  indiffer- 
ence to  other  cultures  or  to  what  others  think  of  them.  But  perhaps 
what  this  satisfaction  with  one's  own  culture  [most  represents  is  not 
something  peculiar  to  the  French  but]  what  I  would  consider  a  criterion 
o\'  the  "perfect  development"  of  a  culture:'^  "^'^  it  is  because  they  are 
so  secure  in  their  own  values  that  [people]  are  uninterested  in  foreign 
inlluences.  They  live  so  well  in  their  own  culture  that  they  are  indifterent 
to  [others.]''- 

^^  This  analysis  of  a  people's  geist  could  be  done  for  other  cultures 
too.  ^^-  '-•  "  In  the  culture  (in  the  sense  of  kultiir)  of  pre-war  Russia,  in 
the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  that  is,  [we  see  a  spirit]  very 
dilTerent  [from  the  French.]  ^'^  Music  and  literature  (tor  example  Tchai- 
kovsky, Dostoevsky,  and  so  on)  were  characterized  by  an  overflowing 
of  emotions,  an  openness,  outspokenness,  even  a  brutal  emotional  com- 
pleteness. ''^-•^^  In  a  spiritual  sense,  it  was  easy  for  the  Russian  to  over- 
throw any  embodiment  of  the  spirit  of  institutionalism;  his  real  loyalties 
lay  elsewhere,  ^''-  ^'  preoccupied  with  [an  elemental  humanity  and  an 
intense]  spirituality.  [It  is  a  spirituality]  with  a  double  face  -  as  close  to 
Satan  as  to  God.  ^''  [Perhaps  the]  quintessential  [work  of  this  [culture's] 
literature  is  the]  play  The  Loner  Depths,  with  its  faith  in  human  nature 
at  its  worst.  ''^--^^  In  the  pages  of  Tolstoi,  Dostoyevski,  Turgenev,  Gorki, 
and  Chekhov  personality  runs  riot  in  its  morbid  moments  of  play  with 
crime,  in  its  depressions  and  apathies,  in  its  generous  enthusiasms  and 
idealisms.  '-  Russian  writers  seem  to  be  [immersed]  in  raw  human  ex- 
perience; [despite  a  certain  French  influence]  they  never  surrendered  to 
that  [French]  artificiality.  ^''- '-  Their  music,  too,  has  a  quality  of  stark- 
ness  -  a  more  elemental,  simpler  emotional  character.  ^^  [All  this  is 
before  the  War  and  the  Revolution  of  1917,  however.]  It  would  be  inter- 


Two:  rhc  Psvclutloiiy  of  Culture  4^1 

esting  Ic)  know  it"  Russia  has  really  changed  emotionally,  or  whether  this 
[cultural  "spirit"  we  ha\e  just  described)  is  not  still  the  case. 

\i.  ii.  hu  What  about  the  kiiltur  of  (iernians  themsehes'.'  Ihis  presents 
a  curious  paradox.  On  the  one  hand  there  is  a  remarkable  exactness 
and  ihonnigliness.  an  extraordinary  care  and  skill  (with  detail];  and  with 
il.  on  the  oilier  hand,  is  a  rather  wishy-washy  romanticism  (exalting)  the 
shadowy  and  the  mystical.  '-  Really,  [the  Germans  are)  a  very  romantic 
people.  ''  Cioethe  [is  a  supreme  example  ol]  mystic  romanticism  with  an 
occasional  return  \o  supreme  brusqueness.'" 

r2.  ri.ck.  qq  jj-,^^  coiitcmporary  American,  however,  feels  the  overpower- 
ing necessity  to  utilize  all  possibilities  or  capabilities.  ^"^  If  having  a 
fortune  is  important  to  the  French,  making  one  is  important  to  Ameri- 
cans; it  is  imperative  to  make  as  much  money  as  possible.  ''^-  '•''  Ameri- 
can culture  is  autobiographical  in  character,  and  its  ideal  is  adventur- 
ous, with  a  certain  lumultuousness  of  spirit  always  present  that  does 
not  regard  tradition  too  highly.  "^^^  ^~-  '^'  There  is  something  of  the  msstic 
in  the  typical  American,  with  his  belief  in  answers,  [especially  as  deriv- 
ing from]  education.  [It  is  for  this  reason  that  he  insists  on]  exactness, 
on  making  evaluations  in  finite  terms,  with  definite  figures.  ^"^  Only  in 
American  culture  could  the  phrase  "fifty-fifty"  have  evolved,  [for  on\\ 
here  do  we  find  such]  willingness  to  measure  intangibles;  expressii^i 
must  be  quantitative.  '^^'  ^--  ^^  There  is  a  pretense  of  extreme  objectivitv. 
of  objective  control  of  situations  which  cannot  be  [tangibly  measured]. 
'-'^  To  make  of  society  a  machine,  understand  il.  and  then  control  it  - 
this  is  the  American  idea.  ''•■'  Yet.  the  individual's  life  reveals  a  relative 
fragmentariness  and  contradiction. 

'^'  [For  our  final  examples,  let  us  compare]  the  classical  Hindu  culture 
of  India  [with  the  culture  of  Americans  and  of  the  Chinese].  ''^-  ^'  The 
Hindu  ideal  is  curiously  individualized,  [but  in  a  manner  very  dilTerent 
from  the  American  or  Chinese.]  The  sense  of  time  differs  greatly.  '- 
[amounting  to  a  virtual]  disregard  of  time,  [from  an  American  point  oi 
view,  and  this  disregard  contrasts  strikingly  with  the]  ^--  ^^"^^  obsessive 
time-consciousness  of  all  Western  cultures,  where  time  is  [constantly 
being]  measured  and  there  is  a  keen  awareness  of  its  passing,  along  with 
a  strong  interest  in  history.  ^'^  The  Chinese,  too,  have  a  vivid  time  sense 
and  interest  in  past  history,  '^^''- ''  with  a  keen  understanding  o^  the  value 
of  dating  cultural  events,  ''  theirs  is  not  the  instrumental  sense  of  time 
that  ours  is.  ''^-  '^'  Hindu  culture,  however,  does  no\  care  for  dates.  There 
is  little  emphasis  on  time  location  in  Indian  history  ox  literature,  lor  the 
Indians  do  not  assign  value  to  [such  specifics]  but  feel  that  fundamental. 


432  f^f  Culture 

pcrduring  values  arc  timeless  and  placeless.  ''^- '~-  '^  Unconcerned  with 
an  immediate  world  of  cause  and  effect,  [they  attend  instead  to]  a  pre- 
cise modality  o^  principle:  the  world  is  made  up  of  eternal  principles 
which  arc  found  [only]  through  suffering  -  suffering  that  is  sometimes 
mistaken  for  pleasure.  ^'^^  '^  [Hindu  culture  is]  a  strange  mixture  of  im- 
mersion in  the  immediate  world  of  sense  and  at  the  same  time  a  com- 
plete withdrawal  from  it.  Since  the  sensory  life  [entails]  suffering, 
thoughts  o'i  future  happiness  [concern  not  this  life  but]  new  reincarn- 
ations, [leading,  ultimately,  to]  absorption  in  God.  '^-  ''•^'''  This  sort  of 
life  is  a  paradise  of  the  introvert.  While  the  Chinese  cultural  ideal  [de- 
votes more  attention  to]  the  commonplace,  and  to  awareness  of  the 
present  moment,  the  Indian  seems  apathetic  and  unaware.  To  him  the 
present,  and  the  world  of  sense,  are  a  vain  illusion.-' 

^"^  [Our  second  conception  of  culture,]  kultur,  [thus  defines  culture  in 
terms  of  a  particular  people's]  preferred  quahties  and  evaluations,  and 
their  loyalty  to  [certain  central  themes  and]  master  ideas.  "^^  [With  our 
first  conception  it  shares  a  stressing  of]  a  group's  unconscious  selection 
of  values  ''^-■*''  as  intrinsically  more  [important,]  more  characteristic, 
more  significant  in  a  spiritual  sense  than  the  rest.  ^"^  But  just  how  valu- 
able is  this  definition?--  The  whole  terrain  through  which  we  [have  just 
been]  struggling  is  a  hotbed  of  subjectivism,  a  splendid  field  for  the 
airing  of  national  conceits...  ^'^-^^  [Yet]  there  need  be  no  special  quarrel 
with  this  conception  of  a  national  genius  so  long  as  it  is  not  worshiped 
as  an  irreducible  psychological  fetich.  "^^  The  anthropologist  does  not 
like  this  generalized  view  of  culture,  however.  ^^^"^^  Ethnologists  fight 
shy  of  broad  generalizations  and  hastily  defined  concepts.  They  are 
therefore  rather  timid  about  operating  with  national  spirits  and  ge- 
niuses. The  chauvinism  of  national  apologists,  which  sees  in  the  spirits 
of  their  own  peoples  peculiar  excellences  utterly  denied  to  less  blessed 
denizens  of  the  globe,  largely  justifies  this  timidity  of  the  scientific  stu- 
dents of  civilization.  Yet  here,  as  so  often,  the  precise  knowledge  of  the 
scientist  lags  somewhat  behind  the  more  naive  but  more  powerful  in- 
sights of  nonprofessional  experience  and  impression.  To  deny  to  the 
genius  of  a  people  an  ultimate  psychological  significance  and  to  refer  it 
to  the  specific  historical  development  of  that  people  is  not,  after  all  is 
said  and  done,  to  analyze  it  out  of  existence.  ""^  [It  must,  instead,  even 
help  to  illuminate  such  ethnological  problems  of  historical  development 
as  the  selective  "borrowing"  of  cultural  traits,  because  it  calls  attention 
to  the  fact  that]  while  elements  are  borrowed,  they  are  being  snugly 
fitted  into  a  definite  framework  of  values.  {'^  [Actually,  there  is  some] 


T\\^^):  The  Psvihtiloi^y  of  Culture  Ay} 

danger  in  using  the  term  ■■bornnving"  lor  |lhis  process,  since  llie]  traits 
are  fitted  into  a  pattern  of  \alues  quite  i)thei  [than  iIkiI  m  uhich  ihey 
originated].) 

''  [In  short,]  the  above  two  ideas  of  culture  share  an  emphasis  on 
[selectivity  and]  a  sense  of  value.  [Shorn  o\'  tlieir  more  mystical  and 
chauvinistic  elements  they  are  not  unworthy  of  the  anthropologist's  at- 
tention.] '''-■^''  [From  the  idea  o\' kulfur]  we  may  accept  culture  as  signify- 
ing the  characteristic  mold  o\'  a  ci\  ili/ation.  while  from  the  [first]  con- 
ception o(  culture,  that  oi'  a  traditional  type  o\'  indi\  idual  refmement, 
we  will  borrow  the  notion  of  ideal  form.  [From  both  we  may  adopt  the 
emphasis  on  value.] 


3.  The  anthropological  idea  oj  culture 

[While  the  first  two  definitions  of  "culture"  are  based,  in  their  dif- 
ferent ways,  on  concepts  of  selection  and  value,  the  anthropological 
idea  of  culture  -  supposedly,  at  least  -  is  not.  It  concerns,  instead,]  "'• 
ti,  bw  ^11  those  aspects  of  human  life  that  are  socially  inherited,  as  con- 
trasted \\  ith  those  types  of  behavior  that  are  biologically  inherited  and 
with  those  that  [represent]  '''  individual  reactions  lacking  historical  con- 
tinuity. [Perhaps  the  best-known  anthropological  definition  is  the  one 
proposed  by  Tylor  in  1871:  "Culture  or  civilization,  taken  in  its  wide 
ethnographic  sense,  is  that  complex  whole  which  includes  knms ledge, 
belief,  art,  morals,  law,  custom,  and  any  other  capabilities  and  habits 
acquired  by  man  as  a  member  of  society."]-^"* 

[But  although  Tylor's  definition  is  often  cited,]  ' '  it  is  illusory  to  think 
culture  is  clearly  defined.  [Only  a  slight  alteration  o\'  Tylor's  statement 
yields  the  following:]  '''  The  evaluation  or  reaction  of  an  individual  to 
(1)  patterns  of  behavior,  (2)  habits  of  mind,  (3)  traditions.  (4)  customs 
-  which  he  learns  as  a  member  of  society  -  is  his  culture.  [But  is  it  not 
the  case  that  as  soon  as  we  have  emphasized  the  individual's  evaluations 
or  reactions,  our  definition]  equals  personalit\  [as  much  as,  or  rather 
than,]  culture'.'  [Yet,  we  shall  need  to  make  a  distinction  between  the 
two  since]  this  [individual]  reaction  may,  in  certain  cases,  inlluence  the 
content  of  the  culture.  Even  Remy  de  (iourmont.-"^  who  spent  most  o\' 
his  time  in  an  attic,  [had  his  effect  on  the  culture  o\'  his  time  ] 

[Suppose,  then,  that  we  try  to  evade  this  difilculty  by  emphasi/ing 
the  social  and  excluding  that  which  is  individual]  ^'"'  But  uere  we  to 
confuse  the  "social"  with  the  "culturar'-'  [we  would  onl\  be  exchanging 


4  "^4  fit  Culture 

one  problem  tor  another,  lor]  '^'  "society"  and  "social"  are  ill-defined 
(and  much  line  literature  [in  the  social  sciences]  is  vitiated  by  this),  d'"- 
^^  "Social"  as  a  term  points  in  two  directions:  there  is  "social"  in  the 
sense  of  "acting  in  concert,"  or  gregariousness;  and  there  is  "social"  in 
the  sense  o^  falling  back  on  the  sanctions  of  the  group  -  on  the  under- 
standing o['  the  group.  '''"  [The  first  sense  is  not  particularly  helpful  for 
an  understanding  of  culture,  since]  the  interactions  of  individuals  as 
such  may  extend  to  enormous  numbers  of  people  and  yet  not  be  cul- 
tural. [It  is  true  that]  in  normal  situations  culture  is  carried  by  collectivi- 
ties -  hence  the  ready  confusion.  '''  But  collective  yawning,  for  exam- 
ple, mav  not  be  cultural.  [In  the  company  of  others]  an  individual  may 
react  as  an  individual,  or  he  may  duplicate  reflexes,  [and  neither  of 
these,  presumably,  is  quite  what  we  thought  we  meant  by  "culture."] 

'''  [Indeed,]  not  enough  attention  has  been  paid  to  individual  activity 
which  is  collective  [but  not  cultural,  perhaps  because  of  the  aforemen- 
tioned confusion  about  the  term  "social."  And  perhaps  we  have  also 
failed  to  recognize  the  extent  to  which  an  individual's  behavior  is  cultur- 
ally formed  even  when  he  lives  alone.  Even]  '^"^  the  anchorite  must  ratio- 
nalize [his  actions]  or  connect  himself  in  some  way  to  a  body  of  culture. 

'^'-  **'  [The  second  meaning  of  "social,"  that  is  as  involving]  consensus 
and,  [especially,]  sanction,  is  better  [suited  to  our  purpose,  since  it  draws 
our  attention  beyond  behavioral  acts.]  ^^  For  behavior,  [no  matter  how 
collective,]  illustrates  culture  but  is  not  culture.  It  must  always  have 
meaning  in  terms  of  the  opinion  of  a  collectivity,  ideal  or  actual,-^  be- 
fore it  is  culture.  There  is  something  of  social  evaluation  in  anything 
that  is  cultural;  [certainly]  ^''  it  enters  into  every  definition  of  culture  I 
have  made.  Culture  is  not  mere  behavior,  but  significant  behavior.  A 
particular  word  in  a  given  language  [is  a  good  example:  "^"^  thus  [the 
expression]  "damn  you,"  uttered  ([let  us  suppose])  as  a  release  of  ten- 
sion, is  just  as  much  at  the  mercy  of  society  as  any  cultural  trait  [ordi- 
narily found  on  an  ethnologist's  Hst].  Being  the  "data"  of  culture  it 
cannot  be  merely  haphazard  syllables,  for  the  choice  of  sounds  is  fixed 
by  an  unconscious  trend  of  opinion.  [No  matter  that  our  example  is 
humble.  Even  if  a  conversation  is  utterly  banal,]  just  to  talk  is  of  the 
highest  cultural  relevance,  while  running  out  of  a  theater  in  a  fire  scare 
may  not  be  cultural  at  all.  [It  may  be  more  important,  certainly,  but] 
dm.  ^^  ixn^QxVdnQQ  has  really  nothing  to  do  with  a  concept  of  culture. 
Sanction,  [instead,]  is  significant,  for  the  meanings  of  behavior  rest  on 
historical  sanction  and  selection. 


Twd:  The  Psviholoi^y  (if  C'lilfiiir  435 

Jm  jYY^  might  c\cn  sa\  lluil]  llic  icsl  i^f  jw  hcihcr  a  i\pc  ot  behavior  is 
part  ol]  cuhmv  is  ihc  ahiHl\  lo  hislDiici/c  it.  Sonic  t\pcs  ot  behavior 
[are  historically  sanctioned  in  that  thcyj  have  been  selected  as  meaning- 
ful. '*'"  ^*^-  '^'  As  an  illustration,  we  need  not  hesitate  lo  call  iiisiurc  a 
cuituralized  field,  because  it  is  subject  to  histor\  and  change.  '''  Neapoli- 
tan gestures,  for  example,  arc  cLillurall\  detcrmmed  [and  locally  specific; 
the\  are]  not  Latin  or  Mediterranean  or  racial.  ''"'•  '*'•  ^^  To  be  sure, 
beha\ior  looked  at  as  a  purely  physiological  function  -  and  all  beha- 
vior is  ph\siological  [at  some  level,  where  it  might  be  analyzed  as  in\oK- 
ing]  refiexes,  relief  activities,  [and  the  like]  -  looked  at  a.\  such  it  is  not 
culture.-  [But  to  look  at  gesture  only  as  physiology  would  be  an  error. 
As  with  so  many  other  behaviors,  in  gesture]  there  are  two  fields  of 
activity,  the  physiological  and  the  psychological.-^  '*'"  [De\elopmen- 
tally]"'^  speaking,  I  think  that  culture  is  [indeed]  built  on  indi\  idual  im- 
pulse, but  we  know  very  little  about  how  individual  beha\  ior  is  actually 
[given  psychological  significance  in  the  child's  experience:]  nor  do  we 
know  \ery  much  about  how  social  transmission  [actually  works.]  In  the 
world  of  significant  activity  —  "culture"  -  we  are  ne\er  in  the  pc^sitit>n 
to  spot  the  psycho-biological  genesis  of  any  one  trait. 

Ill-  bg  [Nevertheless,  it  is  still  perfectly  possible  to  say  that]  gesture  is 
cultural  in  that  it  is  historically  determined,  changing  from  time  to  time. 
It  is  full  of  meaning,  not  on  the  level  oi"  the  individual's  refiex.  but 
within  a  framework  of  conventions  in  a  particular  society.  [Doubtless, 
the  very  fact  of  its  conventionality  contributes  to  gesture's  social  func- 
tion, for  a  distinctive  system  of  gestures  helps  to  establish  what  we  might 
call  a]  "community  of  motion."  [The  gestures]  have  a  significance  for 
society  in  that  they  give  it  a  comfortable  feeling  of  social  relationship, 
bg.  dm.  hi  y^Q  must  not  try  to  be  too  functional  in  our  explanation  [o\' 
such  behaviors,  however,  tor  their]  functionality  is  not  all-important.  *'^' 
Gestures  cannot  and  should  not  always  be  interpreted  from  the  cM'iginal 
significance  of  a  particular  action.  [It  is  more  fruitful  to  consider  their 
role  as  social  symbols.  But]  even  where  there  is  no  specific  symbolism 
to  apply  to  a  particular  [form  o\'  behavior  or]  social  phenomenon,  we 
should  not  press  functionalism  too  far,  '''  ^''"  or  tr\  to  be  too  logical 
about  the  meanings  of  culture.  ''^^  ^''"  '''  The  habit  o\'  being  too  func- 
tional is  a  paranoid  mechanism,  basically!  '''  The  paranoid  type  o\'  per- 
sonality is  logical  to  the  nth  degree,  always  looking  for  ad  hoc  explana- 
tions of  everything,  [and  overestimating]  the  \alue  o\'  self-reference.  " 
"*'"  We  cannot  inquire  too  closely  into  the  real  iele\ance  o\'  cultural 
traits. 


436  Jt^  Culture 

(Now,  uhcrc  might  gesture  fit  into  Tylor's  definition  of  culture? 
Should  it  be  listed  as  another  item  in  the  contents  of  culture,  in  addition 
to]  ^-'^  knowledge,  beliefs  and  morals,  law  and  custom,  and  habits?  [But 
does  it  not  partake  o\^  all  of  these  in  some  way?]  ^"^^  ^^^  "^s-  ^'  The  actual 
content  of  cuhure  is  enormous,  [and  we  shall  not  capture  its  essence  by 
iicmi/ing.  It  seems  to  me,  therefore,  that]  '^'  ""^  Tylor's  definition  of 
cuhure  has  outlived  its  usefulness.  It  merely  helps  to  orient  you,  and 
does  not  go  very  deep.  '^'"-  '^^'  '^''  ^'  Tylor's  definition  is  inadequate  be- 
cause it  makes  too  much  of  those  particular  types  of  behavior  that  seem 
most  important  in  a  political  sense,  and  of  highly  evaluative  cultural 
elements  such  as  religion.  He  is  not  wrong,  but  he  prevents  us  from 
thinking  clearly  through  to  such  cultural  facts  as  gesture,  whistling, 
speech,  attitudes,  or  other  elements  which  are  unnoticed  yet  definitely 
cultural. 

[Let  me  suggest  a  somewhat  different  definition,  therefore.]^^  ^^^  *"'' 
dm.  h2.  SI  ^j^y  fQj.j^  of  behavior,  either  explicit  or  imphcit,  overt  or  covert, 
which  cannot  be  directly  explained  as  physiologically  necessary  but  can 
be  interpreted  in  terms  of  the  totality  of  meanings  of  a  specific  group, 
and  which  can  be  shown  to  be  the  result  of  a  strictly  historical  process, 
is  likely  to  be  cultural  in  nature. ^^  ^^  "Historical  process"  means  the 
conveyance  of  forms  of  behavior  through  social  processes,  either  by 
suggestion  or  by  direct  instruction  to  the  young.  '^"^  This  last  [part  of 
the  definition]  is  needed  because  of  the  possibility  that  innate  biological 
motor  patterns  [contribute  or  point]  toward  the  symbolism  [maintained 
by  a  group  without  actually  being  part  of  that  symbolism.]  ^'  History 
and  consensus  are  the  important  [things,  therefore];  even  habit  may  be 
[cultural]  if  it  is  historically  determined.  ^'^'  ^''  ^^'  ^^^  ^^  Culture  demands 
a  historical  continuum,  implicitly  or  explicitly  conveyed  to  the  young 
by  their  elders,  ^2-  '^™'  ^i- '''  [though  in  general]  unconscious  assimilation 
plays  a  greater  part  than  conscious  learning,  and  implicit  forms  are 
more  significant  than  explicit  ones. 

1924b  "Culture"  in  this  third  sense  shares  with  our  [second,  Germanic] 
conception  an  emphasis  on  the  spiritual  possessions  of  the  group  rather 
than  of  the  individual.  With  our  [first]  conception  it  shares  a  stressing 
[of  historical  tradition.  And  as  modified,  our  definition  shares  with 
other  conceptions  a  nofion  of  form  and  selective  valuation:  there  is  a 
selection  of  behavioral  forms  that  are  meaningful  to  a  group,  that  it 
recognizes  as  belonging  to  its  world  of  significant  acts.  So  perhaps  there 
is  more  that  is  useful  in  these  two  first  conceptions  of  "culture,"  and 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  Culture  437 

more  that  they  have  in  common  with  our  technical  defmiticMi.  than 
anthropologists  are  used  to  admitting.  We  shall  have  to  lo^k  at  our 
"true"  definition  of  culture  more  closely.]^^ 


Editorial  Note 

This  chapter  coincides  with  Part  I  of  Sapir's  1928  Outline  and  the 
opening  lectures  of  his  course  each  year  he  gave  it,  both  at  Chicago  and 
at  Yale.  The  notes  for  all  three  Yale  years  are  quite  similar.  In  1936-37. 
the  material  in  this  chapter  was  discussed  in  the  lectures  of  Oct.  12  and 
19  (notes  by  Rl,  R2,  CK,  QQ).  For  1935-36  no  dates  are  given,  but 
all  sets  of  notes  (Tl,  T2,  BW)  cover  some  of  the  same  material.  In 
1933-34,  the  lectures  of  Oct.  3,  Oct.  10,  and  a  portion  of  Oct.  17  deal 
with  this  topic;  among  the  note-takers  for  that  year  BG,  H2,  and  MD 
have  notes  for  Oct.  3  and  10,  while  HI  and  SI  join  in  as  of  Oct.  17. 

Sapir's  discussion  of  the  term  "culture"  here  clearly  resembles  a  por- 
tion of  his  argument  in  "Culture,  Genuine  and  Spurious"  (1924b).  I 
have  drawn  on  a  few  passages  from  that  text  in  reconstructing  the  first 
two  sections  of  the  chapter.  The  third  section,  on  a  definition  o^  the 
anthropological  use  of  the  term  "culture,"  relies  mainly  on  notes  from 
1933.  In  the  1936  notes  there  is  evidently  a  gap:  from  concluding  pas- 
sages it  is  clear  that  some  anthropological  definitions  of  culture,  includ- 
ing Tylor's,  had  already  been  presented,  but  the  portions  o^  Sapir's  lec- 
ture that  did  so  are  not  recorded.  Instead,  the  notes  from  1935  and  \^)M^ 
focus  on  methodological  problems  that  seemed  lo  mc  more  con\c- 
niently  placed  in  the  next  chapter. 


Notes 

1.  In  1933  and  perhaps  in  1935,  Sapir  sccnis  lo  have  made  a  quiek  Mimmar\  o\  ihc  ihrcc 
uses  of  the  term  "culture"  before  delving  more  deeply  into  each  ot  them  Me  apparent!) 
did  not  start  with  such  a  summary  in  1936. 

2.  Here  Sapir  uses  "civilization"  rather  than  "culture "  ui  the  anthropt>logical  sense,  sec 
1924b:  "To  avoid  confusion  with  other  uses  oi  the  word  culture.'  uses  \shich  emphati- 
cally involve  the  application  of  a  scale  of  values,  I  shall,  where  necessars.  use  ciMli/.iiion" 
in  lieu  of  the  ethnologist's  'culture.'"  In  the  present  passage  there  is  htile  conllicl  between 
this  use  of  "civilization"  and  common  uses  of  that  term. 

3.  CK  actually  has  "a  natural  thing,"  and  then  adds:  "Language  not  definable  in  lis  own 
terms  -  words,  for  children,  have  dennile  value,  emotional  color  We  acquire  a  rubber 
stamp  attitude  toward  a  word  by  gradually  unloading  emotional  values  from  a  word  " 


438  ///  C'lilriirt' 

This  passiigc  aboui  language  is  apparently  out  of  order,  however.  I  have  placed  it  in 
ch.  :,  uhcro  Rl  has  a  similar  text.  Sec  also  a  similar  passage  in  ch.  lO's  discussion  of 
six'iali/aiion 
4    DM  adds:  "Mr  CiarlV  (Tailor)  was  an  example  o(  the  system  of  gentry  that  is  so  secure 
that  It  has  a  hypnotic  elTect  {'!)". 

5.  DM  adds:  "No  criticism  made  of  their  being  serious.  Jokes  are  only  release  mechanism." 

6.  In  19.V1  Sapir  seems  to  have  called  this  a  "caste  system." 

7.  BCj  has  "priests";  all  others  have  "nobles." 

8.  This  statement  seems  somewhat  to  contradict  other  note-takers'  reference  to  a  "caste 
system"  (DM,  H2)  and  H2's  note  about  noble  endogamy  (although  what  H2  actually 
has  is  "Caste  system;  nobles  /  marriage  among  them").  Sapir's  1915  paper,  "The  Social 
Organization  of  the  West  Coast  Tribes,"  indicates  that  intermarriage  between  nobles  and 
other  ranks  was  impossible  in  theory  and  rare  in  practice.  If  QQ's  note  is  accurate, 
perhaps  in  this  passage  Sapir  was  alluding  to  those  "cases  in  which  men  of  lower  rank 
ha\e  b\  dint  of  reckless  potlatching  gained  the  ascendency  over  their  betters,  gradually 
displacing  them  in  one  or  more  of  the  privileges  belonging  to  their  rank."  (Sapir  1915; 
SWES  p.^472.) 

9.  Ti  has:  "But  Northwest  Coast  Indians  have  a  hierarchy  and  strong  class  distinction 
which  depends  on  the  doings  of  ancestors  who  established  the  family,  the  value  lies  in 
the  right  to  sing,  play,  lay  claim  to  ancestors  and  legends  which  is  real  and  authoritative." 

10.  CK  adds:  "(Visual  memory  keen  as  it  is  not  obscured  by  substitutive  symbol,  memory, 
reading)." 

11.  CK  actually  has  "kudos." 

12  Since  EG  prefaces  the  explanatory  passage  by  "Sapir:"  and  H2  has  "Sapir's  explanation 
of  elites:",  1  infer  that  Sapir  prefaced  this  passage  with  some  hedging  or  suggestion  that 
he  was  offering  only  a  personal  opinion. 

13.  Wording  of  the  bracketed  passage  derives  in  part  from  Sapir  1924b. 

14.  See  H.  Rickert,  Kultwwissenschaft  imd  Naturwissenschaft:  ein  Vortrag.  Freiburg  i.B.. 
1899.  This  work  was  published  in  several  editions.  Publication  dates  suggest  that  the 
edition  Sapir  used  may  well  have  been  the  5th  (1925). 

15.  .See  Sapir  1924b:  "A  genuine  culture  is  perfectly  conceivable  in  any  type  or  stage  of 
civilization,  in  the  mold  of  any  national  genius..." 

16.  BW  has:  "fr  ex.  language,  regularization  -  allow  no  Carlyleness  -  better  have  norm  for 
measure  in  language,  definitions  accepted  make  easier  to  know  you  are  understood." 

17.  TI  also  has:  "'French  measure'  in  music  is  not  really  emotional  but  rather  a  limited, 
classical  ecstasy  (ballets).  Exponents  are  Voltaire  and  Debussy." 

18.  For  a  similar  argument  see  "Culture,  Genuine  and  Spurious"  for  a  notion  of  cultural 
"genuineness." 

19.  DM  has  "outside  influences." 

20.  in  1933  Sapir  did  not  discuss  German  culture  but  instead  mentioned  the  Pueblo  Indians. 
BG  has:  "The  geist  of  a  pueblo  people  is  quite  another  pattern  -  subdued  sobriety, 
introversion,  restraint,  being  the  characteristics." 

21.  CK  adds:  "Indian  culture  is  collectivized  introversion." 

22.  BW  actually  has:  "(not  valuable  deO".  It  is  not  clear  whether  Sapir  himself  decreed  it 
not  valuable  -  a  statement  that  would  be  consistent  with  the  note  in  BG  that  "It  is  not 
easy  to  define  the  geist  of  a  culture  or  people,"  but  inconsistent  with  the  foregoing 
excursions  into  the  spirit  of  French  culture,  Russian  culture,  etc.  -  or  whether  he  said 
(as  in  CK  and  1924b)  that  anthropologists  tend  not  to  like  this  definition. 

23.  Although  none  of  the  note-takers  quote  Tylor's  definition  exactly,  it  is  evident  that  Sapir 
called  It  to  their  attention.  DM  gives  a  close  paraphrase.  I  cite  the  original  (Tylor  1871:1). 

24.  Remy  de  Gourmont  (1858-1915),  French  writer. 

25.  DM  actually  has:  "'Social'  and  'cultural'  must  not  be  confused." 


Two:  The  Psychology  oj  Culture  439 

26.  It  IS  iiDt  clear  utiolhcr  "ideal  i>r  acUKil"  relets  to  the  collcclivity.  the  behavior,  or  the 
evaluation  ol  the  beha\ior  In  the  niariiin  ol  this  passaiie  H(  i  has  "saint  /  sinner  /  c\- 
erynian". 

27.  HI  has:  "To  be  sure,  all  behavior  is  physiological  and  as  such  is  not  culture  '  DM  has 
"Behavior  looked  at  as  a  physiological  function  is  never  cultural."  H(j  has:  "Heha\ior 
that  is  purely  physit^logical    -  rellexes.  relief  activities  -  is  not  cultural." 

28.  HI  actually  has:  "There  are  t\M>  fields  c^f  activity:  /  psych  physii>l  )  psycho-biol  "  Ilie 
arrangement  oi  these  notes  on  the  page  makes  it  unclear  whether  the  two  fields  are  the 
psychological  and  the  physiological,  with  "psychobiology"  as  a  hybrid  that  may  tend  to 
confuse  them,  or  whether  Sapir  was  making  some  distinction  Ix-iwceii  'ps\ch'>hi.>K»g\" 
and  "psychophysiology."  I  iiaxe  chosen  the  first  alternative. 

2^).  DM  actually  has  "Cieiietically,"  a  word  Sapir  almost  always  uses  in  the  de\elitpmental 
sense  rather  than  in  the  biological  sense.  To  avoid  confusion  for  the  modern  reader  I 
substitute  "developmental"  for  "genetic"  here  and  in  many  other  passages 

30.  HI  adds:  "Being  too  functional  is  a  paranoid  mechanism:  to  wit  Brown  i^  Ml. id  .md 
Malinowski." 

31.  BCl  has  "Sapir's  definition."  Notice  that  the  definition  shifts  .lu.iv  iiom  luiuhc  t.> 
what  is  ■cultural"  -  from  whole  to  attribute. 

32.  The  note-takers  have  slightly  dilTerent  versions  of  the  definitions  B(i  has:  "Any  f«>rm  o^ 
behavior,  either  explicit  or  implicit,  overt  or  covert,  which  can  not  be  directly  interpreted 
physiologically,  and  which  has  meaning  in  terms  of  the  totality  of  meanings  of  a  specific 
group  and  which  can  be  shown  to  be  the  result  of  a  strictly  historical  process,  is  cultural." 
HI  has:  ".Any  form  o^  behavior,  either  implicit  or  explicit,  that  is  not  explainable  in  a 
phvsiological  sense,  and  which  has  meaning  in  the  totality  of  the  group  and  which  can 
be  shown  to  be  the  result  o\'  historical  process,  is  culture."  H2  has:  "Any  form  o'i  beha- 
vior, explicit  or  implicit,  overt  or  not.  winch  is  not  directly  physically  and  biologically 
necessary  and  individual  but  can  be  interpreted  in  terms  of  the  group  and  can  be  shown 
to  be  historically  determined  is  likely  to  be  cultural  in  nature."  DM  has:  "Any  behavior 
which  has  meaning  for  the  totality  of  a  group  and  which  can  be  shown  to  be  the  result 
of  an  historical  process  are  culture."  SI  has:  "Any  form  of  behavior  which  has  meaning 
in  terms  of  totality  meaning  in  group  and  which  can  be  shown  in  historic  trend  " 

33.  Wording  of  the  bracketed  passage  comes  partly  from  Sapir  1924b,  partly  from  note- 
taker  passages  already  drawn  upon,  in  order  to  bring  the  chapter  to  a  conclusion. 


Chapter  2.  The  Concept  of  Cuhure 
in  the  Social  Sciences 

[MctluhloloiiicLil  prohlcnis  in  iiiilhropDlo^y] 

'""'  ''  [In  the  prccedintz  leclure  we  began  to  consider]  tlie  anthropok^iii- 
cal  sense  of  the  term  "cuhure"  as  embracing  all  those  human  reactions 
\s  hich  are  socially  inherited,  as  contrasted  with  those  lacking  historical 
continuity  or  those  based  on  biological  heredity.  "'  [You  will  recall,  how- 
ever, that  our]  attempt  at  a  closer  definition  [than  Tylor's]  led  to  [a 
glimpse  of  some]  unexpected  difficulties.  [Let  us  examine  some  of  these 
more  carefully  now.] 

*"''  [Whatever  else  culture  may  be,  the  anthropologist  insists  that  it  is] 
a  continued  thing,  [transcending  the  vagaries  of]  individual  experience. 
"  For  example,  although  the  Minnesota  accent  [o'i  a  Mid-Western 
schoolboy  from  a  rural  background  may]  change  nalurallv  to  an  Oxford 
accent  [if  he  should  happen  to  cross  the  ocean  for  his  uni\crsit\  educa- 
tion, this  change  is  merely  a  personal  matter  that  has  Iiiile  to  di>  with 
the  gradual  shifts  of  pronunciation  that  take  place  over  the  years  m  the 
language  as  a  whole.]'  The  English  language  goes  on,  with  a  continuit\ 
[of  its  own  that  does  not  depend  on  the  particular  events  of  an  individ- 
ual's personal  history.  Nor  is]  the  biological  sequence  [b\  which  our 
schoolboy  passes  from]  birth  to  adulthood  and  [eventual]  death  [a  cul- 
tural matter,  even  though  cultural  transmission  involves  the  sequence 
of  generations.]  '""'■  "  '-  [We  must  therefore  distinguish  among  at  least] 
three  fields  of  behavior  or  kinds  of  continuities:  those  continuities  that 
are  biok)gicall\  necessary;  those  that  aic  accidental  or  contnigent;*  and 
those  that  are  socialized.  [It  is  the  last  that  represents  the)  cultural  conti- 
nuities, tor  *"''  ^~  culture  is  in  no  regard  accidental,  [insofar  as  this  char- 
acterizes that  which  is]  individual  and  personal,  nor  does  culture  con- 
cern itself  with  that  which  is  biologicallv  necessary. 

"•  •'  [What  are  the  phenomena]  belonging  to  culture,  [then.'  Perhaps 
it  seems  obvious  enough  that]  language,  religion,  monetary  systems, 
political  [patterns  such  as]  methods  o\'  voting,  social  organization,  and 
literature  all  are  in  the  continuity  of  culture.  [But  what  <\o  these  grand 


442  ^^^   Culture 

rubrics  rcprcseni.  in  terms  o^  behaviors  the  anthropologist  might  ob- 
serve?) ^'^  Is  cuhure  an  objectively  [observable  phenomenon]  after  all? 
It  really  is  extremely  difficult  and  perhaps  impossible  to  [identify  what 
is  cultural  with  complete]  objectivity.  There  seem  to  be  certain  things 
we  [as  indi\  iduals]  cannot  change,  [and  we  call  these]  culture.  [But,  as  I 
suggested  HI  last  week's  lecture,  some  activities]  may  [appear  to  partake 
ofMiat  grand  cultural]  pageant  just  because  they  exercise  many  adher- 
ents.' So  although  my  definition  has  emphasized  the  historical  and  so- 
cial as  apart  from  the  individual,  it  may  be  [that  this  distinction  is 
largely]  metaphorical  and  that  [the  "social"  in  the  sense  we  intend  it 
here]  cannot  be  isolated."* 

[We  shall  return  to  the  problems  inherent  in  the  term  "social"  at  some 
length  later  on.  For  the  moment,  let  us  try  another  approach  to  the 
problem  o'i  identifying  what  is  "cultural."  We  agree  that  we  have  ex- 
cluded the  accidental  from  the  realm  of  the  cultural,  as  well  as  physio- 
logical necessities  as  such.  Yet,  all  behavior  has  a  physiological  dimen- 
sion: so  how  are  we  to  isolate  that  which  is  cultural  in  it?]  ^'  [Though 
we  referred  to  biological  "necessity"  earlier  on,  it  is  doubtful  that  we 
can  solve  our  dilemma  by  supposing  that  all  necessity  is  biological. 
Even  physiological]  necessity  [is  subject  to  cultural  evaluation,  entering 
the  cultural  dimension  as  it]  takes  on  a  psychological  character.  The 
locus  of  this  necessity  is  important  then;  yet  it  can  be  [physiological  or 
psychological,]  individual  or  general. 

[Thus  we  have  run  into  two  kinds  of  difficulties.]  °'  [First,]  no  human 
behavior  can  be  discovered  which  is  intrinsically  or  purely  "cultural." 
^"^  [Second,]  we  have  not  been  patient  [in  our  thinking  about]  the  actual 
locus  of  culture,  [for  as  soon  as  we]  knew  it  was  not  in  the  individual 
[as  such  we]  jumped  to  the  "social"  uncritically.  [And  as  if  two  difficul- 
ties were  not  enough,  there  is  yet  a  third,  for]  ^"^  [we  anthropologists 
have  somehow  to  infer  the]  continuity  [between  behavioral  events,  the 
continuity  we  are  going  to  attribute  to  socialization],  if  we  are  then  to 
say  we  have  culture..  [That  is,  we  claim  that]  wherever  this  pattern  [of 
behavior  occurs  we  have  identified  something  cultural,  since  we  know 
that  the  pattern's  actual  manifestafions  may  differ  in  irrelevant  ways. 
But  how  do  we  get  from  the  behavior  to  the  pattern?]  ""^  It  is  illusory  to 
think  culture  is  clearly  defined.  ^^  Its  content  is  shaky,  not  fixed;  the 
confines  of  the  realm  are  not  given  but  have  to  be  created. 

'"^'  *'  [In  practice,]  "culture"  is  an  ad  hoc  term  for  [those  aspects  of] 
experience  that  do  in  a  sense  transcend  the  individual  and  [to  which  we 
can  attribute]-^  an  historical  and  geographical  continuity.  "^  The  anthro- 


7u7>.   Tlh' I\svi/h>l())iy  of  C'uliuri'  44"^ 

pologisl  slices  ciiluirc  mil  o\  hchaMoi.  |as  ii  were  ]  "  '''  ihal  is.  we 
abstiael  eiillme  tVoiii  belKi\u)r  and  label  il  uilli  synibi>ls  |ni>l|  ubiee- 
tively,  [lor  objecli\il\  in  this  realm]  is  lun  possible,  but  rather  ad  hoc. 
based  on  our  experience  of  elements  [of  behasior)  which  are  referred  to 
by  certain  terms  [in  oui  language.  We]  discmer  a  thing  because,  in  a 
sense,  we  alieads  know  ii.  |()ui  "slicing"  is  done]  through  weirds,  [and 
because  we  did  not  personall\  iiuenl  these  terms  we  suppose  that  the\] 
car\e  with  "objecti\it\."" 

''  Just  as  It  is  illusor\  to  ihmk  culture  is  clcaii>  Llermed.  then,  sn  it 
ma\  be  an  illusion  |lo  assume  ihal  the  anthropologist  can  objectively 
describe  and  studs]  the  "lotalilN  of  culture.""  |l  suspect  that  what  I  am 
saying  here  will  not  please  those  anthropologists  who  like  to  think  ol 
themselves  as  properl\]  '''^'''  brought  up  in  the  austerities  o\'  a  well- 
defined  science  of  man.  '^  The  ideal  of  most  anthropologists  is  [to  pro- 
ceed] like  the  chemist  -  to  describe  and  classify  objecli\ely.  not  to 
value;  '-  personal  factors  should  be  absent.  [Difficulties  in  realizing  this 
ideal  arise  immediately  in  ethnographic  work,  howe\er.]  '■''  \bu  start 
out  describing  socialized  patterns,  and  end  up  by  being  biographical. 
You  don't  know  whether  you  are  interested  in  what  you  are  going  to 
abstract  from  observation  or  in  behavior  patterns.''  [And  so  on.  If  we 
are  honest  with  oursehes  we  must  recognize  that  no  matter  how  careful 
and  scientific  one  tries  to  be.  the  student  of  culture  faces  some  serious 
methodological  dilemmas.] 

''  The  difficulty  [lies  in  the  process]  of  abstraction  [necessars  to  an- 
thropological analysis,  and  to  the  fact  that]  the  beha\ioral  data  [>ou 
can  observe]  are  connected  with  less  easily  observed  material,  [without 
which  they  cannot  be  understood],  [it  is  usually  supposed  that).  idealK. 
[the  less  directly  observed  material,  and  iis  connection  with  beha\uM-. 
are  to  be  discovered  through  immersion  in  the  culture];  but  the  idea  ol 
immersion  in  a  culture  seems  contradictor)  to  that  certain  aloofness 
necessary  to  analyze  the  patterns  of  behavior.  ''  The  more  \ou  immerse 
yourself  in  a  culture,  the  less  abilils  \ou  ha\e  to  anal\/e  the  culture 
according  to  the  anthropological  ideal,  for  [)ust  as]  the  Indian  is  not 
aware  o\'  the  patterns  o\'^  his  culture,  Jso  will  you  be  unaware  o\  them 
the  more  you  become  like  him].  '^  The  more  you  identiis  \ourself  with 
the  people,  the  less  you  are  being  an  anthropologist,  [in  that  sense). 

'^-  •'  There  is  a  conflict  o\'  interest,  therefore,  between  the  anthropolo- 
gist's ideal  of  participating  in  the  culture,  and  his  technk|ue  i>f  analyzing 
the  culture.  To  participate  would  be  to  psychologize;  and  in  participat- 
ing, things  become  too  vital  for  analysis.  ""^  As  an  anthropologist  you 


444  JJJ  Culture 

want  to  tear  cvcrv  fact  o'i  the  culture  out  of  its  individualized  context. 
It  IS  nuMc  important  for  the  anthropologist  to  abstract  patterns  than  to 
give  a  wealth  o\'  biographical  detail,  [and  yet  in  so  abstracting  you  must 
inevitably  tend  to  lose  sight  of  the  actual  experience  of  living  individ- 
uals, to  whom  such  patterns  have  real  value  in  their  interrelationships 
Willi  other  human  beings.]^  '-  In  a  way,  the  psychologist  is  much  closer 
to  the  Indian  than  is  the  anthropologist,  because  he  does  not  tear  the 
[personal]  context  up. 

'-• ''  The  task  of  the  anthropologist,  then,  cannot  be  [simply]  to  gather 
all  observations  available.  The  ideal  of  describing  what  one  sees  and 
hears  is  not  enough.  ''  [If  the  purpose  of  anthropological  work]  is  the 
analysis  o\^  how  culture  is  made  up  of  a  system  of  patterns,^  and  to 
understand  the  relationship  of  these,  "^^^  ■"-■  •■•  then  what  the  anthropolo- 
gist studies  is  not  behavior  at  all,  in  the  ordinary  sense.  His  interest  is 
not  in  the  facts  of  behavior  but  in  its  typical  patterns  -  not  in  the 
indisidual's  experience,  but  in  the  patterns  of  culture.  '■^-  ''^'  ^^  The 
anthropologist  is  not  interested  in  behavior,  but  in  the  field  of  behav- 
ioral forms.'^  ■■'  From  the  study  of  [behavioral]  forms,  anthropologists 
build  up  the  patterns  which  [(they  believe)]  are  transferred,  socialized, 
and  carried  by  the  individual.  ^^  But  not  everything  we  observe  has 
anything  to  do  with  pattern. 

'■''  For  example,  could  we  base  the  study  of  religion  on  watching  peo- 
ple in  church?  [Not  everything  we  could  observe  in  their  behavior  con- 
cerns religion,  and  not  everything  concerning  their  religion  would  be 
directly  observable  in  their  behavior.]  Dorsey's  study  of  the  Arapaho 
Sun  Dance'^  is  a  melange  of  all  kinds  of  observations  some  of  which 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  Sun  Dance.  [If  you  propose  instead  to  study 
the  Sun  Dance  as  a  form  of  religious  expression,]  you  must  reassert  your 
data  in  the  terms  of  the  pattern  you  have  analyzed  out.  [The  usual] 
advice  is  to  note  everything,  but  you  don't  -  you  note  those  things  that 
have  to  do  with  the  pattern  you  are  observing.  '^  Actually,  if  we  made 
a  complete  encyclopedic  survey  of  all  the  facts  connected  with  religion, 
we  would  find  that  very  few  of  them  are  directly  related  to  the  anthro- 
pologist's pattern  of  religion.  The  anthropologist's  pattern  is  based  on 
words  -  "religion,"  "God,"  etc.  -  and  on  the  assumption  that  certain 
details  can  be  omitted  because  they  are  like  our  own  culture." 

''^- '-  You  need  to  understand  the  general  behavior  of  the  Indian,  then, 
in  order  to  make  your  abstractions  [from  observation,  and  even  to  select 
which  observations  you  will  take  note  of].  ""^  There  is  no  such  thing  as 
"religious  behavior"  -  there  is  [only]  behavior.  [When  you  propose  to 


Two:  The  Psyclwlofiy  of  Culture  445 

sUid)  religious  bcha\ior,j  \ini  dissociate  this  segment  troni  the  \slu)le 
of  which  it  is  part.  ''  Hence.  ahht>iigh  a  study  of  cultural  behavior  is 
worthwhile,  il  is  not  a  true  study  oi'  culture  patterns.  ^'-  "^^^  '^'  Indeed, 
the  concept  ot  "cultural  behavior''  is  a  hybrid,  even  contradictory  con- 
cept -  a  contlict  in  terms.  There  can  be  no  such  thmg,  lor  behavior 
cannot  be  equated  with  patterns.  '^  [Behaxior  is  a  property  of  the  indivi- 
dual, and  while]  we  need  more  study  of  the  indi\idual  in  primitive  soci- 
ety, it  is  not  in  itself  the  equixalent  o\'  a  purel\  cultural  survey.  ^'•''^-  '- 
[Moreover,  behavior  is  physiological  and  for  this  reason  too  its  observa- 
tion is  not  the  same  thing  as  a  study  o\'  culture,  for]  culture  is  not 
concerned  with  the  ph\siological  necessities  as  such.  ^'  Culture  deals 
with  them,  but  it  is  not  concerned  wiih  them.  ^^  They  are  implied,  even 
taken  for  granted,  but  they  are  not  relevant  for  cultural  analysis.  You 
observe  behavior,  from  which  you  abstract  culture. 

"''•  ■'  [In  proposing]  criteria  for  a  concept  of  culture,  [then,  ue  shall 
clearly  have  to  leave]  Tylor's  definition  [rather  far  behind.  And  we  shall 
not  have  resolved  all  problems  as  to  the  locus  of  culture,  or  its  relation- 
ship to  individual  psychology.  Anthropology's  frequent  assumption]' - 
''^'*-''  that  culture  is  a  superorganic,  impersonal  whole  is  a  useful  enough 
methodological  principle  to  begin  with  but  becomes  a  serious  deterrent 
in  the  long  run  to  the  more  dynamic  study  of  the  genesis  and  de\elop- 
ment  of  cultural  patterns  because  these  cannot  be  realistically  discon- 
nected from  those  organizations  of  ideas  and  feelings  w  hich  constitute 
the  individual.  ^"^  Where  do  socialized  patterns  leave  olTand  the  primor- 
dial human  being  begin?  We  do  not  know  yet  where  culture  ends,  jor 
how  it  atTects  and  alters  the  persons  who  live  with  its  help  and  in  its 
intluence.]  '^''- ' '  The  rate  o\^  modifiability  o{  human  beings  in  regard  to 
[cultural]  patterns  is  an  interesting  question.  ''  But  ii  is  useless  to  the 
versatilitv  of  the  culture  which  is  carried  b\  ihcm.' ' 


[Distinguishing  between  the  "eulturnl"  uml  the  "socinl"] 

""^  In  contrast  to  psychology,  which  has  no  dilTicuitN  m  discovering 
its  subject  matter  -  for  its  interest  is  in  the  [indnidual)  human  being, 
his  behavior  and  reactions  -  anthropology  has  ditllculty  on  the  theoret- 
ical side  in  defining  its  subject  matter.  ^'^  ''  [lust  o\'  all]  it  does  not 
know  whether  to  ascribe  certain  aspects  oi  behavior  to  culture  or  to 
biology.  Gesture,  for  example,  (has  seemed  ambiguous  in  this  way.  as 
we  saw  in  the  preceding  lecture.  Moreover,  anthropology  has)  ditVicully 


446  in  Cult  lire 

distinguishing  between  social  phenomena  and  individual  phenomena.  ■■' 
These  diU'icul ties  (are  inherenl  in]  the  anthropological  sense  of  "cul- 
ture." [The  contrast  with  psychology  does  not  arise  because  anthropol- 
ogy concentrates  on  the  totality  ot  behavior  or  on  some  portion  thereof 
that]  "'  ^"^  is  deemed  "social,"  but  because  "culture"  is  abstracted  from 
the  totality  o\'  human  behavior. 

bvv.  ck.  o\  Although  we  [often]  mix  the  term  "cultural"  with  the  term 
"social."  they  are  really  quite  distinct,  [even  in  a  way]  antithetical.  [Ac- 
tually, there  are  some  dangerous]  ^''  pitfalls  in  the  use  of  the  term  "so- 
cial." ^"^-  '•'"•  '''•  '''•  '^-  [for  if  we  inquire  as  to]  its  meaning  we  must  realize 
thai  there  are  various  concepts  or  implications  of  the  word,  and  we 
must  decide  which  is  [to  be  invoked.  To  start  with,  there  is  the  basic 
distinction  between]  '^^''-  •"'•  "■-  "social"  as  arising  from  the  [sheer]  coming 
together  of  people  -  physical  togetherness  -  and  social  togetherness. 
The  biologist  [might  be  concerned  with]  the  physical  togetherness  of 
people,  and  the  psychologist  [might  be  interested  in]  the  reinforcing  of 
individual  actions  [that  such  propinquity  facilitates;]  but  the  sociologist 
[emphasizes]  the  organized  behavior  and  ordered  life  of  a  group,  [whose 
members  need  not  always  be  physically  in  the  same  place,  their]  to- 
getherness being  of  a  different  kind.'"* 

[Not  only  are  these  two  senses  of  the  term  "social"  different,  but  they 
may  even  come  into  conflict  with  one  another.  The  first  definition,]  ^^' 
"  "social"  in  the  sense  of  gregariousness,  or  of  human  beings  herded 
together  in  a  band,  [might,  for  example,  be  used  to  describe]  a  gang  in 
the  city,  or  '''  a  crowd  at  the  theater.  ^'^'  ^'  "Social"  in  the  second  [sense 
would  describe]  a  social  dictum,  for  instance  that  you  should  not  say 
the  word  "Swell!"  because  it  is  [supposed  to  be]  bad  [grammar];  yet,  on 
the  other  hand,  [in  a  way  the  dictum  itself  is]  anfisocial  because  it  is 
referred  to  [a  disapproved]  group  [among  whom]  "Swell!"  is  the  [nor- 
mal] usage.  [What  is  "social"  here  -  the  actual]  use  [by  a  group,  or  the] 
idea[tional]  construct  ([condemning  that  use?])'^ 

bvv.  ti  jpqj.  ^^  example  of  a  similar]  difficulty,  [suppose  we  return  to 
our  theater  crowd;  and  suppose  someone  in  the  crowd  yells,]  "Fire!" 
[From  one  standpoint  this  act  is]  social  behavior,  because  "fire"  is  a 
socially  understood  word;  yet  [its  utterance]  lets  loose  anfisocial  beha- 
vior (in  our  first  sense  of  the  term)  [when  the  theater  crowd  panics.] 
The  socially  understood  word  [(socially  in  the  second  sense)]  dissolves 
the  group  of  the  other  "social"  type.  ^^  So  the  first  sense  of  the  term  is 
not  enough  [for  the  social  scientist's  needs,  while  the  second  sense]  is 
essentially  [a  matter  of]  ideas. 


Two:  The  PsvcliDloiiy  t>l Culture  447 

"'  Thus  lliLMc  is  a  lallacs  in  ascribing  ihc  icrni  "social  hclui\ior"'  Id  a 
collectivity  as  such.  Ciroup  hcha\  ior  in  this  Incral  sense  (may  be  com- 
fortingly observable  and]  real,  but  it  is  irrelevant  (to  our  purpose.)  "So- 
cial beha\  ior."  so  called,  is  both  indi\  idual  and  collecli\e;  (it  is  anchored 
in  the  realm  o\'  ideas  and  imderstandings.  No\n.  where  does  "culture" 
enter  in'.'  ll  has  more  lo  tlo  with  the  second  sense  o\'  "social*  than  the 
llrsl.  Hul  if  we  reall\  want  to  answer  this  queslion  we  shall  ha\e  lo 
make  e\en  finer  distinctions  among  ihe  meanings  of  the  term  "st^cial."" 
There  seem  to  be  fne  possibilities:] 

(1)  ^^-  '^'-  '*'"•  ''-■  '-'  Social  in  the  sense  o['  "gregarious."  [or  ihe  simple 
assemblage  of  people  in  an  aggregate.  It  is  difficuii  lo  find  examples  o\ 
this  simple  situation  ~  a  group  gathered  together  at  one  place,  say  our 
theater  croud  waiting  for  the  curtain  [to  rise,  considered]  from  a  purely 
biological  [viewpoint]  as  an  ecological  group,  apart  from  the  reasons 
for  being  there.  '*'•  ""'  [The  example  cited  earlier.]  o\'  this  theater  crowd  m 
a  panic  when  someone  yells,  "Fire!",  [might  better  illustrate  the  point.)' 

^2)  bg.  dm.  hi,  h2.  lb  SQ^^i^ij  jp  \\y^  "gregarious"  sense  plus  cultural  conno- 
tation. Our  theater  [aggregate]  is  now  an  opera  crowd,  expecting  (a 
performance  and  to  some  degree  knowledgeable  about]  the  histor\  o\' 
music.  ^^  That  is,  we  have  people  plus  motives  plus  patterns,  and  so  on. 

(3)  '^i?-^''"-  ""•  '^'-  '^-  Social  in  the  sense  of  an  individual  [whose  thoughts 
or  actions  ha\e  a]  group  implication:  for  example  the  actions  of  a  small 
child  whose  play  activities  [are  oriented  so  as  to]  avoid  parental  taboos. 

(4)  Social  in  the  sense  of  an  individual  [whose  aciiviiics  have]  cultural 
connotations,  including  ethical  evaluations.  President  Roosevelt  is  alone 
in  his  study  but  he  is  writing  a  speech,  or  preparing  a  bill,  with  reforms 
of  cultural  import.  '''  Or,  as  another  example.  C'hauncey  .lohnnv  John 
thinking  what  he  will  say  at  the  Green  Corn  I  csiival  the  nighi  before 
the  third  day.'^ 

(5)  Social  with  reference  only  to  ori^anlzmion.^"  for  example  political 
or  geographical  organization.  We  need  an  adjective  other  than  "social" 
for  this  last  type;  perhaps  it  should  properlv  be  called  sociciul.  '''  If  we 
say  social  with  reference  lo  organization,  and  mean  societal  organiza- 
tion, it  is  a  good  term  [for  what  is  studied  in  a)  Science  of  Socielv.-^" 

[In  these  examples  we  have  distinguished  individual  activities  from 
collective  activities,  and  we  have  seen  that  cultural  connotations  can 
attach  lo  either  kind,  although  ihev  need  not.)  "^  Another  way  to  distin- 
guish among  the  many  uses  o\'  the  term  "social"  is  lo  compare  the 
various  disciplines  [that  emplov  it.  but  with  different  connolalu>ns. 
Thus  we  might  consider:]' 


448  JtJ  Culture 

( 1 )  the  ethical  usage  ([as  in  the  expressions]  "social  sympathy,"  "social 
integration,"  "unseltlsh  social  work").  ^~  Ethical  considerations  may 
come  under  any  of  several  [o['  the  senses  of  "social"  mentioned  above,] 
since  ethics  involves  the  content  [of  one's  actions]  as  opposed  to  [merely] 
considering  the  pattern: 

(2)  the  biological  usage  (i.  e.  gregarious,  like  ants  and  bees; 

(3)  the  sociological  usage  (concerning  structure  and  organization); 

(4)  the  anthropological  usage  (concerning  the  peculiar  nexus  of  a 
culture,  which  is  historically  conditioned  -  speech,  tabus,  beliefs,  arts, 
and  so  on);~- 

(5)  the  psychological  usage  (concerning  individual  evaluation  and 
criticism). 

[In  short,  it  is  highly  misleading  simply  to  equate  the  terms  "cultural" 
and  "social,"  or  to  assume  that  one  has  accounted  for  what  culture 
is  by  referring  to  "social  behavior"  without  further  qualification.]  "^^ 
"Cultural"  and  "social"  tend  to  be  associated  together,  but  they  are 
reallv  distinct. 


[Distinguishing  between  culture  and  behavioral  phenomena] 

[One  of  the  greatest  pitfalls  in  the  term  "social"  is  that  its  ambiguities 
may  allow  social  scientists  to  persuade  themselves  that  they  are  objec- 
tively observing  physical  behavior,  when  in  fact  they  are  not.]  ''  The 
social  scientist  is  perpetually  talking  of  ideas,  and  is  bound  by  ideas, 
although  [he  often  believes]  that  physical  phenomena  are  what  he 
means.  "'  There  is  a  notional  conflict  between  "culture"  and  behavior 
deemed  "social":  it  is  the  ^'  conflict  between  cultural  phenomena  and 
natural  or  physical  phenomena,  [and  it  is  masked  by  the  ambiguities  in 
the  term  "social." 

Let  us  consider  another  example  of  these  ambiguities,  this  time 
drawn  from]  ^'  religion.  ^"^  Going  to  church  is  social  in  the  [collective 
sense,  because  there  are  a]  lot  of  people  there.  [It  is  also  social]  in  the 
[consensual  sense,  because  the  people]  participate  in  communal  ideas, 
"sin"  for  example.  Yet  most  people  do  not  pay  [a  great  deal  of]  attention 
to  the  ceremony.  [Suppose,  for  instance,]  a  girl  [in  the  assembly  is  pre- 
sent but]  does  not  pay  attention;  yet  she  is  part  of  the  "social"  [occasion. 
She  is]  classified  as  participating  from  the  mere  fact  that  she  goes  with 
her  father  and  does  not  voice  her  thoughts,  "^  which  may  differ  greatly 
from  the  attitudes  of  the  various  [other]  individuals  who  are  there.  If  we 


Two:  Tlurs\choU)iiy  iif  Culture  449 

call  lliis  inclaiiLic  of  ideas  "'rcliiiicHis."'  [oi  so  iJciilily  her  parlicipalion,)  " 
uc  make  lici"  a  \iclini  ol'|oiii-  own]  uica  [oluhal  religion  is.)  We  arc  nol 
[taking  an  objeclive,)  behaviorislic  japproaeh  nor  could  we.  in  the 
study  of  religic^n.  for]  "religion"  is  not  acluall\  a  naturally  \isible  or  a 
physical  entit\.  It  is,  rather,  a  collectisity  of  thought.  .Mere  numbers  arc 
not  necessary  [for  "religious"  behavior.]  so  that  the  ct)ncepl  of  "social" 
in  sense  I  is  invalidated:  yet  we  are  again  wrong  [il Wc  go  loo  far  in  the 
opposite  direction  and]  think  that  the  collccli\ily  was  \^o{  the  necessity 
at  all  but  that  the  idea  was  the  thing. 

dm.  bLT.  hi.  ii  1,^  ^j-^,  social  sciences  wc  arc  alua\s  ti^ii  bclucen  two 
poles:  the  inteicsl  m  individual  behavior,  and  jliic  mleresl  in]  cultured 
patterning  and  social  understanding.  ''-  [The  realm  o\'  social  science  is] 
therefore  hard  to  define  -  its  object  of  study  is  confusing.  ''''  [In  much 
the  same  way]  the  delimitation  of  culture  [itsell]  is  difficult  "'  *''' 
unlike  the  objective  delimitation  o\'  [subject  matter  in]  the  natural  sci- 
ences. "'  [in  the  social  sciences]  uncertainty  generally  prevails  as  to 
whether  a  given  study  belongs  to  the  field  o\^  "culture"  or  to  the  field 
of  actual  behavior,  '*'"  whereas  in  the  natural  sciences  everybod>  knows 
exactly  what  is  being  referred  to  [(what  the  object  of  study  is)].  ''"'•  ^*- 
'''  The  psychologists  concerned  only  with  behavior  are  prettv  near  [that 
certainty]  too,  [although  their  object  of  study]  always  relapses  into  [mer- 
ely] a  more  complex  physiology.-"^  "*'"  But  in  the  social  sciences  we  are 
always  talking  about  two  things:  what  people  are  actually  doing  in  refer- 
ence to  social  situations  and,  on  the  other  hand,  [our  concern]  with  the 
social  pattern,  at  the  ethnological  [level. ]-'^ '''  Either  point  of  view  would 
be  justifiable,  [but  not  their  confusion.]  Much  "social  science"  is  a  hall- 
hearted  study  of  certain  modes  of  behavior  that  have  been  tacitly  (and 
often  unavowedly)  selected  on  cultural,  not  bchavioristic.  lines. 

'*'"  If  you  were  a  strictly  [objective]  social  scientist  you  would  never 
use  the  word  rcllj^ion,  for  that  presupposes  certain  categitnes  [inti^  which 
your  observations  are  to  fall.  But  it  is  not  possible  to  avoid  making  use 
of  any  categories  in  observing  social  situations  and  activities.]'  Any  set 
of  activities  is  pre-judged  in  advance  bv  ihc  culture  (^f  the  observer.  [M 
a  social  scientist  you  may  wish  to  use  the  term  "religion"  because  you 
are  trying  to  get  at  some  sort  ot]  universal  meanings  [whatever  il  is 
that  is  responsible  for]  the  diffusion  of  Christianity.-"  [for  instance.  But 
you  should  not  confuse  this  wiih  a  bchavionsl  psychologv]  Religion 
from  the  point  of  view  o\'  psychology  is  quite  a  useless  concept,  [since] 
the  psychologist  is  told  in  advance  what  religion  is  and  that  bothers 
[any  true  behaviorist.]  Religion  is  not  a  thing  that  is  [physiologically 


450  tlf   Culture 

or)  emotionally  ilicic.  hui  a  historically  determined  series  of  patterns 
interacting  in  a  certain  situation  and  [in  a  certain]  series.  [It  is  a  cultural 
concept,  and]  a  simple  application  of  cultural  concepts  in  a  psychologi- 
cal investigation  is  naive. 

am.  he  YhQ  onlv  way  out  is  to  say  that  the  patterns  are  never  [directly 
present]  in  action.  Religion  ne\cr  "occurs"  -  it  is  never  performed.  All 
\iui  can  siikh  is  ihc  bohaxior  of  certain  individuals  in  particular  situa- 
tions that  already  have  a  cultural  label.  ^^-  ^'"  The  [observer]-^  should 
ne\er  start  with  patterns  but  with  the  individual,  [from  whose  perspec- 
ti\  e]  in  any  case  the  actualization  of  a  pattern  is  never  more  than  mar- 
ginal.-^ ''^^  No  two  people  participating  in  a  service  have  the  same  mo- 
tives, the  same  feelings,  or  the  same  reasons  [for  being  there.]  Each 
individual  is  differently  ''religious,"  and  you  cannot  accurately  talk 
about  a  generalized  "religious  [person]."  ''"'  In  the  actual  religious  situa- 
tion, moreover,  [as  we  said  before,  not  all  the  behavior  that  occurs  is 
rclcN  ant  to  religion;  some  of  it  is  merely  head-scratching.  In  fact]  you 
have  the  whole  of  human  conduct  flowing  in,  [and  what  you  select  to 
observe]  depends  on  what  you  want  to  look  at.  '^"^  Thus  this  situation 
that  we  called  religious  is  more  of  a  fiction  than  we  thought  it  was.  It's 
all  in  the  terminology  —  ^^  it  is  merely  the  use  of  terminology  that 
makes  patterns.  [This  is  as  true  for  the  native  as  for  the  ethnologist, 
incidentally,  so  as  a  social  scientist  you  can  also  turn  it  to  your  advan- 
tage.]-'^ ''■"  There  is  nothing  that  helps  us  find  out  so  much  about  beha- 
vior as  terms  and  language. 

"  The  confiict  of  cultural  phenomena  with  natural  or  physical  phe- 
nomena [also  arises  with  regard  to  so-called  "religious  objects,"  or  "fe- 
tishes."] ''''  Objects  are  not  religion;  ^'  fetishism  has  no  place  in  the  idea 
of  culture,  for  it  is  [merely]  the  misplacement  of  memory  by  outworn 
tokens.  '^'^-  ''  For  example,  a  ceremonial  dancing  shirt  belongs  to  [the 
realms  of]  religion,  decorative  arts,  technology  (the  history  of  clothing) 
-  and  to  none  of  the  three.  [If]  it  is  culture,  it  does  not  completely 
belong  to  any  one  [classification;  for]  ^'-  ^^  culture  is  an  idea,  but  a  shirt 
is  a  piece  of  material.  [If  you  want  to  call  it]  a  piece  of  "material  culture" 
[you  must  bear  in  mind  that]  ^^'  ^^  although  the  material  articles  give  us 
the  means  of  [deducing  some  aspects  of]^^  the  culture,  one  cannot  hang 
on  to  them  alone,  [and  treat]  the  shirt  as  [a  sort  of]  deposit  of  behavior. 
[If  you  wanted  to  understand  its  connection  with  religion  you  need  not 
necessarily  have  collected  the  shirt  itself  at  all  -  instead,]  ^^  you  should 
have  found  out  the  relevance  of  the  shirt,  [the  meaning  for  its  users  and 


Two:  The  Psvcluflo^y  of  C'uhun-  451 

the  ps>chological  backgrouiKl  lluil  caused  people  lo  make  il  in  this 
way.]^'  To  get  its  import  one  must  analyze  it  out  of  existence. 

[The  tendency  on  ihe  jxii  t  o\'  some  anthropologists  to  fetishi/e  the 
fetish,  as  it  were,  that  is  to  overemphasize  tlie  importance  t>t"  i>b)ects 
just  as  a  neurotic  might  over\alue  the  hair  of  the  beloved,  is  only  the 
most  extreme  example  o\'  the  misplaced  identification  o\'  the  cultural 
with  the  physical  which  we  have  also  discussed  wiih  respect  \o  the  "ob- 
jective" study  o^  behavior.^-  The  point  1  want  to  make  here  is  that]  ''^^ 
ii2.ain  j}^^,  patterns  [of  culture]  as  given  by  ethnologists  [in  their  analyses] 
are  not  real  things  they  are  merely  the  normal  methods  o\'  interpre- 
ting behavior.^^  The  culluial  nuHie  ot  slud\ing  belia\it)r  is  a  highly 
abstractionist  \iew  that  is  not  really  interested  in  behavior  at  all.  ^''"- *'-• 
•"^  You  can't  ever  see  culture;  you  see  people  behaving,  ''-•  ^^-  '^  and  you 
interpret  [their  behavior]  in  abstracted  terms,  by  gathering  data  on 
[what  you  consider  to  be]  typical  forms  of  behavior,  [as  if  the  beha\  ior 
were]  a  pattern  exemplified.  ''"'  Then  you  form  theories  as  to  hcn\  the 
patterns  operate.  '^  The  ethnologist  is  never  a  "simon  pure"  [behavioral 
observer,  since]  anthropology's  interest  is  in  the  pattern,  par  excellence. 

")''  The  distinction  between  the  study  of  culture  patterns  and  the  study 
of  actual  detailed  behavior  is  absolutely  fundamental  to  the  point  o\ 
view  presented  here.  ''•'^^  The  first  represents  a  configurative  viewpoint 
and  [consists  in]  the  study  of  a  series  of  abstracted  tbrms  or  patterns, 
while  the  second  [concerns]  behavior  -  "social"  behavior  [in  some 
sense,  perhaps,  but]  actual  behavior  [nonetheless,  and  as  distinguishable 
from  the  abstracted  forms  as  is  the  province  ot]  the  behavionsi  from 
that  o[^  the  historian. 


ck.  ,■:  Criteria  for  Culiurc 

[Our  discussion  has  focused  on  a  number  of  methodological  and  con- 
ceptual difficulties  relating  to  the  anthropological  notion  of  culture  and 
having  considerable  importance  for  the  position  ol  anthropology  in  the 
social  sciences.  But  so  far  we  have  perhaps  said  less  about]  '*'  what 
culture  is  [than  about]  what  it  is  not.  [If  we  are  to  be  able  to  consider) 
social  science  from  the  cultural  angle,  [how  shall  we  recognize  cultural 
phenomena?  The  preceding  discussion  has  suggested  various  criteria, 
which  may  now  be  examineti  more  closely.] 

1 .  [Culiurc  ilcpcmis  upon  critcriu  of  vahu:]'^'^  The  cultural,  in  behavii>r. 
is  the  valued  rather  than  the  nonvalued.  [Value  criteria  applv  both  to 


452  Jft  Cultwc 

the  people  whose  eiiliiire  we  study  and  to  our  own  methods  of  analysis.] 
^'^-  ^'  No  matter  how  objective  we  try  to  be,  we  unconsciously  apply 
criteria  o^  value  to  our  data,  and  make  certain  value  judgements  in  the 
selection  o\'  the  behavior  patterns  to  be  studied.  [And  so  do  the  people 
we  study.  Vox  this  reason]  ^•'  all  cultural  concepts  are  relative,  depending 
on  the  peculiar  ideology  and  historical  background  of  particular  cul- 
tures.^"* 

2.  [Ciiliurc  is  nonhloloi^'lcal.]  ''''•  '^*'  The  cultural  is  also  non-biological 
-  (not  only  in  the  sense  that]  it  is  not  hereditary,  but  also  ^^  in  the  sense 
that  it  is  dependent  upon  equivalences  of  phenomena  which  can  be 
biologically  or  physically  described  but  whose  locus  of  equivalence  is 
not  to  be  found  in  biological  explanation  so  far  as  that  can  at  present 
go.  ''  [That  is,  although  behavior  has  a  physical  dimension,  cultural 
patterns]  are  not  physically  definable;  they  are  only  definable  through 
[a  principle  ot]  substitutions.  *-''•  "^^  Culture  [represents]  an  arbitrary  the- 
ory of  equivalences,  where  one  set  of  physical  facts  can  be  translated 
into  another  (its  symbolic  equivalent),  as  spoken  words  can  be 
translated  into  written  ones.  There  is  no  limit  to  this  fictitious  world  of 
symbolic  equivalences,  but  rather,  [ever]  new  combinations  [matching] 
the  infinite  variety  of  experience.  ^^  The  locus  of  the  pattern  is  not  in 
biology  or  physics,  so  the  culturalist  is  never  interested  in  the  biological 
or  physical  world  [as  such].  '"''  ^^  Even  [our  patterns  of]  adjustment 
to  primary  biological  needs  are  plastered  over  with  secondary  cultural 
meanings.  "^^  And  we  have  learned  to  get  away  from  those  partly  biolog- 
ical experiences  which  were  responsible  for  our  knowledge  in  the  first 
place.  [Arithmetic,]  for  example,  [may  have  arisen  from]  counting  the 
fingers  on  the  hand,  yet  the  concept  of  "ten"  can  be  projected  even 
though  [a  parficular]  individual  has  only  seven  fingers. 

'-''  [Despite  an  anthropological  consensus  that  culture  depends  upon 
social  tradition  rather  than  biological  inheritance,  the  difficulty  of  dis- 
tinguishing the  pattern  from  the  expression  of  the  pattern  means  that] 
the  anthropologist  does  not  always  know  whether  to  ascribe  certain 
aspects  of  behavior  to  culture  or  biology.  '"2'  '^  Because  culture  is  not 
concerned  with  physiological  necessity  as  such,  the  total  pattern  called 
culture  must  not  be  implicit  in  the  fact  that  the  object  of  study  is  an 
organism.  "'^  Falling  down  the  stairs  is  not  cultural  ([even  if  the  stairs 
themselves  are  a  product  of  cultural  activity]).  '-  ^^'  ^^  Walking,  eating, 
and  mating  are  not  culture,  as  regards  their  physiological  functionality, 
although  these  biological  factors  are  governed  by  culture  in  that  the 
methods  of  preparing  food,  of  taking  [a  mate,  and  so  on]  are  governed 


Two:  The  Pwrholofiy  of  Culture  453 

b\  luihils  [aiul  ciisUMiis  thai  arc]  socialls  (acciiiircJ  .iikI  sancliDMccl).  '-■'' 
AncUhcr  got^d  example  o\  tins  (jTrobleni]  is  jjesline;  as  uc  saw  earlier, 
'"''  we  need  not  liesitale  \o  eall  ■geslure"'  a  eullurali/cd  Held,  '*'  because, 
faniiMig  inlier  things.)  ii  is  siibjeel  to  history  and  change.  ''  However. 
[we  nuisl  be  cautious  about  interring  tiiat  sonieliinig  is  cultural  rather 
than  biological  just  because  it  has  changed.]  The  rate  o\'  modiHabihtN 
[of  a  pattern  is  not  in  itself  a  simple  matter  or  a  clearcut  way  to  distin- 
guish the  biological,  the  indi\idual.  and  the  cultural,  lor]  the  rate  o\' 
modifiability  \aries  lYoni  pattern  {o  pattern,  from  societx  to  si>ciety.  and 
from  individual  to  individual. 

3.  [Culture  hus  a  social  reference.]  •■'''  The  cultural  is  also  often  distm- 
guished  as  being  societal,''*'  i.  e.  going  on  in  relation  l(^  other  members 
oi"  the  group;  ^"'^-  '^'  it  involves  the  recognition  o\'  other  people  more 
clearly  than  we  ordinarily  do.  '•'■•  But  it  would  be  dilTicult  to  fmd  an\ 
biological  fact  of  human  behavior  that  does  not  invoke  interorganic 
connectedness  -  '■'^  that  is,  there  is  no  biological  experience  which  is 
not  ultimately  societal  -  ''"*  so  this  is  not  a  [suHlcienl]  defining  charac- 
teristic. [We  have  to  exclude  the  biological  llrst.] 

"^^"^  [We  ha\e  already  discussed]  the  difficulty  of  distinguishing  between 
social  phenomena  and  individual  phenomena,  and  [the  ditTerence]  be- 
tween the  "social""  and  the  ■'ciillLiral""  -  [but  it  is  probablv  useful  to 
emphasize  once  again  that  the  activities  which  are  culturally  patterned, 
or  have  cultural  relevance,  need  not  be  collective.]  "  Anti-social  or  unso- 
cial persons  may  produce  cultural  [forms]  or  social  assets,  *"''  [as  for 
instance  when  an  artist's  work,  produced  in  isolation.]^''  integrates  so- 
cial ideas  that  have  been  lying  around.  ^''- "  F-roiii  the  [observational]^' 
point  of  view  [this  activity]  is  not  "social,*'  but  in  a  cultural  sense  it  is 
"social"  and  may  be  the  best  type  of  object  oi'  studv  for  the  social 
scientist.  "  [Similarly,]  a  hermit  is  anti-social  in  one  wa\,  vet  through 
census-[taking],  [use  ot]  money,  taxes,  and  so  on.  [even  in  his  rational- 
ization of  self-isolation.]  he  is  a  part  [of  a  larger  commumtv.]  He  UKiy 
be  an  unwilling  or  unwitting  [part,  but  he  is  in  a  .sense]  a  member  o( 
society  and  [a  participant  in]  culture.  ''"'  You  can  escape  the  "si>cial"  [in 
the  sense  of  social  gatherings,]  but  vxni  cannot  escape  culture. 

ri.r2.  ck  p^^,-  ^|^j^.  anlliropologist.  [iherelore,  what  is  important  in  beha- 
vior is  not  whether  people  perform  it  in  a  group  situaluMi  but]  the 
pattern  of  their  behavior,  those  phenomena  for  which  a  siKial  tradition 
is  responsible.  ''  A  pattern  is  an  assemblage  of  significant  things,  with 
a  terminological  key. 


454  f^J  Culture 

(Presumably,  ihcn.]  ^'^  when  you  limit  yourself  to  pattern  awareness, 
this  is  anthropology.  ''• '-  But  an  individuars  awareness  of  the  patterns 
of  experience  is  conditioned  by  his  individual  history  and  experience, 
[and  this  is  as  true  o^  ourselves  as  it  is  of  anyone  else  we  study.]  '  '■  '^'  ^^ 
Is  [it  not  conceivable,  therefore,  that]  our  conception  of  "society"  [itself 
is]  a  cultural  construct?  '-  As  a  matter  of  fact,  all  our  concepts  are  mere 
patterns  of  our  culture,  and  ^"^^-^  the  term  "society"  [is  no  exception.  It] 
is  a  cultural  construct  which  is  employed  by  individuals  who  stand  in 
significant  relations  to  each  other  in  order  to  help  them  in  the  inter- 
pretation o\^  certain  aspects  of  their  behavior. 

4.  [Culture  is  made  up  of  patterns.]  ''^'  "■'  Strictly  [speaking,  then,]  the 
anthropologist  is  concerned  with  the  location  of  patterns  in  the  cultural 
order,  [including]  their  origins,  history,  diffusability,  etc.  ^'^' ''''  When  the 
cultural  is  distinguished  as  not  hereditary,  this  anthropological  dictum 
is  of  course  with  reference  to  the  patterns  of  culture  as  such,  though 
they  all  have  hereditary  determinants  ""^  in  the  organs  and  predisposi- 
tions [through  which  they  are  manifested],  '^'i-  "^^  Any  patterns  of  beha- 
vior that  are  conceived  of  as  having  perduring  reference  to  a  group  and 
are  not  carried  by  the  biological  mechanism  of  heredity  give  us  the 
matrix  out  of  which  we  can  abstract  the  things  called  "cultural  pat- 
terns." "^^^  ■■'•  "■-  The  anthropologist  is  trained  to  follow  the  patterns 
rather  than  the  social  entities  that  carry  the  patterns,  ""^  although  the 
historical  [transmission]^^  of  patterning  means  that  perfected  patterns 
of  behavior  are  conveniently  located  in  social  groups. 

[The  process  of  discovering  a  pattern  is  not  the  same  as  its  historical 
genesis  or  its  ontogeny,  however.]  ^^^  ^^  A  good  example  of  cultural 
pattern  [illustrating  this  difference]  is  the  English  language,  [although 
any  language  might  serve  just  as  well,  since]  ^'"p  language  is  the  most 
massively  unconscious  pattern  in  all  cultures.''^  '^•'  ^^  For  the  child, 
words  are  fraught  with  emotion,  backed  by  expression;  they  have  a 
definite  value,  [in  the  sense  of  an]  emotional  color.  [For  children]  lan- 
guage is  not  definable  in  its  own  terms,  without  emotion.  For  the  adult, 
words  are  symbols.  By  gradually  unloading  emotional  values  from  a 
word  we  acquire  a  rubber-stamp  attitude  toward  it.  '=''•  '^  [From  this 
standpoint  the  strong  emotional  attachment  to  one's  language  which 
can  characterize]  ethnocentrism,  in  the  adult,  is  a  kind  of  childhood 
nostalgia,  a  longing  for  a  [remembered]  feeling  of  security  within  the 
close  little  group. 

■■'•  '^'^  For  the  linguist,  [interested  in]  the  form  of  the  language,  the 
process  of  discovering  linguistic  patterns  and  the  location  of  patterns 


Two:  The  Psvrholoijv  of  Culture  455 

of  speech  ditTcrs  iVoni  llic  psychological  clisco\cry  of  speech  (  ihc  dis- 
covery of  the  psychological  significance  o\'  a  particular  utterance  in  a 
parlicuhir  situalicMi].  In  language,  (there  is  actually  an  inverse  relation- 
ship between  complexity  of  form  and  complexity  of  contextual  implica- 
tion, for  it  is  the]  limitation  o\'  fiMni  to  a  minimum  that  [allows  it  to 
bear]  a  maximum  of  implication.""'  ''  (The  linguist  derives]  an  analysis 
o(  complex  patterns  [only  b\  abstracting  away]  Worn  the  concrete  ac- 
tions [of  speech].  ^"^  Thus  F.nglish  is  a  hierarchy  o\'  simple  patterns  ab- 
stracted from  concrete  situations  which  grow  in  complexity.  Patterns 
are  abstracted  from  an  e\ent;  they  are  not  a  record  of  an  event.  ''  The 
c\cnl  [ilsclf.  the  actual]  situation,  is  the  meeting  o\'  man\  patterns,  [not 
only  the  one  you  select  for  attention  in  your  process  o\'  analysis.]  ^"^  To 
understand  an  actual  situation  you  are  building  pattern  on  pattern  and 
the  further  down  you  dig.  the  more  useless  your  patterns  are  in  under- 
standing the  real  situation,  [the  "meaning"  of  the  event  to  the  people 
actually  involved  in  it.]  '''"  When  one  says  a  word,  one  is  angry,  tired, 
and  so  on  as  well  as  manifesting  a  [linguistic]  pattern.  [So  although  one 
could]  describe  the  beha\  ior  in  cultural  terms,  the  linguistic  psychologist 
[must  also  realize  that]  the  actual  fact  of  behavior  [is  not  governed  only 
by  them.]  Only  the  psychiatrist  can  tell  you  [about  the  rest  o\']  what  is 
actually  there. 

ck.  ri  j\^^^  anthropologist's  "culture",  then,  is  the  hierarchy  o\'  ab- 
stracted patterns  and  their  complex  interrelationships.  '*'  We  drau  these 
abstractions  from  the  behavior  of  individuals  in  social  settings.  b\ 
agreeing  on  certain  fictions  such  as  social  organization,  religion,  and  so 
on,  which  we  employ  as  hitching  posts  for  certain  beha\ior  patterns.-*' 
"•  ^''  The  cultural  [aspect]-^-  is  the  core  o(  a  beha\ ior  pattern  when  all 
the  individual  factors  and  differences  ha\c  been  taken  aua>.  A  single 
occurrence  ov  phenomenon  ma\  be  the  result  o\'  an  unlimited  number 
of  culture  patterns  -  ''''  [that  is.  it  may]  split  up  into  complicated  parti- 
cipations having  no  [obvious]  link  -  "•  ''''  and  m  taking  true  slock  o\ 
this  occurrence,  to  place  [an  action  such  as  a  glancing]  look  in  the  total- 
ity of  the  [indixiduafs]  beha\ior  and  his  relation  with  others,  all  these 
[patterns]  should  be  considered;  but  generalK  m  ethnologs  this  cannot 
be  done  and  should  not  be  [undertaken.] 

"  [Now,  it]  culture  cannot  be  seen  in  the  abstract,  but  is  given  in  the 
forms  of  behavit^r.  the  sum  t)f  which  make  culture,  then  ''  ^^  the  locus 
of  these  [cultural]  patterns  where  they  reside  [is  problematic:]  sou 
cannot  actually  locate  a  pattern  in  time  or  space.  '''*''''^  We  shall  take 
language  as  our  example.  Language  is  a  very  ix-culiar,"*'  even  paradoxi- 


456  fJf  Culture 

cal.  thing  because,  on  the  face  o^  it,  it  is  one  of  the  most  patterned,  one 
of  the  most  culturahzed.  of  habits,  yet  that  one,  above  all  others,  which 
is  supposed  capable  of  articulating  our  inmost  feelings.  The  very  idea 
of  going  to  the  dictionary  in  order  to  find  out  what  we  ought  to  say  is 
a  paradox.  What  wo  "ought"  to  say  is  how  we  spontaneously  react,  and 
how  can  a  dictionary  -  a  storehouse  of  prepared  meanings  -  tell  us 
how  wc  arc  spontaneously  reacting?  Everyone  senses  the  paradoxical 
about  the  situation,  and  of  course  the  more  of  an  individualist  he  is, 
the  more  he  proclaims  the  fetish  of  "preservation  of  his  personality," 
the  less  patience  he  has  with  the  dictionary.  The  more  conformist  he  is, 
the  more  he  thinks  that  people  should,  by  whatever  ethical  warrant  you 
like,  be  what  society  wishes  them  to  be,  the  more  apt  he  is  to  consult 
the  dictionary.  Language,  then,  suggests  both  individual  reality  and  cul- 
ture; [so  it  would  be  absurd  to  say  that  language  is  located  in  the  dictio- 
nary. The  dictionary  is  merely  an  object,  a  thing  that  symbolizes  lan- 
guage with  respect  to  a  certain  value  situation  -  in  which  the  patterns 
of  language  intersect  with  the  patterning  of  authority.]'*'*  ^^  The  dictio- 
nary is  an  example  of  the  cultifying  of  a  certain  type  of  [linguistic] 
behavior;  it  takes  a  normative  point  of  view,  ascribing  value  [to  certain 
linguistic  acts].  [That  is,  the  dictionary,  as  a  concrete  object,  is  not  lan- 
guage, but  merely  an  expression  of  the  patterning  of  authority  with 
respect  to  linguistic  behavior.] 

ck.  ri  Pqj.  ^j^g  anthropologist,  culture  is  a  conception,  not  a  reality. 
And  it  is  not  a  closed  field;  there  are  always  new  patterns  [intersecting 
whichever  one  we  happen  to  have  focused  attention  upon].  ''  [Consider, 
for  instance,  the  expression,]  "thank  you,"  [spoken  at  the  end  of  a] 
dinner  [party.  Analysis  of  the  patterns  in  which  this  expression  takes 
part  would  not  be  limited  to  those  represented  in  a  dictionary  of  Eng- 
lish, but  would  include  the  system  of]  sounds,  the  characteristic  order 
of  sounds,  and  the  grammar;  [the  relation  of  "thank  you"  to  other] 
symbols  of  politeness,  [at  dinners  or  elsewhere];  the  [placement  of  these 
symbols  in  relation  to]  the  dinner's  symbolism  of  courses,  [their]  prepa- 
ration, [and  their  sequence;]  the  type  of  meeting  [the  dinner  party  repre- 
sents, as  compared  with  other  types  of  social  gathering;  and  so  forth]. 
""^  Thus  the  realm  of  culture  is  always  widening. 

''  [In  sum,]  culture  is  not  behavior;  it  cannot  be  seen.  [It  is,  rather, 
an]  abstraction  of  concepts  gained  from  experience,  ^'i  Since  the  realm 
of  "culture"  so  set  forth  is  no  naturally  established  division  of  [the  phe- 
nomena occurring  in  the]  world,  it  is  useless  to  look  for  thoroughly 
efficient  causes  within  this  cultural  universe.  The  causal  point  of  view 


Two:  The  Psvihi)loi>y  DfC'uliurc  457 

is  helptul.  i>f  course,  in  tiiuiinii  laiii)  iinitbrm  (historical)  sequences  (in 
differenl  ci\  ili/atit>ns|. '""  hul  ''  il  is  impossible  to  speak  of  cosmic  causes 
in  the  studs  olcuhure.  "  Nothini:  in  natuie  except  cuUure  itself  is  able 
to  facilitate  the  Jetlnition  of  culture. 


Dil f 'unifies  oj  the  Soc'uil  Sciences 

[The  anlhropoiogist's  difficulties  in  defining  the  concept  kA  culture, 
and  m  distinguishing  the  culluia!  from  the  social  and  biological,  are 
representative  ot]  ^''-  '^'  ^'^t-  "•  ^''"-  ''-•  "^-  '^^^-  '-•  '-•  ^^  the  difficulties  of  the 
social  sciences  in  general  ~  difficulties  they  encounter]  because  the  con- 
cept o(  culture  is  necessary  to  them  -  as  compared  with  psschoK^gs 
and  the  natural  sciences."*^'  ^''-  ''  Why  is  social  science  such  a  difllcult 
thing?  '"'  '^-  The  difficulties  [inhere  in  the]  attempt  to  understand  beha- 
vior from  the  standpoint  of  social  patterning.  [They  arise,  as  we  ha\e 
already  begun  to  see,  in  part  from  problems  of  abstraction,  and  in  part 
from]  the  essentially  arbitrary  differentia  of  the  "social"  in  the  realm  o\ 
behaxior.  '^'  Attempts  to  fit  a  science  of  culture,  concerning  relaticMis  o\' 
human  beings,  into  a  tight  scheme  as  in  the  biological  and  other  sciences 
[run  into  trouble  because]  ^''- ' '  we  do  not  ha\e  the  neat,  tight  universe 
with  certain  basic  postulations  and  clearly  definable  problems  as  the> 
have  in,  say,  physics.  '^^'^  [Physicists]  know  what  particular  corner  o\'  the 
universe  they  are  dealing  with;  [the  culturalist  does  not.  Instead,]  ''  the 
culturalist.  trying  to  abstract  those  qualities  of  total  human  beha\ior 
which  are  perduring.  cannot  be  absolutely  sure  o^  the  limits  or  bounds 
of  what  he  is  dealing  with.  "^^"^  ''  Because  culture  is  a  self-enlarging  field, 
the  culturalist  is  dealing  with  an  expanding  and  contracting  world. 

cid.  ih,  h2,  dm.  hi.  hg.  hvvw  [S(3„i^,  ^^i(  ti-,^.]  difficulties  o{  the  social  sciences. 

then,  as  compared  with   the  physical,   are  intrinsic  [to   iheir  subieci 
matter.  These  include:] 

/   ck.  c|q.  II.  12.  bu.  ti.  h2.  hi.  ih  yy,^,  cxtrcDU'  coniplcMlv  lUhl  niullipUcity  of 

all  hehavioral p/ienoniethL  whether  viewed  from  the  social  or  the  cultural 
[standpoint]. "^^  ^'"'  There  are  no  single  motivations;  [instead.)  ''  ^''"  we 
ha\e  to  deal  with  multiple  determinations  of  our  phenomena.  '^  This  is 
not  true  of  the  phssicai  wiMid.  |a!ui  it  is  ihciefore  not  unreasonable]  for 
physicists  to  be  so  interested  in  defining  [an  all-encompassing)  pattern. 
2  ck.  qc|.  ri.  h2,  hi  pIj^,  ^.ssential  uniquou'ss  ofdll  ciilturiil  plwnonienii:^^ 
([For  a  relevant  comparison,)  see  Rickert's  [discussu>nj  on  the  limits  o\ 
natural  science. )"^''  The  physicist  deals  with  a  conceptual  universe.  iu>l 


458  ^^^   Culture 

wilh  ihc  real  world  of  experience.  He  has  little  interest  in  the  particular 
events,  while  the  social  scientist  does  deal  with  specific  occurrences  in 
the  real  world  with  facts  that  are  unique.  "'  The  hurt  done  to  our 
understanding  of  these  phenomena  in  abstracting  from  their  particulari- 
ties is  not,  it  seems,  altogether  analogous  to  the  necessary  simplification 
of  experience  in  the  natural  sciences.  ''  We  cannot  have  the  100%  exact- 
ness o\'  the  physical  sciences,  '^-  ^^"'  [for  we  are]  never  far  removed  from 
the  accidents  o\'  history.  ''  [Instead  of  a  conceptual  universe,]  we  try  to 
deal  with  the  specific,  viewed  through  a  conceptual  [lens.]^°  ''•  ""^  The 
dilTerence  between  the  [subject  matters  of  the]  physicist  and  the  histo- 
rian or  social  scientist  is  the  difference  between  all  possible  [phenomena] 
and  all  actual  phenomena.''' 

3.  '''  /  The  faets  that  we  deal  with  in  the  social  sciences  are  also  facts 
that  require,  for  their  interpretation,]  the  concept  of  "value."  ^'  Social 
science  has  trouble  because  it  has  to  attempt  to  make  abstractions  from 
unique  phenomena,  [selected  for  the  purpose  because  they]  are  person- 
ally meaningful  to  the  scientist  and  to  science.  *'''  [For  example,]  tech- 
nology has  great  prestige  now,  [so  it  stands  out  to  the  social  scientist  as 
an  important  dimension  of  cultural  achievement;  yet  it  may  not  be  the 
most  important  achievement  of  some  other  society,  whose  accomplish- 
ments may  therefore  be  overlooked.]  Every  time  you  abstract  from  the 
cultural  [setting  toward  a]  general  [statement]  you  sacrifice  something. 

[Our  difficulty  arises,  however,  not  only  when  we  try  to  make  general- 
izations, but  at  that  earler  point  -  the  construction  of  comparisons  - 
upon  which  the  generalizations  are  based.]  '''  Owing  to  our  interest  in 
patterning,  as  well  as  [to  our]  study  of  particular  cultures,  a  comparison 
can  never  be  made  except  in  an  abstractionist  sense.  "^^^  °''  ^^-  h2.  ib,  hi,  ti, 
t2.  md.  bg  j,^  consequence,  all  classifications  in  the  cultural  domain  are 
inexact,  '^'  they  are  necessarily  relative.]  Classifications  such  as  religion, 
social  organization,  and  so  on  [do  not  have  precise  counterparts]  in  the 
primitive  mind.  Informants  do  not  see  the  validity  of  our  convenient 
conventions  for  classifying  their  culture. 

ck.  ri.  lb.  h2.  hi.  dm,  bg.  bw.  t2  [Qthcr]  difficultics  of  the  social  sciences  are 
extrinsic,  [deriving  from  qualities  of  the  observer  and  from  the  present 
inadequacies  of  pertinent  data  and  explanatory  tools]: 

/  ri.  ck.  qq,  r2.  oi  Oifficultics  of  obscrvation.  ^'  [Just]  what  behavior  is  to 
be  observed,  so  that  the  cultural  [pattern]  can  be  abstracted  from  it? 
[For  instance,  one  may  observe  someone  making]  involuntary  sounds; 
these  are  behavior,  but  they  are  not  [relevant  to]  cultural  patterns.  [Now, 
since  it  is]  physically  impossible  to  see  everything,  [we  have  to  make 


Two:  The  Psyclwltt^y  of  Culiitri'  459 

our]  '''  obscrxalions  uiih  iclcrciicc  lo  |sonicJ  criteria,  ''•'  and  ihc  iincsli- 
galor  [can  rarcl\  escape]  the  preeiMieej^lions  that  are  clue  lo  one's  origi- 
nal conditioning  and  cultural  bias,  ^k-^'"-  ^^^-  '*^-  *^-  [Thus  soniej  dilUcullies 
of  observation  are  due  to  the  investigator's  unconscious  projection  o\' 
his  own  cultural  patterns,  with  all  attendant  meanings.  ''  This  is  a  ps\- 
chialnc  tendency,  rooted  in  egocenliisin  and  the  tendenc\  to  read  one- 
self into  one's  en\ironnient.  "  ''''  for  one  [nalurall\  takes]  more  interest 
in  what  pertains  to  oneself;  so  obser\ations  are  distcHted.  tending  to  be 
colored  b\  the  obser\er"s  own  ego  and  b>  what  is  to  his  own  interest 
or  advantage.  ^"^  [When,]  for  example,  Mr  Smith  overhears  "Mr  Seers  is 
a  damn  fool"  as  "Mr  Smith  is  a  damn  fool."  Jhe  ilkislrales]  the  dilllcul- 
ties  of  obser\ation  that  are  due  to  the  fact  thai  we  ha\e  an  interest  in 
seeing  things  differently. 

■'  [Projection  comes  from  the  simultaneous  existence  ot]  two  tenden- 
cies in  oneself:  insecurit\  and  doubt  about  one's  own  ability,  yet  [at  the 
same  time]  a  mad  hope  that  one  is  able  [after  all.  The  result  is]  a  ten- 
dency to  read  another  society  from  one's  own  experience,  in  the  light 
of  its  prc^jection  of  one's  favorite  meanings  into  societx.  "  Knowledge 
and  reasoning  [are  simply]  more  readily  applied  to  things  with  which 
the  observer's  culture  makes  him  more  or  less  familiar.  ''*•'•  ''  The  sheer 
diftlculty  o'i  making  observations  [by  an\  more  ob)ecti\e  procedure 
makes  this  process  of  prc^jeclion  all  the  more  likely  to  occur]. ""- 

2  qq.  ri.  ck.  o\.  11.  t2.  bw  jf^^,  (jiffjculfics  of  lustoricul  reconstruction  and 
interpretation.  ^''"-  '^-  '^'-  ''-•  ^^  [Our  information  concerning]  social  phe- 
nomena comes  to  us  not  all  at  one  time  but  at  different  historical  levels, 
as  memories,  documents,  opinions,  [and  so  on,]  evidence  that  has  to  be 
sifted,  '*'"  for  it  is  notoriously  fallacious.  '•'•  '"  '''  [Besides  the  possibility 
that  some  o\'  this  "evidence"  mav  have  lo  be  discarded  allogeiher.)  the 
historical  reconstruction  of  cultural  data  mvoKes  a  process  of  interpola- 
tion, of  drawing  connections;  '"^  in  historical  reconstruction  vini  are 
imagining  nexuses  and  connecting  ihem.  |ln  this  priKcss]  \se  are  alwavs 
dealing  with  interpretations,  because  it  is  hard  \o  know  what  lo  y\o  with 
our  materials  [otherwise].  ''  liilcrpi elation  is  difficult,  however,  because 
its  criteria  are  unevaluated.  Inlerpolatu^n  makes  for  a  riskv  reconstruc- 
tion, '"''  because  o{  the  subjectiv itv  o\'  the  interpretations  (iu\ess.ii\  f»>r 
it.]^^ 

^     il.  qq.  ck.  r2.  ol.  hi.  Ih.  1.2.  dm.  h^.  il.  (2.  Inv     yy,^.   ^/„■,„J,^    patHltV  Oj   dllUl 

at  one's  disposaL  and  those  data  not  all  of  ecjual  value.  [One  reason 
interpolation  becomes  necessary  is  the  scarcity]  o)^  materials  in  both 
ethnology  and  history.  '•''  Here  anthropi>logy  has  a  sjx'cial  dilTiculty.  (as 


460  ///  Ciilfurc 

compared  with  the  other  social  sciences.]  ■■'  Our  data  are  unequivalent; 
the  materials  arc  in  fragmentary  condition,  and  in  unequal  assemblages, 
^•^  [so  that  what  material  we  have]  is  not  all  equally  [useful  or  impor- 
tant]. '-  [To  try  to  infer  pattern  from  a]  paucity  of  facts  [is  obviously 
risky,  since]  one  [new]  fact  may  overthrow  the  whole  pattern.  ^-  Many 
important  generalizations  [that  have  been  made  have  been]  based  on 
very  little  material,  "  by  a  [sort  of]  pyramiding  of  implications;  but 
although  far-reaching  conclusions  can  be  made  [in  this  way,]  they  are 
not  entirely  satisfactory."""^ 
^    .1.  ck.  r2.  oi.  h2.  bg.  hi.  dm.  lb.  ti.  t2.  bw  Uncertainty  with  regard  to  the 

interpretation  of  object ive  social  data.  ^'^'  '^'  Inadequacies  in  the  data  and 
in  [our]  objective  judgement  of  them  can  be  partly  corrected  by  statisti- 
cal methods,  '•'"•  ''• "'"'  but  these  sometimes  lead  to  a  spurious  accuracy, 
ti.  t2.  bw  Because  [we  feel]  we  must  be  accurate,  we  limit  ourselves  to 
[considering]  those  phenomena  which  are  capable  of  finite  formulation 
and  accuracy;  and  so  the  whole  is  colored  by  over-accuracy  and  thus 
over-emphasis  on  certain  phenomena,  others  being  relegated  to  the 
background.  "  Exact  statistics  on  inexact  subjects  are  misleading.  ^^  If 
you  do  not  have  a  correct  pattern  in  mind,  the  results  are  of  no  use. 
Statistics  are  a  way  of  manipulating  figures;  they  are  not  a  methodol- 
ogy, for  you  only  get  out  of  statistics  what  you  put  in.  ^^  They  can  tell 
you  a  lot  about  the  occurrences  of  a  pattern  without  telling  [you  any- 
thing about]  the  meaning  of  the  pattern.  "^^  [Just  as]  a  hammer  is  not 
architecture  -  it  is  a  tool  -  [so  statistics  must  not  be  expected  to  con- 
struct meanings  on  their  own  accord]. 
5  ck.  ri.  qq.  r2.  lb.  bg.  ti.  t2.  bw,  hi, dm.  h2  jy^^  extrcme  Uncertainty  pervading 

t lie  field  of  psychology,  which  would  be  such  a  great  explanatory  tool 
for  social  science.  ""^  If  we  had  a  firm  psychology  which  gave  us  some 
sort  of  views  of  general  personality,  we  should  [see  a]  much  clearer 
[path]  in  the  social  sciences.  '•  At  present  psychology  is  only  theory,  •''' 
"  and  in  its  extreme  uncertainty  and  insufficiency  it  fails  us.  ""^  It  is 
difficult  for  psychology  to  treat  the  individual  as  a  member  of  society, 
so  it  tries  to  handle  problems  [pertaining  to]  the  isolated  individual. 
[Bui  between  the  individual  and  society]  there  is  no  such  chasm. 

[Lacking  a  sufficient  contribution  from  the  field  of  psychology  itself, 
the  various  social  sciences  have  resorted  to  psychological  pictures  of 
their  own,  since]  '^-'^^^  every  fragmentary  science  of  man,  such  as  eco- 
nomics or  political  science  or  aesthetics  or  linguistics,  needs  at  least  a 
minimum  set  of  assumpfions  about  the  nature  of  man  in  order  to  house 
the  particular  propositions  and  records  of  events  which  belong  to  its 


7»i(>.   The  Pswholo^y  of  Culture  461 

.selected  ckMiiain.  '''  |\Vitlu)iil  a  solid  set  iW  iieiieralizations  about  aclual 
luiiiian  beings,  we  ilescrihe  iheir)  ee|ui\alenls.  seeking  \o  explain  [hu- 
man] behavior  (in  terms  (-){'  the  supposed  psychological  characteristics 
ot]  the  "economic  man."  "the  religious  man."  or  "the  gi^ll'-playing 
man."  These  are  convenient  fictions,  (but  the>  are  only  fictions  and 
ought  to  be  recognized  as  such.  There  is  no  "economic  man";)  there 
are.  rather,  certain  individuals  performing  these  roles. 

(in  the  construction  of  such  fictional  psychologies]  '''^''"^^  the  theology 
of  economics  or  aesthetics  or  of  any  other  ordered  science  of  man 
weighs  just  as  heavily  on  us,  whether  we  know  it  or  not,  as  the  out- 
moded theologies  of  gods  and  their  worshippers.  Not  for  t)ne  single 
moment  can  we  allow  ourselves  to  forget  the  experienced  unity  oi  the 
individual.  '*'"  The  "common  man"  is  a  fiction,  (and  so  is  his  relevance 
to  cultural  patterns;  actuallv.]  the  more  you  try  to  understand  individ- 
uals the  more  what  vou  ruled  out  as  irrelevant  to  the  pattern  becomes 
important.  '''  The  work,  of  the  pure  ethnologist  is  the  study  o^  patterns; 
[in  our  attempt  to  explain  them.]  the  great  danger  is  that  we  become 
quasi-psychologists. 

'''  [Now  in  lamenting  the  lack  o'i  a  psychology  truly  worthy  o\'  the 
name,  I  do  not  wish  to  suggest  that  the  study  of  culture  can  be  reduccti 
to  individual  psychology.]  Cultural  "levels  of  discourse"  are  not  sirictlv 
congruous  with  psychological  ones,  (any  more  than  with  the  biological.] 
^''  The  psychological  problem  [of  the  locus  of  culture]  is  still  there,  but 
it  is  a  fallacy  to  localize  it  in  the  individual  mind.  ''  Indeed,  it  is  a 
psychological  fallacy  to  localize  (all]  behavior  in  the  individual  alone, 
[for]  behavior  patterns  always  involve  more  than  one  [person]  ''^''  [if 
we  want  to  understand  individual]  psychology  (from  the  pattern  point 
of  view  we  have  to]  enlarge  the  individual,  [so  to  speak,]  ic>  meet  the 
[others  with  whom  he  is  in]  contact.  (Similarly,  to  understand  the  psy- 
chological dimension  o\'  culture  patterns  one  must]  prune  the  social 
toward  the  coalescence  (of  interacting]  individuals  [for  whom  behavior 
has  meaning. ]^^  "  The  actual  locus  of  culture  is  to  be  found  not  in  the 
whole  nor  in  the  individual. 

[Incidentally,  the  problem  o\'  the  locus  of  culture  does  not  trouble  an 
anthropologist  like  Radcliffe-Brown  who  takes  a]  '''•  '*'"  functionalist 
approach,  for  the  functionalist  believes  that  the  ke\  to  the  understand- 
ing of  behavior  lies  onlv  iii  the  studv  of  the  relations  of  patterns.  But 
the  patterns  which  the  function.ilist  deals  with  are  in  themselves  abslrac- 
I  tions;  [it  is  an  error  to  confuse  them  with]  the  behavu>r  o\'  individuals.^" 
I       There  is  no  philosophical  justification  for  a  study  o)^  behavior  in  refer- 


462  11^  C'ulnnv 

cncc  to  abstraclions  [which  must  depend  on  aprioristic  conceptions. 
From  ihis  standpoini]  "^  F<adcHtTe-Brown  is  a  conceptuaHst;  and  "'  all 
strictly  conceptual,  (or  aprioristic]  definitions  of  culture  are  falla- 
cious/' 

(I  do  not  think  \vc  can  do  without  psychology  in  the  study  of  culture, 
but  It  needs  to  be  a  social  psychology,  and  of  a  special  kind.]  ^"^^-^  The 
psychology  o(  the  group  cannot  be  fruitfully  discussed  except  on  the 
basis  of  a  profounder  understanding  of  the  way  in  which  different  sorts 
o\'  personalities  enter  into  significant  relations  with  each  other  and  on 
the  basis  o\'  a  more  complete  knowledge  of  the  importance  to  be  at- 
tached to  directly  purposive-^^  as  contrasted  with  symbolic  motives  in 
human  interaction.  '*'"  A  really  fruitful  social  psychology  [does  not  se- 
lect patterns  beforehand,  on  the  basis  of  some  preconception  or  con- 
scious articulation  of  their  purpose.  Instead,  it]  throws  all  patterns  into 
a  common  pool  and  discusses  meaning  -  [their  symbolism,  and  their 
significance  for  the  individuals  interacting  by  means  of  them]  -  and 
picks  illustrations  from  the  pool.  In  that  sense  the  study  of  culture  is 
more  ramified  and  diverse  [than  the  functionalist  envisions.] 

"^"^  Now,  the  more  you  study  meanings,  the  more  you  come  back  to 
indisidual  meanings.  [Ideally,  the  psychoanalyst  should  be  able  to  help 
us  understand  what  these  might  be  about.  But  meanings  are  attached 
to  behavioral  forms,  and]  '^'  the  psychoanalyst  is  in  no  position  to  tell 
us  what  is  behind  the  forms  of  behavior.  In  reference  to  individual 
meanings,  then,  we  are  driven  to  study  culture. ^^ 

[In  short,  being  a  social  scienfist  is  not  an  easy  task.]  ^^  Those  who 
study  socialized  behavior  [face  some]  obvious  and  unanswerable  criti- 
cism which  they  must  be  hard-boiled  enough  to  resist.  [Rather  than 
giving  in  to  quasi-psychologizing  or  to  misleading  statistical  exercises, 
they  must  keep  their  sights  firmly  focused  on  the  need  to]  study  the 
essential  nature  of  human  interrelafions  in  evaluated  situations,  and  the 
meanings  -  for  the  individual  of  course  -  of  the  patterns  which  culture 


recognizes.^"  '"'^  [That  is  to  say,]  the  field  of  understanding  of  sociologi- 
cal human  behavior  is  difficult,  and  we  must  resist  the  objective  of 
refinement  of  technique.  We  cannot  use  the  refined  methods  of  statistics 
because  we  don't  know  what  to  do  with  them.  But  we  cannot  wait  until 
our  data  are  so  carefully  sifted  as  to  be  all  [entirely  suitable^'  for  statisti- 
cal applications.  Perfect  objectivity  would  doubtless  be  a  good  thing, 
but  we  can't  have  it;  and]  if  we  can't  have  a  good  thing  we'll  have  [to 
make  do  with]  a  bad  one. 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  Culture  463 

•^•"^  Since  c\cn  naliiral  science  is  i)nl\  lulhoc  antl  subjecl  lo  change.  '** 
anthropology  shcnikl  nol  be  worried  about  wliether  it  is  an  "exact" 
science;  it  is  a  disciphne  sni  generis.  '"''  We  are  interested  ni  the  meanings 
for  the  individual  of  the  patterns  which  culture  recDuni/es.  Antl  this  is 
a  bastard  field. 


Editorial  Note 

This  chapter  is  drawn  from  notes  of  Oct.  19  (second  half  of  the  lec- 
ture), Oct.  26,  and  Nov.  2,  1936;  Oct.  17  (second  half)  and  Oct.  24. 
1935;  and  Oct.  24,  1933.  It  corresponds  to  Chapter  1  of  Sapir's  own 
Outline.  Although  there  is  considerable  overlap  in  content  among  the 
three  years'  lectures,  Sapir  seems  to  have  followed  his  Outline  less 
closely  in  1936.  The  epistemological  problems  discussed  in  this  chapter 
were  approached  from  somewhat  different  angles  in  the  three  dilTerent 
versions  of  the  course,  and  these  shifts  create  some  difficulties  for  the 
reconstruction. 

In  1935  and,  especially,  in  1936,  Sapir  seems  to  have  focused  his 
argument  much  more  closely  on  the  concerns  o'i  anthropology  as  a 
discipline  than  he  had  done  in  1933,  when  the  discussion  was  somewhat 
more  diffusely  oriented  to  the  social  sciences  in  general.  It  was  in  1933 
that  Sapir  went  into  most  detail  about  the  ambiguities  in  the  concept 
of  the  "social,"  while  in  1935-6  he  focused  on  methodological  difllcul- 
ties  in  ethnography;  and  in  1936  he  added  a  section  on  "criteria  for 
culture"  that  provides  a  more  constructive  anthropological  anchor  for 
his  epistemological  critique  than  he  had  previously  given.  Joining  these 
discussions  together  in  the  reconstructed  text,  howe\er.  creates  an  ap- 
pearance of  repetitiveness  in  the  reconstruction  that  is  not  actualK  true 
of  any  one  version  of  the  course. 


Notes 

1.  See  the  discussion  of  "drift"  in  Sapir's  Lan\nui\ic  ( 1^>2I ) 

2.  Tl  has  "accidental  or  conditioned  continuities." 

3.  BW  actually  has:  "Maybe  pagent  just  because  excise  many  adherents  -" 

4.  BW  actually  has:  "(historical  &  social  as  apart  iiuli\  his  definition  -  but  may  be  - 
metaphorical  note,  cannot  be  isolated)" 

5.  BW  has  "have." 

6.  It  is  unclear  why  the  C  K  notes  contrast  ■\shat  you  arc  gomg  lo  abstract  from  obMrrvi- 
tion"  with  "behavior  patterns."  Perhaps  the  contrast  here  should  rcallv  be  bclv^ccn  ohser- 
vation  and  puttcrn,  to  be  more  consistent  with  the  rest  o(  the  argument 


464  If  I   Culture 

7.  The  wording  of  iho  bracketed  passage  is  based  on  similar  statements  in  Sapir  1934a< 

1938c.  and  1939c. 

8.  The  passage  in  Rl.  in  stenographer's  shorthand,  is  difficult  to  decipher.  It  seems  to  say, 
"analysis  of  what  ('.']  culture  made  [?]  system  of  patterns". 

9  C'K  has  "Anth.  not  interested  in  behavior,  but  in  the  forms  of  behavior."  R2  has:  "He 
IS  mlcresled  in  the  Held  of  behavior,  not  in  behavior."  Rl  has:  "No  interest  in  behavior 
-  interest  in  the  field  o'i  behavior  /  From  the  study  of  forms..." 

10.  Dorsey  1903. 

n.  The  text  here  is  almost  illegible.  It  could  equally  well  read,  "because  they  aren't  like  our 
own  culture,"  but  1  think  that  reading  less  likely. 

12.  CK  has  a  passage  here  which  I  have  drawn  upon  earlier:  "Criteria.  Tylor's  definition  of 
culture  has  outlived  its  usefulness,  merely  helps  to  orient  you,  it  doesn't  go  very  deep." 
Rl  has:  "Criteria  of  culture.  Tylor  [?]"  (this  last  is  in  shorthand). 

13.  This  last  passage  is  in  shorthand.  Decipherment  of  the  word  "versatility"  is  questionable. 

14.  For  a  somewhat  similar  discussion  see  Sapir's  1932  encyclopedia  article  on  "Group," 
with  its  argument  that  "the  dilTiculty  of  deciding  whether  the  group  or  the  individual  is 
to  be  looked  upon  as  the  primary  concept  in  a  general  theory  of  society  is  enhanced  by 
fatal  ambiguities  in  the  meaning  of  the  term  group."  The  article  goes  on  to  make  a 
"distinction  between  physical  proximity  on  the  one  hand  and  the  adoption  of  a  symbolic 
role  on  the  other.  Between  the  two  extremes  comes  a  large  class  of  group  forms  in  which 
the  emphasis  is  on  definite,  realistic  purpose  rather  than  on  symbolism.  The  three  major 
classes  of  groups  are  therefore  those  physically  defined,  those  defined  by  specific 
purposes  and  those  symbolically  defined." 

15.  Tl  has:  "'Social'  the  word  SWELL  is  bad  because  referred  to  group."  BW  has:  "social 
dictum,  should  not  say  swell  -  antisocial  on  other  hand  if  it  is  the  usage  &  use  —  idea 
constructs". 

I  ft.  The  five-fold  distinction  made  here  occurs  only  in  the  1933  notes.  I  find  it  to  be  not  fully 
consistent  with  the  1935  and  1936  discussions,  where  Sapir  seems  to  identify  "culture" 
more  clearly  with  his  second  sense  of  "social"  (as  involving  social  sanction  and  a  social 
frame  of  reference;  see  the  "criteria  for  culture"  section  in  later  pages). 

17.  LB  places  this  example  under  (2). 

18.  The  reference  may  be  to  a  ceremony  among  certain  Iroquoian  peoples. 

19.  i.  e.,  without  implying  awareness  of  that  organization  or  ideas  about  it,  on  the  part  of 
the  people  so  organized. 

20.  i.  e.,  sociology. 

21.  The  explanation  of  these  rubrics  is  somewhat  obscure.  It  is  unlikely  that  Sapir  meant  to 
exclude  the  ethical,  the  sociological,  and  the  psychological  from  his  concept  of  culture 
or  from  the  discipline  of  anthropology.  What  is  more  likely  is  the  suggestion  that  each 
discipline  has  used  the  term  "social"  with  a  special  emphasis. 

22.  LB  adds  "the  'humane'." 

23.  BW  adds:  "introspection,  psych,  not  evaluate  as  concerns  indiv,  not  concerned  by  hist". 
Sapir  was  referring  to  behaviorist  psychology  before;  perhaps  he  now  added  something 
to  the  effect  that  introspectionist  psychology  also  does  not  share  the  special  difficulties 
the  social  sciences  have. 

24.  DM  has:  "with  social  pattern  of  the  ethnological." 

25.  The  point  made  in  the  bracketed  passage  is  supported  not  only  by  the  logic  of  the 
argument  but  by  SE:  "We  often  know  culture  before  we  attempt  to  find  out  about  it.  A 
clean  unpresupposing  attitude  may  not  be  able  to  succeed.  Always  a  conduct  [concept?] 
is  presupposed." 

26.  DM  actually  has:  "However  there  are  universal  meanings  -  as  diffusion  of  Christianity." 

27.  Bg  actually  has  "behaviorist."  I  have  altered  the  text  because  Sapir's  usage  of  "behavior" 
and  "behaviorist"  seems  to  conform  only  in  part  to  the  usage  a  modern  reader  would 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  Culiurc  465 

idcntitN  with  the  bcha\K>riNt  psychology  of  Watson  and  Skinner  Sapir's  "bchavionst" 
shares  with  ihoiii  an  emphasis  on  uhal  is  empirically  observable,  but  dinrs  not  nccn&anly 
share  their  physiological  explanation  for  it. 
2S.  i.  e  .  the  individual  acts  from  personal  motives,  not  in  order  to  actualize  a  pattern 

29.  Although  the  note-takers  do  not  actually  include  the  statement  made  m  the  bracketed 
passage,  it  seems  the  only  way  to  make  sense  o^  the  juxtaposition  of  comments  about 
the  cultural  role  of  terminology,  first  concerning  the  »)hser\er\  i>un  termmology  and 
then  concerning  terms  and  language  in  the  systems  one  studies. 

30.  T2  actually  has  "determining." 

31.  The  bracketed  material  comes  from  an  analogous  example  in  SF:  "Disimction  bet\\een 
culture  and  actual  behavior.  A  set  of  pueblo  pots  studied,  if  (one  wants  to|  understjand) 
historical  signiilcance  of  these  pots  one  must  study  similar  wares  from  (the  surrtiundmg) 
neighborhood  and  thereby  arrive  at  a  sequence  ol"  culture.  Tins  method  [o\  stud)  J  ex- 
plains method  used  by  Zuni  to  make  these  pots  (i.  e.,  it  distinguishes  their  methixl  from 
that  of  other  pueblo  peoples].  On  the  other  (hand]  one  might  study  the  psychological 
behavior  of  maker,  and  understand  the  background  u hich  caused  the  man  to  work  in 
this  way." 

32.  This  passage  is  based  on  a  concluding  note  in  B\\;  "Fetishism  h.iir  >>•"  K-l.'\ed. 
.Anthrop.  emphasis,  mistake." 

33.  DM  adds:  "Tlie  psychologists  may  have  to  blow  up  these  patterns  because  oi  sjmbol- 
ism." 

34.  It  may  be  questionable  to  connect  the  Outline's  point  about  cultural  relativity  with  the 
1936  lecture's  point  about  criteria  of  value.  1  have  done  so  on  the  basis  of  Sapir's  empha- 
sis elsewhere  on  value  in  the  sense  of  a  culture's  particular  ideology. 

35.  It  is  not  clear  whether  the  word  "societal"  in  00 's  1936  notes  reflects  the  precise  defini- 
tion Sapir  had  gi\en  this  term  in  1933. 

36.  BW  has  "Debussy?". 

37.  The  text  actually  has  "behavioristic."  See  note  27,  this  chapter,  on  this  term 

38.  Rl  actually  has  "historical  procedure  of  patterning." 

39.  This  statement  comes  from  Siskin's  notes  on  Sapir's  1935  course.  "Methods  and  Prob- 
lems of  Anthropology."  The  notes  continue:  "Unconsciousness  in  nati\e  of  systems  and 
facts  of  own  culture,  that  we  know  systematically:  kinship  system." 

40.  CK  actually  has:  "Minimum  of  form  in  language  implies  a  maximum  of  miplication  " 
RI  has:  "Speech  -  limitation  of  form  =  maximum  of  implication"  ("meaning"  is  crossed 
out).  It  is  not  clear  just  what  Sapir  meant  here.  I  ha\e  interpreted  the  passage  as  ha\ing 
something  to  do  with  pragmatic  implicalion.  and  whether  a  sfvaker  relies  on  contextual 
cues  as  opposed  to  supplying  verbal  specifics  and  elaborations;  but  this  interpretation  is 
somewhat  dubious. 

41.  BW  adds  here:  "objecti\ism  at  mercy  of  words.  Must  abstract  core." 

42.  Tl  actually  has  "the  cultural  whole."  but  this  does  not  seem  to  make  sense  Perhaps 
what  Sapir  said  was  the  "cultural  hole"  that  is  left  after  all  the  indi\idual  factors  arc 
removed. 

43.  The  text  -  a  transcript  from  an  oral  presentation  -  has;  "Language  is  a  \erN  somewhat 
peculiar,  even  paradoxical,  thing..." 

44.  The  bracketed  passage,  as  well  as  the  subsequent  two  sentences,  come  from  Rl  and 
SI.  R I  has:  "Locus  of  patterns  -  where  ^So  they  reside  /  auihorits  a  pattern  /  dictionary 
-  example  of  cultifying  [?]  of  a  certain  type  of  behavior  /  normative  point  of  \io*  / 
ascription  of  value."  SI,  in  a  different  lecture  (Jan.  23.  19.U).  has  "Culture  cannot  be 
defined  in  terms  of  things  ("lists")  or  overt  patterns...  Culture  defined  as  uihtcd  kmtis  of 
aciivitliw.  Value  situations  symholizcil  b>  objects,  things,  (^bu  do  not  define  culture  by 
naming  objects.)" 


466  ^^^   Culture 

45.  It  is  not  entirely  obvious  what  Sapir  was  getting  at  here.  Perhaps  no  comparison  of 
dilTcrcnt  civilizations  was  intended. 

46.  Only  the  Outline,  card  2,  explicitly  distinguishes  psychology  from  the  social  sciences  in 

this  way. 

47.  Bg  has.  instead:  "We  are  trying  to  understand  behavior  from  culture  patterns,  which  is 
nigh  impossible."  HI  has:  "Behavior  -  the  complexity  and  multiple  determination  of 
behavior  ah.siruiicJ  from  cultural  settings./  b.  point  of  attack.  (Linguistics)  Multiple 
determination  /  (Religion)  -  various  interpretations." 

48.  H2  adds:  "This  doesn't  bother  a  functionalist." 

49    H.  Rickert.  Die  Grcnzcn  tier  Naturwissenschaftlichen  Begriffsbildung,  Tubingen,  1902  (772^' 
Umitiitums  of  Forming  Scicniific  Concepts.  Published  in  several  editions;  5th  ed.  1929.) 
5(J.  The  text  reads,  "viewed  through  a  conceptual  viewpoint." 

51.  T I  adds:  "i.  e.  limitations  of  time  and  space."  CK  has:  "Scientist  interested  in  conceptual- 
izing the  universe  and  he  has  to  let  time  come  in." 

52.  Sapir  apparently  gave  examples  of  observational  problems,  or  observer  bias,  in  ethnogra- 
phy. LB  mentions  "potlach."  while  HI  adds  "as  in  our  evaluation  of  games."  It  is  not 
clear  what  Sapir  actually  said  in  these  regards. 

53.  Tl  has:  "relative  stratigraphy  is  hard  to  obtain  due  to  personal  factor  of  examinee  and 
his  reinterpretation  due  to  geographical  distribution." 

54.  In  1935  Sapir  apparently  gave  an  illustration  from  the  ethnography  of  North  America, 
and  its  reliance  on  the  culture  of  memory.  BW  has:  "Paucity  of  material  -  do  they  live 
up  to  culture?  Did  whites  upset?  Is  it  ideal?" 

55.  See  Sapir  1998b.  and  "Group"  (1932b). 

56.  HI  has:  "The  functionalist  deals  with  patterns  which  in  themselves  are  abstractions  (A 
R  Brown).  It  is  the  study  of  behavior  of  individuals  (Sapir)  vs.  the  study  of  patterns 
(functionalism)." 

57.  H 1  refers  again  to  the  contradictory  notion  of  the  "religious  psychologist". 

58.  Note  that  elsewhere  in  the  volume  Sapir  connects  "functionalism"  with  a  too  heavy 
explanatory  reliance  on  conscious  purposivity.  See  ch.  4. 

59.  See  Sapir  1998b  for  a  similar  argument. 

60.  H2  adds:  "If  a  certain  pattern  is  the  solution  of  a  conflict,  then  it  will  embody  forever 
the  terms  of  that  conflict;  that  conflict  will  be  inherent  in  it.  Relatively  few  patterns  do 
not  embody  a  conflict."  It  is  not  clear  whether  this  passage  is  an  elaboration  of  "the 
meanings  for  the  individual  of  the  patterns  which  culture  recognizes,"  or  whether  it 
belongs  with  the  next  class  session.  The  "conflict"  is  presumably  a  conflict  within  the 
personality,  as  discussed  in  the  chapter  on  individual  adjustment. 

61.  MD  actually  has  "100%  OK." 


Chapter  3.  Causes  of  Ciiluire 

r2.  ri.  qci.  ck  What  causes  culuirc'.'  '^  The  ciiicslioii  cannoi  he  answered 
unless  you  accept  Kroeber's  concept  o\'  the  Superorganic:  (it  docs  not 
make  sense,  at  least  as  thus  phrased,  in  the  Hght  of  the  \ie\v  of  cuhurc 
presented  here  -  that]  ''  cukure  is  something  we  abstract  from  behav- 
ioral phenomena.  [Moreover,  to  phrase  the  question  in  terms  of 
multiple]  •■''"•  "^'  determinants  of  culture,  or  ^^  criteria  for  the  determina- 
tion of  culture,  [will  not  solve  our  problem.]  ^^-  ^'  On  examination,  we 
shall  find  that  what  we  consider  to  be  criteria  for  the  determination  o\' 
culture  are  in  themselves  selectively  cultural. 

^^  This  [problem  of  criteria  selection]'  at  once  arises  when  it  is  a 
question  o\^  comparing  cultural  elements  o\^  two  differcnl  ciillures.  "*"' 
The  very  thing  that  you  are  comparing  people  for  will  not  stay  put  - 
even  your  table  of  contents  shifts  and  varies  and  metamorphoses  w  ith 
different  cultures.  The  task  seems  easier  than  it  is.  because  we  ha\e 
preferred  values  and  project  the  importance  of  [those  aspects  of  culture 
that  are  significant]  for  us,  such  as  music,  onto  the  HottenlcM.  ^^  For 
example,  a  high  development  of  music  in  one  culture  may  not  be  stricil> 
comparable  to  music  in  another  culture:  a  logical  comparison  should 
be  with,  say,  a  high  development  of  etiquette  in  the  second  culture.  ''"^ 
Thus  it  might  be  possible  in  some  cultures  to  be  as  cticiuette-ali\e  vis  wc 
are  music-ali\e,  and  a  man  might  well  be  an  artisl  \n  manners  who 
might  stress  and  nuance  the  factors  oi'  etiquette  as  nicel\  and  as  deli- 
cately as  Kreisler  manipulates  the  violin.  "''  Artistic  accomplishments  are 
possible  in  etiquette  as  in  music,  but  we  are  not  attuned  to  them. 

The  important  thing  is  to  beware  o\'  pri\)ecting  personal  e\aluatu>ns 
based  on  one's  own  culture  into  the  task  o(  evaluating  jusil)  another 
culture.  ^'  [We  are  too  easily  misled  b\  |  the  fallacy  of  [takmg  as]  absolute 
\alues  our  own  preferred  \alues,  such  as  the  preference  ol  mustc  ONcr 
etiquette.  Why  [do  we  have  this  preference,  answayj?  "•  ^'^  In  our  own 
culture  music  is  highly  \alued  because  it  is  so  \er>  mdixidualislic.  [ac- 
cording] prestige  to  the  individual  performer,  and  our  cullure  stresses 
individual  differences.  ''^  Yet,  in  another  culture  where  music  is  a  group 
possession  and  the  locus  of  musical  appreciation  coincides  with  the  total 


468  ^^^  Culture 

membership  o\^  the  group,  musical  evaluation  will  inevitably  be  on  a 
(JitTerent  plane  o(  appreciation.- 

(Crileria  for  culture  are  sometimes  supposed  to  be  justified  on  the 
basis  of  a  notion  ot  cultural  progress,  with  our  own  culture  representing 
a  stage  of  ad\  ancement.]  But  ^"'- ''  there  cannot  be  any  absolute  criteria 
of  progress;  to  [compare  cultures  on  such  a  scale]  would  be  to  assert 
that  we  have  such  objective,  concrete  criteria.  ^"^  Many  questions  we 
ask  about  culture  thus  are  naive  and  blind  in  that  we  think  we  are 
connected  to  a  definitely  advancing  pulse  of  onward  change. 

dm.  si  Nevertheless,  what  are  the  supposed  determinants  of  culture,  as 
they  have  been  [proposed]?"*  [Various  factors  external  to  culture  have 
been  proposed  as  possible  determinants  of  its  form,  and  it  is  worthwhile 
to  examine  the  extent  to  which  they  do  or  do  not  have  such  influence.] 


1.  '''■  ^"  Race  as  a  supposed  determinant  of  culture 

[in  previous  lectures  I  have  already  commented  on]  ^^  the  vanity  of 
the  usual  attempts  to  understand  culture  as  a  biological  concept.  [To 
understand  it]  as  a  strictly  racial  expression  [is  therefore  utterly  falla- 
cious. Still,]  ^'  race  is  much  heard  of  as  a  determinant  of  culture.  [It  is 
popularly  presumed  that]"^  ^^  cultural  achievement  can  be  correlated 
with  a  specific  racial  stock  because  '^  the  relative  ability  of  races  deter- 
mines the  forms  of  culture  possible  for  them.  ^''  ^^  [It  is  said,  for  exam- 
ple,] that  the  negro  [has  a  special  racial  ability  in]  music.  [But  such 
statements  ignore]  factors  of  culture  and  "setting,"  [though  they]  are 
the  most  important.  ^^  Linguistic  materials,  too,  cannot  be  correlated 
with  a  specific  racial  stock,  for  '^^''^  language  does  not  exist  apart  from 
culture,  that  is,  from  the  socially  inherited  assemblage  of  practices  and 
beliefs  that  determines  the  texture  of  our  Hves. 

[Let  us  try  to  be  clear,  if  brief,  about  why]  "^  race  has  no  influence  on 
culture,  [starting  with  the  assertion  that  a  "superior  race"  will  produce 
a  higher  record  of  cultural  achievement.]  "•  '^^  So  far  as  experience  goes 
we  have  no  knowledge  of  any  race  without  culture,  in  the  anthropologi- 
cal sense.  ''^' '-  [Even]  the  metaphor  of  the  accumulation  of  culture  pat- 
terns, [i.  e.  the  nofion  that  we  have  accumulated  "more"  culture  than 
the  primifives,]  is  not  really  true.  ^^'^^^  The  culture  patterns  of  primitive 
groups  are  complex,  and  their  behavior  is  just  as  conventional  as  ours. 
[Indeed,  with  regard  to  the  force  of  convention  one  could  even  say  that] 
primitive  groups  are  much  more  bound  by  culture,  and  there  is  probably 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  Culture  469 

more  fixity  to  thai  culture  than  in  the  cuUurc  of  the  ''civilized."  ^'^  Much 
of  the  history  of  the  world  is  a  process  of  loosening  up  the  feehng  of 
cultural  necessity.  Eskimo  grammar  is  much  more  complicated  than 
ours,  and  Navajo  religion  is  much  more  complicated  than  ours.  ''  But 
the  difference  in  cultures  is  one  of  degree  rather  than  kind. 

"■'  As  regards  technology,  we  evidently  have  a  greater  fund  o\'  knowl- 
edge, but  '^'•'-'''  the  average  person  in  a  primitive  group  is  more  in  touch 
with  the  totality  of  technological  knowledge  of  the  group  than  we  are. 
ck.  ri  ^^Q  share  in  many  parts  of  culture  [only]  by  having  them  available 
in  the  specialized  technological  knowledge  of  our  various  [subjgroups, 
■'  in  which  we  participate  [not  directly  but]  through  symbols.  '^^''-  ''•  ^~  So 
while  our  total  accumulation  of  cultural  goods  may  be  greater  than  that 
of  a  primitive  group,  we  as  individuals  are  not  in  touch  with  a  great 
portion  of  it.  ^-  The  actual  cultural  associations  of  an  indi\idual  in  our 
own  culture  are  no  more  than  those  in  a  primitive  culture.  ''  In  the 
psychological  sense  all  races  of  men  are  on  the  same  cultural  plane,  and 
the  primitive  is  no  closer  to  nature  than  we  are.  "^^  [The  reverse  is  nearer 
to  the  truth:  although]  the  primitive  doesn't  have  more  culture,  he  is 
more  cultured  in  the  anthropological  sense. 

[The  question  of  accumulation,  therefore,  is  easily  confused  with  a 
question  of  population  size.]  '••  ^^  The  [population]  size  o\'  the  race  is 
determinant  of  many  criteria  [of  its  cultural  achievement]:  for  example, 
if  the  United  States  had  only  half  of  its  present  population  they  could 
not  carry  on  the  present  culture.  ^~  We  couldn't  carr)  on  our  civilization 
without  great  numbers  [of  people].  [But  those  who  assert  that]  ^^  cul- 
tural achievement  can  be  correlated  with  a  specific  racial  stock** '-  leave 
out  numbers  and  then  compare  a  small  group  with  a  very  large  group. 

"  [If  you  are  looking  for]  possible  determinants  o\'  culture, '"  the 
smaller  group  is  the  best  field  for  study.  '-  [I  say  "group"  here  because 
we]  should  look  to  the  community  which  carries  the  culture,  not  to  the 
race  at  large.  ^"^-  ^^  The  community  -  the  group  which  [we  ha\e  iden- 
tified as  belonging  to]  a  race  -  is  responsible  for  culture,  not  race 
[itself;]  and  in  measuring  achievement  one  must  always  take  into  con- 
sideration the  effective  number  [of  people  needed  to  bring  about  a  par- 
ticular result,]  and  what  percentage  [of  the  community's  population  is 
effectively  [available  for  a  particular  project].  ''''  Building  a  house  with 
five  people,  and  building  it  with  five  thousand  people,  are  not  the  same 
engineering  project.  You  cannot  jump  from  race  \o  communit\  and 
from  community  to  culture. 


470  ^^^   Culture 

^"^  Let  us  assume  we  have  comparable  units,  however.  ^"^^  ^^  Then  the 
next  ditHculty  is,  what  is  the  constitution  -  the  makeup  -  of  a  race? 
[The  concept  of  race  is  based  on]  a  theory  of  racial  homogeneity  which 
is,  [actually],  just  a  theory.  ''  No  race  can  be  called  "pure";  therefore 
race  is  not  definite  enough  to  warrant  study.  ^"^  [Actually,  though  it  is 
supposed  to  be  biologically  based,  in  practice  the  concept  of]  race  is  a 
blend  o(  culture,  nationality,  and  so  on  with  the  physical.  Seizing  on 
certain  symbols  to  explain  the  differences  between  peoples,  it  [(the  con- 
cept o(  race)]  is  biology-conscious,^  although  there  is  nothing  to  sub- 
stantiate [the  predominance  of  the  physical  over  other  factors.  Indeed, 
other,  non-material  factors  once  held  more  appeal  as  predominant  sym- 
bols of  differences  between  peoples.  Today]  the  eugenicists'  idealist  bio- 
logy and  germ  plasma  have  become  what  religion  and  soul  were  [to  an 
earlier  age.  But]  because  of  evolutionary  theories  [the  religious  explana- 
tions will  not  do  for  the  eugenicists,  who]  feel  nature  is  now  going  back 
on  us  and  we  must  help  nature  [do  its  job]. 

[If  the  concept  of  race  is  so  vague,  why  then  the  plethora  of  writings 
on  the  subject?]  ''•  ^--  ^"^  Our  real  interest  in  race,  we  must  see,  is  not 
biological  but  emotional:  it  is  emotional  feehng  that  determines  [what 
group  is  considered  a]  race,  not  biological  homogeneity.^  ^"^  [This  group, 
the  "race,"]  is  [actually]  a  culture  unit,  [to  which  feeling  is  attached.] 
[Now,  "racial]  homogeneity"  is  more  determined  by  environment  than 
biology  [anyway,  because  a]  change  in  environment  [eventually  leads  to 
a]  change  in  race,  and  [because  the  "race"  may]  develop  homogeneity 
by  [the  very  thoroughness  of  its]  mixing.'^  ^^  That  is  to  say,  when  an 
intermixed  group  lives  under  certain  conditions  for  a  time,  they  will 
gain  a  certain  degree  of  homogeneity;  ^'  thus  from  the  intermixing  of 
two  or  more  "races"  will  evolve  another  "race"  -  so  where  are  you? 
[Another  difficulty  with  the  theory  of  racial  homogeneity  is  the  arbitrar- 
iness of  the  characteristics  selected  as  racial  markers  and  their  non- 
congruence  with  other  characteristics,  for]  ^"^  groups  which  seem  alike 
[in  one  respect]  often  have  grave  dissimilarities  [in  another.  You]  have 
to  know  what  makes  for  homogeneity  -  [in  what  respect  people  are 
being  judged  as  alike  -  before  you  can  look  for  its  consequences.  To- 
day] race  is  a  symbol  for  homogeneity;  [emotionally  it  seems  to  reflect] 
the  extension  of  ego  to  your  particular  group.  [The  size  and  supposed 
homogeneity  of  this  group  thus  depend  on  your  point  of  view.  Take,] 
for  example  the  history  of  the  Enghsh  ["race"  from]  prehistoric  to  mod- 
ern [times:  it  is  a  gradually  wider  extension,  incorporating  and  mixing 


Two:  The  Psvclioloiiv  ot  Culitin'  471 

ditTerent  groups  -]  Saxons,  Jules.  C'cllic  [groups],  and  No^nan^  (them- 
selves mixed). 

[But  supposing  that  distinet  "races""  could  be  defmitelv  identified.)  "' 
could  culture  elements  be  explainable  in  terms  ot  racially  determined 
psychological  determinants  [such  as  intelligence]'.'  And  as  a  corrollary: 
were  this  true,  would  it  matter'.'  If.  lor  example.  [\i>u  could  demonslrale] 
the  fact  that  a  Zuni  were  more  intelligent  than  a  Navajo,  would  you 
ha\e  the  right  to  explain  the  greater  sophistication  o\'  Zuni  clan  and 
ceremonialism,  [and  other  aspects  ol'  Zuni]  culture,  on  this  basis'.' 

ri.  r2.  ek  ^j\^q  (]ys{  problcm  is  how  we  are  to  assess  and  compare]  the 
intelligence  o\^  races,  [to  see  how  it  might  inlluence  the  le\el  of  their 
culture]."  [Here  we  must  not  confuse  the  intelligence  o\'  persons  with 
the  characteristics  o(  groups,  for]  ' '  there  is  no  relation  between  per- 
sonal intelligence  and  the  status  of  culture.  [Moreover,  we  shall  ha\e  to 
beware  of  a  serious  methodological  difficulty,  for]  '^''  you  cannot  test 
intelligence  by  [means  of]  tests  which  involve  superiority  for  a  person 
whose  cultural  experience  makes  him  familiar  with  the  subjects  under 
consideration  [in  the  test.  His  performance  will]  depend  on  his  experi- 
ence, [not  only  on  his  native  intelligence.] 

^''  [We  shall  also  have  to  distinguish]  lack  of  intelligence  from  lack 
of  emotional  participation,  [as  for  example  if  the  test]  stimulus  is  not 
relative  to  [a  person's]  experience,  or  if  he  has  some  negatix  ism  [about 
the  test.  Besides  its  connection  with  cultural  experience,  therefore,)  the 
stimulus  connects  with  a  whole  [emotional]  field  he\ond  [the  realm  o\' 
strictly]  cultural  values,  and  you  have  to  get  [some  sense  ot]  the  s\mbols 
of  participation  for  this  person,  to  back  up  your  understanding  [o(  his 
behavior  in  the  test.  Actually,  this  problem  points  to  the  fact  that  our 
notion  of  "intelligence"  is  ill-defined  and  fails  lo  recogni/e  that)  ■'^•''•ck 
there  are  two  types  of  intelligence,  and  they  are  [quite]  ditTerent:  the 
intelligence  which  insists  on  thinking  things  through  for  iMieself  [which 
we  may  call]  native  intelligence;  and  social  intelligence,  which  consists 
in  adjusting  to  social  and  cultural  pallerns.  [The  ditTerence  is  well  il- 
lustrated by]  ""^  the  psychotic,  who  is  often  alarmingly  intelligent  but 
who  applies  his  intelligence  to  problems  that  are  not  \alid.  usualK  those 
that  have  already  been  better  soKed.  ^"^  ''  Ihere  is  intelligence  involved 
in  using  cultural  forms,  but  [native]  intelligence  is  not  [what  is  ncx'essar- 
ily]  required. 

^^  Actually,  to  carry  on  a  culture,  both  intelligence  and  siupidii>  are 
needed.  "  '-  Too  much  intelligence  and  initiative  m  a  population  would 
make  the  culture  advance  too  fast,  and  ^o  beyond  the  grasp  of  ihc 


472  ^^^   Cull  lire 

majority  or  the  median  [individual]  (in  the  normal  curve  of  frequency). 
'-  Look  around  you  and  see  how  little  true  thinking  goes  on  -  for 
example,  when  a  person  presses  a  button  and  watches  a  light  go  on.  '^ 
More  intelligence  is  required  in  using  a  ["primitive"]  fire  drill  than  in 
pressing  a  button  to  turn  on  the  lights.  ^^  Turning  on  an  electric  light 
by  means  of  pressing  a  button  is  in  our  culture  an  act  of  faith.  It  does 
not  require  the  intellect  or  comprehension  of  forces  involved  that  mak- 
ing fire  by  friction  demands  of  an  individual  living  in  an  exotic  culture. 
The  so-called  primitive  will  have  a  great  knowledge  of  the  properties 
and  qualities  of  woods  and  techniques  of  manipulating  them.  We,  [on 
the  other  hand.]  may  understand  none  of  the  complexities  of  electrical 
circuits,  the  property  of  a  sub-culture  within  our  own  -  the  electricians, 
analogous  to  the  country  yokels  and  their  knowledge  of  a  [rural]  envi- 
ronment unknown  to  us  -  and  in  turn  the  electrician  may  not  be  able 
to  explain  electrical  phenomena  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  physicist.  ^^• 
"  We  as  individuals  are  not  more  intelligent  than  primitives  because  we 
make  light  by  turning  a  switch  instead  of  by  the  use  of  a  fire  drill.  That 
is  group  intelligence,  based  on  historical  factors.  *'-  ^^  It  is  not  race 
that  is  evolving,  but  culture.  The  culture  shows  "intelligence,"  not  the 
individual. 

^^  [As  the  example  of  the  light  switch  shows,  it  is  important  to]  distin- 
guish between  the  [mental]  life  of  a  culture  and  its  [technological] 
power.'-  Psychology  [as  such]  doesn't  help  you  to  understand  its  life: 
here  you  must  get  at  historical  factors.  The  intelligence  of  the  people  of 
a  group  does  not  determine  whether  it  has  a  high  or  a  low  culture;  this 
is  historically  determined.  An  individual  Oklahoma  Indian  of  low  cul- 
ture may  of  course  be  much  more  intelligent  than  an  Indian  of  a  high 
culture  such  as  the  Pueblo.  ""^  Thus  the  business  of  trying  to  estimate 
the  intelligence  of  a  group  on  the  basis  of  its  cultural  artifacts  is  on  a 
very  shaky  basis.  [And  in  any  case,]  the  anthropologist  thinks  of  the 
world  of  culture  as  not  racially  defined. 

"  [The  notion  of|  "racial  memory"  [is  another  example  of  the  confu- 
sion of  individual  psychology  with  group  affiliation,  and  of  history  with 
biology.]  "Racial  memory"  is  not  [racial  at  all;  what  is  so  labeled  is,  in] 
reality,  the  memory  of  cultural  forms  in  early  childhood  which  are  dear 
to  one.  The  fundamental  truth  [of  the  matter]  is  that  it  is  not  a  matter 
of  the  nervous  system,  but  a  matter  of  emotional  significance. 

[An  attempt  to  argue  that  race  influences  culture  through  the  opera- 
tion of  differences  in  intelligence  would  run  into  several  obstacles:]  ""^ 
( 1 )  [when  considering  race,  we  must  start  by  asking]  what  biological 


Two:  The  Tsvi/ioloi^v  of  (  uliuvc  473 

differences  are  significanl  when  ii  ccmucs  to  the  tjueslion  (.)f  abilily  lo 
adapt;  (2)  we  know  very  little  as  to  what  mental  traits  arc  associated 
with  physical  traits,  ^''  or  about  the  [psychic]  potentialities  and  abilities 
of  a  group  [(as  opposed  to  an  indi\idiiai)j;  '"^  and  (3)  the  relation  o^ 
intelligence  to  culture  is  h\  no  means  close  -  it  is  a  fast  and  loose 
relationship. 

'"  [Yet,  someone  might  contend.]  the  white  race  [has  been  responsible 
for]  an  accumulation  of  social  goods  of  a  high  order.  [If  this  is  not  due 
to]  superior  intelligence,  then  why  is  it  so?  Because  there  is  no  stable 
relationship  between  physical  natuic,  [incliidiiig  membership  in  the 
white]  race  as  such,  and  the  development  of  culture.  "  There  is  tremen- 
dous cultural  variation  in  the  same  race.  '^^'^  You  will  find  indi\iduals  in 
our  midst  who  don't  participate  in  "white"  culture;  you  will  find  seg- 
ments of  the  population  (such  as  peasant  farmers)  who  di>n"t  participate 
in  "white"  culture;  and  you  will  find  whole  groups  -  white  communities 
in  the  Caucasus  -  who  don't  participate  in  the  traits  ascribed  to 
"white"  culture.  '"  A  degree  of  parallelism  between  the  cultural  and  the 
racial  [does  exist,  but  it  is]  due  [only]  to  geographical  afllnity.  [Geo- 
graphical connections  are  also  important  in  understanding  how  it  came 
about  that  the  high  development  of  western  civilization  was  produced 
by  members  of  the  white  race]  -  '^'  the  strategic  locality  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean in  relation  to  ancient  culture  centers,  for  example.  ^^  Enough 
time  has  not  elapsed  for  us  to  rule  out  the  intlucncc  o\'  ihc  piirelN  geo- 
graphical factor  in  the  accumulation  o['  culture.  \\c  must  lun  confuse 
history  with  appraisal. 

There  is  no  correlation,  therefore,  between  race  as  such  and  the  de- 
gree of  development  of  culture  —  ^~  only  a  histi>i"icall\ -determined  asso- 
ciation. '-  ' '  Between  race  and  culture  there  is  really  a  psychological  or 
emotional  plane,  and  [it  is  here  that]  the  [only]  efTect  o\'  race  in  culture 
[might  lie].'^^ 

[Now,  I  have  already  suggested  thai  the  grouji  which  is  identified  as 
a  "race"  is  really  a  cultural  unit,  identified  on  the  basis  of  its  emotional 
significance.  But  is  there,  on  the  other  hand,  some  racial  determination 
of  emotional  tendencies?]  ''''  U  we  assume  that  psychic  qualities  follow 
in  the  wake  o^  physical  qualities,  ''^-  ■^'  [we  should  find]  an  association 
between  race  and  mental  characteristics  [(as  opposed  to  culture  itself) 
-  characteristics  such  as]  *'  temperamental  dilTerences.  .Are  there  certain 
expectations  of  temperament  to  be  looked  for  m  dilTerent  races' 

'-■''  It  is  probable  that  certain  physical  characteristics  imply  certain 
mental  characteristics.'"^  ''^-  '^- ""  ^'"'  '*'  Kreischmer's  [studies  ol]  physical 


474  ^11  Ciilmiv 

IS  pes,  [lor  example,  try  lo  give  substance  to]  the  intuitive  feeling  that 
there  in  a  relation  between  physical  constitution  and  mental  set.'^ 
["Mental  sets"  refer  primarily  to]  ''  divisions  of  an  emotional  order, 
made  by  psychiatrists,  such  as  schizoid  and  manic-depressive  -  '''  types 
o(  psychotic  behavior.  [The  validity  of  the  correlations]  is  as  yet  to  be 
determined,  '''"  but  we  must  leave  the  door  open  for  some  theory  of 
association  or  physical  type  and  psychological  difference.'^. 

^'-  f-  [Can  such  correlations  be  linked  with  race?]  Are  there,  then, 
racial  differences  in  emotional  characteristics,  or  psychic-emotional  na- 
tures'.' [Kretschmer's  subjects  all  came  from  the  same  local  population;] 
^••^  we  don'i  know  whether  the  gross  physical  differences  between  races 
are  of  the  same  order  as  differences  within  a  group.  [Mental]  tests  in 
regard  to  differences  between  races  have  been  of  an  intellectual,  not  an 
emotional,  order.  [Moreover,]  ^'  temperamental  phenomena  and  their 
various  aspects  are  capable  of  only  meager  definition,  [especially  as  ap- 
plied to  races].  That  is,  the  Negro  and  American  Indian  are  at  the  poles 
while  the  White  race  shows  no  uniform  temperamental  face  but  is  indi- 
\idually  heterogeneous.  ''•  ^-  And  as  soon  as  a  temperamental  facet  be- 
comes an  overt  behavior  trait,  such  as  using  the  hand,  then  it  becomes 
culture. 

'-  Thus  temperament  is  highly  culturalized;  but  it  may  also  be  racial. 
Personally.  I  believe'^  ^~  there  is  something  to  the  "stolidity"  of  the 
American  Indian  -  "^^  that  the  Indian  has  a  basically  different  emotional 
makeup  than  the  white  man.  (You  must  [at  least]  keep  your  mind  open 
to  possibilities.  Liberalism  with  a  closed  mind  is  as  bad  as  obscuran- 
tism.) '^^''-  "^^  Indians  have  more  of  a  diffused  than  a  concentrated  emo- 
tionality, "-"^  and  they  are  less  able  to  dissociate  emotionality  [from  its 
object].  A  purely  rational  appeal  doesn't  work  [with  them];  feelings  must 
be  involved.  ''^-  "^^  [Perhaps]'^  they  have  the  seeds  of  sentiment  more 
than  we  have,  '''  and  perhaps  on  this  basis  a  more  solid  family  hfe.  But 
as  to  whether  there  is  a  physical  basis  for  [these  aspects  of]  emotional 
life  [we  cannot  as  yet  say  -]  we  can  only  make  plausible  guesses. 

[Whatever  their  source,]  ^^  emotional  ties  and  personality  differences 
are  difficult  to  isolate  within'^  the  cultural  pattern.  We  must  deny  the 
power  of  ''"•  ^'  intelligence  and  temperament  '''  in  shaping  culture  as  a 
negative  which  we  cannot  explain,  but  admit  the  possibility  of  its  exis- 
tence to  a  degree.  [That  is,  we  must  not  discuss  these  factors]  on  a 
completely  negative  basis.^o  hi  [But  as  regards]  cultural  complexity,  it 
would  seem  that  historical  antecedents  are  determinant.  Culture  is  not 
the  immediate  expression  of  intelHgence,  race,  or  emotion,  although 


Two:  ///<   I'syc/iology  uj  Culiuiv  47<n 

these  factors  may  enter  into  its  growtli.  If  there  is  a  luntianienial  eaus- 
alit>  [in  ciihurej.  it  is  history.  [Any  other)  determinants  of  eullure  jean 
he  onK]  seei^ndarx.  All  the  cuhures  we  ha\e  studied  eome  \o  ii>  \Mih  a 
iich  eiu  ironmenlal  and  cull  in  al       in  short,  historical       background. 


2.  '"'  ///('  supposed  psycholoi^icLil  ainsiiilon  of  culture 

[  rhe  question  of  racial  causation  of  cultural  lorin  has  led  us  to  psy- 
chological causation,  through  consideration  of  intelligence  and  temper- 
ament. But]  the  sense  in  which  ps\chology  can  be  said  to  give  us  the 
causative  factors  of  culture  is  strictly  limited.  ''  The  difllculty  of  apply- 
ing psychological  criteria  to  culture  [is  a  topic  to  uhich  ue  shall  return 
at  length,  in  later  chapters.] 

''  Anthropologists  ha\e  [pointed  out  that)  '-  the  trouble  with  the 
pincK  psychological  interpretation  of  culture  is  that  it  ignores  time  and 
space.  '^^'^  If  psychologists  have  one  factor  in  common,  [it  is  that  they) 
ignore  history  or  have  a  sort  o[^  histor\  ad  hoc.  ''*■'  [Thus  e\en  such 
radically  different  psychologists  as]  Watson  and  Freud  often  lend  to 
disregard  the  time  dimension  and  talk  as  if  the  indi\idual  were  just 
about  to  create  some  cultural  phenomenon  iic  novo.  ''  [But  an\  such 
individual  has]  a  cultural  heritage;  and  culture,  [in  turn),  has  absorbed 
the  [creations  of  the]  individual.  '■'■  The  history  oi'  the  culture  is  of  great 
importance  in  interpreting  cultural  causation,  although  it  can  hardK  be 
precisely  placed  in  historical  terms. 

"■•^  To  understand  [the  individual's]  relation  to  [his  or  her)  en\ironment 
you  must  study  the  whole  mental  background,  and  the  potential  energy 
of  the  psyche,  not  [just  the]  dynamic  flow.  ''  The  subject  must  be  cultur- 
ally defined  to  be  psychologically  treated  -  '"  personalit)  must  be  de- 
fined culturally  betbre  you  talk  about  psychological  causation. 

'*'"  [It  is  true  that]  in  one  sense  all  culture  causality  is  psychological 
-  [in  that  the  individual  is  the  effecti\e  carrier  o\'  tradition]-''  '''"  '^ 
but  because  the  culturalist  abstracts  his  materials,  he  loses  touch  with 
the  reality  of  basic  psychological  functioning.  Ihen.  these  abstractions 
have  sometimes  been  iXMsonali/cd  as  a  psychi^logicalK -apposite  "da- 
tum": the  group  mind,  or  the  group  belief.  "'  When  a  pattern  is  ab- 
stracted and  becomes  [recast  as]  a  [psychological)  "problem."  il  is  a 
bogus  problem;  for  there  is  a  tendency  to  treat  abstract  patterns  as  if 
they  functioned  as  such.  [i.  c.  psychologically).  I-or  example,  [in  speak- 
ing ol]  the  fuiictuin  o\'  religiiMi.  abstract  patterns  are  shulHed  and  one 


476  III  Culture 

seeks  to  translate  [these]  patterns  into  a  psychological  situation  -  [sup- 
posedly the  "cause"  of  religion,  but  really  only]  the  social  psychologists' 
atier-ihe-e\ent  rationalization.  There  is  always  an  enormous  mass  of 
purely  historical  material  involved,  [which  they  ignore]. 

dm.'ib  In  language,  too,  this  has  taken  place.  ^'  For  example,  the  loss 
of  English  [inflectional]  forms,  etc.,  is  blamed  on  Anglo-Saxon  culture 
'^  by  psychologists  o^  language  [who  speak  of]  the  "English  mind"  and 
the  "English  language";  *'  but  it  is  to  be  truly  blamed  [only]  on  the 
usual  [process  of)  simplification  in  language.  ^^  [These  processes]  have 
no  validity  when  applied  specifically  to  persons.  ([Consider]  the  verb 
system,  with  its  [infiections  expressing]  time-sense  and  [the  actions  or 
states  ofj  individuals,  [such  as  the  5-ending  on  3rd  person  singular  pre- 
sent tense].  [That  our  verbal  inflections  have  simplified  in  these  direc- 
tions is  not  due  to  the  "English  mind,"]  but  to  historical  growth.  [The 
process  is  a  formal  one  rather  than  a  social-psychological  one,  as  we 
can  see  when  we  observe  the  existence  of  forms  violating  the  supposed 
psychology  of  time-sense  and  individualism:]  2  +  2  is  4,  she  comes  to- 
morrow.) The  child  seizes  upon  suggestions  in  language  as  absolutes;  he 
has  no  alternative  of  his  own.  So  we  can't  say  that  the  individual  neces- 
sarily participates  psychologically  in  the  extracted  "psyche"  of  the  lan- 
guage." 

"  Thus  a  psychological  attack  on  the  causative  processes  of  culture 
is  not  in  all  cases  justified.  ^^  Every  set  of  cultural  patterns  has  its  own 
psychological  goal;  and  ^'  there  are  different  levels  and  different  denom- 
inators of  the  psychological  aspect  of  culture.  That  is,  [the  psychological 
relevances  of  such  different  patterns  as]  the  language,  the  parliament, 
and  so  on  [cannot  be  the  same].  The  psychological  disturbances  [of 
patterning  -  individual  variations  and  innovations  -]-^  do  not  define 
and  cannot  dictate  absolutely  the  forms  of  culture,  but  rather  are  a 
conditioning  factor  or  jumping-off  place  for  the  understandable  and 
typical  forms  within  a  particular  culture.  The  varying  aspects  of  culture 
are  subject  to  the  impact  of  individual  psychology  in  varying  degree. 
There  is  a  general  similarity  of  the  psychology  of  the  individuals  [in  a 
particular  community],  and  what  we  must  notice-"^  are  these  psychologic 
peculiarities  which  would  not  be  allowed  to  affect  the  traits  of  a  whole 
culture.  [However,  at  the  same  time]  there  are  probably  forms  of  person- 
ality which  do  make  for  segregation  of  cuhure  patterns.  The  problem 
to  be  solved  is  "how  much"  and  "how." 

""  [On  the  one  hand,]  there  is  a  colossal  resistance  of  the  inherited 
[forms]  to  the  psychological  nuance  of  the  moment.  ^"^  Cultural  forms 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  C'uhure  All 

are  rarely  disturbed  by  psychological  needs  il  llic\  can  be  slrelched  or 
retained  in  any  way  -  witness  clumsy  [systems  ol]  orthography  (re- 
tained tVom  the  past].  Institutions  have  a  way  of  staying  put  out  of  all 
proportion  to  their  real  or  supposed  usefulness.  "  [On  the  other  hand.) 
culture  is  possessed  of  a  great  many  disassociative  forces,  such  as  cul- 
tural specialization,  which  seems  to  be  opposed  to  the  integration  of 
individuals  or  culture.  Rectifying  this  disassociation  is  cultural  inertia, 
a  great  tactor  in  nullifying  the  impact  of  individual  psychology.-''  "'  This 
is  culture  conservativism,  [in  which  we  see  that  culture]  is  not  totally 
and  completely  responsive  to  the  psychological  needs. 

[We  must  therefore  distinguish  clearly  between  cultural  form  and  psy- 
chological function.]  '^  [To  see]  form  as  function,  as  in  Wundt's  psschol- 
ogy,  is  naive.  We  can  detect  [large-scale]  direction  in  language,  but  ue 
can't  correlate  it  with  any  large-scale  psychological  facts.  '-  Culture 
forms  themselves  are  not  directly  explicable  by  psychological  terms. 


/•/ 


3.  The  [supposed]  environmental  causation  of  culture 


•^^  Are  environmental  [factors]  determinants  [of  cultural  form?] '''  En- 
vironmental considerations  have  [some]  usefulness  in  the  stud\  of  cul- 
ture, but  [as  culture  determinants]  they  are  insufficient.  '^-  '*'"  The  argu- 
ment of  environmental  [determin]ists,  like  the  cultural  geographer 
Huntington,-^'  is  one  huge  fallacy.  "^  Though  it  is  a  culture  on  which 
[environmental]  influences  impinge,  they  forget  this,  [declaring  instead 
that]  "America  [was]  destined  to  be  agricultural  -"*  [because  of  its]  allu- 
vial plains.  But  [what  about]  the  Amerindians,  [who  occupied  this  conti- 
nent for  millennia  without  farming  those  selfsame  plains,  e\en  after 
agriculture  was  known  to  them?  This  interpretation  ol]  history  as  [envi- 
ronmental destiny]  is  naive,  [as  is  the  view  that]  Canadian  Indians  must 
have  less  intelligence  because  they  did  not  exploit  the  Saskatchewan 
plains  [agriculturally],  as  opposed  to  the  Anglo-Saxi^n  [settlers)  who  al- 
most immediately  used  them  as  wheatfields.  [The  reason  this  argument 
is  naive  is  that]  the  mere  presence  of  an  economic  stock-in-trade,  [such 
as  alluvial  plains  suitable  for  growing  wheat],  is  not  enough:  you  must 
have  [the  appropriate  cultural]  patterns. 

"^  We  ourselves  don't  know  the  full  possibiluics  o\  our  en\ uiMimenl. 
[nor  can  we  see  these  independently  of  our  culture.)  Culture  ilhin\ics  the 
environment;  we  have  habits,  not  an  inventoried  knowledge  of  the  cos- 
mic possibilities.  [And  our  habits  may  depend  more  on  our  history  ol 


478  ^^^  Culture 

contacts  with  other  parts  of  the  world  than  on  the  initial  state  of  our 
own  iieographical  setting.  Our]  use  of  coffee  and  tobacco,  [for  instance, 
IS  due  to  historical]  accRlents.  We  might  have  many  [other]  plants  [in 
our  cnvirouFiient  that  are]  usable  as  stimulants  and  narcotics,  [but  we 
iiznorc  ihcni.j-^  ''''  it  is  hard  to  see  the  environment  except  in  terms  of 
what  you  want. 

^''"  [Moreover,]  the  environment  always  has  what  you  need  if  you  are 
m  a  position  to  get  what  you  need;  unhappily,  you  are  not  always  in  a 
position  to  get  it.  ""  We'd  be  sunk  in  the  Eskimo's  environment  despite 
our  fine  technology,  because  the  environment  lacks  the  raw  materials 
usable  by  our  system;  but  an  Eskimo  would  be  equally  helpless  in  our 
more  "benevolent"  environment,  unequipped  with  our  culture. 

"  Thus  there  is  more  to  the  problem  of  environmental  influence  on 
culture  than  the  simple  example  of  the  absence  of  snow  houses  in  the 
Congo.  [As  with  the  psychological  interpretation  of  culture,  a  strictly] 
'-  environmental  interpretation  of  culture  ignores  the  interrelationships 
between  cultural  traits,  and  the  history  of  the  trait  patterns.  ^^  [Most  of 
all.  the]  great  difficulty  [with  the  notion  of  environmental  causation]  is 
that  the  cultural  pattern  determines  the  functional  nature  of  the  envi- 
ronment. ''  The  environment  plus  a  datum  of  culture  is  a  different  thing 
from  the  environment  alone.  ^^^  ^^  [In  any  case,]  "environment"  must 
include  the  cultural  as  well  as  the  physical  environment,  ^^  for  beyond 
the  purely  physical  environment  is  an  environment  composed  of  the 
ideas  of  the  people  who  live  there.  ''  The  real  environment  [includes] 
the  cultural  potentialities  of  these  ideas,  plus  the  basic  [physical]  envi- 
ronment. 

'-  Facts  of  environment  are  only  important,  then,  if  the  natives  think 
they  are  important.  "^^  '^^  The  cultural  stock  in  trade  means  that  you  can 
redefine  the  environment  in  those  terms.  Culture  insists  on  seeing  things 
in  its  own  terms;  it  defines  what  is  beautiful  and  what  is  not.  Environ- 
ment as  such  is  of  no  value  to  the  culturalist;  what  is  important  is 
environment  as  defined  by  culture  -  what  the  natives  have  uncon- 
sciously culturally  selected  from  the  environment,  and  [their]  cultural 
evaluation  of  it.  '^'  [A  people's]  response  to  their  environment  is  condi- 
tioned by  their  cultural  heritage;  it  is  not  an  immediate  response.  ""^  We 
see  nothing  beyond  what  we  are  trained  to  see. 

'-  The  culturally-interpreted  environment,  therefore,  is  just  as  impor- 
tant to  a  study  of  culture  as  a  culturally-interpreted  psychology.  "^"^  Both 
the  psychology  and  the  environment  have  to  be  well  activated  in  cul- 
tural understanding  before  being  of  much  use  [to  the  ethnologist].  [Be- 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  Ctilnnf  479 

fore  assuming  any  sort  of]  ''  geographical  deleniiinisiii.  one  nuisl  con- 
sider the  cultural  urge.  [Thus  environment  does  indeed  have  an  etTect. 
but  it  is  as]  a  culturally-defmed  enxironment.  Enxironmenl  as  dellned 
by  those  participating  in  the  culture  is  important  [only]  as  a  background 
factor  in  defining  the  direction  o(  culture,  [not  as  a  significant  cause]. 
[Indeed,]  primitives  often  fiout  [their]  environment  because  they  are  niU 
culturally  ready  to  take  advantage  of  [the  full  potential  of  its]  geogra- 
phy. They  will  go  out  of  their  way  to  secure  things  not  in  the  immediate 
environment.  ''•  '^^'^  [What  is  important  are]  the  forms  and  attitudes  al- 
ready developed  by  culture;  on  these  patterns  en\  ironment  has  a  facili- 
tating effect. 

[In  other  words,  the  main  direction  of  "infiuence"  is  just  the  opposite 
of  what  the  environmentalists  would  have  it.]  "  environment  is  fitted  to 
certain  forms  of  culture  patterns  -  or  rather,  en\  ironment  is  utilized 
and  made  relevant  to  a  culture  pattern  (such  as  rice  or  wheat  agricul- 
ture, etc.).  Psychological  demands  ask  for  a  cultural  response,  and  cul- 
tural patterns,  [in  turn],  demand  solving;  whereupon  en\ironment  is 
required  to  fulfill  these  demands.  Whether  it  does  fulfill  them  is  an 
environmental  or  geological  or  ecological  problem.  But  environment 
does  not  dictate  -  culture  pattern  dictates.  Environment  is  [only  rele- 
vant in  its]  culturally  weighted  aspect,  and  one  en\ironment  ma>  be 
favorable  or  unfavorable  according  to  the  prevalent  culture. 

[An  environment  that  does  fulfill  culturally-dictated  demands  will  not 
cause  its  inhabitants  to  look  beyond  their  own  cultural  pattern,  no 
matter  how  "rich"  it  may  be  from  the  point  o{  \iew  of  an  alien  tradi- 
tion.] '^  So  long  as  nature  gives  us  some  food  we  don't  2.0  an\  further. 
[It  does  not  seem  as  if  human  beings  are  impelled,  because  o\'  some 
inherent  drive  toward  the  nutritionally  perfect  diet,  to  investigate  and 
invent  novel  ways  to  exploit  their  particular  locality.]  Some  bogus  dieti- 
cians say  we  need  such  and  such  a  diet;  but  isn't  [the  diet  the\  recom- 
mend] a  mere  recording  of  the  norms  o\^  [cultural]  habit?  [While  dieti- 
cians claim  we  need  a  certain  balance  o(  meal  and  \egetables.)  the  Es- 
kimo [get  by]  with  all  meat,  and  [large  populations  in]  the  Orient  [sur- 
vive on]  all  vegetables.  Personally,  I  have  faith'^  that  an>  people  can 
work  out  its  diet;  we  get  too  excited  about  it.  [And  \se  fail  to  notice  that 
many  of  our  dietary  recommendations,  and  notions  about  the  eHects  of 
food  substances  on  our  well-being,  depend  nu^re  upon  \'ooi.\  ssmbolism 
than  on  dietetic  necessity.  For  the  cultural  aspect  of  diet  also  includes] 
food  symbolism,  as  well  as  linguistic  symbolism.  [It  is  a  s\slem  of  ratio- 
nalizations governing  dietary  habits.]  Nbu  can  ralionali/e  the  asparagus- 


480  III  Culture 

eating  habit  once  you  have  it,  [while  the  effects  of]  coffee  may  be  a 
collective  illusion;  and  the  dietetically  perfect  may  lack  a  good  symbol- 
ism [and  therefore  fail,  as  the  malnourished  do  for  physiological 
reasons,  to  enjoy  a  sense  of  well-being.] 

[if  the  local  geography  should  prove  inadequate  to  a  people's  cultur- 
ally-defined needs  (nutritional  and  otherwise),  it  is  at  least  as  likely,  if 
not  more  likely,  that  people  will  try  to  secure  those  goods  from  else- 
v\  here,  than  that  they  will  reconsider  their  own  locality  and  their  accus- 
tomed ways  of  exploiting  it.  Indeed,  in  our  own  culture,  however 
\aunted  for  its  technological  proficiency,]  ""  there  is  [a  good  deal  of] 
ecologic  ignorance.  We  import  [certain  materials],  and  wars  are  fought 
[to  insure  our  ability  to  import  them];  but  why  not  turn  back  again  to 
recheck  the  environment?  In  a  siege  we  might  be  pressed  to  [make  an] 
inventory  of  our  environment,  [and  we  might  find  many  possibilities 
not  as  yet  tapped.] 

[But  it  is  not  only  in  diet  that  environment  supposedly  influences 
cultural  destiny.]  "^  It  has  been  said  that  Greece  was  "predestined  to  a 
high  culture"  because  of  the  "happy  blend"  in  which  it  combined  hilly 
w  ith  maritime  country  -  the  hilly  [country  fostering]  individualism,  and 
the  [maritime  providing]  harbors  for  communication.  [The  futility  of 
such  statements  should  by  now  begin  to  be  clear.  We  have  only  to  re- 
mind ourselves  that]  Mesopotamia,  [where  a  high  culture  emerged 
earlier  than  in  Greece,]  was  a  plain,  [to  begin  to  realize  that]  nothing 
in  the  environment  as  such  forces  [particular  cultural  developments]. 
Environment  is  only  favorable  by  and  large.  From  Neanderthal  man  to 
today,  not  all  [of  cultural  history]  is  to  be  credited  to  the  specifically 
Greek  environment.  Our  [present  cultural]  pattern,  [deriving  from]  our 
Renaissance  tradition,  [places]  perhaps  relatively  too  much  emphasis 
[on  Greece  as  the  source  of  all  we  see  as  lofty  in  our  civilization,  any- 
way.] We  might  just  as  well  indict  the  Greek  culture  and  environment 
for  war  and  paranoia.-*^  To  pick  on  the  Nile  valley,  as  does  Elliot- 
Smith,-^'^  is  just  as  bad. 

[What  can  finally  be  said,  then,  about]  ^^  environmental  influence  and 
Its  relation  to  culture?  ""  The  environment  is  important  as  a  detail,  and 
''  as  a  negative  factor  ^"^  by  setting  limits  -  it  cannot  give  you  what  it 
does  not  possess,  [regardless  of  your  cultural  pattern].  ^^  The  relevance 
of  the  environment  does  have  to  be  considered:  we  live  in  it,  and  we  are 
subject  to  its  limitations.  But  our  culture  manages  to  transcend  certain 
environmental  limitations,  as  in  the  case  of  tea,  which  we  [drink  but] 
do  not  raise,  and  rice,  which  we  [eat  but]  have  not  cultivated.  Even 
among  the  most  primitive  people  there  is  trade.  No  environment  is  self- 


Two:  The  Psyclwlofiy  oj  C  ullurc  4S 1 

declaratory.  ""'  Thus  cinironnicnl  can  iic\cr  he  iinokctl  as  the  priniar> 
cause  [of  a  cultural  pattern].  Thai  it  both  positively  and  negatively  sets 
limits,  is  the  best  we  can  say  -  and  it  is  doubtful  that  wc  can  approach 
both  these  limits  at  the  same  time  or  even,  ordinarily,  either,  liniron- 
ment  is  a  modifier  and  lefiner  of  eiillure.  [not  more.) 

'•''  Where  the  ethnologist  finds  a  relation  between  the  environment 
and  a  culture  trait,  therefore,  it  is  not  a  simple  response-relation  but  a 
rather  complex  relation,  the  behavior  show  ing  relations  to  pallerns  aris- 
ing in  other  areas.  ^"^  The  tipi,  for  example,  is  not  [best  understood  as) 
a  response  to  the  environment  [in  which  it  is  found],  [in  that  environ- 
ment,] timber  is  scarce;  so  that  the  [tipi]  poles  are  cherished,  [and  have 
to  be]  carried  around  with  you.  ^'^•mm-  ih  ^J\^^.  ijpjj  jv,  largely  an  adaptation 
of  a  previous  type  of  house,  the  semi-permanent  bark  Iiounc  o\  the 
Eastern  Woodlands,  a  conical  type  of  bark  lodge.  The  lodge  was  modi- 
fied when  people  moved  into  an  area  where  bark  was  not  available.  "' 
Carrying  the  poles  o(  the  tipi  from  time  to  time,  the  Plains  Indians 
fight  with  the  environment  as  much  as  working  with  it.  ^"^  Out  o\'  sheer 
conservatism  you  stick  to  the  old  pattern  and  apply  it  to  an  unfavorable 
environment. 

'^  The  student  of  culture  may  tend  to  underesiimaie  the  en\  ironment's 
importance,  but  it  is  even  more  overwhelmingh  true  that  anlhropo- 
geographers  underestimate  the  culture-impetus.  They  might  say.  [for  ex- 
ample, given  the  combination  of]  rainfall,  softwood  cedars,  and  her- 
aldry-carving on  the  Northwest  Coast,  that  this  kind  o\'  counirv  was 
predestined  for  heraldry  -  it  "could  not  but  develop."  [But  we  know, 
of  course,  that  parts  of  the  Northwest  Coast  are  now  shared  by  settler 
populations  whose  culture  scarcely  includes  heraldrv  at  all.)  '^  Tver) 
time  you  point  to  environmental  determination  you  can  point  to  similar 
people  in  a  similar  environment  with  dilTerent  responses.  '*"  [What  is 
more  "determinative'',  therefore,  is  the  specific  cultural  history,  in 
which]  -  as  with  the  Plains  Indians  -  once  a  pattern  is  developed, 
people  worry  themselves  into  keeping  it.  [even  if  the  environment 
changes,  and  trees  are  more,  or  less,  abundant  than  before.)  Tlie  eye 
that  sees  the  occasional  grove  is  the  eye  o\'  culture,  not  o\'  immediate 
perception. 


4.  "'■  ''^-  ''"'  Economic  Pcfcrnilniifion  of  Culture 

dm.  lb  ^j\^^  question  of  w  helher]  ec^MUMiiic  iaciors  determine  or  cause 
the  form  of  culture  is  a  difficult  problem.  [The  greatest  dilTicully  facing 


482  III  Cultwc 

the  economic  dctcrminist  is  to  distinguish  those  economic  "causes" 
from  their  cultural  setting.]  Any  economic  scheme  of  Hfe  is  itself  a  highly 
cultural  phenomenon;  we  cannot  talk  of  a  pattern  of  abstract  economic 
needs  apart  from  cultural  needs.  '^  The  stock  elementals  [of  the  econo- 
mist ]  don't  carr\  \ou  very  far  [toward  understanding  human  society 
and  culture):  the  economist  constructs  "economic  man,"  with  needs, 
and  this  man  doesn't  act  as  real  men  do  psychologically  and  culturally, 
lb.  dm  xhcre  is  no  universal  pattern  because  the  economic  needs  are  al- 
ways [conceived]  in  terms  of  the  culture  itself,  and  so  they  are  always 
highlv  svmbolic.  For  instance,  we  have  needs  such  as  an  Easter  bonnet 
that  are  hard  to  justify  [in  other  than  symbolic  terms].  For  the  econo- 
mist [this  need]  is  as  important  as  such  as  a  morsel  of  bread  (though 
no{  biologically).  He  never  attempts  to  explain  why  Easter  bonnets  are 
\aluable;  he  just  accepts  their  value  after  the  event,  and  studies  their 
prices,  etc..  not  the  rich  psychological  problem  [their  value  poses].  '^  We 
can't  sa\,  then,  that  a  scale  of  needs  is  primarily  causal  when  the 
"needs"  themselves  are  at  least  partially  conditioned  culturally. 

ih.  dm  jj^g  culturalist  cannot  place  faith  in  any  one  aspect  of  culture 
as  the  sole  intluence  [on  the  rest].  ^^  [How  are  we  to  be  certain  that] 
basic  material,  biological  needs  are  more  important  than  immaterial 
symbolic  needs,  or  aesthetic  needs?  "^  The  concrete  phenomenon  in- 
volves any,  some,  or  all  of  these  [aspects  of  culture]  in  particular  cases. 
Or  [all  these  "causes"]  may  be  always  there.  [For  example,  once]  the 
church  is  established,  [there  emerge]  vested  interests  [in  the  maintenance 
of  its  institutional  structure  and  its  officials,  such  as]  the  bishopric.  Eco- 
nomic determinants  may  not  be  the  root  causes  [of  this  phenomenon] 
-  the  tradition  of  Christianity  as  a  cuhural  phenomenon  may  be  much 
more  important  [in  determining]  the  cultural  or  spiritual  "need"  for 
bishops  (or,  on  the  other  hand,  the  "tolerance"  of  these  economic  para- 
sites). 

''"'  If  you  want  to  say  that  the  final  challenge  and  test  of  any  social 
order  is  the  economy,  [in  the  sense  of  the  biological  maintenance  of  its 
members],  you  are  right.  But  to  what  extent  does  this  final  test  operate 
in  the  [daily]  round  of  life?  '^  [It  is  true  that]  sooner  or  later  [a  social 
analysis  must]  get  into  the  biological  world's  tyranny,  and  this  gives 
economics  some  truth.  But  what  of  the  symbolic,  nonbiological  tyran- 
nies? Do  religious  needs  take  precedence  over  the  material?  Although, 
in  our  civilization,  they  don't  now,  they  did  -  and  so  [the  question  of 
precedence  of  needs  is  itself)  a  cultural  matter.  That  is,  we  cannot  say 
absolutely  or  a  priori  [that  one  or  the  other  of  these  "needs"  is  more 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  Culture  483 

highly  \ahicd];  such  theorists  [as  (.\o  sa>  so]  arc  [ihcinsclvcs]  immersed 
in  CLihurc.  (Wc  arc  \iclinis  of  history  loo.)  One  can  point  to  all  sorts  of 
e\aluations  in  priniili\c  societies,  such  as  class-distinction,  izhost-tear. 
taboos,  etc..  [which  nia\  seem  ahsi^lutely  rundanienlal  to  their  mem- 
bers]. Sonic  societies  ha\c  aesthetic  moti\alions  and  determinants  for 
example  the  Japanese,  as  opposed  to  [American]  pu>necr  society.  ''^^  Hic 
emphasis  o^  value  shifts  indefinitely  from  societ\  to  society,  and  Uom 
lime  to  lime.  There  is  a  danger,  thererore.  in  stressing  the  insistent  val- 
ues of  one  culture  [as  if  they  applied  for  all  places  and  for)  all  lime. 

'*'"  The  question  of  economic  \alue  and  needs  thus  goes  far  besond 
the  confines  o[^  economics,  for  the  world  o\'  \alue  o\  the  economist  is 
not  the  stark  and  real  utilitarian  world  he  wants  but  a  conventionalized, 
symbolic  world.  Despite  our  pragmatism,  our  [economic]  criteria  are  a 
posi  hoc  interpretation.  '^  Before  we  can  sa\  what  the  causes  [of  cultural 
form]  are  we  need  to  know  some  of  the  [cultural]  picture  itself  and  the 
e\aluations  in  it.  Too  many  determinants  are  in\t>l\ed  hisiiM-icall\  \\'or 
us  to]  pick  out  any  grandiose  one. 

'^"^  Significanll\  [for  the  question  of  economic  determinism],  material 
causes  are  not  necessarily  always  present.  For  e.xample.  [the  lV>rm  ol] 
Jewish  late  culture  [cannot  be  explained]  merely  by  the  loss  o^  the  mate- 
rial elements  of  culture.  [In  this  case  as  in  any,]  the  history  behind  [the 
form]  is  always  involved:  plenty  of  other  peoples  have  lost  political 
prestige,  and  so  on.  Human  beings  ma\  be  power  drixeii.  but  it  is  cul- 
ture that  determines  the  patterns  [o[^  their  beha\ior].  and  the  en\iron- 
ment  [its]  limits.  You  can't  explain  capitalism  because  o\'  a  supposed 
"human  nature"  or  basic  necessity  -  it  ma\  be  due  negati\el>  to  the 
loss  of  other  values,  [whose  loss]  ma\  change  the  terrain  entirel>.  so 
that  the  dominant  individual  may  be  forced  into  other  patterns  [if  he 
is]  to  tower  up  [over  others].  [Consider]  the  scientist,  who  liula)  grubs 
unknown  in  a  laboratory;  or  the  banker.  whc\  with  the  K>ss  o\  prestige 
of  bankers  since  the  Crash,  is  m>t  the  palternable  figure  now.  but  a 
shabby  one.  Perhaps  [there  is  now  occurring]  a  shift  to  political  leaders, 
[where  towering  indi\iduals  can  now  he  found,  such  as]  Roose\ell.  Hit- 
ler, Mussolini,  and  Stalin. 

"'  [indeed,]  there  may  e\en  be  ci>nnicls  between  cultural  needs  and 
material  needs.  F\ir  example,  oureuhuiai  need  foi  competitK>n.  iiuli\id- 
ually  and  collectively,  may  be  harmful  it  ma\  dwarf  the  human  (x.t- 
sonalily,  driving  to  suicide  and  insanity.  [b\  the  wa>  it  both)  encvuiragcs 
ami  discourages  the  indi\idual.  The  s\mbi>lism  o\'  capitalism  [wi>uld 
declare  that  it]  is  an  egi>-satisf\mg  [form  i>l]  societ\;  but  statisticall\  not 


484  til  Culiurc 

even  in  thai  can  ii  he  universal  for  all  individuals  [(that  is  to  say,  not  all 
individuals'  egos  would  be  satisfied  in  this  manner)].  There  is  a  cultural 
s\mbolism,  a  mythology  -  not  a  biological  [necessity]  -  rationalizing 
[the  supposed  appropriateness  of  capitalism]  for  all  societies.  [Where] 
the  Middle  Ages  [saw]  a  theocratic-Stoic  "structure  of  the  Universe," 
Capitalism  [sees]  biological  "'human  nature." 

'^  [So  all-encompassing  is  the  evaluation  of]  economics  [today]  that 
modern  literature  is  at  its  mercy.  Whether  it  bolsters  up  these  preferred 
ideas  or  attacks  them,  literature  is  a  mirror  of  our  ideas  of  economic 
dominance.  Yet,  it  should  be  a  function  of  literature  and  art,  because 
they  are  wishful  thinking  (and  should  be  so),  to  [offer]  phantasy  and 
suggest  desires,  [including]  desirable  alternatives  [to  our  present  society]. 
[Art  should  be]  more  than  the  servant  of  economic  forces.  [If  it  is  only 
this,  perhaps]  artists  may  be  too  well  regarded  by  the  system,  and  cease 
to  be  artists.  Or  [else  the  artist]  may  be  (and  traditionally  is)  a  perpetual 
revolutionist. 

[The  cultural  theorist,  too,  must  recognize  that  the  emergence  of  eco- 
nomic questions  to  the  foreground  of  cultural  inquiry,  as  if  they  took 
precedence  in  determining  other  aspects  of  cultural  form,  is  but  a  part 
of  our  present  system  of  cultural  conventions,  with  its  insistence  on  a 
biologically-rooted,  materialistic  "human  nature."  If  it  is  the  task  of 
theory  to  rise  above  mythology  -  to  be  more  than]  ^§  a  legitimised 
collective  lunacy^'  -  '^"^  [then,]  to  find  out  what  are  the  relative  prece- 
dences of  cultural  values  is  one  of  the  cultural  theorist's  grand  problems. 


[Summary] 

"''•'-  Like  racial  and  psychological  "determinants,"  therefore,  envi- 
ronment [and  its  exploitation  in  a  material  economy  are]-^^  not  funda- 
mental as  a  defining  cause  of  culture.  The  causes  of  culture  cannot  be 
determined.  '~  Culture  is  only  a  philosophically  determined  abstraction 
and  cannot  have  a  physical-like  cause. 

'^"^  [There  is  something  fundamentally  misleading  about  the  search 
for]  causative  factors  in  general,  [in  the  study  of  the  social  world].  ^^ 
Cause  [itself]  is  a  relative  concept;  it  is  not  compelling,  but  in  variable 
sequence.  ^"^^  ^^  The  causative  relation  expressed  as  A  causes  B  is  never 
experimentally  borne  out,^^  ^"^  for  there  are  always  extraneous  effects 
and  elements  that  make  a  pure  cause  and  effect  relation  only  the  conve- 
nient fiction  of  mathematics  and  metaphysics.  ^'"'  ^^  We  never  deal  with 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  Culture  4N> 

real  ■■entities"  as  sueh,  [e\eii)  in  the  pinsieal  seieiiees  -  ^^  for  science. 
[renuned  as  it  is  iVoiii  the  particulars  of  real-world  cNenls,]^"*  is  a  pyram- 
idal fiction,  of  which  physics  is  the  ultimate  zenith.  The  (supposed)  "rig- 
ors" of  the  social  sciences,  such  as  the  clan.  etc..  are  fictional  constructs 
[too].  ''"^  In  luinian  affairs  it  is  just  social  comention  that  enables  men 
to  talk  o\'  eqiiixalenls  at  all. 

'''  We  might  better  lease  the  pyramidal  fictions  to  the  philosophers. 
For  our  worlds  of  fictions  are  not  congruent:  '''"  '•'  to  the  social  scien- 
tist, as  to  the  artist,  the  world  is  defined  by  things  which  are  mi  hoc.  as 
they  seem  on  the  surface,  while  [the  world  ol]  science  is  not.  [I.e..  the 
world  of  science  is  defined  by  what  supposedly  lies  under,  or  is  ab- 
stracted from,  superficial  appearances.]  '*'"  The  world  of  the  plastic  art- 
ist is  one  where  there  are  no  accidents.  For  him  things  are  what  they 
seem  to  be. 

'^'  Is  [the  scientist's  world]  our  concern  in  ethnography?  '^'"  The  persis- 
tence of  entities  in  the  [physical]  world  is  a  very  different  thing  from  the 
persistence  of  entities  in  the  social  world.''"'  There,  it  is  the  condition  o\' 
the  thing  being  received  by  the  human  intelligence,  not  what  the  thing 
really  is,  that  is  important.  '^'  Social  science  operates  in  the  world  o\' 
rclativc^^'  fictions:  the  "world  of  meanings."  as  J.  M.  Mecklin  [has  put 
it.]^^  nis,  hi  |j  j^  .J  Yvorld  of  "as  they  say."  dealing  with  "what  a  thing  is 
said  to  be  worth,"  not  what  it  really  is  in  the  physical  sense.  '''  [Our] 
causal  relations,  therefore,  are  of  a  derivati\e  nature.  Speech  meanings 
are  fictions,  [though  speech  is]  located  in  the  physical  world,  as  things 
of  the  artist  are.  But  the  facts  of  the  physical  world  are  of  minor  impi^r- 
tance  in  the  realm  o[^  social  phenomena.  '*'"  In  social  phenomena,  no 
matter  how  carefully  you  define  your  terms  and  set  up  \our  formulation 
there  always  must  be  a  large  amount  o\^  leakage  [between  definition  and 
instances].  Thus  in  the  social  world  the  physicist's  causal  sequence  is 
debarred  because  the  social  world  is  an  artificialls  [constructed]  world. 
We  must  [abandon  the  search  for  those  causal  sequences.]  and  restrict 
ourselves  to  typical  sequences. 


Editorial  Note 

This  chapter  is  reconstructed  from  notes  on  the  lectures  ol  No\.  ^V 
and  16  (first  half),  1936,  from  undated  notes  on  the  same  topic  in  fall 
1935,  and  from  notes  on  several  lectures  in  1933  34  (No\.  7.  Dec.  12. 
Dec.   19,  and  part  o\'  the  lecture  tW"  Jan     iM     There  is  ielali\el\   little 


486  m   Culture 

ditTcrcncc  in  content  among  the  three  versions  of  the  course,  except  that 
the  1936  notes  omit  the  section  on  "economic  causes"  (placed  under 
"environment"  in  Sapir's  1928  Outline).  I  have  used  the  1936  notes  as 
the  organizational  framework  for  the  chapter,  but  I  have  retained  the 
economics  section  as  a  fourth  "cause."  Although  the  1933  notes  do  treat 
the  economics  section  in  that  way  (as  a  fourth  "cause"),  they  do  not 
otherwise  provide  the  best  organizational  framework  for  the  chapter  as 
a  whole,  because  in  that  year  Sapir  evidently  interrupted  the  discussion 
o^  "causes"  with  several  sessions  devoted  to  classroom  discussions  of 
American  cultural  patterns  (smoking  and  piano-playing;  see  Appendi- 
ces). Moreover,  the  1933  notes  also  contain  some  recapitulations  and 
possible  reworkings  of  the  material  by  the  student  note-takers  them- 
selves. 

Among  Sapir's  published  works  those  most  relevant  to  the  material 
in  this  chapter  are:  "Language,  Race,  and  Culture"  (ch.  10  o^  Language, 
192 Id):  "Racial  Superiority"  (1924e);  "Are  the  Nordics  a  Superior 
Race?"  (1925a);  "Language  and  Environment"  (1912b);  and  "Psychiat- 
ric and  Cultural  Pitfalls  in  the  Business  of  Getting  a  Living"  (1939c). 


Notes 

1.  BG  has  "This  question  at  once  arises..." 

2.  This  discussion  of  music  in  the  1933  notes  is  juxtaposed  with  classroom  exercises  and 
discussions  on  the  history  and  distribution  of  piano-playing.  See  Appendix. 

3.  DM  has  "as  they  have  been  set  up." 

4.  For  wording  here  and  many  of  the  same  arguments  as  are  included  in  the  lecture  notes, 
see  Sapir's  papers,  "Are  the  Nordics  a  Superior  Race?"  (1925a)  and  "Racial  Superiority" 
(1924e). 

5.  BG  phrases  this  as  a  question. 

6.  Tl  has  "In  determining  culture..." 

7.  T2  has:  "Cannot  enfold  {[unfold?])  a  culture  from  a  race,  but  unfold  it  in  the  group 
which  is  defined  as  a  member  of  a  race." 

8.  i.  e.,  focused  on  the  biological  as  symbolic  of  difference. 

9.  See  Sapir  ( 1924e).  "Racial  Superiority,"  which  argues  that  claims  about  racial  superiority 
rest  on  an  emotional  basis  -  the  feeling  of  loyalty  to  one's  ethnic  group  -  rather  than 
on  any  biological  sense  of  the  term  "race." 

10.  BW  has:  "Reason  believe  change  envir  change  Race  &  similarly  develop  homog  by  mix 
-  Groups  which  seem  alike  often  grave  dissimilarities". 

11.  R2  has:  "Race  has  no  influence  on  culture.  Culture  has  no  connection  with  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  race." 

12.  BG  has:  "Distinction  between  the  psychological  life  of  a  culture..."  with  "psychological" 
crossed  out...  That  technology  is  meant  here  is  suggested  by  the  discussion  of  cultural 
progress  in  ch.  6. 


/u('    Ihc  l\syclu)lo\i\()1  Culture  487 

13.  See  Rl:  "Race  has  its  elVeci  on  culuire  on  a  psychological  or  cmoiional  plane,"  R2 

"There  is  really  a  psychological  plane  between  race  and  culture,  i  c  .  the  elicit    ■ 

in  culture  is  really  in  psychological  or  emotional  plane." 

14.  Hmphasis  original.  In  19.^5 -.^6,  however,  Sapir  seems  to  have  expressed  nu>re  skcplicum 
about  any  racial  connection  with  psychologv.  inckklmg  Kretsthmers  tvpes  BN\  has; 
"Assume  are  psychic  types  (this  probably  not  true)  /  still  not  race  /  psychic  as  in  race 
cult  (?)  all  ('.'I  physical  types.  Is  a  trait  physical,  psychic,  or  what.  Cultural  probably." 

15.  See  Ernest  Kretschmer,  Physique  ami  Cluinuicr  (1925). 

16.  HI  has:  "(Sapir  rings  a  note  here  that  Boas  does  in  '/'//c  \tinJ  of  Pnmiiivc  Man  -  guess 
that  there  is  a  possible  connectii>n  between  phvsical  tvpe  and  native  psychic  constitution 
(Boas  cited  small  Esk.  community  as  theoretical  possibility.))" 

17.  CK  has:  "Sapir  has  a  prejudice  that  it  may  be  said  that  the  Indian  has  a  basically 
dilVerent  emotional  make  up...".  T2  has:  "Sapir  believes  there  is  something  to  the  stolid- 
ity o^  the  American  Indian."  Througluuit  this  sectit>n  Sapir  seems  to  have  emphasi/cd 
that  his  statements  suggesting  racial  dilVeiences  in  temperament  represent  onlv  personal 
opinions  and  guesses,  not  well-founded  claims. 

18.  CK  has:  "[Sapir]  thinks  Indians  have  seeds  of  sentiment..." 

19.  i.  e..  distinguish  from. 

20.  HI  has:  "not  on  a  posilivciv  negative  basis." 

21.  See  "Cultural  .Anthropology  and  Psychiatry"  (Sapir  1932a):  "We  are  not,  therefore,  to 
begin  with  a  simple  contrast  between  social  patterns  and  individual  behavior,  whether 
normal  or  abnormal,  but  we  arc,  rather,  to  ask  what  is  the  meaning  of  culture  in  terms 
of  individual  behavior  and  whether  the  individual  can,  in  a  sense,  be  looked  upon  as  the 
elTective  carrier  o\'  the  culture  o'i  his  group."  See  also  "Tlie  Emergence  o\'  the  Concept 
of  Personality  in  a  Study  ol"  Cultures"  ( 1934a):  "In  spile  of  the  often  asserted  impersonal- 
ity oi  culture,  the  humble  truth  remains  that  vast  reaches  of  culture,  far  from  being  in 
any  real  sense  'carried"  by  a  community  or  a  group  as  such,  are  discoverable  onI>  as  the 
peculiar  property  of  certain  individuals,  who  cannot  but  give  these  cultural  goixis  the 
impress  of  their  own  personality."  (Note:  this  passage  seems  to  h.ive  a  typi^graphical 
error  as  printed  in  SWES  p.  594.) 

22.  LB  adds:  "Language  the  otricial  symbol  o^  time  sequence  but  not  pragmatically  (e.g.. 
gesture,  etc  eke  out):  and  many  fossils,  psychologicallv  (gender  in  European  languages)." 

23.  On  psychological  "disturbances,"  see  Lani^iuii^c  (I92ld)  p.  IS2-3,  where  "disturbantx" 
refers  to  idiolectal  variation:  "The  desire  to  hold  on  to  a  pattern,  the  tendencv  to  'correct' 
a  disturbance  by  an  elaborate  chain  of  supplementarv  changes,  often  spread  over  ccniu* 
ries  or  even  millennia  -  these  psychic  undercurrents  of  language  are  e.xcxx*dingl>  difTicull 
to  understand  in  terms  iif  individual  psychologv,  though  there  can  be  no  denial  of  their 
historical  reality.  What  is  the  primary  cause  of  the  unsettling  of  a  phonetic  pattern  and 
what  is  the  cumulative  force  that  selects  these  or  those  particular  variations  of  the  indivi- 
dual on  which  lo  Hoat  the  pattern  readjustments  we  hardiv  know"  See  also  the  discus- 
sion in  "Whv  Cultural  Anthropology  Needs  the  Psychiatrist"  (19.18c)  on  whclhcr  Two 
Crows  could  change  the  order  of  the  letters  of  the  alphaK't,  or  the  hislory  of  malhcmal- 
ics,  by  denying,  respectivelv.  that  A  is  first  and  /  last.  i>r  that  2  +  2  =  4. 

24.  i.  e.,  what  comes  to  our  notice  because  it  si.iiuls  out  as  dilTea*nt  from  the  communiiy 
norm'.' 

25.  In  1935-36,  Sapir  app.iiciiil>  discussed  integration  and  disa.<»cKiation  in  indi\^ual 
psychology  as  well.  BW  has:  "Integration  and  dis;issiKiaIion  Integration  thing  wA 
things  which  apply  to  you  personallv.  /VssiKiation  technician  Suicide  in  div«Kiatn>n, 
Have  to  integrate  in  long  run.  Fhing  wh.  not  linked  too  formal,  lose  force  " 

26.  .See  Ellsworth  Huntington.  C'ivillzaiumanJ  Clinniu-.  \a\c  I'nivcrsity  Prcvs.  1915  (3rd  ed. 
rev.,  1924);  see  also  Huntington.  Charles  ClilTord  and  Fred  A.  Carlson.  Thf  Geographic 


488  III   Cull  lire 

Bums  of  Sonciw  Nc\s   \oTk:  Prcnlicc-Hall.  1933,  published  1929  under  the  title.  The 
Environnuntiil  Basis  of  Social  Gcoi;rapliy. 

27.  Sapir  evidently  gave  more  examples  ofeultural  patterns  in  the  use  of  plants  and  animals. 
LB  has:  "(Calilbrnia  aeorn;  Plateau  food  -  use  and  disuse  offish,  fowls  Polynesia,  cows 
India,  milk  Orient)". 

28.  LB  has:  "Sapir:  faith  that  any  people..." 

29  Sapir  apparently  referred  here  to  an  article  entitled  "War  and  Paranoia."  I  have  not  been 
able  to  identify  the  reference. 

30.  See  Grafton  tlliot  Smith  (1915)  and  (1930).  Elliot  Smith's  Egyptocentric  view  of  human 
cultural  history  was  much  debated  in  anthropology  in  the  1920s,  along  with  W.  J.  Perry's 
ChiUn-n  of  flw  Sun  (\92}). 

31.  In  the  context  of  his  notes  on  shifting  emphases  of  value  and  needs,  and  in  questioning 
the  thesis  that  materialistic  factors  are  paramount,  BG  has:  "Culture  is  a  legitimised 
collective  lunacy.  The  hereafter  is  the  locus  of  unfulfilled  obligations,  hence  its  excuse 
for  being." 

32.  Note  that  Sapir's  1928  Outline  places  economic  determinism  under  "environment". 

33.  HI  has:  "A  /  B  -  C  is  a  fiction  in  the  physical  sciences..." 

34.  See  discussion  in  ch.  2. 

35.  DM  has:  "The  persistence  of  entities  in  the  social  is  a  very  different  thing  from  the 
p)ersistence  of  entities  in  the  social  world." 

36.  Emphasis  added. 

37.  John  Moffatt  Mecklin,  American  historian.  See  Mecklin  1924,  1934. 


Chapter  4.  The  Elements  o\'  Cuhure 

The  C\>nfcnf  oJC'ulfurc 

'"'"  [To  ask  what  are]  ihc  dclcniiinaiUs  of  culture,  [as  we  ha\e  done  in 
the  preceding  lecture,  is  also  to  ask,]  what  is  culture  made  up  of?  '' 
What  does  culture  embrace?  '*'"  To  ascertain  this  is  by  no  means  simple, 
because  we  have  no  a  priori  structure,  or  skeleton,  o(  culture.  Culture 
feeds  upon  itself,  and  the  criteria  of  culture  "stations"  or  focal  points 
are  in  turn  culturally  determined.  '''  It  is  impossible  to  draw  up  in  .ul- 
vance  an  intelligible  table  of  contents  or  invenlor>  of  culture. 

[As  a  starting  point,  however,  we  may  say  that]  ^^  culture  is  defined 
in  terms  of  forms  of  behavior,  and  the  content  of  culture  is  made  up  of 
these  forms,  of  which  there  are  countless  numbers.  ""  [The  most  diverse 
aspects  of  social  life  must  be  included:]  putting  salt  on  meat  is  as  much 
a  cultural  [form]  as  is  worshiping  God. 

^^-  "^  [Some  writers,  such  as]  Graebner,  Foy,  and  Schmidt,  [attempt 
to]  inventory  the  contents  of  culture  ^~  by  making  lists  of  culture  traits 
[which  prominently  feature  material  objects  -]  food,  clothing,  etc.;  [but 
their  approach  has  major]  ^^  deficiencies,  for  the  listing  of  objects  does 
not  constitute  culture.  '^-  [Indeed,]  the  classification  o\'  material  objtx'ls 
as  such  is  not  particularly  useful.  ^^  Objects  are  only  the  instrumentali- 
ties which  are  sign  posts  to  culture.  The  most  important  thing  about 
them  is  their  utilization  in  patterns  ha\  ing  meaning.  ''-'  Kven  a  cathedral 
is  not  really  a  cultural  object  a.s  such,  w hile  e\en  a  clitT  ma\  be  made  a 
"cultural  object"  used  to  cite  boundaries  o\'  territory.  ^^  To  the  archaeol- 
ogist, [though  he  depends  so  largely  on  material  objects  as  a  smirce  of 
evidence,]  objects  are  of  value  only  as  inferential  signposts  to  vanished 
cultural  meanings.  ^--  ^^  They  only  become  objects  o(  culiurc  with  refer- 
ence to  their  use,  when  they  are  placed  m  a  context  of  meaning.  An 
object  -  whether  it  be  cathedral,  headland,  paddle.  arri>\\ -point,  or  pol 
-  is  in  fact  only  a  cultural  potential.  ''-  Our  cultural  subject  mailer. 
therefore,  is  not  objects  at  all.  but  patterns  oi  behaxior.'  "'  [And  these 
in  turn  must  mA  he  treated  as  if  the>  were  objects.)  Modes  of  behavior 
are  not  objects,  but  culture. 


490  III  Culture 

'^-  The  type  o\^  analysis  [presented  here,  then,  focuses  upon]  valued 
types  o\'  behavior  patterns,  ot^  which  material  objects  are  [merely]  signs 
and  ssnibols.  The  object  as  such  is  nil  -  it  only  becomes  a  thing  {versus 
a  nothing)  as  and  if  it  is  employed  or  interpreted.  The  'Thing  Ap- 
proach" is  a  tetishistic  point  of  view  that  doesn't  lead  to  the  heart  of 
culture.  "  [For]  culture  cannot  be  defined  in  terms  of  things,  or  lists,- 
or  [e\en]  overt  patterns.  [Instead,]  culture  [must  be]  defined  as  valued 
kinds  of  activities.  You  do  not  define  culture  by  naming  objects;  [rather,] 
objects  and  things  symbolize  value  situations. 

^*^  How  do  the  items  of  culture  arrange  themselves?  -  •■'•  ^"^  In  a 
cultural  pattern,  [which  we  may  define,  for  the  moment,  as]  any  clear, 
specific  formal  outline  abstracted  from  the  totality  of  behavior,  ^'  [and 
involving]  the  [evaluative]  judgements  of  a  culture.  '^'' ''''  As  an  example 
of  a  culture  pattern,  [consider]  education. "*  [In  a  sense  the]  ideal  [of 
education]  is  the  projection  of  the  ego  into  the  future  by  impressing  our 
ideas  on  the  young;  '^'  it  is  the  self-preservation  technique  of  culture. 
The  pattern  of  education  [thus  incorporates]  all  kinds  of  values.  [It  also 
includes]  the  set-up  of  institutions,  administration,  etc.,  with  [official] 
degrees  serving  as  symbols  of  advancement  to  a  higher  status.  [A  cul- 
tural pattern  reaches  into  many  realms  of  social  Hfe.] 

[The  view  of  cultural  pattern  and  cultural  contents  that  we  will  elabo- 
rate here  is  somewhat  different  from  certain  other  uses  of  the  term  in 
anthropology  today.]  ■"'  There  seem  to  be  two  points  of  view  as  to  cul- 
ture patterns.  ■■'•  ■"-•  ^^  One  is  a  functional  point  of  view:  [assuming]  a 
well  thought-out"^  scheme  of  fundamental  [human]  needs,  ""^  the  inclina- 
tion of  a  type  of  behavior  would  depend  on  relativities  of  [its  connection 
to]  the  basic  needs.  ([But,  as  we  have  pointed  out  in  the  preceding  chap- 
ter,] ^^  when  we  try  to  classify  patterns  from  the  viewpoint  of  need,  [we 
run  into  difficulty:  how  and]  by  whom  are  needs  to  be  judged?)^  '■^'  ^^'  "■- 
The  second  [approach  to]  culture  patterns  is  an  index,  a  series  of  head- 
ings ordering  what  are  merely  assemblages  of  cultural  patterns.  '"^'  "- 
This  is  not  a  functional  pattern,  but  a  language  list,  •"-  merely  language 
categories  by  means  of  which  we  artificially  organize  culture.  ^'  In  any 
index  of  a  culture  pattern,  definitions  of  headings  must  be  given  to 
decide  the  presence  or  absence  of  a  head,  such  as  "war";  and  so  the 
question  evolves  into  a  more  verbal  argument.  Moreover,  various  de- 
grees of  intensity  within  the  heads  [(i.  e.,  relafions  among  the  headings)] 
call  for  thought  and  allow  an  addifional  margin  of  error.  For  example, 
[how  would  one  index  the  headings  involved  in]  education,  [the  culture 
pattern  alluded  to  above?]  '^  [And  if  we  use  a  heading  such  as  "Reli- 


Two:  The  Psvclu)lo\iv  (if  (^uliurc  4*^>I 

gion."  [claiming,  "ihcrc]  aic  iu>  peoples  williDiil  rcligii)ii."'  whal  do  wc 

'"'^-  ''  [Here  we  iiuisl|  einphasi/e  ihe  iieeessily  for  the  amhropologisi 
to  study  a  culture  m  ils  own  leiins  lo  assemble  cultural  patterns 
through  the  leiminology  of  the  nali\es  iheniseKes.  |()lher\Mse|  "'  ue  use 
only  ad  hoc  schemes.  "^-  ''•  '-^  Thus  the  point  olMeu  m  Wissler's  Man  ami 
Ciihiiir,  which  constructs  such  a  scheme,  cannot  he  utterly  accepted.^  ^^ 
[Nor  can  the  work]  o\'  Roheim,  whose  attempt  to  interpret  Australian 
society  in  terms  of  his  own  symbolism  (must  be  considered  aj  failure.* 

■'• '-  Such  [a  scheme  as  Wissler's.  an  ad  hoc  t\pe  o\'  indexmgj  classifi- 
cation, is  good  only  for  ordering  assemblages  of  cultural  patterns  -  an 
index  for  convenience  in  comparing  different  [cultures].  ''''  liul  the  IcncIs 
of  comparability  of  cultures  vary  greatly  in  different  aspects,  from  lan- 
guage at  the  one  end  to  religion  at  the  other.  Thus  although  language 
consists  of  articulate  noises  having  symbolic  \alue  for  some  society. 
[and  for  it  alone.]  languages  are  convertible  from  one  culture  to  another. 
Is  this  possible  for  other  configurations  of  culture,  when  we  compare 
dissociated  elements  in  one  society  with  those  of  another?  ''^  [All  too 
often,]  in  comparisons  of  cultures,  use  is  made  of  patterns  o\'  fictional- 
ized concepts  and  these  concepts  are  compared.  {""'  RadclilTe-Brown.  for 
example,  is  a  conceptualist.)'^  '"'^  This  involves  difficulties  because  1 1 )  it 
is  almost  impossible  to  compare  forms  of  behavior  from  patterns:  (2) 
forms  of  behavior  are  unique  to  each  culture  and  patterns  are  highl> 
inexact  classifications;'"  (3)  since  cultinal  forms  are  historically  deter- 
mined, this  increases  the  difficulty;  and  (4)  there  is  uncertaini)  as  lo  the 
interpretation  of  similar  forms  in  different  cultures.  ''-  Who  is  lo  judge 
the  use  or  value  of  a  pattern  -  the  natixe  or  the  i^bseiAcr?  The  conform- 
ist or  the  rebel? 

si.  bg.ii2.  dm  [Nevertheless,  it  is  not  impossible  to  classif\  culture  pal- 
terns,  as  long  as  we  focus  on]  Jon)i.  rather  than  function.  ''"'  I'or  despite 
our  [supposed]  pragmatism,  our  funclional  ciileiia  are  [onl\  a]  post  hoc 
interpretation.  This  is  why  we  can  classity  form  so  readiK  and  (yet) 
baffle  at  classifying  these  experiences  fimctionally.  ""•  ''^"  [Now.)  what  en- 
ables us  to  see  culture  objecli\ely'.'  There  are  three  reasons  [or.  in 
other  words,]  three  criteria  for  discoxenng  and  classif\ing  culture  pal- 
terns: 

(1)  ^'-  ''-  Human  beings  have  the  abilil>  lo  (diiiereniiaie  and|  detine 
some  experiences  as  against  others  through  the  .senses,  and  cI.ismIn 
activities  in  physiological  terms.  Ihat  is.  ''-•  ^'"-  ^^  in  a  classificalion 
throueh  the  sheer  leslinioin   o\'  the  senses,  the  culture  patterns  have 


492  l^t    ^  uliiirc 

a  \cry  fundamental  relation  to  physiological  activities;  ^'~  they  have  a 
phvsioloiiical  validation.  '^^^  Paddling,  for  example,  impinges  on  the 
senses  diVlerenily  from  making  a  word.  ^'  [The  two  activities  involve] 
variant  physiological  movements. 

^2)  s'.  h2.'bg.  dm  [There  is  already  a]  rough  and  ready  theory  of  the 
classification  o\'  function,  and  the  functioning  of  society,  [constructed] 
by  a  society  itself  and  later  by  the  observer.*'  ^-  The  observer's  theory 
may  revise  or  even  reverse  [that  which  the  society  itself  has];  "'  [but  for 
both,  the  presumption  is  that]  everything  is  explainable. 

1 3)  h:.  hg.  dm.  si  jhg  ihjj-j  reason  lies  in  the  technique  of  reference 
which  all  societies  develop  through  words.  Words  are  very  important 
instrumentalities  in  defining  form  and  even  function,  of  and  by  them- 
selves. ^^-  ^'  The  ability  to  classify  in  advance  comes  from  the  use  of 
words;  e.  g.,  having  two  words,  religion  and  superstition,  indicates  two 
classifications.  A  society's  classificafions  depend  on  the  type  of  language 
used.  "•'"  You  will  see  culture  differently  according  to  the  symbolic  im- 
plementation, the  terminology,  you  work  with. 

h2,  SI  xhese  three  items  give  a  pretty  firm  feeling  for  form  in  culture 
-  ^^  that  is,  they  give  cultural  classifications  in  a  strictly  formal  sense. 
^~  Therefore  it  is  easy  to  discover  forms  of  culture,  despite  our  relentless 
pragmatism.  And  ^^  form  criteria  are  the  most  important  in  classifica- 
tions. ^^-  ^~  Functional  definitions  and  criteria  come  later;  ^^  they  are  of 
value  only  after  the  event.  ^~-  *"  They  are  more  difficult  and  more  subtle; 
we  don't  know  enough  about  society  to  get  [to  functional  criteria]  yet. 
The  contents  of  culture  [must  take  into  account  both]  form  and  func- 
tion, [but  as  yet  we  are  on  a  firmer  footing  with  the  first  of  these  than 
with  the  second,  although]  we  may  know  more  about  functions  in  the 
future.  ^-^^  ^2-  ^'  Are  the  needs  of  man  definitive  and  circumscribed,  and 
thus  easily  satisfied,  or  are  they  an  illusion?  ^'  [If  you  simply  assume 
they  are  definitive  you  will  fail  to  recognize]  the  limitations  and  creative 
possibilities  of  culture. 

°'  Thus  the  functional  point  of  view  has  its  limitafions.  [In  emphasiz- 
ing form  rather  than  function,  at  least  for  the  time  being,  my  approach 
differs  from  that  (for  example)  of]  ""  Malinowski,  who  is  an  anti-formal- 
ist. 

[But  before  leaving  the  question  of  classification  behind,  we  may  pro- 
pose our]  ^g  own  classification  of  culture, '^  in  terms  of  the  classification 
of  behavior  patterns.  Behavior  patterns  may  be  classified  pragmatically 
or  empirically,  according  to  the  way  they  are  related  to  the  following 
broad  classes  of  activities: 


Two:  The  Psvchdloi^v  of  (  ultiirc  4v3 

1.  Patterns  relating  \o  ccDnoniic  lite  the  foDtl  ciuesl.  and  the  quest 
for  shelter. 

2.  Patterns  relating  to  the  i")ri)duetu)n  of  material  gi)ods.  of  value  per 
se  or  of  instrumental  value:  manufaetures.  elothing,  ornament. 

3.  Patterns  relating  to  individual  de\eU)pment  and  mutual  social  in- 
terrelations as  in  kinship,  marriage,  war,  etiquette,  language. 

4.  Patterns  formulating  the  relations  of  man  to  supernatural  or  other- 
worldly powers:  religious  activities,  sorcery,  shamanism,  death. 

5.  Patterns  formalizing  the  desire  for  aesthetic  experience  per  se,  or 
instrumental  [in  realizing  it]:  dance,  graphic  art.  music. 

6.  Patterns  relating  to  the  attitude  o\'  man  to  sustaining  ideals;  the 
vision  quest,  hunger  strike,  etc. 

^^  [It  is  important  to  emphasize  that]  this  is  not  a  hard  and  fast  classi- 
fication. '''  It  is  impossible  to  draw  up  an  intelligible  table  o'i  contents 
or  inventory  of  culture  in  advance.  [The  classification  given  here  is  only 
a  convenience  which  must  necessarily  fail  to  capture  the  way  in  which] 
^^  cultural  elements  [and  patterns,  in  a  given  society,]  aggregate  them- 
selves together,  for  this  varies  in  ditlerent  societies.  You  must  try  to 
visualize  a  kaleidoscopic  variety  of  patterns  caught  up,  in  this  way  or 
that,  by  pattern  configurations  or  ideas  and  taking  color,  habitation 
and  name  in  terms  of  this  ideal  specific  to  a  local  time  and  space. 

hg.  dm  |j^  .^  descriptive  study,  then,  the  author's  task  boils  down  to:  "^^ 

1.  Working  out  carefully  the  landscape  of  cultural  forms  as  the\  natu- 
rally fall  together. 

2.  Starting  out  all  over  again  as  a  psychological  work  on  individuals 
as  individuals  in  their  own  framework,  and  see  hin\  they  work  out  their 
own  needs. '"^ 

[A  descriptive  study  should  attempt,  ultimatel>.  \o  c^Micern  itself  thus 
with  both  cultural  form  and  function.  For  comparative  purposes.  hi>\\- 
ever,  a  concern  with  function  is  problematic]  ''^  .Again,  it  is  important 
to  realize  the  difficulties  of  comparing  the  contents  of  culture:  [consider] 
the  difference  between  education  in  our  culture  and  in.  say,  F.skimo 
culture.  A  prayer  in  Western  society  may  equate  with  a  primiii\e  dance 
Form  is  itself  more  important  than  function;  in  language  the  form  re- 
mains the  same  but  the  function  differs.  I-.g.,  the  word  "hussy"  dernes 
from  "huswif'  but  with  an  entirely  different  meaning,  while  a  new  word, 
"madam,"  takes  the  formal  place  o\'  •"huswif.*  [And  the  ctMicepl  o^ 
"function"  is  itself  unclear.]  ^''"  If  we  take  cultures  as  a  whole  il  turns 
out  to  mean  simply  the  cohesiveness  o^  a  group  and  the  belonging  oi 
individuals  to  that  group.  But  when  we  get  down  to  specific  things 
we've  got  to  watch  our  step.'"* 


4^)4  III   Culture 

The  Purpose  of  Culture''^  '^'-'^'^ 

[Lci  us  coniinuc  our  discussion  of  form  and  function  in  culture  with 
a  broader  consideration  of  cultural  "purpose."]'^  '^  [Surely  a  great  many 
ol]  the  [supposedly]  fundamental  purposes  of  culture  are  really  indivi- 
dual necessities  and  the  rationalizations  of  those  needs.  ''Preserving  the 
heritage/'  "controlling  aggression,"  and  [accounts  of]  "learning  to 
smoke"  [are  examples  of  such  rationalizations  in  our  own  society]/^  [It 
would  be  a  serious  error  to  mistake  our  own  society's  rationalizations 
and  conceptions  of  need  for  universal  purposes.]  Some  purposes  we 
want  to  hold  on  to  -  those  which  [really  do  represent]  our  biological 
needs  we  should  keep  because  they  are  fundamental.  But  we  can  always 
realTirm  our  biological  purpose  in  such  a  way  that  [our  other  purposes 
will]  seem  right.  [In  other  words,  in  keeping  with  the]  ^"'  pragmatism 
[o'i  American  society,]  ^-  we  will  always  try  to  find  tangible  purposes  to 
any  phase  o'(  our  culture. 

[Yet,  from  a  cultural  standpoint,  even  our  most  obviously  biological 
purposes,  such  as  eating,  are  expressed  only  indirectly.]  ^-  Why  was  it 
necessary  to  culturize  our  needs  such  as  food?  Why  this  food  and  not 
that?  Why  prepare  it  this  way  and  not  that?  In  short,  why  did  man  have 
to  evolve  a  more  indirect  method  of  satisfying  his  food  needs  instead 
of  just  going  and  getting  it?  [The  challenge  to  the  economic  or  biological 
determinist]  is  to  try  to  prove  the  need  for  all  this  indirectness  in  regard 
to  our  purposes.  ^'  For  culture  is  not  exactly  squared  to  needs.  Culture 
traits  may  at  some  point  change  their  meaning:  for  example,  [an  income 
is  necessary  in  our  society  for  an  individual  to  acquire  food  and  other 
biological  necessities;  but,  let  the  income  grow  large  enough  -  say,  to] 
an  income  of  75  million  -  and,  [as  so]  often,  [the  "purpose"  of  the 
trait]  changes  into  an  expression  of  "ego,"  or  the  assertion  of  it  to  gain 
[status].'^  Biological  and  psychological  needs  are  satisfied  by  culture, 
but  in  addition,  culture  adds,  through  its  own  momentum,  much  more 
than  these  needs.  ^'^-'^''  [Indeed,]  a  potent  social  pattern  may  fiy  in  the 
lace  of  reason,  of  mutual  advantage,  and  even  of  economic  necessity. 

[What,  then,  is  the  relationship  between  cultural  pattern  and  funda- 
mental biological  and  psychological  drives?  Is  it  a  mistake  to  suppose 
that  such  drives  are  related  to  culture  at  all?]  '^  [Here  let  us  consider]  art, 
[for  the  aesthetic  is  often  said  to  lie  at  the  opposite  pole  from  biological 
necessity.  It  is  sometimes  even  defined  in  this  way.  But  this  view  is 
Itself  culturally  determined,  and  should  not  prevent  us  from]  assuming 
a  psychological  base  for  aesthetic  expression.  American  culture  is  not 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  Culture  495 

[particiilai"I\]  coikIucInc  {o  llic  elc\cK)pnicii(  i>r  acstliclic  expression.  (A 
strong]  con\cnlion  inliibiting  |lhc  exploration  ot"\isiialj  form  (is  part  of 
the  Ameriean]  religious  [tradition.  deri\  ing  from)  the  Puritans  and  from 
evangelical  fmo\ements  in]  I'ngland.'^  Moreover,  for  great  cultural  de- 
velopiiicnl  [m  aesthetic  forms]  there  is  a  ucc(\  tor  a  rich  cultural  back- 
ground. From  a  cultural  standpoint,  il  is  possible  to  find  (a  society  with) 
no  artistic  expression,  due  to  lack  of  cultural  background.  (There  may 
also  be  some]  repressi\e  mechanism  o['  a  cultural  sort,  such  as  milita- 
rism, and  so  on.  From  the  viewpoint  o{  instinct  and  innateness,  there- 
fore, I  do  not  den\  a  physiological  base  or  genetic  relaluMi  with  cultural 
patterns,  [even  in  the  case  ol]  art.  It  is  fundamental,  [iiut  culture  may 
inhibit  drives  as  well  as  develop  their  expression.]''' 

'^'  Indeed,  any  tundamental  drive  may  be  used  b\  all  manner  of  [cul- 
tural] purposes  —  [although  the  fact  that  cultural  purposes  cannot  be 
specified  in  advance]  does  not  mean  there  are  not  some  typical 
purposes.  '^--  '^'  Among  the  different  purposes  that  may  be  gi\en.  some 
are  functional:  music,  tor  example,  may  be  [thought  ol]  as  a  recreation. 
This  "function"  is  only  a  secondary  rationalization,  ho\\e\er.  (as  we 
can  see  when]  the  form  of  aesthetic  expression  sur\i\es  although  its 
momentary  purpose  disappears.  [So,  for  instance,  musical  uorks  mas 
be  performed  today  tor  purposes  entirely  different  from  those  which 
prevailed  at  their  creation,  as  when  sacred  works  are  performed  at  con- 
certs.] ^~  A  second  type  of  purpose  concerns  the  association  [o\'  a  cul- 
tural pattern]  with  other  parts  of  culture.  Really,  music  is  simpK  a  part 
of  a  total  pattern  which  includes  the  kind  of  clothes  worn  [at  musical 
occasions],  the  social  status  [of  musicians  and  audiences[,  and  so  on. 
The  purpose  of  music  is  so  vast  thai  il  inlcipenelrates  all  of  culture.  ^'• 
^~  Music  has  every  possible  type  of  purpose. 

' '  [Similar  considerations  pertain  to]  religion.  [What  is  its  "purpose"".' 
From  one  point  of  view,]  religion  is  the  all\  of  a  symbolism  of  status. 
Although  this  may  be  a  secondary  factor,  secoiularx  factors  are  often 
very  strong.  From  another.  ps\choanal\lic  point  i>f  \ie\\.  [it  may  repre- 
sent] wishful  thinking,  [such  as]  the  desire  for  immortalits;  while  the 
divine  father  idea  [represents)  the  transfer  o\'  an  attitudmal  set  from 
childhood:  [the  image  ol]  childhot>d  blessedness  -  o\'  the  child  in  a 
happy  state  -  [is  linked  with)  the  father  image  and  thus  begins  with 
heaven.  [To  choose  among  these  \iew  points,  or  to  infer  some  fundamen- 
tal drive  explaining  religion,  is  impossible.)  "'  We  can't  sa\  what  drives 
are  tundamental  in  religion.  [Nor  can  we  sa\  that  drives  have  altered, 
where  the  forms  o\'  leliuious  acli\il\   ha\e  altered.)  We  can"!  sa\.  lor 


496  i^t  Culture 

instance,  that  sadism  [was  responsible  for]  burning  [people]  at  the  stake 
and  made  it  cruel,  but  that  such  sadism  is  lacking  now.  Psychological 
sadism  is  the  same  then  and  now;  the  important  matter  is  [not  a  change 
in  the  nature  o\'  such  motives,  but  in]  how  culture  allows  one's  in- 
dulgence of  sadism  -  [whether  in  realms]  economic,  religious,  or  intel- 
lectual). These  causes  may  shift  in  importance  in  time  and  space,  and 
in  conceptual  and  actual  [arenas].  Maybe  religion  feeds  on  basic  ego 
and  libidinal  urges  which  may  be  redistributed. 

''  The  attempt  to  explain  the  "purpose"  of  any  cultural  manifestation 
[is  vulnerable,  therefore,]  to  a  frontal  attack,  [which  can  show  that  there 
could]  result  any  number  of  explanations  for  the  actual  content  of  the 
patterns.  You  cannot  find  a  simple  reason  [for  the  form  of  a  pattern]  in 
the  function  of  patterns  -  this  is  secondary.  '^^^"^  Any  student  who 
has  worked  through  a  considerable  body  of  material  [in  comparative 
ethnology]  is  left  with  a  very  lively  sense  of  the  reahty  of  types  of  organ- 
ization to  which  no  absolutely  constant  functions  can  be  assigned. 
Moreover,  the  suspicion  arises  that  many  social  units  that  now  seem  to 
be  very  clearly  defined  by  their  function  may  have  had  their  origin  in 
patterns  which  the  lapse  of  time  has  reinterpreted  beyond  recognition. 
A  very  interesting  problem  arises  —  that  of  the  possible  transfer  of  a 
psychological  attitude  or  mode  of  procedure  which  is  proper  to  one 
type  of  social  unit  to  another  type  of  unit  in  which  the  attitude  or 
procedure  is  not  so  clearly  relevant.  Undoubtedly  such  transfers  have 
often  taken  place  both  on  primitive  and  on  sophisticated  levels."^ 

'''  [Still,  even  if]  functional  explanations  [of  particular  cultural  forms 
are]  of  limited  usefulness  because  of  the  pitfalls  they  present,^ ^  [one  may 
nevertheless  speak  of  cultural  purpose  in  a  more  general  sense.]  ""^  [In 
this  sense]  there  are  two  main  purposes  for  culture.  The  first  is  a  specific 
purpose:  [to  constrain  the  individual]  to  act  in  the  same  way  as  [is  pre- 
scribed in]  behavior  patterns.  The  second  is  a  general  purpose:  to  actual- 
ize basic  impulses  in  a  harmonic  fashion.  ■"^  Culture  has  the  same  pur- 
pose as  [other  forms  of]  adaptation  to  an  environment  -  to  actualize 
[(i.  e.,  satisfy)]  primary  needs  -  [but  it  does  so  through  a  system  of] 
mental  substitutes.  '^^  ■■'  Culture  may  be  a  symbolic  field,  a  fundamental 
system  of  indirections  which  '^  [present]  the  possibihty  for  a  mulfifor- 
mity  of  expressions  and  '^-  '^  allow  the  fundamental  psychological  drives 
of  each  individual  to  harmonize  with  each  other,  through  secondary 
symbols  of  reference.  The  cultural  pattern  is  a  powerful  system  of  chan- 
nelized behavior-2  which  actualizes  certain  basic  impulses  and  '^  gives 
the  possibility  for  personal  realization.^^ 


Two:  The  P.wc/io/oi^v  of  C'uhurc  497 

[From  the  point  of  view  o\'  iiuli\  idual  psychology,  you  could  say  thai) 
bg.  dm  y^^.  purpose  o\^  cuhure  is  to  serve  as  the  total  stock  in  trade  for 
the  realization  and  expression  of  the  ego.  ''•  '^  But  there  is  no  genetic 
relation  between  certain  impulses  and  certain  [cultural]  patterns. 


Culture  Traits  and  C  'onip/cxcs 

''-  Orthodox  ethnology  sees  culture  as  the  historical  accumulation  ol" 
culture  traits.  '-  [The  concept  of)  culture  trait  C'  or  cultural  clement)  '- 
[is  a  means  by  which]  anthropologists  study  the  mo\ements  o\'  patterns 
without  trying  to  evaluate  them,  or  to  determine  their  interrelationships 
with  other  parts  of  the  culture.  '-■  ^'  [One  attends  to]  individual  elements 
in  the  complexes  of  culture. 

^~  What  are  these  elements  of  culture  which  the  ethnologist  talks 
about?  [They  include  such  phenomena  as,  e.g.,]  1.  cross-cousin  mar- 
riage; 2.  dowry;  3.  buying  ties  for  Christmas;  4.  chewing  gum;  5.  writing 
on  a  blackboard  with  chalk;  6.  artificial  heating;  7.  Saturday  night 
baths;  8.  playing  the  piano.  '^'  Culture  is  analyzed  into  thousands  o\' 
elements,  ""'-  ■"-  without  limitation.  '^'  The  cultural  uni\erse  is  an  element; 
a  type  of  behavior  and  [the  culture's]  philosophic  explanation  of  it  may 
be  two  traits,  ■■'  brought  together. 

^^  What  is  a  unitary  cultural  trait?  Is  it  a  unity  depending  on  descrip- 
tion or  upon  historical  factors?  "^^  Cultural  traits  can  be  o\'  any  si/e.  '* 
However,  when  you  make  them  universal  you  get  into  the  psychological 
rather  than  the  cultural  world.  ''  Disintegrating  a  given  element  [into 
traits  drawn  from  a  universal  set]  leads  to  an  implication  o\'  [common] 
humanity  and  [common]  psychology.  (Anthropologists  [o\'  this  bent] 
find  nothing  unique  in  the  cultural  world.)  '^  You  then  explain  things 
([i.e.,  the  occurrence  of  particular  elements  in  particular  places])  in 
terms  of  diffusion  rather  than  in  terms  o(  parallelisms.  [Deciding  on 
what  is  to  be  considered  a  unitary  element  is  a  loaded  question,  there- 
fore.] ''  Parallelism  [as  an  explanation  can  be  a  useful]  corrective  note 
to  the  idea  of  universal  traits  [who.se  occurrence  is  always  due  to]  cul- 
tural contact.  '^  Yet,  these  sorts  of  explanations  after  the  fact  must  al- 
ways be,  in  the  absence  of  exact  knowledge,  a  kind  of  "Just  So"  slory.^ 

''•  '^  Can  traits  be  gathered  together  \n\o  complexes'  Hiere  are  two 
uses  of  the  word  complex:  ( I )  Traits  which  are  functionally  inlerrelated. 
e.  g.  the  'iiorse  complex."  ''  This  is  a  "natural  complex."  (since  it  re- 
flects the]  integration  of  traits  naluiall\.  [aiul  the  fact  that  an  individual] 


498  lil  Ciiliurc 

trait  (among  them]  never  occurs  alone.  (2)  '^- '-  Traits  which  are  merely 
historicalK  linked  -  e.  g.,  Graebner's  complexes,-^  '^  arbitrary  associa- 
tions o\'  unrelated  traits.  This  conception  of  culture  [imagines]  an  atom- 
istic universe  in  which  elements  are  grouped  and  regrouped  according 
to  fortuitous  winds  o\'  history.  ■■'  [The  focus  is  on]  isolated  histories  of 
elements,  '-  fortuitous  in  their  associations. 

'-  [This  approach]  will  never  lead  to  a  true  philosophy  of  culture 
because  it  neglects  psychology.  It  does  have  its  value  in  preventing 
thoughts  o\'  automatic  associations,  e.  g.  that  cannibals  have  no  music. 
'•^•- ''  Thus  the  term  ""complex"  is  useful  when  it  is  confined  to  meaning 
the  togetherness  of  certain  traits  at  a  particular  time  and  place,  without 
any  universal  or  necessary  connection  being  assumed.  "^"^  But  American 
anthropologists  have  tended  to  emphasize  the  fortuitousness  of  the 
coming  together  of  the  traits  in  a  complex,  [to  the  neglect  of  those 
intrinsic  connections  that  might  genuinely  be  sought.]  ^'  [For  example,] 
Christianity  and  its  component  parts,  however  small  and  seemingly  in- 
significant, are  a  complex  [in  the  "functional"  sense]  and  divisible  into 
traits  which  may  lead  far  outside  Christianity  into  irrelevant  and  con- 
trasting fields.  There  is  great  resistance  of  [some]  elements  to  analysis 
and  separation,  resistance  offered  by  the  emotional  make-up  of  people. 
Some  other  associations  are  not  resistant  to  separation,  however  they 
may  seem  to  one  outside  the  culture. 

"  In  history,  trait  analysis  is  very  important  because  it  shows  the 
flexibility  of  culture  (language,  [for  instance,]  being  forced  to  express 
what  people  desire  to  express  and  not  remain  so  rigid  as  to  prohibit 
communication  of  thought).-^  ^'i  The  emphasis  on  diffusion  as  of  really 
great  importance  was  very  surprising  when  first  introduced;  it  had  been 
supposed  that  each  intelligent  people  would  invent  the  things  they 
needed.  '^  [But  some  ethnologists  came  to  see  trait  diffusion  as  a  kind 
of  Darwinian]  battle  for  the  success  or  failure  of  ideas  and  culture- 
elements,  [whose]  survival  value  was  intrinsic.  [The  atomistic  nature  of 
the  approach  is  what  creates  the  problem:  the  trait  does  not  have  an 
inherent  value  regardless  of  all  other  aspects  of  the  culture.]  '^"^  One 
must  have  social  sanctions  before  value  may  be  attached  to  any  indivi- 
dual creation,  d"^-  ^^^  'b-  hi  [jhat  is  to  say,]  the  prestige-giving  background 
of  culture  is  imperative  to  the  diffusion  of  culture  and  complicates  a 
simple  [picture  of  trait]  diffusion.  New  ideas  don't  count  -  ^'^  they  don't 
"bite"  -  and  traits  do  not  diffuse,  unless  they  are  buttressed  by  symbols 
of  prestige.  '^  The  buttressed  ideas  and  elements  succeed;  the  others, 
[mere]  phantasies,  die.-^  ^i  j^^  personality  of  the  carrier  is  always  a 


I  wo    Ifif  I*\vtliolof^y  of  Cullurc  400 

facliM"  in  JilTiision.  loo.  as  uiih  (  haiinccN  Johiiii\  John  aiKl  his  seed 
corn,  or  Ahco  Vwo  Cnins  aiul  ilic  lumping  style  of  women's  dancing.-* 
So  is  diffusion  \  ia  [social  principles  such  as)  family  remo\ai  or  marriage, 
for  people  tend  to  keep  up  the  old  culture  in  their  new  surroundings.  •'* 
Thus  the  sui\i\al  \alue  of  an  element  is  both  iiilrinsic  and  extrinsic. 

[Ha\ iuL!  mapped  the  disiiitiulioii  o\'  traits,  the  anthropologist  is  faced 
with  the  problem  of  disco\ering  the  point  from  which  they  diffused.]  "^ 
Wissler's  r(7//t'/t'J  system  of  diffusion  [(which  places  the  point  t>f  origin 
of  a  trait  at  the  geographical  center  of  its  distribution)!  may  be  critici/ed 
as  simi-tlislic.  [as  ma\  an\  of  those  s\stems  uliich  insist  on  but  a  single 
point  c>f  c>rigin.|  "'There  ha\e  probabis  been  man\  tentative  beginnings. 
The  problem  presented  here  b\  the  cultural  anthropi>logist  is  largely 
artificial;  Old  World  and  New  World  agriculture,  for  instance,  are  not 
reall\  the  same  "trait."  This  tendency  to  deal  with  atomic  culture-ele- 
ments, in  terms  of  isolable  traits  -  as  if  there  were  iu>  l.ippertian  I.ih- 
cnsfiirsorge  involved-'^  -  is  antipsychological.  Our  terminology  is  our 
enemy  too,  for  the  mere  use  of  the  same  term  [(such  as  "agriculture")] 
pre\ents  our  seeing  differences.  ([This  is  a  good  reason  to]  use  nati\e 
names!) 

dm  jj^g  interest  o\'  anthropologists  is  fortunaiel\  gradually  shifting 
from  the  trait  analysis  and  description  w hich  was  [once]  the  [be-all]  and 
end-all  o\^  the  discipline.  ^^  For  the  trait  point  of  \iew  does  not  tell  us 
much  about  culture.  *'^-  '*"  [Consider.]  for  example,  the  Plains  [Indians'] 
arrangement  of  their  camp  in  a  circle.  "'  as  compared  with  the  smooth- 
ness of  our  table.  Are  these  binh  traits  o\'  ec]ual  [significance]'.'  The 
purposes  for  which  we  use  tables  might  equall\  alKns  the  use  of  a  rough 
table.  What  about  the  bull-roarer  o\'  Australia,  and  the  Noolka  bull- 
roarer'.'  (Bull-roarers  ha\e  more  prestige  in  anthropological  circles  than 
the  polishedness  of  tables.)  Are  the\  the  same  trail.' 

"'  We  may  well  be  made  imhapps.  when  we  deal  with  atomic  elements. 
at  the  diffusion  vs.  independenl-de\elopment  dilemma.  [I'or  the  equa- 
tion o{  the  Australian  and  Nootka  bull-roarers  is)  unfortunate.  \Shal 
work  does  the  bull-roarer  ilo.  culturalls'.'  Ihe  Noolka  bull-roarer  is  a 
game,  owned  b\  a  cerlain  lineage.  It  is  onl>  one  game  aiming  man\. 
played  for  prizes  -  pri/es  being  the  important  part,  a  segment  o{  the 
potlach  "trait."  [Similarl\.|  it  diK'siil  tell  sou  .in> thing  about  Plains 
Indians  [just]  lo  kiunv  that  the>  ha\e  their  camp  in  a  circle.  ''•'  lo  enu- 
merate traits  is  o\'  little  [help].  ''-•  '^  althmigh  our  catalogue  of  traits 
gives  us  the  illusion  ihal  somelhmg  has  been  said. 


50U  l^^  Culture 

bg.  lb.  h:  ^in  sum,]  it  is  useful  to  follow  up  the  distribution  of  a  trait 
but  only  as  a  preliminary  study  or  point  of  departure,  for  a  trait  list 
provides  only  the  signs  of  the  presence  of  cultural  dissimilarities  (differ- 
ences from  our  own  [culture]).  ^^  The  isolation  of  these  traits  and  the 
reconstruction  of  their  history  is  important  for  the  way  it  emphasizes 
the  vagaries  o^  historical  accident  in  the  processes  of  development.  "^ 
To  gi\e  an  example:  historically  our  English  language  is  a  stranger  to 
us.  [By  tracing  the  history  of  forms]  the  linguist  can  blow  up  our  senti- 
mental psychological  configuration.  [Thus  the  expression]  "damn  bitch" 
[unites  forms  derived  from]  Church  Christianity  and  Norman  hunting  - 
strange  bedfellows.  Complexes  don't  necessarily  belong  together  [just] 
because  they  do  historically  occur  together.  There  are  indeed  some  acci- 
dental complexes  and  configurations,  [and  trait  histories  can  help  reveal 
them.]  ^*?- '''  But  they  can  never  take  the  place  of  the  dynamic  study  of 
patterns.  '^^  No  culture  consists  of  traits  save  in  the  atomistic  sense. 

dm.  lb.  hi.  h2.  bg  yj^g  ^j-^j^  J5  really  the  enemy  of  the  pattern  -  it  is  of 
no  importance  isolated  from  its  configuration  and  too  often  has  been 
elevated,  as  by  Graebner,  to  fetishistic  significance  (festishistic  because 
attaching  too  much  importance  to  the  materiality  of  the  thing  pointed 
to).  No  trait  belongs  to  any  one  culture.  "^  We  can't  claim  any  [particu- 
lar] trait  as  "ours"  -  ^^  there  is  diffusion  everywhere.  To  realize  this 
breaks  down  some  parochialisms  of  thought  (consider  the  connection 
of  the  Dakota  corn  farmer  with  Mesopotamia,  or  the  history  of  the 
alphabet);  but  ^^  traits  have  no  meaning}^  '*™-  ^^  Some  old-[fashioned] 
historians  and  anthropologists  are  sfill  very  much  concerned  as  to  who 
first  cultivated  wheat,  who  discovered  barley,  who  invented  the  alpha- 
bet, etc.  -  ^^  but  it  doesn't  matter.  What  matters  is  the  meaning  pattern 
[in  which  these  elements  occur].  It  is  after  the  event  to  say  that  the 
alphabet  was  an  important  invention;  in  the  beginning  it  wasn't  impor- 
tant at  all.  Shall  we  sing  a  hymn  of  praise  to  Irish  monks,  missionaries, 
Latins,  Etruscans,  West  Greeks,  Cadmus,  or  [to  alphabet  creators  of] 
the  "East"  -  Phoenicians?  [The  alphabet  existed]  before  them,  though. 
(Columbus  effectively  "discovered"  America  to  the  European  con- 
sciousness, though  others  preceded  him.  [Who  is  the  great  "discoverer," 
then-^]) 

'^  We  don't  know  today  what  are  the  really  great  ideas.  Nor  did  they 
m  the  past.  We  can't  know  what  a  culture-element  can  do  cumulatively 
-  hence  many  "great"  men  in  history  are  so  [only]  retrospectively,  mer- 
ely m  terms  of  their  specific  ancestry  to  modern  man  psychologically; 
and  such  evaluative  history  must  be  rewritten  each  generation.  [In  its 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  Culiitrc  501 

early  days  the  alphabet  was]  jusl  a  pallcrn.  [deriving]  from  Fgypi  and 
with  prestige-value  to  the  Semitic  peoples,  but  not  completely  under- 
stood. [Only  by  the]  accidents  o\'  history  [have  we  acquired  alphabetic 
writing  rather  than  some  other  form,  for  it  is]  not  the  alphabet  [as  such] 
that  does  the  work  but  the  cumulative  history.  These  lew  scralchings 
meant  little  to  the  Sinaitic  people  (like  runes,  [in  a  later  age]).  Ogham^' 
likewise  died,  although  as  [a  system]  it  was  quite  as  spectacular  or  as 
dull  as  the  Sinaitic  alphabet  -  and  yet  few  have  e\er  heard  of  Ogham 
writing.  Much  oi'  history,  then,  is  invidious  intellectual  ancestor-hunt- 
ing, reevaluative  [according  to  the  values  ot]  the  present  time-level,  not 
in  terms  of  actual  beginnings  and  contemporary  importance.  (Our  ele- 
mentary education  [is  full  oi'  such]  systematized  pabulum  -  "Eskimos 
live  in  snow-houses,"  "The  Phoenicians  invented  the  alphabet,"  "It  gets 
colder  as  you  go  north.") 

"^  The  order  of  the  alphabet  is  traditional;  like  a  spell,  [or  the  rhyme] 
"eeny  meeny  miney  mo,"  [it  has  no  intrinsic  significance.]  From  the 
trait  viewpoint  it  is  right  to  connect  [alphabetic  order]  with  all  these 
peoples,  for  it  is  a  singularity,  [a  product  ot]  historical  continuity  onl>. 
But  from  the  cultural-complex  viewpoint  [the  connection  would]  not 
[be  right.]  Although  you  can't  build  a  complete  picture  of  culture  with- 
out [any  elements,  or]  traits,  the  alternative  -  to  attach  a  once-for-all. 
[supposedly  inherent]  significance  [to  a  trait]  -  is  just  as  wrong.  '*"■  '^- 
Traits  are  nothing  in  themselves,  only  fossils  and  habits  full  o\'  irration- 
ality and  [laden  with]  prestige.  '^-  ^e- '^''"  The  study  o\'  "traits"  is  valuable 
for  distributive  historical  studies,  but  not  for  psychological  synchronic^' 
explanations  of  culture.  [Notice,  for  example,]  the  dilTerent  horizons  of 
u,  V,  w,  X,  q,  and  j  historically;  [they  entered  our  alphabet  at  quite  dif- 
ferent times.]  [But  as  regards  our  culture  today,]  we  don't  care  about 
any  of  these  things;  we  don't  live  under  the  dispensation  o\'  "culture 
traits"  -  nor  do  primitive  people,  probably.  (F.ven  Thor.  [a  trait  wow 
usually  connected  with  "Nordic"  peoples,]  ma>  be  I  gro-F'innic  [in  ori- 
gin]; and  the  pre-Indoeuropean  people  in  England  were  "Nordic"  (in 
many  ways,  though  Nordic  traits  are  often  supposed  to  "beliMig"  lo  the 
Indoeuropeans.]) 

dm.  h2,  bg  While  traits  ma\  be  isolated  from  a  purel>  descnpti\e  or  an 
historical  standpoint,  the  latter  is  the  real  criterion  for  the  culture  trail. 
[In  other  words,]  there  is  no  real  criterion  for  a  culture  trait  sa\e  histori- 
cal continuity.  Description  is  suitable  for  large-scale,  complicated  trails 
[(showing  the  component  parts),]  but  not  for  simple  trails.  ^^  For  the 
trait  an  sich  is  nil:  its  functions  change  from  age  to  age.  IriMii  jx-ople  lo 


502  ^^^  Culture 

people,  and  even,  perhaps,  from  individual  to  individual.  ^^  Contrast, 
for  example,  the  historical  study  of  the  alphabet  with  its  value  as  a 
symbol  oi'  education  for  the  child  of  tender  age:  here  the  alphabet  has 
dynamic  value.  Traits  take  on  new  significations  from  time  to  time,  and 
hence  it  is  impossible  to  construct  history  from  them.  [Trait  analysis 
suggests]  descriptive  unity,  as  between  Old  and  New  World  agricultural 
traits;  historical  unity,  as  in  the  relation  between  Christianity  in  New 
Haven  and  in  Abyssinia;  but  cultural  traits  don't  really  exist.  They  are 
remade  in  each  culture,  according  to  its  mythology  and  its  rationaliza- 
tions. 

'^  [As  our  discussion  of  culture  elements  illustrates,  we]  serve  two 
masters,  psychology  and  history  -  the  meaning  and  the  "how  come" 
sides  of  anthropology.  '^"^  [From  a  cultural  point  of  view,]  the  [only] 
main  purpose  of  studying  traits  is  to  give  the  necessary  preliminary 
stock-taking  of  the  culture;  "^  but  the  historical  background  [of  culture] 
is  not  necessarily  congruent  with  the  situation  today.  Things  mean  what 
we  think  they  mean,  [not  where  they  have  come  from.]  ^^'  ^^  Trait  "eth- 
nology" is  really  archaeology,  [just]  not  of  things  dug  from  the  ground. 
It  is  not  cultural  anthropology. 


lb 


The  Geography  of  Culture 


oi.  h2  j^Q  study  of  the  diffusion  of  culture  traits  [has  made  much  ofj 
the  logic  of  [their]  spatial  distribution.  *■'  From  the  [geographical]  extent 
of  a  trait,  [one  speculates  as  to  whether  the  trait's  occurrence  is  due  to] 
old  heritage  or  to  secondary  factors  of  distribution,  [with  most  occur- 
rences] probably  due  to  distribution,  in  the  last  analysis.  ([For  a  discus- 
sion of]  diffusion,  see  Wissler's  Man  and  Culture.) 

[There  has  been  much  success  in  tracing  the  paths  of  diffusion  by  this 
means;  yet  the  procedure  has  its  limitations,  especially  for  the  more 
complex  societies.]  '^  As  civilized  man  transcends  space  as  well  as  time, 
the  [diffusional]  picture  is  even  less  clear  than  in  primitive  societies. 
[Consider,  for  example,  the  spread  of  ideas  through]  university  contacts: 
it  is  not  topography,  but  the  carriers  [of  the  ideas]  that  are  important 
[in  determining  their  spread.]  ^-  [Actually,  this  is  true  of  any  process  of 
diffusion:]  the  distance  as  evaluated  by  the  carriers  is  different  from  the 
actual  location.  '^  We  must  weight  geography,  [measuring]  not  mileage 
but  cultural-mileage.''^ 


Two:  The  Pswholoi^v  of  Ciilttin'  503 

[This  includes  llic  facl  that  sunic  ideas  spread  more  easily  ihaii  o\\\- 
ers.]  "^  There  is  little  resistance  to  the  spread  of  a  myth  -  e.  g..  (we  find) 
Grimm  fairy  stories  in  oriental  settings  but  not  so  with  a  kinship 
system.  [But  although  a  myth,  or  elements  of  a  myth,  may  spread  rela- 
tively easily,]  "'  the  significance  o\'  the  tale  \aries  ni>t  as  part  ol"  the 
tale-trait,  but  subjective  to  the  particular  culture  [in  which  the  tale  is 
found.]  The  Nootka  suitor-myths  [can  ser\c  as  an  example.  Among  the 
Nootka,]  '^'^^  the  legend  oi'  the  suitor  winning  a  supernatural  bride  is 
embodied  in  the  marriage  ceremonial  which  symbolizes  status.  The  leg- 
end [occurring]  in  the  ceremonial  is  the  same  thing  as  a  story  in  another 
locality,  but  the  ceremonial  one  is  a  topaii  (pri\ilege).  while  the  other 
tale  is  recreation.  [So  profoundly  Nootka  is  the  significance  o\'  the  tale 
in  its  Nootka  context,  that  it  is]  "^  a  disappointment  to  an  informant 
with  knowledge  of  its  wider  distribution  as  a  lilerar\  product,  [to  learn 
that  the  tale  does  not  belong  to  the  Nootka  alone.] 

[Likewise,]  the  Star-husband  myths  of  the  Plains  may  be  f(nind 
among  the  Klamath;^"*  and  "^-  "■'  tales  of  magic  Hight  occur  in  ancient 
Japan,  in  South  America  (Upper  Amazon),  and  all  over  North  America, 
as  the  same  story  but  with  different  motives  for  the  flight.  "'  This  is  no 
mere  parallelism,  ''  [but  a  tale]  adopted  by  different  peoples  and  re- 
interpreted into  local  terms.  "'"  The  elements  o\'  these  m\th  tales  that 
are  added  or  subtracted  are  as  important  as  the  common  elements  that 
are  preserved  throughout  the  myth  as  distributed.  ''• ''"'  [A  more  com- 
plex,] large-scale  example  is  the  difTusion  of  Christianil\.  Documeniar\ 
and  terminological  evidence  are  important  in  identif\ing  the  complex. 
•■'  with  whose  spread  there  are  changes  -  [here  and]  there  a  differenl 
emphasis,  and  a  modification. ■^'' 

qq,  ii.  r2  yj^g  interchange  of  traits  does  not  require  friendK  relations 
between  groups;  even  with  a  hostile  relation  there  ma\  be  much  borrow- 
ing. '^  Diffusion  is  [perfectly]  possible  under  conditions  o\  war.  '-  But 
traits  are  never  taken  over  exactly  as  they  are  received.  '<''  ''  '-  instead. 
borrowed  elements  must  be  assimilated  to  the  already  given  back- 
ground; and  this  assimilation  is  selective.  "  Ofien.  the  subject  culture 
picks  up  what  may  be  considered  very  insignificant  or  trilling  within 
the  complex  of  the  parent  culture;  this  trifie  or  aspect  may.  however,  be 
just  what  the  subject  culture  is  then  m  need  of  (or  what  it  is  entirely 
unconscious  oiy  '-  [The  assimilation  into  our  own  culture)  of  ja//  music 
from  Africa,  or  of  [elements  ot]  southern  speech  \'\om  the  Negro,  are 
examples  where  it  is  just  some  aspect  of  a  larger  thing  that  is  taken  in. 
qq.  ri  Piobably  any  element  might  be  assimilated.  pro\ided  it  may  he  re- 


504  Hi  Culture 

interpreted.  ''  A  culture  may  [even]  adopt  a  trait  the  essence  of  which 
is  antithetical  to  it,  and  refit  [this  element]  to  its  general  pattern. 

'-  The  anthropologist  has  not  done  much  work  on  the  process  of  re- 
interpretation  of  traits  by  the  receiving  culture,  [so  we  can  make  only  a 
few  general  remarks  about  it].  Culture  never  somersaults:  the  process 
of  reinterpretation  is  gradual.  The  technique  of  assimilation  [must  re- 
quire a  certain]  preparedness,  [on  the  part  of]  the  receiving  culture,  to 
accept  new  things;  selection  [of  the  elements  to  be  absorbed];  and  integ- 
ration [of  the  new  traits]  with  something  old  and  already  ingrained.  {^^ 
[Here]  the  terminology  is  tremendously  important.  If  you  can  call  new 
customs  by  old  names,  they  seem  more  acceptable.)  '^^  In  other  words, 
there  is  not  only  a  cosmos  of  re-interpretable  traits;  there  are  also  com- 
munities of  receptive  peoples. 

[Are  nearby  peoples  most  likely  to  be  the  receptive  ones?  Such  recep- 
tivity is  one  way  to  think  about]  ^'^  ^^'  "^^  the  concept  of  culture  area, 
although  the  concept  [first]  arose  from  the  need  to  arrange  and  system- 
atically classify  museum  specimens  for  exhibition.  '^-  ^^  [It  represents  a 
regional]  "clustering"  of  characteristic  culture  traits  and  complexes.  "^ 
If  traits  were  distributed  only  on  the  basis  of  chance,  the  distribution 
of  any  trait  would  be  incongruent  with  that  of  other  traits;  ^^  [where, 
however,  we  find  an]  amassing  of  traits  by  areas,  [we  speak  of]  "culture 
areas." 

^^  The  English  ethnologists  have  tended  to  neglect  the  [geographical] 
spread  of  culture  traits. '-''  The  idea  of  [cultural]  evolution  is  more  popu- 
lar there.  Frazer,  for  instance,  was  more  interested  in  pointing  out  the 
typicality  of  the  primitive  reaction  [than  its  regional  differences].-^^  ^"^ 
The  Americans,  on  the  other  hand,  have  sometimes  attempted  to  mark 
off  culture  areas  all  over  the  map.  Yet  the  reality  of  culture  areas  as 
clear-cut  entities  seems  to  vary  greatly.  '^'  ^^  Though  it  has  a  didactic 
value,  this  type  of  classification  can  be  -  and  too  often  is  -  overdone, 
for  not  all  people  can  be  fitted  into  such  a  scheme.  '^  Too  much  of  a 
fetish  has  been  made  of  the  culture-area  concept.  [It  works]  best  for  the 
Plains  and  the  Northwest  Coast;  but  elsewhere  a  passion  for  classifica- 
tion has  run  away  with  us,  and  one  thinks  other  areas  are  of  equal 
weight  and  cogency.  '^'  ^2  ^  g^^^  [points  out  in]  "American  Myths" 
[Scientific  Monthly),  the  classificatory  habits  [deriving  from]  biological 
and  zoological  taxonomy  have  done  anthropology  a  great  deal  of  harm. 

t2,  ti,  ck  ^^1^  regard  to  the  mechanics  of  culture  action,  European 
[ethnologists  have  a  somewhat  similar]  concept:  the  culture  stratum. 
They  are  not  so  interested  in  area.  ^^  But  the  "culture  area"  is  a  relatively 


Tno:  The  Fsycholo^y  of  C  ulturc  505 

simple  concept  in  America  as  compared  with  the  ureal  complexity  of 
[cultural]  stratification  in  the  Old  World.  '■'  [The  luropean  elhni>Iogists) 
tried  to  work  out  the  stratification  of  primiti\e  cultures  by  "  describing 
distinct,  disconnected  cultural  traits,  naming  the  resulting  pot-pourri  of 
indiNkiiial  iraits  a  '^'ullure."*  and  searching  for  i>lher  places  with  similar 
combinations.  [A  given  locality  may  have  many  such  "cultures."  in  stra- 
tified combination.]  ''  This  is  the  Ciraebnerian  point  o^  view.  "  .As  be- 
fore, here  we  can  talk  of  [both]  historical  and  psychi^logical  culture 
strata:  [both  points  o\^  view  would  apply.] 

"  Is  the  culture  area  ([or  stratum])  a  mere  description  of  culture  (low. 
or  is  it,  aside  tYom  that,  a  psychological  unit'.'  The  latter!  ^-  Although 
the  culture  area  concept  can  be  criticized  [on  the  grounds]  that  there 
isn't  the  same  degree  of  relation  between  [any]  two  traits  [constituting 
it],  there  are.  however,  assemblages  of  people  who  understand  each  oth- 
er's culture  and  feel  themselves  as  a  unity.  [Our  conception  here  repre- 
sents] a  sort  of  cross  between  political  science  and  anthropology.  '-•  ^- 
This  is  the  true  psychological  meaning  of  culture  area:  ""  ^-  "''  a  nascent 
nationality.  '^'^-  '^'  Under  the  dominating  idea  in  an  area  there  is  a  nascent 
feeling  of  unity;  it  is  a  potential  "nationality,"  in  the  sense  that  a  "na- 
tion" represents  a  communality  of  understanding.  For  example.  '^  [con- 
sider] the  Siouan  and  Cheyenne  partleche:  what  you  say  o\'  the  Sioux 
attitude  you  can  say  of  a  dozen  other  [peoples],  and  this  is  the  psycho- 
logical value  of  the  culture-area.  ''''  A  Sioux  captured  by  a  Blackfool 
would  feel  at  home  in  the  culture  even  though  [in  the  hands  of]  deadly 
enemies,  whereas  (say)  a  Pueblo  [Indian]  captured  by  a  Plains  tribe 
would  not  feel  at  home  -  he  would  not  know  what  [his  situation]  is  all 
about. 

"^  Some  of  our  culture  areas  are  ver\  real  things  in  the  psychological 
sense;  others  are  pretty  weak  in  the  knees.  How  nianv  culture  areas  arc 
psychological  realities?  "■-  On  this  basis.  Plains  culture.  Southwest  cul- 
ture, and  Northwest  Coast  culture  are  valid  areas,  but  the  others  ([in 
North  America])  do  not  have  a  sulTicient  psychological  basis  of  unity. 
'-''•  •■-  [As  we  have  said,]  the  culture  area  really  is  a  nascent  nation,  and 
many  nations  probably  arose  in  just  this  way  [thus  we  may  wish  lo] 
compare  the  different  tribes  in  the  I*lains  area  with  the  dilTereni  cily 
states  in  Italy.  But  this  notion  of  the  culture  area  should  never  be  con- 
fused with  the  notion  o\'  the  state.  '^  The  stale  is  a  method  for  compro- 
mising or  solving  antagonistic  points  o\  view;  ^'^^  ''  the  Plains  iribcs. 
with  their  uniformity  o\'  [cultural]  patterns,  are  a  cullural  unily.  the 


5(J5  ^^^   Culture 

psychological  ground  [tor  a  state,  if  you  will,  but  as  yet  lacking  this 

method.]^ 

ck. .:.  .1  What  vital  culture  areas,  [in  this  sense  of  the  term,]  could  we 
recognize  a  hundred  years  ago  in  the  civilized  world,  before  modern 
mdustrialisni  set  in'?  [A  list  might  look  as  follows:] 

1.  Occidental  (Western  European)  culture,  with  its  American  deriva- 

ll\CS. 

2.  Saracenic  (Islamic)  culture  in  the  Near  East. 

3.  The  culture  of  India. 

4.  East  Asiatic  culture  -  Chinese,  with  Japan  as  a  derivative  of  that 

(also  Korea). 

5.  F\^ssibly  a  Turkish-Altaic  culture  area  {'^  though  probably  not). 
[At  least  the  first]  four  of  these  are  ""^  vital  culture  areas,  cosmoses 

that  in  spite  of  tremendous  diversities  within  them  are  psychological 
unities.  '-  In  the  course  of  time  the  cross-fertilization  of  traits  has  devel- 
oped a  common  pattern  of  culture  with  '-  ""^^  "■'  a  kind  of  commonality 
of  feeling  which  transcends  local  and  political  differences.  "^  This  is 
what  anthropology  should  have  meant  by  culture  area. 


Editorial  Note 

This  chapter  covers  the  lectures  of  Nov.  16,  23,  and  30,  1936  (Rl, 
R2,  QQ,  CK;  of  the  three  lectures,  QQ  and  CK  have  little  material  on 
the  first  two).  Also  included  are  two  lectures  from  1935-36,  one  un- 
dated (Jan.  3?)  and  the  other  dated  Jan.  10,  1936  (BW,  Tl,  T2),  as  well 
as  lectures  from  1934  (Jan.  23,  30,  and  Feb.  6;  DM,  H2,  LB,  BG,  SI). 
The  organizational  framework  for  the  discussion  is  provided  by  the 
1936  notes  and  by  Sapir's  1928  Outline. 

The  1936  notes  are  sparse  for  the  introductory  sections,  when  Sapir 
apparently  discussed  the  relationship  of  form  and  function.  Most  of  the 
chapter's  material  on  this  topic  comes,  therefore,  from  the  earlier  ver- 
sions of  the  course.  The  1934  notes,  though  rich,  present  some  organiza- 
tional problems.  Some  of  the  notes  are  probably  out  of  order. 


Notes 

1.  BG  also  has:  "The  contents  of  culture  'ought'  to  be  reduced  to  modes  of  behavior.  Tliere 
are  no  objects  of  culture;  there  are  only  modes  of  behavior." 


luo:  riic  Psvdioloi^v  nf  C  'ulmrc  507 

2.  SI  has:  "Cultiin'  cannot  bo  dclnK-d  m  icnns  o\  things  Chsis")  or  overt  patterns.  (Mandcl- 
baum's  classific.  useless.)" 

Rl  has  "Education  -  two  pluise."  It  is  not  clear  what  phases  Sapir  had  in  mind,  or 
whether  they  applied  oiil\  to  our  o\k\\  culture. 
R2  actually  has  "thought  oi."  Rl  and  lUi  do  not  have  this  word 

Included  under  the  "functional  piMiit  oI'mcw,'  Rl  also  has:  "Imi^ortant  psychological 
pallerns       philosophic  point  of  view   -  (Ditricult  to  carry  out  )" 

6.  LB  adds.  "Language  ditto." 

7.  R2  has:  "points  out  that  this  [Wissler's  culture  pattern)  is  not  a  lunciioning  pattern,  as 
his  is." 

8.  See  Roheini  1932  and  1934.  presumably  the  works  Sapir  might  ha\e  had  in  mind. 

9.  See  Benedict's  comments,  in  a  letter  to  Margaret  Mead,  on  a  paper  Sapir  gave  at  the 
1932  meetings  of  the  American  Ethnological  Society:  "The  speech  was  on  Function  and 
Pattern  in  modern  anthropology,  and  it  was  aimed  at  RadclilTe-Brown..."  (in  An  Anihro- 
poloi^i.sl  III  Hark,  M.  Mead.  ed.  [1959].  p.  325).  Benedict's  opinion  of  Sapir's  paper  was 
largely  negative.  The  paper  itself,  if  it  ever  existed  in  written  form,  is  now  lost,  and  Sapir 
did  not  comment  on  RadclilTe-Brown  in  his  published  writings. 

10.  Tl  also  has:  "Conflict  between  systems  and  styles  of  culture  and  the  actual,  prevalent 
forms  themselves."  It  is  not  clear,  however,  just  where  in  the  oxerall  discussion  this  p^)int 
belongs. 

11.  DM  has:  "The  rough  and  ready  theory  of  function  that  the  society  or  that  the  individual 
has."  BG  and  H2  have  observer,  not  inJividual. 

12.  It  is  not  clear  whether  this  classificatory  scheme  is  Sapir's  or  Beaglehole's;  I  suspect  the 
latter.  Sapir  may  well  have  proposed  that  the  students  try  to  come  up  with  a  satisfactory 
classification  so  that,  in  comparing  the  proposals  in  class  discussion,  it  could  be  shown 
that  no  one  a  priori  scheme  was  preferable  to  another. 

13.  BG  has.  in  an  apparently  parallel  passage,  "Analyze  the  fundamental  functions  of  soci- 
ety." 

14.  This  passage  in  DM  comes  right  after  the  passage  about  (descripti\eK )  seeing  how  m- 
dividuals  work  out  their  own  needs  -  a  discussion  o\'  "function,"  that  is.  But  it  is  not 
certain  that  the  "it"  in  "...it  turns  out  to  mean..."  actually  refers  to  "function." 

15.  Rl  links  the  heading,  "Purpose  of  Culture,"  with  "functions."  See  also  the  section  enti- 
tled "Function  and  Form  in  Sociology,"  in  Sapir  1927a,  "Anthropology  and  Sociology." 

16.  T2  has:  "BrilTs  explanation  of  smoking  and  his  mental  method  o\'  reaching  that  point, 
the  shrinkage  of  space." 

17.  Tl  has  "kudos." 

18.  This  line  in  Rl  actually  reads:  "Convention  -  form  -  inhibition  -  religion      ^.....v 
England  -  puritans  -".  Note  that  Rl  does  not  specify  visual  form,  but  I  infer  that  this 
may  be  meant,  because  the  "art"  section  seems  to  be  set  apart  from  the  "music"  MXlion 
which  follows  it. 

19.  Rl  has.  in  the  margin  next  to  this  paragraph  on  art.  "Ramifications  of  a  word" 

20.  I  insert  this  passage  from  ".Anthropology  and  Sociology"  because  Rl  has,  at  thi 
"Psychological  -  attitudinal  sets". 

21.  What  the  Outline  actually  has  here  is:  "The  functional  point  of  \iew  Its  limi(ation:».  Hjc 
pitfalls  of  rationalization." 

22.  R I  has  "possible  behavior". 

23.  R I  has  more  here,  on  "Secondar>  s>mboK  ol  congruence"  (V)  but  (he  pasvigc  is  illegible 

24.  LB  adds  parenthetically  here:  "(educationally  inhibiting  element  in  our  culture  the 
'mucker  pose';  when  one  dares  to  be  as  linguistically  clever  as  he  can.  he  startles  not 
only  others  but  himself  too." 

25.  See,  for  example.  Graebner  1911  and  1924 


508  l^t  Culture 

26  11  adds  •Discussion  on  canonistic  writings  -  Bible  (Old  and  New  T),  Koran,  Vedic 
poems.  C'onrucian  classics,  etc.,  as  a  trait. 

27.  DM  adds:  "Here  is  the  nuclear  element,  the  spring  board  for  your  thesis  on  the  economic 
determination  of  social  status  and  prestige." 

28.  Hi  has:  "(Did  Alice  Two  Guns  live  at  Cattaraugus?  Did  the  jumping  style  of  dancing  in 
Women's  dance  originate  here  at  Coldspring  or  over  there  at  Cattaraugus?)"  The  refer- 
ence IS  again  to  an  Iroquoian  group. 

29.  See  Lippert  1S86-87. 

30.  HI  cues  Sapir's  (I9l6h)  paper  on  Time  Perspective  [see  Ethnology  volume:  CWES  IV] 
"for  the  principle  of  [trait]  distribution  and  antiquity,  and  the  principle  of  broken  distri- 
bution and  antiquity  and  time... the  logical  method."  HI  comments,  "Sapir  seems  to 
have  altered  his  position  since  1916;  he  no  longer  insists  on  the  logical  explanation 
culture,  trait,  and  culture  complex  in  terms  of  distribution,  sedation,  etc.  For  in  1933  he 
says.  "No  trait  belongs  to  any  culture;  Trait  is  the  enemy  of  pattern;  traits  have  no 
meaning." 

31.  An  early  Irish  system  of  writing  using  notches  for  vowels  and  lines  for  consonants  to 
form  an  alphabet  of  20  letters. 

32.  LB  has  "psychological  at-one-time  explanations". 

33.  Similar  wording,  and  many  of  the  same  ideas  and  examples,  can  be  found  in  Sapir's 
1916  Tunc  Perspective  in  Aboriginal  American  Culture:  A  Study  in  Method.  The  view  of 
culture  is  somewhat  different,  however. 

34.  See  F.  Boas  (1891),  "The  Dissemination  of  Tales  among  the  Natives  of  North  America," 
/  Amer  Folklore  A:  13-20. 

35.  At  this  point  LB  gives  a  long  list  of  what  are  apparently  further  examples  of  ideas 
some  of  which  have  diffused  and  others  have  not;  those  that  diffuse  become  rationalized 
according  to  the  local  cultural  setting.  Thus  "the  plank  house  [occurs]  from  the  panhan- 
dle of  Alaska  to  the  Klamath  River  of  northern  California,  [where  the  local  culture] 
rationalizes  [its  construction  from]  redwood:  you  can  make  this  selfevident  (a  soft  wood, 
etc.)  -  but  the  Algonquians  use  birch  bark  [for  a  similar  type  of  house]."  Another 
example  is  "the  medicine-bundle:  the  psychology  of  the  present  functioning  element  has 
nothing  to  do  with  its  history."  Other  examples  include  the  division  of  the  Bible  into 
sections,  the  history  of  Jewish  law,  the  four  (or  sometimes  six)  cardinal  points,  the  Na- 
vaho  "unique  origin-myth  of  the  horse,"  short-story  "plots"  (Cinderella,  Ulysses),  and 
our  "master  formulae... putting  a  value  on  services,  attaching  figures  to  intangibles  (unin- 
telligible in  other  societies)."  The  examples  are  not  cited  in  enough  detail  to  reveal  what 
specific  use  Sapir  made  of  them. 

36.  See  Frazer  1917-20,  The  Golden  Bough. 

37.  The  definition  of  the  state  given  in  LB  occurs  next  to  the  section  on  "Culture  Areas" 
but  is  actually  included  under  another  heading:  "Sapir  on  Culture  and  Neurosis." 


Chapter  5.  The  Patterning  ofCuhurc 

'*'  The  Confli^nrciu'vc  Point  of  I  lew 

[In  the  prcxioLis  Iccliirc.  I  nicnlioncci  llic  concept  of]  "■'^  '•  "  "culture 
stratum":  the  description  ot  a  pot-pourri  of  indi\  idual.  distnict.  discon- 
nected cultural  traits  [that  happen  to  occur  al  a  particular  historical 
period  in  a  particular  region].  ''  This  is  the  Graehnerian  point  of  view, 
[among  w  hose  detects  one  might  mention  methodological  problems;  for 
although  the  stratum  is  supposedly  defined  in  terms  of  historical  combi- 
nation,] '^^''  without  documentary  evidence  it  is  ditllcult  [o  tell  the  age  of 
traits. 

ck.  ri.  ti  ^1,^  contrast,]  the  point  of  view  [put  forward  m  this  lecture]  is 
configurational:  "^^  the  emphasis  is  not  on  the  factualitv  o(  every  bit  of 
behavior,  trait,  or  element,  but  on  its  position  in  relation  lo  other  ele- 
ments. '"'  [That  is  to  say,  this  point  of  view]  emphasizes  the  placement 
of  a  cultural  element  rather  than  its  content.  '■^  [Consider.]  for  example, 
[the  difference  between]  handing  someone  a  nickel  and  handing  hmi  an 
unshaped  bit  of  metal.  [Though  the  substance  o\^  the  two  ma>  be  the 
same,  the  latter  is  not  part  of  our  system  o\'  coinage  and  has  not  the 
same  meaning  -]  "^'"^  [a  meaning  in  terms  o(  which]  a  dime  [(say)  ma\ 
be  exchanged  for]  a  bar  of  chocolate,  or  a  doll.  The  dime,  the  chocolate 
bar,  and  the  doll  are  [culturally]  equated.  [c\cn  though  the>  are  physi- 
cally very  different  objects.]  "^^^^  '^'  Such  examples  have  a  methodological 
significance:  the  principle  oi'  setting  significant  acts  in  a  tight-filling 
configurational  scheme.  ' '  The  meaning  o\'  the  act  is  not  lo  be  judged 
by  its  abstract  content,  but  by  its  placement  in  the  life  of  a  pci>ple. 

"  [With  respect  to  trait  analysis,]  this  sxmbolic  or  actual  placement 
[of  a  cultural  element]  in  a  pattern  of  culture  [  that  is.  the  elemenl's) 
psychological  value  -  places  a  configuration  upon  a  trail  or  complex. 
The  logical  analysis  [o\'  traits]  can  [otherwise)  go  too  far  and  can  (end 
up]  being  reckoned  without  cultural  conicxt  Hut  [to  remove  a  trail  from 
its  context  is  to  strip]  the  trait  o[  that  latent  or  total  cultural  content 
that  acts  upon  its  meaning,  response,  and  pi>silion. 

[When  viewed  out  of  context,  a  trait's  historical  import  may  become 
severely  distorted:  for.  over  time.]  "  iIk-  \alues  and  configuration  (in 


510  III   Culture 

which  the  trait  occurs]  may  be  completely  transformed  or  reversed,  due 
to  changes  in  customs  which  may  or  may  not  be  directly  associated  with 
the  transformed  trait  or  complex.  When  a  pattern  or  complex  begins  or 
ends  IS  uncertain;  all  that  can  be  ascertained  are  the  relationships  among 
several  o(  them.  [The  once]  intrinsic  value  of  coinage,  for  example,  is  a 
question  o\'  faith  having  arisen  in  deferred  credit  and  thus  has  become 
another  pattern.  [More  important  than  questions  about  the  historical 
origins  of  patterns  is]  the  question:  what  is  the  range  of  a  pattern?  What 
does  it  embrace  in  the  psychological  context  of  a  culture? 

"  [The  importance  of  pattern,  as  compared  with  the  overt  content 
o\'  an  act  of  behavior,  is  illustrated  by  the  possibility  of]  conflicts  of 
classification  {[i.  e.,  behaviors  that  can  be  classified  in  terms  of  two 
conflicting  patterns  of  meaning]).  Biological  and  physical  factors,  [no 
matter  how  "overt,"  are  always  susceptible  to  multiple  interpretation  as 
to  how  they  are]  classified  and  defined  by  cultural  pattern,  as  when  it  is 
uncertain  whether  a  man  walking  [in  a  particular  way]  is  happy,  drunk, 
physically  disabled,  on  a  slippery  floor,  etc.  °'  [Hence]  the  fallacy  of 
judging  the  essential  nature  of  a  given  culture  [element]  from  external 
appearances. 

[As  compared  with  the  culture  stratum  view]  '^^  of  Graebner,  "^  Father 
Schmidt,  and  others,'  therefore,  °''  "^  [we  gain]  a  more  intimate  under- 
standing of  culture  [when  we  turn  our  attention  away  from  the  spurious 
concreteness  of  individual  elements  ("traits")  and  begin  to  view  it  in 
terms  oi^form.  "'-'  For  behavior  follows  forms,  [like  a  gesture  following] 
a  curve  pattern  that  begins  and  comes  definitely  to  a  closure.  The  clo- 
sure comes  when  all  the  elements  contributing  to  the  behavior  are  pre- 
sent and  aid  in  the  end  of  a  set  of  responses.  A  behavior  response  gets 
its  meaning  in  a  setting  of  a  behavior  pattern.  [For  this  reason  there  is 
a]  feeling  of  uneasiness,  incompleteness,  and  dissatisfaction  when  one 
or  more  of  the  elements  in  the  behavior  pattern  is  missing  or  replaced 
by  an  unexpected  element.  The  lack  of  salt  in  a  meal,  a  dignified  friend 
calling  you  by  your  first  name  after  [only]  a  short  acquaintance,  a  man 
leaving  the  room  during  a  lecture  -  [in  such  cases]  we  would  feel  uneasy 
until  we  could  place  the  action.  (The  walking  out  of  the  room  is  not  [in 
itself]  the  significant  part  of  the  act.  The  important  part  of  the  act  is 
the  meaning  -  [why  he  walked  out.])  Until  we  can  interpret  the  act,  we 
are  in  a  non-closure  state. 

"'•"'-•  A  glance  at  configurative  ("Gestalt")  psychology  [would  confirm 
the  importance  of  pattern  in  perception;  one  sees  this  in  action  also,  as 
with  the]  "^  lapse  and  closure  of  an  action  pattern.^  People  act  with  a 


Two:  The  Fsvcholoiiv  (tf  Culture  511 

feeling  of  closure  in  the  tiiuire.  CeiUim  eleiiieiiis  ha\e  great  importance 
in  the  pattern.  We  reconstruct  a  plan  o\  our  action;  each  element  has 
Its  relation  to  the  pattern.  The  significance  o\'  each  act  depends  upon 
its  place  in  the  pattern,  and  if  we  feel  strongly  the  pattern  m  which  the 
act  belongs,  our  reaction  io  the  act  is  "right.""  Hut  patterns  t>verlap: 
[suppose  we  are]  discussing  politics  with  a  friend,  w  hen  his  child  comes 
in[to  the  room].  How  should  we  react  to  the  child'.'  [What  pattern  of 
conduct  should  now  appK'.'j  Intuition  means  the  abilit\  to  see  the  map. 
the  pattern  c^f  conduct.  iniaginati\el\.  It  is  not  the  overt  conduct  thai 
matters,  but  the  arrangement. 

"'■  Words  tick  off  these  configurations  of  conduct.  C  onsider.  lor  exam- 
ple, the  words  "tradesman*"  and  "■bandit"*  in  relation  to  configurations 
of  experience.  "Tradesmen**  refers  to  such  people  as  Chicago  business 
tradesmen,  a  [realm  ot]  experience  one  is  used  to.  [Suppose.  houe\er. 
that  we  encounter]  businessmen  [in  a  less  familiar  locale,  as.  perhaps.] 
in  the  bazaar  trade  in  Asia,  a  trade  based  on  bargaining;  and  [(the 
bargaining  ending  to  our  disadvantage)  we  call  the  ba/aarmen]  "ban- 
dits."" But  they  are  not  "bandits**  -  they  are  "tradesmen "";  ue  call  them 
bandits  because  we  see  their  activity  against  the  background  o\  our 
configuration  of  behavior  -  [our  expectations  about  how  trade  is  car- 
ried out.]  Thus  words  do  not  describe  objecti\e  things  as  much  as  place 
objects  in  the  behavior  configuration. 

""^  [The  point  is  that]  we  do  not  see  things,  we  see  significances.  For 
instance,  we  may  "pretend**  these  are  all  t's:  t.  T.  ^.  [etc.].'  >et  lhe\  are 
all  different. 

'''  [Let  us  consider  a  few  more]  examples  of  general  patterns  in  beha- 
vior that  are  definable  aside  from  content.  ''''  To  a  painter,  the  whole 
world  can  be  expressed  in  paints.  Painting  a  rural  barn,  the  ariisi  does 
not  paste  pieces  of  wood  on  his  canvas  to  get  the  texture  more  exacl. 
[He  relies,  instead,  on  a  pattern  of  visual  relations  that  is  definable  quile 
apart  from  the  actual  substances  of  which  tlie  barn,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  medium  of  paint,  on  the  other,  are  composed.]  Or.  (when  I  grcx*! 
a  child  somewhat  abruptly.]  the  child"s  mother  "pretends""  m\  brusque 
greeting  [can  be  taken]  as  a  nice  one.  and  that  that  is  the  one  I  realK 
meant.  Interpretation  [-  placing  a  beha\ioral  act  in  a  pattern  of  signifi- 
cance -  is  what  matters.  iu>t  its  physical  content]  Conduct  is  seen  nol 
as  what  it  is  overtly,  but  in  relation  to  a  pattern,  to  a  geometric  plane 
[if  you  will,  or  a  particular]  context;  "^'  "  [and  contexts  ma>  overlap)  or 
be  switched,  as  in  humor,  [which  we  might  think  of  as]  an  unconscious 
mathematics  of  chaimed  cc^ntexts. 


512  III   Culture 

"'  (The  problem  o\'  locating  the  pattern  in  terms  of  which  an  element 
should  be  \ leued  is  all  the  greater  when  we]  observe  cultural  phenom- 
ena [deriving  from  a  culture  other  than  our  own.]  Inevitably,  one  places 
these  "objective"  phenomena  according  to  one's  own  patterns  -  and 
(ineviiablv,  too,  one]  experiences  a  shock  on  discovering  the  existence 
o{  entirely  dilTerent  patterns  in  a  given  culture  from  those  that  had 
obviously  seemed  to  be  present.  ^'  Cultural  phenomena  are  [always  sub- 
ject to]  a  double  response,  therefore."^  An  ethnological  specimen  is 
viewed  [quite  dilTerently]  by  an  anthropologist  [who  sees  it]  in  terms  of 
a  naii\e  culture,  and  a  miner  who,  respectively,  [sees  it  in  terms  of]  his 
own.  Cologne  Cathedral,  viewed  as  from  the  local  or  Catholic  culture 
\o'(  Cologne  itself,  will  have  a  different  significance]  from  the  view  of  an 
anti-German  Iowa  farmer.  When  anything  is  viewed,  one's  own  culture- 
confines  are  always  present  in  varying  degrees  and  aspects.  ([This  pro- 
pensity to  embrace  new  experiences  or  cultural  elements  within  its 
framework  is]  what  we  might  define  as  the  "carrying-power"  of  a 
pattern.) 

^*-'  [In  short,]  a  pattern  is  a  theory  of  activity  having  meaning  in  terms 
of  the  typical  event  of  a  given  society.  (We  may  distinguish  a  pattern 
from  the  total  configuration.)  ^^^  ^^^  '^^-  ^''  ^^  A  pattern  is  form,  seen 
functionally.  '^'  Things  which  seem  the  same  are  not,  unless  they  function 
similarly.  "  [Indeed,  in  reviewing  the  problem  of  culture  "traits"]  my 
purpose  is  to  show  differences  in  seemingly  similar  objects  -  [functional 
ditferences  that  arise  because  the  objects  participate  in  different  cultural 
configurations.] 


"^  The  Patterning  of  Culture  Exemplified:  Speech 

^^  [Although  we  may  define]  cultural  patterning  [in  terms  of  the  rela- 
tion between]  form  and  function,  [our  cultural]  analysis  [is  not  thereby 
made  simple.]  ^"^  The  problem  of  form  and  the  problem  of  function  are 
very  much  more  subtle  than  is  generally  envisaged.  ''''  °'  [To  illustrate 
these  problems,  let  us  consider]  speech;  °'  for  language  is  a  [particularly 
convenient]  example  of  an  elaborate  [cultural]  pattern  that  keeps  itself 
going  as  a  self-contained  "organism"  or  system  of  behavior.  ^^  [it  is 
also  a  good  illustration  of  the  complexity  of  functions  and  of  the  inap- 
propriateness  of  viewing  pattern  through  an  alien  lens.  For]  linguisdc 
analysis  does  not  rest  content  with  "overhead  functions";  and  pattern 


Two:  The  P.\Vih(>li)i;\'  of Ciilinrc  513 

nnisl  be  undcrslin>d  in  (ciiiis  o['  I  lie  uliiniatc  analysis  inluili\cly  tell  by 
any  normal  member  of  a  gi\en  comnumily. 

^-"^  Language  is  the  supremo  example  oi  the  fael  thai  the  U>lal  lunc- 
lioning  of  patterns  is  dilTerent  from  the  functioning  ofa  specific  pattern. 
In  two  languages  one  nui\  fiiui  the  form  (si>iiik1)  and  the  lunciion 
(meaning)  of  elements  to  be  the  same  but  the  patterns  totally  dilTerent.^ 
^'  it  is  the  internal  economy  -  the  conllgurational  analysis  that  is 
completely  different  in  all  languages.  ''•^''"  [Suppose.)  for  example,  that 
in  language  A,  [the  form]  wnln  means  'house*,  and  in  language  B  there 
is  also  a  form  wala  meaning  'house'.  Yet  although  [the  two  forms]  are 
linguistically  and  culturally  the  same  they  can  still  be  [significantK]  dif- 
ferent. Why?  ■'  Because  there  may  still  be  a  difference  in  the  morphol- 
ogy or  configuration  of  the  languages.  In  language  A.  [nula  consists  of] 
uii  +  la.  Mil  means  'to  dwell',  and  hi  means  'that  which  is  used'.  In 
language  B,  however,  wala  [is  composed  from]  n-  +  -ahi  (where  ahi  = 
"house',  and  u-  is  a  prefix  marking  neuter  [gender]).^'  [Thus  the  two 
forms  are]  functionally  different  in  the  two  languages.  '''  [To  put  this 
point  another  way,]  in  language  the  same  formal  elements  plus  a  dif- 
ferent configurational  union  may  equal  two  patterns,  resulting  in  two 
separate  languages. 

[What,  then,  is  the  role  of  meaning,  in  language?^  Does  function,  m 
this  sense,  determine  form?  Do  meanings,  as  located  in  the  world  and 
its  physical  characteristics,  explain  the  linguistic  configurations  in  which 
people  talk  about  them?]^  '-  Although  the  exigencies  o\'  adjustment  to 
the  world  are  fairly  uniform  -  hunger  and  [the  search  for]  food,  etc.  - 
the  languages  about  these  ["necessities"]  are  very  ditTerent.  '■'-''^  Meaning 
or  reference  are  articulated  by  speech  -  we  don't  A//('u  the  world  before 
we  have  speech.  If  we  don't  have  symbols,  we  don't  ha\e  meanings. 

^'  By  "speech"  I  mean  the  way  in  which  groups  symboli/e  thoughts 
and  ideas,  [in  their  totality,  not  just  the  indi\idual  word].  '-  [Consider 
some  expressions  using  the  English  word  drop:]  \ou  ihnns  matches  in 
the  air,  and  they  drop:  but  also  one  drops  in  attendance;  and  one  drops 
out  of  sight.  Now.  there  is  a  certain  beha\ior  to  the  word  «//('/>,  in  that 
there  is  a  uniformity  to  our  conception  o(  the  word  e\en  if  we  use  it  in 
violent  ways.  Yet,  you  may  also  be  able  to  express  the  same  thing  with- 
out using  that  word.  In  agreement,  for  instance,  >ou  can  sa>  'uh-luih" 
instead  of  "I  agree."  Thus  the  [wider]  concept  [you  want  to  express] 
may  be  analysed  in  another  way.  There  are  languages  Navajo,  [again, 
for  example]  -  that  have  no  word  [specificall>  ]  meaning  drop.  "  Instead. 
in  Navajo,  analysis  shows  that  [the  expression  we  translate  as]  "drop' 


514  111  Ciilniir 

means  ihe  passing  through  space  of  stone,  or  mush,  etc.,  showing  that 
obieci  as  the  main  subject  o\^  thought.  "• '-  [The  Navajo  is]  interested  in 
the  ivpc  of  object  which  travels  through  space.  This  object  is  the  nuclear 
idea,  while  the  "dropping"  idea  comes  in  only  as  a  prefixed  element, 
adding  an  indication  oi^  a  downward  direction.'^  *'  Thus  [the  Navajo] 
docs  not  express  "drop"  in  our  sense. 

"  'Give'  is  the  same  way.  '*'"  It  is  an  illusion  that  languages  express 
necessars  fact  instead  of  convenient  expression  for  necessary  fact  -  [an 
illusion]  that  makes  us  fallaciously  believe  that  [the  English  sentence]  "I 
will  give  it  to  you"  is  exactly  equivalent  to  the  Latin  Id  tibi  daho,  for 
example.  Not  only  are  the  words  not  equivalent  [in  the  English  and  the 
1  aim.]  but  in  the  Navajo  nade-c'a't  the  idea  of  giving  is  not  even  [explic- 
itl>]  expressed.  ^^  [That  is,]  all  languages  do  express  the  concept  of  giv- 
ing but  Navajo  has  no  word  for  give  though  it  expresses  this  through  a 
specific  arrangement  of  patterns.  ^'  [Indeed,]  there  is  an  amazing  variety 
of  configurations  [invoked]  in  expressing  the  sentence  'T  will  give  it  to 
you"  in  dilTerent  languages.'^ 

[Thus  there  is  no  necessity  that  the  meaning  expressed  by  a  particular 
word  in  English  should  be  expressed  in  the  form  of  a  word  in  some 
other  language.]  ^'~  A  word  is  anything  the  language  says  is  a  word;  and 
"  the  overtones  in  words  are  irreplaceable,  being  incapable  of  syn- 
onyms. "^^^^  •■'  Actually,  in  language  words  as  such  do  not  have  meaning 
without  context.  ""-  Even  though  a  form  may  have  a  typical  meaning 
usually  associated  with  it,  context  can  change  this  meaning  entirely.  ''• 
■■-  Thus  the  form  itself  is  not  important  -  meaning  is  given  by  the 
context  in  which  or  to  which  it  fits.  '''  Implication  bears  90%  of  the 
work  of  language." 

[The  same  flexibility  in  the  relation  between  form  and  meaning  holds 
true  for  grammatical  categories,  as  a  means  of  expressing]  "  a  group  of 
concepts,  or  one  whole  concept.  "-  ^^  [For  example,  consider]  the  use  of 
the  plural  in  English,  [expressed  with  a  grammatical  tag.]  ^-  Should  we 
also  have  a  tag  denoting  "brightness"  versus  "dullness"?  [Perhaps  it 
seems  more  appropriate  to  have  a  grammatical  expression  for  plurality 
because]  plurality  is  more  fundamental.  "  Surely  we  know  the  difference 
between  one  and  more  than  one,  so  we  use  plurals,  while  we  don't  use 
ditTerences  in  color  all  the  time.  "■  '^  But  it  is  a  difference  of  degree,  not 
of  kind.  Some  languages  do  not  allocate  to  plurality  the  same  impor- 
tance that  we  do  [in  English].  [Even  in  English,]  we  sometimes  make 
a  plural  reference  in  the  singular;  »'  plurals  in  Enghsh  are  used  only 
spasmodically  according  to  idiom.  '-  And  some  languages  have  no  plu- 


Two:  7 he  I\s\ch(>l<>i;y  of  Cuhnrc  515 

rals  lhc\  oiil\  sccni  lo.'-  ('''■^''  In  inaii\  AiiK-iican  languages  what 
seems  al  first  sight  to  be  a  true  plural  of  the  nouu  turns  out  on  closer 
analysis  to  be  a  distributive. )  ''  We  look  (or  such  things  (as  plurality] 
because  ihey  are  a  necessary  concept  to  us:  noiuis  must  ha\e  number, 
[we  assume]. 

'-  [Similarly,  we  suppose.]  number  is  akin  to  gender;  and  we  think  o\' 
tense  as  being  \ery  important.  "  But  even  tense  forms  are  interchange- 
able under  common  usage;  ''  and  there  are  languages,  such  as  ^ana. 
without  tense  tags.  '-•  "  In  Nootka,  the  first  sentence  of  the  story  locates 
the  time  b\  denoting  the  tense.  [After  thai,  tense]  is  not  referred  to 
again.  [The  story]  goes  on  in  a  general  or  present  tense,  and  people  [just] 
know  what's  what.  '-  But  they  are  very  dogmatic  on  the  aspect  [o\  the 
verb].  '-■  "  Aspect  is  the  geometric  form  o\^  time:'^  all  e\enis  [can  be 
conceived  of  as  either]  a  point  or  a  line,  and  this  [dislmclion]  is  formal- 
ized by  certain  languages.  '-  "She  burst  into  tears"  is  a  point,  while  "she 
lived  happily  ever  after"  is  a  line;  and  this  in  Nootka  is  more  important 
than  tense.  "  [Event  shapes  such  as]  (1)  Momentary,  (2)  Duralive.  {'S) 
Graduative,  (4)  Inceptive,  (5)  Pre-graduative,  and  (6)  Iteratixe  (based  on 
1 .  2.  and  4)  are  aspects  found  in  Nootka  and  in  some  other  languages,  in 
vai"ying  combinations.  Formally  they  are  \ery  clearly  defined  principles, 
whether  [they  are  represented  by]  individually  integrated  ssmbols  or 
not;  that  is,  there  is  some  ficxibility  in  the  content  o'i  the  form.  "  So 
the  difference  between  what  is  formally  necessar\  and  uhat  is  k^gicall> 
necessary  must  be  considered.  '-  Language  is  concerned  with  meaning, 
but  it  is  also  [-  and  more  fundamentally  -]  concerned  with  form.  [One 
might  even  say  that]  "  language  is  niainly  concerned  with  form,  uith 
meanings  a  concern  oi^  psychology.''^ 

""^  [There  are  many  instances  when  the  behavioral  form  provided  b> 
a  pattern  does  not  follow,  or  no  longer  follows,  in  any  straightforward 
"logical""  way  from  its  content.]  Consider,  for  example,  \erbs  that  are 
not  entirely  active  [in  their  meaning  but  are  treated  as  active  m  the 
linguistic  structure:]  in  I-nglisli  the  subject  "I""  is  logicallv  implied  to  be 
the  active  will  in  "I  sleep""  as  well  as  "1  run.""  [A  sentence  like)  "!  am 
hungry"  might,  [m  terms  of  its  content,  be  logicallv)  belter  expressed 
with  "hunger""  as  the  active  doer,  as  in  [the  (ierman)  /;;/(/;  liuninri  [or 
even  the  I'rench]  /'ni  fnini.  In  some  languages,  however,  such  as  Sioux, 
a  rigid  distinction  is  made  between  truly  active  and  static  verbs,  [in  that 
case,  pattern  and  content  coincide  more  "logicallv""  than  m  l-nglish.) 

[It  seems,  then,  thal|  when  we  get  a  pattern  o\'  behavior,  we  follow 
that  [pallernj  in  spite  of  [being  led.  sometimes,  into)  illogical  ideas  or  a 


516 


///    Cu/lurc 


feeling  ol  inadequacy.  We  become  used  to  it.  We  are  comfortable  in  a 
groove  o\'  belia\ior.  '''^'^^'  [Indeed,]  it  seems  that  no  matter  what  [the] 
psychological  origin  may  be,  or  complex  of  psychological  origins,  or  a 
particular  type  of  patterned  conduct,  the  pattern  itself  will  linger  on  by 
sheer  inertia,  which  is  a  rather  poor  term  for  the  accumulated  force  of 
social  tradition,  and  entirely  different  principles  of  psychology  come 
into  play  which  may  even  cancel  those  which  originally  motivated  the 
nucleus  o\'  the  pattern  of  activity.  Patterns  of  activity  are  continually 
getting  awa>  from  their  original  psychological  incitation. 

■^•^  Thus  a  culture  pattern  does  not  present  itself  in  a  definite  time 
frame  -  only  as  a  relative  point  of  completion.  [To  understand  the 
operation  of  a  pattern]  needs  a  long  view,  both  backward  and  forward. 
"'^  In  English,  we  have  lost  the  feeling  for  gender  in  the  noun;  but, 
illogically,  we  [still]  have  genders  in  the  pronoun  -  [reflecting]  an  ar- 
chaic classification  of  the  universe  into  masculine,  feminine  and  neuter. 
([Note  that  other  classifications  are  perfectly  possible,  as  for  instance  a 
classification  into]  big  and  little,  as  in  some  African  languages,  or  ani- 
mate and  inanimate,  as  in  Algonquin  [languages].)  Once  a  pattern  of 
expression  becomes  solidified,  we  unconsciously  run  our  behavior 
pattern  into  that  mold. 

[Many  examples  of  the  psychological  force  of  pattern  in  behavior 
could  be  drawn,  too,  from  the  sound  systems  of  languages.]^^  [Consider 
the  sounds]  ng  and  /  in  Nootka:  [if  a  speech  sound  were  only  a  set  of 
muscular  movements  of  the  vocal  apparatus,  then  once  you  know  how 
to  make  the  sound  you  should  be  able  to  make  it  anywhere;  but  this  is 
not  so.]  These  sounds  are  used  by  the  Nootka  only  in  sacred  chants  and 
songs  (where  /  is  the  ceremonial  variant  of  n).  '^'-^''  Such  special  song- 
sounds  are,  at  least  so  it  would  seem,  pronounced  with  difficulty  by 
Indians  under  ordinary  circumstances,  as  in  the  handling  of  EngHsh 
words  that  contain  them.  The  obvious  inference  is  that  one  may  react 
quite  differently  to  the  same  speech-sound  entering  into  dissimilar  asso- 
ciations. This  fact  has,  of  course,  a  much  wider  psychological  signifi- 
cance. 

"'^  [Similarly,]  for  English-speakers  [attempting  to  speak  German,]  the 
sound  tz  [sic],  occurring  as  German  z  at  the  beginning  of  a  word,  is 
more  difficult  [to  pronounce]  than  zh  (French  j),  but  not  because  we 
have  never  pronounced  it.  [In  fact  we  have  pronounced  both  of  them. 
But  only  the  French  sound  is  provided  for  in  the]  configuration  [of 
sound  relations  we  already  have  in  English;  see  Table  1]: 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  Culture 


517 


Table  1 :  Configuration  |of  some  English  consonants) 

Between  vowels: 

At  beginning  of  word: 

-zh- 

-sh- 

sh- 

X 

-z- 

-s- 

s- 

z- 

-V- 

-f- 

f- 

V- 

We  have  the  feeling  relations  o{  X  -  [the  configuration  in  which  a 
sound  of  a  particular  sort,  namely  r/?,  could  occur  at  the  beginning  of 
a  word  -  while]  ts,  though  expressed  as  German  r,  is  thought  of  as  two 
sounds,  t  +  s,  [a  kind  of  combination  forbidden,  in  our  English  sound 
pattern,  from  occurring  at  the  beginning  of  a  word.]  [Or,  consider  the 
English  speech-sound]  n/i  and  [the  sound  one  makes  when]  blowing  out 
a  candle.  Behavioristically  they  are  the  same,  but  their  conte.xts  are 
different.'^ 

[To  understand  the  significance  of  an  act  of  behavior,  or  even  lo  be 
able  to  produce  it  at  all,  depends,  therefore,  on  a  pattern  or  context  of 
its  occurrence,  which  gives  it  meaning  and  possibility.  And  a  given  act 
(like  the  candle-blowing  sound)  may  have  more  than  one  context,  more 
than  one  pattern  according  to  which  it  might  be  interpreted.]  These 
choices  of  configuration  are  evahuitions  rather  than  measurcnu'ni.s. 
[Measurements  have  to  do  with  objective  characteristics  of  an  act  or  a 
thing:  evaluations  have  to  do  with  choosing  the  configuration  within 
which  it  has  meaning.] 

"^^  Indeed,  a  configuration  once  understood  can  give  meaning  even 
if  you  don't  know  [exactly]  what  to  do  with  [the  details  ot]  \our  struc- 
ture. "-'^^  In  language,  the  elements  are  discovered  after  the  pattern  is 
known,  not  vice  versa.  '^^  Once  the  form  is  satisfactorv,  configuraiional 
[relations]  give  the  ability  to  make  meanings  ad  hoc.  [Consider  the 
following]  illustration,  [concerning  the  parts  o\'  speech  in)  ^'ana.'  '^-*' 
[The  parts  of  speech  are  not  somehow  naturally  given  -  as  we  can  sec 
by  considering  problems  in  their  definition,  history,  and  comparison.  In 
the  Indo-European  languages,  for  example,  the  relations  between  nouns 
and  adjectives  have  changed  over  time.  In  many  languages,  loo.  there 
may  be  so  close  a  formal  relationship  between  ad|ecli\es  and  \erbs  that 
it  is  not  clear  that  they  are  really  distinct  categories.  Indeed.]"*  if  in  a 
language,  verbs  and  adjectives  have  the  same  phrasing  they  must  be 


518 


///   Culture 


the  same,  lor  \'ana,  compare  [the  following  "Verbal"]  and  "Adjectival" 
construcluMis  [(see  Tabic  2)]: 


Table  2:  Yana  constructions 

-Vcrbar' 

ni-sa-||si|ndja 

present  definite 

'I  walk  away',  etc. 

ni-sa-||si|numa 

present  definite 

'you  walk  away' 

ni-sa-||ha  ndja 

past  definite 

['I  walked  away'] 

ni-sa- |ha|numa 

past  definite 

['you  walked  away'] 

ni-sa-||ti|ndja 

indefinite 

['I  ...'] 

ni-sa||ti  numa 

indefinite 

['you  ...'] 

"Adjectival" 

dyul-  ||si|ndja,  etc. 

'I  am  long',  etc. 

[The  glosses  of  morphemes  are:] 

ni  -  a  single  male  being  walks 

sa  -  off,  away 

si  -  present  tense 

ndja  -  1st  person  singular 

numa  -  2nd  person  singular 

ha  -  past  tense 

ti  -  indefinite  [or  quotative?] 

ku-sindja  -  do  not 
[These  examples  show  that]  the  paradigm  for  the  adjective  [in  Yana]  is 
the  same  as  for  the  verb;  all  adjectival  forms  are  classified  as  verbs. 
Nootka  has  the  same,  as  do  many  other  languages.  Forms  get  estab- 
lished and  become  comfortable;  they  are  then  imposed  on  further  ex- 
perience. [We  can  see  this  in  the]  reduction  and  interchangeability  of 
parts  of  speech. 

""^  [Whether  in  language  or  in  other  cultural  domains,  therefore,  it  is 
the  configuration,  not  the  content,  that  determines  an  element's  mean- 
ing.] Just  as  you  claim  that  giving  a  person  a  piece  of  paper  is  equivalent 
to  giving  him  a  fatted  calf  (and  can  prove  this  by  the  structure  of  the 
culture,  [with  its  use  of  paper  money  or  notes  of  credit]),  so  you  can 
prove  that  every  adjective  is  a  verb  by  the  structure  of  the  language. 
[(I.e..  in  a  particular  language,  with  its  particular  configuration.)] 


I'wo:  I'lw  /^Wilioloi^y  oj  i'uliurc  n  h) 

^'"'  Thus  we  are  very  nai\e  to  look  for  exact  eqiii\aleiKcs  in  the 
palleniiiig.s  o\  hmguage.  or  loi  thai  matter  in  all  o\'  euUiire.  ''^*  The 
complete  meaniniz  does  not  lie  m  the  specific  fimctiiMi  of  segmented  bits 
o{  hcha\  ior  bin  in  liiiictions  ol  w  idcr  im|iorl.  (  lo  cite  a  [cultural)  exam- 
ple: paying  a  visit  may  be  due  to  | requirements  ol]  reciprocity,  not  lo 
immediate  pleasure.)  '*'"•  ''■'^  Simple  necessary  functions  which  can  easily 
be  linked  w ith  cnert  beha\ ior  are  mU  the  point  o\'  analysis  they  do 
not  necessanl\  constitute  a  pattern.  '"'  ''-'  "'  |()nl\|  a  complete  formal 
analysis  -  plus  a  complete  understanding  o\'  the  forms'  functioning  - 
will  gi\e  us  pattern.''' 

""^^  Language,  in  its  very  nature,  is  s>nibolic;  and  ssmbolic  behavior 
lies  more  in  the  unconscious  realm  than  does  functional  behavior,  u  hich 
is  more  in  the  conscious  realm.  [The  stability  of  cultural  pattern,  and]-" 
society's  unwillingness  to  change,  are  largely  due  to  the  symbolic  texture 
of  behavior,  and  [our]  unconscious  attachment  to  these  modes  of  beha- 
vior that  stand  for  larger  contexts. 


SI  Yjj^,  "Topati"  ( Privilci^c )  Pcittcrn  cniio)}^^  the  Xoofkir 


^'"  The  handy  sociological  terms  we  possess  impl\  that  the  functional 
residues  of  behavior  define  logical  and  equivalent  categories.  This  is 
obviously  not  so.  All  culture  resolves  itself  into  patterns  but  not  in  a 
departmental  sense  -  rather  in  a  terminological  sense,  [with  its  own 
terminology  (i.  e..  the  nafivc  term)]"-  bearing  a  unifying  concept.  ^*"^- '"• 
^^  And  the  culture  thus  cc^nstituted"-^  is  not  an  incremental,  segregatabic 
collection  of  patterns,  but  rather  a  manifold  continuity  of  functions. 

""'  [To  illustrate  this  point  with  another]  example  of  cultural  pattern. 
let  us  consider  the  concept  of  topati.  "prixilege'.  among  the  Nootka 
Indians  "  as  a  psychological  aspect  of  culture.  ''  and  the  beh<i\ior  in 
regard  to  this  concept.  This  is  no\  totemism.  but  an  idea  o)i  privilege. 
ck.  1 1,  qq  v,t-i(Lis,  or  '-  class.  '-  '-  under  which  are  gri>uped  such  diverse 
things  as  the  right  to  use  certain  names,  songs,  fishing  and  hunting  riles 
and  ceremonies,  etc.  '^^'^  Among  the  Nootka  there  were  nobles  (chiefs), 
comnu^ners  who  (like  nietlie\al  \illcins)  were  attached  lo  noble  house- 
holds, and  slaves.  How  are  you  going  lo  symboli/e  stains  in  the  society? 
Ihpdii,  literally  "black  token" '"^  (probably  originall>  a  crest).  ''  is  the 
name  for  certain  privileges.  ''  "''  ranging  fri>m  I  he  ssnibolic  (such  as 
names  and  songs)  lo  the  practical  (rights  to  hunt  and  fish).  '■  thai  pass 
in  the  lineaue  and  are  the  exclusive  iii:hts  o\'  thai  line. 


520  III  Culture 

^'  The  Nootka  concept  of  privilege  does  not  easily  emerge  from  mere 
observation.  Cultural  data  [are  subject  to]  multiple  interpretation,  and 
obicctively  similar  phenomena  [may  participate  in]  completely  distinct 
patterns  and  orientations.  ""^  Each  topati  activity  has  its  counterpart  in 
a  [similar]  activity  that  is  not  topati:  there  are  topati  songs,  [but  also] 
other  songs;  topati  names,  and  other  names;  etc.  [How,  then,  are  we  to 
locate  the  cultural  pattern*?]  '^'-  ^'-  "'■  ^"^  Vocabulary  may  be  the  key  -  a 
nati\e  term  [such  as  topati]  points  to  the  reality  of  a  culture  pattern.  '- 
The  way  to  define  the  topati  is  to  determine  similar  concepts  which  do 
not  have  the  same  value  as  topati  concepts,  e.  g.  nicknames,  and  songs 
oi  certain  types.  [By  contrasting  (say)  songs  that  have  a  topati  value 
with  songs  that  do  not,  we  can  arrive  at  a  pattern  definition  for  topati. 
This  coincides  with  the  native's  own  interests,  since]  "^  the  native  is 
interested  in  the  topati  aspect  of  a  topati  song,  rather  than  in  that  song. 

[We  must  consider,  therefore,  the  realms  of  activity  in  which  phenom- 
ena labeled  as  topati  are  found,  in  order  to  distinguish  the  topati  aspects 
o^  the  activity  from  other  aspects.  For,  to  define  this  cultural  pattern, 
it  would  not  suffice  merely  to  describe  our  observations  of  events  and 
add  them  up.  As  we  have  said,]  '^"''  ^''  ^^  the  content  of  culture  is  not 
incremental.  ^^-  ^'  The  meaning  of  an  event  in  a  society  must  be  mani- 
fold, because  the  event  is  the  crossroads  of  many  cultural  patterns.  "^ 
One  behavior  pattern  is  constellated  in  a  group  of  patterns;  thus  beha- 
vior can  be  understood  only  in  relation  to  these  other  pat- 
terns...Context  is  always  needed  to  give  the  culture  pattern. 

"^^  [A  kind  of  context  especially]  important  in  this  area  is  the  potlatch: 
every  feast  ceremony  or  public  event  is  a  potlatch  -  that  is,  at  some 
point  property  is  given  away  in  a  certain  form.  If  you  wish  to  affirm 
your  status,  you  must  give  a  ceremonial  feast  at  which  you  distribute 
property.  You  don't  merely  give  wealth;  you  are  entitled  to  give  a  cere- 
mony which  is  yours,  and  you  must  vaHdate  it  by  distribution  [of  gifts]. 
Giving  a  name  to  a  daughter,  for  example,  is  an  occasion  for  a  feast, 
for  the  name  belongs  to  the  lineage  -  it  has  been  owned  by  particular 
people  in  the  past,  and  it  is  [therefore]  valuable.  The  potlatch  is  the 
validation,  or  reaffirmation,  of  the  privilege.  ^^^  [To  put  it  another  way,] 
the  philosophy  of  the  potlatch  is  the  "holding  up"  of  a  privilege.  It  is 
not  a  simple  economic  system,  but  the  affirmation  of  privilege  and  hon- 
oring people. 

'^'-'^^  The  subject  of  privileges  is  a  vast  one,  and  a  complete  enumera- 
tion of  all  the  economic,  ceremonial,  and  other  privileges  of  one  high 
in  rank  would  take  a  long  time.  [A  few  may  be  listed  here  to  give  an 


Two:  The  FsvchnUi^y  of  (uliurc  521 

indication  of  the  dixcrsily  otactiMtics  and  icalnis  of  cultural  lite  inli) 
which  topati  \aUies  enter.]-"' 

1.  Lci^c/h/.s.  '•''  Legends  act  as  the  warrant  lor  status.  Mere  precedent 
is  not  sufficient  to  establish  status;  the  legend  is  also  necessary.  ^'^  Thus 
a  man's  status  is  dellned  b>  the  fact  that  he  enters  into  the  activities 
described  in  the  legend.  There  is  a  feeling  o\'  participation  in  the  deeds 
o(  ancient  ancestors  o\'  the  mythological  past.  Although  many  o\'  the 
prisileges  [warranted]  in  legend  are  referred  to  only  by  implication,  the 
legend  is  important  both  as  a  document  |of  pii\ileged  activities,  names, 
and  objects]  and  as  a  privilege  [in  itsell],  for  "^^^  "•''  the  right  to  tell  a 
certain  topati  legend  with  ceremonial  properties.  ''''  and  to  tell  one  for 
gain,  is  also  a  pri\ilege.  ''  The  legends  belong  to  [particular]  lineages, 
in  which  '-  they  are  said  to  have  been  handed  down  from  generation  to 
generation.  '-  But  there  are  also  legends  which  are  not  topati. 

2.  Names.  "^^^  ^'^'  '^~-  '^'  Hooked  up  with  the  topati  legends  are  personal 
names,  both  of  individuals  and  of  objects.  '-  A  child  at  five  is  gi\en  a 
name  that  doesn't  have  much  connotation;  later,  [he  or  she]  is  given 
another  name  which  has  certain  rights  [attached  to]  it.  '^~  Some  names 
belong  to  first  sons  or  daughters,  some  are  for  males  [only]  or  females 
only,  and  some  are  for  older  people  or  for  younger  people.  '^^'^  There  are 
names  tor  the  sons  of  an  older  daughter  and  for  sons  of  a  younger 
daughter.  (Everything  that  relates  to  war  is  associated  with  younger 
sons.)  ^-  There  are  legends  in  the  line  of  descent  which  use  these  names. 
There  is  a  gradation  of  names,  and  the  gi\ing  o\'  names  must  be  \ali- 
dated  by  the  gi\ ing  o(  property  at  a  naming  [ceremons].  ^~-  '^^  Names 
are  therefore  changed  from  time  to  time,  adding  increa.sed  status.  \ot 
example,  a  man  can  give  certain  names  to  his  daughter  as  dow  ry  on  her 
marriage,  '^^'^  and  she  can  use  these  for  her  children.  ^''-  '-  Names  refer 
not  only  to  persons,  but  also  to  things,  e.  g.  canoes,  houses,  house  posts 
etc.,  harpoons,  caves  [?],  and  rituals[?].'''  "''  Howe\er,  there  arc  also 
names  which  have  no  topati  value,  [such  as]  nicknames. 

3.  Ceremonial  games.  '•'••  ''•  '-•  ^"^  '-  Ceremonial  games  for  pri/es  are 
also  recognized  privileges,  often  dramatizing  some  incident  in  a  legend. 
Given  at  pollalches,  they  also  validate  pri\  ilege  and  are  often  accmiipa- 
nied  b\  a  distribution  of  gifts.  ^~-  "^^  Songs  introducing  the  games  are 
part  o\'  the  privilege. 

4.  Songs.  ^''•''''  [In  addition  to]  the  introduclois  song  loi  .i  ceremonial 
game,  there  is  a  great  variety  of  songs,  [some  ol  which  are  tt^pati  and 
some  not].  Gambling  songs,  for  example.  *ire  not  topati  anyone  is 
free  to  sing  them.  Club  songs,  love  songs,  etc.  were  also  not  privileged. 


;^-)->  ///    Culture 

\\w  lopaii  Noims.  however,  were  also  many,  and  were  named:  for  exam- 
ple, ••Comnuimcaiing  with  the  spirit"  songs,  ^^  originally  associated 
uiih  whaliniz,  are  now  used  on  many  occasions.  ^^  Originally  they  were 
intended  to  persuage  the  spirit  in  a  whale  to  come  toward  the  land 
rather  than  auay.  [Other  examples  of  topati  songs  include]: 

-  ^^  Soiiiis  to  announce  important  events,  and  secret  announcement 

songs. -^ 

-  ^'^  ^^1  Songs  to  demonstrate  the  possession  of  wealth,  often  in  the 

context  of  a  legend. 

-  Lullabies,  which  also  connect  with  legends.  ""^  You  often  put  up  a 
pole  in  the  potlatch  house,  put  the  baby  by  it  and  sing  a  lullaby;  then 
the  host  has  to  give  away  money. 

-  ck.  qq  Woman-purchasing  songs  C"^  beginning  with  the  engagement, 
possibly  a  year  before  the  marriage). 

-  ^■'^-  ^'1  Songs  in  connection  with  winter  feasts,  [especially]  the  wolf- 
ritual.  ^'^  Only  certain  people  can  sing  them,  for  acting  as  Wolf  is  topati. 
Many  other  varieties  of  songs  are  topati,  ^-  as  are  dances  of  all  sorts 
which  go  with  the  songs. 

5.  Ccremimial  activities.  '^^'  ^"^^  ■■-• '"'  Many  particular  ceremonial  activi- 
ties are  topati:  the  lassooing  of  novices; '-"'''  '^^  the  privilege  of  blackening 
the  faces  of  those  present  at  an  exorcism;  '-'^  acting  as  Wolf;  etc.  Very 
often  the  privilege  is  owned  by  a  woman,  the  oldest  in  the  lineage.  She 
can  transfer  the  activity  to  a  substitute  and  pay  him  for  it  -  and  this 
payment  also  enhances  the  topati. 

6.  Heraldry.  '-•  '^^  The  right  to  paint  houseboards  with  certain  paint- 
ings, and  [indeed]  all  ceremonial  features  of  the  house,  houseposts,  and 
beams,  are  topati.  "^"^^  For  the  [Nootka]  house  is  a  symbol  as  much  as  it 
is  an  instrument  -  it  is  something  that  symbolizes  lineage  and  the  status 
of  the  owner.  The  paintings  on  the  outside  of  the  house  are  likewise 
part  of  the  house,  as  is  the  totem  pole,  which  can  only  be  understood 
in  connection  with  the  house  structure.  It  is  carved  with  symbolic  ani- 
mals and  personages  in  myth.  The  carvings  may  represent  several  crests 
ot  different  families  -  [the  representation  constituting]  more  a  social 
system,  a  crest  armorial,  than  a  totem  proper.  Originally  [the  totem  pole 
was  built]  right  up  against  the  house;  the  door  went  through  the  pole, 
and  the  poles  were  merely  a  variation  of  the  house  posts.  In  order  for 
the  chiefs  to  exhibit  all  their  crests  they  put  them  outside.  Later  varia- 
tions put  the  posts  away  from  the  house  (and  [also  gave  rise  to  the] 
development  of  grave  posts,  which  are  probably  similar  symbolically  to 
the  house  posts. 


Two:  The  Psvcholo^v  of  Culture  523 

Behind  llic  concept  i^l"  cicsls  is.  [ajjain.]  ihc  conccpl  o\'  pri\ilci!c.  u>- 
pali.  The  cicsi  [is  iisclt]  a  privilege,  as  is  llie  naming  dI"  houscposts,  and 
ihe  legends  [represented  on  iheni].  [Illustrating  these  legends.)  the  it^tem 
pole  figures  are  the  pictures  of  an  unwritten  book. 

7.  '■■'^-  ''•  '■''^'  Spcciiil  wciys  of  pcrforniini^  ceremonies  are  alM>  lopati.  and 
are  often  \alidaled  b\  family  legends. 

8.  Chief's  privilei^es.  '•''  '''  '-  Certain  symbols  o\'  status  \or  the  duel 
himself  are  considered  to  be  topati  -  ^'^  sxmbols  of  his  otHce  uhich  are 
attached  to  it  and  '■''  inalienable.  That  is.  the\  are  not  transferable  from 
one  situation  to  another  as  are  these  other  privileges  [we  ha\e  men- 
tioned]. '''  lor  example,  the  wa\  in  which  a  whale  is  dixidetl  up  among 
households  is  according  to  pri\  ilege.  and  '''  '•''  the  dorsal  tin  goes  to  the 
chief.  ^"^  So  does  the  tlotsam  and  jetsam,  [for  the  chief  has]  '"''  the  right 
to  property  that  drifts  up  on  the  group's  territor\.  '-  [SimilarK.]  the 
privilege  of  taking  the  natural  resources  of  a  gixen  l\pe  of  land  is  such 
a  topati.  ^''-  '•'■'  The  boundaries  of  the  tribe's  territory,  carefully  guarded, 
may  also  be  regarded  as  the  topati  of  the  chief. 

'■''■'  It  is  also  someone's  special  privilege  to  harpoon  whales  at  the 
beaches  where  they  burrow  into  the  sand  occasionally,  though  he  ma\ 
not  otherwise  own  the  land,  'i*-'-  '^^'^  This  is  illustrative  o\'  the  [Nootka] 
conception  of  property,  referring  not  to  land  as  such  (for  land  as  such 
is  not  owned),  but  to  the  privilege  of  performing  a  certain  acti\il\  there. 
'^^'^  The  same  [is  true  ol]  fishing  places.  [These  privileges  are]  topati. 

[Now,  how  shall  we  define  the  topati  paiiern  underlving  all  these 
diverse  activities?]  '■'^  One  must  not  confuse  the  topati  with  the  idea  o( 
value,  for  '-■'^-  'I'l  not  all  valuable  things  and  activities  are  topati.  One 
example  is  the  secret  way  of  preparing  whale  harpoons:  these  [prepara- 
tions] are  valuable,  but  they  could  not  be  topati  since  the\  are  not  made 
intc^  public  exhibitions.  '-•  "  You  cannot  have  a  lopali  unless  vou  are 
willing  to  show  it  in  public;  "  secret  practices  are  not  topati.  because 
they  do  nothing  to  enhance  your  prestige  or  that  oi  sour  ancestors.  *-"^ 
The  topati  is  always  public.  It  is  a  token,  a  crest  o\'  privilege  -  '-  a 
matter  of  prestige.  Therefore  magic  is  not  ti>pali.  altlu>ugh  it  is  |u>l  as 
vahiahle.  "-  Rites  and  ceremonies  {o  gel  i^owei.  which  are  secret  and 
private,  are  not  loixili.  ""^  Topali  and  [non-topati  forms  ol]  valuable 
knowledge  are  inherited  differenllv.  Moreover.  |->ower  as  such  is  not 
topati. 

[We  can  now  begin  to  ideniilv  lhe|  '■  things  characteristic  of  lopati 
—  the  pattern  definition:-** 


524  tfl  Cull  we 

1  r2.  ck.  qq.  ri  Jq  ^c  topiUi  ii  thing  Hiust  bc  puhlic\  ■■-•  ''^  it  must  be 
openly  presented  to  people,  known  and  talked  about. 

2  ri,  r:.  .k.  qq.  (2  [j  ^■^,„l()t  he  exhibited  without  cm  expenditure  of  wealth, 

'-  and  having  a  feast. 

3  r2.  ri.  ck  Jt  jv;  the  corporate  right  of  a  lineage,  '^  not  of  an  individual; 
^«''  (it  derives  from  one's]  identification  with  a  glorious  ancestor. 

4  r:.  ri.  ck.  qq.  i2.  ti  xhcrc  Hiust  bc  a  tie-up  with  a  legend  ^^  backing  [the 

topati]. 

5  ri,  ck.  r2.  qq.  ti.  t2  j|  ^nust  be  locallzed.  ""^  Every  topati  belongs  to  a 

place,  '-  and  the  legend  refers  to  some  place.  ""^  (Localization  is  impor- 
tant [in  general]  on  the  North  West  Coast,  and  in  California  too,  among 
the  Hupa  and  Yurok.) 

5  qq.  ri.  r2.  ck  j|^g  individual's  right  to  participate  must  be  clear  -  "^^^  "^^ 
you  must  have  clear  title  to  the  privilege  ^'-  ^^  and  be  able  to  state  your 
relationship  to  it.  ^''-  '-•  "■--  •■''  '•''  The  normal  way  of  gaining  this  right  is 
by  direct  descent,  "^  in  which  both  a  rule  of  primogeniture  and  of  male 
descent  holds.  '''  Other  ways  to  obtain  a  topati  are  by  dowry,  or  by  a 
ceremonial  gift,  in  which  you  just  hand  over  a  right  to  someone;  "^^  for 
example,  a  chief  may  give  a  topati  to  another  chief,  and  this  is  expected 
to  be  returned  later  on.  "*'  A  topati  can  also  be  obtained  by  "hitting"  - 
by  force,  [in  other  words,  such  as  by]  warfare  or  assassination.  ^^-  ^^  By 
this  "might  of  right,"  you  just  kill  someone  calmly  and  take  his  topati. 
^-  [Or,  you  might]  steal  a  box  and  mask  from  neighboring  tribes,  or 
conquer  one  of  their  fishing  territories. 

"^"^  These  samples  [of  Nootka  life  involving  the  topati  system]  suggest 
that  [we  should  see]  cultural  pattern  always  as  a  configuration  or  aesthe- 
tic form  rather  than  merely  [as  a  set  of]  specific  events.  ^^  There  is  an 
analogy,  therefore,  between  working  out  the  grammar  of  a  language 
and  working  out  the  pattern  of  the  topati.  ''•  "^  The  system  of  the  topati, 
as  a  [cultural]  pattern,  is  equivalent  to  a  grammatical  form,  such  as  the 
system  of  the  passive,  '^  [in  the  sense  that]  the  form  gives  the  back- 
ground, pattern,  or  configuration  to  enable  the  hooking  in  of  a  type  of 
behavior  into  a  pattern  or  form  of  implications.  '^  [Thus,  for  instance,] 
all  verbs  have  passives,  although  some,  such  as  "to  go,"  are  not  logi- 
cal;^*^  in  the  same  way,  many  elements  of  culture  are  fitted  into  configu- 
rations merely  by  analogy,  rather  than  by  psychology. 

[To  reiterate:]-^''  '^  this  grammatical  interpretation  of  a  cultural 
pattern  [is  appropriate  because]  ^'-  ^k  ^  cultural  pattern  is  always  a  con- 
figuration -  an  aesthetic  form  into  which  a  particular  behavior,  or 
event,  may  be  fitted.  ""^  To  understand  an  event,  you  have  to  give  it  a 


Two:  The  Psycholojiy  of  Culture  525 

locus;  ''  [and  il  is  ihc  configuralion  which]  i!i\cs  d  locus  for  behavior. 
^^  [However  -as  \\c  ha\e  already  pointed  out  ]  the  meaning  of  the 
event  is  manitbld.  because  the  e\enl  must  be  the  crossroad  of  many 
patterns.  '-'  luich  cultiue  '"trait"  (Its  into  a  number  oldilterent  conHiiu- 
rations.  ''  IViiiaps  e\en  the  simplest  behavior  pattern  is  complex  be- 
cause it  fits  in  and  intertwines  with  all  kinds  of  others  -  (according  to 
the]  implications  o'(  the  total  cultural  pattern.  For  example,  the  lullaby 
sung  in  a  pollatch  ties  in  with  the  whole  pattern  ottopati.  ''^^  And  il  is 
[this]  overhead  meaning,  rather  than  the  simple  function  o\'  a  pattern, 
that  helps  explain  the  stability  of  the  pattern  in  the  face  of  culture  con- 
tact. Because  the  e\ent  is  the  crossroad  of  many  meanings,  the  mimedi- 
ate  and  simple  function  does  not  go  very  deep.  What  is  needed  [for 
our  analysis,  therefore,]  is  the  meaning  of  the  overhead  valuation  plus 
knowledge  of  the  streams  o\^  meaning  behind  the  configuration.  We 
must  know  this  before  we  have  a  functional  analysis  of  any  power. 

ri.  r2  \^Q  must  therefore  discover  the  leading  motivations  for  these 
configurations  -  the  master  ideas  of  cultures.  '-  These  leading  motiva- 
tions constitute  the  culture  in  an  anthropological  sense.  "'  They  are 
the  fundamental  dynamic  concepts  involved  in  the  noticMi  o\^  "cultural 
patterns."  Nothing  in  behavior,  cultural  or  otherwise,  can  be  under- 
stood except  as  seen  in  reference  to  configurations. 

^"•^  There  has  not  been  much  analysis  of  culture  from  a  configurational 
point  of  view  so  far.  We  see  much  more  clearlv  individual  psychology 
and  [social]  institutions;  [yet  a  configurational  analysis  would  be  much 
more  profound. ]"*'  But  culture  is  just  as  dynamic  a  thing  as  hunicm 
behavior.  Culture  should  be  defined  as  a  series  o\'  human  activities  m  a 
configuration. 


[Conclusion:  Cullurc  as  Possible  Events] 

''•  Culture,  then,  resolves  itself  into  patterns,  or  configurations,  not 
departments:  the  content  of  culture  is  not  an  mcremental  concept  of  the 
Wisslerian  type.  The  [configurational]  point  o(  view^'  stands  o\er 
against  an  "objecti\e  '  dichotomy  of  data  into  cultural  entities  which 
are  [merely]  the  result  oWt  priori  prejudices.  For  instance,  we  ha\e  ^oo^S 
descriptive  accounts  of  the  Plains  Indian  cultures,  but  we  lack  a  good 
picture  of  our  brackets  -  [our  own  cultural  framework.  fri>m  whose 
vantage-point  those  descriptions  were  maile.j  "'  An  idea  o^  relaliMly  m 
culture  [is  essential,   iherefore.   What   the  Wisslerian  t>pe  o\  analysis 


526 


///    Culture 


takes  as]  "abNoliilc"'  values  are  not  valid;  [their  supposed  objectivity 
/eprcsenls,  instead,  a  projection  of  our  own  cultural  system's  emphasis 
on  sensorv  tacts  and  things. ]^^ 

■'  [In  our  discussion  o(  language,  earlier  in  this  lecture,  we  saw  that 
for]  symbols  such  as  words,  ^while  there  may  be  a]  primary  meaning 
implicit  in  the  form,  there  is  also  a  derived  meaning  -  which  makes  for 
glibness  of  interpretation,  on  a  personal  scale.'*'^  '^  There  is  never  a  one- 
to-one  relation  of  symbol  and  reterent,  and  this  is  because  of  the  config- 
urative  richness  [of  the  system].  In  the  symbolic  pyramid  of  a  culture, 
\cr\  few  bricks  touch  the  ground  -  there  is  a  consecutive  and  endless 
passmg  o\'  the  [referential]  buck.  ^^^  Indeed,  symbols  become  more 
meaningful  as  they  become  dissociated  from  the  actual  experience.  "^^ 
[Mn,  the  supposedly  "objective"  types  of  analysis  make]  constant  appeal 
lo  the  senses.  ^'^  A  sensory  fact  has  enormous  potency  for  us  -  [even 
though]  ^'^-  '^  an  object  in  itself  has  no  meaning,  until  it  is  related  to 
something  [else]  in  our  experience.  ''  For  example,  [even  something  so 
sensory  as]  odors  are  judged  by  their  configurational  setting.  ""^^  •■'  But 
because  of  this  [potency]  something  like  a  sensation  fetishism  builds  up 
[in  our  culture],  where  values  are  built  up  in  terms  of  the  thingness  of 
things.  ''  (The  above  blocked  Thurstone's  response  to  the  wala  experi- 
ment.)'^' 

'^'  [This  kind  of]  projection  [represents  one  of  the]  difficulties  of  social 
science;-^^  thing  fetishes  are  a  danger.  [We  need  to]  get  the  definition  [of 
our  observations  not  in  terms  of  things,  but]  in  terms  of  meaning.  And, 
in  thinking  configuratively,  [culture]  must  not  be  [seen  as]  static  -  as  a 
structure  -  but  as  possible  events.  Cultural  understandings  are  to  be 
seen  in  terms  of  possible  behavior. 

ck.  ri  jhy5  \[  i^  absurd  to  enumerate  a  list  of  things  as  defining  a 
culture.  '^'  Their  participation  in  the  culture,  not  the  fetishistic  thingness, 
is  what  counts.  "^^  You  must  put  yourself  in  a  behavioristic  relation  to  a 
thing  before  it  becomes  an  element  of  culture.  '-•'■  "^^  What  gives  a  thing 
its  presentational  value  -  makes  it  recognizable  -  is  the  multiplicity  of 
behavioral  situations  of  which  it  is  a  part.  '^  This  is  what  defines  a 
thing.  '^-  ""^  If  we  are  to  understand  it,  we  need  to  construct  a  typical 
picture  of  a  series  of  behavioristic  patterns,  situations  into  which  it  (an 
object)  may  be  placed.  For  things  have  no  intrinsic  values.^^ 

''  Any  [putative]  culture  pattern  must,  [then,]  be  tested  out  as  a  beha- 
vior sequence.  No  pattern  can  be  considered  as  pecuhar,  since  each  has 
Its  own  behavior-value.  ''^  Yet,  we  can  never  know  all  the  behavioristic 
implications;  and,  '^'   to  apply  the  behavioristic  test  requires  a  vast 


Two:  T/u-  P.Wiholoi^y  of  ('u/inri'  527 

knowledge  of  the  culuiral  hackyroiiiul.  uhicli  uc  citMit  li.i\e.  ''•"''  [The 
point  is  thai]  the  structure  we  call  culluie.  ov  social  understanding,  is 
implicit  in  behavior  itself.  ^^  [So.  in  a  \sa\|  il  is  not  relevant  to  sav  we 
must  test  out  culture  in  behaxior.  ''  Instead,  we  must  see  culture  as  a 
beha\ic^r  sequence.  '"^  The  test  of  a  real  grasp  of  understanding  of  cul- 
ture is  "''■''  its  interesting  commoniilacencss.  ''  Thai  is  what  attests  the 
realilx  o(  culture. 


Editorial  Note 

This  material  was  apparently  covered  in  only  one  lecture  in  I9.>4 
(Feb.  27),  but  in  three  in  1936-7  (Dec.  7.  14,  Jan.  4).  The  1935-6  notes 
are  undated. 

in  1934,  linguistic  examples  are  discussed  first  (as  in  the  Outline),  and 
the  Nootka  topati  is  only  briefly  summarized.  This  order  was  also  fol- 
lowed in  1935-36,  but  the  topati  example  is  further  developed,  (it  is 
not  clear  how  many  lectures  were  spent  on  this  material  in  that  year.) 
in  1936-7  the  Nootka  ethnological  example  is  much  expanded,  while 
the  linguistic  discussion  is  brief  and  divided  (some  before,  some  after 
the  topati);  and  there  is  a  conclusion  that  must  have  taken  up  most  of 
the  Jan.  4  lecture,  although  the  note-takers'  record  of  that  lecture  is 
thin. 

Because  most  of  the  linguistic  discussion  comes  tYom  the  1934  notes 
and  is  linked,  in  them,  to  the  preceding  introductorx  section.  I  have 
placed  this  material  before  the  topati,  as  in  1934  and  in  the  Outline. 

In  this  chapter  I  have  also  included  material  from  the  1927-28  period 
(notes  by  Newman  and  Setzler),  to  clarify  Sapir's  concept  o(  "form"  in 
culture.  Also  from  Chicago.  Eggan's  notes  from  other  courses  Sapir 
gave  clarify  some  linguistic  examples  and  some  details  ol'  the  Nootka 
topati. 

Eor  Sapir's  other  works  on  Nootka  see  \oliinics  l\.  \l.  and  \ll  o\' 
the  Collected  Uor/<s. 


Notes 

1.  Sec  CJracbncr  1911.  1924;  SchmiJl  1924.  |92(>    .Vs;  aiui  other  rcprcscnlalivcs  of  the  Kul- 
ittrkreis  school  of  ethnology. 

2.  On  Gestalt  psychology.  Sapir  wrote  to  Benedict  in  1925:  "..  I've  been  reading  KollVas 
'Growth  o\'  the  Mind"  (Margaret's  copy)  and  its  like  some  echo  telling  me  what  my 


528  III  Culture 

iniuilion  never  quite  had  the  courage  to  say  out  loud.  It's  the  real  book  for  background 
for  a  philosophy  of  culture,  at  least  your/my  philosophy,  and  1  see  the  most  fascinating 
and  alarming  possibilities  of  application  of  its  principles,  express  and  implied,  mostly 
implied,  to  ail  behavior,  art,  music,  culture,  personality,  and  everything  else.  If  somebody 
with  an  icy  grin  doesn't  come  around  to  temper  my  low  fever,  I'll  soon  be  studying 
geometry  o\er  again  in  order  to  discover  what  really  happens  when  a  poem  takes  your 
breath  away  or  you're  at  loggerheads  with  somebody.  Nay  more,  unless  a  humanist  like 
yourself  stops  me.  I'll  be  drawing  up  plans  for  a  generalized  Geometry  of  Experience, 
in  which  each  theorem  will  be  casually  illustrated  from  ordinary  behavior,  music,  culture, 
and  language.  The  idea,  you  perceive,  is  that  all  you  really  need  to  do  to  understand  - 
anything,  is  to  draw  a  figure  in  space  (or  time)  and  its  relevance  for  any  kind  of  interest 
can  be  discovered  by  just  noting  how  it  is  cut  by  the  plane  (=  context)  of  that  interest..." 
(Mead  1959:177). 

3.  The  notes  show  several  dilTerent  designs  at  this  point,  all  interpretable  as  cursive  shapes 
for  the  letter  "t ". 

4.  Tl  has:  "Responses  to  cultural  phenomena  are  two  -  ethnological  specimen  is  viewed 
bv  anthropologist  and  miner  in  terms  of  native  and  own  culture  respectively..." 

5.  B(}  actually  has  these  two  sentences  in  the  reverse  order.  See  footnote  6  below. 

6.  DM  has:  \\a  plus  la  in  one  [language],  wal  plus  a  in  another. 

7.  The  discussion  of  words  and  grammatical  categories  embarked  upon  here  seems  to  be 
meant  to  illustrate  the  following  point:  the  relationship  between  form  and  function  in 
language  is  complex  because  both  form  and  function  have  several  levels  of  organization. 
BG  gives  a  good  summary:  "Language  is  the  supreme  example  of  the  fact  that  in  two 
languages  one  may  find  the  form  (sound)  and  the  function  (Meaning)  of  elements  to  be 
the  same  but  the  patterns  totally  different.  The  total  functioning  of  patterns  is  different 
from  the  functioning  of  a  specific  pattern.  E.g.,  all  languages  express  the  concept  of 
Hiving  but  Navajo  has  no  word  for  give  although  it  expresses  this  through  a  specific 
arrangement  of  patterns.  The  complete  meaning  does  not  lie  in  the  specific  function  of 
segmented  bits  of  behavior  but  in  functions  of  wider  import,  e.  g.,  paying  a  visit  due  to 
reciprocity  and  not  to  immediate  pleasure.  Simple  functions  linked  with  overt  behavior 
are  not  the  point  of  analysis." 

At  the  same  time,  Sapir  also  emphasizes  the  primacy,  or  analytic  centrality,  of  form 
as  compared  with  meaning  or  function.  See,  especially,  excerpts  from  Tl  and  T2  in  the 
discussion  below. 

8.  T2  begins  this  section  with  "Concept  of  the  world  by  languages  -  exigencies  of  adjust- 
ment..." 

9.  At  this  point  Sapir  explained  what  he  meant  by  "nuclear"  concepts.  T2  has:  "Some  word 
concepts  are  nuclear,  such  as  plow;  some  are  derivative,  such  as  plowman.'" 

10.  See  Sapir  and  Swadesh  (1946),  "American  Indian  Grammatical  Categories,"  on  the  ex- 
pression of  the  English  sentence  "He  will  give  it  to  you"  in  six  American  Indian  languag- 
es. 

1 1 .  Here  Sapir  refers  the  audience  to  a  work  by  Zona  Gale,  "Portage,  Wisconsin  and  Other 
Essays,"  1930. 

12.  Tl  has:  "Some  people  have  no  plural  concept.  Plurals  in  English  are  used  only  spasmodi- 
cally..." 

13.  T2  has:  "Aspect  is  the  geometric  form  of  the  event." 

14.  T2  has:  "Language  is  concerned  with  meanings,  but  is  concerned  with  form." 

15.  Here  Sapir  referred  the  students  to  his  1925  paper,  "Sound  Patterns  in  Language." 

16.  See  Sapir  I925p,  "Sound  Patterns  in  Language,"  for  an  extended  development  of  this 
example. 

17.  There  is  no  indication  in  the  CK  notes  as  to  what  Yana  example  was  given  here.  How- 
ever, in  an  introductory  linguistics  course  at  Chicago  (E-20),  Sapir  drew  on  a  Yana 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  C  ulturc  529 

example,  among  others,  to  make  a  similar  argument.  Another  clue  suggcslmg  this  might 
be  the  appropriate  Yana  example  comes  from  C'K's  mention,  shortly  after  the  "illustra- 
tion from  Yana."  that  'so  you  can  prove  that  every  adjective  is  a  verb  by  the  structure 
of  the  language." 

18.  The  bracketed  text  represents  a  siiinMiar\  ol  the  nialenal  in  I.-20  inlriHlucmg  the  Yana 
example. 

19.  By  'complete  "  here  Sapir  seems  to  mean  ■■nuilti-le\ele(J.'" 

20.  See  BG  (below):  The  overhead  meaning  rather  than  the  simple  function  of  a  pattern 
helps  explain  the  stability  of  pattern  in  the  face  of  culture  contact." 

21.  Sapir's  major  published  v\orks  on  pruilege.  rank,  and  the  potlatch  in  Northwest  Coast 
societies  arc:  "A  Girls'  Puberty  Ceremony  among  the  Nootka  Indians"  (1913b);  "The 
Social  Organization  of  the  West  Coast  Tribes"  (I9l5h);  "A  Sketch  of  the  Social  Organ- 
ization of  the  Nass  River  Indians"  (I9l5g);  and  "Sayach'apis,  a  Nootka  Trader"  (1922y). 
Although  these  works  all  date  from  the  first  half  o\'  his  career,  the  topic  continued  lo 
interest  him  in  later  years.  In  1924  he  gave  a  paper  on  "The  Prnilege  Concept  among 
the  Nootka  Indians"  at  the  Toronto  meeting  of  the  British  Association  for  the  Advance- 
ment of  Science  (unfortunately,  no  manuscript  or  abstract  of  this  paper  has  been  found). 
In  the  late  I920"s  he  gave  a  course  at  the  University  of  Chicago  on  "The  North  West 
Coast  Tribes"  (E92).  in  which  much  of  the  material  was  organized  around  the  concept 
of  privilege;  in  1927  he  drew  on  the  same  subject  matter  as  an  example  of  cultural 
pattern,  in  "The  Unconscious  Patterning  of  Behavior  in  Society";  and  the  present  chapter 
shows  his  reworking  of  the  subject  in  the  I930's.  See  also  "Songs  for  a  Comox  Dancing 
Mask"  (1939e)  and  the  Nootka  texts  (Sapir  and  Swadesh  1939,  1955). 

22.  In  DM.  the  sentence  "All  culture  resohes  itself..."  is  in  a  separate  paragraph  from  the 
preceding  discussion  of  sociological  terms,  and  seems  to  be  placed  in  contrast  with  it. 
For  this  reason,  and  because  of  Sapir's  emphasis  on  native  vocabulary  in  the  topaii 
discussion  (as  elsewhere).  I  infer  that  he  means  native  terminology  here,  as  opposed  to 
sociological  terminology. 

23.  DM  has:  "The  content  of  culture  is  not  an  incremental,  segregatable  collection  of  pat- 
terns..." 

24.  Rl  has  "black  totem". 

25.  Sapir's  published  discussions  of  privilege  and  the  potlatch.  and  the  discussion  in  his 
course  on  "The  North  West  Coast  Tribes"  (University  of  Chicago;  E92)  are  dilTerently 
organized.  The  miscellaneous  character  of  this  list  in  the  class  notes,  with  the  more 
organized  analysis  afterwards,  seem  lo  be  related  to  the  methodological  points  Sapir  is 
making:  that  a  culture  pattern  does  not  easily  emerge  from  mere  obsci^ation;  thai  a 
pattern  is  embedded  in  a  context  of  other  patterns;  and  that  the  concept  of  pri\ilcgc  is 
a  "leading  motivation"  or  "master  idea"  o\'  Nootka  culture.  per\ading  main  realms  of 
social  life. 

A  numbered  list  of  topati  activities  is  given  in  QQ  and  Rl  R2  and  C  K  present  the 
same  activities  in  the  same  order,  but  discursively.  T2  and  Tl  have  much  of  the  same 
material. 

26.  "Caves,  rituals'  comes  from  R2.  but  the  handu  riling  is  not  clear.  "Caves"  may  he  just 
"canoes". 

27.  It  is  not  clear  from  the  context  in  CK  whether  "secret  announcement  sont's  "  \vh..u-\i-r 
they  are,  are  meant  to  be  examples  of  topati  songs  or  non-topati  wmgs 

28.  R2  and  QQ  both  present  these  characteristics  as  a  numbered  list  Rl  has  a  mm,  nmul-wi 
numbers.  CK  presents  the  same  characteristics  disvursueU,  as  do  11  and  12 

29.  This  passage  is  only  partly  legible  in  the  original 

30.  The  repetition  here  is  not  just  an  artifact  oi  the  editorial  pr.v.ss  R  1  .nu!  m  p.irt  (  K 
indicate  that  Sapir  himself  reiterated  the  point 


530  m   Culture 

31.  and  more  "roar".'  T2  has:  "ConHgurations:  -  Child's  conception  of  Santa  Claus  is  as 
real  as  the  British  Constitution.  "  This  point,  in  T2,  comes  after  the  topati  material. 

32.  HI  has:  "This  point  of  view  (Sapir's)  stands  over  against..." 

33.  The  bracketed  ic\t  is  based  on  the  subsequent  discussion  of  "projection"  and  "sensation 
fetishism." 

34.  Rl  describes  the  waUt  example  at  this  point. 

35.  Louis  L.  Tliurstone  (IS87-  1955),  a  psychologist  at  the  University  of  Chicago. 

36.  See  chapter  2. 

37.  CK  has:  "Necessity  of  constructing  a  sequence  of  behavioristic  situations  into  which  an 
object  can  fit,  if  we  are  to  understand  it.  There  are  no  intrinsic  values." 

Rl  has:  "Construct  a  typical  picture  of  a  series  of  behavioristic  patterns  into  which 
ihiniis  may  be  placed.  Things  are  not  intrinsically  valuable." 


Chapter  6.   The  DcNclopniciU  orCiiluiic 
oi.  ri.  mi  y^/t'  Concept  of  Development  in  Culture 

[Our  concepts  of  ciilliiral  dsnaniics.  chdiiiic.  clc\clopiiicm.  aiKl  pro- 
gress arc  inlinialclx  related;  hut  the\  ha\e  not  always  been  distinguished 
tVom  one  anotlier. '  In  order  to  consider  the  concept  of" development  m 
cuhure,  we  shall  focus  on  the  idea  o\'\  "progress  a  perilous  subiect. 
to  be  sure. 

""■The  idea  of  cultmal  progress  is  a  relatively  modern  point  of  \ie\s. 
"^Indeed.  it  is  [so  much]  a  characteristic  of  modern  man  that  e\en  m  our 
time,  in  spite  of  all  we  must  believe  in  progress.  Hven  the  most  c\nical 
person  has  a  childlike  faith  in  it.  [Earlier  ages,  such  as]  classical  [antiq- 
uity], did  not  share  this  taith.  On  the  contrary:  for  them  the  perfect  time 
was  in  the  past;  "^and  they  were  more  likel\  \\o  emphasize]  stories  of 
deterioration,  as  with  the  [story  of  the]  Garden  of  Eden,  and  the  like. 
"For  the  [early]  Christians  it  was  the  same;  [later.]  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
there  was  a  very  equilibrated  world,  neither  impro\ing  nor  decaying. 
All  values  were  fixed;  [they  were  expressed  in]  an  iniernational  language 
[(Latin)];  etc.  [In  this  respect]  the  world  o\'  ioda\  is  a  wi^ld  i^f  an\iei> 
compared  to  the  medieval  world. 

"Meanwhile,  however,  in  the  se\enteenlh  centur\.  science  de\eK>ped 
and  colonization  took  place.  That  means  a  complete  breaking  up  of  the 
old  world.  The  notion  of  progress  depends  on  this;  it  could  no  more  be 
shaken  o[^\  It  was  founded  on  that  [change]:  that  on  a  basis  o^  sotiie 
new  scientific  discoxery  it  was  possible  to  measure  progress,  to  pro\e 
that  a  generation  was  "superior"  to  the  pieceding  gener»ition,  to  the 
"immediate  past."  "•  '-[Today]  the  idea  o\'  jirogress  is  a  \ery  strong 
element  in  culture  -  in  our  culture  and.  more  and  more,  m  other  cul- 
tures. "  '-The  notion  o\^  indefinite  perfectabilit>  is  t.iken  for  granted. 
[both]  in  [its]  psychological  aspect  [(the  perfectabilit>  of  the  indi\idu.ih) 
and  in  [cnir]  outlook  on  culture  [itself  (cultural  evolution)]. 

'-But  what  is  the  nature  o\  progress?  "It  was  nexer  proved  that  this 
progress,  [the  "superiorit\"'  o\'  the  niiKlern  scientific  world.)  was  more 
than  mechanical.  Men  were  naluralls  tempted  to  think  that  this  power 
could  be  applied  to  an\  thing  else.  Hut  there  is  something  more. 


y-^-»  ///   Culture 

hi.  hi[pi,st  o['  all.  wc  should  distinguish]  progress  from  [mere]  develop- 
ment, ^-(evcn  from]  development  with  a  tendeney\  [for  the  concept  of 
progress  implies  some  evaluation  of  the  tendency,  i.  e.  that  it  represents 
an  improvement.  For  example,  a  tendency  to  reduce  the  elaboration  of 
some  cultural  form  may  be  considered  a]  simplification,  or  a  deteriora- 
tion; ii  muv  be  progress,  [but  whether  it  is  or  not  depends  on  one's  point 
o^  view.]  [Most  importantly,  we  must  recognize  that]  ^'-  "'the  various 
le\els  o'[  a  whole  cultural  complex  [may  differ  as  to  how  a  concept  of] 
progress  [applies  to  them.]  For  example,  the  individual's  [cultural]  stock- 
in-trade  [may  develop  differently  from  that  of  the]  culture  [complex 
taken  as  a  whole].  Paradoxically,  then,  as  against  growing  complications 
[at  one  level  we  may  need]  the  idea  of  compensatory  simplifications  [at 
another.]-  ^"And  where  culture  change  [is  seen  as  increased  cultural] 
complexity,  [we  must  make  a  distinction  between]  analyzing  detail  and 
finding  a  much  more  rich  culture;  for  this  we  must  know  the  meanings 
ot"  objects  in  culture.  The  total  complexity  of  the  culture  of  a  small 
hamlet  may  be  higher  than  the  splendid  Greek  cities. 

[It  now  seems  clear  that]  ''''the  earlier  anthropologists  oversimplified 
in  emphasizing  the  progressive  piling-up  of  power  in  the  development 
o'i  culture.  But  contemporary  [anthropologists]  go  too  far  in  the  other 
direction  by  denying  progress  [altogether].  ''-^I  [(Sapir)]  am  not  wholly 
\\  iih  those  who  would  discard  the  concept.  You  have  to  be  unreasonably 
broadminded  to  feel  we  are  no  further  along  than  Neanderthal  Man. 
'^'However,  "progress"  (at  [whatever]  level)  [is  so  far  only]  an  intuitive 
concept.  Is  there  any  one  idea,  or  formula,  [for  what  constitutes  ''pro- 
gress"]? 

qq.  r2.  ck,  h2.  nyj^g  general  concept  of  progress  may  be  usefully  split  up 
into  three  conceptual  strands:  '^^^  ^■^^  '^'-  '^'^(1)  technological  progress  or 
advance  -  the  material,  industrial,  or  power  point  of  view;  (2)  "spiri- 
tual" progress  -  the  moralistic  point  of  view;  and  (3)  the  cyclical  devel- 
opment of  patterns  -  the  aesthetic  point  of  view. 

(\)Teelmologiccd progress}^'  ^^  Since  the  dawn  of  civilizafion  there  has 
been  a  progressive  improvement  in  the  amount  of  knowledge  of  the 
physical  environment  and  an  applicadon  of  that  knowledge  to  our  use, 
"the  better  to  use  and  combat  the  physical  elements,  ^^it  is  a  long  step 
from  making  a  big  fire  with  no  matches  or  a  fire  board  to  central  heat- 
ing. '^Similarly,]  the  fact  that  I  can  take  a  railway  and  travel  quickly  is 
progress,  because  I  do  that  with  a  minimum  of  effort.  (Let  us  take  as 
given  the  reality  of  that  kind  of  value.)  '='''  ^i'  '^^  'Hn  the  field  of  power, 
then  -  ""'that  is  to  say,  the  ability  to  utilize  the  environment  -  ''^'  i^-  •■'' 


Two:  The  Psycholn^v  of  Culture  533 

^~-  "human  beings  ha\c  k>st  essentially  nothing  since  early  times,  *-''bui 
have,  instead,  conserved  and  added  lo  [the  technological  repertoire). 
^■•^This  means  progress  implicitly.  "At  least,  it  means  mechanical  pro- 
gress. *■•''•  ^''Although  specific  techniques  ha\e  been  \os\,  we  have  equiva- 
lents for  every  process  ever  de\  eloped,  apparently;  and  we  ha\e  greater 
technological  power  than  e\er  before. 

"^'A  good  example  of  a  great  [technological]  contribution  is  the  tin 
can  -  a  high  point  because  it  involves  many  technological  processes 
and  is  o'i  use  to  a  great  number  [of  people].  ^''-  "'•  "In  terms  o{  power, 
the  tin  can  is  more  important  than  Etruscan  vases.  "^^^  ^'For  the  fact  that 
objects  are  used  in  cultural  sequences  -  their  place  in  culture  -  is  what 
makes  them  important,  not  the  objects  themselves.  '^^''To  set  going  a 
[cultural]  current  which  means  maximum  utilization  of  the  means  at 
our  disposal  with  a  minimum  of  effort  -  this  is  progress. 

*-''This  [definition  of  progress]  is  objective,  not  subjective.  [Thus  tech- 
nological advances  are  easily  recognized  as  such,  despite  other  differ- 
ences in  cultural  background.]  Technological  superiority  is  always  cop- 
ied by  peoples  with  less  superior  knowledge  who  come  in  contact  with 
superior  technical  knowledge.  Either  they  learn  how  to  handle  advanced 
power  devices  or  they  are  killed  off;  ^'[and,  besides,]  people  continually 
hunt  for  ideas  which  give  much  with  little  effort.  For  example,  the  Es- 
kimo woman  readily  takes  over  the  sewing  machine.  [Moreover,  on  the 
level  ot]  the  individual  there  is  a  rapid  self-orientalion  to  a  new  cultural 
element  (such  as  the  tin  can).  ' 'As  the  knowledge  of  the  use  o^  po\ser 
becomes  common  property,  '^'-  '^^'^  "the  accumulation  o\'  power  cannot 
be  stopped.  ("'[Note]  Thurnwald's''  idea  o\^  the  cumulati\e  nature  o\ 
material  culture.) 

''"^This  concept  of  progress,  of  course,  includes  the  dc\ elopment  i>f 
ideas,  since  the  ideas  have  at  least  the  opportunity  or  potentialit>  o^ 
giving  power.  "Increase  of  knowledge,  then,  is  also  an  nistrumental  pro- 
gress. '^'^Power  and  ideas  are  inextricably  associated:  ''''[the  ideas)  enable 
us  to  anticipate  the  solution  of  possible  future  problems;  '-  ''the>  give 
us  the  ability  to  predict;  and  they  pa\e  the  way  for  the  ideas  ot  the 
future.  '-''•  ■'•  "^-Mathematics.  for  example,  [enables  us  to  make]  scientific 
projections  [which,  in  turn,  furlhci  our  technological]  power.  "''[Hven] 
pure  mathematics  [can  be  seen]  as  power  as  an  economical  uay  ol 
thinking  -  which  may  be  applied  to  other  problems.  Mathematics  en- 
ables one  to  go  through  the  imaginars  to  the  real;  this  is  power,  ''[llie 
example  of  mathematics  also  illustrates  how]  the  accumulated  pt>uer  o{ 


5^4  ^^^   Culture 

ihc  past  is  used  to  build  power  for  the  future,  ''^-  "^'because  a  certain 
system  o\'  mathematics  was  essential  for  Einstein's  theory  of  relativity. 

^^Mt  is  interesting  that  non-European  groups  very  readily  take  up 
ideas  that  have  technological  power  even  if  they  are  unfavorable  about 
other  ideas.  ^'^Primitive  man  does  not  resist  technological  power  [in  the 
least;  rather,  he]  "^'is  hospitable  to  it.  '-''[Yet,  this  ready  acceptance  sug- 
gests a]  fatality  about  the  use  of  power  [that  is  perhaps  the]  most  essen- 
tial fact  in  culture. 

"[In  sum,]  the  increase  of  power  in  certain  lines  shows  progress,  [al- 
though there  remains  the  question  of|  whether  fast  progress  is  at  the 
expense  of  certain  elements  such  as  esthetics,  beauty,  or  peace.  "•  ^-Actu- 
ally, the  occasional  retrogression  and  loss  of  power  only  heightens  the 
stature  of  the  actual  accumulation  of  progress  in  the  long  run.  "^-Despite 
occasional  setbacks,  the  conservation  of  man's  energy  has  constantly 
increased  through  technological  inventions  which  increase  our  powers. 
'''There  has  been  no  loss  of  vital  mechanical  processes,  but,  instead,  an 
adaptation  of  new  methods,  as  in  the  sciences.  ''-Technological  progress 
[involves  a]  growth  in  point  of  view  as  well  as  in  technique;  and  [it 
results  in]  an  ability  to  orient  oneself  in  the  world  with  increased  effi- 
ciency (and  success). 

(2)  Spiritual  progress.  '-■''•  ^--  'I'^Now,  about  spiritual  progress  it  is  more 
difilcult  to  be  certain,  ^''-  ""'for  we  are  dealing  with  intangible  values.  ^'' 
'-Largely  a  question  of  opinions  and  ideas,  this  factor  is  under  the  influ- 
ence of  subjective  impulses  more  [than  technology  is]."^  "Culture  is 
ghostly  and  full  of  fantasies  -  but  nonetheless  forcefully  demanding 
and  exacting.  Moreover,  spiritual  progress  is  also  conditioned  by  the 
culture  itself.  ^^-  "^'Each  group  has  certain  preferred  modes  of  behavior, 
[and  considers  certain  moral]  traits  desirable;  but  these  [preferences] 
contradict  each  other  in  different  cultures.  [They  change  according  to] 
time  and  place. 

ri.ck.qqj)Q  thcrc  sccm  to  be  certain  kinds  of  behavior,  certain  desirable 
traits  or  values,  which  people  in  general  do  tend  to  grope  towards?  "^'Is 
there,  for  example,  a  general  feeling  of  value  in  the  immaterial  world? 
'^'i-  ''•'It  is  certainly  true  that  every  people  persists  in  thinking  that  some 
sorts  of  actions  are  better  than  others,  ^^and  they  place  some  special 
value  on  "high  ideals."  ""-[Note,  too,  that]  the  "spiritual"  (or  moral) 
includes  the  behavior  traits  by  which  people  get  into  contact  with  other 
people.  These  are  the  behaviors  which  get  a  man  called  a  "good  fellow." 
[These  generalities  are  rather  vague,  but  we  can  still  use  them  as  a  basis 
for  asking  whether]  ■"'■  "^-there  is  any  development  of  consciousness  - 


Tuo:  The  PsVihohtiiy  ofCulturc  535 

■"-any  means  developed  Idt  ihc  iiulixidual  consciousness  lo  sur\i\e.  Has 
there  been  any  progress  in  imagination? 

"■''iWliat  may  be  taken  as  the  essential  is  the  process  of  identificaintii. 
and  this  means  the  question  o\^  [society]""  itself.  '^(I'hus  we  might 
rephiase  our  queslion  about  ciMisciousness  as:|  Is  ihere  an\  tendency 
in  the  history  o\^  culture  for  a  growth  of  imaginalK>n  (in  the  sense  kA'] 
substitution  of  other  egos  for  one's  own  consciiuisness?  ''''And  has  there 
been  any  widening  o\'  this  tendency?  '-•  ''I  think  we  conserve  our  con- 
sciousness by  identifying  ourselves  with  the  [social]  group:  '-for  our 
consciousness  sur\i\es  with  the  group.  ^''Knowing  you  can't  conserve 
your  own  consciousness  [beyond]  death  you  depute  it  to  others,  to  the 
group  as  a  whole.  The  wish  to  conserve  the  reality  and  permanence  o\' 
your  own  consciousness  is  served  by  identil'ying  it  with  a  group. 

^■^Now,  the  idea  of  identifying  oneself  with  members  o{  one's  own 
family  is  easy  -  ''[seeing]  one's  continuation  in  an  identity  with  one's 
children.  '^^'"The  idea  of  identifying  oneself  with  people  of  another  coun- 
try is  difficult.  [In  fact,  the  psychological  processes  in\ol\ed  in  identi- 
fying with  one's  own  group  may  be  what  makes  it  dilTicult.)  ''''The  hos- 
tility toward  other  groups  may  be  interpreted  as  due  i(^  the  adjusting  o{ 
control  of  impulses  to  one's  [own]  group.  '  'Thus  the  consciousness  o\' 
different  groups  [entangles  them  in]  the  parado.x  of  self-defense.  ''''Want- 
ing to  aggrandize  one's  own  group,  one  belittles  others. 

[How  far  does  the  control  of  impulses  go?)  "If  1  am  a  member  o\'  an 
Indian  tribe  I  kill  [other  Indians,  though]  only  for  good  reasons.  If  I 
am  a  citizen  of  the  United  States  I  don't  kill  [other  citizens  at  all).  1 
have  extended  the  range  of  m\  inhibitions.  I  cannot  [e\en]  kill  a  member 
of  another  nation  if  1  am  not  protected  h\  the  ideolog\  of  wai.  Let  us 
call  this  spiritual  progress.  It  is  not  disconnected  from  the  llrsi  kind  o^ 
progress,  however,  because  a  society  is  more  elTicient.  if  people  <.\o  not 
kill  one  another. 

^"^In  war,  too,  even  if  we  do  remain  for  the  j-iiesent  as  ruthless  as  e\er. 
there  seems  to  be  progress  in  our  attitude  low  aid  killing  individuals  not 
of  our  own  group.  '^-[Unlike  our  ancestors  of  a  lew  generations  back.] 
we  apologize  for  war,  '-[and  emphasize]  the  sanctit\  o{  human  life,  [pre- 
ferring to]  save  a  life  rather  than  save  Rheims  Cathedral.  ^^[C'ompared 
with  our  forebears]  we  [ha\e  to]  tr>  harder  to  rationalize  and  iustif\ 
war,  because  our  feeling  of  responsibilit\  for  the  lives  ol  those  not  iden- 
tified with  us  is  greater.  There  were  no  pacifists  in  (iieek  times.  [!oda\.| 
''''not  only  is  there  a  pacifist  movement  but  there  is  more  real  general 
confiict  [(i.  e.,  ambivalence)]  in  luiinaii  beings  than  ever  before,  for  there 


536  l^f   Culture 

IS  nuM-c  genuine  awareness  of  others'  [self-consciousness]  and  of  the 
possibility  of  identification  with  those  remote  from  us.  -^'The  ideahsts 
who  identify  consciousness  with  humanity  [as  a  whole,  rather  than  with 
a  particular  individual  or  group,  may  be  seen,  therefore,]  as  a  step  in 
the  growth  o\^  imagination  with  reference  to  consciousness.  '^''Our  real- 
ization of  [the  existence  ofj  consciousness  other  than  our  own  is  here  to 

stay. 

^'-  ''-Thus  certain  values  have  tended  to  take  on  increments  from  [one 
historical]  period  to  another.  ''-The  world  of  reference  is  larger  than 
ever  before;  '''the  growth  of  imagination  [means]  including  more  people 
in  the  group  [with  which  one  identifies.]  (Christianity  is  the  arch  exam- 
ple.) The  idea  of  cleanliness,  [too,  is  an  example  of  a]  larger  individual 
integration  of  the  progressive  tendency  to  include  more  people  ''^and  to 
have  more  respect  for  the  rights  of  others.^  '^'^In  race  prejudice,  there 
seems  to  be  real  progress  visible  in  the  last  generation,  ''''with  a  growth 
[in  awareness]  of  consciousness  of  races  other  than  our  own.  '^Education 
can  be  another  example:  the  range  of  education  is  growing.  It  is  [now] 
taken  for  granted  that  the  crowd  must  be  educated,  because  inasmuch 
as  a  man  is  respectable,  we  must  develop  his  mind.  This  feeling  is  of  the 
same  nature  as  the  feeling  of  the  sanctity  of  human  life. 

•^-So  spiritual  progress,  in  the  sense  of  a  willingness  to  give  up  a  part 
of  our  own  consciousness  to  help  somebody  else's  consciousness,  does 
occur,  I  think.  Our  feeling  of  responsibility  for  the  life  of  those  not 
identified  with  our  group  has  increased  greatly. 

[There  is  an  analogy  between  this  process  and  the  development  of 
the  individual,  for]  ""^the  growth  of  an  individual's  consciousness  from 
childhood  requires  giving  up  a  part  of  our  own  consciousness  in  order 
to  give  happiness  to  somebody  else's  consciousness.  '^'^The  perfect  world 
of  a  small  child  is  bought  at  a  price  of  limitation  of  [its  awareness  of 
the]  consciousness  of  the  adults  making  its  world.  But  as  you  grow  up 
you  resign  part  of  your  own  consciousness  so  that  others  may  have 
equal  rights.  We  grow  up  in  society  and  learn  to  resign  or  defer  many 
of  our  satisfactions.  [Similarly,]  in  the  history  of  culture  we  seem  to 
catch  the  growth  of  an  ability  to  identify  our  consciousness  with  others. 
There  is  a  growth  of  consciousness  in  people  at  large,  as  there  is  in  the 
development  of  a  child. 

[Our  assertion  of  spiritual  progress  in  culture,  and  in  the  growth  of 
imagination,  is  on  a  different  footing  from  our  discussion  of  technologi- 
cal progress,  however.  For,  as  we  have  said  before,]  ''^there  is  danger  in 
stressing  the  insistent  values  of  one  culture  all  the  time:  the  emphasis  of 


Two:  The  Psycholojiy  of  ( 'ultun-  537 

value  shifts  indefinitely  from  society  to  society,  and  rri>m  time  to  ume. 
[In  a  way,]  culture  is  a  legitimised  collective  lunacy.'  "Spiritual  progress 
is  also  conditioned  by  the  culture  itself.  This  progress  is  asserted  and 
felt  but  it  cannot  be  proved  in  the  sense  in  which  technological  progress 
can. 

Moreover,  "•  '-what  our  time  views  as  progress^  may,  viewed  m  per- 
spective at  a  later  date,  appear  to  be  a  retrogression:  for  some  things 
appear  as  great  during  their  time,  but  not  so  later.  '-This  gnes  rise  to 
the  concept  o{  ''cycle'"  in  cuhiiral  development.  [We  shall  discuss  this 
concept  mainly  with  respect  to  aesthetic  forms.  But  in  spiritual]  '^'^res- 
pects,  too.  there  seems  to  be  a  cycle.  '^--  "'"'[As  regards]  the  growth  of 
imaginative  awareness,  and  greater  concern  for  the  \alue  o{  human  life 
and  individual  expression,  for  example,  we  seem  closer  to  the  (ireeks 
than  to  medieval  people  like  the  enthusiastic  ecclesiastic  in  the  heyday 
o'i  the  power  of  the  Church. 

(3)  Cyclical  development  of  patterns.  '^'-  '^-The  aesthetic  view  o\  pro- 
gress'^ is  not  endlessly  linear,  but  cyclical,  [incorporating  both]  progress 
and  decline.  "Perhaps  this  [cyclical  development]  is  not  progress;  but  it 
is  often  confused  with  it.  If  you  study  anything  that  has  a  form  you  sec 
that  in  the  beginning  it  is  confused  and  imperfect;  then  gradually  it 
develops  and  it  arrives  at  a  certain  peak;  but  in  complicating  the  form 
you  become  expressive  by  and  by,  [and  this  is  not  always  an  aesthetic 
advantage].  For  instance,  the  Cathedral  of  Cologne  is  perhaps  more 
magnificent  but  less  beautiful  than  others  that  are  more  simple.  Tlie 
cycle  of  polyphonic  music  is  the  same:  the  peak  has  been  reached  by 
Palestrina;  Bach  is  already  a  decay  from  the  pure  polyphonic  point  of 
view,  [because  the  polyphony]  is  complicated  uiih  harmons.  Ha\dn. 
[later,]  abandoned  the  polyphonic  patterns  [in  fa\or  o\'  the  harnnMiic 
ones]. 

'^'^Thus  we  find  certain  periods  in  music,  for  example,  when  the  funda- 
mental ideas  are  questioned,  considered,  and  re\  ised.  "Within  those  de- 
velopments we  are  tempted  to  say  that  there  is  progress.  '-But  there  is 
a  confusion  here  between  the  aesthetic  and  the  techm^logical.  [Cycles  of 
change  in  the  arts  involve  both.]  For  example,  in  a  s\mphon>.  '*  ''the 
elemental  musical  idea  -  the  aesthetic  [clement ]  is  the  simple  tune, 
while  the  harmonization  o\'  the  tune  is  technological,  ''[a  harnessing  ol] 
power.  '-•  ''In  Jazz,  the  achie\emenl  is  entirely  technological,  since  the 
melodies  and  themes  are  threadbare;  '-only  their  uorking  has  been  em- 
phasized. '^The  technology  [of  jazz)  is  exciting  but  not  creative  -  a 
mere  bag  of  tricks.  Wagner  is  the  great  accelerator  i^f  technological 


538  lii   Ciiliurc 

advance  in  modern  music:  he  set  instrument  makers  specific  problems, 
''(and  added]  more  horns,  for  more  power.  But  the  excitement  of  techni- 
cal advance  [in  the  arts]  does  not  endure.  Honesty  of  impulse  will  out- 
last technical  advance:  aesthetics  is  more  important  than  technique. 

'2.^Mn  modern  instrumental  music,  [therefore,  we  have  an  illustration 
of  how  I  things  ^^o  through  a  cycle.  ^''[This  form  of]  music  developed  out  a 

o^  polyphonic  singing  -  ^'^'a  hint  [?]  in  vocal  music  suggested  a  new  J 
type  o^  music,  the  instrumental  forms,  '-''with  instruments  being  used  ^ 
instead  o^  the  human  voice.  '-[Once]  a  pattern  of  instrumental  music  is 
established,  this  is  developed,  '■''and  so  there  comes  later  a  preoccupa- 
tion with  technique  -  more  and  more  comes  in  the  playing  with  tech- 
nique. ^''-  '-The  cyclical  climax  of  modern  music  is  reached  with  Beetho- 
ven. ^"^This  plateau  is  maintained  for  a  time,  'I'l-  '-''but  then  people  come 
in  who  [merely]  carry  out  stunts.  ''''([The  case  of]  Wagner,  [we  might 
say.]  is  stunts  plus  genius.)  ''''•  ""-Then  things  degenerate  and  drag  on 
until,  out  of  the  confusion,  a  new  idea  comes  in  and  a  new  cycle  arises. 
'^-We  have  passed  the  heyday  of  [the  classical  cycle  in]  music;  now  we 
are  feeling  for  a  new  start. 

"''^'[To  recapitulate:  when]  form  and  technique  are  well  fitted,  the  peak 
of  development  is  soon  reached.  Then  the  epigones,  trying  to  give  a 
more  personal  meaning  [to  the  forms],  introduce  tricks  —  modifications 
of  technology  rather  than  [changes  of]  idea  -  and  somewhere  along  the 
way  the  cycle  may  begin  again. 

'■"''•  '^''Within  a  given  movement,  or  cycle,  various  samples  of  behavior 
may  reasonably  be  compared;  [and  comparison  is  necessary,  of  course, 
for  any  assessment  of  progress.  Across  cycles  this  cannot  be  done.]  ''''- 
''It  is  impossible  to  compare  a  Chinese  musical  composition  with  our 
Beethoven  symphonies  because  they  come  from  different  cultural  pat- 
terns, and  we  don't  know  [the  Chinese  music's]  cycle,  its  cultural 
pattern. '^^  ''A  particular  pattern,  such  as  the  classic  musical  tradition, 
[represents]  the  actualization"  of  an  idea  in  a  [particular]  group.  '^''Tech- 
nological  progress  may  be  hitched  to  a  cycle,  [but  across  cultures  we 
cannot  reasonably  assess  how  this  has  been  done.] 

'i'<The  development  of  the  English  sonnet  may  also  be  used  as  an 
example  [of  cyclical  development].  ''''The  first  sonnets  were  crude  copies 
of  an  Italian  form:  then  came  Shakespeare's  sonnets.  ii-  "''By  now  the 
sonnet  has  actualized  itself,  and  it  might  be  felt  today  that  it  has  said 
all  It  has  to  say.  "''Now  it  is  more  or  less  of  a  form,  a  stunt  -  it  is 
difficult  to  find  an  authentic  poet  today  who  is  doing  his  best  work  in 
the  sonnet.  [So]  this  is  no  longer  the  day  of  the  authentic  sonnet,  though 


Two:  The  Psychology  ofCiihwc  539 

\\c  ha\c  pCA\  lccliiu>lc)Liical  cxpcilncss  in  ihc  sound  [roniij.  Allhoiiirh 
there  is  always  a  thrill  in  technical  achic\cnicni.  this  is  sometimes  con- 
fused with  aesthetic  Judgenienl. 

''-I'racticalh  all  aesthetic  palleiiis  run  thn)UL!h  such  a  gamut:  a  rise 
lVi>in  luunblc  hcuiiiiungs.  an  aulhoinali\c  i">innacle.  a  prestige  hangi>ver 
—  then  clown!  '^|  The  progress  oi"  an  aesthetic  c\cle.  then,  means  that) 
there  is  aesthetic  de\elopment  within  an  aesthetic  idea.  The  wovV  of  art 
is  an  answer  to  a  problem,  and  at  certain  stages  that  prol^K-m  i;iii  W 
better  soKed. 

'-■''•  "Take,  for  example,  the  csclical  dc\ cK^pmcni  o\'  Hnglish  drama: 
'''^'there  are  spurts  of  creati\it\.  sc^metimes  without  an>  ob\ious  continu- 
ity between  them,  in  the  Elizabethan,  Restoration,  late  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, and  contemporary  realistic  [periods].  ''"'At  the  beginning,  there 
were  two  relati\ely  feeble  strands:  the  miracle  plays  and  the  [classic]'- 
tradition.  In  a  very  short  time  the  two  strands  are  fused,  quite  unpreten- 
tiously. ''From  this  simple  beginning,  Elizabethan  drama  de\elops  com- 
plexity. ''''But  after  the  rich  productions  of  Marlowe.  Shakespeare,  etc., 
the  development  seems  to  wear  itself  out.  '''The  later  dramatists  after 
Shakespeare  had  a  rich  heritage,  but  they  became  preoccupied  with 
technique,  and  we  have  a  good  deal  of  artiUciality.  Posterity  is  ne\er 
much  interested  in  purely  technical  problems.  "-[In  our  eyes]  the  Elizabe- 
than drania  is  still  great;  the  writers  after  that  were  probably  considered 
still  greater  during  their  own  time,  but  the\  seem  lawdr\  to  us 

'•"Thus  the  set  of  problems  posed  in  a  particular  artform  starts  with 
fumbling,  then  moves  forward  to  its  peak  with  a  few  great  exponents 
[of  the  form].  ''''May  this  be  because  the  set  o\^  problems  arising  out  o{ 
a  new  form  get  an  answer  and  leach  a  climax".'  ''''•  '''Then  technical 
problems  begin  to  complicate  [the  idea],  a  slow  decline  sets  in.  and  the 
movement  [falls]  down.  [But  despite  the  cyclical  nature  o\'  the  de\elop- 
ment,]  ''''there  is  a  real  progress  in  this  sort  of  cycle,  '•''  ''and  of  a  sort 
which  is  to  be  found  in  many  cultural  phenomena  perhaps  in  the 
developnicnl  o{  most  cultural  patterns.  '''We  can  talk  o\'  [all  sorts  ol] 
problems  in  a  cyclical  sense.  Ethnologists  do  concern  themselves  [with 
these  matters]  when  they  talk  o\^  pottery  styles,  tspes  o\  house  decora- 
tion, etc.  (If  we  had  sufficient  evidence  we  could  trace  cycles  in  pnmiii\e 
art  -  Northwest  Coast  art.  for  example:  Haida  and  Isimshian  (art 
forms]  are  "classic,"  while  Bella  C'oola  |forms|  are  too  bari>que.  fuss\. 
and  [formally]  degenerate.)  [Our  examples  need  not  be  drawn  oni\  from 
the  arts.]  "The  history  of  any  religious  mosement,  for  example,  repre- 
sents a  cvcle. 


540  tf^   Culture 

qq.  ck.  r:^^^,^  language  forms  have  something  Hke  a  cydical  develop- 
ment. "'^-  ^^Although  the  language's  development  is  continuous,  it  is  pos- 
sible to  ^Mctlnc  a  certain  set  of  hnguistic  forms  -  ^^or  point  to  a  certain 
stage  of  development  of  a  form  -  ^'^'I'las  classical.  '^''The  classical  stage 
would  ha\c  a  perfectly  consistent  and  tight-wrought  use  of  forms. 
'^'^Now,  people  participating  in  an  aesthetic  cycle  are  not  conscious  of 
it:  [so  it  may  come  as  a  bit  of  a  surprise  when  I  say  that  we  are  not  in 
that  kind  o'(  stage  in  modern  English.]  English  today  is  in  a  kind  of 
trough,  it  has  not  perfected  its  own  possibilities,  nor  does  it  still  do 
e\ceflentl>  what  it  did  in  the  period  of  Gothic.  Even  Anglo-Saxon  was 
a  bit  "weaker"  than  Gothic.  For  example,  the  weakness  of  gender  in 
l-nglish  today  is  not  classical.  If  you  call  a  ship  "she"  and  the  sun  "he," 
then  there  should  [(in  a  classical  stage)]  be  a  feeling  of  she-ness  or  he- 
ness  about  any  noun;  [but,  as  we  know,  in  modern  English  there  is  not]. 
As  another  example,  the  suffix  -s  is  used  for  three  categories:  [it  marks] 
the  possessive,  the  plural,  and  the  third  person  singular  in  verbs;  but  in 
no  case  is  it  completely  and  consistently  carried  out.  All  are  [only] 
weakly  expressed.  ''^-  I'lFor  the  verb  endings,  'I'lthe  classical  stage  would 
have  either  "I  go,  you  go,  he  go,"  or  [else  something  like]  "I  gon,  you 
gom,  he  goes,"  etc.  There  is  some  feeling  in  the  verb  [?]  as  [the  forms] 
merge  toward  obliterating  the  distinction  between  singular  and  plural 
altogether.  But  "i""-  '^^''[English's]  inconsistency  with  respect  to  case  end- 
ings is  also  non-classical,  and  again  there  seems  to  be  a  tendency  to  cut 
these  out  altogether.'-^  ''''[A  "classical"  stage  would]  either  carry  these 
distinctions  out  consistently  or  do  away  with  them. 

"■"•[To  the  extent  that  English  seems  to  show  a  tendency  toward  obht- 
erating  these  kinds  of  affixes,]  a  movement  toward  a  thoroughly  ana- 
lytic language  may  be  in  progress.  '^''Chinese  has  [already]  gone  through 
this  cycle,  "^"^k  Scandinavian  scholar  found  in  the  Confucian  writings  a 
case  distinction  in  pronouns  which  was  rather  weak,  a  sort  of  an  echo 
of  a  formerly  more  synthetic  language;  but  the  Chinese  has  long  ago 
become  entirely  analytic,  depending  entirely  upon  [separate  words  and 
word]  order  [to  express  grammatical  relations,]  instead  of  [word-]in- 
ternal  changes.  '•''Thus  Chinese  has  anticipated  us  by  discarding  case 
and  using  a  rule  of  order.  'i^The  Chinese,  [on  the  one  hand,  as  an  ana- 
lytic language,]  and  the  Sanskrit  (or  Greek  and  Latin),  [on  the  other,  as 
a  synthetic  language,]  are  both,  then,  classical  even  though  of  quite 
different  form;  ^^-  ^''whereas  the  English  is  not  a  classic  kind  of  lan- 
guage, because  it  is  not  thoroughly  integrated. 

'^'^[Incidentally,]  there  is  no  relation  between  [this  concept  of  "classi- 
cal" form  in  a]  language  and  the  literature  which  is  expressed  in  it. 


T\v(y  The  Psychology  olC'ulturc  541 

Tibetan,  for  example,  is  a  fine  language  from  a  Imguisiie  poinl  of  view, 
but  its  literature  is  drivel.'"^  ''''[To  say  that  the  f-nglish  language  is  not 
thoroughly  integrated  is  to  speak  about  something)  c|uile  ditVerenl  from 
the  value  of  what  is  written  with  linglish. 

^'•'This  idea  o^  eyelical  [development]  also  applies  m  everyday  life. 
"[Not  only  can  we  trace]  the  rise  and  fall  of  [patterns  in]  drama,  Ciothic 
architecture,  language  forms,  or  Mohammedanism,  but  '•''  ''^  '-"in  the 
history  of  the  railroad  train  or  the  auti>mohile  t>ne  may  be  able  to  trace 
a  similar  cycle  of  development.  '''  ''-'[Perhaps  even  m]  democratic  go\- 
ernment  [we  can  see]  a  drifting  away  [from  an  original  idea];  or  in  sci- 
ence, "'^where  there  has  been  a  scrapping  o\'  traditional  bundles  [o\' 
knowledge,  as  with  the  decline  ol]  alchem\  and  astrology.  Certain  ques- 
tions have  died  out.  ([But  in  science,  perhaps]  '''this  is  only  change,  [not 
decline;  for]  "'■'progress  is  not  possible  without  destruction.) 

"The  cycle  is  hard  to  defme  starkly,  or  to  isolate.  '-^  "During  its 
height,  in  the  classic  period,  the  cycle  is  so  vital  to  the  culture  that  it  is 
unquestioned  and  taken  for  granted.  '^^'^There  is  a  relation  between  form 
and  need,  such  that  at  some  point  there  is  a  complete  equilibrium  be- 
tween them.  But  this  balance  does  not  remain.  "The  questioning  occurs 
and  then  comes  a  long  period  of  weakening.  '-As  the  cycle  becomes  less 
and  less  pure,  it  may  be  caught  up  with  another  meaning  -  but  then  it 
is  really  a  new  pattern. 

'■■'^There  has  been  no  evaluation  of  primitive  culture  on  the  basis  o'f 
the  cyclical  idea.  There  are  many  dangers  in  this  point  of  view,  but  [such 
evaluation]  should  be  done  if  we  are  to  understand  primitixe  cultures. 
"'^[For  without  some  notion  that]  primiti\e  culture  [undergoes]  climax 
and  decay  in  its  own  terms,  [we  cannot  usefully  incorporate  it  in  an> 
conception  of  progress.]  The  primitive  is  not  [just]  a  barbarian  and  a 
preliminary  to  "civilization."  It  is  impossible  to  compare  cultural  details 
of  one  group  with  those  o^  another  unless  there  is  a  definite  historical 
continuity.  (In  America,  Walt  Whitman  [strikes  a]  primili\e  note;  taken 
up  by  sophisticates  in  Europe  and  re-phrased  in  Ircnch.  he  becomes  a 
decadent.) 

[In  sum:]  "[we  have  distinguished]  three  kinds  o\  progress,  which  gel 
mixed  up  one  with  the  other.  [People  of  different  limes  and  places  h.i\e 
not  always  accepted  all  three  kinds.]  but  [(one  might  suspect)]  each  \\\k 
of  man  shall  more  or  less  believe  in  one  o\'  the  three  kinds  o'i  progress. 
As  for  mechanical  progress,  man  has  ne\er  lost  an\ thing  m  this  realm; 
■"'there  has  been  an  increase  of  power.  '''Although  the  flow  of  conscious- 
ness has  not  [grown]  in  a  steady  line  like  power  there  is  an  ebb  and 
flow  -  on  the  whole  there  has  been  progress  (here  loo.  "in  the  gradual 


54  ">  ///   Culture 

development  o^  a  consciousness  transcending  the  self,  or  the  ego.  [As 
for  the  third  kind:]  ^'^^  'Tor  any  complex  pattern  of  expression  you  seem 
to  have  cvcles  of  development. 

'-(Perhaps  the  growth  of  cycles,  with  the  possibility  of  a  new  pattern 
emerging  out  o{  an  earlier  one,]  is  the  one  vital  idea  worth  saving  out 
of  the  idea  o{  progress.  '^'[It  might  be  called  an]  "epigonal"  view  of 
proizress.  '-[As  the  pattern  moves  from  a]  primitive  [stage]  to  a  classical 
and^  then  an  epigonal  one,  there  may  be  a  rejuvenation  so  that  the 
pattern  d^Ksni  die  out.  '''The  ''epigonal  period"  [involves]  a  realization 
o^  the  potency  of  expressive  forms  -  [a  certain]  progress  in  knowledge 
of  psychic  process,  [and  a]  ''-greater  concern  for  the  value  of  human  life 
and  indi\idual  expression. 


[Coda:  Symbols  of  Progress] 

'■^[Just  as  any  idea  has  its  symbolic  expression,  so  it  is  with  the  idea 
of  progress  in  our  culture:]  we  have  [our]  preferred  symbols  of  progress. 
[One  of  the  most  important  realms  for  the  expression  of  those  symbols 
is  education.  But  there  can  be  a  lag  between  what  the  culture  has  come 
to  value  most  -  what  it  sees  as  its  signs  of  "improvement"  over  an 
earlier  age  -  and  what  is  enshrined  in  education,  as  the  sign  of  an 
improved  person.]  For  example,  the  prestige  of  knowing  many  lan- 
guages has  been  carried  over  from  the  old  Renaissance  tradition.  But, 
particularly  in  America,  we  no  longer  really  believe  in  this.  You  cannot 
plan  [school]  curricula  unless  you  know  what  symbols  are  authoritative, 
and  have  the  greatest  value.  The  symbols  [of  progress]  are  changing 
today;  if  the  change  isn't  too  fast,  education  may  catch  up. 

"^^^[The  relation  of  educational  symbols  to  cultural  ideas  of  progress  can 
itself  be  seen  as  a  cyclical  pattern.]  The  English  education  of  Tom  Brown's 
Sclwolclays  [illustrates]  the  classical  part  of  a  cycle,  because  those  symbols 
were  more  authoritative  in  those  days.  Today  no  one  is  in  a  position  to 
say  what  is  a  rational  curriculum.  We  don't  know  what  we  have  tran- 
scended, and  what  values  are  going  to  emerge  as  significant. 


Editorial  Note 

This  material  was  covered  in  two  lectures  in  1937  (Jan.  11  and  Jan. 
18),  but  apparently  in  only  one  in  1934  (March  6).  It  is  not  clear  how 
much  time  was  devoted  to  it  in  1936.  The  principal  change  in  1937 


Two:  T/w  Psychology  of  Culture  54"^ 

seems  lo  lia\c  been  an  expansion  o\'  ihe  Jiseussion  ot"e\elieal  develop- 
ment and  aesllielic  patterns. 

I  ha\ e  also  draw  n  upon  Sapir's  leetine  on  "l^rogress"  to  the  Kuckelcllei 
Seminar.  Mareh  1933.  notes  taken  h\  I..  I'errero.  These  notes  show  a  lee- 
tine eloselx  parallel  to  the  1934  \ersion.  whieh  seems  also  to  ha\e  been 
entitled  '"Progress*"  rather  than  "  The  Conce|M  o\'  l)e\el(>|^ment  m  Cul- 
ture." 

For  othei"  diseussions  of  the  d>namics  tireuluUiil  and  hnguistie  ehange 
see  Sapir  1916  ("Time  Perspeetive")  and  1921  (lAtn^^ua^c).  The  present 
discussion  is  somewhat  dilTerent  from  these  earlier  works.  howe\er. 


Notes 

1.  The  bracketed  text  derives  in  pari  from  the  fact  thai  Sapir  seems  lo  ha\e  shilied  among 
several  lilies  for  this  section.  In  the  OUTLINE  he  has  "The  Concept  oi  Development  in 
Culture."  while  Newman  (1927)  has  "Progress."  and  Setzler  (1928)  has  "Culture 
Change"  and  then  "Progress  in  Culture."  Ferrero  and  H2  (19.^.'^)  have  "Progress,"  while 
HI  has  "De\elopment  \s.  Progress;"  Tl  (1936)  has  'Development  of  Culture";  RI  and 
QQ  (1937)  return  to  the  OLTLINEs  title,  but  R2  (1937)  has  "Progress."  The  relevant 
sections  in  T2  and  CK  are  untitled.  1  add  "dvnamics"  to  link  the  material  vsith  the 
preceding  chapter. 

2.  HI  has:  "Development  vs.  Progress./  The  individual  stock  in  trade  -  cultural  (HRE)  as 
an  example)  progress  at  various  levels.  An  intuitive  concept  (is  there  any  one  idea,  for- 
mula?) Paradox." 

H2  has:  "development  with  tendencv"/;  development  vs.  progress/  simplification  \s.  dctc- 

riorialion;  may  be  progress" 

See  also  OL.  SE  (below),  and  discussion  of  cultural  accumulation  in  ch    v 

3.  Richard  Thurnvvald  (1869- 1954).  German  ethnologist/functionalist. 

4.  Tl  has:  "As  with  technological  progress,  spiritual  progress  is  a  factor,  which,  however, 
is  under  the  intluence  o'i  subjective  impulses  even  more."  T2  has:  "Now  about  spiritual 
progress  -  so  what!  There  is  no  telling  about  this,  it  is  a  question  of  values.  It  is  largely 
a  question  of  opinions  and  ideas." 

5.  QQ  has  only  an  S-shapcd  squiggle  here.  The  context  concerns  the  individual^  ■(«-"fi'"- ■- 
lion  with  a  social  group. 

6.  HI  adds:  "Luxury  of  thought." 

7.  B(i  adds:  "The  liercafier  is  the  locus  o\'  unfulfilled  obligations,  hence  its  excuse  for 
being."  It  is  not  clear  where  this  whole  passage  belongs,  however. 

8.  Tl  has  "technological  progress"  here,  while  r2  appaicntlv  refers  the  same  statemcnl  \o 
spiritual  progress. 

9.  HI  has  "the  surer,  aesthetic  view  of  progress." 

10.  See  LB  notes  on  "First  of  Sapirs  two  lectures  \o  the  Medical  SiKiciy."  Feb.  18.  1935: 
""Great'  music  implied  absolute  standards,  illusion.  Chinese  faces  with  Beethoven's 
Ninth;  No  necessitv  o^  luiiure  here;  "cosmos  o\  unre.il  things ""' 

1 1.  Rl  has  "actuality". 

12.  Ihere  is  an  illegible  word  here. 

13.  See  the  chapter  on  "Drift"  in  Sapir's  (1921)  LatiKtiUfii' . 

14.  Editorial  apologies  are  hereby  conveved  to  Tibetans.  Whether  Sapir  would  have  pub- 
lished a  statement  like  this  I  do  not  kni>vv 


Pari  II:  The  Individuars  Place  in  C  iiluiie 
Chapter  7.  PersonaHty 

'^~  The  RcUition  of  the  Imhv'uhtcil  !(>  Culiiirc^ 

''  [Although  anthropologists  sometimes  entertain  notions]  to  the  L\)n- 
trary,-  anthropology  is  very  much  dependent  on  the  individual,  even 
necessitating  rapport  or  good  psychological  relationships  betueen  two 
individuals.  [This  applies,  in  the  fust  instance,  to  the  anthropologist's 
relationships  with  individual  informants,  from  whom  so  much  of  his 
information  derives.]  However  important  it  may  be,  the  fallacy  [m  an- 
thropological method]  is  that  the  results  [o(  those  relationships  with 
individuals]  are  considered  -  and  defmitely  stated  to  be  -  "culture"  as 
a  whole.  '-  [That  is,]  a  person  in  the  field  presents  the  culture  as  a  whole 
without  realizing  that  the  information  depends  upon  liic  informant. 
[What  is  true  for  the  anthropologist,  moreover,  is  all  the  more  compel- 
ling for  the  individual  participating  in  society:]  the  indisidual  has  to 
conform  and  fit  together  the  conllicting  [\ersions]  o(  culture  [he  en- 
counters. Perhaps  we  see  such  a  process  most  clearly  when  it  concerns] 
a  foreigner  in  this  country  [learning  to  conform,]  or  a  southerner  mov- 
ing north,  in  the  psychological  sense,  culture  is  not  the  thing  that  is 
given  us.  "  The  "culture"  of  a  group  as  a  whole  is  not  a  true  reality. 
What  is  given  -  '-  what  we  do  start  with  -  "  ''  is  the  individual  and 
his  behavior. 

^e  Analytically,  the  individual  is  the  bearer  of  culture,  rherefore.  an 
anthropologist's  generali/.alions  about  the  culture  oi'  a  group  arc  ex- 
tremely theoretical.  They  depend  upon  his  [sense  ol]  sureness  and  [his] 
ability  to  extract  significant  uniformities  from  indi\iduals*  (separate) 
culluies^  and  to  generalize  these  into  a  paitcin.  Vol.  il  nia>  turn  i>ul 
that  his  "culture,"  so  extracted,  is  so  formalized  that  il  exists  onl\  as 
[his  own]  mental  construct  and  has  no  ob)ecli\e  realil\  at  all.  (In  thai 
case,]  for  example,  no  individual  [from  the  group  whose  culture  il  pur- 
ported to  be]  would  recognize  il  as  his  own  culture       in  many  respcxMs 


546  III   Culture 

il  would  seem  foreign  to  him.  [But.  if  that  were  so,  would  there  not  be 
something  questionable  about  the  anthropologist's  report?  As  we  said 
before,  pattern  must  be  understood  in  terms  of  the  ultimate  analysis 
uuuili\el\  fell  by  any  normal  member  of  a  given  community.]^  ^g  Re- 
member, then,  that  the  sole  significance  of  a  cultural  pattern  depends 
upon  [its  meaningfulness  to  the  bearer:]  the  emotional  reaction  to  it. 
This  uives  a  test  of  the  reality  of  cultural  elements  to  individuals  in  the 

group. 

[These  considerations,  however,  while  deriving  from  our  concern  with 
the  supposedly  impersonal  forms  of  culture,  also  come  within  the 
framework  o\^  the  individual's  psychic  constitution,  or  personality.]^^  ^- 
[As  members  of  society,]  we  accept  the  forms  of  our  culture;  it  is  [im- 
posed] upon  us,  and  then  we  consider  it  right.  ^'  Even  such  a  thing  as 
the  English  plural,  [a  cultural  form]  thought  to  be  individually  passive, 
is  -  [by  virtue  of  being  a  cultural  form  -]  what  the  individual  wants, 
what  makes  him  feel  easy,  what  has  relevance  for  his  specific  personal- 
ity. '-  ''  We  identify  ourselves  with  our  cultural  background,  ^'  and  this 
identification  is  quite  as  easy,  and  quite  as  possessed  of  relevance  for  the 
individual,  as  an  association  with  any  natural  phenomena  (associations 
which  are  often,  along  with  other  things,  thought  to  hold  validity  for 
[the  individual's]  personality).  '-  There  is  really  no  part  of  culture  which 
does  not  have  some  bearing  on  our  personality.  [That  bearing  need  not 
be  anything  we  are  consciously  aware  of,  for]  we  are  often  most  biased 
when  we  are  consciously  most  honest.^ 

[Does  this  mean  that  the  anthropologist's  task  simply  resolves  into 
that  of  the  psychologist?]  ^^  If  the  culture  of  a  group  is  thus  in  a  way 
impossible  to  formulate,  what  becomes  of  the  anthropologist's  calling, 
and  how  realistic  can  his  approach  be?  [In  falling  back  upon  the  indivi- 
dual, as  the  "objective"  given,  we  need  not  reject  the  concept  of  culture. 
On  the  contrary;  we  provide  our  formulations  with  better  evidence.] 
i938e  ^j^y  statement,  no  matter  how  general,  which  can  be  made  about 
culture  needs  the  supporting  testimony  of  a  tangible  person  or  persons, 
to  whom  such  a  statement  is  of  real  value  in  his  system  of  interrelafion- 
ships  with  other  human  beings.  [But]  if  this  is  so,  we  shall,  at  last  analy- 
sis, have  to  admit  that  any  individual  of  a  group  has  cultural  definitions 
which  do  not  apply  to  all  the  members  of  his  group,  which  even,  in 
specific  instances,  apply  to  him  alone.  Instead,  therefore,  of  arguing 
from  a  supposed  objectivity  of  culture  to  the  problem  of  individual 
variation,  we  shall,  for  certain  kinds  of  analysis,  have  to  proceed  in  the 
opposite  direction.  We  shall  have  to  operate  as  though  we  knew  nothing 


Two:  The  Psvcholoi^y  of  Culture  547 

aboul  ciillurc  hut  were  iiitcicslcJ  in  analyzing  as  well  as  wc  could  what 
a  given  number  o\'  human  beings  accustomed  to  live  with  each  other 
actually  think  and  do  in  their  day  to  day  relationships.  We  shall  then 
find  that  we  are  driven,  willy-nilly,  to  the  recognition  of  certain  perma- 
nencies, in  a  relative  sense,  in  these  interrelationships,  permanencies 
which  can  reasonably  be  counted  on  to  pcrdure  but  which  must  also  be 
recognized  to  be  eternally  subject  to  serious  mcKlitlcation  o{  form  and 
meaning  with  the  lapse  of  time  and  with  those  changes  of  personnel 
which  are  unavoidable  in  the  history  of  any  group  o\'  human  beings. 

\^)yiA  [Thus]  it  is  not  the  concept  of  culture  which  is  subil\  misleading 
but  the  metaphysical  locus  to  which  culture  is  generally  assigned.  '''^'^ 
The  true  psychological  locus  of  ^/  culture  is  the  Individunl  or  a  specifically 
enuDieratedlist  oj  indixidiuils.  [Notice,  howe\er.  that  we  <\o  not  define] 
^"•^  the  individual  [in  the  same  way  as  would]  the  biologist.  The  biologist 
has  no  trouble  in  defining  an  individual,  [but  his  definition  is  not  ours] 
i932;i  "Individual,"  here,  means  not  simply  a  biologicalI\  defined  organ- 
ism maintaining  itself  through  physical  impacts  and  s\nibolic  substi- 
tutes of  such  impacts,  but  that  total  world  of  form,  meaning,  and  impli- 
cation of  symbolic  behavior  which  a  given  individual  partly  knows  and 
directs,  partly  intuits  and  yields  to,  partly  is  iiznorant  o\'  and  is  swaved 

by. 

'^^'^  [As  anthropologists,  then,  we  may  -  without  too  great  a  sense  oi 
contradictoriness  — ]  believe  in  a  world  of  discrete  individuals  but  also 
in  a  oneness  and  continuity  of  culture.  [The  soundness  o^  this  belief 
rests  on]  our  having  a  different  view  [o'i  the  indi\  idual]  from  [that  o\] 
the  biologist.  ''^''-''  We  have  learned  that  the  indi\  idual  in  isolation  from 
society  is  a  psychological  fiction.  [For  the  same  reasons,  culture  di>es 
not  result  from  the  juxtaposition  o\^  organisms, ]  ^"^  We  have  discrete 
individuals,  but  -  in  the  world  of  thought  -  could  your  indi\  idual  plus 
another  individual  enable  you  to  create  American  culture?  ( I'he  answer 
must  be  an  emphatic]  no.  You  cannot  dispense  with  any  one  individual; 
it  is  the  total  sum  o\^  individuals  that  makes  up  American  culture.  Pic 
culture  historian  must  realize  that  every  indiMdual  [who  participates)  in 
a  culture^  is  necessary  to  its  history. 

[in  relation  to  this  totality  we  call  culture,]  ''  ''  indi\idualily  consists 
[not  in  the  biological  definition  of  organism  hul|  in  the  lecogmlion  oi 
the  differences  in  the  consciousnesses  of  the  indi\iduals  [concerned)  -  '' 
[the  recognition  ot]  discrete  personalities.  [To  the  extent  that  we  con- 
ceive of  culture  as  a  world  o['  thought,  we  ma>  believe  in  its  oneness 
while  also  recognizing  this  ditTerentiation]  ''  [in  fact.)  we  cannot  get 


548  ft^  Culture 

a\va>  trcMii  ihc  iiKlividualily  [inherent  in]  the  concept  of  consciousness, 
o\-  personality,  ^"^^  ''  since  consciousness  is  the  only  approach  we  have 
to  reality.  ^^  Only  bv  an  act  of  faith  can  we  transcend  our  own  con- 
sciousness. ^■''-  '-• ''  The  continuity  of  the  individual  stream  of  conscious- 
ness, which  memory  links  together,  causes  the  recognition  of  personal- 
ity. ^'^  (That  is  to  say,]  this  connective  memory  [-  rather  than  the  bound- 
ary o\'  the  organism  -]  is  our  proof  of  individuality,  '^  our  indication 
of  the  reality  o^  the  individual  personality.  "^  [Memory  is  what  gives  it 
continuity,  for]  the  biological  organism  is  [always]  changing. 


[The  Concept  of  Personality ] 

[Now,  if  our  anthropological  method  obliges  us  to  consider  the  indivi- 
dual and  his  personality,  just  what  should  we  mean  by  "personality"?] 
"  Personality  is  a  certain  nuclear  entity  which  is  concerned  [in  all  our 
activities]  and  is  objective  in  itself;  [this  is  our  starting  point].  The  exact 
defmition  is  difficult,  but  it  is  significant  that  there  is  a  problem  posed. 
'-  Although  personality  is  hard  to  define,  we  act  upon  the  concept  just 
as  a  child  works  upon  its  concept  of  chairs  and  tables  being  a  set  as 
opposed  to  falling  snow.  He  may  not  know  the  words  for  these  things, 
[but  he  acts  upon  them  as  a  set  just  the  same].  [Let  us  attempt  to  be 
more  articulate  than  this  child,  however,  and  consider  how  the  term  has 
been  used  in  the  past.] 

bg.  lb.  h2  j^ji^g  term]  "personality"^  derives  from  the  Greek  persona,  a 
mask:  ^^  a  dramatic  figure,  transcending  the  petty,  and  given  prestige  - 
a  person  significant  insofar  as  he  is  not  himself,  ^s-  "^  [In  the  ancient 
world]  personality  was  artifice,  the  mask  that  society  used  to  judge  [a 
person  by,]  and  so  it  was  equivalent  to  status.  "''^  [This  definition,]  equ- 
ating a  person's  personality  to  his  status,  has  a  great  tradition  in  literary 
[works,  even  if  it  has  become  uncongenial  to  us  today].  ""-  "^'^  [Thus  we 
may  feel]  chilled  by  Homer's  lack  of  interest  in  Ulysses's  personality  [in 
the  psychological  sense,]  and  by  Shakespeare's  Toryism;  ^^  for  even  in 
Shakespeare  personality  is  equivalent  to  status.  '^  Shakespeare's  clowns, 
being  lowly,  are  not  psychologized.  [Psychological  depth  is  reserved  for 
the  higher  statuses,  as  we  see,]  '"'^  for  example,  in  Macbeth. 

^-  It  was  Rousseau  who  started  the  vogue  of  the  individual,  with  his 
Confessions,  ^^  [a  work]  startlingly  new  in  that  he  threw  aside  the  mask 
and  showed  the  personality  beneath  the  status  or  role.  "^  [With  a  sort 
ofj  "boasting  about  weaknesses,"  Rousseau  took  the  back-stairs  interest 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  C  iiltitrc  549 

in  gossip  inu^  the  arena  o\~  liicialiiic.  jwhcrc  it  was  subscqucnllv  lakcn 
up  by  other  writers  -  ]  Jane  Austen,  (lor  nistance).  [Still  more  recent  is 
the  view  ot]  personality  as  physiology,  [a  quite)  modern  (notion,  as  is 
the  idea  that]  '''  personaiitv  may  be  equivalent  regardless  ot  status.  This 
is  the  coming  \iew,  (and  it  is  \irtually  the  opposite  of  what  personality 
was  to  the  Greeks]. 

'^'  [As  this  briefexcursion  into  the  history  of  the  term  indicates.]  "•per- 
sonality" is  an  artificial  concept  having  reality  [only  as  we  may  choose 
to  use  it.  Thus]  ''^^"^^  the  term  personality  is  too  variable  in  usage  to  be 
serviceable  in  scientific  discussion  unless  its  meaning  is  very  carefulh 
defined  tor  a  gi\en  context.  '"''  There  are  several  ditTerent  ways  of  defin- 
ing personality: 

(1)  '-■  '^^''-  ■'  The  first  definition  o{  personality  is  a  psychological  one: 
the  reification  of  the  feeling  of  personal  identity  through  continuous 
consciousness.  '^^'^  [This  definition  takes  an]  introspective  [apprcxich.  l\>r| 
"■'  introspection  presupposes  the  world  of  the  individual  consciousness. 
^~  [It  is  a  world  where]  there  is  a  continuity  o\^  personality,  it  stays  put 
-  [and  this  is  what  gives  it  reality:]  "  [its]  reality  is  in  fact  the  mere 
phenomenon  of  continuity  [of  moments  of  consciousness  which,  if  they 
have]  no  persistence,  have  little  or  no  reality.'^  "^  The  continuity  of  con- 
sciousness is,  in  an  important  [sense],  all  that  I  [really]  kmnv.  That  there 
is  a  buzzing  external  world  is  [a  recognition]  forced  on  me  b\  sociei\. 
[but  it  is  not  part  of  myself  in  the  same  way.]'"  '-  The  personality  is 
made  up  of  the  experiences  it  has  had.  and  those  things  which  it  has 
not  experienced  cannot  be  said  to  exist  in  the  personality.  *'^  I'ersonality 
defined  in  this  way  [is  seen]  in  terms  o\'  the  events  that  impinge  upimi 
the  individual. 

(2)  '"''  '''''■*'■  As  a  purely  physiological  concept.  '"''  the  individual  [ma\ 
be  considered]  as  a  mechanism,  ^''^^'^'^  and  personaiitv  mav  be  ciMisidered 
as  the  individual  human  organism  with  emphasis  on  those  aspects  o\' 
behavior  which  differentiate  it  from  other  organisms.  '-•  ^'•'-■^  The  bio- 
logical definition  of  personality  is  a  coiKepiion  o\  organism;  *'^  and 
the  biologist  is  comfortable  with  this.  He  doesn't  need  [a  notion  o{\ 
consciousness  -  [or  so  he  supposes]  Ihit  if  it  weren't  for  our  conscious- 
ness, how  could  we  recogni/e  the  identity  of  organisms'  ^'ou  get  al  the 
concept  of  organism  through  ciMiseioiisness;  ''•  ^-  could  the  ciMicepl  o{ 
organism,  [then,  be  merely]  a  projection  o^  our  own  feeling  o^  identity 
which  surrounds  our  consciousness'.'  '~  This  biological  definiluMi  is  not 
very  helpful,  therefore.  We  don't  really  know  mirselves  as  individuals 
in  the  biological  sense,  but  only  as  symbols  o^  what  ue  see  around  us. 


550  ///  Culture 

[(Hoxsc\cr.  uc  may  wish  to  inquire  whether  there  are  physiological  or 
genetic  inlluences  on  personality  as  defined  in  other  ways.)] 

(3)  ^^  The  sociological  viewpoint  today  judges  personality  by  the  [so- 
cial] role  an  individual  plays.  [In  other  words,]  personality  is  defined  in 
terms  o\'  a  sociological  abstraction  and  emphasis  upon  formal  roles." 
^^  ^^k=[()ther  aspects  ot]  personality,  [such  as  the  more  psychological  no- 
tion ot]  nuclear  personality,  are  [treated  as]  an  illusion  which  disappears 
when  vou  abstract  one's  income,  status,  etc.,  [and  examine  the  general 
characteristics  o\'  people  filling  these  categories.  By  this  means,  for  ex- 
ample, you  can  trace]  the  professional  character  of  a  businessman,  and 
that  of  a  bishop.  ^^  Napoleon  in  the  role  of  Emperor  is  his  personality; 
individual  X  in  the  role  of  archbishop  is  his  personaHty.  But  Napoleon 
as  a  reader  of  The  Sorrows  of  Werther,  weeping  over  what  he  read,  was 
a  personality  in  the  psychiatric  sense. 

r:.  ri.  ck  ji^Q  sociological  viewpoint  defines  personality  as  a  series  of 
roles,  or  [modes  ot]  participation  in  society,  which  a  person ^^  carves  out 
for  himself,  or  takes  part  in.  A  personality  [in  this  sense],  therefore,  is 
the  sum  total  of  the  individual's  social  participations;  '"''  the  individual 
[is  seen]  as  the  collectivity  of  behavior  patterns.  That  is,  all  things  called 
individuals  are  merely  collocations  of  certain  habits  -  a  series  of  roles 
in  a  complex  arrangement.  "''^[As  I  have  already  indicated,]  personality 
was  first  judged  from  the  sociological  point  of  view.  Every  man  func- 
tioned in  the  part  laid  out  for  him  by  society.  ^^-  '^  Thus  Achilles  and 
Ulysses  were  always  heroes,  and  a  slave  was  always  a  slave.  ^^  Even  if 
their  acts  were  objectively  similar  they  were  treated  differently  —  as 
arrogance  or  as  impudence,  as  [an  act  of  war]  or  of  private  murder  ™^ 
(note  that  this  is  true  of  the  Bible  and  so  through  Tom  Jones  and  the 
novel  up  to  James  Joyce).  ^^^  '^  The  Greeks  were  then  primarily  sociolo- 
gists, [in  their  definition  of  personality.] 

[But  this  definition  is]  ""^  fallacious,  [or  at  least]  "  not  completely  true, 
because  it  ''''•  ^^-  '^  neglects  the  feeling  of  consciousness  -  the  original 
intuitive  sense  of  identity  -  which  is  implied  in  the  psychological  defini- 
tion. It  neglects  our  fantasies,  for  instance,  "^^  and  instead  considers  only 
our  train  of  thoughts  about  the  symbolization  of  the  individual  to  the 
community.  '^-  ''^- "  It  is  very  easy  to  distinguish  between  the  individual 
and  his  sociological  role.  '^  [It  is  also  necessary  to  do  so.  Otherwise  you] 
confound  the  status  of  a  person  with  himself. 

^^  [Moreover,  these  sociological  abstracfions]  are  not  too  valuable  in 
tracing  the  genesis  of  personality,  ^g'  '^  [For  that  we  will  need]  a  psychiat- 
ric viewpoint,  where  the  basic  principle  is  the  priority  of  nuclear  con- 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  Culture  551 

stellations  in  an  infanlilc  confiiiuratUMi.  '"'  It  is  impossible  lo  asoid  ihc 
sociological  viewpoinl  allogclhcr,  since  il  is  economical  at  times  Id  make 
status  jucigcmcnts  and  it  is  the  very  purpose  of  society  to  keep  the  basis 
of  personalil)  hidden.  No  one  can  atTcMd  lo  be  loo  honest  with  himself. 
^^-  '^  But  the  sociological  viewpoint  is  incremenlal:  personality  is  made 
up  o{  [roles]  a  -\-  b  -^  c  +  cL  where  li  is  added  last  and  is  unatTected  by 
what  went  before.  The  psychiatric  viewpoint,  [on  the  other  hand,]  is 
configuratiNe.  since  the  basic  pattern  {n)  alTects  the  total  resulting  set- 
up. 

(4)  '-•  ''•  ^■'^  Finally,  there  is  the  psychiatric  definiiicMi  o\'  personality. 
This  is  the  conception  of  nuclear  personality,  based  on  the  sense  o\ 
ourselves  that  we  acquire  in  childhood.  ^~  it  has  no  connection  with  [the 
preceding  detlnilion]  of  personality."''  "^^"^  [Indeed,  to  distinguish  these 
two  definitions  allows  us  to  see  the]  independence  o\'  the  indi\idual  in 
society  from  society's  judgement  of  the  individual.  ^^  Consider  aggres- 
sion, for  example,  in  [terms  of  this]  contrast  between  the  socioK^gical 
and  psychiatric  viewpoints.  Sociologically,  aggression  is  defined  in 
terms  of  behavior.  Psychiatrically,  however,  aggression  must  be  defined 
in  personal  symbolisms,  hidden  meanings,  compensations,  projections, 
and  the  like  -  so  that  one's  actual  behavior  ma\  shtn\  no  signs  at  all 
of  sociological  aggression. 

md,  hi  jji^g  psychiatric]  point  of  view  [treats]  personality  as  equi\alent 
regardless  of  status.'"*  '"''  It  levels  down  all  personality  -  '''  that  is,  it 
makes  the  data  comparable  —  at  "^^-  '^'  the  same  general  level  of  child- 
hood, "^'  the  infantile  stage,  ""'^- *^'  when  the  patterns  are  just  beginning 
to  be  fixed.  Any  particular  set[-up]  of  personality  at  the  starting  pt>ini 
has  a  relative  priority  and  will  persist  through  ihc  oihcr  [(later)]  configu- 
rations.'^ "^"^  Thus  the  final  actualization  ma\  be  \cr\  dilTerenl  from  the 
first  innate  bias  but  the  original  ground  plan  ma\  >et  alwa\s  be  dis- 
cerned. This  is  the  kind  of  personality  judgement  that  the  psschiatrist 
uses.  It  [conceives  of]  personality  as  an  integrati\e  mechanism."'  Overtly 
similar  acts  may  be  entirely  different  [in  significance,  therefore.)  when 
fitted  into  the  ground  plan  of  personality.  That  is,  [an  act  of|  thefi.  Um 
example,  may  be  heroism  or  criminalits. '" 

md.  bg  Jq  know  personality  in  this  wise,  a  lheor\  i>l"  perMMialil\  today 
must  really  take  into  consideration  iwo  kinds  t>f  attitudes  toward  the 
individual:  ^^  that  which  sees  him  as  a  mere  culture  carrier,  or  as  '"''  ''' 
the  sociologically  defined  '"man  brought  to  trial"'^  ov  "cili/en  o^  the 
state";  ^^  and  that  which  sees  him  as  an  integrated  eniii\  in  himself.  •'' 
a  real  persona,  '"''  [starting  from]  the  geneticall>   defined  personality 


552  ^^^  Culture 


lb 


plu>  the  accretions  and  changes  wrought  by  the  experience  of  years 
[The  lirst  attitude  sees]  personality  acts  as  the  acts  of  a  man  of  such 
and  such  a  social  status,  while  the  second  -  the  psychiatric  approach 
-  is  rather  a  filling  in  of  a  personality  on  the  basis  of  discovered  nuclear 
characteristics.  '"^' This  is  a  Gestalt  attack,  a  mode  of  observation  that 
is  aesthetic  rather  than  teleological.  [To  put  it  another  way,  it  is]  an 
aesthetic  interpretation  of  personality.  ^^  My  point  of  view,  [then,  is 
intended  to  combine]  an  aesthetic  [mode  of  observation]  with  a  Gestalt 
psychology  of  configuration  and  with  the  dynamism  of  the  psychoana- 
lyst. 

^•^  The  psychiatric  point  of  view  flows  from  within  the  intuitive  con- 
sciousness -  '-• ''  from  the  fact  that  we  have  a  continuous  consciousness 
which  has  not  been  disassociated  since  our  childhood,  [but  instead]  has 
been  building  up  [from  that  nucleus].  ''2'  ■■''  ""^  I  believe,  therefore,  in  a 
concept  of  Invar icmce  of  personality.  '^-  Thus,  it  is  possible  for  us  to 
translate  ourselves  to  our  earlier  personality  without  changing  our- 
selves. ''  [Our  present  experiences  can  be  seen  as  the]  equivalents  of 
experiences  [of  the  past,for  we  are  continually]  reliving  old  experiences 
[and  feeling  the]  same  feelings.  ^^  It  is  the  task  of  psychoanalysis  to 
interlace  present  experiences  with  past  ones.  "^^^  ^^  [The  idea  of]  invari- 
ance.  [therefore,  means  that]  one  is  never  other  than  oneself. 

•^^  Of  course,  the  ability  [for  and  propensity]  towards  introspection  is 
different  in  different  individuals,  [and  this  affects  what  the  psychiatrist 
actually  does.  In  general,  however,  what  the  psychiatrist  attempts  to 
reveal  is  the  process  of|  '^'  emotional  transfer  -  [the  process  by  which] 
■■'•  '^-  our  [present]  experiences  and  contacts  with  people  around  us  are 
to  a  large  extent  rephrasings  or  recallings  of  old  attitudes,  [deriving 
from]  our  infantile  experience.  [If  some  of  these  rephrasings  seem  to 
hinge  on  quite  trivial  aspects  of  an  experience,  it  must  be  remembered 
that]  '^  the  trivial  may  be  just  as  [telling]  a  part  of  one's  personality  as 
the  [obviously]  important.'^ 

md.  r2.  ri,  hi  ^^^t  then  are  the  determinants  of  personality  -  the  things 
which  fix  this  [sense  of]  primordial  self?  ^^  This  is  the  weakest  part  of 
our  approach,  [because  the  determinants  commonly  suggested  lie  in 
realms  poorly  understood.]  ■■'•  '^^  ^^'  ^^  First  are  implications  of  biological 
structure  -  genetically-determined  heredity  -  of  nervous  characteris- 
tics, for  example.  '"^  Our  ignorance  of  physiology,  etc.  [is  such  that]  we 
don't  know  [much  about  this  possibility.]  '^^  '^^  ^s-  '^  Second  are  prenatal 
conditionings,  experiences,  experiences  in  the  womb  [that  might  also 
serve  as  personality]  determinations.  '^  We  don't  know  enough  about 


Two:  The  Psycholoi^v  of  C'uhnrc  553 

[these  conditionings]  either.  '-•  ''  ''^  Ihird  are  earls  childhood  experi- 
ences (up  to  the  age  o\^  two  or  three),  post-natal  modifications  [o\  the 
prenatally-established  sell]  ~  experiences  ol'  protoiind  anxieties,  for  ex- 
ample -  ''^- '^  [to  the  extent  that  these  represent]  pre-culiural  condition- 
ings and  determinations.  ^^  These  three  factors.  |ii  is  generally  assumed,) 
intluence  the  basic  personality  [which,  once]  set-up,  "'  (establishes  a) 
permanent  psychiatric  ground  plan  for  the  individual  at  an  early  age. 

'"'"•  '^  The  importance  o'i  the  infantile  configuration  is  shown  in  phe- 
nomena of  "regression"  to  an  earlier,  easier  plateau.  ''^-  '*"  As  an  analogy 
with  a  personality  in  the  time-dimension,  consider  a  musical  theme  with 
variations  where  the  theme  is  the  basic  configuration  and  the  variations 
are  more  and  more  complex  constructs  using  the  fundamental  pattern. 
^^  This  is  an  aesthetically  constructive  concept,  whereas  the  personalit\ 
building  up  is  continuously  adjustive.  '^  Yet,  the  form  persists  through 
all  variations:  ^^  regression  Oust]  means  withdrawal  to  an  earlier  theme, 
to  an  earlier  or  simpler  level  of  adjustment,  in  the  persistence  of  child- 
hood memories  and  infantile  emotional  tensions,  disco\ered  in  regres- 
sion, we  see  the  persistence  of  the  fundamental  jicrsonaliiN  patterns 
throughout  life.  ^^  If  you  wish  your  adjustments  to  pct^plc  to  be  real, 
you  must  get  back  to  your  primordial  self 

[In  later  life  there  will  always  be]  ^''-  '-  a  tendencs  to  lapse  inii>  the 
nuclear  personality  unless  we  can  hitch  on  to  a  symbol  [provided  by) 
society.  ^-  For  example,  acting  as  a  student  is  a  symbolization  by  w  hich 
we  come  out  of  our  nuclear  personality.  We  keep  on  with  certain 
studies,  etc.,  because  of  our  symbolic  feeling  o{  oneness  with  societ) 
and  gratitude  to  it,  even  though  we  have  lost  interest  in  their  [subject 
matter).  "^^  The  social  process  keeps  us  going  -  you  need  a  social  tradi- 
tion to  make  you  go  on.  '-  Thus  personalities  are  fitted  inic^  places  [in 
society]  in  which  they  have  no  [intrinsic]  interest.  Their  culture,  .md  the 
people  around  them,  throw  them  into  a  concept  which  the>  did  no! 
entertain  about  themselves.  [The  social  process  counters  regression, 
then,  for  the  very  reason  that  social  roles  and  their  associated  beha\ior 
are  not  based  directly  on  the  indixiduaPs  "personality"  in  the  ps\chiat- 
ric  sense.]-" 

[How  might  this  disjunction  come  about?  Wh>  is  it  that,  in  our  siKUil 
encounters,  we  do  not  sinipls  pursue  an  unditTerentiated  impulse  to 
know  one  another's  personalities  as  full>  as  pc>ssible'.'  Ihe  answer,  pre- 
sumably, is  that]-'  -'"'  A  is  not  really  interested  in  what  B  /.s.  but  what 
he  can  bear  as  symbol .  We  know  each  other  only  as  roles.  •*  We  lake 
parts  of  personality  from  other  people,  but  we  can  ne\er  entirely  know 


554  l^^  Culture 

another's  personality.  ^^  It  is  the  very  purpose  of  society  to  keep  the 
basis  o(  personality  hidden,  and  no  one  can  afford  [to  uncover  every- 
ihine.]  '-  There  is  something  vague  which  cannot  be  delved  into.  -"'" 
Indeed,  we  don't  need  each  other  a  hundred  percent;  what  we  need  is 
an  etTective  [but]  partial  participation.  Many  intelligent  and  worthy  per- 
sons are  uncomfortable  in  being  admired,  because  people  need  to  find 
in  you  those  qualities  they  admire,  [and  you  know  that]  sooner  or  later 
you  are  going  to  ruin  their  picture.  Every  human  relationship  is  a  tem- 
porary implicit  contract,  [not  a  total  immersion]. 

*-  To  completely  know  another  would  mean  sacrifice  [of  oneself;  and] 
-"'"  we  don't  want  to  be  swallowed  by  another's  personality.  Even  a 
child  wants  to  feel  a  stranger  to  its  mother  -  complete  identification  is 
resisted.  Therefore  we  can  never  know  or  afford  to  know  the  whole 
truth  about  personality.  [Instead,  the]  key  persons  [in  our  lives,  much 
of  the  time,  are]  doing  duty  for  what  almost  anyone  else  could  give. 
[And  just  as  we  cannot  afford  to  concern  ourselves  too  deeply  with 
another's  personality,  the  same  is  true  for  our  own.]  Being  concerned 
with  oneself  is  a  sign  of  insecurity  and  defiance.  [Although  we  may  often 
phrase  that  concern  in  terms  of  claims  to  our  own  uniqueness  -  for  it 
is  more  acceptable  to  maintain  that]  "I  am  one  of  a  million  in  this 
matter"  [than  that  'T  am  interested  in  my  own  personality"  -  most  of] 
us  get  sick  and  tired  of  the  impulse  to  know  ourselves.  (But  Proust  did 
not.) 

[There  is  a  certain  tension,  then,  in  our  feelings  about  personality,  a] 
''^^'^"  duality  of  interest  in  the  facts  of  behavior  [as  to  whether  we  see 
them  in  terms  of  personality  or  not.]  ^""^  In  anthropology,  [similarly,] 
there  are  two  viewpoints:  the  psychological  -  "I  wish  to  hold  on  to  my 
personality;"  and  the  sociological  -  "I  do  not  wish  to  hold  onto  my 
personality." 


[The  Uses  of  Psychiatric  Theories  in  Anthropology ] 

[The  approach  to  personality  we  will  need  in  anthropology  must  re- 
semble the  psychiatrist's  in  its  emphasis  on  configuration  and  genesis 
(i.  e.,  personality  development),  but  its  need  to  incorporate  the  person- 
ality's social  setting  will  distinguish  it  from  any  psychiatric  theory  pres- 
ently established.]^^  ^g  Psychoanalysis  is  valuable  for  its  way  of  thinking, 
not  for  its  present  formulas.  "^^  Let  us  understand  first  of  all,  [therefore,] 


Two:   rih-  Psvcholo^y  of  Culture  555 

that  uc  lake  [the  ideas  ot]  I'rcuJ.  .Iuiili.  etc.  |(Mi1\]  as  \sorking  principles 
subject  t(.i  niodificaliiMi  by  rurther  knowledge. 

i''-k  ii  jj^,^.  \wos{  elaborate  and  far  reaching  hspolheses  on  ihc  devel- 
opment of  personality  w hich  ha\e  yet  been  proposed  are  (hose  o{  I-reiid 
and  his  school.  The  Freudian  ps\choanal>sts  analwe  the  personalil) 
topographically  into  a  primary  id,  the  sum  o\'  inherited  impulses  or 
cra\ings  -  ''  the  libidinal  drive;  '''^■*'  the  ego.  which  is  thought  of  as 
being  built  upon  the  id  through  the  progressive  de\eK)pmenl  o\'  the 
sense  of  exleinal  leality;  and  the  superego,  the  sociall\  ci>nditioned  sum 
of  forces  which  restrain  the  individual  from  the  direct  satisfaction  of 
the  id.  The  characteristic  interplay  of  these  personalit\  /ones,  itself  de- 
termined chietly  by  the  special  pattern  of  family  relationships  into 
which  the  individual  has  had  to  fit  himself  in  the  earliest  years  of  his 
life,  is  responsible  for  a  variety  of  personality  types. -^  (Howe\er.)  '^^''• 
1934c.  md.  hi  although  Frcud  is  interested  in  typical  dynamisms  and  mech- 
anisms of  personality  formation,  he  does  not  construct  a  theory  of  per- 
sonality types. -^"^  [On  this  point  and  others  the  Freudian  school  o^  psy- 
choanalysts are  divided.]  "'^'  .liuig.  [for  example.]  is  interested  in  types, 
[based  on  the  idea  that]  not  all  people  will  develop  in  the  same  wa\ 
under  the  same  conditions.  [We  shall  pursue  this  matter  in  a  later  lec- 
ture. But  in  many  respects]  "''  Jung,  Adler,  and  Ranke,  in  re\i>lt  agamst 
Freud,  overemphasized  their  points  of  difference  [with  him]. 

'^'  [For  the  anthropologist,]  Freud's  [work]  is  [useful  as]  a  wa\  o'i 
thinking,  not  as  a  body  of  doctrine.  '^'^- '"''  '''■  """  [C\>nsider.  for  example. 
the  famous]  Oedipus  Complex,  in  our  culture  and  others.  ^^^  The  impor- 
tant thing  is  that  certain  nuclear  situations  ine\itabl\  affect  the  emo- 
tional and  personality  development  o[^  the  child,  whalever  the  t\pe  o\' 
society  [he  is  born  into.]  Some  type  o'(  family  situation  '''  some  kind 
of  human  relationship  -  ^^-  '''  holds  everywhere,  whether  [specincallv] 
on  the  model  of  Oedipus  or  not.  "'  The  child  is  not  born  in  a  cultural 
or  social  vacuum;  [his  personal]  symbology  is  subjective  to  a  [particular] 
culture,  and  it  is  a  mistake  to  make  a  fetish  of  doctrines  [of  symbologi- 
cal  development  based  only  on  Furopean  clinical  material.)  ""'  '''  Thus 
the  Oedipus  Complex  is  simply  a  common  sense  human  situation  which 
may  be  \\n\n^\  in  the  Trobriand  IshiiuK  or  vinv where  under  ditVering 
condititms.  true,  but  with  the  same  simple  human  situation  pallern.  '^'• 
"'  When  Malinowski.  m  "Sex  and  Repression  in  Savage  Societv."  [pre- 
sented certain]  strictures  on  Ireud  bv  showing  a  new  modification  \o{ 
the  Oedipus  C\miplex]  due  to  a  different  siKial  context  -  [so  thai  the 
Trobriand  chikfs]  transference  o{  earlv   bents  or  sets  [tended]  toward 


556  f^l  Culture 

ihc  maternal  uncle  instead  of  the  mother  -  ^i  Freud's  disciples  reviled 
hmi.  [To  ihcm,  the  essential  thing  about]  Oedipus  was  the  correlation-^ 
o{  transference  along  sex  lines.-^^  ^^  Yet  the  Freudians  should  welcome 
Malinow ski's  [work,]  since  although  he  shows  that  with  a  different  fa- 
milial sci-up  HI  the  Trobriands  the  Oedipus  complex  [per  se]  does  not 
hold,  ne\eriheless  he  shows  that  even  here  there  is  an  important  condi- 
iionmg  o^  the  child  at  an  early  age  by  family  relationships.  Thus  he 
extends  the  basic  Freudian  concept,  rather  than  upsetting  it. 

^»?  [For  the  uses  of  the  anthropologist,  therefore,]  psychiatric  analysis 
must  be  schematic,  save  in  the  actual  case  study.  For  example,  there  are 
many  types  and  actual  varieties  of  jealousy,  though  possibly  the  basis 
of  all  [o^  them]  may  be  a  negative  reaction  to  interference  by  others 
with  the  libidinal  fixation  upon  a  certain  individual.  [Whether  it  is  about 
iealousy  or  some  other  aspect  of  personality  formation,]  what  the  sche- 
matic \ievv  would  show  is  the  importance  of  nuclear  home  attitudes  and 
situations  for  the  child  -  the  influence  of  the  parents  and  their  relations 
one  to  another;  the  effect  upon  the  unclouded  intuitive  understanding 
o{  the  child;  the  function  of  emotional  attitudes,  and  the  effect  on  [a 
person's]  later  life  (at  mating,  [especially])  of  prior  nuclear  symbolisms 
even  though  these  are  projected  or  transformed^^  later  into  new  situa- 
tions. 

[in  summary,  the  anthropologist  can  find  much  of  value  in  the  psychi- 
atric approach  to  personality,  but  in  its  outlines  rather  than  its  specific 
formulations.  In  favoring  a  psychiatric  view  I]  ^^^^^  do  not  for  a  moment 
mean  to  assert  that  any  psychiatry  that  has  as  yet  been  evolved  is  in  a 
position  to  do  much  more  than  to  ask  intelligent  questions.  [The  in- 
sights we  seek  are  only  beginning  to  emerge.]  ^^-  "^^^  ^i  ^  ^j^^j  under- 
standing of  personality  depends  upon  the  development  of  a  powerful 
dynamic  psychology  -  which  will  be  a  genetic^^  psychology  in  a  social 
setting.  ^^  Using  Freudian  concepts  cast  in  a  configurative  Gestalt 
pattern,  it  will  be  interested  solely  in  actual  social  settings  and  not  in 
stimulus,  response,  and  the  rest  [of  the  behaviorist's  representation  of 
them]  -  the  whole  view  being  influenced  by  aesthetic  considerations, 
which  will  look  for  the  fundamental  theme  and  then  for  the  recurring 
variations. 


Editorial  Note 

Although  the  Outline  begins  its  section  on  "The  Individual's  Place  in 
Culture"  with  a  chapter  on  "Culture  and  the  Individual,"  the  class  notes 


Two:  The  PsvchoUii^y  of  C  uliuir  557 

give  relatively  little  spaee  io  the  material  that  was  to  have  gone  ihere. 
moving  instead  almost  immediateU  into  the  eoneepl  of  personahty.  Ap- 
parently the  student  note-takers  did  not  reeord  mueh  o\'  Sapir's  inlro- 
duetor\  discussion.  \hi\  it  is  also  clear  that  Sapu-  hnnself  covered  this 
material  quicklv.  without  much  elaboratit>n.  even  though  so  many  of 
his  publications  in  the  193()*s  were  concerned  with  it.  My  guess  is  that 
this  section  was  condensed  partly  because  it  would  ha\e  been  repetitive. 
Its  subject  matter  -  the  theoretical  and  methodological  problems  thai 
arise  if  "culture"  and  "the  individual"  are  contrastively  dellned  -  is. 
after  all,  the  concern  of  the  whole  book. 

For  Sapir's  treatment  of  this  subject  in  article  form,  the  reader  is 
referred  particularly  to  "Cultural  Anthropology  and  Psychiatry" 
(1932a),  "The  Emergence  of  the  Concept  o\'  [Personality  in  a  Stud\  of 
Cultures"  (1934a),  and  "Why  Cultural  Anthropology  Needs  the  Psychi- 
atrist" (I938e).  I  have  drawn  on  these  papers  to  fill  in  the  sketchy  class 
notes.  Most  of  the  present  chapter,  however,  is  devoted  to  the  concept 
of  personality.  Here  Sapir's  classroom  discussion  closely  parallels  his 
encyclopedia  article  on  "Personality"  (1934c). 

The  material  incorporated  in  this  chapter  apparentlv  look  up  a  lec- 
ture and  a  half  in  1937  (the  second  half  o\^  Sapir's  lecture  of  January 
18-*^  and  the  lecture  of  January  25).  In  1933  it  was  allotted  at  least  two 
lectures,  on  March  13  and  20.  The  Taylor  notes  (1936)  are  unil.iieil  so 
it  is  not  clear  how  much  lecture  time  was  involved. 


Notes 

1.  T2  has  "to  society." 

2.  Tl  has:  "'Despite  thoughts  to  the  contrary.  ..." 

3.  BG  has  "individuals"  cuUurcs  (separate)".  It  is  not  clear  how  .Sapir  actualls  worded  lhl^ 
important  point. 

4.  The  second  sentence  in  the  bracketed  te.xt  comes  from  112.  in  the  discussion  of  cutuiti- 
pattern  in  ch.  5.  See  also  "The  Unconscious  Patterning  of  Behavior  in  StKiely ' 

5.  Much  of  the  wording  of  this  passage  is  derived  from  Sapir  ( l9.Ud).  "The  EnKrgcii.c  .>i 
the  Concept  of  Personality  in  a  .Study  otC'ultures."  SWhS  pp  5*>()    91 

6.  T2  adds:  "Maximum  security  is  desired  by  all."  Perhaps  Sapir's  pi>int  is  th.H  cultural 
forms  can  have  relevance  for  the  indnidual  if  only  by  providing  the  v.  iiiii\  .>(  iiii-niiri..i- 
tion  with  a  group. 

7.  I  insert  "who  participates"  by  analogy  \Mth  the  statement  in  Sapir  r'>..i  mc  \.im 
majority  of  participants  in  the  total  culture,  if  \ve  ma>  still  s|XMk  in  terms  of  a  "total 
culture.""  Sapirs  published  writings  of  this  period  do  not  use  the  exprevsion  "indi\idual 
in  a  culture."  an  expression  that  treats  ""culture"'  as  a  synonym  for  "group"  or  "stviciv  " 

8.  H2  has:  "'person  comes  from  persona.  Latin  -  person,  also  dramatic  mask 


558  Jt^   Culture 

9.  Tl  has:  "Reality  is  in  fact  the  mere  phenomena  of  continuity  of  no  persistence,  they 
have  hltlc  or  no  reahty." 

10.  LaB  adds:  "Spht  personahties  greatest  tragedies  therefore." 

11  BG  has:  "in  terms  of  a  sociological  abstraction  from  nuclear  person,  and  emphasis  upon 
formal  roles." 

12.  CK  has  "a  given  biological  organism". 

I.V  What  R2  actually  has  is:  "Has  no  connection  with  other  personalities."  1  believe,  how- 
ever, that  the  point  is  that  this  definition  is  unconnected  with  the  sociological  one. 

14.  i.  e  ,  independent  of  status. 

15.  Here  H I  has  a  drawing  of  three  triangles;  the  center  one  has  a  mangled  top  half. 

16.  Actually,  it  is  unclear  whether  Sapir  claimed  that  only  the  psychiatric  view  of  personality 
sees  it  as  an  integrative  mechanism,  or  whether  the  sociological  view  (personality  as 
deriving  from  status)  was  also  an  integrative  mechanism  of  a  sort  (presumably  less  coher- 
ently configured).  MD  and  HI  have  "Personality  as  an  integrative  mechanism"  as  the 
title  of  the  March  20  lecture  comparing  the  sociological  and  psychiatric  points  of  view, 
while  BG  emphasizes  the  differences  between  them  as  incremental  vs.  integrative. 

17.  MDadds.  "(Stalin)". 

IK.  MD  has  "man  in  the  courtroom". 

19  R I  has.  after  "emotional  transfer":  "The  trivial  is  just  important  a  part  of  one's  personal- 
it)  as  the  important." 

20.  1  insert  the  bracketed  passage  as  a  summary  of  the  preceding  paragraph,  where  Sapir 
argues  again  that  personality  (psychologically  or  psychiatrically  defined)  and  social 
status  are  distinct.  This  does  not  mean,  however,  that  the  two  have  no  influence  on  one 
another.  For  an  argument  that  personality,  or  at  least  one's  emotional  state,  is  affected 
by  an  individual's  social  position,  see  Sapir's  "Psychiatric  and  Cultural  Pitfalls  in  the 
Business  of  Getting  a  Living"  (1939c). 

21.  Some  of  the  wording  of  this  bracketed  passage  is  drawn  from  "The  Emergence  of  the 
Concept  of  Personality  in  a  Study  of  Cultures"  (1934a):  "Why  is  it  necessary  to  discover 
the  contrast,  real  or  fictitious,  between  culture  and  personality,  or,  to  speak  more  accu- 
rately, between  a  segment  of  behavior  seen  as  cultural  pattern  and  a  segment  of  behavior 
interpreted  as  having  a  person-defining  value?  Why  cannot  our  interest  in  behavior  main- 
tain the  undifferentiated  character  which  it  possessed  in  early  childhood?  The  answer, 
presumably,  is  that  each  type  of  interest  is  necessary  for  the  psychic  preservation  of  the 
individual  in  an  environment  which  experience  makes  increasingly  complex  and  unassim- 
ilable  on  its  own  simple  terms."  Although  Sapir's  focus  in  that  paper  is  on  the  outside 
observer,  he  seems  to  suggest  that  the  participant  has  the  same  duality  of  interest. 

22.  Much  of  the  content  of  this  bracketed  passage  comes  from  the  material  in  MD,  BGL, 
and  H 1  cited  at  the  close  of  the  chapter. 

23.  MD,  HI,  Tl,  and  LB  all  allude  to  "personality  types"  at  this  juncture  (as  heading  or  in 
the  text). 

24.  CK  has:  "does  not  construct  a  theory  of  personality."  All  others  have  "personality 
types." 

25.  The  handwriting  of  this  word  is  unclear. 

26.  HI  adds:  "mother  — »  to  son  rather  than  the  daughter  -  groundplan:  -  Sapir.  -  homo- 
sexuality: -".  LB  adds:  "Nostalgia  for  father  in  Oedipus  complex;  hate-love  mother." 

27.  The  handwriting  is  unclear.  This  word  may  be  "transferred". 

28.  i.  e.,  developmental. 

29.  Only  in  CK,  who  sometimes  puts  dates  in  the  wrong  place.  It  is  possible  that  all  this 
material  comes  from  January  25. 


Chapter  8.  The  Problem  oi^  Pcrsoiiahiy  !> pes: 
A  Review  and  Critique  of  Jung 


nuL  hi 


The  Type  PoinI  of  View:  In ( rover l  and  Extruveri 


[In  the  prc\ious  chapter  we  mentioned  that  there  is  a  matter  of  some 
disagreement  within  the  Freudian  school  o\^  psychoanalysis  as  to 
whether  personalities  can  be  classified  into  different  types.  This  is  not 
merely  some  trivial  instance  of  internecine  warfare.  It  concerns  the  very 
natin-e  o^  personality  integration,  and  it  has  many  implications  for  a 
theory  o'i  personality  formation,  even  if  some  of  the  most  basic  aspects 
of  the  problem  have  scarcely  been  addressed  as  yet  by  either  side.  As 
we  said,]  '"''•  '^'  Freud  [himself)  is  more  interested  in  i\  pica!  mechanisms 
[of  personality  formation]  than  in  types.  '""■'  He  is  not  clear  as  to  w  hat 
the  basic  material  o\^  personality  is;  "'  [instead,  he  seems  to  take  the] 
attitude  that  the  individual  is  indefinitely  malleable,  although  the  ques- 
tion of  whether  there  are  physiological  types  [remains  open].  '''  '"''  Jung, 
however,  [proposes  that  there  are]  fundamental  types  o\er  and  above 
the  mechanisms  -  that  not  all  people  will  develop  in  the  same  ua> 
under  the  same  environmental  conditions.  '''  Wiiile  lYeud  is  [primanlv] 
interested  in  individual  cases,  Jung  goes  in  for  the  "racial  mind"  and 
believes  in  types  given  at  birth  (preformation,  as  opposed  to  epigencsis). 

'^- '''  I  believe  Jung  is  fundamentally  right  [in  proposing]  a  basic  typol- 
ogy -  '"'  various  kinds  of  adjustment  '''  in  children,  over  and  above 
the  dynamic  relations  [with  which  i'rcud  is  concerned).  ^^"  The  impor- 
tance of  Jung's  viewpoint  [lies  not  in  the  specific  causes'  he  assumes. 
but  in  the  idea  that]  childhood  conditioning  isnl  everything:  for  exam- 
ple, one  can't  make  a  hysteric  out  of  every  child.  With  each  child,  [his] 
study  shows,  there  is  a  varied  type  o^  adjustment  de^XMiding  upon  the 
basic  personality  set-up.  These  varied  ditTerences  o^  adjustment  arc 
something  over  and  above  the  emotional  conditioning  that  is  due  lo 
specific  familial  [situations.]' 

hg.  Ill  Cjenetically  determined  predispositions'  ma>  be  shiuvn.  [for  ex- 
ample,] in  [children's]  varying  sensitivity  to  loud  noises,  and  [their]  vary- 
ing apperception  -  sensitivity  to  objects  in  the  environment. "*  ''»^  In  re- 


5(-,()  ///   Culture 

uard  to  this,  [JungV.']  study  shows  that  one  child  goes  out  readily  to 
meet  such  objects.  He  identifies  himself  with  them,  explores  them,  han- 
dles and  enjoys  them.  The  other  child  hesitates,  classifies  them,  and 
always  seems  to  refer  them  to  some  evaluated  past  experience,  ^s-  ^' 
fVrhaps  he  values  them  in  terms  of  some  nostalgic  feeling  associated 
\Mih  the  pleasure  of  suckling  at  the  mother's  breast.  ^^  To  [link]^  objects 
around  one  with  that  feeling  is  the  genesis  of  "introverted"  behavior, 
bv:,  hi.  nui  j\^^  identifying  type  [of  child]  is  the  extravert,  who  participates 
fully  in  the  world  of  sense,  while  the  classifying  type  is  the  introvert,  who 
holds  back  from  the  world  of  sense.  '^  ([These]  types  also  [correspond]  to 
Holt's  iuliemc  and  ahience.) 

'^'  [But  while  one  may  describe  these  types  as  already  existing  among 
children.]  Jung  nowhere  [really]  discusses  their  genesis.  ^^  Indeed,  the 
genesis  of  [personality]  types  is  a  difficult  [problem.]  ^^^  '^  Are  they  to 
be  explained  in  terms  of  hereditary  dispositions  given  once  and  for  all 
at  conception,  or  is  there  some  genetic  explanation,  such  as  that  given 
above,  [involving]  empirical  conditioning?  ^s  [if  the  latter,  should  we 
seek  its  explanation,  in  turn,]  in  terms  of  Freudian  mechanisms  -  or 
does  the  cultural  configuration  itself  influence  basic  personality  types? 
Jung  gives  no  answer  to  these  questions. 

■■'  Is  Jung's  classification  of  personality  types,  then,  genetic,  post- 
genetic,  or  descriptive?  '^''  "^^^  ""^  I  believe  his  classification  to  be  mainly 
descriptive,  not  genetic  or  dynamic.  ^^  [Presumably,]  personality  is  [in- 
fluenced by  all  these]  factors  -  genetic,^  prenatal,  and  early  condition- 
ing -  ^^  but  Jung's  study,  [even  though  it  purports]  to  be  a  causal  one 
[and  not  only]  a  personal  one,  is  not  strictly  scientific.  '^^^J  ([Indeed, 
although  his  Psychological  Types]  is  a  fascinating  and  extraordinary 
book,  it  is  never  very  closely  reasoned.)^  [About  his  notions  of  "racial 
mind"  and  preformation  we  should  be  particularly  cautious.]  ^'  It  is  not 
that  the  physical  has  nothing  to  do  with  psychology  (and  hence  culture), 
but  only  that  the  definitions  of  physical  phenomena  are  too  naive  and 
fallacious. 

'"'  [Obviously,  even  a  purely  descriptive]  classification  of  personality 
types  has  implications  as  to  the  formation  of  personaHty.  [But  personal- 
ity is  not  simply  a  direct  reflection  of  Jung's  types.]  '■^'  'ii  A  process  of 
compensation  [intervenes].  ''•  Society  is  not  tolerant  of  extreme  varia- 
tions of  personality,  ""^  and  because  a  person  is  always  concerned  with 
other  people's  opinion  of  him,  "^  with  social  pressure  and  potenfial 
praise  or  blame  -  ""^  [we  might  even  say  that]  the  potential  judgement 
of  society  is  the  individual's  main  problem  -  '^'i'  "^2,  ri  j^g  ^j-jg^  ^^  compen- 


Two:  The  Psycholoiiy  t>/  C  uhiirc  561 

sale  for  tliosc  \arialioiis  regarded  as  social  defects,  towards  some  (more 
approved]  general  type  or  behavior  pattern,  '^'•^''.f'  Hence,  basic  person- 
ality differences,  if  they  exist,  must  be  masked  beneath  the  typical  beha- 
vior. [Perhaps  it  is  from  one's  own  eyes  that  ones  basic  personality  is 
most  etTectively  hidden.]  ^"^  in  our  etTorts  to  conform  to  a  common 
ideal,  we  lose  imich  with  our  earlier  selves,  'f''  (The  attempt  to  reach 
back  to  that  nuclear  constellation  is  the  reason  for]  the  psychiatric  em- 
phasis on  the  importance  o\'  the  early  years  in  the  formation  o\'  person- 
ality, '^'  and  for  the  attempt,  in  psychoanalysis,  to  determine  personality 
types. 

[Thus  the  relation  between  our  basic  orientation  and  our  compensa- 
tions does  not  easily  rise  into  conscious  awareness.)  ''"'  '*'  We  ha\e  a 
persistent  illusion  of  changing  a  great  deal,  but  it  seems  likel\  that  there 
really  are  perduring  patterns  in  the  individual's  personality  from  early 
life.  ' '  The  basic  pattern  of  the  individual's  behavior  does  not  change 
-  [even  though]  we  like  to  feel  we  can  change,  probably  for  the  belter. 
"^"^  [Now,  when  it  concerns  someone  other  than  ourselves,]  we  are  \er\ 
quick  to  see  incidents  about  a  single  individual  as  consistent  and  inte- 
grated, though  this  is  of  course  inconsistent  with  the  just-mentioned 
illusion.  ^^'  '^'  Various  personal  motives  influence  our  belief  about  this 
question:  '^'^-  '^'-  ^'^  we  do  not  like  to  believe  that  we  are  oursehes  not 
capable  of  great  change  in  personality  if  we  wish  to  change  in  an\  re- 
spect; "i^-  '^'-  '■'^-  '^-  and  we  also  like  to  feel  thai  ue  arc  inlluential  in 
effecting  changes  in  other  people,  by  giving  advice  to  those  who  look 
to  us  for  guidance.  [In  a  sense  we  are  right  in  both  our  beliefs  that 
people  are  consistent  and  that  people  can  change  -  insofar  as  the  ps\- 
chiatrist's  concepts  of  basic  adjustment  and  compensation  correspond 
to  them.  And  we  are  also  not  witlunil  support  in  our  feeling  that  the 
influence  people  have  on  one  another,  in  their  ad\icc  and  in  their  judge- 
ment, is  important.]  "  A  sociological  outlook  and  balancing  are  factiHs 
in  personality,  [because  the  identification  with]  sociological  realit\  ver- 
sus any  other  reality  is  essentiall\  what  c\tra\crMon  and  introversion 
are.  The  extravert  [is  the  person]  whose  libido  tlows  into  those  concerns 
which  are  connected  with  other  people  and  the  outside.  The  intro\erl, 
on  the  other  hand,  abstracts,  consciously  or  unconsciousK.  his  meanings 
from  the  outside  world. 

"•'i-  ''  Jung  claims  that  the  diflerence  between  the  extravert  and  the 
introvert  is  not  merely  a  matter  of  interests,  ^"^i  C  ompensation.  ior  exam- 
ple, may  make  one's  interests  quite  deceptive  with  respect  [o  fundamen- 
tal tendencies.  ''  [Moreover,  interests  could  easily  be  confused  with]  the 


552  f^f  Culture 

degree  lo  which  a  personahty  is  willing  to  unmask  himself  ([or  is  masked 
in  the  first  place;  consider  the  kind  of  person  described  by]  the  French 
word  "simple"  -  an  unrevised  personality).  [Instead,  the  difference  be- 
tween] '-  '''  extra  vert  and  introvert  [concerns  how  one  resolves  the  fun- 
damental] conflict,  [faced  by]  the  child,  between  infantile  fantasies  and 
the  external  world.  '^  [It  is  the  problem  of  helplessness]  -  your  own 
weakness  in  attaining  your  infantile  desires,  [as  compared  with]  the 
power  about  you,  the  institutions  and  traditions  [you  encounter].  *''''"^' 
'^  Man  always  knows  he  is  a  helpless  being  [in  the  face  of  his]  environ- 
ment and  fellow  beings,  but  he  can't  afford  to  admit  it.  "^  You  can't  be 
healthy  and  [still]  realize  this.  "^^  Ways  of  adjusting,  then,  are  ways  of 
overcoming  helplessness. 

r:.  ck  Yhere  are  two  ways  of  solving  this  problem  of  the  conflict  be- 
tween the  self  and  a  powerful  environment:  '^''  ^'^  you  can  blot  out  the 
one  or  the  other  -  the  external  or  the  internal  world.  "^"^  Realizing  one's 
weakness  in  the  midst  of  strong  forces,  one  can  either  negate  those 
forces,  recognizing  only  those  that  one  wishes  to  admit,  or  else  deny 
the  reality  of  one's  weakness  (in  the  extreme  by  denying  the  reality  of 
oneself  and  identifying  oneself  with  the  environment,  and  other  people, 
at  every  point).  ""-  ''-  ^''  "^  To  blot  out  and  deny  all  the  external  environ- 
ment over  which  one  has  control^  [is  the  solution  of]  the  introvert,  ^^'  '^ 
the  idealist  who  reinterprets  the  world  in  terms  of  something  he  has 
mentalized  or  verbalized.^  ^'^^  ^^^ '"'  In  its  morbid  extreme,  this  tendency 
becomes  schizophrenia,  dementia  praecox;  ^°^'  ^^'  ^^  less  extremely,  it  is 
seen  in  such  organized  movements  as  Christian  Science  and  in  the  medi- 
eval mystic,  '^'  who  simplified  the  world  around  him  through  wishful 
thinking.  '-•  ■■'•  ""^  This  method  is  similar  to  the  general  problem  o^  ab- 
straction, which  is  the  ability  to  ignore  facts.  '"''  "^^  Only  certain  things 
have  value  for  the  introvert;  [beyond  them,  he  has  the]  ability  to  deny 
the  reality  value  of  the  external  world.  "^-^  ([This  propensity]  is  well  exem- 
plified by  classical  Hindu  culture.) 

'■''  The  other  method  is  to  deny  yourself,  to  deny  the  reality  of  your 
own  weakness.  '^-^^  The  extra  vert  identifies  with  the  environment,  the 
world  of  activity;  ""  [in  effect,]  he  denies  that  there  is  anything  to  adjust. 
''  The  world  is  what  has  value,  in  the  face  of  this  denudation  of  the 
personality.  ^^  Words  don't  interest  him  save  as  symbols  of  adjustment 
to  the  world.  He  consciously  denies  the  self  as  an  entity.  Instead,  any- 
thing that  happens  in  the  world  is  the  self.  ""^^  '^^  '^  When  this  becomes 
morbid  you  have  hysteria.  '^  In  this  case  there  is  no  introspection  at  all, 
and  if  the  environment  were  taken  away  such  a  person  would  be  lost. 


Two:  The  Psvcholoi^y  of  Culture  56!^ 

'*^  The  extraxcrt  is  a  nicchanisi;  [ihc  intiovcrl.  aii|  idealist.  While  ihe 
introvert  [sees]  -  as  in  Descartes"  thesis  -  an  anlagDnisni  between  the 
self  and  the  world,  liie  extravert  identifies  with  the  world  and  partici- 
pates in  it  sympathetically  and  sensationalistically.  ''^"  He  finds  the  eiui- 
ronment  friendly  and  swallows  il  iii  in  huge  gob  fulls.  ^2.  ri.qq.  ck  -pj^^. 
introNCit  finds  an  iinanalyzed  value  m  iiiicnsity  of  experience,  theexlra- 
\ert  in  cxtensity  or  numbers  of  experiences.  '-  ([By  anak>gy  with  this 
pattern,  then,]  Christian  theology  is  introverted,  while  the  Mediterra- 
nean world  is  extraverted.)  "^  '''  The  extravert  is  an  empiricist:  '^  [says 
he,]  "'A  fact  [is  a  fact],  w hat  more  l\o  \ou  want'.'""  The  introvert,  lacking 
the  ability  to  \alue  a  thing  as  such,  [instead]  evaluates  it  subjectively: 
"A  fact  —  what  about  it?  So  what?  A  fact  ofuluit  order  and  nwaniniiT 

'^'  The  extravert  is  not  necessarily  [more]  objectise.  [just]  because  [his] 
values  lie  in  the  immediate  environment.  '•''  ''  indeed,  it  may  be  ques- 
tioned whether  one  is  not  here  projecting  oneself  in  order  to  identif\ 
[with  the  externalized  projection,]  and  whether  there  is  [actually]  an\ 
more  objectivity  in  extraversion  than  in  intro\ersion.  "''  ThorcnighK 
extraverted  people  are  unobjective,  because  they  are  the  most  bound  up 
in  the  environment.  ^^  The  introvert,  [on  the  other  hand.]  is  a  verbal 
realist,  or  objective  subjectivist:  the  word  is  substituted  \'ov  the  world  o\' 
internal  reality.  His  sense  of  power  comes  from  handling  words  and 
concepts  in  lieu  of  actual  facts.  ^^-  '^  Facts  are  not  \alued  as  such,  but 
only  in  terms  of  personal  evaluations.'" 

^^  These  characterizations  are  polar  extremes.  [.Actual  anal\ses  o\'  real 
individuals  would  not  usually  show  such  stark  contrasts.  In  fact.]  actual 
analysis  is  difficult  since  ^--  '^'  there  is  a  tendency  for  one  type  to  coni{XMi- 
sate  with  the  thinking  of  the  opposite  type.  "'^-  '~-  '"  For  example. 
Nietzsche  was  an  introvert  and  a  masochistic  [personalit>.]  but  he  haled 
this  in  himself  and  so  invented  the  superman.  [The  in\entor  o\'  the  su- 
perman, then,  was]  not  [exactly]  a  supennan  himself.  Dewe>  was  [per- 
sonally] an  introvert,  but  as  a  philosopher  he  writes  with  .m  extraxerted 
ring,"  "^^'^  expressing  the  philosophy  o\'  the  extravert  in  education  b\ 
reason  of  an  elaborate  compensation  mechanism.  '''"  fhus  iniroverMiMi 
may  be  disguised  by  a  pseudo-extra\ersiiMi  for  reasons  o\'  pcrsonalilN 
adjustment.  [We  might  also  mentiiMi]  Whitman  in  this  respcvl.  and  note 
the  paucity  of  hard  images  in  his  poetry.  [Con\ersely.]  a  man  may  also 
be  introverted  in  his  intellectual  life  but  e\tra\erted  in  [his]  |XTsonal 
relations.  As  an  example,  [one  nnghl  compare]  Coleridge's  poetry  with 
his  relations  with  Wordswurth  and  his  circle. 


554  ^^^   Culture 

(Just  as  the  personality  types  are  not  merely  a  matter  of  interests,  so 
ihcy  do  not  directly  link  up  with  an  individual's  position  in  life.  We  can 
find  examples  o\'  both  types  in  all  realms  of  activity.]  '^  It  is  an  illusion 
[to  think]  that  businessmen,  for  instance,  are  necessarily  extraverted,  for 
external  activity  may  belie  [the  nature  of]  the  ego.  A  mere  description 
o\'  behavior  does  not  indicate  the  nature  of  the  personality.  [Instead, 
we]  must  interpret  the  flow  of  activity  in  terms  of  the  mechanics  of 
acti\  hies  and  thinking.  ^^- ''  In  business,  perhaps  Carnegie  is  an  example 
of  the  extravert.  Ford  of  the  introvert  -  the  former  enjoying  the  activity 
for  its  own  sake,  while  Ford  was  somewhat  discontented  [with  it  and 
placed  more  importance  on]  idealistic  principles  ([as  when  sponsoring 
his]  peace  ship). 

^'1  '^'  In  religion,  the  early  Christian  movement  seems  to  be  an  intro- 
verted one:  beginning  at  a  time  of  great  differences  in  wealth,  its  [intro- 
version] was  perhaps  a  social  characteristic  growing  out  of  the  extreme 
poverty  of  the  people,  as  a  denial  of  their  external  circumstances.  [Later 
on]  Luther  seems  to  be  a  sample  extravert,  interested  in  his  immediate 
environment  and  identifying  himself  with  the  masses  ("^"^  as,  for  example, 
in  his  colloquial  translation  of  the  Bible,  and  his  realistic  table  talk),  '^'i' 
'^  Calvin,  with  his  interest  in  the  "noble  Bible"  and  so  on  as  an  ideal, 
seems  rather  more  introverted:  '^'  [concerned  with]  rational  respectabil- 
ity, he  turned  within  himself,  to  emerge  with  a  formula  [for  attaining 
it].  [Presumably]  he  would  not  have  been  sympathetic  with  evangelism. 

'^'  [In  politics,]  Robespierre  seems  to  have  been  an  introvert,  who 
swayed  the  masses  by  [the  power  of  an]  idea  rather  than  for  himself. 
President  Wilson,  too,  was  an  introvert:  [at  the  close  of  the  war,  when 
the  new  boundaries  of  nations  were  to  be  decided,]  an  ethnological  staff 
([including]  Dixon  of  Harvard)''^  was  taken  to  Europe  but  not  con- 
sulted; [Wilson's]  interest  was  in  ideological  principles.  The  actual,  pica- 
yune details  of  the  distribution  of  peoples  were  of  little  interest  to  him. 

'^'^-  *■'  In  literature,  [while  we  may  tend  to  think  of  literary  activity 
as  typically  introverted,]  Dickens  and  Kipling  come  to  mind  as  ready 
examples  of  extraversion.  '''•  The  essential  thing,  for  example  with  the 
businessman,  is  not  how  busy  a  man  keeps  with  external  affairs  but 
where  he  finds  his  maximum  enjoyment. 

r2.  ri.  qq.  ck  jj^  summary:  the  extravert  identifies  himself  in  his  orienta- 
tion with  his  environment,  ""^  and  feels  no  difference  between  himself 
and  the  thing  out  there.  •"''  ''^'  '^  [To  him]  the  principle  must  always  be 
sacrificed  for  the  facts.  '^'  ■■•'  ^^  The  introvert  identifies  himself  with  his 
own  self-consciousness  and  abstracts  from  the  environment  that  which 


Two:  The  P.wcholoi^y  of  (  iilnnc  ^0.> 

he  needs  for  ihe  principles.  '''•■  ''  riuis  llie  introvert  overlooks  the  spe- 
cific tacts  tor  the  sake  o{  selected  general  principles  and  control;  the 
exlraxerl  attends  to  the  specific  e\ents  in  their  sequence  simply  as 
events.  '•''  ''  '-  Among  scholarl\  pursuits,  history  tends  toward  the  ex- 
tremely e\tra\ert  side;  mathematics  aiKJ  conceptual  science,  toward  the 
introNcrt.  ''''  Thurstone's  work  in  psychology  seems  e\tremel\  inlro- 
\erted.  with  its  complete  emphasis  on  methcxl,  precise  defmitu>n.  and 
complete  lack  of  interest  in  practical  problems  or  everyday  values. 

'^-  [As  we  pointed  out  earlier,  however,]  Jung's  classification  is  descrip- 
ti\e.  [not  explanatory.]  It  cannot  be  used  to  explain  beha\ior,  as  too 
many  other  factors,  for  example  the  symbolism  c^l  the  situation,  are 
also  concerned.  [The  process  of  compensation,  too.  complicates  any 
attempt  to  explain  behavior  as  the  direct  result  of  personality  type.)  *''• 
^^  [For  these  reasons  a  strong  note  ot]  caution  [must  be  sounded  against 
overenthusiastic  applications  of  Jung's  classification.]  '''  ""  Introversion 
and  extraversion  are  to  be  evaluated  not  in  terms  of  overt  behavior,  but 
in  terms  of  subjective  orientation  -  ^^  the  personal  subjective  e\alua- 
tions  of  meaning  peculiar  to  the  individual  in  question.'^  I'ailure  to 
realize  this  leads  to  half-baked'"*  attempts  to  measure  introversion  and 
extraversion  by  means  of  psychological  tests  which  are  far  too  nai\e  to 
be  of  value. 

^^  Actually,  the  whole  concept  o'i  adjustment,  as  used  b\  modern 
psychologists,  is  usually  badly  misunderstood,  through  a  failure  to  real- 
ize the  importance  of  subjective  evaluations.  "  '''  [Moreover,  adjust- 
ment is  not  just  a  matter  of  one's  nature;  one's]  sociological  outlook 
and  balancing  are  [just  as  important]  factors  in  the  personalit>.  *''  [Tluis 
we  encounter  the]  pseudo-extravert:  one  who  b>  circumstance  is  driven 
to  extraverled  behavior,  though  he  should  by  nature  be  a  \sell-adjustcd 
introvert.  [Similarly,]  asocial  behavior  is  ncc<\  b\  some  who  strive  for 
external  adjustment.  [In  short,]  either  •"extravert"  or  ■iniroverl"  [as  a 
personality  classification]  is  devoid  o\'  value,  except  in  terms  ot  vvhal 
culture  demands.  Jung  makes  the  mistake  o\  identilvmg  [his  tvpos)'^ 
with  thought  tendencies  [alone,  without  lelerence  to  cultural  form]. 


Junius  " iu)h  iii'ihil  hpcs 

'"^1  Jung  also  classifies  [personality]  according  to  "functional  types."  a 
term  that  is  not  actualK  verv  suitable  for  them.  '^- ''  [He  propiiscs  four 


S(i(i  ///   Culture 

of  these  types:]  the  thinking,  teehng,  intuiting,  and  sensational,  [grouped 
into]  rational  vs.  irrational,  thus  [(see  Figure  1)]: 


I^^"^^"g        I  Rational 
Feeling  > 

'"•"'""8        Irrational' 

Sensational    > 

[FIG.   1] 


'-''  [Like  introversion  and  extraversion,]  this  personality  classification  is 
applicable  at  an  early  age. 

■■'•  '^  These  classifications  are  based  not  on  the  realm  [of  one's  interests 
or  activities.]  but  in  the  authoritative  [psychological]  function  [govern- 
ing their  value].  ""  Thought,  feeling,  sense,  and  intuition  are  concepts  to 
indicate  the  type  of  [psychological]  control,  authority,  or  underpinning 
advanced  for  holding  one's  professed  interests.  ^§'  ^^  For  example,  [one 
might  compare]  these  four  "authorities"  as  four  different  [reasons,  or] 
desires,  for  learning  a  new  language.  ^^  One  [person  has  a]  love  for  play 
with  words  [(this  is  the  sensational  type)];  ^^  another  desires  to  know 
about  the  life,  material  culture,  and  so  on  of  the  people  [who  speak  the 
language];  •^'  one  [person]  learns  languages  which  are  symbols  of  au- 
thority for  belonging  to  certain  groups;  ^'  [and  another  has]  an  intuitive 
sense  of  form  as  such,  '^s  or  an  intuition  that  the  language  may  later 
become  important  [to  him].  [Each  person  engages  in  the  same  activity, 
but  under  the  sway  of  a  different  "authority."]  ^^  Each  "authority"  de- 
rives its  strength  from  compensated  or  sublimated  libido  impulses  - 
[presumably]  in  a  genetic  fashion,  [although  we  do  not  know  exactly 
how  this  works.]'^ 

""^  Jung's  classification  into  functional  types  has  been  criticized,  and 
justly  so.  "■'■  ^^^  "^^  [Taken]  at  face  value  the  classification  is  absurd,  be- 
cause its  criteria  are  not  comparable.  "^^  (It  is  like  [comparing]  a  red 
house  and  a  gabled  barn.)  hi,  md  g^^-  ^g  should  be  charitable  of  the 
types  nevertheless,  for  they  are  very  valuable  in  that  they  emphasize  the 
authoritative  stamp  in  one's  wish  for  the  reality  of  an  experience.  "''^ 
Thus  they  stamp  the  kind  of  thing  that  gives  things  reality  to  people.  ■"' 
In  which  kind  of  experience  does  value  predominantly  reside?  This  is 
what  Jung  really  asks.  Where  Freud,  moralistically,  explains  a  malad- 
justed person  by  what  has  happened  to  him,  Jung  wishes  to  know  how 
a  person  works. 


Two:   r/ic  Pwiholoi^y  of  (iilinrc  567 

''  [II  slunilJ  he  iiolcJ  iVoiii  ihc  siart,  however,  that  ihe  classification) 
must  be  redetined  and  reiiileiiireled.  '•''  '■'• ''  Junii's  disliiictioii  between 
rational  and  irrational  cerlanil\  has  to  be  redefined,  [and  we  shall  come 
to  this  shorth].  '•''  Putting  the  feeling  and  the  tlnnknig  types  together 
seems  to  be  his  most  iini^oilanl  conn  ibulion;  '^  the  contrast  between 
the  sensational  and  the  rational  is  also  important,  [with  its  corollary 
that]  '-  ''  the  rational  (intellectual)  and  feeling  concepts  nuisi  be  con- 
trasted Willi  the  sensational  concept.  •"•^'^•M'^i.  ri  x|-,t.  iniuitne  concept. 
howexer.  I  beliexe  is  on  a  differeiU  plane  from  ihe  oilier  three.  '*'•  and 
needs  to  be  seen  as  cross-cutting  the  other  three  classes.  ''• '~  It  applies 
to  the  rate  of  acti\ity  or  adjustment  rather  than  the  kind  of  values. 

'"'■'  [Even  more  than  the  intro\erl/e.\tra\ert  t>pes.J  these  types  are  rar- 
ely found  in  their  pristine  purilv.  [Still,  lei  us  examine  them  more  close- 

( 1 )  '-  ''  "^^"^  The  sensory  type  is  the  person  who  places  a  great  deal  ol 
emphasis  on  sensory  experiences,  and  whose  preferred  \alues  spring 
from  experiences  of  a  sensual  order,  '-  such  as  eating  and  the  palatal 
tastes,  or  the  use  of  colors.  "^^^  The  significances  of  sensation  are  \er\ 
real,  especially  to  children.  Later  in  life,  of  course,  sensation  becomes 
symbolized;  but  when  sensation  [itself]  becomes  significant  you  ha\e  a 
peculiar  type  of  person.  ''-•  '"'■^'^  From  the  Freudian  standpoint  the  sen- 
sory type  seems  to  be  somewhat  of  an  arrested  i\pe  i.  e..  ihey  do  not 
show  the  normal  sentiments.  Freud  would  say  that  ihe  sexual  interests 
of  these  people  are  prematurely  sublimated  in  sensors  impressions,  or 
on  a  sensory  basis.  '-  [Thus  the  type  is  not  based  on  learning;]  a  person 
from  a  very  dull  background  might  grow  into  a  \ery  sensation-[on- 
ented]  person,  when  the  libido  [is  sublimated  in  this  wax]  when  emo- 
tion enters  into  the  sensational  value,  and  it  grows  (as  is  p(>ssible)  into 
a  fetish.  .lung  believes  that  the  sensational  value  might  take  the  place 
of  thought,  if  the  person  is  given  to  sensing.'    not  thinking. 

■"-  When  Jung  says  this  type  is  irrational,  he  probably  refers  to  dis- 
equilibrated  action.  ''  ""^  1  would  say,  rather,  that  it  is  disoriented  -  loo 
greatly  isolated  from  the  totality  of  the  problems  o\'  life.  ''  One  cannot 
adjust  well  to  life  on  the  basis  oi  these  [sensory]  values  only.  ^^  If  you 
establish  your  values  on  a  sensory  basis  you  are  dealing  with  a  limited 
world.  ^'^  The  organization  o(  pure  sensation  is  irrational  because  it  dixrs 
not  connect  you  with  the  world  an  emotional  world  disintegrates  into 
the  sensational.  ''  "'^  The  reason  why  such  a  person  can  adiust  and 
survive  at  all  is  that  society  has  placed  value  on  his  \alues  It  \alues 
[the  sensory]  to  such  an  extent  that,  if  he  is  good  in  his  limited  field. 


568  ///   Culture 

socictN  uill  pav  him  for  his  product.  ^'^  If  not  he  has  a  serious  personal 
problem  ([as  we  often  see  with  the]  artist  or  musician,  for  example). 

^^  C^ilture  is  selective  as  to  [its  emphasis  on]  sensory  values.  At  some 
periods  in  some  cultures,  no  value  is  given  to  them.  ^^  [Usually,  how- 
e\er,l  some  sensations  have  a  social  validation  of  [their]  meaning,  in 
terms  of  convention,  tradition,  or  literature  (e.  g.,  the  scent  of  the  rose, 
^^  which  [combines]  sensation  plus  a  culturally  left-over  "aura"  in  Per- 
sian poetry  and  in  the  Romantic  period).'^  ^^  other  sensations,  how- 
ever, have  only  a  private  meaning,  and  the  individual  swayed  by  their 
authority  is  the  [real  examplar  of]  the  [sensory]  type.  The  artist  is  typi- 
cal.'''  '''  Thus  there  is  a  social  side  to  sensations,  ^^  a  "social  history"  to 
them,  while  the  callous  person  who  yields  to  the  authority  of  a  collec- 
tion of  private  sensations  is  self-indulgent,  lacking  social  integration  or 
social  sympathy.  ^^  Insofar  as  sensations  are  [only]  privately  validated, 
and  because  of  the  inherent  disjunction  of  the  various  sense  qualities, 
the  sensational  world  is  inherently  an  irrational  or  unordered  one. 

■■'•'-  As  Jung  says,  this  type  can  be  intelligent.  Its  irrationahty  -  '-'' 
and  the  sensory  type  always  has  some  quality  of  fragmentariness  and 
irrationality  -  ''  [lies  only  in  its  preference  for]  sensory  values  instead 
of  sentiments.  "^^  These  people  follow  their  sensory  values,  which  are  not 
the  same  as  the  sentimental  values.  "'^-''^  (Most  human  sentiments  are 
really  cultural  artifacts,  compulsions  of  a  secondary  nature.)  [Yet,  it 
might  be  worth  remembering  that  what  we  often  call]  '"^'  ''^'  ^^  intelligence 
is  really  an  after-the-event  concept,  a  descriptive  term  applied  after  an 
individual  has  achieved  a  certain  success. 

(2)  '■^-  ■■-•  ■■'•  ^'  [In  contrast  to  the  sensory  type,  we  have  tho]  feeling 
type,  which  I  believe  to  be  the  normal  ^*  and  most  common  ^^^  ^^^  ■■'  type 
of  adjustment.  Jung  calls  this  type  "rational;"  ''2'  ■■•  however,  [these  peo- 
ple] are  actually  in  the  grip  of  sentiment  and  feeling.  '■^'  "^^  They  are 
"rational"  only  in  that  their  thinking  is  tightly  organized  in  the  system 
of  sentiments  they  have  built  up.  "^  [Their]  whole  world  of  experience  is 
organized  according  to  feeling,  ^s-  '^'-  ^^  derived  ultimately  from  love  and 
hate,  husbanded  and  organized.  ■■'  Everything  is  fitted  into  [this  system 
ofj  evaluation  -  ""^  the  person's  feeling  is  completely  implicative.  "^^ 
Those  who  feel  their  way  through  experience,  attaching  a  segment  of 
love  or  hate  to  everything,  cover  the  universe.  There  is  nothing  fragmen- 
tary about  their  attack.  ^^^  ^i  Where  there  is  a  high  degree  of  organiza- 
tion, as  for  example  in  [the  case  of]  Bismarck,  this  is  probably  traceable 
to  a  stable  and  satisfying  emotional  adjustment  worked  out  in  infancy. 


Two:  The  Psycholuiiy  <V  (  ulturc  569 

r2.  ck.  ri  jY^Q  normal  chiki  Ii\cs  in  very  much  this  kind  of  world,  where 
everything  has  an  aura  dI"  emotional  \alue.  |liut  most  pei>ple  do  not 
retain  this  system  in  its  entirety  in  adulthot)d.|-'"  ''  In  language,  for 
example,  every  word  has  emoiional  \alucs  according  to  its  associations, 
•'  ^"^  but  children  must  di\est  themselves  of  emotion  towards  words  as 
they  grow  up.  "  Indeed,  the  whole  o\^  culture  is  pervaded  by  feeling 
[associations  in  this  way.]  '^^''  Not  all  indi\iduals  are  able  to  break  up 
this  organization  -  this  "highly  organized  feeling"  that  grous  up  in  the 
mind  o^  the  individual.  Thus,  for  cxami-tlc.  if  a  person  is  bri>ught  up 
and  is  li\  ing  in  a  certain  cultural  environment,  his  attitude  toward  other 
cultures  and  environments  must  necessarily  be  prejudiced  and  moulded 
by  the  general  ideas  prevailing  in  his  own  culture.  Hence  the  i>rigm  and 
use  of  such  terms  as  "tricky  Oriental,"  "heathen  Chinee."'  He  thmks 
he  could  not  have  got  this  without  direct,  sober  experience,  but  as  a 
matter  of  tact  it  is  quite  illogical. 

^^  [Actually,  one's  attitude  toward  other  cultures  might  e\en  make  a 
suitable]  test  [distinguishing  the  feeling  type  o\'  personalit>  from  the 
thinking  type.]  In  response  to  a  [request]--  to  grade  a  list  of  nationalities 
in  terms  of  likes,  the  feeling  type  usually  does  this  easily,  probably  in 
terms  of  the  emotional  experiences  of  infancy  and  childhood,  lor  exam- 
ple, the  Hindu  is  disliked  because  of  an  association  with  unpleasant 
infantile  experiences,  and  so  on.  The  thinking  type,  howe\er.  seeing  no 
reason  for  one  preference  rather  than  another,  tliuls  this  [task]  ditTi- 
cult.)--' 

r2.  ri.ck  jyiig'v^  [tvm  "rational"  [for  this  l\pc].  therefore,  means  scaled 
according  to  emotions.  '-  These  people  have  a  complete  attitude 
towards  the  world,  but  little  to  say  about  it.  as  they  feel.  [In  fact,  what 
they  say  may  derive  only  from  a  superficial  rationalization  and  not 
represent  their  fundamental  attitude  at  all.]-"^  '''  The  declared  opinions 
of  intellectual  people  are  not  [to  be]  taken  too  seriously,  except  in  a  feu 
rare  cases.  Sometimes  such  people  are  apparenil\  quite  radical,  whereas 
in  fact,  they  are  conservative.  ^'^  The  realitx  of  the  ratuMial  "feeling"  life 
(as  Jung  expresses  it)  may  be  exemplified  b\  [the  case  ol]  a  friend  o\' 
mine  -  a  man  who,  for  example,  talks  loud  and  long  against  prnate 
schools,  yet  he  sends  his  son  to  one.  [The  other  da>]  he  spoke  \er\ 
vehemently  against  the  proposal  ol  dropping  Latin  as  a  graduation 
requirement,  but  when  asked  for  the  reason  for  his  stand,  said  he  did 
not  know  wh\  he  felt  so.  ''^  Dr.  Samuel  .lohnson  is  [another]  goiKJ  excun- 
ple.  Though  his  philosophy  was  [acluall\  nonsense. j-"^  ne\erlheless  b\ 
his  d\naniic  personalil\  he  managed  \o  magnetize  his  circle  (>f  admirers. 


570  ///   Ciilnnv 

[In  its  purer  forms  this  kind  o\  adjustment  is  not  untroubled.]  ' '  [A 
complete)  loyalty  to  feeling  judgements  [can  be  a]  strain.  '-  ''  The  desire 
for  tra\el  and  other  escape  mechanisms,  for  example,  is  due  to  the  fa- 
tigue that  comes  with  too  great  a  load  of  feeling. 

"(3)  '-•  ^i^-  •'  The  thud  type  is  the  intellectual  type,  whose  genesis  is  in 
the  desire  to  soKe  problems.  ^^-  '^'  He  finds  unity  and  interest  in  verbal- 
ization m  conquering  the  world  and  winning  admiration  through  the 
displa>  of  \erbal  facility,  rationalizations,  and  command  of  the  thought 
processes.  *''  [He  tries  to]  understand  the  world  in  [purely]  rational 
terms,-"  ^^'  thinking  the  whole  world  will  be  righted  if  [its]  illogical  errors 
are  onl\  pointed  out.  '''  He  is  the  man  who  is  calm  in  the  face  of  disas- 
ter, [for  the  situation's]  emotional  charge  is  defused:  he  takes  his  father's 
funeral,  for  instance,  as  an  opportunity  to  do  scientific  work.^^  '^^  •■'  In 
his  contacts  with  people,  he  divests  the  situation  of  its  emotion,  and 
thinks  onl\  o{  the  actual  situation.  ■■-•  ■■'  For  example,  he  treats  a  shop- 
keeper only  as  a  machine  for  solving  a  certain  [problem,  or  carrying 
out  a  certain]  function.  '-'^  If  you  go  through  life  thinking  of  people  only 
in  this  instrumental  sense,  you  have  no  free  flow  of  feeling  —  ^^^  '"^  only 
intellectual  attitudes  toward  functions.  ^"^  The  de-emotionalization  of 
the  objects  in  our  environment  is  an  intellectual  act.  You  build  up  a  rich 
world  of  observation  and  fact,  with  little  investiture  of  feeling.  But  you 
cannot  go  about  your  daily  business  as  though  you  were  handling  engi- 
neering problems. 

'^-  ''  In  fact,  a  good  deal  of  feeling  is  probably  attached  to  these 
intellectual  attitudes  by  a  secondary  process  of  rationalization.  '^^  Per- 
haps [the  whole  intellectualizing  process,  and  hence  the  personahty 
type.]  is  secondary.  Yet,  many  [people,]  and  not  [only]  intellectual  giants, 
are  of  this  type,  divesting  situations  of  [their]  emotional  [associations] 
and  thinking  of  people  in  an  instrumental  [way].-^  Often  what  passes 
as  feeling,  [for  them,]  is  only  an  intellectual  attachment  to  known  sym- 
bols of  feeling.  They  have  only  an  intellectual  attitude  toward  functions, 
never  [actual]  feelings. 

''  Rigorously  thinking  out  [a  problem,]  and  systematizing  according 
to  feeling,  have  the  same  organizing  quality.  ''^  [Perhaps  we  should  say 
that]  Jung's  contribution  [is  to  describe  personality  as]  organization,  '"'' 
'-  [for  the  discussion  of]  these  three  types  has  stressed  the  organizational 
aspect.  Each  of  them  builds  up  a  tight,  complete  attitude  toward  beha- 
vior and  the  universe.  [In  a  sense]  they  try  to  be  consistently  reasonable. 
Actually,  of  course,  type  2  and  type  3  are  interrelated.  '^  A  child  starts 
out  with  a  feeling  attitude  toward  life,  and  gradually  takes  over  much 


Two:   riif  rsviholnvv  nl  Ciilnii,'  ^""1 

of  the  inlellectual  allitiidc.  ''  Irom  a  J\iKimK  siandpoint,  these  two 
types  stand  togellier. 

hi.  ih.  he.  nui  [j,^  .,  v,^.,!^^.  loo.]  the  iiilelliLieiKe  o\  ihe  ihiiikmy  i\pc  is 
dei"i\ali\e  c^f  fcai".  In  essence,  this  inteihgenee  is  nothing  more  than  the 
alert  response  to  a  danger  stinuihis  or.  better  put.  it  is  a  highly  clabiv 
rated,  exaggerated,  sublimated  response  to  an\iet\  situations,  such  as 
the  anxiety  to  eontrol  the  emironment.  ''^  Consider,  lor  example,  the 
person  who  sleeps  little  and  wakes  early,  so  as  not  to  be  "caught  nap- 
ping": fear  is  the  basis  [of  his  beha\it>ial  pattern].  Consider  also  the  fact 
that  among  the  members  of  a  secure  social  class  like  the  I:nglish  gentry, 
where  there  is  no  anxiety  about  position  or  future,  there  is  to  be  found 
great  stupidity.  Intelligence,  therefore,  is  a  method  of  controlling  one's 
environment,  due  to  fear  or  anxiet\  motixations. 

'■"'^  [It  is  not  just  that  there  is  a  "thinking  type,"  then,  but  that]  effective 
adjustment  takes  the  form  of  thought.  ^^-  ' '  There  are  two  appriKiches 
to  the  intellectual  type:  its  rational  adjustment,  on  the  one  hand  (the 
well-adjusted  aspect  of  this  type),  and  the  denudation  o\'  emotional 
content,  on  the  other.  '^^'^  Really  they  are  both  the  same  things.  |but 
looking  at  the  type  in  terms  of  emotional  denudation  shows  us  that  >ou 
cannot  be  well  adjusted  if  you  carry  this  attitude  to  an  extreme],  feelmg 
and  thinking  go  together;  [for  the  best  adjustment,  you]  must  get  an 
equilibrium  between  them.  '^'  Thus  the  feeling  and  thinking  types  are 
normally  conjoined.  Criminals,  who  are  often  found  no\  to  possess 
much  feeling,  are  emotionally  underdeveloped. 

'■"'^  Generally  one  thinks  and  feels  at  the  same  time.  ''  \\m  are  uncon- 
scious of  when  you  are  doing  the  one  and  when  the  other,  and  >ou 
often  do  both  together.  '-^-  '^'  But  as  thought  has  more  prestige  value 
than  feeling,  we  call  a  lot  of  things  thought  that  are  realh  feeling.  ^- 
Thinking  is  often  used  to  rationalize  emotions,  also.  It  is  therefore  the 
feeling  type  that  tries  to  be  most  reasonable.  '^'  That  is,  those  who  [most 
strongly]  insist  they  are  reasonable  are  often  most  bound  by  feelmg.  On 
the  other  hand,  intellectuals  often  act  casual  because  the>  are  afraid  o{ 
being  too  reasonable. 

[Actually,  our  conception  oi'  fcc/liii^  is  perhaps  itself  ambiguous.)  '''• 
ri.  r2.  qq  |^  i^,^'^  feeling  that  people  differ  in.  but  emotion,  ''• '-  which  is 
merely  the  use  and  expression  o\'  feeling  in  behaMor.-"'  ''  Our  capacity 
for  emotion  is  physiologically  the  same,  just  as  a  man  sitting  on  a  chair 
all  day  has  muscles  though  he  does  nol  use  them.  However,  what  a 
person  does  with  enunic^n  is  a  different  thing  An  emotional  stale  is  ihc 
mental  correlate  of  [physical]  acti\it\;  Jtluis  he  ma\   make  use  of  his 


572  III  Culture 

capacity  for  emotion  or  not].  "■'• '~  Many  people  tend  to  stifle  emotion 
although  they  have  a  great  amount  of  feeling.  '^  Yet,  there  are  also  those 
who  may  seem  insincere  because  their  [expression  of]  emotion  seems 
excessive.  [Paradoxically,]  the  point  [at  which  we  interpret  an  emotional 
state  as]  indifference  is  not  far  from  [the  point  of  greatest]  expressive- 
ness. 

'^''  Actually  there  may  be  more  emotion  stored  up  in  the  unresponsive 
individual,  because  the  expression  of  feeling  probably  releases  emotion. 
''  Those  who  are  wont  to  show  feeling  in  the  ordinary  [course  of  their 
daily  life]  do  not  store  up  emotional  energy.  An  ordinarily  stolid  person 
may  suddenly  "blow  up,"  '*'•  while  those  who  express  feeling  a  great 
deal  may  actually  often  be  quite  callous.  "■'  We  should  not  confuse  emo- 
tion and  feeling,  therefore.  "^"^  Jung  seems  to  make  this  distinction,  but 
perhaps  it  is  not  very  clear. 

[Before  continuing  with  Jung's  fourth  type,  which  I  believe  in  any 
case  is  not  on  the  same  plane  as  the  other  three,  let  us  reconsider  his 
division  of  types  into  "Rational"  and  "Irrational."  As  I  have  suggested,] 
ch.  ii.  hi.  bg.  lb  ^hat  he  calls  "rational"  and  "irrational"  personalities  could 
better  be  explained  as  "organized"  and  "unorganized,"  ^^  a  more  useful 
terminology  which  avoids  the  paradox  detracting  from  Jung's.  [Jung's 
terms  are  too  easily  confused  with  rationalization  and  reasoning,  labels 
that  apply  primarily  to  his  third  type,  yet]  ""^  his  "feeling  type"  being 
classified  as  "rational"  is  an  important  contribution  that  he  has  to 
make. 

'-  [Jung's]  rational  vs.  irrational,  [then,  is  not  a  question  of  intellectu- 
alism  but]  a  question  of  organization  and  implications.  ^§  Organization 
means  harmony,  the  integration  of  a  well-systematized  universe,  where 
taste  and  experience  are  blended  through  the  intricacy  and  closeness  of 
association.  '^'  We  [all]  read  order  into  experience,  [and  select  certain 
events  as  our]  points  of  reference  [for  that  order,  but  the  points  of 
reference  differ,  as  does  the  ultimate  coherence  and  accessibility  of  the 
system  built  upon  them.]  For  the  mystic  who  craves  a  divine  order,  the 
buzzing  of  a  bee  mirrors  the  rhythm^^^  of  the  Universe;  [but  other  people 
will  not  evaluate  the  bee  sound  in  the  same  way.]  ^-  People,  things,  and 
events  have  implications,  but  not  for  everyone,  ^i  if  the  sequences  of 
events  by  which  you  establish  order  have  only  private  meanings,  '^  and 
if  you  work  on  these  implications  instead  of  reahties,  you  will  be  boring 
and  you  will  hurt  everyone's  feelings.  This  is  the  "irrational"  person,  to 
Jung's  way  of  thinking.  He  is  often  led  by  motives  unknown  to  [the  rest 
of]  us,  havmg  a  kind  of  necessity  that  leads  him  to  do  it.  It  has  nothing 


Two:  ihc  J'.svchulo^y  oj  Culture  573 

to  do  with  being  right  or  wrong,  it  is  [just]  his  preferred  method  of 
proceeding. 

•"-  The  thinking  tiial  insists  on  organization  is  ratunial.  [whether  or 
not  it  has  anything  to  {\o  with  intellectual  matters.  Indeed,  the  success 
of  our  adaptation  to  society  itself  requires  some  measure  o{  this  kind 
of  thinking.]  The  demands  that  society  makes  are  highly  cugam/ed.  and 
it  is  hard  for  some  people  to  keep  track  of  this  organization,  although 
it  is  easy  for  others.  Take  the  example  of  giving  parties  and  inviting 
people:  [knowing  just  what  sort  of  party  to  give,  and  whom  to  in\ite. 
has  actually  quite  a  complicated  social  basis,  and  some  people  are  much 
more  attuned  to  these  social  intricacies  than  others  are.] 

^'^  What  Jung  calls  the  "irrational"  type,  [then,  as  we  have  seen.)  is 
not  irrational  [in  the  sense  of]  emotional  [(as  contrasted  uiih  reason- 
ing)]. What  Jung  means  is  a  kind  of  irrationality  that  comes  in  the  life 
of  sensation  and  intuition.  [It  has  to  do  with  the  completeness  and 
coherence  of  the  world  one  builds  up.]  One  cannot  build  up  an  [unfrag- 
mented]  world  out  of  sensation,  and  hence  [the  sensational]  type  is  irra- 
tional. [But  Jung's  assumption  that  he  is  dealing  with  basic  tvpes  o^ 
thought  tendencies  presents  some  difficulties  -]  '^'  perhaps  he  has  made 
too  much  of  this  thought  business. ""  ""^^  [First  of  all,]  it  should  be  remem- 
bered that  Jung's  primary  classification  is  on  the  conscious  le\el.  [M*t. 
much  of  our  discussion  of  feeling,  rationalizing,  and  so  forth  has  con- 
cerned an  unconscious  level  as  well  -  and  the  possibility  of  a  dilTerence 
in  the  "authorities"  governing  the  two.  Moreover,  Jung  does  not  attend 
to  the  influence  of  the  cultural  configuration,  and  the  sociological  real- 
ity, to  which  the  individual  adapts.]^-  '^  In  spite  of  his  terminology  and 
the  great  number  of  his  categories,  [this  question  of]  social  and  cultural 
[adjustment]  gives  us  some  left-over  unclassituibles.  [To  cite  examples 
we  gave  earlier,  there  is  a  great  difference  between]  the  Persian  poet,  or 
poet  of  the  [European]  Romantic  period,  [whose  valuing  of  sensations) 
is  socially  integrated  [and  has  a]  social  history,  and  the  callous,  self- 
indulgent,  [or  more  truly  rebellious]  person  who  yields  to  the  auihi>niy 
[only  of  his]  collection  of  private  sensations.  '*'  If  the  individual  rests 
upon  [private]  sensational  points  o\'  reference,  he  is  a  law  unto  himself, 
escaping  socializing  forces. -^^  "^'^  Such  people  are  irrational  because  ihe> 
are  injecting  fresh  valuations  that  are  not  accepted  bv  the  majority. 
[But  Jung's  classification  does  not  leave  room  for  considering  social 
acceptability,  or  the  ways]  sensation  becomes  ssmbolized. '' 

[Similar  questions  of  acceptability  arise  elsewhere  in  the  classifica- 
tion.] ^'  Reasoning  is  not  far  from       and  nnght  [e\en]  be  the  same  as 


574  ///   Cuhure 

-  rationalization,  the  ditVerence  [lying  only]  in  [our]  acceptance  of  [their 
product:  that  is,]  the  acceptance  of  "reasoning''  and  non-acceptance 
o{  -raiionali/ation;'  '-  Reasoning  people  rationalize  everything.''-'^  We 
rationalize  about  ihc  superiority  of  man  over  animals;  a  premise  such 
as  this  is  so  universal  that  it  is  accepted  by  all,  and  as  soon  as  someone 
questions  it  we  rationalize  it.  [The  contrast  between  the  feeling  type  and 
the  tlunking  type  is  therefore  much  less  obvious,  in  practical  terms,  than 
Jung  supposes.] 

(4)  '-■  ^''-  '^  [Jung's]  fourth  type  is  the  intuitive  type,  '^  not  quite  "irra- 
tional" and  unordered  as  Jung  would  have  it,  but  a  new  dimension  - 
*"*=  a  difference  o^  mode  and  rate  of  apprehension,  as  compared  with 
ordinary  comprehension;  '^  or,  alert  thinking,  as  opposed  to  laborious 
thinking.  '''•  "'"^  When  we  say  a  person  is  a  "good  thinker,"  we  [may] 
mean  two  contradictory  things:  one  is  alertness  and  rapid  apprehension; 
the  other  is  the  rational  configuration,  the  slow,  plodding  [process]  of 
integrative  thought.  The  fast  [kind]  is  what  Jung  [calls]  intuiting.  ^^  Ac- 
cording to  Jung,  it  means  a  direct  apprehension  -  without  thought  - 
o\'  total  relations,  due  to  the  operation  within  the  individual  of  a  pri- 
mordial sense  of  integration.  Animals  are  good  examples:  they  often  act 
intelligently  without  being  intelligent. 

'-• ''  The  intuitive  person  is  imaginative:  he  has  a  chronic  inability  to 
see  things  as  they  really  are  -  "^"^  [that  is,]  to  see  something  and  see 
nothing  more;  he  sees  ahead  to  potentiahties.^^  ""^^  ""^  '^''  '^^  As  an  illustra- 
tion, [suppose  you]  see  two  lines,  [as  in  Figure  2:] 


[FIG.  2] 

If  you  imagine  the  point  at  which  the  two  lines  meet,  you  are  using 
mtuition.  ^'  The  mathematician  [is  an  extreme  of  this  type:  when  he 
suggests  that]  parallel  lines  meet  in  infinity,  he  sees  the  point  rather  than 
the  lines  -  by  mathematical  intuition,  ^i.  ib  [Qr  we  might  say  that]  the 
mtuitive  mind  is  an  historical  mind,  aware  of  all  the  relations  that  are 
locked  up  m  the  given  configuration.^^  n,  n  intuitive  people  look  ahead, 
and  foresee  their  acfions,  while  non-intuifive  people  are  afraid  of  impli- 
cations, and  stay  with  their  sensations.  Intuitives  are  symbolic,  ''  for 


Two:  The  Psviholoiiv  dl Culture  -"'-' 

they  cannot  sec  onl\   the  facts  prcscnlcJ  as  such.  "   \o\-  ihc  miuilivc 
type  the  awareness  is  o\'  relations  and  not  of  entities  so  much. 

qq.  ck,  ri  j\^^  (Jnitcd  Statcs  may  be  considered  as  having  an  miuilivc 
culture.  ■'  [at  least]  in  the  technical  sense-**^  -  "«''  always  pro)eclmg  a 
lillie  more  than  can  reall\  be  managed,  taking  a  chance,  risking  a  lot 
in  an  attempt  to  realize  some  ideal.  ' '  Vou  take  chances  in  order  lo  "gel 
in  on  the  ground  Hoor.''  ''''• ''  A  good  politician  must  be  intuitise:  he  is 
not  interested  in  the  status  quo  [for  its  own  sake,  but  onl\  in)  using  ii 
as  a  starting  point  for  changes  hereafter.  ''"•  ''•^'^  The  successful  business- 
man and  the  successful  playwright  must  both  be  intuitive,  seeing  and 
displaying  the  implications  [of  a  situation].  ^^  ''^i  A  great  playwright  has 
to  be  intuitive  because  he  has  such  a  short  time  to  put  o\er  his  ideas. 
A  good  actor,  too,  must  be  aware  of  the  implications  or  he  can  spoil 
the  playwright's  play.  "^"^  Hence  some  great  poets  write  poor  plays,  be- 
cause they  are  too  much  intoxicated  by  the  sensory  elements  \o^  the 
situation].  '^^'  "■'■  ^''  Some  poets  are  intuitive,  like  Shelley  and  Blake  - 
an  intuitive  person  would  like  Shelley  as  a  poet  -  while  others  are  not. 
like  the  unintuitive  Keats,  who  takes  a  sensory  delight  in  words  and 
confines  himself  to  their  sensory  richness. 

ck,  qq.  ri.  t2  j]^^  intuitive  person  therefore  must  be  defined  not  b\  the 
nature  of  his  values,  but  by  his  degree  of  awareness  o'(  a  situation's 
implications,  and  his  rate  of  response  [to  them].  '^'  '-•  ^'^  There  is  no 
content  to  intuition  —  it  is,  rather,  a  way  of  responding  to  a  situation. 
^s  Whatever  its  genesis,  intuition  is  the  direct  awareness  o\'  relations. 

^^  Here,  however,  [we  must  propose]  a  modification  of  Jung's  \iew.  ^^ 
"^^  While  Jung  believes  the  intuitive  type  must  be  defined  as  a  [separate) 
intellectual  faculty,  '^  a  more  primordial  kind  of  apperception,  to  me  it 
is  a  phenomenon  of  rate  of  apprehension  -  "shorthand  thinking."  in 
which  minor  elements  merely  don't  appear  explicilK  in  the  conscunis- 
ness.  "'  The  intuitive  mechanism  [is  rather  like  the  intellectual  equivalenl 
of]  getting  on  the  night  train  at  Washington  and  awaking  to  find  \our- 
self  in  New  Haven,  [without  being  conscious  of  the  points  in  between.) 
bg.  md  J  believe  that  intuition  is  better  to  be  conceived  as  a  matter  o\' 
general  awareness  of  implications  and  relations,  w  hich  extends  into  ail 
spheres  of  mental  activity.  ^^  It  is  a  third  dimension  in  individuals'  cog- 
nitive-feeling life,  [or  perhaps]  more  a  quantitative  ciMicepi  than  a  term 
to  be  applied  to  a  special  sphere  of  experience.  ^"^  ^'ou  can  ha\e  iniuiiives 
of  all  sorts,  so  this  is  [really]  a  criterion  of  a  dilTerenl  kind. 

'-•  "  Because  intuition  is  [in  large  measure]  merely  a  matter  o^  rale, 
and  the  degree  to  which  implications  o\'  lorm  are  made.  I  would  not 


576  f^i  Culture 

[consider]  it  as  a  special  [personality]  type.  I  would  prefer  Thinking 
Intuitive,  Keeling  Intuitive,  Sensational  Intuitive,  etc.,  ^^  for  one  can 
well  speak  o(  uuuilion  in  sensation,  in  thought,  or  in  feeling.  "^^^  ^2,  ri,  ck 
Even  within  sensory  experience  there  may  be  intuitive  acts:  ^^  an  exam- 
ple o^  an  intuitive  sensationalist  would  be  an  expert  cook  who  can  pro- 
ject the  result  o'i  combining  [taste  ingredients  to  create  a  new  dish,]  ^^' 
ri.  ck.  hj:  ^^p  .J  musical  composer  imaginatively  reconstructing  or  planning 
ideal  sensory  experiences,  '^  like  Beethoven's  almost  obsessive  search 
for  the  perfect  theme.  (Much  of  life,  however,  is  spent  in  inhibiting  [this 
kind  ol]  intuition.) 

qq.  ri.  lb  |p  j^^j  [^Q  ^^me  way  there  is  emotional  intuition,  and  intellec- 
tual intuition,  [the  latter  sometimes  in  conflict  with  non-intuitive  think- 
ing.] ^^  ■'  The  history  of  science  is  a  [continual]  battle  between  these 
two  points  of  view,  [which  we  may  call]  the  observationist  and  the  Ein- 
steinian  type  (^'  for  Einstein  is  collossally  intuitive,  intellectually):  '^'-  ""^ 
[the  type  that]  is  interested  in  the  unimaginative  observation  of  facts, 
and  [the  type  that]  is  interested  in  generalizations.  The  generalizations 
are  derived  from  facts,  but  once  a  generalization  is  reached,  the  facts 
are  disregarded  and  dismissed.  ^^-  '''^'  ^^^  "^^  The  most  obvious  instance  of 
intuitive  study  is  in  mathematics,  which  gives  one  structures  in  which 
to  fit  facts  until  finally  one  can  practically  neglect  the  facts  altogether. 
'^  Like  great  physicists  who  know  the  "critical"  tests  [to  make  before 
making  them,]  great  mathematicians  know  the  answers  before  they  are 
proven,  [by  a  process  of]  projection.  ^'  The  geologist  in  the  field  [is 
another  example  of  someone  with  an]  awareness  of  total  relations  with- 
out all  the  data  at  his  disposal. 

r2.  ri.ck,  lb  Intuition,  therefore,  means  an  ability  to  respond  to  implica- 
tions rather  than  to  experiences,  '^  without  [even]  attending  to  all  ele- 
ments of  the  situation. ^'^  [But  its  resuhs  are  not  always  pleasant  or  apt.] 
*''^-  '^  [The  extreme  intuitive,]  Ibsen's  Brand  for  example,  has  the  cruelty 
and  ruthlessness  of  the  idealist,  [always]  substituting  total  implications 
for  immediate  experience.  And  because  intuition  is  an  inexplicit,  unver- 
balized,  immediate  sense  of  relations,  [it  may  also  give  rise  to]  idiotisms. 
[The  intuitive's  thought  may  show]  a  sort  of  dissociation,  a  schizoid 
quality. 

[The  question  of  social  acceptability,  too,  is  no  less  relevant  to  the 
mtuitive  than  to  other  types  in  the  classification.]  ^i  [To  people  whose 
primary]  loyalty  is  to  experience,  [intuitives]  are  disloyal  Lloyd 
Georgers.  [On  the  other  hand,  since  society  requires  assumptions  that 
are  often  counter  to  particular  realities,]  '^  loyalty  to  reality  can  be  anti- 


Two:  The  Psychology  ojC'ulturc  577 

social,  as  opposed  to  a  loyalty  to  the  "rationar'  social  [principles].  ''••'^ 
Samuel  Butler's  The  Way  of  All  Flesh  [is  an  example  of  anti-social  dis- 
loyalty, in  its]  protest  against  the  bromide  that  parents  are  kind  to  ehil- 
dren. 


^i''  App/icanons  of  the  Types 

^'1- ''  [Let  us  consider  (as  Jung  does)]  some  applications  of  the  i\pes 
in  [philosophy  and  in]  literary  work.  ""^  According  to  Jung,  all  philo- 
sophers try  to  interpret  God  and  the  universe  according  to  the  thoughts 
and  ideals  of  their  early  training  and  view  of  life.  Thus  Bergsonism  is 
the  philosophy  of  the  sensational,  while  Dewey  and  James  are  very 
"thin"  philosophers  who  try  to  be  "hard-boiled."  [The  same  process  o\' 
personal  interpretation  applies  in  literature  as  well.]  "•'•  In  [the  work 
ot]  Anatole  France,  for  example,  the  intellectual  quality  appears  most 
conspicuously  at  the  outset;  the  contemporary  rele\ance  of  his  emo- 
tional adjustment,  his  revolt,  makes  it  more  and  more  difficult  to  enjoy 
his  works.  '•  There  is  too  much  emphasis  on  the  intellectual  machinery. 
qq,  ck,  r2  yj^g  samc  is  truc  of  Shaw,  who  is  primarily  an  intellectual  artist, 
expressing  no  feeling;  ^'i-  ^"•^' ' '  only  Shaw  is  still  more  pri\ate,  and  one 
cannot  identify  with  his  characters  except  as  ideas,  because  Shaw  him- 
self does  not  identify  with  them  -  he  simply  invents  them  as  ideas.  '' 
His  plays  are  a  little  hollow,  "^^  for  there  is  no  emotional  in\esimeni/" 
no  participation  in  universal  feelings.  ([A  work  that  does  so  participate 
can  therefore  transcend  its  time  and  place:]  Oedipus  is  still  of  great 
interest,  because  he  deals  with  human  feeling.) 

qq,  ck,  r2  Conrad,  on  the  other  hand,  shows  the  opposite  extreme  ot 
emphasis  on  the  immediate  reality  of  emotional  experience.  '-  He  is  all 
feeling  -  he  exhibits  no  intellect.  '^^'^-  '"  He  doesn't  understand  his  own 
characters  [in  an  intellectual  sense,]  but  rather  he  is  [just]  aciuali/ing 
himself,  for  he  has  not  transcended  his  own  personal  problems.  He 
over-feels  his  characters:  he  is  obsessed  with  Lord  Jim.  because  he  can 
never  get  away  from  his  own  anxiety.  [Perhaps]  Conrad  is  mmcing.  lor 
he  triturates  your  feelings  too  much.  Henry  James,  on  the  other  hand, 
would  like  to  feel  a  little  more  authentically  than  he  reall>  does 

qq,  ck,  i2,  ri  jj^  Kcats  wc  scc  a  scusoiy  poet,  but  one  whose  world  ot 
sensory  experience  is  heavily  laden  with  feeling.  Coleridge,  in  contrast. 
'^'^  though  his  "Rime  of  the  Ancient  Mariner''  is  classical  for  its  cvtKalivc 
value,  'i^-  '-'''•  '■-'  '^  has  less  feeling  attached  to  his  sensory  emphasis.  ^*< 


578  iii  Culture 

And  here  is  indicated  the  independence  of  this  valuational  classification 
tYom  the  extravert-introvert  classification,  ^'i-  '-  ^''-  ""^  For  Kipling  has 
perhaps  equally  a  sensory  emphasis,  but  it  is  quite  extravert  and  objec- 
ti\e.  whereas  Coleridge  is  an  introvert,  his  images  singularly  devoid  of 
realistic  content  or  context,  even  though  they  are  quite  clear.  ""^  Herein, 
perhaps,  lies  the  dilTerence  between  Coleridge  and  Kipling,  or  between 
Coleridge  and  Defoe,  Stevenson,  etc.  as  sensationalists.  Let  us  take 
D'Annunzio  and  Coleridge:  they  are  the  arch-examples  of  extravert  and 
introvert  sensationalists  respectively.  In  Coleridge's  "Ancient  Mariner" 
there  is  not  an  image  that  is  not  entirely  vivid,  and  yet  it  is  [somehow 
not  quite  real.]"^'  His  sensations  did  not  have  to  be  real  to  be  valid  for 
him.  but  only  the  image  of  his  sensations.  D'Annunzio,  on  the  other 
hand  (or  all  extravert  sensationalists),  takes  sensation  as  it  is  and  identi- 
fies himself  with  it.  Kipling  would  come  under  this  class  too."*- 

So  it  is  possible  to  be  maximally  sensationalistic  and  yet  introverted 
-  in  contradiction  of  Jung's  early  contention.  As  Lowes  showed,  Cole- 
ridge's images  came  almost  entirely  from  his  reading,  not  from  his  own 
imagination  or  his  own  sensory  experiences.  From  the  reading  which 
satisfied  his  desire  for  exotic  experience,  he  subjectively  reassembled  the 
imagery;  but  it  remains  literary,  not  re-evoking  one's  own  sensations. 
Unlike  Keats,  Coleridge  did  not  have  a  great  wealth  in  his  own  experi- 
ence of  sensations  that  were  interesting  to  him. 

[Now.  if  we  can  apply  Jung's  classification  to  philosophers  and  liter- 
ary figures,  might  we  not  also  apply  it  to  other  writers,  including  Jung 
himself?  Perhaps  a]  ^^  comparison  of  Jung  and  Freud,  [on  the  basis  of 
Jung's  typology,  might  shed  light  on  some  of  the  comments  that  have 
been  made  about  their  work.  Thus]  ""^  Jung,  being  of  an  intuitive  and 
not  of  the  intellectual  type,  and  also  having  difficulty  in  finding  words, 
has  a  rather  poor  machinery  [for  presenting  his  ideas].  (Language,  [we 
might  say,  supplies  the]  "engines"  in  the  theory  of  human  intercourse.) 
But  he  has  at  his  back  a  large  mass  of  rich  clinical  material  and  experi- 
ence. The  types  are,  [for  him,  a  kind  of]  preservation  of  the  ego;  he 
places  the  personality  in  a  world  of  values,  each  type  being  valuable  in 
its  own  world. 

Freud,  [in  comparison,]  has  a  clearer  idea  of  mechanisms.  More  sche- 
matic in  feeling,  he  disregards  the  self-preservative  organism  in  an  indi- 
vidual personality  -  and  so  he  kills  the  personality  in  dealing  with  it. 
Freud  is  a  better  theorist  and  scientist,  Jung  a  better  clinician.  A  criti- 
cism of  Freud  may  be  that  he  thinks  of  adjustment  as  a  simple  unilinear 
process,  when  in  reality  it  is  not  so."^^ 


Two:  riic  /'.sviholoi^v  of  Culture  579 

^^  [As  regards  thcl  opposition  lo  Jung  [within  psycholog\.  then 
whether  it  conies  trom  the  l-'reudian  school  or  elsewhere  -  )  there  is 
much  to  be  said  for  some  o(  his  opponents'  conclusions,  such  as  Jung's 
inability  to  link  up  his  theories  with  modern  psycholoiiical  lermmolo- 
gies.  But  he  is.  allcr  all.  a  clinical  physician  untrained  m  the  subtleties 
of  academic  psychology.  ^^  In  any  case,  the  present  task  is  to  build  up 
a  powerful  dynamic  psychology  that  will  function  as  an  instrument  o( 
analysis,  lliat  will  come  from  a  blending  o\'  psychoanal\sis  with  more 
formal  psychological  concepts. 


/  Siinmnirv  / 

1923J  xhose  who  have  read  Dr.  Jung's  "Collected  Papers  on  Analytical 
Psychology"  may  remember  that  in  an  earlier  tentative  classification  of 
types  he  was  disposed  to  identify  the  introverted  with  the  thinking,  the 
extraverted  with  the  feeling  type.  These  \ery  dubious  identifications 
have  now  been  abandoned  [in  his  more  recent  work.  Psyiholoi^lcal 
Types].  Dr.  Jung  is  perfectly  clear,  and  the  reader  will  be  with  him. 
about  the  independence  of  a  classification  based  on  general  attitude 
(extravert  and  introvert  types)  and  one  based  on  the  specific  functicMiing 
of  the  psyche.  Whether  Dr.  Jung's  theory  of  the  existence  o(  four  distinct 
functional  types  of  personality  is  correct  it  would  be  ditllcult  to  sa>.  It 
may  be  be  that  a  given  personality  tends  to  find  its  way  in  the  world 
chietly  by  aid  of  the  intellect,  of  emotion,  of  intuiti\e  processes,  or  o\' 
sensation;  [1  would  prefer  to  revise  this  scheme  somewhat.  But  even  if 
you  accept  it]  •'^--^'-  *-• ' '  it  would  be  dangerous  to  erect  the  eight  neatl\ 
sundered  types  that  result  from  a  crossing  of  the  two  points  o\'  view 
into  a  psychological  dogma.  ''^--'  We  may  be  quite  certain  that  such  a 
classification  is  too  scholastic  to  prove  entirely  scuind  and  workable. 

'''  [In  their  general  outline,  and  without  assuming  they  are  exhausii\c. 
Jung's  distinctions  among  personality  types  organized  on  the  basis  ol] 
sensation,  thought,  or  feeling  -  [cross-cut  by  the  dimension  ol]  intuition 
-  are  all  probable,  it  seems  to  me. "''  [Just  as  with  the  mtro\ert-e\tra\ert 
classitlcation,  however,]  most  of  this  [typology]  is  descriptive,  not  d\- 
namic.  [Were  we  to  try  to  explore  the  genesis  o\'  the  lyjX's.  we  would 
have  some  difficult  questions  to  answer,  including  the  relation  between 
the  two  classifications.]  ''^-  ''  Since  there  is  no  causal  relation  between 
Jung's  functional  types  and  the  introvert-extravert  tspes  (value  (types)), 
[do  they  have  an  entircl\  dilTcreni  genesis'.'] 


580  ^iJ  Culture 

'-  Probably  there  is  some  biological,  inherited  basis  for  [at  least  some] 
o\'  these  types.  They  are  not  entirely  caused  by  environment.  The  prob- 
lem is  what  \  allies  are  to  be  attached  to  different  kinds  of  phenomena, 
[and  how  does  that  association  arise]?  These  values  may  be  experiential, 
or  thc\  mav  be  a  product  of  one's  nervous  set-up.  ''''  The  introvert- 
extravert  [distinction]  answers  the  question  as  to  what  sort  of  world 
you  live  in.  based  on  [your]  unconscious  selection  from  the  world  of 
experience.  ''  [Perhaps  this  is]  due  to  environmental  determination, 
while  the  other  types  (feeling,  thinking,  etc.)  compare  more  with  the  old 
idea  of  innate  ability.  These  functional  types  [concern]  preferred  regions 
o\'  experience,  [based  on]  unconscious  selections,  [as  opposed  to  the] 
value  types."*"* 

'^'  As  an  example  of  [differences  in]  value  types,  [consider  two  possible 
approaches  to  the  study  of  language.  The  first  is  interested  in]  language 
as  an  abstract  [system  of]  meaning;  [the  second  goes]  beyond  language 
[to  what  we  experience  directly,  namely]  speech.  The  emphasis  on  one 
or  the  other  [is  a  difference]  in  content,  not  orientation  as  in  the  func- 
tional types.  The  field  of  speech  [includes  such  matters  as]  speech  mel- 
ody ([i.  e.,  is  the  melody  someone  uses]  in  a  sentence  when  talking  to 
you  characteristic,  [and  if  so,  of  what]?),  and  style  ([i.  e.,]  to  what  [char- 
acteristics] are  your  [choices  of)  sentences  or  words  attributed?  to  facil- 
ity, immaturity,  to  what  [you  have]  studied,  or  imitated?  [what  about 
your]  separation  of  words?)  [What  is  of  interest  here  is  the  totality  of] 
the  implications  and  significance  of  speech  and  gestures,  and  the  enor- 
mous implicative  power  of  individual  experience. 

[Although  the  two  analyses  seem  to  be  distinct,  the  study  of  language 
cannot  ultimately  rely  on  just  one  of  them.]  ^^^vh  ^jf|  personahty  is 
largely  retlected  in  the  choice  of  words  [(for  example),]  here  too  we 
must  distinguish  carefully  the  social  vocabulary  norm  from  the  more 
significantly  personal  choice  of  words.  Individual  variation  exists,  but 
it  can  be  properly  appraised  only  with  reference  to  the  social  norm. 
i927h  ^g  human  beings  do  not  exist  out  of  society;  on  the  other  hand, 
we  can  never  have  experience  of  social  patterns  as  such,  however  greatly 
we  may  be  interested  in  them,  ''^^vh  Society  speaks  through  the  indivi- 
dual. [One  or  another  approach  may  appeal  to  us  depending  on  our 
own  personality  type,  but  neither  has  an  absolute  claim  to  the  truth.] 

[Insofar  as  we  look  for  cultural  patterns  and  attend  to  individual 
experience  only  to  abstract  from  it,]  ""^  we  [anthropologists]  are  obtuse 
about  the  implications  of  personality  data.  '^^  '^  [But  are  the  psycholo- 
gists really  any  better  off?  For  all  their  attention  to  it,]  the  psychologists 


Two:  The  Psvcholoi^v  of  Culture  581 

miss  the  vital  pi\>blcm  o\'  pcrst)nalil\  the  total  \aluc  set-up  of  the 
individual  -  since  they  persist  in  stiid\ing  iVagnientary  ps\ehoiogical 
processes  [and  ignore  the  cultural  forms  in  terms  of  which  the  personal- 
ity meets  the  environment.]'*''  ''''^**''  Perhaps  we  social  scientists  who  are 
always  asking  psychologists  to  aid  us  can  be  o\'  assistance  ti>  them  m 
suggesting  reformations  o\'^  psychological  problems.  I  don't  think  il  is 
too  supercilious  to  suggest  that  the  borrowing  ncc(.\  not  be  all  on  one 
side. 


Editorial  Note 

Sapir  devoted  a  considerable  amount  oi'  lecture  lime  to  the  material 
in  this  chapter,  most  of  which  consists  of  a  review  and  critique  of  Jung's 
classification  of  personality  types.  In  1937  he  spent  at  least  three  lectures 
on  this  subject:  February  1,  March  1,  and  March  S.  It  liH^ks  likels  that 
there  was  another  lecture,  sometime  later  in  March,  in  which  he  ct>n- 
cluded  the  discussion  of  Jung  and  moved  on  to  culture  and  personalits, 
although  indications  in  the  student  notes  are  somewhat  confusing  (at 
this  point  some  of  the  notes  appear  to  be  out  of  order  and  they  lack 
dates).  In  1934  the  relevant  lectures  are  those  of  March  20  (second  half). 
April  10,  and  April  17.  The  Taylor  notes  from  1936  are  undated.  I  ha\e 
also  drawn  upon  the  Rockefeller  Seminar  lecture  o\'^  February  16,  1933. 
on  the  "Theory  oi'  Personality  Variations  (Jung  and  I'reud).*'  notes 
taken  by  T.  P.  Chitambar  (CH). 

The  reader  is  also  referred  to  Sapir's  review  of  .lung's  Psyclwhjiical 
Types  (1923J),  and  to  the  1926  Hanover  Conterence  paper,  "'Notes  on 
Psychological  Orientation  in  a  Given  Society"  (199Sa). 


Notes 

1.  Note  that  C'H  has:  "Jung's  study  is  a  personal  and  cau.sal  one  but  not  a  strictly  MTicniiric 
one." 

2.  BG  has  "set  ups." 

3.  Note  that  Sapir  does  not  necessarily  mean   'hcreditarN"  when  he  speaks  oi  the  "geneti- 
cally determined." 

4.  HI  has:  "apperception  -  varies  in  learning  -".  BG  has:  "Varying  scnsitiviiy  lo  ohjccls 
in  en\irtMinient." 

5.  HI  has  "identify"  (the  object,  not  the  self) 

6.  Here  meaning  "hereditary"? 

7.  The  review  of  Jung  actually  reads:  "Not  until  the  last  page  is  turned  hack  docs  one  full) 
realize  how  extraordinary  a  work  one  has  been  reading.  Il  is  oflen  dry.  it  is  somelimcs 


582  ill  Culture 

impossible  to  follow,  and  it  is  never  very  closely  reasoned,  for  Dr.  Jung  accepts  intuitively 
as  given,  as  elementary,  concepts  and  psychological  functions  which  others  can  get  at 
onl>  by  the  most  painful  oi  syntheses,  if  indeed  they  can  find  a  way  to  some  of  them  at 
all.  But  it  is  a  fascinating  book.'" 

8.  Rl  has:  "The  introvert  blots  out  the  environment  except  for  what  he  chooses  and  turns 
on  himself." 

9.  Rl  adds:  "Feeling  of  growth  with  denudation."  This  note  about  the  introvert  is  juxta- 
posed with:  "extravert;  identification  with  the  world  of  activity  (Value  in  face  of  denuda- 
tion of  personality)".  1  surmise  that  Sapir  meant  that  the  introvert  experiences  a  feeling 
of  growth  of  the  personality  with  denudation  of  the  environment;  the  extravert,  the 
reverse. 

10.  LB  adds:  "Formulae;  extravert  capitalist,  laissez-faire:  introvert  socialist,  small  sacrifice 
to  release  mean  of  expression  and  personality  freedom." 

11.  Rl  adds:  "Ibsens  "Brand"  -  introvert" 

12.  Roland  B.  Dixon  (1875-1934). 

13.  In  his  1926  presentation  to  the  SSRC  Hanover  Conference,  "Notes  on  Psychological 
Orientation  in  a  Given  Society"  (1998a),  Sapir  made  a  similar  point:  "It  [(compensation)] 
means,  then,  you  can't  tell  whether  a  person  is  extraverted  or  introverted  by  a  simple 
study  of  overt  behavior.  That  is  where  many  make  drastic  mistakes.  If  your  whole  culture 
is  extraverted,  it  has  a  bias.  Any  individual  has  to  be  very  extraverted  in  order  to  count 
as  extraverted.  Kinds  of  compensations  that  are  habitual  will  need  to  be  of  different 
types  in  different  individuals.  I  have  sometimes  arrived  at  conclusions  that  are  different 
than  those  overtly  suggested.  I  am  thinking  of  a  certain  individual  who  would  generally 
be  considered  introvert.  I  am  convinced  he  is  an  extravert.  He  is  playing  up  to  an  intro- 
verted society,  to  an  introverted  orientation  familiar  to  him  in  childhood.  His  compensa- 
tions are  of  a  kind  that  need  a  certain  kind  of  cultural  knowledge  to  understand.  If  you 
carry  these  ideas  to  a  logical  conclusion,  you  will  see,  alarmingly  enough,  that  psychol- 
ogy, psychiatry,  all  practical  things  we  are  interested  in  as  to  personality,  are  very  much 
more  involved  with  the  problems  of  social  science  than  we  had  thought." 

14.  This  word  actually  looks  like  "half-pie." 

15.  HI  has  "int."  (introvert,  etc.?) 

16.  BG  has:  "  -  in  genetic  fashion?"  Again,  Sapir  probably  means  "developmental." 

17.  T2  has  "feeling." 

18.  LB  has:  "Irrational  (unordered)  in  spite  of  terminology  and  great  number  of  categories 
give  us  socially  culturally  left-over  unclassifiables  for  some:  odor  of  rose  -  sensation, 
plus  'aura'  (Persian  poetry.  Romantic  Period)." 

19.  LB  has  "nativists." 

20.  The  bracketed  material  is  derived  from  a  later  statement  in  R2:  "A  child  starts  out  with 
a  feeling  attitude  towards  life,  and  gradually  takes  over  much  of  the  intellectual  attitude." 
See  below. 

21.  Here  Sapir  referred  his  audience  to  the  writings  of  Bret  Harte 

22.  BG  has  "plea." 

23.  BG  adds:  "Type  typography.  Perhaps  possible  to  diagram  this  by  getting  responses  in 
terms  of  definite  individuals  on  gamut  (1)  bowing  situations  -  friendly  thru'  to  formal; 
on  gamut  (2)  luncheon  situations,  inviting  individuals  to  lunch,  formal  or  informal  - 
and  linking  up  points  on  gamut  scale." 

24.  The  bracketed  insertion  is  based  on  the  following  material  from  CH  and  a  later  statement 
in  R2:  "Thinking  is  often  used  to  rationalize  emotions... It  is  therefore  the  feeling  type 
that  tries  to  be  most  reasonable."  BG,  too,  has:  "Feeling  type:  feelmgs  primary,  reasoning 
used  to  rationalize  feelings." 

25.  BG  has  "his  philosophy  punk,"  i.  e.  bunk'' 

26.  HI  adds:  "(A  R  Brown)." 


Two:  The  T.sycho/oi^y  of  (  uliurc  583 

27.  It  is  not  actually  clear  which  type  -  if  only  one   -  this  passage  in  HI  rcfcns  lo   It  read* 
as  follows;  "3   Warm  personality  -  man  who  is  calm  in  lace  of  disaster  -  lake  fs  funeral 
as  opp.  to  do  scientific  work  instead  (emotionality  in  control)  of  escape  from  work  - 
emotional  chge  defused  -  all  thought  animated  -   continually  emotional!)  charged 
fcclinfi  type  vs.  -  emotional  type:  (feeling  t\pe|  niM  nee.  emotional  -" 

28.  Rl  has:  "Divestment  of  situations  of  emotional  equipment  Iliinking  of  people  in  instru- 
mental strain." 

29.  It  is  clear  that  at  this  point  Sapir  distinguished  between  internal  emotion  and  its  expres- 
sion, but  the  notes  contradict  each  other  as  to  which  of  these  he  called  "emotion"  and 
which  "feeling."  Thus  R2  has:  "People  diflcr  in  emotion  rather  than  in  feeling  limotion 
is  mciel\  the  expression  of  feeling...",  while  C"K  has:  "It  isn't  emotii>n  that  people  differ 
in  but  feeling,  the  use  and  expression  of  emotion  in  behavior."  QQ  has:  "If  leeling  is  the 
free  use  of  emotion,  then  it  is  in  feeling  that  people  differ  significantly."  Rl  has  both 
R2's  "People  differ  in  emotions  rather  than  in  feeling.  Emotion  is  merely  the  exprc-ssion 
of  feeling,"  and,  later,  after  the  discussion  of  indilTerence  and  expressiveness,  "DilVerencx 
not  in  emotion  but  in  feeling."  1  believe  the  first  (R2's)  is  the  general  ptiint  and  the 
second  applies  only  to  the  indilTerence  vs.  expressiveness  point. 

The  1933  notes  emphasize  control  rather  than  expression.  BG  has:  "Feeling  should 
not  be  confused  with  emotion,  rather  it  is  controlled  emotionalit).  (anecdote  of  man 
who  called  to  bedside  of  dying  father,  put  in  time  working  at  an  article)  emotion  doing 
the  work  of  thought."  LB  has:  "feeling  is  emotion  in  control,  no  reservoir  of  undiffused 
inoperative  emotion".  See  also  HI  notes  quoted  in  a  preceding  footnote. 

30.  HI  actually  has  "rhyme". 

31.  HI  (who  has  the  expression  "thought  tendencies"  in  an  earlier  passage)  adds:  "are  there 
spooks?" 

32.  The  second  bracketed  sentence  comes  from  BG's  discussion  (drawn  upon  earlier  in  the 
chapter)  of  the  genesis  of  personality  types:  "...does  the  cultural  configuration  itself 
infiuence  basic  personality  types?  Jung  gives  no  answer  to  these  questions;"  Tl's  discus- 
sion of  "sociological  reality"  ("Sociological  outlook  and  balancing  are  factors  in  person- 
ality. Sociological  reality  versus  any  other  reality  is  essentiall)  what  intro\ersion  and 
extraversion  are";  and  T2's  discussion  (just  above)  of  the  individual's  ability  lo  keep 
track  of  the  organization  of  society's  demands. 

33.  HI  adds;  "  attitude  to  smiles  -  'cheeses'." 

34.  The  full  passage  in  CH  reads:  "...  One  cannot  build  up  a  world  out  o'i  ^  md 
hence  it  is  irrational.  (It  should  be  remembered  that  Jungs  pnmar>  classii  -  on 
the  conscious  level.)  The  significances  of  sensation  are  very  real,  especially  lo  children: 
later  in  life,  of  course,  sensation  becomes  symbolized  -  and  when  sens;iiion  becomes 
significant  you  have  a  peculiar  type  of  person.  These  sensations  may  be  either  of  ihe 
feeling,  sound,  or  visual  type  -  such  people  are  irrational  because  the>  arc  iniecling 
fresh  valuations  that  are  not  accepted  by  the  majorit>  Bcrgsonism  is  the  philosophs  of 
the  sensational." 

35.  T2  actually  has:  "Rational  people  are  reasoning  people,  they  rationali/e  e\cr>thiiij; 

36.  Rl  adds:  "Intuition  -  to  Sapir  a  definite  concept". 

37.  LB  adds:  "(Spengler's  dionysian?  Lewis'  'time'  man')" 

38.  Rl  has:  "(in  tech.  sense)". 

39.  At  this  point  Sapir  referred  the  1933  class  to  his  work  on  phonetic  s>mbi>lism  ("A 
Study  in  Phonetic  Symbolism,"  1929m).  HI  has:  "Sapir  on  phonetic  symbtMisms  -  also 
Newman! "  LB  has:  "mi. la  =  stream,  symbolism  bogus  thinking  with  inner  consisiency." 

40.  CK  has  "feeling  investment". 

41.  CH  actually  has  "sensational"  here,  but  the  passage  diKs  not  make  sense  with  ihal  word. 

42.  CH  adds:  "(See  Machen.  A.:  The  Hill  oj  Dreams)" . 


584  lit  Cull  lire 

43.  CH  continues.  " According:  to  Jung,  feeling  is  not  emotion,  but  it  is  an  effective  manifesta- 
tion o\'  experience  of  the  individual.  For  Jung,  there  is  not  much  significant  difference 
between  the  total  emotional  experience  of  different  people."  It  is  not  clear  whether  this 
passage  still  represents  a  comparison  with  Freud. 

44.  At  this  point.  Sapir  evidently  gave  an  illustration  from  the  study  of  language.  What 
follows  is  an  attempt  to  reconstruct  this,  but  the  result  is  quite  doubtful,  since  the  passage 
is  represented  onl\  by  a  few  sketchy  notes  in  Rl.  After  "Value  types,"  Rl  has: 
"Language  -  abstract  -  meaning 

Speech  -  beyond  language 

emphasis  on  one  or  other  -  in  content  (not 

orientation  as  in  functional  types) 
Field  of  speech 

Speech  melody  (charact..?  is  it)  in  a  sentence 
when  talking  to. 

Style 
[two  lines  of  illegible  shorthand,  perhaps  reading:] 

To  what are  your  sentences  or  words  — 

[attributed??] facility  immaturity 

studied imitated  -  separation  of 

words 
Implications  &  significance  of  speech 

gestures 

Enormous  implicative  power  of  individual  experience 

45.  The  bracketed  material  comes  from  the  immediately  following  material  in  R2  and  CK, 
which  continues  on  the  anthropological  side  of  the  contrast  between  psychologists  and 
anthropologists,  and  between  the  study  of  personality  and  the  study  of  culture.  (See  the 
beginning  of  the  next  chapter.)  I  have  decided  to  divide  the  chapters  at  this  point,  but  it 
does  not  coincide  with  the  end  of  a  lecture.  Some  lecture,  probably  an  undated  one  from 
late  March  1937,  begins  with  this  last  section  ("Summary...")  and  continues  into  the 
relation  of  personality  and  culture. 

46.  Next  to  the  terms  Rational  and  Irrational,  LB  actually  has  "(organized)"  and  "(unorga- 
nized)", respectively.  Since  those  parenthetical  labels  are  Sapir's  rather  than  Jung's,  I 
omit  them  from  this  initial  passage  where  Sapir  is  presenting  Jung's  own  terms. 


Chapter  9.  Psychological  Aspects  of  C'liluirc 

[The  Difficulty  of  Delimiting!,  a  BoumUny  Hciwcen 
Personality  and  Culture  f 

'-•  ''  [If  the  psychologists'  study  of  personahty  is  deficient  because] 
they  persist  in  studying  only  fragmentary  psychological  processes, 
[omitting  the  cultural  dimension,]  the  same  is  true  in  culture:  [there  too] 
we  study  fragmentary  data.  ""^  [As  I  have  said,]  we  [anthropologists]  are 
obtuse  about  the  implications  of  data  [that  pertain  to]  personality.  [The 
trouble  is  that  both  psychologists  and  anthropologists  generally  draw  a 
sharp  line  between  their  disciplines  and  fail  to  recognize  the  o\erlap. 
even  identity,  of  the  problems  they  study.] 

1934c  j^Q  failure  of  social  science  as  a  whole  to  relate  the  pattern^  o( 
culture  to  germinal  personality  patterns  is  intelligible  in  \iew  of  the 
complexity  of  social  phenomena  and  the  recency  of  serious  speculation 
on  the  relation  of  the  individual  to  society.  But  there  is  growing  recogni- 
tion of  the  fact  that  the  intimate  study  of  personality  is  o\'  fundamental 
concern  to  the  social  scientist.  ''^'''*''  [Indeed,]  there  is  no  reason  w  h\  the 
culturalist  should  be  afraid  of  the  concept  o\'  personalii),  uhich  iiuinI 
not,  however,  be  thought  of,  as  one  inevitably  does  at  the  beginning  of 
his  thinking,  as  a  mysterious  entity  resisting  the  historically  given  cul- 
ture but  rather  as  a  distinctive  configuration  of  experience  uhicli  tends 
always  to  form  a  psychologically  significant  unit." 

[Thus  the  psychiatric  view  of  personality  as  a  configuration  in  Nshich 
experience  is  organized  in  a  system  of  psychological  significance  might 
also  be  applied  to  the  problem  of  culture.  So,  for  example,  \shen  ue 
propose  that]  ''  distinctions  in  nuclear  attitudes  are  due  to  a  ditTerence 
in  [one's]  concept  of  a  thing,  [we  might  be  speaking  about  personality 
or  we  might  be  speaking  about  cultiiie.]  ^^  [The  attitude  comprised  in 
the  individual's  nuclear  personality  has  an  analogue  in  a  cultural  atti- 
tude, or  what  we  might  call]  cultural  loyalties  loyalties  imbibed  from 
your  own  culture  which  make  you  a  little  insensitive  to  the  meanings  in 
different  cultures.  You  are  obtuse  to  meanings  that  are  not  welcome. 
that  do  not  fit  into  the  old  scheme  oi  things.^ 


586  liJ  Culture 

ck.  r:.  ri  \:yo\w  the  personalistic  point  of  view,  the  whole  field  of  culture 
can  be  regarded"^  as  a  complex  series  of  tests  for  personality  -  '^'  '^  tests 
o\'  ways  in  w  hich  the  personality  meets  the  environment.  ""^^  '^  All  cul- 
tures ha\c  the  potentiality  o'(  psychological  significance  in  personal 
terms."  That  is,  ''  '"^  the  totality  of  culture  offers  endless  opportunities 
for  the  construction  and  development  of  personality  through  the  selec- 
tion and  reinterpretation  of  experience.  '^-'^  [Conversely,  too,]  the  total- 
ity of  ciihurc  therefore  is  interpreted  differently  according  to  the  kind 
oi  personality  that  the  individual  has.  ''-  "^  [Consider  what  happens 
to  a  person  upon]  entering  a  new  cultural  environment:  the  essential 
in\ariance  <>{  personality  makes  one  alive  and  sensitive  to  some  things 
and  obtuse  to  others  -  [depending  upon  how  the]  new  environment 
[matches  up  with]  pivotal  points  from  the  old.  "^^  [Your]  awareness  of 
certain  things  in  a  new  cultural  [setting]  is  a  test  of  the  old  one,  [a  test 
of  what  the  old  one's  pivotal  points  in  fact  were.] 

ck.  r2.  ri  jj^g  study  of  ctiqucttc  is  [another]  good  way  to  [approach  the 
relationship]  between  personality  and  culture,  for  it  is  a  field  that  unites 
the  field  of  culture  and  the  field  of  personality.  •■'  Its  conventional  forms 
[are  clearly]  goods  of  a  highly  cultural  kind,  [yet  these  forms  are  manip- 
ulated by  individuals  for  the  most  personal  purposes.]  •"-  How  should 
we  delimit  the  boundary  between  personality  and  culture  [here]  -  be- 
tween the  cultural  form  and  the  individual  attitude?  *■'  [When  the  same 
forms  evince  both]  the  permanence  of  cultural  dogma,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  expressiveness  of  the  individual,  on  the  other,  '^^  it  is  difficult 
to  know  just  what  you  are  dealing  with.  ^^  [The  study  of]  family  rela- 
tions, or  of  clothing,  [would  be  other  good  examples  of  fields  with  sim- 
ilar problems.]  """^  There  is  nothing  vainer  than  to  classify  [such  cultural] 
organizations  unless  you  know  their  psychological  correlates.  Some  or- 
ganizations may  divide  up  into  quite  different  segments. 

'-•  ■■'  The  relation  between  personality  and  culture  -  [that  is,  on  the 
level  of  observable  behavior,  between]  behavior  [expressing  the  personal 
concerns  of  the]  individual  and  behavior  [expressing]  cultural  [forms  - 
has  become]  my  obsession.^ 


I  Attitudes,  Values,  and  Symbolic  Structures  as  Cultural  Patterns]' 

''•  ""^  [In  order  to  approach  the  problem  of  culture  and  personality, 
then,  let  us  begin  with  a]  characterization  of  culture  in  psychological 
terms  -  '^  [or,  to  put  it  another  way,  with  an  exploration  of  the]  psycho- 


Two:  r/w  Psycholoi^y  of  (uliniv  587 

logical  aspects  of  culture.  [Even  the  anthropologist  who  thinks  of  cul- 
ture as  an  assemblage  o\^  traits  niighl  t1nd  something  o\'  the  sort  on  his 
list,  for]  "  certain  attitudes  are  defmite  trails  o\'  a  culture.  '-•  ^^-  ''  A 
distinguishing  characteristic  of  American  culture  is  our  businesslike  alti- 
tude: an  insistence  on  clear  business  objectives  and  an  eUlcient  eco- 
nomic organization,  ^"^  and  our  consciousness  of  the  blueprint  and  of  the 
organization  of  time.  "  [The  concept  ot]  "self-help."  and  [the  associated) 
tendency  to  action,  [are  similarly  part  of  the]  American  [attitude.) 

"  Can  one  go  a  little  further  in  defming  a  culture  from  a  quasi-psy- 
chological point  of  view?  [Perhaps]  a  culture  can  be  looked  at  as  having 
a  psychological  imprint.  [Just  as]  we  can  say  that  the  member  o(  a 
society  belongs  to  a  certain  race,  and  the  biological  elements  tend  to 
express  themselves  in  that  way,  we  can  also  say  thai  ceriam  cultures 
have  an  ideal  program  that  the  participants  tend  t(^  realize.  They  ha\e 
a  role,  culturally  imposed.  [When  1  mention  the  expression  oi  racial 
elements,  however,  I  do  not  mean  to  suggest  that  a  culture's  "psycholog- 
ical imprint"  has  a  biological  basis,  only  a  certain  analogy  between  the 
two  processes  of  program  and  expression.  Whether]  there  can  also  be 
interaction  between  the  two  [kinds  ofj  elements  [is  a  problem  to  be 
investigated  with  careful  study,  not  assumed  from  the  start.)  [for  in- 
stance,] is  the  [relative]  humorlessness  oi"  the  Indian  [  at  least  from 
our  point  of  view  -]  a  racial  characteristic  or  is  it  a  cultural  laci.'  [.At 
this  stage]  I  do  not  [think  we  can]  know.]^ 

"  [Many  aspects  of  individual  experience  thai  uc  are  aecusUMiicu  lo 
thinking  of  as  entirely  personal  must  turn  out,  if  this  point  o\'  \  lew  is 
consistently  adopted,  to  have  a  cultural  basis.  Even)  dream  formations 
are  a  cultural  fact.  We  are  ashamed  to  admit  the  t>bsessi\c  \alue  of  a 
dream;  primitive  peoples  are  not.  [For  them]  dreams  are  prognostic. 
[We  need  not  take  that  evaluation  of  dreams  literalK  in  order  to  recog- 
nize that  the  content  of  dreams  and  the  evaluation  of  their  significance 
are  culturally  shaped.  Similarly,]  the  moii\c  ot"  rc\enge  is  a  cultural  fad: 
in  certain  cultures  you  are  expected  to  [take]  rexcnge.  more  than  in 
others.  [We  might  even  ask,]  to  what  extent,  [m  a  given  culture.)  is 
inhibition  or  sublimation  possible?  [This  exleni)  will  be  dilTerent  in  dif- 
ferent cultures.  [For  example,  characteristics  evaluated  as)  •  renimine'* 
are  so  resented  in  the  male,  in  America,  that  the  artist,  who  is  [(in  terms 
of  such  characteristics)]  hermaphrodite,  is  blinked  and  has  difllcults  in 
developing  himself 

""  [We  must  acknowledge,  therefore,  that  main  ot  the]  •"motives""  and 
dynamic  unconscious  "wishes'"'  o\'  the  indi\idual  [derive  from)  cultural 


5SS  lU  Culture 

palicrns  [and  reactions  to  them.  How  this  works  may  be  quite  complex. 
Consider,  for  example.]  the  reactionary  "Humanists'"  hatred  for  Rous- 
seau -  an  opposition  between  pattern  and  protest.  Thus  we  have  the 
traditional  man  who  is  aesthetically  comfortable  in  his  vested  psycho- 
logical and  cultural  interests  versus  the  trauma-driven  innovator  who 
meets  life  immediately,  extra-culturally,  and  afresh.  [But  innovation  is 
not  always  extra-cultural,  however  much  the  traditional  man  may  see 
ii  that  way.]  Romantic  [revolt  becomes  a  pattern  in  its  own  right,]  in 
opposition  to  the  classical  [scheme.]'^ 

^■^  This  characterization  of  a  culture  [-  in  terms  of  patterned  atti- 
tudes, motives,  and  values  -]  helps  you  to  understand  the  lives  of  in- 
dividuals and  their  relation  to  each  other.  ^^^  '^^'  ""^  For  example,  take  a 
personal  situation  like  two  people  [entering]  a  subway:  each  wants  to 
pay  his  own  way,  his  own  carfare.  '^^  Culture  manifests  itself  in  this 
situation,  '^'  for  there  is  a  principle  of  economic  independence  and  [of 
what  constitutes  a]  debt  relation  [that  is  demonstrable]  ^-^  in  the  balance 
of  how  individuals  spend  money.''  ^^  In  the  countries  of  continental 
[Europe  there  would  be]  a  different  attitude.'-  "^^  This  is  a  system  of 
value;  and  there  are  peculiar  systems  in  each  culture.  "^  In  Italy,  [for 
instance,  we  find  a  systematic  value  in]  expressiveness;  in  Japan,  in  the 
evaluation  of  sensation;  in  China,  in  [the  relatively]  httle  solicitude  to- 
ward salvation. 

'-  These  are  the  patterns  of  culture,  and  they  are  at  a  different  level 
than  ordinary  psychological  behavior.  [It  is  not  that  personality  has  no 
bearing  upon  them:]  ""^  the  solution  of  conflict,  for  example,  is  also 
affected  by  personality,  [not  only  by  cultural  form.  But  it  would  be 
impossible  in  any  case  to  assess  personality  utterly  independently  of 
culture.]  Knowledge  of  the  culture  gives  you  a  point  of  reference.  You 
know  what  is  the  expected  behavior;  [only  in  relation  to  this  can  you 
interpret  what  the  individual  actually  does.]  "^  [Consider,  for  example, 
a  clinical  case  of  "neurosis":  a  girl  patient  engages  in  a  ritual  in  which 
she  throws  shoes  at  a  door.'^  Now,  if  you  are  going  to  say  that]  the  girl 
who  threw  shoes  at  the  door  [was  "neurotic,"  you]  have  to  know  that 
throwing  shoes  wasn't  the  culturally-patterned  reaction  to  the  situation 
-  [that  it  involved,  instead,]  a  refusal  to  accept  culture,  [and  a  creation 
of  a]  personal  [system  of]  tabu  and  rituals.  Neurosis  is  definable  only  in 
terms  of  a  culture,  which  is  implicitly  present  and  acknowledged  by  the 
clinician.  It  is  not  explicit,  [but  it  is  crucial  nonetheless.] 

""^  Anthropology  has  a  great  deal  to  teach  psychiatry,  therefore.  ""^^  '^ 
The  psychiatrists  make  the  mistake  of  ignoring  social  factors,  [espe- 


Two:  The  P.sychi)/i)i^y  of  (  ultinc  589 

cially]  the  different  balances  of  values  in  different  cultures.  '■''  In  fact. 
they  are  usually  unaware  of  what  the  cultural  \alues  are.  ''•'■^  It  is  a 
fallacy  [to  conduct]  a  personality  analysis  without  a  sociological  and 
cultural  analysis  first,  for  only  after  the  cultural  analysis  can  you  realK 
understand  the  personality.  ''  But  psychiatrists  set  up  a  universal  norm 
[of  behavior]  without  considering  this  point. 

[Of  course,  we  can  turn  this  argument  arcnmd  as  well,  for]  '•"  there  is 
never  a  simple  dichotomy  between  individual  personality  and  culture. 
[From  the  individual  point  of  view.]  aclLiall\.  ciiluirc  elements  are  mer- 
ely symbols  which  enter  into  the  total  personality.  ^'^  Culture  only  lakes 
account  of  the  symbolism  of  behavior  in  the  social  sense;  [there  are 
other  symbolisms,  and  (especially)  attitudes  toward  symbolisms,  which 
are  personal.]  Personality  conflicts  go  beyond  the  plane  of  culture,  [and 
we  shall  have  a  good  deal  more  to  say  about  this.  For  the  time  being, 
however,  the  point  is  that  on  the  individual  level]  there  never  can  be  a 
mere  expression  of  the  cultural  pattern.  Personality  always  enters  in.  ^' 
"^•^  The  dichotomy  between  culture  and  personality  is  not  real,  because 
they  reinforce  each  other  at  all  points. 

ri,  r2,  ck  jj^  understanding  culture  [and  its  connection  with  the  person- 
ality, however,  it  is  not  sufficient  to  consider  only  the  particular  symbols 
themselves.]  The  placenicnt^'^  of  symbols  is  the  important  point  of  \iew. 
■"'  For  example,  [think  of]  a  good  singer  [who  performs]  an  operatic  ana 
at  an  evening  at  the  opera.  •"'•  "^^  [Now,  the  idea]  that  opera  is  a  high 
form  of  culture  is  one  of  the  values  accepted  by  all.  But  if  the  singer, 
unasked,  bursts  into  song  at  a  tea  party,  the  situation  is  dilTercnt.  '' 
[The  aria]  is  the  same  cultural  form,  but  in  a  ditTerent  placement.  .At  the 
tea,  music  exists  only  as  something  to  be  referred  to.  [not  as  beha\  ior  to 
be  engaged  in;  and  this  distinction  is  often  oxerlooked]  '•''  If  you  had 
asked  any  member  of  the  party  which  they  thought  more  important,  a 
well  sung  aria  or  a  tea,  the  answer  would  be  the  aria.  But  this  is  not 
taking  cognizance  of  the  placement  of  symbols.  The  question  cannot  be 
answered  in  the  abstract,  but  must  take  into  consideration  time  and 
place.  The  singer  at  a  tea  is  not  a  singer  [here  and  now];  she  is  a  symbol 
of  an  important  value  outside,  and  is  part  of  the  ritual  of  the  tea  party. 
The  singer  as  such  is  a  point  of  reference  in  ihc  formalits  ot  the  lea 
ritual. 

'•■''  Absolutists,  [attempting  to  deternnne  the  signihcaiKc  i-i  .1  i>cha\- 
ioral  form  like  the  operatic  aria,]  confu.se  contexts;  the\  i.\o  nol  place 
symbols.  Most  of  us  are  absolutists  if  caught  olT  guard.  But  in  that 
situation  music  did  not  exist,  except  as  a  symbol  to  be  referred  to.  In 


59U  m  Culture 

that  context  it  was  [not  appropriate  as  behavior,  only  as]  a  point  of 
reference. 

^'^  ''  Most  of  our  references  are  highly  symbolic,  [and  the  placement 
o\'  these  symbols  in  relation  to  one  another  is  complex.  This]  structure 
of  symbols  makes  it  difficult  for  us  to  see  the  facts  of  our  society  and 
our  cultural  environment  straight.  •■'  [Just  as]  the  configuration  of  ele- 
ments in  a  spatial  structure  [may  obscure  our  perception  of  any  one  of 
those  elements  individually,  so]  ""^  are  we  far  from  seeing  our  cultural 
environment  [directly,  except  through  this  lens.  In  a  sense  it  is  a  configu- 
ration of  illusions:] '-''  it  is  the  mapping  of  symbols  that  makes  it  possible 
for  us  to  be  mean  to  each  other  when  we  want  to  be  nice  -  [that  makes 
it  possible  tor  our  behavior  to  be  interpreted  in  some  way  other  than 
what  we  intended  -  and  creates  a  pyramid  of  misunderstandings  that 
we  hold  about  one  another.]'^  In  a  crisis,  like  the  European  war,  such 
illusions  are  shattered  and  the  pyramid  of  symbolisms  falls. ^^ 

'■''  [We  are  confronted  by  many  contacts  in  ordinary  life^^  in  which 
commonplace  misunderstandings  provide]  examples  of  the  placement 
of  symbols.  Suppose  that  A  owes  B,  the  head  of  a  great  business, 
twenty-five  cents.  A  might  want  to  pay  B,  but  B  says,  "No,  we  will  send 
you  a  bill."  To  him,  taking  the  twenty-five  cents  would  be  misplacing 
symbols,  because  B  at  that  moment  was  not  B  the  [representative  of 
the]  business  but  Bill,  a  friend;  and  the  idea  of  receiving  the  twenty-five 
cents  out  of  context  was  upsetting.  [In  this  incident  A  and  B  differ  in 
their  interpretation  of  the  placement  of  the  symbol,  the  twenty-five 
cents.]  '^'-  ^^  Not  all  people  always  interpret  the  placement  of  symbols  in 
the  same  way. 

[Perhaps  it  is  not  too  fanciful  to  derive  from  our  little  tale  of  A  and 
B  some  moral  for  those  who  like  to  think  of]  ""^  the  "necessary  history" 
of  man  [and  his  conflicts.]  The  needs  of  the  biological  organism  are  few, 
compared  with  the  complications  [introduced  by]  culture.  But  if  culture 
complicates  the  satisfaction  of  biological  needs  too  much,  there  comes 
resentment  and  anger,  and  the  pyramid  of  cultural  symbols  crashes  - 
[making  way  for]  new  cultural  understandings,  new  complications,  an- 
other crash,  and  so  on.  [Conflicts  and  crises,  then,  may  go  beyond  the 
plane  of  culture'^  but  they  cannot  be  fully  understood  except  in  terms 
of  the  relations  of  individuals  to  one  another  through  the  medium  of  a 
structure  of  complicating,  and  sometimes  misleading,  cultural  symbols. 
This  is  not,  incidentally,  the  view  taken  by  the  authors  of  most  ethno- 
graphic monographs.]  The  robots  in  ethnographic  monographs  don't 


Two:  The  Fsvcholoiiy  ol  C'ultun'  591 

care;  they  jusl  di>  what  lhc\  do,  while  cull  inc.  (by  some  myslenous 
means.]  ''resolves'"  the  conllicts. 

[It  would  be  equally  mistaken,  howeser,  to  suppose  thai  cultural  s>m- 
bols,  even  a  lack  of  agreement  on  the  placement  of  symbols,  must  neces- 
sarily lead  to  conllict  any  more  than  to  its  resolution.)  ''  "'^  Although 
people  do  not  agree  in  their  placement  of  symbols,  two  dillerent  people 
may  live  in  harmony  without  really  meaning  the  same  things.  The\  may 
even  do  the  same  things  but  have  them  mean  entircls  ditTerent  ihmgs. 
What  is  necessary  for  them  to  share  is  only  a  minmial  understanding, 
concerning  the  mechanics  o^  the  situation.  ' '  [They  may  thus  appear  to 
agree  quite  profoundly,  yet]  their  agreement  is.  [in  a  sense.]  spurious, 
for  it  is  without  any  analysis  of  the  situation. 

r2.  ri.  ck  Yqu  get,  therefore,  two  kinds  of  sliding  scales: 

(1)  The  sliding  scale  of  the  placement  of  symbolism  within  a  cultural 
pattern  —  for  the  symbol  may  be  of  high  value  or  low  \alue,  depending 
on  its  situation;  and  symbols  are  placed  in  different  positions  in  dif- 
ferent cultures. 

(2)  The  sliding  scale  of  the  placement  of  symbolism  according  to  per- 
sonal (individual)  values.  ''  [As  we  have  said,]  not  all  people  interpret 
the  placement  of  symbols  in  the  same  way.  People  make  use  of  s\mbols 
in  order  to  satisfy  their  own  personal  needs,  [which  may.  o\'  course, 
differ.  Even]  the  same  person  can  have  different  reactions  to  culture, 
according  to  [his  or  her]  personal  reactions  to  the  placement  of  symbols. 
ck.  ri  [-^iij  there  are  also  differences  in]  the  degree  of  personal  participa- 
tion, in  an  emotional  sense,  in  the  cultural  situation. 

''  Thus  the  placement  of  symbols  in  context  [points  up]  the  fallacy  o{ 
[claiming  to]  observe  the  psychology  of  a  culture,  [as  such]  fhe  ps\chol- 
ogy  of  culture  only  arises  in  the  relations  o\'  indi\  iduals;  the  psychology 
of  ^/  culture  means  nothing  at  all. 

[If  we  take  these  discussions  seriously  we  must  conclude  that)  ''  the 
implication  of  much  o^  the  social-psychological  literature  ni>w  being 
produced  is  a  bit  mischievous.  [It  confuses  the  two  kinds  of  scales.)  and 
'^  their  different  strata  of  "givens."  '^'  '-  '"^  This  is  what  Mead  and  Bene- 
dict do  -  they  confuse  the  indi\  idual  psychologs  o\'  all  members  o{  a 
society  with  the  "as-if  psychology  of  a  few.  I  use  the  term  "as-if 
psychology"  to  describe  the  process  o\'  projection  o{  personal  \alucs  by 
the  individual  to  evaluate  cultural  patterns,  [so  that  a  cultural  standard 
of  conduct  is  seen  as  if  it  represented  the  expressuMi  o\  a  personality. 
This  is  a  metaphorical  identification,]'"  "'  not  to  be  interpreted  literally. 
''^■'*^''  The  presumptive  or  "as  if  psychological  character  of  a  culture  is 


592  lit  Culture 

highly  determinative,  no  doubt,  of  much  in  the  externalized  system  of 
attitudes  and  habits  which  forms  the  visible  "personality"  of  an  indivi- 
dual.-"' It  does  not  follow,  however,  that  strictly  social  determinants, 
icndmg,  as  they  do,  to  give  visible  form  and  meaning,  in  a  cultural 
sense,  to  each  of  the  thousands  of  modalities  of  experience  which  sum 
up  the  personality,  can  define  the  fundamental  structure  of  such  a  per- 
sonalitv.-' 


22 


Culture  as  "As-If  Psychology 

[Now,  before  we  continue  with  our  discussion  of  psychological  as- 
pects of  culture,  a  note  of  caution  must  be  sounded.]  ^^'  '^^  The  term 
"cultural  psychology"  is  ambiguous,  ^^'  ^^  and  there  has  been  much 
confusion  between  two  types  of  psychological  analysis  of  social  beha- 
\ior.  '^'^-  '"  The  one  is  a  statement  of  the  general  tendencies  or  traits 
characterizing  a  culture,  '^'  such  as  the  pattern  of  self-help  in  our  culture; 
[as  we  have  pointed  out,]  different  cultures  do  have  certain  delineating 
factors,  '■'•  •■-  [including  attitudes  and]  psychological  standards  about 
emotional  expression.  "^"^  The  other  is  a  statement  of  certain  kinds  of 
actual  behavior,  [by  actual  individuals,]  related  to  these  cultural  pat- 
terns. ''•''''  [In  other  words  it  is  a  statement  of]  the  individual's  psychol- 
ogy, and  the  problem  of  individual  adjustment  [to  a  cultural  setting.]  ^^- 
''  (This  confusion  is  to  be  found,  for  instance,  in  the  seven  articles  by 
psychiatrists  about  to  be  published  in  the  American  Journal  of  Sociol- 
ogy?^ Alexander  and  Sullivan  keep  level-headed  in  their  attempts  to 
relate  psychiatry  and  the  social  sciences,  but  some  of  the  others  are 
rather  confused.)  ^''^  These  two  kinds  of  psychology  are  not  the  same 
thing,  but  are  in  intimate  relation  with  each  other.  '^  [Moreover,  the 
second  kind  has  a  further  ambiguity,  which  perhaps  we  can  see  if  we 
consider  the  notion  of  the  individual's]  "integration."  What  do  we  mean 
by  [this  term?]  An  adjustment  to  society,  on  the  one  hand  -  or  the 
[coherence  of  the]  thought,  ideas,  etc.  of  a  man  as  seen  by  him,  on  the 
other  hand?  The  same  things  can  integrate  or  dis-integrate  two  different 
men. 

[If  the  idea  of  a  "cultural  psychology"  is  so  tangled,  ought  we  to 
speak  of  such  a  thing  at  all?  In  a  sense  perhaps  we  ought  not.  Strictly 
speaking,]  ^'^  '^2.  ck  culture,  in  itself,  has  no  psychology;  only  individuals 
[have  a  psychology.  On  the  cultural  plane]  there  is  only  [what  I  call]  the 
"as-if  psychology":  >■''  '^  that  is  to  say,  there  is  a  psychological  stan- 


Two:  The  Ps\ch(ilt>\iv  ol  Culture  59^ 

dard"'*  in  each  culture  as  to  how  much  emotion  is  to  be  expressed,  and 
so  on.  '-  This  is  the  "as-if  psycholou\  "  whicli  belongs  to  the  culture 
itself,  not  with  the  individual  personality.  "''  (If  we  call  this  a  "psychol- 
ogy" we  are  speaking]  as  //this  scheme  of  life  were  the  actual  expression 
of  individuality.  ''^-*'^''  The  danger  o\~  [too  literal  an  interpretation  of 
this  process]  in  the  social  formulations  of  the  anthropologist  and  the 
sociologist  is  by  no  means  an  imaginary  one.  Certain  recent  attempts, 
in  part  brilliant  and  stimulating,  to  impose  upon  the  actual  psychologies 
of  actual  people,  in  continuous  and  tangible  relations  to  each  other,  a 
generalized  psychology  based  on  the  real  t>r  supposed  psychological 
implications  of  cultural  forms,  show  clearly  what  confusions  in  our 
thinking  are  likely  to  result  when  social  science  turns  psychiatric  with- 
out, in  the  process,  allowing  its  own  historically  determined  concepts  to 
dissolve  into  those  larger  ones  which  have  meaning  for  psychology  and 
psychiatry. 

qq.  r2.  ri.  ck  Ryij-,  Bcncdict's  book.  Pultcms  of  Cu/iurc.  is  a  brilliant 
exposition  of  as-if  psychology,  but  with  confusion  about  the  distinction 
made  here  -  ^-  she  is  not  clear  on  the  distinctic^n  between  the  as-if 
psychology  she  is  discussing  and  the  psychology  of  the  individual.-^  ** 
A  culture  cannot  be  paranoid;  [to  call  it  so  suggests]  the  failure  to  distin- 
guish between  the  as-if  psychology  and  the  actual  psychology  o\'  the 
people  participating  in  the  culture.-^'  The  difficulty  with  Pur  ferns  of  Cul- 
ture is  that  certain  objective  facts  of  culture  which  arc  low  toned  are 
given  huge  significance.  [I  suspect  that  individual]  Dobu  and  KwakiutI 
are  very  like  ourselves;  they  just  are  manipulating  a  dilVerent  set  o\' 
patterns.  [We  have  no  right  to  assume  that  a  given  pattern  or  ritual 
necessarily  implies  a  certain  emotional  significance  or  personalit\  ad- 
justment in  its  practitioners,  without  demonstration  at  the  level  o\'  the 
individual.  Perhaps]  the  Navajo  ritual  can  be  considered  as  just  their 
way  of  chewing  gum.  You  have  to  know  the  individual  before  you  know 
what  the  baggage  of  his  culture  means  to  him. 

"^  In  itselt\  culture  has  no  psychology  -  it  is  [just]  a  low-toned  scries 
of  rituals,  a  rubber  stamping  waiting  to  be  gi\en  meaning  b\  \ou.  Tlic 
importance  of  cultural  differences  for  individual  adjustment  (may  well 
be]  exaggerated,  [therefore,  for  we  may  equally  well  suppose  thai  culture 
means  nothing  until  the  individual,  with  his  personality  configuralion. 
gives  it  meaning.]  ' '  [In  other  words,]  the  apparent  psychological  dilTer- 
ences  of  cultures  are  superficial  -  although  the>  must  be  understood, 
of  course,  to  know  how  to  gauge  the  individual's  expressions  of  his 
reactions. 


5i;4  iii  Culture 

lyso  [Whcii  I  want]  to  bring  out  clearly  [here  is]  the  extreme  method- 
ological importance  of  distinguishing  between  actual  psychological  pro- 
cesses which  are  of  individual  location  and  presumptive  or  "as  if  psy- 
chological pictures  which  may  be  abstracted  from  cultural  phenomena 
and  which  may  give  significant  direction  to  individual  development.  To 
speak  o\^  a  whole  culture  as  having  a  personality  configuration  is,  of 
course,  a  pleasing  image,  but  I  am  afraid  that  it  belongs  more  to  the 
order  o(  aesthetic  or  poetic  constructs  than  of  scientific  ones.^^  [It  is  a 
useful  metaphor  for  cultural  patterning,  but  it  loses  its  usefulness  if  it 
is  taken  literally.]-*^ 

^i^.  qq  [For  this  very  reason  -  that  one  is  dealing  with  aesthetic  con- 
structs -]  it  is  easier  to  apply  a  thing  like  Jung's  [classification  of]  psy- 
chological types  to  cultures  than  to  individuals.  If  you  take  the  way  of 
life  of  a  community  as  "a  psychology,"  it  is  easy  to  classify  your  cul- 
tures. '<''•  '-■ ''  On  this  basis,  [one  might  speak  of  extraverted  and  intro- 
verted cultures:  thus]  American  culture-^  of  today  on  the  whole  is  extra- 
verted, '""1  recognizing  no  efficacy  in  unexpressed  or  only  subtly  ex- 
pressed tendencies;  we  are  willing  to  court  private  ill-will  so  long  as  it 
does  not  gain  public  expression.  ^^^  '■'-  ^^^  ^^  The  Chinese  and  Japanese 
cultures  seem  definitely  more  introverted,  [emphasizing]  internal  feeling 
(note,  [for  example,  the  Japanese  custom  of]  hari-kiri,  and  the  Chinese 
[type  of)  suicide  [committed]  so  as  to  haunt  one's  enemy).  "^^  But  this 
[characterization  of  the  culture]  does  not  mean  that  the  individual  is 
extravert  or  introvert. 

°'  [If  we  consider]  the  possibility  of  constructing  a  typology  of  culture 
on  the  basis  of  a  psychology  of  individual  types,  [therefore,  we  must 
not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that]  the  social  psychologies  of  such  cultural 
types  are  not  to  be  interpreted  literally,  but  as  "as-if '  psychologies.  '"'^ 
Culture  types  are  fictitious;  but  they  are  useful  -  [at  least]  until  we  have 
a  more  powerful  knowledge  of  personality  types  -  °'  as  a  point  of  view 
as  regards  the  relation  of  the  individual  to  society.  ^^  In  the  culture 
typology,  culture  is  personalized,  so  that  an  individual  acts  extravert- 
edly  in  adjusting  to  \i?^  ""  Moreover,  the  "typology"  is  important  for 
understanding  cultural  [integration.]^^  i934a  ^he  more  fully  one  tries  to 
understand  a  culture,  the  more  it  seems  to  take  on  the  characteristics 
of  a  personality  organization. 

"^  In  other  words,  we  can  look  upon  socialized  behavior  as  sym- 
bolic oj  psychological  processes  not  [necessarily]  illustrated  by  the  in- 
dividuals themselves.-'^^  ..  ^^  ^^  ^^^  characterize  whole  cultures  psycho- 
logically without  predicating  those  particular  psychological  reactions  of 


7'uv;.   The  Psycholojiy  olC'ithurc  595 

the  individuals  who  cany  on  the  ciihuic.  That  is  sonicuhat  uiicanny. 
but  1  think  it  is  a  reasonably  correct  \ie\v  to  take  ol"  society. 

[In  this  light  let  us  consider  some  examples  o\'  what  we  might  call 
strongly  introverted  cultures.]  '"''  [in  this  sense  of  the  term]  some  of  the 
Amerind  tribes  seem  introverted,  as  Benedict  shows.  "'^'- ^t?  For  instance, 
the  Yuman  culture  o{  the  lower  Colorado,  with  its  emphasis  on  dream 
experiences,  is  certainly  an  introverted  type  of  culture.  "'  ^^^  [To  ihemj 
it  is  possible  to  annihilate  time  and  space  by  dreams  and  get  back  to 
the  beginnings  of  things  and  to  the  st)urce  o{  all  potencies.  If  this  kind 
of  mechanism  -  ^^  the  actualizing  of  power  through  wishes  and  dream 
creation  -  '^  which  is  like  the  shrinking  child's  wish-phantasies,  be- 
comes habit,  values  may  grow  up  around  it  and  accumulate,  [tending 
toward]  that  introverted  cast  of  society  (an  extraverled  societ>  would 
kill  the  introverted  meaning  and  recast  it;  or  it  may  be  loaded  in  another 
direction  at  a  critical  point).  When  the  Yuman  says,  "I  know  that  this 
is  true  because  I  saw  it  in  a  dream,"  he  is  in  immediate  touch  with  truth, 
and  the  symbolic  triumph  [gives  him  a]  great  ''kick."  This  societ\  puts 
premiums  on  "as-if  introversion;  there  is  a  masking  o^  true  extra  verts, 
then,  ^^  for  the  extraverts  are  using  the  mechanisms  provided  by  society, 
[including]  a  narcissistic  libido  expression  -  no  color  or  glamour.  '•''  The 
extreme  romanticism  of  the  early  nineteenth  centur\  would  probabK  he 
quite  impossible  in  many  of  these  societies. 

^"^^  ""^  Some  of  the  [other]  Amerind  religions  too,  like  the  Mohave, 
seem  almost  neurotically  introverted.  "^'^  In  some  Amerind  religimis  this 
goes  so  far  as  a  real  denial  of  the  evidential  value  o\'  the  external  world 
in  an  annihilation  of  time,  with  the  shaman  going  back  to  the  creation 
and  actually  seeing  standardized  events  there.  This  is  an  intro\erledly 
evangelical  religion,  then.  ''-  Mohave  culture  has  a  strange  dreamlike 
character,  '-'''  an  introverted  [cast,]  while  the  external  culture  is  quite 
colorless.  It  is  important  to  recognize  that  this  is  generalls  the  case. 
Usually  if  the  outer  life  is  colorless  one  is  apt  to  assume  (a  correspond- 
ingly] poor  development  of  the  inner  life,  when  [actually]  just  the  oppo- 
site is  true.  ■■'•  ■■-  Introverted  cultures  are  generally  correlated  with  sober 
and  drab  material  cultures,  [because  they  place]  less  emphasis  on  exter- 
nal values. 

"^"^  It  makes  good  sense,  then,  to  talk  about  extraversion  and  introver- 
sion in  culture  as  a  helpful  guard  against  under\aluation  of  the  de\elop- 
ment  of  other  peoples  who  have  different  \alues  from  those  of  our  own 
culture.  The  Australians,  for  example,  are  probably  much  less  primitive 
than  they  seem,  because  o\'  their  extreme  iiiiro\ersion.  ''  1  wonder  it 


596  iii  Culture 

some  injustice  has  not  been  made  in  styling  them  as  primitive,  since 
they  have  [such]  a  compHcated  mental  life.  '^^^  *-''•  '^'  '^  The  Eskimo,  on 
the  other  hand,  seem  to  us  more  highly  developed  and  further  advanced 
in  culture  than  they  really  are,  because  their  culture  is  extraverted,  tech- 
nological and  non-fantastic.  ""^  [Even]  their  mythology  is  more  novelistic 
than  dreamy.  ^>^  Thus  many  things  in  our  [own]  culture  are  better  devel- 
opments of  things  the  Eskimo  is  already  interested  in,  and  acculturation 
would  be  expected  to  be  easy  so  far  as  the  purely  cultural  determinants 
are  concerned.  '^  [The  Eskimo]  adapt  easily  to  our  mechanical  appli- 
ances, for  example. 

It.  bg.  md  Hindu  culture  too  seems  to  be  essentially  introverted,  for  it 
is  the  most  classically  timeless.  We  seldom  find  dates  in  Hindu  history, 
and  the  feeling  that  past  and  present  meet  -  that  things  are  not  distrib- 
uted in  an  evident  sequence  of  years,  and  that  there  is  not  a  before  and 
after  -  is  a  typical  sign  of  introversion.  '^  [The  few]  dates  [we  do  have 
for  Hindu  history]  are  given  by  outside  archaeologists  and  numisma- 
tists. In  Hindu  society  there  is  an  almost  absurd  annihilation  of  the 
external  world  (in  contrast  to  Chinese  culture,  which  is  relatively  [more] 
extraverted  in  its  interest  in  dates).  '^  In  India,  self-contained  feeling  is 
as  valuable  as  action;  [thus]  the  custom  of  self-imposed  torture  for 
handling  the  world  is  very  important.  Whereas  in  Europe  asceticism  [is 
considered]  a  private  problem,  in  India  there  is  the  feeling  that  this 
asceticism  is  extremely  potent.  [This  idea  of  the]  vanity  of  the  life  of 
sensations  is  typical  [of  introversion,  as  is  the  associated  Hindu  notion 
that]  the  pleasures  of  the  senses  are  sufferings.  All  forms  of  life  are  one; 
in  the  course  of  [existence]  you  can  take  different  places  ([i.  e.  become 
different  forms  of  life]),  ^^-  ^^  for  the  self-existent  entity  is  not  a  temporal 
one,  [but  something  more  like]  a  concept  of  a  master  idea,  [or  Platonic 
ideal.  Thus]  Sanskrit,  [in  the  Hindu  view,  embodies]  an  absolute,  mystic 
perfection  of  sounds  and  letters.  It  is  a  Platonically  patternable  lan- 
guage, '^  a  perfect  pattern  [against  which  to  compare]  the  imperfections 
of  reality.  These  mystic  ad  hoc  realities,  which  for  us  are  merely  part  of 
the  stream  of  possibility,  [illustrate  introversion's  characteristic]  regres- 
sion phantasy  and  annihilation  of  the  difficuhies  of  existence."  '^  [And 
just  as]  introverts  are  persuaded  more  by  verbal  formulations  [than  by 
sensory  experience,]  Hindu  culture  is  full  of  verbal  fetishism. 

"^  [In  contrast,  as  I  have  suggested  above,]  American  culture  is  essen- 
tially extraverted:  in  American  culture  action  is  more  important  than 
thought.  Success  [is  measured  by]  fulfillment  in  the  material  world,  for 


Two:  The  Psychology  ofCulrurc  597 

all  values  are  measured  with  external  standards.  Thus  a  scientist  gets 
mad  because  his  salary  does  not  look  to  him  as  an  adequate  return 
for  his  archaeological  work.  ^^  Gandhi's  passi\e  resistance  would  be 
impossible  in  New  Haven. 

"^^  '^  [In  addition  to  the  introvert/extra\eri  contrast.)  Jung's  func- 
tional classification  can  also  be  applied  to  culture  [in  the  same  manner, 
and  certain  contrasts  between  cultural  configurations  can  thereby  be 
brought  out.]  ''^'-  ■■-•  *■'•  '^'^  For  example,  there  are  cultures  which  as  a 
whole  seem  to  have  an  intellectual  cast,  such  as  the  Athenian  ''"<  ''  (and 
hence  our  relative  ease  in  feeling  ourselves  into  it,  since  its  type  of  con- 
sciousness -  with  its  intellectual  values  -  is  so  much  akin  to  ours;  it  is 
the  temper  of  the  culture,  rather  than  the  content,  that  we  primarily 
appreciate).  '■''^-  ''-•  ■"'■  "^^^  The  culture  of  the  Plains  Indians,  on  the  other 
hand,  as  contrasted  [with  the  Greeks  and  also,  closer  at  hand.]  with 
Pueblo  and  Navaho  culture,  is  characterized  by  a  greater  emphasis  on 
the  urgency  of  immediate  /kVm^tf.  "^"^  The  Pueblos'  nostalgia  [(for  feelings 
previously  experienced)]  seems  absent  from  the  Plains  because  of  the 
urgency  there  of  immediate  experience  and  the  ease  o(  having  a  vision, 
or  enjoying  ecstacy,  at  any  time.  The  Plains  [culture]  being  also  extra- 
verted,  there  is  no  privacy  of  feeling,  and  there  is  public  boasting  about 
visions  and  bravery,  confessions  of  adultery,  etc.  '-■  ^'  (as  among  the 
Eskimo  also).  ^-  There  is  a  tremendous  ri\alry  regarding  prestige  [in 
these  matters.] 

^^  One  who  was  a  psychological  sensitive  could  tell  in  advance  uhai 
types  of  things,  games,  myths,  [and  so  on]  would  "take"  in  a  culture, 
and  what  would  not  -  and  why.  '^'  [However,  it  is  worth  repealing 
yet  again  that  these]  culture  characterizations  are  not  dellniiive.  [only 
suggestive.] 

^^  [With  this  caveat  we  may  continue  with  our  i\pology  and  notice 
that]  cultures  also  vary  in  intuitivism,  although  here  the  ditTerences  are 
not  as  great  as  between  individuals.  [Recall  that  on  the  le\el  o\'  the 
individual,  the]  '"')  intuitive  [shows]  enormous  differences  in  the  rale  o\' 
movement  of  thought  or  phantasy,  and  in  the  wealth  o\  implication. 
[What  I  mean  by  saying  that]  '~  certain  cultures  are  more  iniuitiNC  than 
others,  therefore,  is  that  ''  the  wealth  o\'  implication  differs  from  one 
culture  to  another.  ^^'  ' '  American  behavior  has  a  remarkable  wealth  o( 
implication, '*'*  ^'^i  but  as  to  inward  life  it  seems  rather  lacking  in  this 
respect  as  compared,  for  example,  with  the  English;  the  Hnglish  socm 
to  assume  many  things  without  staling  tlicni  and  ahnosl  regard  it  as 


598  ill  Culture 

indelicalc  to  make  ihcm  explicit,  whereas  Americans  would  be  more 
likely  to  lake  a  praciicaL  engineering  attitude.  ^''- '"'  [But]  English  intu- 
itu eness  IS  in  regard  to  internal  rather  than  external  things;  '-  '^  their 
culture  is  less  intuitive  than  the  American  in  physical  matters.^^  ""^^  '^ 
An  iniro\eried  mold,  [a  pattern  of]  whimsical  fancy  is  characteristic  of 
Hnglish  writers,  while  in  French  culture  -  more  intellectual  [(in  Jung's 
terms)]  -  epigram,  not  whimsy,  is  characteristic. 

ck.  r:  j^^  life  Qf  sensation  also  varies  in  different  cultures.  ""^^  '^  In 
France,  China,  and  Japan  there  is  a  tremendous  emphasis  on  sensation 
values;  yet  there  is  also  a  selectiveness  to  the  sensation  values,  and  a 
balance  o{  sensory  enjoyment.  ""^^  ''-  '■^'  '^'^  Although  an  insistence  on 
sensation  for  its  own  sake  is  conspicuous  in  French  culture,  the  French 
do  not  "go  out"  for  sensation  in  the  way  we  do,  because  it  does  not 
have  the  hectic  quality  that  it  does  for  us.  ^'^  The  French  have  educated 
their  sensations;  '^'^  they  are  discreet  and  reasonable  even  in  their  licence, 
and  do  not  go  the  limit  and  become  debauched  as  do  Americans  and 
Fnglish.^^  '^'-  ^-  While  Americans  go  to  the  extreme  [when  they  indulge 
the]  sensations  because  they  feel  [sensations]  to  be  so  bad  they  cannot 
be  treated  nicely,  the  French  go  into  them  restrainedly,  for  ^^  they  do 
not  have  the  good/evil  dichotomy  which  makes  us  feel  we  may  as  well 
go  the  whole  hog  if  we  are  going  to  break  rules  at  all. 

'''I-  ""^  It  begins  to  look,  then,  as  if  these  various  cultures  had  techni- 
cally limited  psychological  possibilities.  '^2-  '^^  [In  other  words,]  culture 
limits  the  opportunity  for  the  personahty  to  express  itself  in  the  way  it 
is  best  suited.  ^^•'-■''  Now,  how  does  this  affect  the  individual?  ""^  [Perhaps 
we  must  conclude  that  the  world  is  full  of|  "mute  inglorious  Miltons." 
Culture  is  sometimes  not  rich  enough  to  give  an  individual  an  opportu- 
nity for  expression. 


Editorial  Note 

On  the  several  occasions  on  which  he  gave  the  course  after  1928, 
Sapir  apparently  changed  his  mind  as  to  the  organization  of  topics  re- 
maining after  his  discussion  of  Jung's  classification  of  personahty  types. 
Whereas  the  Outline  moves  immediately  from  Jung's  typology  to  an 
analogous  typology  of  culture,  in  1934  Sapir  inserted  his  discussion  of 
the  adjustment  of  the  individual  after  Jung  and  before  embarking  on 
cultural  types  ("as-if  psychologies).  He  concluded  the  course  with  a 


Two:  The  Fsycholoj^y  <>/  (  ultun'  599 

lecture  on  symbolism,  as  the  mechanism  metlialing  between  indi\idual 
and  culture,  in  1936,  the  Taylor  notes  suggest  relali\el>  little  empliasis 
on  a  t\pology  of  culture,  the  discussion  o\'  "as-if  psycholDgies  being 
Iranied  instead  in  terms  of  the  social  adjustment  of  the  indi\idual  and 
the  psychology  of  personal  action.  The  course  apparently  concluded 
with  a  lecture  on  "primitive  mentality*";  if  there  was  a  lecture  on  s\mbol- 
ism.  there  are  almost  no  notes  on  its  content.  In  \*')}1,  Sapir  expanded 
the  material  and  began  to  incorporate  into  il  a  discussion  of  situational 
analysis  and  the  contextual  interpretation  o['  symbols  -  topics  onl\ 
brietly  alluded  to  in  earlier  years.  These  discussions  ha\e  a  rather  ex- 
ploratory air  to  them.  They  enter  in  both  before  and  after  the  .April  12 
(1937)  lecture  on  cultural  types,  and  one  gets  the  impression  that  Sapir 
was  very  much  interested  in  these  ideas  but  had  not  yet  integrated  them 
into  a  tightly  coherent  argument.  Sapir's  comments  on  "primitive  men- 
tality" and  art  are  appended  to  the  April  19  (1937)  lecture,  with  little 
indication  in  the  notes  as  to  how  (if  at  all)  he  might  have  used  them  to 
draw  the  whole  course  to  a  conclusion. 

The  1937  notes  present  some  internal  problems  for  interpretation. 
Apparently,  three  and  a  half  lectures  are  in\ol\ed:  the  seciMid  half  o\' 
an  undated  lecture  of  late  March;  April  5;  April  12;  and  April  19.  C"K 
seems  to  have  typed  the  April  19  lecture  before  the  .April  .■^;  Rl  has 
some  duplications  that  suggest  she  may  ha\e  taken  notes  on  someiMie 
else's  notes  as  well  as  her  own;  and  QQ  has  nothing  until  .April  12. 

Since  Sapir  was  evidently  rethinking  the  connections  among  these 
topics  and  what  he  wanted  to  say  about  symbolism.  I  have  followed  the 
1937  notes  for  order  of  presentation  and  for  the  discussion  o(  s\mbol- 
ism,  even  where  the  notes  are  sparse  (making  reconstruction  dilTicull 
and  choppy)  and  loosely  organized.  The  present  chapter  is  based,  there- 
fore, on  the  lectures  from  late  March,  April  5,  and  .April  12.  1937.  Mate- 
rial from  1934,  1936,  and  the  Rockefeller  Seminar  (introductory  lecture, 
undated  notes  by  Leo  Ferraro.  LF)  are  drawn  upon  onl\  for  topics 
where  Sapir's  ideas  are  consistent  throughout  the  decade  (principalK. 
for  the  discussions  of  cultural  attitudes  and  "as-if  psychology).  I  have 
also  drawn  upon  Sapir's  letter  to  Philip  Sel/mck  (Oct.  25,  193S).  as  well 
as  Sapir's  published  works,  though  with  these  it  has  again  been  impor- 
tant to  make  sure  a  quoted  passage  is  fully  consistent  with  .Sapir's  1937 
statement  of  his  position. 

The  lecture  of  April  19,  1937,  on  individual  ad|usiiiK-ni.  \mI1  be  taken 
up  in  the  next  chapter,  along  with  the  material  on  this  topic  \'ion\  other 
years.  The  discussion  of  "prinnli\e  mentalit>"  is  relegated  to  a  .separate 
chapter  (ch.  11).  as  is  the  1934  lecture  on  symbolism  (ch.  12). 


5UU  til  Culture 

Notes 

1  Material  from  a  lecture  o(  late  March,  1937.  The  chapter  actually  begins  in  the  middle 
of  this  lecture,  \shich  Sapir  had  begun  by  concluding  his  remarks  about  Jung. 

2.  This  sentence  continues,  in  the  1934  publication,  as  follows:  "...and  which,  as  it  accretes 
more  and  more  symbols  to  itself,  creates  finally  that  cultural  microcosm  of  which  official 
'culture'  is  little  more  than  a  metaphorically  and  mechanically  expanded  copy.  The  appli- 
cation o'i  the  point  o'i  view  which  is  natural  in  the  study  of  the  genesis  of  personality  to 
the  problem  of  culture  cannot  but  force  a  revaluation  of  the  materials  of  culture  itself." 
Though  the  idea  that  both  personality  and  culture  can  be  viewed  as  symbolic  systems 
lending  a  distinctive  configuration  to  experience  is  quite  consistent  with  Sapir's  1937 
statements,  the  notion  that  culture  might  be  just  a  mechanically  expanded  copy  of  per- 
sonality seems  not  to  be. 

3.  Reconstruction  of  this  introductory  passage  is  difficult:  the  three  note-takers'  brief  state- 
ments here  do  not  go  together  in  any  obvious  way. 

4    R2  has:  "It  would  be  possible  to  define  culture  as..." 

5.  R2  has  "All  culture  has  potentiality...";  CK  has  "In  all  cultures  there  is  potentiality..." 

6.  R2  has:  "Sapir's  obsession  is  the  relation  between  personality  (individual  behavior)  and 
culture  (cultural  behavior)."  I  have  altered  the  wording  to  reflect  the  strictures  expressed 
in  an  earlier  chapter  on  the  contradictory  notion  of  "cultural  behavior."  Rl  does  not 
ha\e  this  phrase. 

7.  This  section  is  based  on  the  lecture  of  April  5,  1937. 

8.  LF  actually  has: 

"...A  culture  can  be  looked  at  as  having  a  psychological  imprint. 

"We  can  say:  the  member  of  a  society  belongs  to  a  certain  race,  and  the  biological 
elements  tend  to  express  themselves  in  that  way. 

"We  can  also  say:  certain  cultures  have  an  ideal  program  that  the  participants  tend 
to  realize;  they  have  a  role,  culturally  imposed. 

"There  can  also  be  interaction  between  the  two  elements.  Is  the  impossibility  of  under- 
standing humor  an  Indian  racial  characteristic  or  is  it  a  cultural  fact?  I  don't  know." 

I  have  altered  the  choppy  syntax,  paragraphing,  and  some  wording  that  strikes  me  as 
not  quite  Sapirian.  to  what  1  hope  is  a  style  closer  to  Sapir's.  In  so  doing,  however,  it 
seemed  to  me  that  I  had  implied  a  closer  link  between  the  biological  and  the  cultural 
than  the  LF  notes  do,  a  link  that  would  be  quite  inconsistent  with  Sapir's  position  as 
expressed  elsewhere.  The  bracketed  material  is  inserted  to  clarify  this  point. 

9.  Here  LB  refers  to  the  psychologist  [Edwin  B.]  Holt. 

10.  The  bracketed  material  derives  in  part  from  other  LB  notes  on  European  Romanticism. 

1 1 .  R2  actually  has:  "In  personal  situations,  there  is  a  balance  of  spending  money  on  individ- 
uals." 

12.  CK  adds,  perhaps  as  amplification  of  the  European  attitude:  "Bourgeois  society  appears 
10  be  extravagant,  but  is  really  careful." 

13.  LB's  notes  include  this  case,  along  with  some  other  material,  under  the  heading  "Sapir 
on  Culture  and  Neurosis."  The  material  assembled  under  this  heading  does  not  seem  to 
correspond  to  any  one  lecture  or  section  of  a  lecture  as  recorded  by  other  note-takers,  so 
I  have  taken  the  liberty  of  scattering  it  through  this  chapter  where  topically  appropriate. 

14.  I.e.,  contextualization.  See  chapter  5  on  the  "placement"  of  a  cultural  element  in  a 
cultural  configuration.  Sapir's  discussions  of  contextuality  and  systemic  relations  seem 
often  to  draw  upon  a  geometrical  model;  see  his  1925  letter  to  Benedict  on  gestalt 
psychology  and  a  "geometry  of  experience,"  published  in  Mead  1959:177. 

15.  The  pyramid  image  occurs  at  several  points  in  the  notes  on  Sapir's  lectures,  and  in  his 
published  writings  as  well.  See,  for  example,  the  encyclopedia  article  on  "Symbolism" 


Two:  The  Tsyvholo^v  of  Culture  (>{)\ 

(1934e):  "Thus  indi\idiial  and  society,  in  a  ncMi  eiKimL'  mictpi.i)  .•!  s)mh.  ci. 

build  up  ihc  pyramided  structure  called  ci\ili/ation    In  this  structure  vci  •  .k» 

touch  the  ground." 

16.  CK  continues,  "returns  to  Mother  I  arth       Uiulnjj) 

17.  This  wordnig  ctMiies  Ironi  Sapir's  \*^)M)  presentation  io  the  SSR(  Hanover  Conference 
(1998b). 

18.  Earlier  in  the  same  lecture  (  K  has  "Personality  conllicts  go  beyond  the  plane  of  culiurc." 

19.  Wording  in  the  bracketed  passage  derives  in  part  from  (K's  "A-s-if  ps>ch<'  if 
this  scheme  of  life  were  the  actual  expression  of  individuaht>."  Hiis  scntcn  m 
CK's  notes  from  April  5,  but  I  have  placed  the  quote  itself  with  the  April  \2  matenal. 
See  also  "The  Contribution  of  Psychiatry  to  an  Understanding  of  Behavior  in  Society" 
(Sapir  1937a)  on  the  "dangerous"  metaphorical  identification  of  society  with  a  pcrstmal- 
ity,  or  of  culture  with  actual  behavior. 

20.  In  the  actual  le.xt  of  "The  Contribution..."  (Sapir  1937a)  this  sentence  continues:  "  and. 
until  his  special  social  frame  of  reference  is  clearly  established,  analv/ed.  and  applied  lo 
his  behavior,  we  are  necessarily  at  a  loss  to  assign  him  a  place  in  a  more  general  scheme 
of  human  behavior."  Several  passages  in  this  paper  are  reminiscent  of  material  in  Sapir's 
lectures  of  April  1937. 

21.  Sapir  evidently  concluded  the  lecture  oi  April  5.  1937  with  a  critique  of  works  by  Bene- 
dict and  Mead;  he  took  up  the  critique  again  in  the  lecture  o\  .April  12.  repeating  some 
of  the  same  points.  For  smoothness  of  written  presentation  1  ha\e  moved  some  of  ihc- 
April  5  comments  to  the  April  12  section. 

22.  The  organization  of  this  section  is  based  on  the  lecture  of  April  12.  1937,  supplememcu 
by  material  from  April  24.  1933  and  the  Rockefeller  Seminar  (Ferraro  notes)  where 
pertinent. 

23.  American  Journal  of  Sociologw  42  (6),  May  1937.  an  issue  consisting  of  papers  from  a 
symposium  of  psychiatrists  and  social  scientists  on  "social  disorganization."  The  p^kNchia- 
trist  contributors  are  Alfred  Adler,  Franz  Alexander.  Trigant  Burrow.  Elton  Mavo.  Paul 
Schilder.  David  Slight,  and  Harry  Stack  Sullivan  (see  bibliography  for  full  references). 
Sapir's  paper,  "The  Contribution  of  Psychiatry  to  an  I'nderstandmg  of  BehaMor  in 
Society."  comes  immediately  after  the  psychiatrists'  and  ci>mmenis  upon  them  I"hc  issue 
continues  with  articles  by  sociologists  Herbert  iilumer.  Willi, mi  I  Ogburn  and  .Abe  JafTe, 
and  Mark  May  (see  bibliography). 

24.  Later  writers  on  culture  and  personality  used  the  term  "norm"  for  a  similar  concept 

25.  Sapir  seems  also  to  have  suggested  that  Mead  and  Benedict  projected  their  own  values 
onto  the  cultural  patterns  they  describe  in  psvchological  terms.  Rl  adds  "Benedict  (as- 
sesses] Zuni  from  emot.  evaluation  |  sensory  type  would  ev.  Zuni  from  sensory  pi  of 
view  -  [emphasizing]  forms  -  color  -  ritual  -..."  Sapir's  distinction  bclwc-en  cm""'>"d 
and  sensory  personality  types  derives  from  Jung;  see  ch.  8. 

26.  CK  adds:  "(this  is  Mead)." 

27.  The  passage  1  draw  upon,  in  this  letter  of  October  25.  1938.  begins  thus  "I  judge  from 
a  number  of  passages  in  your  essay  that  you  share  m\  feeling  that  there  is  danger  of  the 
growth  of  a  certain  scientific  mythology  in  anthropological  circles  with  regard  lo  ihe 
psychological  interpretation  of  culture.  I  believe  this  comes  oul  mosl  ckarly  in  Rulh 
Benedict's  book.  "Patterns  of  Culture."  I'niess  I  misunderstand  the  direction  of  her 
thinking  and  of  the  thinking  of  others  who  are  under  her  inlluenco.  there  is  an  alloeclher 
too  great  readiness  lo  translate  psvchological  analogies  into  p  '  do 
not  like  the  glib  way  in  which  man>  talk  of  such  and  such  .i  >»r 
what  you  will.  It  would  be  my  intention  to  bring  out  clearl).  in  a  book  that  I  ha\<  still 
to  write,  the  extreme  methodological  importance  of  distinguishing  ..." 

28.  The  bracketed  material  is  ba.sed  upon  statements  in  OL  and  MD'$  notes.  I  include  it 
here  to  avoid  suggesting  a  contradiction  betwtx-n  this  siatemcnl  in  the  Scl/nick  klter 


(^[)2  ///   Cull  lire 

and  the  class  notes.  Thai  Sapir  had  not  abandoned  the  idea  of  "as  if  psychological 
picturcN  in  the  last  years  of  his  life  is  clear  from  his  lengthy  exposition  of  them  in  the 
1937  lecture  notes 

29.  QQ  has  ••sociel>""  throughout  this  passage. 

30.  For  one  ofSapir's  clearest  statements  about  "as-if  psychology,  see  "Notes  on  Psycholog- 
ical Orientation  in  a  Given  Society."  1926  (1998a),  especially  the  following  passage  (from 
which  I  have  extracted  a  portion,  below):  "We  can  say  of  all  individuals  who  go  through 
the  forms  of  religious  conduct  that  they  are  acting  as  //they  were  inspired  by  the  feelings 
o\'  those  who  roallv  feel  religiously,  whether  they  really  are  or  not... In  other  words,  we 
can  loi>k  upon  socialized  behavior  as  symbolic  of  psychological  processes  not  illustrated 
b>  the  individuals  themselves... [(after  a  discussion  of  French  culture)]  The  point  is,  the 
psychological  slant  given  at  some  time  or  other  in  the  general  configurations  we  call 
F-rcnch  culture  by  particular  individuals  became  dissociated,  acted  as  a  sort  of  symbol 
or  pattern  so  that  all  following  have  to  act  as  though  they  were  inspired  by  the  original 
motivation,  as  though  they  were  acting  in  such  or  such  a  psychological  sense,  whether 
the\  temperamentally  were  or  not... So  we  can  characterize  whole  cultures  psychologi- 
cally without  predicating  those  particular  psychological  reactions  of  the  individuals  who 
carry  on  the  culture." 

.^1.  LF  has  "But  the  'typology'  is  important  to  understand  culture,"  as  the  concluding  sen- 
tence in  the  paragraph  beginning,  "What  do  we  mean  by  'integration?'" 
.^2.  Italics  original. 

33.  LB  also  mentions,  "Chicago  Hindu  arguing  about  the  real  'b'  and  'p'."  See  "Notes  on 
Psychological  Orientation  in  a  Given  Society"  (1998a),  in  which  this  anecdote  is  related 
in  detail. 

34.  Sapir  was  probably  referring  to  Anglo-America  rather  than  Native  America  here,  even 
though  QQ  has:  "Amerind  [?]  behavior  has  remarkable  wealth  of  implication,...".  Rl 
has:  "Much  implication  -  action  -  American  culture." 

35.  That  Sapir  gave  some  anecdotal  illustration  of  this  contrast  is  suggested  in  Rl:  "ques. 
asked  about  food  on  ship  bet.  Kobi  &  China  -  Stewart  Richards  ob.  [?]  all  right.  Of 
course,  only  imitation  food.  -  whimsical  fancy.  -  American  would  attack  such  a  ques. 
with  engineering  attitude  of  attacking  fancied  problem:  then  joke.  -  Typical  English 
attitude." 

36.  CK  adds,  "who  have  not  educated  their  sensations." 


Chapter  10.  The  Adjuslmenl  of  ihc  Indi\idual 

in  Soeiely 

[The  Proh/cni  of  Iiuliv'ulucil  AdjustDicni:  The  Gcncrnl  I /i»i  / 

ri.  oi.  ak  jL^.|  ^^  mij-,  ,^^^^^  jj^^j  jj-,^.  problem  of  iiuiiMclual  [aJaplalion] 
lo  the  requirements  of  society:  the  tacit  adjustmeiu  between  the  psychic 
system  of  the  individual  and  the  official  lineaments  o\'  the  [social  and 
cultural  environment.]  "^"■'  The  discussion  o\'  personality  types  that  ue 
have  [engaged  in]  heretotbre,  [with  reference  to  Jung's  psychiatric  ap- 
proach, on  the  one  hand,  and  with  reference  to  its  metaphorical  exten- 
sions on  the  plane  of  culture,  on  the  other.]  is  imporiani  not  so  much 
[for  the  types]  in  themselves  as  from  the  point  o\'  \  ieu  o\  personalii> 
adjustment  within  and  to  a  culture. 

[You  will  recall  our  suggestion  that]  "  the  psychology  i^f  culture  has 
[two  quite  distinct  dimensions:]  (a)  the  as-if  psychology,  or  the  meaning 
given  by  culture  [to  one's  behavior,]  and  (b)  the  actual,  and  much  more 
intricate,  psychology  of  personal  action.  [What  ue  must  now  ask  is, 
what  is  the  influence  of  the  one  on  the  other".']  ''  What  is  the  elTeci  of 
these  cultural  "casts"  on  the  individual,  whose  a\enues  o\'  expression 
are  provided  by  society? 

[If  personality  were  but  the  consequence  of  one's  racial  inheritance, 
or  if  there  were  no  variability  o\'^  temperament  among  the  members  o\ 
a  society,  our  interesting  problem  would  not  arise.  There  would  be  liillc 
reason  to  distinguish  between  the  two  dimensions  o\'  the  psychology  of 
culture  in  the  first  place.]'  "  ''■ '"  1  belie\e.  howe\er.  that  the  dilTcrenccs 
in  personality  are  fundamental  and  that  the  variation  [i>f  |x*rsonaliiicsI 
is  about  as  great  in  one  culture  as  another,  the  variation  onl\  taking 
different  forms  in  different  cultures.  |l  find  m\ self  somewhat  skeptical, 
therefore,  about  certain  recent  works  on  euliure  and  temperament,  such 
as  Margaret  Mead's  writings  on  Samoa.]  *'^^  Mead's  work  is  pioneering 
in  the  sense  that  she  realizes  that  dilTerent  cultures  result  m  ditTereni 
personality  transformations.  She  is  entirely  obli\unis.  howe\er.  to  the 
play  of  personality  dilTerences  within  a  primitive  culture,  and  treats 
primitive  personalities  as  being  all  alike  on  liie  same  dead  level  of  sim- 


(^()4  ///  Culture 

ilarity.  For  example,  it  is  likely  that  in  actual  fact  there  are  personality 
mistlis  among  Samoan  adolescents  brought  up  under  the  old  free  Sa- 
moan  pattern;  yet  Mead  has  nothing  to  say  of  this  and  assumes  all 
personalities  developed  according  to  one  type. 

^^  Probably  we  have  in  all  cultures  [individuals  of|  the  same  basic 
personalitv  types  to  deal  with,  such  types,  for  example,  as  Jung  depicts 
in  his  [book.]  The  problem,  then,  is  to  show  the  way  those  basic  types 
are  transformed  or  re-emphasized  or  re-aligned  according  to  the  master 
idea[s]-  of  each  diverse  culture.  This  is  an  immense  problem,  [for  whose 
solution  the  usual  methods  of  anthropological  work  are  scarcely  ade- 
quate; it  presents  us,  therefore,  with]  the  difficulty  of  acquiring  new 
techniques.  The  broad  program  would  involve; 

( 1 )  a  thorough  study  and  knowledge  of  the  cultural  patterns  of  a 
griHip; 

(2)  an  attempt  to  study  personality  types  of  selected  individuals 
against  or  in  terms  of  this  background,  perhaps  by  keeping  a  day-to- 
day diary,  or  [through  a]  case  study  of  selected  personalities  in  their 
relation  to  each  other  and  in  reaction  to  key  cultural  situations.  But  the 
culture  must  be  analysed  beforehand  with  special  reference  to  its  master 
ideas.  Only  then  can  one  begin  the  task  of  understanding  personality 
transformations  that  occur  through  the  impact  of  culture  contact  on 
native  personality  configurations.^ 

'•''  Defining  the  process  of  adaptation  to  a  culture  thus  involves  a 
definition  both  of  the  personality  type  and  of  the  demands  of  the  cul- 
ture. '^  [Moreover,  in  order  to  define  the  personality  type  and  under- 
stand its  adjustments  we  must  remember  that]  there  is  a  difference  be- 
tween the  psychological  constitution  of  an  individual  -  his  real  charac- 
teristics -  and  that  of  his  group  behavior  or  appearance  in  the  society 
as  a  whole. 

"•^  [For  example,]  the  group  may  admire  male  aggressiveness  toward 
women,  and  demand  of  its  male  members  such  clearly  masculine  char- 
acteristics. These  are  socially  suggested  and  approved  in  that  given  cul- 
ture, and  the  different  individuals  reflect  this  pattern  in  a  variety  of 
forms  and  degrees.  Of  course,  the  prior  outlines  of  the  [person's]  indi- 
viduality have  the  utmost  significance.  These  must  be  taken  into  con- 
sideration, [but]  in  order  to  find  the  true  personality  of  the  individual 
we  have  to  [go  through]  an  enormous  amount  of  elimination  of  certain 
aspects  of  traits.  (The  more  we  know  about  the  culture,  the  more  ade- 
quately we  shall  be  able  to  [speak]  about  the  individual's  real  personal- 
ity.) [Thus  this  culturally-patterned]  aggressiveness  appears  differently 


Two:  The  P.sychold^y  of  (  uliurc  605 

in  different  individuals.  [This  is  not  only  because  individuals'  nuclear 
personalities  differ,  but  also  because]  it  is  in  relation  to  others'  aggres- 
siveness in  the  milieu  that  one  has  to  organize  one's  social  behavior. 

■^^  [In  so  organizing  their  behavior]  people  act  symbolically  and  not 
individually.  The  intellectual  general  in  the  army  who  is  an  engineer  or 
perhaps  a  physician  is  not  primarily  concerned  with,  or  interested  in. 
aggressiveness  and  the  war  affairs  of  his  group.  He  is  perhaps  looking 
for  new  symbols  for  his  own  satisfaction,  but  he  cannot  break  the  social 
patterns  that  are  required  o\'  him.  This  behavicn-  [(the  behavior  that 
conforms  with  his  group's  aggressiveness  and  interest  in  warfare)]  is  an 
indirect  expression  of  group  loyalty.  He  beha\es  so,  not  in  harmons 
with  his  [own]  desires,  but  accommodating  himself  to  "as-if  preferred 
cultural  patterns  of  his  society.  Thus,  [in  a  case  like  his]  there  is  a  con- 
flict with  the  preferred  psychological  patterning  of  the  society,  and  the 
psychological  patterns  of  society  are  unreal  to  the  personality"^  in  such 
circumstances. 

^'  [For  this  reason,]  no  adjustment  [defined  simply]  on  the  basis  of  an 
as-if  psychology  can  be  acceptable  to  the  psychology  o\'  personal  feel- 
ings. '^'  The  problem  of  individual  adjustment  in  society  [may  insolve 
a  variety  of]  methods  of  adjustment,  successful  and  unsuccessful.  *^ 
[Moreover,]  the  energy  spent  in  the  process  of  adjustment  to  the  pre- 
ferred social  patterns  differs  very  much  among  individuals.  The  indivi- 
dual, to  the  extent  of  the  difficulty  he  encounters,  is  abnormal  in  assimi- 
lating the  psychological  aspect  of  his  culture. 

[Now,  suppose  that  a  person  has  especially  great  difl'iculties  of  adjust- 
ment. The  aggressiveness  we  were  just  speaking  about  may  also  arise  as 
a  consequence  of  this.]  '''^  [His  difficulty  would  display  itself  as]  unusual 
aggressiveness,  which  is  [really]  cowardice.  [For  example,  consider]  an 
individual  who,  with  a  [wish  for  a]  childish  [form  ol]  intimacy,  wants  a 
considerable  hearing;  but  he  cannot  [have  it]  with  every  single  mdiNidual 
member  of  the  group. '^  So,  he  hates  the  group  and  becomes  excessivcK 
aggressive.  He  is  not,  therefore.  *'normall\"  aggressne.  [only  deriva- 
tively so  as  a  result  of  his  difficulties  of  adjustment.  The  particular  na- 
ture of  his  aggressiveness  reveals  itself  in  his  unusual  acts:  for  instance.] 
he  may  enter  the  presence  of  a  dignified  and  respectable  elderly  profes- 
sor in  a  Napoleonic  manner,  making  lationali/alions  o\'  his  own.  He 
continues  to  be  effectively  aggressive  [only]  as  long  as  his  behavior  is 
not  repudiated  by  the  group,  [which  it  may  well  be.  His  case  is  ditVerenl 
from]  real  aggressiveness,  which  bcK>ngs  to  the  real  personalits.  and 
receives  some  recognition  among  ilic  members  ot  the  society. 


6U6  III  Culture 

"  [But  it  may  be  the  case  that  the  personality's  adjustment  to  a  social 
environment  takes  a  ditTerent  form,  such  as  subHmation.  For  example,] 
to  lie  [to  someone]  lor  [reasons  ot]  good  manners  is  [a  form  of]  sublima- 
tion o\'  an  original  anxiety  of  circumstances.  [One  might  say  that  be- 
cause cultural  patterns  dictate  what  "good  manners"  are  and  when  a 
lie  is  appropriate.]  culture  gives  the  key  to  the  problem  of  sublimation. 
But  indiNiduals  do  not  arrive  at  [this]  end-point  by  the  same  means. 
[Moreover,  some  sublimations  will  go  unnoticed  because  cultural  pat- 
terns are  available  to  handle  them;  but  this  is  not  the  the  sum  total  of 
the  sublimations  efTected  by  all  the  individuals  in  a  society.  We  label 
as]  perversions  [those  sublimations]  without  a  cultural  background  into 
whose  patterns  the  sublimation  may  be  made,  for  those  are  [the  subli- 
mations] that  stand  out,  while  culturally  handled  perversions  are  ab- 
sorbed. Culture  gives  the  terrain  of  normal  sublimation  effected  by  the 
indi\iduals  [in  the  society,  and  as  cultures  differ  so  do  the  forms  of 
sublimation  "normal"  to  them.  The  introduction  of]  peyote  and  the 
Ghost  Dance  could  "take"  in  the  Plains  but  not  in  Pueblo  [culture, 
therefore,  since  these  forms  of  sublimation  were  consistent  with  "nor- 
mal" cultural  patterns  in  the  one  case  and  not  the  other.] 

"• '-  [The  psychology  of  culture  thus  includes  two  distinct  questions:] 
What  are  the  general  psychological  roots  of  any  culture  pattern  and 
o\^  the  as-if  psychology?  ^^  What  is  the  personal  psychology  of  [those] 
individuals  who  tend  to  follow  the  first  [(i.  e.,  the  patterned  as-if 
psychology)]  and  [what  is  the  personal  psychology  which,]  when  diver- 
gent [from  the  cultural  prescription,]  will  be  envisaged  as  a  morbid, 
obvious  tendency? 

md.  bg  ^g  Yx\ovj  that  certain  cultures  act  selectively  with  regard  to 
certain  personality  types.  ^^  The  culture  pattern,  [we  might  say,  shows  a 
kind  of|  receptivity  for  a  type.  A  shaman  in  Chukchi  or  Eskimo  society, 
[for  example,  behaves  like]  an  hysteric,  [while]  shamans  are  homosexual 
on  the  Northwest  Coast.^  ^s  [Other  religions,  such  as]  Christian  Science, 
[also  provide  avenues  and  roles  for  the  hysteric  and  may  even  capitalize 
on  their  behavior],  as  Arab  culture  capitalizes  on  Muhammad's  neuro- 
sis."^ "^^  Culture  acts  acceptingly  and  electrically  in  response  to  signifi- 
cant personalities.  '^^  ^g  -^q  patterns  of  a  culture  make  it  hospitable  to 
a  [certain  personality]  type,  but  the  patterns  [too]  are  continually  being 
tested  through  the  adjustment  of  individuals  to  them.  ^^  While  a  [certain 
type  of]  individual  adjusts  better  in  one  culture  than  another,  [a  cultural] 
desire  to  accomodate  aberrant  personalities  may  result  in  new  in- 
crements of  social  value.^ 


Two:  The  Psychology  ol  Culture  607 

[In  some  cases,  ihcii.  we  see  that  it  is  possible  U))  ''^  capitalize  on  the 
defects  of  one's  personality.  "  [This  possibility  is  not  only  a  question  of 
the  match  between  an  indi\  idiial  and  a  type  of  society,  but  also  of  the 
individuaTs  form  ol]''  ctmipensation  and  over-ct>mpensation,  vOnch 
is  just  the  former  to  a  greater  degree  than  is  necessary  or  customary.  -'^ 
Such  personalities  [as  compensate  effectivels  j  are  among  the  most  pow- 
erful members  of  society,  for  it  is  when  in  necessity  that  persons  de\elop 
their  [native  endowments,  such  as  their]  genetically-endowed  intelli- 
gence. The  better  adjustment  occurs  in  the  compensating  types  o^  per- 
sonality, and  less  energy  is  consumed  in  the  achiexemeni.  "  [In  this 
process]  those  who  associate  themselves  with  the  social  order  are  the 
powerful  interpreters  of  society  -  the  Mussolinis.  etc.  The  timorous 
man  has  not  this  identification  with  societal  necessities,  [although  his 
compensations  may  be  effective  in  other  ways.]  The  tendency  not  to 
quite  face  a  situation,  but  to  translate  one's  lack  [o^  ability  to  ci>nform 
to  its  behavioral  demands]  into  some  other  form  which  will  he  ii>  mie's 
own  advantage,  is  a  form  of  compensation. 

[Everyday  life  is  full  of  examples  of  forms  of  conipensaiion.  lor  in- 
stance,] "  an  inability  to  make  a  tlowing  hand  involves  the  compensa- 
tion of  [making,  instead,]  a  very  severe,  fence-post  handwriting.  [In 
general,  the  more]  rigid  the  law  or  the  rules  [about  something,  as  with 
the  handwriting]  rules  of  this  type,  [the  more  likely  the\  are  to  be]  an 
example  of  an  escape  mechanism  or  compensation.  [Now.  to  label  some- 
thing a]  compensation  is  not  a  criticism.  [Compensations  are  necessary 
and,  as  we  have  seen,  they  are  sometimes  a  positi\e  advantage.  Not 
every  personality  compensates  equally  easily,  howeser.]  If  the  indnidual 
identifies  himself  too  well  with  a  problem  and  does  not  rel>  on  s\mbol- 
ism  [to  find  an  advantageous  form  of  behavior],  then  the  job  of  compen- 
sation is  harder. 

[Thus]  '*''  the  society  may  expect  the  person  to  participate,  at  least  to 
a  certain  level  and  degree,  in  the  aesthetic  requirements,  to  be  able  ii^ 
play  the  piano  for  instance,  and  this  urge  may  be  imposed  b\  the  lather 
upon  his  son  who  does  not  possess  so  keen  an  interest  in  the  subject. 
and  whose  natural  equipment  ma\  nt>t  be  so  fa\iMable.  I  his  malad- 
justed person  may  turn  out  to  be  a  neurotic  in  the  major  role[sl  ot  the 
society.  Yet  another  person  may  acquire  symbols  for  adjustment  or  use, 
as  an  escape,  humor  which  is  accepted  by  the  group,  lie  willmgK  admits 
his  defects  and  gets  around  the  difTicuIty  cleverly  by  reconcilement.  This 
is  overcompensation  and  o\er-adjusinient. 


608  Hi  Culture 

"  [Indeed.]  humor  is  a  good  compensatory  institution;^^  [and  as  it  is 
an  institution,  perhaps  there  is  a  sense  in  which]  a  whole  culture  can  be 
described  in  terms  of  compensation.'-  In  present[-day  society  our]  more 
or  less  strict  social  mores  concerning  sex,  saloons,  stag  parties,  and  so 
on  are  [patterned  like]  compensations,  as  is  the  gross  humor  of  Puritan 
society.  Humor  makes  good  something  that  has  been  starved  out.  Gen- 
erallv  humor  is  valuable  only  to  the  individual,  [as  in  the  kind  of  case 
we  were  discussing  earlier.  Serving  as  the  personality's  means  of  adjust- 
ment or  escape,]  it  is  a  purely  personal  matter.  [On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
also  dependent  on  cultural  patterns;  so  a  certain]  cultural  adjustment  is 
necessary  before  certain  kinds  of  humor  can  be  appreciated.  The 
mother-in-law  joke  [will  hardly  be  appreciated  in  a  culture  where  the 
mother-in-law  is]  taboo. 

[These  considerations  about  compensation  illustrate  the  complexity 
of  the  problem  of  individual  adjustment  to  the  demands  of  culture.  And 
it  is  fundamental  to  bear  in  mind  that]  ^'^  the  culture  is  not  just  an  inert 
psychological  value.  [From  one  point  of  view,  of  course,]  culture  is  mer- 
ely a  pattern;  it  is  in  process  only  when  the  individual  participates. 
These  patterns,  however,  themselves  are  psychological  problems  and 
impinge  upon  the  individual  at  a  very  early  age.  And  the  various  types 
of  adjustment  [which  the  various  types  of  personalities  effect]  give  us  a 
very  large  number  of  social-psychological  processes. 

^''  [The  variety  of]  methods  of  adjustment,  successful  and  unsuccess- 
ful, [in  turn  affect  the  patterns  of  culture:  as  we  have  said,]  '^  culture 
patterns  [-  though  they  are  historically  derived  -]  are  continually  being 
tested  in  the  adjustment  of  individuals  [to  them.  Which  plays  the  greater 
role  -  the  weight  of  anonymous  tradition,  or  the  act  of  the  individual?] 
The  anonymity  of  anthropological  method  [stands  starkly  opposed]  to 
the  Carlylism  of  historians  [who  see  history  in  terms  of  the  acts  of  great 
personalities.  I  should  prefer  to  suggest,  however,  that]  ^^  the  stability 
of  culture  depends  on  the  slow  personal  reinterpretations  of  the  mean- 
ings of  patterns,  t'g'  ^^  Adjustment  consists  of  the  linking  of  the  personal 
world  of  meanings  onto  the  patterned,  social  world  of  meanings.  ^^  Thus 
one's  "personal  culture"  is  a  pattern  [seen]  for  what  it  means  to  the 
mdividual,  [who  places]  personal  emphasis  on  some  values  as  opposed 
to  others;  [and  this  in  turn  affects]  the  viability  of  the  values  [over  the 
long  term.]  [Cultural]  vitality  [is  made]  not  of  impersonal  sequences  of 
events,  but  a  pooling  of  these  many  case-histories  and  statistical  iron- 
ings-out. 


Two:  The  P.sycholoi;}-  of  Culture  609 

^^  [Perhaps  we  can  say  something  more  ahoiii]  the  personal  world  of 
meanings,  [if  we  consider]  ''^'*'*-'  the  field  of  child  development.  As  soon 
as  we  set  ourselves  at  the  vantage-point  of  the  culture-acquiring  child, 
[with]  the  personality  defmitions  and  potentials  thai  must  never  lor  a 
moment  be  lost  sight  ot^  and  which  are  destined  from  the  very  b>eginning 
to  interpret,  evaluate,  and  modify  every  culture  pattern,  sub-pattern,  or 
assemblage  of  patterns  that  it  will  ever  be  influenced  by.  everythmg 
changes.  Culture  is  then  not  something  given  but  something  to  be  grad- 
ually and  gropingly  discovered.  We  then  see  at  once  that  elements  of 
culture  that  come  well  within  the  horizon  of  awareness  of  one  individual 
are  entirely  absent  in  another  individual's  landscape. 

^^  [If  we  are  to  understand  the  transmission  of  culture,  or  indeed 
the  whole  problem  of  culture  tYom  this  developmental  point  of  view,]'-* 
the  time  must  come  when  the  cosmos  of  the  child  of  three  will  be  known 
and  defined,  not  merely  referred  to.  '""-■  The  organized  intuiti\e  organiza- 
tion of  a  three-year-old  is  tar  more  valid  and  real  than  the  most  ambi- 
tious psychological  theory  ever  constructed.  [Yet,  our  three-year-olds 
are  not  all  the  same.]  Our  children  are  fully  developed  personalities  very 
early;  [we  do  not  quite  know  how  this  comes  about,  but  it  depends 
considerably  on]  "^^  the  interactions  between  the  child  and  his  early  envi- 
ronment up  to  the  age  of  three. '"^  '"'^  [Even  within  the  same  family,  each 
child's]  world  is  a  different  kind  of  a  thing  because  the  fundamental 
emotional  relationships  were  differently  established  [depending  on  his 
status]  as  first  or  second  child. 

^s  In  the  child's  cosmos,  patterns  of  beha\  ior  are  understood  emo- 
tionally, [in  terms  of  a  particular  constellation  o^  relationships].'^  The 
genetic  psychology'^  of  the  child  will  show  specific  emphases  o\'  mean- 
ings of  patterns  which  are  used  to  handle  and  control  the  people  and 
events  of  the  social  world.  '^^^ '-''  [Thus  words  and  other  symbols  do  not 
have  exactly  the  same  meaning  for  the  child  as  they  will  for  the  aduli. 
for  in  the  child's  world]  various  words  ha\e  special  \alues  and  emo- 
tional colorations,  [taken  on  through  their]  absorption  (in  the  child's] 
emotional  and  rational  [concerns].'^  Later  additions  of  meanings  must 
be  seen  in  the  light  of  the  nuclear  family  complex  and  its  elTcci  on 
personality  development.  ''^'''*''  It  is  obvious  that  the  child  will  uncon- 
sciously accept  the  various  elements  of  culture  \silh  enlirel>  dillerenl 
meanings,  according  to  the  biographical  conditions  that  attend  their 
introduction  to  him.  It  may,  and  undoubtedly  does,  make  a  profound 
difference  whether  a  religious  ritual  comes  with  the  sternness  o\  a  fa- 
ther's authority  or  with  the  somewhat  playful  indulgence  o\  the  moth- 
er's brother.'^  [So  it  is  only  through  patient  studies  of  child  dcNclop- 


610  ///  Culture 

mcnt.  concerned  with  a  limited  number  of  specific  individuals,  that  we 
ma\  really  begin  to  understand  the  connections  between]  '^  childhood 
constellations  and  religion,  between  infantile  Apperzeptionsmasse  [and 
the  meaning  of  adult  activities,'"^  [between  the  child's]  hunting  in  closets 
and  [the  adult's]  scientific  interest  in  crystallography. 

■''^  As  [has  been]  suggested  by  Dr.  Sullivan,  studying  a  limited  number 
of  personalities,  for  about  ten  years,  by  different  representatives  of  the 
fields  o'(  social  science  will,  no  doubt,  be  of  great  help  to  understand 
more  clearly  the  problem  of  personality.  [The  same  is  true  for  the  prob- 
lem of  culture.]  '''^  This  study  will  take  the  individual  as  early  as  possible 
in  life  and  follow  him  through  for  quite  a  considerable  period  of  time 
with  utmost  care  and  with  cooperation  and  mutual  aid  of  each  system 
and  method  of  approach  involved.  '^'"^''  Study  the  child  minutely  and 
carefully.-"  with  a  view  to  seeing  the  order  in  which  cultural  patterns 
and  parts  of  patterns  appear  in  his  psychic  world;  study  the  relevance 
of  these  patterns  for  the  development  of  his  personahty;  and,  at  the  end 
of  the  suggested  period,  see  how  much  of  the  total  official  culture  of 
the  group  can  be  said  to  have  a  significant  existence  for  him.  Moreover, 
what  degree  of  systematization,  conscious  or  unconscious,  in  the  com- 
plicating patterns  and  symboHsms  of  culture  will  have  been  reached  by 
this  child?  This  is  a  difficult  problem,  to  be  sure,  but  it  is  not  an  impos- 
sible one.  Sooner  or  later  it  will  have  to  be  attacked  by  the  genetic 
psychologists.  I  venture  to  predict  that  the  concept  of  culture  which  will 
then  emerge,  fragmentary  and  confused  as  it  will  undoubtedly  be,  will 
turn  out  to  have  a  tougher,  more  vital  importance  for  social  thinking 
than  the  tidy  tables  of  contents  attached  to  this  or  that  group  which  we 
have  been  in  the  habit  of  calling  "cultures."^' 

i934ajf  ^g  take  the  purely  genetic^^  point  of  view,...  problems  of  sym- 
bolism, of  superordination  and  subordination  of  patterns,  of  relative 
strength  of  emotional  character,  of  transformability  and  transmissabil- 
ity,  of  the  isolability  of  certain  patterns  into  relatively  closed  systems, 
and  numerous  others  of  like  dynamic  nature,  emerge  at  once.  We  cannot 
answer  any  of  them  in  the  abstract.  All  of  them  demand  patient  investi- 
gation and  the  answers  are  almost  certain  to  be  multiform.  [For,  a  part 
of  what  we  are  investigating  is  the  emergence  of  a  personal  cosmos  and, 
in  an  important  sense,]  "^'^'  ^^^  ^g  a  personal  cosmos  -  a  personal  world 
of  meanings  -  is  a  separate  culture.  '^-  ^^  The  totality  of  culture  is  more 
many-chambered  and  complex  than  we  suspect.^^  We  take  meanings 
that  apply  to  the  majority  of  individuals  in  a  group  and  thus  create  the 
illusion  of  an  objective  entity  which  we  call  "culture"  or  a  collective 
body  of  meanings.  "^^  But  it  is  an  imaginative  abstraction.  '^  Thus  [-  to 


Two:  f/ic  P.svcholoi^v  of  Culiuri'  611 

recall  an  argument  we  made  in  an  earlier  chapter  ]  it  is  so  hard  lo 
speak  o\'  the  "causes"  ol"  historical  e\ents.  ''^'  Culture  history  has  laic 
[perhaps,  even]  necessity,  but  no  causation.  '^  The  "reasons"  |wc  give  to 
cultural  forms  are]  only  harmonizations  o(  our  (own)  ideas.  '^-  ^^  The 
true  reasons  [we  draw  the  abstractions  we  do\  are  ditficult  [to  recognize, 
and]  many  times  would  be  embarrassing  and  dangerous  [lor  us  were  we 
to  do  so.]-"* 

'''  [Investigating]  the  problem  of  individual  adjustmeni  in  society  [has 
thus  led  us  inevitably  to]  the  concept  o\'  pluralism  of  culture  in  a  given 
society.  [For  the  patterns  of  culture  are  subject  lo]  endless  revaluation 
as  we  pass  from  individual  to  indi\idual  and  from  one  period  lo  an- 
other. [We  have  also  seen  something  of  the  relationship  between)  indivi- 
dual and  cultural  configurations:  how  they  [may]  correspond,  reinforce 
each  other,  overlap,  intercross,  or  confiict.  [in  this  process,  culture  is 
reinterpreted  and  its  patterns  respond  to  the  individuals  adjusting  to 
them;  personality  does  likewise.  For]  ^'^'^^^  while  several  factors  ma\  be 
responsible  for  individual  differences  in  personality  the  one  of  ct>nsider- 
able  importance  socially  is  to  find  what  the  general  social  patterns  mean 
to  individuals  who  participate  in  them. 

i99cSb  j^jj^  sum,]  the  thesis  is  that  the  degree  of  agreement  between  ihe 
meaning  which  the  individual  comes  to  see  in  social  patterns  and  the 
general  meaning  [which]  is  inherent  (for  others)  in  those  patterns  is 
significant  for  an  understanding  of  the  individual's  process  of  adjust- 
ment, as  revealing  harmony  or  conflict. 


f Individual  Adjustment  to  Chan^in^  Conditions  j 

''  It  is  said  that  for  one  individual  one  type  of  society  is  best;  [in  fad, 
we  have  implied  as  much  in  earlier  pages.]  Bui  this  [staiemeni.  if  it  is 
to  be  taken  as  anything  more  than  the  ackiu^uledgemeni  ihai  some 
personalities  find  adjustmeni  to  their  social  environment  pariicularls 
difficult,]  involves  a  need  for  correct  analysis  o{  two  societies  plus  one 
individual  -  analyses  which  are  not  eas\  lo  make. 

[Suppose  however  that  we  consider  the  case  o\'  some  one  indi\idual 
who  happens  to  emigrate  to  a  new  social  cinironmeni.  Suppose  thai  he 
is  a  scalterbrain  and,  finding  that  his  fellows  in  his  name  selling  read 
unfavorably  to  his  behavior,  he  moves  lo  Pans,  where  his  life  is  easier. 
Is  he  now  better-adjusted'.']  "  A  scalterbrain  in  Paris  does  nol  adjust 
better  there;  his  adjustmeni  is  the  same  as  before.  Bui  the  type  of  judge- 


612  Hi  Culture 

iiKMii  (tlio  members  of  the  surrounding  society  make]  of  his  adjustment 
IS  more  lenient.  Such  a  thing  as  a  foreign  accent  will  [actually]  help  [his] 
adiustment,  [or  rather  it  will]  lessen  his  own  problem  of  adjustment,  by 
reducing  the  demands  of  others.  [Their]  judgement  [is  more  lenient  be- 
cause, hearing  the  accent,  they  recognize  him  as  a  foreigner  and  expect 
less  oi  him.  In  this  case  it  is  not  the  mode  of  adjustment  that  is  at  issue, 
only  the  society's  tolerance  of  foreigners.]  ^'  Indeed,  if  one  cannot  adjust 
to  the  society  in  which  one  has  been  nurtured,  how  can  one  adjust  better 
to  one  in  which  one  has  come  at  a  late  date,  except  in  the  way  above 
of  charitable  misunderstanding  on  the  part  of  the  host  society? 

[At  tlrst  glance  all  instances  of  immigration  might  appear  to  be  the 
same  as  this  one.  But  that  is  not  so.]  'i'^'  ^^  In  contemporary  America 
especially,  a  society  where  institutions  are  changing,  important  theoreti- 
cal advances  may  be  made  concerning  the  relation  between  culture  and 
personality.  '~-  ^^  Where  conditions  are  not  very  stable,  as  in  the  U.  S., 
the  relation  between  personality  and  culture  becomes  very  important: 
contrary  to  Europe,  the  individual  has  a  choice  of  several  as-if  psychol- 
ogies. "''^  There  is  a  remarkable  flux  of  status  and  function  and  a  remark- 
able "selfness"  of  the  individual,  '"'-^'i  [Now,  while  great]  importance  [is 
placed  on]  the  individual,  and  we  are  meeting  individual  peculiarities 
much  more  hospitably  than  ever  before,  [what  looks  like  hospitable 
accommodation  by  society  to  the  individual  personality  in  one  sense  is 
part  of  a  particular  cultural  pattern,  in  another:]  ""^^  I'l-  '"-  it  is  part  of 
the  extraverted,  intuitive  character  of  American  life.  "^^^  ^'^  [Ours  is  a] 
rapid  pace,  pretty  much  in  the  open;  and  this  can  be  thought  of  as 
exhilarating  or  as  shallow. 

'i^  What  Europeans  will  accommodate  themselves  best  [to  American 
life?  Perhaps  they  are]  those  who  have  the  least  to  lose  [by  accommoda- 
tion] -  sometimes  those  least  adapted  to  the  older  system,  ^'i-  ^"^  There 
will  be  an  attempt  to  recapture  the  old  [cultural]  symbols  in  the  new 
context;  where  this  is  not  possible,  the  old  will  quite  degenerate,  '^'i 
There  is,  then,  a  tendency  for  those  who  become  successful  to  adapt 
themselves  by  really  adopting  the  new  culture.  ""^^  "^^  In  America,  com- 
plete transvaluations  ([i.  e.,  cultural  shifts,  or]  acculturation)  are  com- 
monplace, 'i^  This  acculturative  process  must  be  strictly  distinguished 
from  the  [case  of  our  scatterbrain  in  Paris,  or,  analogously,  the]  process 
by  which  the  American  culture  simply  makes  itself  hospitable  to,  say, 
an  Englishman  who  preserves  or  even  accentuates  his  differences  from 
his  American  fellows. 

There  is  no  significant  acculturation  that  is  not  painful,  however. 
[As  we  have  just  said,]  if  the  attempt  to  recapture  old  symbolisms  in 


Two:  The  Fsycholoi^v  (if Culturi'  6n 

new  terms  cannot  be  achieved,  disintegration  results.  Indeed,  all  the 
processes  ot^idjustment  otMhe  individual  to  society  involve  some  sacri- 
fice. [There  is  always  some]  clash  between  the  demands  of  a  personality 
and  those  of  a  culture.  ''  The  process  of  [actively]  adjusting  or  passively 
conforming  to  the  culture  [can  be  the  source  o\'  what  appears  to  be 
merely  a]  personality  problem. 

''  Thus  the  theory  that  unless  one  is  a  neurotic  one  can  ad)usi  lo 
any  culture  cannot  be  absolutely  correct.  ^^-  '~  I  belie\e  people  differ 
fundamentally  in  personality  -  ''  though  it  is  fashionable  to  believe 
otherwise  -  and  that  personality  can  be  read  \n  terms  o\'  explicable 
factors.  Cultures  [also  vary,  so  that  some  cultures.]  because  o\'  certain 
values  [central  to  them,]  are  not  as  suitable  to  some  personalities  as  to 
others.  ^''  No  theory  of  neurosis  is  needed  to  account  for  the  diUlculty 
of  the  individual  in  adjusting  to  the  culture.  ''-  We  are  too  quick  to 
brand  many  of  these  personalities  as  abnormal;  actually,  every  one  of 
them  might-''  be  perfectly  adapted  to  some  one  as-if  cultural  psychol- 
ogy, [had  it  but  found  itself  in  the  right  cultural  environment]. 

■■'  [If  it  is  the  process  of  adaptation,  and  not  necessarily  just  the  per- 
sonality itself,  that  may  be  the  source  of  maladjustments,  there  may 
actually  be]  two  ways  maladjusted  people  can  be  helped:  one  [o\'  these] 
is  to  change  the  personality;  the  other,  to  change  the  patterns  or  con- 
cepts [by  means  of  which  the  personality  interacts  with  its  environment. 
But]  perhaps  just  as  some  [people  are  constitutionalls )  loo  delicate  to 
survive  physically  [in  the  geographical  environment  in  which  the\  find 
themselves],  in  the  cultural  landscape  the  same  may  be  true  i^f  personali- 
ties. "^^  A  certain  amount  of  [psychological]  death  rate  in  adjusting  the 
personality  to  the  cultural  climate  [must  be  expected,  just)  as  in  adjust- 
ing physique  to  [physical]  climate.  ''  While  the  strategic  placement  o( 
the  individual  in  [just  the  right  type  ot]  society  may  be  a  possibility 
theoretically,  it  is  hardly  so  in  practice. 


[Can  Their  Be  a  "True  Science  of  .\hifi".'/ 

[We  have  now  spent  some  lime  discussing]  ''  ihe  tacit  adjustment 
between  the  psychic  system  of  the  iiuli\idual  and  the  olTicial  lineaments 
of  the  [social  and  cultural]  environment.  [It  is  clear  that  the  life  o\'  the 
individual  in  society  can  never  be  just  a  simple  and  direct  expression  of 
his  own  nuclear  personality,  for  it  must  always  take  stx:ial  pressures 
into  account.]  '^  The  organization  o\'  [sixial]  force  [impinging  on  the 


514  Hi  Culture 

individual  [comprises]  many  [forms  of  coercion,]  from  the  tyranny  of 
one's  little  boy  to  governmental  force.  [From  these  pressures]  we  are 
too  cowardly  ever  to  be  free. 

''  The  factors  of  inner  adjustment  are  difficult  to  know.  '^^  ""^  The 
process  of  adjustment  is  not  only  the  matter  of  finding  a  place  in  the 
cultural  setting,  [a  problem  each  individual  might  face  equally]  regard- 
less of  what  the  individual  personality  needs  are.  '^  [It  is  a  problem  ofj 
the  adjustment  of  the  personality  [itself,  and  the  form  of  one's  participa- 
tion in  society.]-^  Those  who  are  well-adjusted  because  [their  participa- 
tion subjects  them  to]  less  thwarting  -  [perhaps  because  their]  profes- 
sional [situation,]  etc.,  [satisfies  their  personahty  needs]  -  are  unaware 
of  the  concept  of  carrying  around  a  psyche  that  is  always  fighting  for 
psychic  existence.-^ 

[So,  how  are  we  to  approach  these  problems,  from  an  analytical  point 
of  view?  What  scientific  discipline,  if  any,  might]  ^'^^^'^  take  on  the  char- 
acter of  [a  sufficiently]  inclusive  perception  of  human  events  and  per- 
sonal relations?  [Many  of  the  disciplines  constituted  as  special  sciences 
of  man's  physical  and  cultural  nature  will  disappoint  us  if  we  look  to 
them  for  help.  Tending  to  create  a  framework  of  tacit  assumptions 
about  the  nature  of  man  which  enable  their  practitioners  to  work  with 
maximum  economy  and  generality,  they  present  only  fragmentary  pic- 
tures of  man,  pictures  which  are  not  in  intelhgible  or  relevant  accord 
with  each  other  and  which  tend  to  become  more  and  more  estranged 
from  man  himself.]-^  '^^^^  The  classical  example  of  this  unavoidable 
tendency  is  the  science  of  economics,  which  is  too  intent  on  working 
out  a  general  theory  of  value,  producfion,  flow  of  commodities,  de- 
mand, [and]  price,  to  take  time  to  inquire  seriously  into  the  nature  and 
variability  of  those  fundamental  biological  and  psychological  determi- 
nants of  behavior  which  make  these  economic  terms  meaningful  in  the 
first  place.  The  sum  total  of  the  tacit  assumptions  of  a  biological  and 
psychological  nature  which  economics  makes  get  petrified  into  a  stan- 
dardized conception  of  "economic  man,"  who  is  endowed  with  just 
those  motivations  which  make  the  known  facts  of  economic  behavior 
in  our  society  seem  natural  and  inevitable.  In  this  way  the  economist 
gradually  develops  a  peculiarly  powerful  insensitiveness  to  actual  moti- 
vations, substituting  life-like  fictions  for  the  troublesome  contours  of 
life  itself. 

'^^^'^  The  economist  is  not  in  the  least  exceptional  in  his  unconscious 
procedure  ■■•  [that  creates  an]  economic  theory  in  which  psychological 
factors  are  not  recognized.  '939c  ^^  Hnguisfics,  abstracted  speech  sounds, 


Two:  The  P.syi/ioloj^y  oj  C'ultitrc  615 

words  and  the  arrangement  o'i  words  have  conic  to  have  so  authentic  a 
vitaHly  that  one  can  speak  of  "regular  sound  changes"  and  "loss  of 
genders"  without  knowing  or  caring  who  opened  then-  mouths,  at  what 
time,  to  communicate  what  to  whom...  The  laws  of  syntax  acquire  a 
higher  reality  than  the  immediate  reality  of  the  stammerer  who  is  trying 
to  "get  himself  across";  ' '  [but  his]  speech  errors  cannot  be  described 
or  explained,  [let  alone]  escaped,  only  linguistically.  There  are  psycho- 
logical reasons  [for  them  too  -  reasons  linguistics  has  excluded  from 
its  concerns.]  '^-  One  can  ^o  far  in  a  discipline  without  placing  it  \u  the 
cosmos  of  man. 

''^''''"^^  [Perhaps]  cultural  anthropology  and  psychiatry  (are  beller 
placed  to  make  formulations  about  man  and  his  place  in  society  which 
can  prove  accurate  when  tested  by  the  experience  o\'  ihc  individual. J'** 
Each  of  these  disciplines  has  its  special  "universe  of  discourse"  but  at 
least  this  universe  is  so  broadly  conceived  that,  under  favorable  circum- 
stances, either  of  them  can  take  on  the  character  o\'  a  true  science  oi 
man.  Through  the  sheer  weight  of  cultural  detail  and.  more  than  that, 
through  the  far-reaching  personality-conditioning  implications  of  varia- 
tions in  the  forms  of  socialized  behavior,  the  cultural  anthropologist 
may,  if  he  chooses,  advance  tYom  his  relatively  technical  problems  o^ 
cultural  definition,  distribution,  organization,  and  histor\  to  more  inti- 
mate problems  of  cultural  meaning,  both  for  individuals  and  for  signifi- 
cantly definable  groups  of  individuals.  And  the  psychiatrist  ma\.  if  he 
chooses,  advance  from  theories  o'i  personality  disorganization  to  theo- 
ries of  personality  organization,  which,  in  the  long  run.  ha\e  little  mean- 
ing unless  they  are  buttressed  by  a  comprehension  of  the  cultural  selling 
in  which  the  individual  ceaselessly  struggles  to  express  himself.  'Hie 
anthropologist,  in  other  words,  needs  only  to  trespass  a  little  on  the 
untilled  acres  of  psychology,  the  psychiatrist  to  poach  a  few  of  the  un- 
eaten apples  of  anthropology's  Golden  Bough. 

[Perhaps  it  will  be  possible  to  see  where  the  nnddle  ground  beivseen 
our  two  disciplines  might  lie  if  we  consider  the  problem  o\'  the  relation- 
ship between]  ''  personality  demands  and  symbols.  ^^  [it  takes  no  long 
acquaintance  with  psychiatry  to  discover  that  a  human  being's)  personal 
strength  is  augmented  by  touching  societ>"s  [symbols]  and  the  indisid- 
ual['s  own]  symbols  at  some  points.  (But  what  the  psychiatrist  may  over- 
look is  that  there  are]  two  orders  o\'  symbt^ls  individual  and  sivial. 
[Let  us  remind  him  thai  he  needs  to  concern  himself  uiih  both,  and  to 
recognize  that  the  social  plane  o\'  symbi^ls  touches  intimaleK  on  the 
individual's  motives  and  experience,  for  those  symbols  are  fundamen- 


516  til  Culture 

tally  involved  in  our  everyday  interactions  with  other  members  of  our 
society.]  ''  [As  individuals  whose  lives  intertwine  with  others,]  we  use 
the  same  symbols  as  others  do  so  that  we  can  advance  our  own  interests, 
[it  is  not  because  we  have  transcended  those  interests  and  moved  into 
an  exalted  realm  in  which  we]  care  about  society's  welfare  -  [a  matter 
about  which,  in  any  case,  we  can  have  no  impersonal  judgement;  we] 
onlv  have  [personal]  preferences.  ""^  [Indeed,  the  nature  of  your]  indivi- 
dual adjustment  colors  your  philosophy  of  society.  It  is  the  process  of 
adjusting  your  personality,  not  your  cultural  role,  [that  is  so  influential 
in  organizing  the  world  of  meanings  which  includes  your  conception  of 
"society"  itself,  and  in  terms  of  which  personal  action  is  undertaken 
and  interpreted]. 

[By  the  same  token,  the  cultural  anthropologist  whose  primary  inter- 
est in  symbols  lies  on  their  social  plane  needs  to  recognize  that]  ^''-  ^"^ 
cultural  considerations  alone  can  never  explain  what  happens  from  day 
to  day  -  they  are  inadequate  for  predicting  or  interpreting  any  particu- 
lar act  of  an  individual.  [The  reason  for  this,  in  a  nutshell,  is  that  in 
those  particular  acts]  ^"^  the  individual  is  not  adjusting  to  "society,"  but 
to  interpersonal  relationships.-^^ 

[Faced,  therefore,  with]  '^^  the  difficulty  of  segregating  the  [psycholog- 
ical and  the  social]  systems,  [and  convinced  that]  the  gap  between  the 
sociological  approach  and  the  psychological  approach  must  be  filled 
and  both  systems  must  be  used,  [I  find  that]  ^^^^^-  '^^  I  am  particularly 
fond  of  Dr.  Harry  Stack  Sullivan's  pet  phrase  of  "interpersonal  rela- 
tions." ''^^''^  The  phrase  is  not  as  innocent  as  it  seems,  for,  while  such 
entities  as  societies,  individuals,  cultural  patterns,  and  insfitutions  logi- 
cally imply  interpersonal  relations,  they  do  little  to  isolate  and  define 
them.  Too  great  agility  has  been  gained  over  the  years  in  jumping  from 
the  individual  to  the  collectivity  and  from  the  collectivity  via  romantic 
anthropological  paths  back  again  to  the  culture-saturated  individual. 
Refiection  suggests  that  the  lone  individual  was  never  alone,  that  he 
never  marched  in  line  with  a  collectivity,  except  on  literal  state  occa- 
sions, and  that  he  never  signed  up  for  a  culture.  There  was  always 
someone  around  to  bother  him;  there  were  always  a  great  many  people 
whom  his  friends  talked  about  and  whom  he  never  met;  and  there  was 
always  much  that  some  people  did  that  he  never  heard  about.  He  was 
never  formed  out  of  the  interaction  of  individual  and  society  but  started 
out  being  as  comfortable  as  he  could  in  a  world  in  which  other  people 
existed,  and  continued  this  way  as  long  as  physical  conditions  allowed. 


Two:  The  P.sycholoi^v  of  Culiurc  ^1" 

[The  study  of  "interpersonal  relations"  isj  ^'^  the  problem  ol  the  lu- 
ture.  '•'•  ■'  It  demands  that  we  study  [seriously  and  carefully  jusl[  what 
happens  when  A  meets  B  -  '^'  [given  that]  each  is  mu  onl\  phy^iologI- 
cally  defined,  but  each  [also]  has  memories,  feelings,  [understandings.) 
and  so  on  about  the  symbols  [they  can  and  iiuist  use  m  then  uiterac- 
tion].  '-  ''  It  is  also  necessary  to  study  variations  ui  uulividual  behavior 
in  different  circumstances;  •'''  [for]  the  individual's  whole  behaMor  is 
modified  in  a  new  situation,  and  even  his  facial  expressions  change. 
[And  it  is  also  necessary  that  we  study  the  consequences  o\'  the  fact  that] 
"•"i  the  differences  between  individuals  make  diflerent  things  happen 
when  A  and  B  are  ditTerent  people,  ''"'•  '-'^  or  when  someone  else,  C\  is 
with  them.  ' '  Thus  A  may  be  very  tYiendly  to  B  when  alone  and  yet  not 
friendly  when  C  is  present.  And  what  happens  when  C"  substitutes  for 
A?  When  all  three  meet?  When  one  of  the  three  is  removed  and  another 
added?  [In  each  case  you  have]  a  new  situation.  [In  any  situation]  uhen 
two  people  are  talking,  they  create  a  cultural  structure.  [Our  task,  as 
anthropologists,  will  be  to  determine]  ^^-  ''  what  are  the  potential 
contents  of  the  culture  that  results  from  these  interpersonal  relaticMis  m 
these  situations.-^' 

^~  I  think  we  should  abandon  [our  present]  abstract  terminolog\  (tor 
a  while]  and  study  each  situation  as  it  occurs.  In  this  way  we  will  be 
able  to  study  the  values  of  behavior  [in  both]  individual  and  cultural 
[dimensions  -  the  first  of]  which  anthropologists  now  carefully  avoid 
[We  would  be  recognizing  that  we  do  not  have,  as  our  immediate  object 
of  study,  a  culture  adapting  to  a  physical  environment,  but  human  be- 
ings adjusting  to  actual  situations,  by  means  o(  structures  o\'  s>nibols. 
It  is  not  usually  the  physical  environment  itself  that  we  adjust  to  in  any 
case,  but  what  we  see  as  environment.]  ''  Secondarv  symbols  of  the 
environment  are  most  important,  [then,  and  these  are]  things  we  have 
invented. 

'-  To  do  this  thoroughly  -  [to  sludv  each  situation  and  all  its  implica- 
fions  -]  is,  of  course,  impossible.  But  the  students  of  culture  must  not 
leave  these  [considerations]  out  c^f  acctuint.  '-■ ''  The  student  must  pro- 
ceed as  follows:  (I)  study  the  individual  behavior  [arising  in  a  particular 
situation,  in]  the  relation  between  A  and  B.  etc.;  (2)  abstract  the  cultural 
patterns  from  it;  (3)  make  the  generalizations  [thai  turn  out  to  be  fx-rti- 
nent  at  the  level  of  the  totality  of  culture].  \l  present  most  anthropolo- 
gists work  from  (3)  to  (1).  '"  [But  I  think  it  is  not  unreasonable  lo 
suggest  that]  every  student  of  culture  ought  to  have  [some]  feeling  for 


618  lil  Culture 

the  relationships  o\^  people  -  [and  only]  then  abstract  the  forms  [we  call 

culture] 

'-  (What  1  wish  to  propose  is  that  we  take  seriously  the  proposition 
thai]  cultural,  linguistic,  and  historical  patterns  are  derivative  of  inter- 
personal relations,  though  they  are  meaningful.  '^  [Until  we  are  sure  of 
their]  testability  in  behavioral  terms,  [we  will  never  be  sure  of  the]  im- 
port o{  the  cultural  "phenomena"  abstracted  by  anthropology. 


Editorial  Note 

This  chapter  includes  material  from  the  end  of  the  lecture  of  April 
12.  1937,  and  the  lecture  of  April  19,  1937.  The  Taylor  notes  (1936)  and 
notes  from  the  lecture  of  April  24,  1934  (mainly  from  BG,  MD,  LB) 
are  also  included,  as  is  Sapir's  lecture  on  "The  Adjustment  of  the  Indivi- 
dual to  the  Requirements  of  Society"  in  the  Rockefeller  Seminar  (notes 
by  Ali  Kemal,  AK).  I  have  also  drawn  on  excerpts  from  the  "Lecture 
to  the  Friday  Night  Club"  (Oct.  13,  1933;  FNC)  and  "The  Emergence 
o{  the  Concept  of  Personality  in  a  Study  of  Cultures"  (1934a),  both  of 
which  contain  discussions  similar  to  the  lecture  of  April  24,  1934. 

in  1937,  Sapir  concluded  his  discussion  of  adjustment  with  a  discus- 
sion of  "interpersonal  relations"  and  what  we  would  now  call  situa- 
tional analysis,  a  topic  he  had  scarcely  touched  on  in  earlier  years.  To 
fill  out  the  material  from  the  1937  lecture  I  have  drawn  on  excerpts 
from  "The  Contribution  of  Psychiatry  to  an  Understanding  of  Behavior 
in  Society"  (1937a)  and  "Psychiatric  and  Cultural  Pitfalls  in  the  Busi- 
ness of  Getting  a  Living"  (1939c). 


Notes 

1.  See  Sapir  1998a  on  the  "mentality  of  races,"  and  the  concluding  lecture  of  the  Rockefel- 
ler Seminar  (RM  notes):  "To  study  the  problem  of  the  relations  of  "culture"  and  "per- 
sonality" means  that  one  does  not  consider  personality  as  the  mere  unfolding  of  a  biolog- 
ical organism." 

2.  I  have  pluralized  this  term  because  it  occurs  in  plural  form  below,  and  this  form  seems 
more  consistent  with  Sapir's  overall  argument. 

3.  See  also  the  various  research  proposals  Sapir  wrote  or  to  which  he  contributed  for  the 
Social  Science  Council  and  the  National  Research  Council,  for  example  his  "Original 
Memorandum  to  the  Social  Science  Research  Council  from  the  Conference  on  Accultur- 
ation and  Personality,"  Hanover,  2  September  1930  (appended  to  Sapir  1998b,  this  vol- 
ume). 


Tno:  The  Psyiholo^y  oj  Culture  619 

4.  i.  e.,  not  native  to  it? 

5.  AK  actually  has:  "LInusual  agrcssivcness  is  cowardice  The  childish  miimac)  of  an  mdivi- 
dual  who  wants  a  considerable  hearing  eaiuu)t  dt>  this  with  every  single  member  of  the 
group." 

6.  It  is  not  clear  Irom  the  notes  whether  Sapir  claimed  the  Chukchi  shaman  aetualK  is  an 
hysteric,  who  happens  to  enjoy  an  acceptable  role,  or  uhelher  the  label  "hNsieric"  applies 
only  to  our  own  evaluation  of  the  cultural  pattern  o\  Chukchi  shamanisiic  hcha\ior. 
Compare  Sapir  1998a:  "We  find  among  the  Kskimo  the  Shaman  or  medicine  man  acts 
as  if  he  were  a  hysteric.  He  goes  through  all  the  motions  of  hysteria,  and  perhap^  he  is. 
1  dont  know.  I  am  not  a  psychiatrist.  Their  pattern  of  medicine  man  activits  demands 
h\sterical  conduct.  He  autosuggests  a  hysteria  complex.  1  am  not  in  a  position  to  disen- 
tangle what  happens.  The  diagnosis  of  that  hysteria  is  not  the  same  as  that  o\  hssieria 
among  ourselves,  because  the  cultural  background  is  notably  dilTerenl  in  the  two  cases 
[example  of  homosexuality  among  medicine  men]  ...  It  isn't  necessary  to  suppt)se  that 
you  are  really  dealing  with  types  of  personality  that  lead  to  that  kind  of  behavior  natural- 
ly" 

7.  BG  actually  has:  "Cultures  act  selectively  in  regard  to  certain  t\pes  of  personality  (Es- 
kimo -  hysterics).  Christian  Science;  from  hysteric,  arab  culture  capitalizes  Mahomet's 
neurons." 

8.  LB  adds  "(Plains  Sun  Dance)"  and  BG  adds  "(Christianity)".  Sapir  evidently  provided 
further  illustrations  of  his  point,  but  the  notes  do  not  reveal  what  he  said  about  them. 

9.  The  wording  of  the  bracketed  passage  comes  from  a  later  section  in  Tl.  just  following 
the  discussion  of  compensation:  "It  is  said  that  for  one  individual  one  type  of  society  is 
best,  but..."  (see  below). 

10.  AK  actually  has  "overt-adjustment." 

11.  In  the  Taylor  notes,  the  discussion  of  humor  as  an  uisiiiuiion  actuall)  comes  .iiter  inc 
statements,  "Can  whole  culture  be  described  in  terms  of  compensation'.'  In  present  more 
or  less  strict  social  mores  on  sex,  saloons,  stag  parties,  etc.  are  compensations,  so  is  gross 
humor  of  Puritan  society." 

12.  Tl  phrases  this  as  a  question. 

13.  The  bracketed  material  comes  from  nearby  passages  in  Sapir  I9.^4a 

14.  AK's  notes  on  the  discussion  period  of  this  seminar  show  that  "Mr  Oai  raised  the 
question  of  the  development  of  Personality  types.  Dr.  Sapir  answered  in  brief  the  three 
stages:  1.  Heredity,  the  somatic  implications  may  mould  the  character  (not  so  important 
from  our  point  of  view)  2.  The  maturing  period,  we  do  not  know  quite  about,  but  very 
important.  3.  Interactions  between  the  child  and  his  early  environment  up  to  the  age  of 
three." 

15.  BG  actually  has.  "In  the  child's  cosmos.  Chinese  patterns  o\  beha\ior  are  ^\ 
emotionally."  Sapir  presumabl>  contrasted  the  emotional  outlook  with  the  ^  .d 
here,  as  in  "Emergence..."  and  in  the  Lecture  to  the  I"rida>  Night  Club,  which  bceins. 
"I  cannot  be  ethnological  and  be  sincere  in  observing  my  little  bo>  pla>  marbles  I  cannot 
watch  a  Chinese  mandarin  and  be  psychological  "  The  child  docs  not  understand  ■ 
particular  mode  o['  behavior  as  representative  o{'  a  culture.  "Chinese"  for  instance,  but 
in  terms  of  its  emotional  significance  for  him  or  her. 

16.  i.  e.,  developmental  psychology. 

17.  BG  actually  has:  "Special  values  for  various  words  emotional  and  rational  absorp- 
tion." CK  has:  "Words,  for  children,  have  definite  value,  emotional  color.  Wc  acquire  a 
rubber  stamp  attitude  toward  a  word  b\  gradually  unloading  emotional  values  from  a 
word."  CK's  passage  seems  to  be  out  of  order,  since  it  iKcurs  at  the  \er>  beginning  of 
the  notes. 

18.  See  Malinowski.  .S'c.v  und  Rcpirssion  in  .S'-/i./i'c  Socutv.  1927. 

19.  LB  adds:  "(hobbies:  Holt)". 


520  ///   Culture 

20.  Sapir  1934a  adds  here  "from  birth  until,  say.  the  age  often". 

21.  This  quote  and  the  one  immediately  following  both  come  from  Sapir  1934a  ("Emergence 
..."),  but  in  the  reverse  order. 

22.  i.  e..  developmental. 

23.  MD  has:  "A  personal  cosmos  -  a  personal  world  of  meanings  -  is  a  separate  culture." 
BG  has:  "Culture  is  a  personal  cosmos,  a  personal  world  of  meaning.  The  totality  of 
culture  is  more  many  chambered."  LB  has:  "A  personal  cosmos  is  a  culture,  totality  of 
culture  more  many-chambered  and  complex  than  we  suspect..." 

24.  What  BCj  actually  has  here  is:  "Culture  history  has  fate,  necessity,  but  no  causation. 
True  reasons  are  ditTicult,  many  times  humiliating."  What  LB  actually  has  is:  "Thus  so 
hard  to  speak  of  "causes"  of  historical  events,  [new  paragraph]  'Biography'  of  Julius 
Caesar  full  of  cliches  of  Roman  culture,  tell  us  nothing  of  the  personality.  History  has 
'fate'  inherent  in  it,  pragmatically  no  'cause'  for  it;  for  us  only  'necessity.'  [new  para- 
graph) Interest  in  ethnology,  a  running  away  from  the  ethnologist's  own  personal  prob- 
lems: escape  from  responsibility  (Margaret  Mead)  'reasons'  only  harmonize  our  ideas, 
real  reasons  are  sometimes  embarrassing  and  dangerous."  Sapir  seems  to  have  been 
asserting  that  statements  as  different  as  Caesar's  (auto)biography  and  Mead's  ethnogra- 
phy are  equally  pervaded  by  ideology  and  their  authors'  personal  agendas.  It  is  scarcely 
conceivable,  however,  that  Sapir  would  have  included  so  rancourous  a  statement  about 
Mead  in  any  published  text. 

25.  R2  has  "would  be". 

26.  Wording  of  the  bracketed  passage  comes  from  AK's  discussion  of  individual  "participa- 
tion" and  types  of  adjustment,  incorporated  earlier  in  the  chapter.  R 1  actually  has  here: 
"in  adjustment  sociological  role  not  so  impt.  -  but  personality".  Because  of  immediately 
following  material  in  Rl  and  in  CK,  I  believe  Sapir  meant  to  imply  that  to  understand 
an  individual's  adjustment  it  is  not  sufficient  to  consider  merely  his/her  sociological  role, 
but  more  important  to  consider  the  personality  and  how  that  is  adjusted  to  society  in 
general  (including  one's  role).  I  do  not  think  Sapir  means  that  one's  sociological  role  is 
utterly  irrelevant  (see  Rl  passage  on  "professionals"). 

27.  Compare  passages  toward  the  end  of  "Psychiatric  and  Cultural  Pitfalls  in  the  Business 
of  Getting  a  Living,"  1939c. 

28.  Wording  in  the  bracketed  passage  is  derived  from  "Pitfalls..."  (1939c),  a  paper  whose 
concerns  are  relevant  to  this  portion  of  Rl's  notes. 

29.  Wording  of  the  bracketed  passage  comes  from  "Pitfalls"  (1939c). 

30.  Reconstruction  of  the  preceding  two  paragraphs  is  somewhat  difficult.  Rl  actually  has: 
"Personality  demands  -  and  -  symbols.  We  use  same  symbols  as  other  so  that  we  can 
adv.  own  interests.  Do  not  care  about  society's  welfare  -  only  have  preferences."  CK 
has:  "Personal  strength  is  augmented  by  touching  society's  and  individual  symbols  at 
some  points.  Two  orders  of  symbols  -  individual  and  social.  Individual  adjustment 
colors  your  philosophy  of  society.  The  process  of  adjusting  your  personality,  not  your 
cultural  role.  Cultural  considerations  alone  can  never  explain  what  happens  from  day  to 
day."  QQ  has:  "The  inadequacy  of  cultural  consideration  for  predicting  or  interpreting 
any  particular  act  of  an  individual.  The  indiv.  is  not  adjusting  to  society,  but  to  interper- 
sonal relationships." 

31.  Compare  the  concluding  passage  of  "Contributions..."  (1937a):  "If  we  could  only  get  a 
reasonably  clear  conception  of  how  the  lives  of  A  and  B  intertwine  into  a  mutually 
interpretable  complex  of  experiences,  we  should  see  far  more  clearly  than  is  at  present 
the  case  the  extreme  importance  and  the  irrevocable  necessity  of  the  concept  of  personal- 
ity. We  should  also  be  moving  forward  to  a  realistic  instead  of  a  metaphorical  definition 
of  what  IS  meant  by  culture  and  society.  One  suspects  that  the  symbolic  role  of  words 
has  an  importance  for  the  solution  of  our  problems  that  is  far  greater  than  we  might  be 
willing  to  admit.  After  all,  if  A  calls  B  a  'liar,'  he  creates  a  reverberating  cosmos  of 
potential  action  and  judgment.  And  if  the  fatal  word  can  be  passed  on  to  C,  the  triangu- 
lation  of  society  and  culture  is  complete." 


Chapter  11.  The  Concept  of 'Trimitive  Mentality" 

''^^-''  [One  of  my  aims  in  these  pages  has  been  to]  try  to  cstahhsh  a 
more  intimate  relation  between  the  problems  of  cultural  anthropology 
and  those  of  psychiatry  than  is  generally  recognized.  '''^^•'  [In  the  study 
oi"  "interpersonal  relations,"]  it  looks  as  though  psychiatry  and  the  sci- 
ences devoted  to  man  as  constitutive  of  society  were  actually  beginning 
to  talk  about  the  same  events  -  to  wit,  the  facts  of  human  experience. 
[But  before  we  allow  ourselves  so  comfortable  a  conclusion,  we  should 
consider  a  problem  with  regard  to  which  psychiatry  and  cultural 
anthropology  have  shown  themselves  to  be  much  less  compatible  bed- 
fellows. This  is  the  problem  of  the  so-called]  '••'■'  '''•  '"'•  ^~-  '■"^' '-  "primitne 
mentality."  [For  in]  '''  presupposing  a  special  primitive  mentality,  [an 
archaic  psychological  regime  supposedly  explaining  modes  of  behavior 
in  the  neurotic  and  among  the  primitives,]'  '''''-''  psychoanalysts  ha\c 
welcomed-  the  contributions  of  cultural  anthropology,  but  it  is  exceed- 
ingly doubtful  if  many  cultural  anthropologists  welcome  the  particular 
spirit  in  which  the  psychoanalysts  appreciate  their  data. 

[Now,  how  did  Dr.  Freud,  the  founder  of  psychoanalysis,  arrive  at 
his  version  of  "primitive  mentality,"  the  common  ground  o\'  his)  ''*-'** 
inevitable  triad  of  children,  neurotics,  and  savages'  ''''•'  for  a  long  lime 
psychiatry  operated  with  a  conception  of  the  indi\  idual  that  w  as  mercK 
biological  in  nature.  This  is  easy  to  understand  if  we  remember  that 
psychiatry  was  not,  to  begin  with,  a  study  o\^  human  nature  in  actual 
situations,  nor  even  a  theoretical  exploration  into  the  structure  o\'  per- 
sonality, but  simply  and  solely  an  attempt  to  interpret  "diseased"  modes 
of  behavior  in  terms  familiar  to  a  tradition  thai  was  operatmg  with  the 
concepts  of  normal  and  abnormal  physiological  functioning.  ""  It  is 
necessary  to  keep  in  mind,  then,  that  psychoanalysts  are  pathologists. 
They  were  medical  men,  not  usually  psychologists,  [and  the>  have  otienj 
not  been  willing  to  generalize  their  theories  outside  o\'  pathology.  [  Hiis 
colors  their  entire  approach.] 

'^  [When  we  recall  that]  Freud  was  a  clinical  dvKioi  ai  In  si.  iv^c  \m1I 
more  easily  see  that]  his  [early]  reports  are  not  reall>  pucho/oiinul  [in 
any  sense  in  which  we  might  now  understand  ihal  term)  but  [rcprcscnlj 
a  jump  from  clinical  notes  to  vaguer  cullura!  insiituluMis    H\pnolism 


622  ///  Culture 

was  in  vogue  at  that  time  [among  the  chnicians  with  whom  Freud 
trained],  but  [at'ter  some  initial  experimentation]  Freud  did  not  go  [in] 
for  that.  [Instead,]  his  idea  was  that  of  an  early  awakening  -  of  [the 
organism's]  going  back  to  early  reactions  in  an  attempt  to  start  anew 
and  adjust  [to  a  situation  of  stress.]  As  a  result  of  his  clinical  training 
he  dealt  with  physical  systems;  hysteria  was  his  field,  [initially,]  not  so 
much  neurotic  obsession.  [The  concepts  of  regression  and  repression 
that  are  so  fundamental  to  psychoanalysis  emerged  in  this  context  of 
the  clinical  setting  and]  "^  the  physiological  approach  to  behavior, 
[rather  than]  the  psychological  approach,  [although  the  further  explora- 
tion oi'  regression  and  repression  led  far  beyond  the  organic  level. ]-^ 

'-  [Like  Freud,]  Adler  and  Jung  were  also  medical  students  in  Ger- 
many and  Austria,  [and  just  as  the  medical  background  can  be  traced 
in  the  work  of  all  three,  so  can  the  cultural.]  The  German  scholar  is 
very  factual,  on  the  one  hand,  [yet  he  is  often  enough  to  be  found] 
mystically  "chasing  the  blue  flower"  on  the  other.  [It  is  consistent  with 
this  propensity  that]  Freud  never  dismissed  anything  as  trivial,  but 
worked  out  a  great  deal  of  meaning  in  trivialities.  [And  it  is  also  consis- 
tent with  his  own  social  environment  that]  many  of  his  [ideas  and  argu- 
ments relate  to]  a  background  of  European  culture  -  the  Oedipus  com- 
plex, for  example.  This  is  purely  European,  [a  reflection  of  the  Euro- 
pean] patriarchal  [family  structure.]"^  [But  if  we  can  succeed  in  putting 
aside  the  particular  cultural  setting  we  can  see  how  Freud]  attaches  a 
great  deal  of  importance  to  the  tangles  of  early  life  -  the  relationships 
of  the  child  within  the  family.  '^'^'  Among  the  more  readily  defined  and 
generally  recognized  insights  that  we  owe,  directly  or  indirectly,  to 
Freud  are  the  genetic  analysis  and  the  treatment  of  the  neuroses...;^  the 
basic  importance  of  the  psychic  sexual  constitution,  not  merely  in  its 
proper  functional  sphere,  but  also  in  connections  that  seem  unrelated; 
the  far-reaching  importance  of  infantile  psychic  experiences  in  adult  life 
and  the  ever-present  tendency  to  regression  to  them;  and  the  general 
light  thrown  on  the  problem  of  mental  determinism. 

''^^^^  It  is  the  great  and  lasting  merit  of  Freud  that  he  freed  psychiatry 
from  Its  too  strictly  medical  presuppositions  and  introduced  an  inter- 
pretative psychology  which,  in  spite  of  all  its  conceptual  weaknesses,  its 
disturbingly  figurative  modes  of  expression,  and  its  blindness  to  numer- 
ous and  important  aspects  of  the  field  of  behavior  as  a  whole,  remains 
a  substantial  contribufion  to  psychology  in  general  and,  by  implication, 
to  social  psychology  in  particular.  His  use  of  social  data  was  neither 
more  nor  less  inadequate  than  the  use  made  of  them  by  psychology  as 
a  whole.  It  is  hardly  fair  to  accuse  Freud  of  a  naivete  which  is  still  the 


Two:  The  Psvcho/oi^v  of Cnlfurc  623 

rule  among  the  vast  majority  oi'  piotcssii>nal  psychologists.  It  is  not 
surprising  that  his  view  o\'  social  phenomena  betrays  at  manv  pi>inis  a 
readiness  to  confuse  various  specific  patterns  o\'  behavior,  \\hich  the 
cuhurahsts  can  show  to  be  derivative  of  specific  historical  backgrounds, 
with  those  more  fundamental  and  necessary  patterns  of  behavior  \shich 
proceed  from  the  nature  o\^  man  and  ol"  his  slowly  maturing  organism. 
Nor  is  it  surprising  that  he  shared,  not  only  with  the  majority  of 
psychologists  but  even  with  the  very  founders  of  anthropological  sci- 
ence, an  interest  in  primitive  man  thai  did  not  address  itself  to  a  realistic 
understanding  of  human  relations  in  the  less  sophisticated  societies  but 
rather  to  the  schematic  task  of  finding  in  the  patterns  of  beha\K>r  re- 
ported by  the  anthropologist  such  confirmation  as  he  could  o\'  his  theo- 
ries of  individually  "archaic"  attitudes  and  mechanisms. 

*-  Hence  it  is  important  for  the  psychoanalyst,  [according  to  Ireud 
and  his  tbilowers,]  to  study  primitive  mentality  to  see  just  what  familial 
attitudes  remain  constant  with  the  European,  and  so  on.  '''^-•'  Neurotic 
and  psychotic,  through  the  symbolic  mechanisms  which  control  their 
thinking,  are  believed  to  regress  to  a  more  primiti\e  state  o\'  mental 
adjustment  than  is  normal  in  modern  society  and  which  is  supposed  to 
be  preserved  for  our  observation  in  the  institutions  of  primitive  pet>ples. 
In  some  undefined  way  which  it  seems  quite  impossible  to  express  in 
intelligible  biological  or  psychological  terms  the  cultural  experiences 
which  have  been  accumulated  by  primitive  man  are  believed  ti^  be  un- 
consciously handed  on  to  his  more  civilized  progeny.  '-  [Thus  the  idea 
of  regression,  central  to  psychoanalytic  thinking,  connects  the  neurotic 
with  the  child;  and  when  the  Freudian]  uses  [the  same  logic  as)  the  old 
evolutionary  anthropologists  and  places  the  primitive  with  the  child, 
[the  triad  is  complete.] 

1932a  jj^g  cultural  anthropologist  can  make  nothing  o\'  the  hypothesis 
of  the  racial  unconscious  nor  is  he  disposed  to  allow  an  immediate 
psychological  analysis  of  the  behavior  iM"  primitive  people  in  an\  other 
sense  than  that  in  which  such  an  analysis  is  allowable  for  our  own 
culture...^'  And  he  is  disposed  to  think  that  if  the  resemblances  between 
the  neurotic  and  the  primitive  which  have  so  often  been  pointed  mil  arc 
more  than  fortuitous,  it  is  not  because  of  a  cultural  atavism  which  the 
neurotic  exemplifies  but  simply  because  all  human  beings,  whether 
primitive  or  sophisticated  in  the  cultural  sense,  are.  at  riKk  bottom. 
psychologically  primitive,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  a  significant  un- 
conscious symbolism  which  gives  substitutive  satisfaction  to  the  indivi- 
dual may  not  become  socialized  on  any  level  o\'  human  activity.  "^^ 
The  cultural  anthropologist's  quarrel  with  psychoanalysis  can  perhaps 


524  ili  Culture 

be  pill  most  significantly  by  pointing  out  that  the  psychoanalyst  has 
confused  the  archaic  in  the  conceptual  or  theoretical  psychologic  sense 
with  the  archaic  in  the  literal  chronological  sense. 

^''  [The  same  criticism  we  make  of  psychoanalysis  can  be  made  of 
other]  theories  that  presuppose  a  special  primitive  mentality,  [such  as 
that]  o\'  Levy-Bruhl.  '-  The  fact  that  a  method  is  lacking  in  sophistica- 
tion does  not  make  it  primitive,  [nor  does  it  reveal  an  archaic  mentality 
in  its  practitioner.  We  have  only  to  consider]  Aristotle  trying  to  do 
multiplication,  [to  recognize  the  absurdity  of  assigning  him  a  "primitive 
mentality"  on  such  a  basis.]  °'  The  apparent  differences  of  behavior 
[between  primitives  and  ourselves]  are  due  to  differences  in  the  content 
o\'  the  respective  cultural  patterns,  not  to  differences  in  the  method  of 
mental  functioning  in  the  two  supposedly  distinct  levels. 

"^"^  In  passing  through  Chicago  once,  Levy-Bruhl  said  that  he  had 
never  met  a  primitive  man  and  hoped  he  would  be  able  to  stop  off  for 
a  day  or  two  to  see  some  Indian  tribe.  ^^  Levy-Bruhl  has  never  visited 
a  primitive  group;  *■'  he  does  not  know  "primitive  man."  ^-  [So  it  is  not 
from  direct  experience  that  he]  was  so  very  impressed  by  the  "pre-logical 
mind."  that  "primitive  mentality"  about  which  he  has  speculated  so 
much  and  has  seen  so  little.^  •"'  Anyone  who  has  been  in  contact  with 
natives  knows,  [unless  he  is  so  devoted  to  his  prejudices  as  to  pay  no 
heed  to  his  observations,]^  that  the  "pre-logical  mind"  does  not  exist  in 
them.  [At  least,  it  does  not  exist  in  them  more  than  in  ourselves.]  ""-^ 
Modern  man  is  just  as  illogical  as  primitive  man  in  many  respects  - 
politics,  for  example.  ■"'  The  only  difference  [between  primitive  man  and 
ourselves  lies  not  in  the  processes  of  our  thinking  but  in  the  fact  that] 
we  appeal  to  more  sophisticated  supernatural  beings  [and  that  we  have 
accumulated  a  larger  store  of  technical  knowledge.]  "^  It  seems  obvious 
that  we  must  control  the  brute  facts  in  our  environment  more  than  does 
primitive  man;  [and  once  we  have  acknowledged  this,  the  supposed] 
naive  feeling  of  [primitive]  man  as  opposed  to  the  sophisticated  thinking 
of  civilized  man  is  perhaps  not  [any  longer  a  tenable]  distinction,  ^'i-  •^'' 
""  •  '^  To  say  that  a  primitive  man's  experience  of  the  world  is  consider- 
ably less  potent  than  ours  is  all  that  needs  to  be  said  about  "primitive 
mentality."  '-  [He  simply]  knows  less  about  the  world  we  Hve  in. 

'■  Now,  the  less  one  knows  of  the  potential  factors  of  the  environ- 
ment [that  influence  the  outcome]  of  a  situation,  the  more  one  must 
speculate  -  fill  in  [the  gaps  in  one's  knowledge]  with  symbols,  'i'^  [In 
this  regard]  scientific  and  magical  statements  are  hardly  distinguishable. 
"•^  Whether  they  be  science  or  magic,  [such  statements  reflect]  the  desire 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  (^ultun-  625 

to  control  the  world,  [on  the  basis  of  experience  where  possible  but  on 
the  basis  of  a  symbolic  cosmology  otherwise.)  ''  '-  Is  not  the  atomic 
theory,  [and  other  theories  about  our  environment  in  which  we  postu- 
late the  existence  of  invisible  entities  and  forces,)  really  mauic.  (in  its 
reliance  on  the  speculative?]'^  [-  But  what  about  the  scieniitlc  method, 
you  may  ask,  with  its]  ''''  revision  of  formulations  on  the  light  of  more 
experience?  '■'■  Indeed,  if  a  negative  instance  does  not  cause  you  to  revise 
[your  formulation]  you  are  stupid.  ''''  ' '  But  such  revisions,  such  refor- 
mulations of  the  magical  explanation  of  unknoun  phenomena,  are  con- 
stantly occurring  in  primitive  groups.  [So  they  are  just  as  **scientiric'"  in 
this  sense  as  we  are,  while]  "^^'^  we  are  just  as  "magicaf  as  primitive  man. 
'^'  The  primitive  has  had  less  experience  with  the  potential  factors  \s  Inch 
influence  the  situation,  but  when  he  lllls  in  what  is  no[  known  uiih 
abbreviated,  [speculative]  processes  the  nati\e  [proceeds]  just  as  we  do.'"' 
"'^  Both  [they  and  we]  use  reason,  and  both  [they  and  we]  use  magic.  "•''• 
''  For  if  this  wish-fulfilling  interpolation  is  a  "magical"  thought-process, 
"^"^  then  in  being  scientific  you  have  to  be  magical  [as  well):  that  is.  you 
have  to  act  on  what  knowledge  you  have,  [and  fill  in  the  rest  as  best 
you  can.] 

'^'  It  has  been  pointed  out  to  Levy-Bruhl  thai  the  primitixe  is  \er\ 
logical  in  any  technological  process.  ""^  Indeed,  primiti\e  man  has  the 
nicest  feeling  of  the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends,  as  Boas  [showed  us 
in  his  studies  of  the]  technology  of  the  Kwakiutl  Indians.  "''  The  primi- 
tive is  as  logical  as  we  are  where  he  can  be.  [Thus  we  need  not  speak  of 
him  as  if  he  were  a  distinct  kind  o\^  human  being  uiili  respect  to  his 
psychical  functioning,  for  it  is  no  different  from  our  own.]  '<'<  "''  We  arc 
all  logical  where  we  ean  he,  and  we  all  till  in  the  rest  with  magic.  '-  .Ml 
we  know  is  that  certain  things  will  happen  gi\en  certain  circumstances. 
r2.  ri  y^Q  ^j-g  logical  Only  in  regard  to  those  particular  [areas  o\'  life]  in 
which  we  have  experience  and  which  we  have  analyzed.  ()\er  these 
things  we  have  control;  in  all  other  cases,  we  work  on  faith. 

■'  [Surely  many  of  the  supposed  differences  between)  magic,  science, 
and  religion  are  really  a  matter  of  terminology  and  not  of  essence."  it 
is  vain  to  look  for  fundamental  psychic  ditferences  in  human  beings; 
the  difference  [lies]  only  in  knowledge,  [not  in  the  logic  o\'  thought  pro- 
cesses.] '•'"  The  primitive  [is  as  disposed  to  be  logical  as  we  are.  but  he) 
is  not  able  to  be  logical  in  as  many  places.  ^«^'  ''•"'^  All  human  beings. 
"primitive"  and  "sophisticated,"  have  a  profound  conviction  o\'  the 
causal  and  logical  nexus  of  their  experienced  universe,  a  belief  that 
comes  from  the  continuum  of  nature  and  [our]  natural  wants.  ^»^«  Where 
we  don't  actually  succeed  in  manipulating  [the  world]  as  we  wish,  we 


^26  it^  Culture 

express  the  wish  in  a  formula,  [and  try  to  manipulate  the  world  with  its 

aid.] 

''  [Everywhere  you  look  among  human  beings  you  will  see  the]  inter- 
polation of  quotidian  faith  in  the  daily  procedure  of  our  lives.  [It  is  an 
interpolation  based]  little  on  the  personal  application  of  knowledge, 
[much  more  on]  the  patterns  of  culture.  "'  [In  our  own  case,  like  any 
other,]  our  scientific  thinking  -  [over  which  we  have  no  monopoly  -] 
does  not  explain  our  own  culture  [patterns.] 

'-  [For  all  these  reasons,  then,  Levy-Bruhl's  speculations  about  primi- 
tive mentality]  seem  important  to  the  psychoanalyst  but  not  to  the 
anthropologist.  [Many  anthropologists  would  prefer  to  dispense  with 
the  idea  of  a  special  "primitive  mentahty"  altogether.  But  before  we  can 
do  so,  we  must  consider  one  other  version  of  it  that  has  even  attracted 
some  following  within  anthropology  itself:  it  is  a  version  based  on  the 
idea  that  language  plays  a  quite  different  role  in  the  mental  life  of  primi- 
tives than  among  ourselves.  According  to  Malinowski,  the  primitive's 
exercise  of  magic  comes  about  because  the  pragmatic  and  affective  func- 
tions of  language  overwhelmingly  predominate  in  determining  the 
meaning  of  his  speech.  Primitive  man  is  not  taught  the  forms  of  gram- 
mar in  school,  so  his  speech,  we  are  told,  is  more  closely  governed  by 
his  hopes  and  fears  and  his  social  purposes,  than  is  our  own.]'^ 

'-  [It  is  true  that]  language  has  more  far-reaching  implications  than 
are  [generally]  assigned  to  it  [by  philologists.]  ^'^^■^^  Language  is  only  in 
part  a  coherent  system  of  symbolic  reference.  To  a  far  greater  extent 
than  is  generally  realized  language  serves  also  affective  and  volitional 
purposes.  [But  even  if]  the  function  of  language  is  not  in  practice  a 
purely  symbolic  or  referential  one,  is  it  not  a  highly  significant  fact, 
nonetheless,  that  its  form  is  so  essentially  of  symbolic  pattern?  '^^'^^  The 
outstanding  fact  about  any  language  is  its  formal  completeness.  This  is 
as  true  of  a  primitive  language,  like  Eskimo  or  Hottentot,  as  of  the 
carefully  recorded  and  standardized  languages  of  our  great  cultures.'-^ 
""'  ^2  Malinowski  is  an  anti-formalist,  [however,  and  in  this  he  is  far 
from  alone.]  '^^'^'^  The  normal  man  of  intelligence  has  something  of  a 
contempt  for  linguistic  studies,  convinced  as  he  is  that  nothing  can  well 
be  more  useless.  ^^  Everybody  hates  grammar  [who  has  had  to  endure 
in  school  the  traditional  mode  of  procedure  which  laboriously  dissects 
sentences  and  arranges  Greek  aorists  into  patterns.  In  reaction  to  this 
apparently  frigid  and  dehumanized  process]'"^  ^^  everybody  hates  form 
-  you're  interested  in  the  color  of  the  word,  its  function,  not  whether 
It  is  a  noun  or  a  verb.  We  not  only  dislike  it  implicitly,  but  explicitly 
because  we  had  to  learn  it  in  school.  [But  Malinowski]  does  not  distin- 


Two:  The  P.wcholoi^y  of  (  ulturc  627 

guish  between  the  graminai  iluil  is  inlicicm  iii  our  speech,  cind  grammar 
as  it  is  taught. 

[The  lacl  tliat  graniniar  is  laughl  in  schools  onl\  lor  the  languages 
of  the  ''sophisticated'  peoples  o\'  the  classical  world  and  luirope  docs 
not  mean  thai  other  languages  ha\e  no  fonn.  or  thai  European  lan- 
guages ha\e  no  function.]  '"'■^'  The  psychological  problem  uhich  most 
interests  the  linguist  is  the  inner  structure  o'(  language,  \n  terms  o'i  un- 
conscious psychic  processes...  To  say  in  so  many  words  that  the  nt>blesi 
task  o[^  linguistics  is  to  understand  languages  as  form  rather  than  as 
function  or  as  historical  process  is  not  to  say  that  it  can  be  understood 
as  form  alone.  The  formal  contlguration  of  speech  at  any  particular 
time  and  place  is  the  result  of  a  long  and  complex  historical  deseU^p- 
ment,  which,  in  turn,  is  unintelligible  without  constant  reference  to 
functional  factors.  ''^-■*'-'  All  languages  are  set  to  do  all  the  symbolic  and 
expressive  work  that  language  is  good  for,  either  actually  or  poteniiall>. 
[Whether  it  is  spoken  by  an  Eskimo  or  an  Englishman.)  the  formal 
technique  of  this  work  is  the  secret  of  each  language. 

[It  is  not  in  the  study  of  language,  then,  that  you  will  find  support 
for]  '''  theories  presupposing  a  special  primiti\e  mentality.  [.As  we  ha\e 
said,]  the  apparent  difterences  o'i  behavior  [between  "primiti\es"  and 
ourselves]  are  due  to  ditTerences  in  the  content  of  the  respective  cultural 
patterns,  not  to  differences  in  the  method  o\^  mental  functioning  in  the 
two  supposedly  distinct  levels. 

[Thus  our  exploration  of  mental  functioning  has  led  us  back  once 
again  to  the  importance  of  cultural  patterning  and  o\  cultural  form.) 
1928J  ivjq  matter  where  we  turn  in  the  field  of  social  behavior,  men  and 
women  do  what  they  do,  and  cannot  help  but  do.  not  merel\  because 
they  are  built  thus  and  so,  or  possess  such  and  such  dilVerences  of  per- 
sonality, or  must  needs  adapt  to  their  immedialc  en\ironment  in  such 
and  such  a  way  in  order  to  survive  at  all,  but  \er>  largels  because  ihe> 
have  found  it  easiest  and  aesthetically  most  satisfactor\  to  pattern  iheir 
conduct  in  accordance  with  more  or  less  clearly  organized  fiums  ol 
behavior  which  no  one  is  responsible  for.  which  are  not  clearly  grasped 
in  their  true  nature,  and  which  one  might  almost  say  are  as  scl(-e\i- 
dently  imputed  to  the  nature  o['  things  as  the  three  dimensions  are  im- 
puted to  space.  [To  "explain"  our  culture  or  an>  other  it  will  help  us 
but  little  to  center  our  at  lent  ion  on  a  person's  biological  makeup,  or 
temperament,  or  conscious  purposes  in  beha\ing  m  some  particular 
way.]  '"'  [in  a  sense]  culture  is  self-explaining;  [its  form  cannot  be  attrib- 
uted to  external  causes.  Instead,  we  might  iSo  just  as  well  to  consider 
cultural  form  in  terms  o\'  the]  ''  springs  for  art  in  e\er>  human  being. 


628  til  Culture 

^''  [For  to  an  extent  as  yet  insufficiently  appreciated,  aesthetic]  imagina- 
tion is  the  unconscious  form-giver  of  culture.  '^  [Even  such  a  thing  as 
the]  musical  ability  of  the  Negro,  [so  often  explained  as  due  to  the  physi- 
ology of  the  race,  is  far  better  interpreted  as  fundamental  to  his]  cultural 
heritage. 

[What  role  can  we  envision  for  the  individual,  then,  in  the  formation 
o{  these  patterns  of  culture?]  ''^^^''  It  is  an  unfortunate  thing  that  in 
arguments  about  the  relative  place  of  cultural  conditioning  versus  bio- 
logical determinants  and  fundamental  psychological  conditioning  too 
little  account  is  taken  of  the  extremely  complicated  middle  ground. 
[From  the  standpoint  of  the  personality,  I  believe  that]  °'  The  struggle 
for  significant  form  in  culture  unconsciously  animates  all  normal  in- 
dividuals and  gives  meaning  to  their  lives.  ""^  [And  just  as  the  individual 
personality's]  tendency  to  expression  may,  when  sublimated,  give  rise  to 
patterns  [of  behavior,  so,  among  constellations  of  significantly  interact- 
ing individuals,  there  is  evidently]  '^^^^  some  kind  of  a  cumulative  pro- 
cess, some  principle  of  selection,  according  to  which  certain  tendencies 
to  change  human  activities  are  allowed  unconsciously  by  society,  insofar 
as  it  patterns  its  conduct,  and  certain  others  are  not  allowed...  I  don't 
think  any  of  us  are  powerful  enough  to  quite  understand  what  that 
means,  but  the  actuality  of  these  drifts,  these  cumulative  processes,  can- 
not be  doubted  by  anyone  who  has  studied  history,  language,  or  what- 
ever type  of  patterned  activity  he  may  take  up.^^  ""^  [These  are  the]  cul- 
tural patterns  [whose  emergence,  whose  locus  in  specific  interactions  of 
individuals,  and  whose  import  for  the  personality  we  are  only  just  be- 
ginning to  see.] 


Editorial  Note 

Sapir's  1928  Outline  indicates  that  at  that  time  he  planned  to  con- 
clude the  set  of  chapters  on  "The  Individual's  Place  in  Culture"  with  a 
chapter  on  "Primitive  Mentality."  Notes  from  the  Chicago  period  (NE, 
Dec.  8,  1927),  from  the  final  lecture  of  1936  (T2),  and  from  the  final 
lecture  of  1937  (April  19;  QQ,  Rl,  R2,  CK)  show  discussions  of  this 
topic.  None  of  them,  however,  show  how  Sapir  might  have  linked  it 
with  preceding  discussions. 

Little  can  be  found  in  Sapir's  published  works  or  in  the  1933  notes 
that  is  directly  relevant  to  the  critique  of  Levy-Bruhl.  Only  a  brief  note 
in  SI  (dated  April  25,  1933)  suggests  that  Sapir  talked  about  this  matter 
at  all  that  year.  Discussion  of  Freud's  "inevitable  triad  of  children,  neu- 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  (  ullitrc  629 

rotics,  and  savages"  ("Psychoanalysis  as  Prophet,"  Sapir  I928e),  how- 
ever, can  be  found  in  Sapir's  reviews  o\^  Freud  and  Freudian  psschialry. 
as  well  as  in  "Cultural  Anthropology  and  Psychiatry"  ( 1932a)  and  The 
Contribution  of  Psychiatry  to  an  Understanding  o{  Behavior  \n  Soci- 
ety" (1937a).  Because  the  Taylor  (T2)  notes  indicate  a  relatively  sub- 
stantial discussion  o^  Freud  before  the  passage  on  Le\y-Bruhl.  I  have 
drawn  on  these  published  works  at  some  length  to  fill  out  a  text  whose 
reconstruction  would  be  too  sketchy  on  the  basis  of  a  single  set  o{  ni>ies 
alone. 

The  discussion  of  Malinowski  is  attested  only  in  T2  and,  somewhat 
cryptically,  in  undated  notes  in  LB.  I  have  drawn  here  on  Sapir's  review 
of  Ogden  and  Richards'  The  Meaning  of  Meaning,  since  Maiinouskt 
made  use  of  that  work. 

Finally,  it  is  evident  that  Sapir  concluded  the  lecture  of  April  19. 
1937  with  a  few  remarks  intended  to  draw  the  whole  course  to  a  close. 
(Although  the  class  apparently  met  once  more,  that  session  was  given 
over  to  a  guest  presentation  by  Verne  Ray.)  It  is  far  from  clear  just  what 
conclusion  Sapir  drew,  since  only  one  note-taker  in  1937  (R  1  )  took  any 
notes  on  it  at  all,  and  the  end  of  the  1933-34  course  was  difTerently 
organized.  I  have  interpreted  the  Rl  notes  as  consistent  with  a  much- 
abbreviated  version  of  the  Outline's  final  section  (on  "Society  as  Uncon- 
scious Artist"),  and  I  have  also  drawn  upon  the  concluding  passages 
from  the  Chicago  course  (NE  and  SE).  Much  guesswork  is  involved  in 
reconstructing  this  passage,  however  -  e\en  more  than  in  the  rest  oi 
this  chapter. 

Notes 

1.  Wording  of  the  bracketed  passage  derives  from  Sapir  I^>32a. "Cultural  Anthropolog)  and 
Psychiatry." 

2.  Sapir  1932a  actually  has:  "psychoanalysts  welcome  the  conlrihutions 

3.  See  also  "Cultural  Anthropology  and  Psychiatry."  Sapir  1932a:  "The  locus  of  p<»>chi.ur> 
turns  out  not  to  be  the  human  organism  at  all  in  any  fruitful  sense  of  the  v^ord  but  the 
more  intangible,  and  yet  more  intelligible,  world  o\'  human  relationships  and  ideas  that 
such  relationships  bring  forth." 

4.  T2  actually  has:  "Many  of  his  things  react  imi  a  background  of  Furopcan  culture.  Oedi- 
pus complex.  This  is  purely  Kuropoan,  it  is  the  patriarchal  " 

5.  The  text  of  the  review  of  Pfister  (Sapir  191 7i)  includes  at  this  pouU  "lo  a  much  smaller 
extent  also  of  the  psychoses  (forms  of  insanity);  the  frequency  and  radical  mipi^rtanoc 
of  symbol-formation  in  the  unconscious  mind,  understanding  of  which  is  sure  lo  pro\c 
indispensable  for  an  approach  to  the  deeix-r  pri>blems  o\  religion  and  art.  the  anaUsis 
and  interpretation  of  dreams". 

6.  The  text  adds:  "He  believes  that  ii  is  as  illegitimate  to  analyze  tolemism  or  pnmHi\c 
laws  of  inheritance  or  set  ntiiaN  m  terms  of  the  peculiar  symMisms  discovered  or 


630  tli  Culture 

invented  by  ihe  psychoanalyst  as  it  would  be  to  analyze  the  most  complex  forms  of 
modern  social  behavior  in  these  terms." 

7.  T2  actually  has:  "Levy-Bruhl  was  very  impressed  by  the  pre-logical  primitive  man.  He 
has  speculated  most  about  primitive  mentality  and  has  seen  less." 

8.  On  the  basis  of  other  statements  it  is  hard  to  believe  Sapir  would  not  have  qualified  this 
"anyone." 

9.  Rl  actually  has:  "The  less  one  knows  of  potential  factors  of  environment  of  a  situation 
-  the  more  one  must  speculate  -  fill  in  with  symbols.  Atomic  theory  -  magic?"  R2 
has:  "The  atomic  theory,  etc.,  is  really  magic." 

10.  In  a  course  on  religion  (Yale,  notes  by  David  Mandelbaum)  Sapir  made  some  of  the 
same  points  as  in  the  present  discussion.  From  Feb.  6:  "Belief  as  such  never  constitutes 
religion.  Very  few  of  our  beliefs  are  tangibly  contextual  to  our  senses.  Our  beliefs  become 
interwoven  and  become  a  smooth  weave  of  existence.  At  no  point  does  it  pay  us  to  deny 
our  beliefs.  Thus  in  the  social  world  as  well  as  in  the  physical  world,  when  you  get 
enough  people  to  say  so  then  you  just  don't  deny.  Thus  electricity  and  god  are  exactly 
analogous  beliefs.  Most  of  the  things  I  believe  I  know  about  history  and  science  (is  not 
dilTerent  from  my  belief  in  God)  -  is  built  up  on  my  dependability  in  secondary  sources." 
From  March  23:  "Our  formal  processes  of  education  very  closely  approaches  religious 
ritual.  Despite  the  pragmatism  of  our  age,  we  do  not  as  a  rule  test  the  validity  of  our 
education  by  watching  its  effects.  There  seems  to  be  a  universal  impulse  in  men  to 
create  abbreviated  patterns  of  conduct  in  a  formalized  manner  and  to  abide  by  these 
stringently." 

1 1 .  For  a  somewhat  different  discussion  of  science  and  religion,  see  "The  Meaning  of  Reli- 
gion" (Sapir  1928a). 

12.  TTie  T2  notes  move  from  a  critique  of  Levy-Bruhl  to  a  critique  of  Malinowski's  view  of 
language.  Presumably  Sapir  first  indicated  what  Malinowski's  position  was.  The  brack- 
eted material,  inserted  to  connect  the  two  discussions,  presents  a  version  of  Malinowski's 
position  based  on  the  subsequent  critique  of  it.  The  work  Sapir  probably  had  most  in 
mind  here  was  "The  Problem  of  Meaning  in  Primitive  Languages,"  Malinowski's  (1923) 
paper  published  as  a  supplementary  essay  in  Ogden  and  Richards'  The  Meaning  of  Mean- 
ing. Sapir  had  reviewed  Ogden  and  Richards'  book  in  "An  Approach  to  Symbolism" 
(1923).  I  draw  on  that  review  (Sapir  19231)  to  fill  out  the  reconstructed  lecture  text. 

13.  From  "The  Grammarian  and  His  Language,"  Sapir  1924c.  Although  the  theme  of  this 
paper  is  relevant  to  Sapir's  1936-37  lectures,  it  seems  less  clear  whether,  by  1936,  Sapir 
would  still  have  spoken  of  a  "primitive  language"  or  of  "great  cultures."  What  he  evi- 
dently means  by  those  expressions  here  is  a  language  spoken  by  "primitives,"  and  the 
cultures  of  complex  societies  with  Uterary  traditions. 

14.  The  wording  of  the  bracketed  passage  derives  from  "The  Grammarian  and  His  Lan- 
guage," Sapir  1924c. 

15.  I  insert  this  passage  from  Sapir  1998a  because  it  seems  to  fiow  well  from  Rl's  notes  and 
to  be  consistent  with  them.  Inserting  the  passage  implies,  however,  that  Sapir  referred 
to  cultural  or  linguistic  drift  at  this  point  in  the  lecture.  There  is  no  direct  evidence  that 
he  did  so.  Rl  actually  has: 

"Tendency  to  expression  when  sublimated/  may  become 

patterns 
Cultural  patterns" 

*  *  * 

End  of  the  1936-37  Lectures 


Part  III:  Symbolic  SlniclLires  and  Experience 

(1933-34) 

Chapter  12.  Symbc^lism 

[1933] 

'"'  Symholisni 

'^''  What  is  referred  to  by  the  word  "s>mbor"?  li  is  noi  so  cas\  to  tell. 
[Suppose  we  start  with  an  example:  someone  bangs  on  a  table  and  an- 
other person  calls  this  action  a  symbol  ot  violence.  Nou.  ifuc  intcrprci 
the  action  in  that  way,]  a  bang  on  the  table  has  for  us  no  direct  connec- 
tion either  with  the  muscular  movement  [o(  the  banger]  or  with  the 
sound  waves  [he  produced.  These  do  not  really  mailer  to  us;  \shai  we 
are  thinking  of  is  the  meaning.]  It  is  a  direct  meaning  in  an  nidircci 
behavior,  understandable  by  a  certain  convention.  The  banging  o\'  the 
table  may  be  rather  inadequate  as  expression,  but  it  is  a  convcniional 
symbol  for  violent  expression. 

[Still,  it  is  not  impossible  to  pay  attention  lo  the  physical  aciiNily 
itself,  should  we  wish  to.  There  are  two  aspects  or  sides  to  the  behaMor. 
and]  it  can  be  turned'  to  its  "natural"  side  or  turned-  to  its  coiueniional 
side,  since  it  may  be  looked  upon  [either]  as  non-ssmbolic  ([that  is.) 
natural)  or  as  symbolic  (conventional).  How  we  consider  it  is  a  question 
of  tendency. 

[So  perhaps  what  we  need  to  be  concentrating  upon  is  not.  ai  least 
in  the  first  instance,  the  symbol  itself  but  in  what  ua\  human  K-haMor 
can  be  understood  as  symbolic,  and  when  the  luinian  mind  can  be  siid 
to  be  reacting  symbolically.]  ^^  [Let  nic  offer  an  iniiialj  detlnilion.  Tlic 
human  mind  is  reacting  symbolically  when  some  compiMieni  of  experi- 
ence -  [be  it]  an  object  of  the  external  \\ork\.  an  idea,  an  event,  [evenj 
a  personality,  or  a  behavior  pattern  elicits  beliefs,  ideas,  emolions. 
sentiments  or  ways  of  behavior  which  refer  to  the  nuunini;  ol  this  ex- 
perience [rather  than  to  its  i^bjectixe  characteristics.)  Iliere  is  a  symbolic 


532  tit  Culture 

reference,  [in  other  words  -  a  leap  from]  the  symbol  to  the  meaning  of 
the  symbol.  ^''  There  are  all  kinds'^  [of  behaviors  that  can  be  symbolic; 
what  is]  ''"'  ^'  constant  in  symbolism  [is  not  the  behavior  itself  but  the 
fact  that  it]  always  substitutes  for  some  closer  intermediating  kind  of 
behavior.  *"''  If  a  given  behavior  is  substitutive  to  a  more  direct  expres- 
sion, there  is  already  a  symbol.  [Moreover,  symbols  take  part  in  a  whole 
structure  o^  ideas.  So]  it  may  also  be  said,  that  if  you  rationalize  [in  any 
way  about  an  action  or  event,]  you  have  already  declared  your  faith  in 
symbols. 

^»^  [Because  the  object  or  behavior  itself  is  not  the  issue  in  symbolism 
but  the  assignment  of  meaning  to  it,  all  kinds  of  apparently  dissimilar 
things  can  be]  examples  [of  symbolism]."^  Mathematical  and  algebraical 
signs  and  figures  [are  symbols];  colored  lights  and  flags  [are  symbols, 
while]  the  green,  red,  or  white  [colors  of  those  flags  and  lights  may  have 
symbolic  meaning  too  in  their  own  right.]  There  are  purity  symbols  - 
flowers  or  dresses  [of  a  certain  kind];  and  the  numbers  [we  just  alluded 
to  as  mathematical  signs  may  also  have  other  kinds  of  significance,] 
such  as  [the  "bad  luck"  attaching  to  the  number]  thirteen.  [The  physical 
characteristics  of  these  symbols,  such  as  the  scratches  on  paper  repre- 
senting "thirteen,"  will  not  take  us  very  far  in  explaining  the  significance 
attached  to  them,  as  we  may  easily  see  if  we  consider  that]  the  hand- 
shake, the  olive  branch,  and  the  palm  branch  [can  all  be  said  to  symbol- 
ize peace  even  though  their  "natural"  sides  are  quite  dissimilar.] 

[Although  some  symbols  may  arouse  little  feeling  in  their  users  others 
are  deeply  attached  to  personal  or  social  significances.  For  instance, 
symbols  like]  ^^  national  flags  and  the  Christian  crucifix  [bear  a  great 
emotional  potency  for  the  social  groups  with  which  they  are  associated. 
Among  symbolisms  of  this  kind  we  should  probably  also  include  the]^ 
trappings  of  royalty,  such  as  the  crown,  sceptre,  and  so  on,  [trappings 
that  can  even  "mean"  or  represent  the  state  itself];  totemic  animals,  or 
college  animals,  [are  symbols  of  an  analogous  kind  in  their  representa- 
tion of  social  groups  and  the  feelings  one  has  as  a  member  of  the  group. 
And  while  some  people  are  fond  of  interpreting  objects  and  events  as] 
psychoanalytic  sex  symbols,  [we  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  possibility 
of  interpreting]  home  and  mother  as  symbols  of  respectability. 

^^  [Disparate  as  these  examples  may  be,  it  is  not  impossible  to  attempt 
a]  classification.  [First  of  all,  to  the  extent  that  the  "natural"  aspect  of 
the  symbol  or  symbolic  behavior,  that  is  its  physical  characteristics,  has 
some  connection  with  its  meaning,]  ^a,  bg  j^  j^  convenient  to  distinguish 
between  ( 1 )  Primary  symbols,  and  (2)  Dissociated  symbols.  ^^  For  ex- 


Two:  The  Psychology  oj  Cultun-  (^\\ 

ample,  we  have  a  primary  [symbol]  when  ihc  symbol  of  a  cow  \^  a 
drawing  of  a  cow;  a  dissociated  [symbol,)  when  any  sign  may  stand  for 
a  certain  sound.  '''  There  is  no  complete  break  [between  these  l>pcs.) 
but  a  continuous  line  from  the  one  to  the  other.  [Actually,  it  might  be 
more  accurate  to  say  that]  there  is  a  hierarchy  of  symbols  ranging  from 
the  [most]  direct  expression  to  [the  most]  highly  institutionalized,  disso- 
ciated, reintegrated  forms.  [Among  these  last,]  the  symbolic  meaning 
may  depend  upon  [the  symbol's]  belonging  to  a  certain  plateau  [m  the 
symbolic  structure.] 

^^  [Actually,  primary  and  dissociated  symbols  can  be  thought  of  as 
taking  part  in  a]  classification  [of  another  sort.  We  might  call  both  of 
them]  signatory  symbols:  [whether  dissociated  or  not.]  signatory  sym- 
bols tend  to  be  simple  signs  without  significant  [atTective]  overtones. 
[Symbols  of  this  kind  contrast  with]  assimilative  symbols,  [by  which  I 
mean  those  where  strong]  overtones  of  feeling  are  assimilated  to  the 
sign.  These  symbols  become  foci  of  emotional  grouping  and  fa\or  the 
formation  of  sentiments. 

^'^  There  is,  however,  a  long  way  [from  a  single  symbol]  to  a  symbolic 
system,  [which  incorporates  another  degree  of  dissociation  through  con- 
figurative  patterning.]^  The  symbolic  system  is  far  renuned  from  and 
dissociated  from  the  original  function,  but  associated  within  itself.  Take 
for  instance  the  red  and  green  traffic  light:  the  simplest  s\  mbolic  system. 
It  is  highly  dissociated,  but  highly  complete  in  itself;  it  is  not  a  mirror 
of  reality,  but  a  convenient  scheme  for  orientation  [to  it].  It  is  important 
[to  recognize]  that  the  symbolic  system  as  such  is  highl\  dissociated 
from  the  elements  in  which  it  is  expressed,  but  it  has  its  own  logic.  The 
most  completely  dissociated  system  is  mathematics,  but  language  too  is 
a  very  complicated  system  of  this  kind,  li  nuisi  noi  be  loo  rigid,  how- 
ever, if  it  is  to  allow  the  development  of  a  rich  treasure  of  symbols. 

[Formal  patterns,  that  is  to  say  symbolic  systems,  thus  contain  a  cer- 
tain complexity:  they  are  not  merely  assemblages  of  indi\idual  ssmbols.J 
^"^  A  second  important  quality  of  a  strict  symbolic  system  is  the  homo- 
geneity of  its  materials.  [With  the  tratTic  signals.  \\n  instance,  the  ele- 
ments of  the  system  consist  of]  light,  in  both  ca.ses  [either]  red  or 
green.  Language  and  mathematics  [are  perhaps  the  prime  examples 
that]  show  this  absolute  homogeneity.  [In  contrast,  ctMisider  some  exam- 
ples of  systems  that  are]  not  homogeneous,  [such  as]  Casella's  music 
[with  its  inclusion  ol]  a  real  nightingale,  and  ilie  use  o\'  real  shell  and 
real  hair  in  connection  with  a  usual  oil  painting. 


634  III  Culture 

^^  [In  sum,  depending  on  the  nature  of  their  connection  with  a  sym- 
bohc]  structure,  symbols  ditTer  in  certain  respects: 

(i)  There  may  be  a  one-to-one  correspondence  [between  the  symbol 
and  lis  meaning,]  as  compared  with  over-determination,  conditioning 
[by  other  dimensions  of  a  symbolic  structure,]  or  assimilation  [of  affec- 
tive overtones]. 

(ii)  There  may  be  poverty  of  content  as  compared  with  richness  of 
content. 

(iii)  Symbols  may  be  more  social  than  individual  and  vice  versa. 

(iv)  They  may  be  more  conscious  than  non-conscious  and  vice  versa. 

(v)  [Symbols  that  participate  in  a  symbolic  configuration]  may  be 
relatively  homogeneous  or  the  reverse,  consistent  or  non-consistent 
[with  one  another  in  their  physical  components]. 


da.  mi  ^igfis  ^j^d  Symbols 

^^  My  intention  was  to  use  the  first  lecture  on  symbols  as  a  way  to 
show  what  an  interesting,  but  also  very  difficult  and  complicated,  field 
this  is;  and,  in  a  way,  to  clear  the  ground  for  the  following  hour.  [Now 
we  can  consider  some  particular  topics  within  this  field,  such  as  the 
distinction  between]  sign  and  symbol,  and  the  many  [problems]  involved 
in  these  concepts.^  """^  [We  have  already  indicated  that]  when  the  human 
mind  is  reacting  symbolically,  this  means  that]  words,  action,  gestures 
coming  either  from  us  or  from  the  people  around  us,  [even]  objects,  in 
a  word  all  the  elements  of  the  environment,  stand  not  only  for  them- 
selves, but  [also]  for  something  else  of  which  they  are  the  sign.  [They 
have  not  only  a  "natural"  aspect  but  also  a]  semiotic  character.  At  a 
certain  point  of  dissociation  of  the  sign  from  the  physical  experience, 
the  symbol  will  appear.  [To  put  this  another  way,]  the  sign  becomes 
symbol  when  it  no  longer  has  a  perceptible  causal  relation  with  what  it 
refers  to. 

"^  If  the  distinction  is  between  an  actual  relafion  (the  sign)  and  an 
imputed  one  (the  symbol),  can  there  be  any  genetic  relationship  between 
sign  and  symbol?^  There  is  certainly  a  difference  between  the  contextual 
sign  and  the  full-grown  symbol,  but  it  is  a  logical  difference,  a  difference 
of  definition.  [It  does  not  mean  that  symbols  cannot  have  their  genesis 
in  signs.]  In  fact,  symbols  have  grown  out  of  sign  situadons  by  dissoci- 
ation. For  example,  [when  you  shake]  the  fist  to  threaten  a  person  out 
of  reach,  the  action  is  not  completed;  a  part  of  it  has  been  dissociated. 


Two:  The  Tsycholoiiy  oj  (  ulturc  635 

There  is  an  interruption.  [And  eventually,  shaking  the  fisi  at  an  imagi- 
nary enemy  becomes  a  symbol  lor  aniier  itsell'  when  no  enenu.  real  or 
imaginarv.  is  actually  inleneled.]''  One  must  estahlisli  .1  >.'n-.ii  ilisiijic!i«>n 
between  the  logical  aiul  ihc  genetic  \iew'points. 

""  The  threat  of  the  fist,  coiisideretl  in  its  pi  unary  meanmg.  is  merely 
a  sign  of  trouble.  It  becomes  a  symbol  when  the  adversary  is  out  of 
reach,  when  the  situation  takes  a  hypocritical  character.  (But)  there  arc 
many  intermediate  degrees  and  they  represent  the  genesis  of  the  symbol 
from  the  sign,  if  it  often  happens  that  the  threatening  does  not  lead  lo 
action,  it  comes  to  be  considered  as  a  substitute  for  action.  Tliai  is 
[simply  a  product  ot]  the  process  of  socialization.  [But]  the  part  of  the 
situation  which  is  dissociated  from  [the  action]  and  substitutes  for  it  is 
not  necessarily  the  most  important.  For  example,  in  a  situation  of  anger 
the  secretion  of  the  endocrine  glands,  or  other  bodily  phenomena,  are 
more  important  [parts  o\^  the  experience]  than  the  clenching  o\'  the  tlsi. 
So  sign  and  symbol  must  not  be  taken  as  an  actual  antinonn,  but  as 
two  poles  between  which  the  concrete  thing  or  e\ent  moves. 

""  The  sign  devoid  of  its  context  is  always  ambiguous.  The  ambiguii> 
of  the  sign  sometimes  leads  to  a  stiffening  of  the  meaning  [it  bears,  and) 
thus  symbols  may  appear. 

'^^  [Clearly,]  the  field  of  signs  and  symbols  presents  man\  interesting 
questions.  [Now]  I  shall  read  some  of  the  statements  made  by  members 
of  the  seminar  and  point  out  some  of  the  problems  invoked  in  the 
examples  given.  "^"^  These  are  cases  of  symbol  genesis,  [in  which  members 
of  the  seminar  have]  presented  instances  of  a  sign  which  b\  dissiKiation 
has  become  a  symbol. 

"^'^  First,  the  example  given  by  Mr.  Marjolin:'"  "Before  the  War"  peo- 
ple in  France  used  to  have  on  Sundays  a  special  kind  o\'  cake  in  the 
form  of  a  crescent,  just  a  little  bit  different  from  the  ordmar>  bread.  It 
was  a  sign  of  good  times.  During  the  War  food-stutT  was  scarce,  and 
people  could  no  longer  afford  to  ha\c  this  special  kind  of  cake  on  Sun- 
days. But  after  the  War  this  crescent  form  oi  cake  was  revived,  and 
this  was  done  with  great  enthusiasm,  almost  approximating  a  religious 
ceremony.  People  associated  this  crescent  with  the  old  golden  days  of 
peace  and  happiness.  Thus  ihc  cake  became  a  symbol.  .Although  the 
material  out  of  which  the  revived  crescent  was  now  made,  and  the  way 
it  was  made,  may  have  been  ditTerent  from  pre-\sar  practices,  the  form 
remained  [and  it  was  this  form  that  became  the  s\mbol.]'* 

"*-'  This  is  a  fair  example  shtuMiig  lun\  a  symbol  may  grow  ou!  of  a 
sign.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  cannot  tell  when  the  sign  ends  and  when  the 


636  ///  Culture 

symbol  begins;  the  transition  is  gradual.  But  there  is  always  a  historical 
connection  somewhere,  in  which  the  sign  is  dissociated  from  its  original 
meaning,  although  this  historical  connection  is  seldom  clear. 

^"  Now,  the  example  given  by  Mr.  Ferrero:  "Before  the  War  the  three- 
colored  Italian  Hag  was  beautiful  -  it  was  associated  in  my  mind  with 
beautiful  thoughts.  But  after  the  War  the  Italian  flag  belonged  to  a 
party  of  violence,  and  it  is  [now]  associated  in  my  mind  with  bloodshed, 
persecution,  corruption  and  policemen.  I  saw  the  police  beat  people. 
The  new  tlag  becomes  to  me,  therefore,  a  symbol  of  violence." 

^''  This  example  [given  by]  Mr.  Ferrero  is  more  personal  than  the  one 
given  by  Mr.  Marjolin,  although  there  may  be  many  other  people  in 
Italy  who  share  this  feeling.  "^"^  [However,  the  fact  that  an  example  in- 
volves personal  feelings  does  not  mean  it  cannot  be  a  symbol,  for]  there 
are  private  symbols  [as  well  as  those  that  are  accepted  by  a  whole 
group.]'-  [Even  among  signs  that  have  become  socialized  and  have  be- 
come social  symbols  in  the  clearest  sense,]  most  of  the  time  the  socializa- 
tion takes  place  for  the  material  of  the  symbol,  not  for  its  reference.  To 
be  [sure.]  everything  in  this  realm  of  symbolism  is  partly  social,  partly 
individual.  Social  symbols  can  [even]  give  birth  to  private  symbols: '''  ^^ 
in  psychotics  we  see  more  spectacularly  the  process  of  personal  affectual 
evaluation  of  a  common  symbol.  But  the  world  of  the  individual  is 
never  dissociated  from  the  life  of  society;  and  the  life  of  "society"  is 
after  all  a  figure  of  speech  -  it  is  a  total  of  private  worlds.  All  symbols 
therefore  have  both  social  and  individual  values,  ''"'  although  there  is 
always  an  antagonism  between  the  social  and  the  individual  inter- 
pretations. 

'"'  We  don't  know  how  far  we  can  go  in  the  use  of  private  symbols. 
For  example,  there  have  been  poets  who  have  not  been  understood, 
because  of  the  private  symbolism  which  they  used.  '^'''  [On  the  other 
hand,]  even  the  private  world  of  meaning  of  a  psychotic  patient  has  its 
roots  in  culture  -  the  culture  as  manifested  in  his  family  relations,  for 
example.  Therefore  we  should  not  draw  too  hard  and  fast  a  line  between 
the  affectively-laden  symbolism  and  social  symbolism.  Nor  do  we  want 
to  make  too  [sharp]  a  distinction  between  conscious  and  unconscious 
symbols,  or  even  between  signs  and  symbols. 

^''  [Let  us  turn  now  to]  the  example  given  by  Dr.  Maki:  "I  am  greatly 
impressed  by  the  way  Americans  use  certain  humming  sounds  in  con- 
nection with  their  speech,  such  as  m...,  n...,  etc.  In  Finland,  this  mixing 
of  unvoiced  sounds  with  clearly  enunciated  words  would  be  considered 
impolite." 


Inn:  I  he  l\\\iliohi^y  uf  Culture  f"^"^ 

^■^  This  is  an  example  of  the  reinterprelalion  of  symbols.  In  America 
the  use  of  such  "unvoiced  sounds"  is  considered  an  individual  manner- 
ism, not  so  much  as  a  sign  ot  impoliteness.  Women  in  particular  have 
such  mannerisms.  Sometimes  they  make  a  certain  sound  by  inhaling,  m 
order  to  show  their  attention  to  a  man's  talk.  Fhis  ma>  be  a  kind  of 
primary  symbolism.'** 

iia,  rni  j^ct  US  now  cousidcr]  the  case  ot"  symbol  genesis  presented  by 
Dr.  Beck:'-''  "Once  I  had  a  rather  tiresome  talk  with  a  prisoner,  and  (in 
greeting  him  initially]'^  I  quite  involuntarily  played  with  the  prison's 
keys  that  I  carried  around.  On  noticing  this,  the  prisoner  remarked  thai 
he  realized  that  he  was  in  prison  but  that  one  day  he  would  be  free, 
etc.  This  involuntary  act  on  my  part,  therefore,  was  taken  as  a  sign  of 
institutional  power." 

■^"^  Dr.  Beck  presents  the  instance  of  a  sign  which  by  dissociation  has 
become  a  symbol.  The  greeting  which  he  addressed  to  the  prisoner  in 
coming  to  his  cell  stands  for  its  whole  ordinary  context,  that  is.  the 
world  in  which  the  prisoner  was  living  before  going  to  jail.  This  greeting 
has  a  meaning  so  dissociated,  so  remote  from  its  intrinsic  value  that  it 
becomes  a  symbol.  [But  there  is  probably  more  to  say  about  this  exam- 
ple too.]  '*''  The  use  of  hands,  in  \arious  connections,  and  gesture  in 
particular,  [deserve  a  considerable  discussion.]  They  represent  a  kind  of 
symbolism  that  has  not  been  carefully  studied.' ' 

■""^  [So  although  these  cases  were  supposed  to  illustrate  relationships 
between  sign  and  symbol,  now  that  we  have  looked  at  them)  the  mere 
opposition  between  sign  and  symbol  appears  too  poor  to  express  the 
reality.  We  must  distinguish  several  points  o\'  \ieu:  the  relative  degree 
of  dissociation,  the  relative  degree  of  socialization,  and  so  on,  [perhaps 
other  dimensions  as  well.]  We  need  a  more  elaborate  nomenclature,  [it 
seems,  and  even  the  examples  that  seemed  at  first  glance  to  he  the  sim- 
plest may  turn  out  to  be  quite  complicated.] 

ha.  rm  jakc,  for  instance,  the  implication  o(  the  word  "door."  It  dtxrs 
not  merely  stand  for  the  single  object  (of  wood,  that  can  be  moved  on 
hinges,  etc.),  but  at  the  same  time  it  also  suggests  something  else  -  a 
hall,  a  corridor,  or  a  room  -  from  which  or  to  which  the  door  is  lead- 
ing. [The  word  is  a  symbol  for  the  door,  but  the  ^.Uhh  iisell]  **•*  may  be 
a  sign  for  "activities  to  be  completed."  [So  how  are  we  \o  desenbe  its 
scmiotic  character?]  ""  [As  we  have  just  said.)  the  s>mbol  will  ap|XMr  al 
a  certain  point  of  dissociation  of  the  sign  from  the  physical  experience; 
but  there  is  no  limit  to  the  transformation  i>f  the  s\mboi.  Thus  the  door 
can  become  the  symbol  o\'  the  corridor  and  have  "exist"  as  its  only 


638  ttt  Culture 

meaning  [(i.  c,  "a  corridor  exists")].  The  implications  [of  the  door  take 
precedence  and  there  is  a  dissociation  from  the  physical  thing.  We  react 
to  the  Miiplications  rather  than  to  the  physical  object.  In  the  same  way] 
a  gesture,  [no  matter  what  sort  of  muscle  movement  it  may  involve  - 
and  even  if  it  is  very  gracefully  executed  -]  may  be  displeasing'^  be- 
cause o^  its  remote  implications. 

""  [Now,  as  soon  as  we  find  that  we  have  to  mention  these  remote 
implications,]  that  raises  the  problem  of  the  immediacy  of  meaning.  [If 
meaning  does  not  lie  in  the  gesture,  object,  or  behavior  itself,  what  is 
the  set  of  implications  in  which  it  does  lie?]  What  is  the  context  of  our 
experience,  [from  which  we  are  to  derive  its  meaning]?  For,  any  experi- 
ence must  be  placed  in  a  totality  from  which  it  takes  all  its  significance. 
^''  And  what  contexts  people  see  may  be  very  different.  ™  [If  I  speak 
about  an  object  (such  as  a  door)  in  the  environment,]  what  ideas  and 
feelings  am  I  raising  in  the  minds  of  others  when  I  speak?  ^'^  An  element 
oi  the  same  environment  may  not  be  the  same  for  two  persons  experi- 
encing it  [if  they  place  it  in  different  contexts.  I  think  that  if  we  really 
tried  to  study  this  problem  thoroughly]  ™  we  should  find,  at  last,  that 
the  environment  is  not  the  same  for  all  the  individuals  [who  experience 
it.]  Any  experience  has  a  different  meaning  for  each  person,  because 
each  of  them  gives  a  private  sense  to  a  physical  thing  or  event,  the 
meaning  of  which  would  seem  at  first  to  be  universal.  That  does  not 
mean  that  there  is  no  possible  understanding  between  them,  for  the 
meaning  of  a  part  of  this  environment  becomes  socialized  by  convention 
-  the  most  powerful  instrument  of  which  is  language. 

™  This  discovery  of  the  private  meanings  of  things  and  events  leads 
[us  to  see  the  inevitable  futility  of  any]'^  endeavor  to  understand  any- 
thing [in  human  life]  by  a  mere  survey  of  the  physical  behavior  [con- 
cerned in  it].  It  also  leads  to  caution  in  our  dealings  with  children,  [for 
as  an  adult]  one  does  not  apprehend  the  true  context  in  which  their  acts 
must  be  placed.  [Not  yet  fully  socialized,  they  do  not  share  the  socialized 
meanings  we  can  attribute  to  behaviors.]  Furthermore,  the  socialized 
meanings  themselves  are  different  from  one  culture  to  another  -  the 
meaning  of  intimacy,  for  example. 

■""^  [Surely]  the  study  of  symbolism  will  throw  light  upon  the  growth  of 
culture,  therefore.  ^^  We  must  be  aware  of  the  semiotic  nature  of  all  ele- 
ments of  experience:  as  signs  they  speak  a  language  of  implications,  ''^'  ™ 
and  the  real  language  is  supported  by  this  anonymous  language  of  signs, 
with  all  the  implications  of  meaning.  ^'^  [Now  as  you  think  about  this  you 
may  find  it  instructive  to]  try  to  suggest  situations  where  the  sign-implica- 


Two:  I'lic  f'.wcholoi^v  of  Culmrc  6!^9 

tioiis  fortwopersonsmay  be  quilcditTcrcnl.-"""!  This  ma\  help  you  avoid 
the  great]  danger  [in  the  study  of  syniboHsni.  uhiehj  is  to  o\ereniphasi/e 
its  social  character.''  The  social  [links  in  the  meanings  otssmboK]--'  arc 
but  fragmentary;  w  hal  can  be  expressed  and  understood  [m  common)  is 
relatively  little.  The  illusion  [thai  meaning,  and  culture,  are  shared]  comes 
from  this  marvelous  tool  which  is  language. 

''•'  In  the  last  analysis,  the  study  of  culture  has  to  be  the  slud\  ot 
individual  lives.  What  is  generally  thought  of  as  culture  may  be  said  lo 
be  an  illusion  of  objectivity,  [fostered  by  language].--^  '^•*^'*  The  complete, 
impersonalized  "culture"  of  the  anthropologist  can  reall>  be  little  more 
than  an  assembly  or  mass  of  loosely  overlapping  idea  and  action  ^\s- 
tems  which,  through  verbal  habit,  can  be  made  to  assume  the  appear- 
ance of  a  closed  system  of  behavior.  ''-'  [Attention  to  symbolism  should 
reveal  to  us,  then,  that]  even  in  a  social  situation  we  are  reacting  ii> 
personalities,  [and  reacting  in  terms  of  meanings  and]  ''^^'^'"  cultural  defi- 
nitions which  do  not  apply  to  all  the  members  of  [our]  group,  \shich 
even,  in  specific  instances,  apply  to  [ourselves]  alone.  ''•'  On  the  other 
hand,  symbolism  manifested  by  individuals,  e\en  in  such  tri\ial  things 
as  posture,  often  has  a  cultural  background  that  is  frequently  o\er- 
looked.  [There  is  no  necessary  contradiction  between  these  iwo  observa- 
tions.] '*^''-''  It  is  not  the  concept  oi'  culture  which  is  subtly  misleading 
but  the  metaphysical  locus  to  which  culture  is  generally  assigned. 


u/> 


Speech  us  a  Syniho/ic  Sy.sicni 


^^  Reading  poetry  we  frequently  experience  [ihe  ua\  in  uhich]  the 
words  as  well  as  the  whole  evocative  structure  of  the  spoken  poem  have 
symbolic  values.  [Leaving  the  question  of  the  poem's  overall  structure 
aside,]  the  symbolism  of  words  is  highly  dissociated.  highl\  abstracted. 
[Now,  the  symbolism  in  them  thai  is  nu^st  often  and  easily  experienced 
is  the]  referential  -  referring,  that  is.  to  meanings  which  are  not  gi\en 
in  the  sounds  themselves  [and  that  are  not  "primary."  to  use  the  nomen- 
clature 1  proposed  in  an  earlier  lecture. ]^'"^  [The  referential  is  often  taken 
to  be  the  essential  form  of  symbolism  in  language,  what  we  might  even 
call  "linguistic  symbolism"  par  excellence]  But  in  the  person  speaking. 
there  appear  symbolisms  very  dilTerent  from  the  referential  svmbolism 
of  language,  primary  symbolisms  which  are  over  and  above  linguistic 
symbolisms,  and  which  are  frequently  used  consciously  or  subcon- 
sciously by  poets  and  actors,  [in  iheir  management  ol]  sounds,  rhvlhni. 


640  III  Cnl'ifc 

and  intonation,  [for  example.  The  meanings  conveyed  with  these  sym- 
bolisms may  turn  out  to  be  quite  at  odds  with  what  the  words  express 
rctcrcntially.  As  they  say,]  "it  is  the  actor's  art  to  use  any  word  to  ex- 
press anything." 

*''*  This  observation  leads  to  the  question:  Have  sounds  as  such  a 
potential  quality  aside  from  what  they  mean?  In  1929  I  started  an  exper- 
imental investigation  in  this  point,  a  preliminary  report  on  which  is 
published  under  the  title  "A  Study  in  Phonetic  Symbolism. "^^  These 
studies  are  still  going  on,  [thanks  to]  Dr.  [Stanley]  Newman,  [who  has 
taken  over  the  work.] 

""*'  [In  the  course  of]  that  study  it  became  obvious  that  there  is  [some- 
thing we  might  call]  a  ''natural  phonetic  alignment"  -  that  is,  that 
certain  meanings  which  do  not  come  from  the  situation  [itself]  are  ap- 
plied to  certain  sounds.  [We  found  that]  there  exists  a  ''phantasy  vocab- 
ulary," that  certain  vowels  "sound  bigger"  ([or  smaller,]  etc.)  than  oth- 
ers. '''-^''"^  For  instance,  the  contrast  between  the  vowel  a  and  the  vowel 
/  (the  phonetic  or  continental  values  are  intended)  was  illustrated  in 
every  one  of  sixty  pairs  of  stimulus  words,  the  subject  being  requested 
to  indicate  in  each  case  which  of  the  two  in  themselves  meaningless 
words  iiicanl  (lie  larger  and  which  the  smaller  variety  of  an  arbitrarily 
selected  meaning.  I'or  example,  the  meaningless  words  m^//and  /??// were 
pronounced  in  that  order  and  given  the  arbitrary  meaning  'table.'  The 
subject  decided  whether  nKtl  seemed  to  symbolize  a  large  or  a  small 
lahle  as  coiitrasled  with  the  word  /;///.  ""'^  About  80%  of  the  subjects' 
answers  attached  the  imagined  [connotation]  of  something  large  or  big 
to  the  vowel  a  ([pronounced]  as  in  "saw"),  and  the  imagined  [connota- 
tion] of  something  small  to  the  vowel  /  (as  in  "it").  The  more  remote 
the  sounds  were  from  each  other,  within  the  scale  from  a  to  /  -  the 
larger  the  "contrast-step,"  that  is  -  the  more  certain  and  distinct  was 
the  meaning  attached.  '''''^'"  It  is  important  to  note  that  the  words  were 
so  selected  as  to  avoid  associations  with  meaningful  words.-'' 

"^'^  [These  experiments  were  never  intended  to  contradict  the  well- 
established  philological  fact  that]  languages  are  not  built  on  such  prin- 
ciples [as  sound  symbolisms.]  There  is  no  stable  and  distinct  relation 
between  sounds  and  the  "real"  linguistic  meanings  o\'  words.  [Instead, 
what  ilie  studies  show  is  that]  this  vowel-symbolism  occurs  as  an  uncon- 
scious symbolism  which  may  be  conditioned  either  acoustically  or  ki- 
naesthelically.  There  are  ofcour.se  linguistic  interferences,  and  indivi- 
dual dilVerences  (probably  conditioned  by  different  degrees  of  sensitiv- 
ity), which  should  be  and  will  be  studied.  Furthermore,  the  studies 
slKMild  be  exteiuleil  lo  very  young  children  and  to  foreign  languages.^'' 


T\s(r    Till'  Psycholofiy  of  Culture  641 

[Earlier  in  our  discussion  an  example  offered  by  Dr.  Maki  similarK 
brought  to  mind  a  type  o'(  "expressive"  symbolism  as  contrasted  wiih 
the  merely  referential  symbolism  we  normally  recogm/e.'*^  It  was  what 
Dr.  Maki  called  "unvoiced  sounds,  "  such  as  the)  '*•*  mannerisms  of 
women  who  make  a  certain  sound  by  inhalmg,  in  order  to  show  ihcir 
attention  to  a  man's  talk.  This  may  be  a  kind  of  primary  symbolism 
[too,  like  the  sound  symbolism  of  vowels.  Something  rather  like  this 
behavior  also  occurs]  in  an  Indian  tribe  in  northern  California,  among 
whom,  for  example,  men  and  women  observe  different  phonetic  rules. ^ 
Thus  when  a  man  says  'moon',  he  says  wak'dra.  while  a  woman  says 
wak! — ^7r',^"  the  last  sound  being  produced  probably  by  inhaling.  I 
really  have  no  [definite]  theory  [explaining]  this  unvoiced  speech  of 
women.  Such  sounds  may  belong  to  a  category  other  than  ordinary 
language.  Possibly  they  may  represent  a  kind  of  primary  symbolism, 
[perhaps]  due,  [if  we  are  to  believe  the  psychoanalysts.]  to  women's  mas- 
ochistic tendency.^' 

[Of  course  the  Yana  man  or  woman  who  produces  one  or  other  of 
these  forms  is  referring  to  the  moon  at  the  same  time  as  symbolizing 
maleness  or  femaleness.]  ''^-'^"^  h  goes  without  saying  that  in  actual 
speech  referential  and  expressive  symbolisms  are  pooled  in  a  single  ex- 
pressive stream.  [We  might  even  distinguish  among  levels  of  referential 
symbolism  as  partaking  of  this  kind  of  expressiveness:]  ""  for  instance, 
[suppose  you  have  an  acquaintance  who  has  been  your  intimate  friend; 
but  you  sense  that  he  has  changed  toward  you,  and  you  deduce  this 
from  his]  use  of  a  vocabulary  marking  a  greater  social  distance  than 
previously.  [Notice  here  that]  the  referential  meaning[s]  o\  language 
above  the  average  level  do  not  need  a  special  situation  to  be  understotnl 
There  can  be  a  direct  implication,  [so  that  you  deduced  the  change  o\ 
attitude  directly  from  your  friend's  speech.] 

[It  seems  then  as  if  there  are  in  speech]  '''-^ ''  many  levels  on  which 
expressive  patterns  are  built...  [And]  quite  aside  from  specific  inferences 
which  we  may  make  from  speech  phenomena  on  any  one  of  its  It- 
there  is  a  great  deal  of  interesting  work  to  be  done  with  the  psychou-^^ 
of  speech  woven  out  of  its  different  levels 


"'■'  Symbolism  unil  Socuil  l\syciioiai^\ 

[The  study  of  language  is  probably  one  of  the  most  important  avenues 
to  take  if  we  wish  to  explore  the  relationship  ol]  symbolism  and  social 


^2  Hf   Culture 

psychology.  (Bui  let  us  speak  about  that  relationship  more  broadly. 
First  of  ali.  what  is  social  psychology'.']  Social  psychology  deals  with: 

(i)  the  distinctive  elements  in  the  human  mind  which  determine  man's 
social  relations; 

(II)  interpersonal  relations; 

(iii)  the  reaction  upon  the  mind  of  social  relations  and  the  recognized 
and  established  usages  of  social  life  (institutions,  that  is). 

The  study  o^  symbolism  is  one  means  of  understanding  (ii)  and  (iii), 
or.  in  other  words,  the  relations  between  the  individual  and  society.  This 
may  be  done  by  studying  the  locus  of  the  symbolic  complex.  The  latter 
may  belong  to  the  field  o^  institutions,  to  unconscious  social  patterns, 
or  to  individual  patterns,  conscious  or  unconscious;  its  relative  position 
depends  upon  analysis.  But  in  any  case,  neither  the  individual  nor  the 
social  is  an  isolated  entity  and  the  locus  is  never  found  entirely  and 
ultimately  in  the  individual  mind,  nor  again  in  an  institution.  The  dis- 
tinction between  these  two  is  [a  distinction  between  a]  relatively  minor 
or  [relatively]  major  extent  of  the  locus.  The  individual  hooks  onto  soci- 
ety through  [his  or  her]  participation,  to  a  greater  or  lesser  degree,  in 
the  social  symbol. 

[A  study  of  symbolism  must  therefore  not  take  too  seriously  a  classifi- 
cation of  symbols  into  the  social  and  the  personal,  (say)  the  psychoana- 
lytic. Although  the  latter  type  may  appear  to  concern  only  the  indivi- 
dual personality,]  symbolism  of  a  psychoanalytic  character  is  a  dynamic 
cultural  fact  nevertheless,  a  fact  which  is  for  the  time  being  relatively 
private  and  obsessive  though  it  may  easily  become  socially  accepted. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  [extent  or  even]  universality  of  response  to  a 
symbol  is  a  measure  of  the  homogeneity  of  a  culture;  though  here  again 
[it  must  be  pointed  out  that]  relatively  few  people  in  a  given  society 
fully  participate  in  all  the  major  symbolic  patterns  of  the  society  (for 
example  its  patterns  of  religious,  political,  aesthetic,  and  legal  [activity], 
and  so  on).  This  means  that  there  is  a  drawing  together  into  smaller 
groups  of  all  those  who  share  to  a  required  degree  in  one  or  more  of 
these  major  symbolisms. 

''^''-^  No  problem  of  social  psychology  that  is  at  all  realistic  can  be 
phrased  by  starting  with  the  conventional  contrast  of  the  individual  and 
his  society.  Nearly  every  problem  of  social  psychology  needs  to  consider 
the  exact  nature  and  implication  of  an  idea  complex,  which  we  may 
look  upon  as  the  psychological  correlate  of  the  anthropologist's  cultural 
pattern,  to  work  out  its  relation  to  other  idea  complexes  and  what  mod- 
ifications it  necessarily  undergoes  as  it  accomodates  itself  to  these,  and. 


Two:  The  Psviliolo^y  of  Culture  643 

above  all.  lo  ascertain  the  precise  Kklis  of  Mich  a  complex.  This  Ukus 
is  rarel\  identifiable  uith  societN  as  a  uhole.  except  in  a  purely  philo- 
sophical or  conceptual  sense,  nor  is  it  often  lodged  in  the  psyche  of  a 
single  individual.  In  extreme  cases  such  an  idea  complex  or  cultural 
pattern  may  be  the  dissociated  segment  of  a  single  individual's  mind  or 
il  nia\  amount  lo  no  more  than  a  polenlial  re\i\irication  of  ideas  in 
the  mind  of  a  single  individual  through  the  aid  of  some  such  symbolic 
depositary  as  a  book  or  museum.  Ordinarily  the  locus  will  be  a  substan- 
tial portion  of  the  members  of  a  community,  each  of  them  feeling  that 
he  is  touching  common  interests  so  far  as  this  particular  culture  pattern 
is  concerned. ''- 

^^  Thus  the  study  of  symbolism  provides  one  c>\'  the  most  \aluable 
and  [fruitful]  methods  of  approach  to  the  basic  problems  o\'  social 
psychology. 


[1934] 

1934c  j]^Q  itrm  symbolism  covers  a  great  variety  of  apparent!)  dissim- 
ilar modes  of  behavior.  ''^ '''*'-•  '''"■  '^-  •^'  In  its  original  sense  il  was  restricted 
to  objects  or  marks  intended  to  recall  represent,  or  direct  special  atten- 
tion to  some  larger  and  more  complex  phenomena  (some]  person, 
object,  idea,  event  or  projected  activity  associated  c^nl\  \aguel\  or  not 
at  all  with  the  symbol  in  any  natural  sense.  By  gradual  extensions  o\' 
meaning  the  terms  symbol  and  symbolism  ha\e  come  to  include  not 
merely  such  trivial  objects  and  marks  as  '^'  the  letter  't'.  [to  indicate  a 
particular  sound  in  speech],  ''^•^'*'-'-  '^'  black  balls,  to  indicate  a  negative 
attitude  in  voting,  and  ''^-^'**^  stars  and  daggers,  to  leniind  the  reader  that 
supplementary  information  is  to  be  found  at  the  bottom  o)^  the  page. 
1934c,  lb.  1,1  ^^j^  ,^|j,^^  more  elaborate  objects  and  de\ices.  such  as  tlags  and 
signal  lights,  which  are  not  ordinaril\  regarded  as  important  in  them- 
selves but  which  point  to  ideas  and  actions  o\'  great  ct>nsequence  lo 
society.  ^'^^'^''- ''"'  "'  '''  Such  complex  systems  o^  reference  as  speech,  wrii- 
ing  and  mathematical  notation  should  also  be  included  under  the  term 
symbolism,  for  the  sounds  and  marks  used  therein  ob\iousl\  ha\e  no 
meaning  in  themselves  and  can  have  significance  only  for  those  who 
know  how  to  interpret  them  in  lerms  of  that  lo  which  they  reler.^-^  •''•^• 
hi,  ih  ^  certain  kind  o\'  poetry  is  called  s\nibi>lic  ov  s>mbi>listic  because 
its  apparent  content  is  only  a  suggestion  for  wider  meanings.  In  jxt- 
sonal  relations  too  there  is  much  beha\  ior  that  may  be  called  symbolic. 


(>44  fll  Cultwc 

as  when  a  ceremonious  bow  is  directed  not  so  much  to  an  actual  person 
as  to  a  status  which  that  person  happens  to  fill.  The  psychoanalysts 
ha\e  come  to  apply  the  term  symbolic  to  almost  any  emotionally 
charged  pattern  of  behavior  which  has  the  function  of  unconscious  ful- 
I'lhneni  o{  a  repressed  tendency,'*'*  as  when  a  person  assumes  a  raised 
voice  o(  protest  to  a  perfectly  indifferent  stranger  who  unconsciously 
recalls  his  father  and  awakens  the  repressed  attitude  of  hostility  toward 
the  father. 

1934c.  dm  /^mij  the  wide  variety  of  senses  in  which  the  word  is  used 
there  seem  to  emerge  two  constant  characteristics.  '^^'*^'  '^"'' '''-  ^'  One  of 
these,  (which  we  have  already  mentioned,]  is  that  the  symbol  is  always 
a  substitute  for  some  more  closely  intermediating  type  of  behavior, 
whence  it  follows  that  all  symbolism  implies  meanings  which  cannot  be 
derived  directly  from  the  contexts  of  experience. -^^  The  second  charac- 
teristic of  the  symbol  is  that  it  expresses  a  condensation  of  energy,  its 
actual  significance  being  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  apparent  triviality 
o\  meaning  suggested  by  its  mere  form.^^  '^■^'^^  This  can  be  seen  at  once 
when  the  mildly  decorative  function  of  a  few  scratches  on  paper  is  com- 
pared with  the  alarming  significance  of  apparently  equally  random 
scratches  w  hich  are  interpreted  by  a  particular  society  as  meaning  "mur- 
der" or  "God."  ''^''"*'-"-  '^'-  "^  This  disconcerting  transcendence  of  form 
comes  out  equally  well  in  the  contrast  between  the  involuntary  blink  of 
the  eye  and  the  crudely  similar  wink  which  means  "He  does  not  know 
what  an  ass  he  is,  but  you  and  I  do."'*^ 

iy34c.  dm.  SI.  hi.  lb  1^  seems  useful  to  distinguish  two  main  types  of  sym- 
bolism. The  first  of  these,  which  may  be  called  referential  symbolism, 
embraces  such  forms  as  oral  speech,  writing,  the  telegraph  code,  na- 
tional flags,  flag  signaling  and  other  organizations  of  symbols  which 
are  agreed  upon  as  economical  devices  for  purposes  of  reference.  The 
second  type  of  symbolism  is  equally  economical  and  may  be  termed 
condensation  symbolism,  for  it  is  a  highly  condensed  form  of  substitu- 
tive behavior  for  direct  expression,  allowing  for  the  ready  release  of 
emotional  tension  in  conscious  or  unconscious  form.  Telegraph  ticking 
IS  virtually  a  pure  example  of  referential  symbolism;  the  apparently 
meaningless  washing  ritual  of  an  obsessive  neurotic,  as  interpreted  by 
the  psychoanalysts,  would  be  a  pure  example  of  condensation  symbol- 
ism. '''34c.  hi.  lb.  si  jj^  ^^^^^j  i^ehavior  both  types  are  generally  blended. 
Thus  specific  forms  of  writing,  conventionalized  spelling,  peculiar  pro- 
nunciations and  verbal  slogans,  while  ostensibly  referential,  easily  take 
on  the  character  of  emotionalized  rituals  and  become  highly  important 


Two:  The  /'wiholo^y  of  C'uliurv  645 

lo  bolli  iiKli\  idiial  and  socicl\  as  suhsliiuli\c  forms  i)t' emotional  expres- 
sion.^^ ^'^■^'^'^  Were  writing  merely  relcrential  symbolism,  spellmg  reforms 
would  not  be  so  dinicult  [o  bring  about. 

'''''■^"■' ''"  "'  Symbols  of  the  referential  type  uiKk)ubtedly  de\eloped  later 
as  a  elass  than  eondensalion  symbols,  it  is  likely  that  most  referential 
symbolisms  go  baek  to  unconsciously  evolved  symbolisms  saturated 
with  emotional  quality,  which  gradually  took  on  a  purely  referential 
character  as  the  linked  emotion  dropped  out  o\'  the  beha\ior  in  ques- 
tion.^'' ^'^^'^'■'- '''  "'  riuis  shaking  the  fist  at  an  imaginary  enem\  becomes 
a  dissociated  and  fmally  a  referential  symbol  for  anger  when  no  enenn. 
real  or  imaginary,  is  actually  intended.  ^'^^'^'■'-  '''  When  this  emotional 
denudation  takes  place,  the  symbol  becomes  a  comment,  as  it  were,  on 
anger  itself  and  a  preparation  for  something  like  language."^"  '''^■*^"  What 
is  ordinarily  called  language  may  have  had  its  ultimate  root  in  just  such 
dissociated  and  emotionally  denuded  cries,  which  tMiginally  released 
emotional  tension.  Once  referential  symbolism  had  been  established  by 
a  by-product  of  behavior,  more  conscious  symbols  of  reference  could 
be  evolved  by  the  copying  in  abbreviated  or  simplified  form  o\'  the  thing 
referred  to,  as  in  the  case  of  pictographic  writing.  On  siill  more  sophisti- 
cated levels  referential  symbolism  may  be  attained  by  mere  social  agree- 
ment, as  when  a  numbered  check  is  arbitrarily  assigned  to  a  man's  hat. 
The  less  primary  and  associational  the  symbolism,  the  more  dissociated 
from  its  original  context,  and  the  less  emotionalized  it  becomes,  the 
more  it  takes  on  the  character  of  true  reference. 

1934c.  dm.  hi  ^  further  condition  for  the  rich  development  of  referential 
symbolism  must  not  be  overlooked  -  the  increased  complexit)  and 
homogeneity  of  the  symbolic  material.  This  is  strikingK  the  case  in 
language,  ^'^^'^'■'  in  which  all  meanings  are  consistently  expressed  by  for- 
mal patterns  arising  out  of  the  apparently  arbitrary  sequences  of  umtar\ 
sounds.  When  the  material  of  a  symbolic  system  becomes  sutTicientls 
varied  [{i.  e.,  complex)]  and  yet  homogeneous  in  kind,  (therefore.)  the 
symbolism  becomes  more  and  more  richl\  patterned,  creative  and 
meaningful  in  its  own  terms,  and  referents  tend  to  be  supplied  b\  a 
retrospective  act  of  rationalization.  Hence  it  results  that  such  complex 
systems  of  meaning  as  a  sentence  form  or  a  musical  form  mean  so  much 
more  than  they  can  ever  be  said  to  refer  to.  In  higliK  e\ol\ed  systems  o( 
reference  the  relation  between  symbol  and  referent  becomes  increasingly 
variable  or  inclusive.  "'  There  is  never,  [in  such  systems,  merely)  a  one- 
to-one  relation  of  symbol  and  referent;  (the  relation  is  much  more  com- 
plicated] because  of  the  configurative  richness      (the  iiuohement  o(  an 


646  til  Culture 

entire]  'as-if  parallel  system  [or  orientational  scheme  in  which  the  sym- 
bol participates]. 

'''^•*^"  in  condensation  symbolism  also  richness  of  meaning  grows  with 
increased  dissociation.  The  chief  developmental  difference,  however,  be- 
tween this  type  of  symbolism  and  referential  symbolism  is  that  while 
the  latter  grows  with  formal  elaboration  in  the  conscious,  the  former 
strikes  deeper  and  deeper  roots  in  the  unconscious  and  diffuses  its  emo- 
tional quality  to  types  of  behavior  or  situations  apparently  far  removed 
from  the  original  meaning  of  the  symbol.  Both  types  of  symbols  there- 
fore begin  with  situations  in  which  a  sign  is  dissociated  from  its  context. 
Tlie  conscious  elaboration  of  form  makes  of  such  dissociation  a  system 
o^  reference,  while  the  unconscious  spread  of  emotional  quality  makes 
o'i  it  a  condensation  symbol.  Where,  as  in  the  case  of  a  national  flag  or 
a  beautiful  poem,  a  symbolic  expression  which  is  apparently  one  of 
mere  reference  is  associated  with  repressed  emotional  material  of  great 
importance  to  the  ego,  the  two  theoretically  distinct  types  of  symbolic 
behavior  merge  into  one.  One  then  deals  with  symbols  of  peculiar  po- 
tency and  even  danger,  for  unconscious  meanings,  full  of  emotional 
power,  become  rationalized  as  mere  references. 

'''^■*'-"  It  is  customary  to  say  that  society  is  peculiarly  subject  to  the 
influence  of  symbols  in  such  emotionally  charged  fields  as  religion  and 
politics."^'  Flags  and  slogans  are  the  type  examples  in  the  field  of  poli- 
tics, crosses  and  ceremonial  regalia  in  the  field  of  religion.  But  all  cul- 
ture is  in  fact  heavily  charged  with  symbolism,  as  is  all  personal  beha- 
vior. Even  comparatively  simple  forms  of  behavior  are  far  less  directly 
functional  than  they  seem  to  be,  but  include  in  their  motivation  uncon- 
scious and  even  unacknowledged  impulses,  for  which  the  behavior  must 
be  looked  upon  as  a  symbol.  Many,  perhaps  most  reasons  are  little 
more  than  ex  post  facto  rationalizations  of  behavior  controlled  by  un- 
conscious necessity.  Even  an  elaborate,  well  documented  scientific  the- 
ory may  from  this  standpoint  be  little  more  than  a  symbol  of  the  un- 
known necessities  of  the  ego.  Scientists  fight  for  their  theories  not  be- 
cause they  believe  them  to  be  true  but  because  they  wish  them  to  be  so. 
-""^  Even  "objectivity"  must  be  motivated. 

'''"  [From  the  perspective  of  unconscious  motivation]  the  fundamental 
necessity  of  the  human  organism  is  to  express  the  Hbido  -  and  all 
cultural  patterns  are  [orientedf  ^  ^^  ^^^  ^^^  ^^  another  in  that  direction 
and  operate  via  the  mechanisms  of  symbolism.  ^•-  '^  By  an  unconscious 
mechanism  of  symbolic  transfer,  an  endless  consecufive  chain  of  sym- 
bols [is  built  up]  in  a  richly  configurative  [symbolic  structure.]  I'^^^e,  ib,  si 


Two:  riic  I'.sviholo}^}'  of  C  ulturc  647 

Thus  indi\idiial  and  socicts.  in  a  nc\cr  ending  inlcrpUiN  o\  symbolic 
gestures,  build  up  the  pyramided  structure  called  ciNili/alion.  in  this 
structure  \er\  few  bricks  touch  the  groinid. 

'''^'■^'•"  [Perhaps  this  suggestion  will  be  more  con\incing  to  vou  jj  we 
consider  an  example]  of  some  o\'  the  less  obvious  symbolisms  in  social- 
ized behavior  -  [such  as  those  that  are  ctMueniently  summari/ed  as 
etiquette.]  Etiquette  has  at  least  two  layers  of  symbolism.  On  a  relali\ely 
ob\ious  plane  of  symbolism  etiquette  provides  the  members  of  stKiety 
with  a  set  of  rules  which,  in  condensed  and  thoroughly  conventitMiali/ed 
form,  express  society's  concern  for  its  members  and  their  relation  to 
one  another.  There  is  another  level  of  etiquette  symbolism,  however, 
which  takes  little  or  no  account  of  such  specific  meanings  but  interprets 
etiquette  as  a  whole  as  a  powerful  symbolism  of  status.  From  this  stand- 
point to  know  the  rules  of  etiquette  is  important,  not  because  the  feel- 
ings of  friends  and  strangers  are  becomingly  observed  but  because  the 
manipulator  of  the  rule  proves  that  he  is  a  member  o'i  an  exclusi\e 
group.  By  reason  of  the  richly  developed  meanings  which  inhere  in  eti- 
quette, both  positive  and  negative,  a  sensitive  person  can  actualls  ex- 
press a  more  bitter  hostility  through  the  frigid  obser\ance  of  etiquette 
than  by  flouting  it  on  an  obvious  wave  of  hostility.  Etiquette,  then,  is 
an  unusually  elaborate  symbolic  play  in  which  individuals  in  their  actual 
relationships  are  the  players  and  society  is  the  bogus  referee. 

[Now,  it  is  also  possible  to  treat  the  subject  of  etiquette  as  an  example 
of  a  realm  of  symbolic  behavior  and  to  consider  how  ue  might  ap- 
proach its  study.]  '^-  Four  kinds  of  approach  [may  be  compared:) 

(1)  [One  way  to  study  it  would  be  to  try  to  disco\er  the  recognized) 
rules  of  etiquette  [in  a  given  society.  This  is]  the  ethnological  objectixe. 

(2)  [In  another  type  of  study,]  the  rules  are  assumed:  what  sou  tr\  \o 
discover,  instead,  is  how  the  individual  would  react  to  them.  Fhis  is  the 
psychological  type  [of  inquiry,  and  it]  needs  a  huge  mass  of  material  [if 
it  is  to  be  properly  conducted.) 

(3)  [Another  approach  would  invoKej  testing  the  etkiuette  o\  the 
group  in  definite  contexts,  [and  seeing  what  kind  ol]  rationale  emerges. 
On  the  whole,  this  is  the  most  ditTicult  way  [to  approach  the  subiecl.) 

(4)  [A  fourth  possibility  would  be]  a  reasoned  inquiry  inti>  the  nature 
of  etiquette  itself,  ^^  and  its  psychological  basis,  [let  us  piUNue  this 
avenue  a  little  way  now.) 

lb,  h2.  hi.  bu  [1^  j^  sometimes  said  that  etiquette  is  a  kind  ol]  "Iuxuia  o\' 
behavior",  inherently  and  obviously  tri\ial.  "'  Otherwise  it  passes  over 
into  morals,  techniques,  or  law.  "'  But  can  you  conceive  of  society  with- 


f48  ^^^  Culture 

out  enqueue'.'  Historically  etiquette  was  no  luxury,  [but  a  matter  of 
deadly  seriousness  for  the  individuals  whose  social  fortunes  depended 
on  its  observance.  Perhaps  in  some  quarters]  etiquette  [is  seen]  as  a 
game  -  a  diversion  [from  the  sober  necessities  of  life.  But  it  is  a  special 
kind  o'i  game,  then:]  1  [may]  play  at  etiquette,  but  not  flippantly.  ^--  '^-  ^^ 
[What  is  fundamental  to  etiquette  is  not  that  it  is  actually  a  trivial  aspect 
oi  life  but  that  it  is  seen  as]  inherently  trivial  -  '^  that  its  triviality  is 
recognized.  '^-  ^-  [Indeed,  its  rule  is  actually  so  stern  that  despite  the 
supposed  triviality  it  amounts  to  a  form  of]  compulsive  tyranny  as  real 
as  the  tyranny  of  morality,  with  which  it  shares  a  basis  in  ego-anxiety, 
[and  with  which  it  shares  a  function  of|  simplifying  human  relation- 
ships. ''  [Actually,  from  this  quasi-political  point  of  view  that  assesses 
etiquette's  tyrannical  governance  of  human  affairs  we  might  look  at] 
etiquette  as  a  passport  [governing  the  individual's  access  to  social 
groups  outside  his  circle  of  intimates.  The  forms  of]  etiquette  [pertaining 
to  contacts]  between  classes  [are  particularly  interesting,  therefore],  ^^ 
[with  their  symbols  oi  the]  rights  of  status.  ^'  [In  such  contacts  we  are 
likely  to  get  a  good  view  of  the]  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  famil- 
iarity and  unfamiliarity  with  etiquette. 

[Another  property  of  etiquette  that  bears  a  paradoxical  relationship 
to  its  compulsiveness  is  the]  ^'-  "^  freedom  of  choice  [that  one  supposedly 
exercises  in  following  its  forms,]  as  if  [one  behaved  not  out  of  necessity 
at  all  but  out  of]  spontaneity  and  gratuitousness.  [But  like  the  notion 
o\'  the]  "free  gift,"  [in  the  rules  of  etiquette  we  have  only]  the  fiction  of 
freedom  -  only  theoretically  a  freedom  of  choice. 

^»  The  paradox  of  etiquette,  then,  is  that  it  combines  an  obvious 
triviality  with  a  strong  moral  necessity  and  tyranny  and  a  felt  element 
of  choice.  The  strength  of  the  moral  necessity  depends  upon  symbols  of 
interpersonal  status.  [But  its  presence,  and  its  hidden  compulsion,  are 
evidenced  in  the  fact  that]  breaches  of  etiquette  can  rarely  be  atoned 
for  m  [any]  thoroughgoing  manner.  [True,  our]  society  provides  [us  with 
a  supposed  form  of  atonement  in]  the  apology,  but  this  is  never  really 
satisfactory.  In  societies  where  breaches  of  etiquette  are  atoned  for  [by 
harsher  means,  such  as  the  imposition  of]  fines,  and  so  on,  etiquette 
merges  with  morality.  So  it  seems  that  where  the  triviality  is  ostensibly 
important  we  have  etiquette;  where  the  tyranny  is  overtly  emphasized 
we  have  morality. 

^s  In  this  connection  [it  would  be  a  useful  project]  to  check  up  eti- 
quette situations  in  Polynesia,  especially  in  terms  of  the  relative  triviality 
involved.  For  example,  seating  arrangements  at  a  feast  may  not  be  con- 


Two:  The  Psycholofiy  of  Cullurc  649 

sidered  a  matter  of  etiquette  since  llie  stains  ol  the  iiulixidual  is  viialK 
involved,  whereas  the  relation  of  chief  to  comnK)ner,  with  its  "noblesse 
obHge,"  may  partake  more  of  the  nature  o[^  etiquette.  I'hal  is.  where 
rights  of  status  are  socially  guaranteed  and  insisted  upon,  (perhaps)  the 
tendency  is  to  move  away  from  regarding  such  behavior  as  etiquette 
and,  instead,  to  consider  it  morality,  especially  where  freedom  of  choice. 
^^-  '^-  responsibility  and  irresponsibility.  '"^  or  \(iluntar\  participation  are 
not  factors  to  be  considered. 

^~  [Thus  the  behaviors  we  are  accustomed  to  consider  "etiquette" 
have]  shifting  connotations,  [depending  on  their  social  ciMitext  and  also 
depending  on  the  personalities  of  the  individuals  concerned.]  ^^  Person- 
ality differences  will  count  in  the  evaluation  o{  etiquette  -  a  healthy 
introvert  will  differ  from  an  extravert  in  his  reaction  to  etiquette  pn^b- 
lems.  ^'  The  problem  of  personality  is  fundamental  and  enters  into  e\er> 
discussion  of  value.  [So  we  cannot  discover  the  meaning  of  etiquette  in 
the  particulars  of  the  behaviors  in  which  we  observe  it.]  ""'  [What  matters 
most  is  the  behavioral  form's]  locus  in  implication:  one's  hostility  to  its 
tyranny,  [say];  [one's  sense  of  it  as]  a  social  duty;  one's  perfunctoriness 
[in  performing  it];  perhaps  one's  use  of  etiquette  as  a  mask  for  emotional 
privacy.  The  actual  concrete  symbol  doesn't  matter  so  much.  '^-  "  [What 
is  most  important  is]  the  total  configuration  [in  which  it  is  placed.]  ''' 
[Like  other  symbolic  forms,]  etiquette  lives  in  a  world  of  inarticulate 
implication. 


Editorial  Note 

The  material  in  this  chapter  comes  from  the  years  1933-34.  Several 
different  Sapir  "texts"  are  represented.  The  earliest  \ersion  comes  from 
the  Rockefeller  Seminar  in  the  spring  o(  1933,  when  Sapir  conducted 
several  class  sessions  on  symbolism:  (1)  An  initial  lecture  on  symbols 
on  April  20,  1933  (notes  by  Halvorsen);  (2)  a  discussion  on  signs  and 
symbols,  beginning  in  the  second  hour  o(  April  20  and  contmumg  on 
another  occasion  with  a  discussion  of  cases  of  symbol  genesis  presented 
by  students  (undated  notes  by  Bingham  Dai,  and  retrospective  summa- 
ries in  notes  dated  May  9.  1933.  by  Hahorsen  and  Marjolui;  (3)  a  con- 
tinuation of  this  discussion  on  May  9.  1933.  with  comments  on  the 
social  dimension  of  symbols  (notes  by  Halvorsen  and  Marjolm  dated 
May  9  and  May  II);  (4)  a  lecture  c^i  "Speech  as  a  .Symbolic  System." 
May  16,  1933  (notes  by  Walter  Beck). 


f,5()  III  Culture 

Sapir  seems  to  have  given  another  lecture  on  symboHsm  sometime  in 
1933  tor  a  ditTerent  audience,  in  which  Beaglehole  was  present  -  or  so 
1  surmise  Irom  the  fact  that  Beaglehole's  notes,  though  included  with 
his  class  notes,  do  not  match  those  of  other  student  note-takers.  The 
terminology  and  concerns  shown  in  BG  have  more  in  common  with  the 
Rockefeller  Seminar  than  with  the  class  lecture  given  the  following 
spring,  though  the  BG  notes  suggest  a  tighter  organization  than  in  the 
Rockefeller  notes.  (Beaglehole's  notes  on  symbolism  are  separate  from 
his  notes  on  etiquette,  which  cohere  with  those  of  other  students  in  the 
1933-34  class.) 

Finally.  Sapir  devoted  the  fmal  session  or  two  (May  15,  1934,  and 
perhaps  some  additional  hour)  of  his  1933-34  course  to  the  topics  of 
symbolism  and  etiquette.  He  had  also  just  written  an  article  on  ''Sym- 
bolism" for  the  Encyclopedia  of  the  Social  Sciences  (1934e).  Notes  by 
DM,  LB,  HI,  and  SI  from  this  lecture  are  all  rather  similar,  and  they 
show  so  close  a  resemblance  to  portions  of  the  encyclopedia  article  that 
it  seems  reasonable  to  suppose  that  Sapir  essentially  read  from  that 
paper  in  his  lecture. 

Rather  than  try  to  amalgamate  all  these  discussions  into  a  single  text, 
which  would  have  had  to  include  contradictory  terminology  (among 
other  problems),  I  have  divided  the  material  into  a  1933  version  (Rocke- 
feller Seminar  plus  BG's  "symbolism"  notes),  which  represents  an  ex- 
ploratory discussion,  and  a  1934  version  (other  class  notes  plus  encyclo- 
pedia article),  which  shows  the  much  tighter  organization  and  revised 
terminology  Sapir  later  gave  to  the  topic. 

In  the  1933  sources  there  are  occasionally  difficulties  in  distinguishing 
Sapir's  statements  from  other  people's  comments,  since  the  Rockefeller 
Seminar  notes  generally  include  notes  on  the  discussion  as  well  as  on 
Sapir's  presentations.  Although  most  of  the  note-takers  make  clear  who 
contributed  what,  it  is  harder  to  sort  this  out  in  Dai's  notes  on  "Signs 
and  Symbols,"  especially  since  Sapir  apparently  read  and  commented 
upon  written  examples  he  had  collected  from  members  of  the  Seminar. 
There  are  also  some  problems  concerning  the  order  in  which  comments 
are  presented  in  Marjolin's  notes  as  compared  with  Dai's  and  Hal- 
vorsen's  notes  for  the  same  session.  I  have  taken  some  liberties  with  the 
order  of  RM  passages,  therefore,  but  few  for  DA  or  HA. 

For  the  1934  lecture  I  have  drawn  heavily  on  passages  from  the  ency- 
clopedia article,  merely  indicating  which  note-takers  have  notes  on  each 
passage,  and  footnoting  the  note-taker's  actual  text  where  it  shows  some 
relevant  departure  from  the  published  version.  The  class  notes  do  go 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  Culture  651 

beyond  the  encyclopedia  article.  hcn\e\er.  especial!)  in  then-  discussion 
of  etiquette.  While  the  "Symbolism"  article  has  only  a  paragraph  on 
etiquette.  Sapir  clearly  devoted  much  more  time  \o  the  subject  in  class, 
perhaps  even  a  separate  class  session.  In  April  he  had  assigned  the  class 
the  project  of  making  up  and  answering  a  questionnaire  on  etiquette, 
and  BG's  notes  suggest  he  based  his  lecture  on  a  discussion  o{  these 
class  papers.  The  etiquette  section  in  my  text  is  deri\ed  from  notes  by 
LB,  HI,  H2,  BG,  and  SI,  as  well  as  the  encyclopedia  article. 


Notes 

1.  HA  has  ■■roturnod". 

2.  HA  has  "remoted". 

3.  HA  has  "manners." 

4.  BG  simply  lists  examples;  it  is  not  clear  whether  Sapir  discussed  any  of  them  at  greater 
length. 

5.  The  bracketed  passage  is  derived  from  "Symbolism"  (Sapir  1934c). 

6.  HA  adds:  "(Dr.  Dollard:  A  symbolic  system  is  more  like  a  Gestalt.)"  See  also  the  next 
passage  in  HA,  on  the  symbolic  system,  incorporated  below. 

7.  HA  actually  has:  "The  following  discussion  in  the  Seminar  centered  around  the  many 
aspects  of  and  difficulties  involved  in  the  concepts  of  sign  versus  symbol.  Professor  Sapir 
admitted  that  his  intention  was  just  to  use  this  first  lecture  on  symbols  to  show  the 
interesting,  but  also  very  ditTicult  and  complicated  field  and  in  a  way  to  clear  the  ground 
for  the  following  hour  on  the  same  topic." 

8.  This  sentence  actually  derives  from  Andras  Angyal's  comment  in  the  seminar  discussion: 
"The  distinction  is  between  an  actual  relation  (sign)  and  an  imputed  one  (ssmK^I)  It 
does  not  seem  that  there  is  any  genetic  relationship  between  sign  and  s\mbol."  RM  gixrs 
on  to  give  Sapir's  answer,  which  asserts  that  there  can  indeed  be  a  genetic  relationship 

9.  The  bracketed  passage  is  derived  from  "Symbolism."  Sapir  1934e. 

10.  In  Dai's  notes  it  is  not  always  clear  whether  a  statement  should  be  attributed  to  Sapir 
or  to  some  other  member  of  the  seminar.  In  this  case  we  ma\  surmise  that  Sapir  was 
reading  from  a  statement  otTered  b\  Marjolin. 

11.  World  War  I. 

12.  This  passage  comes  from  an  exchange  betueen  Sapir  and  Krzyzanowski  (a  member  ol 
the  Seminar).  RM  has:  "Mr.  Krzyzanowski:  There  is  another  criterion  to  disimguish 
between  signs  and  symbols.  A  symbol  is  a  sign  which  has  become  stKiali/cd  A  whole 
group  has  accepted  it  as  referring  to  something  definite.  Dr  Sapir  Iliere  are  prnalc 
symbols.  Most  of  the  time,  the  socialization  takes  place  for  the  material  of  the  s\mbi>l. 
not  for  its  reference.  To  be  true,  everything  in  this  rcilin  of  s\mboliMn  is  i\iril\  stvial. 
partly  individual." 

13.  RM  presents  this  comment  as  following  upon  this  suiicmciu  h\  Di'liaul  \s  uv.d  b\  the 
psychiatrist,  "symbor  has  the  character  of  alTeclive  sense  or  power  which  dislinguishc>  it 
from  non-symbolic  words,  gestures,  acts...  We  hit  here  upi>n  pri\ate  s>mK>liMn  l"hc 
child,  for  instance,  has  a  private  world  which  is  reshaped  b\  the  mkuiI  euMfonmcnt  To 
be  true,  there  is  no  hard  and  fast  line  between  private  and  siKiali/cd  signs  and  symK^ls  " 

14.  According  to  DA  and  RM,  Sapir  continued  at  this  point  with  some  remarks  aKiul  male 
and  female  speech  "in  an  Indian  tribe  in  N.  California"  (presumabU  Vana)  T»ic  discus- 


552  fit   Culture 

sion  IS  somewhat  cryptic.  I  have  moved  it  to  the  later  lecture  on  "Speech  as  a  Symbolic 
System."  whore  Sapir  evidently  took  up  the  same  topic  again.  With  that  context  it  is 
easier  to  stv  what  Sapir  might  have  had  in  mind  the  first  time  around. 

15    Beck  had  been  a  criminologist  in  Germany  before  joining  the  seminar. 

U>  Dais  notes  do  not  indicate  that  the  key-rattling  took  place  during  the  greeting,  but  RM's 
commentary  suggests  that  it  must  have  done. 

17.  DA  actually  has;  "(The  use  oi  hands  in  various  connections  and  gesture  in  particular 
were  discussed  at  some  length.  It  was  found  that  they  represent  a  kind  of  symbolism 
that  has  not  been  carefully  studied.)"  RM  has:  "A  discussion  takes  place  about  the 
distinction  between  meaning  and  symbol." 

IS    RM  actuallv  has  "disphasing." 

19.  RM  actuallv  has:  "leads  to  a  criticism  of  the  endeavor..." 

20.  HA  ends  his  notes  with  the  following:  "(Professor  Sapir  asked  everybody  to  try  to  sug- 
gest situations  where  the  sign-implication  for  two  persons  may  be  quite  different.)" 

21  RM  actuallv  has:  "The  danger  is  to  emphasize  too  much  the  social  character  of  symbol- 
ism." 

22.  RM  actually  has  "the  social  relations". 

23.  The  bracketed  material  derives  from  Sapir's  discussions  of  "illusions  of  objectivity"  in 
other  passages  and  in  his  published  writings,  including  the  excerpt  from  Sapir  1934a 
quoted  below,  where  the  illusion  is  linked  with  "verbal  habit." 

24.  W'B  actually  has:  "referential  (referring  to  meanings  which  are  not  given  in  the  sounds 
themselves  and  primarily)." 

25.  Sapir  1929m,  published  in  \.\\q  Journal  of  Experimental  Psychology  12:  225—39. 

26.  WB  has:  "Control  indices  brought  about  that  languages  are  not  built  on  such  prin- 
ciples..." Evidently  Sapir  said  something  about  how  the  experiments  were  set  up  to  avoid 
calling  referential  meanings  to  mind.  Since  the  notes  do  not  report  this  clearly,  I  have 
drawn  on  a  passage  from  Sapir's  published  paper. 

27.  WB  adds:  "As  to  further  and  detailed  information  I  refer  to  the  study  mentioned  above 
which  is  published  in  "  (the  reference  is  not  inserted). 

28.  The  wording  of  this  passage  comes  from  "A  Study  in  Phonetic  Symbolism,"  Sapir 
1929m. 

29.  See  Sapir  1929d,  "Male  and  Female  Forms  of  Speech  in  Yana." 

30.  Exclamation  mark  and  vowel  marking  added  in  accordance  with  Sapir's  usage  in  the 
published  text.  Sapir  I929d  has  italic  r  for  voiceless  r.  here  rendered  as  R;  both  the  text 
and  WB  have  the  final  a  raised  up  as  superscript.) 

31.  Note  that  Sapir  indulges  in  no  such  speculations  in  his  published  work  on  Yana  speech. 
On  the  contrary,  he  suggests  that  the  differences  between  male  and  female  speech  are  as 
conventionalized  as  anything  else  in  language  (Sapir  1929d).  Perhaps  in  his  actual  re- 
marks in  the  Rockefeller  Seminar  he  offered  his  interpretation  in  a  better-hedged  version 
than  the  notes  represent. 

32.  The  essay  ("Cultural  Anthropology  and  Psychiatry,"  Sapir  1932a)  goes  on  to  argue:  "We 
have  learned  that  the  individual  in  isolation  from  society  is  a  psychological  fiction.  We 
have  not  had  the  courage  to  face  the  fact  that  formally  organized  groups  are  equally 
fictitious  in  the  psychological  sense,  for  geographically  contiguous  groups  are  merely  a 
first  approximation  to  the  infinitely  variable  groupings  of  human  beings  to  whom  culture 
in  Its  various  aspects  is  actually  to  be  credited  as  a  matter  of  realistic  psychology." 

33.  DM  has:  "Now  Hags,  mathematics,  speech,  are  symbolic  entities  in  that  they  have  no 
meaning  in  themselves.  They  are  significant  only  in  so  far  as  they  lead  the  understanding 
recipient  to  wider  conceptions."  HI  has:  "symbolism  speech,  writing  -  symbols  of  refer- 
ence". 

34.  LB  has  "suppressed  attitude,  masks?" 


Two:  I  lie  PsychoUt^y  of  Culture  653 

35.  SI  has:  "( 1 )  symbolizing  -  always  rdcrrmg  to  somclhing  which  is  nol  directly  connected 
with  context  of  action." 

36.  DM  has:  "2.  Is  condensation  of  ciktun  Holding  latent  great  amount  of  emotional  energy 
and  meaning  in  apparentis  tri\ial  fiMnis."  HI  has:  "expression  of  condensation  of  en- 
ergy /  which  is  out  ol  proportion  to  its  mere  form." 

37.  HI  has:  "transcendance  of  form.  /  'wink':  blink  -  symbol  :  relle.x." 

38.  HI  actually  has:  "blended  symbolisms  /  pronunciations,  verbal  slogans,  errors  subsinu- 
tive  form  of  emotional  expression,  ritual  patterns."  SI  has:  "verbal  slogans,  emoiu>nal- 
ized  rituals."  LB  has  " BUiuUd  in  slogans  or  orthography." 

39.  H  1  has:  "Symbolisms  w  hich  lie  in  the  unconscious  are  older  than  those  which  arc  referen- 
tial symbols,  which  emerge  from  condensation  symbols  when  the  emotional  tinge  drops 
away  -".  LB  has:  "Condensational  older  than  referential  symbols." 

40.  HI  actually  has:  "shaking  list,  -  as  if  in  anger  -  in  the  gesture  /  language  " 

41.  For  a  discussion  of  a  similar  topic,  see  Sapir  1927a,  "Anthropology  and  Sociology." 

42.  DM  has  "directed." 


Chapter  13.  The  Impact  of  Culture  on  IVrsonalil) 

'■"'  The  Study  of'Cuhurc  ciiul  I'crsofniliiv" 
(May  1933) 

rm  \Yhii(  problems  are  worth  considering  in  the  field  of  '■cuUiire  and 
personality"?  What  [problems]  do  not  deserve  our  spending  a  L'real 
amount  of  energy  trying  to  solve  them? 

[Let  us  begin  with  a]  definition  of  the  field.  "Culture,"  [as  anthropolo- 
gists have  traditionally  conceived  of  it,]  is  not  the  chief  object  of  concern 
in  the  study  [o'i  "culture  and  personality.""]'  Knou ledge  o\'  the  histor\ 
of  culture,  [which  is  what  the  traditional  approach  focuses  upon.]  can 
throw  only  [a]  little  light  on  its  present  meaning,  [or  its  relationship  to 
the  individuals  who  encounter  it.]  For  example,  a  cathedral  may  ha\e 
lost  all  its  [original.]  intrinsic  meaning  and  have  become  the  mere  sym- 
bol of  a  past  greatness.  On  the  other  hand,  to  study  the  problem  o\'  the 
relations  of  "culture  and  personality"  means  that  one  does  not  consider 
personality  as  the  mere  unfolding  of  a  biological  organism.  So  far  as 
the  study  in  point  is  concerned,  then,  "culture"  is  rele\ant  onI>  if  it 
takes  [its]  meaning  in  the  present  psychology  o'i  the  people,  "personal- 
ity" only  if  it  is  referred  to  its  milieu.  To  be  exact,  all  that  can  be  said 
about  a  person  is  relevant,  [and  this  will  include  a  great  deal  about  ihe 
social  milieu  and  cultural  background],  but  it  is  a  question  of  degree. 

The  best  name  for  this  field  of  research  would  reall>  be  "social 
psychology,"  although  this  term  implies  erroneously  that  there  is  [such 
a  thing  as]  an  individual  psychology.  [At  any  rate,  the  field  which  pur- 
ports to  study  individual  psychology  has  produced  lillle  ihal  has  realK 
to  do  with  that  subject,  should  it  even  prove  a  useful  conception  in  ihc 
long  run.]  A  great  deal  o[^  what  has  been  written  about  'indi\iduai 
psychology"  is  [actually]  a  blend  of  physiology  and  social  ps\chology. 

[Another  difficulty,  from  om  point  of  \ie\\.  with  the  field  of  psychol- 
ogy as  it  has  so  far  been  developed  is  its  preoccupaluMi  with  scientific 
objectivity.]  In  the  field  o\'  "culture  and  perst^nalily."  the  question  o\ 
objectivity  or  subjectivity  is  not  very  important.  We  know.  b\  mtros|x-c- 
tion,  that  we  are  always  doing  some  violence  to  the  facts.  We  cannot 


(,>(,  ///   Culture 

get  down  [o  an  absolute  objective  level,  [and  if  we  could]  it  would  con- 
ceal from  us  the  true  meaning  of  what  we  are  studying.  Psychology 
and  sociology  are  the  most  dangerous  disciplines  for  the  field  of  social 
psNcholouy,  because  they  are  well  systematized  and  their  concepts  well 
defined.  Their  methods  are  a  lure  for  the  social  psychologist  [because 
they  otTer  a  spurious  sense  of  accuracy  and  objectivity.]^ 

Is  social  psychology  a  science  [anyway?  Perhaps  it  may  turn  out  to 
be,  but  in  our  present  understanding  of  "science"]"^  the  term  is  not  flexi- 
ble enough  for  the  indeterminacy"^  and  the  great  variety  of  this  field. 
We  are  concerned  with  the  symbolic  interpretation  of  events,  [more  than 
with  their  physical  characteristics;  and]  one  is  constantly  driven  to  bio- 
graphies, to  unique  events,  [rather  than  to  abstract  away  from  these 
toward  the  formulation  of  general  laws.  In  this  field]  one  is  concerned 
with  the  fate  of  the  development  of  a  certain  personality.  [You  may 
wonder  why  I  use  the  word  "fate"  -  perhaps  it  is  a  little  dramatic,  but 
really]  fate  is  the  right  word  because  [it  is  impossible  to  pin  down  defi- 
nite causes  of  the  way  a  personality  develops.  Above  all]  it  is  impossible 
to  attribute  responsibility  for  what  happens  to  somebody  else.  There  is 
a  process  [of  development  which  from  this  point  of  view  can  only  be 
taken  as]  inevitable. 

[Now,  let  us  return  to  our  initial  question.  What  are  the]  problems 
worth  considering,  [in  this  field?] 

/.  The  meaning  of  culture.  [When  I  said  that  we  are  not  principally 
interested  in  culture  itself  as  anthropologists  have  usually  studied  it,  I 
did  not  mean  we  are  not  interested  in  it  at  all.]  Culture  patterns  must 
be  described  and  their  history  must  be  studied.  But  the  emphasis  [in  the 
study  of  culture  patterns]  must  be  placed  on  their  meaning.  For  in- 
stance, it  is  not  relevant  to  say  that  in  general,  sport  is  important.  [In- 
stead,] the  importance  [(or  unimportance)]  of  sport  must  be  studied  with 
reference  to  the  life  of  the  people  of  each  culture.  [Similarly,]  to  have  a 
philosophy  or  a  set  of  moral  values  [for  assessing  culture  patterns  from 
the  outset]  is  mischievous,  in  this  field.  No  cultural  pattern  is  either 
good  or  evil.  What  one  has  to  find  is  its  meaning.  [We  may  not  accord 
importance  and  value  to  some  predetermined  mode  or  aspect  of  human 
existence  from  the  very  start  of  our  study;  for]  what  is  important  is  the 
triumph  of  life,  [not  some  particular  way  in  which  it  is  led.]  That  is  the 
first  problem  [in  our  field,  then]:  what  the  generalized  patterns  [of  cul- 
ture] mean  for  people  in  given  cultural  areas. 

2.  The  study  of  the  individual  in  his  milieu.  This  [type  of]  study  is 
conditioned  by  [and  dependent  upon]  our  understanding  of  the  meaning 


Two:   I'hc  I'svcholoiiv  of  C'ltliim'  657 

of  CLilluic.  [In  a  sense  the\  lid  together,  because  culture  can  only  have 
meaning  A^/-  soniecMie.  But  ulial  we  emphasize  here  is  the  mdi\idual 
rather  than  the  group  as  a  whole.]  The  most  interesting  milieu,  (il  wc 
wish  to  understand  the  impact  ot  culture  on  the  personality.!  is  that  of 
the  very  young  individual.  But  [this  situation  in  its  full  complexilv)  is 
often  difficult  to  uiuieisiand. 

[If  we  take  the  study  of  individuals  in  their  particular  circumstances 
seriously,  we  shall  have  to  recognize  that]  '''^-•'  culture  \aries  infinitely, 
not  only  as  to  manifest  content  but  as  to  the  distribution  of  psschologic 
emphases  on  the  elements  and  implications  of  this  content.  According 
to  our  scale  of  treatment,  we  have  to  deal  with  the  cultures  of  grt)ups 
and  the  cultures  of  indi\ iduals.  [From  this  standpoint  we  should  find, 
for  example,  that]  ""  the  difference  between  intra-cultural  and  inter- 
cultural  conflicts  is  not  real.  We  have  always  to  deal  with  inter-cultural 
conflicts;  [it  is  only  the  locus  of  culture  that  differs] 

3.  The  study  of  the  family.  [This  is  one  of  our  most  important  areas 
-]  to  study  the  psychological  scheme  of  the  affectixe  relationships  in 
the  family.  Though  it  would  be  better  to  discard  the  term  "psschoanaK- 
sis,"  the  psychoanalytic  school  has  probably  coniiihuied  more  than 
anybody  else  to  the  understanding  of  the  personality.  A  comparative 
study  of  families  will  reveal  different  distributions  of  affections  and  dif- 
ferent symbolisms. 

It  is  often  impossible  to  study  "the  family"  itself  [-  what  one  is  siud>- 
ing  is  the  relationships  of  the  people  in  it  -  just  as  it  is  impossible  to 
study  the  individual  in  isolation.]  Instead  of  stud\ing  indi\  iduals  alone, 
we  should  try  to  study  them  in  relation  to  their  famil\.  for  instance, 
one  could  arrive  at  a  perfect  understanding  of  the  personality  of  a  politi- 
cal leader  only  by  tracing  the  mechanisms  to  which  he  owes  his  success 
back  to  those  he  used  in  his  parental  home.  Any  true  knowledge  o^ 
meaning  is  conditioned  by  the  understanding  o[^  this  primiiixe  milieu. 
[In  the  study  of  culture,]  we  are  constantly  referred  to  biograph).'' 

These  three  problems  -  the  meaning  of  culture,  the  relatuMi  o\  the 
individual  and  his  milieu,  and  the  distribution  o{  alTect  in  the  famiK 
and  its  symbolism  -  are  the  three  main  problems  of  the  field  i>f  "culture 
and  personality.''  [Still,  there  are  two  further  t.isks  worth  mentioning, 
though  they  are  more  long  range.] 

4.  Typohgy  oj  personality.  We  may  look  forward  to  a  lime  when  we 
shall  be  able  to  build  a  typology  of  personality  (from  which  ma\  come 
a  typology  of  culture).  There  are  three  important  determinants  o\'  the 
personality:  the  genetic  process;  the  maturation  [prtKessj;  and  the  early 


^58  11^  Culture 

conditioning  factors,  [the  events  of]  the  first  two  years  [of  life.  If  we 
study  a  sutricicnt  number  of  individuals  in  different  milieus]  we  can 
expect  to  discover  tangible  parallels  and  establish  types  of  personalities 
and  situations,  [it  seems  to  me  that  this  is  a  task  of  the  utmost  impor- 
tance, for)  it  is  onl\  by  means  of  such  a  typology  of  [personal]  fates  that 
we  can  develop  a  tolerance  for  [the  varying  modes  of  human]  life.  To 
trv  to  enter  into  personalities  completely  foreign  to  your  own  is  the 
most  healthy  of  exercises. 

.^'.  The  reality  of  certain  normal  processes.  The  cultural  anthropologist 
has  perhaps  developed  an  excessive  sense  of  relativism.  He  must  see 
that  there  are  some  fundamental  meanings  which  persist  everywhere: 
for  instance  the  affective  bonds  between  the  child  and  its  parents  or 
their  substitute  (the  maternal  uncle,  [or  someone  else,  as  the  case  may 
be,  depending  on  the  particular  society  and  its  family  arrangements). 
Though  the  affective  bonds  established  in  child-rearing  may  be  the 
clearest  example.  I  believe  there  are  other  fundamentals  too  -  perhaps 
the  sense  that]  the  main  task  of  an  individual  is  to  lose  himself  in  the 
love  of  others.  [But  however  universal  a  push  toward  social  success  may 
be,  its  particular  requirements  will  not  be  compatible  with  every  type 
oi  personality.]  Often  a  social  success  is  an  individual  failure.  [From  a 
certain  standpoint]  this  social  success  may  be  interpreted  as  a  reconcilia- 
tion of  ourselves  with  our  fate.  Nevertheless,  [if  that  reconciliation  de- 
mands too  much  of  the  personahty  its  results  will  not  take  the  form  of 
true  expressive  creativity.]  The  most  expressive  creations  have  been  [and 
must  be  the  results  of  personality]  fulfillment,  not  of  thwarting.  [It  is 
these  modes  of  fulfillment  that  we  must  seek  to  understand,  not  only  the 
pathologies.]  Psychic  normality  is  the  great  task  of  personality  study.^ 

[Psychoanalysis  has  taken  the  opposite  approach  and  assumed  that 
its  main  concern  is  with  the  abnormal.  Still,  the  psychoanalysts'  achieve- 
ment has  been  enormous.]  One  of  the  greatest  discoveries  of  modern 
times  is  Freud's  [revelation  that  in  phenomena  which  seem  to  be  purely 
psychic]  there  is  a  problem  of  sexual  adjustment.  [That  is,  and  this  is 
the  important  point,]  there  is  no  break  between  the  mind  and  the  body. 
To  those  [personalities]  unable  to  solve  their  bodily  problems  this  mis- 
chievous separation  [of  mind  and  body]  gives  release:  they  can  fly  away 
from  their  problems.  But  although  they  [may]  believe  they  are  flying 
towards  God,  [what  they  are  doing  is]  flying  from  man.  The  great  task 
of  the  future  will  be  to  ennoble  the  body. 

The  problem  of  sexual  adjustment  is  sometimes  solved  by  dividing  it 
m  two:  on  the  one  side  is  sexual  gratification;  on  the  other,  appreciation 


Two:  The  Pwc/ioloi^y  of  Culture  659 

cind  sliaiiiig  ihc  life  o\'  anolhci.  liiil  ihis  appreciation  and  sharing  arc 
onl\  friendship,  ihev  arc  not  rcall\  love.  [So  the  separation  ot  the  two 
sides  of  the  problem  is  no  true  sokition;  and  in  any  case  wc  should  look 
further  into  the  indisiduaTs  adjustment  to  the  patterns  o\  the  cultural 
milieu.]  The  reason  for  so  many  sexual  maladjustments  is  perhaps  the 
overdevelopment  o\'  the  "ego"  in  cuir  Western  ci\ilization,  where  the 
fulfillment  of  the  indi\idual  is  sought  in  "power."  [which  for  some  per- 
sonalities may  not  be  the  compatible  avenue.] 

[It  has  not  been  my  purpose  here  to  claim  thai  we  ha\e  advanced 
ver\  far  into  the  field  thai  lies  open  before  us,  or  to  coinince  you  of 
my  speculations  about  what  we  might  fmd  once  we  got  there. j^  The 
main  purpose  of  this  Seminar  has  been  to  make  you  feel  deeph  skeptical 
about  the  biological,  the  psychological,  or  the  sociological  \iew  points 
about  "culture  and  personality."  The  problems  [we  encounter  in]  these 
sciences  spring  from  the  field  of  the  concrete  behasicM"  o\'  the  people, 
and  that  is  what  we  have  to  study. 


^•^  77^6^  hupcict  of  Culture  on  PcrsoiuiHiy 
(May  1934) 

^^  [We  have  now  spent  a  considerable  time  discussing  conceptions  o^ 
culture,  of  personality,  and  of  their  possible  relationships,  as  well  as  the 
various  disciplines  that  have  taken  these  problems  as  within  their  pur- 
view. Let  us  see  if  we  can  now  summarize  our  discussion  b\  noting  a 
few]  general  considerations,  [particularK  concerning]  the  impact  i^f  cul- 
ture on  personality. 

[I  have  said  on  several  occasions  that  one  must  begin  with  a  study  of 
the  cultural  patterns  in  the  individual's  milieu.  No  matter  how  interested 
we  may  be  in  individuals  in  their  own  right,  we  must  not  forget  that 
'^•"^-^  the  individual  in  isolation  from  society  is  a  psychological  fiction. 
[It  is  obvious,  for  example,  that]  ^^  .society  classifies  individuals  in  terms 
of  rank,  status,  and  other  [attributes  and  schemes].  [.Although  one  ma\ 
question  the  particular  category  to  which  one  is  assigned]  the  indnidual 
is  not  allowed  to  question  [the  social  process  of  classifiCtition  itselt].  *'»^- 
""  What  a  personality  does,  therefore,  is  onls  in  small  measure  a  func- 
tion of  what  he  is  of  himself  It  is  culture  that  makes  him  what  he  is 
-  ""  [that  makes  him,  to  some  degree,  a  sort  o\'\  refraction  of  society. ** 

''"^"  [So]  the  difference  between  culture  and  personality  is  not  that  the 
data  are  different,  but  that  the  How  of  our  interests  is  dilTerenl.  -'"'  In 


(1^0  ///   Culture 

anthropology  there  are  two  viewpoints,  then  -  the  psychological  and 
the  sociological  -  [depending  on  whether]  we  wish  to  hold  onto  our 
personality/^  ^^  The  individual  in  relation  to  himself  is  a  personality. 
The  individual  in  relation  to  others  is  part  of  culture.  '^  One  sees  person- 
iiliiv  when  looking  from  the  inside  outwards;  one  sees  culture  when 
looking  toward  the  other  individual.  For  in  personal  relationships,  the 
other  person  never  is  himself. 

'"^  The  reason  for  our  interest  in  personality  is  that  we  are  never 
tired  o(  looking  and  peering  into  ourselves.  ^^  Indeed,  one  may  study 
personality  only  by  [striving  at  the  same  time  to  gain]  a  deeper  knowl- 
edge o\^  oneself,  and  through  the  growth  of  self-consciousness.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  personality  needs  culture  in  order  to  give  it  [its]  fullest 
meanings.  It  is  the  culture  of  a  group  that  gives  the  meanings  to  symbol- 
isms without  which  the  individual  cannot  function,  either  in  relation  to 
himself  or  to  others. 

hg.  lb  From  one  point  of  view,  however,  culture  is  the  agreed-upon 
ghost  in  the  [machine],  that  catches  up  the  individual  and  moulds  him 
according  to  a  predetermined  foim  and  style.  "^  [This  is  the  view  of 
culture  as  the]  impersonal,  pageant-like  Superorganic,  as  Kroeber 
[termed  it  and  against  which  I  have  engaged  in  some]  polemic. '°  Cul- 
ture, like  truth,  is  what  we  make  it.  [It  does  not  seem  to  me  necessary 
or  suitable  to  construct  as  unbridgeable  a  chasm  between  individual  and 
culture  as  there  seems  to  be  between  the  organic  and  the  social.]''  '^'^'^ 
Social  science  is  not  psychology,  not  because  it  studies  the  resultants  of 
a  superpsychic  or  superorganic  force,  but  because  its  terms  are  dif- 
ferently demarcated. 

iyi7a  [When  I  have  made  this  point,  over  the  years,  I  have  always 
begun]'-  to  fear  misunderstanding.  It  might  almost  appear  that  I  con- 
sidered, with  certain  psychological  students  of  culture,  the  fundamental 
problem  of  social  science  to  consist  of  the  resolution  of  the  social  into 
the  psychic, '"^  [or  that  I  have  no  genuine  interest  in  cultural  patterns  in 
themselves.]  ^'"^  Of  course  I'm  interested  in  cultural  patterns,  linguistic 
included.  All  I  claim  is  that  their  consistencies  and  spatial  and  temporal 
persistences  can  be,  and  ultimately  should  be,  explained  in  terms  of 
humble  psychological  formulations,  with  particular  emphasis  on  inter- 
personal relations.  I  have  no  consciousness  whatever  of  being  revolu- 
tionary or  of  losing  an  interest  in  what  is  generally  phrased  in  an  imper- 
sonal way.  Quite  the  contrary.  I  feel  rather  like  a  physicist  who  believes 
the  immensities  of  the  atom  are  not  unrelated  to  the  immensities  of 
interstellar  space.  "^ 


Two:  The  Psviholoi^y  of  Cultun'  661 

^^  [Perhaps  I  should  find  it  a  more  appropriate  image  to  consider 
culture  not  so  much  as  the  ghost  in  the  machine,  as]  a  form  orcolleelivc 
lunacy.  [1  would  hardly  wish  to  deny  that  culture  patterns  mlluencc. 
even  govern,  our  actions  even  though  I  belie\e  they  are  patterns  wc 
ourselves  have  created.  Indeed,]  '^-  so  tyrannical  are  our  methods  of 
mapping  out  experience  that  we  l\o  not  do  what  ue  ihmk  we  (.U).  we  do 
not  see  what  we  think  we  see;  we  do  not  hear  what  we  think  we  hear; 
we  do  not  feel  what  we  think  we  feel.  We  know  the  "functions"  [of  our 
actions,  and  the]  "needs'"  [toward  which  the\  are  addressed.  onl>] 
through  the  actixities  thai  try  to  satisfy  ihem.  [Il  will  not  do  to  read  a 
higher  purpose  into  these  activities.  Perhaps  we  had  best  look  upon 
culture  as  a  form  ot]  collccti\e  floundering! 

i^)^)sh  j^ji-n^,-^.  -ire  many  problems  I  ha\e  raised  in  these  lectures  wlK)se 
solutions  I  must]  leave  to  future  investigators.  I  am  not  so  bold  as  to 
suggest  anything  at  all.  But  as  to  the  reality  o\'  the  dual  problem  o\' 
seeing  the  "set"  personality  -  and  set  alarminglx  early,  in  m\  opmion 
-  going  out  into  culture  and  embracing  it  and  making  it  alwass  the 
same  thing  as  itself  in  a  constantly  increasing  complexity  o\'  blends  o\' 
behavior  in  some  sensible  meaning  o\'^  the  word  "same.""  on  the  one 
hand,  and  seeing  the  historically  determined  stream  o\'  culture,  which 
takes  us  right  back  to  paleolithic  man.  actualizing  itself  in  gi\en  human 
behavior,  on  the  other  -  this  dual  problem  set  by  two  opposed  duec- 
tions  of  interest,  is  the  real  problem,  it  seems  to  me.  o\'  the  anal>st  o( 
human  behavior.  The  difTiculty  at  present  is  not  so  much  the  under- 
standing of  the  problem  as  a  problem  but  the  conxincing  t>ursel\es  that 
it  is  a  real  one. 


Editorial  Note 

Material  for  the  first  section  of  this  chapter  comes  \\o\u  Sapir's  fnial 
lecture  in  the  Rockefeller  Seminar:  an  ouilme  ol  the  field  ot  "C"ullure 
and  Personality"  (May  25.  1933;  notes  by  Marjolin).  I'he  second  section 
of  the  chapter  comes  f"rom  Sapir's  concluding  remarks  to  the  1^33  }A 
class  (notes  by  BG,  LB,  112).  Because  these  two  conclusions  seem  lo  be 
somewhat  differently  focused.  I  ha\e  presented  them  separately. 

The  May  1934  conclusion,  though  difficult  [o  reconstruct  hcvausc  of 
the  sparseness  oC  notes  on  it.  is  the  one  more  relevant  to  the  book  as  a 
whole.  In  presenting  it  I  have  also  drawn  upon  some  o\  Sapn's  pub- 
lished papers  ("Do  We  Need  a  'Superorganic'*.'".  1917a;  and  "Cultural 


662  III  Culture 

Anthropology  and  Psychiatry,"  1932a);  his  presentation  to  the  SSRC 
Hanover  conference  in  1930  (1998b);  a  1938  letter  to  A.  L.  Kroeber; 
Mandelbaiim's  notes  on  Sapir's  lecture  to  the  Friday  Night  Club,  Octo- 
ber 1933;  and  LaBarre's  notes  on  Sapir's  lectures  to  the  Medical  Society, 
1935-36. 


Notes 

1    RM  actually  has  "of  such  a  study." 

2.  Wording  o\'  the  bracketed  passage  comes  from  several  passages  in  the  class  notes,  e.  g. 
H2,  referring  to  "spurious  accuracy"  in  attempts  to  be  scientific.  See  also  2MS:  "'techni- 
cal fallacy":  bending  knee  to  technique-established,  to  protect  oneself  from  scientific  mis- 
takes or  from  the  moral  blame  of  intellectual  dishonesty." 

3.  I  add  this  qualification  in  the  light  of  Sapir's  programmatic  statements  about  a  "true 
science  o^  man,"  cited  earlier  in  this  volume. 

4.  RM  has  "indetermination." 

5.  The  bracketed  passage,  indicating  that  Sapir  is  alluding  to  the  study  of  culture  here, 
comes  from  his  remarks  in  earlier  passages  on  meaning  and  culture. 

6.  See  also  Sapir  1932a,  "Cultural  Anthropology  and  Psychiatry":  "Cultural  anthropology 
is  not  valuable  because  it  uncovers  the  archaic  in  the  psychological  sense.  It  is  valuable 
because  it  is  constantly  rediscovering  the  normal." 

7.  Wording  of  the  bracketed  passage  derives  from  Sapir  1939c. 

8.  LB  has  this  phrase  in  quotation  marks. 

9.  2MS  actually  has:  "In  anthropology,  then,  two  viewpoints  are  these:  Psychological  -  "I 
wish  to  hold  onto  my  personality"  /  Sociological  -  "I  do  not  wish  to  hold  onto  my 
personality." 

10.  LB  has:  "Polemic  against  impersonal  'pageant-like'  Super-organic.  'Culture  is  the  agreed- 
upon  ghost  in  the  culture'  (culture  like  truth  is  what  we  make  it).  (Cf,  Sapir  versus 
Kroeber  at  home)".  See  Kroeber  1917  and  Sapir  1917a  on  the  "Superorganic." 

11.  Wording  of  the  bracketed  passage  is  derived  from  Sapir  1917a. 

12.  The  text  of  Sapir  1917a  actually  has:  "At  this  point  I  begin  to  fear  misunderstanding." 
But  Sapir  was  misunderstood  on  this,  or  felt  himself  to  be,  long  after  his  1917  statement, 
as  is  obvious  from  his  1938  letter  to  Kroeber  quoted  below. 

13.  The  text  of  Sapir  1917a  continues:  "of  the  unraveling  of  the  tangled  web  of  psychology 
that  may  be  thought  to  underlie  social  phenomena.  This  conception  of  social  science  I 
have  as  much  abhorrence  of  as  Dr.  Kroeber." 

14.  The  letter  to  Kroeber  continues:  "In  spite  of  all  you  say  to  the  contrary,  your  philosophy 
is  pervaded  by  fear  of  the  individual  and  his  reality.  You  find  anchorage  -  as  most 
people  do,  for  that  matter  -  in  an  imaginatively  sundered  system  of  cultural  and  social 
values  in  the  face  of  which  the  individual  has  almost  to  apologize  for  presuming  to  exist 
at  all." 


Appendices 

APPENDIX  1.  Classre^om  Exercises  on  the  Study  of  American 

Culliire:  Smoking  and  Piano-Playing  as  Cultural  Patterns  (1^)33) 

^■^  I Iniliul  Discussion  of'/  Quest ioiimiircs  on  Snu)king 
iiiul  Pinno  Ph/yini^ 

^^  There  is  much  more  community  o\'^  feeling  regarding  the  meaning 
of  smoking  than  regarding  the  meaning  o\^  piano  pla\ing.  [Perhaps  the 
distributional  facts  themselves  already  suggest  this,  since]  there  are  more 
people  who  smoke  than  there  are  people  who  have  studied  the  piano  - 
in  our  culture,  [at  least.]  Contrast  this  [limited  distribution  of  piano 
playing  in  America]  with  the  Vienna  aristocrac>,  where  all  intellectuals 
-  [let  us  focus]  on  a  group  similar  to  [the  members  ot]  this  class  -  take 
it  as  a  matter  of  course  that  everyone  plays  the  piano,  and  pla\s  it 
skillfully. 

[The  questionnaire  responses  reveal,  howe\er,  that  despite  the  wide- 
spread distribution  of  smoking,  there  can  be]  different  s>  mbolisms  [as- 
sociated with  it.  For  instance,  some  people]  consider  it  less  graceful  to 
wave  out  the  match  with  the  hand  than  to  blow  it  out,  while  I'  consider 
the  latter  less  graceful  than  to  wave  out  the  match  along  wuh  doing 
something  else. 

[Some  of  these  symbolisms  may  be  quite  personal.  ha\ing  an  emo- 
tional signitlcance  deriving,  perhaps,  from  an  indisiduafs  childhood  ex- 
periences. Were  I  to  attempt  this  kind  ol]  anahsis  of  m>  own  smoking, 
[I  might  discover  that  I]  took  up  cigarette  smoking  late  in  life  with  the 
desire  to  symbolize  my  solidarity  with  a  [certain]  social  group.  [But  wh> 
cigarettes?]  For  me  the  pipe  is  "too  good."  1  would  like  to  smoke  a  pipe, 
because  it  symbolizes  for  me  a  sort  o\'  comfortable  adjustment  to  life; 
also  because  a  pipe  can  be  smoked  without  ciMilinual  breaks  lo  drop 
ashes,  and  so  on;  but  it  is  too  late  for  me  to  lake  it  up.  [Despiic]  child- 
hood fantasies  -  based  on  pictures  seen  [at  an  impressionable  age]  - 
of  the  skipper  with  a  pipe  having  a  yarn,  or  the  farmer  smoking  a  pipe, 
[and  despite  a  persistent]  fantas\  o\'  the  scholar  smoking  a  pipe,  book 
in  hand,  feet  on  table  -  [I  remain  with  m\  cigarettes. j 


664  il^  Culture 

[One  must  not  suppose,  however,  that  all  those  who  smoke  only  ciga- 
rettes refrain  from  pipes  for  the  same  personal  reasons.  Some  reasons 
may  even  be  more  socially  patterned.  For  example,]  my  interpretation 
o'i  the  reason  why  women  took  up  smoking  -  but  never  more  than 
cigarette  smoking  -  is  that  by  smoking  the  cigarette  they  sufficiently 
s\  mboli/ed  their  emancipation,  but  they  retain  their  femininity  by  going 
tiuis  o\^\\  half-way  and  not  taking  up  the  pipe  or  cigar. 


nni  hi;  p^^yf^  -^  Rcpoi't  OH  t/w  Histovy  and  Distribution  of  Smoking 

'""'  [Park:]  A  1535  account  of  smoking  in  Haiti  [indicates  that]  the 
smoking  instrument  was  called  tobacco.  The  native  name  [for  the  sub- 
stance being  smoked]  never  was  tobacco. 

The  American  distribution  [of  the  use  of  the  substance  we  call  tobacco 
varies  according  to  what  is  done  with  it.]  Although  the  pipe  occurs 
everywhere,  [tobacco]  chewing  [is  found  only  in]  South  America  in  an 
area  contiguous  to  coca  chewing.  Snuff  is  found  in  the  chewing  areas; 
the  cigar,  in  the  Amazon  basin. 

In  Europe,  tobacco  is  supposed  to  have  been  introduced  in  about 
1565  by  Sir  John  Hawkins,  first  to  England  [and  later  onto  the  Conti- 
nent]. In  Spain  [tobacco]  was  first  grown  as  an  ornamental  garden  plant, 
and  later  was  used  for  medicinal  purposes.  But  the  Spaniards  never 
took  to  pipe  smoking,  only  adopting  the  cigar  and  cigarette.  It  was 
from  Portugal  that  tobacco  was  brought  to  France  and  Italy.  In  France, 
tobacco  was  first  used  as  snuff,  and  so  remained  until  1800.  In  Italy 
[tobacco  was  first  a]  medicinal  and  garden  plant,  but  in  about  1610 
smoking  came  in  from  England.  It  was  Enghshmen  who  principally 
diffused  the  trait  throughout  Europe.  In  Turkey,  the  first  reference  [to 
tobacco  occurs]  in  1599,  after  which  its  use  became  extremely  wide- 
spread. The  Portuguese  brought  tobacco  to  Persia  before  1590. 

Why  was  there  such  a  resistance  to  the  introduction  of  tobacco?  Why 
also  was  it  so  attractive? 

Sapir:  [Notice  the]  analogy  to  the  Devil  and  brimstone.  [Also,  of 
course,  there  is  the  sheer]  strangeness  of  the  custom. 

[Park:]  In  Asia  too  there  was  [initially]  the  medicinal  use  of  tobacco 
and  also  the  same  polifical  resistance  to  smoking.  When  the  Russians 
came  mto  Siberia,  [however,]  they  found  smoking  well  established. 

Laufer"  thinks  opium  smoking  [began  as]  an  analogy  with  tobacco. 
The  Dutch  gave  [the  practice  of  smoking]  to  the  Javanese;  there  the 
poppy  was  taken  [only]  internally. 


Two:  The  Psycholoiix  of  Ctiliiiri'  665 

[As  for  Africa.]  tobacco  is  firsl  iiicnlioncd  in  U>()"  in  Sicir.i  I. cone. 
Many  accounls  niciilion  il  later,  (and  there  seem  to  ha\e  beenj  se\eral 
introductions.  In  1652  the  Dutch  [uuroduced  it]  to  the  Hotlenlol.  I'hc 
Portuguese  [introduced  it]  to  Madagascar.  Ihni/)  has  been  used  for 
smokine  onl\  in  Africa. 


Sapir'.s  Comments 

md.  bg  yj^g  difference  between  originating  and  borrowing  a  habit  is 
not  a  clear-cut  thing,  as  [we  suppose]  that  it  might  be.  ''^'  The  borrowing 
of  a  culture  pattern  is  mostly  re-creation,  the  formation  of  a  new  s\nihc- 
sis  based  on  the  previous  habits  [existing]  in  the  culture  which  borrows. 
"^'^  Originating  and  borrowing  -  the  two  enter  into  all  inno\atii>n  and 
fuse  to  form  the  new  pattern. 

^s  The  report  on  the  history  of  smoking  reveals  that  our  knowledge 
is  really  only  that  of  the  culture  historian,  and  is  consequentl\  not  \ery 
useful  to  the  social  psychologist.  We  have  no  knowledge  of  the  meaning 
of  the  behavior  -  why  it  was  accepted  or  rejected,  or  w hat  was  lacked 
onto  it;  most  explanations  are  purely  marginal.  And  this  is  [true  despite 
the  tact  that]  smoking  is  a  really  favorable  subject  because  there  is  in 
the  literature  a  fair  amount  of  material  -  material  which,  however, 
deals  only  or  mostly  with  [smoking's]  distribution  in  history.  '"''  I'luis 
even  in  as  favorable  an  historical  case  as  smoking  we  actually  know 
very  little  about  the  motivations  behind  the  act.  People  have  left  little 
actual  experimental  record  of  themselves. 

^-  What  we  must  do  in  order  to  begin  to  undersiaiul  such  a  subject 
is  thoroughly  to  study  and  understand  its  place  in  our  own  culture.  Phis 
will  give  us  clues  [for  investigating  its  motivation  elsewhere.]  Hence  the 
usefulness  o^  the  questionnaire. 

[As  we  have  just  heard,]  smoking  has  had  an  alarminglv  rapid  and 
thorough  distribution  and  spread.  How  are  we  to  know  the  reason  why 
peoples  all  over  the  world  were  so  receptive  to  this  thing  as  against 
others?  We  can't  know,  [of  course,  in  anv  absolute  sense.]  But  we  can 
guess,  [at  least,  that  people  were  attracted  \o  tobacco  as)  the  dreamv 
stimulant,  and  that  the  chewing  o['  tobacco  was  an  easv  changeover 
from  the  chewing  of  another  plant  or  nut.  and  so  on.  Still,  the  psvcho- 
analyst  gives  us  what  may  be  the  only  ultimate  explanation;  smoking 
-  really,  having  something  in  the  mouth  jmighl  be  explained]  as  a 
transference  from  nipple  sucking.  I'he  eaiiv  libulinous  activatic>n  of  the 


566  i^i  Culture 

oral  zone  is  a  habit  which  is  reverted  to  in  smoking  and  is  consequently 
one  which  is  natural  and  pleasant  to  nearly  everyone  (James  I  evidently 
excepted). 


Report  of  the  Student  Committee  on  Smoking  Questionnaires 

[(Not  recorded)] 

Sapir's  Comments^ 

^^  [We  should  not  be  too  surprised  by  the  committee's  report]  that 
thev  found  any  attempt  to  formulate  a  new  and  perfect  questionnaire 
difficult  if  not  impossible.  There  are  many  problems  that  arise  in  stating 
questions:  one  must  try  not  to  ask  questions  that  are  too  suggestive, 
and  try  not  to  get  answers  that  are  too  simple;  one  must  consider  to 
whom  the  questionnaire  is  addressed,  how  to  deliver  it,  and  so  on.  Re- 
all)  it  is  better  to  ask  the  respondent"^  to  give  his  initial  smoking  experi- 
ence in  full,  than  to  ask  when  he  began  to  smoke,  was  it  because  of 
[this  or  that,]  etcetera. 


nid,  h2 


Mrs.  Straus's  Report  on  Piano  Playing 


md.  h2  j-ji^g  earliest  musical  instruments  ancestral  to  the  piano  were 
the]  psaltery,  of  ''sweet  and  intimate"  tone,  and  Pythagoras's  mo- 
nochord,  the  ancestor  of  the  clavichord  ([technologically  ancestral,  that 
is]  -  not  for  the  music  [played  on  it]).  ^^  A  similar  device  was  used  even 
before  Pythagoras. 

'^"^  [Another  early  instrument  related  to  the  piano  was]  the  harpsi- 
chord, [including]  the  "virginal"  ([a  type  of  harpsichord]  so  called  be- 
cause it  was  a  ladies'  instrument).  It  was  a  mark  of  higher  class  to  play 
the  harspichord,  and  harpsichords  became  beautiful  pieces  of  furniture. 

^-  Bach  considered  the  pianoforte  too  coarse;  he  preferred  the  clavi- 
chord. [In  his  time]  the  piano  was  popular,  but  as  a  house  instrument, 
[not  generally  as  an  instrument  for  solo  public  performance.  Although] 
the  first  public  performance  [on  the  piano  had  been  given]  in  England 
m  1667,  the  first  solo  public  performance  [was  not  given  until]  1708,^ 
by  Johann  Christian  Bach. 

"^^  The  pianoforte  could  be  readily  adapted  to  [a  new  cultural  empha- 
sis on]  the  sentimental,  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  [because  of 


T^\-o:  The  Pwi/ioloiiy  of  Culfun-  667 

the  sounds  produced  by  its]  silk  sirings.  called  "lubbN/"  and  ihc  dreamy 
effects  produced  by  the  sustaining  pedals.  '"''•  '*'  This  is  true  for  romanti- 
cism [as  well  and  one  could  even  say  that]  romanticism  and  the  piano 
came  in  together,  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineleenlh  cenun\. 

''-  [Technologically  an  imporlanl  change  occurred  in]  IS43.  \suh  the 
use  of  a  single  casting  plate.  There  came  to  be  more  and  more  metal 
parts.  The  modern  [piano]  frame  is  cast  steel.  As  for  the  strings,  in  the 
sixteenth  century  claviers  had  strings  of  silver,  gold,  gut,  or  silk,  but  m 
the  modern  piano  all  strings  are  made  of  steel.  There  are  sixteen  sizes 
of  strings,  and  243  [strings  in  total.]  for  S8  tones.  7  he  average  strain  per 
string  is  176  pounds.  The  seventeenth-century  clavier  had  a  bar  for  the 
hands,  and  a  mirror  for  the  face;  [while  playing.)  no  wriggling  [was 
allowed.]  Later  [instruments  had  a]  higher  seat. 


Sapir  's  Conmictits 

^^  In  this  report  on  the  technological  history  of  piano  playing  [wc 
have  heard  some  suggestions,  perhaps  not  yet  more  than]  \ague  ciMisid- 
erations,  of  the  influence  of  technological  equipment  on  the  nature  o\' 
composition,  in  the  blur  effect  [in  the  music]  of  post-pedal  composers' 
[writing]  for  the  piano,  as  against  the  clearcut  music  oi'  Bach.  Moreover, 
[we  may  also  begin  to  gather  that]  as  in  many  other  things,  you  gel 
various  subcultures  in  music  —  among  the  technicians,  the  artists  o\ 
different  levels,  the  interested  public,  and  so  on. 

md.  h2  [tjnlike  tobacco  and  smoking,]  the  piano  belongs  to  a  special 
class,  [a  kind  of]  informal  guild,  inhabiting  a  subculture,  [or  several  o\' 
these].  "^^  In  our  culture  some  very  specialized  techniques  [are  present, 
for  building  pianos  and  for  playing  them,  althmigh  these  techniques] 
rest  upon  very  widespread  traits. 

[You  must  not  suppose,  however,  that  our  culture  is  alone  m  having 
specialized  subcultures,  or  that  they  are  onl\  lo  be  found  in  the  indu- 
strial world.]  In  even  the  simplest  of  cultures,  we  gel  the  demand  for 
certain  meanings  which  must  call  forth  specialization  o\'  the  extremist 
type.  The  extreme  specialization  is  thus  concomitant  with  the  ver>  con- 
duct of  economic  life  (and  this  [fact  must]  refute  the  ideas  o\'  those 
historians  who  stress  economic  aspects  [as  determining  cultural  evolu- 
tion].^' [Notice,  incidentally,  that]  humor  and  its  derailments  rest  on  a 
certain  homogeneity  of  meaning  within  the  culture  itself.  '""'•  ''''  So  in 
fact  a  good  pragmatic  test  of  [the  existence]  and  the  homogeneity  of  a 


668  lil  Culture 

•'sub-culture"  is  the  ability  of  the  participants  to  joke  among  themselves 
to  the  exclusion,  as  far  as  meaning  is  conceived,  of  others.  [Indeed, 
perhaps  the  incentive  to  make  in-jokes  and  exclude  others  is  itself  at 
I  he  root  of  specializations  on  which  the  jokes  can  be  based.]  "'"^  Thus 
[(if  this  is  so)]  ultra-specialization  is  common  to  all  society. 

Secondly,  [although  I  have  just  emphasized  such  non-economic  as- 
pects of  subcultures  as  humor,  it  remains  a  sober  fact  that]  vested  inter- 
ests atTect  even  such  a  "[cultural]  trait"  as  the  piano.  Ultimately  this 
instrument,  and  all  instruments,  are  tied  up  with  a  class  stratification. 
The  roots  [of  these  instruments  trace]  back  to  common  folk  organs,  [but 
their  later  history  is  tied  up  with  the  history  of  classes  and  elites.] 

md.  h2  xhirdly,  [let  us  not  fail  to  observe]  the  relevance  of  the  purely 
technological  substratum  to  the  meaning  of  the  culture  as  a  whole.  "^^ 
Musical  meanings,  that  is,  must  not  be  set  apart  from  the  purely  me- 
chanical meanings.  Thus  the  history  of  the  piano  is  a  tale  of  give  and 
lake  between  need  and  presentation.  Sometimes  the  new  trait  came  to 
answer  a  need;  sometimes  the  new  trait  was  just  there,  and  the  musicians 
proceeded  to  utilize  it.  ^--  ^"^  Technological  limitations  really  help  to 
form  your  styles  -  also  your  [musical]  cliches.  ^-  For  instance,  the  [char- 
acteristic] broken  chord  [used]  in  sonata  forms  [in  the  later  eighteenth 
century  suggests  that]  composer  and  audience  are  piano-minded.  [And 
consider  also,  at  that  period,  the  use  of  musical]  turns  and  quavers,  at 
first  [introduced]  to  compensate  for  the  lack  of  sustaining  power  [in 
earlier  instruments  such  as  the  harpsichord,  but]  now  liked  [for  them- 
selves and]  also  as  a  test  of  the  virtuoso  [performer].  "^'^  The  musician 
always  naively  believes  that  his  patterns  and  effects  are  based  upon 
nature,  [upon  intrinsic  properties  of  the  sounds;]  but  the  actuality  of  his 
use  of  his  particular  techniques  is  always  based  upon  the  unique  tradi- 
tion of  his  group.  ^'^  The  same  thing  [is  true  of  other  cultural  traits.] 
The  shape  of  letters  [of  our  alphabet]  is  derived  from  [the  properties  of) 
stone  [on  which  they  were  engraved;  the  shape  of]  Chinese  [writing,] 
from  the  cameFs  hair  brush. 

dm.  h2  There  is  not  a  single  thing  about  our  music  that  you  can  pick 
out  to  which  you  are  not  unconsciously  prepared  to  give  preferred 
meanings.  No  one  passively  lets  music  act  upon  him;  the  audience  con- 
ditions art.  [Consciously  or  not,  the  composer  must  be  aware  that  the] 
use  of  drums  [suggests]  the  masculine  or  the  exotic,  [in  ways  that  are 
affected  by  the  totality  of  our  musical  experience,]  so  that  our  toying 
with  jazz  has  weakened  some  of  the  effects  of  symphonic  music  [and 
altered  the  meanings  of]  some  of  our  previous  efforts.  "^^  Certain  reck- 


Two    The  /'s\(ht)/(}i;y  dJ  (  ultuir  559 

less  rliNlhms  in  oklci"  coinpt)siiions  no  longer  ha\c  ihc  original  meaning 
because  o\'  the  nilerposing  o\'  the  jazz  rhyihiiis  (in  our  musical  experi- 
ence.] Thus  we  cannot  reproduce  the  time  spirit  o\'  the  minuet  now 
we  regard  it  as  mincing  and  oNerdehcale.  ""'  '''  ''^'  [Insieati.  m  the  pre- 
sent age]  we  are  especiall\  sensiii\e  to  ■■blurred"  eU'ects.  in  music  and 
elsewhere  in  modern  art.  The  ps\clu)log\  o\'  the  blur,  m  art  and  also 
in  philosoph\.  [suggests]  the  anli-Kigical;  [it  recalls]  James*  idea  thai 
somewhere  in  the  world  the  law  of  gravity  does  not  appl\.  ''^'  I*erhaps 
this  blur  efTecl  is  due  to  a  desire  {o  escape  from  the  brutal  logic  of  the 
world.  "^'■'-  ''-  As  an  escape  Worn  the  clear-ciil  arliculatii>ns  o\'  modern 
machines  [and  their  mo\ements,  the  blur  acquires  a]  special  \alue  as  a 
symbol  of  liberation  from  the  technology  that  has  us  in  its  grip,  [con- 
straining us  as  if  it  were  an]  all-prevailing  universe. 

•'-  Thus  some  very  technical  point  may  symbolize  the  general  attitude 
of  the  age.  '"''•  '^-  Even  a  highly  functional  activity  where  the  meanings 
of  patterns  are  very  obvious  on  one  plateau  may  yield  very  dilTerent 
and  significant  meanings  on  another.  '''"  [Whatever  the  activity  and  its 
apparent  function.]  invariably  there  are  very  generalized  subtler  mean- 
ings which  crop  up  and  are  never  definitely  eliminated^  in  the  situations 
themselves.  '^--  ''"^  So  our  first  approach  to  meaning  is  always  an  impov- 
erished one.  for  these  added  accretions  are  really  the  reason  for  the 
[persistence  of  the]  patterns  -  for  the  inertia  of  culture.  Patterns  linger 
[beyond  the  expiration  of  their  original  function]  because  of  the  mean- 
inizs  that  have  accrued  to  them. 


Report  of  the  Student  CoDiiuittcc  on  Piono-Phiyini^ 
Qiu'.stionnnirc.s 

[(Not  rcc(^rdcd)l 
Sapir'.s  C'oninwnl.s 

bg,  h2  j^Q  report  on  the  questionnaires  raises  several  points.  l-irsl  o\ 
all,  is  it  important  that  in  our  society,  women  teachers  prediMiiinatc  for 
elementary  piano  lessons'.'  Must  this  not  have  its  elTect  on  the  voung 
learner,  and  an  effect  on  the  role  o\'  music  [in  our  lives']  Piano  playing. 
with  us.  has  then  an  emphatic  feminine  svnibt>lism;  vet.  musical  achieve- 
ment is  preponderantly  masculine. 

Secondly:  [we  observe  that]  the  piano  is  valued  dilTerently  bv  the  m- 
group  (i.  e.,  in  the  sub-culture)  o\'  professional  musicians  as  compared 


670  iti  Culture 

with  the  valuation  of  out-groups  (sub-cultures)  of  amateurs  and  others. 
^i^  By  the  former,  the  piano  is  considered  an  exceptionally  adequate 
instrument  with  its  complete  or  nearly  complete  musical  capabilities  - 
its  range,  harmonic  variability,  its  possibility  of  nervous  response,  and 
so  on.  ''-  [It  is  considered  as  being]  in  possession  of  as  much  musical 
meaning  as  an  orchestra,  in  miniature.  ^^  Yet,  others  find  it  insufficient 
as  a  solo  instrument. 

Thirdly:  to  what  is  the  indifference  to  piano  playing,  on  the  part  of 
some  people,  due  -  to  organismic  defects  or  to  sociological  condition- 
ing? ^^-  '^-  [To  this  and  to  some  other  questions  about  interest  and]  ap- 
preciation o'i  music  [I  suggest]  three  categories,  [or  types  of]  apprecia- 
tion: the  direct,  the  derived,  and  the  exploratory.  (^^  [This  is  a  different 
kind  o'i  categorization  from  a  typology  of  motives.]  An  appreciation 
may  develop  from  a  sociological  or  symboHcal  or  psychological  motiva- 
tion and  yet  be  quite  direct,  ^s-  ^-^  For  "exploratory,"  a  better  term  may 
be  "substitutively  direct."^)  ^^  To  what,  then,  can  we  attribute  some 
people's  greater  interest  in  reading  [musical]  scores  than  in  playing  or 
listening?  The  auditory  patterning  may  be  freer,  for  some  people,  than 
the  motor  ability.  Or,  [the  activity  of  reading  scores]  may  be  somewhat 
swank.  Or  possibly  it  is  the  symbol  of  a  narcissistic  withdrawal  from 
the  world.  (Compare  the  greater  pleasure  some  people  find  in  reading 
a  play  than  in  seeing  it.) 

bg.  h2  gy^  ^1^^^  |g  |.|^g  fundamental  meaning  of  piano  playing?  ^-^  [One 
might  as  well  ask  what  is  the]  real  value  of  music  [in  general  -  and  a 
final  answer  will  prove  equally  elusive,]  ^^^  ^^  [For  the  piano  soloist, 
perhaps  the  meaning  is  tied  up  with  the]  complete  physical  control  [he 
has  over  the  music,]  as  compared  with  the  violin  or  flute  [player.]  The 
pianist  has  within  his  own  power  a  complete  world  of  control,  [involv- 
ing] a  release  of  motor  abilities,  and  a  rich  parficipation  in  rhythm,  with 
[a  sense  of]  implicit  conquest.  [For  those  who  do  not  play  the  piano 
themselves,  the  meaning  of  piano-playing  will  surely  be  different.] 

''-  [Now  when  we  listened  to  the  report  on  the  technological  history 
of  the  piano,  we  did  not  need  to  concern  ourselves  with  all  these  varia- 
tions. Our  investigation  of  piano  playing,  therefore,  illustrates  the  two 
sides]  cultural  patterns  have:  cold  history,  on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the 
other  -  [on  the  subjecfive  side  -]  the  meanings  [invested]  in  behavior. 

^^  In  continuation  of  our  discussion  on  the  questionnaires,  [let  us 
consider  the  construction  of  the  questions.  In  addition  to  the  kinds  of 
questions  so  far  posed,]  I  would  suggest  a  fantasy  questionnaire:  "Given 
a  certain  situation,  a  certain  house,  certain  people,  plus  someone  play- 


Two:  The  Psyclu)l()^y  of  Culture  671 

ing  the  piano,  how  wtuiki  \oii  tccl'.'"'  [That  is  ihc  kmJ  of  qucslioii.  or 
hsptnhctical  iiKiiiirv,  I  lia\c  in  niiiui.|  Also,  [wc  need  U>  uicliidc]  a  finder. 
In  our  questionnaires  [so  far,]  we  lake  for  granted  common  knowledge 
of  common  [cultural]  patterns;  but  the  issue  is,  how  far  is  this  true".'  Do 
Missourans  understand  piano  playing  the  same  way  we  do,  and  mean 
by  piano  pla\ing  [the  same  things  we  mean'.'|  \^o  all  people  phi\  the 
piano  and  sing  ot  an  evening  in  our  own  [various]  culture  areas,  and  so 
on'.'  It  is  interesting  to  construct'"  a  questionnaire  to  see  hou  much  of 
what  we  think  is  common  knowledge  and  common  culture  is  really 
[held  in]  common. 

[Notice,  incidentally,  that  what  we  think  of  as  "common  knowledge" 
comes  to  be  known  very  early  in  life.]  At  the  age  of  four,  a  child  has 
already  learned  more  about  culture  than  he  will  e\er  know  [that  he 
knows;]  the  rest  of  his  life  is  spent  in  forgetting  what  he  learned.  By 
four,  the  child  knows  all  the  fundamental  linguistic  patterns,  [and  we 
must  suppose  that  he  has  progressed]  similarly  in  regard  to  the  funda- 
mental cultural  patterns.  The  intense  curiosity  of  a  child  o['  four  enables 
him  to  acquire  a  profound  knowledge  of  social  interaction. 


Editorial  Note 

In  1933-34,  Sapir  gave  his  students  several  assignments  which  \scie 
subsequently  discussed  in  class.  The  first  exercise,  assigned  earlv  m  the 
fall  semester,  seems  to  have  focused  on  the  concepts  of  culture  and  the 
social.  The  students  were  to  try  their  hands  at  composing  defmitions  o^ 
one  or  other  of  these  terms.  H2  has:  "Write  out  essential  points  to  be 
included  in  defining  culture.  What  is  culture  in  Anthropological  sense'.'" 
-  while  MD  has:  "Write  out  the  criteria  for  the  concept  social  [its] 
meaning  -  uses  -  connotations."  These  elTorts.  for  which  \ersions  by 
HI  and  DM  survive  (on  the  Yale  microfilm  and  m  DMs  papers  respec- 
tively), were  the  background  for  class  sessions  on  Oct.  P  and  24. 

The  second  exercise,  assigned  on  Oct.  24  to  be  handed  in  the 
following  week,  was  to  construct  questionnaires  on  two  .American  cul- 
tural patterns  and  answer  the  questions.  DM  has:  "Construct  a  ques- 
tionnaire in  Social  Psychology  and  answer  [the  questions  in)  them. 

"1.  Piano  playing  -  significance  what  is  ii  what  rele\ance  to 
individual. 

"2.  Smoking. 


672  ^li  Culture 

••Organize  logically  but  not  too  formally  [a]  couple  of  typewritten 
pages  on  each  of  these.  Be  descriptive  but  keep  in  mind  meanings." 

The  same  assignment  is  more  briefly  noted  in  LaBarre's  notes.  Man- 
dclbaum's  etTort  at  completing  the  assignment  was  found  among  his 
papers. 

The  questionnaires  were  handed  in  on  Oct.  31  and  discussed  in  a 
preliminary  way.  For  Nov.  14  and  27,  two  students  were  to  give  reports 
on  the  history  and  distribution  of  smoking  and  of  piano  playing,  while 
committees  of  two  other  students  -  one  committee  for  smoking,  an- 
other for  piano  playing  -  were  to  examine  all  the  questionnaires  and 
write  up  a  new  questionnaire,  designed  to  include  everything  suggested 
by  the  lot."  The  smoking  report  was  given  by  Willard  Park,  the  piano 
report  by  a  Mrs.  Straus.  Notes  on  the  two  reports  and  Sapir's  discussion 
o^  them  can  be  found  in  DM,  BG,  and  H2  (piano  only).  These  class 
sessions  are  reconstructed  in  this  appendix. 

Sapir  assigned  a  similar  questionnaire  exercise  in  April  1934,  this  time 
on  etiquette.  Sapir's  discussion  of  that  topic  may  be  found  in  chapter 
12.  Mandelbaum's  etiquette  questionnaire  survived  among  his  papers, 
as  did  his  copy  of  the  take-home  final  exam,  assigned  at  the  end  of 
May. 


Notes 

1.  i.e..  Sapir.  Beaglehole's  notes  make  it  clear  where  Sapir  speaks  for  himself.  I  render 
these  passages  in  the  first  person. 

2.  See  Laufer  1924a,  1924b,  1930. 

3.  Beaglehole's  notes  do  not  specify  that  the  following  statements  came  from  Sapir,  rather 
than  from  the  student  committee.  I  infer  that  they  came  from  Sapir  because  Beaglehole 
rarely  recorded  student  statements. 

4.  BG  has  "answerer." 

5.  H2  has  a  question  mark  by  this  date,  which  is  obviously  incorrect. 

6.  The  interpretation  represented  in  the  bracketed  material  is  questionable. 

7.  H2  has  "escape." 

8.  This  word  is  unclear. 

9.  H2  adds,  "Cf  language  -  verbalizing."  It  is  not  clear  whether  the  point  is  that  language 
is  a  substitute  for  its  referent,  or  whether  an  appreciation  for  language  can  be  categorized 
in  the  same  way  as  an  appreciation  for  music. 

0.  BG  has  "ask." 

1.  From  BG. 


APPENDIX  2:  Notes  on  a  Lecture  lo  ihc 
Friday  Night  Club,  Oct.  13.  1933 

I  cannot  be  ethnological  and  be  sincere  in  observing  my  little  bo\  play 
marbles.  1  cannot  watch  a  Chinese  mandarin  and  be  psychological.' 

My  own  past  history  determines  my  outlook.  When  I  see  my  bo\.  I 
am  not  interested  in  his  game.  I  am  interested  in  his  behavior,  i  am  ... 

We  are  afraid  to  probe  too  deeply  into  personality.  Our  children  are 
tully  developed  personalities  very  early  and  to  recognize  this  would  be 
to  blow  up  the  parent-child  relationship  [that  is]  so  soothing  and  pleas- 
ing to  us. 

The  nature  of  interest  in  human  behavior  is  of  such  a  kind  that  we 

1.  Classify  under  authority  —  what  "they"  say 

2.  [Classify  under]  1  -  what  "I"  want 

Children  accept  everything  on  authority;  [they  accept  something  as 
true]  because  Daddy  said  so.  That  is  why  culture  is  so  poncrjul  -  be- 
cause Authority  is  Culture,  and  the  Father  is  the  "Great  Authority." 

Whatever  authority  happens  to  intYinge  most  closely  on  the  child  is 
for  him  the  valid  world.  This  culture  comes  to  us  with  the  greatest  pos- 
sible emotional  weight.  Love  is  the  greatest  activating  factor,  but  also 
there  must  be  germs  of  hate,  of  revolt.  We  ne\er  know  what  our  true 
culture  is  because  we  can  never  depersonalize  our  emoiii^nal  tie-ups.  A 
vitalized  ... 

The  difference  between  culture  and  personality  is  not  that  the  data 
are  different,  but  that  the  flow  of  our  interests  is  dilTerent. 

The  reason  for  our  interest  in  personalit\  is  that  we  are  ne\er  tired 
oi^  looking  and  peering  into  oursehes. 

There  is  not  much  difference  between  the  organization  called  persi>n- 
alily,  and  ... 

I  think  that  the  so-called  obiecli\it\  of  culture  is  a  myth  It  cannot 
be  divorced  from  the  empathizing  mind.  Ihe  onl\  thing  you  can  do  is 
to  take  ten  or  twelve  personalities  and  rub  out  the  peculiar  vagaries.' 

All  personality  judgement  is  always  an  extreme  judgement,  lor  in- 
stance,  personality  judgement    from    primitive   people   is  commonly 


574  ^^^  Culture 

Habby.  Because  his  world  is  the  "great  World"  of  impersonalized  rela- 
tionship, his  nomenclature  is  one  of  great  social  tradition,  not  of  per- 
sonality bias. 

Our  great  fear  o'i  finding  out  too  much  has  justly  kept  us  from  prob- 
ing too  deeply  into  the  individual  psyche.  But  because  of  the  complexity 
of  our  culture  -  because  of  the  cumbersomeness  ...  we  become  more 
and  more  interested  in  personality. 

One  man  has  as  much  personality  as  another.  Personality,  I  mean,  is 
objective.  A  "'charming  personality"  is  a  list  of  things  that  look  in  dif- 
ferent directions.  For  instance,  [such  a]  man  is  (1)  mild  mannered;  (2) 
plays  the  piano. 

The  best  things  in  the  world  are  compensations  for  our  weaknesses. 
When  we  evaluate  each  other  we  don't  distinguish  elements  scientific- 
ally, but  take  or  reject  the  whole  combination. 

Our  own  attitudes  toward  peoples  then  are  valuable  only  insofar  as 
they  reveal  our  own  personality. 

The  biological  influence  presented  is  very  important  in  the  formation 
of  personality.  At  an  alarmingly  early  age  personality  differences  ap- 
pear. 

The  only  important  events  that  happen  after  the  first  three  years  of 
a  child's  life  are  catastrophes. 

The  organized  intuitive  organization  of  a  three  year  old  is  far  more 
valid  and  real  than  the  most  ambitious  psychological  theory  ever  con- 
structed. 

Their  world  is  a  different  kind  of  a  thing^  because  the  fundamental 
emotional  relationships  were  differently  established  as  first  or  second 
child. 

Culture  just  doesn't  adhere,  it  is  hooked  by  the  personality  and  tied 
into  the  individual.  Thus  culture  is  really  only  these  hooked  events  mo- 
notonously repeated  forever. 

The  ultra  complicated  world  of  culture  from  the  psychiatric  stand- 
point is  nothing  more  than  the  pyramiding  of  personality  pictures. 

It  is  absurd  to  carry  on  a  grilling  psychoanalysis;  it  is  too  dangerous, 
it  isn't  worth  it. 

All  activity  is  the  same  -  social  or  private  -  all  in  the  nature  of 
personality  and  culture  is  merely  an  abstraction  of  items  so  reduplicated 
that  we  may  call  them  impersonal.  But  they  bear  no  meaning  aside  from 
the  Ego.  Also  the  content  has  no  meaning  aside  from  behavior. 

For  content  consult  history. 

For  meaning  consult  the  individual. 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  Culture  675 

Editorial  Note 

This  Appendix  reproduces  notes  by  David  Mandclbaum  on  a  lecture 
given  by  Sapir.  Only  a  few  editorial  insertions  are  included.  At  several 
points.  Mandclbaum  has  the  beginning  of  a  stalenienl  but  missed  the 
rest  o(  it;  1  have  represented  these  gaps  with  ellipses,  rather  than  trymg 
to  complete  the  sentence.  Italics,  capitalizations,  and  spacing  (between 
paragraphs)  are  all  original.  The  source  text  is  Mandelbaum's  handwrit- 
ten version,  not  the  typescript  he  later  prepared  for  microfilming  along 
with  his  class  notes. 


Notes 

1.  See  Sapir  1934a  for  what  appears  to  be  a  fuller  version  of  this  opcniiii:. 

2.  Here  DM  has  the  word  "Examples,"  crossed  out. 

3.  This  word  is  hard  to  decipher.  In  DM's  handwritten  version  it  is  probably  "thing."  but 
might  be  "theory;"  in  the  typescript  it  is  "one." 


APPENDIX  3.  Sapir's  lists  of  suggested  readings  lor 

'The  Impact  of  Culture  on  Personality"  (1933-34)  and 

'The  Psychology  of  Culture"  (1935-36) 


Adler,  Alfred 
Benedict,  R.  F. 
Boas,  Franz 
Cooley,  Charles 

Dewey,  John 
Dummer,  Ethel  (ed.): 

Flugel,  J.  C. 
Freud,  S. 


Goldenweiser,  A.  A. 
Hart,  Bernard 
Hoh,  E.  B. 
Huntington,  E. 
Jung,  Carl  C. 
Kantor,  J.  R. 


Koffka,  K. 
Kretschmer,  Ernst 
Kroeber,  A.  L. 
Lowie,  R.  H. 

McDougall,  Wm. 
Malinowski,  B. 

Ogburn,  W.  R 
Ogburn,  W.  F,  and 
Goldenweiser,  A.  A. 
(eds.) 


Individual  Psychology 

Patterns  of  Culture  [1935  list  onlyl 

The  Mind  of  Primitive  Man 

Human  Nature  and  the  Social  Order 

The  Social  Process 

Human  Nature  and  Conduct 

The  Unconscious,  A  Symposium  (Alfred 

A.  Knopf  1927) 

The  Psychoanalytic  Study  o\'  the  Family 

Introduction  to  Psychoanalysis 

The  Interpretation  of  Dreams 

The  Psychopathology  of  Everyday  Life 

Early  Civilization 

The  Psychology  o['  Insanii) 

The  Freudian  Wish 

Climate  and  Civilization 

Psychological  Types 

An  Essay  toward  an  InsiiiulioiKil  Conception  o\' 

Social   Psychology  (American   J.   o(  Sociology 

1922) 

The  Growth  of  the  Mind 

Physique  and  Cliaractcr 

The  Superorganic  (American  Anlhrop<.>Iogisl  1917) 

Culture  and  Ethnology 

Primitive  Society 

An  Introduction  to  Social  Psychology 

Crime  and  Custom  in  Primiti\e  Sociel> 

Sex  and  Repression  in  Savage  Society 

Social  Change 

The  Social  Sciences  and  then  Inici  ici.iiu'iis 


578  JJJ  Culture 

Rice,  S.  A.  (ed.)  Methods  in  Social  Science,  A  Case  Book 

Rivers,  W.  H.  R.  Instinct  and  the  Unconscious 

Sapir,  E.  Language  (Harcourt,  Brace  and  Co.) 

Time     Perspective     in     Aboriginal     American 

Culture 
Teggard,  F.  I.'  Processes  of  History 

Trotter,  Wm.  Instincts  of  the  Herd  in  War  and  Peace 

Tvlor,  E.  B.  Primitive  Culture 

Veblen,  T.  Theory  of  the  Leisure  Class 

Wissler,  Clark  Man  and  Culture 

Addenda,  1933.  Essays  by  Sapir. 

"Language  and  Environment,"  American  Anthropologist  [1912b] 
"Do   We   Need   a   Superorganic?"    American   Anthropologist    1917, 
pp.  441-447  [1917a] 

"Culture  Genuine  and  Spurious,"  American  J.  of  Sociology  [1924b] 
"Speech  as  a  Personality  Trait,"  American  J.  of  Sociology  [1927h] 
Encyclopedia  of  Social  Sciences: 

"Communication"  [1931a] 

"Custom"  [1931d] 

"Dialect"  [1931e] 

"Fashion"  [1931  f| 

"Group"  [1932b] 

"Language"  [1933b] 
"Cultural  Anthropology  and  Psychology  [sic],''  J.  of  Abnormal  and  So- 
cial Psychology,  Oct.  1932,  pp.  229-242  [1932a] 

Editorial  Note 

Reading  lists  for  these  two  years  of  Sapir's  course  were  found  among  the 
papers  of  David  Mandelbaum  and  Walter  Taylor,  respectively.  The  two  lists 
are  almost  identical,  except  that  Mandelbaum  adds  several  of  Sapir's  own 
essays  (recorded  in  handwriting  at  the  end  of  a  typed,  alphabetized  list).  The 
references  are  reproduced  here  in  the  form  in  which  they  occur  in  the  Man- 
delbaum and  Taylor  papers.  For  complete  references,  see  the  Bibliography. 

Note 

1.  The  reference  is  presumably  to  Teggart,  F.  J. 


References,  Section  Two 

Authors  other  thiin  Supir 

Adler.  Alfred 

1929         The  Practice  and  Theory  oj  Individual  Psycholoi^y.  Second  ediluni. 

revised.  London:  Routledge  &  Kegan  Paul. 
1937        Psychiatric  aspects  regarding  individual  and  social  disorganization. 
American  Journal  oJ  Sociology  42:  773 -7K(). 
Alexander,  Franz 

1937        Psychoanalysis  and  social  disorganization.  American  Journal  of  So- 
ciology 42:  781-813. 
Benedict,  Ruth  Fulton 

1934        Patterns  of  Culture.  Boston  and  New  York:  Houghton  MifTlin. 
Blumer.  Herbert 

1937        Social  disorganization  and   individual  disorganization.   Ameruun 
Journal  of  Sociology  42:  871  -77. 
Boas,  Franz 

1891        The  dissemination  of  tales.  Journal  of  Anwrican  Folklore  4:  13    2U. 
1911         The  Mind  of  Primitive  Man.  New  York:  Macmillan. 
1916       The  development  of  folktales  and  myths.  Scieniifu-  Monthly  3: 
335-43. 
Brill,  Abraham  Arden 

1914        Psychoanalysis:  Its  Theories  and  Practical  Application.  Philadelphia 

and  London:  W.  B.  Saunders. 
1921         Fundatnental  Conceptions  of  Psychoanalysis.  New  ^ork:  HarciHirl 

Burrow,  Trigant 

1937        The  law  of  the  organism:  A  ncuro-social  approach  to  the  problcniN 
of  human  behavior.  American  Journal  of  Sociology  A2:  S14    24 
Butler,  Samuel 

1903         The  Way  of  All  Flesh.  London:  Ciiant  Richards. 
Cooley,  Charles  Horton 

1902        Human  Nature  and  the  Social  Order.  New  ^ork:  Scnbnci  s 
1918        Social  Process.  New  York:  Scribncr's. 
Cowan,  William,  Michael  K.  Foster,  and  Koiiiad  Kocrncr.  cds 

1986  New  Perspectives  in  Language.  Culture,  and  Pcrumality:  Pnuccumgs 
of  the  Edward  Sapir  Centenary  Contcrcncc.  Ottawa.  1-3  Octohvr 
1984.  Amsterdam  and  Philadelphia:  John  Benjamins. 


680  lit  Culture 

Darnell,  Regna 

1990        Edwcird  Sapir:  Linguist,  Anthropologist,  Humanist.  Berkeley,  CA: 
University  of  California  Press. 
Dewey,  John 

1922  Human  Nature  anil  Conduet.  New  York:  H.  Holt. 
Dorsey,  George  Amos 

1903        The  Arapaho  Sun  Dance;  The  Ceremony  of  the  Offerings  Lodge. 
Field  Columbian  Museum,  Publication  75,  Anthropological  Series 
vol.  IV.  Chicago. 
Dummer.  Ethel,  ed. 

1927  The  Unconscious:  A  Symposium.  New  York:  Alfred  A.  Knopf. 
Fielding,  Henry 

1749        The  History  of  Tom  Jones,  a  Foundling.  London:  A.  Millar. 
Flugel.  John  Carl 

1921  The  Psychoanalytic  Study  of  the  Family.  London,  New  York:  Ho- 
garth and  the  International  Psychoanalytic  Press. 

Frazer,  James 

1917-20     The  Golden  Bough.  Third  edition,  12  volumes.  London:  Macmil- 
lan. 
Freud,  Sigmund 

1917        The  Psychopathology  of  Everyday  Life.  Authorized  English  edition, 

with  an  introduction  by  A.  A.  Brill.  New  York:  Macmillan. 

1920        General  Introduction  to  Psychoanalysis.  Authorized  translation,  with 

a  preface  by  G.  Stanley  Hall.  New  York:  Boni  &  Liveright. 

1923  The  Interpretation  of  Dreams.  Third  edition,  with  an  introduction 
by  A.  A.  Brill.  New  York:  Macmillan.  (First  published  1913.) 

1928  The  Future  of  an  Illusion.  Trans.  W.  D.  Robson-Scott.  New  York: 
Liveright. 

Gale,  Zona 

1928        Portage,  Wisconsin  and  Other  Essays.  New  York:  Alfred  A.  Knopf. 
Goldenweiser,  Alexander 

1922  Early  Civilization:  An  Introduction  to  Anthropology.  New  York:  Al- 
fred A.  Knopf. 

Gorky,  Maxim 

1912        The  Lower  Depths.  Trans.  Laurence  Irving.  London:  T.  F.  Unwin. 
(First  published  1903.) 
Graebner,  Fritz 

1911        Methode  der  Etlmologie.  Heidelberg:  C.  Winter. 

1924  Das  Welthild  der  Primitiven.  Munich:  E.  Reinhardt. 
Hart,  Bernhard 

1931        The  Psychology  of  Insanity.  Fourth  edition.  New  York:  Macmillan. 
(First  published  1912.) 
Holt,  Edwin  Bissell 

1915        The  Freudian  Wish  and  Its  Place  in  Ethics.  New  York:  H.  Holt. 


Two:  The  Twcholoi^v  a/  (  uiiiuc  681 

Hughes,  Thomas 

1 857        Tom  Brown's  Schooldays.  C'ambnduc:  Macnull.m. 
Huntington.  Charles  C  litTord,  and  I'led  A.  Carlson 

1929  /■//('  Tnvlronnu'iifiil  Basis  of  Social  (ico^raphv.  New  York:  Prcnlicc- 
Hall. 

1933         The  Geographic  Basis  oj  Society.  (Revision  ol  Huntnigton  and  Carl- 
son 1929.)  New  York:  Prentice-Hall. 
Huntington,  Ellsworth 

1915        Civilization  iiiul  Cli)}hitc.  New  Haven:  Yale  rni\ersU\  Press. 
Jung.  Carl  G. 

1922  Collected  Papers  on  Atuilvdcal  Psychology.  Constance  H.  L.Dng.  ed. 
Second  edition.  London:  Bailliere.  Tindall  &  Co,\. 

1923  Psychological   Types;   or.    the  Psychology  of  Individuation.    Trans. 
H.  Godwin  Baynes.  New  York:  Harcourt  Brace. 

Kantor.  J.  R. 

1922  An  essay  toward  an  institutional  conception  o\'  social  psychology. 
American  Journal  oJ  Sociology  27:  611  -27.  758-79. 

KofTka.  Kurt 

1925         The   Growth   of  the   Mind:   An   Introduction   to   Child- Psychology. 
Trans.  Robert  Morris  Ogden.  New  York:  Harcourt  Brace. 
Kretschmer,  Ernst 

1925        Physique  and  Character:  An  Investigation  of  the  .\ature  of  Const iiu- 
tion  and  of  the  Theory  ofTcniperanwnt.  Translated  from  the  second, 
revised  edition  by  W.J.  H.  Sprott.  New  >brk:  ll.ii\inni    Mr.ui.- 
Kroeber.  A.  L. 

1917        The  Superorganic. /^/77tT/V^//7  .-f//////7Y'<'/o,i^/.s7  19:  j(i3    21  V 
Lauter,  Berthold 

1924a      Tobacco  and  Its  Use  in  Asia.  Chicago:  Field  Museum  o\'  Natural 

History.  Anthropology  leaflet  18. 
1924b      Introduction  of  Tobacco  into  Europe.  Chicago:   I  leld   Museum  ol 
Natural  History.  Anthropology  leaflet  19. 
Laufer,  Berthold,  Wilfrid  D.  Hambly,  and  Ralph  Linton 

1930  Tobacco  and  Its  Use  in  Africa.  Chicago:  lield  Museum  of  Natural 
History.  Anthropology  leaflet  29. 

Levy-Bruhl,  Lucien 

1923  Primitive  Mentality.  Trans.  Lilian  Clare.  London:  Cicorge  .Mien  & 
Unwin;  New  York:  Macmiilan.  ( 1  ust  published  1922.) 

Lippert,  Julius 

1886-87     Kulturgeschichtc  der   Men.schhcii  in  ihrem   Orgonischtn  .4ufhtiu 
Stuttgart:  F.  Enke. 
Lowie.  Robert 

1917        Culture  and  Ethnology.  New  \o\\.  Livenghl. 

1920        Primitive  Society.  New  York:  Boni  &  Livenghl. 


582  ///  Culture 

Machen,  Arthur 

1927        The  Hill  of  Dreams.  New  York:  Alfred  A.  Knopf.  (First  published 
1907.) 
Malinovvski,  Bronislaw 

1923  The  Problem  of  Meaning  in  Primitive  Languages.  Supplementary 
essay  in  C.  K.  Ogden  and  I.  R.  Richards,  The  Meaning  of  Meaning. 
London:  Kegan  Paul.  Pp.  451-510. 

1926  Crime  and  Custom  in  Savage  Society.  New  York:  Harcourt,  Brace. 

1927  Sex  ami  Repression  in  Savage  Society.  New  York:  Harcourt,  Brace. 
Mandelbaum,  David 

1941        Edward  Sapir.  Jewish  Social  Studies  3:  131-40. 
Mandelbaum,  David,  ed. 

1949       Selected  Writings  of  Edward  Sapir.  Berkeley,  CA:  University  of  Cali- 
fornia Press. 
May.  Mark  Arthur 

1937       A  research  note  on  cooperative  and  competitive  behavior.  American 
Journal  of  Sociology  42:  887—91. 
Mayo,  Elton 

1937       Psychiatry  and  sociology  in  relation   to   social  disorganization. 
American  Journal  of  Sociology  42:  825  —  31. 
McDougall,  William 

1921  An  Introduction  to  Social  Psychology.  Fourteenth  edition.  Boston: 
J.  W.  Luce. 

Mead,  Margaret 

1928  Coming  of  Age  in  Samoa.  New  York:  William  Morrow. 

1959        An  Anthropologist  At   Work:    Writings  of  Ruth  Benedict.  Boston: 
Houghton  Mifflin. 
Mecklin,  John  Moffatt 

1924  The  Ku  Klux  Klan:  A  Study  of  the  American  Mind.  New  York:  Har- 
court Brace. 

1934        The  Story  of  American  Dissent.  New  York:  Harcourt  Brace. 
Newman,  Stanley 

1933       Further  experiments  in  phonetic  symbolism.  American  Journal  of 
Psychology  45:  53-75. 
Ogburn,  William  Fielding 

1922  Social  Change  with  Respect  to  Culture  and  Original  Nature.  New 
York:  B.  W.  Huebsch. 

Ogburn,  William  Fielding,  and  Alexander  A.  Goldenweiser,  eds. 

1927        The  Social  Sciences  and  Their  Interrelations.  Boston:  Little  and 
James. 
Ogburn,  William  Fielding,  and  Abram  J.  Jaffe 

1937  Recovery  and  social  conditions.  American  Journal  of  Sociology  42: 
878-86. 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  Culture  683 

Perry.  William  James 

1923  The  Children  of  the  Sun.  New  York:  T.  P  OuitiMi 
Preston.  Richard 

1986  Sapir's  "Psychology  of  Culture"  I'rospeclus.  lu  William  Cowan. 

Michael  K.  Foster,  and  Konrad  Koerner.  eds..  New  Ferspcciives  in 
Lcuiguage,  Culture,  and  Personality:  Proceedings  of  the  F.dward  Saptr 
Centenary  Conference.  Ottawa.  1-3  Octoher  l^iS4.  Amsterdam  and 
Philadelphia:  John  Benjamins.  Pp.  533-551. 
Rice.  Stuart  Arthur,  ed. 

1931  Methods  in  Social  Science.  Chicago:  University  orChicagi>  Press. 
Rickert,  Heinrich 

1899        Kulturwissenschaft  und  Naturwissenschaft:  ein   I'ortrai^.  JYeiburg  i. 

B.  (Fifth  edition  published  1925.) 
1902        Die  Grenzen  der  Naturwis.senschaftlichen  Be^riffshildunii.  Tubingen: 
J.  C.  B.  Mohr.  (Fifth  edition  published  1929.) 
Ritchie,  James  E. 

1967        Ernest  Beaglehole,  1906-65.  Anwricati  Anthropologist  69:68-70. 
Rivers,  W.  H.  R. 

1920        Instinct  ami  the  Unconscious.  Cambridge  (U.  K):  Cambridge  L  ni- 
versity  Press. 
Roheim,  Geza 

1932  Psychoanalysis  of  primitive  cultural  types.  International  Journal  of 
Psychoanalysis  13:  1—224. 

1934        The  Riddle  of  the  Sphinx.  London:  Hogarth. 
Saussure,  Ferdinand  de 

1922        Cours  de  linguistique  generale.  Second  edition.  Edited  b\  Charles 
Bally  and  Albert  Sechehaye.  Paris:  Payot.  (First  published  1916  ) 
Schilder,  Paul 

1937        The  relation  between  social  and  personal  disorganizaiion.  Anuruan 
Journal  of  Sociology  42:  832-39. 
Schmidt.  Wilhelm 

1924  Volker  mid  Kulturen.  Regensburg:  J.  Habbel. 
1926-35     Der  Ur.sprung  der  Gottesidee.  Miinslcr:  .•\sclicndortr 

Slight,  David 

1937        Disorganization  in  the  individual  and  m  socicis    Ameruan  Journal 
of  Sociology  42:  840-47. 
Smith,  Grafton  Elliot 

1915        The  Migrations  of  Early  Culture.  London.  Neu  \oi\    Longmans. 

Green. 
1930        Human  History.  London:  J.  Cape. 
Spengler,  Oswald 

1922-23     Der  Untergang  des  Ahendlandes.  Munich:  Heck 

Spier,  Leslie 

1939        Edward  Sapir.  Scieiue  89  (2307):  237-238. 


^{^4  ^^^  Culture 

Spier,  Leslie,  Alfred  1.  Hallowell,  and  Stanley  Newman,  eds. 

U)41        Lani^uiiiii'.  Culture,  ami  Personality:  Essays  in  Memory  of  Edward 
Supir.  Menasha,  WI:  Edward  Sapir  Memorial  Fund. 

Sullivan,  Harrv  Stack 

1937        A  note  on  the  implications  of  psychiatry,  the  study  of  interpersonal 
relations,  for  investigations  in  the  social  sciences.  American  Journal 
of  Sociology  42:  848-61. 
Teggarl,  Frederick  John 

lilS        Processes  of  History  New  Haven:  Yale  University  Press. 
Iliurnwald,  Richard 

1^32        Economics  in  Primitive  Communities.  London:  Oxford  University 
Press. 
Thurstone,  Louis  Leon 

1929        The  Measurement  of  Attitude.  Chicago:  University  of  Chicago  Press. 
Trotter.  Wilfred 

1916        Instincts  of  the  Herd  in  Peace  and  War.  New  York:  Macmillan. 
Tylor,  Edward  Burnett 

1871        Primitive  Culture.  London:  John  Murray. 
Veblen,  Thorstein 

1899        Theory  of  the  Leisure  Class.  New  York:  A.  M.  Kelley. 
Wissler,  Clark 

1923        Man  and  Culture.  New  York:  Thomas  Y.  CrowelL 


Publications  ami  manuscripts  by  Edward  Sapir 

(Works  that  appear  in  The  Collected  Works  of  Edward  Sapir  are  numbered 
according  to  the  general  bibliography  and  show  the  appropriate  CWES  volume 
number  following  the  entry.) 

1912b  Language  and  Environment.  American  Anthropologist  14:  226-242. 
I 

1913b  A  Girls'  Puberty  Ceremony  among  the  Nootka  Indians.  Transac- 
tions. Royal  Society  of  Canada,  3d  series,  7:  67-80.  IV. 

1915a  Abnormal  Types  of  Speech  in  Nootka.  Canada,  Department  of 
Mines,  Geological  Survey,  Memoir  62,  Anthropological  Series  5. 
VI 

191 5g  A  Sketch  of  the  Social  Organization  of  the  Mass  River  Indians.  Can- 
ada, Department  of  Mines,  Geological  Survey,  Museum  Bulletin 
19,  Anthropological  Series  7.  IV. 

191 5h  The  Social  Organization  of  the  West  Coast  Tribes.  Transactions, 
Royal  Society  of  Canada,  Second  Series,  9:  355-374.  IV. 

1916h  Time  Perspective  in  Ahorigincd  American  Culture:  A  Study  in 
Method.  Canada,  Department  of  Mines,  Geological  Survey,  Mem- 
oir 90,  Anthropological  Series  13.  IV. 


Two:  The  Psychology  of  C  ulturc  685 

1917a  Do  Wc  Need  a  'Supcmrganic"?  American  AmhropohigiM  19: 
441-447.111. 

1917i  Psychoanalysis  as  PalhUndcr.  Review  olOskar  Pfisier.  I  he  Psycho- 
analytic  Method.  The  Dial  ^2:  503-506.  III. 

192 Id  Lan^iia^e:  An  Introdiiclion  lo  the  Siiulv  of  Speech.  New  York;  liar- 
court.  Brace.  II. 

1922y  Sayach'apis,  A  Nootka  Trader.  In  l.lsie  C  .  Parsons,  ed..  Ameruan 
Indian  Life.  New  York:  B.  W.  Huebsch.  Pp.  297-323.  IV 

1923J  Review  of  C.  Jung.  P.sycholoi^icid  Types.  Two  Kinds  of  Hunum  Be- 
ings. The  Freeman  8:211-212.  III. 

19231  Review  ot  C.  K.  Ogden  and  I.  A.  Richards.  I  he  .\feanin\i  of  \fean- 
ini^.  An  Approach  to  Symbolism.  The  Freeman  7:  572-573.  III. 

1924b  Culture,  Genuine  and  Spurious.  American  J (mrnal  of  Sociology  29: 
401-429.  (Part  1  previously  published  1922  m  77;t'  Dalhou.sie  Re- 
view 2:  165-178;  Part  2  previously  published  in  The  Dial  67: 
233-236  and  in  The  Dalfwmie  Review  2:  358-368.)  III. 

1924c  The  Grammarian  and  His  Language.  The  American  Mercury 
1:149-155.1. 

1924e      Racial  Superiority.  The  Menorah  Journal  10:  200-212.  III. 

1925a  Are  the  Nordics  a  Superior  Race?  The  Canadian  Forum  (June). 
265-266.  III. 

1925p      Sound  Patterns  in  Language.  Lani^uage  1:  37-51.  I. 

1927a  Anthropology  and  Sociology.  In  W.  F.  Ogburn  and  .A.  (ioldcn- 
weiser,  eds..  The  Social  Sciences  and  Their  Interrelations.  Boston: 
Houghton  MilTlin.  Pp.  97-113.  III. 

1927h  Speech  as  a  Personality  Trait.  .Anwrican  .founuil  of  Sociolof^y  32: 
892-905.  III. 

1928a      The  Meaning  of  Religion.  The  Anu-rican  Mercury  15:  72-79.  III. 

I928e  Review  of  Sigmund  Freud.  77;t'  Future  of  an  Illusion.  Psychoanalysis 
as  Prophet.  The  New  Republic  56:  356-357.  III. 

1928J  The  Unconscious  Patterning  of  Behavior  in  Society.  In  Flhel  Hum- 
mer, ed..  The  Unconsciou.s:  A  Symposium.  Neu  York:  .\.  .\  Knopf. 
Pp.  114-142.  III. 

1929m  A  Study  in  Phonetic  Symbolism.  Journal  of  F.xpenmental  Psychol- 
ogy 12:  225-239.  I. 

1930b  Proceedings.  Second  Codoipuum  on  Personality  Imestif^atUm:  Held 
under  the  Joint  .tuspices  of  the  Anwrican  Psychiatric  .issocialutn  and 
of  the  Social  Science  Rcscmrli  Council.  Baltimore.  III. 

1931a      Communication.  Encyclopedia  of  the  Social  Sciences  A:  7S    SI    I 

193 Id      Custom.  Encyclopedia  of  the  Social  Sciences  4:  658-662.  Ill 

1931c      Dialect.  Encyclopedia  of  the  Social  Sciences  5:  123-126.  I. 

193  If       Fashion.  Encyclopedia  of  the  Social  Sciences  6:  1.39-144   III 

1932a  Cultural  Anthropology  and  Psychiatry.  Journal  <>'  ihn.^nud  and 
Social  P.svchology  27:  229-242.  III. 


686  l^i  Culture 

1932b      Group.  Encyclopedia  of  the  Social  Sciences  7:  178-182.  III. 

1933b      Lanijuage.  Fjicvclopcdia  of  the  Social  Sciences  9:  155-169.  I. 

1934a  The  l-mcrgence  o['  the  Concept  of  Personality  in  a  Study  of  Cul- 
tures. Journal  of  Social  Psychology  5:  408-415.  III. 

1934c      Personality.  Encyclopedia  of  the  Social  Sciences  12:  85-87.  III. 

1934e      Symbolism.  Encyclopedia  of  the  Social  Sciences  14:  492-495.  III. 

1937a  The  Contribution  of  Psychiatry  to  an  Understanding  of  Behavior 
in  Society.  American  Journal  of  Sociology  42:  862-870.  III. 

1938e  Why  Cultural  Anthropology  Needs  the  Psychiatrist.  Psychiatry  1: 
7-12   III 

1 939c  Psychiatric  and  Cultural  Pitfalls  in  the  Business  of  Getting  a  Living. 
Stcnial  Health  (a  publication  of  the  American  Association  for  the 
Advancement  of  Science)  9:  237-244.  III. 

1939e  Songs  for  a  Comox  Dancing  Mask.  Edited  by  Leslie  Spier.  Ethnos 
4:  49-55.  IV. 

1959  Letters  to  Ruth  Benedict.  In  Margaret  Mead,  ed.,  An  Anthropologist 
at  Work:  Writings  of  Ruth  Benedict.  Boston:  Houghton  Mifflin. 

1980  Letter  to  Philip  A.  Selznick,  25  October  1938.  In  G.  Stocking, 
Sapir's  Last  Testament  on  Culture  and  Personality.  History  of 
Anthropology  Newsletter  7:  8—11.  III. 

1998a  Notes  on  Psychological  Orientation  in  a  Given  Society.  Social  Sci- 
ence Research  Council,  Hanover  Conference,  1926.  (Hanover  Con- 
ference transcripts,  Dartmouth  College.)  III. 

1998b  The  Cultural  Approach  to  the  Study  of  Personality.  Social  Science 
Research  Council,  Hanover  Conference,  1930.  (Hanover  Confer- 
ence transcripts,  Dartmouth  College;  includes  Sapir's  Original 
memorandum  to  the  Social  Science  Research  Council  from  the 
Conference  on  Acculturation  and  Personality.)  III. 

n.d.  [1938]    Letter  to  A.  L.  Kroeber,  25  August  1938.  University  of  Cali- 
fornia, Berkeley,  Bancroft  Library  (Kroeber  papers). 
Sapir,  Edward,  and  Morris  Swadesh 

1946       American  Indian  Grammatical  Categories.  Word!:  103-112.  V. 


Section  Three 
Assessments  of  Psychology  and  Psychiatry 

Regna  Darnell  and  Judith  T.  Irvine,  editors 


InlroduLlion 

Although  there  is  no  complete  or  direct  record  of  the  tiniinii  and 
content  of  Sapir's  exploration  of  psychology  and  psychiatry  as  he  de\el- 
oped  his  own  theory  o(  cuhure,  his  series  o\'  book  reviews  in  various 
popular  journals  in  the  1910's  and  1920's  summarize  his  response  to 
these  disciplines  and  to  increasingly  dilTerentiated  and  professionalized 
schools  of  thought  within  them.  In  part,  of  course,  Sapir  wrote  book 
reviews  to  obtain  copies  of  newly  published  or  translated  works.  He 
could  not  order  such  books  for  the  Anthropological  Di\ision  o\'^  the 
Geological  Survey  of  Canada  because  its  maiKlaic  did  not  include  the 
psychological  sciences.  Indeed,  oral  history  records  that  Sapir  met  his 
second  wife,  Jean  Victoria  McClenaghan.  when  she  visited  him  in  Ot- 
tawa to  borrow  a  book  on  psychoanalysis.  Sapir  may  well  ha\e  been 
unique  in  Ottawa  civil  service  circles  for  his  interest  in  this  topic. 

The  reasons  for  Sapir's  reorientation  of  his  linguistics  and  eihnolog> 
toward  psychology  are  complex,  both  personally  and  intellect uall> 
(Darnell  1986a).  At  Columbia  as  a  graduate  student,  Sapir  did  not  share 
the  conviction  of  many  of  his  contemporaries  that  the  courses  o\' 
psychologist  J.  McLean  Cattell  were  important  for  fledgling  anthropi>l- 
ogists.  He  seems  to  have  ignored  Boas's  1911  pronouncement  in  Ihc 
Mind  of  Primitive  Man  that  anthropological  questions  were  ultimatel\ 
psychological.  For  Boas,  culture  was  a  largel\  unconscious  bods  o\' 
knowledge  subject  to  "secondary  rationalization"  which  was  to  be  dis- 
missed by  the  anthropologist  in  favour  of  his/her  own  analytic  inter- 
pretation. Sapir  agreed,  although  he  was  more  interested  in  language, 
which  -because  of  its  formal  structure  -  was  less  subicct  \o  sccoiuiar\ 
rationalization  than  was  culture  as  a  w  hole. 

Many  of  Boas's  followers  flirted  with  psychoanalysis  during  the  same 
period.  Alfred  Kroeber  even  became  a  lay  analyst  for  several  years  f  or 
Sapir,  these  intellectual  currents  gained  further  relevance  from  the  men- 
tal and  physical  illness  of  his  wife  Florence  from  about  l'-)!^  until  her 
death  in  1924.  Her  illness  gave  him  personal  motixcs  to  explore  diagnos- 
tic and  clinical  issues  in  psychology  and  psychiatrs. 

Throughout  this  period,  Sapir  was  increasingh  dissalislied  with  the 
reification  of  the  culture  concept  common  in  the  social  sciences.  His 


690  ///   Culture 

critique  of  the  superorganic  in  1917  reflects  his  increasing  reorientation 
toward  the  study  of  the  individual  in  relation  to  culture.  His  writing  of 
poetry  and  literary  criticism  and  dabbling  in  musical  composition  in 
this  same  period  also  encouraged  attention  to  the  psychological  dimen- 
sion of  human  life.  Indeed,  psychology  appears  to  have  meant  to  Sapir 
a  loose  analytic  focus  on  the  individual  rather  than  on  institutionalized 
structures.  Aesthetics  and  creativity  became  issues  for  him  in  relation 
to  his  literary  endeavors  but  came  to  influence  dramatically  his  model 
for  culture  as  a  whole. 

Sapir  corresponded  with  Boas's  friend  Frederick  Wells,  a  practising 
clinician  who  wanted  examples  from  "primitive  folklore"  to  compare 
with  dementia  praecox  among  his  patients.  Sapir  was  skeptical  of  the 
evolutionary  interpretation  of  the  primitive  implicit  in  the  Freudian  his- 
tory of  the  human  psyche.  Whether  or  not  Freud  saw  himself  as  describ- 
ing real  historical  events,  e.  g.,  in  the  Oedipus  complex,  Sapir  and  his 
anthropological  contemporaries  so  read  his  argument.  Sapir  was  further 
critical  of  Freud  for  citing  ethnographic  evidence  out  of  context,  thereby 
distorting  its  meaning.  Moreover,  Freud's  scheme  was  universal,  based 
on  species  biology,  a  difficult  position  for  anthropologists  habituated  to 
emphasize  diversity  rather  than  similarity  across  cultures. 

Nonetheless,  Sapir  was  not  prepared  to  throw  out  the  baby  with  the 
bath  water.  Although  his  mature  position  on  psychoanalysis  and  psychi- 
atry would  emerge  only  after  his  collaboration  with  Harry  Stack  Sulli- 
van from  1926  on,  these  early  reviews  set  the  groundwork  for  Sapir's 
later  position. 

In  "Freud,  Delusion  and  Dream"  (1917),  Sapir  praised  the  intuition 
in  Freud's  interpretation  of  a  fantasy  novel,  though  he  questioned  the 
literary  quality  of  the  work.  Sapir  offered  a  cultural  explanation  of  the 
independent  match  between  Freud  and  the  novelist  on  grounds  of 
shared  culture.  He  saw  no  relevance  of  this  work  to  testing  the  scientific 
validity  of  psychoanalysis. 

Also  in  1917,  Sapir  reviewed  Oskar  Pfister  on  psychoanalytic  method. 
Differences  among  Freud's  disciples  appeared  to  him  quite  minor.  After 
all  the  uncritical  enthusiasm  died  away,  Sapir  saw  a  core  of  useful  in- 
sight -  the  identification  of  repressed  emotions  which  could  enter  into 
consciousness  in  various  ways.  Sapir  applied  this  insight  to  cuhural 
anthropology  through  cultural  symbolisms.  Among  his  list  of  positive 
features  of  the  emerging  discipHne,  Sapir  found  this  the  most  useful  in 
his  own  work. 


Three:  Assessments  of  Psk  holoi^v  aiui  PsychUiirv  691 

A  few  years  lalei.  Sapir  tiiiiiecl  ti^  Hniish  psyehologist  and  anlhrt^pol- 
ogisl  W.  M.  R.  Ri\eis.  wliDse  hisiuut  und  the  Unnmscious  (1921)  per- 
suaded him  ihal  ps\ehoanalysis  did  not  ha\e  lo  be  iTeudian  lo  be  eredi- 
ble  in  relation  to  anthropology.  Indeed,  Ri\ers'  posilii>n  was  eonsisicnl 
with  British  funetionalism,  then  emerging  as  a  major  Fiielhod  ot  anlhro- 
pologieal  analysis.  Mechanisms  o\'  ps\chic  organization  uere  eompali- 
ble  with  cross-cultural  \ariation.  Objecting  to  Rivers'  biological  analo- 
gies, however,  Sapir's  claim  that  earh  man  was  no  dilTerent  from  his 
modern  counterpart  was  consistent  with  the  Boasian  tradition  of  his 
own  training. 

R.  S.  Woodworth's  book  (1922)  was  a  conventional  text  lor  non- 
psychologists  by  a  Columbia  professor.  Sapir.  in  line  with  his  oun  devel- 
oping position,  proposed  that  the  concept  o\'  personality  wt>uld  allou 
Woodworth  to  integrate  behaviorism  and  physiology  with  the  Ireudian 
unconscious  and  cultural  symbolism.  "Individual  histor> "  would  clarify 
the  nature  of  the  mind.  Sapir  questioned,  however,  the  ease  with  which 
Woodworth  assumed  he  could  equate  "the  inner  feel  o\'  alien  minds" 
with  his  own  intuitions  about  his  own  society;  as  a  fieldworker.  Sapn 
knew  it  was  more  complicated. 

Frederick  Pierce  (1922)  attempted  to  provide  a  textbook  of  psycho- 
logical advice  for  Americans.  Sapir  found  the  effort  largeK  unsuccessful 
but  was  intrigued  by  Pierce's  unintentional  characieri/atiinis  o{  .Ameri- 
can attitudes  toward  culture  and  science.  Both  anthropology  and 
psychology  could  interpret  these  artifacts.  This  argument  undoubtedly 
draws  on  Sapir's  own  critique  of  American  societv.  written  no\  long 
before  this  review  ("Culture,  Genuine  and  Spurious,"  this  volume). 

Sapir's  review  of  Jung's  Psycliolo^ical  Types  (1923)  retlecled  genuine 
enthusiasm,  a  breakthrough  in  his  own  undersiaiuling  o\'  personalilv 
organization  and  the  incommensurable  worlds  o\'  introvert  and  extra- 
vert.  As  a  social  scientist,  however,  Sapir  missed  case  studies  which 
would  provide  behavioral  bases  for  the  psychological  tvpes.  Readme 
Jung  seems  to  have  provided  Sapir  with  a  catharsis:  he  CiMilemplaled 
his  own  temperament  through  these  categories. 

Jung  was  generally  popular  among  the  Boasians.  In  the  mid-lwenties. 
Sapir  and  many  of  his  colleagues  enjoyed  applvmg  the  persi>naliiv  ivpcs 
not  only  to  ethnographically  familiar  cultures  but  alsi>  lo  familiar  in- 
dividuals. Margaret  Mead  (ed.  1959)  recalled  Sapir  and  Alexander 
Goldenweiser's  enthusiasm  for  this  parlor  game  at  the  British  .-VssiKia- 
tion  for  the  Advancement  of  Science  meeting  in  loronto  in  1924.  De- 
spite the  playful  quality  of  such  conversations.  Sapir  believed  ihai  his 


692  ^tf  Culture 

success  in  applying  such  categories  to  known  individuals  provided  an 
independent  test  of  the  validity  and  replicabihty  of  the  Jungian  method, 
in  Tlic  Psvclioloi^y  of  Culfiirc,  he  developed  a  more  extended  discussion 
o(  Jung  and  experimented  with  applying  the  types  to  other  cultures. 
Neither  Sapir  nor  any  other  of  his  generation,  however,  seriously  at- 
tempted to  take  the  next  step  and  apply  the  categories  systematically  to 
other  cultures. 

Sapir's  lack  of  enthusiasm  for  Knight  Dunlap  (1925)  reduced  him  to 
revamping  the  author's  definition  of  humour  in  terms  of  "an  intuitive 
grasp  of  certain  formal  incongruities,"  an  analysis  consistent  with 
Sapir's  treatment  of  linguistic  form  (see  Language,  Sapir  192 Id  and 
"Sound  Patterns  in  Language,"  Sapir  1925p). 

The  review  of  anthropologist  George  A.  Dorsey  on  human  behavior 
(1926)  was  Sapir's  first  psychological  review  for  a  technical  professional 
audience;  it  appeared  in  the  American  Journal  of  Sociology  the  year 
after  his  appointment  to  the  University  of  Chicago.  Sapir  was  appalled 
by  Dorsey 's  popular  style  and  his  failure  to  address  the  application  of 
the  concept  of  cultural  "stimuli"  to  human  behavior;  further,  Dorsey 's 
definition  of  culture  lacked  any  focus  on  symbolism.  Sapir  did  not  re- 
treat from  his  own,  incompatible,  position. 

The  review  of  Jean  Piaget  on  child  language  (1927)  reflects  Sapir's 
exploration  of  the  variety  of  contemporary  schools  of  psychology.  He 
was  impressed  by  Piaget's  methodology  for  studying  child  language, 
which  he  found  parallel  to  that  of  the  field  ethnographer.  In  line  with 
his  own  theoretical  position,  the  review  focused  on  the  transition  from 
egocentric  to  socialized  speech,  the  link  between  the  individual  and  the 
cultural  in  life  history.  Since  Sapir  saw  language  as  intuitively  appre- 
hended symbolism  oriented  to  aesthetic  and  expressive  purposes  -  an 
unconsciously  developing  whole  with  function  secondary  to  form  - 
Piaget's  cognitive  psychology  was  more  palatable  to  him  as  a  psychol- 
ogy of  language  than  was  either  behaviorism  or  psychoanalysis.  Fur- 
ther. Piaget's  emphasis  on  the  emergence  of  effective  communicafion  fit 
with  Sapir's  claim  that  each  individual  has  a  unique  version  of  his/her 
culture. 

In  reviewing  Freud's  The  Future  of  an  Illusion  (1928),  Sapir  was  highly 
critical  of  the  analysis  in  terms  of  a  primal  Oedipus  complex.  He  further 
objected  to  the  standard  psychological  equation  of  children  with  neuro- 
tics and  primitives,  concluding  that  Freud  was  more  engaging  as  clini- 
cian than  as  "social  philosopher  and  prophet." 


Three:  Assessments  of  Psydioloi^v  and  Psychiatry  693 

Psychology  and  psychiatr\  had  helped  Sapir  to  tormulatc  his  own 
theory  of  cuhure,  hui  he  rejecied  most  of  ilieir  classic  formulations  on 
grounds  of  anthropological  non-sophislicalion.  The  psychiatry  he 
found  most  suited  to  his  own  ideas  -  that  of  Harry  Stack  Sullivan  - 
was  still  very  new  in  the  late  192()'s  and  does  not  appear  in  this  collec- 
tion o\'  reviews.  Nor  did  Sapir  publish  any  re\iew  o\'  KoHVa's  gcstalt 
psychology,  an  approach  he  also  found  congenial.  [:ven  while  appropri- 
ating some  of  these  insights,  however,  Sapir  remained  fundamentally  an 
anthropologist  in  spite  of  his  fascination  with  various  forms  of  ps\elu)l- 
ogy  from  1917  on. 


Review  of  Sigmund  Frciid. 
Delusion  and  Drcani 

Sigmund  Freud,  Delusion  luul  Drcdni:  An  Infcrpinmion  in  ilic  iJs^hi 
of  Psychoanalysis  r>/"Gradiva,  a  Novel,  by  W'ilhchn  Jensen.  lYanslalcd 
by  Helen  M.  Downey.  Moffat,  Yard  &  Co..  1917. 

To  what  extent  can  true  psychologic  insight,  not  n>nscic)usl\  deter- 
mined by  objective  experience,  be  credited  to  the  literary  artist?  Is  there 
such  a  thing  as  an  intuition  or  instinct  of  psychic  verity  anticipating, 
nay  transcending,  the  more  laborious  constructions  o\'  the  systematic 
psychologist?  And  has  the  latter  nothing  but  admiration  and  envy  for 
the  great  artist's  unguided,  yet  infallible,  iinrax clings  o\'  the  mysteries 
of  the  human  soul?  Perhaps.  At  least  we  may  grant  without  fear  i>f 
contradiction  that  modern  psychology  might  rest  content  uith  the  as- 
surance of  but  half  the  grasp  of  mental  phenomena  that  the  great  arms 
of  Shakespearean  interpreters  have,  at  one  lime  cUid  place  or  another, 
ascribed  to  their  liege  lord.  And  how  does  it  stand  with  ps>choanalysis? 
Have  the  not  altogether  self-evident  psychic  mechanisms  that  I'reud  has 
disinterred  tor  us  ever  been  anticipated  in  toio  in  a  work  o\'  fiction?  It 
is  not  a  question  of  whether  this  or  that  isolated  bit  oi  psychoanal>lic 
theory  finds  its  parallel  or  confirmation  in  litLMaiure  such  con- 
vergences of  thought  may  be  instanced  by  the  hundred  but  o\'  \s  heiher 
there  are  to  be  found  anywhere  a  literary  plot  and  an  iinderl>mg  ps\- 
chological  analysis  that  are  comparable  to  a  typical  ps\clu>anal>iic  clin- 
ical picture. 

The  latest  addition  of  Messrs.  MotTat,  Yard  &  Co.  to  their  rapid!) 
growing  library  of  psychoanalytic  literature  undertakes  to  answer  this 
question.  It  consists  oi^  two  parts:  a  short  novel,  or  .\ovelle.  b>  the 
prolific  German  writer  Wilhelm  Jensen,  entitled  (iraJiva.  a  Pompcium 
Fancy;  and  a  Freudian  interpretation  o\'  this  \\o\\  o\'  fiction.  Delusion 
and  Dream  in  Jensen's  [636]  Gradi\a.  The  intrinsic  literary  merit  o\ 
Gradiva  hardly  concerns  us,  except  in  so  far  as  it  puts  us  in  an  imliaih 
responsive  or  begrudging  mood  when  confri>nled  b\  the  succeeding 
commentary.  The  translator,  as  usual  m  these  MotTat.  ^ard  &  Co.  trans- 


696  ///   Ciilli'rc 

Unions  from  the  CiLMiiian,  has  done  her  best  to  create  a  haze  of  lit- 
cralness  separating  us  from  too  close  intellectual  contact  with  the  writer, 
yet  I  doubt  whether  even  the  best  type  of  rendering  would  have  altoge- 
ther made  credible  Kreud's  own  estimate  of  the  aesthetic  value  of  the 
story.  It  has  the  same  heavy  combination  of  sentimental  fancy  and 
rather  coarse  jocularity  that,  in  such  tales  as  "Die  Nonna"  and  "Hoher 
als  die  Kirche/'  was  served  up  to  us  in  high-school  days.  The  "fancy" 
wings  Its  night  in  comfortable  view  of  German  Gemiltlichkeit.  It  is  with 
somewhat  o'i  a  shock  that  we  learn  that  the  Gustav  Freitag-Paul  Heyse 
type  of  sentimentality  was  still  flourishing  in  Germany  in  1903;  presum- 
ably its  germs  are  still  intact.  Of  the  jocular  note  running  through  Jen- 
sen's fantasia  Freud  seems  a  bit  oblivious,  perhaps  because  there  are 
weightier  matters  at  hand.  And  yet,  that  Freud's  sense  of  humor  is  not 
altogether  in  abeyance  and  that  he  is  aware  of  the  smallness  of  the  step 
that  separates  interpretative  acuity  from  flightiness  is  shown  by  the  final 
remark  with  which  he  calls  a  halt  to  his  own  resourcefulness:  "But  we 
must  stop  or  we  may  forget  that  Hanold  and  Gradiva  are  only  creatures 
of  our  author."  All  psychoanalysts  who  are  capable  of  making  reserva- 
tions should  thank  Freud  for  this  sly  dig  in  his  own  ribs. 

Let  all  this  not  obscure  the  fact  that  Freud  makes  a  case,  and  indeed 
a  very  plausible  and  sharp-witted  one.  Aside  from  certain  shortcomings, 
psychoanalytically  considered,  of  Jensen  himself,  and  aside  from  a  few 
cases  of  rather  evident  overdoing  it  on  Freud's  part,  the  accord  of  Grad- 
iva  with  psychoanalytic  requirements  is  remarkable  enough,  however 
one  chooses  to  explain  it,  and  this  despite  the  obvious  fact  that  the 
suggestion  of  anything  like  psychological  plausibility  was  far  from  Jen- 
sen's conscious  mind.  That  Jensen  intended  to  move  almost  entirely  in 
the  realm  of  pure  fancy  is  indicated  by  two  or  three  of  his  assumptions, 
assumptions  credible  only  in  a  fantasia.  The  reader  of  the  novel  must 
take  for  granted,  without  motivation,  the  complete  identity  in  appear- 
ance and  manner  of  walking  of  Zoe  Bertgang,  the  long-forgotten  child- 
hood playmate  of  Hanold,  the  archaeologist,  and  of  Gradiva  of  the 
bas-relief  dug  up  at  Pompeii;  the  meeting  of  Zoe  and  Hanold,  who  are 
next-door  neighbors  in  a  German  town,  in  Pompeii  itself;  and  the  fact 
of  Hanold's  strange  forgetfulness.  The  nucleus  of  the  tale  is  the  abnor- 
mal interest  that  Hanold  takes  in  the  bas-relief,  more  particularly  in 
Gradiva's  very  peculiar  trick  of  lifting  the  foot  in  walking.  Psychoana- 
lytically, this  interest,  which  leads  to  fancies  of  a  delusive  nature,  is 
mterpretable  as  a  substitutive  form  of  expression  of  the  sexual  instinct, 
all  direct  and  normal  manifestations  of  which  have  been  denied  an  out- 


Three:  Assessments  of  Psyilwloi;\  utnl  I'sycluatry  697 

let  by  the  conscicnis  self.  I  he  reasiMi  lor  ihe  repression,  however,  is  nol 
evident,  for  Hanold's  intensive  preoeeupation  with  elassical  archaeology 
is.  at  best,  but  an  occasion  or  shaping  circumstance,  nol  a  suiricient 
cause.  At  least  so  psychoanalysis;  Jensen  mas  have  other  ideas  olvshal 
constitutes  causality  in  a  fantasia.  As  the  only  sexually  ulili/able  mate- 
rial antedating  the  repression  is  Hanold's  childish  relations  to  Zoe,  now 
"remembered"  only  by  the  unconscious,  it  is  natural  that  the  dammed 
instinct  should  feed  on  a  representation  linked,  \ia  this  unconscious 
memory,  with  his  childish  past.  We  have,  therefore,  in  Hanold's  infatua- 
tion with  the  bas-relief  a  typical  example  o{  the  unconscious  infantile 
fixation  which  is  so  frequently  at  the  back  of  neurotic  phenomena.  His 
delusional  fancies  are,  in  effect,  a  compromise  formation  induced  by 
two  contlicting  volitional  streams,  the  sexual  impulse  and  the  repressive 
force;  they  "satisfy"  the  former  through  the  power  o['  an  unconscious 
series  of  associations,  the  latter  by  guaranteeing  a  flight  from  sexual 
reality.  The  psychoanalytic  complexion  of  Jensen's  (innli\a  extends  far 
beyond  this  delusional  nucleus  to  a  considerable  number  o\^  details. 
Emotional  transference,  rationalization  of  motive,  unconscious  symbol- 
ization  of  desire,  regression  to  infantile  experiences  -  all  these  familiar 
aspects  of  Freudian  thinking  find,  or  seem  to  find,  tYequent  illustration 
in  the  novel.  The  very  name  Gradiva,  "splendid  in  walking,"  which  has 
been  bestowed  by  Hanold  on  the  girl  of  the  bas-relief  turns  out  to  be. 
as  Jensen  himself  points  out,  but  the  Latinized  equivalent  o\'  the  living 
girl's  surname,  Bertgang;  that  Hanold  fancies  somehiing  Hellenic  in  the 
features  of  the  Pompeiian  girl  is  a  distorted  reflex  o\^  the  unconsciousK 
remembered  name  Zoe;  his  sudden  departure  for  PcMiipeii.  apparentl) 
a  poorly  motivated  caprice,  is  plausibly  explained  by  lYeud  as  s\ niboliz- 
ing  both  his  desire  for  Zoe-Gradiva  (consciouslv  rationalized  as  an  ab- 
surd quest  of  Gradiva's  peculiar  footprints  in  the  lava  o\'  Pomix'ii)  (6.'^7] 
and  his  unconscious  fear  of  Zoe,  the  work  of  the  repressiiMi.  lo  al  least 
some  extent  Freud's  detailed  analyses  o\^  two  o\'  the  dreams  introduced 
by  Jensen  carry  conviction,  but  onlv  to  some  extent  The  treatment  of 
the  "latent  content"  of  the  dreams  is  less  plausible  than  the  analysis  of 
the  delusions.  This  is  precisely  as  it  should  be,  for  the  chances  of  con- 
structing dreams  possessing  psychological  verisimilitude  are  not  very 
high.  Finally,  the  cure  o\'  Hanold's  delusions  elfected  bv  Zoe  ma>  be 
described  as  an  abridged  replica  of  the  I  reudian  psvchi>therap>. 

What  are  we  to  make  o\'  it  all?  Jensen  himself  '"tesiilv"  denied  all 
knowledge  of  psychoanalysis.  .\re  we  then,  with  Ireud.  driven  lo  ascribe 
to  Jensen  a  high  degree  o^  instinctive  psvchological  insight,  an  arlisl's 


698  ///  Culture 

intiiilion  that  more  than  makes  up  for  ignorance  of  psychological  the- 
ory".' In  view  of  the  very  moderate  artistic  ability  displayed  by  Jensen 
and  the  obvious  lack  of  deep  earnestness  in  his  treatment  of  the  plot, 
one  hesitates  to  commit  himself  to  Freud's  thesis.  We  might  be  less 
disinclined  to  follow  Freud  if  the  author  of  Gradiva  were  a  Shakespeare, 
a  Balzac,  or  a  Dostoevsky.  Perhaps  we  are  unfair  to  Jensen.  An  unpreju- 
diced survey  of  his  other  works  might  bring  conviction.  Yet  would  it, 
after  all,  be  rash  to  seek  a  less  ambitious  explanation  in  what  the  ethnol- 
ogists term  "cultural  convergence"?  Jensen  might  have  started  with  the 
purely  mechanical  idea  of  tying  an  arbitrarily  interrupted  past  to  a  sen- 
timental present  and  have  hit  upon  the  device  of  unconscious  sous- 
cntcndus  as  a  convenient  means.  This  would  be  tantamount  to  an  un- 
conscious aping  of  the  psychoanalytic  procedure.  It  would  also  explain 
Jensen's  failure  to  motivate  what  Freud  interprets  as  a  repression.  Or, 
still  more  plausibly,  a  modicum  of  psychological  insight,  say  into  the 
facts  of  unconscious  memory,  may  have  been  helped  out  by  such  a 
mechanical  device  as  is  here  suggested. 

However  we  decide  as  to  the  psychoanalytic  credentials  of  Wilhelm 
Jensen,  we  may  accept  Freud's  study  as  a  sugar-coated  introduction  to 
the  subject  of  psychoanalysis  itself.  As  such  it  may  have  its  uses.  A 
scientific  confirmation  of  Freudian  psychology  it  can  hardly  claim  to 
be.  While  it  does  not  seem  to  the  reviewer  to  represent  a  full  day's  work 
in  the  psychoanalytic  workshop,  it  is  too  good  a  thing  to  be  dismissed 
as  the  vagary  of  an  off  day.  May  not  Freud  have  taken  a  half-holiday 
when  he  wrote  it? 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  The  Dial  63,  635-637  (1917),  under  the  title 
"A  Freudian  Half-Holiday."  Reprinted  by  permission  of  The  Dial. 


Review  of  Oskar  Pfislcr. 
TJic  Psycliodiuilylic  Method 

Oskar  Pfister,  The  Psychoanalytic  Method.  Translated  by  Charles 
Rockwell  Payne.  2nd:  MotTat.  Yard  &  Co..  1915. 

The  Freudian  psychology  has  travelled  a  course  thai  might  have  been 
predicted  with  tolerable  certainty.  Al  fusi  received  with  mingled  derision 
and  disgust,  it  has  now  attained  a  position  not  only  o\'  \  irtual  security 
but,  one  is  almost  tempted  to  say  unfortunately,  of  \ery  genuine  and 
widespread  popularity.  Whitmanesque  poets  sing  paeans  to  Jung's  li- 
bido, one  of  the  metaphysical  offshoots  of  the  psychoanalytic  nio\e- 
ment,  while  half-baked  doctors  fearlessly  disentangle  homosexual 
"complexes"  at  the  end  of  a  first  half-hour's  consultation  with  hssierical 
patients.  Those  who  are  profoundly  convinced  o\'  the  epoch-making 
importance  of  the  psychological  mechanisms  revealed  by  F'reud  and. 
even  more,  of  the  extraordinary  suggestiveness  o\'  numerous  lines  o\' 
inquiry  opened  up  by  psychoanalysis,  without,  at  the  same  time,  being 
blind  to  criticisms  that  need  to  be  made  of  certain  aspects  of  psschoana- 
lytic  theory,  can  only  hope  and  pray  that  this  not  altogether  health) 
overpopularity  of  the  subject  prove  no  hindrance  to  the  siud>  o\'  the 
perplexing  problems  with  which  the  Freudian  psychology  bristles.  W  hat 
is  sorely  needed  at  the  present  time,  or  will  be  before  man>  years,  is  a 
thoroughly  objective  probing  into  the  new  psychoU>g>  with  a  spct^-ial 
view  to  seeking  out  the  paths  of  reconciliation  with  the  older  orthodox 
psychology  of  conscious  states  and  lo  the  rigorous  elimination  ol  all 
aspects  of  Freudian  theory  that  seem  dispensable  or  ill-substantiated. 
The  present  militant  attitude  of  the  psychoanalysts  toward  their  skepti- 
cal schoolmasters  is  naturally  but  a  passing  phase.  I'he  opposed  schools 
of  psychological  interpretation  will  have  to  meet  each  other  halfway 
and  effect  a  common  modus  vivcmh. 

For  the  present  it  is  obvious  that  the  personal  bias  o\  the  brilliant 
founder  of  psychoanalysis  has  gi\en  the  l-reudian  ps\cholog>  more 
than  one  twist  that  is  not  altogether  necessitated  by  its  inxaluable  kernel 
-  the  proof  of  the  existence  o\^  the  unconscious  mind  o\'  emotionally 


700  ///  Culture 

toned  "complexes,"  repressed  trends  that  are  directly  elaborated  out  of 
the  instinctive  life  and  that  leak  out  into  consciousness  in  a  large 
number  o^  superficially  dissimilar  psychic  phenomena,  for  example, 
dreams,  automatic  and  compulsive  reactions,  neurotic  symptoms.  A 
firm  belief  in  the  \alidity  o{  the  main  lines  of  psychological  theory  set 
forth  b>  hreud  by  no  means  necessitates  an  unreserved  adherence  to 
such  incidental  concomitants  as  his  apparently  one-sided  interpretation 
of  sexual  perversions  or  his  general  conception  of  the  compound  nature 
o\^  the  sexual  instinct.  At  the  least,  very  radical  shiftings  of  emphasis 
are  certain  to  emerge.  An  analogous  development  has  characterized  the 
history  of  the  theory  of  organic  evolution.  Only  recently  has  the  original 
Darwinian  bias  toward  an  overemphasis  of  the  factor  of  natural  selec- 
tion yielded  to  the  proper  evaluation  of  other  factors.  The  inertia  of 
impetus  given  by  the  founder  of  a  radical  scientific  departure  is,  indeed, 
one  o\'  the  most  humiliating,  one  of  the  most  ironically  human,  things 
about  the  history  of  science.  So  far  there  seems  to  be  a  disposiiton  on 
the  part  of  psychoanalysts  to  accept  the  whole  Freudian  programme  at 
practically  its  face  value.  What  criticism  there  is  within  the  ranks  is 
chiefly  on  matters  of  relatively  minor  import.  Even  the  Jung  sedition, 
o^  which  so  much  is  made,  consists  of  hardly  more,  it  would  seem,  than 
a  tendency  to  generalize  and  carry  further  some  of  the  more  doubtful 
elements  of  Freud's  theoretical  groundwork.  I  refer  particularly  to 
Jung's  handling  of  symbolization  as  an  interpretative  principle  and  to 
his  reckless  application  of  the  principles  of  individual  psychoanalysis  to 
cultural  phenomena. 

We  shall  be  disappointed  if  we  turn  to  Pfister's  extensive  treatise  in 
the  hope  of  finding  such  a  critical  and  reconciliatory  survey  of  psycho- 
analytic research.  It  does  not  advance  the  subject  very  perceptibly  in 
the  direction  indicated.  There  is,  to  be  sure,  a  fair  amount  of  critical 
comment  en  passant  on  particular  Freudian  positions,  but  the  whole  is 
mainly  a  summary,  and  a  very  convenient  and  useful  one,  of  the  typical 
psychoanalytic  interpretations.  The  greater  part  of  the  book  deals  with 
the  analysis  and  mechanism  of  repression,  constant  use  being  made  of 
case  material.  The  latter  portion  deals  with  the  application  as  a  practical 
technique  of  the  theory  developed  in  detail  in  the  preceding  pages.  What 
particularly  distinguishes  The  Psychoanalytic  Method  is  the  emphasis 
placed  upon  the  usefulness  and  future  possibilities  of  psychoanalysis  for 
pedagogic  purposes,  curative  and  prophylactic.  We  learn,  for  instance, 
that  lack  of  success  in  the  business  of  teaching  is  to  no  inconsiderable 
degree  due  to  the  presence  of  powerful  repressions  in  teachers  them- 


Three:  Assessmenis  of  Psycholoio  and  I'syeliiutry  "TOl 

selves.  May  we  hope  that  when  pedagogues  and  sludenls  alike  (268) 
shall  have  had  the  obstructive  cobwebs  cleared  mit  o\'  their  unconscious 
by  psychoanalytic  examination,  we  shall  be  able  to  bid  welcome  to  an 
educational  regime  that  with  conscious  intelligence  frames  a  pedagogi- 
cal technique  bearing  a  genuine  relation  to  the  lite  problems  of  its  sub- 
jects? 

The  book,  while  nowhere  rising  to  the  brilliance  of  some  of  the  Freud- 
ian writings  themselves,  is  probably  the  most  careful  and  inclusive  pre- 
sentation yet  published  in  English  of  the  results  attained  and  the  theo- 
ries elaborated  by  Freud  and  his  followers.  It  excels  in  this  respect  such 
works  as  Brill's  Psychoanalysis  and  Hitschmanirs  Freud's  Theories  of 
the  Neuroses.  Unfortunately,  Dr.  Payne's  translation  can  claim  only  a 
moderate  measure  of  success.  The  overliteralness  o\^  the  renderings  has 
given  numerous  passages  an  irksome  awkwardness  and,  cK-casionally, 
obscurity.  One  needs  sometimes  to  translate  back  to  the  (jerman  to 
arrive  at  the  intended  nuance  of  meaning. 

Let  us  turn,  now,  to  the  theoretical  structure  reared  by  the  psychoan- 
alysts. We  are  entitled  to  ask:  Leaving  all  questions  o{'  anal\  tic  detail 
and  technique  to  one  side,  what  are  some  of  the  basic  contributions  of 
the  Freudian  school  to  psychologic  thinking?  First  and  foremost,  I 
should  say,  is  the  new  spirit  of  attitude  and  method  that  psychoanalysis 
has  introduced  into  the  study  of  the  mind.  The  orthodox  psychology, 
for  all  its  disavowal  of  the  older  faculty-mongering,  has  never  reall\ 
succeeded  in  grasping  the  vast  network  of  individual  mental  phenomena 
as  a  single  growth  rooting  in  the  most  primiiive  t>pe  o\^  mental  life  ue 
know  of,  the  instinctive  life.  It  would  be  too  much  to  say  that  psycho- 
analysis has  succeeded  in  reconstructing  the  c^der  of  dilTerentialion  o^ 
mental  phenomena,  but  it  has  taken  a  more  patient  attitude  toward  the 
actual  dynamics  of  the  individual  mind  and  is  thus  in  a  better  position 
to  ferret  out  gradually  the  development  o[^  the  fundamenial  instincls 
into  the  higher  forms  of  mentality.  Psychoanalysis  takes  hold  of  chunks 
of  mental  life  as  they  present  themselves  in  experience;  it  does  not  ab- 
stract driblets  of  mental  experience  for  the  purpose  of  classifNing  ihcm 
and  examining  them  under  the  microscope,  in  brief,  the  older  psychol- 
ogy is  an  anatomy  o{  mind,  somciimcs  icrincti;  |">s>choanalysis  is  an 
entering  wedge  toward  a  physiology  o^  mind,  generally  quite  crude  lor 
the  present.  From  the  clear  recognition  o\'  this  ditVerence  ot  method 
results  the  conviction  that  the  two  types  of  psychologic  mquirv  are  not 
in  any  true  sense  opposed  to  each  other.  rhe>  merel>  attack  their  sub- 


702  Jit  Culture 

jcct-mattcr  from  distinct  viewpoints.  They  will,  each  of  them,  in  the 
long  run  be  found  to  be  indispensable  and  mutually  reconcilable. 

The  second  point  of  capital  importance  that  we  must  set  down  to  the 
credit  o^  psychoanalysis  is  the  light  it  has  thrown  on  the  nature  and 
functioning  o^  tlic  unconscious.  To  psychoanalysis  the  unconscious  is 
not  merely  a  negative  ileus  e.\  imichma  which  does  convenient  service  in 
the  explanation  of  memory  and  in  the  positing  of  a  continuity  of  per- 
sonalitv.  It  is  a  very  real  and  active  domain  from  which  are  worked  the 
strings  that  move  about  the  puppets  of  the  conscious  self.  The  naive 
assumption  of  a  self-contained  consciousness  whose  motivation  is  safely 
interpretable  in  terms  of  conscious  data  alone  has  been  exposed  by  the 
Ireudian  psychology  as  a  huge  fallacy. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  and  promising  vistas  that  have  been 
opened  up.  though  I  find  it  but  little  stressed  by  the  psychoanalysts 
themsel\  es.  is  the  quantitative  consideration  of  emotion  and  will.  I  am 
not  referring  to  the  measuring  of  reactions  under  controlled  experimen- 
tal conditions.  When  psychoanalysis  tells  us  that  the  emotion  belonging 
to  a  certain  trend  is  not  always  discharged  in  the  consciousness  but  may 
in  part  be  inhibited  in  the  unconscious  or  transferred  to  other  reactions, 
we  are  evidently  confronted  by  certain  quantitative  implications.  It 
seems  difficult  to  avoid  the  inference  of  a  certain  specific,  theoretically 
measurable,  sum  of  emotion  or  volitional  impulse  which  can  be  divided 
up  and  distributed  in  a  great  variety  of  ways.  The  elaboration  of  the 
concepts  that  follow  on  the  heels  of  this  hypothesis  has  been  but  begun. 
It  would  not  be  surprising  if  this  glimmer  of  a  quanfitafive  understand- 
ing of  mental  functioning  blossomed  out  in  time  to  an  exactness  of 
comprehension  of  psychological  processes  such  as  we  have  hardly  an 
inkling  of  at  present. 

Among  the  more  readily  defined  and  generally  recognized  insights 
that  we  owe,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  Freud  are  the  genetic  analysis  and 
the  treatment  of  the  neuroses,  to  a  much  smaller  extent  also  of  the 
psychoses  (forms  of  insanity);  the  frequency  and  radical  importance  of 
symbol-formation  in  the  unconscious  mind,  understanding  of  which  is 
sure  to  prove  indispensable  for  an  approach  to  the  deeper  problems  of 
religion  and  art;  the  analysis  and  interpretafion  of  [269]  dreams;  the 
basic  importance  of  the  psychic  sexual  constitution,  not  merely  in  its 
proper  functional  sphere,  but  also  in  connections  that  seem  unrelated; 
the  far-reaching  importance  of  infanfile  psychic  experiences  in  adult  life 
and  the  ever-present  tendency  to  regression  to  them;  and  the  general 
light  thrown  on  the  problem  of  mental  determinatism.  Many  other 


Three:  Assessments  of  Psycholoi^y  and  Psychitilrv  703 

points  might  be  enumerated,  some  cleaii\  defiiied.  others  eonimversial. 
Indeed,  there  has  scarcely  e\er  been  a  new  road  opened  m  science  thai 
so  spontaneously  and  rruitfully  branched  oul  \n\o  tributary  trails.  It  is 
true  that  hardly  anything  is  known  of  the  psychoanalytic  problems  and 
solutions  with  absolutely  satisfying  clarity.  Yet  it  takes  no  bold  man  to 
assert  that  enough  has  been  glimpsed  to  j-ironiise  perhaps  the  greatest 
fructification  that  the  study  of  mind  has  \et  experienced. 


Editorial  Notes 

Originally  published  in  The  Dial  63,  267-269  (1917),  under  the  title 
'Psychoanalysis  as  a  Pathfinder."  Reprinted  by  permission  o\'  The  Dial. 


Review  of  W.  H.  R.  Rivers, 
Instinct  and  the  Unconscious 

W.  H.  R.  Rivers,  Instinct  and  the  Unconscious,  a  Contribution  to  a 
Bioloi^icu!  Theory  of  the  Psycho-neuroses.  New  York:  The  Macmillan 
Company.  1921. 

The  Freudian  psychology  has  ceased  to  be  a  mystical  body  of  prin- 
ciples which  are  either  to  be  accepted  holus-bolus,  like  the  half-under- 
stood tenets  of  a  cult,  or  to  be  rejected  outright  as  an  affront  to  intelli- 
gence and  decency.  The  more  fantastic  elements  of  this  new  psychology 
iia\c  separated  themselves  from  the  core  and  have  found  hospitality  in 
the  minds  of  certain  litterateurs,  while  the  core  itself  is  becoming  stead- 
ily integrated  with  the  older  psychologies  and  even  with  the  latest  work 
in  physiology.  Among  the  notable  efforts  to  appropriate  and  interpret 
what  is  of  patent  value  in  psychoanalytic  Hterature  without  heated  con- 
cern for  Freudian  and  anti-Freudian  dogma  is  Dr.  Rivers's  recent  book 
on  Instinct  and  the  Unconscious.  This  volume  of  modest  size  is  admira- 
ble in  tone  and  completely  lacking  in  verbiage.  It  moves  rapidly  from 
idea  to  idea,  clarifies  one  conception  after  another,  and  throws  out 
many  valuable  suggestions  by  the  way.  Above  all,  it  gives  us  a  biological 
point  of  view  which,  whether  wholly  tenable  or  not,  serves  to  link  psy- 
choanalytic theory  more  firmly  than  ever  withi  the  general  body  of 
research  on  man  as  a  psycho-physical  organism.  Dr.  Rivers  correlates 
the  passing  of  experience  into  the  unconscious  with  certain  instinctive 
mechanisms  and  considers  a  psycho-neurosis  as  a  "solution  of  a  conflict 
between  opposed  and  incompatible  principles  of  mental  activity,"  an 
archaic,  undifferentiated  type  of  response  and  a  later,  more  complex 
and  discriminating  system  of  adjustments  to  the  stimuH  of  the  environ- 
ment. His  main  purpose  thus  becomes  the  assignment  of  a  definite  bio- 
logical "function"  to  the  phenomena  of  unconscious  repression  -  "sup- 
pression" is  the  term  favoured  by  Dr.  Rivers. 

The  author  frankly  recognizes  the  possibility  of  errors  of  interpreta- 
tion resulting  from  the  selected  nature  of  his  data.  Dr.  Rivers  worked 
exclusively  with  war-patients,  in  whom  the  psychic  conflict  underlying 


Three:  Assessmcms  of  Psychology  ami  Psychiatry  705 

the  neurosis  was  presuiiiahls  ctMiiicetcd  with  the  iiisiinetivc  activities 
that  tend  to  preserve  the  organism  in  tlie  piescnce  of  danger.  Such  typi- 
cal neuroses  as  livsteria  and  Dr.  Ireuds  "anxiety-neurosis"  arc  here 
seen  as  morbid  responses  to  danger  which  dodge  the  frank  impulse  to 
night  without  leading  to  an  acceptance  by  the  organism  ol"  liie  etVectivc 
aggression  necessary  to  sur\i\al. 

The  neurotic  symptoms  dealt  with  by  Dr.  Rivers  in  his  war-work  were 
far  too  similar  to  those  that  Dr.  Kreud  and  other  psychoanalysts  had 
ascribed  to  a  sexual  origin  to  justify  us  in  considering  his  neuroses  as 
fundamentally  distinct  from  theirs.  We  are  thus  dri\en  ti>  conclude  that 
either  Dr.  Freud's  or  Dr.  Rivers's  interpretation  needs  correction  or 
ampliHcation  at  the  hands  o\^  the  other.  One  may  perhaps  suggest  that 
too  much  attention  has  been  bestowed  on  the  causati\e  \alue  of  particu- 
lar types  of  "complexes,"  that  the  frustrated  instincts  that  underlie  these 
complexes  are  by  no  means  the  neatly  sundered  reaction-systems  that 
they  appear  to  be  in  psychological  discussions,  and  that  the  ultimate 
physiological  cause  of  the  neurosis  will  be  found  to  rest  in  the  particular 
pattern  of  nervous  activity  implicit  in  the  individual  organism.  This 
pattern  may  be  conceived  of  as  always  in  operation  and  as  showing  up 
in  a  morbid  form  when  certain  of  its  elements  ha\c  hccii  mtensilled 
under  the  stress  of  emotion. 

All  individuals  have  conflicts  of  the  types  that  are  held  responsible 
for  a  neurosis,  whence  it  seems  to  follow  that  the  ditVerentiating  factor 
in  a  neurosis  must  be  of  a  quantitative  nature.  Certain  ner\ous  patterns 
allow  of  a  greater  give  than  others,  without  essential  loss  o\'  form.  \S'e 
can  hardly  hope  to  understand  the  rationale  of  suppression  and  neurosis 
until  we  have  a  theory  of  what  actually  happens  to  a  nerxous  impulse 
in  terms  of  relative  quantity,  speed,  acceleration,  and  dilTusion.  until,  in 
other  words,  we  can  actually  lay  out  the  typical  ncr\ous  rh>ihnis  o\  the 
individual  organism. 

Meanwhile,  Dr.  Rivers's  book  does  undoubtedly  indicate  that  l)i 
Freud  and  his  immediate  followers  have  entirel>  oxerdone  the  necessity 
of  sexual  elements  in  conflicts  powerful  enough  to  bring  on  a  neurosis. 
though  it  probably  remains  true  that  the  sexual  conflict  is  one  o\'  the 
most  potent  strains  that  the  human  organism  can  be  made  to  lx*ar.  Hie 
really  valuable  contribution  o\^  the  Freudian  school  seems  to  me  to  lie 
in  the  domain  o{  pure  psychology.  Nearl>  c\crything  that  is  specific  in 
Freudian  theory,  such  as  the  "Oedipux  complex"  as  a  normative  image 
or  the  definite  interpretation  of  certain  ssmbols  or  the  distincti\el\  sex- 
ual nature  of  certain  infantile  reactions,  may  well  prove  to  be  either  ill- 


706  III  Culture 

founded  or  seen  in  a  distorted  perspective,  but  there  can  be  little  doubt 
o'i  the  immense  service  that  Dr.  Freud  has  rendered  psychology  in  his 
revelation  of  typical  psychic  mechanisms.  Such  relational  ideas  as  the 
emotionally  integrated  complex,  the  tendency  to  suppression  under  the 
stress  of  a  conflict,  the  symptomatic  expression  of  a  suppressed  impulse, 
the  transfer  of  emotion  and  the  canalizing  or  pooling  of  impulses,  the 
tendency  to  regression,  are  so  many  powerful  clues  to  an  understanding 
o'i  how  the  "soul"  of  man  sets  to  work.  Psychology  will  not  willingly 
let  go  of  these  and  still  other  Freudian  concepts,  but  will  build  upon 
them,  gradually  coming  to  see  them  in  their  wider  significance.  Dr.  Riv- 
ers helps  us  in  this  appreciation  not  so  much  explicitly  as  implicitly. 
His  new  types  of  experience,  his  alternative  hypotheses,  and  his  general 
insistence  on  mechanism  at  the  expense  of  typical  content  give  us  the 
invaluable  touchstone  of  contrast. 

Dr.  Rivers  is  so  hurriedly  complete  in  his  survey,  so  eager  to  introduce 
clarity  into  his  concepts,  that  one  wonders  if  he  is  not  at  times  the 
victim  of  a  "definition-complex."  I  suspect  that  the  exclusiveness  of 
some  o{  his  definitions  may  result  in  a  too  rigid  handling  of  terms. 
The  obvious  reply  to  this  criticism  is  that  terms  do  not  commit  us  to 
interpretations,  but  merely  serve  as  handy  counters  in  proceeding  from 
point  to  point  of  a  discussion.  Yet  it  is  strange  how  often  the  preliminary 
scaffolding  of  a  scientific  structure  settles  into  its  unyielding  skeleton.  I 
am  inclined  to  believe  that  the  fluidity  of  some  of  the  Freudian  terms 
is  an  advantage  in  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge.  Not  only  does 
his  love  of  the  clean  definition  lead  Dr.  Rivers  to  make  distinctions 
which  are  [358]  perhaps  more  convincing  in  the  abstract  than  helpful 
towards  a  profounder  understainding,  but  it  betrays  him  into  the  accep- 
tance of  external  analogies  as  indicative  of  substantial  psychic  or  biolog- 
ical relationships. 

Throughout  the  book  Dr.  Rivers  is  imbued  with  the  typically  evolu- 
tionary concepts  of  the  former  biological  "function"  or  psychic  mecha- 
nisms that  serve  no  assignable  "purpose"  today.  Endless  post-Darwin- 
ian speculation  of  this  order  flows  through  many  of  our  psychologies, 
biologies,  and  even  sociologies.  The  instincts  in  particular  have  been  a 
famous  field  for  the  discovery  of  early  forms  of  invertebrate  behavior. 
With  the  vast  field  of  organic  activity  to  choose  from,  and  with  only  an 
elementary  knowledge  of  the  psychic  growth  of  man  as  race  and  as 
individual,  what  could  be  easier  than  to  frame  evolutionary  "explana- 
tions" of  obscure  types  of  behavior?  It  would  appear  that  man  as  a 
simian  tree-climber  and  as  an  epigone  of  the  amphibians  has  been  rather 


Three:  Assessments  of  Psyeholoi^y  ami  f'svchiatrv  707 

o\crtk>nc.  I  am  inclined  lo  l|iicsIioii  the  \alidil\  iil"  nuich  ol  I)r  Ki\cis  s 
own  sjicculalions  alonu  llicsc  Inics  and.  \n  iicncral.  u>  wonder  il"  ihc 
telcological  point  of  \icw  in  biology  is  not  a  tl.ingcrous  one.  parlieularK 
when  it  is  appHed  to  psychic  phenomena. 

Dr.  Rivers's  main  thesis  o\'  the  i elation  between  the  unconscious  of 
modern  man  and  an  instineti\e  beha\ioi"  tiial  at  one  time  had  freer  pla\ 
is  suggestively  argued,  though  whether  the  thesis  is  entirel\  sound  must 
ultimately  be  decided  by  closer  ph\siological  study.  Voo  little  is  known 
as  yet  of  the  physiology  of  human  instincts,  almost  nothing  of  the  ph\si- 
ology  lliai  underlies  psychic  suppression. 


Editorial  Nolo 

Originally  published  in  The  Tiecniun  5.  357-358  (1^)21).  under  the 
title  "'A  Touchstone  to  Freud.""  Reprinted  h\   permission  o\'  The  Tree- 

Dicin. 


Review  of  Frederick  Pierce, 
Our  Unconscious  Mind  and  How  to  Use  It 

Frederick  Pierce.  Ow  Unconscious  Mind  and  How  to  Use  It.  New 
York:  E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co.,  1922. 

We  Americans  are  often  accused  of  a  lack  of  interest  in  the  formal 
aspect  of  our  literary  and  scientific  writing.  An  essay  or  a  monograph, 
or,  for  that  matter,  an  illustrated  lecture,  we  hear  it  said,  will  proceed 
from  point  to  point,  from  idea  to  related  or  unrelated  idea,  without  a 
greater  concern  for  unity  than  is  implied  in  the  tied  interests  of  the 
writer  or  lecturer  and  with  little  more  appreciation  of  structure  than 
can  be  satisfied  by  scissors  and  glue  or  a  periodic  'To  turn  to  another 
subject."  The  present  volume  suggests  that  there  may  be  some  truth  in 
this  criticism.  Certainly,  the  publishers'  jacket  is  a  little  disturbing,  for 
in  the  alluring  "Partial  List  of  Subjects"  we  find  mentioned  endocrine 
glands,  psychoanalysis,  auto-suggestion,  bringing  up  successful  chil- 
dren, mating  problems,  and  new  principles  in  advertising.  The  book 
itself  confirms,  and  more  than  confirms,  the  publishers'  announcement. 

Mr.  Pierce's  miscellaneousness  is  by  no  means  the  result  of  wool- 
gathering. On  the  contrary,  it  proceeds  from  a  determined  desire,  an 
almost  frenetic  desire,  to  be  "practical."  Mr.  Pierce  believes  in  giving 
just  enough  Freudian  psychology,  just  enough  endocrinology,  just 
enough  of  a  glimpse  into  the  auto-suggestive  technique  of  the  "New 
Nancy"  school,  to  conjure  up  a  background  of  up-to-date  science 
against  which  he  may  throw  his  conception  of  how  the  American  hu- 
man ideal,  the  "successful"  man,  can  be  brought  into  being.  It  is  just 
because  his  eye  is  so  constantly  on  the  practical  upshot  of  all  this  new 
psychology,  on  the  possible  increase  in  effective  brains,  dollars  and 
cents,  total  output,  selling  value,  and  the  other  well-known  shibboleths 
which  may  result  from  psychoanalyzing  and  from  the  fixing  up  of 
glands,  that  he  fails  of  clarity  and  convincingness.  This  is  not  to  say 
that  there  is  not  something  of  value  in  Mr.  Pierce's  theoretical  founda- 
tions and  practical  advice.  The  point  is  that  in  his  haste  to  get  to  the 
advice  he  has  not  been  careful  to  build  the  thoroughly  intelligible  theory 
of  the  unconscious  that  he  would  need  to  apply. 


Three:  Assessnwnis  of  Psychology  ami  Psychiatry  709 

The  coiilrasl  wilh  I  rcuds  (iciwrnl  li]tr(Hhich(tn  to  Psychounalvsis  is 
striking.  This  book  also  is  inlendcd  tor  a  la>  pubhc.  bui  ii  is  honestly 
concerned,  fnsl  and  tbreniosl,  with  llie  iiradiial  de\elopnicnl  of  a  new 
and  still  debatable  psychological  lheor\.  Ihere  is  far  less  cocksureness 
m  It  than  in  the  science  o\'  Mr.  Pierce.  \sho  does  link*  more  than  pick 
Lip  here  and  there  tVoni  ps\choanal\  tic  literature,  generall\  diluting  and 
al\\a\s  furbishing  with  a  pretentious  terminologs.  Where  1  reud  silently 
suggests  practical  applications  of  crucial  importance.  Mr.  I*ierce  trum- 
pets the  practice  after  a  few  magical  passes  of  his  ps\choanal>tic  \sand. 
it  is  all  \ery  impressive  -  after  the  fashion  ol  the  pointed  linger  m 
"Fruitatives."  (Mr.  Pierce  would  be  the  last  one  to  object  to  the  compar- 
ison. His  final  chapter,  on  the  New  Psychology  in  Ad\ertising  and  Sell- 
ing, is  a  real  gospel  for  the  tribe  of  Carter's  Little  Li\er  Pills,  (jrapc 
Nuts,  and  Dutch  Cleanser.)  And  very  harmless,  after  all.  We  have  been 
too  unreasonably  frightened  by  Freud's  Stygian  shapes,  (or  here  is  a 
psNchoanalysis  that  is  "clean,"  as  the  publishers  ha\e  it.  and  that  all 
but  lisps,  polysyllabically.  There  is  practically  nothing  in  .Mr.  F*ierce*s 
book  that  cannot  be  told  to  a  meeting  o(  Rotarians  to  which  (iirl  Scouts 
and  the  Forward  Movement  ha\e  been  imited  as  guests. 

The  long  chapter  entitled  "'Application  to  Fveryday  Life"  contains 
some  interesting  corollaries  of  preceding  chapters  desoted  to  the  uncon- 
scious, the  foreconscious,  and  the  censor  of  each  domain. 

If  a  child  tries  to  snatch  things  from  others  or  to  use  its  lists,  let  it 
see  in  the  mother's  face  neither  anger  nor  half-amused  tolerance;  but 
quiet,  firm  disapproval.  Let  the  child  at  once  be  remo\ed  to  another 
room  and  kept  there  for  a  time  without  playthings,  it  is  an  excellent 
plan  for  the  mother  to  sit  in  the  room  also,  paying  no  attention  to 
the  child  and  maintaining  the  expression  of  disapproval  and  regret. 
Mr.  Pierce  writes  for  a  race  of  demigods  whit  know  not  humi>r  Apro- 
pos of  the  inevitable  dispute  between  Johnny  and  Charles  as  to  whether 
or  not  the  latter  has  cheated  at  marbles,  Mr.  Pierce  warns  Johnny's 
parents  not  to  content  themselves  with  comforting  their  son  and  assur- 
ing him  that  Charles  is  a  "bad  boy."  "Why  not  suggest  that  Johnny 
invite  Charles  to  lunch."  queries  the  author,  "and  then  during  lunch 
encourage  both  o(  them  to  talk  it  o\er?  If  necessars.  try  to  secure  the 
cooperation  of  Charles's  parents." 

In  the  next  chapter,  "Making  a  Contented  Human  Ciroup."  during 
which,  by  the  way,  the  new  psychologies  put  in  no  apjx-arance  whatever. 
so  far  as  one  can  see,  Mr.  Pierce  has  something  to  sa>  about  "  llic 
America  to  be  worked  for.  "  He  supposes  a  coming  America  in  which 


710  ///  Culture 

the  policing  of  the  school  is  in  the  hands  of  the  scholars,  with  respon- 
sibility divided  between  boys  and  girls,  and  the  code  of  conduct  is 
the  Golden  Rule,  which  is  inset  on  a  metal  plate  in  every  desk,  printed 
on  the  flyleaf  of  every  book,  and  recited  in  the  form  of  a  pledge  [italics 
not  mine]  by  the  entire  school  at  the  commencement  of  each  session. 
This  chapter,  so  fertile  in  suggestions  and  prejudices,  ends  on  a  clarion 
note: 
The  point  is  to  begin  doing  it  [apparently  the  remodeling  of  our  coun- 
try] now  and  not  wait  until  we  have  forgotten  to  do  it  at  all;  for  the 
American  of  to-morrow  is  our  job,  a  job  big  enough  and  splendid 
enough  to  enlist  us  all,  from  the  smallest  school-child  to  the  mightiest 
intellect  between  the  two  oceans. 
But  "the  salesman  himself,"  to  jump  into  the  following  chapter, 
should  study  and  practice  the  use  of  very  varied  similes.  They  are 
easily  fitted  into  the  sales  talk,  and  any  one  of  them  may  elicit  that 
slight  smile,  or  change  of  expression,  or  unconscious  movement  of 
the  hand,  that  tells  of  a  keen  interest  being  touched  -  which  interest 
often  gives  a  valuable  index  of  habit  or  tastes. 

Sapienti  sat!  This  book  is  not  unimportant.  It  throws  more  light  on 
our  average  American  attitude  towards  the  thing  called  culture  and  on 
what  we  expect  of  our  scientists  than  a  dozen  books  of  ten  times  its 
merely  scientific  value.  For  it  is  the  genuine  folk-utterance  of  the  Amer- 
ica that  distrusts  the  individual  mind,  despises  the  distinctive  as  an  im- 
pertinent abnormality,  organizes  all  movements  of  the  spirit  into  the 
frigidity  known  as  "efficiency,"  and  loses  its  head  over  "success."  And 
is  it  not  more  than  a  little  strange  that  psychoanalysis,  almost  the  first 
peep  that  psychology  has  given  us  into  personality,  should  have  been 
appropriated  by  Mr.  Pierce  for  the  apotheosis  of  a  dummy  ideal?  So 
powerfully  does  the  unconscious  color  and  warp  what  finds  entry  into 
the  conscious! 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  77?^  Literary  Review  of  The  New  York  Evening 
Post,  July  1,  1922,  p.  772,  under  the  title  "Practical  Psychology." 


Review  of  Robert  S.  Woodworili. 
Psychology:  A  Study  of  Mcnfcil  Life 

Robert  S.  Woodworth,  Psychology:  A  Study  of  Mciiuil  Life.  New 
York:  Henry  Holt  &  Co..  1921. 

While  Professor  WoodwortlVs  Psychology  is  iiuiinl\  inlcnded  lor  use 
in  college  classes,  it  has  a  claim  to  more  attentive  consideration  than 
textbooks  are  in  the  habit  of  receiving.  It  is  a  clearly  worded  presenta- 
tion of  the  main  body  of  doctrine  at  present  held  by  the  orthodox  school 
of  American  psychology.  Substantially,  F^rofessor  Woodworth  is  a  mod- 
erate introspectionist.  Unlike  the  thoroughgoing  beha\  iorists.  he  cheer- 
fully accepts  consciousness  as  a  datum  of  experience.  Man\  of  his  obser- 
vations and  "laws"  are  of  introspective  origin;  but  a  large  portion  of 
his  book,  being  based  on  inference  from  controlled  experiments,  should 
prove  thoroughly  acceptable  to  the  beha\iorist.  e\en  if  his  theoretical 
standpoint  is  not. 

But  what  is  Professor  Woodworth's  theoretical  standpoint'.'  He  does 
not  define  his  position  in  set  terms  but  leaves  it  to  be  gathered  from  his 
treatment  of  the  subject.  He  is  prepared  to  accept  the  tlndings  o^  any 
approaches  to  the  science  that  bid  fair  to  \icld  intelligible  and  mutually 
consistent  results.  The  human  mind,  one  ma\  imagine  him  to  siiy.  is  a 
difficult  enough  thing  to  get  at  in  an\  e\cni.  We  do  not  know  exactly 
what  it  is,  nor  can  we  satisfactoril\  define  ii  in  terms  o^  observable 
activity  or  of  underlying  physiolog\.  But  we  can  make  shift  to  piece 
together  some  notion  of  the  "mental  life''  by  sidling  up  to  it.  as  it  were, 
from  different  points  of  view.  Introspection  ma\  be  a  dangerously  elu- 
sive method,  for  the  moment  of  consciousness  that  we  set  out  to  de- 
scribe can  not  be  strictly  synchronous  with  the  moment  of  observation. 
In  a  sense,  introspective  psychology  must  be  a  kind  of  lifting  of  oneself 
by  one's  bootstraps.  Yet  common  sense  has  aluass  approved  oi  intro- 
spection as  a  guide  to  knowledge  of  the  mind,  and  rightly  so.  It  is  merely 
necessary  to  remember  that  the  knowledge  so  arri\ed  at  is  not  gleaned 
from  the  whole  and  steady  contemplation  of  actually  existent  Males  of 
mind,"  but  is  laboriously  constructed  form  such  partial  glimpses  of 


712  ///  Culture 

mental  experience  as  the  memory  can  hold  to.  The  resulting  psychology 
has  not  a  leg  to  stand  on,  yet  it  possesses  a  powerful  intuitive  warrant 
that  no  amount  of  behavioristic  heckling  can  impair.  Our  survey  of  the 
mind  is  somewhat  like  the  notion  a  bird  gets  of  his  cage.  He  can  not 
sec  the  whole  of  the  cage,  because  he  is  always  occupying  some  portion 
of  it;  but  by  flitting  about  from  perch  to  perch,  the  bird,  if  a  philo- 
sopher, can  formulate  a  very  workable  theory  of  its  shape,  its  size,  and 
o^  the  relations  of  its  parts. 

But  Professor  Woodworth  is  by  no  means  limited  to  introspectionist 
data.  He  is  as  firm  a  believer  in  the  value  of  the  inferences  concerning 
mental  process  and  discrimination  yielded  by  conditioned  reflex-experi- 
ments and  tests  as  any  behaviorist.  He  assumes  (again  on  the  basis  of 
intuitive  common  sense  rather  than  of  a  philosophical  examination) 
that  the  inner  feel  of  alien  minds  is  similar  to  that  of  his  own,  and  that 
he  is  warranted  in  hitching  on  psychic  inferences  from  the  behavior  of 
human  beings  other  than  himself  to  the  descriptive  analysis  of  mental 
states  and  processes  that  introspection  yields  him  in  the  first  place. 
Roughly  speaking,  introspection  provides  the  qualitative  basis  of 
psychology,  while  behavioristic  observation  introduces  measure:  but 
only  roughly,  for  the  two  methods  are  interdependent. 

It  is  not  a  neat  discipline,  this  orthodox  psychology  of  Professor 
Woodworth's.  Confessedly  it  can  but  be  a  thing  of  compromise,  a  some- 
what patchy  structure  at  the  crossroads  leading  to  two  mighty  sciences 
of  the  future  -  a  physiology,  delicate,  quantitative,  and  completely  inte- 
grated, which  will  have  absorbed  the  present  behavior-psychology  with 
the  utmost  sang-froid;  and  a  self-contained  science  of  consciousness 
which  will  be  able  to  build  up  a  functional  theory  of  the  psyche  without 
concerning  itself  in  the  least  with  physiological  mechanisms.  The  nature 
of  the  relation  between  these  two  disciplines  will  be,  as  it  has  always 
been,  a  matter  of  philosophy.  There  can  be  no  objection  to  Professor 
Woodworth's  standpoint.  As  long  as  neither  physiology  nor  psychology 
is  the  delicate  and  integrated  interpretation  of  personality  that  it  may 
one  day  become,  a  mixed  method  and  a  constantly  shifting  point  of 
view  are  probably  the  most  acceptable  approach  to  the  study  of  beha- 
vior. 

Personality  is  only  beginning  to  be  apprehended  as  the  true  subject- 
matter  of  both  physiology  and  psychology.  The  orthodox  psychologist, 
in  spite  of  formal  denials,  has  limited  himself  in  the  main  to  a  descrip- 
tive inventory  of  selected  phases  of  consciousness  or  behavior.  It  is  as 
though  one  tried  to  get  a  unified  idea  of  a  house  by  a  close  scrutiny  of 


Three:  Assessmeni.s  of  Psychulofiy  an  J  I'.syihiairy  7|3 

its  parts  (doors  as  doors,  a  random  slrclcli  ol' brick  wall,  firc-placc,  ihc 
flooring  of  a  bedroom,  and  a  bit  o(  roof).  Only  the  vaguest  conception 
of  the  true  nature  and  purpose  o\'  a  house  would  emerge.  Tlie  reading 
of  Professor  Woodworlh's  P.sycholoi^y,  and  of  other  ps\ehologies  of  iis 
type,  leaves  one  with  a  subtle  sense  of  dissatisfaction.  One  has  a  persis- 
tent feeling  that  the  mind  has  been  more  or  less  competently  anato- 
mized:  but  that  its  functioning,  its  indi\idual  histor\,  and  ils  purpose. 
if  one  may  use  a  dangerous  word,  remain  obscure. 

Professor  Woodworth  is  best  in  his  fundamental  chapters,  such  as 
those  on  native  and  acquired  trails,  emotion,  the  feelings,  antl  sensation. 
He  does  not  carry  the  reader  along  with  him  quite  so  conxincingly  in 
the  more  synthetic  chapters.  What  he  says  about  such  topics  as  imagina- 
tion, will  and  personality,  has  a  decidedly  tenlati\e  air.  Perhaps  the 
strangest  thing  about  the  book  is  its  failure  to  explain  full>  the  nature 
of  thought.  Reasoning,  which  is  handled  immediately  after  perception, 
is  but  a  highly  specialized,  inhibited.  purposi\ely  directed.  t\pe  o( 
thought.  Very  little  reasoning  is  done  b\  human  beings. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  The  Freeman  5.  619  (1922).  under  the  title 
"An  Orthodox  Psychology."  Reprinted  b\  permission  o\'  The  Freeman. 


Review  of  C.  G.  Jung, 
Psychological  Types 

C.  G.  Jung,  Psychological  Types,  or  the  Psychology  of  Individuation. 
New  York:  Harcourt,  Brace  and  Co.,  1923. 

To  all  of  us  there  comes  at  certain  moments  of  life  a  poignant  sense 
of  the  futility,  nay  the  sheer  impossibility,  of  explaining  our  inmost  self 
to  some  friend  of  long  standing.  He  is  ready  to  receive  our  confidence, 
his  smile  of  welcome  is  unforced,  but  no  sooner  have  we  begun  to  throw 
out  an  invisible  bridge  of  understanding  than  we  shrink  back  from  the 
heavy  labor,  knowing  in  the  twinkhng  of  an  eye  that  here  at  least  is  an 
abyss  that  will  never  be  spanned.  It  may  be  that  he  knows  our  every 
conscious  thought,  yet  there  is  something  that  he  is  profoundly  unaware 
of,  some  code  of  irrational  love  and  delicate  aversion  to  which  he  has 
not  the  key.  Indeed,  in  the  rough-and-ready  world  of  conscious  motiva- 
tion, "misunderstandings"  are  a  necessity.  They  ease  the  tension  be- 
tween discordant  spirits,  and  they  warn  us.  Life  would  be  too  terrible 
if  we  allowed  ourselves  to  be  guided  by  our  intuitive  understandings. 
The  camouflage  of  behavior  is  essential.  We  can  not  afford  to  recognize 
too  clearly  that  there  are  warring  battahons  of  personality  and  silent 
freemasonries  of  temperament,  for  the  art  of  behavior  is  no  citadel  built 
about  the  integrity  of  an  ego.  If  we  were  honest,  if  we  were  utterly  true 
to  the  law  of  our  ego,  loving  and  hating  consciously  where  we  love  and 
hate  unconsciously,  culture  would  lapse  at  once  and  we  should  all  be 
freezing  in  the  rigors  of  the  elemental.  There  are  spirits  which  brook  no 
compromise,  no  deceit.  The  world  counts  them  insane. 

In  attacking  the  problem  of  personahty  in  its  most  intimate  and  final 
sense,  the  psychoanalyst  Dr.  Jung  dispenses  with  all  preliminary  canters. 
In  a  book  of  upwards  of  six  hundred  pages  he  is  really  concerned  with 
but  a  single  theme,  the  demonstration  of  the  existence  and  the  essential 
stability  of  two  radically  distinct  types  of  personality  or,  as  he  would 
prefer  to  say,of  two  distinct  psychic  attitudes  -  the  extraverted  and  the 
introverted  types.  No  attempt  is  made  to  define  "character,"  that  ethi- 
cally-toned facet  or  remaking  of  personality  with  which  society  has  its 


Three:  Assessments  of  Psychology  ami  /'sychialrv  7|5 

semi-official  concern;  no  physioU-)gical  basis  is  sought  or  suggested  lor 
the  psNchic  manifcsialions;  ihcic  is  liiilc  or  no  aiicnipi  [o  balance  the 
intluence  of  the  social  envuonmcnl  against  the  congenital  slant  o\  the 
ego;  nor  are  we  really  shown  how  the  ego  sets  to  wc^rk  to  carrv  out  or 
subvent  the  law  which  nature  has  gi\en  it  from  the  moment  of  its  first 
awakening.  We  ha\e  here  no  bus\,  undergrouiui  laboratory  of  analysis 
in  the  manner  of  a  Freudian  dream-book  or  psycho-pathology.  The 
book  is  almost  detlantly  bare  of  case-material,  for  the  long  and  rather 
taxing  sections  on  Tertullian  i:  Origen,  nominalism  v.  realism,  and  the 
Prometheus  and  Epimetheus  of  the  Swiss  poet  Carl  Spitteler  are  hardK 
case-material  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word.  They  are  abstract  and  some- 
what mystical  exemplifications  of  Dr.  Jung's  opposed  types.  Nor  do  the 
discussions  of  Schiller's  "naive"  and  ""sentimental"  attitudes,  of 
Nietzsche's  Apollonians  and  Dionysians.  o\'  Jordan's  ""more  impas- 
sioned" and  '"less  impassioned"  types,  o(  the  [wo  contrasted  aesthetic 
processes  of  abstraction  and  "feeling-in."  o\'  James's  ""tender-mmded  " 
and  ""tough-minded"  philosophers  and  philosophies,  and  of  Ostwalds 
""classical"  and  ""romantic"  types  ol'  scientist  do  much  more  than  pre- 
pare the  way  for  his  own  antithesis.  Psychif/oi^icul  lypcs  is  like  a  Greek 
temple,  built  on  the  simplest  of  lines,  yet  needing  space  and  iteration  to 
give  its  formula  a  hold  on  the  eye  and  on  the  understanding.  It  is  not 
until  the  tenth  chapter  is  reached  that  we  get  an  explicit  description  of 
the  types,  that  is,  of  the  pure  types,  for  Dr.  Jung  seems  disposed  to 
admit  that  his  somewhat  rigid  formulations  (.\o  not  generally  appl\ 
without  qualification.  The  succeeding  chapter,  which  is  the  last,  is  de- 
voted to  a  series  of  definitions  o\'^  the  concepts  peculiar  to  Dr.  Jung's 
psychology.  Many  of  these  concepts,  needless  to  say,  fc^rm  no  part  of 
Dr.  Watson's  psychological  armoury. 

Not  until  the  last  page  is  turned  back  does  one  fulK  reali/e  how 
extraordinary  a  work  one  has  been  reading.  It  is  often  dr>.  it  is  some- 
times impossible  to  follow,  and  it  is  ne\er  \er\  closel>  reasoned,  lor  Dr. 
Jung  accepts  intuitively  as  given,  as  elementary,  concepts  and  ps\cho- 
logical  functions  which  others  can  gel  al  on\\  by  the  most  painful  of 
syntheses,  if  indeed  they  can  find  a  way  to  some  o\'  them  at  all.  But  it 
is  a  fascinating  book.  Its  one  idea  is  like  the  intense  stare  of  a  man  who 
has  found  something,  and  this  something  a  Imle  uncanny.  Sonic  of  us 
are  extraverts  or  tend  to  be  so.  aiul  others  ol  us  are  introverts  or  tend 
to  be  so:  surely  there  is  nothing  strange  or  uncann>  or  new  about  this 
classification  of  personalities.  Ihat  some  of  us  are  interested  in  the  acci- 
dents and  particularities  of  the  environment  is  a  known  fact;  that  others 


716  III  Culture 

arc  more  interested  in  general  ideas  and  that  they  tend  to  turn  inward, 
to  reflect  and  introspect,  is  an  equally  well-known  fact.  Surely  there  are 
more  basic  distinctions  than  these;  the  emotional  v.  the  intellectual  type, 
for  instance.  But  to  reduce  Dr.  Jung's  antithesis  to  an  order  of  difference 
in  the  relative  emphasis  of  interest,  or  in  the  habitual  direction  of  atten- 
tion, is  not  to  have  fully  grasped  his  meaning.  It  is  not  a  mere  question 
o'i  interest  at  all. 

It  is  a  question  of  the  natural  flow  of  the  libido,  to  speak  in  the 
author's  terms.  The  ego  finds  itself  lost  in  an  overwhelmingly  potent 
and  complex  environment.  Convulsively  it  seeks  to  save  itself,  to  estab- 
lish a  set  of  relations  and  a  network  of  presumptions  which  enable  it  to 
survive,  to  convince  itself  that  it  m.atters,  to  feel  that  it  is  ever  victorious 
or  about  to  become  so.  There  are  two  ways  of  attaining  this  necessary 
understanding  between  the  helplessness  of  the  ego  and  the  surrounding 
insistence  of  things,  and  these  ways  may  not  be  chosen,  aside  from 
secondary  compensations  which  obscure  but  do  not  efface  the  underly- 
ing psychology.  They  are  dictated  by  the  inherited  mechanics  of  the 
libido.  Whether  these  inherited  differences  in  the  impulse  to  adjustment 
are  but  psychic  reinterpretations  or  summings-up  of  comparatively  sim- 
ple differences  in  the  rhythmic  form  or  intensity  or  rapidity  or  quality 
of  nervous  discharge,  we  do  not  at  all  know  nor  does  it  greatly  matter. 

The  extravert  saves  himself  by  surrendering  to  the  enemy.  He  refuses 
to  be  cowed  by  the  object,  to  shrink  back  into  a  warm  privacy  of  the 
mind.  If  he  looks  within,  he  is  met  by  the  cold  cheer  of  blank  walls 
and  an  untenanted  room.  Involuntarily  he  turns  back  to  the  object  and 
becomes  oblivious  of  all  but  the  environment,  material  and  spiritual. 
With  this  environment  he  identifies  himself.  To  miss  any  of  the  sub- 
stance or  color  of  the  object  is  felt  as  a  deprivation,  for  it  is  in  the  object 
that  he  realizes  himself.  [212]  The  exercise  is  more  or  less  of  an  effort, 
if  not  actually  painful,  for  it  means  being  thrown  back  on  a  world,  a 
system  of  evaluations,  which  is  not  prepared  to  receive  him.  To  the 
genume  introvert,  the  extravert  presents  a  spectacle  at  once  amusing 
and  baffiing.  He  finds  him  feeding  ravenously  on  the  husks  of  reality, 
and  he  is  a  little  piqued  to  discover  that  while  the  personality  that  he  is 
contemplating  has  no  "Pou  sto"  from  which  to  become  conscious  of 
Itself,  it  does  nevertheless  get  about  the  universe  in  an  alarmingly  effec- 
tive way.  The  introvert  reflects  that  it  pays  to  be  naive.  To  the  introvert 
the  object  has  always  a  shade  of  the  inimical,  the  irrelevant,  the  unwar- 
ranted. It  is  not  necessarily  uninteresfing,  but  it  needs  to  be  taken  with 
a  gram  of  salt.  The  introvert  has  learned  to  adapt  himself  to  reality  by 


Three:  Assessments  of  Psyelwlo^y  ami  Psyehiatry  7|7 

pruning  it  o^  ils  luxuriance,  b\  seeing  and  by  feeling  no  more  in  it  than 
can  be  conveniently  fitted  inlo  the  richly  chambered  form  of  his  ego. 
While  he  can  not  afford  to  ignore  the  object,  he  can  translate  or  inter- 
pret it,  minimize  it.  if  need  be,  by  some  method  o{  abstraction  uhich 
takes  most  of  the  sting  out  of  it.  or  he  may  entirely  transfigure  it.  Where 
the  extravert  loses  himself  in  the  object,  the  introvert  makes  it  over  in 
such  wise  as  to  master  it  in  terms  o[  his  ps\che.  leasing  much  o{  its 
indi\idual  quality  to  fall  by  the  wayside  -  unsensed  or  unfelt  or  other- 
wise unvalued.  It  is  just  because  the  extravert  is  ever  greedy  for  experi- 
ence that  he  tends  to  lose  the  power  to  become  greatly  inlluenced  by 
slight  or  fleeting  stimuli.  He  believes  that  the  introvert  makes  a  moun- 
tain of  a  molehill,  a  self-important  wealth  of  a  mere  driblet  of  substance, 
while  the  latter  is  prepared  to  find  that  his  extras  ert  friend  labors  o\er 
a  mountain  o'i  the  chaff  of  experience  to  bring  forth  a  poor  mouse  o^ 
reflection,  insight  or  feeling.  The  extra\eri  is  al\\a\s  asking.  "Where  did 
he  get  it?''  The  introvert  wonders,  "What  will  he  do  with  it'.'" 

It  is  easy  to  misunderstand  the  nature  o'^  these  opposed  i\pes.  One 
must  be  studiously  careful  not  to  water  Dr.  Jung's  conception  and  dis- 
solve it  into  current  notions  of  successful  and  unsuccessful  adjustment, 
of  conduct  right  and  wrong,  of  normal  and  relali\el\  abnormal  beha- 
vior. Either  type  has  its  successes  and  its  failures,  its  geniuses  and  its 
simpletons.  Each  has  its  characteristic  pathology.  But  o^  one  thing  we 
may  be  certain.  Neither  type  in  its  purity  can  do  full  justice  \o  the  other. 
The  introvert  can  never  wholly  comprehend  ihc  extraxeri  because  he 
can  not  resign  himself  to  what  he  inevitably  feels  to  be  a  vicarious  exis- 
tence. To  him  the  extravert  must  ever  seem  a  little  superficial,  a  chronic 
vagrant  from  the  spirit's  home.  Nor  can  the  extra\erl  \sholl>  convince 
himself  that  behind  the  introvert's  reserve  and  apparent  impoverishment 
of  interest  there  may  lie  the  greatest  wealth  o\'  subjective  experience, 
and  such  subtlety  of  feeling  as  he  may  hardly  parallel  in  his  own  exter- 
nal responses.  This  lack  of  mutual  comprehension  ma>  lead  to  an  un- 
dercurrent of  hostility,  or  it  may  fire  the  fancy  and  result  in  strange 
hero-worships  and  infatuations. 

Those  who  have  read  Dr.  Jung's  Collcetcil  Pupers  on  Anuiyiuul 
Psychology  may  remember  that  in  an  earlier  tentative  classification  o( 
types  he  was  disposed  to  identify  the  introverted  with  the  thinking,  the 
extraverted  with  the  feeling  type.  These  ver>  dubious  identifications 
have  now  been  abandoned.  Dr.  Jung  is  perfecilv  clear,  and  the  reader 
will  be  with  him.  about  the  independence  o\'  a  classification  based  ou 
general  attitude  (extravert  and  introvert  ivpes)  and  one  based  on  the 


718  III  Culture 

specific  functioning  of  the  psyche.  Whether  Dr.  Jung's  theory  of  the 
existence  of  four  distinct  functional  types  of  personahty  is  correct  it 
would  be  ditHcult  to  say.  It  may  be  that  a  given  personality  tends  to 
finds  its  way  in  the  world  chietly  by  aid  of  the  intellect,  of  emotion,  of 
intuitive  processes,  or  of  sensation.  It  would  be  dangerous,  however,  to 
creel  the  eight  neatly  sundered  types  that  result  from  a  crossing  of  the 
two  points  of  view  into  a  psychological  dogma.  We  may  be  quite  certain 
that  such  a  classification  is  too  scholastic  to  prove  entirely  sound  and 
workable.  It  is  not  easy  to  see,  for  instance,  why  a  primary  concept  like 
that  of  sensation  is  paired  with  something  as  derivative  as  reason;  nor 
does  "intuition"  readily  allow  itself  to  be  accepted  as  a  fundamental 
type  of  psychic  functioning.  Possibly  Dr.  Jung's  vast  clinical  experience 
justifies  his  setting  up  these  four  functional  types,  but  the  evidence  is 
not  presented  in  his  book. 

Why  is  there  something  uncanny,  something  disquieting,  about  the 
main  thesis  of  Psychological  Typesl  It  is  because  once  again  we  are 
deprived  of  the  serenity  of  an  absolute  system  of  values.  If  the  orienta- 
tion of  the  extravert  is  as  different  from  that  of  the  introvert  as  Dr. 
Jung  says  it  is,  it  is  obviously  vain  to  expect  them  to  pledge  loyalty  to 
the  same  truths.  Must  we  resign  ourselves  to  a  new  relativity  of  the 
psyche  and  expect  no  more  of  psychology  than  that  it  render  clear  to 
us  the  ways  of  a  particular  kind  of  mental  attitude?  It  is  impossible  to 
believe  that  the  spirit  of  man  will  rest  content  with  a  schism.  It  is  certain 
that  orthodoxies  will  be  proclaimed  to  the  end  of  mortal  time. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  The  Freeman  8,  211-212  (1923),  under  the 
title  "Two  Kinds  of  Human  Beings."  Reprinted  by  permission  of  The 
Freeman. 


Review  of  George  A.  Dorsey. 
ll'liv  He  Behave  like  Ilunuin  Beini^s 

George  A.  Dorsey.  ll'hv  lie  Bc/nnc  like  //unicin  Beings.  New  York 
and  London:  Harper  and  Bn^s..  U)25. 

This  book,  which  has  already  bcci^nic  \or\  popular,  contains  a  vast 
deal  of  assembled  information  on  the  biological  aspects  of  human  beha- 
vior. Unfortunately,  what  might  have  been  an  intensely  interesting,  as 
well  as  meaty,  work  is  bothered  by  a  style  which  can  onI\  be  described 
as  a  St.  Vitus  dance  of  words,  or  as  journalese  on  the  rampage.  This  is 
a  pity,  for  the  author  has  an  excellent  knowledge  o\'  the  subjects  he 
treats  of  and  is  far  from  being  the  mountebank  w  hich  he  day-dreams 
himself  into  being.  Never  has  science  been  more  jaz/ily  ser\ed  up.  One 
hopes  that  Mr.  Dorsey "s  contribution  does  not  inaugurate  a  new  era  in 
scientific  popularization. 

It  is  strange  that  an  anthropologist  such  as  Mr.  Dorsey  is  should  be 
so  allured  by  the  mysteries  of  endocrinology  and  the  no-mysteries  o^ 
Watsonian  behaviorism  as  to  leave  himself  no  space  for  a  treatment  o^ 
the  properly  cultural  stimuli  to  human  beha\ior.  Neither  lights,  liver. 
nor  conditioned  reflex  arcs  "explain."  in  an\  luimanl\  significant  sense 
of  the  word,  why  given  humans  behave  as  they  do.  .All  that  Mr.  Dorsey 
succeeds  in  "getting  across"  is  to  what  extent  we  beha\e  like  mamma- 
lian organisms,  while  the  profounder  question  o\'  uhy  ue  beha\e  like 
human  beings  is  scarcely  referred  to  in  his  book. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in    /'he  .inurlicin  Journu/  of  Sociology  32.  140 
(1926).  Reprinted  by  permission  of  the  r!ii\ersii>  of  Chicago  Press. 


Review  of  Knight  Dunlap, 
Old  ami  New  Viewpoints  in  Psychology 

Knight  Dunlap,  Old  ami  New  Viewpoints  in  Psychology.  St.  Louis: 
C.  V.  Mosbv  Co.,  1925. 

Old  and  New  Viewpoints  in  Psychology  is  a  misleading  title  for  a  right 
readable  book  whieh  consists  of  five  essays  that  have  no  more  in  [699] 
common  than  that  they  express  the  conservative  and  largely  negative 
attitude  of  a  single  psychologist.  There  seems  to  be  no  reason  why  a 
number  of  scattered  papers  or  addresses  should  be  given  a  factitious 
unity  by  coming  before  the  public  in  a  synthetic  guide  that  is  quite 
foreign  to  their  spirit. 

The  first  of  these  papers,  "Mental  Measurements,"  distinguishes  care- 
fully between  experimental  psychology  and  mental  testing.  In  the  for- 
mer the  individual  is  merely  a  random  sampling  of  his  type,  the  results 
aimed  at  being  such  as  are  capable  of  general  human  application  in  the 
form  o(  psychological  principles;  in  the  latter  the  psychological  dif- 
ferentia which  characterize  the  individual  are  themselves  the  object  of 
study.  The  author  seems  to  beHeve  that  between  the  two  of  these  labora- 
tory procedures  the  complete  human  being,  psychologically  considered, 
may  be  captured  for  definition.  But  he  does  not  overestimate  the  diag- 
nostic value  of  such  mental  measurements  as  intelligence  tests;  he  ex- 
pressly warns  us  that  these  are  no  adequate  substitute  for  specific  ex- 
aminations. 

The  second  paper,  "Present  Day  Schools  of  Psychology,"  is  a  rapid 
survey  of  various  schools  of  psychological  thinking  to  which  Mr.  Dun- 
lap takes  excepfion.  He  has  as  httle  use  for  the  orthodox  "introspecfion- 
alism"  of  James  as  for  the  behaviorism  of  Watson  and  his  school; 
McDougall's  instinct  psychology  is  no  more  acceptable  to  him  than  to 
anybody  else,  while  psychoanalysis  gets  a  scolding  in  the  grand  manner. 
One  would  like  to  believe,  at  the  end  of  Mr.  Dunlap's  sweeping  out  of 
the  Augean  stables  of  psychology,  that  an  inadvertent  pearl  or  two  lay 
hidden  in  the  muck,  but  perhaps  the  hope  is  vain,  for  psychology  seems 
to  be  the  science  par  excellence  in  which  a  step  in  advance  necessitates 
the  complete  abandonment  of  all  previous  trails. 


Three:  Assessments  of  Psyeholo^y  ami  rwchialrv  721 

"Psychological  Factors  in  Spirilualism"  and  "1  lie  Reading  of  Charac- 
ter from  External  Signs"  are  iiiildl\  entertaining  causeries.  The  conclu- 
sion arrived  at  in  each  case  is  that  "there  is  nothing  in  it."  More  positive 
in  its  claims,  if  not  in  its  results,  is  the  essay  on  "The  Psychology  of  the 
Comic."  The  comic,  Mr.  Dunlap  thinks,  is  an  expression  ot  trmmph  at 
the  recognition  o['  our  superioril\  lo  those  unloriunales  at  whose  e.x- 
pense  the  joke  comes  into  being.  His  theory  is  thus  a  variant  of  the  class 
of  theories  of  the  comic  to  which  Bergson's  famous  essay  Le  Hire  be- 
longs. A  profounder  analysis  will  probably  disclose  their  superficiality. 
The  lightning-like  response  to  a  capital  joke  suggests  an  intuitive  grasp 
of  certain  formal  incongruities  which  has  little  to  do  with  such  clumsy 
functional  concepts  as  superiority  or  awkwardness  in  practical  adiust- 
ment. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  TJic  American  Journal  oj  Soeioloi:}  ."^l. 
698-699  (1926).  Reprinted  by  permission  of  the  University  of  Chicago 
Press. 


Review  of  Jean  Piaget, 
The  Language  and  Thought  of  the  Child 

Jean  Piaget,  The  Language  ami  Thought  of  the  Child  Translated  by 
Marjoric  Warden.  New  York:  Harcourt,  Brace,  1926. 

\\  hai  happens  when  children  talk  to  each  other?  Do  their  words  leap 
from  mind  to  mind  and  establish  at  once  a  freemasonry  of  perfect  un- 
derstanding, in  a  world  of  wonder  from  which  the  too  precise  adult  is 
barred  by  reason  of  his  pedantry?  We  know,  from  our  daily  observation, 
that  a  handful  of  normal  children,  but  newly  met,  will  soon  attain  to 
intimacy  in  a  web  of  verbal  excitement.  But  is  this  web  a  finely  woven 
context  of  mutual  comprehension,  or  is  it  but  the  happiness  of  a  com- 
mon illusion?  And  what  of  the  very  nature  of  childish  speech?  Is  it  but 
a  phase  in  the  much  discussed  technique  of  communication  by  means 
of  verbal  symbols?  And  what  of  a  child's  questions?  Do  they  invariably 
require  an  answer,  and  is  a  "why"  all  it  sounds  Hke? 

Questions  such  as  these  are  asked  and  answered  in  M.  Piaget's  very 
notable  book.  The  method  followed  by  this  able  Swiss  child-psycholo- 
gist is,  first,  the  systematic  and  complete  record  of  the  speech  of  a 
number  of  children,  under  conditions  at  school  which  are  not  too  rigidly 
controlled,  but  which  closely  approximate  the  conditions  of  spontane- 
ous, everyday  life;  second,  a  careful  but  not  too  pretentious  statistical 
analysis  of  these  data.  The  inferences  are  always  duly  weighed  and  of- 
fered with  caution.  One  likes  the  temper  of  the  book,  which  is  at  once 
eager  and  [351]  restrained.  It  is  unavoidable  that,  in  interpreting  his 
material  M.  Piaget  is  often  led  to  questions  of  fundamental  import  to 
the  solution  of  larger  problems  than  he  seems  to  set  himself.  He  is 
aware  of  all  these  implications,  but  wisely  refrains  form  foraging  too 
extensively  in  the  domains  of  primitive  mentality,  the  nature  of  language 
expression,  the  relation  between  verbalism  and  thought,  and  allied  sub- 
jects. From  among  the  many  rich  suggestions  brought  by  the  book,  we 
shall  select  but  three  for  the  very  briefest  comment. 

In  the  first  chapter,  which  deals  with  "the  functions  of  language  in 
two  children  of  six,"  the  material  is  classified  into  two  groups,  ego- 


Three:  Assessments  of  Psyeholo^y  and  Psychiatry  723 

centric  siiccch  aiul  scKiali/ctI  speech.  I  he  fiMiiier  iiroiip  includes  rcpcli- 
lion.  nu>nt>lc>giie.  aiul  "collecli\e  moiK^lDgue"  (in  which  "an  oulsidcr  is 
always  associated  with  the  action  or  thought  ol  the  nionicnl.  bul  is 
expected  neither  to  attend  nor  to  understand");  the  latter  includes 
"adapted  information/"  criticism,  commands  and  requests,  questions. 
and  answers.  If  we  exclude  answers  as  due  to  the  more  obvious  demands 
of  the  environment  and  then  divide  the  total  of  examples  ofcgiKcniric 
language  by  the  total  of  egocentric  plus  "spontaneous  socialized"  lan- 
guage, we  get  a  rough  "coefficient  of  egocentrism,"  a  general  index  o)i 
the  child's  spontaneous  functional  attitude  to  language.  M.  Piagel's  fig- 
ures are  interesting.  They  give  the  two  children  who  were  selected  for 
special  study  coefficients  of  egocentrism  o'(  0.43  and  0.47.  In  plain 
terms,  this  means  that,  as  late  as  the  age  of  six,  and  after,  the  child  is 
using  language,  the  communicative  technique  pur  excellence  o['  adult 
life,  for  non-communicative  purposes,  in  close  on  half  the  cases  m  which 
he  uses  it  at  all.  This  generalization  is  of  great  interest,  for  it  helps  to 
give  the  lie  to  those  theories  of  linguistic  form  and  development  which 
explain  all  phenomena  of  language  in  terms  of  its  overt  communicative 
function.  There  is  not  the  slightest  douct  that,  long  before  directed  com- 
munication has  shaped  itself  as  the  most  typical,  if  iu>i  the  onlv.  use  of 
speech,  the  child  has  already  mastered  everything  that  is  essential  in  its 
content  and  build.  The  rapidly  growing  need  of  communication  utilizes 
an  intuitively  apprehended  symbolism  which  has  been  serving  all  man- 
ner of  autistic  and  expressive  purposes.  M.  Piaget's  researches  confirm 
the  linguist's  feeling  that  language  is.  first  and  foremost,  an  uncon- 
sciously developing  esthetic  whole,  only  in  the  second  instance  a  merel> 
functional  organization,  though  he  does  not  stress  this  point  himself 

Equally  fascinating  are  the  chapters  devoted  to  the  conversations  o^ 
young  children  among  themselves,  and  to  the  problem  of  mutual  under- 
standing. On  the  basis  of  experiments  at  once  simple  and  ingenious,  the 
author  shows  that  children  do  not  understand  each  other  nearlv  so  well 
as  we  might  have  imagined,  but  that  they  are  under  the  chronic  illusion 
that  they  make  themselves  perfecilv  clear  and  that  they  gel  ou!  of  a 
communication  precisely  what  it  was  intended  to  ciMnmunicale,  Hie 
foundations  of  faith,  of  inward  certainty,  and  of  a  social  cohesu>n  that 
needs  no  critical  warrant  arc  thus  securely  laid  in  childhood.  Only  an 
up-to-the-minute  intellectualist  woiikl  dmibt  that  it  is  well  thai  this 
should  be  so. 

In  the  last  chapter  of  the  book,  there  is  a  somewhat  elaborate  analysis 
of  the  questions  of  a  child  of  six.  Hie  "whys"  are  in  a  significant  major- 


724  III  Culture 

ity.  Bui  11  would  be  wrong  to  infer  that  the  child  is  obsessed  by  a  thirst 
for  causal  explanations  or  logical  justification,  in  the  true  meaning  of 
these  terms.  What  he  often  desires  is  really  a  psychological  motivation. 
Here,  again,  we  see  the  child  as  an  egocentric,  projecting  into  the  cold, 
meaningless  world  o['  mechanical  causality  a  more  naively  intelligible 
world  o\'  molixe. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  The  New  Republic  50,  350-351  (1927),  under 
the  title  "Speech  and  Verbal  Thought  in  Childhood."  Reprinted  by  per- 
mission o'i  The  New  Republic. 


Review  of  Sigmund  Ircud. 
The  Future  of  an  Illusion 

Sigmund  Freud.  77/c'  Future  of  cm  Illusion.  Translalcd  b\  W  I)  Rob- 
son-Scott.  New  York:  Horace  Liveright  and  the  Institute  of  Psychoanal- 
ysis, 1928. 

The  "illusion"  of  Dr.  Freud's  little  book  is  religion.  Religion,  ue  arc 
told,  is  the  "universal  obsessional  neurosis  o\'  humanity,  it,  like  the 
child's,  originated  in  the  Oedipus  complex,  the  relation  to  the  father. 
According  to  this  conception  one  might  prophesy  that  the  abandoning 
of  religion  must  take  place  with  the  fateful  ine\orabilii\  of  a  pri>cess  of 
growth,  and  that  we  are  just  now  in  the  middle  of  this  phase  of  develop- 
ment." There  are  many  who  would  need  a  less  formidable  terminology 
with  which  to  warn  off  the  future  from  religion. 

Culture,  in  all  probability,  "must  be  built  upon  coercion  and  msimc- 
tual  renunciation."  All  men  are,  at  bottom,  anti-cultural,  and  if  ihey 
submit  to  its  demands  it  is  largely,  thinks  Freud,  because  o\'  certain 
terrors,  which  have  been  fastened  on  to  them,  of  the  dire  consequences 
which  would  ensue  if  the  fantasied  will  of  a  projected  father-nnage  - 
often  referred  to  as  God  -  is  tlouted.  Reall\  mature  human  bcmgs 
manage  to  see,  with  the  unmystical  light  of  the  intelligence  alone,  thai 
cultural  values  cannot  be  maintained  without  some  individual  sacrifice 
of  the  deeply  buried  instinctive  wishes,  such  as  incest,  cannibalism  |357] 
and  murder,  which  are  so  easily  demonstrated  to  bother  lYeud's  inevita- 
ble triad  of  children,  neurotics  and  savages,  but  the  \asi  majorily  of 
mankind,  even  a  number  of  psychoanalysts,  ha\e  iu>i  dared  lo  trust 
their  intelligence,  but  have  preferred  to  get  themseUes  ordered  around 
by  the  bugaboos  of  religion.  Needless  to  sa>.  it  is  the  antkiue  remorse 
for  the  slaying  of  the  primordial  father  by  his  exasperated  children 
see  Totem  and  Tahoo  for  the  authorized  \ersion  of  this  drama  \^hich 
motivated  the  creation  of  God  and  his  religion. 

Is  it  reasonable  to  suppose  that  mankind  can  forever  go  on  underpin- 
ning its  culture  with  such  cloudy,  fear-born  stulTas  all  that'.*  What  nei- 
ther Atlas  nor  fabled  elephant,  even  elephant  supported  by  tortoise. 


726  ///  Culture 

could  in  I  lie  end  accomplish  for  a  stable  mother  earth,  that  neither 
ghostly  Father  nor  his  dark  wishes  can  be  expected  to  do  for  culture 
and  right  li\  ing.  To  be  sure,  it  is  perilous  to  expose  the  dread  truth,  and 
F-reud  has  some  uneasy  sentences  on  this  score.  "Culture  has  little  to 
fear  from  the  educated  or  from  the  brain  workers.  .  .  .  But  it  is  another 
matter  with  the  great  mass  of  the  uneducated  and  suppressed,  who  have 
every  reason  to  be  enemies  of  culture.  So  long  as  they  do  not  discover 
that  people  no  longer  believe  in  God,  all  is  well.  But  they  discover  it, 
infallibly,  and  would  do  so  even  if  this  work  of  mine  were  not  published. 
...  is  there  not  a  danger  that  these  masses,  in  their  hostihty  to  culture, 
will  attack  the  weak  point  which  they  have  discovered  in  their  taskmas- 
ter? If  you  must  not  kill  your  neighbor,  solely  because  God  has  forbid- 
den it  and  will  sorely  avenge  it  in  this  or  the  other  life,  and  you  then 
discover  that  there  is  no  God  so  that  one  need  not  fear  his  punishment, 
then  you  will  certainly  kill  without  hesitation,  and  you  could  only  be 
prevented  from  this  by  mundane  force." 

All  of  which  may  prove  Freud's  courage  in  braving  ostracism  from 
Heaven  and  its  spokesmen  on  earth,  or  merely  that  psychoanalysis  is 
less  exciting  as  social  philosopher  and  prophet  than  as  clinician. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  The  New  Republic  56,  356-357  (1928),  under 
the  title  "Psychoanalysis  as  Prophet."  Reprinted  by  permission  of  The 
New  Republic. 


References,  Section  Three 

Boas.  Franz 

1911         The  Mi)id  oj'  Primitive  Miiii.  New  York:  Macniillan, 
Darnell,  Regna 

1986        Personality  and  Culture:  The  Fate  o\'  the  Sapirian  Alternaiivc.  ///.v- 
tory  of  Anthropology  4:  156-183. 
Irvine,  Judith  T.,  ed. 

1993         77?^  Psychology  of  Culture:  A  Course  oj  Lectures  [by  Edward  SapirJ. 
Berlin:  Mouton  de  Gruyter. 
Jung,  Carl  Gustav 

1923        Psychological  Types:  or  The  Psychology  of  Individuation.  New  York: 
Harcourt  Brace. 
Mead.  Margaret,  ed. 

1959        An  Anthropologist  at  Work:  The  W'rilitigs  of  Ruth  Benedui   Hi>sioii 
Houghton  Mifflin. 
Rivers.  W.  H.  R. 

1921        Instinct  atul  the   Unconscious.  Cambridge:  C\imbridge  rni\erMt\ 
Press. 
Sapir,  Edward 

191 7h      Review  of  Sigmund  Freud,  Delusion  and  Drcctni.  A  F'rcudian  hall- 
holiday.  The  Dial  63:  635-637. 
192  Id      Language:  An  Introduction  to  the  Studv  of  Speech.  New  York    ll.u 

court.  Brace  and  Co. 
1924b      Culture,  genuine  and  spurious,  .tnicricun  Journal  of  Socioloi^v  ?^ 

401-429. 
1925p      Sound  patterns  in  language.  Language  1:  37-51. 


Section  Four 
Reflections  on  Contemporary  Civili/ation 

Richard  Handler,  editor 


Introduction  to  Sections  Four  and  I  i\c 
Edward  Sapir's  Aesthetic  and  CulUiral  Criiicism 

Too  frequently,  scholars  read  the  work  of  the  masters  who  preceded 
them  solely  in  order  to  discover  how  they  can  be  seen  to  contribute  to 
the  current  state  of  whichever  disciplines  claim  ihcm.  Since  I:d\sard 
Sapir's  death  in  1939,  we  have  witnessed  the  enlrenehment  of  increas- 
ingly narrowly  defined  disciplines  in  an  increasingly  bureaucraii/ed 
academy  where  scholars  are  less  inclined  than  ever  to  read  widely  and 
to  write  on  a  range  of  topics  for  a  variety  of  audiences,  in  such  a  climate 
linguists  and  anthropologists  have  found  it  normal  to  ignore  Sapir's 
literary  reviews  and  social  commentary,  assuming  such  work  to  be  triv- 
ial and  unrelated  to  his  'serious'  contributions,  ^'ei  Sapir  deviated  a 
significant  portion  of  his  intellectual  energies  to  poetry,  aesthetic  theory 
and  cultural  criticism,  particularly  in  the  decade  after  1916.  Undoubt- 
edly those  interests  provided  an  escape  from  personal  uiMries  and  pro- 
fessional frustrations,  and  a  release  as  well  from  his  wide-rangmg  and 
absorbing  linguistic  researches  — from  the  "fastnesses  of  a  purely  techni- 
cal linguistic  erudition,"  as  Sapir  described  it.  with  mingled  pride  and 
ambivalence,  in  a  letter  to  Ruth  Benedict  (14  June  1925.  in  Mead  1959; 
180).  Yet  Sapir's  writings  outside  his  linguistic  and  anthropological  sfx*- 
cialties  represent  more  than  a  diversion.  We  must  read  them  careful!), 
from  at  least  two  perspectives,  in  order  to  grasp  the  full  significance  o\ 
Sapir's  humanistic  and  scientific  endeavors. 

In  the  first  place,  Sapir's  aesthetic  and  cultural  criticism  is  largeK 
concerned  with  the  central  themes  oi  his  linguistic  and  anthropological 
work.  In  both  disciplinary  and  general  writing,  Sapir  elaborated  an 
aesthetic  vision  of  culture  and  society,  in  which  the  unconscious  and 
tenaciously  enduring  patterning  of  human  symbols  and  actions  is  to  bo 
seen  in  formal  and  historical,  rather  than  functional  or  ulililanan. 
terms.  To  this  understanding  of  cultural  palicrn  Sapir  added  a  concern 
for  the  creative  personality,  for  the  interaction  o\  individuals  and  cul- 
tures. For  Sapir,  such  interests  could  be  as  provocaliveh  examined  in 
wrifings  about  poetry  and  poets,  or  about  American  indi\idualism  and 
the  development  of  a  national  culture,  as  they  could  in  technical  analy- 


732  JIJ  Culture 

ses  presented  to  fellow  linguists  and  ethnologists.  Moreover,  we  cannot 
separate  the  development  of  Sapir's  thought  in  linguistics  and  anthro- 
pology from  his  thinking  outside  those  fields,  for  Sapir  did  not  simply 
apply  the  fruits  of  his  professional  study  to  non-technical  topics. 
Rather,  his  philosophy  of  culture  grew  out  of  his  work  in  all  the  disci- 
plines that  engaged  him.  Indeed,  Sapir  elaborated  some  of  the  most 
celebrated  arguments  of  his  anthropology  and  linguistics  in  his  writing 
about  poetry,  aesthetic  theory  and  modern  culture.  In  short,  to  under- 
stand Sapir's  substantive  intellectual  concerns  we  must  follow  his  exam- 
ple and  disregard  the  disciplinary  and  topical  boundaries  that  can  be 
used  to  separate  his  writings.  We  will  then  find  that  his  aesthetic  and 
cultural  criticism  can  teach  us  much  about  his  anthropology  and,  of 
course,  vice  versa. 

Secondly,  a  careful  reading  of  Sapir's  writings  in  art,  culture  and 
society  is  necessary  in  order  to  place  his  anthropology  in  the  context  of 
a  wider  intellectual  history.  Like  many  of  his  colleagues -Franz  Boas, 
Alfred  Kroeber,  Robert  Lowie,  Ruth  Benedict,  Margaret  Mead -Sapir 
was  concerned  not  solely  with  a  scientific  theory  of  culture  but,  more 
generally,  with  culture  as  an  idea  of  importance  to  the  broader  public. 
Thus  Sapir's  philosophy  of  culture  represents  more  than  a  stage  in  the 
development  of  Boasian  cultural  anthropology  understood  as  a  nar- 
rowly specialized  scientific  discipline.  It  is  also  a  contribution  to  a  wider 
debate  that  engaged  the  artists  and  intellectuals  of  Sapir's  time,  a  debate 
concerning  the  nature  and  status  of  American  culture  and  the  role  of 
the  creative  personality  within-or  against-that  culture.  Only  within 
the  context  of  that  debate,  for  example,  does  Sapir's  concern  for  litera- 
ture, especially  poetry,  take  on  its  full  significance.  Sapir's  writings  on 
poetry  and  poets  speak  to  the  issues  of  'genuine'  culture  and  creative 
genius,  issues  central  not  only  to  his  aesthetic  and  cultural  criticism,  but 
to  his  anthropology. 

The  writings  included  in  this  section  of  Sapir's  Collected  Works  thus 
bnng  to  bear  the  concepts  of  Boasian  anthropology  on  a  wider  debate 
and,  at  the  same  time,  make  use  of  that  debate  to  elaborate  and  even 
to  rethmk  some  of  the  more  narrowly  technical  concepts  of  Boasian 
culture  theory.  Enumerating  the  themes  that  dominate  Sapir's  aesthetic 
and  cultural  criticism,  we  find  (1)  a  Boasian  conception  of  culture  as  an 
historically  conditioned,  aesthefically  patterned  phenomenon,  to  which 
Sapir  added,  as  a  major  concern,  (2)  the  creative  personality  and  its 
dialectical  interaction  with  culture.  To  these  components  of  a  culture 
theory  Sapir  brought  (3)  an  appreciation  of  the  psychoanalytic  ap- 


Four:  Rcjlcctions  on  Contemporary  733 

proach  to  creativity  and  ccMitoniiity.  Also,  ilic  Boasian  notion  of  (4) 
unconscious  patterning  was  extensively  developed  by  Sapir.  whose  con- 
cern for  creativity  was  balanced  by  a  concern  Tor  the  dangers  of  loo 
much  self-consciousness,  and  an  awareness  of  the  limits  of  rational  con- 
trol in  human  thinking.  Finally,  Sapir  used  this  broad  theory  of  culture 
and  personality  to  construct  (5)  a  critique  o\'  American  individualism 
and  American  national  character.  Let  us  examine  each  i>f  these  compo- 
nents in  turn. 


The  Boasian  Basis 

Implicit  in  Franz  Boas's  approach  to  the  study  oi  culture  were  two 
conflicting  tendencies.  In  his  battle  against  evolutionary  theories  of  cul- 
tural progress,  Boas  argued  that  cultural  phenomena  resulted  from 
unique  historical  sequences  rather  than  the  operation  o\'  uni\ersal  laws 
of  development.  From  this  perspective,  each  culture  could  be  seen  as 
an  accidental  assemblage,  and  to  understand  cultures  each  unique, 
each  an  'historical  individual' -one  had  to  unra\el  the  threads  of  their 
history,  tracing  each  cultural  element  to  its  'origins'  rather  than  explain- 
ing it  away  as  the  mechanical  resultant  of  evolutionary  laws.  At  the 
same  time,  Boas  realized  that  to  understand  alien  cultural  phenomena 
one  had  to  transcend  or  neutralize  one's  own  cultural  biases.  This  re- 
quired that  any  cultural  phenomenon  be  studied  in  context,  thai  is.  in 
its  meaningful  relations  to  the  rest  of  a  living  culture,  a  cultural  it^ialiiy. 
Thus  in  Boasian  anthropology  historical  analysis,  which  unra\els  the 
threads  of  culture,  is  counterbalanced  by  the  di.scovery  o\'  patterned 
cultural  meanings  in  the  context  of  whole  cultures  (Stocking  l%8:  214). 

Sapir  developed  both  of  these  tendencies  in  important  ways.  He 
transformed  Boas's  historicist  critique  of  evolutionary  stages  into  a  so- 
phisticated attack  on  reificalion  in  the  cultural  sciences,  arguing  thai 
culture  is  not  located  in  naturally  bounded  units  but  in  interactions 
between  human  beings,  each  of  whom  represents  "at  least  one  sub- 
culture" (1932:  236).  Sapir's  position  is  stated  most  elegantly  m  his  late 
papers  on  culture  and  personality,  but  he  occasiv^nalK  introduced  the 
argument  into  writing  intended  for  a  general  audience,  particularly  to 
debunk  racist  or  nationalist  assumptions.  For  example.  -'Culture  in  the 
Melting  Pot"  (Sapir  1916a)  is  a  friendly  critique  ol  .\ohu  Dewey's  call 
for  the  creation  of  a  distinctively  American  culture  (Dewe\  h>l6).  Like 
many  progressives  of  the  time,  Dewey  urged  Americans  to  reject  the 


734  ///   Culture 

European  past  as  their  cultural  ideal  and  to  replace  it  with  a  new  culture 
grounded  in  the  realities  of  modern  American  society.  Sapir  agreed  with 
Dewey  on  the  need  to  transcend  the  past  of  "discarded  classicism,"  but 
he  argued  that  national  boundaries  were  largely  irrelevant  in  a  cultural 
renewal  that  would  occur,  if  at  all,  throughout  the  Western  world. 
America,  connected  to  Europe  both  historically  and  by  ongoing  eco- 
nomic, political  and  cultural  exchanges,  could  not  simply  will  the  exis- 
tence of  a  separate  national  culture:  "Culture  is  not  congruous  with 
political  lines  ...  but  is  strictly  dependent  on  its  historical  antecedents 
and  on  the  foreign  influences  with  which  it  comes  into  constant  contact. 
Europe's  cast-off  clothes  are  our  own,  though  we  may  be  ashamed  of 
them"  (Sapir  1916a:  1). 

In  "Racial  Superiority,"  Sapir  made  a  similar  appeal  to  the  Boasian 
sense  of  culture  as  the  contingent  and  ever-changing  resultant  of  histori- 
cal processes.  Arguing  against  the  racist  assumption  that  the  mainte- 
nance and  development  of  'high'  culture  depended  on  the  purity  of  a 
'Nordic'  race  presumed  superior  to  all  others,  Sapir  suggested  that  "In 
the  fullness  of  time  other  peoples  (Chinese,  Japanese,  Hindus, 
Negroes -why  not?)  may  have  assimilated  all  of  it  [world  civilization] 
that  is  worth  assimilating  and  culture  will  be  safe"  (1924e:  210).  Thus 
Sapir  not  only  debunked  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  distinctive  races, 
he  appealed  to  the  long  history  of  cultural  borrowing  to  deny  the  exis- 
tence of  the  bounded  cultures  presumed  to  be  associated  with  them. 
"The  reasonable  man,"  he  concluded  in  "Let  Race  Alone,"  will  avoid 
"collective  chimeras  of  one  kind  or  another"  (1925d:  213). 

Taking  the  other  side  of  the  Boasian  equation,  Sapir  developed  an 
influential  conception  of  cultural  harmony  based  on  his  aesthetics  of 
language,  literature  and  art.  "Culture,  Genuine  and  Spurious,"  already 
written  by  1918,  as  Sapir 's  letters  to  Lowie  indicate  (20  May  1918,  in 
Lowie  1965:  27),  presents  the  first  theoretical  formulation  in  American 
anthropology  of  what  was  to  become  a  central  concept:  cultural  integ- 
ration. Sapir's  description  of  the  genuine  culture- "inherently  harmoni- 
ous, balanced,  self-satisfactory"  (1924b:  4 10) -is  well  known  and  need 
not  be  analyzed  here.  However,  it  is  worth  stressing  that  Sapir's  notion 
of  what  constituted  cultural  harmony  was  elaborated  in  a  rhetoric 
drawn  from  his  thinking  about  aesthetics.  For  him,  art  was  a  privileged 
domam  of  culture  because  culture  was  collective  art.  As  he  put  it  in  a 
review  of  a  book  on  the  history  of  writing,  "It  is  not  otherwise  with 
language,  with  religion,  with  the  forms  of  social  organization.  Wherever 
the  human  mind  has  worked  collectively  and  unconsciously,  it  has 


Four:  Rcfld  tlons  on  Contvmporurv  735 

Striven  lor  and  often  allaincti  unkiuc  lorni"  ( 1921c:  M).  The  ariiumcni 
is  central  in  Ldiii^iuii^c.  where  Sapir  re|iealecll\  stressed  that 

IcMiii  li\cs  longer  than  its  own  conceptual  content.  Both  are  ceaselessly  changing. 
but  ...  the  form  tends  to  linger  on  when  the  spirit  has  floun  ..    Irrational  '  im 

for  form's  sake-however  we  term  this  tendency  to  hold  onto  lormal  .  ui 

once  they  have  come  to  be~is  as  natural  to  the  life  of  language  as  is  the  retention 
of  modes  of  conduct  that  have  long  outlived  the  meaning  thev  once  had.  (I92ld: 
103-104) 

Sapir  developed  his  analyses  of  patterinng  most  fulls  ni  his  technical 
linguistic  work,  but  the  same  analytic  gifts  are  e\ident  m  his  writings 
about  both  music  and  poetry.  Indeed,  his  structuralist  (as  wc  would 
now  say)  understanding  of  formal  opposition,  and  his  particular  version 
of  phonemic  theory  (with  its  emphasis  on  the  role  of  subjective  discrim- 
inations) were  discussed  in  writings  on  music  and  poetry  before  ihcy 
were  fully  elaborated  in  linguistic  papers,  though  Sapir's  insights  un- 
doubtedly originated  in  his  studies  ol"  American  Indian  languages.  In 
1916  he  wrote  to  Lowie  that  "what  1  most  care  for  is  beauts  o\'  form 
...  A  perfect  style,  a  well-balanced  system  ol'  philosophy,  a  perfect  bit 
of  music,  a  clearly  conceived  linguistic  organism,  the  beaui\  of  mathe- 
matical relations- these  are  some  of  the  things  that  ...  ha\e  most  deepls 
stirred  me"  (29  September  1916.  in  Lowie  1965:  21 ).  He  returned  more 
than  once  to  the  analogy  between  music,  mathematics  and  langu.ige. 
and  it  is  worth  noting  that  as  a  field  eliinologist  he  was  parlicularl\ 
interested  in  music.  Music,  of  course,  is  language-like  (or,  language  is 
musical)  because  both  are  grounded  in  formal  opposition.  I'ormal  op- 
position is  the  basis  of  the  musical  scale,  which  depends  not  on  the 
absolute  pitch  of  the  tones  that  compose  it.  but  on  the  relations  (or 
intervals)  between  them.  Early  in  his  career  Sapir  reviewed,  with  cMdeni 
excitement,  the  work  of  the  German  musicologists  Carl  Siumpf  and 
Erich  von  Hornbostel,  both  of  whom  recognized  the  musical  scale,  .md 
the  relational  principle  it  involves,  as  an  important  element  in  the  c\o\{i- 
tion  of  musical  culture  (Sapir  19121".  19Lh1). 

After  1917  Sapir's  interests  turned  from  music  lo  poetry,  in  1921  he 
published  a  remarkable  paper  on  "The  Musical  foundations  of  Verse." 
which  prefigures  his  theory  o\'  the  phoneme,  sketched  briell>  in  lAtn- 
^^uai^c  (1921d:  56-58),  but  not  fully  elaborated  until  the  publication  of 
"Sound  Patterns  in  Language"  (1925p).  "The  Musical  foundations  of 
Verse"  was  intended  as  a  contribution  lo  a  debate  over  the  metrical 
basis  of  poetry.  This  had  been  occasioned  b>  the  free  verse  nuncnicnt 
and,  more  particularly,  by  its  detractors  who  claimed  that  free  verse. 


736  It  J  Culture 

vvritten  without  conventional  poetic  meters,  was  not  poetry.  Defenders 
of  free  verse,  such  as  the  poet  Amy  Lowell  (1914,  1918),  countered 
that  poetry  depended  on  rhythm  in  general  rather  than  the  traditional 
metrical  units  or  "feet' -iamb,  trochee,  dactyl  and  so  on-of  European 
poetry.  Sapir  agreed  with  Lowell,  but  went  on  to  provide  a  sophisticated 
account  of  the  grounding  of  rhythm  in  the  play  of  the  opposing  formal 
units  of  poetic  language.  To  this  structuralist  analysis  of  the  generation 
of  significance  out  of  formal  opposition,  Sapir  added  an  idea  analogous 
to  a  central  concept  in  his  theory  of  the  phoneme:  that  poetic  effects 
could  only  be  achieved  in  the  presence  of  auditors  (or  readers)  prepared 
to  notice  them.  In  other  words,  in  Sapir's  poetics,  there  is  no  objective 
answer  to  questions  such  as  'What  is  poetry?'  or  "Is  free  verse  poetry?' 
because  according  to  Sapir,  the  listener  plays  a  crucial  role  in  constitut- 
ing the  poetic  object:  "the  same  passage  is  both  prose  and  verse  accord- 
ing to  the  rhythmic  receptivity  of  the  reader  or  hearer"  (1921g:  226).  As 
a  "corollary,"  Sapir  warned  of  "the  necessary  limitation  of  machine 
methods  in  the  investigation  of  prosodic  problems"  (p.  224),  a  statement 
echoed  in  the  famous  closing  paragraph  of  "Sound  Patterns  in  Lan- 
guage," where  he  questioned  "the  adequacy  of  purely  objective  methods 
in  studying  speech  sounds"  (1925p:  51). 


Culture  and  the  Creative  Individual 

For  Sapir,  the  'genuineness'  of  a  culture  was  to  be  found  not  only  in 
the  formal  harmony  of  cultural  patterns,  but  in  the  degree  of  freedom 
and  encouragement  provided  the  potentially  creative  individual.  As  he 
explained  in  "Culture,  Genuine  and  Spurious,"  the  genuine  culture  was 
both  rich  enough  to  stimulate  creative  personalities  and  securely  enough 
anchored  to  permit  them  to  "swing  free"  of  tradition  by  engaging  in 
creative  activity  destined  to  transform  the  culture  that  fostered  it 
(1924b:  419).  Sapir  also  defined  two  types  of  spurious  culture:  one  in 
which  a  dead  but  venerated  tradition  stifled  individual  creativity  and 
one  without  tradition,  lacking  the  aesthetic  resources  necessary  to  stim- 
ulate creativity:  "The  former  is  the  decay  of  Alexandrianism,  in  which 
the  individual  is  no  more;  the  latter,  the  combined  immaturity  and  de- 
cay of  an  uprooted  culture,  in  which  the  individual  is  not  yet"  (1924: 
419). 

Sapir's  concern  for  the  relationship  between  culture  and  individual 
creativity  reflected,  and  contributed  to,  a  wider  debate  about  the  status 


Four:  Re  fleet  ions  on  Conicnipormv  ^Y| 

o\'  American  culture  aiul  the  slalure  o\'  American  artists.  His  phrase. 
"the  decay  of  Alexandrianisiii."'  refers,  one  guesses,  to  Europe,  and  his 
"uprooted  culture"  is  America.  Sapir  agreed  with  intellectuals  like 
Dewey  and  Randolph  Bourne  (whom  Sapir  eulogi/ed  m  a  h^l9  letter 
to  The  Dial),  who  sought  to  reorient  American  education  and  culture 
away  from  the  European  past,  louard  the  democratic  and  industrial 
realities  ol^  modern  American  society. 

The  nationalistic  frenzy  C)\^  the  First  World  War  increased  these  con- 
cerns of  the  American  intelligentsia,  who.  witnessing  what  appeared  to 
be  the  disintegration  of  'high"  civilization  m  liurope,  were  led  to  ask 
more  insistently  than  ever  whether  their  own  national  culture  had  at 
last  'come  of  age.*  As  a  sign  o{  national  maturity  they  looked  for  the 
appearance  of  great  artists,  such  as  might  be  found  in  the  poetr>  renais- 
sance to  which  Sapir  contributed.  Even  before  the  uar  the  new 
poets'  — like  Ezra  Pound  and  the  imagists  and  Harriet  Monroe  and  the 
contributors  to  Poetry  magazine-were  experimenting  with  a  "free"  \erse 
that  shocked  and  challenged  the  upholders  o\'  N'ictorian  cultural  tradi- 
tions. During  the  War  the  figure  of  the  soldier-poet  captured  the  popu- 
lar imagination,  and  Poetry  editorialists  like  Monroe  (1917)  and  I  dgar 
Lee  Masters  (1917)  wrote  of  the  utility  of  war  in  sweeping  awa\  a  stag- 
nant cultural  order,  and  of  the  leading  role  that  poets  would  pla\  in 
articulating  a  new  vision  in  a  renewed  world.  Sapir  would  not  follow 
these  spokespersons  of  the  poetry  movement  in  their  enthusiasm  for  the 
War  (his  own  war  poems  were  militantly  pacifistic  and  anti-jingoisiic). 
However,  like  Pound,  Monroe  and  their  colleagues.  Sapir  focused  on 
the  interaction  of  creativity  and  tradition,  genius  and  technique,  in 
much  of  his  writing  about  modern  poetr\. 

Sapir's  essay  on  "The  Poetry  Prize  Contest"  (192()e).  a  contest  orga- 
nized by  the  Arts  and  Letters  Club  of  Ottawa,  shows  how  thoroughly 
Sapir  had  incorporated  the  aesthetic  theory  and  rhetoric  oi  the  new 
poetry  movement  into  his  own  poetic  acti\ities.  Sapir  was  awarded  an 
honorable  mention  by  Poetry  in  1920  for  his  translations  of  French- 
Canadian  folk  songs,  and  he  apparently  took  a  leading  role  in  organiz- 
ing a  contest  with  similar  prizes  in  Canada.  In  hi.s  report  on  the  results 
of  the  contest,  Sapir  discussed  the  question  of  poetic  failure  and  success 
in  a  passage  that  recalls  the  new  poetr\  theorists: 

Poem  after  poem,  especially  in  the  elass  ol  paliiotie  ciTorls.  vmecd  lli. 
ingly  convenlional,  personally  iinrelt  ami  uiie\|XMienec«.l.  scnunicms  - n 

poems  all  lold  had  something  original  to  say  or  presented  a  univer  cni  m 

a  strikingly  original  manner.  Genuine  feeling  tended  to  express  itself  vi.iun.  ^.iHiipc- 
tent  formal  e.xpression  seemed  lo  stille  leeling.  (p.  .V^O) 


738  fll  Culture 

Here  Sapir  suggested  that  successful  art  depends  first  of  all  on  the  ex- 
pression of  a  unique  personal  vision.  In  order  to  see,  to  experience,  or 
to  feel  in  a  unique  manner,  the  poet  must  go  beyond  the  cliches  and 
conventions  o^  past  poetic  practice.  To  fall  back  on  traditional  formal 
devices  is  to  abandon  the  possibility  of  unique  experience,  because  con- 
ventional language  will  irrevocably  shape,  and  even  substitute  itself  for, 
the  poet's  experience.  On  the  other  hand,  form  is  essential  for  art.  As 
Sapir  phrased  it,  in  a  review  of  Edgar  Lee  Masters,  ''An  unembodied 
conception  is,  in  art,  no  conception  at  all"  (1922n:  334).  Thus  art  re- 
quires not  merely  the  rejection  of  cliched  forms,  but  the  creation  of  new 
ones,  in  sum.  for  Sapir  the  inseparability  of  form  and  content  is  essen- 
tial to  art  because  the  poet's  'sincere'  or  'genuine'  vision  can  emerge 
only  from  a  technique  that  is  both  proficient  and  original. 

Sapir  focused  explicitly  on  poetic  technique  in  two  papers  on  rhyme, 
a  topic  which,  like  meter,  had  been  made  timely  by  the  debate  over  free 
\erse.  Some  critics  of  free  verse  argued  that  rhyme  was  a  necessary 
component  of  poetry.  In  "The  Twilight  of  Rhyme,"  Sapir  responded 
that  formal  devices,  though  essential  to  art,  had  to  be  ceaselessly  in- 
vented by  the  artist  who,  were  he  to  abandon  himself  to  conventional 
techniques,  would  lose  the  possibility  of  creative  self-expression.  Ac- 
cording to  Sapir,  proponents  of  rhyme  confused  "form  (an  inner  striv- 
ing) with  formalism  (an  outer  obstacle)"  (1917o:  100).  In  "The  Heuristic 
Value  of  Rhyme,"  published  three  years  later,  he  considered  the  prob- 
lem from  another  angle,  arguing  that  rhyme  might  serve  the  poet  as  a 
useful  "taskmaster,"  acting  "as  a  valuable  stimulant  in  the  shaping  of 
his  thought  and  imagination"  (1920a:  309).  The  later  essay  supplements 
rather  than  contradicts  the  earlier  one,  for  Sapir  never  overlooked  the 
artistic  necessity  of  formal  discipline,  arguing  only  that  historically  par- 
ticular devices,  such  as  rhyme,  ought  not  to  be  elevated  to  the  status  of 
poetic  universals. 

For  Sapir,  then,  genuine  artists  begin  with  the  techniques  provided 
by  their  culture,  but  transcend  those  techniques  in  the  creation  of  new 
culture.  Moreover,  genuine  artists  will  not  be  culturally  limited  in  their 
critical  responses  to  the  art  of  alien  traditions.  Thus  Sapir  praised  the 
composer  Percy  Grainger  for  studying  seriously,  rather  than  dismissing, 
"primitive  music."  According  to  Sapir,  it  is  not  the  "amateur"  who  will 
respond  positively  to  "primitive  music,"  but  "the  musical  creator,  the 
composer,  whose  musical  learning  does  not  sit  so  heavily  on  him  as  to 
crush  his  instinctive  appreciation  of  the  beautiful  wherever  and  however 
it  may  be  found"  (1916d:  592). 


Four:  Rcflci  lions  on  ('ontcmporarv  739 

The  Psychology  ot"  Acslliclic  Creation 

As  we  have  seen,  Sapir's  philosophy  olcuhurc  stressed  both  the  lor- 
mal  properties  of  eultural  patterning  and  the  role  of  the  ereati\e  person- 
aHty  in  reshaping  artistie  and  eultural  tradnions.  Taken  together,  these 
concerns  led  Sapir  to  ensisic^n  an  ultimate  science  t>r  aesthetics  fiKused 
on  the  interplay  of  personality  and  pattern.  Iluis  "The  Heuristic  Value 
o\^  Rhyme."  which  examines  how  a  particular  aesthetic  device  (rh\me) 
might  shape  self-expression,  ends  with  a  programmatic  call  for  the 
analysis  of  "the  process  of  creation":  "if  aesthetics  is  ever  to  be  more 
than  a  speculative  play,  of  the  genus  philosophical,  it  uill  have  to  gel 
down  to  the  very  arduous  business  of  studying  the  concrete  processes 
of  artistic  production  and  appreciation"  (192()a:  312).  Sapir's  review  of 
a  biography  of  the  composer  Richard  Strauss  concludes  on  a  similar 
note,  asking  for  more  study  of  '"how  the  artist  concei\es  and  works" 
(1917g:  586).  And  Sapir  wanted  to  apply  the  same  approach  to  the 
study  of  collective,  cultural  processes.  This  is  evident  throughout  /.<///- 
giiagc,  tor  example,  or  in  Sapir's  remarks  on  the  e\iilutuM-i  i>\'  s\Nfcms 
of  writing: 

Much  can  be  said  ...  of  the  controlling  power  of  the  mediiini  ...  M-l  uhcn  all  this 
and  more  is  indicated  and  worked  out  with  laborious  detail,  we  are  realK  no  nearer 
the  central  question  of  what  psychological  forces  ha\e  hurried  the  natuMial  hand  on 
to  that  aesthetic  balance  which  is  its  ultimate  style.  ( 192 Id:  69) 

Given  his  interest  in  what  he  called  the  *how'  of  aesthetic  acliviiy,  it 
is  not  surprising  that  Sapir  was  favorably  impressed  by  the  new  ps\chol- 
ogy  of  Freud,  Jung  and  their  colleagues,  particularly  as  it  might  be 
applied  to  the  problem  of  artistic  creati\it\.  Ps\choanalysis  had  become 
fashionable  in  the  United  States  during  the  teens  and  twenties,  though 
Sapir  never  succumbed  to  its  mystique,  cautioning  in  particular  against 
a  too  literal  belief  in  the  reality  of  its  theoretical  entities  (see.  for  exam- 
ple, Sapir  1917b).  Nonetheless.  Sapir  was  stimulated  b>  I  teud's  msighis 
into  psychic  dynamics  and  how  those  dynamics  lead  both  lo  the  organ- 
ization of  a  coherent  personality  and  to  the  sublimated  expression  (in 
neurotic  complexes,  in  dreams,  in  art)  o\'  the  personalil>'s  needs  and 
drives.  Sapir  was  also  excited  by  .lungs  theor>  o\'  basic  personalitx 
types.  Taking  the  ideas  of  Freud  and  Jung  together  (but  always  skeptical 
of  what  he  considered  io  he  misleading  reificalions  or  ovcrly-schemalic 
theorizing),  Sapir  looked  lo  psychoanalysis  to  shed  light  on  what  he 
saw  as  the  key  issue  for  aesthetics,  the  question  of  how  pers.wi.dnies 
expressed  themselves  in  art. 


740  tit  Culture 

In  "Maupassant  and  Anatole  France,"  Sapir  proposed  a  "'personal' 
type  o\^  criticism''  made  possible,  he  argued,  by  "the  advent  of  the 
Freudian  psychology": 

In  c\cry  work  oi  art,  after  due  allowance  is  made  for  traditional  forces,  there  stand 
revealed,  iliouuh  slill  largely  unread,  a  hundred  symptoms  of  the  instinctive  life  of 
ihe  creator.  In  the  long  run  only  criticism  grounded  in  individual  psychological 
analysis  has  validity  in  aesthetic  problems.  (1921  f:  199) 

Sapir's  literary  criticism  returns  frequently  to  the  "instinctive  life  of  the 
creator"  and  its  subliinated  expression  in  art.  For  example,  he  suggested 
that  Gerard  Manley  Hopkins  could  be  seen  as  "an  imperfectly  sex-subh- 
mated  mystic"  {1921k:  334),  and  found  "the  well-known  mechanics  of 
over-compensation  bustling  over  [the]  pages"  of  Ludwig  Lewisohn's  7^- 
rael  (1926h:  215).  In  addition  to  this  interest  in  the  artist's  personality, 
Sapir  was  intrigued  by  the  realistic  representation  of  fictional  personali- 
ties. In  "Realism  in  Prose  Fiction"  (1917  0  he  advocated  narration  from 
multiple  "inner"  viewpoints  in  place  of  the  "objective"  perspective  of  an 
omniscient  narrator.  And  in  his  reviews  of  fiction,  he  paid  particular  at- 
tention to  the  development  of  character.  It  is  worth  noting  that  Sapir's 
sympathy  for  a  psychoanalytic  literary  criticism  and  his  concern  for  the 
portrayal  of  character  coexisted  with  his  talent  for  structural  analysis,  as 
developed,  for  example,  in  "The  Musical  Foundations  of  Verse."  How- 
ever, Sapir  never  attempted  a  synthesis  of  the  two  critical  approaches. 

Finally,  Sapir  was  willing  to  apply  psychoanalytic  perspectives  to 
other  cultural  phenomena,  such  as  racism,  religion,  and  sexuality.  Thus 
he  discussed  racism  in  terms  of  the  ego's  needs  for  "psychic  security" 
(1924e:  201)  and  different  religious  philosophies  in  terms  of  their  com- 
patibility with  different  personality  types  (1925m).  Ultimately  he  saw 
all  cultural  phenomena  in  terms  of  the  dialectic  of  aesthetic  patterning 
and  creative  self-expression;  thus  he  envisioned  the  application  of  psy- 
choanalytic perspectives  to  the  study  of  all  cultural  processes.  As  he  put 
it  in  Language,  in  the  celebrated  chapter  on  drift:  "A  more  general 
psychology  than  Freud's  will  eventually  prove  them  [the  concepts  of 
repression  and  symbolization]  to  be  as  applicable  to  the  groping  for 
abstract  form,  the  logical  or  esthetic  ordering  of  experience,  as  to  the 
life  of  the  fundamental  instincts"  (1921d:  167-168,  footnote  12). 


Unconscious  Patterning  and  the  Limits  of  Rationality 

The  notion  that  cultural  phenomena  are  grounded  in  unconscious 
formal  patterns  was  articulated  by  Boas  in  his  "Introduction"  to  the 


Four:  Rcfla  lions  on  Contcmporurv  741 

Haiuihook  of  Anicric nn  Iiu/ian  L(ini^Uii<^i\  ( l^^l  1 ).  I  here  he  suggesled  as 
well  thai  Liiiconscioiis  |-)atlcriiinu  is  more  often  ralionali/ed  ihan  ratio- 
nally analyzed.  Sapir  drev\  a  challenging  eonelusiiMi  Iri^m  ihis  Boasian 
premise,  arguing  that  a  totally  self-eonscious  or  rational  eonlrol  o\' 
thought  is  not  possible  because  thought  must  aluays  be  based  on  un- 
conscious categories  which  are.  by  detlnition,  beyond  conscious  eonlrol. 
As  Sapir  put  it,  'introspection  may  be  a  dangerously  elusive  method. 
for  the  moment  of  consciousness  that  we  set  tnil  to  describe  can  not  be 
strictly  synchronous  with  the  moment  of  i>bser\ation"  {I922\:  619). 

Because  o(  his  doubts  concerning  the  possibility  o\'  purely  rational 
analysis,  Sapir  was  skeptical  about  the  role  that  social  science,  or  any 
other  form  oi"  self-conscious  social  philosoph\.  might  pla\  in  rational 
social  planning.  Such  skepticism  distinguished  Sapir  from  colleagues 
such  as  Ruth  Benedict  and  Margaret  Mead,  who  hoped  to  use  the  infor- 
mation made  available  by  cultural  anthropology  as  an  ingredient  in 
what  Benedict  called  "a  true  social  engineering"  (1934:  79).  In  contrast 
to  such  aspirations.  Sapir  warned  against  the  dangers  of  cultural  self- 
consciousness,  arguing  in  a  famous  essay  on  "The  I'nconscious 
Patterning  of  Behavior  in  Society''  that  "in  the  normal  business  of  life** 
people  needed  to  trust  rather  than  anal\/e  cultural  patterning  (I928J: 
141).  Sapir  had  elaborated  that  argument  in  an  earlier  re\ieu  article, 
where  he  associated  the  formlessness  of  modern  culture  and  the  mean- 
inglessness  experienced  by  the  modern  individual  uith  the  critical  self- 
consciousness  of  modern  thought,  trained  upon  itself: 

We  are  all  uneasy,  all  wondering  a  little  about  the  whither  of  life.  The  insouciance 
of  less  self-conscious  ages,  when  men  could  alTord  to  forget  the  ends  of  life  because 
they  were  so  trustfully  accepted,  seems  to  have  gone.  J-reed  from  the  shackles  of 
positive  faiths  and  superstitions,  we  now  find  ourselves  clogged  by  a  more  mischie- 
vous slavery  than  we  ever  knew,  a  bondage  to  unpatterned  and  undirected  actiMl> 
masking  an  inner  emptiness.  (I*^21n:  2.^7) 

As  we  shall  see,  the  themes  of  "slavery."  •uiipalierned  aclivii\"  and 
"inner  emptiness"  were  key  ingredients  in  Sapir's  critictil  analysis  ol 
American  culture. 


Culture  and  the  Individual  in  Sapir's  America 

In  the  final  paragraph  o\'  "Culture.  Genuine  and  Spurious,  .s.ipn 
hinted  that,  given  "plenty  of  time,"  a  genuine  culture  might  at  last  blos- 
som on  American  soil  (1924b:  429).  \cl  in  general  the  css;iy  pamis  a 


742  IJI  Culture 

grim  picture  of  American  cultural  development,  and  the  mild  optimism 
of  the  end  remains  unconvincing.  Indeed,  nowhere  in  Sapir's  aesthetic 
and  cultural  criticism  do  we  find  sustained  enthusiasm  for  American 
culture.  Though  he  was  frequently  generous  in  his  response  to  particular 
poets  and  initially  hopeful  that  the  new  poetry  might  signal  the  begin- 
ning of  a  genuine  cultural  development,  by  the  mid- 1920s  he  had  be- 
come disillusioned  about  both  modern  poetry  and  the  wider  culture  it 
retlected.  "The  age  and  I  don't  seem  to  be  on  very  intimate  speaking 
terms,"  he  wrote  Benedict  (29  September  1927,  in  Mead  1959:  185). 

Though  Sapir's  disillusionment  stemmed  in  part  from  his  relative  fail- 
ure as  a  poet,  he  was  too  good  a  critic  not  to  recognize  his  own  poetic 
limitations.  Rather,  his  alienation  from  the  culture  of  his  era  was 
grounded  in  a  penetrating  analysis  of  certain  contradictions  inherent  in 
American  individualism,  an  analysis  facilitated  both  by  his  position  as 
a  professional  intellectual  and  student  of  society  and  by  his  rehgious 
marginality.  From  the  biographical  perspective,  it  is  clear  that  being 
Jewish  placed  Sapir  (and  many  of  his  colleagues)  somewhat  outside  the 
American  mainstream.  But  he  was  also  ambivalent  about  his  Jewish 
background  and  about  religion  in  general.  He  recognized  the  richness 
of  Jewish  tradition  but  saw  also,  as  his  review  (1926h)  of  Lewisohn's 
Israel  suggests,  that  for  some  at  least  among  American  Jewry,  assimila- 
tion to  the  mainstream  was  an  attractive  alternative.  The  same  review 
makes  clear  Sapir's  mistrust  of  Zionism;  he  knew  that  nationalism,  even 
o{  the  downtrodden,  could  always  degenerate  into  chauvinism  and 
worse.  His  disdain  for  chauvinism  is  also  evident  in  his  review  of  Paul 
Radin's  Monotheism  Among  Primitive  Peoples  (1924),  where  Sapir 
chided  those  Jews  who  proudly  but  mistakenly  claim  monotheism  as  a 
uniquely  Jewish  invention.  (Sapir  1925m) 

Turning  to  a  perspective  wider  than  the  biographical,  and  from  the 
critique  of  minority  sensibility  to  that  of  majority  culture,  we  can  place 
Sapir's  cultural  criticism  in  a  tradition  that  includes  Matthew  Arnold's 
Culture  and  Anarchy  (1868) -which  Sapir  certainly  knew  well -as  well 
as  Tocqueville's  Democracy  in  America  (1835-1840)  and  Weber's  The 
Protestant  Ethic  and  the  Spirit  of  Capitalism  (1905).  Like  Sapir,  all  these 
thinkers  were  troubled  by  the  secularization  of  Protestant  individual- 
ism, which  entailed  the  rationalization  of  unlimited  economic  growth 
accompanied  by  an  emphasis  on  self-development  that  was  ultimately 
self-defeating.  Sapir's  critique  of  the  culture  of  self-development  grew 
out  of  his  conception  of  the  genuine  culture  as  one  endowed  with  rich 
aesthetic  resources,  unconsciously  anchored  in  the  psyches  of  those  who 


Four:  Rcjlcctions  on  Confcmporurv  743 

participated  in  the  eiiltiire  by  creati\el>  changing  n.  Sapir's  diagnosis 
o(  the  American  ciiUiual  malady  uas  smiplc  enough:  "the  combined 
immaturity  and  decay  of  an  uprooted  culture."  as  he  phrased  il  in  "C"ul- 
ture.  Genuine  and  Spurious"  (1924b:  419),  could  not  nourish  indi\idual 
growth  and  creativity.  That  general  proposition  led  Sapir  to  find  a  par- 
ticular paradox  in  the  American  case,  for  American  culture,  grounded  in 
Protestant  individualism,  had  made  of  self-development  a  consciously 
valued  end.  Yet  the  highly  self-conscious  individualism  of  the  spurious 
American  culture  was,  in  Sapir's  opinion,  doomed  to  sterilit\  for  .mK 
a  genuine  culture  could  give  rise  to  human  individualitv. 

Sapir  repeatedly  presented  his  critique  of  American  culture  in  terms 
of  a  distinction  he  drew  between  ''romanticism"  and  the  "classical 
spirit,"  as,  for  example,  in  the  final  paragraph  o\'  "The  (irammarian 
and  His  Language,"  where  he  likened  linguistics  to  mathematics  and 
music: 

But  under  its  crabbed,  technical  appearance  there  lies  hidden  the  same  classical  spirit. 
the  same  tYecdom  in  restraint,  which  animates  mathematics  and  music  at  their  pur- 
est. This  spirit  is  antagonistic  to  the  romanticism  which  is  rampant  in  America  Ivnlay 
and  which  debauches  so  much  of  our  science  with  its  frenetic  desire.  ( 1924c:  155) 

This  classical  "freedom  in  restraint"  refers,  of  course,  to  the  genuine 
culture,  where  the  discipline  of  convention  stimulates  creatisitv.  Bv  con- 
trast, Sapir  believed  that  the  "frenetic  desire"  o\'  romanticism  led  to 
abortive  art,  to  misapplications  of  science  and  to  formlessness  and  emp- 
tiness in  the  wider  culture.  According  to  Sapir.  Americans  ucre  \siihi>ul 
the  moral  discipline  and  bedrock  of  accepted  values  necessar\  to  cre- 
ative self-development.  As  he  put  it  in  "Observations  on  the  Sex  l*rob- 
lem  in  America,"  "An  individual  can  create  true  personal  values  onlv 
on  the  basis  of  those  accepted  by  his  societ\.  but  uhcn  nothing  is  ac- 
cepted, he  has  no  room  tor  the  growth  of  any  values  that  are  more  than 
empty  formulae"  (1928b:  523).  Lacking  genuine  culture.  .Americans 
were,  in  Sapir's  view,  willing  to  use  any  technique  or  metlu>d  to  rational- 
ize their  prejudices  or  to  create  the  illusiiin  o\  mdi\idual  freediMii 

Such  an  argument  is  central  in  "Let  Race  .Alone,"  one  of  a  scries  of 
articles  published  in  The  Nailon  during  192."^,  a  time  when  heightened 
racism  and  xenophobia  had  stimulated  liberal  thinkers  to  publici/e  a 
critique  of  such  'scientific'  doctrines  as  those  propounded  by  the  eugcni- 
cists.  Sapir's  essay  should  be  compared  to  an  essay  by  Boas  which  pre- 
ceded it.  In  "What  Is  a  Race'.',"  Boas  ( 192.*=^)  confined  himself  ti^  a  sober 
scientific  refutation  of  the  presuppositions  of  eugenicisi  divlrme.  Sapir. 
too,  debunked  racist  assumptions,  but  he  was  equallv  concerned  lo  pre- 


744  IIJ  Culture 

sent  a  critique  of  the  culture  that  readily  believed  in  them.  Thus  he 
framed  his  argument  with  a  telling  analysis  of  the  American  religion  of 
science. 

We  li\  e  in  an  age  not  so  much  of  science  as  of  scientific  application.  We  are  not  so 
much  possessed  of  a  philosophic  criticism  that  may  be  supposed  to  be  born  of  scien- 
tific research  as  we  are  urged  on  by  a  restless  faith  in  the  pronouncements  of  science. 
Wc  have  made  it  a  religion.  (1925d:  211) 

Sapir  went  on  to  point  out  that  Americans  had  no  patience  with  the 
tempered,  even  ''dim"  and  "cryptic"  results  of  scientific  research;  rather, 
they  sought  easy  answers,  "systematically"  using  science  to  rationalize 
their  prejudices.  Thus  Sapir  found  scientistic  racism  to  be  "as  good  an 
e.xample  as  we  could  wish  of  heated  desire  subdued  to  the  becoming 
coolness  of  a  technical  vocabulary"  (1925d:  211). 

Here  the  metaphorical  opposition  of  hot  and  cold  is  crucial:  scientis- 
tic racism  transforms  the  heat  of  desire  into  coolness,  but  in  this  case 
the  result  is  not  art,  but  mere  jargon.  By  contrast,  in  a  genuine  culture 
rich  aesthetic  resources  are  available  to  the  individual  who  can  use  them 
to  transform  his  desire  into  art:  in  successfully  rhymed  poetry,  for  exam- 
ple, Sapir  saw  "the  passionate  temperament  cutting  into  itself  with  the 
cold  steel  of  the  intellect"  (1920a:  311).  But  in  the  spurious  American 
culture  Sapir  found  undisciplined  desire,  without  the  means  to  become 
'cold'  and  'hard,'  yet,  enamoured  of  efficiency,  always  pretending  to  be 
so.  Sapir  stated  this  argument  most  fully  (and  in  terms  that  directly 
recall  "The  Grammarian  and  His  Language")  at  the  end  of  his  1938 
review  of  Thurman  Arnold's  The  Folklore  of  Capitalism.  There  Sapir 
described  American  culture  as 

pervaded  by  an  almost  morbid  fear  of  formal  analysis  of  any  kind.  Its  urge  is  the 
manipulative  urge  of  organization,  engineering  efficiency  is  its  one  great  value  . . . 
This  attitude  wills  "realism"  and  hence  protects  itself  with  a  skepticism  that  is  anti- 
intellectualist  but  that  is  not  proof  against  all  manner  of  incursions  from  unacknowl- 
edged realms  of  wishful  thinking.  "Hard-boiled"  is  the  ideal,  "romantic"  is  the  deed. 
(1938d:  147) 

Sapir  was  particularly  concerned  about  romanticism  masquerading 
as  realism  in  Americans'  changing  attitudes  towards  sexuality,  a  topic 
he  explored  in  "Observations  on  the  Sex  Problem  in  America."  Though 
he  sympathized  with  what  he  called  "the  anti-Puritan  revolt"  (1928b: 
527),  he  believed  that  the  attempt  of  some  to  divorce  sex  from  love 
was  yet  another  example  of  unrestrained  desire  deceiving  itself  with  a 
materialistic  jargon  made  congenial  by  the  scientific  world  view.  And 
Sapir  singled  out  his  own  scientific  discipline,  anthropology,  as  espe- 


Four:  Reflections  on  Conicmporurv  745 

cially  liable  to  misuse  at  the  hands  o\'  ihe  ■uishtul  ri)manlicisls"  who 
foLind.  "in  excited  books  about  pleasure-loving  Samoans  and  Trobriand 
Islanders."  proof  that  in  the  "primar\ "'  experience  of  **primiti\c  man" 
sex  existed  independently  oi'  lo\e  ( 1928b:  523). 

Sapir  wrote  in  a  similar  vein  m  his  1929  review  of  Boas's  Anthntpolo/^y 
and  Modern  Life.  Sapir  praised  Boas's  anthropology  for  combmmg  ded- 
ication to  science  with  a  restraint,  "a  certain  tierce  delicacy."  which 
prevented  it  "(rom  ever  declaring  more  than  it  manifestly  must."  Ac- 
cording to  Sapir,  such  qualities  were  not  likely  to  be  appreciated  "in  an 
age  that  prizes  lazy  comfort  in  lluuight  and  that  prizes  rigor  only  in 
dehumanized  action."  And  he  warned  that  anthropology  was  in  danger 
of  becoming  "a  popular  science."  useful  "to  Justify  ...  ever\  form  of 
spiritual  sloth"  (1929g:  278).  Or.  as  he  wrote  in  a  review  of  Berlrand 
Russell,  modern  intellectuals  sought  nothing  other  than  "a  high  Polyne- 
sia ...  built  on  the  unshakeable  coral  reef  of  Science"  (1929k:  196i 

Like  Matthew  Arnold  and  Max  Weber.  Sapir  understood  that  liie 
American  religion  of  efficiency,  which  brought  together  "our  etllciency- 
experts  and  Methodist  deacons,"  as  he  once  put  it  ( 1922g:  404).  was  an 
unintended  consequence  of  the  secularization  of  Protestant  individual- 
ism. In  a  review  of  James  Truslow  Adams's  Our  Husincw  Civilization, 
Sapir  sketched  a  critique  of  efficiency  as  it  was  coming  to  be  applied  to 
personality.  Like  so  many  of  Sapir's  reviews,  this  begins  with  a  ss  mpa- 
thetic  reading  but  develops  the  implications  of  the  text  far  beyond  the 
author's  intentions.  For  example,  Sapir  agreed  with  .Adams's  critique  o( 
the  American  "shibboleth  of  overt  success  at  whate\er  cost."  but  went 
on  to  attribute  it,  not  to  the  excesses  of  the  pioneering  spirit,  as  Adams 
had,  but  to  the  secularization  of  Protestantism: 

For  there  docs  seem  to  be  an  austere  religiosity  about  the  contcmpiuary  cuU  of 
reckless  success  which  justifies  a  suspicion  that  it  is  both  historical!)  and  r 
cally  connected  with  the  zealous  avoidance  of  sin  which  animated  an  cai 
tion.  (I93()c:  427) 

Sapir  also  took  the  theme  o\^  the  shallowness  of  American  character. 
which  Adams  had  discussed  in  terms  of  the  .American  contempt  \'ot  ihc 
cultural  graces  championed  by  Mattheu  Arnold,  and  transformed  it 
into  a  suggestive  discussion  of  the  indi\idual  in  mass  sixricty.  Like 
Tocqueville,  Sapir  pointed  out  that  obsessive  individualism  led  to  "ano- 
nymity," since  the  egalitarianism  which  is  inseparable  fri>m  il  means 
that  each  person  desires  only  to  be  like  all  others:  "To  be  a  "regular 
fellow'  ...  is  not  important  because  it  expresses  the  indi\idual.  it  is  im- 
portant because  it  does  not  express  him."  Sapir  mourned  not  "the  dtxay 


746  III  Culture 

of  good  speech  and  good  manners,"  as  Adams  did,  but  "their  gradual 
dissociation  from  the  inner  core  of  personaHty"  (1930c:  428). 

The  theme  o\^  the  dissociation  of  expression  from  personality  recurs 
frequently  in  Sapir's  critical  discussions  of  modern  poets.  According  to 
Sapir,  the  formlessness  of  American  culture,  combined  with  a  search 
for  personal  experience  that  was  both  too  self-conscious  and  too  exter- 
nal, was  poor  soil  for  the  growth  of  a  genuine  poetic  tradition.  Thus  in 
a  review  of  A.  E.  Housman,  Sapir  doubted  "whether  we  can  truly  be 
said  to  be  expressing  ourselves  until  our  moods  become  less  frenetic, 
our  ideas  less  palpable  and  self-conscious,  and  ...  our  forms  less  hesi- 
tant" (1923h:  191).  For  Sapir,  the  search  for  personal  development 
through  ardent  but  undisciplined  experience -whether  in  art  or  in 
love -was  doomed  to  failure  precisely  because  the  self-consciousness  of 
the  pursuit  could  not  coexist  with  the  desired  goals  of  freedom  and 
intuitive  self-expression.  Thus  Sapir  criticized  Bertrand  Russell  for 
treating  "love  and  art"  not  as  "life  itself  but  as  "the  'finer  things'  of 
life"  (Sapir  1929k:  196).  Sapir's  assessment  of  modern  poetry  ran  in  a 
similar  vein: 

The  bulk  of  contemporary  verse  . . .  gives  us  everything  but  the  ecstasy  that  is  the 
language  of  unhampered  intuitive  living.  We  have  shrewd  observation,  fantasy,  the 
vivid  life  of  the  senses,  pensive  grace,  eloquence,  subtle  explorations  of  the  intellect, 
and  a  great  many  other  interesting  things,  but  curiously  little  spiritual  life.  Very  few 
poets  seem  willing,  or  able,  to  take  their  true  selves  seriously  ...  (Sapir  1925 f:  100) 

On  the  other  hand,  Sapir  praised  such  poets  as  Edwin  Arlington  Robin- 
son, "H.  D."  [Hilda  Doolittle]  and  Emily  Dickinson  because  he  felt  they 
had  achieved  self-expression  rather  than  merely  expressed  their  desire 
to  achieve  it.  He  found  in  Robinson's  work,  for  example,  "the  genuinely 
artistic  record  of  a  rigorous  personality.  Mr.  Robinson  has  not  merely 
asked  himself  to  think  and  feel  thus  and  so;  he  has  taken  his  sophisti- 
cated, bitter  soul  for  granted"  (1922t:  141). 

*  *  * 

To  read  the  work  of  Edward  Sapir  'across  the  disciplines'  is  to  read 
it  as  he  wrote  it.  Such  a  reading  shows  that  Sapir  created  not  a  culture 
theory  narrowly  defined,  but  a  philosophy  of  culture  that  remains  vital 
and  relevant  both  for  social  scienfists  and  humanists  and  that  deserves 
to  be  better  known  to  a  wider  lay  audience.  It  is  no  accident  that  the 
linguist,  the  mathematician  and  the  musician  were  praised  in  one  breath 
by  Sapir.  For  him,  science  practiced  in  the  classical  spirit  or  art  prac- 
ticed for  art's  sake  represented  the  finest  and  most  fundamental  expres- 


Four:  Rcfh-cfions  on  Contcmporarv  747 

sion  o['  cnir  luinKiml\.  "ihc  search  o\'  ihc  luinian  spinl  for  bcauliful 
form/"  as  he  urolc  in  I.cini^iuii^c  { l^)2kl:  244).  To  carry  out  ihal  search 
with  disciphiic  and  crcali\ ity  was  ihc  rcsponsihihty  and  joy  of  indi\id- 
uals  who,  if  their  efforts  were  brought  together  by  the  drifts  o\  history, 
miglil  create  a  genuine  cuUure- those  that  come  along,  as  Sapir  once 
wrote,  "every  now  and  then  wilhm  some  ft>itiinale  crvstal-drop  of  lime" 
(1921m:  238). 


CulUirc  in  ihc  Mclling-I\)i 

A  paper  by  Professor  Dewey  on  "American  Hducation  and  Culture,*' 
published  in  the  Xcw  Republic  tor  July  I.  points  to  a  lundamcnlal 
conllict  between  the  traditional  ideal  o(  culture  and  the  actual  condi- 
tions of  life  in  America.  A  multitude  of  problems  are  suuuested  by  ii. 
but  I  confine  myself  to  a  brief  reference  to  a  few  considerations  that 
have  occurred  to  me  in  the  reading.  1  beg  to  be  understcH>d  as  bcmg  in 
the  main  entirely  in  sympathy  with  Professor  Dewey's  standpt)inl,  i.  c. 
the  necessity  of  humanizing  our  utilitarian  civilization  on  the  basis  of  a 
tYank  acceptance  for  educational  purposes  of  current  modes  of  thought 
and  action  instead  of  attempting  to  inject  into  educational  methods  the 
vaccine  of  discarded  classicism.  My  own  remarks  are  meant  rather  as 
supplementary  than  corrective. 

In  the  first  place,  it  seems  to  me  that  Professor  Dewey  lays  too  much 
stress,  though  more  by  implication  than  b\  direct  statement,  on  the 
need  of  a  specifically  American  revision  oi  our  ideal  o\'  culture.  I  he 
disparity  between  tradition  and  reality  is  doubtless  more  glarmg  on  this 
continent  than  in  Europe,  but  it  is  not  different  in  kind  in  the  old  coun- 
try. Everywhere  education  and.  in  consequence,  the  kieal  of  culture  are 
largely  concerned  with  the  acquirement  o\'  matter  and  manner  which 
refiect  the  conditions  of  past  stages,  the  necessar\  adiusimeni  o\  the 
educational  heritage  to  present  conditions,  the  resultants  o\'  indu- 
strialism, being  largely  left  to  the  indi\idual  in  ihc  course  of  his  contact 
with  the  world.  Indeed,  it  would  seem  that  the  lack  of  accord  belsscvn 
culture  and  the  demands  o(  modern  life  is.  if  anything,  more  acute  in 
the  case  of  the  English  university  ideal  than  in  its  American  ci>rresp<>n- 
dent.  So  far,  then,  as  a  thorough  revision  o\  our  ideals  of  culture  is 
demanded,  the  "American"  may  well  be  struck  out  of  Professor  IX-wey's 
title. 

Professor  Dewey  may  retort  that  it  is  not  a  question  of  a  rcMsion  of 
American  ideals,  but  of  their  very  formation.  We  cannot  revise  whal  wc 
do  not  possess.  "The  beginning  of  a  culture  strip|x-d  of  egolislic  illu- 
sions is  the  perception  that  we  ha\e  as  set  no  culture;  that  our  culture 
is  something  to  achieve,  to  create.'  What  passes  under  the  name  ol 
"culture"  in  America,  Professor  Deuey  might  add.  is  merely  Europe's 


750  III  Culture 

cast-otT  clothes.  Unless  I  quite  misunderstand  him,  he  feels  it  necessary 
that  America  should  evolve  a  distinctive  culture  of  its  own,  something 
that  could  be  truly  called  "American."  The  readiness  with  which  Ameri- 
cans deplore  the  lack  of  specifically  American  traits  in  their  culture 
(assuming,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  we  have  one)  is  more  than 
irritating,  it  is  pathetic.  It  rests  partly  on  an  affectation  of  national 
modesty  (as  provincial  a  pose  as  the  earlier  swagger  which  it  has  largely 
replaced  among  the  more  educated),  partly  and  more  profoundly  on  a 
geographical  fallacy.  America  is  politically  and  geographically  distinct 
from  the  Old  World,  hence  it  must  needs  have  a  culture  of  its  own. 
Never  mind  the  fact  that  our  population  is  almost  entirely  recruited 
from  the  countries  of  Europe,  that  it  is  bound  to  them  by  a  thousand 
ties,  that  there  is  hardly  a  single  word  uttered  or  idea  thought  which  is 
not,  in  the  very  nature  of  circumstances,  of  European  origin  -  we  must 
tly  in  the  face  of  fact  and  build  us  a  brand-new  culture.  If  we  are  not 
autochthonous,  we  must  become  so.  And  yet  it  needs  only  the  most 
casual  survey  of  culture  to  teach  us  that  culture  is  not  congruous  with 
political  lines,  nor  immediately  determined  by  environmental  condi- 
tions, but  is  strictly  dependent  on  its  historical  antecedents  and  on  the 
foreign  influences  with  which  it  comes  into  constant  contact.  Europe's 
cast-off  clothes  are  our  own,  though  we  may  be  ashamed  of  them.  Life 
and  thought  in  Canada  are  as  like  life  and  thought  in  the  United  States 
as  one  egg  to  another.  German-speaking  Austria  and  Germany  have  for 
several  centuries  formed  pretty  much  of  a  cultural  unit,  and  this  in  spite 
of  the  greatest  possible  political  heterogeneity. 

And  this  leads  me  to  one  of  the  salient  points  in  the  "historical  ante- 
cedents" of  a  culture.  It  is  the  matter  of  language.  We  hear  much  of 
the  psychological  foundations  of  culture  (national  temperament),  of  the 
moulding  influence  of  economic  conditions  and  of  social  organization, 
of  the  compelling  force  of  the  physical  environment,  but  how  many 
historians  have  perceived  the  overwhelming  significance  of  a  com- 
munity of  language?  It  is  too  trite,  too  obvious  a  point  to  dwell  upon, 
hence  its  importance  is  invariably  missed.  All  the  great  spheres  of  cul- 
ture have  been  and  are  dominated  through  the  medium  of  a  common 
language.  Give  me  a  group  of  men  who  talk  my  language,  whose  con- 
versation and  speeches  I  can  readily  follow,  whose  books  I  can  read, 
and  whose  thoughts  I  can  identify  with  my  own,  and  I  am  or  soon 
become  a  participant  in  their  culture.  As  long  as  America  is  English- 
speaking,  its  culture  must  be  fundamentally  the  same  as  that  of  England 
and  Canada  and  Australia,  necessary  local  modifications  notwithstand- 


Four:  Re  flee  lions  on  C'onlcmporurv  751 

ing.  This  docs  luu  mean  ihal  America  is  condemned  to  slavish  adher- 
ence to  provincial  Anglicisms  of  liioughl  and  habn.  hut  thai  the  culture 
it  shares  in  is  that  of  the  English-speakmg  world  as  a  whole.  It  is  only 
when  we  Americans  fully  realize  this  and  all  that  it  entails  that  we  shall 
be  able  to  bring  our  due  inlluence  to  bear  in  the  world  o\'  science  and 
art.  National  slogans  are  o\'  no  a\ail  in  the  development  of  culture; 
where  they  are  not  justified  by  the  historical  nexus  of  things,  thev  soon 
become  extinct.  Is  not  Walt  Whitman's  "Americanism"  in  poelrv  a  mer- 
ely indi\  idual  outburst,  and  is  it  not  highly  significant  that  its  formative 
infiuence  in  American  culture  is  practically  nil?  To  summarize,  I  should 
say  that  if  we  wish  to  have  in  America  the  sort  of  culture  that  Professor 
Dewey  dimly  foreshadows,  it  becomes  our  task  not  to  create  an  exclu- 
sively American  product  but  to  join  in  the  work  o\'  a  general  revision 
of  the  cultural  standards  of  the  Occidental  world,  and  more  particularly 
of  the  English-speaking  part  of  it. 

A  word  in  conclusion  as  to  the  relations  between  culture  and  social 
and  economic  conditions.  Professor  Dewey  writes:  "I  am  one  o\'  those 
who  think  that  the  only  test  and  justification  o\'  an\  form  o\'  political 
and  economic  society  is  its  contribution  to  art  and  science  -  to  what 
may  roundly  be  called  culture."  And  later  on:  "In  short,  our  culture 
must  be  consonant  with  realistic  science  and  with  machine  industry, 
instead  of  a  refuge  from  them."  Personally.  I  find  I*ro lessor  Dewey's 
range  of  significance  of  the  term  "culture"  too  circumscribed,  but  I 
would  not  insist  on  this,  as  he  has  a  perfect  lighi  to  gi\e  to  so  Hexible 
a  term  what  definition  he  pleases.  My  main  difficulty  is  with  the  ciMicep- 
tion  of  art  and  science  as  a  contribution  of  a  special  "form  of  pi>liiical 
and  economic  society,"  as  though  the  essential  nature  o\'  the  higher 
aspects  of  the  culture  of  a  definite  lime  aiul  place  uere  directly  traceable 
to  current  features  of  the  political  and  economic  organism.  This  is  pre- 
cisely the  method  of  approach  which  is  most  popular,  the  meihixi  of 
nearly  all  sociological  interpreters  of  cultural  histiMV.  the  metlu>d  muia- 
//.v  nnitamlis  also  of  psychological  interpreters.  \  sociei>  is  seen  to  be 
characterized  by  certain  aesthetic  and  intellectual  tendencies;  what  more 
"obvious"  than  that  their  genesis  must  be  sought  in  the  fundamental 
conditions  of  life  of  that  society'.'  Hence  arise  countless  inlerprelaluwis 
-  sociological,  economic,  psychological  o\  any  aspect  o\  the  life  of 
society  you  will.  They  all  ha\e  this  in  ciMnmon.  that  they  conceive  of 
the  vast  complex  o\^  human  activities  characteristic  of  a  given  lime  and 
place  as  constituting  a  self-contained  organism,  the  significance  ol  any 
aspect  of  which  becomes  clear  from  a  penetrating  study  of  all  or  cxTlain 


752  Jtl  Culture 

o^  the  others.  Historical-minded  people  always  have  a  stubborn  diffi- 
culty with  this  conception,  one  that  meets  them  at  every  step.  It  may 
be  that  society  is  gradually  evolving  towards  some  such  exquisite  har- 
mony o^  life  and  structure.  For  the  present,  the  student  of  cultural  his- 
tory (and  under  this  term  I  include  the  data  of  ethnology)  humbly  notes 
that  no  society  is  or  ever  was  thus  self-contained  and  self-explanatory. 
Fach  o\'  the  aspects  of  social  life,  say  philosophy  or  music  or  religion, 
is  more  defmitely  determined  in  form  and  content  by  the  past  history 
of  that  aspect,  by  its  sequential  relation  to  other  manifestations  of  itself 
in  lime  and  place,  than  by  its  co-existence  with  the  other  aspects  of  that 
life.  A  constant  but  always  very  imperfectly  consummated  tendency  is 
present  towards  the  moulding  of  these  more  or  less  distinct  strands  into 
a  tabric;  countless  modifications  and  adaptations  result,  but  the  strands 
nevertheless  remain  distinct.  In  brief,  we  must  allow  for  distinct  levels 
in  cultural  history,  as  we  allow  for  them  in  psychology.  We  must  beware 
o\^  being  tricked  by  our  inveterately  monistic  habit  of  mind.  To  apply 
these  principles  to  our  quest  of  an  American  culture,  let  us  not  delude 
ourselves  into  the  belief  that  a  new  art  and  science  will  somehow  de- 
velop from  a  specifically  American  set  of  social  and  economic  condi- 
tions. The  art  and  science,  the  culture,  of  America  will,  let  us  hope,  be 
responsive  to  these  conditions;  it  will  not,  for  all  that,  be  created  by 
them. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  The  Nation  Supplement,  December  21,  1916, 
1  -2.  Copyright  1916,  reprinted  by  permission  of  The  Nation  Magazine/ 
The  Nation  Company,  Inc.,  publishers. 

Sapir  comments  on  John  Dewey,  "American  Education  and  Culture," 
The  New  Republic,  My  \,  1916,  215-217.  Dewey  (1859-1952),  an  Amer- 
ican philosopher,  psychologist,  and  educator,  developed  (with  C.  A. 
Peirce  and  William  James)  the  philosophy  of  Pragmatism.  He  was  a 
leading  theorist  of  the  progressive  education  movement. 


Review  of  Paul  Abclson, 
English- Yiddish  Encyclopedic  Dicliiffuirv 

Paul  Abelson,  ed.,  English- Yiddish  Eiuychipahc  Dictionurv.  u  Com- 
plete Lexicon  and  Work  of  Reference  in  All  Departments  of  Knowledge. 
New  York:  Jewish  Press  Publishing  Company.  1915. 

There  are  in  New  York  and  many  others  ol^  ouv  large  cities  a  va.sl 
number  of  intelligent  and  lettered  Jewish  immigrants  who  are  hampered 
in  their  educational  and  other  ambitions  by  the  lack  of  adequate  knoxsl- 
edge  o\^  the  language  of  the  country  that  they  have  made  their  ha\en. 
They  have  in  many  cases  not  only  to  cope  with  the  intrinsic  difficulties 
of  acquiring  a  new  language  and  culture  under  conditions  o\'  poverty 
that  leave  little  leisure  for  study,  and  at  a  time  ot"  life  that  is  past  the 
stage  of  linguistic  flexibility,  but  they  have  also  to  contend  uith  a  more 
subtle  factor.  The  tendency  of  Jewish  immigrants  to  congregate  into 
colonies,  combined  with  the  rather  high  level  of  taste  and  culture 
brought  by  a  large  proportion  of  them  frc^ii  the  ok!  uorkl.  fosters  the 
development  and  maintenance  in  America  of  a  specificall)  Judeo-Cjer- 
man  (Yiddish)  culture  (literature,  theatre,  social  and  economic  endeav- 
our, and  so  on),  which  more  or  less  adequatelv  satisfies  the  mielleciual 
and  aesthetic  demands  of  the  immigrants  and  renders  the  ntx'cssily  for 
their  linguistic  and  cultural  assimilation  less  immediately  imperative 
than  might  be  supposed.  Not  that  the  transplantation  and  further  devel- 
opment of  this  Judeo-German  culture  is  in  itself  a  reprehensible  phe- 
nomenon, but,  if  the  rapid  and  thorough  acquirement  o\'  linglish  be 
set  as  a  goal,  the  conditions  outlined  must  franklv  be  recogm/cd  a> 
constituting  an  obstacle.  [141] 

While  the  English- Yiddish  Encyclopedic  Dictu>HLii\  .iuuksscn  ii>cii  i*- 
all  Yiddish-speaking  foreigners  in  America  that  are  able  to  read  their 
mother  tongue  and  are  desirous  of  gaining  a  knowledge,  elementary  or 
thorough,  of  the  English  language,  it  is  probablv  to  the  more  cultured 
type  of  immigrant  that  it  will  prove  of  the  greatest  use.  it  will  doubtless 
do  much  to  enable  him  to  overcome  the  cultural  resistance  that  wc 
have  indicated.  Dr.  Abelson  and  his  collaborators  deserve  our  vvarmcsl 


754  III  Culture 

commendation  for  their  successful  solution  of  a  unique  and  difficult 
problem.  There  is  here  otTered  to  the  Jewish  immigrant  a  mass  of  ade- 
quately illustrated  information  which  is  hardly  inferior  in  bulk  or  qual- 
ity to  that  contained  in  the  native  American's    Webster. 

In  fact,  one  wonders  whether  the  repast  is  not  a  bit  too  sumptuous. 
It  seems  fairly  obvious  that  a  work  of  this  kind  must,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  be  transitional  in  character.  In  other  words,  its  raison  d'etre 
largely  ceases  with  the  fulfillment  of  its  aims,  as  the  scaffolding  is  demol- 
ished with  the  completion  of  the  structure.  Under  these  circumstances, 
one  is  somewhat  puzzled  to  find  valuable  space  devoted  to  the  explana- 
tion in  Judeo-German  (the  entries  are  English,  all  the  explanatory 
matter  is  Judeo-German)  of  such  words  as  heteratomic,  quinquefoUate, 
incomhu.stihilify,  and  hosts  of  others.  Surely,  one  fancies,  the  student 
who  feels  impelled  to  seek  light  on  the  meaning  of  words  such  as  these 
is  bound  to  have  progressed  far  enough  in  his  study  of  English  to  be 
able  to  consult  English  works  of  reference.  It  seems  indeed  a  pity  that 
space  so  disposed  of  -  and  it  forms  no  inconsiderable  portion  of  the 
book  -  was  not  rather  devoted  to  fuller  information  on  the  bread-and- 
butter  topics  suggested  by  the  humbler  entries.  For  the  greater  familiar- 
ity thus  gained  with  the  form  and  subject-matter  of  American  thought 
the  inquiring  immigrant  would  gladly,  we  venture  to  think,  have  dis- 
pensed with  the  frills  and  furbelows.  So  far,  indeed,  is  the  Encyclopedic 
Dictionary  from  exercising  restraint  in  this  regard  that  nearly  every  page 
betrays  to  the  man  of  normal  English  speech  his  depths  of  ignorance. 
In  the  face  of  the  editors'  authority  I  [142]  should  certainly  not  care  to 
dispute  the  existence  of  such  words  as  nival,  nivous,  ort  (translated  into 
Judeo-German  as:  'a  remainder,  a  fragment,  that  which  is  left  over  and 
is  to  be  thrown  away'),  connexity,  incogitantly,  and  interfenestrcd,  but 
I  submit  that  I  would  have  preferred  to  see  these  at  best  nebulous  beings 
housed  in  some  such  thesaurus  as  the  Oxford  N.  E.  D.  than  exposed  to 
the  quizzical  stare  of  the  unappreciative  foreigner. 

Yet,  in  view  of  the  magnitude  of  Dr.  Abelson's  accomplishment,  it 
seems  unkind  to  insist  on  such  shortcomings  as  these.  To  make  amends, 
he  has  very  commendably  devoted  considerable  space  to  the  explanation 
of  idiomatic  turns  of  expression,  those  bugaboos  of  all  foreigners.  Thus, 
It  IS  refreshing  to  find  justice  done  to  such  collocations  as  come-down, 
come  down  on,  come  in  for,  come  out  with,  come  upon,  come  to  the 
scratch,  and  numerous  others. 

In  one  important  point  (and  this  is  the  only  really  serious  criticism 
that  I  would  make)  the  dictionary  proves  a  disappointment.  This  is  in 


Four:  Reflections  on  Confcntporarv  755 

the  matter  oi'  pronunciation.  True.  Judeo-Cjernian.  uith  its  simple  vo- 
calic system,  is  certainly  one  of  the  languages  least  adapted  to  transli- 
terate a  language  with  so  difficult  a  phonetic  system  as  llnglish.  but  i 
cannot  help  thinking  that  the  problem  of  suggesting  an  approximately 
correct  English  pronunciation  might  have  been  more  satisfactorily 
solved.  As  it  is,  the  transliterations  adopted  b\  the  editors  can  only 
confirm  those  who  use  the  book  in  precisely  those  faults  of  pronuncia- 
tion that  are  characteristic  of  the  Yiddish-speaking  foreigners  and  uhich 
are  apt  to  render  their  speech  so  disagreeable  to  Americans.  I  belies e 
that  an  almost  heroic  attempt  should  have  been  made  by  the  editors  to 
convey  some  idea  of  the  qualitative  and  quantitative  nuances  o\'  the 
English  vowels.  If  the  use  of  at  least  certain  diacritical  marks  would 
thus  have  been  rendered  unavoidable,  no  matter.  If  too  great  an  expense 
would  thereby  have  been  entailed,  it  would  have  been  excellent  peda- 
gogy and  economy  to  have  greatly  decreased  the  compass  o\'  the  biH>k 
Better  half  the  number  of  pages  and  some  indication,  e.  g.  o\'  the  ditTer- 
ence  in  pronunciation  between  the  vowel  of  Jan  and  that  o(  fen  (as  it 
is,  [143]  they  are  so  transliterated  as  to  suggest  an  identical  pronuncia- 
tion, fen,  for  both).  Nor  is  there  anything  to  show  that  the  ///  o\'  a 
word  like  ihis  is  not  identical  with  the  ///  o\^  a  word  like  thick.  And 
why,  of  ail  transliterations,  is  one  chosen  for  w  that  necessarily  suggests 
a  pronunciation  hv  (incidentally  w  is  not  distinguished  from  m7;)?  But 
this  is  not  the  place  to  analyse  the  phonetic  deficiencies  o(  the  work  in 
detail.  I  wish  merely  to  point  out  that  the  handling  o\'  the  phonetic 
problem  leaves  much  to  be  desired. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in     The  Jewish  Quarterly  Review   7.   140     14^ 
(1916).  Reprinted  by  permission  o\^   The  Jewish  Quarterly  Review 


Review  of  Samuel  Butler, 
God  the  Known  and  God  the  Unknown 

Samuel  Butler,  God  the  Known  and  God  the  Unknown.  New  Haven: 
Yale  University  Press,  1917. 

Whatever  in  the  spiritual  life  of  man  has  the  highest  potency  for  him, 
according  to  temperament  or  level  of  consciousness  attained,  whatever 
aspect  of  experience  is  felt  to  open  the  portals  to  the  loftiest  flights  of 
creative  imagination,  is  very  apt  to  be  projected  into  his  God.  The  es- 
sence of  God  is  sought  in  those  concepts  that  liberate  the  caged  self  and 
make  it  supreme  in  its  own  world  of  chosen  goods.  God  is  thus  the 
impersonation  or  source  of  magic,  of  power,  of  immortality,  of  truth, 
of  art,  of  morality,  of  ecstatic  vision,  of  annihilation.  All  gods,  at  any 
rate  all  useful  gods,  are  anthropomorphic;  in  so  far  as  the  gods  of  theo- 
logical and  philosophical  speculation  escape  the  human  mould,  they 
reduce  to  purely  verbal  formulae.  The  Jesus  of  Christian  myth  has  in- 
tense vitality  as  a  symbol  of  human  aspiration,  of  triumph  in  degrada- 
tion; the  Holy  Ghost  can  found  no  cult. 

The  God  of  Samuel  Butler  is  no  exception  to  the  rule.  He  possesses 
the  attributes  of  his  creator  and  incorporates  his  strongest  aspirations. 
I  had  come  to  Butler's  essay  fresh  from  The  Note  Books,  that  curious 
congeries  of  brilliant  epigrams,  dead-ridden  hobbies,  far-fetched  analo- 
gies, and  penetrating  analyses;  hence  I  could  not  fail  to  observe  the 
impress  of  Butler's  personality,  as  revealed  by  himself  in  these  notes,  on 
his  theological  speculations.  Butler  was  a  man  of  a  very  definite,  though 
not  easily  definable,  cast  of  mind,  possessed  of  very  clear-cut  likes  and 
dislikes,  and  fond  of  hugging  certain  thoughts,  attitudes,  and  modes  of 
reasoning  with  a  persistency  that  is  occasionally  trying  to  the  reader, 
but  indicafive  at  the  same  time  of  their  high  emotional  value  for  Butler. 
Some  of  the  suggestive  traits  revealed  in  The  Note  Books  are  a  prag- 
matic attitude  towards  truth  that  must  have  seemed  paradoxical  to  his 
contemporaries  (in  one  passage  Butler  directly  states  that  that  is  true 
which  it  is  most  "convenient"  to  believe);  a  strong  disinclination  to  take 
account  of  any  factors  not  directly  yielded  by  experience;  a  distrust  of 


Four:  Reflect ion.s  on  Contemporary  757 

all  arguments  pushed  lo  ihcir  logical  extreme;  ;i  wcll-nigh  amazing  reli- 
ance on  evidence  from  analogy  (as  Butler  characteristically  puts  ii.  anal- 
ogy is  poor  ground  for  an  argument  but  it  is  the  best  we  have);  and, 
probably  most  deep-rooted  of  all,  a  habit  of  bridging  all  sorts  of  oppi>- 
sites,  which  Butler's  ingrained  love  of  antithesis  of  expression  leads  him 
to  contemplate  [193]  with  genuine  inieresi.  inio  a  continuum,  so  thai 
all  life  is  seen  to  harbor  death  and  no  death  to  be  altogether  lifeless,  all 
mind  to  be  associated  with  matter  and  no  form  o(  matter  to  be  altoge- 
ther mindless  -  in  short,  A  to  include  something  of  Z  and  Z  something 
of  A.  One  may,  indeed,  suspect  the  last  two  of  these  traits  to  have  had 
over  Butler  something  of  the  tyrannical  sway  of  compulsive  thought- 
habits.  Surely  not  a  little  in  his  theories  and  fancies  is  attributable  to 
them. 

Through  Butler's  work  runs,  further,  an  earnest,  quietly  passionate, 
longing  for  eventual  recognition,  a  longing  now  rising  to  calm  assur- 
ance, now  masking  itself  in  a  philosophic  humor  of  inditTerence  that 
was  but  half  insincere.  For  the  catchpenny  recognition  o\'  the  passing 
hour  he  had  a  genuine  scorn,  though  the  note  o\^  wistful  regret  is  not 
absent  from  his  contemplation  of  the  relative  tailure  to  achieve  literary 
fame  that  was  his  lot.  Few  men  have  had  such  confidence  in  the  morrow 
succeeding  to  the  day  of  personal  identity,  few  ha\e  had  such  an  abiding 
sense  of  the  reality  of  the  unity,  biological  and  spiritual,  uhich  binds 
the  generations  inextricably  together.  The  sense  of  a  personality  of  flesh 
and  spirit  transcending  that  of  individual  consciousness  is,  indeed,  the 
keynote  to  much  of  Butler's  thinking.  It  is  at  the  heart  o\'  his  evolution- 
ary speculations,  with  his  curious  identification  o\'  memor\  and  hered- 
ity, as  it,  in  a  measure,  also  pervades  his  masterpiece.  The  liliv  of  All 
Flesh,  a  novel  of  four  generations.  Permanence  of  a  something  uhich. 
in  the  midst  of  endless  dissolutions,  unfolds  towards  an  unknown  goal 
-  the  concept  is  rarely  absent  from  Butler's  thoughts,  it  takes  shape  in 
innumerable  forms.  Between  the  personal  fame  for  which  he  U>nged 
and  the  complete  submergence  of  self  in  a  spiniual  luinuis  alTording 
nourishment  to  those  that  follow,  Butler  found  no  true  opposition.  Life. 
organic  and  psychic,  is  merely  the  endlessly  ramified  career  o\  a  single 
personality. 

This  brings  us  face  to  face  with  Huilcrs  conception  of  (Jod.  His  Cn^<\ 
will,  above  all  things,  be  one  that  we  can  most  "conveniently'"  believe 
in  as  doing  least  violence  to  our  daily  habits  of  thought  and  most  readily 
following  as  a  synthesis  of  actual  experience.  I'here  will  Iv  nothing  mys- 
tical  about  him,  nothing  that  bailies  the  understanding.  He  will  bo  a 


758  lit  Culture 

modest  God,  a  God  in  man's  own  image,  and  he  will  no  more  hold  in 
his  hands  the  key  to  the  riddle  of  existence  than  does  the  least  of  his 
creatures.  Nor  will  he  hold  himself  austerely  aloof  in  a  divine  empyrean 
whence  issue  strange  fulminations  and  prescriptions;  he  will  be  our  veri- 
est neighbor,  squatting  on  our  own  domain.  He  will,  Hke  any  phenome- 
non, be  content  to  fit  himself  into  the  analogical  scheme  of  things.  And 
he  will  be  as  everlasting  as  life  itself,  no  more  and  no  less. 

In  short,  Butler's  God  is  identical  with  that  ramified  but  single  per- 
sonality that  evolution  knows,  whose  being  is  the  totality  of  life.  He  is 
the  sum  total  and  synthesis  of  all  manifestations  of  life,  animal  and 
vegetable.  To  be  more  exact,  he  is  the  personalized  energy  or  principle 
that  resides  and  has,  for  untold  aeons,  resided  in  living  matter  and  mind 
-  for  the  two  are  inseparable.  The  single  cell  of  the  animal  organism  is 
a  perfect  and  self-sufficient  Hfe  unit  or  personality,  unaware,  or  but 
dimly  aware,  of  the  larger  whole  of  which  it  forms  a  part,  yet  existing 
only  for  the  sake  of  that  whole.  In  precisely  the  same  manner,  argues 
Butler,  each  individual  in  the  great  sum  of  animated  nature,  plant  or 
animal  or  human  being,  is  a  hfe  unit  or  personality  that  is  unaware,  or 
but  dimly  aware,  of  the  vast  personahty  or  God  of  which  it  forms  an 
infinitesimal  fragment  and  which,  we  may  believe,  possesses  a  con- 
sciousness transcending  ours  as  this  transcends  the  consciousness  of  the 
single  cell.  Cell,  organism,  God  -  these  form  "three  great  concentric 
phases  of  life."  The  vast  personality  indwelhng  in  life  is  the  known  God. 
Whether  or  not  there  is  a  fourth  concentric  phase,  an  unknown  God, 
embracing  a  multitude  of  Gods  analogous  to  the  only  one  we  have 
direct  knowledge  of,  it  is  useless  to  speculate.  As  the  cell  knows  not  our 
God,  so  we  cannot  be  expected  to  know  a  super-God.  Butler's  theology 
leads  to  no  metaphysical  solutions  of  ultimate  problems. 

This  conception  of  God  differs  radically  not  only  from  that  of  ortho- 
dox theism  but  from  the  all-inclusive  God  of  the  pantheists.  Both  of 
these  lack  the  fundamental  essential  of  an  intelligible  God  -  personal- 
ity. Nevertheless  it  is  easy  to  perceive  that  Butler's  conception  lends 
itself  to  a  readier  approximation  to  the  pantheistic  God  than  to  the 
sovereign  God  of  religion.  In  the  present  work  Butler  is  at  considerable 
pains  to  dismiss  the  pantheistic  conception  as  unthinkable;  yet  we  learn 
from  his  editor's  note  to  the  chapter  on  "The  Tree  of  Life"  that  the 
separation  of  the  organic  from  the  inorganic,  which  is  at  the  basis  of 
Butler's  thesis,  was  later  abandoned  [194]  by  him  and  that  he  felt  im- 
pelled, in  consequence,  to  reconstruct  his  essay.  This  work  however  he 
left  undone.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  Butler  could  in  the  end  have 


Four:  Reflect  ions  on  Contemporary  759 

avoided  the  pantheism  he  had  tippc^scd.  Ii  would  have  had  to  be.  need- 
less to  say,  a  pantheism  arri\cd  al  h\  a  series  of  eoneentrie  phases  of 
some  sort  of  evolutionary  process. 

In  his  critical  study  on  Samuel  Bullcr  \\\.  (jilbcrl  Cannan  somewhat 
petulantly  remarks:  "I  cannot  believe  in  his  (iod,  simpK  because  he 
does  not  write  about  his  God  with  style.  He  writes  not  as  one  passii)n- 
ately  beheving,  but  as  one  desirous  of  accounting  for  a  phenomenon, 
in  this  instance  faith.  Since  there  is  faith  there  must  be  (Jod.  pan- 
psychic."  This  is  not  akogether  fair.  There  are  not  a  few  passages  m 
Butler's  little  book  where  the  dialectic  flames  into  imaginative  diction. 
Moreover  his  God  embodies,  in  the  only  way  possible  for  Butler,  his 
desire  tor  spiritual  perpetuation.  Yet.  on  the  whole,  there  is  small  doubt 
that  the  quest  of  God  had  not  the  burning  necessity  for  Butler's  ironical 
and  eminently  level-headed  temperament  that  it  has  for  certain  other 
natures.  Mr.  Cannan  could  hardly  have  expected  him  to  write  i>f  (iod 
with  the  passionate  conviction  and  the  lo\e  that  are  due  Mis  especiall> 
favored  manifestation,  Handel. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  The  Dial  64,  192  194  ( 191S).  under  the  lille 
"God  as  Visible  Personality."  Reprinted  by  permission  o'i  The  Dial. 

Samuel  Butler  (1835-1902)  was  an  English  essayist,  critic,  novelist, 
and  philosopher,  best  known  today  for  his  two  no\els  /"/;<•  Way  oj  All 
Flesh  and    Ercwiion. 


Review  of  John  M.  Tyler, 

The  New  Stone  Age,  Stewart  Paton,  Human  Behavior, 

and  Edwin  G.  Conklin,  The  Direction  of  Human 

Evolution 

John  M.  Tyler,  The  New  Stone  Age  in  Northern  Europe.  New  York: 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  1921. 

Stewart  Paton,  Human  Behavior  in  Relation  to  the  Study  of  Educa- 
tional. Social,  and  Ethical  Problems.  New  York:  Charles  Scribner's  Sons, 
1921. 

Edwin  Grant  Conklin,  The  Direction  of  Human  Evolution.  New  York: 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  1921. 

Toward  the  end  of  a  readable  and  enjoyable  outline  of  the  main  facts 
of  neolithic  culture  in  Europe  Mr.  Tyler  strikes  an  anxious  note.  "The 
elite  of  wealth,  learning,  and  culture  today,"  he  complains,  "have  gen- 
erally given  up  the  search  for  ends  in  life.  The  old  question:  'What  is 
man's  chief  end?'  sounds  archaic.  We  are  doubtful  as  to  the  existence 
or  desirability  of  such  a  thing.  We  are,  in  the  language  of  the  broker, 
very  'long'  on  means,  but  terribly  'short'  on  ends,  for  which  there  is  no 
market.  Some  day  we  shall  again  find  a  place  for  end  and  purpose  in 
our  philosophy  and  science,  as  in  the  systems  of  Paul,  Plato,  and  espe- 
cially of  Aristotle,  with  his  'passion  for  the  obvious,'  but  at  present 
these  thinkers  are  back  numbers.  Yet  we  must  have  ends  of  life  beyond 
mere  survival,  comfort,  or  luxury,  and  getting  a  living.  Some  scale  of 
values,  not  solely  and  purely  mercantile,  would  also  be  useful."  This 
note  may  be  nuanced  by  each  and  every  one  of  us  to  suit  the  require- 
ments of  his  temperament,  but  it  cannot  be  laughed  away.  We  are  all 
uneasy,  all  wondering  a  little  about  the  whither  of  life.  The  insouciance 
of  less  self-conscious  ages,  when  men  could  afford  to  forget  the  ends  of 
life  because  they  were  so  trustfully  accepted,  seems  to  have  gone.  Freed 
from  the  shackles  of  positive  faiths  and  superstitions,  we  now  find  our- 
selves clogged  by  a  more  mischievous  slavery  than  we  ever  knew,  a 
bondage  to  unpatterned  and  undirected  activity  masking  an  inner  emp- 
tmess.  Our  very  keenness  of  sight  has  burnt  away  the  significance  of 


Four:  Rc/la  lions  an  Contemporary  75| 

what  \vc  look  upon.  Hence  il  comes  iluit  so  nuicli  o\i  our  \sriling  and 
lecturing  is  preoccupied,  the  ventriloquistic  utterance  of  absent  souls. 

These  three  books  are  no  exception  to  the  rule  of  divided  atlcnlion. 
Men  sincerely  engrossed  in  the  enlbldment  o{  neolithic  l-.uro^x-an  cul- 
ture should  not  be  too  anxious  to  save  out  of  neolithic  mentality  a 
reassuring  spiritual  fundament,  attributable  to  the  "common  man." 
which  is  to  help  us  forward  over  difficult  ways.  The  text  is  too  remote 
from  the  urgency,  even  though  the  sermon  does  not  ring  whollv  false. 
Again,  only  one  that  loves  his  prejudices  nuMc  than  his  science  can  so 
depart  from  the  sober  task  o^  laying  bare  ihe  essentials  o{  "human 
behavior"  as  to  take  his  cue  fiom  chapter  headings  like  imperfect  Or- 
ganization and  Man  and  the  Progress  of  Civilization  for  self-relieNing 
diatribes  -  anti-bolshevist,  anti-German,  anti-pacifist,  anti-futurist.  A 
neurologist,  no  less  than  his  patient,  has  the  right  to  be  ner\ous  and 
irascible,  but  we  doubt  if  his  psychology  has  that  right.  \lr  Paton 
clearly  believes  that  there  are  weightier  presences  in  the  air  than  sensori- 
motor arcs.  But  the  scientist,  the  artist,  and  the  lo\er  ha\e  the  momen- 
tary privilege  of  setting  the  object  o\^  their  contemplation  abme  the 
salvation  of  humanity.  We  do  not  readily  forgive  them  a  bungled  expres- 
sion because  they  have  been  swerved  from  their  idolair\  b\  things  that 
matter.  Mr.  Conklin's  distraughtness  is  not  so  apparent,  swathed  as  it 
is  in  the  gentle  language  of  Chautauqua.  But  it  is  there,  insidiously, 
pervasively.  We  instinctively  distrust  an  e\olution  that  incidentall>  sa\cs 
for  us  our  "democratic"  ideal  and  even  takes  the  teeth  out  of  "religion  " 
We  would  rather  it  were  not  quite  so  accommodating,  but  uenl  cr\pii- 
cally  on  its  way,  disdainful  of  local  comforts.  Mr.  C\Miklin  comes  to  us 
with  a  message.  "The  inspiring  visions,"  he  whispers.  ^\>\'  prophets  and 
seers  concerning  a  new  heaven,  a  new  earth,  and  a  neu  humamt)  find 
confirmation  and  not  destruction  in  human  e\olution  \iewed  in  retro- 
spect and  in  prospect,  for  the  past  and  present  tendencies  of  evolution 
justify  the  highest  hopes  for  the  future  and  inspire  faith  in  the  final 
culmination  o{  this  great  law  in 

"one  far-off  di\ine  e\enl 
To  which  the  whole  creation  nunes.'" 
It  is  lucky  for  us  indeed  that  Daiuin's  old  dragon  turns  out  to  be  Santa 
Claus  incog. 

In  spite  o'i  all  the  wishful  thinking,  nou  sentimental  or  chivalrous, 
now  stridently  eugenic,  in  spite  of  all  the  telescopic,  l-darc-you-say-no 
glances  into  the  future,  these  books,  taken  together,  are  useful  for  a 


762  lil  Culture 

philosophy  of  ends.  They  atTord  a  certain  basis  of  fact  around  which 
thoughts  may  crystalHze. 

The  fully  developed  neolithic,  or  "polished  stone,"  culture  of  Scandi- 
navia and  of  Central  and  Western  Europe  antedates  the  dynastic  period 
in  Egypt  and  is  ultimately  founded  on  an  Asiatic  culture  which  reaches 
back  to  10,000  B.  C,  if  we  may  trust  Mr.  Tyler's  interpretations  of 
recent  archaeological  researches  at  Anau  (in  western  Turkestan)  and  at 
Susa.  This  culture  reached  probably  its  most  typical  development  in  the 
Lake  Dwellings  of  Switzerland,  but  it  had  many  local  varieties,  exempli- 
fied by  the  megalithic  monuments  of  Western  Europe  and  by  the  dif- 
ferent areas  of  distribution  of  types  of  ornamented  pottery.  Its  basic 
and  most  persistent  elements  were  not  so  much  the  many  beautiful  vari- 
eties of  smoothly  finished  artifacts  of  stone  or  the  impressive  dolmens, 
with  their  religious  connotations,  as  the  domestication  of  several  useful 
animals  and  the  cultivation  of  cereals.  Both  of  these  features  are  still  at 
the  root  of  our  modern  economy.  The  importance  of  the  domestication 
of  cattle  far  transcended  the  immediate  demand  for  beef,  milk,  and 
leather.  The  late  neolithic  use  of  the  ox  for  wheel-traction  and  plowing 
was  a  necessary  step  in  the  eventual  development  of  modern  machinery. 
Neolithic  culture  forms  the  basis  of  European  civilization  in  a  more 
than  merely  chronological  sense,  for  most  of  the  dominating  ideas  or 
cultural  determinants  in  our  life  of  today  were  then  present  in  germinal 
or  developed  form.  Add  to  this  the  fact  that  the  basic  racial  types  of 
modern  Europe  are  clearly  represented  in  the  skeletal  remains  that  have 
come  down  to  us  from  neolithic  times,  and  we  get  a  notion  of  our 
substantial  fixity  over  long  periods  in  the  midst  of  overwhelming 
changes  in  the  apparent  run  of  history.  For  a  philosophy  of  ends  Mr. 
Tyler's  book  gives  us  this  thought,  that  if  our  free  quest  of  ends  is  to 
concern  itself  with  the  basic  "substance"  of  our  lives,  with  the  conscious 
manipulation  or  even  creation  of  specific  fundamentals,  whether  of  race 
or  culture,  we  are  likely  to  be  smiled  at  for  our  pains.  Mendelian  inheri- 
tance and  the  historical  process  have  their  own  ideas  about  the  super- 
man. 

The  historical  process,  the  cumulative  drift  of  culture  that  formally 
transcends  the  reactions  of  the  individual  organism,  is  not  envisaged  by 
Mr.  Paton.  Like  most  psychologists  and  neurologists,  he  is  more  famil- 
iar with  the  chemistry  of  life  than  with  its  architecture.  Glandular  secre- 
tions, so  it  would  seem,  are  more  likely  to  prove  the  efficient  causes 
of  human  behavior  than  the  imponderables  of  tradition.  But  for  this 
obtuseness  to  the  historical  sky-line  of  human  conduct  Mr.  Paton  is 


Four:  Rctlcctidtis  on  (\micmporur\  763 

hardl\  to  be  blanicd.  for  each  ciiscipliiic  creates  ils  own  myopia.  In  his 
more  special  pixnince.  ihe  iiatiiie  of  luiinaii  beha\ior  lYom  an  organis- 
mal  slandpoinl.  he  has  much  ot"  \alue  lo  give  us.  It  is  a  piiy  ihal  his 
book  is  w  rillen  m  a  ueedlessls  heavy  style  and  that  the  argument  moNC!» 
in  so  sluggish  a  cuneiil.  Mr.Paton  recognizes  the  extreme  ct»mpleMly  of 
the  organic  delerminaiils  ot"  human  behavior,  also  the  very  provisional 
character  o{  many  o^  our  currently  held  dogmas  as  lo  the  nature  o{  this 
behavior.  Probably  the  greatest  service  he  renders  is  his  insistence  on 
the  functional  unity  of  an  individual's  behavior,  physiological  and  psy- 
chic, at  any  given  moment  o\'  lime.  An  'idea'"  rising  into  consciousness 
is  not  simply  the  psychic  correlate  of  neural  activitv  localized  in  a  cer- 
tain brain  "center,''  as  is  so  often  held;  it  is  rather  one  aspect  of  a  vast 
network  of  activities  atTecting  the  whole  body  at  once.  These  activities 
include  not  only  sensory  stimulations  and  motor  discharges  and  inhibi- 
tions too  [238]  complicated  to  follow  in  detail,  but  all  manner  of  muscu- 
lar, visceral,  and  glandular  processes  that  register  explicitly  in  con- 
sciousness only  under  unusual  circumstances.  Overstimulate  a  sense- 
organ  here,  or  too  powerfully  inhibit  a  neural  discharge  there,  and  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that  the  intimate  texture  and  coK>r  o\  the  "idea" 
have  in  some  degree  been  modified.  The  more  popular  and  more  easily 
apprehended  psychology  that  rigidly  localizes  states  o\'  mind  and  attri- 
butes specific  rather  than  quantitative  difterences  to  them  thus  relapses 
into  a  kind  of  "scientific  phrenology."  to  use  an  apt  phrase  of  the  hehav- 
iorists.  Behavior  is  not  a  sum  of  specific  activities,  each  independeniK 
set  in  motion  by  a  given  stimulus  in  the  environment,  but  the  rhvihmi- 
cally  fiuctuating  register  of  the  "set"  of  the  organism  as  it  is  responding 
to  all  the  stimuli,  inner  and  outer,  to  which  it  is  capable  o{  responding. 
So  extremely  functional  a  method  of  conceiving  human  thought  and 
activity,  if  we  choose  to  adopt  it.  must  color  our  attitude  toward  the 
problem  of  ends.  May  it  not  be  a  vain  thing  to  look  for  specific  ends 
and  may  it  not  be  a  more  comforting  thing  to  value  life  for  the  rhvthms 
and  patterns  of  its  process? 

The  Direction  oj  Human  Evolution  is  a  discussion,  not  valuable  but 
lucid,  of  the  commonplaces  o\^  evolutionary  doctrine.  Mr.  Conklin 
draws  a  commendably  sharp  line  between  biological  heredilv  and  the 
"inheritance"  of  social  features,  winch  are  acquired  characlerislics.  The 
distinction  once  made,  however,  it  is  practically  ignored.  Hie  superficial 
formal  parallels  between  the  process  of  organic  evolution  and  the  course 
of  "social  evolution"  are  made  the  most  o{,  and  the  eventual  arrival  o^ 
our  troubled  human  ship  into  a  haven  of  good  things  and  nice  feelings 


764  ///   Culture 

is  said  to  be  the  end-point  of  a  single  magnificent  impulse  that  began 
with  the  overworked  amoeba.  While  Mr.  Conklin  makes  no  serious  con- 
tribution to  the  problem  of  the  direction  of  human  culture,  he  makes  it 
clear  that  the  tuture  of  man  is  essentially  a  matter  of  culture,  not  of 
biology.  No  significant  organismal  changes  are  to  be  hoped  for  or 
feared,  in  spite  of  the  expert  breeders,  Shavian  and  other,  it  would  seem 
to  be  not  in  the  least  likely  that  man  will  make  of  himself  a  higher 
potential  instrument  than  he  already  is.  Man  as  an  animal,  as  a  psycho- 
physical machine,  is  a  fait  accompli.  He  has  attained  biological  fixity 
too  long  ago  to  make  it  worth  our  while  worrying  overmuch  about  his 
points.  Something  may  be  done  to  eliminate  undesirable  individuals, 
but  the  serious  hope  of  man  can  only  rest  in  the  cultural  process  itself, 
not  in  the  nature  of  the  organism  that  carries  culture. 

Mr.  Tyler's  querulousness  as  to  the  present  lack  of  interest  in  the  ends 
of  man  is  intelligible  enough.  Still  more  readily  intelligible  is  the  lack 
of  interest  itself  A  clear  conviction  of  the  presence  and  power  of  the 
ends  which  he  longs  for  is  possible  only  if  we  feel  that  there  is  or  will 
be  an  intelligence  that  must  be  gratified  by  the  attainment  or  pursuit  of 
these  ends.  This  intelligence  may  be  paternal  to  man;  in  other  words, 
we  may  be  called  upon  to  do  God's  bidding.  Or  it  may  be  projected 
into  the  dim  future  as  a  dream-realizing  humanity;  in  that  case  our  task 
should  take  the  form  of  parental  self-sacrifice.  Or,  finally,  the  ruling 
intelligence  may  be  our  desire  of  today;  we  must  then  demand  the  fulfil- 
ment of  ends  here  and  now.  We  are  in  a  sorry  way  at  present  about  the 
orientation  of  loyalty.  God  seems  to  have  died;  we  are  thrown  back  on 
ourselves.  Unfortunately,  we  were  never  less  clear  about  the  nature  of 
the  individual,  of  society,  and  of  the  cultural  changes  that  are  taking 
place  all  around  us.  Is  our  society  but  a  matrix  and  a  stimulus  for 
individual  expression,  or  is  the  individual  merely  a  thorn  in  some  mas- 
sively flowering  process  that  we  can  know  but  dimly?  The  too  system- 
atic restlessness  of  evolution  and  a  too  easy  command  of  the  externals 
of  our  natural  environment  have  conspired  to  give  us  the  insolence 
named  hubris  -  see  H.  G.  Wells  for  a  passing  example  of  this  spirit  of 
the  nouveau  riche  which  is  in  us  all.  We  allow  ourselves  to  be  hurried 
into  frenzied  analyses  and  undertake  to  map  the  endless  sea  of  life,  not 
caring  to  make  a  cosmos  of  the  transient  wave  we  ride.  From  this  hubris 
must  proceed,  first,  disgust,  and  later,  a  chastened  humility. 

The  concluding  remarks  of  this  review  are  framed  in  the  spirit  of  the 
coming  humility,  so  nearly  visible  indeed.  If,  as  the  more  serious  scien- 
tists tell  us,  the  fundamental  features  of  our  physical  and  mental  endow- 


tour:  Reflections  on  CotUcmporarv  765 

nieiit  arc  Liiiallcrably  fixed,  aiul  il.  more  siunillcanlly  slill.  the  waves  of 
the  hislmical  process  conrcirm  to  an  unwilled  necessity,  arc  none  ihc 
less  iron  for  their  seeniingl\  inllnite  lluidily,  wc  may  ucll  lurn  from 
man  as  an  organism  and  from  his  culture  as  a  cumulati\c  m\enlor>-  of 
achievement  and  speculate  on  the  harmiMiy  or  disharmony  of  a  presenl 
culture  or  of  an  actual  pcrsonalits,  leaving  dneclu>n.  the  insistenl  why 
and  whither,  to  undiscovered  gods  and  vsinds.  Such  an  approach  to  ihc 
problem  of  ends  is  aesthetic  and  geometric,  franklv  non-tcleological.  It 
goes  so  sadly  against  the  prevalent  American  grain  that  ue  ma\  ucll 
try  it  out  as  discipline. 

We  are  often  accused  of  materialism.  To  defend  ourselves  from  the 
grosser  implications  of  the  charge  we  hasten  to  build  educational  insti- 
tutions, compound  cultural  pellules,  and.  if  we  are  palhologicall>  in- 
clined, embrace  thrice  material  schemes  of  spirituality  -  soul  nostrums 
of  varying  hue.  Being  most  patently  "material"  when  we  aim  to  be  spirit 
itself,  we  betray  the  intimate  nature  of  the  maladv,  which  is  a  blind  trust 
in  the  specific  of  life,  in  the  mere  subject  matter  o\'  experience.  Korm. 
which  is  so  insistently  confused  with  manner,  is  ignored  or  rather  unfell; 
rhythm  is  not  guessed  at.  The  concept  that  we  need  to  struggle  for  is 
the  reconcilement  of  the  individual  rhythms  of  desire  with  the  pallcms 
of  social  life.  When  such  a  reconcilement  has  been  elTected.  whether  in 
the  form  of  a  poem  or  o'^  participation  in  a  war  dance  or  of  a  beautiful 
set  in  human  relations,  an  "end  of  man"  has  been  attained  more  authen- 
tic than  any  abstract  ideal  yet  proposed.  A  society  olTering  the  maxi- 
mum of  harmonious  reconcilements  is  the  greatest  end  we  need  concern 
ourselves  with.  Such  societies  or  segments  o{  society  have  existed  and 
will  again  emerge.  The  problem  of  ends  is  not  one  o\'  time  nor  o^  build- 
ing material.  It  is  solved  every  now  and  then  within  stMiie  fortunate 
crystal-drop  o{  time. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  The  Sution  1 1  .\  1}!  2.^S  (h>:h.  muKi  i.n. 
title  "The  Ends  o^  Man."  Copyright  1^)21.  reprinted  by  jx-rmisMon  of 
The  Nation  Magazine/The  Nation  Publishing  Company.  Inc. 

Edwin  Grant  Conklin  (IS63  1952)  was  an  American  biologist  asso- 
ciated with  Princeton  I'niversitv. 


Review  of  Gilbert  Murray,  Tradition  and  Progress 

Gilbert  Murray,  Tradition  and  Progress.  Boston:  Houghton  Mifflin, 
1922. 

[This]  is  a  somewhat  curiously  assorted  group  of  ten  essays,  all  re- 
prints of  papers  and  lectures  previously  published.  The  first  five  of  these 
pleasingly  written  essays  deal  with  some  of  the  larger  aspects  of  classical 
scholarship,  the  sixth  with  Literature  as  Revelation,  the  remainder  of 
the  volume  consists  of  thoughts  on  social  and  international  ethics.  The 
translator  of  Euripides  is  at  his  best  in  the  earlier  papers.  He  does  suc- 
ceed in  setting  such  topics  as  the  war-satire  of  Aristophanes,  the  bitter- 
ness of  Euripides,  the  Stoic  philosophy,  and  the  poetic  definitions  of 
Aristotle  in  some  relation  to  our  interests  of  today.  The  paper  on  Poesis 
and  Mimesis  is  particularly  penetrating  in  its  insistence  on  the  necessity 
of  taking  due  account,  in  literary  criticism,  of  the  formal  genius  of  the 
language  in  which  the  artist  does  his  work.  Not  a  great  deal  is  to  be 
said  of  the  latter  half  of  the  book.  Professor  Murray  oscillates  rather 
comfortably  between  optimism  and  despair,  makes  the  usual  high- 
souled  march  along  the  smooth  ridge  of  Enghsh  liberalism,  animadverts 
feelingly  on  the  elements  of  wickedness  and  goodness  in  contemporary 
politics,  and  is  careful  to  put  in  the  parentheses  needed  to  prevent  a 
charge  of  excessive  radicalism. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  (unsigned)  in  The  Dial  73,  355  (1922).  Reprinted 
by  permission  of  The  Dial. 


Review  of  Johannes  V.  Jensen. 
The  Lofii^  Journey 

Johannes  V.  Jensen.  The  Lo/ii^  Journey.  Translated  h\  A.  G.  Chalcr. 
New  York:  Knopf.  1923. 

If  the  literary  age  is  one  of  lost  bearings,  lost  faith,  restless  experimcn- 
talism,  if  it  seeks  to  cover  up  a  corroding  skepticism  with  a  thousand- 
fold pursuit  of  the  nuance,  the  individual  gesture,  then  assuredl>  the 
Danish  novelist.  Johannes  V.  Jensen,  is  not  of  the  age.  He  is  either  the 
belated  representative  of  a  race  of  epic  poets,  magnificentl)  unaware  of 
what  lies  not  in  the  heart  of  impersonal  man.  or  he  is  the  harbinger  of 
a  new,  fiery  serenity.  It  is  an  astonishing  task  that  he  sets  himself  in 
The  Long  Journey  (KnopO,  of  which  the  \olumc  recently  published  in 
English  comprises  the  first  two  parts  -  there  are  six  in  all.  In  bold, 
plastic  form  he  essays  the  story  of  man  from  the  da\s  when  he  roamed 
as  a  half-simian  pack  in  the  jungle  down  [o  the  sober  yesterday  of 
Christopher  Columbus'  discovery  of  America.  Jensen's  work  is  not  his- 
tory ("history"  is  too  dry  a  word),  it  is  not  romance  ('"romance"  is  too 
tawdry  a  word),  it  is  sheer  epos.  And  for  epos,  one  had  thought,  wc 
had  lost  the  courage. 

The  first  instalment,  "Fire"  and  'ice.'"  makes  up  a  relative  unity  only, 
but  a  satisfying  one  at  that.  To  what  extent  Jensen  has  nusundersuxxi 
or  wilfully  misinterpreted  the  facts  of  prehistoric  archaeolog).  to  whal 
extent  he  has  used  the  artist's  privilege  o\'  bendmg  the  facts  to  an  artistic 
purpose,  it  would  be  hard  to  say.  As  a  grandiose,  ideal  record  oi  strug- 
gling man  in  the  stone  ages  o\'  ncMthcrn  I  iirope  the  volume  is  impecca- 
ble; as  a  proportioned  record  of  what  is  actually  known  of  man's  earliest 
history  it  will  not  bear  serious  criticism.  So  colossal  is  the  author's 
power  of  imaginative  simplification,  so  easy  and  magisterial  his  disjx»si- 
fion  of  time  and  place  and  sequence,  that  it  is  wasted  pcdanir)  lo  in- 
terpose the  chapter  and  \erse  o\'  archaeology.  "So  much  the  worse  for 
the  facts,"  we  grumble,  as  we  race  on  from  page  to  page.  folKuKing  the 
archetypal  doings  of  palaeolithic  man  with  all  the  absurd  engri^ssment 
that  is  due  a  contemporary  tale  of  Jack  and  Jill.  Jensen's  fundamental 


768  ///  Culture 

"error"'  lies  in  ascribing  to  the  remote  northerners  of  the  Ice  Age  an 
in\entiveness  that  history  prefers  to  deny  them.  The  great  and  decisive 
achievements  of  neoHthic  man  -  the  domestication  of  animals,  the  cul- 
tivation of  grain,  the  invention  of  pottery,  of  pohshed  stone  implements, 
and  of  navigation  -  did  not  emanate  from  Jensen's  chosen  people,  who 
received  infinitely  more  than  they  gave.  Nor  is  it  demonstrable  that  it 
was  the  inhuman  rigors  of  the  frozen  north  that  forced  man  to  become 
a  progressive  being,  while  it  was  the  fate  of  those  who  fled  southwards 
before  the  advancing  ice-sheet  to  stagnate  in  slothful  primitiveness. 

I  take  it  that  the  most  sensible  way  to  read  The  Long  Journey  is  to 
forget  all  the  evidence  and  to  desist  from  applying  race  theories,  "Nor- 
dic" or  otherwise,  to  Jensen's  chronicle.  It  may  be  that  Jensen  believed 
himself  to  be  writing  a  quintessential  history,  and  to  a  very  appreciable 
extent  of  course  he  was,  but  the  book  has  too  much  to  lose  when  judged 
as  mere  history  to  make  it  worth  while  reading  it  as  history  at  all.  With 
the  help  of  fragments  of  archaeological  science,  of  floating  ideas  about 
the  nature  of  early  man,  of  bits  of  Norse  mythology,  and  of  an  unflag- 
ging imagination  Jensen  has  forged  a  complete  folk-epos.  Were  we  liv- 
ing in  the  mythopoeic  age.  The  Long  Journey  would  become  our  Gene- 
sis. 

How  is  it  that  Jensen  has  succeeded  in  so  unpromising  a  task  as  the 
resurrection  of  Stone  Age  man?  Partly,  one  ventures  to  think,  because 
he  has  been  able  to  compress  the  whole  of  man  into  the  prefiguring 
movements  of  his  characters  and  hordes.  We  are  curiously  breathless  in 
the  contemplation  of  these  unpolished  ancestors  of  ours.  Uncouth  and 
at  times  revolting  as  they  are,  it  is  never  difficult  to  identify  them  with 
our  modern  selves.  Jensen  is  not  afraid  of  an  occasional  jest  or  humor- 
ous ferocity  but  seems  to  be  temperamentally  immune  from  wit  or  sat- 
ire. This  is  fortunate,  for  to  suggest  the  Yahoo  would  have  been  fatal 
to  the  basic  significance  of  the  work.  A  still  greater  factor  in  Jensen's 
triumphant  success  is  the  care  that  he  has  bestowed  on  the  delineation 
of  his  Titan-like  figures.  The  smoking  volcano,  "The  Man,"  despotic 
leader  of  the  herd;  Fyr,  the  Prometheus  of  the  tale;  the  outcast  Carl 
who  stays  behind  to  defy  the  ice,  his  spouse  Mam,  the  restless  White 
Bear,  mothering  May,  and  Wolf,  the  horse-breaker,  have  grown  in  the 
novelist's  hands  from  obvious  cultural  symbols  into  spirits  and  person- 
alities of  no  uncertain  outlines.  We  care  for  their  sufferings  and  victo- 
ries. The  backgrounds  are  powerfully  suggested  throughout.  Jungle  and 
rain  and  ice  are  actual  presences,  and  the  animals,  too,  wild  and  domes- 
ticated, move  towards  us  and  away  from  us. 


Four:  Rcllcctions  on  Contemporary  769 

A  final  \\o\\\  as  lo  ihc  iraiislalion  h\  A.  (i.  Chatcr.  It  Ci)uld  hardi) 
be  bctlcr.  1  cioubi  ilihcrc  is  a  single  passage  in  this  linglish  version  thai 
is  not  supremely  acceptable  in  its  own  right.  One  never  guesses  back  lo 

an  original. 


Editorial  Ne^tc 

Originall\  published  in  The  WorUI  Tomorrow  (^.  221  ( 1V23).  under  the 
title  "The  Epos  of  Man." 

Johannes  V.Jensen  (1873-1950),  a  Danish  poet  and  novelist,  re- 
ceived the  Nobel  Prize  for  Literature  in  1944. 


Racial  Superiority 

It  is  a  poor  son  of  Adam  who  does  not  feel  superior  to  somebody.  It 
is  not  only  the  "Nordic"  gentleman  who  has  this  delightful  sensation  as 
he  gazes  through  blue  eyes  into  that  swarthy  admixture  of  inferior  types 
which  is  composed  of  Negroes,  Chinese,  Jews,  Slavs,  Sicilians,  Hindus 
and  other  undesirables.  I  have  heard  an  Indian  half-breed  of  the  plains 
speak  disparagingly  of  the  "Chinks"  and,  when  I  gently  remonstrated 
with  him  for  what  I  ventured  to  consider  a  hasty  judgment,  he  reluc- 
tantly made  a  show  of  yielding,  but  feeling  evidently  that  a  scapegoat 
was  needed  for  his  balked  sentiment  of  superiority  he  hastened  to  add, 
"Well,  I  guess  they're  better  than  the  Jews  anyway."  At  another  time  he 
pointed  out  to  me  how  much  more  graceful  was  the  walk  of  the  Indians 
than  that  of  the  whites.  Imagine  the  feeling  of  a  prosperous  Scotch 
real  estate  agent  in  some  Western  town  like  Calgary,  Alberta,  on  being 
informed  that  his  energetic,  purposeful  stride  was  being  considered  with 
amusement  and  considerable  distaste  by  a  "dirty,  lazy,  ignorant,  slouch- 
ing Indian"  from  the  nearest  reservation!  Another  Indian  whom  I  knew, 
an  old  man  of  the  Sacramento  Valley  in  California,  was  chronically 
indignant  with  the  Negroes  -  "white  shirt-fronts  stuck  up  on  a  stump," 
as  he  phrased  them.  And  it  is  well  known,  of  course,  that  many  a  darky 
is  profoundly  thankful  that  he  is  no  "dirty  Jew."  But  that  many  mem- 
bers of  the  Jewish  "race,"  whether  college  professors  or  sellers  of  old 
clothes,  bow  to  the  verdict  of  isolated  "Nordics,"  Indian  half-breeds 
and  Negroes  has  not  yet  been  demonstrated. 

This  feeling  of  superiority  of  the  members  of  one  ethnic  group  to  the 
members  of  another  group  or  the  members  of  all  other  groups  is  per- 
fectly natural  and  even  a  little  charming,  provided  it  remains  a  mere 
sentiment  and  does  not  translate  itself  into  actively  hostile  conduct. 
When  this  happens,  the  charm  which  is  part  and  parcel  of  all  kinds  of 
naivete  disappears,  or  develops  rather  into  an  alarming  and  dangerous 
stupidity  It  is  generally  believed  that  group  valuations  of  the  kind  that 
I  have  instanced  are  largely  due  to  the  evident  superiority  of  certain 
peoples  who,  not  blind  to  the  indulgence  with  which  Nature  has  smiled 
upon  them,  feel  an  answering  glow  in  their  hearts  and  the  flush  of  pride 
m  their  cheeks.  If  the  Greeks  looked  down  upon  all  other  peoples  as 


Four:  Reflections  on  (Onicmporarv  77 1 

harharoi,  Persians  and  Egyptians  includccl.  ii  is  assumed  thai  ihcy  could 
not  help  doing  so,  blessed  as  they  were  wiih  ilie  finest  natural  mcntaliiy 
and  with  the  highest  culture  of  their  day.  What  the  \arious  kuids  (201) 
of  harharoi  thought  of  the  Greeks  is  generally  left  out  of  the  reckonini!. 
but  we  need  not  doubt  that  the  great  majority  of  them,  whether  in- 
debted to  Greek  culture  or  not,  somehow  felt  themselves  superior.  If 
they  paid  Greek  art  the  homage  oi^  imitation  and  acknowledged  \Mih 
unstinting  words  the  supremacy  of  Greek  letters,  we  may  rest  assured 
that  they  compensated  themselves  by  contrasting  their  robust  and 
manly  virtues  with  the  duplicity  and  immorality  o['  the  (ireeks.  In  all 
probability  they  saw  to  it  that  they  themselves  were  not  left  behind  in 
the  scale  of  ethnic  values.  And  so  it  is,  and  must  be,  today,  if  the  Chi- 
nese and  Japanese  blandly  accept  our  technical  scientific  achie\emenis. 
it  does  not  follow  -  what  we  are  too  easily  inclined  to  assume  does 
follow  -  that  they  are  putting  us  on  a  pedestal  of  ethnic  superiority. 

Let  us  try  to  be  clear  about  the  reason  for  this  almost  instinctive 
assertion  of  the  superiority  of  the  ethnic  group.  1  am  purposely  avoiding 
the  term  "race"  for  the  present.  There  seem  to  be  l\so  facets  to  the 
fundamental  reason,  an  inner  drive  and  an  outer  defense,  lirst  o\'  all. 
the  individual  ego  seeks  to  preserve  itself  in  ihc  midsi  iW'an  overwhelm- 
ing environment,  natural  and  human.  The  readiest  method  i>f  gaining  a 
sense  of  triumph  and  of  psychic  security  is  probably  to  establish  a  sense 
of  superiority  over  the  other  egos  in  one's  immediate  en\ironmeni.  Pus 
process,  however,  is  crossed  almost  from  the  beginning  b\  the  ncccssits 
of  compromise  with  the  socially  inherited  beha\  ior  o\'  the  group.  One 
soon  learns  that  it  does  not  pay  to  fight  bull-fashion  for  the  primac\  o\ 
the  ego.  There  are  too  many  stone  walls  about  in  the  shape  ol  other 
egos.  The  primary  drive  towards  victory,  therefore,  splinters  up  into  an 
endless  number  of  substitutive  reactions,  most  of  which  may  be  reduced 
to  the  formula  of  identification  of  the  ego  with  the  human  environment 
In  other  words,  in  one  way  or  another  the  ego  graduall>  surrenders  its 
automatic  claims  to  preeminence  by  incorporating  itself  to  an  apprecia- 
ble extent  with  its  object  of  attack.  The  ego  Ixvonies  socially  enlarged 
Its  thrusts  of  offense  have  transformed  iheniseKes  into  tentacles  of  sup- 
port. 

Thus,  a  man's  desire  to  show  personal  ph>Mcal  superiority  lo  his 
acquaintances  may  be  indirectly  satisfied  b>  membership  in  a  fooiball 
team  or  battalion  which  does  battle  with  complete  strangers  Hie  fight- 
ing group  is  more  potent  than  the  individual,  and  by  surrendering  his 
impulses  to  personal  combat  and  putiiiiL'  tliem  at  the  disposal  ol  the 


772  tIJ  Culture 

group,  the  individual  gets  a  lien,  as  it  were,  on  whatever  credit  this 
group  accumulates  in  the  way  of  prowess.  Even  if  his  own  share  in  an 
encounter  is  nothing  to  boast  of,  he  is  proud  of  the  victory  of  his  team 
or  battalion.  To  an  appreciable  extent  he  has  won  out.  Again,  though 
a  particular  Englishman  is  vastly  poorer  than  the  average  Italian,  he 
feels  that  he  [202]  has  a  right  to  some  measure  of  pride  when  he  com- 
pares the  statistics  of  wealth  for  England  and  Italy.  In  some  obscure 
but  perfectly  real  way  he  feels  that  he  is  wealthier,  mightier,  grander, 
and  this  remains  true  however  bitterly  he  may  resent  his  employer's 
treatment  of  himself  and  however  jealously  he  may  look  upon  his  neigh- 
bor's prosperity. 

The  sentiment  of  "loyalty"  is  thus,  to  the  vast  majority  of  men,  far 
more  than  an  acquired  virtue;  it  is  the  reaffirmation  of  the  ego  itself, 
for  the  ego  has  at  no  time  really  surrendered,  it  has  merely  diffused 
itself.  All  this  is  familiar  enough,  but  what  is  not  so  easily  recognized  is 
the  important  fact  that  it  makes  very  little  psychological  difference  just 
how  and  to  what  extent  the  enlargement  of  the  ego  takes  place.  Family 
solidarity,  civic  pride,  national  loyalty,  race  consciousness,  religious  ad- 
herence and  the  thousand  and  one  other  forms  of  the  feeling  of  group 
cohesion  are  but  so  many  historically  determined  molds  into  which  the 
enlarged  ego  has  run.  The  basic  fact  to  consider  is  not  the  fact  of  race 
or  nationality  or  family  organization  as  such  but  of  the  tendency  of  the 
individual  ego  to  realize  itself  in  a  collectivity  of  some  kind.  Not  in  all 
individuals  is  this  tendency  equally  strong,  but  it  can  be  entirely  absent 
only  in  cases  of  dementia. 

In  the  second  place,  if  the  ego  surrenders,  or  apparently  surrenders, 
much  of  its  individual  clamor  for  preeminence,  it  makes  amends  by 
resuming  its  attitude  of  hostility  when  it  contemplates  the  more  remote 
environment.  The  group  which  is  different  from  one's  own  group,  be  it 
the  opposing  partners  in  a  game  of  cards,  a  neighboring  city,  the  other 
political  party,  another  nationality,  or  all  those  individuals  whose  hair 
lies  straighter  and  shines  blacker,  may  be  safely  looked  down  upon  - 
now  humorously,  now  in  dead  earnest  -  because  the  responsibility  for 
the  hostile  attitude  and  its  consequences  rests  not  with  the  individual 
ego  but  with  its  enlarged  image.  It  is  not  necessary  for  a  bootblack 
recruit  to  possess  military  science  to  feel  that  he  has  the  right  to  look 
down  upon  the  enemy  force.  He  can  let  his  general  do  the  incidental 
work  of  justifying  his  feeling  of  superiority  in  the  science  of  war.  It  is 
necessary  neither  for  the  ignorant  peasant  nor  the  enlightened  anti-Sem- 
ite to  prove  that  the  particular  Jew  he  maltreats  is  thus  and  so.  It  is 


Four:  Rcjlcctions  on  Comcmporary  TJ"^ 

enough  to  know  that  the  particular  Jew  belongs  {o  the  group  ot  individ- 
uals known  as  Jews.  The  peasant  need  not  e\en  teel  grateful  to  be  re- 
lieved of  the  task  of  proving  his  personal  superiority  to  Kinsicin.  I'hai 
was  done  long  before  either  of  them  was  born.  The  morale  which  results 
from  a  tacit  circuit  of  "passing  the  buck"'  is  well-nigh  impregnable.  Bui 
all  the  while  the  animus  of  this  hostility  derives  very  appreciably,  if 
not  entirely,  from  those  more  intimate  home  hostilities  which  society 
disallows  and  which  become  subtly  transformed  or  indefinitely  deferred. 
Every  one  knows  that  the  [203]  irritation  which  comes  from  failure  in 
business  may  be  relieved  by  the  discovery  o(  all  sorts  of  reasons  for 
despising  one's  successful  rivals,  or  anybody  else,  particularly  such 
reasons  as  put  them  in  an  inferior  class.  It  is  always  relieving  to  be 
reminded  that  one  is  superior  to  somebody  in  the  nature  of  things,  and 
doubly  relieving  to  be  allowed  to  put  one's  knowledge  into  the  concrete 
form  of  hostile  action.  Hence,  one  may  surmise,  the  "relief  experienced 
when  nations  are  plunged  into  international  slaughter. 

The  opposing  group  is  chiefly  constituted  by  its  points  o\'  difference 
from  the  home  group.  Almost  any  such  point  of  dilTerence,  ph>sical  or 
linguistic  or  cultural  or  moral  or  merely  geographical,  is  a  challenge 
and  is  enough  to  give  the  ego  and  its  social  counterpart  the  contrast 
needed  to  suggest  their  superiority  to  the  alien  group.  A  striking  dilTer- 
ence in  physical  appearance  or  profoundly  discordant  religious  faiths 
may  be  a  stronger  motive  in  general  practice  for  the  persistence  o\'  mu- 
tual hostility  than  differences  of  costume  or  o(  taste  in  marital  customs, 
but  I  doubt  if  they  are  distinct  in  kind  from  these,  psychological!) 
speaking.  Just  as  the  mere  fact  of  a  group  with  which  the  ego  ma\  be 
identified  is  of  greater  consequence  than  its  precise  nature,  .so  it  is  more 
important  to  know  that  there  are  contrasting  groups  to  which  any  gi\cn 
group,  any  type  of  enlarged  ego,  may  oppose  itself  than  it  is  to  anal\/e 
the  differences  that  may  be  found  between  them.  This  point  of  view 
seems  justified  by  the  curious  ease  with  which  hostilities  may  be  trans- 
ferred. There  is  no  doubt,  for  instance,  that  a  nationality  as  such  oilers 
a  more  definite  challenge  to  the  enlarged  ego  "looking  for  trouble"  than 
it  did  five  hundred  years  ago  and  that  it  would  be  far  more  dilTiculi  to 
produce  a  Catholic-Protestant  war  today  than  ii  was  in  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries.  In  our  personal  experience  too  it  is  a  matter 
of  common  observation  that  new  hostilities  tend  to  take  awa>  from  the 
vigor  of  old  ones.  It  almost  looks  as  though  all  that  is  really  needed  to 
satisfy  the  normal  ego  is,  first,  the  opportunity  to  swell  into  a  vican- 


774  ///   Culture 

ously  triumphant  entity  and,  secondly,  a  foil  to  help  shape  this  entity, 
to  give  it  the  cutting  edge  of  consciousness. 

I  believe  it  is  of  paramount  importance  to  realize  that  nearly  all  dis- 
cussions of  racial  ability  are  most  powerfully  biased  by  the  necessity  of 
the  individual  ego's  triumph  in  the  end.  The  race  of  any  party  to  the 
discussion  must  be  declared  triumphant  or,  at  the  least,  not  incapaci- 
tated by  nature  for  eventual  triumph.  It  is  a  very  remarkable  and  a  very 
interesting  fact  that  in  the  huge  volume  of  racial  controversy  it  is  always 
the  race  or  the  supposed  race  (for  it  is  a  wise  man  who  knows  his 
ancestor)  of  the  writer  which  carries  off  the  palm  of  victory.  It  is  a 
strange  "science"  indeed  in  which  there  are  very  nearly  as  many  answers 
as  there  are  classes  of  questioners.  When  a  "Nordic"  scientist  gravely 
[204]  ascertains  that  the  "Nordic"  race  is  the  one  truly  superior  variety 
of  mankind  and,  still  more  gravely,  opines  that  a  more  than  proportion- 
ate numerical  increase  in  other  races  is  a  "menace,"  it  is  difficult  not  to 
relish  the  humor  of  his  position.  In  a  tentative  way  one  sympathizes 
with  him  in  his  splendid  isolation  and  impending  sterility.  Nor  is  humor 
lacking  in  the  spectacle  of  the  wishful  waiting  of  an  enthusiastic  Jew 
who  is  ready  to  bless  the  world  with  his  "mission."  So  long  as  "Nordic" 
anthropologists  fail  to  discover  the  racial  superiority  of  the  Japanese 
and  so  long  as  Japanese  anthropologists  (the  Japanese,  by  the  way,  have 
done  some  excellent  work  in  physical  anthropology)  remain  serenely 
unaware  of  the  racial  superiority  of  the  "Nordic,"  so  long  may  the 
outsider  be  pardoned  for  a  shrewd  suspicion  that  superior  and  inferior 
race  talk  is  "thin  stuff." 

If  we  leave  the  scientists  for  a  moment  and  return  to  the  prejudices 
of  the  folk,  we  find  that  among  them  the  term  "race"  is  used  in  the 
loosest  possible  manner.  For  all  the  endless  insistence  in  higher  circles 
on  the  fundamental  biological  value  of  the  concept  of  race  and  on  the 
approximate  reality  of  "race  instinct,"  the  vast  majority  of  mankind  has 
no  real  interest  in  race  as  such.  People  do  not  analyze.  All  they  know 
is  that  such  and  such  groups  of  people  look  slightly  different  or  very 
different,  as  the  case  may  be,  from  themselves,  talk  differently,  are  more 
ignorant,  have  notions  and  customs  that  make  it  difficult  to  feel  altoge- 
ther at  home  with  them,  and  live  in  or  come  from  certain  distant  places 
mentioned  in  the  geography.  If  the  Negroes  form  such  a  "race"  by  virtue 
chiefiy  of  their  distinctive  physical  characteristics,  the  Jews  form  an- 
other because  of  their  religion  and  the  historical  tradition  that  holds 
them  together  as  a  people,  while  the  French,  distincfive  in  language, 
culture,  and  habitat,  are  just  as  certainly  a  third  "race."  Negro,  Chinese, 


Four:  Reflections  on  Contcmporurv  775 

Jew.  and  frcnclmian  arc  \o  ilic  la\  iniiul  and  \o  the  lay  feeling  rouchlv 
parallel  groupings  of  mankind,  differing  from  its  own  "race"  (say  I 
lish  or  Irish)  in  very  much  ihe  same  way.  though  in  greatly  vai 
degrees.  In  this  unscientific  ignorance  of  the  dilTerence  between  bi.. 
cal  race  and  culture  the  folk  shows  a  healthy  appreciation  of  e>sein;: 
Whethei"  the  remote  ancestors  o{'  two  contrasted  groups  were  noticeably 
ditTerenl  in  stature,  skin  color  and  length  o'(  head,  or  whether  their 
present  differences  are  the  result  of  purel\  historical  and  cultural  causes 
ha\ing  nothing  to  do  with  race  in  its  hii-tlogical  sense  is  merel\  of  scien- 
tific, that  is  academic,  interest.  If.  m  the  former  case,  the  two  racial 
strains  have  become  inextricably  intermingled,  the  resulting  population, 
if  spiritually  unified  by  the  possession  of  a  common  language  and  a 
common  culture,  feels  as  pure  and  distinct  in  a  racial  sense  as  the  most 
simon-pure  "Nordics"  (who  are,  as  every  honest  anthropologist  knows, 
a  greatly  mixed  people)  or  Negroes  [205]  o\'  the  (iold  Coast  If  the\ 
need  a  pure  racial  pedigree  for  sentimental  reasons,  their  scientists  can 
be  trusted  to  provide  them  with  one.  On  the  other  hand,  if  a  raciallv 
unified  people  breaks  up  into  two  antagonistic  groups,  actuated  b\  dif- 
ferent cultural  ideals,  their  separateness  has  all  the  psychological  \alue 
of  a  true  racial  cleavage  and  the  chances  are  strong,  at  least  nowadays, 
that  their  scientists  will  discover  that  they  belong  to  appreciabh  distinct 
races  after  all. 

In  short,  the  feeling  of  group  superiorit\  which  we  ha\e  tried  to  ana- 
lyze in  its  barest  outlines  may  on  occasion  take  the  name  and  coK>r 
of  a  truly  racial  feeling,  but  in  its  essence  it  is  a  far  more  generalized 
phenomenon.  We  may  call  it  the  feeling  of  ethnic  superiorii>;  and  we 
may  note  that  it  is  one  of  the  more  public  functions  of  anthropologists 
and  of  those  who  quote  and  misquote  anthropological  data  Xo  rational- 
ize this  feeling  in  terms  of  their  favorite  nomenclature.  .X  plain  F'ng- 
lishman  (whatever  that  may  mean  in  racial  terms)  is  content  to  sa>.  **l 
am  not  a  Frenchman  and,  if  you  ask  me.  I  am  rather  glad  of  that  fact": 
but  the  anthropological  way  of  stating  the  same  feeling  is  as  folloM-s:  "I 
(\o  not  at  all  know  what  race  I  belong  to  indixidualh.  not  ha\ing  K'en 
properly  measured,  but  my  people  are  a  blend  o\'  .Mpme.  Mediterra- 
nean, and  Baltic  or  Nordic  types,  with  the  accent  on  Nordic  whenever 
it  seems  expedient  to  place  an  accent.  The  Frenchmen  are  another  blend 
of  Alpine,  Mediterranean,  and  Baltic  l>pes.  but  the  percentages  are  dif- 
ferent from  those  in  my  country  and  I  am  afraid  thai  I  shall  ha\e  to 
put  the  accent  on  Alpine  this  time.  It  seems  a  reasonable  inference  (and 
if  you  do  not  agree  with  me  I  shall  be  obliged  to  call  you  by  some 


776  iH  Culture 

uncomplimentary  names)  that  the  superiority  of  my  people,  which  con- 
sists in  greater  courage,  resourcefulness,  steadiness  of  nerve,  tolerance 
and  idealism,  not  to  speak  of  pugilistic  ability  and  poetic  genius,  is 
mainly  due,  entirely  due,  to  the  comfortable  margin  of  Nordic  blood 
which  we  possess."  At  the  risk  of  being  painfully  indiscreet,  let  me  whis- 
per that  Prof.  R.  B.  Dixon,  an  anthropologist  with  ideas  of  his  own, 
fmds  that  the  "tall,  blond,  dolichocephalic  type  which  has  been  termed 
Baltic  or  Nordic  is  merely  an  ancient  blend  of  Mediterranean,  Caspian, 
and  Proto-Negroid  types." 

Understanding  now  that  what  the  layman  is  really  interested  in  is  not 
the  disentangling  of  the  hugely  complex  and  bewildering  racial  history 
of  man  but  simple  ethnic  antitheses  ("racial,"  if  the  scientists  will  have 
it  so)  of  "superior"  and  "inferior,"  we  may  pass  to  a  brief  consideration 
of  racial  superiority  in  the  proper,  biological  sense  of  the  term  "racial." 
Several  remarkable  difficulties  manifest  themselves  almost  at  once.  If 
we  contrast  a  "superior"  group  like  a  northeastern  English  village  com- 
munity of  relatively  homogeneous  "Nordic"  blood  with  an  "inferior" 
group  like  an  African  Negro  village  community  of  the  Nile  headwaters, 
[206]  we  are  struck  at  once  by  the  great  disparity  between  these  groups 
in  both  appearance  and  manner  of  life.  All  in  all,  we  are  tempted,  if  not 
driven,  to  conclude  that  the  English  community  is  more  enlightened,  is 
somehow  a  "higher"  type  of  human  development.  It  is  natural  also  to 
feel,  in  a  preliminary  way,  that  the  difference  in  enlightenment  is  caus- 
ally connected  with  the  difference  in  physical  type.  We  crystallize  our 
feeling  in  the  statement  that  "the  Nordic  type  (or,  in  more  general  terms, 
the  white  race)  is  superior  to  the  Negro  race."  This  inference,  naively 
natural  though  it  is,  is  far  from  being  a  strictly  logical  one. 

As  we  enlarge  our  acquaintance  with  the  facts  of  history,  of  race 
distribution  and  of  culture  and,  growing  older  and  more  skeptical,  as 
we  feel  less  certain  about  values  than  when  we  made  our  spontaneous 
inference,  we  begin  to  see  how  far  from  logical  this  was.  The  more  we 
probe  into  the  facts  and  into  the  alleged  certainties,  the  more  doubtful 
we  become  of  just  what  we  meant  in  the  first  place.  A  true  critique  of 
the  subject  of  race  superiority  would  require  a  volume,  would  resolve 
nearly  all  the  plausible  statements  that  have  been  made  about  it  into 
clusters  of  unsolved  problems  in  which  we  are  as  yet  ignorant  of  the 
essential  terms,  and  would  leave  us  with  a  profound  feeling  of  humility. 
I  cannot  do  more  here  than  indicate  in  the  briefest  possible  compass 
what  is  involved  in  the  statement  that  race  A  is  "superior"  to  race  B 


Four:  Reflections  on  Conicmporarv  777 

and  \\h\  il  is  thai  this  l\pc  i>rsialcincni.  in  my  opinion,  is  partly  ambig- 
uous or  meaningless  and  parll\  unsound. 

The  statement  that  race  A  is  "supenor""  to  race  B  assumes  .il  Ica^l 
tour  propositions:  (  1 )  fluif  wc  can  ilclinc  a  race"  ailcijuuiclx  il)  thai 
certain  JuudaDicnuil  psychic  peculiarities,  for  example,  native  inielli\;i'nce. 
are  correlated  with  such  physical  features  as  we  call  racial. "{})  thai 
culture  or  civilization  is  ilefinitely  correlated  with  such  mental cmUtwments 
oj  the  race.  (4)  that  we  can  {five  an  uiiamhii^uous  or  oh/ective  nwaninii  fo 
the  term  "superior  "Now  I  belie\e  that  not  one  ot  these  propositions  can 
be  atTirmed  unconditionally  and  thai  the  last  three  are  either  false  or 
contain  a  highly  significant  percentage  of  error. 

As  to  the  concept  of  race,  we  ma\  quite  safel>  adopt  the  pioposiiion 
that  there  are  several  distinct  racial  strains  in  the  constitution  oi  man- 
kind, while  remaining  fully  ali\e  to  the  great  probability  that  as  good 
as  no  individuals  living  today  represent  pure  or  even  measurabl\  pure 
types.  We  literally  do  not  know  what  are  the  essential  races  of  man  nor 
how  and  in  what  sequence  the  primary  blends  have  taken  place.  iht>ugh 
we  can  make  certain  shrewd  guesses,  such  as  that  the  northern  Chinese 
and  the  West  African  Negro  are  in  the  mam  recrmied  from  dilTerenl 
basic  types;  we  do  not  know  just  what  are  the  truly  essential  criteria  of 
race,  whether  head-form,  for  instance,  is  as  significant  as  or  more  signif- 
icant than  color  [207]  of  hair;  we  do  not  b>  any  means  al\sa>s  know 
whether  a  point  of  similarity  between  two  types  of  man  is  significant  of 
kinship  or  is  a  mere  convergence  within  overlapping  ranges  of  variation; 
nor,  most  disconcerting  confession  o(  all.  are  ue  at  all  clear  as  to 
whether  a  given  variation  is  properly  attributable  to  heredity  as  such  or 
to  heredity  as  modified  by  secondary  factors  o\'  an  environmental  sort. 
The  layman  tends  to  ha\e  the  same  beautiful  trust  m  anlhropi->mctric 
tables  and  anthropological  nomenclature  as  in  an>  other  array  i^f  evi- 
dence that  has  a  dry,  "exact,"  mathematical  visage,  forgetting  that  ev- 
erything depends  on  the  soundness  o\'  the  interpretation  o\  these  hard- 
headed  data.  But  it  is  precisely  in  method  and  interpretation  that  phssi- 
cal  anthropologists  differ  most  and  the  casual  reader  must  be  preparctl 
to  discover  that  only  too  often  they  Ilatl>  contradict  each  other  on  the 
most  fundamental  points,  (i ranted,  then,  that  race  is  a  perfectly  legiti- 
mate biological  concept,  we  ma\  be  absoluteK  certain  that  many  of  our 
current  races  and  racial  features  have  not  at  all  the  significance  uhich 
we  now  attach  to  them.  Anyone  who  envisages  this  incMlable  de\elop- 
ment  of  the  science  of  physical  anthropology  will  find  it  ditficull  to  gel 
seriously  exercised  over  the  "Nordic"  race  or  Alpine  shi>rt-headedness 


778  m  Culture 

or  "Jewish"  nose.  But  let  us  assume,  what  we  have  not  yet  the  right  to 
assume,  that  we  know  what  is  what  in  race  and  in  race  mixture. 

The  second  proposition  is  of  far  greater  interest  to  the  general  public, 
though  for  a  mistaken  reason,  as  we  shall  soon  see.  If  the  average  Ni- 
lotic Negro  is  less  enlightened  or  advanced  than  the  average  Eng- 
lishman, it  is  felt  he  must  have  a  poorer  mental  endowment.  The  naivete 
o(  this  inference  is  evident  when  we  consider,  first,  that  the  variation 
within  the  Negro  race  itself  on  the  score  of  cultural  achievement  is  enor- 
mous, the  finest  woodwork  and  ironwork  of  some  of  the  most  represen- 
tative Negro  tribes  being  superior  to  what  the  very  best  handicraftsman 
in  a  typical  English  village  of  today  could  turn  out,  while,  secondly,  the 
enlightenment  of  the  English,  as  everyone  knows,  is  a  tolerably  recent 
acquisition  as  years  go  in  cultural  history  -  it  is  only  a  pitiful  handful 
of  centuries  ago  that  it  was  a  rare  Englishman  who  could  read  the 
alphabet  and  less  than  that  when  witches  were  being  done  to  death  in 
England  with  all  the  solemnity  of  an  African  "Voodoo"  ceremonial. 

One  of  the  most  important  steps  in  the  history  of  mathematics  is  the 
invention  of  a  sign  for  zero.  This  step  was  not  taken  by  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  whose  mathematical  notation  was  clumsy.  The  Mexicans  and 
Mayas,  of  pre-Columbian  days,  however,  had  developed  a  method  of 
indicating  the  zero  in  their  calendric  counts.  If  intellectual  advance  were 
the  same  thing  as  innate  mental  endowment,  we  might  conclude  that 
the  Mexican  Indian  was  the  mental  superior  of  Pericles  and  his  compa- 
triots. [208]  Common  sense  warns  us  that  such  an  inference  is  not  likely 
to  be  sound.  But  we  are  not  so  likely  to  see  that  the  opposite  inference, 
based  on  the  superior  enlightnment  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans  in  cer- 
tain other  respects,  may  be  equally  unsound. 

Isolated  facts  of  this  sort  prove  little,  but  the  cumulative  testimony 
of  all  the  historical  and  ethnological  evidence  we  have  is  overwhelm- 
ingly to  the  effect  that  individual  intelhgence  has  little  to  do  with  the 
cultural  status  of  a  people.  It  is  as  preposterous  to  argue  from  the  gene- 
ral enlightenment  and  knowledge  of  the  group  to  individual  inherent 
capacity  as  to  measure  the  height  of  trees  from  sea-level  and  to  assume 
that  a  raspberry  bush  on  a  hill  is  higher,  as  a  plant,  than  a  willow  at 
the  water's  edge.  The  cultural  background  of  the  individual  is  what  his 
mmd  plays  with  or  is  nourished  on,  it  is  not  a  measure  of  his  native 
mentality,  which  can  only  be  estimated  by  independent  opinion  or  re- 
search after  elimination  of  the  cultural  factor. 

Let  It  be  said  at  once  that  we  know  extraordinarily  little  about  the 
relative  native  capacities  of  the  different  races.  If  general  impressions 


Four:  Rcflccfions  on  Contemporary  TJ^ 

arc  to  couiii  for  anything,  I  belicxc  iliai  ilic  average  tlcld-workcr  among 
primitive  peoples  would  chum  thai  lie  has  obserxcd  anii)ng  them  jusl 
such  \ariations  in  intelligence  and  ui  leinperanienl  as  he  is  fanniiar  wiih 
among  his  own  people  and  that  he  has  kmuMi  indi\iduals  who  would 
rank  high  in  a  superior  cultural  einironmenl  by  \irtue  ol  iheir  innate 
ability.  I  have  known  a  Negro-Indian  haH-breed  who  was  tar  more  alert 
intellectually,  though  necessarily  somewhat  less  well-intormed  on  aca- 
demic subjects,  than  the  vast  majority  of  college  students  !  ha\e  mel; 
nor  do  I  consider  it  in  the  least  paradoxical  to  assert  that  a  number  of 
fme  old  Indians  whom  I  ha\e  known  might  easil\,  in  the  appropriate 
cultural  milieu,  have  developed  into  college  professors.  That  I  have  mel 
among  Indians  with  as  keen  minds  as  I  have  been  privileged  to  knt>w 
among  the  whites  1  cannot  honestly  say,  but  the  racial  significance  of 
this  is  seen  to  be  nil  when  it  is  remembered  that  the  possible  range  of 
mental  variation  within  a  small  tribe  is  \er\  much  less  than  among  a 
great  nationality.  It  takes  thousands  to  allow  a  chance  genius  to  appear 
at  the  extreme  end  of  a  distribution  curve  which  plots  the  ability  ol  the 
group.  Such  exceptional  talents  do  not  automatically  render  a  worka- 
day Englishman  superior  in  innate  mental  endowment  to  an  average 
Haida  Indian  or  Negro  of  the  Congo,  though  the\  probably  accelerate 
in  some  degree  the  advance  of  the  culture  o\'  the  linglish  people. 

But  personal  impressions,  it  will  be  argued,  are  o\'  no  \alue.  We  need 
objective  tests.  The  average  laymen,  who  is  likel\  ti>  be  as  naive  m  this 
respect  as  the  average  experimental  psychologist,  imagines  that  it  is  easy 
to  devise  strictly  objective  tests,  tests  which  i.\o  not  in  some  insidious 
form  or  other  allow  the  irrelevant  cultural  factor  to  slip  in  b>  the  back 
[209]  door.  When  we  reflect  that  e\en  the  simplest  types  of  response  - 
relatively  pure  sensations  or  emotional  rellexes  are  heavily  condi- 
tioned by  the  cultural  background  in  the  earliest  \ears  of  childhood,  ue 
can  have  some  idea  of  the  constant  errors  which  must  \iiiaie  much  o( 
the  experimental  work  on  the  more  exotic  peoples  -  all  ot  it.  in  lad. 
that  does  not  limit  itself  to  the  most  elementar>  iy|x*s  of  psychic  activity. 
It  is  obviously  unfair  to  expect  a  Somali  or  a  Bontoc  Igorot  to  respi>nd 
as  naturally  to  the  conditions  of  a  psychi^logical  exfvrimeni  as  uould 
a  Kentucky  farmer,  for,  while  these  conditions  are  unfamiliar  lo  both 
the  native  and  the  farmer.  the\  caimoi  be  so  m  equal  degree,  tvcn  so, 
experiments  on  sensatii^n  have  shown  surprising!)  little  racial  vanatuMi. 
nothing  that  we  ha\e  a  right  to  interpret  as  significant.  When  il  comes 
lo  the  testing  of  intelligence,  the  dice  are  sure  lo  be  Uuded  against  the 
members  of  all  communities  whose  cultural  habits  are  markedly  dil- 


780  m  Culture 

ferent  from  those  of  the  tester.  He  may  believe  that  he  has  ehminated 
all  disturbing  factors  from  his  tests,  but  he  is  deluding  himself  if  only 
for  the  reason  that  intelligence  in  the  abstract  does  not  exist  but  needs 
some  sort  of  a  cultural  heritage  to  make  itself  manifest.  Add  to  this 
the  \cry  serious  emotional  perturbation  of  a  subject  confronted  by  an 
examiner  and  a  set  of  conditions  that  he  instinctively  feels  to  be  not 
altogether  sympathetic  to  him.  I  do  not  consider  it  in  the  least  far- 
fetched to  maintain  that  the  findings  of  every  intelligence  or  aptitude 
test  on  such  individuals  as  are  notably  different  in  race  or  cultural  back- 
ground or  both  from  the  tester  are  materially  affected  by  a  margin  of 
error  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  subject.  Comparisons  of  such  findings 
with  those  obtained  under  better-balanced  conditions  could  be  made 
only  after  a  proper  allowance  for  the  unavoidable  error.  While  I  do  not 
think  we  are  justified  in  saying  outright  that  there  are  no  fundamental 
racial  differences  in  mental  endowment,  the  burden  of  proof  lies  upon 
those  who  assert  that  they  exist.  So  far  no  clear  case  seems  to  have  been 
made  for  this  contention. 

After  what  we  have  said  of  the  fallacy  of  arguing  directly  from  culture 
to  the  basic  psyche  of  the  carriers  of  culture  it  will  not  be  necessary  to 
enter  at  length  on  a  discussion  of  the  third  proposition.  Culture  is  an 
extraordinarily  complex  set  of  habits  which  is  maintained,  subject  to 
indefinite  modification,  by  a  tradition  which  is  partly  conscious  but  in 
great  part  also  unconscious.  It  possesses  the  peculiar  property  of  diffus- 
ing easily  and  rapidly  and,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  without  any  special 
regard  to  race.  Given  the  favorable  environmental  conditions  and  the 
proper  historical  bonds,  it  passes  lightly  from  one  area  to  another,  from 
one  race  to  an  utterly  alien  one.  Chrisfianity  was  not  the  product  of  the 
"Nordic  genius"  nor  did  the  art  of  using  Japanese  cannon  descend  from 
[210]  the  Shoguns.  In  a  certain  elementary,  but  irrelevant,  sense  it  is  of 
course  true  that  no  culture  is  possible  without  an  underlying  mentality. 
What  is  meant  here  is  simply  that  the  culture  of  a  people  is  not  being 
constantly  created  anew  by  virginal  acts  of  intelligence  but  that  it  can 
be  adequately  maintained  and  added  to  by  any  normally  varied  group 
of  human  beings,  provided  they  are  numerous  enough  to  keep  up  the 
mechanics  of  the  culture  -  a  minimum  population  is  required  for  any 
given  form  of  culture.  Once  we  have  learned  to  generate  electricity  and 
to  use  it,  we  must,  by  cultural  inertia,  hold  on  to  our  knowledge,  but 
we  do  not  all  need  to  be  Faradays  to  keep  this  parficular  tradition 
going.  We  continue  to  be  a  normally  varied  group,  not  essentially  dif- 
ferent in  fundamental  psychic  respects,  I  take  it,  from  the  good  old 


Four:  Rcjlcciions  on  Coniiniporurv  781 

Europeans  who  drew  the  reindeer  and  die  inannnoih  on  the  cave-walls 
of  prehistoric  France,  but  widi  a  vastly  more  eomphealed  leverage  for 
the  business  of  life.  It  is  uiierls  futile  to  contrast  the  "achievcmcnis"  of 
the  "Nordics''  with  the  ""backwardness"  of  the  Chinese  or  Negroes.  The 
precise  historical  antecedents  and  the  en\  ironmental  limitations  o\  the 
cultures  of  these  peoples  differ  enormous!}.  Ihe  contemporary  culture 
of  the  "Nordics"  is  no  more  truly  their  creation  or  expressive  of  their 
fundamental,  unconditioned  mentality  than  it  is  the  creation  and  spiri- 
tual expression  of  the  Sumerians  o(  Mesopotamia,  or  of  the  Neolithic 
inhabitants  of  the  Mediterranean  region,  or  of  the  pie-Hellenic  peoples 
of  the  Aegean,  or  of  the  Greeks,  or  of  the  Jews  o\'  Palestine,  or  o\'  the 
Romans.  As  compared  with  the  cumulative  groundwink  laid  down  by 
these  peoples  the  recent  development  of  certain  mechamcal  devices 
which  happened  to  take  place  under  partly  ""Nordic*"  auspices  is  surely 
a  minor  event.  Nor  is  it  necessary  to  fear  that  this  increment  to  the 
cultural  goods  of  mankind  will  disappear  u  ith  any  loss  in  numbers  of 
prestige  that  an  unreasonable  Providence  may  have  in  store  for  "Nor- 
dics" or  European  "Alpines."  In  the  fulness  of  time  other  peoples  (Chi- 
nese, Japanese,  Hindus,  Negroes  -  why  not?)  may  ha\e  assimilated  all 
of  it  that  is  worth  assimilating  and  culture  will  be  safe.  The  indivklual 
slant  and  color  of  culture  no  doubt  change  from  place  to  place  and 
from  period  to  period  but  the  splendid  cumulative  core  is  not  easilv 
damaged.  We  have  not  the  slightest  reason  to  believe  that  the  great 
historical  process  which  began  with  the  men  who  u.sed  the  crude,  unpol- 
ished flints  of  the  earliest  Paleolithic  times  will  be  interrupted  for  man> 
weary  millennia  to  come,  be  the  racial  history  of  man  what  it  may. 

The  fourth  proposition  is  difficult  to  dispose  o\'  in  a  few  words.  Cul- 
ture embraces  many  strands  and  ii  is  not  necessarily  correct  to  use  the 
same  concepts  of  value,  improvement,  or  superiority  for  all  alike.  While 
we  have  every  reason  to  be  proud,  for  instance,  of  our  rapid  (21 1  j  me- 
chanical progress  and  of  our  ever  increasing  insight  into  the  sc-ieniific 
explanation  of  phenomena,  it  dc^-s  not  lollou  that  every  associated  fea- 
ture of  our  social  organization  or  world  o\  imponderables  is  ol  like 
value  or  significance  for  future  generations.  Whv  be  so  sure  that  our 
legal  procedure  and  parliamentary  machinery  proclaim  the  last  word  in 
an  enlightened  public  policy?  Is  it  so  certain  that  ouv  highly  organi/ed 
methods  of  education  result  in  greater  good  to  the  individual  and  to 
the  community  than  the  less  academic  methods  o\'  bringing  up  children 
of  more  primitive  peoples?  Is  it  inconceivable  that  one  mav  have  some- 
thing to  learn  from  Chinese  village  life,  which  successfully  disconnects 


782  IJJ  Culture 

economic  from  political  activity?  We  see  the  grosser  aspects  of  popular 
Hindu  religion,  but  how  do  we  know  that  there  is  not  in  the  religious 
altitude  o^  the  Hindu  mystic  and  even  of  the  superstitious  sectary  a 
certain  intensity  and  spiritual  insight  which  have  nothing  to  learn  from 
the  more  arid  and  intellectualized  dogmas  of  Christianity  and  Judaism? 
We  do  not  need  to  answer  such  questions  with  a  straight  acceptance  or 
rejection.  It  is  enough  to  ask  them. 

It  is  not  unlikely  that  there  are  germinal  phenomena  of  a  cultural 
character  among  politically  "backward"  peoples  of  today  that  are  des- 
tined, when  fused  with  what  is  most  tenacious  of  life  in  our  own  culture, 
to  come  to  vigorous  and  beautiful  flower.  We  have  no  warrant  for  the 
belief  that  the  particular  forms  of  thought  and  action  in  terms  of  which 
we  have  come  to  express  ourselves  are  of  an  absolute  or  abiding  value. 
If  we  take  this  long  view  of  things,  much  of  the  feverish  concern  with 
which  we  contemplate  the  changing  aspect  of  many  features  of  our 
culture  must  seem  a  little  paltry,  a  little  weak-kneed.  It  is  a  characteristic 
illusion  that  distant  peoples  and  future  times  cannot  be  trusted  to  make 
over  their  cultural  loans  or  heritage  in  what  manner  they  feel  most 
adapted  to  their  needs.  The  form  of  Greek  life  is  irrevocably  gone,  yet 
we  have  managed  to  retain  and  make  over  a  thousand  elements  of 
Greek  culture. 

It  comes  to  this,  that  a  vast  deal  of  what  we  call  "superior"  in  our 
way  of  life  is  merely  distinctive  or  different  and  is,  for  that  very  reason, 
so  dear  to  us  that  it  hurts  us  to  think  it  may  ever  pass  away  or  become 
seriously  modified.  There  is  much  in  the  history  of  culture  to  remind  us 
of  the  passing  of  the  generations.  We  see  our  children  growing  up  with 
mingled  pride  and  misgiving.  We  cannot  fail  to  observe  that  there  is 
much  that  we  held  dear  that  seems  less  sacred  to  them,  much  that  they 
set  store  by  which  is  puzzling  or  even  offensive  to  ourselves.  It  cannot 
be  helped.  We  must  have  faith  in  the  history  of  culture  and  leave  its 
precise  conformation  to  the  inevitable  drifts  that  are  flowing  silently 
and  mysteriously  under  our  feet. 

A  final  word  as  to  racial  amalgamation.  This  is  not  a  practical  prob- 
lem as  yet  and  will  not  be  for  a  long  time  to  come  -at  least  not  on 
[212]  a  large  scale.  Yet  all  the  while,  furtively  it  may  be,  it  is  taking 
place.  Nothing  can  stay  its  eventual  consummation.  Nor  need  we  fear 
It.  It  has  often  been  noted  that  inbreeding  stocks  tend  to  lose  their 
vitality.  Just  why  this  is  so  we  do  not  seem  to  know,  but  if  it  is  true,  it 
is  obvious  that  ever  renewed  amalgamations  of  surviving  stocks  will  be 
desirable,  as  they  have  been  in  the  past.  The  fear  is  often  expressed  that 


Faur:  RcfJa  lions  on  Conicmpitrary  7g3 

if  the  "supcrit>r"  stocks  do  not  keep  thcniscl\cs  pure  li>  ihe  end  of  lime. 
it  is  all  up  with  civih/ation,  tor  their  pecuhar  virtue  will  be  lost  in  ihc 
melange.  If  our  view  of  the  relatiiMi  between  the  stream  of  culture  and 
the  psychic  peculiarities  o\'  the  incli\ichials  who  carry  it  is  sound,  there 
should  be  nothing  [o  fear  iVoin  amalganiaiion  provided,  it  is  hardly 
necessary  to  add,  that  the  specific  external  conditions  attending  amaiga* 
mation  are  not  in  themsehes  detrimental  to  the  preservation  of  culture. 
Moreo\er,  if  there  are  significant  dilferences  in,  sa>,  the  ranges  of  emo- 
tional variation  o\'  the  two  intermingling  races,  the  total  resulting  range 
of  variation  should  be  greater  than  in  either  o\'  the  races.  The  chances 
of  temperaments  of  unusual  power  or  charm  arising  are  then  propor- 
tionately greater,  for  there  is  reason  to  belie\e  that  marked  ability  of 
any  sort  is  conditional  on  great  potential  variation,  it  ma>  then  be  that. 
from  the  strictly  biological  standpoint,  culture  will  need  or  continue  to 
need  racial  amalgamation  to  keep  up  its  momentum.  Howe\er.  these 
are  little  more  than  speculations  in  the  present  stage  of  our  knowledge. 


Editorial  Note 
Originally  published  in    The  Mcnonih  Journal  10.  :nn    212  {\')1A). 


Are  the  Nordics  a  Superior  Race? 

There  seems  to  be  a  popular  presumption:  (1)  that  there  is  a  certain 
very  defmile  'Nordic'  race;  (2)  that  to  this  race  belong  the  English  and 
the  great  body  of  Americans  who  settled  the  thirteen  colonies;  (3)  that 
it  is  a  very  fine  race,  in  fact  the  best  there  is;  (4)  that  the  achievements 
of  the  English-speaking  world  are  due  to  the  peculiar  excellence  of 'Nor- 
dic" blood;  (5)  that  these  achievem.ents  are  pre-eminent,  if  not  unique,  in 
the  history  of  the  world;  and  (6)  that  the  'Nordic'  race  loses  its  desirable 
qualities  when  crossed  with  alien  blood.  In  the  brief  space  at  our  dis- 
posal we  cannot  do  more  than  glance  at  each  of  these  assertions  in  turn. 

{ 1 )  It  is  unfortunate  that,  at  the  very  time  when  serious  students  are 
more  uncertain  than  ever  before  as  to  just  what  constitutes  a  'race', 
there  should  be  so  much  bandying  about  of  races  in  the  popular  press. 
There  seem  to  be  no  generally  accepted  principles  of  racial  classifica- 
tion. It  is  not  known  if  the  shape  of  the  head  is  more  stable  or  less 
stable,  more  important  or  less  important,  than  hair  color  or  stature. 
Hence  the  various  schemes  of  classification  proposed  by  anthropolo- 
gists differ  widely.  Some  see  in  the  Nordic  type,  with  its  long  head,  tall 
stature,  blond  hair,  and  blue  eyes,  a  fundamentally  distinct  type  of  man; 
others,  a  comparatively  unimportant  variation  of  a  more  widely  repre- 
sented type;  and  recently  a  well-known  American  anthropologist,  him- 
self a  Nordic,  has  put  forward  the  theory  that  the  type  is  a  blend  of 
three  distinct  races.  But  it  would  be  a  grievous  error  to  assume  that  the 
populations  generally  called  Nordic  are  pure  representatives  of  this 
type,  however  it  be  interpreted.  A  large  and  important  section  even  of 
the  Scandinavians,  who  show  the  Nordic  characteristics  in  their  most 
pronounced  form,  are  distinctly  not  of  Nordic  type. 

(2)  The  racial  constitution  of  the  English  people  is  exceedingly  com- 
plex, as  we  know  from  both  prehistory  and  historic  evidence.  Many 
diverse  strains,  some  of  them  distinct  enough  to  be  assignable  to  dif- 
ferent races,  have  become  inextricably  blended  in  the  Brifish  Isles.  The 
Nordic  type  is,  undoubtedly,  one  of  these  strains,  but  there  are  several 
million  sound  Englishmen  who  do  not  exemplify  it  at  all.  In  America 
the  conditions  are  even  more  complex.  The  Nordic  type  was  pretty  well 
submerged  as  a  pure  type  from  the  start,  and  has  become  increasingly 


Four:  Rcflcctiom  on  Contemporary  7g5 

more  so.  It  would  he  misleading,  and  even  absurd.  U)  idcnlify  ihc  "old* 
American  or  •true"  American  sioek  uiih  one  of  ihe  strains  thai  have 
gone  to  its  making. 

(3)  No  tangible  evidence  seems  lo  be  torliicommg  that  iIk-  n.-iuic 
race  is  a  superior  race.  Thai  those  individuals  who  believe  ihcmscKcs 
to  belong  to  it  also  believe  themselves  to  be  superior  to  other  groups  of 
people  is  natural,  and  is  only  u  hat  may  be  expected  from  human  nature. 
The  'scientific'  evidence  for  this  superiority  o\'  the  Nordics  is  by  no 
means  satisfactory,  and  rests  largely  on  assertion  and  unwarranted  in- 
ferences. The  intelligence  tests,  for  instance,  which  have  been  said  to 
demonstrate  it,  are  vitiated  by  the  failure  o\'  ihc  psychologists  to  allow 
adequately  for  the  facts  of  early  en\  ironmenl,  education,  social  status 
and  esteem,  and,  above  all,  for  the  unconscious  bias  o{  the  individuals 
who  select  the  questions  that  are  supposed  to  be  useful  for  the  lesimii 
of  intelligence. 

(4)  But  it  is  wholly  fallacious  to  assume  that  the  actual  achievements 
o\^  a  people,  as  a  collective  body,  are  to  be  explained  bv  its  average 
native  intelligence.  We  know  from  the  overwhelming  evidence  of  history 
that  cultural  achievements  are  mainlv  due  to  historical  factors,  includ- 
ing favoring  environmental  circumstances,  economic  pressure,  and  the 
whole,  endlessly  complicated,  tradition  which  leads  up  \o  and  serves  as 
a  springboard  for  these  achievements.  An  American  farmer  selected  at 
random,  for  instance,  does  not  do  better  farming  than  an  average  In- 
dian because  he  is  endowed  by  nature  uiih  a  keener  mielligencc.  but 
chiefly  because  he  has  been  brought  up  in  an  atmosphere  in  which  the 
development  of  such  aptitudes  as  lead  to  successful  farming  is  compara- 
tively easy,  whereas  the  Indian  has  had  to  struggle  against  a  traditional 
mode  of  thought  and  action  uliich  reiuler  ihe  adoption  o^  a  lamimg 
career  far  less  easy  and  far  less  satisfying  to  his  personalitv.  In  o\\\cx 
words,  the  dice  of  success  are  somewhat  loaded  in  favor  ol  the  .Xmcn- 
can  farmer.  Generalizing  from  thousands  o\'  such  simple  examples,  we 
may  say  that  collective  achievement  is  b>  no  means  the  direct  result  of 
the  intelligence  of  the  individuals  in  the  group.  If  we  wish  lo  know  how 
the  English  have  come  to  produce  their  wonderful  literature,  we  would 
do  better  to  study  the  history  o^  the  city  o{  Rome  and  the  manners  oi 
mediaeval  French  knights  than  to  collect  answers  lo  intelligence  lesls 
or  to  indulge  in  fancies  about  the  innate  mental  qualities  thai  go  wilh 
Anglo-Saxon  blood  or  Nordic  hair  color. 

(5)  The  currents  of  history  have  brought  it  about  thai  the  Lnglish- 
speaking  peoples  have  had  an  important  share  in  the  economic  and 


786  III  Culture 

cultural  development  of  the  civilized  world  within  the  last  [266]  three 
centuries.  The  successful  colonization  of  large  and  remote  sections  of 
the  globe,  the  part  that  the  English  and  their  colonists  have  had  in  the 
industrial  applications  of  science,  and  the  impetus  they  have  given  to  the 
spread  of  popular  representative  forms  of  government  are  achievements 
which  must  not  be  minimized.  But  too  often  they  are  spoken  of  as 
though  they  accounted  for  the  whole  march  of  civilization,  instead  of 
being  but  contemporary  episodes  in  it.  As  compared  with  the  domesti- 
cation of  cattle,  the  cultivation  of  grains,  the  invention  of  the  alphabet, 
and  the  development  of  such  monotheistic  and  ethical  religions  as  Bud- 
dhism and  Christianity  -  all  of  which  are  cultural  advances  that  were 
made  by  peoples  now  considered  'backward'  -parliamentary  govern- 
ment and  electric  traction  are  of  somewhat  limited  importance.  Even  if 
cultural  achievement  were  measured  by  the  intelligence  of  the  race  — 
which  cannot  be  admitted  -  there  seems,  therefore,  no  valid  reason 
to  argue  for  the  exceptional  intelligence  of  either  the  English-speaking 
peoples  or  of  the  Nordic  race,  partly  represented  by  them. 

(6)  If  there  is  no  special  connection  between  racial  peculiarities  and 
the  development  of  civilization,  the  'danger'  of  crossing  the  Nordic 
stock  with  other  strains  ceases  to  be  a  danger.  Moreover,  it  cannot  be 
shown  that  the  offspring  of  mixed  marriages  are  inferior  to  the  parents 
in  either  physical  or  mental  respects.  It  sometimes  happens  that  such 
offspring  are  looked  down  upon  by  the  'purer'  populations,  and  are, 
therefore,  handicapped  at  the  start  in  their  moral  and  intellectual 
growth,  but  such  cases  of  deterioration  are  obviously  due  to  social 
causes,  and  not  to  the  weakening  of  the  native  endowment. 

It  is  too  much  to  expect  the  average  man  to  be  entirely  free  from 
racial  prejudices.  Tolerance  of  any  kind  comes  hard.  But,  at  least,  let 
not  'scientists'  bolster  up  the  prejudices  of  the  laity  with  unproven  and 
dangerous  dogmas.  It  should  never  be  forgotten  that  'science',  like  un- 
sound statistics,  can  be  made  to  pander  to  every  kind  of  ill-will  that 
humanity  is  heir  to. 


Editorial  Note 
Originally  published  in  The  Canadian  Forum,  June  1925,  265-266. 


let  Race  Akme 

Wc  li\c  in  an  age  luu  st>  nuicli  of  science  as  i^t  sciemillc  applicalinn 
We  are  not  so  nuich  possessed  o\'  a  pliilosophic  criticism  that  may  be 
supposed  to  be  born  ol'  scienlitlc  research  as  ue  are  urged  on  by  a 
restless  faith  in  the  pronouncements  o\'  science.  We  ha\e  made  il  a  reli- 
gion. It  tyrannizes  over  every  moment  of  our  conscious  h\es  and  gives 
us  but  the  most  narrow  and  uncomtbrtable  o\'  margins  tor  the  exercise 
of  deeper-lying,  intuitive  capacities.  No  sooner  do  our  scientific  stokers 
and  manipulators  demonstrate  the  possibility  o\'  a  certain  kind  and 
speed  of  locomotion  than  it  becomes  our  religious  duty  to  sanctify  the 
possibility  into  a  solemn,  interminable  line  o\'  autcMTii>biles.  No  sacred 
procession  leading  its  victim  to  the  slake  uas  e\er  imned  b\  compul- 
sions more  austere  than  those  which  dictate  to  us  our  pleasures  and  our 
griefs. 

But  the  ''scientific"  spirit  leads  to  more  serious  ailments  than  such 
sacrificial  tropisms  as  these.  Man  is  not  so  constituted  as  to  he  either 
willing  or  able  to  submit  his  dearest  problems  to  the  uninspired  deci- 
sions of  science.  One  wearies  of  standing  in  line  in  its  age-U>ng  waiting 
list.  And  too  often,  when  patience  has  been  rewarded  by  a  hurried  con- 
sultation at  the  oracular  wicket,  the  answer  is  dim,  cr\ptic.  even  mean- 
ingless. It  is  doubtful  if  Delphic  maid  was  e\er  more  discreet  than  sci- 
ence. What  happens  when  we  cannot  ov  will  not  submit  our  case  to  this 
deity  of  ours  and  are  yet  persuaded  that  it  is  the  voice  o\'  science  that 
we  should  carry  away  with  us  is  preciseh  what  hiippens  iiula).  a  thou- 
sand times  over.  We  answer  /^;/'  science,  we  take  the  echo  ol  our  preju- 
dice for  its  own  unprompted  opinion,  drop  ou\  o\'  the  waiting  list,  and 
come  away  exultant  with  our  happy  confirmaiu^ns.  No  age  has  been 
free  from  prejudice,  no  society,  primitive  or  si^phisticaled.  can  do  with- 
out it,  but  it  is  perhaps  more  particularly  mir  civili/ed  society  of  tixia) 
that  systematically  directs  its  thinking  to  the  scientific  justification  of 
its  prejudices.  We  have  neither  the  firm  but  pallid  cmnage  of  scu 
with  its  slender  retinue  of  opinions,  nor  the  robusler  ci>urage  ot  p;..- 
dice,  but  a  mixed  behavior  which  alTects  the  serenitv  o\'  the  one  and 
indulges  in  the  antics  o\'  the  tnher. 

The  current  wave  of  race  prejudice,  which  is  nowhere  more  virulent. 
more  systematic,  and  more  dangeri>us  than  m  certain  scientific  circles, 
both  real  and  supposed,  is  as  ^ood  an  example  as  v^c  could  vMsh  of 


788  Jit   Culture 

heated  desire  subdued  to  the  becoming  coolness  of  a  technical  vocabu- 
lary. Race  prejudice  is  no  new  thing,  but  it  has  been  reserved  for  nine- 
teenth- and  twentieth-century  thinkers,  if  the  word  may  be  applied  to 
the  Gobincaus,  Houston  Chamberlains,  and  their  contemporary  like, 
to  smuggle  this  variety  of  prejudice  into  the  cathedral  service  of  science 
and  to  serve  it  up  with  a  vigorous  Nordic  hymnology. 

There  used  to  be  a  time  when  a  Nordic  was  a  rather  undistinguished 
type  oi  barbarian.  His  strenuous  virtues  were  of  some  literary  value  to 
a  Tacitus  in  need  of  a  cudgel  with  which  to  punctuate  his  moral  ideals, 
but  there  is  no  especial  reason  why  we  should  feel  more  anxiously  im- 
pressed by  those  far-away  metaphors  and  nostalgias  than  by  Chateau- 
briand's exercises  in  praise  of  the  noble  Red  Man.  Today  the  Nordic 
stands  in  no  need  of  Tacitus's  condescending  voucher.  To  explain  fully 
why  so  many  of  us  do  honestly  think  that  a  dolichocephalic  Protestant 
of  the  Ozark  Mountains  has  greater  cultural  and  biological  stuff  in  him 
than  a  dolichocephalic  Catholic  from  the  barbarous  shores  of  Sicily, 
pestered  as  they  are  by  the  ruins  of  his  ancestors'  civilization,  would  be 
a  task  for  a  cultural  historian,  a  psychologist  (with  a  psychiatric  squint), 
a  sociologist,  a  philosophic  biologist,  and  a  humorist  rolled  into  one. 
The  tale  is  much  too  long  and  complex  for  the  summarizing.  May  we 
modestly  suggest  instead  that  the  fact  of  Nordic  superiority  ("Anglo- 
Saxon"  version)  is  one  of  the  afterthoughts  bred  in  reflective  minds 
by  a  chain  of  events  that  was  set  going  by  the  defeat  of  the  Spanish 
Armada  and  culminated  in  the  growth  of  English-speaking  America 
and  the  development  of  sea-power  and  industrialism  in  England? 
(Not  that  the  English  and  their  colonial  derivatives  can  be  fairly  said 
to  represent  the  Nordic  race  with  measurable  purity.  This  does  not 
greatly  matter,  for  it  is  essential  to  the  peace  of  the  latter-day  scientific 
conscience  to  square,  with  what  approximate  accuracy  it  may,  a  unit 
born  of  collective  pride,  say  "Anglo-Saxondom,"  with  a  scientific  unit 
suggested  by  the  measuring  rod,  say  the  "Nordic  race.")  The  scientific 
proof  of  the  "fact"  of  Nordic  superiority  would  seem  to  lie  in  the  infer- 
ential application  to  selected  chapters  of  history  of  certain  technical 
ideas  on  the  nature  of  biological  heredity.  These  were  given  form  by 
researches  on  the  cross-breeding  of  different  varieties  of  peas  under- 
taken by  Abbe  Mendel,  an  Austrian  Catholic,  it  is  true,  and  presumably 
a  member  of  the  somewhat  inferior  "Alpine"  race  -  but  one  can  always 
learn  from  one's  inferiors. 

Let  us,  for  a  perilous  moment,  overlook  the  fact  of  Nordic  racial 
superiority  and  content  ourselves  with  the  mere  concept,  or  whim,  of 


Four:  Reflections  on  Contemporary  7g9 

racial  superiority  in  the  abstract.  Whal  diK-s  this  concept  rc>l  on?  On 
the  obvious  fact  thai  ihcrc  arc  pli\Mcall\  cmiirasling  groups  of  people 
(the  races  and  sub-races  of  man),  on  the  presumption  thai  their  physical 
difterences  are  more  or  less  closely  associated  with  significanl  niciiial 
differences,  on  the  observation  thai  cerlain  groups  o\  people  (classes, 
nationalities,  or  even  whole  races)  ha\e  a  more  highly  evolved  culture 
than  others,  and  on  the  inference  that  these  dilVerences  of  culture  arc 
but  expressions  of  the  presumed  innate  differences  in  menlalily  which 
go  with  the  physical  differences.  Ihus.  we  obser\e  that  a  Chinaman  is 
appreciably  different  in  his  physical  constitution  from  an  l:nglishman. 
It  is  therefore  hard  to  believe  that  he  has  essentially  the  same  innate 
mental  endowment  as  the  latter.  Moreover,  we  see,  as  a  matter  o\  fact, 
that  he  behaves  quite  differently  from  a  sensible  F.nglishman.  He  is  not 
nearly  so  clever  in  handling  machinery,  he  has  absurd  beliefs  about  his 
ancestors  and  rather  unappetizing  tbod  habits,  he  has  not  the  right  ideas 
about  God,  and  his  music  can  be  called  such  onl\  by  courtess.  Who 
can  doubt  that  his  conduct,  both  as  an  indi\idiial  (212J  and  as  one  i>f  a 
group,  stamps  him  the  inferior  of  the  Englishman'.'  And  is  there  an\ 
particular  reason  to  doubt  that  the  chromosomes,  endiKrine  glands. 
and  other  biological  things  to  swear  b\  that  are  responsible  for  his 
yellowish  skin  and  oblique  eyes  are  also  to  blame  for  his  un-F-nglish 
and  un-American  behavior?  Books  on  race  do  not  often  present  this 
line  of  argument  quite  so  baldly  or  childishly,  but  I  cannot  see  that  I 
have  essentially  misrepresented  the  typical  argument  l\>r  racial  infenori- 
ties. 

Let  us  see  what  happens  when  substaniialls  the  same  notions  are 
applied  to  individuals  within  a  supposedly  homogeneous  group,  say  to 
A  and  B,  both  residents  o\^  one  o{  our  more  expensive  suburbs,  both. 
in  fact,  of  pure  Mayflower  stock.  A  is  rather  short  oi  stature,  has  a 
shortish  head  (mesocephalic.  we  will  say,  with  a  dangerous  leaning  to- 
ward brachycephaly),  and  has  brown  eyes  which  are  habitualK  ani- 
mated by  a  shrewd  twinkle;  as  for  his  cultural  attainments  there  is  little 
to  say  except  that  his  chief  recreation  is  pt>ker  and  the  telling  of  obscene 
jokes,  that  he  believes  the  Kaiser  caused  the  great  war.  and  that  he  is 
useful  to  society  because  he  sells  hats.  B  is  ver\  dillerent  in  KMh  ana- 
tomical and  cultural  respects.  He  is  a  fine  example  of  a  six-footer,  has 
a  head  that  any  physical  anthropologist  would  spot  at  once  as  dolicho- 
cephalic (index  50),  and  his  eyes  are  as  blue  as  the  sky.  He  seldom  st' 
-  whether  because  his  ideas  are  too  weighty  or  because,  as  his  Uk 
suggest,  he  cannot  bring  them  into  action  quickly  enough  to  sec  the 


790  ///  Culture 

point  of  a  joke.  He  is  very  cultured,  reads  only  literature  above  the  level 
of  the  Saturday  Evening  Post,  and,  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  teaches 
one  of  the  "ologies"  at  a  major  university.  A  and  B  rarely  speak  to  each 
other,  though  the  bosom  of  each  swells  to  the  same  pride  of  nationality. 

Now  for  method.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  these  individuals  belong  to 
utterly  distinct  types  of  humanity.  Dare  we  call  them  "races"?  Why  not? 
A  belongs  to  a  short,  brachycephalic,  brown-eyed  "race,"  the  technical 
name  of  which  is  left  to  the  reader's  imagination.  This  "race"  is  rather 
poorly  endowed,  not  merely  because  we  can  hardly  believe  that  any 
brachycephal  is  capable  of  prolonged  mental  concentration  but  because 
the  proof  of  the  pudding  is  in  the  eating.  Any  man  that  wastes  his 
time  on  poker,  has  patently  childish  notions  about  the  mainsprings  of 
contemporary  political  action,  and  gets  no  higher  in  the  world  than 
selling  hats  (we  forgot  to  mention  that  A  sells  hats  on  a  moderate  scale) 
is  distinctly  inferior  to  a  professor  who  plays  chess,  who  knows  that  the 
Kaiser  was  not  the  only  one  responsible  for  the  war,  and  who  confines 
his  reading  to  the  very  best  that  this  weary  world  has  produced.  A's 
"race"  is  inferior  to  B's.  If  observation  is  worth  anything  it  tends  to 
prove  that  short,  brown-eyed  brachycephals  (even  mesocephals)  cannot 
expect  to  rise  above  the  poker-playing,  hat-selling  stage,  while  the  diz- 
zier heights  are  reserved  for  tall,  blue-eyed  dolichocephals.  If  eugenists 
had  their  way  we  fear  that  they  would  not  hear  of  A's  children  marrying 
B's. 

And  now  A's  friends  and  the  higher  critics  of  the  philosophy  of  race 
rush  to  the  rescue  and  let  loose  a  furious  volley  of  destructive  remarks. 
It  is  not  possible  to  set  down  all  of  these  remarks,  but  here  are  some  of 
them.  A  is  as  good  a  man  as  B;  in  fact,  his  is  the  keener  intellect  by 
nature.  There  are  plenty  of  brachycephalic  professors  and  any  number 
of  dolichocephals  who  sell  hats.  The  attempt  to  associate  A's  and  B's 
physical  appearances  with  their  respective  innate  mental  endowments 
and  these  in  turn  with  their  cultural  tastes  and  habits  is  all  rubbish.  The 
human  gamut  of  moron  to  genius  can  be  recruited  equally  well  from 
the  totality  of  sellers  of  hats  and  from  the  totality  of  professors,  nor 
does  this  gamut  fail  to  appear  when  the  principle  of  selection  is  dolicho- 
cephals or  brachycephals  or  tall  or  short  people  or  blue-eyed  or  brown- 
eyed  people  or  any  combination  of  these  physical  traits.  Furthermore, 
we  are  told  that  A  sells  hats  and  plays  poker  not  because  he  was  born 
wrong  but  merely  because  his  breeding  was  not  as  well-baked  an  under- 
takmg  as  B's.  It  is  the  old  story  of  cultural  setting  as  the  all-important 
factor  in  the  external  development  of  the  individual;  and  the  equally  old 


Four:  Reflections  on  Contcmporiirx  791 

story,  less  often  rcnicinhcicJ.  ol  ihc  inclcxancc  o\  the  external  cultural 
beliaxior  of  an  iiulixRlual  toi  close  inferences  as  to  his  niherilcil  menial 
endowment.  On  due  retlection  we  find  cunseKes  mmed  by  the  argu- 
ments of  the  higher  critics.  We  are  so  much  drawn  to  them,  in  fad,  ihal 
we  forthwith  declare  the  following  principles  to  be  sound  and,  so  lo 
speak,  self-e\idenl.  I'irst.  that  it  is  \aiii  lo  loi^k  for  correlations  between 
the  major  physical  characteristics  o{  man  (such,  in  fact,  as  are  being 
habitually  used  to  defme  '"race")  and  mental  endowment;  sectnid.  that 
any  selection  o\^  indixiduals  on  normal  physical  grounds  will  include 
samplings  o[^  all  grades  o\'  innate  ability;  third,  that  what  is  ordinarily 
called  "culture"  is  the  result  of  historical  and  cinironmental  factors  that 
are  in  essence  independent  o\'  race,  in  its  prc^per  bii^logical  sense,  and 
that  it  does  not  proceed,  in  any  intelligible  fashion,  from  inherited  men- 
tal qualities  as  such. 

At  this  point  some  of  the  higher  critics  lake  alarm  and  raise  protests. 
It  is  all  very  well,  they  maintain,  to  pooh-pooh  the  physical  and  cultural 
ditTerences  between  A  and  B,  but  you  can't  be  so  generous  when  >ou 
are  talking  about  a  Negro  or  a  Chinaman.  There  the  physical  dilTerences 
do  count  and  the  cultural  ones  too.  But  why'.'  What  dilTerence  dt>es  it 
make  to  Nature  and  the  machinery  of  chromosomes  if  we  pull  A  under 
cover  of  the  "Nordic  race,"  say,  and  announce  that  he  is  merel>  iit  the 
tail-end  of  a  distribution  curve  and  not  reall\  a  racial  alien  \o  B  at  all. 
but  deny  that  statistical  privilege  to  an  "Alpine"  from  southern  Ger- 
many or  a  Jew  or  Hindu  or  Chinaman  or  Negro'.'  There  are  greater  and 
less  differences  in  physical  and  cultural  respects  between  indi\iduals  and 
groups  of  individuals,  but  if  the  kind  o\^  leap  that  is  i\ pitied  by  the 
passage  from  A  to  B  is  declared  non-significant  for  inferences  as  lo 
natural  endowment,  then  I  cannot  see  thai  ihe  greater  leap  from  the 
group  that  includes  both  A  and  B  to  the  mass  of  indi\iduals  known  as 
Jews  or  Chinamen  does  justify  such  inferences.  To  find  that  Nature 
makes  racial  correlations  (as  to  physical  appearance,  mental  endow- 
ment, and  culture)  but  thai  it  refuses  to  make  closely  parallel  sub-racial 
correlations  after  a  certain  point  can  hardly  be  explained  otherwise  than 
on  the  principle  of  the  "projection"  in  nature  of  what  has  formulated 
itself  in  the  observing  mind  and  desiring  heart. 

At  best  we  know  tantali/ingly  little  about  huiiKm  heredity.  Tlie  selec- 
tion of  particular  trails,  both  physical  and.  es{x-ciall\.  mental,  as  "desir- 
able" is  hopelessly  subieclive.  The  attempt  to  make  of  such  "desir.j''':-" 
traits  a  matrix  for  the  de\elopment  i>f  a  culture  prejudged  as  "dcMi.i-  . 
is  unphilosophic  and  uninformed  b>  the  facts  of  history.  In  dealing  with 


792  ///  Culture 

nature  we  are  always  arguing  without  our  host;  in  deahng  with  culture, 
scarcely  less  so.  [213]  If  human  culture  has  shifted  its  geographical  cen- 
ter so  frequently  without  serious  loss  to  mankind  as  a  whole  and  if  the 
ph\  sical  history  of  man  is  crowded  with,  indeed  consists  of,  wholesale 
amalgamations  of  varying  types,  we  would  seem  to  be  needlessly 
alarmed  about  the  racial  and  cultural  future.  It  cannot  have  been  such 
a  bad  regime  that  for  a  few  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years  has  man- 
aged to  bring  intact  to  us  of  today  both  man  the  animal  and  his  steadily 
evolving  culture.  Why  should  we  try  utterly  new  methods  because  a 
number  of  well-meaning  and  patriotic  scientists  are  in  the  habit  of  philo- 
sophically misinterpreting  the  larger  bearing  of  some  Mendelian  experi- 
ments? 

A  little  learning  is  a  dangerous  thing.  The  reasonable  man  will  feel 
about  all  the  race  talk  that  it  is  an  exceedingly  muddled  affair.  He  will 
adopt  for  his  practical  policy  the  maxim,  "Let  race  alone."  That  is,  he 
will  try  to  act  as  though,  for  cultural  purposes,  race  did  not  exist.  He 
will  do  his  level  best  to  act  courteously  to  individuals  of  all  races  and 
he  will  pay  them  all  the  compliment  of  assuming  that  they  are  essentially 
similar  in  potentiality  to  himself  and  his  like.  A  healthy  instinct  will  tell 
him  that  whatever  be  the  alleged  facts  about  race,  it  is  ethically  debilitat- 
ing to  raise  it  as  an  issue,  because  in  so  doing  he  shifts  the  emphasis 
from  the  individual  to  collective  chimeras  of  one  kind  or  another.  If  he 
is  in  some  measure  mistaken  about  the  matter,  he  will  be  robust  enough 
to  prefer  to  go  wrong  with  the  classical  and  outmoded  thinkers  of  the 
Age  of  Enlightenment  than  further  wrong  with  the  truculent  and  ro- 
mantic race-mongers  of  today.  And  if  the  worst  comes  to  the  worst,  he 
can  always  fall  back  on  those  childhood  prejudices  which,  he  may  be 
sure,  he  has  never  wholly  eradicated  and  which,  if  he  is  an  unmarried 
Nordic,  will  probably  prevent  him  from  dragging  the  first  Negro  woman 
he  meets  to  the  hymeneal  altar.  Even  the  reasonable  man  is  irrational 
enough  to  hang  on  to  what  stores  of  prejudice  he  possesses  under  cover 
of  philosophic  innocence.  Only,  being  reasonable,  he  much  prefers  his 
prejudice  "straight."  He  does  not  like  the  adulterated  scientific  variety. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  pubHshed  in  The  Nation  120,  2n -213  (1925).  Copyright 
1925,  reprinted  by  permission  of  The  Nation  Magazine/The  Nation 
Company,  Inc. 


Four:  Reflations  on  Contemporary  793 

This  article  was  one  of  a  series  on  the  "Nordic  niMh"  uhich  appeared 
in  volume  120  of  The  Nation  in  1925.  The  others  include:  Franz  Boas. 
"What  is  a  Race?,"  89-91;  Melville  Herskovits,  "Brains  and  the  Immi- 
grant," 139-142;  Konrad  Bercovici.  "You  Nordics!,"  288-290.  Hen- 
drik  Willem  Van  Loon,  "Our  Nordic  Myth-Makers,"  349-350;  Albert 
Goldenweiser,  "Can  There  Be  a  Human  Race?.  "  462-463;  Harry  Elmer 
Barnes.  "The  Race  Myth  Crumbles,"  515-517;  Manuel  Ugarie,  "A  Latin 
Looks  North,"  568-570;  and  Herbert  Adolphus  Miller.  "Race  Pride 
and  Race  Prejudice,"  622-623. 


Notes 

1.  The  German  version  has  to  read  a  hiilc  dilTercntly. 

2.  Still  less  the  Germans. 


Undesirables  -  Klanned  or  Banned? 

It  is  a  good  thing  tor  a  man  to  get  shaken  up  a  bit  in  the  course  of 
his  travels.  It  does  him  good  to  be  thrown  together  with  strange  and 
uncomtbrtable  bedfellows,  provided  they  are  but  human.  "I  think  noth- 
ing human  to  be  foreign  to  me,"  was  said  wisely  in  ancient  days.  And 
he  must  be  a  poor  sort  who  can  chaff  a  Negro,  exchange  notes  on  the 
weather  with  a  Chinaman,  and  get  poked  in  the  ribs  by  an  Irishman 
without  coming  away  from  these  random  contacts  a  slightly  saner,  more 
tolerant,  and  more  human  man.  For  what  divides  man  from  man  and 
race  from  race  is  not  color  of  hair,  nor  shape  of  nose,  nor  even  the 
opinions  of  one's  ancestors,  sacred  as  these  are,  but  that  stubborn  pride 
of  the  soul  that  is  somehow  not  proud  enough  to  throw  open  its  gates 
to  all  chance  comers  of  the  highways  but  must  needs  seize  upon  any 
stick  of  an  excuse  to  bar  the  way  to  as  many  intruders  as  it  dare  hold 
off.  Thus  is  a  fundamental  fear  turned  into  a  spurious  pride. 

It  is  not  easy  for  the  soul  to  come  out  of  its  hiding  place  and  battle, 
unprotected  and  gleefully  in  the  open,  with  other  souls.  It  is  so  much 
easier  to  devise  formulas  of  the  body,  so  that  the  soul  may  slumber  on 
undisturbed,  dreaming  of  triumphs  which  it  has  never  been  called  upon 
to  win.  If  it  can  somehow  be  assumed  that  all  hook-nosed  individuals 
who  bear  the  name  of  Cohen  have  been  assigned  by  nature  to  an  "infe- 
rior" category,  then,  clearly,  all  stub-nosed  individuals  who  bear  the 
name  of  Sweeney  have  a  good  chance  to  secure  a  valuable  victory  with 
a  minimum  of  soul  effort.  Everybody  knows  how  convenient  it  is  to 
have  certain  people  know  their  place.  It  is  only  a  shade  less  convenient 
to  know  their  place  for  them  should  they  be  so  uninstructed  as  to  have 
any  doubts  about  the  matter. 

Those  who  are  more  interested  in  the  spirit  of  man  than  in  the  dimen- 
sions of  his  shell  have  every  reason  to  be  grateful  to  the  noble  order  of 
the  Ku  Klux  Klan.  These  gentlemen  have  been  urged  on  by  some  secret 
and  glorious  light  of  the  imagination.  With  a  Quixotic  earnestness  wor- 
thy of  our  applause  they  have  set  themselves  the  task  of  welding  to- 
gether mto  newer  and  nobler  unities  heterogeneous  masses  of  men  hith- 
erto eyeing  each  other  a  little  askance.  Driven  into  each  other's  arms 
by  the  magnetism  of  a  slogan,  the  Jew,  the  Negro,  and  the  Catholic  are 


Four:  Rcllcctious  on  Contemporary  795 

now  citizens  o{  ihc  same  Republic  ol  the  I  nJeNndlile.  Ihis  is  u  negative 
kind  of  republic,  one  might  objecl.  unattended  b\  the  blare  ol"  periodic 
elections  and  united  by  no  attempted  adherence  to  a  consiiiulion. 

But  it  is  possible  that  the  thinkers  o\'  the  Ku  Klu.x  Klan  ha\c  subtler 
heads  than  the  unsympathetic  portion  of  our  press  give  them  credit  lor. 
It  is  possible  thai  they  understand  that  communities  ol  mind  are  not 
necessarily  vouched  for  by  conscious  accords  or  other  explicit  ma- 
chinery. They  may  grow  up  in  a  thousand  indirect  ways,  through  com- 
mon interests  only  dimly  felt  or  through  a  common  griesance  but 
vaguely  realized  or  through  a  mere  negation  llaunied  m  the  face. 

What  have  the  Jew,  the  Negro,  and  the  Catholic  in  common  that  the 
statesmen  of  the  Ku  Klux  Klan  are  so  insistent  on  creating  a  touching 
and  almost  Utopian  community  of  feeling'.'  The  Negro  is  a  (.iark-skmned 
individual  who.  through  no  fault  t>f  his  own.  has  had  a  remarkably 
tough  time  of  it.  Deprived  of  his  due  share  o^  the  opportunities  for 
training  and  advancement  extended  by  a  civilized  regime,  he  has  turned 
out  rather  fewer  doctors,  lawyers,  and  journalists  than  would  be  suHl- 
cient  to  impress  a  statistician  of  the  Ku  Klux  Klan  as  presumpii\e  cm- 
dence  for  his  inherent  fitness  to  have  much  to  sa\  in  the  direction  oi 
this  civilized  regime.  Some  maintain  that  this  proves  thai  he  has  turned 
out  too  many  doctors,  lawyers,  and  journalists  as  it  is. 

The  Jew  rarely  resembles  the  Negro  in  physical  appearance.  Ranging 
in  color  from  light  to  swarthy  and  exemplifying  a  considerable  variety 
of  cephalic  indices,  nasal  forms,  and  statures  ~  it  is  necessary  to  men- 
tion these  details,  for  this  is  the  day  of  the  "'science"  o^  race  -  the  Jew 
is  a  little  more  difficult  to  spot  than  the  Negro.  A  careful  attention  to 
details,  however,  such  as  his  habit  of  talking  above  a  whisper  at  summer 
resorts,  will  generally  enable  those  who  desire  to  detect  him  to  do  so. 
though  we  must  hasten  to  add  that  a  deplorable  percentage  o'(  Jeus 
tend  to  be  taken  for  what  they  are  not.  Mr.  Belioc  has  some  moving 
pages  on  this  subject. 

Having  had  a  reasonable  share  in  the  oppi>rtunities  alread>  referred 
to,  the  Jew  has  not  been  behindhand  with  his  quota  of  doctors,  law 
and  journalists.  Indeed,  if  we  understand  the  statistical  phiU>sophci  ^  «•■ 
the  Ku  Klux  Klan  rightly,  he  has  had  far  too  man\  o\  them.  Hut.  in 
truth,  the  occupations  of  the  Jew  are  quiie  \aried.  Some  are  known  to 
pick  rags,  while  a  very  small  percentage  of  this  |>eople  has  been  repi^ried 
as  picking  fiaws  in  the  orthodox  thei>ry  of  gra\ilatuMi. 

The  third  section  of  our  brotherhood  o[  undesirables  does  not  seem 
to  be  clearly  marked  otT  by  any  insignia  or  stigmata  of  a  physical  char- 


796  III  Culture 

acter.  Even  the  anthropologists  of  the  Ku  Klux  Klan  would  be  disposed 
to  admit  that  the  average  cephalic  index  of  the  Catholics  of  America  is 
a  figure  of  dubious  significance.  They  would  probably  prefer  to  take 
their  stand  on  a  higher  moral  ground.  Nor  would  they  allow  themselves 
lo  be  either  intrigued  or  repelled  by  the  poetic  oddities  of  the  Irish 
Renaissance,  being  for  the  most  part  blissfully  ignorant  of  mere  beauty. 
Thev  would  go  straight  to  the  mark  and,  with  ominous  voice  and  sly 
wink,  appall  themselves  with  the  contemplation  of  the  dire  conse- 
quences to  our  land  of  an  access  of  Catholic  power  or,  to  speak  more 
accurately,  of  an  access  of  power  in  such  individuals  as  are  enrolled  in 
the  Catholic  columns  of  our  statistical  books  of  reference. 

Should  the  American  people  be  so  misguided  as  to  allow  one  of  these 
Catholics  to  slip  into  the  White  House,  be  he  ever  so  merely  statistical 
a  Catholic,  there  is  little  doubt,  dream  the  prophetic  patriots  of  the  Ku 
Klux  Klan.  that  this  fair  land  of  ours  would  at  once  become  an  annex 
to  the  colossal  domains  which  are  so  stealthily  ruled  by  that  dreadful 
Italian  gentleman  known  as  the  Pope.  Merely  to  contemplate  this  possi- 
bility is  to  fall  into  abyss  upon  abyss  of  horror. 

The  Negro,  the  Jew,  and  the  Catholic  are  a  symbol  —  of  what?  Of 
dark  and  misguided  humanity?  But  this  vast  mass  of  human  beings, 
differing  so  radically  among  themselves  in  color,  in  faith,  and  in  their 
historical  backgrounds,  embracing  all  conditions  and  varieties  of  men 
and  women,  from  the  moron  to  the  philosopher,  is  humanity  itself.  Can 
it  be  that  the  self-denying  philanthropists  of  the  Ku  Klux  Klan  have 
desired,  by  some  desperate  implication,  to  leave  themselves  out  in  the 
cold,  in  some  outer  realm  that  but  grazes  the  confines  of  humanity? 

But  it  is  high  time  that  we  ceased  to  trifle  and  that  we  recognized 
the  fact  that  the  historians,  the  moralists,  the  anthropologists,  and  the 
mythologists  of  the  Ku  Klux  Klan  agree  in  upholding  an  ideal.  It  is 
those  who  correspond  to  this  ideal,  and  they  only,  who  are  truly  predes- 
tined by  nature  to  occupy  and  to  rule  the  United  States,  a  land  origi- 
nally settled  by  English-speaking  Puritans,  Quakers,  Cavaliers,  and 
Catholics,  by  Dutch  and  Swedish  Protestants,  and  by  French  and  Span- 
ish Catholics.  (The  Negro  share  of  the  settlement  was  largely  involun- 
tary; most  of  the  Jews  came  when  the  settling  was  well  over.) 

Forgetting  the  important  share  that  the  Catholics  and  various  conti- 
nental European  peoples  have  had  in  the  opening  up  of  our  country, 
taking  the  preliminary  sentences  of  the  Declaradon  of  Independence 
and  of  the  American  Constitution  with  a  heavy  dose  of  salt,  and  aided 
by  the  light  of  inward  contemplation,  many  thinkers  have  constructed 


Four:  Rcjlccthms  on  ConwrnporurY  797 

as  their  ideal  o{  American  cili/eiisliip  an  iiuii\idual  of  "Anglo-Saxon" 
descent.  o\'  "No\\\\c"  race  (preterablN  \\\\\\  blue  eyes,  fair  skin,  and  a 
long  or  dolichocephalic  skull).  o\'  Protestant  faith,  of  tremendous  re- 
sourcefulness in  coping  with  natural  difficulties,  and  (^^  preal  moral 
integrity.  These  traits  are  said  to  cohere  with  remarkable  uniformily. 

Negroes,  too,  are  dolicln>cephalic.  but  then-  dolichocephaly  does  not 
count  for  much.  "Nordic"  dolichocephaly  does,  because  it  contrasts 
with  the  "brachycephaly"  or  short-headedness  of  central  iiuropean  peo- 
ples. The  artistic  genius  displayed  by  Greeks.  Italians,  and  Chinese  is, 
or  was.  all  very  well  in  its  way,  as  was  the  bravery  and  idealism  of  the 
Greeks,  the  genius  for  political  organization  o\'  the  Romans,  and  the 
psalm-singing  o'i  King  David,  whose  Hebrew  contemporaries  are  now 
safel\  dead. 

But  all  such  accomplishments  of  mind  and  bod>  tediously  set  forth 
in  the  histories  (was  it  Mr.  Ford  who  said  that  history  was  "all  bunk"?), 
somehow  pale  into  insignificance  when  put  beside  the  deeds  and  the 
potentialities  of,  let  us  say,  the  "Anglo-Sa.xon"  dolichocephalic  Protes- 
tants of  the  Ozark  Mountains,  Missouri.  Jews.  Mohammedans,  Bud- 
dhists, and  even  Catholics  have  been  known  to  gi\e  up  their  all  for  the 
mere  sake  of  a  moral  conviction.  In  vain.  The  onl\  con\iction  that  really 
deserves  God's  hundred-per-cent  rating  is  such  as  is  held  b\  Protestant 
dolichocephalics  of  English  speech. 

It  does  not  really  matter  that  no  intelligent  person  can  define  the  term 
"Anglo-Saxon,"  which  has  no  heavier  conicni  \o  an  anthropologist  or 
historian  who  is  not  also  a  Klansman  than  the  term  "antedihuian"  has 
to  a  geologist  who  goes  to  church  infrequently.  It  does  not  matter  m 
the  least  that  the  "Nordic  race"  is  little  more  than  an  anthropometric 
formula  and  that  its  claims  to  ha\e  iincnicd  the  steam-engine,  the  typo- 
writer,  and  representative  government  are  as  intelligible  as  an  endtvnne 
gland's  boast  to  have  founded  the  world  religicMi  known  as  Christianity. 
Nor  does  it  seriously  matter  that  Klansmen  and  tlu>se  viKMJerous  gentle- 
men who  do  the  thinking  for  them  ha\c  no  greater  knius ledge  oi  the 
incredible  debt  that  American  culture  owes,  at  last  analysis,  to  the  Me- 
diterranean, central  European  and  west  Asiatic  peoples  than,  as  the 
Russian  Jews  have  it,  a  cat  may  carry  away  on  the  up  o{  its  tail 

The  idealists  of  the  Ku  Klu.x  Klan  are  too  admirabl>  stubK>rn  to  be 
dissuaded  by  the  facts  o^  observation  and  o^  history.  Ttie>  bum  for  an 
ideal  and  they  have  found  it  by  looking  inti^  a  mirror  Some  mirrors 
have  a  distorting  curvature,  it  is  true,  but  when  \ou  lv^  huntine  for  an 
ideal  you  have  to  take  a  chance. 


798  ///  Culture 

How  long  can  ilie  human  variety,  real  or  supposed,  which  has  been 
honorably  segregated  by  the  military  experts  of  the  Ku  Klux  Klan  af- 
ford to  look  down  from  their  mountain  fastnesses  on  the  lesser  varieties 
o\'  humanity  which  people  the  plains?  Is  it  not  conceivable  that  these 
Supermen  will  become  "'fed  up"  with  their  splendid  isolation  and  will 
yawn  in  the  very  faces  of  their  leaders?  When  that  day  comes,  a  new 
generation  will  have  been  born,  the  humorists  of  Ku  Klux  Klan,  who 
will  declare  the  philosophy  of  their  forebears  to  have  been  a  hoax  born 
of  a  teasing  desire  to  swashbuckle  with  mask,  shirt,  tar,  and  feather. 
They  may  well  add  as  a  postscript  that  this  philosophy  was  made  in 
Germany  anyway,  in  the  days  when  toys  used  to  be  imported  from 
Niirnberu. 


Editorial  Note 
Originally  published  in  The  American  Hebrew  116,  286  (1925). 


The  Race  Problem  [-.  Ci.  C'rookshank. 

The  Mongol  in  Our  Midst:  A  Study  of  .\  fun  und  I  lis 

Three  Fciees.  New  York:  H.  P.  Duiit)n,  1^;24. 

Hermann  W.  Siemens.  Race  Ilvi^icnc  aiul  Heredity.  Translaicd  by 
Lewellys  F.  Barker.  New  York:  D.  Applclon,  1924. 

Jean  Find.  Race  Prejudice.  Translated  b>  Florence  Wade-Fvans.  New 
York:  E.  P.  Dutlon,  1907  (reprinted  1924). 

J.  H.  Oldham,  Chri.stianitv  and  the  Race  Pro/^lem.  Ne\s  York:  George 
H.  Doran,  1924. 

A  good  meal  generally  begins  with  a  nibble  of  celery  and  so  vve  can 
hardly  do  better  in  plowing  through  some  nineteen  hundred  pages  of 
race  matter,  now  minatory,  now  pacificatory,  than  to  start  with  Mr. 
Crookshank's  fantastic  brochure  on  the  Mongol  in  our  nndsi.  It  is  as 
light  as  the  vegetable,  but  it  is  completeh  de\oid  o\'  \ itamuis.  Hie  au- 
thor's thesis  need  only  be  stated  to  be  refuted  with  a  laugh.  .\lr.  Crook- 
shank  is  a  man  of  considerable  literary  taste  who  kniuvs  hou  to  tjui>ie 
aptly  from  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  and  one  would  like  to  believe  that  his 
interest  lies  in  the  whimsicalities  rather  than  in  the  truth  o\'  his  race 
theories,  very  much  as  Charles  Lamb  is  kiunsii  to  ha\e  relished  the 
manner  of  his  Hooker  and  Burton  without  being  in  the  least  disquiclcd 
by  their  ponderous  matter.  Our  guess.  ho\\e\er.  would  be  that  he  is 
serious.  Should  it  appear,  in  the  wash,  that  Mr.  Crookshank  has  been 
holding  a  huge  chuckle  in  reserve,  we  should  be  the  first  [o  lake  oil  our 
hat  to  him  as  one  oi^  the  most  brilliant  hoa.xers  in  contemporar>  s^Mcn- 
tific  literature. 

The  thesis  may  be  summarized  as  follows.  Man  is  derucd  Ironi  three 
distinct  apes,  the  orang,  the  gorilla,  and  the  chimpan/ee.  Ilic  descen- 
dants of  the  orang  are  the  peoples  o\'  Mongolian  race  and  the  so-eailed 
''Mongolian"  imbeciles  among  the  uhiies.  whose  resemblance  lo  ihe 
true  Mongolians  is  generally  regarded  as  superficial.  Hie  gorilla  is  the 
ancestor  of  the  negroid  peoples.  From  the  chimpan/ee  stem  the  uhilcs. 
particularly,  it  would  seem,  the  Semites,  rhe  chief  e\idencc  for  ihoe 
genetic  theories  is  furnished  by  instinctive  posture  and  by  charactenslic 


800  ///  Culture 

lines  of  the  palm.  The  Mongolian  or  "orangoid"  posture  is  the  one 
illustrated  by  the  sitting  Buddha,  who,  one  may  irrelevantly  remark, 
was  a  Hindu  invention.  Orang,  "Mongolian  imbecile,"  true  MongoHan, 
and  sitting  Buddha  form  a  series.  Chimpanzee,  cases  of  dementia  prae- 
cox.  and  whites  form  another.  It  all  works  out  rather  neatly  and  we 
learn  many  curious  bits  of  information  by  the  way.  The  temptation  to 
quote  a  number  of  charming  passages  is  great,  but  we  must  limit  our- 
selves to  two.  'it  is  ...  singular,"  says  Mr.  Crookshank,  "that  the  Mon- 
golian imbeciles  should  not  only  love  to  sit  like  a  Buddha  but  to  sway 
the  head,  backwards  and  forwards,  like  a  porcelain  Mandarin,  whilst  I 
have  seen  a  baby  Mongolian  idiot  prostrate  himself  in  his  cot,  for  hours 
at  a  time,  doing  the  kotow.  Now,  when  an  English  idiot  of  Mongolian 
physique  performs  in  his  cot  the  symbolic  act  of  humiliation  practiced 
by  the  Chinese  race,  and  does  it  instinctively  and  persistently,  it  is  idle 
to  declare  that  no  real  homology  is  involved!"  Cultural  anthropologists 
to  the  rescue!  But  they  are  probably  too  busy  to  take  up  light  skirmish- 
ing. Further  on  we  read:  "Mongolian  imbeciles  speak  late,  and  it  is 
remarkable  that  they  alter  many  consonantal  sounds,  saying  'lellow'  for 
'yellow'  and  so  forth,  like  a  stage  Chinaman,  whilst  they  never  construct 
long  sentences.  They  tend,  in  fact,  to  employ  only  monosyllabic  and 
asyntactic  forms  of  speech."  Chinese  monosyllabism,  one  infers,  is  an 
instinctive  reaction  of  the  Mongolian-orangoid-imbecile  stock.  The  fact 
that  English  has  more  and  more  tended  to  a  Chinese-like  structure 
must,  we  fear,  be  construed  to  mean  that  Anglo-Saxon  civilization  is 
going  to  the  orangs. 

Why  such  books  are  published  it  would  be  hard  to  say,  but  it  is 
undeniable  that  they  are  delightful  interludes  in  the  grim  and  weary 
drama  that  we  are  in  for  these  days.  Mr.  Siemens's  book,  to  which 
the  translator  has  appended  a  very  useful  bibliography  and  a  technical 
glossary,  is  of  a  very  different  sort.  It  consists  of  two  parts,  an  admirable 
and  not  too  technical  introduction  to  the  theory  of  Mendelian  heredity 
and  a  far  less  closely  reasoned  section  on  the  degeneration  which  he 
believes  to  be  threatening  the  more  valuable  strains  in  German  society 
-  and  in  European  society  generally.  His  fears  for  the  future  of  Euro- 
pean culture  are  grounded  in  biology  pure  and  simple,  not  in  a  philoso- 
phy of  culture  such  as  a  liberal  anthropologist  or  historian  could 
honestly  follow.  The  gist  of  his  thesis  -  for  the  sober  chapters  on  hered- 
ity merely  pave  the  way  for  a  thesis  -  is  probably  contained  in  the 
following  passage:  "Now  the  threat  of  extinction  of  all  existing  Euro- 
pean culture  lies  precisely  in  the  fact  that  the  leading  circles,  which 


Four:  Reflections  on  Contemporary  gOl 

include  with  rcspecl  to  bolli  bodily  and  nicnlal  make-up  ihe  grcalcsl 
number  oi"  ihc  best  heredilar\  stocks,  are  succumbing  in  ihc  struggle 
for  existence  with  those  that  they  lead,  because  then  tertilily  is  nol  grcal 
enough  even  to  maintain  their  present  numbers.  Thus,  gradualK.  all 
those  hereditary  stocks  that  are  capable  ol  preser\mg  and  ad\ancnig 
our  civilization  are  being  exterminated  from  the  earth  by  a  progressive 
'prolctariatiization  of  our  risini^  youth.'  The  disappearance  of  so  many 
noble  and  patrician  families  is  only  one  symptom  o\'  that  great  "dMng 
out"  which,  more  frightful  than  the  most  terrible  war.  demands  its  sacri- 
fice from  the  peoples  of  European  culture.'"  And  "the  first  task."  he 
proceeds  in  italics,  "of  the  racial  hygiene  o\'  today  seems  to  me.  there- 
fore, to  lie  in  an  attempt  to  arrest  the  dying  out  of  the  sociallv  higher 
classes  which  seems  now  to  be  in  full  suing."  The  conservative  wing  of 
eugenist  opinion  could  hardly  be  stated  more  bluntly.  In  other  passages 
of  his  book  the  author  takes  it  quite  for  granted  that  the  mingling  of 
German  and  alien,  particularly  East  European,  blood  is  tantamount  to 
the  introduction  of  biologically  inferior  strains  into  the  (ierman-s|X'ak- 
ing  dominions. 

Like  so  many  biologists  concerned  with  the  problems  of  society.  Mr. 
Siemens  sees  in  cultural  achievement  a  direct  indication  of  the  working 
out  of  the  physical  and  psychic  traits  of  the  hereditar\  endowment,  lie 
suffers  from  the  characteristic  illusion  of  the  biologist,  who  is  persuaded 
into  accepting  his  genetic  technique  as  a  sulTicient  interpretative  guide 
to  the  cultural  behavior  of  man.  It  requires  but  little  consideration  of 
the  data  of  history  and  of  the  social  sciences  to  realize  that  the  levels  of 
culture,  both  within  the  national  group  and  as  between  nationalities,  arc 
the  complex  and  cumulative  product  of  historical  factors  which  pv>sscss 
continuity  not  on  the  biological  plane  but  on  that  of  social  inheritance. 
Now  the  process  of  social  inheritance  is  simply  the  continuous  imita- 
tion, both  consciously  and  unconsciously,  of  socialK.  that  is  convention- 
ally, significant  reactions  of  an  acquired.  non-instincti\e.  and  indefi- 
nitely plastic  sort.  The  cultural  process  is  carried  b>  human  organisms, 
to  be  sure,  but  it  is  no  more  trul>  explainable  in  terms  o\  biologv  than 
the  ever-changing  aspect  of  the  wind-blown  sea  is  evplainable  as  .!  — 
cific  resultant  of  the  chemistry  of  sea  water.  Such  terms  as  ""i^ur  ci\ 
tion,"  "noble  and  patrician  families."  and  "backward  jx-oplcN 
highly  derivative  concepts  of  a  cultural,  historical  order.  Tlicy  have  no 
relevance  for  the  biologist  whatever,  and  if  the  bioK>gist.  as  b  '  -  t. 
does  nevertheless  insist  on  being  interested  in  them  he  induli:  -.n 

application  of  his  science  which  is  not  in  essence  dilTercnl  from  the 


802  Itl  Culture 

astrological  labors  of  the  early  astronomers.  It  is  very  remarkable  that 
in  the  earlier  part  of  his  book  Mr.  Siemens  is  at  the  greatest  pains  to 
prove  that  the  acquired  or  "parakinetic"  features  of  the  organism  are 
o^  no  intlucnce  on  its  properly  hereditary  or  "idiokinetic"  features  but 
in  the  later  chapters  forgets  or  misapplies  his  own  principles.  The  colos- 
sal assumption  that  the  conventional  values  ("higher"  and  "lower")  that 
we  assign  to  different  types  of  cultural  behavior  are  at  the  same  time 
intelligible  as  [41]  corresponding  biological  differentia  can  only  be  "ex- 
cused" if  we  remember  the  average  biologist's  contempt  of  history. 

Race  Prejudice  is  a  reprint  of  a  work  that  appeared  in  the  first 
decade  of  the  present  century,  but  it  may  still  be  read  with  profit.  Finot's 
manner  is  rather  that  of  the  eloquent  and  ideahstic  publicist  than  that 
o'i  the  scientist  who  has  the  air  of  examining  his  data  without  knowing 
until  the  last  chapter  what  conclusions  they  lead  to.  This  is  not  to  say 
that  there  is  not  in  his  book  a  great  deal  of  telling  criticism  of  the  claims 
made  by  Gobineau  and  his  tribe  for  the  cultural  significance  of  race,  of 
the  supposed  differences  in  the  basic  psychology  of  different  peoples, 
of  the  "Aryan"  and  "Latin"  legends,  and  of  many  other  exercises  in 
mythology.  It  is  only  fair  to  say,  however,  that  Finot  unduly  minimizes 
the  biological  importance  of  race. 

Mr.  Oldham's  book  is  in  many  ways  the  most  interesting  of  the  four. 
It  is  lucid,  sympathetic,  and  admirably  free  from  any  taint  of  bitterness 
or  polemic  heat;  it  exhibits  familiarity  with  the  practical  aspects  of  race 
contact  and  race  conflict  and  a  sufficiently  firm  control  of  the  biological 
and  anthropological  background  of  race  theory  -  indeed,  the  chapter 
on  The  Significance  of  Race  is  the  best  untechnical  summary  of  the 
fundamental  facts  of  human  heredity  that  we  have  seen;  and  it  combines 
a  willingness  to  see  the  unpleasant  or  disturbing  facts  of  the  rough- 
and-tumble  world  with  an  obviously  sincere  and  determined  Christian 
idealism. 

If  anything,  Mr.  Oldham  understands  too  clearly  what  are  the  obsta- 
cles that  seem  to  make  impossible  a  simple,  sweeping  application  of  the 
Christian  ethic  to  contemporary  and  impending  race  problems.  He  has 
no  spiritual  insight  to  offer  that  can  burn  away  prejudice,  injustice, 
political  tyranny,  and  commercial  exploitation.  The  communion  of 
saints  in  whom  color  of  skin  is  invisible  is  hardly  more  than  a  verbal 
formula;  it  certainly  is  not  a  flaming  vision.  This  Christianity  of  Mr. 
Oldham's  -  and  we  believe  it  is  as  sincere  a  variety  as  our  parliamen- 
tary. Protestantized  world  has  to  offer  -  is  an  exceedingly  modest,  pa- 
tient, and  well-behaved  faith.  It  is  at  least  as  familiar  with  the  interroga- 


Four:  Reflect  Urns  on  Conicniporary  803 

tory  gi\e-and-takc  o\'  the  lhmiiiiiiiicc  lomw  as  il  is  wiih  ihc  ihundcr  of 
the  pulpit,  ihc  madness  of  ciiisaclc.  ov  the  ecstasy  of  revelation.  Perhaps 
it  is  ungenerous  to  expect  rer\  or  and  the  courage  o\'  paradox  from  the 
guardians  of  the  subhmest  and  most  paradoxical  of  religimis  m 
the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  This  is  a  "reasonable"  age.  a  iriinnic; 
in  which  courage  has  been  surrendered  ti^  the  limbs  and  to  the  ai 
heart  while  faith  sits  fro/en  and  ashamed.   The  gi^spel  of  Christ  is  not 
concerned  with  the  philosophy  o\'  the  germ  plasm,  nor  does  it  wait  on 
the  statistics  of  intelligence  tests  for  its  mandates  to  become  operatise 
A  conditional  Christianity  will  not  bring  conviction  to  a  ui>rld  alreads 
riddled  with  inner  conflict  and  skepticism. 

"In  a  church  which  is  conscious  of  its  mission  to  the  world."  sa>s 
Mr.  Oldham,  "there  can  be  no  exclusion  or  separation  on  the  ground 
of  race.  This  does  not  mean  that  as  a  matter  of  con\enience  members 
of  different  races  living  side  by  side  may  not  worship  in  separate  congre- 
gations. If  there  are  differences  of  disposition  and  aptitude  between 
races  the  geiiius  of  each  will  doubtless  find  its  best  expression  if  the 
religious  life  of  each  is  allowed  to  de\elop  on  its  own  lines.  Ihere  is 
nothing  in  this  contrary  to  the  catholicity  o\'  the  Church  of  Christ."  To 
quote  only  this  passage,  we  hasten  to  add.  is  not  entirel>  fair  to  the 
spirit  in  which  Mr.  Oldham's  book  is  written;  but  the  passage  is  omi- 
nously indicative,  none  the  less,  of  what  has  happened  to  the  essential 
gospel  of  Jesus.  A  too  insistently  instrumental  habit  o\'  thought  has 
tortured  this  gospel  into  the  semblance  of  a  program  buttressed  by  sci- 
ence and  expediency.  The  gospel  itself,  smothered  b\  these  kindly  minis- 
trations, lies  either  dead  or  in  a  state  of  indellnitel>  prolonged  coma 
Only  the  humblest  of  incidental  services  may  be  expected  from  its  tradi- 
tion in  the  solution  of  race  problems. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  ///c  Xaiion  121.  40  41  (1^)25).  Copyright 
1925,  reprinted  by  permissit^n  o\'  Ihe  Nation  \laga/ine/Tlie  Nation 
Company,  Inc. 


Review  of  Paul  Radin, 
Monotheism  among  Primitive  Peoples 

Paul  Radin,  Monotheism  among  Primitive  Peoples.  Seventh  Arthur 
Davis  Memorial  Lecture,  delivered  before  the  Jewish  Historical  Society 
at  University  College  on  Sunday,  April  27,  1924.  London:  George  Allen 
and  Unwin,  1925. 

Even  the  most  sophisticated  Jew  is  proud  of  at  least  two  things.  While 
he  may  have  no  personal  use  for  a  Savior,  it  pleases  him  to  think  that 
his  ancestors  gave  one  to  Christendom;  and  though  comfort  and  en- 
lightenment may  long  have  disabused  him  of  the  necessity  of  a  God,  he 
takes  satisfaction  in  the  thought  that  his  remoter  ancestors  invented  the 
purest  kind  of  a  God  that  we  have  record  of,  the  God  of  monotheism. 
Such  a  Jew  has  one  of  the  keenest  of  known  pleasures,  which  may  be 
defined  as  the  art  of  endowing  others  with  a  priceless  boon  that  one 
finds  it  more  convenient  to  dispense  with  for  one's  own  part. 

The  slightly  less  sophisticated  Jew  has  still  other  spiritual  vanities.  He 
is  likely  to  believe  that  ritual  circumcision  arose  among  his  people  as  a 
prevision  of  the  hygienic  surgery  of  today,  that  the  dietetic  laws  known 
as  Mosaic  were  formulated  out  of  the  spirit  of  sanitation.  Such  minor 
delusions  as  these  have  been  sadly  exploded  by  our  busy  muck-raking 
friends,  the  anthropologists.  If  primitive  tribes  in  Australia  and  Africa 
and  South  America  practice  ritual  circumcision,  obviously  without  the 
slightest  knowledge  of  or  concern  for  physical  hygiene,  and  if  there  is 
hardly  a  group  of  savages  on  earth  that  has  not  its  rigidly  enforced 
food  taboos,  often  strangely  analogous  to  the  food  taboos  enumerated 
in  the  Pentateuch,  it  is  difficult  to  maintain  with  any  seriousness  that 
these  old  Jewish  practices  owe  anything  to  scientific  insight.  The  disap- 
pointed Jew  may  be  congratulated  on  being  taken  down  a  peg,  which 
is  generally  considered  a  good  thing  for  one's  soul. 

The  little  brochure  before  us  might  almost  be  described  as  blasphe- 
mous, were  it  not  so  modest,  so  gentle,  so  disarming  in  its  simplicity  of 
style  and  in  its  unobtrusive  array  of  facts.  If  it  does  not  take  the  sophis- 
ticated Jew  down  a  peg,  it  should  at  least  deflate  him  sufficiently  to  jog 


Four:  Reflections  on  Conicmporary  g05 

him  down  Haifa  peg.  Dr.  Paul  Radin  is  one  of  our  best  known  Amcn- 
can  anthropologists  -  his  researches  on  the  Winnebago  Indians  are 
already  classic  -  and  is  so  far  from  wishing  to  make  express  havoc  with 
the  Jewish  claim  to  have  alone  developed  the  monotheistic  conccpiu>n 
of  religion  that  he  hardly  so  much  as  mentions  the  words  "•Jew"  and 
"Judaism."  The  mischief  he  does  is  all  by  implication,  lor  if  he  is  correct 
-  and  why  should  he  not  be?  -  monotheism  ceases  to  be  a  distinctively 
Jewish  idea.  Nay  more,  and  worse,  it  ceases  to  ha\e  quite  that  unique 
value  in  the  evolution  of  religious  conceptions  which  has  generalis  been 
assigned  to  it. 

The  first  of  these  two  theses  is  the  one  which  more  particularly  inter- 
ests the  Jew.  Unfortunately  it  is  the  easier  to  demonstrate,  for  a  compe- 
tent anthropologist  like  Dr.  Radin  has  merely  to  go  through  his  ethno- 
logical monographs,  glean  his  facts,  and  set  them  before  us  with  as  little 
comment  as  possible  to  make  it  disconcertingly  evident  that  monothe- 
ism is  sufficiently  widespread  among  the  less  advanced  peoples  of  the 
world.  So  long  as  monotheism  was  lightly  assumed  to  ha\e  been  de\ el- 
oped only  in  the  highly  complex  and  institutionalized  forms  in  which 
we  find  it  in  Jewish,  in  Christian,  and  in  Mohammedan  belief,  it  was 
not  difficult  to  show  that  the  Jews  had  a  very  special  claim  on  the 
historian's  [525]  attention,  for  the  monotheism  of  both  ChrisiianitN  and 
Mohammedanism  are  clearly  but  derivatives  o\'  the  monotheism  o\  the 
latest  phase  of  the  Old  Testament  tradition.  The  existence  o(  Supreme 
Beings  or  High  Gods  among  various  primitive  peoples  has  been  recog- 
nized for  a  long  time  but  the  significance  of  this  fact  has  been  loo  often 
denied  by  the  unwarranted  assumption  that  these  deities  are  mereK 
late  borrowings,  merely  suggestions  picked  up  fri>m  native  contact  with 
missionary  teachings.  This  question-begging  type  o\  criticism  is  on  a 
par  with  the  glib  and  once  popular  method  of  "proving."  that  is.  baldly 
asserting,  that  any  primitive  Flood  legend  that  happened  to  be  noted 
by  an  ethnological  student  was  simply  a  distorted  bit  o\  biblical  lore. 
We  know  better  now.  Flood  legends,  both  o^  the  Noah  type  and  of 
other  types,  are  well  nigh  universal.  Their  distribution  is  so  defmiiely 
continuous  and  they  are  so  heavily  integrated  with  the  culture  o{  the 
natives  that  the  theory  of  biblical  origin  is  in  nu>si  ca^es  mU-i!  iUii  o\ 
court  at  once. 

Dr.  Radin  briefly  but  skilfully  analyzes  the  different  types  ol  Supreme 
Being  that  the  primitive  data  acquaint  us  with.  He  disimguishe- 

degrees  of  explicitness  in  the  recognition  o\'  the  principle  ot  n.. 

ism,  shows  how  a  conditional  monotheism  may  well  )^o  hand  in  hand 


806  ///  Culture 

with  a  belief  in  the  existence  of  less  puissant  but  humanly  more  accessi- 
ble divinities  or  spirits  -  very  much  as  Mariolatry  may  coexist  with  an 
otllcial  monotheism  -  points  out  the  "otiose"  character  of  many  primi- 
tive High  (iods,  who  may  be  projected  by  thought  but  never  actively 
approached  by  prayer,  and  discusses  the  relationship,  which  is  some- 
times an  identity,  between  the  concepts  of  Supreme  Being  and  Transfor- 
mer or  Culture  Hero,  the  legendary  benefactor  of  mankind.  The  illustra- 
tive material  is  culled  from  a  very  wide  range  of  reading  and  first-hand 
knowledge,  though  a  natural  emphasis  is  placed  on  the  aboriginal  peo- 
ples of  North  and  South  America. 

In  some  cases  the  native  formulation  of  monotheistic  behef  is  singu- 
larly pure,  as  among  the  quite  primitive  Kagaba  of  South  America, 
whose  Supreme  Being  is  an  All-Mother.  Dr.  Radin  quotes  the  following 
interesting  passage  from  his  source.  Dr.  K.  T.  Preuss:  "The  mother  of 
our  songs,  the  mother  of  all  our  seed,  bore  us  in  the  beginning  of  things 
and  so  she  is  the  mother  of  all  types  of  men,  the  mother  of  all  nations. 
She  is  the  mother  of  the  thunder,  the  mother  of  the  streams,  the  mother 
of  trees  and  of  all  things.  She  is  the  mother  of  the  world  and  of  the 
older  brothers,  the  stone-people.  She  is  the  mother  of  the  fruits  of  the 
earth  and  of  all  things.  She  is  the  mother  of  our  younger  brothers,  the 
French  and  the  strangers.  She  is  the  mother  of  our  dance  paraphernalia, 
of  all  our  temples,  and  she  is  the  only  mother  we  possess.  She  alone  is 
the  mother  of  the  fire  and  the  Sun  and  the  Milky  Way.  She  is  the  mother 
of  the  rain  and  the  only  mother  we  possess.  And  she  has  left  us  a  token 
in  all  the  temples,  a  token  in  the  form  of  songs  and  dances."  This  is 
fully  as  elevated  in  spirit  as  some,  at  least,  of  the  early  biblical  passages 
that  might  be  quoted  in  reference  to  the  Hebrew  Yahweh.  Very  interest- 
ing, too,  are  the  esoteric  beliefs  of  the  medicine-men  among  the  Dakota 
(or  Sioux)  Indians.  The  commonalty  believes  in  a  large  number  of  dis- 
tinct deities  but  to  the  properly  initiated  medicine  man  all  these  gods 
are  but  so  many  aspects  of  a  single  Great  Mystery,  the  Wakan  Tanka. 

Monotheism,  then,  is  by  no  means  absent  or  even  rare  among  primi- 
tive folk.  Everything  goes  to  show  that  this  religious  conception  was 
arrived  at  not  once  but  many  times  in  the  history  of  man.  The  monothe- 
ism [526]  of  the  Old  Testament  is  not  a  unique  contribution  to  the  devel- 
opment of  religious  ideas,  though  it  remains,  of  course,  by  far  the  most 
important  historical  embodiment  of  the  High  God  or  One  God  concept. 
The  next  point  to  take  up,  and  the  one  that  more  particularly  interests 
Dr.  Radin,  is  whether  or  not  it  is  necessary  to  consider  monotheism  as 
a  more  evolved  stage  in  religious  expression  than  the  polytheism  which 


Four:  Rcllcctions  on  Contcmpurury  807 

we  are  generally  in  ihc  habil  (A  lookint'  upDii  as  nu)rc  prinmivc  or 
as  less  pure.  Quite  aside  Worn  liic  question  o\  the  intrinsic  saluc  of  a 
monotheistic  view  of  the  supernatural  world  and  of  man's  guidance  m 
that  world,  a  number  of  unorthodox  anthropologists  have  fell  them- 
selves driven  by  the  facts  to  assume  that  nu)iioiheism  is  one  of  the  vcrv 
earliest  types  of  religious  thinking,  thai  ii  lends  to  antedate,  rather  than 
to  follow,  a  full-Hedged  polytheism.  Andrew  I.ang  held  to  this  vlcv^ 
as,  more  recently,  did  the  famous  Austrian  anthropologist  and  linguist. 
Father  Wilhelm  Schmidt  (see  his  Ur.sprmii;  dcr  (ioticsiiU'c).  \o  such 
speculative  students  it  is  the  plastic  variety  of  the  (ireek  and  Roman 
pantheons  and  the  pluralistic  complexit\  o\'  Hindu  belief  and  ritual 
which  are  the  "evolved"  or  more  highly  ci\  ili/ed  forms  o{  religious  life. 
while  the  Hebraic  monotheism  and  its  modern  Christian  deri\ati\es  are 
specialized  and  intensified  forms  o^  a  far  more  typicalK  pristine  reli- 
gious impulse. 

Dr.  Radin  thinks  -  and  rightly,  I  cannot  but  think  -  to  take  direct 
issue  with  any  ironclad  theory  of  religious  e\olution.  To  him  both  mo- 
notheism and  polytheism  are  primaril>  the  relleciions  of  fundamentall) 
distinct  temperaments,  the  one  concerned  with  the  subjecti\e.  simplify- 
ing world,  the  world  of  the  introvert,  the  tnher  u  nh  ihe  objecli\e  appre- 
hension of  experience,  the  world  o'i  the  e.\tro\eri,  who  is  not  satisfied 
unless  he  has  grasped  a  given  class  of  reality  at  as  many  points  and 
under  as  many  symbolisms  as  experience  makes  possible.  'Hie  historical 
problem  of  monotheism  then  becomes  not  one  o\'  place  in  a  schematic 
religious  evolution  but  of  the  unraveling  of  the  particular  factors.  en\i- 
ronmental,  it  may  be,  or  economic  or  social  or  all  or  none  o{  these,  that 
gave  the  victory  to  one  rather  than  another  temperamental  expression 
of  the  religious  impulse,  with  a  resulting  \iolence,  one  may  suppi'>se.  !o 
those  temperaments  that  would  more  naturally  have  found  ihemseKes 
expressed  in  other  forms.  As  Dr.  Radin  puts  it.  ""  The  historical  problem 
connected  with  monotheism,  implicit  and  explicit,  is,  as  I  see  it.  not 
how  monotheism  arose  but  what  made  it  the  prevailing  and  exclusive 
official  religion  of  a  particular  people." 

The  cultural  philosophy  which  ser\es  as  Dr.  Radin  s  naeKgi.'inui  i.-i 
the  development  o{  his  ideas  on  the  monotheistic  "slant"  in  religuMi 
primitive  and  sophisticated  alike  is  well  put  in  his  concluding  senten- 
ces. ''It  must  be  explicitly  recogni/cd  ihai  \n  !em|x*rameni  and  in  capiic- 
ity  for  logical  and  symbolical  thought,  there  is  no  dilTcrence  between 
civilized  and  primitive  man."  Monotheism  "is  de|X-ndent  not  ujvmi  the 
extent  of  knowledge  noi    upon  the  elaboration  o{  a  cerlain  lypc  of 


g()g  ///  Culture 

knowledge,  but  solely  upon  the  existence  of  a  special  kind  of  tempera- 
ment. When  once  this  has  been  grasped,  much  of  the  amazement  and 
incredulity  one  inevitably  experiences  at  the  clear-cut  monotheism  of  so 
many  primitive  peoples  will  vanish  and  we  shall  recognize  it  for  what  it 
is  -  the  purposive  functioning  of  an  inherent  type  of  thought  and  emo- 
tion." So  frank  an  anti-evolutionary  attitude  towards  the  history  of 
religion,  towards  cultural  history  in  general,  will  not  prove  congenial  to 
all  o(  Dr.  Radin's  readers,  but  it  is  an  attitude  that  has  been  making 
itself  increasingly  felt  in  anthropological  thought.  The  day  of  plausible 
but  loo  [527]  easy  theories  of  necessary  sequences  in  cultural  history  is 
gone.  More  and  more  we  are  getting  to  see  that  all  cultural  phenomena 
need  for  their  ultimate  explanation  a  psychology  of  personality  and  an 
understanding  of  what  expressions  are  most  appropriate  to  a  given  type 
of  personality.  A  cultural  form,  such  as  a  type  of  religious  thinking  or 
a  literary  method  or  a  political  ideal,  is  at  last  analysis  suitable  only  to 
a  portion  of  the  individuals  who  make  use  of  it,  though  the  rest  may 
be  hardly  at  all  aware  of  their  subtle  opposition.  A  complete  theory  of 
cultural  phenomena  must,  then,  first  aim  to  disentangle  the  psychologi- 
cal factors  which  make  them  intelligible  as  human  expressions;  and, 
secondly,  it  must  show  why  and  how  a  certain  psychological  slant  rather 
than  another  becomes  institutionalized  as  the  normal  conduct  of  the 
group  -  over  the  heads,  as  it  were,  of  personalities  which  are  funda- 
mentally hostile  to  the  triumphant  slant. 

Returning  now  to  the  sophisticated  Jew  with  whom,  rather  flippantly, 
we  began  our  comments  on  Dr.  Radin's  brief  but  very  far-reaching 
study  of  monotheism,  we  can  see  more  clearly  that  it  means  little  or 
nothing  to  be  proud,  or  to  refrain  from  being  proud,  of  the  supposedly 
distinctive  contribution  that  Judaism  has  made  to  religious  thought  and 
feeling.  Psychologically,  monotheism  is  not  a  Jewish  trait,  no  more  than 
it  is  any  other  kind  of  national  trait.  Historically,  it  so  chanced  that  the 
particular  form  of  monotheism  that  had  been  developed  by  the  Jews 
proved  stimulating  in  the  further  development  of  other  forms  of  mono- 
theism in  alien  lands.  The  cultural  and  spiritual  significance  of  mono- 
theism, as  of  every  other  pattern  of  conduct,  is  not  implicit  in  itself 
but  depends  altogether  upon  what  sustenance  living  human  beings  may 
derive  from  it,  or,  to  speak  more  accurately,  may  put  into  it.  Monothe- 
ism as  such  is  neither  good  nor  bad,  neither  high  nor  low,  precisely  as 
a  sonnet  as  such  is  neither  good  nor  bad  or  as  parliamentary  govern- 
ment as  such  is  neither  high  nor  low.  And  surely  a  dead  monotheism  is 


Four:  Reflections  on  Contemporary  8119 

not  a  greater  spiritual  loree  tlian  a  li\e  pi)l\ theism  ox  animism  or  olhcr 
type  of  religious  belia\ior  thai  the  simphtving  theorists  choose  lo  call 

"low"  or  "primiti\e." 


Editorial  Nolo 

Originally  published  in     Ihc  Skuoiah  .loiirmil  II.  524    ■^'*''  ''^''^•^' 
under  the  title  ""Is  Monotheism  Jewish?."' 

Paul  Radin  (1883-1959),  an  Ameriean  anthropologist,  pioneered 
(with  Sapir)  the  Held  ot  studies  in  culture  and  personality,  and  the  use 
ot^iutobiography  in  anthropology. 


Review  of  Ludwig  Lewisohn,  Israel 

Ludwig  Lewisohn,   Israel.  New  York:  Boni  and  Liveright,  1925. 

Mr.  Lewisohn's  Israel  is  one  of  those  books  that  it  is  almost  impos- 
sible to  judge  without  bias.  There  are  very  few  readers,  Jewish  or  Chris- 
tian, who  will  be  able  to  see  the  author  clearly,  as  he  presents  himself 
in  this  volume;  fewer  still,  one  suspects,  who  will  be  in  a  position  to 
consider  his  evidence  and  his  thesis  apart  from  their  own  favorite  read- 
ings of  the  Jewish  question  -  or,  if  one  prefers,  absence  of  a  Jewish 
question.  Those  who  find  their  prejudices  or  benevolences  confirmed  by 
Mr.  Lewisohn  will  deem  this  an  important  and  even  a  great  book  and 
will  dismiss  its  shortcomings  as  of  no  account.  Just  as  surely,  the  reader 
whose  attitudes  are  questioned  in  Mr.  Lewisohn's  pages  will  not  lightly 
absolve  him  from  the  charges  of  unfairness,  or  an  emotionally  impelled 
misreading  of  the  facts,  perhaps  of  insincerity.  Conversations  that  I 
have  had  with  a  number  of  readers  of  Israel  have  disclosed  a  gamut  of 
opinions  ranging  from  enthusiastic  acceptance,  through  stolid  indiffer- 
ence, to  condemnation  and  rage.  Jewish  and  Christian  opinion  are  at 
one  in  being  divided.  Obviously  Mr.  Lewisohn  has  precipitated  a  cause, 
however  much  he  may  have  desired  to  give  us  a  book.  In  this  review  I 
shall  try,  with  however  little  warrant  of  success,  to  see  the  book  as  a 
purely  individual  production,  not  as  a  jumping-off  place  for  the  airing 
of  a  question. 

The  first  thing  that  one  notes  about  Israel  when  one  has  got  well 
into  the  volume  is  a  sHght,  but  none  the  less  persistent,  hollowness  of 
style.  The  book  is  far  from  being  badly  written  -indeed,  there  are  many 
glowing  and  beautiful  pages  in  it  -  but  it  has  nowhere  the  very  personal 
excellence  of  Up  Stream.  That  book  flowed  along  with  a  resistless  cur- 
rent of  its  own;  its  passion  so  convinced  that  our  private  misgivings 
washed  back  as  so  many  irrelevant  chips  floating  beyond  the  main 
channel.  There  the  coolness  of  criticism  could  not  easily  penetrate;  here 
it  is  quite  otherwise.  Under  the  passionate  phrases  of  Israel  a  sensitive 
reader  may  sometimes  discover  a  spirit  not  utterly  convinced  of  itself, 
needing  to  egg  itself  on  in  its  predetermined  course.  In  Up  Stream  one 
rushed  down  current  despite  the  title  of  the  book,  in  Israel  one  paddles 


Four:  Reflections  on  Contemporary  %\\ 

up  CLincnl  much  o\'  ihc  lime.  Ai  its  uoisi  tins  book  uululges  in  sheer 
propagandism,  and  an  ungenerous  critic  miiiht  excerpt  a  great  many 
passages  which  have  the  labored  brilliance  ot  pri>clarnaluMis.  In  short, 
one  is  made  aware  of  some  tlaw  in  the  impulse  which  directed  the  uril- 
ing  of  Israel. 

It  may  be  thai  Mr.  Lewisohns  inability  to  quite  convmce  us  through 
the  medium  of  his  style  is  merely  the  reader's  unwillingness  to  trust  his 
own  eyes  and  ears.  It  is  difHcult  to  believe  that  one  brought  up  in  the 
essentially  non-Jewish  way  that  Mr.  Lewisohn  has  so  caret ull\  e.xpiaincd 
he  was  brought  up  in  can  adequately  assimilate  (215)  the  spirit  of  Jewish 
life  on  the  wave  of  a  personal  protest.  For  there  can  be  no  reasonable 
doubt,  after  Vp  Stream,  that  the  fire  o'(  Israel  owes  much  i>f  its  illumi- 
nation and  certainly  all  of  its  heal  to  the  inlenser  fiame  of  a  th\sarlcd 
personal  ambition.  I  think  Mr.  Lewisohn  would  ha\e  been  less  open  to 
the  charge  of  an  insidious  and  perhaps  eniirel\  unconscious  insincerity 
if  he  had  spoken  with  a  more  troubled  con\iclion.  The  dubious,  wistful 
note  would  have  given  his  declarali\e  enthusiasm  the  warrant  that  it 
somehow  needs.  Yet  it  would  be  manifesil\  unjust  to  prod  too  insis- 
tently under  the  surface  texture  of  the  book.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  its 
manner  is  a  little  disquieting  and  that  one  wishes  one  were  not  con- 
stantly being  induced  to  see  the  well-known  mechanics  of  o\ercompcn- 
sation  bustling  over  its  pages. 

Mr.  Lewisohn  is  very  bitter  about  the  assimilationists.  Assimilation. 
he  thinks,  has  been  tried  and  found  wanting,  in  America  no  less  than 
in  Germany.  But  he  seems  to  overlook  some  \er>  simple  facts  and  lo 
refrain  fiom  certain  very  simple  retleclions.  In  the  first  place,  when  in 
the  history  of  mankind  has  ethnic  assimilation  been  a  comfortable  and 
easy  process?  Had  Mr.  Lewisohn  taken  a  bird's  eye  \iew  o(  human 
relations,  instead  of  seeing  the  Jewish  problem  as  the  utierK  unique 
thing  which  it  is  not,  he  would  have  realized  the  ine\itabilit>  of  conllicl. 
now  overt  and  sanguinary,  now  peaceful  but  insidious,  between  any  two 
cultures  or  religions  or  peoples  that  offer  as  man\  points  of  di (Terence 
as  do  the  Jews  and  the  tiadiiions  aiul  peoples  ihe\  ha\e  come  into  such 
close  contact  with.  But  instead  ol  eiuisaginii  this  conllicl  as  a  perpetu- 
ally insoluble  one,  as  a  sort  of  fatal  conundrum  o\'  histi>r>.  he  would. 
furthermore,  have  made  the  less  dramatic  but  far  more  sober  obser>-a- 
tion  that  the  psychological  distance  which  .separates  the  Jew  from  the 
non-Jew  today  is,  by  and  large.  perceptibK  less  great  than  it  has  ever 
been.  Ku  Klux  Klans  and  pogroms  and  the  stilTemng  of  Jewish  disabili- 
ties  here  and  there  do  not  prove  that  assimilation  is  impossible,  but 


812  ///  Culture 

they  prove  that  it  is  a  far  less  easily  consummated  process  and  a  more 
tortuously  winding  one  than  some  idealists  would  like  to  have  it.  They 
reiterate,  in  short,  one  of  the  annoying  truisms  of  history.  Mankind  has 
never  been  unyielding,  it  has  merely  been  stubbornly  disposed  not  to 
yield. 

Mr.  Lewisohn  is  quite  wrong,  I  believe,  in  ruling  out  assimilation  as 
a  solution  of  the  Jewish  problem.  It  is,  patently,  a  very  possible  and  a 
very  excellent  one  in  thousands  of  individual  cases  -  in  spite  of  the 
embarrassing  fact  that  many  highly  educated  Jews  or  very  many  weal- 
thy Jews  are  debarred  from  membership  in  clubs  that  are  deemed  desir- 
able of  entry.  But  he  is  perfectly  correct  in  finding  also  another  solution, 
for  there  is  no  reason  whatever  to  believe  that  but  one  solution  was 
preordained.  For  one  thing,  it  is  altogether  likely  that  large  masses  of 
Jews  will  continue  to  lead  a  somewhat  distinctive  Hfe  in  the  midst  of 
other  peoples.  This  too  is  a  "solution,"  as  such  things  go  in  that  flux  of 
human  affairs  which  always  refuses  to  reach  the  particular  equilibrium 
desired  by  those  who  decide  upon  the  course  of  events.  For  another, 
the  Zionist  experiment  to  which  Mr.  Lewisohn  pins  his  hopes  is  an 
admirable  solution  insofar  as  it  satisfies  the  aspirations  of  many  thou- 
sands of  courageous  Jews,  inspired  by  a  number  of  distinct  motives. 
One  gains  nothing  by  closing  one's  eyes  to  facts  and  by  declaring,  out 
of  the  rhetorical  fervor  of  one's  preference,  this  or  that  turn  to  be  the 
right  and  only  solution.  For  there  is  not  one  Jewish  problem,  there  are 
many  -  keenly  personal  ones  of  all  [216]  sorts,  and  varying  group  prob- 
lems conditioned  by  local  circumstances,  economic  and  cultural.  Mr, 
Lewisohn  would  not  have  hurt  his  plea  for  Zionistic  support  if  he  had 
frankly  recognized  the  possibility  of  some  measure  of  assimilation,  for 
assimilation  on  a  grand  scale  is  obviously  not  possible  in  the  immediate 
future. 

Most  books  about  the  Jew  have  an  unpleasant  flavor  of  the  apolo- 
getic about  them.  Israel  is  free  from  this  taint.  It  presents  the  case  for 
the  Jew  as  a  creator  of  cultural  values  with  pride  but  not  with  partisan- 
ship. Mr.  Lewisohn  knows  too  much  about  the  cultural  history  of 
Europe  to  indulge  in  a  rhapsodical  cataloguing  of  Jewish  exploits  in  the 
arts  and  sciences.  He  puts  most  of  his  emphasis  on  the  peculiar,  narrow, 
over-intellectualized,  yet  always  intense  and  vital  Jewish  culture  of  east- 
ern Europe  and  has  it  meet  the  more  comfortable  but  also  the  more 
flabby  and  fragmentary  culture  of  Anglo-Saxon  America  with  outward 
deference  and  an  inner  awareness  of  a  half  useless  superiority.  In  all 
this  he  is  doing  both  Jew  and  non-Jew  an  immense  service.  No  Ameri- 


Four:  Rcjlcciiom  on  Ciinicmporary  8I3 

can,  after  reading  Mr.  Lewisohns  bimk.  can  cDniinuc  lo  led  ihal  ihc 
uncouth  Jewish  immigrant  tVi)ni  IVilaiui  m  1  iihuania  comes  lo  this  land 
as  a  spiritual  mendicant.  Most  Americans,  one  tears,  had  rather  taken 
tor  granted  Just  that.  A  clearing  of  the  atmc^sphere  makes  for  health  all 
around. 

"House  of  Bondage,"  the  chapter  in  which  the  bases  of  Jewish  life. 
its  historical  background,  and  its  peculiar  problems  are  well  described. 
is  probably  the  most  important  in  the  book.  I  cannot  refrain  from  quot- 
ing a  passage  on  the  psychological  significance  of  the  Jewish  faith  and 
legends  as  viewed  by  a  non-believer.  "I  ha\e  come  to  see,"  says  Mr. 
Lewisohn,  "that  the  relation  of  Jews  to  their  faith  and  legends  and 
traditional  wisdom  is  not  like  the  relation  o'i  the  peoples  o)^  the  West  to 
their  religion.  Primitive  Christianity  is  Jewish  and  has  ne\er  con\ cried 
the  Gentiles.  The  pomp  of  Rome  and  her  gods  is  in  the  South;  (jermanic 
festivals  and  legends  and  epics  rule  the  North.  Hence  the  Christian 
world  whose  religion  is  divided  from  its  national  culture  has  lost  the 
conception  of  an  autonomous,  national  faith.  We  Jews  need  not  belie\e 
in  our  religion  even  as  enlightened  Greeks  did  not  believe  in  gods  or 
oracles.  It  is  the  still  veracious  symbol  of  our  national  character  and 
history.  The  Torah  and  the  Prophets,  the  wisdom  books  and  legends  oi 
later  ages  -  these  are  our  Iliads  and  Nibelungen  Lays;  they  express  our 
national  character,  our  essentially  eternal  traits.  The  chivalric  vsarlike 
Gentile  does  not  find  himself  in  the  Gospel.  He  has  to  be  con\ cried 
again  and  again.  When  it  suits  him  he  abrogates  the  teachings  of  his 
faith,  and  preaches  hate  in  the  name  of  Jesus.  The  Jew  need  believe 
nothing.  But  when  he  reads  of  Joseph  asking  concerning  the  old  man, 
his  father,  and  weeping;  when  he  reads  that  the  ground  must  lie  fallow 
every  seventh  year  for  the  poor  and  nuisi  not  be  held  m  perpeluiiy  since 
it  is  God's;  when  he  reads  of  the  Jubilee  year  in  uhich  all  wrongs  arc 
to  be  righted  and  every  man  returned  unto  his  oun;  when  he  reads  o^ 
Gideon's  refusal  of  power;  when  he  reads  that  a  young  poet  and  musi- 
cian was  chosen  to  be  king;  when  he  reads  in  Isaiah  of  a  golden  age  not 
in  the  past  but  in  the  future,  a  golden  age  uhi^se  name  for  all  peoples 
shall  be  peace  -  when  he  reads  these  things  he  comes  home  lo  his 
people  and  himself.  For  these  ideas  and  e\enls  express  his  innermosi 
self;  they  are  today,  as  they  have  been  in  the  past,  the  exact  image  of 
his  innate  character  and  modes  o\'  thought." 

Some  of  this  sounds,  perhaps,  as  though  righteousness  and  idealism 
were  [217]  Jewish  inventions  but  it  is  ncMie  the  less  interesimg  lor  the 
light  it  throws  on  the  necessity  o(  ha\mg  a  cultural  background  if  one 


814  ///  Culture 

is  to  be  oneself.  Personalities  seem  to  differ  in  the  degree  of  this  neces- 
sity and  Mr.  Lewisohn,  individualist  more  in  will  than  in  the  essential 
form  of  his  mind,  has  a  greater  cultural  necessity,  it  may  be,  than  the 
average.  It  is  natural,  therefore,  that  when  his  non-Jewish  European- 
American  background  failed  him  he  must  at  all  costs  discover  the  Jew- 
ish background  he  had  not  even  abjured  but  to  which  his  unwelcoming 
American  hosts  implacably  referred  him. 

There  is  much  excellent  descriptive  matter  in  the  book  -  a  graphic 
account  of  the  unspeakable  conditions  in  Poland,  many  splendid  pas- 
sages on  the  work  the  Jews  have  already  done  in  Palestine.  Unfortu- 
nately Mr.  Lewisohn  has  to  confess  -  albeit  his  humility  seems  to  be  a 
proud  one  -  that  he  knows  little  of  statistics.  Now  colorful  impressions 
make  splendid  reading  but  they  do  not  always  establish  a  case.  It  may 
be  that  the  Palestinian  chapters  of  Israel  have  a  wealth  of  factual  mate- 
rial behind  them  and  are  not  builded  mainly  of  personal  glimpses  and 
of  roseate  hopes.  One  comes  away  with  a  disquieting  feeling,  however, 
that  not  all  the  objective  facts  have  been  properly  evaluated. 

One  is  particularly  disturbed  by  Mr.  Lewisohn's  persistently  idealistic 
glasses.  Granted  that  the  fundamental  drive  of  Zionism  is  strongly  tinc- 
tured by  idealism,  it  can  hardly  be  maintained  with  any  show  of  serious- 
ness that  there  is  a  natural  probability  of  the  effective  continuance  of 
the  sheer  spirit  of  idealism  among  the  colonists  and  their  successors. 
Insofar  as  the  Jewish  community  in  Palestine  is  to  hold  its  own  in  the 
workaday  political  and  economic  world,  it  will  be  forced  to  insist  on 
values  and  on  methods  that  are  more  practical  than  ideal.  Mr.  Lew- 
isohn's conception  of  the  Jewish  task  in  Palestine  is  that  it  is  not  to 
institute  a  new  nationalism,  another  mushroom  growth  of  prejudices 
and  localisms,  but  it  is  to  introduce  a  polity  animated  by  the  ideals  of 
internationality  and  pacifism.  It  is  just  a  Httle  difficult  to  see  how  such 
a  movement  as  Zionism,  actuated  as  it  is  by  the  reawakening  of  the 
spirit  of  Jewish  nationalism,  is  to  keep  itself  unalloyed  by  the  necessities 
and  foibles  that  attend  any  nationaHst  undertaking.  Perhaps  Jewish  na- 
tionalism, as  Mr.  Lewisohn  would  have  us  believe,  is  a  permanently 
broadminded  and  self-sacrificing  faith,  perhaps  there  is  an  abiding 
something  that  is  different  and  finer  about  the  temper  of  Zionism,  an 
idealism  made  local  through  necessity  rather  than  through  choice.  But 
the  gentle  sceptic,  fed  on  history  and  on  a  sad  belief  in  the  essential 
sameness  of  human  psychology  in  every  nook  and  cranny  of  the  world, 
can  only  shake  his  head  with  that  bitter-sweet  smile  that  is  at  least  as 
Jewish  a  symbol  as  the  clear-eyed  confidence  of  the  nationalist. 


Four:  Re  licet  ions  im  Contemporary  8|5 

It  seems  to  me  thai  if  ihere  is  anything  distinctive  about  the  temper 
t>r  Jewish  (houLiht  iinlax,  ii  is  that  it  has  hirgcly  transcended  the  hmits 
of  any  locahsm,  lunvever  vast  or  powerful.  This  temper  has  been  as 
often  the  subject  of  abuse  as  o\'  fa\orable  comment.  Je\Msh  ".'    "        •y" 
and  "negativism,"  however,  are  but  terms  of  disparagement  iv  .  ..  ...jril 

thai  is  abroad  in  the  world  today  and  which  it  is  the  "mission"  of  ihe 
Jew  if  the  romantic  philosopher  o['  hisit>rv  must  give  him  a  mission 
-  to  foster  as  best  he  can.  This  spirit  runs  counter  to  the  current  nation- 
alism which  is  perhaps  more  articulate  than  trul>  vital.  It  is  not  so  much 
a  destroyer  of  folk  values  as  a  solvent  o\'  them.  It  refuses  to  make  a 
fetish  of  any  localism  or  lineage  but  [218]  insists  on  utilizing  the  cultural 
goods  of  all  localisms  and  of  every  lineage  for  a  deeply  personal  synthe- 
sis. It  is  this  spirit  which  Mr.  Lewisohn  has  most  trulv  at  heart,  unless 
I  misread  all  the  signs.  But,  bafHed  as  he  is  bv  the  dilTiculty  of  living 
such  a  life  of  personal  values,  unequal  to  the  task  and  privilege  of  seren- 
ity in  the  face  of  injury  to  pride,  he  has  sought  to  find  this  spirit  in 
Zionism.  Zionism  has  its  own  justification  but  I  cannot  but  think  that 
Mr.  Lewisohn  is  in  error  in  identifying  its  philosophy  with  the  critical, 
transnational  philosophy  that  so  many  Jews  have  helped  to  create. 


Editorial  Note 
Originally  published  in    The  Mcnorah  Journal  12.  214    218  (1926). 


Review  of  Frank  H.  Hankins, 
The  Racial  Basis  of  Civilization 

Frank  H.  Hankins,  The  Racial  Basis  of  Civilization:  A  Critique  of  the 
Nordic  Doctrine.  New  York:  Alfred  H.  Knopf,  1926. 

Professor  Hankins'  book  on  race  and  its  significance  is  admirably 
free  from  the  excesses  of  the  usual  writers  on  the  racial  determination 
of  culture.  He  is  as  hard  on  the  Gobineaus  and  Houston  Chamberlains 
and  Madison  Grants  as  any  cultural  anthropologist  of  the  "Boas 
school,"  but  he  differs  radically  from  this  school  in  his  insistence  on  the 
reality  of  the  racial  factor  in  the  origination  and  intensification  of  cul- 
tural values.  Dr.  Boas,  impregnably  cautious  in  the  face  of  evidence  and 
lack  of  evidence,  has  never  committed  himself,  to  be  sure,  to  the  direct 
denial  of  the  presence  of  importance  of  such  racial  factors.  He  has  never 
said,  in  so  many  words,  that  the  psychic  potentiality  of  the  average 
Negro  or  of  the  average  Australian  native  is  equal  to  that  of  the  average 
white,  but  the  general  feeling  has  been  that  his  verbally  non-committal 
attitude  masked  an  emotional  "slant"  in  favor  of  the  theory  of  substan- 
tial racial  equality.  The  manifest  differences  in  cultural  achievement 
have  always  been  explained  by  environmental  and  historical  factors  of 
various  sorts.  At  no  time  has  race  itself  -  that  is,  the  psychic  limitations 
or  advantages  of  one  race  as  against  another  -  been  invoked  as  an 
efficient  explanation  of  the  vast  differences  in  degree  of  cultural  devel- 
opment. 

All  the  while,  the  conviction  has  been  growing  that  there  are  signifi- 
cant correlations  between  bodily  structure  and  psychic  disposition. 
E.  Kretschmer's  observations  on  the  relation  between  physical  types 
and  certain  forms  of  insanity,  including  temperamental  types  tending  in 
the  direction  of  such  forms  of  insanity,  are  not  quoted  by  Professor 
Hankins,  but  they  would  not  be  irrelevant  to  his  discussion.  Granted 
that  the  definition  of  significant  differences  of  temperament  is  far  from 
clear,  that  Kretschmer's  correlations  are  only  an  exceedingly  rough  ap- 
proximation to  the  truth,  at  best,  and  that  it  remains  to  be  proved  that 
the  bodily  variations  -  within  a  homogeneous  group  -which  he  deals 


Four:  Reflections  on  Contemporary  8|7 

with  are  strictly  analogous  to  race  tliHcrciKcs,  jt  must  be  admiilcd  thai 
the  culturalist  and  the  emiroiinieiiiaiist  can  no  longer  throw  the  uholc 
burden  of  proot\^n  those  who  anjue  lor  at  least  some  measure  of  racial 
determination. 

Yet  one  may  not  be  willing  to  ^o  nearl\  as  far  as  i*rolessor  llankms. 
who,  though  sensible  of  the  importance  of  historical  factors  in  the  devel- 
opment of  civilization  and  of  the  absurd  lengths  to  which  the  race  pro- 
tagonists have  gone,  is  very  much  a  eugenist  -  not  a  glib  eugenisi  nor 
a  rough  and  ready  one,  but  still  a  eugenist.  He  too  is  haunted  b>  the 
specter  of  what  ominous  things  are  happening  and  of  what  still  more 
ominous  things  are  due  in  the  blind  shutting  o\'  Mendelian  trails.  One 
cannot  allay  his  fears,  for  one  neither  knows  whether  there  are  true 
fears  to  be  allayed  nor,  if  true  they  be,  just  where  the  enemy  is  to  be 
scotched.  Truth  to  say,  one  cannot  even  be  sure  w  hich  genes  in  a  given 
individual  are  to  be  welcomed  and  which  deplored.  Vxom  a  practical 
point  of  view.  The  Racial  Basis  oJCiviliiafion  advances  us  no  further. 
Theoretically,  the  culturalist  may  still  ask  whether  individual  and  racial 
differences  of  a  psychic  order  are  really  as  important  determinants  of 
the  main  lines  of  culture  as  they  are  currently  assumed  to  be.  l-"urihcr, 
are  these  differences  to  be  lightly  disposed  o\'  in  accordance  with  the 
convenient  but  possibly  naive  categories  o(  "superior"  and  "inferior"? 
If  only  because  the  righteous.  Spartan  dream  of  the  sterili/mg  eugenisi 
is  such  a  nightmare  to  the  rest  o\''  us.  wc  nuisi  hope  -  we  dare  believe 
-  that  the  time  will  come  when  the  questions  we  now  ask  o(  race  and 
culture  will  be  "solved,"  because  no  longer  asked  b\  an  abscin-innulri! 
posterity. 

For  one  thing  we  must  be  grateful  lo  Professor  llankms  Me  holds 
no  brief  for  racial  purity.  On  the  contrary,  he  advises  mixture,  being 
merely  concerned  about  the  respective  qualities  o\'  the  blending  races. 
or  rather  of  the  specific  individuals  concerned.  The  spectacle  o(  .Anglo- 
Saxon  intermarrying,  say,  with  Jew  he  watches  with  equanimity,  even 
approval  -  always  provided  the  genes  are  in  order  and  one  can 
readily  forgive  him  the  few  very  slight  shafts  o\'  anti-Semilic  raillerv 
with  which  he  relieves  the  tension  o\'  the  amalgamating  process  and  of 
an  exceedingly  earnest  book. 


EditiMKil  Nine 

Originally  published  in    Ihc  .\cu   Rcpuhlu  53.  \M^  t  '^'^'•'   under  the 
title  "A  Reasonable  Hugenist." 


Observations  on  the  Sex  Problem  in  America 

If  the  writer  ventures  to  make  a  number  of  analytical  suggestions  on 
the  sex  problem  which  is  agitating  so  many  men  and  women  in  America 
today,  it  is  not  because  of  any  very  special  knowledge  which  he  pos- 
sesses of  the  subject,  but  merely  because  some  acquaintance  with  an- 
thropological data  and  with  the  anthropological  approach  to  social 
data,  fertilized  by  such  observation  of  American  facts  and  tendencies  as 
has  come  his  way,  has  given  him  a  point  of  view  which  is  perhaps  a 
little  personal.  At  any  rate  he  cannot  hope  to  give  much  cheer  to  either 
the  radicals  or  the  conservatives  and  he  suspects  that  he  may  be  accused 
of  having  tried  to  please  both.  It  is  peculiarly  difficult  to  keep  prejudice 
and  sentiment  out  of  a  problem  of  this  nature,  and  he  cannot  flatter 
himself  that  he  has  succeeded  in  attaining  true  objectivity.  Some  of  his 
readers  may  even  suspect,  and  no  doubt  with  some  justice,  that  there  is 
little  herein  set  forth  which  is  not  a  rationalization  of  personal  bias.  In 
the  present  state  of  ethical  unrest  and  of  limited  knowledge  of  the  facts 
one  can  perhaps  do  little  more  than  make  articulate  the  peculiar  nature 
of  one's  prejudice  and  the  rationalizing  process  by  which  he  hopes  to 
make  that  prejudice  acceptable  to  others. 

There  are  two  measurably  distinct  aspects  of  the  sex  problem  which 
are  constantly  being  confused,  though  nothing  seems  more  obvious 
than  that  every  attempt  should  be  made  to  keep  them  apart.  [520]  The 
purely  practical  problem  of  sex,  physical  and  psychological,  is  absorbing 
so  much  attention  that  the  ideological  or  cultural  problem  of  sex  is 
likely  to  be  lost  sight  of.  That  every  human  being,  as  an  organism  desir- 
ing health,  needs  and  has  the  right  to  demand  sex  gratification  is,  stated 
baldly,  pretty  much  of  a  truism,  though  it  is  a  truism  which  it  has 
taken  us  much  labor  to  convince  ourselves  of  But  what  is  by  no  means 
evidently  true  is  the  assumption  that  the  full  content,  or  the  major  por- 
tion, of  the  question  of  sex  is  merely  a  matter  of  individual  satisfactions. 
Sex,  like  every  other  natural  function  which  is  not  purely  vegetative, 
brings  with  it  many  intimate  questions  of  personal  adjustment,  of  the 
adjustment  of  the  individual  to  society,  and  of  the  fulfillment  or  flouting 
of  ideals  of  conduct  that  have  grown  up  about  the  organic  nucleus.  All 
of  civilization  is,  in  a  sense,  an  elaborate  screen  which  humanity  has 


Foitr:  Ri'fh'clion.s  on  C'ontcniporarv  g|9 

pul  between  ilselfand  naluie,  wiih  Us  i\rannieal  iiisisicncc  on  the  neces- 
sities of  biological  functioning  and  with  its  sovereign  disregard  for  ihe 
sentiments,  the  peculiar  preferences,  which  men  ha\e  chosen  lo  develop 
out  of  a  primordial  chaos  o\'  instinct  and  emotion.  Any  philosophy  of 
sex  that  begins  with  the  feeling  that  it  constitutes  its  own  peculiar  class 
of  individual  and  social  phenomena  starts  with  an  illusion.  The  problem 
of  se.x  is  fundamentally  like  an\  (Uher  social  problem  in  that  it  deals 
with  the  attempt  of  human  beings  to  reconcile  their  needs  with  cultural 
forms  that  are  both  friendly  and  resistant  to  these  needs.  It  is  necessary 
to  stress  this  point,  simple  as  it  is,  because  so  large  a  proportion  of 
modern  psychiatric  writing  seems  almost  deliberately  to  ignore  the  cul- 
tural point  of  view. 

It  is  strange  how  readily  we  tend  to  believe  that  if  onl>  we  can  under- 
stand sex  in  terms  which  are  applicable  to  the  individual  we  have  noth- 
ing further  to  worry  about.  We  are  constantly  assuming  for  the  field  of 
sex  conduct  what  it  would  never  occur  to  us  lo  accept  as  natural  in  any 
other  field  of  human  conduct.  Much  of  human  life  has  grown  up  around 
the  necessity  of  preserving  the  organism,  oi^  securing  suHlcieni  food, 
clothing,  and  shelter.  Yet  these  problems,  urgent  as  they  are.  can  never 
be  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  the  behavior  o\  the  indi\idual  organ- 
ism alone  but  must  be  seen  in  their  historically  determined  cultural 
setting.  It  is  only  in  times  of  extreme  crisis,  when  sociel>  and  its  mecha- 
nisms tall  to  pieces,  that  we  can  actually  see  the  individual  hungering 
and  [521]  thirsting  as  a  natural  organism,  and  even  then  he  is  more 
likely  than  not  to  give  some  hint  of  the  restraining  and  molding  influ- 
ences to  which  he  has  been  subjected  by  society.  Around  the  simple  acts 
of  eating  and  drinking  has  grown  a  vast  economy,  with  an  accompany- 
ing symbolism  of  power,  of  comradeship,  and  o\'  other  significant  hu- 
man relations  that  go  tar  beyond  the  organic  necessities  o\'  food  and 
drink.  And  the  ritualism  of  meals,  meaningless  from  a  mereK  physii>log- 
ical  view-point,  has  come  to  seem  so  natural  to  the  average  civili/ed 
man  that  he  would  feel  acutely  uncomfortable  if  he  were  doi>med  for 
the  rest  of  his  life  to  supply  his  bodilv  needs  wiilunit  its  ceremonial 
sanction.  Why  should  the  sex  impulse,  which  is  cerlainK  o\'  no  more 
urgency  in  the  life  of  the  individual  than  the  satisfaction  of  hunger  and 
thirst,  escape  from  the  historical  law  of  the  conditioning  of  fundamental 
impulses  into  forms  that  take  on  the  character  of  social  values? 

We  are  told  by  man\  modern  thinkers  that  we  have  at  last  discovered 
the  startling  fact  that  sex  is  a  "good""  in  itself  and  that,  being  such,  lis 
demands  must  be  satisfied  sooner  or  later   It  would  be  far  more  correct 


^20  IJI  Culture 

to  say  that  sex  is  neither  a  good  nor  an  evil.  It  is  merely  a  fact  of  nature. 
The  concept  o'i  a  good  cannot  be  associated  with  it  except  in  so  far  as 
human  beings  in  society  have  come  to  look  upon  certain  modes  of  con- 
duct and  certain  stales  of  mind  which  lead  to  and  from  the  satisfaction 
o{  the  sex  impulse  as  good  or  valuable  conduct  or  attitudes.  To  the 
extent  that  people  withdraw  from  it  their  evaluating  attention  and  leave 
it  to  the  exigencies  of  nature,  they  reduce  it  to  the  unconditioned  pri- 
mary le\el  to  which  belong  the  purely  instinctive  satisfactions  of  hunger 
and  thirst  and  the  random  and  unevaluated  forms  of  motor  conduct  of 
an  untaught  child.  The  truth  of  the  matter  is,  that  to  say  that  sex  is  a 
good  in  itself  has  as  much  or  as  little  meaning  as  to  say  that  it  is  good 
to  breathe  or  to  eat  raw  flesh.  For  men  organized  in  society  goods  or 
\  alues  come  not  from  a  consideration  of  the  simple  satisfaction  of  im- 
pulses but  from  the  heightening  of  the  meaning  of  such  satisfactions 
through  the  symbolisms  of  social  intercourse. 

A  rather  artificial  divorce  has  been  made  between  the  sex  impulse 
and  love,  or  perhaps  it  would  be  more  correct  to  say  that  the  modern 
chafes  at  the  supposedly  unnecessary  accretions  which  the  sex  impulse 
has  received,  that  he  wishes  to  free  this  primary  value  [522]  from  those 
trimmings  which  make  love  of  it.  If  anything  were  needed  to  prove  the 
inveterate  romanticism  of  the  present  age,  which  never  tires  of  the  boast 
of  its  hard-headed  realism,  it  would  be  this  very  unwiUingness  to  recog- 
nize the  naturalness  and  the  universality  of  the  emotion  of  love.  One 
hears  it  said  that  among  the  truly  enlightened  love,  in  so  far  as  it  exists 
at  all,  is  merely  the  casual  association  of  the  sex  impulse  with  certain 
warm  feelings  of  companionship  or  friendship  and  that  nothing  is  more 
natural  than  that  this  fortuitous  association  should  be  constantly  in- 
terrupted or  broken  up. 

There  is,  of  course,  a  reason  for  the  present  emphasis  on  the  legiti- 
macy of  sex  as  such,  as  contrasted  with  the  sentimental  justification  for 
sex  relations  on  the  basis  of  love.  This  reason  is  not  far  to  seek.  The 
old  Puritan  morality  which  looked  upon  the  sex  act  as  inherently  sinful 
IS  still  too  painfully  near  to  us,  and  the  revolt  which  was  bound  to  set 
in  sooner  or  later  has  concentrated  all  of  its  energies  on  the  annihilation 
of  this  notion  of  sin.  Naturally  enough,  it  has  had  little  patience  with 
the  arduous  task  of  retaining  that  in  the  inherited  ideology  of  sex  which 
was  psychologically  sound  or,  at  any  rate,  capable  of  preservation  as  a 
value  without  violence  to  nature.  What  has  happened  is  that  the  odious 
epithet  of  sin  has  been  removed  from  sex,  but  sex  itself  has  not  been 
left  a  morally  indifferent  concept.  The  usual  process  of  overcorrection 


Four:  Reflections  on  Conicniporarv  821 

has  invested  sex  with  a  factitious  vakie  as  a  romaiuic  and  glorious  thing 
in  itself.  The  virus  of  sin  has  passed  into  love,  and  the  imagmaiivc 
radiance  of  love,  squeezed  into  the  cramped  quarters  formerly  occupied 
by  sin,  has  transfigured  lust  and  made  it  into  a  new  and  phosphorescent 
holiness.  Love,  a  complicated  and  inevitable  sentiment,  is  for  the  mo- 
ment sickening  for  lack  of  sustenance. 

We  are  in  the  habit  of  complimenting  ourselves  on  the  healthy  atti- 
tude which  is  coming  to  prevail  in  America  toward  questions  of  sex. 
There  is  some  justification  for  this,  for  it  is  obvious  that  an  attitude 
that  looks  upon  sex  as  intrinsically  evil,  and  that  seeks  to  rescue  it  from 
condemnation  by  confining  it  into  conventionally  fixed  and  appro\ed 
channels,  is  a  repressive  and  unhealthy  one.  But  I  am  not  willing  to 
grant,  for  all  that,  that  the  present  excited  and  puzzled  attitude,  shifting 
back  and  forth  in  a  single  individual's  [523]  mind  all  the  way  from 
orthodox  acceptance  of  the  restraints  of  Puritanism  to  a  reasoned  reli- 
gion of  promiscuity,  is  a  healthy  attitude.  The  very  notion  of  health 
implies  the  presence  of  a  certain  balance  and  o(  a  fundamental  suret> 
of  the  significant  outlines  of  behavior.  The  most  that  one  can  say  for 
the  sex  mind  of  radical  America  is  that  it  is  in  a  state  o(  transition  and 
that  a  certain  willingness  to  experiment  dangerousl\  is  in  the  long  run 
a  safer  thing  than  a  premature  striking  of  the  balance.  This  may  be  a 
just  interpretation  of  the  few;  of  the  many,  who  bless  you  for  a  formula 
for  noble  weakness,  it  is  but  psychology  gulled.  A  realistic  view  of  actual 
sex  opinion  and  sex  behavior  leads  to  the  feeling  that  on  every  hand 
life  is  being  measurably  cheapened  by  an  emotional  uncertamt\  in 
matters  of  sex,  matters  that  no  healthy  society  can  long  brook  uncer- 
tainty of.  An  individual  can  create  true  personal  values  only  on  the 
basis  of  those  accepted  by  his  society,  but  when  nothing  is  accepted,  he 
has  no  room  for  the  growth  of  any  values  that  are  more  than  empty 
formulae.  The  ''enrichment  of  personality"  by  way  of  multiple  "e\|X'n- 
ences"  proves  to  be  little  more  than  a  weary  accumulation  o\'  pi>\ertics. 
These  shibboleths  are  given  the  lie  b\  the  uneasy  eyes  o\  the  bored 
adventurers  who  drawl  them  out.  Human  culture,  it  seems,  is  so  consti- 
tuted that  the  individual  dare  never  face  his  own  organisinal  responses 
skeptically.  These  fundamental  responses  must  somehow  be  taken  care 
of,  by  implication,  in  the  patterns  of  social  conduct,  and  the  individual 
who  is  constantly  being  called  upon  to  create  such  patterns  anew  never 
gets  beyond  the  point  of  struggling  with  iialurc.  His  "freedom"  is  but 
the  homelessness  of  the  outlaw. 


822  ^^^  Culture 

The  present  sex  unrest  has  been  nibbhng  at  more  or  less  reliable  infor- 
mation reported  by  anthropologists  from  primitive  communities.  Any 
primitive  community  that  indulges,  or  is  said  to  indulge,  in  unrestricted 
sex  behavior  is  considered  an  interesting  community  to  hear  from.  Such 
a  community  is  at  once  equated  with  "primitive  man"  in  general  and 
has  the  great  merit  of  bringing  us  back  to  that  primary  and  glorious 
man  that  wishful  romanticists  have  always  been  dreaming  about. 

It  does  not  seem  to  occur  to  the  readers  of  excited  books  about  plea- 
sure-loving Samoans  and  Trobriand  Islanders  that  perhaps  these  com- 
munities are  not  as  primitive  as  they  seem,  that  there  [524]  are  perhaps 
other  primitive  groups  that  have  developed  an  ideology  of  sex  that  is 
not  so  very  different  from  that  of  our  happily  extinct  Victorian  ances- 
tors, and  that  in  any  event  there  may  be  social  determinants  in  such 
societies  that  make  the  question  of  value  in  sex  conduct  of  lesser  ur- 
gency than  among  ourselves.  It  is  true  that  many  primitive  societies 
allow  of  erotic  and  marital  arrangements  that  shock  the  sensibilities  of 
our  conservatives.  But  what  should  be  denied  is  that  sex  conduct  is 
truly  unregulated  even  in  these  societies.  A  closer  examination  shows 
that  the  community  has  certain  very  definite  ideas  as  to  what  is  allow- 
able and  what  is  not  allowable.  As  the  native  ideology  of  the  permitted 
and  the  illicit,  however,  in  such  groups  is  rarely  calculated  to  interest 
us  unless  we  happen  to  be  objective  students  of  primitive  culture,  it  is 
not  so  obvious  why  we  should  think  of  the  license,  or  approximate 
license,  that  we  read  into  their  sex  behavior  to  be  of  special  concern  to 
us.  If  we  cannot  sympathetically  understand  their  sex  taboos,  why  do 
we  pretend  to  understand  their  freedom  from  our  sex  taboos?  Obviously 
they  are  in  no  better  case  than  we  ourselves.  Historical  factors  have  set 
certain  specific  bounds  to  the  expression  of  the  sex  impulse  in  these 
societies,  as  they  have  set  more  or  less  specific  bounds  in  our  own,  and 
a  primitive  reformer  who  attempted  to  break  down  every  possible  bar- 
rier to  the  free  play  of  sex  would  receive  small  comfort  from  his  fellow- 
men. 

But  it  is  simply  not  true  that  sex  freedom  is  the  norm  for  primitive 
societies.  It  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  very  much  the  exception,  and  the 
presence  of  sex  taboos,  of  institutionalized  deferments  of  sexual  gratifi- 
cafion,  and  of  all  manner  of  sex  ideals,  so  far  from  justifying  us  in 
wrmging  our  hands  at  the  perversity  of  mankind,  might  more  rationally 
be  expected  to  lead  to  a  psychological  inquiry  into  the  reason  why  hu- 
man beings  have  so  persistently  gone  out  of  their  way  to  put  obstacles 
m  the  way  of  the  immediate  satisfaction  of  the  sex  impulse.  A  certain 


1 


Four:  Rcjlcciions  on  Coniemporary  823 

type  of  historian  is  rcad_\  with  his  answer.  He  iclls  us  ihal  ilicsc  restric- 
tions have  merely  come  in  as  a  by-protiiict  o\'  the  conception  that 
women  are  a  form  o'(  property.  This  is  one  of  ihosc  liieories  thai  arc 
too  plausible  to  be  true.  The  institutionalizing  of  marriage  in  terms  of 
property  can  be  amply  illustrated  in  both  primitive  and  sophisticated 
societies  -  this  no  one  doubts  -  but  we  are  far  from  (525]  having  the 
right  to  take  it  for  granted  that  ideas  of  ownership  are  the  root  of  sex 
restrictions.  We  know  too  little  as  yet  about  the  psychological  causes  of 
sexual  modesty  and  secrecy,  of  the  universal  dread  of  sex  squandering, 
of  the  irresistible  drive  to  hedging  sex  about  in  one  way  or  another,  but 
we  may  be  certain  that  these  causes  are  not  of  a  trivial  nature  and  that 
they  are  not  to  be  abrogated  by  a  smart  and  irixial  analysis  o\'  sex  b\ 
intellectuals  who  have  more  curiosity  than  intuition.  For  reasons  which 
can  only  be  dimly  guessed  at,  man  seems  e\erywhere  and  always  to 
have  felt  that  sex  was  a  quintessential  gratification  that  it  was  not  well 
to  secure  at  too  easy  a  price,  that  it  held  within  it  sources  o(  power,  of 
value,  that  could  not  be  rudely  snatched.  In  short,  mankind  has  always 
known  that  sex  needed  to  be  conserved  in  large  part  and  made  over 
into  more  than  sex.  Freud's  theory  of  sublimation  has  always  been 
man's  intuition,  and  sex  has  always  restlessly  striven  to  become  lo\e. 

Nothing  seems  more  difficult  than  to  convince  the  all-wise  modern 
that  the  emotion  of  love,  quite  aside  from  the  nii>nieniary  fulfillment  o^ 
desire,  is  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  persistent  o\'  human  feelings.  It  is 
far  from  being  the  secondary  or  adventitiously  superimposed  thing  that 
it  is  so  often  said  to  be.  On  the  contrary,  much  that  is  generally  interpre- 
ted as  primitive,  because  unromantic,  may  well  be  interpreted  iis  a  su- 
perstructure imposed  upon  the  sex  life  by  ccMisideraiions  of  a  relati\el\ 
sophisficated  nature  -  economic,  social,  religious,  or  political. 

It  may  be  well  at  this  point  to  relate  a  brief  story  which  I  collected  a 
number  of  years  ago  from  the  Sarcee  Indians  of  .Alberta.  C"anada.  Flic 
story  goes  back  to  the  early  days,  before  the  Indians  were  seriously 
bothered  by  the  white  man's  moraliiy  or  his  license  It  will  seem  all 
wrong  to  some,  for  it  is  nothing  more  nor  less  ihan  an  old-tashioncd 
love  story  from  anywhere  and  anytime. 

Here,  once  upon  a  time,  they  were  camped  in  a  circle.  Hies  were 
putting  up  the  Sun  Dance.'  This  one  \oung  man  was  making  love  to 
her;  he  and  the  [526]  girl  had  lo\e  U^r  each  other,  tvery  lime  that  she 
came  in  she  would  sit  down  close  to  where  the  people  were  singing  and 
her  young  man  would  peep  in  between  the  lodge-poles  which  were  lean- 


824  ^t^  Culture 

ing  against  each  other.  And  so  it  was  that  his  face  paint  would  always 
be  left  on  the  poles. 

After  a  while  it  was  said  that  they  were  about  to  go  on  the  warpath, 
so  this  young  man  went  to  his  sweetheart  and  said  to  her,  "Do  not  get 
lonesome  for  me.  We  shall  see  each  other  again."  And  then  the  girl  gave 
him  a  little  of  her  hair  which  she  had  cut  off  and  she  tied  it  up  and  they 
kissed  each  other  and  parted.  Now  they  went  off  to  war  and  the  girl's 
heart  dropped.-  When  the  Sun  Dance  was  over,  the  people  broke  up 
camp;  they  were  to  come  together  again  at  this  place  and  at  a  stated 
time.  They  moved  off  in  different  directions.  Now,  as  to  these  people 
who  had  gone  off  on  the  warpath,  they  were  sighted  by  the  enemy,  who 
sat  down  in  ambush  for  them.  When  they  got  in  sight  of  the  enemy, 
they  were  attacked  and  all  of  them  were  killed. 

When  a  long  time  had  elapsed  the  people  came  together  again  at  the 
place  that  had  been  mentioned,  and  when  they  were  all  assembled  the 
news  was  brought  that  those  who  had  gone  off  to  war  had  all  been 
killed  -  so  it  was  said.  This  girl  heard  about  it.  And  then  she  went  to 
the  Sun  Dance  lodge  and  came  here  to  the  place  where  her  sweetheart 
had  been  in  the  habit  of  peeping  in.  She  saw  his  face  paint  on  the  pole 
against  which  he  used  to  lean.  And  then  she  returned  to  her  people's 
lodge  and,  having  arrived  there,  she  took  a  rope.  And  then  she  went 
back  to  the  Sun  Dance  lodge  and  climbed  the  pole  which  stood  in  the 
center  of  it.  She  tied  the  rope  to  the  pole  and  looped  the  other  end  of 
it  about  her  neck.  And  then  she  sang  the  song  which  her  sweetheart  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  singing.  After  a  while  a  certain  one  discovered  the 
girl  and  what  she  was  doing,  how  she  was  singing  while  seated  up  there 
on  the  pole.  He  spoke  of  it.  They  rushed  out  to  her,  but  before  they 
could  reach  her  she  had  jumped  off  and  strangled  herself  with  the  rope. 
Though  they  cut  the  rope  off  at  once,  she  was  already  dead.  That  is 
how  the  girl  strangled  herself. 

This  story  proves  nothing,  but  it  gives  pause  for  thought.  It  contains 
all  the  elements  of  romantic  love  and  it  subjects  that  romantic  love  to 
the  final  test  of  all  values,  which  is  the  test  of  tragedy.  It  is  not  an 
isolated  instance,  by  any  means,  though  I  should  not  like  to  be  mis- 
understood as  claiming  it  to  be  an  average  or  even  a  typical  incident  of 
primitive  life  or  of  any  other  form  of  life.  It  is  one  of  those  compara- 
tively rare  but  basically  typical  examples  of  the  form  that  a  natural 
value  will  take  in  almost  any  culture  if  it  is  supported  by  an  underlying 
passion  which  is  both  pure  and  intense.  To  speak  of  frenzy  or  madness 


i 


Four:  Reflections  on  Contcmporarv  825 

is  useless,  for,  as  [527]  the  psychialrisl  knows  belter  ihan  anvtMic  else, 
frenzy  is  the  cHmactic  test  of  any  \akie. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  this  strange  passion  o(  love,  which  crops  up 
at  all  times  and  in  all  places  and  which  the  modern  rationalist  finds  it 
so  difficult  to  allow  except  as  a  superficial  amplification  of  the  sex  drive 
under  the  influence  of  certain  conventional  ideas  and  habits?  It  is  as 
difficult  to  state  clearly  what  the  emotion  consists  of  as  it  is  easy,  if  one 
is  willing  to  be  but  honest  for  a  moment,  to  comprehend  it.  Tlie  sex 
nucleus  is  perfectly  obvious  and  no  love  that  is  not  built  up  around  this 
nucleus  has  psychological  reality.  But  what  transforms  sex  into  love  is 
a  strange  and  compulsive  identification  of  the  loved  one  with  every  kind 
of  attachment  that  takes  the  ego  out  of  itself.  The  intensity  of  sex  be- 
comes an  unconscious  symbol  for  every  other  kind  of  psychic  intensity, 
and  the  intensity  of  love  is  m.easured  by  the  intensities  of  all  non-egoistic 
identifications  that  have  been  transferred  to  it.  it  is  useless  to  argue  that 
this  is  madness,  for  in  a  sense  it  is,  but  we  have  yet  to  learn  of  a  \alue 
or  an  ideal  that  is  not  potential  madness. 

Why  is  it,  then,  that  a  sentiment  which  is  as  much  at  home  in  our 
despised  Victorian  yesterday  as  in  the  obscure  life  of  a  remote  Indian 
tribe  needs  to  be  discussed  with  so  much  apology  toda\'.'  FIkmc  is  a 
complex  of  factors  which  explains  the  present  temper  and  ue  need  onl\ 
mention  them  to  make  us  realize  how  transitory  is  likel\  to  be  thai 
temper.  I  have  already  spoken  of  the  anti-Puritan  revolt,  uhich  is  much 
more  than  a  revolt  against  sex  repression  alone  but  is  a  generalized 
revolt  against  everything  that  is  hard,  narrow,  and  intolerant  in  the  old 
American  life,  and  which  sees  in  sex  repression  its  most  potent  s\mbol. 
Many  young  men  and  women  of  today  who  declare  themsehes  sexually 
free  are  really  revolting  against  quite  other  than  sc\  restrictions.  The> 
glory  in  the  reputed  "sin"  because  they  see  it  as  a  challenge  to  the  Ncry 
idea  of  repression. 

The  revolt  complex  is  powerfully  strengthened  b\  an  insidious  inllu- 
ence  exerted  by  modern  science.  It  has  been  one  o\'  the  cheerless,  yet 
perfectly  natural,  consequences  of  the  scientific  view  of  life  that  nothing 
in  human  conduct  is  supposed  to  have  reality  or  meaning  except  in  the 
ultimate  physiological  terms  that  [52S]  alone  describe  life  or  are  said  to 
describe  life  to  its  scientific  analyst.  If  life  is  nothing  but  physiology. 
how  can  love  be  other  than  sex,  with  sucli  immaterial  reinierpreiations 
as  no  hard-headed  modern  need  take  seriously? 

Even  more  important,  at  least  in  America,  is  the  great  ps\chological 
need  of  the  modern  woman  to  extend  and  make  firm  her  s\mbols  of 


826  itl  Culture 

economic  independence.  Every  attitude  and  every  act  that  challenges 
the  old  doctrine  of  psychic  sex  difference  is  welcomed,  no  matter  where 
it  leads.  The  most  obvious  differences  of  motivation  between  the  sexes 
are  calmly  ignored  and  a  whole  new  mythology  has  been  evolved  which 
deceives  only  the  clever.  The  virulence  of  this  reinterpretation  of  the 
significance  of  sex  differences  is  tending  to  die  down,  but  the  psycholog- 
ical aftermath  of  the  feminist  revolt  is  still  with  us.  Every  psychiatrist 
must  have  met  essentially  frigid  women  of  today  who  have  used  sex 
freedom  as  a  mere  weapon  with  which  to  feed  the  ego.  And  this  all  too 
common  sacrifice  of  love  and  the  possibility  of  love  on  the  alter  of 
an  ambition  which  is  essentially  insatiable,  because  it  is  so  much  of  a 
compulsion,  is  met  by  the  complementary  need  of  "fair-minded"  men 
to  accept  the  free  woman  at  her  word.  Hence  the  cult  of  pseudo-nobility, 
what  Wyndham  Lewis  so  aptly  calls  the  new  "sex-snobbery,"  which 
makes  an  intellectual  fetish  of  "freedom"  and  abolishes  jealousy  by  a 
fiat  of  the  will. 

The  psychological  falsity  of  these  attitudes  and  Hberations  is  manifest 
enough  and  leads  to  a  new  set  of  most  insidious  repressions  which  owe 
their  origin  to  the  subordination  of  impulse  to  reason.  It  is  questionable 
if  these  new  and  hardly  recognized  repressions,  these  elaborate  maskings 
of  the  unconscious  by  the  plausible  terminologies  of  "freedom,"  of  "cu- 
mulative richness  of  experience,"  of  "self-realization,"  do  not  lead  to 
an  even  more  profound  unhappiness  than  the  more  normal  subordina- 
tion of  impulse  to  social  convention  that  we  hear  so  much  about. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  in  the  life  of  the  emotions  one  can 
make  too  few  as  well  as  too  many  demands,  and  the  life  of  love  is 
naturally  no  exception  to  the  rule.  Men  and  women  who  expect  too 
little  of  each  other,  who  are  too  nobly  eager  to  grant  each  other  privi- 
leges and  self-existences  that  the  unconscious  does  not  really  want,  in- 
vite a  whole  crop  of  pathological  developments.  First  of  all,  the  chronic 
insistence  on  the  notions  of  freedom  and  [529]  self-expression  is  itself 
contrary  to  the  natural  current  of  the  sex  life,  which  flows  away  from 
the  ego  and  seeks  a  realization  for  the  ego  which  is  in  a  sense  destructive 
of  its  own  claims.  Sex  as  self-realization  unconsciously  destroys  its  own 
object  by  making  of  it  no  more  than  a  tool  to  a  selfish  end.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  much  modern  sex  freedom  is  little  more  than  narcissism. 
Applied  narcissism,  in  our  particular  society,  is  necessarily  promiscuity. 

A  further  consequence  of  an  uncritical  doctrine  of  sex  freedom  is  the 
lack  of  true  psychological  intimacy  between  lovers  or  between  husband 
and  wife.  Abstract  freedom  is  poor  soil  for  the  growth  of  love.  It  leads 


I'Dur:  Rcflc'cflon.s  on  Coniini/xtrury  827 

lo  an  LiiiacknowlcdgCLl  siispicii>n  aiul  ualchtulncss  and  a  nevcr-salisficcl 
longing  which  in  ihc  cn^\  l\\\  o\T  ihc  rmcr  and  the  more  sublimated 
forms  of  passion.  Ihc  niodcrn  man  seeks  lo  sa\c  the  siiualion  by  ana- 
lyzing sex  attachment  intt)  the  rulllllmcnt  of  sex  desne  plus  such  inii- 
macy  as  constant  companionship  can  give.  This  is,  of  course,  lolally 
false  psychologically,  it  is  merely  a  feeble  synthesis  of  dissociated  ele- 
ments arrived  at  by  an  inadequate  analysis.  Ihe  easy  accessibility  of  the 
sexes  to  each  other  at  an  early  age,  the  grtnvth  o\'  the  "'paf'  spirit  be- 
tween them,  with  sex  itself  thrown  in  as  a  bribe  or  as  a  reward  all 
this,  so  far  from  bringing  the  sexes  together  in  a  liner  intimac>.  has 
exactly  the  opposite  effect  o\^  ieaxing  them  csscniiall\  strangers  \o  each 
other,  for  they  early  learn  to  know  just  enough  [o  put  the  more  intuitive 
seeking  stupidly  to  sleep.  Is  it  a  wonder  that  tiie  sexes  unconsciously 
hate  each  other  today  with  an  altogether  new  and  baftlmg  \irulence'.' 

In  extreme  cases  -  one  dreads  to  acknowledge  lun\  appallingly  fre- 
quent these  extreme  cases  are  becoming  -  the  constantly  dampened, 
because  never  really  encouraged,  passion  between  the  sexes  leads  to 
compensation  in  the  form  of  homosexuality,  which,  if  we  are  reliabh 
informed,  is  definitely  on  the  increase  in  America.  This  surely  is  a 
strange  point  of  arrival  for  a  gospel  of  dcli\ci\  from  repression,  but  it 
is  a  perfectly  explicable  one.  Love  having  been  squeezed  out  o\'  sex,  it 
revenges  itself  by  assuming  unnatural  forms.  The  cult  o\'  the  "natural- 
ness" of  homosexuality  fools  no  one  but  those  who  need  a  rationaliza- 
tion of  their  own  problems. 

In  estimating  the  significance  of  the  social  and  psychological  currents 
which  are  running  in  the  sphere  of  sex  toda\.  it  is  important  [530)  lo  do 
justice  to  both  cultural  and  personal  factors.  It  is  dangerous  to  ignore 
either.  Our  culture  of  today  is  not  the  creation  o\'  the  moment,  but  the 
necessary  continuation  of  the  culture  of  \csicida\.  wiiii  all  iis  \alucs. 
These  values  need  revision,  but  they  cannot  be  overthrown  b\  an\  scien- 
tific formula.  The  intellectuals  who  declare  them  dead  are  \er\  much 
more  at  their  mercy  than  they  care  to  know.  It  is  not  claimed  that  all 
individuals  can  or  should  make  identical  adjustments,  but  m  an  atmo- 
sphere in  which  no  norms  of  conduct  are  recognized  and  no  values  arc 
maintained,  no  man  or  woman  can  make  a  truly  satisfacti>r\  individual 
adjustment. 

It  is  peculiarly  dangerous  in  dealing  with  the  sex  problem  lo  lei  prelly 
verbal  analogies  do  the  work  o\'  an  honesl  analysis.  Hie  pri>blem  of 
jealousy  is  an  excellent  illustration  of  this.  Owing  lo  the  highlv  indnidu- 
alistic  and  possessive  philosophy  o(  so  much  o\'  our  life,  the  image  of 


828  i^t  Culture 

possessiveness  has  been  plausibly  but  insidiously  transferred  to  the  mar- 
ital relation,  finally  to  the  relation  of  love  itself.  Sex  jealousy  is  therefore 
said  to  imply  possessiveness.  As  one  emancipated  young  woman  once 
expressed  it  to  me,  it  would  be  an  insult  to  either  her  or  her  husband 
to  expect  fidelity  of  them.  Yet  what  is  more  obvious  than  that  jealousy 
can  no  more  be  weeded  out  of  the  human  heart  than  the  shadows  cast 
by  objects  can  be  obliterated  by  some  mechanism  that  would  restore  to 
them  an  eternal  luminosity?  Every  joy  has  its  sorrow,  every  value  has 
its  frustration,  and  the  lover  who  is  too  noble  to  be  jealous  has  always 
been  justly  suspected  by  mankind  of  being  no  lover  at  all.  It  is  not  the 
province  of  men  and  women  to  declare  out  of  their  intellectual  pride 
what  emotions  they  care  to  sanction  as  legitimate  or  admirable.  They 
can  only  try  to  be  true  to  their  feelings  and  to  accept  the  consequences 
of  their  fulfillment  or  denial  in  whatever  terms  nature  sees  fit  to  impose. 

The  supposed  equivalence  of  sex  jealousy  to  the  emotion  of  resent- 
ment at  the  infringement  of  one's  personal  property  rights  is  entirely 
false.  Sex  jealousy,  in  its  purest  form,  is  essentially  a  form  of  grief, 
while  the  combative  feeling  aroused  by  theft  or  other  invasion  of  one's 
sovereignty  is  of  course  nothing  but  anger.  Grief  and  anger  may  be 
intermingled,  but  only  a  shallow  psychologist  will  identify  them.  Per- 
haps the  linguistic  evidence  is  worth  something  on  this  point.  It  is  re- 
markable in  how  few  languages  [531]  the  concept  of  sex  jealousy  is 
confused  with  the  notion  of  envy.  Our  use  of  the  English  word  "jealous" 
in  two  psychologically  distinct  senses  has  undoubtedly  been  responsible 
for  a  good  deal  of  loose  thinking  and  faulty  analysis.  It  is  an  insult 
to  the  true  lover  to  interpret  his  fidehty  and  expectation  of  fidelity  as 
possessiveness  and  to  translate  the  maddening  grief  of  jealousy  into  the 
paltry  terminology  of  resentment  at  the  infringement  of  property  rights. 
These  crowning  psychological  absurdities  were  reserved  for  the  enhght- 
ened  mentality  of  today. 

The  psychiatrist  understands  better  than  anyone  else  how  much  we 
are  swayed  in  the  unconscious  by  obscure  but  potent  symbolisms.  There 
is  a  certain  logic  or  configurative  necessity  about  these  symbolisms 
which  it  is  very  hard  to  put  into  words,  but  which  the  intuitively-minded 
feel  very  keenly.  Sex  conduct  offers  singularly  potent  examples  of  the 
importance  of  such  symbolisms  and  of  their  arrangement  in  a  series  of 
cumulative  values.  I  refer  to  the  general  symbolism  of  human  intimacy. 

Every  normal  individual  is  unconsciously  drawn  toward  or  repelled 
by  another  individual,  even  if  the  overt  contact  is  but  brief  and  superfi- 
cial. These  feelings  of  intimacy  and  withdrawal  have  their  symbolisms 


Four:  Reflections  on  C\>nieniporary  829 

in  gesture  and  expression,  which  dilTer  from  individual  lo  indiNidual 
but  tend  none  the  less  to  take  typical  tornis  under  ihc  intlucnce  of  social 
forces.  Of  necessity,  the  most  potent  symbols  of  intimacy  are  those  that 
lead  to  the  touching  and  handling  of  bodies.  To  put  the  mailer  crudely, 
we  are  not  in  the  habit  of  embracing  people  to  whom  we  are  indilfercnl 
and  of  standing  frigidly  aloof  from  those  that  we  are  psychologically 
intimate  with,  unless,  of  course,  there  is  a  conllict  that  paralyzes  e.xprc»s- 
sion.  Now,  of  all  known  forms  of  intimacy  among  human  beings  ihc 
sex  relation  is  naturally  the  most  far-reaching.  It  necessarily  takes  its 
place  in  the  unconscious  series  of  symbolisms  o['  intimacy  as  the  most 
valued  and  the  final  symbol  of  all.  I  do  not  claim  that  all  human  beings 
are  equally  sensitive  to  symbolisms  of  this  sort,  but  there  is  enough  of 
a  psychological  common  ground  in  most  oi"  us  to  make  it  impossible 
for  the  normal  person  to  transgress  the  unformulated  laws  of  s\nibolic 
expression  beyond  a  certain  point.  It  is  exceedingly  likely,  it  seems  to 
me,  that  the  obscure,  though  of  course  unacknowledged,  feeling  of 
shame  felt  by  prostitutes  and  by  those  who  indulge  in  promiscuity  is  by 
no  means  entirely  due  to  the  [532]  fact  that  the\  transgress  the  social 
code,  laying  themselves  open  to  a  conventional  censure.  It  is  likely  that 
this  shame  is  also  in  large  part  the  resultant  of  an  clusi\e  feeling  that  a 
natural  scale  of  values  is  being  transgressed  because  the  expressions 
which  are  their  symbols  are,  by  implication,  arranged  in  a  psychologi- 
cally impossible  sequence.  In  a  deeply  symbolic  sense,  then,  the  prosti- 
tute is  "illogical,''  and  her  only  psychological  escape  is  to  refuse  lo 
identify  herself  with  her  body.  And  it  is  no  mere  accident  that  so  many 
of  the  protagonists  of  sex  freedom  despise  their  own  bodies. 

In  sober  fact  the  erotic  landscape  in  contemporar>  America  is  b>  no 
means  as  depressing  as  these  observations  may  lead  one  to  belies e.  I 
have  wanted  rather  to  point  out  the  psychological  fallacies  in  the  con- 
temporary cult  of  sex  freedom  and  the  ultimate  implicatuMis  o\'  those 
fallacies  than  to  give  an  accurate  description  o['  contemporary  se.x  life. 
Sex  irregularities,  while  numerous,  are  not  necessarily  as  indicative  as 
they  seem  to  be  of  the  deeper-lying  set  of  our  erotic  philosophy.  I'nlcss 
I  sadly  misread  the  mores  of  America,  there  are  many  reassuring  signs 
that  the  reign  of  so-called  Puritan  morality  is  noi  likeh  lo  ciMne  lo  a 
sudden  end  even  among  the  sophisticated  and  that,  while  the  negative 
elements  of  that  morality  are  sure  to  be  cast  aside  by  the  mielligenl  and 
their  rigor  mitigated  by  all.  its  essential  core  will  survive,  fcurofx*  may 
laugh  and  shrug  its  shoulders  but  .America  can  be  shockingly  stubborn 
on  what  she  feels  to  be  the  fundamentals  o\'  life,  it  would  be  nothing 


330  IIJ  Culture 

short  of  a  cultural  disaster  if  America  as  a  whole  surrendered  to  conti- 
nental European  teeling  and  practice.  With  religion  in  none  too  healthy 
a  state  and  with  the  aesthetic  life  rudimentary  and  imitative,  America 
needs  an  irrational  faith  in  the  value  of  love  and  of  fidelity  in  love  as 
perhaps  no  other  part  of  the  occidental  world  needs  it  today. 

The  moral  atmosphere  in  America  is  only  superficially  similar  to  that 
of  continental  Europe.  One  of  the  surest  signs  of  the  essential  difference 
in  outlook  is  the  rapidly  increasing  divorce  rate.  Bewailed  by  domestic 
moralists  and  deplored  by  our  European  visitors,  the  ease  of  obtaining 
divorce  in  America  is  actually  an  indication  of  our  restless  psychological 
health.  Were  the  institution  of  marriage  and  the  family  actually  divorced 
in  sentiment  from  [533]  the  sphere  of  sex  indulgence,  there  would  be  no 
reason  why  a  tolerance  of  marital  infidelity  should  not  come  to  be  ac- 
cepted in  America,  as  it  has  long  been  in  France.  But  any  one  who 
imagines  that  America  can  with  a  clear  conscience  settle  down  to  the 
reasonable  and  gracious  distribution  of  individual  pleasures  and  famihal 
ceremonies  that  seems  to  suit  the  French  genius  knows  very  little  about 
the  American  temper.  The  very  intellectuals  who  are  clamorous  in  their 
determination  to  "go  the  Hmit"  are  unable  in  practice  to  "play  the 
game."  for  they  cannot  learn  the  rules.  Do  what  one  will,  sex  relations 
in  America  have  a  way  of  calling  up  romantic  images  and  implications 
of  fidelity  that  make  this  country  seem  a  mysterious,  an  incredible, 
realm  to  the  emancipated  foreigner.  Incompatibility  of  husband  and 
wife  of  necessity  leads  more  speedily  to  divorce  than  in  sophisticated 
Europe.  I  am  leaving  Russia  out  of  the  picture,  for  we  know  too  little 
about  the  psychological  realities  of  contemporary  Russia  to  speak  of  it 
with  profit. 

Closely  connected  with  this  stubborn  unwillingness  of  the  typical 
American  to  save  marriage  and  the  integrity  of  the  family  at  the  cost  of 
erotic  honesty  is  his  peculiar  unwillingness  or  inability  to  make  a  fine  art 
of  sex  indulgence.  The  "kick"  of  sex  freedom  in  America  lies  precisely  in 
its  being  "sin,"  not  an  honest  way  of  life.  Americans  make  poor  Don 
Juans.  Nor  does  the  graceful  and  accomplished  hetaira  of  French  life 
seem  to  flourish  on  our  stubborn  soil.  Many  young  women  have  tried 
the  part  but  even  the  most  successful  of  our  amateurs  in  the  erotic  arts 
seem  compelled  by  the  very  nature  of  the  culture  in  which  they  have 
been  reared  to  pay  a  heavy  price.  Our  intellectual  mistresses  of  sin  play 
a  sadly  pedantic  part,  their  ardors  are  in  the  head  rather  than  in  the 
heart  or  even  the  "erogenous  zone."  To  put  it  bluntly,  the  "free"  woman 
of  sophisticated  America,  whether  poetess  or  saleslady,  has  a  hard  job 


Four:  Rcflcciion.s  on  Contcnipotiirv  831 

escaping  from  the  uncomforlablc  feeling  ihal  slie  is  realh  a  safe,  and 
therefore  a  dishonest,  prostitute.  The  charge  seems  unreasonable  to  the 
mind,  but  the  spirit  cannot  wholly  thrt>vv  off  the  imputation.  'Ilie  balllc 
shows  in  the  hard,  slightly  unfocused,  glitter  o{  the  eye  and  in  the  hol- 
low laugh.  And  one  can  watch  the  gradual  deterioration  o\'  personahly 
that  seems  to  set  in  in  many  of  our  young  women  with  premature  adop- 
tion o\^  the  new  sophisticated  sex  standards.  Psychiatrists  have  often 
burned  their  [534]  fingers  in  this  matter  and  perhaps  there  is  nothing 
they  need  to  keep  more  steadily  in  mind  than  that  in  proflering  advice 
in  matters  of  sex  they  are  addressing  themselves  not  merely  to  intelli- 
gence and  to  desire  but  to  certain  obscure  and  unacknowledged  \alues 
that  cannot  be  fiouted  with  impunity.  If  they  are  o\'  foreign  birth  and 
culture,  it  would  be  well  for  them  to  take  a  little  more  seriously  some 
of  the  "resistances"  they  encounter  and  to  ponder,  on  occasion,  the 
possibility  that  in  exploding  a  personal  "complex"  they  may  incidentalK 
be  shattering  an  "ideal."  That  American  men  and  women  coarsen  on  a 
fare  that  seems  to  agree  with  the  sophisticates  o\^  the  Old  World  is  both 
a  warning  and  a  reason  for  optimism.  It  points  the  way  to  a  reaction 
of  feeling  that  Europe  will  not  understand. 

Americans  tend,  in  the  most  disconcerting  wa},  to  be  both  realistic 
and  conservative  in  the  matter  of  sex.  That  psychological  health  de- 
mands sex  satisfaction  at  a  much  earlier  period  than  the  general  post- 
ponement of  marriage  makes  possible  is  coming  to  be  generally  recog- 
nized. It  is  clear,  however,  that  a  true  tolerance  for  illicit  relationships 
of  a  promiscuous  sort  is  not  likely  to  become  prevalent.  Such  suggested 
institutions  as  the  companionate  marriage  lead  one  rather  to  suspect 
that  America  is  feeling  its  way  toward  a  loosening  o\'  tlie  institutional 
rigors  and  responsibilities  of  marriage  by  the  growth  o^  new  types  of 
sex  relationship.  It  is  difficult  to  say  just  w  hat  is  likely  to  emerge  from 
the  present  period  of  unrest  and  experimentation,  but  one  thing  seems 
certain.  America  will  not  be  a  docile  pupil  o\^  Europe,  and  the  sophisti- 
cates of  this  country  who  are  taken  in  b\  the  apparcntl>  easy  solutions 
of  their  European  brethren,  whom  they  so  vainly  admire,  are  likeh  to 
find  themselves  in  a  strangely  unsympathetic  clime.  That  new  institu- 
tions of  an  erotic  and  marital  nature  are  slowly  maturing  is  obsious.  it 
is  my  belief  that  it  is  no  less  obvious  that  these  institutions,  whatever 
their  forms  may  be,  will  not  mean  a  surrender  to  license  but  will  have 
for  their  object,  however  obscurely  and  indirectly,  the  saving  of  lo\e  and 
the  perpetuation  of  the  romantic  intiniac>  and  of  tin-  ulcil  o\  lidelil)  b> 


832  ^tt  Culture 

those  who  are  capable  of  this  intimacy.  And  it  is  more  Hkely  than  not 
that  the  average  American,  for  a  long  time  to  come,  will  have  the  delu- 
sion, if  it  is  nothing  else,  that  he  is  capable  of  just  this  experience. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  the  American  Journal  of  Psychiatry  8:519-534 
(1928),  with  the  following  note: 

Prepared  by  request.  This  study  is  the  first  of  a  series  of  contributions 
from  outstanding  authorities  in  the  various  social  sciences  which  The 
Journal  will  publish  from  time  to  time. 

This  article  was  reprinted  under  the  title  "The  Discipline  of  Sex"  in 
The  American  Mercury  16:413-420  (1929),  with  minor  changes  and  the 
first  five  paragraphs  omitted.  The  American  Mercury  version  was  re- 
printed in  Child  Study,  March  1930,  with  seven  passages  deleted  and 
several  subheadings  added. 


Notes 

1.  The  Sun  Dance  is  the  most  important  communal  ceremonial  of  the  tribes  of  the  Plains, 
and  the  most  sacred  object  in  the  ritual  is  the  center  pole  of  the  Sun  Dance  lodge. 

2.  The  native  equivalent  for  "she  was  broken-hearted." 


Review  of  Waldo  Frank, 
The  Rc-Discovcry  of  Anicrii n 

Waldo  Frank,  The  Rc-Discovcry  of  Anicricu:  An  Inlrodiiciion  to  a  Phi- 
losophy of  American  Life.  New  York:  Charles  Scribner's  S(M1s.  1929. 

It  is  not  easy  to  give  in  a  tew  words  ihc  ihoiighi  of  this  book,  which 
originally  appeared  as  a  series  of  articles  in  the  New  Republic  and  which 
may  be  looked  upon  as  a  sort  of  philosophical  follow-up  to  Mr.  F-'rank's 
Our  America.  The  author  would  be  the  first  to  admit  that  his  approach  is 
not  strictly  scientific,  that  metaphors  weight)  with  pregnant  symbolisms 
are  made  to  do  much  of  the  work  that  is  ordinarily  assigned  to  logical 
analysis  of  facts  and  figures.  Mr.  Frank  is  at  once  philosopher,  artist,  his- 
torian, and  prophet.  The  complete  absence  of  either  humor  or  modesty 
in  this  diagnosis  of  American  civilization  makes  it  somewhat  laborious 
reading  but  it  would  be  too  easy  to  dismiss  the  book  as  useless. 

It  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  informed  by  a  very  earnest  -though  not 
necessarily  altogether  sincere  -  awareness  of  the  fragmentariness  of  our 
culture  and  by  a  passionate  desire  to  see  American  life  come  through 
unscathed,  well  integrated,  and  free  o[^  European  intellectual  domi- 
nance. Much  in  the  book  is  obviously  little  more  than  a  hieratic  and 
unctuous  projection  of  personal  turmoil,  yet  something  o^  \aluc  re- 
mains. I  believe  that  Mr.  Frank  is  at  his  best  when  he  speaks  o\'  the 
artistic  currents  in  America.  When  he  leaves  the  \~\c\i\  o\'  literaiurc  and 
art,  concerning  which  his  observations  are  always  sensitive,  houescr 
grandiosely  expressed.  [336]  and  turns  to  those  wider  cultural  problems 
which  should  be,  but  never  are,  adequately  handled  by  the  anthropolo- 
gist and  the  sociologist,  he  becomes  at  once  lyrically  porienious.  We  arc 
then  shoved  into  a  hot  jungle  of  psychoanalytic  images  in  \shich  bio- 
logy, psychology,  and  social  science  are  melted  down  into  some  strange 
alloy  o'(  the  fancy.  In  Mr.  Frank's  thought  all  the  colors  run.  c\er> 
outline  is  blurred,  every  content  is  charred  aiui  diinined.  It  is  a  pity  ihal 
he  disdains  lucidity  and  courts  the  "\atic""  pose,  for  I  diuibi  whether 
most  Americans  are  quite  as  romantic  as  Mr.  Frank  belie\es  them  lo 
be  and,  in  any  event,  as  he  himself  uiidoubiedl>  still  is  m  spile  of  all  his 
attempts  to  be  hard  and  "modern." 


834  ///  Culture 

Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  The  American  Journal  of  Sociology  35, 
335-336  (1929).  Reprinted  by  permission  of  the  University  of  Chicago 
Press. 

Waldo  D.Frank  (1889-1967)  was  an  American  writer,  and  the 
founder  and  editor  of  The  Seven  Arts  magazine. 


What  is  the  Family  Slill  Good  For? 

Is  it  really  true  that  the  family  is  about  to  disappear.'  is  it  really  true 
that  parents  have  been  tbund  wanting  and  are  about  to  resign  their 
sovereignty  into  the  hands  of  the  commonwealth?  That  children  have 
found  out  their  elders  and  are  about  to  declare  their  independence?  That 
the  sex  relation  has  been  discovered  freed  from  a  matrimonial  frame? 
That  mothers  have  no  further  claim  for  the  rearing  of  children  than  a 
useless  affection  and  had  better  resign  themselves  to  the  up-to-date  pre- 
school nursery  and  devote  themselves  in  the  absence  of  their  children 
to  the  ever-growing  necessities  of  club  life? 

Now  these  things  are  more  than  a  flippant  jest.  Perhaps  never  before 
in  the  history  of  mankind  has  the  family  been  so  lightly  regarded  as  in 
contemporary  America.  Twenty-five  years  ago  the  family  seemed  as  se- 
cure as  the  rocks  both  as  institution  and  as  sentiment.  And  now  we 
hear  it  said  that  it  is  a  shaky,  unwilling  institution  and  a  begrudging 
sentiment  at  best.  The  family  seems  to  be  literally  up  with  its  back 
against  the  wall,  faced  by  an  immense  crowd  known  as  "the  young," 
aided  and  abetted  by  the  figures  of  the  sociologist,  the  revelations  of 
the  psychologist  and  the  sneers  of  the  anthropologist.  This  picture  of 
opinion  about  the  family  is  confessedly  inexact.  It  is  a  lurid  one.  but 
surely  it  is  of  some  significance  that  it  is  possible  to  draw  the  picture 
without  too  great  a  show  of  shame  or  hesitation. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  go  fully  into  the  reasons  for  this  threatening 
dissolution  of  the  family,  if  we  could.  [32]  It  is  an  invoi\ed  business, 
very  much  mixed  up  with  the  tangled  question  of  sex  relations  and  with 
the  industrialization  of  society.  To  understand  the  family  is  to  under- 
stand all  of  modern  life,  intimate  and  public.  It  is  siifricient  lo  mention 
four  of  the  more  obvious  causes  of  the  weakening  o\'  the  modern  lamily. 
These  are:  First,  the  multiplication  of  labor-sa\  ing  devices;  second,  the 
cramping  of  living  quarters;  third,  the  auttMiiohilc;  foiirih.  the  grouniii 
economic  independence  of  woman. 

The  family  as  an  industrial  unit,  as  a  self-contained.  niechanicall> 
bound  group  which  works  toward  definite  ends  of  a  practical  nature,  is 
pretty  well  a  thing  of  the  past.  There  is  no  use  pretending  that  ii  is  not. 
There  are  still  husbands  to  be  found  who  will  lake  olT  a  Sunday  morn- 


836  i^J  Culture 

ing  to  shingle  the  roof  or  lay  down  a  concrete  floor  in  the  basement,  as 
there  are  wives  who  keep  a  crowded  apartment  in  uncomfortable  abey- 
ance while  a  particularly  elaborate  birthday  cake  is  in  progress  in  the 
kitchen.  Common  sentiment  applauds  such  efforts,  common  sense  de- 
plores them.  No  elaborate  statistics  are  needed  to  prove  that  family  self- 
help  on  a  large  scale  is  out  of  date.  If  sentiment  did  not  lag  perceptibly 
behind  the  cold  judgment  of  mechanical  prudence,  there  would  be  even 
less  to  keep  the  family  at  family  work  than  there  is  today.  For  better  or 
worse,  large  scale  industry  has  invaded  the  family,  and  the  family  must 
readjust  its  habits  and  its  sentiments  as  best  it  can  to  this  cool  and 
obliging  stranger  who  enters  without  knocking  at  the  door.  A  thousand 
threads  bind  the  family  to  agencies  of  effective  adjustment,  and  these 
ha\e  rarely  the  desire  or  the  opportunity  to  humanize  the  mechanical 
relations  between  the  family  and  work  done  for  the  family.  The  most 
that  we  can  hope  for  is  that  the  milkman  talk  politely  to  the  maid.  [33] 
The  most  significant  by-product  of  the  industrialization  of  society,  so 
far  as  the  family  is  concerned  in  its  outward  aspects,  is  the  cramping  of 
its  quarters.  As  there  is  less  and  less  for  the  family  to  do,  less  and  less 
room  is  required  to  do  it  in.  This  growing  discouragement  of  the  need 
for  room  is  powerfully  supported  by  the  growth  of  land  values,  the  two 
being  indeed  nothing  but  the  negative  and  positive  aspects  of  a  single 
process.  The  modern  family  does  not  arrange  itself  commodiously  in 
space,  it  tucks  itself  away  in  corners  of  greater  or  lesser  snugness.  A 
relentless  system  of  hinges  folds  up  space  into  a  nicely  delimited  design 
of  little  compartments,  which  are  merely  the  minimum  containers  of 
buttons,  knobs,  lines,  cabinet  doors  and  a  score  of  other  strap-hanging 
devices.  The  family  no  longer  dwells;  it  occupies  quarters.  What  this 
shrinkage  in  space  means  psychologically  is  that  the  members  of  the 
family  suddenly  discover  that  they  are  but  a  limited  number  of  individ- 
uals, who  have  to  make  doubly  sure  of  their  apartness  from  each  other 
by  escaping  into  vast  hinterlands  of  space.  Thus,  the  street,  the  lecture 
hall,  and  the  hotel  lobby  become  the  necessary  backyard  of  the  modern 
home. 

Family  quarters  are  inadequate  not  merely  in  the  physical  sense,  in  a 
more  intangible  and  symbolic  sense,  too,  they  fail  to  correspond  to  the 
traditional  family  ideals.  The  spatial  symbol  of  an  institution  has  much 
retroactive  influence  on  the  dignity  of  the  institutional  concept  itself. 
Thus,  It  IS  difficult  to  feel  strongly  about  a  university  degree  obtained 
m  a  correspondence  course,  for  scholastic  pride  seems  to  need  a  tangible 
habitation  to  which  it  can  point  its  finger.  Again,  a  god  worshipped  in 


Four:  Reflections  on  C'onicniporarv  g37 

a  mean,  pinchbeck  house  oi'  worship  may  be  \erballv  noble,  but  wc 
may  suspect  that  he  assumes  mean,  pinchbeck  proportions  (34)  m  the 
hearts  of  his  worshippers.  It  is  not  otherwise  with  the  family.  If  iis 
home  is  insecure,  casual,  cramped,  external  lo  the  personalities  of  its 
members,  these  attributes  of  the  symbol  infest  the  ihmg  symboli/cd, 
and  so  we  need  not  be  surprised  that  the  familv  itself  lends  to  become 
insecure,  casual,  cramped,  and  external  to  its  own  personalities. 

The  American  family  is  not  only  cramped  and  insecure  in  space,  it  is 
also  unstable  in  time.  Travel  is  constantly  absenting  one  or  other  mem- 
ber of  the  family  from  the  rest.  Such  absences  were  once  considered 
events  in  the  history  of  the  family;  they  are  now  part  of  its  kaleidoscopic 
texture.  It  is  easy  to  make  light  of  the  rapidity  with  which  the  actual 
personnel  of  the  family  changes  from  day  to  day.  In  the  long  run  these 
rapid  shifts  must  have  a  profound  symbolic  intluence  on  the  indi\  idual's 
conception  of  himself  as  a  member  of  the  family.  A  family  which  is 
constantly  breaking  up  and  reassembling  is  like  a  rule  which  has  too 
many  exceptions  -  such  a  rule  ends  up  by  ceasing  to  be  a  rule.  In  all 
this  coming  and  going,  the  automobile  is  of  course  the  most  potent 
factor.  Under  certain  circumstances  and  in  certain  localities  the  auto- 
mobile, enlarging  the  confines  of  the  home  and  giving  its  members  new 
avenues  of  escape  from  the  home's  dullness,  tends  to  have  something 
of  a  unifying  force,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  its  infiuence  is  on  the  whole 
more  disruptive  than  stabilizing.  This  is  of  course  particularly  true  of 
the  wealthier  families,  which  own  more  than  one  car.  E\en  where  the 
automobile  does  not  directly  act  as  a  disruptive  force,  it  tends  to  do  so 
indirectly  because  it  affords  a  ready  means  of  escape  from  the  visible 
home,  thus  aiding  materially  in  the  weakening  of  the  symbolism  o\'  the 
home. 

[35]  The  increasing  economic  independence  of  women  owes  much  of 
its  destructive  power  to  the  model  which  has  long  been  set  in  .America 
by  the  husband.  Gainful  occupation  and  home  have  come  to  be  anti- 
thetical concepts,  and  woman,  herself  long  debarred  from  economic 
activity,  has  come  to  be  dangerously  identified  with  the  home.  It  is  often 
said  that  the  home  is  losing  its  character  because  women  are  finding  it 
possible  to  identify  themselves  with  objects  of  interest  which  lie  beyond 
the  family  sphere.  It  is  of  course  biologically  true  that  the  home  clusters, 
in  a  very  special  sense,  about  the  woman,  but  ii  seems  thai  we  have 
dangerously  overshot  the  mark  in  America  and  have  allowed  ourselves 
to  drit\  insensibly  into  a  position  which  considers  the  husband  as  an 
economically  powerful  visitor  to  the  house.  The  proud  indilTerence  of 


g38  ^^^  Culture 

most  American  husbands  to  their  homes  and  everything  that  beautifies 
the  home,  the  assumption  that  domestic  affairs  are,  after  all,  things  for 
women  to  worry  about  -  all  this  has  a  note  of  tragedy  in  it.  Now  that 
modern  life  has  shown  women  how  they  may  enter  upon  gainful  pur- 
suits, the  implied  stigma  which  had  attached  to  the  stay-at-home,  carries 
over  to  the  women  of  the  household.  If  it  was  possible  for  the  husband 
to  be  a  bit  disdainful  about  domestic  details,  however  carefully  his  light 
contempt  was  guarded  from  himself,  it  is  the  sheer  logic  of  the  uncon- 
scious that  the  economically  emancipated  woman  too  should  accept 
man's  symbolic  indifference  as  a  badge  of  her  freedom.  To  be  sure,  this 
is  not  the  whole  story.  Where  both  the  husband  and  the  wife  are  bread- 
winners, there  cannot  but  be  some  divergence  of  interest  and  associa- 
tion, and  this  adds  its  important  share  to  the  loosening  of  family  bonds. 

There  are  no  doubt  still  other  forces  which  make  for  [36]  this  loosen- 
ing, and  perhaps  none  of  them  is  really  as  important  as  certain  far- 
reaching  changes  of  opinion  in  regard  to  the  relation  between  men  and 
women,  husband  and  wife,  parents  and  children,  which  modern  experi- 
ence and  speculation  have  brought,  but  the  four  trends  that  we  have 
picked  out  will  serve  as  a  convenient  formula  to  make  intelligible  to  us 
what  seems  to  be  happening  within  the  family.  Putting  ourselves  into 
the  traditional  attitude,  let  us  now  see  what  seems  to  have  been  lost  in 
the  course  of  development  of  the  modern  family.  We  should  say,  first 
of  all,  that  the  family  is  no  longer  a  self-going  concern,  no  longer  a  self- 
sufficient  castle  in  a  semi-hostile  world.  Furthermore,  parental  authority 
has  perceptibly  lessened.  There  are  other  factors  than  those  we  have 
mentioned  that  are  responsible  for  this,  but  it  is  implicit  in  them.  In  the 
third  place,  personal  relations  within  the  family,  the  atdtude  of  brother 
to  sister,  of  sister  to  sister,  son  to  mother,  daughter  to  father,  have  no 
longer  quite  that  self-evident  or  pre-ordained  quality  which  seems  to  go 
with  defined  kinship  status.  One  assumed,  for  instance,  that  brothers 
and  sisters  were  friends,  though  one  knew  from  sad  experience  that  they 
were  not  necessarily  so.  Finally,  we  can  no  longer  lightly  assume  that 
woman  is  the  sacred  guardian  of  the  domestic  hearth.  She  may  or  may 
not  be  that,  but  she  is  likely  to  be  a  great  many  other  things  as  well. 

Are  these  truly  losses,  or  are  they  really  gains  in  disguise?  They  are 
certainly  not  unmixed  evils.  That  the  family  is  no  longer  a  self-going 
concern  is  part  loss,  but  it  is  part  gain  as  well.  The  traditional  family 
tended  to  be  a  little  ingrown,  rather  selfish  in  its  outlook  upon  life.  Its 
happiness  tended  to  be  smug;  its  unhappiness  bred  all  the  poisons  of 
secrecy.  That  the  family  is  now  more  [37]  directly  plunged  into  the  gene- 


Four:  Reflections  on  Contcniponnv  839 

ral  economic  scene  has  at  least  this  advantage,  thai  the  a\cragc  man 
and  woman  of  today  develops  a  greater  concern  tor  the  rundamcntal 
mechanisms  of  society.  He  loses  something  of  his  dignity  as  a  personal- 
ity because  he  is  rarely  a  primary  economic  agent,  yet  the  indirect  and 
even  fictitious  part  which  he  plays  in  life  does  bring  him  significantly 
nearer  to  his  fellowmen.  There  is  an  altogether  new  willingness  to  see 
the  family  as  but  a  unit  in  a  larger  whole. 

Few  are  so  held  by  the  illusions  of  the  past  as  to  claim  that  the 
lessening  of  parental  authority  is  nothing  but  evil.  There  was  a  time 
when  to  be  a  father  was  to  know  what  was  good  for  one's  children,  in 
those  days  the  word  "mother"  connoted  an  all-wise  aflection  and  was 
as  mysterious  and  as  immutable  as  the  law  of  gravitation.  And,  recipro- 
cally, to  have  a  father  and  a  mother  was  construed  as  equivalent  to 
doing  what  you  were  told  and  being  thankful  therefor  ever  after.  We 
have  traveled  a  certain  distance  from  these  dull  mythologies.  Thanks  to 
Shaw,  to  psychoanalysis,  and  to  liberated  common  sense,  we  now  know 
that  a  devoted  mother  can  be  silly  and  pernicious;  that  an  idolatrous 
affection  for  the  son  may  and  often  does  go  v\ith  a  corroding  hatred  o\' 
the  husband.  It  is  well  that  we  tend  to  take  little  for  granted  in  the 
parental  relation.  It  is  well  that  fathers  and  mothers  arc  beginning  to 
discover  that  it  is  hard  work  making  their  children's  acquaintance  and 
that  before  they  have  done  this  it  would  be  just  as  well  not  to  bank  too 
heavily  on  the  innate  love  and  wisdom  which  the  mere  fact  o\'  parent- 
hood is  supposed  to  give  them.  There  is  no  reason  \\h\  parents  and 
children  may  not  be  the  best  of  friends,  but  it  is  getting  to  be  believed 
that  frankness  is  a  [38]  better  preface  to  such  friendship  than  the  nnsii- 
cism  of  blood. 

It  is  not  merely  that  much  of  the  mythology  has  been  squeezed  out  of 
the  parent-child  relation,  but  the  greater  independence  o\'  the  individual 
within  the  family  has  brought  with  it  the  necessity  o{  taking  some  elTorl 
to  establish  valuable  relations  instead  o^  taking  them  lor  granted  as  a 
priori  necessities.  Brothers  and  sisters  have  to  earn  each  other's  esteem. 
Temperamental  differences  disqualilN  ihc  close  o\'  km  for  long-enduring 
friendship  as  they  disqualify  complete  strangers  in  the  world  outside  the 
family.  That  the  younger  brother  fags  for  the  older  is  no  longer  felt  to 
be  a  law  of  nature,  nor  need  one  make  it  a  point  of  honor  to  distribute 
his  deferences  evenly  between  the  maternal  and  paternal  kinfolk. 
Grandparents  are  no  longer  semi-divine.  Kinship  is  a  glorious  opportu- 
nity for  the  meeting  of  minds  and  hearts.  In  itself  it  constitutes  neither 
an  obligation  nor  a  privilege. 


340  III  Culture 

Finally,  who  can  regret  that  woman  has  become  a  real  person,  not 
merely  the  imprisoned  symbol  of  an  institution?  That  there  are  as  many 
kinds  o'i  mothers  and  as  many  kinds  of  wives  as  there  are  kinds  of 
women  is  a  little  disconcerting  but  should  no  longer  shock  us.  It  used 
to  be  possible  to  say  to  a  woman,  "You  are  not  behaving  like  a  real 
mother"  or  "You  are  not  behaving  like  a  real  wife."  Nowadays  it  seems 
more  appropriate  to  find  other  terms  in  which  to  couch  the  sentiment 
back  of  the  antique  terminology.  It  would  be  wiser  to  say,  "I  am  afraid 
we  don't  agree  about  the  bringing  up  of  the  children"  or  "You  have 
every  blessed  right  in  the  world  to  behave  as  you  do,  but  I  want  to  tell 
you  frankly  that  I  don't  like  it  a  bit."  On  the  whole,  the  latter  method 
is  a  technical  improvement.  Normal  men  and  women  will  [39]  often  do 
as  individuals  what  they  are  not  so  keen  on  doing  as  "fathers,"  "moth- 
ers," "husbands"  or  "wives."  It  is  not  well  for  any  human  being  to  be 
identified  with  an  institution.  The  normal  woman  will  want  to  discover 
wifehood  and  motherhood  through  the  flesh  and  the  symbolisms  of  the 
flesh,  which  lead  to  the  deepest  sentiments  we  know  of,  rather  than  be 
reading  the  breviary  of  family  duty. 

Do  these  changes  in  the  constitution  of  the  family  and  in  the  psychol- 
ogy of  family  relationships  mean  nothing  more  than  a  negation  of  ev- 
erything that  is  significant  in  the  family,  or  are  they  but  a  killing  off  of 
useless  symbols  and  attitudes  in  order  that  the  ground  may  be  prepared 
for  a  new  family?  Is  it  too  much  to  hope  that  this  new  family  may  prove 
to  be  all  the  more  significant  because  little  is  expected  of  it  officially?  Is 
it  possible  that  the  weakness  of  the  present-day  family  in  America  lies 
not  so  much  in  certain  destructive  tendencies  as  in  our  persistent  at- 
tempt to  combine  a  verbal  loyalty  to  the  traditional  family  with  a  sneak- 
ing acceptance  of  its  loss  of  integrity?  Perhaps  the  American  family 
seems  insecure  not  because  the  father's  authority  is  little,  but  because 
we  still  secretly  believe  that  it  ought  to  be  great  but  that  he  is  too 
cowardly  to  act  out  his  wishful  tyranny;  not  because  the  love  of  a  hus- 
band and  wife  cannot  in  the  nature  of  things  be  a  sufficient  basis  for 
family  life,  but  because  our  inherited  sense  of  the  sinfulness  of  sex  has 
made  us  unwilling  to  believe  that  love  is  sufficient;  not  because  a 
woman's  career  outside  of  the  home  is  really  inimical  to  its  preservation, 
but  because  a  sense  of  daring  sin  still  lingers  about  her  choice  of  an 
mdependent  career.  The  inertia  of  social  sentiment  is  stronger  than  the 
inertia  of  social  form.  Long  after  the  family  has  changed  its  form  men 
and  women  still  [40]  continue  to  think  and  feel  that  its  older  implica- 
tions of  sentiment  are  still  extant,  or  that  if  they  are  not,  they  ought  to 


Four:  Rcjlccilon.s  on  Contcntporarv  g4| 

be.  I  think  one  may  contend,  with  no  sense  of  paradox,  thai  the  family 
is  likely  to  remain  as  important  a  psychological  factor  as  it  has  ever 
been,  that  we  are  mistaking  surgery  for  murder,  that  we  have  been 
thinking  too  much  about  institutional  and  therefore  secondary  aspects 
of  the  family  and  too  little  about  the  biological  and  psychological  foun- 
dations of  the  family  institution. 

It  is  possible  for  an  institution  to  become  so  top-heavy,  so  accreted 
with  secondary  features  as  to  cease  to  answer  to  the  very  determinants 
that  originally  brought  it  forth.  A  government  may  become  so  corrupt 
that  there  is  nothing  to  be  done  with  it  except  to  destroy  it.  The  relief 
which  follows  such  destruction,  however,  is  always  brief  and  illusory. 
One  always  builds  a  new  government,  hoping  that  it  may  be  better  than 
the  old.  Those  who  have  suffered  from  the  maladjusted  famiK  seek 
some  measure  of  relief  in  the  hope  or  fancy  of  its  decline.  It  is  an  illusory 
hope  and  a  vain  fancy.  The  continuance  of  the  family  does  not  depend 
on  the  continuance  of  its  old  solidarity,  nor  on  the  authority  o\'  the 
parents,  nor  on  keeping  woman  within  the  home.  Guaranteed  as  the 
family  is  by  certain  biological  and  psychological  necessities,  we  shall 
not  be  able  to  indulge  ourselves  in  the  luxury  of  seeing  it  \anish  before 
our  eyes  but  shall  have  to  submit  to  the  psychological  reinterpretation 
of  a  family  preserved  against  our  perverse  will.  The  family  is  not  being 
killed  off.  It  is  being  scraped  clean  of  irrelevances  and  fitted  to  become 
the  bearer  of  richer  meanings  than  it  has  ever  had. 

Sex  desire  alone  is  no  secure  basis  for  the  family.  Sex  acii\ii\  plus 
children  may  be  biologically  sufficient  to  gi\e  [41]  us  the  nucleus  of  a 
family,  but  our  modern  mentality  is  not  satisfied  w  ith  a  family  so  consti- 
tuted. A  sociology  which  treats  of  the  family  merely  in  terms  of  sc.x 
desire,  mating,  economic  security,  care  of  otTspring.  always  carefully 
avoiding  the  word  "love"  as  though  it  were  a  sentimental  bugaboo,  is 
not  a  realistic  sociology.  Such  a  sociology  is  stupid.  howe\er  accurate 
its  fragmentary  analysis,  for  it  is  of  the  very  essence  o\'  the  modern 
American  mind  that  it  is  gropingly  trying  lo  establish  the  only  kind  of 
a  family  that  it  still  believes  in,  namely  a  man  and  a  woman  who,  losing 
each  other,  do  not  wish  to  live  apart.  Whether  such  a  union  is  blessed 
by  offspring  or  not  is  immaterial.  Whether  or  not  it  has  been  sanctified 
by  civil  or  ecclesiastical  authority  is  immaterial.  This  intimate  compan- 
ionship, which  dare  never  be  confused  uiih  ilie  casual  exercise  of  sex, 
is  a  minimum  and  all-sufficient  definition  o\  the  fimiK.  I-Aeryihing  else 
is  incremental,  however  importantly  so.  Of  this  new  .American  lamii) 
we  are  barely  conscious,  for  its  image  is  clouded  by  memories  of  "sin" 


^42  tJJ  Culture 

and,  among  certain  sophisticates,  by  the  correlative  defiance  of  "sin" 
which  is  promiscuity.  The  ease,  not  say  the  waywardness,  with  which 
the  young  now  enter  upon  marriage  is  significant  because  it  shows,  first 
o\'  all,  that  the  growing  American  ethos  is  wilHng  to  base  the  family  on 
mutual  atTection  and  understanding,  unaided  and  unhampered  by  any 
other  consideration;  and,  secondly,  that  the  mere  satisfaction  of  the  sex 
impulse  is  not  enough  to  satisfy  the  deeper  erotic  craving  of  the  normal 
voung  man  and  young  woman.  This  purely  psychological  marriage,  as 
it  might  be  termed  in  contrast  with  the  older  marriage  institution,  is  too 
llimsy  a  thing  for  the  conservative  mind,  too  burdensome  a  thing  for 
the  mere  sex-monger.  It  is  the  cornerstone  of  the  new  family.  [42] 

Normally  a  married  couple  will  want  one  or  more  children.  Ineffec- 
tive as  the  family  has  often  proved  to  be,  we  are  not  likely  to  find  a 
more  satisfactory  matrix  for  the  rearing  of  the  young  than  the  family. 
Where  marriage  has  been  on  the  basis  of  love,  the  arrival  of  children, 
whether  consciously  desired  or  not,  is  not  so  much  a  new  biological 
sanction  for  the  continuance  of  the  family,  as  an  affirmation  of  the  old 
sanction.  In  the  older  family,  which  tended  to  put  an  undue  emphasis 
on  the  child  because  it  looked  upon  itself  as  a  holy  institution  rather 
than  as  a  psychological  necessity,  the  erotic  relationship  between  the 
husband  and  the  wife  not  infrequently  suffered  because  of  the  very  ar- 
rival of  the  child.  In  the  new  family  the  attention  on  the  child  is  oblique 
rather  than  direct,  and  this  is  excellent  both  for  the  mental  health  of 
the  child  itself  and  for  the  continuance  of  a  sound  relation  between  the 
husband  and  wife.  The  old  family  was  always  doing  things  "for  the 
children,"  even  to  the  extent  of  strangling  itself  in  unhappiness.  In  the 
new  family  the  child  is  the  symbol  of  a  true  marriage  and  a  charge  to 
be  carefully  nurtured  that  it  may  eventually  be  delivered  to  society.  The 
child  does  not  need  to  be  smothered  with  a  love  which  is  half  stolen 
from  husband  or  wife.  It  requires  an  undemanding  affection  which 
fiows  over,  as  it  were,  from  the  primary  love  which  built  the  family.  For 
this  healthy  and  necessary  atmosphere  of  unobtrusive  affection,  there 
is,  so  far  as  I  know,  no  institutional  substitute. 

The  truly  effective  family  has  more  than  one  child.  Whatever  may  be 
the  merits  of  the  practice  of  limiting  offspring  -  and  surely  certain 
superficial  merits  are  obvious  enough  -  it  would  seem  psychologically 
unsound  voluntarily  to  limit  the  number  of  children  to  one.  After  [43] 
the  years  of  infancy,  the  normal  relationship  between  human  beings 
should  be  a  relationship  between  age  mates.  In  a  healthy  community 
the  contact  between  the  older  and  the  younger  generation  has  always 


Foiif:  Ri-flc'i  [ions  on  C'oiiuniporary  ^3 

something  tangential  about  it.  I  lie  cliiUl  needs  other  children  wiih 
w  honi  he  can  learn  to  iron  mil  his  dirficiilties  and  share  the  alTcclion  of 
his  parents.  The  important  thing  about  the  brother-sister  relation  is  ihal 
it  trains  the  child  tor  social  participation  in  an  unobtrusive  manner. 
Where  the  relations  o\'  the  parents  are  sound  and  (\o  not  mterlere  \Mlh 
the  growth  o{  their  children,  a  group  o\'  brothers  and  sisters  will  uncon- 
sciously develop  an  understanding  o{  ctmiplex  alTectional  bonds  with 
tolerance  all  round  ot  indi\idual  dilTerences  of  taste  and  temperament. 
The  importance  of  this  as  an  image  of  later  adjustment  to  lite  is  incalcu- 
lable. It  is  a  commonplace  that  children  who  grow  up  without  brothers 
and  sisters  develop  certain  very  real  and  peculiar  problems  of  behavior. 

The  psychological  family  is  important  not  only  for  the  maturing  of 
the  erotic  relationship  of  the  parents,  it  is  important  also  as  the  back- 
ground image  for  the  development  of  the  child's  own  future  love  life.  If 
one's  own  erotic  life  is  to  be  sound,  it  would  seem  that  a  background 
of  parental  happiness  is  essential.  We  are  only  beginning  to  understand 
the  importance  of  the  family  as  a  sort  of  nursery  o^  images  which  are 
later  to  come  to  potent  fruition  in  the  lives  of  the  children.  .Surel>  it 
is  not  the  family  as  such  which  forms  an  unfortunate  matrix  for  the 
development  of  the  child.  It  is  the  frankl\  unhapp\  famils.  whose  poi- 
son he  carries  with  him  through  lite;  or,  e\en  worse,  the  onl\  superfi- 
cially contented  family,  which  masks  intricate  maladjustments  that  do 
not  escape  the  intuitions  of  the  child  for  a  minute.  (44] 

To  conclude,  we  are  not  confronted  with  the  threatened  dissolution 
of  the  family,  we  are  promised  a  clearing  away  o\  institutional  clogs  of 
all  sorts  which  do  not  correspond  to  modern  mentalit>  and  o'i  in- 
dulgences in  sentiments  which  we  are  beginning  to  see  are  harmful. 
All  this  does  not  mean  chaos,  rather  the  emergence  o\  clearly  defined 
psychological  patterns  which  have  intimate  relevance  for  the  life  ol  the 
individual  at  the  expense  of  superimposed  institutional  patterns  which 
take  little  or  no  account  of  individual  psycholog>.  We  ma\  sa\  that  the 
family  is  needed  for  the  following  primar>  purposes:  First,  to  give  the 
sex  relation  its  greatest  emotional  \alue;  seccMid.  to  rear  children  m  an 
atmosphere  of  intelligent  alTection;  third,  to  prepare  the  mdi\idual  for 
the  give  and  take  of  society;  and  fourth,  to  prepare  ilu-  .  Inld  n\\^\m- 
sciously  for  satisfactory  mating  in  the  future. 

The  current  dismay  at  the  apparent  weakening  o\  the  lamily  is  no 
more  justified  than  the  dismay  of  men  when  they  discovered  with  Dar- 
win that  they  were  descended  from  lower  forms  o\  life.  I  or  a  lime  il 
looked  as  though  they  had  ceased  to  ha\e  the  right  to  feel  human,  for 


844  III  C'ltliiirc 

they  learned  that  they  were  not  only  human  but  animal  as  well.  In  this 
wider  kinship  we  have  since  learned  to  feel  a  nobler  pride  than  in  the 
old  biological  snobbery  o(  isolation.  The  old  family  institution,  walled 
about  by  a  make-believe  psychology  of  status,  ignored  the  elementary 
truth  that  the  individuals  within  the  family  were  essentially  the  same 
people  as  the  self-same  individuals  outside  the  family.  A  belated  re- 
cognition o(  this  truth  creates  some  dizziness,  but  when  the  gasps  have 
subsided  and  the  eye  is  opened  again,  the  family  will  be  seen  to  be  still 
there,  a  little  cleaner,  a  little  more  truthful,  a  Httle  happier. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  The  Family:  Proceedings  of  the  One-Day  Con- 
ference hcldin  Winnetka,  at  the  Skokie  School,  October  28,  1929,  31-44. 
This  article  was  reprinted,  with  minor  changes,  in  The  American  Mer- 
cury 19,  145-151  (1930). 


Review  o\^  Fran/  Boas, 
Authropoloiiy  anil  Moilcrn  Life 

Franz  Boas,  Anf/iropo/oi^y  (ind  Moilcrn  Life.  New  York;  \\  W.  Norlon 
and  Company,  1928. 

In  spite  of  Dr.  Boas'  undisputed  eminence  in  e\er\  phase  of  anthro- 
pological inquiry,  it  is  difricull  to  point  to  any  general  work  o\'  his  (usn 
writing  which  aptly  summarizes  the  methodology  o\'  his  science.  Nor  is 
it  easy  to  gain  a  clear  view  of  his  philosophy  o\'  culture.  Students  of 
anthropology  have  had  to  be  satisfied  with  short  but  pregnant  papers 
on  a  variety  of  theoretical  topics  and.  more  important  still,  with  the 
implications  of  his  technical  volumes.  Perhaps  only  such  a  mind  as 
Boas'  could  pack  away  so  much  honey  of  wisdom  in  the  crevices  of  a 
forbidding  landscape  as  may  be  found  in  the  paper  uhich  bears  the 
unconsciously  whimsical  title  of  "A  Study  of  Alaskan  Needlecases."  and 
which  is  more  for  the  hard-thinking  theorist  than  for  the  appraiser  o\' 
Eskimo  knick-knacks. 

It  is  clear  that  Dr.  Boas'  unconscious  long  ago  decreed  that  scienlit'ic 
cathedrals  are  only  for  the  future,  that  for  the  time  being  spires  sur- 
mounted by  the  definitive  cross  are  unseemly,  if  not  indeed  sinful,  thai 
only  cornerstones,  unfinished  walls,  or  even  an  occasional  isol.iied  por- 
tal are  strictly  in  the  service  of  the  Lord.  It  is  as  though  his  unseen 
structure  were  compacted  of  such  intense  feeling  that  it  needed,  for  Dr. 
Boas  himself,  but  little  formal  exteriorizing.  oiil>  so  much  as  a  massive 
accumulation  of  data  on  this  or  that  point  nnght  force  him  to.  Those 
who  find  Boas'  thinking  not  to  their  taste  are  likely  to  call  it  inconse- 
quential because  incomplete  in  expression,  while  those  \sho  know  him 
best  feel  it  to  be  both  rigorcuis  and  cmotuMially  \ilal.  >et  pre\ented  by 
a  certain  fierce  delicacy  Worn  c\cr  declaring  more  than  it  manifestly 
must. 

Boas  is  not  the  man  to  articulate  implications,  and  there  is  no  use 
expecting  him  to.  Only  such  readers  as  do  actualK  e\|X'ci  the  impossible 
of  him  have  a  right  to  be  disappointed  in  Anihropoloiiv  unJ  Modern 
Life.  These  may  find  much  in  it  too  rcmi>te  or  t.mgenlial  or  marginal 
or  academic  -  let  them  use  \shat  adjective  they  will       to  fructif>  iheir 


846  ^^^  Culture 

sense  of  life.  There  would  be  no  quarreling  with  their  judgment  except 
to  demand  of  them  that  they  meet  Boas  at  least  half  way,  probably 
more,  with  what  they  have  themselves  gathered  of  life  and  its  meaning. 
But  this,  again,  is  an  unreasonable  demand  in  an  age  that  prizes  lazy 
comfort  in  thought  and  that  prizes  rigor  only  in  dehumanized  action. 

It  is  a  great  pity  that  Boas  cannot  give  himself  more  passionately  and 
more  completely,  for  he  has  much  to  give.  A  hint  of  the  deeper  meanings 
o(  Boas'  cultural  philosophy  is  given  in  his  chapter  on  eugenics,  which 
is  healthily  impatient  of  the  tinkling  heavens  which  our  fashionable  ro- 
mantic biologists  are  roughing  out  for  us.  Unfortunately  Boas  is  too 
little  accustomed  to  integrate  his  feelings  with  his  intellectual  doctrines, 
so  that  his  dislike  of  mere  comfort  will  seem  hardly  more  than  petulant 
and  sentimental  to  our  nimble  Utopians,  who  have  spent  far  more  of 
their  lives  than  Dr.  Boas  in  proving  black  white.  It  should,  of  course, 
have  been  the  other  way  round. 

Dr.  Boas'  book  brings  home  the  fact  that  anthropology  is  in  a  some- 
what dangerous  position  at  present.  It  has  become  a  popular  science, 
which  does  not  necessarily  mean  that  a  deeper  understanding  of  the 
relativity  of  human  values  will  be  acquired  by  its  camp  followers,  rather 
that  its  data  and  its  varying  interpretations  will  be  chosen  ad  libitum 
to  justify  every  whim  and  every  form  of  spiritual  sloth.  Anthropology 
and  Modern  Life  is  a  brave  warning  against  [279]  such  misuse  of  the 
comparative  study  of  culture,  but  the  warning  is  vain.  Already  a  genera- 
tion of  "applied  anthropologists"  has  begun.  What  we  have  been  wait- 
ing for  is  already  on  sale.  It  is  brilliant  now  and  then,  like  Malinowski's 
Sex  and  Repression  in  Savage  Society;  more  often  it  will  be  cheap  and 
dull  like  Margaret  Mead's   Coming  of  Age  in  Samoa. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in    The  New  Republic  57,  278-279  (1929). 

Franz  Boas  (1858-1942)  was  a  pioneer  in  the  professionalization  of 
anthropological  studies  and  founder  of  the  American  school  of  anthro- 
pology. He  established  rigorous  standards  of  methodology  in  physical 
anthropology,  archeology,  linguistics,  and  cultural  analysis,  emphasiz- 
mg  cultural  relativism,  and  influencing  several  generations  of  anthro- 
pologists, including  Edward  Sapir,  one  of  his  students  at  Columbia  Uni- 
versity, where  Boas  served  as  the  first  chairman  and  professor  of 
anthropology  from  1899  to  1936, 


Review  of  Bertrand  Russell, 
Sceptical  Essays 

Bertrand  Russell,  Sceptical  Essays.  New  York:  W.  W.  Norton  and 
Company,  1928. 

These  seventeen  essays  once  again  give  evidence  o'(  Mr.  Russell's  inci- 
sive mind,  freedom  of  outlook,  and  splendid  lucidity  of  style.  Their 
content  is  just  about  what  we  might  expect  from  an  acquaintance  with 
the  previous  writings  of  that  part  of  the  philosopher  which  is  a  publicist. 
Only  one  of  the  essays,  an  excellent  survey  of  philosoph\  in  the  twenti- 
eth century,  is  in  any  sense  technical,  and  that  is  onl>  mildly  so.  The 
rest  of  them  discourse  clearly,  sometimes  entertainingly,  always  simpl>. 
on  such  topics  as  the  temper  of  science,  rationalism,  the  machine  age. 
values,  ideals  of  happiness,  freedom  of  thought,  the  stupidities  of  poli- 
tics, the  probabilities  on  the  cultural  horizon  o'i  tomorrow. 

In  short,  we  have  a  logician  and  a  mathematical  philosopher  o{  the 
highest  rank  turning  his  restless  mind  to  the  maddening  human  scene 
to  which  he  too  must  somehow  reconcile  himself.  Again  and  again  Mr. 
Russell  takes  a  deep  breath,  that  he  may  for  the  moment  hold  back  the 
weariness  and  disillusionment  which  somehow  manage  none  the  less  lo 
seep  through  the  words  of  his  message.  Again  and  again  he  advances, 
innocently  but  firmly,  to  his  fellow  man  and  stares  him  gentl>  out  of 
countenance  while  he  analyzes  out  for  him  the  elementary  concepts 
which  -  so  he  says  -  are  packed  into  and  distorted  in  the  shibboleths 
on  which  man  feeds.  And  again  and  again  Mr.  Russell  assures  his  lis- 
tener, with  such  hopefulness  as  he  can  still  nuister.  that  all  may  ycl  turn 
out  for  the  best,  provided  - 

Here  is  a  sample  o'i  Mr.  Russell's  "provided":  "Thcic  aic  luv  Minplc 
principles  which,  if  they  were  adopted,  would  sol\e  almost  ail  siKial 
problems.  The  first  is  that  education  should  ha\e  for  one  of  its  aims  to 
teach  people  only  to  believe  propositions  when  there  is  some  reason  to 
think  that  they  are  true.  The  second  is  that  jobs  should  be  gnen  solely 
for  fitness  to  do  the  work."  Behind  the  sweet  reasonableness  o^  the 
proposal  to  adopt  two  such  "simple  principles  "  as  these  lurks  something 


g48  ///  Culture 

which  one  distrusts  a  Httle.  To  be  frank,  the  patience  of  Mr.  Russell 
seems  a  little  taut,  a  little  dangerous. 

Wc  lay  down  the  book  with  wonder  that  we  are  not  more  deeply 
stirred  by  its  sincerity  and  by  its  spirit  of  fair  play.  This  deplorable 
world  in  which  Mr.  Russell  is  so  able  to  spot  weaknesses  which  he  is  so 
willing  to  help  remedy  is  surely  the  same  old  world  that  we  knew  all 
along  w  as  far  from  perfect,  but  which,  being  the  field  of  our  loves  and 
hatreds,  we  had  decided  to  continue  to  live  in.  Yet  it  is  hard  to  make 
up  one's  mind  to  continue  to  live  in  the  world  of  these  Skeptical  Essays. 
Even  after  it  has  been  revised  by  the  application  of  two  simple  prin- 
ciples, it  remains  too  simply  unreal.  We  have  the  premonition  that  in 
this  world  no  propositions  are  going  to  be  proved  to  be  true  anyway, 
and  as  for  jobs  being  distributed  to  the  fit,  we  have  a  sinking  feeling  at 
the  heart  that  we,  at  least,  will  have  to  remain  jobless. 

On  second  thoughts  we  wonder  if  the  two  worlds  that  we  had  iden- 
tified are  even  potentially  the  same,  and  whether,  after  all,  Mr.  Russell 
hasn't  really  been  asking  us  to  trek  to  a  nicer  world  than  any  we  know 
-  a  world  in  which  concepts  stay  put  and  in  which,  for  our  daily  bread, 
we  build  unassailable  propositions  out  of  them.  The  incidental  leisure 
which  such  a  world  gives  in  abundance  could  be  used  for  doing  what 
we  jolly  well  pleased.  We  could  produce  art,  which  Mr.  Russell  thinks 
to  be  a  form  of  love,  we  could  have  two  husbands,  or  two  wives,  we 
could  do  or  have  anything,  in  fact,  which  the  slightly  jaded  intellectual 
faculty,  craving  a  release  of  tension,  might  ask  of  a  high  Polynesia  that 
is  built  on  the  unshakeable  coral  reef  of  Science. 

We  begin  to  resent,  in  other  words,  that  subtle  dissociation  which  the 
pure  intellectualist  is  always  effecting  between  life  and  his  dream  of  life. 
The  aloofness  of  which  such  an  intelHgence  as  Bertrand  Russell's  is 
sometimes  accused  is  by  no  means  the  aloofness  of  noble  indifference, 
which  can  always  be  forgiven  as  a  form  of  naivete,  nor  is  it  the  aloofness 
of  a  truly  dispassionate  analysis,  which  can  smart  without  rankling.  We 
do  not  see  the  eyes  of  Mr.  Russell  fixed  in  loving  abstraction  on  the 
stars,  nor  fixed  on  ourselves  with  a  "savage  indignation."  We  see  them 
fixed,  rather,  in  a  not  wholly  serious  bemusement  on  a  static  world  of 
mirror  images.  In  his  Time  and  Western  Man,  a  huge  and  admirable 
pamphlet,  Mr.  Wyndham  Lewis  finds  Mr.  Russell's  mind  absorbingly 
mteresting  but  fundamentally  lacking  in  seriousness.  He  finds  Mr.  Rus- 
sell's philosophy  to  be  essentially  a  craving  for  "amusement."  It  is  likely 
that  Mr.  Lewis,  one  of  the  most  deadly  and  intuitive  intelHgences  of  our 
day,  has  hit  clean  to  the  mark.  Though  Mr.  Russell  speaks  often  of  the 


Four:  Reflections  on  Conlcmporury  g49 

importance  o\^  love  and  ail  aiul  the  "tlner  ilnngs"  o\  lite,  these  have 
with  him  nearly  always  an  air  o['  nol  being  truly  lite  itself,  but  rather,  a 
splendid  toying  around  in  those  moments  of  relaxation  that  make  life's 
(or  philosophy's  or  justice's)  rigors  livable.  He  seems  mu  sulllciently  to 
love  what  he  hates  to  make  his  hatred  saluiar\.  His  charity  is  too  cosmic 
to  touch  us,  too  remote  to  discos er  lor  us  the  \irtues  of  our  defects. 
And  so  his  skeptical  thoughts  glance  by  us  like  meteors  that  bring  but 
cold  and  momentary  illusions. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  The  AVu  Republic  57,  1^)6  (1^)2^^).  under  the 
title  "The  Skepticism  of  Bertrand  Russell." 

Bertrand  Russell  (1872-1970),  English  mathematician  and  philo- 
sopher, was  known  especially  for  his  work  in  mathematical  logic;  he 
received  the  Nobel  Prize  for  Literature  in  1950. 


Two  Philosophers  on  What  Matters 

F.  C.  S.  Schiller,  Tantalus,  or  the  Future  of  Man.  New  York:  E.  P. 
Dutton  and  Company,  1924.  66  pp. 

Bertrand  Russell,  How  to  he  Free  and  Happy.  New  York:  The  Rand 
School  of  Social  Science,  1924.  46  pp. 

Here  are  two  pamphlets  that  are  actuated  by  diametrically  opposed 
spirits.  The  English  pragmatist  is  all  nerves,  the  mathematical  philo- 
sopher speaks  with  the  cheerful  serenity  of  one  who  has  learned  the 
catechism  of  despair.  Mr.  Schiller,  in  setting  out  on  his  adventurous 
Cook's  tour  into  the  future,  with  a  desperately  instrumental  philosophy 
for  godmother's  blessing  and  Tantalus  for  a  guide,  is  all  for  overhauling 
his  ropes  and  pulleys  that  he  may  negotiate  the  precipices  sadly  indexed 
in  his  Baedeker.  Mr.  Russell  is  too  busy  dandhng  the  baby  on  his  knee 
to  pay  much  attention  to  the  hubbub  of  departure;  all  Mr.  Schiller  will 
get  out  of  him  in  his  present  mood  is  an  absent-minded,  whimsical, 
nou.s  verrons.  Clearly  they  are  not  meant  to  be  congenial  traveling  com- 
panions. We  suspect  that  Mr.  Schiller  would  be  annoyed  by  his  fellow 
philosopher  long  after  he  had  ceased  to  be  amusing  to  Mr.  Russell. 
There  is  only  one  thing  that  unites  them,  and  that  is  that  neither  has 
the  heart  to  say  Apres  nous  le  deluge.  Both  really  care. 

Which  is  the  saner  man?  We  fear  that  there  is  no  telling,  that  this  is 
a  clear  case  of  de  gustihus.  Mr.  Schiller  speaks  in  the  unbroken  faith  of 
a  man  who  believes  that  life  is,  or  should  be,  a  rational  undertaking, 
that  we  know  what  is  good  for  us,  that  we  can  see  if  the  works  run 
smoothly,  if  we  but  knock  off  an  hour  or  two  to  peer  about  in  the 
engine  room,  and  that,  having  found  out  what,  if  anything,  is  wrong, 
we  can,  and  most  certainly  should,  set  about  putting  it  to  rights.  There 
is  nothing  strikingly  new  about  Mr.  Schiller's  diagnosis  of  the  parlous 
state  of  contemporary  civilization.  He  finds  that  the  fostering  sohcitude 
of  modern  humanitarianism  plus  the  declining  birth  rate  of  the  abler 
classes  has  reduced  the  conduct  of  affairs  to  a  drab  and  wearisome 
mcompetence.  Flabbiness  reigns  supreme  and  mediocrity  is  rampant.  If 
we  are  not  mighty  careful  to  do  something  about  it,  civilization  will 
soon  be  engulfed  in  an  ocean  of  feeble-mindedness. 


Four:  Rcpcclions  on  Conicnipornrv  85 1 

This  is  not  a  checrtiil  prospect.  parliciilarl\  as  it  docs  not  parcnlhcli- 
cally  occur  to  Mr.  Schiller  to  suggest  that  Asia  and  Africa  may  conceiva- 
bly help  us  out  in  the  proximate  rmure  hy  taking  ci\ili/alion  olT  our 
hands  for  a  few  centuries.  His  reiiied\  is  nothing  more  novel  than  eu- 
genics, but  he  goes  into  no  technical  details  on  the  art  o\  belling  the 
cat.  All  he  can  offer  is  the  assurance  that  "it  is  really  one  of  the  great 
advantages  of  eugenics  that  it  cannot  proceed  upon  an\  cui-and-dned 
scheme,  but  will  have  to  be  guided  by  the  results  o\'  e.xpernnenl  and 
discussed  by  an  intensely  interested  public."  A  page  or  two  farther  on. 
however,  he  is  less  disposed  to  leave  the  cure  of  our  ills  entirely  to 
eugenics.  "As  time  passes,"  he  says,  "and  sheer  destruction  ma>  over- 
take us  before  eugenics  have  made  much  difference,  it  would  be  highly 
desirable  if  some  means  could  be  found  to  accelerate  the  change  o\' 
heart  required."  Pills  and  injections  are  dismissed  as  unlikely  to  be  of 
substantial  assistance.  "On  the  other  hand  there  does  seem  to  be  a  sci- 
ence from  the  possible  progress  of  which  something  of  a  sensational 
kind  might  not  unreasonably  be  expected."  The  name  ol"  this  science  is 
Psychology.  It  has  not  been  up  to  much  so  tar  but  it  is  slated  for  great 
things.  In  fact,  "a  pragmatically  efficient  Psychology  might  actuall>  in- 
vert the  miracle  of  Circe,  and  really  transform  the  Yahoo  into  a  man." 
Which  reminds  us  that  we  have  been  traveling  in  Laputa. 

It  is  a  relief  to  turn  to  Mr.  Russell's  lecture,  simple  and  profound. 
Mr.  Russell  has  perhaps  the  most  rational  and  disciplined  intelligence 
in  the  English-speaking  world  today.  Small  wonder,  then,  that  he  sees 
the  vanity  of  a  rationalized  scheme  of  life  and  the  nullity  o\'  taking 
elaborate  thought  for  the  morrow.  What  is  wrong  with  civili/atuni  to- 
day is  not  a  high  or  low  birth  rate  but  a  fexcrish  concern  with  things 
that  do  not  matter,  with  the  complexities  and  irrelevances  of  external 
values.  Applied  science  has  mechanized  life  and  impoverished  the  spirit 
of  man.  There  is  only  one  way  to  regain  spiritual  health,  and  that  is  to 
shift  all  significant  values  to  the  realm  o\'  the  personalis  apprehended 
spirit,  pocketing  the  material  advantages  of  science  with  indilTerencc 
rather  than  with  gratitude.  Social  programs  avail  little  Wh.it  Mr  Rus- 
sell recommends,  in  the  homeliest  of  terms,  is  nothing  less  than  the 
rediscovery  of  the  individual  soul.  "If  you  have  a  human  being  that  sou 
love,  or  a  child,  if  you  have  any  one  thing  that  you  really  care  for.  life 
derives  its  meaning  from  thai  iliing.  aiui  >ou  can  build  up  a  \shi>lc 
world  of  people  whose  lives  matter."  A  platitude'  Hear  the  corollary: 
"But  if  you  start  with  the  nation  -  'Here  am  I;  I  am  .i  member  of  a 
nation;  I  want  my  nation  to  be  powerful'       then  you  are  destroying 


g52  ///  Culture 

the  individual.  You  become  oppressive,  because  whether  your  nation  is 
powerful  depends  upon  the  regimentation  of  people  and  you  set  to  work 
to  regulate  your  neighbor."  And  a  little  further  on  in  this  quest  of  free- 
dom and  happiness  Mr.  Russell  remarks,  "The  great  thing  is  to  feel  in 
yourself  that  the  soul,  your  own  thoughts,  your  own  understandings 
and  svmpathies,  that  is  the  thing  that  matters  and  that  the  external 
outward  decor  of  life  is  unimportant  so  long  as  you  have  enough  to 
keep  you  going  and  to  keep  you  alive.  It  is  because  we  are  so  immersed 
in  competitiveness  that  we  do  not  understand  this  simple  truth."  These 
appealing  and  "dangerous"  doctrines  were  once  crowned  by  a  crucifix- 
ion. Can  it  be  that  a  jaded  humanity  is  prepared  to  follow  the  disillu- 
sioned and  the  sceptics  in  a  renewed  search  for  Christ? 


Editorial  Note 

Previously  unpublished;  from  an  undated  typescript,  with  corrections 
in  Sapir's  hand,  in  the  possession  of  the  Sapir  family. 

Ferdinand  C.  C.  Schiller  (1864-1937),  an  English-American  philo- 
sopher, was  influenced  by  William  James. 


Review  of  M.  E.  DeWiii, 

Our  Oral  Word  as  Social  and  Economic  Facfor. 

London  and  Toronto,  J.  M.  Dent  and  Sons;  Ncu  York,  I:.  P.  Duilon 

and  Co.  329  pp.  $2.25. 

The  keynote  of  this  strange  and  personal  book  is  gi\en  in  one  ot"  the 
paragraphs  of  the  "Introductory'": 

"Personally  we  cannot  look  upon  the  oral  word  from  a  local  or  even 
a  one-nation  point  of  view.  It  is  far  too  much  a  part  of  our  international 
lives,  and  with  every  month  our  lives  are  less  local,  which  makes  the 
oral  word  mean  more  to  the  English-speaking  people  as  a  whole  and 
thereby  to  the  world  at  large.  They  are  those  who  are  interested  in  scKial 
and  economic  problems,  particularly  through  women's  clubs  and  the 
myriad  other  organisations,  who  will  soon  realise  that  a  dozen  'best* 
dialects  do  not  belong  to  any  national  programme  of  education.  We  no 
longer  educate  our  nomadic  millions  for  one  state,  shire  or  pro\  ince.  or 
for  one  section  of  a  land  or  even  for  one  land  alone.  Wh>.  then,  should 
we  give  them  in  the  oral  word  anything  which  does  not  sound  world- 
well?  We  are  in  a  new  era,  an  era  in  which  the  air  itself  connects  all 
villages  and  far-flung  communities  within  the  single  monicni  -^i"  'lu-  m- 
tered  word." 

Miss  De  Witt  is  not  always  easy  to  follow,  fhis  is  because  ot  ihc 
breathless  and  emotional  quality  of  her  thought  and  a  style  which  con- 
stantly borders  on  the  quaintly  pedantic.  She  is  a  well-known  student 
of  phonetics  and  of  correct  English  and  Irench  speech.  Her  technical 
competence  is  attested  by  the  "Old  World  euphonetigraphs"  which  ap- 
pear in  the  second  part  of  the  volume  in  plain  linglish.  phonetic 
transcriptions  of  samples  of  the  connected  speech  o\  some  ri!i\-ninc 
representatives  of  upper  class  England,  such  as  John  Cialsworths.  I.sq.. 
the  late  Sir  Edmund  Gosse,  C.  B.,  LL.  D.,  and  Dr.  Annie  Besanl.  Hicsc 
supplement  the  "New  World  euphonetigraphs"  alreads  published  in  the 
companion  volume.  'iuiphonEnglish  and  World  Standard  English  " 

Two  main  ideas  emerge.  The  first  is  the  paramount  impi^rlance  and 
indefinite  continuance  o\'  Aniilo-Anierican  power,  uhich  must  not  be 


j^54  ii^  Culture 

muddied  by  any  blendings  of  other  races  with  the  Anglo-American  race. 
This  great  power  and  race  is  mystically  united  by  the  sea  with  "its  long, 
slender,  tendril  fmgers'*  which  ''twine  their  way  in,  out,  round-and- 
aboui."  The  Athmtic,  as  is  shown  in  a  design  of  her  own  drawing,  is 
really  a  ri\er  spanned  by  a  bridge. 

The  second  idea  is  the  necessity  of  perfecting  and  conserving  for  this 
great  ethnic  unity  a  noble  form  of  speech,  which  is  correct  and  uniform 
in  pronunciation,  possesses  a  natural  beauty,  and  is  to  be  made  still 
more  beautiful  with  the  help  of  "tonetics  for  the  world-good  speech 
melody  of  a  given  language;  and  voice  training,  the  spiritual  blender  of 
the  other  two  [elements,  i.  e.  euphonetics  and  tonetics],  which  gives  the 
tone  quality,  production  and  control."  Miss  De  Witt  does  not  approve 
of  the  "Western  or  General"  form  of  American  pronunciation,  which 
she  dubs  "the  School  of  the  Curly  Tongue,"  but  prefers  a  common 
ground  of  cultivated  English  speech  based  on  British  and  eastern  Amer- 
ican models. 

Anglo-American  power,  the  sea,  a  particular  norm  of  English  pro- 
nunciation, and  beauty  of  vocal  utterance  are  inextricably  blended  in 
Miss  De  Witt's  planetary  dream.  Tangentially  she  touches  the  fascinat- 
ing and  intricate  problem  of  the  social  and  political  significance,  in  a 
symbolic  sense,  of  differences  of  pronunciation  within  a  given  language. 
Is  there  a  true  will,  in  the  unconscious,  for  such  phonetic  unity  of  speech 
as  she  advocates?  Is  not  the  resistance  to  such  unity  a  far  profounder 
sociological  and  psychological  fact  than  most  of  us  are  willing  to  be- 
lieve? she  neither  explicitly  raises  nor  answers  this  question  but  merely 
wishes  it  away.  But  her  book  at  least  suggests  its  interest  and  stubborn 
importance. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published,  in  abbreviated  form,  in  the  American  Journal  of 
Sociology  34:926-927  (1929).  Reprinted  by  permission  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Chicago  Press  and  the  estate  of  Edward  Sapir. 


Review  of  James  Truslow  Adams, 
Our  Business  CivilizdH'on 

James  Truslow  Adams,  Our  Bu.slnc.s.s  Civilizuiion:  Some  Aspects  of 
American  Culture.  New  York:  Albert  and  Charles  Boni,  1929. 

This  excellent  book  should  have  a  salutary  eflcct  in  shocking  the 
American  public  into  a  more  painful  awareness  o\^  the  shortcomings  of 
our  contemporary  life  than  is  ordinarily  managed  by  books  o(  its  type. 
The  criticism  offered  by  so  original  a  book  as  Our  America,  by  Waldo 
Frank,  for  example,  is  too  easily  met  by  counter-charges  o'i  uindiness, 
irrelevant  estheticism  and  an  all-round  exoticism  of  spirit  that  was  ne\cr 
intended  by  God  or  nature  to  find  a  mystically  satisfying  domicile  in 
these  poor  States.  Much  of  the  annoyance  that  colors  the  pages  of  such 
writings  proceeds  from  perfectly  real  sources  of  discomfort,  but  the 
typical  American,  be  he  merchant  or  professor,  will  not  listen,  because 
the  annoyance  which  is  expressed  does  not  harmoni/e  with  his  own 
humbler  exasperation.  The  indices  which  are  gi\en  o\'  our  lack  o\'  true 
culture  tend  to  be  too  remote  from  normal  experience  to  seem  to  mailer. 
But  in  Mr.  Adams's  book  the  indices  o\^  our  bus\  barbarism  are  pre- 
sented in  all  their  homely  actuality  and,  while  the  inspnaiion  o^  some 
of  the  chapters  is  the  somewhat  conventionalh  aristocratic  outlook  of 
the  New  England  Brahmans,  the  total  indictment  is  telling  because  the 
details  of  conduct  that  lead  up  to  the  charge  have  been  well  obscr\cd. 
They  ring  dreadfully  true.  The  laughter  of  amused  recitgniiion  dies  away 
quickly. 

It  is  true,  for  example,  that  we  are  a  lawless  people.  Much  o\  vuir 
lives  is  an  uneasy  vacillation  between  "watching  our  step'"  and  "gclimg 
away  with  it.''  One  watches  one's  step,  not  because  o\  a  deep-sealed 
respect  for  the  rights  o^  others,  not  because  a  success  conditioned  b> 
the  discomfiture  of  others  is  spiritually  humiliating,  but  quite  frankly 
because  it  does  not  pay  to  be  on  had  terms  with  one's  neighbors.  Bui 
once  one  has  "got  away  with  it."  the  retios|x*ctive  possible  virtue  oi 
having  "watched  one's  step"  disappears  like  a  spell  o\  hard  work  slaxcxi 
off  by  an  unexpected  vacation.  We  live.  then,  in  an  ethical  for\sard 


856  JJJ  Culture 

and  backward  m  which  hypothetical  virtues  are  dissolved  by  merely 
problematical  vices.  The  old  "Handsome  is  that  handsome  [427]  does" 
has  lost  its  Puritan  stitTness  and  taken  on  the  much  more  obliging  tex- 
ture of  a  "Handsome  is  that  does  handsome." 

There  is  no  doubt  about  Mr.  Adams's  facts,  but  one  wonders  whether 
ihc  explanation  that  he  offers  is  quite  adequate.  No  doubt  the  shibbo- 
leth o\'  overt  success  at  whatever  cost  comes  to  some  extent  from  the 
necessities  o^  a  pioneer  life  that  brooked  no  fumbling  and  no  control 
from  a  distance.  But  is  it  too  far-fetched  to  see  in  our  tolerance  of  the 
lesser  ill  of  law-breaking  and  our  complementary  insistence  on  the  sheer 
goodness  of  "making  good"  a  kind  of  made-over  avoidance  of  sin,  the 
pure  thoughts  and  manifest  righteousness  of  man  in  the  eyes  of  God 
having  imperceptibly  become  secularized  into  those  meritorious  ambi- 
tions and  smashing  successes  which  make  every  individual,  however 
obscure  his  pedigree  or  his  intentions  and  however  undistinguished  his 
mental  or  moral  baggage,  a  possible  darling  of  the  people?  For  there 
does  seem  to  be  an  austere  religiosity  about  the  contemporary  cult  of 
reckless  success  which  justifies  a  suspicion  that  it  is  both  historically 
and  psychologically  connected  with  the  zealous  avoidance  of  sin  which 
animated  an  earlier  generation.  It  is  excusable  to  come  a  Httle  late  be- 
cause of  the  crowded  streets,  but  it  seems  to  be  far  more  inspiring  just 
to  "make  it  on  time"  if  one  has  not  actually  killed  the  pedestrian  who 
all  but  got  in  the  way  of  one's  triumphant  car.  Where  it  is  sinful  to 
succeed  below  the  acme  of  possible  success  a  little  absent-minded  law- 
breaking  can  do  no  harm. 

Mr.  Adams  very  rightly  stresses  our  infatuation  with  "doing"  versus 
"being."  Even  when  there  is  nothing  visible  to  be  done  one  can  at  least 
"step  lively"  and  thus  make  a  clearance  for  those  more  fortunate  ones 
who  have  something  rapid  on  hand  as  well  as  hasten  one's  own  chances 
of  arriving  at  some  place  or  other  where  something  clamors  to  be  done. 
It  is  doubtful  if  one  can  any  longer  be  properly  said  to  "be"  in  America; 
the  state  nearest  to  quiescence  seems  to  be  "to  have  got  that  way," 
which  offers  but  a  precarious  equilibrium  at  best.  The  philosophy  of 
doing  is  exceedingly  far-reaching  in  its  effect  on  personal  relations  in 
America,  the  itch  for  jumping  off  to  a  point  of  vantage  threatening  at 
any  moment  to  shatter  even  the  most  peaceful  and  unassuming  of  hu- 
man constellations.  It  is  precisely  doing  as  contrasted  with  being  that 
makes  an  easy-going  familiarity  our  daily  business  and  friendship  so 
unattainable.  What  passes  for  friendship  is  generally  a  chronic  [428] 
exercise  of  the  art  of  mutual  "boosting." 


Faur:  Reflections  im  Conlcmporary  857 

One  of  ihc  niosl  telling  chapters  in  Mr.  Adams's  book  is  ihal  on  "The 
Mucker  Pose."  He  has  here  put  his  finger  on  one  of  our  profoundcsl 
symbols  of  anonymity.  To  be  a  "regular  fellow,"  to  pretend  lo  a  "lower 
brow"  than  comports  with  the  actual  size  of  one's  head,  to  scatter  care- 
ful shoddy  over  one's  speech  -  all  this  is  not  important  because  it 
expresses  the  individual,  it  is  impiMiani  because  it  does  noi  express  him. 
The  ideal  implicit  in  Mr.  Adams's  "mucker  pose"  is  really  the  "poker 
face."  the  sphinx  whose  inscrutability  has  been  relaxed  into  a  self-im- 
posed stupidity.  At  the  heart  o\^  this  sphinx  there  is  no  mysier>.  merely 
the  fear  of  being  caught  in  the  sinfulness  of  failure,  the  cunning  is  fear's 
press-agent,  counseling  silence  and  watchful  waiting,  masked,  if  the 
poker  face  must  talk,  by  a  barrage  o\'  earnest  \ulgarit>.  It  is  not  so 
much  the  decay  of  good  speech  and  good  manners  that  Mr.  Adams  has 
to  mourn  as  their  gradual  dissociation  from  the  inner  core  o(  personal- 
ity, which  seeks  safety  from  the  glare  o\^  the  public  e\e  by  blaring  forth 
inanities  meant  to  disarm. 

Our  Business  Civilization  is  chiefly  \aluable  because  it  is  an  honest 
burst  of  anger  with  the  steadily  mounting  shoddiness  o(  .American  life. 
The  realization  of  this  comes  particularly  hard  to  one  who  has  so  com- 
pletely identified  himself  with  the  none  too  easily  won  culture  of  old 
New  England.  Hesitatingly  he  looks  to  old  England  but  something  tells 
him  there  is  no  solution  there.  Were  Mr.  Adams  as  ruthless  a  ps\choIo- 
gist  as  he  is  a  historian  of  manners,  were  he  less  interested  in  the  reten- 
tion of  graces  and  values  that  no  longer  belong  to  .America,  he  would 
be  looking  not  to  the  lost  past  but  to  the  darkly  emerging  future. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in    Current  History  M,  42b    A2S  {\')M)). 
James  Truslow  Adams  (1878-  1949)  was  an  American  historian  and 
writer;  he  received  the  Pulitzer  Prize. 


Review  of  Thurman  W.  Arnold, 
The  Folklore  of  Capitalism 

Thurman  W.  Arnold,  The  Folklore  of  Capitalism.  New  Haven:  Yale 
University  Press,  1937. 

The  Folklore  of  Capitalism  richly  deserves  its  success.  Anyone  who 
has  been  as  fed  up  with  the  indirections  and  stalemates  of  contemporary 
legal  and  economic  thinking  as  any  probable  reader  of  his  book  must 
be  cannot  but  be  grateful  to  Mr.  Arnold  for  this  joyous  carnage  of 
cliches.  Whatever  afterthoughts  may  qualify  his  first,  spontaneous  ap- 
proval, he  will  not  begrudge  the  author  sincerest  thanks  for  releasing 
him  -  partly  in  fact,  partly  in  fantasy  -  from  that  vast  verbal  oppres- 
sion that  Dickens  in  his  day  had  some  preliminary  knowledge  of  when 
he  pondered  the  circumlocution  office. 

The  book  runs  through  the  thick  of  recent  American  economic  his- 
tory, though  there  are  many  rapid  forays  into  other  times  and  places  - 
the  primitives,  the  middle  ages,  the  days  of  Adam  Smith.  In  similar 
fashion  the  book  runs  a  double  ideological  course.  There  is  discussion 
of  contemporary  American  maxims  or  principles  of  law  and  there  is 
constant  linkage  of  these  principles  with  general  problems  of  symbol- 
ism, with  untiring  emphasis  on  the  fictional  or  mythological  nature  of 
our  inherited  social  concepts  and  on  our  increasing  need  to  circumvent 
them  in  a  practical  world  which  is  no  longer  organized  in  the  terms  of 
their  original  implications.  This  nervous  back  and  forth  between  the 
glare  of  the  immediate  present  and  fitful  gleams  out  of  the  night  of 
history,  between  the  urgency  of  the  immediate  question  and  the  stub- 
bornness of  the  universal  question,  gives  Mr.  Arnold's  writing  its  pecu- 
liar quality  of  intelligent  haste.  Calmly  analytic  minds  may  be  more 
irritated  than  instructed  by  it  in  the  end,  but  those  of  us  who  have  at 
least  a  dash  of  the  intuitive,  who  are  not  fearful  of  strategic  overstate- 
ment, since  statement  and  overstatement  are  themselves  but  symbolic 
steps  in  the  passage  of  thought,  will  know  how  to  assimilate  it  without 
disturbance,  indeed  with  many  hygienic  chuckles. 

The  Folklore  of  Capitalism  should  not  be  dismissed  as  a  legal  sparrer's 
cynical  holiday.  We  find  its  core  of  philosophy  in  these  passages:  "There 


Four:  Reflections  on  Contvniporarv  859 

is  plenty  of  'realism'  in  this  coiinlrs  today,  but  ii  is  ihc  realism  ihal 
leads  to  cynicism.  In  other  words,  modern  realists  are  still  too  emotion- 
ally bound  by  the  mythology  that  the  facts  which  their  honesty  compels 
them  to  admit  only  make  them  sad  because  the  human  race  is  not  dif- 
ferent"  (page  390);  and,  "The  greatest  destroyer  o\  ideals  is  he  who 
believes  in  them  so  strongly  that  he  cannot  fit  them  to  practical  needs" 
(page  393).  Mr.  Arnold,  in  short,  trusts  Hfe  in  its  organizational  forms 
and  the  pressures  in  that  lite  more  than  formulations  about  it.  He  is  a 
"cynic"  not  in  the  sense  that  he  cheerfully  finds  men  derelict  to  high 
principle  but  that  he  tlnds  them  persisting  in  verbal  I(>\.ili\  td  c.uls 
turned  ghosts. 

Very  effective,  though  perhaps  overdone,  is  the  authors  armament 
of  "debunking"  words  and  phrases.  A  group  of  people  who  guard  an 
ideology  that  is  no  longer  relevant  to  human  needs,  say  the  more  con- 
servative justices  of  the  Supreme  Court  or  the  current  expositors  of 
economic  theory,  constitute  a  "priesthood."  The  windings  of  legal  pro- 
cedure are  a  "ritual."  Learned  treatises  of  interpretation,  particular!) 
when  such  interpretation  is  more  ingenious  than  obvious,  build  up  an 
honored  "literature."  The  conceptual  content  of  such  literature  and. 
indeed,  the  habitual  thinking  of  the  majority  of  people  about  the  nature 
and  conduct  of  government  and  business  are  "mythology,"  which  in  its 
more  remote  and  austere  reaches  is  presided  over  by  certain  "di\  inities.** 
Such  divinities,  say  [146]  democracy  or  the  American  constitution,  arc 
so  variably  interpretable  that  few  need  fear  sacrilege  in  approaching 
them  with  invocations.  The  sort  of  man  who  is  appealed  to  \^hen  a 
decision  has  to  be  made  as  to  what  literature  must  be  selected  in  order 
than  an  orthodox  mythology  may  be  kept  going  with  least  strain  to  its 
presiding  divinities  is  known  as  the  "thinking  man."  Natural!),  the 
abuses  of  language,  the  subtle  confusion  o\'  the  thing  lelerred  to  (the 
"referent")  with  the  means  at  hand  for  such  reference  (the  "symbol." 
ordinarily  a  word  or  series  of  words),  are  pointed  out.  In  this  much 
talked  about  area  (see,  e.  g.,  the  chapter  on  "The  Ntagic  o\  Words"  m 
Ogden  and  Richards'  Mcauiny,  of  Mcauuiii)  e\erybod)  can  lake  com- 
tbrt,  it  seems  to  us,  tmm  the  thought  that  even  the  nu>st  subtle  philo- 
sophers, mathematicians  and  logicians  ha\e  been  taken  in  at  limes  by 
the  pseudo-thingness  of  symbols.  Mr.  Arnold  is  particular!)  unfriendly 
to  "polar  words,"  those  right-wrong,  good-bad  symbols  \shich  paint  so 
lurid  and  inaccurate  a  reality.  Alas!  Are  not  all  generic  s\nibnk  ,i  l.,.i 
analysis,  incurably  polar  in  character? 


860  ///  Culnirc 

Speaking  o(  language,  we  may  turn  to  a  passage  (pages  146-47) 
which  seems  to  rest  on  the  quaintest  of  misunderstandings  of  what  Hn- 
guistics  is  all  about.  "Mencken's  book,  [  The  American  Language],''  says 
Mr.  Arnold,  "is  outstanding  because  he  is  not  interested  in  grammar  or 
the  correct  use  of  words.  History  of  the  development  of  language  is  told 
not  from  the  point  of  view  of  how  it  ought  to  be  spoken,  but  how  it  is 
spoken.  In  reading  this  book,  I  obtained  for  the  first  time  a  grasp  of 
language  as  a  living  force,  reflecting  the  moods  and  spiritual  struggles  of 
a  people  in  the  strange  new  words,  bad  and  good,  which  were  constantly 
Hooding  in.  Groups  which  experience  the  greatest  conflict  between  re- 
spectable attitudes  and  practical  needs  are  the  source  of  most  new 
words;  i.  e.,  the  nonrespectable  classes,  engaged  in  sub  rosa  but  very 
necessary  social  activities.  Seeking  a  way  to  describe  themselves,  since 
society  has  denied  them  a  position  of  dignity,  they  create  a  language  of 
subtle  satire  and  attack."  Quite  aside  from  Mr.  Arnold's  tribute  to  an 
admirable  book,  this  passage  harbors  a  number  of  very  serious  miscon- 
ceptions. Linguists  are  not  to  be  confused  with  grade  school,  high 
school,  college,  or  literary  preachers  about  "how  language  ought  to  be 
spoken."  What  Mr.  Arnold  dismisses  as  "grammar  or  the  correct  use  of 
words"  is  either  wishful  thinking  about  dignified  language  (e.  g.,  rules 
like:  "say  "I  shall  go"  but  "you  will  go")  or  a  calm  analysis  of  the 
relatively  stable  structural  features  of  a  language  at  a  given  time  and 
place  (e.  g.,  rules  like:  "The  man  does,"  not  "The  man  go,"  but  "The 
men  go,"  not  "The  men  goes";  or,  in  compounds  of  type  "railroad" 
stress  the  first  syllable,  not  the  second).  The  former  kind  is  of  little  or 
no  interest  to  the  linguist,  who  cares  far  less  about  the  "ought"  of  speech 
than  Mr.  Arnold  does.  The  latter  kind  is  of  great  interest  to  the  linguist, 
though  it  is  probably  too  dull  a  business  to  stir  Mr.  Arnold's  pulse.  The 
linguist  must  defend  his  sober  science  of  analysis  from  confusion  with 
the  advice  generally  given  by  pedagogues  and  nice  people  generally.  Mr. 
Arnold's  irritation  is  no  more  and  no  less  justifiable  than  if  he,  in  almost 
the  same  breath,  derided  chemistry,  first,  for  its  dullness  and  uselessness 
in  working  out  the  structural  analysis  of  water;  second,  for  its  high- 
toned  effrontery  in  trying  to  tell  us  that  we  ought  to  drink  water  rather 
than  Scotch;  and,  third,  wishes  to  goodness  that  chemistry  might  help 
us  to  understand  why,  in  the  long  run,  Scotch  is  sure  to  win  out.  To 
which  Mr.  Arnold  would  be  the  first  to  answer  that  chemistry  does  not 
properly  include  either  ethics  or  history.  The  hnguist's  modified  answer 
IS  that  linguistics  is  primarily  concerned  with  structural  analysis,  not  at 
all  with  ethics  as  such,  and  only  in  the  second  place  with  history.  Fur- 


Four:  Re  flee  I  ions  on  Contcmporurv  86 1 

ther,  Mr.  Arnold's  conception  oi'  whal  consliiuics  siumficanl  linguislic 
history  is  highly  selcctixc.  nol  Id  sa>  picaresque  and  romantic.  One 
would  have  thought  ii  all  but  obvious  that  the  most  fundamental 
changes  in  speech  are  nol  concerned  with  words  as  such  but  wiih  mmulc 
and  cumulative  [147]  changes  in  sound  patterns  and  in  the  lormal  pal- 
terns  of  words  and  sentences;  further,  that  any  important  cultural 
changes,  say  the  Renaissance  intluence  on  English  culture  in  the  six- 
teenth century  or  the  impact  of  Christianity  on  hundreds  o\  siKielics, 
bring  with  them  numerous  adaptations  o(  the  vocabulary.  But  we  must 
cheerfully  agree  with  Mr.  Arnold  if  all  that  he  is  really  doing  is  to  plead 
for  a  more  serious  study  of  language  as  sociological  factor  and  mde.x. 
That  is  a  large  order  and  not  in  the  least  adequately  taken  care  of  by 
epigrammatic  remarks  about  respectable  people  and  bad  words. 

The  title  of  Mr.  Arnold's  book  and  the  u  hole  tenor  o(  its  content  lead 
us  to  expect  an  unusual  degree  of  hard-boiledness  or  cool  realism.  Yet 
he  is  not  only  sometimes  romantic,  as  we  have  just  seen,  hut  also  meta- 
physical -  or  shall  we  say  folkloristic'.'  On  page  25,  for  instance,  he 
tentatively  describes  one  of  "the  elements  which  all  social  organizations 
share  in  common"  as  "A  creed  or  a  set  of  commonly  accepted  rituals, 
verbal  or  ceremonial,  which  has  the  effect  o\'  making  each  individual 
feel  an  integral  part  of  the  group  and  which  makes  the  group  appear  as 
a  single  unit.  This  is  a  unifying  force  and  is  as  mysterious  as  the  law  of 
gravitation."  In  other  words,  it  would  seem,  Mr.  Arnold  is  not  seriously 
interested  in  a  patient  research  into  the  psychologv  o\'  the  individual 
and  in  a  discovery  of  how  and  why  it  is  that  his  dail\  relations  with 
other  individuals  induce  him,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  to  feel  his  uay  with 
the  symbolic  instrumentality  of  such  menial  constructs  as  '*soc-iei>.*' 
"organization,"  and  ''culture."  Why  does  Mr.  Arnold's  insight  into  the 
manifold  abilities  of  men  to  kid  themselves  along  suddenly  desert  him 
at  this  point?  Can  one  not  admit  the  extreme  usefulness  o\'  the  "folk- 
lore" of  sociology  and  anthropology  without  being  entranced  b\  it  into 
a  sympathetic  stare  at  the  "mysteriousness"  o\'  the  law  o(  graviialion? 
If  Mr.  Arnold  were  a  true  mystic  instead  o\'  a  fragmentar>  one.  we 
would  have  no  criticism  to  olTer.  for  lo  a  mystic  one  thing  is  as  niNslen- 
ous  and  as  necessary  as  another. 

We  may  be  pardoned,  in  concluding  cnir  remarks  on    I  he  Folklore  of 
Capitalism,  if  we  suggest  that  its  chief  interest  lies  m  its  symptomatic 
character  for  an  understanding  of  a  widespread  intellectual  attitude  in 
contemporary  America.  This  attitude  is  pervaded  b\  an  almost  morbid 
tear  of  formal  analysis  of  any  kind.  Its  urge  is  the  manipulative  urge  of 


862  ftl  Culture 

organization,  engineering  efl'iciency  is  its  one  great  value.  An  underlying 
spirit  o^  fairness  or  decency  is  always  present,  not  as  following  on  prin- 
ciple hut  as  irrationally  bursting  through  in  the  moment  of  action.  This 
attiiudc  wills  •'realism'"  and  hence  protects  itself  with  a  skepticism  that 
is  anti-intellectualist  but  that  is  not  proof  against  all  manner  of  incur- 
sions from  unacknowledged  realms  of  wishful  thinking.  "Hard-boiled" 
is  the  ideal,  ''romantic'"  is  the  deed.  As  to  history,  it  is  not  felt  through 
as  a  vast  cosmos  o'i  human  experience  but  is  rather  intuited  as  a  debris 
that  rushes  through  the  narrows  of  the  present  into  an  immediately 
impending  fulfilment  of  desire. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  Psychiatry  1,  145-147  (1938).  Reprinted  by 
permission  of  Psychiatry. 

Thurman  W.  Arnold  (1891  —  1969)  was  an  American  lawyer  and  au- 
thor, a  member  of  the  U.  S.  Court  of  Appeals,  D.  C,  and  a  professor 
at  Yale  Law  School. 


APPENDIX 

American  Educalion  and  Culiurc 

John  Dewey 

The  New  Republic,  July  1.  \')\(^ 

One  can  foretell  the  derision  which  will  be  awakened  in  certain  quarters  by  a  state- 
ment that  the  central  theme  of  the  current  meeting  of  the  National  Educational  Associa- 
tion is  cultural  education.  What  has  culture  to  do  with  the  quotidian  tasks  of  millions 
of  harassed  pupils  and  teachers  preoccupied  with  the  routine  o\'  alphabetic  combma- 
tions  and  figuring?  What  bond  is  there  between  culture  and  barren  outlines  of  history 
and  literature?  So  far  the  scene  may  be  called  pathetic  rather  than  an  occasion  for  s;itirc. 
But  one  foresees  the  critics,  the  self-elected  saving  remnant,  passing  on  to  mdignant 
condemnation  of  the  voluntary  surrender  of  our  educational  system  to  utilitarian  ends, 
its  prostitution  to  the  demands  of  the  passing  moment  and  the  cry  for  the  practical.  Or 
possibly  the  selection  of  cultural  education  as  a  theme  of  discourse  will  be  welcome  as 
a  sign  of  belated  repentance,  while  superior  critics  sorrowinglv  wonder  whether  the 
return  to  the  good  old  paths  is  sought  out  too  late. 

To  those  who  are  in  closer  contact  with  the  opinions  which  hi>ld  conscious  sway  in 
the  minds  of  the  great  mass  of  teachers  and  educational  leaders  there  is  something 
humorous  in  the  assumption  that  they  are  given  over  to  worship  oi  the  vi'K:alu>nal  and 
industrial.  The  annual  pilgrimage  of  the  teachers  of  the  country  to  European  cathedral 
and  art  gallery  is  the  authentic  indication  o{  the  conscious  estimate  of  the  older  ideal 
of  culture.  Nothing  gets  a  hand  so  quickly  in  any  gathering  o'i  teachers  as  precisely  the 
sort  of  talk  in  which  the  critics  engage.  The  shibboleths  and  the  sentimentalities  are 
held  in  common  by  critic  and  the  workers  criticized.  "Culture  and  discipline"  serve  as 
emblems  of  a  superiority  hoped  for  or  attained,  and  as  catchwords  to  s,i\c  the  trouble 
of  personal  thought.  Behind  there  appears  a  sense  of  some  deficiency  in  our  self-con- 
scious devotion  to  retrospective  culture.  We  protest  too  much  Our  gestures  bcirav  the 
awkwardness  of  a  pose  maintained  laboriously  against  odds  In  contrast  there  is  ^XAiX 
in  the  spontaneous  uncouthness  o['  barbarians  w  hole-heartedly  abandoned  in  their  Kir- 
barism. 

While  the  critics  arc  all  wrong  about  the  Ci>nscious  altitude  and  intent  of  those  \*ho 
manage  our  educational  system,  they  are  right  about  the  powerful  educational  currents 
of  the  day.  These  cannot  be  called  cultural:  not  when  measured  b>  any  standard  dra\«i 
from  the  past.  For  these  standards  concern  the  past -what  has  been  said  and 
thought -while  what  is  alive  and  compelling  in  our  educatuMi  mo\es  toward  M^me  un- 
discovered future.  From  this  contrast  between  our  conscious  ideals  and  our  tendcncic* 
in  action  spring  our  confusion  and  our  blind  uncertainties.  We  think  we  think  one  thing 
while  our  deeds  require  us  to  give  attention  to  a  ratlically  dilTercnt  set  ft  "  us 

This  intellectual  constraint  is  the  real  fiK-  to  our  culture.  Ilie  beginning  •  .Id 


864  ^^^  Culture 

be  to  cease  plaintive  eulogies  of  past  culture,  eulogies  which  carry  only  a  few  yards 
before  they  are  drowned  in  the  noise  of  the  day,  and  essay  an  imaginative  insight  into 
the  possibilities  of  what  is  going  on  so  assuredly  although  so  blindly  and  crudely. 

The  disparity  between  actual  tendency  and  backward-looking  loyalty  carries  within 
Itself  the  whole  issue  of  cultural  education.  Measured  in  other  terms  than  that  of  some 
as  yet  unachieved  possibility  of  just  the  forces  from  which  sequestered  culture  shrinks  in 
horror,  the  cause  of  culture  is  doomed  so  far  as  public  education  is  concerned.  Indeed,  it 
hardly  exists  anywhere  outside  the  pages  of  Mr.  Paul  Elmer  More,  and  his  heirs  and 
assigns.  The  serious  question  is  whether  we  may  assist  the  vital  forces  into  new  forms 
of  thought  and  sensation.  It  would  be  cruel  were  it  not  so  impotent  to  assess  stumbHng 
educational  ctTorls  of  the  day  by  ideas  of  archaic  origin  when  the  need  is  for  an  ideal- 
ized interpretation  of  facts  which  will  reveal  mind  in  those  concerns  which  the  older 
culture  thought  of  as  purely  material,  and  perceive  human  and  moral  issues  in  what 
seem  to  be  the  purely  physical  forces  of  industry. 

The  beginning  of  a  culture  stripped  of  egoistic  illusions  is  the  perception  that  we 
have  as  yet  no  culture:  that  our  culture  is  something  to  achieve,  to  create.  This  percep- 
tion gives  the  national  assembly  of  teachers  representative  dignity.  Our  school  men  and 
women  are  seen  as  adventuring  for  that  which  is  not  but  which  may  be  brought  to  be. 
They  are  not  in  fact  engaged  in  protecting  a  secluded  culture  against  the  fierce  forays 
of  materialistic  and  utilitarian  America.  They  are,  so  far  as  they  are  not  rehearsing 
phrases  whose  meaning  is  forgot,  endeavoring  to  turn  these  very  forces  into  thought 
and  sentiment.  The  enterprise  is  of  heroic  dimensions.  To  set  up  as  protector  of  a 
shrinking  classicism  requires  only  the  accidents  of  a  learned  education,  the  possession 
of  leisure  and  a  reasonably  apt  memory  for  some  phrases,  and  a  facile  pen  for  others. 
To  transmute  a  society  built  on  an  industry  which  is  not  yet  humanized  into  a  society 
which  wields  its  knowledge  and  its  industrial  power  in  behalf  of  a  democratic  culture 
requires  the  courage  of  an  inspired  imagination. 

I  am  one  of  those  who  think  that  the  only  test  and  justification  of  any  form  of 
political  and  economic  society  is  its  contribution  to  art  and  science -to  what  may 
roundly  be  called  culture.  That  America  has  not  yet  so  justified  itself  is  too  obvious  for 
even  lament.  The  explanation  that  the  physical  conquest  of  a  continent  had  first  to  be 
completed  is  an  inversion.  To  settle  a  continent  is  to  put  it  in  order,  and  this  is  a  work 
which  comes  after,  not  before,  great  intelligence  and  great  art.  The  accomplishment  of 
the  justification  is  then  hugely  difficult.  For  it  means  nothing  less  than  the  discovery 
and  application  of  a  method  of  subduing  and  settling  nature  in  the  interests  of  a  democ- 
racy, that  is  to  say  of  masses  who  shall  form  a  community  of  directed  thought  and 
emotion  in  spite  of  being  the  masses.  That  this  has  not  yet  been  effected  goes  without 
saying.  It  has  never  even  been  attempted  before.  Hence  the  puny  irrelevancy  that  mea- 
sures our  striving  with  yard  sticks  handed  down  from  class  cultures  of  the  past. 

That  the  achievement  is  immensely  difficult  means  that  it  may  fail.  There  is  no  inevi- 
table predestined  success.  But  the  failure,  if  it  comes,  will  be  the  theme  of  tragedy  and 
not  of  complacent  lamentation  nor  wilful  satire.  For  while  success  is  not  predestined, 
there  are  forces  at  work  which  are  like  destiny  in  their  independence  of  conscious  choice 
or  wish.  Not  conscious  intent,  either  perverse  or  wise,  is  forcing  the  realistic,  the  practi- 
cal, the  industrial,  into  education.  Not  conscious  deliberation  causes  college  presidents 
who  devote  commencement  day  to  singing  the  praises  of  pure  culture  to  spend  their 
working  days  in  arranging  for  technical  and  professional  schools.  It  is  not  conscious 


Four:  Reflect ion.s  on  Contcniporurv  865 

preference  whicli  loads  school  superiiiiciidciits  who  ilchvcr  orations  at  teachers'  meet' 
ings  upon  the  blessings  of  old-fashioned  discipiuie  and  cuhurc  to  demand  from  th«r 
boards  new  equipment,  new  courses  and  studies  of  a  more  "practical'"  an  '  'mg 

kind.  Political  and  economic  forces  quite  beyond  their  control  are  c»)nij  ,^»c 

things.  And  they  will  remain  beyond  the  control  of  an>  of  us  save  as  men  honcMly  lace 
the  actualities  and  busy  themscKes  with  inquiring  what  education  the\  impart  and  what 
culture  may  issue  from  l/wir  cultivation. 

It  is  as  elements  in  this  heroic  undertaking  that  current  tendencies  in  American  edu- 
cation can  be  appraised.  Since  wc  can  neither  beg  nor  borrow  a  culture  without  betray- 
ing both  it  and  ourselves,  nothing  remains  save  to  produce  one.  Those  who  arc  too 
feeble  or  too  finicky  to  engage  in  the  enterprise  will  continue  their  search  for  asylums 
and  hospitals  which  they  idealize  into  palaces.  Others  will  either  go  their  way  still 
caught  in  the  meshes  of  a  mechanical  industrialism,  or  w  ill  subdue  the  industrial  ma- 
chinery to  human  ends  until  the  nation  is  endowed  with  soul. 

Certain  commonplaces  must  be  reiterated  till  their  import  is  acknowledged  Ilic 
industrial  revolution  was  born  of  the  new  science  o\'  nature.  .Xny  democracy  which  is 
more  than  an  imitation  of  some  archaic  republican  gcnernment  must  issue  from  the 
womb  of  our  chaotic  industrialism.  Science  makes  democracy  possible  because  it  brings 
relief  from  depending  upon  massed  human  \Ahov.  because  ol  the  substitution  it  makcti 
possible  of  inanimate  forces  for  human  muscular  energ\.  and  because  of  the  resources 
for  excess  production  and  easy  distribution  which  it  ellects.  The  old  culture  is  doomed 
for  us  because  it  was  built  upon  an  alliance  of  political  and  spiritual  powers,  and  equi- 
librium of  governing  and  leisure  classes,  which  no  longer  exists.  Tliose  who  deplore  the 
crudities  and  superficialities  of  thought  and  sensation  which  mark  our  day  are  rarcl) 
inhuman  enough  to  wish  the  old  regime  back.  They  are  merely  unintelligent  enough  to 
want  a  result  without  the  conditions  which  produced  it.  and  in  the  face  of  conditions 
making  the  result  no  longer  possible. 

In  short,  our  culture  must  be  consonant  with  realistic  science  and  with  machine 
industry,  instead  of  a  refuge  from  them.  And  while  there  is  no  guaranty  that  an  educa- 
tion which  uses  science  and  employs  the  controlled  processes  o{'  industry  as  a  regular 
part  of  its  equipment  will  succeed,  there  is  every  assurance  that  an  educational  practH."C 
which  sets  science  and  industry  in  opposition  to  its  ideal  of  culture  will  fail  Natural 
science  has  in  its  applications  to  economic  production  and  exchange  brought  an  indus- 
try and  a  society  where  quantity  alone  seems  to  count.  It  is  for  education  to  bnng  the 
light  of  science  and  the  power  of  work  to  the  aid  of  every  soul  that  it  may  discover  lis 
quality.  For  in  a  spiritually  democratic  society  every  individual  would  rcali/c  distinc- 
tion. Culture  would  then  be  for  the  first  time  in  human  history  an  indi\idual  achieve- 
ment and  not  a  class  possession.  An  education  fit  for  our  ideal  mm-x  i-.  ,i  matter  ol  acluaJ 
forces  not  of  opinions. 

Our  public  education  is  the  potential  means  for  elVecting  the  iiansfipuralii^n  of  the 
mechanics  of  modern  life  into  sentiment  and  imagination.  We  may.  I  repeal.  nc\cr  gel 
beyond  the  mechanics.  We  may  remain  burly,  merely  vigorous,  expending  energy  riol- 
ously  in  making  money,  seeking  pleasure  and  winning  temp«u.ir>  m  >ne 

another.  Even  such  an  estate  has  a  virility  lacking  to  a  culture  whose  m.  mis- 

cence,  and  whose  triumph  is  finding  a  place  of  refuge.  Bui  it  is  not  enough  lo  juslify  a 
democracy  as  against  the  best  of  past  aristocracies  even  though  return  t      '  forever 

impossible.  To  bring  to  the  consciousness  oi  the  conung  generation  ^  of  ihc 


866  ///  Culture 

potential  significance  of  the  life  of  to-day,  to  transmute  it  from  outward  fact  into  intelli- 
gent perception,  is  the  first  step  in  the  creation  of  a  culture.  The  teachers  who  are  facing 
this  fact  and  who  are  trying  to  use  the  vital  unspiritualized  agencies  of  to-day  as  means 
of  efiecting  the  perception  of  a  human  meaning  yet  to  be  realized  are  sharing  in  the  act 
of  creation.  To  perpetuate  in  the  name  of  culture  the  tradition  of  aloofness  from  realistic 
science  and  compelling  industry  is  to  give  them  free  course  in  their  most  unenlightened 
form.  Not  chiding  hut  the  sympathy  and  direction  of  understanding  is  what  the  harsh 
utilitarian  and  prosaic  tendencies  of  present  education  require. 


Section  Five 
Aesthetics 


Richard  Handler,  editor 


Percy  Grainger  and  Pniniii\c  Mumc  ( \')\h) 

I  have  often  thought  that  one  of  the  sinest  tests  of  a  true  musical 
instinct  is  the  abiHty  to  sense  melody  and  rhythm  in  the  music  of  primi- 
ti\e  peoples.  The  frequent  presence  of  such  disturbing  elements  as  unfa- 
miliar intonations,  a  too  forceful  handling  o\'  the  \i)ice,  loud  and  mo- 
notonous drum  or  rattle  accompaniments,  and  interspersed  u hoops 
prevent  many  a  supposed  lover  oi^  music.  man\  an  individual  blessed 
with  all  the  endowments  of  "musicianship"  from  percei\uig  the  pure 
gold  that  lies  buried  only  a  little  below  the  surface.  In  the  measure  that 
spontaneous  aesthetic  appreciation  is  independent  o\'  the  bias  deter- 
mined by  the  conventional  garb  of  art  must  such  appreciation  be 
deemed  sincere  and  sound.  Thousands  o(  "art  lovers"  accept  without 
question  second  and  third  rate  productions,  provided  they  be  dressed 
in  the  usual  accoutrements  of  art,  who  would  shrink  from  a  masterpiece 
treated  in  a  totally  different  style.  Hence  it  is  not.  as  a  rule,  the  musical 
amateur,  learned  or  unlearned,  who  is  the  most  ready  to  acknowledge 
the  profoundly  musical  quality  of  much  of  the  music  of  primitive  folk. 
but  rather  the  musical  creator,  the  composer,  whose  musical  learning 
does  not  sit  so  heavily  on  him  as  to  crush  his  instinctive  appreciation 
of  the  beautiful  wherever  and  however  it  ma\  be  found.  The  case  in 
music  is  precisely  analogous  to  that  in  primitive  plastic  art.  The  lavman 
who  talks  glibly  oi'  Rembrandts  and  Diirers  would  fain  have  us  believe 
his  soul  is  being  constantly  bathed  in  art.  yet  he  finds  some  exquisite 
bit  of  West  Coast  Indian  art  merelv  'inleiesting"'  (generallv  a  preten- 
tious way  of  saying  "funny")  where  the  genuine  artist  frankly  says 
"beautiful"  or  "great." 

And  so  we  need  not  be  surprised  to  find  a  Debussv  rejoicing  in  the 
exotic  fragrance  of  Javanese  music  or.  to  ci>me  nearer  home,  a  Mac- 
Dowell  or  Cadman  finding  frank  inspiration  in  the  tunes  of  the  Ameri- 
can Indian.  There  is,  however,  a  gap  between  such  aesthetic  apprecia- 
tion and  the  laborious  field  and  laboratory  studv  o\  primitive  music 
undertaken  by  the  musical  ethnologist.  Ihe  interest  o\'  a  MacDowell 
and  of  a  von  Hornbostel  do  not  readily  or,  at  any  rale,  frequently  com- 
bine. Hence  my  keen  gratification  at  coming  across  an  example  o\  ihis 
potentially  rare  bird  only  recentlv.  in  lookini:  throuL'h  the  Julv.  1915. 


g70  iJJ  Culture 

number  (vol.  L  no.  3)  of  The  Musical  Quarterly  (published  by 
G.  Schirmer,  New  York  [593]  and  London).  The  purpose  of  this  note  is 
to  call  the  attention  of  ethnologists  who  are  interested  in  primitive  mu- 
sic to  a  paper  by  the  Australian  composer  Percy  Grainger  on  "The 
Impress  of  Personality  in  Unwritten  Music"  (pp.  416-435).  Grainger  is 
well  known  in  the  musical  world  both  as  pianist  and  as  orchestral  com- 
poser; he  is  particularly  noteworthy  for  his  daring  and  extensive  use 
in  his  orchestral  scores  of  such  unusual  instruments  as  the  guitar  and 
xylophone.  In  the  article  referred  to  Grainger  shows  himself  to  be  not 
merely  a  cultivated  musician  who  is  half-condescendingly  disposed  to 
take  from  the  storehouse  of  folk  and  primitive  music  a  hint  or  two  for 
his  own  purposes  but,  on  the  contrary,  an  enthusiastic  and  painstaking 
collector  of  such  music  who  freely  acknowledges  the  complexity  of  the 
problem,  and  is  convinced  of  the  necessity  of  studying  with  all  serious- 
ness the  subtleties  of  intonation  and  rhythm  which  such  music  presents. 
Grainger's  ideal  falls  nowise  short  of  that  of  the  scientific  ethnologist. 
And  his  sympathetic  understanding  of  the  primitive  background  again 
creates  a  common  bond  with  the  professed  student  of  primitive  culture. 
I  shall  be  content,  for  the  rest,  to  let  Grainger  speak  for  himself,  so  as 
to  give  the  reader  of  the  American  Anthropologist  some  idea  of  how 
a  topic  near  to  him  strikes  one  of  the  foremost  of  Enghsh-speaking 
composers. 

Symptomatic  of  the  general  attitude  of  the  musical  routineer  towards 
the  objective  study  of  all  music  but  that  of  the  academy  is  the  following 
(p.  433): 

Experience  of  primitive  music  is  not  in  any  way  thrust  upon  the 
budding  musician.  When  I  was  a  boy  in  Frankfort  my  teacher  wanted 
me  to  enter  for  (I  think  it  was)  the  Mendelssohn  Prize  for  piano 
playing,  and  I  remember  asking  him:  "If  I  should  win,  would  they  let 
me  study  Chinese  music  in  China  with  the  money?"  And  his  reply: 
"No,  they  don't  give  prizes  to  idiots." 

The  most  enthusiastic  interpreter  of  primitive  life  could  hardly  do 
greater  justice  than  Grainger  to  the  superior  possibility  of  individual 
participation  in  art  among  primitive  communities  than  in  our  own.  He 
says  (p.  418): 

With  regard  to  music,  our  modern  Western  civilization  produces, 
broadly  speaking,  two  main  types  of  educated  men.  On  the  one  hand 
the  professional  musician  or  leisured  amateur-enthusiast  who  spends 
the  bulk  of  his  waking  hours  making  music,  and  on  the  other  hand 


Five:  Aesthetics  g7| 

all  those  many  millions  of  mcMi  and  women  whose  lives  are  far  too 
overworked  and  arduous,  or  too  completely  immersed  m  the  ambi- 
tions and  labyrinths  of  our  material  civilization.  \o  be  able  to  devoic 
any  reasonable  proportion  of  their  time  to  music  or  artistic  expression 
of  any  kind  at  all.  How  different  from  either  of  these  types  is  the 
bulk  of  uneducated  and  [594]  "uncivilized"  humanity  of  every  race 
and  color,  with  whom  natural  musical  expression  may  be  said  to  be 
a  universal,  highly  prized  habit  that  seldom,  if  ever,  degenerates  into 
the  drudgery  of  a  mere  means  of  livelihood.  ...  Now  primitive  modes 
of  living,  however  terrible  some  of  them  may  appear  to  some  edu- 
cated and  refined  people,  are  seldom  so  barren  of  "mental  leisure"  as 
the  bulk  of  our  civilized  careers. 

Of  the  complexity  of  "unwritten"  music  and  of  the  incapacity  o\'  the 
general  public,  through  sheer  ignorance,  to  fathom  and  enjoy  this  com- 
plexity, Grainger  remarks  (p.  417): 

While  so  many  of  the  greatest  musical  geniuses  listen  spellbound 
to  the  unconscious,  effortless  musical  utterances  of  primitive  man.  the 
general  educated  public,  on  the  other  hand,  though  willing  enough  to 
applaud  adaptations  of  folk  songs  by  popular  composers,  shows  little 
or  no  appreciation  of  such  art  in  its  unembellished  original  state, 
when,  indeed,  it  generally  is  far  too  complex  (as  regards  rh\ihm. 
dynamics,  and  scales)  to  appeal  to  listeners  whose  ears  ha\e  not  been 
subjected  to  the  ultra-refining  infiuence  of  close  association  with  the 

subtle  developments  of  our  latest  Western  art-music -Vs  a  rule 

folk-music  finds  its  way  to  the  hearts  of  the  general  public  and  o\'  the 
less  erudite  musicians  only  after  it  has  been  "simplified"  (generall>  m 
the  process  of  notation  by  well-meaning  collectors  ignorant  o^  those 
more  ornate  subtleties  of  our  notation  alone  titled  for  the  task)  out 
of  all  resemblance  to  its  original  self. 

The  following  is  of  interest  to  the  folk-psychologisi.  though  {>erson- 
ally  I  am  inclined  to  believe  Grainger  may  go  too  far  in  his  generaliza- 
Uon  (p.  423): 

The  whole  art  [of  folk  and  primitive  music]  is  in  a  constant  state 
of  fiux;  new  details  being  continually  added  while  the  old  ones  are 
abandoned.  These  general  conditions  prevail  wherever  unwritten  mu- 
sic is  found,  and  though  I  may  never  have  heard  Greenland  or  Red 
Indian  music  I  feel  pretty  confident  that  as  long  as  it  is  not  too 
strongly  infiuenced  by  the  written  music  of  our  Western  civilization 
it  will  evince  on  inspection  much  the  same  symptoms  as  ili«>se  dis- 


g72  JJJ  Culture 

played  b\  the  folk -music  o^  British,  Russian  or  Scandinavian  peas- 
ants, or  hv  natives  o'i  the  South  Seas,  and  we  may  always  be  sure 
that  the  singing  of  (let  us  say)  an  unsophisticated  Lincolnshire  agri- 
culturalist o{  the  old  school  will  in  essentials  approximate  more 
closely  to  that  of  Hottentots  or  other  savages  than  it  will  to  the  art- 
music  of  an  educated  member  of  his  own  race  living  in  a  neighboring 
town. 

My  own  experience  would  lead  me  rather  to  emphasize  the  quite  definite 
stylistic  peculiarities  of  the  folk-music  of  different  tribes  and  peoples. 
However,  much  depends  on  the  perspective  adopted.  The  measuring 
rod  o\  the  musician  must  needs  be  differently  graduated  from  that  of 
the  ethnologist.  [595] 

For   the   following   breath   of  fresh   air   let   us   be   duly   thankful 
(pp.  427-430): 

What  life  is  to  the  writer,  and  nature  to  the  painter,  unwritten 
music  is  to  many  a  composer:  a  kind  of  mirror  of  genuineness  and 
naturalness.  Through  it  alone  can  we  come  to  know  something  of  the 
incalculable  variety  of  man's  instincts  for  musical  expression.  From 
it  alone  can  we  glean  some  insight  into  what  suggests  itself  as  being 
"vocal"  to  natural  singers  whose  technique  has  never  been  exposed 
to  the  influence  of  arbitrary  "methods."  In  the  reiterated  physical 
actions  of  marching,  rowing,  reaping,  dancing,  cradle-rocking,  etc., 
that  called  its  work-songs,  dance-music,  ballads  and  lullabies  into  life, 
we  see  before  our  very  eyes  the  origin  of  the  regular  rhythms  of  our 
art-music  and  of  poetic  meters,  and  are  also  able  to  note  how  quickly 
these  once  so  rigid  rhythms  give  place  to  rich  and  wayward  irregulari- 
ties of  every  kind  as  soon  as  these  bodily  movements  and  gestures 
are  abandoned  and  the  music  which  originally  existed  but  as  an  ac- 
companiment to  them  continues  independently  as  art  for  art's  sake. 
In  such  examples  as  the  Polynesian  part-songs  we  can  trace  the  early 
promptings  of  polyphony  and  the  habits  of  concerted  improvisation 
to  their  very  source,  and,  since  all  composing  is  little  else  than  "frozen 
inspiration."  surely  this  latter  experience  is  of  supreme  importance; 
the  more  so,  if  there  again  should  dawn  an  age  in  which  the  bulk  of 
civilized  men  and  women  will  come  to  again  possess  sufficient  mental 
leisure  in  their  lives  to  enable  them  to  devote  themselves  to  arfistic 
pleasures  on  so  large  a  scale  as  do  the  members  of  uncivilized  commu- 
nities. 

Then  the  spectacle  of  one  composer  producing  music  for  thousands 
of  musical  drones  (totally  uncreative  themselves  and  hence  compara- 


Five:  Aesthetics  873 

li\cly  oul  of  touch  uilh  ilic  ulu>lc  phcnoinciiDn  (>t"  arlislic  creation) 
will  no  longer  sccni  noinuil  or  dcsnablc.  and  then  the  presenl  gull" 
between  the  mentality  of  composers  and  performers  will  be  bridged. 

The  lact  that  art-music  has  been  written  down  instead  ol  nnpro- 
vised  has  di\ided  musical  creators  and  executants  mto  two  quite  sepa- 
rate classes;  the  former  aiUocratic  and  the  latter  comparatively  slav- 
ish. It  lias  grown  to  be  an  important  part  of  the  oHlce  tif  the  modern 
composer  to  leave  as  tew  loopholes  as  possible  in  his  works  for  the 
idiosyncrasies  of  the  performer.  The  considerable  increase  of  exact- 
ness in  our  modes  o\^  notation  and  tempo  and  expression  marks  has 
all  been  dnected  toward  this  end.  and  thouLih  the  state  of  things 
obtaining  among  trained  musicians  ['ov  se\eral  centuries  has  been 
producti\e  o\^  isolated  geniuses  o\'  an  exceptional  greatness  unthink- 
able under  primitive  conditions,  it  seems  to  me  that  it  has  done  so  at 
the  expense  of  the  artistry  of  millions  o[^  performers,  and  to  the  de- 
struction o\'  natural  sympathy  and  understanding  between  them  and 
the  creative  giants. 

Perhaps  it  would  not  be  amiss  to  examine  the  possible  reason  for 
the  ancient  tendency  of  cultured  musicians  graduall\  to  discontinue 
improvisation,  and  seek  some  explanation  for  the  lack  of  \ariety  with 
regard  to  scales.  rh\thms  and  dynamics  displayed  b\  our  western  art- 
music  when  compared  with  the  resources  of  [596]  more  primiti\e  men 
in  these  directions.  I  believe  the  birth  of  harmony  in  Europe  to  ha\e 
been  accountable  for  much;  and  truly,  the  acquisition  o^  this  most 
transcendental  and  soul-reaching  of  all  our  means  of  musical  expres- 
sion has  been  worth  any  and  every  sacrifice.  We  know  \\o\\  few  com- 
binations of  intervals  sounded  euphonious  to  the  pioneers  o\  har- 
monic consciousness,  and  can  imagine  what  concentration  the>  must 
ha\e  brought  to  bear  upon  accuracies  o{  notation  and  reliabiliis  o\ 
matters  of  pitch  in  ensemble;  possibly  to  the  exclusion  o\  an>  \er> 
vital  interest  in  indi\idualislic  traits  in  performances  or  m  the  more 
subtle  possibilities  of  dynamics,  color  and  irregular  rhsthms. 

With  the  gradual  growth  of  the  all-engrossing  chord-sense  the 
power  of  deep  emotional  expression  through  the  methum  of  an  unac- 
companied single  meliKlic  hue  would  likewise  tend  to  atroph\;  which 
perhaps  explains  win  man\  of  those  coinersani  with  the  strictly  solo 
performances  o['  some  branches  o^  unw  rilten  music  miss  in  the  me- 
lodic invention  of  the  greatest  classical  geniuses  passionatel)  as 
they  may  adore  their  masterliness  in  other  directions  -  ihe  presence 


g74  ///  Culture 

of  a  certain  satisfying  completeness  (from  the  standpoint  of  pure  line) 
that  may  often  be  noticed  in  the  humblest  folk-song. 

It  always  seems  to  me  strange  that  modern  composers,  with  the 
examples  of  Bach's  Chaconne  and  Violin  and  'Cello  Sonatas  as  well 
as  of  much  primitive  music  before  them,  do  not  more  often  feel 
tempted  to  express  themselves  extensively  in  single  line  or  unison 
without  harmonic  accompaniment  of  any  kind.  I  have  found  this  a 
particularly  delightful  and  inspiring  medium  to  work  in,  and  very 
refreshing  after  much  preoccupation  with  richly  polyphonic  styles. 
Now  that  we  have  grown  so  skilful  in  our  treatment  of  harmony  that 
this  side  of  our  art  often  tends  to  outweigh  all  our  other  creative 
accomplishments,  some  of  us  feel  the  need  of  replenishing  our  some- 
what impoverished  resources  of  melody,  rhythm  and  color,  and  ac- 
cordingly turn,  and  seldom  in  vain,  for  inspiration  and  guidance  to 
those  untutored  branches  of  our  art  that  have  never  ceased  to  place 
their  chief  reliance  in  these  elements.  I  have  already  referred  to  the 
possibilities  of  "inexact  unison"  evinced  by  Maori  and  Egyptian  mu- 
sic. Similar  rich  and  varied  lessons  might  be  learned  from  Red  Indian, 
East  Indian,  Javanese,  Burmese,  and  many  other  Far  Eastern  musics. 

Being,  moreover,  the  fortunate  heirs  to  the  results  of  those  centu- 
ries of  harmonic  experiments  in  which  ever  more  and  more  discor- 
dant combinations  of  intervals  came  to  be  regarded  as  concordant, 
we  are  now  at  last  in  a  position  from  which  we  can  approach  such 
music  as  the  Rarotongan  part-songs  and  similar  music  of  a  highly 
complex  discordant  nature  with  that  broad-minded  toleration  and 
enthusiastic  appreciation  which  our  painters  and  writers  brought  to 
bear  on  the  arts  of  non-Europeans  so  many  generations  before  our 
musicians  could  boast  of  an  equally  humble,  cultured  and  detached 
attitude. 

A  broad-minded  tolerance  and  an  enthusiasm  for  the  aesthetic  value 
of  all  that  is  genuine  and  distinctive  in  art,  whether  or  not  countenanced 
by  academic  sanction,  are  here  united  with  a  sure  sense  of  history  that, 
on  the  whole,  seems  rather  uncommon  among  creative  musicians.  [597] 

I  cannot  close  this  already  lengthy  note  without  quoting  from  the  last 
part  of  the  paper  (pp.  433-434): 

I  believe  the  time  will  soon  be  ripe  for  the  formation  of  a  world- 
wide International  Musical  Society  for  the  purpose  of  making  all  the 
world's  music  known  to  all  the  world  by  means  of  imported  perfor- 
mances, phonograph  and  gramophone  records  and  adequate  not- 


Five:  Aesthetics  875 

atioiis.  Quilc  small  but  rcprcsciUali\c  iroupcs  ot"  poasanl  aiul  native 
musicians,  dancers,  etc.,  cmild  he  scl  m  nuuion  on  '"UDrki  iDurs"  lo 
pciloiin  m  ihc  subscription  concerts  o\'  such  a  sociely  in  the  art- 
centers  o\'  all  lands.  One  program  might  consist  of  Norwegian 
fiddling,  pipe-playing,  cattle-calls,  peasant  dances  and  ballad  singing. 
aiuuher  ol'  \arious  types  o\'  African  drumming,  marimba  and  /an/e 
plaxiiig.  choral  songs  and  war  dances,  and  \el  another  e\ening  tilled 
out  with  the  teeming  varieties  of  modes  of  singing  and  playing  upon 
plucked  string  instruments  indigenous  to  British  India;  and  so  on. 
until  music  kners  everywhere  could  form  some  accurate  conception 
of  the  as  yet  but  dimly  guessed  multitudinous  beauties  of  the  world's 
contemporaneous  total  output  of  music. 

Quite  apart  from  the  pleasure  and  \eneration  such  e.xotic  arts  in- 
spire purely  for  their  own  sake,  those  o\^  us  who  are  genuinel)  con- 
vinced that  many  of  the  greatest  modern  composers  ...  owe  much  to 
their  ccMitacl  with  one  kind  ov  other  o\'  unwritten  music,  must,  if  we 
wish  to  behave  with  any  generosity  toward  the  future,  face  the  fact 
that  coming  generations  will  not  enjoy  a  first-hand  experience  o^ 
primitive  music  such  as  those  amongst  us  can  still  obtain  who  are 
gifted  with  means,  leisure  or  fighting  enlluisiasm.  Lei  us  therefore 
not  neglect  to  provide  composers  and  students  to  come  with  the  best 
sccoiui-liaud xx\d{Qv'vd\  we  can.  Fortunes  might  be  spent,  and  well  spent, 
in  having  good  gramophone  and  phonograph  records  taken  i^f  music 
from  everywhere,  and  in  hav ing  the  contents  o\^  these  rec^Mds  noted 
down  by  brilliant  yet  painstaking  musicians;  men  capable  of  respond- 
ing to  unexpected  novelties  and  eager  to  seize  upon  and  preserve  //; 
f/u'lr  full  MrdHi^cnc'ss  iind  (Xhcnicss  jusi  those  elements  that  have  least 
in  common  with  our  own  music.  We  see  on  all  hands  the  victorious 
on-march  of  our  ruthless  western  civilization  (so  destructivelv  intoler- 
ant in  its  colonial  phase)  and  the  distressing  spectacle  o\'  the  gentle 
but  complex  native  arts  wilting  befc^re  its  irresistible  simplicitv. 

Grainger's  enthusiastic  proposal  doubtless  meets  with  little  more  than 
a  humorous  smile  from  the  average  musician.  To  the  ethnologist  il 
opens  up  a  visia  full  of  interest  and  pii"»rit. 


liditorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  Annrican  Anthrofyo/oj^iM  IN;  y)2    >'V,  (LMdl. 
Reprinted  bv  permission  of  the  .American  Anthropological  .Association. 


Literary  Realism 

We  are  no  longer  under  any  illusions  as  to  realism,  naturalism,  and 
the  other  ism's  in  the  literary  art.  Whether  or  not  the  now  ancient  real- 
ism of  Zola,  the  Hauptmann  of  the  earlier  plays,  and  the  rest  is  really, 
as  some  would  have  it,  a  new-fangled  romanticism,  the  truth  of  the 
matter  is  that  we  are  no  longer  interested,  if  indeed  we  ever  sincerely 
were,  in  mere  chunks  of  life,  be  they  represented  with  all  the  pho- 
tographic fidelity  you  please,  in  mere  assemblages  of  human  happenings 
selected  from  a  hundred  tiresome  notebooks.  We  want  the  eager  scent, 
the  indefinable  feel  of  life,  to  be  sure  -  want  it  more  imperiously  than 
ever  before  -  but  are  careless  of  the  outer  garment  in  which  this  feel  is 
clothed.  We  want  to  sense  in  our  characters  and  motives  the  play  of 
fundamental  human  impulses.  So  long  as  the  literary  craftsman  seizes 
firmly  on  these  and  makes  them  real  for  us,  in  other  words  brings  us 
vividly  face  to  face  with  certain  aspects  of  ourselves,  he  is  at  liberty  to 
be  as  romantic  or  symbolistic  or  naturalistic  as  he  likes.  He  may  serve 
his  dish  in  whatever  sauce  he  favors.  The  Maeterlinck  of  The  Intruder 
is  a  symbolist,  as  labels  go,  but  I  find  him  a  more  ruthless  realist  than 
the  muck-raker  of  Mrs.  Warren's  Profession.  And  you  may  characterize 
the  Claudel  of  The  Tidings  Brought  to  Mary  as  a  modern  mystic,  but  he 
bares  the  soul  of  man  unflinchingly  for  all  that;  he  is  a  truer  realist  than 
the  playwright  of  Ghosts.  Where  the  older  realism  took  infinite  pains 
with  the  accidents  of  time  and  place  that  lend  color  to  the  interplay  of 
human  wills,  the  newer  realism,  or  rather  the  newer  trend  in  Hterary  art 
(for  it  would  be  forcing  the  facts  to  speak  of  a  specific  neo-realistic 
school),  is  often  content  merely  to  suggest  these  accidents  and  to  focus 
searchingly,  sometimes  impertinently,  on  the  birth  and  growth  and  the 
decay  and  death  of  passions,  of  attitudes,  of  human  relations  -  in  short, 
on  the  significant  aspects  of  our  psychic  life.  Spoon  River  Anthology  and 
Jean-Christophe  well  typify  this  modern  trend.  In  them  the  body  is  not 
so  much  given  a  soul  as  is  the  soul  perforce  provided  with  a  body;  the 
habitafion  of  the  body  is  often  not  much  more  than  sugegsted.  I  find 
this  newer  realism  more  "real"  than  the  other.  Which  is  the  "real"  house 
-the  thing  of  foundation  and  girders  and  roofing  not  seen  by  the  eye, 


Five:  Aesthetics  877 

or  ihc  \isihlc.  rcspcclabl\  clad  ihiiiii  ot  buck  rows  and  windows  and 
green  sliii iters? 

If  the  outer  garb  in  wliich  the  writer  clothes  his  analysis  of  the  life  o^ 
the  soul  is  relatively  indifferent  to  us.  this  does  not  at  all  mean  that 
certain  styles  o\^  certain  techniques  may  not  be  intrinsicalK  better 
adapted  than  others  to  the  realistic  ideal.  I  or  one  thmg  it  is  obvious  thai 
the  dramatic  form  most  adequately  meets  the  rc(.|uncmcnts  of  realism  m 
its  usual  sense,  in  a  sincere  modern  play  there  is  no  room  for  mere 
verbiage  or  theatrical  sleight  o(  hand.  Each  phrase  should  come  out 
clear  and  sharp  as  a  rapier  thrust,  revealing  by  its  gleam  the  personality 
o\^  the  speaker.  The  technical  limitations  of  the  dramatic  form,  the  re- 
moval of  all  descriptive  and  most  narrative  matter  from  the  te.xt  o\  the 
work  to  a  primitive  appeal  to  the  eye  and  the  necessity  o^  developing 
character  and  motive  through  self-revelation,  give  it  an  admirable  con- 
ciseness and  verisimilitude  that  the  great  dramatists  ha\e  cherished.  .\ 
false  note  is  instantly  detected,  just  as  in  life  the  slightest  disturbance  of 
the  credible  tlow  o^  things  startles  us.  Yet  this  very  sensitiveness  o^  the 
dramatic  form  to  the  relentless  demands  of  current  reality  strains  its 
capacity  to  represent  the  more  fundamental  factors  o\^  psychic  reality. 
Men  and  women  do  not  in  real  life  wear  their  psyches  on  their  sleeses. 
The  great  verities  of  life  are  not  bandied  about  in  speech.  They  are 
revealed  in  the  unuttered  promptings  o\'  individual  souls,  in  half 
ashamed,  often  incompletely  selt^-apprehended.  impulses  and  fancies. 
No  wonder  then,  that  an  Ibsen,  more  concerned  with  probing  the 
depths  of  the  soul  than  the  chronicling  of  surface  realit>  or  with  techni- 
cal theatrical  evolutions  (master  technician  though  he  be),  has  been 
constrained  at  times  to  push  his  dialogue  beyond  the  realm  o\  the 
strictly  plausible,  of  the  strictly  realistic,  to  translate  iiiis|^oken  thoughts, 
feelings,  impulses  into  terms  imposed  by  the  medium  o'i  his  art  form  - 
spoken  dialogue.  The  more  "real"'  a  realistic  dramatist  wishes  to  be.  the 
less  merely  realistic  he  can  afford  to  be.  An  ironical  contradictuMi.  but 
an  inevitable  one.  Inevitable,  indeed,  unless  we  frankls  deny  to  the  stage 
the  right  or  the  inherent  capacity  to  reveal  psschic  realism  at  its  pro- 
foundest.  It  is  significant  that  the  keenest  modern  pla>w  rights  h.i\e 
most  deeply  felt  this  curious  dilemma  and  have  sought  to  escape  tri>m 
it,  with  varying  degrees  o['  consistency,  by  an  abandonment  o{  realism 
in  its  narrower  sense.  Hence  such  allegori/mg  extravaganzas  as  Peer 
Gynt,  hence  the  symbolistic  play  o\'  Maeterlinck  and  the  mystery  pla\ 
of  Claudel,  hence  too  the  Shavian  farce,  most  pregnantly  real  when 
most  outrageously  unrealistic. 


g78  JJ^  Culture 

And  \ci,  in  spite  of  these  and  other  types  of  escape  from  the  normal 
realistic  drama,  whatever  their  purely  aesthetic  excellences,  the  theoreti- 
cal ideal  o\^  accomplishment  in  the  dramatic  form  would  seem  to  be 
the  union  o'(  Hawless,  punctilious  realism  with  the  unforced  revelation, 
whether  by  subtle  implication  or  otherwise,  of  the  most  powerful,  the 
most  significant  determinants  of  the  life  of  the  soul.  Has  this  idea  ever 
been  realized?  I  am  not  so  sure  that  it  has;  not  improbably  it  is  an 
impossible  one.  Of  a  serious  attempt  to  dramatically  portray  life  as  it 
really  and  unpretentiously  is,  quite  without  any  admixture  of  the  "grand 
style,"  there  can  be  no  serious  talk  until  the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  That  the  Greek  tragedians,  Shakespeare,  and  Goethe  were 
magnificently  "real"  it  would  be  impertinent  to  point  out,  but  slavish 
adherence  to  the  humble  actualities  of  life  was  not  an  ideal  sought  by 
them.  And  Ibsen,  the  master  realist  of  dramatic  literature,  makes  no 
insignificant  demands  on  our  bread-and-butter  credulity.  Why  deny  it? 
I  am  afraid  we  sometimes  allow  ourselves,  willing  captives,  to  be  hood- 
winked by  his  superb  technique.  Does  he  not  taste  a  bit  "theatrical" 
every  now  and  then?  Strindberg  seems  not  essentially  different  in  this 
respect  for  all  his  brutal  frankness.  But  there  is  little  comfort  to  be  had 
making  the  rounds.  Nothing  is  more  depressing  than  the  discovery  that 
hardly  a  single  realistic  play  remains  strictly  realistic  when  the  depths 
of  the  soul  are  being  plumbed,  when  the  moment  of  revelation  arrives. 
Perhaps  Schnitzler  in  his  Lonely  Way  comes  the  most  perilously  near  to 
the  impossible  ideal  —  at  least  nothing  occurs  to  me  at  the  moment  that 
so  fuses  the  casual  commonplaces  of  everyday  intercourse  with  a  sense 
of  the  unutterable  longings  and  fateful  limitations  of  life.  Perhaps  Che- 
khov also  solves  or  nearly  solves  the  problem  in  the  wistful   Seagull. 

It  may  be  objected  that  our  standpoint  is  unreasonable,  that  we  can 
hardly  expect  the  dramatist  to  show  us  people  who  talk  about  the 
weather  or  the  price  of  potatoes  and  at  the  same  time  reveal  to  us  their 
loves  and  gnashing  hatreds  and  hypocrisies  unknown  to  themselves. 
This  is  impossible,  on  the  stage.  That  is  precisely  why  the  drama  cannot 
portray  real  life  in  its  fulness.  It  can  be  meticulously  realistic,  in  which 
case  it  does  not  plumb  deep;  or  it  tears  the  soul  to  shreds,  but  in  an 
atmosphere  which  is  higher,  lower,  at  any  rate  other  than  that  of  the 
human  world  we  know. 

Evidently  we  want  some  form  of  literary  expression  which  has  as  few 
purely  technical  limitations  as  possible,  a  medium  so  flexible  as  to 
mould  itself  to  whatever  uses  we  will.  It  must  be  capable  of  the  clean 
objectivity  of  realistic  drama,  it  must  allow  of  the  conveyance  of  all 


Five:  Acs  (he  lies  879 

nuances  iifthc  mind  and  heart,  and  it  must  above  all  provide  us,  cxplic- 
ill\  or  implicitly  with  a  profound  understanding  of  the  causal  nexus  of 
human  relations.  Need  one  say  that  the  narrative  form,  or  a  form  built 
up  on  a  primaril\  narrative  basis,  most  adequately  fulfils  these  require- 
ments? For  us  of  today  this  necessarily  means  prose  narrative  the 
short  story  and  the  novel.  The  poetic  epic,  so  powerful  an  implement 
in  the  past,  has,  as  a  form,  practically  outlived  its  significance.  Jo  most 
of  us  there  is  something  inherently  incongruous  in  chaining  the  expres- 
sion of  the  jostling,  hurrying  stream  of  life  to  an  artificially  measured 
form. 

Prose  fiction  is  easily  the  greatest  common  denominator  of  all  forms 
of  literary  art.  No  doubt  it  is  a  levelcr.  which  means  that  it  is  compelled 
to  forego  much  of  the  particular  Havor  of  the  more  distinguished  forms. 
The  loss  in  formal  individuality  is  nevertheless  more  than  counterbal- 
anced by  the  added  facility,  flexibility,  and  completeness  of  expression. 
The  sheer  narrative  gives  us  the  spectacle  of  life;  motivation  can  be 
readily  worked  in  by  added  comment;  where  necessary,  the  prose  can 
rise  to  impassioned  lyric  heights;  skilfully  constructed  dialogue  in  fiction 
may  have  all  the  verve  of  dramatic  dialogue.  Prose  fiction  occupies  the 
same  relative  position  in  literature  that  belongs  to  orchestral  music  in 
the  realm  of  music  generally.  The  string  quartet,  the  unaccompanied 
chorus,  the  pianoforte  solo  all  have  their  individual  aromas  that  are 
only  in  part  reproduced  in  the  heavier  and  more  luianced  fragrance  of 
the  orchestra;  yet  there  can  be  no  question  o(  the  generally  greater 
musical  serviceableness  of  the  latter.  Needless  to  say,  it  would  be  unwise 
to  press  the  analogy. 


Editorial  Note 

Previously  unpublished;  from  a  typescript  draft  with  ms,  editorial 
changes  in  the  possession  of  the  Sapir  family.  This  is  Part  1  o\  a  longer 
essay;  part  II  was  published  as  "Realism  in  Prose  Iiciion"  (.Sapir 
1917  0,  which  follows  in  this  volume. 


Realism  in  Prose  Fiction 

Prose  fiction  is  the  vehicle  par  excellence  for  a  realistic  ideal.  But  I 
wish  to  call  special  attention  to  a  somewhat  embarrassing  feature  of  the 
realistic  technique  of  nearly  all  prose  fiction,  further  to  suggest  a 
method  -  not  a  wholly  new  one  -  for  the  development  of  a  fictional 
technique  that  differs  materially  from  the  normal,  excelling  it,  in  my 
opinion,  in  its  purely  psychological  possibilities.  If  one  rummages  in  his 
memory  of  short  stories  and  novels  -  such  of  them  as  can  be  fairly 
conceded  to  strive  for  realism  -  he  will,  I  believe  be  prepared  to  admit 
the  justice  of  a  somewhat  unexpected  thesis,  that  those  succeed  best  in 
giving  a  sense  of  the  How  and  depth  of  inner  life,  in  attaining  both 
outer  and  inner  reahsm,  that  do  with  the  smallest  number  of  essential 
characters,  or,  to  put  it  rather  differently,  that  do  not  attempt  to  individ- 
ualize all  the  characters  with  equal  care.  The  thesis  will  not  hold  rigor- 
ously, to  be  sure,  but  in  a  large  way  it  undoubtedly  possesses  much 
truth.  In  the  measure  that  it  is  sound,  it  is  merely  the  symptom  of  a 
wider  principle,  which  we  shall  define  in  a  moment. 

What  gives  a  play  its  power  of  realistic  illusion?  Evidently  the  simple 
fact  that  the  action  and  dialogue  are  directly  revealed  to  us,  not  left  to 
the  imagination.  This  means  that  we  can  readily  identify  ourselves  with 
the  various  characters  as  they  follow  one  another.  Being  passive  specta- 
tors, our  minds  work  kaleidoscopically  without  serious  effort,  without 
too  great  an  exercise  of  creative  imagination.  The  drama  is  predigested 
food.  For  the  lyric  poem  a  greater  degree  of  creative  imagination  is 
required  of  the  reader.  He  must  identify  the  mood  of  the  poem  with  a 
potential  mood  of  his  own.  As  a  rule,  he  is  aided  in  this  task  by  the 
singleness  of  the  mood  represented.  Economy  of  attention  makes  for 
strength  and  vividness  of  mood-realization.  Thus,  the  essential  tech- 
nique of  both  the  drama  and  the  lyric  makes  it  a  simple  matter  for  us 
to  live  through  the  experiences  that  the  artist  aims  to  have  us  feel  and 
sense  with  him. 

What  are  the  tacit  assumptions  in  fiction?  Generally  speaking,  the 
writer  does  not  identify  himself,  and  through  himself  the  reader,  with  a 
central  character  alone  but  claims  an  unconditional  omniscience.  He 
enters  with  equal  freedom  into  the  psychic  privacy  of  all  his  characters. 


Five:  Aesthetics  881 

His  oiilK>i>k  iijtiMi  ihc  c\cnls  aiul  iiuUi\cs  thdl  comprise  ihc  narralivc 
seems  to  be  JircclcJ  nou  b\  i>iic  of  his  characters.  no\s  by  ;ini>lher.  This 
conventional  omniscience  ot  the  aiitlior's  goes  by  the  name  ot'objecliv- 
ity.  It  is  a  power  that  the  reader  is  supposed  to  share  with  him;  indeed, 
it  is  considered  so  much  o\  a  sine  qua  nan  in  the  art  ot"  story-telhnu  that 
it  can  hardl\  be  said  to  be  generalls  recognized  as  a  tacit  assumption  at 
all.  The  reader,  at  the  mercy  of  his  omniscient  guide,  turns  one  imagina- 
tive somersault  after  another.  Hardly  has  he  ensconced  himself  in  the 
head  and  heart  o\'  one  indi\idual,  hardl\  has  he  begun  to  feel  the 
warmth  o\'  \ icarious  self-conscimisness,  when  he  is  mercilessly  bundled 
out  of  his  retreat  and  required  to  take  up  new  quarters.  Incidentally  he 
is  asked  to  cut  his  former  self  dead,  at  an\  rate  to  exhibit  no  more  than 
a  purely  external  acquaintance  with  him.  Needless  to  say.  he  may  be 
called  upon  at  any  moment  to  race  back  into  his  old  skin,  or  even  to 
adopt  a  third  alias,  a  fourth  indeed,  there  is  no  limit  [o  the  demands 
made  upon  his  reincarnative  capacity  but  the  charity  o\'  the  writer.  .Ml 
this  makes  good  gymnastics  for  the  reader,  and  he  develops  a  llexible. 
bouncing  multi-personality  that  keeps  him  e\er  alert.  There  is  not  one 
of  us  who  has  not  rejoiced  in  the  exhilaration  i^f  this  exercise. 

But  let  us  not  forget  that  the  test  of  a  trul\  realistic  technique  is  the 
relative  case  with  which  the  reader  or  hearer  ov  spectator  can  be  made 
to  live  through  the  experiences,  thoughts,  feelings  o\'  the  [>"4]  charac- 
ters. He  must  himself  be  these  personalities  and  develop  as  them.  In 
the  drama,  as  we  have  seen,  this  self-identillcation  with  a  number  o\ 
personalities  is  rendered  a  comparativel\  easy  matter  b\  the  \ery  nature 
of  dramatic  technique.  In  fiction,  however,  it  requires  a  more  distinct 
effort  of  the  imagination  to  project  oneself  into  a  character's  soul  life. 
To  do  this  for  several  characters  and  to  shift  rapidls  about  from  one 
psyche  to  another  may  be  fatiguing.  More  than  that,  it  is,  psychologi- 
cally considered,  a  not  altogether  convincing  procedure.  Once  we  have 
identified  ourselves  with  a  definite  persi^nality.  mir  imagmati\e  pride 
demands,  provided  al\\a\s  that  the  arti^t  can  hold  our  interest,  that  we 
be  left  to  the  isolation  imposed  by  our  new  shell,  that  we  watch  the 
progress  of  events  from  our  own  point  of  vantage  and  follow  the  psy- 
chic lives  of  the  other  characters,  not  as  revealed  bv  themselves,  but  as 
atTecting  or  as  rellected  in  the  soul  that  we  have  made  ouv  own  If  the 
artist  chooses  to  impose  this  limitation  on  the  narrative  form,  two 
things  inevitably  result.  The  arena  crowded  with  significant  characters, 
one  o\'  the  features  o\'  the  older,  romantic  and  semi-realisUc.  lv|X*s  of 
fiction,  becomes  an  impossibility.  It  is  significant  of  a  striving  for  a 


gg2  ///   Culture 

subtler  understanding  of  reality  that  modern  fiction  has,  on  the  whole, 
progressively  moved  away  from  this  crowding  of  the  arena.  Further,  the 
deeree  ol"  individualization  of  the  characters  needs  to  be  carefully 
shaded.  It  will  not  do  to  bring  them  all  into  the  foreground,  for  that 
would  belie  our  naive  outlook  on  our  environment.  The  self  stands 
strongest  in  the  light.  Further  removed  are  a  small  number  of  individu- 
alities w  hose  lives  are  closely  interwoven  with  that  of  the  self  but  whose 
inner  experiences  can  only  be  inferred,  sometimes  truly  (that  is,  in  a 
manner  roughly  coinciding  with  the  viewpoints  of  their  own  selves), 
more  often  mistakenly.  Still  further  removed  are  a  larger  number  of 
personalities  whose  inner  life  is  of  little  or  no  consequence  to  the  central 
self,  whose  only  function  is  to  lend  dash  and  color  to  the  stream  of 
daily  experience  that  makes  up  the  outer  life  of  this  self.  And  in  the  dim 
background  bob  up  and  down  the  merest  ghosts  of  psychic  entities, 
pale  gleams,  fragments  of  a  suggested  multitudinous  world  beyond.  So 
we  are  fated  by  self-consciousness  and  the  limitations  of  attention  to 
live  our  life.  So  we  may  be  made  to  Hve  an  imagined  world  at  the  artist's 
bidding.  This  psychic  perspective  is  of  greater  importance  than  the  unity 
of  plot  and  the  rest  of  the  academic  requirements  of  literary  art.  For 
want  of  it  many  a  well-conceived  narrative,  excellently  motivated, 
proves  "jumbly."  In  a  picture  everything  is  illumined  by  a  single  light 
that  has  direction.  We  would  not  think  much  of  an  exterior  in  which 
the  central  figure  is  lit  up  by  daylight  that  runs  counter  to  several  subor- 
dinate daylights  showing  up  the  rest  of  the  group.  Yet  we  do  not  seem 
to  have  developed  a  very  keen  sense  of  the  value  of  the  strict  analogue 
in  literary  art  of  consistent  lighting  -  a  self-consciousness  that  sets  all 
the  elements  of  inner  and  outer  life  in  comprehensible,  livable  relations. 
Singleness  of  outlook  by  no  means  limits  the  writer  to  the  short  story 
or  to  labors  of  unambitious  scope.  Indeed,  one  of  the  Works  which  seem 
best  to  answer  to  our  ideal,  though  it  has  not  by  any  means  altogether 
eliminated  cross-lights,  is  a  prose  epic  in  ten  volumes  -  "Jean-Chris- 
tophe." 

At  this  point  the  reader  may  object  that  while  this  method  pretends 
to  be  sweepingly  realistic,  to  aim  to  grasp  a  bit  of  hfe  and  imprison  it 
in  narrative  form,  it  yet  is  the  merest  subjectivism,  an  egoist's  dream  in 
which  everything  is  hopelessly  out  of  plumb,  in  which  the  valid  relations 
of  the  objective  world  are  badly  muddled.  Nor  would  he  be  aUogether 
wrong.  And  yet,  what  is  life,  as  we  really  and  individually  know  it,  but 
precisely  "an  egoist's  dream  in  which  the  valid  relations  of  the  objective 
world  are  badly  muddled"?  Objectivity,  one  might  say,  is  romance.  But 


Five:  Acs  i  he  lies  883 

he  would  n^L\\  [o  add  lliat  uc  cra\c  and  dciiiaiid  this  romantic  objcctiv- 
it\.  ihis  mad  seeing  of  things  "as  ihey  realK  arc."  and  thai  the  hierary 
artist  has  therefore  a  perfect  right  to  choose  between  rigorous  realism, 
the  method  that  is  frank  Is  subjective,  and  ob|ecti\e  reahsm.  the  ro- 
mance of  reahty.  riicre  is.  indeed,  always  room  for  the  narrative  embod- 
ying more  than  one  psychological  viewpoint,  for  the  "cross-light"  tech- 
nique. Some  of  us,  however,  [505]  will  continue  to  look  upon  the  sub- 
jecti\e,  or  better  "single-light,'"  technique  as  the  more  subtle  and  aes- 
thetically satisfying. 

\'et  it  is  at  least  possible  to  combine  the  peculiar  advantages  of  these 
two  contrasting  techniques  by  the  use  oi'  a  third  method  o^  realistic 
representation.  Look  at  the  three  human  beings  seated  around  a  dinner 
table,  nibbling  at  jejune  bits  of  conversation.  If  you  and  I.  like  the 
psychologist  of  the  behaviorist  persuasion,  merely  described  w  hat  we 
saw  and  heard,  the  reader  of  our  story  would  no\  thank  us.  Insipid 
twaddle  he  would  call  it,  for  all  our  pains.  If  we  identify  ourscKes  with 
the  host  and  take  the  reader  into  our  confidence,  revealing  to  him  the 
stormy  soul  life  hurtling  along  under  the  placid  surface  of  conventional 
table  talk,  he  would  begin  to  feel  interested.  Yet  he  might  tire  o\'  so 
purely  one-sided,  so  merely  subjective  an  interpretation  o\'  what  was 
happening  at  the  dinner  table.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  identify  our- 
selves now  with  the  host,  now  with  the  hostess,  now  with  the  guest, 
pretending  omniscience,  some  o\'  us  get  restive,  say  "jumbly.""  and  talk 
of  cross-lights.  What  if  we  tell  it  all  three  times  -  as  seen,  heard,  and 
felt  by  the  host,  by  the  hostess,  and  by  the  guest'.^  Should  we  not  succeed 
in  being  subjective  in  three  different  ways,  in  other  wi^rds.  m  being 
objective?  For  may  not  objectivity  be  defined  as  the  composite  picture 
gained  by  laying  a  number  of  objectivities  on  top  o\'  one  another,  the 
most  romantic  of  all  wish-fultlllments,  the  successive  jumping  out  o\' 
our  skin  in  as  many  distinct  manners  as  we  fanc\'.'  Thus  we  reclaim  the 
gift  of  omniscience  that  we  had  modestly  discarded  for  the  "one-light" 
technique,  but  with  a  difference.  Before,  we  let  oui  nine  lives  out  of  the 
bag  all  at  once,  now  we  live  them  in  succession. 

The  reader  will  not  fail  to  have  observed  that  we  are  nol  dealing  with 
an  altogether  novel  literary  device.  It  is  as  old  as  "  The  Ring  and  the 
Book"  and  has  latterly  been  the  subject  o\'  experiment  at  the  hands 
of  Arnold  Bennett  and  Joseph  Conrad.  Vei  1  doubt  if  the  tremendous 
possibilities  of  "The  Ring  and  the  Book  "  method  of  the  conveyance  o\' 
a  certain  attitude  toward  realism  have  been  clearlv  recogni/ed.  Hie 
method  is  of  far  greater  significance  than  as  a  more  or  less  interesting 


gj?4  ^^^  Culture 

technical  device;  it  is  one  of  the  major  approaches  to  a  profound  and 
all-embracing  realistic  art.  It  sacrifices  neither  the  depth,  the  inner  truth, 
o(  subjective  realism,  nor  the  external  completeness  of  motivation  of 
objective  realism.  It  unites  the  two  in  a  new  synthesis  of  boundless 
resources.  As  a  method  for  the  artistic  presentation  of  ideas  and  the 
analysis  of  life,  it  is  bound  to  come  into  its  own  and  reap  a  large  harvest. 
That  it  can  never  become  the  method  of  narrative  fiction  is  obvious,  if 
only  because  it  violates  what  we  may  call,  with  apologies  to  the  jargon 
o\'  the  economists,  the  law  of  diminishing  returns  in  narrative  interest, 
f  cl  us  acquaint  ourselves  with  some  of  its  implications. 

One  thing  is  obvious  enough.  This  method  of  varied  repetition  makes 
somewhat  serious  demands  on  the  technical  ability  of  the  writer.  Mere 
repetition  of  incident  and  dialogue  with  appropriate  variations  in  moti- 
vation is  out  of  the  question.  No  mere  human  beings  would  long  toler- 
ate the  resulting  dullness,  were  they  animated  by  the  best  of  wills.  One 
of  the  great  tasks  of  the  literary  craftsman  working  with  the  normal 
narrative  technique  is  to  make  a  satisfactory  synthesis  of  the  disparate 
elements  -  of  character,  incident,  and  motive  -  that  go  to  make  up  his 
story.  He  is  always  fearful  lest  he  fail,  explicitly  or  implicitly,  to  arrange 
his  materials  so  as  to  bring  out  his  point  with  maximum  effect.  The 
weaving  of  threads  becomes  an  obsession  with  him.  In  our  suggested 
method  of  repetition,  however,  the  threads  need  rather  to  be  unraveled. 
The  total  material  to  be  put  before  the  reader  must  be  distributed,  with 
naturalness  and  nicety,  among  the  successive  versions.  In  this  way  each 
version  brings  something  new  with  it,  while  the  actual  repetitions  must 
be  charged  with  ever-changing  significance.  Needless  to  say,  the  ar- 
rangement of  versions  would  normally  be  such  as  to  produce  the  effect 
of  cumulative  energy,  of  a  steadily  growing  comprehension  of  the  mean- 
ing of  the  whole.  Like  all  inductive  processes,  the  method  requires  a 
high  degree  of  mental  alertness  in  the  reader,  an  alertness  that  finds  its 
reward  in  the  fullness  of  realization  finally  attained.  [506]  Attention  may 
be  called  to  a  further  technical  feature  of  interest.  In  the  usual  narrative 
it  is  always  difficult,  sometimes  impossible,  to  avoid  explicit  analysis  of 
character  and  motive.  Even  when  we  cordially  like  such  analysis,  we 
cannot  altogether  ward  off  a  sneaking  irritation  at  the  disturbing  influ- 
ence it  exercises  on  the  flow  of  the  narrative.  Our  method  reduces  the 
necessity  of  explicit  analysis  to  a  minimum.  The  tacit  comparison  of 
even  two  skilfully  constructed  versions  gives  opportunity  for  a  wealth 
of  implications,  many  of  which  would  need  express  mention  in  a  single 
version.  We  gain  a  perspective  of  motive  as  we  pass  from  one  subjective 


Five:  Aesthetics  885 

viewpoint  to  another,  just  as  \\c  gain  oin-  knowledge  of  space  relations 
by  shifting  the  angle  from  which  we  look  at  a  number  of  objects. 

There  are  many  other  interesting  ccMc^llaries  o\'  the  method.  Tliere  is 
one  in  particular  that  should  appeal  mightily  as  opening  up  exquisite 
possibilities  of  a  purely  aesthetic  order.  We  have  all  of  us  often  observed 
the  peculiar  individuality  that  a  specific  light  lends  an  object.  A  house 
is  not  the  same  thing  in  the  chilly  gray  of  dawn,  in  the  bla/.ing  light  of 
a  clear  noon,  in  the  soft  glow  of  sunset;  it  is  not  the  same  thing  under 
a  hard  winter  sky  as  in  the  hazy  warmth  of  summer.  Each  \  ersion  o^  a 
repeated  story  is  doubly  subjective.  The  focal  character  brings  with  him 
not  merely  a  psychic  perspective,  a  center  of  motivation,  he  brings  with 
him  also  a  temperament  and  a  mood.  His  version  receives  an  emotional 
atmosphere  all  its  own.  As  we  pass  from  one  version  to  another,  ue  not 
only  shift  our  standpoint,  we  also  attend  in  a  difTerent  mood.  This  fea- 
ture of  change  of  emotional  approach  can  be  utilized  to  give  the  most 
profound,  the  most  poignant  interpretations  of  life.  One  and  the  same 
series  of  events  may  be  apperceived  in  varying,  even  contradictory,  man- 
ner -  as  a  merry  jest,  a  tragedy,  a  clever  play  of  circumstance,  an 
irritating  bungle. 

Need  one  say  that  in  the  promised  land  is  displayed  a  signboard 
bearing  the  following  inscription,  in  letters  writ  large:  "Tinkers  beware. 
Only  artists  allowed"? 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  The  Dial  62,  503-506  ( 1917).  The  previously 
unpublished  "Literary  Realism"  was  the  fust  part  of  an  essay  of  which 
this  article  was  Part  II. 


The  Twilight  of  Rhyme 

In  a  lime  that  now  seems  strangely  remote  I  happened  to  drop  in  on 
a  mceiinii  of  an  Ottawa  debating  club  in  which  President  Wilson's  peace 
note  to  the  belligerent  nations  was  being  discussed.  After  we  had  been 
treated  to  a  couple  of  innocently  academic  utterances,  the  floor  was 
taken  b\  a  rather  elderly,  choleric-looking  Englishman  of  very  deter- 
mined manner  and  voice.  He  woke  us  up.  In  a  rambling  discourse  that 
had  little  connection  with  the  ostensible  subject  of  debate,  he  aired  his 
\  iews  and  feelings  mightily.  He  convinced  those  of  us  that  had  a  mind 
to  be  con\inced  that  President  Wilson's  policy  had  been  marked  by  a 
consistent  pusillanimity  worthy  only  of  contempt,  that  the  American 
people  as  a  whole  (and  he  knew  all  about  it,  for  he  had  only  recently 
visited  the  United  States)  were  criminally  lukewarm  about  the  war,  and 
that  the  only  permanent  hope  for  world  peace  lay,  not  in  any  professo- 
rial. Wilsonite  notes,  but  in  the  strong  arm  of  British  sea-power.  All  of 
which,  it  need  scarcely  be  said,  was  liberally  punctuated  by  blazing  eyes, 
waving  arms,  and  clarion  intonations.  Some  of  us  later,  incautiously 
and  vainly,  looked  for  an  intelligible  argument  or  two  in  the  Eng- 
lishman's flow  of  rhetoric.  No  matter  —  we  were  all  carried  away  at  the 
moment,  and  when  he  ended  up  with  a  triumphant  snort  and  a  bang, 
our  answering  applause  was  nothing  if  not  sincere.  Only  the  cultured 
elite  can  resist  mere  eloquence.  I  lay  no  claim  to  membership  in  that 
very  exclusive  species  of  humanity.  Yet  I  was  vain  enough  to  take  a 
certain  pride  in  my  failure  to  respond  as  unreservedly  as  most  of  the 
audience  to  our  orator's  fiery  outburst  of  British  patriotism.  It  was  the 
old  man's  fault.  Had  he  not  quoted  rhymed  poetry  at  the  tail  end  of  his 
peroration,  I  should  have  drowned  with  the  rest.  That  poetry  of  his  was 
just  the  straw  needed  for  a  drowning  man's  clutch.  It  tided  me  over 
nicely.  Indeed,  after  a  fitting  interval  of  surcharged  silence,  the  memory 
of  those  rhymes,  still  tingling  like  a  box  on  the  ear,  inspired  me  with 
courage  to  get  up  and,  in  the  very  teeth  of  the  storm  raised  by  the  great 
man,  to  put  in  an  apologetic  word  for  Mr.  Wilson. 

This  was  what  the  orator  quoted,  with  a  fervor  that  sent  shivers  down 
our  backs: 


Five:  Ac.silh-iics  887 

liicathcs  tlicrc  a  man  willi  soul  sd  dead 
Who  ncNcr  lo  hiiiiscit  halli  said. 
"This  is  my  own.  m\  iiati\c  laiull"' 

and  sonic  move  lo  llic  same  ctTccl.  '■.\hal"  said  I  lo  iiisscH.  **is  it  some 
o\'  Scolfs  old  doggerel  \oii  are  lr\iiig  lo  palm  olT  on  us'.'"  Bill  ii  was 
Max  haslnian  who  vsas  uppermost  in  my  thoughis  jusi  then.  His  "Lazy 
Verse"  crusade  had  branched  otT  even  into  the  wilds  of  Canada  and  I 
was  still  \  icariousl\  smarting  from  the  whip  hlous  he  had  administered 
the  la/\  praclilioners  of  the  tVee-verse  hahil.  (,)uick  as  lightning  I  saw 
m\  chance:  in  a  second  I  had  Mr.  Eastman  by  the  throat.  Here  was  a 
moment  of  intense  social  consciousness,  [99]  of  patriotic  emotion  \i\id 
and  sincere,  demanding  aesthetic  resources,  it  would  seem,  for  its  con- 
summate expression.  The  old  man,  in  his  instinctive  groping  for  a  cli- 
max, fell  the  ncc<.\  too  -  and  chose  a  bungling  anticlimax!  Had  he  but 
called  in  the  aid  of  measured  blank  verse  or,  preferably,  free  \erse,  he 
might  ha\e  succeeded  in  producing  a  truly  climactic  elTect.  But  uhat 
had  such  inane  jingles  as  dead-said,  shed-bed,  Ted  -Fred,  lo  do  uilh 
the  expression  of  heightened  feeling?  What  concern  had  we,  stirred  to 
the  patriotism  that  dealt  and  suffered  death,  to  do  with  pretty  boudoir 
tricks  and  rococo  curtseys?  It  was  the  most  magnificent  test  case  one 
could  have  desired.  The  verse  came  quite  unexpectedly,  the  emotion  was 
already  there  to  be  definitely  crystallized.  In  my  own  case,  alas!  it  suf- 
fered collapse.  Evidently  rhyme  had  noi  stood  the  test.  Mr.  Eastman, 
in  so  far  as  he  lays  stress  on  rhyme  as  a  sincere  aesthetic  device,  might 
question  the  diagnostic  value  of  my  experience.  He  might  accuse  the 
evident  tawdriness  of  the  lines  themselves  o(  the  disconcerting  ctTcct 
produced  upon  me,  not  to  speak  oi'  other  psxchological  analyses  less 
nattering  to  my  aesthetic  sensibility.  No  doubt  the  lines  stand  in  some- 
what helpless  contrast  to  the  emotion  they  are  supposed  to  call  forth, 
but  I  do  think  it  was  quite  specifically  the  rh\nie  as  such  that  shunted 
me  on  the  wrong  track. 

Rhyme,  I  decided,  might  do  \ery  well  lor  certain  lighter  forms  of 
poetry,  the  tlutfy  rutlles  of  literary  art  drinking  songs,  sentimental 
but  not  too  seriously  felt  love  ditties,  vers  i/c  socicic.  popular  ballads, 
and  quite  a  number  of  other  genres  one  might  mention,  in  short,  its 
value  seemed  purely  decorali\c  at  best  and  not  indispensably  decorative 
at  that.  I  decided  that  one  could  allow  for  it  where  graceful  trifling  or 
purely  technical  sound-etfects  were  in  order,  but  that  its  empli\smenl  in 
conjunction  with  deep  feeling  was  perilous,  lo  say  the  least.  I  had  lor 
years  had  an  instinctive  dislike  for  ihc  jingle  o\  rh>me  in  all  but  the 


ggg  ///  Culture 

lighter  forms  otNcrsc,  and  it  seemed  that  my  dislike  had  experimentally 
justified  itself  in  a  Hash  of  insight. 

Incidcniallv  1  could  not  help  feeling  impressed  by  the  purely  ethno- 
logical consideration  that  rhyme  is  rarely,  if  ever,  found  in  the  lyrics  of 
primitive  people,  whereas  there  is  probably  not  a  tribe  that  does  not 
possess  its  stock  o\'  measured  songs.  Whatever  our  attitude  to  the  prob- 
lem of  strictly  measured  or  polyphonic  verse  in  our  own  artistic  levels, 
it  is  very  evident  that  a  set  rhythm  at  least  does  answer  to  a  primal 
human  trend,  that  rhyme,  on  the  other  hand,  is  no  more  than  a  bit  of 
technical  flavoring  that  happened  to  become  habitual  in  Occidental  po- 
etrv  at  a  certain  period  not  so  far  removed  from  the  present  after  all. 
Rhvme  is  merely  a  passing  notion  of  our  own  particular  cultural  devel- 
opment, like  chivalry  or  alchemy  or  falconry  or  musical  canons  or  a 
thousand-and-one  other  interesting  notions  now  dead  or  moribund. 
Some  of  these  notions,  like  rhyme,  still  vegetate  (for  that  matter,  canons 
are  still  composed  by  students  of  counterpoint),  but  they  cannot  be 
allowed  to  cumber  the  earth  forever.  No  doubt  rhyme  will  some  day  be 
thrown  into  the  limbo  that  harbors  its  first  cousin,  alhteration.  Some 
day  all  sensitive  ears  will  be  as  much  outraged  by  its  employment  in 
passionate  verse  as  by  the  musical  expression  of  flaming  desire  in  the 
pattern  of  a  formal  fugue. 

Mr.  Eastman  contends  that  rhyme,  like  rhythm,  has  a  certain  disci- 
plinary value  which  is  of  direct  aesthetic  benefit,  in  so  far  as  it  imposes 
a  wholesome  restraint  on  the  artist.  Rhyme  sets  definite  technical  limita- 
tions that  tax  the  poet's  ingenuity.  He  has  to  solve  technical  problems, 
and  in  their  solution  he  is  braced  to  the  utmost  limit  of  his  powers  of 
concentration,  of  clarity  of  vision,  of  self-expression.  A  chastening  halt 
is  put  to  a  too  easily  satisfied,  a  too  glibly  facile  flow  of  expression.  The 
aesthetic  product,  which  must  of  course  appear  perfectly  natural  and 
unhampered,  is  all  the  more  refined  and  potent  for  the  painful  struggle 
that  has  preceded  its  birth.  The  dynamic  value  of  the  overcoming  of 
conflict  in  aesthetic  production  is  by  no  means  to  be  lightly  set  aside. 
Where  Mr.  Eastman  errs,  it  seems  to  me,  is  in  the  narrow  and  specific 
applications  he  makes  of  the  principle.  Just  as  soon  as  an  external  and 
purely  formal  [100]  aesthetic  device  ceases  to  be  felt  as  inherently  essen- 
tial to  sincerity  of  expression,  it  ceases  to  remain  merely  a  condition 
of  the  battling  for  self-expression  and  becomes  a  tyrannous  burden,  a 
perfectly  useless  fetter.  The  disciplinary  argument  is  then  seen  to  belong 
to  precisely  the  same  category  as  the  conservative  plea  for  the  educa- 
tional value  of  Latin  or  for  the  wholesome  restraining  influence  of  an 


Five:  Acs  I  Iw  tics  889 

outlived  bi>ci\  o['  religions  belief.  In  other  words,  ilierc  is  no  ubsolutc 
standard  by  whieh  to  measure  the  \alidity  ot  a  lornial  aesihetie  device. 
Necessary  or  seir-e\ident  in  one  age,  it  is  an  encumbrance  m  another. 
Perfection  o\'  form  is  always  essential,  but  the  detlmlion  of  what  consti- 
tutes such  perfection  camuU,  must  iu>t,  be  fixed  once  for  all  I  he  age, 
the  individual  artist,  must  sol\e  the  problem  ever  anew,  must  unposc 
self-created  conditions,  perhaps  onl\  diml>  realized,  of  the  battle  to  be 
fought  in  attaining  self-expressuMi.  It  winild  be  no  paradox  to  say  that 
it  is  the  blind  acceptance  of  a  ['ovm  imposed  from  without  that  is,  in  the 
deepest  sense,  "lazy,"  for  such  acceptance  dodges  the  true  formal  prob- 
lem of  the  artist  -  the  arrival,  in  travail  and  groping,  at  that  mode  oi' 
expression  that  is  best  suited  to  the  unique  conception  of  the  artist. 
The  "best"  may,  of  course,  be  many;  it  is  necessarily  conditioned  by 
temperament.  Mr.  Eastman's  error,  then,  would  seem  to  be  the  rather 
elementary  confusion  oi'  form  (an  inner  striving)  and  fiMiiialism  (an 
outer  obstacle). 

But  Mr.  Eastman  seems  to  go  further.  He  would  not  merely  preserve 
rigid  metrical  forms  and  even  rhyming  schemes  as  essential  to  the  satis- 
faction of  our  craving  for  poetic  form,  but  he  seems  also  to  have  regard 
for  virtuosity  as  such.  He  speaks  almost  as  if  the  greater  the  number 
and  difficulty  oi"  formal  limitations,  the  greater  or  more  admirable  the 
aesthetic  result.  This  should  mean  that  the  pinnacle  of  poetic  art  has 
been  reached  in  the  Skaldic  verse  of  Old  Norse  literature,  perhaps  the 
most  artificial  verse  patterns  ever  devised.  Here  we  have  alliteration, 
assonance,  extreme  brevity  of  lines,  and  the  use  oi  highlv  conventional 
metaphorical  modes  of  expression  -  four  dilTicuIt  masters  to  serve  at 
the  same  time.    Dc  i^usfihus! 

In  truth  there  is  no  greater  superstition  than  the  belief  in  the  ever- 
growing complexity  o(  all  the  outer  forms  o\'  life  and  art.  I'n^gress  in 
both  means,  on  the  contrary,  an  ever-increasing  will  and  abililv  to  do 
without  the  swaddling  clothes  of  external  form.  The  ■freedom'"  of  prim- 
itive culture  is  only  an  illusion,  gained  partly  b\  the  freshness  of  contrast 
with  our  own  order  oi'  restraints,  partly,  and  chietlv.  bv  the  imperfectly 
developed  techniques  oi'  lower  levels,  formallv  the  grctil  languages  ol 
modern  civilization  are  verv  much  simpler,  verv  much  less  virluoso-likc. 
than  most  i^f  the  languages  o\'  aboriginal  America.  Roman  Catholic 
ritual  seems  rich  and  cc^iiplex  to  us,  but  it  is  a  mere  bagatelle  in  ci^iipar- 
ison  with  the  endless  elaboration  of  the  ritual  life  o\  the  Pueblo  Indians. 
Northwest  Coast  Indian  art  is  relatively  crude  in  Us  delineation  (al  its 
best,  superb),  but  the  puiclv  formal  limitaliiMis  set  on  the  artist's  activity 


v^i)()  ///   Culture 

would  seem  to  us  almost  to  preclude  the  possibility  of  individual  expres- 
sion at  all.  In  lower  levels  of  culture  the  number  of  things  that  one  must 
do  is  great:  in  higher  levels  the  number  of  things  one  may  do  is  vastly 
greater,  the  number  of  things  one  must  do  relatively  less.  Progress,  if  it 
means  anything  at  all.  may  be  ideally  defined  as  the  infinite  multiplica- 
tion of  things  one  may  profitably  do,  think,  and  enjoy,  coupled  with  the 
gradual  elimination  of  all  things  one  must  not  do. 

We  may  seem  to  have  gone  very  far  afield,  but  the  truth  is  that  a 
proper  historical  perspective  of  such  a  problem  as  that  of  the  use  of 
rhyme  can  hardly  be  gained  on  a  less  broad  foundation.  The  historical 
and  psychological  considerations  affecting  rhyme  are  by  no  means  pe- 
culiar to  it,  but  necessarily  apply  to  countless  other  elements  of  art  and 
life.  Briefiy,  then,  aesthetic  progress  cannot  mean  that  we  hold  on  to 
such  a  feature  as  rhyme  because  it  is  a  valuable  conquest,  a  complexity 
that  we  have  achieved  in  passing  from  a  less  to  a  more  subtle  grasp  of 
form  (this  was  true  in  its  day),  but  that  we  leave  it  behind  as  already 
belonging  to  a  more  primitive  stage  of  artistic  consciousness.  Once  a 
resplendent  jewel,  it  is  now  a  pretty  bauble.  In  time  it  will  have  become 
an  ugly  bauble. 


Editorial  Note 
Originally  published  in    The  Dial  63,  98-100  (1917). 


Review  oi^  Romain  Rolland. 

Jcaii-Christophc 

Romain  Rolland.  ./c7//;-(7/m7^V'/'^'   I'aris:  Ollcndorir.  1905     1912. 

Imagine  Noursclfin  a  salon  adorned  by  a  gathering  ol  ehoice  spirits 
exhibiting  the  last  degree  of  refmement.  Here  you  may  admire  the  im- 
peccably dressed  gentleman,  a  Greek  god  in  exenitig  dress;  there  the 
beautifully  waxed  mustaches  of  the  man  leaning  against  the  piano.  Art 
can  go  no  further.  Yet  the  women  are  still  more  exquisite.  You  hold 
\our  breath  in  the  presence  of  all  this  kneliness.  When  your  ecstasy  has 
been  gathering  speed  for  some  little  time,  you  are  suddenls  startled  by 
a  noise.  The  door  is  burst  open  and  in  walks  a  nonchalantly  whistling 
fellow  -  he  might  be  a  lumberman  -  with  firm  step  and  confident  air, 
looks  about  unconcernedly  for  a  moment  or  two,  says,  "Excuse  me.  1 
made  a  mistake,"  and  walks  out  again,  slamming  the  door  after  him. 
You  ha\e  had  time  to  get  a  good  look  at  him.  enough  to  ascertain  that 
he  is  a  man.  And  the  rest?  Ninnies. 

This  roughly  defines  the  relation  of  Romain  Rolland  with  his  "Jean- 
Christophe"  to  most  of  his  contemporaries  in  the  world  o^  F'rench  let- 
ters. When  you  are  fresh  from  the  ten  volumes  o\^  "Jean-Christophe"  - 
you  have  read  them  without  a  halt  in  rapid  succession  -  and  make 
mental  notes  of  comparison  with  some  of  the  best  that  the  rest  of  recent 
French  literature  has  to  otTer,  you  find  it  difilcult  to  repress  an  impa- 
tient outburst.  In  the  enthusiasm  of  the  moment  >ou  berate  \ourself  for 
your  hitherto  zealous  worship  of  the  idols.  Of  course  \ou  ha\c  a  sneak- 
ing realization  o\'  the  fact  that  \iui  arc  allowing  your  critical  judgment 
to  go  napping,  but  you  resent  being  mixed  up  with  any  charge  o\  mere 
sobriety.  You  want  to  berate  yourself;  \ou  take  a  fierce  pleasure  in  mak- 
ing firewood  of  your  beautifully  carved  idols,  as  did  Jean-C'hrisiophc 
himself  during  his  "Revolt"  with  ilic  hallowed  idols  of  musical  tradition. 
You  have  found  a  real  man  w  here  you  hoped  only  to  make  the  accju.iinl- 
ance  of  an  artist  -  you  had  not  experienced  a  similar  misad\enturc 
since  parting  company  with  Tolstoy  and  are  so  intoxicated  with  the 
find  that  the  mere  arlistr\  of  the  rest  seems  rather  an  impertinence. 


g92  111   Culture 

This  feeling  that  Rolland  gives  us  in  ''Jean-Christophe"  is  as  unique 
as  it  is  simple  and  direct.  To  enjoy  an  imaginative  work  of  unusually 
sustained  conception  with  sheer  aesthetic  delight  and  at  the  end  of  it  all 
to  exalt  the  man  that  animates  the  artist  above  the  artist  himself  -  in 
few  monuments  of  literature  are  we  impelled  to  do  this.  It  is  not  an 
accident  that  Rolland  has  written  a  "Life  of  Tolstoy."  Tolstoy  and  he 
are  kindred  spirits.  But  whereas  in  Tolstoy  the  love  of  humanity  is  tinc- 
tured on  the  one  hand  by  a  stern,  impatient  indictment  of  the  causers 
of  misery,  on  the  other  by  a  mystical  idealization  of  the  poor  and  the 
humble  of  spirit,  Rolland's  love  of  humanity  has  never  anything  intem- 
perate or  maudlin  about  it.  It  is  shot  through  with  a  sublime  reasonable- 
ness, a  truly  Gallic  clarity  of  vision,  a  temper  ever  controlled  by  an 
irony  now  censorious,  now  playful,  now  tinged  with  pathos. 

Irony  is  the  quality  we  always  look  for  in  a  great  French  writer;  its 
forms  are  protean.  Anatole  France  and  Maupassant  are  perhaps  the 
virtuosos  of  modern  French  irony,  and  it  is  instructive  to  contrast  their 
use  of  it  with  that  of  Rolland.  The  writer  of  "Le  Crime  de  Sylvestre 
Bonnard."  ''Lisle  des  Pingouins,"  "Thais,"  and  "Les  Dieux  ont  Soif 
runs  through  a  considerably  nuanced  gamut  of  ironies,  from  the  ineffa- 
bly tender  to  the  savage.  But  in  all  these  nuances  I  find  the  same  essen- 
tial hopelessness,  the  same  stoically  pessimistic  stare  into  the  fathomless 
void;  the  gentle  smile  and  the  savage  leer  are  strangely  akin.  There  is 
no  malice  in  this  irony  of  Anatole  France,  but  it  does  not  brace  you;  it 
teaches  you  indifference.  As  for  Maupassant,  who  can  be  misled  by  his 
polish  of  phrase  and  anecdotal  finish  of  structure  into  blindness  to  the 
snarl,  the  aggressive  or  inhibited  contempt  of  his  irony?  Some  day  it 
will  be  possible  in  our  critical  analyses  to  express  these  and  other  types 
of  irony  in  terms  of  sex  sublimation.  Even  now  one  can  more  than 
guess  the  sadistic  strain  in  Maupassant's  irony.  Rolland  is  clearly  more 
normal,  more  buoyant.  His  irony,  though  plentiful  enough,  is  the  sauce 
of  the  discourse,  never  the  meat.  It  frankly  rebukes  the  hero  with  a  slap 
on  the  shoulder  or  slyly  nudges  the  reader  at  the  expense  of  Rolland's 
creations,  but  it  never  stands  in  the  way  of  your  faith.  It  does  not  [424] 
poison  idealism  with  its  ridicule;  on  the  contrary,  it  encourages  it  by 
clearing  the  atmosphere.  Irony  is  by  no  means  the  essence  of  Rolland's 
art.  but  it  is  on  that  account  all  the  more  symptomatic  of  his  spirit. 

I  have  said  that  Rolland's  love  of  humanity  is  neither  intemperate 
nor  maudlin.  His  idealism  does  not  crane  its  neck  cloudward,  leaving 
the  actual  world  of  men  and  women  shivering  at  its  feet;  nor  does  it 
hug  the  world  with  a  sloppy  sentimentalism.  There  are  many  passages 


Fivi'.  Acslhi'tics  893 

of  ■■Jcan-C'hrisU^phc"  ihai  iii  their  clean.  leiA  kI  n.lcalism  arc  aniicipalory 
of  the  essays  in  'Aii-tiesMis  tie  la  Melee."  but  these  are  precisely  not  the 
passages  thai  seem  to  me  to  be  most  ciMuinciniiK  iiKlieativc  of  Rol- 
lands  intense  humanity.  Fhere  can  be  no  doubt  in  them  ol'his  sincerity. 
They  are  eloquent.  Moreover,  Rc^lland's  instinctive  good  taste  and  hu- 
mor pre\eni  liini  iVom  falling  into  any  semblance  t^fthe  drear\  twaddle 
that  disfigures  so  much  o[\  say,  "The  Kingdom  of  (iod  is  within  you." 
For  all  that,  he  is  not  at  his  best  when  frankly  and  rhetorically  idealistic. 
1  get  an  uncomfortable  feeling  of  whipping  myself  on  and  of  marching 
at  the  head  o\'  columns.  The  truth  is  that  Rolland  is  so  human  in  his 
narratixe  and  analysis  of  character  that  one  wonders  why  his  humanity 
yearned  to  express  itself  in  more  abstract  form  as  well.  We  are  reminded 
that  the  artist,  like  every  other  human  being,  mistrusts  his  strongest 
weapon.  The  loftiest  idealism  rays  out,  by  some  mysterious  process  of 
implication.  W'om  Rolland"s  handling  of  the  nicest  \ulgar  and  common- 
place scenes  and  characters.  His,  or  his  hero's,  "impure"  impulses  are 
somehow  cleaner  than  the  rectitude  of  others. 

What  is  the  secret  of  this  intense  humanity  o^  Rolland's  art?  The 
answer  may  not  be  easy  to  give.  Or  let  us  say  rather  that  it  is  too  easy 
to  give,  that  it  seems  trivial.  Rolland  loves  hiinianit\  so  well  that  he  has 
the  patience  and  the  audacity  to  see  life  as  it  is.  Many  idealists  love 
humanity,  provided  we  allow  them  to  define  it  as  an  adumbration  oi 
themselves,  their  own  personal  virtues  and  desires,  projected  into  a  fu- 
ture. They  love  the  vision.  Rolland  loves  the  vision,  too,  but  meanwhile 
he  also  loves  the  poor  flesh  and  blood  that  will  one  dav  make  the  vision 
incarnate.  He  has  the  true  artist's  respect  for  his  material. 

In  speaking  of  Rolland's  patience  in  depicting  life  as  it  is,  I  am  far 
from  wishing  to  imply  that  he  is  one  o[^  the  item-listing  tribe  begotten 
of  Zola.  Those  who  delight  in  miniature  accuracy  stained  in  plenty  ot 
local  color  will  find  him  a  decidedly  impatient  craftsman.  I'he  atmo- 
sphere of  locality  and  outward  circumstance  is  deftlv  enough  created 
where  Rolland  so  wills  it,  but  it  is  truly  remarkable  how  little  of  it  either 
he  or  his  reader  wills  in  the  course  o\'  the  huge  epic.  "Jean-Christophe" 
is  preeminently  a  study  of  human  hearts,  of  human  hearts  lovinglv  and 
patienllv  disclosed.  The  more  uninteresting  ti^  external  ga/c.  the  less 
dramatic  his  man  or  woman,  the  more  warml>  glows  Rolland's  heart 
as  he  draws  the  picture.  1  know  of  no  characters  in  fiction  that  seem  so 
tenuous  in  outline,  so  devoid  of  content,  as  si>me  o^  tlu>se  that  he  lures 
us  with  -  irresistibly.  Charcoal  sketches  that  pulse  with  warmth. 


gq4  ^^^  Culture 

Think  o\'  l,ouisa.  the  mother  of  Jean-Christophe.  Now  Louisa  is  one 
of  those  got>d,  patient,  ignorant  women  that  we  would  probably  not 
waste  more  than  a  moment's  thought  on  if  we  knew  them  in  the  world 
we  li\e  in.  Mothers  o\'  iieroes  are  not  generally  interesting,  still  less  so, 
nood  mothers.  Why,  then,  do  we  love  Louisa?  And  think  of  the  magic 
o\'  the  good,  serene  old  Gottfried,  the  brother  of  Louisa.  If  I  were  to 
eive  you  a  brief  summary  of  what  he  is  and  thinks  and  does  -  what 
little  he  does  -  you  would  yawn  apprehensively  with  fear  of  the  oppres- 
sive dullness  of  the  good.  But  Gottfried  is  sturdy  for  all  his  humility 
and  goodness.  You  look  him  in  the  eye,  and  somehow  you  begin  to  feel 
very  small.  A  Tolstoyan  conception  -  a  German  version  of  Artzibas- 
hett's  Ivan  Lande,  only  far  more  lovable.  Schulz,  the  obscure  music- 
lover  who  reveals  Jean-Christophe  to  himself,  is  an  even  greater  favorite 
o(  mine.  There  is  absolutely  nothing  to  relieve  his  unabashed  goodness; 
by  all  the  canons  of  modern  realistic  art  he  should  inspire  nothing  but 
disgust.  Again  Rolland  fools  you.  You  may  be  heroically  cynical  in  real 
life,  but  in  the  land  of  "Jean-Christophe"  you  can  no  more  escape  hug- 
ging the  old  man  to  your  heart  than  an  iron  bar  can  help  leaping  to  the 
magnet.  And  what  shall  we  say  of  Sabine,  the  lovely,  silent,  pensive, 
dainty-footed  Sabine,  one  of  those  pathetic  girls  (she  is  a  widow,  but 
her  youth  entitles  her  to  the  privilege  of  girlhood)  who  are  made  to  live 
a  [425]  sweet,  lingering  life  only  to  die  and  make  us  grieve?  She,  at  least, 
is  not  so  very  "good";  she  comes  within  a  hair's  breadth  of  yielding 
to  temptation,  of  depriving  Jean-Christophe  of  his  youthful  innocence. 
"Good,"  you  say  as  you  rub  your  hands,  "Rolland  has  some  consider- 
ation for  us,  after  all."  But  I  warn  you  that  Sabine  is  endlessly  good  in 
spite  of,  or  because  of,  or  quite  apart  from  it  all  -  it  doesn't  really 
matter  what  view  you  take  of  it.  For  Rolland  knows  what  we  all  dimly 
know  but  what  only  one  in  a  thousand  will  admit  (woe  to  morality  if 
we  gave  way!)  -  that  men  and  women  are  not  good  and  bad  by  virtue 
of  what  they  do,  but  by  virtue  of  what  they  are.  Oh,  sweet  heresy!  Once 
we  have  it  flashed  upon  us,  who  can  rob  us  of  it?  At  least  in  Ada,  the 
vulgar  wench,  have  we  not  an  unlovable  bit  of  humanity?  No.  I,  at  least, 
like  her,  or  perhaps  I  like  her  only  because  Jean-Christophe  loves  her 
for  a  spell.  It  would  be  safer  to  say  that  I  like  her  because  Rolland  will 
have  it  so  -  Rolland,  who,  for  all  I  know,  detests  her. 

Nowhere  is  the  mystery  of  Rolland's  human  art  more  subtly  shown 
than  in  Antoinette,  the  heroine  of  the  volume  that  bears  her  name. 
Antoinette  is  made  to  be  loved  and  to  love,  but  it  is  her  destiny  to 
sublimate  all  her  passion,  all  her  instincts,  into  the  spirit  of  endless  self- 


Five:  At'sllwlics  895 

sacrifice.  As  she  li^ils  and  sci  imps  aiul  sulTers  Id  i!i\e  her  weak,  neurolic 
brolhci  cnlr\  iiilo  ihc  larger  lile,  she  hriishes  against  ihe  world's  muck. 
hill  her  inner  self  seems  e\er  lo  nunc  apart  m  a  cloistered  garden 
scented  with  the  fragrance  of  rare  (lowers.  It  is  impossible  lo  con\e>  in 
a  few  words  a  sense  of  the  peculiar  Kneliness  of  this  adorable  girl.  There 
are  other  pure  maidens  m  liieialure  wIk>  compel  atloralion,  bul  few,  if 
any,  haunt  us  with  so  lender,  so  poignant  a  feeling  o\'  frustration.  She 
is  our  mingled  yearning  and  self-pity  objectified  into  beauty.  Hence  she 
is  at  one  and  the  same  time  remote  from  and  inexpressibly  near  lo  us. 

\\licrc\er  we  Uirn  in  ■■.Ican-C'hrisloplie."  we  are  confri)nted  by  some 
craniiN  o['  our  soul.  The  cheap  coquetry  of  Colette,  ihe  volcanic  and 
mood\  passion  o\^  Franvoise.  the  dark,  flaming  soul  o(  F.mmanuel.  the 
seething,  ice-girl  passion  of  Anna,  the  wistful  waywardness  of  Jacque- 
line, the  genlle  Goethean  serenity  of  Grazia  Buontempi  (is  not  the  mel- 
oi\\  of  the  name  a  symbol?),  the  \oiithful  egotism  o\'  .\uvo\a  and 
Cieorges  in  lo\e  -  these  and  much  besides  are  our  \ery  seKes.  actual  or 
imagined.  Everywhere  a  few  strokes  of  the  pen,  and  a  warm,  luminous 
indi\  idualily  stands  close  to  us.  Nowhere  a  complication  of  plot  or  a 
stage  overcrowded  with  characters,  hut  alwa\s  the  surge  o\'  life  lov- 
ing, haling,  aspiring. 

And  through  it  all  unfolds  the  soul  o(  Jean-C'hristophe  himself,  the 
musical  genius,  Beethoven  reincarnated  in  the  present.  No  greater  error 
can  be  committed  than  lo  assert  with  P.  Seippel  ("Romain  Kolland, 
THomme  et  fOeuvre")  that  "Jean-Christophe"  is  not  for  those  who  do 
not  love  music.  Those  who  love  music  will  drink  deepest  in  the  joys  o( 
Rolland's  epic,  but,  aside  from  certain  pages  of  musical  criticism  in  "La 
Koire  sur  la  Place"  (aesthetically  the  weakest  volume  oi'  the  scries, 
though  thoroughly  absorbing),  there  is  little  that  requires  more  than  a 
bare  tolerance  of  music,  if  tolerance  is  all  the  reader  can  sincerelv  give. 
The  passionate,  striving  temperament  o(  the  hero  carries  all  before  il. 
What  matters  it  whether  we  can  enter  into  the  technicalities  of  his  musi- 
cal career?  Such  a  sum  o\'  life-fierce.  o\'  unswervinglv  sincere  h\ing  and 
yearning,  needs  no  label  to  make  it  real.  Jean-C'hristophe  is  tingling 
Hesh  and  blood  at  every  step  -in  his  sufferings  and  jovs.  in  his  triumph 
and  defeat,  in  his  tempestuous  youth  and  serene  old  age.  Bul  he  is  also 
a  symbol  o\'  abst^luie  sincenlv  in  life  aiul  art;  and  herein  Rolland  has 
attempted  a  herculean  task  {o  merge  the  humanlv  real,  pilfalls  and 
all.  with  the  ideal.  In  the  first  four  volumes  and  in  "l.e  Buisson  .Ardent." 
Rcilland  has  eminently  succeeded.  Idsewhere  Jean-Chrisiophe  seems 
olien  on  the  poiiu  of  dissolving  into  an  ideal  abstraction,  into  the  pas- 


J?96  lit  Culture 

sivc  carrier  o\^  Rolland's  aesthetic  and  humanitarian  message.  At  such 
times  he  is  all  force  and  hght  -  and  colorless.  I  would  give  much  if 
Rolland  could  have  induced  himself  to  dispense  with  the  critical  discus- 
sions o^  French  music,  literature,  and  life  that  make  up  so  much  of  "La 
Foire  sur  la  Place"  and  "Dans  la  Maison."  I  would  he  had  saved  them 
for  another  setting,  for  we  cannot  afford  to  miss  them. 

Jcan-Christophe  is  the  impulsive,  creative,  universal  side  of  Rolland's 
temperament.  But  there  is  also  a  reflective,  critical,  ironical  side  that 
needed  expression,  a  subtler,  more  characteristically  Gallic  spirit.  Oliv- 
ier Jeannin  is  the  friend  and  counterfoil  of  Christophe.  He  represents 
the  purest  ideals  of  French  art  [426]  and  thought,  but,  Hamlet-like,  he 
is  crippled  by  his  doubts  and  scruples.  I  get  a  curious  feeling  that  Rol- 
land has  left  him  a  torso,  that  he  has  incorporated  in  him  certain  more 
intimate  elements  of  his  own  personality  but  has  not  been  able  to  clothe 
him  in  all  the  flesh  and  blood  he  had  originally  intended.  Rolland  fights 
shy  of  something.  He  wraps  Olivier  in  a  wistful  haze  that  even  his  bo- 
som friend  Christophe  cannot  altogether  penetrate.  At  times  the  sym- 
bolic wins  the  upper  hand  over  the  human.  And  Olivier  cannot  hold 
Jacqueline's  love. 

I  mentioned  Rolland's  audacity.  Many  artists  have  sought  evil  in  their 
heroes  and  heroines  and  set  it  by  the  side  of  their  good.  Many  have 
pictured  the  waywardness  of  fate  with  a  detached  wonder.  But  they 
generally  put  a  "but"  between  the  good  and  the  evil,  between  the  ideal 
and  the  actual.  Rolland's  audacity  leads  him,  and  with  unerring  psycho- 
logic instinct,  to  put  an  "and"  between  them.  Jean-Christophe  lives  with 
the  common-souled  Ada.  There  is  no  conflict  in  his  soul;  he  merely 
breaks  off  all  relations  in  a  moment  of  revulsion.  Olivier's  friendship 
for  Christophe  is  of  the  very  warmest.  When  Olivier  marries,  he  drifts 
away  form  his  friend  with  a  strange  rapidity.  Emmanuel  hates  Chris- 
tophe. And  his  love  for  Christophe  is  the  same  emotional  current,  dif- 
ferently colored.  Jacqueline  loves  her  son  to  distraction,  but  she  sud- 
denly loses  interest  in  him.  If  you  have  been  fed  up  on  the  relatively 
conventional  psychology  of  most  realists,  you  may  not  feel  altogether 
at  home  in  some  of  Rolland's  arbitrary-looking  conflicts  of  will.  By  and 
by  you  realize  that  you  are  not  asked  to  fit  the  patterns  that  you  have 
brought  with  you.  You  are  walking  in  the  strange  path  of  life  and  had 
better  see  and  be  silent. 

Of  the  style,  of  the  thousand  and  one  observations  on  hfe,  nationality, 
art,  and  politics,  of  the  structure  of  the  work,  of  its  aesthetic  and  ethical 
ideals  -  of  these  and  other  aspects  of  "Jean-Christophe"  I  shall  say 


Five:  Aesthetics  897 

nothing.  The  \irilc  aiul  Kniiiu  huiiKiii  now  \ihialing  t'roni  end  U)  end 
of  the  gical  prose  epic  is  iis  si  longest  hid  lor  ininiortahty.  11"  critics  grant 
French  lellers  light  but  (.\^\\\  il  waimth.  let  tlieni  he  silenced  bv  'Jean- 
Chrisiophe." 


Editorial  NcUc 

Oiiginail)  published  in  I'hc  Duil  Ul.  423-426  1^)17).  mulcr  ilu-  mlc 
"Jean-Christophe:  An  Epic  o^  lliiiiianity." 

Romain  Rolland  (1866-1944)  was  a  Erench  novelist,  playwright,  and 
biographer,  who  receixed  the  Nobel  Pri/e  for  Literature  in  U)I5. 


Review  of  Henry  T.  Finck, 
Richard  Strauss,  the  Man  and  His  Works 

Henry  T.  Finck.  Richard  Strauss,  the  Man  and  His  Works.  With  an 
appreciation  of  Strauss  by  Percy  Grainger.  New  York:  Little,  Brown 
and  Co.,  1917. 

This  is  a  useful  survey  of  the  external  facts  touching  the  life  and 
musical  compositions  of  Richard  Strauss.  It  is  also,  as  the  writer  seemed 
to  be  very  eager  it  should  be,  a  reasonably  entertaining  volume,  liberally 
besprinkled,  as  it  is,  with  anecdotal  matter  and  journalistic  chit-chat. 
But  it  does  not,  on  the  whole,  suggest  that  it  has  been  a  labor  of  love. 
Mr.  Finck  makes  it  abundantly  clear  in  the  course  of  his  remarks  that 
his  reason  for  writing  the  book  was  rather  the  fact  that  Strauss  is  con- 
sidered one  of  the  greatest,  if  not  the  greatest,  of  living  composers  than 
that  he  himself  considers  him  to  be  such.  And  the  general  tone  of  Mr. 
Finck's  book  is  blase,  sometimes  yawningly  so.  His  own  spontaneous 
reactions  to  Strauss  are  so  consistently  unsympathetic  that  he  evidently 
fears  at  times  to  create  in  the  reader  an  impression  of  unreasoning  pre- 
judice; he  therefore  protects  himself  by  calling  on  copious  testimony 
from  other  writers.  "You  Straussianer  just  fight  it  out  among  your- 
selves," he  seems  to  say,  and  steps  back  with  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders. 

Mr.  Finck's  lack  of  sympathy  is  only  partly  due  to  Strauss's  obvious 
shortcomings  -  his  crass  realism  of  conception,  his  lack  of  a  distin- 
guished melodic  vein,  his  frequent  want  of  restraint  and  tendency  to 
lapse  into  sheer  vulgarity.  We  could  hardly  expect  Mr.  Finck  to  forgive 
Strauss  these  sins.  In  one  of  the  most  charming  essays  on  Chopin  that 
I  have  seen  he  has  implied  how  much  he  understands  and  values  the 
jeweled  and  the  chastened  in  art,  how  ardently  he  loves  the  limpid  flow 
of  perfect  melody  and  the  delicious  echo  of  subtle  and  softly  pedaled 
harmonies.  But  melody  and  the  glow  of  harmonic  sequence,  precious 
as  these  are,  are  not  the  whole  of  music.  The  more  massive  qualities 
exhibited  by  Strauss  at  his  best  -  the  power  to  fill  a  large  canvas  with 
color  and  movement,  the  titanic  artistic  unity  and  inner  coherence  at- 
tamed  through  polyphonic  mastery,  and,  above  all,  the  will  and  power 


Five:  Afsthclics  899 

to  gi\c  ci^iKictc  nnisical  cxprcssii>n  lo  large  thoughts  and  unbridled 
passions,  lo  ihc  Rabelais  and  lo  ihc  madman  biuh  ihal  iirc  lalcnl  in  all 
of  us  -  these  are  not  to  be  lighll\  ignored.  Here  precisel>  \\  is  that  Mr. 
Finck  seems  not  quite  adequate  to  his  task.  He  has  e\identl\  |5S5J  little 
genuine  love  for  polyphony  as  such,  for  the  interweaving  o\'  indepen- 
denll\  nioxing  melodic  lines.  That  ihc  pi^l\ phonic  icchmque  has  fre- 
quenll\  dcgcneraled  into  mechanical  \irtuosity  need  not  be  denied,  it 
is  doublfuK  for  all  that,  whether  the  history  of  music  records  any  means 
o'(  expression  more  virile  and  resourceful  than  the  free  polyphony  of 
modern  music.  Mr.  Finck  is  also  doubtful,  it  would  seem,  of  the  legiti- 
mateness of  such  wealth  of  expression  in  pure  tone  as  Strauss  gives  us. 
He  ma\  be  right,  but  only  one  prepared  to  meet  Strauss  at  least  half 
\\a\  in  his  artistic  presuppositions  is  genuinely  qualified  to  interpret 
him  to  us.  That  is  why  Mr.  Ernest  Newman's  far  shorter  study  of  Strauss 
seems  so  much  more  vital:  the  few  pages  that  Romain  Rolland  devotes 
to  Strauss  in  his  "Musiciens  d'Aujourdhui"  also  re\eal  a  deeper  under- 
standing of  the  musical  personality  o\^  this  composer. 

Underneath  all  Mr.  Finck's  hesitations  and  shrinkings  in  the  presence 
o^  Strauss's  tone  poems  and  operas,  may  we  not  discern  a  more  funda- 
mental clash  of  temperaments,  the  refined  irritation  o\^  the  cultivated 
Sybarite  who  looks  on  at  the  capers  of  a  healthy  barbarian,  a  spirit 
attuned  to  Tennysonian  felicities  subjected  to  the  uncouth  liberties  of  a 
Walt  Whitman?  Something  of  the  kind  is  conveyed  by  Percy  Grainger 
in  the  following  words,  taken  from  his  interesting  introductory  essa\ : 

Strauss  is  not  a  musician's  musician  like  Bach,  Mo/art,  Schubert. 
Grieg,  or  Debussy,  capable  o'^  turning  out  flawless  gems  o\'  artistic 
subtlety  and  perfection,  but  rather  is  he  a  great  cosmic  soul  o\'  the 
Goethe,  Milton.  Nietzsche,  Walt  Whitman.  Fdgar  Lee  Masters  cali- 
ber: full  of  dross,  but  equally  full  of  godhead:  lacking  refinement,  but 
not  the  supreme  attributes:  and  uniquely  able  to  roll  forth  some  great 
uplifting  message  after  gigantic  preliminaries  o\'  boredom  and  incon- 
sequentialness. 

(Do  Schubert  and  Grieg  quite  belong  to  the  first  list?  Do  Goethe  and 
Milton  feel  quite  at  ease  with  their  neighbors  in  the  second".')  It  is  the 
"dross,"  the  "lack  o\'  refinement,"  and  the  "gigantic  preliminaries  o^ 
boredom"  that  too  fatally  afTect  Mr.  Finck:  the  "godhead"  and  "su- 
preme attributes"  seem  altogether  lost  in  the  scramble. 

In  the  section  de\t>ted  to  "Program  Music"  Mr.  Finck  has  a  splendid 
opportunity  to  analyze  the  psychology  and  aesthetics  and  trace  the  de- 
velopment of  one  of  the  most  interesting  musical  phenomena  of  the  last 


1)00  ///  Culture 

hundred  years.  I  cannot  feel  thai  he  has  made  very  serious  use  of  the 
opportunity.  The  externality  that  characterizes  his  account  of  Strauss's 
career  and  his  description  of  the  musical  compositions  themselves  is  in 
evidence  in  this  section  as  well.  The  inevitable  anecdotes,  random  re- 
marks on  various  specimens  of  programme  music  (MacDoweirs  piano- 
forte sketches  come  in  for  warm  appreciation),  a  determined  and  gallant 
attempt  to  convince  us  that  the  symphonic  poem  has  reached  its  artistic 
culmination  in  Liszt,  and  divers  evidences  of  Strauss's  inferiority  to  his 
Hungarian  precursor  fill  up  space  that  one  would  have  liked  to  see  de- 
voted to  the  rationale  of  the  programme  movement  and  to  the  varying 
ideals  that  have  animated  its  representatives.  We  are  not  given  even  a  ser- 
viceable notion  of  the  nature  of  Strauss's  aesthetic  procedure,  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  he  aims  to  reconcile  the  conflicting  demands  of  literary  con- 
ception and  musical  treatment,  of  the  symbolic  significance  of  leading 
motive,  instrumental  individualization,  and  polyphony.  And  what  of  the 
evolution  of  musical  form  in  the  composition  of  Strauss,  the  acknowl- 
edged master  of  form?  In  brief,  we  nowhere  feel  that  we  are  being  brought 
to  a  realization  of  the  nuclear  conceptions  of  Strauss  the  artist.  How  then 
can  the  reader  justly  estimate  the  place  to  be  assigned  Richard  Strauss  in 
the  history  of  programme  music,  whether  his  tone  poems  represent  a  logi- 
cal and  healthy  development  of  ideas  that  owe  their  most  authoritative 
formulation  to  Berlioz  and  Liszt  or,  as  Mr.  Finck  would  have  it,  mark  the 
degeneration  of  the  programme  tendency? 

Be  that  as  it  may,  there  is  little  doubt  that  for  the  present  programme 
music  has  reached  its  apogee.  Signs  of  revolt  have  been  in  evidence  for 
some  time;  the  cumbrous  literary  constructions  that  were  meant  to  give 
form  to  elaborate  tonal  creations  seem  to  crumble  of  their  own  weight. 
It  is  probable  that  the  programmists  have  attempted  too  much,  that 
they  have  tried  to  get  as  much  service  out  of  Pegasus  as  out  of  a  willing 
dray-horse.  The  future  alone  can  tell  whether  they  have  indeed  at- 
tempted the  impossible  or  have  merely  sought  the  arduous  conquest 
with  means  too  coarse  and  untried,  have  mistaken  a  Rosinante  for  the 
real  Pegasus.  Meanwhile,  a  clear  swing  back  to  the  absoludsts,  Brahms 
notwithstanding,  is  a  sheer  impossibility.  However  music  may  tend  to 
be  chastened  of  its  luxuriance  of  symbol,  the  spell  of  fancy  and  mood 
that  the  romanticists  and  programmists  have  cast  over  it  will  not  disap- 
pear. Self-determination  [586]  of  form  and  emotional  expression  -  if 
these  alone  remain,  their  attainment  by  way  of  the  perhaps  circuitous 
route  of  the  programmists  will  have  jusfified  the  Liszts  and  Strausses. 


Five:  Aesthetics  901 

\\:\  all  ihc  while  I  HikI  in\scir  scrunisls  dislnislinii  ihc  psychological 
validity  o\'  the  cm  i cut  ciassificatio!!  of  composers  iiilo  absolulisls  and 
programiiiisls  or  impressionists.  '\o  an  altouetlier  iinuarrantablc  cxlcnl 
we  lia\e  been  taking  musical  artists  at  their  own  valuation,  at  the  sur- 
face \alue  o\^  their  titles  and  programmatic  analyses.  Is  it  not  possible, 
na\  likel\.  ihal  <iii  appalling  proportion  o\'  ihc  musical  "'programmes" 
authorized  b\  composers  are  afterthoughts  designed,  consciouslv  or  un- 
consciously, to  lure  the  public,  always  an  essentially  unmusical  bods' 
Or  to  give  an  external  conceptual  frame,  of  subjective  associative  \alue. 
to  a  lyric  impulse  that  has  alread\  imlranslatably  expressed  itself  in 
tone?  We  know  that  Schumann  ga\e  titles  to  his  pieces  after  he  had 
composed  them;  the  conceptual  label,  in  other  words,  was  probabl\ 
more  a  flourish  o^  the  pen.  a  Finis,  than  a  genuine  aesthetic  stimulus. 
The  wayward  whimsy  or  burning  passion  was  there  from  the  beginning, 
but  it  needed  no  other  than  purely  musical  expression.  May  not  e\en 
some  o\^  our  impressionists,  Debussy  among  them,  entertain  a  funda- 
mentally identical  attitude  toward  their  material?  is  there  not  the  least 
shade  of  hypocrisy  in  these  pagodas  and  goldfish  and  engulfed  cathe- 
drals and  moons  descending  on  temples  that  were?  Strange,  otherwise, 
that  we  seem  to  breathe  a  larger  air  and  to  feel  the  tow  o^  a  mightier 
current  in  the  music  itself  than  in  the  bric-a-brac  world  its  titles  intro- 
duce us  to.  Conversely,  there  is  little  reason  to  doubt  that  a  great  deal 
of  absolute  music,  so-called,  has  been  wrought  out  o^  conceptions  and 
emotions  that  were  all  but  ready  to  burst  into  impassioned  speech. 
What  are  some  o'i  those  curious  rccitativo  passages  in  the  Ikx-tlunen 
sonatas,  glades  in  the  wood,  but  tortured  questionings  and  strixings 
bound  in  musical  constraint?  Before  we  can  profoundl>  approach  the 
psychology  of  programme  music,  there  is  much  underbrush  to  be 
cleared  away.  We  must  know  better  than  we  ^So  how  the  artist  conceives 
and  works  and  care  less  how  he  labels.  Perhaps  it  is  well  that  artists  tell 
us  little,  but  we  can  often  guess  back  of  their  paraphernalia  o\'  labels  if 
we  will  but  hearken  to  the  music. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  Ihc  Dial  62,  584-586  ( 1917),  under  the  title 
"A  Frigid  Introduction  to  Strauss." 

Richard  Strauss  (1864  1949)  was  a  German  ci>mposer  and  conduc- 
tor. Sapir  develops  his  thoughts  on  programme  music  further  m  " Repre- 
sentative Music"  (1918,  this  volume). 


Representative  Music 

The  contest  between  the  absolutists  and  the  supporters  of  "pro- 
gramme" in  modern  music  has  often  been  characterized  by  extreme  and 
mutually  irreconcilable  attitudes.  On  the  one  hand  we  have  the  purists 
or  formalists,  who  either  explicitly  deny  or  evade  acknowledgment  of 
any  necessary  relation  between  musical  forms  and  states  or  functions 
of  mind  occurring  in  other  than  musical  experience.  To  these  a  sonata 
or  even  a  bare  musical  "theme"  is  aesthetically  satisfying  by  virtue  of 
its  own  inherent  beauty  of  melody,  rhythm,  harmony,  construction,  or 
color,  quite  regardless  of  any  non-musical  "meaning"  it  may  be  thought 
to  possess.  Such  people  would  be  annoyed  rather  than  helped  by  the 
interpretation  of  a  certain  Beethoven  sonata  as  suffused  by  a  spirit  of 
moonlight  pensiveness.  Why  mar  the  sheer  beauty  of  a  self-sufficing  art- 
form  by  attaching  to  it  a  label  of  extraneous  origin? 

No  less  decided  are  some  of  the  "programme"  enthusiasts.  While  not 
denying  to  melody,  rhythm,  and  the  other  means  of  musical  expression 
an  inherent  sensuous  beauty,  and  to  musical  construction  the  essential 
beauty  of  all  design,  they  maintain  that  the  enjoyment  of  such  merely 
sensuous  or  structural  beauty  is  an  aesthetic  one  only  in  a  more  or  less 
elementary  phase.  To  a  piece  of  music  must,  properly  speaking,  be  de- 
nied the  term  art-form  in  its  highest  sense  unless  it  does  more  than 
tickle  our  sense  of  rhythm  or  color  or  evoke  our  admiration  by  its 
skilful  handling  of  the  purely  formal  aspect  of  the  musical  problem.  It 
must  have  vitality  (to  use  a  much  abused  word),  that  is,  it  must  be 
associated  in  the  mind  of  both  creator  and  public,  and  this  by  virtue  of 
its  intrinsic  quality,  with  some  element  or  elements  of  their  experience. 
[162]  It  dare  not  stand  coldly  aloof,  on  pain  of  degenerating  into  clever 
trifling,  from  the  more  definitely  articulated  currents  of  Hfe,  but  must 
seek  to  gain  in  significance,  and  therefore  in  aesthetic  value,  by  embody- 
ing, in  its  own  peculiar  way,  one  or  more  of  the  incidents  or  phases  of 
that  life.  The  nature  of  such  embodiment  may  vary  indefinitely.  In  some 
cases  the  music  may  be  content  to  picture  a  mood,  in  others  to  catch 
some  aspect  of  nature,  in  others  to  define  an  idea,  in  still  others  to  mark 
a  succession  of  moods  or  ideas  that  in  their  totality  comprise  a  "story." 


Five:  Aesthetics  903 

The  progress  of  musical  art  is  thus  u>\\ard  c\cr  increasing  complexity 
and  dcfiniteness  of  cniolic^nal  aiui  conceptual  expression.  In  other 
words,  music  must  lend  to  be  ■"representative"  in  character.  Music  has 
lagged  far  behind  plastic  art  and  pcK'tr\  in  this  respect,  but  this  is  due 
primarily  to  the  great  lapse  of  time  which  it  has  taken  the  art  to  de\eK>p 
a  lechnique  rich  and  tlcxiblc  ciunigh  to  fuiril  its  higher  mission. 

if  the  history  of  aesthetic  criticism  teaches  us  anything,  it  is  the  t  utility 
ot  trying  to  mark  oft  the  legitimate  province  of  an  art  or  an  art-form. 
Over  and  over  again  a  critic  has  demonstrated,  to  the  complete  satisfac- 
tion of  the  discerning,  certain  inherent  aesthetic  limitations.  He  proved 
his  point,  but  some  genius  has  generally  managed  to  override  his  for- 
mula and  consign  it  to  the  dust-bin  o\'  things  that  were.  My  own  aim 
is,  therefore,  not  the  presumptuous  one  of  a  definititMi  o^  the  proper 
sphere  of  music  but  rather  an  attempt  to  state  what  music  seems  to  me 
best  able  to  accomplish. 

To  begin  with,  can  the  absolutists  really  succeed  in  eliminating  an 
emotional  substratum,  of  varying  vividness,  from  the  appreciation  of  a 
musical  composition?  I  do  not  refer  to  the  emotional  components  o\' 
musical  appreciation  that  are  evident  in  the  enjovmeni  o\'  an\  o['  the 
elements  of  musical  expression  as  such  (such  as  pleasure  in  certain  in- 
strumental combinations  or  delight  in  the  recurrence  of  a  well-defined 
rhythmic  figure  or  the  more  subtle  pleasure  derived  from  consideraliiMi 
of  a  certain  balance  of  form),  but  onlv  to  a  mood  or  altitude  o\'  mind 
induced  by  the  composition  as  a  whole  and  to  which  the  former  types 
of  pleasure  must  normally  be  considered  as  subsidiary.  As  a  matter  o\' 
fact,  it  is  difficult  to  listen  to  one  o\^  the  greater  compositions  even  o{ 
pre-programme  days  without  finding  ourselves  put  into  a  rather  definite 
mood,  a  mood  which  to  all  intents  and  purposes  defines  the  meaning 
of  the  music  for  us.  And  does  not  the  verdict  of  the  present  in  judging 
of  the  relative  merit  or  appeal  of  musical  works  of  the  past  often  cldirly 
imply  just  such  an  emphasis  on  [163]  the  aesthetic  importance  of  definite 
emotional  quality?  fhus.  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  sav  that  most  o\  the 
Mozart  sonata  movements,  despite  their  spontaneous  tlow  o\  melody 
and  finish  of  external  form,  are  o\^  lesser  aesthetic  value  to  us  than 
many  of  the  simply  constructed  Bach  preludes  o\'  the  "*\\ell-tem|XMed 
Clavichord."  These  preludes  belong  to  a  remoter  peru>d  of  musical  his- 
tory, but  their  deep-felt,  though  restrained,  quality  of  emotion  (think  o^ 
the  devotional  spirit  of  the  very  first  prelude  manifest  enough  without 
the  Gounod  Ave  Maria  pendant;  or  o{  the  mood  o{  serene  sadness  that 
permeates  the  beautiful  E  Hat  minor  prelude  of  the  first  set)  keeps  them 


904  J^f  Culture 

alive  where  the  Mozart  sonatas,  on  the  whole,  must  be  regretfully  ad- 
mitted to  have  become  a  respectable  and  faded  musical  tradition. 
Craftsmanship,  no  matter  how  pleasing  or  ingenious,  cannot  secure  a 
musical  composition  immortality;  it  is  inevitably  put  in  the  shade  by  the 
techniques  of  a  later  age.  True,  such  craftsmanship  may  be  admirable,  as 
a  dynamo  or  a  well  played  game  of  billards  elicit  admiration;  yet  admi- 
ration does  not  constitute  aesthetic  enjoyment. 

Aside  from  the  emotional  substratum  which  we  feel  to  be  inseparable 
from  a  truly  great  and  sincere  work  of  musical  art,  are  there  not  in  the 
earlier  supposedly  absolutist  art  plenty  of  instances  of  direct  realistic 
suggestion,  sometimes  intentional,  no  doubt,  at  other  times  a  spontane- 
ous product  of  association  on  the  part  of  the  listener?  Is  it  possible,  for 
instance,  to  listen  to  certain  of  the  Beethoven  scherzos  without  sensing 
the  gamboling  faun  (or  convention-freed  ego)  kicking  his  heels  with  a 
relish?  But  Beethoven,  the  idol  of  the  absolutists,  was  no  more  an  abso- 
lutist than  Aristotle,  the  idol  of  the  scholastics,  was  a  scholastic.  I  do 
not  think  it  would  be  going  too  far  to  say  that  all  musical  art  worthy 
of  the  name  has  implicitly,  if  not  avowedly,  some  of  the  fundamental 
qualities  of  so-called  "programme"  music;  from  a  musical  standpoint  it 
should  make  little  difference  whether  the  emotional  appeal  is  left  to 
declare  itself  in  the  mind  of  the  sympathetic  listener  or  is  trumpeted  at 
him  by  means  of  a  formidable  printed  analysis. 

We  have  turned  our  backs  on  the  uncompromising  absolutist.  Are  we 
therefore  to  receive  his  most  uncompromising  opponent  with  open 
arms?  I  have  already  indicated  in  a  general  way  the  aims  and  procedure 
of  representative  music.  It  either  uses  all  of  its  technical  resources  to 
define  a  mood  or  emotion,  or  it  may,  by  the  use  of  some  special  element 
of  technique  or  combination  of  such  elements,  depict  a  selected  feature 
of  the  external  world  [164]  (rapid  passage  work  may  be  utilized  to  sym- 
bolize the  flowing  brook  or  the  falling  rain  or  the  roaring  wind,  the  high 
pitched  piccolo  tones  may  do  service  for  the  shrieking  of  the  tempest  or 
the  chirping  of  birds,  the  loud  discord  of  clashing  harmonies  may  sug- 
gest a  battle  scene  or  the  clangor  of  a  foundry).  Now  there  seems  to  me 
to  be  a  profound  psychological  difference  between  those  two  types  of 
procedure,  intertwined  as  they  necessarily  often  are  in  practice.  That 
the  former  touches  our  emotional  life  while  the  latter  plays  upon  our 
sense  experience  is  obvious.  The  distinction  1  have  in  mind  is  more  deep- 
seated.  Realistic  suggestion  must  make  use  of  the  principle  of  associa- 
tion, and  the  fact  of  such  association  becomes  obvious  to  the  listener 
on  reflection.  By  the  musical  equivalent  of  a  figure  of  speech,  a  feature 


live    Acsihiins  905 

common  lo  iwo  cuhcruisc  loiall\  clissiiiiilar  phenomena  (the  thing  sym- 
bolized and  a  certain  mass  of  sound)  is  made  to  identify  them.  If,  for 
some  reason  or  other,  the  experience  of  the  auditor  has  been  such  as 
noi  to  make  the  associatiiMi  ob\ious.  the  suggestion  loses  all  its  force 
and  the  arlisi.  insofar  as  he  is  writing  merely  representative  music,  has 
with  that  auditor  failed  of  success.  On  the  other  hand,  music  is  able  lo 
put  us  into  more  or  less  well  defined  emoticMial  states  without  such 
associati\e  inlermedialK^n.  or.  perhaps  more  accuratel>,  the  associative 
links  are  o\'  so  obscure  and  intimate  a  nature  as  never  to  rise  into  con- 
sciousness. In  other  words,  the  emotional  effect  o\'  music  is  gained  di- 
rectly or,  what  amounts  to  essentially  the  same  thing,  gi\es  the  impres- 
sion of  being  so  gained.  Once  this  point  is  clearly  grasped,  it  becomes 
obvious  that  the  function  oi"  music,  insofar  as  it  has  aesthetic  aims  o\' 
other  than  a  sensuous  and  formal  nature,  is  primarily  the  expression  o\' 
the  emotional  aspect  of  consciousness,  only  in  a  very  .secondary  sense 
the  expression  of  the  conceptual  aspect.  This  primary  function  is  thus 
of  poetic  quality  and  may  be  brielly  described  as  the  interpretation  o\' 
emotional  quality  in  terms  of  sensuous  and  structural  beaui\.  A  still 
more  concise  way  of  putting  the  matter  is  to  define  music  as  an  idealiza- 
tion of  mood  by  means  oi"  tone. 

It  has  often  been  instinctively  felt  that  music  which  makes  loo  free  a 
use  of  realistic  suggestion  lays  itself  open  to  the  charge  of  superficiality, 
of  the  abandonment  of  its  own  highest  artistic  capabilities.  E\en  the 
greatest  composers,  in  its  employment,  seem  often  to  sail  between  the 
Scylla  o(  triviality  and  the  Charybdis  of  absurdity.  And  \et  there  is  no 
doubt  that  it  is  capable  of  affording  keen  aesthetic  pleasure.  Probabls 
the  simplest  and  most  fundamental  element  in  such  pleasure  is  the  sheer 
delight  [165]  that  the  mind  seems  to  find  in  generalizing  by  analogy,  in 
meeting  familiar  friends  in  new  and  unexpected  guise;  it  is  the  tonal 
correspondent  o\'  the  childish  phantasy  that  interprets  cKnid  shapes  as 
battleships  and  monsters  and  human  faces.  More  careful  anal\sis.  how- 
ever, shows  thai  this  type  of  pleasure  is,  in  the  best  examples  of  musical 
suggestion,  powerfully  reinforced  by  another  though  not  alwa\s  clearly 
distinct  factor.  The  melodic,  harmonic,  rh>  thmic.  or  other  musical  idea 
which  serves  as  the  symbol  of  the  concept  represented  has  in  such  cases 
an  independent  sensuous  beauty  o\'  its  msn.  a  beauts  whose  appeal 
transcends  our  normal  interest  in  the  concept  itself  Hence  such  music 
amounts  to  an  idealization  of  some  aspect  of  the  external  WiHid.  lo  our 
greeting  o\'  a  friend  in  disguise  is  added  the  much  greater  pleasure  o\' 
finding  him  liansporled  lo  a  higher  plane  oi  being.  And  this  brings  us 


906  li^  Culture 

to  a  third  and  yet  more  significant  phase  in  the  use  and  appreciation  of 
realistic  suggestion,  that  in  which  the  concept  is  not  ideahzed  for  its 
own  sake,  is  not  merely  represented  as  such,  but  is  utilized  as  a  symbol 
o^  the  emotion  simultaneously  called  forth  by  the  music.  Obviously  this 
means  a  very  considerable  heightening  of  the  quality  of  the  emotion 
itself.  The  fmest  examples  of  realistic  suggestion  derive  much  of  their 
charm  from  this  very  factor.  In  other  words,  realistic  suggestion  in  mu- 
sic is  most  successful  when  it  ceases  to  be  merely  what  its  name  implies 
hut  contributes  to  the  enrichment  of  the  emotional  aim  of  music.  Thus 
even  in  so  obviously  suggestive  a  bit  of  music  as  the  delightful  "Jardins 
sous  la  pluie"  of  Debussy,  the  secret  of  the  appeal,  it  seems  to  me,  lies 
not  so  much  in  the  clever  devices  of  rhythm,  melodic  progression,  and 
shading  which  symbolize  the  pitter-patter,  the  gustiness,  the  steady  fall, 
and  the  tempestuous  downpour  of  the  rain  as  in  the  delicate  and  wistful 
line  of  emotion  that  runs  through  the  composition;  the  rain  but  voices 
human  feeling.  And  such  humanizing  of  the  external  world  via  emotion 
is  a  significant  indication  of  the  primary  function  of  musical  art. 

We  have  just  seen  that  realistic  suggestion  may  assist  us  in  the  defini- 
tion of  the  mood  (thus,  the  suggestion  of  the  shepherd's  pipe  may  rein- 
force a  mood  or  atmosphere  of  rustic  peacefulness,  a  dancing  rhythm 
of  break-neck  rapidity  may  accentuate  a  mood  of  reckless  gaiety).  In 
representative  music,  however,  the  emotion  created  by  the  music  is  con- 
versely often  employed  to  suggest  an  associated  concept,  concrete  or 
abstract.  When  a  certain  harmonic  progression,  for  instance,  in  one  of 
Strauss's  tone  poems  is  used  to  symbolize  a  mountain,  it  is  clear  that  the 
only  [166]  associative  link  is  furnished  by  the  feeling  of  all-embracing 
massiveness  suggested  by  the  chords  in  relation  to  each  other  (I  say  "all- 
embracing,"  for  a  feeling  of  vast  extension  would  seem  to  be  implied  in 
the  sudden  chromatic  modulation  at  the  close  of  the  figure,  the  immedi- 
ate juxtaposition  of  two  harmonically  remote  keys  being  the  musical 
equivalent  of  a  bringing  together  of  the  widely  removed  in  space;  the 
feeling  of  "massiveness"  is  conveyed  by  the  use  of  full  compact  chords 
in  the  bass).  My  claim  here  is  that,  considering  the  music  itself  as  our 
starting  point,  the  interpretation  suggested  by  the  composer  is  by  no 
means  the  only  justifiable  one,  psychologically  speaking.  Adopting  the 
formula  of  "all-embracing  massiveness"  as  expressing  the  quality  of 
emotion  conveyed  by  the  passage  in  question,  it  seems  clear  that  a  quite 
unlimited  number  of  alternative  interpretations  are  possible  (the  vast- 
ness  of  the  sea.  Mother  Earth,  grim  fate,  eternal  justice),  each  condi- 
tioned by  considerations  of  personal  interest  and  experience  in  the  audi- 


Five:  Acsilictus  907 

tor.  If  the  conceptual  interpicialion  of  a  single  musical  passage  of  defi- 
nite emotional  quality  is  thus  multiform  without  limit,  how  much  more 
must  this  be  the  case  with  the  conceptual  interpretation  o\'  a  series  o^ 
such  passages,  in  other  words  of  an  extended  musical  composition!  The 
"story"  which  we  are  expected  lo  icad  in  a  composition  of  the  "pri)- 
gramme"  type  must  be  considered  as  relevant  only  insofar  as  it  conve- 
niently summarizes  in  conceptual  terms  the  emotional  stream  immedi- 
ately expressed  by  the  music.  As  such  it  may  be  highly  welcome. 
Whether  the  composer  wills  it  or  not,  the  particular  story  suggested  by 
his  title  or  analysis  is  only  a  more  or  less  arbitrary  selection  tuil  o{  an 
indefinitely  large  number  of  possible  conceptualizations.  We  cannot  re- 
fuse him  the  right  to  his  own  interpretation,  to  be  sure;  no  more  can  he 
refuse  each  one  of  us  the  right  to  his.  All  he  has  done  or  can  do,  aside 
from  the  possibility  of  direct  realistic  suggestion,  is  to  determine  for 
us  the  character  and  sequence  of  our  moods.  He  may  modestly  direct 
attention,  by  means  of  his  programmatic  apparatus,  to  the  conceptual 
genesis  in  his  own  mind  of  this  emotional  stream  or,  probabh  more 
often  than  is  generally  thought,  to  his  own  merely  secondary  interpreta- 
tion thereof,  but  he  cannot  via  a  non-conceptualizing  medium,  i.  e.  mu- 
sic, force  any  particular  stream  of  thought  on  us  except  insofar  as  we 
surrender  into  his  hands  our  own  individuality  of  judgment  and  associa- 
tion. In  short,  the  music  does  not  "telf  the  story  but  the  story  tells  or 
rather  guesses  at  the  music.  If  the  composer  absolutely  must  appeal 
conceptually,  as  well  as  emotionally,  to  his  hearers,  he  must  ha\e  re- 
course to  [167]  the  conceptual  implement  which  society  has  e\ol\ed. 
i.  e.  language.  In  other  words,  he  must  supplement  his  own  expression 
of  emotion  by  calling  in  the  aid  of  the  poet.  His  art  then  takes  on  the 
special  forms  of  the  song,  music  drama,  oratorio. 

I  have  said  that  all  the  composer  can  do  is  "to  determine  for  us  the 
character  and  sequence  of  our  moods."  It  is  not  worth  while  for  him  to 
aim  at  a  purely  representative  ideal;  his  highest  success  in  this  direction 
will  fall  miserably  short  of  what  is  attained  b\  the  merest  balderdash  in 
literature.  In  the  expression  of  the  emotions,  however,  he  has  a  field  the 
unending  fruitfulness  of  which  is  hardly  realized  by  most  people.  We 
think  it  a  field  of  narrow  range  because  words,  mere  conceptual  s\m- 
bols,  are  lacking  to  indicate  its  infinite  nuances.  Select  a  half  do/en 
musical  examples  of  the  expression  of  any  typical  emotion.  sa\  unbri- 
dled mirth  or  quiet  sadness  or  poignant  anguish,  and  compare  them. 
The  feelings  they  arouse  in  us  are  identical  onl\  when  translated  inlc> 
the  clumsy  conceptual  terminology  of  language.  In  actual  fact  ihe>  will 


908  H^  Culture 

be  found  to  be  quite  distinct,  quite  uninterchangeable.  It  is  literally  true 
that  the  aesthetic  expression  of  mood  in  tone  is  an  exhaustless  field  of 
human  endeavor.  Does  not  the  very  potency  of  music  reside  in  its 
precision  and  delicacy  of  a  range  of  mental  life  that  is  otherwise  most 
ditl'icult,  most  elusive  of  expression?  Nay  more,  does  not  music  ofttimes 
create  nuances  of  feeling,  nuances  that  add  in  profound  measure  to  the 
more  external  enjoyment  of  its  own  sensuous  and  formal  beauty? 


Editorial  Note 
Originally  published  in    The  Musical  Quarterly  4,  161-167  (1918). 


Review  of  Gilbert  K.  C'hcsicrioii, 
Utopia  of  Usurers 

Gilbert  K.  Chesterton,  Utopia  of  I'surcrs  and  Other  Essays.  New 
'Nork:  \^on'\  aw^}  I  i\criuht.  1917. 

Whether  il  is  merclx  because  C'heslei"li>ii  lias  gi\en  us  a  eharaeteristie 
and.  in  its  own  \\a\.  peculiarly  illuminating  stud\  o'i  Shaw  or  because 
a  subtle  spiritual  comradeship,  underlying  all  their  obvious  dilTcrences, 
holds  them  bound  in  memory.  I  fmd  it  difficult  to  keep  Shaw  out  of  my 
mind  when  reading  his  fellow-craftsman  in  the  art  o'l  paradox.  When 
Chesterton  makes  a  neat  point  or  tlares  out  with  some  unexpected  an- 
tithesis, I  find  myself  wondering  how  Shaw  would  ha\e  put  the  same 
idea.  Both  use  their  paradoxical  panoply  for  the  purpose  o\^  charging 
on  us  with  what  they  really  think  or,  at  least,  with  how  they  e\en  more 
really  feel.  They  are  always  deadly  in  earnest.  This  is  the  reason  uh\ 
they  can  atTord  to  laugh  so  boisterously,  for  onl\  such  as  know  what 
they  are  about  and  have  found  a  foothold  in  the  shifting  sands  o'i  idea 
can  find  time  and  energy  and,  above  all,  courage  to  laugh.  The 
well-balanced  individual  is  too  busy  pairing  o\'\^  alternati\es,  too  busy 
finding  a  sensible  middle  ground,  to  be  capable  of  more  than  a  preoccu- 
pied smile.  Laughter  presupposes  comfort;  the  pro\crbial  seat  on  the 
fence,  advantageous  as  it  may  be  in  other  respects,  is  ioo  spiked  for 
comfort. 

Yet,  like  all  similar  ihmgs.  Shaw  and  Chesterton  are  \astl>  dilTerent. 
Shaw's  main  concern  is  with  ideals  and  with  romance:  he  has  a  great 
joke  on  luinianil\  because  he  alone  sees  thai  ideals  and  loniaiice  are  but 
decorations  that  humanity  has  built  about  the  commonplace,  though  I 
fancy,  to  judge  from  sundry  wistful  passages  in  the  (2^)  Shavian  writ- 
ings, that  he  sometimes  wishes  his  sight  were  duller.  Chesterton's  con- 
cern is  also  with  ideals  and  with  romance;  but  his  laughter  springs  rather 
from  a  zestful  sense  o\'  then  abiding  presence  in  the  ci>mmonplace.  Uom 
a  feeling  of  security  in  the  essential  goodnesses  and  righlnesses  o\  lite 
that  leaves  him  free  for  quips  and  fine  scorns  and  puns  beaslK  ones 
sometimes.  Shaw  laughs  heartil>  on  an  empty  stomach.  Chesterton  cas- 


910  II J   Culture 

ily  on  a  I'lill  one.  Shaw  sees  with  amazing  clarity  the  just  beyond,  while 
the  present  lies  shadowed  in  a  penumbra;  Chesterton  sees  the  just  be- 
yond only  a  tritle  less  clearly,  but  he  sees  it  as  a  distorted  shadow  cast 
by  the  present  and  the  past,  especially  the  mystic  past.  Shaw  wanders 
about  in  search  of  his  perfect  No  Man's  Land,  struggling  all  the  while 
against  the  foul  machinations  of  sorcerers  who  invest  spades  with  glam- 
our; no  wonder  that  he  tilts  a  lance  at  an  occasional  windmill.  Chester- 
ton accepts  the  machinations  of  the  sorcerers  for  the  wonderful  actuali- 
ties they  are.  Were  Shaw  desophisticated  and  dehumorized,  he  would 
be  Don  Quixote;  were  Chesterton  desophisticated  but  not  dehumorized, 
he  would  be  Sancho  Panza. 

But  as  sophistication  and  Shavian  humor  are  what  the  biologists  call 
acquired  characters,  we  are  left  scientifically  free  to  equate  Shaw  with 
the  illustrious  Don,  Chesterton  with  his  no  less  illustrious  squire.  And 
once  we  have  accustomed  ourselves  to  interpreting  them  in  the  light  of 
an  exegesis  borrowed  from  Cervantes,  much  becomes  doubly  clear.  Na- 
ture is  never  more  purposeful  than  when  she  seems  inattentive  and  acci- 
dental. Need  we  now  wonder  that  Shaw  is  thin  and  humane,  that  Ches- 
terton is  fat  and  human?  Are  not  Shaw's  women  as  unclaspable  as  the 
famed  Dulcinea  del  Toboso,  and  might  not  Chesterton  find  beauty  and 
love  in  any  country  wench?  But  note  chiefly  this:  Shaw  scorns  the  gover- 
nance of  a  mere  island,  his  fancy  must  hold  sway  over  vaster  realms, 
the  realms  of  a  humanity  untainted  by  localism.  As  for  Chesterton,  he 
is  eminently  qualified  to  govern  an  island.  Let  Shaw  found  the  world 
state,  he  will  be  content  to  rule  merry  England  (Chesterton's  England 
will  be  merry,  as  she  has  been)  and  pontificate  for  all  of  Christianity 
that  is  worth  saving. 

In  Utopia  of  Usurers,  a  series  of  reprints  of  essays  first  published  in 
periodical  form,  Chesterton  has  much  to  say  about  his  island.  He  is  in 
a  bad  humor.  Things  have  not  gone  well  with  the  island.  Not  only  is  a 
dastardly  foe  threatening  it  from  without,  but  there  is  cause  for  endless 
disgruntlements  within.  The  "all's  well  with  the  world"  frame  of  mind 
of  Orthodoxy  has  given  way  to  scowls  and  apprehensive  shakings  of 
the  head.  Even  the  cheery  mysticism  of  that  book  and  of  so  many  of 
its  successors  (  77?^  Innocence  of  Father  Brown  and  Magic  are  types)  is 
somewhat  less  in  evidence  than  it  should  be  in  writing  coming  from 
Chesterton's  pen,  though  faint-hearted,  vestigial  formulae  are  not  ab- 
sent ("Robespierre  talked  even  more  about  God  than  about  the  Repub- 
lic because  he  cared  even  more  about  God  than  about  the  Republic"). 


Five:  Aesthetics  9 1 1 

llic  piHucrh-likc  cpiLiianis  llial  uc  naliirall\  l(u>k  lor  (ii  \m1I  he  rcincm- 
bcicd  that  Sancho  l\in/a  rc\clcci  in  proverbs)  arc  uith  us  ayaiii.  bul 
too  mail)  o\'  ihcni  arc  burnished  with  llic  anger  o{  ihc  moment  to  be 
readily  quotable  out  o['  their  context.  Still,  there  are  some  exceedingly 
good  ones.  For  instance:  "the  materialistic  SiK'iologists.  ...  whose  way 
of  looking  al  ihc  world  is  to  put  on  the  latest  and  most  pouertul  scien- 
tific spectacles,  and  then  shut  iheir  eyes";  or  "when  we  talk  of  Army 
contractors  as  among  the  base  but  active  actualities  of  war.  we  com- 
nuMiK  mean  that  while  the  contractor  benefits  by  the  war.  the  war, 
on  the  whole,  rather  suffers  b\  the  contractor."  Nor  is  that  charming 
whimsicality,  so  often  edged  with  as  much  naivete  as  paradox,  for  which 
Chesterton  is  most  to  be  loved,  entirely  absent.  Take  this  opening  of  an 
argument,  for  instance,  which  has  the  matter  of  a  Swift  and  the  temper 
of  an  angel:  "An  employer,  let  us  say,  pays  a  seamstress  twopence  a 
day,  and  she  does  not  seem  to  thrive  on  it.  So  little,  perhaps,  does  she 
thrive  on  it  that  the  employer  has  even  some  difTiculty  in  thriving  upon 
her."  But  all  through  the  volume  of  essays  runs  a  genuine  anger,  an 
anger  that  is  by  no  means  always  careful  to  clothe  itself  in  neat  turns 
and  whimsicalities  but,  on  the  contrary,  may  even  break  out  into  crude 
petulance  ("And  if  anyone  reminds  me  that  there  is  a  Socialist  Parts  m 
Germany,  I  reply  that  there  isn't"). 

What  is  it  that  angers  Chesterton  and  fills  him  with  grim  forebodings 
for  the  future  of  his  island?  Many  things  and,  especially,  man\  persons. 
But  chiefly  the  capitalists,  the  upper  middle  class,  the  usurers,  or  how- 
ever they  may  be  termed,  and  the  fear  of  the  servile  state,  the  state  in 
which  art  and  literature  and  science  and  etHciency  and  moralitv  and 
everything  else  that  has  value  in  the  eyes  of  mortal  man  become  the 
humble  servants  of  the  money-changers,  in  short,  the  "Utopia  o'^  usu- 
rers." In  this  state  the  Venus  of  Milo  advertises  soap,  and  college  profes- 
sors have  to  put  up  with  such  mental  pabulum  as  can  be  digested  and 
manages  [27]  to  get  published  by  the  captains  v>^  industr\.  Hear  Chester- 
ton's own  summary  of  the  nine  essays  devoted  to  the  dismal  uiopia: 
"its  art  may  be  good  or  bad,  but  it  will  be  an  adxertisement  lor  usurers; 
its  literature  may  be  good  or  bad,  but  it  will  appeal  to  the  patronage  o\ 
usurers;  its  scientific  selection  will  select  according  to  the  needs  o\  usu- 
rers; its  religion  will  be  just  charitable  enough  to  pardon  usurers;  its 
penal  system  will  be  just  cruel  enough  \o  crush  all  the  critics  of  usurers; 
the  truth  of  it  will  be  Slavery:  and  the  title  o^  it  may  quite  possibly 
be  Socialism."  There  is  exhilaration  in  the  defiance  o^  this  from  "The 
Escape": 


c)|2  ///   Culture 

The  water's  waiting  in  the  trough. 

The  tame  oats  sown  are  portioned  free. 

There  is  Enough,  and  just  Enough, 

And  all  is  ready  now  but  we. 

But  you  have  not  caught  us  yet.  my  lords. 

You  have  us  still  to  get. 

A  sorry  army  you'd  have  got. 

Its  Hags  are  rags  that  float  and  rot, 

lis  drums  are  empty  pan  and  pot. 

Its  baggage  is  -  an  empty  cot; 

But  you  have  not  caught  us  yet. 

And  this,  at  the  end  of  the  poem,  will  serve  to  mark  the  Chestertonian 

contempt: 

It  is  too  late,  too  late,  my  lords, 

We  give  you  back  your  grace; 

You  cannot  with  all  cajoling 

Make  the  wet  ditch,  or  winds  that  sting. 

Lost  pride,  or  the  pawned  wedding  ring. 

Or  drink  or  Death  a  blacker  thing 

Than  a  smile  upon  your  face. 

Other  causes  for  Chesterton's  scorn  there  are  in  the  book  -  the  mean- 
spirited  attempt  of  those  infernal  bores,  the  well-meaning  people,  to 
deprive  the  workingman  of  his  ale;  the  dunderheadedness  of  parlia- 
ments and  administrators;  the  incredible  mendacity  of  the  press;  the 
absurdity  of  Sir  Edward  Carson  in  the  role  of  loyal  patriot;  the 
shameless  ignorance  of  public  affairs  exhibited  by  the  well  informed; 
the  impertinence  of  Puritan  meddlers  -  but  the  capitalist  and  his  Uto- 
pia, the  servile  state,  are  at  the  back  of  these  ills,  present  and  to  come. 
Don  Quixote  (in  his  Shavian  avatar)  is  right.  The  nefarious  enchanter, 
capitalism,  is  triumphant;  he  has  cast  his  evil  spell  on  all  the  springs  of 
genuine,  straightforward  being;  he  is  nigh  unto  choking  the  soul  of 
humanity.  It  is  high  time  that  the  Quixotes  of  the  world  bestirred  them- 
selves. It  is  well  that  the  doughty  Sancho  Panza  is  caparisoned  for  the 
fray.  He  will  give  a  good  reckoning  of  his  stewardship  of  the  island. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  The  Dial  64,  25-27  (1918),  under  the  title 
"Sancho  Panza  on  His  Island." 

Gilbert  K.  Chesterton  (1874-1936)  was  an  English  journalist,  poet, 
essayist,  dramatist,  novelist,  and  critic. 


A  Nolc  on  Ircnch-Canadian  I  olk-songs 

It  is  elcHibttiil  it  I  he  old  ireasury  ofKrench  folk-lore  is  anywhere  so  well 
preserved  as  in  ihe  i*ro\ince  ofQuebec.  [21 1]  The  great  eiirrenls  of  mod- 
ern civilization  ha\e,  until  recent  days,  left  practically  unariected  this  col- 
ony of  old  France,  where  the  folk  still  observe  customs,  use  implements, 
recite  talcs,  and  sing  songs  that  take  us  right  back  [o  the  sixteenth  and 
early  seventeenth  centuries.  Indeed,  many  of  the  songs  may  be  shown,  by 
their  wide  ditTusion  on  the  continent  oi'  Europe  or  by  internal  e\  idence. 
to  go  back  to  a  much  greater  antiquity  than  that.  Some  o\'  them  ha\e  a 
definitely  mediaeval  cast.  Mr.  C.  M.  Barbeau,  who  has  gone  exhaustively 
into  all  aspects  of  French-Canadian  tblk  research,  and  has.  within  the  last 
few  years,  made  himself  incomparably  its  greatest  authority,  finds  that 
fully  ninety-five  percent  of  the  tour  thousand  songs  and  song  \ersions 
that  he  and  his  collaborators  have  gathered  are  clearly  of  old-world  ori- 
gin. Relatively  little  in  the  way  of  folk  literature  originated  in  Canada. 

This  vast  mass  of  folk-song  material  and  it  is  being  constantly 
added  to  -  has  been  recorded  both  in  text  form  and.  for  the  most  part, 
on  the  phonograph.  Many  transcriptions  have  already  been  made  by 
Mr.  Barbeau  himself,  some  of  which  ha\e  appeared,  with  full  texts,  m 
a  recent  number  of  the  Joimuil  of  Anicriain  Folk-lore.  More  are  to  fol- 
low from  time  to  time. 

No  one  who  cares  to  acquaint  himself  e\en  superficialK  with  these 
folk-songs  can  doubt  their  historic  and  aesthetic  \alue.  Ihe  music,  uiih- 
out  which  they  can  hardly  be  adequately  understcnxl  or  appreciated, 
itself  constitutes  an  illuminating  chapter  in  the  liuropean  histors  of  the 
art.  [212]  Modes  and  rhythms  but  scantily  recognized  in  the  straight 
highroad  of  "art"  music  here  flourish  luxuriantly.  The  songs  ha\e  been 
collected  from  all  parts  o[^  the  pnn  ince  -  from  the  remote  fisherman 
of  Gaspe,  the  little  farming  \illages  along  the  St.  Lawrence,  the  FYench 
sections  of  Montreal.  They  embrace  a  bewildering  variety  o^  metrical 
forms  and  of  functional  types.  Some  o{  these  types  are:  drinking  songs; 
lyrical  and  narrati\e  love  songs;  "pastoral"  songs;  the  nuiunuirics.  of 
unhappy  married  couples;  the  cocus.  jocular  songs  o\'  deceived  hus- 
bands; round  dances  and  other  types  of  dance  songs;  satires,  not  infre- 
quently on  religious  themes;  festival  songs;  working  songs  of  strongi) 


914  III  Culture 

marked  rhythm  -  fuller's,  paddling,  marching,  and  others;  little  vaude- 
villes ox  duets  for  two  singers;  ballads;  coinplaintes  or  complaints,  a 
more  solemn  or  tragic  type  of  ballad,  but  the  term  is  employed  rather 
loosely;  nimloimees  or  rigmaroles;  cradle  songs;  shanty-songs. 

Readers  of  the  four  folk-songs  included  in  this  number  of  Poetry  will 
probably  welcome  a  few  specific  indications,  which  I  owe  to  Mr. 
Barbeau.  The  Dumb  Shepherdess  is  a  religious  eomplainte,  and  is  known 
in  the  lower  St.  Lawrence  region,  both  north  and  south  shores.  The 
King  of  Spain's  Daughter  is  a  work  ballad,  especially  used  as  a  paddling 
song,  and  is  based  on  versions  from  Temiscouata  and  Gaspe  counties. 
The  Prince  of  Orange  is  another  paddling  song,  collected  at  Tadousac, 
one  of  the  oldest  French  settlements  in  Canada,  on  the  lower  St.  Law- 
rence. Wliite  as  the  Snow  is  a  good  example  of  the  genuine  ballad;  it  is 
[213]  one  of  the  best  known  folk-songs  of  Quebec,  having  been  recorded 
in  no  less  than  twelve  versions.  All  of  these  songs  have  old-country 
analogues.  White  as  the  Snow  and  The  King  of  Spain's  Daughter  have 
an  especially  wide  diffusion  in  France.  The  Dumb  Shepherdess  is  proba- 
bly the  oldest  of  the  group;  it  is  not  unlikely  that  the  French  text,  as 
recorded  in  Canada,  goes  back  to  the  fifteenth  century.  The  Prince  of 
Orange,  of  course  of  much  later  date,  is  one  of  a  category  of  well  known 
French  songs  that  mock  the  House  of  Orange. 

In  the  English  versions,  of  which  these  are  a  selection,  I  have  adhered 
as  closely  to  the  original  rhythms  and  stanzaic  structure  as  the  prosodic 
differences  of  the  two  languages  would  permit.  Pedantic  literalness  was 
not  always  possible,  yet  there  are  no  serious  deviations,  least  of  all  from 
the  spirit  of  the  songs  as  I  have  conceived  it.  Not  all  the  originals,  it  may 
be  noted,  make  use  of  strict  rhymes;  assonances  are  often  used  instead.  In 
The  Dumb  Shepherdess  I  preferred  to  do  without  rhyme,  aside  from  the 
very  end  of  the  poem,  so  fearful  was  I  of  spoiling  its  peculiar  charm. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  pubHshed  in  Poetry  20,  210-213  (1919).  Sapir's  transla- 
tions of  the  songs  discussed  in  this  note,  not  reprinted  in  this  edition, 
appeared  in  Poetry  21,  175-185  (1920);  they  were  also  published  in 
Folk  Songs  of  French  Canada  by  C.  Marius  Barbeau  and  Edward  Sapir 
(New  Haven:  Yale  University  Press,  1925),  which  contains  41  folk  songs 
collected  by  Barbeau  with  translations  by  Sapir.  Unpublished  transla- 
tions of  an  additional  six  songs  are  included  in  the  Sapir  family  archives. 


Review  of  Rabindranath  Tagore, 
Lover's  Gift,  Crossing. Maslii,  and  Other  Stories 

Rabindranath  Tagorc. 

Once  more  the  poel-seer  o\'  Bengal  otters  lis.  through  the  medium  of 
a  scries  ol^  prose  poems  and  iVee  \crse  lyrics,  contact  with  his  world  o\' 
beauty,  a  beauty  subtly  compounded  of  the  passion  of  sensuous  experi- 
ence and  the  insight,  symbolic  and  intuitive,  that  Tagore,  true  to  his 
hneage,  calls  "truth."  Those  whom  an  apt  metaphor  or  a  mystic  and 
beautifully  phrased  paradox  can  thrill  into  blissful  apprehension  o\'  the 
deeps  o\'  realit\.  o\^  the  futility  lM"  sense,  o(  the  eternity  of  the  soul.  o\' 
the  abiding  presence  of  the  behind  and  the  beyond,  will  in  "Lover's 
Gift"  and  "Crossing"  receive  fresh  sustenance  for  their  faith,  for  their 
desire.  Those  who  are  too  heavily  burdened  by  the  \eil  of  matter  to  see 
clearly  into  Tagore's  esoteric  world  oi'  reality  but  are  not.  for  all  that, 
obtuse  to  the  loveliness  of  swift  metaphor  and  exquisite  diction  will  be 
well  content  to  accept  the  beauty  and  to  look  upon  the  "truth"  as  a 
highly  interesting  facet  of  a  typically,  and  traditionally,  Hindu  personal- 
ity. Indeed,  we  would  be  churlish  if  we  could  not,  for  the  sake  of  poetry, 
even  lull  ourselves  into  a  momentary  acceptance  of  Tagore's  truths.  It 
is  not  so  very  much  that  he  requires  of  us.  It  is  not  so  very  dilTiculi  to 
persuade  ourselves  that  the  beauty  of  the  beloved  is  indeed  but  a  s\nibol 
of  the  beauty  of  all  life,  that  our  lo\e  for  the  bekned  is  a  cosmic  lo\e. 
that  death  is  the  door  to  the  eternal  life  that  was  dimmed  for  us  at 
birth.  All  this  and  nuicli  more  we  might  accept,  proxided  alwa\s  the 
thought  be  well  garmented. 

Fortunately,  the  thought  is,  for  the  most  part,  well  garmented.  One 
can  hardly  give  Tagore  greater  praise  than  to  say  that  he  \ields  but 
rarely  to  the  temptation  to  fall  into  e\lra\aganee.  to  allow  the  freshness 
o\'  his  feelings  to  choke  in  turgid  weeds.  In  an  art  and  a  philosophy 
such  as  Tagore's  simplicity  o(  diction  and  con\incingness  o\'  imagers 
are  doubly  difficult  o\'  attainment.  Their  attainment  by  lagore  means 
that  he  is,  fust  and  foremost,  a  poet.  Whether  he  is  also  a  seer  seems, 
after  this,  a  bit  irrelexant.  lelicities  of  iiielaplior  oi  expiession  meet  one 


916  III  Culture 

at  every  turn,  while  now  and  again  the  feeUng,  too  intense  for  the  bonds 
ofsymboHsm,  bursts  into  untrammeled  lyric  utterance.  I  cannot  forbear 
to  quote  at  length  at  least  one  of  the  "Lover's  Gift"  set: 

I  thought  I  had  something  to  say  to  her  when  our  eyes  met  across 
the  hedge.  But  she  passed  away.  And  it  rocks,  day  and  night,  like  a 
boat,  on  every  wave  of  the  hours  the  word  that  I  had  to  say  to  her. 
It  seems  to  sail  in  the  autumn  clouds  in  an  endless  quest  and  to  bloom 
into  evening  flowers,  seeking  its  lost  moment  in  the  sunset.  It  twinkles 
like  firetlies  in  my  heart  to  find  its  meaning  in  the  dusk  of  despair, 
the  word  that  I  had  to  say  to  her. 

For  a  moment  Tagore  here  seems  to  allow  the  passion  of  the  opening 
words  to  drift  away,  but  he  recovers  it,  poignant  and  elusive,  at  the  end. 
In  another  poem  we  read  of  "the  lonely  night  loud  with  rain."  How 
effective  and  unexpected  the  word  "loud,"  in  its  amazing  simplicity,  and 
how  stark  the  contrast  of  "lonely"  [138]  and  "loud"!  Only  poets  think 
of  such  self-evident  things. 

Not  that  Tagore  is  flawless.  Particularly  in  "Crossing,"  a  long  series 
of  symbolizations  of  the  passage  from  life  into  the  realm  ruled  by 
Death,  we  are  occasionally  annoyed  by  such  sentimental  paradoxes  as 

"Sleep,  like  a  bird,  will  open  its  heart  to  the  light,  and  the  silence 
will  find  its  voice." 

or  by  such  unrealities  as 

"When  the  morning  came  I  saw  you  standing  upon  the  emptiness 
that  was  spread  over  my  house." 

but  rarely  by  such  uglinesses  as 

"For  the  boisterous  sea  of  tears  heaves  in  the  flood-tide  of  pain." 

Yet  we  have  never  long  to  wait  for  a  reconciling  felicity,  for  a  hne  or 
a  phrase  that  clothes  extravagance  of  symbol  in  a  delicate  simplicity, 
such  a  line  as 

"Rebelliously  I  put  out  the  hght  in  my  house  and  your  sky  sur- 
prised me  with  its  stars." 

Felicity  is  the  word  that  recurs  to  one's  mind  as  he  passes  from  lyric 
to  lyric.  It  is  not  an  unmixed  compliment.  It  argues  a  certain  detachabil- 
ity.  a  certain  independent  glitter,  in  each  stone  of  the  mosaic.  Powerfully 
unified  works  of  art  leave  little  elbow  room  for  felicifies.  Right  here, 
I  venture  to  think,  lies  concealed  why  Tagore,  greatest  as  lyric  poet, 
nevertheless  falls  short  of  membership  in  the  choir  of  supremely  great 


Five:  Aesthetics  917 

lyrists.  Tagorc's  method  is  the  liision,  as  wc  have  seen,  ol  ihe  symbohc 
or  "eternally  true"  or  ol  an  mliin^iblc  stale  ol  iniiul.  uiih  the  sensuous, 
the  outwardly  real.  Whoever  essays  such  lusion  nuisl  do  homage  to 
each  Janus  lace,  the  laee  looking  out  upon  the  inner  truth  and.  no  less, 
the  face  directed  to  lleeting  reality.  It  is  my  c|uarrel  with  lagore  that  he 
is  not  impartial  m  Ins  worship.  I  lie  inner  iniili  not  mlrequenlly  tri- 
umphs at  the  expense  of  the  outer.  To  he  more  precise,  I  llnd  it  charac- 
teristic of  lagore's  method  that  his  symbolic  perception  of  his  feeling, 
seeking  to  clothe  itself  in  sensuous  terms,  chooses  image  after  image, 
each  beautiful  or  striking,  it  may  be,  but  with  little  relevancy,  perhaps, 
in  their  relation  to  one  another.  One  does  not  altogether  feel  that  a  bit 
of  outward  reality  has  been  keenly  apprehended,  that  it  grows  and 
grows  in  the  mind  of  the  poet,  taking  on  the  richness  of  shadow  and 
overtone,  until,  by  imperceptible  degrees,  it  finds  itself  wedded  to  an 
attitude  of  mind,  to  a  mood.  In  other  words,  Ihe  world  of  sense  does 
not  so  much  seem  a  powerful  suggestion  for  a  deeper  world,  as  a  casket 
of  jewels,  to  be  idly  selected  from  for  the  adornment  of  a  world  already 
defined  and  felt.  Many  a  poem,  admitted  abounding  in  single  beauties 
or  even  at  no  point  fairly  open  to  criticism,  does  nevertheless  leave  upon 
the  mind  of  the  reader  a  feeling  at  once  glittering  and  blurred.  The 
feeling  that  it  embodies  seems,  now  and  then,  a  little  insecure,  a  little 
hollow.  I  am  convinced,  however,  that  this  is  an  illusion,  that  Tagore  is 
practically  always  master  of  the  spiritual  concept  and  of  the  feeling,  but 
that  he  loses  more  than  he  perhaps  realizes  in  passing  from  the  unseen 
world  to  the  world  of  imagery.  Translations  are  rarely  completely  satis- 
fying. 

It  may  well  be  that  to  the  devotee  of  lagore  criticism  such  as  this  is 
no  criticism.  To  me,  who  am  not  in  the  least  concerned  with  Tagore  the 
seer,  but  only  with  Tagore  the  poet,  it  seems,  in  so  far  as  it  is  valid,  very 
damaging  criticism  indeed. 

"It  is  little  that  remains  now,  the  rest  was  spent  in  one  careless 
summer.  It  is  just  enough  to  put  in  a  song  and  sing  to  you;  to  weave 
in  a  flower-chain  gently  clasping  your  wrist;  to  hang  in  your  car  like 
a  round  pink  pearl,  like  a  blushing  whisper;  to  risk  in  a  game  one 
evening  and  utterly  lose." 

"To  hang  in  your  ear  like  a  round  pink  pearl,  like  a  blushing  whis- 
per." There  we  have  it  in  a  nutshell.  "It  is  just  enough"  here  is  the 
sentiment,  |I391  with  its  subtle  note  of  regret,  that  fills  the  poet,  thrills 
him  so  with  its  abstract  intensity  that  he  has  no  care  for  the  mcongruity 


918  III   Culture 

o\'  hanging  it  in  his  beloved's  ear  "Hke  a  round  pink  pearl"  and  "like  a 
blushing  whisper."  An  equally  good  example  from  "Crossing"  is 

The  day  is  dim  with  rain. 

Angry  lightnings  glance  through  the  tattered  cloud-veils 

And  the  forest  is  like  a  caged  lion  shaking  its  mane  in  despair. 

On  such  a  day  amidst  the  winds  beating  their  wings,  let  me  find  my  peace  in  thy 

presence. 

For  the  sorrowing  sky  has  shadowed  my  solitude,  to  deepen  the  meaning  of  thy 

touch  about  my  heart. 

A  mood  picture  of  the  presence  of  death,  genuinely  enough  felt  - 
but  how  is  it  with  the  concrete  perception?  I  find  myself  unable  to  run 
the  first  and  last  lines  into  the  same  picture  as  the  rest;  the  fourth  line 
undoes  the  work  of  the  third.  The  whole  is  a  series  of  really  fresh  images 
that,  nevertheless,  result  in  a  blur. 

It  is  not  often,  perhaps,  that  Tagore  mixes  his  metaphors  so  badly, 
but  these  examples  illustrate  fairly,  I  imagine,  the  dangers  of  his  method 
and  the  poetic  limitafions  of  his  view  of  the  world.  Of  the  extremely 
limited  range  of  experience  voiced  in  both  "Lover's  Gift"  and  "Cross- 
ing" (fancy  saying  seventy-eight  symbolic  times  that  one  is  in  the  pres- 
ence of  death  and  that  it  is  well  thus!)  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  speak. 
One  must  accept  a  poet's  subject  matter;  one  must  meet  him  more  than 
halfway  in  his  orientation  of  that  subject  matter.  Still,  it  is  only  human 
to  admit  that  the  volume  we  have  been  considering  creates  an  inordinate 
hunger  for  reality,  not  the  "reality"  of  Tagore,  but  the  very  crass  reality 
of  Spoon  River  and  Coney  Island. 

Tagore  himself  takes  us  a  few  steps  nearer  to  this  reality  in  "Mashi 
and  Other  Stories,"  though  we  never  quite  get  there.  It  is  as  well,  for 
stark  realism  is  not  Tagore's  forte.  Interesting  and  effective  as  most  of 
these  stories  are,  I  have  designedly  left  myself  Httle  space  to  speak  of 
them.  As  a  short  story  craftsman,  Tagore  does  not  belong  in  the  first 
rank.  There  is  too  often  a  lack  of  deftness  in  the  unfolding  of  the  theme, 
in  the  handling  of  climax,  in  the  placing  of  the  point.  Sometimes,  as  in 
the  Maupassantish  "The  Auspicious  Vision,"  "The  Riddle  Solved,"  and 
"My  Fair  Neighbour,"  the  point  of  the  tale  (and  all  three  of  these  de- 
pend for  their  effect  almost  entirely  on  "points")  is  obvious  at  a  dismally 
early  stage  of  the  proceedings.  Sometimes,  again,  a  really  promising 
story,  like  "Stubha,"  is  spoiled  or  rendered  trivial  by  an  anticlimax  or 
by  a  too  clumsy  touch  of  irony  towards  the  close. 

A  number  of  tales,  on  the  other  hand,  are  highly  beautiful  and  effec- 
tive. Such  are  "Mashi,"  "The  Supreme  Night,"  "The  Postmaster"  (per- 


Five:  Aesthetics  919 

haps  llic  bcsi  in  the  \nliinic).  aiul  "I  lie  Ri\cr  Stairs."  C'haraclcrislicall\ 
enough,  these  tales  depend  for  their  power  not  so  much  on  incident  and 
character  as  on  the  poignancy  o\'  passing  mood,  further  on  a  blend  o\ 
idealistic  mysticism  with  a  realism  that  is  not  too  complexly  appre- 
hended. "The  Postmaster,"  in  which  'point"  is  perhaps  at  a  minimum, 
has  something  of  the  cjuality  of  Chekho\.  The  lo\e  the  poor  orphan  girl 
Ralan  bears  the  not  greatly  distinguished  \illage  postmaster  is  subtly 
drawn.  It  is  not  destined  to  lead  lo  either  fulfilment  or  tragedy.  Nothing 
happens.  The  postmaster,  who  is  fond  of  chatting  with  Ratan,  finds  life 
too  dull  at  his  post  and  resigns.  He  leaves  the  village.  She  weeps.  It  is 
all  very  real  and  meaningless,  it  is  life  at  its  least  stagey  and  its  most 
atTecting.  "The  Trust  Property"  is  a  horrible  story  of  bygone  Bengal, 
and  is  in  a  class  by  itself  In  it  Tagore  combines  most  successfully,  one 
might  almost  say  unexpectedly,  the  sheer  horror  o'(  Poe's  "Cask  o\' 
Amontillado"  with  the  brutal  irony  of  Maupassant.  The  utilization  o\' 
an  old  folk-custom,  the  burying  of  a  live  [140]  victim  who  is  to  ser\e  as 
the  guardian  spirit  of  a  secret  treasure,  lends  an  added  ethnological 
interest  to  the  tale. 

Over  and  above  their  specific  qualities,  these  stories  of  Tagore's  are 
well  worth  reading  for  the  moments  of  intimate  contrast  they  aflbrd  us 
with  present-day  and  recently  past  life  in  Bengal.  It  is  good  to  assure 
ourselves  that  the  Bengali  is  as  human  and  real  as  ourseKes,  if  indeed, 
he  is  not  more  so.  It  does  no  harm  to  discover  that  caste  and  reincarna- 
tion can  be  made  to  seem  at  least  as  inevitable  as  the  Democratic  party 
and  the  Presbyterian  hymnal. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  The  Canadlcin  Mcii^ciii/ic  54.  1 . w  140  (1919). 
under  the  title  "The  Poet-Seer  o\^  Bengal." 

Sir  Rabindranath  Tagore  (I86I-1941),  Bengali  poet.  no\elist.  com- 
poser, and  painter,  received  the  Nobel  Prize  for  I  iterature  in  1913. 


Review  of  Gary  F.  Jacob, 
The  Foundations  and  Nature  of  Verse 

Cary  F.  Jacob,  The  Foundations  and  Nature  of  Verse.  New  York:  Co- 
lumbia University  Press,  1919. 

It  is  only  natural  that  the  rapid  development  of  freer  forms  of  verse 
should  be  attended  by  a  recrudescence  of  interest  in  problems  of  pros- 
ody. The  old  problem  of  the  essential  basis  or  bases  of  English  verse  is 
now  being  threshed  out  all  over  again.  The  relation  in  point  of  rhythm 
between  prose  and  verse  has  become  a  curiously  live  question.  Some 
see  in  prose  and  verse  two  naturally  distinct  and  unbridgeable  forms  of 
expression;  others  consider  them  as  merely  the  poles  of  a  continuous 
gamut  of  possible  forms,  some  of  which  are  only  now  being  consciously 
explored  as  artistic  media. 

In  his  conscientious  if  somewhat  dull  book,  Dr.  Jacob  takes  us  over 
a  great  deal  of  familiar  ground,  leads  us,  with  shrewd  deliberation,  into 
many  a  blind  alley  of  negation,  leaves  himself  apparently  little  or  no 
ground  to  stand  on,  and  triumphantly  concludes  with  a  statement  of 
principles  and  natural  limitations.  Too  much  space  is  devoted  to  prelim- 
inaries -  acoustic,  ethnographic,  psychologic.  It  is  difficult  to  see,  for 
instance,  what  meat  the  humble  prosodist  is  expected  to  extract  from 
the  lengthy  chapter  on  pitch,  with  its  array  of  citations  from  technical 
treatises  on  acoustics  and  from  antiquated  works  of  an  ethnographic 
nature.  On  the  whole  one  gathers  that  Dr.  Jacob's  psychologic  and  pur- 
ely musical  equipment  is  superior  to  either  his  culture-historical  or  his 
linguistic  equipment.  This  may  well  be  erring  on  the  right  side,  but  it 
also  tends  to  limit  his  perspective  in  a  way  that  is  not  always  fortunate. 
Phonetic  phenomena  are  as  good  as  ignored.  Again,  the  problems  of 
English  verse  structure  are  not  set  against  a  historical  or  comparative 
background  that  would  serve  to  bring  out  in  proper  relief  its  own  essen- 
tial peculiarities. 

The  book  offers  nothing  really  new.  To  the  devotees  of  freer  prosodic 
forms  it  will  prove  a  disappointment.  No  natural  basis,  however  broad, 
is  pointed  out  that  would  justify  free  verse  as  a  realm  of  artistic  promise. 


hvc:  .hs  the  lies  921 

Between  the  accidental  rli\iliiiis  o\  prose  and  ihc  more  or  less  rigidly 
recurrent  metric  units  ot"  normal  verse  Dr.  Jacob  throws  no  bridge.  The 
book  strikes  one,  despite  its  liberal  employment  o(  psychologic  and 
prosodic  authorities,  as  needlessly  narrow  in  outlook.  I, ike  many  proso- 
dists.  Dr.  Jacob  al laches  probably  too  great  nnporlance  to  the  purely 
objective  and  experimental  study  of  rhythmic  [l()()|  phenomena.  A  sub- 
tler and  ultimately  more  fruitful  analysis  would  ha\e  demanded  a  wide 
defmition  oi'  the  concept  of  periodicity  and  a  greater  willmgness  to  eval- 
uate the  more  intimately  subjective  rhythmic  factors.  The  same  stanza 
may  be  lrul\  \erse  to  one  subject,  just  as  truly  prose  to  another,  accord- 
ing to  whether  or  not  a  rhythmic  contour  (not  necessarily  a  rigid  metri- 
cal pattern)  is  clearly  apperceixed  b\  the  reader  or  hearer. 


Editorial  Note 
Origmally  published  (unsigned)  m  The  Dial  66,  98,  lUU  (\')\') 


The  Heuristic  Value  of  Rhyme 

The  employment  of  rhyme  always  presents  a  problem.  We  like  to 
think  that  the  poet,  carried  away  by  his  vision  and  the  passion  of  his 
theme,  has  his  rhymes  coming  to  him  spontaneously,  that  there  is  in  the 
creation  of  rhymed  verses  no  too  deliberate  process  of  selection.  We  like 
to  think  that  form  and  subject  matter  are  wedded  from  the  beginning  in 
an  indissoluble  unity.  But  all  art  is  largely  technique,  and  technique 
involves  experimentation,  rejection,  selection,  modification  of  the  origi- 
nally envisaged  theme.  Undoubtedly  the  actual  practice  of  poets  differs 
widely  as  regards  the  discovery  of  their  rhymes.  We  shall  not  go  far 
wrong  in  assuming  that  it  is  only  in  the  rare  case  that  thought  and  form 
come  to  the  creator  as  a  God-given  unit.  Perhaps  we  may  speak  of 
"God-given"  rhyme  in  some  of  the  very  best  lyrics  of  such  poets  as 
Robert  Burns  and  Heine.  Normally  rhyme  must  prove  a  taskmaster; 
not  infrequently  it  must  coerce  the  poet  into  dulling,  if  ever  so  slightly, 
the  edge  of  his  thought  here  or  padding  out  a  little  its  range  there.  It 
does  not  in  the  least  follow  that  the  compulsion  he  is  under  to  satisfy  the 
taskmaster  renders  his  work  any  the  less  satisfying  in  the  end.  Indeed  it 
is  more  than  probable  that  the  very  feeling  of  compulsion  often  serves 
as  a  valuable  stimulant  in  the  shaping  of  his  thought  and  imagination. 

The  strained  image  or  the  far-fetched  phrase  is  a  price  paid  all  too  fre- 
quently by  the  poet  to  the  necessity  of  rhyming.  Even  the  best  of  poets  can- 
not always  escape  these  sins,  when  he  has  set  himself  the  task  of  squirming 
about  in  a  difficult  form  pattern.  Rhymes  ad  hoc  are  common  in  the  work 
of  our  more  facile  poets.  It  would  be  possible  to  quote  more  than  one  pas- 
sage from  John  Masefield's  work  in  illustration  of  this  melancholy  truth. 
Thus,  I  find  the  following  from  "Truth,"  one  of  the  poems  published  in  The 
Story  of  a  Round  House,  to  contain  a  weak,  rhyme-compelled  line: 

Stripped  of  purple  robes, 

Stripped  of  all  golden  lies, 

I  will  not  be  afraid. 

Truth  will  preserve  through  death; 

Perhaps  the  stars  will  rise, 

The  stars  like  globes. 

The  ship  my  striving  made 

May  see  right  fade. 


Five:  Aesthetics  923 

Maseficld  here  scl  limisclf  a  lalhci  dirricull  \crsc  pattern.  He  had  to 
find  a  rh\iiic  in  his  two-fooled  sixth  hue  to  match  the  "robes"  of  the 
first.  His  soUilion  o\'  the  diUleiihy.  "the  stars  hke  globes,"  is  hardl\ 
fortunate.  A  repetition  of  "the  stars"  is  bad  enough,  "hke  globes"  lea\es 
the  reader  in  sad  wonder.  It  h^is  pertinenc\  neither  as  idea  nor  as  imag- 
ery. 

Another  example  of  the  made-to-order  rhyme  in  Maselleld's  \erse  is 
to  be  found  in  "The  Wanderer."  We  read: 

So.  lis  ihoLigh  slopping  lo  a  funeral  march. 
She  passed  defeated  homeward  whence  she  came. 
Ragged  with  tattered  canvas  white  as  starch. 
A  wild  bird  that  misfortune  had  made  tame. 

The  "white  as  starch"  seems  dragged  in  by  the  heels. 

It  would  be  a  far  more  difficult  but  also  more  thankful  task  to  point 
out  the  heuristic  \alue  o{  rh\nie.  the  stimulating,  or  e\en  directls  cre- 
ative, etTect  that  the  necessity  of  finding  a  rhyming  word  may  exercise 
on  the  fancy  of  the  poet.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  imbedded  in  the 
smooth  surface  of  great  rhymed  verse  there  lie  concealed  hundreds  o^ 
evidences  of  technical  struggles  that  have  resulted  in  a  triumph  o\'  the 
imagination,  a  triumph  that  could  hardl\  ha\e  been  attained  except 
through  travail.  Many  a  felicitous  fancy,  many  a  gorgeous  bit  o^  imag- 
ery, would  have  forever  remained  undiscovered  if  not  w hipped  into  be- 
ing by  the  rhyming  slave-dri\er.  One  of  the  prettiest  examples  that  occur 
to  me  I  select  from  the  work  of  Robert  Frost,  who  o'i  all  poets  will  not 
readily  be  accused  of  an  undue  adherence  to  con\entional  patterns.  In 
"Blueberries,"  one  of  the  poems  oiNorih  of  Boston.  I  find  the  lines: 

Blueberries  as  big  as  the  end  of  your  thumb. 
Real  sky-blue,  and  hea\y.  and  ready  to  drum 
In  the  ca\ernous  pail  o['  the  fust  one  to  come. 

[311]  It  is  impossible  to  pro\e  anything  about  these  lines  without  direct 
inquiry  of  the  writer,  who,  moreover,  may  have  forgotten  the  circum- 
stances oi'  composition.  But  I  ha\e  always  instincli\ely  felt  that  the 
beautiful  "drum"  image  was  evoked  in  response  to  the  rlnniing  neces- 
sity set  by  the  preceding  "thumb." 

Nuances  of  feeling  may  recei\e  an  unexpected  sharpening,  a  poi- 
gnancy of  contrast,  by  way  of  rhyme  that  its  absence  may  ha\e  allowed 
to  remain  unrevealed.  Turning  the  pages  o\'  Ihc  Man  a^iiiinst  the  Sky.  I 
find  this  very  characteristic  bit  o\'  lidwin  Arlington  Robinson  from  "Li- 
sette  and  Eileen": 


924  IIJ  Culture 

Because  a  word  was  never  told, 
I'm  going  as  a  worn  toy  goes. 
And  you  are  dead;  and  you'll  be  old; 
And  I  forgive  you,  I  suppose. 

Nothing  could  well  be  more  casual,  ostensibly,  than  the  "I  suppose"  of 
the  last  line.  Yet  how  better  could  all  the  poignant  irony,  the  frenzy,  the 
passionate  resignation  of  Lisette  have  been  expressed?  One  wonders  if 
this  superb  fourth  line  could  ever  have  fashioned  itself  in  Robinson's 
brain  if  he  had  allowed  himself  to  work  in  a  freer  medium. 

Somewhat  similar  in  its  general  effect  is  the  following  bit  of  humor- 
ous irony  from  "The  Cake  of  Mithridates"  (included  in  John  Davidson's 
Fleet  Street  and  other  Poems): 

With  that  the  baker,  breathing  spice, 
Produced  the  cake  hot  from  the  fire, 
And  every  vizier  ate  a  slice, 
Resolving  to  be  less  a  liar. 

There  could  be  no  more  fittingly  impertinent  summary  of  the  whole 
spirit  of  the  poem  than  the  unexpectedness  of  the  final  rhyme.  The 
poem  could  not  possible  have  ended  on  a  more  appropriate  note. 

Both  Robinson  and  Davidson  are  distinguished  by  a  rare  combina- 
tion of  intellect  and  passion.  Perhaps  it  is  precisely  the  passionate  tem- 
perament cutting  into  itself  with  the  cold  steel  of  the  intellect  that  is 
best  adapted  to  the  heuristic  employment  of  rhyme.  The  temperament 
and  the  triumphant  harnessing  of  form  belong,  both  of  them,  to  the 
psychology  of  sublimation  following  inhibition.  [312] 

I  may  be  pardoned  if  I  once  again  quote  Masefield.  Masefield  has 
passion,  vigor,  swiftness,  a  fine  frenzy  that  stamps  him  a  belated  Eliza- 
bethan. He  has  caught  in  his  verse  the  physical  throb  and  external  color 
of  the  present,  his  spirit  belongs  irredeemably  to  the  past,  to  the  roman- 
tic past  at  that.  Few  poets  of  his  stature  are  so  innocent  of  intellect.  As 
luck  would  have  it,  shortly  after  I  had  noted  the  fire... liar  rhyme  in 
Davidson,  I  ran  across  the  following  instance  of  the  identical  rhyme  in 
''The  Daffodil  Fields": 

But  all  my  being  is  ablaze  with  her; 

There  is  no  talk  of  giving  up  to-day. 

I  will  not  give  her  up.  You  used  to  say 

Bodies  are  earth.  I  heard  you  say  it.  Liar! 

You  never  loved  her,  you.  She  turns  the  earth  to  fire. 

Little  comment  is  necessary.  The  external  logic-chopping  of  these  lines 
only  serves  to  emphasize  the  unbridled,  not  to  say  unarticulated,  pas- 


Five:  Aesthetics  925 

sion.  To  ihc  modern  sensibility,  is  the  lasl  sciilciKc  Icll  as  "in  ihc  draw- 
ing"? Have  uc  not  here  again  a  lacilc  rhyming  icchniquc  seeking  shelter 
and  justincation  behind  an  all  loo  uncritically  evaluated  rush  of  feeling? 
Tomorrow  these  lines  will  seem  strangely  cold.  Robinson's  cold  lines 
will  still  burn. 

It  is  not  often  thai  the  artist  can  or  cares  to  re\eal  much  o{  the 
intimate  processes  o{  his  work.  Perhaps  in  most  cases  he  is  himself 
unable  to  analyze  the  process  of  creation  with  any  degree  of  satisfaction. 
Where  he  can,  howe\er,  it  w ill  certainly  be  o^  the  greatest  interest  for  a 
sound  slud\  of  aesthetics  to  ha\e  him  record  something  of  this  process. 
We  have  much  too  little  material  of  the  sort  to  work  with.  If  aesthetics 
is  ever  to  be  more  than  a  speculative  play,  of  the  genus  philosophical, 
it  will  have  to  get  down  to  the  very  arduous  business  o^  studying  the 
concrete  processes  of  artistic  production  and  appreciation. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  Queen's  Quarterly  27,  309-312.  Typographi- 
cal errors  in  the  original  have  been  corrected  without  comment,  based 
on  Sapir's  ms.  notes  on  his  copy. 


The  Poetry  Prize  Contest 

[The  first  (hree  paragraphs  of  this  article  are  here  omitted  They  consist 
of  a  list  of  the  poems  awarded  prizes  in  The  Canadian  Magazine's  1920 
contest;  a  statistical  breakdown  of  the  genres  into  which  entries  fell;  and 
a  discussion  of  those  genres.  -Eds.] 

What  of  the  quahty  of  the  poems  submitted  to  the  three  judges?  Let 
it  be  frankly  confessed  that  the  general  average  of  merit  exhibited  was 
far  below  what  the  judges  believed  they  had  a  right  to  expect.  The  prize 
otTered  was  worthy  of  any  poet's  serious  consideration;  the  response 
seemed  hardly  adequate.  Poem  after  poem,  especially  in  the  class  of 
patriotic  efforts,  voiced  the  most  distressingly  conventional,  personally 
unfelt  and  unexperienced,  sentiments.  Even  where  the  technical  execu- 
tion was  satisfying,  the  thought  and  feeling  and  imagery  had  a  discon- 
certing way  of  harking  back  to  well-worn  poetic  models.  Gray's  "Elegy 
in  a  Country  Churchyard"  was  perhaps  the  most  persistent  ghost,  the 
Kiplingesque  line  with  its  jaunty  anapests  was  another.  "In  Flanders 
Fields"  was  responsible  for  a  whole  crop  of  war  poems,  to  the  extent 
of  frequent  quotation  of  the  characteristic  title  words.  Barely  a  dozen 
poems  all  told  had  something  original  to  say  or  presented  a  universal 
sentiment  in  a  strikingly  original  manner.  Genuine  feeling  tended  to 
express  itself  crudely;  competent  formal  expression  seemed  to  stifle 
feeling. 

The  prize-winning  poems  of  the  open  class  illustrate,  on  a  poetically 
successful  plane,  these  contrasting  tendencies.  "The  Pioneer"  is  clearly 
stimulated  by  a  genuinely  felt  sentiment,  but  the  beauty  of  the  poem,  it 
seems  to  me,  is  essentially  a  beauty  of  rhythm  and  words,  rather  than  of 
conception.  It  is  altogether  different  with  "A  Revelation,"  which  makes 
perhaps  severer  demands  on  the  interpretative  sympathy  of  the  reader. 
This  poem  has,  in  some  degree,  the  faults  of  its  merits.  It  throbs 
throughout  with  the  passion  of  a  religious  emotion  that  has  so  mastered 
the  diction  and  style  as  to  cut  away  all  verbiage,  to  the  point  of  occa- 
sional obscurity  of  expression  and  a  too  turbid  rhythmic  movement. 
These  critical  remarks  are  only  intended  to  bring  out  the  fact  that  each 
has  room  for  rich  development  in  the  mastery  of  a  difficult  craft.  They 


Five:  AcstlwtUs  927 

must  nol  he  interpreted  so  as  to  read  sliiihtingly.  All  three  judges  feel 
stronglv  that  both  p^kmiis.  as  well  as  Mi.  Hourinot's  sonnet,  are  worthy 
of  very  high  praise. 

It  seemed  \o  the  judges  that  the  disappouilmg  nature  of  the  iii.iss  fi 
poetry  sent  in  eould  be  due  to  only  one  eause  -  that  the  majority  o! 
the  best  pcK^ts  in  Canada  had.  tor  one  reason  or  another,  failed  to  re- 
spond. [3.^1]  Possibly  this  is  due  to  insuffieient  advertising  of  the  pro- 
posed award:  more  likely  to  a  eertain  hesitaney  that  the  piK't  who  has 
"arrixed"  or  is  about  to  arrise  feels  in  joining  the  merry  throng  of  com- 
petitors. This  brings  up  the  question  o\'  the  purpose  o\'  a  poetry  prize. 
Is  such  a  pri/e  to  he  awarded  for  tlie  purpose  of  encouraging  talented 
amateurs  to  take  up  more  seriously  an  art  they  might  otherwise  neglect 
-  and  who  can  den\  that  the  cultural  atmosphere  o{  our  country  is 
only  passively  sympathetic,  if  at  all.  to  the  serious  de\elopment  o'i  the 
art  of  poetry?  Or  should  a  pri/e  gi\e  public  recognition  to  good  work 
done  within  a  stated  period,  no  matter  by  whom  or  under  what  aus- 
pices? In  other  words,  which  is  the  more  useful  function  o\'  a  poetr\ 
prize,  stimulation  towards  creation  or  recognition  of  the  created  work? 
If  so  external  a  stimulus  as  a  prize  could,  in  any  true  sense,  be  held  to 
encourage  the  actual  production  of  a  work  of  art.  there  wcnild  he  much 
to  be  said  for  such  prizes  as  those  recently  awarded  by  the  Arts  and 
Letters  Club  of  Ottawa.  One  suspects,  howe\er,  that  a  poem  written 
entirely  under  the  compulsion  of  desire  to  win  a  competitive  pri/e  is  apt 
to  be  an  indifferent  thing  at  best;  that  an  artist  wi^rthy  o\'  the  name, 
while  needing  all  the  encouragement  he  can  get,  will  fmd  other  and 
more  powerful  sources  of  inspiration  than  the  prize-lure;  and  that  the 
few  poems  of  value  generally  elicited  by  a  prize  contest  are  such  as  had 
been  lying  aicuiiul  in  manuscript  before  the  aniuumcement  t>f  the  prize. 
But  here  precisely  lies  a  difficulty.  Everyone  that  is  at  all  professionally 
connected  with  poetry  knows  \ery  well  how  difficult  it  often  is  for  a 
poet  to  get  himself  a  hearing.  It  is  simply  nc»t  true  that  all  poems  o\ 
great  merit  find  a  ready  market.  For  poetic  work.  particularK  for  poetic 
work  o\'  marked  originalit\.  we  need  some  more  adequate  method  o\' 
reaching  the  Canadian  public  than  is  at  present  a\ailable.  The  literary 
magazines  are  few  and  far  between  and  necessarils  de\ote  but  an  incon- 
siderable portion  of  their  space  to  poelr\.  The  costs  of  publication  of  a 
volume  o\'  poems  are  so  great  aiul  the  commercial  returns  so  uncertain 
that  we  can  hardly  blame  the  publisher  who  turns  down  an\ thing  that 
does  not  tally  with  the  standardized  wares  he  is  most  comfortable  with. 
On  the  other  hand,  a  poetry  prize  is  too  isolated  an  event  to  help  maleri- 


928  lit  Culture 

ally  in  the  solution  o^  this  very  real  problem  of  getting  at  the  public. 
What  young  poets,  and  old  ones,  for  that  matter,  need  is  not  so  much 
the  hectic  hope  of  a  rare  and  disproportionate  emolument  as  the  oppor- 
tunity to  have  their  work  brought  to  the  attention  of  the  poetry-loving 
public.  It  seems  to  me  that  there  is  only  one  way  in  which  this  can  be 
done,  it  is  the  establishment  of  a  substantial  journal,  financially  guaran- 
teed, if  possible,  devoted  solely  or  mainly  to  the  publication  of  poetry 
and  critical  articles  dealing  with  poetry.  A  few  such  journals  exist  in 
England  and  the  United  States,  and  it  is  perhaps  not  too  much  to  say 
that  such  periodicals  as  Poetry,  Contemporary  Verse,  and  the  English 
Poetry  Review,  far  removed  though  they  be  from  the  ranks  of  best  sell- 
ers, are  doing  more  to  stimulate  public  interest  and  original  production 
in  poetry  than  the  whole  run  of  popular  magazines,  whose  chief  relation 
to  poetry  would  seem  to  be  the  occasional  publication  of  a  properly 
sentimental  sonnet  as  a  stop-gap.  Canada  is  developing  rapidly  along 
material  lines.  She  is  also  showing  numerous  indications  of  a  breaking 
of  the  chrysalis-shell  of  provincialism.  Should  it  not  be  possible  to  find 
a  welcome  for  a  Canadian  poetry  journal? 

These  remarks  do  not  dispose  of  the  prize  question.  There  is  no 
reason  why  the  prize  should  not  be  used  to  give  recognition  to  especially 
praiseworthy  poems  that  have  already  reached  the  public,  whether  in 
book  form  or  in  magazines.  The  general  [352]  public  has  no  idea  how 
poorly  poetry  is  paid.  The  average  editor  would  be  ashamed  to  tell  his 
readers  how  much  he  expends  for  even  his  best  poetic  contributions,  if, 
indeed,  he  pays  for  them  at  all!  Under  these  circumstances  anything 
that  can  be  done  to  crown  the  poet's  work  with  hard  cash  is  a  graceful 
tribute  to  his  genius  and  a  welcome  addition  to  his  income,  which  fre- 
quently is  slender.  More  than  that,  money  prizes  of  this  sort  do,  in  an 
indirect  but  far-reaching  manner,  help  to  encourage  the  sensitive  poet 
by  putting  him  in  more  sympathetic  touch  with  his  public.  The  fact  that 
the  poet  uses  mere  words  tends  to  blind  the  public  to  the  realizafion 
that  he  is  as  truly  an  artist  as  the  brother-craftsman  that  works  with 
tone  or  color.  The  award  of  money  prizes  would  help,  in  a  crude  way, 
to  accentuate  this  fact.  Were  there  in  existence  in  Canada  such  a  poetry 
journal  as  I  have  spoken  of,  its  editorial  staff  could  properly  undertake 
the  task  of  organizing  the  giving  of  prizes.  As  it  is,  it  ought  to  be  pos- 
sible for  a  number  of  literary  organizations  in  Canada  to  pool  a  certain 
proportion  of  their  resources,  appoint  a  staff  of  three  or  four  judges, 
and  invite  the  submission  by  poets  of  works  published  during  the  year. 
There  are  other  methods  of  organizing  prize  awards  that  may  seem 


Five:  Aesthetics  929 

more  cftccti\c.  My  own  suggcstitMi  is  a  piircl\  icnlalivc  one.  In  any 
event,  \vc  can  haicll\  do  {oo  nuicli  \o  clc\alc  the  status  of  serious  poetry 
in  Canada  or  to  gain  sonic  slight  increase  m  emolument  to  the  pi>et  lor 
his  ill-paid  art. 


Editorial  Note 
Originally  published  in  I'lic  Cuncididn  Mui^uzim-  >4.  M9     '^52  (r)2()). 


The  Musical  Foundations  of  Verse 

Miss  Amy  Lowell's  paper  on  "The  Rhythms  of  Free  Verse"  is  particu- 
larly important  for  the  attention  it  calls  to  the  concept  of  a  time  unit  in 
certain  types  of  verse  as  distinct  from  the  metric  unit  determined  by 
syllabic  structure  alone  or  by  syllabic  structure  dominated  by  stress.  To 
quote  Miss  Lowell:  "For  years  I  had  been  searching  the  unit  of  vers 
lihre.  the  ultimate  particle  to  which  the  rhythm  of  this  form  could  be 
reduced.  As  the  'foot'  is  the  unit  of  'regular  verse,'  so  there  must  be  a 
unit  in  vers  lihre.  I  thought  I  had  found  it.  The  unit  was  a  measurement 
of  time.  The  syllables  were  unimportant,  in  the  sense  that  there  might 
be  many  or  few  to  the  time  interval."  This  passage  was  all  the  more 
pleasing  to  me  in  that  I  found  confirmation  in  it  of  a  feeling  that  had 
gradually  and  strongly  come  to  be  borne  in  on  me  in  the  reading  of 
certain  types  of  free  verse,  the  feeling  that  in  some  of  the  more  artistic 
products  of  the  imagist  school,  for  instance,  there  was  present  a  ten- 
dency to  a  rhythm  of  time  pulses  that  operated  independently,  more  or 
less,  of  the  number  of  syllables.  A  line  of  verse,  for  instance,  that  had 
considerable  length  to  the  eye  might  quite  readily,  I  conceived,  be 
looked  upon  as  the  exact  prosodic  equivalent  of  a  line  of  perhaps  but 
half  of  its  length,  if  the  rates  of  articulation  of  the  two  lines  differed 
sufficiently  to  make  their  total  time-spans  identical  or  approximately 
so.  Hence  the  metrical  "irregularity"  of  one  type  of  free  verse  might 
be  and,  in  at  least  some  cases,  as  I  felt  convinced,  was  consciously 
or  unconsciously  meant  to  be,  interpreted  as  a  merely  optical  but  not 
fundamentally  auditory  irregularity.  This,  in  musical  terminology, 
would  be  no  more  than  saying  that  two  equivalent  measures  (metric 
units)  may,  and  frequently  are,  of  utterly  different  constitution  both  as 
regards  the  number  of  tones  (syllables)  in  the  melodic  line  (flow  of 
words)  and  the  distribution  of  stresses.  What  is  true,  as  regards  prosodic 
equivalence,  of  lines  of  unequal  length  may,  of  course,  also  be  true  of 
syllabically  unequal  portions  of  lines. 

A  very  crude,  but  striking,  exemplification  of  the  unitary  value  of 
such  time  pulses  is  afforded  by  a  series  of  orders  delivered  [214]  by  a 
drill  sergeant  at  intervals,  we  will  say,  of  exactly  two  seconds: 


Five:  Acs  the  lies  9}\ 

March! 
Right  lace! 
Riirhl  about  face! 
Halt! 


The  ordinary  prosodic  aiuilysis  rcsoKcs  iiuo  iliis; 


-  an  irregular  bit  ol'  "verse"  involving  in  its  four  hunihlc  luies  no  less 
than  three  metric  patterns.  Of  course,  the  truth  o\'  the  matter  is  some- 
thing like  this: 

a  perfectly  humdrum  and  regular  type  of  rhythmic  movement.  The  met- 
ric unit  oi'^  the  drill-sergeant's  "poem"  is  not  properly  -  or  -  -  or  - 
uu,  but  a  two-second  time-span.  To  lend  variety  to  the  contour  of  the 
discourse,  he  might,  quite  in  the  manner  of  some  iM'  the  more  realistic 
tVee  verse  of  the  day,  substitute  a  rapid  nine-syllabled  oath  for  a  military 
order  without  breaking  the  time-metrical  framework  ol'  the  w  hole.  Such 
an  oath  might  be  analyzed,  let  us  say,  as: 

<u  —   —   —  Kj  —  <uyj  —, 

but  it  would  be  the  precise  time-metrical  equivalent  ol"  the  "March!"  o\ 
the  first  line. 

That  in  much  free  verse  relatively  long  lines  or  sections  are  meant 
(sometimes,  perhaps,  only  subconsciously)  to  ha\c  the  same  tune  \alue 
as  short  lines  or  sections  of  the  same  stanza  seems  \er\  likcl>  to  me. 
The  first  stanza  o\^  Richard  Aldington's  beautiful  little  poem  ".Amalfi" 
reads: 

Wc  will  come  down  to  you, 

O  very  deep  sea. 

And  drift  upon  your  pale  green  waves 

I. ike  scattered  petals. 

The  orthodox  scansion: 

KJKJ    —    KJKJ    —    (or:    <UKJ    —     —    KJ    —) 

u  —  uu  — 

KJ    —    KJ     —     KJ     —    KJ    — 

u   —   w   —   U 


932  JIJ  Culture 

may  be  correct  or  approximately  correct  stress-analysis  of  the  stanza, 
but  it  does  not,  if  my  own  feeling  in  the  matter  is  to  be  taken  as  a  guide, 
being  out  the  really  significant  form  units.  If  the  four  lines  are  read  at 
the  same  speed,  an  effect  but  little  removed  from  that  of  rhythmical 
prose  is  produced.  If  the  speeds  are  so  manipulated  as  to  make  the  lines 
all  of  equal  or  approximately  equal,  length,  a  beautiful  quasi-musical 
ertect  is  produced,  the  retarded  hovering  movement  of  the  second  and 
fourth  lines  contrasting  in  a  very  striking  manner  with  the  more  rapid 
movement  of  the  first  and  third.  I  should  go  so  far  as  to  suggest  that 
the  time-units  in  this  particular  stanza  are  more  important  metrical  de- 
terminants than  the  distribution  of  stresses.  The  last  five  lines  of  the 
poem  are  clearly  intended  to  move  along  at  a  markedly  slow  rate: 

We  will  come  down, 
O  Thalassa, 
And  drift  upon 
Your  pale  green  waves 
Like  petals. 

The  repetition  of  the  earlier 

And  drift  upon  your  pale  green  waves 

as 

And  drift  upon 

Your  pale  green  waves 

is  no  doubt  an  attempt  to  express  to  the  eye  the  difference  in  speed 
intuitively  felt  by  the  poet.  The  splitting  of  the  line  in  two  must  not  be 
dismissed  as  a  vagary.  Whether  the  current  methods  of  printing  poetry 
are  capable  of  doing  justice  to  the  subtler  intentions  of  free-verse  writers 
is  doubtful.  I  shall  revert  to  this  point  later  on. 

It  would  be  manifestly  incorrect  to  say  that  all  writers  of  free  verse 
feel  with  equal  intensity,  or  feel  at  all,  the  unitary  value  of  time  pulses. 
Not  all  that  looks  ahke  to  the  eye  is  psychologically  [216]  comparable. 
In  ordinary  metrical  verse  the  stress  unit  or  foot  tends  to  have  a  unitary 
time  value  as  well.  The  prolonged  coincidence  of  stress  units  and  time 
units,  however,  leads  often  to  an  unpleasantly  monotonous  effect.  To 
avoid  this,  as  is  well  known,  retardations  and  accelerations  of  speed  are 
introduced  that  give  the  movement  of  the  verse  greater  fluidity  or  swing. 
This  process  of  disturbing  the  coincidence  of  time  and  stress  units  is  the 
obverse  of  the  unification  by  means  of  time  units  of  the  irregular  stress 
groupings  of  free  verse.  Both  "unitary  verse,"  to  use  Dr.  Patterson's 
and  Miss  Lowell's  not  altogether  happy  term,  and  time-disturbed  metri- 


Five:  Aesthetics  933 

cal  verse  arc  "irregular"  or  "tree'"  in  the  sense  ihal  \\\o  uiiii  streams  oi 
ditTerenl  iialure  tail  l(^  ciiiiiciJe.  It  is  h\  no  means  a  foregone  conclusion 
that  the  latter  type  of  \erse,  ordinarily  accepted  without  question  as 
untVee,  is  more  "regular"  in  all  cases  and  to  all  ears  than  the  former. 
Much  depends  on  the  sensitiveness  of  the  reader  or  hearer  to  the  apper- 
ception of  lime  pulses. 

1 1  would  he  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  feeling  for  time  units  m 
regular  \erse  manifests  itself  only  in  connection  with  the  foot  or  with 
equivalent  groupings  of  feet.  The  time  unit  is  by  no  means  aK^ays  con- 
gruous to  liie  metric  unit  or  sequence  of  such  units,  but  may  make  itself 
fell  more  or  less  independently  of  the  metrical  tlcns.  ma\.  in  extreme 
cases,  so  blur  this  How  as  to  well  nigh  efface  it  altogether.  Thus,  a  hea\\ 
syllable,  with  following  pause,  may  stand  out  as  the  lime  equivalent  of 
the  rest  of  the  syllables  in  the  same  line,  though  metrically  o\'^  only  a 
fraction  ol'  their  weight.  An  interesting  example  of  such  a  contlict  o\' 
two  prosodic  principles  seems  to  me  to  be  the  lines: 

Us,  in  the  looking  glass. 
Footsteps  in  the  street, 

of  Walter  de  la  Mare's  "The  Barber's,"  one  oi'  the  delightful  rhymes  of 
Peacock  Pie.  The  metrical  structure  of  the  poem,  as  exemplified  by  the 
immediately  preceding 

Straight  above  the  clear  eyes. 
Rounded  round  the  ears. 
Snip-snap  and  snick-a-snick. 
Clash  the  barber's  shears. 

is  clearly  reducible  to  the  formula: 

-  (u)  -  u  -  (u)  - 

—  \j   —   u   — . 

[217]  The  strict  application,  however,  o\'  this  formula  to  the  two  lines 
first  quoted  results  in  a  lifeless  interpretation  o\'  their  movement  and  in 
a  meaningless  emphasis  of  the  "in"  in  each  case.  The  reading 

> 


^  i: 


J  J"  / 


;; 


j 


is  intolerable.  It  seems  that  "us"  (one  toot)  is  the  lime  equivalent,  or 
approximately  so,  of  "in  the  looking  glass"  (three  feet).  "foi>lstep"  (one 
foot)  of  "in  the  street"  (two  feet).  In  the  first  line,  "us"  and  the  first 
syllable  o\'  "looking"  are  strongly  stressed,  "glass"  weakly,  "in"  not  at 


934  IJJ  Culture 

all;  in  the  second,  the  first  syllable  of  "footsteps"  and  "street"  are 
strongly  accented,  "in"  weakly,  if  at  all.  In  other  words,  the  proper 
four-foot  and  three-foot  structure  is  resolved,  under  the  influence  of  a 
contlicting  time  analysis,  into  a  primarily  two-pulse  movement: 


which  may  be  interpreted,  in  prosodic  symbols,  as: 

—  (  "  )  uu   —   u   — 

—  VJ  (' )  uu   — , 

the  ( '  )  representing  a  silent  or  syncopated  secondary  stress.  To  speak 
of  a  "caesura"  does  not  help  much  unless  a  reference  to  time  units  is 
explicitly  connoted  by  the  term.  Needless  to  say,  the  sequence  -  (' )  u  u 
("us,  in  the")  differs  completely,  to  an  alert  ear,  from  the  true  dactyl 

-  u  u .  These  lines  of  De  la  Mare's  are  a  good  example  of  the  cross- 
rhythmic  effect  sometimes  produced  in  English  verse  by  the  clash  of 
stress  units  and  time  units.  They  differ  psychologically  from  true  "uni- 
tary verse"  in  that  the  metrical  pattern  established  for  the  ear  by  the 
rest  of  the  poem  peeps  silently  through,  as  it  were.  This  silent  metrical 
base  is  an  important  point  to  bear  in  mind  in  the  analysis  of  much 
English  verse.  The  various  types  of  dimly,  but  none  the  less  effectively, 
felt  rhythmic  conflicts  that  result  have  not  a  little  to  do  with  the  more 
baffling  subtleties  of  verse  movement.  Meanwhile  it  is  highly  instructive 
to  note  here  a  formal  transition  between  normal  verse  and  "free  verse." 
The  line  of  demarcation  between  the  two  is,  indeed,  a  purely  illusory 
one.  [218] 

The  normal  foot  of  English  verse  is  ideally  determined  in  three  ways 

-  by  a  single  stress,  a  definite  syllabic  sequence,  and  a  time  unit.  These 
three  elements  are,  in  practice,  interwoven  to  form  more  or  less  complex 
and  varied  patterns,  for  foot,  line,  or  stanza.  As  is  well  known,  the 
syllabic  structure  and  time  pulses  of  normal  verse  are  particularly  liable 
to  variation,  but  stresses  also  are  handled  more  freely  than  is  generally 
supposed,  particularly  if  we  go  back  of  the  ostensible  metrical  scheme 
that  stares  coldly  at  us  on  the  printed  page  to  the  actual  rhythms  of  the 
living  word.  Generally  these  prosodic  determinants  are  functions  of 
each  other.  In  other  words,  the  streams  of  stress-units,  syllabic  groups, 
and  time  pulses  are  not  completely  independent  factors  but  tend  to  be 
concomitants  or  multiples  of  each  other.  They  are  synchronous  phe- 


Five:  Aesthetics  935 

nonicna.  Il  is  oiiK  b\  st>nic  ctTort  i^faiialNsis  thai  \sc  Icarn  to  convince 
ourselves  thai  cacli  dclcrniinaiit.  more  or  less  regardless  o(  the  other 
two,  may  form  the  basis  of  aesthetically  satisfying  rhythmic  sequences. 
In  English  metrical  \erse,  stress  is  the  main  determinant;  in  *'unitar\" 
free  verse,  it  is  the  time  pulse;  in  normal  Irench  \erse,  the  syllable 
group.  Where  these  noticcabl\  fail  lo  coincide,  ue  may  speak  of  inter- 
crossing rh\lliiiis  or  non-synchronous  \erse  patterns.  "Unitary  \erse" 
illustrates  one  type  o\'  non-synchronous  verse  pattern,  but  others  are  to 
be  found  here  and  there  within  the  precincts  o\'  traditional  metrical 
verse. 

Stress-verse,  time-\erse.  and  syllable-verse,  if  ue  ma\  coin  these  con- 
\enient  terms.  ha\c  or  ma\  ha\c.  ho\\c\er,  this  in  common,  that  they 
are  periodic  forms,  that  their  ground  patterns  recur  with  a  high  degree 
of  regularity.  The  unit  oi'  periodicity  is  marked  by  the  line  alone  or 
by  regular,  though  often  complex,  alternations  of  lines,  con\entionally 
grouped  in  stanzas.  The  determinants  of  periodic  structure  are,  besides 
stress,  time,  and  syllabic  sequence,  the  use  of  perceptible  pauses  (one  of 
the  most  important,  if  explicitly  little  recognized,  rhythm-defmers)  and 
the  rising  and  failing  (also  strengthening  and  weakening)  o\'  the  \oice. 
The  periodic  nature  of  some  of  the  free  types  of  verse  is  often  obscured 
to  many  by  their  failure  to  evaluate  rightl\  the  factors  o\'  time,  pause. 
and  voice  inflexion. 

Alliteration,  rhyme,  assonance,  and  simple  repetition  o\'  words  or 
phrases  are,  in  modern  English  verse,  generally  o\'  a  decorati\e  or  rhe- 
torical rather  than  primarily  metrical  significance.  [21^]  The  fact  that 
they  are  recurrent  features,  however,  gives  them.  particularl\  in  the  case 
of  rhyme,  a  period-forming  or  metrical  function  at  the  same  time.  Ttie 
metrical  value  may  even  outweigh  the  decorative  or  rhetorical,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  older  Germanic  alliterative  verse  and  the  t\pical  rh\med 
verse  of  French;  in  the  latter,  sectioning  into  syllable-periods  would  be 
somewhat  difficult  wiilu>ul  the  aid  of  rh\mc  because  of  the  lack  of  stress 
guidance  and  because  o\'  the  intolerabl\  mechanical  elTect  that  Wi>uld 
result  from  the  use  of  regularly  recurrent  pauses.  It  is  highh  interesting 
to  observe  that  the  sectiiMiing  power  o\'  rhsnie.  mdependentl)  of  either 
stress,  syllable,  or  time  paltcrns.  has  been  sci/cd  upon  b\  some  o\  our 
modern  poets  as  a  means  o\'  attaining  a  comparaliveK  novel  and,  it 
skillfully  handled,  oftentimes  delightful  type  of  nunement.  Robert  I'rost 
is  especially  clever  in  this  technique.  Take,  for  inst.iiKc,  the  fnlKuMng 
lines  from  "After  Apple-Picking": 


936  Jl^  Culture 

For  I  have  had  too  much 

Of  apple-picking;  I  am  overtired 

Of  the  great  harvest  I  myself  desired. 

There  were  ten  thousand  thousand  fruit  to  touch. 

Cherish  in  hand,  hft  down,  and  not  let  fall. 

For  all 

That  struck  the  earth. 

No  matter  if  not  bruised  or  spiked  with  stubble, 

Went  surely  to  the  cider-apple  heap 

As  of  no  worth. 

The  sectioning  here  is  mainly  the  resuU  of  the  irregularly  distributed 
rhymes.  It  forms  a  rhythmic  flow  that  intercrosses  with  the  simulta- 
neous iambic  stress-rhythm  of  the  poem.  We  made  the  acquaintance  a 
little  while  ago  of  time-stress  intercrossing;  here  we  have  a  related,  but 
very  distinct  rhythmic  principle  -  rhyme-stress  intercrossing.  The  lines 
of  irregular  length  are,  in  my  opinion,  only  superficially  analogous  to 
those  of  "unitary"  free  verse.  It  would  be  highly  artificial  to  assign  to 
such  a  line  as  "For  all"  a  time  value  equivalent  to  that  of  "For  I  have 
had  too  much."  There  is  no  retardation  of  tempo  in  the  short  lines 
analogous  to  that  of  the  only  deceptively  similar  lines  from  Aldington. 
The  tempo  in  Frost's  poem  is,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  as  even  as 
that  of  normal  blank  verse;  barring  the  rhymes,  its  movement  may, 
indeed,  not  inaptly  be  described  [220]  as  that  of  non-periodic  blank 
verse.  The  iambic  foot  is  the  only  stress-time-syllabic  unit;  the  unmeas- 
ured rhyming  line  is  the  only  higher  periodic  unit. 

In  this  example  of  Frost's,  rhyme-sectioning  is  clearly  indicated  to 
the  eye.  Rhyme-sectioning  may,  however,  be  subordinated  to  another 
periodic  principle  of  greater  psychologic  importance  and  therefore  be 
deprived  of  external  representation.  The  sporadic  interior  rhyming  in 
ordinary  metrical  verse  is  an  example  of  such  subordinate  sectioning 
that  is  at  the  same  time  synchronous,  not  intercrossing,  with  the  metri- 
cal period.  Various  types  of  subordinate  rhyme-intercrossing  are  pos- 
sible. An  interesting  example  is  furnished  by  the  third  "stanza"  of  Carl 
Sandburg's  "Cool  Tombs": 

Pocahontas'  body,  lovely  as  a  poplar,  sweet  as  a  red  haw  in  November  or  a  paw- 
paw in  May,  did  she  wonder?  does  she  remember?  ...  in  the  dust,  in  the  cool 
tombs? 

This  is  written  as  a  connected  whole  probably  because  the  refrain,  "in 
the  dust,  in  the  cool  tombs,"  which  occurs  at  the  end  of  the  other  three 
stanzas  as  well,  is  the  determinant  of  a  periodic  structure  that  dwarfs 
the  sub-sectioning.  Nevertheless  the  stanza  that  I  have  quoted  may  be 
readily  analyzed  into  time  units  of  the  "unitary  verse"  type: 


/•'/\('.   Ac.silu-liiw  937 


I\)cahontas'  body,  lovely  as  a  poplar. 

Sued  as  a  red  hau  in  NVncnihcr  or  a  i->au-|>.i\s  m  \l.i>. 

Did  she  wonder'.' 

Does  she  reiiieinber'.' 


In  the  dust,  in  the  eool  tonihs? 

The  rliMiic-cotipicls  (haw  paw-paw.  N\)\cniber  remember )  produce 
an  inter-crossiiiLi  sectioning  ihat  is  distinctly  subordinate,  but  none  the 
less  appreciable.  It  wcnild  be  as  misleading,  psychologically  speaking, 
to  print  the  stan/a  in  the  manner  o\'  Frost's  "After  Apple-Picking,"  thus 
emphasizing  the  rhyme  sections  at  the  expense  of  the  time  sections,  as 
to  pimi  the  latter  as  blank  \erse,  ignoring  the  rhyme-sectioning. 

The  term  "periodic  structure"  is  most  conveniently  used  when  the 
formula  of  recurrence  is  capable  of  expression  in  simple  mathematical 
terms,  generally  on  the  basis  oC  an  ideal  time  measurement.  "Section- 
ing" is  a  wider  term  that  includes  the  former,  implying  merely  a  division 
into  appreciable  psychological  [221]  pulses,  short  or  long  and  o\'  regular 
or  irregular  relations.  So  long  as  the  sectioning  is  clearls  apprehended 
by  the  mind,  some  sort  of  rhythmic  contour  results.  This  contour  ma\ 
be  aesthetically  significant  even  if  there  is  no  defmite  prosodic  s\siem, 
as  ordinarily  understood,  at  the  basis  of  the  sectioning.  A  single  strong 
stress  or  an  unusually  long  pause  at  the  end  nia\  be  enough  to  mark 
off  a  section.  A  poem  may  be  periodic  in  reference  to  one  o(  its  units 
of  length,  non-periodic  in  reference  to  another.  Thus,  the  foot  ma\  be 
a  periodic  unit,  while  the  line  and  stanza  are  not;  the  rhyme-sectioning 
ma>  be  strictly  periodic  in  (ovm.  while  the  metric  s\stem  is  now  the 
stanza  may  be  perfectly  "free,"  presenting  no  clearly  defined  periodic 
features,  yet  may  itself  serve  as  a  rigid  pattern  for  peritxlic  treatment; 
and  so  on  through  all  manners  of  complications  and  intercrossings.  .-Vs 
an  example  of  stanza-periodicity  in  free  \erse  I  may  quote  the  following: 

K)  1)1  HI  SS'i 

"Lci  Cut/ii'dicih'  Fm^loniic" 
Like  a  taint  mist.  niurkiK  illununed. 

That  rises  imperceptibl\.  tloatine  its  way  nowhere,  nmv hither. 
Now  curling  into  some  momentary  shape,  now  seemmi:  poised  m  space  - 
Like  a  faint  mist  that  rises  and  fills  before  me 
And  passes; 

Like  a  vauue  dream.  Iltfully  lilumineil. 

Thai  wanders  irresponsibly.  Ilouiiii:  unbid  nowhere.  ni>whilher. 

Now  flashing  inli>  a  lurid  tlame-lit  scene,  now  seeming  lost  in  ha/c 


938  iil   Culture 

Like  a  vague  dream  that  lights  up  and  drifts  within  me 
And  passes; 

So  passes  through  my  ear  the  memory  of  the  misty  strain, 
So  passes  through  my  mind  the  memory  of  the  dreamy  strain. 

The  I'liM  two  Stanzas,  it  will  be  observed,  follow  a  perfectly  periodic 
scheme  with  reference  to  each  other  (precise  recurrence  of  rhythms  and 
word  repetition),  but  show  no  rigid  periodic  features  as  such.  This  form 
is  most  easily  o^  service  where  there  is  a  natural  parallelism  of  thought 
or  feeling. 

The  preceding  unsystematic  observations  on  the  structure  of  verse,  if 
de\eIopcd  to  their  logical  outcome,  lead  to  the  conviction  that  the  pos- 
sible types  of  verse  are  very  numerous  -more  so  than  assumed  even  by 
the  vers  Hhristes,  it  would  seem  -  that  they  are  nowhere  sharply  delimited 
from  each  other,  and  that,  in  particular,  it  is  impossible  to  say  where 
metrical  verse  ends  and  "free  verse"  begins.  The  rhythmic  contour  or 
contours  of  any  type  of  verse  result  from  the  manner  of  sectioning  em- 
ployed in  it.  "Rhythmic  contour"  includes  here  not  merely  the  flow  of 
foot  on  foot  or  of  syllable  group  on  syllable  group  but,  equally,  of  stanza 
on  stanza  or  of  free-verse  time  pulse  on  time  pulse.  A  strictly  analytic 
classification  of  the  possible  prosodic  varieties  would  have  to  consider: 

1 .  Whether  the  primary  unit  of  sectioning  is  determined  by  stress, 
time,  number  of  syllables,  alliteration,  rhyme,  assonance,  repetition,  or 
other  element. 

2.  Whether  the  primary  sectioning  is  in  short  or  long  units;  in  the 
latter  case  we  might  speak  of  a  long-breathed  rhythmic  contour. 

3.  To  what  extent,  if  at  all,  the  smaller  section  units  are  built  up  into 
large  ones. 

4.  Which,  if  any,  of  the  orders  of  sectioning  are  of  a  periodic  nature. 

5.  Whether,  if  there  is  more  than  one  rhythmic  contour,  these  are 
synchronous  or  intercrossing. 

Anyone  who  takes  the  trouble  to  think  out  to  some  extent  the  impli- 
cations of  such  an  approach  to  the  problems  of  verse  structure  will  soon 
be  led  to  conclude  that  only  a  very  small  number  of  possible  forms 
have  been  at  all  frequently  employed.  Considerable  rhythmic  discipline 
would  be  needed  to  learn  to  assimilate  readily  some  of  the  more  long- 
breathed  types  of  structure  and  the  subtler  types  of  intercrossing.  There 
is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  our  ears  will  grow  more  sensitive  to  the  less 
conventional  developments  of  the  rhythmic  impulse  as  genuine  artists 
give  us  more  and  more  convincing  examples  on  which  to  feed  the  im- 
pulse. One  does  not  spontaneously  assimilate  and  enjoy  the  cross- 


Five:  Aesthetics  939 

rh\lhnis  o\'  a  Scriabinc  ov  llic  irregular  ihcinatic  rcpclilions  of  a  De- 
bussy, bill  one  gradiiall)  learns  lo  do  so  and.  in  so  doing,  one  rises  to 
a  more  and  more  subtle  eonsciousness  ol  ihe  infinite  possibilities  o{ 
rlnthmic  appreeiation.  1  ha\e  advisedly  said  nothing  of  the  satislaetor) 
or  unsatistactor\  nature  o\'  the  eadenee  or  swing  of  verse  not  formally 
regulated  by  stress.  This  is  an  important  but  dirt'ieull  matter  to  reduce 
to  analysis.  No  doubt  there  are  frequently  brought  mto  [223]  play  inter- 
crossing relations  o^  various  rhythmic  factors,  so  adjusted  as  to  give  a 
sense  of  hidden  periodicity  under  an  apparently  irregular  contour  I 
ha\e.  further.  purposel\  avoided  an\  necessary  reference,  in  the  five 
criteria  of  verse  classification,  to  a  specific  rhythmic  determinant,  say 
stress.  The  feeling  for  sectioning  of  some  kind  is,  1  believe,  the  basic 
factor  in  the  psychology  of  verse  appreciation.  The  how  of  the  section- 
ing is  an  exceedingly  important  detail,  but  still  on\\  a  detail  m  a  funda- 
mental theory  of  prosody. 

It  is  now  time  to  ask  what  relation  verse  bears  to  prose.  If  sectioning, 
whether  into  short  or  long  units,  is  to  be  accepted  as  the  fundamental 
criterion  of  verse,  it  is  clear  at  the  outset  that  it  would  be  just  as  vain 
to  look  for  a  hard  and  fast  line  of  formal  demarcation  between  prose 
and  verse  as  between  metric  verse  and  free  verse.  If  we  could  substitute 
"periodicity"  for  "sectioning,"  we  would  be  better  otT,  and,  indeed,  it 
will  be  found  in  practice  that  comparatively  little  o^  even  free  verse  is 
totally  lacking  in  some  form  of  periodicity.  Nevertheless  we  have  not 
the  right  to  narrow  our  defmition  of  verse  in  such  a  way  as  to  exclude 
any  type  o^  rhythmically  articulated  discourse,  however  irregular  the 
contours  yielded  by  analysis.  Since  it  is  obvious  that  all  prose,  even 
such  as  is  not  carefully  modulated  in  pleasing  cadences,  is  capable  o^ 
being  sectioned  o[^^  into  shorter  and  longer  units,  whether  o\'  stress  or 
time  or  pause-marked  syllable  groups,  it  would  almost  seem  that  we 
have  allowed  ourselves  lo  be  driven  into  the  paradox  that  all  prose  is 
verse.  This  would  be  improving  M.  Jourdain's  interesting  discovery. 
Have  we  been  talking  verse  all  our  lives  witlunil  knowing  it'.' 

Were  we  lo  depend  entirely  on  an  external  and  purelv  mechanical 
analysis  of  the  phenomena  of  sectioning,  we  should  indeed  have  ii>  de- 
spair of  ascertaining  any  completely  valid  differentia  of  verse.  A  rhvth- 
mic  contour  i>f  some  kind  is  as  inseparable  from  the  notion  i>f  prose  as 
from  that  of  verse.  Fortunately  we  possess  an  extremelv  simple  criterion 
to  guide  us,  so  simple  that  we  need  not  wonder  that  it  has  been  consis- 
tently overlooked.  It  is  ihe  psychological  principle  o\'  attention.  o{ 
rhythmic  self-consciousness.  Of  two  passages  that  are  perlectiv  homolo- 


940  ^^^   Ciilmrc 

gous  in  rhythmical  respects,  so  long  as  a  merely  formal  analysis  is  made 
of  their  stresses,  time  phrases,  and  [224]  syllables,  one  may  be  verse 
because  the  rhythmic  contour  is  easily  apperceived  as  such,  demands 
some  share  of  the  reader's  or  hearer's  attention,  the  other  prose  because, 
for  some  reason  or  other,  the  same  rhythmic  contour,  while  necessarily 
making  a  vague  impress  on  the  fringe  of  consciousness,  has  not  suc- 
ceeded in  clearly  obtruding  itself  on  the  attention.  In  the  former  case 
the  rhythmic  construction  of  the  passage  is  present,  as  an  analyzable 
factor,  both  phonetically  and  aesthetically;  in  the  latter,  phonetically 
but  not  aesthetically.  As  far  as  art  is  concerned,  rhythm  simply  does  not 
exist  in  the  latter  case.  (An  immediate  corollary  of  these  considerations, 
should  they  be  accepted  as  valid,  is  the  necessary  limitation  of  machine 
methods  in  the  investigation  of  prosodic  problems.  If  the  evaluation  of 
rhythm  did  not  unavoidably  involve  the  subjective  factor  of  fixation  of 
attention,  it  might  be  possible  to  arrive  at  completely  satisfactory  results 
with  the  aid  of  such  methods  alone.  As  it  is,  it  is  doubtful  if  it  will  ever 
be  possible  to  dispense  wholly  with  introspective  analysis,  welcome  as 
are  the  data  yielded  by  rigorously  objective  methods.)  Verse,  to  put 
the  whole  matter  in  a  nutshell,  is  rhythmically  self-conscious  speech  or 
discourse. 

If  anyone  doubts  that  verse  and  prose  may  be  perfectly  homologous 
from  the  rhythmic  standpoint,  he  can  readily  convince  himself  by  simple 
experiments  with  both  prose  and  verse.  He  may  so  read  a  prose  passage 
as  to  make  all  its  rhythmic  characteristics  stand  out  in  over-clear  relief. 
In  spite  of  himself  an  effect  of  nervous,  irregular  verse  will  be  produced; 
not  infrequently  he  will  find  himself  reading  blank  verse.  The  contrast 
between  the  sharpness  of  the  rhythmic  contour  and  the  inappropriately 
prosaic  character  of  the  diction  or  thought  may  make  the  reading  pain- 
fully stilted,  but  he  will  be  reading  verse  none  the  less.  If  he  succeeds  in 
substituting  words  of  poetic  content,  without  changing  the  rhythmic 
pattern,  he  will  be  reading  poetry  as  well.  The  book  that  lies  nearest  to 
hand  at  the  moment  is  America  through  the  Spectacles  of  an  Oriental 
Diplomat,  by  Wu  Ting  Fang,  LL.  D.  Opening  it  at  random,  the  first 
sentence  that  strikes  my  eye  is:  "Uniforms  and  badges  promote  brother- 
hood." I  am  convinced  that  this  is  meant  to  be  prose.  Nevertheless, 
when  I  read  it  many  times,  with  ever-increasing  emphasis  on  its  rhyth- 
mic contour  and  with  less  and  [225]  less  attention  to  its  content,  I  grad- 
ually find  myself  lulled  in  the  lap  of  verse: 

—   u   —   u   —   u'u   —   —   u— . 


Five:  Ai'sthctics  941 

Had  Wu  Ting  Fang  cIidscii  lo  cloilic  liis  ihsiliniic  paiicrn  in  words  of 
poetic  ciMinolation,  say: 

I  luiiulcrbolts  ct>nic  ciiishiiiL'  in  m.Kl  UirbuloiKc. 

the  elTeel  ofxerse  latent  in  all  j^rose  uoiiM  ha\e  risen  \o  the  surface  far 
more  rapidl). 

C\'>n\ersel\.  one  nia)  take  a  passage  o{  undoubted  \erse  and  turn  it 
into  prose,  subjectively  speaking,  by  the  simple  process  of  reading  il 
with  dilVused  i"h\thniic  attention.  It  reciuires  some  practice  to  {\o  this 
convincingly,  though  1  have  heard  more  than  one  lecturer,  when  quoting 
poetry  for  illustrati\e  purposes,  succeed  with  little  apparent  etTort  in 
producing  this  effect.  Free  verse,  even  the  most  strikingls  rhythmical 
free  verse,  ma\  very  easil\  thus  lapse  into  prose.  If  prosaic  diction  is 
substituted,  without  destroying  the  rhythmic  pattern,  even  the  most  pal- 
pable metric  movement  may  be  made  to  seep  awa\  into  an  unarticulatetl 
prose.  The  first  four  lines  of  "H.  D.'""s  ■"Oread""  run: 

Whirl  lip.  sea    - 
Whirl  your  pointed  pines. 
Splash  your  great  pines 
On  our  rocks. 

These  lines,  though  not  based  on  a  metric  scheme,  are  in  the  highest 
degree  rhythmical.  The  following  approximate  verse-homologue: 

I  say.  Bill! 

Come,  you  silly  boob. 
Fetch  your  old  pate 
Back  to  \o\\\\ 

introduces  itself  with  every  apology  but  believes  it  proves  its  point.  The 
verse  pattern  set  by  the  original  poem  is  so  clear-cut  in  its  rhvihmic 
outline  that  even  this  travesty  is  not  wholly  devoid  o\'  rhvthmic  elTecl 
and  is,  to  that  extent,  verse.  Nevertheless  it  is  undeniable  that  a  casual 
reading  of  the  lines  suggests  a  far  weaker  degree  o^  rhvthmic  self-con- 
sciousness. In  short,  it  is  not  enough  for  a  rhvthm  to  be  di.scoverabic; 
it  must  disclose  itself  with  alacrity.  Verse  rhythms  come,  or  should 
come,  to  us;  we  go  lo  the  rhythms  o['  prose. 

All  this  means,  if  it  means  anything  at  all.  that  there  is  not  onlv  wo 
sharp  dividing-line  between  prose  and  verse,  as  has  been  so  otlen 
pointed  out.  but  that  the  same  passage  is  both  prose  and  verse  accord- 
ing to  the  rhythmic  receptiv  ity  o['  the  reader  or  hearer  or  according  lo 
his  waning  or  increasing  attention.  Fhe  verv  lack  o\  svmpalhv  that  is 
so  often  accorded  the  freer  forms  o{  verse  frequently  brings  with  it  an 


942  til   Culture 

unavoidable  transmutation  of  the  verse  into  prose.  A  and  B  are  quite 
right  in  caMing  the  "same  poem"  prose  and  verse  respectively.  They  are 
talking  about  different  things.  Poetry  does  not  exist  in  its  symbolic  vi- 
sual form;  like  music,  it  addresses  itself  solely  to  the  inner  ear. 

There  are,  naturally,  several  factors  that  tend  to  excite  the  rhythmic 
apperception  of  a  series  of  words,  to  deepen  prose  into  verse.  The  isola- 
tion and  discussion  of  these  factors  would  be  one  of  the  most  important 
tasks  of  a  psychologically  sound  theory  of  prosody.  Foremost  among 
them  is  perhaps  the  choice  of  words,  the  diction.  Whatever  be  our  favor- 
ite theory  of  the  nature  of  diction  in  poetry,  it  must  be  granted  unreserv- 
edly that  any  lexical,  grammatical,  or  stylistic  peculiarity  that  is  not 
current  in  prose  helps  to  accentuate  the  rhythmic  contour  if  only  be- 
cause the  attention  is  more  or  less  forcibly  drawn  to  it.  "Wherefore  art 
thou  come?"  is  necessarily  more  rhythmical  than  its  prose  equivalent, 
"What  made  you  come?"  not  so  much  because  of  inherent  metrical 
differences  as  of  the  practical  impossibihty  of  reading  the  former  sen- 
tence with  the  carelessness,  the  diffused  rhythmic  attention,  so  inevitable 
in  the  reading  of  the  latter.  It  does  not  in  the  least  follow  that  conven- 
tionally "poetic"  diction  is  necessarily  justified  in  poetry.  Poetry  has 
to  follow  more  masters  than  rhythm  alone.  Any  striking  or  individual 
intuition,  such  as  we  have  a  right  to  look  for  in  poetry,  is  bound  to 
clothe  itself  in  correspondingly  striking  expression,  in  some  not  altoge- 
ther commonplace  choice  of  words.  That  is  enough  for  that  heightening 
of  attention  which  is  so  essential  for  the  adequate  appreciation  of  rhyth- 
mic effects.  Curiously  enough,  we  are  here  brought  to  a  realization  of 
the  fact  that,  however  justifiable  in  general  theory  the  separation  of  the 
formal  aspect  of  poetry  (verse)  from  its  distinctive  content,  [227]  in 
practical  analysis  this  separation  can  hardly  be  enforced.  Prosody  di- 
vorced from  poetic  intuition  is  very  much  of  an  abstraction. 

We  must,  further,  freely  grant  that  periodicity  in  sectioning  is  a  partic- 
ularly powerful  stimulus  for  the  awakening  of  rhythmic  consciousness. 
This  is  inevitable  because  of  the  rapidly  cumulative  effect  on  the  atten- 
tion of  repetition  of  any  kind.  Even  sectioning  is  more  easily  seized 
upon  than  uneven  sectioning.  Hence  it  lends  itself  more  readily  to  utili- 
zation in  verse.  It  is  no  more  rhythmical  per  se  than  a  rhythmically  well 
apperceived  passage  with  uneven  sectioning;  it  merely  helps  solve  the 
problem  of  attention  by  so  much.  Should  we,  for  the  sake  of  avoiding 
the  appearance  of  hairsplitting,  grant  to  periodicity  as  such  an  intrinsi- 
cally prosodic  character,  we  should  have  to  conclude  that  the  gamut  of 
forms  that  connects  normal  prose  with  strophic  verse  is  twofold:  a 


Five:  Aesthetics  943 

gamut  dcpendiiiLi  on  a  progressive  application  ot  ihc  principle  of  peri- 
odicity (the  shorter  and  more  numerous  the  periodic  units,  the  more 
verse-Mke  the  form)  and  a  gamut  depending  on  the  degree  of  appercep- 
tion of  the  rhythmic  contour  (the  more  selt-conscious  the  contour,  the 
more  verse-like  the  form).  Only  we  must  be  careful  not  to  identity  the 
principle  ot"  periodicity  with  the  particular  applications  o\'  it  that  are 
familiar  to  us  in  metrical  verse.  Theoretically  speaking,  any  particular 
form  of  discourse  will  be  best  thought  o\\  not  as  flatly  verse  or  prose, 
but  as  embodying  the  verse  principle  in  greater  or  less  degree.  With 
those  who  prefer  impersonal  abstractions  to  subjective  realities  there  is 
no  need  to  argue. 

The  inestimable  advantages  of  the  art  of  writing,  in  poetry  as  in  mu- 
sic, have  been  purchased  at  a  price.  Impressions  originally  meant  for 
the  ear  have  been  transcribed  into  visual  symbols  that  give  at  best  but 
a  schematized  version  of  the  richly  nuanced  original.  Symbolization 
tends  to  rigid  standardization,  to  a  somewhat  undue  emphasis  on  se- 
lected features  at  the  expense  of  others.  We  have  become  so  accustomed 
to  taking  in  poetry  through  the  eye  that  I  seriously  doubt  if  the  purely 
auditory  intentions  are  as  clear  to  all  as  is  light-heartedly  assumed.  Is 
it  easy  to  grant  that  an  eye-minded  critic  (and  more  people  tend  to  eye- 
mindedness  than  ear-mindedness)  who  has  silently  read  an  immenseK 
greater  volume  of  poetry  than  he  [228]  has  heard  is  always  competent 
to  discuss  free  verse  or  any  verse?  One  wonders  sometimes  what  a  dis- 
passionate psychological  investigation  would  disclose.  To  a  far  greater 
extent  than  is  generally  imagined  I  believe  that  the  pleasurable  responses 
evoked  by  metrical  verse  are  largely  conditional  on  visual  experiences. 
The  influence  of  visual  stanza-patterns  in  metrical  verse,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  somewhat  disturbing  effect  o\'  unc\cn  lines  m  free  \erse. 
on  the  other,  are  not  to  be  too  lightly  dismissed.  Much  o\'  the  misunder- 
standing of  the  freer  forms  may  well  be  due  to  sheer  inabilit\  to  think, 
or  rather  image,  in  purely  auditory  terms.  Had  poelr\  remained  a  purely 
oral  art,  unhampered  by  the  necessity  of  expressing  itself  through  \isual 
symbols,  it  might,  perhaps,  have  had  a  more  rapid  and  \aried  formal 
development.  At  any  rate,  there  is  little  doubt  that  the  modern  de\eK>p- 
ments  in  poetic  form  would  be  more  rapidl\  assimilated  b\  the  poetr\- 
loving  public. 

Most  people  whi^  have  thought  seriously  o\'  the  matter  at  all  uould 
admit  that  our  poetic  notation  is  far  from  giving  a  just  notion  o\  the 
artist's  intentions.  As  long  as  metric  patterns  are  conventionalK  ac- 
cepted as  the  groundwork  of  poetry  in  its  formal  aspect,  it  may  be  that 


944  HI   ^  iiliinv 

lU)  giciil  liiiiin  rcsiills.  It  is  wlicii  subtler  aiul  less  habitual  piosodic 
leatuies  need  to  be  given  expression  that  clilTieulties  arise.  I'ree  verse 
uiulDubtedly  sutlers  lri>ni  this  iiiiperleetion  of  the  written  medium.  Re- 
taiclatii>ns  and  aeeelerations  of  tempo,  pauses,  and  lime  units  are  merely 
iMiiilied.  It  IS  far  IVom  unthinkable  that  verse  may  ultimately  be  driven 
to  introduee  new  notational  features,  partieularly  sueh  as  relate  to  lime. 
It  is  a  pity,  lor  instance,  that  empty  time  units,  in  other  wortls  pauses, 
which  sometimes  have  a  genuine  metrical  significance,  cannot  be  di- 
rectly indicated.  In  I  rosfs  lines: 

Kclani  llio  sun  vvilli  fcntlc  mist; 
I'lichanl  (lie  l.iiul  willi  iimcdiysl. 
Slow,  slow! 

is  in)t  the  last  line  to  be  scanned 

1-1  •  h     •   >']  M-  -'-]'•' 
The  silent  syllables  are  enclosed  in  biackets.  What  would  music  be  with- 
out its  "rests,"  or  mathematics  without  a  zero? 


Iklitorial  Note 

Originally  iiublished  in  Joiinid/  oj  hjii^lis/i  aiul  (icrnumic  PhHoloy,y  20, 
213-22H.  Reprinted  by  peiinission  of  the  Univeisity  of  Illinois  Press. 

A  shortened  version  of  this  paper  was  jirepared  by  Sapir,  under  the 
title  "What  is  Verse?,"  but  was  nevei  published. 


Note 

I     ///(•  /)/<//.  Jan.  17,  l«)IS. 


Maii|^ass;iiil  aiul  ,\ikiU>Ic  liancc 

Two  types  of  aesthetic,  as  distincl  Iroiii  histoiicil.  Iilci.irs  criticisin 
are  in  \i>mie,  the  objective  and  the  inipiessioiiistie.  Ohjeetive  cntieisiii 
seeks  to  jiidiie  a  work  o\'  hterar\  art  reizardless  ol  the  persofialily  ol 
either  writer  or  eiitie.  assigning  it  its  niehe  in  the  reahii  ol"  aesthetic 
\ahies  acconhng  to  certain  stantlartls.  At  least  this  is  its  aim.  lor  in  a 
world  o\'  strong  personal  bias  and  constantly  shilling  standards  it  is 
ever  doomed  to  partial  laihire.  I'ssentially  more  luMiest.  if  generally 
even  wider  of  the  mark,  is  tiie  imjiressionistic  method,  which  .iims  to 
set  lorlh  ciearis  the  subjective  alliliide  ol  the  critic  tin\ards  the  art 
material  bel'i^ie  him.  ()bjecti\e  criticism  tends  to  reveal  the  wt)rk.  im- 
pressionistic criticism  the  critic.  Neither  reveals  the  writer. 

And  yet  a  story  or  play  or  poem  is  first  and  foremost  the  refracted, 
because  conventionally  moulded,  expression  o\'a  personality.  It  cannot 
well  be  more  significant  than  the  persi^nalitv  that  gives  it  birth.  It  may 
be  more  harmonious,  more  pleasing,  yet  it  will  always  fall  somewhat 
short  o(  the  intensity,  depth,  and  range  o\'  the  artist's  psyche.  What  we 
might  call  the  "persc^nal"  type  of  criticism,  the  criticism  that  accepts  the 
personality  of  the  aitist  as  its  starting  poml  and  eiuleavdrs  to  trace  the 
main,  and  indeed  aesthetically  determining,  features  o\'  this  personalitv 
in  the  art  W(Mk,  is  fret|uently  found  mingled  in  crutle  form  with  both 
objective  better  absolutistic  and  impressi(Miistic  criticism,  but 
rarely  as  the  frankly  av(nved  object  of  the  critic.  Ihis  is  not  surprising. 
Until  recent  times  psychology  has,  on  the  whole,  ciMitented  itself  with 
the  same  sort  of  colorless  and  generalized  abstractiiMis  as  characterize 
aesthetic  systems,  riieie  has  been  little  attempt  \o  seize  upon  the  cimi- 
crete  personality  as  a  unit  and  to  ascertain  its  tlistinctive  treiuls  Net 
obviously  this  is  the  onlv  kmd  o\'  psvcholoi'v  ili.il  .1  ■'perst)nal"  criticism 
could  utilize. 

With  the  advent  o\  the  I  reudian  psychologv  matters  have  changed 
somewhat.  Imperfect  as  that  psychology  is  ami  must  long  remain,  it 
has  given  us  the  first  solid  approach  to  an  understanding  of  individual 
personality  on  the  basis  of  a  stutly  o\  the  fundamental  impulses,  their 
development,  sublimation,  and  pathology.  As  this  new  psychi^logy  gams 
in  refinement  and  certainty,  its  application  to  aesthetic  problems  be- 


946  Jtt  Culture 

comes  more  and  more  assured.  In  every  work  of  art,  after  due  allowance 
is  made  for  traditional  forces,  there  stand  revealed,  though  still  largely 
unread,  a  hundred  symptoms  of  the  instinctive  life  of  the  creator.  In  the 
long  run  only  criticism  grounded  in  individual  psychological  analysis 
has  validity  in  aesthetic  problems.  At  present  we  are  still  largely  ob- 
sessed by  the  notion  of  justifying  our  literary  estimates  by  reference  to 
a  set  of  aesthetic  canons  that  hover  mysteriously  [200]  in  a  rarefied 
atmosphere  of  eternal  truth.  And  we  are  still  at  the  game  of  strait- 
jacketing  all  temperaments  into  an  ideal  frame. 

The  vast  network,  partly  conscious  and  partly  unconscious,  of  trends, 
inhibitions,  and  symbolizations  that  go  to  make  up  the  sex  impulse,  raw 
and  sublimated,  has  been  duly,  at  times  unduly,  stressed  by  the  Freudian 
psychologists.  It  goes  without  saying  that  no  even  remotely  adequate 
understanding  of  a  personality  can  be  had  without  knowledge  of  its 
sexual  life.  By  this  is  meant  not  so  much  the  external  facts  of  sexual 
relationship  as  the  deeper  sexual  dispositions  which,  though  they  may 
never  explicitly  come  to  light,  nevertheless  do  have  a  far-reaching  influ- 
ence in  shaping  the  personality's  general  attitude  towards  Hfe.  Probably 
no  writer  of  real  significance,  no  writer  whose  work  is  a  sincere  reflec- 
tion of  his  individuality,  can  be  fundamentally  interpreted  without  refer- 
ence to  the  special  characteristics  of  his  psycho-sexual  constitution. 

Masters  of  irony  -  the  Maupassants,  Anatole  Frances,  Nietzsches, 
Oscar  Wildes,  Swifts  of  literary  history  -  seem  to  offer  very  special 
interest  from  a  psychoanalytic  standpoint.  The  sting  of  their  irony,  in 
so  far  as  it  is  sincere  and  not  a  mere  imitative  pose,  rests  on  its  genetic 
connection  with  the  element  of  pain-infliction  so  frequently  found  asso- 
ciated with  the  sexual  impulse.  In  The  Picture  of  Dorian  Gray  Oscar 
Wilde  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  there  is  an  element  of  cruelty  in  all 
pleasure.  Exaggerated  as  this  dictum  undoubtedly  is,  it  deserves  to  be 
reckoned  among  his  flashes  of  intuitive  insight.  The  pain-inflicting  com- 
ponent of  the  sexual  impulse  takes  either  an  active  (sadistic)  or  passive 
(masochistic)  form.  In  the  latter  case  pleasure  is  gained  from  the  endu- 
rance or  self-infliction  of  pain.  In  actual  experience,  however,  the  two 
forms  are  frequently  combined,  though  generally  with  emphasis  on  the 
one  or  the  other.  Moreover,  the  general  nature  of  the  sexual  disposition 
greatly  complicates  the  operation  of  these  pain-inflicting  impulses.  It 
would  therefore  be  natural  to  find  that  their  literary  sublimation  may 
proceed  in  different  ways  and  that  types  of  irony  that  at  first  sight  seem 
directly  comparable  are  to  be  credited  to  fairly  distinct  sources. 


Five:  Aesthetics  947 

One  o['  the  \cr>  best  examples  of  a  pure  sadislie  irony,  an  ironv  thai 
takes  (rank  delight  in  the  tenures  it  inlliels.  is  that  ol"  Maupassant.  I 
refer  parlieularly  to  the  short  stories,  ui  which  we  ha\e  Maupassant  at 
his  most  characteristic.  Equally  typical,  among  the  novels,  is  "Bel-Ami." 
to  a  less  extent  also  "Une  Vie."  In  such  a  novel  as  I-'ort  conutw  la  Mitrt, 
ho\ve\er.  the  typical  Maupassant  pungency  is  largely  lacking.  It  uould 
almost  seem  as  if  there  were,  hidden  under  a  smooth  surface,  a  strt>ng, 
turbulent  How  of  energy  in  Maupassant's  spirit,  that  needed  a  rapid  and 
explosive  outlet  and  that  tended  to  evaporate  if  too  long  husbanded. 
The  nalLirc  of  lliis  encrg\  I  conceive  to  be  aggressi\e.  and  mdeed  blindK 
so.  Examine  very  carefully  a  number  of  the  ironical  stories  -  and  few 
of  the  stories  arc  not  ironical  -  and  you  will  notice  before  long  two 
striking  facts  about  Maupassant's  irony.  In  the  fust  place,  he  rarely,  if 
ever,  shows  or  implies  any  sympathy  for  either  the  victims  or  the  instru- 
ments o'i  his  irony;  for  both  sutTerers  and  causers  o\^  suffering  he  has 
generally  nothing  but  quiet  contempt.  Lest  his  readers  be  beguiled  inti^ 
a  sentimental  s\  mpathy  for  his  human  playthings,  he  is  apt  to  take  good 
care  to  add  insult  to  injury  by  giving  them  a  ridiculous  touch.  The 
ignorant  peasant  of  "A  Piece  of  String"  that  plagues  himself  to  death 
might  have  aroused  our  active  commiseration,  were  he  not  so  much 
more  interesting  as  a  Joke  than  as  a  mere  human  being.  We  watch  his 
expiring  e\olutions  with  the  same  fiendish  glee  with  which  the  bad  ho\ 
observes  the  wiggling  o\^  a  tly  that  he  has  made  w  ingless  and  footless. 
[201]  Perhaps  he  suffers  -  cjuien  sahe?  But  really,  he  is  too  funny.  Let's 
get  our  fun  out  of  him.  This  is  the  essential  Maupassant. 

In  the  second  place,  I  fmd  little  or  no  tendenc\  m  Maupassant  for 
the  irony  to  revert  to  the  writer.  Maupassant  is  throughout  very  much 
aloof,  he  is  in  no  haste  to  identify  his  own  sou\  with  the  souls  of  his  Job 
lot  of  humanity.  In  this  respect  also  he  is  the  o\ergrown  small  boy.  This 
absence  o^  the  self-prodding  so  characteristic  of  many  another  ironist 
removes  Maupassant  from  the  necessity  o\'  recei\  ing  our  sympathy.  To 
some  temperaments  it  outlaws  him.  Other  temperaments  find  his  deli- 
cate cruelties  quite  cliic.  It  is  not  altogether  to  the  point  to  speak  o\'  the 
"objectivity"  o\'  Maupassant's  art,  as  a  rejoinder  to  our  anal>sis.  In  so 
far  as  "objectivity"  is  not  merely  a  name  for  a  dehumani/ed  and  frigid 
art.  o\'  little  psychological  or  aesthetic  interest,  it  denotes  a  particular 
type,  or  group  o\'  types,  of  "subjectivity."  Non-introspcctive  tempera- 
ments are  most  themselves,  most  "subjecti\e."  when  conscimisK  en- 
gaged with  anything  but  themsebes.  On  the  other  hand,  the  attempt 
of  an  essentially  introspective  type  o\'  mind  to  produce  "objcclivc"  arl 


948  JJt  Culture 

generally  leads  to  disaster.  The  special  evaluation  of  "objective"  art  is 
clearly  nothing  but  an  academic  shibboleth  which  mistakes  the  fruit  of 
a  specific  type  of  temperament  for  conformity  with  an  aesthetic  ideal. 

That  there  is  an  especially  strong  sexual  vein  in  Maupassant  is  too 
obvious  to  need  elucidation.  A  large  number  of  the  stories,  moreover, 
directly  exhibit  this  vein  as  strongly  colored  by  the  pain-inflicting  im- 
pulse. I  would  refer  to  certain  scenes  in  "Une  Vie"  and  especially  to 
"The  Vagabond,"  one  of  Maupassant's  most  self-revealing  tales.  In  this 
story  everyone  is  furious  with  everyone  else,  in  the  case  of  the  hero  for 
reasons  of  hunger,  at  bottom  for  the  sheer  fun  of  hating,  attacking, 
inflicting  pain.  "He  grasped  his  stick  tightly  in  his  hand,  with  a  longing 
to  strike  the  first  passerby  who  might  be  going  home  to  supper."  "Male 
and  female  peasants  looked  at  the  prisoner  between  the  two  gendarmes, 
with  hatred  in  their  eyes  and  a  longing  to  throw  stones  at  him,  to  tear 
his  skin  with  their  nails,  to  trample  him  under  their  feet."  As  for  the 
"objectivity"  of  this,  remember  that  these  people  know  absolutely  noth- 
ing about  the  vagabond  and  the  offense  he  is  supposed  to  be  guilty  of. 

A  much  more  subtle  and  interesting  psychological  problem  is  af- 
forded by  the  literary  work  and  personality  of  Anatole  France.  The 
irony  here  is  of  much  finer  texture  and  of  greater  variety  of  emotional 
depth.  In  Le  Crime  de  Sylvestre  Bonnard  it  is  tenderly  playful,  in  Le 
Grand  Saint  Nicholas  and  Les  Sept  Femmes  de  Barbe-Bleue  the  irony  is 
still  playful  but  fantastic  and  at  times  mordant,  in  Les  Dieux  ont  Soif 
it  gets  to  be  intensely  sardonic,  in  Thais  the  irony  is  savage  and  sex- 
ridden.  The  chief  difference  between  the  irony  of  Maupassant  and  that 
of  France,  however,  does  not  lie  in  its  quality,  but  in  its  direction.  All 
of  the  more  important  of  France's  creations  are  himself;  hence  the  irony, 
particularly  when  it  rises,  as  in  Thais,  to  passionately  cruel  heights,  is 
essentially  self-directed.  Wherever  we  turn,  France  mocks  at  himself. 
He  is  mainly  concerned  with  the  task  of  demolishing  his  own  faiths. 

In  the  very  first  paragraph  of  LTle  des  Pingouins  we  read  of  the  re- 
cluse Mael:  "II  partageait  ses  heures,  selon  la  regie,  entre  le  chant  des 
hymnes,  I'etude  de  la  grammaire  at  la  meditation  des  veritees 
eternelles."  Strange  company  for  "the  eternal  truths"!  But  why  not, 
seeing  what  trivial  baggage  "eternal  truths"  are  wont  to  be?  The  ostensi- 
ble irony  in  such  passages  as  this  is  directed  against  the  monastic  ideal, 
the  Church,  the  principles  of  the  French  Revolution  (France's  prin- 
ciples!) [202],  or  what  not,  but  this  irony  is  only  a  mask  -  perhaps  an 
unconscious  one  -  for  the  deeper  irony  that  grins  at  one's  own  fond 
illusions.  Perhaps  only  such  a  mind  as  France's,  weaving  graceful  fanta- 


Five:  Ae.\  the  lies  949 

sies  out  of  an  iiltci  \oiJ,  ccuilJ  ha\c  fathered  the  dehiilitfiil  '■piitol,"  the 
mueh-talked-of  gentleman  who  does  not  exist.  Putt)i  is  a  symbol  o\ 
France's  inner  world  of  \alues       charming,  noble,  but  non-existent. 

There  are  many  indications  in  Irance's  work  of  the  temperament  that 
denies  reality  and,  as  surrogate,  constructs  a  cloistered  world  of  its  own 
imagining.  His  predilection  foi  hermits,  celibates,  men  who  stand  aloof 
and  instrospect,  is  no  merely  accidental  fondness.  Most  significant  for 
a  fundamental  understanding  of  France's  personality  is  the  study  of  the 
monk  F^aphnuce  in  Thai.s.  Here  we  learn  what  a  stream  of  passion 
seethes  at  the  bottom  of  France's  soul  and  o\'  the  doom  that  withholds 
from  this  passion  its  fruition.  The  same  inner  check  is  discernible  in 
modified  and  somewhat  conventional  form,  in  Lc  Ly.\  Roui^c.  still  more 
clearly  in  Lcs  Dicu.x  out  SoiJ.  The  self-directed  cruelty,  the  tendency  to 
shrink  from  the  world  into  a  self-created  domain,  the  blind  alley  o\' 
frustrated  passion  -  all  these  are  symptoms  of  the  intro\erted  tempera- 
ment. We  can  not  but  suspect  that  in  France  the  instincti\e  life,  of 
unusual  passionateness,  has  not  solved  the  problem  of  outer  adjustment 
and  has  been  content  to  fume,  unconsciously  it  may  be,  in  ceaseless 
non-satisfaction.  We  may  suspect  the  soul  of  France's  irony  to  lie  in  the 
element  of  baftled  impulse  and  self-reproach,  which  is  so  characteristic 
of  the  introverted  temperament.  In  a  nutshell,  the  peculiarities  o(  Fran- 
ce's art  are  best  understood  as  a  sublimation  o\'  the  impulses  of  such  a 
temperament. 

The  psychoanalytic  approach  that  I  had  rapidly  sketched  to  these  two 
masters  of  French  literature  is  only  an  approach.  It  does  not  pretend  to 
explain  in  detail,  nor  in  all  probability  can  it  ever  explain  in  detail,  the 
art-structures  that  they  have  reared.  It  aims  only  to  disclose  the  nature 
of  the  individual  instinctive  life  which,  according  to  the  I  reudian 
psychology,  necessarily  determines,  in  broad  outlines,  all  fi^rms  of  self- 
expression. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  m  /he  CanuJiun  .\fcii:ci:ine  >7.  199-202  (1921). 

Guy  de  Maupassant  (1850-1893)  was  a  I  rench  lunclist  and  writer  ol 
acclaimed  short  stories.  Anatole  I'rance  was  the  pseudon\m  of  Jacques- 
Anatole-France  Thibault  (1S44  1924),  a  lYench  writer.  Iiterar\  critic, 
novelist,  poet,  and  dramatist,  who  recei\cd  the  Nobel  Pri/e  for  Litera- 
ture in  1921. 


Review  of 
Gerard  Manley  Hopkins,  Poems 

Poems  of  Gerard  Manley  Hopkins.  Edited,  with  notes,  by  Robert  Brid- 
ges. London:  Humphrey  Milford,  1918. 

When  the  author's  preface  and  the  editor's  notes  are  eliminated,  we 
have  here  but  a  small  volume  of  some  eighty-five  pages  of  poetry,  and 
of  these  only  a  scant  sixty-three  consist  of  complete  poems,  the  rest 
being  fragments  assembled  from  manuscripts  in  the  Poet  Laureate's 
possession.  The  majority  of  them  date  from  the  years  1876  to  1889; 
only  three  earlier  poems  are  included.  Hopkins  is  long  in  coming  into 
his  own;  but  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  his  own  will  be  secure, 
among  the  few  that  know,  if  not  among  the  crowd,  when  many  a  Geor- 
gian name  that  completely  overshadows  him  for  the  moment  shall  have 
become  food  for  the  curious. 

For  Hopkins'  poetry  is  of  the  most  precious.  His  voice  is  easily  one 
of  the  half  dozen  most  individual  voices  in  the  whole  course  of  English 
nineteenth-century  poetry.  One  may  be  repelled  by  his  mannerisms,  but 
he  cannot  be  denied  that  overwhelming  authenticity,  that  almost  terrible 
immediacy  of  utterance,  that  distinguishes  the  genius  from  the  man  of 
talent.  I  would  compare  him  to  D.  H.  Lawrence  but  for  his  greater 
sensitiveness  to  the  music  of  words,  to  the  rhythms  and  ever-changing 
speeds  of  syllables.  In  a  note  pubhshed  in  Poetry  in  1914,  [331]  Joyce 
Kilmer  speaks  of  his  mysticism  and  of  his  gloriously  original  imagery. 
This  mysticism  of  the  Jesuit  poet  is  not  a  poetic  manner,  it  is  the  very 
breath  of  his  soul.  Hopkins  simply  could  not  help  comparing  the  Holy 
Virgin  to  the  air  we  breathe;  he  was  magnificently  in  earnest  about  the 
Holy  Ghost  that 

over  the  bent 

World  broods  with  warm  breast  and  with  ah!  bright  wings. 

As  for  imagery,  there  is  hardly  a  line  in  these  eighty-odd  pages  that 
does  not  glow  with  some  strange  new  flower,  divinely  picked  from  his 
imagination. 

Undeniably  this  poet  is  difficult.  He  strives  for  no  innocuous  Victo- 
rian smoothness.  I  have  referred  to  his  mannerisms,  which  are  numer- 


Five:  Aesthetics  95! 

cms  and  luU  always  readily  assimilable.  I'he\  base  an  i>bscssi\c.  lurbu- 
lenl  qiiaiilN  ahoiil  them  these  repealed  ami  trebls  repealed  words, 
the  poignantly  or  rapturousl\  inlerriipling  (>l\\  and  (//;'s,  ihe  headlong 
omission  of  articles  and  relatives,  the  sometimes  \iolent  word  order,  ihc 
strange  yet  how  often  so  lovely  compounds,  the  plays  on  words  and. 
most  o['  all.  his  wild  ]o\  in  the  sheer  sound  o\'  words.  This  phonetic 
passion  of  Hopkins  rushes  him  into  a  perfect  ma/e  o{  rhymes,  half- 
rhymes,  assonances,  alliterations: 

Tallcr-liisscl-tanglcd  and  dinglc-a-danglcd 
Dand\-luing  dainty  licad. 

These  clangs  are  not  like  the  nicely  calculated  jingling  lovelinesses  of 
Poe  or  Swinburne.  They,  no  less  than  the  impatient  ruggednesses  of 
his  diction,  are  the  foam-Hakes  [332]  and  eddies  of  a  passionate,  su  ift- 
streaming  expression.  To  a  certain  extent  Hopkins  undoubtedly  k>\ed 
difficulty,  even  obscurity,  for  its  own  sake.  He  may  ha\e  found  in  it  a 
symbolic  retlection  of  the  tumult  that  raged  in  his  soul.  Yet  ue  must 
beware  of  exaggerating  the  external  difficulties;  they  yield  u  iih  unex- 
pected ease  to  the  modicum  of  good  will  that  Hopkins  has  a  right  to 
expect  of  us. 

Hopkins'  prosody,  concerning  which  he  has  something  to  sa\  in  his 
preface,  is  worthy  of  careful  study.  In  his  most  distincti\e  pieces  he 
abandons  the  "running"  verse  of  traditional  English  poetry  and  substi- 
tutes for  it  his  own  "sprung"  rhythms.  This  new  verse  of  his  is  not  based 
on  the  smooth  flow  of  regularly  recurring  stresses.  The  stres.ses  are  care- 
fully grouped  into  line  and  stanza  patterns,  but  the  mo\ement  o{  the 
verse  is  wholly  free.  The  iambic  or  trochaic  foot  yields  at  an\  moment 
to  a  spondee  or  a  dactyl  or  a  foot  of  one  stressed  and  three  or  more 
unstressed  syllables.  There  is,  however,  no  blind  groping  in  this  irregular 
movement.  It  is  nicely  adjusted  to  the  constantl)  shifting  speed  o\  the 
verse.  Hopkins'  elTects,  with  a  few  exceptions,  are  in  the  highest  degrcx* 
successful.  Read  with  the  ear,  never  with  the  e\e.  his  \crse  flovss  with 
an  entirely  new  vigor  and  lightness,  while  the  sian/aic  form  gi\es  it  a 
powerful  compactness  and  drive.  It  is  doubtful  if  the  freest  \erse  ot  our 
day  is  more  sensitive  in  its  rhythmic  pulsations  than  the  "'sprung"  \erse 
of  Hopkins.  How  unexpectedly  he  has  [333]  enlarged  the  possibilities  o{ 
the  sonnet,  his  favorite  form,  will  be  oh\ious  from  the  two  examples 
that  I  am  going  to  quote.  Meanwhile,  here  are  two  specimens  of  his 
more  smoothly  lowing  verse.  The  first  is  from  '"The  I  eadcn  i  cho."  a 
maiden's  song: 


952  JJJ  Culture 

How  to  keep  -  is  there  any,  is  there  none  such,  nowhere  known  some,  bow 

or  brooch  or  braid  or  brace,  lace,  latch  or  catch  or  key  to  keep 

Back  beauty,  keep  it,  beauty,  beauty,  beauty  ...  from  vanishing  away? 

Oh  is  there  no  frowning  of  these  wrinkles,  ranked  wrinkles  deep, 

Down?  no  waving-off  of  these  most  mournful  messengers,  still  messengers, 

sad  and  stealing  messengers  of  grey? 

No  there's  none,  there's  none  -  oh  no,  there's  none! 

Nor  can  you  long  be,  what  you  now  are,  called  fair  - 

Do  what  you  may  do,  what,  do  what  you  may. 

And  wisdom  is  early  to  despair: 

Be  beginning;  since,  no,  nothing  can  be  done 

To  keep  at  bay 

Age  and  age's  evils  -  hoar  hair. 

Ruck  and  wrinkle,  drooping,  dying,  death's  worst,  winding  sheets,  tombs  and 

worms  and  tumbling  to  decay; 

So  be  beginning,  be  beginning  to  despair. 

Oh  there's  none  -  no  no  no,  there's  none: 

Be  beginning  to  despair,  to  despair, 

Despair,  despair,  despair,  despair. 

This  is  as  free  as  it  can  be  with  its  irregular  Hne-lengths  and  its  ex- 
treme changes  of  tempo,  yet  at  no  point  is  there  hesitation  as  the  curve 
of  the  poem  rounds  out  to  definite  form.  For  long-breathed,  impetuous 
rhythms,  wind-like  and  sea-like,  such  verse  as  this  of  Hopkins'  has  noth- 
ing to  learn  from  the  best  of  Carl  Sandburg.  My  second  quotation  is 
from  "The  Wood-lark,"  a  precious  fragment:  [334] 

Teevo  cheevo  cheevio  chee: 

Oh  where,  where  can  that  be? 

Weedio-weedio:  there  again! 

So  tiny  a  trickle  of  song-strain; 

And  all  round  not  to  be  found 

For  brier,  bough,  furrow,  or  green  ground 

Before  or  behind  or  far  or  at  hand 

Either  left,  either  right. 

Anywhere  in  the  sunlight. 

Well,  after  all!  Ah,  but  hark  - 

"I  am  the  little  wood-lark." 

This  is  sheer  music.  The  stresses  fall  into  place  with  an  altogether 
lovely  freshness. 

Yet  neither  mannerisms  of  diction  and  style  nor  prosody  define  the 
essential  Hopkins.  The  real  Hopkins  is  a  passionate  soul  unendingly 
in  conflict.  The  consuming  mysticism,  the  intense  religious  faith  are 
unreconciled  with  a  basic  sensuality  that  leaves  the  poet  no  peace.  He 
is  longing  to  give  up  the  loveliness  of  the  world  for  that  greater  loveli- 
ness of  the  spirit  that  all  but  descends  to  envelop  him  like  a  mother; 


/•Mr.  Acsihcius  953 

but  he  is  too  poignantly  aware  o\'  all  sensuous  beauts,  too  nisislcnliv 
haunted  by  the  allurements  of  the  llesh.  A  I-reudian  psychologist  mighl 
call  him  an  imperfectly  sex-sublimated  mystic,  (iirlish  tenderness  is 
masked  b\  ruggedness.  And  his  fummg  self-torment  is  exteriori/ed  by 
a  diction  that  strains,  and  by  a  rh\thmic  How  that  leaps  or  runs  ox 
stamps  but  never  walks. 

Here  is  'The  Starlight  Night."  one  of  his  most  characteristic  sonnets 
-  white-heat  mysticism  forged  out  of  what  pathos  (<f  scnse-ecstasyl 

Look  al  ihc  stars!  look,  look  up  at  the  skies' 
Oh  look  at  all  the  firc-folk  sitting  in  the  air! 
Tlie  bright  boroughs,  the  circle-citadels  there! 
Down  in  dini  woods  the  diamond  deKes!  the  elves'-eyes! 
The  grey  lawns  cold  where  gold,  where  quickgold  lies! 
Wind-heat  whitebeam!  airy  abeles  set  on  a  flare! 
Flake-do\es  sent  tloating  forth  at  a  farmyard  scare!  - 
Ah  well!  it  is  all  a  purchase,  all  is  a  prize. 

Buy  then!  bid  then!  -  What.'  -    Prayer,  patience,  alms.  vows. 

Look,  look:  a  May-mess,  like  on  tirchard  boughs! 

Look!  March-bloom,  like  on  mealed-with-yellow  sallows! 

These  are  indeed  the  barn;  within  doors  house 

The  shocks.  This  piece-bright  paling  shuts  the  spouse 

Christ  home.  Christ  and  his  mother  and  all  his  hallows. 

"Ah  well!  it  is  all  a  purchase."  You  cannot  have  it  for  the  asking. 
And.  finally,  this  other  sonnet,  addressed  to  his  own  restless  soul, 
"with  this  tormented  mind  tormenting  yet": 

My  own  heart  let  me  have  more  pity  on;  let 
Me  live  to  my  sad  self  hereafter  kind. 
Charitable:  not  live  this  tormented  mind 
With  this  tormented  mind  tormenting  yet. 
I  cast  for  comfort  1  can  no  more  get 
By  groping  round  my  comfortless,  than  blind 
Eyes  in  their  dark  can  day  or  thirst  can  find 
Thirst's  all-in-all  in  all  a  world  of  uet. 

Soul,  sell;  come,  poor  Jackself.  I  do  ad\ ise 

You.  jaded,  let  be;  call  off  thmights  awhile 

Elsewhere;  leave  comfort  rooi-roc>m;  let  joy  si/e 

At  God  knows  when  to  Ciod  knows  what;  whose  smile 

's  not  wrung,  see  you;  unfcMcseen  times  rather       .is  skies 

Betweenpie  mcnintains       lights  a  loveh  mile 

But  how  many  "lo\ely  miles"  could  there  ha\e  been  [.Wi)  on  the  long. 
rocky  road  traversed  b\  this  unhapp\  spirit! 


954  ///  Culture 

In  face  of  this  agonising  poem  one  can  only  marvel  at  the  Poet  Laure- 
ate's imperturbable  exegesis  of  the  word  ''betweenpie":  "This  word 
might  have  delighted  William  Barnes  if  the  verb  'to  pie'  existed.  It  seems 
not  to  exist,  and  to  be  forbidden  by  homophonic  absurdities."  From 
our  best  friends  deliver  us,  O  Lord! 


Editorial  Note 
Originally  pubHshed  in  Poetry  18,  330-336  (1921). 


Review  o\^ 
William  A.  Mason,  A  History  oj  the  Art  of  ll'nfini: 

William  A.  Mason,  A  History  of  (he  An  of  Wriflni^.  New  York:  Mac- 
millan.  1920. 

The  history  o\'^  our  alphabet  and  of  other  systems  ol'  uniiiig  histori- 
cally connected  or  unconnected  with  it  has  been  often  told.  \'el  there  is 
room  for  a  new  synthesis  of  the  vast  array  of  facts,  something,  say, 
that  would  bring  the  lay  reader  into  touch  with  the  later  tlnds  in  the 
Mediterranean  region  and  with  the  newer  theories  based  on  these  llnds. 
Even  more  welcome  than  a  merely  historical  survey  of  the  systems  of 
writing  as  such  would  be  a  general  review  of  their  development  from 
the  standpoint  [69]  of  art.  Writing  at  all  times  has  constituted  a  plastic 
as  well  as  a  symbolic  problem.  The  conveyance  of  thought  has  been 
only  one  of  its  uses;  the  delineation  of  pleasing  contours,  now  severe 
and  statuesque,  now  flowing  in  graceful  meanderings,  has  always  been 
something  more  than  a  by-product.  As  one  passes  fn^ii  ideographic 
system  to  system  and  from  alphabet  to  alphabet  perhaps  liie  thing  that 
most  forcibly  strikes  one  is  that  each  and  every  one  o\'  them  has  iis 
individual  style.  This  is  corrected  by  the  obscurely  di\ ining.  con\erging 
hands  of  thousands  of  artists,  until,  at  a  gi\en  moment,  the  characters 
stand  forth  as  a  unique  and  unified  work  of  art,  as  self-contained  and 
as  definitely  stylized  as  any  architectural  tradition.  The  historian  has  no 
difficulty  in  showing  how  a  certain  starting-point  gi\es  a  slant  or  drill 
to  the  future  development  of  the  system,  how  the  particular  forms,  for 
instance,  of  the  medieval  black-letter  are  largcK  prefigured  m  the  Phoc- 
nician  alphabet.  But  he  does  not  so  clearly  know  just  how  and  uhy  the 
various  styles  develop,  just  how  it  is  that  the  .Arabic  hand,  the  Roman 
type,  the  Armenian,  the  Hindu  alphabets,  all  derived  as  they  ulltmalch 
are  from  a  single  prototype,  have  so  widely  di\erged.  ha\c  their  indivi- 
dualities so  stamped  upon  them,  that  the  proof  of  then  common  genesis 
is  but  the  coldest  of  archaeological  businesses. 

Much  can  be  said  and  has  been  said  o\'  the  controlling  power  o\  the 
medium.  Stone  is  ditlerent  from  papyrus  and  the  pen  is  dilTerent  irom 


1)56  lil  Culture 

a  camel's  hair  brush.  Yet  when  all  this  and  more  is  indicated  and  worked 
out  with  laborious  detail  we  are  really  no  nearer  the  central  question 
o^  what  psychological  forces  have  hurried  the  national  hand  on  to  that 
aesthetic  balance  which  is  its  ultimate  style.  We  are  not  concerned  to 
solve  the  batlling  problem;  we  are  merely  concerned  to  state  its  actual- 
ity. It  is  not  otherwise  with  language,  with  religion,  with  the  forms  of 
social  organization.  Wherever  the  human  mind  has  worked  collectively 
and  unconsciously,  it  has  striven  for  and  often  attained  unique  form. 
The  important  point  is  that  the  evolution  of  form  has  a  drift  in  one 
direction,  that  it  seeks  poise,  and  that  it  rests,  relatively  speaking,  when 
it  has  found  this  poise.  It  is  customary  to  say  that  sooner  or  later  a 
literary  or  sacerdotal  tradition  enjoins  conservatism,  but  is  it  altogether 
an  accident  that  the  injunction  is  stayed  until  the  style  is  full-grown?  I 
do  not  believe  in  this  particular  accident.  To  me  it  is  no  mere  chance 
that  the  Chinese  system  of  writing  did  not  attain  its  resting-point  until 
it  had  matured  a  style,  until  it  had  polished  off  each  character,  whether 
simple  or  compounded  of  "radical"  and  "phonetic"  elements,  into  a 
design  that  satisfactorily  filled  its  own  field  and  harmonized  with  its 
thousands  of  fellows.  A  glance  at  the  earlier  forms  of  Chinese  writing 
convinces  one  that  it  did  not  always  possess  true  style,  interesting  and 
original  as  some  of  the  early  characters  are. 

Mr.  Mason's  History  of  the  Art  of  Writing  is  a  rather  unpretentious 
introduction  to  this  large  subject,  making  no  claim  to  completeness  and 
developing  no  new  ideas.  The  pictographic  and  ideographic  origin  of 
writing  is  stressed  in  the  orthodox  manner  and  some  idea  is  also  given 
of  the  way  in  which  most  systems  have  taken  a  phonetic  turn.  The  book 
gives  enough  fact  and  illustrations  to  make  a  useful  summary,  but 
hardly  more.  Obviously  Mr.  Mason  too  much  lacks  the  necessary  lin- 
guistic and  ethnological  equipment  to  have  succeeded  in  giving  his  book 
the  tone  and  background  we  should  have  liked  to  have.  Far  more  might 
have  been  done  in  half  the  space.  The  "Turanians"  stride  across  these 
pages  as  though  they  were  still  living  in  the  reign  of  Max  Miiller,  and 
many  a  passage  could  be  quoted  that  indicates  a  docile  trust  in  authori- 
ties and  speculations  that  were.  A  little  annoying,  too,  is  the  author's 
insistent  sentimentalism.  He  finds  it  hard  to  resist  the  "quaint."  Histori- 
cal anecdotes  en  passant,  good  Queen  Bess's  correspondence,  and  the 
lines  on  Shakespeare's  tomb  leave  the  sober  narrative  sadly  waiting  by 
the  roadside.  One  would  have  gladly  exchanged  for  all  this,  some  ac- 
count of  the  interesting  Hindu  derivatives  of  the  Phoenician  alphabet 
(via  the  South  Arabian  forms)  and  of  the  Tibetan,  Burmese,  Siamese, 


Five:  Aesthetics  957 

and  Cambodian  otTshoots  o\'  llicsc  Unulii  alphabets.  In  this  way,  Mr. 
Mason  would  not  only  have  introduced  his  readers  to  some  of  the  most 
fascinating  and  sl\li/ed  alphabets  that  ha\e  ever  been  e\ol\ed  but 
would  have  splendidly  reinforced  the  point  that  practicalls  all  kno\sn 
systems  of  writing  that  are  in  use  today  were  born  either  on  the  eastern 
shores  o{  the  Mediterranean  or  in  China.  Surely  it  is  a  matter  worth 
retlection  that  the  same  original  historical  impulse  e\entuall\  provided 
a  means  for  the  literary  expression  of  two  cultures  as  nuituall\  antago- 
nistic as  those  of  Occidental  Europe  and  of  the  forbidden  highlands  of 
Tibet. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  The  Freeman  4,  68-69  (1921),  under  the  title 
"Writing  as  History  and  as  Style." 


Review  of 
Edwin  Arlington  Robinson,  Collected  Poems 

Edwin  Arlington  Robinson,  Collected  Poems.  New  York:  Macmillan, 
1921. 

There  are  poets  whose  authentic  work  emerges  somewhat  precari- 
ously from  the  interaction  of  subtly  conflicting  motives.  The  chances  of 
a  flaw  appearing  somewhere  in  the  too  delicate  workshop  of  their  spirit 
are  so  great  that  the  one  exquisite  success  must  needs  be  anticipated  by 
a  run  of  half-successes  or  be  followed  by  a  failure.  Such  a  spirit  is 
Mr.  Edwin  Arlington  Robinson,  whose  eight  volumes  have  now  been 
assembled  in  a  book  of  Collected  Poems.  One  fancies,  as  one  turns  these 
pages,  that  a  truer  idea  of  Mr.  Robinson's  very  individual  artistry  might 
have  been  conveyed  in  a  smaller  volume  limited  to  his  perfect  and  more 
nearly  perfect  poems  -  to  Merlin,  all  or  very  nearly  all  of  The  Man 
against  the  Sky,  the  best  lyrics  of  The  Children  of  the  Night  and  The 
Town  down  the  River,  Isaac  and  Archibald,  one  or  two  other  things  per- 
haps from  the  Captain  Craig  volume  ("Captain  Craig"  itself  is  interest- 
ing rather  than  satisfying),  and  Httle  or  nothing  from  the  last  three 
volumes  -  though  possibly  "The  Mill"  and  "Lazarus"  might  have  been 
saved  out  of  The  Three  Taverns.  As  it  is,  the  inclusion  of  the  inferior 
work  blurs  the  picture  that  we  must  form  of  Mr.  Robinson's  poetry  if 
we  are  to  do  it  not  more  than  justice. 

To  blurt  out  our  case  against  the  Collected  Poems,  Mr.  Robinson's 
poetic  range  is  too  limited  for  quite  so  large  a  volume.  Aside  from 
Merlin,  which  has  been  received  with  an  incredibly  obtuse  frigidity 
where  a  public  truly  alive  to  poetic  values  would  at  once  have  rubbed 
its  eyes  in  glad  amazement  -  aside  from  this  most  splendid  of  poems, 
Mr.  Robinson's  comment  on  life  is  too  icy  for  bulk.  Again,  his  interest 
in  the  color  and  detail  of  the  human  scene  is  too  languid  to  save  his 
work  from  a  cumulative  monotony.  Mr.  Robinson's  art  does  not,  in  any 
deeply  valid  sense,  reflect  life;  it  is  an  error  to  make  the  parallel  with 
Browning.  His  art  sets  in  nearly  always  where  life  has  unravelled  itself 
and  is  waiting  for  its  tart,  ironic  epitaph. 


Five:  Aesthetics  959 

Having  said  all  this  in  preliminary  disparagemenl.  \sc  ha\c  really  said 
little  that  is  pertinent.  For  when  we  look  away  tVoni  the  unsuecessrul 
pieees,  weed  out  of  our  eritical  seKes  an\  lingering  seFilnnents  we  may 
still  possess  in  regard  to  an  artist's  subjeet-malter.  and  pomier  the 
smaller  volume  of  aehievement  that  lies  scattered  within  the  published 
volume,  we  realize  clearly  enough  Mr.  Robinson's  position  in  contem- 
porary American  letters.  Mr.  Robinson  is  the  one  American  poet  who 
compels,  rather  than  invites,  consideration.  We  may  like  or  dislike  Mr. 
Masters  or  Miss  Lowell,  but  we  are  not  likely  to  feel  in  their  work  the 
presence  of  a  spirit  which,  for  the  moment,  annihilates  us.  We  may  like 
or  dislike  Mr.  Robinson  -  we  may  both  like  and  dislike  him.  hut  his 
accents  are  too  authentic,  his  aloofness  too  certain,  to  give  our  spirits 
the  choice  whether  to  attend  or  not.  Mr.  Robinson  has  neither  pri>- 
gramme  nor  audience.  He  gives  us  the  essence,  singularlv  intense  and 
cerebral,  of  his  lonely,  perhaps  casual,  experience  of  the  world.  We  note 
instinctively  how  the  cold  matter  of  his  thought  is  vouched  for  b\  its 
rhythmic  expression  and  have  no  recourse  but  to  conclude  that  in  this 
man  thought  is  not  far  from  feeling,  that  what  we  behold  is  the  genu- 
inely artistic  record  of  a  rigorous  personality.  Mr.  Robinson  has  not 
merely  asked  himself  to  think  and  feel  thus  and  so;  he  has  taken  his 
sophisticated,  bitter  soul  for  granted  and  has  shown  how  beaut\  may 
blossom  in  an  artist's  desert.  There  can  be  no  more  scientillc  demonstra- 
tion of  the  futility  of  discussing  art  in  terms  o'i  content  than  to  look 
from  Mr.  Robinson's  arid  acre  to  Mr.  Masters's  tumultuous  village  or 
Miss  Lowell's  garden  of  magnificent  paper  flowers. 

Need  one  hesitate  to  apply  the  term  "beautiful"  to  this  poetry'.'  Does 
Mr.  Robinson's  desperate  irony  comport  with  'beauty"*.'  1  can  not  see 
that  an  apology  is  required.  Beauty  is  neither  thing  nor  tla\or;  it  is  a 
relation,  a  strange  accord  between  content  and  form.  Mr.  Robinson's 
forms  fit  his  matter  inexorably.  If  they  seem  at  limes  a  little  luxuriant 
for  their  drab  content,  it  is  because  this  content  is  often  but  a  superficies 
behind  which  one  must  feel  back  to  the  fuller  emotii'»ns.  This  mferential 
art,  with  its  pulsing  silences,  is  probably  the  fruit  of  a  Puritan  reticence, 
overhauled  and  reinforced  by  a  newer  bitterness.  At  an>  rate,  it  is  char- 
acteristic of  Mr.  Robinson's  best  piKMry,  as  of  all  great  poetr\.  that  \sc 
believe  its  rhythms  rather  more  than  its  ieller-press. 

Mr.  Robinson  has  wrung  strange  \alues  out  of  worn  meters.  Some  o\ 
his  ballad-tunes  and  variations  of  ballad-tunes  seem  to  mock  their  own 
movement  with  a  grim  tlippancy.  in  "Bokardo,"  for  instance,  the  loo 


960  J^l  Culture 

insistent  melody,  wedded  to  an  argumentative  diction,  give  us  a  know- 
ing kind  of  doggerel,  at  once  sad  and  jaunty: 

Well.  Bokardo.  here  we  are; 
Make  yourself  at  home. 
Look  around  -  you  haven't  far 
To  look  -  and  why  be  dumb? 
Not  the  place  that  used  to  be, 
Not  so  many  things  to  see; 
But  there's  room  for  you  and  me. 
And  you  -  you've  come. 

In  "The  Clinging  Vine"  the  nervous  energy  of  the  clipped  lines  freezes 

behind  us  as  we  read: 

No  more  -  I'll  never  bear  it. 
I'm  going.  I'm  like  ice. 
My  burden?  You  would  share  it? 
Forbid  the  sacrifice!  [142] 
Forget  so  quaint  a  notion. 
And  let  no  more  be  told; 
For  moon  and  stars  and  ocean 
And  you  and  I  are  cold. 

Very  complex  in  feeling  is  "John  Everdown."  Its  movement  creates  a 
sense  of  breathless  mystery  on  which  John's  senile  lewdness  floats  as 
hardly  more  than  a  suggestion  or  symbol.  Almost  equally  complex  is 
"John  Gorham,"  perhaps  the  most  perfect  short  poem  in  the  book.  In 
this  lovers'  quarrel  the  "story,"  as  regularly  in  Mr.  Robinson's  work,  is 
built  up  retrospectively  by  the  leakage  of  a  stray  bit  or  two  of  narrative 
reference  -  information  withdrawn  as  quickly  as  it  is  charily  ventured. 
But  it  is  neither  inferential  narrative  nor  even  drama  that  makes  the 
interest  of  the  poem,  rather  the  confrontation  of  John's  caustic  disillu- 
sionment with  the  girl's  mingled  coquetry,  vexation,  and  clinging  wom- 
anliness. The  drama  is  not  so  much  psychological  interplay  and  back- 
ground as  it  is  a  scaffolding  for  the  momentary  display  of  states  of 
mind.  The  technique  of  "John  Gorham"  is  flawlessly  precise.  The  sylla- 
bles, rapid  and  retarding,  carry  a  felicitous  blend  of  colloquial  and  only 
less  colloquial  images.  If  ever  English  rhythm  succeeded  in  fusing  wit 
and  sentiment,  it  is  in  these  lines,  so  familiar  and  so  remote. 

It  seems  to  be  customary  to  think  of  Mr.  Robinson  as  a  pessimistic 
dramatist  who  has  chosen  the  lyric  form  because  he  could  in  this  way 
best  practice  his  arts  of  compression  and  inferential  diagnosis.  1  believe 
that  this  opinion  seriously  misconceives  the  nature  of  Mr.  Robinson's 
poetic  impulse.  His  observation  is  far  too  static  for  the  natural  develop- 


Five:  Acslhclics  961 

iiicnl  of  a  elraiiialic  iiitcicsl.  His  ihciIukIs  of  inference  are  i>nly  plausibly 
and  in  sccoiul  degree  a  sophistiealed  technique;  nuicli  ninre  truly  lhc\ 
are  an  e\asion  o\'  llie  dramatic  jiiohlein.  A  lln^rouiihly  Mgor^us  dra- 
matic awareness  presupposes  the  abilil\  to  assimilate  and  project  narra- 
ti\e.  an  ability  that  Mr.  Robinson  can  not  well  be  credited  \Mlh.  llie 
core  of  his  jtoetic  pei"sonalit\  is  l\ric.  and  l\ric  ak)ne.  This  is  indicated, 
it  seems  to  me,  not  only  by  the  feeling  that  he  so  often  transfers  to  his 
rhythms  but  by  the  \ery  fact  that  he  can  get  at  the  ilou  o{  life  only 
as  something  hastily  inferred  from  the  \antage-point  of  an  irrevocable 
moment. 

Possibly  the  famous  Shakespeare  poem  is  somewhat  \o  blame  for  the 
current  view  o\'  Mr.  Robinson's  genius.  Now,  while  it  is  obvious  that 
"Ben  Jonson  Entertains  a  Man  from  Stratford"  is  an  ama/ingly  success- 
ful dramatic  portrait.  I  think  it  is  legitimate  to  sa\  that  this  poem  is 
somewhat  of  a  lour  dc  force,  that  it  does  not  adequalcK  represent  the 
deeper  Robinson,  and  that  there  is  an  air  of  strain  about  much  of  it.  It 
is  exceedingly  fortunate  that  we  have  the  Merlin,  not  only  for  its  own 
sake  but  because  it  enables  us  to  see  the  general  poetic  output  o{  its 
creator  in  a  just  light.  Merlin  is  a  narrative  poem,  it  is  true,  but  it  is  a 
slow  narrative.  Its  essential  beauty  lies  in  its  lyric  qualities.  Here  we 
have  the  imagery  that  Mr.  Robinson  had  been  wistfulK  reaching  out  for 
in  all  his  previous  work  but  which  he  had  nc\er  quite  allowed  himself  to 
seize,  so  habituated  had  his  soul  become  to  the  denial  o\  sense  in  the 
world  of  bitter  reality. 

Keener  than  any  of  Mr.  Robinson's  own  ironies  is  the  irons  which 
doomed  him.  the  unbeliever,  to  a  Puritan  asceticism.  That  part  of  him 
which  was  speech  could  not  accept  the  pagan  beaut\  of  the  world  which 
the  rhythms  of  his  spirit  so  ardently  desired.  None  knew  better  than  Mr. 
Robinson  himself  what  he  was  about  when  he  lost  himself  in  .Arthurian 
romance.  If  the  l\ric  imjuilse  tlnds  little  growth  in  a  world  too  blighted 
for  anything  but  caustic  blooms,  it  has  the  right  to  burrow  into  a  subsoil 
of  the  fancy.  Half  of  Mr.  Robinson,  the  lyric  poet,  is  in  the  rhythms  o\ 
his  poems  of  the  denial  of  life,  half  in  the  passion  and  imagery  o^  Mer- 
lin. Mr.  Robinst^n  the  ps\cluilogist  is  a  somewhat  uncoininced  and  sul- 
len substitute  for  the  uiulixidcd  Kiist. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in   ///c  Ircenuin  ^.   Ml      14.^  d*)::).  under  the 
title  "Poems  of  Experience." 


Review  of 
Maxwell  Bodenheim,  Introducing  Irony 

Maxwell  Bodenheim,  Introducing  Irony,  a  Book  of  Poetic  Short  Stories 
and  Poems.  New  York:  Boni  and  Liveright,  1922. 

This  volume  should  become  the  gospel  of  sincere  and  exasperated 
futurists.  It  is  sardonic  to  a  degree,  is  totally  unacquainted  with  the  lisps 
and  babblings  of  marketplace  or  home,  and  handles  words  with  the  deft 
remorselessness  of  a  slave-driver.  Introducing  Irony  is  far  more  than  a 
remarkable  or  disconcerting  document.  It  is  the  ironic  supplement  to 
the  more  fanciful  Minna  and  Myself,  the  two  together  expressing  the 
most  mordant  poetic  genius  that  America  possesses.  Not  addressing 
itself  to  the  thinking  mass,  but  rather  to  the  thought-feeling  few,  it 
would  not  know  what  to  do  with  popularity.  We  observe  in  it  the  same 
eerie  familiarity  with  the  secrets  of  words  that  Mr.  Bodenheim's  work 
has  always  shown.  If  there  is  any  sign  of  a  let-up,  it  is,  possibly,  a 
tendency  to  slip  here  and  there  into  the  too  clever  smoothness  that  has 
been  made  fashionable  by  Mr.  T.  S.  Eliot,  as  in  the  lines: 

And  so  the  matter  ends;  conservative 
And  radical  revise  their  family-tree, 
While  you  report  this  happening  with  relief 
To  liberals  and  victorious  cups  of  tea. 

It  is  only  rarely  that  Mr.  Bodenheim  condescends  to  such  glibness  and 
urbanity.  Passages  like 

Snobs  have  pockets  into  which 
They  crowd  too  many  trinkets 

and 

Two  figures  on  a  subway-platform, 
Pieced  together  by  an  old  complaint 

have  that  savage  exactness  of  his  for  which  felicity  is  too  prim  a  word. 
The  ten  prose  pieces  at  the  end  of  the  volume  are  less  authoritative  than 
the  verse.  It  is  difficult  to  see  why  Mr.  Bodenheim  should  bother  to 
write  these  semi-narratives. 


Five:  Aesthetics 
Ediu>i"ial  Nolo 


963 


Originally  published  in  The  New  Republic  31.  341  (1922). 
Maxwell  Bodenhcini  (1S93-1954)  was  an  American  poel.  novelist, 
and  essayist. 


Review  of  Maxwell  Bodenheim, 
Introducing  Irony 

Maxwell  Bodenheim,  Introducing  Irony:  A  Book  of  Poetic  Short  Sto- 
ries and  Poems.  New  York:  Boni  and  Liveright,  1922. 

it  is  a  tragic  temptation  to  shuffle  the  American  poets  and  look  for 
the  aces.  I  am  foolish  enough  to  yield  to  the  temptation  and,  with  hesi- 
tant gesture  rather  than  assurance,  to  lay  them  on  the  table.  If  Mr. 
Robinson,  Mr.  Fletcher,  Mr.  Aiken,  and  Mr.  Bodenheim  are  not  the 
real  aces  (and  I  regret  that  my  pack,  not  intended  for  pinochle,  limits 
me  to  four  aces),  I  still  believe  that  Mr.  Bodenheim  is  one  of  the  four. 
He  does  not  seem  to  be  as  well  known  as  he  should  be,  being  a  poet 
for  partly  "unpoetic"  reasons. 

Mr.  Bodenheim  has  been  called  a  poet  of  word  overtones.  This  is  a 
true  statement  so  far  as  it  goes,  but  it  is  a  little  misleading.  He  gets  his 
"overtones"  not  by  insisting  on  the  word,  not  by  listening  hard  for  the 
dying  clang  of  its  marginal  associations,  but  by  a  somewhat  high- 
handed, and  therefore  refreshing,  method  of  juxtaposition.  His  words, 
as  he  sets  them  down  in  sequences,  make  strange  companions.  They  put 
each  other  to  acid  tests,  cutting  irrelevances  out  of  each  other's  vitals, 
and  constructing  themselves  into  lines  of  thought  that  have  the  fresh- 
ness of  corroded  contours.  Mathematics  runs  through  all  of  his  work, 
as  he  himself  explains  in  the  exhilarating  Talmudic  exercise  entitled  "An 
Acrobat,  a  Violinist,  and  a  Chambermaid  Celebrate."  Take  this  passage 
from  "The  Turmoil  in  a  Morgue": 

Impulsive  doll  made  of  rubbish 

On  which  a  spark  descended  and  ended. 

The  while  servant-girl,  without  question  or  answer, 

Accepts  the  jest  of  a  universe. 

It  is  a  summary,  very  precise  and  appropriately  impertinent,  of  the  white 
servant-girl's  erotic  experience  and  cosmic  philosophy.  It  has  almost  as 
little  grease  in  it  as  one  of  those  tortuously  simple  demonstrations,  that 
we  remember  to  have  witnessed,  of  Euclid's  more  difficult  theorems. 


Five:  Acs i In- tics  965 

What  makes  Mr.  BtKlcnliLMiii  a  pocu  aiul  no[  merely  a  surgeon  and 
applied  gec^metriciaii.  is  his  tancy.  Ihis  quality  o\'  his  work  appears 
even  more  clearly  in  Minna  uml  A/r.vc//  (which  deserves  a  \astly  greater 
accessibility  than  its  publishers  have  gi\en  it)  than  in  the  present  vol- 
ume. In  ''Old  Man."  "Seaweed  from  Mars/"  and  a  number  ot  other 
pieces  the  fancN  is  clabcMate  and,  ifaititlcuiL  legitimately  so.  Numerous 
images,  such  as  'the  rock-like  protest  of  knees,"  ha\e  a  \alue  far  be- 
yond that  o\'  a  merely  intellectual  symbolism.  Yet  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  Mr.  Bodenheim's  fancy  plays  with  less  abandon  in  Introducini;  Irony 
than  in  his  previous  work.  His  passion  for  the  knife  has  led  him  to 
prune  too  much;  in  excising  the  irrelevant  he  has  also  cut  into  the  quick 
of  his  imagination  and  drained  it  of  some  of  its  life-blood.  It  is  a  pity 
that  bitterness  should  have  made  a  murderer  of  his  fancy,  in  Minna  it 
was  more  of  a  dreamer.  And  Mifuia.  while  less  intellectual,  is  heller 
poetry. 

The  sardonic  intellectualism  of  this  book  proceeds  not  from  heartless- 
ness,  not  truly  from  philosophic  aloofness,  but  from  sulTering.  It  is  im- 
possible to  disentangle  the  poet's  love  and  his  hatred,  to  dissever  deri- 
sion from  his  pity.  Irony  is  here  a  substitute  for  tears.  The  following 
passages  from  "The  Scrub-Woman,"  significantly  styled  "a  sentimental 
poem,"  illustrate  Mr.  Bodenheim's  method  of  dodging  the  direct  expres- 
sion of  the  pity  that  he  feels: 

Time  has  placed  his  careful  insuU 

Upon  your  body  ... 

Neat  nonsense,  stamped  with  checks  and  stripes. 

Fondles  the  deeply  marked  sneer 

Thai  Time  has  dropped  upon  you.  ... 

When  you  grunt  and  touch  your  hair 

I  perceive  your  exhaustion 

Reaching  for  a  bit  o^  pit\ 

And  carefully  rearranging  it. 

And  perhaps  the  paralyzing  turmoil  o[^  lo\e  and  hate  has  ne\er  been 
more  poignantly  rendered  than  in  ihe  closing  luics  of  ".lack  Rose" 

And  when  her  brolher  died  Jack  sal  beside 

Her  grief  and  played  a  moulh-harp  while  she  cried. 

But  when  she  raised  her  iicad  and  smiled  at  hiin 

A  smile  intensely  stripped  and  subtK  grim  - 

His  hale  fell  o\erawed  and  in  a  trap. 

And  suddenly  his  head  fell  to  her  lap 

For  some  lime  she  sal  stillly  in  ihe  chair. 

Then  slowiv  raised  her  hand  and  stri>ked  his  hair. 


966  JJJ  Culture 

Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  The  Nation  114,  751  (1922).  Copyright  1922; 
reprinted  by  permission  of  The  Nation  Magazine/The  Nation  Publishing 
Company,  Inc. 


Review  o( 
John  Maseficld,  Kiiii^  Cole 

John  Masefield,  King  Cole.  London,  William  Heincman,  1921. 

An  Indian  tribe  of  Vancouver  Island  has  a  quainll\  beauliful  belief 
that  for  a  brief  space  during  one  unknown  night  o\'  the  year  all  things 
are  loosed  from  their  moorings  to  hover  in  a  drowsy  glamour.  The  sea 
comes  up  into  the  land,  the  houses  shift  about  tluid  and  gentle,  and  the 
sober  tyranny  of  usual  things  is  suspended.  No  one  has  even  been 
known  to  witness  this  holiday  of  nature,  for  there  is  no  warning  o\'  its 
coming  and  there  is  an  insidious  drowsiness  in  the  air  which  lulls  mor- 
tals into  an  unwilled  slumber.  Yet  were  anyone  thus  to  catch  things  on 
the  turn,  he  would  be  greatly  blessed  with  the  fulfilment  ol"  his  prayers. 

If  I  understand  Mr.  Masefield  aright,  his  eye  is  set  to  catch  the  glam- 
orous twinkles  in  life.  Once  caught  and  nursed  in  the  s>mpath\  o\'  his 
imagination,  they  are  united  with  hard  and  bracing  actualities.  The 
spirit  of  Mr.  Masefield  is  thus  ever  striving  to  realize  in  a  strange,  pica- 
resque unity  the  lust  of  the  real  and  a  less  tangible  longing  which  he 
himself  is  in  the  habit  of  spelling  Beauty,  sometimes  Wisdom.  This  does 
not  mean  that  he  digs  so  deep  into  the  earth  that,  sooner  or  later,  he 
strikes  gold.  Mr.  Masefield  is  not  akin  to  Mr.  Conrad,  flis  interest  in 
life  is  only  surface-deep.  Of  its  intimate  texture,  his  imagination  seizes 
clearly  the  exposed  rim,  item  on  item;  of  its  dilTused  fire,  only  such 
flames  as  blow  out  at  vent-holes.  Thus  the  beaui\  that  Mr.  Masefield 
fashions  out  of  life  comes  but  rarely  or  nc\cr  from  an  c\pU>ration  of 
its  recesses.  It  is  rather  a  beauty  caught  in  certain  da/ed  nuMnenis.  when 
the  hard  exterior  of  things,  stared  at  rather  than  stared  through,  sud- 
denly takes  on  a  glamorous  mist  that  melts  away  all  rigidities  and  ob- 
scures the  relief.  Rephrasing  one's  anaKsis  of  Mr.  Masetleld's  aesthetic 
sensibility  from  the  standpoint  of  craftsmanship,  one  nias  sas  that  il 
seems  to  move  on  from  the  laying  out  of  isolated,  though  numerous. 
points  of  observation  to  the  application  of  a  patina.  (."^49] 

The  leap  from  Mr.  Masefield's  "rear"  to  Mr,  Masefield's  "beaulilur' 
does  not  necessarily  deliver  him  to  sentimentalit>,  though  it  lends  lo  do 


968  ///   Culture 

so.  What  does  result  is  that  it  is  ditTicult  for  Mr.  Masefield  to  convince 
us  of  his  integrations.  Only  too  often,  as  in  "The  Daffodil  Fields,"  do 
the  observed  life  and  its  romance  separate  into  strata.  If  he  has  given 
us  both  the  quest  of  glamour  in  many  of  his  sonnets,  and  daubs  of 
crude  life,  it  is  not  so  much  because  he  is  securely  himself  on  various 
unrelated  levels  as  that  the  kind  of  imaginative  blending  which  he  intu- 
itively craves  is  a  too  delicate  undertaking.  It  is  an  interesting  symptom 
of  his  sensibility  that  he  runs  in  his  expression  to  opposite  poles.  A 
synthesis  such  as  he  demands  is  possible,  but  I  do  not  believe  that  he 
has  often  compassed  it.  Wholly  successful  is  perhaps  only  "The  Tragedy 
of  Nan,"  which  appears  to  me  to  be  the  poet  at  his  best. 

King  Cole  is  an  unconscious  exposition  of  Mr.  Masefield's  sensibility 
and  method.  The  Showman  and  his  company,  their  bedraggled  vans, 
their  disappointments  and  their  ambitions,  embody  the  particular  kind 
of  reality,  jaunty  rather  than  coarse,  plain-spoken  rather  than  veracious, 
which  Mr.  Masefield  likes  to  single  out  for  his  background.  King  Cole, 
the  eternal  piper,  incarnates  that  other,  remoter  scheme  of  values  which 
is  the  romance  of  the  folk.  When  the  Showman's  luck  had  slid  from 
bad  to  worse, 

...  King  Cole 

Slipped  from  the  van  to  head  the  leading  team. 

He  breathed  into  his  flute  his  very  soul, 

A  noise  like  waters  in  a  pebbly  stream. 

And  lo,  a  marvellous  thing,  the  gouted  clay, 
Splashed  on  the  wagons  and  the  horses,  glowed. 
They  shone  like  embers  as  they  trod  the  road. 

The  glamorous  moment  of  transmutation  has  come,  the  drab  world  of 
the  ordinary  is  loosed  from  its  moorings,  and  for  the  rest  of  the  narra- 
tive the  spirit  of  King  Cole  reigns  once  more.  The  Showman's  luck 
turns,  a  prince  and  all  the  town  march  out  to  visit  the  circus,  and  when 
King  Cole  fades  away  at  the  hour  of  twelve,  it  is  another  troupe  that 
he  leaves  behind  him.  Blessings  have  softened  the  heart  of  humanity. 

The  real,  the  folk-loristic,  and  the  symbolic  are  skilfully  mingled  in 
this  most  typical  of  Mr.  Masefield's  poems.  The  mingling  can  not  and 
does  not  generate  the  power  that  grows  from  a  unitary  conception,  but 
within  its  fundamental  limitations  King  Cole  is  a  highly  successful 
poem.  In  it  the  poet  has  chosen  a  theme,  a  background,  and  a  simple 
motivation  that  exactly  suit  his  genius.  In  no  sense  does  it  reflect  the 
spirit  of  our  age.  Like  most  of  Mr.  Masefield,  it  is  the  Chaucer  of  the 


Five:  Aesthetics  Vt>9 

Prologue  fillcrcd  ihrough  ihc  RoniaiUic  pi>cls.  The  \erse  is  not  as  bril- 
liant as  the  best  passages  o(  Duuhcr.  bui  it  is  as  warm  and  as  rapid  as 
an\ thing  that  Mr.  Masetleld  has  yet  done.  I'nfortunateh  it  has  some 
of  llie  usual  e\idenees  of  his  too  speed\  I'aeilitN. 


Editorial  Nolo 

Originally  published  in   The  ircenuin  5,  548-549  (1922),  under  the 
title  "The  Manner  o\^  Mr.  Masetleld." 


Review  of  John  Masefield, 
Esther  and  Berenice 

John  Masefield,  Esther  and  Berenice:  Two  Plays.  New  York:  Macmil- 
lan,  1922. 

There  is  no  reason  why  poets  should  not  enjoy  the  human  privilege 
of  inconsistency.  Now  that  we  have  our  Masefield  well  in  hand  as  a  gilt- 
edged,  romanticizing,  and  altogether  lovable  swashbuckler,  it  is  quite  in 
order  that  we  should  allow  ourselves  to  be  shocked,  ever  so  slightly,  by 
the  entry  of  gentle  John  Masefield,  Englisher  of  the  pleasant  melanchol- 
ies and  decorous  passions  of  Racine,  one-time  dramatic  historiographer 
in  the  manner,  somewhat  dead,  of  Louis  Quatorze.  It  would  be  folly  to 
look  this  little  gift  too  curiously  in  the  mouth.  The  adapter-translator 
goes  half  out  of  his  way  to  parry  criticism  when  he  states  in  his  preface 
that  the  adaptations  "were  made  for  the  use  of  a  little  company  of 
amateur  players  who  wished  to  try  their  art  in  verse-plays,  yet  found 
that  of  the  many  fine  poetical  plays  in  the  English  language,  not  many 
suited  their  needs."  The  innocence  of  the  result  is  fairly  commensurate 
with  the  innocence  of  the  intention.  Only  here  and  there  is  there  a  Ma- 
sefieldian  touch  that  refreshes  us,  notably  in  Esther  Most  of  the  book 
jogs  along  in  placid  semi-prose,  and  occasionally  drowses  off  into  prose 
simple.  The  volume  adds  nothing  to  our  knowledge  of  Masefield  unless 
it  be  to  remind  us  forcibly  of  the  careless  good  nature  of  his  artistic 
conscience.  Nor  does  it  introduce  Racine  to  English  readers.  The  French 
have  always  held  religiously  to  the  sweet,  polished  Alexandrines  of  this 
tragedian,  whose  charm  too  evidently  disappears  in  foreign  vesture.  Mr. 
Masefield's  English  versions  but  rub  and  denature  the  originals.  Their 
rhetorical  bulk  is  somewhat  reduced,  but  the  courtliness  of  phrase  is 
gone. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  pubHshed  in  The  Freeman  5,  526  (1922). 
John  Masefield  (1878-1967)  was  an  English  poet,  playwright,  and 
novelist;  he  was  Poet  Laureate  of  England  for  many  years. 


Review  of  Edgar  Lcc  Masters, 
The  Open  Sea 

Edgar  Lee  Masters.  The  Open  Sea.  New  York:  Macniillan.  1921. 

Of  the  excessive  badness  ot^  Mr.  Masters's  new  \oluinc  of  poems  there 
can  be  no  doubt.  There  nia\  be  those  who  will  mistake  a  big  programme 
for  a  great  conception,  an  awkward  and  breathless  awareness  of  things 
for  vitality,  and  an  unleashed  rush  of  words  for  the  How  of  fire,  and 
who,  so  confounding  crude  intention  with  the  rapid  and  exquisite  delib- 
erateness  of  art  at  work,  tlnd  it  no  grotesque  thing  to  speak  o^  poetry 
here.  One  hopes  there  are  not  many  such  readers. 

Mr.  Masters  never  claimed  to  be  nice  with  his  chisel,  but  the  headstones 
of  Spoon  River  were  hacked  out  with  an  economy  and  with  a  ferocit\  that 
fairly  entitled  them  to  be  classified  as  a  new  kind  of  poetical  sculpture. 
Somehow  it  seemed  a  healthful  and  invigorating  thing  to  take  a  da\  ofT 
for  a  visit  to  Mr.  Masters's  cemetery,  sprawl  on  our  bellies,  and  peer  at 
these  inscriptions.  In  the  delight  of  overhearing  kitchen  gossip  combmed 
with  the  pleasure  of  watching  the  anatomist  demonstrate  on  the  human 
carcass,  we  found  ourselves  entertained  and  purged.  We  vagueh  remem- 
bered our  Aristotle  and  crowned  Mr.  Masters  poet  laureate. 

Mr.  Masters  had  every  reason  to  infer  that  he  had  achieved  a  notable 
volume.  He  then  set  about  the  practicall)  ine\itable  business  i-tf  folKnvmg 
up  his  achievement  with  a  series  o\'  undistinguished  collections,  packed 
with  all  manner  of  juvenilities,  screaming  with  a  rhetoric  sadK  unhu- 
morous.  displaying  in  ever  clearer  outlines  the  spirit  o\'  a  man  at  iMice 
stridently  in  revolt  and  not  deeply  dissatislled  with  the  Inmlalions  o^ 
his  soul  and  of  his  environment.  His  incisi\cncss  did  not  desert  him  a! 
once,  but  with  each  \olunie  Mr.  Masters  seemed  to  be  progressisely 
losing  himself  in  a  slough,  out  of  earshot  o{  the  cleaner-cut.  alerler 
poetry  which  is  quietly  raising  its  voice  in  .America.  Ihe  word  ceased  to 
interest  hnn.  the  rush  of  feeling  seemed  in  itself  sufllcient  warrant  for 
what  expression  il  monicnlarily  shaped  itself  into.  Meanwhile.  Mr  Mas- 
ters was  forgetting  the  cruel  truth  that  banality  c^Muporls  well  with  the 
red-hottest  feeling.  Had  he  had  the  incredible  restraint  \o  lea\e  the 
Spoon  River  Anlholoi^y  without  a  successor.  Mr.  Masters  would  now  Ix* 


972  lU  Culture 

fresh  in  our  memories,  as  is  the  author  of  the  lone  Shropshire  Lad.  As  it 
is,  the  later  Masters  is  almost  forcing  us  to  forget  our  early,  spontaneous 
acceptance  of  his  bitter  git\.  He  insists  on  becoming  vieux  jeii. 

It  is  wellnigh  a  pity  to  have  to  quote  from  The  Open  Sea,  yet  such 
harsh  criticism  as  we  have  ventured  needs  justification.  There  is  in  this 
book  sheer,  dead  ugliness  of  phrase,  as  in: 

Tlie  Queen  and  Antony 

Had  joined  the  Inimitable  Livers,  now  they  joined 

The  Diers  together, 

or: 

He's  fifty-six.  and  knows  the  human  breed. 

Sees  man  as  body  hiding  a  canal 

For  passing  food  along,  a  little  brain 

That  watches,  loves,  attends  the  said  canal.  [334] 

There  are  yard-lengths  of  inferior  journalistic  prose  cut  up  into  line- 
lengths  of  "blank  verse."  Let  one  passage  suffice: 

Few  years  are  left  in  which  he  may  achieve 

His  democratic  ideas,  for  he  sought 

No  gain  in  power,  but  chance  to  do  his  work, 

Fulfil  his  genius.  Well,  he  takes  the  Senate 

And  breaks  its  aristocracy,  then  frees 

The  groaning  debtors;  reduces  the  congestion 

Of  stifled  Italy,  founds  colonies, 

Helps  agriculture,  executes  the  laws. 

Crime  skulks  before  him,  luxury  he  checks. 

The  franchise  is  enlarged,  he  codifies 

The  Roman  laws,  and  founds  a  money-system; 

Collects  a  library,  and  takes  a  census; 

Reforms  the  calendar,  and  thus  bestrode 

The  world  with  work  accomplished. 

Had  not  Mr.  Masters  bethought  himself  of  the  hoary  privilege  of  inver- 
sion ("luxury  he  checks"),  we  should  not  have  guessed  that  this  was  in- 
deed poetry.  The  lifelessness  of  many  of  the  lines  is  appalling;  for  example: 

I  step  from  my  door  to  a  step,  and  from  that  right  into  the  street, 
or: 

I'm  surprised. 

I  know  more  mathematics  than  they  do, 
And  more  of  everything.  I  thought  an  officer 
Was  educated.  Well,  I  am  surprised. 

And  so  are  we.  Mr.  Masters  is  almost  too  good  to  be  true  when  he 
waxes  indignant.  It  is  downright  malice  to  quote  from  "A  Republic," 
which  the  author  himself,  one  hopes,  regrets  having  failed  to  throw  into 


Five:  Ai'stlu'tics  973 

the  wastebaskcl  iiniiicdialcl\  aflcr  conipt)siln)n  (possibly  Mr.  Masters 
tk)cs  lun  know  ihal  ihis  is  a  favorilc  pastime  uitli  nearly  all  his  fcllow- 
pocls).  yet  it  is  hard  to  resist  the  last  two  lines: 

A  gianlcss  grvnMiiL;  linger,  duller  i^t  tniiul. 
Her  gUmd  pituitary  being  lust. 

And  all  because  the  wietched  republic  voted  dry! 

Like  Shakespeare,  Mr.  Masters  does  not  niuice  m  liie  matter  of  his- 
torical appropriateness.  At  the  Mermaid  TaNern  they  talk  of  the  "work- 
ing class"  o['  Caesar's  day  and  do  not  hesitate  to  use  the  psychological 
jargon  o'i  our  time  ("reaction");  Marat  is  referred  to  as  a  "nihilist." 
Such  anachronisms  are  due  to  the  carelessness  of  ignorance  or  genius. 
Were  the  literary  workmanship  of  the  book  not  so  fantastically  below 
all  thinkable  aesthetic  standards,  it  might  have  been  of  some  interest  to 
consider  Mr.  Masters's  historical  themes  -  the  conception  o'(  Brutus- 
Charlotte  Corday-Booth  (mistaken  tyrannicide)  \s.  Caesar-Marai-Lin- 
coln  (savior  of  the  people)  or  the  modernizations  of  New  Testament 
episodes.  But  it  is  useless  to  discuss  the  conceptions  or  philosophy  of  a 
book  which  can  hardly  be  said  to  exist.  An  unembodied  conception  is. 
in  art,  no  conception  at  all.  One  piece  should  perhaps  be  excepted  from 
the  general  condemnation.  "Charlotte  Corday,"  while  hardl\  a  poem, 
is  good  rhetoric  moulded  into  an  excellent  dramatic  scene. 

The  saddest,  the  most  chastening,  thought  that  ihc  Open  Sea  suggests 
is  that  of  the  essential  rawness  and  primitiveness  of  a  culture  in  w  hich  po- 
etry of  this  type  can  be  allowed  to  come  to  tlower.  Mr.  Masters  himself 
can  not  bear  the  entire  blame.  A  decidedl\  "extro\  erted"  type  of  persmial- 
ity,  he  has  not  found  w  ithin  his  own  soul  the  subtlety  of  apprehension  that 
his  cultural  environment  has  so  signally  failed  to  encourage.  Sp(u>n  River 
Anthology  showed  clearly  enough  that  there  is  a  distincti\c  bite  to  \li 
Masters's  spirit.  His  artistic  failure  is,  to  a  disconcerting  degree,  the  mea- 
sure of  the  formlessness  and  aridity  of  our  .American  culture  of  toda> .  Ihis 
is  not  the  whole  story,  of  course,  but  it  has  an  important  share  in  it. 


Editi^rial  Note 

Originally  published  in  I'hc  hrcnum  5,  333-334  (1922),  under  the 
title  "Mr.  Masters's  Later  Work."  Also  published  in  The  Caniulum  Hook- 
num.  April,  1922,  132,  140,  under  the  title  "Spoon  River  Muddles," 

Edgar  Lee  Masters  (1869-  1950)  was  an  AiiuTican  poet,  lunelisi.  and 
biographer. 


Review  of  Edgar  Lee  Masters, 
Children  of  the  Market  Place 

Edgar  Lee  Masters,  Children  of  the  Market  Place.  New  York:  Macmil- 
lan,  1922. 

[This]  is  not  so  much  a  historical  novel  as  an  attempt  to  be  a  history 
and  novel  at  one  and  the  same  time.  The  history  centers  in  the  personal- 
ity of  Stephen  Douglas,  the  great  northern  Democrat  of  the  decades 
before  the  Civil  War.  The  rapid  development  of  Illinois,  the  slavery 
question,  the  advent  of  Lincoln,  come  in  for  a  treatment  that  is  neither 
informative  nor  distinguished.  The  novel  that  elbows  its  way  through 
Mr.  Masters'  historical  lumber  is  curiously  devoid  of  human  interest. 
The  characters  are  as  placidly  dead  as  those  found  in  any  rural  album 
of  family  photographs,  and  a  number  of  them  are  the  excuse  for  a  bit 
of  harmless  philosophizing  to  boot.  The  deadness  of  the  book  is  in 
contrast  to  its  galvanic  and  not  always  grammatical  style.  Closing  this 
volume  one  blinks  with  incredulity.  One  remembers  the  prophets  who 
concluded  their  reviews  of  Spoon  River  Anthology  with  the  remarks  that 
Mr.  Masters  had  the  instinct  of  portraiture,  that  he  had  strayed  into 
verse  under  a  slight  misunderstanding,  and  that  he  ought  and  probably 
would  turn  to  prose  narrative.  These  prophets  were  not  wholly  wrong. 


Editorial  Note 
Originally  published  (unsigned)  in  The  Dial  73,  457  (1922). 


Review  ofCjilbert  MurraN, 
Tradition  and  Progress 

Gilbert  Murray,  Tradition  and  Progress.  Boston:  Houghti>n  MilTlin. 
1922. 

[This]  is  a  somewhat  curiously  assorted  group  of  ten  essays,  all  re- 
prints of  papers  and  lectures  previously  published.  The  first  five  of  these 
pleasingly  written  essays  deal  with  some  of  the  larger  aspects  of  classical 
scholarship,  the  sixth  with  Literature  as  Revelation,  the  remainder  of 
the  volume  consists  of  thoughts  on  social  and  international  ethics.  The 
translator  of  Euripides  is  at  his  best  in  the  earlier  papers.  He  does  suc- 
ceed in  setting  such  topics  as  the  war-satire  of  Aristophanes,  the  bitter- 
ness of  Euripides,  the  Stoic  philosophy,  and  the  poetic  defmitions  of 
Aristotle  in  some  relation  to  our  interests  of  today.  The  paper  on  Poesis 
and  Mimesis  is  particularly  penetrating  in  its  insistence  on  the  necessity 
of  taking  due  account,  in  literary  criticism,  of  the  formal  genius  of  the 
language  in  which  the  artist  does  his  work.  Not  a  great  deal  is  to  be 
said  of  the  latter  half  of  the  book.  Professor  Murray  oscillates  rather 
comfortably  between  optimism  and  despair,  makes  the  usual  high- 
souled  march  along  the  smooth  ridge  of  English  liberalism,  animad\eris 
feelingly  on  the  elements  of  wickedness  and  goodness  in  contemporary 
politics,  and  is  careful  to  put  in  the  parentheses  needed  to  prevent  a 
charge  of  excessive  radicalism. 


Editorial  Note 
Originally  published  (unsigned)  in    ///c  Dial  7.\  .V^5  ( W22). 


Review  of 
Ellen  C.  Babbitt,  More  Jataka  Tales 

Ellen  C.  Babbitt,  More  Jataka  Tales.  New  York:  Century,  1922. 

All  children,  young  and  old  alike,  will  welcome  a  second  volume  of 
Buddhist  "birth  stories"  that  has  just  appeared.  There  are  twenty-one 
short  tales  in  this  volume,  and  they  are  nearly  all  about  our  animal 
cousins  -  tricky  wolves  and  foolhardy  wolves,  vainglorious  lions,  wise 
goats,  and  friendly  elephants,  woodpeckers,  turtles  and  deer.  We  learn 
a  great  deal  about  these  beasts  and  about  their  strategems,  disap- 
pointments, and  heroisms;  and  we  also  learn,  by  inference,  what  is  gen- 
erally considered  more  important,  something  about  the  mental  and 
moral  constitution  of  Man,  the  most  active  member  of  the  animal  king- 
dom. For  a  pleasing  introduction  to  the  sciences  of  folk-lore,  zoology, 
psychology,  and  ethics  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  match  for  this 
slender  volume,  which  contains,  moreover,  much  good-natured,  whim- 
sical, and  sly-winking  drama,  a  form  of  entertainment  not  often  found 
in  the  more  formal  treatises  devoted  to  natural  and  historical  science. 

It  is  not  easy  to  say  exactly  wherein  consists  the  charm  of  these  unpre- 
tentious tales.  There  are  many  little  stories  for  children  that  are  simply 
told  and  well,  but  I  have  read  few  which  so  unerringly  use  the  right 
words;  moreover,  they  are  quite  free  from  that  over-simplicity  which  is 
condescension  to  the  child.  Mr.  Ellsworth  Young,  the  illustrator,  con- 
tributes a  good  deal  to  the  effect  with  his  spirited  and  charmingly  deco- 
rative charcoal-sketches.  I  like  particularly  the  picture  on  page  45, 
which  shows  how  the  monkeys  passed  from  one  mango  tree  to  another 
over  the  back  of  their  devoted  chief,  who  had  made  a  bridge  of  himself 
with  the  help  of  his  long  tail. 

More  subtly  appealing  than  the  style  of  the  translator  or  the  lines  of 
the  illustrations,  however,  is  a  certain  gentleness  of  spirit  that  pervades 
the  stories  themselves.  It  would  be  interesting  to  compare  them  on  this 
score  with  Grimm's  fairy  tales  and  with  the  fables  of  Aesop.  The  folk- 
world  of  the  Grimm  stories  is  "uncensored"  to  a  degree.  The  delighted 
ego  indulges  in  unheard-of  triumphs  and  tramples  on  its  resistant  envi- 


Five:  Aesthetics  977 

ronnicnl  with  cruclls  aiul  jo\.  Ihcrc  is  a  draslic  ci>niplclcncss  in  ihc 
victory  c^f  Cinderella  that  aioiiscs  inisgi\ings.  Has  il  c\cr  been  pointed 
out  thai  her  horrid  sisters  deser\ed  at  least  the  pretence  of  consider- 
ation? Recollecting  what  an  uncomfortable  time  they  had  with  their 
bleeding  feet.  I  llnd  il  difficult  to  forgive  the  ultra-moralistic  birds  fi)r 
depri\ing  them  o\  their  jealous  eyesight.  Grimm's  fairy  tales  have  all 
the  egoistic  ferocity  of  a  day-dreaming  child  who  has  just  been  given 
an  undeserved  spanking.  Aesop  is  a  terribly  eiricient  schmilmaster, 
squeezing  all  the  life  and  fancy  out  o\'  the  Oriental  tales  that  fell  into 
his  hands.  It  is  agreeable  to  remember  that  this  Hellenic  grandfather  o'i 
our  elTiciency-experts  and  Methodist  deacons  was  only  a  slave  after  all. 
It  has  not  yet  been  satisfactorily  explained  b\  historians  hens  his  master 
was  able  to  tolerate  him. 

The  Jataka  tales  are  not  so  luimaniianan  as  entirely  to  rule  out  a 
primitive  wish-fulfilment  that  mauls  the  opposing  personalitN.  nor  do 
they  hesitate  to  wave  a  careless  hand  at  the  moral  an.xiously  awaiting 
round  the  corner;  yet  their  prevailing  tone  is  civilized,  restrained,  casual. 
There  are  not  a  few  passages,  and  there  are  even  a  couple  of  entire  tales, 
that  must  seem  a  bit  pointless  to  the  strenuous  da\-dreamer  or  upliltei. 
and  yet  they  embody  the  essential  charm  of  the  book  as  a  \\  hole.  Pun- 
ishment is  meted  out.  but  without  vindicti\eness.  In  "The  Bra\e  Little 
Bowman,"  the  big  man  who  takes  undue  credit  to  himself  for  his  page's 
archery  is  punished  by  the  exhibition  o'i  his  own  cowardice,  not  by 
having  his  ears  lopped  off,  as  would  undoubtedly  ha\e  happened  in 
Grimmland.  In  short,  these  ancient  Jataka  stories  retlect  the  courtei>us. 
humane,  and  nuanced  sentiments  of  a  folk  that  had  long  learned  the 
art  of  gentle  living.  Between  their  innocent  lines  there  is  much  food  for 
our  spirits. 


Editorial  Nine 

Originally  published  in  The  I'recnhin  >.  404  (  U)2:).  under  the  title 
Peep  at  the  Hindu  Spirit." 


Review  of 
Louis  Untermeyer,  Heavens 

Louis  Untermeyer,  Heavens.  New  York:  Harcourt,  Brace,  1922. 

This  book  is  neatly  gotten  up  and  has  a  futuristic  cover  design  and 
frontispiece.  The  contents  consist  of  first,  what  purport  to  be  extrava- 
ganzas on  the  nature  of  heaven  in  the  respective  manners  of  Chesterton, 
Wells,  George  Moore,  Cabell  and  Sinclair  Lewis,  with  a  prologue  and 
four  intermissions;  second,  five  "previews"  (a  "preview"  is  carefully  de- 
fined on  the  publishers'  jacket  as  "a  review  of  an  unwritten  book"),  the 
last  of  which  parodies  seventeen  American  poets,  ranging  from  Edwin 
Arlington  Robinson  to  Robert  W.  Service. 

There  is  an  air  of  good  humor  and  high  spirits  in  this  collection  of 
parodies  and  literary  chit-chat.  But  if  one  is  not  exactly  primed  to  meet 
Mr.  Untermeyer  halfway,  or  a  bit  more  than  halfway,  he  will  find  that 
the  cleverness  seems  obvious,  the  allusions  too  thick-set  and  insistent, 
and  will  accumulate  weariness  as  he  proceeds.  Parody,  one  fancies,  is  a 
dangerous  art,  requiring  to  be  stunningly  well  done  if  it  is  to  be  done 
at  all.  Mr.  Untermeyer  is  rather  the  alertly  gesticulating  and  amused 
cicerone  than  the  irresponsible,  sprightly,  yet  somewhat  nonchalant  Ar- 
iel that  he  should  be.  His  unflagging,  urban  up-to-the-minuteness  has 
the  flattening  effect  of  an  interminable  run  of  electric  lights  on  Broad- 
way, 10  p.m. 

It  is  impossible  to  avoid  the  comparison  with  Max  Beerbohm.  The 
Wells,  for  instance,  of  Heavens  is  an  industriously  assembled  pastiche 
of  the  various  items  that  Mr.  Untermeyer  had  entered  in  his  unwritten 
concordance  to  the  works  of  his  victim.  Mr.  Wells  is  cut  up  but  does 
not  bleed.  In  A  Christmas  Garland  Mr.  Beerbohm  gives  Wells  a  gay  run 
for  his  Hfe  and  manages  to  get  him.  His  good  humor  and  grace  capture 
the  victim  just  because  these  qualities  are  but  the  last  refinement  of  a 
lust  for  blood.  While  Mr.  Beerbohm  cannot  leave  himself  out  of  the 
game  -  for  it  is,  after  all,  his  game  -  Mr.  Untermeyer,  keen  and  volu- 
ble, does  not  succeed  in  getting  himself  into  it. 


Five:  Aesthetics 

Edilurial  Nolc 


979 


Origmallv  published  in  The  Sew  Rcpuhlic  30,  351  (1^^::). 
Louis  I'lilcinicvcr  (1SS>     \^)11 )  was  an  American  poel.  edilor.  and 
anthoK>eisl. 


Review  of 
Edward  Thomas,  Collected  Poems 

Edward  Thomas,  Collected  Poems.  New  York:  Thomas  Seltzer,  1921. 

There  are  many  sweet  bits  to  reward  the  reader  of  Edward  Thomas's 
poems,  but  in  all  justice  it  cannot  be  denied  that  this  volume  of  his 
collected  work  is  somewhat  of  a  disappointment.  It  is  not  so  much  that 
his  range  of  expression  is  limited,  that  he  exercises  too  severe  a  restraint, 
or  that  he  is  content  to  treasure  moments  of  too  evanescent  a  substance. 
These  shortcomings  are  no  less  virtues  than  defects.  But  Thomas's 
limitations  of  theme  and  form  seem  to  result  from  the  abandonment 
rather  than  the  mastery  of  experience.  It  is  a  deep  sense  of  futility,  even 
fear,  that  leads  him  to  toy  with  the  sweet  names  of  things;  to  hold  on 
to  the  dear,  safe  memories  of  a  past  whose  grief  has  lost  its  passion.  It 
is  as  though  the  poet  had  not  carved  a  tiny  and  precious  demesne  for 
himself  out  of  the  vast  jungle  of  life,  but  had  been  shouldered  out  to  its 
confines  and  was  satisfied  perforce  to  hug  to  his  heart  the  minimum  of 
things. 

The  technique  of  these  poems  requires  a  word.  It  is  said  that  Thomas 
was  much  infiuenced  by  our  own  Frost,  and  in  a  rather  loose  way  the 
resemblances  between  the  two  poets  are  obvious.  But  whereas  Frost's 
drabness  has  a  dry  compactness  that  just  prevents  his  verse  from  being 
as  dull  as  it  ought  to  be,  Thomas's  more  slender  talent  and  more  refined 
sensibility  need  a  less  leisurely  and  prosaic  diction  than  he  chose  to  use. 
The  stubborn  rhythms  too  frequently  lack  poignancy,  and  his  studied 
simplicity  of  phrase  runs  more  often  to  flatness  than  to  the  naive  and 
unpretentious  grace  that  the  poet  strove  to  capture.  What  Thomas 
might  have  done  if  he  had  looked  more  sharply  to  his  syllables  we  may 
only  surmise  from  an  occasionally  beautiful  stanza. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  The  New  Republic  32,  226  (1922). 
Edward  Thomas  (1878-1917)  was  an  Enghsh  poet,  critic,  and  essay- 
ist. 


Review  of  Arthur  Davison  Ficke, 
Mr.  Faust 

Arthur  Davison  Ficke,  Mr.  Fiiust.  New  York:  Frank  Shay.  1922. 

Mr.  Faust  is  a  four-acl  pla>  ihal  was  pioduccd  al  ihc  Fro\inccloun 
Players  theater.  New  York,  early  in  1922.  Mr.  Faust  himself  symbolizes 
the  philosophic  spirit  of  man,  aloof,  disillusioned,  but  not  c\nical.  His 
two  friends,  Brander  and  Oldham,  stand  respectively  for  romantic  ac- 
ceptance and  escape  from  reality.  Satan  has  lost  his  horns  and  other 
picturesque  attachments;  his  mission  is  to  throw  alluring  negations  in 
the  path  of  man,  sensual  delight  and  the  quest  of  power  for  the  coarser- 
grained,  self-obliterating  Nirvanas  and  Christian  humilities  for  aspiring 
souls.  There  is  uncertainly  in  the  workmanship  o[^  this  play.  The  blank 
verse  lacks  flow,  the  diction  seems  to  hesitate  between  the  colloquial 
and  the  "poetic,"  and  the  action  has  not  the  realit\  that  is  pmscrlul 
enough  to  attract  us  to  a  symbolic  interpretation.  Mr  I'uu.st  is  very 
much  the  kind  o\^  play  we  should  expect  from  an  averagely  good  lyric 
poet. 


Editorial  Note 
Originally  published  (unsigned)  in  The  Dial  73.  2.^.>  (1922). 


Review  of  George  Saintsbury, 
A  Letter  Book 

George  Saintsbury,  A  Letter  Book,  selected  with  an  Introduction  on 
the  History  and  Art  of  Letter-Writing.  New  York:  Harcourt,  Brace,  1922. 

A  tithe  of  Mr.  Saintsbury's  acquaintance  with  the  byways  of  Hterature 
would  caparison  a  normal  knight  of  today's  reading  world  for  the  high- 
ways. Mr.  Saintsbury  has  the  gayest  freedom  of  both  road-systems,  in- 
cluding all  connecting  lines.  He  both  delights  and  affrights  us  by  the 
devouring  gusto  of  his  reUshes  in  letters.  The  long  Introduction  is  full 
of  bantering  erudition  and  has  as  pleasing  irrelevances  as  are  needed  to 
introduce  a  casual  kind  of  anthology.  The  book  itself,  an  "appendix" 
to  the  introduction,  begins  with  a  proper  sprinkling  of  classical  letters 
and  picks  its  way,  not  too  systematically  and  with  good  editorial  tips, 
through  the  imposing  volumes  of  EngHsh  "epistolers,"  to  use  Mr. 
Saintsbury's  word,  from  the  dim  Pastons  down  to  Robert  Louis  Steven- 
son. To  presume  to  say  whether  the  precisely  right  choice  is  here  offered 
is  to  pretend  to  an  encyclopaedic  vision  such  as  not  even  a  reviewer  can 
possibly  possess. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  (unsigned)  in  The  Dial  73,  235  (1922). 
George  Saintsbury  (1845-1933)  was  an  EngHsh  critic,  journalist,  and 
educator. 


Review  oi^  Sclma  Lagerlof, 
The  Outcast 

Selma  Lagcrlof,  The  Outcast.  Translated  by  W.  Worsler.  New  York: 
Doubleday,  Page,  1922. 

The  Oiitccist  is  another  example  of  the  somewhat  disjointed,  episodic 
no\el  which  is  so  peculiar  lo  the  genius  o'i  this  Swedish  slor\ -teller. 
There  are  passages  in  it  which  recall  the  homely  strength  and  smiplicity 
of  the  old  Icelandic  sagas.  Its  atmosphere,  as  in  so  much  o^  Selma 
Lagerlo  fs  work,  is  a  curious  blend  of  the  archaic  mood  o{'  the  folk  and 
the  soil  and  the  all-suffering,  all-forgiving  Christ  idea.  The  characters, 
though  they  speak  with  a  Swedish  accent,  are  members  of  an  elemental 
and  timeless  commonwealth;  their  bodies  are  but  \essels  for  de\ouring 
ideas  and  feelings,  they  move  towards  the  borderland  oi  insanity.  The 
Outcast  lacks  the  firmness  o^  Jerusalem  and  sutlers,  possibly,  from  a  not 
completely  convincing  germinal  idea.  It  is  doubtful  if  the  cannibalism  o^ 
the  hero  and  his  Arctic  companions,  under  the  direst  extremes  of  hunger 
and  delirium,  can  be  rightly  assumed  to  evoke  quite  the  passion  o^ 
loathing  which  Miss  Lagerlo  f  demands.  There  is  an  unfortunate  strain 
here;  too  much  is  made  of  our  instincts.  Nor  was  it  necessar>  to  dis- 
prove the  charge,  so  far  as  the  hero  was  concerned,  at  a  sentimental 
last  moment. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  (unsigned)  in  Ihc  Duil  1},  }>A  (1922). 

Selma  Lagerlo f  ( 1858- 1940),  a  Swedish  no\elist,  was  awarded  the 
Nobel  Prize  for  Literature  in  1909.  and  was  ihc  In  si  woman  member  o\ 
the  Swedish  Academy. 


Review  of  Edwin  Bjorkman, 
77?^  Soul  of  a  Child 

Edwin  Bjorkman,  The  Soul  of  a  Child.  New  York:  Alfred  A.  Knopf, 
1922. 

It  is  not  unlikely  that  the  first  three  decades  of  the  twentieth  century 
will  come  to  be  remembered  as  the  period  of  the  gradual  lifting  of  sex 
taboos  in  writing,  in  open  discussion,  in  conversation,  in  the  privacy  of 
one's  thoughts  -  for  who  can  doubt  that  the  most  tyrannous  "verhoten" 
of  all  is  that  which  is  issued,  with  the  unconscious  cunning  and  hypoc- 
risy of  silence,  by  the  ego  to  its  lone,  bewildered  self?  We  are  in  the 
exciting  thick  of  this  lifting  of  the  taboo,  hardly  more,  it  may  be,  than 
a  feverishly  self-conscious  return  to  a  lost  freedom.  It  is  not  strange, 
therefore,  that  we  tend  to  shift  the  emphasis  from  the  uses  to  which  our 
new-found  defiance  may  lead  us  to  the  fact  of  defiance  itself.  We  toler- 
ate on  the  wave  of  our  release  much  rubbishy  flotsam  and  jetsam  of  the 
sexual  genus,  seeing  rather  to  what  outlines  the  wave  than  to  what  the 
wave  carries.  Later  on,  when  the  facts  of  sex,  normal  and  abnormal, 
will  have  been  calmly  accepted  as  the  mere  facts  that  they  are  and  the 
mention  of  sexual  activities,  performed  or  desired,  will,  as  activities,  no 
more  make  a  piece  of  literature  than  an  apple  tree,  as  apple  tree,  makes 
a  beautiful  landscape,  it  will  be  possible  to  forget  about  the  discovery 
of  sex  and  to  look  to  the  added  range  and  power  that  may  have  come 
to  literature  in  the  process  of  discovery.  A  literary  artist  can  hardly  have 
the  entree  to  too  many  sorts  of  really  existing  human  fancies  and  human 
relations.  Meanwhile,  whatever  helps  along  the  growing  sexual  honesty 
should  be  welcome. 

Mr.  Edwin  Bjorkman's  first  novel,  if  novel  it  may  be  truly  called,  is 
such  an  honest  book.  Not  that  it  revels  in  sexuality  or  even  that  it 
devotes  a  great  part  of  its  volume  to  sexual  matters.  The  important 
point  is  that  it  does  not  dodge  either  the  existence  or  the  significance  of 
sexual  curiosity  and  sexual  desire  in  the  years  of  innocence  which  pre- 
cede full-blown  adolescence.  Vague  and  mysterious  stirrings  trouble 
young  Keith  from  time  to  time,  "bad  boys"  give  him  a  snickering  half 


Five:  Aesthetics  985 

knowledge  oi"  things  which  lie  feels  are  somehow  waiting  for  discovery. 
he  experiences  a  tentatue  satisfaction  in  the  blind  alley  of  autocroti- 
cism.  All  this  comes  in  for  no  more  than  casual  and  malter-of-facl  treat- 
ment; sex  is  here  neither  a  ri>manlic  island  in  a  sea  o\  drabness  nor  a 
carefully  tucked  a\\a\  zero.  And  this  is  as  it  should  be.  It  is  agreeable 
to  fmd  a  reporter  of  childhood  who  is  doubly  honest,  being  neither 
discreetly  silent  nor  clamorous  and  hectic.  Only  a  fren/ied  prude  ct>uld 
lift  up  his  \oice  against  Mr.  Bjorkman.  only  such  spotless  deni/ens  o\ 
Eden  as  keep  "gentlemen  cows"  in  their  menageries.  Less  immaculate 
mortals  will  llnd  his  pages  perfectly  cool  and  white  and  rather  more 
honest  than  the  records  of  Tom  Sawyer  and  [79]  Huck  F'inn.  Such  a 
book  as  The  Soul  of  a  Child  does  indeed  light  up  the  artificiality  of 
Mark  Twain's  conception  of  roughneck  boyhood,  that  blissful  state  of 
desperate  and  lovable  wickedness  flowering  out  of  a  snow-cmered  soi\ 
of  innocence. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  deny  the  uses  o\^  Iluckleherry  Finn,  delectable 
and  romantic.  But  if  the  truth,  too.  has  its  \alue  -  and  we  seem  tc^  be 
minded  these  days  to  know  something  of  it  there  can  be  no  ciuesiion 
that  Mr.  Bjorkman  has  more  of  it  to  give  us  than  our  humorist.  His 
book  is  hardly  a  "novel."  despite  the  publisher's  quite  legitimate  at- 
tempt to  persuade  us  that  it  is.  It  is  a  sober,  categorical  narrati\e  of  a 
poor  boy's  life,  inner  and  outer,  in  the  not  very  colorful  Stockholm  o\' 
Mr.  Bjorkman's  memory.  It  is  just  because  the  author  has  refrained 
from  composing  his  incidents  and  characters  into  a  story,  has  set  down 
his  little  irrelevances  as  they  occur  to  him  in  retrospect,  and  has  refused 
to  mould  his  Keith  to  a  preconceived  type  that  we  trust  him  implicitly. 
We  know  that  what  he  has  to  tell  us  is  true.  There  is  nothing  strange, 
nothing  unexpected  in  his  narrative,  but  there  is  plenty  of  that  stubborn 
individuality  of  the  real  that  we  all  harbor  in  our  recollections  and  that 
no  no\elist  has  ever  succeeded  in  iinenting  out  o\'  whole  cloth.  How 
grandma  sla\s  in  the  kitchen  with  apologetic  pride,  how  a  well-to-do 
playmate  fraternizes  and  snubs  at  one  and  the  same  time,  hovs  a  se\ere 
and  virtuous  aunt  lets  out  ad\ice.  such  mcidents  Mr.  Bjorkman  tells 
clearly  and  simply.  They  have  \alue  for  us.  as  disconnected  and  unexcit- 
ing pictures  out  oi'  our  childhiH>d  ha\e  never  ceased  to  seem  worth 
holding  on  to. 

Keith's  childhood  is  typical  o\'  a  certain  si\le  of  boy  He  is  an  onl> 
son,  sensitive  and  impressionable.  His  mother  attaches  him  firmls  to 
herself,  far  more  compellingly  than  is  giving  to  be  gocxi  for  him.  Psycho- 
analysts see  a  "molher  Hxation"  forming  which  is  destined  to  hold  him 


986  III  Culture 

for  many  troublous  years.  Thrown  back  largely  on  himself,  for  his  fa- 
ther comes  home  tired  and  moody,  the  boys  downstairs  are  not  nice, 
and  home  is  too  cramped  to  make  guests  other  than  a  nuisance,  Keith 
develops  into  a  quiet,  timid  and  introspective  child.  He  tends  to  hero- 
worship,  to  lone  friendships.  A  growing  sense  of  his  parents'  poverty 
and  social  inferiority  create  a  mingled  self-contempt  and  resentment  in 
his  soul  which  will  one  day  find  shape  and  compensation  in  a  radical 
faith.  The  love  of  beautiful  things  lies  dormant  in  him,  there  is  little  or 
nothing  to  stimulate  it  into  expression.  Petty  virtues  and  meaningless 
faiths  are  all  about  to  strangle  him.  Between  his  father  and  himself  there 
is  an  abyss  of  silence,  a  growing  misunderstanding  which  expresses  itself 
too  sparsely  to  come  to  a  head;  the  mother  is  both  too  clinging  and  too 
imperious  in  her  love  to  be  of  intelligent  assistance.  Books  are  his  ref- 
uge, knowledge  his  ideal.  Keith  is  rapidly  becoming  an  "introverted" 
personality  and  though,  at  the  end  of  the  book,  he  revolts  against  the 
compulsions  of  school  life  and  seeks  independence  in  an  office,  it  is  a 
fair  guess  that  he  will  need  greater  luck  or  a  more  kindly  and  under- 
standing sympathy  to  weather  the  coming  storms  than  the  average  boy 
can  count  on. 

There  is  nothing  lugubrious  or  clinical  about  The  Soul  of  a  Child.  The 
shadows,  present  and  threatening,  are  offset  by  many  cheerful  episodes. 
There  is  [80]  Christmas,  with  endless  gifts  and  lots  and  lots  to  eat,  and 
there  are  pleasant  vacations  in  the  country.  But  as  one  lays  down  the 
book,  he  asks,  with  a  Hngering  wistfulness,  "Is  childhood  really  so 
happy  as  we  would  have  it?"  and  finds  it  strangely  difficult  to  peer  into 
the  mist  that  hangs  through  the  life  of  emotion  of  our  early  years.  As 
the  child  looks  forward  to  the  time  when  he  will  be  grown  up  and  free, 
so  we,  one  suspects,  have  created  for  ourselves  the  myth  of  childish 
irresponsibility  and  freedom.  The  child  and  the  aduh  escape  into  the 
dream  of  the  other's  far  distant  happiness.  Certainly  Keith,  as  he  is 
presented  to  us  in  this  book,  was  not  what  we  should  gladly  call 
"happy,"  but  perhaps  it  takes  the  retrospective  analysis  of  as  keen  and 
retentive  a  mind  as  Mr.  Bjorkman's  to  prove  how  far  from  happy  he 
was  and  to  imply  how  happy  he  might  have  been.  Such  books  as  The 
Soul  of  a  Child  do  more  to  create  sympathy  for  the  very  real  sufferings 
of  childhood  than  any  amount  of  psychological  research  and  theory. 


Editorial  Note 
Originally  published  in  The  Double  Dealer  5,  78-80  (1923). 


Review  of  A.  E.  Housniaii. 
Last  Poems 

A.  E.  Housman,  Last  Poems.  New  York:  Henry  Holt  and  Co.,  1^)22 

Laying  down  iliis  liule  volume,  as  bitter  as  it  is  uistlul  and  as  gentle 
and  strong  to  break  futile  things  as  a  man's  strength  on  a  twig,  one 
muses  back  to  its  predecessor  of  nearly  thirty  years  ago.  How  A  Shnt/y- 
shire  Laii  sang  out  honestly  from  gallows'  heights,  how  it  gave  sadness 
and  the  beauty  of  the  countryside  a  new  hardness,  and  how,  beside  its 
clear,  silver,  inexorable  voice  all  the  organ  music  of  the  aesthetes  quickly 
hushed  into  dead  velvet  -  all  this  we  remember.  Last  Poems  speaks 
with  a  slightly  new  accent,  while  telling  of  the  same  spiritual  country. 
The  former  volume  drew  exact  lines  on  the  land  and  noted  carefulls  the 
passionate  steps  of  puppets,  each  on  his  given  line,  each  to  his  useless 
point.  In  Last  Poems  there  is  less  drama,  less  interested  amusement  in 
the  process,  a  more  explicit  concern  with  the  journey's  end.  Where  i 
Shropshire  Lad  wds  athletically  grim  and  waved  its  pessimistic  formula 
with  a  blitheness  that  was  not  all  mockery,  the  later  poems  rellect  and 
mutter  and  sigh.  Tis  the  same  tale,  but  there's  a  dilTerent  telling  on'l. 
And  so,  while  our  memory  of  the  more  significant  book  is  as  of  a  clear 
view  in  the  cool,  green  morning,  we  come  out  of  its  successor's  pages 
with  eyes  half-closed  and  with  a  dreaminess  of  sunset. 

The  contrast  finds  illustration  within  the  covers  of  the  book  itself,  for 
some  of  it  is  pure  Shropshire  Lad,  notably  "Eight  O'clock": 

He  stood,  and  heard  the  steeple 
Sprinkle  the  quarters  on  the  morning  town. 
One,  two,  three,  four,  to  market-place  and  pci^ple 
It  tossed  them  down. 

Strapped,  noosed,  nighing  his  hour. 

He  stood  and  counted  them  and  cursed  his  luck: 

And  then  the  clock  collected  in  the  tower 

Its  strength,  and  struck. 

This  is  as  tart  and  unwinking  as  you  will,  with  all  o\  its  philosi^plu 
carefully  held  down  in  the  implications.  There  are  no  remarks,  there  is 
no  squeal.  Its  futility  is  not  a  meditated  thing,  rather  fates  iniix-rlinencc 


988  ///   Culture 

till  list  \\\\o  ihc  impatience  and  the  lust  of  life,  for  of  the  hours  we  are 
told  that  he  "counted  them  and  cursed  his  luck."  They  are  still  worth 
the  counting.  Futility  has  not  yet  sunk  into  the  heart  of  man.  Elsewhere 
we  are  told: 

Could  man  he  drunk  forever 

Wiih  liquor,  love,  or  fights. 

Lief  should  I  rouse  at  morning 

And  lief  lie  down  of  nights. 

But  men  at  whiles  are  sober 

And  think  by  fits  and  starts, 

And  if  they  think,  they  fasten 

Their  hands  upon  their  hearts. 

Explicit  futility,  a  nicely  cherished  disgust  that  the  poet  has  made  over 
into  a  pessimism  too  sweet  to  smart.  Such  poems  as  this  make  of  A 
Shropshire  Lad  a  sort  of  protesting  hillock  on  the  smooth,  verdant  plain 
of  Victorian-Georgian  paisa.  The  "continuous  excitement"  of  1895  that 
Mr.  Housman  speaks  of  in  his  preface  had  lifted  him  safely  above  the 
plain.  He  walks  the  plain  now,  not  in  the  dead-earnest  fashion  of  a  real 
Victorian-Georgian,  to  be  sure,  rather  with  a  foreign  grace,  with  a  re- 
serve which  somehow  fails  to  realize  the  company  he  is  in.  We  even  find 
stratified  poems,  poems  in  which  an  honest  workmanship  of  any  per- 
fectly honest  squire  ("Oh,  to  the  bed  oi:  ocean.  To  Africk  and  to  Ind") 
supports  (or  undermines)  another  layer  ("And  the  dead  call  the  dying 
And  finger  at  the  doors"). 

A  Shropshire  Lad  had  in  much  of  its  imagery  something  cold,  sharp, 
precipitated,  something  of  the  momentaneous  power  that  we  attribute 
to  an  unexpected  rustle  in  dead  leaves.  There  is  less  of  this  quality  in 
Last  Poems,  but  it  is  present.  The  first  poem  is  full  of  it: 

The  sun  is  down  and  drinks  away 
From  air  and  land  the  lees  of  day,  [190] 

The  long  cloud  and  the  single  pine 
Sentinel  the  ending  line, 

Oh  lad,  I  fear  that  yon's  the  sea 
Where  they  fished  for  you  and  me. 

These  strangenesses  are  not  awkward,  not  sought.  They  have  more  sud- 
denness than  ingenuity;  they  suggest  omens,  possibly,  rather  than  pic- 
tures. Even  the  slightly  euphuistic  passages  ring  true,  such  as: 

And  let  not  yet  the  swimmer  leave 
His  clothes  upon  the  sands  of  eve. 

It  is  ungracious  and  pedagogical  to  contrast,  to  mark  off  epochs.  Yet 
a  brief  glance  at  our  current  exasperation,  the  better  to  fix  Mr.  Hous- 


Fixe:  Aesthetics  989 

man  lor  our  cn\\,  a  cordial  good-bye  lo  what  is  in>  longer  slriclly  ours. 
and  a  \ain  c|iicslion  \mII  not  he  ihoughl  loo  heavy  a  load  of  analysis. 
For,  ha\ing  laid  down  the  Last  Poc/ns  and  nuised  ol  the  lad.  we  find 
ourselves  autoniatieally  closing  the  little  book  and  the  manner  of  its 
closing  is  a  symbol  not  curtly,  with  a  businesslike  inditlerence.  nor 
too  lingeringly.  with  man\  browsings  back  and  forth  between  the  reluc- 
tantly closing  covers,  but  sKnvly  and  decisi\el>.  We  should  like  to  feel 
ourselves  more  excitedly  in  the  midst  o(  Mr.  Housman's  wi>rk.  but  it 
will  not  go.  A  truth  that  we  nearly  hate  whispers  to  us  that  there  is  no 
use  pretending,  that  these  lines  lilt  loo  doggedly  and  too  s\seetl\  [o  tall 
in  quite  with  our  more  exigent,  half-undiscovered  harmonies,  that  many 
o\'  the  magic  turns  catch  us  cruelly  absent-minded.  And.  most  disap- 
pointing of  all.  for  we  are  a  little  disappointed,  and  vexed  at  being  so, 
we  cannot  seem  lo  pool  Mr.  Housman's  pessimism  with  ouv  own.  We 
seem  to  feel  thai  ouv  zero  does  not  equate  with  his.  that  each  has  a 
diflerent  mathematical  "sense"  or  tendency. 

We  discover,  as  we  prove  into  our  puzzling  discord,  thai  we  already 
love  the  Shropshire  lad  as  we  love  our  Coleridge  and  our  Blake  and 
begin  to  di\ine  thai  we  were  a  little  hasty  in  dating  our  modern  drift 
from  Mr.  Housman's  first  volume.  Its  Hare  and  its  protest  were  a  psy- 
chological, a  temperamental  phenomenon,  not  a  strictly  cultural  one. 
Its  disillusionment  was  rooted  in  personality,  [I'-.^l]  not  largely  in  a  sens- 
ing of  the  proximate  age.  Hence  while  Mr.  Housman  seems  lo  anticipate 
and  now  to  join  with  us  in  our  despair,  he  is  serene  and  bitter  where 
we  are  bitter  and  distraught.  His  cultural  world  was  an  accepted  one, 
though  he  chose  to  deny  its  conscious  values;  our  own  perturbations, 
could  they  penetrate  into  the  marrow  of  his  bone,  would  uoi  find  him 
a  sympathetic  sufferer.  In  the  larger  perspective  his  best  work  is  seen 
to  be  a  highly  personal  culmination  point  in  a  p^^etic  tradition  that  is 
thoroughly  alien  to  us  of  today,  and  nothing  demonstrates  this  more 
forcibly  than  the  apparent  backwash  in  some  of  the  Iai.m  Poems  lliere 
is  no  backwash  in  spirit  or  in  sl\lc.  there  is  simply  the  lessened  intensiiv 
that  allows  general,  underlying  cultural  traits  to  emerge.  His  zero  and 
our  zero  do  not  equate  for  the  reason  that  his  is  personal  where  ours  is 
cultural. 

I'inally.  the  \ain  question.  Such  work  as  \1i  Ihuisman's.  admirably 
simple  and  clear,  classical,  as  it  is,  once  more  rai.ses  the  doubt  as  lo 
whether  we  can  truly  be  said  to  be  expressing  ourselves  until  our  moods 
become  less  frenetic,  our  ideas  less  palpable  and  self-ci>nscious.  and. 
above  all.  our  forms  less  hesitant.  Our  eccenlricilies  have  much  interest 


990  tit   Culture 

and  diagnostic  \aluc  to  ourselves,  but  should  it  not  be  possible  to  cabin 
their  power  in  forms  that  are  at  once  more  gracious  and  less  discussible? 
One  wonders  whether  there  is  not  in  store  for  English  poetry  some 
tremendous  simplification.  One  prays  for  a  Heine  who  may  give  us  all 
our  mordancies,  all  our  harmonies,  and  our  stirrings  of  new  Hfe  with 
simpler  and  subtler  apparatus.  There  is  room  for  a  new  Shropshire  Lad. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  The  Dial  75,  188-191  (1923)  under  the  title 
"Mr.  Housman's  Last  Poems." 

A(lfred).  E(dward).  Housman  (1859-1936)  was  an  English  poet  and 
scholar. 


Twelve  Novelists  in  Search  of  a  Reason 

A  Son  of  Review 

The  \'(>vel  of  loniorrow  unci  (he  Seope  of  Fielion.  b\  lucKc  American 
Novelists.  Indianapolis:  Bobbs-Merrill,  1922. 

i  Enter  Editors  of  thh  Niw  Ripubi  ic.  They  proefaim  tlmm\ih  a  ^reat. 
flaring  niei^apfione  whieh  hides  their  individual  faees l.Oyc/.,  oyez,  oyc/! 
Be  it  known  that  we  do  hereby  exile  into  the  Great  American  [X^sert 
all  tritlers  and  tellers  of  idle  tales.  And  in  especial  ha\e  \se  singled  out 
for  our  early  displeasure  a  round  dozen  of  this  folk,  so  they  may  find 
them  and  their  kind  a  dwelling  in  the  desert.  But  if  they  come  to  us 
bearing  a  fit  reason  for  this  their  habit  of  speaking  \ain  words,  then 
may  we  relent  and  reassign  them,  for  their  sole  use.  sundry  garrets  m 
our  beloved  city  of  New  York.  {Exeunt  Editors.) 

(Enter,  dolefully  and  in  alphabetical  order.  S.wu  1 1  Hoi'kins  Adams. 
Mary  Austin.  Jamls  Branch  Cabill.  Floyd  Di  i.i .  Wai  do  Frank. 
Zona  Gale,  Joseph  Hergesheimer.  Robert  Herric  k.  Harm  y  O'Mk;- 
GiNS,  Henry  Kitchell  Webster.  William  Allen  Wiiiii  <///</  I  diim 
Franklin  Wyatt.) 

Cabell:  So  this  is  the  Prairie!  -  Bui  where  is  the  Gopher"' 

White:  Under  the  Prairie. 

Cabell:  And  where  is  Queen  Pollyanna?  They  told  me  of  her  m  m\ 
dreams. 

White:  Under  the  Gopher.  Lowest,  but  peifectK  legilnnate,  level. 
Subterranean  Marshmallow.  one  might  say  but  Fm  not  a  highbrow 
(Eyes  Eran/<  provoeative/y.  Franl\  seems  not  to  luive  heard:  meditates.) 

Cabi:ll:  And  where  is  Main  Street'.' 

HiRCiiSHiiMiR:  Every  pebble  on  this  prairie  has  a  Mam  Street  run- 
ning right  through  it.  Every  Main  Street  bisects  the  universe  mlo  two 
useless  halves. 

Wi;bsti:r  (a  little  impatiently):  Well,  friends,  our  topography  is  a  bit 
mystical.  Where  shall  we  sit  down  and  have  it  out'  Or  rather  let  us  sil 
down  anywhere  and  begin  at  once.  One  chunk  o^  reality  is  as  real  as 
another,  one  acre  of  prairie  as  comfortable  as  anoihei    I  suggest 


992  IJf  Culture 

Miss  Wyatt  (interrupts  quickly):  Oh  dear  no!  We  must  have  [192] 
preferences.  Can  not  some  one  annihilate  this  prairie  and  bring  us  to 
the  sun-Ht  spaces?  (Looks  sweetly  at  Zona  Gale.) 

(Zona  Galf  whistles  long  and  musically.  Pegasus  comes  sailing  down. 
Halts  before  the  novelists,  who  all  believe  they  should  have  been  poets. 
Instinctively  they  clamber  on  his  back,  but  before  they  have  disposed  them- 
selves securely,  they  are  being  whisked  through  space  in  improvised  citti- 
tude.Zo>iA  Galf:  hugs  the  horse's  neck, Frank  stands  on  his  back  in  mag- 
isterial unconcern.  White  clitjgs  one-handed  to  his  tail;  others  ad  libitum 
lectoris.  They  are  landed  softly  on  a  cloud;  Pegasus  disappears. ) 

Cabell:  Another  alcove.  One  should  be  able  to  talk  beautifully  here, 
if  not  convincingly.  There  are  no  listeners. 

Dell  (with  the  excitement  of  a  new  discovery):  And  off  yonder  ob- 
serve the  Prairie,  how  it  shimmers  in  softest  gold!  We  do  not  know 
what  is  really  there,  but  nothing  hinders  our  turning  it  all  into  the  most 
beautiful  and  intelligible  of  fairy  tales.  The  millions  of  Main  Streets  now 
weave  themselves  into  a  close  tapestry  .  .  . 

Frank:  Of  which  the  pattern  is  ourselves,  our  creative  fantasy;  not 
the  miserable  truth  of  the  warp  and  woof  -  what  is  reahsm  anyway?  - 
but  the  creative  truth  in  the  artist's  eye  and  in  his  heart. 

White  cmd  Webster  (sotto  voce):  Tut,  tut! 

Adams:  Anyway,  I  am  glad  I've  come.  There  is  here  not  a  whiff  of 
the  malodorous  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  the  Perpetration  of  Vice 
in  Literature.  I  die  happy.  (Having  no  taste  for  argument,  he  sinks  into 
a  peaceful  slumber  ) 

Herrick:  And  there  at  last  is  America,  the  Prairie,  looking  up  to  us 
with  mute  and  pathetic  appeal.  Too  long  have  the  Gopherites  and  sub- 
Gopherites  doped  themselves,  between  whiles,  with  that  treacly  ro- 
mance which  is  better  known  as  slush.  They  are  now  in  a  fit  mood  .  .  . 

White:  If  slush  is  what  the  gopher  wants,  give  him  slush,  say  I.  Goph- 
ers are  not  fond  of  Paris  green.  What's  the  use  of  highbrow-beating 
them  into  it? 

Herrick  (pays  no  attention):  They  are  not  in  a  fit  mood  to  be  rightly 
diagnosed,  to  be  properly  done. 

Hergesheimer:  High  time  too!  they've  done  us  long  enough.  I  could 
tell  you  royalty  tales  that  would  make  your  hair  stand  on  end. 

Three  Ladies:  Oh  Mr.  Hergesheimer!  We  are  on  a  fleecy  cloud.  This 
is  no  place  for  puns.  Royalties  are  an  impertinence  here! 

(Seven  other  waking  Gentlemen  have  a  far-away,  dreamy,  noble  look.) 

Hergesheimer  (mutters  savagely) :  Hypocrites! 


Five:  Aesthetics  993 

Hhrrick:  To  be  piopcils  done,  li  is  \crv  possible  thai  the  cmoiional 
soil  o\'  the  Prairie  is  too  thin  lor  business.  In  that  case  we  shall  have  lo 
wait  -  a  little  longer.  Rome  was  not  built  in  a  day  nt)r  can  the  (19.^j 
Great  American  Novel  e.xpect  to  be  born  when  its  parents  ha\e  scarccK 
met.  In  any  event,  it  is  not  mainly  a  question  ot" craftsmanship.  Wc  arc 
all.  I  lake  it.  perfectly  competent  craftsmen  -  if  The  New  Republic 
doesn't  know  what's  what,  who  does?  -  perfectly  competent.  But  one 
must  be  more  than  competent.  One  must  happen  to  be  living  at  the 
right  time  and  in  the  right  place.  Give  the  F^rairie  time  and  it  will  become 
a  greater,  heavier,  profounder  Prairie.  Give  the  gophers  time  and  they 
will  become  subtler,  more  interesting  psychologically  and  more  inter- 
ested in  psychology  -  in  a  word,  more  like  Russian  gophers,  or  what- 
ever name  they  are  known  by  out  there.  Then  and  onl\  then  can  one  ^^^ 
us  or  all  o\^  us  hope  to  write  something  that  won't  look  silly  when  put 
on  the  shelf  alongside  of 'The  Idiot."  Then  and  then  only  can  an  Ameri- 
can novel  have  a  reasonable  chance  of  being  fa\cnirabl\  re\ie\sed  in  The 
Dial. 

Whith:  Why  The  Dial?  The  Saturday  Evening  Post  is  good  enough 
for  me. 

Cabhll:  But  why  can't  we  simply  pretend  the  gopher  is  all  he  might 
be,  all  we  wish  him  to  be,  all  he  might  ha\e  been,  and  pay  no  further 
attention  to  him?  It  seems  to  me  the  proper  method  is  simple  enough. 
We  retire  into  the  privacy  of  a  comtbrtable  and  ine\pensi\e  alco\e.  close 
our  eyes,  forget  the  Prairie  and  its  overrated  inhabitants,  and  systemati- 
cally and  ingeniously  dream  of  a  land  of  our  own  devising,  till  the  CJreat 
Reaper,  finding  us  blissfully  absent-minded,  makes  short  work  o\  us. 

Mary  Austin:  Your  frivolity,  Mr.  Cabell,  is  shocking.  Our  task  is  a 
serious  one.  oi",  if  yours  isn't,  mine  is.  ^'ou  are  apparentK  one  of  these 
newly  named,  if  not  newly  invented,  what  \ou  mas  call  "ems'  looks 
appcaliiii^ly  a  I  Floyd  Di:ll.) 

Di;ll:  Introverts. 

Cabkll:  And  why  not'.'  Wh\  lun  leave  me  to  mv  centaurs  and  harm- 
less contraptions  of  one  kind  and  another".'  I  hough  I  suppv>se  that  even 
so  harmless  a  thing  as  a  staff  must  be  psvclu>analv/ed  and  called  a 
spade! 

Dhll:  Absolutely!  Only  a  slatT  is  never  a  spade  in  psychoanalysis. 

O'HiGGiNs:  And  is  it  psychoanalysis  ye're  talking  about'.'  I'm  with 
you.  Do  you  know,  1  consider  it  absolutely  useless  to  talk  of  the  \ovm. 
the  scope,  and  the  every  other  abstract  noun  that  can  be  put  m  front  o\ 
the  novel,  while  under  our  cui-and-dned  thinking  is  a  vagabond  o\  a 


994  Jll  Culture 

dreamer  who  knows  too  much  about  reahty  to  be  taken  in  by  it.  Every 
time  you  go  to  sleep  you  have  a  new  dream  and  wake  up  with  a  new 
reality  -  or  an  old  headache.  So  what's  the  use  of  talking? 

Cabell:  O'Higgins,  I  think  we  might  develop  a  mutually  satisfactory 
philosophy.  We  seem  to  have  been  born  under  the  same  sign. 

Mary  Austin:  The  trouble  with  most  of  you  gentlemen  is  that  you'd 
rather  be  thought  mistaken  but  clever  or  original  or  paradoxical  or 
[194]  something  else  that  is  equally  useless  than  mistaken  though 
honest.  What  we  need  is  not  dream  psychology  but  sociology,  or  rather 
social  psychology.  We  need  a  more  intimate  contact  with  the  collective 
mind.  We  must  feel  the  rhythms  of  the  group  vibrating  sympathetically 
with  our  own,  we  must  learn  to  be  at  home  in  all  the  shifting  back- 
grounds of  the  Prairie.  Above  all,  we  must  think  less  consciously  of  art 
and  style  and  words  and  more  of  the  life  that  we  seek  to  understand 
and  interpret.  Never  mind  form  just  yet.  It  cannot  be  perfected  until 
the  life  about  us  is  molded  into  an  organic  unity.  A  prematurely  ripened 
form  will  bear  as  little  relation  to  the  unformed  life  it  undertakes  to 
report  as  a  grand  piano  misplaced  on  a  haystack  bears  to  the  farm 
population. 

Herrick:  Though  I  do  think,  Mrs.  Austin,  that  outward  realism  is 
far  less  important  than  inner  truth. 

Zona  Gale:  Oh  thank  you,  Mr.  Herrick,  I'm  sure  there  is  an  indepen- 
dent spiritual  world  that  it  is  the  duty  of  each  and  every  one  of  us  to 
look  for.  Esoteric  beauty  is  the  only  beauty  that  really  matters.  The 
glitter  of  the  external  should  be  contemplated  only  by  the  short-story 
writers  of  the  magazines,  it  seems  to  me.  What  a  pity  that  while  we 
have  all  worked  hard  to  make  of  the  old  fatty  novel  a  bare  and  powerful 
instrument,  ready  for  the  subtlest  of  revelations,  we  have  not  yet  done 
much  more  than  skirmish  about  in  preliminary  jousts  and  canters!  We 
seem  to  be  confounding  the  husk  of  reality  with  its  mystic  kernel.  Right 
in  our  commonplace  midst  is  an  all  but  undreamt  of  world  of  remoter, 
spiritual  beauty.  It  is  useless  to  write  novels  as  long  as  "Pamela"  or 
Wells'  "Outline  of  History"  unless  they  are  borne  aloft  on  the  wings  of 
that  understanding  which  is  synonymous  with  the  quest  of  beauty. 

Miss  Wyatt:  And  you.  Zona,  have  shown  us  how  to  go  about  the 
quest.  What  unexpected  beauty  leaps  out  of  the  simplest  and  most  com- 
monplace scenes  in  your  tales!  And  it  does  seem  to  me  that  we  dream 
our  novels  not  to  escape  from  life  but  to  realize  life.  We  dream  true, 
getting  some  hint  within  the  covers  of  a  book  of  all  those  multitudinous 
forms  of  life  that  are  so  sadly  denied  us  in  reality.  In  the  novel  we  meet 


Five:  Aesthetics  995 

nian>  delightful  people  that  \se  coukl  iidI  alTord  Id  be  seen  with.  K>r 
my  pari.  I  am  more  al  home  with  your  disreputable  aequainlanccs,  Mr. 
Hergesheimer,  than  with  my  relati\es  o{  Hesh  and  blood.  Zona  dear, 
the  day  is  lovely.  Let  us  look  for  the  little  blue  (lowers  that  the  (icrman 
idealistie  poets  used  to  talk  about  before  1870.  This  is  a  likely  plaee  for 
them.  {To  the  rcs{):Vsfc  shan't  he  long,  i  i'.xcum  /onu  (mlc  ami  Miw 
Wyatt. ) 

Wurn::  Say,  I  hope  this  isn't  going  to  deselop  mto  a  stag  party. 

Hi  RCii  SHiiMi  r:  And  all  the  while  there  is  no  blinking  the  faet  that 
people  don't  read  our  great  novels  -  even  the  super-(  jopherites  don't. 
Who's  going  to  read  "Rahab"  when  it's  so  much  easier  to  buy  the  New 
Republic  and  glance  at  the  literary  editor's  review  o\'  it'.'  Time's  too 
[195]  \aluable  and,  besides,  society  has  no  place  for  literature.  Literature 
today  is  merely  a  genteel  echo  which  is  useful  to  soften  the  grmi  silence 
of  efficiency.  It  should  be  heard  o\\  not  heard.  .And  how  long  l\o  you 
suppose  society  will  condescend  to  hear  of  it?  Do  1  catch  someone  re- 
marking that  only  beauty  is  more  durable  than  time'.'  True,  but  who  or 
what  wants  to  endure  these  days'.' 

White:  You're  an  incurable  pessimist. 

HtiRGESHEiMER  (pwucUy):  Of  course  I  am.  Who  but  an  incurable  sap- 
head  is  not'.' 

White:  Easy  now,  easy.  The  tact  is  you're  complaining  o{  not  getting 
lowbrow  royalties  on  highbrow  stuff  You  can't  have  your  cake  and  eat 
it,  man.  If  you  and  Frank  and  the  rest  of  you  insist  on  pur\  eying  for 
the  half  dozen  freaks  that  live  on  toadstools  and  ca\iar.  why  rail  at  the 
regular,  roast-beef  fellows  for  not  shelling  out'.'  And  w  hy  get  red  in  the 
face  when  the  marshmallow  hordes,  the  bulk  and  possibly  the  pride  o\' 
our  citizenry,  imagine  Mr.  Hergesheimer's  "Java  Head"  is  a  neu  plug 
tobacco'.'  Take  it  from  me:  there  are  three  levels.  F:ach  Ie\el  has  its  con- 
sumers, who  care  not  a  rap  for  what  is  served  upstairs  or  dinsnsiairs 
And  posterity  doesn't  give  a  whoop  for  an\  o\'  us. 

Frank:  Speak  tor  yourself,  sir!  It  is  not  the  business  o\  the  artist  !o 
wheedle  Tom  or  coddle  Dick  or  slap  Harry  on  the  back.  Nor  is  it  his 
business  to  record  or  interpret  this  somewhat  accidental  thing  called 
life.  Still  less  can  he  condescend  to  dream  it  a\\a\.  He  neither  chronicles 
nor  forgets.  He  creates.  He  creates  lilc.  He  gi\es  meaning  and  value  !o 
what  without  his  ministrations  is  but  a  protoplasmic  jelly.  And  if  the 
people  o\'  that  incredible  Prairie  out  there  do  not  realize  this,  di'*  not 
recognize  in  the  artist  their  saviour  and  their  ^o<\,  it  is  the>  \Uio  \m1I  be 
the  losers.  Society  cannot  long  endure  on  the  crumbs  o{  the  past    It 


996  lit   Culture 

does  not  know  its  own  yearning,  it  needs  the  artist's  creative  expression 
of  its  unrest,  which  is  his  own.  For  creation  is  but  the  objectifying  of 
impulses  that  clamor  for  a  voice,  for  birth. 

WhBSii;R:  This,  I  presume,  is  the  accoucheuse  theory  of  the  novel.  For 
my  part,  I  like  to  think  of  the  poor  reader.  I  like  even  to  flirt  with  the 
heresy  that  the  novel  exists  only  in  its  readers.  The  novelist  must  have 
some  onlooking  intelligence  in  mind  -  at  the  very  least  the  onlooking 
intelligence  which  is  the  part  of  himself  that  is  not  writing  the  book. 

Dfxl:  You  advocate  dissociation  of  the  personality? 

Webster:  Never  mind  ideas,  is  what  I  say.  Let  universality  and  all 
that  kind  of  hocus  pocus  severely  alone.  Just  give  the  reader  your  ex- 
perience as  you  have  honestly  experienced  it  and  as  he  sees  it,  for  the 
two  are  not  as  distinguishable  as  the  professors  of  the  unconscious  have 
it.  Do  not  look  away  from  the  concrete  facts  of  experience.  Do  not  ask 
yourself,  "Is  that  experience  drab  or  is  it  colorful?"  If  you  cannot  find 
your  subject  in  it,  you  have  nothing  to  write  about,  for  you  will  not 
interest  your  reader  in  what  you  cannot  give  chapter  and  verse  for.  [196] 

Cabell:  Would  you  object  to  an  occasional  centaur? 

Dell:  Anyhow,  this  experience  that  Webster  speaks  of  is  not  the  self- 
evident,  tangible,  recognizable  thing  that  he  fondly  imagines  it  to  be. 
We  never  know  what  it  is  that  impinges  on  our  selective,  evaluating 
consciousness  until  we  have  assimilated  the  normative  feeling  of  the 
past  -  in  other  words,  until  we  have  learned  the  fairy  tales  of  our 
ancestors.  Sooner  or  later  experience  gives  the  lie  to  our  stock  of  fairy 
tales.  It  is  up  to  us  to  supply  new  and  ever  new  bits  of  folklore,  so  that 
the  chasm  between  life  and  our  understanding  of  hfe  may  not  so  widen 
as  to  imperil  our  sanity  and  comfort. 

Frank:  Life  grows  with  what  our  mythopoeic  intuitions  bring  to  it. 

Cabell:  And  the  more  you  live  the  more  you  have  to  lie  to  get  out 
of  it. 

(Zona  Gale  and  Miss  Wyatt  come  rushing  in,  breathless.) 

Zona  Gale:  There  is  not  a  moment  to  lose!  He's  coming. 

Adams  (suddenly  awakening) :  Is  it  the  Vice  Crusade? 
Enter  Pegasus  (bowing  to  the  company):  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  I 
am  afraid  I  have  made  a  grave  mistake,  for  which,  I  fear,  the  historian 
of  American  literature  will  take  me  to  task.  When  I  heard  the  whistling 
call  down  below,  I  thought  it  was  the  American  Poetic  Renaissance 
asking  for  a  free  ride  and  a  change  of  scene.  Since  then  I  have  learned 
-  it  would  not  be  courteous  to  explain  how  or  where  -  that  you  are  a 
perfectly  respectable  gathering.  I  humbly  apologize.  Will  you  kindly 


Five    Ai'.\ihciic.\  997 

take  your  scats  in  alphahctical  order.'  ilwy  do  .so.)  I  shall  be  more 
cardiil  this  linic.  //(  s<//7.v  i/own  s/owlv,  witlumi  nuiking  (iLsconccriing  or 
(li.sa)/)U)i()i/lni^  niovcnicnts  of Uny  kind.  He  lands  the  mncli.si.s  on  the  Prai- 
rie, riiey  di.snionnl.  whereupon  /\'\;u.sii.s  .sails  off  to  headc/uarters  in  Chua- 
go. ) 

Enter  F.diioks  oi  i  m-;  Ni;w  Ri  im  \\\  u  iis  before.  (  Thnnigh  their  mega- 
phone): Wc  have  heard  you  coming.  What  lidiiigs.  pray,  do  you  bring 
us  from  the  Desert? 

Twii  \i  Novi-I.ISTS  i all  at  onee.  Iiaeh  i^ive.s  his  own  report  In  the  en.su- 
///.Lf  hahel  one  ean  hut  faintly  disliniiuish  a  Jen  eatehwords.  siuh  a.s  "high- 
brow." "lowbrow."  "truth."  "lies."  "ereative."  "psyehoanalytie" 

T\\\  Editors  tin  despair,  throwing  away  their  megaphone ' .  Nc\ci 
mind.  What's  the  use  o(  bluning'.'  We  have  found,  since  you  left  us  and 
the  home  folks  have  been  limited  for  Sunday  diversion  to  our  editorials 
and  book-reviews,  that  the  less  innocent  forms  o\'  \  ice  ha\e  multiplied 
appallingly.  Come.  then,  and  may  the  Lord  prosper  you  in  your  tr.ide. 
f  The  .\ovelists  and  Editors  enter  the  eity.  not  neees.sarily  in  alpluibeti- 
cal  order  arm  in  arm  amid  the  plaudits  of  the  multitude.  I 

Cabell  (murmurs  to  himself):  And  ihc  move  \ou  li\e  the  nu>re  \ou 
have  to  lie  to  ^et  out  o(  it. 


Editorial  Note 
Originally  published  in  The  Stratford  Monthly  n.s.  1.  \')\      \')h  ( \')Z-\) 


Review  of 
H.  D.,  Collected  Poems 

Collected  Poems  of  H.  D.  New  York:  Boni  and  Liveright,  1925. 

Seldom  does  a  volume  of  collected  poems  present  so  even,  so  un- 
changing a  texture  as  this.  The  consistency  of  form  is  remarkable,  and 
it  is  a  form  which  is  neither  more  nor  less  convincing  in  the  latest  pieces 
than  it  was  in  Sea  Garden,  which  manifested  a  swift  and  perfect  control 
of  free  verse  such  as  perhaps  no  other  American  poet  -  or  English 
poet,  for  that  matter  -  has  attained.  There  is  no  rhythmic  fumbling  in 
H.  D.'s  work.  Monotony  there  is,  but  it  is  the  necessary  and  excellent 
monotony  of  waves  that  tell  always  the  same  story  and  yet  never  the 
same.  In  some  of  the  later  poems  there  is  rhyme,  even  regular  stanzaic 
pattern,  as  in  the  beautiful  "Lethe."  These  incidental  concessions  to,  or 
echoes  of,  the  tradition  neither  contradict  nor  perfect  the  prevailing  line 
of  the  verse.  The  occasional  rhymes  are  but  faint  fire-fly  illuminations 
of  a  form  which  is  already  sufficiently  well  defined  as  movement,  of  a 
delicately  modulated  speed  which  is  always  a  little  brusque  yet  always 
flowing.  The  clipped,  eager  cadences  of  such  poems  out  of  Sea  Garden 
as  "The  Helmsman": 

But  now,  our  boat  climbs  -  hesitates  -  drops  - 

climbs  -  hesitates  -  crawls  back  — 

climbs  -  hesitates  - 

O  be  swift  - 

we  have  always  known  you  wanted  us. 

or  "The  Shrine": 

You  are  useless, 

O  grave,  O  beautiful, 

the  landsmen  tell  it  -  I  have  heard  - 

you  are  useless, 

are  the  same,  psychologically  if  not  prosodically,  as  the  exquisitely  high- 
whimsical  dance  of,  say,  "Holy  Satyr,"  which  belongs  to  the  latest  vol- 
ume, the  Heliodora  set: 


Five:  Aesthetics  999 

Most  holy  Sat\i", 

like  a  jzoat. 

with  hi>rns  and  homes 

to  match  tin  coal  [212] 

of  russet  brown, 

I  niake  leaf-circlets 

and  a  crown  o\  honev-llowers 

for  th\  thrcvtt. 

There  it  was  the  full  rush  and  impact  of  the  wave  -  breaker  and  spra\. 
here  it  is  the  same  wave  on  the  recoil,  smoothed  and  foaming. 

This  poet  is  individual  -  it  has  been  said  over  and  over  again  and 
very  beautiful.  Is  it  therefore  necessary  to  sa\  that  she  is  strangely  un- 
American  or  that  she  is  a  Greek,  out  o'i  time?  As  for  her  Hellenism.  1 
tlnd  it  as  little  in  her  work  as  in  the  very  French  hexameters  o{  Racine 
or  in  the  lush  beauties  of  the  completely  English  Keats.  H.  D.'s  world 
of  content  is  either  a  highly  personalized  sea  and  rock  and  overlooked 
flower  or  it  dissolves  into  the  warmer  lineaments  of  Aegean  figures. 
Each  world  is  symbol  and  nostalgia.  But  there  is  this  dilTerence,  that  the 
exquisite  harshness  of  the  earlier  world  was  a  more  direct  and  intuitive 
expression  of  the  poet's  spirit;  the  later  is  more  carefully  discovered, 
more  studiously  colonized.  For  this  reason  1  think  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  for  those  who  are  more  interested  in  the  quick  way  o\'  the 
spirit,  however  remotely  it  may  happen  to  fall  out  from  the  known 
haunts  of  expression,  than  in  the  rediscovery  of  ancient  and  beautiful 
ways  made  apt  once  again  for  the  hungering  spirit  -  for  such  cultural 
dissenters  Sea  Gcirden  remains  H.  D.'s  most  \aluable  gift.  .And  this 
need  one  expressly  say?  -  is  not  to  make  light  o\'  the  poems  in  which 
she  has  chosen  the  more  easily  recognizable,  yet.  for  her.  more  devious, 
symbols. 

H.  D.  is  not  un-American  -  far  from  it.  Personal  and  remote  as  are 
her  images,  there  breathes  through  her  work  a  spirit  which  it  would  not 
be  easy  to  come  upon  in  an\  other  quarter  o\  the  gU^be.  The  impatience 
of  the  rhythms  and  the  voluptuous  harshness  and  bleakness  o\'  the  sea 
and  shore  and  woodland  images  manifest  it.  Such  violent  restraint,  such 
a  passionate  pleasure  in  the  beauty  of  the  denuded  scene  and  the  cutting 
thrust,  themselves  but  inverse  symbols  of  caress.  louUI  onl\  develop  in 
a  culture  that  hungers  for  what  it  despises  111)  is  o\'  those  highly 
characteristic  and  most  subtly  moving  American  tenifXTaments  that 
long  for  an  emotional  wealth  of  expression,  whether  in  terms  i>f  culture 
or  of  personal  experience,  that  they  cannot  wholehearledl)  desire  - 
and  must  not,  if  they  are  to  be  true  to  themselves. 


1  ()()()  ///   Culture 

Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  The  Nation  121,  211-212  (1925),  under  the 
title  "An  American  Poet."  Copyright  1925;  reprinted  by  permission  of 
The  Nation  Magazine/The  Nation  Publishing  Company,  Inc. 

H(ilda).  D{oolittle).  (1886-1961)  was  an  American  poet  and  novelist. 


Review  o\' 
Emily  Dickinson.  The  Coniplcic  Poems 

FmiK  Dickinson,  The  Complete  Poems  (ff  f-jnily  Diikinson.  \\iih  an 
inlroduclion  by  Martha  Dickinson  Bianchi.  Boston:  I.itllc,  Brown  and 
Co..  1925;  Martha  Dickinson  Bianchi,  The  Life  and  Letters  of  Emily 
Diekinsoii.  New  York:  Houghton  Miftlin  Co..  1925. 

Though  hniily  Dickinson  lias  been  dead  these  lorlN  years,  it  is  doiibl- 
ful  if  it  is  quite  time  to  read  her  poetry  aright.  There  is  some  brush- 
clearing  to  be  done  before  we  can  begin  to  see  her  true  significance.  It 
is  customary  to  speak  ot  her  work  as  a  forerunner  of  the  contemporary 
spirit  of  American  verse,  if  such  a  spirit  there  be.  It  would  be  far  more 
to  the  point  to  describe  it  as  the  forerunner  of  a  spirit  that  has  not  \el 
succeeded  in  shaping  itself.  In  the  wiser  chroiu^log\  of  the  future  histor\ 
of  American  literature,  she  is  likely  to  be  counted  the  spiritual  succe>M>r. 
and  possibly  destroyer,  of  our  belated  romantics,  cerebralists.  and  ven- 
dors o'i  "'jeweled  bindings."" 

This  may  seem  an  unnecessaril\  tall  program  for  a  slender  woman 
who  wrote  verse  but  furtively  and  with  a  painful  lack  of  ease,  but  it  i> 
not  half  so  arduous  as  it  sounds.  Emil\  DickinsiMi's  distinction  and 
importance  lie  in  the  groove  of  her  superficial  Innitations.  She  was  not 
"in  the  swim"  of  anything,  she  had  but  casual  contacts  with  the  culture 
of  her  da\;  and.  above  all.  an  iiiihapi\\  lo\e  experience  shut  her  m  fi>r 
the  whole  period  of  her  creative  life  withm  the  austere  halls  of  a  pasMi>n- 
ate  spirit.  She  was  left  to  herself  and  her  own  devices.  She  gamed  so\\- 
tude,  and  held  on  to  a  despair  that  was  linked  to  joy  by  their  common 
ecstasy.  Hence  all  her  poems,  the  \er\  poorest  with  the  line  and  beauti- 
ful ones,  are  protected  from  the  slightest  allo\  of  sham.  Where  she  failed 
-  and  she  failed  [99]  or  only  half-succeeded  perhaps  as  i>flen  as  she 
won  through  to  complete  expression  it  was  never  because  her  vision 
was  imsure.  but  over  and  over  again  because  she  had  no  tools  ready  lo 
hand.  Yet  so  ardent  was  her  spirit  that  an  almost  comic  s^aueherie  in  the 
finding  o\^  rhymes  could  not  prevent  her  from  disciuenng  lo  us  the 
promise  of  a  fresh,  primitive,  and  relentless  school  of  poctr>  thai  is  slill 
i"»n  the  way. 


1002  ///  Culture 

This  "primitive"  school  may  be  detected  in  occasional  poems  or  lines 
or  images  among  our  contemporary  poets,  chiefly  among  the  lesser 
known  names;  it  has  certainly  found  no  commanding  voice.  In  order  to 
understand  it  in  even  the  vaguest  way  it  is  necessary  to  do  a  little  of 
the  brush-clearing  that  more  competent  critics  may  be  trusted  to  do  in 
circumstantial  detail.  The  American  Poetic  Renaissance,  as  we  are  sadly 
beginning  to  discover,  is  as  yet  no  true  rebirth  but  merely  a  strange 
medley  of  discordant  voices.  The  Walt  Whitman  tradition,  contrary  to 
the  usual  critical  formula,  is  not  a  vital  one  for  poetry,  and  has  probably 
done  us  at  least  as  much  harm  as  good.  It  is  valuable  in  so  far  as  it  has 
cleared  away  the  literary  detritus  that  clogged  sincere  expression;  but 
its  frantic  attempt  to  find  the  soul  in  anything  but  the  soul  itself,  its 
insistence  on  the  mystic  beauty  of  an  externalized  world,  and  above 
all  its  maudlin  idealization  of  democracy,  could  not  but  lead  to  the 
deterioration  of  poetic  values.  So  far  from  combating  the  materialistic 
ideal,  it  has  fed  it  by  vainly  attempting  to  read  spirit  into  it.  The  results 
have  [100]  been  disastrous.  Poetry  has  become  externalized,  and  the 
intuitive  hunger  of  the  soul  for  the  beautiful  moulding  of  experience 
actually  felt,  not  fiddled  with  or  stared  at,  is  not  often  stilled.  The  bulk 
of  contemporary  verse,  with  its  terrifyingly  high  average  of  excellence, 
gives  us  everything  but  the  ecstasy  that  is  the  language  of  unhampered 
intuitive  living.  We  have  shrewd  observation,  fantasy,  the  vivid  life  of 
the  senses,  pensive  grace,  eloquence,  subtle  explorations  of  the  intellect, 
and  a  great  many  other  interesting  things,  but  curiously  little  spiritual 
life.  Very  few  poets  seem  willing,  or  able,  to  take  their  true  selves  seri- 
ously without  either  indulging  in  irrelevant  biography  or  fleeing  into 
the  remoter  chambers  of  some  ivory  tower. 

Emily  Dickinson  was  able  to  discover  herself  because  she  was  power- 
fully assisted  by  two  negations.  She  drank  very  sparingly,  as  we  have 
seen,  of  the  stream  of  literary  culture,  and  she  was  somehow  unaware 
of  the  fact  that  we  are  living  in  a  material  age.  The  materialism  that 
was  even  then  weighing  on  sensitive  spirits  she  had  neither  to  conquer 
by  embrace  nor  evade  by  flight.  This  naive  and  necessary  obliviousness 
of  hers,  lacking  all  resentment,  is  the  primary  requisite  for  further  ad- 
vances in  American  poetry.  Nothing  is  more  dangerous  to  the  poetic 
spirit  than  to  have  its  energy  stung  into  intellectual  fury  or  impassioned 
protest  or  fear.  If  we  turn  to  the  best  of  Emily  Dickinson's  poems,  we 
find  the  fruits  of  her  healthy  ignorances  in  a  strange,  unsought,  and 
almost  clairvoyant  freshness  -  in  such  lines  as:  [101] 


Five:  Ac  si  fw  lies  \{)()} 


Or: 


A  UDuiidcti  deer  k'Aps  luiilicst. 
Tvc  heard  ihe  luinier  tell; 
Tis  but  llie  ecs(as\  iif  death. 
And  then  llie  brake  is  still 


And  kingdoms,  like  the  orehard. 
Flit  riissetly  away. 


Or  the  whole  poem  beginning  "Through  lane  it  lay/"  froni  which  wc 
quote  the  hist  two  stanzas: 

The  tempest  touehed  our  garments. 
The  liglilning's  poignards  gleamed; 
Fierce  from  the  crag  above  us 
The  hungry  \ulturc  screamed. 

The  satyr's  fingers  beckoned. 
The  valley  murmured  "Come"  — 
These  were  the  mates,  and  this  the  road. 
Those  children  fluttered  home. 

Because  o\^  this  perennial  freshness  of  sight  it  was  natural  for  l-.inilN 
Dickinson  to  use  the  homeliest  images  of  the  fireside  in  the  expressuMi 
of  ecstasy,  or  agony,  or  joy  in  nature.  Only  a  primitive  could  ha\e  fol- 
lowed the  lines: 

Transporting  must  the  moment  be. 
Brewed  from  decades  of  agony! 

in  a  poem  of  death  imaged  as  belated  homecoming,  with: 

To  think  just  how  the  fire  will  burn. 
Just  how  long-cheated  eyes  will  turn. 
To  wonder  what  myself  will  sa\. 

And  only  one  undeterred  by  cultural  associations  could  ha\c  made  such 
a  discovery  as:  [102] 

Nature  was  in  her  ber\l  apron. 
Mixing  fresher  air  - 

or  could  have  written  such  a  poem  as  "Bring  mc  the  sunset  in  a  cup." 
with  its  "debauchee  o\^  dews"  and 

Who  counts  the  wampum  ol  the  night. 
To  see  that  none  is  due'.' 

Some  o{'  her  most  magical  cffiMis  aic  reached  h\  means  as  homely  as 
these,  as  in: 


1004  ///   Cu/iu)-c 

You  cannot  fold  a  flood 
And  put  it  in  a  drawer  - 
Because  the  winds  would  find  it  out. 
And  tell  your  cedar  floor. 

This  is  at  once  too  simple  and  too  strange  to  be  merely  quaint.  Distance 
from  the  hopelessly  beloved,  and  the  emotional  nearness  to  him  which 
is  brought  by  the  hourly  acceptance  of  releasing  death,  flow  intuitively 
into  the  household  image  of  a  door  ajar: 

So  we  must  keep  apart  - 

You  there,  I  here  - 

With  just  the  door  ajar 

That  oceans  are. 

And  prayer. 

And  that  pale  sustenance. 

Despair! 

Another  example  of  this  familiar  magic  is  the  poem,  "I  started  early, 
took  my  dog,"  too  long  to  quote. 

Emily  Dickinson  is  often  abstract,  sometimes  even  verbal,  but  she  is 
always  saved  from  the  merely  allusive  cleverness  of  our  cerebralists  by 
the  passion  which  runs  [103]  through  all  her  poetry  like  a  consuming 
flame.  Of  no  other  American  poet  can  it  be  so  truly  said  that  the  spirit 
burns  out  the  body.  She  has  herself  best  expressed  her  conception  of 
the  life  of  the  soul  in  the  wonderful  poem  beginning,  "Do  you  see  a 
soul  at  the  white  heat?"  The  luminous  impatience  of  the  spirit  could 
not  be  more  exactly  apprehended  than  in  its  last  two  lines: 

Least  village  boasts  its  blacksmith. 
Whose  anvil's  even  din 
Stands  symbol  for  the  finer  forge 
That  sounds  tugless  within; 

Refining  these  impatient  ores 
With  hammer  and  with  blaze, 
Until  the  designated  light 
Repudiate  the  forge. 

Her  spiritual  passion  is  all  the  more  a  thing  of  wonder  because  it  so 
steadfastly  refused  to  identify  itself  with  any  of  our  accepted  faiths  or 
symbols.  "God"  is  hardly  more  than  one  of  the  marginal  landmarks  of 
the  spirit:  in  the  love-poem.  Doubt  me,  my  dim  companion!  he  is  impetu- 
ously subordinated  to  earthly  love.  But  earthly  love  is  not  what  defines 
the  spirit:  her  love  is  no  amatory  frenzy,  it  is  simply  one  of  the  temporal 
embodiments  of  an  ecstasy  which  has  life  in  its  own  right.  In  short, 
Emily  Dickinson's  poetry  leads  straight  to  the  conception  of  an  intu- 


Five:  AiMficlics  UX)5 

itively  fell  spirit  whicli  can  he  siihoriliiiatccl  iicilhcr  to  any  t>r  its  experi- 
enced fmnis  nor  lo  an\  kiiul  ol"  ahsi)liilc  standing  wiihoui.  .>Vs  she  puis 
it. 

There  is  a  si^liliidc  of  space  |l"4| 

A  solitude  o\'  sea. 

A  solitude  of  death;  but  these 

Society  shall  be. 

Compared  with  tiiat  prort)uiKler  site. 

That  polar  pri\ae\. 

A  Soul  admitted  to  Itself: 

Finite  Infinity. 

Il  is  because  she  asks  nolhiiiLi  fiirlher  ol  ihe  soul  thiin  thai  il  be  ilscit 
and  because  she  can  ihink  of  luMhiiiL:  essential  lo  add  to  its  inherent 
dignilN  that  slie  is  able  lo  sa\.  ahnost  casually: 

Lay  this  laurel  on  the  one 
Too  intrinsic  for  renown. 

We  have  left  ourselves  no  space  for  discussion  o\'  the  technical  quali- 
ties oi'  Einih  Dickinson's  \erse.  This  can  be  prell\  well  dispensed  with, 
as  her  importance  in  American  poelr\.  uhich  \se  believe  to  be  very 
great,  does  not  lie  in  technique,  it  is  enough  to  remark  tluit  uhile  her 
outward  patterned  form  is  fi"equentl\  unsatistying  e\en  uithin  its  unpre- 
tentious range,  the  essential  significant  form,  as  idea  in  imaged  embodi- 
ment, is  nearly  always  perfect  and  somelimes  transcendenlly  beautiful. 

The  specific  nature  of  her  imager\  is  uorth  a  word  or  two.  Its  vilalit) 
is  dependent  not  so  much  on  the  e\e.  in  spile  o\'  the  primitise  freshness 
o\^  Emily  Dickinson's  vision,  as  on  a  sense  of  nunemenl  that  gi\es  the 
verse  an  interior  e.xcitemenl.  \elocil\.  aiul  imminence,  a  qucdit\  that  she 
shares  with  other  intuitive  poets,  such  as  Shelle>.  Here  is  an  example  or 
two  out  of  a  countless  number:  [105] 

While  I  stale  -  the  si>lemn  petals 
Far  as  North  and  Fast. 
Far  as  South  and  West  expaiKlmi:. 
Culminate  in  rest. 

The  o\ertakelessness  o{  tlu^se 
Who  have  accomplished  Death. 
Majestic  is  to  me  beyond 

The  majesties  o\'  I'arth. 

The  Life  und  Letters  are  an  interesting  pendant  to  the  /\nni\.  but 
they  add  little  to  what  is  implicit  in  these.  I  iniK  Dickinson's  life  was 
all  o['  a  piece,  her  poetry   and  her  letters  are  but  a  single  expression. 


1006  ///   Culture 

Because  of  the  many  ellipses  in  thought,  and  their  highly  figurative 
style,  the  letters  are  more  ditTicult  to  follow  than  the  poems.  Her  corre- 
spondents must  have  been  at  a  loss  at  times  to  interpret  her  whimsicali- 
ties and  nights  of  fancy.  They  are  full  of  inspired  nothings,  as  when  she 
remarks  that  "Life  is  so  fast  it  will  run  away,  notwithstanding  our  sweet- 
est w'lwcr;  or,  "It  is  lonely  without  the  birds  today,  for  it  rains  badly, 
and  the  little  poets  have  no  umbrellas."  Here  is  her  conception  of  life: 

You  speak  of  "disillusion"  -  that  is  one  of  the  few  subjects  on  which  I  am  an 
infidel.  Life  is  so  strong  a  vision,  not  one  of  it  shall  fail.  Not  what  the  stars  have 
done,  but  what  they  are  to  do,  is  what  detains  the  sky. 

And  here,  finally,  is  what  she  has  to  say  to  Colonel  Higginson  about 
poetry: 

If  I  read  a  book,  and  it  makes  my  whole  body  so  cold  no  fire  can  ever  warm  me, 
I  know  that  is  poetry.  If  I  feel  physically  as  if  the  top  of  my  head  were  taken  off,  I 
know  that  is  poetry.  These  are  the  only  ways  I  know  it.  Is  there  any  other  way? 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  Poetry  26,  97-105  (1925),  under  the  title 
"Emily  Dickinson,  a  Primitive." 

Emily  Dickinson  (1830-1886)  was  an  American  poet;  her  works  were 
published  posthumously. 


Review  of  Edwin  Aiiingion  RobinsiMi. 
Dionysus  in  Pouhi 

Edwin  Arlington  Robinson,  Dlonvsus  in  Ihmhi.  New  York:  Macmil- 

lan.  1925. 

This  latest  volume  of  Mr.  Robinson's  sL-cms  neither  to  add  nor  seri- 
ously to  detract  from  his  poetic  achie\einent,  1  he  four  long  pcK*ms.  with 
the  possible  exception  of  "Mortmain."  are  rather  like  studies  in  the 
Robinson  manner  -  indirection,  hiatus,  and  pregnant  hml  than  vi\id 
further  contributions  to  the  Robinson  matter.  Fhere  is  a  loo  self-con- 
scious tartness  about  the  speeches,  Dionysus  sneers  and  scolds  too 
much,  and  we  are  not  greatly  interested.  "Mortmain,"  too  heavy  to  be 
wholly  convincing,  has  at  least  a  new  theme:  locked  in  low  \ulh  her 
brother,  who  has  died  many  many  years  ago.  the  cultured  and  s\mpa- 
thetic  spinster  cannot  resign  herself  to  her  friend  and  io\er,  who.  if  he 
analyzed  less,  might  perhaps  have  carried  her  away  by  storm  -  so  one 
likes  to  guess.  One  is  thankful,  too.  for  the  magnificent  lines  that  con- 
clude the  narrative: 

He  went  slowly  home. 

Imagining,  as  a  fond  improvisation. 

That  waves  huger  than  Andes  or  Sierras 

Would  soon  be  overwhelming,  as  before. 

A  ship  that  would  be  sunk  for  the  last  time 

With  all  on  board,  and  far  from  Tilbury  Town 

It  is  the  eighteen  sonnets  of  the  book  that  sa\e  it.  "The  Sheas es." 
which  will  be  much  quoted,  for  it  is  a  lovely  poem,  makes  us  wish  that 
Mr.  Robinson  had  found  it  in  his  heart  to  \ield  more  i>flen  \o  his  e\er 
recurring  impulse  to  sensuous  imagery.  There  were  a  few  such  surren- 
ders in  The  Man  against  the  Sky  and  Merlin  too  betrayed  the  fact  that 
Mr.  Robinson  was  not  all  austerity  and  tragic  chuckle.  It  is  a  great  pily. 
this  splendid  reticence  of  his,  for  in  sober  truth  he  is  by  Nature's  intent 
a  lyric  poet,  not  the  gingerly  dramatist  his  proud  introspection  doomed 
him  to  be. 

Most  of  these  sonnets  are  difficult  the>  \\ouk\  hardh  be  Mr.  Rob- 
inson's if  they  were  not  -  but  they  well  repay  reix-aled  reading.  Tlicy 


1{)()8  ///   Culture 

are  full  of  that  peculiar  gaunt  strength  that  is  next  door  to  quaintness, 
like  the  knuckles  of  a  New  England  farmer,  or  even  drollery,  though 
generally  of  a  dolorous  cast: 

...  and  to  our  vision  it  was  plain 

Where  thrift,  outshivering  fear,  had  let  remain 

Some  chairs  that  were  Hke  skeletons  of  home. 

And  from  the  fulness  of  his  heart  he  fished 
A  dime  for  Jesus  who  had  died  for  men. 

Now  and  then  the  utmost  simplicity,  following  on  a  chain  of  indirec- 
tions, will  yield  a  new  and  rather  unexpected  strength,  as  in: 

The  same  old  stars  will  soon  be  overhead. 
But  not  so  friendly  and  not  quite  so  near, 

which  should  be  read  in  its  context  (see  the  sonnet  "Reunion"). 

Yet  when  all  is  said;  after  one  has  fully  mastered  and  savored  the 
irony  of  "New  England"  or  "If  the  Lord  would  make  Windows  in 
Heaven,"  and  overcome  the  sheer  difficulties  of  such  sonnets  as  "The 
Laggards"  and  "As  it  looked  then,"  one  is  not  truly  satisfied.  It  is  be- 
coming increasingly  clear  that  the  time  for  all  these  subtleties  of  doubt 
and  failure  and  mockery  is  well  nigh  exhausted,  that  the  voice  of  John 
the  Baptist,  destroyer  of  old  ways  and  prophet  but  not  builder  of  the 
new,  is  not  a  voice  in  the  wilderness  but  a  formula  in  the  lecture  hall. 
We  cannot  live  forever  on  even  the  most  neatly  turned  of  negations.  A 
considerable  number  of  the  younger  American  poets  have  addressed 
themselves  with  what  talents  they  possess  to  the  recapturing  of  beauty, 
even  of  ecstasy.  To  such  the  doubts  of  Dionysus  and  the  involutions  of 
sonnets  which  are  little  more  than  question  marks  will  not  seem  of  the 
utmost  consequence.  They  are  willing  to  have  learned  something  from 
irony  and  cerebralism,  which  is  the  post-Robinson  dispensation,  if  only 
to  be  in  the  modern  swim,  yet  Heaven's  doors  cannot  forever  remain 
unassailed,  even  in  these  days  of  obvious  Hell.  To  glimpse  the  hardly 
less  obvious  bits  of  Heaven  that  half-opened  doors  disclose  is  given 
only  to  certain  of  those  who  are  willing  to  take  a  chance,  who  are 
brazen  enough  or  indifferent  enough  to  be  caught  unhumorous  and 
rapt. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in   Voices,  November  1925,  64-65,  under  the 
title  "The  Tragic  Chuckle." 


Preface  and  Inlroduclion  [o  I-olk  Smi^^.s  o/  I'rcm/i 
Camida,  Marius  Barbcau  and  Edward  Sapir  (U)2^) 

Preface 

The  present  \oIume  is  an  outgrowth  o{  the  work  o\'  the  Canadian 
National  Museum.  Both  eollaborators  belong  to  the  stalTofthis  institu- 
tion. In  his  study  o{^  Huron  folklore  Mr.  Barbeau  eame  to  realize  that 
some  knowledge  of  European  traditions  was  neeessary  to  separate  the 
native  elements  from  those  which  the  Indians  oue  to  then-  while  neigh- 
bors. This  led  to  the  independent  investigation,  by  Mr.  Barbeau  and  his 
assistants,  of  the  whole  subject  o{  French  Canadian  l\>lkIore  tales, 
songs,  beliefs  and  industries. 

Out  of  the  wealth  of  original  material  secured  b\  these  investigators 
for  the  Museum,  we  have  selected  for  this  \  olume  some  fort\  folk  songs. 
In  the  separate  introductions  we  have  referred  to  all  the  accessible 
French  parallels.  It  was  our  intention  to  avoid  the  two  extremes  o\' 
technicality  and  of  sentimentalism,  and  we  have  tried  to  reach  both  the 
folklore  student  and  the  general  reader  who  wishes  to  get  a  taste  o\'  a 
fascinating  folk  literature. 

Mr.  Barbeau  is  responsible  for  the  French  texts,  the  general  introduc- 
tion and  the  shorter  explanations  prefacing  the  songs,  and  for  the  musi- 
cal transcriptions;  Mr.  Sapir,  tor  the  English  translations  o^  the  songs 
and  a  revision  of  the  explanatory  matter.  But  each  o\'  the  collaborators 
has  gained  far  more  from  the  counsel  of  the  other  than  can  be  indicated 
by  stating  his  separate  share  in  the  work. 

A  word  as  to  the  translations.  Those  interested  in  the  problem  o\' 
rendering  the  spirit  of  folk  song  into  a  foreign  language  ma\  judge  lor 
themselves  what  measure  of  success  has  been  achieved.  While  extreme 
literalness  is  neither  allainable  nor  eiesirable,  we  lui\e  allowed  ourscKes 
no  serious  departure  from  the  original.  The  rhsme  schemes,  assonances 
and  metrical  forms  have  usually  been  preserved.  Ihe  reader  will  bear  in 
mind  that  the  song  burdens,  which  are  printed  in  italics,  and  the  re- 
peated lines  are  given  in  full  onl>  in  the  first  stan/a. 


1010  ///   Culture 

In  conclusion,  we  desire  to  thank  the  Director  of  the  Museum,  Dr. 
William  Mclnnes,  for  permission  to  use  the  source  material  in  this  book 
of  folk  songs. 
Marius  Barbeau, 
Edward  Sapir. 
Ottawa,  February  28,  1924. 


Introduction 

Folk  songs  were  once  part  of  the  everyday  life  of  French  America. 
They  seemed  as  familiar  as  barley-bread  to  the  pioneer  settlers  of  the 
St.  Lawrence  Valley;  and  they  escorted  through  rain  and  shine  the  coure- 
urs-des-hois  in  their  early  ventures  along  the  trails  and  rivers  of  the  Far 
West.  So  we  read  in  our  century-old  chronicles  of  travel  and  explora- 
tion. The  raftsmen  on  the  eastern  Canadian  rivers,  as  late  as  forty  years 
ago,  enlivened  the  woods  with  the  echoes  of  their  rustic  melodies; 
threshing  and  winnowing  in  the  barn  moved  on  to  the  rhythm  of  work 
tunes,  as  did  spinning,  weaving  and  beating  the  wash  by  the  fireside. 

Not  many  song  records,  however,  have  come  down  to  us  that  ante- 
date 1860.  Larue,  about  this  time,  broached  the  subject  in  Le  Foyer 
camidien  of  Quebec,  and  in  1865  Ernest  Gagnon  published  his  Chansons 
popidaires  du  Canada.  The  idea  soon  went  abroad  that  these  efforts, 
modest  though  they  were,  had  drained  the  fount  of  local  tradition. 
When  modern  life  hushed  all  folk  singers  alike,  few  doubted  that  song, 
tale  and  legend  had  vanished  forever,  along  with  most  other  relics  of  a 
bygone  age. 

We  shared  this  illusion  ourselves,  until  some  significant  survivals  by 
the  roadside  piqued  our  curiosity.  Our  researches  then  unexpectedly 
disclosed  wide  vistas.  It  was  no  longer  possible  to  believe  that  the  tradi- 
tions of  a  people  could  sink  into  oblivion  from  morning  to  night.  The 
trails  of  the  past  were  not  so  quickly  obscured,  their  luxuriant  byways 
not  so  easily  forsaken.  The  newly  recovered  domain  of  French  folklore 
in  America  has  proved  immensely  rich.  Tales  and  anecdotes  by  the  hun- 
dred and  songs  by  the  thousand  have  in  the  past  few  years  of  investiga- 
tion fallen  into  our  hands  from  all  parts  of  eastern  Canada  and  New 
England.  Yet  the  work  is  far  from  done,  the  resources  of  the  field  are 
still  unspent. 

A  small  sheaf  from  this  song  harvest -forty-one  numbers  in  all -is 
here  presented  to  the  reader;  and  we  claim  no  higher  merit  for  it  than 
that  it  is  fairly  representative  of  the  main  types. 


Five:  Ac. st  he  tics  10 1 1 

Our  JisL\ncr>  lined  lis  \\\\o  ihc  hope  o\  spying  I'dIR  songs  in  ihc 
making.  Such  coniposiiions,  according  lo  a  ihcory  inhcrilcd  from 
Grimm  and  still  current  in  the  l-nglish-speakmg  world.  \Kcrc  ihc  fruit 
of  collecti\e  inspiration.  A  handlul  ol  snigcrs  \sould  sponlancousK 
burst  into  song  on  the  spur  ol  the  moment,  (ienius,  usually  denied  ihe 
indiNidiial.  wcuilJ  at  limes  grace  the  latent  pt)wers  of  the  mob  and  gne 
birth  to  poems  and  tunes  that  were  uorth\  to  pass  on  lo  posleril\. 

In  the  light  o\^  this  presumption  uc  chose  i>ur  Held  of  obser\alu>n 
among  the  isolated  and  unspoilt  settlers  o^  the  Unvcr  St.  Lawrence 
Valley.  There,  among  our  rustic  hosts  assembled  in  singing  parlies.  \se 
might  fmd  the  object  of  our  quest -the  song  anonymously  begotten 
from  the  midst  o(  the  motley  crowd. 

We  were  not  wholly  disappointed.  The  pei>ple  uere  still  fond  of  eve- 
ning gatherings  devoted  to  song,  the  dance  and  the  old-time  convivial- 
ity. Solo  and  chorus  alternated  freely  w hile  we  look  down  ihe  words  and 
registered  the  melodies  on  the  phonograph.  lYom  Charlevoix  County  in 
Quebec  we  passed  to  Chicoutimi;  and.  in  the  lollowing  summers,  lo 
Temiscouata,  Beauce,  Gaspe  and  Bona\enture.  .\  few  collaborators- 
MM.  E.-Z.  Massicotte,  A.  Godbout.  A.  Lambert,  and  others -exlended 
the  search  to  the  neighborhood  of  Quebec  and  Montreal,  even  to  New 
Hampshire.  As  a  result,  over  five  thousand  song  records,  all  from  or.il 
sources,  are  now  classified  and  carefully  annotated  in  the  tiles  o^  the 
National  Museum  ol' Canada,  at  Ottawa;  and  problems  of  origin  have 
again  come  into  their  own. 

Our  expectation  meanwhile  was  to  find  the  countrv-folk  in  the  iiuhkI 
of  unlrammeled  uttei"ance.  in  the  yet  uni>bserved  process  of  song-mak- 
ing: we  overlooked  no  likely  o|")pi>riumt\.  on  the  seashore  or  in  the 
fields,  by  the  fireside  or  in  occasional  festive  gatherings.  Our  folk  singers 
were  genial  and  talented,  their  memorv  was  prolific  and  their  slock  o( 
songs  nearly  inexhaustible.  But  they  lacked  the  verv  gifi  which  was  lo 
enlighten  us  in  our  ciuest.  Ihev  would  not  give  free  rein  \o  impulse  or 
fancy,  they  wc>iild  not  tread  new  paths,  wouki  not  venture  beyond  the 
mere  iteration  of  what  had  passed  down  to  them  readv-made  friMii  their 
relatives  and  friends,  from  untold  generations  o{  peasant  singers.  Nor 
was  this  due  \o  an  unlucky  star,  lor  all  the  country-folk  we  met  were 
nuicli  alike;  ihe\  were  not  creators  of  rhvmes  or  tunes,  but  i>nly  instru- 
ments for  their  preservation.  Irue  enough,  we  heard  o\  some  pi>els  ol 
the  backwoods  who  could  siring  rhymes  and  slan/as  u>gelher  on  a  given 
theme  to  suit  the  local  demand.  But  these  were  without  mystic  power. 
Their  manner  seemeel  not  unlike  that  of  ordinary  poets,  but  far  cruder. 


1012  ///   Culture 

They  plodded  individually  over  their  tasks  and  tallied  their  Hnes  to  a 
familiar  tune.  The  outcome  was  invariably  uncouth  and  commonplace. 
There  was  nowhere  a  fresh  source  of  inspiration;  only  imitation,  obvi- 
ous and  slavish. 

There  is  thus  a  wide  discrepancy  between  our  observations  and  the 
theory  of  Grimm  et  al.  on  the  mysterious  flashes  of  the  communal  spirit 
in  the  folk  songs  of  the  past.  This  we  could  no  longer  ignore.  How 
puzzling  it  all  seemed  when  set  beside  the  report  of  American  negroes 
and  humble  peasants  of  the  Balkans  still  indulging  in  spontaneous  po- 
etic effusions  when  gathered  together  for  group  singing!  Our  folk  sing- 
ers were  not  their  inferiors;  we  found  them  keenly  intelligent,  if  unedu- 
cated. Their  conservatism  still  resisted  the  blight  of  industrialism,  they 
remained  faithful  to  the  tradition  of  their  ancestors  who,  in  the  days  of 
Richelieu,  landed  on  these  shores  from  the  northwestern  provinces  of 
France.  If  illiterate  folk  truly  possess  the  collective  gift  of  lyric  utter- 
ance, why  not  they  as  well  as  their  forefathers  or  the  Serbians  or  the 
negroes  of  the  lower  Mississippi? 

The  reader  may  decide  as  he  will.  For  our  part,  we  have  lost  all  faith 
in  the  century-old  theory  as  applied  to  the  French  field  in  America. 
Tabulating  our  five  thousand  song  variants  and  comparing  them  with 
the  records  from  the  French  provinces,  we  find  that,  say,  nineteen  out  of 
twenty  songs  are  ancient;  they  have  come  with  the  seventeenth-century 
immigrants  from  overseas  to  their  new  woodland  homes.  The  remainder 
form  a  miscellaneous  group  from  the  pen  of  unknown  scribes  and  cler- 
ics or  from  the  brain  of  rustic  bards. 

Among  the  first -the  songs  from  ancient  France -we  count  our  most 
valuable  records,  and  they  are  many.  The  bulk  is  of  a  high  order  for 
both  form  and  content.  The  style  is  pure  and  crisp,  the  theme  clear- 
cut  and  tersely  developed.  There  prevails  throughout  a  fragrance  of 
refinement,  sometimes  there  is  a  touch  of  genius.  Here  is  decidedly  not 
the  drawl  of  untutored  peasants  nor  a  growth  due  to  chance,  but  the 
work  of  poets  whose  mature  art  had  inherited  an  ample  stock  of  metric 
patterns  and  an  ancient  lore  common  to  many  European  races. 

Our  folk  songs  as  a  whole  were  an  indirect  legacy  from  the  trouba- 
dours of  mediaeval  France;  so  we  were  at  first  inclined  to  think.  But  we 
had  reasons  to  demur.  Troubadour  and  minstrel  songs  were  written  on 
parchment  mostly  for  the  privilege  of  the  nobility;  they  belonged  on  the 
whole  to  the  aristocracy  and  the  learned,  not  to  the  people;  they  affected 
the  mannerisms,  the  verbosity  and  the  lyrical  finesse  of  the  Latin  deca- 
dence;  and   they   were   preferably   composed   in   the   Limousin   and 


Five  Ai'sthetics  1 01  3 

Provenval  dialects  o\'  soiilhcrii  Irancc.  The  lroubadi)iirs  themselves  la- 
bored between  the  elexeiith  and  l\uii  teeiitli  eeiitunes.  \shile  many  of  our 
best  songs  belonged  to  the  two  luindied  years  that  loliovKed  What  is 
more,  upon  going  through  eolleelions  ot  their  poems  we  tailed  \o  meet 
the  familiar  landmarks;  the  spirit,  the  technique  and  the  themes  had 
little  or  nothing  in  common  with  those  of  our  records.  Tliey  were  two 
worlds  apart;  and  we  fail  to  see  how  the  chasm  can  CNer  be  bridged. 

The  origin  of  our  songs,  the  folk  songs  of  ancient  France,  still  remains 
a  problem.  If  our  experience  in  the  North  American  fields  serves  to 
dispel  a  few  current  misconceplK)ns.  it  has  not  gone  far  enough  to  un- 
ravel the  puzzle  of  ultimate  authorship.  Our  only  surmise  is  that,  while 
the  troubadours  journeyed  from  castle  to  castle  and  penned  their  metic- 
ulous lines  for  the  lords  o{  the  land,  another  class  o\  poets  sang  their 
songs  among  the  common  people,  who  were  not  so  easily  beguiled  by 
a  more  fashionable  art. 

We  have  read  of  the  humble  />>//,!,' /t'///-.s  dc  tone  a\k\  Joni^li-urs  crnmts 
of  the  ancient  days,  whose  pranks  were  sometimes  derided  in  the  manu- 
scripts of  the  troubadours  and  the  minstrels.  Their  profession  \Kas  natu- 
rally the  butt  of  society.  But  as  lhe\  were  lun  apparently  addicted  to 
writing,  no  tangible  evidence  is  left  to  vindicate  their  memiuy.  .\  student 
of  medieval  France.  Jeanroy,  has  already  pointed  out  that  while  the 
troubadours  had  their  day  in  the  south,  an  obscure  literary  upheaval, 
freer  from  Latin  influence,  took  place  in  the  oil  provinces  of  the  Loire 
River,  that  is,  in  the  very  home  of  most  o\'  our  traditional  lore.  Who 
were  the  local  poets  if  not  the  jongleurs  o\'  the  north  ihemsehes'.'  And 
if  their  art  was  oral,  why  should  it  not  have  taken  rocU  in  the  soil  among 
the  older  traditions  of  the  time?  Why  should  not  our  folk  songs  be  their 
work,  now  partly  recovered  or  distlgured'.' 

Whatever  these  Loire  River  bards  be  called,  they  were  ni>  mere  up- 
starts, if  we  take  their  lyrics  into  account.  .At  their  best  the  composed 
songs  which  not  only  courted  the  pi^pular  fancy  but  which,  because  o\ 
their  vitality  and  charm.  t>utli\cd  the  forms  of  academic  piK*lry.  Tlieir 
prosodic  resources,  besides,  were  not  onl\  copious  and  largeK  ditVerent 
from  those  of  the  higher  literature,  but  they  went  back  to  the  \er> 
bedrock  of  the  Romance  languages.  Unlike  the  troubadours,  who  were 
the  representatives  of  medieval  latinit\.  these  poets  had  never  given  their 
allegiance  to  a  foreign  language  since  the  birth  of  the  Low  Latin  vernac- 
ulars in  France.  Spain.  Portugal  and  Italy.  Ihev  had  inherited  and 
maintained  the  older  traditions  of  the  land,  lluis  we  find  that  the  metric 
rules  in  their  songs  are  comparable  to  those  o{  Spanish,  Portuguese  or 


1014  ///   Cull  lire 

Italian  poetry  rather  than  to  the  rules  proper  to  Limousin  and  written 
French  verse.  In  other  words,  the  folk  songs  of  France  as  recovered  in 
America  mostly  represent  an  ancient  stratum  in  French  literature,  one 
that  was  never  wholly  submerged  by  the  influx  throughout  the  Middle 
Ages  of  Neo-Latin  influences  from  the  south. 

The  folk  singers  we  consulted  by  the  score  were  not  poets,  with  the 
best  will  in  the  world.  They  proved  most  disappointing  when  ap- 
proached in  that  light.  It  was  merely  their  wont  to  rehearse  what  had 
come  down  to  them  from  the  dim  past.  They  would  give  us  a  song  five 
centuries  old  next  to  one  dating  back  two  generations.  Some  Gaspe 
fisher-folk  would  call  the  age-worn  complainte  of  "The  Tragic  Home- 
coming" by  the  name  of  Poirier,  a  singer  still  remembered  by  the  elders. 
Others  claimed  that  the  candcle  of  "Alexis"  was  as  much  as  a  hundred 
years  old,  while  it  is  more  nearly  a  thousand.  It  soon  became  evident 
that  their  notions  of  origin  were  not  worth  serious  consideration. 

One  endowment,  however,  was  strikingly  their  own.  This  is  their 
memory.  Not  everyone  could  sing;  and  only  a  few,  at  this  late  day,  could 
boast  of  an  extensive  repertory.  But  we  can  only  admire  the  gifts  of 
the  best  singers  we  have  known,  such  as  Saint-Laurent,  de  Repentigny, 
Roussell,  Lambert,  Mme.  Dorion,  Hovington,  Soucy,  Louis  "I'aveugle," 
Mme.  Bouchard,  and  many  others.  Without  the  slightest  effort  they 
dictated  to  us  from  day  to  day  numerous  songs  ranging  in  length  from 
ten  to  seventy  and,  in  rare  cases,  over  one  hundred  lines.  Both  Saint- 
Laurent  and  de  Repentigny  exceeded  three  hundred  songs  each,  while 
others  were  not  far  behind.  And  yet  folk  memory  is  not  as  retentive  as 
it  used  to  be;  reading  and  writing  have  played  havoc  with  it. 

The  only  rich  havens  of  folk  tales  and  folk  songs  now  left  among  the 
French  settlers  in  America  lie  in  rather  isolated  districts -the  more  re- 
mote the  richer,  as  a  rule.  Peasants,  lumbermen  and  fisher-folk  in  their 
hamlets  recite  the  ballads  without  faltering,  whereas  the  chance  singer 
in  town  is  unable  to  muster  more  than  scraps,  unless  he  is  country  born 
and  bred. 

Songs  were  learned  from  relatives  and  friends  early  in  life,  almost 
invariably  between  five  and  sixteen  years  of  age.  Octogenarians  de- 
lighted in  the  songs  of  their  teens  and  groped  in  vain  for  those  of  their 
maturity.  Thus,  in  one  way  at  least,  youth  stubbornly  survived  into  old 
age.  And  it  seemed  strange  for  human  memory  to  surrender,  as  repeat- 
edly happened,  a  whole  ballad  or  a  chantey  that  had  not  been  sung  in 
the  last  fifty  or  sixty  years. 


Five:  Acs  the  tics  1 01 5 

There  was  often  some  dinieullN  m  lenieinbering  the  \ery  existence. 
or  the  initial  Inies.  of  a  stMig;  not  hi  its  lull  utterance,  once  a  hint  \^as 
furnished  or  the  notion  o\'  it  had  Hashed  upon  the  mind.  Aware  o\'  ihis. 
most  singers  resorted  to  a  mnemonic  device  as  a  izuide  io  their  menial 
stores.  One  would  think  o\'  his  mother's  or  his  fathers  songs,  or  those 
from  other  sources, one  alter  another,  as  they  had  marked  the  course  of 
his  life.  Francois  Saint-Laurent,  a  fisherman  from  La  Tourelle  (CJaspc). 
never  experienced  any  trouble  in  listing  his  possessions, for  they  were  all 
neatly  sorted  out  in  his  memory  according  to  the  cardinal  points.  Now 
he  would  dig  out  his  songs  o\''  the  north  or  o\'  the  south,  then  o\  the 
northwest,  the  west,  and  so  forth.  I  he  hitch  occurred  only  when  the 
three  hundredth  number  was  reached,  for  the  assigned  piles  were  spent 
and  the  only  one  left  was  a  "hea|^  in  (he  ciMner.""  a  mixed  U>t  uithout 
mental  tag. 

The  work  of  collection  in  our  tleki  had  lo  proceed  with  discrimina- 
tion; judicious  elimination  was  a  necessary  part  o\'  the  experience.  The 
songs,  particularly  at  points  within  reach  o\'  town,  were  not  all  of  folk 
extraction.  A  singer's  repertory  was  like  a  curiosity  shop;  tritles  or  re- 
cent accessions  vied  with  old-time  jewels.  The  Irench  "romances**  ol' 
1810  or  1840  occurred  from  time  to  time.  They  were  once  the  fashion. 
Not  a  few  found  their  way,  in  print  or  otherwise,  into  .Xmerica  and 
filtered  down  into  the  older  strata  of  local  lore,  where  they  still  persist, 
such  as  the  satires  on  Bonaparte,  long  after  their  demise  m  the  home- 
land. Compilations  printed  in  Canada  and  ballad  sheets  imported  irom 
Frances  {imageries  d'Epinal)  spread  their  intluence  to  main  quarters. 
The  archaic  canticle  of  Saint  Alexis,  for  instance,  might  occur  in  two 
forms;  the  first,  out  of  the  Cautiqucs  dc  Marseilles,  the  oldest  song-book 
known  in  Canada,  and  the  second  from  hitherto  unrecorded  sources  o\ 
the  past.  Many  songs,  moreover,  would  pass  from  mouth  to  mouth 
until  they  no  longer  remained  the  exclusne  la\orites  o\'  school  or  bar- 
racks. Some  singers  would  be  on  the  lookout  for  just  such  novelties  as 
a  folklorist  is  careful  to  dodge. 

The  songs  as  they  come  from  the  indi\idual  interpreters  are  noi  all 
in  a  perfect  state  of  preservation;  far  from  it.  Centuries  have  elapsed 
since  their  inception  and  ha\e  left  ihein  uith  man\  sears  Words.  \Khen 
they  do  not  belong  to  the  current  \ocabulary.  are  at  times  deformed; 
the  lines  are  not  infrequently  mangled,  the  rhymes  lost;  and  the  slan/as 
do  not  always  appear  in  their  pn^per  sequence.  Lhe  student  is  thus 
confronted  by  a  question  o\'  method  m  gathering  and  preserving  his 


1016  fit  Culture 

materials.  If  these  are  faulty,  must  he  rest  satisfied  with  single  versions? 
Must  he  publish  his  records  as  they  stand,  blunders  and  all? 

While  the  integral  presentation  of  these  documents  may  be  a  matter 
of  choice  or  circumstances,  everyone  will  agree  on  the  value  of  as  many 
versions  as  can  be  compiled,  particularly  when  they  issue  from  divergent 
sources.  The  peregrinations  of  a  song  cannot  be  understood  without 
them.  No  two  recorded  occurrences  or  versions  are  quite  the  same,  un- 
less they  are  directly  related;  their  variations  increase  in  proportion  to 
the  lapse  of  time  and  to  their  distance  from  each  other.  To  a  folk  song 
these  versions  are  like  the  limbs  of  a  tree.  They  appear  in  clusters  at  the 
top.  but  can  be  traced  to  older  branches  which  ultimately  converge  to 
a  single  trunk  at  the  bottom.  Our  few  Charlevoix  versions  of  "The  Pas- 
sion of  Our  Lord,"  for  instance,  were  fairly  uniform  throughout,  al- 
though somewhat  different  from  those  of  Temiscouata,  across  the  St. 
Lawrence.  A  real  gap,  however,  intervened  between  them  and  the  Aca- 
dian records  from  New  Brunswick.  Upon  comparison  we  found  that 
both  forms  were  fairly  ancient  and  went  back  to  a  bifurcation  that  had 
taken  place  long  ago  in  the  ancestral  home  overseas. 

Flaws  and  local  deviations  cannot  long  escape  scrutiny. Being  spo- 
radic, they  tend  to  eliminate  each  other  in  the  light  of  many  versions 
from  widely  scattered  areas.  A  song  can  thus  be  rendered  more  satisfac- 
tory in  every  way  and  may  even  be  restored  according  to  the  original 
intention  of  the  author  who  fashioned  it  long  ago. 

The  French  field  in  the  New  World  may  appear  to  an  outsider  as 
somewhat  lacking  in  variety.  But  let  us  not  be  deceived!  The  nine  thou- 
sand original  settlers  who  landed  on  these  shores  before  1680  were,  it 
is  true,  mostly  from  northwestern  France,  that  is,  from  oi'l  provinces. 
They  embarked  at  Saint-Malo,  on  the  English  Channel,  or  at  La  Ro- 
chelle,  on  the  Atlantic,  according  to  their  place  of  origin -Normandy 
or  the  basin  of  the  Loire  River.  Aunis,  Poitou  and  Anjou,  on  the  very 
frontiers  of  oc,  in  the  south,  furnished  large  numbers,  and  the  northern- 
most districts  not  a  few.  The  immigrants  belong  to  many  stocks  and 
spoke  various  dialects.  Never  quite  the  same  in  the  past,  they  still  pre- 
serve part  of  their  individuality.  The  French  Canadians  of  Quebec  and 
the  Acadians  of  New  Brunswick,  Nova  Scofia  or  Louisiana,  have  long 
felt  their  differences,  even,  at  times,  to  the  point  of  mutual  antipathy. 
Quebec  itself,  though  more  compact,  consists  of  three  groups -those  of 
Quebec  proper,  Three  Rivers  and  Montreal -which  are  not  interchange- 
able. This  variety  of  tradition  cannot  be  ignored  by  the  folklorist,  else 


Five    .U'stlutus  1017 

valuable  historical  clues  uuglii  he  lost,  \ariants  neglected  and  the  local 
sources  confused  in  a  hopeless  tangle. 

The  best  claim  to  rect^gnition  o^  the  Irench  tolk  songs  oi  America 
undcnibtedly  rests  in  their  comparati\e  antK|uily;  lor  the>  ha\e  largel> 
remained  unchanged  smce  the  da>s  oi  lleiui  1\'  and  Louis  Xill.  three 
or  lour  centuries  ago.  Sheltered  m  woodland  recesses,  far  from  the  polit- 
ical commotions  of  the  Old  World,  they  ha\e  preserved  much  of  their 
sparkling,  archaic  Havor.  And.  in  the  years  to  come.  the\  cannot  tail  to 
contribute  materially  to  the  histor\  o\'  the  folk  songs  of  l-rancc  and  o{ 
the  rest  o^  Europe. 


Editorial  note 

Folk  Songs  of  French  Canada,  co-authored  by  Marius  Barbeau  and  fid- 
ward  Sapir,  was  published  by  Yale  Uni\ersity  Press  (New  Haven.  \^)2>) 
Reprinted  by  permission  of  Yale  University. 


Review  of 
Harold  Vinal,  Nor  Youth  nor  Age 

Harold  Vinal,  Nor  Youth  fior  Age:  Poems,  1924-1925.  New  York:  H. 
Vinal,  1925. 

This  slender  and  beautifully  printed  volume  is  far  from  negligible.  It 
makes  no  obvious  bid  for  this  or  that  kind  of  recognition,  indulges  in 
no  ear-marked  profundities,  treats  diction  with  a  courteous  normality, 
is  never  strained.  Mr.  Vinal  is  a  poet  of  chaste  and  convincing  rhythms 
and  of  a  distinction  which  results  from  the  somewhat  curious  and  all 
too  rare  art  of  constantly  skirting  the  commonplace  yet  rarely  attaining 
it.  His  mind  is  graceful,  beautifully  poised,  refreshingly  at  home. 

It  is  difficult  to  lay  critical  hands  on  an  art  that  is  so  alertly  bland, 
so  subtly  obvious  and  disconcertingly  individual  in  its  very  obviousness. 
Perhaps  a  careful  study  of  Mr.  Vinal's  technique  would  reveal  the  fact 
that  his  most  successful  effects  are  attained  by  refraining  from  the  use 
of  words  and  phrases  that  a  less  urbane  artist  would  have  been  too 
naive  to  steer  clear  of.  One  gets  the  effect  throughout  the  volume  of 
rigor  toned  down  to  softness,  of  a  passionless  air  in  which  crispness  is 
nicely  commingled  with  mellowness. 

Here  are  some  lines  that  seem  to  me  to  illustrate  Mr.  Vinal's  manner, 
which  it  would  be  as  unrewarding  to  imitate  as  Racine,  so  intimately 
do  its  light  gestures  proceed  from  a  temperament  rather  than  a  method. 
She  is  as  water  to  the  mind. 

Only  the  things  unseen  between  the  earth 
And  heaven  have  a  chance  of  an  escape. 

Far  from  his  father's  blowing  corn 

And  closer  to  a  fall  of  ax. 

He  finds  a  wall  to  sit  upon, 

Where  the  spruce  boughs  are  dripping  wax. 

But  miles  of  water  hot  with  sun. 

Yet  sometimes  standing  on  the  outer  rim 

Of  pastures  when  the  heaven  was  a  flood 

Of  moody  stars  and  the  land  seemed  good  to  him. 

He  felt  the  smarting  sod  take  wing  and  bud. 


Five    Aesthetics  1019 

Evcr\  now  and  ihcn  one  is  siarllcd  b\  lamt  recall  olA Dices  U>ng  thought 
dead.  b\  an  einirel>  irreproachable  reliini  to  a  reeling  iK>t  of  this  age 
bill  of  the  lale,  pre-riMiiantic  eiuhleeiith  ceiUiir).  The  rollowing  passages 
may  be  \eniLired  in  support  of  this  impression: 

Bill  ulicii  long  shadows  touch  a  spar 
With  clarkiK'ss.  luMiK'Mck  c\cs  can  mark 
The  outline  ol"  a  diHM  ajar. 
A  lading  barn  against  the  dark. 

A  robin  Hurries  from  a  tree 

And  lakes  a  red-streaked  llighl  elsewhere. 

Day  for  you  u ill  ne\er  break. 
Nor  the  tender  lledgeling  cheep: 
Rust  will  gather  on  the  rake. 
Wool  grow  heavy  on  the  sheep. 
Now  the  dark  swords  overtake. 
Have  your  centuries  of  sleep. 

Though  Mr.  Vinal  does  not  tower  or  stand  ou\  sliarpK.  he  quietly  and 
persistently  has  a  very  special  distinctiveness  among  American  poets  o( 
today.  His  work  amply  repays  a  genth  peering,  patient,  listening  kind 
of  reading. 


Editorial  Note 

Previously  unpublished;  from  an  undated  l\pescript  in  the  possessimi 
of  the  Sapir  family. 


Review  of 
Mabel  Simpson,  Poems 

Mabel  Simpson,  Poems.  New  York:  Harold  Vinal,  1925. 

Of  any  liquid  but  the  cool  and  purest  spring  water  there  is  something 
to  be  said,  but  of  this  most  grateful  draught  there  is  hardly  anything  to 
say  except  that  it  slakes  the  thirst  better  than  any  other  thing  that  could 
be  thought  of.  And  so  it  is  with  these  poems  of  Mabel  Simpson's.  There 
is  little  that  one  can  say  about  them,  they  are  so  tiny  and  so  radiant  in 
their  simplicity.  The  diction  is  not  rich,  the  thought  is  not  involved,  the 
imagery  is  simple  and  often  even  obvious.  They  are  the  limpid,  sedu- 
lously undecorated  outpourings  and  musings  oi  a  highly  inward  spirit, 
intuitive  to  a  degree,  preoccupied  with  the  divested  self  and  with  the 
barest  and  most  fundamental  of  spiritual  values.  The  environing  world 
is  not  grasped  in  its  richness,  it  is  clairvoyantly  apprehended  in  its  sim- 
plest terms  -  earth,  grass,  tree,  wind,  river  -  and  then  more  as  symbol 
than  as  fact.  Yet  these  poems  are  strangely  satisfying,  as  the  cool 
draught  of  water  is  satisfying,  to  return  to  our  metaphor. 

The  volume  is  not  likely  to  satisfy  those  who  demand  close-woven 
textures  of  sensation,  as  in  Keats,  or  of  feeling,  as  in  Francis  Thompson. 
But  it  will  go  clean  to  the  heart  of  the  intuitives,  those  who  sense  the 
lie  of  warp  and  woof  better  than  the  tapestry.  To  put  it  somewhat  dif- 
ferently, it  will  appeal  to  such  as  find  the  spare  and  leaping  quality  of 
Blake  and  Emily  Dickinson  not  trying  nor  strained  but  easy  and  natu- 
ral. It  is  the  leaping  quality  of  the  ideas,  the  irrational  thought  se- 
quences, set  in  an  utmost  simplicity  of  rhythm,  that  give  many  of  these 
poems  their  "magical"  air,  say  "Lonely  Autumn  Wind": 

Yellow  leaves 
Everywhere, 
Who  will  come 
Comb  my  hair? 

Rolling  burrs 
Murmuring, 
Who  will  hear 
When  I  sing? 


Five:  .U'sthclics  1021 

Sleepiness 
On  the  hill. 
Do  not  ciMiic  ... 

1  am  still. 

This  is  perhaps  an  artless,  folk-song  c|iialil\,  as  is  the  refrain,  whieh 
Miss  Simpson  sometimes  uses  with  an  almost  hearl-breaking  ctVccl.  as 
in  "Earth": 

We  all  eome  back  lo  her  aiiain. 
Certain  as  seasons  and  the  ram. 

Though  drinking  deep  from  other  streams. 
Though  wandering  m  cither  dreams. 

We  all  come  back  to  her  again. 
Certain  as  seasons  and  the  rain 

Simple  as  are  the  rhythms  o{  this  poet,  she  ean  often  e\i>ke  the  most 
poignant  of  feehngs  through  rh\thm  alone.  I'nless  my  ear  deecives  mc. 
it  is  to  the  mingled  speed  and  retard  o\'  the  last  two  Imes  o'i  "Vesper" 
that  the  beauty  of  the  poem  is  mainl\  dtie: 

I  heard  a  meadow  breathing  grass 
On  a  silent  summer  day, 
I  saw  a  glimmering  insect  pass. 
And  a  petal  drop  away. 

I  laid  my  cheek  against  the  ground. 
My  joy  was  as  sharp  as  a  grief. 
The  wind  went  by  with  a  lovely  sound. 
And  the  night  fell  like  a  leaf 

But  analysis  is  little  rewarding  in  these  poems.  They  should  be  read 
and  heard  as  slow  rains  are  heard  and  seen,  with  a  rapt  attention  that 
catehes  something  beyond  the  monotoncnis  fall  and  soft  uater-lighl.  1 
shall  elose  by  quoting  the  two  poems  thai  seem  to  me  to  be  the  most 
beautiful  in  the  book  and  among  the  most  beautiful  in  eontemporarv 
American  and  English  literature.  The  first  is  "Song"; 

O  Earth,  how  lonely  you  would  be 
Without  the  Wind,  without  the  Sea. 

We  ciMiie  and  go.  we  li\e  aiul  die. 
At  last  within  \o\n  breast  we  lie. 

And  all  the  lo\ely  words  we  say. 
And  all  the  lo\ely  prayers  we  pray. 

Are  put  away,  are  put  away. 
Only  the  Winds  and  Waters  stay. 


1022  ///  Culture 

And  "Vigil,"  which  has  a  most  fresh  and  lovely  excitement,  and  which 
no  editor  or  committee  would  ever  dream  of  giving  a  prize  to,  so  beauti- 
ful is  it: 

No  one  will  ever  really  know 
Where  I  come  from  nor  where  I  go. 

This  is  not  I,  this  body's  mold. 

The  hair  that  you  touch  nor  the  hands  you  hold. 

A  voice  to  hear  and  a  face  to  see, 
These  are  the  outward  signs  of  me. 

Come  close,  come  close,  come  near,  come  near, 
I  am  keeping  a  vigil  here. 

Here  in  a  little  house  of  clay 
Something  is  now  that  will  go  away. 

Something  leaping  and  something  light 
To  go  like  a  flame  on  a  windy  night, 

To  go  like  a  flame  in  a  windy  sky, 
O  this  is  I,  this  is  I! 


Editorial  Note 

Previously  unpublished;  from  a  typescript  in  the  possession  of  the 
Sapir  family. 


Review  o\' 
Leonie  Adams,  Those  Xoi  Elect 

Leonie  Adams.  Those  Sot  TJca.  New  ^o^k:  Rc^bcrl  M.  McRridc, 
1925. 

Those  Not  Elect  is  a  volume  of  bcaiiliriil  j^ocms.  The  word  "bcaulifur' 
is  so  sadly  abused,  so  much  a  habit  o['  hi/y  criticism,  that  it  requires  a 
little  courage  to  choose  it  as  the  sign  manual  o^  a  bi>d>  o\'  \erse.  \\:\ 
there  is  no  other  word  that  describes  Miss  Adams'  work  half  so  accu- 
rately. Her  poetry  is  beautiful  in  a  pre-eminent  degree  and  in  e\er\  sense 
of  the  word.  It  is  beautiful  in  diclii>n.  beautiful  in  its  highl>  sophisti- 
cated rhythms,  beautiful  above  all  in  the  quality  of  its  feeling  and  m  the 
movement  of  its  thought,  at  once  sensuous  and  mystical.  The  ver\  titles 
are  beautiful  -  "Companions  of  the  Morass."  [276]  "Night  o'i  L'nshed 
Tears,''  "Heaven's  Paradox"  -  not  so  much,  one  feels,  out  o^  a  desue 
to  escape  the  obvious  as  because  it  is  natural  for  Miss  Adams  lo  express 
herself  beautifully. 

Cease  to  preen,  O  shining  pigeons! 
A  jewel  eye  and  breast  of  quiet. 
Rainbow  neck,  will  purchase  here 
Never  rest  nor  wholesome  diel. 

And  - 

Lovers  said  then  loo  o\'  death 

How  more  than  the  worm's  mouth  was  owing 

One  that  drew  a  flower  of  lust; 

And  then  were  no  such  churls  to  >icld 

Delicacy  like  hers  to  dust. 

Such  passages  as  these  have  the  same  certain  self-contanied  beaut>  m 
the  very  presence  of  what  is  unlovely  as  a  queen  might  in  the  nudsi  o\ 
squalor  and  want. 

Beautv.  however,  is  but  a  first  ai^j^nmnuilion  touard  the  dellnition 
of  Miss  Adams'  very  peculiar  quality.  If  her  verse  is  beautiful,  this  does 
not  mean  that  it  is  notably  graceful  or  felicitous.  The  obv  iously  graceful 
and  the  merely  felicitous  are.  indeed,  almost  religiously  eschewed  for 
graces  more  difficult  and  withdrawn       and  more  subtly  revvarding.  for 


1024  ///  Culture 

Miss  Adams  has  but  the  air  of  playing  with  precious  things.  In  essence 
her  style  is  never  precious,  never  a  thing  of  technique,  but  always  the 
subtle,  even  tortured,  embodiment  of  a  spirit  that  is  at  least  as  subtle 
and  as  tortured.  Were  Miss  Adams  more  obviously,  instead  of  com- 
pletely, modern  in  feeling,  she  would  have  shrunk  from  the  consistent 
use  of  verbal  beauties,  she  [277]  would  have  feared  to  be  caught  in 
rapture  over  Elizabethan  turns  of  phrase.  It  is  the  charming  paradox  of 
her  finest  poetry  that  it  creates  an  utterly  fresh  and  breathless  beauty 
out  of  materials  that  are  almost  worn  with  loveliness. 

The  spirit  that  animates  these  poems  is,  frankly,  the  lovely  unhappi- 
ness  that  the  Germans  have  dubbed  Weltschmerz.  There  is  nothing  stri- 
dent about  it,  it  has  no  self-pity,  though  it  is  not  lacking  in  a  certain 
naive,  disarming  self-indulgence.  Yet  the  naivete,  one  fears,  is  sophisti- 
cated rather  than  unconscious.  As  Miss  Adams  puts  it  in  the  very  first 
stanza  of  the  volume: 

Never,  being  damned,  see  Paradise. 
The  heart  will  sweeten  at  its  look; 
Nor  hell  was  known,  till  Paradise 
Our  senses  shook. 

And,  later,  in  the  same  poem: 

Never  taste  that  fruit  with  the  soul 
Whereof  the  body  may  not  eat. 
Lest  flesh  at  length  lay  waste  the  soul 
In  its  sick  heat. 

Miss  Adams  has  chosen  to  withdraw,  she  neither  apologizes  nor  glo- 
ries. A  little  back  of  the  surface  of  reality,  which  shines  with  a  beauty 
she  prefers  to  neglect,  are  many  faint  paths,  some  worn,  some  hidden 
in  underbrush,  that  take  her  to  another  world,  where  beauty  is  more 
nearly  of  her  own  devising.  This  world  holds  her  seriously,  she  does  not 
often  glance  wistfully  at  the  commoner  world  of  easy,  yet  hopeless,  bliss. 
It  is  a  question  [278]  if  the  artist  has  not  a  complete  right  to  citizenship 
in  whatever  world  of  values  his  spirit  creates  for  itself.  Yet  there  are 
limits  beyond  which  it  seems  dangerous  to  travel,  and  some  at  least  of 
Miss  Adams'  admirers  will  be  a  little  apprehensive  of  her  future.  They 
will  feel  that  withdrawal  may  be  the  impulse  for  a  supremely  beautiful 
first  harvest  but  that  the  gods  of  denial  are  not  permanently  alert  with 
blessings.  In  a  sense,  however,  all  this  is  not  criticism  but  speculative 
biography,  and  therefore  to  be  ruled  out  of  court. 

Perhaps  no  poem  in  the  volume  so  well  illustrates  Miss  Adams'  power 
to  move  us  with  the  gentle  strangled  passion  of  desolation  as  "Bird  and 
Bosom  -  Apocalyptic."  I  shall  close  with  this  exquisite  poem: 


Five:  AcsihctUs  1U25 


Turniniz  wiiliiii  the  body,  the  ghostly  pari 
Said,  When  al  last  dissciiibline  llcsh  is  riven, 
A  little  instant  when  the  llesh  is  cast. 
Then  thou  most  poor,  sleadtasl,  defeated  heart. 
Thou  wilt  stay  dissolution,  thou  thus  shrisen. 
And  we  be  known  at  last. 

This  holy  \isitMi  there  shall  be: 

The  desolate  breast,  the  pinioned  bud  thai  smus. 

The  breast-bone's  whited  ivory. 

The  bird  more  fair  than  phoenix-wings. 

And  hurt,  more  politic  to  shun. 

It  gentles  only  b\  its  sighs. 

And  most  on  the  forbidden  inie 

Drop  pity  and  love  from  the  bird's  eyes; 

And  what  lips  profit  not  to  speak. 

Is  silver  chords  on  the  bird's  beak. 

Alas! 

At  the  dream's  end  the  ghostly  member  said. 
Before  these  walls  are  rotted,  which  enmesh 
Thai  bird  round,  is  the  sweet  bird  dead. 

The  swan,  they  say. 

An  earthly  bird. 

Dies  all  upon  a  golden  breath. 

But  here  is  heard 

Only  the  body's  rattle  against  death. 

And  cried.  No  way.  no  way! 

And  beat  this  way  and  thai  upon  the  llesh. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  Piwtvy  27,  275-279  ( 1926). 
Leonie  Adams  Fuiller  (b.  1899)  was  an  American  piKM 


Review  of  James  Weldon  Johnson, 
The  Book  of  American  Negro  Spirituals 

The  Book  of  American  Negro  Spirituals.  Edited  with  an  Introduction  by 
James  Weldon  Johnson.  Musical  Arrangements  by  J.  Rosamond  John- 
son, Additional  numbers  by  Lawrence  Brown.  New  York,  The  Viking 
Press,  1925;  187  pp. 

The  Book  of  American  Negro  Spirituals  has  now  been  before  the  pub- 
lic for  several  years  and  a  Second  Book  has  come  to  prove  the  popularity 
of  the  first.  It  is  a  deserved  popularity,  not  wholly  due  to  the  present 
vogue  of  the  spiritual  on  the  concert  stage  but  to  the  intrinsic  merits  of 
the  book  itself.  Mr.  Johnson  is  not  a  scientific  student  of  music,  he  is 
an  enthusiast  who  is  fired  with  the  desire  to  proclaim  the  beauties  of 
Negro  religious  poetry  and  music  to  a  white  public  sentimentally  dis- 
posed, more  or  less,  to  agree  with  him.  A  laborious  analysis  and  qualifi- 
cation of  his  views,  expressed  in  a  long  and  rather  unnecessary  preface, 
is  hardly  warranted,  for  the  book  is  essentially  an  anthology,  not  a 
monograph. 

That  Mr.  Johnson  is  a  better  lover  of  his  folk  than  a  dispassionate 
critic  of  its  verse  is  evident.  Consider  the  following  passage  (pp.  15, 
16):  "The  white  people  among  whom  the  slaves  lived  did  not  originate 
anything  comparable  even  to  the  mere  titles  of  the  Spirituals.  In  truth 
the  power  to  frame  the  poetic  phrases  that  make  the  titles  of  so  many 
of  the  Spirituals  betokens  the  power  to  create  the  songs.  Consider  the 
sheer  magic  of  [ten  selected  titles  of  spirituals]  and  confess  that  none 
but  an  artistically  endowed  people  could  have  evolved  it."  Yet  what 
could  be  more  threadbare  in  the  English  poetic  tradition  than  such  titles 
-  to  quote  but  two  of  those  that  Mr.  Johnson  cites  -  as  "Singing  with 
a  Sword  in  my  Hand"  or  "Death's  Coin'  to  Lay  His  Cold,  Icy  Hand 
on  Me?"  Does  not  Mr.  Johnson  know  that  death  has  been  "laying  his 
cold,  icy  hand"  on  generations  of  unfortunate  whites?  And  if  the  point 
of  the  second  title  lies  in  the  charm  and  naivete  of  the  "goin'  to"  and 
"on  me,"  what  is  that  but  a  point  of  silent  conspiracy  on  the  part  of 
the  whites  to  give  the  negro  idiom  the  benefit  of  a  charming  and  naive 
interpretation? 


Five:  .icMhciics  1027 

Mr.  Johnson's  enthusiasm  also  licIs  ihc  hcltcr  o\'  his  judgnicnl  when 
he  says:  "Among  ihi>sc  who  knou  ahDiit  art  ii  is  generally  recognized 
that  the  modern  school  of  painting  and  sciilpliire  in  liurope  and  Amer- 
ica is  almost  entirely  the  result  o\'  the  tlirecl  intluence  ol"  African  art. 
following  the  discovery  that  it  was  art."  I  i.\o  not  know  how  tar  back 
Mr.  Johnson  would  date  "the  modern  schtnil  o\  painting  and  sculpture 
in  Europe  and  America,"  but  surely  even  the  most  up-to-date  inter- 
pretation of  the  phrase  would  hardly  justify  one  in  attributing  to  .Afri- 
can wood-carving  more  than  a  part  intluence  in  the  mouldmL'  ot  moil- 
ern  art  tendencies,  it  is  not  necessary  to  overstate  a  case. 

And  so  with  Mr.  Johnson's  analysis  of  American  Negro  music.  I'hal 
the  Negroes  have  a  wonderful  musical  gift  -  or,  what  prc^bably  comes 
to  the  same  thing  in  a  practical  sense,  a  rich  musical  tradition  that  goes 
back  to  the  pre-slave  days  of  Africa  -  is  doubted  by  none.  That  a  group 
of  Jewish  or  Irish  or  Italian  slaves,  living  in  conditions  precisely  parallel 
to  those  in  which  the  Africans  evolved  their  Americanized  culture,  could 
have  developed  the  spirituals  and  blues  is  all  but  inconceivable.  It  does 
not  follow,  as  Mr.  Johnson  seems  to  think,  that  American  Negro  music 
is  merely  a  carry-over  of  a  specifically  African  tradition,  that  it  owes 
little  or  nothing  to  the  white  man's  musical  stock  in  trade.  The  truth 
would  seem  to  be  far  from  simple  and  not  at  all  easy  to  state  either 
historically  or  psychologically.  No  doubt  the  African  tradition  as  such 
was  entirely  lost,  or  nearly  so,  but  in  adapting  themselves  to  the  new 
environment  the  Negroes  could  not  take  over  the  hymnology  o\'  their 
masters  without  allowing  certain  deep  seated  habits  of  musical  deliverv 
to  ring  through.  In  spirit  Mr.  Johnson  may  be  essentially  sound  but  his 
formulation  is  certainly  far  too  specific.  It  is  simply  not  true,  for  in- 
stance, that  the  rhythms  of  American  Negro  music  are  African  rhythms. 
The  most  that  one  can  say  is  that  they  are  European-American  rhythms 
unconsciously  modified  by  habits  which  require  for  their  explanation  a 
soil  of  forgotten  African  rhythms.  In  this,  as  in  countless  i>ther  cultural 
cases  of  a  similarly  complex  nature,  one  ma\  speak  of  a  "predisposi- 
tion," provided  one  is  prudent  enough  to  steer  clear  o\'  commitments 
on  the  score  of  racial  inheritance  in  a  biological  sense. 

But  I  shall  not  rest  content  with  stating  my  own  opinion,  which  is 
perhaps  only  a  bias.  There  has  just  come  to  hand,  opportunely  enough, 
an  excellent  article  on  African  Negro  Music  in  the  first  number  of  a  new 
journal,  edited  by  Diedrich  Westermann,  entitled  Africa.  Journal  of  the 
International  Institute  of  African  I.ani^uai^cs  ami  Cultures  (Januarv  h^28: 
pp.  30-62).  This  article  is  by  Erich  M.  von  Ilornbostel.  probably  the 


1028  ///   Culture 

most  competent  authority  on  primitive  music  that  we  have.  As  for  the 
African  background,  the  following  citation  will  be  significant:  "In  Afri- 
can music,  three  features  stand  out  above  all  others,  and  have  been 
noticed  and  stressed  accordingly  by  all  those  who  have  heard  Negroes 
sing:  antiphony  (here  understood  to  be  the  alternate  singing  of  solo  and 
chorus),  part-singing,  and  highly  developed  rhythm."  But  as  for  the 
supposed  continuity  (I  mean  culturally,  not  merely  psychologically)  of 
American  Negro  with  African  Negro  music,  this  is  what  von  Hornbostel 
has  to  say:  "The  African  Negroes  are  uncommonly  gifted  for  music  - 
probably,  on  an  average,  more  so  than  the  white  race.  This  is  clear  not 
only  from  the  high  development  of  African  music,  especially  as  regards 
polyphony  and  rhythm,  but  a  very  curious  fact,  unparalleled,  perhaps, 
in  history,  makes  it  even  more  evident;  namely,  the  fact  that  the  negro 
slaves  in  America  and  their  descendants,  abandoning  their  original  mu- 
sical style,  have  adapted  themselves  to  that  of  their  white  masters  and 
produced  a  new  kind  of  folk-music  in  that  style.  Presumably  no  other 
people  would  have  accomplished  this.  (In  fact  the  plantation  songs  and 
spirituals,  and  also  the  blues  and  rag-times  which  have  launched  or 
helped  to  launch  our  modern  dance-music,  are  the  only  remarkable 
kinds  of  music  brought  forth  in  America  by  immigrants.)  At  the  same 
time  this  shows  how  readily  the  Negro  abandons  his  own  style  of  music 
for  that  of  the  European." 

In  another  passage  von  Hornbostel  states  that  "the  gulf  between  Afri- 
can and  European  music"  has  proved  to  be  so  wide  that  any  attempt 
at  bridging  it  is  out  of  the  question.  African,  like  any  other  non-Euro- 
pean music,  is  founded  on  melody,  European  music  on  harmony  ... 
African  rhythm  springs  from  the  drummer's  motions  and  has  far  out- 
stripped European  rhythm,  which  does  not  depend  on  motion  but  on 
the  ear."  Possibly  there  is  something  about  the  American  Negro's  sway- 
ing of  head  and  body  and  the  irregular  balance  of  the  right-hand  beat 
against  that  of  the  left,  which  Mr.  Johnson  says  is  so  essential  to  the 
production  of  the  "swing"  characteristic  of  the  spirituals,  that  is  deriva- 
tive of  the  habits  of  the  African  drummer  and  dancer  dominated  by  the 
spirit  of  the  drum.  If  this  is  so  -  and  it  would  require  a  pretty  piece  of 
research  to  prove  it  -  we  would  have  between  African  and  American 
Negro  music  a  connection  on  the  plane  of  socialized  motor  habit,  a  far 
deeper  and  more  elusive  plane  than  that  of  specific  cultural  patterning. 
It  would  not  be  difficult  to  find  analogies.  Thus,  in  the  speech  of  thou- 
sands of  New  Yorkers,  not  necessarily  themselves  Jewish,  a  sensitive  ear 
may  readily  detect  melodic  contours  that  are  plainly  derivative  of  some 


Five:  Aesthetics  1029 

o^  the  cadences  jtcciiluii  lo  ^  ulclish.  a  laniriiaiic  \Nhich  ina\  ho  iiiicrly 
iinkmuMi  to  ihc  speakers. 

It  is  a  great  pleasure  to  turn  to  the  st)iius  lhenisel\cs.Mdn>  ol  ihcm. 
needless  to  say,  are  beautiful.  It  is  hardly  necessary  in  a  review  of  this 
sort  to  do  more  than  point  to  the  nc^bility  o\'  reeling  nianilesled  in  such 
songs  as  "Go  down  Moses"  or  "Swing  \o\\  sueet  chariot"  or  "Up  on 
de  mountain."  which,  simple  and  austere,  is  in  the  reviewer's  opinii>n 
perhaps  the  most  wonderful  song  in  the  book.  Mr.  Johnson  wtnild  prob- 
ably pick  out  "Go  down  Moses"  as  his  especial  fa\orile  and  not 
without  reason,  though  its  melodic  cur\e  is  of  a  more  obviously  accept- 
able nobility  than  the  strangely  elusive,  long-breathed  line  of  "Up  on 
de  mountain."  Often  the  nobility  of  the  st>ngs  is  relie\ed  by  a  delicaleU 
toying  spirit,  as  in  the  case  o\'  "ScMnebi>d\'s  knockin'  at  \o'  do*"  or. 
with  more  abandon,  in  "Who'll  he  a  witness  for  my  l.ord'.'"  or  "l.ilMe 
David  play  on  yo'  harp."  This  spirit  ne\er  degenerates  into  the  \  ulgariiy 
of  jazz. 

The  settings,  most  of  which  are  h\  .1.  Rosamond  Johnson,  are  excel- 
lent. In  the  case  of  a  number  o\'  the  songs,  such  as  "Somebody's 
knockin'  at  yo'  do',"  the  musician  has  intrtuiuced  just  enough  counter- 
rhythm  in  the  accompaniment  to  bring  out  the  latent  rh\thmic  feeling 
of  the  song  itself.  But  alwa\s  with  discretion.  The  settings  hold  close  to 
the  essential  rhythmic  qualit\  o\^  the  songs  and  are  done  with  a  fine, 
musicianly  tact. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  the  Jourmil  of  Anurldin  I'lflk-Lorc  41. 
172-179  (1928).  Reprinted  by  permission  of  the  American  l-olklore  So- 
ciety. 


Review  of  Clarence  Day, 
Thoughts  without  Words 

Clarence  Day,  Thoughts  without  Words.  New  York:  Alfred  A.  Knopf, 
1928. 

"There  are  times,"  says  Mr.  Day,  "when  a  man  doesn't  care  to  talk 
or  write  to  his  friends."  There  are  indeed.  Words,  those  chronic  errand- 
boys  of  man,  suddenly  go  leaden  to  the  ear.  We  would  have  more  light- 
ning-footed messengers,  capture  some  of  that  complex  dispatch  which 
does  business  for  us  in  eye  leaping  to  eye,  in  the  involuntary  slip  of  foot 
or  hand,  in  all  that  by-play  of  intercourse  which  so  often  takes  the 
words  out  of  the  mouth  of  speech,  turning  it  into  a  belated,  and  not 
even  an  accurate,  echo  of  its  own  intention.  There  is  no  doubt  that  our 
world  of  thought  is  a  heavily  verbal  one.  But  why  should  the  tracks  of 
words,  running  in  endless  mazes  from  ear  to  ear,  be  endlessly  rehearsed? 

Words,  and  therefore  thoughts,  have  been  lit  up  in  the  forge  of  society 
with  the  kaleidoscopic  comment  of  revealing  motion  and  poise.  This 
comment  is  far  from  self-explanatory  in  a  purely  physical  sense,  it  is  all 
of  words  and  more  -  unspoken.  The  gesture  accompanying  "Mark  my 
words"  (see  page  74  of  Mr.  Day's  book)  is  a  significant  message  only, 
or  primarily,  in  so  far  as  it  can  be  glossed  as  "Mark  my  words";  it  is 
probably  not  a  "universal"  token  in  that  vaster  world  in  which  words 
are  not  even  a  nuisance,  for  there  they  are  not  at  all.  In  this  world, 
which  is  naturally  that  of  the  artist  pure  and  simple,  belong  pictures  of 
an  honest-to-goodness  cat,  however  abbreviated  as  to  line,  or  of  a 
woman  holding  a  child,  or,  for  that  matter,  a  checkerboard  design.  Such 
pictures  can,  of  course,  be  verbified  too,  and  the  less  purely  aesthetic 
one's  reaction,  the  greater  will  be  the  tendency  to  so  verbify,  but  they  do 
not  require  the  explicit  comment  of  formulated,  word-bound  thought. 

Mr.  Day's  excellent  fooling  in  line  does  require  just  such  comment, 
and  he  is  far  from  spoofing  us  when  he  remarks,  "Some  writers  may 
object  that  they  cannot  draw.  Neither  can  I.  But  it  isn't  works  of  art  that 
we're  speaking  of;  it's  merely  picture-writing."  Only,  to  be  complete,  Mr. 
Day  might  have  added,  "picture-writing  in  a  style  that  clamors  for  a 


Five:  Aesthetics  1031 

verbal  inlcrprclatic^n."  Aiul.  on  scci'.iul  llu>iii;lii.  this  is  probably  what 
he  means  when  he  reiiuirks.  "All  thai  aii\  one  needs  is  a  legible  style. " 
The  title  o\'  the  book  is  ciMiect,  theret\)re,  only  if  it  is  uiulersloiKl  lo 
mean  *To-be-\erbali/ed  lluuights.  uiih  only  siieh  aetual  vsords  \oueh- 
safed  as  one  needs  lo  gel  on  to  the  draftsman's  notions."  Irequenlly 
the  inlerprclation  of  word  and  drawing  is  eomplele  and  satisfying,  as  in 
■'I  he  resurrection  of  Mrs.  Fili/.a  Bainwiek  Kelly,  as  imagined  h>  herself 
(p.  79).  Such  a  picture  may  be  said  lo  be  \sord-saturaled.  If  there  vserc 
no  such  word  as  "resurrection"  in  our  language,  with  all  that  it  connotes 
of  American  theosophic  speculation  against  the  background  of  a  de- 
cayed meeting-house  ideology  the  picture  umild  be  all.  Just  as  elabo- 
rately buzzing  with  verbal  overtones  is  the  colloquy  of  Original  Sm  and 
Mr.  Chitt  (p.  81).  Again,  the  title  "Chivalry"  (p.  54)  uould  barel\  make 
the  picture  come  otT,  but  the  uhimsical  rh\me. 

To  rescue  a  damsel  in  disiicss 

Is  an  absolute  rule  o\'  the  old  noblesse, 

quickens  our  whimsical  zest,  shoves  the  poor  fellow  in  the  scoulike 
rowboat  a  perceptible  couple  of  paces  toward  the  quarter  of  the  horizon 
sacred  to  Don  Quixote,  and,  all  in  all,  lets  us  in  for  quite  a  bit  of  social 
philosophy.  Now  and  then  Mr.  Day's  imaginatii^i  advances  to  purely 
evocative  line,  as  in  the  benign,  circumambient  m\siicism  of  "  The  I  gg" 
(p.  6),  or  in  the  rollicking,  sliding  abandon  o\'  the  men's  legs  in  "'nie 
Spinster"  (p.  18),  or  in  the  \\orld-t>ld  concern  in  the  l)r>ad's  father's 
face  (p.  28). 

This  book  of  diawings  and  rh\mes  is  an  excellent  thing  to  ha\e  and 
to  pore  over  at  odd  moments  of  an  evening.  There  is  much  philosophy 
in  it.  but  the  philosophy  is  not  too  maliciously  keen.  Humor  healthiK 
outv\eighs  wit.  The  sort  o\'  sophisticate  for  whom  I'lunmhts  niihoui 
H'onis  is  intended  is  not  of  the  enraged  l>pe;  rather  is  he  o\  that  uisel> 
tolerant  category  which,  one  knows,  is  destined  to  come  to  fruition  in 
our  country  when  the  exotic,  analytical  sa\ager\  o\  the  current  l:uro- 
pean  intelligence  shall  have  nibbled  all  along  the  roundness  of  our  origi- 
nal bonhommie  sufficiently  to  carve  it  into  a  shape  not  unuv>rth>  o\\i 
true  culture.  Mr.  Day  guarantees  for  us  that  our  .America.  i>\er  which 
so  many  intelligent  New  Yorkers  shake  their  heads,  is  neither  decaying 
nor  exploding.  It  is  good  to  know  there  are  people  as  sane  as  he. 


I  tliloiKil  Nolo 
Originally  published  in  .\tu    }()ik  llcntlil  Trihunc  Books  4.  xii  (I92S). 


Review  of  Knut  Hamsun, 
The  Women  at  the  Pump 

Knut  Hamsun,  77?^  Women  at  the  Pump.  Translated  from  the  Norwe- 
gian by  Arthur  G.  Chater.  New  York:  Alfred  A.  Knopf,  1928. 

This  novel  lacks  the  strong  grain  and  the  intensity  of  Growth  of  the 
Soul  but  it  displays  once  more  Hamsun's  superb  mastery  of  Norwegian 
small-town  types  and  daily  talk.  The  plot  is  not  so  much  a  plot  as  a 
skillful  accumulation  of  episodes,  or  hints  for  a  number  of  plots,  built 
around  sundry  firmly  conceived,  though  by  no  means  elaborately 
drawn,  characters.  In  the  earlier  portion  of  the  book  the  episodic  tech- 
nique, accentuated  by  Hamsun's  chatty,  sardonic  whimsicality,  lulls  the 
reader  into  a  certain  undemandingness  as  to  structure.  But  as  the  story 
rounds  to  its  own  particular  kind  of  climax,  at  once  casual  and  wilful, 
the  reader  is  suddenly  confronted  by  a  well  planned,  retrospective  pic- 
ture in  which  the  loosely  assembled  story  is  in  the  background,  while 
the  characters  are  the  subject. 

Hamsun  is  nothing  if  not  a  portraitist.  But  his  people  -  and  herein 
lies  his  peculiar  excellence  -  are  not  so  much  insets  in  life  as  autono- 
mous existences  which  by  their  secret  and  necessary  hostilities  create 
life,  with  its  deceptive  smoothness  of  texture.,  This  means  that  Hamsun, 
for  all  his  apparent  realism,  is  at  heart  an  anti-cultural  romantic,  ever 
creating  the  light  in  which  he  sees  his  people  out  of  the  heat  of  his  own 
none-too-carefully-masked  loves  and  angers.  It  is  strange  and  refreshing 
in  this  day  to  experience  a  writer  who  is  romantic  and  dogged,  stub- 
born, not  romantic  and  soft.  If  to  be  "modern"  is  to  be  yielding  but 
callous,  Hamsun  is  no  modern. 


Editorial  Note 

Originally  published  in  The  New  Republic  56,  335  (1928). 

Knut  Hamsun  was  the  pseudonym  of  Knut  Pedersen  (1859-1952), 
Norwegian  novelist,  poet,  and  dramatist;  he  was  awarded  the  Nobel 
Prize  for  Literature  in  1920. 


References,  Sections  loin  aiul  I  i\c 

Arnold.  Matthew 

1868         Ciihiiiv    and   .Uuiithv     ( 'amhruk'o     (  .unhi  uIih-    I'iii\.-rMi\     F'ross 
[1%3]. 
Benedict.  Ruth 

1934        Anthropology  and  the  Abnormal.  Jinunul  t>t  (icmrul  I'wiliol'-'^   '" 
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Boas,  Franz 

1911  (ed.)  Hiuulhook  of  Anicricun  Indian  lAiHi^uiii^iy  J'uri  J.  liiiic.iu  ^-i 
American  Ethnology,  Bulletin  40.  Washington,  D.  C:  Smithsonian 
Institution. 

1925        What  Is  a  Race.  Nation  3 1  OS,  89  -91. 
Dewey,  John 

1916  American  Education  and  Culture,  flic  \c\\  Rcpuhlii  (Jul\  h, 
215-217. 

Lowell,  Amy 

1914        Vers  Libre  and  Metrical  Prose.  Poetry  3,  213-220. 

1918        The  Rhythms  of  Free  Verse.  The  Dial  64.  51     56 
Lowie,  Robert  H. 

1965        (ed.)  Letters  from  Edwaril  Sapir  to  Ro/urt  If  I.nwii-   Berkcic).  Pri- 
vately published. 
Masters,  Edgar  Lee 

1917  Mars  Has  Descended.  Poetry  10.  88-92. 
Mead,  Margaret 

1959        (ed.)  An  Anthropoloi^ist  at   ll'ork.    The   l\ritini;\  of  Ruth   H  ••    '■  ■ 
Boston:  Houghton  Miftlin. 
Monroe,  Harriet 

1917        What  May  War  Do'.'  Poetrv  10.  142     145. 
Radin,  Paul 

1924        Monotheism  Amonj^  Primitive  Peoples.  Being  the  Seventh  ".\rthur 
Davis  Memorial  Lecture."  delivered  before  the  Jewish  Historical 
Society  at  Univeristy  College  on  Sunday.  April  22.  1924    London: 
George  Allen  and  Unwin. 
Sapir,  Edward 

1912  Review  of  Carl  Stumpl,  Die  Anldn\ie  der  \tiisik  Current  Anthmpo- 
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1913  Methods  and  Principles.  Review  o(  l-rich  \on  Hornbostci.  (  tnr  em 
akustisehes  Kriteriuni  Jitr  Kulturzusammenh.iw,  Cun.nt  Anihwpo- 
logieal  Literature  2,  69-72. 


1034  ///  Culture 

1916a  Culture  in  the  Melting  Pot.  The  Nation  Supplement  (December  21), 
1-2. 

1916b  Percy  Grainger  and  Primitive  Music.  American  Anthropologist  18, 
592-597. 

1917a      The  Twilight  of  Rhyme.  The  Dial  63,  98-100. 

1917b  A  Frigid  Introduction  to  Strauss.  Review  of  Henry  T.  Finck,  Rich- 
ard Strauss,  the  Man  and  His  Works.  The  Dial  62,  584-586. 

1917c  Psychoanalysis  as  a  Pathfinder.  Review  of  Oskar  Pfister,  The  Psy- 
choanalytic Method.  The  Dial  63,  267-269. 

191 7d      Realism  in  Prose  Fiction.  The  Dial  62,  503-506. 

1920a      The  Poetry  Prize  Contest.  The  Canadian  Magazine  54,  349-352. 

1920b     The  Heuristic  Value  of  Rhyme.  Queen's  Quarterly  27,  309-312. 

1921a  Writing  as  History  and  as  Style.  Review  of  W.  A.  Mason,  A  History 
of  the  Art  of  Writing.  The  Freeman  4,  68  —  69. 

1921b  The  Musical  Foundations  of  Verse.  Journal  of  English  and  Germanic 
Philology  20,  2U-22^. 

1921c  Maupassant  and  Anatole  France.  The  Canadian  Magazine  57, 
199-202. 

192  Id  Language:  An  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Speech.  New  York:  Har- 
court,  Brace. 

1921e  Gerard  Hopkins.  Review  of  Robert  Bridges,  ed..  Poems  of  Gerard 
Manley  Hopkins.  Poetry  18,  330-336. 

1921  f  The  Ends  of  Man.  Review  of  J.  M.  Tyler,  The  New  Stone  Age  in 
Northern  Europe;  Stewart  Paton,  Human  Behavior;  E.  G.  Conklin, 
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1922a  Mr.  Masters'  Later  Work.  Review  of  Edgar  Lee  Masters,  77?^  Open 
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1922b  An  Orthodox  Psychology.  Review  of  R.  S.  Woodworth,  Psychology: 
A  Study  of  Mental  Life.  The  Freeman  5,  619. 

1922c  A  Peep  at  the  Hindu  Spirit.  Review  of  More  Jataka  Tales,  retold  by 
Ellen  C.  Babbitt.  The  Freeman  5,  404. 

1922d  Poems  of  Experience.  Review  of  Edwin  Arlington  Robinson,  Col- 
lected Poems.  The  Freeman  5,  141-142. 

1923  Mr.  Housman's  Last  Poems.  Review  of  A.  E.  Housman,  Last 
Poems.  The  Dial  75,  188-191. 

1924a      Racial  Superiority.  The  Menorah  Journal  10,  200-212. 

1924b  Culture,  Genuine  and  Spurious.  American  Journal  of  Sociology  29, 
401-429. 

1924c  The  Grammarian  and  His  Language.  American  Mercury  1, 
149-155. 

1925a      Let  Race  Alone.  The  Nation.  120,  211-213. 

1925b      Sound  Patterns  in  Language.  Language  I,  37-51. 

1925c  Is  Monotheism  Jewish?  Review  of  Radin  1924.  The  Menorah  Jour- 
nal 11,  524-527. 


Five:  Acs  the  lies  10.^5 

1925d  Emily  Dickinson,  a  Pnnuii\c  Kc\icu  ol  Ilu  Complete  Foeim  of 
Emily  Dickinson,  and  M   I)   Bianchi.  The  Life  ami  I a'I ten  of  Entity 

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1926  Rcvievs  o\'  Ludwii:  Ix'wisohn.  Israel  Pie  Menoruh  Journal  12. 
214    2IS. 

1927  The  Unconsciinis  Paticmniu  ol  IkhaMor  in  Socici\  in  Dummcr. 
F.St.,  ccl..  Ilic  Lnconsci(nis  I  Svmposmm  i\iu  >'.  .rli 
pp.  114     142. 

1928  Observations  on  the  Sex  Prohleni  in  America.  American  Journal  oj 
Psychiatry  8,  519-534. 

1929a  Franz  Boas.  Review  of  1  ran/  Woas.  .inthropoloi^v  and  Modern  Life. 
The  New  Repiihlic  57.  278-279. 

1929h  The  Skepticism  o\'  BertraiKJ  Russell.  Re\ieu  oi  Bciii.uui  Kiisscll. 
Sceptical  Essays.  The  Sew   Rcpiihlii   57.  196 

19.^0  Our  Business  Ci\ili/ation.  Rc\  ie\s  of  James  Iruslou  .Adams.  Our 
Business  Civilization:  Some  Aspects  of  American  Culture.  Current 
History  32,  426-428. 

1932  Cultural  Anthropology  and  Ps\chiatr\.  Journal  of  Ahnormal  and 
Social  Psychology  27.^229 -  242. 

1938        Review  ofThurman  W.  .Arnold.  The  folklore  of  C  apitaiism.  Psychi- 
atry 1.  145-147. 
Stocking,  George  W..  Jr. 

1968        Race,  Culture,  and  Evolution.  New  ^ork:  Iree  Press. 
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1835-     Democracy  in  America.  Trans,   llenrs    Reeve.   New   ^ork:   Knopf 

1840        [1945]. 
Weber.  Ma.x 

1905  The  Protestant  Ethic  ami  the  Spirit  of  Capitalism.  Trans.  Talcol  Par- 
sons. New  York:  Scribners  [195S|. 


ikIcx 


Abstraction,  sec  Methodology 

Abyssinia,  502 

Acculturation.    200,    246-48,    328,    5%. 

612-13 
Adams,  James  Truslow,  955-57 
Adams,  Leonie.  1023-25 
Adams,  Samuel  Hopkins,  991-97 
Adaptation,  399,  473,  496.  534,  573,  603. 

613,  627  (see  Individual  adjustment) 
Adler,  Alfred,  316-17,  555,  622,  677 
Aesthetics,  370,  426,  430,  460-61,  482- 

83,  493,  494-95,  524,  532,  534,  537- 

42,  552,  557.  588.  607,  627-28.  643  (see 

Art;  Music;  Literature) 
Africa.  503,  665 
African  languages,  516 
Agriculture.  499-500,  502 
Aiken,  Conrad.  964 
Alaska,  508 

Aldington,  Richard.  931-32 
Alexander,  Franz.  345,  592.  601 
Algonquian(s).  141 
Algonquin  languages.  516 
Allport.  Floyd,  147,  150 
Allport.  Gordon.  148.  201.  204    06.  234. 

243 
Alphabet.  360.  487.  500-02.  508  (see  Lan- 
guage -  orthography) 
Altaic  culture  area,  506 
Ambivalence.  225-26 
America.     477.     483.     494,     500,     602 

-   society  and  culture,  423.  431.  467. 

469,  482,  494-95,  535.  541.  542.  547. 

575,  587,  594,  597-98,  602,  608,  612. 

637.  663 
American  culture,  critique  of.  44.  57,  60 

61.  178.  240.  269,  691.  709     10 
American  F:thnological  Society,  507 
American  family.  299 
American  Negro.  95 


American    PNychiatne    /\j»siKialii 

147.  173 
Amerindians.  477.  595 
Analytical.  161 
Anatom\  ol  mind.  701 
Anderson.  John  f     I"4    ITS   IRl    K4    19? 

201.  244 
Anderson,  William.  20 1,  204  -U6 
Anecdote.  87 
AngU>-.Saxons.  540 

peoples  and  culture.  476.  477 
Angyal.  Andras.  410.  651 
Animism.  140 
Anlhropogeographcrs.  48 1 
Anthropology,  autonomy  of.  27 
Anthropology.  391    92,  394-%,  433-37. 

441-46,  448.  450-57.  459,  461-63. 

468-475,  490-91.  497-99.  502-506. 

512,  525,  545-48,  554-57.  580.  587. 

593.  615.  623.  639.  655.  657.  658.  660, 

662 

Boasian      .  39.S    97 

-  compared  with  economics  and  lin- 
guistics. 6 1 5 

-  compared    \Mth    hision.    (discipline 
oO,  608 

-  compared  with  psychiatry.  588-W, 
615,621.624.626 

-  compared  with  psychoU'cy 
585 

(see   Archaeology;   Ethnography;   Flh- 

nology ) 
.  term  i>f.  92 
Arab  culture.  W>6 
Arapaho.  1 14.  444 
Arbitrariness  of  classification.  34 
Arnold.  Thurman  W..  858-62 
Art  and  artists.  47.  66-67.  401.  429 ~.M). 

4.VV  448.  450.  453.  467.  484.  493-95. 

511.  528.  537.  539.  568.  587.  628.  633 


1038 


Index 


Navajo  sand-paintings,  426 

Northwest  Coast  art,  521-22,  539 

(sec  Aesthetics) 
As-if  personality,  73 
As-if  psychology,  399.  591-603,  605-06, 

612-13 
Asia,  506,  511 
Athabascans,  104 
Athens,  society  and  culture,  47,  68,  71, 

424,  597 
Attitude,  54.  64,  100,  140,  158 
Austen,  Jane,  549 
Austen,  Mary,  991-97 
Australia,  aboriginal,  101,  104,  107,  114, 

256,  491,  499,  595-96 
Austria,  622 
Archaic,  285 
Arrow  of  experience,  370 

Babbitt,  Ellen  C,  976-77 

Bach.  Johann  Sebastian,  29,  537,  903 

Background,  61,  63,  94,  95,  126,  129,  173, 

180.  191,  216,  372 
Baker,  N.  D.,  335 
Bantu,  114 

Barbeau,  C.  Marius,  913,  1009 
Beaglehole,    Ernest,    252-53,   402,    406, 

408,  507,  650,  672 
Beaglehole,  Pearl,  403 
Beck,  Walter,  403,  408,  637,  649,  652 
Beethoven,  Ludwig  van,  538,  543,  576, 

901,902,904 
Behaviour,  religious,  133 
Behaviourism,  156,  711-12,  719,  720 
Belief,  137,  140 
Bella  Coola,  180,  539 
Benedict,  Ruth,  21,  25,  44,  73,  343,  363- 

64.  367,  396,  399,  420,  507,  527,  591, 

593,  595,  600-01,  677 
Bennett,  Arnold,  883 
Bentley,  Madison,  327,  329-30 
Bergson,  Henri,  577,  583 
Berlioz,  Hector,  900 


Bias,  91,  313 

Bible,  508 

Bingham,  331 

Biography,  443,  444,  620,  656,  657 

Biology,  439,  441-42,  445,  447.  452-53, 
457,  461,  468,  470,  486,  510,  580,  628 
Biological  needs,  482,  484,  494,  590 
Discipline  of  -,  446,  448,  504,  549,  659 

—  of  individual  organism,  398,  433, 
436,  441,  482,  547-49,  552,  587,  618, 
627,  646,  655 

-  vs.  history,  472,  623 
Bjorkman,  Edwin,  984-86 
Bismarck,  Otto  von,  568 
Blackfoot,  139,  150,  186,  505 
Blake,  Francis,  327 

Blake,  William,  575,  989,  1020 

Blatz,  William  A.,  174,  189 

Blossoming  (of  culture),  61 

Blumer,  Herbert,  174,  194,  343.  601 

Blurred  distinctions,  77 

Boas,  Franz,  21,  26,  30,  40,  99,  195,  255, 

280,  395-96,  487,  504,  508,  625,  677, 

816,  845-46 

Boas  school  30,  32,  691 

Boasians,  conflict  among,  27 
Bodenheim,  Maxwell,  962,  963-64 
Borderland  fields,  328 
Borrowing,    cultural,   432-33,    503    (see 

Diffusion) 
Bott,  Edward,  201 

Bowman,  Isaiah,  201,  235-237,  328 
Brahms,  Johannes,  900 
Brill,  Abraham  Arden,  507 
British  Association  for  the  Advancement 

of  Science,  529 
British  Columbia  Indians,  425—26 
Britten,  Marion  Hale,  327 
Brownell,  Baker,  133 
Bull-roarer,  499 

Burgess,  Ernest  W.,  147,  150,  174-75,  192 
Burns,  Robert,  922 
Burrow,  Trigant.  601 


Index 


1039 


Bushmen.  47 

HuiIlt.  Saimid.  577.  756-59 

Cabell.  James  Btaneh,  991     97 

Cadmus.  500 

Caesar,  Julius,  620 

Calilornia.  488.  508.  524.  641.  651 

tribes.  104.  247 
California.  I'niversily  of  (Berkeley),  402 
Calvin,  John,  564 
Canadian  Indians,  477 
Cannan.  Gilbert,  759 
Capitalism.  484 
Captain  of  industry,  9 
Caribbean  area,  402 
Carlson,  Fred  A.,  487 
Carlyle,  Thomas,  438,  608 
Carnegie,  Andrew,  564 
Casamajor,  Louis,  174,  175 
Cattaraugus,  508 
Cattell,  J.  MeLean.  327,  689 
Caueasus.  473 
Celtic  peoples,  471 

Chamberlain,  Houston  Stewart,  788,  816 
Chapin,  Stuart,  201 
Chase.  Stuart.  133 
Chauncey,  Johnny  John.  447,  499 
Chekhov,  Anton  Pavlovich.  430.  878 
Chesterton,  Gilbert  K.,  909-12.  978 
Cheyenne,  505 
Chicago,  city,  511,  602,  624 
Chicago,  University  of,  389,  392-93,  403. 

404.  406-08,  413.  437,  527,  529.  530, 

628,  629 

-  sociology,  100 
Children/childhood,  435,  447,  454,  472. 

476.  495,  501,  511,  536,  548,  551-53, 

555,  558-60,  567-70,  577,  595,  609- 

10.  619,  621-23,  638,  651.  658 
China,  403,  588,  598,  602 

Chinese    society    and    culture.    85-88. 

226,  256,  284,  304-05,  413,  423.  424. 


431.  432.  506.  5W.  543.  594.  5%.  619. 

673 

lanyu.i^'c,  "^41 1,  (>(l^ 
Chinese  language,  IM 
Chilambar.  Theodore  P.  403.  408.  581 
Chi>pin.  J-rederie,  K9K 
Christianity  (see  Religii>n) 
Chukchi.  606.  619 

Civilization.  28-29.  32.  40.  48.  57.  324 
Class,  social.  270-71.  422-28.  438.  483. 

519.  571.  648  (sec  SiKial  slalus.  StKiai 

dilTcrcnliation) 
Classification,  principles  of.  295 
Classification,  unconscious    "''''' 
Claudel.  Paul.  876.  877 
Clifford.  Charles.  487 
Clinical  psychology.  316 
Cobb,  Stanley.  327 
Cohen,  Morris  R.  99 
Cole,  Fay-Cooper,  133 
Coleridge.  Samuel  Taylor    "^'^^    s77  -7w 

989 
Cologne  cathedral.  512.  537 
Columbia  rni\ersii\.  392 
Columbus,  Christopher.  500 
Commodities.  368 
Community.  178.  260-61.  469.  594 
Comox.  529 
Complex  whole.  40 
Complexity.  30.  44.  110.  112.  237 
Conceptual  science.  37-38 
Condensation  ssmbolism.  319.  321-22 
Confession.  183 
C^mfigurativc  psychology.  81 
Confucian  literature.  508.  540 
Congo.  47S 

Conklin.  I  Juin  Grant.  761-64 
Conrad.  Ji)seph.  577.  883.  967 
Consciousness.  519.  534-36.  541.  547- 

52.  573.  597.  610.  627.  634.  636.  643- 

45 

Sclf-consciousness.  429,  W>(» 

(sec  Unconscious) 


1040 


Index 


Consensus,  356-357 

Consumer,  273 

Control,  59,  60 

Controlling  idea,  340 

Convention,  257 

Con\ergence,  cultural,  698 

Cooke  Smith,  Anne,  402,  406,  408 

Cooley,  Charles  Horton,  677 

Cowan.  William.  411 

Crazy  Dog  Society,  180,  182 

Creativity.  61.  63 

Cree,  402 

Creeks,  104 

Critical  anthropology,  104,  219 

Criticism,  spirit  of,  65 

Crookshank.  Francis  Graham,  799  —  800 

Crystallography,  39 

Culture 
Acquisition  of  -,  609-10  (see  Social- 
ization) 

Analysis  of  -,  307,  348 
-.  American,   750-52,   797,   818-32, 
835-44,  855-57,  858-62,  863-66,  999 

-  areas,  504-06 

-  as  program,  587,  689 

-  as  world  of  thought,  547 

Causes  of  -,  394-95,  456-57,  467-88, 

489,611,620,627 

Change  in  -,  396,  430,  445,  453,  468, 

471,  474,  500,  503-04,  516,  531-43, 

608-09,  611,  620,  628,  655,  661  (see 

Development;  Progress;  History) 

Complex,  culture,  158 

Conceptions  of  -,  21,  24,  43-71,  77, 

199,  256,  391-94,  396,  398-99,  401 -, 

421-39,  441-66,  468,  484,  489,  490, 

496,    524-27,    546-47   (as   world    of 

thought),  588,  594,  600,  608,  610,  620, 

628,  646,  655-57,  659-60,  689,  693 

Construction  of  -,  31 

Creative  possibilities  of  -,  492,  494, 

496-97,  586 

Cultural  anthropology,  21-22 


Cultural  pattern,  language  as,  24 
Cultural  relativism,  44,  363,  365 
Cultural  sentiments,  569 
Cultural  theory,  culturalists,  484,  585, 
615-17 

'Culture  and  personality',  field  of,  25, 
209,  363-64,  410,  618,  655-59 
Definitions  of  -,   397,  421-39,  441, 
451-57,  465,  484,  489-90,  496,  525, 
547,  610,  620,  628,  647,  659-60 
Emergence  of  -,  400,  591,  610,  616- 
17,  628,  639 
Giveness  of  -,  310 
Growth  of-,  309 

Homogeneity    and    internal    variation 
in  -,  397,  398,  421-28.  455,  469,  473, 
476,  532,  545-47,  586,  603-04,  611, 
617,  639-40,  643-44 
Inertia/conservatism   of   — ,   477,   481, 
498,499,  512,  515-16 
Integration  of  -,  594 
Locus  of  -,  278,  281-82,  286,  288-89, 
304,  397,  442,  445,  452,  455-56,  461, 
547,  608,  628,  639,  643-44,  649,  657 
Opportunity  for  expression  in  -,  586, 
598,  603,  606,  613,  615,  628,  647,  660 
Symbol,  culture  as,  26,  690 
Totality  of  -,  443,  525,  545,  547,  557, 
586,  594,  610,  617 

Traits,  elements,  inventories  of  -,  26, 
393,  395,  399,  410,  432-33,  467,  471, 
478,  480,  489-510,  525,  526,  587,  592, 
610 

Typology  of  -,  399,  594-98,  657 
(see  Patterns  and  configurations  of  cul- 
ture) 

Cumulative  tradition,  75 

Custom,  255-63,  265,  267 

Cycle  of  fashion,  268 

D'Annunzio,  Gabriele,  578 
Dai,  Bingham,  403,  408,  619,  649-51 
Dakota,  247 
-  Farmers,  500 


///(/('  V 


1041 


Darnell,  Rcuna.  403,  410 

Da  now.  Clarence.  133,  392 

i:)aruin.  Charles.  29.  700 

Da\idson,  John.  924 

Day.  Clarence.  1030    31 

Dehiissy.  Claude.  430.  43S.  46.S,  S69.  901. 

906.  937,  939 
Defoe.  Daniel.  578 
De  la  Mare,  Walter,  933 -.34 
Dell.  Kloyd.  991-97 
Descartes.  Rene.  563 
Delachnienl.  65 
Development 

-  of  individual.  439.  536.  555.  609     jo. 
619  (see  Socialization:  Childhood) 

-  of  culture,  see  C\ilture  change 
Developmental   c\cles   in  culture.   532, 
537-42 

Dewey,  John.  563.  577.  677 

DeWitt.  M.  E.,  853-54 

Dickason.  Z.Clark,  147,  150 

Dickinson.  Emily,  1001-06,  1020 

Dickens,  Charles,  564 

Dictionary.  456.  465 

DilTusion,    106-107,  233.  497-500,   598 

(see  Borrowing;  Culture  traits) 
Disharmony,  259 
Dixon.  Roland  B..  564,  582,  776 
Dobu,  593 

Dollard.  John.  393.  651 
Dominianian.  Leon.  197 
Doohttlc,  Hilda,  941,998-99 
Dorsey,  George  Amos,  444,  692.  719 
Dorsey,  J.  Owen,  353-55,  358 
Dostoevsky,  Fyodor,  430 
Doukhobors,  250 
Draper,  George,  147,  150 
Dream/vision,  90.  142 
Dreams,  587,  595 
Drift,  cultural,  36,  78,  80-81,  83,  265,  762. 

955 
Drift,  linguistic.  2.34 
Duke  University,  402 


Dummer,  I-thcl.  155,677 

Dunlap,  Knight.  720-21 

Durkheini.  I-milc.  138 

Dutch.  6M    65 

Dsk.  Waller.  174.  40."^ 

D\namic  psychology.  277.  303.  317 

Eastman,  Max.  887-89 

Economics.  .394.  410.  423-25.  427.  460  - 

6 1 ,  477,  48 1     84.  493  -  94. 496.  520.  564. 

588,  614 

Coinage,  509-10 

l-conomic  behaviour.  77 

Economic   determinism.   394,  481  -84. 

494,  508 

Economic    man'.    367-68.    371.   410. 

460-61.  482.  614 
Education.  403.  431.  436.  490.  493.  502. 

536,  542.  553.  563.  627.  630  (sec  Social- 
ization) 

-,  American,  "t^J    '^'> 
Efllciency.  54 

Eggan,  Fred.  401.  4(>4,  4U8.  527 
Ego,  274 
Egypt,  501 

Einstein.  Albert.  534.  576 
Elizabethan  drama.  78.  212.  219 
Elliott.  Thomas  .Steams.  962 
Emeneau.  Murray.  27 
Emotion.  3.39.  422,  423.  427.  429-30.  438. 

4.S0.  456.  472.  473,  498.  552-53.  567. 

610,  617,  619.  649 

and  race.  473  - 74  (sec  Tcmpcramcnl ) 

-   and  symbolism,  454,  4.^6,  631-34, 

.363.  643-46,  649.  653 

Atlachmeni  to  group.  470.  473.  486 

Emotional  development.  555.  559.  609 

f-eelini!  and  thinking.  571 

leelmg    t>pc  o\  pcrMinaliiy.  568-74. 

577.  579-80.  597.  602 

Eeeling  vs,  -.571.  583 

InvestmenI    in    activtiy/situalion     J"' 

570.  591 


1042 


Index 


Norms  of  emotional  expression,  592 

Reaction  to  cultural  pattern,  546,  588, 

591 

Transference,  552,  555 
Encyclopedia  of  Social  Sciences,  255,  265, 

293.  313,  349 
England,  society  and  culture,  413,  422- 

24,  476,  495,  501,  507,  538,  571,  597- 

98.  602,  612.  664.  666 
English 

-  language,  441,  454-55,  476,  513- 
14,  516-17,  528,  540-41,  546,  627 

-  race',  471 

-  plural,  162-163 
Energy,  58 
Enrichment,  239 

Environment,  470,  474,  475,  477-81,  483, 
488,  532-33,  559,  562,  564,  570,  580, 
606,  613,  617,  624-25,  627,  638,  651 

-  as  symbol,  634,  638 

Cultural  -,  569,  586,  590,  603,  613 
Cultural  definition  of  -,  478,  617 
Eskimo.  58.  88-89,  104,  179-80,  183,  317 

-  language,  428,  469,  626,  627 

-  society   and   culture,  478-79,   487, 
493,  501,  596,  597,  606,  619 

Ethics,  447-48,  464 

Ethnicity,  770-75 

Ethnocentrism,  449,  454  (see  Methodolo- 
gy) 

Ethnography,  394,  410,  433,  485,  545, 
590-91,  620  (see  Anthropology;  Eth- 
nology; Methodology) 

Ethnology,  26,  432,  437,  449,  451,  455, 
459,    478,    496,    497,    502,    512,    539, 
543  564,  619-20,  647 
English  school  of  -,  504 
Kulturkreis  school  of  -,  527 
(see  Anthropology;  Ethnography) 

Etiquette.  240,  323,  393,  434,  367,  493, 
586,  606,  647-49 

Etruscans,  533 

Eugenics,  28,  470,  761,  800-02,  817 


Europe,  506,  541,  564,  573,  588,  590,  596, 
612.  622,  623  (see  Western  Society) 

Everyday  (behaviour),  244 

Evolution,  37,  92,  470,  504,  531,  623,  700 

Evolution,  critique  of,  101-05,  338 

Evolution,  social,  28,  100,  338 

Evolution,  social  vs.  organic,  28,  30 

Exotic,  purveyor  of,  24,  173,  256,  309,  349, 
364 

Exotica,  44,  67 

Experimental  irresolvability,  37 

Experimentation,  119,  175,  711 

Extravert,  extra  version,  85—91,  559-65, 
579,  582,  594-97,  649,  714-18  (see  In- 
trovert; Personality) 

Family  relations  and  kinship,  105-06, 
424,  425,  429,  438,  474,  493,  499,  503, 
535,  555-56,  559,  586,  609,  622-23, 
632,  636,  659 

Fancy,  236,  239,  259,  696 

Fantasy,  271,  360,  380,  690 

Fashion,  258,  265-74 

Faukner,  William,  379 

Feeling,  163,  222 

Feeling-tone,  47 

Ferrero,  Leo,  403,  408,  543,  599,  601,  636 

Fetishism,  14 

Fichte,  Arthur  Davison,  981 

Fiction,  695 

Field,  Henry  E.,  174,  194 

Field  ethnographies,  692 

Fieldwork,  186-188,  277 

Finck,  Henry  T.,  898-901 

Finland,  410,  636 

Finot,  Jean,  802 

Fire-making,  472,  532-33 

Flugel,  John  Carl,  677 

Folk  cultures,  296 

Folk  songs,  French  Canadian,  913-14, 
1009-17 

Folk  tales,  339 

Food  and  cooking,  429,  452,  478,  479-80, 
489,  493,  494,  510,  602,  635,  648-49 


Index 


1043 


Ford.  Guy  S..  201,  2.V\  243 

Ford,  HcniA,  ^(A 

Form 

and  tiinciion.  477.  491     93.  507.  512. 

518-19,  528.  541.  626-27 

Cultural  -.  45.  109     11.  159.  394.  4.^6. 

476.  479.  483-84.  49].   510,   524-25, 

538-41.   547.   565.   581.  586.   588-89. 

592.  627-28 

Development  o\^  -.  537-38,  628 

ideal  -.429.433 

Linguistic  -.  396.  454.  476,  493,  513- 

19,  524-25,  528.  540-41.  626-27 

-  of  behavior.  399.  429.  435-36.  444, 
462,  489,  491.  510.  515.  547,  649 

-  of  symbols,  398,  644 
Formalism,  53,  84 
Formality,  429,  589 
Foster,  Michael  K..  411 
Foy,  Karl,  489 

France,  Anatole,  577,  892,  945-49 
France,  society  and  culture,  403.  413.  429. 

430,438,  598,  602,612,  664 
Franklin  and  Marshall  College  402 
Frank.  Lawrence.  147.  149.  174-75.  187- 

88.  200-03.  206-08.  227.  229-30.  235 
Frazer,  Sir  James.  354.  504.  508 
French  culture.  51-52,  84-85 
French  language,  515-16,  541 
Freud.  Sigmund.  152.  281.  292-93.  313 

316-17,  346,  400-01,  409,  420,  275 

555-56,    559-60,    566-67,    578-79 

581,  584,  621,  628-29,  677,  690.  692 

695-98,    699-701.    705-06.    708-09 

715,  725-26 
Friday  Night  Club.  404.  408.  420.  61 S     19. 

662,  673 
Frost,  Robert,  923,  935-37,  944.  980 
Function.  50.  58.  74,    100.   109     11.    159. 

396.  475.  491-97.  .^01.  507.  512.  518 

19,  525,  570.646,661 

-  as  cultural  purpose.  494-97 

-  as  meaning  in  language,  513,  528 


Jung's  functional  types*.  565-79.  597 

-  of  language.  626-27 
Physiological     .  435.452.621 
Psychological       .   4''<.   4"»''.    V)8.    579. 
582,624-25.627 

F-'unctit)nalism.  435,  4(!l.    \bZ.  MA\  4yO. 
507.  525.  543.  691 

Gagnon,  Hrnesi,  1 010 

Gale.  Zona.  528.991-97 

Galton.  Irancis,  28 

Gandhi.  Mohandas,  597 

Geist.  428-30.  438 

Geneva,  403 

Genius,  incidence  of,  29 

Genius,  of  a  nation.  46.  50-51 

Genuine  culture.  43-71 

Geography.  394-95,  442.  447.  466.  47.1. 

477,  479-81,  499.   502-06.  6L1.  645. 

652  (see  Fn\ironmenl) 
Geological  Sur\c\  .>l"  ( ■.mnii   689 
Geology.  38 
German 

-  language.  515     17 

-  philosophers  and  scholars.  428.  622 

-  society  and  culture.  403.  410.  428. 
431,4.36.4.38.  622.652 

Gesell,  Arnold.  174-175.  192.  244 

Gestalt  psychology.  155.  69  ^ 

Gesture,  169,  435 -.36,  445.  453.  487.  510. 

580,  600.  6.34-35.  637.  644.  647.  651 
Ghost  Dance.  606 
Ciicrlichs.  Wilhclni.  41' 
Ciilman.  C  h.irloltc  Perkins.  \}> 
Glueck.  Sheldon.  \A^.  150 
Gobineau.  Arthur  dc.  788.  802.  816 
Goethe.  Joh.mn  Wolfgang  von.  431,  978. 

899 
("mlden  bough.  375 
(M>iden\seiscr.  Alexander.  27,  31-32,  99, 

195.  677.  691 
Gorky.  Maxim.  4.U) 
Gothic  language.  540 


1044 


Index 


Gourmont,  Remy  de,  433,  438 
Gounod.  Charles  Francois,  903 
Graebner,  Fritz,  489,  498,  500,  505,  507, 

509-10,  527 
Grainger.  Percy.  869-75,  899 
Grammar,  307 
Grant,  Madison,  816 
Greek 

-  ideal.  428 

-  language.  428.  540.  626 

-  society  and  culture.  480,  500,  532, 
535,  537,  548-49,  597 

Green  Corn  Festival,  447 
Grieg,  Edvard  Hagerup,  899 
Grimm.  Jakob.  503 
Group.  293-301 
Group  psychology,  300 
Groves,  E.  R.,  148 

Habit,  70,  80,  218.  257-58,  328 

Habitual  behaviour.  91 

Haida.   103,   106-07,   109,   111,   114-15, 

147,  179,  539 
Haile,  Father  Berard,  26 
Hallowell,  A.  Irving,  27,  327,  332-33.  410 
Halvorsen.  Henry,  403,  408,  649,  650 
Hamilton,  G.  V.,  92,  94-95 
Hamsun,  Knut,  1032 
Hankins,  Frank  H.,  99,  816-17 
Hanover  Conferences,  73,  199,  396,  404, 

409-10,  581,  582,601,662 
Harcourt,  Alfred,  23,  389,  390,  403,  410, 

413 
Harris,  Zellig,  390,  410 
Hart,  Bernhard,  227-28,  677 
Harte.  Bret.  582 

Harvard  University,  402,  403,  564 
Hauptmann,  Gerhart,  876 
Haviland,  C.  Floyd,  175 
Hawkins.  Sir  John.  664 
Hayden,  Joseph,  537 
Hays,  Carlton,  201,  241-43,  335 
H.  D.  (see  Doolittle,  Hilda) 


Healy,  William.  148-149,  174,  184 

Heine,  Heinrich,  922 

Hem  lines,  269 

Heredity,  433,  436,  441,  452,  454,  506,  552, 

559,  580,  581,  607 
Hergesheimer,  Joseph,  991—97 
Herrick,  Robert,  991-97 
Herskovits,  Melville,  133,  246 
Herzog,  Elizabeth,  390,  401,  410 
Herzog,  George,  390 
Hill,  Dorothy,  403 
Hill,  Willard  W.,  402,  403,  406.  407 
Hincks.  C.  M.,  201-02,  235 
Hindu  culture,  85-88,  317,  413,  431,  432, 

565,  569,  596,  602  (see  India) 
Hindu  yogi,  158 
Historical 

-  conditioning  and  determinism,  435- 
36,  448,  450,  472-75,  477,  481,  483, 
491,  593,  608,  623,  636,  661 

-  development  and  change,  432,  487, 
500,  536,  547,  618 

-  inference,  22 

-  particularism,  30 

-  reconstruction  and  interpretation, 
459,  498,  500-03,  509-10,  547,  615 

-  spirit,  65 
History,  29,  32,  38 

-  and  sense  of  time,  431,  476,  531,  587, 
596 

-  as  contingency,  428,  458,  498,  500- 
01 

-  as  continuity,  433-34,  436,  441-43, 
451,453-54,  501,  541 

-  as  cultural  strata,  505,  510 

-  as  particulars,  432,  442,  452,  458 

-  as  scholarly  pursuit,  565,  574,  608. 
628 

-  ignored  by  psychologists,  475 
(see  Culture,  change  in) 

Hitler,  Adolf,  483 
Hoijer,  Harry,  27 
Holt,  Edwin  B.,  600,  619,  677 


Index 


l(U5 


Homer,  548 

Homosexuality.  ^)5 

Hopi.  106,  114,  139.  1S7.  247 

Hopkins,  Gerard  Man  ley,  ^)5()    54 

Horace,  422,  428 

Horn  hostel,  Erich  M.  von.  869,  1027  -2K 

Hottentots.  429,  467.  626,  665 

Houseman.  AllVed  I-dward.  9S7    90 

Hugo,  N'ictor,  430 

Human  nature,  483.  4S4.  614.  621.  (03 

Humanistic  lraditii>n.  44    45 

Humor,  511,  587,  602,  607-08 

Hunch,  86.  91.  96.  151 

Hungar\.  410 

Hunter,  W.  S.,  332 

Huntington,  Charles  ClilTord,  487 

Huntington,  Ellsworth.  477,  487 

Hupa.  141.  524 

Hysteria,  178-179 

Ibsen,  Henrik.  576,  582 

Iconoclasm,  62 

Illusion.  77.  161.212,  725 

Imaginary  [cultural]  groups,  338 

Immigrants.  611-13 

Impact  of  culture  on  personality.  21.  200. 

203,  206,  248,  255 
Impersonal,  279,  282 
India.  402.  403.  431-32.  488.  506.  .^96  (see 

Hindu  culture) 

tribes  of -,  107 
Indigenous  language  labels,  22 
Individual.  394,  621,  655 

-  adjustment,  394,  399-400,  431,  434. 
445,  452,  472,  483,  496,  533,  535.  545- 
46,  553-55,  559,  561  -63,  566-71,  573, 
578,  586,  592-94.  603-20.  623,  658 

-  and  relationships  with  i>thcr  individ- 
uals, 391,  400,  434,  444.  446.  461  62. 
493,  535,  546-47,  588,  590-91,  593, 
604-05,  615-17,  628,  642-43,  647. 
657,  660 

-  and  society,  397,  400,  433  34,  445. 
469,  472.  493,  535,  545,  547,  550-51. 


553-55.  557.  580.  585.  601.  603-20. 
636.  642-43.  645.  647.  652.  659.  662 

-  and  symb<ilism.  4(M),  471.  636.  642 
43  (sec  .Symlxilism,  personal) 

-  as  bearer  of  culture.  444,  475,  487, 
545.  547.  551.  594.616.  657 

-  as  starting  pomi  lor  culuir.il  an.iK- 
sis,  sec  MclhiKlology 

-  as  world  o\  thought.  547.  (>16.  h\o 

-  crcativitiy.  ^""    -i"i    J^^    J""^    -i"^ 
588.  658 

Cultural  basis  ol  individual  s  expcncnoc. 
586-89.  636 

-  development.  493.  532  («ice  Fduca- 
tion;  Socialization) 

Inlluence  on  culture.  4(i|.  4,^.*.  4^J,  4iO, 

487.  593.  WKv  08.  611.  628 

Psychology  of  -.  3%.  398.  445.  447, 

525.  531,  .^92.  593.  «)3-20.  628.  655 

(see  Personality;  Psychology) 
Individualism 

Cultural  -.467,476.480.  54« 

Methodological   -.  410.  660.  662  (sec 

Psychology  as  'cause'  of  culture) 
Individuality.  228 
liido-Euro|x*an.  501.  517 
Industrialism.  4^.  ^55.  270 
Inertia.  57,  82 
Informants.  392.  458.  545 
Innosation.  267 
Instinct.  704-07 

Institute  of  Ju\enile  Research.  1 7^ 
Intelligence.  4^1     ^'     ^'^    4^»v    <,  ■ 

h07 
Intensification.  58 
Interaction,  (see  Sixial  interaciuMii 
Interaction.il  psychoh^cv.  2"''' 
Inter-corrclation.  24"^ 
Interdisciplinary.   14".   INi.    l"^^     v..    i    v 

200,  255.  278.  }(>! 
Interest.  2^>4.  298.  304-06.  324 
Internationalism.  68    69.  113.  241.  243 
Interpersonal   relations.  33.  41.   343-44. 

351.  400.  591.  616-17.  660  (sec  Soaal 


1046 


Index 


interaction;    Individual    and    relations 

with  other  individuals) 
Interpretation,  multiple,  296.  309,  343,  346 
Interpretive  anthropology,  108 
Intimacy,  181-182,  188-189 
lntrospecti\e/introspection,  711  —  12,  720 
Introvert.  Introversion.  85-91,  399,  432, 

438,   559-67,   578-80,   582,   594-96, 

649  (see  Extravert;  Personality),  714— 

18 
Intuition,  161,  164,  191,  216,  274,  511,  513, 

573-77,  579,  597,  695 
Iowa  farmers,  512 
Irish,  500,  508 
Irony,  48,  376-77 
Iroquoian  society  and  culture,  104,   111, 

114,  508 
Ishikawa,  Michiji,  410 
Islam  (see  Religion) 
Italy.  210,  403,  505,  538,  588,  636,  664 

Jacob,  Gary  F.,  920-21 

JafTe,  Abram,  601 

James,  Henry,  577 

James,  William,  577 

Japan.  410,  483,  503,  506,  588,  594,  598 

Javanese,  664 

JefTers,  Robinson,  377,  430 

Jensen,  Johannes  V.,  767-68 

Jerusalem    Center    for    Anthropological 

Studies,  403 
Jesperson,  Otto,  197 
Jews,  society  and  culture  (see  Religion  - 

Judaism) 
Johnson,  Alvin,  255 
Johnson,  J.  Rosamond,  1029 
Johnson,  James  Weldon,  1026-29 
Johnson,  Samuel,  569 
Jones,  Rufus  M.,  134 
Joyce,  James,  550 
Judaism,  American,  753-55,  804,  808- 

09,  810-15  (see  Religion) 
Judd.  Charles  H.,  202 


Judgment,  123-24,  210,  222,  355,  374 

Jung,  Carl  Gustav,  74,  152,  160,  313,  316- 
17,  398-99,  409,  417,  420,  555,  559- 
84,  594,  597,  598,  600,  601,  603-04, 
622,  677,  691,  692.  699-700.  714-18 

Jutes,  471 

Kantor.  Jacob  Robert.  677 

Kardiner,  Abrahm,  25 

Keats,  John,  575,  577-78 

Kemal,  Ali,  403,  408,  618 

Keesing,  Felix,  247 

Kelley,  Truman  L.,  92,  95,  174-175,  191 

Kempf,  Edward  J.,  148 

Keppell,  Frederick  R,  201-02 

Key  terms,  327 

Kilmer,  Joyce,  950 

Kilpatrick,  William,  99 

Kinship  (see  Family) 
—  terminology,  424 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  564,  578 

Klamath,  503,  508 

Kline,  George  M.,  148,  175 

Klineberg,  Otto,  252-53 

Kluckhohn,  Clyde,  40 

Knight,  Frank  H.,  148-49 

Koerner,  Konrad,  411 

Koffka,  Kurt,  155,  398,  527,  677,  693 

Koran,  508 

Korea,  506 

Kreisler,  Fritz,  467 

Kretschmer,  Ernst,  473-74,  487,  677,  816 

Kretschmer,  Otto,  315 

Kroeber,  Alfred,  26-41,  45,  195,  255,  265, 
303,  327,  329,  397,  399,  410,  467,  660, 
662,  677,  689 

Krzyzanowski,  Jan,  410,  651 

Kultur,  43 

Kulturkreis  school,  527 

Kwakiutl,  110.  114,  593,625 

LaBarre,  Weston,  402,  404,  406,  408,  411, 

662,  672 
Labels,  value  attached  of,  47 


InJi'X 


1047 


Lagerlof.  Sclma,  'm 

Lamh.  Cliarlcs.  799 

Lang.  Andrew.  SOT 

Language,  as  exemplar.  2()S 

Language,  origin  oW  }2\ 

Language.  441.  450.  468.  476.  4S7,  493. 

498,  5L^-19,  524-26.  528,  53  L  540- 

4L  563.  578,  626-27,  638-41 

Accent  in  -,  441,  612.  645 

Acquisition  of  -.  476,  640 

-  and  emotion.  454-55,  569,  626, 
644-45 

-  and  nationalism.  750-51 

-  as  example  of  culture,  396.  448. 
454-56.  491.  498.  503.  512  19,  546. 
660 

-  as  symbolic  system,  398,  456,  479, 
487,  491,  513,  518-19,  580,  626,  633, 
639-41,  632-45 

-  as  verbalization  of  thought,  562,  569, 
576,  596 

Configuration/pattern    in    -,    454-56, 
513-19,  526.  528,  596,  626-27,  645 
Continuity  and  change  in  -.441.  463. 
476,  487,  498,  500,  503.  515-16.  543. 
615.617,  627-28.  640 
Conversation,  396,  400,  434,  511,  617. 
620,  637  (see  Social  interaction) 
Function  of  -,  626-27 

Grammar,  396,  456,  469,  476,  513-19. 

524-25,  528,  540.  615,  526-27 

Lexicon,  396.  421.  434,  443-44,  450, 

454,  465,  490-92,  499,  500,  504,  511, 

513-14,    519-20,    526-29,    562,    580, 

637,  639-40 

No  correlation  with  race,  468 

Othography,  477,  511,  596,  602.  M3 

45.  652  (see  Alphabet) 

"Psyche'  of -,476 

Simplification  in  -,  476 

Social  evaluation  of  usage,  446,  636 

Sound  system  in  -,  434,  356,  458.  5L3, 

516-18.  528.  580.  596.  614-15.  636 

37,640-41,643-45 


Speech  errors.  615 

Siandardi/iition  of  - .  429.  626 

Style  m      .  580 

Translation.  491.  5 LI 

Uniqueness  of     .  162.  689 

Variation  in      .487.  503.  580,  637.  641. 

652 

(see    Linguistics;    Literature,    Meaning; 

Symbolism) 
Language  psychologN.  llv 
Lasswell.  Harold  I)..  24.  173-75.  177-79. 

185.  188.  353.  36" 
Latin  language.  428.  m4.  ^>i.  Mu.  >>/. 

569 
1  aiklci.  Harry.  228 
1  aufer.  Ikrlht>ld.  6M.  672 
Law.  sociological.  39    40 
Lawrence.  David  Herbert.  950 
Le  Bon.  Guslave.  28 
Levy,  David.  175.  186.  192 
Levy-Bruhl.    Lucien.    196.  400-OL  417. 

420.  624-26.  628-30 
Lewis.  Wyndham.  826.  848 
Lewisohn.  Ludwig,  810    15 
Liberia  (Ciweabo).  208.  219-20 
1  ihrary  of  Congress.  403 
Life  history.  32.  273-74.  IS*;,  190 
Linguistic  behaviour.  128 
Linguistic  Institute  (Ann  .-Vrbor).  389 
[linguistic  relati\it>.  208 
Linguistic  usage,  258 
Linguistics.  396.  403.  455.  460.  512.  580- 

81,  614-15,  626-27.  860-61  (sec  Lan- 
guage) 
Linton.  Ralph.  202,  246 
1  ipperl.  Julius.  499.  50S 
l.is/t.  I  ran/.  900 
Lileralncss,  696 
Literary  suggestiveness.  M9 
Literature,  422    25.  427.  441.  4H4.  540- 

41,  5M,  568.  577-78.  598.  630 

Chinese     .423 

r.nglish  and  other   huropcan  '^•'^ 

548.563    64.575-78 


1048 


Index 


Nootka  -,  503 

Persian  -,  568.  573 

Tibetan  -.541 

Tradition  of  -.541 

Written  vs.  unwritten  -,  427 

(see  Poetry) 
Lloyd,  George  David,  577 
Loealism.  68 

London  School  of  Economics,  402 
Longshoremen,  language  of,  209 
Lowell,  Amy,  930,  932,  959 
Lowes,  John  L.,  578 
Lowie,  Robert  H.,  26,  30,  45,  99,  196,  255, 

677 
Lowrey,  Lawson  G..  175,  181 
Luria,  205 
Luther,  Martin.  564 
Lynd.  Robert,  202,  242,  251 

MacDowell,  Edward  Alexander,  869,  900 

Machen,  Arthur,  583 

Madagascar,  665 

Maeterlinck,  Count  Maurice,  876,  877 

Magic,  624 

Maki.  Niilo,  410,  636,  641 

Maladjustment,  57,  191,  204 

Malinowski,  Bronislaw,  196,  328,  400-01, 

420,  439.  492,  555-56,  619,  626-27, 

629-30,  846 
Mana,  141 
Mandelbaum,  David,  21,  23,  27,  278,  344, 

390,  402,  404,  406-08,  410,  411,  420, 

630,  662,  672,  675,  678 
Mann,  Albert  R..  202 
Marjolin,  Robert,  403,  408,  635-36,  649- 

51,661 
Marlowe,  Christopher,  539 
Mars,  observer  from,  168 
Masefield,  John,  922-25,  967-69,  970 
Mask,  211 

Mason,  William  A..  955-57 
Master  ideas,  280 
Masters,  Edgar  Lee,  876,  899,  959,  971- 

73,  974 


Mastery,  59,  66-67 

Mathematics,  114 

Matthew,  gospel  of,  90 

Matthews,  Shailer,  92 

Maupassant,  Guy  de,  892,  918-19,  945- 

59 
May,  Mark,  148.  150,  175,  201,  206,  327- 

328,  330,  601 
Mayo,  Elton,  92,  94,  148.  601 
McClenaghan,  Jean  Victoria,  689 
McConnell,  Francsi  J.,  133 
McDougall,  William,  677 
McGovern.  William  M.  133 
Mead,  George  Herbert,  343 
Mead,  Margaret,  25,  27,  73,  343,  363-64, 

399.  403,  420,  439,  507,  527-28,  591, 

600,  601,  603-04,  620,  691,  846 
Meaning,  397-98,  423,  434-36,  450,  452, 

456,  462,  485,  489,  494.  502,  505,  509- 

21,  525-26,  528,  532,  541,  547,  561, 

585-86,  592,  609,  628,  657 

-  as    anthropologist's    problem,    450, 
485,  502,  615,  656 

-  as  subjective  orientation,  547,  565 
Emotion  -,  546,  551,  657 

-  for  groups   of  specific   individuals, 
462,  615 

-  in  language,  396,  456,  513-19,  526, 
528,  580,  630,  643-46,  652 

-  of  symbols,  398,  642,  509,  526,  547, 
631-54,660 

Personal/private  -,  462,  538,  561,  568, 

608,  610-11,  615,  636,638 

Social/cultural    -,   423,   434-37,   452, 

485,  489,  494,  608,  610-11,  615,  636, 

638,  657 
Measures  (quantitative),  431-32,  517  (see 

Statistics) 
Mecklin,  John  Moffatt,  485,  488 
Medical  Society  (Yale),  404,  408,  543,  662 
Medicine  bundle,  142 
Mediterranean,  435,  473,  563 
Mekeel,  Scudder,  247,  253 


Imlc  V 


1049 


Melancsiii,  141 

Memory.  426,  43S,  45^).  466.  472.  54S.  553. 
617 

Mencken.  llenr\  Lewis,  860 

Mendel,  Gregor.  29 

Menioniini.  247 

Menial  lunetioning.  114 

Menial  tieallli.  367 

Mental  life.  711 

Meiriani.  Charles,  73,  237 

Mesopotamia.  480,  500 

Metaphor.  40.  55.  61.  80.  S4.  160.  309.  319. 
344 

Methodology,  74-75.  391.  394,  397,  400. 
441-46,    449-51,    491-93,    526-27, 
545,  564,  593-95,  604,  647,  656 
Abstraction,  397,  443-46,  451,  454    55. 
457-58,  467,  475,  485,  490,  545,  550. 
561,  576.  610.  617.  656 
Case  studies  of  child  development.  610 
Comparison.   458.   467-70.    484.   491. 

493,  499.  517.  538.  541.  566.  595 
Classifications.  458.  491-93,  504.  507. 
510,  516,  559-60,  565-67,  586 
Confusing  individual  with  group,  591- 
93,  602,  622 

Description.  493.  509.  590-91.  604 
Discovering  pattern.  443-44.  450.  451. 
454-55,  491,  511,  519.  524-25,  529 
Importance   o\'  context.   444.   509-12, 
514,  517,  520,  526-27,  589-91.  600. 
638  (see  Symbolism  -  placement  oO 
Indexes    o['   traits    and    patterns.    395. 
489-91.  493.  509  (see  Culture  traits) 
Influence  of  observer's  preconceptions/ 
personality.  449,  451-52.  459.  467,  482, 

494.  499.  512,  525,  601,  611,  656-59 
Interpreting  individuals'  behavior.  588. 
593  (see  lndi\idiial;  Personality) 
Methodological  individualism.  367.  410, 
660.  662  (see  Psychology  as    cause'  o\ 
culture) 

Psychological  tests,  471.  565 


Relation  with  informanljk.  458,  545 
Situational  analysis.  399-400.  455.  456. 

462.  564    ^^^     ^M.  616     17.  621.  638. 

647.  652 

Starting  from  specific  inJividuab.  399- 

4(K).  461.  493.  545-48.  604.  610.  615. 

639.  656.  657 

Tcx'hnical  fallacy.  656 

Using  native  tcrm.s.  396.  450. 455.  491  - 

92.499.  503.  519 

(sec  Statistics) 
Meyer.  Adolph.  200.  202.  207.  230-34. 

243.  327 
Milton.  John.  598 
Minnesota,  accent.  441 
Minnesota.  University  oU  402 
Missourans.  671 
Mixed  type.  38 
Modern  life.  144 
Modernism.  62 
Mohave,  S8.  595 
Mold,  culture  as,  51 
Money,  role  oi.  2 1 6 
Monotheism.  804    09 
Montague.  W  illiam  P,  99 
Mores.  257 
Morgan.  \V.,  253 
Moullon.  Harold  G..  92.  95 
Mo/ari,  Wolfgang  Amadcus.  903.  904 
Muhammad.  606.  619 
Murphy,  Gardiner.  201.  :'"^    ^"^ 
Murra>,  Gilbert.  766.  97 ^ 
Muria\.  II.  A.,  327 
Museums.  65.  504.  643 
.Music,  musicians.  438.  447.  467-68,  486. 

493.  495.  498.  528,  537-38,  553.  568. 

576,  589.  607.  628.  645.  663.  666-71 

Chinese     .  538 

I-uropcan  -.  430.  438,  537-38.  576 

Jazz.  503,  537-38 

Na\aio  chants.  426-27 

Nootka  songs.  516.  519-22 

- .  representative,  902-08 


1050 


Index 


Mussolini.  Benito,  483,  607 
Mythology,  425,  502-04,  508,  521,  596- 
97,  601 

Nagas  of  Assam,  108 

Napoleon,  35,  550,  605 

Nass  River  Indians,  529 

Nation,  nationality,    119,  470,  505,   564, 

569,  632,  644 
National  character,  73 
National  Museum  (Washington),  403 
National  Research  Council,  303,  327,  618 
Nationality,  109 

Nationalism,  50-51,  68-69,  241,  432 
Natural  man,  55 
Natural  selection,  28 
Natural  sciences,  443,  449,  457-58,  462, 

485,  531,  534,  541,  576,  596,  610,  625, 

646 
Navajo,  189,  204,  245,  247,  250,  253 

-  language,  515-16 

-  society   and   culture,  402,   426-27, 
469,  471,  508,  593,  597 

Nazis,  rise  of,  355 

Neanderthal  Man,  480,  532 

Neapolitan  culture,  435 

Needs,  emotional  and  aesthetic,  44 

Negroes,  474,  503,  628 

Neurosis,  451,  588,  606,  607,  613,  621-30, 

644 
New  countries,  61 
New  Haven,  502,  575,  597 
New  Zealand,  402 
Newman,  Stanley,  132,  403,  406-07,  410, 

527,  543,  583,  640 
Needs,  economic,  170 
Nietzsche,  Friedrich  Wilhelm,  64,  563 
Nile  Valley,  480 
Nootka,  112,  114,  141 

-  language,  515-16 

-  society  and  culture,  409,  416,  419, 
499,  503,  516,  519-25,  527,  529 

Nordic  peoples,  486,  501 


Normal  curve  (statistics),  472 

Normality,  210,  284-85,  365,  372 

Normans,  471,  500 

Norms  for  behavior,  399,  421,  456,  487, 
591-93,  602 

North  America,  503,  505 

Indians  of  -,  401,  413,  444,  474,  487, 
503,  505,  508,  535,  587 
Languages  of  -,  403,  409,  515,  528 

Northwest  Coast  Indians,  society  and  cul- 
ture, 243,  408,  425,  426,  438,  481,  504- 
505,  524,  529,  539,  606  (see  KwakiutI; 
Nootka;  etc.) 

Norway,  403 

Nuclear  family,  1 05 

Nuclear  personality,  223 

Objective  validity,  46 
Objective  world,  fixity  of,  35 
Objectivity,  185,  203,  266,  306-07,  309, 

330,  337,  355 
Observation,  160 
Oedipus  complex,  555  —  56,  622 
Ogbum,  William  Fielding,  32,  45,  99,  255, 

601,  677 
Ogden,  Charles  Kay,  409,  629,  630,  859 
Ogham,  501 
O'Higgins,  991-97 
Ojibwa,  135,  142 
Oklahoma  Indians,  472 
Oldham,  Joseph  Houldsworth,  802-03 
Omaha,  103-04,  110,  114 
Organic,  culture  as,  64 
Organization,  complexity  of,  157 
Orientation,  psychological,  63,  73-97 
Ottawa,     Sapir    Centenary    Conference, 

410-11 
Outhwaite,  Leonard,  92,  95,  148,  153 
Oxford  accent,  441 

Pacifism,  45 
Palestine,  403 


Index 


I05I 


Palestrina.  Giovanni  Picrliiiiii  da.  537 

F^irk.  Robert.  147    4M 

Park,  Willard.  40.^.  410.  664-65,  672 

Participation  (-observation),  238.  305 

Partridge,  G.  E..  14S 

Palon,  Stewart,  761     63 

Patterns  and  configurations  oi  culture. 
83-84,  394,  396-98,  401,  427,  431-33. 
442-45,  447,  449-57,  465,  475-76. 
478-79,  489-97,  500,  503.  506,  509- 
30,  538-39,  542,  551,  558.  574,  585, 
590,  593-95,  597,  600.  610.  624-25, 
627-28,  631.  642-43.  645.  656-57, 
660 
Accomodation  as  -,  612 

-  are  like  grammar,  524-25  (see  Lan- 
guage -  configuration  in) 

-  as  psychological   problem.  475-76, 
509,  551,  608,660 

Classifications  of  -,  490-93 
Definition  of  -,  454-,  496,  512,  520, 
524,  585 

Discovering  -,  396.  442-45,  454.  491  - 
92,  518-19,  524-25,  529,  545 

-  influence  personality,  560,  573.  588- 
92,  605-20,  628 

-  must  be  felt,  545-46 

Native  terms  and  -,  396,  450.  454-55. 

491-92,  503,  511,  519 

Pattern  of  feeling,  112 

Psychological  roots  of  -.  606 

Rebellion  as  -.  588 

Systematized  by  individual.  610 

(see  Topati) 
Perry,  William  James,  488 
Persia,  568,  573,  582,  664 
Persona.  151,  212,  215 
Personality,    123,    149-53,    173-74,    194. 

208-27,   291-92,    313-17,   364,   433. 

528.   545-58.    585-86,   602,   658-62. 

712 

-  and  symbolism.  588,  600.  615     16. 
631.  639.  649,  657 


'As-if  personality'  as  numiatuc  stan- 
dard.   399.    591-603.   605   (sec   A$-if 

psychology) 

-  as  model  or  metaphor  for  culture. 
398-99 

-  as  organi/iiiion.  399.  550-51.  555, 
558-59.  561.  570.  600.  609.  615 
Concept  of  -.  3%.  398-99.  433.  548- 
54.  585.  600.  620.  655 
ConserNalism  in.  585    ^f>.  mm 

(  ultural     analysis     lakes     precedence 
over     .  589.  593.  602.  604.  659 
Cultural  eircct  on  -.  475.  483.  495-96. 
586.  592.  603-20.  655-62 

-  difTercnces  (within  group),  474.  560, 
561.  587.  603-05.  613.  627.  649 
Genesis/formation  of  -.  550.  552-56. 
559-61.   579.   5S6.  600.  604.  609-10. 
656-58.661 

-  inlluenccs  culture.  400.  476.  498.  611. 
628 

-  needs  cultural  definilion.  475 
Patterns/configurations  in      .  550-54, 
556.  561.  585.  594 

Typology  of  -.  64.  399.  485.  554-55. 

559-84,    5^4.   603    (M.   6h).   657-58, 

71S 
Peyote  cull.  4()2.  606 
Pfister.  Oskar.  401.  409.  629.  699-703 
Phoenicians,  500-01 
Physical  tyjx-s.  473-74 
Physiology,  434-36.  442.  445.  449.  452. 

479.  491.  495.  548.  549.  622.  628.  655 

Physiology  of  mmd.  701 
Piagct,  Jean.  692.  722  24 
Pierce.  I  redcnck.  708-10 
Plains  Indians.  103.  107.  III.  137-39.  179. 

IS1-K3.  205.  245.  247.  .328.  481.  499. 

503  05.  525.  597.606.619 
Plant.  James  S..  175.  ISS 
Plasticity.  104.  IKS 
Plateau  culture  area.  488 
I'oe.  l.dgar  Allen.  951 


1052 


Index 


Poetry,  528,  538-39,  541,  563,  573,  575, 
636,  639,  643,  646  (see  Literature) 
-,  American,  958-61,  999,   1001-06, 
1007-08,  1019 

Poland.  410 

Political  Science,  460,  505 

Politics,  422-23,  441-42,  447,  483,  511, 
564,  624,  642,  646,  657 

Polynesia,  250,  252,  488,  648 

Polysynthesis,  164 

Population,  469 

Portugal.  664.  665 

Potlatch,  438,  499,  520-22,  525,  529 

Pragmatism,  111 

Pre-cultural  child,  195,  315 

Preston.  Richard.  402,  410 

Preuss,  Konrad  Theodore,  806 

Primitive,  58-59,  92 

Primitive  folklore,  690 

•Primitive  mentality',  400,  621-30 

Primitive  sociology,  100-03 

Private  symbolism,  223-24,  290-92,  324 

Progress,  56,  468,  531-39,  541-42 

Projection,  100,  113 

Proust,  Marcel,  554 

Psychiatry,  398-400,  404,  455,  459,  582, 
592-93,  601,  615,  621-22,  629,  631 

-  as  approach  to  personality,  551-54, 
585,  621 

-  as  source  of  theories  in  anthropol- 
ogy, 554-58,  593 

-  ignores  social/cultural  factors,   588, 
622-23 

Psychoanalysis,  462,  551-52,  554-55, 
559,  561,  579,  621-24,  626,  633,  642- 
44,  657-58 

Psychoanalysts  as  pathologists,  621-22 

Psychological 

-  'authority',  566,  573 

-  needs,  476-77,  479,  614 
Reality,  119 

-  significance  (see  Meaning) 

-  tests,  565 


Psychology,  38 

-  as  'cause'  of  culture,  394,  461,  471- 
72,  475-77,  484,  498,  660,  662 

-  as  perspective  on  culture,  501,  505, 
510,  516,  585-602,  652,  655,  660 
Behaviorist  -,  449,  464-65,  556 
Conception  of  -,  396,  398,  401,  582, 
594 

'Cultural  psychology',  592 

Developmental    -,   435,   609-10   (see 

Children;  Socialization) 

Discipline  of  -,  389,  391,  398,  400-01, 

445-46,   448-49,   457,   460-62,   475, 

477,  546,  565,  578,  581,  585,  622,  647, 

655-56,  659,  660 

Freudian,  945-49,  953 

Generalizations  about  -,  422,  497,  593 

Gestalt  -,  398,  510-11,  527-28,  552, 

556,  600 

Individual  vs.  group  -,  472,  591-98, 

605,  655 

Quasi-psychology,  461,  462 

Social  -,  461-62,  475,  556,  591,  608, 

622,  641-43,655-56 

(see  Personality;  Temperament) 
Psychology  of  culture,  25,  33,  363 
Psychology  and  psychiatry,  23,  689 
Psychosis,  471,  474,  562,  623,  629,  636 
Public  intellectual,  15,  335 
Pueblo  Indians,  society  and  culture,  104, 

110,  114,  139,  179,  205,  284,  438,  472, 

505,  597,  606 
Pukapuka,  402 
Puritans,  495,  507,  619 

Qualitative,  173 

Race,  335-37,  394-95,  435,  468-75,  484, 
487,  536,  559-60,  587,  618,  623,  628, 
774-83,  784-86,  787-92,  794-97 
White  -,473-74 

Racial  difference,  97 

Racial  inheritance,  283 


Index 


1053 


Racial  unconscious,  284 

Racism,  scientific,  787-92.  799-800 

RadclilTc-Brown.    Alfred    Reginald.    4^>. 

461     62.  466.  491.  507.  582 
Radical  uiiil:  of  .iiithr^^pology.  363 
Radin,  Paul,  27,  32,  196,  804-09 
Randomness,  75.  87 
Rank.  Olto.  555 
Ray.  Verne,  27,  403.  629 
React i\o  s\stem,  314 
Realism,  literary.  876-79,  880-85 
Realistic  ps\cliologist.  227 
Reconciliation.  66 

Relativity,  cultural.  452.  482.  525.  537.  657 
Religion,  133-  145.  402.  441.  444.  448-50, 

455,  458,  461,  489,  491,  493,  495-96, 

539.  602.  606.  610.  624.  629.  642.  646 

Amerind  -.  595 

-  and  cultural  comparison.  491 

-  and  function.  475,  495-96 

-  as  explanation.  470 
Christianity.  449.  464.  482.  498,   500, 
502.  503.  531.  536.  563.  564 
Christian  Science.  562.  606.  619 
Church  and  religious  institutions.  422 
23.  444.  448.  482 

-  compared   with   magic  and   science. 
625-26,  630 

Ghost  Dance.  606 

Islam.  506.  541.  606 

Judaism.  413.  424-25.  427.  4S3.  5()S 

Mystics.  572 

Navajo  -.426-27.469.  593 

Peyote  cult,  402,  606 

Puritan  -,  495 

.Scriptures,  424,  508,  564 

Spirituality.  430.  432.  531.  534-37 

Totemism.  519.  629-30.  632 

(see  Hindu  culture;  Ritual) 
Renaissance.  65.  270 
Redlleld.  Robert.  200-201.  204,  248 
Referential  symbolism.  319.  321  -322 
Relativilv.  216.  .347 


Religion.  725 

Khcims.  535 

Rhsme.  piKlic,  ^fso    *'<•.  vju    Ji.yi^    ^. 

930    44 
Rhythm.  127.  158 
Rh>lhmic  conrigur.ilu»n.  IH 
Rice.  Stuart  A..  2>i2.  67h 
Richards.  Ivor  Armstrong.  409.  629.  630. 

859 
Rickert.  Hemrich.  2.39.  429.  4  '.>■'' 

Ritual.  58.  1.39.  143.  311 

-  and  ceremonialism.  426.  471.   303. 
516,  519-20.  521-24.  5V''    '■''    "" 
609,  629 -.30.  635.  645 

-.  neurotic,  588.  644 
Rivers.  W.  H.  R..  678.  6^>l.  ^(M    o" 
Robespierre.    Maximilien    I  ranci»is    M   I 

de.  5M 
RiUiinson.     Ldum     .•\rlingti>n.    923-25, 

958-61.  9W.  978.  1007    08 
Rockefeller  loundaiion.  24-25.  200.  207 

-  Institute.  392 

-  Seminar.  .392  93.  405.  408.  410.  543. 
581.  599.  601.  618.  649.  650.  652.  659. 
661 

Roheim.  Ge/a.  491.  507 

Rolland.  Romain,  876.  882.  891  -97.  899 

Roman  Catholic  church.  II.  138 

-  culture.  620 

Roosevelt.  F'ranklin  IXMano.  483 
Rouse.  IrMU.  402.406.  408 
Rouse.  Mary  Mikami.  402.  406.  408 
Rousseau.  Jean-Jacques.  212.  548.  588 
Ruggles.  Arthur.  148-149.  175 
Ruml.  Beardsley.  201-202.  235.  2.^8-241 
Russell.  Bertrand.  133.  847-49.  850-52 
Russia.  societN  and  culture.  41.3.  430.  4.38. 
6M 

.Saintsbur\.  Cieorge.  982 
Salmon-spearing.  55 
Samoa.  603.  822.  846 
Sandburg.  Carl.  936    37.  952 
.Sanskrit.  540.  596 


1054 


Index 


Sapir,  Jean  McClenaghan,  22,  390.  410 

Sapir.  Philip,  410 

Saskatchewan,  477 

Saxons.  471 

Scale  (of  treatment).  288 

Scandinavia.  245 

Schlesinger,  Arthur  M.,  202,  241.  243 

Schilder.  Paul.  601 

Schiller.  Ferdinand  Canning  Scott,  850- 
51 

Schmidt,  Father  Wilhelm,  489,  510,  527, 
807 

Schizophrenia,  173,  182,  189 

Schubert,  Franz  Peter,  899 

Schumann,  Robert,  901 

Science  (see  Natural  science;  Social  sci- 
ence) 

Schnitzler,  Arthur,  878 

Scriabine,  Alexander,  939 

Secret  societies,  110 

Selection,  principles  of,  36—37 

Self-consciousness,  31,  36-37,  95 

Seligman.  R.  A.,  255 

Selznick,  Philip  S.,  363-65,  409-10,  599, 
601 

Semitic,  501 

Sentiment,  133 

Setzler,  Frank  M.,  403,  406-07,  527,  543 

Shakespeare,  William,  212-13,  430,  538- 
39,  548,  878,  961,  973 

Shaw,  Clifford,  148-50,  181 

Shaw,  George  Bernard,  577,  877,  906-10 

Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  575 

Siemens,  Hermann,  800-02 

Sierra  Leone,  665 

Simpson,  Mabel,  1020-22 

Sinaitic,  501 

Sioux,  141,  143,  253,  505,  515 

Siskin,  Edgar,  403,  404,  406,  408,  409,  465 

Skepticism,  75 

Skinner,  B.  F.,  465 

Slawson,  John  S.,  175,  184 

Slight,  David,  601 


Smith,  Allan  H.,  410 

Smith.  Anne  M.,  see  Cooke  Smith 

Smith,  Grafton  ElHot,  480,  488 

Social 

-  class  (see  Class) 

-  construction,  485 

Definitions  of  -,  393,  433-34,  442, 
445-49,  464,  620 

-  determinism,  35 

-  differentiation,  397,  469,  472,  560 
(see  Class;  Topati) 

-  infection,  356 

-  inheritance  and  tradition,  48,  433, 
441,  452,  453,  468,  487,  553,  562,  568 

-  institutions,  525,  562,  612,  623,  637, 
642 

-  interaction,  398-400,  434,  461,  462, 
553,  556,  615-17,  620,  628,  642-43 

-  organization,  441-42,  447-48,  455, 
458,  553,  572,  614,615 

-  psychology,  74,  462,  475,  556,  591, 
608,  622,  641-43,655-56 

-  relationships,  400,  453,  535,  554, 
615-17,  623,  628,  641-43,  647,  657 

-  roles,  461,  548-50,  553,  587,  620 

-  sanctions,  397,  434,  464,  498,  560, 
568,  573,  576,  604,  607,  612,  614,  628, 
647 

-  science,  391-92,  394,  448-51,  453, 
457-62,  485,  581,  582,  585,  592,  601, 
610,  613-20,  656,  660,  662 

-  status,  495,  503,  508,  519,  520,  548- 
51,  558,  644,  647-48,  659 

Social  Science  Research  Council,  24,  73, 

199,  328,404,409-10,  618,  662 
Socialization,    398,   403,   429,   434,   436, 

442-45,  462,  554,  573,  594,  609-10, 

624,  635-38,  651 
Social  sciences,  27,  35,  40,  74-75,  99,  193, 

239,  243,  248,  317,  345 
Social  vs.  individual  behaviour,  156-159 
Society,  25-26,  29 

-  as  cultural  construct,  397,  454,  616, 
636,  652 


liiiUx 


1055 


Concept  o\'  -.  yn.  43.^  U.  442.  445- 
48,  449,  451,  454,  464,  550.  573.  594. 
602.  616.  620.  636,  643.  652 

-  in  relation  to  culture.  393.  433  -  34. 
442.  446.448,453-54.  557 

Sociology.  389.  400.  446.  447 -4JS.  4M. 
507.  519.  550-51.  558.  561.  593.  601. 
615.  656.  659.  660 

Solidarity,  74 

Solution,  cultural,  55 

Sophistication,  56,  58,  62,  65-66,  112. 
268.  364 

Sound  pattern,  166-168 

Sound  symbolism,  176 

South  America,  503,  664 

Southern  Illinois,  University  of  (Carbon- 
dale),  402 

Southwest  Indians.  505 

Spain.  664 

Spencer.  Herbert,  28,  338 

Spengler,  Oswald,  340,  429,  583 

Spier,  Leslie,  23,  390,  409-10 

Spirit  (of  a  culture),  83 

Spiritual  maladjustments.  44 

Spiritual  serenity.  135 

Stages,  evolutionary,  48 

Stalin,  Josef,  483,  558 

Standpoint,  48,  51,  62,  76,  81-83,  120, 
137,  152,  167,  176.  190.  197,  220,  223, 
240,  257.  289.  297.  323.  328.  360.  711  - 
12 

State,  69-70,  109.  113,  505.  632 

Statistics.  100,  192,  372,  460,  462.  483 
Normal  curve  in  -,  472 

Stevenson.  Robert  Louis,  578 

Strauss,  Richard  W.,  335,  898-901,  906 

Style.  270 

Subcultures.  472 

-  as  specialization,  477 
Submerged  configuralit>n.  167 
Sullivan.   Harry  Slack,   24,  41,   73,    132. 

147-48.  150.  173-74.  180-83.  194. 
200,   203,   206-08,   228-30,   252-53. 


277.  293.  327.  331-32.  343.  353.  367. 
398.  400.  592.  60L  610.  616.  690.  693 
Sun  Dance.  444.  619.  823    24 

Suix-rnund.  74 

Supororganic.  22.  27-41.  278.  282,  293. 

303.  327.  329.  368.  397.  445,  467.  660. 

662.  690 
Sur\i\als.  260.  379 
Sutherland.  Ldwin  H..  201    03.  207 
Swadesh.  Morns.  409.  528 
SvMnburne.  Algernon  Charles.  951 
Symbol/symbolism.  84.  88.  100-01.  114. 

124.   129.   133.   143.   189.  267.  319-24. 

395.  465.  491.  526.  547.  574,  588.  600- 

01.  610.  615-16.  631-54.  656.  692 

-  and  social  psychology.  641-43 

-  as  basis  of  economic  need.  481-83 
Cultural  -.423.  588.  591.600.612.646. 
690.  691 

Culture  as  symbolic  field.  496.  600.  646 
Food  -.479.635 

-  fills  gaps  in  knowledge.  624-25 
Medium  o'l   interaction.   397-98.  400. 
462.  469.  496.   590    91.  615-17,  638, 
642.  660 

Objects  as  -,  489.  490.  522.  634.  637- 
38.  643  (see  Technology  and  malenal 
culture) 

-  of  dilTcrences  between  peoples.  470. 
486 

-  of  feelings.  5"0 

-  oi  participatuMi.  471.  549.  550.  605. 

-  of  prestige.  498.  503.  519.  647 

-  of  progress.  542 

-  of  psychological  prixrcsscs,  594,  602 

-  of  silualion.  565 

Organization.  iniegrainMi.  .nui  miik\uh. 
,5f  _  39^  515.  541,  ^S^)  01.  MO.  MV 
633-34.645-46 

Persona  I  -.551.555    56.  58S.  59 1 .  60  7. 
615     16.  6.M.  636.  642.  651 
Phonetic  -.583.639-40 


1056 


Index 


Placement  (contexts)  of  -,  455.  509. 
511,  520,  589-91,  600,  612.  635,  638. 
642,  646,  649,  652 

Psychoanalytic  -,  623,  630,  632,  642, 
644 

Signs  and  -,  634-35.  637-39,  651 
Social  -,  400,  435,  436,  464,  553,  605, 
615-16,  632,  634,  636,  638,  642-43, 
649 

Symbolic  equivalences,  452,  496,  509, 
513.  518 

Typology  of  -.  634-46.  700 
Words  and  speech  as  -,  443,  454,  562- 
63.  620,  634.  637,  639-41.  643-45.  651, 
652 

(see  Language) 
Systems  of  ideas,  151 

Tagore.  Rabindranath.  915—19 

Taste,  265 

Taylor,  Lyda  Averill  402,  406,  408,  411, 

557,  581,  599,618,619,629 
Taylor,  Walter  W.,  402,  404,  406,  408,  557, 

581,  599,  618,  619,  629,  678 
Tchaikovsky,  Peter  Ilich,  430 
Technology    and    material    culture,    397, 

450-51,  458,  465,  469,  472,  478,  480, 

483,  489,  493,  532-34,  537-38,  596, 

624-25 
Teggart,  Frederick  John,  678 
Telephone  girl,  55 
Temperament,  398,  473-75,  486,  602,  603, 

627 
Teutonic  tribes,  102 
Theory  (by  natives),  90 
Thomas,  Dorothy  S.,  175 
Thomas,  Edward,  980 
Thomas,  William  Isaac,  148,  155.  174-75. 

179-180,  183-184,  192,  194,  200,  202, 

204,  244,  248,  255 
Thorndike,  L.,  327 
Thumwald,  Richard,  533,  543 
Thurstone,  Louis,  148,  150,  526,  530 


Tibetan,  541,  543 

Time  perspective,  22 

Tipi,  481 

Tittle,  Ernest  P.,  134 

Tlingit,  103,  112,  187 

Todas,  101,  284 

Tolstoy,  Count  Lev  Nickolaevich,  52,  64, 

430,  891-92 
Topati  ('privilege'),  Nootka  concept,  419, 

519-25,  527,  529-30 
Totemism,  102,  115,  142 
Tozzer,  Alfred  M.,  201 
Trade,  480,  511 
Tradition,  48,  257 
Training  fellowships,  327 
Transfer,  112-113,226 
Transference   and    transfer   of  attitudes, 

427,  495-96,  552,  556 
Trobriand  Islands.  555,  822,  846 
Trotter,  Wilfred,  678 
Tsimshian,  103,  110,  539 
Turgenev,  Ivan,  430 
Turkey,  403,  664 
Turkish-Altaic,  506 
Twain,  Mark,  985 
Two  Crows,  353-59,  487 
Two  Guns,  Alice.  499,  508 
Tylor,  Edward  Burnett,  140-41,  196,  354, 

433,  436-38,  441,  445,  464,  678 
Tylor,  John  M.,  760,  762,  764 

Ugro-Finnic,  501 

Unconscious,  101,  115,  119,  129.  145,  216, 
270,  322,  368,  519,  561,  574,  580,  587, 
610,  623,  627,  634,  636,  639-40,  643, 
644,  646,  653,  691,  699,  702.  704-07, 
708 

—  as  unawareness  of  pattern,  443,  503, 
519.  528,  546 

(see  Conscious) 

—  patterning,  155-72 

—  symbolism,  125,  269 

—  value,  281 


InJi'.x 


1057 


I  nilincar  csolulion,  KM 
Unit  of  analysis,  329 
United  States.  469.  535,  575 
Universes  ol' discourse,  373-74 
Untcrmeyer,  lewis.  978 
Ute.  402 

Validation.  82.  137-38 

Validity,  207 

N'ahie.  47-48.  58,  83 

\aiiie-behaviour,  206 

\alucs.  34,  37,  57.  63,  89,  1 14.  259 

\eblen.  Thorstein.  678 

Vedic  poetr\,  508 

Vendryes,  J.,  197 

Verbalism.  96 

N'ienna.  663 

\inal,  Harold,  1018-19 

Visions,  178-79 

Voegelin,  Erminie.  402.  408 

Voltaire.  Francois  M.  A.,  430,  438 

Vygotsky,  205 

Wagner.  Richard,  537-38 

Wallace,  Alfred  Russell,  29 

Wallis.  Wilson.  27.  99 

Warfare.  81-82.  168,  480.  490,  493,  503. 

521.  524,  535-36.  564.  590.  635.  636 
Ward.  Lester.  28 
Warner.  W.  Lloyd.  327.  329-32 
Watson.  .lohn  M.  150.  465.  475.  715.  719. 

720 
Wealth,  manipulation  o\\  170    72 
Webster.  Hcnr\  Kilchell.  991     97 
Weinreich.  Max.  410 
Wells.  Frederick  Lyman.  92,  94.  96.  14N 

50.  153.  690 
Wells.  H.  G..  764.  978 
West  Coast   Indians.    170-72.   331.  409. 

425,  438,  529 


Western  stKicly.  427,  49  - 
White  race.  47.1-74  (sec  Rat 
While.   William   Alanum.    !•; 

175.991-97 
Whiting.  Beatrice  BIylh.  40.1.  406.  40« 
Whitman.  Walt.  541.  563.  899.  1002 
Wilde.  Oscar.  946 
Wilson.  Wotxlrow.  564.  886 
Wirth.  Louis,  401.410 
Wissler,  Clark.   133.   196.  247.  251.  253. 

255.  327.  491.  502.  507.  525.  678 
Woodlands  Indians.  481 
Woodworth.  Robert  S..  92.  95-97.  327. 

332.691.  711-13 
Word  investigation.  176 
Word  inNcntUMi.  218 
Wordswi>rth.  William,  563 
World  of  meanings.  278 
World  War  L  69-70 
Wright.  228-29 
Wundt.  Wilhelm.  477 
Wyatt.  I  dilh  I  ranklin.  991-97 

^ale  University.  389.  .192.  394.  402-08. 

410.437,630.671 
^ana.    164-66.    515.    517-18.    528-29. 

641.  65L  52 
Yiddish  language  and  culture.  753-55 
Yoakum.  Charles  S..  92-93 
^okuts.  403 
Young.  Kimball.   148-49.  201-03.  205. 

207 
^■uchl.  111 
Nunian.  595 
^urok.  524 

/ii>nism.  SI2  15 
/ola.  Lmilc.  876 
/uni  siK-iety  and  culture.  139.  465.  471. 

W)l 
/uni-Hopi.  106 


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