Critique of Benedict and National Character Studies:
National Character Studies and the use of anthropology in
war jumped out as a very interesting topic to me. These studies were popular during World War
II as an American anthropological contribution to the war effort. These studies attempted to understand the
Axis powers by an investigation of their cultural and personality structure in
order to better inform the United States as to the nature of their enemy. One of the most popular studies to come out
of this was Benedict’s “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword” which put a Freudian
twist on Japanese culture. In one aspect
of her critique of Japanese culture she stated that toilet training for
Japanese children was too severe and early thus disrupting their anal stage of
development. This would cause the
Japanese adult to be extremely compulsive and obsessed with ritual, order, and
cleanliness.
However, this study of Japanese national character was later
proved to be unsurprisingly flawed due to Benedict’s lack of informants and contact
with Japanese culture during the time of its creation and subsequent inaccessibility
to wartime Japan. So I am wondering in
what ways this relatively poorly done anthropological study was influenced by
other theories at that time. First and
foremost, as a student of Boas one would expect Benedict to have been
anti-universalism. However, this does
not seem to be the case in her study of Japan.
She not only applies Freudian theory of psychosexual development, which in
itself is universal, but she also applies it to an entire country as a whole
which is flawed because that is too large of a subject of study to
apply an entire theory of national character and culture. For how can you test a national wide level of
personality? Yet she also does this
without even traveling to Japan and with very few informants, something Boas
would not approve of due to his emphasis on careful ethnographic research.
Despite all of this, Benedict cannot be completely blamed for
the nature of this study. For one she
was just attempting to do her part for the war effort and the urgency to end
such a horrific event. In addition to
this I think it is important to incorporate some of Benedict’s other work in an
attempt to understand the nature behind National Character Studies. When investigating the relationship between
culture and personality, Benedict believes culture molds individual
personalities by rewarding some and punishing others, thus rendering them deviant
which is seen in her study of the Kwakiutl, Zuni, and Dobuan cultures. It is this deviance that I think is partly
responsible for the nature of National Character Studies. However, instead of
looking for deviance within the personalities of individuals, the studies are looking
for deviance on the national level. This
could aid in the war effort by labeling Japanese culture as deviant to the
world by American standards whereas American culture is rewarded and thus made
to look like it belongs in the world relative to Japan. So in this sense, National Character Studies
were in reality less focused on an actual investigation of Japanese culture for
instance and more as an attempt to prove how they are deviant. This deviance could then serve as a justification
for the war with Japan. I understand
that this conclusion is a bit of a stretch but I do believe there to be an
actual connection between Benedict’s deviance in the relationship between
culture and personality and her critique of Japan in her National Character
Study.
This critique and investigation of the role of anthropology
during WWII now makes me curious as to the role anthropology has played in recent
U.S. wars and involvement. I know this
topic is highly debated in the anthropology community but I would be interested
to investigate it further and possibly shed my own critique of current
anthropological use in war time scenarios in a future post.
To begin, I agree with Peter in that Benedict does not fully deserve to be torn apart of the National Character Studies that were conducted under her name. In a time when nationalism was strong, as well as the fight for human rights internationally that occurred during WWII, it is not totally out of left field for Benedict to try and apply her idea of the "culture stamp" to an enemy of ours in one of the United States’ greatest Wars. What’s more, is that I find idea of the culture stamp to be quite accurate.
ReplyDeleteWhat really sparked my interest from this post though, was the inquiry into the roles of anthropology in modern US warfare and international politics. When I began to research the topic, I stumbled across an article by our beloved psychological functionalist, Malinowski, called “An Anthropological Analysis of War" (link attached at the bottom). In this article, he discusses the theoretical driving force behind warfare, raising an interesting point: the flame for warfare and aggression is not inherently brewing in the souls of our political leaders, but is actually derived from the denial of a biological necessity (Malinowski, p 526). I find this interesting, as it I have often heard discussions about whether or not warfare and occupation is our inherent biological nature, or whether it has derived from some evil within humanity.
In further research, I discovered an article about Human Terrain System (HTS), which is a Pentagon program that brings together American Anthropologists and US military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their mission is to make better decisions throughout the occupations by understanding cultural customs. David Price, the author of a book called, Anthropological Intelligence shed light on the fact that this program presents culture in a linear way. The HTS is trying to collect the right variables to plug into the equation that can derive the key to a successful occupation. This relates to the universal laws and ideals that so many of our theorists pre-Boas applied. This idea that you can compare cultures and plug them into an equation is exactly what Franz Boas rejected. To bring my thoughts full circle, the Character Studies that Benedict constructed are criticized for being too universal. Boas would have shared this criticism as Benedict claimed to be using Boasian theory to conduct her research, while really making general claims and using her findings against the people she studied.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2769922.pdf?acceptTC=true&acceptTC=true&jpdConfirm=true
Thanks, Amelia, for stretching us in this direction. The whole concept of Human Terrain Systems is itself a theoretical model worth considering--what are its motivations, assumptions, implied methods, and ends? How does considering humans AS terrain differ from cultural ecological models that consider the RELATIONSHIP between humans and terrain? What are the ethical implications of this kind of anthropology? And is this even anthropology?
DeleteThought I had already commented on this, Pete, but I like the way you show that Benedict's relativism is entangled with a strong commitment to some cultural forms as normal and others as deviant.
ReplyDelete