Cultural materialism is a scientific strategy used to apply the scientific method to cultural life. In attempting to measure social concepts in the same scientific manner as material objects, issues of credibility and validity between what people say and think as subjects and what they say and think and do as objects of scientific inquiry come into question. Harris suggests a resolution of cultural materialism, which makes a distinction between behavioral events and ideas, values and other mental events, and also the distinction between emic and etic operations.
I thought the stories surrounding the recent photos surfacing of the Obama’s at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service would serve as a fun social-cultural critique of Marvin Harris’ theory of Cultural Materialism.
Here are the photos, I suggest looking at them first without reading the taglines, then for kicks going back to read the headlines. They’re really fantastic.
Research strategies prioritizes etic behavior phenomena. Although photojournalism isn’t the finest example of scientific strategy, the first major tenet of journalism is a strict adherence to the truth, much as the scientific method seeks to uncover “true knowledge.” Among the variety of news sources that have provided their speculations of the photographed event, this source did so with such blatant disregard of reality, and instead constructed its own ideas of how the subjects of study thought based off of a selection of photographs. Accepting the inherent discrepancies of using journalism as a critique of social science, Harris’ theory of cultural material can be applied.
Some background - the collection of photographs include Danish Prime Minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, President of the United States, Barack Obama, and First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama (sitting in this order) all at the memorial service of Nelson Mandela. The photographs show the Prime Minister and the President engaging in conversation while the first lady looks on, in some pictures to the service in others she observes the two. After a series of photographs exhibiting the prime minister and the president taking ‘selfies’ together, laughing, and physically interacting with one another - all while the FLOTUS remains disengaged from the interaction of the two - a final photo shows the Prime Minister, the First Lady, and the President (sitting, now, in this order).
News sources had a field day offering their etic perspectives of the behavior exhibited in the photographs. And etic approach, as Harris adopted into his theory of cultural materialism, is one in which the concepts used are those of the observer and used to generate scientific theories. This website in particular described the first lady as jealous, attempting to pit her against the Prime Minister. They describe the interaction between the President and Prime Minister as flirting, and the First Lady as glaring, visibly irritated, and potentially jealous. Using phrases like “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” and even bringing into question the quality of the Obama’s marriage, and the President’s sexuality, the press makes heinous, unreal claims of the mental domain of subjects whose behavior domain is in question.
To properly apply cultural materialism, both an emic and an etic perspective should be present. The emic perspective would be one in which the descriptions and analyses are acceptable by the subject of study as real, meaningful, and appropriate. Harris would say the publication making etic assumptions weren’t wrong in doing so, they were wrong, however, in presenting their etic perspectives without an emic balance. Such a balance would appear in the case of photojournalism as an indepth interview with the Obama’s and the Danish Prime Minister.
Good example! I hadn't seen these, thanks!
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