METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS IN THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY OF MODERN CULTURES

Abstract

N GENERAL the results desired from studying the cultures of the modern I world are (a) explanation of past and current behavior of modern peoples, and (b) prediction of their behavior under specified conditions in the future. Could anthropology or a n y other science lead to these goals with respect t o the peoples of Europe, India, the Far East, Latin America, and Africa, many of the problems of our time could be either eliminated or avoided, since most of the suppressed tensions and open aggressions of the modern world seem to arise from cultural maladjustments involving the patterns and institutions of nations, classes, categories, and individuals, Certain propositions have been demonstrated by previous anthropological experience. Since they are presumably true of all cultural situations they must be taken into account when planning the scientific analysis of modern civilizations. (1) The behavior of people follows to a nieasurable degree the patterns of custom M hich are common to their group, from which it follows that a knowledge of the relevant patterns enables the investigator to predict behavior. Customs of this sort not only lead to action, but are also representational and mental; and there is no guarantee of a one-to-one correspondence between these three types of customs. The custom-patterns of a culture are more or less integrated together into complexes, institutions, and other units of higher complexity. From this it follows that any method of cultural study must produce precise information concerning both the content and the integration of custom-patterns. (2) hiiy given culture operatcs o r functions as a whole, although with varying degrees of internal harmony and integration. Hence methods or approaches which produce only piecemeal information concerning a culture are inadequate, if they do not also involve some means of grasping the overall context or framework of the culture in question. One of the principal methodological problems of anthropologists dealing with modern civilizations is precisely this one-how to handle scientifically a total configuration containing literally thousands of specialized but related custom-patterns and institutions. (3) The custom-patterns of any culture are learned, which means that they can also be unlearned or otherwise changed. Correlated with this is the fact that each culture provides an adaptation to a certain type of situation in which it operates, and in which the people who practice it have to live. I t therefore follows that cultures are seldom if ever static. I t is also for these reasons that one culture usually differs from another. Thus modern civilizations, like all other cultures, must apparently always be studied as organizations of custom which are either actually or potentially changing. (4) Any culture, through its surrogates, provides constant rewards and punishments for the average individual. Together with the content of the patterns and institutions which he is required to practice or to believe, this process has the effect of 392