The Great "White" Quest for Energy

As an anthropology major with minors in biology and chemistry, I have absolutely loved connecting human nature and culture with the biological and chemical aspects of the physical sciences. I often find myself unconsciously making these connections in a series of mini-epiphanies as I sit in class listening to a lecture, as I engage in discussion, or as I complete readings or problem sets on my own. However, it is not very often that I encounter a theorist (in any of the disciplines) that has already made these connections between physical and social science for me. This was the case in reading “Energy and Tools,” written by Leslie White in 1959.

Having these connections previously determined by White required me to think deeply about applying my own understanding of these concepts to the theoretical perspective already outlined, thus causing me to engage with the piece as I seldom had before, further eliciting strong opinions of agreement and/or disagreement. Although I have called my own revelations and connections between disciplines “mini-epiphanies” and they may seem to be so at the time of their inception, my own connections are often disjointed and end up being too far extrapolated to withstand the test of any theoretical questioning. As I was reading White, I felt that he had pushed the concept a little too far, but that, through further analysis, his work could be seen as relevant if examined through a very specific lens.

Leslie White was a student of Edward Sapir in the Boasian tradition but, as seen by his dramatic departure from this theory, obviously found it unsatisfying. He is often considered to be a neo-evolutionist and cultural ecologist. In his work, it is apparent that White sought evolutionary, causal explanations for cultural difference and cultural change by trying to apply the physical science to the social science of people. As I have found when my own “mini-epiphanies” fall flat, making these connections is very difficult and they generally turn out to be non-correlative.

In “Energy and Tools,” White explains that the “dynamic material system” in which we live can be described and made understandable in terms of energy magnitudes and transformations. As one of White’s primary points of interest, we explains how the second law of thermodynamics (the law of entropy, i.e. that it is more energetically favorable for entities to exist in states of higher randomness or chaos). Further, White explains that “living systems are a means of arresting, and even of reversing, the cosmic drift toward maximum entropy.” In saying this, he explains that using more energy as it flows through living systems in order to build more complicated structures, living species are able to evolve. This statement shows his belief that more complicated structures imply a higher level of evolution. White believed that culture did evolve over time from the simple to the complex, from basic organization to a greater specialization of parts. He equated this cultural evolution to that of organisms. White’s theory regarding cultural evolution appears to create new relevance for the ideas of Lewis Henry Morgan, who saw the evolution of societies from simple to complex in a very similar way. White provides the explanation for this cultural evolution as dependent on the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year or upon the efficiency of technology for utilizing the energy previously harnessed increases. By exploring this argument for the course of cultural evolution, it is evident that White believes that cultural complexity is equated with energy utilization and productivity.

White introduces an equation that he believes to be generally useful for all populations. Throughout the piece, the equation expands to include those factors which White finds to be relevant. The final equations given are:

E (H x N) x T > P

[Where E = energy involved, T = the technological means of using it, H=human components of the energy factor, N = nonhuman components of the energy factor, and P = the product that will result which serves the need of man.]

And

E x T x V -> P

[Where E = energy involved, T = the technological means of using it, V = environment, and P = the product that will result which serves the need of man.]

These equations work to find a general way in which all cultural evolution can be expressed in terms of an equation. This generalization is highly different from the ideas of Boas and those in his functionalist school of thought and marks a return to the desire to understand general behavior of humans as in the nineteenth century.

Despite the opposition to the school of thought of his teacher, Sapir, White continues to explain his argument in a binary way. White explains that life can evolve and be expressed as 1) the multiplication of organisms (quantitative change) and 2) the development of higher forms (a quantitative change). He explains the struggle for existence and survival as 1) the adjustment of an organism to its habitat and 2) as a struggle with other living beings. He also explains that energy can be harnassed and expended in both biological and mechanical ways. In addition to many other examples where he expressed ideas in sets of twos, the quantitative and qualitative binary exists throughout the piece and shows the influence of linguists such as Saussure, Sapir, and Whorf and of structuralists such as Lévi-Strauss, whose works rely on the role of opposition and the supposedly inherent binary structure of the world in which we live. 

As an addition to the reading based upon what was learned in lecture, White explains that there are three cultural subsystems: the technological, sociological, and the ideological, but iterates that he believes it is the technological improvements are what generally drive cultural change, but that all three influence each other and provide feedback to one another. This is similar to the ideas held by Kroeber.

When I first read this piece, I was overwhelmed by how much I did not agree with it. So many facets of his argument, especially those related to the role of entropy within the everyday world, seemed as if they had been extrapolated far past the points possible. I agree that the second law of thermodynamics drives small, molecular actions forwards and I understand the stereo chemical and conformational processes in which it does so. But I found one large flaw between the role of entropy on an atomic, chemical level and the role of entropy on a large-scale, cultural level. This difference is that those molecules at a small, chemical level do not think. They simply act in a way which allows them to exist in their lowest energy conformation. These changes are made involuntarily based on surrounding conditions and possible conformations. Unless affected by an outside source, at no point would the molecule act in a way that was not energetically favorable – it could never “think” to stay in a higher energy conformation for the greater good of the individual cell or structure. However, humans who, according to White and many other anthropologists, create culture do have the ability to think. This theory of entropically driven culture does not account for empathy, desire to communicate socially, desire to build relationships, reciprocity, aesthetics, or anything of the sort. By not accounting for emotion or human through processes, White ignores a large portion of what it means to be human.

In the reading questions following the article, it is asked what White means by culture. His lack of and/or ambiguous definition makes this work unclear and makes the conclusions of the work difficult to relate to other theorists. White essentially implies that the gathering of energy is the primary goal of human life and that culture provides a mean to that end. However, according to Malinowski, it is a latent function of culture and not one that is not necessarily actively sought at all times and in all ways, but instead a byproduct of the combination of the most primary seven items from the hierarchy of need.

However, as I sat in class, I realized that the highly structured and logical approach of this article does the best job of any anthropological theorist we have read so far to connect the physical and social sciences. Although I disagreed with the claims he made on the surface level, reading White’s work helped me to understand how the need for energy and the need to collect and process this energy is incredibly important and something that we, as humans, think about all day long. Whether we are hungry for our next meal or looking at how transportation can be made more efficient using less fuel and manpower (thus allowing more efficient use of manpower and transportation of food and alternate forms of energy), we are, in fact, actively thinking about the ways in which energy of all kinds affects the world around us.

I find it most helpful to think of White’s work in terms of how humans seek efficiency and energy in all aspects of daily life, which can then be seen as shaping culture, but not using culture as a means to strictly find efficiency in gathering energy from around us. For there are a great number of cultural facets, needs, concepts, and products that cannot be explained as means to increase efficiency and energy sources. However, there is no doubt that these aspects of culture are dramatically influenced and shaped by the need to obtain energy from sources around us in the most efficient means possible.