A Defense of Ethical Relativism one entry in a long series of RUTH BENEDICT From Benedict, Ruth 'Anthropology and the Abnormal,' Journal of General Psychology, 10, 1934. Ruth Benedict (1887-1948), a foremost American anthropologist, taught at Columbia University, and she is best known for her book Pattern of Culture (1935). (Rachels, 21) In her article, “A Defense of Ethical Relativism”, Ruth Benedict argues a different way. Benedict supports the notion that the morals, ethics, and actions of different cultures of people are simply the result of many years of cultural evolution, through accidental isolation of and contact with other cultures. Ruth Benedict, American anthropologist whose theories had a profound influence on cultural anthropology, especially in the area of culture and personality. Benedict graduated from Vassar College in 1909, lived in Europe for a year, and then settled in California, where she taught in girls’ schools.
Benedict in 1937 | |
Born | June 5, 1887 New York City, New York, U.S. |
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Died | September 17, 1948 (aged 61) |
Education |
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Occupation | Anthropologist |
Spouse(s) | Stanley Rossiter Benedict |
Parent(s) | Frederick Fulton and Beatrice Fulton |
Anthropology |
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Ruth Fulton Benedict (June 5, 1887 – September 17, 1948) was an American anthropologist and folklorist.
She was born in New York City, attended Vassar College and graduated in 1909. After studying anthropology at the New School of Social Research under Elsie Clews Parsons, she entered graduate studies at Columbia University in 1921, where she studied under Franz Boas. She received her PhD and joined the faculty in 1923. Margaret Mead, with whom she shared a romantic relationship,[1] and Marvin Opler, were among her students and colleagues.
Benedict held the post of President of the American Anthropological Association and was also a prominent member of the American Folklore Society.[2] She became the first woman to be recognized as a prominent leader of a learned profession.[2] She can be viewed as a transitional figure in her field, redirecting both anthropology and folklore away from the limited confines of culture-trait diffusion studies and towards theories of performance as integral to the interpretation of culture. She studied the relationships between personality, art, language and culture, insisting that no trait existed in isolation or self-sufficiency, a theory which she championed in her 1934 Patterns of Culture.
- 1Early life
- 2Career in anthropology
- 3Work
- 5References
Early life[edit]
Childhood[edit]
Benedict was born Ruth Fulton in New York City on June 5, 1887, to Beatrice (Shattuck) and Frederick Fulton.[3][4][5] Her mother worked in the city as a school teacher, while her father pursued a promising career as a homeopathic doctor and surgeon.[3] Although Mr. Fulton loved his work and research, it eventually led to his premature death, as he acquired an unknown disease during one of his surgeries in 1888.[6] Due to his illness the family moved back to Norwich, New York to the farm of Ruth's maternal grandparents, the Shattucks.[4] A year later he died, ten days after returning from a trip to Trinidad to search for a cure.[6]
Mrs. Fulton was deeply affected by her husband's passing. Any mention of him caused her to be overwhelmed by grief; every March she cried at church and in bed.[6] Ruth hated her mother's sorrow and viewed it as a weakness. For her, the greatest taboos in life were crying in front of people and showing expressions of pain.[6] She reminisced, 'I did not love my mother; I resented her cult of grief'.[6] Because of this, the psychological effects on her childhood were profound, for 'in one stroke she [Ruth] experienced the loss of the two most nourishing and protective people around her—the loss of her father at death and her mother to grief'.[4]
As a toddler, she contracted measles which left her partially deaf, which was not discovered until she began school.[7] Ruth also had a fascination with death as a young child. When she was four years old her grandmother took her to see an infant that had recently died. Upon seeing the dead child's face, Ruth claimed that it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.[6]
At age seven Ruth began to write short verses and read any book she could get her hands on. Her favorite author was Jean Ingelow and her favorite readings were A Legend of Bregenz and The Judas Tree.[6] Through writing she was able to gain approval from her family. Writing was her outlet, and she wrote with an insightful perception about the realities of life. For example, in her senior year of high school she wrote a piece called, 'Lulu's Wedding (A True Story)' in which she recalled the wedding of a family serving girl. Instead of romanticizing the event, she revealed the true, unromantic, arranged marriage that Lulu went through because the man would take her, even though he was much older.[4]
Although Ruth Benedict's fascination with death started at an early age, she continued to study how death affected people throughout her career. In her book Patterns of Culture, Benedict studied the Pueblo culture and how they dealt with grieving and death. She describes in the book that individuals may deal with reactions to death, such as frustration and grief, differently. Societies all have social norms that they follow; some allow more expression when dealing with death, such as mourning, while other societies are not allowed to acknowledge it.[3]
College and marriage[edit]
After high school, Margery (her sister) and Ruth were able to enter St Margaret's School for Girls, a college preparatory school, with help from a full-time scholarship. The girls were successful in school and entered Vassar College in September 1905 where Ruth thrived in an all-female atmosphere.[4] During this time period stories were circulating that going to college led girls to become childless and never be married. Nevertheless, Ruth explored her interests in college and found writing as her way of expressing herself as an 'intellectual radical' as she was sometimes called by her classmates.[4] Author Walter Pater was a large influence on her life during this time as she strove to be like him and live a well-lived life. She graduated with her sister in 1909 with a major in English Literature.[4] Unsure of what to do after college, she received an invitation to go on an all-expense paid tour around Europe by a wealthy trustee of the college. Accompanied by two girls from California that she'd never met, Katherine Norton and Elizabeth Atsatt, she traveled through France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and England for one year, having the opportunity of various home stays throughout the trip.[4]
Over the next few years, Ruth took up many different jobs. First she tried paid social work for the Charity Organization Society and later she accepted a job as a teacher at the Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles, California. While working there she gained her interest in Asia that would later affect her choice of fieldwork as a working anthropologist. However, she was unhappy with this job as well and, after one year, left to teach English in Pasadena at the Orton School for Girls.[4] These years were difficult, and she suffered from depression and severe loneliness.[8] However, through reading authors like Walt Whitman and Jefferies that stressed a worth, importance and enthusiasm for life she held onto hope for a better future.[8]
The summer after her first year teaching at the Orton School she returned home to the Shattucks' farm to spend some time in thought and peace. There Stanley Rossiter Benedict, an engineer at Cornell Medical College, began to visit her at the farm. She had met him by chance in Buffalo, New York around 1910. That summer Ruth fell deeply in love with Stanley as he began to visit her more, and accepted his proposal for marriage.[4] Invigorated by love, she undertook several writing projects in order to keep busy besides the everyday housework chores in her new life with Stanley. She began to publish poems under different pseudonyms—Ruth Stanhope, Edgar Stanhope, and Anne Singleton.[9] She also began work on writing a biography about Mary Wollstonecraft and other lesser known women that she felt deserved more acknowledgement for their work and contributions.[4] By 1918 the couple began to drift apart. Stanley suffered an injury that made him want to spend more time away from the city, and Benedict was not happy when the couple moved to Bedford Hills far away from the city.
Career in anthropology[edit]
Education and early career[edit]
In her search for a career, she decided to attend some lectures at the New School for Social Research while looking into the possibility of becoming an educational philosopher.[4] While at the school, she took a class called 'Sex in Ethnology' taught by Elsie Clews Parsons. She enjoyed the class and took another anthropology course with Alexander Goldenweiser, a student of noted anthropologist Franz Boas. With Goldenweiser as her teacher, Ruth's love for anthropology steadily grew.[4] As close friend Margaret Mead explained, 'Anthropology made the first 'sense' that any ordered approach to life had ever made to Ruth Benedict'.[10] After working with Goldenweiser for a year, he sent her to work as a graduate student with Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1921. She developed a close friendship with Boas, who took on a role as a kind of father figure in her life – Benedict lovingly referred to him as 'Papa Franz'.[11]
Boas gave her graduate credit for the courses that she had completed at the New School for Social Research. Benedict wrote her dissertation 'The Concept of the Guardian Spirit in North America', and received the PhD in anthropology in 1923.[3] Benedict also started a friendship with Edward Sapir who encouraged her to continue the study of the relations between individual creativity and cultural patterns. Sapir and Benedict shared an interest in poetry, and read and critiqued each other's work, both submitting to the same publishers and both being rejected. They also were both interested in psychology and the relation between individual personalities and cultural patterns, and in their correspondences they frequently psychoanalyzed each other. However, Sapir showed little understanding for Benedict's private thoughts and feelings. In particular, his conservative gender ideology jarred with Benedict's struggle for emancipation. While they were very close friends for a while, it was ultimately the differences in worldview and personality that led their friendship to strand.[12]
Benedict taught her first anthropology course at Barnard college in 1922 and among the students there was Margaret Mead. Benedict was a significant influence on Mead.[13]
Boas regarded Benedict as an asset to the anthropology department, and in 1931 he appointed her as Assistant Professor in Anthropology, something impossible until her divorce from Stanley Benedict that same year.
One student who felt especially fond of Ruth Benedict was Ruth Landes.[14] Letters that Landes sent to Benedict state that she was enthralled by the way in which Benedict taught her classes and with the way that she forced the students to think in an unconventional way.[14]
When Boas retired in 1937, most of his students considered Ruth Benedict to be the obvious choice for the head of the anthropology department. However, the administration of Columbia was not as progressive in its attitude towards female professionals as Boas had been, and the university President Nicholas Murray Butler was eager to curb the influence of the Boasians whom he considered to be political radicals. Instead, Ralph Linton, one of Boas's former students, a World War I veteran and a fierce critic of Benedict's 'Culture and Personality' approach, was named head of the department.[15] Benedict was understandably insulted by Linton's appointment and the Columbia department was divided between the two rival figures of Linton and Benedict, both accomplished anthropologists with influential publications, neither of whom ever mentioned the work of the other.[16]
Relationship with Margaret Mead[edit]
Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict are considered to be the two most influential and famous anthropologists of their time.[citation needed] One of the reasons Mead and Benedict got along well was because they both shared a passion for their work and they each felt a sense of pride at being a successful working woman during a time when this was uncommon.[17] They were known to critique each other's work frequently; they created a companionship that began through their work, but which also during the early period was of an erotic character.[18][19][20][21] Both Benedict and Mead wanted to dislodge stereotypes about women during their time period and show that working women can be successful even though working society was seen as a man's world.[22] In her memoir about her parents, With a Daughter's Eye, Margaret Mead's daughter implies that the relationship between Benedict and Mead was partly sexual. In 1946, Benedict received the Achievement Award from the American Association of University Women. After Benedict died of a heart attack in 1948, Mead kept the legacy of Benedict's work going by supervising projects that Benedict would have looked after, and editing and publishing notes from studies that Benedict had collected throughout her life.[21]
Post-war[edit]
Before World War II began, Benedict was giving lectures at the Bryn Mawr College for the Anna Howard Shaw Memorial Lectureship. These lectures were focused around the idea of synergy. Yet, WWII made her focus on other areas of concentration of anthropology and the lectures were never presented in their entirety.[23] After the war was over, she focused on finishing her book The Chrysanthemum and the Sword.[24] Her original notes for the synergy lecture were never found after her death.[25] She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1947.[26] She continued her teaching after the war, advancing to the rank of full professor only two months before her death, in New York on September 17, 1948.
Work[edit]
Patterns of Culture[edit]
Benedict's Patterns of Culture (1934) was translated into fourteen languages and was published in many editions as standard reading for anthropology courses in American universities for years.
The essential idea in Patterns of Culture is, according to the foreword by Margaret Mead, 'her view of human cultures as 'personality writ large.'' As Benedict wrote in that book, 'A culture, like an individual, is a more or less consistent pattern of thought and action' (46). Each culture, she held, chooses from 'the great arc of human potentialities' only a few characteristics which become the leading personality traits of the persons living in that culture. These traits comprise an interdependent constellation of aesthetics and values in each culture which together add up to a unique gestalt.
For example, she described the emphasis on restraint in Pueblo cultures of the American southwest, and the emphasis on abandon in the Native American cultures of the Great Plains. She used the Nietzschean opposites of 'Apollonian' and 'Dionysian' as the stimulus for her thought about these Native American cultures. She describes how, in ancient Greece, the worshipers of Apollo emphasized order and calm in their celebrations.
In contrast, the worshipers of Dionysus, the god of wine, emphasized wildness, abandon, letting go, as did Native Americans. She described in detail the contrasts between rituals, beliefs, personal preferences amongst people of diverse cultures to show how each culture had a 'personality' that was encouraged in each individual.
Other anthropologists of the culture and personality school also developed these ideas, notably Margaret Mead in her Coming of Age in Samoa (published before 'Patterns of Culture') and Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (published just after Benedict's book came out). Benedict was a senior student of Franz Boas when Mead began to study with them, and they had extensive and reciprocal influence on each other's work. Abram Kardiner was also affected by these ideas, and in time, the concept of 'modal personality' was born: the cluster of traits most commonly thought to be observed in people of any given culture.
Benedict, in Patterns of Culture, expresses her belief in cultural relativism. She desired to show that each culture has its own moral imperatives that can be understood only if one studies that culture as a whole. It was wrong, she felt, to disparage the customs or values of a culture different from one's own. Those customs had a meaning to the people who lived them which should not be dismissed or trivialized. We should not try to evaluate people by our standards alone. Morality, she argued, was relative to the values of the culture in which one operated.
As she described the Kwakiutl of the Pacific Northwest (based on the fieldwork of her mentor Boas), the Pueblo of New Mexico (among whom she had direct experience), the nations of the Great Plains, the Dobu culture of New Guinea (regarding whom she relied upon Mead and Reo Fortune's fieldwork), she gave evidence that their values, even where they may seem strange, are intelligible in terms of their own coherent cultural systems and should be understood and respected. This also formed a central argument in her later work on the Japanese following World War II.
Critics have objected to the degree of abstraction and generalization inherent in the 'culture and personality' approach. Some have argued that particular patterns she found may be only a part or a subset of the whole cultures. For example, David Friend Aberle writes that the Pueblo people may be calm, gentle, and much given to ritual when in one mood or set of circumstances, but they may be suspicious, retaliatory, and warlike in other circumstances.
In 1936, she was appointed an associate professor at Columbia University. However, by then, Benedict had already assisted in the training and guidance of several Columbia students of anthropology including Margaret Mead and Ruth Landes.[27]
Benedict was among the leading cultural anthropologists who were recruited by the US government for war-related research and consultation after the US entry into World War II.
'The Races of Mankind'[edit]
One of Benedict's lesser known works was a pamphlet 'The Races of Mankind' which she wrote with her colleague at the Columbia University Department of Anthropology, Gene Weltfish. This pamphlet was intended for American troops and set forth, in simple language with cartoon illustrations, the scientific case against racist beliefs.
'The world is shrinking,' begin Benedict and Weltfish. 'Thirty-four nations are now united in a common cause—victory over Axis aggression, the military destruction of fascism' (p. 1).
The nations united against fascism, they continue, include 'the most different physical types of men.'
And the writers explicate, in section after section, the best evidence they knew for human equality. They want to encourage all these types of people to join together and not fight amongst themselves. '[A]ll the peoples of the earth', they point out, 'are a single family and have a common origin.' We all have just so many teeth, so many molars, just so many little bones and muscles—so we can only have come from one set of ancestors no matter what our color, the shape of our head, the texture of our hair. 'The races of mankind are what the Bible says they are—brothers. In their bodies is the record of their brotherhood.'[citation needed]
The Chrysanthemum and the Sword[edit]
Benedict is known not only for her earlier Patterns of Culture but also for her later book The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, the study of the society and culture of Japan that she published in 1946, incorporating results of her war-time research.
This book is an instance of Anthropology at a Distance. Study of a culture through its literature, through newspaper clippings, through films and recordings, etc., was necessary when anthropologists aided the United States and its allies in World War II. Unable to visit Nazi Germany or Japan under Hirohito, anthropologists made use of the cultural materials to produce studies at a distance. They were attempting to understand the cultural patterns that might be driving their aggression, and hoped to find possible weaknesses, or means of persuasion that had been missed.
Benedict's war work included a major study, largely completed in 1944, aimed at understanding Japanese culture. Americans found themselves unable to comprehend matters in Japanese culture. For instance, Americans considered it quite natural for American prisoners of war to want their families to know they were alive, and to keep quiet when asked for information about troop movements, etc., while Japanese POWs, apparently, gave information freely and did not try to contact their families. Why was that? Why, too, did Asian peoples neither treat the Japanese as their liberators from Western colonialism, nor accept their own supposedly just place in a hierarchy that had Japanese at the top?
Benedict played a major role in grasping the place of the Emperor of Japan in Japanese popular culture, and formulating the recommendation to President Franklin D. Roosevelt that permitting continuation of the Emperor's reign had to be part of the eventual surrender offer.
Other Japanese who have read this work, according to Margaret Mead, found it on the whole accurate but somewhat 'moralistic'. Sections of the book were mentioned in Takeo Doi's book, The Anatomy of Dependence, though Doi is highly critical of Benedict's concept that Japan has a 'shame' culture, whose emphasis is on how one's moral conduct appears to outsiders in contradistinction to America's (Christian) 'guilt' culture, in which the emphasis is on individual's internal conscience. Doi stated that this claim clearly implies the former value system is inferior to the latter one.
Legacy[edit]
A U.S. 46¢ Great Americans seriespostage stamp in her honor was issued on October 20, 1995.Benedict College in Stony Brook University has been named after her.
In 2005 Ruth Fulton Benedict was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.[28]
References[edit]
- ^Modell 1984: 145–157
- ^ abBailey, Martha J. (1994). American Women in Science:A Biographical Dictionary. ABC-CLIO, Inc. ISBN978-0-87436-740-9.
- ^ abcdYoung 2005
- ^ abcdefghijklmCaffrey 1989.
- ^https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/benedict-ruth-1887-1948
- ^ abcdefgBenedict 1959: 97–112
- ^Mead, Margaret (1977). An anthropologist at work: writings of Ruth Benedict. Greenwood Press, ISBN978-0-8371-9576-6
- ^ abBenedict 1959: 118–155. 'In spite of myself bitterness at having lived at all obsessed me; it seemed cruel that I had been born, cruel that, as my family taught me, I must go on living forever' ... 'I am not afraid of pain, nor of sorrow. But this loneliness, this futility, this emptiness—I dare not face them'
- ^Benedict 1959: 55–79
- ^Mead, in Benedict 1959: 3–17.
- ^'Ruth Benedict'. Webster.edu. 1948-09-17. Archived from the original on 2013-11-06. Retrieved 2013-11-02.
- ^Darnell, Regna (1989). Edward Sapir: linguist, anthropologist, humanist. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 172–183. ISBN978-0-520-06678-6.
- ^Steven E. Tozer (2010). Handbook of Research in The Social Foundations of Education. Taylor & Francis. p. 79. ISBN978-0-203-87483-7.
- ^ abCole, Sally. 'Mrs Landes Meet Mrs. Benedict.' American Anthropologist 104.2 (2002): 533–543. Web. 12 January 2010.
- ^Sydel Silverman. 2004. Totems and Teachers: Key Figures in the History of Anthropology. Rowman Altamira p. 118
- ^Ernestine Friedl. 1995. The Life of an Academic: A Personal Record of a Teacher, Administrator, and Anthropologist Annual Review of Anthropology. Vol. 24: 1–20
- ^Banner 2003: 1
- ^Bateson 1984;:117–118 Lapsley 1999
- ^Lutkehaus 2008: 41, 79–81
- ^Janiewski and Banner 2004: ix-xiiix
- ^ abMaksel 2004
- ^Bateson 1984:117–118; Lapsley 1999
- ^Maslow, et al. 1970
- ^Benedict 1989: 43
- ^Benedict 1989
- ^'Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B'(PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved June 2, 2011.
- ^Smithsonian Institution, Department of Anthropology. Guide to the National Anthropological Archives and Human Studies Film Archives
- ^National Women's Hall of Fame, Ruth Fulton Benedict
Bibliography[edit]
- AAAS (American Academy of Arts and Sciences). 'Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B'(PDF).
- Banner, Lois W. 2003. Intertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle. Vintage. ISBN978-0-679-77612-3.
- Benedict, Ruth. 1905–1948. 'Ruth Fulton Benedict Papers'. Alexander Street. Vassar College. Archives and Special Collections Library
- Benedict, Ruth. 1931. Tales of the Cochiti Indians. Bureau of American Ethnology
- Benedict, Ruth. 1959. An Anthropologist at Work: Writings of Ruth Benedict. Ed. Margaret Mead. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
- Benedict, Ruth. 1989. The chrysanthemum and the sword: patterns of Japanese culture. With a foreword by Ezra F. Vogel. Houghton Mifflin.
- Benedict, Ruth. 1989. Patterns of Culture. Preface by Margaret Mead; foreword by Mary Catherine Bateson. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN978-0-395-50088-0.
- Caffrey, Margaret M. Ruth Benedict: Stranger in this Land. 1989. Austin: University of Texas Press.
- Janiewski, Dolores E. & Lois W. Banner (eds.). 2004. Reading Benedict/reading Mead: feminism, race, and imperial visions – New studies in American intellectual and cultural history. JHU Press.
- Lutkehaus, Nancy. 2008. Margaret Mead: the making of an American icon. Princeton University Press.
- Maksel, Rebecca. 2004. [Review of Intertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and their circle]. Women's Review of Books January 1, 2004, 21(4):15–16
- Maslow, Abraham H., Honigmann, John J., and Mead, Margaret. 1970. Synergy: Some Notes of Ruth Benedict. American Anthropologist, 72(2): 320–333. doi:10.1525/aa.1970.72.2.02a00060
- Mead, Margaret. 1959. Preface to Ruth Benedict's Patterns of Culture in Benedict 1959 (above).
- Mead, Margaret. 1959. 'Search: 1920–1930.' In Benedict 1959 (above).
- Modell, Judith Schachter. 1983. Ruth Benedict: Patterns of a Life. University of Pennsylvania Press.
- Smithsonian Institution, Department of Anthropology. Guide to the Collections of the National Anthropological Archives (#L1).
- Young, Virginia Heyer. 2005. Ruth Benedict : Beyond Relativity, Beyond Pattern. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN978-0-8032-4919-6.
Further reading[edit]
- Lang, Harry G. Deaf persons in the arts and sciences : a biographical dictionary. Greenwood Press. ISBN978-0-313-29170-8.
- Babcock, Barbara. 1995. 'Not in the First Person Singular' (reprinted in) Behar, Ruth and Deborah A. Gordon (eds.). Women Writing Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Bateson, Mary Catherine. 1984. With a Daughter's Eye: A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. New York: William Morrow. Memoir of Margaret Mead by her daughter, documenting the relationship between Mead and Benedict.
- Geertz, Clifford. 1988. Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
- Handler, Richard. 1986. 'Vigorous Male and Aspiring Female: Poetry, Personality, and Culture in Edward Sapir and Ruth Benedict' in Stocking, George (ed.). Malinowski, Rivers Benedict and Others: Essays on Culture and Personality. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
- Handler, Richard. 1990. 'Ruth Benedict and the Modernist Sensibility,' in Manganaro, Marc (ed.). Modernist Anthropology: From Fieldwork to Text. Princeton University Press. pp. 163–180.
- Lapsley, Hilary. 1999. Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict: The Kinship of Women. Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN978-1-55849-181-6
- Stassinos, Elizabeth (1997). 'Marriage as Mystery Writ Symbiotically: The Benedicts' Unpublished 'Chemical Detective Story' of 'The Bo-Cu Plant''. History of Anthropology Newsletter. XXIV (1): 3–10.
- Stassinos, Elizabeth. 2007. 'Culture and Personality In Henry's Backyard: Boasian War Allegories in Children's Science Writ Large Stories' in Darnell, Regna and Frederic W. Gleach (eds.). Histories of Anthropology Annual, vol. 2. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN978-0-8032-6663-6
- Stassinos, Elizabeth. 2009. 'An Early Case of Personality: Ruth Benedict's Autobiographical Fragment and the Case of the Biblical 'Boaz' in Darnell, Regna and Frederic W. Gleach (eds.). Histories of Anthropology vol. 5. University of Nebraska Press. ISSN 1557-637X
- Salamone, Frank A., 2018. « Life-affirming versus Life-denying Cultures : Ruth Benedict and Social Synergy » in Bérose - Encyclopédie internationale des histoires de l’anthropologie
External links[edit]
- Works by Ruth Benedict at Faded Page (Canada)
- Works by Ruth Benedict at Open Library
- Ruth Benedict's obituary, written by Margaret Mead, in American Ethnography
- Ruth Benedict in the Vassar Encyclopedia
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ruth_Benedict&oldid=918555031'
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'Unique and important . . . Patterns of Culture is a signpost on the road to a freer and more tolerant life.' -- New York Times
A remarkable introduction to cultural studies, Patterns of Culture is an eloquent declaration of the role of culture in shaping human life. In this fascinating work, the renowned anthropologist Ruth Benedict compares three societies -- the Zuni of...more
A remarkable introduction to cultural studies, Patterns of Culture is an eloquent declaration of the role of culture in shaping human life. In this fascinating work, the renowned anthropologist Ruth Benedict compares three societies -- the Zuni of...more
Published January 25th 2006 by Mariner Books (first published 1934)
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Aug 25, 2019Peter Mcloughlin rated it really liked it Shelves: 00000good-things, european-history, intellectual-history, 1890-1959, philosophy, psychology, world-history, african-history, latin-american-history, middle-east
Along with Franz Boaz and Margaret Meade, Ruth Benedict help overturns the idea of unidirectional cultural development or hierarchy of development and ushered in modern anthropology by looking at cultures on their own terms, not on a measuring stick of how closely they ape the west. Fairly groundbreaking in the 1930s but is probably closer to conventional wisdom today. It was definitely a step forward.
Culture and Personality Paradigm:
Ruth Benedict’s Patterns of Culture
In her book Patterns of Culture Ruth Benedict presents ethnographic accounts of three unique cultures, the Pueblo (Zuni) Indians of the Southwest, the Dobu of eastern New Guinea and the Kwakiutl of the Pacific Northwest coast between Washington and British Columbia. Benedict employs use of these cultures to demonstrate her theory of culture as “personality-writ-large.” The book starts out with two sections, largely theoretical;...more
Ruth Benedict’s Patterns of Culture
In her book Patterns of Culture Ruth Benedict presents ethnographic accounts of three unique cultures, the Pueblo (Zuni) Indians of the Southwest, the Dobu of eastern New Guinea and the Kwakiutl of the Pacific Northwest coast between Washington and British Columbia. Benedict employs use of these cultures to demonstrate her theory of culture as “personality-writ-large.” The book starts out with two sections, largely theoretical;...more
May 29, 2016Anna Harrison rated it it was amazing
For any lovers of anthropology, this is one of the classic texts which fundamentally shaped the study of culture.
Though of course we have moved beyond some of the basic theoretical issues inherent in the 'culture concept' (i.e. Critics like Abu-Lughod move towards a definition of culture as unbounded and dynamic, and of course the shift away from 'traditional/modern' cultures dichotomy) so much of this text is still applicable in a globalising world. I was surprised actually by how relevant the...more
Jul 26, 2007Will Kaufman rated it it was amazingThough of course we have moved beyond some of the basic theoretical issues inherent in the 'culture concept' (i.e. Critics like Abu-Lughod move towards a definition of culture as unbounded and dynamic, and of course the shift away from 'traditional/modern' cultures dichotomy) so much of this text is still applicable in a globalising world. I was surprised actually by how relevant the...more
Shelves: non-fiction
Probably the most interesting and compelling introduction to anthropology you could ever hope for. Ruth Benedict lays out some basic principles - that anyone who's ever wondered about the society they live in should read - backed up with explorations of three incredibly fascinating cultures. This is a very profluent book, so I feel I can safely recommend it to people who have never read non-fiction before.
Patterns of Culture is a book that will change the way you see the world.
Patterns of Culture is a book that will change the way you see the world.
Successful societies reproduce excessively as a hedge against the death (accidental or purposeful) of those intended to fill necessary positions in the coming generation. An upper-class redundant (the unneeded lesser son of a noble family) can move down a notch (fill some ranked position in the church, government, or military). A merchant’s second son might start a new business, become a craft apprentice, or descend to the less-protected ranks of labor (depending on the good graces of the inheri...more
Nov 01, 2012Chrisl rated it really liked it · review of another edition
First read in 1960s for an anthropology class. Remembered since.
A foundation building block book for my world view.
***
One leg of Benedict tripod rests on the northwest coast of North America.
***
For a novel look at Salmon Culture social life, I recommend Houston's Eagle Song.
Eagle Song: An Indian Saga Based on True Events
A foundation building block book for my world view.
***
One leg of Benedict tripod rests on the northwest coast of North America.
***
For a novel look at Salmon Culture social life, I recommend Houston's Eagle Song.
Eagle Song: An Indian Saga Based on True Events
A study of different cultures from a systemic perspective.
Benedict states that every culture has “certain goals toward which their behavior is directed and which their institutions further.” Her most important discovery is, those goals of different cultures “are incommensurable.” This means that they cannot be compared, which is described as cultural relativism. If we want to understand any culture we have to understand it holistically. We cannot simply judge a certain behavior, but we have to...more
Benedict states that every culture has “certain goals toward which their behavior is directed and which their institutions further.” Her most important discovery is, those goals of different cultures “are incommensurable.” This means that they cannot be compared, which is described as cultural relativism. If we want to understand any culture we have to understand it holistically. We cannot simply judge a certain behavior, but we have to...more
Jan 22, 2017Fernando Kaiowá rated it it was amazing
In this timeless book, Ruth Benedict brilliantly exposes her theory of cultural relativity, stating that no cultural trait in any culture is more or less valid than any other one from the great variety of possible human behaviors. Her vision couldn't be more actual, since it argues that each culture has a history and temperament of its own, rendering it unique, but not superior nor inferior to other cultures. Her description of three contrasting cultures illustrates very clearly that there are n...more
Jul 06, 2011Kmorgenstern rated it really liked it · review of another edition
This book was a very interesting read. It helped me put into perspective cultural values that we take for granted as 'universal'. There are no universal values or ethics - every culture shapes reality according to their own value priorities. Thus it put a large question mark on my mind as to how to solve certain problems that we face as a species - how are we ever going to find a common ground from which to tackle these? I found the perspective of analysis interesting - Apollonian versus Dionysi...more
Oct 11, 2014Sunny rated it really liked it
I liked this book overall. It talks about different cultures in three different parts of the world – the pueblos of new Mexico, the Dobu of Papua New Guinea and the Kwakuitl of Northwest America. the book contrasts some of the norms we take for granted around what constitutes a moral action. Ruth looks at the science of custom, the diversity of cultures, its integration, the nature of society and the individual and patterns of society. To be honest there were some very interesting bits in the mi...more
I think Benedict makes some interesting points. She has written a book that covers almost exactly the reasons I want to study anthropology. She wants people to understand the idea of cultural relativity, which I think is an important idea. We have to remember that every culture is different and people fit into their cultures and worlds differently. Just because I am a white woman in the US doesn't mean I understand the experience of every white woman in the US. We are all different and we fit in...more
I think all my texts from degree #1 were intriguing. But this is a straight text book and I suppose even I don't often pleasure read anthropology essays. However, I think this is the one that has the references to some of my favorite 'Did you know somewhere in the world there are people who...' references from the BA days.
I remember this for the basic dichotomy of 'Apollonian' and 'Dionysian' cultures. I suspect Benedict chose the case studies she did because she felt they best represented polar forms of this dichotomy. Real societies, of course, aren't neatly cut in two--so she tended to exaggerate a bit betimes, probably.
Recommends it for: anthropology students, general public interested in the studies of culture
Revisiting classics almost always provides a worthy read, and such is the case with reading Benedict's Patterns of Culture. More well-known for developing culture and personality school of thought, in this book we could actually see Benedict's wider influences on anthropology.
Benedict begins the book with three solid chapters on theoretical discussion of the way we should see and understand culture. Being a student of Franz Boas, Benedict takes a particularistic view on culture, seeing it is de...more
Benedict begins the book with three solid chapters on theoretical discussion of the way we should see and understand culture. Being a student of Franz Boas, Benedict takes a particularistic view on culture, seeing it is de...more
Aug 19, 2019Penny P Hammack rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Reading this I was reminded of a meeting I once attended. The physician speaker was describing a medical procedure and kept using a long obscure word. Most of her audience were lay people and probably couldn't process the word or what she was attempting to describe. This was an interesting read but I found myself having to decipher every sentence. Definitely not for the casual reader. I wish my patience and tolerance were better but I ended up skipping large portions of the book, not because it...more
Jan 30, 2018Annah rated it liked it
Ruth Benedict's classic work on culture through individuals and the arc of human potentialities. 'Social thinking at the present time [1934] has no more important task before it than that of taking adequate account of cultural relativity,' she writes. The first chapters, re-reads from years ago, were a welcome reminder; the last one was a welcome surprise, as it touches on the arbitrariness of cultural 'deviance' and resultant suffering. Skimmed the middle.
Aug 30, 2017Joseph Carrabis rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
A friend gave me Patterns of Culture because 'you study anthropology, don't you?' I'm glad he didn't want it back. Patterns of Culture is an amazing read for anyone interested in ethnography, cultural anthropology/psychology/morality, language and a few other fields. Find a copy and give yourself a joyful afternoon's adventure.
This book is unforgettable. I read it nearly 40 years ago and I still remember how she compared the two cultures, the one peaceful and quiet and the other aggressive and loud. I haven't read a lot of cultural anthropology but if most of the field was half as interesting as this book makes it, I would have been an expert by now.
It’s a brilliant book! I bought it thinking it was a novel, it turned out to be an academic book on anthropology. I wasn’t disappointed, it’s beautifully written with some amazing information but at the moment, I needed an escape from my dull academic studies and final exams and this book didn’t help.
Apr 16, 2018Marilyn Michel rated it really liked it
Instructive on the arbitrariness of cultural norms - most of them don't even contribute to longevity or protection of the tribe, and nonconformers may be in great peril, for no important reason. Slow at first but it picks up with the description of Dobu and Kwaikiutl tribal practices.
May 07, 2018Kenneth rated it really liked it · review of another edition
I read this one as assigned reading for a history of social thought class my senior year in college. In it, the author, a noted anthropologist of the first half of the 20th century, compares and contrasts three very different cultures and how they impact the individuals living in each one.
Sep 17, 2017Sophie rated it really liked it
Read for school. Had some good discussions about how in a modern perspective Benedict's narrative can be problematic, but this was a very enjoyable read. I'll be looking for her that book.
I found this book to be incredibly insightful. Through my time I haven't been able to help questioning the foundations that society and culture is built upon, and I believe this is because simply I just don't agree with many of the firm views of life, but also because the ideas of truth, fact, and certainty seem to be more fluid, in my experience, than the rock hard foundations they have been described as. It seems to me that many, if not every single aspect of existence, is a choice, and if fre...more
Nov 04, 2013Walter rated it really liked it
Patterns of Culture is a seminal work in the field of Anthropology, written in 1936 by Ruth Benedict, the Columbia University Professor of Anthropology, student of Franz Boas and mentor of the famous anthropologist Margaret Mead. In fact, Margaret Mead wrote the preface to Patterns of Culture.
This book is a study of three diverse cultures - the Zuni indians of the American Southwest, another tribe of the Pacific Northwest and a people of the Pacific Islands of Micronesia. In this work, Benedict...more
This book is a study of three diverse cultures - the Zuni indians of the American Southwest, another tribe of the Pacific Northwest and a people of the Pacific Islands of Micronesia. In this work, Benedict...more
Aug 30, 2009Michele added it · review of another edition
Ruth Benedict Pdf
In her book Patterns of Culture, Ruth Benedict examines the concept of cultural relativity by examining three indigenous groups in different areas around the world. These groups are: the Zuni, the Dobu and the Kwakiutl of the pacific northwest of North America. Written in 1934, the book reveals is age by the seemly derogatory terms by today’s standards. However, within the confines of the book, it appears as though Benedict is looking at the margins of the culture area for patterns which are bey...more
Aug 24, 2012Roberta McDonnell rated it it was amazing
In Patterns of Culture, renowned anthropologist Ruth Benedict reveals many wonderful ideas and examples of how humans as individuals and groups carve out the meanings and practices of their lives. As well as demonstrating a robust method for understanding cultural phenomena within historical and social contexts, Benedict shows how the self and the social world are like two sides of the one coin, each shaping the other in an ongoing dynamic (as I argued in my thesis (2006), quoting Benedict liber...more
Read for a Cultural Theory class, but as engrossing as if I had picked it up on my own. Benedict, an obvious student of Franz Boas, argues that all cultures could be traced back to a basic core principal, she calls them 'intellectual mainsprings,' which one can find embodied in a culture's many manifestations, like marriage customs, religion, trading partners-- a pattern if you will. She includes three short ethnographies which highlight some of her points, so there is a bit more application tha...more
I've read bits and pieces of this before, but I finally had to read the entire thing for school. Benedict's writing style is very fluid and digestible and I found the book to be an easy read. Cultural relativism was crucial to the formation of anthropology as we know it and, therefore, this is an important piece for students to read; I find, however, that I'm way more interested in the much juicer theory that pops up much later down the road.
this book does ethnography of 3 distinct groups of people, but it is very superficial and ethnographic data seems distorted by benedict's attempts to make each culture fit the pattern she picks for them. it is valuable as a historical account of american cultural relativism and benedict's method.
Dec 07, 2014Dragos rated it liked it
A timeless, well written classic and Benedict's quintessential opus Patterns of Culture is quite dated nowadays but still a great insight into the minds of one of the great anthropologists of the 20th century and her theory of cultures.
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Ruth Fulton Benedict (June 5, 1887 – September 17, 1948) was an American anthropologist and folklorist.
She was born in New York City, attended Vassar College and graduated in 1909. She entered graduate studies at Columbia University in 1919, where she studied under Franz Boas. She received her Ph.D and joined the faculty in 1923. Margaret Mead, with whom she may have shared a romantic relationship...more
She was born in New York City, attended Vassar College and graduated in 1909. She entered graduate studies at Columbia University in 1919, where she studied under Franz Boas. She received her Ph.D and joined the faculty in 1923. Margaret Mead, with whom she may have shared a romantic relationship...more
“The life history of the individual is first and foremost an accomodation to the patterns and standards traditionally handed in his community. From the moment of his birth the customs into which he is born shape his experience and behavior.” — 1 likes
“A culture, like an individual, is a more or less consistent pattern of thought and action. [...] Each people further and further consolidates its experience, and in proportion to the urgency of these drives the heterogenous items of behaviour take more and more congruous shape. [...]
Such patterning of culture cannot be ignored as if it were an unimportant detail. The whole, as modern science is insisting in many fields, is not merely the sum of all its parts, but the result of a unique arrangement and interrelation of the parts that has brought about a new entity. Gunpowder is not merely the sum of sulphur and charcoal and saltpeter, and no amount of knowledge even of all three of tis elements in all the forms they take in the natural world will demonstrate the nature of gunpowder.” — 1 likes
More quotes…Such patterning of culture cannot be ignored as if it were an unimportant detail. The whole, as modern science is insisting in many fields, is not merely the sum of all its parts, but the result of a unique arrangement and interrelation of the parts that has brought about a new entity. Gunpowder is not merely the sum of sulphur and charcoal and saltpeter, and no amount of knowledge even of all three of tis elements in all the forms they take in the natural world will demonstrate the nature of gunpowder.”